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Photo from Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 
 
 LIEUTENANT BRUCE R. WARE, JR., U. S. N. 
 Who fired the first shot in our war with Germany which sank a German 
 submarine that attempted to attack the S. S. Mongolia, an American liner, in 
 the war zone. Lieutenant Ware was placed in charge of the gun crew on the vessel, 
 being one of the first men to volunteer for duty. He is an authority on gunnery 
 and engineering. He is thirty years of age and a native of Newton, Mass. 
 
Copyrig-ht, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 
 
 Tap: U. S. troops guarding arms taken from aliens in the United States. 
 Bottom: Our jackies in war equipment. 
 
Copyright, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 
 
 MAJOE-GENERAL LEONARD WOOD 
 Famous fighter in Spanish-American War and in Mexico. 
 
Copyrig-ht, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 
 
 Top: Fifth Brigade, U. S. army ready for war. 
 Bottom: Mobilization of U. S. army soldiers from Fort Leavenworth, Kan. 
 
Copyright, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 
 
 Top: Enlisted men going aboard the Louisiana — off for the war. 
 Bottom: Eecniits for the navy filling out applications. 
 
We shall fight for the things we have always carried 
 nearest our hearts. —President Wilson. 
 
 ied I 
 
 AMERICA'S WAR 
 
 FOR HUMANITY 
 
 Including a Complete History of 
 the World War Up-to-date 
 
 A Thrilling Story of the most Sanguinary Struggle of all the Ages 
 the Belgian Outrages, the Battles of the Marne.Aisne, Verdun, 
 The Somme, Arras, Russian, Serbian and Roumanian 
 Campaigns, Naval Battles, etc., etc., also Germany s 
 Ruthless Submarine Warfare in which even Hos- 
 pital and Relief Ships were Sunk without 
 Warning, and without Thought of Help 
 or Mercy for those on Board, which 
 forced the Declaration of War 
 by the United States 
 
 —BY- 
 THOMAS H. RUSSELL, A. M., LL. D. 
 
 Noted Historical and Military Writer, Member American Historical Association, 
 
 With Introductory Chapter containing 
 President Wilson's Great War Message 
 
 Exciting Personal Experiences from the Bloodstained 
 Battlefields of Europe 
 
 Over 100 Actual Photographs, Maps and Authentic Drawings 
 

 ^ 
 
 INVOCATION OF BISHOP FALLOWS AT 
 
 THE JOFFRE^VIVIANI MEETING, 
 
 CHICAGO, MAY 5, 1917 
 
 "I ORD of our far-flung battle line, may Thy richest 
 ^^ benediction rest upon these our distinguished 
 comrades, who have come to us from across the sea: 
 standing for the mighty hosts of freedom, who have 
 been not only on their own firing line, but upon ours; 
 for they have been fighting for us, dying for us; God 
 grant that line may be in swift pursuit of a fast retreating 
 enemy. 
 
 "O, God, may Thy blessing rest upon the united 
 flags of the nations contending for justice, for right, for 
 liberty and humanity. The tri- color of France, the 
 shamrock and thistle and rose of the United British em^ 
 pire, the flag of sunny Italy, and the resurrection flags of 
 Belgium, Roumania and Serbia, with our own Star 
 Spangled banner forever floating with theirs. 
 
 "O, God of Hosts, we look to Thee for victory. 
 \A^c have the right to look, because our cause is just and 
 in Thee, the God of nations, we put unshaking confix 
 dence, and Thou wilt not disappoint us. 
 
 "Give us speedily the victory, to be followed by an 
 everlasting, unbroken peace of the w orld. Thou shalt 
 have all the praise and glory, world without end. 
 Amen." 
 
 (>= 
 
 4 
 
 JUL -9 i9l7 
 
 Copyright, 1917 
 by L. W. Walter 
 
 ©C1.A467895 
 
DEDICATED 
 
 to the two great liberty-loving peoples of 
 North America; kindred in tongue, in free 
 institutions, and in ideals of civic and na- 
 tional justice which have united them in friend- 
 ship for more than a century of neighborly 
 progress, and now more closely bind them as 
 allies against the menace of an autocratic 
 militarism seeking to impose its will upon 
 the world. 
 
 In the sincere conviction that the patriotic 
 sacrifices of the great Dominion will be 
 matched by the unselfish devotion of the 
 mighty Republic to its ideals and to the 
 maintenance of its glorious traditions, so that 
 fighting side by side for humanity, they may; 
 share the glory of the coming victory over a 
 desperate and blood-stained despotism, and 
 insure a righteous peace to all mankind for 
 centuries to come. 
 
THE DAY OF UNIVERSAL PEACE 
 
 ''They shall heat their swords into plowshares, and their 
 spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword 
 against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." — 
 Isaiah II, 4. 
 
 Six thousand years ago, the old Jewish prophet, Isaiah, 
 looked down the vista of future ages and somewhere saw a 
 vision of a beautiful world ruled by Jehovah. 
 
 A world without military schools, standing armies or 
 navies. A world where universal peace prevailed. 
 
 Millions have looked upon Isaiah 's picture and longed for 
 it to become a reality. Will it! 
 
 Is Christianity, the gospel of peace, a failure? Will fra- 
 ternalism bear no fruit ? 
 
 I do not believe that universal peace is a dream. Millions 
 are in favor of it now. 
 
 The wars of Hannibal and Alexander, of Caesar and 
 Napoleon, were trivial in comparison with the present Euro- 
 pean war. It now looks as though millions of the world's picked 
 men will be blotted out as the stars disappear with the morn- 
 ing light. Human bodies are being piled in heaps that rival 
 the hills of northern France. Human blood flows in streams 
 rivaling the rivers that flow peacefully to the sea. What will 
 be the result? 
 
 The whole human race will sicken at the sight. It will think 
 as it has never thought before. Ambitious rulers will be re- 
 tired with disgrace. The people will rule. Military heroes 
 will be stamped with the mark of Cain. 
 
 I predict that all armies will be disbanded. Battleships 
 and torpedo boats will be dismantled and used only in protect- 
 ing the commerce of the world and policing the globe. Com- 
 mon sense and diplomacy will rule the world. 
 
 The vision of Isaiah will come true, and the present war is 
 bound to hasten it. 
 
 M. P. Berry. 
 6 
 
PREFACE 
 
 With the formal declaration of war by the United 
 States against Germany on April 6, 1917, the titanic 
 struggle of the nations that had its inception in the sum- 
 mer of 1914 became, indeed, a world war. Brazil and 
 Argentina promptly followed the lead of the American 
 Government in taking up arms to end the ruthless destruc- 
 tion of the world's shipping by a war-maddened autoc- 
 racy, running amuck like a mad dog, and thus every 
 continent on the globe became directly involved. 
 
 It was no longer a European war. North and South 
 America, Asia, Africa and Australia were all engaged 
 in the conflict, as well as Europe. All the continents 
 furnished belligerents and shared the sacrifices entailed 
 by Armageddon. Not a nation escaped the consequences. 
 Neutrals suffered with the rest of civilization. 
 
 Under these circumstances a clear review of the 
 causes, ostensible and real, that led up to the mighty 
 conflict, and of the destructive campaigns that preceded 
 the final struggle, in which the United States bore an 
 active part, is of timely value to the people of North 
 America, on both sides of the international boundary 
 that stretches from ocean to ocean without an armed 
 guard or a fort, and is the best evidence that history 
 has adduced that right-minded nations can dwell 
 together in amity. 
 
 This volume aims at presenting such a review. It 
 is as complete a history of the great war as is possible 
 at this time, within the limits of a single volume. It pre- 
 sents the. facts of the case against Germany, in all their 
 appalling horror of cumulative crime against humanity 
 and civilization, but it presents them without heat or 
 exaggeration. An earnest effort has been made to 
 anticipate the historical standpoint, to set forth the 
 events of the war in their relative importance, and to 
 
give the reader a comprehensive idea of the course of the 
 struggle as it affected the various nations concerned. 
 
 Patriotic Americans owe it to themselves to become 
 familiar with the deeds of heroism that have been per- 
 formed on the European and Asiatic fields of war prior 
 to their national decision "to take up arms against a 
 sea of troubles, and by opposing end them. ' ' The period 
 during which the patience of this people was exercised 
 as national patience never was exercised before, was a 
 period of unprecedented martial achievement and endur- 
 ance. Great and protracted battles were fought; 
 infantry charges that will be sung by poets and 
 rehearsed by orators a hundred years hence w^ere 
 delivered; attacks and counter-attacks that wiped out 
 whole regiments at a time became almost common- 
 place; new methods of warfare sprang into existence, 
 only to be met by newer means of destruction or 
 defense; individual deeds of heroism on the battlefield 
 thrilled whole nations with pride; the soil of Belgium, 
 France, Poland, Serbia, Roumania, Austria, Mesopo- 
 tamia, Egypt, and even Palestine received a new 
 baptism of heroic blood on historic fields. 
 
 Canadians and Australians carried their battle 
 flags to victory in a hundred fights that will be recounted 
 in the ends of the earth for generations to come — and 
 when America entered the war, it was raging at its 
 fiercest on the tremendous battle front of the western 
 arena in Europe. Truly the story of these days will 
 never lose its interest, told as it is in these pages while 
 the struggle is still in progress and the issue undecided, 
 though the tide of battle everywhere has turned in favor 
 of the Allied cause and the doom of Prussian autocracy 
 seems in sight. With the enormous financial, physical, 
 and moral weight of the United States thrown into the 
 scale for humanity, victory should not be long delayed. 
 
 T. H. R. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEB PAGE 
 
 Introduction >.■ 13 
 
 I. Causes of the War 19 
 
 National and Race Prejudices — The Triple Alliance — The 
 Triple Entente — Teuton vs. Slav — Influence of Russian 
 Diplomacy — Russia vs. Austria — CJontrol of Balkan Sea- 
 ports — England's Commercial Supremacy Challenged by 
 Germany — Assassination of Archduke Fran'cis Ferdinand 
 of Austria by a Serb. 
 
 n. How War Was Declared 31 
 
 Ultimatum by Austria to Servia — ^War Declared by Austria 
 — Russia Mobilizes — Germany Declares War on Russia — 
 France and England Involved — Germans Enter Belgium — 
 Scenes in European Capitals. 
 
 m. Armed Forces Involved. 47 
 
 strength of the Opposing Armies and Fleets — Millions of 
 Men Under Arms — Attitude of Italy, Turkey and Greece — 
 Organization of an Army — ^Heavy Artillery Used in the 
 War. 
 
 IV. The Nations at War , 53 
 
 Rulers and Heirs Apparent of Countries Engaged — ^Areas and 
 Populations — Their Exports and Imports, Principal Cities, 
 Etc. — Europe's Map Often Changed — The Franco-Prussian 
 War of 1870-71— Japan Enters the War. 
 
 V. Invasion of Belgium 69 
 
 Belgians Rush to Defense of Their Frontier — Towns Bom- 
 barded and Burned — The Defense of Li&ge — ^A German 
 Officer's Experience — ^An Englishman's Story — The Terri- 
 ble Krupp Siege Guns — Destruction of Louvain — Fall of 
 Namur — German Proclamation to Inhabitants. 
 
 "VT. Surrender of Brussels 91 
 
 Belgian Capital Occupied by the Germans Without Blood- 
 shed — Important Part Played by Ameri'can Minister 
 Brand Whitlock — March of the Kaiser's Troops Through 
 the City — Belgian Forces Retreat to Antwerp — Zeppelin 
 Attacks on Antwerp — Dinant and Termonde Fall. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 VII. At the German Front 109 
 
 Eemarkable Story by American War Correspondent of His 
 "Visit to General von Boehn 's Headquarters in the Field — 
 The German Fighting Machine — The General 's Version of 
 Alleged German Atrocities. 
 
 VIII. Britain Raises an Army 121 
 
 Earl Kitchener Appointed Secretary for War — A New Volun- 
 teer Army — Expeditionary Force Landed in France — 
 Field Marshal Sir John French in Command — Colonies 
 Eally to Britain's Aid — The Canadian Contingent — In- 
 dian Troops Called For — Native Princes Offer Aid. 
 
 IX. Early Battles of the War 137 
 
 Belgian Resistance to the German Advance — The Fighting 
 at Vise, Haelen, Diest, Aerschot and Tirlemont — ^Mons 
 and Charleroi the First Great Battles of the War — Allies 
 Make a Gallant Stand, but Forced to Eetire Across the 
 French Border. 
 
 X. German Advance on Paris 161 
 
 Allies Withdraw for Ten Days, Disputing Every Inch of 
 Ground with the Kaiser's Troops — Germans Push Their 
 Way Through France in Three Main Columns — Official 
 Reports of the Withdrawing Engagements — Paris Almost 
 in Sight. 
 
 XI. Battle of the Marne 171 
 
 German Plans Suddenly Changed — Direction of Advance 
 Swings to the Southeast When Close to the French Capital 
 — Successful Eesistance by the Allies — The Prolonged 
 Encounter at the Marne — Germans Eetreat, with Allies in 
 Hot Pursuit for Many Miles. 
 
 XII. The Russian Campaign 192 
 
 Slow Mobilization of Troops — Invasion of German and Aus- 
 trian Territory — Cossacks Lead the Van — Early Successes 
 in East Prussia — "On to Berlin" — Heavy Losses In- 
 flicted on Austrians — German Troops Eushed to the De- 
 fense of the Eastern Territory. 
 
 XIII. The Austro- Servian Campaign 214 
 
 Declaration of War by Austria — Bombardment of Belgrade 
 —Servian Capital Eemoved — Seasoned Soldiers of Servia 
 Give a Good Account of Themselves — Many Indecisive 
 Engagements — Servians in Austrian Territory. 
 
 10 
 
CONTENTS 11 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XIV. Stoeies from the Battlefield 222 
 
 Thrilling Incidents of the Great War Told by Actual 
 Combatants — Personal Experiences from the Lips of Sur- 
 vivors of the World's Bloodiest Battles — Tales of Pris- 
 oners of War, Wounded Soldiers, and Eefugees Eendered 
 Homeless in the Blighted Arena of Conflict — Hand-to- 
 Hand Fighting — Frightful Mortality Among Officers — 
 How It Feels to Be Wounded— In the ' ' Valley of Death ' ' 
 — A Belgian Boy Hero — A British Cavalry Charge — 
 Spirit of French Women — In the Paris Military Hospital 
 — German Uhlans as Scouts — How a German Prince Died 
 — Fearful State of Battlefields. 
 
 XV. The Mystery of the Fleets 256 
 
 Movements of British Battleships Veiled in Secrecy — Ger- 
 man Dreadnoughts in North Sea and Baltic Ports — Activ- 
 ity of Smaller Craft — English Keep Trade Eoutes Open 
 — Several Minor Battles at Sea. 
 
 XVI. Submarines and Mines 269 
 
 Battleships in Constant Danger from Submerged Craft — 
 Opinions of Admiral Sir Percy Scott — Construction of 
 Modern Torpedoes — How Mines Are Laid and Exploded 
 on Contact. 
 
 XVII. Aero-Military Operations 275 
 
 Aerial Attacks on Cities — Some of the Achievements of the 
 Airmen in the Great War — Deeds of Heroism and Daring 
 — Zeppelins in Action — Their Construction and Operation. 
 
 XVIII. Battle of the Aisne 284 
 
 Most Prolonged Encounter in History Between Gigantic 
 Forces — A Far-Flung Battle Line — Germans Face French 
 and British in the Aisne Valley and Fight for Weeks — 
 Armies Deadlocked After a Desperate and Bloody 
 Struggle. 
 
 XIX. Fall of Antwerp 311 
 
 Great Seaport of Belgium Besieged by a Large German 
 Force — Forts Battered by Heavy Siege Guns — Final Sur- 
 render of the City — Belgian and British Defenders Escape 
 — Exodus of Inhabitants — Germans Eeach the Sea. 
 
 XX. The Wounded and Prisoners 323 
 
 Typical Precautions Used by the German Army — The Sol- 
 dier's First-Aid Outfit — System in Hospital Arrange- 
 ments — How Prisoners of War Are Treated — Regulations 
 Are Humane and Fair to All Concerned. 
 
12 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXI. HORROES OF THE WaR 331 
 
 Plan to Send Santa Glaus Gifts From America to War- 
 Stricken Children of Europe — A Widespread Response — 
 Movement Indorsed by Press, Pulpit and Leading Citizens 
 — Approved by Governments of Contending Nations. 
 
 XXn. Later Events of the War 338 
 
 Results of the Battle of the Rivers — Fierce Fighting in 
 Northern France — ^Developments on the Eastern Battle 
 Front — The Campaign in the Pacific — Naval Activities of 
 the Powers. 
 
 XXIII. Sinking of the Lusitania 380 
 
 Torpedoed by a Submarine — Crisis in German-American 
 Relations — The Diplomatic Exchanges. 
 
 XXIV. A Summer of Slaughter 382 
 
 Submarine Activities — Horrors in Serbia — Bloody Battles 
 East and West — Italy Declares War and Invades Austria 
 — ^Russians Pushed Back in Galicia. 
 
 XXV. Second Winter of the War 397 
 
 XXVI. Climax of the War 404 
 
 XXVII. World's Greatest Sea Fight 420 
 
 XXVIII. Battles East and West 428 
 
 XXIX. Continuation of War in 1917 452 
 
 XXX. United States Enters War 461 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 PEESIDENT WILSON'S EPOCHAL ADDRESS 
 
 Calling for Action Against Germany, Delivered by Him to the Congress in 
 Extraordinary Session, April 3, 1917 
 
 "Gentlemen of the Congress: I have called the congress into extraordi- 
 nary session because there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be 
 made, and made immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally 
 permissible that I should assume the responsibility of making. 
 
 "On the 3d of February last I officially laid before you the extraordinary 
 announcement of the imperial German government that on and after the first 
 day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of human- 
 ity and use its submarines to sink every vessel that sought to approach either 
 the ports of Great Britain and Ireland or the western coast of Europe or any of 
 the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean. 
 hoped for modified warfare 
 
 "That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare 
 earlier in the war, but since April of last year the imperial government had 
 somewhat restrained the commanders of its undersea craft in conformity with 
 its promise then given to us that passenger boats should not be sunk and that 
 due warning would be given to all other vessels which its submarines might 
 seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care 
 taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their lives in 
 their open boats. 
 
 ' ' The precautions taken were meager and haphazard enough, as was proved 
 in distressing instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly 
 business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed. 
 
 "The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind, 
 whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, 
 have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought 
 of help or mercy for those on board, the vessels of friendly neutrals along 
 with those of belligerents. 
 
 "Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and 
 stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe conduct 
 through the proscribed area by the German government itself and were distin- 
 guished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the same 
 reckless lack of compassion or of principle. 
 
 relied on law of nations 
 
 ' * I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would be in fact 
 done by any government that had hitherto subscribed to the humane practices 
 of civilized nations. 
 
 "International law had its origin in the attempt to set up some law which 
 would be respected and observed upon the seas, where no nation had right of 
 dominion and where lay the free hig^hways of the world. By painful stage 
 after stage has that law been built up, with meager enough results, indeed, 
 after all was accomplished that could be accomplished, but always with a clear 
 view, at least, of what the heart and conscience of mankind demanded. 
 
 "This minimum of right the German government has swept aside under 
 the plea of retaliation and necessity and because it had no weapons which it 
 could use at sea except these which it is impossible to employ as it is employ- 
 ing them without throwing to the winds all scruples of humanity or of respect 
 for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the intercourse of the 
 world. 
 
 13 
 
14 INTRODUCTION 
 
 CHALLENGE TO ALL MANKIND 
 
 "I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and 
 serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives 
 of noncombatants, men, women and c^hildren, engaged in pursuits which have 
 always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent 
 and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent 
 people cannot be. The present German submarine warfare against commer«e 
 is a warfare against mankind. 
 
 " It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American 
 lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the 
 ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and 
 overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. 
 
 "There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. 
 Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make 
 for ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness 
 of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a nation. We must 
 put excited feelings away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious 
 assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right 
 — of human right — of which we are only a single champion. 
 
 "When I addressed the congress on the 26th of February last I thought 
 that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right to use 
 the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against 
 unlawful violence. 
 
 "But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because sub- 
 marines are in effect outlaws when used as the German submarines have been 
 used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their 
 attacks, as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend them- 
 selves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open 
 sea. 
 
 "It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity, indeed, to 
 endeavor to destroy them before they have shown their own intentions. They must 
 be dealt with upon sight if dealt with at all. 
 
 "The German government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all 
 within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defense of 
 rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their right to 
 defend. 
 
 * ' The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed 
 on our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and subject to 
 be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at 
 best. In such circumstances and in the face of such pretensions it is worse 
 than ineffectual; it is likely only to produce what it was meant to prevent; 
 it is practically certain to draw us into the war without either the rights or 
 the effectiveness of belligerents. 
 
 "There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making: Wo 
 will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our 
 nation and our (people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we 
 now array ourselves are no common wrongs. They cut to the very roots of 
 human life. 
 
 MUST ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 "With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the 
 step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but m 
 unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that 
 the congress declare the recent course of the imperial German government to 
 be in fact nothing less than war against the government and people of the 
 United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus 
 been thrust upon it; and that it take immediate steps not only to put the 
 
INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 country in a more thorough state of defense but also to exert all its ;power 
 and employ all its resources to bring the government of the German empire to 
 terms and end the war. 
 
 COURSE WE MUST PURSUE 
 
 "What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable 
 co-operation in counsel and action with the governments now at war with Ger- 
 many and, as incident to that, the extension to those governments of the most 
 liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may so far as possible be 
 
 added to theirs. ,.,.,. j. ^^ j.i. ,. • ^ 
 
 "It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material 
 resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the incidental 
 needs of the nation in the most abundant and yet the most economical and 
 efficient way possible. . „ x 
 
 "It will involve the immediate full equipment of the navy in all respects, 
 but particularly in supplying it with the best means of dealing with the 
 enemy's submarines. 
 
 ARMY OF 500,000 MEN 
 
 "It will involve the immediate addition to the armed force of the United 
 States already provided for by law in case of war at least 500,000 men, who 
 should in my opinion, be chosen upon the principal of universal liability to 
 service and also the authorization of subsequent additional increments of equal 
 force so soon as they may be needed and can be handled in training 
 
 "It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the 
 government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be sustained by the 
 present generation, by well conceived taxation. , , ^ ^, . .. 
 
 "I say sustained so far as may be equitable by taxation because it seems 
 to me that it would be most unwise to base the credits which will now be 
 necessary entirely on money borrowed. It is our duty, I most respectfully 
 urge, to protect our people, so far as we may, against the very serious hardships 
 and evils which would be likely to arise out of the inflation which would be 
 produced by vast loans. 
 
 MUST SUPPLY THE ALLIES 
 
 "In carrying out the measures by which these things are to be accom- 
 plished we should keep constantly in mind the wisdom of interfering as httle 
 as possible in our own preparation and in the equipment of our own military 
 for?^ with the duty-for it will be a very practical duty-ot supplying the 
 natirns already at war with Germany with the materials which they can obtain 
 oSy from us or by our assistance. They are in the field, and we should help 
 them in every way to be effective there. , , x, , *• „ 
 
 "I shall take the liberty of suggesting, through the several executive 
 departments of the government, for the consideration of your committees, 
 SurTfor the accomplishment of the several objects I have mentioned 
 Tho^e that it will be your pleasure to deal with them as haying been framed 
 afte? verfcareTul thought by the branch of the government upon which the 
 responlibmty of conducting the war and safeguarding the nation will most 
 
 direc y a . seeks freedom op world 
 
 "While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very 
 
 wniie we ""''"'' . e^ ' ^orld. what our motives and our objects 
 
 '^'^''m^ nwn thouSt has no" been dr^en from its habitual and normal course 
 
 ry%he'trppf e^"fn\'s oftL' lasr^ and I do not believe that the thought 
 
 ^^ *^fltat^ I^X\^1'T:1^'^vX'1' ^^d -w that I had in mind when 
 
 \ ^HM^aSr^^I?:^^^ 
 
 the twenty-sixth of February. 
 
16 INTRODUCTION 
 
 "Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and 
 justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to 
 set up amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a 
 concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth insure the observance of 
 those principles. 
 
 "Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the 
 world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace 
 and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed by orga- 
 nized force which is controlled wholly by their will — not by the will of their 
 people. 
 
 "We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. We are at 
 the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted ttiat the same standards of 
 conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations 
 and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of 
 civilized states. 
 
 NO QUARREL WITH GERMANS 
 
 ' ' We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards 
 them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that 
 their government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous 
 knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars used to b» 
 determined upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted 
 by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties 
 or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow- 
 men as pawns and tools. 
 
 "Self- governed nations do not fill their neighbor states with spies or set 
 the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which 
 will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest. 
 
 * * Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where 
 no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of deception 
 or aggression, carried, it may be, from generation to generation, can be worked 
 out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or behind the 
 carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are 
 happily impossible'where public opinion commands and insists upon full infor- 
 mation concerning all the nation's affairs. 
 
 MENACE OF INTRIGUES 
 
 ' * A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a part- 
 nership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to 
 keep faith within or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honor, a 
 partnership of opinion. 
 
 "Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who 
 could plan what they would and give account to no one, would be a corruption 
 seated at its very heart. 
 
 ' ' Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a 
 common end and prefer the interest of mankind to any narrow interest of 
 their own. 
 
 WELCOME TO FREE RUSSIA 
 
 "Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope 
 for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that 
 have been happening within the last few weeks in Eussia? 
 
 "Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always in 
 fact democratic at heart in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the inti- 
 mate relationships of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their habitual 
 attitude toward life. The autocracy that crowned the summit of her political 
 structure, as long as it had stood and terrible as was the reality of its power, 
 was not in fact Russian in origin, character or purpose; and now it has been 
 
INTRODUCTION 17 
 
 shaken off and the great, generous Russian people have added in all their 
 native majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for freedom in the 
 world, for justice, and for peace. Here is a fit partner for a league of honor. 
 
 "One of the things that has served to convince us that the Prussian autoc- 
 racy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very outset of 
 the present war it has filled our unsuspecting conumunitiea and even our offices 
 of government with sipies and set criminal intrigues everywhere afoot against 
 our national unity of counsel, our peace within and without, our industries, 
 and our commerce. 
 
 "Indeed, it is now evident that its spies were here even before the war 
 began, and it is unhappily not a matter of conjecture, but a fact proved in our 
 courts of justice, that the intrigues which have more than once come perilously 
 near to disturbing the peace and dislocating the industries of the country have 
 been carried on at the instigation, with the support, and even under the per- 
 sonal direction of official agents of the imperial government accredited to the 
 government of the United States. 
 
 SOUGHT TO IGNORE PLOTS 
 
 "Even in checking these things and trying to extirpate them we have 
 sought to put the most generous interpretation possible upon them because we 
 knew that their source lay not in any hostile feeling or puirpose of the German 
 people towards us (who were, no doubt, as ignorant of them as we ourselves 
 were) but only in the selfish designs of a government that did what it pleased 
 and told its people nothing. 
 
 "But they played their part in serving to convince us at last that that 
 government entertains no real friendship for us and means to act against our 
 peace and security at its convenience. That it means to stir up enemies against 
 us at our very doors the intercepted note to the German minister at Mexico 
 City is eloquent evidence. 
 
 FIGHT FOE HUMAN EIGHTS 
 
 "We are accepting thfs challenge of hostile purpose because we know that 
 in such a government, following such methods, we can never have a friend, and 
 that in the presence of its organized power, always lying in wait to accomplish 
 we know not what purpose, there can be no assured security for the democratic 
 governments of the world. 
 
 ' ' We are now about to accept gage of battle with this natural foe to liberty 
 and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify 
 its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with 
 no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of 
 the world and for the liberation of its people, the German people included; for 
 the rights of nations, great and small; the privilege of men everywhere to 
 choose their way of life and of obedience. 
 
 SEEK NO SELFISH ENDS 
 
 "The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted 
 upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to 
 serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for our- 
 selves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We 
 are but one of the champions of the right of mankind. We shall be satisfied 
 when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of 
 nations can make them. 
 
 "Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish object, seeking 
 nothing for ourselves but what we sihall wish to share with all free peoples, we 
 shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion 
 and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair 
 play we profess to be fighting for. 
 
18 INTRODUCTION 
 
 SILENT AS TO AUSTRIA 
 
 "I have said nothing of the governments allied with the imperial German 
 government because they have not made war upon us or challenged us to 
 defend our right and our honor. 
 
 "The Austro-Hungarian government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified 
 indorsement and acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare 
 adopted now without disguise by the imperial German government, and it has 
 therefore not been possible for this government to receive Count Tarnowski, 
 the ambassador recently accredited to this government by the imperial and 
 royal government of AustrianHungary; but that government has not actually 
 engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the seas. 
 
 "On these premises I take the liberty, for the present at least, of post- 
 poning a discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter 
 this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are no other 
 means of defending our rights. 
 
 "It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a 
 high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not in enmity 
 towards a people or with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon 
 them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible government which has 
 thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and is running amuck. 
 
 GERMANS IN AMERICA 
 
 "We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and 
 shall desire nothing so much as the early reestablishment of intimate relations 
 of mutual advantage between us, however hard it may be for them, for the 
 time being, to believe that this is spoken from our hearts. 
 
 "We have borne with their present government through all these bitter 
 months because of that friendship, exercising a patience and forbearance 
 which would otherwise have been impossible. 
 
 "We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to prove that friendship in 
 our daily attitude and actions towards the millions of men and women of 
 German birth and native sympathy who live amoMgst us and share our life, 
 and we shall be proud to prove it towards all who are in fact loyal to their 
 neighbors and to the government in the hour of test. They are, most of them, 
 as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or 
 allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining 
 the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If there should be dis- 
 loyalty it will be dealt with with a firm, hand of stern repression; but if it lifts 
 its head at all it will lift it only here and there and without countenance except 
 from a lawless and malignant few. 
 
 CIVILIZATION IN BALANCE 
 
 "It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the congress, which 
 I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months 
 of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great 
 peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, 
 civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. 
 
 "But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the 
 things which we have always carried nearest our hearts — for democracy, for 
 the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own govern- 
 ments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion 
 of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to 
 all nations and make the world itself at last free. 
 
 "To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everythiHg 
 that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know 
 that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her 
 might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which 
 she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other. ' ' 
 
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 Top: United States Warship North Dakota. 
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CHAPTER I 
 
 CAUSES OF THE WAR 
 
 National and Race Prejudices — The Triple Alliance — The 
 Triple Entente — Teuton vs. Slav — Influence of Russian 
 Diplomacy — Russia vs. Austria — Control of Balkan 
 Seaports — England's Commercial Supremacy Chal- 
 lenged by Germany — Assassination of Archduke Fran- 
 cis Ferdinand of Austria by a Serb. 
 
 WITHIN the space of less than a week from August 1, 
 1914, five of the six "great powers" of Europe became 
 involved in a war that quickly developed into the 
 greatest and most sanguinary struggle of all time. The 
 European conflagration, long foreseen by statesmen and diplo- 
 mats, and dreaded of all alike, had broken out. 
 
 Beginning with the thunder of Austrian guns at Belgrade, 
 the reverberations of war were heard in every capital of the 
 Old World. Austria 's declaration of war against Servia was 
 followed by the alignment of Germany with its Teuton neigh- 
 bor against the forces of Russia, France and England. Italy 
 alone, of the six great powers, declined to align itself with its 
 formal allies and made a determined effort at the outset to 
 maintain its neutrality. 
 
 Soon the highways of Europe resounded with the hoof- 
 beats and the tramp of marching hosts, with the rattle of arms 
 and the rumble of artillery. Of such a war, once begun, no man 
 could predict the end. But the world realized that it was a 
 catastrophe of unparalleled proportions, a failure of civiliza- 
 tion in its stronghold, a disaster to humanity. 
 
 For more than forty years the great powers of Europe had 
 been at peace with one another. Though war had threatened 
 now and then, diplomacy had avoided the actual outbreak. 
 Birt that the dreaded conflict was inevitable had long been 
 
 19 
 
20 CAUSES OF THE WAR 
 
 recognized. For its coining immense armaments had been pre- 
 pared, until the burdens of taxation laid upon the people had 
 become in themselves a source of danger. But behind it all 
 lay the sinister influence of the ''junker'' element of Germany 
 — the military party, swollen with pride in the development of 
 the German army by more than forty years of preparation for 
 conflict, and the naval party, eager for "der Tag" which 
 should bring a trial of the new German navy against the 
 battle fleets of an enemy. Fostering and encouraging these 
 militaristic sentiments was the growing desire of Germany 
 for "a place in the sun," which was translatable only as a 
 desire for world domination. Greater and wider markets for 
 German commerce were urgently demanded, and visions of 
 Germany as mistress of the seas, with a great colonial empire, 
 and of the Kaiser as the undisputed military overlord of 
 Europe, already filled and fired the Teuton imagination. 
 
 The political alignment of the great powers prior to the 
 war was as follows : On the one side was the Triple Alliance, 
 including Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy ; while on the 
 other was the Triple Entente, comprising Great Britain, 
 France and Russia. As the event proved, the uncertain ele- 
 ment in this line-up was Italy, which had a real grievance 
 against Austria in the latter 's possession of the former Ital- 
 ian territory known as the Trentino, and w^ich was not con- 
 sulted by Germany and Austria prior to the outbreak of 
 hostilities. She therefore declined to enter the war as a mem- 
 ber of the Triple Alliance, but was later found in the field 
 against Austria, and thenceforth rendered powerful aid to 
 the cause of ''the Allies," as the members of the Triple 
 Entente and their supporters soon came to be known. 
 
 It was in the Balkans, long regarded as the zone of danger 
 to European peace, that the war-clouds gathered and dark- 
 ened rapidly. For generations Austria and Russia had strug- 
 gled diplomatically for the control of Balkan seaports, with 
 the Balkan states acting as buffers in the diplomatic strife. 
 Servia acted as a bar to Austria's commercial route to the 
 ^gean, by way of the Sanjak of Novi Bazar to Saloniki, 
 while Russia was Servia 's great ally and stood stoutly be- 
 hind the little Slav kingdom in its opposition to Austrian 
 aggression. 
 
CAUSES OF THE WAR 21 
 
 AMBITIONS OF SEEVIA 
 
 Then came tlie recent Balkan Wars, and their outcome was 
 viewed with alarm. Austria uneasily watched the approach 
 of Servia to the Adriatic and the ^gean. The formation of 
 the new new autonomous state of Albania, between Servia and 
 the Adriatic, was all that prevented Austria from attacking 
 Servia during that crisis. The terms of peace left the situa- 
 tion, as it concerned Austria and Russia, practically as it had 
 been. Austria made no further progress toward the sea, and 
 Russia remained the ally of Servia. Bulgaria had failed in 
 its efforts to reach Salonica. 
 
 At this stage another element exerted its influence. Servia 
 awoke to the possibility of a Greater Servia. An Empire of 
 the Slavs had long been dreamed of. In Austria-Hungary 
 itself millions of Slavs were dreaming of it and awaiting the 
 disruption of Austria-Hungary, held together now, as they 
 argue, only by the indomitable will of the old Emperor, 
 Franz Joseph. The hatred between the Slavs and the Teutonic 
 Austrians is intense. The annexation by Austria of Bosnia 
 and Herzegovina, in which Servians predominate, increased 
 the Servian hatred and the indignation of the whole Slav 
 world to the point of violence. A conflict was avoided with 
 difliculty. These principalities had hoped to form part of a 
 Greater Servia. Had not Russia been exhausted by the war 
 with Japan, Servia would have called upon her ally and the 
 crisis would have come then. As it was, the Balkans teemed 
 with plots and counterplots against the Austrians, culminating 
 in the assassination of the Arch-Duke and heir-apparent to the 
 Austrian throne, Francis Ferdinand, known for his anti-Slav 
 principles, and therefore feared and hated as the king to be. 
 The assassination occurred at Serajevo in Bosnia, where Serv- 
 ian disaffection was seething. Austria immediately laid the 
 crime on the Servian government. 
 
 AUSTKIA DECLAEES WAR 
 
 Jb'ailing in her peremptory demands for satisfaction, Aus- 
 tria declared war, July 28, 1914, apparently for revenge, but 
 behind her righteous indignation she still held in view her 
 
22 CAUSES OF THE WAR 
 
 traditional ambition, a port on the Mediterranean, to be se- 
 cured by the complete control of the Novi Bazar route to 
 Salonica, a route which, besides its commercial importance, 
 is of tremendous strategic value to the nation which com- 
 mands it. The treaty of Berlin of 1878, after the Russo- 
 Turkish War, had given Austria the military, political, and 
 commercial control of the route within the Sanjak of Novi 
 Bazar, then a part of Turkey. 
 
 But now, in the division of spoils following the Balkan 
 Wars, Servia gained control of Novi Bazar, Pristina, Uskub, 
 and Istip, or practically the entire route to a short distance 
 north of Salonica, where the new boundaries of Greece had 
 been extended. This meant that Austria saw herself shut out 
 from the Sanjak, and only by the destruction and subsequent 
 occupation of Servia could Austria regain her ascendancy 
 over the route. Victory would mean a long step by Austria 
 toward the sea. 
 
 PLOTS AND COUNTEKPLOTS 
 
 The "balance of power" among European nations has 
 hitherto been maintained because the formation of a single 
 nation out of the Balkan States has not been possible. Al- 
 though the people of these states have similar pursuits, and 
 live much alike in all regions, they have preserved their orig- 
 inal racial differences. A village of Albanians may be within 
 a few miles of a village of Greeks. Yet through centuries 
 both have remained racially distinct. Here and there the bar- 
 riers have given way somewhat, but in general the races per- 
 sist side by side, sometimes peaceably, more often in mutual 
 distrust or open feud. Such division has been fostered by 
 the great nations, and new states have been created, as re- 
 cently Albania, since the formation of a great state in the 
 Balkans by the union of all or the absorbing greatness of 
 one, would overthrow the balance of power, and besides inter- 
 pose an insurmountable obstacle between Austria and Russia, 
 and the sea. 
 
 Thus the states have been played against each other. 
 Sometimes the game has been one of diplomacy, or one of 
 force, hurling the states at each other's throats. Sometimes 
 
CAUSES OF THE WAR 23 
 
 the game has been one of treachery and assassination. Who 
 can surmise the intricate plots and counterplots, or the insidi- 
 ous influences, the fostering of hatred, the failure of hopes and 
 ambitions, that led to the assassination at Serajevo? 
 
 RACE AND RELIGIOUS PREJUDICES 
 
 Religious conditions in the Balkans are as complicated as 
 racial relations. In Bulgaria, a branch of the Bulgarian race 
 is Mohammedan, as are half a million Turks and col- 
 onists of the Eastern lowlands. The Albanians are largely- 
 Mohammedan. The bulk of the population of the Balkans, 
 however, professes the Greek Orthodox faith. Even more than 
 the Mohammedan labors for the spread of Islam, all good 
 Greek Catholics pray for the day when Constantinople, sacred 
 city of their faith, shall be rescued from the infidel, and the 
 cross shall again be raised over the mosque of St. Sophia. 
 Along the western coast of the Balkan Peninsula Roman 
 Catholics are numerous. 
 
 On the one hand pride of religion and prejudice of race, 
 on the other mountain barriers, harbors and sounds, hill pas- 
 tures and lowland plains — these are the internal conditions 
 that have shaped the history of the Balkan states. From with- 
 out the intrigues and ambitions of the great nations of Eu- 
 rope have played upon or profited by these conditions, and of 
 all the complex interrelations the present war is the outcome, 
 and Europe is aflame with a great conflagration. 
 
 NATIONS HURRIED INTO WAR 
 
 The continent resounds with the tread of millions of 
 marching men, but we cannot fail to hear too the wailing and 
 weeping of women and children. One by one the nations 
 leaped to the struggle. Germany, striking at the heart of 
 France, violated the neutrality of Belgium, and aroused her 
 stubborn resistance. England, indignant at the violation of 
 international treaties, gathered her war forces to support Bel- 
 gium and her allies against the German advance, and the order 
 went out, **Seek the enemy, and destroy him.** 
 
 At the present writing, battles rage on the Russian and 
 German frontiers. The roar of naval combat is heard in the 
 
24 CAUSES OF THE WAR 
 
 North Sea. Little Servia, the cause of the mighty tumult, 
 cheeks the advance of the Austrians. Italy, at first declar- 
 ing her neutrality, thus breaking the Triple Alliance, watches 
 her hereditary enemy, Austria, and is eager to avenge an- 
 cient wrongs. The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, 
 and Spain hold their forces in war order, to guard their in- 
 tegrity. Everywhere the dark cloud of conflict spreads its 
 terror and gloom over the land. Japan has taken the side 
 of England and therefore that of its former enemy, Russia. 
 The great overseas dominions of the British Empire have 
 rallied to its support and are raising and equipping armies 
 for the European front. In Canada, Australia, and South 
 Africa, the loyal sons of the dominions are flocking to the 
 flag, prepared to render a good account of themselves against 
 the Teuton foe and to prove beyond a doubt the solidarity of 
 the empire on which the sun never sets. 
 
 BKITISH VIEW OF THE CASE 
 
 Immediately after the general outbreak of hostilities each 
 of the contending nations sought to lay the blame for the con- 
 flagration upon the shoulders of some other. Thus the German 
 blamed the Russian, France and England blaraed Germany, 
 Russia blamed Austria, and each nation, in official documents 
 promptly given to the world, endeavored to justify its course 
 of action. 
 
 England's declaration of war followed the invasion of Bel- 
 gium by German troops en route to France, and her action was 
 upheld by the issuance of a ''white book" in August, contain- 
 ing copies of the diplomatic correspondence and ''conversa- 
 tions ' ' that had passed between Sir Edward Grey, secretary 
 of state for foreign affairs, and the chancelleries of Europe 
 during the critical period immediately preceding the conflict. 
 
 The British view of the immediate causes of war was sum- 
 marized on September 12 by the Right Hon. Frederick Edwin 
 Smith, K. C, M. P., organizer and director of the English 
 official press bureau, in a statement as follows : 
 
 "The British white book, embracing facts, not arguments, 
 states our whole case. The neutrality of Belgium was violated 
 
CAUSES OF THE WAR 25 
 
 by Germany, which, equally with France and England, had 
 guaranteed it. This was done deliberately, without an atom 
 of provocation. Hence our first and immediate occasion for 
 going to war. Germany had no quarrel with Belgium, France 
 or England, but made preparations to attack France through 
 Luxemburg and Belgium and proposed to us that we stand 
 aside and see Belgian neutrality violated and France crushed 
 for no reason except to gratify German lust for power. 
 
 ENGLAND FIGHTS FOR HER EXISTENCE 
 
 ''Belgium was invaded simply because it happened to bar 
 the shortest road to Paris. Before Germany sent a man across 
 the frontier it knew that if it violated Belgian neutrality Eng- 
 land would enter the field. Even when it was evident to the 
 whole of Europe that Germany had embarked on the enter- 
 prise for which it had been preparing for years, France, the 
 first object of attack, kept its troops some miles from the 
 frontier and waited for the Germans to take the first step in a 
 war of pure aggression. Germany took advantage of this 
 reluctance and pushed forward immense masses of troops into 
 Belgium and France. 
 
 ''We are fighting not only to fulfill our obligations to Bel- 
 gium, but to preserve our own liberty and existence as a nation. 
 Had Germany found us willing accomplices in her infamous 
 scheme, had Belgium in the face of Germany's immense mili- 
 tary power accepted the inevitable and made no resistance, 
 France would or might be subdued. While we sat in disgrace- 
 ful safety, the French colonies and fleet would be passed to the 
 victors, who, established within thirty miles of the English 
 coast, would possess with their allies a fleet and armies numer- 
 ically larger than ours. Then when the time came for our 
 downfall we should meet our fate without a friend in the world. 
 
 ' ' Even in the short time since the breaking out of the war 
 Germany has made it plain that its main object is the destruc- 
 tion of the British army, fleet and empire. Within the last few 
 days Germany has suggested to France that it might secure 
 peace on easy terms if it would join Germany in subduing 
 Great Britain. The instant response to that attempt was the 
 conclusion of an arrangement between France, Russia and 
 
26 CAUSES OF THE WAR 
 
 Great Britain binding themselves not to make terms with the 
 enemy except by mutual agreement. 
 
 ' ' If any one doubts the statement that the real object of the 
 war is the destruction of British power let him read the works 
 of German leaders of thought, such as Reitschke and Bern- 
 hardi. These writers made no secret of their teachings or of 
 the intentions of their country. But until the Kaiser gave the 
 signal and moved his legions to attack Belgium, France and 
 Russia, only the most thoughtful and far-seeing Englishmen 
 believed that Germany could seriously contemplate a crime so 
 colossal simply to gratify an inordinate ambition. 
 
 POINTS TO grey's attitude 
 
 ''Americans and other neutrals who take the trouble to 
 read the white book must be driven to the conclusion that any 
 statesman less patient than Sir Edward Grey and less deter- 
 mined to spare no efforts to maintain peace at any but a dis- 
 honorable price would have acceded to the request of the 
 Russian prime minister and declared that Britain would sup- 
 port Russia and France with all its resources should Austria 
 and Germany persist in a course which must bring about a gen- 
 eral conflagration. 
 
 ' ' So far from doing this, Sir Edward Grey told Herr Beth- 
 mann-Hollweg that if the German government would make any 
 reasonable proposals for the preservation of peace he would 
 use his personal influence to persuade Russia and France to 
 accept them, and if the powers refused 'the British govern- 
 ment would have nothing more to do with the consequences. ' 
 
 "Germany's reply was to make a proposal, dishonoring to 
 us, that we should stand aside while it invaded Belgium and 
 crushed France, and then, when this offer was rejected with 
 scorn, it moved its armies across the frontier. To-day the 
 world is told that Germany was forced into war by rivals of 
 her progress in the arts of peace. Seeking peace, we have been 
 driven into war in defense of principles which, if they are no 
 longer to be recognized, would make Europe a congeries of 
 brigand nations recognizing might as the only right. 
 
 ' ' The justice of our cause has set the whole empire aflame 
 with patriotism and raised in our great colonies and in India, 
 
CAUSES OF THE WAR 27 
 
 with its 300,000,000 people of different races and languages, a 
 unity and enthusiasm which will make our ultmiate victory 
 assured. " 
 
 A WAR FOR COMMERCIAL SUPREMACY— ENGLAND VS. GER1VL4.NY 
 
 By Guglielmo Ferrero, the noted Itahan Historian and 
 Authority on Militarism. 
 In this gigantic war the combatants are actuated by differ- 
 ent motives and for different interests. Each is acting with 
 different means of offense and defense : each, m a word, occu- 
 pies a position peculiar to itself. „ ^ , i. 
 Let us examine this important point: For what reason has 
 
 England taken the field on the side of France? 
 
 In the speech he delivered in the house of commons on 
 August 3, Sir Edward Grey clearly defined England's position 
 among the belligerents. It was then still free from any obhga- 
 tions The French and EngUsh general staffs had for some 
 time been working out the plans of the eventual mihtary opera- 
 tions that the two governments might have to carry out, it 
 they should some day find themselves fighting side by side. _ 
 
 Everything was ready for an offensive and detensive 
 alliance ; but the two governments had not yet assumed recip- 
 rocal obligations of any kind. _ , , ,, ..„ -, 1 
 
 On the evening of August 3, England could still declare 
 itself neutral, and it would seem that Germany was still that 
 very day trying to persuade it not to take up arms. 
 
 For what reason did England declare war on Germany on 
 
 the day following! , ^ .n ^ i ^i. 
 
 The dominant reason was Belgium. On that very day the 
 chancellor of the German empire announced in the Reichstag 
 ''that Germany would violate the neutrality of Belgium, be- 
 cause he who is fighting cannot heed international law. ' ' And 
 the next day England sent to Germany the ultimatum: "Re- 
 spect Belgium or go to war." 
 
AMERICANS IN EUROPE 
 
 Thousands Stranded in Belligerent Countries When War 
 Came — General Shortage of Funds — Much Suffering 
 and Hardship — Exciting Scenes in London, Paris and 
 Berlin — Uncle Sam Sends Relief Ships With Funds. 
 
 THE outbreak of war at the beginning of the month of 
 August found Europe literally overrun, as usual at that 
 season, by thousands of American tourists — gay and fes- 
 tive throngs of sightseers in all the show-places of the Conti- 
 nent and in every nook and corner of the British Isles. 
 
 Suddenly as a thunderclap from a clear sky came the shock 
 of war ! London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Geneva, and 
 all the host of minor cities, towns and villages frequented by 
 American visitors in the tourist season, shut up shop! All 
 means of transportation were closed to civilians; gold and 
 silver money became scarce because needed for war, and went 
 to a premium ; hotels closed down for lack of the male help that 
 had been called to the colors ; transatlantic travel was para- 
 lyzed ; travelers ' checks and letters of credit lost their value ; 
 all foreigners were regarded with suspicion in a frenzied hunt 
 for spies ; and all Americans in Europe found themselves in a 
 pandemonium of military activity in which they were given 
 plainly to understand that their room was preferred to their 
 company. 
 
 The change came in a day and dated from August 1, when 
 hitherto courteous and even obsequious European hotel, inn 
 and shop keepers were transformed into monuments of anxiety 
 and suspicion. From being honored and much-sought visitors 
 in Continental countries, Americans found themselves of a 
 sudden in the role of unwelcome guests. For awhile many 
 
 28 
 
AMERICANS IN EUROPE 29 
 
 thousands of them were absolutely helpless and their phght 
 was pitiable in the extreme. The universal problem among 
 them all was, how to get home. The ordinary means were 
 useless. 
 
 ''America must help her stranded children," wrote Ster- 
 ling Heilig from neutral Switzerland on August 16. ''A hun- 
 dred thousand of us are in debt, difficulty, humiliation and 
 danger. ' ' 
 
 GOLD OBTAINED WITH DIFFICULTY 
 
 **For a few days," said Charles A. Conant, the New York 
 banker, ''it looked as though the entire machinery of banking 
 and credit built up in Europe during forty years of peace had 
 been brought to a standstill, and as if the American market 
 would be compelled also to suspend its activities. 
 
 "The New York Stock Exchange, under a torrent of orders 
 from Europe to sell American securities held abroad, remained 
 open until the close of business on Thursday, July 30, but was 
 closed the next morning after a consultation between the gov- 
 erning board and big banking interests. In the meantime, the 
 usual mechanism of foreign exchange had broken down, partly 
 because shipping was threatened by the war, and insurance 
 rates for the shipment of gold had become prohibitive. Even 
 such credits as were possessed by American banks abroad were 
 in a state of suspense and drafts on England, which should 
 have been sold at the highest at $4.90 to the pound sterling, 
 rose to $5.25 and even in some cases to $6. 
 
 "The seriousness of the situation abroad was manifested 
 by almost every cable message which came from the great 
 centers of finance — London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brus- 
 sels and Petrograd. The French and English governments 
 promptly declared a moratorium, which means that the holder 
 of documentary obligations, like bills of exchange and promis- 
 sory notes, cannot enforce payment according to the terms of 
 the obligation until the delay granted has expired. In France, 
 the pajTnent of specie at the Bank of France was promptly 
 suspended'; in Germany, gold was gotten only with difficulty 
 and in trifling amounts from any of the banks; in Belgium 
 specie suspension occurred, and in Holland similar action was 
 accompanied by authority to the National Bank of the Nether- 
 
30 AMERICANS IN EUROPE 
 
 lands to issue additional notes to tlie amount of $200,000,000. 
 In France, also, the limit of circulation of the Bank 
 of France was increased at one jump from $1,300,000,000 to 
 $2,300,000,000. 
 
 ''Even the rock-ribbed Bank of England was subjected to 
 a run for gold in exchange for its notes, which cut down its 
 reserve by more than $50,000,000 in less than a week and led 
 ultimately to the suspension of the bank act of 1844, which 
 limits the amount of notes that can be issued without gold. 
 London has long prided herself on being the clearing-house of 
 the world, and on being the only market where obligations 
 were payable promptly for their full value in gold. The very 
 fact, however, that the London market was a clearing-house 
 for obligations from all over the European continent and from 
 Africa, Asia, and Latin America, which could not be collected 
 promptly, naturally deprived her of the means of making 
 her usual settlements and made it necessary to allow a breath- 
 ing-spell in order to reconstruct the machinery of exchange. ' ' 
 
 DETAINED IN EUROPEAN CITIES 
 
 Just how many American citizens were caught in Europe 
 by the war and suffered from the war conditions of finance and 
 travel, will probably never be known. Millionaires found their 
 paper money and their wealth of no avail ; some were only too 
 glad to return to the United States in the steerage of second- 
 class ships. A Vanderbilt and four hundred other wealthy 
 Americans esteemed themselves fortunate when they suc- 
 ceeded in chartering a small Italian steamer, the Principe 
 di Udini, in which to sail from Genoa for home. Others, by the 
 thousands, were detained in European capitals for several 
 weeks before the situation was relieved and they were able 
 to secure passage across the Atlantic. 
 
 In all the capitals and at various other points congested by 
 the stranded visitors, American committees were formed to 
 aid their compatriots in every way possible. These com- 
 mittees, amid exciting scenes in London, Paris, Berlin and else- 
 where, did an immense amount of good in straightening out 
 the situation and earned the gratitude of thousands whose 
 immediate wants they relieved. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 HOW WAR WAS DECLARED 
 
 Ultimatum hy Austria to Servia — War Declared by Austria — 
 Russia Mobilizes — Germany Declares War on Russia 
 August 1 — France and England Involved — Germans 
 Enter Belgium — Scenes in European Capitals. 
 
 ON SUNDAY, June 28, 1914, a Servian student named 
 Prinzep shot and killed the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, 
 heir to the thrones of Austria-Hungary, and his morgan- 
 atic wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg, in the streets of Serajevo, 
 a town in Bosnia which the royal couple were visiting. 
 
 Nearly four weeks later, on July 23, the Austro-Hungarian 
 government, fixing responsibility for the assassination upon 
 Servian intrigues, presented to Servia a number of demands 
 which formed a very drastic ultimatum, requiring compliance 
 within forty-eight hours, with the alternative of war. Servia 
 was required to condemn ''the propaganda directed against 
 Austria" and to take proceedings against all accessories to the 
 plot against the Archduke Francis Ferdinand who were in 
 Servia. Austrian delegates were to supervise the proceedings, 
 and Servia was also to arrest certain Servian officials whose 
 guilt was alleged. These exorbitant conditions made it quite 
 obvious that no concessions on Servia 's part would be accepted. 
 It was a plain prelude to war. 
 
 Nevertheless, a virtual acceptance by Servia followed. 
 Acting on the advice of Russia, Servia acceded to all that was 
 required of her, making only two reservations of the most 
 reasonable character. These reservations were found enough 
 to serve as an excuse for war. Austria at once declared herself 
 dissatisfied and though the actual declaration of war was 
 
 31 
 
32 HOW WAR WAS DECLARED 
 
 delayed for a brief period, a state of war practically existed 
 between the two countries from Saturday evening, July 25. 
 
 EFFORTS TO LOCALIZE THE WAR 
 
 Then began efforts on the part of Great Britain to localize 
 the war. Sir Edward Grey, the able foreign secretary in Mr. 
 Asquith's cabinet, repeated solemn warnings in every chan- 
 cellery of Europe. According to the English ''white book," 
 the very day that he was notified of the violent tone of Aus- 
 tria's note to Servia — the day it was presented — ^he warned 
 the Austrian Ambassador in London that if as many as four of 
 the Great Powers of Europe were to engage in war, it w^ould 
 involve the expenditure of such a vast sum of money and such 
 interference mth trade, that a complete collapse of European 
 credit and industry would follow. The reply of Russia to this 
 warning was quite conciliatory. The Russian foreign minister, 
 M. Sazonoff, assured the British minister that Russia had no 
 aggressive intentions, and would take no action unless forced. 
 Austria's action, M. Sazonoff added, in reality aimed at over- 
 throwing Russia 's influence in the Balkans. 
 
 Thus, on Monday, July 27, Sir Edward Grey was able to 
 state in the House of Commons that his suggestion of a joint 
 conference, composed of the Anjibassadors of Germany, France 
 and Italy, and himself, with a view to mediation between Aus- 
 tria and Russia, had been accepted by all except Germany, 
 which power had expressed its concurrence with the plan in 
 .principle, but opposed the details on the ground that there wa« 
 a prospect of direct ''conversations" (diplomatic exchanges) 
 between Austria and Russia. This statement was believed in 
 England to lack sincerity. On that Monday afternoon the Rus- 
 sian Ambassador at Vienna warned Austria that Russia would 
 not give way and expressed his hope that some arrangement 
 might be arrived at before Ser\da was invaded. 
 
 Austria's reply came next day in the shape of a formal dec- 
 laration of war against Servia. 
 
 Germany's attitude pro-austriait 
 On July 30 Sir M. de Bunsen, British Ambassador at 
 Vienna, made the following statement to Sir Edward Grey 
 regarding the attitude of Germany in the crisis : 
 
HOW WAR WAS DECLARED 33 
 
 ** Although I am not able to verify it, I have private infor- 
 mation that the German Ambassador (at Vienna) knew the 
 text of the Austrian ultimatum to Servia before it was dis- 
 patched, and telegraphed it to the German Emperor. I know 
 from the German Ambassador himself that he endorses every 
 Une of it." 
 
 Naturally enough the Russian foreign minister complained 
 that * * conversations ' ' with Austria were useless in the face of 
 such facts. Russia then declared that her forces would be 
 mobilized the day that Austria crossed the Servian frontier. 
 The attitude of Germany at once stiffened and it became evi- 
 dent that Germany meant to regard even the partial mobiliza- 
 tion of Russia as a ground for war, not only against Russia, 
 but also against the latter 's ally, France. 
 
 In vain Russia protested that her partial mobilization was 
 merely a precaution. In vain did the Czar himself offer to give 
 his word that no use would be made of any of his forces. Ger- 
 many was aware, as subsequent facts have proved, that her 
 own state of mobilization was very much further advanced 
 than that of Russia. 
 
 GERMAN ULTIMATUM TO RUSSIA 
 
 By Friday, July 31, Germany was ready for the fray and 
 a final ultimatum to St. Petersburg was launched. On the same 
 day Russia declared war against Austria. By six o'clock on 
 Saturday evening, August 1, war between Germany and Russia 
 began, when Germany dismissed the Russian Ambassador, and 
 by Sunday morning Germany was invading France. The next 
 day, August 3, the German Ambassador left Paris and the 
 French Ambassador at Berlin was ordered to demand his 
 passports. 
 
 At this point Great Britain passed from the position of 
 general peacemaker to that of a principal. In the House of 
 Commons on Monday, August 3, Sir Edward Grey stated that 
 the question whether Austria or Russia should dominate the 
 Southern Slav races was no concern of England, nor was she 
 bound by any secret alliance to France. She was absolutely 
 free to choose her course with regard to the crisis which had 
 overtaken her. But there were two cardinal points in the situa- 
 
34 HOW WAR WAS DECLARED 
 
 tion which had arisen which ultimately concerned Great Brit- 
 ain. The first essential feature of British diplomacy, said Sir 
 Edward, was that France should not be brought into such a 
 condition in Europe that she became a species of vassal state 
 to Germany. On the morning of July 31, therefore, he had 
 informed the German Ambassador that if the efforts to main- 
 tain peace failed and France became involved Great Britain 
 would be drawn into the conflict. 
 
 In his speech of August 3 the British foreign minister also 
 stated that he had given France on the previous day the writ- 
 ten assurance that if the German fleet came into the English 
 Channel or through the North Sea to assail her, the British 
 fleet would protect her to the uttermost. 
 
 TO PROTECT BELGIAN AUTONOMY 
 
 On the same afternoon, in the same place. Sir Edward Grey 
 reiterated the other dominant principle of British foreign pol- 
 icy — that England can never look with indifference on the 
 seizure by a great continental power of any portion of Belgium 
 and Holland. More than a hundred years ago it was declared 
 by Napoleon, who was a master of pofltical geography, that 
 Antwerp was ' * a pistol leveled at the head of London. ' ' 
 
 When on July 31 the British foreign minister inquired by 
 telegraph both at Paris and Berlin whether the two govern- 
 ments would engage to respect the neutrality of Belgium, 
 France replied with an assurance that she was resolved to do 
 so unless compelled to act otherwise by reason of the violation 
 of Belgium's neutrality at the hands of another power. The 
 German secretary of state, Herr von Jagow, replied that he 
 could give no such assurance until he had consulted the Em- 
 peror and Chancellor, and doubted whether he could give any 
 answer without revealing the German plan of campaign. He 
 furthermore alleged the commission of hostile acts by Belgium. 
 
 Developments quickly followed. The German government 
 proposed that Belgium should grant its armies free passage 
 through Belgian territory. The proposal was accompanied by 
 an intimation that Belgium would be crushed out of existence 
 if it refused to comply. In fact, it was an ultimatum presented 
 
HOW WAR WAS DECLARED 35 
 
 at 7 o'clock on Sunday evening, August 2, to expire within 
 twelve hours. 
 
 Then came Sir Edward Grey's speech in parliament on 
 August 3, when it was fully realized that Germany and Eng- 
 land were on the verge of war. What followed was related in 
 the House of Commons next day. 
 
 SCENES IN PABLIAMENT 
 
 Germany's reply to the speech by Sir Edward Grey, the 
 British foreign secretary, indicating the attitude of Great 
 Britain in regard to the contemplated violation of Belgian 
 territory by Germany was a second ultimatum from Berlin 
 to Brussels, saying Germany was prepared to carry through 
 her plans by force of arms if necessary. 
 
 The British government was officially informed by Bel- 
 gium on August 4 that German troops had invaded Belgium 
 and that the violation of that country's neutrality, which the 
 British foreign secretary had intimated must be followed by 
 action on the part of the British, had become an accomplished 
 fact. 
 
 Definite announcement of Great Britain's intentions under 
 these circumstances was expected in the house of commons 
 that afternoon. 
 
 TELEGRAM SENT TO BEELIN 
 
 On the assembly of the house the premier, Mr. Asquith, 
 said that a telegram had been sent early in the morning to 
 Sir Edward Goschen, British ambassador in Berlin, to the 
 following effect: 
 
 *'The king of the Belgians has appealed to His Britannic 
 Majesty's government for diplomatic intervention on behalf 
 of Belgium. The British government is also informed that 
 the German government has delivered to the Belgian govern- 
 ment a note proposing friendly neutrality pending a free 
 passage of German troops through Belgium and promising 
 to maintain the independence and integrity of the kingdom 
 and its possessions on the conclusion of peace, threatening in 
 case of refusal to treat Belgium as an enemy." 
 
36 HOW WAR WAS DECLARED 
 
 Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary, had re- 
 quested an answer within twelve hours. 
 
 Premier Asquith then read a telegram from the German 
 foreign minister, which the German ambassador in London 
 had sent to Sir Edward Grey. It was as follows : 
 
 *' Please dispel any distrust that may subsist on the part 
 of the British government with regard to our intentions by 
 repeating most positively the formal assurance that even in 
 case of armed conflict with Belgium, Germany will under no 
 pretensions whatever annex Belgian territory." 
 
 The reading of this telegram was greeted with derisive 
 laughter by the members of the house. 
 
 Premier Asquith continued : 
 
 "We understand that Belgium categorically refused to 
 assent to a flagrant violation of the law of nations. 
 
 ''His majesty's government was bound to protest against 
 this violation of a treaty to. which Germany was a party in 
 common with England and must request an assurance that 
 the demand made upon Belgium by Germany be not proceeded 
 with and that Belgium's neutrality be respected by Germany 
 and we have asked for an immediate reply. 
 
 "We received this morning from our minister in Brussels 
 the following telegram: 
 
 " 'The German minister has this morning addressed a 
 note to the Belgian minister for foreign affairs stating that as 
 the Belgian government has declined a well intentioned pro- 
 posal submitted to it by the imperial German government 
 the latter, deeply to its regret, will be compelled to carry out, 
 if necessary by force of arms, the measures considered indis- 
 pensable in view of the French menace.' " 
 
 ENGLAND AND GERMANY AT WAR 
 
 By 11 o 'clock that evening England and Germany were at 
 war. Their respective ambassadors were handed their pass- 
 ports and Great Britain braced herself for a conflict that was 
 felt to theaten her very existence as a nation. 
 
 In defence of the violation of Belgian neutrality by the 
 invasion of the little state, the Kaiser 's government claimed to 
 
HOW WAR WAS DECLARED 37 
 
 have received authentic news that France meant to attack 
 Germany through this neutral territory. But in the Reichstag 
 on August 4 the German Chancellor, Von Bethmann-Hollweg, 
 said: 
 
 "Gentlemen, we are now in a state of necessity, and neces- 
 sity knows no law! Our troops have occupied Luxemburg 
 [an independent state] and are already on Belgian soil. Gen- 
 tlemen, that is contrary to the dictates of international law. 
 It is true that the French Government has declared at Brus- 
 sels that France is willing to respect the neutrality of Belgium 
 as long as her opponent respects it. We knew, however, that 
 France stood ready for the invasion. France could wait, but 
 we could not wait. A French movement upon our flank upon 
 the lower Ehine might have been disastrous. So we were com- 
 pelled to override the protest of the Luxemburg and Belgian 
 governments. The wrong — I speak openly — that we are com- 
 mitting we will endeavor to make good as soon as our military 
 goal has been reached. Anybody who is threatened, as we are 
 threatened, and is fighting for his highest possessions, can have 
 only one thought — how he is to hack his way through.'' 
 
 GERMAN VERSION OP EVENTS IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING WAR WITH 
 
 PRANCE AND RUSSIA 
 
 In an official "white book" issued by the Genuan govern- 
 ment, on August 4, a few hours prior to the entrance of Eng- 
 land into the arena, responsibility for the war in which Ger- 
 many, Russia and France had engaged was placed squarely 
 upon the shoulders of the Czar. 
 
 While negotiations looking to a peaceful way out of the 
 difficulties were pending, Russia, it was charged, invaded 
 Germany, and a few hours later France opened hostilities. 
 
 The German Emperor, it was set forth, in response to a 
 suggestion from London and the appeal of the Russian mon- 
 arch, was using his influence at Vienna to satisfy Russia 
 regarding the intention of Austria in Servia, but in that very 
 hour Russia was mobilizing her army. 
 
 After a fruitless appeal to Emperor Nicholas to abandon 
 his warlike preparations and so avert a peril to civilization, 
 
38 HOW WAR WAS DECLARED 
 
 the German government on the afternoon of July 31 instructed 
 its ambassador at St. Petersburg to give notice that Germany 
 would mobilize unless Eussia suspended her military measures 
 inside of twelve hours. 
 
 At the same time France was given eighteen hours in which 
 to declare whether she would remain neutral in a war between 
 Eussia and Germany. The white book continued as follows : 
 
 ''The imperial ambassador in St. Petersburg made the 
 communication intrusted to him to M. Sazonoff (the Eussian 
 minister of foreign affairs) at midnight on July 31. After 
 the term set for Eussia had expired without the receipt of an 
 answer to our question, his majesty the emperor at 5 p. m. on 
 August 1, ordered the mobiUzation of the whole German army 
 and the imperial navy. 
 
 *'The imperial ambassador in St. Petersburg had mean^ 
 while received a commission to communicate to the Eussian 
 government a declaration of war in the event that the Eussian 
 government should not give a satisfactory answer within the 
 period allotted it. But before a report of the execution of this 
 commission had arrived Eussian troops crossed our frontier 
 on the afternoon of August 1 and advanced on German ter- 
 ritory. From this time on Eussia has furthered the war 
 against us. 
 
 ''In the meantime the imperial ambassador in Paris had 
 placed the inquiry with which he was commissioned before the 
 French cabinet at 7 p. m. on July 31. On August 1, at 1 o 'clock 
 in the afternoon, the French prime minister communicated an 
 ambiguous and unsatisfactory answer, which gave no clear 
 idea regarding the attitude of France, as the author confined 
 himself to declaring that France would do what her interests 
 bade her to do. 
 
 "A few hours later, at 5 p. m., the mobilization of the entire 
 French army and navy was ordered. On the morning of the 
 next day France opened hostilities. ' ' 
 
 TELEGKAMS EXCHANGED 
 
 On July 31 the Eussian Emperor sent the following tele- 
 gram to the German Emperor: 
 
 "I thank thee from my heart for thy mediation, which 
 
HOW WAR WAS DECLARED 39 
 
 leaves a gleam of hope that even now all may end peacefully. 
 It is technically impossible to discontinue our military opera- 
 tion, which has been rendered necessary by Austrian mobiliza- 
 tion. We are far from wishing for war, and so long as nego- 
 tiations with Austria regarding Servia continue, my troops 
 will not undertake any provocative action. 
 
 * * I give thee my word upon it and I trust with my strength 
 in God's grace and hope for the success of thy mediation at 
 Vienna and for our countries ' and the peace of Europe. 
 
 ( Signed) ' ' Thy Devoted Nicholas. '' 
 
 THE kaiser's reply 
 
 To this the German Emperor replied : 
 
 ''In answer to thy appeal to my friendship and thy prayer 
 for my help, I undertook mediatory action between the Austro- 
 Hungarian government and thine. While this action was in 
 progress, thy troops were mobilized against my ally, Austria- 
 Hungary, in consequence of which, as I have already informed 
 thee, my mediation was rendered nearly illusory. Neverthe- 
 less, it is continued. But now I am in possession of trustworthy 
 advices concerning the serious war preparations on my east- 
 ern frontier, as well. 
 
 ''My responsibility for the safety of my empire compels 
 me to counter-measures of defense. In my endeavors for 
 the maintenance of the peace of the world I have gone to the 
 extreme limit of the possible. It is not I that shall bear the 
 responsibility for the peril which now threatens the civilized 
 world. I lay it to thy hand to avert it, even at this moment. 
 
 "No one menaces the honor and might of Russia, which all 
 could have waited upon the result of my mediation. The 
 friendship for thee and thy empire bequeathed to me by my 
 grandfather on his deathbed has always been sacred to me, 
 and I have remained true to Russia when it was in grave dis- 
 tress, especially in your last war. The peace of Europe can 
 yet be conserved by thee if Russia decides to discontinue her 
 military measures, which threaten Germany and Austria- 
 Hungary. 
 
 (Signed) "William.' 
 
 >y 
 
40 HOW WAR WAS DECLARED 
 
 THE RUSSIAN VIEW 
 
 At St. Petersburg on August 4 Emperor Nioliolas issued 
 a manifesto in which he outlined the events leading up to the 
 declaration of war by Germany, and then said that ''Russians 
 will rise like one man and repulse the insolent attack of the 
 enemy. ' ' 
 
 The text of the manifesto follows : 
 
 ''By the grace of God, we, Nicholas II., emperor and auto- 
 crat of all the Russias, king of Poland and grand duke of 
 Finland, etc., to all our faithful subjects make known that 
 Russia, related by faith and blood to the Slav peoples and 
 faithful to her historical traditions, has never regarded her 
 fates with indifference. 
 
 "But the fraternal sentiments of the Russian people for 
 the Slavs have been awakened with perfect unanimity and 
 extraordinary force in these last few days when Austria-Hun- 
 gary knowingly addressed to Servia claims inacceptable for 
 an independent state. 
 
 "Having paid no attention to the pacific and conciliatory 
 reply of the Servian government and having rejected the 
 benevolent intervention of Russia, Austria-Hungary made 
 haste to proceed to an armed attack and began to bombard 
 Belgrade, an open place. 
 
 "Forced by the situation thus created to take necessary 
 measures of precaution, we ordered the army and the navy put 
 on war footing, at the same time using every endeavor to 
 obtain a peaceful solution. 
 
 "Pourparlers were begun amid friendly relations with 
 Germany and her ally, Austria, for the blood and the property 
 of our subjects were dear to us. 
 
 "Contrary to our hopes in our good neighborly relations 
 of long date, and disregarding our assurances that the mobili- 
 zation measures taken were in pursuance of no object hostile 
 to her, Germany demanded their immediate cessation. Being 
 rebuffed in this demand, Germany suddenly declared war on 
 Russia. 
 
 "Today it is not only the protection of a country related 
 to us and unjustly attacked that must be accorded, but we 
 
HOW WAR WAS DECLARED 41 
 
 must safeguard the honor, the dignity and the integrity of 
 Russia, and her position among the great powers. 
 
 "We believe unshakably that all our faithful subjects will 
 rise with unanimity and devotion for the defense of Russian 
 soil ; that internal discord will be forgotten in this threatening 
 hour ; that the unity of the emperor with his people will become 
 still more close and that Russia, rising like one man, will 
 repulse the insolent attack of the enemy. 
 
 ''With a profound faith in the justice of our work and with 
 a humble hope in omnipotent providence, in prayer we call 
 God's blessing on holy Russia and her valiant troops. 
 
 (Signed) "Nicholas." 
 
 GEKMAN chancellor MAKES ADDRESS 
 
 The German Imperial Chancellor, Dr. von Bethmann- 
 Hollweg, on August 1 addressed a great procession of demon- 
 strators from the window of his official residence in Berlin, 
 making a stirring speech. He said : 
 
 "At this serious hour, in order to give expression to your 
 feeling for your fatherland, you have come to the house of 
 Bismarck, who, with Emperor William the Great and Field 
 Marshal von Moltke, welded the- German empire for us. 
 
 "We wished to go on living in peace in the empire which 
 we have developed in forty-four years of peaceful labor. 
 
 ' * The whole work of Emperor William has been devoted to 
 the maintenance of peace. To the last hour he has worked for 
 peace in Europe and he is still working for it. 
 
 "Should all his efforts prove vain and should the sword 
 be forced into our hands we will take the field with a clear 
 conscience in the knowledge that we did not seek war. We 
 shall then wage war for our existence and for the national 
 honor to the last drop of our blood. 
 
 "In the gravity of the hour I remind you of the words of 
 Prince Frederick Charles to the men of Brandenburg: 'Let 
 your hearts beat for God and your fists on the enemy. ' ' ' 
 
 Enthusiastic cheers and the singing of the national anthem 
 greeted the close of the imperial chancellor's speech. 
 
42 HOW WAR WAS DECLARED 
 
 LECTURER ARRESTED AS A SPY 
 
 E. M. Newman of Chicago, the noted travel lecturer, was 
 arrested and imprisoned as a spy in Berlin during the German 
 mobilization. Mr. Newman reached Chicago on September 2, 
 having landed at Boston two days previously from the steam- 
 ship Franconia. He recounted his experiences as follows : 
 
 **0n the night the English declaration of war was an- 
 nounced Berlin went stark mad. Every English signboard 
 in the city within the crowd's reach was torn down. I wit- 
 nessed the demonstrations until 11 o'clock and then went to 
 my hotel and to bed. At midnight I was awakened. When 
 I opened the door two military officers confronted me and 
 informed me that I was arrested as a spy. I had been seen 
 making moving pictures for several days and officers sus- 
 pected they were for hostile purposes. I protested without 
 avail. One of the officers took an unexposed film from the 
 dresser and said : 
 
 ** *At least you'll never show this.' 
 
 **The exposed film remained unharmed in my hand bag- 
 gage, which was not disturbed, and came home with me. 
 
 *'I was taken to the military prison, placed in the hospital 
 and held four days. They gave me rye bread, sausage and 
 coffee. There was no limit on the amount of rye bread I 
 could eat. Half a dozen times I heard volleys in the neigh- 
 boring court yard, signaling the end of some poor victim 
 who had been suspected as 1 was. Finally with a bribe of 40 
 marks I persuaded the guard to send his wife to the Amer- 
 ican embassy with my story. Ambassador Gerard imme- 
 diately interceded and my release was promised. The next 
 morning I was put on a troop train with a load of horses and 
 a few guards, and rode from 8 o 'clock until 11 that night. 
 
 **A request that I be permitted to ahght for food was met 
 with the threat that I would be bayoneted if I set foot out 
 of the car. I was unloaded at the Belgian frontier with my 
 baggage and ordered to walk to the nearest village. This I 
 did, and with some hardships got thence to Paris, London and 
 home. My assistant with my best pictures I had sent from 
 Berlin several days before. He reached London with all his 
 things safe." 
 
HOW WAR WAS DECLARED 43 
 
 PROCLAMATION BY THE KAISER 
 
 A proclamation by Emperor William addressed to the 
 German nation was published in the Official Gazette, August 7. 
 The text was as follows : 
 
 ' ' Since the foundation of the German empire, it has been 
 for forty-three years the object of the efforts of myself and 
 my ancestors to preserve the peace of the world and to advance 
 by peaceful means vigorous development. 
 
 "Our adversaries, however, are jealous of the successes 
 of our work and there has been latent hostility to the east and 
 to the west and beyond the sea. 
 
 "This has been borne by us till now, as we were aware of 
 our responsibility and our power. 
 
 "Now, however, these adversaries wish to humiliate us, 
 asking that we should look on with folded arms and watch 
 our enemies preparing themselves for the coming attack. 
 
 "They will not suffer that we maintain our resolute fidelity 
 to our ally, who is fighting for her position as a great power 
 and with whose humiliation our power and honor would equally 
 be lost. 
 
 * ' So the sword must decide. 
 
 "In the midst of perfect peace the enemy surprises us. 
 Therefore, to arms ! 
 
 "Any dalljdng and temporizing would be to betray the 
 fatherland. 
 
 "To be or not to be, is the question for the empire which 
 our fathers founded. To be or not to be, is the question for 
 German power and German existence. 
 
 ' ' We shall resist to the last breath of man and horse, and 
 we shall fight out the struggle even against a world of enemies. 
 
 "Never has Germany been subdued when she was united. 
 
 "Forward, with God, who will be with us as he was with 
 our ancestors." 
 
 ADDRESS BY CZAR NICHOLAS 
 
 The Eussian Emperor with Grand Duke Nicholas on Au- 
 gust 8 received the members of the council of the empire and 
 the duma (the Eussian parliament) in audience at the Winter 
 Palace, St. Petersburg. Addressing them, the Emperor said : 
 
44 HOW WAR WAS DECLARED 
 
 **In these days of alarm and anxiety, through which Russia 
 is passing, I greet you! Germany, following Austria, has 
 declared war on Russia. 
 
 ''The enormous enthusiasm, the patriotic sentiments and 
 the love and loyalty to the throne — an enthusiasm which has 
 swept like a hurricane through the country — guarantee for me, 
 as for you, I hope, that Russia will bring to a happy conclusion 
 the war which the Almighty has sent it. 
 
 ''It is also because of this unanimous enthusiasm, love and 
 eagerness to make every sacrifice, even of life itself, that I am 
 able to regard the future with calm firmness. It is not only 
 the dignity and honor of our country that we are defending, 
 but we are fighting for brother Slavs, coreligionists, blood 
 brothers. I see also with joy the union of the Slavs with Russia 
 progressing strongly and indissolubly. 
 
 "I am persuaded that all and each of you will be in your 
 place to assist me to support the test and that all, beginning 
 with myself, will do their duty. Great is the God of the Rus- 
 sian fatherland. ' ' 
 
 KING ALBERT TO THE BELGIANS 
 
 On the outbreak of hostilities in Belgium King Albert 
 addressed a note to the Belgian army as follows : 
 
 "A neighbor, haughty in its strength, without the slightest 
 provocation, has torn up the treaty bearing its signature and 
 has violated the territory of our fathers because we refused 
 to forfeit our honor. It has attacked us. Seeing its inde- 
 pendence threatened, the nation trembled and its children 
 sprang to the frontier, valiant soldiers in a sacred cause. I 
 have confidence in your tenacious courage. I greet you in the 
 name of Belgium, a fellow-citizen who is proud of you. ' ' 
 
 CAPITALS BLAZE WITH MARTIAL FEVER 
 
 There were scenes of patriotic fervor and martial ardor 
 during the first few days of August in all the European capi- 
 tals directly affected by the war. In London, Berlin, Paris, 
 St. Petersburg and Vienna enthusiastic crowds filled the 
 streets, singing national hymns and cheering their respective 
 rulers and popular heroes. 
 
HOW WAR WAS DECLARED 45 
 
 It was the beginning of the world's greatest war, soon 
 to involve more men in actual combat than Mother Earth had 
 ever seen in arms before — a war of which only a few of the 
 cheering thousands then realized the serious import, the pro- 
 longed duration, or the cost. But in the capitals of the 
 nations involved there were a few, like Earl Kitchener in 
 London, who knew that it must be a war to a finish and that 
 nothing less than an Allied victory that would mean the 
 downfall of German militarism would bring a peace that 
 would be lasting. 
 
FOR ALL WE HAVE AND ARE 
 
 BY EUDYARD KIPLING \ 
 
 For all we have and are, ^ 
 
 For all our children's fate, ' 
 
 Stand up and meet the war — \ 
 
 The Hun is at the gate ! \ 
 
 Our world has passed away j 
 
 In wanton overthrow; ] 
 
 There's nothing left to-day ] 
 
 But steel and fire and woe. • 
 Though all we know depart, 
 
 In courage keep your heart. ^ \ 
 
 Once more we hear the word ; 
 
 That sickened earth of old — ; 
 
 No law except the sword I 
 
 Unsheathed and uncontrolled. 
 
 Once more it knits mankind, ' 
 
 Once more the nations go i 
 
 To meet and break and bind \ 
 
 A crazed and riven foe. i 
 
 Comfort, content, delight, \ 
 
 The ages' slow-bought gain, ■ 
 
 They shriveled in a night — ^ 
 
 Only ourselves remain 1 
 
 To face the naked days ■ 
 
 In silent fortitude, ^ 
 
 Through perils and dismays, \ 
 
 Renewed and re-renewed. ' ' 
 
 Though all we made depart ■ 
 
 The old commandments stand — ^ 
 
 In patience keep your heart, j 
 
 In strength lift up your hand. ; 
 
 j 
 
 No easy hopes or lies , 
 
 Shall bring us to our goal — j 
 
 But iron sacrifice ! 
 
 Of body, will and soul. \ 
 
 There 's but one task for all, i 
 
 For each one life to give : 
 Who stands if Freedom fall? 
 
 If England dies, who live ? 
 
 46 
 
CHAPTER in 
 
 ARMED FORCES INVOLVED 
 
 Strength of the Opposing Armies and Fleets — Millions of 
 Men Under Arms — Attitude of Italy, Turkey and 
 Greece — Organization of An Army — Heavy Artillery 
 Used vn the War. 
 
 The Armies of Europe 
 
 Unorganized, 
 
 C<"^t^ sffih K-"^ ""i^LZ^ ava^ble 
 
 For Duty 
 
 *Great Britain 254,500 476,000 730,000 2,000,000 
 
 Germany 870,000 4,430,000 5,200,000 1,000,000 
 
 ♦France 720,000 3,280,000 4,000,000 1,000,000 
 
 Austria-Hungary 390,000 1,610,000 2,000,000 3,000,000 
 
 Eussia - 1,290,000 3,300,000 5,500,000 5,200,000 
 
 Italy 250,000 950,000 1,200,000 1,200,000 
 
 Belgium 42,000 180,000 222,000 400,000 
 
 ♦Netherlands 35,000 145,000 180,000 150,000 
 
 Denmark 14,000 56,000 70,000 125,000 
 
 Sweden 50,000 400,000 450,000 200,000 
 
 Norway 35,000 80,000 115,000 100,000 
 
 Bulgaria 60,500 320,000 380,000 100,000 
 
 Servia 32,000 . 208,000 240,000 60,000 
 
 Eumania 95,000 100,000 500,000 175,000 
 
 Switzerland 22,300 252,000 275,000 50,000 
 
 Turkey 400,000 300,000 700,000 2,000,000 
 
 * In the case of Great Britain, * ' Peace strength ' ' excludes the native Indian 
 army of 175,000. 
 
 In the case of France, "Peace strength" includes colonial troops. 
 
 In the case of Netherlands, * ' Peace strength ' ' is exclusive of the colonial army 
 of 36,000. 
 
 The Navies of Europe 
 
 oS »-■& § Sso 10 § a e S 
 
 Country •oS 
 
 m 
 
 Great Britain 29 
 
 Germany 19 
 
 France 17 
 
 Eussia 9 
 
 Italy 8 
 
 Austria-Hungary 4 
 
 Sweden 
 
 Netherlands .... I 
 
 Norway 
 
 Denmark 
 
 47 
 
 11 
 
 
 p2 
 
 II 
 
 1 
 
 •a <5 
 
 if 
 
 a 
 
 sS 
 
 Is 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 PQ 
 
 M 
 
 f=. 
 
 
 
 
 ai 
 
 s 
 
 10 
 
 38 
 
 42 
 
 70 
 
 227 
 
 58 
 
 85 
 
 137,500 
 
 7 
 
 20 
 
 9 
 
 45 
 
 141 
 
 47 
 
 30 
 
 66,783 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 18 
 
 13 
 
 87 
 
 173 
 
 90 
 
 60,621 
 
 4 
 
 8 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 
 105 
 
 23 
 
 48 
 
 62,463 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 7 
 
 13 
 
 35 
 
 73 
 
 20 
 
 33,095 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 3 
 
 9 
 
 18 
 
 53 
 
 15 
 
 17,581 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 51 
 
 7 
 
 5,715 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 8 
 
 33 
 
 8 
 
 11,164 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 26 
 
 o 
 
 1,003 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 3 
 
 4,000 
 
48 ARMED FORCES INVOLVED 
 
 NINETEElSr MILLIONS IN THE FIELD 
 
 It will be seen by a perusal of the foregoing table that the 
 forces of the nations actually engaged in the war in Europe 
 had a total war strength at the outbreak of hostilities of 18,226,- 
 948 men of all arms. 
 
 To this almost incredible number must be added the addi- 
 tional troops raised by Great Britain and bringing up her 
 total army to over 1,500,000 men. The number of these was 
 nearly 800,000, still further increased by about 80,000 native 
 troops from India and 50,000 from Canada, Australia and New 
 Zealand. This brings the grand total of forces involved to 
 19,156,948 men, including the reserves, all of whom were called 
 out until the *4ast line" of each of the warring nations was 
 under arms. 
 
 When to this total we add the war strength of other nations 
 that partially mobilized in August, 1914, for self-defense and 
 the preservation of their neutrality, including the Netherlands, 
 Switzerland, Bulgaria and Roumania, to say nothing of Italy, 
 Turkey, the Scandinavian countries and the large and effec- 
 tive army of Japan, we arrive at the enormous aggregate of 
 nearly 20,500,000 men called to the colors in this European 
 conflict — a staggering total which dwarfs all previous records 
 of war. 
 
 In the enumeration, too, it is probable that the war strength 
 of the leading countries engaged is underestimated. Thus it 
 is claimed that instead of only 5,200,000 men, Germany was 
 prepared to place under arms a total of nearly 9,000,000. For 
 days at a time, along the far-flung battle lines near the French 
 border, armies aggregating not less than 3,000,000 men have 
 been confronting each other, while other milHons have been 
 engaged in Eastern Prussia and Galicia. 
 
 ITALY REMAINS NEUTRAL 
 
 The attitude of Italy was a subject of international curios- 
 ity at the outbreak of war, but the Italian government soon 
 made it plain that its policy was one of absolute neutrality. 
 In spite of the fact that Italy was a member of the Triple 
 Alliance, her king and statesmen claimed that neither of her 
 allies, Germany and Austria, was being attacked by a foreign 
 
ARMED FORCES INVOLVED 49 
 
 power, and that therefore, by the terms of the Triple Alliance, 
 she was not obligated to take up arms on their behalf. There 
 were besides two other good reasons for Italy's neutrahty. 
 On the one hand she had enjoyed long friendship with Great 
 Britain, and felt under obligation for English support in 
 obtaining Italian unity; and on the other hand the masses of 
 the Italians were strongly opposed to lending aid and comfort 
 to Austro-Hungary under the circumstances of the war. 
 
 ItaUan neutrality has therefore been maintained up to the 
 present writing, and her army, with a total war strength of 
 1,200,000, although partially mobilized as a matter of precau- 
 tion, has been kept out of the conflict. Strenuous efforts, how- 
 ever, have been made to drag Italy into the arena on the 
 German-Austrian side, and it was reported in Paris on Sep- 
 tember 17 that the German Kaiser had sent a telegram to King 
 Victor Emmanuel reading as follows : 
 
 ** Conqueror or conquered, I shall never forget your 
 treason." 
 
 The neutral attitude of their King, however, is believed to 
 have had the practically unanimous support of the Italian 
 people. 
 
 For some time early in September it was believed that 
 Turkey would join in the war on the side of Germany. Two 
 German war vessels in the Mediterranean sought refuge in 
 the Dardanelles and were reported sold to Turkey. The inci- 
 dent created considerable interest and Greece was said to be 
 preparing for war against Turkey in case the latter entered 
 the conflict, but when the Franco-British troops succeeded in 
 turning back the German advance on Paris, the Turkish gov- 
 ernment apparently concluded that discretion was the better 
 part of valor and continued to maintain neutrality. 
 
 ORGANIZATION OF AN ARMY 
 
 Military service is compulsory in all the nations now at 
 war, except in Great Britain, where the system is one of volun- 
 tary enlistment. Besides its regular army almost every great 
 nation has one, two or three reserves. In time of peace the 
 regular armies are kept on a reduced or peace footing. When 
 war threatens they are enlarged to their war footing by in- 
 
50 ARMED FORCES INVOLVED 
 
 creasing them to full strength, either by additional men drawn 
 from the reserves or by recruiting, and by organizing, equip- 
 ping and supplying them for active operations in the field. 
 This process is known as "mobilization." 
 
 There are two kinds of troops, namely, mobile and fixed, the 
 latter being stationed in fortifications. The mobile troops are 
 also of two kinds — those of the line, that is, the fighting men, 
 including infantry, cavalry and artillery ; and those of the staff. 
 
 Broadly speaking an army is organized for war as follows : 
 
 INFANTRY 
 
 A squad is 8 men under the command of a corporal. 
 
 A section is 16 men under the command of a sergeant. 
 
 A platoon is from 50 to 75 men under a lieutenant. 
 
 A company is 3 platoons, 200 to 250 men, under a captain. 
 
 A battalion is 4 or more companies under a major. 
 
 A regiment is 3 or more battalions under a colonel, or a 
 lieutenant-colonel. 
 
 A brigade is 2 or 3 regiments under a brigadier-general. 
 
 A division is 2 or more brigades under a major-general. 
 
 An army corps is 2 or more brigades or divisions, supple- 
 mented by cavalry, artillery, engineers, etc., under a major- 
 general or lieutenant-general. 
 
 CAVALRY 
 
 A section is 8 men under a corporal. 
 
 A platoon is 36 to 50 men under a lieutenant or junior 
 captain. 
 
 A troop is 3 to 4 platoons under a senior captain, or a major. 
 
 A regiment is 4 to 6 squadrons under a colonel. 
 
 A brigade is 3 regiments under a brigadier-general. 
 
 A division is 2 or 3 brigades under a major-general. 
 
 ARTILLERY 
 
 A battery is 130 to 180 men, with 4 to 6 guns (8 in the Eus- 
 sian army), under a captain. 
 
 A group or battalion is 3 to 4 batteries under a major. 
 A regiment is 3 to 4 groups (battalions) under a colonel. 
 
 ARTILLERY USED IN THE WAR 
 
 The awful destruction wrought by modem artillery has 
 been one of the features of the war ; in fact, it may almost be 
 
ARMED FORCES INVOLVED 51 
 
 said to have been a war of artillery. Hence, a brief description 
 of some of the guns used is given below. 
 
 Howitzers of calibers larger than 4.7 inches and mortars 
 are limited to siege purposes only, as their weight renders them 
 impractical for field uses. Being of large caliber, they fire a 
 heavier projectile at a low muzzle velocity and at a great angle 
 of elevation, which enables them to drop the shell behind 
 breastworks or parapets of open gun emplacements of modern 
 forts on a line of arc more nearly perpendicular than would 
 be possible by guns of high muzzle velocity. The trajectory of 
 the latter is too flat for any given effective range to attain the 
 above results, the projectile striking the parapet or passing 
 clear over it. 
 
 However, in fortifications of the first class, such as encircle 
 Paris, heavy naval batteries are mounted, with an effective 
 range of over twelve miles, and the city must be invested first 
 before such cumbersome guns as mortars can be brought up 
 and placed in position. As their range is less than that of the 
 naval guns, it is quite evident that their mounting within the 
 range of fire from the forts is a most critical, if not impossible, 
 task, especially so when special roads have to be provided for 
 their transportation across the terrain to the emplacements, 
 which, in turn, require special concrete or other equally suit- 
 able foundations, with casemates^ etc., before the piece can be 
 put into action. 
 
 LIEGE NOT A CRITERION 
 
 Experiences with fortresses of the second class, like Liege 
 and Namur, cannot be considered satisfactory evidence as to 
 the importance or destructive efficiency of the new weapons. 
 Liege held out longer than the most skeptical critics expected 
 it would, while at Namur the Germans succeeded only in en- 
 trenching them within effective range, under cover of a dense 
 fog. 
 
62 ARMED FORCES INVOLVED 
 
 FRENCH HAVE ADVANTAGE 
 
 In the field artillery the French have a most decided ad- 
 vantage over the Germans, in a heavier projectile, a higher 
 velocity and, consequently, a greater range. The rate of fire 
 a minute is almost double that of the German gun. But the 
 most important advantage on the French side is the "mechani- 
 cal" timing of the bursting of the projectile instead of the 
 fuse timing, as used in every other army. This has been a pro- 
 found secret until this war began, and the terrible destructive- 
 ness of the piece is principally due to this never erring in- 
 genious device. 
 
 As in rifle fire, where only the hits count, so in artillery fire 
 it is the bursts of the projectiles at the exact range that count. 
 With the fuse timer a variation of fifty yards is pretty close 
 fire, and seldom attained, while with the mechanical timer a 
 maximum variation of less than two yards was obtained in 
 500 rounds of fire, with ranges from 3,000 to 5,000 yards — 
 while the vertical variations were less than 12 inches in the 
 same number of rounds, without requiring any corrections in 
 the laying (pointing) of the piece. The greatest execution is 
 obtained by accurately timing the burst of projectiles "on 
 graze," just passing over the skirmishers* cover or trenches, 
 and, as an exploding projectile scatters 260 lead balls or shrap- 
 nel, each of which is effective enough to kill a man if it hits 
 him, a fair idea can be had as to the destructiveness of these 
 weapons. The bursting charge is called melinite, an explosive 
 composition whose intensity of force is surpassed only by that 
 of nitroglycerin. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE NATIONS AT WAE 
 
 Riders and Heirs Apparent of Countries Engaged — Areas 
 and Populations — Their Exports and Imports, Prin- 
 cipal Cities, Etc. — Europe's Map Often Changed — The 
 Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 — Japan Enters the 
 War. 
 
 R 
 
 ULERS of the principal countries engaged in the great 
 war of 1914, with the latest statistics of their area, pop- 
 ulation, exports and imports, are as follows ; 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 Government — King, George V.; heir-apparent, Edward 
 Albert, prince of Wales. 
 
 Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury — H. H. 
 Asquith. 
 
 Secretary of War — Earl Kitchener. 
 
 The British parliament, in which the highest legislative 
 authority is vested, consists of the house of lords and the 
 house of commons. The former in 1913 had 636 members 
 and the latter 670. The sessions usually last from Febru- 
 ary to August. 
 
 Area and Population — The total area of England, Scot- 
 land, Ireland, Wales, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands 
 is 121,391 square miles ; the total for the British Empire is 11,- 
 498,825 square miles. The total population of the empire in 
 1911 was 421,178,965. The population of the United Kingdom 
 April 3, 1911, when the last census was taken, was : England, 
 34,045,290; Wales, 2,025,202; Scotland, 4,759,445; Ireland. 
 4,390,219 ; Isle of Man, 52,034 ; Channel Islands, 96,900. Total, 
 45,369,090. 
 
 The population of the inner or registration district of the 
 city of London was 4,522,961 in 1911. Including the outer belt 
 
 53 
 
54 THE NATIONS AT WAR 
 
 of suburban towns, whicb are within the metropolitan police 
 district, the population of ''Greater London" April 3, 1911, 
 was 7,251,358. 
 
 Exports and Imports — The total exports of the British 
 Empire in 1912 were $5,745,542,500 ; of the United Kingdom, 
 $2,996,339,000 ; total imports of the empire, $6,528,065,000 ; of 
 the United Kingdom, $3,724,482,000. 
 
 The total exports of the United Kingdom to the United 
 States in 1913 were $295,564,940; imports, $597,150,307. 
 
 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 
 
 Government. — Emperor of Austria and king of Hungary, 
 Francis Joseph I; heir apparent. Archduke Charles Francis 
 Joseph. 
 
 The empire of Austria and the kingdom of Hungary are 
 sovereign states, each with its own constitution, legislative 
 bodies and systems of administration, co-ordinate in rank 
 and mutually independent within the domain of home affairs. 
 Foreign representation (embassies and consulates), the army 
 and navy, customs (import and export duties), and the ad- 
 ministration of the annexed provinces (Bosnia and Herze- 
 govina) are, however, conducted in common. Legislation on 
 matters affecting the interests of the dual monarchy as a 
 whole is intrusted to the delegations — two bodies of sixty 
 members each, chosen from among members of the two legis- 
 lative chambers of Austria and Hungary respectively. 
 
 Area and Population. — Area of Austria, 115,903 square 
 miles ; of Hungary, 125,395 square miles. The population of 
 Austria in 1910 was 28,324,940. The population of Hungary 
 in 1910 was 20,886,787. Total population for both countries 
 in 1910 was 49,211,727. 
 
 Imports and Exports. — The value of the imports into the 
 Austro-Hungarian customs territory in 1912 was $722,030,000 ; 
 exports, $554,973,000. Chief imports are cotton, coal, wool, 
 maize, tobacco, coffee and wines; principal exports, lumber 
 and wool manufactures, sugar, eggs, barley, lignite, malt, 
 leather, gloves and shoes. Imports from the United States 
 in 1913, $23,320,690; exports to United States, $19,192,414. 
 
THE NATIONS AT WAR 55 
 
 GERMANY 
 
 Government. — Emperor and king of Prussia, Wilhelm 
 II.; heir-apparent, Prince Friedrich Wilhelm. Cabinet offi- 
 cers: 
 
 Imperial Chancellor. — Dr. Theobald von Bethmann- 
 Hollweg. 
 
 Foreign Affairs. — Herr Gottlieb von Jagow. 
 
 The Prussian minister of war, Gen. Josias 0. 0. von 
 Heeringen, while nominally having jurisdiction over Prus- 
 sian army affairs only, represents the imperial government 
 in the reichstag in military matters and is, for all practical 
 purposes, German secretary for war. Of the various inde- 
 pendent states of Germany only the kingdoms of Prussia, 
 Saxony, Bavaria and Wurttemberg have their own ministers 
 of war. 
 
 Legislative authority is vested in a bundesrath, or senate, 
 of 61 members, and a reichstag, or house, of 397 members. 
 The latter are elected for five year terms on a popular fran- 
 chise and the senators are appointed from the state govern- 
 ments for each session. 
 
 Area and Population. — The area of the states in the 
 empire is 208,780 square miles; area of dependencies about 
 1,027,820 square miles; grand total, 1,236,600 square miles. 
 
 The last federal census was taken Dec. 1, 1910. Accord- 
 ing to this the population of the empire was 64,925,993. The 
 estimated population of the foreign dependencies is 13,946,200. 
 
 Exports and Imi>orts. — Total exports (1912), $2,115,- 
 482,000; total imports, $2,449,517,000. 
 
 During the fiscal year ended June 30, 1913, Germany ex- 
 ported $188,963,071 worth of merchandise to the United 
 States and imported merchandise valued at $331,684,212. 
 
 RUSSIA 
 
 Government — Czar, Nicholas II.; heir-apparent. Grand 
 Duke Alexis. 
 
 Premier and Minister of Finance — P. Kokovtseff. 
 Foreign Affairs — M. Sazonoff. 
 
56 THE NATIONS AT WAR 
 
 Legislative authority is vested in tlie czar, duma and coun- 
 cil of the empire. 
 
 Area and Population — ^Area, 8,764,586 square miles 
 Total population in 1911, 167,003,400. 
 
 Imports and Exports — The total value of the imports in 
 1911 was $598,266,000; of the exports, $819,577,000. The ex- 
 ports to the United States in 1913 amounted in value to $26,- 
 958,690; imports from the United States, $25,363,795. The 
 chief exports are foodstuffs, timber, oil, furs and flax; im- 
 ports, raw cotton, wool, metals, leather, hides, skins and 
 machinery. 
 
 servia 
 
 Government — King, Peter I. (Karageorgevitch) ; heir- 
 apparent, Prince Alexander (second son). Legislative au- 
 thority is vested in a single chamber, called * * skupshtina, ' ' of 
 160 elected members. 
 
 Area and Population — ^Area, about 37,600 square miles. 
 Population in 1910, 2,911,701; now about 4,550,000. The cap- 
 ital, Belgrade, has 90,890 inhabitants. 
 
 Exports and Imports — Total value of exports in 1911, 
 $22,565,000; imports, $22,277,000. Exports to the United 
 States in 1913, $694,393; imports, $7,616. The exports are 
 mainly agricultural products and animals and the imports 
 cotton and woolen goods and metals. 
 
 BELGIUM 
 
 Government. — King, Albert I. 
 
 The legislative power is vested in the king, senate and 
 chamber of representatives. The senate has 120 members 
 and the chamber 186, or one for every 40,000 inhabitants. 
 
 Area and Population. — Total area, 11,373 square miles. 
 Total population, 1910, 7,423,784; estimated population, 1911, 
 7,490,411. Population of the largest cities December 31, 
 1911: 
 
 Antwerp 308,618 Liege 167,676 
 
 Brussels (capital) . 646,400 Ghent 166,719 
 
THE NATIONS AT WAR 57 
 
 Impobts and Exports. — The imports in 1912 amounted to 
 $899,722,000 and the exports to $753,001,000. The trade with 
 the United States in 1913 was ; Imports, $66,845,462 ; exports, 
 $41,941,014. Chief imports are cereals, textiles and metal 
 goods ; chief exports, cereals, raw textiles, tissues, iron, glass, 
 hides, chemicals and machinery. 
 
 FRANCE 
 
 Government. — President, Raymond Poincare; term ex- 
 pires 1920. 
 
 Legislative authority is vested in the chamber of deputies 
 and the senate. The former has 597 members, each of whom 
 is elected for four years. The senate has 300 members elected 
 for nine years. The presidential term is seven years. 
 
 Area and Population. — France has a total area of 207,054 
 square miles. The area of the French colonies and depend- 
 encies throughout the world is 4,367,746 square miles. Total 
 population (1911) of France proper, 39,601,509. 
 
 Imports and Exports. — The total imports in 1912 amount- 
 ed to $1,534,515,000; exports, $1,280,816,000. Exports to the 
 United States in 1913, $136,877,990; imports from, $146,100,- 
 201. The chief exports are textiles, wine, raw silk, wool, 
 small wares and I'^ather; imports, wine, raw wool, raw silk, 
 timber and wood, 'eather, skins and linen. 
 
 rope's map often changed 
 
 Whatever th(> .mal outcome of the war of 1914, it is more 
 than probable th t the map of Europe will once more be 
 changed. From :^he earliest days the story of the nations 
 at war is one of never-ending shifting of dominion. The 
 boundary lines of European countries have been like the desert 
 sands. 
 
 The greatest of military authorities has made an analysis 
 of the history of mankind, showing that in 3,357 years — from 
 1496 B. C. to 1861 A. D. — there were 227 years of peace and 
 3,130 years of war, or more than a dozen years of war for 
 every one which was without strife. The peace of Europe has 
 always been a myth. 
 
58 THE NATIONS AT WAR 
 
 In the last 250 years, wUcli is historically a comparatively 
 short time, one great nation, Poland, has been lost ; two others, 
 Germany and Italy, have come to their present national unity, 
 and numerous other lesser States — Holland, Belgium, Switzer- 
 land, Portugal and the Slav and Latin States of the Balkan 
 peninsula — ^have been battlegrounds, losing and gaining their 
 independence as if with the throw of the dice. 
 
 In point of numbers involved, no other war can be com- 
 pared to the present terrible conflict enshrouding the greater 
 part of Europe, but in one year 1,300,000 men were called out 
 and most of them perished, in the campaign of 1814. Between 
 1804 and 1815 Napoleon sent to their death more than 1,700,000 
 Frenchmen, to whom must be added probably 2,000,000 men 
 born outside of France. Napoleon changed more boundary 
 lines than any other man. 
 
 Europe was devastated by the Thirty Years* War of Ger- 
 many, the last great combat between Catholicism and Protes- 
 tantism early in the seventeenth century. Germany, a federa- 
 tion of States, was then called the Holy Roman Empire. The 
 House of Hapsburg ruled the empire, Richelieu, the great 
 French statesman, who had no religious prejudices and desired 
 to crush the Hapsburgs, aided the Protestants. The war swept 
 over Germany, Sweden, France and the Netherlands. When 
 it ended Switzerland and the United Netherlands were freed 
 from German dominion, and the States of what is now Ger- 
 many were conceded to be separate from the Hapsburg rule 
 and to be autonomous, or having the right of self-government. 
 France penetrated to the east by the cession of the bishoprics 
 of Metz, Toul and Verdun. Alsace went from Austrian hands 
 to France. Sweden, great on the sea, received enough territory 
 in North Germany to command the mouths of the three German 
 rivers, the Oder, Elbe and Weser. 
 
 The largest territory received by any of the German States 
 was by Brandenburg, which later became Prussia and finally 
 Germany. In 1701 the Elector Frederick of Brandenburg took 
 the title of King of Prussia, and Prussia came to be the ex- 
 ponent of German nationalism and enmity to Hapsburg domi- 
 
THE NATIONS ^T WAR 59 
 
 nation. Frederick the Great, ancestor of the present Kaiser, 
 Wilhehn II, reigned in Prussia from 1740 to 1786 and found 
 his opportunity to lead his nation to greater power in the War 
 of the Austrian Succession. 
 
 The ' ' Succession "Wars ' ' were five in number. The result 
 of the first one — of the Spanish Succession — early in the 
 eighteenth century, was to give Austria the Spanish Nether- 
 lands, and the duchies of Milan, Naples and Sardinia. Savoy, 
 a leader in Italian affairs, exchanged Sardinia for Sicily. Eng- 
 land gained Gibraltar and Arcadia in America from the 
 French. The War of the Polish Succession, ending in 1738, 
 brought France to guarantee it would not interfere with the 
 ascendancy of Maria Theresa to the throne of Austria. 
 
 FREDERICK MADE A NEW MAP 
 
 It was at this point that Frederick the Great interfered. 
 He reasserted an old claim to Austria's throne and invaded 
 Silesia, adding it to Prussia's territory. 
 
 The growth of Russia is closely related to the history of 
 Sweden, even as it is now through Russia's suzerainty over 
 Finland. Sweden had come into power when Charles XII 
 crushed a coalition of Denmark, Poland and Russia. In 1709 
 he invaded Russia and was defeated. Peter the Great then 
 seized Sweden east of the Baltic and built St. Petersburg. 
 
 The history of Poland is one of gradual decline in power 
 from the middle of the eighteenth century, due in large part 
 to the loose system of government and weak rulers. In 1772 
 Prussia, Austria and Russia got parts of Poland. Kosciuszko 
 drove the Russians from Warsaw, but internal dissension 
 ruined the Polish cause, and the final partition came in 1795. 
 
 The wars of Napoleon Bonaparte from the first brilliant 
 Italian campaign to their end at Waterloo, are records of ter- 
 ritorial aggrandizement for France and the house of Bona- 
 parte. In the first campaign Italy became the Cisalpine Re- 
 public, and Genoa the Ligurian Republic. This was in the time 
 of Napoleon's democratic sympathies. Austria was forced to 
 give up the lower Netherlands — Belgium and Lombardy. 
 
 Napoleon became First Consul of France in 1799. Pied- 
 mont and Parma were annexed in 1802. When his ideas of 
 
60 THE NATIONS AT WAR 
 
 democracy grew dim and he became Emperor in 1804 he made 
 himself King of Italy and annexed his Ligurian Eepublic. 
 
 THE EFFECT OF AUSTERLITZ 
 
 The next campaign was against the Russian, Austrian and 
 English coalition. Vienna was occupied and the battle of 
 Austerlitz again made a new map necessary. Francis I of 
 Austria ceded Tyrol and Venetia. His successor gave up the 
 title of Emperor and the Holy Roman Empire dissolved into 
 history. 
 
 In 1806 Napoleon formed the Confederation of the Rhine, 
 made his brothers, Joseph, King of Naples, and Louis, King 
 of Holland. Prussia entered the war and Napoleon entered 
 Berlin. He made a treaty with Russia to crush England. 
 Portugal, an English ally, was dismembered. Spain was con- 
 quered and Joseph Bonaparte became its King. The Swedish 
 revolution in 1809 brought Marshal Bemadotte, a brother-in- 
 law of Joseph, to the Swedish throne. Jerome Bonaparte got 
 the Kingdom of Westphalia. Tuscany was annexed in 1807, 
 the Papal States in 1809 and Holland and part of the German 
 coast in 1810. Austria gave up its Illyrian provinces. 
 
 The tide turned with the Russian invasion, after Russia 
 went over to England in 1812. In swift succession came the 
 terrible reverses of the Franco-Russian campaign, the defen- 
 sive campaign of 1814, the abdication, the One Hundred Days 
 and Waterloo. The Congress of Vienna rearranged the map 
 of Europe and France went back to its place west of the Rhine. 
 Belgium was annexed by Holland, and was freed only when 
 the Catholics of Belgium revolted against Protestant Holland 
 in 1830. 
 
 The Congress of Vienna also prepared the way for Italian 
 unity. Seven principal States were mapped out and only two 
 left under foreign rule, French Corsica and Austrian Lom- 
 bardy and Venetia. Unification came under Victor Em- 
 manuel n. 
 
 The loosening of Turkish rule in Eastern Europe came in 
 1829, when Greece won its independence, aided by Russia. 
 Bulgaria, Herzegovina, now one of Austria's troublesome 
 Slavic States, Servia and Montenegro became independent in 
 
THE NATIONS AT WAR 61 
 
 1875. Roumania was freed two years later. In the treaty of 
 Berlin, 1879, Bosnia and Herzegovina went to Austria. 
 
 THE FRANCO-PKUSSIAN WAR OF 1870-71 
 
 The war of France with Prussia in 1870-71, in which the 
 latter was joined by the South German States, contrary to 
 the expectation of France, was due largely to the action of the 
 great Prussian statesman, Bismarck. It resulted in the com- 
 plete defeat and downfall of Napoleon III, the establishment 
 of the French Republic, and the unification of the German 
 States under Wilhelm I, King of Prvissip. The immediate 
 cause of France's declaration of war, July 12, 1870, was the 
 attempt of Bismarck to place Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern 
 on the throne of Spain, in succession to Queen Isabella, who 
 had been driven from the throne. 
 
 Paris clamored for war and the streets of the French capi- 
 tal resounded with cries of ' ' On to Berlin ! ' ' But a rude awak- 
 ening was in store for the French. As the French army moved 
 toward the Rhine, the old feeling of a unified Germany took 
 firm hold in every German State and a solid front was pre- 
 sented to the common enemy's advance. 
 
 The German army, under the military genius, Von Moltke, 
 was mobilized and on the border in a miraculously short time. 
 The world was amazed at the rapidity displayed. England 
 declared its neutrality, and Russia, Prussia's friend, then 
 threatened Austria with invasion if that country offered 
 France aid. 
 
 Meanwhile in Paris even the Emperor became aware that 
 no nation so unprepared as his could ever hope to win against 
 on^ already mobilized and on the frontier. There was not an 
 arm of the French service fit for war at that time. Arms, 
 ammunition, clothing, food, transportation, horses, medicine, 
 all were inadequate or lacking. The ministry had grossly de- 
 ceived the Emperor and involved the nation in a struggle, the 
 end of which easily could be foreseen. 
 
 Alsace and Lorraine were invaded by the Germans, who de- 
 feated MacMahon August 6 at Worth and sent his army in 
 flight toward Paris. After one or two small reverses at the 
 
62 THE NATIONS AT WAR 
 
 beginning of the war, the success of the Germans was almost 
 continuous. While MacMahon was retreating, another French 
 army was beaten and pushed toward Metz, which was strongly 
 fortified and under command of Bazaine. Metz was cut off 
 und besieged. MacMahon was ordered back to relieve Bazaine, 
 but he was met at Sedan September 2, and after a heavy battle 
 was compelled to surrender. With him was the Emperor, 
 Napoleon III. Nearly half the French army was killed. 
 
 THE SIEGE OF PAKIS 
 
 When Paris learned the stunning news the empire came to 
 an end. A Republic was declared and preparations made to 
 defend the city. The French spirit now was aroused, and in 
 spite of the humiliation of successive defeats in the past two 
 months, it continued with a much smaller force to resist the 
 German advance on Paris. The capital was invested by the 
 German army September 19, 1870, and until the last of Jan- 
 uary the garrison made a heroic defense. 
 
 The seat of government had been transferred to Tours and 
 Bordeaux, and the depleted nation raised armies in the prov- 
 inces and continued resistance to the invaders. After holding 
 out to the end of October, Metz surrendered, and by this and 
 the fall of Strasburg, almost 200,000 Frenchmen became pris- 
 oners of war. These events sealed the fate of the capital, and 
 it settled down to resist so long as its supplies lasted. At the 
 point of starvation it gave up January 28, 1871. Peace was 
 concluded at Versailles, and the vanquished nation promised 
 to pay Germany $1,000,000,000 in three years, support the 
 German army until it was withdrawn, and give up Alsace and 
 a part of Lorraine. 
 
 Another humiliation imposed by Bismarck upon the beaten 
 country was his choice of Versailles as the place at which to 
 seal German unity by the coronation of William I as Emperor. 
 The South German States were taken into the confederation 
 and the German Empire was established. This took place 
 January 18, 1871. 
 
 GERMANS ENTER PARIS 
 
 On March 1, 1871, the Germans entered Paris through tfie 
 Arc de Triomphe — the triumphal arch Napoleon had erected 
 
THE NATIONS AT WAR 63 
 
 in honor of France's conquests in Prussia and elsewhere. As 
 the victorious Germans rode into the city a swarm of Paris 
 street boys ran on every side of them, burning disinfectants 
 in shovels, as though protecting the Parisians against some 
 loathsome disease — an amazing insult that was not lost on the 
 conquerors. 
 
 The war that had crushed France and that had paid the last 
 fearful price of Napoleonism had also welded the many sepa- 
 rate German States into one mighty empire, with the Prussian 
 monarch at its head. 
 
 King William of Prussia, first Emperor of Germany, was 
 the grandfather of the present Kaiser. 
 
 France was beaten. The old motto ; ' * Vae Victis ! " ('' Woe 
 to the Conquered") still holds good in European wars. And 
 France was forced to settle. The patriotic French people 
 eagerly subscribed to the war debt of a billion dollars and 
 worked like mad to pay it off. But France paid heartbrokenly, 
 and has ever since yearned and prayed for the hour of revenge. 
 
 Roughly speaking, the losses on both sides (in hmnan life) 
 were: 
 
 Germans, 28,000 killed, 101,000 wounded and disabled. 
 French, 156,000 killed, 143,000 wounded and disabled, 720,000 
 surrendered. 
 
 ALSACE-LOKRAINE A RICH PRIZE 
 
 German unity changed the map of Europe but very little. 
 However, in that slight cession of Alsace and Lorraine to 
 Germany after the war, were sown the seeds of hatred between 
 the French and the Germans. 
 
