"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 personnel, 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 Washington, 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 torpedoes 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 got. We passed along the line of German ships 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 sometimes 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, deafening, 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 fine 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, 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 arriving 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 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.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

BATTLES EAST AND WEST

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 bombardment with heavy artillery, pressed forward to the assault and succeeded 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 German losses were very heavy and a large number of dead were abandoned 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 positions 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 total of 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 doggedly bombed and bayoneted their way back to the wrecked trenches next day and regained nearly all their front. The commanding officers were especially pleased that the newer Canadian battalions had kept up the traditions of the first contingent, established in 1915 at St. Julien and elsewhere in France and Flanders, by immediately turning 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 movement 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 Southwestern Armies, captured 1,143 Austrian officers and 64,714 men, recovered almost, four thousand square miles of fertile Volhyman soil, and recaptured the fortified town of Lutsk. He had the advantage of a most efficient artillery preparation, which blew the Austrian entanglements, trenches and earthworks into such a chaos that the bewildered 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, 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 Hindenburgh was in command on Russian territory. The extent and rapidity of the Russian successes up to that time were without parallel in military history.

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 command, 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 headway 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 garrison succeeded in escaping. The invading troops swept on, crossed the Sereth river, and soon gained control of about one-half of Roumania's western frontier. By July 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 Strypa. 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 begun.

"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 prepared 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 conventional 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 distribution 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 were 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 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 OF 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 tremendous 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 locality, together with the Trones wood, which had also been the scene of a bloody straggle. By this time some 30,000 German prisoners had been taken by the Allies during the offensive, while 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 Contalmaison 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 bandaged 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 Contalmaison 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 offensive on the Somme, German assaults on the Verdun front continued 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 command 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 of 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 consolidated 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 reconnaissances 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 a short address expressing high admiration and enthusiastic appreciation 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 TEARS' WAR CASUALTIES

Killed. Wounded. Missing. Russia 1,200,000 2,500,000 2,000,000 Germany 900,000 1,900,000 150,000 France 850,000 1,500,000 325,000 Austro-Hungary 475,000 1,000,000 900,000 Great Britain 160,000 450,000 70,000 Turkey 75,000 200,000 75,000 Serbia 60,000 125,000 75,000 Italy 50,000 100,000 30,000 Belgium 30,000 70,000 50,000 Bulgaria 5,000 25,000 5,000 Total 3,805,000 7,870,000 3,680,000

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 continuous 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 entanglements 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 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 continued 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 cooperate in the campaign of the Entente Allies on the Macedonian front. For more than a year Italy's position with 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 Transylvania 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.

ALLIED PROGRESS ON THE WESTERN FRONT

British and French successes on the Western front continued during 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 automobile 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 Somme 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 officers.

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 reported, 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 surrounding it were scarcely a mile apart. A day later British and French troops entered Comibles from opposite sides and drove the Germans out. Continuing the drive from Thiepval, which had also been occupied, 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 the vigor and success of former efforts on this front. In a joint attack on October 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 Ablaincourt, 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 themselves 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 redoubts 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 airplanes.

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. Continuing their advantage the following day, the British took Beaucourt-sur-Anere with more than 5,000 prisoners. On the 15th German troops took the offensive on both sides of the Somme and succeeded in forcing their way back into some of the trenches and advance positions held by the French, but the British continued their advance north of the Ancre. Next day the French recovered the lost ground and their airmen engaged in fifty-four air battles with German 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 German troops occurred on four consecutive days, from November 17 to 20, with hand-grenade battles but no definite result. There was a general 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 Germans 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 commanding, 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 village. 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 October 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 September 18, after a total of 25, prisoners had been taken by the Russians 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 began along the entire eastern front, heavy fighting being reported west of Lutsk and in the Carpathians. Turkish troops at this time appeared 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.

By a sudden drive through the Russian front north of the Pinsk marshes on November 10, the Germans succeeded in cutting the Russian 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 Narayuvka, where the Russian trenches were carried by the Germans after they had been practically destroyed by high explosives; but the ground lost, located near Slaventin, was gallantly regained by the Russian troops on November 15.