 That corner of Europe known as Alsace-Lorraine covers 
 about 5,000 square miles to the west of the River Rhine and 
 has been one of the richest portions of the German Empire. 
 It has 2,000,000 people, the population of Strasburg, the 
 capital, being 160,000. Alsace-Lorraine is rich in coal and its 
 cities are the seats of manufacturing industries. Muelhausen, 
 the scene of recent battles, is the seat of cotton weaving. 
 Alsace, rich and fertile, produces more wines than the rest 
 of Germany. Wheat, rye and barley are large products. 
 
 Many of the people of Alsace-Lorraine removed to France 
 
64 THE NATIONS AT WAR 
 
 to escape the policy of Germany, which was to Teutonize it 
 by enforced use of the German language. For the most part 
 the mihtary party enforced its policy of a rule by force and 
 this kept alive rather than crushed the love for France. 
 
 The country is highly developed, is covered with a network 
 o± railroads, and, m addition, there is a system of canals which 
 provides cheap transportation. 
 
 JAPAN ENTEKS THE WAE 
 
 It became evident very early in the war that active steps 
 would be taken by Japan to support the interests of its 
 ally, England, m the Far East. On Saturdav, August 
 15, an ultimatum was sent by Japan to Germany demanding 
 the withdrawal of German warships from the Orient and the 
 evacuation of Kiaochow, and giving Germany until Sunday, 
 August 23, to comply with the demand. Otherwise, the ulti- 
 matum declared, Japan would take action. The text of the 
 ultimatum follows : 
 
 **We consider it highly important and necessary in the 
 present situation to take measures to remove the causes of 
 all disturbances of the peace in the far east, and to safeguard 
 the general interests as contemplated by the agreement of 
 alhance between Japan and Great Britain. 
 
 DEMANDS WARSHIPS WITHDKAW 
 
 /'In order to secure a firm and enduring peace in eastern 
 Asia, the establishment of which is the aim of the said agree- 
 ment, the imperial Japanese government sincerely believes 
 it to be its duty to give the advice to the imperial German 
 government to carry out the following two propositions : 
 
 /* First. To withdraw immediately from Japanese and 
 Chinese waters German men-of-war and armed vessels of all 
 kinds and to disarm at once those which cannot be so with- 
 drawn. 
 
 ''Second. To deliver on a date not later than September 
 15 to the imperial Japanese authorities without condition or 
 compensation the entire leased territory of Kiaochow with a 
 view to the eventual restoration of the same to China. 
 
THE NATIONS AT WAR 65 
 
 ''The imperial Japanese government announces at the 
 same time that in the event of it not receiving by noon on 
 August 23, 1914, an answer from the imperial German gov- 
 ernment signifying its unconditional acceptance of the above 
 advice offered by the imperial Japanese government, Japan 
 will be compelled to take such action as she may deem neces- 
 sary to meet the situation. ' ' 
 
 There being no answer from Germany when the time set 
 by the ultimatum expired, Japan declared war and proceeded 
 to send an expedition to operate against Kiaochow. 
 
 HOW GERMANY GOT KIAOCHOW 
 
 Germany's acquisition of Kiaochow, the evacuation of 
 which Japan demanded, followed closely upon the acquisi- 
 tion of areas of interest and spheres of influence in China to 
 foreign powers. Until 1895 no foreign power aside from the 
 Portuguese and English had been allowed to hold possessions 
 on or near the coast of China. Japan acquired Formosa by 
 treaty in that year. Russia secured a concession for the 
 Manchurian railway and France obtained a rectification of 
 the frontier at Tongking. 
 
 Germany's seizure of Kiaochow in retaliation for the mur- 
 der of German missionaries by Chinese followed in IsTovem- 
 ber, 1897, and in March the port with adjacent territory was 
 leased by China to Germany for ninety-nine years. The 
 district was declared a protectorate of the Germans to expire 
 on April 27, 1898, and its administration was intrusted to the 
 navy department with a naval officer as governor. 
 
 RUSSIA LEASES PORT ARTHUR 
 
 In November, 1897, Russia obtained a twenty-five year 
 lease of Port Arthur and Talienwan with 800 square miles 
 of territory, and secured a naval base and an ice free port. 
 In the following May further concessions gave Russia virtual 
 control of Manchuria and a little later Russian influence was 
 extended into Mongolia. 
 
 The Russo-Japanese war, however, limited Russia's ac- 
 tivities there and resulted in Japan's acquisition of Port 
 Arthur. To preserve the balance of power Great Britain 
 
66 
 
 THE NATIONS AT WAR 
 
 April 2, 1898, leased Weihaiwei on the same terms as those 
 in the Russian lease of Port Arthur. 
 
 ENGLISH INFLUENCE FELT 
 
 In February, 1898, Great Britain had established its in- 
 fluence without claiming exclusive privileges in the Yangtze 
 valley. These concessions, were followed by similar privi- 
 leges for France, which on April 3, 1898, leased the port of 
 
 A 
 
 ...^« 
 
 c / 
 
 ClARKSIS. 
 
 ::^ 
 
 CHOW 
 
 TAU) MARIANNE OR 
 
 /LADRONE IS. *^ 
 
 CAROLINE IS. 
 
 ^ •• ., ^-MARSHALL IS. 
 ^^ C 
 
 y^'-^SOLOMON IS. . 
 
 O'^-J ^.-^SAMOAIS, 
 
 ^ijy \, AAUPQLU IS. 
 
 
 FIJI ■ 
 
 ■TUTUILAIS. 
 
 Y'PAGO PAGO 
 T (US) 
 ^•TAU IS 
 
 WHERE JAPAN ENTERED THE WAR 
 The circles on this map surround Germany's Pacific possessions 
 
 Kwangchauwan on the southern coast for ninety-nine years. 
 On June 9, following. Great Britain leased for ninety-nine 
 years a 200 square mile extension of territory on the main- 
 land opposite Hongkong and about the same time Japan 
 secured nonalienation pledges concerning the province of 
 Fukien. Italy demanded a lease of Sanmun Bay, but did not 
 press it because of popular opposition as expressed at home 
 to a policy of expansion. 
 
 LEADS TO ''open DOOR" DECLARATION 
 
 All these territorial negotiations led up to the celebrated 
 international ''open door" declaration. While England had 
 
THE NATIONS AT WAR 
 
 67 
 
 long urged the policy of equality of opportunity for all nations 
 in Chinese trade the United States accomplished the first 
 broad recognition of that principle. 
 
 As a result of negotiations by John Hay, the American 
 secretary of state, Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, 
 Russia and Japan early in 1900 agreed in guaranteeing the 
 treaty rights of the United States and thus, through the most 
 favored nation clause, the treaty rights of other nations in 
 China should remain unimpaired in the territory except mili- 
 tary or naval stations acquired or leased by each power, and 
 that goods of the treaty powers should continue to be ad- 
 mitted there on equal terms with those of the nation newly in 
 possession. 
 
 Great Britain and Germany supplemented this on October 
 16, 1900, by a definite agreement between them to uphold the 
 policy of an open door in China, to abstain from seizure of 
 territory themselves and to influence other governments, as 
 far as possible, to the same end. 
 
 The Anglo-Japanese alUance of February, 1902, for the 
 protection of their respective interests in China and Korea 
 was another factor of great importance. The inimediate ob- 
 ject of the alliance was understood to be the limitation of 
 Russian expansion in Korea and Manchuria. 
 
 THE AGE OF "EFFICIENCY. 
 
 — Chicago Daily News 
 
THE FRANCO-GERMAN BORDER 
 At the north, a German Army from Luxemburg' took Longwy after a long 
 siege and advanced toward Paris via Verdun, while another German Army 
 was overrunning Belgium. L<un§ville, further south, was also taken by a Ger- 
 man force advancing eastward on the road to Paris. At the extreme south 
 the French crossed through the passes of the Vosges (the mountain range 
 between France and Alsace), and took Miilhausen and Altkirch. This invasion, 
 however, was checked and the French forces were compelled to retire. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE INVASION OF BELGIUM 
 
 Belgians Rush to Defense of Their Frontier — Towns Bom- 
 barded and Burned— The Defense of Liege^—A German 
 Officer's Experience — An Englishman's Story- — The 
 Terrible Krupp Siege Guns — Destruction of Louvain — 
 Fall of Namur — German Proclamation to Inhabitants. 
 
 AT 10 o'clock on the night of August 2 German troops 
 crossed the Belgian frontier, coming from Aix-la- 
 Chapelle, or Aachen, temporary headquarters of the gen- 
 eral staff, and the bloody invasion of Belgium, involving the 
 violation of its neutral treaty rights, began. Simultaneously 
 the German forces entered the independent duchy of Luxem- 
 burg to the south, en route to the French border, and also 
 came in touch with French outposts in the provinces of Alsace 
 and Lorraine. 
 
 The events that followed in Belgium furnished a genuine 
 surprise to the world. Instead of finding the Belgian people 
 indifferent to the violation of their territory and the Belgian 
 army only a slight obstacle in the road to Paris, as was prob- 
 ably expected by the German general staff, a most gallant and 
 determined resistance was offered to the progress of the Ger- 
 man hosts. The army of the little State was quickly mobilized 
 for defense and its operations, while ineffectual in stopping 
 the Kaiser's irresistible force, delayed its advance for three 
 invaluable weeks, giving time for the complete mobilization of 
 the French and for the landing of a British expeditionary force 
 to co-operate with the latter in resisting the German approach 
 to Paris. 
 
 Just across the Belgian border lay the little towns of Vise 
 and Verviers, and these were the first objects of German at- 
 tack and Belgian defense. Both were occupied after desperate 
 resistance by the Belgians and Vise was partly demolished by 
 
 69 
 
70 
 
 INVASION OF BELGIUM 
 
 fire in reprisal, it was claimed, for the firing by civilians on 
 the German invaders. The subsequent bombardment and 
 burning of towns and villages by the Germans were explained 
 in every case as measures of revenge for hostile acts on the 
 part of non-combatants and intended to prevent their occur- 
 rence elsewhere by striking terror into the hearts of the Bel- 
 gian populace. Whatever the pretext or the excuse, the his- 
 torical fact remains that the result of the German progress 
 
 NORTH 
 
 SEA 
 
 —From the literary Digest— Copyright, 1914. by Funk & Wagnalls Company. 
 
 BELGIUM— THE FIRST BATTLEFIELD OF THE WAR 
 The map shows the more important railroad lines connecting the cities of 
 Brussels, Antwerp and Namur and those of Northern France. Paris is 200 
 miles by rail from Brussels and 190 from Namur. 
 
INVASION OF BELGIUM 71 
 
 toward the Franco-Belgian frontier constituted a martyrdom 
 for Belgimn and gained for the plucky little kingdom the full- 
 est sympathy of the civilized world. 
 
 THE ATTACK ON LIEGE 
 
 The ancient city of Liege was attacked by the German 
 artillery on August 4. The town itself was occupied five days 
 later, but the modern forts surrounding it continued for some 
 time longer to hold out against the fierce German attack. It 
 became necessary to bring up the heaviest modern Krupp siege 
 guns in order to reduce them. 
 
 Amidst all the plethora of events which crowded them- 
 selves into the first few days following the outbreak of the 
 war, none was more remarkable than the Belgian stand at 
 Liege against the German advance. 
 
 The struggle round Liege bids fair to become historic, and 
 the garrisons of the Liege forts when they looked out fear- 
 lessly from the banks of the Meuse on the vanguard of the 
 German host, and took decision to block its further progress, 
 proved their claim once again to Julius Caesar's description of 
 their ancestors, * ' The Belgians are the bravest of the Gauls. ' ' 
 
 THE FALL OF LIEGE 
 
 News of the fall of Liege and the occupation of the city 
 by German troops was received with great rejoicing in 
 Berlin on August 8th. Dispatches received at Amster- 
 dam from the German capital said: 
 
 The news of the fall of Liege spread with lightning rapidity 
 throughout Berlin and created boundless enthusiasm. The 
 Emperor sent an aide-de-camp to announce the capture of 
 the city to crowds that assembled outside the palace. 
 
 Policemen on bicycles dashed along Unter den Linden pro- 
 claiming the joyful tidings. Imperial Chancellor Bethmann- 
 Hollweg drove to the castle to congratulate the Emperor on 
 the victory and was enthusiastically cheered along the way. 
 
 The newspapers declared that false reports which were 
 known to have been circulated in foreign countries, that the 
 Germans suffered a severe reverse before Liege, would no 
 longer serve to conceal Germany's triumphs.. The Lokai An- 
 zeiger said of the reported victory: 
 
72 INVASION OF BELGIUM 
 
 ^*It confirms our confidence that we can calmly await com- 
 ing events. It was the prelude to deeds which will be spoken 
 of as long as men live on earth." 
 
 Another paper said : ' ' When our soldiers in the field learn 
 of the surrender of Liege they will rejoice not only for the 
 victory of our arms, but because of the assurance it gives that 
 our march through Northern France cannot be stayed.*' 
 
 GERMAN OFFICEe's EXPERIENCE AT LIEGE 
 
 A vivid description of the fighting before Liege was given 
 by a German officer who was seriously wounded in the battle. 
 He described his experiences and feelings in a letter which 
 read, in part, as follows : 
 
 ' * Our trip to the Belgian border was a triumphal proces- 
 sion. It was pouring rain as we marched through the Ardennes. 
 The towns seemed deserted. We had no rest and during the 
 night were fired upon. 
 
 ''At 5 a. m. August 6 we marched through the Ourthe val- 
 ley, meeting obstacles everywhere. It was an awful march; 
 the roads were blocked by felled trees and bowlders ; of bridges 
 there were only remnants. In the afternoon we took up quar- 
 ters in a village south of Liege. 
 
 ''Seven o'clock. An alarm is sounded; the captain shouts 
 ' Storm Liege ! ' It is impossible. We cannot go farther ; the 
 forts are thirty-five kilometers away, but we press on. 
 
 "Thirty minutes pass and we are fired upon from the 
 heights. Now shots are fired directly at us from nearer points. 
 We draw our revolvers and rush forward. 
 
 "The field is alive with troops of all arms. It is raining 
 in torrents ; a thunderstorm is roaring and the night is pitch 
 dark. We press on. We see soldiers fall. Now they fall in 
 masses and do not rise. The sky clears, the moon shines ; we 
 hear cannonading. 
 
 "Suddenly we hear that our baggage has been attacked. 
 One company turns back. The village has been burned down ; 
 all the people shot. Such are the atrocities of the franc- 
 tireurs (guerrillas, or civilian 'snipers'). 
 
 "Meanwhile we keep on, close to Liege, and turn off behind 
 the wood. Four regiments lay down their knapsacks and 'iron 
 
INVASION OF BELGIUM 73 
 
 rations' are taken out. The last exhortation is given; we 
 form in ranks for the charge. 
 
 *' Shells whiz past, but without aim. We gallop by our 
 artillery, stuck helplessly in the mud up to the hubs. A 
 wild hail of bullets burst on us from a point directly opposite. 
 Our own men are firing upon us, but just in time we are 
 recognized. 
 
 ' ' Now we are directly in front of the firing line of the forts. 
 There is wild clamoring. The parole ' Woerth ' is given. Friend 
 and enemy look alike. 
 
 COMRADES SLAIN BY HIS SIDE 
 
 **I am lying before a barricade of trees and barbed wire, 
 with my comrade, Lieut. G., on my left and the captain on my 
 right. Shells explode all around; everywhere is the infernal 
 noise of musketry fire. 
 
 *'The air is hot. A few yards ahead we may get better 
 cover. I nudge Lieut. Gr. and ask, ' Shall we go forward ? ' No 
 answer. He is dead. The captain jumps to his feet and falls 
 back ; he is shot in the breast. I raise my arm, the company 
 responds to my word of command. 
 
 ^'I rush forward. A terrible blow throws me back three 
 feet. I have received a shell in the left thigh. The pain is 
 terrible. Before me an officer calls out his name, holds out his 
 hand to me and then falls back — dead. 
 
 ' * In f roi^t of me there is a flag and I try to crawl up to it. 
 The bearer is dead. A second shot strikes me in the left arm ; 
 a third in the right arm ; I bite the earth with pain. 
 
 **A few steps in front are the Belgian rifle pits. Our men 
 advance. I lie in one place nearly twelve hours, yet, despite 
 the hail of bullets, nothing happens to me. 
 
 *'A doctor comes with bandages. At noon I am carried 
 away. Shivering with fever, I meet our regiment. Its losses 
 are terrible — three captains, six lieutenants, nearly all from 
 my battalion. 
 
 ' ' I am taken to a field hospital. During tbe first few days 
 I suffer terribly, but now I am much better. There are others 
 who have to suffer greater pain than I ; that makes one keep 
 quiet. 
 
74 INVASION OF BELGIUM 
 
 ' * I have lost everything. The clothes I wore were so soaked 
 with blood that they were burned. A Russian brought me some 
 underwear and a sympathetic little woman is washing and 
 mending a uniform for me. ' ' 
 
 AN ENGLISH STOCKBBOKEE^S STOEY 
 
 Another story is told by Guy M.enzies, an English stock- 
 broker, who has a residence in Belgium and came through 
 Liege after the German occupation. He said that the Germans, 
 although they had gained the city, were not very joyful over 
 their success, as they had before them the problem of getting 
 out of the city again, the forts outside being capable of a 
 cross-fire that would leave them little chance of making an 
 exit save with heavy losses. He speaks of boulevards lined 
 with Maxims, and of being astonished at the small amount of 
 damage that had been done in the town. Two bridges had been 
 blown up, and the other two were heavily guarded by the 
 Germans. From Liege Mr. Menzies managed to make his way, 
 with various narrow escapes both from the French and Ger- 
 mans, towards Verviers. His^story follows: 
 
 ** After I had passed Vaux-sous-Chevremont I began to see 
 some of the terrible ravages which the German advance had 
 brought about. At Eomsee village, with about five hun- 
 dred inhabitants, every house had been burned down by the 
 Germans. 
 
 "At this point three corps were firing, and I had some 
 marvelous escapes from their shells. The Germans were ad- 
 vancing from Herve through Soumagne and Zhendelesse and 
 were pillaging the village of Maquee. As I passed through, 
 women and children were flying away from their homes with 
 terror-stricken cries, not knowing where to go. 
 
 ''When I reached Fleron the people were so terrified no 
 one would take me in for the night or give me any food. I had 
 to push on as far as Berne. I started again at 4 a. m. on 
 Monday, but I lost my way and got to Soiron. 
 
 RESULTS OF BELGIAN FIRE 
 
 * ' There I saw more terrible traces of the fire of the forts of 
 Liege. The German field guns were lying by the side of the 
 road disabled, with dead horses still in their harness. The 
 
INVASION OF BELGIUM 75 
 
 ground was littered with hundreds of corpses of German 
 soldiers that had not been buried. The men were lying very 
 close together, indicating that they were being put forward in 
 close order. The wounds inflicted by the shell fire were ter- 
 rible, and I hurried away from the scene as quickly as I could. 
 
 *'I got to my house at Petit Eochain at 8:30 Monday 
 (August 9), having passed through Verviers. My friends 
 were very scared and begged me to leave again as soon as 
 possible. 
 
 ''Leaving Petit Rochain Wednesday, August 11, still on 
 foot, I made my way for the Dutch frontier through Berneau 
 and Moland. At Berneau, as I passed through, a great German 
 army was encamped. There must have been nearly 100,000 
 men of all arms, among them the Death's Head Hussars, of 
 which the Crown Prince is the colonel. 
 
 ''Near Verviers I saw two huge guns nine meters long 
 being drawn along a road by thirty horses attached to each. 
 At Magnee they were bringing up howitzers. The Germans 
 were trying to make pontoon bridges over the Meuse at Vise, 
 but as soon as they were completed I saw them destroyed by 
 shot from Fort Pontisie. I was told this had happened twenty 
 times before. 
 
 "At Louvain we found King Albert in consultation with 
 the general staff, his majesty dressed in a general's field uni- 
 form. He looked smiling and confident. The roads leading 
 into Brussels were crowded with mournful processions of Red 
 Cross wagons bringing in the wounded, both Belgian and Ger- 
 man ; walking by the side of the carts and comforting the suf- 
 ferers were numerous priests and monks bearing a Red Cross 
 badge. The scene was piteous and moved all beholders to 
 tears. 
 
 ' ' Soldiers returning from the front were greeted along the 
 road by innumerable women and children, who handed them 
 bottles of wine, bread and meat, and did not forget to be repaid 
 with a kiss. ' ' 
 
 A TERRIBLE GERMAN" WEAPON" USED AT LIEGE AND NAMUR 
 
 The monster siege guns or mortars used by the Germans 
 against the forts of Liege and afterward at Namur appear to 
 
76 INVASION OF BELGIUM 
 
 have been a secret product of the Krupp gun factories and 
 were described by an American correspondent at Berlin in 
 September as follows : 
 
 * ' The pinnacle of German war science is the 42-centimeter 
 (16.5 inch) Krupp mortar, the most miraculous and powerful 
 weapon designed in the history of war. 
 
 ''The Krupp mortar is the one unique and astonishing 
 product of this month of fighting. It has smashed apparently 
 impregnable fortifications like those of Liege and Namur, has 
 been battering at the perfect defenses of Antwerp, and is ex- 
 pected by German artillerists to blow open a roadway to Paris. 
 
 ' ' Mentioned by thousands, the Krupp mortar is known only 
 by a few. The gun was invented eight years ago, but only those 
 in the confidence of the Krupps know who the inventor is. He 
 may be marooned with his secret, for he holds in his grasp the 
 destiny of Germany. 
 
 *'For eight years the Krupps worked at the secret while 
 guarding it with most rigorous precautions. This year they 
 perfected it. This mortar fires the largest and most dangerous 
 projectile ever shot from a weapon. In making it no single 
 workman worked on more than one small piece, and one vital 
 part of the machinery was made in Austria. 
 
 KEPT SECEET FROM COMMITTEE 
 
 ' 'Even the artillery subcommittee of the Bundesrath was 
 not informed this year. It was merely asked to withhold 
 debate on the artillery situation, as something 'extraordinary' 
 was being provided. That something extraordinary was first 
 seen when the Liege forts, which could withstand any artillery 
 fire known to Belgian officers, collapsed like shanties, burying 
 hundreds of the garrison under the wreckage. 
 
 "At Namur the same story was repeated. I have just read 
 an account in an English newspaper of the capture of Namur, 
 in which it is said that two French regiments coming to the 
 relief of the garrison, found such carnage that they retired in 
 awe. But the surprise of the Belgians was no greater than 
 that of the German artillery officers themselves, who watched 
 incredulously the miracle of the Krupp mortar. All that the 
 official dispatches told the German public was that ' the enemy- 
 had not reckoned on the power of our artillery. ' 
 
INVASION OF BELGIUM 77 
 
 GUNNERS RETIRE TO A TUNNEL 
 
 ' ' So far as I can learn, what was done at Liege was this : 
 "At some distance from a fort a space was cleared and a 
 great mortar set in a concrete bed occupying a circle with 
 a radius of 100 feet. Behind the mortar and outside this circle 
 was a tunnel leading to a subterranean chamber. The great 
 mortar was sighted, the projectile was set in place and then 
 the gunners retired to their underground chamber, where they 
 pressed a button and the mighty shot was fired. 
 
 * ' The concussion was terrible. Anything within fifty feet 
 of the gun at the time of explosion would be injured. Even 
 men in the neighboring armies complained of headaches and 
 toothaches from the jar and the same complaints were made 
 by the men in the forts where the projectiles exploded. 
 
 PASSES THROUGH THREE WALLS 
 
 "The projectile pierced through one, two and three ordi- 
 narily impenetrable walls and buried itself in a fourth. Here 
 it lay silent many seconds, then exploded like a volcano, bring- 
 ing to the ground in ruins every stone which had stood upon 
 another. 
 
 "A shot fired into the center of a fort buried itself deep in 
 the ground and lay there as though gathering strength for its 
 demoniacal eruption. Then, after twenty seconds, it exploded 
 and razed the proudest walls in Belgium. 
 
 * ' Each shell costs $2,500. What it contains nobody but the 
 Krupps know. It is brought to the battlefield in pieces and 
 assembled by the highest paid and most trusted of the Krupp 
 engineers. It is aimed and loaded by them and not one member 
 of the artillery corps in the Kaiser's army has anything to do 
 with it. The slogan of these men is ^ One shot for one fort. ' 
 
 KRUPPS RECENTLY IN DISGRACE 
 
 * ' Not a year ago the name of Krupp was disgraced through- 
 out the world. Yet the Krupps in applying modern science at 
 Essen at that time had built the most remarkable community 
 of comfortable homes in existence and by modern science had 
 provided for their men in a maimer surpassed by no other con- 
 cern. The same science working along different lines built the 
 Krupp 42-centimeter mortar. 
 
78 
 
 INVASION OF BELGIUM 
 
 ' ' There is something significant in this combination. This 
 science is German and not the Krupps '. It is willing to work 
 for peace and happiness, but it has proved that it can work for 
 war. The Germans are working for the survival of the most 
 scientific. ' ' 
 
 GENERAL LEMAN S EEPOET 
 
 General Leman, the Belgian commander who gained fame 
 for himself by his defense of the Liege forts, was captured by 
 the Germans. When made a prisoner, he sent a letter to King 
 
 LIEGE AND ITS RING OF FORTS 
 
 Albert in which he tells how he held the Liege forts after 
 August 6, when only the temporary arrest of the foe seemed 
 longer possible. The letter read as follows : 
 
 ''After the honorable engagement of August 4, 5 and 6, 
 I considered that the Liege forts could only play the role of 
 forts of arrete (arrest or stoppage). I, nevertheless, main- 
 tained the military government in order to co-ordinate the de- 
 fense as much as possible and to exercise a moral influence 
 upon the garrison. 
 
INVASION OF BELGIUM 79 
 
 ''Your Majesty is not ignorant that I was at Fort Loncin 
 on August 6 at noon. You will learn with grief that the fort 
 was blown up yesterday at 5 :20 in the afternoon, the greater 
 part of the garrison being buried under the ruins. That I did 
 not lose my life in that catastrophe is due to my escort, who 
 drew me from a stronghold whilst I was being suffocated by 
 gas from exploded powder. I was conveyed to a trench, where 
 I fell. A German captain gave me a drink and I was made a 
 prisoner and taken to Liege. 
 
 ''I am certain that I have shown carelessness in this letter, 
 but I am physically shattered by the explosion of Fort Loncin. 
 In honor of our arms I have surrendered neither the fortress 
 nor the forts. 
 
 "I deign to ask your pardon, sire. In Germany, where I 
 am proceeding, my thoughts will be, as they always have been, 
 of Belgium and the King. I would willingly have given my life 
 the better to serve them, but death was not granted to me. 
 
 ' * Lieutenant-Genekal Leman.'^ 
 
 General Leman's letter furnishes direct confirmation of 
 the effect of the new ' ' Krupp mortar" (Germany's tremendous 
 engine of death) at Liege. 
 
 BLEW UP HIS rOKT 
 
 The French war office issued a report showing the valor of 
 Major Nameche, the commanding officer of Fort Chaudfon- 
 taine, one of the Liege strongholds, which commanded the 
 railroad to Aix-la-Chapelle by Verviers and the tunnel to 
 Chaudfontaine. 
 
 A continual and extremely violent bombardment reduced 
 the fort to a mere heap of ruins. Major Nameche judged that 
 further resistance was impossible, blocked up the tunnel by 
 running several locomotives into each other and set fire to the 
 fuses leading to the mines surrounding the forts. 
 
 His mission then accomplished, Major Nameche, deter- 
 mined that the German flag should not fly even over the ruins 
 of his fort, blew up the powder magazine, and perished. 
 
 PEASANTS AND TOWNSPEOPLE FLEE 
 
 Following the fall of Liege came a number of sanguinary 
 engagements in northern Belgium ; the unopposed occupation 
 
80 INVASION OF BELGIUM 
 
 of Brussels on August 20, and a four days ' battle beginning on 
 August 23, in which the Germans forced back the French and 
 British allies to the line of Noyon-LaFere across the northern 
 frontier of France. In the northern engagements the Belgians 
 gave a good account of themselves, but were everywhere forced 
 to give way before the innumerable hosts of the Kaiser, though 
 not without inflicting tremendous losses on the invaders. 
 
 The retirement of the civilian population before the ad- 
 vancing masses of the German army was a pathetic spectacle. 
 It was a flight in terror and distress. 
 
 On Tuesday, August 18, the German troops surged down 
 upon Tirlemont, a town twenty miles southeast of Louvain, 
 around which they had been massing for some days, presum- 
 ably by rail and motor cars. The stories which had reached 
 the inhabitants of Tirlemont of the happenings at surrounding 
 towns and villages had not added to their peace of mind, and 
 soon the moment for flight arrived. All kinds of civilians set 
 out towards Brussels and Ghent for refuge. At times the road 
 was full of carts bearing entire families, with pots and pans 
 swaying and banging against the sides as the vehicles bumped 
 over the roadway. The younger women, boys and menfolk 
 who had been left in the towns and villages fled on foot. 
 Priests, officials and Red Cross helpers mingled with the 
 crowd. This stream of unfortunates uprooted from their 
 homes was thus described by an eyewitness : 
 
 "These masses of broken-hearted people moved silently 
 along, many weeping, few talking. With them they brought 
 a few of their possessions, as pathetically miscellaneous as 
 the effects one might seize in the panic haste of a hotel fire. 
 Ox wagons, bundles and babies on dog-drawn carts or on men 's 
 backs, bicycles and handcarts laden with kitchen utensils, all 
 mingled with the human stream. Here were to be seen sewing 
 machines, beds, bedding, food, and there a little girl or boy 
 with some toy clasped uncomprehendingly in a dirty hand; 
 they also knew that danger threatened and that they must 
 save what they held most dear. And even among these un- 
 happy people there were some more unfortunate than the 
 others — men and women who had no bundle, children who 
 had no doll. All the way to Louvain there flowed this human 
 
INVASION OF BELGIUM 81 
 
 stream of misery. Back along the Tirlemont road rifle firing 
 could be heard and entrenchments were to be seen in the town 
 itself." 
 
 These scenes between Tirlemont and Louvain were typical 
 of those on every road leading to the larger cities of Belgium 
 as the inhabitants fled before the approach of the dreaded 
 Uhlans. 
 
 FAIiL OF NAMUE 
 
 On the afternoon of Sunday, August 23, the fortress of 
 Namur was evacuated by the Belgians, and the town was later 
 occupied by the Germans. 
 
 The fortress was said to be as strong as Liege and it owed 
 its importance in the present war to the fact that it was the 
 apex of the two French flanks. One ran from Namur to 
 Charleroi and the other by Givet to Mezieres. 
 
 Warned by their experiences at Liege, the Germans made 
 most determined efforts against Namur. From the north, 
 south and east they were able to bring up their big guns 
 unhindered, and by assaults at Charleroi and Dinant they 
 endeavored to break the sides of the French triangle. Namur 
 finally collapsed but clever strategy enabled the French to fall 
 back upon their main lines. 
 
 The fall of Namur, nevertheless, was a decided blow to the 
 allies. This was admitted by the French minister of war, 
 who said at midnight Monday, August 24, of the failure of the 
 ' ' Namur triangle ' ' : 
 
 ''It is, of course, regrettable that owing to difficulties of 
 execution which could not have been foreseen our plan of 
 attack has not achieved its object. Had it done so it would 
 have shortened the war, but in any case our defense remains 
 intact in the face of an already weakened enemy. Our losses 
 are severe. It will be premature to estimate them or to 
 estimate those of the German army, which, however, has 
 suffered so severely as to be compelled to halt in its counter- 
 attack and establish itself in new positions." 
 
 The object of the French triangle, having its apex at 
 Namur, was to break the German army in two. The British 
 troops, as related in another chapter, were cooperating with 
 the French at Mons. 
 
82 INVASION OF BELGIUM 
 
 Wlien the Belgians evacuated Namur the Germans had 
 knocked to pieces three of the forts to the northeast of the 
 town with howitzer fire. Between these forts they advanced 
 and bombarded the town, which was defended by the Belgian 
 Fourth Division. Namur was evacuated when the defenders 
 found themselves unable to support a heavy artillery fire. 
 
 The Germans attacked in a formation three ranks deep, 
 the front rank lying down, the second kneeling, and the third 
 standing. They afforded a target which was fully used by 
 the men behind the Belgian machine guns. Some fifty or sixty 
 howitzers were brought into action by the Germans, who 
 concentrated several guns simultaneously on each fort and 
 smothered it wdth fire. 
 
 DESTKUCTION OF LOUVAIN 
 
 At this stage of the war in Belgium an event occurred that 
 riveted universal attention upon the German operations. On 
 Tuesday, August 25, the beautiful, historic, scholastic city of 
 Louvain, containing 42,000 inhabitants, was bombarded by the 
 Germans and later put to the torch. The fire, which burned 
 for several days, devastated the city. Many artistic and 
 historical treasures, including the priceless library of Louvain 
 University and several magnificent churches, centuries old, 
 were totally destroyed. Only the Hotel de Ville (City Hall), 
 one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in Europe, 
 was spared and left standing in the midst of ruins. 
 
 The Rotterdam Telegraf, a neutral newspaper, declared 
 that in the devastation of Louvain ''a wound that can never 
 be healed ' ' w^as inflicted ' ' on the whole of civilized humanity. ' ' 
 Frank Jewett Mather, the well-known American art critic, 
 bitterly denounced the act as one of wanton destruction, saying 
 that Louvain ' ' contained more beautiful works of art than the 
 Prussian nation has produced in its entire history. ' ' 
 
 Richard Harding Davis, the noted correspondent, wit- 
 nessed part of the tragedy from the window of a car in which 
 he was held prisoner by the Germans, and said in the New 
 York Tribune : 
 
 *'For two hours on Thursday night I was in what for six 
 hundred years had been the city of Louvain. The Germans 
 
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 England's famous Field Marshal and" Secretary of State 
 
 for War, who lost his life at sea while on 
 
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 Boru, June 24, 1S50 
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Intemktlaiai News I 
 
 1. ClTic Guards Defending a Barricade Id Suburbs of Brussels. 
 
 2. Belgian Soldiers Dlgrrlng Trcnehes to Bury the Dead In a Harvest Field 
 
Copyr. UnaerwooA * Underwood. N. 1. 
 
 Captain William T. Tuknee, R. N. R. 
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The * ' Lusitania " entering Queenatown Harbor. 
 
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 1. Motor-Propelled Field Kitchen In which the Meals of the Crown Prince 
 
 of Oermany were Prepared while Leading His Army. 
 I. FleU Telnrraph Outfit at a Brigade Headquarters of the French Army. 
 
Oanngbt tr UndwwMd A Und«rwood. N. T. 
 
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 1. Servian Red Cross Nurses Ministering to the Wounded. 
 
 S. German Ambulance Corps at Work After a Battl*. 
 
(5> International Newg Serrtc*. 
 
 1. French Cuirassier Being Fed by Belgian Woman. 
 
 2. Major Richardson of the British Army and Two of His Bloodhound! 
 
 Us«4 to Find Wounded 8oldl«r« on Belirtan B»ttlftll«ld». 
 
Copyrlgbt by Underwood & Dnderwood, N. T. 
 
 BELGIAN SOLDIERS IN DEEP TRENCHES AT HOFSTADE — MANY MILES OF SIMILAR 
 TRENCHB8WERB OCCUPIED BY THESE GALLANT DEFENDERS OF THEIR COUNTRY 
 
 Sun Printing and Publishing Assn. 
 
 HIGHLANDERS, HOLDING ON TO THE STIRRUPS OF THE SCOTS GREYS, CHARGING , 
 WITH THE CAVALRY IN THB BATTLE AT ST. QUENTIN j 
 
INVASION OF BELGIUM 83 
 
 were burning it, and to hide their work kept us locked in the 
 railroad carriages. But the story was written against the sky, 
 was told to us by German soldiers incoherent with excesses ; 
 and we could read it in the faces of women and children being 
 led to concentration camps and of citizens on their way to 
 be shot. 
 
 ''The Germans sentenced Louvain on Wednesday to be- 
 come a wilderness, and with the German system and love of 
 thoroughness they left Louvain an empty, blackened shell. 
 The reason for this appeal to the torch and the execution of 
 non-combatants, as given to me on Thursday morning by 
 General von Lutwitz, military governor of Brussels, was this : 
 On Wednesday, w^hile the German military commander of the 
 troops in Louvain was at the Hotel de Ville talking to the 
 burgomaster, a son of the burgomaster, with an automatic 
 pistol, shot the chief of staff and German staff surgeons. 
 
 ''Lutwitz claims this was the signal for the Civic Guard, 
 in civilian clothes on roofs, to fire upon the German soldiers 
 in the open square below. He said also the Belgians had 
 quick-firing guns, brought from Antwerp. As for a week the 
 Germans had occupied Louvain and closely guarded all ap- 
 proaches, the story that there was any gun-running is absurd. 
 
 "Fifty Germans were killed and wounded. For that, 
 said Lutwitz, Louvain must be wiped out. 
 
 ' ' No one defends the sniper. But because ignorant Mexi- 
 cans, when their city was invaded, fired upon American sailors 
 and marines, we did not destroy Vera Cruz. Even had Vera 
 Cruz been bombarded, money could have restored it. Money 
 can never restore Louvain. Great architects and artists, dead 
 these six hundred years, made it beautiful, and their handi- 
 work belonged to the world. With torch and dynamite the 
 Germans have turned these masterpieces into ashes, and all 
 the Kaiser's horses and all his men can not bring them back 
 again. ' ' 
 
 AMEKICAN GIEL's AWFUL EXPEKIENCE 
 
 Here is the story of Marguerite Uyttebroeck, who lived 
 through the sacking of Louvain and reached London Septem- 
 ber 11 en route to the town where she was born — Assumption, 
 Illinois — the youngest child of a family numbering nine. 
 
84 INVASION OF BELGIUM 
 
 Marguerite, aged 19, was sure that only her aged mother, 
 who was with her, is ahve. Three weeks before all her 
 brothers and sisters were together with their parents in a 
 farmhouse on the outskirts of Louvain. 
 
 "My mother and father," the girl began, ''went to the 
 United States from Belgium twenty-five years ago and settled 
 at Assumption. We farmed there, but a year ago we all 
 moved back to Louvain, where father bought a farm outside 
 the city and renewed old acquaintances., 
 
 "There was fighting beyond Louvain the whole day and 
 night before the Belgian soldiers began to run through the 
 town with the Germans hot on the trail. We all hid at first and 
 watched the pursuit between the shutters, but when the first 
 scare was over we sat on the doorsteps and saw the parade of 
 the German soldiers with their bands playing and their good 
 order. 
 
 "Nobody had an idea they would harm us, and it was 
 almost like going to a theater to see them march by. They 
 didn 't pay any attention to us for a time, but when the soldiers 
 were dismissed they began getting drunk. Then things be- 
 came bad. 
 
 "I was at a friend's house in the city, and the first thing 
 I knew the house next door was on fire. 
 
 "When we tried to rush out into the street bullets came 
 against the door like hail. My girl friend's father and mother 
 were killed in their own vestibule. We turned around and 
 ran upstairs to the attic and stayed there until flames began 
 coming through the walls. Then we got on to the roof and 
 climbed along over other roofs to the end of the street, got 
 down through the house and out into the back garden over 
 the wall, and began to run through the fields toward my house. 
 
 "It was dark. We ran almost into two Uhlans. One of 
 them had an electric torch. He flashed it in my face and 
 asked me where I was going. 
 
 "When I told him in English that I was going to my house, 
 he asked if I was English. I told him I was an American, but 
 he only laughed. He was going to dismount when his horse 
 took fright at something, pitched him on the ground and 
 stunned him. I fled while the other Uhlan was caring for his 
 cotorade. 
 
INVASION OF BELGIUM 85 
 
 ''When I reached my house I found the Germans had taken 
 father and my four brothers prisoners, and had taken them 
 away — where, mother did not know. 
 
 *'As we were trying to decide what to do another company 
 of German soldiers came along, rode over the fence, and set 
 fire to the house and barns. My two sisters told the soldiers 
 what they thought of such wickedness and the last I saw of 
 them they were being carried off by half a dozen soldiers, 
 and never came back. 
 
 ''While the fire was burning fiercely I suddenly remem- 
 bered a piece of paper a priest gave my mother in Assumption, 
 Illinois, when I was born. It was in my room and was my only 
 proof that I was an American. 
 
 "So I ran around the house, climbed up over the trellis, 
 and got into my room, already full of smoke. I took the paper, 
 and then, with my mother, got back to the city and put her 
 in a friend's house. 
 
 "I started looking for my father, brothers, and sisters. 
 My hunt lasted five days and nights, and during that time I 
 saw many terrible sights. 
 
 ' ' On the sixth day it was announced that trains would take 
 us to Germany, and when the soldiers came they told some old 
 men to line up and march to the station. They obeyed gladly. 
 When they got to the station they were lined up against a wall 
 and shot. 
 
 "If the Belgian commission wants eyewitness proof of 
 atrocities in Louvain I can tell them the names of women 
 I saw outraged and then thrown into a fire, and other things 
 even worse." 
 
 The girl, with her mother, sailed for New York September 
 12th on the Megantic. 
 
 GERMAN REPORT ON LOUVAIN 
 
 An official communication of the German general staff 
 on the occurrences at Louvain, Belgium, dated August 30th 
 and made public September 19, 1914, was as follows : 
 
 "The city of Loewen (Louvain) had surrendered and 
 was given over to us by the Belgian authorities. On Mon- 
 day, August 24th, some of our troops were shipped there and 
 
86 INVASION OF BELGIUM 
 
 intercourse with the inhabitants was developing quite 
 friendly. 
 
 ' ' On Tuesday afternoon, August 25tli, our troops, hearing 
 about an imminent Belgian sortie from Antwerp, left in that 
 direction, the commanding general ahead in a motor car, 
 leaving behind only a colonel with soldiers (landsturm bat- 
 talion 'Neuss') to protect the railroad. As the rest of the 
 commanding general's staff with the horses was going to 
 follow and was collected on the market place, suddenly rifle 
 fire opened from all the surrounding houses, all the horses 
 being killed and five officers wounded, one of them seriously. 
 
 ' ' Simultaneously fire opened at about ten different places 
 in town, also on some of our troops just arrived and waiting 
 on the square in front of the station and on incoming military 
 trains. A designed cooperation with the Belgian sortie from 
 Antwerp was established beyond a doubt. 
 
 PEIESTS SHOT PUBLICLY 
 
 ''Two priests caught in handing out ammunition to the 
 people were shot at once in front of the station. 
 
 ''The fight lasted till Wednesday, the 26th, in the after-, 
 noon (twenty-four hours), when stronger forces, arrived in 
 the meantime, succeeded in getting the upper hand. The 
 town and northern suburb were burning at different places 
 and by this time have probably burned down altogether. 
 
 ' ' On the part of the Belgian Government a general rising 
 of the population against the enemy had been organized for 
 a long time. Depots of arms were found, where to each gun 
 was attached the name of the citizen to be armed. 
 
 NOT WITHIN HAGUE AGEEEMENTS 
 
 "A spontaneous rising of the people has been recognized 
 at the request of the smaller states at the Hague conference 
 as being within the law of nations, as far as weapons are 
 carried openly and the laws of civilized warfare are being 
 observed ; but such rising was only admitted in order to fight 
 the attacking enemy. 
 
 ' ' In the case of Loewen the town already had surrendered 
 without any resistance, the town being occupied by our 
 troops. Nevertheless, the population attacked on all sides 
 
INVASION OF BELGIUM 87 
 
 and with a murderous fire the occupying forces and newly- 
 arriving troops, which came in trains and automobiles, know- 
 ing the hitherto peaceful attitude of the population. 
 
 ' ' Therefore, there can be no question of means of defense 
 allowed by the law of nations, nor a w^arhke guetapens (am- 
 bush), but only of a treacherous attempt of the civil popula- 
 tion all along the line, and all the more to be condemned as 
 it was apparently planned long beforehand with a simulta- 
 neous attack from Antwerp, as arms were not carried openly, 
 and w^omen and young girls took part in the fight and blinded 
 our wounded, sticking their eyes out. 
 
 ''severest measures justified" 
 
 "The barbarous attitude of the Belgian population in all 
 parts occupied by our troops has not only justified our sever- 
 est measures, but forced them on us for the sake of self- 
 preservation. The intensity of the resistance of the popu- 
 lation is shown by the fact that in Loewen twenty-four hours 
 were necessary to break down their attack. 
 
 "We, ourselves, regret deeply that during these fights 
 the town of Loewen has been destroyed to a great extent. 
 Needless to say that these consequences are not intentional 
 on our part, but cannot be avoided in this infamous franc- 
 tireur war being led against us. 
 
 "Whoever knows the good-natured character of our troops 
 cannot seriously pretend that they are inclined to needless 
 or frivolous destruction. 
 
 "The entire responsibility for these events rests with 
 the Belgian Government, which with criminal frivolity has 
 given to the Belgian people instructions contrary to the law 
 of nations and incited their resistance, and which, in spite of 
 our repeated warnings, even after the fall of Luettich (Liege), 
 have done nothing to induce them to a peaceful attitude. ' ' 
 
 BELGIANS DENY CIVILIAN FIRING 
 
 The third section of the report of the Belgian commission 
 appointed to inquire into alleged breaches of international law 
 by the Germans was published September 20th and denied 
 the Geraian allegation that the inhabitants of Louvain 
 
88 INVASION OF BELGIUM 
 
 brought on the destruction of the town by firing on the 
 Germans. It follows in part: 
 
 "The inhabitants of Louvain took no part in the fighting. 
 Moreover, the destruction of the town came eleven days after 
 the last Belgian troops had evacuated the district. Witnesses 
 declare that the first shots were fired by intoxicated German 
 soldiers at their own officers. Another fact established is 
 as follows: 
 
 ''A crowd of 6,000 to 8,000 men, women and children were 
 taken by the One Hundred and Sixty-second Eegiment of 
 German Infantry August 28th to the Louvain Biding School, 
 where they spent the night. The place of confinement was 
 so small that all had to remain standing. The sufferings 
 were so great that several children died in their mothers' 
 arms and a number of women lost their reason." 
 
 PEOCLAMATION TO CONQUEEED TOWNS 
 
 The commanders of the German troops issued a proclama- 
 tion to the inhabitants of every Belgian town they occupied, 
 as follows : 
 
 *' Citizens — A body of the German army under my com- 
 mand has occupied your city. Inasmuch as the war is carried 
 on only between the armies, I guarantee in due form the 
 life and private property of all the inhabitants under the 
 following conditions : 
 
 *'l. The inhabitants must strictly avoid every hostile 
 act against the German troops. 
 
 **2. Food and forage for our men and horses are to be 
 furnished by the inhabitants. Every such delivery will be 
 paid for at once in coin, or a receipt will be issued, to bq 
 redeemed after the termination of the war. 
 
 "3. The inhabitants are to house our soldiers and horses 
 in the best manner, and to keep their houses lighted at night. 
 
 "4. The inhabitants are to put the roads in a passable 
 condition, to remove all obstacles erected by the enemy and 
 to give the best support to our troops in order that they 
 may be able to fulfill their task, doubly difficult in a hostile 
 land. I shall adopt the most stringent measures as soon as 
 the above conditions are not observed. 
 
INVASION OF BELGIUM 89 
 
 ''Every citizen will be shot who is found with a weapon 
 in his hands or committing any act whatever hostile to our 
 troops." 
 
 DAMAGE TO VILLAGES NEAR NAMUR 
 
 The Namur newspaper, L'Ami de I'Ordre, which was for 
 a time published under German censorship, gave a detailed 
 summary of the buildings destroyed and the civilians killed 
 in adjacent towns and villages, as follows: 
 
 Tamines, 100 houses and 80 killed ; Gelbressee, 19 houses ; 
 Franc- Waret, 16 killed; Wartel, 19 houses; Temploux, 18 
 houses and 2 killed; St. Gerard, 30 houses; Oret, 50 houses 
 and the town hall ; Bremer, 70 houses and 15 killed ; Ermeton- 
 Sur-Biert, 85 houses ; Stare, 60 houses ; Moriahne, 15 houses ; 
 Cleriux, many houses and many persons ; Boussulez-Walcourt, 
 54 houses; Gresnas les Courbin, almost destroyed; Mariem^ 
 bourg, almost destroyed; Baeswaever, many houses; Wavre> 
 many houses. 
 
 GERMAN SUCCESSES IN BELGIUM 
 
 From the German standpoint, the invasion of Belgium 
 as part of the planned march to Paris, though it met with 
 unexpected resistance, was successful. The first round of 
 the great international conflict ended with the honors on 
 the German side, though the round was not decisive. The 
 Anglo-French allies met with several serious reverses and 
 the power and mobility of the German military machine was 
 demonstrated. Though halted and perhaps seriously delayed 
 at Liege and Namur, it * ' rolled back the allies ' defense from 
 Switzerland to the North Sea." The Belgian army, with 
 French aid, kept the Germans from entering Brussels until 
 August 20th and then retired behind the forts at Antwerp. 
 The Kaiser's troops then overran practically all of Belgium, 
 took Namur, fought back the British at Mons, forced the 
 Allies south over the border at several points, and finally 
 succeeded in occupying Lille, Roubaix: and Valenciennes on 
 the first line of French defense against invasion from the 
 north. Simultaneously the French towns of Long^vy and 
 Luneville, to the east, were gained after severe fighting, 
 
90 INVASION OF BELGIUM 
 
 while the French invasion of Alsace-Lorraine, at first suc- 
 cessful, was speedily checked. 
 
 Thus when the first month of war ended, the Germans had 
 made good with their plan of seizing Belgium as a base of 
 operations against France and had arrived in full force at 
 the first line of French defenses, well on the way to the 
 coveted goal, Paris. 
 
 But poor little Belgium, the *' cockpit of Europe,** ran 
 red with blood. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 SURRENDER OF BRUSSELS 
 
 Belgian Capital Occupied by the Germans Without Blood- 
 shed — Important Part Played by American Minister 
 Brand Whitlock — March of the Kaiser's Troops 
 Through the City — Belgian Forces Retreat to Antwerp 
 — Zeppelin Attacks on Antwerp — Dinant and Ter- 
 monde Fall. 
 
 AFTER the usual reconnoissances by Uhlans and motor- 
 cycle scouts, the van of the German army arrived at 
 Brussels, the capital city of Belgium, on August 20. 
 The seat of government had been removed three days before 
 to Antwerp. The French and Russian ministers also moved 
 to Antwerp, leaving the affairs of their respective countries 
 in the hands of the Spanish legation. Brand Whitlock, United 
 States minister to Belgium, remained at Brussels and played 
 an important part in negotiations which led to the unresisted 
 occupation and march through the city by the Germans in 
 force on August 21 and the consequent escape of Brussels 
 from bombardment and probable ruin. 
 
 At the approach of the German army the inhabitants of 
 the capital were stricken with fear of the outcome. When the 
 Belgian civic guards and refugees began pouring into the city 
 from the direction of Louvain, they brought stories of un- 
 speakable German atrocities, maltreatment of old men and 
 children, and the violation of women. 
 
 ''The Belgian capital reeled with apprehension," said an 
 American resident. ' ' Within an hour the gaiety, the vivacity, 
 and brilliancy of the city went out like a broken arclight. The 
 radiance of the cafes was exchanged for darkness ; whispering 
 groups of jesidents broke up hurriedly and locked themselves 
 into their homes, where they put up the shutters and drew 
 in their tricolored Belgian flags. 
 
 91 
 
92 SURRENDER OF BRUSSELS 
 
 ' ' The historic Belgian city went through a state of morbid 
 consternation, remarkably like that from which it suffered on 
 June 18, 1815, when it trembled with the fear of a French vic- 
 tory at Waterloo. 
 
 ' ' In less than twenty-four hours the Belgian citizens were 
 chatting comfortably with the German invaders and the alle- 
 gations of German brutality and demoniacal torture dissolved 
 into one of the myths which have accompanied all wars. 
 
 ''Neither in Brussels nor in its environs was a single of- 
 fensive act, so far as I know, committed by a German soldier. 
 In a city of over half a million people, invaded by a hostile 
 army of perhaps a quarter of a million soldiers, no act, suf- 
 ficiently flagrant to demand punishment or to awaken protest 
 came to my attention. ' ' 
 
 SUKEENDER OF CITY DEMANDED 
 
 Prior to the occupation the German commander had sent 
 forward a flag of truce demanding the surrender of the city. 
 This was at midnight of Wednesday, Augnist 19. The Belgian 
 commandant replied that he was bound in honor to defend 
 the town. 
 
 Brand Whitlock, the United States minister, then came to 
 the fore. He recommended to the commandant and to Burgo- 
 master Max the unconditional surrender of the city, pointing 
 out how resistance might bring increased misfortune on the 
 citizens. But the military commander remained adamant until 
 orders arrived from King Albert consenting to the surrender 
 of the city. 
 
 Mr. Whitlock was later congratulated officially by the king 
 for his action. Undoubtedly he had a great deal to do with 
 saving Brussels. 
 
 GERMAN MARCH A WONDERFUL SIGHT 
 
 The German entry into Brussels was a wonderful and im- 
 pressive sight. Never, probably, was there a military spec- 
 tacle on so vast a scale that went on without a hitch. 
 
 *'It was impossible to believe," said an eyewitness, ''that 
 these men had been fighting continuously for ten days or that 
 they had even been on active service. First of all came a few 
 cyclists, then a detachment of cavalry; then a great mass of 
 
SURRENDER OF BRUSSELS 93 
 
 infantry; then machine guns and field guns and more infan- 
 try ; then huge howitzers ; then a pontoon train and then more 
 infantry from Thursday until Sunday morning without a 
 break. 
 
 ' ' The pontoon trains were impressive. The pontoons were 
 carried upside down on trolleys drawn by six horses. All 
 cavalry horses, as well as the horses of the artillery and com- 
 missary, were in wonderful condition. 
 
 ^ ' The men also were very fresh and keen. Each company 
 was accompanied by a traveling stove, the fire of which was 
 never out. There always was some hot drink ready for the 
 troops, and the German soldiers told me that it is only this hot 
 coffee and soup which keeps them going on long forced 
 marches. 
 
 ' ' The inhabitants of Brussels turned out by thousands to 
 watch this endless procession of Germans as they marched, 
 singing all sorts of songs and national airs. They sang in ex- 
 cellent tune, one company taking up the refrain as soon as an- 
 other stopped. Like everything else, their singing is organ- 
 ized perfectly. 
 
 "An aeroplane kept its station ahead of the advancing host 
 and it signaled both day and night by dropping various col- 
 ored stars. What these signals meant we did not know, but 
 all movements of the troops were regulated by them. 
 
 * * I became overwhelmed after watching this immense mass 
 of men marching by without a hitch for three days. I never 
 believed such a perfect machine could exist. 
 
 ''In all about 250,000 men passed through and thousands 
 more never entered the city, but marched south direct from 
 Louvain. These German soldiers, many of them, marched 
 thirty miles daily for six successive days. Some were so weary 
 that they slept as they walked and occasionally one fell ex- 
 hausted, whereupon an officer would kick and prod until he 
 awoke him. The man was then given hot coffee. The men are 
 slaves of discipline and routine." 
 
 THRILLING PICTUEE OF THE SCENE 
 
 An even more vivid picture of the march of the mighty 
 German host through Brussels was given by Richard Harding 
 
94 SURRENDER OF BRUSSELS 
 
 Davis, who in the New York Tribune described his impres- 
 sions of the stream of armed men, roUing like fog through the 
 echoing streets continuously for three days. It bore no resem- 
 blance to a parade or review, for these are human things, and 
 as Mr. Davis said: 
 
 ' ' The entrance of the German army into Brussels soon lost 
 the human quality. It was lost as soon as the three soldiers 
 who led the army bicycled into the Boulevard du Eegent, and 
 asked the way to the Gare du Nord. When they passed, the 
 human note passed with them. 
 
 "Wliat came after them, and twenty-four hours later was 
 still coming, was not men marching, but a force of nature like 
 a tidal wave, an avalanche, or a river flooding its banks. At 
 this minute it is rolling through Brussels as the swollen waters 
 of the Conemaugh Valley swept through Johnstown. 
 
 ''At the sight of the first few regiments of the enemy we 
 were thrilled with interest. After, for three hours, they had 
 passed in one unbroken steel-gray column, we were bored. But 
 when hour after hour passed and there was no halt, no breath- 
 ing time, no open spaces in the ranks, the thing became un- 
 canny, unhuman. You returned to watch it, fascinated. It 
 held the mystery and menace of fog rolling toward you across 
 the sea. 
 
 THE DISGUISING GKAY-GKEEN" UNIEOEMS 
 
 ''The gray of the uniforms worn by both officers and men 
 helped this air of mystery. Only the sharpest eye could de- 
 tect, among the thousands that passed, the slightest differ- 
 ence. All moved under a cloak of invisil3ility. Only after the 
 most numerous and severe tests at all distances, with all ma- 
 terials and combinations of colors that give forth no color, 
 could this gray have been discovered. That it was selected to 
 clothe and disguise the German when he fights is typical of 
 the German staff in striving for efficiency to leave nothing to 
 chance, to neglect no detail. 
 
 "After you have seen this service uniform under condi- 
 tions entirely opposite, you are convinced that for the German 
 soldier it is his strongest weapon. Even the most expert 
 marksman can not hit a target he can not see. It is a gray- 
 green, not the blue-gray of the American Confederates. It is 
 
SURRENDER OF BRUSSELS 95 
 
 the gray of the hour just before daybreaji, the gray of unpol- 
 ished steel, of mist among green trees. 
 
 "I sc-w it first in the Grand Place in front of the Hotel de 
 Ville. It was impossible to tell if in that noble square there 
 was a regiment or a brigade. You saw only a fog that melted 
 into the stones, blended with the ancient house fronts ; that 
 shifted and drifted, but left you nothing at which you could 
 point. 
 
 ''Later, as the army passed below my window, under the 
 trees of the Botanical Park, it merged and was lost against 
 the green leaves. It is no exaggeration to say that at a hun- 
 dred yards you can see the horses on which the Uhlans ride, 
 but can not see the men who ride them. 
 
 "If I appear to overemphasize this disguising uniform it 
 is because, of all the details of the German outfit, it appealed 
 to me as one of the most remarkable. The other day, when I 
 was with the rear guard of the French Dragoons and Cuiras- 
 siers and they threw out pickets, we could distinguish them 
 against the yellow wheat or green corn at half a mile, while 
 these men passing in the street, when they have reached the 
 next crossing, become merged into the gray of the paving- 
 stones and the earth swallows them. In comparison, the yel- 
 low khaki of our own American army is about as invisible as 
 the flag of Spain. 
 
 GERMAN EQUIPMENT MOST THOEOUGH 
 
 ''Yesterday Major-General von Jarotzky, the newly- 
 appointed German military governor of Brussels, assured 
 Burgomaster Max that the German army would not occupy 
 the city, but would pass through it. It is still passing. I have 
 followed, in campaigns, six armies, but, excepting not even 
 the American army, the Japanese, or the British, I have not 
 seen one so thoroughly equipped. I am not speaking of the 
 fighting qualities of any army, only of the equipment and 
 organization. The German army moved into this city as 
 smoothly and as compactly as an Empire State Express. 
 There were no halts, no open places, no stragglers. 
 
 "This army has been on active service three weeks, and 
 so far there is not apparently a chin-strap or a horseshoe 
 missing. It came in with the smoke pouring from cook-stoves 
 
96 SURRENDER OF BRUSSELS 
 
 on wheels, and in an hour had set up post-office wagons, from 
 which mounted messengers galloped along the line of column, 
 distributing letters,'and at which soldiers posted picture post- 
 cards. 
 
 * ' The infantry came in in files of five, two hundred men to 
 each company ; the Lancers in columns of four, with not a pen- 
 nant missing. The quick-firing guns and field-pieces were one 
 hour at a time in passing, each gun with its caisson and am- 
 munition-wagon taking twenty seconds in which to pass. 
 
 ''The men of the infantry sang 'Fatherland, My Father- 
 land.' Between each line of song they took three steps. At 
 times two thousand men were singing together in absolute 
 rhythm and beat. When the melody gave way, the silence was 
 broken only by the stamp of iron-shod boots, and then again 
 the song rose. When the singing ceased the bands played 
 marches. They were followed by the rumble of siege-guns, 
 the creaking of wheels, and of chains clanking against the 
 cobblestones, and the sharp, bell-like voices of the bugles. 
 
 **For seven hours the army passed in such solid column 
 that not once might taxicab or trolley-car pass through the 
 city. Like a river of steel it flowed, gray and ghostlike. Then, 
 as dusk came and as thousands of horses' hoofs and thou- 
 sands of iron boots continued to tramp forward, they struck 
 tiny sparks from the stones, but the horses and the men who 
 beat out the sparks were invisible. 
 
 "At midnight pack-wagons and siege-guns were still pass- 
 ing. At 7 this morning I was awakened by the tramp of men 
 and bands playing jauntily. Whether they marched all night 
 or not I do not know ; but now for twenty-six hours the gray 
 army has rumbled by with the jmystery of fog and the per- 
 tinacity of a steam-roller. ' ' 
 
 HISTORIC TREASUEES OF BRUSSELS 
 
 The city of Brussels, thus occupied by the Germans, con- 
 tains art treasures that are priceless. The museum and pub- 
 lie galleries are filled with masterpieces of the Flemish and 
 old Dutch school, while the royal library comprises 600,000 
 volumes, 100,000 manuscripts and 50,000 rare coins. Unques- 
 tionably the Brussels Museum is one of the most complete on 
 the Continent. 
 
SURRENDER OF BRUSSELS 97 
 
 A prominent historic landmark of Brussels is the King's 
 House (also called the Dreadhouse), an ancient structure, re- 
 cently renovated. Within its walls both the Counts Egmont 
 and Hoorn spent the last night before their execution, in 1567, 
 by the hirelings of the Duke of Alva, the Spanish Philip II 's 
 tyrannical governor of the Netherlands, who, by means of the 
 sword and the Inquisition, sought to establish the Catholic 
 religion in those countries. Brussels boasts another historic 
 relic known the world over — the equestrian statue of Godfrey 
 of Bouillon, who led the Crusaders to the Holy Land. It 
 stands upon the Place Royale, and was unveiled in 1848. 
 
 The magnificent Town Hall of Brussels would probably 
 have suffered destruction, together with the city's other beau- 
 tiful buildings, had not the government yielded without a 
 struggle. 
 
 HEAVY WAR TAX LEVIED 
 
 General von der Goltz, appointed by the Kaiser military 
 governor of Belgium, levied a war tax of $40,000,000 on the 
 capture of the capital. Other cities occupied by the Germans 
 were also assessed for large sums, which in several instances 
 had to be paid immediately on pain of bombardment. It was 
 announced September 1 that the four richest men in Belgium 
 had guaranteed the payment to Germany of the war tax. The 
 four men were Ernest Solvay, the alkali king; Baron Lam- 
 bert, the Belgian representative of the Rothschilds; Raoul 
 Warocque, the mine owner, and Baron Empain, the railway 
 magnate. 
 
 BELGIAlSrS RETREAT TO ANTWERP 
 
 After the German occupation almost normal conditions 
 were soon restored in Brussels, so far as civic life was con- 
 cerned. It was speedily announced that the Germans intended 
 to regard the whole of Belgium as a German province and to 
 administer it as such, at least during the continuance of the 
 war. The Belgian army retired to the north within the forti- 
 fications of Antwerp, Vvhere they were joined by French 
 troops, but desultory fighting against the German invader 
 continued at many points and the Franco-British allies soon 
 came into contact with the advancing German army and dis- 
 
&8 SURRENDER OF BRUSSELS 
 
 puted its progress along the Mons-Charleroi line to the south 
 of Brussels, as related in a subsequent chapter. 
 
 The retreat of the Belgian forces to Antwerp has been 
 pronounced by military experts to have been a masterly piece 
 of precaution and strategy. It is said that nothing could have 
 been wiser than to forsake the unfortified town of Brussels, 
 and to become intrenched in a city like that of Antwerp, which 
 was surrounded by a strong series of almost unassailable re- 
 doubts. Moreover, with the establishment of the Belgian 
 headquarters at this point of defense the people of Holland 
 are said to have felt their neutrality was more than ever safe- 
 guarded and assured. The Paris Figaro said : 
 
 ''By the encampment of a large force of European allies 
 on the northwest of Belgium the safety of Holland is more 
 than ever assured. Holland is a country which depends alto- 
 gether upon the support and the neutral policy of adjacent 
 monarchies, hence the relief which was experienced by the 
 Queen of Holland when forces of France and Belgium took up 
 their position as a kind of outpost in Antwerp. Antwerp is 
 very well protected by fortifications, against which the Ger- 
 man cavalry will throw themselves in vain. ' * 
 
 ZEPPELIN ATTACK ON ANTWERP 
 
 The first German demonstration against Antwerp took the 
 form of a night attack on the sleeping city, August 24-25, by a 
 Zeppelin airship, which dropped eight bombs. The result, 
 according to the dispatches, was the killing of seven civilians, 
 four of whom were women, the wounding of eight others, and 
 the damaging of many buildings. Much indignation was ex- 
 pressed over this slaughter of non-combatants in their sleep, 
 and the Belgian Government determined to make it an inter- 
 national issue on the ground that the attack constituted a vio- 
 lation of Article XXVI of the Fourth Convention of The 
 Hague. This article provides that ''the officer in command 
 of an attacking force must, before commencing a bombard- 
 ment, except in cases of assault, do all in his power to warn 
 the authorities." The New York Staats-Z eitung , however, 
 maintained that this was "a hypocritical cry of protest," and 
 declared that, if the bombs had fallen on Berlin or Strasburg 
 
SURRENDER OF BRUSSELS 99 
 
 instead of Antwerp, * * the matter would be dismissed with the 
 statement that such is war. ' ' 
 
 ANOTHER ZEPPELIN ATTACK 
 
 The night of September 2 was signalized by a second Zep- 
 pelin attack on Antwerp. Several bombs were thrown and 
 considerable damage done. 
 
 William G. Shepherd, staff correspondent of the United 
 Press at Antwerp, forwarded an interesting description of the 
 attack. He said: 
 
 "Before this war, experts used to say perfection of terri- 
 ble instruments of killing would only tend to make war im- 
 possible. It doesn't do that, though. I watched the Zeppelin 
 dropping bombs upon Antwerp last night, and such perfection 
 only makes war more terrible, with a refinement of barbarism. 
 As I saw the Zeppelin depart it seemed that the best argument 
 against war was that it turned men into such merciless de- 
 mons as these Zeppelin murderers. 
 
 ''The wildest flights of imagination couldn't approach 
 what happened in Antwerp twelve hours ago. Early in the 
 evening a Belgian captain took me the rounds of his company 
 stationed in the center of the city. His men were divided into 
 small squads in a dozen streets. 
 
 ''They were sitting on the sidewalks with their backs 
 against the building walls, drinking hot coffee, which had been 
 brought to them in an automobile. It seemed that his men 
 were pretty well spread out in case of an attack by the Ger- 
 mans, but the captain said there were 30,000 soldiers scat- 
 tered over the city in the same way. Later the reason was 
 apparent. 
 
 "Not until 1 o'clock in the morning did the big red harvest 
 moon begin to sink. It left the streets in pitch darkness. The 
 city was so tranquil and still that the crackle of the dry au- 
 tumn leaves which had fallen from the elms in the public 
 square seemed noise. It was chilly, too, and the soldiers on 
 the sidewalks were wrapped up in their big overcoats, and 
 too drowsy or too comfortable to challenge. 
 
 AWAKENED BY SOLDIERS 
 
 "An hour and a half later I was awakened by soldiers 
 talking excitedly in the street beneath my window:; But above 
 
100 SURRENDER OF BRUSSELS 
 
 the sound of their voices was another noise, a terrific whir- 
 ring, high in the air. I jumped from bed, rushed to the win- 
 dow and looked upward. There was a terrific explosion, far 
 away, a deep booming roar. A moment later a spark came 
 whirling and circling through the air like a shooting star gone 
 mad. It sank into the skyline of roofs and another explosion 
 boomed out. 
 
 ''And then up against the stars I saw the Zeppelin, per- 
 haps a mile high and out over the outskirts of the town. 
 
 ''Another spark fell and there was a third explosion. Then 
 a new sound filled the air. It began far away. It was the 
 rattle of rifles — thousands of them. The firing grew nearer 
 and louder. There were sharp orders. Under my window 
 the soldiers began to shoot, the flashes lighting my room. 
 They held their rifles straight upward. The sound grew 
 louder and louder. Within a minute the din was indescrib- 
 able. 
 
 30,000 MEN SHOOTING 
 
 ' ' Thirty thousand soldiers were shooting, each as fast as 
 he could fire with his magazine rifle. The orders were not to 
 try to hit the Zeppelin unless it was overhead. Every man's 
 duty was to shoot straight up. 
 
 ' ' They were filling the air with steel. They were putting 
 up a fence of metal a mile high around the city and palace. 
 They filled the air with death to anything that entered the 
 zone above Antwerp. The big guns in the forts around the city 
 began to boom. Aeroplane machine guns mounted on auto- 
 mobiles dashed about the streets, adding their burring, rat- 
 tling sound to the din. 
 
 "In the midst of it all there were eight more of the big 
 bass booms, the voice of the Zeppelin bombs, in quick succes- 
 sion. To the last, in the midst of the bullets and superhuman 
 confusion, the Germans in the Zeppelin had tried to stick to 
 the job. Two of the eight bombs fell within twenty and thirty 
 meters of the Red Cross hospitals ; the other six beat a Gar- 
 gantuan tattoo on the field around the wireless station, which 
 the airmen were e\'idently trying to destroy. The holes in the 
 earth about the station were each the size and shape of a cis- 
 tern. 
 
SURRENDER OF BRUSSELS 101 
 
 ''Ten minutes of firing had made tlie Antwerp sky un- 
 healthful. 
 
 "As the last batch of bombs went over the sides of the car 
 the balloon arose and sped away from the city. 
 
 "The firing died out slowly. Half an hour later the Zep- 
 pelin was reported at a point twelve miles away. Two chil- 
 dren, three women and five men had been injured — though 
 none seriously — and three houses destroyed. Nearly all the 
 terrified families of the city had taken refuge in the cellars, 
 for a week before the same Zeppelin had bombarded the town 
 and killed several persons. The bullets fired by the soldiers 
 came falling from the sky, but aside from breaking skylights 
 they caused no injury. Folks going to work this morning 
 picked them up for souvenirs. ' ' 
 
 During the month of September there were also several 
 cavalry and artillery attacks on Antwerp, but these were as a 
 rule easily repulsed by the forts and their Belgian defenders. 
 
 THE CITY AND PORT OF ANTWERP 
 
 Antwerp is one of the largest, most modernly equipped and 
 efficient ports in Europe. It is only a short distance across 
 the English Channel, and is the head of 1,200 miles of canals 
 in Belgium which connect with the canal systems of Holland, 
 France and Germany. On the harbor alone over $100,000,000 
 has been spent and extensions are in progress which will cost 
 $15,000,000 more. 
 
 For the prosperity of Belgium, Antwerp is many times 
 more important than Brussels, the capital. While the country 
 has an enormous amount of coal and many factories and other 
 industries, these would be of little value without the imports 
 which enter through Antwerp. 
 
 The city has about 360,000 inhabitants. Although located 
 fifty-three miles inland on the Scheldt Eiver, it has natural 
 advantages for harbor purposes which have l3een recognized 
 since the seventh century. Napoleon looked over the spot and 
 started large harbor construction. 
 
 LEGEND OF THE GIANT 
 
 The origin of the first inhabitants of the city is unknown, 
 but their commercial nature makes itself manifest in the se- 
 
102 
 
 SURRENDER OF BRUSSELS 
 
 lection of the city site, and this nature seems to have been 
 transmitted to those who now operate the port. 
 
 In all of the jewelry shops of Antwerp can be found sou- 
 venir spoons of the hand of a man. The legend goes that long 
 years ago a terrible giant levied a tax on all goods going up 
 or coming down the river, to half the value of the goods. He 
 cut off and threw into the Eiver Scheldt the right hand of any 
 person who infringed this tariff. The souvenir spoons relate 
 
 ANTWERP AND ITS FORTIFICATIONS 
 
 to this old yarn. In addition the Flemish word ''antwerpen" 
 is supposed to have originated in the word for hand and the 
 word "werpen," to throw. 
 
 A lieutenant under Julius Caesar is said to have gone to 
 Antwerp and engaged the terrible giant in a battle. The 
 giant 's head was ordered severed from his body, and his hand 
 was cut off and thrown into the river. This fable is incor- 
 porated in a statue that stands opposite the town hall in Ant- 
 werp. 
 
SURRENDER OF BRUSSELS 103 
 
 Ever since that time, according to popular belief, Antwerp 
 has encouraged commerce. Over eighty different steamboat 
 lines use the docks and quays. The passenger lines include 
 boats to New York and Boston, New Orleans, London, Liv- 
 erpool, Manchester, Grimsby, South American ports, Cuba, 
 the Congo, East and South Africa and the far East. 
 
 In 1912 a total of 6,973 ocean-going vessels entered the 
 port, and 41,000 other vessels. 
 
 Antwerp in 1870 ranked fifth in the ports of the world. 
 Today it is believed to be second or third. Ten years ago the 
 freight received from the inland was principally by the canals. 
 Approximately 2,300,000 tons were received by rail and 5,500,- 
 000 tons by canal boats. 
 
 This ratio has not been maintained, but the canal traffic 
 now is much larger than the rail tonnage. This gives an idea 
 of the extensive use to which the European countries put their 
 canals, and the reader may guess the value of the city at the 
 head of the canal system to the Germans. 
 
 BLOODLESS CAPITULATION OF GHENT 
 
 Historic Ghent, with its quarter of a million inhabitants, 
 was also surrendered peaceably to the Germans, and again 
 the energy and initiative of an American, United States Vice- 
 Consul J. A. Van Hee, had much to do with the avoidance of 
 tragedy and destruction. 
 
 Learning that the advance guard of the German army was 
 only a few miles outside the city, the burgomaster went out 
 on the morning of September 8 to parley with Gen. von 
 Boehn — in the hope of arranging for the German forces not 
 to enter. An agreement finally was reached whereby the Ger- 
 mans should go around Ghent on condition that all Belgian 
 troops should evacuate the city, the civic guard be disarmed, 
 their weapons surrendered, and the municipal authorities 
 should supply the Germans with specified quantities of pro- 
 visions and other supplies. 
 
 The burgomaster was not back an hour when a motor car 
 driven by two armed German soldiers appeared in the streets. 
 
 At almost the same moment that the German car entered 
 
104 SURRENDER OF BRUSSELS 
 
 the city from tlie south a Belgian armored car, armed with a 
 machine gun, mth a crew of three men, entered from the east 
 on a scouting expedition. 
 
 The two cars, both speeding, encountered each other at 
 the head of the Rue Agneau, directly in front of the American 
 consulate. Vice-consul Van Hee, standing in the doorway, 
 was an eyewitness to what followed. 
 
 The Germans, taken completely by surprise at the sight of 
 the foe's grim war car in its coat of elephant gray, bearing 
 down upon them, attempted to escape, firing with their car- 
 bines as they fled. Notwithstanding the fact that the side- 
 walks were lined with onlookers, the Belgians opened on the 
 fleeing Germans with their machine guns, which spurted lead 
 as a garden hose spurts water. 
 
 The driver, fearing the Germans might escape, swerved 
 his powerful car against the German motor precisely as a 
 polo player * ' rides off" his opponent. The machine gun never 
 ceased its angry snarl. 
 
 The Germans surrendered, both being wounded. 
 
 Appreciating that Ghent stood in imminent danger of 
 meeting the terrible fate of its sister cities, Aerschot and 
 Louvain, sacked and burned for far less cause, Mr. Van Hee 
 hurriedly found the burgomaster and urged him to go along 
 instantly to German headquarters. 
 
 They found General von Boehn and his staff at a chateau 
 a few miles outside the city. The German commander at 
 first was furious with anger and threatened Ghent with the 
 same punishment he had meted out to the other places where 
 Germans were fired on. Van Hee took a very firm stand, 
 however. He told the general the burning of Ghent would do 
 more than anything else to lose the Germans all American 
 sympathy. He reminded him that Americans have a great 
 sentimental interest in Ghent because the treaty of peace be- 
 tween England and the United States was signed there just a 
 century ago. 
 
 The general finally said: "If you will give me your word 
 that there will be no further attacks upon Germans in Ghent, 
 and that the wounded soldiers \vill be taken under American 
 protection and returned to Brussels by the consular authori- 
 
SURRENDER OF BRUSSELS 105 
 
 ties when they have recovered, I will agree to spare Ghent and 
 will not even demand a money indemnity. ' ' 
 
 The news that Mr. Van Hee had succeeded in his mission 
 spread through the city like fire in dry grass and when he re- 
 turned he was acclaimed by cheering crowds as the saviour of 
 Ghent. 
 
 THE burgomaster's APPEAL 
 
 Blazoned on the front of the Town Hall suddenly ap- 
 peared a great black-lettered document. It was a manly and 
 inspiring proclamation by the burgomaster, similar to the 
 splendid proclamation issued by M. Adolphe Max, burgomas- 
 ter of Brussels, just before the German entry. He assured the 
 inhabitants that he and all the town officials were remaining 
 in their places, and that so long as life and liberty remained 
 to him he would do all in his power to protect their honor 
 and their interests. He reminded them that under the laws of 
 war they had the right to refuse all in,formation and help to 
 the invaders; and called upon each citizen, or his wife, to 
 refuse such information and help. Finally, he urged the citi- 
 zens to remain calm, and stay in their homes. 
 
 ''Vive la Belgique! Vive Ghent!" The proclamation 
 ended in great capitals with this patriotic cry. 
 
 DINANT AND TERMONDE FALL 
 
 But other cities and towns of Belgium were not as for- 
 tunate as Brussels and Ghent in escaping damage and de- 
 struction. 
 
 Dinant, a town of 8,000 inhabitants, fifteen miles south of 
 Namur, and dating back to the sixth century, was partially 
 destroyed by the Germans in their advance on September 3 
 and 4. Early reports stated that a number of the most promi- 
 nent citizens had been executed, including Mr. Humbert, 
 owner of a large factory, who was slain in the presence of his 
 wife and children. 
 
 The Germans alleged that citizens had fired on them from 
 the heights about the city. They then drove all of the inhabi- 
 tants out, shot some of the men as examples, took the gold 
 from the branch of the National Bank and burned the business 
 section. 
 
106 SURRENDER OF BRUSSELS 
 
 On September 4 the town of Termonde met a similar fate. 
 This town, 16 miles from Ghent, was fired in several places 
 before the Kaiser's troops passed on. They also blew up a 
 bridge over the River Escaut to the north, seeming to re- 
 nounce for the moment their intrusion into the country of the 
 Waes district. Afterward they directed an attack against the 
 southwest front position of the Antwerp army and were re- 
 pulsed with great losses. 
 
 Describing the burning of Termonde by the Germans, a 
 Ghent correspondent said : 
 
 *'By midday Sunday the blaze had assumed gigantic pro- 
 portions and by Sunday evening not a house stood upright. 
 This was verified at Zele, where there were thousands of refu- 
 gees from Termonde. The Germans also pillaged Zele. The 
 suburb of St. Giles also suffered from bombardment and fire. ' ' 
 
 A courier who knew Termonde as a flourishing town with 
 fine shops, an ancient town hall of singular beauty and a num- 
 ber of churches of historic interest, found the place on Sep- 
 tember 11 a smoldering ruin, except for the town hall and one 
 church, on a stone of which he saw the inscription ''1311." 
 These two structures were left intact, without so much as a 
 broken window. 
 
 Termonde was burned for much the same reason as Lou- 
 vain. On September 4 a German force came back from the 
 field after having been severely handled by the Belgians, and 
 the German commander, it is said, exclaimed : 
 
 *'It is our duty to burn them down!" 
 
 The inhabitants were given two hours ' grace, and German 
 soldiers filed through the town, breaking windows with their 
 rifles. They were followed by other files of troops, who 
 sprayed kerosene into the houses, others applied lighted fuses 
 and the town was systematically destroyed. 
 
 BOMBAEDMENT OF MALINES 
 
 On Thursday night, August 27, the German artillery bom- 
 barded the ancient Belgian town of Malines. During the bom- 
 bardment many of the monuments in the town were hit by 
 shells and destroyed. When the artillery had ceased firing 
 the inhabitants of Malines were advised to leave the town, 
 
SURRENDER OF BRUSSELS 107 
 
 and many of the refugees, including a number of priests in 
 civilian dress, spent the night in the church at Duffel. 
 Amongst the damaged buildings were the Hotel de Ville, the 
 Courts of Justice, the Church of St. Pierre, and the Cathe- 
 dral of St. Kombold. The Church of St. Pierre was totally- 
 destroyed, but the tower of the cathedral remained intact. 
 The famous peal of bells, however, was destroyed during the 
 earlier stages of the bombardment. 
 
 The town of Malines had a population of 55,000 inhabi- 
 tants. Its history goes back a very long way. In 915 it came 
 under the rule of the Bishops of Liege, and it is still regarded 
 as the ecclesiastical capital of Belgium; in 1332 it was pur- 
 chased by the Count of Flanders. Malines is well known to 
 all tourists for its ancient buildings, some of them of the 
 utmost beauty and dignity. The Cathedral of St. Rombold 
 is a cruciform Gothic church with a tower 324 feet in height. 
 
 SCENES AT CAKTENBAKG, BELGIUM 
 
 Mr. A. J. Dawe, a prisoner of war and eyewitness of 
 scenes at Cartenbarg, just north of Brussels, thus described 
 the sights he saw there on August 28 : 
 
 "For three terrible hours we had to stand watching the 
 destruction. The Germans who were guarding us told us 
 that from certain houses shots had been fired by the civilians 
 during the morning upon a passing German troop, and that 
 several Uhlans had been killed. They began upon the houses 
 from which the shots were supposed to have been fired. These 
 houses were soon spitting with fire and shooting up great 
 flames. Here and there the fire soon spread along the whole 
 street. The women and children were herded together and 
 set aside. We heard the quick sounds of rifleshots as the es- 
 caping civilians were picked off. It was a terrible and brutal 
 business — we had not yet seen Louvain, and to us it was our 
 first experience of the real horrors of war. ' ' 
 
 DESOLATION IN BELGIUM 
 
 Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of Malines, Belgium, when 
 in Rome attending the conclave that elected Pope Benedict 
 XV as successor to the lamented Pius X, whose death on Au- 
 gust 19 was partly due to grief over the war, gave out an in- 
 
108 SURRENDER OF BRUSSELS 
 
 terview in which his eminence painted a terrible picture of the 
 miseries suffered by his unhappy country as a result of the 
 German invasion. 
 
 "I can't shut my eyes without seeing again the bodies of 
 the Belgians," said the cardinal. "Desolated towns, villages 
 and blood everywhere. I wanted to stay among my priests 
 and remain with the holocaust of innocent victims of the sav- 
 agery of the Germans. 
 
 "As I traveled through Belgium the spectacle of its un- 
 happiness seemed to bear me back to my devastated Malines, 
 to the side of my king and my suffragan of Liege, today a hos- 
 tage, tomorrow, perhaps, a martyr. All along the roads I 
 could see unburied bodies mingled with the carcasses of 
 horses, and I could recognize some of the faces. 
 
 "What has taken place in Belgium is not war, but the out- 
 come of hate. The Germans are taking their revenge for the 
 stigma attached to them as violators of neutral territory. 
 
 "In undefended to^vns, after having bombarded the houses 
 they have given the churches to the flames and have used the 
 wboden statues on the altars as torches to light them to their 
 deeds of blood. In Malines, a peaceable and undefended 
 town, they made a target of the Church of St; Eombold. 
 
 "These bomb-carrying Germans wanted to strike at the 
 head of Belgium ; they wished to raze to the ground the Bel- 
 gians ' intellectual capital, throwing into flames alike the 
 contents of laboratories and libraries. Ought not the word 
 'Droit,' (* Eight') standing out in letters of gold on the old 
 buildings, to have made them shudder ? 
 
 "German deeds in Belgium have nothing to do with war 
 either in the old days of chivalry or in its modern and historic 
 form. 
 
 "When th'C lake of blood left by the Germans in Belgium 
 has dried up it will be necessary to look for a slab of stone 
 large enough to be a record of these crimes against the rights 
 alike of Heaven and humanity. ' ' 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 AT THE GERMAN FRONT 
 
 Remarkable Story by American War Correspondent of His 
 Visit to Gen. von Boehn's Headquarters in the Field — 
 The German Fighting Machine — The General's Ver- 
 sion of Alleged German Atrocities. 
 
 ONE of the most vivid deseriptions of the German army in 
 the field was sent from the headquarters of the Ninth 
 Imperial army at Chateau Lafere, near Renaix, Bel- 
 gium, by Mr. E. Alexander Powell, war correspondent of the 
 New York World, whose facile pen presented not only a re- 
 markable panoramic picture of the German fighting machine 
 as it rolled before his eyes, but also gave General von Boehn's 
 version of the atrocities alleged to have been committed by 
 the German troops in several of the smaller towns and cities 
 of Belgium. Mr. Powell's thrilling story is of historic inter- 
 est and read as follows : 
 
 Three weeks ago the government of Belgium requested me 
 to place before the American people a list of specific and au- 
 thenticated atrocities committed by the German armies upon 
 Belgian noncombatants. 
 
 Today (September 9) General von Boehn, commanding 
 the Ninth Imperial Field Army, acting mouthpiece of the 
 German general staff, has asked me to place before the Amer- 
 ican-people the German version of the incidents in question. 
 
 So far as I am aware I am the only correspondent in the 
 present war who has motored for an entire day through the 
 ranks of the advancing German army, who has dined as a 
 guest of the German army commander and his staff, and who 
 
 109 
 
110 AT THE GERMAN FRONT 
 
 has had the progress of the army on the march arrestnd in 
 order to obtain photographs of the German troops. 
 
 This unusual experience came about in a curious and 
 roundabout way. After an encounter in the streets of Ghent 
 last Tuesday between a German military automobile and a 
 Belgian armored car, in which two German soldiers were 
 wounded [as described in the preceding chapter], American 
 Vice Consul Van Hee persuaded the burgomaster to accom- 
 pany him immediately to the headquarters of General von 
 Boehn to explain the circumstances and ask that the city 
 should not be held responsible for the unfortunate affair. 
 
 In the course of the conversation with Mr. Van Hee, Gen- 
 eral von Boehn remarked that copies of papers containing 
 articles written by Alexander Powell criticizing the German 
 treatment of the Belgian civil population had come to his 
 attention and said he regretted he could not have an oppor- 
 tunity to talk with Powell and give him the German version. 
 
 Mr. Van Hee said that by a fortunate coincidence I hap- 
 pened to be in Ghent, whereupon the general asked him to 
 bring me out to dinner the following day, and issued a safe 
 conduct through the German lines. 
 
 TAKES AN AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER 
 
 Though nothing was said about a photographer, I took 
 with me Photographer Donald Thompson. As there was some 
 doubt regarding the propriety of taking a Belgian military 
 driver into the German lines, I drove the car myself. 
 
 Before we passed the city limits of Ghent things began 
 to happen. Entering a street, which leads through a section 
 inhabited by the working classes, we found ourselves in the 
 midst of a mob of several thousand excited Flemings. Above 
 the sea of threatening arms, brandished sticks, and angry 
 faces rose the figures of two German soldiers with carbines 
 slung across their backs, mounted on work horses. It seems 
 they had strayed into the city by mistake. 
 
 As we approached a burly Belgian raised a cane and the 
 crowd made a concerted rush for the Germans. A blast from 
 my siren opened a lane through the crowd and I drove the car 
 alongside the terrified Germans. 
 
AT THE GERMAN FRONT 111 
 
 ''Quick," shouted Van Hee in German, ''off your horses. 
 Into the ear. Hide your rifles. Sit on the floor. Keep out of 
 sight. ' ' 
 
 The crowd, seeing its prey escaping, surged around us 
 with a roar. For an instant things looked ticklish indeed. 
 
 Van Hee jumped on the seat. 
 
 "I am American consul," he shouted. "These men 
 are under my protection. You civilians are attacking German 
 soldiers in uniform. If a hair of these men's heads is harmed 
 your city will be burned about your ears." 
 
 At that moment a Belgian shouldered his way through the 
 crowd and leaped on the running board. Quick as a thought 
 Thompson knocked up the man's hand and the same instant 
 I threw on the power. The big car leaped forward like a 
 startled horse, the mob scattering like autumn leaves be- 
 fore it. 
 
 It was a close call for every one concerned, but a much 
 closer call for Ghent, for had those German soldiers been 
 murdered by the civilians in the city streets no power on 
 earth could have saved the city from vengeance. General 
 von Boehn told me so himself. 
 
 HELP FOR U. S. REFUGEES 
 
 A few minutes later, as playlets follow each other in quick 
 succession on the stage, the scene changed from tragedy to a 
 screaming farce. As we came thundering into the little town 
 of Sotteghem in a sleepy hollow of Belgium, we saw in the 
 center of the town square a pyramid at least ten feet high of 
 wardrobe trunks, steamer trunks, and suitcases. From the 
 summit of this extraordinary monument floated an American 
 flag. 
 
 As our car came to a sudden halt there was a chorus of 
 exclamations in all dialects from Maine to Southern Cali- 
 fornia and from the door of a nearby cafe there came pouring 
 a flood of Americans. They proved to be a lost detachment 
 of that great army of tourists which at the beginning of hos- 
 tilities started its mad retreat for the coast, leaving Europe 
 strewn with baggage. 
 
 This particular detachment had been caught at Brussels 
 and as food supplies were running short they determined to 
 
112 AT THE GERMAN FRONT 
 
 make a dash for Ostend. Perhaps ** crawl" would be a better 
 word, for they made the journey as far as Sotteghem in two 
 cumbersome farm wagons. Upon reaching Sotteghem the 
 Belgian drivers, hearing that the German army was approach- 
 ing, refused to go farther and unceremoniously dumped their 
 passengers in the town square. 
 
 When we arrived they had been there twenty-four 
 hours. It was a mixed assemblage. Two school teachers, 
 women of fashion, a Pennsylvania farmer, and a quartet of 
 professional tango dancers from San Francisco, who had 
 been doing a turn at the Palais du Danse in Brussels, were 
 in the crowd. 
 
 Van Hee and I skirmished about, and after much argument 
 succeeded in getting two farm carts to transport the fugitives 
 into Ghent. For the thirty-mile journey the thrifty peasants 
 demanded $80. 
 
 The last I saw of the refugees they were perched on top 
 of the luggage, piled on two creaking carts, rumbling down 
 the road to Ghent, with their huge American flag flying above 
 them, and singing at the top of their voices, '^We'll never go 
 there any more. ' ' 
 
 MILES OF GERMAN SOLDIERS 
 
 Half a mile out of Sotteghem our road debouched into the 
 great highway which leads through Lille to Paris. We sud- 
 denly found ourselves in the midst of the German army. It 
 was a sight never to be forgotten. Far as the eye could see 
 stretched solid columns of marching men, pressing westward, 
 ever westward. 
 
 The army was advancing in three mighty columns along 
 three parallel roads. These dense masses of moving men in 
 their elusive blue-gray uniforms looked for all the world like 
 three monstrous serpents crawling across the countryside. 
 
 American flags which fluttered from our windshield 
 proved a passport in themselves and as we approached the 
 close-locked ranks they parted to let us through. 
 
 For five solid hours, traveling always at express train 
 speed, we motored between the walls of the marching men. 
 In time the constant shuflle of boots and the rhythmic swing 
 of gray-clad arms and shoulders grew maddening and I be- 
 
AT THE GERMAN FRONT 113 
 
 came obsessed with the fear that I would send the car plowing 
 into the human wedge on either side. 
 
 It seemed that the ranks never would end, and as far as 
 we were concerned they never did, for we never saw or heard 
 the end of that mighty column. 
 
 We passed regiment after regiment, brigade after brigade, 
 of infantry, and after them hussars, Uhlans, cuirassiers, field 
 batteries, more infantry, more field guns, ambulances, then 
 siege guns, each drawn by thirty horses, engineers, telephone 
 corps, pontoon wagons, armored motor cars, more Uhlans, the 
 sunlight gleaming on their forest of lances, more infantry in 
 spiked helmets, all sweeping by as irresistible as a mighty 
 river, with their faces turned toward France. 
 
 This was the Ninth field army and composed the very 
 flower of the empire, including the magnificent troops of the 
 Imperial Guard. It was first and last a fighting army. The 
 men were all young. They struck me as being keen as razors 
 and as hard as nails. The horses were magnificent. They 
 could not have been better. The field guns of the Imperial 
 Guard were almost twice the size of any used by our army. 
 
 THIRTY-TWO HOESES DRAW ONE GIANT HOWITZER 
 
 But the most interesting of all, of course, were the five gi- 
 gantic howitzers, each drawn by sixteen pairs of horses. 
 These howitzers can tear a city to pieces at a distance of a 
 dozen miles. ' 
 
 Every contingency seems to have been foreseen. Nothing 
 was left to chance or overlooked. Maps of Belgium, with 
 which every soldier is provided, are the finest examples of 
 topography I have ever seen. Every path, every farm build- 
 ing, every clump of trees, and every twig is shown. 
 
 At one place a huge army wagon containing a complete 
 printing press was drawn up beside the road and a morning 
 edition of the Deutsche Krieger Zeitung (German War News) 
 was being printed and distributed to the passing men. It 
 contained nothing but accounts of German victories of which 
 I never had heard, but it seemed greatly to cheer the men. 
 
 Field kitchens with smoke pouring from their stovepipe 
 funnels rumbled down the lines, serving steaming soup and 
 
114 AT THE GERMAN FRONT 
 
 coffee to the marching men, who held out tin cups and had 
 them filled without once breaking step. 
 
 There were wagons filled with army cobblers, sitting 
 cross-legged on the floor, who were mending soldiers' shoes 
 just as if they were back in their little shops in the Father- 
 land. Other wagons, to all appearances ordinary two-wheeled 
 farm carts, hid under their arched canvas covers machine 
 guns which could instantly be brought into action. 
 
 The medical corps was as magnificent as businesslike. It 
 was as perfectly equipped and as efficient as a great city hos- 
 pital. 
 
 Men on bicycles with a coil of insulated wire slung be- 
 tween them strung a field telephone from tree to tree so the 
 general commanding could converse with any part of the 
 fifty -mile-long column. 
 
 The whole army never sleeps. When half is resting the 
 other half is advancing. The soldiers are treated as if they 
 were valuable machines which must be speeded up to the high- 
 est possible efficiency. Therefore, they are well fed, well 
 shod, well clothed, and worked as a negro teamster works 
 mules. 
 
 SOLDIEB GIVEN TERBIFIC BEATING 
 
 Only men who are well cared for can march thirty-five miles 
 a day week in and week out. Only once did I see a man mis- 
 treated. A sentry on duty in front of the general headquar- 
 ters failed to salute an officer with sufficient promptness, 
 whereupon the officer lashed him again and again across the 
 face with a riding whip. Though welts rose with every blow, 
 the soldier stood rigidly at attention and never quivered. 
 
 As we were passing a German outpost a sentry ran out and 
 signaled us : 
 
 ' ' Are you Americans I ' ' 
 
 **We are," I said. 
 
 **Then I have orders to take you to the commandant," 
 he said. 
 
 "But I am on my way to see General von Boehn. I have 
 a pass signed by the general himself," I said. 
 
 *'No matter," the man stubbornly insisted, ''you must 
 come with me to the commander. He has so ordered." 
 
AT THE GERMAN FRONT 115 
 
 So there was nothing for it but to go \vith the soldier. He 
 had a most compelling way about him. We had visions of 
 prison cells, courts-martial, and firing parties, though we tried 
 to laugh it off. We found the commandant and his officers 
 quartered at a farmhouse a few rods down the road. He 
 proved to be a stout, florid faced, boisterous captain of in- 
 fantry. 
 
 ''I'm sorry to delay you," he said, *'but I ordered the 
 sentries to stop the first American car that passed along the 
 road. I have a brother in America and I want to send a letter 
 to him to let him know that all is well with me. You will send 
 it to him?" 
 
 [Of course the promise was made and Mr. Powell was then 
 perniitted to proceed.] 
 
 FINALLY EEACHES GENERAL VON BOEHN 
 
 It was considerably past midday and we were within a 
 few miles of the French frontier when we saw a guidon, which 
 signifies the presence of the head of the army, planted at the 
 entrance of a splendid old chateau. As we passed through the 
 iron gates and whirled up the stately tree-lined drive and 
 drew up in front of the terrace, a dozen officers in staff uni- 
 form came running out to meet us. For a few minutes it felt 
 as if we were being welcomed at a country house in America 
 instead of at the headquarters of the German army in the 
 field. So perfect was the field telephone service that the staff 
 had been able to keep in touch with our progress along the 
 lines and were waiting dinner for us. 
 
 General von Boehn I found to be a red-faced, gray-mus- 
 tached, jovial old warrior who seemed much worried for fear 
 we were not getting enough to eat, particularly not enough to 
 drink. He explained that the Belgian owners of the chateau 
 had displayed bad taste to run away and take their servants 
 with them, leaving only one bottle of champagne in the cellar. 
 That bottle was good as far as it went, however. 
 
 Nearly all of the officers spoke English and during the 
 meal the conversation was all of the United States, for one 
 of them had been attached to the embassy at Washington and 
 another had attended the army school at Fort Eiley, Kansas. 
 
116 AT THE GERMAN FRONT 
 
 After dinner we grouped ourselves on the terrace in the 
 self-conscious attitude people always assume when having 
 their pictures taken, and Thompson made some photographs. 
 They probably are the only ones of a German general and 
 an American war correspondent who was not under arrest. 
 
 Then we gathered about the table, on which was spread 
 a staff map of the war area, and got down to serious business. 
 The general began by asserting that the stories of atrocities 
 perpetrated on Belgian noncombatants were a tissue of lies. 
 
 ''Look at these officers about you," he said. ''They are 
 gentlemen like yourself. Look at the soldiers marching past 
 in the road out there. Most of them are fathers of families. 
 Surely you don 't believe they would do the things they have 
 been accused of." 
 
 EXPLAINS AEKSCHOT CEIMES 
 
 *' Three days ago, general," I said, "I was in Aerschot. 
 The whole tpwn now is but a ghastly, blackened, blood-stained 
 ruin. ' ' 
 
 "When we entered Aerschot the son of the burgomaster 
 came into the room, drew a revolver, and assassinated my 
 chief of staff," the general said. "What followed was only 
 retribution. The townspeople only got what they deserved." 
 
 ' ' But why wreak your vengeance on women and children ? ' ' 
 
 "None has been killed," the general asserted positively. 
 ' "I am sorry to contradict you, general," I asserted with 
 equal positiveness, "but I have myself seen their mutilated 
 bodies. So has Mr. Ginson, secretary of the American lega- 
 tion at Brussels, who was present during the destruction of 
 Louvain. ' * 
 
 ' ' Of course, there always is danger of women and children 
 being killed during street fighting, ' ' said Gen. von Boehn, ' ' if 
 they insist on coming into the street. It is unfortunate, but 
 it is war." 
 
 INFORMATION" STARTLES THE GENERAL 
 
 "But how about a woman's body I saw, with her hands 
 and feet cut off? How about a white-haired man and his son 
 whom I helped bury outside Sempstad, who had been killed 
 merely because a retreating Belgian had shot a German sol- 
 
AT THE GERMAN FRONT 117 
 
 dier outside their house? There were twenty-two bayonet 
 wounds on the old man's face. I counted them. How about 
 the httle girl 2 years old who was shot while in her mother's 
 arms by a Uhlan, and whose funeral I attended at Beystop- 
 denberg? How about the old man who was hung from the 
 rafters in his house by his hands and roasted to death by a 
 bonfire being built under him I" 
 
 The general seemed somewhat taken aback by the amount 
 and exactness of my data. 
 
 ''Such things are horrible, if true," he said. "Of course 
 our soldiers, like soldiers of all armies, sometimes get out of 
 hand and do things which we would never tolerate if we knew 
 it. At Louvain, for example, I sentenced two soldiers to 
 twelve years' penal servitude apiece for assaulting a woman." 
 
 THE LOUVAIN LIBRARY INCIDENT 
 
 ** Apropos of Louvain," I remarked, ''why did you de- 
 stroy the library 1 It was one of the literary storehouses of 
 the world." 
 
 "We regretted that as much as any one else," answered 
 the general. "It caught fire from burning houses and we 
 could not save it. ' ' 
 
 "But why did you burn Louvain at all!" I asked. 
 
 "Because the townspeople fired on our troops. We actu- 
 ally found machine guns in some of the houses. ' ' And smash- 
 ing his fist down on the table, he continued : ' ' Whenever civi- 
 lians fire upon our troops we will teach them a lasting les- 
 son. If women and children insist on getting in the way of 
 bullets, so much the worse for the women and children." 
 
 "How do you explain the bombardment of Antwerp by 
 Zeppelins ? " I queried. 
 
 EXPLAINS THE ZEPPELIN BOMBS 
 
 "Zeppelins have orders to drop their bombs only on forti- 
 fications and soldiers," he answered. 
 
 "As a matter of fact," I remarked, "they only destroyed 
 private houses and civilians, several of them women. If one 
 of those bombs had dropped 200 yards nearer my hotel I 
 wouldn't be smoking one of your excellent cigars today." 
 
 "That is a calamity which I thank God didn't happen." 
 
118 AT THE GERMAN FRONT 
 
 **If you feel for my safety as deeply as that, general," I 
 said earnestly, ' ' you can make quite sure of my coming to no 
 harm by sending no more Zeppelins." 
 
 "Well," he said, laughing, '*we will think about it." He 
 continued gravely: 
 
 "I trust you will tell the American people what I have 
 told you today. Let them hear our side of this atrocity busi- 
 ness. It is only justice that they should be made familiar with 
 both sides of the question. ' ' 
 
 I have quoted my conversation with the general as nearly 
 verbatim as I can remember it. I have no comment to make; 
 I will leave it to my readers to decide for themselves just 
 how convincing are the answers of the German general staff 
 to the Belgian accusations. 
 
 PHOTOGRAPHS GERMAN ARMY 
 
 Before we began our conversation I asked the general if 
 Mr. Thompson might be permitted to take photographs of the 
 great army passing. Five minutes later Thompson was 
 whirled away in a military motor car ciceroned by the army 
 officer who had attended our army school at Fort Riley. It 
 seems they stopped the car beside the road in a place where 
 the light was good, and when Thompson saw approaching a 
 regiment or battery of which he wished a picture he would 
 tell the officer, whereupon the officer would blow his whistle, 
 and the whole column would halt. 
 
 "Just wait a few minutes until the dust settles," Thomp- 
 son would remark, nonchalantly lighting a cigaret, and the 
 Ninth Imperial Army, whose columns stretched over the 
 countryside as far as the eye could see, would stand in its 
 tracks until the air was sufficiently clear to get a picture. 
 
 Thus far the only one who has succeeded in halting the 
 German army is this little photographer from Kansas. 
 
 A SAMPLE OF GERMAN GUNNERY 
 
 As a field battery of the Imperial Guard rumbled past, 
 Thompson made some remark about the accuracy of the 
 American gunners at Vera Cruz. 
 
 "Let us show you what our gunners can do," said the 
 .officer, and gave an order. There were more orders, a per- 
 
AT THE GERMAN FRONT 119 
 
 feet volley of them, a bugle shrilled harshly, the eight horses 
 strained against their collars, the drivers cracked their whips, 
 and the gun left the road, bounded across a ditch, and swung 
 into position in an adjacent field. 
 
 On a knoll three miles away an ancient windmill was 
 beating the air with its huge wings. The gun was fired, the 
 shell hit the windmill fair and square and tore it into splin- 
 ters. 
 
 ''Good work!" Thompson observed critically. ''If those 
 fellows of yours keep on they'll be able to get a job in the 
 American navy after the war." 
 
 In all the annals of modern war I do not believe there 
 is a parallel to this American war photographer halting with 
 an upraised, peremptory hand the advancing army, leisurely 
 photographing regiment after regiment, and then having a 
 field gun of the Imperial Guard go into action solely to gratify 
 his curiosity. 
 
 OFFICEES PART OF A MACHINE 
 
 They were courteous and hospitable to me, these German 
 officers, and I have been immensely interested in all I have 
 seen. But when all is said and done they impress me, not 
 as human beings who have weaknesses and virtues, likes and 
 dislikes of their own, but rather as parts of a more or less 
 important and mighty highly efficient machine directed and 
 controlled by cold, calculating intelligence in faraway Berlin. 
 
 That machine has about as much of the human element 
 in it as a meat chopper or the death chair at Sing Sing. Its 
 mission is to crush, pulverize, obliterate, and destroy, and 
 no considerations of civilization, chivalry, or humanity will 
 affect it. 
 
 These Germans with their guns, set faces, their monoto- 
 nous uniforms, and the ceaseless shuffle of their boots are get- 
 ting on my nerves. My car is at the door. I am going back 
 to my friends, the Belgians. 
 
HYMN BEFORE ACTION 
 
 BY EUDYAED KIPLING 
 
 The earth is full of anger, ^ 
 
 The seas are dark with wrath, ] 
 
 The Nations in their harmless , 
 
 Go up against our path: '.a 
 
 Ere yet we loose the legions — .j 
 
 E^e yet we draw the blade, \ 
 
 Jehovah of the Thunders, ^ 
 
 Lord God of Battles, aid! 
 
 High lust and froward bearing, 
 
 Proud heart, rebellious brow — ,5 
 
 Deaf ear and soul uncaring, \ 
 
 We seek Thy mercy now! ; 
 
 The sinner that forswore Thee, ^ 
 
 The fool that passed Thee by, 1 
 
 Our times are known before Thee: \ 
 
 Lord, grant us strength to die! ] 
 
 From panic, pride and terror, j 
 
 Revenge that knows no rein, \ 
 
 Light haste and lawless error, l 
 
 Protect us yet again. ■ 
 
 Cloak Thou our undeserving, ■] 
 
 Make firm the shuddering breath, i 
 
 hi silence and unswerving i 
 
 To haste Thy lesser death! j 
 
 E'en now their vanguard gathers. 
 
 E'en now we face the fray — 
 As Thou didst help our fathers. 
 
 Help Thou our host today! 
 Fulfilled of signs and ivonders 
 
 In life, in death made clear — 
 Jehovah of the Thunders, 
 
 Lord God of Battles, hear! 
 
 120 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 BRITAIN RAISES AN ARMY 
 
 Earl Kitchener Appointed Secretary for War — A New Volun- 
 teer Army — Expeditionary Force Landed in France — 
 Field Marshal Sir John French in Command — Colonies 
 Rally to Britain's Aid — The Canadian Contingent — 
 Indian Troops Called For — Native Princes Offer Aid. 
 
 AFTER the declaration of war by Great Britain against 
 Germany on August 4, the first important development 
 
 " in England was the appointment of Earl Kitchener of 
 Khartoum as secretary of state for war. This portfolio had been 
 previously held by the Rt. Hon. H. H. Asquith, premier and first 
 lord of the treasury. Lord Kitchener being the idol of the 
 British army and most highly esteemed by the nation gen- 
 erally for his powers of organization and administration, as 
 well as for his military fame, the appointment increased the 
 confidence of the British people in the Liberal Government and 
 awakened their enthusiasm for war. Parliament unanimously 
 passed a vote of credit for $500,000,000 on August 6. 
 
 Lord Kitchener immediately realized the serious nature of 
 the task confronting his country as an ally of France against 
 the military power of Germany. His first step was to increase 
 the regular army. The first call was for 100,000 additional 
 men. This was soon increased to 500,000. Within a month 
 there were 439,000 voluntary enlistments and then a further 
 call was made for 500,000 more, bringing the strength of the 
 British army up to 1,854,000 men, a figure unprecedented for 
 Great Britain. 
 
 The war fever grew apace in England. All classes of so- 
 ciety furnished their quota to the colors for service in Belgium 
 and France. The period of enlistment was ''for the war" and 
 a wave of patriotic fervor swept over the British Isles and over 
 
 121 
 
122 BRITAIN RAISES AN ARMY 
 
 all the colonies of Britain beyond the seas. Political differ- 
 ences were forgotten and the empire presented a united front, 
 as never before. If Germany had counted on internal dissen- 
 sion keeping England out of the fray, the expectation proved 
 unfounded. Englishmen, Irishmen and Scotsmen stood shoul- 
 der to shoulder. The Irish Home Rule controversy was 
 dropped by common consent. The men of Ulster and the Irish 
 Nationalists struck hands and agreed to forget their differ- 
 ences in the presence of national danger. 
 
 MB. EEDMOND 's PATRIOTIC SPEECH 
 
 In the House of Commons on August 3, when Sir Edward 
 Grey, foreign secretary, made his momentous declaration as 
 to Germany's intended attack on Belgium, William E. Red- 
 mond, the Irish Nationalist leader, uttered a memorable dec- 
 laration of Irish loyalty, which practically marked the close 
 of the long quarrel between Ireland and the English people. 
 In words that will be remembered while the British race en- 
 dures, he declared : 
 
 '^I say that the coasts of Ireland will be defended from 
 foreign invasion by her armed sons, and for this purpose 
 armed Nationalist Catholics in the south will be only too glad 
 to join arms with the armed Protestant Ulstermen in the north. 
 Is it too much to hope that out of this situation there may spring 
 a result which will be good, not merely for the Empire, but for 
 the future welfare and integrity of the Irish nation? If the 
 dire necessity is forced upon this country, we offer to the Gov- 
 ernment of the day that they may take their troops away, and 
 that if it is allowed to us, in comradeship with our brethren 
 in the north, we will ourselves defend the coasts of our 
 country. ' ' 
 
 Sir Edward Carson, the Ulster leader, responded in sim- 
 ilar vein and all danger of Irish disaffection in the hour of 
 Britain's need had disappeared. 
 
 STEPS TO AVERT PANIC 
 
 Prompt steps were taken by the British Government to 
 avert the dangers of a financial or commercial crisis. A Post- 
 ponement of Payments bill was passed by Parliament and this 
 
BRITAIN RAISES AN ARMY 123 
 
 furnished the machinery for a general ''moratorium," should 
 such a measure be found necessary. This meant that, if need 
 be, in view of the hardship of extraordinary times, honest debts 
 would not be pressed for payment until the war was over. Pub- 
 lic confidence was also restored by the decision of the Govern- 
 ment to undertake the state insurance of merchant vessels, so 
 as to secure the transportation of food to the British Isles. The 
 issue of one-pound and ten-shilling notes helped to restore 
 normal conditions and by Friday, August 7, satisfactory ar- 
 rangements were made by the Government for the reopening 
 of the banks, which had been temporarily closed, throughout 
 the country. Trade resumed normal conditions and the Bank 
 of England rate, which earlier in the week had mounted to 10 
 per cent, was reduced on August 8 to 5 per cent. 
 
 There were some panicky conditions and a disquieting col- 
 lapse on the London Stock Exchange during the last days of 
 feverish diplomacy, and it was due to the financial solidity of 
 the British nation, no less than to its level-headedness and the 
 promptness of government measures, that the declaration of 
 war, instead of precipitating worse conditions, cleared the 
 atmosphere. 
 
 BRITISH TEOOPS LAND IN FRANCE 
 
 While the British army was being mobilized, the utmost 
 secrecy was observed regarding all movements of troops. The 
 newspapers refrained from publishing even the little they knew 
 and an expeditionary force, composed of the flower of the Brit- 
 ish army and numbering approximately 94,000 men of all arms 
 of the service, was assembled, transported across the Eng- 
 lish Channel and landed at Boulogne and other French ports 
 behind a veil of deepest mystery, so far as the British public 
 and the world at large were concerned. 
 
 The old town of Plymouth, on the Channel, was the chief 
 port of embarkation for the troops and the main concentration 
 point in England, but troops embarked also at Dublin, Ireland ; 
 Liverpool ; Eastbourne ; Southampton, and other cities. Not a 
 mention of the midnight sailings of transports carrying troops, 
 horses, automobiles, artillery, hospital and commissary equip- 
 ment and supplies was allowed to be printed in the newspapers, 
 
124 BRITAIN RAISES AN ARMY 
 
 nor was it kno^vn how many troops were being sent across the 
 Channel. 
 
 The landing in France was effected between the 10th and 
 the 20th of August without the loss of a single man, and on the 
 23d, having joined forces with the French army under General 
 Joffre, commander-in-chief, the British found themselves in 
 touch with the German enemy at Mons in Belgium. 
 
 FIELD-MAKSHAL FKENCH IN COMMAND 
 
 The expeditionary force was in supreme command of Field 
 Marshal Sir John D. P. French, a veteran officer of high mili- 
 tary repute, with Maj.-Gen. Sir A. Murray as chief of staff. 
 Other noted officers were Lieut.-Gen. Sir Douglas Haig, com- 
 mander of the First Corps; Lieut.-Gen. Sir James Grierson, 
 commander of the Second Corps; Maj.-Gen. W. P. Pulteney, 
 commander of the Third Corps, and Maj.-Gen. Edmund Al- 
 lenby, in cormnand of the Cavalry Division. The home army 
 was left in command of Gen. Sir Ian Hamilton. 
 
 Hardly had the expedition landed in France when the death 
 was reported of the commander of the Second Corps, Sir 
 James Grierson, who succumbed to heart disease while on his 
 way to the front, dropping dead on a train. He was given a 
 notable military funeral in London. Gen. Sir H. L. Smith-Dor- 
 rien was appointed to succeed him in command of the Second 
 Corps. 
 
 The British troops were received in France with loud ac- 
 claim and Field Marshal French, on visiting Paris for a confer- 
 ence at the French war office before proceeding to the front, was 
 greeted by a popular demonstration that showed how welcome 
 British aid was to the French in their critical hour. 
 
 The British field force was composed of three army corps, 
 each comprising two divisions, and there was also an extra 
 cavalry division. 
 
 Each army corps consists of twenty-four infantry battalions 
 of about one thousand men each on a war footing; six cavalry 
 regiments, eight batteries of horse artillery of six guns each, 
 eighteen batteries of field artillery, two howitzer batteries, and 
 troops of engineers, signal corps, army service corps and other 
 details. 
 
BRITAIN RAISES AN ARMY 125 
 
 The number of men in eacli army corps was therefore ap- 
 proximately as follows : 
 
 Infantry 24,000 
 
 Cavalry 3,600 
 
 Horse artillery 800 
 
 Field artillery 1,800 
 
 Howitzer batteries 250 
 
 Signal, army service, commissary, etc 900 
 
 Thus the first British field force landed in France aggre- 
 gated about 94,000 men, including the extra cavalry division. 
 These were added to almost daily during the following weeks, 
 until by September 20 the British had probably 200,000 men 
 co-operating with the French army north and east of Paris. 
 
 COLONIES EALLY TO BEITAIlSr 
 
 At the prospect of war with Germany the dominions of the 
 British Empire overseas eagerly offered their aid. Canada, 
 Australia, New Zealand, India, all came forward with offers 
 of men, money, ships and supplies. The Australian premier 
 issued a statement to the people in which he said: "We owe it 
 to those who have gone before to preserve the great fabric of 
 British freedom and hand it on to our children. Our duty is 
 quite clear. Remember we are Britons. ' ' 
 
 CANADA OFFERS MEN 
 
 A formal offer of military contingents was cabled to 
 England by the Canadian government August 1. A meeting 
 of the cabinet was presided over by Premier Borden. It was 
 called to deal with the situation in which Canada found her- 
 self as the result of the European war. 
 
 The government unanimously decided to make England 
 an offer of men. Infantry, cavalry and artillery would be 
 mcluded in any force sent forward and it would number 
 20,000 men if transportation could be obtained for that 
 number. It was estimated that within two weeks it would 
 be possible to dispatch 10,000 efficient soldiers, and within 
 three months this number could be increased to 50,000. 
 
 Many offers for foreign service arrived from the com- 
 mandants of militia corps throughout the dominion. The 
 war spirit apparently was growing in Canada and it appeared 
 
BRITAIN RAISES AN ARMY 127 
 
 that practically every corps would volunteer for foreign 
 service. 
 
 A few days later the British Government decided to accept 
 the offers of contingents of colonial troops, and the colonies 
 were gratified to learn that the famous general, Lord Roberts 
 — affectionally knowm in the British army as "Bobs" — had 
 been appointed to the chief command of the men from 
 overseas. 
 
 A war session of the Dominion Parliament was held later 
 in August and was the briefest on record, lasting only five days. 
 During that time the Senate and House of Commons voted $50,- 
 000,000 for war expenses. Customs and excise rates on to- 
 bacco, liquor, sugar, coffee, and canned fruits were increased 
 to provide additional revenue. 
 
 The Canadian contingent for European service was assem- 
 bled at Valcartier Camp, sixteen miles from the City of Quebec. 
 It was a splendid body of troops, characterized by the chief 
 medical examining officer as ''the finest body of men he had 
 ever seen. ' ' By September 11 there were 28,000 men ready for 
 embarkation to join the allied forces in France. The great 
 ocean liner Lusitania and other transatlantic craft were or- 
 dered to Quebec to transport them to Europe, and their patri- 
 otic progress was watched with intense interest by all the 
 people of Canada. 
 
 The Canadian volunteers came from all the provinces of 
 the great Dominion, from British Columbia to Prince Edward 
 Island. In the week of August 23 fifteen special trains were 
 used to carry nearly 8,000 Western Canadian troops irom 
 points in the vicinity of Winnipeg to Valcartier Camp. De- 
 tachments also were sent from Vancouver, Calgary, Red Deer, 
 Edmonton, Moose Jaw, Regina, Saskatoon, Brandon, Portage 
 la Prairie, Fort William, and Port Arthur. At all these 
 points the men had been zealously drilling before leaving for 
 the concentration camp. 
 
 The provinces of Ontario and Quebec, New Brunswick and 
 Nova Scotia, all contributed of their brave sons to the expedi- 
 tionary force. Every city and town had its representatives on 
 the force, which was confidently relied upon to give a good 
 account of itself, as Canadian contingents have always done 
 before, when face to face with the enemy. 
 
128 BRITAIN RAISES AN ARMY 
 
 In all 40,000 Canadian troops were tendered to and accepted 
 by the British Government in the early days of the war ; also 
 20,000 men from Australia and 8,000 from New Zealand, a total 
 of 68,000 men. 
 
 By the request of the Dominions in each case, the cost of 
 the equipment, maintenance and pay of the forces was defrayed' 
 by the three governments — in itself a generous and patriotic 
 additional offer. The Dominions at the same time declared 
 their readiness to send additional contingents if required, as 
 well as drafts from time to time to maintain their field forces 
 at full strength. 
 
 TROOPSHIPS SAIL UNDER CONVOY 
 
 The first intimation that Canadian troops had been dis- 
 patched to the front from Valcartier Camp came on Septem- 
 ber 24, when the Hon. T. W. Crothers, the Dominion minister 
 of labor, announced in a speech before the Canadian Trades 
 and Labor Congress, assembled in convention at St. John, New 
 Brunswick, that 32,000 Canadian volunteers ' ' left for the front 
 a day or two ago." It was understood that the troops had 
 sailed from Quebec in twenty armed transports, convoyed by 
 a fleet of British warships, which had been collected at con- 
 venient ports for the purpose. 
 
 There were two army divisions in the force that sailed, each 
 comprising three brigades of infantry (12,000 men), 27 guns, 
 500 cavalry, and 2,000 staff, signallers, medical corps and 
 supernumaries. 
 
 THE FINAL REVIEW AT VALCARTIER 
 
 Before they sailed away the Canadian army marched past 
 the reviewing stand at the Valcartier Camp, Quebec, under the 
 eyes of 10,000 civilians. There were 32,000 soldiers equipped 
 for active service and everyone was impressed with the serious 
 scene. 
 
 The Duke and Duchess of Connaught, the Princess Patri- 
 cia, Col. Sam Hughes, the Canadian minister of militia, and 
 Col. V. H. C, Williams, commandant of the camp, looked on 
 with pride as the great parade, almost a full army corps, 
 passed the royal standard. They marched in column of half 
 battalions, and took a full hour to go by. 
 
BRITAIN RAISES AN ARMY 
 
 129 
 
 ' ' Canada may well be proud of this first contingent, ' ' said 
 S.. J. Duncan-Clark, who was an interested eyewitness of the 
 sciyne. *'It is a magnificent body of men, the pick of the 
 Dominion's soldiery. Probably 75 per cent of them have seen 
 action, and every one of them is a marksman. 
 
 '* \nd Canada may well be proud of the efficiency that has 
 con^.'crted a wilderness into a splendidly equipped and orderly 
 
 irt Neuf 
 C^p 8«ni 
 
 THE CANADIAN CONCENTRATION CAMP, VALCARTIER, QUEBEC 
 
 military camp. It was only a year ago that the Government 
 purchased the big tract of level land that is now known to the 
 world as Valcartier. Nothing had been done to fit it for mili- 
 tary use until war broke out. Canada determined at once to 
 take her place side by side with the mother country in fight- 
 ing the empire's battles. 
 
 CAMP FACILITIES WERE IDEAL 
 
 ''Since the 1st of August a railroad line has been built to 
 the edge of the camp, which is sixteen miles from the City of 
 
130 BRITAIN RAISES AN ARMY 
 
 Quebec. Roads have been constructed running for six miles 
 across the plain ; electric lights have been installed that make 
 the camp as brilliant as a city at night ; water has been piped 
 and distributed by hydrants, so that every group of tents has 
 abundance of it easily available, and shower baths by the hun- 
 dred have been erected for the men. There is a canteen, but 
 it is limited strictly to soft drinks. In the more than four 
 weeks that over 30,000 men have been living in this great can- 
 vas city there have been only four deaths — three from pneu- 
 monia and one from heart failure. 
 
 *'As each batch of men arrived they were vaccinated for 
 tj^hoid, and the utmost care has been taken to make the 
 conditions healthful. For several weeks the weather was ex- 
 ceedingly inclement — cold and wet; but the minimum of dis- 
 comfort was suffered owing to the excellence of the arrange- 
 ments. 
 
 ^'I wandered over the camp without the least restraint 
 while waiting for the review. It was most interesting to watch 
 the men. ]\tany of them looked well seasoned and mature in 
 manhood, but there were not a few who are little more than 
 boys. Every variety of accent could be heard — the broad 
 English, the burring Scotch, the brogue of Ireland, the nasal 
 quick-fire French, and the flat Canadian. I saw some in 
 khaki who were manifestly Indians — not East Indians, but 
 the real redskins of America ; and some I saw whose features 
 betrayed their Semitic race. It is said there are nearly 200 
 Jews in the contingent. 
 
 "About one-half of the contingent was recruited from 
 highland regiments, and they will wear their kilts in action. 
 The gay plaids, however, are covered with khaki aprons, and 
 the tunics are of the same material. To the enemy at a dis- 
 tance they vdW look little different from their comrades who 
 wear trousers. 
 
 PAKADE WAS A BEAVE SIGHT 
 
 "It was an ideal field for military maneuvers. Behind it 
 rose the purple hills of the Laurentian range. Down upon it 
 beat an autumn sun. The day was perfect. Without an undu- 
 lation the plain stretched for nearly three miles, and as I 
 reached its edge the soldiers were extended in a long line 
 
BRITAIN RAISES AN ARMY 131 
 
 across its whole length. On the breeze came the sound of the 
 bagpipes as the highlanders took up their position to my right. 
 Except for an occasional bugle call it was the only music. 
 
 "It was 3 o'clock when the parade began. The artillery 
 led, and there seemed to be an almost endless succession of 
 guns, drawn by the finest horses in the Canadian West. They 
 rattled by, quickening to a fast trot as they passed where I 
 was standing. I am told there were 300 machine guns in addi- 
 tion to many other larger field pieces with this first contingent. 
 
 ''Then came battalion after battalion of infantry, the 
 greater part on foot. This section of the parade was in two 
 divisions, the second consisting of kilties. The men marched 
 without music, and except for an occasional clapping of hands 
 as they broke into the double or changed their formation, the 
 crowd that watched maintained an impressive silence. 
 
 ''Some of the men marched with fixed bayonets, and I 
 heard the comment around me; 'That's what the Germans 
 are scared of.' 
 
 ' ' There were a few companies of mounted infantry. More 
 mounted men will probably be sent with the second contin- 
 gent, of which the people are already talking. 
 
 "A small corps of cyclists followed the infantry, and the 
 rear was brought up with the Red Cross detachment. The 
 sacred emblem that speaks for the cause of humanity was dis- 
 played in bold enough form on the covered wagons to be vis- 
 ible to the enemy a mile away. 
 
 ' ' When the last of the soldiers had left the parade ground 
 I wandered back to the camp. In one of the tents a khaki- 
 clad accompanist pounded out 'It's a Long, Long Way to Tip- 
 perary, ' and I heard for the first time the rollicking Irish song 
 to the measure of which the soldiers of the king have gone 
 to war. It is well adapted to cheer the spirits of the men, and 
 it has just enough of the simple sentiment of the soldier heart 
 to appeal to those who have left home far behind in order to 
 fight their country's foes in a foreign land." 
 
 • COMMANDEKS OF THE CANADIAN FORCE 
 
 The list of brigade commanders of the Canadian expedi- 
 tionary force was announced as follows: 
 
132 BRITAIN RAISES AN ARMY 
 
 Officers commanding the four infantry brigades: Lieut.- 
 Col. E. E. W. Turner, V. C, D. S. 0., of Quebec, a veteran of 
 the South African war, mentioned in dispatches for especially 
 gallant service ; Lieut.-Col. S. M. Mercer, Toronto, Command- 
 ing Officer of the Queen's Own Rifles; Lieut.-Col. A. W. Cur- 
 rie of Victoria, Commanding Officer of the 50th Fusiliers; 
 Lieut.-Col. J. E. Cohoe of St. Catharines, Commanding Offi- 
 cer of the 5th Militia Infantry Brigade. 
 
 The officer appointed to command the artilleiy brigade 
 was Lieut.-Col. H. E. Burstall of Quebec, of the Artillery 
 Headquarters Staff. 
 
 Officer in command of the Strathcona Horse, Lieut.-Col. 
 A. C. Macdonnell, D. S. 0., of Winnipeg, a South African 
 veteran. 
 
 Officer in command of the Royal Canadian Dragoons, 
 Lieut.-Col. C. M. Nelles of Toronto, Inspector of Cavalry for 
 Militia Headquarters. 
 
 The commanding officer of the whole army division was an 
 English general selected by the British War Office. 
 
 It was understood that the Canadian troops would land 
 in the south of England and march through London to train- 
 ing quarters at Aldershot and Salisbury Plains, the infantrj^ 
 going to Aldershot and the artillery to Salisbury Plains, for 
 several weeks' training under active service conditions before 
 going to the firing line. 
 
 CANADA FIGHTS AGAINST AUTOCRACY 
 
 "Canada will spend its last dollar and shed its last drop 
 of blood fighting for the principle of democracy, against that 
 of autocracy, as exemplified in the present European conflict." 
 
 This was the emphatic statement made by Sir Douglas 
 Cameron, lieutenant-governor — chief executive — of the prov- 
 ince of Manitoba, passing through Chicago on September 28. 
 
 "Great Britain is not fighting for empire," he said. "It 
 is not fighting for greater commercial gains. We are fighting 
 for the annihilation of autocracy and it is the sentiment of 
 the people of Canada that they will fight against Germany's 
 domination to the bitter end. 
 
 * ' England does not want more commerce, except as it can 
 be gained through the paths of peace. We would not draw 
 
BRITAIN RAISES AN ARMY 133 
 
 the sword to increase it, but we will fight to the last drop 
 of blood to protect it. 
 
 "The men of Canada have responded nobly to the call to 
 arms. We have sent about 31,800 provincial troops, every 
 one a volunteer, and we have that many more already enlisted 
 if they are needed. Our trouble is to equip them as fast as 
 they enlist. 
 
 ''In Canada we are turning our attention to agricultural 
 pursuits. Wheat is at a premium; a farmer can get from 
 $1 to $1.10 per bushel in cash for wheat on his wagon. All 
 Europe will be in dire need of foodstuffs next year and for 
 some years to come and we in Canada hope to profit by the 
 opportunity. 
 
 ' ' Economic conditions in the dominion received a terrible 
 blow when the war came; we were shocked, staggered, and 
 business has received a hard setback ; finances are depressed. 
 The government has offered help to the banks, but they do 
 not need it yet. 
 
 ''We want immigrants in our country — Germans or any 
 other good, strong, virile nationality. We have no quarrel 
 with the German people. We like them; they are used to a 
 high standard of living and are the finest kind of citizens. 
 
 "To my mind, this war cannot be of long duration. Ger- 
 many, with all its preparedness, could not lay by stores enough 
 to support 65,000,000 people for any great length of time 
 when there is no raw material coming in. The country will 
 be starved out, if not beaten in the field, for I do not believe 
 Germany can gain control of the high seas and cover the world 
 with its merchantmen." 
 
 INDIAN" TROOPS CALLED FOR 
 
 The announcement by Lord Kitchener in the House of Com- 
 mons late in August that native troops from India were to be 
 summoned to the aid of the British army in France ' ' came like 
 a crash of thunder and revealed a grim determination to fight 
 the struggle out to a successful finish.'* 
 
 There was some talk in England of increasing the army by 
 temporary conscription, but Premier Asquith declined to con- 
 sider any such proposal. 
 
 In the House of Commons on September 9 a message was 
 
134 BRITAIN RAISES AN ARMY 
 
 read from the Viceroy of India, which said that the rulers of 
 the Indian native states, nearly 700 in number, had with one 
 accord rallied to the defense of the empire with personal offers 
 of services as well as the resources of their states. 
 
 Many of the native rulers of India also sent cables to King 
 George offering him their entire military and financial re- 
 sources, while the people of India by thousands offered to 
 volunteer. 
 
 Conditions in India were indeed so satisfactory, from the 
 British standpoint, that Premier Asquith was able to announce 
 that two divisions (40,000) of British (white) soldiers were to 
 be removed from India. 
 
 The aid that India could offer was not lightly to be consid- 
 ered. The soldiery retained by the British and the rajahs, con- 
 stituting India's standing army, amount to about 400,000, not 
 taking into consideration the reserves and the volunteers. The 
 rajahs maintain about 23,000 soldiers, who are named Imperial 
 Service Troops, expressly for purposes of Imperial defense, 
 and these have served in many wars. They served with British, 
 German, French, and United States troops in China from Sep- 
 tember, 1900, to August, 1901, and gained the highest laurels 
 for efficiency and good conduct. 
 
 The first Indian troops called for by Lord Kitchener in- 
 cluded two divisions of infantry and a brigade of cavalry, add- 
 ing about 70,000 combatants to the allied armies in France, 
 with approximately 130 pieces of artillery, both light and 
 heavy, and howitzers. 
 
 Twelve Indian potentates were selected to accompany this 
 expeditionary force. These included the veteran Sir Pertab 
 Singh, regend of Jodhpur; Sir Ganga Bahadur, Maharajah of 
 Bikanir, and Sir Bhupindra Singh, Maharajah of Patiala. 
 
 The expeditionary force contained units of the regular 
 army and contingents of the Imperial Service Troops in India. 
 From twelve states the viceroy accepted contingents of cavalry, 
 infantry, sappers and transport, besides a camel corps from 
 Bikanir. 
 
 The Maharajah of Mysore placed $1,600,000 at the dis- 
 posal of the Government in connection with the expenditure 
 for the expeditionary force. In addition to this gift, the Ma- 
 harajahs of Gwalior and Bhopal contributed large sums of 
 
BRITAIN RAISES AN ARMY 135 
 
 money and provided thousands of horses as remounts. Ma- 
 harajah Repa offered his troops and treasure, even his pri- 
 vately-owned jewelry, for the service of the British King and 
 Emperor of India. Maharajah Holkar of Indore made a gift 
 of all the horses in the army of his state. 
 
 A similar desire to help the British Government was shown 
 by committees representing religious, political, and social asso- 
 ciations of all classes and creeds in India. 
 
 In the House of Lords on August 28 Earl Kitchener an- 
 nounced that the first division of the troops from India was 
 already on the way to the front in France. At the same time 
 the Marquis of Crewe, secretary of state for India, said: '*It 
 has been deeply impressed upon us by what we have heard 
 from India that the wonderful wave of enthusiasm and loyalty 
 now passing over that country is to a great extent based upon 
 the desire of the Indian people that Indian soldiers should 
 stand side by side with their comrades of the British army in 
 repelling the invasion of our friends ' territory and the attack 
 made upon Belgium. We shall find our army there reinforced 
 by native Indian soldiers — high-souled men of first-rate train- 
 ing and representing an ancient civilization ; and we feel certain 
 that if they are called upon they will give the best possible 
 account of themselves side by side mth our British troops in 
 encountering the enemy. ' ' 
 
 KING GEORGE PRAISES COLONIES 
 
 On September 9 a message from King George to the British 
 colonies, thanking them for their aid in Britain's emergency, 
 was published as follows : 
 
 ''During the last few weeks the peoples of my whole empire 
 at home and overseas have moved with one mind and purpose 
 to confront and overthrow an unparalleled assault upon the 
 continuity of civilization and the peace of mankind. 
 
 ''The calamitous conflict is not of my seeking. My voice 
 has been cast throughout on the side of peace. My ministers 
 earnestly strove to allay the causes of the strife and to appease 
 differences with which my empire was not concerned. Had I 
 stood aside when in defiance of pledges to which my kingdom 
 was a party, the soil of Belgium was violated and her cities 
 made desolate, when the very life of the French nation was 
 
136 BRITAIN RAISES AN ARMY 
 
 threatened with extinction, I should have sacrificed my honor 
 and given to destruction the liberties of my empire and. of 
 mankind. 
 
 ''I rejoice that every part of the empire is with me in this 
 decision. 
 
 ''Paramount regard for a treaty of faith and the pledged 
 word of rulers and peoples is the common heritage of Great 
 Britain and of the empire. My peoples in the self-governing 
 dominions have shown beyond all doubt that they whole-heart- 
 edly indorse the grave decision it was necessary to take, and 
 I am proud to be able to show to the world that my peoples 
 oversea are as determined as the people of the United Kingdom 
 to prosecute a just cause to a successful end. 
 
 ' ' The Dominion of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia 
 and the Dominion of New Zealand have placed at my disposal 
 their naval forces, which have already rendered good service 
 for the empire. Strong expeditionary forces are being pre- 
 pared in Canada, Australia and New Zealand for service at 
 the front, and the Union of South Africa has released all Brit- 
 ish troops and undertaken other important mihtary responsi- 
 bilities. 
 
 ''Newfoundland has doubled the number of its branch of 
 the royal naval reserve, and is sending a body of men to take 
 part in the operations at the front. From the Dominion and 
 Provincial governments of Canada, large and welcome gifts 
 of supplies are on their way for use both by my naval and mili- 
 tary forces. 
 
 "All parts of my oversea dominions have thus demon- 
 strated in the most unmistakable manner the fundamental 
 unity of the empire amidst all its diversity of situation and 
 circumstance. ' ' 
 
 A message similar to the foregoing was addressed by King 
 George to the princes and the people of India. 
 
 The King's eldest son, the young Prince of Wales, volun- 
 teered for active service at the outset of the war and was 
 gazetted as a second lieutenant in the First Battalion, Grena- 
 dier Guards. He also inaugurated and acted as treasurer of 
 a national fund for the relief of sufferers by the war. This 
 fund soon grew to $10,000,000 and steadily climbed beyond that 
 amount. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 
 
 Belgian Resistance to the German Advance — The Fighting 
 at Vise, Haelen, Diest, Aerschot and Tirlemont — Mons 
 and Charleroi the First Great Battles of the War — 
 Allies Make a Gallant Stand, but Forced to Retire 
 Across the French Border. 
 
 FROM the first day of the German entry into Belgium brief 
 and hazy reports of battles between the patriotic Belgians 
 and the invaders came across the Atlantic. Many absurd 
 and mischievous reports of repeated Belgian ''victories" 
 were received throughout the month of August. These were 
 for the most part rendered ridiculous by the steady advance 
 of the German troops. The resistance of the Belgians was 
 gallant and persistent, but availed only to hinder and delay 
 the German advance which it was powerless to stop. Up to 
 August 23, there were no "victories" possible for either side, 
 because never until then were the opposing armies definitely 
 pitted against each other in an engagement in which one or 
 the other must be broken. 
 
 All the time these Belgian ''victories," which were no 
 more than resistances to German reconnoissances, were being 
 reported, the German line was not touched, and behind that 
 line the Germans were methodically massing. 
 
 When they were ready they came on. The Belgian army 
 retired from the Diest-Tirlemont line, from Aerschot and 
 Louvain, from Brussels, because to have held these positions 
 against the .overwhelming force opposed to them would have 
 meant certain destruction. The rearguards held each of these 
 
 137 
 
138 EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 
 
 points with the greatest heroism so long as that was neces- 
 sary, and then retired in good order on the main force. 
 
 VISE ATTACKED AND FIEED 
 
 The first fighting of any severity in Belgium occurred 
 at Vise, near the frontier, early in the German advance. Ger- 
 man troops crossed the frontier in motors, followed by large 
 bodies of cavalry, but the Belgians put up a stubborn resist- 
 ance. The chiefs of the Belgian staff had foreseen the inva- 
 sion and had blown up the bridges of the River Meuse outside 
 the town, as well as the railway tunnels. Time after time 
 the Belgians foiled with their heavy fire the attempts of the 
 Germans to cross by means of pontoons. Vise itself was 
 stubbornly defended. Only after a protracted struggle did 
 the Germans master the town, which they fired in several 
 places on entering. 
 
 BATTLES OF HAELEN-DIEST 
 
 At the end of the first week of the Belgian invasion it was 
 estimated that the Germans had concentrated most of their 
 field troops, probably about 900,000 combatants, along a 75- 
 mile line running from Liege to the entrance into Luxemburg 
 at Treves. With this immense army it was said there were no 
 less than 5,894 pieces of artillery. This was only the first-fine 
 strength of the Germans, the reserves being massed in the 
 rear. Part of the right wing was swung northward and 
 westward in the direction of Antwerp, and swept the whole 
 of northern Belgium to the Dutch frontier. 
 
 On August 10 the Belgian defenders fought a heavy en- 
 gagement with the Germans at Haelen, which was described 
 in the dispatches as the first battle of the war. A Belgian 
 victory was claimed as the result, the German losses, it was 
 said, being very heavy, especially in cavalry, while the Bel- 
 gian casualties were reported relatively small. But the Ger- 
 man advance was merely checked. The covering troops were 
 speedily reinforced from the main body of the army and the 
 advance swept on. 
 
 The result of the Haelen engagement was thus described 
 in the dispatches of August 13 : 
 
 "The battle centered around Haelen, in the Belgian 
 
EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 139 
 
 province of Limbourg, extending to Diest, in tlie north of tlie 
 province of Brabant, after passing round Zeelhem. 
 
 '*At 7 o'clock last evening all the country between the 
 three towns mentioned had been cleared of German troops, 
 except the dead and wounded, who were thickly strewn about 
 the fire zone. Upward of 200 dead German soldiers were 
 counted in a space of fifty yards square. 
 
 *'A church, a brewery and some houses in Haelen were 
 set afire, and two bridges over the Demer were destroyed by 
 Belgian engineers. 
 
 ''Great quantities of booty were collected on the battle- 
 field, and this has been stacked in front of the town hall of 
 Diest. Many horses also were captured. 
 
 "The strength of the German column was about 5,000 
 men. ' ' 
 
 Another report said of the encounter: 
 
 "A division of Belgian cavalry, supported by a brigade 
 of infantry and by artillery, engaged and defeated, near the 
 fortress of Diest, eighteen miles northeast of Louvain, a divi- 
 sion of German cavalry, also supported by infantry and by 
 artillery. 
 
 "The fighting was extremely fierce and resulted in the 
 Germans being thrown back toward Hasselt and St. Trond." 
 
 Meanwhile the forts at Liege, to the southeast, still held 
 out, though fiercely bombarded by German siege guns. The 
 fortress of Namur was also being attacked. The Germans 
 had bridged the river Meuse and were moving their crack 
 artillery against the Belgian lines. French troops had joined 
 the Belgian defenders and the main battle line extended from 
 Liege on the north to Metz on the south. 
 
 A visit to Haelen and other towns by a Brussels corre- 
 spondent August 17, ' ' showed the frightful devastation which 
 the Germans perpetrated in Belgian territory. 
 
 "For instance, at Haelen itself houses belonging to the 
 townspeople have been completely wrecked. Windows were 
 broken, furniture destroyed, and the walls demolished by 
 shell fire. Even the churches have not been respected. The 
 parish church at Haelen has been damaged considerably from 
 shrapnel fire. 
 
140 EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 
 
 ''On the battlefield there are many graves of Germans 
 marked by German lances erected in the form of a cross." 
 
 ON THE BATTLEFIELD OF DIEST 
 
 A correspondent of the New York Tribune said : 
 
 ''Across the battlefield of Diest there is a brown stretch 
 of harrowed ground half a furlong in length. It is the grave 
 of twelve hundred Germans who fell in the fight of August 
 11. All over the field there are other graves, some of Ger- 
 mans, some of Belgians, some of horses. When I reached 
 the place peasants with long mattocks and spades were turn- 
 ing in the soil. For two full days they had been at the work 
 of burial and they were sick at heart. Their corn is ripe for 
 cutting in the battlefield, but little of it will be harvested. 
 Dark paths in their turnip fields are sodden with the blood 
 of men and horses." 
 
 The Belgians, in contempt of German markmanship, had 
 forced the enemy to the attack, which had been made from 
 three points of the field simultaneously. The fighting had been 
 fierce, but now that both sides had swept on, no one seemed 
 to know how those in the fight had really fared. Only by 
 the heaps of dead could one make estimate: 
 
 *'At least, there were most dead on the side toward the 
 bridge. A charge of 300 Uhlans, who were held in check for 
 a short time by seventeen Belgians at a corner, seems, how- 
 ever, to have come near success. The derelict helmets and 
 lances that covered the fields show that the charge pressed 
 well up to the guns and to the trenches in the turnip fields 
 where the Belgian soldiers lay. On the German left mitrail- 
 leuses got in their work behind, and in the houses on the out- 
 skirts of the callages. Five of these houses were burned to 
 the ground, and two others farther out broken all to pieces 
 and burned. In a shed was a peasant weeping over the dead 
 bodies of his cows. 
 
 "It would be easy now at the beginning of this war to 
 write of its tragedy. The villages have each a tale of loss to 
 tell. All of the twelve hundred men in the long grave were 
 men with wives, sweethearts, and parents. All the Belgian 
 soldiers and others who w^ere buried where they fell have 
 mourners. 
 
EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 141 
 
 A LETTER FROM THE GRAVE 
 
 **A letter wMch I picked up on the field and am endeavor- 
 ing to have identified and sent her for whom it is intended 
 will speak for all. It is written in ink on half a sheet of thin 
 notepaper. ^There is no date and no place. It probably 
 was written on the eve of battle in the hope that it would reach 
 its destination if the writer died. This is the translation : 
 
 ^' 'Sweetheart: Fate in this present war has treated us 
 more cruelly than many others. If I have not lived to create 
 for you the happiness of which both our hearts dreamed, 
 remember my sole wish now is that you should be happy. For- 
 get me and create for yourself some happy home that may re- 
 store to you some of the greater pleasures of life. For myself, 
 I shall have died happy in the thought of your love. My 
 last thought has been for you and for those I leave at home. 
 Accept this, the last kiss from him who loved you.' 
 
 ** Postcards from fathers with blessings to their gallant 
 sons I found, too, on the field, little mementos of people and 
 of places carried by men as mascots. Everywhere were 
 broken lances of German and Belgian, side by side ; scabbards 
 and helmets, saddles and guns. These the peasants were col- 
 lecting in a pile, to be removed by the military. High up over 
 the graves of twelve hundred, as we stood there, a German 
 biplane came and went, hovering like a carrion crow, seeking 
 other victims for death. 
 
 *'In the village itself death is still busy. A wounded Ger- 
 man died as we stood by his side and a Belgian soldier placed 
 his handkerchief over his face. Soldiers who filled the lit- 
 tle market-place may be fighting for life now as I write. The 
 enemy is in force not a mile away from them, and in a moment 
 they may be attacked. It is significant that all German 
 prisoners believed they were in France. The deception, it 
 appears, was necessary to encourage them in their attack; 
 and twelve hundred dead in the harrowed field died without 
 knowing whom or what they were fighting. ' ' 
 
 THOUGHT THEY WERE IN FRANCE 
 
 A number of German prisoners were taken by the Belgians 
 during the fighting at Haelen-Diest. From ttese it was 
 
142 EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 
 
 learned that the German soldiers really believed they were 
 fighting in France. At Diest it is said that 400 surrendered 
 the moment they lost their officers and were surprised to learn 
 that they were in Belgium. 
 
 King Albert of Belgium was constantly in the field dur- 
 ing the early engagements of the war, moving from point to 
 point inside the Belgian lines by means of a high-powered 
 automobile, in which he was slightly wounded by the explosion 
 of a shell. He was thus enabled to keep in touch with the 
 field forces, as well as with his general staff, and speedily 
 endeared himself to the Belgian soldiery by his personal dis- 
 regard of danger. 
 
 The Belgians by their gallant fight against the trained 
 legions of Germany quickly won the admiration even of their 
 foes. The army of Belgium was brought up to its full strength 
 of 300,000 men and everywhere the soldiers of the little coun- 
 try battled to halt the invaders. Often their efforts proved 
 effective. The losses on both sides were truly appalling, the 
 Germans suffering most on account of their open methods of 
 attack in close order. But their forces were Hke the sands 
 of the sea and every gap in the ranks of the onrushing host 
 was promptly filled by more Germans. 
 
 TIKLEMONT AND LOUVAIN" 
 
 The fighting at Tirlemont and Louvain was described by 
 a citizen of Ostend, who says he witnessed it from a church 
 tower at Tirlemont first and later proceeded to Louvain. He 
 says: 
 
 "Until luncheon time Tuesday, August 18, Tirlemont was 
 quiet and normal. Suddenly, about 1 o 'clock, came the sound 
 of the first German gun. The artillery had opened fire. 
 
 *'From the church tower it was possible to see distinctly 
 the position of the German guns and the bursting of their 
 shells. The Belgians replied from their positions^ east of 
 Louvain. It was a striking sight, to the accompaniment of 
 the ceaseless thud-thud of bursting shells with their puffs 
 of cottonlike smoke, tearing up the peaceful wheat fields not 
 far away. 
 
EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 143 
 
 BELGIANS RETIKE AT LOUVAIN 
 
 * * Gradually working nearer, the shells began to strike the 
 houses in Tirlemont. This was a signal for the populace, 
 which had been confident that the Belgian army would pro- 
 tect them, to flee. All they knew was that the Germans were 
 coming. From the tower the scene was like the rushing of 
 rats from a disturbed nest. The people fled in every direc- 
 tion except one. 
 
 **I moved down to Louvain, where everything seemed quiet 
 and peaceful. The people sat in the cafes drinking their 
 evening beer and smoking. Meanwhile the Belgian troops 
 were retiring in good order toward Louvain. 
 
 TOWN IN PANIC WITH EEFUGEES 
 
 **By midnight the town was in the throes of a panic. 
 Long before midnight throngs of refugees had begun to ar- 
 rive, followed later by soldiers. By 11 o^clock the Belgian 
 rear guard was engaging the enemy at the railroad bridge 
 at the entrance to the town. 
 
 ''The firing was heavy. The wounded began to come in. 
 Riderless horses came along, both German and Belgian. These 
 were caught and mounted by civilians glad to have so rapid 
 a mode of escape. 
 
 TROOPS HINDERED BY CIVILIANS 
 
 **I remember watching a black clad Belgian woman run- 
 ning straight down the middle of a road away from the 
 Germans. Behind her came the retiring Belgian troops, dis- 
 heartened but valiant. This woman, clad in mourning, was 
 the symbol of the Belgian populace. 
 
 ''At somfi of the barricades along the route the refugees 
 and soldiers arrived simultaneously, making the defense dif- 
 ficult. All about Tirlemont and Louvain the refugees inter- 
 fered with the work of the troops. The road to Brussels 
 always was crowded with refugees and many sorrowful sights 
 were witnessed among them as they fled from the homes that 
 had been peaceful and prosperous a few days before. 
 
144 EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 
 
 BRUSSELS FILLED WITH REFUGEES 
 
 ''Brussels is filled with refugees from surrounding towns, 
 despite the large numbers who left the city for Ghent and 
 Ostend during the last few days," said a correspondent, 
 writing from Ghent on August 20. 
 
 ''The plight of most of the refugees is pitiable. Many 
 are camped in the public square whose homes in the suburbs 
 have been fired by the Prussians. The roads leading into 
 Brussels have been crowded all day with all kinds of con- 
 veyances, many drawn by dogs and others by girls, women 
 and aged peasants. 
 
 "Most of these people have lost everything. Few of them 
 have any money. The peasant is considered lucky who suc- 
 ceeded in saving a single horse or a cow. 
 
 "Military men characterize the German force which is 
 moving across Belgium as overwhelming, saying it consists 
 of at least two or three army corps. The advance of this 
 huge force is covered over the entire thirty-mile front by a 
 screen of cavalry. The Germans had no difficulty in taking 
 Louvain, which was virtually undefended. 
 
 "In the high wooded country between Louvain and Brus- 
 sels the Germans found an excellent defensive position. Hav- 
 ing occupied Louvain, the Kaiser's troops pushed forward 
 with great celerity, the cavalry opening out in fan-shaped 
 formation, spreading across country. 
 
 "At one point they ran into a strong force of Belgian 
 artillery, which punished them severely. Later in the day 
 a Belgian scouting force reached Louvain and found it unoc- 
 cupied, but received imperative orders to fall back, because 
 of the danger of being outflanked and annihilated. ' ' 
 
 ALLIES MEET THE INVADERS 
 
 By August 20 the Germans were in touch with the French 
 army that had advanced into Belgium and occupied the line 
 Dinant-Charleroi-Mons, the right of the French resting on 
 Dinant and the left on Mons, where they were reinforced by 
 the British expeditionary force under Field Marshal French. 
 
EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 145 
 
 There was a heavy engagement at Cliarleroi, and a four days' 
 battle was begun at Mons August 23. Slowly but surely the 
 Franco-British army was forced back across the French 
 border, to take up a new position on the line, Noyon-Chanu- 
 La Fere, which constituted the second line of the French de- 
 fense. 
 
 The German right, opposing the British, was under com- 
 mand of General von Kluck ; General von Buelow and General 
 von Hansen commanded the German center opposing the 
 Franco-Belgian forces between the Sambre and Namur and 
 the Meuse. The Grand Duke Albrecht of Wuerttemberg oper- 
 ated between Charleroi and the French border fortress of 
 Maubeuge. The German Crown Prince led an army far- 
 ther east, advancing toward the Meuse. The Crown 
 Prince of Bavaria commanded the German forces far- 
 ther south toward Nancy, and General von Heeringen was 
 engaged in repulsing French attacks on Alsace-Lorraine, in 
 the region of the Vosges mountains, where the French laad 
 met with early successes. 
 
 Meanwhile on August 18 the town of Aerschot had been 
 the scene of a bloody engagement and was occupied and partly 
 destroyed by the Germans. The occupation of Brussels fol- 
 lowed on August 20-21 and the German line of communica- 
 tions was kept open by a line of occupied towns. 
 
 After overwhelming the Belgians the Kaiser's great ad- 
 vance army swept quickly into deadly conflict with the allies. 
 The first mighty shock came at Charleroi, where the French 
 were forced back, and on August 23 came the first battle 
 with the British at Mons. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF MONS FOUR DAYS OF FIGHTING RETREAT OF THE 
 
 ALLIES 
 
 All England was thrilled on the morning of September 10 
 when the British government permitted the newspapers to 
 publish the first report from Field Marshal Sir John D. P. 
 French, commander-in-chief of the British army allied with 
 the French and Belgians on the continent, telling of the heroic 
 fight made by the British troops, August 23-26, to keep from 
 being annihilated by the Germans. 
 
146 EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 
 
 The withdrawal of the British army before the German 
 advance was compared to the pursuit of a wildcat by hounds, 
 the English force backing stubbornly toward the River Oise, 
 constantly showing its teeth, but realizing that it must reach 
 the river or perish. The report of Field Marshal French 
 created much surprise in England, as it was not known until 
 his statement was made public just how hard pressed the 
 British army had been. 
 
 The communication was addressed to Earl Kitchener, the 
 secretary for war, and its publication indicated that the gov- 
 ermnent was responding to the public demand for fuller infor- 
 mation on the progress of operations, so far as the British 
 forces in France were concerned. 
 
 The report, as published in the London Gazette, the official 
 organ, was as follows: 
 
 FIELD MAKSHAL FKENCH 's KEPORT 
 
 *'The transportation of the troops from England by rail 
 and sea was effected in the best order and without a check. 
 Concentration was practically completed on the evening of 
 Friday, August 21, and I was able to make dispositions to 
 move the force during Saturday to positions I considered 
 most favorable from which to commence the operations which 
 General Joffre requested me to undertake. The line extended 
 along the line of the canal from Conde on the west, through 
 Mons and Binche on the east. 
 
 "During August 22 and 23 the advance squadrons did 
 some excellent work, some of them penetrating as far as Soig- 
 nies (a town of Belgium ten miles northeast of Mons) and 
 several encounters took place in which our troops showed to 
 great advantage. 
 
 "On Sunday, the 23d, reports began to come in to the 
 effect that the enemy was commencing an attack on the Mons 
 line, apparently in some strength, but that the right of the 
 position from Mons was being particularly threatened. 
 
 ' ' The commander of the First Corps had pushed his flank 
 back to some high ground south of Bray and the Fifth Cavalry 
 evacuated Binche, moving slightly south. The enemy there- 
 upon occupied Binche. 
 
EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 147 
 
 ''The right of the third division under General Hamilton 
 was at Mons, which formed a somewhat dangerous salient 
 and I directed the commander of the Second Corps if threat- 
 ened seriously to draw back the center behind Mons. 
 
 "In the meantime, about five in the afternoon, I received 
 a most unexpected message from General Joffre by telegraph, 
 telling me that at least three German corps were moving on 
 my position in front and that a second corps was engaged in 
 a turning movement from the direction of Tournai. He also 
 informed me that the two reserve French divisions and the 
 Fifth French Army Corps on my right were retiring. 
 
 CHOSE A NEW POSITION 
 
 ''In view of the possibility of my being driven from the 
 Mons position, I had previously ordered a position in the rear 
 to be reconnoitered. 
 
 "This position rested on the fortress of Maubeuge on the 
 right and extended west to Jenlain, southeast of Valenciennes 
 on the left. The position was reported difficult to hold be- 
 cause standing crops and buildings limited the fire in many 
 important localities. 
 
 "When the news of the retirement of the French and the 
 heavy German threatening on my front reached me, I endeav- 
 ored to confirm it by aeroplane reconnoissance, and as a result 
 of this I determined to effect a retirement to the Maubeuge 
 position at daybreak on the 24th. 
 
 "A certain amount of fighting continued along the whole 
 line throughout the night and at daybreak on the 24th the 
 second division from the neighborhood of Harmignies made 
 a powerful demonstration as if to retake Binche. This was 
 supported by the artillery of both the first and the second 
 divisions while the first division took up a supporting posi- 
 tion in the neighborhood of Peissant. Under cover of this 
 demonstration the Second Corps retired on the line of Dour, 
 Quarouble and Frameries. The third division on the right 
 of the corps suffered considerable loss in this operation from 
 the enemy, who had retaken Mons. 
 
 "The Second Corps halted on this line, where they in- 
 trenched themselves, enabling Sir Douglas Haig, with the 
 First Corps, to withdraw to the new position. 
 
148 EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 
 
 NIGHT ATTACK ON THE LEFT 
 
 * ' Toward midnight the enemy appeared to be directing his 
 principal effort against our left. I had previously ordered 
 General Allenby with the cavalry to act vigorously in advance 
 of my left front and endeavor to take the pressure off. 
 
 ''About 7:30 in the morning General Allenby received a 
 message from Sir Charles Fergusson, commanding the fifth 
 division, saying he was very hard pressed and in urgent need 
 of support. On receipt of this message General Allenby drew 
 in his cavalry and endeavored to bring direct support to the 
 fifth division. 
 
 "During the course of this operation General DeLisle of 
 the Second Cavalry Brigade thought he saw a good oppor- 
 tunity to paralyze the further advance of the enemy's infan- 
 try by making a mounted attack on his flank. He formed up 
 and advanced for this purpose, but was held up by wire about 
 500 yards from his objective. 
 
 GENERAL SMlTH-DOREIEN IN RETREAT 
 
 ' ' The Nineteenth Infantry Brigade was brought by rail to 
 Valenciennes on the 22d and 23d. On the morning of the 24th, 
 they were moved out to a position south of Quarouble to sup- 
 port the left flank of the Second Corps. With the assistance 
 of cavalry Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien was enabled to effect 
 his retreat to a new position. 
 
 "At nightfall a position was occupied by the Second Corps 
 to the west of Bavay, the First Corps to the right. The right 
 was protected by the fortress of Maubeuge, the left by the 
 Nineteenth Brigade in position between Jenlain and Bavay 
 and cavalry on the outer flank. The French were still retir- 
 ing and I had no support except such as was afforded by the 
 fortress of Maubeuge. 
 
 ARMY IN GREAT PERIL 
 
 "I felt that not a moment must be lost in retiring to an- 
 other position. I had every reason to believe that the enemy's 
 forces were somewhat exhausted and I knew that they had 
 suffered heavy losses. The operation, however, was full of 
 danger and difficulty, not only owing to the very superior 
 forces in my front, but also to the exhaustion of the troops. 
 
EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 149 
 
 ''The retirement was recommenced in the early morning of 
 the 25th to a position in the neighborhood of Le Cateau and 
 the rear guard were ordered to be clear of Maubeuge and 
 Bavay by 5 :30 a. m. 
 
 **The fourth division commenced its detrainment at Le 
 Cateau on Sunday, August 23, and by the morning of the 25th 
 eleven battalions and a brigade of artillery with the divisional 
 staff were available for service. I ordered General Snow to 
 move out to take up a position with his right south of So- 
 lesmes, his left resting on the Cambrai-Le Cateau road south 
 of La Chapriz. In this position the division rendered great 
 help. 
 
 ''Although the troops had been ordered to occupy Cam- 
 brai-Le Cateau-Landrecies position and ground had, during 
 the 25th, been partially prepared and entrenched, I had grave 
 doubts as to the wisdom of standing there to fight. 
 
 ' ' Having regard to the continued retirement of the French 
 right, my exposed left flank, the tendency of the enemy's 
 western corps to envelop me, and, more than all, the exhausted 
 condition of the troops, I determined to make a great effort 
 to continue the retreat till I could put some substantial obsta- 
 cle, such as the Somme or the Oise between my troops and the 
 enemy. 
 
 RETREAT IS ORDERED 
 
 ''Orders were therefore sent to the corps commanders to 
 continue their retreat as soon as they possibly could toward 
 the general line of Vermand, St. Quentin and Ribemont, and 
 the cavalry under General Allenby were ordered to cover the 
 retirement. Throughout the 25th and far into the evening 
 the First Corps continued to march on Landrecies, following 
 the road along the eastern border of the forest of Mormal, 
 and arrived at Landrecies about 10 o 'clock. I had intended 
 that the corps should come further west so as to fill up the 
 gap between Le Cateau and Landrecies, but the men were 
 exhausted and could not get further in without a rest. 
 
 ' ' The enemy, however, would not allow them this rest and 
 about 9:30 that evening the report was received that the 
 Fourth Guards brigade in Landrecies was heavily attacked 
 
150 EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 
 
 by troops of the Ninth German army corps, who were coming 
 through the forest to the north of the town. 
 
 FRENCH AID IS GIVEN 
 
 *' At the same time information reached me from Sir Doug- 
 las Haig that his first division was also heavily engaged south 
 and east of Marilles. I sent urgent messages to the com- 
 mander of two French reserve divisions on my right to come 
 up to the assistance of the First Corps, which they eventually 
 did. 
 
 "By about 6 in the afternoon the Second Corps had got 
 into position, with their right on Le Cateau, their left in the 
 neighborhood of Caudry, and the line of defense was con- 
 tinued thence by the fourth division toward Seranvillers. 
 
 ''During the fighting on the 24th and 25th the cavalry 
 became a good deal scattered, but by early morning of the 
 26th General Allenby had succeeded in concentrating two 
 brigades to the south of Cambrai. 
 
 ' ' On the 24th the French cavalry corps, consisting of three 
 divisions under General Sordet, had been in billets, north of 
 Avesnes. On my way back from Vavay, which was my poste 
 de commandemente during the fighting of the 23d and the 
 24th, I visited General Sordet and earnestly requested his co- 
 operation and support. He promised to obtain sanction from 
 his army commander to act on my left flank, but said that 
 his horses were too tired to move before the next day. 
 
 ''Although he rendered me valuable assistance later on in 
 the course of the retirement, he was unable for the reasons 
 given to afford me any support on the most critical day of all 
 — namely, the 26th. 
 
 GERMANS USE HEAVY GUNS 
 
 "At daybreak it became apparent that the enemy was 
 throwing the bulk of his strength against the left of the posi- 
 tion occupied by the Second Corps and the fourth division. At 
 this time the guns of four German army corps were in posi- 
 tion against them, and Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien reported 
 to me that he judged it impossible to continue his retirement 
 at daybreak. 
 
 "I sent him orders to use his utmost endeavors to break 
 
EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 151 
 
 off the action and retire at the earliest possible moment, as it 
 was impossible for me to send him support. 
 
 ''The French cavalry corps mider General Sordet was 
 coming up on our left rear early in the morning, and I sent 
 him an urgent message to do his utmost to come up and sup- 
 port the retirement of my left flank, but owing to the fatigue 
 of his horses he found himself unable to intervene in any 
 way. 
 
 ''There had been no time to intrench the position properly, 
 but the troops showed a magnificent front to the terrible fire 
 which confronted them. 
 
 AKMY FACED ANNIHILATION 
 
 "At length it became apparent that if complete annihila-' 
 tion 7 ^s to be avoided retirement must be attempted, and the 
 orde/<> was given to commence it about 3 :30 in the afternoon. 
 The movement was covered with most devoted intrepidity and 
 determination by the artillery, which had itself suffered 
 heavily, and the fine work done by the cavalry in the further 
 retreat from the position assisted materially the final comple- 
 tion of this most difficult and dangerous operation. 
 
 "I cannot close the brief account of this glorious stand of 
 the British troops without putting on record my deep appre- 
 ciation of the valuable services rendered by Sir Horace Smith- 
 Dorrien. I say without hesitation that the saving of the left 
 wing of the army under my command on the morning of the 
 26th could never have been accomplished unless a commander 
 of rare and unusual coolness, intrepidity and determination 
 had been present to personally conduct the operations. 
 
 ' ' The retreat was continued far into the night of the 26th 
 and through the 27th and the 28th, on which date the troops 
 halted on the line from Noyon, Chauny and LeFere. 
 
 PRAISES SORDET 'S HELP 
 
 "On the 27th and 28th I was much indebted to General 
 Sordet and the French cavalry division which he commands 
 for materially assisting my retirement and successfully driv- 
 ing back some of the enemy on Cambrai. General d'Amade 
 also, with the Sixty-first and Sixty-second Reserve divisions, 
 moved down from the neighborhood of Arras on the enemy's 
 
152 EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 
 
 right flank and took much pressure off the rear of the British 
 forces. 
 
 * ' This closed the period covering the heavy fighting which 
 commenced at Mons on Sunday afternoon, August 23, and 
 which really constituted a four days' battle. 
 
 **I deeply deplore the very serious losses which the Brit- 
 ish forces suffered in this great battle, but they were inevi- 
 table, in view of the fact that the British army — only a few 
 days after concentration by rail — ^was called upon to with- 
 stand the vigorous attack of five German army corps. 
 
 **It is impossible for me to speak too highly of the skill 
 evinced by the two general offi;cers commanding army corps, 
 the self-sacrificing and devoted exertions of their staffs, the 
 direction of troops by the divisional, brigade and regimental 
 leaders, the command of small units by their officers and the 
 magnificent fighting spirit displayed by the noncommissioned 
 officers and men. 
 
 [Signed] "J. D. P. Fkench, 
 *' Field Marshal." 
 
 TOLD BY A WOUNDED SOLDIEE 
 
 A British soldier, who was wounded in the fight during 
 the retreat from Mons, told the following story of the battle 
 there : 
 
 *'It was Sunday, August 23, and the British regiments 
 at Mons were merry-making and enjoying themselves in lei- 
 sure along the streets. Belgian ladies, returning from church, 
 handed the soldiers their prayer books as souvenirs, while 
 the Belgian men gave the men cigarettes and tobacco. 
 
 ** About noon, when the men were beginning to think about 
 dinner, a German aeroplane appeared overhead and began 
 throwing out a cloud of black powder, which is one of their 
 favorite methods of assisting batteries to get the range. 
 
 ' ' No sooner had the powder cloud appeared than shrapnel 
 began to burst overhead and in a moment all was confusion 
 and uproar. But it didn't take the regiments long to get into 
 fighting trim and race through the city to the scene of opera- 
 tions, which was on the other side of the small canal, in the 
 suburbs. 
 
EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAh 153 
 
 **Here our outposts were engaging the enemy fiercely. The 
 outposts lost very heavily, most of the damage being done 
 by shells. The rifle fire was ineffective, although at times 
 the lines of contenders were not more than 300 yards apart. 
 
 * * The first reinforcements to arrive were posted in a glass 
 factory, the walls of which were loop-holed, and we doggedly 
 held that position until nightfall, when we fixed bayonets and 
 lay in wait in case the enemy made an attempt to rush the po- 
 sition in the darkness. 
 
 DESTROY BRIDGES BEHIND THEM 
 
 ** About midnight orders came to retire over the canal and 
 two companies were left behind to keep the enemy in check 
 temporarily. After the main body had crossed the bridge 
 was blown up, leaving the two outpost companies to get across 
 as best they could by boats or swimming. Most of them man- 
 aged to reach the main body again. 
 
 ''The main body retired from the town and fell back 
 through open country, being kept moving all night. When 
 daylight arrived it was apparent from higher ground that 
 Mons had been practically blown away by the German artil- 
 lery. 
 
 ''Throughout the morning we continued to fight a rear- 
 guard action, but the steady march in retreat did not stop 
 until 6 o'clock in the evening, when the British found them- 
 selves well out of range of the German artillery in a quiet 
 valley. 
 
 "Here all the troops were ordered to rest and eat. As 
 they had been without food since the previous morning's 
 breakfast it was rather amusing to see the soldiers going into 
 the turnip fields and eating turnips as though they were 
 apples. 
 
 "At 8 o'clock all lights were extinguished, the soldiers 
 were ordered to make no noise and the pickets pushed a long 
 distance backward. Long before dawn the troops were hastily 
 started again and continued the retirement. 
 
 "By noon the enemy was again heard from and a large 
 detachment was assigned the task of fighting to protect our 
 rear. 
 
154 EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 
 
 WATCH DUEL IN AIB 
 
 ''During the afternoon both the German and British 
 armies watched a duel in the air between French and German 
 aeroplanes. The Frenchman was wonderfully clever, and 
 succeeded in maneuvering himself to the upper position, 
 which he gained after fifteen minutes of reckless effort. Then 
 the Frenchman began blazing away at the German with a 
 revolver. 
 
 ''Finally he hit him, and the wounded German attempted 
 to glide down into his own lines. The glide, however, ended 
 in the British lines near my detachment, the West Kent In- 
 fantry. We found the aviator dead when we reached the ma- 
 chine. We buried him and burned the aeroplane. 
 
 "At dusk a halt was made for food, and as the Germans 
 had fallen behind the English spent a quiet night. At dawn, 
 however, we found the Germans close to our heels, and several 
 regiments were ordered to prepare intrenchments. This is 
 tedious and tiresome work, especially in the heat and with- 
 out proper food, but we quickly put up fortifications which 
 were sufficient to protect us somewhat from the artillery 
 fire. 
 
 "It was not long before the German gunners found the 
 range and began tearing up those rough fortifications, con- 
 centrating their fire on the British batteries, one of which was 
 completely demolished. Another found itself with only six 
 men. Both these disasters bore testimony to the excellent 
 markmanship of the German gunners. 
 
 OFFICER SPIKES THE GUNS 
 
 "As it became evident that we must leave these guns be- 
 hind and continue the retreat, an officer was seen going around 
 putting the guns out of action, so that they would be of no 
 use to the Germans. His action required cool bravery, be- 
 cause the Germans, having found the range, continued firing 
 directly at these batteries. 
 
 "Things rapidly got hotter, and the commanding officer 
 ordered a double-quick retreat. We were not long in doing 
 the retiring movement to save our own skins. 
 
 "I was wounded at this time by a Maxim bullet. For a 
 
EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 155 
 
 moment I thought my head had been blown off, but I recov- 
 ered and kept on running until I reached a trench, where I 
 had an opportunity to bandage the wound. I rushed off to 
 the ambulances, but found the doctors so busy with men 
 worse off than I that I went back to my place in the line. ' ' 
 
 THE BATTLE AT CHAKLEEOI 
 
 The loss of life in the Franco-German battle near Char- 
 leroi was admittedly the greatest of any engagement up to 
 that time. It was at Charleroi that the Germans struck their 
 most terrific blow at the allies' lines in their determination 
 to gain the French frontier. Though the tide of battle ebbed 
 and flowed for awhile the French were finally forced to give 
 way and to retreat behind their own frontier, while the Brit- 
 ish were being forced back from their position at Mons. The 
 fighting along the hne was of the fiercest kind. It was a 
 titanic clash of armies in which the allies were compelled to 
 yield ground before the superior numbers of the German host. 
 
 One of the wounded, who was taken to hospital at Dieppe, 
 said of the fighting at Charleroi : 
 
 "Our army was engaging what we believed to be a sec- 
 tion of the German forces commanded by the crown prince 
 when I was wounded. The Germans at one stage of the bat- 
 tle seemed lost. They had been defending themselves almost 
 entirely with howitzers from strongly intrenched positions. 
 The Germans were seemingly surrounded and cut off and were 
 summoned to surrender. The reply came back that so long 
 as they had ammunition they would continue to fight. 
 
 "The howitzer shells of the Germans seemed enormous 
 things and only exploded when they struck the earth. When 
 one would descend it would dig a hole a yard deep and split 
 into hundreds of pieces. Peculiarly enough the howitzer 
 shells did much more wounding than killing. The other shells 
 of the Germans, like cartridges, the supply of which they 
 seemed to be short of, did only little damage. 
 
 AEROS CONSTANTLY ABOVE 
 
 "The German aeroplane service was perfect. An air- 
 craft was always hovering over us out of range. We were 
 certain within an hour after we sighted an aeroplane to get 
 
156 EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 
 
 the howitzers among us. Whenever we fired, however, we did 
 terrific execution with our seventy-five pieces of artillery. I 
 counted in one trench 185 dead. Many of them were MUed 
 as they were in the act of firing or loading. 
 
 "The ground occupied by the Germans was so thick with 
 dead that I believe I saw one soldier to every two yards. You 
 might have walked for a mile on bodies without ever putting 
 foot to the ground. They buried their dead when they had 
 time, piling fifteen or twenty in a shallow pit." 
 
 THE FRENCH IN ALSACE-LORRAINE 
 
 On August 9 the advance guard brigade of the French 
 right wing, under General Pau, a veteran of the Franco-Prus- 
 sian war of 1870-71, invaded Alsace, fought a victorious action 
 with an intrenched German force of equal numbers and occu- 
 pied Muelhausen and Kolmar. The news of the French entry 
 into the province lost in 1871 was received all over France 
 with wild enthusiasm. The mourning emblems on the Stras- 
 burg monument in Paris were removed by the excited popu- 
 lace and replaced by the tricolor flag and flowers in token of 
 their joy. Muelhausen was soon after retaken by the Ger- 
 man forces, only to be recaptured later by the French and 
 then evacuated once more. 
 
 On the day of the first French occupation of Muelhausen 
 France declared war against Austria in consequence of the 
 arrival of two Austrian army corps on the Rhine to assist 
 the main German army. 
 
 After the French occupation of Muelhausen a large Ger-. 
 man army was sent to the front in Alsace-Lorraine and suc- 
 ceeded in dislodging the French from that city, but not with- 
 out severe fighting. 
 
 Two weeks after the war began the French defeated a 
 Bavarian corps in Alsace and for awhile General Pau more 
 than held his own in that former province of France. On 
 August 21 the Germans drove back the French who had in- 
 vaded Lorraine, and occupied Luneville, ten miles inside the 
 French border. 
 
 About the same time the French reoccupied Muelhausen, 
 
EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 157 
 
 after three days' fighting around the city. Another French 
 army was reported to be within nineteen miles of Metz. But 
 before the end of the month the French had been compelled 
 to evacuate both their former provinces. They continued 
 during September, however, to make frequent assaults on 
 the German frontier positions, but without regaining a sure 
 foothold on German soil, the bulk of their efforts being de- 
 voted to the defense of their own frontier strongholds. 
 
 FIGHTING AROUND NANCY 
 
 An official dispatch from the foreign office in Paris, dated 
 August 28, said: 
 
 ''Yesterday the French troops took the offensive in the 
 Vosges mountains and in the region between the Vosges and 
 Nancy, and their offensive has been interrupted, but the Ger- 
 man loss has been considerable. 
 
 ''Our forces found, near Nancy, on a front of three kilo- 
 meters, 2,500 dead Germans, and near Vitrimont, on a front 
 of four kilometers, 4,500 dead. Longwy, where the garrison 
 consisted of only one battalion, has capitulated to the Crown 
 Prince of Germany after a siege of twenty-four days. ' ' 
 
 FRENCH TRAPPED IN ALSACE 
 
 The German view of early operations in Alsace-Lor- 
 raine was given in the following dispatch September 2 from 
 the headquarters of the general staff at Aix-la-Chapelle : 
 
 "The French forces were trapped in Alsace-Lorraine. 
 Realizing that the French temperament was more likely to be 
 swayed by sentiment than by stern adherence to the rules 
 of actual warfare, the German staff selected its own battle 
 line and waited. The French did not disappoint. They 
 rushed across the border. They took Altkirch with little oppo- 
 sition. Then they rushed on to Muelhausen. Through the 
 passes in the Vosges mountains they poured, horse, artillery, 
 foot — all branches of the service. Strasburg was to fall and 
 so swift was the French movement that lines of communi- 
 cation were not guarded. 
 
 "Then the German general staff struck. Their troops 
 from Saarburg, from Strasburg and from Metz, under the 
 command of General von Heeringen, attacked the French all 
 
158 EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 
 
 along the line. They were utterly crushed. The Germans 
 took 10,000 Frenchmen prisoners and more than one himdred 
 guns of every description. Alsace-Lorraine is now reported 
 absolutely cleared of French troops. 
 
 "The armies of Crown Prince Frederick Wilhelm and of 
 Crown Prince Eupprecht of Bavaria are moving in an irre- 
 sistible manner into France. In a 3-day battle below Metz 
 the French were terribly cut up and forced to retreat in al- 
 most a rout. It is declared that in this engagement the French 
 lost 151 guns and were unable to make a stand against the vic- 
 torious Germans until they had passed inside of their sec- 
 ondary line of defense. ' ' 
 
 THE GEBMAN "SPY POSTERS '* 
 
 Just prior to the declaration of war, cable dispatches from 
 Paris told of a remarkable series of posters dotting the coun- 
 tryside of France. These posters, innocently advertising 
 ** Bouillon Kub," a German soup preparation, were so clev- 
 erly printed by the German concern advertising the soup, 
 that they would act as signals to German army officers lead- 
 ing their troops through France. 
 
 In one of our photographic illustrations, on© of these 
 "spy posters" is seen posted on the left of an archway past 
 which the French soldiers are marching en route to meet the 
 Germans near the Alsace frontier. 
 
 The ingenuity of the signs was remarkable. Thus a square 
 yellow poster would carry the information, ''Food in abun- 
 dance found here," while a round red sign would advertise, 
 * * This ground is mined. ' ' Many geometrical figures and most 
 of the colors were utilized, and animal forms, flowers and 
 even the American Stars and Stripes were employed to con- 
 vey their messages of information. 
 
 The French Minister of the Interior got wind of the sys- 
 tem, and orders were telegraphed throughout France to de- 
 stroy these posters. Bouillon Kub, therefore, is no longer ad- 
 vertised in France. 
 
 A soldier's experience under fire 
 A wounded French soldier described his experiences un- 
 der fire during the Alsace campaign. He said in part : 
 
EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 159 
 
 "Tlierel A blow in the breast, a tearing in the body, a 
 fall with a loud cry and a terrible pain; there I lay one of 
 the victims of this terrible day. My first sensation was anger 
 at the blow, mj second an expectation of seeing myself ex- 
 plode, for, judging by the sound of the ball, I believed I had a 
 grenade in my body; then came the pain, and with it help- 
 lessness and falling. 
 
 *'0h, how frightful are those first moments! Where I 
 was hit, how I was wounded, I could form no idea; I only 
 felt that I could not stir, saw the battalion disappear from 
 sight and myself alone on the ground, amid the fearful howl- 
 ing and whistling of the balls which were incessantly striking 
 the ground around me. 
 
 ''With difficulty could I turn my head a little, and saw 
 behind me two soldiers attending on a third, who was lying on 
 the ground. Of what happened I can give no account except 
 that I cried for help several times as well as I could, for the 
 pain and burning thirst had the upper hand. At last both of 
 them ran to me, and with joy I recognized the doctor and 
 hospital attendant of my company. 
 
 " 'Where are you wounded?' was the first question. I 
 could only point. My blouse was quickly opened, and in the 
 middle of the breast a bloody wound was found. The balls 
 still constantly whizzed around us; one struck the doctor's 
 helmet, and immediately I felt a violent blow on the left arm. 
 Another wound ! With difficulty I was turned round, to look 
 for the outlet of the bullet ; but it was still in my body, near 
 the spine. At last it was cut out. They were going away — 
 ' The wound in the arm, doctor. ' This, fortunately, was looked 
 for in vain ; the ball had merely caused a blue spot and had 
 sunk harmlessly into the ground. 
 
 "I extended my hand to the doctor and thanked him, as 
 also the attendant, whom I commissioned to ask the sergeant 
 to send word to my family. The doctor had carefully placed 
 my cloak over me, with my helmet firmly on my head, in order 
 in some measure to protect me from the leaden hail. 
 
 "Thus 1 lay alone with my own thoughts amid the most 
 terrible fire for perhaps an hour and a half. All my thoughts, 
 as far as pain and increasing weakness allowed, were fixed on 
 
160 EARLY BATTLES OF THE WAR 
 
 my family. Gradually I got accustomed to the danger which 
 surrounded me, and only when too much sand from the strik- 
 ing bullets was thrown on my body did I remember my little 
 enviable position. At last, after long, long waiting, the sani- 
 tary detachment came for me." 
 
 THE REAL, TRAGEDY OF WAR 
 
 It is not a pleasant picture — this story of the French sol- 
 dier. It has little in it of the grandeur, the beat of drums, 
 the sound of martial music, which is supposed to accompany 
 war. The tread of marching feet has died away, the excite- 
 ment is gone, and man the demon is supplanted by man the 
 everyday human creature of suffering and home folks and 
 fear. 
 
 It is only a personal account of an individual experience, 
 yet in it may be found the real significance and the real trag- 
 edy of war ; for, after the fighting is over, after the intoxica- 
 tion of legalized murder has gone, after nations turn their 
 attention from victories to men, it is the aggregate of indi- 
 vidual experiences which counts the costs of war. 
 
 Thousands of German, French, Belgian, Austrian, Rus- 
 sian, and British men in the prime of life have been miserably 
 slain and lie in obscure graves of which the enemy now is the 
 guardian, while others writhe in the agony of lingering wounds 
 or sullenly brood over their fate in the dull routine of mili- 
 tary prisons. In every part of the warring countries mothers 
 weep over the sons they shall see no more, and wives over 
 the husbands snatched from them forever. In many a man- 
 sion, in many a comfortable home, in many a peasant's cot- 
 tage, the empty chair is eloquent of the absent father, brother, 
 husband or son who shall be absent forever. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 GERMAN ADVANCE ON PARIS 
 
 dllies Withdraw for Ten Days, Disputing Every Inch of 
 Groimd With the Kaiser's Troops — Germans Push 
 Their Way Through France in Three Main Columns — 
 Official Reports of the Withdrawing Engagements — 
 Paris Almost in Sight. 
 
 FLUSHED with their successes over the Allies at Mons 
 and Charleroi, the Germans pushed their advance 
 toward the French capital with great celerity and vigor. 
 During the last week of August and the first few days of 
 Septvjmber, it appeared inevitable that the experience of 
 Paris in 1870-71 was to be repeated and that a siege of the 
 city by the German forces would follow immediately. 
 
 It was conceded that the armies of the Allies had been 
 forced back and that Paris was endangered. The German 
 advance was general, all along the line. The flower of the 
 Kaiser's arniy had marched through Belgium and pushed 
 back the lines of the Allies to the formidable rows of forti- 
 fications that surround Paris. The Germans advanced in 
 three main columns, constantly in touch with one another, 
 from the right, passing through Mons, Cambrai and Amiens, 
 to the extreme left in Lorraine. The center threatened Ver- 
 dun, and from that point the right advance swept through 
 Northern France like an opening fan, with the fortress of 
 Verdun as the pivot. 
 
 Three million men were engaged in the main struggle. 
 When the Germans first reached the Franco-Belgian frontier 
 near Charleroi they were opposed by 700,000 French and 150,- 
 000 British troops. After being driven back the Allies began 
 
 161 
 
162 GERMAN ADVANCE ON PARIS 
 
 assembling 1,000,000 men between the frontier and Paris. 
 The Allies hoped to hold the whole German army in check 
 while the Russians pursued their successes in eastern Ger- 
 many. French troops guarded the entire frontier, battling 
 to check the other German invading columns. The holding of 
 the Germans, once they broke through the fortifications that 
 formed the chief reliance of the French, would be impossible. 
 The next stand would be around Paris, which was well forti- 
 fied. The invaders were, of course, attempting to get through 
 where there were no forts. 
 
 ALLIES MAKE STRENUOUS EESISTANCE 
 
 Strenuous resistance to the onward movement of the Ger- 
 man enemy was made by the Allies from day to day, but for 
 a period of ten days there was an almost continual retire- 
 ment of the French and British upon Paris. It was in fact a 
 masterly retreat, but a retreat nevertheless. From the line 
 of La Fere and Mezieres, occupied by the Allies after the bat- 
 tles at Mons and Charleroi, they fell back 70 miles m seven 
 days, disputing every step of the way, but withdrawing grad- 
 ually to the line of defenses around the French capital. From 
 Cambrai the Germans pushed through Amiens to Beauvais; 
 from Peronne to Roye, Montdidier, Creil, and on to the forest 
 of Chantilly. From the region of Le Cateau and St. Quen- 
 tin the German advance was by Noyon to Compiegne (famous 
 for its memories of Joan of Arc's famous sortie), at which 
 point the Allies made a desperate stand and the Germans had 
 to fight for every inch of ground. They then passed through 
 Senlis, which was first bombarded, down to Meaux, almost 
 within sight of Paris, the head of the German army resting 
 on a line between Beaumont, Meaux and La Ferte, at which 
 point the resistance of the Allies finally forced a change in 
 German plans. 
 
 Other German forces passed through Laon, Soissons and 
 Chateau Thierry. Farther to the east, the road from Mezieres 
 led the Germans to Rheims, Mourmelon, and opposite Chalons 
 on the River Marne. 
 
 Another German army from the direction of Longwy, 
 under the command of the Crown Prince, was operating 
 through Suippes and on the wooded Argonne plateau,, with 
 
GERMAN ADVANCE ON PARIS 163 
 
 its five passes, famous in the action of 1792 which preceded 
 the battle of Valmy. At the entrance to this hilly country 
 stands the little town of Sainte Menehould, where there was 
 severe fighting with the French. Here the German Crown 
 Prince made his headquarters. 
 
 The great plain of the Argonne is full of most wonderful 
 ecclesiastical buildings and many magnificent cathedrals, 
 townhalls and ancient fortresses were passed by the warring 
 armies in their advance and withdrawal, some of these his- 
 toric structures sustaining irreparable damage. 
 
 The German advance continued southward toward Paris 
 until September 4, 
 
 EELENTLESS PURSUIT OF THE BRITISH 
 
 All reports agree that during the retirement of the Allies, 
 the Germans pursued the British headquarters staff with un- 
 canny precision throughout the ten days from Mons back to 
 Compiegne. After fierce street fighting in Denain and Lan- 
 drecies Sir John French withdrew his headquarters to Le 
 Gateau, which was at once made the target of a terrific bom- 
 bardment. The town caught fire, burning throughout one 
 night, and the British headquarters had to be evacuated, this 
 time in favor of St. Quentin, in the local college. Here the 
 same thing happened and Field Marshal French was com- 
 pelled once more to retire, to the neighborhood of Com- 
 piegne. 
 
 In an official report issued on Sunday, September 6, it is 
 stated that, *'The 5th French army on August 29 advanced 
 from the line of the Gise Eiver to meet and counter the Ger- 
 man forward movement and a considerable battle developed 
 to the south of Guise. In this the 5th French army gained a 
 marked and solid success, driving back with heavy loss and in 
 disorder three German army corps, the 10th, the Guard, and 
 a reserve corps. In spite of this success, however, and all 
 the benefits which flowed from it, the general retirement to 
 the south continued and the German armies, seeking persist- 
 ently after the British troops, remained in practically con- 
 tinuous contact with the rearguards. 
 
 *'0n August 30 and 31 the British covering and delaying 
 troops were frequently engaged, and on September 1 a verv 
 
164 GERMAN ADVANCE ON PARIS 
 
 vigorous effort was made hy the Germans, which brought 
 about a sharp action in the neighborhood of Compiegne. This 
 action was fought principally by the 1st British Cavalry Bri- 
 gade and the 4th Guards Brigade and was entirely satisfactory 
 to the British. The German attack, which was most strongly 
 pressed, was not brought to a standstill until much slaughter 
 had been inflicted upon them and until ten German guns had 
 been captured. The brunt of this affair fell upon the Guards 
 Brigade, which lost in killed and wounded about 300 men." 
 This affair was typical of the numerous rearguard en- 
 gagements fought by both the British and the French forces 
 during their retirement. 
 
 MASTEELY TACTICS IN BETIEING 
 
 Pressing hard upon the rear of the Allies for ten days was 
 the greatest military machine that has ever been assembled in 
 one cohesive force. Through Belgium had poured nearly 
 2,000,000 German troops, made up of about 800,000 first-line 
 soldiers and more than 1,000,000 reserves. The twenty-six- 
 hour march of part of the German army through Brussels 
 was stunning evidence of the might of the **war machine," 
 and despite fierce fighting all the way, the great army had 
 never faltered in its ISO-mile advance in Belgium. 
 
 But the numerical might of the German advance was 
 matched by the masterly tactics of the Allies in retiring. By 
 these tactics, in which General Joffre, the French commander- 
 in-chief, co-operated with the British field-marshal. Sir John 
 French, the Allies prevented their lines being overwhelmed 
 by the superior numbers of their foe, but the German right 
 flank and center, strung out over a line more than 150 miles 
 long, northeast of Paris, kept smashing on. Losses were 
 frightfully heavy, but the Kaiser's order was **Take Paris!" 
 
 It was believed certain that the German general staff had 
 staked everything on investing Paris immediately, by com- 
 pletely breaking down the opposition massed between the Ger- 
 man lines and the city. Paris had therefore prepared for the 
 siege, with her great circles of forts strengthened and her 
 food supply replenished. Many of the residents fled the city 
 in panic, fearing a repetition of the dread days of 1871, with 
 their privation and distress, but the spirit of the French peo- 
 
GERMAN ADVANCE ON PARIS 165 
 
 pie geui(?rally remained unshaken and General Gallieni, mili- 
 tary governor of Paris, assumed complete control of the situ- 
 ation in the city. 
 
 GOVERNMENT MOVED TO BORDEAUX 
 
 On August 26 the French cabinet had resigned in a body 
 and it was reconstructed on broader lines under Premier 
 Viviani to meet the demands of the national emergency. 
 
 German troops were reported within 40 miles of Paris on 
 September 3, and at 3 A. M. of that day a proclamation was 
 issued by President Poincare, announcing that the seat of 
 government would be temporarily transferred from Paris to 
 Bordeaux. The minister of the interior stated that this de- 
 cision had been taken * * solely upon the demand of the military 
 authorities because the fortified places of Paris, while not 
 necessarily likely to be attacked, would become the pivot of 
 the field operations of the two armies. ' ' 
 
 The text of President Poincare 's proclamation was as 
 follows : 
 
 ** ENDURE AND FIGHT ! " 
 
 ** Frenchmen: For several weeks our heroic troops have 
 been engaged in the fierce combat with the enemy. The cour- 
 age of our soldiers has won for them a number of marked ad- 
 vantages. But in the north the pressure of the German forces 
 has constrained us to retire. This situation imposes on the 
 president of the Eepublic and the government a painful de- 
 cision. 
 
 ''To safeguard the national safety the public authorities 
 are obliged to leave for the moment the city of Paris. Under 
 the command of its eminent chief, the French army, full of 
 courage and spirit, will defend the capital and its patriotic 
 population against the invader. But the war must be pursued 
 at the same time in the rest of the French territory. 
 
 "The sacred struggle for the honor of the nation and the 
 reparation of violated rights will continue without peace or 
 truce and without a stop or a failure. None of our armies 
 has been broken. 
 
 "If some of them have suffered only too evident losses, the 
 gaps in the ranks have been filled up from the waiting reserve 
 
166 GERMAN ADVANCE ON PARIS 
 
 forces, while the calling out of a new class of reserves brings 
 us tomorrow new resources in men and energy. 
 
 "Endure and fight! Such should be the motto of the allied 
 army, British, Russians, Belgians and French. 
 
 "Endure and fight! While on the sea our allies aid us to 
 cut the enemy's communications with the world. 
 
 "Endure and fight! While the Russians continue to carry 
 a decisive blow to the heart of the German empire. 
 
 " It is for the government of this republic to direct this re- 
 sistance to the very end and to give to this formidable 
 struggle all its \igor and efficiency. It is indispensable that 
 the government retain the mastery of its own actions. On 
 the demand of the military authorities the government there- 
 fore transfers its seat momentarily to a point of the territory 
 whence it may remain in constant relations with the rest of 
 the country. It invites the members of parliament not to 
 remain distant from the government, in order to form, in the 
 face of the enemy, with the government and their colleagues, 
 a group of national unity. 
 
 * * The government does not leave Paris without having as- 
 sured a defense of the city and its entrenched camp by all 
 means in its power. It knows it has not the need to recom- 
 mend to the admirable Parisian population a calm resolution 
 and sangfroid, for it shows every day it is equal to its great- 
 est duties. 
 
 "Frenchmen, let us all be worthy of these tragic circum- 
 stances. We shall gain a final victory and we shall gain it by 
 untiring will, endurance and tenacity. A nation that will not 
 perish, and which, to live, retreats before neither suffering 
 nor sacrifice, is sure to vanquish." 
 
 The removal of the French government departments to 
 Bordeaux was accomplished within twenty-four hours and 
 the southern city became at once a center of remarkable ac- 
 tivity. Ambassador Herrick, representing the United States, 
 remained in Paris to render aid to his fellow-countrymen who 
 were seeking means of returning to America and were more 
 than ever anxious to get away when a state of siege became 
 imminent. 
 
GERMAN ADVANCE ON PARIS 
 
 167 
 
 A radical change in the French military operations was 
 put in effect after the Germans had swept in from Belgium, 
 and had taken the cities of Lille, Eoubaix, and Longwy. The 
 French army had attempted to strike and shatter the Germans 
 at their weakest point, and failed. 
 
 Paris prepared for the worst when the Kaiser's conquer- 
 ing army reached La Fere, about seventy miles away. From 
 Amiens to La Fere the Germans pressed their attack hardest. 
 As the Allies were seen to be gradually falling back, reserve 
 troops were assembled in Paris and the forts put in readiness 
 for siege. 
 
 THE FORTIFICATIONS 6F PARIS 
 
 Paris has one of the strongest fortification systems of any 
 city in the world. The siege of the giant city would be a much 
 greater undertaking than forty-four years ago, as the forti- 
 
 HAP OF SnSHCB CAPITAL, WITH STABS DTDICATINQ POSmOK OP FOBTIPICATIOBS. 
 
168 GERMAN ADVANCE ON PARIS 
 
 fications have been essentially augmented and strengthened 
 since the Franco-Prussian war. 
 
 The fortifications consist of the old city walls, the old belt 
 of forts and the new enceinture of the fortified camps, which 
 have been advanced far outside of the reach of the old forts. 
 The main wall, ten meters (33 feet) high, consists of ninety- 
 four bastions and is surrounded by a ditch fifteen meters wide. 
 Behind the wall a ringroad and a belt line run around the city. 
 
 The belt of old forts surrounds this main fortification of 
 the city at a little distance and consists of not less than six- 
 teen forts. Those farthest advanced are hardly half a mile 
 distant from the main wall. The experiences of the last war, 
 the immense progress of the artillery, and especially the 
 wider reach of the modern siege guns induced the French 
 army authorities to build a belt of still stronger forts, which 
 surrounds the old fortress of 1870 like a protective net. The 
 forts, redoubts and batteries belonging to this last belt of 
 fortifications are situated at least two miles from the city 
 limits proper, and even Versailles is taken into this belt of 
 fortifications. 
 
 The circumference of the circle formed by them is 124 
 kilometers (nearly 77 miles) and the space included in it 
 amounts to 1,200 square kilometers. This new belt of fortifi- 
 cations consists of seven forts of the first class, sixteen forts 
 of the second class and fifty redoubts or batteries, which are 
 connected with each other by the *' Great Belt Line," of 113 
 kilometers (71 miles). 
 
 FORM LARGE FORTIFIED CAMPS 
 
 The strongest of these forts form fortified camps, large 
 enough to give protection to strong armies and also the pos- 
 sibility for a new reconcentration. There are three of these 
 camps. The northern camp includes the fortifications from 
 the Fort de Cormeilles on the left to the Fort de Stains on 
 the right wing, with the forts of the first class, Cormeilles 
 and Domont, and the forts of the second class, Montlignon, 
 Montmorency, Ecouen and Stains, and it is protected in the 
 rear by the strong forts in the vicinity of St. Denis. The 
 eastern camp goes from the Ourcq canal and the forest of 
 Bondy to the Seine, and its main strongholds are the forts of 
 
GERMAN ADVANCE ON PARIS 169 
 
 Vau jours and Villeneuve-St. Georges, with the smaller forts 
 of Chelles, Villiers, Champigny and Sully. 
 
 On the left bank of the Seine the southwestern camp is 
 situated, including Versailles, whose main forts are those of 
 St. Cyr, Haut-Buc, Villeras and Palaiseau, to which the large 
 redubt of Bois d'Arcy and the forts of Chatillon and Hautes- 
 Bruyeres, situated a little to the rear, belong likewise. 
 
 To invest this strongest fortress of the world the line of 
 the Germans ought to have a length of 175 kilometers and to 
 its continuous occupation, even if the ring of the investing 
 masses were not very deep, a much greater number of troops 
 would be necessary than were used in 1870 for the siege of 
 Paris. 
 
 GERMAN AMMUNITION CAPTURED 
 
 A correspondent at Nanteuil, September 12, thus described 
 the capture of a German ammunition column while the Ger- 
 mans were feeling their way toward Paris: 
 
 "The seven-kilometer column was winding its way along 
 Crepy-en-Valois when General Pau sent cavalry and artillery 
 to intercept it. The column was too weakly guarded to cope 
 with the attack, and so was captured and destroyed. This 
 capture had an important bearing on the subsequent fighting. 
 
 "A noticeable feature of the operations has been the splen- 
 did marching qualities of the French troops. This was dis- 
 played especially when two divisions, which were sent to 
 intercept the expected attempt of the Germans to invest Paris, 
 covered eighty kilometers (49^ miles) in two stages." 
 
 ALLIES PLAN TO PROTECT PARIS 
 
 The plan of the Allies on September 1 was to make a deter- 
 mined stand before Paris, in the effort to protect the city from 
 the horrors of a siege. With their left wing resting on the 
 strongly fortified line of the Paris forts and with their right 
 wing strengthened by the defensive line from Verdun to Bel- 
 fort, they would occupy a position of enormous military 
 strength. If the Germans concentrated to move against their 
 front the French reserve armies could assemble v/est of the 
 Seine, move forward and attack the German invading columns 
 in flank. 
 
170 
 
 GERMAN ADVANCE ON PARIS 
 
 If in their effort to continue tlie great turning movement 
 the Germans pushed forward across the Seine and attempted 
 by encircling Paris to gain the rear of the allied armies, the 
 French could mass their reserve corps behind their center at 
 Eheims, push forward against the weakened German center 
 in an attack that if successful would cut off the German 
 invading columns and expose them to annihilation. 
 
 Such were the conditions and the possibilities when the 
 German advance reached its climax on September 4. 
 
 H O 1 1. ^ 
 
 POSITION OF HOSTILE ARMIES. SEPTEMBER 4, 1914 
 
 Heavy dotted line denotes battle front of the Allies; lighter line the position 
 of the German Troops. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 BATTLE OF THE MARNE 
 
 German Plans Suddenly Changed — Direction of Advance 
 Swings to the Southeast When Close to the French 
 Capital — Successful Resistance hy the Allies — The 
 Prolonged Encounter at the Marne — Germans Retreat 
 With Allies in Hot Pursuit for Many Miles. 
 
 SUDDENLY the German plans were changed. "With Paris 
 almost in sight, almost within the range of their heavy 
 artillery, the German forces on the right of the line on 
 September 4 changed the direction of their advance to a 
 southeasterly course, which would leave Paris to the west. 
 The people of the gay capital, who for several days had been 
 preparing themselves once more for the thunder of the Prus- 
 sian guns, began to breathe more freely, while all the world 
 wondered at the sudden and spectacular transformation in 
 the conditions of the conflict. 
 
 What had happened? Why was the advance thus checked 
 and the march on Paris abandoned ? Was it a trick, designed 
 to lead the Allies into a trap? Or were the German troops 
 too exhausted by forced marches and lack of rest to face the 
 determined resistance of the allied forces before Paris! 
 
 These were the questions on every tongue, on both sides 
 of the Atlantic, while the military experts sought strategic 
 reasons for the change in German plans. 
 
 When the movement towards the east began the right 
 of the German forces moved through Beaumont and L'Isle 
 towards Meaux, apparently with the intention of avoiding 
 Paris. Their front some twenty-four hours later was found 
 to be extending across the River Marne as far south as Cou- 
 
 171 
 
172 BATTLE OF THE MARNE 
 
 lommiers and La Ferte-Gaucher, the two opposing lines at 
 that time stretching between Paris on the left flank and Ver- 
 dun on the right. 
 
 On Monday, September 7, there came news that the south- 
 ward movement of the German army had been arrested, and 
 that it had been forced back across the Marne to positions 
 where the German right wing curved back from La Ferte- 
 sous-Jouarre along the bank of the Eiver Ourcq, a tributary 
 of the Marne, to the northward of Chateau Thierry. All this 
 territory forms part of the district known as the ''Bassin de 
 Paris." 
 
 Then came a turn in the tide of war and the German plans 
 were temporarily lost sight of when the Allies assumed the 
 offensive along the Marne and the Ourcq and the Germans 
 began to fall back. For four days their retreat continued. 
 Ten miles, thirty miles, forty-five miles, back toward the 
 northeast and east the invaders retired and Paris was 
 relieved. The tide of battle had thrown the Germans away 
 from the French capital and Frenchmen believed their retire- 
 ment was permanent. 
 
 BATTLE OF THE MARNE 
 
 Important and interesting details of the battle of the 
 Marne and the movements that preceded it are given in an 
 oflBicial report compiled from information sent from the head- 
 quarters of Field Marshal Sir John French (commander-in- 
 chief of the British expeditionary forces), under date of Sep- 
 tember 11. This account describes the movements both of 
 the British force and of the French armies in immediate 
 touch with it. It carries the operations from the 4th to the 
 10th of September, both days inclusive, and says: 
 
 **The general position of our troops Sunday, September 6, 
 was south of the Eiver Marne, with the French forces in line 
 on our right and left. Practically there had been no change 
 since Saturday, September 5, which marked the end of our 
 army's long retirement from the Belgian frontier through 
 Northern France. 
 
 *'0n Friday, September 4, it became apparent that there 
 was an alteration in the advance of almost the whole of the 
 
BATTLE OF THE MARNE 173 
 
 first German army. That army since the battle near Mons 
 on the 23d of August had been playing its part in a colossal 
 strategic endeavor to create a Sedan for the Allies by out- 
 flanking and enveloping the left of their whole line so as to 
 encircle and drive both the British and French to the south. 
 
 THE CHANGE IN GERMAN STRATEGY 
 
 ''There was now a change in its objective and it was 
 observed that the German forces opposite the British were 
 beginning to move in a southeasterly direction instead of con- 
 tinuing southwest on to the capital, leaving a strong rear 
 guard along the line of the River Ourcq (which flows south of 
 and joins the Marne at Lizy-sur-Ourcq) to keep off the French 
 Sixth Army, which by then had been formed and was to the 
 northwest of Paris. They were evidently executing what 
 amounted to a flank march diagonally across our front. 
 
 "Prepared to ignore the British as being driven out of 
 the fight, they were initiating an effort to attack the left flank 
 of the main French army, which stretched in a long curved 
 line from our right toward the east, and so to carry out 
 against it alone an envelopment which so far had failed 
 against the combined forces of the Allies. 
 
 ''On Saturday, the 5th, this movement on the part of the 
 Germans was continued and large advance parties crossed the 
 Marne southward at Trilport, Sammeron, La Ferte-sous- 
 Jouarre and Chateau Thierry. There was considerable fight- 
 ing with the French Fifth Army on the French left, which 
 fell back from its position south of the Marne toward the 
 Seine. 
 
 "On Sunday large hostile forces crossed the Marne and 
 pushed on through Coulommiers and past the British right, 
 farther to the east. They were attacked at night by the 
 French Fifth, which captured three villages at the point of 
 bayonets. 
 
 ALLIES TAKE THE OFFENSIVE 
 
 "On Monday, September 7, there was a general advance 
 on the part of the Allies. In this quarter of the field our 
 forces, which had now been reinforced, pushed on in a north- 
 easterly direction in co-operation with the advance of the 
 
174 BATTLE OF THE MARNE 
 
 French Fifth Army to the north and of the French Sixth 
 Army to the eastward against the German rearguard along 
 the River Ourcq. 
 
 '' Possibly weakened by the detachment of troops to the 
 eastern theater of operations and realizing that the action of 
 the French Sixth Army against the line of Ourcq and the 
 advance of the British placed their own flanking movement in 
 considerable danger of being taken in the rear and on its 
 flank, the Germans on this day commenced to retire toward 
 the northeast. 
 
 ' ' This was the first time that these troops had turned back 
 since their attack at Mons a fortnight before and from reports 
 received the order to retreat when so close to Paris was a 
 bitter disappointment. From letters found on dead soldiers 
 there is no doubt there was a general impression among the 
 enemy's troops that they were about to enter Paris. 
 
 GERMAlSr RETREAT IS HASTENED 
 
 ' * On Tuesday, September 8, the German movement north- 
 eastward was continued. Their rear guards on the south of 
 the Marne were being pressed back to that river by our troops 
 and by the French on our right, the latter capturing three 
 villages after a hand-to-hand fight and the infliction of severe 
 loss on the enemy. 
 
 ''The fighting along the Ourcq continued on this day and 
 was of the most sanguinary character, for the Germans had 
 massed a great force of artillery along this line. A^ery few 
 of their infantry were seen by the French. The French Fifth 
 Army also made a fierce attack on the Germans in Montmirail, 
 regaining that place. 
 
 *'0n Wednesday, September 9, the battle between the 
 French Sixth Army and what was now the German flank 
 guard along the Ourcq continued. 
 
 ''The British corps, overcoming some resistance on the 
 River Petit Morin, crossed the Marne in pursuit of the Ger- 
 mans, who now were hastily retreating northwest. One of 
 our corps was delayed by an obstinate defense made by a 
 strong rear guard with machine guns at La Ferte-sous- 
 Jouarre, where the bridge had been destroyed. 
 
BATTLE OF THE MARNE 175 
 
 '*0n Thursday, September 10, the French Sixth Army 
 continued its pressure on the west while the Fifth Army by 
 forced marches reached the line of Chateau Thierry and Dor- 
 mans on the Marne. Our troops also continued the pursuit 
 on the north of the latter river and after a considerable 
 amount of fighting captured some 1,500 prisoners, four guns, 
 six machine guns and fifty transport wagons. 
 
 ''Many of the enemy were killed or wounded and the nu- 
 merous thick woods which dot the country north of the Marne 
 are filled with German stragglers. Most of them appear to 
 have been without food for at least two days. 
 
 "Indeed, in this area of the operations, the Germans seem 
 to be demoralized and inclined to surrender in small parties. 
 The general situation appears to be most favorable to the 
 Allies. 
 
 "Much brutal and senseless damage has been done in the 
 villages occupied by the enemy. Property has been wantonly 
 destroyed. Pictures in chateaus have been ripped up and 
 houses generally have been pillaged. 
 
 "It is stated on unimpeachable authority also that the 
 inhabitants have been much ill-treated. 
 
 TKAPPED IN A SUNKEN KOAD 
 
 "Interesting incidents have occurred during the fighting. 
 On the 10th of September part of our Second Army Corps, 
 advancing into the north, found itself marching parallel with 
 another infantry force some little distance away. At first it 
 was thought this was another British unit. After some time, 
 however, it was discovered that it was a body of Germans 
 retreating. 
 
 "Measures promptly were taken to head off the enemy, 
 who were surrounded and trapped in a sunken road, where 
 over 400 men surrendered. 
 
 "On September 10 a small party under a noncommissioned 
 officer was cut off and surrounded. After a desperate resist- 
 ance it was decided to go on fighting to the end. Finally the 
 noncommissioned officer and one man only were left, both of 
 them being wounded. 
 
 * ' The Germans came up and shouted to them : ' Lay down 
 
176 BATTLE OF THE MARNE 
 
 your arms!' The German commander, however, signed to 
 them to keep their arms and then asked to shake hands with 
 the wounded noncommissioned officer, who was carried off on 
 his stretcher with his rifle by his side. 
 
 ''Arrival of reinforcements and the continued advance 
 have delighted our troops, who are full of zeal and anxious to 
 press on. 
 
 SUCCESS OF THE FLYING CORPS 
 
 * ' One of the features of the campaign on our side has been 
 the success obtained by the Royal Flying Corps. In regard to 
 the collection of information it is impossible either to award 
 too much praise to our aviators for the way they have car- 
 ried out their duties or to overestimate the value of the intelli- 
 gence collected, more especially during the recent advance. 
 
 ''In due course certain examples of what has been effected 
 may be specified and the far-reaching nature of the results 
 fully explained, but that time has not arrived. 
 
 "That the services of our Flying Corps, which has really 
 been on trial, are fully appreciated by our allies is shown by 
 the follo\Ying message from the commander-in-chief of the 
 French armies, received September 9 by Field Marshal Lord 
 Kitchener : 
 
 " 'Please express most particularly to Marshal French 
 my thanks for the services rendered on every day by the 
 English flying corps. The precision, exactitude and regu- 
 larity of the news brought in by its members are evidence of 
 their perfect organization and also of the perfect training 
 of the pilots and the observers. — Joseph Joffee, General.' 
 
 ' ' To give a rough idea of the amount of work carried out 
 it is sufficient to mention that during a period of twenty days 
 up to the 10th of September a daily average of more than nine 
 reconnaissance flights of over 100 miles each has been main- 
 tained. 
 
 FIVE GERMAN PH^OTS SHOT 
 
 "The constant object of our aviators has been to effect an 
 accurate location of the enemy's forces and, incidentally, 
 since the operations cover so large an area, of our own units. 
 Nevertheless, the tactics adopted for dealing with hostile air 
 craft are to attack them instantly with one or more British 
 
BATTLE OF THE MAENE 177 
 
 machines. This has been so far successful that in five cases 
 German pilots or observers have been shot while in the air 
 and their machines brought to ground. 
 
 *'As a consequence the British Flying Corps has succeeded 
 in establishing an individual ascendancy which is as service- 
 able to us as it is dangerous to the enemy. 
 
 ''How far it is due to this cause it is not possible at present 
 to ascertain definitely, but the fact remains that the enemy 
 have recently become much less enterprising in their flights. 
 Something in the direction of the mastery of the air already 
 has been gained in pursuance of the principle that the main 
 object of military aviators is the collection of information. 
 
 ''Bomb dropping has not been indulged in to any great 
 extent. On one occasion a petrol bomb was successfully 
 exploded in a German bivouac at night, while from a diary 
 found on a dead German cavalry soldier it has been discov- 
 ered that a high explosive bomb, thrown at a cavalry column 
 from one of our aeroplanes, struck an ammunition wagon, 
 resulting in an explosion which killed fifteen of the enemy." 
 
 LOSSES AT THE MARNE ENORMOUS 
 
 Some idea of the terrific character of the fighting at the 
 Marne and of the great losses in the prolonged battle may be 
 gained from the following story, telegraphed on September 14 
 by a correspondent who followed in the rear of the allied 
 army: 
 
 "General von Kluck's host in coming down over the 
 Marne and the Grand Morin rivers to Sezanne, twenty-five 
 miles southwest of Epemay, met little opposition, and I 
 believe little opposition was intended. The Allies, in fact, 
 led their opponents straight into a trap. The English cavalry 
 led the tired Germans mile after mile, and the Germans 
 believed the Englishmen were running away. When the tre- 
 mendous advance reached Provins the Allies' plan was 
 accomplished, and it got no farther. 
 
 "Fighting Sunday, September 6, was of a terrible char- 
 acter, and began at dawn in the region of La Ferte-Gaucher. 
 The Allies' troops, who were drawn up to receive the Ger- 
 mans, understood it would be their duty to hold on their very 
 
178 BATTLE OF THE MARNE 
 
 best that the attacking force at Meaux might achieve its task 
 in security. The battle lasted all night and until late Monday. 
 
 "The Germany artillery fire was very severe, but not 
 accurate. The French and English fought sternly on and 
 slowly beat the enemy back. 
 
 "Attempts of the Germans to cross the Marne at Meaux 
 entailed terrible losses. Sixteen attempts were foiled by the 
 French artillery fire directed on the river and in one trench 
 600 dead Germans were counted. 
 
 COUNTRY STREWN WITH DEAD 
 
 "The whole country was strewn with the dead and dying. 
 When at last the Germans retired they slackened their rifle 
 fire and in once place retired twelve miles without firing a 
 single shot. One prisoner declared that they were short of 
 ammunition and had been told to spare it as much as 
 possible. 
 
 "Monday saw a tremendous encounter on the Ourcq. In 
 one village, which the Germans hurriedly vacated, the French 
 in a large house found a dinner table beautifully set, with 
 candles still burning on the table, where evidently the German 
 staff had been dining. A woman occupant said they fled pre- 
 cipitately. 
 
 "There was a great deal of hand-to-hand fighting and 
 bayonet work on the Ourcq, which resulted in the terrible 
 Magdeburg regiment beating a retreat. 
 
 "Monday night General von Kluck's army had been 
 thrown back from the Marne and from the Morin and to the 
 region of Sezanne and his position was serious. Immediate 
 steps were necessary to save his line of communications and 
 retreat. To this end reinforcements were hurried north to 
 the Meaux district and the Ourcq and tremendous efforts were 
 made to break up the French resistance in this section. 
 
 GERMAN GUNS ARE SILENCED 
 
 "The second attempt on the Ourcq shared the fate of the 
 first. Though all Monday night and well on into Tuesday 
 the great German guns boomed along this river, the resistance 
 of the allies could not be broken. 'Hold on!' was the com- 
 mand and every man braced himself to obey. While the 
 
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 (Rlxbt) General Coont von Moltke. chief of German sUff. 
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 by maaked French artillery and field guns, supported by British cavalry. TMslncWen^fccSi 
 
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 mge of about 250 yards, the French artillery suddenly sent a hurricane of shrapnel through the 
 man ranks, while the ambuscaded machine guns, it Is said, literally cut many of the German 
 mtrymen In two.— Drawn by H- W. Koekkek from sketches supplied by Dr. N. Monroe nopkins, 
 lyewltnen of the scene. 
 
InUrnaUanal Newt 8«rrlM. 
 
 1. A Belgian Dog-Drawn Machine Gun at Liege. 
 
 2. Dog Artillery Getting Into Position for Action on a Frontier Hilltop. 
 
CHARGE OF THE BRITISH 9TH LANCKKS ON A GERilAN BATTERY DURING THE 
 
 BATTLE OP MONS 
 
 The battery had inflicted heavy losses on the British troops. All the gunners were cut 
 down and the guns put out of action. — Drawn by Dudley Tennant for The Graphic, from 
 notes by a trooper. 
 
Top — Motorcycle Squad, Signal Division. Canadian Expeditionary Force 
 Bottom — The 5l8t Begt, of Sault Ste. Marie, at the Rifle Ranges, Valcartler Camp 
 
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BATTLE OF THE MAENE 179 
 
 Ourcq was being held the struggle of Sezanne was bearing 
 fruit. 
 
 ''The German resistance on Thursday morning was 
 broken. I heard the news in two ways : from the silence of 
 the German guns and from the wounded who poured down to 
 the bases. 
 
 ' ' The wounded men no longer were downhearted, but eager 
 to rejoin the fray. On every French lip was the exclamation 
 that 'They are in full retreat!' and 'They are rushing back 
 home ! ' and in the same breath came generous recognition of 
 the great help given by the British army. 
 
 "The number of wounded entailed colossal transportation 
 work. I counted fifteen trains in eight hours. A fine, grim 
 set of men, terribly weary but amiable, except for the officers. 
 
 GERMANS LEAVE SPOILS BEHIND 
 
 "The enemy crossed the Marne on the return journey 
 north under great difficulties and beneath a withering fire 
 from the British troops, who pursued them hotly. The Ger- 
 man artillery operated from a height. There was again much 
 hand-to-hand fighting and the river was swollen with dead. 
 
 "Tuesday night the British were in possession of La Ferte- 
 sous-Jouarre and Chateau Thierry and the Germans had 
 fallen back forty miles, leaving a long train of spoils behind 
 them. 
 
 ' ' On the same day, in the neighborhood of Vitry-le-Fran- 
 cois, the French troops achieved a victory. Incidentally they 
 drove back the famous Imperial Guard of Germany from 
 Sezanne, toward the swamps of Saint Gond, where, a century 
 ago. Napoleon achieved one of his last successes. The main 
 body of the guard passed to the north of the swamps, but I 
 heard of men and horses engulfed and destroyed. 
 
 '* *It is our revenge for 1814,' the French officers said. 
 'If only the emperor were here to see.' 
 
 BRITISH KEEP UP PURSUIT 
 
 "Wednesday the English army continued the pursuit to- 
 ward the north, taking guns and prisoners. 
 
 * ' On that day I found myself in a new France. The good 
 
180 BATTLE OF THE MARNE 
 
 news had spread. Girls threw flowers at the passing soldiers 
 and joy was manifested everywhere. 
 
 ' ' The incidents of Wednesday will astound the world when 
 made known in full. I know that two German detachments of 
 1,000 men each, which were surrounded and cornered but 
 which refused to surrender, were wiped out almost to the last 
 man. The keynote of these operations was the tremendous 
 attack of the Allies along the Ourcq Tuesday, which showed 
 the German commander that his lines were threatened. Then 
 came the crowning stroke. 
 
 '^The army of the Ourcq and of Meaux and the army of 
 Sezanne drew together like the blades of a pair of shears, the 
 pivot of which was in the region of the Grand Morin. The 
 German retreat was thus forced toward the east and it speed- 
 ily became a rout." 
 
 KETREAT SEEN FEOM THE SKY 
 
 The best view of the retreating German armies was 
 obtained, according to a Paris report, by a French military 
 airman, who, ascending from a point near Vitry, flew north- 
 ward across the Marne and then eastward by way of Rheims 
 down to the region of Verdun and back again in a zigzag 
 course to a spot near Soissons. 
 
 He saw the German hosts not merely in retreat, but in 
 flight, and in some places in disorderly flight. 
 
 ''It was a wonderful sight," the airman said, ''to look 
 down upon these hundreds and thousands of moving military 
 columns, the long gray lines of the Kaiser's picked troops, 
 some marching in a northerly, others in a northeasterly direc- 
 tion, and all moving with a tremendous rapidity. 
 
 "The retreat was not confined to the highways, but many 
 German soldiers were running across fields, jumping over 
 fences, crawhng through hedges, and making their way 
 through woods without any semblance of order or discipline. 
 
 "These men doubtless belonged to regiments which were 
 badly cut up in the fierce fighting which preceded the general 
 retreat. Deprived of the majority of their officers, they made 
 a mere rabble of fugitives. Many were without rifles, having 
 
BATTLE OF THE MARNE 181 
 
 abandoned their weapons in their haste to escape their 
 French and British pursuers." 
 
 GEKMANS ABANDON GUNS 
 
 The London Times correspondent describes the German 
 retreat in a hurricane, with rain descending in torrents, the 
 wayside brooks swollen to little torrents. 
 
 *'The gun wheels sank deep in the mud, and the soldiers, 
 unable to extricate them, abandoned the guns," he said. 
 
 *'A wounded soldier, returned from the front, told me 
 that the Germans fled as animals flee which are cornered and 
 know it. 
 
 ' ' Imagine the roadway littered with guns, knapsacks, car- 
 tridge belts, Maxims and heavy cannon. There were miles of 
 roads like this. 
 
 **And the dead! Those piles of horses and those stacks 
 of men I have seen again and again. I have seen men shot so 
 close to one another that they remained standing after death. 
 
 *'At night time the sight was horrible beyond description. 
 They cannot bury whole armies. 
 
 *'In the day time over the fields of dead carrion birds 
 gathered, led by the gray-throated crow of evil omen with a 
 host of lesser marauders at his back. Robbers, too, have 
 descended upon these fields. 
 
 ^^Trainload after trainload of British and French troops 
 swept toward the weak points of the retreating host. 
 
 ''The Allies benefited by this advantage of the battle- 
 gound ; there is a network of railways, like the network of a 
 spider's web." 
 
 FIGHTING DESCRIBED BY U. S. OFFICERS 
 
 Two military attaches of the United States embassy at 
 Paris, Lieut.-Col. H. T. Allen and Capt. Frank Parker, l3oth 
 of the Eleventh cavalry, U. S. A., returned on September 15 
 from an automobile trip over the battlefield where from Sep- 
 tember 8 until the night of September 11 the French and 
 Germans were fiercely engaged. This battle was the one 
 which assured the safety of Paris. 
 
 On September 1 the German left and center were sep- 
 arated, but like a letter '*V" were approaching each other, 
 
182 BATTLE OF THE MABNE 
 
 with Paris as their objective. Had the Allies attacked at 
 that time they would have had to divide their forces and, so 
 weakened, give battle to two armies. By retreating they 
 drew after them the two converging lines of the V and when 
 the Germans were in wedge-shaped formation, attacked them 
 on the flank and center at Meaux and made a direct attack at 
 Sezanne. 
 
 The four days' battle at Meaux ended with the Oermans 
 crossing the river Aisne and retreatifig to the hills north and 
 west of Soissons. Col. Allen and Capt. Parker saw the end of 
 the battle north of Sezanne, which resulted in the retreat of 
 the Germans to Rheims. 
 
 The battles, as Col. Allen and Capt. Parker describe them, 
 were as follows: 
 
 On the 8th the Germans advanced from a line stretching 
 from Epernay and Chalons, a distance of twenty-five kilome- 
 ters (sixteen miles). In this' front, counting from the German 
 right, were the Tenth, the Guards, the Ninth and Twelfth 
 Army Corps. The presence of the Guards, the corps d' elite 
 of the German army, suggested that this was intended to be a 
 main attack upon Paris and that the army at Meaux was to 
 occupy the center. The four combined corps numbered over 
 200,000. The French met them, they assert, with 190,000. 
 
 The Germans advanced until their left was at Vitry-le- 
 Francois and their right rested at Sezanne, making a column 
 15 miles long, headed west toward Paris. The French butted 
 the line six miles east of Sezanne, in the forests of La Fere 
 and Champenoise. It was here that the greater part of the 
 fight occurred. It was fighting at long distance with artillery 
 and from trench to trench with the bayonet. 
 
 THIRTY THOUSAND MEN KHiLED 
 
 During the four days in which fortune rested first on one 
 flag and then on another 30,000 men of both armies are said 
 to have been killed and a considerable number of villages were 
 wiped from the map by the artillery of both armies. 
 
 Two miles from Sezanne a French regiment was destroyed 
 by an ambush. The Germans had thrown up conspicuous 
 trenches and with decoys sparsely filled them. From the 
 forest in the rear the mitrailleuse was trained on the French. 
 
BATTLE OF THE MARNE 183 
 
 The French infantry charged this trench and the decoys fled, 
 making toward the flanks, and as the French poured over the 
 trenches the liidden guns swept them. 
 
 In another trench the American attaches counted the 
 bodies of more than 900 German guards, not one of whom had 
 attempted to retreat. They had stood fast with their shoul- 
 ders against the parapet and taken the cold steel. Every- 
 where the loss of life was appalling. In places the dead lay 
 across each other three and four deep. 
 
 TUECOS FIEKCEST FIGHTERS OF ALL 
 
 ''The fiercest fighting of all seems to have been done by 
 the Turcos and Senegalese. In trenches taken by them from 
 the guards and the famous Death's Head Hussars, the Ger- 
 mans showed no bullet wounds. In nearly every attack the 
 men from the desert had flung themselves upon the enemy, 
 using only the butt or the bayonet. Man for man no white 
 man drugged for years with meat and alcohol is a physical 
 match for these Turcos, who eat dates and drink water," 
 said Richard Harding Davis, who saw the end of the fighting 
 at Meaux. * ' They are as lean as starved wolves. They move 
 like panthers. They are muscle and nerves and they have the 
 warrior's disregard of their own personal safety in battle, 
 and a perfect scorn of the foe. 
 
 "As Kipling says, 'A man who has a sneaking desire to 
 live has a poor chance against one who is indifferent whether 
 he kills you or you kill him.' " 
 
 NIGHT BATTLE DESCRIBED BY SOLDIER 
 
 The following narrative of a night engagement during the 
 prolonged battle of the Marne is quoted from a French sol- 
 dier's letter to a compatriot in London; 
 
 '*Our strength was about 400 infantrymen. Toward mid- 
 night we broke up our camp and marched off in great silence, 
 of course not in closed files, but in open order. We were not 
 
184 BATTLE OF THE MARNE 
 
 allowed to speak to each other or to make any unnecessary 
 noise, and as we walked through the forest the only sound 
 to be heard was that of our steps and the rustling of the 
 leaves. It was a perfectly lovely night ; the sky was so clear, 
 the atmosphere so pure, the forest so romantic, everything 
 seemed so charming and peaceful that I could not imagine 
 that we were on the warpath, and that perhaps in a few hours 
 this forest would be aflame, the soil drenched by human blood, 
 and the fragrant herbs covered with broken limbs. 
 
 ^'Yet all those silent, armed men, marching in the same 
 direction as I did, were ever so many proofs that no peace 
 meeting or any delightful romantic adventure was near, and 
 I wondered what thoughts were stirring all those brains. 
 Suddenly a whisper passed on from man to man. It was the 
 officer's command. A halt was made, and in the same whisper 
 we were told that part of us had to change our direction so 
 that the two directions would form a V. A third division pro- 
 ceeded slowly in the original direction. 
 
 COMMANDS ABE WHISPERED 
 
 **I belonged to what may be called the left leg of the V. 
 After what seemed to be about half an hour, we reached the 
 edge of the forest, and from behind the trees we saw an almost 
 flat country before us, with here and there a tiny little hill, a 
 mere hump four or five feet high. On the extreme left-hand 
 side the land seemed to be intersected by ditches and trenches. 
 
 ''Another whispered command was passed from man to 
 man, and we all had to lie down on the soil. A moment after- 
 ward we were thus making our way to the above-mentioned 
 ditches and trenches. It is neither the easiest nor the quickest 
 way to move, but undoubtedly the safest, for an occasional 
 enemy somewhere on the hills at the farther end of the field 
 would not possibly be able to detect us. I don't know how 
 long it took us to reach the ditches, which were, for the greater 
 part, dry ; nor do I know how long we remained there or what 
 was happening. We were perfectly hidden from view, lying 
 flat down on our stomachs, but we were also unable to see any- 
 thing. Everybody's ears were attentive, every nerve was 
 strained. The sun was rising. It promised to be a hot day. 
 
BATTLE OF THE MARNE 185 
 
 FIRST SHOT IS HEAED 
 
 ' * Suddenly we heard a shot, at a distance of what seemed 
 to be a mile or so, followed by several other shots. I ventured 
 to lift my body up in order to see what was happening. But 
 the next moment my sergeant, who was close by me, warned 
 me with a knock on my shoulder not to move, and the whis- 
 pered order ran, ' Keep quiet ! Hide yourself ! ' Still, the short 
 glance had been sufficient to see what was going on. Our 
 troops, probably those who had been left behind in the forest, 
 were crossing the plain and shooting at the Germans on the 
 crest of the hill, who returned the fire. 
 
 * ' The silence was gone. We heard the rushing of feet at 
 a short distance ; then, suddenly, it ceased when the attacking 
 soldiers dropped to aim and shoot. Some firing was heard, 
 and then again a swift rush followed. This seemed to last a 
 long time, but it was broken by distant cries, coming appar- 
 ently from the enemy. I was wondering all the time why we 
 kept hidden and did not share in the assault. 
 
 *'The rifle fire was incessant. I saw nothing of the battle. 
 Would our troops be able to repulse the Germans? How 
 strong were the enemy? They seemed to have no guns, but 
 the number of our soldiers in that field was not very large. 
 
 ATTACKED WITH BAYONETS 
 
 *'A piercing yell rose from the enemy. Was it a cry of 
 triumph? A short command rang over the field in French, 
 an order to retreat. A swift rush followed ; our troops were 
 being pursued by the enemy. What on earth were we waiting 
 for in our ditches? A bugle signal, clear and bright. We 
 sprang to our feet, and 'At the bayonet!' the order came. 
 We threw ourselves on the enemy, who were at the same time 
 attacked on the other side by the division which formed the 
 other 'leg' of the V, while the 'fleeing' French soldiers turned 
 and made a savage attack. 
 
 "It is impossible to say or to describe what one feels at 
 such a moment. I believe one is in a state of temporary mad- 
 ness, of perfect rage. It is terrible, and if we could see our- 
 selves in such a state I feel sure we would shrink with horror. 
 
 "In a few minutes the field was covered with dead and 
 wounded men, almost all of them Germans, and our hands 
 
186 BATTLE OF THE MARNE 
 
 and bayonets were dripping with blood. I felt hot spurts of 
 blood in my face, of other men's blood, and as I paused to 
 wipe them off, I saw a narrow stream of blood running along 
 the barrel of my rifle. 
 
 **Such was the beginning of a summer day." 
 
 SCENES ON THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 Writing from Sezanne a few days after the battle of the 
 Marne a visitor to the battlefield described the conditions at 
 that time as follows: 
 
 ''The territory over which the battle of the Marne was 
 fought is now a picture of devastation, abomination and death 
 almost too awful to describe. 
 
 "Many sons of the fatherland are sleeping their last sleep 
 in the open fields and in ditches where they fell or under 
 hedges where they crawled after being caught by a rifle bullet 
 or piece of shell, or where they sought shelter from the mad 
 rush of the f ranc-tireurs, who have not lost their natural dex- 
 terity with the knife and who at close quarters frequently 
 throw away their rifles and fight hand to hand. 
 
 "The German prisoners are being used on the battlefield 
 in searching for and burying their dead comrades. Over the 
 greater part of the huge battlefield there have been buried 
 at least those who died in open trenches on the plateaus or on 
 the high roads. The extensive forest area, however, has 
 hardly been searched for bodies, although hundreds of both 
 French and Germans must have sought refuge and died there. 
 The difficulty of finding bodies is considerable on account of 
 the undergrowth. 
 
 "Long lines of newly broken bro^Ti earth mark the 
 graves of the victims. Some of these burial trenches are 150 
 yards long. The dead are placed shoulder to shoulder and 
 often in layers. This gives some idea of the slaughter that 
 took place in this battle. 
 
 * ' The peasants, who are rapidly coming back to the scene, 
 are marking the grave trenches with crosses and planting 
 flowers above or placing on them simple bouquets of dahlias, 
 sunflowers and roses. 
 
BATTLE OF THE MARNE 187 
 
 FOUGHT ON BEAUTIFUL CHATEAU LAWNS 
 
 **Some of the hottest fighting of the prolonged battle took 
 place around the beautiful chateau of Mondement, on a hill 
 six miles east of Sezanne. This relic of the architectural art 
 of Louis XIV occupied a position which both sides regarded 
 as strategically important. 
 
 ''To the east it looked down into a great declivity in the 
 shape of an immense Greek lamp, with the concealed marshes 
 of St. Sond at the bottom. Beyond are the downs and heaths 
 of Epernay, Rheims and Champagne, while the heights of 
 Argonne stand out boldly in the distance. To the west is a 
 rich agricultural country. 
 
 ''The possession of the ridge of Mondement was vital to 
 either the attackers or the defenders. The conflict here was 
 of furnace intensity for four days. The Germans drove the 
 French out in a terrific assault, and then the French guns 
 were brought to bear, followed by hand-to-hand fighting on 
 the gardens and lawns of the chateau and even through the 
 breached walls. 
 
 ' ' Frenchmen again held the building for a few hours, only 
 to retire before another determined German attack. On the 
 fourth day they swept the Germans out again Avith shell fire, 
 under which the walls of the chateau, although two or three 
 feet thick, crumpled like paper." 
 
 The same correspondent described evidences on the battle- 
 fields of how abundantly the Germans were equipped with 
 ammunition and other material. He saw pyramid after pyra- 
 mid of shrapnel shells abandoned in the rout, also innumer- 
 able paniers for carrying such ammunition. These paniers 
 are carefully constructed of wicker and hold three shells in 
 exactly fitting tubes so that there can be no movement. 
 
 The villages of Oyes, Villeneuve, Chatillon and Soizy-aux- 
 Bois were all bombarded and completely destroyed. Some 
 fantastic capers were played by the shells, such as blowing 
 away half a house and leaving the other half intact; going 
 through a window and out by the back wall without damaging 
 the interior, or going a few inches into the wall and remaining 
 fast without exploding. 
 
 Villeneuve, which was retaken three times, was, including 
 its fine old church, in absolute ruins. 
 