The Russian dreadnought Imperatritsa Maria was sunk by a mine near Sulina, at the mouth of the Danube, November 11. It was launched in and had a displacement of 22,500 tons. On November 18 Russian troops near Sarny, southeast of Pinsk, brought down a Zeppelin 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 Transylvania, 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 Bulgarains 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 Cernavoda, 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 although 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 captured October 23. Cernavoda fell on the 25th.

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 Austrian troops under General von Falkenhayn at length drove the invaders 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 prisoners and much war material. These successes, however, proved insufficient to do more than check the Teuton advance toward Bucharest.

In the Dobrudja, after the capture of Cernavoda by Von Mackensen, there were strenuous efforts by the Roumanians, aided by Russians, to regain their lost territory. In their early retreat they destroyed the great eleven-mile bridge over the Danube at Cernavoda and so cut off for the time being Von Mackesen's threatened drive to Bucharest from the south. The Roumanians that had been opposing him fell back northward to the Danube forts. They were hotly pursued by Bulgarians, who on October 29 were reported to be at Astrovo, fifty miles north of the Constanza-Cernavoda railway line. The possession 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 Roumanians 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 relieve the situation at Bucharest by a counter-demonstration in the 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 successfully 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 activity 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 October 12 was set by the Italian War Office at 30,880. No decided advantage 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 OF 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 series of domestic and personal disasters that culminated in the assassination 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 London 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 outraged almost beyond endurance by the unprecedented German disregard of international law and the recognized customs of war, when it was announced on November 10 that 30,000 Belgians had been deported into exile by the German authorities in Belgium. It was alleged 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 families, 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 representations 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. Constitutional 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 recognized as a new kingdom.

THE FALL 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 Roumania, 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, governor 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 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, declaring 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 House 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 OP REPARATION.

"Did the German Chancellor use a single phrase to indicate that he was prepared to accept such a peace? Was there a hint of restitution? Was there a suggestion of reparation? Was there an implication 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 interests.'

"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 aggression 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, mentally 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 publication. 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.

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 exterminating 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 against unjustified attacks."

ALSACE-LORRAINE TO FRANCE.

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 subject to the bloody tyranny of the Turks."

Expulsion of the Turkish empire from Europe, thus giving Constantinople to Russia.

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 political disappearance.

"That which they desire above all is to insure a peace upon the principles of liberty and justice, upon the inviolable fidelity to international 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 prosperity 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 kingdom 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 proclaimed 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 November, 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 dangerous, the failure of Greece to respond to the call of Serbia, its treaty ally, having demonstrated the governmental inclination toward the cause of the Central Powers. In order to minimize the danger, therefore, the French admiral, Du Fournet, in command of the Allied 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 reservists who had been called out, and some bloodshed resulted, there being about 200 casualties before a compromise was reached between King Constantine 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 withdrawn, 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 Russo-Roumanian forces in the Roumanian theatre of war, with strong attacks 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.

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 the 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 shaping 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 arresting 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 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 pledged 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 throughout 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 Petrograd 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 democratic leaders repeatedly pointed to Czarism as the evil spirit dominating the Entente. The object of the Central Powers was proclaimed to be the overthrow of the Russian autocratic menace. Therefore 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 revolution, 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 Ministers 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 without 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 government 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 warfare, a last resort of desperation. 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, 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, 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.

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 strategic, 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 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 positions. The Allied advance continued until more than 300 towns and villages were reoccupied and some 1,500 square miles of French 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 everywhere. 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 some 15,000 prisoners and 190 guns of all calibers, some of 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 fighting 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 Napoleonic 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 Loos 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 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 the 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 positions, south of Juvincourt, east of Craonne, reached the outskirts of Bermericourt, and advanced up the Aisne canal at Loivre and Courcy.

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 all of whom were captured in a dazed condition from the 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. Repulsed 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 openings. 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 ADVANCE IN APRIL

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.