188 BATTLE OF THE MARNE 
 
 A SERIES OF BATTLES 
 
 The battle line along the Mame was so extended that the 
 four-days' fighting from Sunday, September 6, to Thursday 
 morning, September 10, when the Germans were in full 
 retreat, comprised a series of bloody engagements, each 
 worthy of being called a battle. There were hot encounters 
 south of the Marne at Crecy, Montmirail and other points. 
 At Chalons-sur-Marne the French fought for twenty-four 
 hours and inflicted heavy losses on the enemy. General Exel- 
 mans, one of France's most brilliant cavalry leaders, was 
 dangerously wounded in leading a charge. 
 
 There was hard fighting on September 7 between Lagny 
 and Meaux, on the Trilport and Crecy-en-Brie line, the Ger- 
 mans under General von Kluck being compelled to give way 
 and retire on Meaux, at which point their resistance was 
 broken on the 9th. 
 
 General French's army advanced to meet the German 
 hosts with forced marches from their temporary base to the 
 southeast of Paris. 
 
 The whole British army, except cavalry, passed through 
 Lagny, and the incoming troops were so wearied that many 
 of them at the first opportunity lay down in the dust and 
 slept where they were. 
 
 But a few hours ' rest worked a great change, and a little 
 later the British troops were following the German retreat up 
 the valley with bulldog tenacity. 
 
 The British artillery did notable work in those days, 
 according to the French military surgeons who were stationed 
 at Lagny. At points near there the bodies of slain Germans 
 who fell before the British gunners still littered the ground 
 on September 10, and the grim crop was still heavier on the 
 soil farther up the valley, where the fighting was more 
 desperate. 
 
 As far as possible the bodies were buried at night, each 
 attending to its own fallen. 
 
 MANY SANGUINAEY INCIDENTS 
 
 Sanguinary incidents were plentiful in the week of fight- 
 ing to the south of the Marne. In an engagement not far 
 from Lagny the British captured thirty Germans who had 
 
BATTLE OF THE MARNE 189 
 
 given up their arms and were standing under guard when, 
 encouraged by a sudden forward effort of the German front, 
 they made a dash for their rifles. They were cut down by a 
 volley from their British guards before they could reach their 
 weapons. 
 
 ''Among dramatic incidents in the fighting," according to 
 an English correspondent, "may be mentioned the grim work 
 at the ancient fishponds near Ermenonville. These ponds 
 are shut in by high trees. Driving the enemy through the 
 woods, a Scotch regiment hustled its foes right into the 
 fishponds, the Scotchmen jumping in after the Germans up to 
 the middle to finish them in the water, which was packed with 
 their bodies." This scene is illustrated on another page. 
 
 VAST GRAVEYARD AT MEAUX 
 
 Some idea of how the Germans were harassed by artillery 
 fire during their retreat was obtained on a visit to the fields 
 near Meaux, the scene of severe fighting. The German in- 
 fantry had taken a position in a sunken road, on either side 
 of which were stretched in extended lines hummocks, some of 
 them natural and some the work of spades in the hands of 
 German soldiers. 
 
 The sunken road was littered with bodies. Sprawling in 
 ghastly fashion, the faces had almost the same greenish-gray 
 hue as the uniforms worn. The road is lined with poplars, 
 the branches of which, severed by fragments of shells, were 
 strewn among the dead. In places whole tops of trees had 
 been torn away by the artillery fire. 
 
 Beside many bodies were forty or fifty empty cartridge 
 shells, while fragments of clothing, caps and knapsacks were 
 scattered about. This destruction was wrought by batteries a 
 little more than three miles distant. Straggling clumps of 
 wood intervened between the batteries and their mark, but the 
 range had been determined by an of&cer on an elevation a mile 
 from the gunners. He telephoned directions for the firing 
 and through glasses watched the bursting shells. 
 
 THE BATTLE AT CRECY 
 
 A graphic picture of the fight in Crecy wood was given 
 by a correspondent who said : 
 
190 BATTLE OF THE MABNE 
 
 The French and English in overwhelming numbers had 
 poured in from Lagny toward the River Marne to reinforce 
 the flanking skirmishers. One of the smaller woods south- 
 east of Crecy furnished cover for the enemy for a time, but 
 led to their undoing. The Allies' patrols discovered them in 
 the night as the Germans were moving about with lanterns. 
 
 Suddenly the invaders found their twinkling glow-worms 
 the mark for a foe of whom they had been unaware. Without 
 warning a midnight hail storm from Maxims screamed 
 through the trees. The next morning scores of lanterns were 
 picked up in the wood, with the glasses shattered. A dashing 
 cavalry charge by the British finally cleared the tragic wood 
 of the Germans. 
 
 BKITISH BLOW UP A BKIDGE 
 
 At Lagny one of the sights of the town was a shattered 
 bridge, which was blown up by General French as soon as he 
 got his army across it. At that time British infantry and 
 artillery had poured through the town and over the bridge 
 for several days. General French's idea was to keep raiding 
 detachments of German cavalry from incursions into the 
 beautiful villas and gardens of the western suburbs. 
 
 Fifteen minutes after the bridge had been reduced to a 
 twisted mass of steel and broken masonry a belated order 
 came to save it, but the British engineers who had received 
 the order to destroy it had done their work well. 
 
 The inhabitants were cleared out of all the neighboring 
 houses, which were shaken by the terrific explosion when the 
 charge was set off. Every window in the nearby houses was 
 shattered. 
 
 The people of Lagny took the destruction of their beautiful 
 bridge in good part. They were too grateful for their deliv- 
 erance from the Germans to grumble about the wrecked 
 bridge. 
 
 GEKMAlSr LOSSES AT THE MAENE 
 
 There is no doubt that the German losses in the engage- 
 ments at the Marne far exceeded those of the Allies and were 
 most severe, in both men and material. The Germans made 
 incredible efforts to cross the Marne. The French having 
 destroyed all the bridges, the Germans tried to construct 
 
BATTLE OF THE MARNE 191 
 
 three bridges of boats. Sixteen times the bridges were on 
 the point of completion, but each time they were reduced to 
 matchwood by the French artillery. 
 
 "There is not the slightest doubt," said a reliable corre- 
 spondent, ''that but for the superb handling of the German 
 right by General von Kluck, a large part of Emperor "Wil- 
 liam's forces would have been captured at the Marne. The 
 allied cavalry did wonders, and three or four additional divi- 
 sions of cavalry could have contributed towards a complete 
 rout of the Germans. ' ' 
 
 The general direction of the German retirement was north- 
 east, and it was continued for seventy miles, to a line drawn 
 between Soissons, Rheims and Verdun. 
 
 A week after the battle the field around Meaux had been 
 cleared of dead and wounded, and only little mounds with 
 tiny crosses, flowers and tricolored flags recalled the terrible 
 struggle. 
 
 The inhabitants of neighboring villages soon returned to 
 their homes and resumed their ordinary occupations. 
 
 FALL OF MAUBEUGE 
 
 While the fighting at the Marne was in progress, German 
 troops achieved some successes in other parts of the theater 
 of war. Thus, the fortified French town of Maubeuge, on the 
 Sambre river midway between Namur in Belgium and St. 
 Quentin, France, fell to the Germans on September 7. The 
 investment began on August 25. More than a thousand shells 
 fell in one night near the railway station and the Rue de 
 France was partially destroyed. The loss of life, however, 
 was comparatively slight. 
 
 At 11 :50 o 'clock on the morning of September 7 a white 
 flag was hoisted on the church tower and trumpets sounded 
 * * cease firing, ' ' but the firing only ceased at 3 :08 o 'clock that 
 afternoon. In the meantime the greater part of the garrison 
 succeeded in evacuating the town. The German forces 
 marched in at 7 :08 o 'clock that evening. 
 
 The retreat of the German forces from the Marne ended 
 the second stage of the great war. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 
 
 Slow Mobilisation of Troops — Invasion of German and Aus- 
 trian Territory — Cossacks Lead the Van — Early Suc- 
 cesses in East Prussia — ^'On to Berlin" — Heavy 
 Losses Inflicted on Austrians — German Troops Rushed 
 to the Defense of the Eastern Territory. 
 
 WHEN at 7: 30 o'clock on the evening of August 1, 1914, 
 the German Ambassador at St. Petersburg handed the 
 declaration of war to the Russian foreign minister, 
 the immediate reason was that Russia had refused to stop 
 mobilizing her army, as requested by Germany on July 30. 
 
 The general mobilization of the Russian army and fleet 
 was proclaimed on July 31 and martial law was proclaimed 
 forthwith in Germany. The government of the Kaiser had 
 given Russia twenty-four hours in which to reply to its ulti- 
 matum of the 30th. Russia paid no attention to the ultimatum, 
 but M. Goremykin, president of the Council of the Russian 
 Empire, issued a manifesto which read: 
 
 ''Russia is determined not to allow Servia to be crushed 
 and will fulfill its duty in regard to that small kingdom, which 
 has already suffered so much at Austria's hands." 
 
 Austria-Hungary declared war against Russia on August 
 6. From that time on the Russian army had two main objec- 
 tives — first, the Austrian province of Galicia, and second the 
 eastern frontier of Germany, across which lay the territory 
 known as East Prussia. And while the early days of the great 
 conflict saw a German host pouring into Belgium, animated 
 by the battle-cry, "On to Paris !" the gathering legions of the 
 Czar headed to the west and crossed the Prussian frontier 
 with hoarse, resounding shouts of "On to Berlin!" 
 
 192 
 
THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 193 
 
 MOBILIZATION WAS SLOW 
 
 The mobilization of the Russian army was slow compared 
 with that of Germany, France and Austria, and some weeks 
 elapsed after the declaration of war before Russia was pre- 
 pared to attack Germany with the full force of which it was 
 capable. The immense distances to be traversed by troops 
 proceeding to the frontier and by the reserves to their re- 
 spective depots caused delays that were unavoidable but were 
 minimized by the eagerness of the Russian soldiery to get to 
 the front. In Russia, as in all the other great countries en- 
 gaged in the conflict, with the probable exception of Austria, 
 the war was popular and a wave of patriotic enthusiasm and 
 martial ardor swept over the land, from the Baltic to the 
 Black Sea, from St. Petersburg to Siberia. 
 
 In Russia military service is universal and begins at the 
 age of 20, continuing for twenty-three years. There are 
 three divisions of the Russian army — the European, Cau- 
 casian and Asiatic armies. Military service of the Russian 
 consists of three years in the first line, fourteen years in the 
 reserve (during which time he has to undergo two periods of 
 training of six weeks each) and five years in the territorial 
 reserve. The Cossacks, however, hold their land by military 
 tenure and are liable to serve at any time in the army. They 
 provide their own horses and accouterments. The total 
 strength of the Russian army is about 5,500,000 men ; the field 
 force of the European army consists of 1,000,000 soldiers 
 with about the same number in the second line. There were 
 besides at the beginning of the war over 5,000,000 men un- 
 organized but available for duty. 
 
 AKMY KEORGANIZED EECENTLY 
 
 Since the disastrous war with Japan the Russian army 
 has been reorganized and it has profited largely by the harsh 
 experience of the Manchurian campaign. 
 
 The physique of the Russian infantryman is second to 
 none in Europe. The Russian *'moujik" (peasant) is from 
 childhood accustomed to cover long distances on foot, so that 
 marches of from 30 to 40 miles are covered without fatigue 
 by even the youngest recruits. They wear long boots, which 
 are made of excellent soft leather, so that sore feet were 
 
194 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 
 
 quite the exception even in Manchuria, where very long 
 marches were undergone by many of the units. 
 
 Each regiment of infantry contains four battalions com- 
 manded by a major or lieutenant-colonel. The battalion con- 
 sists of four companies of 120 men, commanded by a captain, 
 so that each regiment on a war footing numbers upwards of 
 2,000 men. 
 
 The Eussian cavalry is divided into two main categories. 
 There are the heavy regiments of the Guard, which consist 
 mainly of Lancer regiments, and there are also numberless 
 Cossack or irregular cavalry regiments, which are recruited 
 chiefly from the districts of the River Don and the highlands 
 of the Caucasus. 
 
 The horses of the Russian horse and field artillery are 
 distinctly poor and very inferior to those of the cavalry. The 
 artillery is therefore somewhat slow in coming into action. 
 But the horses, while weedy-looking, are very hardy and pull 
 the guns up steep gradients. The Russian gunners prefer to 
 take up * ' indirect ' ' rather than ' ' direct ' ' positions. Batteries 
 are also rather slow in changing positions and in moving up 
 in support of their infantry units. 
 
 THE EUSSIAN COSSACKS 
 
 What the Uhlans are to the German army, the Cossacks 
 of the Don and the Caucasus are to the Russians — scouts, 
 advance guards and ''covering" cavalry. They are good all- 
 round fighters, capable of long-continued effort and tireless 
 in the saddle; they are also trained to fight in dismounted 
 action. 
 
 As a soldier the Cossack is altogether unique; his ways 
 are his own and his confidence in his officers and himself is 
 perfect. His passionate love of horses makes his work a 
 pleasure. The Cossack seat on horseback is on a high pad- 
 saddle, with the knee almost vertical and the heel well drawn 
 back. Spurs are not worn, and another remarkable thing is 
 that he has absolutely no guard to his sword. The Russian 
 soldier scorns buttons; he says, ''They are a nuisance; they 
 have to be cleaned, they wear away the cloth, they are heavy, 
 and they attract the attention of the enemy. ' * 
 
 The Cossack pony is a quaint little beast to look at, but 
 the finest animal living for his work, and very remarkable 
 
THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 195 
 
 for Ms wonderful powers of endurance. The Cossack and his 
 mount have been hkened to a clever nurse and a spoilt child — 
 each understands and loves the other, but neither is com- 
 pletely under control. The Cossack does not want his horse 
 to be a slave, and recognizes perfectly that horses, like chil- 
 dren, have their whims and humors and must be coaxed and 
 reasoned with, but rarely punished. The famous knout (whip) 
 is carried by the Cossacks at the end of a strap across the 
 left shoulder. Most of the men are bearded and in full dress, 
 with the high fur cap stuck jauntily on the head of square 
 cut hair, the Cossack presents a picturesque and martial fig- 
 ure. The appearance of these men is quite different from 
 that of the clean-shaven regular infantryman of the Russian 
 army. 
 
 EUSSIAlSr PLAN OF CAMPAIGN 
 
 While the direct objective of the Russians was Berlin, 
 there were many reasons why a bee-line course could not be 
 followed. Germany had prepared an elaborate defense sys- 
 tem to cover the direct approaches to Berlin, and the fortresses 
 of Danzig, Graudenz, Thorn, and Posen were important points 
 in this scheme. The nature of the country also adapts itself 
 to these defensive works and would make progress slow for 
 an attacker. 
 
 Moreover, as Austria and her forces mobilized before Rus- 
 sia, a diversion was created by the Austrian invasion of south 
 Poland, in which the Germans also took the offensive. Under 
 these circumstances the Russian plan of campaign resolved 
 itself into three parts : — 
 
 (1) A northern movement from Kovno and Grodno on 
 Insterburg and Konigsberg as a counter-attack. 
 
 (2) A central movement from Warsaw towards Posen with 
 supporting movements north and south. 
 
 (3) A southern movement on Lublin in Poland to repulse 
 the invaders combined with a movement from the east on 
 Lemberg in order to turn the Austrian flank. 
 
 The first purpose of Russia was to clear Poland of enemies, 
 as they threatened the Russian left flank. At the same time 
 Russia took the offensive by an invasion of Prussia in the 
 
196 
 
 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 
 
 north. This latter movement led to a victory at Gumbinnen 
 and the investment of Konigsberg. Later came victory at 
 Lublin, rolling back the Austrians, and the capture of Lem- 
 berg, which signalized the Russian invasion of Austrian ter- 
 ritory. Thus Russia was for awhile clear of the enemy, while 
 she established a strong footing in both Prussia and Austria. 
 We can now understand the main Russian plan a little 
 better. In the north the army was to advance from Konigs- 
 berg and endeavor to cut off Danzig and break the line of 
 
 THE RUSSIAN PLAN OF CAMPAIGN 
 In the above view the German lines of defense are shown black, 
 the Austrian lines of defense are indicated by crossed lines, and 
 the Russian advances are shown by arrows. 
 
 defenses between that place and Thorn, thus leaving this 
 fortress in the rear. In the south the Austrians, already 
 heavily punished, would be driven back on the Carpathian 
 passes to the south, and westward also toward Cracow, which 
 is the key to the situation. If Cracow fell Russia would have 
 a good route into Germany, and the move would be supported 
 by advances from Warsaw, thus threatening Breslau from 
 two sides. 
 
THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 197 
 
 GEBMAN TROOPS HUKRIED EAST 
 
 Early in September, however, the danger of the Russian 
 advance into Germany, which apparently had given the Ger- 
 man general staff but little concern at first, was fully realized 
 and large bodies of German troops were detached from the 
 western theater of war and hurried to the eastern frontier. 
 Germany had evidently reckoned on Austria being able to 
 hold its ground better, and was badly prepared for a flanking 
 move on Breslau so early in the campaign. But the Servian 
 and Russian defeats of Austria left Germany to bear the full 
 force of the terrific Russian onslaught, and her forces proved 
 equal to the occasion. Under General von Hindenberg the 
 German army of the east soon repelled the Russian invaders 
 and forced them to retire from East Prussia across their own 
 border, where they were followed by the Germans. A series 
 of engagements on Russian soil followed, in which the advan- 
 tage lay as a rule with the Germans. The losses on both 
 sides were heavy, but the Germans captured many thousands 
 of Russian prisoners and considerable quantities of arms and 
 munitions of war. The immense resources of the Russian 
 empire in men and material made the problem of Russian 
 invasion a very serious one for Germany. This was fully 
 realized by the Kaiser, who about October^ 1, at the end of 
 the second month of the war, proceeded in person to his 
 eastern frontier to direct the defensive operations against 
 Russia. 
 
 CZAR NICHOLAS AT THE FRONT 
 
 About the same time the Czar, Nicholas II, also took the 
 field in person, arriving at the front on October 5, accom- 
 panied by General Soukhomlinoff, the Russian minister of 
 war. 
 
 '^I am resolved to go to Berlin itself, even if it causes me 
 to lose my last moujik (peasant)," the Czar is reportedas 
 saying in September. The spirit and temper of the Russian 
 government may be judged by the fact that before the war 
 was many days old the name of the Russian capital was 
 officially changed from *'St. Petersburg," which was consid- 
 ered to have a German flavor, to ' ' Petrograd, " a purely 
 Russian or Slavic form of nomenclature. 
 
198 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 
 
 EUSSIA PEEPARES TO STEIKE AUSTBIA 
 
 By the third week of August, according to an announce- 
 ment from Petrograd, Eussian troops had checked an attempt 
 by the Austrians to enter Poland from the Galician frontier 
 and were preparing to invade Austria on a large scale. At 
 that time Eussia was said to have 2,000,000 men under arms 
 for the invasion of Germany and Austria, also 500,000 on the 
 Eoumanian and Turkish borders, and 3,000,000 men in reserve. 
 (The latter were called out by imperial ukase before Czar 
 Nicholas started for the front.) The Poles had been promised 
 self-government and had been called on to support Eussia. 
 The Jews throughout the Eussian empire were also promised 
 a greater measure of protection, freedom of action and civil 
 rights. These measures inaugurated an era of better feeling 
 in Eussia and Poland and were strongly approved by the 
 allies of Eussia. 
 
 Most of the Austrian reserves were mobilized by AugTist 
 15 and Germany's ally announced that she would soon have 
 her total war strength of 2,000,000 men in the field. Austria 
 sent some troops to join the German forces in Belgium and 
 an army of several hundred thousand men was gathered along 
 the Austro-Eussian frontier under command of the Archduke 
 Frederick. General Eennenkampf was in command of the 
 Eussian forces for the invasion of East Prussia, while Gen- 
 eral Eussky led the Eussian army operating against Galicia. 
 
 INVASION OF PEUSSIA 
 
 Within a week the Eussian movement in eastern Germany 
 assumed menacing proportions, the great army of invasion 
 having moved rapidly, considering the natural obstacles. 
 More than 800,000 men were sent over the border into Prussia. 
 The Germans evacuated a number of towns, after setting 
 them afire, and a considerable part of the Kaiser's eastern 
 field forces was bottled up in military centers. Germany's 
 active field force was at this time inferior in numbers to the 
 invading army. 
 
 By the capture of Insterberg the Eussians paralyzed one 
 of the main German strategic centers and gained control of 
 an important railroad. The German Twentieth Army Corps 
 was reported to have been routed near Lyck. At the start 
 
THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 199 
 
 the Eussian forces extended from Insterberg to Goldapp, a 
 distance of about thirty-two miles. Seventy-five miles further 
 on was the first of the two strong German lines of fortifica- 
 tions. ' 
 
 Early victories were claimed by the Russians in their ad- 
 vance into Austria, which was made slowly. Austria then 
 turned to fight the Russian invasion. It was forced to gather 
 all its forces for this principal struggle and hence retired 
 from offensive operations against the Servians. Unless she 
 could halt the Russians pouring in from the north, a success 
 against Servia could do her no good. 
 
 By the first of September the Russian advance into East 
 Prussia was well under way and the strong fortress of 
 Konigsberg was in danger of a siege. German troops were 
 being rushed to its defense. In Galicia there were fierce 
 encounters between the Russian invaders and the Austrians. 
 Several victories were claimed by the Russians all along the 
 line and whole brigades of Austrian troops were reported 
 destroyed, while the Russian losses were also admittedly 
 heavy. The fiercest fighting occurred in the vicinity of Lem- 
 berg, the capital of Galicia, which was soon to fall to General 
 Russky. The Austrian attack on Russian Poland failed and 
 the Austrians were driven back across their own frontier. 
 The Russians were seeking to destroy the hope of the Kaiser 
 for help from Austria in Eastern Germany, where the Rus- 
 sian advance, ridiculed or behttled by Germany before it be- 
 gan, became more menacing every day. The German war 
 plans had contemplated a quick, decisive blow in France and 
 then a rapid turn to the East to meet the Russians with a 
 tremendous force. But the belligerency of the Belgians and 
 the cooperation of the British balked these plans, while the 
 Russians moved faster than was expected by their foe. Aus- 
 tria had failed everywhere to stop the Czar's forces, and then 
 came a crushing blow to Austrian hopes in a ruiaous defeat 
 near Lemberg and the loss of that fortress. 
 
 THE FALL OF LEMBEEG 
 
 The capture of Lemberg from the Austrians early ^ in 
 September after a four days' battle was one of the striking 
 Russian successes of the war. Details reached the outer 
 
200 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 
 
 world on September lOtli from Petrograd (St. Petersburg) 
 as follows, the story being that of an eyewitness : 
 
 ''The commencement of the fighting which resulted in 
 the capture of Lemberg began August 29th, when the Eus- 
 sians drove the enemy from Zisczow (forty-five miles east 
 of Lemberg) and moved on to Golaya Gorka — a name which 
 means 'the naked hill.' 
 
 ' ' We spent the night on Naked Hill, and the actual storm- 
 ing of the town was begun at 2:30 o'clock in the morning. 
 Then followed a four days' battle. A virtually continuous 
 cannonade continued from dawn to darkness without ces- 
 sation. 
 
 "Even in the darkness the weary fighters got little sleep. 
 Whenever a single shot was heard the men dashed for their 
 places and the battle boiled again with renewed fury. 
 
 "The enemy's counter attacks were delivered with great 
 energy and a dense hail of lead and iron was poured over 
 our ranks. The Russian advance was greatly impeded by 
 the hilly nature of the ground and the great number of 
 extinct craters, which formed splendid natural fortifications 
 for the enemy, which held them doggedly. Out of these, 
 however, the enemy was driven in succession. 
 
 "We suffered much from thirst, for the stony country 
 was devoid of springs. The days were oppressively hot 
 and the nights bitterly cold. 
 
 EUSSIAN AKTILLEEY SUPEEIOR 
 
 "Both sides fought with great obstinacy, but the nearer 
 we approached Lemberg the harder the struggle became. 
 However, it soon was evident that we were superior in artil- 
 lery. 
 
 "At length the enemy was driven from all sides beneath 
 the protection of the Lemberg forts. Our troops were very 
 weary, but in high spirits. 
 
 "For two days the fight raged around the forts, but we 
 were always confident of the prowess of our artillery. The 
 big guns of both sides rained a terrific hail down on the 
 armies, which suffered terrific losses. 
 
 "At last we noticed that the resistance of the forts was 
 
THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 201 
 
 growing weaker. A charge at double quick was ordered, and 
 we carried the first line of works. 
 
 **It was evident from that point that many of the enemy's 
 guns had been destroyed. Not enough of them had been left 
 to continue an effective defense, but the enemy was undis- 
 couraged and tried to make up with rifle fire what it lacked 
 in artillery. 
 
 LOSSES BECOME HEAVIER 
 
 ''Between the first and second lines our losses were heavier 
 than before, but under bayonet charges the enemy broke and 
 fled in panic. 
 
 ''Our troops entered the town at the enemy's heels. We 
 ran into the town, despite our fatigue, with thunderous cheer- 
 ing. 
 
 "An episode which had much to do with ending the 
 enemy's dogged resistance occurred during the fighting be- 
 tween the first and second lines. The Austrians in the hope 
 of checking the Russian effort to encircle the town had thrown 
 out a heavy screen of Slav troops with a backing of Magyars 
 who had been ordered to shoot down the Slavs from behind 
 if they showed any hesitation. 
 
 "This circumstance became known to the Russian com- 
 mander, who ordered a terrific artillery fire over the heads 
 of the Slavs and into the ranks of the Magyars. This well- 
 directed fire set the whole line in panic. ' ' 
 
 More than 35,000 Austrians and Russian wounded were 
 abandoned on the field of battle between Tarnow, Lemberg 
 and Tarnopol owing to lack of means of transportation, ac- 
 cording to reliable reports. Both armies declined to ask for 
 an armistice for the burial of the dead and the collection of 
 the wounded, each fearing to give an advantage to the other. 
 
 THE BATTLE BEFORE LEMBERG 
 
 The immense superiority of the Austrian forces east of 
 Lemberg enabled the Austrians at first to adopt the offensive. 
 As soon, however, as the Austrians realized the impossibility 
 of an advance on Warsaw they concentrated their large and 
 overwhelming forces in an attempt to outflank the right wing 
 'jf the Russian army, which was drawing slowly but surely 
 towards Lemberg. On the other Russian flank the two Rus- 
 
202 
 
 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 
 
 sian army corps, after crossing the River Zlota Lipa without 
 much opposition, continued their advance to the River Knila 
 Lipa, where they found the bridges had all been destroyed by 
 the Austrian advance guards. Two bridges were constructed 
 on the Rogarten-Halicz line, which enabled a crossing to be 
 effected in spite of heavy and incessant artillery fire from the 
 Austrian 24-centimeter guns. 
 
 Once across the river, the two Russian corps crossed the 
 upper reaches of the River Boog and so approached the town 
 of Lemberg from the east. The main Austrian army, how- 
 
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 WHERB TIU3SIA FIGHTS. 
 
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THE RUSSIAN CA3IPAIGN 203 
 
 ever, had by this time moved up to bar the further advance 
 of the Eussian forces, and the whole of their armies on the 
 left bank of the River Vistula being in front of the three Rus- 
 sian corps, the latter were compelled to adopt a defensive 
 role for three or four days, after which, having received large 
 reinforcements, the Russian force moved forward and drove 
 the Austrian troops out of their entrenchments outside Lem- 
 berg at the point of the bayonet. A desperate attempt was 
 made by means of a counter-attack to arrest the advance of 
 the Russian troops, but this only resulted in the capture of 
 6,000 Austrian prisoners. 
 
 Lemberg was not a fortress but was recently converted 
 into a semi-fortified place, as a series of lunettes, redoubts, 
 etc., had been hastily prepared. It was the headquarters of 
 the 11th Austrian Corps, which consisted of the famous 43rd 
 Landwehr infantry division, and was further divided into 
 three Landwehr brigades. There was also a Landwehr Uhlan 
 regiment, together with a howitzer division of field artillery. 
 These batteries were armed with 10.5-centimeter guns, fitted 
 with the German or Krupp eccentric breech action. The forts 
 outside the town were said to be armed with the 15-centimeter 
 siege gun made of steel, also with a Krupp action. The 
 ammunition for these guns is chiefly high explosive shell and 
 shrapnel ; one of the forts is also said to have had a battery 
 of three 24-centimeter heavy siege guns of quite a modern 
 pattern. 
 
 GERMANY EUSHES REINFORCEMENTS 
 
 When Lemberg fell the Russian advance covered a line 
 extending from far up in Eastern Prussia, near Tilsit, across 
 the frontier and on down south into Austrian Galicia. Konigs- 
 berg was hearing the sound of the Russian guns and its be- 
 siegers seemed on the verge of victory. A central column of 
 mighty strength was pushing its way into Germany, despite 
 a stubborn resistance. Then the tide turned. German rein- 
 forcements were brought up and under General von Hinden- 
 berg the Germans administered a severe defeat to General 
 Rennenkampf 's army near Allenstein, in which it was claimed 
 that 60,000 prisoners were taken. Other reverses were suf- 
 fered by the Russians and soon after the middle of September 
 
204 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 
 
 they had been forced to retire from German territory, the 
 German troops following them into Russia, where a series of 
 minor engagements occurred near the frontier. 
 
 GENERAL RENNENKAMPF 'S DEFEAT 
 
 The operations leading to the defeat of General Rennen- 
 kampf's Russian army by the Germans were as follows: 
 
 From September 7 to 13 the Russians took a strong posi- 
 tion on the line from Angerburg to Gerdauen, Allenburg, and 
 Kehlau, the left wing resting on the Mazurian lakes and the 
 right wing protected in the rear and flank by the forest of 
 Frisching, whose pathless woods and swamps furnished an 
 almost impregnable position. The Russians devoted great 
 eiforts to intrenching their position and brought up besides 
 their heavy artillery. Russian cavalry scouted far to the west 
 and south, but otherwise the army undertook no offensive 
 operations in the days following a battle at Tannenberg. 
 
 The German forces, according to the German official ac- 
 count, were composed of the Second, Third, Fourth and 
 Twentieth corps, two reserve divisions and five cavalry divi- 
 sions. 
 
 General von Hindenburg, the German commander, mean- 
 while was assembling every available man, depriving the 
 fortresses of their garrisons and calling in all but a bare 
 remnant of the force protecting the southern frontier in the 
 vicinity of Soldau, adding them to reinforcements received 
 from the west. 
 
 General von Hindenburg again resorted to the customary 
 German flanking movement, and since the German right, pro- 
 tected by the forest and marshes, seemed too strong, he 
 adopted the daring strategy of sending the flanking force to 
 the lake region to the south, the same character of movement 
 by which the Russian Narew army had been defeated on 
 August 28, in the vicinity of Ortelsburg, and which in case of 
 failure might have been equally as disastrous for the Germans. 
 
 STRATEGY IS SUCCESSFUL 
 
 The strategy, however, succeeded, although General Ren- 
 nenkampf offered a desperate resistance to the frontal at- 
 tacks. After three days* fighting the Russians were forced 
 
THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 205 
 
 back slightly in the center. When the flank movement of the 
 Germans was discovered alreadj^ threatening the flank, a 
 counter-movement was launched with a new army collected at 
 Lyck, including the Twenty-second corps and parts of the 
 Third Siberian corps, just arriving from Irkutsk, and the 
 balance of the defeated army. The counter-attacks failed 
 and on September 10 the Russians began to fall back on their 
 main position, retreating in good order and well covered. 
 
 The Russian artillery on the right wing appears to have 
 made a good retreat owing to a timely start, while the left 
 mng was hard pressed by the enveloping German infantry. 
 From this wing the Russians retreated across the border in 
 two columns, while the main body went northward and the 
 others in an easterly direction, pursued by the Germans, who 
 advanced far from the border. 
 
 The German government appointed Count von Merveldt 
 as governor of the Russian province of Suwalki and other 
 points occupied by them. 
 
 The University of Koenigsberg on September 18 conferred 
 upon General von Hindenburg honorary doctors ' degrees from 
 all four of the departments of philosophy, theology, law and 
 medicine, in recognition of his success against the Russian 
 invader. 
 
 AUSTRIA STRUGGLING FOR EXISTENCE 
 
 In Galicia, however, Russian successes continued. The 
 important fortress of Mikolajoff, 25 miles south of Lemberg, 
 was captured and this cleared away every Austrian strong- 
 hold east of Przemysl, which was then invested by the Rus- 
 sians. 
 
 Austria was now struggling for her very existence as a 
 monarchy. Following the crushing defeats administered to 
 ;the Austrian troops and with the Czar's forces sweeping 
 Galicia, Vienna was hurriedly fortified. All reports indicated 
 that the large Austrian force, nearly 1,000,000 men in all, op- 
 posing the main Russian invasion had proved ineffective. Help 
 from Germany did not arrive in time. Official dispatches re- 
 ported the main Austrian army retreating, pursued and 
 harassed by the Russians. The other important Austrian 
 army was surrounded near Lublin. 
 
 While the Muscovite host went smashing through Galicia, 
 
206 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 
 
 cliasing tlie Austrian army before it, the Russian staff be- 
 littled the retreat from East Prussia, saying that the Russian 
 army was merely falling back on a new defensive position. 
 The German artillery had been getting in its deadly work and 
 the pressure on Koenigsberg w^as soon to be relieved. 
 
 There were many reports at this time of a popular demand 
 in Austria that an end be made to the struggle. Peace talk 
 was a marked feature of the sixth week of the war, but there 
 were no definite results in any part of the immense theater 
 of war. 
 
 The third week of September found the Germans, greatly 
 reinforced, maldng a strong resistance to Russian progress, 
 mth the aid of the heavy German artillery. The shattered 
 Austrian armies, under Generals von Auffenberg and Dankl, 
 were making desperate endeavors to concentrate in the vicinity 
 of Rawaruska, but were apparently surrounded by the Rus- 
 sians, who continued to capture Austrian prisoners by the 
 thousand. Fears were entertained for Cracow, one of the 
 strongest fortresses in Austria, if not in Europe, which seemed 
 likely soon to fall into the hands of Russia. 
 
 It was stated in Rome, and said to be admitted in Vienna, 
 that the Archduke Frederick, commanding the Austrian forces 
 in Galicia, had lost 120,000 men, or one-fourth of his entire 
 army. German troops were reported marching south toward 
 Poland to assist the Austrians. 
 
 The Russian successes in Galicia gave them command of 
 the Galician oil-fields, upon which Germany largely depended 
 for her supply of gasoline, which is a prime necessary in 
 modern war. 
 
 BUSSIANS AT PKZEMYSL 
 
 On September 21 the Russians began the bombardment of 
 Przemysl, having previously occupied Grodek and Mosciska, 
 west of Lemberg. The shattered second Austrian army was 
 evidently incapable of staying the Russian advance, and took 
 refuge in Przemysl. A part of this Gahcian stronghold was 
 soon captured by the Russians, forcing the Austrians to take 
 refuge in the eastern forts, where the entire garrison was 
 concentrated at the end of September, preparing to make a 
 final resistance. The situation of the garrison was critical, 
 
THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 207 
 
 as it was entirely surrounded by the enemy. On September 
 21 also the Russian troops took by storm the fortifications of 
 Jaroslav, on the river San, and captured many guns. 
 
 The German offensive from East Prussia was apparently 
 halted October 1 by the almost impassable condition of the 
 Russian roads in the north. Germany was said to have at 
 this time thirty army corps of the line and the first reserve 
 prepared to operate against Russia and to resist the Russian 
 advance upon Cracow. 
 
 The German main defenses against Russia extended in a 
 general line from Koenigsberg to Danzig, thence south along 
 the Vistula to the great fortress of Thorn. From there the 
 fortified line swung to the southwest to Posen, thence south to 
 Breslau, the main fortress along the Oder, and from there' 
 to Cracow. 
 
 Early in October the Russian invasion of Hungary began. 
 The Russian armies continued to sweep through GaUcia and 
 that province was reported clear of Austrian troops. The 
 German successes claimed against the Czar farther north 
 included victories at Krasnik and Zamoso, in Russian Poland ; 
 Insterburg and Tannenburg, in East Prussia. 
 
 ESTIMATE OF AUSTRIAN LOSSES 
 
 A Russian estimate places the Austrian losses in Galicia 
 at 300,000 in killed, wounded and prisoners, or nearly one- 
 third of their total forces. They also lost, it was claimed at 
 Petrograd, 1,000 guns, more than two-thirds of their available 
 artillery. 
 
 The Russian newspaper correspondents described horrible 
 scenes on the battlefields abandoned by the Austro-German 
 forces in Galicia. 
 
 ''Streams," said one eyewitness, ''were choked full with 
 slain men, trodden down in the headlong flight till the waters 
 were dammed and overflowing the banks. Piles of dead are 
 awaiting burial or burning. Hundreds of acres are sown with 
 bodies and littered with weapons and battle debris, while 
 wounded and riderless horses are careering madly over the 
 abandoned country. The trophies captured comprise much 
 German equipment. An ammunition train captured at Janow 
 (eleven miles northwest of Lemberg) was German, while the 
 
208 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 
 
 guns taken included thirty-six of heavy caliber bearing Em- 
 peror William's initials and belonging to the German Sixth 
 army corps. 
 
 ''The line of retreat of the Austro-German forces was 
 blocked with debris of every kind — valuable military supplies, 
 telephone and telegraph installations, light railway and other 
 stores, bridging material — in fact, everything needed by a 
 modern army was flung away in flight. Over 1,000 wagons 
 with commissariat supplies alone were captured." 
 
 Forty-five thousand Austro-German prisoners were re- 
 ported to have arrived at Lublin. Russian correspondents 
 with the armies in Galicia asserted that German troops were 
 interspersed with Austrian troops in the intrenchments in 
 order to raise the morale of the Austrians. One correspondent 
 declared that while the Austrians often took flight the Ger- 
 mans were ready, to the last man, to perish. 
 
 ON THE FIRING LINE IN RUSSL\N POLAND ^VIVID DESCRIPTION BY 
 
 AN AMERICAN EYEWITNESS 
 
 The first American permitted to witness actual battles near 
 the eastern frontier of Germany was Karl H. von Wiegand, 
 who wrote as follows from the firing line near East Wirballen, 
 Russian Poland, October 9 : 
 
 ' ' The German artillery today beat back, in a bloody, ghastly 
 smear of men, the Russian advance. 
 
 ''Yesterday I saw an infantry engagement. Today it was 
 mostly an artillery encounter. The infantry attack is the 
 more ghastly, but the artillery the more awe-inspiring. This 
 was the fifth day of constant fighting and still the German 
 trenches hold. 
 
 "Today's battle opened at dawn. With two staff officers 
 assigned as my chaperons, I had been attached overnight to 
 the field headquarters. I slept well, exhausted by the excite- 
 ment of my first sight of modern war, but when dawn once 
 again revealed the two long lines of the Russian and German 
 positions the Russian guns began to hurl their loads of 
 shrapnel at the German trenches. 
 
 "We had breakfast calmly enough despite the din of guns. 
 Then we went to one of the German batteries on the left center. 
 They were already in action, though it was only 6 o 'clock. The 
 
THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 209 
 
 men got tlie range from observers a little in advance, cun- 
 ningly masked, and slowly, methodically, and enthusiastically 
 fed the guns with their loads of death. 
 
 "The Russians didn't have our range. All of their shells 
 flew screaming 1,000 yards to our left. Through my glasses I 
 watched them strike. The effect on the hillock was exactly as 
 though a geyser had suddenly spurted up. A vast cloud of dirt 
 and stones and grass spouted up, and when the debris cleared 
 away a great hole showed. 
 
 RUSSIANS TRY NEW RANGE 
 
 ** While we watched the Russians seemed to tire of shoot- 
 ing holes in an inoffensive hill. They began to try chance 
 shots to the right and to the left. It wasn't many minutes 
 before I realized that, standing near a battery, the execution 
 of which must have been noted on the Russian side, I had a 
 fine chance of experiencing shrapnel bursting overhead. It 
 was a queer sensation to peer through field glasses and see 
 the Russian shells veer a few hundred feet to the right. I saw 
 one strike a windmill, shattering the long arms and crumpling 
 it over in a slow burning heap. Then we beat a retreat, further 
 toward the center. 
 
 ' ' We had been standing behind a slight declivity. I hadn 't 
 caught a glimpse of the enemy. Shells were the only things 
 that apprised us of the Russian nearness. But as we passed 
 out on an open field, considerably out of range of the field 
 guns, I could see occasional flashes that bespoke field pieces, 
 a mile or so away. 
 
 RUSSIAN INFANTRY CHARGES 
 
 **Back behind us, on the extreme left, I was told the Rus- 
 sians were attacking the German trenches by an infantry 
 charge, the German field telephone service having apprised the 
 commanders along the front. With glasses we could see a faint 
 line of what must have been the Russian infantry rushing 
 across the open fields. 
 
 *'We passed on to the center, going slightly to the rear for 
 horses. As we arrived at the right wing we witnessed the last 
 of a Russian infantry advance at that end. The wave of Rus- 
 sians had swept nearly to the German trenches, situated 
 between two sections of field artillery, and there had been 
 
210 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 
 
 repulsed. Russians were smeared across in front of these 
 pits, dead, dying, or wounded — cut down by the terrible spray 
 of German machine guns. 
 
 ''I got up to the trenches as the German fire slackened 
 because of the lack of targets. The Russians had gone back. 
 Strewn in the trenches were countless empty shells, the bullets 
 of which had, as it looked to inexpert eyes, slain thousands. 
 As a matter of fact, there were hundreds of dead in the field 
 ahead. 
 
 GUN BARRELS SIZZLING HOT 
 
 "German infantrymen spat on their rapid firers as we 
 reached the trench and delightedly called our attention to the 
 sizzle that told how hot the barrels were from the firing. 
 
 *'The men stretched their cramped limbs, helped a few 
 wounded to the rear, and waited for breakfast. It was not 
 long forthcoming. Small lines of men struggling along under 
 steaming buckets came hurrying up to the accompaniment of 
 cheers and shouts. They bore soup that the men in the 
 trenches gulped down ravenously. Meanwhile men with the 
 white brassard and the red Geneva cross were busy out in the 
 open, lending succor to the Russian wounded. The battle 
 seemed to have come to a sudden halt. 
 
 "But even as I was getting soup, the artillery fusillade 
 broke forth again. From 9 o 'clock to noon the Russians hurled 
 their heavy shells at the German trenches and the German 
 guns. The German batteries replied slowly. 
 
 "There was mighty little fuss and feathers about this busi- 
 ness of dealing death from guns. The crews at each piece 
 laughed among themselves, but there were none of the pic- 
 turesque shouts of command, the indiscriminate blowing of 
 bugles, and the flashy waving of battle flags that the word 
 battle usually conjures up. It was merely a deadly business of 
 killing. 
 
 "Over to the right, a scant 300 yards away, the Russians 
 had apparently succeeded in getting the range. As I watched 
 through the glasses I saw shrapnel burst over the battery 
 there and watched a noncommissioned soldier fall with three 
 of his comrades. I was told that one had been killed and three 
 wounded. The Red Cross crew came up and bore away the 
 
THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 211 
 
 four — the dead and the live — and before they were gone the 
 gun was speaking away with four fresh men working it. 
 
 *'But the shrapnel kept bursting away over it and soon an 
 orderly came riding furiously back on his horse, saluted the 
 officers with me, and shou'ed as he hurried back to the artillery 
 reserve ; ' Six inch shells to the front ; more ammunition. ' 
 
 ''I went back to see the wounded, but the surgeon wouldn't 
 let me. I expressed to him my wonder at the few wounded. 
 I had seen only a few in the trenches, and no German dead 
 until I saw the artilleryman killed. He explained that the 
 losses on the German side were light because the trenches were 
 well constructed and because there had been no hand-to-hand, 
 bayonet to bayonet fighting. 
 
 ATTACKS BY RUSSIAN INFANTRY 
 
 "Yesterday, my first day at Wirballen, I saw the third 
 attempt of the Russians to carry the Gemian center by storm. 
 Twice on Wednesday their infantry had advanced under cover 
 of their artillery, only to be repulsed. Their third effort 
 proved no more successful. 
 
 ''The preliminaries were well under way, without my 
 appreciating their significance, until one of my officer escorts 
 explained. 
 
 ''At a number of points along their line, observable to us, 
 but screened from the observation of the German trenches in 
 the center, the Russian infantry came tumbling out, and, rush- 
 ing forward, took up advanced positions, awaiting the forma- 
 tion of the new and irregular battle line. Dozens of light 
 rapid-firers were dragged along by hand. Other troops — the 
 reserves — took up semi-advanced positions. All the while the 
 Russian shrapnel was raining over the German trenches. 
 
 ' ' Finally came the Russian order to advance. At the word 
 hundreds of yards of the Russian fighting line leaped forward, 
 deployed in open order, and came on. Some of them came into 
 range of the German trench fire almost at once. These lines 
 began to wilt and thin out. 
 
 MEN PAUSE ONLY TO FIRE 
 
 "But on they came, all along the line, protected and unpro- 
 tected alike, rushing forward with a yell, pausing, firing, and 
 advancing again. 
 
212 THJ^ RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 
 
 ''From the outset of the advance the German artillery, 
 ignoring for the moment the Russian artillery action, began 
 shelling the onrushing mass with wonderfully timed shrapnel, 
 which burst low over the advancing lines and tore sickening 
 gaps. 
 
 "But the Russian line never stopped. For the third time 
 in two days they came tearing on, mth no indication of having 
 been affected by the terrible consequences of the two previous 
 charges. As a spectacle the whole thing was maddening. 
 
 "On came the Slav swarm, into the range of the German 
 trenches, with wild yells and never a waver. Russian battle 
 flags — the first I had seen — appeared in the front of the charg- 
 ing ranks. The advance line thinned and the second line 
 moved up. 
 
 "Nearer and nearer they swept toward the German posi- 
 tions. And then came a new sight. A few seconds later came 
 a new sound. First I saw a sudden, almost grotesque melting 
 of the advancing line. It was different from anything that 
 had taken place before. The men literally went dow^n like 
 dominoes in a row. Those who kept their feet were hurled 
 back as though by a terrible gust of wind. Almost in the 
 second that I pondered, puzzled, the staccato rattle of machine 
 guns reached us. My ear answered the query of my eye. 
 
 MACHINE GUN FIEE TELLS 
 
 * ' For the first time the advancing line hesitated, apparently 
 bewildered. Mounted officers dashed along the line, urging the 
 men forward. Horses fell with the men. I saw a dozen rider- 
 less horses dashing madly through the lines, adding a new 
 terror. Another horse was obviously running away with his 
 officer rider. The crucial period for the section of the charge 
 on which I had riveted my attention probably lasted less than 
 a minute. To my throbbing brain it seemed an hour. Then, 
 with the withering fire raking them even as they faltered, the 
 lines broke. Panic ensued. It was every man for himself. 
 The entire Russian charge turned and went tearing back to 
 cover and the shelter of the Russian trenches. 
 
 "I swept the entire line of the Russian advance with my 
 glasses — as far as it was visible from our position. The whole 
 
THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 213 
 
 advance of the enemy was in retreat, making for its intrenched 
 position. 
 
 DEAD MEN COVER ACRES 
 
 ** After the assault had failed and the battle had resumed 
 its normal trend I swept the field with my glasses. The dead 
 were everywhere. They were not piled up, but were strewn 
 over acres. More horrible than the sight of the dead, though, 
 were the other pictures brought up by the glasses. Squirming, 
 tossing, writhing figures everywhere ! The wounded ! All who 
 could stumble or crawl were working their way back toward 
 their own lines or back to the friendly cover of hills or wooded 
 spots. 
 
 ''After the charge we moved along back of the German 
 lines at a safe distance and found the hospital corps bringing 
 back the German wounded. 
 
 ' * The artillerymen had resumed their duel and as we came 
 up in the lee of the outbuildings of a deserted farmhouse a 
 shell struck and fired the farmhouse immediately in front of us. 
 As we paused to see if the shot was a chance one, or if the Rus- 
 sian gunners had actually gotten the range, a regiment of 
 fresh reserves, young men who had just come up from the west, 
 passed us on their way to get their baptism of fire. 
 
 ''Their demeanor was more suggestive of a group of college 
 students going to a football game than the serious business 
 on which they were bent. They were singing and laughing, 
 and as they went by a noncommissioned officer inquired rather 
 ruefully whether there were any Russians left for them. 
 
 ' ' Throughout the day we watched the fight waged from the 
 opposing trenches and by the artillery. 
 
 "Suddenly at sundown the fighting ceased as if by mutual 
 agreement. As 1 write this I can see occasional flashes of light 
 like the flare of giant fireflies out over the scene of the Russian 
 charge — the flashes of small electrical lamps in the hands of 
 the Russian hospital corps. 
 
 "I'm glad I don't have to look at what the flashes reveal 
 out there in the night. ' * 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE AUSTRO-SERVIAN CAMPAIGN 
 
 Declaration of War by Austria — Bombardment of Belgrade — 
 Servian Capital Removed — Seasoned Soldiers of Servia 
 Give a Good Account of Themselves — Many Indecisive 
 Engagements — Servians in Austrian Territory. 
 
 FORMAL declaration of war against Servia was proclaimed 
 by Austria on Tuesday, July 28. The text of the official 
 announcement was as follows : 
 
 ''The Royal Government of Servia not having given a sat- 
 isfactory reply to the note presented to it by the Austro-Hun- 
 garian Ministry in Belgrade on July 23, 1914, the Imperial and 
 Royal Government of Austria-Hungary finds it necessary 
 itself to safeguard its rights and interests and to have re- 
 course for this purpose to the force of arms. Austria-Hun- 
 gary, therefore, considers itself from this moment in a state 
 of war with Servia." 
 
 This declaration was signed by Count Berchtold, the Aus- 
 trian minister for foreign affairs. 
 
 The events that immediately preceded the declaration of 
 war, as summarized in a previous chapter, were as follows : 
 
 On June 28 a Slav student who thought he was a patriot 
 killed the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian 
 throne, at Serajevo, the capital of Bosnia, which had been 
 lately made a province of Austria. An inquiry was begun 
 in which evidence was introduced to show that the assassin's 
 work was part of a plot for the revolt of the Southern Slav 
 provinces of Austria, and that it was instigated by Servians, 
 if not by the Servian Government. On July 23, however, be- 
 fore the investigation was completed, Austria sent an ulti- 
 matum to Servia demanding that it use every means in its 
 
 214 
 
THE AUSTRO-SERVIAN CA3IPAIGN 215 
 
 power to punish the assassins and also to stox3 all further 
 anti- Austrian propaganda. Austria demanded that she be 
 permitted to have representatives in the work of investigation 
 in Servia. 
 
 The next day, July 24, Russia joined the little Slav country 
 in asking for a delay. Austria refused to grant this. 
 
 On July 25, ten minutes before 6 p. m., the hour at which 
 the ultimatum expired, the Servian premier, M. Pashitch, gave 
 his reply to the Austrian ambassador at Belgrade. Servia 
 agreed to all the conditions and apologies demanded by Aus- 
 tria, except the requirement that Austrian officials should be 
 allowed to participate in the inquiry to be conducted in Servia 
 into the assassination of the Archduke. Even this was not 
 definitely refused. 
 
 On July 27 the Austrian foreign office issued a statement in 
 which appeared these words : 
 
 ''The object of the Servian note is to create the false im- 
 pression that the Servian Government is prepared in great 
 measure to comply with our demands. 
 
 "As a matter of fact, however, Servia 's note is filled with 
 the spirit of dishonesty, which clearly lets it be seen that the 
 Servian Government is not seriously determined to put an end 
 to the culpable tolerance it hitherto has extended to intrigues 
 against the Austro-Hungarian monarchy." 
 
 Eussia at once notified Austria that it could not permit 
 Servian territory to be invaded. It was then realized in 
 Europe that the great Slav nation would support its little 
 brother. Germany let it be known that no other country must 
 interfere with the Austro-Servian embroglio, which meant 
 that Germany was prepared to back Austria. 
 
 An eleventh-hour proposal by the British foreign secretary. 
 Sir Edward Grey, that mediation between Servia and Austria 
 be undertaken by a conference of the Ambassadors in London, 
 was accepted by France and Italy, but declined by Germany 
 and Austria. Then next day, July 28, came Austria 's declara- 
 tion of war, which soon made Europe the theater of the 
 bloodiest struggle of all the ages. 
 
 SERVIA AND ITS ASPIRATIONS 
 
 Servia 's reply to the declaration of war was to concentrate 
 
216 THE AUSTRO-SERVIAN CAMPAIGN 
 
 a strong division of its forces in the Sanjak of Novi-Bazar, 
 from which they would be in a position to threaten Bosnia and 
 Herzegovina, the two Balkan provinces that Austria had lately- 
 annexed. It was also reported that Servia intended to invade 
 Bosnia with the object of enlisting further support from the 
 Bosnian Serbs, who were said to be on the point of rising 
 against Austria-Hungary. 
 
 The country of the Servians being well suited for defense, 
 they were never completely overrun by the Turks, as other 
 Balkan states were, and as a consequence they still retain, like 
 the Greeks, a native aristocracy of culture. Physically, they 
 are fairer than most of the Balkan Slavs and more refined in 
 appearance. By temperament they are light-hearted, joyous, 
 frivolous, and charming to deal with. 
 
 In Servia itself, including territory acquired in recent wars, 
 there are about 4,500,000 Serbs. In Austria there are about 
 3,500,000 Serbs, including Croats who belong to the Servian 
 race. 
 
 The Servians have long dreamed and talked and written of 
 a greater Servia, that should take in all the Servian race. 
 They look back to the time of King Stephen Dushan, in the 
 fourteenth century, when Servia was supreme in the Balkans 
 and was nearly as advanced in civilization as the most ad- 
 vanced nations of Europe. The re-establishment of this an- 
 cient kingdom had become a passion with the Serbs — not only 
 with those in Servia, but with many in Hungary as well. 
 Hence, their animus against Austria and Austrian rule, while 
 Austria 's fight was, primarily, for the preservation and solidi- 
 fication of her heterogeneous dominions ; secondarily, for re- 
 venge for the Archduke 's death. Incidentally, it may be men- 
 tioned that the Archduke Francis Ferdinand was a close 
 personal friend of the German Kaiser. 
 
 THE SERVIAN ARMY 
 
 The Servian forces under General Radumil Putnik, consist 
 of ten divisions, divided into four army corps, with a peace 
 footing of 160,000 and a war strength of over 380,000. Most 
 of the men called to arms against Austria were veterans of the 
 two recent Balkan wars, and hence probably the most seasoned 
 troops in Europe. 
 
THE AUSTRO-SERVIAN CAMPAIGN 217 
 
 The rifle of the Servian army is the Manser, model of 1899, 
 with a caliber of 7 millimeters, but it is doubtful if Servia 
 possessed enough of them to arm the reserves. The Servian 
 field piece is a quick-firing gun of the French Schneider-Canet 
 system. The army has some 350 modern guns. 
 
 At the outbreak of the war Servia had ten of the most 
 modern aircraft, but she had not developed their efficiency to 
 a degree at which they would be of much material benefit to 
 her in the struggle. 
 
 The extremely mountainous nature of Servia and of the 
 adjacent territory of Bosnia make military movements some- 
 what slow and difficult, especially for troops unaccustomed to 
 mountain warfare. Compared with this mountainous region, 
 the district of Agram, where one Austrian army corps had its 
 headquarters, is easy country to operate in, while the plain of 
 Hungary on the opposite side of the Danube made the task of 
 concentrating troops an easy one for the Austrians. 
 
 Another Austrian army corps had its base at Serajevo in 
 Bosnia. A railway to the northest from this Bosnian capital 
 touches the Servian border at Mokragora. To the north of 
 this point lies Kragujevac, the new capital of Servia, to which 
 King Peter, his court and the Government repaired from 
 Belgrade just before the declaration of war. Southeast of the 
 new capital is the important Servian city of Nish. 
 
 The western frontier of Servia follows the windings of the 
 River Drina, a tributary of the Danube. The Danube itself 
 forms part of the northern boundary and the former capital, 
 Belgrade, is picturesquely situated on the south bank of the 
 Danube at its junction with a tributary. Two Austrian fort- 
 resses command the city from across the Danube. On the plain 
 of Hungary to the north is Temesvar, an important point at 
 which another Austrian army corps was located. 
 
 CHANCES AGAINST SERVIA 
 
 At the outset the chances of war were heavily against 
 Servia. Such artificial defenses as she possessed were on the 
 Bulgarian frontier. Many of her troops were engaged in 
 endeavoring to establish Servian rule among the neighboring 
 peoples in her new Albanian possessions. Austria was pre- 
 pared to bring against her immediately the three army 
 
218 THE AUSTRO-SERVIAN CAMPAIGN 
 
 corps from Temesvar, Serajevo and Agram, and four more 
 corps, from Hermanstadt, Budapest, Graz, and Kaschau, 
 within a fortnight. Servians one hope appeared to be the 
 difficulty of the country, otherwise she could not oppose for 
 a moment the advance of 250,000 troops supported by 800 
 pieces of artillery. Then, too, Austria had warships on the 
 Danube and it was partly through this fact that it was decided 
 by the Servian Government to evacuate Belgrade and to retire 
 to Kragujevac, sixty miles southeast. 
 
 In spite, however, of the seeming futility of opposition, 
 Servia, encouraged by Russian support, prepared for a strenu- 
 ous campaign against the Austrian forces, and the first two 
 months of the war ended without any decisive advantage to 
 Austria. The Servians, on the other hand, claimed numerous 
 successes. Their task was lightened by the Russian invasion 
 of Austrian territory and the determined advance of the Czar's 
 host, which demanded the fullest strength of the Austrian 
 forces to resist. As the Russians hammered their enemy in 
 Galicia the spirits of the Servians rose and their seasoned 
 soldiers gave a good account of themselves in every encounter 
 with Austrian troops. They crossed the Drina and carried 
 the war into Bosnia, x^utting up a stiff fight wherever they 
 encountered the enemy, and while they sustained severe losses 
 in killed and wounded during August and September, the 
 losses they inflicted upon the Austrians were still heavier. 
 
 AUSTRIANS BOMBAED BELGRADE 
 
 The Austrian troops on the banks of the Danube became 
 active soon after war was declared. In the first few days they 
 seized two Servian steamers and a number of river boats. 
 Belgrade was bombarded from across the river and many of 
 its public buildings, churches and private residences suifered 
 damage. 
 
 The hostile armies came into contact for the first time on 
 the River Drina, between Bosnia and Servia, and Vienna was 
 compelled to admit defeat in this preliminary engagement of 
 the war. The Servians forced a passage through the Austrian 
 ranks, but only at the cost of many killed and wounded. 
 
 When Crown Prince Alexander of Servia began the in- 
 vasion of Bosnia in earnest, in the middle of August, Austria 
 
THE AUSTRO-SERVIAN CAMPAIGN 219 
 
 found herself at a disadvantage because of the necessity of 
 massing most of her forces against the Russians. Roumania 
 and Montenegro were then preparing to join the Servians in 
 the field against Austria. 
 
 Later in August the Servians captured several of the 
 enemy's strongholds in Bosnia. After a four-day battle on the 
 banks of the Drina the Austrians were defeated with heavy 
 loss, a large number of guns and prisoners being captured by 
 the Servians. The Montenegrin troops repulsed an Austrian 
 invading force and took several hundred prisoners in an all- 
 day battle on the frontier. 
 
 Early in September a heavy engagement was fought by the 
 Servian and Austrian armies near Jadar, resulting in Servian 
 victory. It was claimed that the Austrians left 10,000 dead on 
 the field of battle. The Servians also successfully defended 
 Belgrade, which had been bombarded on several occasions. 
 Fifteen or twenty miles west of Belgrade on the Save River, 
 an Austrian force was decisively defeated by the Servians, 
 who then seemed to be duplicating the successes of the Russian 
 army against Austria. 
 
 The attitude of Turkey was being closely watched at this 
 time, Greece and Bulgaria being prepared to enter the war 
 against the Ottoman Empire if the latter decided on bellig- 
 erency, but on September 5 Turkey again declared her in- 
 tention to remain neutral. 
 
 SERVIANS CAPTURE SEMLIN" 
 
 Crossing the Save River into Hungary, the Servians scored 
 a brilliant stroke in the capture of Semlin, an important Aus- 
 trian city. They also reported continued successes in Bosnia. 
 Reports of wholesale desertions of Slavs from the Austrian 
 army were received daily and probably had considerable 
 foundation in fact. It was said that the Servians were being 
 received enthusiastically by the people of Hungary. 
 
 These Servian triumphs led to the reorganization of the 
 Balkan League, including Servia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and 
 Greece. 
 
 On September 20 the Servian Government announced that 
 an Austrian attacking army which attempted to cross the 
 frontier near the Sabatz Mountains had been routed with a 
 
220 THE AUSTRO-SERVIAN CAMPAIGN 
 
 loss of 15,000 killed and wounded. The Servian losses in this 
 and other engagements were claimed to have been small in 
 comparison with those of the enemy. 
 
 Continuing their forward movement into Hungary, the 
 Servians inflicted further losses on the Austrians near No- 
 viapazow, while the Montenegrins reported a victory in the 
 mountain slopes over their border. 
 
 On October 1 it was reported that the Servians had again 
 repulsed an Austrian attempt at invasion and had driven the 
 Austrians back across the Drina with loss. They had also 
 checJied another Austrian attempt to take Belgrade. The 
 Servian war office claimed that the combined Servian-Monte- 
 negrin armies had made material progress in their invasion of 
 Bosnia-Herzegovina, and that they were within striking dis- 
 tance of Serajevo, which they expected to capture. This, how- 
 ever, was denied by the Vienna ministry of war, which claimed 
 that the Servian situation was entirely satisfactory to Austria. 
 
 On October 5 Servian troops were reported to have begun 
 a northeast advance from Semlin, to effect a junction with two 
 Russian columns advancing southward in Hungary. One of 
 these columns was then assaulting a fortress in Northwest 
 Hungary, sixty-six miles southeast of Olmutz, while the other 
 was descending the valley of the Nagyan against Huszt in the 
 pro\ince of Marmaros. This latter province or county, which 
 the Eussians invaded through the Carpathian passes, lies in 
 the northeast of Hungary, bordering on Galicia, Bukowina and 
 Transylvania. There was a legend that the eastern Car- 
 pathians are impregnable, but this legend was destroyed by 
 the Russian invasion. 
 
 Before attaining Uzsok pass, in the Carpathians, the Rus- 
 sians successively captured by a wide flanking movement three 
 well-masked positions which were strongly defended by guns. 
 Each time the Russians charged the enemy fled and the Rus- 
 sians followed up the Austrian retreat with shrapnel and 
 quick fire, inflicting heavy losses. 
 
 German troops joined the Austrian forces in Hungary and 
 at some points succeeded in repulsing the invaders, though 
 their general advance was not decisively checked and they con- 
 tinued the endeavor to effect a junction with the Servians to 
 the south. Advices from Budapest, October 6, declared that 
 
THE AUSTRO-SERVIAN CAMPAIGN 221 
 
 the Russians had captured Marmaros-Sziget, capital of the 
 county of Marmaros, necessitating the removal of the govern- 
 ment of that department to Huszt, twenty-eight miles west- 
 northwest of Sziget. A second Russian column was reported 
 to be threatening Huszt and Austro-German reinforcements 
 were being hurried up to check the Russian adVance. 
 
 •BY ALLAH. I MAY HAVE TO INTERFERE IN THE 
 NAME OF HUMANITY." 
 
 WKesler tn the New York Evening Sun. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 STOEIES FEOM THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 Thrilling Incidents of the Great War Told hy Actual Com- 
 batants — Personal Experiences from the Lips of Sur- 
 vivors of the World's Bloodiest Battles — Tales of 
 Prisoners of War, Wounded Soldiers and Refugees 
 Rendered Homeless in Blighted Arena of Conflict. 
 
 HAND-TO-HAND FIGHTING 
 
 CAVALRY fighting on the banks of the Eiver Marne in 
 the year 1914 was almost identical with the charge in 
 the days when Hannibal's Numidian horse charged at 
 Romans at Lake Trasimene, or when Charles Martel and the 
 chivalry of France worsted the Moors and saved Europe on 
 the plains of Tours. 
 
 A good description of a cavalry charge was given by 
 Private Capel of the Third British Hussars, a veteran of the 
 Boer war, who took part in the fighting beginning at Mons 
 and was separated from his regiment in a charge at Coulom- 
 miers, in the battle of the Marne, when his horse fell.^ 
 
 ''You hear," said he, ''the enemy's bugles sounding the 
 charge. Half a mile away you see the Germans coming and 
 it seems that in an instant they will be on you. You watch 
 fascinated and cold with a terror that makes you unable to 
 lift an arm or do anything but wait and tremble. 
 
 "They come closer and still you are horrorstruck. Then 
 you feel your horse fretting and suddenly you start from your 
 daze, and fear changes suddenly to hate. Your hand goes to 
 the saber hilt, your teeth clinch and you realize that you must 
 strike hard before the enemy, who is now very close, can 
 strike. Every muscle tightens with the waiting. 
 
 "Before your own bugles have sounded two notes of the 
 charge you find yourself leaning forward over the neck of 
 
 222 
 
STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 223 
 
 your galloping horse. All the rest is a mad gallop, yells of 
 the enemy and your own answer^ a terrible shock in which you 
 are almost dismounted, and then you find yourself face to face 
 with a single opponent who, standing up in the stirrups, is 
 about to split your head. You notice that you are stnking 
 like a fiend with the saber. 
 
 ''After that madness passes it seems almost like a complex 
 maneuver and sOon you find yourself riding for dear life — 
 perhaps to escape, perhaps after the Germans. You then 
 realize that you have been whipped and that the charge has 
 failed, or you see the backs of the fleeing enemy, feel your 
 horse straining in pursuit and know that you have gained a 
 victory. ' ' 
 
 FRIGHTFUL MORTALITY AMONG OFFICERS 
 
 The official reports of the loss of life in the baftles in 
 France tell of the large number of officers killed. Sharp- 
 shooters on both sides have had instructions to aim at officers. 
 These sharpshooters are often concealed far in advance of 
 their troops. Their small number and their smokeless powder 
 make their discovery most difficult. This lesson was learned 
 at great cost to the British during the Boer war. 
 
 Dispatches from Bordeaux stated that letters found on 
 dead and captured German officers prove the truth of reports 
 regarding the terrible mortality in the German ranks, espe- 
 cially among officers. In the Tenth and Imperial Guard Corps 
 of the German army it is said that only a few high ranking 
 officers escaped being shot, and many have been killed. The 
 German officers have distinguished themselves by their cour- 
 age, according to the stories of both British and French who 
 fought them. 
 
 An officer of an Imperial Guard regiment, who was taken 
 prisoner after being wounded, said : 
 
 ''My regiment left for the front with sixty officers; it 
 counts today only five. We underwent terrible trials." 
 
 A German artillery officer wrote: 
 
 "Modern war is the greatest of follies. Companies of 
 250 men in the Tenth Army Corps have been reduced to 
 seventy men, and there are companies of the guard com- 
 manded by volunteers of a year, all the officers having dis- 
 appeared. ' * 
 
224 STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 SAYS GERMANS FOUGHT EVERY DAY 
 
 The following is from a letter written during the pro- 
 longed battle of the Aisne by a lieutenant of the Twenty-sixth 
 German Artillery : 
 
 ' ' The Tenth Corps has been constantly in action since the 
 opening of the campaign. Nearly all our horses have fallen. 
 We fight every day from 5 in the morning till 8 at night, 
 without eating or drinking. The artillery fire of the French 
 is frightful. We get so tired that we cannot ride a horse, even 
 at a walk. Toward noon our battery was literally under a 
 rain of shrapnel shells and that lasted for three days. We 
 hope for a decisive battle to end the situation, for our troops 
 cannot rest. A French aviator last night threw four bombs, 
 killing four men and wounding eight, and killing twenty horses 
 and wounding ten more. We do not receive any more mail, 
 for the postal automobiles of the Tenth Corps have been de- 
 stroyed. ' ' 
 
 HOW IT FEELS TO BE WOUNDED 
 
 Many men in the trenches have proved themselves heroes 
 in the war. A wounded British private told this story : 
 
 *' We lay in the trench, my friend and I, and when the order 
 to fire came we shot, and shot till our rifles burned up. Still 
 the Germans swarmed on toward us, and then my friend re- 
 ceived a bad wound. I turned to my work again, continuing 
 to shoot slowly. Then I rose a little too high on my shoulder. 
 
 **Do you know what it is like to be wounded? A little 
 sting pierced my arm like a hot wire ; too sharp almost to be 
 sore, and my rifle fell from me. I looked at my friend then 
 and he was dead. ' ' 
 
 In one casualty list made public by the British war office 
 in September, sixteen officers were reported killed, thirty-eight 
 wounded and ten missing. The famous Coldstream Guards 
 and the Black Watch regiments were among the sufferers. 
 
 HOW GENERAL FINDLEY DIED 
 
 A correspondent in France described the death of General 
 Neil Douglas Findley of the British Royal Artillery as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 ''When at dawn the British advance continued toward 
 Soissons the enemy was fighting an exceptionally fierce rear- 
 
STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 225 
 
 guard action. A terrible shell fire was directed against our 
 artillery under General Findley, temporarily situated in a 
 valley by the village of Prise. It seemed a matter of moments 
 when we should have to spike our guns and General Findley 
 saw the urgency for action. 
 
 *' 'Boys,' his voice echoed down the line, *we are going to 
 get every gun into position.' Then deliberately the general 
 approached a regimental chaplain kneeling beside a gunner. 
 *Here are some of my personal belongings, chaplain. See that 
 they don't go astray.' 
 
 ' ' One by one our guns began to blaze away and the general 
 had a word of encouragement and advice for every man. In 
 vain his staff tried to persuade him to leave the danger zone. 
 
 ''Our range was perfect, the German fire slackened and 
 died away and with a yell our men prepared to advance. The 
 outburst came too soon, one parting shell exploding in a 
 contact with Findley 's horse, shattering man and beast. ' ' 
 
 KILLED FOE IN EEVOLVEE DUEL 
 
 While their men battled on a road near Antwerp, it is said 
 that a Belgian cavalry sergeant and an officer of German 
 Uhlans fought a revolver duel which ended when the Belgian 
 killed his foe, sending a bullet into his neck at close range. 
 
 The daring Uhlans had approached close to the Antwerp 
 fortifications on a reconnoitering expedition. They were seen 
 by a small Belgian force, which immediately went out on the 
 road to give battle. As they neared each other, the German 
 commander shouted a jibe at the Belgian sergeant. There 
 was no answer, but the sergeant rode at a gallop straight for 
 the Uhlan. Miraculously escaping the shots aimed at him, he 
 drew up alongside the ofiScer and informed him that his life 
 was to be forfeited for the insulting words he had uttered. 
 Both began firing w^ith their revolvers, while at the same time 
 their men clashed. 
 
 Only a few of the soldiers witnessed the thrilling duel, for 
 they themselves were fighting desperately. After their offi- 
 cer's death- the Uhlans withdrew, leaving a number of dead. 
 Someone carried word of the duel to King Albert, who had 
 just arrived in Antwerp, and he called before him and per- 
 sonally congratulated the sergeant, Henri Pyppes. The latter 
 
226 STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 was wounded in the arm by one of the Uhlan 's bullets, but he 
 refused to be taken to the hospital and remained on duty in 
 the field. 
 
 LITTLE STOKIES FEOM FEANCE 
 
 Count Guerry de Beauregard, a French veteran of the 
 war of 1870, thus announced the death of a son at the front : 
 ''One son already has met the death of the brave beyond the 
 frontier at the head of a squadron of the Seventh Hussars. 
 Others will avenge him. Another of my sons, an artilleryman, 
 is with the general staff. My eldest son is with the Twenty- 
 first Chasseurs. Long live Prance!" 
 
 A wounded French soldier who was taken to Marseilles 
 verified a remarkable story of his escape from death while 
 fighting in German Lorraine. The soldier owes his life to a 
 small bust of Emperor William, which he picked up in a vil- 
 lage school and placed in his haversack. A German bullet 
 struck the bust and, thus deflected, inflicted only a slight 
 wound on the soldier. 
 
 Twenty German prisoners taken during the melee near 
 Crecy, were herded together in a clearing, their rifles being 
 stacked nearby. In a rash moment they thought that they 
 were loosely guarded and made a combined rush for the 
 rifles. ''They will never make another," was the laconic re- 
 port of the guard. 
 
 SAYS DEAD FILLED THE MEUSE 
 
 Edouard Helsey of the Paris newspaper, Le Journal, re- 
 ported to be serving with the colors, wrote under date of 
 August 29: 
 
 "It would be difficult to estimate the number of Germans 
 killed last week. Whole regiments were annihilated at some 
 points. They came out of the woods section by section. One 
 section, one shell — and everything was wiped out. 
 
 "At two or three places which I am forbidden to name 
 corpses filled the Meuse until the river overflowed. This is 
 no figure of speech. The river bed literally was choked by 
 the mass of dead Germans. The effect of our artillery sur- 
 passes even our dreams." 
 
STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 227 
 
 DETROIT ARTISTES NARROW ESCAPE 
 
 Lawrence Stem Stevens, an artist of Detroit, narrowly- 
 escaped death near Aix-la-Chapelle at the hands of a crazed 
 German lieutenant, by whom he was suspected of being a spy. 
 
 Stevens left Brussels on Aug. 24 in an automobile. He 
 was accompanied by a photographer and a Belgian newspaper 
 correspondent, and his intention had been to make sketches on 
 the battlefield. His arrest at Laneffe thwarted this plan. He 
 underwent a terrifying ordeal at the hands of his demented 
 captor, although he was not actually injured. 
 
 On the evening of Aug. 24 he was court-martialed and sen- 
 tenced to death and held in close confinement over night. 
 Early on the morning of Aug. 25 he was led out, as he sup- 
 posed, to be shot, but the plans had been changed and instead 
 he was taken before Gen. von Arnim. After being forced to 
 march with German troops for two days, Stevens fell in with 
 a party of American correspondents at Beaumont, from which 
 point he traveled to Aix-la-Chapelle on a prison train, and 
 eventually reached Rotterdam and safety. 
 
 SAD MilGHT or FRENCH FUGITIVES 
 
 M. Brieux, the noted French dramatist, who witnessed the 
 arrival at Chartres of a train full of fugitives who had fled 
 from their homes before the German advance, described his 
 experience for the Figaro. The fleeing people gathered round 
 him and told him stories and he wrote his impressions as 
 follows : 
 
 * ' Children weep or gaze wide-eyed, wondering what is the 
 matter. Old folks sit in gloomy silence. Women with hag- 
 gard cheeks and disheveled hair seem to belong to another 
 age. 
 
 ''They tell of invaders who scattered powder around or 
 threw petroleum into their houses and then set them afire. 
 
 "And when did this happen? Yesterday! It is not a 
 matter of centuries ago in distant climes, but yesterday, and 
 quite near to us. Yet one cannot believe it was really yester- 
 day that these things were done. ' ' 
 
228 STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 One of the fugitives explained to M. Brieux why after the 
 first hour of their flight she had to carry her elder child as 
 well as her baby. She showed him a pair of boots. 
 
 ''I felt the inside with my fingers," says Brieux. *' Nails 
 had come through the soles. I looked at the child's feet. 
 They were dirty with red brown clots. It was blood." 
 
 CHAUNCEY DEPEW ON A RUNNING-BOAKD 
 
 Chauncey M. Depew, former United States Senator for 
 New York, was in Geneva when the trouble began. He said on 
 his return : ' 'After crossing the border into France we picked 
 up men joining the colors on the way to Paris, until our train 
 could hold no more. 
 
 ''Whenever I stuck my head into a corridor the soldiers 
 would set up a cheer on seeing my side whiskers. They mis- 
 took me for an Englishman and cried: 'Long live the entente 
 cordiale!" 
 
 IN THE "valley OF DEATH " 
 
 The fiercest fighting of all that preceded the Eussian vic- 
 tory at Lublin was in a gorge near the village of Mikolaiff, 
 which the Russian soldiers reverently named the "Valley of 
 Death." 
 
 The gorge was full of dead men, lying in heaps, accord- 
 ing to an officer who participated in the battle. "When we 
 attacked at 3 o'clock in the morning," he said, "the gorge 
 contained 15,000 Austrians, a large proportion of whom 
 were mowed down by the artillery fire which plowed through 
 the valley in the darkness. The Austrians surrendered and we 
 entered the gorge to receive their arms, while their general 
 stood quietly on a hill watching the scene. Eight of his 
 standards being turned over to the Russians was more than 
 he could bear, for he drew a pistol and shot himself. ' ' 
 
 GENEKAL USE OF KHAKI UNIFORMS 
 
 The war put everybody into khaki, with a few exceptions. 
 On the battle line or in the field the English soldier and the 
 English officer get out of their richly colored and historic 
 
STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 229 
 
 uniforms and into khaki, of a neutral hue. The Germans are 
 in gray. The Austrians have most of their soldiers in khaki, 
 and the Russians all wear khaki-colored cloth. The French 
 still cling to their blue coats and brilliant red trousers, al- 
 though steps are being taken to reclothe the army in more 
 modern fashion, and the Belgians have a uniform that is very 
 similar to the French. 
 
 The French and Belgian officers are dangerously orna- 
 mented with gilt trimmings during warfare and present such 
 brilliant targets that some of the Belgian regiments during 
 hard fighting with the Germans have lost nearly all of their 
 leaders. 
 
 The new twentieth century mode of warfare puts the ban 
 on anything that glitters, even the rifle barrels, bayonets and 
 sabers. 
 
 A BELGIAN BOY HERO 
 
 On a cot in the Red Cross hospital at Ostend, September 
 12, lay one of the heroes of the war. He is Sergeant van der 
 Bern of the Belgian army, and only 17 years old. He was 
 only a corporal when he started out with twenty-nine men 
 on a reconnoitering expedition during which he was wounded, 
 but displayed such valor that his bravery was publicly re- 
 lated to all the soldiers, and Van der Bern was promoted. 
 
 Van der Bern and his little command came suddenly upon 
 a band of fifty Uhlans while on their expedition. Outnum- 
 bered, his men turned and fled. The corporal shouted to them 
 and dashed alone toward the Germans. The other Belgians 
 rallied and threw themselves upon the Uhlans. Within a few 
 minutes only Van der Bern and two others of his command 
 remained. Twenty-seven Belgians were dead or wounded. 
 Within a few minutes more the corporal's companions fell, 
 mortally wounded. Then the boy picked them up and dis- 
 playing almost superhuman strength carried them to safety. 
 As he was making his retreat, burdened by the two wounded 
 men. Van der Bern was hit twice by German bullets. He 
 staggered on, placed his men in charge of the Red Cross and 
 without a word walked to headquarters and reported the 
 engagement. Then he fell in a faint. 
 
230 STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 WHEN THE GERMANS RETREATED 
 
 A vivid description of the rout and retreat of the Ger- 
 mans during hurricane and rain on September 10, which 
 turned the roads into river ways so that the wheels of the 
 artillery sank deep in the mire, was given by a correspondent 
 writing from a point near Melun. He described how the 
 horses strained and struggled, often in vain, to drag the guns 
 away, and continued : 
 
 **I have just spoken with a soldier who has returned 
 wounded from the pursuit that will go down with the terrible 
 retreat from Moscow as one of the crowning catastrophes 
 of the world. They fled, he declares, as animals flee who are 
 cornered, and know it. 
 
 /'Imagine a roadway littered with guns, knapsacks, car- 
 tridge belts, Maxims and heavy cannons even. There were 
 miles and miles of it. And the dead — those piles of horses 
 and those stacks of men! I have seen it again and again, 
 men shot so close to one another that they remained standing 
 after death. The sight was terrible and horrible beyond 
 words. 
 
 *'The retreat rolls back and trainload after trainload of 
 British and French are swept toward the weak points of the 
 retreating host. This is the advantage of the battleground 
 which the Allies have chosen. The network of railways is 
 like a spider's web. As all railways center upon Paris, it is 
 possible to thrust troops upon the foe at any point with al- 
 most incredible speed, and food and munitions are within 
 arm's reach." 
 
 PRINCE JOACHIM WOUNDED 
 
 Prince Joachim, youngest son of Emperor William, was 
 wounded during a battle with the Russians and taken to 
 Berlin. On September 15 it was reported from Berlin that 
 the wound was healing rapidly, despite the tearing effect 
 of a shrapnel ball through the thigh. The empress and the 
 surgeons were having considerable trouble in keeping the 
 patient quiet in bed. He wanted to get on his feet again and 
 insisted that he ought to be able to rejoin his command at the 
 front in about a fortnight. 
 
 ''The prince treats the wound as a trifle," said the Berlin 
 dispatch. ' ' He smilingly greeted an old palace servant whom 
 
STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 231 
 
 he had known since childhood with the remark: 'Am I not 
 a lucky dog I' " 
 
 From an officer who was with Prince Joachim when he 
 was wounded the following description of the incident was 
 obtained : " 
 
 ''It was during the hottest part of the battle, shortly 
 before the Eussian resistance was broken, that the prince, 
 who was with the staff as information officer, was dispatched 
 to the firing line to learn how the situation stood. He rode off 
 with Adjutant Captain von Tahlzahn and had to traverse 
 the distance, almost a mile, under a heavy hail of shell and 
 occasional volleys. 
 
 "As the Russian artillery was well served and knew all 
 the ranges from previous measurements, the ride was not a 
 particularly pleasant one, but he came through safely and 
 stood talking with the officers when a shrapnel burst in their 
 vicinity. The prince and the adjutant were both hit, the 
 latter receiving contusions on the leg, but the shot not pene- 
 trating. 
 
 "To stop and whip out an emergency bandage which the 
 prince, like every officer and private, carries sewed inside 
 the blouse, and bind it around the thigh to check the bleeding 
 was the work of but a moment. It was a long and dangerous 
 task, however, to get him back to the first bandaging station, 
 about a mile to the rear, under fire and from there he was 
 transported to the advanced hospital at Allenstein, where he 
 remained until he was able to travel. 
 
 "Prince Joachim, who was already recommended for the 
 Iron Cross for bravery before Namur, received the decora- 
 tion shortly before he was wounded. The prince, who has 
 many friends in America, conveyed through his adjutant his 
 thanks for assurances of American sympathy and interest." 
 
 EX-EMPRESS DEVOTED TO FEANCE 
 
 The aged ex-Empress Eugenie of France, widow of Na- 
 poleon ni, has been living for many years in retirement in 
 the county of Hampshire, England. She was recently visited 
 by Lord Portsmouth, an old friend, who found the illustrious 
 lady full of courage and devotion to the French cause in the 
 
232 STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 present war. In explaining her failure to treat her guest 
 as she would have desired, the empress said : 
 
 "I cannot give you dinner because most of the men of my 
 kitchen have gone to war." 
 
 A ''battleship ok wheels" 
 
 Just before the war France added to its equipment the 
 most modern of fighting devices. It is a train of armored 
 cars with rapid-fire guns, conning towers and fighting tops. 
 As a death-dealing war apparatus it is the most unique of 
 anything used by any of the nations. This ''battleship" on 
 wheels consists of an armored locomotive, two rapid-fire gun 
 carriages and two armored cars for transporting troops. 
 The rapid-fire guns are mounted in such manner that they 
 can be swung and directed to any point of the compass. 
 Rising from the car behind the locomotive, is a conning tower 
 from which an officer takes observations and directs the fire 
 of the rapid-fire guns. Rails running on top of the cars per- 
 mit troops to fire from the roof of the cars. For opening 
 railway communications this "battleship on wheels" is un- 
 excelled. 
 
 GAVE HIM A FORK TO MATCH 
 
 The scene is a village on the outskirts of Muelhausen, in 
 Alsace. A lieutenant of German scouts dashes up to the door 
 of the only inn in the village, posts men at the doorway and 
 entering, seats himself at a table. 
 
 He draws his saber and places it on the table at his side 
 and orders food in menacing tones. 
 
 The village waiter is equal to the occasion. He goes to 
 the stables and fetches a pitchfork and places it at the other 
 side of the visitor. 
 
 "Stop! What does this mean?" roared the lieutenant, 
 furiously. 
 
 "Why," said the waiter, innocently, pointing to the saber, 
 "I thought that was your knife, so I brought you a fork to 
 match." 
 
 DECORATED ON" THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 On a train loaded with wounded which passed through 
 Limoges, September 11, was a young French officer, Albert 
 Palaphy, whose unusual bravery on the field of battle won 
 for him the Legion of Honor, 
 
STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 233 
 
 As a corporal of the Tenth Dragoons at the beginning of 
 the war, Palaphy took part in the violent eombat with the 
 Germans west of Paris. In the thick of the battle the cav- 
 alryman, finding his colonel wounded and helpless, rushed to 
 his aid. 
 
 Palaphy hoisted the injured man upon his shoulders, and 
 under a rain of machine gun bullets carried him safely to the 
 French lines. That same day Palaphy was promoted to be 
 a sergeant. 
 
 Shortly afterward, although wounded, he distinguished 
 himself in another affair, leading a charge of his squad 
 against the Baden guard, whose standard he himself cap- 
 tured. 
 
 Wounded by a ball which had plowed through the lower 
 part of his stomach and covered with lance thrusts, he was 
 removed from the battlefield during the sight, and learned 
 he had been promoted to be a sublieutenant and nominated 
 chevalier in the Legion of Honor. 
 
 This incident "of decorating a soldier on the battlefield 
 recalls Napoleonic times. 
 
 ''after you/' said the FRENCHMAN" 
 
 Lieutenant de Lupel of the French army is said to have 
 endeared himself to his command by a most unusual exhibi- 
 tion of what they are pleased to term ''old-fashioned French 
 gallantry." 
 
 Accompanied by a few men. Lieutenant de Lupel succeeded 
 in surrounding a German detachment occupying the station 
 at Mezieres. The lieutenant, on searching the premises, came 
 upon the German officer hiding behind a stack of coal. Both 
 men leveled their guns, and for a moment faced each other. 
 
 "After you," finally said the Frenchman courteously. 
 
 The German fired and missed and Lieutenant de Lupel 
 killed his man. 
 
 The French soldiers cheered their leader, and he has been 
 praised everywhere for his action. 
 
 A "walking wood" at crecy 
 A correspondent describes a "walking wood" at Crecy. 
 The French and British cut down trees and armed themselves 
 with the branches. Line after line of infantry, each man 
 
234 STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 bearing a branch, then moved forward unobserved toward 
 the enemy. 
 
 Behind them, amid the lopped tree trunks, the artillery- 
 men fixed themselves and placed thirteen-pounders to cover 
 the moving wood. 
 
 The attack, which followed, won success. It almost went 
 wrong, however, for the French cavalry, which was following, 
 made a detour to pass the wood and dashed into view near 
 the ammunition reserves of the Allies. 
 
 German shells began falling thereabouts, but British sol- 
 diers went up the hills and pulled the boxes of anununition 
 out of the way of the German shells. Ammunition and men 
 came through unscathed. By evening the Germans had been 
 cleared from the Marne district. 
 
 CHAPLAIN CAPTURES AUSTRIAN TROOPERS 
 
 The Bourse Gazette relates the story of a Russian regi- 
 mental chaplain who, single-handed, captured twenty-six Aus- 
 trian troopers. He was strolling on the steppes outside of 
 Lemberg, when suddenly he was confronted by a patrol of 
 twenty-six men, who tried to force him to tell the details 
 of the position of the Russian troops. 
 
 While talking to the men, the priest found that they were 
 all Slavs, whereupon he delivered an impassioned address, 
 dwelling on the sin of shedding the blood of their Slav 
 brethren. 
 
 At the end of the address, the story concludes, the troopers 
 with bent heads followed the priest into the Russian camp. 
 
 A BRITISH CAVALRY CHARGE 
 
 Here is a picturesque story of a British cavalry charge 
 at Thuin, a town in Belgium near Charleroi, and the subse- 
 quent retreat to Compiegne : 
 
 **0n Monday morning, August 24, after chafing at the 
 long delay, the 2nd British Cavalry Brigade let loose at the 
 enemy's guns. The 9th Lancers went into action singing and 
 shouting like schoolboys. 
 
 ''For a time all seemed well; few saddles were emptied, 
 and the leaders had charged almost within reach of the 
 enemy's guns when suddenly the Germans opened a mur- 
 
STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 235 
 
 derous fire from at least twenty concealed machine guns at 
 a range of 150 yards. 
 
 ''The result was shattering, and the Lancers caught the 
 full force of the storm. Vicomte Vauvineux, a French cav- 
 alry officer who rode with the brigade as interpreter, was 
 killed instantly. Captain Letourey, who was the French mas- 
 ter of a school in Devon, was riding by the side of Vauvineux, 
 and had a narrow escape, as his horse was shot from under 
 him. Other officers also fell. 
 
 ''While the bulk of the brigade swerved to the right the 
 others held on and rode full tilt into wire entanglements 
 buried in the grass thirty yards in front of the machine 
 guns, and were made prisoners. Three regiments of the best 
 cavalry in the British went into the charge, and suffered 
 severely. The 18th Hussars and the 4th Dragoons also suf- 
 fered, but not to the same extent as the others. 
 
 "A happy feature of the charge was the gallant conduct 
 of Captain Grenfell, who, though twice wounded, called for 
 volunteers and saved the guns. It is said that he has been 
 recommended for the Victoria Cross. 
 
 "After this terrible ordeal the British brigade was 
 harassed for fourteen days of retreat, the enemy giving them 
 rest neither day nor night. At 2 o'clock each morning they 
 were roused by artillery fire, and every day they fought a 
 retiring action, pursued relentlessly by the guns. 
 
 "It was a wonderful retreat. Daily the cavalry begged 
 to be allowed to go for the enemy in force to recover lost 
 ground, but only once were they permitted to taste that joy, 
 at the village of Lassigny, which they passed and repassed 
 three times. 
 
 "The Germans made repeated efforts, which were always 
 foiled, to capture the retreating transport. It had, how- 
 ever, many narrow escapes. At one point it escaped by a 
 furious gallop which enabled the wagons to cross a bridge 
 less than an hour ahead of the enemy. The engineers had 
 mined the bridge and were waiting to blow it up. They sent 
 a hurry-up call to the transport, and the latter responded 
 with alacrity. The bridge was blown up just in time to sep- 
 arate the two forces. 
 
236 STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 **At Compiegne the brigade for the first time saw and 
 welcomed their French brothers-in-arms. " 
 
 BOY SCOUT HERO OF THE WAR 
 
 One of the popular heroes of Belgium is Boy Scout Ley- 
 sen, who has been decorated by King Albert for his valor 
 and devotion to his country. 
 
 This young man, who was born at Liege, is described as of 
 almost uncanny sharpness, with senses and perceptions as 
 keen as an Indian. He was able to find his way through the 
 woods and pass the German sentinels with unerring accuracy. 
 
 Leysen made his way through the German lines from 
 Antwerp for the tenth time on Sunday, September 6, carry- 
 ing dispatches to secret representatives of the Belgian gov- 
 ernment in Brussels. He discovered and denounced eleven 
 German spies in Belgium, and performed a variety of other 
 services, and all without impairing his boyish simplicity. 
 
 KAISER ASKS FOR PRAYERS 
 
 After the first three weeks of war. Emperor William 
 requested the supreme council of the Evangelical Church 
 throughout the German empire to include the following 
 prayer in the liturgy at all public services during the war : 
 
 ** Almighty and most merciful God, God of the armies, we 
 beseech Thee in humility for Thy almighty aid for German 
 Fatherland. Bless our forces of war ; lead us to victory and 
 give us grace that we may show ourselves to be Christians 
 toward our enemies as well. Let us soon arrive at a peace 
 which will everlastingly safeguard our free and independent 
 Germany. ' ' 
 
 SPIRIT OF FRENCH WOMEN 
 
 When sympathy was expressed in Paris for a poor 
 woman, mother of nine sons, eight of whom were at the front, 
 she replied: ''I need no consolation. I have never forgotten 
 that I was flogged by Prussians in 1870. I have urged my sons 
 to avenge me and they will.'* 
 
 As one train of soldiers for the front moved out of a 
 Paris railway station two girls who had bravely kissed fare- 
 well to a departing man turned away, and one began to cry, 
 but the other said: ''Keep up a little longer, he can still 
 see us." 
 
STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 237 
 
 Another carried a baby, and as her husband leaned out 
 of the window and the train started she threw it into his 
 arms, crying: "Leave it with the station master at the next 
 station, and I will fetch it ; you must have it for another few 
 minutes. ' ' 
 
 A Paris painter, called for military duty, was obliged to 
 leave his wife and four children almost destitute. When he 
 communicated with his wife on the subject she replied: ''Do 
 your duty without worrying about us. The city, state and 
 our associations will look after us women and children." In 
 her letter, the wife enclosed a money order for $1 out of 
 $1.20, the total amount of money which she possessed. 
 
 KILLS MANY WITH ARMORED CAR 
 
 Lieutenant Henkart, attached to the general staff of the 
 Belgian Army, perfected a monitor armored motor car which 
 was successfully used by the Belgians. 
 
 During the war the officer engaged in reconnoitering in 
 one of his armored cars. He had several encounters with 
 Uhlans, of whom he killed a considerable number, virtually 
 singlerhanded. His only assistants in his scouting trips were 
 a chauffeur, an engineer and a sharpshooter. 
 
 On one occasion the party killed five Uhlans. Two days 
 later it killed seven and on another occasion near Waterloo, 
 the auto ran into a force of 500 Germans and escaped after 
 killing twenty-five with a rapid-fire gun, which was mounted 
 on the motor car. 
 
 A GERMAN RUSE THAT FAILED 
 
 A Belgian diplomat in Paris related an incident he ob- 
 served at Charleroi. He said : 
 
 ''Twenty Death's Head Hussars entered the town at 7 
 o'clock in the morning and rode quickly down the street, 
 saluting and calling out 'Good-day' to those they met, saying, 
 ' We are friends of the people. ' 
 
 "Mistaking them for English cavalrymen, the people 
 cried 'Long live England!' The Belgian soldiers themselves 
 were deceived until an officer at a window, realizing their 
 mistake, ran to the street and gave the alarm. The Belgian 
 soldiers rushefd quickly to arms and opened fire on the fleeing 
 Germans, of whom several were killed. ' ' 
 
238 STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 DIED WEITING TO HIS WIFE 
 
 Here is a story of a heroic death on the battlefield, told 
 simply in a letter found in the cold hands of a French soldier 
 who had just finished writing it when the end came. '^I am 
 awaiting help which does not come," the letter ran. *'I pray 
 God to take me, for I suffer atrociously. Adieu, my wife and 
 dear children. Adieu, all my family, whom I so loved. I re- 
 quest that whoever finds me will send this letter to Paris to 
 my wife, with the pocketbook which is in my coat pocket. 
 Gathering my last strength I write this, lying prostrate under 
 the shell fire. Both my legs are broken. My last thoughts 
 are for my children and for thee, my cherished wife and com- 
 panion of my life, my beloved wife. Vive la France ! ' ' 
 
 IN THE PAKIS MILITAKY HOSPITAL 
 
 A visitor to the military hospital mthin the intrenched 
 camp of Paris, just outside the city walls, said on Septem- 
 ber 18: 
 
 * * Men of all ranks are there, from the simple private to a 
 general of division. There is no sign of discouragement or 
 sadness on the pale faces, which light up with the thought of 
 returning to battle. 
 
 "I saw hundreds of men lying on the beds in the wards 
 with varieties of wounds, no two being identical. This Turco 
 — or African soldier — suffered from a torn tongue, cut by a 
 bullet, which traversed his cheek. Another had lost three 
 fingers of his left hand. A bullet entered the temple of this 
 infantryman and fell into his mouth, where by some curious 
 reaction he swallowed it. 
 
 ''Many of the patients are suffering from mere flesh 
 wounds. One poor fellow whose eye was put out by a bullet 
 said: ** That's nothing. It is only my left eye and I aim 
 with my right. I need the lives of just three Germans to pay 
 for it." 
 
 SMOKE AS WOUNDS AKE TREATED 
 
 *'The Turcos, though terrible hand-to-hand fighters, are 
 hard to care for. They have great fear of pain and it is 
 difficult to bandage their wounds. The doctors give them 
 
STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 239 
 
 cigarettes, which they smoke with dignity as if performing 
 a ritual. 
 
 ''AH the African soldiers were wrathful at a German 
 officer lying in a neighboring room. They muttered in a 
 sinister fashion, 'To-morrow!' and put two hands to the 
 neck. I understood this to mean that they would strangle 
 him to-morrow. Much vigilance is required to keep the officer 
 out of their reach. 
 
 "One Turco killed two Prussians mth his bayonet and 
 two with the stock of the gun in a single fight. His body is 
 covered with the scars of years of fighting in the service of 
 France. When asked if he liked France he replied : ' France ■, 
 good country, good leaders, good doctors.' He seemed to ' 
 mind his wound less than the lack of cigarettes. " v 
 
 SPIRIT OF BELGIAN SOLDIERS 
 
 Writing from Antwerp on September 1, William G. 
 Shepherd, United Press staff correspondent, illustrated the 
 spirit of the soldiery of Belgium by the following story: 
 
 "The little Belgian soldier who climbed into the compart- 
 ment with me was dead tired ; he trailed his rifle behind him, 
 threw himself into the seat and fell sound asleep. He was 
 ready to talk when he awoke an hour later. 
 
 " 'Yes, I was up all night with Gennan prisoners,' he said. 
 'It was a bad job, there were only sixteen of us to handle 
 200 Germans. We had four box cars and we put twenty- 
 five prisoners in one end of the car and twenty-five in the 
 other, and the four of us with rifles sat guard by the car door. 
 
 " 'We rode five hours that way and I expected every min- 
 ute that the whole fifty Germans in the car would jump on 
 us four and kill us. Four to fifty; that's heavy odds. But 
 we had to do it. You see there aren't enough soldiers in Bel- 
 gium to do all the work, so we have to make out the best 
 we can.' 
 
 "That's the plucky little Belgian soldier, all over. 
 
 "In the first place, he's different from most soldiers, be- 
 cause he is willing to fight when he knows he's going to lose. 
 
 " 'We have to make out the best we can,' is his motto. 
 
 "In the second place, he's a common-sense little fellow. 
 Even while he's fighting, he's doing it coolly, and there is 
 
240 STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 no blind hatred in his heart that causes him to waste any 
 effort. He gets down to the why and wherefore of things. 
 
 ** *I really felt sorry for those German prisoners,' said 
 a comrade of the first soldier. * They w^ere all decent fellows. 
 They told me their officers had fooled them. ,They said 
 the officers gave them French money on the German frontier 
 and then yelled to them, ' ' On into France ! ' ' They went on 
 three days and got to Liege before they knew they were in 
 Belgium instead of France. 
 
 " 'We didn't want to hurt Belgium,' they told us, 'be- 
 cause we 're from Alsace-Lorraine ourselves. ' 
 
 '' 'You see,' continued the logical little Belgian, 'it wasn't 
 their fault, so we couldn 't be mad at them. ' 
 
 ' ' That is the Belgian idea — cool logic. 
 
 " 'Why did you fight the Germans?' I asked a high gov- 
 ernment official. 
 
 " 'Because civilization can't exist without treaties, and 
 it is the duty that a nation owes to civilization to fight to 
 the death when written treaties are broken, ' was the reply. 
 
 " 'It must be a rule among nations that to break a treaty 
 means to fight. The Germans broke the neutrality treaty 
 with Belgium and we had to fight. ' 
 
 " 'But did you expect to whip the Germans?' 
 
 " 'How could we? We knew that hordes of Germans 
 would follow the first comers, but we had no right to worry 
 about who would be whipped; all we had to do was to fight, 
 and we 've done it the best we could. ' 
 
 "It has been a cool-headed logical matter with the Bel- 
 gians from the start. Treaties are made with ink; they're 
 broken with blood, and just as naturally and coolly as the 
 Belgian diplomats used ink in signing the treaties with Ger- 
 many so the Belgian soldiers have used their blood in trying 
 to maintain the agreements." 
 
 BIFLES USED BY NATIONS OF WAR 
 
 In the present war Germany uses a Mauser rifle, with a 
 bullet of 8 millimeters caliber, steel and copper coated. 
 Great Britain's missile is the Lee-Enfield, caliber 7.7 mm., 
 the coating being cupro-nickel. 
 
 The French weapon is the Lebel rifle, of 8 mm. caliber, 
 with bullets coated with nickel. Russia uses Mossin-Nagant 
 
STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 241 
 
 rifles, 7.62 mm., with bullets eupro-niekel coated. Austria's 
 chief small arm is the Mannlicher, caliber 8 mm., with a steel 
 sheet over the tip. 
 
 Hitting a man beyond 350 yards, the wounds inflicted by 
 all these bullets are clean cut. They frequently pass through 
 bone tissue without splintering. 
 
 When meeting an artery the bullet seems to push it to 
 one side and goes around without cutting the blood channel. 
 
 Amputations are very rare compared with wars of more 
 than fifty years ago. A bullet wound through a joint, such 
 as the knee or the elbow, then necessitated the amputation 
 of the limb. Now such a wound is easily opened and dressed. 
 
 Even Eussia, which made a sad sanitary showing in the 
 war with Japan, now has learned her lesson and has efficient 
 surgical arrangements. 
 
 All the nations use vaccine to combat typhoid, the scourge 
 which once decimated camps, and killed 1,600 in the Spanish- 
 American war. 
 
 GEEMANT UHLAlSrS AS SCOUTS 
 
 Concerning the German Uhlans, of whom so much has 
 been heard in the European war, Luigi Barzini, a widely 
 known Italian war correspondent, said: 
 
 ''The swarms of cavalry which the Germans send out 
 ahead of their advance are to be found everywhere — on any 
 highway, on any path. It is their business to see as much 
 as possible. They show themselves everywhere and they 
 ride until they are fired upon, keeping this up until they have 
 located the enemy. 
 
 ''Theirs is the task of riding into death. The entire 
 front of the enemy is established by them, and many of them 
 are killed — that is a certainty they face. Now and then, how- 
 ever, one of them manages to escape to bring the information 
 himself, which otherwise is obtained by officers in their rear 
 making observation. 
 
 "At every bush, every heap of earth, the Uhlan must say 
 to himself: 'Here I will meet an enemy in hiding.' He 
 knows that he cannot defend himself against a fire that may 
 open on him from all sides. Everywhere there is danger for 
 the Uhlan — ^hidden danger. 
 
242 STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 ** Nevertheless he keeps on riding, calmly and undis- 
 turbed, in keeping with German discipline." 
 
 FOUGHT WITHOUT SHOES 
 
 The Paris Matin relates that on the arrival of a train 
 bringing wounded Senegalese riflemen nearly all were found 
 smoking furiously from long porcelain pipes taken 
 from the enemy and seemingly indifferent to their wounds. 
 One gayly told of the daring capture of a machine gun by 
 eighteen of his comrades. The gun, he said, was brought 
 up by a detachment of German dragoons and the Senegalese 
 bravely charged and captured everything. 
 
 Though their arms and bodies were hacked by sabers, 
 the Senegalese complained of nothing but the obligation to 
 fight with shoes on. Before going into battle at Charleroi 
 they slyly rid themselves of these impediments and came 
 back shod in German footwear to avoid punishment for losing 
 equipment. 
 
 KILLED A GENERAL 
 
 The shot which resulted in the death of Prince von Bue- 
 low, one of the German generals, was fired by a Belgian pri- 
 vate named Eosseau, who was decorated by King Albert for 
 his conduct in the battle of Haelen. 
 
 Eosseau was lying badly wounded among his dead com- 
 rades when he saw a German officer standing beside his 
 horse and studying a map. Picking up a rifle beside a dead 
 German, Eosseau fired at this officer and wounded him. The 
 officer proved to be Prince von Buelow. Exchanging his hat 
 for the German general's helmet and taking the general's 
 horse, Eosseau made his way to the Belgian lines and was 
 placed in a hospital at Ghent. 
 
 HOW A GERMAN PRINCE DIED 
 
 The Hanover Courier gave the following account by an 
 eyewitness of the death of Prince Frederick William of Lippe 
 at Liege : 
 
 * ' On all sides our detachment was surrounded by Belgian 
 troops, who were gradually closing in for purposes of exter- 
 minating us. At the prince's command we formed a circle 
 
STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 243 
 
 eight deep, maintaining a stubborn defense. At length a 
 strong division arrived to support us. The prince raised 
 himself from a kneeling position and turned to the standard 
 bearer, who lay prone beside him, covering the standard with 
 his body. 
 
 ** 'Raise the standard,' commanded the prince, *so that 
 we may be recognized by our friends. ' 
 
 **The standard bearer raised the flag, waving it to and 
 fro. This action immediately brought upon the standard 
 bearer and the prince a violent fusillade. The standard was 
 shot away and at the same moment the prince was struck 
 in the chest and expired instantly." 
 
 RA.ILWAY STATION A SHAMBLES 
 
 Mrs. Herman H. Harjes, wife of the Paris banker, who, 
 with other American women, was deeply interested in reUef 
 work, visited the North railroad station at Paris on Sep- 
 tember 1 and was shocked by the sights she saw among the 
 Belgian refugees. 
 
 **The station," said Mrs. Harjes, ''presented the aspect 
 of a shambles. It was the saddest sight I ever saw. It is 
 impossible to believe the tortures and cruelties the poor un- 
 fortunates had undergone. 
 
 "I saw many boys with both their hands cut off so that 
 it was impossible for them to carry guns. Everywhere was 
 filth and utter desolation. The helpless little babies, lying 
 on the cold, wet cement floor and crying for proper nourish- 
 ment, were enough to bring hot tears to any mother's eyes. 
 
 "Mothers were vainly besieging the authorities, begging 
 for milk or soup. A mother with twelve children said : 
 
 " 'What is to become of us? It seems impossible to suffer 
 more. I saw my husband bound to a lamppost. He was 
 gagged and being tortured by bayonets. When I tried to 
 intercede in his behalf, I was knocked senseless with a rifle. 
 I never saw him again.' " 
 
 BUKIED ON THE FIELD 
 
 The bodies of the dead in this war were not, with occasional 
 exceptions, returned to their relatives, but were buried on 
 the field and where numbers required it, in common graves. 
 
244 STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 Valuables, papers and mementoes were taken from the bodies 
 and made up in little packets to be sent to the relatives, and 
 the dead soldiers, each wrapped in his canvas shelter tent, 
 as shroud, were laid, friend and foe, side by side in long 
 trenches in the ground for which they had contested. 
 
 . GEKMAN LISTS OF THE DEAD 
 
 In the German official Gazette daily lists of the dead, 
 wounded and missing were published. The names marched 
 by in long columns of the Gazette, arrayed with military pre- 
 cision by regiments and companies, batteries or squadrons — 
 first the infantry and then cavalry, artillery and train. 
 
 The company lists were headed usually by the names of 
 the officers, killed or wounded ; then came the casualties from 
 the enlisted strength — first the dead, then the wounded and 
 the missing. A feature of the early lists was the large propor- 
 tion of this last class, reports from some units running mo- 
 notonously, name after name, ''missing" or ''wounded and 
 missing" — in mute testimony of scouting patrols which did 
 not return, or of regiments compelled to retire and leave be- 
 hind them dead, wounded and prisoners, or sometimes of men 
 wandering so far from their comrades in the confusion of 
 battle that they could not find and rejoin their companies 
 for days. 
 
 THE LANCE AS A WEAPON 
 
 An attempt was made in lists of the German wounded to 
 give the nature and location of the wound. These were prin- 
 cipally from rifle or shrapnel fire. A scanty few in the cavalry 
 were labeled "lance thrust," indicating that the favorite 
 weapon of the European cavalry has not done the damage ex- 
 pected of it, although the lance came more into play in the 
 later engagements between the Russian and German cavalry 
 divisions. 
 
 "fatherland or death!" 
 
 Writing from Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany, on August 29th, 
 Karl H. von Wiegand, who is considered by the Allies a Ger- 
 man mouthpiece, said : 
 
 "America has not the faintest realization of the terrible 
 carnage going on in Europe. She cannot realize the deter- 
 
STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 245 
 
 mination of Germany, all Germany--men, women and children 
 — in this war. The German Empire is like one man. And 
 that man's motto is 'Vaterland oder Tod!' (Fatherland or 
 Death!) 
 
 ** English news sources are reported here as telling of the 
 masterly retreat of the allies. Here in the German field head- 
 quarters, where every move on the great chess-board of Bel- 
 gium and France is analyzed, the war to date is referred to 
 as the greatest offensive movement in the history of modern 
 warfare." 
 
 GERMAN PLAN'S WELL LAID 
 
 The German offensive plans were well laid. No army that 
 ever took the field was ever so mobile. Thousands of army 
 autos have been in use. Each regiment had its supply. The 
 highways were mapped in advance. There was not a cross- 
 road that was not known. Even the trifling brooks had been 
 located. Nothing had been left to chance and the advance 
 guard was accompanied by enormous automobiles filled with 
 corps of sappers who carried bridge and road building 
 materials. 
 
 THE TERRIBLE KRUPP GUNS 
 
 How well the German plans worked was shown when Na- 
 mur, which, it was boasted, would resist for months, fell in 
 two days. The terrible work of the great Krupp weapons, 
 whose existence had been kept secret, is hard to realize. One 
 shot from one of these guns went through what was consid- 
 ered an impregnable wall of concrete and armored steel at 
 Namur, exploded and killed 150 men. 
 
 And aside from the effectiveness of these terrible weapons, 
 Belgian prisoners who were in the Namur forts declare their 
 fire absolutely shattered the nerves of the defenders, whose 
 guns had not sufficient range to reach them. 
 
 GERMANS DEFY DEATH 
 
 **It makes you sick to see the way that the Germans liter- 
 ally walk into the very mouth of the machine guns and cannon 
 spouting short-fused shrapnel that mow down their lines and 
 tear great gaps in them," said a Belgian major who was 
 
246 STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 badly wounded. * ' Nothing seems to stop them. It is like an 
 inhuman machine and it takes the very nerve out of you to 
 watch it." 
 
 SPIRIT OF GEEMAN WOMEN 
 
 **The women of Germany are facing the situation with 
 heroic calmness," said Eleanor Painter, an American opera 
 singer on landing in New York September 7th, direct from 
 Berlin, where she had spent the last four years. *'It is all 
 for the Fatherland. The spirit of the people is wonderful. 
 If the men are swept away in the maelstrom of war, the 
 women will continue to fight. They are prepared now to 
 do so. 
 
 *' There are few tears in Berlin. Of course there is sor- 
 row, deep sorrow. But the German women and the few men 
 still left in the capital realize that the national life itself is 
 at stake and accept the inevitable losses of a successful mili- 
 tary occupation. There is a grim dignity everywhere. There 
 are no false ideas as to the enormity of the struggle for 
 existence. A great many Germans, in fact, realizing that it 
 is nearly the whole world against Germany, do not believe 
 that the Fatherland can survive. But they are determined 
 that while there is a living German so long will Germany 
 fight. 
 
 FATHEE AND TEN SONS ENLIST 
 
 **A German father with his ten sons enlisted. General 
 von Haessler, more than the allotted three-score years and 
 ten, veteran of two wars, offered his sword. Boys who vol- 
 unteered and who were not needed at the time wept when 
 the recruiting officers sent them back home, telling them their 
 time would come. 
 
 **The German women fight their own battles in keeping 
 back tears and praying for the success of the German arms. 
 Hundreds of titled women are at the front with the Eed Cross, 
 sacrificing everything to aid their country. Baroness von 
 Ziegler and her daughter wrote from Wiesbaden that they 
 were en route to the front and were ready to fight if need be. 
 
 **Even the stupendous losses which the army is incurring 
 cannot dim the love of the Fatherland nor the desire of the 
 Germans, as a whole nation, to fight on. I speak of vast 
 
STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 247 
 
 losses. An officer with whom I talked while en route from 
 Berlin to Eotterdam, told me of his own experience. He was 
 one of 2,000 men on the eastern frontier. They saw a de- 
 tachment of Eussians ahead. The German forces went into 
 battle singing and confident, although the Russian columns 
 numbered 12,000. Of that German force of 2,000 just fifty 
 survived. None surrendered." 
 
 TEARFUL STATE OF BATTLEFIELDS 
 
 Dead men and horses, heaped up by thousands, lay putre- 
 fying on the battlefields of the Aisne, Colonel Webb C. Hayes, 
 U. S. A., son of former President Hayes, declared in Washing- 
 ton on Oct. 7, on his return from observing the war and its 
 battlefields. He was the bearer of a personal message to Presi- 
 dent Wilson from the acting burgomaster of Louvain. 
 
 ''When I left Havre on Sept. 27," he said, ''the Allies 
 were fearful that they would not be able to penetrate to the 
 German line through the mass of putrefying men and horses 
 on the battlefields, which unfortunately the combatants seem 
 not to heed about burying. I don't see how they could pass 
 through these fields. The stench was horrible, and the idea 
 of climbing over the bodies must be revolting even to brave 
 soldiers." 
 
 Col. Hayes had been on the firing line ; he had visited the 
 sacked city of Louvain as the guest of Germans in an armored 
 car ; he had been in Aix-la-Chapelle, at the German base, and 
 had seen some of the fighting in the historic Aisne struggle. 
 
 * * It is a sausage grinder, ' * he declared. 
 
 ' ' On one side are the Allies, apparently willing to sacrifice 
 their last man in defense of France ; on the other are the Ger- 
 mans, seemingly prodigal of their millions of men and money 
 and throwing man after man into the war. ' ' 
 
 ''What about the alleged atrocities in Belgium?" he was 
 asked. 
 
 "Well, war is hell ; that's about the only answer I can give 
 you. The real tragic feature of the whole war is Belgium. Its 
 people are wonderful folk — clean, decent, respectable. What 
 this nation should do is to concentrate its efforts to aid the 
 women and children of Belgium. Help for hospitals is not so 
 much needed, but the fate of these people is really pathetic." 
 
248 STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 Asked for a brief description of what he saw along the 
 battle line, Col. Hayes declared : 
 
 "The battle front these days is far different from what it 
 used to be. There are few men to be seen, and practically no 
 guns. All are concealed. Shrapnel flies through the air and 
 bursts. That is the scene most of the time. In the hand-to- 
 hand fighting bayonets are used much by the French, while the 
 Turcos use knives." 
 
 ' ' Shall you go back? ' ' Col. Hayes was asked. 
 
 ''Does anyone wish to visit a slaughterhouse a second 
 time? "he replied. 
 
 PKINCES WOUNDED BY THE FOE 
 
 Prince August William, the fourth son of Emperor "Wil- 
 liam, was shot in the left arm during the battle of the Marne 
 and Emperor "William bestowed the Iron Cross of the first 
 class on him. 
 
 Prince Eitel, the Kaiser's second son, was wounded during 
 the battle of the Aisne. Up to October 7 four of Emperor Wil- 
 liam's sons had been placed temporarily hors de combat. 
 
 Prince George of Servia, while leading his battalion against 
 the Austrians September 18, was hit by a ball which entered 
 near the spinal column and came out at the right shoulder. 
 The wound was said not to be dangerous. 
 
 HOW THE SCOTSMEN FOUGHT 
 
 At St. Quentin, France, the Highland infantrymen burst 
 into the thick of the Germans, holding on to the stirrups of the 
 Scots Greys as the horsemen galloped, and attacked hand to 
 hand. The Germans were taken aback at the sudden and 
 totally unexpected double irruption, and broke up before the 
 Scottish onslaught, suffering severe losses alike from the 
 swords of the cavalry and from the Highlanders' bayonets. 
 The scene of this charge is depicted in one of our illustrations. 
 
 TWO TRAGIC INCmENTS 
 
 During the Eussian retreat through the Mazur lake dis- 
 trict, in East Prussia, a Russian battery was surrounded on 
 three sides by the enemy's quick firers. The infantry was on 
 the other side of the lake, and the Russian ammunition was 
 
STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 249 
 
 exhausted. In order to avoid capture, tlie conunander ordered 
 the battery to gallop over the declivity into the lake. His order 
 was obeyed and he himself was among the drowned. 
 
 During an assault on the fortress of Ossowetz, a German 
 column got into a bog. The Russians shelled the bog and the 
 single road crossing it. The Germans, in trying to extricate 
 themselves, sank deeper into the mire, and hundreds were 
 killed or wounded. Of the whole column, about forty survived. 
 
 IN THE BRUSSELS HOSPITALS 
 
 A peculiar incident of the war is noted by a doctor writing 
 in the New York American, who went through several of the 
 great Brussels hospitals and noted the condition of the 
 wounded Belgian soldiers. These soldiers carried on the 
 defense of their country with a valor which the fighting men 
 of any nation might admire and envy. The writer remarks : 
 
 ''Two facts struck me very forcibly. The first was the 
 very large number of Belgian soldiers wounded only in the 
 legs, and, secondly, many of the soldiers seem to have collapsed 
 through sheer exhaustion. 
 
 ''In peace times one sees and hears little or nothing of 
 extreme exhaustion, because in times of peace the almost 
 superphysical is not demanded. War brings new conditions. 
 
 "These Belgian soldiers were at work and on the march 
 during stupendous days, practically without a moment's 
 respite. They went, literally, until they dropped. As a medi- 
 cal man, their condition interested me enormously. 
 
 "What force of will to fight and struggle until the last 
 gasp ! The exhaustion one sees often in heat strokes and in 
 hot climates is commonplace, but this type of exhaustion is, by 
 itself, the final triumph of brave spirits. 
 
 ' ' The victims presented a very alarming appearance when 
 first I met them. They seemed almost dead ; limp, pale, and 
 cold. Recovery usually is not protracted; in every case the 
 men knocked out in this manner expressed a fervent desire to 
 return at once to the ranks. 
 
250 STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 OBEMAN- WARNING TO FRENCH TOWNS 
 
 Following is the text of a proclamation published in French 
 and posted in all towns occupied by the Germans : 
 
 ''All the authorities and the municipality are informed that 
 every peaceful inhabitant can follow his regular occupation 
 in full security. Private property will be absolutely respected 
 and provisions paid for. 
 
 ' ' If the population dare under any form whatever to take 
 part in hostilities the severest punishment will be inflicted on 
 the refractory. 
 
 ' ' The people must give ap their arms. Every armed indi- 
 vidual will be put to death. Whoever cuts telegraph wires, 
 destroys railway bridges or roads or commits any act in detri- 
 ment to the Germans will be shot. 
 
 ''Towns and villages whose inhabitants take part in the 
 combat or who fire upon us from ambush will be burned down 
 and the guilty shot at once. The civil authorities will be held 
 responsible. (Signed) Von Moltke/' 
 
 MOTORS IN THE RUSSIAN ARMY 
 
 The Eussian army has always placed much dependence on 
 its horses, having a vast number, but it has realized the import- 
 ance of the motor vehicle in warfare and already it is much 
 better equipped than other nations suppose. An illustration 
 of the fact is the following, related by a Red Cross man who 
 accompanied the Eussian forces into eastern Germany: 
 
 "I was walking beside one of our carts. We could hear 
 heavy artillery fire as we went, when shouts from our people 
 behind warned us to get off the road. We pulled onto the 
 grass as there came thundering past, bumping from one rough 
 place to another on the poor road and going at a sickening pace, 
 a string of huge motor cars crowded with infantrymen^ They 
 
STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 251 
 
 looked like vehicles of the army establishment, all apparently 
 alike in size and pattern and each carrying about thirty men. 
 
 * ' They were traveling like no motor wagon that I ever saw 
 — certainly at not less than forty miles an hour. The pro- 
 cession seemed endless. I didn't count them, but there were 
 not less than a hundred, and perhaps a good many more. That 
 was General Rennenkampf reinforcing his threatened flank. ' ' 
 
 JENNIE DTJFAU'S NAEKOW ESCAPE 
 
 Jennie Dufau, the American opera singer, had one of the 
 most thrilling experiences told by a refugee from the war zone. 
 
 Miss Dufau was visiting in Saulxures, Province of Alsace, 
 when the war started, and was in the hitherto peaceful valley 
 of that region until August 24. She was with her sister, Eliza- 
 beth, and her two brothers, Paul and Daniel. 
 
 On August 6 the German artillery occupied the heights on 
 one side of the valley, overlooking the town. On the 12th the 
 Germans occupied the town itself. At that time there were 
 but two French regiments near Saulxures. 
 
 The French, however, opened fire on the Germans, and Miss 
 Dufau with her father and sister at once retreated to the cellar 
 in an effort to escape the flying shells. 
 
 *'Then began a tremendous artillery duel that lasted for 
 days," she said. ''All this time we were living in the cellar, 
 where we were caring for ten wounded French officers. I often 
 went out over the battlefield when the fire slackened and did 
 what I could for the wounded and dying. 
 
 ''My brothers Paul and Daniel were drafted into the Ger- 
 man army. They had sworn an oath not to fire a shot at a 
 Frenchman, and their greatest hope was that they would be 
 captured and permitted to put on the French uniform. 
 
 "Between August 12 and 24 the artillery duel raged, and 
 finally the opposing armies came to a hand-to-hand fight with 
 the bayonet. First it was the Germans who occupied the town, 
 then the French. The Germans finally came to our house and 
 accused my sister, my father, and myself of being spies because 
 they found a telephone there. The soldiers lined us up against 
 the wall to shoot us, but we fell on our knees and begged them 
 to spare the life of our father. They gave no heed till a Ger- 
 man colonel came along and, after questioning us, ordered that 
 we be set free." 
 
252 STORIES FR03I THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 VALLEY OF DEATH ON THE AISNE 
 
 A non-combatant who succeeded in getting close to the 
 firing lines on the Aisne when the great battle had raged con- 
 tinuously for five weeks, wrote as follows on October 21st of 
 the horrors he had witnessed : 
 
 ^* Between the lines of battle there is a narrow strip, vary- 
 ing from seventy yards to a quarter of a mile, which is a 
 neutral valley of death. Neither side is able to cross that 
 strip without being crumpled by fire against which no body 
 of men can stand. The Germans have attempted to break 
 through the British and French forces hundreds of times but 
 have been compelled to withdraw, and always with severe 
 losses. 
 
 ' ' A number of small tow:ns are distributed in this narrow 
 strip, the most important being Craonne. The Germans and 
 French have reoccupied it six times and each in turn has 
 been driven out. The streets of Craonne are littered with the 
 dead of both armies. The houses, nearly all of which have 
 been demolished by exploding shells, are also full of bodies of 
 men who crawled into them to get out of the withering fire 
 and have there died. Many of these men died of sheer ex- 
 haustion and starvation while the battle raged day after day. 
 
 '^Both armies have apparently abandoned the struggle to 
 hold Craonne permanently, and it is now literally a city of the 
 dead. 
 
 ' ' It is a typical French village of ancient stone structures ; 
 the tiny houses all have, or had, gables and tiled roofs. These 
 have mostly been broken by shell fire. Under the shelter of 
 its buildings both the Germans and French have been able at 
 times to rescue their wounded. 
 
 ''This is more than can be said of the strip of death 
 between the battle lines. There the wounded lie and the dead 
 go unburied, while the opposing forces direct their merciless 
 fire a few feet above the field of suffering and carnage. I did 
 not know until I looked upon the horrors of Craonne that such 
 conditions could exist in modern warfare. 
 
 ''I thought that frequent truces would be negotiated to 
 give the opposing armies an opportunity to collect their 
 wounded and bury their dead. I had an idea that the Red 
 
STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 253 
 
 Cross had made war less terrible. The world thinks so yet, 
 perhaps, but the conditions along the Aisne do not justify that 
 belief. If a man is wounded in that strip between the lines 
 he never gets back alive unless he is within a short distance 
 of his own lines or is protected from the enemy's fire by the 
 lay of the land. 
 
 ' ' This protracted and momentous battle, which raged day 
 and night for so many weeks, became a continuous nightmare 
 to the men engaged in it, every one of whom knew that upon 
 its issue rested one of the great deciding factors of the war. ' ' 
 
 BRITISH AID FOR FRENCH WOUNDED 
 
 The following paragraphs from a letter received October 
 15th by the author from an English lady interested in the 
 suffrage movement, give some idea of the spirit in which the 
 people of England met the emergency; and also indicate the 
 frightful conditions attending the care of the wounded in 
 France : 
 
 ''London, October 7, 1914. — The world is a quite different 
 place from what it was in July — dear, peaceful July ! It seems 
 years ago that we lived in a time of peace. It all still seems 
 a nightmare over England and one feels that the morning 
 must come when one will wake up and find it has all been a 
 hideous dream, and that peace is the reality. But the facts 
 grow sadder every day, as one realizes the frightful slaughter 
 and waste of young lives. * * * 
 
 ''But now that we are in the midst of this horrible time, 
 we can only stop all criticism of our Government, set our teeth, 
 and try to help in every possible way. All suffrage work has 
 stopped and all the hundred-and-one interests in societies of 
 every kind are in abeyance as well. The offices of every kind 
 of society are being used for refugees, Eed Cross work, unem- 
 ployment work, and to meet other needs of the moment. 
 
 ' ' Every day of our time is taken up with helping to equip 
 'hospital units,' private bodies of doctors and nurses with 
 equipment, to go to France and help the French Eed Cross 
 work among the French wounded. The situation in France 
 at present is more horrible than one can imagine. Our Eng- 
 lish soldiers have medical and surgical help enough with them 
 for first aid. Then they are sent back to England, and here 
 
254 STORIES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 all our hospitals are ready and private houses everywhere 
 have been given to the War Office for the wounded. But the 
 battlefield is in France ; many of the French doctors have been 
 shot; the battle-line is 200 miles long, and the carnage is 
 frightful. 
 
 ''Last week we sent off one hospital unit, and a messenger 
 came back from it yesterday to tell us awful facts — 16,000 
 wounded in Limoges for one place, and equal numbers in 
 several other little places south of Paris — just trains full of 
 them — ^with so little ready for them in the way of doctors 
 or nurses. One hears of doctors performing operations with- 
 out chloroform, and the suffering of the poor fellows is 
 awful." 
 
 I HAGUE 
 
 • A.CARNECie.JAMITOR 
 
 •• BUSINESS IS VERBA DULL THE NOO!" 
 
 —The Sun (, Vancouver. B. C). 
 
ESTIMATED LOSSES OF EUROPEAN FORCES IN THE FIELD 
 UP TO JUNE 1, 1915 
 
 KiUed Wounded Missing* Total 
 
 Germany 400,000 1,000,000 300,000 1,700,000 
 
 Austria 300,000 900,000 350,000 1,550,000 
 
 Total 700,000 1,900,000 650,000 3,250,000 
 
 France 225,000 700,000 300,000 1,225,000 
 
 Russia 175,000 400,000 350,000 925,000 
 
 Great Britain. . . 90,000 135,000 55,000 280,000 
 
 Belgium 45,000 100,000 50,000 195,000 
 
 Servia 40,000 90,000 15,000 145,000 
 
 Montenegro .... 7,500 15,000 2,500 25,000 
 
 Turkey 20,000 45,000 5,000 70,000 
 
 Total 602,500 1,485,000 777,500 2,865,000 
 
 Grand total. .1,302,500 3,385,000 1,427,500 6,115,000 
 
 * Including prisoners of war. 
 
 The figures given in the foregoing table of casualties for 
 the first ten months of the war are compiled from the most 
 reliable reports available at the time of going to press, and 
 the total is believed to be a conservative estimate of the cost 
 in human life. 
 
 255 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE FLEETS 
 
 Movements of British Battleships Veiled in Secrecy — German 
 Dreadnoughts in North Sea and Baltic Ports — Activity 
 of Smaller Craft — English Keep Trade Routes Open — 
 Several Minor Battles at Sea. 
 
 SHORTLY before war was declared a great review of tlie 
 British navy was held at Spithead, on the English Channel, 
 
 when several hundred vessels were gathered in mighty 
 array for inspection by King George and the lords of the 
 Admiralty. The salutes they fired had hardly ceased to rever- 
 berate along the shores of the Channel when the momentous 
 struggle was on. It found the British fleet fully mobilized 
 and ready for action. The ships had their magazines filled, 
 their bunkers and oil tanks charged, their victualing com- 
 pleted, and last, but not least, their full crews aboard. 
 
 Then, without a moment's delay, they disappeared, under 
 orders to proceed to stations in the North Sea, to cruise in 
 the Channel, the Atlantic or the Mediterranean ; to keep trade 
 routes open for British and neutral ships and capture or 
 destroy the ships of the enemy. Silently and swiftly they 
 sailed, and for weeks the world knew little or nothing of their 
 movements or whereabouts. 
 
 Mystery equally deep shrouded the German fleet. In all 
 probability it lay under the guns of the coast cities and forts 
 of Germany, but nothing definite was permitted to leak out. 
 The test of the two great navies, the supreme test of dread- 
 noughts and superdreadnoughts, failed to materialize, and for 
 weeks the people of Great Britain and Germany could only 
 wonder what had become of their naval forces and why they 
 did not come into contact with each other. A few minor 
 engagements in the North Sea, in which light cruisers and 
 
 256 
 
MYSTERY OF THE FLEETS 257 
 
 torpedo-boat destroyers were concerned, served only to deepen 
 the mystery. 
 
 Only naval men and well-informed civilians realized that 
 Germany was biding her time, waiting to choose her own hour 
 for action, realizing the strength of the opposing force and 
 determined not to risk her own ships until the opportune 
 moment should arrive which would offer the best possible 
 chances for success. And meanwhile the main British fleet lay 
 in the North Sea, waiting for the enemy to appear. 
 
 After awhile letters began to come from the North Sea, 
 telling of the life aboard the vessels lying in wait, scouting or 
 patrolling the coasts. The ships were all stripped for action ; 
 all inflammable ornaments and fittings had been left behind 
 or cast overboard; stripped and naked the fighting machines 
 went to their task. All day long the men were ready at their 
 guns, and during the night each gun crew slept around the 
 weapon that it was their duty to ser^^e, ready to repel any 
 destroyers or submarines coming out of the surrounding dark- 
 ness to attack them. 
 
 Vice-Admiral Sir John Jellicoe had assumed supreme com- 
 mand of the British home fleet on August 4, with the rank 
 of admiral. His chief of staff was Rear Admiral Charles E. 
 Madden. Rear Admiral Sir George Callaghan was in com- 
 mand of the North Sea fleet. 
 
 AN ADMIRALTY ANNOUNCEMENT 
 
 On Thursday, September 10, the secretary of the British 
 Admiralty made the following announcement: *' Yesterday 
 and today strong and numerous squadrons and flotillas have 
 made a complete sweep of the North Sea up to and into the 
 Heligoland Bight. The German fleet made no attempt to inter- 
 fere with our movements and no German ship of any kind was 
 seen at sea.'* 
 
 That much patience had to be exercised by the seamen of 
 the North Sea fleet is evidenced by a letter in which the writer 
 said to his family, ' ' If you want to get away from the excite- 
 ment of war, you should be here with me. ' ' This situation, of 
 course, might be changed at a moment 's notice. The London 
 Times said in September : ^'It is not to be wondered at if our 
 seamen today envy a little the old-time sailors who did not 
 have to compete with such things as mines, destroyers and 
 
258 MYSTERY OF THE FLEETS 
 
 submarines. In the accounts of the old blockades we read how 
 by means of music and dancing, and even theatrical entertain- 
 ments, the monotonous nature of the work was counteracted, 
 and the officers of the ships, including Nelson and other great 
 commanders, welcomed these diversions for the prevention of 
 the evils which might be bred by enforced idleness. It is a 
 true saying that everything that stagnates corrupts. There 
 is no possible chance of the crews of our modem vessels stag- 
 nating under the new conditions of war. Whether engaged in 
 blockading in the big ships, scouting in the cruisers, or patrol- 
 ling the coasts in the destroyers, the life is described as tre- 
 mendously interesting and exciting. There has been no sense 
 of monotony whatever. Indeed, the conditions are such that, 
 were it not obligatory for portions of every crew to take rest, 
 all of them would be continually on the alert. We may be cer- 
 tain that arrangements have been made for ensuring that the 
 crews obtain periods of relaxation from the constant strain; 
 but the only real change comes in the big ships when they have 
 of necessity to refill their bunkers. ' ' 
 
 LOSS OF THE CRUISER AMPHION 
 
 The cruiser Amphion was the first British war vessel 
 lost in the war. The survivors on landing at the North Sea 
 port of Harwich, England, on August 10, stated that hardly 
 had they left Harwich than they were ordered to clear the 
 decks for action. They sighted the German mine-laying ves- 
 sel Koenigin Luise, and, as it refused to stop even when 
 a shot was fired across its bows, they gave chase. 
 
 The German ship fired and then the destroyers, accom- 
 panying the Amphion, surrounded and sank it after a brief 
 combined bombardment. 
 
 The captain, it is said, was beside himself with fury. He 
 had a revolver in his hand and threatened his men as they 
 prepared to surrender to the rescuing ships. He flatly refused 
 to give himself up and was taken by force. 
 
 When the smoke of a big ship was seen on the horizon 
 the Amphion gave chase, firing a warning shot as it drew 
 near the vessel, which at once made known its identity as 
 the Harwich boat St. Petersburg, carrying Prince Lichnow- 
 sky, the German ambassador, to the Hook of Holland. 
 
MYSTERY OF THE FLEETS 259 
 
 While returning to port came the tragedy of the Amphion. 
 As it struck a sunken mine it gave two plunging jerks. Then 
 came an explosion which ripped up its forepart, shot up its 
 funnels like arrows from a bow, and Hfted its heavy guns 
 into the air. The falling material struck several of the boats 
 of the flotilla and injured some of the men on board them. 
 
 The Amphion 's men were dreadfully burned and scalded 
 and had marks on their faces and bodies which resembled 
 splashes of acid. 
 
 The scene at Harwich was like that which follows a col- 
 liery explosion. Of the British seamen in the hospital thirteen 
 were suffering from severe burns, five from less serious 
 burns, two from the effects of lyddite fumes, and one each 
 from concussion, severe injury, slight wounds, shock, and 
 slight burns. A few wounded German sailors also lay in 
 the hospital. 
 
 SINKING A GERMAN SUBMARINE 
 
 On August 12 there came from Edinburgh the story of 
 an eyewitness of a naval battle in the North Sea on the pre- 
 vious Sunday between British cruisers and German subma- 
 rines, in which the German submarine U-15 was sunk. 
 
 ''The cruiser squadron on Sunday," the story ran, ''sud- 
 denly became aware of the approach of the submarine flotilla. 
 The enemy was submerged, only the periscopes showing above 
 the surface of the water. 
 
 "The attitude of the British in the face of this attack 
 was cool and the enemy was utterly misled when suddenly 
 the cruiser Birmingham, steaming at full speed, fired the first 
 shot. This shot was carefully aimed, not at the submerged 
 body of a submarine, but at the thin line of the periscope. 
 
 "The gunnery was superbly accurate and shattered the 
 periscope. Thereupon the submarine, now a blinded thing, 
 rushed along under water in imminent danger of self-destruc- 
 tion from collision with the cruisers above. 
 
 "The sightless submarine was then forced to come to 
 the surface, whereupon the Birmingham's gunner fired the* 
 second shot of the fight. This shot struck at the base of the 
 conning tower, ripping the whole of the upper structure clean 
 and the U-15 sank like a stone. 
 
 "The remainder of the submarine flotilla fled." 
 
260 MYSTERY OF THE FLEETS 
 
 NAVAL BATTLE OFF HELIGOLAND 
 
 In the last week of August a naval engagement occurred 
 off the island of Heligoland, in the North Sea. British war 
 vessels sank five German ships, killing 900 men. A graphic 
 description of the engagement was given by a young lieuten- 
 ant who was on one of the British torpedo boat destroyers: 
 
 *'I think the home papers are magnifying what really 
 was but an affair of outposts. We destroyers went in and 
 lured the enemy out and had lots of excitement. The big fel- 
 lows then came up and afforded some excellent target prac- 
 tice, and we were very glad to see them come; but it was a 
 massacre, not a fight. 
 
 '^ There was superb generalship and overwhelming forces 
 on the spot, but there was really nothing for them to do 
 except to shoot the enemy, even as father shoots pheasants. 
 
 "Have you ever noticed a dog rush in on a flock of sheep 
 and scatter them? He goes for the nearest and barks and 
 goes so much faster than the flock that it bunches up with its 
 companions. The dog then barks at another and the sheep 
 spread out f anwise, so in front of the dog there is a semicircle 
 of sheep and behind him none. 
 
 "That was much what we did at 7 a. m. on August 28. 
 The sheep were the German torpedo craft, which fell back 
 on the limits of our range and tried to lure us within the fire 
 of the Heligoland forts. But a cruiser then came out and 
 engaged our Arethusa and they had a real heart-to-heart 
 talk, while we looked on, and a few of us tried to shoot at 
 the enemy, too, though it was beyond our distance. 
 
 "We were getting nearer Heligoland all the time. There 
 was a thick mist and I expected eveiy minute to find the 
 forts on the island bombarding us, so the Arethusa presently 
 drew off after landing at least one good shell on the enemy. 
 The enemy gave every hit as good as he got there. 
 
 "We then reformed, but a strong destroyer belonging to 
 the submarines got chased, and the Arethusa and Fearless 
 went back to look after it. We presently heard a hot action 
 astern, so the captain in command of the flotilla turned us 
 around and we went back to help. But they had driven the 
 
MYSTERY OF THE FLEETS 261 
 
 enemy off and on our arrival told us to 'form up' on tk? 
 Arethusa. 
 
 CRUISER FIEES ON SHIPS 
 
 ''When we had partly formed and were very much bunched 
 together, making a fine target, suddenly out of the mist ar- 
 rived five or six shells from a point not 150 yards away. We 
 gazed at whence they came and again five or six stabs of fire 
 pierced the fog, and we made out a four-funneled German 
 cruiser of the Breslau class. 
 
 ''Those stabs were its guns going off. We waited fifteen 
 seconds and the shots and noise of its guns arrived pretty 
 well from fifty yards away. Its next salvo of shots went 
 above us, and I ducked as they whirred overhead like a covey 
 of fast partridges. 
 
 "You would suppose our captain had done this sort of 
 thing all his life. He went full speed ahead at once, upon 
 the first salvo, to string the bunch out and thus offer less 
 target. The commodore from the Arethusa made a signal 
 to us to attack with torpedoes. So we swung round at right 
 angles and charged full speed at the enemy like a hussar 
 attack. 
 
 "Our boat got away at the start magnificently and led 
 the field, so all the enemy's firing was aimed at us for the 
 next ten minutes, when we got so close that debris from their 
 shells fell on board. Then we altered our course and so 
 threw them out in their reckoning of our speed, and they had 
 all their work to do over again. 
 
 "Humanly speaking, our captain by twisting and turning 
 at psychological moments saved us. Actually, I feel that 
 we were in God's keeping that day. After ten minutes we 
 got near enough to fire our torpedo. Then we turned back 
 to the Arethusa. Next our follower arrived just where we 
 had been and fired its torpedo, and of course the enemy fired 
 at it instead of at us. What a blessed relief ! 
 
 "After the destroyers came the Fearless, and it stayed 
 on the scene. Soon we found it was engaging a three-funneler, 
 the Mainz, so off we started again, now for the Mainz, the 
 situation being that the crippled Arethusa was too tubby to 
 do anything but be defended by us, its children. 
 
 "Scarcely, however, had we started when, from out of 
 
262 MYSTERY OF THE FLEETS 
 
 the mist and across our front, in furious pursuit came the 
 first cruiser squadron of the town class, the Birmingham, and 
 each unit a match for three like the Mainz, which was soon 
 sunk. As we looked and reduced speed they opened fire, 
 and the clear bang-bang of their guns was just like a cooling 
 drink. 
 
 ''To see a real big four-funneler spouting flame, which 
 flame denoted shells starting, and those shells not at us but 
 for us, was the most cheerful thing possible. Once we were 
 in safety, I hated it. We had just been having our own imag- 
 inations stimulated on the subject of shells striking. 
 
 "Now, a few minutes later, to see another ship not three 
 miles away, reduced to a piteous mass of unrecognizability, 
 wreathed in black fumes from which flared out angry gusts 
 of fire like Vesuvius in eruption, as an unending stream of 
 hundred-pound shells burst on board it, just pointed the moral 
 and showed us what might have been. 
 
 ''The Mainz was immensely gallant. The last I saw of 
 it it was absolutely wrecked. It was a fuming inferno. But 
 it had one gun forward and one aft still spitting forth fury 
 and defiance like a wild cat. 
 
 "Then we went west, while they went east. Just a bit 
 later we heard the thunder of the enemy's guns for a space. 
 Then fell silence, and we knew that was all. 
 
 A MARVELOUS RESCUE 
 
 "The most romantic, dramatic, and piquant episode that 
 modern war can ever show came next. The Defender, hav- 
 ing sunk an enemy, lowered a whaler to pick up its swimming 
 survivors. Before the whaler got back, an enemy's cruiser 
 came up and chased the Defender, which thus had to aban- 
 don its small boat. 
 
 "Imagine their feelings, alone in an open boat without 
 food, twenty-five miles from the nearest land, and that land 
 an enemy's fortress, with nothing but fog and foes around 
 them, and then suddenly a swirl alongside, and up, if you 
 please, hops His Britannic Majesty's submarine E-4, opens 
 its conning tower, takes them all on board, shuts up again, 
 dives and brings them home, 250 miles." 
 
MYSTERY OF THE FLEETS 263 
 
 THREE BRITISH CRUISERS SUNK 
 
 On Tuesday morning, September 22, the British cruisers 
 Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue were torpedoed and sunk by a 
 German submarine in the North Sea. Each of the vessels 
 carried a crew of about 650 men, and the total of the death roll 
 was about 1,400. 
 
 The three cruisers had for some time been patrolling the 
 North Sea. Soon after 6 o'clock in the morning the Aboukir 
 suddenly felt a shock on the port side. A dull explosion was 
 heard and a column of water was thrown up mast high. The 
 explosion wrecked the stokehold just forward of amidships 
 and tore the bottom open. 
 
 Almost immediately the doomed cruiser began to settle. 
 Except for the watch on deck, most of the crew were asleep, 
 wearied by the constant vigil in bad weather, but in perfect 
 order the officers and men rushed to quarters. The quick- 
 firers were manned in the hope of a dying shot at the sub- 
 marine, but there was not a glimpse of one. 
 
 Meanwhile the Aboukir 's sister cruisers, more than a mile 
 away, saw and heard the explosion and thought the Aboukir 
 had struck a mine. They closed in and lowered boats. This 
 sealed their own fate, for, while they were standing by to 
 rescue survivors, first the Hogue and then the Cressy was 
 torpedoed. 
 
 Only the Cressy appears to have seen the submarine in 
 time to attempt to retaliate, and she fired a few shots before 
 she keeled over, broken in two, and sank. 
 
 British naval officers by this time were beginning to won- 
 der how long the German high seas fleet intended to remain 
 under cover in the Kiel canal. 
 
 ''Our only grievance," one said, *'is that we have not had 
 a shot at the Germans. Our only share of the war has been a 
 few uncomfortable weeks of bad weather, mines and sub- 
 marines." 
 
 A number of the survivors were taken to the Dutch port of 
 Ymuiden, where they were interned as technical prisoners 
 of war. 
 
 THE GERMAN" COMMANDER 's STORY 
 
 The German submarine which accomplished the hitherto 
 unparalleled feat was the U-9, in command of Capt-Lieut. Otto 
 
264 MYSTERY OF THE FLEETS 
 
 Weddigen, whose interesting story was given to the public 
 through the German Admiralty on October 6, as follows : 
 
 "I set out from a North Sea port on one of the arms of the 
 Kiel canal and set my course in a southwesterly direction. 
 The name of the port I cannot state officially, but it was not 
 many days before the morning of September 22 when I fell 
 in with my quarry. 
 
 ''British torpedo-boats came within my reach, but I felt 
 there was bigger game further on, so on I went. It was ten 
 minutes after six in the morning of the 22nd when I caught 
 sight of one of the big cruisers of the enemy. 
 
 "I was then eighteen sea miles northwesterly of the Hook 
 of Holland. I had traveled considerably more than 200 miles 
 from my base. I had been going ahead partially submerged, 
 with about five feet of my periscope showing. 
 
 ''Almost immediately I caught sight of the first cruiser 
 and two others. I submerged completely and laid my course in 
 order to bring up in center of the trio, which held a sort of 
 triangular formation. I could see their gray-black sides riding 
 high over the water. 
 
 "When I first sighted them they were near enough for tor- 
 pedo work, but I wanted to make my aim sure, so I went down 
 and in on them. I had taken the position of the three ships 
 before submerging, and I succeeded in getting another flash 
 through my periscope before I began action. I soon reached 
 what I regarded as a good shooting point. 
 
 "Then I loosed one of my torpedoes at the middle ship. 
 I was then about twelve feet under water and got the shot off 
 in good shape, my men handling the boat as if it had been a 
 skiff. I climbed to the surface to get a sight through my tube 
 of the effect and discovered that the shot had gone straight 
 and true, striking the ship, which I later learned was the Abou- 
 kir, under one of its magazines, which in exploding helped the 
 torpedo 's work of destruction. 
 
 "There was a fountain of water, a burst of smoke, a flash 
 of fire, and part of the cruiser rose in the air. 
 
 STRIKES THE SECOND CRUISEE 
 
 "Its crew were brave and, even with death staring them in 
 the face, kept to their posts. I submerged at once. But I had 
 stayed on top. long enough to see the other cruisers, which I 
 
MYSTERY OF THE FLEETS 265 
 
 learned were the Cressy and the Hogue, turn and steam full 
 speed to their dying sister. 
 
 "As I reached my torpedo depth I sent a second charge at 
 the nearest of the oncoming vessels, which was the Hogue. 
 The English were playing my game, for I had scarcely to move 
 out of my position, which was a great aid, since it helped to 
 keep me from detection. 
 
 ''The attack on the Hogue went true. But this time I did 
 not have the advantageous aid of having the torpedo detonate 
 under the magazine, so for twenty minutes the Hogue lay 
 wounded and helpless on the surface before it heaved, half 
 turned over, and sank. 
 
 "By this time the third cruiser knew, of course, that the 
 enemy was upon it, and it sought as best it could to defend 
 itself. It loosed its torpedo defense batteries on bows, star- 
 board, and port, and stood its ground as if more anxious to 
 help the many sailors in the water than to save itself. 
 
 "In the common method of defending itself against a 
 submarine attack, it steamed in a zigzag course, and this made 
 it necessary for me to hold my torpedoes until I could lay a 
 true course for them, which also made it necessary for me to 
 get nearer to the Cressy. 
 
 "I had to come to the surface for a view, and saw how 
 wildly the fire was being sent from the ship. Small wonder 
 that was when they did not know where to shoot, although one 
 shot went unpleasantly near us. 
 
 "When I got within suitable range I sent away my third 
 attack. This time I sent a second torpedo after the first to 
 make the strike doubly certain. My crew were aiming like 
 sharpshooters and both torpedoes went to their bull's-eye. 
 My luck was with me again, for the enemy was made useless 
 and at once began sinking by the head. Then it careened far 
 over, but all the while its men stayed at the guns looking for 
 their invisible foe. 
 
 "They were brave and true to their country's sea tradi- 
 tions. Then it eventually suffered a boiler explosion and com- 
 pletely turned turtle. With its keel uppermost it floated until 
 the air got out from under it and then it sank with a loud 
 sound, as if from a creature in pain. 
 
 "The whole affair had taken less than one hour from the 
 
266 MYSTERY OF THE FLEETS 
 
 time of shooting off the first torpedo until the Cressy went to 
 the bottom. 
 
 ^'I set my course for home. Before I got far some British 
 cruisers and destroyers were on the spot and the destroyers 
 took up the chase. 
 
 "I kept under water most of the way, but managed to get 
 off a wireless to the German fleet that I was heading hemeward 
 and being pursued. But although British destroyers saw me 
 plainly at dusk on the 22d and made a final effort to stop me, 
 they abandoned the attempt, as it was taking them too far 
 from safety and needlessly exposing them to attack from our 
 fleet and submarines. ' * 
 
 MEKCHANTMEN CAPTUEED AND SUNK 
 
 During the first months of the war a large number of mer- 
 chant vessels, principally German and British, were captured 
 or sunk. According to a British Admiralty return, issued Sep- 
 tember 28, twelve British ships with an aggregate tonnage of 
 59,331 tons had been sunk on the high seas by German cruisers 
 up to September 23. Eight other British ships, whose ton- 
 nage aggregated 2,970, had been sunk by German mines in the 
 North Sea, and 24 fishing craft, with a tonnage of 4,334, had 
 been captured or sunk by the Germans in the same waters. 
 British ships detained at German ports numbered 74, with a 
 total tonnage of 170,000. 
 
 On the other side the Admiralty reported 102 German 
 ships, with a total tonnage of 200,000, detained in British ports 
 since the outbreak of the war ; while 88 German ships, of an 
 aggregate tonnage of 338,000, had been captured since hostili- 
 ties began. 
 
 The return also showed that 168 German ships, with an 
 aggregate tonnage of 283,000, had been detained or captured 
 by the Allies. Fifteen ships, with a tonnage of 247,000, were 
 detained in American ports, while fourteen others, with a ton- 
 nage of 72,000, remained in the Suez Canal. 
 
 The German mines in the North Sea had also destroyed 
 seven Scandinavian ships, with a tonnage of 11,098. 
 
 GERMAIT CRUISERS ACTIVE 
 
 Several German cruisers were amazingly active in distant 
 waters early in the war. Among these were the Goeben, Bres- 
 lau, Emden, Karlsruhe, and Leipzig, which captured or sank 
 
MYSTERY OF THE FLEETS 267 
 
 a number of vessels of the enemy. The German cruisers 
 Scharnhorst and Gneisenau also operated in the Pacific, 
 bombarding the French colony of Papeete, on the island of 
 Tahiti, and inflicting much damage, including the sinking of 
 two vessels. 
 
 On August 26 the big converted German liner Kaiser Wil- 
 helm der Grosse, while cruising on the northwest coast of 
 Africa, was sunk by the British cruiser Highflyer. 
 
 The German cruiser Dresden was reported sunk by British 
 cruisers in South American waters in the second week of Sep- 
 tember. The Emden, operating under the German flag in the 
 Indian Ocean, sank several British steamers. Several Aus- 
 trian vessels succumbed to mines off the coast of Dalmatia and 
 in the Baltic there were a number of casualties in which both 
 Russian and German cruisers suffered. The Russian armored 
 cruiser Bayan was sunk in a fight near the entrance to the 
 Gulf of Finland. 
 
 On September 20 the German protected cruiser Koenigs- 
 berg attacked the British light cruiser Pegasus in the harbor 
 of Zanzibar and disabled her. Off the east coast of South 
 America the British auxiliary cruiser Carmania, a former 
 Cunard liner, destroyed a German merchant cruiser mounting 
 eight four-inch guns. About the same time the German 
 cruiser Hela was sunk in the North Sea by the British sub- 
 marine E-9. The Kronprinz Wilhelm, a former German liner, 
 which had been supplying coal to German cruisers in the 
 Atlantic, was also sunk by the British. 
 
 GERMAN COLONY OCCUPIED 
 
 The British Admiralty announced on September 12 that 
 the Australian fleet had occupied Herbertshoehe, on Blanche 
 Bay, the seat of government of the German Bismarck Archi- 
 pelago and the Solomon Islands. 
 
 The Bismarck Archipelago, with an area of 18,000 square 
 miles and a population of 200,000, is off' the north coast of 
 Australia and southwest of the Philippine Islands. The group 
 was assigned to the German sphere of influence by an agree- 
 ment with Great Britain in 1885. German New Guinea was 
 included in the jurisdiction. 
 
 GEEMANS SINK RUSS CRUISER 
 
 On October 11 German submarines in the Baltic torpedoed 
 and sank the Russian armored cruiser Pallada with all its 
 
268 MYSTERY OF THE FLEETS 
 
 crew, numbering 568 men. The Pallada had a displacement 
 of 7,775 tons and was a sister ship of the Admiral Makarov 
 and Bayan. She was launched in November, 1906, and had 
 a water-line length of 443 feet; beam, 57 feet; draft of 2I14 
 feet, and a speed of 21 knots. She carried two 8-inch, eight 
 6-inch, twenty-two 12-pounders, four 3-pounders, and two tor- 
 pedo tubes. Seven inches of Krupp armor protected the ves- 
 sel amidships and four inches forward. 
 
 The Pallada was engaged in patrolling the Baltic with the 
 Admiral Makarov when attacked by the submarines. She 
 opened a strong fire on them, but was blown up by a torpedo 
 launched by one of the submerged craft, while the Makarov 
 escaped. 
 
 BRITISH CRUISER HAWKE SUNK 
 
 On October 15th, while the British cruisers Hawke and 
 Theseus were patrolling the northern waters of the North 
 Sea, they were attacked by a German submarine. The Hawke, 
 a cruiser of 7,750 tons, commanded by Capt. H. P. E. T. Wil- 
 liams, was torpedoed and sank in eight minutes. Only seventy- 
 three of her crew of 400 officers and men were saved. 
 
 BRITISH AVENGE AMPHION 's LOSS 
 
 Capt. Cecil H. Fox, who was in command of the British 
 cruiser Amphion when she was destroyed by a German mine 
 early in the war, had his revenge on October 17, when, in com- 
 mand of the cruiser Undaunted, he sank four German torpedo 
 boat destroyers off the coast of Holland. Only 31 of the com- 
 bined crews of 400 men were saved and these were taken as 
 prisoners of war. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 SUBMARINES AND MINES 
 
 Battleships in Constant Danger from Submerged Craft — 
 Opinions of Admiral Sir Percy Scott — Construction of 
 Modern Torpedoes — How Mines Are Laid and Ex- 
 ploded on Contact. 
 
 SIR PERCY SCOTT, admiral in the British navy, who 
 through his inventions made possible the advance in 
 
 marksmanship with heavy guns and increased the possi- 
 bilities of hitting at long range and of broadside firing, said 
 recently that everything he has done to enhance the value of 
 the gun is rendered useless by the advent of the latest type 
 of submarine, a vessel which has for its principal weapon the 
 torpedo. Dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts are doomed, 
 because they no longer can be safe at sea from the submarine 
 nor find safety in harbors. 
 
 **The introduction of vessels that swim under water," he 
 said, ''has in my opinion entirely done away with the utility 
 of the ships that swim on top of the water. The functions 
 of a war vessel were these : Defensively, [1] to attack ships 
 that come to bombard our forts, [2] to attack ships that como 
 to blockade us, [3] * l« attack ships convoying a landing party, 
 [4] to attack the enyiny's fleet, [5] to attack ships interfering 
 with our commerce; offensively, [1] to bombard an enemy's 
 ports, [2] to blockade an enemy, [3] to convoy a landing 
 party, [4] to attack the enemy's fleet, [5] to attack the enemy's 
 commerce. 
 
 "The submarine renders 1, 2 and 3 impossible, as no man 
 of war will dare to come even within sight of a coast that iis 
 Adequately protected by submarines. The fourth function 
 
 269 
 
270 SUBMARINES AND MINES \ 
 
 of a battleship is to attack an enemy's fleet, but there will be J 
 no fleet to attack, as it will not be safe for a fleet to put to j 
 sea. Submarines and aeroplanes have entirely revolution- | 
 ized naval warfare; no fleet can hide itself from the aero- ■ 
 plane's eye, and the submarine can deliver a deadly attack I 
 in broad daylight. I 
 
 ''In time of w^ar the scouting aeroplanes will always be \ 
 high above on the lookout, and the submarines in constant i 
 readiness. If an enemy is sighted the gong sounds and the j 
 leash of a flotilla of submarines will be slipped. Whether it ! 
 be night or day, fine or rough, they must go out in search of j 
 their quarry; if they find her she is doomed and they give \ 
 no quarter; they cannot board her and take her as prize as \ 
 in the olden days; they only wait till she sinks, then return i 
 home without even knowing the number of human beings they ' 
 have sent to the bottom of the ocean. i 
 
 ''Not only is the open sea unsafe; a battleship is not im- i 
 mune from attack even in a closed harbor, for the so-called ■ 
 protecting boom at the entrance can easily be blown up. With ; 
 a flotilla of submarines commanded by dashing young offi- \ 
 cers, of whom we have plenty, I would undertake to get ; 
 through any boom into any harbor and sink or materially ; 
 damage all the ships in that harbor." ' 
 
 A PKACTICAL MAn's VIEWS j 
 
 This is not a mere theorist or dreamer talking, says Bur- j 
 ton Roscoe in commenting on Admiral Scott's statements; \ 
 it is the one man in England most supremely versed in naval j 
 tactics, the man to whom all nations owe the present effective- | 
 ness of the broadside of eight, twelve and fourteen inch guns j 
 and the perfection in sighting long range guns. ; 
 
 The newest type of submarine torpedo is 100 per cent effi- I 
 cient. The torpedo net of steel that used to be the ship's < 
 defense against torpedoes is now useless. The modern tor- j 
 pedoes need only to come in contact with a surface like the \ 
 torpedo net or the armor plate of a battleship to discharge | 
 a shell which will burst through a two-inch armor caisson, \ 
 rupture the hull of a battleship, and sink it in a few minutes. ] 
 
 The torpedo submarines of the modern type have a sub- \ 
 merged speed of from eight to ten knots an hour. Only a \ 
 small surface, including the bridge or conning tower, is ex- 5 
 
SUBMARINES AND MINES 271 
 
 posed, thus making it almost impossible to Mt them with the 
 clumsy guns aboard ship. The highest type of submarine 
 has a submerged tonnage of 812 tons and its length is 176 
 feet. 
 
 Each submarine carries from one to six torpedoes, each 
 of which is capable of sinking the most heavily armored ves- 
 sel afloat. The sighter in the conning tower moves^ swiftly 
 up within range of the vessel he is attacking and gives the 
 signal for the discharge of the torpedo. The men aboard 
 the attacked ship have no warning of their impending death 
 except a thin sheaf of water that follows on the surface in 
 the wake of the submerged torpedo and which lasts only an 
 instant. 
 
 BUN BY COMPEESSED AIB 
 
 By a compressed air arrangement motive power is fur- 
 nished the torpedo in transit for its propellers. A gyroscope 
 keeps it on a plane and upright. A striker on the nose of 
 the torpedo is released by a fan which revolves in the water. 
 The nose of the torpedo strikes the side of the battleship and 
 the compact jars the primer of fulminate of mercury. The 
 high explosive of gunpowder forces out a shell and explodes 
 with it after the shell has penetrated the armor. Then the 
 work is done. 
 
 It is generally believed the principal harbors and fortifica- 
 tions in England are heavily supplied with torpedoes of the 
 new type. It is also believed that the fortifications about the 
 River Elbe are thus equipped. If this is a fact the defending 
 nation will be able not only to repulse any fleet attempting 
 an invasion but also to destroy it. By throwing across the 
 Straits of Dover, or across the lower end of the North Sea, 
 a flotilla of its powerful submarines England can prevent 
 any naval invasion of France or England or Belgium by 
 Germany should the attacking fleet take this route. 
 
 In the latest type of submarine the United States is de- 
 ficient. There are only twenty-nine submarines in the United 
 States naval service at the present time and only eighteen 
 under construction. 
 
 The old type of torpedo did not have penetrative power 
 
272 
 
 SUBMARINES AND MINES 
 
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SUBMARINES AND MINES 273 
 
 sufficient to sink the modern armor-clad battleship unless it 
 struck under exceptionally favorable circumstances. A large 
 percentage of the destructive power was expended on the 
 outside of the hull. Commander Davis of the United States 
 navy invented the torpedo that carries its power undiminished 
 into the interior of the vessel. 
 
 CAN" CUT TOEPEDO NETS 
 
 The new torpedoes are provided with special steel cutters 
 by which they cut through the strongest steel torpedo net. 
 The torpedo has within it an eight-inch gun, capable of ex- 
 ploding a shell with a muzzle velocity of about 1,000 feet a 
 second. The projectile carries a bursting charge of a high ex- 
 plosive, and this charge is detonated by a delayed-action fuse. 
 When the torpedo strikes its target, the gun is fired and the 
 shell strikes the outside plating of the ship. Then the fuse 
 in the shell's base explodes the charge in the shell, immedi- 
 ately after the impact. 
 
 With a small fleet of these under-water fighting vessels — • 
 say of two or three — an invading or blockading fleet of not 
 more than twenty men-of-war can be destroyed within an hour 
 by an otherwise unprotected harbor or port. 
 
 Germany has a few of these latest style submarines, and 
 if it can rush the construction of the thirty-one now being 
 built, it will have a flotilla that will protect its harbor towns 
 against invasion. 
 
 France, also with its fifty submarines and thirty-one under 
 construction, and its great corps of scouting aeroplanes, will 
 prove a formidable agent in crippling the activities of Ger- 
 many's big fleet of dreadnoughts, armored cruisers and bat- 
 tleships. Russia will need its twenty-five submarines for 
 coast defense and probably will not send them out of the 
 Baltic [or out of the Black Sea in the event that Italy is drawn 
 into the conflict] 
 
 Undoubtedly, then, the great battles in the present war, 
 on the water at least, may be decided by these silently mov- 
 ing, dinky sized, almost imperceptible submarines which carry 
 the ever-destroying torpedoes. And the loss of lives will be 
 more prodigious than ever. 
 
274 SUBMARINES AND 3IINES 
 
 submarhste steength of the poweks 
 
 Built Building. 
 
 Great Britain 69 35 
 
 France 50 31 
 
 Eussia 25 30 
 
 Germany 24 31 
 
 Italy 18 8 
 
 Austria 6 11 
 
 submerged mines HOW THEY AEE LAH) AND THEIB WORKING 
 
 The sinking of the light cruiser Pathfinder of the British 
 navy by a German mine in the North Sea early in the war 
 called special attention to the deadly character of the minet 
 of the present day. 
 
 A modern mine-laying ship puts to sea with a row of contact 
 mines on rails along her side, ready for dropping into the sea. 
 The rails project over the stern. The essential parts of a 
 special type of mine of recent design consist of (1) the mine 
 proper, comprising the explosive charge and detonating 
 apparatus in a spherical case; (2) a square-shaped anchor 
 chamber, connected with the mine by a length of cable; (3) a 
 plummet-weight used in placing the mine in position, connected 
 with the anchor chamber by a rope. Thus the mine appears 
 on the deck of the mine-laying ship before being lowered over 
 the stem. 
 
 Before the mine goes over, a windlass inside the plummet- 
 isinker is revolved by hand until the length of cable between the 
 plummet and the anchor-chamber has been reeled off equiva- 
 lent to the depth below the surface at which the explosive mine 
 is to float. 
 
 Then the entire apparatus is hove overboard. The plum- 
 met and anchor-chamber sink, while the spherical mine proper 
 is kept on the surface for the moment by means of a buoyant 
 air-chamber within. A windlass in the anchor-chamber now 
 pays out the cable between it and the mine as the anchor- 
 chamber sinks. On the plummet touching bottom, the tension 
 in the cable between it and the anchor-chamber is lessened, 
 and the wdndlass mentioned stops. The anchor-chamber there- 
 upon sinks to the bottom, dragging down the spherical mine 
 until that is at the selected depth ready for its deadly work. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 AERO-MILITARY OPERATIONS 
 
 Aerial Attacks on Cities — Some of the Achieve'ments of the 
 Airmen in the Great War — Deeds of Heroism and Bar- 
 ing — Zeppelins in Action — Their Construction and 
 Operation. 
 
 DURING the first ten weeks of the war German airmen 
 flew over Paris several times and dropped bombs that did 
 some damage. Aeroplanes, not Zeppelins, were used in 
 these attempts to terrorize the capital and other cities of 
 France. 
 
 The early visits of Zeppelin airships to Antwerp have been 
 described in a previous chapter. These were continued up to 
 the time of the fall of Antwerp. While comparatively few 
 lives were lost through the explosion of the bombs dropped, 
 the recurring attacks served to keep the inhabitants, if not the 
 Belgian troops, in a state of constant excitement and fear. 
 When the city fell into German hands, a similar condition 
 arose in England, where it was feared that Antwerp might be 
 made the base for German airship attacks on London and 
 other cities of Great Britain; and all possible precautions 
 were taken against such attacks. The members of the Royal 
 Plying Corps were kept constantly on the alert; powerful 
 searchlights swept the sky over London and the English coast 
 every night and artillery was kept in readiness to repel an 
 aerial invasion. Such was the condition in the third week 
 of October. 
 
 BEITISH ATTACK ON DUSSELDOKF 
 
 A new type of British aeroplane was developed during the 
 war, capable of rising from the ground at a very sharp angle 
 and of developing a speed of 150 miles an hour. And in their 
 
 275 
 
276 AERO-MILITARY OPERATIONS 
 
 operations in France and Belgium the British army aviators 
 proved themselves highly efficient and earned unstinted praise 
 from Field Marshal Sir John French, in command of the 
 British forces on the continent. One of their notable exploits 
 was an attack, October 8, on the Zeppelin sheds at Dussel- 
 dorf and Cologne, in German territory. The attack was 
 made by Lieut. E. S. G. Marix, of the Naval Flying Corps, in a 
 monoplane, and Squadron Commander Spencer Grey, with 
 Lieut. S. V. Lippe, in a biplane. Flying from Antwerp at a 
 height of 5,000 feet, to escape the almost continuous German 
 fire, Lieut. Marix succeeded in locating the Zeppelin hangars 
 at Dusseldorf. Then descending to a height of only 1,000 feet 
 he released two bombs when directly over them, damaging 
 both hangars and aircraft. A German bullet passed through 
 Lieut. Marix 's cap and the wings of his aeroplane were 
 pierced in a dozen places, but he succeeded in returning to 
 the burning city of Antwerp, which he was ordered to leave 
 the same evening. 
 
 During the same raid Commander Spencer Grey flew to 
 Cologne. He was unable to locate the Zeppelin hangars but 
 dropped two bombs into the railway station, which was badly 
 damaged. 
 
 A night or two later a German Zeppelin flew over Ghent 
 and dropped a bomb near the South station. On October 11 
 two German aviators dropped a score of bombs on different 
 quarters of Paris, killing three civilians and injuring four- 
 teen others. The property damage, however, was slight and 
 the effectiveness of bomb-dropping as a means of destroying 
 a city or fortifications remained to be proved to the military 
 mind. It was noted that a large proportion of the bombs 
 dropped by German aviators failed to explode. 
 
 HEROIC ACTS BY AIRMEN 
 
 Stories of heroism displayed by aviators on both sides of 
 the great conflict have abounded. One story of the devotion 
 of German airmen, told to a correspondent by several German 
 officers, he succeeded in verifying, but was unable to learn 
 the name of the particular hero of the occurrence. This story 
 was as follows : 
 
 **In one of the battles around Eheims it became necessary 
 
AERO-MILITARY OPERATIONS 277 
 
 to blow up a bridge which was about to be crossed by advanc- 
 ing French troops coming to relieve a beleaguered fort. The 
 only way to destroy the bridge was for an airman to swoop 
 down and drop an exceptionally powerful bomb upon it. 
 
 ''There were twenty-four flyers with that division of the 
 German army. A volunteer was asked for, it being first 
 announced that the required task meant sure death to the man 
 undertaking it. 
 
 ''Every one of the twenty-four stepped forward without 
 hesitation. Lots were quickly dra"wn. The chosen man 
 departed without saying farewell to any one. Within five 
 minutes the bridge was in ruins and the aeroplane and its 
 heroic pilot had been blown to pieces. This incident was not 
 published in the press of Germany, because of the fear that it 
 would cause terrible anxiety to the wives of all married Ger- 
 man flyers. ' ' 
 
 A DUEL HIGH IN THE AIR 
 
 An aerial victory for a French aviator, fought thousands 
 of feet in the air in the presence of troops of both armies, was 
 reported by Lieutenant de Laine of the French aerial corps 
 on October 10. The air duel was one of the most thrilling since 
 the war began. Lieutenant de Laine 's account of the combat 
 was as follows : 
 
 "I had been ordered to fly over the German lines with an 
 observer who was to drop pamphlets. These pamphlets con- 
 tained the following inscription : 
 
 " 'German soldiers, attention! German officers say that 
 the French maltreat prisoners. This is a lie. German prison- 
 ers are as well treated as unfortunate adversaries should be.* 
 
 "We had no sooner taken wing than the aeroplane was 
 sighted by German observers in captive balloons anchored 
 about six miles distant. Immediately two Albatross machines 
 rose from the German camp and came forward. 
 
 "We continued to advance, meanwhile sending the aero- 
 plane higher and higher until the barograph showed we were 
 6,000 feet above the ground. Our machine was speedier than 
 the German aeroplane, which was constructed of steel and 
 was so heavy it could not work up the speed of the French 
 army monoplane. 
 
 "We were able to get over the German lines and my com- 
 
278 AERO-MILITARY OPERATIONS 
 
 panion began hurling thousands of the pamphlets in every 
 direction. It was like a snowstorm. 
 
 **In the meantime, the German artillery got their long 
 range air guns in action and were hurling volley after volley 
 against us. The shells were of special type, designed to create 
 violent air waves when they burst. We were too high to be 
 reached, but we had to turn our attention to the two aeroplanes 
 which were rushing toward us. 
 
 ''As they approached the German artillery fire stopped. 
 We were too high to distinguish what was going on beneath 
 us, but I could imagine the thousands of soldiers staring sky- 
 ward in wonder at the strange spectacle above them. 
 
 "We kept swinging in wide circles over the German lines 
 and I kept getting higher and higher in order to outmaneuver 
 the German plane and to prevent it from getting above us so 
 that bombs could be thrown at us. . 
 
 ' ' The machines were all equipped with rapid-fire guns, and 
 when we got within 100 yards of each other, both sides opened 
 fire. The bullets went wide. Finally we began to swing back- 
 ward, getting lower and lower. One of the German machines 
 was thus lured over the French lines and our land artillery 
 opened against it. One of its wings was shattered and it 
 dropped, but the other aeroplane escaped." 
 
 HOW A GERMAN AVIATOR ESCAPED 
 
 How a German aviator in Belgium secured control of a 
 falling aeroplane after his companion had been killed is 
 described in a thrilling letter received by his father in Berlin 
 September 30. It reads : 
 
 "Dear Father: I am lying here in a beautiful Belgian 
 castle slowly recovering from wounds I thought would kill me. 
 On August 22 I made a flight with Lieutenant J., a splendid 
 aviator; established the fact that the enemy was advancing 
 toward us. In the region of Bertrix we came into heavy rain- 
 clouds and had to descend to 3,000 feet. As we came through 
 the clouds we were seen and an entire French division began 
 shooting at us. 
 
 "Lieutenant J. was hit in the abdomen. Our motor was 
 put out of commission. We were trying to volplane across 
 a forest in the distance when suddenly I felt the machine give 
 
AERO'MILITABY OPERATIONS 279 
 
 a jump. I turned around — as I was sitting in front — and 
 found that a second bullet had hit Lieutenant J. in the head 
 and killed him. 
 
 *'I leaned over the back of the seat and managed to reach 
 the steering apparatus and headed down. A hail of shots 
 whistled about me. I felt something hit me in the fore- 
 head. Blood ran into my eyes. I was faint. But will pre- 
 vailed and I retained consciousness. Just as we were near 
 the ground a gust of wind hit the plane and turned my machine 
 over. I fell in the midst of the enemy with my dead com- 
 panion. The 'red trousers' were coming from all directions 
 and I drew my pistol and shot three of them. I felt a bayonet 
 at my breast and gave myself up for dead when an officer 
 shouted : " 'Let him live ! He is a brave soldier.' 
 
 ''I was taken to the commanding general of the Seven- 
 teenth French army corps, who questioned me, but, of course, 
 got no information. He said I would later be sent to Paris, but 
 as I was weak from loss of blood and seriously wounded I was 
 taken into their field hospital and cared for. The officers were 
 very nice to me and when the French fell back I took advantage 
 of the confusion to crawl under a bush, where I remained until 
 our troops came." 
 
 Many occurrences of a similarly thrilling character have 
 been related in the camps of the contending armies. The 
 above suffice to show the patriotic devotion and heroism of the 
 military forces of the air, which for the first time in history 
 have been a prominent feature of warfare in 1914. 
 
 ZEPPELINS IN ACTION 
 
 The real story of the performances of air-craft in the 
 war has not been told, but there has been enough to give the 
 world a terrifying glimpse of these modern weapons. 
 
 The three attacks on Antwerp by a Zeppelin airship 
 brought into action the long predicted onslaught by forces 
 of the air against the ground. After one of the great German 
 dirigibles had been brought down by gunfire because it was 
 accidentally guided too near the earth, another returned over 
 the city, and the havoc wrought by this single craft realizes 
 
280 AERO-MILITARY OPERATIONS 
 
 the horrors that would follow any concerted attack by a 
 fleet of the aerial destroyers if they were launched against 
 a city. 
 
 The Zeppelin is an impressive thing because of its size, 
 cigar-shaped and ranging from 300 to over 500 feet in length, 
 driven at a rate of 40 miles an hour by four propellers and 
 carrpng a huge car. It is most valuable for use at night, 
 of coarse, but has proved it is capable of doing its deadly 
 work out of range of ordinary gunfire at day. Artillery has 
 been invented which can reach airships flying at 5,000 feet, 
 but there is not much of it. The half dozen German Zeppelins 
 which have been destroyed by French and Eussian fire met 
 their fate chiefly because they got too near the ground. 
 
 Eefugees from Belgium describe the method used by Zep- 
 pelins in dropping bombs. The dirigible is kept as much as 
 possible out of range of the enemy's guns while it lowers 
 a steel cage, attached to a steel rope, 200 or 300 feet long. 
 The cage carries a man who throws down the bombs. Be- 
 cause of the small size of the cage and the fact that it is kept 
 constantly in motion it is difficult for heavy guns to hit it. 
 The great airship remains perfectly stable while the missiles, 
 of which there are a variety for different missions, are being 
 hurled. All the military Zeppelins of Germany are armed 
 and there are a large number of unarmed dirigibles in re- 
 serve. 
 
 It is estimated that there are 100 aeroplanes with the 
 British forces on the continent. The French army has hun- 
 dreds of aeroplanes of various kinds. Germany's fleet of 
 flying machines has been in action continuously and the 
 aviators have proved a big aid in scouting as well as in 
 dropping bombs and grenades on the enemy. 
 
 The newest French aeroplanes are said to be equipped 
 with boxes filled with thousands of ** steel arrows." 
 
 These ''arrows" are really steel bolts four inches long. 
 When the aviator sails over the enemy he opens trapdoors 
 of the ''arrow" boxes with a simple device and lets showers 
 of bolts fall on the men below. One of the ' ' arrows ' ' dropped 
 2,000 feet will go through a German helmet and a soldier's 
 
AERO-MILITARY OPERATIONS 
 
 281 
 
 head. A shower of them would prove effective against a 
 massed enemy. 
 
 On August 10 the correspondent of the London Times in 
 Brussels, describing the fighting at Liege, said aerial fleets 
 
 THE RELATIVE STRENGTH OP SOME OP THE EURO^ 
 FEAM NATIONS IN AEROPLANES AND DIRIGIBLES. 
 
 -Aero and Hydro, Cbicaso 
 
 were used by both Belgians and Germans. The fighting in 
 midair was desultory but deadly. A huge Zeppelin sailed 
 over Liege during the early fighting, but was pursued by a 
 
282 AERO-MILITARY OPERATIONS 
 
 Belgian aeroplanist, who risked and lost his life in destroy- 
 ing it. 
 
 After the destruction of this Zeppelin the Germans con- 
 fined their aerial activity to the use of scouting aeroplanes, 
 several of which were destroyed by shots from the forts. 
 Attempts to reach the aeroplanes with shells were often un- 
 successful, however, owing to the inability to shoot high 
 enough. 
 
 AVIATION CAMPS IN EUROPE 
 
 In the early days of the great war only an occasional flash 
 of news was received about the French and Russian aero- 
 military operations or those of the German corps along 
 the Russian and French frontiers. It was difficult to imagine 
 that they were idle, for the German-Russian and the French- 
 German frontiers had been the locations of many military 
 aeronautical camps or fortresses. These were described at 
 the outbreak of hostilities as follows : 
 
 "Along the German frontier facing Russia are the im- 
 portant aero centers of Thorn and Graudenz, while the near- 
 est aero base in Russia is at Riga, farther north. 
 
 ''Against German invasion there are French centers at 
 Verdun, Nancy, Luneville and Belfort; The most important 
 is at Belfort. Sixty miles from the Belgian frontier and 170 
 miles from Liege is the great center at Rheims, with the 
 even more important base at Chalons-sur-Marne only twenty- 
 five miles distant. 
 
 ''Seventy-five to 100 miles is the scouting range of the 
 military aeroplanes, while the dirigibles wall scout 500 to 
 1,000 miles from the base, according to the duration efficiency. 
 The Zeppelins might, taking some risk, travel even farther. 
 With this taken into consideration, the fact that there are 
 only two German aero centers on the French frontier — Aix- 
 la-Chapelle and Metz — is not very significant. The range 
 of the Vosges occupies the territory where there is no aero 
 center. 
 
 "Back of the mountains, along the Rhone from Dusseldorf 
 to Strasbourg, there are a dozen aero stations, some of them 
 devoted to aeroplanes and dirigibles, others to dirigibles alone. 
 
 "The latest data show that Germany has sixty stations, 
 
AERO-MILITARY OPERATIONS 
 
 283 
 
 including private dirigible hangars, while France has thirty, 
 in most cases of greater extent than those in Germany. Rus- 
 sia, eight months ago, had ten, but it is believed that this 
 number has been increased twofold since that time. 
 
 HOW GERMAN EMPIRE !S FORTIFIED AGAINST AERIAL ATTACKS 
 
 CEITTEIIS FHOM WHICH KAISER WILLIAM'S DIRIGIBLE AND AEROPLANE FLEETS OPERATE. ONLY 
 THOSE CITIES THAT HAVE AERODROMES ABE SHOWH ON THIS MAP. SEVERAL BELGIAN AXD 
 FRENCH AERODROMES ALSO ARE SHOWN. 
 
 *'The two principal Belgian centers are at Brasschaet, 
 near Antwerp, and Etterbeck, near Brussels. The aviators 
 operating in the early engagements have undoubtedly flown 
 down from Brussels and are in temporary camp at Liege. 
 There are probably not more than four Belgian escadrilles, 
 or little fleets of four machines each, on the scene, while 
 Germany's force is supposedly greater." 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 BATTLE OF THE AISNE 
 
 Most Prolonged Encounter in History Between Gigantic 
 Forces — A Far-Flung Battle Line^— Germans Face 
 French and British in the Aisne Valley and Fight for 
 Weeks — Mighty Armies Deadlocked After a Desperate 
 and Bloody Struggle. 
 
 FOR a few days after the tide of battle in France turned in 
 favor of the AlHes (September 9), the German forces 
 continued to retreat to the north, closely followed by the 
 French and British armies that had fought and won the battle 
 of the Marne, as described in a previous chapter. This north- 
 ward movement was marked by heavy German losses in men 
 and munitions of war, and lasted until Saturday, September 
 12, when the Germans were found to be occupying a position of 
 great defensive strength on the River Aisne, north of Soissons. 
 At that time they held both sides of the river and had a for- 
 midable line of intrenchments on the hills to the north of 
 eight road bridges and two railway bridges crossing the 
 Aisne. Seven of the road bridges and both the railway 
 bridges had been destroyed. 
 
 The Allies gained some high ground south of the Aisne, 
 overlooking the Aisne valley, east of Soissons. Then began 
 (on Saturday, September 12) an action along the Aisne which 
 was destined to go down in history as the greatest and most 
 prolonged battle of all time. Two days, three days, a week, 
 two weeks, three, four, five weeks it lasted, with varying for- 
 tune to the contending armies, but no decisive residt. Ger- 
 mans, French and British, literally by the thousand, fell under 
 the continuous hail of shrapnel, the hurricane of machine-gun 
 and rifle fire, or in the desperate bayonet charges of daily 
 occurrence, but still the batUe raged. Minor positions were 
 
 284 
 
BATTLE OF THE AISNE 285 
 
 gained and lost, towns and villages along tlie far-flung battle 
 line were occupied and evacuated, countless deeds of heroism 
 were wrought, to be sung and celebrated by posterity in a 
 dozen different lands — but the lines on both sides held and 
 victory refused to perch on any banner. 
 
 Modern scientific strategy exhausted its utmost efforts; 
 flanking and turning movements were planned, attempted and 
 failed ; huge masses of men were hurled against each other in 
 every formation known to military skill ; myriads of lives and 
 millions of money were sacrificed in historic endeavors to 
 breach the enemy's front — but ever the foeman held his 
 ground and neither side could claim decided advantage. In- 
 trenchments such as the world has never seen before covered 
 the countryside for fifty miles. Teuton, Gaul and Anglo- 
 Saxon, Turco and Hindu, literally *'dug themselves in," and 
 refused to budge an inch, though hell itself, in all its horror 
 and its fury, was loosed against them. 
 
 And thus the battle of the Aisne — also aptly called, from 
 its extent and ramifications, the battle of the Rivers — con- 
 tinued through many weeks while all the world wondered and 
 stood aghast at the slaughter, and the single gleam of bright- 
 ness that came out of that maelstrom of death and misery was 
 the growing respect of Frenchman, German and Briton for the 
 individual and collective courage of each other and the death- 
 defying devotion that was daily displayed by all. 
 
 FIGHTING CONTINUOUS DAY AND NIGHT 
 
 Beginning as an artillery duel in which the field-guns of 
 the French and Germans were matched against each other 
 from opposite heights as never before, the battle of the 
 Aisne soon resolved itself into a series of daily actions in 
 which every arm of the opposing hosts engaged. There 
 was little rest for the troops day or night. Artillery fire 
 beginning at daybreak and continuing till dusk might 
 break out again at any hour of the night, the range of the 
 enemy 's intrenchments being known. Frequently the artillery 
 seemed to open fire in the still watches of the night for no 
 other reason than to prevent the enemy in his trenches from 
 getting any sleep at all, and many a man was borne to the 
 rear on both sides suffering from no wound, but from utter 
 
286 BATTLE OF THE AISNE 
 
 exhaustion — a state of collapse which is often as deadly as 
 shrapnel to the soldier in the held. 
 
 For weeks at a time the only real rest for many of the 
 troops engaged along the line of battle came in snatches of 
 a few hours when they were temporarily relieved by fresh 
 troops brought up from the rear, and these in their turn might 
 be soon exhausted by the continuous strain of keeping on the 
 alert to repel attacks — or, as frequently happened, their ranks 
 might be decimated, or worse, when they were ordered to a 
 charge. Officers and men suffered ahke from the strenuous 
 nature of the demands made upon them — and so far as actual 
 casualties are concerned the battle was one in which officers 
 of all ranks, in all the armies, suffered perhaps more severely, 
 in proportion to the number engaged, than in any previous 
 battle. Hundreds of British officers, for example, were among 
 the victims whose bones lie rotting in the valley of the Aisne, 
 as whole pages of their portraits in the London journals, bear- 
 ing many of the best known names in the British Empire, 
 testified in mute protest against the horrors of war. And 
 both Germany and France have a similar "roll of honor.-' 
 
 REPORTS OF THE BATTLE 
 
 While the great battle of the Rivers was in progress the 
 most connected stories of its daily developments came through 
 the British official news bureau, and these are reproduced in 
 part in the pages that follow. The author of these reports is 
 believed to be Colonel Swinton, of Field Marshal French's 
 staff, who is generally credited with having contributed to the 
 literature of the war some of the most interesting and enlight- 
 ening accounts of the operations of the British and French 
 armies in the field. And these reports are given here, 
 because of their general character of apparent truth and fair- 
 ness, and in the absence of any similar reports from the other 
 side. 
 
 OPENING OF THE GREAT BATTLE 
 
 The following report from the British headquarters covers 
 the period when the Allies' forward movement was halted 
 along the Aisne and also describes the terrain, or country, in 
 which the subsequent fighting occurred : 
 
 "From Thursday, September 10, the British army made 
 
BATTLE OF THE AISNE 
 
 287 
 
 In the above view the Rivers Ma]-ne, Ourcq, Aisne, Oise, and Meuse are clearly 
 shown, exaggerated in size for convenience of reference. The position of the Allies 
 September 20, 1914, is shown bj' a black dotted line running from between Amiens 
 and Peronne to Verdun and Nancy. The German front is indicated by the shaded 
 sections, which also show the German lines of communication or retreat, numbered 
 from 1 to 7. At this time the Allies were pushing north to Arras, endeavoring to 
 turn the German right flank in command of General von Kluck. 
 
288 BATTLE OF THE AISNE 
 
 steady progress in its endeavor to drive back the enemv in 
 co-operation with the French. The country across which it 
 iiad to force its way, and will have to continue to do so, is 
 undulating and covered with patches of thick wood. 
 
 ^'Withm the area which faced the British before the ad- 
 vance commenced, right up to Laon, the chief feature of 
 tactical importance is the fact that there are six rivers run- 
 mng across the direction of the advance, at all of which it was 
 possible that the Germans might make resistance. These 
 rivers are m order from the south, the Marne, Ourcq, Vesle, 
 Aisne, Ailette and Oise. ' 
 
 ^'The Germans held the line of the Marne, which was 
 crossed by our forces on September 9, as a purely rearguard 
 operation. Our passage of the Ourcq was not contested The 
 Vesle was only lightly held, while resistance along the Aisne 
 both against the French and the British, has been and still is 
 o± a determined character. 
 
 -On Friday, September 11, but little opposition was met 
 mth along any part of our front, and the direction of the 
 advance was for the purpose of co-operating with our allies 
 turned shghtly to the northeast. The day wis spent in rush-' 
 
 T?l..wfii ^^^^^^^^e;i^/ in parlous hostile detachments. 
 By nightfall our forces had reached a line north of the Ourcq 
 extending from Oulchy-le-Chateau to Longpont ^ 
 
 Fj^Pif J^'" day there was also a general advance of the 
 French along their whole line, which ended in a substantial 
 success, m one portion of the field Duke Albrecht of Wuert- 
 temburg's army being driven back across the Saulx, and else- 
 where the whole of the artillery of a German corps being 
 captured. Several German colors also were taken 
 
 /'It was only on this day that the full extent of the victory 
 gained by the Alhes on September 8 [at the Marne] wal 
 appreciated by them, and the moral effect of this success has 
 been enormous. An order dated September 6 and 7 issued 
 by the commander of the German Seventh Corps was kicked 
 np It stated that the great object of the war w'ls Tbouno be 
 attamed, since the French were going to accept battle, and 
 that upon the result of this battle would depend the issue of 
 the war and the honor of the German armies 
 
 *'0n Saturday, the 12th, the enemy were found to be 
 
BATTLE OF THE AISNE 289 
 
 occupying a very formidable position opposite us on the nortli 
 of the line at Soissons. Working from the west to the east, 
 our Third Army Corps gained some high ground south of the 
 Aisne overlooking the Aisne valley, to the east of Soissons. 
 Here a long-range artillery duel between our guns and those 
 of the French on our left and the enemy's artillery on the 
 hills continued during the greater part of the day, and did 
 not cease until nearly midnight. The enemy had a very large 
 number of heavy howitzers in well-concealed positions. 
 
 *'At Braisne the First cavalry division met with consid- 
 erable opposition from infantry and machine-guns holding the 
 town and guarding the bridge. With the aid of some of our 
 infantry it gained possession of the town about midday, driv- 
 ing the enemy to the north. Some hundred prisoners were 
 captured around Braisne, where the Germans had thrown a 
 large amount of field-gun ammunition into the river, where 
 it was visible under two feet of water. 
 
 FATEFUL ENCOUNTER BEGINS 
 
 **0n our right the French reached the line of the River 
 Vesle. On this day began an action along the Aisne which is 
 not yet finished, and which may be merely of a rearguard 
 nature on a large scale, or may be the commencement of a 
 battle of a more serious nature. 
 
 "It rained heavily on Saturday afternoon and all through 
 the night, which severely handicapped transport. 
 
 *'0n Sunday, the 13th, extremely strong resistance was 
 encountered by the whole of our front, which was some fifteen 
 miles in length. The action still consisted for the most part 
 of a long-range gunfire, that of the Germans being to a great 
 extent from their heavy howitzers, which were firing from 
 cleverly concealed positions. Some of the actual crossings 
 of the Aisne were guarded by strong detachments of infantry 
 with machine-guns. 
 
 "By nightfall portions of all our three army corps were 
 across the river, the cavalry returning to the south side. By 
 early next morning, three pontoon bridges had been built, and 
 our troops also managed to get across the river by means of 
 the bridge carrying the canal over the river. 
 
 "On our left the French pressed on, but were prevented 
 by artillery fire from building a pontoon bridge at Soissons. 
 
290 BATTLE OF THE AISNE 
 
 A large number of infantry, however, crossed in single file the 
 top girder of the railway bridge left standing. 
 
 '' During the last three or four days many isolated parties 
 of Germans have been discovered hiding in the numerous 
 woods a long way behind our hne. As a rule they seemed 
 glad to surrender, and the condition of some of them may be 
 gathered from the following incident : 
 
 ' ' An officer proceeding along the road in charge of a num- 
 ber of led horses received information that there were some 
 of the enemy in the neighborhood. He gave the order to 
 charge, whereupon three German officers and 106 men surren- 
 dered. 
 
 EHEIMS OCCUPIED BY GERMANS 
 
 ''Rheims was occupied by the enemy on September 3. It 
 was reoccupied by the French after considerable fighting on 
 September 13. 
 
 "On the 12th, a proclamation, a copy of which is in the 
 possession of the British army, was posted all over the town. 
 A literal translation of this poster follows : 
 
 '' 'Proclamation — In the event of an action being fought 
 early today or in the immediate future in the neighborhood 
 of Rheims, the inhabitants are warned that they must remain 
 absolutely calm and must in no way try to take part in the 
 fighting. They must not attempt to attack either isolated 
 soldiers or detachments of the German army. The erection 
 of barricades, the taking up of paving stones in the streets in 
 a way to hinder the movement of troops, or, in a word, any 
 action that may embarrass the German army, is formally 
 forbidden. 
 
 '' 'With an idea to securing adequately the safety of the 
 troops and to instill calm into the population of Rheims, the 
 persons named below have been seized as hostages by the com- 
 mander-in-chief of the German army. These hostages will be 
 hanged at the slightest attempt at disorder. Also, the town 
 will be totally or partially burned and the inhabitants will be 
 hanged for any infraction of the above. 
 
 ' ' ' By order of the Germ-an authorities. 
 
 (Signed) " 'TheMayoe.' 
 
 "Here followed the names of eighty-one of the principal 
 
BATTLE OF THE AISNE 291 
 
 inhabitants of Eheims, with their addresses, including four 
 priests, and ending with the words, 'And some others.' " 
 
 HOW THE BATTLE DEVELOPED 
 
 The following descriptive report from Field Marshal Sir 
 John French's headquarters was issued September 22: 
 
 ''At the date of the last narrative, September 14, the Ger- 
 mans were making a determined resistance along the River 
 Aisne. The opposition has proved to be more serious than 
 was anticipated. 
 
 ' ' The action now being fought by the Germans along their 
 line is naturally on a scale which, as to extent of ground cov- 
 ered and duration of resistance, makes it undistingiiishable in 
 its progress from what is known as a ' pitched battle. ' 
 
 "So far as we are concerned, the action still being con- 
 tested is the battle of the Aisne. The foe we are fighting is 
 just across that river, along the whole of our front to the east 
 and west. The struggle is not confined to the valley of that 
 river, though it will probably bear its name. 
 
 "On Monday, the 14th, those of our troops which had on 
 the previous day crossed the Aisne, after driving in the Ger- 
 man rearguards on that evening, found portions of the 
 enemy's forces in prepared defensive positions on the right 
 bank and could do little more than secure a footing north of 
 the river. This, however, they maintained in spite of two 
 counter-attacks delivered at dusk and 10 p. m., in which the 
 fighting was severe. 
 
 "During the 14th strong reinforcements of our troops 
 were passed to the north bank, the troops crossing by ferry, 
 by pontoon bridges, and by the remains of permanent bridges. 
 Close co-operation with the French forces was maintained 
 and the general progress made was good, although the opposi- 
 tion was vigorous and the state of the roads, after the heavy 
 rain, made movements slow. 
 
 FIRST CORPS MAKES CAPTURE 
 
 ' ' One division alone failed to secure the ground it expected 
 to. The First Army Corps, after repulsing repeated attacks, 
 captured 600 prisoners and twelve guns. The cavalry also 
 took a number of prisoners. 
 
 "There was a heavy rain throughout the night of Sep- 
 
292 BATTLE OF THE AISNE 
 
 ternber 14-15 and during the 15th. the situation of the British 
 forces underwent no essential change. But it became more 
 and more evident that the defensive preparations made by 
 the enemy were more extensive than was at first apparent. 
 The Germans bombarded our fines nearly all day, using heavy 
 guns brought, no doubt, from before Maubeuge as well as 
 those with the corps. 
 
 ''All the German counter-attacks, however, failed, although 
 in some places they were repeated six times. One made on 
 the Fourth Guards Brigade was repulsed with heavy 
 slaughter. 
 
 ''Further counter-attacks made during the night were 
 beaten off. Rain came on towards evening and continued 
 intermittently until 9 a. m., on the 16th. Besides adding to 
 the discomfort of the soldiers holding the line, the wet weather 
 to some extent hampered the motor transport service, which 
 was also hindered by broken bridges. 
 
 "On Wednesday, the 16th, there was little change in the 
 situation opposite the British ; the efforts made by the enemy 
 were less active than on the previous day, though their bom- 
 bardment continued throughout the morning and evening. 
 
 ' ' On Thursday, the 17th, the situation still remained un- 
 changed in its essentials. The German heavy artillery fire 
 was more active than on the previous day. The only infantry 
 attacks made by the enemy were on the extreme right of our 
 position, and, as had happened before, they were repulsed 
 with heavy loss, chiefly on this occasion by our field artillery. 
 
 NATUBE OF THE FIGHTING 
 
 "In order to convey some idea of the nature of the fighting 
 it may be said that along the greater part of our front the 
 Germans have been driven back from the forward slopes on 
 the north of the river. Their infantry are holding strong 
 lines of trenches amongst and along the edges of the numerous 
 woods which crown the slopes. These trenches are elaborately 
 constructed and cleverly concealed. In many places there are 
 wire entanglements and lengths of rabbit fencing. 
 
 ' ' Both woods and open are carefully aligned, so that they 
 can be swept by rifle fire and machine-guns, which are invisible 
 from our side of the valley. The ground in front of the infan- 
 try is also, as a rule, under cross fire from the field artillery 
 
BATTLE OF THE AISNE 293 
 
 placed on neighboring heights, and under high angle fire 
 from pieces placed well back behind the woods on top of the 
 plateau. 
 
 ''A feature of this action, as of the previous fighting, is the 
 use by the enemy of numerous heavy howitzers, with which 
 they are able to direct long range fire all over the valley and 
 right across it. Upon these they evidently place great reli- 
 ance. 
 
 ''Where our men are holding the forward edges of the 
 high ground on the north side they are now strongly in- 
 trenched. They are well fed, and in spite of the wet weather 
 of the last week are cheerful and confident. 
 
 HEAVY BOMBAKDMENT BY BOTH SIDES 
 
 "The bombardment by both sides has been heavy, and on 
 Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday was practically continuous. 
 Nevertheless, in spiie of the general din caused by the reports 
 of the immense number of heavy guns in action along our front 
 on Wednesday, the arrival of the French force acting against 
 the German right flank was at once announced on the east of 
 our front some miles away by the continuous roar of their 
 quick-firing artillery, with which the attack was opened. 
 
 ' ' So far as the British are concerned, the greater part of 
 this week has been passed in bombardment, in gaining ground 
 by degrees, and in beating back severe counter-attacks with 
 heavy slaughter. Our casualties have been severe, but it is 
 probable that those of the enemy are heavier. 
 
 "The rain has caused a great drop in the temperature 
 and there is more than a distant feeling of autumn in the air. 
 
 "On our right and left the French have been fighting 
 fiercely and have been gradually gaining ground. One village 
 already has been captured and recaptured twice by each side 
 and at the time of writing remains in the hands of the Ger- 
 mans. 
 
 "The fighting has been at close quarters and of the most 
 desperate nature, and the streets of the village are filled with 
 dead of both sides. 
 
 CHEEKING MESSAGE TO THE FKENCH 
 
 "As an example of the spirit which is inspiring our allies 
 the following translation of an Ordre du Jour (order of the 
 
294 BATTLE OF THE AISNE 
 
 day), published on September 9, after the battle of Mont- 
 mirail, by the commander of the French Fifth Army, is given : 
 
 " 'Soldiers: Upon the memorable fields of Montmirail, 
 of Vauchamps, of Champaubert, which a century ago wit- 
 nessed the victories of our ancestors over Bliicher 's Prussians, 
 your vigorous offensive has triumphed over the resistance of 
 the Germans. Held on his flanks, his center broken, the enemy 
 now is retreating towards the east and north by forced 
 marches. The most renowned army corps of old Prussia, the 
 contingents of WestphaUa, of Hanover, of Brandenburg, have 
 retired in haste before you. 
 
 '* 'This first success is no more than the prelude. The 
 enemy is shaken but not yet decisively beaten. You have still 
 to undergo severe hardships, to make long marches, to fight 
 hard battles. May the image of our country, soiled by bar- 
 barians, always remain before your eyes ! Never was it more 
 necessary to sacrifice all for her. 
 
 '* 'Saluting the heroes who have fallen in the fighting of 
 the last few days, my thoughts turn toward you, the victors in 
 the last battle. Forward, soldiers, for France ! ' 
 
 LETTER FEOM A GERMAN" SOLDIER 
 
 ' ' So many letters and statements of our wounded soldiers 
 have been published in our newspapers that the following 
 epistle from a German soldier of the Seventy-fourth Infantry 
 regiment. Tenth Corps, to his wife also may be of interest : 
 
 '* 'My Dear Wife: I have just been living through days 
 that defy imagination. I should never have thought that men 
 could stand it. Not a second has passed but my life has been 
 in danger, and yet not a hair of my head has been hurt. 
 
 " 'It was horrible; it was ghastly, but I have been saved 
 for you and for our happiness, and I take heart again, although 
 I am still terribly unnerved. God grant that I may see you 
 again soon and that this horror may soon be over. 
 
 ** 'None of us can do any more; human strength is at an 
 end. I will try to tell you about it. On September 5 the 
 enemy were reported to be taking up a position near St. Prix, 
 southeast of Paris. The Tenth Corps, which had made an 
 astonishingly rapid advance of course, was attacked on Sun- 
 day. 
 
 *' 'Steep slopes led up to the heights, which were held in 
 
BATTLE OF THE AISNE 295 
 
 considerable force. With our weak detachments of the Sev- 
 enty-fourth and Ninety-first regiments we reached the crest 
 and came under a terrible artillery fire that mowed us down. 
 However, we entered St. Prix. Hardly had we done so than 
 we were met with shell fire and a violent fusillade from the 
 enemy's infantry. Our colonel was badly wounded — he is the 
 third we have had. Fourteen men were killed around me. 
 We got away in a lull without my being hit. 
 
 * ' ' The 7th, 8th, and 9th of September we were constantly 
 under shell and shrapnel fire and suffered terrible losses. I 
 was in a house which was hit several times. The fear of 
 death, of agony, wliich is in every man's heart, and naturally 
 so, is a terrible feeling. How often I have thought of you, 
 my darling, and what I suffered in that terrifying battle 
 which extended along a front of many miles near Montmirail, 
 you cannot possibly imagine. 
 
 '' 'Our heavy artillery was being used for the siege of 
 Maubeuge. We wanted it badly, as the enemy had theirs in 
 force and kept up a furious bombardment. For four days I 
 was under artillery fire. It was like hell, but a thousand times 
 worse. 
 
 ' ' ' On the night of the 9th the order was given to retreat, 
 as it would have been madness to attempt to hold our position 
 with our few men, and we should have risked a terrible defeat 
 the next day. The first and third armies had not been able 
 to attack with us, as we had advanced too rapidly. Our morale 
 was absolutely broken; in spite of unheard-of sacrifices we 
 had achieved nothing. 
 
 * ' * I cannot understand how our army, after fighting three 
 great battles and being terribly weakened, was sent against 
 a position which the enemy had prepared for three weeks, but, 
 naturally, I know nothing of the intentions of our chiefs ; they 
 say nothing has been lost. 
 
 '' 'In a word, we retired towards Cormontreuil and Rheims 
 by forced marches by day and night. We hear that three 
 armies are going to get into line, intrench and rest, and then 
 start afresh our victorious march on Paris. It was not a 
 defeat, only a strategic retreat. I have confidence in our 
 chiefs that everything will be successful. 
 
 ** 'Our first battalion, which has fought with unparalleled 
 
296 BATTLE OF THE AISNE 
 
 bravery, is reduced from 1,200 to 194 men. These numbers 
 speak for themselves.' " 
 
 EVENTS FROM SEPTEMBEE 21 TO 24 
 
 The next report from the official chronicler at the front, 
 dated September 24, was in part as follows : 
 
 "The enemy is still maintaining himself along the whole 
 front, and in order to do so is throwing into the fight detach- 
 ments composed of units from the different formations, the 
 active army, reserve, and landwehr, as is shown by the uni- 
 forms of prisoners recently captured. 
 
 *'Our progress, although slow on account of the strength 
 of the defensive positions against which we are pressing, has 
 in certain directions been continuous, but the present battle 
 may well last for some days more before a decision is reached, 
 since it now approximates nearly to siege warfare. 
 
 ' ' The nature of the general situation after the operations 
 of the 18th, 19th, and 20th, cannot better be summarized than 
 as expressed recently by a neighboring French commander to 
 his corps: 'Having repulsed repeated and violent counter- 
 attacks made by the enemy, we have a feeling that we have 
 been victorious.' 
 
 ''So far as the British are concerned, the course of events 
 during these three days can be described in a few words. Dur- 
 ing Friday, the 18th, artillery fire was kept up intermittently 
 by both sides during daylight. At night the Germans counter- 
 attacked certain portions of our line, supporting the advance 
 of their infantry as always by a heavy bombardment. But 
 the strokes were not delivered with great vigor and ceased 
 about 2 a. m. During the day's fighting an aircraft gun of 
 the Third Army Corps succeeded in bringing down a German 
 aeroplane. 
 
 ARTILLERY FIRE BECOMES MONOTONOUS 
 
 **0n Saturday, the 19th, the bombardment was resumed 
 by the Germans at an early hour and continued intermittently 
 under reply from our guns, which is a matter of normal 
 routine rather than an event. 
 
 "Another hostile aeroplane was brought down by us, and 
 one of our aviators succeeded in dropping several bombs over 
 
BATTLE OF THE AISNE 297 
 
 tlie German line, one incendiary bomb falling with considerable 
 effect on a transport park near LaFere. 
 
 ''A buried store of the enemy's munitions of war also was 
 found not far from the Aisne, ten wagonloads of live shells 
 and two wagons of cable being dug up. Traces were discov- 
 ered of large quantities of stores having been burned — all 
 tending to show that as far back as the Aisne the German 
 retirement was hurried. 
 
 '*0n Sunday, the 20th, nothing of importance occurred 
 until the afternoon, when there was an interval of feeble sun- 
 shine, which was hardly powerful enough to warm the soaking 
 troops. The Germans took advantage of this brief spell of 
 fine weather to make several attacks against different points. 
 These were all repulsed with loss to the enemy, but the casual- 
 ties incurred by us were by no means light. 
 
 ''The offensive against one or two points was renewed at 
 dusk, with no greater success. The brunt of the resistance 
 naturally has fallen on the infantry. In spite of the fact that 
 they have been drenched to the skin for some days and their 
 trenches have been deep in mud and water, and in spite of the 
 incessant night alarms and the almost continuous bombard- 
 ment to which they have been subjected, they have on every 
 occasion been ready for the enemy 's infantry when the latter 
 attempted to assault. Indeed, the sight of the troops coming 
 up has been a positive relief after long, trying hours of inac- 
 tion under shell fire. 
 
 OBJECT OF GERMAN ATTACKS 
 
 ''The object of the great proportion of artillery the Ger- 
 mans employ is to beat down the resistance of their enemy by 
 concentrated and prolonged fire — to shatter their nerve with 
 high explosives before the infantry attack is launched. They 
 seem to have rehed on doing this with us, but they have not 
 done so, though it has taken them several costly experiments 
 to discover this fact. 
 
 "From statements of prisoners, it appears that they have 
 been greatly disappointed by the moral effect produced by 
 their heavy guns, which, despite the actual losses inflicted, 
 has not been at all commensurate with the colossal expendi- 
 ture of ammunition which has really been wasted. 
 
 "By this it is not implied that their artillery fire is not 
 
298 BATTLE OF THE AISNE 
 
 good. It is more than good — it is excellent. But the British 
 soldier is a difficult person to impress or depress, even by 
 immense shells filled with a high explosive, which detonate 
 with terrific violence and form craters large enough to act as 
 graves for five horses. 
 
 ' ' The German howitzer shells are from eight to nine inches 
 in calibre, and on impact they send up columns of greasy black 
 smoke. On account of this they are irreverently dubbed ' coal 
 boxes,' * Black Marias,' or 'Jack Johnsons' by the soldiers. 
 
 "Men who take things in this spirit are, it seems, likely to 
 throw out the calculations based on loss of morale so care- 
 fully framed by the German military philosophers. 
 
 ''The German losses in officers are stated by our prisoners 
 to have been especially severe. A brigade is stated to be 
 commanded by a major; some companies of foot guards by 
 one-year volunteers ; while after the battle of Montmirail one 
 regiment lost fifty-five out of sixty officers. 
 
 LETTEK FOUND ON GEKMAN OFFICER 
 
 "The following letter, which refers to the fighting on the 
 Aisne and w^as found on a German officer of the Seventh 
 Reserve Corps, has been printed and circulated to the troops : 
 
 " 'Cerny, South of Paris, Sept. 17.— My Dear Parents:— 
 Our corps has the task of holding the heights south of Cerny 
 in all circumstances till the Fourteenth Corps on our left 
 flank can grip the enemy's flank. On our right are other 
 corps. We are fighting with the English guards, Highlanders 
 and Zouaves. The losses on both sides have been enormous. 
 For the most part this is due to the too-brilliant French 
 artillery. 
 
 ' ' ' The English are marvelously trained in making use of 
 ground. One never sees them and one is constantly under fire. 
 The French airmen perform wonderful feats. We cannot get 
 rid of them. As soon as an airman has flown over us, ten 
 minutes later tve get shrapnel fire in our position. We have 
 little artillery in our corps ; without it we cannot get forward. 
 
 " 'Three days ago our division took possession of these 
 heights and dug itself in. Two days ago, early in the morn- 
 ing, we were attacked by immensely superior English forces — 
 one brigade and two battalions — and were turned out of our 
 
BATTLE OF THE AISNE 299 
 
 positions. The fellows took five guns from us. It was a tre- 
 mendous hand-to-hand fight. 
 
 '^ 'How I escaped myself I am not clear. I then had to 
 bring up support on foot. My horse was wounded and the 
 others were too far in the rear. Then came up the Guard 
 Jager Battalion, Fourth Jager, Sixth Regiment, Reserve Regi- 
 ment Thirteen, and Landwehr Regiments Thirteen and Six- 
 teen, and, with the help of the artillery, we drove the fellows 
 out of the position again. Our machine-guns did excellent 
 work; the English fell in heaps. 
 
 " * In our battalion three iron crosses have been given. Let 
 us hope that we shall be the lucky ones the next time. 
 
 '' 'During the first two days of the battle I had only one 
 piece of bread and no water. I spent the night in the rain 
 without my greatcoat. The rest of my kit was on the horses, 
 which have been left miles behind with the baggage and which 
 cannot come up into the battle because as soon as you put your 
 nose up from behind cover the bullets whistle. 
 
 ' ' * War is terrible ! We are all hoping that a decisive battle 
 will end the war. Our troops already have got round Paris. 
 If we beat the English the French resistance will soon be 
 broken. Russia will be very quickly dealt with ; of this there 
 is no doubt. 
 
 *' 'We have received splendid help from the Austrian 
 heavy artillery at Maubeuge. They bombarded Fort Cerfon- 
 taine in such a way that there was not ten meters of parapet 
 which did not show enormous craters made by the shells. 
 The armored turrets were found upside down. 
 
 " 'Yesterday evening about 6, in the valley in which our 
 reserves stood, there was such a terrible cannonade that we 
 saw nothing of the sky but a cloud of smoke. We had few 
 casualties. ' 
 
 TELEPHONE AN AID TO SPIES 
 
 "Espionage is carried on by the enemy to a considerable 
 extent. Recently the suspicions of some of the French troops 
 were aroused by coming across a farm from which the horses 
 had been removed. After some search they discovered a tele- 
 phone which was connected by an underground cable with the 
 German lines, and the owner of the farm paid the penalty in 
 the usual way in war for his treachery. 
 
300 BATTLE OF THE AISNE 
 
 ''After some cases of village fighting, which occurred ear- 
 lier in the war, it was reported by some of our officers that the 
 Germans had attempted to approach to close quarters by forc- 
 ing prisoners to march in front of them. The Germans have 
 recently repeated the same trick on a larger scale against the 
 French, as is shown by the copy of an order issued by the 
 French officials. It is therein referred to as a ruse, but if that 
 term can be accepted, it is a distinctly illegal ruse. 
 
 REFERS TO RHEIMS CATHEDRAL 
 
 *'Full details of the actual damage done to the cathedral 
 at Rheims will doubtless have been cabled, so that no descrip- 
 tion of it is necessary. The Germans bombarded the cathe- 
 dral twice with their heavy artillery. 
 
 * ' One reason it caught fire so quickly was that on one side 
 of it was some scaffolding which had been erected for restora- 
 tion work. Straw had also been laid on the floor for the recep- 
 tion of German wounded. It is to the credit of the French 
 that practically all the German wounded were successfully 
 extricated from the burning building. 
 
 ''There was no justification on military grounds for this 
 act of vandalism, which seems to have been caused by exas- 
 peration born of failure — a sign of impotence rather than of 
 strength. ' ' 
 
 rrV^E MORE DAYS OF BATTLE 
 
 On September 29 Field Marshal French's headquarters 
 reported as follows: 
 
 "The general situation as viewed on the map remains 
 practically the same as that described in the last letter, and 
 the task of the army has not changed. It is to maintain itself 
 until there is a general resumption of the offensive. 
 
 "No ground has been lost. Some has been gained, and 
 every counter-attack has been repulsed — in certain instances 
 with very severe losses to the enemy. 
 
 "Of recent events an actual narrative will be carried on 
 from the 25th to 29th, inclusive. During the whole of this 
 period the weather has remained fine. 
 
 "On Friday, the 25th, comparative quiet reigned in our 
 (Sphere of action. The only incident worthy of special mention 
 was the passage of a German aeroplane over the interior of 
 
BATTLE OF THE AISNE 301 
 
 our lines. It was flying high, but drew a general fusillade 
 from below, with the result that the pilot was killed outright 
 and the observer was wounded. The latter was captured by 
 the French. 
 
 * ' That night a general attack was made against the greater 
 part of the Allies' position, and it was renewed in the early 
 morning of Saturday, the 26th. The Germans were every- 
 where repulsed with loss. Indeed, opposite one portion of our 
 lines, where they were caught in mass by our machine-guns 
 and howitzers firing at different ranges, it is estimated that 
 they left 1,000 killed or wounded. 
 
 **The mental attitude of our troops may be gauged from 
 the fact that the offiicial report next morning from one corps, 
 of which one division had borne the brunt of the fighting, ran 
 thus laconically: 'The night was quiet except for a certain 
 «,mount of shelling both from the enemy and ourselves. ' 
 
 AN ALL-DAY ATTACK 
 
 ^* At 3 :40 a. m. an attack was made on our right. At 5 a. m. 
 
 the^ie was a general attack on the right of the th division, 
 
 but no really heavy firing. Further ineffectual efforts to drive 
 us back were made at 8 a. m. and in the afternoon, and the 
 artillery fire continued all day. 
 
 "The Germans came on in 'T' formation, several lines 
 shoulder to shoulder, followed almost immediately by a column 
 in support. After a very few minutes the men had closed up 
 into a mob, which afforded an excellent target for our fire. 
 
 ' ' On Sunday, the 27th, while the German heavy guns were 
 in action, their brass bands could be heard playing hymn tunes, 
 presumably at divine service. 
 
 "The enemy made an important advance on part of our 
 line at 6 p. m., and renewed it in strength at one point, with, 
 however, no better success than on the previous night. Snip- 
 ing continued all day along the whole front. 
 
 *■ ' On Monday, the 28th, there was nothing more severe than 
 a bombardment and intermittent sniping, and this inactivity 
 continued during Tuesday, the 29th, except for a night attack 
 against our extreme right. 
 
 A TYPICAL BATTLE INCIDENT 
 
 "An incident that occurred Sunday, the 27th, serves to 
 illustrate the type of fighting that has for the last two weeks 
 
302 BATTLE OF THE AISNE 
 
 been going on intermittently on various parts of our lines. It 
 also brings out the extreme difficulty of ascertaining what is 
 actually happening during an action apart from what seems 
 to be happening, and points to the value of good intrench- 
 ments. 
 
 ''At a certain point in our front our advance trenches were 
 on the north of the Aisne, not far from a village on a hillside 
 and also within a short distance of German works, being on a 
 slope of a spur formed by a subsidiary valley running north 
 and a main valley of the river. It was a calm, sunny after- 
 noon, but hazy, and from our point of vantage south of the 
 river it was difficult exactly to locate on the far bank the well- 
 concealed trenches. 
 
 ' ' From far and near the sullen boom of guns echoed along 
 the valley, and at intervals in a different direction the sky 
 was flecked with the almost motionless smoke of anti-aircraft 
 shrapnel. 
 
 ' ' Suddenly and without any warning, for the reports of the 
 distant howitzers from which they were fired could not be dis- 
 tinguished from other distant reports, three or four heavy 
 shells fell into the village, sending up huge clouds of dust 
 and smoke, which ascended in a brownish-gray column. To 
 this no reply was made by our side. 
 
 "Shortly afterwards there was a quick succession of re- 
 ports from a point some distance up the subsidiary valley on 
 the side opposite our trenches and therefore rather on their 
 flank. It was not possible either by ear or by eye to locate the 
 guns from which the sounds proceeded. Almost simultaneously, 
 as it seemed, there was a corresponding succession of flashes 
 and sharp detonations in the line along the hillside along what 
 appeared to be our trenches. 
 
 ''There was then a pause and several clouds of smoke 
 rose slowly and remained stationary, spaced as regularly as 
 poplars. 
 
 "Again there was a succession of reports from German 
 quick-firers on the far side of the misty valley and like echoes 
 of detonations of high explosives ; then the row of expanding 
 smoke clouds was prolonged by several new ones. Another 
 pause and silence, except for the noise in the distance. 
 
 "After a few minutes there was a roar from our side of 
 
BATTLE OF THE AISNE 303 
 
 the main valley as our field guns opened one after another in 
 a more deliberate fire upon the positions of the German guns. 
 After six reports there was again silence save for the whirr 
 of shells as they sang up the small valley. Then followed 
 flashes and balls of smoke — one, two, three, four, five, six — as 
 the shrapnel burst nicely over what in the haze looked like 
 some ruined buildings at the edge of the wood. 
 
 TRYING TO ENFILADE THE TRENCHES 
 
 ** Again, after a short intei^^al, the enemy's gunners re- 
 opened with a burst, still further prolonging the smoke, which 
 was by now merged into one solid screen above a considerable 
 length of the trenches and again did our guns reply. And so 
 the duel went on for some time. 
 
 ''Ignoring our guns, the German artillerymen, probably 
 relying on concealment for immunity, were concentrating all 
 their efforts in a particularly forceful effort to enfilade our 
 trenches. For them it must have appeared to be the chance 
 of a lifetime, and with their customary prodigality of ammuni- 
 tion they continued to pour bouquet after bouquet of high 
 explosives or combined shrapnel and common shells into our 
 works. 
 
 ''Occasionally, with a roar, a high angle projectile would 
 sail over the hill and blast a gap in the village. One could 
 only pray that our men holding the trenches had dug them- 
 selves in deep and well, and that those in the village were in 
 cellars. 
 
 ' ' In the hazy valleys, bathed in sunlight, not a man, not a 
 horse, not a gun, nor even a trench was to be seen. There 
 were only flashes, and smoke, and noise. Above, against the 
 blue sky, several round, white clouds were hanging. The only 
 two visible human souls were represented by a glistening speck 
 in the air. On high also were to be heard more or less gentle 
 reports of the anti-aircraft projectiles. 
 
 "But the deepest impression created was one of sympathy 
 for the men subjected to the bursts along that trench. Upon 
 inquiry as to the losses sustained, however, it was found that 
 our men had been able to take care of themselves and had dug 
 themselves well in. In that collection of trenches on that 
 Sunday afternoon were portions of four battalions of British 
 
304 BATTLE OF THE AISNE 
 
 soldiers — the Dorsets, the West Kents, the King's Own York- 
 shire light infantry, and the King's Own Scottish Borderers." 
 
 AKMIES IN A DEADLOCK 
 
 Later reports from the Aisne valley, up to October 17, 
 when the big battle had been five weeks in progress, indicated; 
 little change in the general situation. Bombardments and 
 artillery duels, varied by general attacks, occurred daily all 
 along the line. The main positions of both armies were firmly 
 held, though the French had gained some ground north of 
 Rheims and continually threatened the German center. The 
 left of the Allies ' line had crept north to and beyond Arras, 
 where there was severe fighting for several days ; and at the 
 end of the thirty-fifth day of tb f^ battle of the Rivers the lines 
 of the opposing armies extended almost continuously from 
 beyond Arras on the northwest, south in a great curve to the 
 Aisne valley, thence east to Verdun, where the Crown Prince 's 
 army kept hammering away at that fortress without success, 
 and thence southwest to Nancy and the Alsatian border. 
 
 By this time the armies of the center were in a species of 
 deadlock. The strain on both sides had long promised to get 
 beyond human endurance and the antagonists of the Aisne 
 were likened by a French officer to two exhausted pugilists, 
 who would soon be unable to inflict further punishment upon 
 each other. But there was no sign of ''throwing up the 
 sponge" on either side, though beyond the actual sphere of 
 conflict it was felt that * ' something must give way soon. ' ' 
 
 A BLAZING VALE OF DEATH 
 
 Writing on September 16, the fourth day of the battle, a 
 special correspondent behind the British lines by Senlis and 
 Chantilly, said : 
 
 ''I have passed through a smiling land to a land wearing 
 the mask of death; through harvest fields rich with great 
 stacks snugly builded against the winter to the fields of a 
 braver harvest; by jocund villages where there is no break in 
 the ebb and flow of everyday life to villages and towns that 
 despoiling hands have shattered in ruins. 
 
 ''And I have passed up this Via Dolorosa toward the very 
 harvesting itself — toward those great plains stretching away 
 
BATTLE OF THE AISNE 305 
 
 on the banks of the River Aisne, where the second act of this 
 drama of battles is at this moment being played. 
 
 ''Details of this fight, which, as I write, reaches its fourth 
 day of duration, are very scanty, but partly from personal 
 observation and partly from information which has reached 
 me I know that the struggle so far has been a terrible one, 
 equal to, if not greater than, the struggle on the banks of the 
 Marne. 
 
 "The events of Monday (September 14) revealed a foe bat- 
 tling desperately for his life ; and this defense of General von 
 Kluck's army demanded of the Allies their utmost strength 
 and determination. 
 
 * ' Picture this battlefield, which will assuredly take its place 
 with that of the Marne as one of the greatest combats of the 
 greatest war. Through the middle of it flows the great river, 
 passing from the east to the west. The banks of the river here 
 are very steep. Above the plain, which sweeps away from the 
 northern bank, rises the ' ' massif ' ' of Laon. It is an ideal area 
 for great movements and for artillery work directed upon the 
 valley of the river. Passing eastward a little, there are the 
 heights behind the city of Rheims and above the Vesle, a tribu- 
 tary of the Aisne. Here again nature has builded a strong- 
 hold easy to defend, difficult exceedingly to attack. 
 
 "I kiaow of heroic work against these great lines, work 
 that will live with the most momentous of this struggle. I 
 know of smashing attacks the thought of which takes one's 
 breath away. I have heard narratives of the trenches and of 
 the bridges — these engineers, French and English, have indeed 
 'played the game' — ^which no man can hear unmoved ; how the 
 columns went down again and again to the blazing death of 
 the valley, and how men worked, building and girding in a 
 very inferno — worked with the furious speed of those whose 
 time of work is short. 
 
 HEROISM IN THE TEENCHES 
 
 "And in the trenches, too, the tale of heroism unfolds itself 
 hour by hour. Here is an example, one among ten thousand, 
 the story of a wounded private : 'We lay together, my friend 
 and I. . . . The order to fire came. We shot and shot till 
 our rifles burned us. Still they swarmed on towards us. We 
 took careful aim all the while. ' ' Ah, good, did you see that ? ' ' 
 
306 BATTLE OF THE AISNE 
 
 I turned to my friend and as I did so heard a terrible dull 
 sound like a spade striking upon newly turned earth. His 
 head was fallen forward. I spoke, I called him by name. He 
 was moaning a little. Then I turned to my work again. They 
 are advancing quickly now. Ah ! how cool I was. I shot so 
 slowly, ... so very slowly. 
 
 ** 'And then — do you know what it feels like to be 
 wounded? I rose just a little too high on my elbow. A sting- 
 that pierces my arm like a hot wire — too sharp almost to be 
 sore. I felt my arm go away from me — it seemed like that — 
 and then my rifle fell. I believe I was a little dazed. I looked 
 at my friend presently. He was dead. ' 
 
 THE GRIM STOKY OF SENLIS 
 
 *'So, on these green river banks and across these fair 
 wooded plains the Germans make their great stand — the stand 
 that if they are defeated will be their last in France. And 
 meanwhile behind them lie the wasted fields and the broken 
 villages. It is impossible adequately to describe the scenes 
 which I have witnessed on the line of the great retreat, but 
 here and there events have had place, which, in truth, cry to 
 high heaven for report. Of such is the grim story of Senlis. 
 
 ''I spent many hours in Senlis and I will recount that story 
 as I saw it and as I heard it from those who lived through the 
 dreadful procession of days. On Saturday, September 5, the 
 Germans reached this beautiful old cathedral town and entered 
 into occupation. They issued a proclamation to the inhab- 
 itants calling upon them to submit and to offer no sort of 
 resistance on pain of severe reprisals. 
 
 ''But the inhabitants of Senlis had already tasted the 
 bitter draft of war making. The people had become bitter 
 to the point of losing care of their own safety. They were 
 reckless, driven to distraction. 
 
 "Bitter was the price exacted for the recklessness! The 
 trouble began when, exasperated beyond measure by their 
 insolence, a brave tobacconist declared to a couple of the Prus- 
 sians: 'I serve men, not bullies.' He followed his words 
 with a blow delivered fiercely from the shoulder. 
 
 ''The infuriated soldiers dragged him from his shop and 
 hurled him on his knees in front of the door. His wife rushed 
 out shrieking for mercy. Mercy ! As well ask it of a stone ! 
 
Copyright hy Underwood & TTnderwood, N. T. 
 
 1. Russian Troops Advancing Along Railway in Eastern Prussia. 
 
 2. French Grenadiers Malslng a Flank Attack in Open Order. 
 
Cbvyrtiht br Undvwood & Undwwaod, N. T. 
 1. Oarman Ambulance Corps Removing Wounded from the Field. 
 
 International News Service. 
 2. The Horrors of War — Scene after Battle of Haelen. 
 
Oopyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. T, 
 
 1. Bomb-Throwing Device Used on German Aeroplanes — A Release Clutch 
 
 Frees Bomb from Sling and Drops It. 
 
 Photo by Buck from Underwood & Underwood. New York. 
 
 2. Motor Trucks Carrying Water Supply to French Troops at the Front. 
 
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Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. T. 
 
 1. FRENCH TDRCOS DIVIDING THEIR GERMAN SPOILS AT MEAUX 
 
 2. BELGIANS CONGRATULATING PRIVATE LANGB. OF THE 12TH REGIMENT OF IN- 
 
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 1. A Crack Canadian Regiment (Highlanders) Detraining at the Valcartler 
 
 Mobilization Camp, Quebec, for Service in Europe. 
 S. A Trainload of Ruaaian Traopa On Rout* to tb« Pruaalan Brontlar. 
 
From the Graphic 
 FRENCH GUNNERS PREPARED TO FACE GAS 
 
 French artillerymen, like their brothers in the trenches, provided with masks 
 for protection against the clouds of asphyxiating German gases, the fumes of which 
 often reach the guns far to the rear of the lines of trenches. 
 
Top — Ool. the Honorable Sam Hagbes, Minister of MlUtla of Canada— « Veteran Soldier 
 
 and Patriotic Statesman 
 Bottom — After Dinner in tbe Highlanders' Camp at Valcartier. 
 
BATTLE OF THE AISNE 307 
 
 A shot rang out. . . . Another. . . . Man and wife 
 lay dead. 
 
 ''Immediately the news of this murderous act flew through 
 the town. Outraged and furious, the conquerors marched in- 
 stantly to the house of the mayor — their hostage — and 
 arrested him. They conveyed him without a moment's delay 
 to the miUtary headquarters, where he was imprisoned for the 
 night. On Wednesday morning a court-martial sat to decide 
 his fate. A few minutes later this brave man paid for the 
 indiscretion of his people with his life, dying splendidly. 
 
 "And then guns were turned on this town of living men 
 and women and children. Shells crashed into the houses, into 
 the shops, into the station. At Chantilly, seven kilometers 
 away, the amazed inhabitants saw a great column of black 
 smoke curl up into the air; they guessed the horrible truth. 
 Senlis was burning. 
 
 "The work, however, was interrupted. At midday the 
 glad tidings were heard, 'The Turcos are here.' Within the 
 hour broken and blazing Senlis was re-relieved and rescued. 
 The Turcos pursued and severely punished the enemy. 
 
 "Today these streets are terrible to look upon. House 
 after house has been shattered to pieces — broken to a pile of 
 stones. One of the small turrets of the cathedral has been 
 demolished, and a rent has been torn in the stone work of the 
 tower. The station is like a wilderness." 
 
 RHEIMS CATHEDRAL DAMAGED 
 
 A correspondent gives a vivid account of the German bom- 
 bardment of Rheims, during the battle on the Aisne, as viewed 
 by him from the belfry of the famous cathedral. 
 
 "Wliat a spectacle it was!" he said. "Under the cold, 
 drifting gray rainclouds the whole semicircle of the horizon 
 was edged by heights on which the German batteries were 
 mounted, three miles away. 
 
 "There was nothing but the inferno of bursting shells, 
 those of the Germans landing anywhere within the space of 
 a square mile. Sometimes it was just outside the town that 
 they fell, trying to find the French troops lying there in their 
 trenches, waiting to go forward to the attack of the hills, when 
 their artillery should have prepared the way. 
 
 ' ' The cathedral tower made a wonderful grand stand from 
 
308 BATTLE OF THE AISNE 
 
 whicli to watch this appalling game of destruction. It was 
 under the protection of the Red Cross flag, for directly the 
 shells began to hit the cathedral in the morning some German 
 wounded were brought in from a hospital nearby and laid on 
 straw in the nave, wliile Abbe Andreaux and a Red Cross sol- 
 dier pluckily climbed to the top of the tower and hung out two 
 Greneva flags. 
 
 **The crescendo scream the shells make has something 
 fiendish in it that would be thrilling apart from the danger 
 of which it is the sign. You hear it a full second before the 
 shell strikes, and in that time you can tell instinctively the 
 direction of its flight. 
 
 ''Then comes the crash of the explosion, which is like all 
 the breakages you ever heard gathered into one simultaneous 
 smash. ' ' 
 
 SAVING THE GERMAN WOUNDED 
 
 A few of the German shells struck the cathedral and set it 
 on fire. The scene was thus described by Abbe Camu, a priest 
 of Rheims : 
 
 "It was all over in an hour. There were two separate 
 fires. We put the first out with four buckets of water, all we 
 had in the place, but soon another shell struck the roof and the 
 wind drove the flames along the rafters inside of the nave. We 
 rushed up, but it was flaming all along and as we could do 
 nothing, we hurried down. 
 
 ''There were holes in the ceiling of the nave and sparks 
 began to fall through them into a great heap of straw, ten 
 feet high and twenty yards long, which the Germans had piled 
 along the north aisle. We tried to catch the sparks in our 
 hands as they fell, and such of the German wounded as were 
 able to walk helped us. But the first spark that fell on the 
 pile set it blazing. There was time to think of nothing but 
 getting out the wounded. 
 
 ' ' They screamed horribly. We carried many of those that 
 could not walk, while others dragged themselves painfully 
 along to the side door in the north aisle. Those who had 
 only hand and arm wounds helped their comrades. We got 
 ,^ut all except thirteen, whose bodies were left behind. 
 
 ' ' When at last I came out of the flaming building I found 
 the whole body of wounded huddled together around the doors. 
 
BATTLE OF THE AISNE 309 
 
 Opposite to them was a furiously hostile crowd of civilians of 
 the town and a number of soldiers with their rifles already 
 leveled. 
 
 **I sprang forward. 'What are you doing?' I cried. 
 
 ** 'They shall all burn,' shouted the soldiers in answer. 
 'They shall go back and burn with the cathedral or we will 
 shoot them here.' 
 
 " 'You are mad!' I exclaimed in reply. 'Think of what 
 this means. All the world will hear of the crime the Germans 
 have committed here, and if you shoot these men the w^orld 
 will know that France has been as criminal in her turn. Any- 
 how,' I said, 'you shall shoot me first, for I will not move.' 
 
 "Unwillingly the soldiers lowered their rifles and I turned 
 to six German officers who were among the wounded and asked 
 if they would do what I told them to. They said they would 
 and I asked them to tell their men to do the same. Then I 
 formed them up in a solid body, those who could walk unaided 
 carrying or helping those who could not. I put myself at the 
 head and we set off to the Hotel de Ville, which is only a few 
 hundred yards away. 
 
 "Well, then the crowd, mad with grief and rage, set on us. 
 I can't describe it. You have never seen anything so dreadful 
 as that scene. They beat some of the Germans and some of 
 them they got down. 
 
 ' ' ' Can 't you help me ? ' I called to a French officer I caught 
 sight of. 
 
 " 'You will never get to the Hotel de Ville like this,' he 
 replied, so I forced my wounded through the gateway of a 
 private house and we managed to close the gates after us. 
 
 ' ' They had been roughly handled, some of them, and they 
 stayed there a day and a night before we could move them 
 again. ' ' 
 
 [The damage done to the cathedral at Rheims, by the way, 
 though by no means slight, inexpressibly sad and truly re- 
 grettable, was not nearly so great as was indicated by many 
 early reports. The friends of architectural art and beauty 
 hope to see the cathedral fully restored at no distant date.] 
 "slaughtek" at soissons 
 
 Much of the fighting during the battle of the Aisne cen- 
 tered around Soissons. On September 16 a correspondent 
 described the fighting there as follows ; 
 
310 BATTLE OF THE AISNE 
 
 "For the last three hours I have been watching from the 
 hills to the south of the town that part of the terrific struggle 
 that may be known in history as the battle of Soissons. 
 
 *'It has lasted for four days, and only now can it be said 
 that victory is turning to the side of the Allies. 
 
 "The town itself cannot be entered for it still is being 
 raked both by artillery and rifle fire, and great columns of 
 smoke mark several points at which houses are burning. 
 
 "The center of the fighting lies where the British and 
 French pontoon corps are trying to keep the bridges they 
 have succeeded in thromng across the river. 
 
 ' ' Men who have come from the front line tell me that the 
 combat there has been a positive slaughter. They say that 
 the unremitting and desperate firing of these four days and 
 nights puts anything else in modern warfare into the shade, 
 that river crossings are as great an objective on one side to 
 take and keep as on the other to destroy." 
 
 SEVEN DAYS OF HELL 
 
 A wounded soldier, on being brought back to the hospital 
 at Paris, after only one week in the valley of the Aisne, said 
 in a dazed sort of way : 
 
 "Each day was like the others. It. began at 6 o'clock in 
 the morning with heavy shellfire. There was a short interval 
 at which it stopped, about 5 :30 every day. Then in the night 
 came the charges, and one night I couldn't count them. It 
 was awful — kill, kill, kill, and still they came on, shoving one 
 another over on to us. Seven days and nights of it and some 
 nights only an hour 's sleep ; it was just absolute hell ! ' ' 
 
 None of the wounded found another word to describe the 
 battle and the sight of the men bore it out. Muddied to the 
 eyes, wet, often with blood caked on them, many were suffering 
 from the curious aphasia produced by continued trouble and 
 the concussion of shells bursting. Some were dazed and 
 speechless, some deafened, and yet, strange to say, said a 
 correspondent, no face wore the terrible animal war look. 
 They seemed to have been softened, instead of hardened, by 
 their awful experience. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 FALL OF ANTWERP 
 
 Great Seaport of Belgium Besieged hy a Large German 
 Force — Forts Battered by Heavy Siege Guns — Final 
 Surrender of the City — Belgian and British Defenders 
 Escape — Exodus of Inhabitants — Germans Reach the 
 Sea. 
 
 WHEN the battle of the Marne ended in favor of the Allies 
 and the Germans retired to take up a defensive position 
 along the Aisne, the Belgian army renewed its activities 
 against the invader. With the fortified city of Antwerp as 
 their base, the Belgians began (on September 10) an active 
 campaign, having for its object the reoccupation of their cities 
 and towns which had been taken and garrisoned by German 
 troops. In some cases they were successful in regaining pos- 
 session of points which they had been forced to abandon dur- 
 ing the German advance in August, and there were many hot 
 encounters with the Germans who were left to hold open the 
 German lines of communication through Belgium. But the 
 forces of the Kaiser were too numerous and too mobile for 
 successful opposition, and soon the Belgian army, despite the 
 most gallant efforts, was compelled once more to retire behind 
 the outer forts of Antwerp and there await the coming of an 
 enemy who was approaching in force. 
 
 Great credit must be given to the Belgian army for 
 the patriotic manner in which it met the sudden invasion 
 by the Germans, and for its continued resistance against 
 tremendous odds. Inspired by the example of King Al- 
 bert and his devoted Queen, who spent most of their 
 time with the Belgian forces in the field, and shared 
 with them the vicissitudes of war, the defenders of Bel- 
 gium fought with the utmost pertinacity. The- resistance 
 
 311 
 
312 FALL 01'' ANTWERP 
 
 of the Belgians when invaded, and the success of the Allies 
 in halting the advance upon Paris and turning it into a 
 retreat at the Marne, appear to have inflamed the German 
 generals with a desire to crush Belgium completely under an 
 iron heel. An object lesson of the power and possibilities of 
 the great fighting machine must be given somewhere. Halted 
 in France by the Franco-British armies and meeting with 
 varying fortunes against the Eussian hosts in the eastern 
 campaign, Germany chose to make Belgium once more the 
 international cockpit and hurled an army against Antwerp. 
 This move, if successful (as it proved to be) would serve two 
 purposes — first, the further punishment of Belgium for her 
 unexpected resistance, and second, the striking of a direct 
 blow at Great Britain, the possession of Antwerp being 
 strategically regarded as ''a pistol leveled at the head of 
 London. ' * 
 
 THE SIEGE OF ANTWEEP 
 
 In the third week of September the Germans, having 
 massed a force believed to be sufficient for the capture of 
 Antwerp, brought up their heavy Krupp siege guns which 
 had been used successfully at Liege and Namur, and planted 
 them within their seven-mile range, so as to command the 
 outer belt of forts east and south of the city. [See map of 
 the fortifications of Antwerp on page 102.] These huge how- 
 itzers were reinforced by heavy siege guns furnished by Aus- 
 tria. The fort:iication system of Antwerp was believed by 
 its builders to be practically impregnable, but they had not 
 reckoned with the tremendous shattering power and great 
 range of the latest Krupp siege guns. For Antwerp was 
 destined to fall, her outer and inner defenses broken down, 
 within ten days from the time the siege began in earnest. 
 
 BEITISH MAEINES AID DEFENDERS 
 
 The number of German troops engaged before Antwerp 
 was variously estimated at from 80,000 to 200,000. The siege 
 proper began on Tuesday, September 29. For more than a 
 week previously there had been daily engagements in the 
 suburbs of the city and on several occasions the Belgians 
 made a sortie in force, only to encounter overwhelming num- 
 bers of the German enemy, before whom they were compelled 
 
FALL OF ANTWERP 313 
 
 to retire behind the shelter of the forts. In all these engage- 
 ments the Belgians gave a good account of themselves and 
 inflicted severe losses on the enemy. But the odds against 
 them were too great and then when the great siege guns 
 began to thunder, it was soon realized that the city was in 
 imminent danger. 
 
 King Albert did all in his power to encourage the defense 
 and by his presence among his troops on the firing lines around 
 the city added greatly to his reputation as a patriotic soldier. 
 A force of several thousand British marines, coming from 
 Ostend, aided the Belgian defense in the last days of the 
 siege, but all efforts were unavailing. One by one the forts 
 succumbed to the German fire with which the Belgian guns 
 could not cope, and German troops penetrated nearer and 
 nearer to the doomed city. 
 
 Finally, on October 9, when the inhabitants were in a state 
 of terror as a result of the long-continued bombardment of the 
 forts, and the shelling of the city, further resistance was seen 
 to be useless, the defending forces, Belgian and British, made 
 their escape to Ostend or into the neutral territory of Holland, 
 the city formally capitulated through the Burgomaster, and 
 occupation by the Germans followed immediately. The bulk 
 of the British marines made their way back to Ostend, but 
 a rearguard, consisting of 2,000 British, together with some 
 Belgians, was cut off by the advance of the Germans across 
 the Scheldt, and ra,ther than surrender to them marched 
 across the border into Holland and surrendered arms to the 
 Dutch authorities. The men were interned and will be held 
 in Holland till the end of the war. It is probable that this 
 rearguard was deliberately sacrificed to enable the Anglo- 
 Belgian army to make good its retreat. 
 
 The fate of Antwerp shows what might have happened to 
 Paris had the Germans been able to bring up their great siege 
 guns to the outer fortifications of the French capital and pro- 
 tect them while they performed their tremendous task of 
 battering the defenses to pieces. The wrecking of Antwerp's 
 outer and inner forts in ten days proves that solid, massive 
 concrete, chilled steel and well-planned earthworks afford 
 little or no security against the monstrous cannon of the Kai- 
 
314 FALL OF ANTWERP 
 
 ser's armies. There appeared to be but one way of with- 
 standing them. 
 
 As seems to have been demonstrated in the valley of the 
 Aisne, they are apparently ineffective against field forces 
 deeply intrenched in a far-flung line. 
 
 THE FIGHTING OUTSIDE ANTWEEP 
 
 Early on Tuesday morning, October 6, one of the fiercest 
 of the engagements outside Antwerp ended with the crossing 
 of the River Nethe by the Germans and their approach to the 
 inner forts. Monday had been the sixth day of the siege and 
 the Belgian army was fighting with reckless courage to save 
 Antwerp. As a precaution, the boilers of all the German 
 ships lying in the harbor were exploded on Sunday, in order 
 to prevent, if possible, use of these ships as transports for 
 German troops across the North Sea or elsewhere. The det- 
 onation of the bursting boilers, resounding through the city, 
 set the excited Sunday crowd very near to a panic. This was 
 accelerated by the constant fear of airship attacks, and most 
 of tlie population that was not already in active flight from the 
 city sought safety in cellars. 
 
 The entire war has presented no greater picture of desola- 
 tion than that of the hosts fleeing from the last Belgian 
 stronghold. For forty-eight hours before the city fell great 
 crowds of the citizens, dumb with terror as the huge German 
 shells hurtled over their heads, were fleeing toward England 
 and Holland in such numbers that the hospitality of those 
 countries was likely to be taxed to the utmost. 
 
 The suburban town of Lierre was bombarded early in the 
 week, the church was destroyed, and a number of citizens 
 killed and wounded. The next day the village of Duffel was 
 bombarded and the population fled into Antwerp. Many still 
 had confidence in the ability of the Antwerp forts to with- 
 stand the German attack. 
 
 Although the Germans succeeded in crossing the Nethe, 
 their repeated attempts to effect a passage over the Scheldt 
 were repulsed and they then concentrated their attention on 
 an approach to Antwerp from the southeast. In their trenches 
 the Belgians resisted gallantly to the last. ''Most wonder- 
 ful," said an American observer on October 7, '4s the patient, 
 
FALL OF ANTWERP 315 
 
 unfaltering courage of the average Belgian soldier, wlio has 
 been fighting for nine weeks. Tired, with hollow eyes, un- 
 kempt, unwashed and provided with hasty, though ample, 
 meals, he is spending most of the time in the trenches. 
 
 ' ' King Albert, the equal of any soldier in his devotion to 
 duty, daily exposes himself to personal danger, while the 
 Queen is devoting her time to the hospitals. ' ' 
 
 The effect of the German siege artillery was especially 
 destructive near Vosburg. Several villages suffered heavily 
 and the barracks at Contich were wrecked. The forts at 
 Waelhem and Wavre-St. Catherines were totally destroyed 
 by the terrific shell fire. 
 
 Most of the fighting around Antwerp was a battle of 
 Krupps against men. Every day and night the fighting con- 
 tinued with deadly effect against the forts, while the shrapnel 
 and shell made many of the trenches untenable. 
 
 As fast as the Belgians were compelled to withdraw from 
 a position the Germans moved up and occupied it. The Bel- 
 gians fought stubbornly with infantry and frequently they 
 repulsed the Germans, but these repulses always meant a 
 renewal of the artillery attacks by the Germans, with the 
 eventual retirement of the Belgians until the end of endurance 
 was reached and the city defenses were evacuated by their 
 brave garrison. 
 
 An instance of the tenacity with which the infantry stuck 
 to their positions was reported from the Berlaere, where the 
 commanding officer and his aid-de-camp were in one of the 
 most exposed positions. Sandbags protected them for some 
 time, but at last the aid-de-camp was struck by shrapnel and 
 had his face virtually blown away. Unperturbed by this ter- 
 rible proof of the danger of his position, the commanding- 
 officer stuck to his post, and for further shelter placed the 
 body of his junior over his body. In this position he lay 
 firing, whenever possible, from 8 o 'clock in the morning until 
 4 in the afternoon. 
 
 FIEECE FIGHT TO CKOSS NETHE 
 
 The crossing of the Eiver Nethe was attended by great loss 
 to the Germans. They hurled their infantry recklessly against 
 the Belgian trenches, and while they lost enormous numbers, 
 eventually succeeded in crossing the river. 
 
316 FALL OF ANTWERP 
 
 One of tlie unsuccessful attempts was described by an inde- 
 pendent observer as follows : 
 
 "The Germans succeeded in getting a pontoon completed 
 and they came down to the river bank in solid masses to cross 
 it. As they came every Belgian gun that could be turned on the 
 spot was concentrated on them and they were blown away, 
 blocks of them at a time, and still the masses came on, 
 
 ' ' The Belgian officers spoke with enthusiasm of the steadi- 
 ness and gallantry with which, as each German company was 
 swept away, another pushed into its place. But it was a dread- 
 ful sight, nevertheless. 
 
 "At last the bridge went, shattered and blown to bits. The 
 Belgian guns continued for a while to search the opposite river 
 bank, but the Germans fell back and no more masses of men 
 came down to where the pontoon had been. Allowing for all 
 exaggerations, there can be no doubt that the German loss must 
 have been extremely heavy. ' ' 
 
 Near Termonde, on Wednesday, the 7th, the fighting was 
 just as fierce. The Belgians had four batteries of field guns 
 there which succeeded in destroying the locks of the river (the 
 Sclieldt) , thus flooding a part of the river and blocking the Ger- 
 mans. Later they engaged in a hot duel with the German artil- 
 lery. Two of the Belgian batteries were completely destroyed 
 early in the action and all of the men serving them were killed. 
 Not until the last of the remaining guns were put out of action 
 did the Belgians withdraw. 
 
 Of the casualties in and around Antwerp during the siege 
 it is possible only to make an estimate. It was said after the 
 Germans entered the city that their total loss in killed, wounded 
 and missing was near forty-five thousand men. German officers 
 were credited before the attack with saying that they would 
 sacrifice 100,000 men, if necessary, to take Antwerp. It is prob- 
 able that the German casualties numbered at least twenty-five 
 thousand, while the Belgian losses in actual killed and wounded 
 were probably five thousand. The latter fought from en- 
 trenched positions, while the heavy German losses were sus- 
 tained in the open and at the river crossings. The casualties 
 among the British marines, who arrived only a day or two be- 
 fore the city capitulated, were comparatively insignificant. 
 
FALL OF ANTWERP 317 
 
 STORY OF AN EYEWITNESS HARROWING SCENES ATTENDING THE 
 
 FALL. OF ANTWERP AND THE EXODUS OF ITS PEOPLE 
 
 A vivid picture of the pathetic scenes attending the fall of 
 Antwerp was given by Lucien A. Jones, correspondent of the 
 London Daily Chronicle, who wrote on October 11th as follows: 
 
 * ' Antwerp has been surrendered at last. The bitterest blow 
 which has fallen upon Belgium is full of permanent tragedy, 
 but the tragedy is lightened by the gallantry with which the 
 city was defended. Only at last to save the historic buildings 
 and precious possessions of the ancient port was its further 
 defense abandoned. Already much of it had been shattered 
 by the long-range German guns, and prolonged resistance 
 against these tremendous engines of war was impossible. 
 Owing to this the siege was perhaps the shortest in the annals 
 of war that a fortified city has ever sustained. Heroic efforts 
 were made by the Belgians to stem the tide of the enemy's 
 advance, but the end could not long be delayed when the siege 
 guns began the bombardment. 
 
 *'It was at three minutes past noon on Friday, October 9th, 
 that the Germans entered the city, which was formally surren- 
 dered by Burgomaster J. De Vos. Antwerp had then been 
 under a devastating and continuous shell fire for over forty 
 hours. 
 
 * ' It was difficult to ascertain precisely how the German at- 
 tack was planned, but the final assault consisted of a continuous 
 bombardment of two hours ' duration, from half past 7 o 'clock 
 in the morning to half -past 9. During that time there was a 
 continuous rain of shells, and it was extraordinary to notice 
 the precision with which they dropped where they would do 
 the most damage. The Germans used captive balloons, whose 
 officers signaled the points in the Belgian defense at which they 
 should aim. 
 
 GERMAN GUNS CONCEALED 
 
 *'The German guns, too, were concealed with such clever- 
 ness that their position could not be detected by the Belgians. 
 Against such methods and against the terrible power of the 
 German guns the Belgian artillery seemed quite ineffective. 
 Firing came to an end at 9.30 on Friday, and the garrison es- 
 caped, leaving only ruins behind them. In order to gain time 
 for an orderly retreat a heavy fire was maintained against the 
 
318 FALL OF ANTWERP 
 
 Grermans up to the last mmute and the forts were then blown 
 up by the defenders as the Germans came in at the gate of 
 Malines. 
 
 ' ' I was lucky enough to escape by the river to the north in 
 a motorboat. The bombardment had then ceased, though many 
 buildings were still blazing, and while the little boat sped down 
 the Scheldt one could imagine the procession of the Kaiser's 
 troops already goose-stepping their way through the well-nigh 
 deserted streets. 
 
 MANY HAEROWING SCENES 
 
 ' ' Those forty hours of shattering noise almost without lull 
 seem to me now a fantastic nightmare, but the sorrowful sights 
 I witnessed in many parts of the city cannot be forgotten. _ 
 
 ' ' It was Wednesday night that the shells began to fall into 
 the city. From then onward they must have averaged about 
 ten a minute, and most of them came from the largest guns 
 which the Germans possess, 'Black Marias,' as Tommy Atkins 
 has christened them. Before the bombardment had been long 
 in operation the civil population, or a large proportion of it, 
 fell into a panic. 
 
 "It is impossible to blame these peaceful, quiet-living 
 burghers of Antwerp for the fears that possessed them when a 
 merciless rain of German shells began to fall into the streets 
 and on the roofs of their houses and public buildings. The 
 Burgomaster had in his proclamation given them excellent ad- 
 vice, to remain calm for instance, and he certainly set them an 
 admirable example, but it was impossible to counsel perfection 
 to the Belgians, who knew what had happened to their fellow- 
 citizens in other towns which the Germans had passed through. 
 
 FOUGHT TO GET ON THE BOATS 
 
 "Immense crowds of them — ^men, women and children — 
 gathered along the quayside and at the railway stations in an 
 effort to make a hasty exit from the city. Their condition was 
 pitiable in the extreme. Family parties made up the biggest 
 proportion of this vast crowd of broken men and women. There 
 were husbands and wives with their groups of scared children, 
 unable to understand what was happening, yet dimly con- 
 scious in their childish way that something unusual and ter- 
 rible and perilous had come into their lives. 
 
FALL OF ANTWERP 319 
 
 ''There were fully 40,000 of theni assembled on the long 
 quay, and all of them were inspired by the sure and certain 
 hope that they would be among the lucky ones who would get 
 on board one of the few steamers and the fifteen or twenty tug- 
 boats available. As there was no one to arrange their sys- 
 tematic embarkation a wild struggle followed amongst the 
 frantic people, to secure a place. Men, women and children 
 fought desperately with each other to get on board, and in that 
 moment of supreme anguish human nature was seen in one of 
 its worst moods; but who can blame these stricken people? 
 
 APPALLED BY THE HORROR OP WAR 
 
 ''They were fleeing from Hes harbares/ and shells that 
 were destroying their homes and giving their beloved town to 
 the flames were screaming over their heads. Their trade was 
 not war. They were merchants, shopkeepers, comfortable 
 citizens of middle age or more ; there were many women and 
 children among them, and this horror had come upon them in 
 a more appalling shape than any in which horror had visited 
 a civilized conununity in modern times. 
 
 "There was a scarcity of gangways to the boats, and the 
 only means of boarding them was by narrow planks sloping at 
 dangerous angles. Up these the fugitives struggled, and the 
 strong elbowed the weak out of their way in a mad haste to 
 escape. 
 
 " By 2 'clock Thursday most of the tugboats had got away, 
 but there were still some 15,000 people who had not been able 
 to escape and had to await whatever fate was in store for them. 
 
 A GREAT EXODUS OF INHABITANTS 
 
 "At the central railway station incidents of a similar kind 
 were happening. There, as down by the river, immense 
 throngs of people had assembled, and they were filled with 
 dismay at the announcement that no trains were running. In 
 their despair they prepared to leave the city on foot by cross- 
 ing the pontoon bridge and marching towards the Dutch fron- 
 tier. I should say the exodus of refugees from the city must 
 have totaled 200,000 men, women and children of all ages, or 
 very nearly that vast number, out of a population which in 
 normal times is 321,800. 
 
320 FALL OF ANTWERP 
 
 **I now return to the events of Thursday, October 8th. At 
 12.30 in the afternoon, when the bombardment had already- 
 lasted over twelve hours, through the courtesy of a Belgian 
 officer I was able to ascend to the roof of the cathedral, and 
 from that point of vantage I looked down upon the scene in 
 the city. 
 
 ''All the southern portion of Antwerp appeared to be deso- 
 late ruin. Whole streets were ablaze, and the flames were 
 rising to a height of twenty and thirty feet. 
 
 ''From my elevated position I had an excellent view also 
 of the great oil tanks on the opposite side of the Scheldt. They 
 had been set on fire by four bombs from a German Taube aero- 
 plane, and a huge thick volume of black smoke was ascending 
 two hundred feet into the air. It was like a bit of Gustave 
 Dore 's idea of the infernal regions. 
 
 CITY ALMOST DESERTED 
 
 ' ' The city by this time was almost deserted, and no attempt 
 was made to extinguish the fires that had broken out all over 
 the southern district. Indeed there were no means of dealing 
 with them. For ten days the water supply from the reservoir 
 ten miles outside the city had been cut off, and this was the 
 city's main source of supply. The reservoir was just behind 
 Fort Waelthen, and a German shell had struck it, doing great 
 mischief. It left Antwerp without any regular inflow of water 
 and the inhabitants had to do their best with the artesian wells. 
 Great efforts were made by the Belgians from time to time to 
 repair the reservoir, but it was always thwarted by the Ger- 
 man shell fire. 
 
 KILLED BEFORE HIS WIFE's EYES 
 
 "After leaving the cathedral, I made my way to the south- 
 em section of the city, where shells were bursting at the rate 
 of five a minute. With great difficulty, and not without risk, 
 I got as far as Kue Lamoiere. There I met a terror-stricken 
 Belgian woman, the only other person in the streets besides 
 myself. In hysterical gasps she told me that the Bank 
 Nationale and Palais de Justice had been struck and were in 
 flames, and that her husband had been killed just five minutes 
 before I came upon the scene. His mangled remains were 
 
FALL OF ANTWERP 321 
 
 lying not one hundred yards away from where we were 
 standing. 
 
 ' * Except for the lurid glare of burning buildings, which lit 
 up the streets, the city was in absolute darkness, and near the 
 quay I lost my way trying to get to the Hotel Wagner. For 
 the second time that day I narrowly escaped death by shell. 
 One burst with terrific force about twenty-five yards from me. 
 I heard its warning whirr and rushed into a neighboring porch. 
 Whether it was from the concussion of the shell or in my 
 anxiety to escape I caromed against the door and tumbled 
 down, and as I lay on the ground a house on the opposite side 
 crashed in ruins. I remained still for several minutes, feeling 
 quite sick and unable to get up. Then I pulled myself together 
 and ran at full speed until I came to a street which I recognized. 
 
 TAKE REFUGE IN CELLARS 
 
 "How many of the inhabitants of Antwerp remained in 
 the city that night it is impossible to say, but they were all in 
 the cellars of their houses or shops. The Burgomaster, M. De 
 Vos, had in one of his several proclamations made many sug- 
 gestions for safety during the bombardment, for the benefit 
 of those who took refuge in cellars. Among the most useful 
 of them, perhaps, was that which recommended means of 
 escape to an adjoining cellar. The power of modern artil- 
 lery is so tremendous that a cellar might very well become a 
 tomb if a shell fell on the building overhead. 
 
 "Sleep was impossible that night, in the noise caused by 
 the explosion of shells in twenty different quarters of the 
 town. About 6 o'clock I was told that it was time we got 
 out, as the Germans were entering the city. We hurried from 
 the hotel and found the streets completely deserted. I walked 
 down to the quay-side, and there I came across many wounded 
 soldiers, who had been unable to get away in the hospital 
 boat. 
 
 ' ' On the quay piles of equipment had been abandoned. A 
 broken-down motor-car, kit-bags, helmets, rifles and knap- 
 sacks were littered in heaps. Ammunition had been dumped 
 there and rendered useless. The Belgians had evidently at- 
 tempted to set fire to the whole lot. The pile of stuff was still 
 smoldering. I waited there for half an hour, and during that 
 
322 FALL OF ANTWERP 
 
 time hundreds of Belgian soldiers passed in the retreat. Just 
 about this time a pontoon bridge which had been the means 
 of the Belgian retreat was blown up to prevent pursuit by 
 the Germans. 
 
 **At 8 o'clock a shell struck the Town Hall, and about 8 :15 
 another shell shattered the upper story and broke every win- 
 dow in the place. 
 
 BURGOMASTER PARLEYS WITH GERMANS 
 
 ' ' That was the German way of telling the Burgomaster 
 to hurry up. A quarter of an hour later M. De Vos went out 
 in his motor-car toward the German line to discuss the con- 
 ditions on which the city should be surrendered. 
 
 ''At 9:30 o'clock the bombardment of the city suddenly 
 ceased, and we understood that the Burgomaster had by this 
 time reached the German headquarters. Still we w^aited, pain- 
 fully anxious to learn what would be the ultimate fate of Ant- 
 werp. Belgian soldiers hurried by and at 10:30 proclama- 
 tions were posted on the walls of the Town Hall urging all in 
 the city to surrender any arms in their possession and begging 
 all to remain calm in the event of the Germans' occupation. 
 A list was also posted of several prominent citizens who were 
 appointed to look after the interests of those Belgians who 
 remained. 
 
 ' ' The ' impregnable ' city of Antwerp had fallen, but with- 
 out dishonor to its gallant defenders. ' ' 
 
 GERMAN MILITA;cIY GOVERNOR OF ANTWERP APPOINTED GERMAN 
 
 OFFICIAL REPORTS 
 
 On October 10 Baron von der Schutz was appointed mili- 
 tary governor of Antwerp. It was expected that the city 
 would become the base for Zeppelin attacks upon England 
 and also for a German naval campaign in which mines and 
 submarines would play an important part. This was inti- 
 mated in dispatches from Berlin following the German occu- 
 pation of the city. 
 
 The German General Staff, in announcing the capture, 
 added that they could not estimate the number of prisoners 
 taken. ''We took enormous quantities of supplies of all 
 kinds,'* said the official statement. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 THE WOUNDED AND PRISONERS 
 
 Typical Precautions Used by the German Army — The 
 Soldiers' First-Aid Outfit — System in Hospital Ar- 
 rangements — How Prisoners of War Are Treated — 
 Regulations Are Humane and Fair to All Concerned. 
 
 MODERN armies take the best possible care of their 
 wounded and none has brought this department of war- 
 fare to greater perfection than the Germany army. One 
 detail of this work shows the German army at its best. 
 
 Every soldier has sewn under a corner of his coat a strip 
 of rubber cloth. Under this strip is a piece of antiseptic gauze, 
 a strip of bandage and plaster and cloth for the outer bandage. 
 This cloth bears in simple pictures directions for dressing 
 every sort of wound. 
 
 When a soldier is wounded either he or some comrade rips 
 open this package and applies at once the life saving dressing, 
 which will last at any rate until the soldier is brought to a 
 station, where the first scientific attention is given. 
 
 Through this simple and inexpensive device thousands 
 upon thousands of German soldiers, who have been slightly 
 wounded in battle, have returned to their comrades within a 
 few days completely well and have taken their places in the 
 ranks once more. Without this care a large percentage of the 
 wounds would become inflamed, as has been the case with 
 hundreds of wounded French prisoners captured by the Ger- 
 mans. 
 
 The ordinary procedure of caring for the wouaded in the 
 German army is for the sanitary corps, which is well provided 
 with stretchers and bandages, to gather up the wounded on or 
 
 323 
 
324 THE WOUNDED AND PRISONERS 
 
 near the firing lines and bring them to a gathering point a 
 little way behind the lines. 
 
 Here the army surgeons are ready to begin work at once 
 upon the most urgent cases. They are assisted by members of 
 the corps, who remove the temporary bandages, and put on 
 dressings which will last until the soldier reaches a hospital. 
 Then from this first gathering point the wounded soldiers are 
 put on stretchers in Red Cross wagons and carried to the field 
 hospitals a few miles farther back, where doctors and nurses 
 are at work. 
 
 HOSPITALS IN VILLAGE CHURCHES 
 
 These hospitals are usually established in village churches 
 or town halls. One room is cleared and arranged for an operat- 
 ing room, where bullets and pieces of shell are removed and 
 amputations are made if necessary. 
 
 ''I have just visited such a field hospital," said a corre- 
 spondent with the right wing of the German army in France, 
 writing on September 28. ''It was in a little whitewashed 
 village church heated by a stove. Everywhere were white 
 beds made of straw and covered with sheets. Perhaps twenty 
 wounded were here, including two captured Irishmen. They 
 lay quite still when the army doctor ushered us in, for they 
 were too seriously wounded to pay much attention to any- 
 thing. 
 
 "Near this hospital was another in a town hall. While we 
 were there a consulting surgeon arrived to investigate the 
 condition of a seriously wounded lieutenant, whose leg might 
 need amputation. Two orderlies put the patient on a stretcher, 
 and he was taken into the next room for examination. Later 
 in the day the amputation was performed. 
 
 MOVED TO HOSPITALS IN CITIES 
 
 ''From these little field hospitals, as soon as the men can 
 be moved, they are taken to some general hospital in the near- 
 est large city, where several thousands can be cared for. Such 
 a hospital exists in this neighborhood in the building of a nor- 
 mal college, where every corner is used in housing wounded 
 men. 
 
 ' ' I made a quick trip through this building and the memory 
 of it is one of the most heartrending pictures I have of the war. 
 
THE WOUNDED AND PRISONERS 325 
 
 Room after room was filled with the victims of the conflict. 
 Every man was seriously wounded. Some had suffered ampu- 
 tations and the heads of others were so bandaged that no fea- 
 ture could be seen, only a tube to the nose permitting breathing. 
 
 HORROR IN HOSPITAL SIGHTS 
 
 *'In one room a surgeon had a soldier on the operating 
 table and was pulling pieces of shell from a huge hole in the 
 inner side of one of his legs. On a stretcher on the floor, wait- 
 ing for his turn to come under the surgeon's care, was an 
 ofiicer. His face was covered with blood, he was waving his 
 arms wildly and gasping for air. This scene left an impression 
 of the utmost horror upon me. 
 
 ''Slightly wounded soldiers, whom it is not necessary to 
 leave for a while in the field hospitals, are sent directly to 
 these larger hospitals and thence, after a short convalescence, 
 are loaded into Red Cross trains and sent home for recovery. 
 Later they return to take their places in the regiments. Such 
 trains can be seen daily along any main line of railroad. In 
 some cases freight cars with straw bedding are used. 
 
 ' ' One of the finest examples of charity given during the war 
 is a splendid Red Cross train entirely equipped as a modern 
 hospital, even having a first class operating room. This was 
 given to the German army by the citizens of Wilmersdorff, who 
 also employed an excellent surgeon. Scores of lives will be 
 saved through a small outlay of money. 
 
 GRAVEYARDS ON BATTLEFIELDS 
 
 ' ' Near the large hospital I visited was a graveyard where 
 there were scores of neatly marked fresh graves, each bearing 
 a cross or tablet with the name of the soldier and his regiment, 
 division and corps marked on it. In some cases comrades had 
 added a word or two of scripture. The deaths are too numer- 
 ous for an imposing ceremony at each burial, but for every one 
 an army chaplain reads scripture and offers a short prayer, 
 while a few comrades stand by with bared heads. 
 
 ' ' The identity of each soldier is easily determined from the 
 name plate which he wears in a little leather purse suspended 
 from around the neck. After a battle these plates are gath- 
 ered from the dead and from these the death lists are made 
 
326 THE WOUNDED AND PRISONERS 
 
 out. [It was said that after the battle of the Marne no fewer 
 than 68,000 of these name plates or tags were found collected 
 in one place.^-Ed.] 
 
 ''After a battle where the deaths mount into the thousands 
 some field will be shut off for a cemetery and there the bodies 
 are buried, each grave receiving some kind of a cross wherever 
 it is possible, but here no names can be attached. There will 
 be many homes in which there will be vacant places and where 
 it will not even be known where the absent ones are buried. 
 
 KAISER INSISTS ON ENTERING 
 
 ''While here I heard a touching story about a lieutenant 
 who was dying in the hospital, while the Kaiser was inspect- 
 ing it. The Kaiser came to the room where the officer lay and 
 the attendants asked him not to enter, as a man was dying. 
 The Kaiser immediately pushed his way in, went up to the lieu- 
 tenant, put his hand on the officer's shoulder, and said in 
 German: 'Hello, here I am!' 
 
 "The lieutenant began murmuring with his eyes closed. 
 
 " 'I have been dreaming and I dreamed that my Kaiser 
 came to me, put his hand on my shoulder and spoke to me. ' 
 
 ' ' ' Open your eyes, ' said the Kaiser. 
 
 "The lieutenant obeyed, smiled a smile of recognition, and 
 then closed his eyes in the final sleep. 
 
 SURGEONS WIN IRON CROSSES 
 
 "So far, according to official announcement, there have 
 been between 50,000 and 60,000 wounded and immediately after 
 a great battle the sanitary corps has been unable to cope 
 quickly enough with the work, but under ordinary circum- 
 stances the provision made has been ample. The number of 
 the sanitary corps was determined upon the experience in the 
 Eusso-Japanese war, in which the losses were by no means so 
 heavy as they have been in this war, but where in a few cases 
 numbers have been lacking the surgeons and their assistants 
 have put forth herculean efforts. Many surgeons are now 
 wearing the iron cross for bravery, winning the insignia by 
 dragging out wounded from the rain of bullets. 
 
THE WOUNDED AND PRISONERS 327 
 
 TREATMENT OF PRISONEES OF WAR 
 
 The prisoner of war has been a conspicuous figure in the 
 news that has come from the seething caldron of Europe. 
 Many thousands of prisoners have been taken from the con- 
 tending armies by their adversaries. For them the average 
 American reader, perusing 'Svar news" in the comfort of his 
 security from the great conflict, has felt perhaps a grain of 
 sorrow and wondered vaguely what horrors befell them after 
 capture. 
 
 Early in September the German war department sent 
 broadcast a statement that 30,000 Eussians had been taken 
 prisoners by the German soldiers after heavy battles in East 
 Prussia, particularly around Ortelsburg, Hohenstein and Tan- 
 nenburg. The statement mentioned the fact that among the 
 prisoners were many Russian officers of high rank. 
 
 What is done with these prisoners, how they are handled 
 and treated and whether high ofi&cials are punished more 
 severely than mere privates, are questions frequently asked 
 and seldom answered, for the procedure followed in such mat- 
 ters is but little known. 
 
 REGULATIONS ARE HUMANE TO ALL 
 
 The international laws of warfare, embodied in The Hague 
 conventions, the Geneva convention and the declaration of 
 London, contain provisions that provide expressly what nian- 
 ner of treatment shall be accorded prisoners of hostile nations 
 who are taken in battle. If these provisions of international 
 law are lived up to, the lot of the prisoner of war is not so hard 
 as many people have been led to believe. 
 
 After the first year of the war, however, stories of ill- 
 treatment of prisoners in German prison camps began to be 
 told, and before long there were many well-authenticated 
 cases of the kind. Inhuman treatment was reported by Eng- 
 lish and Canadian prisoners, and protests were duly made by 
 the British government through neutral channels. The grow- 
 ing shortage of food in Germany was alleged as the cause of 
 some of the complaints, but cases of actual brutality, involv- 
 ing cowardly physical abuse and even killing were also re- 
 ported. The nation which captures its enemy's soldiers 
 and makes prisoners of them is held entirely responsible 
 
328 THE WOUNDED AND PRISONERS 
 
 for whatever happens and shoulders at once a responsibility 
 that is commensurate with the number of prisoners who are 
 taken and detained. 
 
 The law of warfare says that a prisoner must be as fair 
 with his captors as they are with him. He must be "humanely 
 treated," so it is prescribed, and when he is questioned by his 
 captors he must give his true name arid the rank he holds in 
 the army which has been defeated and of which he was once a 
 part. Contrary to general belief, he is not stripped of ' ' every- 
 thing" and thrown into a dungeon and fed on a crust of bread 
 and a mug of stale water. His captors do not deprive him of 
 his personal possessions, except weapons, horses and military 
 papers. 
 
 Furthermore, they must give him complete religious lib- 
 erty, and it is specifically decreed that he must be given oppor- 
 tunity to attend a church of the denomination to which he 
 belongs. And there he may pray as much for the success of 
 his own nation or the much-desired relief from detention as 
 the state of his mind dictates. 
 
 PRISONEKS MAY BE CONFINED 
 
 The prisoner of war may be interned in a town or a fort, or 
 even a camp, according to the convenience of his captors, but 
 the enemy may not confine him, except, the law says, as *'an 
 indispensable measure of safety," and then only as long as 
 the circumstances make it necessary. Of course the law gives 
 the commanding officer considerable leeway in such matters, 
 for he is left to determine when the *' indispensable" occasion 
 arises. 
 
 At other times when the prisoner is at liberty, he is subject 
 to all the rules and regulations of the army of the government 
 that captured him, and if he refuses to obey the rules or acts 
 in an insubordinate manner toward the officers in command, 
 he may be punished and disciplined according to his offense. 
 And here it is again left to the discretion of his captors as to 
 what measure of punishment shall be inflicted upon him. 
 
 ATTEMPTS AT ESCAPE 
 
 If a prisoner of war attempts to escape and his captors are 
 vigilant to the extent of retaking hun before he leaves the ter- 
 ritory they occupy, or before he has a chance to rejoin his own 
 
THE WOUNDED AND PRISONERS 329 
 
 army, he may be severely punished. On the other hand, if he 
 eludes his captors and makes a clean getaway and his army 
 is again unfortunate, and he is captured the second time, the 
 perfectly good escape from previous captivity must go unpun- 
 ished and he must be treated as a prisoner of war, just as 
 though he had not made the successful dash for liberty and 
 further glory. 
 
 The government that holds prisoners of war is chargeable 
 with their maintenance and must provide them with food, cloth- 
 ing and shelter as good as that provided for its own troops. 
 The officers of the captors are required to keep records of all 
 the prisoners under their charge, and if relief societies, which 
 have been extensively formed by the women of Europe and 
 many American women as well, wish to minister to their needs 
 and comforts, the officers in command must afford them every 
 possible facility. And if the friends of prisoners or the wel- 
 fare societies see fit to send them presents and clothing, medi- 
 cine and other necessities, such goods must be admitted to them 
 free of any war duty that might be imposed by the nation 
 holding them, and the railroads owned by the government are 
 bound to carry such supplies free of transportation charges. 
 
 CAPTIVES MUST BE PAID FOR WOKK 
 
 Prisoners of war may be put to work by the government 
 that captures them and the duties must be assigned with a view 
 to their aptitude,^ fitness and rank. The tasks must not be 
 unduly severe, so as to border on cruelty, and they must have 
 no bearing whatever on the operations of the war. The prison- 
 ers must be paid for the work they do, moreover, at a rate equal 
 to that being paid to the soldiers of the national army, and 
 prisoners may be authorized to work for the public service, 
 for private persons or on their own account. 
 
 The wages of these prisoners, the law says, must go toward 
 improving their condition, and the balance must be paid them 
 after their release, with the proper deduction for their board 
 and keep. "When officers of hostile armies who are captured 
 are put to work they must get the same wage rate as is paid to 
 the corresponding officers of the government whose captives 
 they are. All these moneys must be ultimately refunded by 
 their own governments to their captors after the war is over, 
 
330 THE WOUNDED AND PRISONERS 
 
 peace is declared and the intricate problems of indemnities 
 come up for solution. 
 
 A prisoner of war may even be paroled by his captors, and 
 this is done sometimes when he is disabled or there are circum- 
 stances that prompt his enemies to let him go to those who are 
 near and dear to him. When parole is granted to a prisoner 
 he makes a solemn pledge and promise that he will live up. to 
 the terms under which he is released, and even his own nation 
 may not ask him to perform a service that is inconsistent with 
 that pledge. 
 
 BREAKER OF A PAROLE 
 
 It goes hard with the prisoner on parole who is caught 
 fighting against the nation that released him, for he is not 
 entitled to be treated as a prisoner of war, and the judgment 
 meted out to him is as terrible as it is sure. Certain codes of 
 honor are supposed to be observed even in international war- 
 fare, and a soldier who breaks his word of honor is considered 
 the most despicable of men. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 HORRORS OF THE WAR 
 
 American Relief for War-Stricken Peoples of Europe — Mil- 
 lions of Dollars Contributed in Cash and Gifts — Canada 
 Aids the Belgians — Devastation of Poland Even Greater 
 and More Terrible than that of Belgium. 
 
 OON after the world became aware of the fact that the 
 German army's progress through Belgium on its dash to 
 Paris in August of 1914 had resulted in the absolute dev- 
 astation of the little buffer state, an enterprising and sympa- 
 thetic American citizen, Mr. James Keeley, editor of the 
 Chicago Herald, penned a remarkable open letter * ' to the Chil- 
 dren of America," in which he suggested the sending of a 
 ' ' Christmas ship ' ' to Europe, filled with gifts of a useful char- 
 acter for the little ones of all the belligerent nations. The 
 response was immediate and most truly generous. Newspa- 
 pers and civic organizations all over the United States joined 
 in gathering from young and old the contributions that 
 freighted a United States warship with a cargo of gifts worth 
 over two million dollars, and at Yuletide these gifts were sys- 
 tematically distributed among the innocent victims of the 
 war in all the countries concerned. 
 
 The idea of the Christmas ship was nobly conceived and 
 splendidly executed. Rulers of the belligerent nations recog- 
 nized the beauty of the idea and paused awhile in their martial 
 activities to welcome and thank the American commissioner 
 who enacted the role of an international Santa Claus. But 
 the slaughter on the fighting lines of eastern and western 
 Europe went on unabated and the peaceful symbolism of the 
 Christmas ship was soon forgotten in the daily recurrence of 
 battle and bloodshed. 
 
 331 
 
332 HORRORS OF THE WAR 
 
 AWFUL CONDITIONS IN POLAND 
 
 While the frightful state of Belgium cominanded the sym- 
 pathy of the civilized world in the winter of 1914-15, the condi- 
 tions in Poland were even worse. At the end of March the 
 great Polish pianist, Ignace Paderewski, paid a visit to London 
 on behalf of the suffering Poles and his efforts resulted in the 
 formation of an influential relief committee. Among the 
 members were such men as Premier Asquith, ex-Premier Bal- 
 four, Chancellor of the Exchequer Lloyd-George, Cardinal 
 Bourne, archbishop of Westminster; Admiral Lord Charles 
 Beresford and the Eussian and French ambassadors. An 
 American woman, Lady Eandolph Churchill, also took an 
 active part in the work of the committee, which soon succeeded 
 in raising a large sum for the relief of the most urgent distress 
 in Poland. While in London on his mission of mercy, Mr. 
 Paderewski said : 
 
 ^ ' Is it the death agony or only the birth pangs 1 That is the 
 question which every Pole throughout the world is asking him- 
 self as tragedy follows tragedy in the long martyrdom of our 
 beloved nation. You have only heard the details of Belgium, 
 but I tell you they are as nothing with what has happened in 
 Poland. 
 
 '^The scene of operations in Poland is seven times larger 
 than that of Belgium, and she has had to endure seven times 
 the torture. Remember, the battle of Europe is being fought 
 in the east, not in the west, and while the tide of battle has 
 reached a sort of ebb along the trenches about the frontiers of 
 Alsace and Flanders, the great waves roll backward and for- 
 ward from Germany to Russia and break always on Poland. 
 
 "Our country, in fact, is just as Belgium was called — the 
 cockpit of Europe, and it may now be called the battlefield of 
 the world, if not of civilization. 
 
 " It is only perhaps we Poles who have known to its utmost 
 depths what this war has really meant. It is not only that 
 there are 10,000,000 human beings on the verge of starvation, 
 nay, actually perishing ; there is worse than that. 
 
 ' ' Remember that both Belgium and Poland are still under 
 the yoke. The Russians, it is true, occupy some fifteen thou- 
 sand miles of our country, but this is really nothing, for the 
 
HORRORS OF THE WAR 333 
 
 Germans occupy five-sixths of it, and tlie desolation passes all 
 comprehension. 
 
 CALLS IT COMPULSORY SUICIDE 
 
 '*As to actual battles, I can hardly speak of them. It is 
 torture even to think of them. Only consider ! Our one nation 
 is divided as it were into three sections, which were thrust each 
 against the others to work out their destruction. It is parri- 
 cide ! It is fratricide, nay suicide ! Compulsory suicide ! That 
 is what it is ! 
 
 ''Listen to what it means to us all. I w^as told by a man 
 from Austria that an army doctor, a Pole by birth, who was 
 deputed to go over the Austrian battlefields and verify identi- 
 fication marks on the bodies, found among the 14,000 dead 
 hardly any but Polish names. He looked in vain for any others, 
 and in the end went mad with horror at the thought of it. An- 
 other story that came to me the other day told of another case 
 of the tragedy of Poland which is almost too terrible for the 
 human mind to contain. The incident took place during a 
 charge. Both armies had been ordered to attack, and the Poles, 
 as usual, were in the front lines. As they met in the shock 
 they recognized each other. 
 
 ' ' One poor fellow, as he was struck through by a bayonet, 
 cried out in his death agony, ' Jesu Maria ! I have five children ! 
 Jesu' Maria ! ' The words went as straight to the brain of liis 
 conqueror as a dagger to the heart, and killed his reason. Some- 
 where among the madhouses of Europe there is a lunatic. He 
 is not violent, but he never laughs. He only wanders about 
 with the words of his dying victim, 'Ah, Jesu Maria ! I have 
 five children. Jesu Maria ! ' 
 
 "The promise of Grand Duke Nicholas that Poland shall 
 be a nation once again went straight to the very heart of every 
 one of our 25,000,000 fellow countrymen. That one promise 
 has been sufficient to change the whole mentality of the nation 
 and fill their souls with new hope. It has cleared up any doubt 
 that might have existed in the minds of the Poles in Austria and 
 Prussia as to what it is that the allies are fighting for — namely : 
 the principles of nationality for which we have suffered, ah ! 
 how many centuries ! ' ' 
 
334 HORRORS OF THE WAR 
 
 MILLIONS OF POLES DESTITUTE 
 
 The ruin wrought by war in Belgium affected 7,000,000 
 people. In Poland more than twice that number have been 
 rendered destitute. Not less than 15,000 villages have been 
 laid waste, burned, or damaged in Russian Poland alone. The 
 loss in property has been estimated at $500,000,000, but may 
 reach double that sum. 
 
 In Galicia the conditions are reported to be equally ap- 
 palling, though the smashup has not been as complete, because 
 the Russians have been able to maintain their positions more 
 permanently than they have in the district west and northeast 
 of the Polish capital. 
 
 The greater part of Poland lying in a broad sweep of coun- 
 try west, southwest and northeast of Warsaw has been swept 
 over and battered to pieces by shot and shell like the strip of 
 Flanders on both sides of the Yser river. 
 
 Without any direct interest in the present great conflict, 
 the unhappy Poles found themselves impressed into the armies 
 of these three gTeat powers and fighting against their own 
 racial brethren. That meant that brother was to fight against 
 brother, and as the stress of the war increased and the age limit 
 was raised to 38 years and even higher, nearly every able- 
 bodied Pole was impressed into service. 
 
 Almost the first move of the Russians at the outbreak of 
 hostilities was to invade Galicia. This brought with it instantly 
 all the most frightful horrors of war. Embracing as it does 
 a large part of the grain-growing district of the Polish peoples, 
 the devastation of Galicia meant suffering for not only that 
 province, but for Russian Poland as well. The crops had only 
 been partially harvested by August, when the war began.- 
 
 The panic of war stopped the work in the fields, even where 
 the peasants were not compelled to flee before the invader. 
 The men were called to the colors and the crops were allowed 
 to rot in the fields. Numerous towns were sacked. 
 
 The advance to Lemberg by the Russians was swift. In the 
 panic that followed this great city of 200,000 had scarcely 70,000 
 left when the invaders took possession. Families were broken 
 up ; none of the refugees had time to take supplies or clothes. 
 
 Germany's first move against Russia came from the great 
 
HORRORS OF THE WAR 335 
 
 fortresses along the Oder and Vistula. All of western Poland 
 was overrun. When the Russian advance from Warsaw drove 
 back the invaders, the scars of the conflict left this section of 
 Poland badly battered. Then came Von Hindenburg's vic- 
 torious armies, and again this section was torn by shot and 
 shell and wasted. While some of the larger places, such as 
 Lodz, Plock, Lowicz, Tchenstochow and Petrokov, were spared, 
 the smaller towns, villages, and hamlets in the direct line of 
 battle suffered equally from the defenders and invaders. 
 
 All the section to the northeast of Warsaw between the 
 East Prussian frontier and the Bug, Narew, and Niemen 
 rivers has suffered even a worse fate, as the bitterness en- 
 gendered by the devastation worked by the Russians in East 
 Prussia led to reprisals that not even the strict discipline of 
 the German army could curb. Not only were the peasants' 
 homes pounded to bits by the opposing artillery fire, but the 
 armies as they fought back and forth took all the cattle, horses, 
 and stock that came to their hands. Disease added to the 
 suffering of the stricken people. 
 
 THOUSANDS OF VILLAGES DESTROYED 
 
 Henry SienMewicz, the great Polish writer and author of 
 ''Quo Vadis," a refugee in Switzerland, said, on March 15, 
 1915: 
 
 ''In the kingdom of Poland alone there are 15,000 \dllages 
 burned or damaged; a thousand churches and chapels de- 
 stroyed. The homeless villagers have sought shelter in the 
 forests, where it is no exaggeration to say that women and 
 children are dying from cold and hunger by thousands daily. 
 
 "Poland comprises 127,500 square kilometers. One hun- 
 dred thousand of these have been devastated by the battling 
 armies. More than a million horses and two million head of 
 homed cattle have been seized by the invaders, and in the 
 whole of the 100,000 square kilometers in the possession of the 
 soldiers not a grain of corn, not a scrap of meat, nor a drop of 
 milk remain for the civil population. 
 
336 HORRORS OF THE WAR 
 
 ''The material losses up to the present are estimated at 
 1,000,000,000 rubles ($500,000,000). No fewer than 400,000 
 workmen have lost their means of livelihood. 
 
 "The state of things in Galicia is just as dreadful for the 
 civil population — innocent victims of the war. Of 75,000 square 
 kilometers all except 5,000 square kilometers* around Cracow 
 are in possession of the Russians. They commandeered 900,- 
 000 horses and about 200,000 head of horned cattle and seized 
 all the grain, part of the salt fields, and the oil wells. 
 
 ' ' The once rich province is a desert. Over a million inhab- 
 itants have sought refuge in other parts of Austria, and they 
 are in sheer destitution.'* 
 
 Truly/ 'War is hell!" 
 
 RELIEF FOR BELGIAN SUFFERERS 
 
 Following the invasion and over-running of Belgium by 
 the Germans, the problem of feeding the Belgian population 
 became an urgent one. The invaders left the problem largely 
 to the charitable sympathies of the civilized world, and from 
 almost every quarter of the globe aid was sent in money or 
 provisions for the stricken people. In spite of the enormous 
 war drains upon the resources of the British Empire, every 
 one of the Overseas Dominions did its full share in Belgian 
 relief, while the United States, through the Rockefeller Foun- 
 dation and other agencies, as well as the South American 
 countries, also contributed to alleviate the suffering in the 
 little kingdom. The contributions continued during more than 
 two years and the relief was administered most efficiently 
 by means of commissions. 
 
 RELIEF ASKED FOR SERBIA 
 
 On April 3, 1915, the leading United States newspapers 
 printed an appeal received from Nish, the war capital of Ser- 
 bia, which set forth a terrible situation in terms that con- 
 firmed a report already made public by Sir Thomas Lipton, 
 who dedicated his famous steam yacht, the Erin, as a hos- 
 pital ship for use in the Mediterranean, and visited Serbia 
 in February and March. The appeal was dated February 23 
 and said in substance as follows : 
 
 ' ' Typhus is raging in Serbia, and unless immediate aid be 
 sent the mortality will be appalling. 
 
HORRORS OF THE WAR 337 
 
 ** Typhus is a filth disease and is spread by lice, which 
 flourish only in dirt. There are not enough buildings to house 
 the sick and they lie huddled together on dirty straw. 
 
 ' * They have not changed their clothes for six months, and 
 consequently personal cleanliness, which is absolutely essen- 
 tial in checking the disease, is impossible. They cannot get 
 proper nourishment, as there is not enough available, nor is 
 there money to buy it if it were. 
 
 ' ' The doctors can usually only work for two weeks before 
 contracting the disease, as they have no means of protecting 
 themselves. Yet they volunteer for typhus hospitals, know- 
 ing that they are probably going to their death, for the mor- 
 tality is over 50 per cent. 
 
 "The following four things are most urgently needed: 
 
 ''1. Tents and portable chicken runs, as these make excel- 
 lent houses. There is no lumber in Serbia, so nothing can be 
 built here. 
 
 '*2. Beds and bed linen. It is impossible to keep straw 
 free from lice. 
 
 * ' 3. Underclothing. Dirty clothes make an ideal breeding 
 place for lice. 
 
 '^4. Disinfectants and whitewash. 
 
 ''Speedy help is essential, as every day's delay costs hun- 
 dreds of lives." 
 
 The response to this touching appeal was immediate and 
 generous, Germans and Austrians in America contributing 
 freely. A large amount of cash and supplies for the Austrian 
 prisoners was sent to the American consul at Nish, who was 
 also acting consul for Germany and Austria in Serbia. 
 
 GEEMAN REPORT OF VILLAGES RAZED 
 
 A dispatch from Berlin by wireless March 23 stated that 
 according to a report received there from Cracow, the damages 
 due to the war in Poland and Galicia at that time amounted 
 to 5,000,000,000 marks ($1,250,000,000). 
 
 In Galicia 100 cities and market places and 6,000 villages 
 had been more or less damaged, while 250 villages had been 
 destroyed. Horses to the number of 800,000 and 500,000 head 
 of ©attl«, with all grain and other provisions in Galicia kad 
 been taken away by the Russians. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 
 
 Results of the Battle of the Aisne — Fierce Fighting in North- 
 ern France — Developments on the Eastern Battle Front 
 — The Campaign in the Pacific — Naval Activities of the 
 Powers. 
 
 TTH a battle front reaching from the Belgian coast on 
 the North Sea to the frontier of Switzerland, or a total 
 distance of 362 miles, the operations in the western 
 theater of war toward the end of October were being con- 
 ducted on a more gigantic scale than was ever witnessed 
 before. On both sides reinforcements were being rushed to 
 the front. German efforts to break through the Allies' lines 
 were concentrated on the main center at Verdun and on the 
 right flank of the Allies' left wing, above its elbow, between 
 Noyon and Arras, while powerful coincidal movements were in 
 progress on the extreme western end of the line in Belgium 
 and on the southeastern wing in Alsace. At Verdun con- 
 tinuous fighting of the fiercest character had been going on 
 for over sixty days, surpassing in time and severity any in- 
 dividual battle in history. The army of the Crown Priiice had 
 been unable to force the French positions in the vicinity of 
 Verdun and the check sustained by the Germans at this point 
 early in the campaign constituted a principal cause of General 
 von Kluck 's failure in his dash toward Paris. 
 
 All along the tremendous battle front the allies ' lines as a 
 rule held firm in the thirteenth week of the war, when the 
 great conflict had entered upon what may well be called its 
 fourth stage. The third stage may be said to have ended with 
 the fall of Antwerp and the subjugation of all Belgium but a 
 small portion of its southwestern territory. On the main front 
 the Allies were maintaining the offensive at some vital points, 
 while repulsing the German assaults at others. One or two 
 
 338 
 
LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 339 
 
 of the French forts commanding Verdun had fallen but the 
 main positions remained in the hands of the French, and all 
 along the line it was a case of daily give-and-take. 
 
 FIERCE FIGHTING IN FLANDERS 
 
 After capturing Antwerp the Germans pushed on to 
 Ostend, an "open" or unfortified town, and occupied it with 
 slight resistance from the Belgian army, which was reforming- 
 its broken ranks to the south, between Ostend and the French 
 frontier, and preparing to contest the passage of the Kaiser's 
 forces across the River Yser. Moving northward from Lille, 
 the Allies encountered the Germans at Armentieres, which 
 was occupied by a Franco-British force and there was also 
 fierce fighting at Ypres, where there is a canal to the sea. For 
 more than a week the Belgians gallantly held the banks of the 
 Yser in spite of the utmost endeavors of the Germans to cross, 
 and it was not until October 24 that the latter finally succeeded 
 in getting south of the river, with the French seaport of 
 Dunkirk as their next objective point. Bloody engagements 
 were fought at Nieuport, Dixmude, Deynze and La Bassee. 
 
 At this time the battle line formed almost a perpendicular 
 from Noyon in France north to the Belgian coast, south of 
 Ostend. A battle raged for several days in West Flanders and 
 Northern France and both sides claimed successes. The 
 losses of the Allies and the Germans were estimated in the 
 thousands and the wounded were sent back to the rear by the 
 trainful. In the Flemish territory the flat nature of the terrain, 
 with its numerous canals and almost total absence of natural 
 cover, made the losses especially severe. The passage of the 
 Yser cost the Germans dearly and Dixmude was strewn with 
 their dead. And their advance could get no farther. 
 
 The necessity of holding the French ports, Dunkirk and 
 Calais, was fully realized by the Allies, who threw large rein- 
 forcements into their northern line. The Germans also drew 
 heavily on their center and left wing to reinforce the right, and 
 for a while -the forces opposing one another at the extreme 
 western end of the battle front were greater than at any other 
 point. The Germans were firmly held on a line running from 
 south of Ostend to Thourout, Eoulers and Menin, the last 
 mentioned place being on the border north of Lille. Flanking 
 attacks being no longer possible, as the western flanks of both 
 
340 LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 
 
 armies rested on the North Sea, the Germans were compelled 
 to make a frontal assault along the line formed by the Belgian 
 frontier. As the Belgian troops, assisted by a British naval 
 brigade, were pushed back from the Yser, they were gradually 
 merged into the army of the allies, by whom they were re- 
 ceived with the honors due the men who had made, for twelve 
 long weeks, such a gallant and determined defense of their 
 country against invasion and despoilment. 
 
 BKITISH WAESHIPS AID BELGIANS 
 
 Soon after the German occupation of Ostend, several Brit- 
 ish warships shelled the German positions in and around the 
 city and aided in hampering the German advance along the 
 coast. The principal vessels engaged in this work were three 
 monitors which were being completed in England for the 
 Brazilian government when the war started and which were 
 bought by the admiralty. 
 
 These monitors, which had been renamed Mersey, Humber 
 and Severn, drew less than nine feet of water and could take 
 up positions not far from shore, from which their 6-inch guns 
 and 4.7-inch howitzers, of which each vessel carried two, were 
 able to throw shells nearly four miles across country, the range 
 being given them by airmen. 
 
 French warships of light draft later joined the British 
 monitors and destroyers and assisted in patrolling the coast, 
 shelling German positions wherever the latter could be discov- 
 ered by the aeroplane scouts. One reported feat of the naval 
 fire was the destruction of the headquarters of a German gen- 
 eral, Von Trip, in which the general and his staff lost their 
 lives. 
 
 From time to time German aerial attacks were made in 
 the vicinity of Dover, across the Straits, but these without 
 exception proved to be without military importance in their 
 results. Steps were taken to organize anti-aircraft artillery 
 forces on the eastern coast of England and the continued 
 failure of Zeppelin attacks, annoying as they were, soon 
 restored the equanimity of the British public in this respect. 
 
 INDIAN TEOOPS IN ACTION 
 
 The first word of the employment of British Indian troops 
 at the front came on October 27, when it was reported that in 
 the fighting near Lille a reserve force of Sikhs and Ghurkas, 
 
LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 341 
 
 the former with bayonets and the latter with the kukri (a 
 short, curved sword) played havoc with an attacking force of 
 Germans. ''Never has there been such slaughter," said the 
 dispatches. "Twenty thousand German dead and wounded, 
 nearly half the attacking force, lay upon the field, while the 
 British losses did not exceed 2,000." 
 
 THE FRENCH CAMPAIGN IN ALSACE 
 
 At the end of October the French right wing in Alsace- 
 Lorraine was reported to be making distinct progress. It was 
 said to be advancing through the passes of the Vosges in the 
 midst of heavy snowstorms. Paris reported that the Ger- 
 mans, who were attempting a movement against the great 
 French frontier fortress of Belfort, had been driven back with 
 heavy losses, while from other sources the Germans were re- 
 ported to be bringing up heavy mortars for the bombardment 
 of Belfort. There were persistent reports of German defeats 
 in Alsace, but these were repeatedly denied in Berlin. The 
 situation in the territory coveted by the French appeared to 
 resemble that farther west — neither side was making much 
 headway. 
 
 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 
 
 In the eastern theater of war the conflict during October 
 was waged with fortunes that favored, first one side and then 
 the other. Contradictory claims were put forth from time to 
 time by Petrograd, Vienna and Berlin, but the net result of 
 the operations at the end of the thirteenth week of the war 
 appeared to be that while the intended Russian march on 
 Berlin had been completely checked, the Germans had been 
 repulsed with heavy losses in all their attempts to cross the 
 Vistula and occupy Warsaw, the capital of Russian Poland, 
 which was at one time seriously threatened. 
 
 The fighting along the Vistula was fierce and prolonged 
 for several days at a time. The Germans made numerous 
 attempts to cross the river at different points by means of 
 pontoon bridges, but these were destroyed by the Russian 
 artillery as fast as completed. The slaughter on both sides 
 was considerable. On October 28 the Russian battle front 
 reached from Suwalki on the north to Sambor and Stryj on 
 the south, a distance of about 267 miles. The German opera- 
 
312 LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 
 
 tions on the Vistula were still in progress and Poland fur- 
 nished the main arena of battle. East Prussia was practically 
 free from Russian troops, save at a few points near the bound- 
 ary, but they strongly maintained their positions in Galicia. 
 
 THE AUSTRO-SERVIAlSr CAMPAIGN 
 
 After eleven weeks' bombardment by the Austrians, the 
 Servian defenders of Belgrade were still bravely resisting, 
 although half the city had been destroyed. The situation was 
 such as to cause at once astonishment, pity and admiration. 
 
 In the open field the Servians continued to hold their own 
 against the Austrian forces opposed to them. Their Monte- 
 negrin allies, under General Bukovitch, were reported to have 
 defeated 16,000 Austrians, supported by six batteries of ar- 
 tillery, at a point northeast of Serajevo. The battle termi- 
 nated in a hand-to-hand bayonet conflict which lasted four 
 hours. The Austrians are said to have lost 2,500 men, killed 
 and wounded, while the Montenegrins claimed that their losses 
 amounted to only 300 men. 
 
 THE CAMPAIGN IN THE PACIFIC 
 
 Beginning with the loss of its colonies in the China sea, 
 Germany was compelled to witness during the first two years 
 of the war the passing into enemy hands of practically all 
 its colonial possessions, which more than balanced its tem- 
 porary possession of enemy soil in Europe, One by one its 
 colonies in Asia and Africa were captured, and in these 
 operations not only the Japanese but the Belgians assisted, 
 the latter in Africa. 
 
 Late in October, 1914, the Japanese received the surrender 
 of Tsing Tau, the important. German city in Kiauchau, 
 China. The place had been battered for weeks by land and 
 sea by the Japanese forces, and the surrender was ordered, it 
 was said, to save the German forces and civilians from cer- 
 tain annihilation if a defense by the garrison to the end were 
 to be carried on. German warships were powerless to assist 
 the beleagTiered city, as Japanese and English war vessels had 
 driven them far from the coast of China. 
 
 The Japanese cruiser Takachiho was sunk by a mine in 
 Kiauchau Bay on the night of October 17. One officer and 
 nine members of the crew are known to have been saved. 
 
LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 343 
 
 The cruiser carried a crew of 284 men. Her main battery con- 
 sisted of eight 6-inch guns. 
 
 MAIN FLEETS STILL INACTIVE 
 
 Up to the last week in October the main fleets of the war- 
 ring powers were still inactive, but rumors of intended Ger- 
 man naval activity were frequent. The cat-and-mouse atti- 
 tude of the British and German fleets in the North Sea was 
 continued, the Germans lying snug in their ports, protected 
 by their mines and submarines, while the British battleships 
 lay in wait at all points of possible egress. The situation 
 tried the patience of the people of both countries and there 
 were frequent demands for action by the great and costly 
 naval armaments. But the Germans apparently w^ere not ready 
 to risk a general engagement, and the British could not force 
 them to come out and fight. The British admirals, therefore 
 had, perforce, to pursue a policy of ''watchful waiting," irk- 
 some as it was to all concerned, and "the tireless vigil in the 
 North Sea, " as it was termed by Mr. Asquith, was maintained 
 day and night. No sea captain becalmed in the doldrums ever 
 whistled for a wind more earnestly than the British Jack tars 
 prayed for a chance at the enemy during those three months 
 of playing the cat to Germany's mouse; and on the other 
 hand, the German sailors were, no doubt, equally desirious 
 of a chance to demonstrate the fighting abilities of their brand- 
 new battleships. All were equally on the qui vive, for any 
 hour might bring to the Germans the order to put to sea, and 
 to the British the welcome cry of ''Enemy in sight!" 
 
 CAEING FOR BELGIAN REFUGEES 
 
 The plight of the Belgian people, including the refugees 
 in Holland, England and France, was pitiable in the extreme 
 and by the end of October had roused the sympathy of the 
 entire world. A conservative estimate placed the number of 
 Belgians expatriated at 1,500,000 out of a population of 7,000,- 
 000. On October 26 Mr. Brand Whitlock, United States min- 
 ister to Belgium, reported that the entire country was on the 
 verge of starvation, while Holland and England had their 
 hands full caring for the Belgians w^ho had sought refuge in 
 those countries. In eight cities of Holland there were said to 
 be 500,000 Belgian refugees. Over 70,000 arrived in London 
 in one week and a central committee in London had twenty- 
 
344 LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 
 
 seven subcommittees at work in different cities in England, 
 Scotland and Wales, placing the refugees in homes as rapidly 
 as possible. The humanitarian problem of taking care of the 
 Belgians was one of tremendous responsibility, but the people 
 of the three countries in which most of them sought refuge 
 rose nobly to the occasion and spared no effort to lessen their 
 sufferings. 
 
 MORE CANADIANS FOR THE FRONT 
 
 It was announced in Ottawa, Canada, on October 19 that 
 the Dominion Government had decided to put 30,000 more 
 men in training in Canada, to be despatched to England when 
 ready. As soon as the first unit of 15,000 was embarked, 
 probably in December, another 15,000 men would be enlisted to 
 replace them, the plan being to keep 30,000 men continuously 
 in training, to be drawn upon in units of 10,000 or 15,000 as 
 soon as equipped, during the continuance of hostilities in 
 Europe. Thus with the 32,000 Canadian volunteers already 
 landed in England, and 8,000 under arms guarding strategic 
 points in the Dominion, Canada would soon raise 100,000 men 
 as part of her contribution to Imperial defense. 
 
 But this was only a beginning. Later in the war Canada 
 stood ready to furnish half a million men to the cause of the 
 Empire, if required. Nearly 360,000 of that number had been 
 enlisted when the war was two years old. The greatest prob- 
 lems were encountered in the first year, or rather in the first 
 six months of the war, after which time efforts were systema- 
 tized, the military machine worked smoothly, and the Domin- 
 ion's splendid response to the call to arms was maintained 
 throughout. General prosperity in the face of adverse con- 
 ditions happily attended this record of patriotic achievement, 
 and the predominant spirit in Canada was one of buoyant 
 optimism as to the inevitable outcome of the great conflict. 
 
 THE **EMDEN" driven ASHORE A WRECK 
 
 During the first three months of the war the German cruiser 
 Emden, operating principally in the Indian ocean, played havoc 
 with British merchantmen, sinking over twenty vessels en- 
 gaged in far Eastern commerce, besides a Eussian cruiser and 
 a French torpedo-boat. But she met her match in the second 
 week of November, when she was engaged off the Cocos or 
 
LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 345 
 
 Keeling group of islands, southwest of Java, by the fast Aus- 
 tralian cruiser Sydney and driven ashore a burning wreck 
 after an hour's fight, with a loss of 280 men. 
 
 NAVAL BATTLE OFF CHILEAN COAST 
 
 Early in November a fleet of five German cruisers, under 
 Admiral von Spec, encountered a British squadron composed 
 of the cruisers Good Hope, Monmouth and Glasgow, in com- 
 mand of Eear- Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock, off the coast 
 of Chile, in the Southern Pacific. Despite a raging gale, a 
 long-range battle ensued, resulting in the defeat of the British 
 and the loss of the flagship Good Hope, with the admiral and 
 all her crew, and of the cruiser Monmouth. The Glasgow 
 escaped in a damaged condition. The loss of life was about 
 1,000, officers and men. 
 
 Up to November 15, the struggle in the coast region of 
 Belgium continued with terrific intensity and appalling loss 
 of life on both sides. The Germans occupied Dixmude Novem- 
 ber 11, only to lose it on November 13, after a fierce attack by 
 reinforced British troops. 
 
 DAILY COST OF WAR 
 
 The daily cost of the present war to the nations engaged 
 in the struggle is estimated at not less than $54,000,000 a day 
 — a sum which fairly staggers the imagination. This enor- 
 mous cost of the armies in the field gives a decided advantage 
 to the nation best supplied with the "sinews of war" and may 
 contribute to a shortening of hostilities. War is indeed a 
 terrible drain upon the resources of a nation and only a few 
 there are that can stand many months of war expenditures 
 like those of August-October, 1914, amounting in the grand 
 aggregate to nearly five billions of dollars ($5,000,000,000). 
 
 TUEKEY ENTERS THE WAR 
 
 On October 29 an act which was regarded in Russia as 
 equivalent to a declaration of war by Turkey was committed 
 at Theodosia, the Crimean port, when that town was bom- 
 barded without notice by the cruiser Breslau, flying the 
 Turkish flag, but commanded by a German officer and manned 
 by a German crew. The Breslau was a former German ship, 
 and was said to have been purchased by the Turkish govern- 
 ment, with the German battleship Goeben, when they sought 
 refuge in the Dardanelles at the beginning of the war, from 
 the French and British fleets in the Mediterranean. 
 
346 LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 
 
 FOURTH MONTH OF THE WAK 
 
 The month of November, the fourth month of the war, was 
 marked by the heaviest losses to all the nations concerned, 
 but made little change in the general situation. 
 
 Along the Aisne the battle begun early in September con- 
 tinued intermittently. Both sides literally dug themselves 
 in and along the battle line in many places, the hostile trenches 
 were separated by only a few yards. At the end of the month 
 the burrowing had been succeeded by tunneling, and both 
 sides prepared for a winter of spasmodic action. It was a 
 military deadlock, but a deadlock full of danger for the side 
 that first developed a weak point in its far-flung front. 
 
 With the utmost fairness and impartiality it can be said 
 that at the beginning of December both the allied armies and 
 the German forces facing them from the Belgian coast east 
 and south to the borders of Alsace-Lorraine were exhausted 
 by the strenuous efforts of the campaign. By December 5, 
 the 130th day of the war, after a seven- weeks ' struggle by the 
 Germans for the possession of the French and Belgian coast, 
 there was a general cessation of offensive operations by both 
 sides and the indications were that this condition was due to 
 pure physical weariness of leaders and men. The world had 
 never before witnessed such strenuous military operations 
 as those of the preceding three months and the temporary 
 exhaustion of the armies therefore was not surprising. 
 
 In the last days of November, the city of Belgrade fell 
 into the hands of the Austrians after a siege that had lasted, 
 with continual bombardments, since the war began. The city 
 was finally taken by storm at the point of the bayonet in a 
 furious charge which fairly overwhelmed the gallant defense 
 of the Servians. 
 
 In this month it began to be generally realized that the 
 war was likely to be of prolonged duration. Strenuous prepa- 
 rations for the winter campaign were made on both sides 
 and the recruiting for the new British army surpassed all 
 pre\dous records, the serious menace of the war being at last 
 recognized. 
 
 The month of November was also marked by enormous 
 contributions of cash and food stuffs by the people of the 
 United States for the relief of the impoverished and suffering 
 
LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 347 
 
 Belgians. The people of Chicago alone contributed over 
 $500,000 and this was but a sample of the manner in which 
 Americans rose to the opportunity to alleviate the distress 
 in Belgium. ^*The United States has saved us from starva- 
 tion," said a Belgian oflQcial on December 1. 
 
 The casualties of all the armies in the field during the 
 month of November exceeded those of any previous period 
 of the war. Basing an estimate of the total casualties upon 
 the same percentage as that employed in the table given on 
 another page, it is therefore safe to say that up to December 
 5 the total losses of the combatant nations in killed, wounded 
 and missing aggregated not less than 3,500,000 men. 
 
 DEOEMBEE IN THE TEENCHES 
 
 The month of December, 1914, the fifth month of the war, 
 registered but little change in the relative positions of the 
 combatant nations. In the west the lines held firm from the 
 North Sea to Switzerland. Daily duels of artillery and daily 
 assaults here and there along the battle fronts proved unavail- 
 ing, so far as any change in general conditions was concerned. 
 Frequently the assaults were of a desperate character, espe- 
 cially in Flanders, where in the middle of the month the Allies 
 assumed the offensive all along the line and sturdily strove to 
 push back the German front in Belgium. But the utmost 
 valor and persistence in attack were invariably met by reso- 
 lute resistance. Both sides were strongly entrenched and the 
 gain of a few yards today was usually followed by the loss of 
 a few yards tomorrow. 
 
 Never before in the history of warfare had the science of 
 entrenchment been developed to such an extent. The German, 
 French, British and Belgian armies literally burrowed in the 
 earth along a battle front of 150 miles. In many places the 
 hostile trenches were separated by only a few yards, and min- 
 ing was frequently resorted to. Tunneling toward each other, 
 both the contending forces occasionally succeeded in blowing 
 up the enemy's trench, and whole companies of unsuspecting 
 troops were sometimes annihilated in this way. In the trenches 
 themselves scenes unparalleled in warfare were witnessed. 
 With the arrival of winter the troops on either side proceeded 
 
348 LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 
 
 to secure what comfort they could by all manner of clever 
 and unique devices. Winter clothing was provided as far as 
 possible, but on both sides there was inevitable suffering for 
 lack of suitable supplies for the winter campaign, and indi- 
 vidual initiative had frequently to supply the deficiencies of 
 official forethought. 
 
 Many unique features of trench life were developed dur- 
 ing the first month of winter warfare. Two-story trenches 
 became common on both sides of the firing line. Bombproof 
 underground quarters for staff and commanding officers were 
 constructed, and these were fitted up so as to provide all the 
 comforts of the winter cantonments of old-time warfare. The 
 ever-necessary telephone was installed at frequent points in 
 trenches that stretched for scores of miles in practically un- 
 broken lines. Board roofs were built and provision made for 
 heating the dugouts in which thousands of men passed many 
 days and nights before their reliefs arrived. On the Grerman 
 side miles of trenches were provided with stockade walls, 
 leaving ample room inside for the rapid movement of troops. 
 The British built trenches with lateral individual dugouts at 
 right angles to the main trench, protecting the men against 
 flank fire — and these aroused the admiration even of their 
 enemies. In the French trenches the ingenuity of a French 
 engineer provided a system of hot shower baths on the firing 
 line, and from all points along the deadlocked battle front 
 came stories of the remarkable manner in which the troops of 
 all the armies speedily accommodated themselves to unprece- 
 dented conditions and maintained a spirit of cheerfulness 
 truly marvelous under the circumstances, especially as there 
 was no cessation of the constant endeavor to gain ground from 
 the enemy and no end to the daily slaughter. 
 
 IN THE GERMAN TRENCHES 
 
 A correspondent with the German army who visited the 
 firing line in the Argonne forest late in November, by special 
 permission of the German crown prince, described the condi- 
 tions in the trenches as follows: ''Here in the now famous 
 Argonne forest — the scene of some of the war's most des- 
 perate fighting — the Germans are trenching and mining their 
 
LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 349 
 
 way forward, literally yard by yard. This afternoon I reached 
 the foremost trench, south of Grandpre. About 160 feet ahead 
 of me is the French trench. Picture to yourself a canebrake- 
 like woods of fishpoles ranging in size from half an inch to 
 saplings of two and three inches thick and so dense that you 
 can hardly see forty yards even now when the leaves have 
 fallen. Among these is a scattering of big trees, the trunks 
 of which are veritable mines of bullets. 
 
 ** Irregular lines of deep yellow clay trenches zigzag for 
 miles. Other trenches run back from these to what looks 
 like a huge Kansas 'prairie-dog town' — human burrows, where 
 thousands of soldiers are literally living underground. From 
 the lines of trenches running parallel to one another comes 
 a constant spitting, sputtering, popping of rifles, making the 
 woods resound like a Chinese New Year in San Francisco or 
 an old-time Fourth of July. Field guns and hand grenades 
 furnish the 'cannon-cracker' effect. Through the woods the 
 high-noted 'zing zing' of bullets sounds like a swarm of angry 
 bees, while high overhead shrapnel and shell go shrieking on 
 their way. Here and there you may see spades full of earth 
 being thrown up as if by invisible hands, marking the onward 
 work of the German gopher-like pioneers in their subterranean 
 warfare. That is the Argonne forest. 
 
 "As the trench I am in was still in the hands of the French 
 three days ago and as the crown prince is advancing steadily, 
 the trenches are temporary and contain little in the way of 
 comforts. In deep niches cut in the side the soldiers rest, play 
 fjards or even sleep on damp ledges between fights. 
 
 "The trenches also serve as a cemetery. When the enemy's 
 fire is so hot that it is impossible to stick your head out or 
 to take the dead out to bury them, the grave is made in a 
 niche or a ledge cut into the side of the trench." 
 
 GEBMAN ADVANCE HALTED 
 
 The western operations in December made it clear that the 
 German advance to the Channel ports of France had been 
 definitely halted. In the terrible battle of Ypres in Flanders, 
 following the prolonged engagements along the Yser river, 
 the Allies succeeded in repulsing the desperate German on- 
 
350 LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 
 
 slauglat, and the German offensive was brought to a full stop. 
 Towns and villages in Flanders, in Artois and in Champagne, 
 that had been captured in the early German rush, were retaken 
 one by one by the Belgians, French and- British, slowly but 
 surely, until the Germans were forced to act upon the de- 
 fensive along a line of entrenchments prepared to enable them 
 to keep open their communications through Belgium with 
 their great base at Aix-la-Chapelle. 
 
 An incident of the desperate fighting at Ypres, in which 
 British and French troops practically annihilated six German 
 regiments, including the crack Second regiment of Prussian 
 Guards, has been graphically described by an eye-witness as 
 follows : 
 
 "A long valley stretches out before us and the little rise on 
 which we stand — about fifty feet above the plain — commands 
 it. The British guns are shooting almost horizontally at the 
 German infantry trudging through the mud 2,000 yards away. 
 
 ''1 count easily five regiments together, but further to the 
 right a sixth one evidently wards off a flank attack on the part 
 of the French colonial troops. The lone regiment is the Sec- 
 ond Prussian regiment of the guard, the emperor's own, the 
 elite of the Kaiser's army, 2,500 of the brawniest, most dis- 
 ciplined men in the world. It is now 1 o'clock. In one hour 
 only 300 of these men will leave the field. 
 
 ''A gust of wind brings to our ears the sound of music. 
 The guards' band is encouraging the men. At the foot of the 
 small hill on which we stand are twenty lines of trenches filled 
 with Scotch and English infantry. The men are silently 
 awaiting the attack. Not a rifle is being fired. The trenches 
 are the Germans' goal; these and the British batteries once 
 taken, the road into Ypres is clear. 
 
 ' * In the valley the Germans halt. The range is only 1,500 
 yards now and every British shot is telling. The effects are 
 appalling. The gray masses move onward once more, seem to 
 hesitate, but sharp bugle blasts launch them forward again 
 and on the run they come for the trenches. 
 
 ''At 1,000 yards our batteries again stop them. Whole 
 rows are mowed down, vast spaces appearing between the 
 ranks. The companies intermingle, then the regiments them- 
 
LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 351 
 
 selves seerq to amalgamate and melt into one another. Offi- 
 cers are seen galloping along the sides, evidently trying to 
 bring order out of chaos. 
 
 ' ' The artillerymen work silently, the perspiration stream- 
 ing down their cheeks, and continue sending on their mes- 
 sengers of death. 
 
 * ' The Second regiment of the Guard alone, off to the right, 
 seems untouched, and on it comes. Suddenly the sound of a 
 bagpipe is heard. The Scots are awake. From the trenches 
 an avalanche rushes forward toward the disordered Germans. 
 
 *'At the double-quick Scots and English, a few feet apart, 
 yelling like demons, pounce on the attackers. Rifles are silent. 
 It is cold steel alone. Our battery captains cry ' Stop firing. ' 
 There is a risk of shelling our own men now. We become 
 spectators. 
 
 * ' On the right the Guard has suddenly turned toward the 
 hill. A bugle blast and the mass of men half turns and seems 
 to be thrown on the back of the British, outflanked. The situ- 
 ation is desperate. Our artillery is useless. 
 
 *' Listen! Over the valley, rising louder and still louder, 
 comes a song which the Germans have heard before. A crash 
 of brass, a hoarse roar fills the air, echoing across the valley, 
 drowning the shouts and curses of the human wave fighting 
 below. 
 
 * ' The ' Marseillaise ' — the English and Scots have heard it. 
 'Hold tight, the French are coming,' we scream. They cannot 
 hear us, but we must shout — the strain is too intense. 
 
 ''Past our batteries a company of Spahis rushes like a 
 cyclone. Two more follow, then the Zouaves. Rifles close to 
 their hips, bayonets low, throwing out over the valley its glor- 
 ious anthem, the human flood crashes against the Guard. 
 
 "The lines waver in an indescribable jumble of gray, yel- 
 low, blue, and red uniforms, then seem to bounce back from 
 the very force of the shock. Men appear, raised from their 
 feet, and raised high in the air. 
 
 ' ' Caught in a vise between the British and the French, the 
 Guard alone remains. Ten times the shattered remnants of 
 the Kaiser's proud regiment charged, and ten times was 
 thrown back, first against the French, then against the Brit- 
 
352 LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 
 
 ish. Crying, 'Comrades, comrades!' hundreds began throw- 
 ing their guns aside. 
 
 ''At 2 o'clock it was over. The Allies had lost 1,200 men. 
 Only 300 prisoners remained of the Second Prussian regiment 
 of the Guard. 
 
 PROGRESS OF THE EASTERN CAMPAIGN 
 
 The campaign in the eastern theater of war attracted the 
 attention of the whole world in December, when the German 
 operations begun in November under Field Marshal Von 
 Hindenburg, the victor of Tannenberg earlier in the war, 
 were continued with varying successes. Early in the month 
 the Germans captured Lodz, the second city and chief manu- 
 facturing center of Eussian Poland, with a population of 
 about 500,000, after a bombardment of a week 's duration, the 
 city being set on fire in many places. The Russians made a 
 desperate resistance, and the fighting around Lodz consti- 
 tuted the most bitter struggle of the entire war on this front. 
 A general Russian retirement in the direction of Warsaw fol- 
 lowed, but the Germans failed in their subsequent efforts to 
 envelop the flanks of the Russian army to the north and south. 
 Russian reinforcements from Warsaw coming up promptly, 
 the Germans were in their turn compelled to retire. Two 
 German army corps were then practically cut off by the Rus- 
 sians, but made a successful retreat, fighting their way back 
 to safety with the bayonet in one of the most ijrilliant exploits 
 of the war. Thus the net result of the German campaign in 
 Poland in December left the general situation there practi- 
 cally unchanged and the Russian front unbroken, while in East 
 Prussia, too, the Russian invasion continued despite German 
 efforts to roll it back across the frontier. 
 
 The losses on both sides in the eastern campaign in Decem- 
 ber were appalling, the fighting being of the fiercest possible 
 nature. A typical struggle occurred a few miles west of Lodz 
 in the little churchyard of Beschici, where the Russians, in one 
 of the final phases of the struggle for the Polish city, showed 
 that in spite of their defeats and discouragements they knew 
 how to fight and die. This churchyard lies on a small emi- 
 nence which formed a salient into the German lines. The 
 
LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 353 
 
 Germans were able to make an attack from three sides with 
 infantry and artillery. All the Russian trenches were enfiladed 
 by shrapnel from one direction or another, but the Russians 
 clung to their positions obstinately. When the Germans 
 finally captured the trenches 878 Russian corpses were found 
 in a space about eighty yards square. 
 
 It was resistance of this nature which the Germans had to 
 overcome in order to capture Lodz. Later in December it 
 became clear that Russia was getting her millions into the 
 field and that the strategy of the commander-in-chief, the 
 Grand Duke Nicholas, would soon be aided by the weight of 
 overwhelming numbers. 
 
 BELGIUM THANKS AMERICA 
 
 During November and December Madame Vandervelde, 
 wife of a member of the Belgian cabinet, toured the United 
 States soliciting aid for her suffering fellow-countrymen. The 
 response everywhere was extremely generous and in appre^ 
 ciation of the aid given the war victims of her country Madame 
 Vandervelde penned the following poem, entitled ^'Belgium 
 Thanks America : ' ' 
 
 Today it's Christmas morning; we hear no Christmas bell, 
 
 But still we tell the story which once we loved to tell. 
 
 "Good will! Good will!" we read it, and "Peace!" — we hear the name, 
 
 And crouch among the ruins, and watch the cruel flame, 
 
 And hear the children crying, and turn our eyes away — 
 
 For them there's neither bread nor home this happy Christmas day. 
 
 But look! there comes a message from far across the deep, 
 
 From hearts that still can pity and eyes that still can weep — 
 
 O little lips a-hunger! O faces pale and wan! 
 
 There's somewhere — somewhere — peace on earth, somewhere good will to man. 
 
 Across the waste of waters, a thousand leagues away. 
 
 There's some one still remembers that here it's Christmas day. 
 
 ■ God of Peace, remember, and in thy mercy keep 
 The hearts that still can pity, the eyes that still can weep, 
 Amid the shame and torment, the ruins and the graves. 
 To theirs, the land of freedom, from ours, the landi of slaves, 
 What answer can we send them? We can but kneel and pray: 
 God grant — God grant to them, at least, a happy Christmas day. 
 
354 LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 
 
 GRIM REALITIES OF THE WAR 
 
 A vivid picture of the horrible reaUties of the war, as seen 
 in a field hospital near the firing line, was given in **The New 
 Republic" of November 28 by Mr. Henry W. Nevinson, who 
 described his experiences at Dixmude in Belgium as follows : 
 
 ' * When I entered Dixmude one night in the middle of Octo- 
 ber the first bombardment was over, but from both sides the 
 heavy shells flew across the town. Prom the end of the main 
 street came an incessant noise of rifles and machine guns. 
 Unaimed bullets wailed through the air, and pattered as they 
 struck the walls. Flaming houses shed a light upon the 
 ruined streets, but only one house looked inhabited, and all 
 the others which were not burning stood silent and empty, 
 expecting destruction. 
 
 "That one house was used as an outlying hospital or dress- 
 ing-place nearest the firing line, and the wounded had to be 
 led or carried only two or three hundred yards to reach it. 
 They sat on the dining-room chairs or lay helpless on the floor. 
 A few surgeons were at work upon them, cutting off loose 
 fingers and throwing them into basins, plugging black holes 
 that welled up instantly through the plug, straining bandages, 
 which in a minute ceased to be white, round legs and heads. 
 The smell of fresh, warm blood was thick on the air. One 
 man lay deep in his blood. You could not have supposed that 
 anyone had so much in him. Another's head had lost on 
 one side all human semblance, and was a hideous pulp of eye 
 and ear and jaw. Another, with chest torn open, lay gasping 
 for the few minutes left of life. And as I waited for the 
 ambulance more were brought in, and always more. 
 
 "In a complacent and comfortable account of hospital 
 work I lately read that ' deaths from wounds are happily rare ; 
 one surgeon put the number as low as 2 per cent.' Happy 
 hospital, far away in Paris or some Isle of the Blest! The 
 further from the front the fewer the deaths, because so many 
 have died already. 
 
 "In the nearest hospitals to the front, half the wounded, 
 and on some days more than half, die where they are put. 
 Often they die in the ambulance,- and one's care in drawing 
 them out is wasted, for they will never feel again. I found 
 
LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 355 
 
 one always took the same care, though the greenish-yellow 
 of the exposed hands or feet showed the truth. Laid on the 
 floor of the main hospital itself, some screamed or moaned, 
 some whimpered like sick children, especially in their sleep, 
 some lay quiet, with glazed eyes out of which sight was pass- 
 ing. Mere fragments of mankind were there extended, limbs 
 pounded into mash, heads split open, intestines hanging out 
 from gashes. Did those bones — did that exquisite network of 
 living tissue and contrivances for life — cost no more in the 
 breeding than to be hewed and smashed and pulped like this! 
 Shrapnel — shrapnel — it was nearly always the same. For this 
 is, above all, an artillery war, and both sides are justly proud 
 of their efficiency in guns. ' ' 
 
 GOVERNMENT RETURNS TO PARIS 
 
 Confidence of safety having been restored in the French 
 capital, the Paris bourse reopened on December 7, after hav- 
 ing been closed since September 3. President Poincare trans- 
 ferred his official residence back to Paris from Bordeaux on 
 December 9 and a meeting of the French cabinet was held in 
 Paris on December 11, for the first time since the capital was 
 threatened by the German advance at the end of August. 
 
 BRITISH NAVAL VICTORY 
 
 In the second week of December the British navy avenged 
 the defeat of Rear Admiral Cradock's squadron off the Chilean 
 coast in November, when a powerful special fleet, under Vice- 
 Admiral Sir Frederick Sturdee, encountered the German 
 cruiser fleet, under Admiral von Spee, off the Falkland Islands 
 and practically destroyed it. Only one of the five German 
 cruisers escaped. The flagship Scharnhorst, the Gneisenau, 
 the Leipzig and the Nurnberg were sunk in the action, which 
 lasted for five hours, and the German admiral with three of 
 his sons and most of the officers and men of the German crews 
 perished. The British losses were inconsiderable. 
 
 This sea fight in the South Atlantic was the most important 
 engagement in which British men-of-\yar had participated 
 since the era of Napoleon. The sailing Of the British fleet in 
 quest of Admiral von Spec's squadron had been kept secret 
 and the news of the victory was therefore especially welcome 
 to the people of England, who had been considerably worried 
 
356 LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 
 
 by a succession of minor naval losses inflicted by German 
 cruisers, submarines and mines. The action was gallantly 
 fought on both sides. The advantage in weight of metal and 
 range of guns lay on the side of the British, and the battle was 
 decided at long range. Admiral von Spee, refusing to sur- 
 render, in spite of the odds against him, went down with his 
 ship. The flagship of the victorious admiral, Sir Frederick 
 Sturdee, was the modern battle cruiser Invincible. A number 
 of the German sailors were rescued by the British after the 
 engagement and sent as prisoners of war to England. The 
 total German loss was over 2,000 officers and men. 
 
 Fine strategy was shown by the British admiralty in send- 
 ing Admiral Sturdee to South American waters. He was or- 
 dered to sea from his desk as chief of the British naval board, 
 after Von Spec's Chilean victory in November, and was placed 
 in command of some of the fastest and most powerful cruisers 
 of the British fleet. The entire affair, from the time the ad- 
 miral left London until he succeeded in finding and sinking 
 the German squadron in the South Atlantic, took about a 
 month — a truly remarkable exploit. 
 
 KULERS AT THE FRONT 
 
 During December all the armies in the field were visited 
 by the rulers of their respective countries. The Czar spent 
 some time with his troops near the firing lines in Poland ; King 
 George of England visited the British forces in Belgium and 
 Northern France and conferred the Victoria Cross (^'For 
 Valor") on a number of officers and men; and President Poin- 
 care made several trips to the front, conferring decorations 
 upon General Joffre, commander-in-chief, and other French 
 officers, for distinguished service. The gallant and devoted 
 soldier-king, Albert of Belgium, remained steadfastly at the 
 front with his troops, sharing all their privations and dangers 
 during the fierce fighting in Flanders. Kaiser Wilhelm was 
 also at the front, both east and west, but was forced to return 
 to Berlin early in the month by an attack of illness. On his 
 recovery after two weeks he again visited the western field 
 headquarters in Belgium, but in the first week of January, 
 1915, he was again compelled by his ailment to make a hurried 
 return to Berlin for medical treatment and rest. 
 
BRITISH AND GERMAN SEA LOSSES 
 
 British and German naval losses in the world war to Jan- 
 uary 1, 1915, are shown in the following, compiled from 
 admiralty reports, and, where these are missing, from other 
 authoritative sources. The figures are approximately correct. 
 
 BEITISH LOSSES 
 
 Date Name and Typa How Sunk 
 
 Aug. 7 — Amphion, protected cruiser Mined .. . 
 
 Sept. 4 — Speedy, torpedo gunboat Mined .. . 
 
 Sept. 5 — Pathfinder, protected cruiser Mined .. . 
 
 Sept. 7 — Warrior, protected cruiser Stranded . 
 
 Sept. 9— Oceanic, auxiliary cruiser Wreclted . 
 
 Sept. 18 — Fisliguard II, training sliip Foundered 
 
 cSept. 19 — AE-1. submarine Lost . . . . 
 
 Sept. 2 — Pega.sus, protected cruiser Shelled . . 
 
 Sept. 2 2 — Aboukir, protected cruiser Torpedoed 
 
 Sept. 2 2 — Cressy, protected cruiser Torpedoed 
 
 Sept. 22 — Hogue, protected cruiser Torpedoed 
 
 Oct. 15 — Hawlie, protected cruiser Torpedoed 
 
 Oct. 1 8 — E-3, submarine Shelled . . 
 
 Oct. 27 — Audacious, dreadnought Torpedoed 
 
 Oct. 31 — Hermes, protected cruiser Torpedoed 
 
 Nov. 1 — Monmouth, armored cruiser Shelled . . 
 
 Nov. 1 — Good Hope, armored cruiser Shelled . . 
 
 Nov. 5 — D-5, submarine Mined . . . 
 
 Nov. 1 1 — Niger, torpedo gunboat Torpedoed 
 
 Nov. 26 — Bulwark, battleship Explosion 
 
 Jan. 1 — Formidable, battleship Torpedoed 
 
 Number of vessels lost, 21, 
 
 Totals . 
 
 Tonnage 
 
 3,440 
 
 810 
 
 2,940 
 
 13,500 
 
 17,000 
 
 800 
 
 2,200 
 
 12,000 
 
 12,000 
 
 12,000 
 
 7,350 
 
 800 
 
 25,000 
 
 5,600 
 
 9,800 
 
 14,100 
 
 550 
 
 810 
 
 15,000 
 
 17,000 
 
 Livea 
 lost 
 136 
 
 21 
 
 25 
 
 25 
 
 510 
 
 561 
 
 362 
 
 350 
 
 25 
 
 2 
 
 540 
 
 875 
 
 21 
 
 800 
 579 
 
 Com- 
 plement 
 320 
 85 
 268 
 704 
 500 
 65 
 25 
 224 
 700 
 700 
 7 00 
 544 
 25 
 900 
 456 
 540 
 900 
 21 
 85 
 814 
 850 
 
 172,700 5,082 9,426 
 
 GERMAN LOSSES 
 
 Date Name and Type How Sunk 
 
 Aug. 5 — Panther, gunboat Shelled . . . 
 
 Aug. e^Koenigin Luise, mine layer Torpedoed 
 
 Aug. 7 — Augsburg, protected cruiser Shelled . . . 
 
 Aug. 9— LT-] 5, submarine Shelled . . . 
 
 Aug. 2 7 — Kaiser Wm. der Grosse, aux. cruiser . Shelled . .. 
 
 Aug. 2 7 — Magdeburg, protected cruiser Shelled . . . 
 
 Aug. 2 8 — Mainz, protected cruiser Shelled . . . 
 
 Aug. 2S — Koeln, protected cruiser Shelled . . . 
 
 Aug. 28 — Ariadne, protected cruiser Shelled . . . 
 
 Aug. 28 — V-186, V-187, destroyers Shelled . . . 
 
 Sept. 14 — Cap Trafalgar, auxiliary cruiser. . . . Shelled . . . 
 
 Sept. 15 — Hela, small cruiser Torpedoed 
 
 Oct. 17 — S-115, 117, 118. 119, 4 destroyers .. Shelled 
 
 Oct. 20 — S-90, destroyer Ran ashore. 
 
 Oct. 2 5 — Submarine Shelled . . . . 
 
 Oct. 30 — Submarine Shelled . . . . 
 
 Nov. 4 — Torek, armored cruiser . Mined 
 
 Nov. 7 — Jaguar, gunboat Shelled . . . , 
 
 Nov. 7 — Luchs, gunboat Shelled . . . , 
 
 Nov. 7 — litis, gunboat Shelled . . . , 
 
 Nov. 7 — Cormoran, gunboat Shelled . . . , 
 
 Nov. 7 — Tiger, gunboat Shelled . . . . 
 
 Nov. 7— Taku, destroyer Shelled . . . . 
 
 Nov. 7 — Ruchin, mine layer Shelled . . . . 
 
 Nov. 9 — Emden, protected cruiser Shelled . . . . 
 
 Nov. . . — Wilhelm der Grosse, battleship Mined . . . . 
 
 Nov. . . — Hertha, cruiser Mined .... . 
 
 Dec. 8 — Scharnhorst, armored cruiser Shelled . . . , 
 
 Dec. 8 — Gneiseriau, armored cruiser Shelled . . , , 
 
 Dec. 8 — Leipzig, cruiser Shelled . . . , 
 
 Dec. 8 — Nurnberg, cruiser v Shelled . . . . 
 
 Dec. 10 — Three submarines Shelled . . . . 
 
 Number of vessels lost, 38. 
 
 Totals . . , 
 
 Tonnage 
 
 900 
 
 1,800 
 
 4,280 
 
 400 
 
 14,349 
 
 4,478 
 
 4,280 
 
 4,280 
 
 2,620 
 
 1,290 
 
 26,000 
 
 2,000 
 
 1,660 
 
 400 
 
 400 
 
 400 
 
 9,350 
 
 880 
 
 880 
 
 880 
 
 1,600 
 
 880 
 
 280 
 
 3,540 
 
 10,790 
 
 5,569 
 
 11,420 
 
 11,420 
 
 3,200 
 
 3,200 
 
 1,200 
 
 Lives 
 
 lost 
 
 75 
 
 70 
 
 150 
 
 12 
 
 30 
 
 200 
 
 300 
 
 200 
 
 200 
 
 100 
 
 14 
 
 10 
 
 193 
 
 ' 12 
 12 
 
 266 
 50 
 50 
 50 
 
 100 
 50 
 25 
 
 200 
 400 
 200 
 764 
 700 
 280 
 256 
 36 
 
 Com- 
 plement 
 130 
 150 
 379 
 12 
 450 
 370 
 37C 
 370 
 275 
 166 
 310 
 191 
 224 
 56 
 12 
 12 
 633 
 120 
 120 
 126 
 162 
 126 
 49 
 
 361 
 658 
 400 
 764 
 764 
 280 
 280 
 36 
 
 134,626 5,005 8,868 
 
 357 
 
358 LATEE EVENTS OF THE WAR 
 
 CANADIANS AT THE FRONT 
 
 Late in December the first of the Canadian troops to leave 
 their English training camp on Salisbury Plain were sent to 
 the front in Northern France. The Princess Patricia regi- 
 ment had the military honor of leading the Canadians to the 
 firing line. It was made up largely of men who had seen 
 previous service and promptly proceeded to give a good ac- 
 count of itself. A British guardsman returning wounded from 
 the front on December 28 paid a characteristic tribute to the 
 efficiency and daring of the Canadian troops, when he said: 
 ''They are all old soldiers. They knew as much about the 
 game as we did and a blooming sight more than the enemy's 
 infantry. " 
 
 The Canadians first went into action at one of those ticklish 
 spots where yards count. The trench of the British ended at 
 a village which was vigorously shelled by the Germans, and 
 was practically in ruins. Another trench on the right of a 
 little town held by unmounted French cavalry made it impos- 
 sible for the Germans to reach the village, but their ' ' snipers ' ' 
 had ensconced themselves in some farm buildings to the north- 
 east, making it extremely hazardous for supplies to reach the 
 advanced British posts. 
 
 "About twenty of the Canadians," said the wounded 
 guardsman, "managed to gain the ruins at the extreme end of 
 the village during Christmas night and when daylight came 
 they accounted for practically all the German 'snipers' and 
 dashed back into safety before the German artillery fire was 
 directed to the stronghold. ' ' 
 
 SERVIANS REOCCUPY BELGRADE 
 
 Just when it appeared likely that Servia might share the 
 fate of Belgium, a turn in the fortunes of war changed the 
 entire situation of affairs in the little Slav kingdom. Aided 
 by a fresh advance of Russian troops across the Carpathians, 
 which caused the hurried withdrawal of three Austrian army 
 corps from Servian territory to defend the threatened cities 
 of Hungary, the Serbs again took the offensive and, inspired 
 by the presence in the field of old King Peter, a gallant soldier 
 of France in 1870, they reoccupied Belgrade and drove the 
 Austrians before them in a disorderly rout, so that by Decern- 
 
LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 359 
 
 ber 15 Servia was free of the Austrian enemy. Budapest, 
 capital of Hungary, became panic-stricken at the Russian ad- 
 vance and the Servian victory, and the year 1914 closed with 
 every evidence that the people of Austria, at any rate, were 
 tired of the war, discontented at the prospect, and desirous 
 of peace. 
 
 GERMAN ATTACK ON BRITISH COAST 
 
 For the first time in history since the days of the American 
 commander, Paul Jones, British coast towns were bombarded 
 on December 16, when a squadron of German cruisers, slipping 
 across the North Sea in a fog, from their Heligoland base, 
 appeared off Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby, on the 
 eastern coast of England, and shelled each of them in turn. 
 The loss of life in the three towns was about 100, men, women 
 and children, and a considerable number of buildings were 
 partially wrecked by the German shells. Comparatively 
 speaking, of course the damage inflicted was trifling and from 
 a military point of view the incident was unimportant, the 
 German ships disappearing in the fog after a half-hour 's bom- 
 bardment. But the moral effect upon the British public was 
 tremendous. The event came as a distinct shock to their over- 
 confidence and as a reminder that the German navy was still 
 to be reckoned with. The warships of the Kaiser brought 
 home to the people of the United Kingdom the meaning of the 
 war, as no previous incident had done, and fear of further 
 attacks took possession of them. This fear, however, soon 
 turned to rage, and then to a fierce determination to prosecute 
 the war to a bitter end. The attack stimulated recruiting for 
 Lord Kitchener's new army, and this was its chief result, 
 though Germany had proved that her ships could reach British 
 shores and bombard their defenseless towns, in spite of all the 
 vigilance of the British fleet. 
 
 BRITISH RAID GERMAN PORT 
 
 By way of answer to the German attack on Scarborough 
 and Hartlepool, a daring raid was made Christmas Day by 
 the British navy on the German naval base at Cuxhaven, at 
 the mouth of the Elbe. The chief participants were seven 
 British naval airmen. They were assisted in the attack by 
 several light cruisers, destroyers and submarines. The air- 
 
360 LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 
 
 men piloted seaplanes and succeeded in dropping a number 
 of bombs in the vicinity of Cuxhaven, in an attempt to bring- 
 out into the open a portion of the German fleet lying there. 
 The affair resulted in a contest between the most modern of 
 war machines. No surface warships were sent out by the Ger- 
 mans, but the attack was repelled by means of Zeppelins, sea- 
 planes and submarines. No great damage was done on either 
 side and the British airmen all escaped without injury, though 
 four of them lost their machines. One, Flight Commander 
 Hewlett, fell with his plane into the North Sea at a consider- 
 able distance from Cuxhaven and was picked up by a Dutch 
 trawler, which landed him in Holland several days afterward. 
 The British vessels remained off Cuxhaven for three hours, 
 engaged in the most novel combat in naval history. 
 
 A short time previous to the attack on Cuxhaven, the 
 British submarine B-11 accomplished one of the most remark- 
 able exploits of the war when it penetrated into the Dardanelles 
 and torpedoed the Turkish battleship Messudieh. In doing so 
 the submarine successfully passed and repassed five lines of 
 submerged mines and returned to its base in safety after being 
 under water for many hours at a stretch. 
 
 U. S. PROTEST ON MARINE CONDITIONS 
 
 On December 31, by mutual agreement between the State 
 Department at Washington and the British Foreign Office, the 
 text of a note sent by the United States to England, requesting 
 an early improvement in the treatment of American shipping 
 by the British fleet, was made public. The note of protest had 
 been presented on December 29. It dealt with the manner in 
 which American ships suspected of carrying contraband of 
 war had been held up on the high seas and sent into British 
 ports for examination. Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign 
 secretary, and Walter Hines Page, United States ambassador, 
 conferred on the subject in London, and it was announced on 
 January 1, 1915, that an answer to the American note would 
 be drawn up as soon as possible and that it would be in the 
 same friendly spirit in which the American note was written. 
 
 ON THE WESTERN BATTLE FRONT 
 
 The battle lines in the western theater of war held firm and 
 fast during the first two months of 1915. Along the entire 
 
LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 361 
 
 front, from Flanders to the Swiss frontier, there were few 
 changes in the relati^Vv ^ positions of the German forces and the 
 Allies up to March 1, at which time both sides were occupied 
 with preparations for the spring campaign. British reinforce- 
 ments, forming part of Lord Kitchener's new army, were 
 being transported to the front, while the far-flung lines of 
 trenches were filled with battle-weary veterans of the winter 
 campaign. In many places the entrenchments of the opposing 
 forces were only a few yards apart and trenches were fre- 
 quently destroyed by mines, resulting in losses to both sides, 
 but without materially changing the general aspect of the 
 conflict. 
 
 NAVAL BATTLE IN THE NORTH SEA 
 
 One of the most important naval battles of the war took 
 place on January 24 in the North Sea between a British bat- 
 tle cruiser squadron under Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty, 
 comprising the battle cruisers Tiger, Lion, Princess Royal, 
 New Zealand and Indomitable, assisted by a few light cruisers 
 and destroyers, on the one hand, and on the other a German 
 squadron, consisting of the battle cruisers Derflinger, Seyd- 
 litz and Moltke, the armored cruiser Bluecher, one of the finest 
 in the Kaiser 's navy, and several light cruisers. 
 
 It was a running fight, covering over one hundred miles 
 and lasting four hours. At the end of this time the German 
 armored cruiser Bluecher was at the bottom of the sea and 
 two of the German battle cruisers had been damaged. Two 
 of Vice-Admiral Beatty 's ships were seriously damaged, 
 namely, the giant battle cruiser Lion, which was Sir David's 
 flagship, and the torpedo boat destroyer Meteor, one of the 
 largest and fastest of this class afloat. However, both of 
 these vessels were safely towed into port. The loss in men 
 on the British side was fourteen killed and twenty-nine 
 wounded, while on the side of the Germans only 125 of the 
 crew of 850 men on the Bluecher were saved; the other 725 
 went down with the ship. 
 
362 LATER EVENTS OF THE WAJi 
 
 The loss of the Bluecher was the hardest blow the German 
 navy had sustained up to this time, as she was one of the 
 newest and best vessels of her class. She was bailt at a cost 
 of $6,750,000. Her speed was slower than that of the other 
 vessels in the German squadron, which doubtless accounted 
 for her loss. The battle began about 150 miles from Heligo- 
 land and ended within about fifty miles of this German naval 
 base. 
 
 Early in the month of February, England threatened to 
 put all foodstuffs destined for German ports on the contra- 
 band list. In retaliation, Germany, on February 4, through 
 Admiral von Pohl, chief of the admiralty staff, issued a proc- 
 lamation designating the waters around Great Britain and 
 Ireland as a war area, to become effective February 18 and 
 to be enforced by a formidable fleet of submarines, the object 
 being to conduct war operations in this area for the purpose 
 of destroying commercial ships of the enemy. 
 
 Just at this time the great passenger steamship Lusitania, 
 in her passage from New York to Liverpool, hoisted the Amer- 
 ican flag while sailing through the Irish Sea, and Germany 
 charged that the British Admiralty had issued confidential 
 orders to captains of all British ships to sail under the stars 
 and stripes or other neutral flags when necessary to use this 
 means of protection against destruction by the warships of 
 the enemy. This situation seriously menaced the commerce 
 of the United States as well as that of all other neutral 
 nations, and the American Government, therefore, promptly 
 issued a note of warning to both belligerents and demanded 
 in strong terms the protection of American neutral rights on 
 the high seas. Germany responded promptly and promised to 
 use every precaution to protect neutral shipping, but pointed 
 out that the use of the American flag by British ships would 
 make it difficult to distinguish neutral vessels from those of 
 the enemy; hence neutral shipping was urged to avoid the 
 indicated war area. Great Britain, on the other hand, claimed 
 the right to use neutral flags when necessary to protect human 
 life and ships, when endangered by the war vessels of the 
 enemy; and under the laws of warfare and customs of the 
 nations this contention was correct. 
 
 It can readily be seen that this situation placed the sea 
 commerce of the United States, as well as that of all other 
 
LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 363 
 
 neutral countries, in a most dangerous position. Up to March 
 1, 1915, about twenty merchant vessels of various nationalities 
 wer6 destroyed or damaged in the war zone established by 
 Germany, including Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, American and 
 British ships. 
 
 GBEAT GERMAN VIOTOEY IN EAST PEUSSIA 
 
 After a difficult campaign against the Eussian invaders in 
 East Prussia, the German army, by the masterly strategy of 
 Field Marshal von Hindenburg, practically annihilated the 
 Russian Tenth Army of 150,000 men, completing the task Feb- 
 ruary 20. It was the most spectacular campaign in the his- 
 tory of modern warfare. 
 
 The object of the German commander was not only to free 
 East Prussia from the Russian invasion, but to completely 
 capture the Russian Tenth Army. He sent one column in 
 from the south to drive back the Russians who occupied the 
 Mazurian lake gateway to East Prussia, and another column 
 from the north was swung around in wide circles to the east 
 and south, aiming to join hands with the southern German 
 column, thus cutting off the Russian retreat. This movement 
 would have succeeded absolutely except for dela^ in passing 
 through the swamps, caused by mild weather which broke up 
 the ice. A commander of one of the German corps said: 
 '* Nature has always helped Russia. Two days of hard frost 
 and we should have had every man. * * 
 
 In the south also nature aided the Russians. There the 
 German hosts attacked the enemy in the face of a driving 
 snowstorm from the north, which hindered their operations 
 but did not prevent them from gaining a victory which resulted 
 in freeing Prussian territory from the invader. 
 
 ALLIES FORCE THE DARDANELLES 
 
 On March 1 a great allied fleet of forty British and French 
 warships, having reduced the forts at the entrance to the 
 Dardanelles, was on its way through the straits and the Sea of 
 Marmora to Constantinople, with the object of capturing the 
 city. Panic prevailed in the Turkish capital at the approach 
 of the fleet, while for the first time in history hostile flags 
 flew over the forts at the mouth of the Dardanelles. 
 
364 
 
 LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 
 
 The naval operations of the Allies in the Dardanelles, which 
 began on February 17, proceeded without any serious check 
 for a month. Mine sweepers were in daily use, to clear the 
 channel of submerged and floating mines, and the forts at the 
 Narrows, several miles inside the entrance of the straits, were 
 subject to bombardment every fine day. High winds and fog 
 hampered the operations to a considerable extent, but the pur- 
 pose of the Allies under Vice-Admiral Garden was adamant 
 and would not be denied. They were determined to hammer 
 their way through to the Turkish capital. The greatest battle 
 of all history between warships and shore forts was the result. 
 Soon after the bombardment began it became known that the 
 allied fleets were led by the great new British superdread- 
 naught Queen Elizabeth, launched after the war began and 
 armed with 15-inch guns of immense range which proved most 
 eifective in reducing the forts at the mouth of the straits. 
 
 FROM THE DARDANELLES TO THE BLACK SEA 
 
 BLACK Sf/I « 
 
 llSAMIDlEH 
 
 This Map Shows the Route of the Allied Fleets on the Way to Constantinople, 
 The Principal Fortified Places Are Clearly Indicated. 
 
LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 365 
 
 THKEE WARSHIPS SUNK 
 
 On March 18 three of the allied warships were sunk inside 
 the Dardanelles and two crippled by the Turks during a bom- 
 bardment in which ten vessels of the combined fleet partici- 
 pated. The official report of the battle was as follows : 
 
 ' ' Mine-sweeping having been in progress during the last ten 
 days inside the straits, a general attack was delivered by the 
 British and French fleets on Thursday morning upon the fort- 
 resses at the Narrows. At 10 :45 A. M. the Queen Elizabeth, 
 Inflexible, Agamemnon, and Lord Nelson bombarded forts 
 J, L, T, U and V, while the Triumph and Prince George fired 
 at batteries F, E and H. A heavy fire was opened on the ships 
 from howitzers and field guns. 
 
 "At 12:22 o'clock the French squadron, consisting of the 
 Suffren, G-aulois, Charlemagne and Bouvet, advanced up the 
 Dardanelles and engaged the forts at closer range. Forts 
 I, U, F and E replied strongly. Tlieir fire was silenced by the 
 ten battleships inside the straits, all the ships being hit several 
 times during this part of the action. 
 
 '*By 1:25 P. M. all the forts had ceased firing. The Ven- 
 geance, Irresistible, Albion, Ocean, Swiftsure and Majestic 
 then advanced to relieve the six old battlesliips inside the 
 straits. As the French squadron, which had engaged the forts 
 in a most brilliant fashion, was passing out, the Bouvet was 
 blown up by a drifting mine. She sank in 36 fathoms north 
 of Arenkeuf village in less than three minutes. 
 
 ''At 2:23 P. M. the relief battleships renewed the attack 
 on the forts, which again opened fire. The attack on the forts 
 was maintained while the operations of the mine-sweepers 
 continued. 
 
 "At 4 :09 P. M. the Irresistible quitted the line, listing heav- 
 ily, and at 5 :50 o 'clock sank, having probably struck a drifting 
 mine. At 6:05 o'clock the Ocean, also having struck a mine, 
 sank. Both vessels sanl^ in deep water, practically the whole 
 of their crews having been removed safely under a hot fire. 
 The loss of the ships was caused by mines drifting with the 
 current, which were encountered in areas hitherto swept clear. 
 
 "The British casualties in personnel were not heavy con- 
 sidering the scale of the operations, but practically the whole 
 of the crew of the Bouvet were lost with the ship, an internal 
 
366 LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 
 
 explosion having apparently supervened on the explosion of 
 the mine." [About 500 lives were lost on the Bouvet.] 
 
 On March 16 Vice- Admiral Garden, who had been incapaci- 
 tated by illness, was succeeded in the chief command by Rear- 
 Admiral John Michael De Robeck, with the acting rank of 
 vice-admiral. 
 
 ADMIKAL DE ROBECK 's TKIBUTE TO THE FRENCH 
 
 After the engagement of March 18 Admiral De Robeck tele- 
 graphed to the British Admiralty the following tribute to the 
 gallantry of the French in action : 
 
 **I desire to bring to the notice of your Lordships the splen- 
 did behavior of the French squadron. Their heavy loss leaves 
 them quite undaunted. They were led into close action by 
 Rear- Admiral Guepratte with the greatest gallantry. ' ' 
 
 About this time it was noted by the press and generally 
 commented upon, in both England and America, that the Ad- 
 miralty had not made public a single word of commendation 
 for the work of the British navy since the war began. This 
 unusual fact was interpreted as evidence of the inflexible pur- 
 pose of the British to ignore minor losses and even defeats 
 until the main battleship fleets of the belligerents should come 
 to grips in the open sea. English newspapers began to taunt 
 the Germans with permitting their navy to ' * rust in the Kiel 
 Canal." 
 
 The sinking of the battle cruisers Irresistible, Ocean and 
 Bouvet was the heaviest loss sustained by the Allies since the 
 war began. The British crews were rescued, almost to a man, 
 and the loss of the French crew was due mainly to the internal 
 explosion following that of the mine. All the ships sunk 
 were of the earlier pre-dreadnought type. On the same day, 
 March 18, the British battle cruiser Inflexible and the French 
 battleship Gaulois were put out of commission temporarily 
 by the fire of the Turkish forts. 
 
 The Irresistible, the Ocean and the Bouvet were all sunk 
 in portions of the straits which had been swept clear of an- 
 chored mines, and the drifting mines which proved so deadly 
 were undoubtedly set afloat by the Turks, probably under the 
 direction of German officers, on the swift current of the Dar- 
 danelles at points near the allied ships after the action began. 
 
LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 367 
 
 On March 24 the allied fleets renewed with vigor their at- 
 tack upon the forts at the Narrows of the Dardanelles. A 
 large body of troops was also landed upon the peninsula of 
 Gallipoli, commanding the approach to Constantinople, and 
 the Russian Black Sea fleet co-operated by a bombardment 
 of the Turkish naval base, which left the Turkish fleet without 
 supplies and practically paralyzed its movements. 
 
 BATTLE OF NEUVE CHAPELLE 
 
 The presence of part of Earl Kitchener's new British vol- 
 unteer army at the western front in Belgium and France was 
 signalized between March 10 and March 16, when the British 
 gained a series of successes that drew marked attention to 
 their operations. To the south of Ypres in Flanders the Brit- 
 ish army, which a German attack had compelled to fall back 
 beyond St. Eloi, recaptured that village and almost all of the 
 neighboring German trenches, in spite of several counter- 
 attacks. 
 
 On March 11 Field Marshal Sir John French described 
 the fighting which led to the capture of Neuve Chapelle in 
 Northern France as follows : 
 
 ''Since my last communique the situation on our front, 
 between Armentieres and La Bassee, has been materially al- 
 tered by a successful initiative on the part of the troops en- 
 gaged. Shortly after 8 A. M. on March 10 these troops 
 assaulted and carried German trenches in the neighborhood 
 of Neuve Chapelle. 
 
 ''Before noon we captured the whole village of Neuve 
 Chapelle. Our infantry at once proceeded to confirm and ex- 
 tend the local advantage gained. By dusk the whole laby- 
 rinth of trenches on a front about 4,000 yards was in our hands. 
 We had established ourselves about 1,200 yards beyond the 
 enemy's advanced trenches. 
 
 "During the 11th the enemy made repeated efforts to re- 
 cover the ground lost. All his counter-attacks were repulsed 
 with heavy loss. 
 
 "We continue to make steady progress and hard fighting 
 continues. The local initiative displayed by our troops daily 
 is admirable. It says much for the spirit which animates the 
 army. The success achieved on the 10th and 11th is a striking 
 example. ' ' 
 
368 LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 
 
 **THE END OF THE WORLD" 
 
 An officer who was wounded in the fighting thus vividly de- 
 scribes the battle of Neuve Chapelle : 
 
 ''Modern warfare is such an infernal business that any 
 man who is not killed ought to be cheerlul. It all seems like 
 a wild dream to me. I never heard such a row in all my life. 
 And the bullets and the shells — it was like passing through 
 the most awful hail storm. 
 
 '*We were in our trenches at dawn M'hen suddenly a most 
 infernal din commenced. You never saw such a sight; you 
 never heard such a noise. I heard one of my men say, 'This 
 is the end of the world,' and I did not blame him for thinking 
 so. We could see in the distance great masses of llame, earth 
 and brick in great clouds of smoke, all ascending together as 
 enormous shells screamed over our heads and burst among the 
 German entrenchments and the houses of the village. At the 
 end of a half-hour's bombardment the fire ceased as suddenly 
 as it had begun. 
 
 '*A11 this time we were awaiting the order to advance to- 
 wards Aubers. At length we jumped out into the open. The 
 air seemed alive with bullets and shells. There was a buzzing 
 noise, such as you hear in a tropical forest on a hot sumnier 
 day. On we moved, until we came to an open stretch, which 
 was being swei)t by an iufernal shell fire. We crossed this in 
 rushes to gain the shelter of a few houses, losing some 40 or 
 50 men. There we remained for some little time, reforming 
 the battalion and awaiting further orders. AVhen these came 
 we moved forward over rough, open ground, coming upon lots 
 of our poor fellows lying dead. They were from the only 
 battalion which h;ul ]n-eceded us. 
 
 "Then we entered the German trenches which had been 
 captured. Again we halted. All this time our shells, German 
 shells and rifle and machine gun bullets were shrieking over- 
 head. 
 
 ''Thank goodness, in an action like this you seeem to lose 
 your senses ! A kind of elevation above all ordinary feelings 
 comes over you and you feel as though you were rushing 
 through air. There is so much to frighten you that you cease 
 to be afraid. Then your senses gradually come back._ That 
 is why all infantry attacks should be carried through with one 
 overwhelming rush." 
 
LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR ?m 
 
 GERMAN ADVANCE IN POLAND 
 
 On March 12 two Oeirnan arniifis woro on the; move in 
 l^oland, seeking to pierce the Ku.sHian lines. One of these; 
 armies was advancing along the road to Przasnysz with the; 
 bank of the River Nan;w as its objective. ^J'his was the 
 jfiain German attack and inaugurated one of the biggcist battles 
 of \\\(\ war. 
 
 Farth(;r south, on the Pilica, a Geniian feint was in prog- 
 ress with the object of w«.'akenir)g the Russian ilo.Um'^o. in tlie 
 north. But while ]^(;trograd seemed to b(! re-signing its(*lf 
 to the id(*a of a second withdrawal from before Przasnysz, 
 there was little doubt of th(; ultimate; outcome of this (jerman 
 attempt to gain a firm footing on Russian soil. The Gennan 
 troops were moved forward in close order and only in the 
 daytime, and were entinily dep(!ndent on what natural cover 
 they couhl find betwe!(;n the rushes, as the; grounel was frozen 
 too hard to permit the use of intrenc;hing toe)ls. 
 
 These; tactieis naturally involve;d very he!avy losse'S. The 
 German casualiiejs are; also understood to have; benTi e^xtre-rneily 
 severe arounel Simno, espe;cially on their extreme left, whe;re; 
 the;y lost the greater part of their transport. It appeareel 
 certain that the Russians had falle;n back before an onrush 
 of forces of overwhe;lrning numerical supe!rie)rity, but it was 
 equally certain that with every yarel of the German advance 
 from the;ir railways the shoc;k of their impact weakened while 
 the Russian powers of resistance were enhanced. 
 
 BRITISH RELIEVE THE PRESSURE 
 
 Just as the French attacked the Germans in the western 
 campaign whe;n Fiesld Marshal von Hinde;nburg made; his rush 
 from East Prussia in Fe;bruary, so the; British army ope;rating 
 in Flanders unele;rtook the task of relieving the pressure; em 
 its Russian ally when the Russians again were attacked in 
 north Polanel. 'J'his was part of the general plan of the allieel 
 gene;rals. When one; was attackeel the othe;r attae;ke;el, se> as 
 to compel the Germans and Austrians to keep strong forces 
 at every point, and ende-avor to prevent them from se;nding 
 new troops where they couhl elo the; most goe)d. 
 
 In Mare;h the Germans we-re; oe;e;upie;d in an atte^npt to 
 crush the Russians. For this purpose they had an amiy esti- 
 mated at nearly half a million men marching along the roads 
 
370 LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 
 
 toward Przasnysz. To prevent this army from being further 
 strengthened the British began to thrust at the German line 
 north of La Bassee, and besides reporting the capture of the 
 village of Neuve Chapelle, they advanced beyond that town. 
 
 BRITISH AUXILIARY CRUISER LOST 
 
 Oh March 12 the Admiralty issued a report of the loss of 
 the large British auxiliary cruiser Bayano while on naval 
 patrol duty in the Irish Sea, Evidence pointed to her having 
 been torpedoed by a German submarine. Only 27 of the Bay- 
 ano 's crew of 250 were saved. Fourteen officers, including 
 the commander, went down with the ship. The Bayano was 
 a new twin screw steel steamer of 5,948 tons. The survivors 
 were afloat on a raft when rescued. The loss of the Bayano 
 was the most serious of the submarine blockade of the British 
 coasts up to that time. 
 
 GERMAN CRUISER DRESDEIST SUNK 
 
 For several months British warships in the South Atlantic 
 and South Pacific oceans sought in vain for the German cruiser 
 Dresden, one of the German squadron defeated off the Falk- 
 land Islands by Admiral Sturdee in December, when she was 
 the only German vessel to escape. On February 27 she sank 
 the British ship Conway Castle off Corral in the South Pacific, 
 and on March 14 she was caught near Juan Fernandez Island 
 by the British cruisers Glasgow and Kent and the auxiliary 
 cruiser Orama. An action ensued and after five minutes ' fight- 
 ing the Dresden hauled down her flag. She was much dam- 
 aged and set on fire, and after she had been burning for some 
 time her magazine exploded and she sank. The crew were 
 saved. Fifteen badly wounded Germans were landed at Val- 
 paraiso, and the remainder of the crew were taken on board 
 the auxiliary cruiser Orama as prisoners of war. 
 
 The Dresden was a sister ship of the famous Emden, and 
 was commissioned in October, 1907. In the spring of 1914 the 
 Dresden was on the Caribbean station, and was lying off Tam- 
 pico when the American forces captured Vera Cruz. Later 
 on in the summer the Dresden was the vessel on which Vic- 
 toriano Huerta, upon abandoning Mexico, traveled from 
 Puerta to Jamaica. Upon the outbreak of the war the Dres- 
 den was still stationed in Central American waters, and for a 
 
LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 371 
 
 time was hunted by the British and French cruisers in the 
 North Atlantic. She steamed south, however, and after sink- 
 ing the British steamer Hyades and the Holmwood off the 
 coast of Brazil, respectively, on August 16 and 26, went through 
 the Strait of Magellan and joined Admiral Count Von Spec's 
 fleet in the southern Pacific. 
 
 The sinking of the Dresden left at large on the high seas, 
 so far as was known, only the German cruiser Karlsruhe, last 
 reported as operating in the West Indies, and the auxiUary 
 cruiser Kronprinz Wilhelm, which was still raiding commerce 
 in the South Atlantic. 
 
 THE FALL OF PEZEMYSL 
 
 On March 22 the long siege of Przemysl, the formidable 
 Galician fortress that had been called the ''key to the Austrian 
 empire," ended with the surrender of the city to the Russians. 
 The siege stands as the fifth longest in 136 years, having lasted 
 185 days, surpassed in duration only by the sieges of Gibraltar, 
 Sebastopol, Vicksburg, Richmond and Port Arthur. The news 
 of the Austrians ' surrender was the most important that had 
 come from the eastern front in weeks. For six months the 
 stronghold had withstood assault, remaining a constant men- 
 ace in the rear of the Russian advance in Galicia. From 120,- 
 000 to 150,000 Russians had been held in the neighborhood by 
 the necessity of masking the fortress. Numerous efforts had 
 been made to reach the beleaguered city by relieving armies, 
 but each in turn proved unavailing, though for a time in De- 
 cember it appeared likely that a combined German and Aus- 
 trian army would succeed in raising the siege. 
 
 Tlxe fall of Przemysl was preceded by a sortie of the garri- 
 son in a last desperate attempt to hack its way through the 
 enemy's lines. After a seven hours' battle they were com- 
 pelled to retreat with a loss of nearly 4,000 prisoners. Only 
 three days' rations were left. In the surrender of the city 
 the Russians announced the taking of nearly 120,000 prisoners, 
 including nine generals, 93 officers of the general staff, 2,500 
 officers and officials, and 117,000 soldiers. 
 
 Twenty-four thousand soldiers of the Przemysl garrison 
 were killed during the long siege, according to dispatches f roni 
 Petrograd. Twenty thousand more were wounded making 
 the total casualties of the Austrian defenders 44,000 men. 
 
372 LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 
 
 Depleted by disease, subsisting on horseflesli, and sur- 
 rounded by a superior force of Russians, the garrison of 
 Przemysl was forced to surrender, but fell with honor, the 
 gallant character of the defense under General von Kusmanek 
 being conceded on all sides. The Russian commander who 
 received the surrender was General Seliwanoff. In the early 
 days of the siege a Bulgarian, General Radko Dimitrieff, was 
 in command of the investing forces. General Seliwanoff com- 
 manded the Russian forces at Vladivostok during the Russo- 
 Japanese war of 1904-05. 
 
 The duration of the siege compared with the length of time 
 it took the Germans to capture such strongholds as Liege, 
 Namur and Antwerp was due to two causes, one being the 
 desire of the Russians to keep the loss of life among the be- 
 sieging army at a minimum, the other to the lack of great guns 
 which the Germans had in Belgium. 
 
 The investment was not a close one, the garrison having 
 had a radius of about twelve miles in which to move about. 
 An aeroplane post was maintained almost up to the last, and 
 it is said that even some scanty food supplies were carried 
 in by aeroplane. 
 
 Although the victory was a big one, it cost the Russians 
 dearly. It is estimated that 150,000 Russians were killed and 
 wounded during the months that the siege went on. Not only 
 were many Russians killed by the efficient fire of the Austrian 
 gunners, but the fierce sorties where attackers and defenders 
 fought hand-to-hand resulted in heavy casualties. 
 
 Przemysl was the greatest fortress in the Austrian empire. 
 Hill, rock, marsh and river combined to give it strength and 
 the work of nature had been supplemented by the labors of 
 the finest military engineers in central Europe. The gallant 
 defense which the garrison put up for 185 days is recorded as 
 Austria's most noteworthy contribution to the war. For a 
 long time the fortress had faced famine. 
 
 With the fall of Przemysl the only important fortified town 
 in Austrian Galicia vrhich was not in the hands of the Russians 
 was Cracow, close to the German border. A large Russian 
 army with artillery was released for action. The Russian left 
 wing stretched from the province of Bukowina on the south- 
 east to Tarnow and the Vistula River near Cracow on the west. 
 
LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 373 
 
 ON" THE EASTERN FRONT 
 
 On the eastern front of the stupendous battle line in March 
 the most sanguinary fighting of the war occurred. Losses on 
 both sides were appalling, while the gains in territorial ac- 
 quisition amounted to little or nothing. 
 
 Describing the enormous losses on both sides in Poland, 
 a neutral observer, Mr. Stanley Washburn, said in the Amer- 
 ican Review of Reviews : 
 
 ''The German program contemplated taking both Warsaw 
 and Ivangorod and the holding for the winter of the line be- 
 tween the two formed by the Vistula. The Russians took the 
 offensive from Ivangorod, crossed the river, and after hid- 
 eous fighting fairly drove Austrians and Germans from posi- 
 tions of great strength around the quaint little Polish town 
 of Kozienice. From this town for perhaps ten miles west, 
 and I know not how far north and south there is a belt of 
 forest of fir and spruce. Near Kozienice the Russian infantry, 
 attacking in flank and front, fairly wrested the enemy's posi- 
 tion and drove him back into this jungle. The Russians sim- 
 ply sent their troops in after them. 
 
 ''The fight was now over a front of perhaps twenty kilo- 
 meters; there was no strategy. It was all very simple. In 
 this belt were Germans and Austrians. They were to be 
 driven out if it took a month. Then began the carnage. Day 
 after day the Russians fed troops in on their side of the wood. 
 Companies, battalions, regiments, and even brigades, were 
 absolutely cut off from all communication. None knew what 
 was going on anywhere but a few feet in front. All knew that 
 the only thing required of them was to keep advancing. 
 
 "Yard by yard the ranks and lines of the Austrians were 
 driven back, but the nearer their retreat brought them to the 
 open country west of the wood the hotter was the contest 
 waged. The last two kilometers of the woody belt are some- 
 thing incredible to behold; there seems hardlv an acre that 
 is not sown like the scene of a paperchase — only here with 
 bloody bandages and bits of uniform. Men fighting hand to 
 hand with clubbed muskets and bayonets contested each tree 
 and ditch. The end was, of course, inevitable. The troops of 
 the dual alliance could not fill their losses, and the Russians 
 could. 
 
374 LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 
 
 ''At last came the day when the dirty, grimy, bloody sol- 
 diers of the Czar pushed their antagonists out of the far side 
 of the woodland — and what a scene occurred in that open bit 
 of country with the quaint little village of Aug-ustowo at the 
 crossroads I Once out in the open the hungry guns of the Rus- 
 sians, so long yapping ineffectively without knowing what 
 their shells were doing, had their chance. Down every road 
 through the forest came the six-horse teams with the guns 
 jumping and jingling behind, with their accompanying cais- 
 sons heavy with death-charged shrapnel, and the moment the 
 enemy were in the clear these batteries, eight guns to a unit, 
 were unlimbered on the fringe of the wood and pouring out 
 their death and destruction on the wretched enemy now re- 
 treating hastily across the open. And the place where the Rus- 
 sians first turned loose on the retreat is a place to remember. 
 
 ''Dead horses, bits of men, blue uniforms, shattered trans- 
 port, overturned gun-carriages, bones, broken skulls, and 
 grisly bits of humanity strew every acre of the ground. 
 
 ENORMOUS LOSSES ON BOTH SIDES 
 
 *'A Russian officer who seemed to be in authority on this 
 gruesome spot volunteered the information that already they 
 had buried at Kozienice, in the wood and on this open spot, 
 16,000 dead. Those that had fallen in the open and along the 
 road had been decently interred, as the forests of crosses for 
 ten miles along that bloody way clearly indicated, but back in 
 the woods themselves were hundreds and hundreds of bodies 
 that lay as they had fallen. Sixteen thousand dead means at 
 least 70,000 casualties all told, or 35,000 on a side if losses were 
 equally distributed. And this, figured on the basis of the 
 16,000 dead already buried, without allowing for the numbers 
 of the fallen that still lie about in the woods. And yet here 
 is a battle the name of which is hardly more than kno^m in 
 America, yet the losses on both sides amount to more than the 
 entire army that General Meade commanded at the Battle of 
 Gettysburg. 
 
 "He who has the heart to walk about in this ghastly place 
 can read the last sad moments of almost every corpse. Here 
 one sees a blue-coated Austrian with leg shattered by a jagged 
 bit of a shell. The trouser perhaps has been ripped open 
 
LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 375 
 
 and clumsy attempts been made to dress the wound, while a 
 .i^reat splotch of red shows where the fading- strensrth was ex- 
 Imusted before the flow of life's stream could be checked. 
 Here again is a body with a ghastly rip in the chest, made 
 perhaps by bayonet or shell fragment. Frantic hands now 
 stiffened in death are seen trying to hold together great wounds 
 from which life must have flowed in a few great spurts of 
 blood. And here it is no fiction about the ground being soaked 
 with gore. One can see it, — coagulated like bits of raw liver, 
 while great chunks of sand and earth are in lumps, held to- 
 gether by this human glue. Other bodies lie in absolute peace 
 and serenity. Struck dead with a rifle ball througli the heart 
 or some other instantly vital spot. These lie like men asleep, 
 and on their faces is the peace of absolute rest and relaxation, 
 but of these alas! there are few compared to the ones upon 
 whose pallid, blood-stained faces one reads the last frantic 
 agony of death. 
 
 **The soldiers themselves go on from battlefield to battle- 
 field, from one scene of carnage to another. They see their 
 regiments dwindle to nothing, their officers decimated, three- 
 fourths of their comrades dead or wounded, and yet each night 
 they gather about their bivouacs apparently undisturbed by 
 it all. One sees them on the road the day after one of these 
 desperate fights marching cheerfully along, singing songs and 
 laughing and joking with one another. This is morale and it 
 is of the stuff that victories are made. And of such is the fiber 
 of the Russian soldier, scattered over these hundreds of miles 
 of front to-day. He exists in millions and has abiding faith 
 in his companions, in his officers, and in his cause." 
 
 TERRIFIC FIGHTING IN MIDWINTER 
 
 Writing of the desperate fighting in Poland in midwinter 
 when the Germans made a tremendous effort to pierce the 
 Russian lines on the Bzura and Rawka front, with Warsaw 
 as their objective point, an American correspondent, Mr. John 
 F. Bass, said : * * The fighting was terrific. The detonations of 
 the cannon came in such rapid succession that they sounded 
 like giant machine guns and the windows of the dressing sta- 
 tions for the wounded shook as if from an earthquake. It was 
 no'v possible to distinguish individual gun explosions from the 
 ""sattle of the infantry fire. All were mingled in one inarticu- 
 
376 LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 
 
 late battle shriek. At night, as in a furious thunderstorm, 
 the darkness was pierced with the unintermittent flashes of 
 the guns, while sickly green rockets shed a ghastly light over 
 the fighting lines. The wounded brought in filled the hospitals 
 to overflowing. 
 
 *'It was estimated by the Russians that the Germans lost 
 60,000 men. I was told by an officer that the bodies of German 
 soldiers were piled up before the Russian trenches in many of 
 the assaults so high that German shells bursting among them 
 threw mangled pieces of human beings into the trenches among 
 the Russians. 
 
 **At night, under the glare of search-lights, the undulat- 
 ing mass of wounded made efforts to extricate themselves. 
 Then, toward 2 o 'clock in the morning, they moved no more. ' ' 
 The winter cold had done its deadly work. 
 
 FRENCH MAKE GAINS IN MAECH 
 
 In the Champagne country of northern France the month 
 of March was marked by almost continuous fighting of the 
 fiercest character. French advices from Chalons-sur-Mame 
 on March 29 were to the effect that 11,000 German dead had 
 been taken from the trenches won by the French in the previous 
 twenty days and that the total German losses duriug that time 
 in the Champagne district exceeded 50,000 in killed, wounded 
 and prisoners. 
 
 STIERING EVENTS OF THE SPRING 
 
 All through, the month of April the days were crowded with 
 important occurrences east and west along the battle lines. The 
 Russian movement across the Carpathians was pressed with vigor 
 and some of the fiercest fighting of the war resulted, as the com- 
 bined German and Austrian troops resisted the Russian advance 
 into Hungary. 
 
 Early in the spring the British forces gained a notable victory 
 at Neuve Chapelle in the western theater of war. Then the German 
 forces in Flanders were heavily reinforced until it was estimated 
 that they numbered not less than half a million men, gathered for 
 the purpose of smashing the line of the Allies at the strategic, point 
 where the British and the Belgian troops were in touch with one 
 another. Here, for three days, the Germans succeeded in pushing 
 forward, driving a wedge for several miles into the line of the 
 allied armies of England, France and Belgium. And here, too, the 
 
LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 377 
 
 Canadian division of the British army covered itself with glory 
 and once more demonstrated the value to the British empire of the 
 "lion's whelps." On one notable occasion, destined to be recorded 
 in history as a red-letter day for Canadian arms, the gallant fellows 
 from the great Dominion "saved the situation," to quote from the 
 report of Field Marshal French, by a splendid charge, during which 
 they recaptured from the Germans four of their field guns that had 
 been lost the day before. 
 
 HOW CANADIAN COMMANDER DIED LEADING YPRES CHARGE 
 
 From Sir Max Aitken's official account of the battle of Ypres. 
 
 "It did not seem that any human being could live in the shower 
 of shot and shell which began to play on the advancing troops. 
 They suffered terrible casualties. For a short time every other man 
 seemed to fall, but the attack was pressed even closer and closer. 
 The 4th Canadian battalion at one moment came under a particu- 
 larly withering fire. For a moment it wavered. 
 
 "Its most gallant commanding officer, Lieut.-Col. Birchall, car- 
 rying, after an old fashion, a light cane, coolly and cheerfully rallied 
 his men and at the very moment when his example had infected 
 them, fell dead at the head of his battalion. 
 
 "With a cry of anger they sprang forward as if to avenge his 
 death. The astonishing attack which followed, pushed home in the 
 face of direct frontal fire made in broad daylight by battalions 
 whose names should live forever in the memories of soldiers, was 
 carried to the first line of German trenches. After a hand-to-hand 
 struggle the last German who resisted was bayoneted and the 
 trench was won. 
 
 "It was clear that several German divisions were attempting 
 to crush or drive back the Third Brigade and to sweep around and 
 overwhelm our left wing. The last attempt partially succeeded. 
 German troops swung past the unsupported left of the brigade and, 
 slipping in between the wood and St. Julien, added to our torturing 
 anxieties by apparently isolating us from the brigade base. 
 
 "In the exertions made by the Third Brigade during this supreme 
 crisis, Major Norsworthy, already almost disabled by a bullet wound, 
 was bayoneted and killed. Captain McQuaig of the same battalion 
 was seriously wounded. 
 
 "General Curry flung his left flank around and in the crisis of 
 this immense struggle held his trenches from Thursday afternoon 
 until Sunday afternoon. He did not abandon them then. There 
 were none left. They had been obliterated by artillery. 
 
 "He withdrew his undefeated troops from the fragments of 
 his field fortifications and the hearts of his men were as completely 
 unbroken as the parapets of his trenches were completely broken 
 
 "The Ninetieth Winnipeg Rifles, which held the extreme left 
 
378 LATER EVENTS OF THE WAR 
 
 of the brigade position at the most critical moment, was expelled 
 from the trenches early Friday morning by an emission of poisonous 
 gas, but recovering in three-quarters of an hour it counter-attacked, 
 retook the trenches it had abandoned and bayoneted the enemy. 
 
 "General Alderson, commanding the reinforcements, directed 
 an advance by a British brigade which had been brought up in 
 support. 
 
 *'As the troops making it swept through the Canadian left and 
 center, many of them going to certain death, they paused for an 
 instant with deep-throated cheers^ for Canada, indicating the warm 
 admiration which the Canadians' exertions had excited in the 
 British army. 
 
 "On Monday morning General Curry was again called upon to 
 lead his shrunken Second Brigade, reduced to a quarter of its 
 original strength, into action at the apex of the line, which position 
 the brigade held all that day. On Wednesday it was relieved and 
 retired to the rear. 'Not a Canadian gun was lost in the long 
 battle of retreat.' " 
 
 "Concluding his account. Sir Max wrote: "The empire is en- 
 gaged in a struggle without quarter and without compromise 
 against an enemy still superbly organized, still immensely powerful, 
 still confident that its strength is the mate of its necessity. To 
 arms then, and still to arms ! The graveyard of Canada in Flanders 
 is very large." 
 
 GERMAN DRIVE TO THE COAST 
 
 Before the beginning of the spring campaign, it was realized 
 by the Allies that the German general staff was preparing for a 
 determined drive to the coast through the British and Belgian lines 
 that protected the approach to Calais. It was for this reason that 
 the British took the offensive at Neuve Chapelle and at the im- 
 portant strategic point known as Hill 60. The purpose of Field 
 Marshal French was to strike the first blow, and the attacks were 
 seemingly successful; but later news from the front showed that 
 "something went wrong" at Neuve Chapelle, which in a large 
 measure upset the British plans. 
 
 At HiU No. 60, though the British captured that important 
 position, they were held back from further advance. Then came 
 the long-expected German attack in the direction of Ypres, which 
 was considered as one of the keys to the French seaport of Calais. 
 By this attack the Allies were forced back from the Ypres canal, 
 and the positions gained by the Germans brought them within 
 twenty-five miles of the coast at Dunkirk. 
 
 The fighting at Neuve Chapelle, Hill 60 and Ypres was prob- 
 ably the most sanguinary of the entire war up to that time. The 
 losses on both sides were enormous. Germans, British, .Belgians 
 and French we're killed literally by the thousand, the British losses 
 
LATEB EVENTS OF THE WAR 379 
 
 at Neuve Chapelle alone being estimated at 20,000, while the German 
 casualties in forcing the passage of the Ypres canal a few days 
 later exceeded 9,000 men. 
 
 PKAISE FOB THE CANADIANS 
 
 It was in the most furious conflict of the western campaign — a 
 battle between Langemarcke and Steenstrate, in Flanders — that the 
 Canadian troops saved the British army from what seemed almost 
 inevitable defeat. The Canadian division was in the front line of 
 the British forces on April 23, when the Germans made their sudden 
 assaults and broke through the line for a distance of five miles. 
 Only the brilliant counter-charges of the Canadians saved the situ- 
 ation. They had many casualties, but their gallantry and determina- 
 tion brought success and, in the language of the official report of 
 the prolonged battle, "their conduct was magnificent throughout." 
 
 The correspondent, describing the harrowing scene of the 
 battle on April 23, said: *'Long ago Kitchener's army was given 
 its baptism of fire, but yesterday it got its initiation into hell." 
 
 In their great effort to smash the Allies on the Yser the Ger- 
 mans also sustained terrible losses. By April 27 it was asserted 
 that the German force that managed to pass the Yser and took 
 possession of the town of Lizerne had been practically annihilated. 
 The fighting was said to have been far more terrible than that of 
 the autumn of 1914, when the Yser canal ran red with blood. 
 
 It was charged by the Allies that in the fighting in Flanders 
 late in April the Germans used asphyxiating gases, which placed 
 thousands of the allied troops hors de combat, including many of 
 the Canadian division. Strong protests against the German use 
 of such methods were voiced by the allied generals, and a formal 
 denunciation was made by Lord Kitchener in the British parliament. 
 
 ALLIED TROOPS AT THE DARDANELLES 
 
 On April 25-27, a strong force of British and French troops 
 under General Sir Dan Hamilton effected a landing on both sides 
 of the Dardanelles, to co-operate with the allied fleets seeking to 
 force a passage through the straits to the Bosporus. The landing 
 was resisted by Turkish troops, but the Allies succeeded in estab- 
 lishing themselves on the Gallipoli peninsula by May 1, and made 
 several thousand Turks prisoners of war. The bombardment of 
 the Turkish forts in the Dardanelles by the allied warships was 
 continued. 
 
 The French cruiser Leon Gambetta, with a displacement of 
 12,351 tons and crew of 714 men, commanded by Rear Admiral 
 Fenet, cruising at the entrance of the Otranto canal in the Ionian 
 sea, was torpedoed the night of April 26th by the Austrian sub- 
 marine U-5, and went to the bottom in ten minutes; 578 lives were 
 lost; all officers on board, including Rear Admiral Fenet, perished. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 SINKING OF THE LUSITANIA 
 
 Destruction of the Great Cunard Liner hy a German Sub- 
 marine Causes a Serious Crisis in German-American 
 Relations — Over a Hundred Americans and Many 
 Canadians Drowned, Including Citizens of Prominence 
 and Wealth-^Prompt Diplomatic Action by President 
 Wilson — The German Campaign of F right f illness and 
 Its Results. 
 
 STEAMING majestically over a smiling sea, witli the green hills 
 of Erin in sight over the port bow and all well a'board, the 
 greatest, fastest and most beautiful transatlantic liner in com- 
 mission was nearing the end of her voyage from New York to 
 Liverpool. It was the hour after luncheon on the great ship, the 
 hour of the siesta or the promenade, the most peaceful hour of the " 
 day. Little children by the score played merrily about the great 
 decks; families and friends foregathered in the lounges or beside 
 the rail to watch the Irish coast slip by; all the internal economy 
 of the giant ship moved smoothly, as if by clockwork. 
 
 It was more than a floating hotel, replete with comfort and 
 luxury. It was a floating town, with a whole townful of people. 
 Over fourteen hundred men, women and children were on the 
 passenger 4ist and six hundred men in the Cunard uniform con- 
 stituted the crew. Among the passengers were many citizens of 
 the United States and Canada, and there was an unusually large 
 proportion of women and children on board, the families of men 
 who had been drawn into the maelstrom of war. 
 
 For in spite of the calm and peace prevailing on the great passen- 
 ger ship, the shadow of war impended over all. The bloody strug- 
 gles of the great European cataclysm were proceeding at the other 
 end of the English Channel and dire hints of dangers on the sea in 
 the ''war zone" had accompanied the sailing of the ship. 'But on 
 this bright May day, as the liner approached its destination, danger 
 seemed far distant and few indeed among passengers or crew 
 gave serious thought to its imminence. 
 
 380 
 
SINKING OF THE LU SIT AN I A 381 
 
 All was truly well on board. The skies were clear, the sea was 
 smooth, and though the myriad passengers realized that they had 
 entered a danger zone of the world's greatest war they had abound- 
 ing confidence in the giant ship, in its veteran commander, and in 
 the line to which it belonged, that had never yet lost the life of a 
 single passenger committed to its care. And confidently they 
 looked forward to a safe an-ival in port next morning, the happy 
 ending of a wartime voyage which the children on board, and their 
 children's children, should recall with pride for a century to come. 
 BUT— 
 
 Right ahead in the path of the floating palace, athwart the pre- 
 scribed course of the Lusitania there lurked the deadliest slink- 
 ing serpent of the seas — the tiny volcanic hull of an enemy sub- 
 marine, most dangerous of war's new weapons. Lying leisurely in 
 wait, its body submerged just beneath the swelling undulations of a 
 summer sea, invisible, ruthless, insatiable; only the protrusion of a 
 foot or so of periscopic tube betokened its presence without be- 
 traying its purpose. But in that innocent-looking tube lay vast po- 
 tentialities for evil — nay, devilish certainties of dealing death and 
 destruction. For the little steel-encased arrangement of lenses and 
 mirrors peeping from the depths was the mechanical eye of the sub- 
 marine and sufficed to betray to watchful Teutons below the ap- 
 proach of the great ship, treasure laden with human freight of 
 non-com'batants and neutrals, but flying the flag of the German's 
 foe. 
 
 For the crew of the submarine "der Tag" had eome. Without 
 a thought of the innocents and neutrals aboard ; reckless alike of im- 
 mediate results and ultimate consequences, animated only by the 
 deadly designs of a war-madness and a deliberate campaign of 
 frightfulness, the firing signal was flashed from the German com- 
 mander's station and the fatal torpedo was launched against the 
 unsuspecting and unprotected leviathan. Traveling true to its mark, 
 it tore its frightful way through the thin sheathing of the ship and, 
 exploding on impact, pierced her vitals and sealed her doom. * * * 
 
 Barely a quarter of an hour elapsed before the giant vessel dis- 
 appeared from sigfht, plunging bow foremost to the bottom in waters 
 scarcely more than one-third of her length in depth, so that the 
 shock of .her bow striking the bottom of the sea was felt by the 
 gallant captain on the bridge before he was torn loose from his 
 ill-fated vessel. 
 
 And when the waters of the Atlantic closed over the hull of the 
 Lusitania, within sight of the Irish coast on that fatal Friday, the 
 lives of over eleven hundred non-combatant men, women and chil- 
 dren, including more than a hundred American neutrals, were ruth- 
 lessly sacrificed to the Teuton god cf war. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 A SUMMER OF SLAUGHTER 
 
 Submarine Activities — Horrors in Serbia — Bloody Battles 
 East and West — Italy Enters the War and Invades 
 Austria — Russians Pushed Back in Galicia. 
 
 The Lusitania was the twenty-ninth vessel to be sunk or dam- 
 aged in the first week of May, 1915, in the war zone established by 
 Germany about the British isles. Most of these vessels were tor- 
 pedoed by German submarines, although in some cases it has not 
 been established whether the damage was inflicted by mines or 
 underwater boats. 
 
 Sixteen of the twenty-nine vessels were British trawlers. There 
 were four British and one French merchantman in the list. The 
 others were vessels of neutral nations. 
 
 One of them was the American steamer Gulflight, torpedoed off 
 Scilly islands on May 1, with the loss of three lives. There were 
 three Norwegian, two Swedish, and one Danish merchant vessel 
 sunk. 
 
 BLOODY BATTLES EAST AND WEST. 
 
 The second week in May saw minor German successes on the 
 western front, but these were immediately succeeded by determined 
 efforts on the part of the Allies to retrieve lost ground. The week 
 of May 10 to 15 was marked by fierce assaults by the British and 
 French upon the German positions in Flanders and northern France. 
 Thousands of lives were sacrificed on both sides. At one point on 
 the Yser where the Germans were beaten back, they left 2,000 dead 
 on the field, but this was only a small percentage of the total losses 
 during this series of engagements in May. Around Ypres early 
 in the month the Canadians lost heavily, but made a splendid record 
 for gallantry and endurance in the face of odds. The Germans 
 began at this time the use of asphyxiating gases in their attacks. 
 The results were horrifying in the extreme, and as these inhuman 
 
 382 
 
A SUMMER OF SLAUGHTER 383 
 
 assaults with gas were continued, the Allies prepared to adopt the 
 use of similar noxious gases by way of retaliation. 
 
 BRITISH WARSHIP TORPEDOED. 
 
 On May 12 the British warship Goliath was sunk by a Turkish 
 torpedo during the continued attack by the Allies on the Darda- 
 nelles. Twenty officers and 160 men of the crew were saved and 
 over 500 lives were lost. The Goliath was one of the older British 
 battleships of the pre-dreadnaught type. She was built in 1898, 
 was 400 feet long and 74 feet wide, with a displacement of 12,950 
 tons. Her armament consisted of four twelve-inch and twelve six- 
 inch guns, twelve twelve-pounders, six three-pounders, (and two 
 machine guns. 
 
 In the determined attack on the Dardanelles, land forces of 
 ^British and French troops co-operated with the combined fleets. 
 The Turks made a stubborn resistance, but were compelled to give 
 way gradually before the terrific bombardment of the warships and 
 the persistent attacks by land. In the fighting on the Gallipoli 
 peninsula the British colonial troops from New Zealand covered 
 themselves with glory, fighting like veterans and breaking down 
 Turkish opposition with the bayonet. On May 19 one of the most 
 important forts at the Narrows, guarding the entrance to the Sea 
 of Marmora, was silenced by the warships' fire, and this was an 
 important step on the Allies' way to Constantinople. 
 
 Meanwhile an immense German army, said to number 1,600,000 
 men, had been forcing the Russians back in Galicia to the San 
 River and the gates of Przemysl. A German bombardment of this 
 fortress seemed imminent on May 20. 
 
 ITALY ENTEES THE WAE. 
 On Sunday, May 23, Italy finally plunged into the great conflict with a 
 declaration of war against Austria. The formal declaration, presented to the 
 Austro-Hungarian foreign minister. Baron von Burian, by the Duke of Avarna, 
 Italian ambassador at Vienna, asserted that Italy had "grave motives" for 
 annulling her treaty of alliance with Austria and "confident in her good 
 right," resumed her liberty of action. The declaration of war continued as 
 follows: 
 
 "The government of the King, firmly resolved to provide by all means at 
 its disposal for safeguarding Italian rights and interests, cannot fail in its 
 duty to take, against every existing and future menace, the measures which 
 events impose upon it for the fulfillment of national aspirations. 
 
 "His majesty, the King, declares that he considers himself from tomor- 
 row (May 24, 1915), in a state of war with Austria-Hungary." 
 
 Thus the ninety-sixth anniversary of the birth of Queen Victoria, of 
 England, found eleven of the countries of Europe at war, their rulers includ- 
 ing three of her grandsons, two arrayed in a bitter struggle against the third. 
 The Triple Alliance on this date became the Quadruple Alliance, when Italy 
 joined the Allies. Austria was of course supported by Germany. Italy wa» 
 expected to put 3,000,000 men in the field. 
 
384 A SUMMER OF SLAUGHTER 
 
 WHY ITALY WANTED WAK 
 
 The reasons why Italy entered the great conflict were succinctly 
 stated on May 19 by Signor Enrico Corradini, nationalist leader, as 
 follows : 
 
 "1. The necessity for Italy to take advantage of the present 
 revolution in European affairs to settle her national irredentist 
 problem at the expense of Austria. Our right to the Trentino, 
 Trieste and Istria, now held by Austria, is not questioned by rea- 
 sonable people anywhere in Europe. 
 
 "2. The necessity for Italy to arrive at a secure and definite 
 settlement of her military frontiers on the north and east. 
 
 "3. The necessity for Italy to create for herself by her inter- 
 vention a new moral and political position in the new European 
 order of the future, to replace that which she had, thanks to her 
 alliance with the central empires, a position which was liquidated 
 at the outbreak of the war. 
 
 "4. The necessity for Italy to contribute to repelling the dan- 
 ger of a German hegemony which would flourish at the expense of 
 the various individual cultures and civilizations." 
 
 INVASION OF AUSTRIA 
 
 Italy promptly threw an army across the Austrian frontier and 
 began active operations in the direction of Trent and Trieste. The 
 fortified city of Luzerne soon fell into Italian hands and continued 
 successes marked the progress of the invaders all through the month 
 of June. The Austrian strategy at first appeared to provide for a 
 series of withdrawals after skirmishing; but late in the month a 
 more determined resistance developed, the defenses of the Austrian 
 troops being skilfully prepared. The loss of life during the month 
 was comparatively light on both sides, but on June 26 the Italians — 
 already masters of Plava on the left bank of the Isonzo river, and 
 the heights dominating that town — were massing heavy bodies of 
 troops before Gorizia and Tolmino for crucial battles at those two 
 points, both of which blocked the way to the coveted Austrian sea- 
 port of Trieste. 
 
 STRUGGLE FOR THE DARDANELLES 
 
 All through the month of June the Allies continued their desper- 
 ate struggle for the possession of the Dardanelles, the gateway to 
 Constantinople. Under the direction of German officers and engi- 
 neers, the Turkish troops and gunners offered determined resist- 
 ance and the British, Colonial and French troops co-operating wit/i 
 the allied fleets, gained headway but slowly and at tremendous 
 
A SUMMER OF SLAUGHTER 385 
 
 cost. 'But it was declared that the Allies were bent upon forcing a 
 passage through the straits regardless of cost and that every effort 
 would be made to complete the operation during the summer. Sev- 
 eral German submarines appeared in the Gulf of Saros during the 
 month and effectively interfered with the activity of the British 
 and French fleets. The results of the operations on the Gallipoli 
 peninsula during the month indicated that the Dardanelles would 
 prove a veritable slaughter pen before the Allies succeeded in win- 
 ning their way to Stamboul. 
 
 LEMBEEG IS EE CAPTURED 
 
 On June 22 the city of Lemberg, capital of the Austrian province 
 of Galicia, was recaptured from the Russians, who had held it for 
 nearly ten months, by combined German- Austrian forces, under Gen- 
 eral Mackensen. This marked the culmination of a successful Teuton 
 campaign in Galicia, including the recapture of the strong fortress 
 of Przemysl, as well as Lemberg, and the driving of the Russian 
 invaders back to their own borders. 
 
 The eastern battle front in June extended for 680 miles north 
 and south, and while the German drive through Galicia was entirely 
 successful, the Russians gained some victories in the north. They 
 were sorely handicapped by the lack of supplies and ammunition for 
 their forces, and at the end of June the Russian authorities were 
 organizing every possible industry for the production of ammuni- 
 tion. 
 
 The fiercest fighting of the war, as far as the Baltic provinces 
 of Russia are concerned, occurred in a battle for the mastery of the 
 Dubysa River early in June. The river changed hands five times in 
 one day, and at nightfall the stream was completely choked with the 
 bodies of thousands of dead, so that a plank roadway for artillery 
 was laid by the Russians across a solid bridge of bodies. 
 
 HEEOIC FEAT OF A CANADIAN 
 
 A thrilling and unprecedented feat was performed by Lieut. R. A. 
 J. Warneford, a Canadian aviator, when alone in an aeroplane, he 
 destroyed a Zeppelin airship with its crew of twenty-eight men in 
 Belgium. He received the Victoria Cross for his exploit, but a few 
 days later was killed while testing a new aeroplane near Paris. He 
 was buried with naval honors in London, June 23. 
 
 On July 3, 1915, when the twelfth month of the Great "War 
 began, it was conservatively estimated that the total losses on all 
 sides, including killed, wounded and missing, had exceeded six 
 millions of men. Over 500 vessels had been destroyed, including 
 120 ships of war. 
 
386 A SUMMER OF SLAUGHTER 
 
 DEADLOCK IN THE' WEST 
 
 During July and August there were no general engagements of 
 importance in the Western theatre of war. The deadlock continued. 
 The troops along the Western battle lines were, however, subjected 
 almost daily to violent artillery bombardment. 
 
 By August 22 the British line in northern France and Flanders 
 had been lengthened from 40 miles to over 100 miles, with over 
 800,000 troops on the firing line. German submarines were very 
 active in the war zone during the month of August, over 170 mer- 
 chant steamships of more than 500 tons displacement and nearly 
 2,000 noncombatant lives being the awful toll to date of this new 
 method of warfare. 
 
 The British transport Royal Edward was torpedoed land sunk 
 August 14 by a German submarine in the ^gean Sea. Nearly 
 1,000 lives were* lost. The transport had on board a force of 32 
 officers and 1,350 men, in addition to the ship's ^rew of 220 officers 
 and men. The troops consisted mainly of reinforcements for the 
 29th Division and details of the Royal Army Medical Corps. 
 
 FALL OP WARSAW 
 
 Warsaw, the capital of Poland, M^as taken by the Germans August 
 5. Bavarian troops under the command of Prince Leopold carried 
 the forts of the outer and inner lines of the city's defenses, where 
 the rear guards of the Russian troops m'ade a tenacious resistance. 
 
 The German armies under Gen. von Scholz and Gen. von Gall- 
 witz advanced in the direction of the road between Lomza, Ostrov 
 and Vyszkoy and fought a number of violent engagements. The 
 brave and desperate resistance of the Russians on both sides of the 
 road between Ostrov and Rozan was without success. 
 
 Twenty-two Russian officers and 4,840 soldiers were taken prison- 
 ers. The Germans also captured seventeen machine guns. 
 
 The fall of Warsaw marked the culmination of the greatest sus- 
 tained offensive movement of the war. Thrice before Teutonic 
 armies had knocked at its gates, only to be denied by the strength 
 of its defenses and the resistance of the forces holding it. 
 
 Warsaw lies on the Vistula. 625 miles southwest of Petrograd 
 and 320 miles east of Berlin. It is an important industrial center 
 and its population is estimated at not far from 900,000. 
 
 The great Russian fortress of Kovno was captured by the Ger- 
 mans August 17, More than 400 cannon were taken. The fortress 
 was stormed in spite of the most stubborn Russian resistance. 
 
 The capture of Kovno was the most important German victory 
 in the East after the taking of Warsaw. 
 
 Kovno fell under the eye of General von Hindenburg. The cap- 
 ture of the fortress was the first personal triumph of the "old man 
 of the Mazurian lakes" since the great Austro-German campaign 
 
A SUMMER OF SLAUGHTER 387 
 
 in tlie East was inaugurated. The six great forts defending the 
 city from the west and southwest were simply blown to pieces by 
 the incessant pounding of Germany's great 42-centimeter guns and 
 a host of minor pieces. 
 
 The forts were under direct attack for scarcely a week, demon- 
 strating again the superiority of modern artillery over fort struc- 
 tures built by man. 
 
 Kovno, capital of the Russian province of that name, is on the 
 right bank of the Niemen. It is a fortress of the first class. The 
 civilian population of the city is more than 75,000, 
 
 The important Russian fortress of Novo Georgievsk, the last halt- 
 ing place of the Russians in Poland, fell into the hands of the Ger- 
 mans on August 19, after a most stubborn resistance. The garri- 
 son consisted of 85,000 men and of these over 20,000 were taken 
 prisoners. Over 500 cannon were captured and a large amount of 
 war ammunition seized. 
 
 BATTLE OF THE BAY OF EIGA 
 
 Russian naval forces aided by British submarines, in the Gulf 
 of Riga won (a decided victory August 18 over the German fleet 
 which penetrated the gulf on August 13. 
 
 The great German battle cruiser Moltke, one of the finest ships 
 of its kind afloat, was destroyed in the engagement. The cruiser 
 had a displacement of 23,000 tons and carried a crew of 1,107 men 
 and officers. Its main battery consisted of ten 11-inch guns, mounted 
 in pairs in five turrets. Its secondary battery contained twelve 6- 
 inch guns. Twelve 24-pounders and four torpedo tubes completed 
 its armament. The Moltke was 610 feet long over all, with a beam of 
 96% feet, and cost $12,000,000. 
 
 With the Moltke three German cruisers and seven torpedo boats, 
 all unnamed, were destroyed. 
 
 The Russians lost the destroyer Novik of 1,260 tons, largest in 
 the navy, and the gunboiats Sivutch and Koriets, of 875 tons dis- 
 placement. 
 
 The Russian victory did not end with the defeat of the German 
 naval forces. The invading fleet was accompanied by four enormous 
 transports, all crammed with troops. These soldiers attempted to 
 make a landing on Pernau bay, on the northeastern shoulder of the 
 Gulf of Riga. They were permitted to land and were then attacked 
 and exterminated by the Russian forces at that point. The loss 
 wf^B estimated at 6,000 men. 
 
 WHITE STAE LINER ARABIC SUNK 
 
 The White Star liner Arabic, which sailed August 18 from Liver- 
 pool for New York, was sent to the bottom by a German torpedo 
 August 19 off Fiastnet on the south coast of Ireland, not far from the 
 poiat at which the Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine. 
 
388 A SUMMER OF SLAUGHTER 
 
 Out of 429 persons aboard including crew, 39 lost tb.e'.r lives. 
 Two Americans perished — Mrs. Josephine Bruguiere, widow of Emil 
 Bruguiere, California millionaire banker, and Dr. E. F. Wood, of 
 Janesville, Wis. 
 
 Capt, Finch, who commanded the steamer, gave the following 
 graphic account of the disaster : ' ' We were forty-seven miles south 
 of Galley Head at 9 :30 in the morning when I perceived the steamer 
 Dunsley in difficulty. Going toward her, I observed a torpedo com- 
 ing for my ship, but could not discern a submarine. The torpedo 
 struck 100 feet from the stern, making terrible havoc of the hull. 
 The vessel began to settle immediately and sank in about eight min- 
 utes. 
 
 ''My order from the bridge about getting the boats launched 
 was promptly obeyed. Tavo boats capsized. We bad taken every 
 precaution while in the danger zone. There were plenty of life- 
 belts on deck and the boats were ready for immediate launching. 
 The officers and crew behaved excellently and did everything possi- 
 ble in the circumstances, getting people into the boats and picking 
 up those in the sea. 
 
 "I was the last to leave, taking the plunge into the sea as the 
 ship was going down. After being in the water some time I was 
 taken aboard a raft, to which I had assisted two men and women. 
 
 "If the submarine had given me a little more time, I am satis- 
 fied I could have siaved everybody." 
 
 The Arabic's tonnage was 15,201 gross. It was 600 feet long, 65 
 feet beam and 47 feet in depth. It was built at Belfast in 1903 by 
 Harland & Wolff. 
 
 On September 4 the German forces under Ueneral von Beseler 
 stormed and captured the bridgehead at Friedrichstradt, the most 
 important defense of Riga. The furiousness of the attacks in this 
 region led military critics to believe that the fall of the city of Riga 
 was imminent. 
 
 EveryAvhere as Russians retreated they left la trail of utter devas- 
 tation, causing the Teutons to march around burning cities, finding 
 the country devoid of food or shelter. This destructive policy, how- 
 ever, resulted in saving the Czar's army and rendering futile the 
 hope of the Kaiser that the military forces of Russia could be 
 crushed. 
 
 With the Russian armies in full retreat and their double line of 
 fortresses lall fallen to the invader, the apparent calm on the Western 
 front continued to be the marvel of the European campaign, as up 
 to September 7 no development on the Western front indicated that 
 any effort was being made to distract the Kaiser's attention from his 
 victorious expedition into the territory of the Czar. 
 
A SUMMER OF SLAUGHTER 389 
 
 THE DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN. 
 
 The struggle of combined land and sea forces of the Allies 
 to gain control of the Dardanelles, and thus open the way for 
 the British and French fleets to Constantinople and the Black 
 Sea, continued through the autumn of 1915 and furnished 
 some of the most sanguinary battles of the war. From the 
 day of the landing of British troops on the Gallipoli penin- 
 sula up to the end of November the fighting was continuous 
 and bloody. The British losses were tremendous, while the 
 Turkish defenders of the supposedly impregnable straits also 
 suffered heavily, but with Mohammedan stoicism. 
 
 A terrible picture of the slaughter at Seddul-Bahr, where 
 the British troops landed from transports under the guns of 
 their fleet, in the face of an awful Turkish bombardment, was 
 painted on his return to England in November by Lieutenant- 
 Commander Josiah Wedgwood, a Liberal member of Parlia- 
 ment, who had received special mention for bravery at the 
 front, and the coveted stripes of the Distinguished Service 
 order. 
 
 ''Our school books told us," said Commander Wedgwood, 
 "that the bloodiest battle in history was that between the con- 
 federates and federals at Sharpsburg during the American 
 civil war, when one-third of all the men engaged were left on 
 the field. But Sharpsburg was a joy ride compared with 
 Seddul-Bahr." 
 
 Paying a tribute to the enemy, he said: ''The Turks are 
 the finest fighters in the world, save only the Canadians and 
 Australians. And they proved to be humane. They could 
 easily have killed all those who went to succor the wounded, 
 but I found them extraordinarily merciful as compared with 
 the enemy in Flanders. ' ' 
 
 Commander Wedgwood 's first view of fighting at the Dar- 
 danelles was at the so-called V beach, where a steamship, the 
 
390 A SUMMER OF SLAUGHTER 
 
 '*Eiver Clyde," was run aground to furnish cover for the 
 landing of the British troops. 
 
 ''This modern 'wooden horse of Troy,' " said Commander 
 Wedgwood, "was run ashore on a beautiful Sunday morning, 
 400 yards from the medieval castle of Seddul-Bahr. I was on 
 the vessel, but never noticed her grounding for the horrors 
 ahead of us in the shallow waters on the beach. Five tows of 
 five boats each, loaded with men, were going ashore alongside 
 of us. One moment it had been early morning in a peaceful 
 country, with rustic sights and sounds and smells; the next 
 moment, while the boats were just twenty yards from shore, 
 the blue sea around each boat was turning red. It was truly 
 horrible. Of all those brave men two-thirds died, and hardly 
 a dozen reached unwounded the shelter of the five-foot sand 
 dune. 
 
 "About 9 o'clock a dash across the row of fighters from 
 the Wooden Horse was led by Gen. Napier and his brigade 
 major. Would they ever get to the end of the lighters and 
 jump into the sheltering water ? No ; side by side they were 
 seen to sit down. For one moment one thought they might 
 be taking cover ; then their legs slid out and they rolled over. 
 
 "It was the Munsters that charged first, with a sprig of 
 shamrock on their caps ; then the Dublins, the Worcesters, the 
 Hampshires. Lying on the beach, on the rocks, on the lighters, 
 they cried on the Mother of God. There, now, was Midship- 
 man Drury swimming to a lighter which had broken loose, 
 with a line in his mouth and a wound in his head. If ever a 
 boy deserved his Victoria Cross, that lad did. And there was 
 the captain of the Eiver Clyde, now no longer a ship to be 
 stuck to but a part forever of Gallipoli, alone with a boat 
 by the spit of rock, trying to fif t in the wounded under fire. 
 
 "All these things I saw as in a dream. Columns of smoke 
 rose from the castle and town of Seddul-Bahr as the great 
 shells from the fleet passed over our heads and burst, and in 
 every lull we heard the wounded. 
 
A SUMMER OF SLAUGHTER 391 
 
 (< 
 
 'At 1 o'clock the Lancashires were appearing over the 
 ridge to the left from * Lancashire landing.' We saw fifteen 
 men in a mndow in the castle on the right by the water. They 
 signaled that they were all that remained of the Dublins who 
 had landed at the Camber at Seddul-Bahr. At 3 o'clock we 
 got 150 men alive to shore. We watched our men working to 
 the right and up into the castle ruins — at each corner the 
 officer crouching in front with revolver in rest. 
 
 ''When night came a house in Seddul-Bahr was burning 
 brightly and there was a full moon. We disembarked men at 
 once. All around the wounded cried for help and shelter 
 against the bullets, but there was no room on boats or gang- 
 way for anything but the men to come to shore. 
 
 ''For two nights no one had slept and then another day 
 dawned. We were firmly ashore at Lancashire landing, and 
 at Du Toit's battery to the northeast, and the Australians 
 were dug in at Anzac. An end had to be made of V beach. 
 The whole fleet collected and all morning blew the ridge and 
 castle and town to pieces. 
 
 "And all the time that wonderful infantry went forward 
 up the hill and through the ruined town. The troops that 
 went in that attack had already lost half their strength ; the 
 officers that led up those narrow streets were nearly all killed. 
 Dead beat, at 1 o'clock, before the final rush, they hesitated. 
 Then our last colonel, a staff man. Col. Doughty Wylie, ran 
 ashore with a cane, ran right up the hill, ran through the last 
 handful of men sheltering under the crest, took them with a 
 rush into the Turkish trench, and fell with a bullet through 
 his head. But the Turks ran and the ridge was ours. ' ' 
 
 Many weeks of bloody fighting followed and while there 
 was talk early in November of a possible abandonment of the 
 Dardanelles campaign, the end of the month found the strug- 
 gle still in progress, with no end in sight. 
 
392 A SUMMER OF SLAUGHTER 
 
 Official figures made public October 15, show that the Brit- 
 ish casualties at the Dardanelles up to October 9 were 96,899, 
 of whom 1,185 were officers. The casualties among the Aus- 
 tralian troops on the Gallipoli peninsula up to the same date 
 amounted to 29,121 officers and men. 
 
 THE ATTITUDE OF GKEECE. 
 
 On September 23, acting upon the advice of Premier Ven- 
 izelos. King Constantine of Greece ordered a general mobili- 
 zation of the Greek army, ''as a measure of elementary- 
 prudence in view of the mobilization of Bulgaria. " Ten days 
 later Premier Venizelos resigned upon official notice that the 
 King could not support his war policy, which was believed to 
 reflect the sentiments of the Greek people and to support the 
 Allies. King Constantine then endeavored to form a coali- 
 tion ministry. The great point at issue was whether Greece 
 should support or oppose the passage of the Allies through 
 Greek territory to the aid of Serbia. British and French 
 troops to the number of 70,000 had meanwhile been landed at 
 Saloniki, the great Greek seaport, and were being hurried to 
 the support of the Serbians in their central territory, to 
 oppose the incursion of the Austro-Germans and the Bul- 
 garians. In November Kling Constantine and his military 
 chiefs were visited by Field-Marshal Earl IGtchener, the Brit- 
 ish Secretary of War, who made such demands upon them in 
 the interest of the Allies, backed by a temporary blockade of 
 the Greek coasts by the British and French fleets, that on 
 November 25 it was announced that cordial relations between 
 Greece and the entente powers had been established. The 
 Greek government gave assurances that no attempt would be 
 made to interfere with the Allies' troops should they under 
 any contingency be forced to cross the Greek frontier, but 
 that railway and other facilities would be afforded them. It 
 was understood that the Allies also promised Greece a mone- 
 
A SUMMER OF SLAUGHTER 393 
 
 tary indemnity after the war for any damage that might be 
 done through the occupation of Greek territory. 
 
 With the question of Grecian intervention out of the way, 
 the Alhes then occupied themselves Avith the attitude of Ru- 
 mania and the intervention of Eussia in behalf of Serbia, in 
 order that the latter country might be saved from the fate of 
 Belgium. It was generally understood that Rumania could 
 not afford to incur the enmity of Germany by active inter- 
 ference in behalf of Serbia, even though the Serbians and 
 Rumanians were natural allies against Bulgaria. 
 
 On November 26, M. Pachitch, the Serbian premier, 
 received a personal telegram from the Russian emperor, in 
 which the latter promised the early appearance in Bulgaria 
 of Russian troops and the Italian government also promised 
 the Serbians to send to their aid an expeditionary force of 
 40,000 men. It was believed possible that the Russian forces 
 might seek to advance through Rumania, instead of forcing 
 a landing on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria — in which case 
 the crossing of Rumanian territory by Russian troops would 
 bring Rumania into a serious situation both economically and 
 politically, and render it difficult if not impossible for her to 
 preserve her neutrality. At this time Russia had concentrated 
 a great army near the Rumanian frontier, and it was under- 
 stood that a large number of heavy guns had arrived at 
 Odessa for its use. The direction in which this Russian army 
 would move depended entirely upon the policy adopted by the 
 Rumanian government. 
 
 AMERICAN LOAN" TO THE ALLIES. 
 
 On September 28, formal announcement was made in New 
 York of the terms of an American loan to Great Britain and 
 France, arranged by a commission of British and French 
 financial authorities after conferences with American bankers ; 
 a bond issue of $500,000,000 was soon floated, drawing 5 per 
 
394 A SUMMER OF SLAUGHTER 
 
 cent interest and issued to the syndicate at 96 ; the money to 
 remain in the United States and to be used only in payment 
 for commodities. 
 
 Late in November the French people were called upon to 
 subscribe to a ''loan of victory." The response from the 
 people of Paris alone in one day amounted to $5,000,000,000, 
 thus exceeding the records of all former popular war loans, 
 including British and German issues, and typifying the patri- 
 otic ardor of the French people and their determination to 
 continue the war to an issue successful to allied arms. 
 
 THE WESTEKN CAMPAIGN. 
 
 After a week's heavy bombardment of the German lines, 
 an important offensive movement was undertaken on Sep- 
 tember 25 by the French and British against the German 
 lines on the western front. The forward movement occurred 
 simultaneously in the Champagne district, between Rheims 
 and Verdun, by the French and in the Artois district, between 
 Ypres and Arras, by combined British and French forces. 
 "While the Allies did not succeed in gaining much ground, and 
 both sides suffered heavy losses, it was claimed by the French 
 war office on September 29 that as a result of the four days' 
 assaults of the Anglo-French forces the Germans suffered 
 losses amounting to the effective strength of 120,000 men, 
 while 23,000 men and 120 cannon were captured from the 
 Teutonic enemy. This constituted the result of what was 
 described as the great Anglo-French drive of the autumn, and 
 the situation on the western front then settled down once 
 more into a state of siege. The first-line trenches of the 
 opposing forces along a wide-flung front were within a short 
 distance of each other. A new method of warfare had been 
 developed and the world began to realize that all historic 
 conditions of war had been revolutionized by the use of 
 scientific weapons of destruction like the machine gun, which 
 mowed down men like hay, and the high explosive shell that 
 destroyed protective works as if they were made of card- 
 
A SUMMER OF SLAUGHTER 395 
 
 board and filled the trenches with dead and dying bodies. 
 Such was the situation on the western front in the begin- 
 ning of December. No let-up in the determination of either 
 side; no advance seemingly possible, no attack that was not 
 followed by a counter-attack; no gain of any consequence 
 anywhere; no possibility seemingly of any decisive battle; 
 nothing in sight but an absolute deadlock. 
 
 ON THE EASTERN FRONT. 
 
 Late in September the German campaign against Russia 
 appeared to lose most of its force. Continued attempts were 
 made by Field Marshal von Hindenburg to fight his way to 
 Riga, but without avail, and Russian successes at various 
 points along the eastern battle front were numerous in Octo- 
 ber and November. The Russians declared on November 15 
 that they deemed the city of Riga safe, and by November 2G 
 it was apparent that the Germans were engaged m a general 
 retirement all along the River Dvina. The Allies then became 
 interested in the Kaiser 's probable choice of a line of defense 
 for the winter on the northern section of his Russian front. 
 The breakdown of the German offensive was attributed by 
 the Allies to three things — the increase in the Russian ammu- 
 nition supply, a German shortage of munitions, and the weak- 
 ening of the German line for the Balkan campaign. 
 
 BULGARIA ENTERS THE WAR. 
 
 On October 1, 1915, it was evident that Bulgarian forces 
 would shortly be employed on the side of the central powers. 
 Bulgarian troops from Sofia were moving on to the Serbian 
 frontier. King Ferdinand had ordered the mobilization of 
 all men under sixty-five years of age and martial law was 
 proclaimed, no citizen under forty-five being allowed to leave 
 the country. On October 4 Russia sent an ultimatum to Bul- 
 garia and the Russian minister was ordered to leave Sofia if 
 by 4 p. m., October 5, Bulgaria did not definitely break with 
 Germany, Austria and Turkey. All the allied powers sup- 
 
396 A SUMMER OF SLAUGHTER 
 
 ported Eussia in this demand. Bulgaria did not reply within 
 the time specified and the Russian minister was reported too 
 ill to move from Sofia, thus indicating that the diplomats of 
 the great contending powers were still at work in an effort 
 to secure the important support of Bulgaria in the Balkan 
 campaign which was imminent. 
 
 On October 6, when Bulgaria was said to have sent an 
 ultimatum to Serbia demanding the territory ceded after the 
 recent Balkan wars, the envoys of the Allies at Sofia requested 
 their passports, and Bulgaria became an active participant in 
 the war. The Bulgarian minister at Nish, the Serbian capital, 
 received his passports on October 8, and on the same day 
 the Bulgarian minister at Paris was handed his passports. 
 On the following day, October 9, Belgrade, the former Serbian 
 capital, was occupied by Austro-German forces and the inva- 
 sion of Serbia by Austria and Germany from the north and 
 by Bulgaria from the east began in earnest. The Serbian 
 capital was removed the same day to Ishtib, in the south. 
 
 THE SERBIAN CAMPAIGN. 
 
 When the great army of Germans and Austrians entered 
 Serbia at Belgrade and other points along the Danube and 
 began to drive the Serbian forces to the south, they 
 met with immediate and continued successes. Bulgarian 
 troops meanwhile pressed the Serbians on the west and 
 by the end of November it seemed as if the entire terri- 
 tory of Serbia was doomed to the fate of Belgium. But 
 on the south, allied troops, including a great body of 
 French who had been landed at Saloniki in Greece and made 
 their way northward, disputed the advance of the invaders 
 and at several points drove back the Bulgarians, thus holding 
 the southern territory of Serbia for their ally in the same 
 manner that Flanders was beins- held by the Allies for Bel- 
 gium. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 SECOND WINTER OF WAR 
 
 In all the arenas of the great struggle, the winter campaign of 
 1915-16, the second winter of the war, was accompanied by unpar- 
 alleled hardships and sufferings. It was, in fact, described by Major 
 Moraht, military expert of the Berliner Tageblatt and the best 
 known German military critic, as "the most terrific campaign in the 
 world's history." Hundreds of thousands of men of all classes, in 
 all the armies stretched along the battle fronts east and west, strug- 
 gled against wind, weather, and winter amid conditions of the most 
 extreme self-denial. Speaking for the Teutonic forces in January, 
 Major Moraht said : "On our western and eastern fronts and along 
 the lines held by our Austro-Hungarian allies, the conditions under 
 which we must stubbornly held out are such as never in the history 
 of the world's most terrible campaign had to be endured before." 
 The winter was exceptionally severe and men were invalided by the 
 thousands, owing to frost-bites, despite ingenious precautions and 
 the fact that their spells in the trenches were reduced considerably. 
 
 The conditions faced by the Austrians and Italians in the Alps 
 and on the Isonzo were especially appalling. Thus a detachment 
 of Austrian and Alpine troops, engaged in patrol duty, met its doom 
 in an avalanche in southern Tyrol. Only one out of twelve was res- 
 cued alive, and he lay buried under snow for fourteen hours before 
 he was rescued. 
 
 Added to the sufferings of the fighting men during the winter the 
 Bum total of human misery in Europe when 1916 dawned was vastly 
 increased by the awful conditions prevailing in Poland and in Ser- 
 bia. Poland, a land long recognized as given over to sorrows, had 
 been crossed and recrossed by hostile armies. It had been harried, 
 almost destroyed. Towns and food supplies, fields and granaries, 
 were obliterated. The cattle had been driven off by the invaders 
 and the people were left starving. The misery of Belgium a year 
 before was as nothing, compared with the misery of Poland amid the 
 rigors of winter, and the unhappy country clamored for the help of 
 happier peoples. It had become a land of graves and trenches, of 
 ruin and destruction on a scale that had been wrought nowhere else 
 by the war. Many of the abandoned trenches were the temporary 
 "homes" of countless refugees, mostly women and children, who had 
 been driven from their homes in the burned and ruined villages that 
 dotted the land. And there was little or no relief in sight for the 
 
 397 
 
398 SECOND WINTER OF WAR 
 
 stricken Poles, innocent victims of a ruthless war and pitiful play- 
 things of Fate. 
 
 ON THE WESTERN FRONT 
 
 Artillery fighting with mortars and long-range cannon was a 
 continuous performance during December and January in nearly 
 every section of the western battle line. Every day tens of thou- 
 sands of shells, both high explosive and shrapnel, were hurled at 
 the trenches and men were killed or wounded by the score at a time. 
 To the war-hardened men behind the guns on both sides this busi- 
 ness of slaying and running the risk of being slain or crippled be- 
 came so prolonged and monotonous that they thought no mere of it 
 than of cutting down a forest or building a pontoon bridge. 
 
 Early in January the city of Nancy, just behind the French 
 lines, was bombarded for three days by German 15-inch guns. Much 
 damage was done and a number of the inhabitants were killed and 
 wounded. As a consequence there was an exodus from the city, 
 safe conducts being issued to more than 30,000 persons. 
 
 Estimates made in Vienna of the total booty of the Teutonic 
 allies during the first seventeen months of the war, up to January 
 1, 1916, were as follows: Nearly 3,000,000 prisoners, 10,000 guns, 
 and 40,000 machine guns, while 470,000 square kilometers ef enemy 
 territory had been occupied. 
 
 About the same time the German losses, as compiled from official 
 lists, were estimated at 2,588,000, including over 500,000 killed and 
 350,000 taken by the Allies as prisoners of war. 
 
 CONSCRIPTION IN ENGLAND 
 
 After every effort had been exhausted in the British Isles to 
 raise troops by voluntary enlistment, first under Lord Kitchener 
 and then under Lord Derby, the British government was finally 
 compelled to resort to conscription, although nearly 3,000,000 
 men had voluntarily responded to the call to the colors. A bill was 
 presented in the House of Commons by Premier Asquith on January 
 5, 1916, providing for compulsory service by "all men between the 
 ages of 18 and 41 who are bachelors or widowers without children 
 dependent on them. ' ' Ireland was excluded from the terms of the 
 measure, which finally passed the Commons on January 20, the op- 
 position having dwindled to a meager handful of votes. Four mem- 
 bers of the Cabinet, however, resigned as a protest against conscrip- 
 tion. 
 
 BRITISH BATTLESHIPS SUNK 
 
 On January 9 the British battleship King Edward VII foundered 
 at sea as the result of striking a mine. Owing to a heavy sea it had 
 to be abandoned and sank shortly afterward. The entire crew of 
 
SECOND WINTER OF WAR 399 
 
 nearly 800 men were saved. The vessel was a predreadnaught of 
 16,350 tons and cost nearly $8,000,000. A week previously the Brit- 
 ish battleship Natal, a vessel of similar character, was sunk by an 
 internal explosion. 
 
 The main battle fleets of both Britain and Germany remained "in 
 statuo quo" up to March 1, 1916. British cruisers and patrol ships 
 maintained a constant watch upon the waters of the North Sea, and 
 visitors permitted to see the battle fleet at its secret rendezvous re- 
 ported efficiency and eternal vigilance as its watchwords. The Ger- 
 man fleet lay in safety in the Kiel Canal, still awaiting orders to put 
 to sea and enjoy "der Tag," after nineteen months of inactivity. 
 
 RUSSIANS WINTER CAMPAIGN 
 
 After several months of cemparative inactivity Russia launched 
 a forward movement against the Austro-German forces late in De- 
 cember. This winter drive was not unexpected, as the Russian 
 armies had had time to recover from their reverses of the summer 
 and autumn of 1915 and had received much-needed supplies of guns 
 and ammunition. 
 
 The fact that Russia was vigorously on the offensive again was 
 soon demonstrated. The first week of 1916 was marked by a pro- 
 gressive development of a forward Russian movement extending 
 along the Stye and Strypa rivers from the Pripet marshes to Bes- 
 sarabia. The main attack seemed to be directed against Bukowina 
 and Eastern Galicia, and for some time the pressure of the Russian 
 attacks forced back the lines of the Austro-German right along the 
 eastern front. 
 
 During January the Russians were also actively engaged against 
 the Turks in the Caucasus, where the battle front was over 100 miles 
 long, and against the Turks, aided by Germans in Persia. They be- 
 gan a general offensive in the Caucasus on January 11 and made 
 steady gains over the Turks, while similar successes attended their 
 efforts in Persia, where revolutionists had entered the field against 
 the Russians and British. 
 
 THE BALKAN CAMPAIGN 
 
 The month of December saw the end of the Austro-German and 
 Bulgarian drives through Serbia. By the end of the year the rem- 
 nants of the Serbian army had been driven across the frontiers and 
 some 50,000 of them found refuge in January on the Greek island of 
 Corfu, which was seized by the Allies for that purpose. King Peter 
 found an asylum in Italy; Belgrade and Nish were occupied by 
 Austrians and Germans, and the Bulgarians halted at the Greek 
 border. The small British and French forces in Serbia, greatly out- 
 numbered, retired before the enemy's advance from north and east, 
 
400 SECOND WINTER OF WAR 
 
 but saved the Serbian army from total annihilation by protecting its 
 retreat to the southern frontier. Then the British and French re- 
 treated across the Greek border to Saloniki, where they were largely 
 reinforced and proceeded to fortify themselves against possible Ger- 
 man or Bulgarian attacks. King Constantine of Greece, brother-in- 
 law of the Kaiser, feebly protested against the proceedings of the 
 Allies ©n Greek soil, saying that he wished his country to remain 
 neutral — but his protest was offset by the facts that the great ma- 
 jority of the people of Greece were favorable to the Allies and that 
 their landing at Saloniki was for the purpose of aiding Serbia, 
 Greece's friend and ally, which Greece had notably failed to do. 
 Frequent threats of the bombardment of Saloniki by the Germans 
 or by the Bulgars were made during January, but up to February 10 
 the threatened attack had failed to materialize and the Allies were 
 strongly intrenched in a 30-niile arc around the town, while the 
 guns of a powerful fleet of British and French warships commanded 
 the approaches and protected transports and landings. 
 
 SINKING OF THE PERSIA 
 
 On December 30 the Peninsular & Oriental liner Persia was tor- 
 pedoed by a submarine, probably Austrian, in the Mediterranean 
 about 300 miles northwest of Alexandria, and sank in five minutes. 
 One hundred and fifty-five out of the 400 passengers and crew were 
 landed at Alexandria on January 1, and eleven ©thers were subse- 
 quently reported safe. Among those lost was Robert N. McNeely, 
 who was on his way to take up his duties as American consul at 
 Aden. 
 
 FROM BERLIN TO CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
 By the middle of January German engineers had succeeded in 
 repairing the railroad bridges and roadbed destroyed during the 
 Serbian campaign and thus reopened direct communication between 
 Berlin and Constantinople. 
 
 CANADIAN PARLIAMENT BUILDING BURNED 
 
 On the night of February 3 the beautiful Gothic structure which 
 housed the Canadian Parliament at Ottawa — the architectural pride 
 of the Dominion — was wrecked by a fire which started in a reading 
 room adjacent to the chamber of the House of Commons. Six per- 
 sons, two of them women friends of the Speaker's family, lost their 
 lives. The House was in session when the fire broke out, and many 
 members and other occupants of the building escaped narrowly and 
 with great difficulty. The money loss from the fire was enormous, 
 and priceless paintings, books and national documents were destroyed. 
 
 Opinions diffiered as to the causes of the fire, but the occurrence 
 about the same time of several highly suspicious fires in Canadian 
 munition factories and the unexplained rapidity with which the 
 
SECOND WINTER OF WAR 401 
 
 Parliament Building fire spread with mysterious volumes of suffocat- 
 ing smoke, caused widespread suspicion that the disaster was of 
 incendiary and enemy origin. A tidal wave ©f resentment flooded 
 the Dominion and deep feeling was aroused against men of German 
 birth or extraction remaining in Canada, some of them occupying 
 public positions of responsibility. A Commission was appointed by 
 the Government to investigate the causes of the fire, and, pending its 
 report, official denials were made that German spies had anything to 
 do with the burning of the Houses of Parliament. These denials, 
 however, failed to convince the Canadian people that German sym- 
 pathizers were entirely innocent of any participation in the origin 
 of the conflagration. 
 
 The ruined building was the central structure of the magnificent 
 group of Government buildings at Ottawa, and one of the finest 
 examples of Gothic architecture on the Continent. The Library of 
 Parliament, occupying a separate structure in the rear of the building 
 wrecked, was fortunately spared by the fire. It was announced by the 
 Premier, Sir Robert Borden, that steps would be taken to replace 
 the Parliament Building with a still finer structure, and the Houses 
 of Parliament continued their sessions in temporary quarters. One 
 immediate result of the fire and of the suspicions attached to its 
 origin was to stimulate recruiting in the Dominion and stiffen the 
 resolve of the Canadian people to do their utmost to aid the success 
 of British arms at the European front. Canada became more than 
 ever an armed camp of determined patriots. The general sentiment 
 was expressed by the Toronto Globe, which said : "If German agents 
 see a way to injure Canada, they will stop at nothing to compass their 
 ends. Arson to them is a commonplace and murder an incident in the 
 day's work. The destruction of the Parliament Building may have 
 been the result of an accident, but the general belief at Ottawa is 
 that it was the work of an incendiary. ' ' 
 
 RUSSIAN SUCCESSES IN ASIA MINOR 
 
 On February 15, following a five days' siege, Erzerum, the great 
 Armenian fortress, where the main Turkish army of the Caucasus 
 had taken refuge, fell into the hands of the Russians. The Turkish 
 army numbered 160,000 men and was under the chief command of 
 the German general. Field Marshal von der Goltz, formerly military 
 governor of Belgium. The main body of the Turks managed to avoid 
 capture at Erzerum, but the Russians took 15,000 prisoners there, 
 besides hundreds of guns and immense quantities of munitions and 
 supplies. Then began a determined and deadly pursuit of the 
 Turkish army, with the object of driving it out of Armenia, and the 
 efforts of the Russians met with continued successes. Turkish opposi- 
 tion in Asia Minor was swiftly broken down, and steps were taken by 
 the Russians to relieve the British force which had been long 
 
402 SECOND WINTER OF WAR 
 
 beleagured by the Turks at Kut-el-Amara, in Mesopatamia, 150 miles 
 from Erzenim. 
 
 On February 27-28 the Turks hastily evacuated the important 
 Black Sea port of Trebizond and neighboring cities before the vic- 
 torious Russian advance. On March 1 two Russian armies were 
 moving rapidly on Trebizond, one along the shores of the Black Sea 
 through Rizeh, and the other in a northwesterly direction from 
 Erzerum, The capture of Erzerum was effected in bitter wintry 
 weather. During the assault on the fortress several Turkish regi- 
 ments were annihilated or taken prisoners with all their officers. 
 Many Turks perished from the cold. 
 
 GREAT BATTLE BEFORE VERDUN 
 
 One of the greatest and most sanguinary battles of the war began 
 before Verdun on February 20, when the army of the Crown Prince 
 of Germany, in the presence of the Kaiser, started a determined and 
 desperate drive against the great French fortress. Ever since the 
 battle of the Marne halted the German advance on Paris early in 
 September, 1914, the forces of the Crown Prince had been striving 
 unsuccessfully to break through the French lines north and east of 
 Verdun, but the fortress had well maintained its reputation for 
 impregnability and continued to bar the high road to Paris. 
 
 For ten days the battle raged on the plains, in the forests and on 
 the hills before Verdun, and the loss of life was appalling on both 
 sides. By February 26, after six days of continuous fighting, the 
 Germans had penetrated the French lines along several miles of 
 front, had occupied several villages a few miles north of Verdun, 
 driven the French from the peninsula of the Meuse formed by a 
 bend of the river about six miles from the city, and carried by storm 
 the outlying fort of Douaumont, at the northeast corner of the 
 Verdun fortifications. But their advance was then halted by the 
 French in a series of the most brilliant counter-attacks, and the 
 German offensive appeared to die down by March 1, when their losses 
 in the ten days' battle were estimated at 175,000, including between 
 40,000 and 50,000 killed. The French losses were heavy, but the 
 nature of the German attacks, in which huge masses of men were 
 hurled against the French entrenchments, exposed the Teuton forces 
 to the most withering and destructive fire from the French 75-centi- 
 meters and machine guns. The battle exceeded in violence and losses 
 even the great battle of the Yser earlier in the war. Heavy reinforce- 
 ments had been brought to the Verdun front by the Germans, and it 
 was estimated that their forces engaged in the attack numbered at 
 least 500,000 men, supported by numerous 15-inch and 17-inch Aus- 
 trian mortars, with all the heavy German artillery used in the 
 Serbian campaign and part of that formerly employed on the Russian 
 front. 
 
 While the battle of Verdun was in progress, the Germans also made 
 determined attacks in the Champagne region, gaining some ground; 
 
SECOND WINTER OF WAR 403 
 
 but on March 1 the Allied lines were holding fast all along the west- 
 ern front. 
 
 Wounded soldiers returning from the front during the bloody 
 struggle before Verdun told tragic tales of the fighting. "I watched 
 the assault of the Germans upon the village of Milaneourt, near the 
 Meuse," said a wounded Frenchman. "They came in solid ranks, 
 without a word, loading and reloading their rifles without cessation. 
 Our seventy-fives fell among them, and then the mitrailleuses entered 
 into action. It was no longer a battalion. It was a few scattered 
 groups of men that one saw, torn by a rain of shells and bidlets, 
 squeezing close against each other as though for mutual protection. 
 
 "On the border of Montfaucon I saw one of these groups dis- 
 appear at one blow, as if they had been swallowed into a marsh. Our 
 shells! What frightful work they did. Never will I forget those 
 fragments of human beings that fell just at my feet. Never can I 
 forget that terrible picture. 
 
 "I followed the attack on Haumont and Samogneux. The field of 
 battle was lighted as if in full day by star shells. Black masses of 
 Germans advanced, protected by their artillery, while ours remained 
 silent. Finally our artillery began, and then the enemy ranks 
 wavered, halted and disappeared. 
 
 "Our guns had waited until the Germans were in a little hollow 
 all arranged for the massacre. In a little while there lay the bodies 
 of some 2,000 or 3,000 Germans. They occupied some villages, but 
 their attack on Verdun has failed after terrible losses." 
 
 GERMAN SUBMARINE ACTIVITIES 
 
 The sinking of British and French ships, and sometimes neutral 
 vessels, by German and Austrian submarines continued during the 
 month of February. On February 27 the Peninsular & Oriental Line 
 steamship Maloja, of 12,431 tons, was sunk by a torpedo or mine only 
 two miles off the Admiralty pier at' Dover, with a loss of 155 lives, 
 including many passengers, men, women and children, en route to 
 India. Dozens of craft went at once to the rescue, and one of them, 
 the Empress of Fort William, a vessel of 2,181 tons, was also torpedoed 
 or struck a mine and sank nearby. Of the Maloja 's passengers and 
 crew, 260 were rescued. 
 
 On February 28 the great French liner La Provence was sunk in 
 the Mediterranean with a loss estimated at 900 lives. It had a dis- 
 placement of 19,200 tons, length 602 feet, beam 65 feet, and had 
 been in the service of the French Government as a troop transport. 
 
 Under new orders to their submarine commanders, in spite of 
 protests by the United States Government, Germany and Austria 
 inaugurated on March 1 the policy of sinking without warning all 
 Allied merchant vessels beli,eved to carry any armament for defensive 
 purposes, and the world waited with bated breath for fresh develop- 
 ments of the Teutonic campaign of frightfulness. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 CLIMAX OF THE WAR. 
 
 Prolonged Battle of Verdun the Most Terrible in History — 
 Enormous Losses on Both Sides — Submarine Activ^ 
 ity Imperils Relations of America and Germany. 
 
 Beginning with the first infantry attack by the Germans on Mon- 
 day, February 21, after twenty-four hours of continuous bombard- 
 ment, the battles incident to the siege of Verdun were fought at 
 brief intervals during the next two months, down to the middle of 
 April, and marked the climax of the War. The losses on both sides 
 were enormous and extraordinary, and taken as a whole the strug- 
 gle on the semicircular front north and east of the great French 
 stronghold fully justified its description as "the most terrible battle 
 in the world's history," 
 
 When spring of 1916, arrived, the struggle seemed to be a pretty 
 even draw, but the end was not in sight. Both sides showed the 
 greatest confidence in the outcome. In France the confidence of the 
 nation found expression in the voice of M. Alexandre Kibot, the 
 veteran minister of finance, who, having Verdun before his eyes, 
 told the Chamber of Deputies: **We have reached the decisive 
 hour. AVe can say without exaggeration, without illusion, and 
 without vain optimism, that we now see the end of this horrible 
 war. ' ' 
 
 But while the French were certain that victory would ultimately 
 be theirs, the German papers and people were just as fully per- 
 suaded that this finest of the fortresses of France would finally fall 
 before the determined assaults of the Kaiser's army, which no fort 
 had, as yet, stopped. 
 
 Both sides recognized that this was the supreme moment of the 
 War The Germans had gained by April 15 from three to five miles 
 along a front of about 15 miles, but had taken only two of the ring 
 
 404 
 
CLIMAX OF THE WAR '405 
 
 of minor forts around Verdun. The French claimed that the con- 
 figuration of the ground occupied by the contending forces at that 
 time made their line impregnable. Although Verdun was said by 
 the German military experts to be only an incident in the German 
 offensive which was planned to secure the final ** decision," they 
 realized the importance of Verdun to their whole line on the West- 
 ern front, and knew its value too well not to make the most desper- 
 ate and exhaustive efforts for its conquest. 
 
 A TERRIFIC ARTILLERY DUEL. 
 
 For many weeks the battle for Verdun was signalized by the 
 most terrific artillery fire in history. No words can tell of the 
 ear-stunning roar of the guns, or depict the horror of the tons of 
 steel daily crashing and splintering amid massed bodies of men, 
 while the softly-falling snows of late winter covered, but could not 
 conceal, the ensanguined landscape. Modern warfare was seen at 
 Verdun in all its panoply of terror. Amid fire and fury, the rich 
 and fertile countryside was transformed into a vast scene of ruin 
 and desolation, while heroism and self-sacrifice abounded on both 
 sides, men were maddened by the frenzy of the fight and the ghastly 
 horrors of night and day, and Death stalked gloatingly and glutted, 
 but never surfeited, over the bloody field. 
 
 The German attacks followed one another so fast and so furi- 
 ously that the weeks of fighting became one prolonged battle, and 
 a description of one attack will almost serve for all. Thus, a 
 wounded French officer said of the seven days of continuous fight- 
 ing which opened the German offensive against Verdun: "The 
 first symptom of the battle favorable to the French was the inability 
 of the Germans to silence the French artillery. The attack opened 
 with strong reconnoitering parties advancing, wherein was noted 
 an unusually large proportion of officers. For the first time the 
 German officers were seen to be leading their men into battle, instead 
 of driving them, as had been the rule — and this was said to be at the 
 behest of the watching Kaiser. Then came the infantry in great 
 numbers. During the next two days the fighting waxed fiercer and 
 fiercer. 
 
 "At first fourteen German divisions were engaged, then sixteen, 
 
406 CLIMAX OF THE WAR 
 
 and finally seventeen divisions (340,000 men). The French com- 
 mand at this point carried out a maneuver which will be recorded 
 as a masterpiece in military history. 
 
 "If the Germans had been only fifteen yards away, the French 
 could have been submerged by the attack, providing the attacking 
 forces were prepared to make any sacrifice, but the distance being 
 1,500 yards there was little chance for the Germans against the op- 
 posing artillery. The French troops were accordingly swung back 
 to positions from which they could see the Germans approaching 
 over exposed ground. The effect was that the immediate front of 
 the attack, which was originally twenty-five miles in extent, was 
 reduced to nine miles, but even this soon proved too wide. The Ger- 
 man losses were so great that the attack could not be kept up at all 
 points ; and at the end of the seventh day the offensive dwindled to 
 fragmentary attacks, — but only to be renewed with added vigor 
 after a brief period of rest for the infantry on both sides, while the 
 artillery kept up its daily and nightly duel without ceasing, until 
 the entire terrain became an earthly inferno, thickly scattered over 
 with the dead and the dying. ' ' 
 
 THE DEADLY MINE IN CAXJRES WOOD. 
 
 Frightful in result, too, was the tragic stratagem played on the 
 Germans in Caures Wood, near the village of Beaumont. The whole 
 wood had been mined by the French, and was connected electrically 
 with a station in the village. When the Germans had advanced, 
 fully a division strong, to attack the wood, the French regiment 
 holding it ran, as if seized with panic, back toward the village. The 
 Germans pursued them with shouts of victory. Soon the last 
 Frenchman had emerged from the trees, but the French commander 
 waited until the Germans were all in the mined area. They were 
 just beginning to debouch on the other side when he pressed the 
 button. There was a tremendous roar, drowning for a moment 
 even the boom of the cannon. The wood was covered with a cloud 
 of smoke, and even on the French trenches in Beaumont ** there 
 rained a ghastly dew." Yv^hen the French re-entered the wood, 
 unopposed, they found not a single German unwounded, and hardly 
 a score alive. 
 
CLIMAX OF THE WAR 407 
 
 GERMAN LOSSES AT VERDUN. 
 
 The German successes during the weeks of fighting in the 
 vicinity of Verdun, consisting of a series of advances along the 
 front, without any decisive result so far as the strength of the 
 defense of the main fortress was concerned, were gained at the cost 
 of enormous losses in killed and wounded. These losses were esti- 
 mated on April 7 to have reached the huge total of 200,000 — one 
 of the greatest battle losses in the whole range of warfare. During 
 the period from February 21, when the battle of Verdun began, to 
 April 1, it was said that two German army corps had been with- 
 drawn from the front, having lost in the first attacks at least one- 
 third of their force. They subsequently reappeared and again suf- 
 fered like losses, the German reinforcements being practically used 
 up as fast as they were put in line. 
 
 Declarations gathered from prisoners and the observations of 
 the French staff led the latter to estimate that at least one-third of 
 the total number of men engaged were the minimum losses of the 
 German infantry during the first forty days of the battle, or 150,000 
 men of the first fighting line alone. 
 
 Concerning the German losses before Verdun, Col. Feyler, a 
 Swiss military expert, wrote on April 10 as follows: "It is certain 
 that the first great attacks in February and March caused the 
 German assailants very exceptional losses. The 18th army corps 
 lost 17,000 men and the 3d corps lost 22,000. These are figures 
 which in the history of wars will form a magnificent eulogy on the 
 heroism of these troops. It will become a classic example, like that 
 of the Prussian Guard at St. Privat, France, August 18, 1870. It is 
 probable that before Verdun, as at St. Privat, the leaders under- 
 estimated the defenders' strength, especially in cannon and machine 
 guns. 
 
 "There are other examples. In the unfruitful attack on Fort 
 Vaux, the 7th reserve regiment was literally mowed down by 
 machine guns, while the 60th regiment lost 60 per cent of its effect- 
 ives. In the attack on the Malancourt and Avocourt woods, March 
 20, three regiments of the 11th Bavarian division, whose record in 
 this war seems to have been particularly praiseworthy, lost about 
 50 per cent of their men." 
 
 LOSSES OF THE FRENCH. 
 
 While the greater bulk of the total losses in killed and wounded 
 before Verdun was sustained by the Germans, howeve'r, it must not 
 be imagined for an instant that the French defenders of the fortress 
 escaped lightly. On the contrary, their losses were likewise enor- 
 mous, being estimated by the German .general staff at a total of 
 
408 CLIMAX OF THE WAR 
 
 not less than 110,000 from February 20 to April 1. A considerable 
 number of French troops, officers and men, were also captured by 
 the Germans during the numerous attacks in February, March and 
 April upon the French trenches and other positions before Verdun. 
 
 A MILLION MEN ENGAGED. 
 
 Some idea of the tremendous forces engaged on both sides in 
 what will probably be called in history "the Siege of Verdun," 
 may be gained from the brief summary made on April 1 by an 
 observer present with the army of the Crown Prince of Germany 
 on the north front of the Verdun battlefield, from which point of 
 vantage he telegraphed as follows: 
 
 "Probably not far from a million men are battling on both 
 sides around Verdun. Never in the history of the world have such 
 enormous masses of military been engaged in battle at one point. 
 
 "On the forty-mile semicircular firing-line around the French 
 fortress, from the River Meuse above St. Mihiel to Avocourt, the 
 Germans probably have several thousand guns, at least 2,500, in 
 action or reserve. Were each gun fired only once an hour, there 
 would be a shot every second. 
 
 "As probably half the guns are of middle and heavy caliber, 
 the average weight per shell is certain to be more than twenty-five 
 pounds. It follows that even in desultory firing about 160,000 
 pounds of iron, or from four to five carloads, are raining on the 
 French positions every hour. And this is magnified many times 
 when the fire is increased to the intensity which the artillerymen 
 call 'drumming' the positions of the enemy. 
 
 "To the German guns must be added the tremendous amount 
 of artillery used by the French in their defense, estimated to be 
 almost as large now as that of the Germans. The conclusion is 
 that more than 6,000 cannon, varying from 3-inch field guns to 42- 
 centimeter (16-inch) siege mortars, are engaged in hurling thou- 
 sands of high explosive shells hourly in the never-ceasing, thun- 
 derous artillery duels of the mighty battle of Verdun." 
 
 FKOM A GERMAN OFFICER'S VIEWPOINT. 
 
 The stories told by those who, on the German side, lay in trenches 
 under shell-fire before Verdun for days at a time and week after 
 week, freezing, thirsting, in mud and water, between the dead 
 and the dying, thrilled the hearer with their pathos and devotion. 
 These were the men who, like the waves of the sea, beat almost inces- 
 santly against the obstinate fortifications of Verdun, and there 
 learned a new respect for the French enemy. Such a story was 
 written from the front in April by a German officer named Ross — 
 
CLIMAX OF THE WAR 409 
 
 a man of Scottish descent — who, before the war, was editor of a 
 newspaper in Munich. In the Berlin Vossische Zeitung he said: 
 
 "It is a worthy, embittered foe against whom this last decisive 
 struggle is aimed. France is fighting for her existence. She is no 
 weaker than we are in men, guns, or munitions. Only one thing 
 decides between us — will and nerves. Every doubting, belittling 
 word is a creeping poison which kills joyful, strong hope and does 
 more damage than a thousand foes. Only if we are convinced to our 
 marrow that we shall win, shall we conquer. 
 
 "In this colossal combat, where numbers and mechanical 
 weapons are so utterly alike, moral superiority is everything. We 
 have more than once had the experience that the effective result of 
 a battle has depended upon who considered himself the victor and 
 acted accordingly. Often the merest remnant of will and nerves 
 was the factor that influenced the decision. 
 
 "War, which only smoldered here and there during the endless 
 trench fighting, like damp wood, burns here with such all-consuming 
 fire that divisions have to be called up after days and hours in the 
 trenches, and are ground to pieces and burned up into so many 
 cinders and ashes. 
 
 "Such intensity of battle as is here before Verdun is unheard of. 
 No picture, no comparison, can give the remotest conception of the 
 concentration of guns and shells with which the two antagonists 
 are raging against each other. I have seen troops who had held out 
 in the fire for days and weeks, to whom in exposed positions food 
 could hardly be brought, on whose bodies the clothes were not dry, 
 who, yet reeking with dirt and dampness, had the nerve for new 
 storming operations." 
 
 BATTLE OF CAILLETTE WOOD. 
 
 Among the fiercer struggles before Verdun, the battle of Cail- 
 lette Wood, east of the fortress city, will have a place in history as 
 one of the most bloody and thrilling. 
 
 The position of the wood, to the right of Douaumont, was im- 
 portant as part of the French line. It was carried by the Germans 
 on Sunday morning, April 2, after a bombardment of twelve hours, 
 which seemed to break even the record of Verdun for intensity. 
 The French curtain of fire had checked their further advance, 
 according to a special correspondent of the Chicago Herald, and a 
 savage countercharge in the afternoon had gained for the defenders 
 a corpse-strewn welter of splintered trees and shell-shattered 
 ground that had been the southern corner of the wood. Further 
 charges had broken against a massive barricade, the value of which 
 as a defense paid good interest on the expenditure of German 
 lives which its construction demanded. 
 
410 CLIMAX OF THE WAR 
 
 A wonderful work had been accomplished that Sunday morning 
 in the livid, London-like fog and twilight produced by the lowering 
 clouds and battle smoke. 
 
 FORMED A HUMAN" CHAIN UNDER FIRE. 
 
 While the German assaulting columns in the van fought the 
 French hand to hand, picked corps of workers behind them formed 
 an amazing human chain from the woods to the east over the 
 shoulder of the center of the Douaumont slope to the crossroads of 
 a network of communicating trenches 600 yards in the rear. 
 
 Four deep was this human chain, and along its line nearly 
 3,000 men passed an unending stream of wooden billets, sandbags, 
 chevaux-de-frise, steel shelters, and light mitrailleuses — in a word, 
 all the material for defensive fortifications passed from hand to 
 hand, like buckets at a country fire. 
 
 Despite the hurricane of French artillery fire, the German com- 
 mander had adopted the only possible means of rapid transport 
 over the shell-torn ground covered with debris, over which neither 
 horse nor cart could go. Every moment counted. Unless barriers 
 rose swiftly, the French counter-attacks, already massing, would 
 sweep the assailants back into the wood. 
 
 Cover was disdained. The workers stood at full height, and 
 the chain stretched openly across the hillocks, a fair target for 
 the French gunners. The latter missed no chance. Again and 
 again great holes were torn in the line by the bursting melinite, 
 but as coolly as at maneuvers the iron-disciplined soldiers of Ger- 
 many sprang forward from shelters to take the places of the fallen, 
 and the work went on apace. 
 
 USE THE DEAD AS A SHELTER. 
 
 Gradually another line doubled the chain of the workers, as the 
 upheaved corpses formed a continuous embankment, each additional 
 dead man giving greater protection to his comrades, until the bar- 
 rier began to form shape along the diameter of the wood. There 
 others wore digging and burying logs deep in the earth, installing 
 shelters and mitrailleuses or feverishly building fortifications. 
 
 At last the work was ended at fearful cost ; but as the vanguard 
 sullenly withdrew behind it, from the whole length burst a havoc 
 of flame upon the advancing Frenchmen. Vainly the latter dashed 
 forward. They couldn't pass, and as the evening fell the barrier 
 still held, covering the German working parties, burrowed like 
 moles in the mass of trenches and boyeaux. 
 
 FRENCH PLAN TO BLAST BARRICADE. 
 
 So sound was the barricade, padded with sandbags and earth- 
 
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412 CLIMAX OF THE WAR 
 
 THE VERDUN BATTLEFIELD 
 
 Key to Map on Opposite Page 
 
 Battle lines showing the approximate positions of the German troops at 
 Verdun at various dates are designated in the map as follows: 
 
 A. Positions Feb. 21, 1916, when German offensive was begun. 
 
 B. Positions on Feb. 23. 
 
 C. Positions on Feb. 25. 
 
 D. Positions on Feb. 27. 
 
 E. Bethincourt salient, April 7, before French retired. 
 
 F. Positions on April 18. 
 
 The more important actions of the Verdun campaign in their chronological 
 order are indicated as follows: 
 
 1. Germans open offensive against Verdun, piercing French lines. 
 
 2. French evacuate Haumont, Feb. 22. 
 
 3. French recapture Forest of Caures, Feb. 22, but lose it again. 
 
 4. Germans pierce French line, taking 3,000 prisoners. 
 
 5. Germans capture Brabant, Haumont, Samogneux, etc., Feb. 23. 
 
 6. Berlin reports capture of four villages and 10,000 French prisoners, 
 
 Feb. 23. 
 
 7. Germans capture Louvemont and fortified positions Feb. 25. Fort 
 
 Douaumont stormed by Brandenburg corps, then surrounded by 
 French, but relieved by Germans March 3. 
 
 8. Germans take Champneuville Feb. 27, with 5,000 prisoners. 
 
 9. Bloody encounters at village of Eix on Woevre plain, Feb. 27. 
 
 10. Germans occupy Moranville and Haudiomont, Feb. 27. 
 
 11. Champion and Manheuilles fall Feb. 28; 1,300 French prisoners. 
 
 12. Verdun battered and set on fire by 42-centimeter guns. 
 
 13. French evacuate Fort Vaux, after heavy bombardment, March 1. 
 14 Germans begin violent bombardment of Dead Man's Hill, March 1. 
 
 15. Germans capture village of Douaumont, March 2; 1,000 prisoners. 
 
 16. Fresnes captured by Germans, March 5. > 
 
 17. Germans capture Forges, March 5; drive against French left wing. 
 
 18. Germans take Eegneville, west of Mouse, March 6. 
 
 19. Germans capture heights of Cumieres, etc., March 7. 
 
 20. Village of Vaux taken and retaken by Germans, March 8-10. 
 21 Crown Prince brings up 100,000 reinforcements, March 10-12. 
 
 22. French recapture trenches March 14, with 1,000 German prisoners. 
 
 23. Struggle for heights of Le Mort Homme, March 16. 
 
 24. Germans capture positions north of Avocourt, March 20. 
 
 25. Artillery duels east of Verdun, March 25. 
 
 26. French recapture part of Avocourt Wood, March 28. 
 
 27. Germans capture Malancourt, March 29-31. 
 
 28. Heavy fighting south of Douaumont, April 2-5; French successes in 
 
 battle of Caillette woods, etc. 
 
 29. Germans recapture Haucourt, April 6. 
 
 SO. Germans close in on Bethincourt salient, April 7. 
 
 31. French withdraw from Bethincourt April 9, but hold lines south. 
 
 32. French lines bombarded continuously, April 10-15, with violent as- 
 
 saults but no decisive results. 
 
CLIMAX OF TEE WAR 413 
 
 works, that the artillery fire fell practically unavailing, and the 
 French general realized that the barrier must be breached by ex- 
 plosives, as in Napoleon's battles. 
 
 It was 8 o'clock and already pitch dark in that blighted atmos- 
 phere when a special blasting corps, as devoted as the German 
 chain workers, crept forward toward the German position. The rest 
 of the French waited, sheltered in the ravine east of Douaumont, 
 until an explosion should signal the assault. 
 
 In Indian file, to give the least possible sign of their presence to 
 the hostile sentinels, the French blasters advanced in a long line, at 
 first with comparative rapidity, only stiffening into the grotesque 
 rigidity of simulated death when the searchlights played upon them, 
 and resuming progress when the beam shifted. Then as they 
 approached the barrier they moved slowly and more slowly. When 
 they arrived within forty yards the movement of the crawling men 
 became imperceptible. 
 
 The blasting corps lay at full length, like hundreds of other 
 motionless forms about them, but all were working busily. With 
 a short trowel, the file leader scuffled the earth from under his 
 body, taking care not to raise his arms, and gradually making a 
 shallow trench deep enough to hide him. The others followed his 
 example until the whole line had sunk beneath the surface. 
 
 Then the leader began scooping his way forward, while his 
 followers deepened the furrow already made. Thus literally inch by 
 inch the files stole forward, sheltered in a narrow ditch from the 
 gusts of German machine-gun fire that constantly swept the terrain. 
 Here and there the sentinels' eyes caught a suspicious movement or 
 an incautiously raised head sank down pierced by a bullet, but the 
 stealthy, molelike advance continued. Hours passed. It was nearly 
 dawn when the remnant of the blasting corps reached the barri- 
 cade at last and hurriedly put their explosives in position. Back 
 they wriggled breathlessly. An over-hasty movement meant death, 
 yet they must hurry lest the imminent explosions overwhelm them. 
 
 Suddenly there was a roar that dwarfed the cannonade and 
 all along the barrier fountains of fire rose skyward, hurling a rain 
 of fragments upon what was left of the blasting party. 
 
 THREE OUT OF FOUR DIE. 
 
 The barricade was breached, but 75 per cent of the devoted 
 corps had given their lives to do it. 
 
 As the survivors lay exhausted the attackers charged over 
 them, cheering. In the melee that followed there was no room to 
 shoot or wield the rifle. Some of the French fought with unfixed 
 bayonets, like the stabbing swords of the Roman legions. Others 
 
414 CLIMAX OF THE WAR 
 
 had knives or clubs. All were battle-frenzied, as only Frenchmen 
 can bf-. 
 
 The Germans broke, and as the first rays of dawn streaked the 
 sky only a small section of the wood was still in their hands. There 
 a similar barrier stopped progress, and it was evident that the 
 night's work must be repeated; but the hearts of the French 
 soldiers were leaping with victory as they dug furiously to con- 
 solidate the ground they had gained, strewn with German bodies, 
 thick as leaves. Over 6,000 Germans were counted in a section a 
 quarter of a mile square, and the conquerors saw why their cannon- 
 ade had been so ineffective. The Germans had piled a second bar- 
 rier of corpses close behind the first, so that the soft human flesh 
 would act as a buffer to neutralize the force of the shells. 
 
 FRENCH DEFENSE TRULY HEROIC. 
 
 While all the German attacks upon the French lines in front 
 of Verdun were marked with the utmost valor and intensity of 
 devotion, the continuous defense made by the French under Gen- 
 eral Petain was equally vigorous and often truly heroic. Volun- 
 teers frequently remained in the French trenches from which the 
 rest of the French defenders had been compelled to retire, to 
 telephone information about the advancing enemy to the French 
 batteries, and some of the heaviest losses of the Germans occurred 
 when they believed themselves successful in an attack. 
 
 The consequences of such devotion on the part of French vol- 
 unteers were exemplified early in the morning of April 12, at a 
 point called Caurettes Woods, along the northeastern slopes of the 
 hill known as Le Mort Homme (Dead Man's Hill), where a French 
 withdrawal had been carried out. Volunteers remained behind to 
 signal information to the French batteries, and an eyewitness of the 
 attack described what followed thus : 
 
 "The French seventy-fives immediately concentrated on the 
 hostile trench line. The Germans suffered heavily, but persevered, 
 and soon dense columns appeared amid the shell-torn brushwood 
 on the southern fringe of the Corbeaux Wood, pouring down into 
 the valley separating them from the former French position on 
 the hillside. 
 
 "Thinking the French still held the latter, the Germans de- 
 ployed with their latest trench-storming device in the form of 
 liquid fire containers, with special groups of four installed, two 
 men working the pump and two directing the fire jet. 
 
 "The grayness of the dawn was illuminated by sheets of green 
 and red flame and black oily clouds rolled along the valley toward 
 the river like smoke from a burning 'gusher.* 
 
CLIMAX OF THE WAR 415 
 
 ** Suddenly the air was filled with shrill whistling, as shells of 
 the seventy-fives were hurled against the attackers. Thanks to the 
 devoted sentinels dying at their posts in the sea of fire, the range 
 was exact, and the exploding melinite shattered the charging 
 columns. 
 
 "An appalling scene followed. The shells had burst or over- 
 thrown the fire containers and the Germans were seen running 
 wildly amid the flames which overwhelmed hundreds of wounded 
 and disabled. 
 
 FRENCH TROOPS CHARGE. 
 
 "In this scene of confusion the French charged with bayonet, 
 despite the furnace heat and fumes produced by the red-hot con- 
 tainers flying in all directions. The enemy offered little resist- 
 ance. It was like a slaughter of frenzied animals. 
 
 "The French mitrailleuse corps pressed close on their comrades' 
 heels, placing weapons at vantage points that had escaped the fire 
 and showering a leaden hail upon the main body of Germans retreat- 
 ing up Corbeaux Hill. 
 
 "Hundreds fought in a terror-stricken mob to hide in a hole 
 that might have sheltered a score. Those beneath were stifled. 
 Those above threw themselves screaming into the air as the bul- 
 lets pierced them or fell dead in a wild dash toward a safer refuge. 
 Flushed with success, the French charged again right to the en- 
 trance of the wood, and the slaughter recommenced. 
 
 "Five of the heroic sentinels, wonderful to say, returned with 
 the French wave that ebbed when victory was won for that day." 
 
 CONDITIONS AT VERDUN ON APRIL 20. 
 
 Several determined attacks were delivered by the Germans on 
 the French lines at Verdun between April 15 and 20, enormous 
 masses of men, sometimes as many as 100,000, being hurled against 
 points in the northeast sector of the battle front. But the French 
 defense held firm, although some trenches were lost and a consider- 
 able number of French prisoners were taken. Up to this time the 
 total number of prisoners taken by the Germans at Verdun, from 
 the beginning of the offensive, February 21, was claimed to he 711 
 officers and 38,155 men. 
 
 Such were the conditions before Verdun on April 20, when, with 
 spring well under way on the Western battle fronts, there was daily 
 expectation of a vigorous drive by the Allies against the German 
 lines between Verdun and the sea. While both sides expressed 
 confidence in the outcome of the war, no man could foretell with 
 any degree of certainty what the final result of the great struggle 
 would be. 
 
416 CLIMAX OF THE WAR 
 
 ZEPPELIN RAIDS ON ENGLAND. 
 
 During the month of March and early in April a number of 
 Zeppelin raids upon various parts of England did more or less 
 damage, though none of an important military character. The 
 east coast of Scotland also suffered from a Zeppelin visit in April. 
 
 Reports and figures issued by the British War Office showed 
 •;hat during the fifteen months from Christmas, 1914, to April 1, 
 (916, no fewer than thirty-four separate aerial raids occurred in 
 ''jrreat Britain, including those of aeroplanes and Zeppelins. The 
 total casualties suffered, mainly by civilians, men, women, and 
 children, were 303 killed and 713 injured. This record of results is 
 interesting when it is remembered what they must have cost the 
 Germans in money and men, in view of the comparatively small 
 amount of damage that seems to have been done. Germany, how- 
 ever, insisted that her air raids had done more substantial harm to 
 England than the War Office would admit. 
 
 RUSSIAN ACTIVITIES IN THE EAST. 
 
 "With the approach of spring in 1916, new activities began on 
 the Eastern front, and the Russians threatened a vigorous attack 
 on the German lines in the north "after the thaw." By the middle 
 of the summer the Russians expected, according to semi-official 
 reports, to have twelve million men armed, drilled, and equipped 
 for battle. 
 
 On April 1 the Berlin government declared that in the Russian 
 offensive on the Eastern front, against Field Marshal von Hinden- 
 burg, which lasted from March 18 to March 30, the losses to the 
 Russians were 140,000 out of the 500,000 men engaged. This cam- 
 paign was carried on mostly in the frozen terrain of the Dvinsk 
 marshes, and along the Dvina River, and the German losses were 
 also heavy, although the Russian attacks were as a rule repulsed. 
 
 FALL OF TREBIZOND. 
 
 In Asia Minor, however, Russian successes of the winter were 
 crowned in the early spring by the fall of the Baltic seaport of Trebi- 
 zond, which was occupied on April 18. This city, the most important 
 Turkish port on the Black Sea, was captured by the Russian army 
 advancing from Erzerum. Aided by the Russian Black Sea fleet, 
 the invaders pushed past the last series of natural obstacles along 
 the Anatolian coast when, on Sunday, April 16, they occupied a 
 strongly fortified Turkish position on the left bank of the Kara 
 Dere River, twelve miles outside the fortified town. The official 
 Russian report said : 
 
 "Our valiant troops, after a sanguinary battle on the Kara Dere 
 River, pressed the Turks without respite, and surmounted incredible 
 
CLIMAX OF THE WAR 417 
 
 obstacles, everywhere breaking the fierce resistance of the enemy. 
 The well-combined action of the fleet permitted the execution of 
 most hazardous landing operations, and lent the support of its 
 artillery to the troops operating in the coastal regioUo 
 
 ** Credit for this fresh victory also is partly due the assistance 
 given our Caucasian army by the troops operating in other directions 
 in Asia Minor. By their desperate fighting and heroic exploits, 
 they did everything in their power to facilitate the task of the 
 detachments on the coast. ' ' 
 
 GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 The long-continued controversy between the United States and 
 Germany over the methods and results of German submarine war- 
 fare came to a climax with the torpedoing of the British channel 
 steamer Sussex, on March 24, 1916, in pursuance of the new German 
 policy of attacking merchant vessels without warning. There was 
 no pretense that the Sussex was an "armed merchantman," and 
 no warning was given the passengers and crew, the former includ- 
 ing a number of Americans on their way from Folkestone to the 
 French port of Dieppe. The ship, though badly damaged, made 
 port with assistance, but the loss of life from the explosion and 
 drowning amounted to fifty, and several American passengers were 
 injured. Germany disclaimed responsibility for the disaster, but 
 the weight of evidence pointed to a German submarine as the 
 cause, and in view of the repeated violations of German promises 
 to the United States to give due warning to passenger vessels and 
 insure safety to their occupants. President "Wilson and his advisers, 
 in April, seriously considered the advisability of breaking off diplo- 
 matic relations with the German Empire, by way of a protest in the 
 name of humanity. On April 18 the President decided to lay the 
 whole matter before Congress, 
 
 The record of German submarine attacks involving death or 
 injury to American citizens up to this time included the sinking- 
 or damaging of the following vessels : British steamer Falaba, 160 
 lives lost, including one American; American steamer Gulflight, 
 three Americans lost; British steamship Lusitania, 1,134 lives lost, 
 including 115 Americans ; American steamer Leelanaw, sunk ; liner 
 Arabic sunk, two Americans killed; liner Hesperian sunk mysteri- 
 ously, three days after Germany had promised to sink no more 
 liners; Italian liner Ancona sunk (by Austrian submarine), with 
 loss of American lives ; Japanese liner Yanaka Maru sunk in Medi- 
 terranean ; British liner Persia sunk, United States Consul McNeely 
 killed; steamer Sussex attacked, several Americans seriously in- 
 jured; British steamers Manchester Engineer, Eagle Point and 
 Berwyn Dale attacked, endangering American members of crews. 
 
418 CLIMAX OF THE WAR 
 
 A riNAL NOTE TO GERMANY. 
 
 On Wednesday, April 19, President "Wilson appeared before 
 Congress, assembled in joint session for the purpose of hearing him, 
 and announced that he had addressed a final note of warning to 
 Germany, giving the Imperial German Government irrevocable no- 
 tice that the United States would break off diplomatic relations if 
 the illegal and inhuman submarine campaign was continued. The 
 language used by the President, after recounting the course of 
 events leading to his action, was as follows : 
 
 "I have deemed it my duty, therefore, to say to the Imperial 
 German Government that if it is still its purpose to prosecute relent- 
 less and indiscriminate warfare against vessels of commerce by the 
 use of submarines, the government of the United States is at least 
 forced to the conclusion that there is but one course it can pursue ; 
 and that unless the Imperial German Government should now imme- 
 diately declare and effect an abandonment of its present method 
 of warfare against passenger and freight-carrying vessels this gov- 
 ernment can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with 
 the government of the German Empire altogether." 
 
 THE GERMAN V^AR CLOUD PASSES. 
 
 Germany replied to the President's note on May 4, denying the 
 implication of intentional destruction of vessels regardless of their 
 nature or nationality, and declaring that in future no merchant 
 vessels should be sunk without warning or without saving human 
 lives, "unless the ships attempt to escape or offer resistance." 
 
 On May 8, President Wilson dispatched a reply to Germany's 
 note, accepting the German promises as to the future conduct of sub- 
 marine warfare, but refusing to regard them as contingent on any 
 action between the United States and any other country, Germany 
 later admitted that a German submarine sank the Sussex, and prom- 
 ised that the commander would be punished and indemnities paid 
 to the families of those who perished. 
 
 This was regarded at Washington as practically closing the sub- 
 marine controversy, and the German war-cloud, which had assumed 
 serious proportions, gradually pa-ssed away. 
 
 ABORTIVE REVOLT IN IRELAND. 
 
 An attempt at rebellion by Irish extremists, accompanied by 
 bloody riots in Dublin and other cities in the south and west_ of 
 Ireland, followed the sinking on April 21 of a German vessel which, 
 convoyed by a submarine, endeavored to land arms and ammunition 
 on the Irish coast. Sir Roger Casement, an anti-British Irishman of 
 considerable note, who had been resident in Germany for some months, 
 was taken prisoner upon landing from the submarine. 
 
CLIMAX OF THE WAR 419 
 
 For several days, beginning April 25, the rebels, who formed an 
 inconsiderable part of the Irish people and were strongly condemned 
 by the Nationalist leaders and party, held possession of streets and 
 public buildings in Dublin. Incendiary fires did damage estimated 
 at over $100,000,000, many peaceable citizens were killed, and the 
 casualties among British troops and constabulary amounted to 521, 
 including 124 killed, before the uprising was quelled and the "Irish 
 Republic" overthrown, with the unconditional surrender of its 
 deluded leaders, on April 30. Next day the remnants of the Sinn 
 Fein rebels in Ireland surrendered, making over 1,000 prisoners, who 
 were transported to English prisons. IMilitary law had been pro- 
 claimed throughout Ireland and nearly a score of the leaders of the 
 revolt, who were accused of murder, were tried by court-martial and 
 summarily executed. The revolt was alleged to have been encouraged 
 in Germany and also by Irish extremists in the United States, by 
 whom the rebel leaders executed in Ireland were regarded as 
 * ' martyrs. ' ' 
 
 BRITISH SURRENDER AT KUT-EL AMARA. 
 
 After holding out against the Turks at Kut-el-Amara, in Meso- 
 potamia, for 143 days. General Townshend, the British commander, 
 was compelled, through exhaustion of his supplies, to surrender his 
 force of 9,d00 officers and men, on April 28. This force included about 
 2,000 English and 7,000 Indian troops, many being on the sick list. 
 The Turks recognized the gallantry of the defense and refused to 
 accept General Townshend 's sword. Many of the sick and wounded 
 were exchanged, and it was planned to imprison the rest of the 
 British force on an island in the Sea of Marmora. 
 
 ATTACKS ON VERDUN CONTINUE, 
 
 German attacks on the French lines at Verdun continued with the 
 utmost vigor up to June 10. From time to time they resulted in 
 small successes, gained at immense cost in human life. From May 
 27 to May 30 the battle raged with especial severity, this period 
 marking the greatest effort made by the Germans during the whole of 
 the prolonged operations at Verdun. The French stood firm under 
 an avalanche of shot and shell, and drove back wave after wave of 
 a tremendous flood of Teutonic infantry. The infantry fighting in 
 this struggle was described as the fiercest of the war. 
 
 The total German casualties up to June 1 were estimated at nearly 
 3,000,000 ; the French at 2,500,000, and the British at 600,000, over 
 25,000 of the latter being commissioned officers. 
 
 General Joseph S. Gallieni, former minister of war of France, 
 died at Versailles on May 27, universally mourned by the French, 
 who regarded him as the saviour of Paris in the critical days of 
 August-September, 1914, when he was military governor of Paris 
 and commander of the intrenched camp. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE WORLD^S GREATEST SEA FIGHT. 
 
 British and German High-Sea Fleets Finally Clash in the 
 North Sea — Huge Losses in Tonnage and Men on 
 Both Sides — British Navy Remains in Control of the 
 Sea. 
 
 After many months of unceasing sea patrol on the part of the 
 British, and of diligent preparation in port on the German side, it 
 came at last — the long-expected clash of mighty rival fleets in the 
 North Sea. 
 
 It was on the misty afternoon of Wednesday, May 31, that Admiral 
 David Beatty, in command of Britain's battle-cruiser squadron, 
 sighted the vanguard of the German high-seas fleet steaming "on an 
 enterprise to the north" from its long-accustomed anchorages in the 
 placid waters of the Kiel Canal and under the guns of Helgoland. 
 
 The British battleship fleet was far away to the northwest, but 
 the wireless promptly flashed the signal, ** Enemy in sight," and as 
 the battle-cruisers raced to close quarters with the tardy foe, and 
 sacrificed themselves in the effort to hold him in the open sea, down 
 from the north rushed the leviathans of the Mistress of the Seas, 
 that were counted on to crush the enemy when the opportunity came. 
 
 But the early stages of the fight found the British battling against 
 odds. Germany's mightiest warcraft were in the shadows of the 
 mist, behind the cruiser scouts; destroyers swarmed around them, 
 submarines appeared from the depths, and Zeppelins hovered over- 
 head. 
 
 Gallantly did Admiral Beatty on his victorious Lion struggle to 
 hold his own till the British battleships came up ; but one after another 
 his hard-pressed cruisers succumbed to weight of metal, until five 
 of them had sunk beneath the sea, with all their devoted crews, before 
 the near approach of Admiral Jellicoe and his dreadnaughts sent the 
 enemy scuttling back to port, to claim a victory that startled the 
 world for a day, only to disappear when the full extent of the German 
 losses became known, and it was learned that the German high-seas 
 fleet had lost some of its proudest units, that its losses, not only rela- 
 tively but absolutely almost equaled those of the British fleet, and 
 that the British remained in full control of the high seas, after scour- 
 ing them in vain for further signs of the enemy. 
 
 420 
 
WORLD'S GREATEST SEA-FIGHT 421 
 
 THE BRITISH LOSSES. 
 
 The ships lost by the British in the battle included three battle- 
 cruisers, the Queen Mary, Indefatigable, and Invincible; three light 
 cruisers, the Defense, Black Prince, and Warrior, and eight destroy- 
 ers, the Tipperary, Turbulent, Nestor, Alcaster, Fortune, Sparrow- 
 hawk, Ardent, and Shark. The Wariror, badly damaged, was taken in 
 tow, but sank before reaching port. All but one of its crew were 
 saved. 
 
 The British dreadnaught Marlborough was also damaged, but suc- 
 ceeded in making port for repairs. 
 
 Following are particulars of the British cruisers sunk: 
 
 Queen Mary — 27,000 tons ; 720 feet long. Eight 13.5 inch guns, 
 sixteen 4 inch guns, three 21 inch torpedo tubes. Complement, 900. 
 Cost, $10,000,000. 
 
 Indefatigable — 18,750 tons; 578 feet long. Eight 12 inch guns, 
 sixteen 4 inch guns, three 21 inch torpedo tubes. Complement, 900. 
 Cost, $8,000,000. 
 
 Invincible — 17,250 tons; 562 feet long. Eight 12 inch guns, 
 sixteen 4 inch guns, three 21 inch torpedo tubes. Complement, 731. 
 Cost, $8,760,000. 
 
 Defense — 14,600 tons; 525 feet long. Four 9.2 inch guns, ten 
 7.5 inch guns, sixteen 12 pounders, five torpedo tubes. Complement, 
 755. Cost, $6,810,000. 
 
 Black Prince — 13,550 tons; 480 feet long. Six 9.2 inch guns, 
 twenty 3 pounders, three torpedo tubes. Complement, 704. Cost, 
 $5,750,000. 
 
 Warrior — 13,550 tons; 480 feet long. Six 9.2 inch guns, four 
 7.5 inch guns, twenty-four 3 pounders, three torpedo tubes. Com- 
 plement, 704, all saved but one. Cost, $5,900,000. 
 
 The destroyers sunk were each of about 950 tons, 266 feet long, 
 and carried a complement of 100 men. Only a few survivors were 
 picked up after the battle. 
 
 the GERMAN LOSSES. 
 
 The German losses, as claimed by the British, included two 
 dreadnaughts, believed to be the Hindenburgh and Westfalen, each 
 of approximately 26,000 tons, with a compliment of 1,000 men; the 
 battle-cruiser Derfflinger, 26,600 tons, complement, 900 men; the 
 battleship Pommern, of 12,997 tons, complement, 729 men, cost, 
 $6,000,000; the new fast cruiser Elbing, of 5,000 tons, complement, 
 500 men ; the cruisers Frauenlob, of 2,715 tons, complement, 264 men, 
 and Wiesbaden, not registered; a number of destroyers, variously 
 estimated at from six to sixteen, and one submarine rammed and 
 sunk. Besides these, the battle-cruiser Lutzow, of 26,600 tons, was 
 
422 WORLD'S GREATEST SEA-FIGHT 
 
 reported badly damaged, and the battle-cruiser Seydlitz, of equal 
 size, suffered heavily in the battle and was hotly pursued to the mine 
 fields of Helgoland. 
 
 The total loss of life in the battle amounted to approximately 
 4,800 British, including 333 officers; and probably 4,000 or more 
 Germans. Rear-Admiral Horace Hood, second in command of the 
 battle-cruiser fleet, went down with the Invincible. Rear-Admiral 
 Arbuthnot went down with the Defense. 
 
 STORY OF THE BATTLE. 
 
 The great naval battle, which may go down in history as the 
 battle of the Skager Rack, was fought in the eastern waters of the 
 North Sea, off the coast of Denmark. It lasted for many hours, 
 fighting being continued through the night of May 31-June 1. In 
 general, the battle area extended from the Skager Rack southward 
 to Horn Reef off the Danish coast, the center of the fighting being 
 about 100 miles north of Helgoland, the main German naval base in 
 the North Sea. 
 
 Both in the number of lives and the tonnage lost, the battle was 
 the greatest sea-fight in history, as well as the first in which modern 
 dreadnaughts have been engaged. Never before have two naval 
 forces of such magnitude as the British and German high-sea fleets 
 engaged in combat. 
 
 The greatest previous tonnage loss was during the Japanese- 
 Russian war. In the naval battle of Tsushima in May, 1905, the loss 
 totaled 93,000 tons. Twenty-one Russian craft were sunk in this fight. 
 
 The text of the first British admiralty statement was in part as 
 follows : 
 
 ''On the afternoon of Wednesday, May 31, a naval engagement 
 took place off the coast of Jutland. The British ships on which the 
 brunt of the fighting fell were the battle-cruiser fleet and some cruisers 
 and light cruisers, supported by four fast battleships. Among these 
 the losses were heavy. 
 
 "The German battle fleet aided by low visibility avoided a pro- 
 longed action with our main forces. As soon as they appeared on the 
 scene the enemy returned to port, though not before receiving severe 
 damage from our battleships." 
 
 The battle was one in which no quarter was asked or even possible. 
 There were no surrenders, and the ships lost went down and 
 carried with them virtually the whole crews. Only the Warrior, which 
 was towed part way from the scene of battle to a British port, was 
 an exception. 
 
 Of the thousand men on the Queen Mary, only a corporal's guard 
 was accounted for. The same was true of the Invincible, while there 
 
WORLD'S GREATEST SEA-FIGHT 423 
 
 were no survivors reported from the Indefatigable, the Defense or 
 the Black Prince. 
 
 TELL OF BATTLE HORRORS. 
 
 After the battle there were many stories of ships sinking with 
 a great explosion ; of crews going down singing the national anthem ; 
 of merchant ships passing through a sea thick with floating bodies. 
 
 From survivors came thrilling stories of the horrors and humani- 
 ties of the battle. The British destroyer Shark acted as a decoy to 
 bring the German ships into the engagement. It was battered to 
 pieces by gunfire, and a half dozen sailors, picked up clinging to a 
 buoy by a Danish ship, told of its commander and two seamen serving 
 its only remaining gun until the last minute, when the commander's 
 leg was blown off. 
 
 A lifeboat with German survivors from the German cruiser Elbing 
 rescued Surgeon Burton of the British destroyer Tipperary. He had 
 sustained four wounds. 
 
 THE FIRST OFFICIAL STORY. 
 
 The first account in detail of the battle was given by a high 
 official of the British Admiralty, who said on June 4: 
 
 "We were looking for a fight when our fleet went out. Stories 
 that the fleet was decoyed by the Germans are sheerest nonsense. In 
 a word, with an inferior fleet we engaged the entire German high sea 
 fleet, interrupted their plans, and drove them back into their harbors. 
 
 ' ' In carrying out the plan decided upon we sustained heavy losses, 
 which we expected, but we also attained the expected result of forcing 
 the enemy to abandon his plan and seek refuge after we had given 
 battle in his own waters near his coast. 
 
 "With the exception of two divisions, part of which was only 
 partly engaged, the brunt of battle was borne by the battle-cruiser 
 fleet, and with one exception our battle fleet is ready for sea service. 
 I must admit that we had exceptionally hard luck with our battle- 
 cruisers, but the loss of three great ships does not in any measure 
 cripple our control of the sea. 
 
 "The great battle had four phases. The first opened at 3 :15 p. m., 
 when our battle-cruisers, at a range of six miles, joined action with 
 German battle-cruisers. Shortly afterward the second phase began 
 with the arrival on both sides of battleships, the Germans arriving 
 first. But before their arrival our three battle-cruisers had been 
 blown up, supposedly the result of gunfire, although possibly they 
 were victims of torpedoes. 
 
 ' ' Such close range fighting with battle-cruisers might be criticized 
 as bad tactics, but our fleet, following the traditions of the navy, went 
 
424 WORLD'S GREATEST SEA-FIGHT 
 
 out to engage the enemy, and on account of weather conditions could 
 do so only at short range. 
 
 "The third phase was the engagement of battleships, which never 
 was more than partial. This phase included a running fight, as the 
 German dreadnaughts fled toward their bases. All the big ship fight- 
 ing was over by 9 :15 p. m. 
 
 ENEMY GONE BY DAWN. 
 
 "Then came one of the most weird features of the battle, as Ger- 
 man destroyers made attack after attack, like infantry following 
 artillery preparation, on our big ships. But these onslaughts were 
 futile, not a single torpedo launched by them getting home. 
 
 "With the morning these attacks ended and the scene of battle 
 was swept by Jellicoe's fleet. Not a single enemy vessel remained in 
 sight. 
 
 ' ' An incident of the great battle was the torpedoing of the super- 
 dreadnaught IMarlborough, which is now safely in harbor. It must 
 have struck a veritable hornets' nest of submarines, as by skillful 
 maneuvering it avoided three of these before it was finally hit. 
 
 "Early in the engagement, according to Admiral Beatty's report, 
 a German battle-cruiser, after being hotly engaged, blew up and 
 broke in two. 
 
 "Officers of the fleet also reported passing a closely engaged 
 German battle-cruiser which was left behind while the British pur- 
 sued the Germans. On their return this vessel was missing. Judging 
 from its previous plight it must now be at the bottom of the sea. This 
 accounts for two of the enemy's battle-cruisers, and we have their 
 admission that they had lost two battleships. 
 
 "Zeppelins did not play the important part attributed to them. 
 Only one appeared. It remained in action a brief time, retiring 
 under heavy fire, evidently badly damaged. Weather conditions were 
 such that it is doubtful whether any aircraft would have been of 
 much service. 
 
 * ' The enemy sprang no surprises. We saw nothing of any 17-inch 
 guns. No tricks were used which were not already known in naval 
 warfare. 
 
 "From the standpoint of actual strength the navy's loss in per- 
 sonnel, while great, was not serious, as we have plenty of men to 
 replace them. But the deaths of so many gallant officers and men 
 have caused profound grief. 
 
 "Admiral Hood went down with his flagship Invincible, in the 
 words of Admiral Beaty's report, 'leading his division into action 
 with the most inspiring courage.' His flag captain. Cay, went down 
 with him. Capt. Sowerby, former British naval attache at Wash- 
 
WORLD'S GREATEST SEA-FIGHT 425 
 
 ington, perished with his ship, the Indefatigable, while Capt. Prowse 
 died on the Queen Mary. ' ' 
 
 BODIES FLOATING IN THE SEA. 
 
 From Copenhagen it was reported on June 3 that hundreds of 
 bodies, many of them horribly mutilated by explosions, and great 
 quantities of debris were drifting about in the North Sea near the 
 scene of the battle. All steamers arriving at Danish ports reported 
 sighting floating bodies and bits of wreckage. 
 
 The steamer Para picked up a raft aboard which were three 
 German survivors from the torpedo boat V-48. They had clung to 
 the raft for forty-eight hours and were semi-conscious when rescued. 
 They reported that ninety-nine of the V-48 crew perished and that 
 in all about twenty German torpedo boats were destroyed. 
 
 Other German sailors, rescued by Scandinavian steamers, described 
 the Teutonic losses in the Jutland battle as colossal, A number of 
 the crew of the cruiser "Wiesbaden and men from several German 
 torpedo boats were rescued and brought to Copenhagen. They 
 reported that many of their comrades, after floating for thirty-six 
 hours on rafts without food or water, drank the sea water, became 
 insane and jumped into the ocean. 
 
 The German survivors said that several of their torpedo boats 
 and submarines were capsized by the British shells and sank instantly. 
 Bodies of both British and German sailors were washed ashore on the 
 coast of Jutland. 
 
 officer's story of the fight. 
 
 Survivors who arrived at Edinburgh on June 5 from British 
 destroyers which made a massed attack on a German battleship in 
 the battle off Jutland, were convinced that they sent to the bottom 
 the dreadnaught Hindenburg, the pride of the German navy. These 
 sailors said that the Hindenburg was struck successively by four tor- 
 pedoes while the destroyers dashed in alongside of its hull, tearing 
 it to pieces until the mighty ship reeled and sank. 
 
 An officer from one of the British destroyers gave the following 
 graphic account of the battle: 
 
 "The ships of the grand fleet went into action as if they were 
 going into maneuvers. From every yardarm the white ensign flew, 
 the flag which is to the sailor as the tattered colors were in days of 
 old to a hard-pressed regiment. That it went hard with the battle- 
 cruisers is apparent, but one ship cannot fight a dozen. They had 
 fought a great fight, a fight to be proud of, a fight which will live 
 longer than many a victory. 
 
 "We fought close into the foe, and if anything is certain in the 
 uncertainties of naval battle it is that we gave at least as good as we 
 
4fi6 WORLD'S GREATEST SEA-FIGHT 
 
 got. We passed along the line of German sliips some miles away and 
 let off broadside after broadside. The air was heavy with masses of 
 smoke, black, yellow, green and every other color, which drifted 
 slowly between the opposing lines, hiding sometimes friend and some- 
 times foe. The enemy ships were firing very fast, but watching the 
 ships in front one came to the conclusion that the shooting was 
 decidedly erratic. Again and again salvos of shells fell far short 
 of the mark, to be followed immediately by others which screamed 
 past high in the air. 
 
 ROAR OP THE GUNS TERRIFIC. 
 
 "I watched the Iron Duke swinging through the seas, letting off 
 broadside after broadside, wicked tongues of flames leaping through 
 clouds of smoke. The din of battle was stunning, stupendous, deafen- 
 ing, as hundreds of the heaviest guns in the world roared out at 
 once. Great masses of water rose in the air like waterspouts, reaching 
 as high as the masts, as the salvos of German shells fell short or went 
 over their target. Now and then a shell found its mark, but it 
 left us absolutely cold as to its effect on each man at a time like this. 
 A dozen men may be knocked out at one 's side. It makes no difference. 
 
 "It was impossible to see what was happening among the ships 
 of the foe. The smoke obscured everything so effectually that one 
 could only get a glimpse at intervals when a kindly wind blew a 
 lane through the pall. It was apparent that the best ships of the 
 enemy were engaged, but how many neither eye nor glass could make 
 out. The number was certainly large. It was equally impossible to 
 see what damage we were causing. Only the high command knew 
 the progress of the battle. That the damage inflicted on the German 
 ships was great does not admit of any doubt. At one time two 
 vessels, red with fire, gleamed through the smoke. 
 
 FLAGSHIP LOSES ITS WIRELESS. 
 
 **It is a curious feeling to be in the midst of a battle and not to 
 know to which side fortune leans. "Where only a few ships are 
 engaged it is different. Our own losses were known with some degree 
 of exactness, but even that was uncertain. Thus at one time it was 
 thought that the Lion had been lost as it did not answer any call. 
 It transpired that its wireless had been destroyed. 
 
 **With the dusk came the great opportunity of the mosquito craft 
 and both sides made use of it to the full. It was in this way that one 
 of the saddest of many sad incidents occurred. A destroyer, true to 
 its name, dashed for the big enemy ship. It soon got into effective 
 range and loosed its torpedo and with deadly effect on a German 
 battleship. The ship went down and the destroyer raced for safety, 
 
WORLD'S GREATEST SEA-FIGHT 427 
 
 the commander and officer standing on the bridge indulging in 
 mutual congratulations at their success. At that moment a shell hit 
 the bridge and wiped out the entire group. 
 
 "We fought what was in its way a great fight, although it was 
 not a sailor's battle. Both the grand and the terrible were present 
 to an almost overpowering degree. As a spectacle it was magnificent, 
 awful. How awful, it was impossible to realize until the fever of 
 action had subsided, until the guns were silent and the great ships, 
 some battered, others absolutely untouched, were plowing home on 
 the placid sea. ' ' 
 
 MEN THRILLED BY BATTLE FEVER. 
 
 After describing the battle itself, the officer reverted to incidents 
 preceding it, saying: 
 
 ■' ' I shall never forget the thrill which passed through the men on 
 the ships of the grand fleet when that inspiring message was received 
 from the battle-cruiser squadron many leagues away : ' I am engaged 
 with heavy forces of the enemy.' One looked on the faces of his 
 fellows and saw that the effect was electrical. The great ships swung 
 around into battle order and the responsive sea rocked and churned 
 as the massive vessels raced for what were virtually enemy waters. 
 As the grand fleet drew near the scene of action the smoke of battle 
 and mutter of guns came down on the winds. The eagerness of the 
 men became almost unbearably intense and it was a blessed relief 
 when our own guns gave tongue." 
 
 RUSSIAN TROOPS LAND IN FRANCE. 
 
 Between April 20 and June 1, a large flotilla of transports arriv- 
 ing at Marseilles, France, brought Russian soldiers in large numbers 
 to the support of the French line. The transports were understood 
 to have made the voyage of 10,250 miles from Vladivostok under 
 convoy by the British navy. 
 
 EARL KITCHENER KILLED AT SEA. 
 
 The British armored cruiser Hampshire, 10,850 tons, with Earl 
 Kitchener, the British secretary of state for war, and his staff on 
 board, was sunk shortly after nightfall on June 5, to the west of the 
 Orkney Islands, either by a mine or a torpedo. Heavy seas were 
 running and Admiral Jellicoe reported that there were no survivors. 
 The crew numbered 300 officers and men. Earl Kitchener was on his 
 way to Russia for a secret conference with the military authorities 
 when the disaster occurred. His latest achievement was the creation, 
 from England's untrained manhood, of an army approximating 
 5,000,000 men, of whom he was the military idol. 
 
428 BATTLES EAST AND WEST 
 
 CANADIANS IN BATTLE. 
 
 After gallantly holding their own for many months against 
 repeated German attacks, the Canadian troops holding that section of 
 the western front southeast of Ypres, between Hooge and the Ypres- 
 Menin railway, were engaged during the week ending June 3, 1916, in 
 a battle scarcely less determined in its nature than that of St. Julien 
 and other great encounters in which they distinguished themselves and 
 added to Canadian military laurels earlier in the war. 
 
 On Friday, June 2, the Germans, after a concentrated bombard- 
 ment with heavy artillery, pressed forward to the assault and suc- 
 ceeded in penetrating the British lines. During the night they pushed 
 their attack and succeeded in cutting their way through the defenses 
 to the depth of nearly a mile in the direction of Zillebeke. The hard- 
 fighting Canadians then rallied and began counter-assaults at 7 o 'clock 
 on the following morning. By Sunday morning, June 4, they had 
 succeeded in gradually driving the Germans from much of the ground 
 they had gained, but the losses to the Canadians were severe. 
 
 In the British official report of the engagement, it was stated that 
 "the Canadians behaved with the utmost gallantry, counter-attacking 
 successfully after a heavy and continued bombardment." The Ger- 
 man losses were very heavy and a large number of dead were aban- 
 doned on the recaptured ground. Frederick Palmer, the noted war 
 correspondent, said that for a thousand yards in the center of the line 
 where the Germans secured lodgment the Canadians fired from posi- 
 tions in the rear and filled the ruined trenches with German dead. 
 
 It was announced by the War Office that Generals Mercer and 
 Williams, who were inspecting the front trenches on June 2, during 
 the German bombardment, were among the missing. Soon after it was 
 found that General Mercer was severely wounded during the fight, and 
 was taken to hospital at Boulogne, while General Williams, who was 
 wounded less severely, was captured by the enemy. General Mercer 
 was the commander of the Third Division of Canadian troops, which 
 in this action had its first real test in hand-to-hand fighting, and came 
 out of the trial like veterans with glory undimmed. 
 
 The two-days' fighting occurred around the famous Hill No. 60 
 and Sanctuary Wood, names destined to live in Canadian history. It 
 was entirely a Canadian battle, and while the losses of the devoted 
 troops from the Dominion probably reached the regrettable totalof 
 over 6,000, including a number of men captured by the Germans during 
 the first day's attack, when they overran the front trenches, they dog- 
 gedly bombed and bayoneted their way back to the wrecked trenches 
 next day and regained nearly all their front. The commanding officers 
 w^ere especially pleased that the newer Canadian battalions had kept 
 up the traditions of the first contingent, established in 1915 at St. 
 
BATTLES EAST AND WEST 429 
 
 Julien and elsewhere in France and Flanders, by immediately turn- 
 ing upon the Germans with a counter-attack which was carried out both 
 coolly and skilfully. 
 
 The Ypres salient, thus successfully defended by the Canadians in 
 one of the hottest of the minor battles of the war, was regarded by 
 the British commander-in-chief as an important position which must 
 be defended despite the heavy losses. General Gwatkin, Chief of Staff 
 for Canada, stated that the German losses during the heavy fighting 
 exceeded those of the Canadians. 
 
 Colonel Buller of the Princess Patricia Regiment was killed by 
 shrapnel while leading his men at Sanctuary Wood. 
 
 The total enlistments in Canada up to June 10 exceeded 333,000 
 men. 
 
 GREAT DRIVE BY THE RUSSIANS. 
 
 The first week of June, 1916, saw the Russians successful in a great 
 drive against the Austrian positions in Volhynia and Galicia, a move- 
 ment that for awhile overshadowed the events on the western front. 
 In the space of five days a new Russian commander, General Brusiloff, 
 who had succeeded General Ivanhoff as Chief of the Russian South- 
 western Armies, captured 1,143 Austrian officers and 64,714 men, 
 recovered almost four thousand square miles of fertile Volhynian soil, 
 and recaptured the fortified town of Lutsk. He had the advantage of 
 a most efficient artillery preparation, which blew the Austrian entan- 
 glements, trenches and earthworks into such a chaos that the bewil- 
 dered occupants surrendered in thousands when the Russian infantry 
 charged. 
 
 German reinforcements from the trenches north of the Pripet River 
 tried to stay the Russian rush, but in vain, and many Germans were 
 among the prisoners taken. At several points the Russian cavalry 
 led the attack after the artillery had done its work. A division of 
 young Russians, by an impetuous attack, captured a bridge-head on 
 the Styr and took 2,500 German and Austrian troops and much rich 
 booty. In Galicia the Russian armies crossed the Stripa and by 
 June 10 were once more too near Lemberg for the comfort of the 
 Austrian garrison. At that time the total number of prisoners taken 
 in this drive was considerably over 100,000, while the booty in guns, 
 rifles, ammunition and supplies of all conceivable kinds was enormous. 
 The Allies -were greatly heartened by these Russian successes on the 
 eastern front, and on June 15 Germany was preparing to meet them 
 by troop movements from the north, where Field Marshal von Hinden- 
 burgh was in command on Russian territory. The extent and rapidity 
 of the Russian successes up to that time were without parallel in 
 military history. 
 
430 BATTLES EAST AND WEST 
 
 RUSSIA COMPELS AUSTRIAN RETREAT 
 
 During the following month the Russian advance toward the 
 Carpathians, for the second time in the war, continued steadily. It 
 was apparent that General Brusiloff, unlike his predecessors in com- 
 mand, was well supplied with effective artillery and ammunition in 
 plenty, and that the vast resources of the Russian Empire had been 
 at last successfully mobilized for attack. Guns and ammunition, in 
 immense quantities, had been secured from Japan, among other 
 sources, and this former enemy of Russia, now her strong and capable 
 ally, aided materially in changing the aspect of affairs on the Eastern 
 battle front. 
 
 On June 16, the Russian offensive had progressed to the Galician 
 frontier, and terrific fighting marked the advance along the whole 
 line south of Volhynia. Two German armies went to the aid of the 
 Austrians in the region of the Stochod and Styr rivers, and German 
 forces also made a stand before Kovel. The mortality on both sides 
 was described as frightful, but the Russians continued to make head- 
 way and the capture of thousands of Teutonic prisoners was of almost 
 daily occurrence, the total reaching 172,000 before June 18. 
 
 Czernowitz, the capital of Bukowina, fell into the hands of the 
 Russians at midnight of June 17, after the bridgehead on the Pruth 
 river had been stormed by the victorious troops of the Czar. One 
 thousand Austrians were captured at the bridgehead, but the gar- 
 rison succeeded in escaping. The invading troops swept on, crossed 
 the Sereth river, and soon gained control of about one-half of Rou- 
 mania's western frontier. By July 23 the Austrians were retreating 
 into the foothills of the Carpathian mountains, hotly pressed by the 
 Russian advance. The German army around Kovel continued to 
 make a stubborn resistance, but could not prevent the Austrian rout, 
 and as the Russians approached the Carpathian passes the Austrian 
 prisoners taken by them during the drive reached a total of 200,000 
 officers and men. Immense quantities of munitions of war also fell 
 into their hands. 
 
 On July 4 Russian cavalry patrols advanced over the passes into 
 southern Hungary, and General Brusiloff 's army neared Lemberg, 
 which was defended by a combined Teutonic army under General von 
 Bothmer, along the River Strj^pa. The losses of the Austrians and 
 Germans, in killed and wounded up to this time, were placed at 
 500,000 men, the Russian offensive having lasted one month, with no 
 evidence of slackening. General von Bothmer then began a retirement 
 westward, while General Brusiloff advanced between the Pruth and 
 Dniester rivers, and a concerted push toward Lemberg was be^un. 
 
BATTLES EAST AND WEST 431 
 
 "BIG PUSH" ON THE WESTERN FRONT 
 
 After many months of preparation by the British, during which 
 •'Kitchener's army" was being sedulously trained for active service, 
 a new phase of the great war began on July 1, 1916, when a great 
 offensive was started on the western front by the British and French 
 simultaneously, after a seven-day bombardment of the German 
 trenches. In this preliminary bombardment more than one million 
 shells were fired daily, and the prolonged battle which ensued was 
 the greatest of all time. 
 
 This offensive proved that the Allies had not been shaken from 
 their determination to bide their time until they were thoroughly pre- 
 pared and ready for the attack, and were able to co-ordinate their 
 efforts in genuine teamwork against the powerful and strongly- 
 entrenched enemy in the west, while the Russian offensive on the 
 eastern front was also in progress. This long-awaited movement was 
 no isolated attack, costly but ineffectual, like those of the English at 
 Neuve Chapelle and Loos, but "a carefully studied and deliberately 
 prepared campaign of severe pressure upon Germany at each of her 
 battle fronts." It proved that the war-councils of the Allies held in 
 Paris and London, in Petrograd and Rome, were no mere conven- 
 tional affairs, but were at last to bear fruit in concerted action that 
 might decide the issue of the war. 
 
 The "big push," as it was popularly called in England, was 
 started by the British and French on both sides of the River Somme, 
 sixty miles north of Paris, at 7 :30 o'clock on the morning of July 1, 
 and resulted on the same day in a great wedge being driven into the 
 German lines along a front of twenty-five miles, with its sharp point 
 penetrating nearly five miles. The French advance was made in the 
 direction of Peronne, an important center of transportation and dis- 
 tribution long held by the Germans. 
 
 An eyewitness who watched the beginning of the battle from a 
 hill said that overwhelming as was the power of the guns, yet as the 
 gathering of human and mechanical material proceeded, "the grim 
 and significant spectacle was the sight of detachments of infantry 
 moving forward in field-fighting equipment, until finally the dugouts 
 M^ere hives of khaki ready to swarm out for battle." 
 
 As the days of the bombardment passed, the air of expectancy was 
 noticeable everywhere through the British army, commanded by Sir 
 Douglas Haig. Finally the word was passed that the infantry was 
 to make the assault early the next morning. Then, " at 7 :20 A. M. 
 the rapid-fire trench mortars added their shells to the deluge pouring 
 upon the first-line German trenches. After ten minutes of this, 
 promptly at 7:30 o'clock, the guns lifted their fire to the second line 
 
432 BATTLES EAST AND WEST 
 
 of German trenches, as if they were answering to the pressure of a 
 single electric button, and the men of the new British army leaped 
 over their parapets and rushed toward the wreckage the guns and 
 mortars had wrought. Even close at hand, they were visible for only 
 a moment before being hidden by the smoke of the German shell- 
 curtain over what remained of the trenches. ' ' 
 
 Of the deadly work beneath that pall of smoke, as steel met steel 
 and the new soldiers of Britain fleshed their bayonets for the first 
 time, and fell by the thousand under the murderous fire of machine- 
 guns, history will tell the tale long after the survivors have ceased to 
 recount the deeds of the day to their grandchildren wherever the 
 English tongue is spoken. Each side gives credit to the other for the 
 utmost bravery and devotion during the battle. The new English 
 regiments fought like veterans, and fully maintained the traditions 
 of the British army for dogged bravery, while the Germans fought 
 with desperate tenacity, valor and resourcefulness, this last quality 
 being displayed in the devices which had been invented and were 
 used to prevent or delay the Allied advance. It was indeed wonderful 
 how well the Germans had protected their machine-guns from the 
 devastating effects of the preliminary bombardment, which tore 
 trenches to pieces and utterly demolished barbed-wire entanglements, 
 but failed in many cases to destroy the deep bomb-proofs in which 
 the Teuton machine-guns were protected and concealed. 
 
 CONTINUATION OP THE GREAT BATTLE 
 
 On July 2 and 3, the battle of the Somme continued without 
 cessation of infantry fighting, while the big guns thundered on both 
 sides. The British offensive took Fricourt on the 2nd, after a tre- 
 mendous bombardment, and occupied several villages, while the 
 French advanced to within three miles of Peronne. Ten thousand 
 more prisoners fell into the hands of the Allies on these two days. 
 On the 4th, German resistance temporarily halted the British, but 
 the French offensive took German second-line positions south of the 
 Somme on a six-mile front. Violent counter-attacks by the Germans 
 on July 6 failed to wrest from the French the ground won by them 
 during the previous five days, and the Allied troops resumed their 
 advance, taking the German second-line trenches all along the front 
 in the face of a heavy fire. Next day Contalmaison was won by the 
 British, but recaptured by the Prussian Guard, who held the town 
 for three days, when they were again driven out. 
 
 A desperate struggle for the possession of the Mametz woods 
 marked the fighting from the 10th to the 12th, the British and the 
 Germans alternating in its possession. Victory at this point finally 
 lay with the British, who on July 12 gained possession of the whole 
 
BATTLES EAST AND WEST 433 
 
 locality, together with the Trones wood, which had also been the 
 scene of a bloody struggle. By this time some 30,000 German pris- 
 oners had been taken by the Allies during the offensive, wliile the 
 losses in killed and wounded on both sides, in the absence of official 
 reports, could only be estimated in appalling numbers. 
 
 TRAGIC TALE OF A GERMAN PRISONER 
 
 A typical description of some of the horrors of the battle, as it 
 surged around Contalmaison, was given by a German prisoner on 
 July 12 to the war correspondent of the London Chronicle. He spoke 
 English, having been employed in London for some years prior to 
 the war. With his regiment, the 122nd Bavarians, he went into Con- 
 talmaison five days before his capture. Soon the rations they took 
 with them were exhausted, and owing to the ceaseless gunfire they 
 were unable to get fresh supplies. They suffered agonies of thirst 
 and the numbers of their dead and wounded increased day after day. 
 
 "There was a hole in the ground," said the German prisoner, 
 whose head was bound with a bloody bandage and who was still dazed 
 and troubled when the correspondent talked with him. "It was a 
 dark hole which held twenty men, all lying in a heap together, and 
 that was the only dugout for my company, so there was not room for 
 more than a few. It was necessary to take turns in this shelter while 
 outside the English shells were coming and bursting everywhere. Two 
 or three men were dragged out to make room for two or three others, 
 then those who went outside were killed or wounded. 
 
 "There was only one doctor, an unter officer,"— he pointed to 
 a man who lay asleep on the ground face downward — "and he ban- 
 daged some of us till he had no more bandages ; then last night we 
 knew the end was coming. Your guns began to fire altogether, the 
 dreadful trommelfeuer, as we call it, and the shells burst and smashed 
 up the earth about us. "We stayed down in the hole, waiting for the 
 end. Then we heard your soldiers shouting. Presently two of them 
 came down into our hole. They were two boys and had their pockets 
 full of bombs ; they had bombs in their hands also, and they seemed 
 to wonder whether they should kill us, but we were all wounded — 
 nearly all — and we cried 'Kamerade'! and now we are prisoners." 
 
 Other prisoners said in effect that the fire was terrible in Contal- 
 maison and at least half their men holding it were killed or wounded, 
 so that when the British entered they walked over the bodies of the 
 dead. The men who escaped were in a pitiful condition. * * They lay 
 on the ground utterly exhausted, most of them, and, what was strange, 
 with their faces to the earth. Perhaps it was to blot out the vision of 
 the things they had seen." 
 
 Meanwhile, despite the threatening character of the Allied 
 
434 BATTLES EAST AND WEST 
 
 offensive on the Somme, German assaults on the Verdun front con- 
 tinued unabated during July, and there was little evidence of the 
 withdrawal of German troops from that point to reinforce the army 
 opposed to the British. But except at Verdun, Germany was at bay 
 everywhere, and the situation was recognized in the Fatherland as 
 serious. Never before had the Allies been able to drive at Germany 
 from all sides at once. Only at Verdun the German Crown Prince, 
 long halted at that point, was keeping up a slow but strong offensive 
 pressure. 
 
 GERMAN SUBMARINE REACHES BALTIMORE 
 
 On July 9, the German merchant submarine Deutschland, in com- 
 mand of Capt. Koenig, slipped into port at Baltimore, after eluding 
 British warships in the North Sea, English Channel, and Atlantic. 
 The Deutschland carried as cargo nearly a million dollars' worth cf 
 dyestuffs, as well as important mail. The owners announced that she 
 was the first of a regular fleet to be placed in service between German 
 and American ports, to thwart the British blockade. She made the 
 4,000-mile voyage in sixteen days, including nine hours during which, 
 according to her captain, she lay at the bottom of the Channel to 
 escape capture. On July 25 she was preparing for her return voyage 
 with a cargo said to consist largely of crude rubber and nickel, having 
 been accepted by the United States Government as an innocent 
 merchantman and granted clearance papers on that basis. Outside 
 the Virginia capes, beyond the three-mile limit, British and French 
 cruisers awaited her possible appearance, with the hope of effecting 
 her capture. But it was announced in Germany that the Deutschland 
 reached her home port safely Aug. 23. 
 
 CANADIANS STRENGTHEN THEIR FRONTS 
 
 Along the portion of the western battle front held by Canadian 
 troops, there were frequent heavy bombardments by the enemy during 
 the month of July, but the gallant soldiers of the Dominion consoli- 
 dated their positions won in battle at Loos and elsewhere, and fully 
 held their own. In trench mortar fighting their batteries maintained 
 the upper hand, often returning six shells for one thrown by the 
 Germans. The Canadian patrols were very active ; every night recon- 
 naissances were made all along the Canadian front, and numerous 
 hostile working parties engaged in strengthening German trenches 
 and entanglements were dispersed by Canadian rifle fire. 
 
 On July 8, in the gardens of Kensington Palace, London, Princess 
 Louise, Duchess of Argyll, presented to General Steele, for the 
 Canadian forces, a silken Union Jack and a silver shield, given by 
 the women and children of the British Isles in acknowledgment of 
 Canada's good will and valuable co-operation. The Princess made 
 
BATTLES EAST AND WEST 435 
 
 a short address expressing high admiration and enthusiastic apprecia- 
 tion of the eager readiness with which the officers and men of Canada 
 had come forward to take their share in the cause of the Empire. 
 General Steele, in receiving the gifts, returned thanks on behalf of 
 the Canadian troops. 
 
 NEW RUSSIAN DRIVE NEAR RIGA 
 
 On July 24, General Kuropatkin began a new Russian drive in 
 the battle sector south of Riga. After making a preliminary breach 
 in the German lines, Kuropatkin drove in a wedge of fresh troops 
 which swept Marshal von Hindenburg's German forces back along a 
 front of 30 miles, and to a depth at one point of 12 miles. The attack 
 was preceded by a bombardment lasting four days, which battered 
 into ruins the German defense along the coast line from the Gulf of 
 Riga to Uxhull. The Kaiser and his chief of staff recognized the 
 importance of General Kuropatkin 's advance by hastening to the 
 Eastern battle front on July 25. 
 
 TWO years' war casualties 
 
 Killed. Wounded. Missing. Total. 
 
 Russia 1,200,000 2,500,000 2,000,000 5,700,000 
 
 Germany 900,000 1,900,000 150,000 2,950,000 
 
 France 850,000 1,500,000 325,000 2,675,000 
 
 Austro-Hungary 475,000 1,000,000 900,000 2,375,000 
 
 Great Britain 160,000 450,000 70,000 680,000 
 
 Turkey 75,000 200,000 75,000 350,000 
 
 Serbia 60,000 125,000 75,000 260,000 
 
 Italy 50,000 100,000 30,000 180,000 
 
 Belgium 30,000 70,000 50,000 150,000 
 
 Bulgaria 5,000 25,000 5,000 35,000 
 
 Total 3,805,000 7,870,000 3,680,000 15,355,000 
 
 THE STRUGGLE ON THE SOMME 
 
 The second phase of the great Anglo-French offensive on the 
 western front began to develop late in July, and attacks were con- 
 tinuous throughout the month of August and up to September 15. At 
 every point in the Somme region the giant British and French guns 
 poured shell into the German works, destroying barbed wire entangle- 
 ments and wrecking trenches, while Allied gains were reported almost 
 daily, as the Germans were slowly but surely ousted from their original 
 positions along a wide front. 
 
 An engagement typical of the prolonged fighting on the Somme 
 occurred near Armentieres, where the Australians on a two-mile front 
 
436 BATTLES EAST AND WEST 
 
 made the greatest trench raid ever undertaken in any war, inflicting 
 heavy damage upon the enemy by bombing and hand-to-hand fighting. 
 The German position at Longueval passed into British control on 
 July 28, after what was called the most terrific fighting of the war, 
 in Delville Wood. 
 
 Between August 6 and September 10 the British under Gen. Sir 
 Douglas Haig and the French under Gen. Foch fought off many 
 determined German counter-attacks in the Somme sector, and con- 
 tinued their advance, the French gaining Maurepas and the British 
 moving closer to Guillemont and Ginchy, driving the Germans back 
 along eleven miles of front and capturing Thiepval Ridge and other 
 important positions near Pozieres. 
 
 On September 9 German official reports admitted considerable 
 losses on the western line, both in the section south of the Somme and 
 to the northeast of Verdun. Fierce attacks by the Germans at Verdun 
 had been renewed during August, but the French, under the able 
 command of Gen. Nivelle, more than held their own, recapturing a 
 considerable portion of the terrain occupied by the enemy, including 
 Fleury and the important Thiaumont Work. 
 
 ITALIANS CAPTURE GORITZ, 
 
 The greatest blow which the Italian army had struck against 
 Austria since the beginning of the war was completed on August 9, 
 when Italian troops captured the fortified city of Goritz, for which 
 they had been struggling for months. The number of prisoners taken 
 by the Italians was 21,750, and in the next few days nearly 20,000 
 more fell into their hands, with great stores of war munitions and 
 many guns. 
 
 The taking of Goritz, one of the strongest fortresses in Europe, 
 compelled the retirement of the Austrians at other points along the 
 Isonzo River, and opened the road for the Italians, under Gen. 
 Cadorna, to strike at the coveted city of Trieste, twenty-two miles to 
 the southeast. With the capture of the ** keystone" at Goritz, the 
 Italian commander confidently expected the resistance of the Austrians 
 to weaken and looked forward to the early occupation of the coveted 
 provinces of the Trentino, 
 
 ITALY AT WAR WITH GERMANY 
 
 On August 27, Italy declared war on Germany, giving as a reason 
 the fact that Germany had sent both land and sea forces to the aid of 
 Austria. The declaration became inevitable when Italy sent troops 
 to Saloniki to co-operate in the campaign of the Entente Allies on 
 the Macedonian front. For more than a year Italy's position with 
 
BATTLES EAST AND WEST 437 
 
 regard to Germany had been an anomalous one, for although she 
 withdrew from the Triple Alliance on May 25, 1915, and declared 
 war against Austria, she remained officially at peace with Germany 
 until August 27, 1916, 
 
 RUMANIA ENTERS THE WAR 
 
 After many months of hesitation, Rumania finally decided to enter 
 the war on the side of the Allies and declared war on Austria, August 
 27. The next day Germany declared war on Rumania, and the issue 
 was squarely joined in the Balkans, which then became the scene of a 
 mighty struggle for the possession of Germany 's road to Constantinople 
 and the East. Tremendous activity at once began on the Balkan 
 front, with Rumania's endeavor to aid Russia in cutting off Bulgaria 
 and Turkey from the Central Powers. In the event of the success of 
 this move, it was expected that the Allies would start a gigantic drive 
 toward Constantinople. 
 
 The most important gain for either side in the Balkans up to the 
 middle of September was the capture by the Bulgarians and Germans, 
 on September 7, of the great fortress of Turtukai, fifty miles to the 
 southeast of Bucharest, the Rumanian capital, and chief defense of the 
 capital on that side. Russian troops were rushed to the aid of the 
 Rumanians, and the loss of Turtukai was offset by Rumanian successes 
 across the Hungarian border, where they captured a number of towns, 
 driving the Austrian defenders before them as their invasion of 
 Hungary progressed. 
 
 RUSSIAN ARMIES ACTIVE 
 
 By September 10, Russian troops were massed in great force in 
 southeastern Rumania, and engaged the Bulgarians on the whole 
 seventy-mile front from the Danube to the Black Sea, fighting fiercely 
 to wrest the offensive from the enemy invading Rumania. In Transyl- 
 vania the Rumanians were advancing rapidly, having captured the 
 important town of Orsova, on the Danube, which gave them a grip on 
 the Austrian second line of defense behind the mountains dividing 
 Transylvania from Hungary. The entrance of Rumania into the war 
 had increased the Austro-Hungarian front by about 380 miles, which 
 military men regarded as altogether too long for the Teutonic armies 
 to hold with any hope of success. 
 
 The Russians were also on September 10 winning ground in their 
 campaign against Lemberg, the capital of Galicia, They had advanced 
 until they were within artillery range of Halicz, an important railway 
 junction sixty miles south of Lemberg. They had cut the railway 
 line between Lemberg and Halicz, and the latter town was in flames. 
 
438 BATTLES EAST AND WEST 
 
 ALLIED PROGRESS ON THE WESTERN FRONT 
 
 British and French successes on the Western front continued dur- 
 ing the month of September, and the gains were encouraging to the 
 Allies. On September 15 the British took Flers, Martinpuich, the 
 important position known as the High Wood, Courcelette, and almost 
 all of the Bouleaux Wood, and also stormed the German positions 
 from Combles north to the Pozieres-Bapaume road, arriving within 
 four miles of Bapaume and capturing 2,300 prisoners. A prominent 
 feature of the attack was the use by the British of armored automo- 
 bile trucks of unusual size and power, so constructed that they were 
 able to cross trenches and shell-holes. These "tanks," as they were 
 called, proved a genuine surprise to the enemy. They were said to 
 be developed from American tractors of the "caterpillar" variety, 
 which lay their own tracks as they proceed. 
 
 A two-mile trench system, believed to be impregnable, was stormed 
 by the Allied forces near Thiepval September 17, while south of the 
 Sonune the French took the German trenches along a front of three 
 miles. Next day more ground was taken in the advance toward 
 Bapaume and German prisoners continued to fall into the Allies' 
 hands. The number of Teuton captives taken during the Somme 
 fighting from July 1 to September 22 was placed at 55,800 men and 
 officetrs. 
 
 The month of September was remarkable for the great number 
 of aerial combats on the western front and the efficiency 'developed 
 in this mode of fighting. Many airplanes were shot down on both 
 sides, but the Allies seemed to be gaining the mastery of the air. On 
 a single day, September 24, over a hundred air combats were re- 
 ported, during which fifty-seven airplanes were destroyed. On the 
 same day two French airmen, in flights of 500 miles, dropped bombs 
 on the Krupp works at Essen in Germany. 
 
 In a forward sweep near the end of the month the British took a 
 number of German positions northeast of Combles, while the French 
 advanced south of that point, so that the two armies almost surround- 
 ing it were scarcely a mile apart. A day later British and French 
 troops entered Combles from opposite sides and drove the Germans 
 out. Continuing the drive from Thiepval, which had also been occu- 
 pied, the British consolidated their positions and straightened their 
 line a short distance from Bapaume, their objective point at this 
 time. More than 5,000 German prisoners were taken September 26 
 and 27. 
 
 More Allied gains in the Somme sector were reported in the first 
 week of October, German counter-attacks were frequent, but lacked 
 
BATTLES EAST AND WEST 439 
 
 the vigor and success of former efforts on this front. In a joint at- 
 tack on October 7 the village of Le Sars was taken and the Allies 
 found themselves within two miles of Bapaume. General Foch with 
 his French infantry took a number of German positions near Ablain- 
 court, south of the Somme, October 14, and held his gains against 
 repeated German attacks. The fighting was extremely desperate and 
 of a hand-to-hand character. Gas and liquid fire were used by the 
 Germans, but the new Allied lines were firmly held. Liquid fire was 
 also used against the British at Thiepval, but without success. 
 
 The Allied attacks on the Somme from October 9 to October 13 
 were reckoned in Berlin dispatches as amongst the greatest actions 
 of the entire Somme battle, the enemy believing that the Allies them- 
 selves then attempted to reach a decision by breaking through the 
 German lines on the largest possible scale. The losses on both sides 
 during this period were admittedly very heavy. 
 
 On October 18 the town of Sailly-Saillisel fell to the French after 
 hard fighting and commanding ridges on either side of it were also 
 captured. Fresh progress brought the French troops to the outskirts 
 of Peronne next day, and on the 21st the British advanced their 
 lines along a front of three miles, capturing the Stuff and Regina re- 
 doubts and trenches and taking more than 1,000 prisoners, besides 
 bringing down seventeen enemy airplanes. 
 
 Captain Boelke, Germany's greatest airman, was killed October 
 28 in a collision with another airplane during a battle on the western 
 front. He was 25 years of age, had been wounded several times during 
 the war, and is credited with having brought down forty Allied air- 
 planes. 
 
 The October losses of the British in the Somme campaign were 
 announced by the War Office to be 107,033, bringing the British total 
 from the beginning of the campaign to 414,202 men and officers, killed, 
 wounded and missing. 
 
 In the first days of November the principal activity was in the 
 vicinity of Sailly. The Germans effected a successful counter-attack 
 on November 6, recapturing some of the ground won by the Allies, 
 with 400 prisoners, 300 of them French. Next day, however, a greater 
 number of German prisoners was taken by the French in an advance 
 along a two-and-a-half-mile front south of the Somme, and on the 
 9th the French strengthened their positions near Sailly, clearing out 
 German trenches and taking more prisoners. 
 
 On November 13 the British took a five-mile front in the German 
 line near the River Ancre, capturing two towns and 3,000 prisoners, 
 the Germans being taken by surprise in the early morning mist. 
 
440 BATTLES EAST AND WEST 
 
 Continuing their advantage the following day, the British took Beau- 
 court-sur-Ancre with more than 5,000 prisoners. On the 15th Ger- 
 man troops took the offensive on both sides of the Somme and suc- 
 ceeded in forcing their way back into some of the trenches and ad- 
 vance positions held by the French, but the British continued their ad- 
 vance north of the Ancre. Next day the French recovered the lost 
 ground and their airmen engaged in fifty-four air battles with Ger- 
 man machines along the Somme front. On the 18th British and French 
 airplanes again bombarded Ostend, dropping 180 bombs, and once 
 more raided Zeebrugge. In an ensuing battle six German planes 
 were brought down. 
 
 Infantry fighting in the Dixmude sector between Belgian and Ger- 
 man troops occurred on four consecutive days, from November 17 to 
 20, with hand-grenade battles but no definite result. There was a gen- 
 eral lull in operations after this, caused by heavy weather and fogs. 
 
 FRENCH ARE FINAL VICTORS AT VERDUN. 
 
 In a dramatic blow at Verdun, after a period of comparative quiet 
 at that point, the French on October 24 took the village and fort of 
 Douaumont, also Thiaumont, the Haudromont quarries. La Caillette 
 "Wood, Damloup battery and trenches along a four-mile front to a 
 depth of two miles. The ground retaken was the same that the Ger- 
 mans under the Crown Prince took by two months' hard fighting. 
 This was the quickest and most effective blow struck in the Verdun 
 campaign and reflected the highest credit on the French general com- 
 manding. General Petain, and his devoted troops, who thus turned the 
 tide of victory at Verdun in favor of the French and stamped with 
 failure the efforts of the Crown Prince, continued for nine months, to 
 wrest Verdun from French control and open a road to Paris. It was 
 a campaign in which failure meant defeat for the Germans, and its 
 cost in men, money and munitions was enormous. 
 
 Four thousand German prisoners were taken on the 24th and the 
 next day the French began encircling Fort Vaux, the only one of the 
 outer ring of forts at Verdun which remained in German hands. All 
 attempts on the part of the Crown Prince to regain the lost ground 
 were fruitless. Four German attacks were beaten back on the 26th, 
 and the following day the French advanced south and west of Vaux 
 and tightened their grip on the fortress. During violent artillery 
 duels, many German attacks on the gained ground were repulsed, and 
 by November 1 the prisoners in French hands numbered 7,000. 
 
 On November 4 the French began the attempt to take the village 
 of Vaux, held by the Crown Prince, and gained a foothold in the vil- 
 
BATTLES EAST AND WEST 441 
 
 lage. Next day they captured the whole of Vaux village and also the 
 village of Damloup. The fort at Vaux had been evacuated by the 
 Germans a few days previously. Thus the long and bloody struggle 
 for the possession of Verdun apparently ended, although artillery 
 duels of varying intensity continued at intervals, and the laurels of 
 the prolonged campaign rested with the French. 
 
 BRILLIANT WORK OF CANADIAN TROOPS. 
 
 Brilliant work on the part of the Canadian troops on the Somme 
 front aided materially to gain the British successes recorded on Octo- 
 ber 21. William Philips Simms, an eyewitness with the Canadian 
 forces, gave a graphic account of the attack, which was typical of 
 much of the fighting on the Somme. He said: 
 
 "Eight minutes of dashing across a sea of mud worse than the 
 Slough of Despond, of methodically advanced barrage fire, of quick 
 work in trench fight, sufficed for the Canadians to take Regina trench 
 ■ — one of the smoothest bits of trench-taking that has been witnessed in 
 the Somme drive. I saw the Canadians, muddy to the eyebrows — but 
 grinning — on the day after they had accomplished the feat. 
 
 "The assault was over in eight minutes. It was carried out in 
 brilliant moonlight, and despite a terrific German counter barrage fire 
 and a sea of mud. Every objective the Canadians sought was won. 
 
 "Though the Germans repeatedly counter-attacked, the Canadians 
 not only kept every inch they had wrested from the enemy, but before 
 dawn they had strongly reorganized their position and dug over 250 
 yards of connecting trenches." 
 
 ACTIVITIES OF THE RUSSIANS. 
 
 On the eastern front in the middle of September strong Russian 
 attacks before Halicz were driving the Teutonic troops back toward 
 Lemberg, and several thousand German and Turkish troops were 
 captured. The Russian advance was checked, however, on Septem- 
 ber 18, after a total of 25,000 prisoners had been taken by the Rus- 
 sians near Halicz. 
 
 The Russian offensive was shifted September 21 from the Lemberg 
 sector to the east of Kovel and a few days after a fresh offensive be- 
 gan along the entire eastern front, heavy fighting being reported west 
 of Lutsk and in the Carpathians. Turkish troops at this time ap- 
 peared on the Riga front, with German equipment and led by German 
 and Austrian officers. The great 300-mile battle continued unabated 
 to the end of October, with fighting all along the line from the Pinsk 
 marshes on the north to the Roumanian frontier on the south. 
 
442 BATTLES EAST AND WEST 
 
 By a sudden drive through the Eussian front north of the Pinsk 
 marshes on November 10, the Germans succeeded in cutting the Rus- 
 sian first line, taking nearly 4,000 prisoners and twenty-seven machine 
 guns. The Russian lines were believed to have been weakened by the 
 transfer of troops to Roumanian positions in the south. Following 
 this there was terrific fighting in the Naraynvka, where the Russian 
 trenches were carried by the Germans after they had been practically 
 destroyed by high explosives; but the ground lost, located near Sla- 
 ventin, was gallantly regained by the Russian troops on November 15. 
 
 The Russian dreadnought Tmperatritsa Maria was sunk by a mine 
 near Sulina, at the mouth of the Danube, November 11. It was 
 launched in 1914 and had a displacement of 22,500 tons. On Novem- 
 ber 18 Russian troops near Sarny, southeast of Pinsk, brought down 
 a Zepplein airship, capturing the crew of sixteen and 600 pounds of 
 bombs. 
 
 German casualties from the beginning of the war, as compiled in 
 London from German official lists, were set November 10 at 3,755,693. 
 Of this total 910,234 were killed. The total German casualties for the 
 month of October, 1916, reached 199,675 officers and men, of whom 
 34,231 were killed. 
 
 GREAT CAMPAIGNS IN THE BALKANS. 
 
 For some time after Roumania entered the war her fighting forces 
 were divided between two campaigns — in the Dobrudja and in Tran- 
 sylvania, the Austrian territory invaded by Roumania as soon as she 
 declared war. On September 15 the Roumanians began a retreat 
 in the Dobrudja, before advancing forces of Germans and Bulga- 
 rains led by General von Macksensen. The Russo-Roumanian center 
 was driven back thirty miles, while the German and Bulgarian troops 
 occupied several of the Roumanian Black Sea ports. 
 
 Then came a great six-day battle in the Dobrudja, with fighting 
 along a forty-five mile line from ten miles south of Constanza to Cer- 
 navoda, on the Danube, and in this battle the Russo-Roumanians were 
 successful, compelling the Teutonic forces to retreat southward toward 
 the border. For a while Von Mackesen was on the defensive, but in 
 a counter-attack on September 23 he gained a marked victory over 
 the Roumanians. Gradually the latter were forced to retire, and al- 
 though they made a desperate resistance to the forces under Von 
 Mackensen the latter reached the coast by October 21, advancing on 
 Constanza, Roumania 's chief port on the Black Sea, which was cap- 
 tured October 23. Cemavoda fell on the 25th. 
 
BATTLES EAST AND WEST 443 
 
 Meanwhile in Transylvania events of a similar character had been 
 happening. At first successful in their invasion of Austrian territory, 
 the Roumanians were unable to hold their advantage, and while the 
 tide of battle was for several weeks in doubt, the German and Aus- 
 trian troops under General von Falkenhayn at length drove the in- 
 vaders back across the mountains. By October 8 a Teutonic invasion 
 of Roumania from the northwest was imminent, and two days later 
 the Roumanians were pursued through the passes by Austrian troops. 
 By the 17th Teuton forces were five miles inside the frontier. 
 
 On October 25 Von Falkenhayn 's army stormed the Vulcan Pass 
 and pushed nearer the railroad at Kimpolong, seventy-five miles from 
 Bucharest. These successes were not gained, however, without hard 
 fighting, the Roumanians making a desperate stand to prevent the 
 Teuton invasion which threatened their capital. They were aided by 
 a French commander. General Bertholet, and struck back hard at 
 Von Falkenhayn, gaining some signal successes in the last days of 
 October and early in November and capturing several thousand pris- 
 oners and much war material. These successes, however, proved in- 
 sufficient to do more than check the Teuton advance toward Bucharest. 
 
 In the Dobrudja, after the capture of Cernavoda by Von Macken- 
 sen, there were strenuous efforts by the Roumanians, aided by Rus- 
 sians, to regain their lost territory. In their early retreat they de- 
 stroyed the great eleven-mile bridge over the Danube at Cernavoda 
 and so cut off for the time being Von Mackesen's threatened drive 
 a Bucharest from the south. The Roumanians that had been opposing 
 him fell back northward to the Danube forts. They were hotly pur- 
 sued by Bulgarians, who on October 29 were reported to be at Astrovo, 
 fifty miles north of the Constanza-Cernavoda railway line. The pos- 
 session of the latter was an immense advantage to Von Macksensen. 
 
 General von Falkenhayn continued his advance into Roumania 
 during November and at the beginning of December the battle for 
 Bucharest was ranging on three sides of the capital, with the Rouma- 
 nians successful at some points, the invaders at others. West of 
 Bucharest the defenders had been pressed back to the Argesu River, 
 while to the northwest the Germanic forces had smashed through the 
 Roumanian lines and were rapidly moving down the Argesu Valley 
 from Pitesci and down the Dombovitza from the Kompelung region. 
 
 To the south of the capital, King Ferdinand's troops delivered a 
 powerful counter-attack on December 2 that forced the Teutons back 
 from the Argesu line and reclaimed two villages. 
 
 The Russians meanwhile were making a determined effort to re- 
 lieve the situation at Bucharest by a counter-demonstration in the 
 
444 BATTLES EAST AND WEST 
 
 Carpathians, where on December 3 a great battle was developing in 
 their favor. They had gained a foothold in Kirlibaba, the key to the 
 Rodna Pass and the plains of Hungary, and were attacking success- 
 fully at other points on the 250-mile front. The Russians also had 
 seized the western end of the Cernavoda bridge over the Danube, thus 
 putting a check on any movement of General von Mackensen's troops 
 across the river from Dobrudja. General Sakharoff 's forces continued 
 furious attacks along the entire line in the Dobrudja. 
 
 ITALIAN CAMPAIGN IN THE TRENTINO. 
 
 The Italian forces operating in the Trentino continued their activ- 
 ity during the fall and early winter of 1916, continual gains being 
 made in their difficult undertaking. General Cadorna began a new 
 drive on Trieste in October, transferring the weight of his attacks 
 from the Carso sector to the Trentino front. The total number of 
 Austrian prisoners taken on the Isonzo front from August 6 to Octo- 
 ber 12 was set by the Italian War Office at 30,880. No decided ad- 
 vantage was gained by either side up to December 5, although the 
 Italians continued to take many prisoners and much Austrian war 
 material in the course of their operations, and in November compelled 
 the Austrian generals to transfer many troops from the Roumanian 
 front in order to cope with the Italian attacks, delivered in the most 
 difficult terrain of the entire war and often under weather conditions 
 that tried the hardihood of troops trained to Alpine warfare. 
 
 DEATH OP THE AUSTRIAN EMPEROR. 
 
 Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, died 
 at Schonbrunn Castle, near Vienna, November 21, at the age of 86. 
 He had ruled for sixty-eight years, his reign being marked by much 
 turbulence in the empire, both political and social, and by a long se- 
 ries of domestic and personal disasters that culminated in the assas- 
 sination of his nephew, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the 
 joint thrones of Austria and Hungary, which furnished the Teutonic 
 excuse for the great war. Francis Joseph was succeeded by his 
 grandnephew, Archduke Charles Francis Joseph, of whose personality 
 little was known outside Austria. 
 
 ZEPPELIN RAIDERS BROUGHT DOWN. 
 
 Several German Zeppelins were brought to earth on English soil 
 during the progress of aerial raids in September and November, 1916. 
 Commander Robinson and Lieutenants Tempest and Sowery of the 
 Flying Corps each accounted for one of the huge aircraft in the Lon- 
 
BATTLES EAST AND WEST 445 
 
 don district. The former received the"Victoria cross for his exploit. 
 The crew of one of the Zeppelins was captured, but in the other cases 
 the crews perished with the airships, which fell flaming to earth. Two 
 more Zeppelins were brought down late in November on the eastern 
 coast of England and fell into the sea. One of these was destroyed 
 nine miles from the coast by naval seaplanes and a patrol boat. 
 
 DEPORTATION OF BELGIAN WORKMEN. 
 
 A wave of indignation swept over the civilized world, already out- 
 raged almost beyond endurance by the unprecedented German disre- 
 gard of international law and the recognized customs of war, when it 
 was announced on November 10 that 30,000 Belgians had been de- 
 ported into exile by the German authorities in Belgium. It was al- 
 leged that all males between the ages of 17 and 30 were being sent in 
 cattle-cars to Germany. Cardinal Mercier of Belgium protested in 
 the name of humanity, the men being ruthlessly torn from their fami- 
 lies, and said the Belgians were being reduced to a state of slavery. 
 The Pope protested to the German government against the reported 
 action, and the State Department at Washington made representa- 
 tions concerning it to Berlin. The total number of Belgian males to 
 be deported to work in German industries was alleged to be 300,000. 
 After investigation Viscount Bryce of England and many other 
 statesmen and publicists denounced the German action as infamous. 
 
 POLAND PROCLAIMED A KINGDOM BY GERMANY. 
 
 By a joint manifesto, issued on November 4 by the Emperors of 
 Germany and Austria, the ancient kingdom of Poland was revived 
 and Polish autonomy ostensibly re-established. The kingdom was 
 proclaimed with due ceremony in Lublin and Warsaw. The definite 
 territorial limits of the new nation were not set, according to the 
 proclamation, and would not be until the close of the war. Constitu- 
 tional rule and a national army, however, were to be established at 
 once. The joint opinion of other nations, neutrals and Allies of the 
 Entente, was that Poland as captured territory could not be recog- 
 nized as a new kingdom. 
 
 THE PALL OF BUCHAREST. 
 
 By December 2 the battle for Bucharest had reached the outskirts 
 of the Roumanian capital and the guns of Von Mackensen's forces 
 began a bombardment of the outer forts, and on December 6 the 
 armies of the Central Powers took Bucharest, cutting off a large 
 part of the defending army. Ploesci, the great oil center of Rou- 
 
446 BATTLES EAST AND WEST 
 
 mania, and Sinaia, the summer capital, also fell. Many thousands 
 of Roumanian troops were taken prisoners in the operations near 
 Bucharest, the number being estimated at 38,500 for the first week 
 of the month, and the Roumanians retired to new positions to the 
 north and east of their fallen capital. General von Heinrich, gov- 
 ernor of Lille during the deportation of Belgians from that city, was 
 appointed military governor of Bucharest, on which the Germans 
 imposed a levy amounting practically to $400 a person, or a total of 
 $140,000,000. 
 
 Von Mackensen continued to press his advances in the Dobrudja 
 and eastern Wallachia during the month, though retarded by sturdy 
 Russian and Roumanian resistance. As Christmas approached the 
 forces of the Central Powers were pressing the Russo-Roumanians 
 close to the Danube where it runs east and west, forming the boundary 
 between Roumania and Bessarabia. 
 
 CHANGE IN BRITISH GOVERNMENT. 
 
 On December 7 Mr. Henry Lloyd-George accepted the British 
 premiership and formed a new Cabinet, which included an important 
 representation of labor and other elements of strength pointing to 
 a systematic and determined prosecution of the war from all angles. 
 The Cabinet as announced December 12 included Sir Edward Carson, 
 the Irish Unionist leader, as First Lord of the Admiralty, and Baron 
 Devonport as food controller, a new position. The size of the war 
 council was reduced to five, including the premier. Admiral Sir 
 John Jellicoe was appointed First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, being 
 succeeded in command of the grand fleet of Britain by Admiral Sir 
 David Beatty, who commanded the British battle-cruiser fleet in the 
 battle of Jutland. 
 
 France followed suit in reorganizing her war council under 
 Premier Briand, also restricting the number of members to five, and 
 General Joffre was succeeded in command of the armies of the north 
 and the northeast by General Nivelle, commander of the French 
 troops at Verdun, where notable victories were gained by the French 
 in December, regaining almost all the ground lost during the previous 
 operations of the year. General Joffre was promoted to the high 
 honor of Marshal of France, the ancient rank being revived for him. 
 
 CENTRAL POWERS MOVE FOR PEACE. 
 
 On December 12 the Central Powers simultaneously presented 
 notes to neutral powers for transmission to the nations of the Entente, 
 containing a proposal for an armistice to discuss the possibilities of 
 
BATTLES EAST AND WEST 447 
 
 peace. No terms of peace accompanied the German notes and after 
 consultation with the allies of Great Britain Premier Lloyd-George 
 delivered a speech in the House of Commons on December 19, declar- 
 ing that the proposals of peace could not be entertained, and in which 
 he said: 
 
 ''I appear before the House of Commons today with the most 
 terrible responsibility that can fall upon the shoulders of any living 
 man as chief adviser of the Crown in the most gigantic war in which 
 this country was ever engaged — a war upon the events of which its 
 destiny depends. 
 
 "We accepted this war for an object, and a world object, and 
 the war will end when the object is attained under God. I hope it 
 will never end until that time. 
 
 MUST KNOW BERLIN PLANS. 
 
 **We feel that we ought to know, before we can give favorable 
 consideration to such an invitation, that Germany is prepared to 
 accede to the only terms on which it is possible peace can be obtained 
 and maintained in Europe. Those terms have been repeatedly stated 
 by all the leading statesmen of the Allies. They have been stated 
 repeatedly here and outside. To quote the leader of the Hous last 
 week: 
 
 "Reparation and guarantee against repetition, so there shall 
 be no mistake, and it is important that there should be no mistake 
 in a matter of life or death to millions.' 
 
 "Let me repeat: Complete restitution, full reparation, and 
 effectual guarantees. 
 
 NO HINT OF REPAEATION. 
 
 "Did the German Chancellor use a single phrase to indicate that 
 he was prepared to accept such a peace ? Was there a hint of restitu- 
 tion ? Was there a suggestion of reparation ? Was there an implica- 
 tion of any security for the future that this outrage on civilization 
 would not again be perpetrated at the first profitable opportunity? 
 
 "The very substance and style of the speech constitutes a denial 
 of peace on the only terms on which peace is possible. He is not 
 even conscious now that Germany has committed any offense against 
 the rights of. free nations. 
 
 "Listen to this from the note: 
 
 " 'Not for an instant have they [the Central Powers] swerved 
 from the conviction that respect of the rights of other nations is 
 not in any degree incompatible with their own rights and legitimate 
 interests.* 
 
448 BATTLES EAST AND WEST 
 
 "The note and speech prove that they have not yet learned the 
 alphabet of respect for the rights of others. 
 
 ' ' The Allies entered this war to defend Europe against the aggres- 
 sion of Prussian military domination, and, having begun it, they 
 must insist that the only end is the most complete effective guarantee 
 against the possibility of that caste ever again disturbing the peace 
 of Europe. 
 
 ' ' You can 't have absolute equality in sacrifice. In war that is 
 impossible. But you can have equal readiness to sacrifice from all. 
 There are hundreds of thousands who have given their lives; there 
 are millions who have given up comfortable homes and exchanged 
 them for daily communion with death. Multitudes have given up 
 those whom they loved best. 
 
 FOR NATIONAL LENT. 
 
 "Let the nation as a whole place its comforts, its luxuries, its 
 indulgences, its elegances on the national altar consecrated by such 
 sacrifices as these men have made! Let us proclaim during the war 
 a national Lent ! The nation will be better and stronger for it, men- 
 tally and morally, as well as physically. It will strengthen its fiber 
 and ennoble its spirit. Without it we shall not get the full benefit 
 of this struggle. 
 
 "Our armies have driven the enemy out of the battered villages 
 of France and across the devastated plains of Belgium. They might 
 hurl him across the Rhine in battered disarray. But unless the 
 nation as a whole shoulders part of the burden of victory it won't 
 profit by the triumph, for it is not what a nation gains, but what it 
 gives that makes it great." 
 
 PEACE MESSAGE BY PRESIDENT WILSON. 
 
 A bombshell was cast into the camps of the nations at war on 
 December 20, when President "Wilson unexpectedly addressed a 
 message to the belligerents, urging them to state their terms of peace 
 and end the war without further fighting. 
 
 An explanation of the President's message to the nations was 
 made by Secretary of State Lansing on the morning of its publica- 
 tion. In the course of this he asserted that the United States had 
 been brought to "the verge of war," which was generally understood 
 to mean that a threatened resumption of submarine activities by 
 Germany on a large scale might create an intolerable situation ; also 
 that the President desired to know the terms of peace contemplated 
 by the powers at war, so as to be informed as to how they would 
 affect the interests of the United States. 
 
BATTLES EAST AND WEST 449 
 
 Germany replied to the President's note on December 26, giving 
 no terms, but lauding the "high-minded suggestion" of Mr. Wilson 
 and proposing "an immediate meeting of delegates of the belligerent 
 states, at a neutral place," continuing as follows: "The imperial 
 government is also of the opinion that the great work of preventing 
 further wars can be begun only after the end of the present struggle 
 of the nations. It will, when this moment shall have come, be ready 
 with pleasure to collaborate entirely with the United States in this 
 exalted task." 
 
 The reply of the Entente Allies to President Wilson's message 
 was received January 11. While disclaiming any intention of exter- 
 minating the Teutonic peoples, the Allies in this reply stated terms 
 of peace which would result in the humbling of Germany and Austria- 
 Hungary and the expulsion of Turkey from Europe. 
 
 ENTENTE PEACE TERMS. 
 
 The Entente peace terms enumerated in the reply to the President 
 were: 
 
 Restoration of Belgium, Serbia and Montenegro, with the payment 
 of indemnities to each by Germany. 
 
 Evacuation of France, Russia and Roumania, with reparation to 
 each by Germany. 
 
 Reorganization of Europe "guaranteed by a stable regime and 
 founded as much upon respect of nationalities and full security and 
 liberty of economic development, which all nations, great or small, 
 possess, as upon territorial conventions and international agreements 
 suitable to guarantee territorial and maritime frontiers again unjusti- 
 fied attacks." 
 
 ALSACE-LORRAINE TO PRANCE. 
 
 Restoration to France of Alsace and Lorraine by Germany and 
 to Italy of the former northern provinces by Austria. 
 
 Liberation of Italians, Slavs, Roumanians and Tcheco Slovaques 
 (Czech Slavs) from domination by the Central Powers, which would 
 mean the cession of several outlying portions of Austria-Hungary to 
 Russia, Roumania, Serbia and Italy. 
 
 Enfranchisement of the Armenians and other "populations sub- 
 ject to the bloody tyranny of the Turks." 
 
 Expulsion of the Turkish empire from Europe, thus giving Con- 
 stantinople to Russia. 
 
450 BATTLES EAST AND WEST 
 
 WOULD LIBERATE EUROPE. 
 
 "It goes without saying," concluded the note, "that, if the Allies 
 wish to liberate Europe from the brutal covetousness of Prussian 
 militarism, it never has been their design, as has been alleged, to 
 encompass the extermination of the German peoples and their polit- 
 ical disappearance. 
 
 "That which they desire above all is to insure a peace upon the 
 principles of liberty and justice, upon the inviolable fidelity to inter- 
 national obligation with which the government of the United States 
 has never ceased to be inspired. 
 
 WANT VICTORIOUS WAR. 
 
 "United in the pursuits of this supreme object, the Allies are 
 determined, individually and collectively, to act with all their power 
 and to consent to all sacrifices to bring to a victorious close a conflict 
 upon which they are convinced not only their own safety and pros- 
 perity depend, but also the future of civilization itself." 
 
 Belgium, in addition to joining with her allies in the reply to 
 the President, sent an individual note, in which the conquered king- 
 dom made a stirring appeal for American sympathy in its purpose 
 to fight on till it won freedom with reparation. 
 
 The Allies promised that in the event of peace on these terms 
 Russia would carry out her announced intention of conferring 
 autonomy on Poland. 
 
 THE PECULIAR SITUATION IN GREECE. 
 
 A curious situation developed in Greece during the fall and early 
 winter of 1916. The German sympathies of King Constantine had 
 brought him into conflict with the considerable portion of the Greek 
 people led by the former premier, Venizelos, and the latter had pro- 
 claimed a Greek republic and placed troops in the field in active co- 
 operation with the Allies. Diplomatic representatives of the Entente 
 Powers who had remained in Athens were ordered to leave early in No- 
 vember, their presence being felt to be a menace to the interests of the 
 Allies, whose warships commanded the Greek ports and whose troops 
 were stationed at Saloniki in large numbers. The ostensible neutrality 
 of King Constantine 's government was regarded by the Allies as dan- 
 gerous, the failure of Greece to respond to the call of Serbia, its 
 treaty ally, having demonstrated the governmental inclinatien toward 
 the cause of the Central Powers. In order to minimize the danger, 
 therefore, the French admiral, Du Fournet, in command of the Allied 
 
BATTLES EAST AND WEST 451 
 
 fleet, demanded the surrender to the Allies of certain guns and war 
 material, and this demand being refused French and British marines 
 were landed at the Piraeus on December 2, 1916, and took possession 
 of the Acropolis. This led to their being fired upon by Greek reserv- 
 ists who had been called out, and some bloodshed resulted, there 
 being about 200 casualties before a compromise was reached between 
 King Constantino and the Allied commanders and the Greek crisis 
 passed for the time being. The king submitted to part of the Allied 
 demands, the others were waived, and the forces landed were with- 
 drawn, after a day of fighting in which the Greek reservists engaged 
 in many clashes with the armed followers of Venizelos. 
 
 On January 9 ministers of the Entente Powers handed to the 
 Greek government an ultimatum giving Greece forty-eight hours 
 to comply with the demands contained in the note drawn up by 
 France, Great Britain and Russia on December 31. 
 
 Included in the ultimatum was a request by the Entente Powers 
 that the Greek government fulfill at the earliest possible moment the 
 agreement of December 14 regarding the transfer of Greek troops 
 from Thessaly. 
 
 BRITISH ENTER GERMAN LINES. 
 
 During the night of January 14 a party of British troops entered 
 the German lines east of Loos. Many casualties were inflicted on the 
 enemy, his dug-outs were bombed and some prisoners were secured. 
 North of the Ancre an enemy transport was successfully engaged. 
 
 In addition to the usual artillery activity the enemy's positions 
 were effectually bombarded southeast of Loos and opposite the Bois 
 Grenier. 
 
 GERMANS DRIVEN BACK. 
 
 The official communication of the French war office January 15, 
 1917, announced that reciprocal bombardments took place on both 
 banks of the Somme, the right bank of the Meuse and in Lorraine. 
 
 After a bombardment the night before between the Aisne and the 
 Argonne the Germans attacked the French advanced posts ; they were 
 driven back after a spirited combat with grenades. 
 
 On their side the French carried out several surprise attacks on the 
 enemy lines, taking material and prisoners. 
 
 On January 16 a powerful offensive was started by the Eusso- 
 Roumanian forces in the Roumanian theatre of war, with strong at- 
 tacks between the Casinu and Sushitza valleys and on both sides of 
 Fundeni. In places the trenches of the German Allies were entered. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF WAR IN 1917. 
 
 German Sea Raider Busy — British Victory in Mesopotamia- 
 Russia Dethrones the Czar— United States' Relations 
 with Germany Severed — Germans Retreat on the West, 
 
 On January 10 the Greek government accepted the ultimatum of 
 the Allies, providing satisfaction to them without interfering with 
 the administration of the country or local communications. From 
 this time on the situation in Greece ceased to be a source of serious 
 trouble to the Allied commanders at Saloniki. 
 
 GERMAN SEA RAIDER BUSY. 
 
 It was learned on January 17 that a German sea raider, which 
 had succeeded in slipping through the cordon of British ships, had 
 been preying on commerce in the south Atlantic for six weeks. 
 Twenty-one vessels were reported to have been sunk by the raider, 
 with a total loss of approximately $40,000,000. Victims of the raider 
 who were landed at Pernambuco, Brazil, January 18 stated their 
 belief that she was the steamship Moewe, notorious as a raider 
 early in the war, but later reported docked in the Kiel Canal. It 
 was said that she left the Canal disguised as a Danish hay-ship. 
 
 NAVAL BATTLE IN THE NORTH SEA. 
 
 In a sea battle off Zeebrugge, Holland, on January 23, fourteen 
 German torpedo-boat destroyers, attempting to leave port, were 
 attacked by a British flotilla and seven of them were reported sunk. 
 
 BRITISH VICTORY IN MESOPOTAMIA. 
 
 Victorious advances were made in Mesopotamia during the month 
 of January by the British forces, who were determined to wipe out 
 the reverse sustained in the surrender at Kut-el-Amara in 1916. On 
 January 21 it was announced that the Turks had been driven out 
 of positions on the right bank of the Tigris, near Kut, the British 
 occupying their trenches on a wide front. 
 
 After a series of persistent attacks Kut-el-Amara fell before the 
 British advance on February 26, opening the road to Bagdad. The 
 Turkish garrison of the city took flight, hotly pursued by the British 
 cavalry, and more than 2,000 prisoners were taken, with many guns 
 and large quantities of war material. Next day the British defeated 
 the Turks in a sanguinary battle 15 miles northwest of the captured 
 town, and took many more prisoners. Bagdad soon fell into their 
 hands, and as the month of April approached the British were on 
 the eve of effecting a junction with the Russian army advancing 
 through Mesopotamia. 
 
 452 
 
CONTINUATION OF WAR 453 
 
 ON THE EASTERN FRONT. 
 
 After many vicissitudes in the fighting on the Eastern front in 
 January, the Russians struck a smashing blow at the Teuton line 
 on January 28, tearing a mile-wide gap in Bukowina, close to the 
 Roumanian frontier. Berlin admitted that the offensives on Hie 
 Sereth and Riga fronts had been temporarily stopped, that many 
 prisoners had been taken by the Russians, and that the German lines 
 had been withdrawn because of superior pressure. The reorganized 
 Roumanian army was reported ready for a new offensive in the 
 spring. 
 
 The Russian successes were, however, only temporary and the 
 remainder of the winter campaign was marked by repeated efforts 
 on the part of the Germans to break down the Russian defenses of 
 Riga on the north, and to push the Slavs still further back on the 
 south. Late in February the Teuton forces entered Russian positions 
 in Galicia and also re-took the offensive on the Roumanian front, 
 raiding Russian trenches in the Carpathians and blocking all Russian 
 attempts to force the mountain passes. On February 28 they 
 recaptured most of the peaks in the Bukowina which were lost to 
 the Russians earlier in the year, and took a large number of Russian 
 prisoners. 
 
 Meanwhile the Russian advance in Persia and Mesopotamia against 
 the Turks continued unchecked, and events of importance were shap- 
 ing themselves in the Russian empire, calculated to have an immense 
 effect on the conduct of .the Russian armies in the field as well as on 
 the fortunes of the Romanoff dynasty. 
 
 RUSSIA DETHRONES THE CZAR. 
 
 Early in March, after several days of ominous silence in regard 
 to events in Petrograd, the news of a successful revolution in Russia 
 astonished the world. From March 9 to March 15, it appeared, the 
 Russian people, headed by Michael Rodzianko, President of the Duma, 
 set about cleaning house with quiet but characteristic thoroughness. 
 Beginning with minor food riots and labor strikes, the cry for food 
 reached the hearts of the soldiers, and one by one, regiments rebelled 
 until finally those troops which had for a time stood loyal to the 
 government of the Czar and his bureaucratic advisers gathered up 
 their arms and marched into the ranks of the revolutionists. 
 
 The change came with startling and dramatic rapidity. The 
 Duma, ordered by Imperial rescript to dissolve, refused to obey 
 and voted to continue its meetings. An Executive Committee was 
 appointed, headed by the President of the Duma, which after arrest- 
 ing a number of pro-German ministers of the Czar, proclaimed itself 
 a Provisional Government and announced its intention of creating 
 a new representative form of government for the country. With the 
 assistance of the army, it was soon in control. 
 
 Czar Nicholas was promptly compelled to abdicate the throne for 
 himself and his young son. At first the crown was offered to his 
 brother, the Grand Duke Michael, but inside of twenty-four hours 
 
454 CONTINUATION OF WAR 
 
 he declined it, also abdicating formally. The Czar and imperial 
 family were confined, while the former pro-German ministers were 
 thrown into prison. The new Provisional Government pledf^ed itself 
 to conduct the war against Germany vigorously, and promised the 
 people complete religious liberty and freedom of speech, political 
 amnesty, universal suffrage, and a constitutional assembly to 
 determine the form of the permanent new government. Great Britain, 
 France, and Italy were prompt to recognize the Duma committee and 
 it was also given enthusiastic support by the Russian armies in the 
 field. 
 
 By March 20 absolute quiet prevailed in Petrograd and through- 
 out Russia. The Allies were officially notified of the abdication of 
 Nicholas II and informed by Foreign Minister Milukoff that Russia 
 would stay in the war with them to the end. Prince Lvoff, one of 
 the most popular men in Russia, was placed at the head of the 
 Government Constitute and general political amnesty was proclaimed 
 in a ukase which brought numbers of political prisoners back to their 
 homes from Siberia, and caused great rejoicing throughout the 
 country, no longer an empire of the Romanoffs, who had ruled it 
 for centuries with a rod of iron. 
 
 The United States recognized the new order of things in Russia 
 on March 22. A few days later the grand dukes and royal princes 
 of Russia jointly informed the Government Constitute that they 
 formally associated themselves with the abdication of Grand Duke 
 Michael and would turn over to the new Government the crown 
 lands and other state grants in their possession, thus completing the 
 total abdication of the Romanoff dynasty and placing the seal of 
 complete success on the most remarkable revolution the world ever 
 saw — accomplished almost without bloodshed, for the troops in Petro- 
 grad had refused to fire upon the revolutionists after the first few 
 hours of disturbance in the streets of the capital, and most of the 
 casualties were among the soldiers themselves. 
 
 The Russian revolution, produced in the crucible of war, meant 
 the overthrow of Germanism in Russia, which had hampered the 
 efforts of its armies by treasonable neglect, if not worse, and in the 
 opinion of many neutral observers, destroyed the last chance of a 
 German victory in the war. The effect of the revolution on Germany 
 was twofold — it darkened her military outlook, and gave a tremendous 
 impulse to the latent liberal forces within her empire. Its effect on 
 the war was almost equivalent to bringing a neW nation into the 
 camp of the Allies. Its meaning to German democracy was thus 
 stated : 
 
 "Germany has been taught to believe that the European war was 
 inaugurated by Russia for aggressive purposes. Germany's demo- 
 cratic leaders repeatedly pointed to Czarism as the evil spirit dominat- 
 ing the Entente. The object of the Central Powers was proclaimed 
 to be the overthrow of the Russian autocratic menace. Therefore 
 
CONTINUATION OF WAR 455 
 
 the Russian revolution may profoundly move German democracy. 
 This is probably its greatest disillusionment since the war began." 
 
 CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 To get a clear picture of the conditions that produced the revolu- 
 tion, it is necessary to remember that from a very early period the 
 German-born Czarina and the clique of pro-German reactionaries 
 whom her influence made powerful with the Czar, were bent on 
 ending the war prematurely in the interests of reaction. The Min- 
 isters set up under these auspices for over two years acted in 
 defiance of public opinion. Their policy was not obscure; they 
 hampered the army in respect of munitions, disorganized the country 
 in respect of its distributive services, brought about artificial famine 
 in a land which is one of the world's chief food-producers, and 
 themselves, through police agents, sought to stir up abortive revolts 
 in order that they might plead military failure and internal 
 revolution as a reason for withdrawing from the war. 
 
 The Russian people foiled them for a long time by magnificent and 
 much-enduring patriotism. When the government left the army with- 
 out munitions, the local authorities — the zemstvos and unions of 
 towns — stepped in and organized their supply. When police agents 
 tried to bring about riots and strikes, the workmen's own leaders 
 prevented their breaking out. When secret negotiations were opened 
 up with Germany, the Duma blasted them by public exposure on the 
 popular side. 
 
 The Duma's demand for sympathetic and really national govern- 
 ment was enforced, first by the Council of the Empire, normally the 
 stronghold of high officialdom, and then by the Congress of Nobles, 
 which represents the landed aristocracy. 
 
 But with the nobility, much of the bureaucracy, the army, the 
 navy, the Duma, the professional classes, and the working classes 
 all ranged against them, the "dark forces" of the empire held 
 obstinately on their way. The murder of the court favorite, the 
 infamous monk Rasputin, only intensified the reaction, though its 
 story and sequel showed significantly how far many members of the 
 Imperial family were from supporting the reigning head and his 
 consort in the policy which was jeopardizing the dynasty. But the 
 Czar's political blindness was incurable. In a kind of panic he got 
 rid of every remaining progressive minister; a nonentity of no 
 importance from the Czar's personal circle was made prime minister, 
 and the real power fell to Protopopoff, the strong man of the "dark 
 forces," who was to see their designs through, but was the first 
 victim of the popular uprising. As minister of the interior he defied 
 all Russia, precipitated the revolution, and in his violent death the 
 career of the "dark forces" in Russia was ended, no doubt for all 
 time. 
 
 UNRESTRICTED SUBMARINE WARFARE. 
 
 On February 1 Germany entered upon unrestricted submarine war- 
 fare, after warning had been given of this last resort of desperation. 
 
456 CONTINUATION OF WAR 
 
 Ten ships were reported sunk and eight lives lost that day. Neutral 
 vessels and belligerents were destroyed without discrimination, and in 
 the first six days the tonnage of the vessels sunk by German U-boats 
 was 86,344 tons, including 45 ships of all nationalities. The British 
 liner California, formerly of the Anchor Line, was torpedoed on the 
 seventh day, and sank with a loss of 100 lives. Transatlantic ships 
 were held in New York and other eastern ports, pending instructions 
 from the Government as to sailing in the face of the German 
 warning, against which President Wilson had strongly protested. 
 
 RELATIONS WITH GERMANY SEVERED. 
 
 Diplomatic relations were broken with Germany on February 2, 
 1917 when President Wilson appeared before a joint session of 
 Congress and announced that the German Ambassador, Count von 
 Bernstorff, had been given his passports, and that Ambassador Gerard 
 had been recalled from Berlin. War with Germany was then believed 
 to be only a matter of hours, awaiting the first German overt act. 
 The reserve force of the Atlantic Fleet was ordered to make ready 
 for immediate service. But the hour had not yet struck for war. 
 
 INTERNED SHIPS DAMAGED BY GERMANS. 
 
 Examination of a number of the German merchant vessels interned 
 in United States ports showed that most of them had been seriously 
 damaged by their crews to render them unseaworthy, and it was 
 rumored that the partial wreckage of these ships had been ordered 
 February 1 by the German government. Twenty-three German ships 
 seized by the naval authorities at Manila were also found to have 
 received willful damage. 
 
 On February 8 the State Department notified all American vessel- 
 owners that merchant ships under the American flag might arm 
 against submarines but that no naval convoys would be supplied by 
 the Government. Sailings of American liners were still held up 
 pending decision about their armament. 
 
 The United States Senate indorsed the stand of the President in 
 the break with Germany, by a vote of 78 to 5. 
 
 On February 13 it was announced at Washington that an advance 
 was made by the German government, through the Swiss legation, 
 offering to reopen the discussion of submarine methods. The answer 
 of the United States was to the effect that the Government refused to 
 discuss the international situation with Germany until the U-boat 
 warfare was abandoned and the pledges made in the case of the 
 steamer Sussex were restored. The Spanish ambassador took over the 
 deserted American embassy at Berlin. President Wilson, with his 
 cabinet, prepared a bill of particulars containing the grievances against 
 the German government, with special emphasis on the refusal of the 
 latter to liberate seventy-two American seamen taken to Germany as 
 prisoners on the steamer Yarrowdale, one of the vessels captured in 
 the South Atlantic by the raider supposed to be the Moewe. 
 
CONTINUATION OF WAR 457 
 
 GERMAN PLOT IN MEXICO. 
 
 Intense feeling was aroused throughout the United States when 
 it was learned on February 28 that Germany had suggested to Mexico 
 an alliance by which war was to be made on the United States if it 
 did not remain neutral. Mexico was to have German aid to regain 
 the southwestern territory acquired from it, and to have a share 
 in the ultimate peace conference. It was to induce Japan to leave 
 the Allies and join in making war on America. Documentary proof 
 of such plots was said to be in the hands of the President, but a few 
 days later the German foreign secretary admitted the scheme as his 
 own and sought to justify it as a necessary precaution against war. 
 The discovery of the plot did more than anything else to arouse the 
 American people to a sense of the danger impending from Germany. 
 
 GERMANS RETREAT ON THE WEST. 
 
 After numerous minor successes by the British and French on 
 the "Western front, the Germans effected a retreat late in February, 
 which was the greatest retirement in two years, as they yielded on a 
 front of several miles on the Ancre to the Allies, including important 
 towns. The growing superiority of the Allies in artillery had begun 
 to count, and the retirement, while announced from Berlin as strate- 
 gic, was undoubtedly forced by the development of Allied strength. 
 The capture of Bapaume soon followed. By March 2 the Germans 
 had retreated on a front of 14 miles to a depth of from two to three 
 miles, and the British were still pushing forward. 
 
 Another extended German retreat began on the West front March 
 17, the British and French advancing without resistance for from 
 two to four miles on a front of 35 miles. Peronne was captured next 
 day and it became evident that the Germans were falling back to a 
 so-called Hindenburg line, 25 miles to the rear of their former posi- 
 tions. The Allied advance continued until more than 300 towus and 
 villages were reoccupied and some 1,500 square miles of Frerch 
 territory regained by March 21. The German armies in their retreat 
 devastated the country in the most wanton manner, even going so far 
 as to destroy fruit trees, wells, churches, and buildings of every kind. 
 They also drove before them, many of the inhabitants, including 
 women and girls, leaving only a remnant of the former populations, 
 mostly old and feeble folk and children, these being left destitute 
 and without food even for a day. The story of this devastating 
 retreat aroused horror throughout the world. 
 
 On March 25 the French pressed an attack against the whole 
 front between St. Quentin and Soissons and made progress every- 
 where. From this time on the French offensive was active for three 
 weeks, culminating in a great victory on the Soissons front April 16, 
 in which the German losses were placed at 100,000. 
 
 A GREAT BRITISH OFFENSIVE. 
 
 In the week of April 9 the British made great gains in the Arras 
 sector, capturing German positions to a great depth and taking a 
 total of ^ome J5,000 prisoners and 190 guns of all calibers, some of 
 
458 CONTINUATION OF WAE 
 
 which were turned against the Germans as they sought to stem the 
 tide of British successes by desperate rearguard actions. Notable 
 victories were won by the Canadian troops in the capture of the 
 hotly contested Vimy Ridge and other positions during the battle 
 of Arras, as this series of important engagements was called, even 
 before it was concluded with all the honors in Allied hands. 
 
 For several days after the first dash on Monday morning, April 
 9, the British tore through the German defenses on an extended front 
 north and south of Arras, from the north bank of the River Scarpe 
 to the German trench system just south of Loos, and straddled the 
 iron line of Hindenburg by April 13 as far as a point seven miles 
 southeast of Arras. 
 
 But success did not stop here. To the south the British progressed 
 on a front of about nine miles, between Metz-en-Coutre and a point 
 to the north of Hargicourt. The French columns joining the British 
 in this sector swept forward along with their allies. They attacked 
 with tremendous vigor German positions south of St. Quentin and 
 carried several lines of trenches between the Somme and the St, 
 Quentin railway. These positions were held despite every effort 
 of the Germans to retake them. 
 
 Throughout the length of interlinked chain of advances the fight- 
 ing was of the utmost ferocity. 
 
 For the first time in the war the British were making sharp drives 
 and smashes like a skillful pugilist, every one of which contained 
 force enough to have been considered a major attack in the history 
 of other wars. In places the attack has shaken loose from the 
 trenches and was being delivered along the lines of the old Napeleonic 
 strategy. 
 
 The British captures of Vimy and later of Givenchy were looked 
 on as victories of the utmost importance, equal to the storming by 
 the Canadians of the Vimy Ridge. When this line of hills was 
 firmly in the hands of the Canadians, they hauled their heavy guns 
 up to the summit with extraordinary speed and proceeded to batter 
 to pieces the powerful defenses of Vimy, while they made continual 
 thrusts down the eastern slopes. 
 
 In 1915 Vimy was for a time held by the French under Gen. Foch, 
 but they were shouldered out with great slaughter by the Germans, 
 who proceeded to lavish the last details of their military science 
 upon the fortifications of the town. 
 
 Givenchy, too, before which many British dead lie buried, was a 
 stronghold upon which the Germans counted to stem any advance. 
 
 On April 16 the extension of the British attack nearly to Lops 
 threatened to pocket Lens, just as a loop had been thrown around 
 St. Quentin, and the fall of this industrial city with its rich coal 
 mines was considered inevitable. Indeed, credible reports had been 
 received in Paris that the devastation of the rich city of Lille by the 
 Germans was well under way, indicating that they contemplated a 
 
CONTINUATION OF WAR 459 
 
 reluctant evacuation of the most important center in northern France. 
 At all events, an immediate ebb in the German tide was necessitated 
 by the British successes of April 9 to 16. The momentum of Field 
 Marshal Haig's advance and the successes of the French on their 
 share of the western front appeared to make a further retirement of 
 the whole German line imperative — and the great Allied drive had 
 scarcely begun. 
 
 SCENE OF THE CANADIAN VICTORY. 
 
 An exploration on April 13 of Vimy Ridge, carried by the 
 Canadian troops in a series of historic charges, showed that the 
 British artillery virtually blew off tlie top of it, and the German 
 stronghold which had resisted all efforts of the French and British 
 during more than two years of war, was finally forced into such a 
 position by high explosives that it could no longer resist infantry 
 charges. Walking on the top of the ridge was a continuous climb 
 from one shell crater to another. Two surmounting knobs, known 
 only on military maps as numbered hills, had attracted the fire of the 
 heaviest British guns and had been shattered into unrecognizable 
 buttes on the landscape. 
 
 It was little wonder the Germans made such desperate efforts to 
 hold the Vimy ridge and to retake certain portions of it by counter 
 attacks which failed miserably. The ridge stood as a natural barrier 
 between the Germans and their opponents and was a great protective 
 chain of hills shielding invaluable coal, iron, and other mineral lands 
 that Germany had wrested from France in the first onrush of the 
 war in 1914. The city of Lens, within sight of the British lines, 
 from the ridge, is a great mining center. 
 
 THE FRENCH VICTORY AT SOISSONS. 
 
 On April 16 the "big push" of the Allies in France flared into a 
 continuous battle covering nearly every mile of the long line from the 
 North Sea to the Swiss border. Between Soissons and Rheims the 
 French engaged in a terrific struggle, driving forward in a solid 
 mass against the German lines on a front of twenty-five miles. Their 
 way paved by ten days of "drum fire," the troops of Gen. Nivelle 
 swept forward, carrying all of the first line of German positions 
 between Soissons and Craonne. They also took the second line posi- 
 tions, south of Juvincourt, east of Craonne, reached the outskirts of 
 Bermericourt, and advanced up the Aisne canal at Loivre and Courey. 
 
 During these operations the French captured 10,000 Germans and 
 a vast amount of war material. 
 
 The British were continuing their pressure on both Lens and St. 
 Quentin, but were temporarily held up by a great storm on the 16th. 
 The night before they captured the village of Villaret, which 
 straightened Field Marshal Haig's line northwest of St. Quentin, 
 and made further progress to the northwest of Lens. The prison 
 cages to the rear of Arras were filled with German prisoners, nearly 
 
460 CONTINUATION OF WAR 
 
 all of whom were captured in a dazed condition from tlie terrific 
 British fire that won the great battle of Arras. 
 
 A TITANIC STRUGGLE FORESEEN. 
 
 "The struggle in the western theater of war promises to be a 
 titanic one," said an eye-witness at British headquarters, April 16. 
 "The Allies are prepared as never before, both in material and 
 personnel, and are co-operating with a smoothness which comes 
 from a complete understanding and thorough appreciation of the 
 work in hand. 
 
 "The Germans have more divisions on the western front than 
 would have been thought possible a year ago, but already a half 
 score of Germany 's best divisions have been smashed to pieces by the 
 British onslaught and their own unsuccessful counter-attacks. The 
 Bavarian divisions were sacrificed first, but the Prussian Guard 
 divisions, thrown in to stem the British flood tide, have suffered such 
 casualties in the last few days that they will have to be relieved." 
 
 The Canadians accounted for a large contingent of Prussian 
 grenadiers in the fighting about "The Pimple" on Vimy ridge while 
 an engagement at Lagnicourt April 15 took its heaviest toll both in 
 dead and prisoners from five German guard regiments. 
 
 GERMAN ROUT AT LAGNICOURT. 
 
 The rout of the Germans at Lagnicourt, after what they believed 
 to have been a successful attack, will ever be one of the striking 
 pictures of the war. Eepulsed and running for their own trenches, 
 they were trapped by the barbed wire entanglements which had been 
 built with such great strength and thickness in front of them. The 
 boast of the Hindenburg line had been its belts of protective wire. 
 
 Caught within the meshes of this wire, the German guardsmen 
 screamed madly for help and guidance. Some, like trapped rabbits, 
 scurried up and down the outer barrier, searching in vain for open- 
 ings. The British troops meantime had the greatest opportunity for 
 open field rifle shooting since the battle of the Marne. Lying flat 
 upon the ground, they poured bullets into the panic-stricken, gray- 
 coated Germans until each man had fired a full 100 rounds. 
 
 While this was going on the British field guns came into play 
 with a shrapnel barrage fire which completed the demolition of the 
 entrapped enemy. It was little wonder that later 1,500 German dead 
 could be counted, or that 400 guardsmen surrendered with upheld 
 hands and emotional cries of ' ' Kamerad ! " 
 
 FRENCH CONTINUE THEIR ADVANCE. 
 
 The French under General Nivelle continued their victorious 
 advance on the Soissons-Craonne line April 18, crushing the German 
 resistance along a front of thirty-five miles, and raising the total of 
 German prisoners taken during the movement to 17,000. Seventy- 
 five guns, including a number of heavy siege pieces, were captured, 
 also several supply depots which the enemy had been forced to 
 abandoQ in his haste. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 UNITED STATES ENTERS THE WAR. 
 
 The President Proclaims War — Interned Ships Are Seized — 
 Congress Votes $7,000,000,000 for War— Raising an 
 American Army — War to Victory Wilson Pledge — British 
 and French Commission Reaches America. 
 
 On April 2, 1917, Congress having been called in special session, 
 President Wilson appeared before a joint session of both houses and 
 in an address worthy of its historical importance asked for a formal 
 declaration that a state of war existed with Germany, owing to the 
 ruthless and unrestricted submarine campaign. He recommended 
 the utmost practical co-operation with the Entente Allies in counsel 
 and action; the extension of liberal financial credit to them, the 
 mobilization of all the material resources of the United States for 
 the purpose of providing adequate munitions of war, the full equip- 
 ment of the Navy, especially in supplying it with means for dealing 
 with submarines, and the immediate enrollment of an army of 500,000 
 men, preferably by a system of universal service, to be increased 
 later by an additional army of equal size. The President took pains 
 to point out that in taking these measures against the German govern- 
 ment, the United States had no quarrel with the German people, 
 who were innocent, because kept in ignorance of the lawless acts of 
 their autocratic government, which had become a menace not only 
 to the peace of the world, but to the cause of fundamental human 
 liberty. The object of the United States, said the President, was to 
 vindicate the principles of peace and justice as against selfish and 
 autocratic power, and to insure the future observance of these 
 principles. 
 
 After due debate the following joint resolution, declaring war 
 with Germany was adopted by the Senate and House of Repre- 
 sentatives and signed by the President on April 6, 1917 : 
 
 "Whereas, the imperial German government has committed 
 repeated acts of war against the government and the people of the 
 United States of America ; therefore, be it 
 
 "Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
 United States of America in Congress assembled, That the state of 
 war between the United States and the imperial German government 
 which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally 
 declared ; and that the President be, and he is, hereby authorized and 
 directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United 
 
 461 
 
462 UNITED STATES ENTERS WAR 
 
 States and the resources of the government to carry on war against 
 the imperial German government; and to bring the conflict to a 
 successful termination, all of the resources of the country are hereby 
 pledged by the Congress of the United States." 
 
 THE PRESIDENT PROCLAIMS WAR. 
 
 Immediately after signing the resolution of Congress, President 
 Wilson issued a formal proclamation of war, embodying in it an 
 earnest appeal to all American citizens "that they, in loyal devotion 
 to their country, dedicated from its foundation to the principles of 
 liberty and justice, uphold the laws of the land and give undivided 
 and willing support to those measures which may be adopted by the 
 constitutional authorities in prosecuting the war to a successful issue 
 and in obtaining a secure and just peace." 
 
 The President further enjoined all alien enemies within the United 
 States to preserve the peace and refrain from crime against the 
 public safety, and from giving information, aid, or comfort to the 
 enemy, assuring them of protection so long as they conducted them- 
 selves in accordance with law and with regulations which might be 
 promulgated from time to time for their guidance. The great mass 
 of German- American citizens promptly avowed the utmost loyalty to 
 the United States, but numerous arrests of suspected spies followed 
 all over the country, 
 
 INTERNED SHIPS ARE SEIZED. 
 
 Following the declaration of war all the German merchant vessels 
 interned in ports of the United States were seized by representatives 
 of the Federal authority, their crews removed and interned, and 
 guardians placed aboard. These ships in American waters num- 
 bered 99, of an aggregate value of about $100,000,000, and included 
 some of the finest vessels of the German merchant marine; for 
 instance, the Vaterland, of 54,283 tons, valued at $8,000,000, and 
 numerous other Atlantic liners. The disposition to be made of the 
 German ships was left to the future for decision, with great proba- 
 bility, however, that they would be used to transport munitions and 
 supplies to the Allies in Europe through the German submarine 
 blockade. 
 
 CONGRESS VOTES $7,000,000,000 FOR WAR. 
 
 Prompt action was taken by Congress to furnish the sinews of 
 war. By April 14 a bond and certificate issue of $7,000,000,000 
 had been unanimously voted by both houses, and preparations were 
 made to float a popular subscription for the bonds. Three billions 
 of the amount was intended for loans to the Allies, and the remainder 
 for active prosecution of the war by the United States. The debates 
 in Congress indicated that the country stood solidly behind the Presi- 
 dent in a determination to bring the military autocracy of Germany 
 to a realizing sense of its responsibility to civilization. 
 
UNITED STATES ENTERS WAR 463 
 
 RAISING AN AMERICAN ARMY. 
 
 Legislation was immediately presented by the War Department 
 to the military committees of the Senate and House of Representa- 
 tives, to provide for raising an army for active participation in the 
 war. This legislation was described by President Wilson as follows : 
 
 "It proposes to raise the forces necessary to meet the present 
 emergency by bringing the regular army and the National Guard to 
 war strength and by adding the additional forces which will now 
 be needed, so that the national army will comprise three elements — 
 the regular army, the National Guard and the so-called additional 
 forces, of which at first 500,000 are to be authorized immediately 
 and later increments of the same size as they may be needed. 
 
 "In order that all these forces may comprise a single army, the 
 term of enlistment in the three is equalized and will be for the period 
 of the emergency. 
 
 ' ' The necessary men will be secured for the regular army and the 
 National Guard by volunteering, as at present, until, in the judgment 
 of the President, a resort to a selective draft is desirable. The addi- 
 tional forces, however, are to be raised by selective draft from men 
 ranging in age from 19 to 25 years. The quotas of the several states 
 in all of these forces will be in proportion to their population." 
 
 Recruiting for the army and navy became active as soon as war 
 was declared. On April 15 President Wilson issued an address to 
 the nation, calling on all citizens to enroll themselves in a vast "army 
 of service," military or industrial, and stating that the hour of 
 supreme test for the nation had come. The United States prepared 
 to rise to its full measure of duty, confident in the patent justice 
 of its cause, and echoing the sentiment of its President when he said : 
 
 "The hope of the world is that when the European war is over 
 arrangements will have been made composing many of the questions 
 which have hitherto seemed to require the arming of the nations, and 
 that in some ordered and just way the peace of the world may be 
 maintained by such co-operations of force among the great nations as 
 may be necessary to maintain peace and freedom throughout the 
 world." 
 
 ENGLAND WELCOMES U. S. AS AN ALLY. 
 
 The news of the President's proclamation of war, following the 
 action of Congress, was received in England and France, Russia and 
 Italy, with enthusiasm. A great service of thanksgiving was held in 
 St. Paul's Cathedral, London, attended by the King and Queen, min- 
 isters of state, and an enormous congregation that joined in singing 
 * ' The Star-Spangled Banner ' ' and the national anthem, while the Stars 
 and Stripes by official order was flown for the first time in history from 
 the tower of the Parliament buildings at Westminster and on public 
 buildings throughout the British empire. A high commission was 
 
464 UNITED STATES ENTERS WAR 
 
 appointed to visit the United States for a series of war conferences, 
 and Premier Lloyd George expressed the national satisfaction in glow- 
 ing terms of welcome to the United States as an ally against Germany, 
 paying at the same time an eloquent tribute to the masterly address of 
 President Wilson to Congress, Avhich stated the case for humanity 
 against military autocracy in such an unanswerable manner, the Brit- 
 ish premier said, that it placed the seal of humanity's approval on the 
 Allied cause and furnished final justification of the British attitude 
 toward Germany in the war. 
 
 POPULAR DEMONSTRATION IN PARIS. 
 
 In France, the Stars and Stripes were flung to the breeze from the 
 Eiffel Tower on April 22, and saluted by twenty-one guns. This 
 marked the opening of the ceremonies of ' ' United States day ' ' in Paris, 
 
 The French tricolor and the star-spangled banner were at the same 
 hour unfurled together from the residence of William G. Sharp, the 
 American ambassador, in the Avenue d'Eylau, from the American 
 Embassy, from the city hall, and from other municipal government 
 buildings. 
 
 It was a great day for the red, white and blue, 40,000 American 
 flags being handed out gratis by the committee and waved by the 
 people who thronged the vicinity of the manifestations, which included 
 the decoration of the statues of Washington and Lafayette. 
 
 Members of the American Lafayette flying corps, a delegation from 
 the American Ambulance at Neuilly and the American Field Ambu- 
 lances were the guard of honor before the Lafayette statue. 
 
 Ambassador Sharp and his escort were received at the city hall by 
 the members of the municipal council and other distinguished persons. 
 Adrien Mithouard, president of the municipal council, welcomed 
 Ambassador Sharp, who was greeted with great applause when address- 
 ing the people of Paris. He said : 
 
 ' ' Citizens of Paris : May I say to you, on this day you have with 
 such fine sentiment set apart to honor my country, that America 
 remains no longer content to express to France merely her sympathy. 
 In a cause which she believes as verily as you believe to be a sacred 
 one, she will consecrate all her power and the blood of her patriotic 
 sons, if necessary, to achieve a victory that shall for all time to come 
 insure the domination of right over wrong, freedom over oppression, 
 and the blessings of peace over the brutality of war. ' ' 
 
 The French Government also appointed a war commission to visit 
 the United States forthwith for conference. 
 
 Resolutions expressing the great satisfaction of the Allied nations 
 at the action of the United States were adopted by the British House of 
 Commons, the French Chamber of Deputies, the Russian Duma, and 
 the Italian Parliament. 
 
UNITED STATES ENTERS WAR 465 
 
 ENTHUSIASM IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 War being declared, the people of the United States were not 
 slow in letting the President know that they stood solidly behind him. 
 From all parts of the country came assurances that the action of the 
 Government was approved. Organizations of every conceivable kind 
 passed resolutions pledging their support to all war measures decided 
 to be necessary to carry the war to a successful issue. Recruiting was 
 at once started for both the Army and the Navy. The recruiting depots 
 were thronged daily and thousands were enrolled for active serv- 
 ive while Congress was debating the respective merits of the volunteer 
 system and the ' ' selective draft ' ' advocated by the general staff of the 
 Army and approved by the President and his cabinet. 
 
 The full quota of men desired for the Navy, to place the ships 
 already in commission in a high state of efficiency, was soon secured. 
 More men offered themselves for naval service, indeed, than could be 
 accepted pending the action of Congress. Volunteers for the aviation 
 corps, the marines, the field artillery, the engineer corps, and all the 
 various branches of the military establishments came forward freely, 
 and a general desire was expressed to send an American force to the 
 trenches in Europe at the earliest possible moment consistent with 
 proper training for the field. 
 
 As the reports of American diplomats from the war zone, freed 
 from German censorship, were given to the public, the martial spirit 
 of America grew apace. Ambassador Gerard's corroboration of Ger- 
 man atrocities in the occupied territory of France, and Minister Brand 
 Whitlock's report on the situation in Belgium and the illegal and 
 atrocious deportation of Belgian citizens for hard labor, ill treatment, 
 and starvation in Germany, added fuel to the flame of national indig- 
 nation, already running high as the result of continued destruction 
 of American merchant vessels and the loss of American lives by sub- 
 marine piracy and murder, continued almost without cessation since 
 the infamous sinking of the Lusitania, one of the never-to-be-forgotten 
 crimes of German ruthlessness. 
 
 One hundred million free-born people were at length aroused to 
 action. The Navy was ready for immediate service where it could do 
 most good, and promptly took over patrol duty in the western Atlantic, 
 relieving British and French men-of-war for service elsewhere. The 
 raising of an army of a million or more men for active participation 
 in the war waited only on the action of Congress. 
 
 American women responded nobly to the President's call for uni- 
 versal service, flocking to the Red Cross headquarters in every city 
 and setting to work immediately in the preparation of comforts for 
 the great army gathering on the horizon. They were promptly organ- 
 ized, so that their efforts might count to the best advantage- 
 
466 UNITED STATES ENTERS WAR 
 
 In August, 1916, the United States Navy included 356 war craft 
 of all kinds, as against 693 credited to Great Britain, 404 to France, 
 and 309 to Germany. The latter figure does not include an unknown 
 number of submarines of recent construction, 
 
 THE BRITISH COMMISSION ARRIVES. 
 
 On Sunday, April 22, the British war commission reached "Wash- 
 ington, headed by the Right Hon. Arthur James Balfour, secretary of 
 state for foreign affairs and former premier. The commission included 
 Rear Admiral Sir Dudley R. S. De Chair, naval adviser to the foreign 
 office ; Major-General G. T. M. Bridges, representing the British army ; 
 Lord Cunliffe of Headley, governor of the Bank of England; and a 
 number of other distinguished officials and naval and military officers, 
 with clerical assistants. The party met with an enthusiastic welcome 
 in Washington. Mr. Balfour was received by the President in private 
 conference next day, and after a round of receptions and social func- 
 tions of various kinds, arrangements were made for the business meet- 
 ings affecting war policies, which were the object of the visit. 
 
 Mr. Balfour informed the President that the British commission 
 had come to "Washington not to ask favors, concessions, or agreements 
 from the United States, but to offer their services for the organization 
 of the stupendous undertaking of fighting Gennany. He said that if 
 the United States was confronted by the same problems that confronted 
 England at the outset of the war, the British commission could be of 
 service in pointing out many grievous mistakes of policy and organiza- 
 tion that proved costly to the British cause. He was, in turn, assured 
 by the President that the United States would fight in conjunction 
 with the Allies until the Prussian autocracy was crushed and Ameri- 
 cans at home and abroad were safe from the ruthlessness of the Berlin 
 government. 
 
 MARSHAL JOFFRE IN WASHINGTON 
 
 The French war commission soon followed the British envoys, 
 arriving in Washington on Wednesday, April 25, on board the presi- 
 dential yacht IMayflower from Hampton Roads. Headed by M. Rene 
 Viviani, minister of justice and former premier of France, the com- 
 mission included the famous hero of the Marne and idol of the French 
 army and people. Marshal Joft're; also Admiral Chocheprat, repre- 
 senting the French navy; the Marquis de Chambrun (Lafayette's 
 grandson), and other distinguished Frenchmen. The fame of Marshal 
 Joffre and the traditional friendship for France secured for the party 
 an enthusiastic popular greeting. Its members were accorded similar 
 official receptions to those of the British commissioners, and they simi- 
 larly expressed their desire to be of service to the American people 
 by giving the Washington government the benefit of their costly expe- 
 rience in three years of war.