The mission consisted of Henry Carton de Wiart, Minister of Justice; Messrs. de Sadeleer, Hymans and Vandervelde, Ministers of State, and Count Louis de Lichtervelde, serving as secretary of the mission. On being received by President Wilson, Mr. de Wiart, for the mission, outlined for the world and for America, the situation in part as follows:

"His Majesty, the King of the Belgians, has charged us with a special mission to the President of the United States. Let me say how much we feel ourselves honored to have been called upon to express the sentiments of our King and of our whole nation to the illustrious statesman whom the American people have called to the highest dignity of the commonwealth.

"Ever since her independence was first established, Belgium has been declared neutral in perpetuity. This neutrality, guaranteed by the Powers, has recently been violated by one of them. Had we consented to abandon our neutrality for the benefit of one of the belligerents, we would have betrayed our obligations toward the others. And it was the sense of our international obligations as well as that of our dignity and honor that has driven us to resistance.

"The consequences suffered by the Belgian nation were not confined purely to the harm occasioned by the forced march of the invading army. This army not only seized a great portion of our territory, but it committed incredible acts of violence, the nature of which is contrary to the laws of nations.

"Peaceful inhabitants were massacred, defenseless women and children were outraged; open and undefended towns were destroyed; historical and religious monuments were reduced to dust and the famous library of the University of Louvain was given to the flames.

"Our government has appointed a Judicial Commission to make an official investigation, so as to thoroughly and impartially examine the facts and to determine the responsibility thereof, and I will have the honor, Excellency, to hand over to you the proceedings of the inquiry.

THE UNITED STATES' ATTITUDE.

"In this frightful holocaust which is sweeping over Europe, the United States has adopted a neutral attitude.

"And it is for this reason that your country, standing apart from either one of the belligerents, is in the best position to judge, without bias or partiality, the conditions under which the war is being waged.

"It is at the request, even at the initiative of the United States, that all civilized nations have formulated and adopted at the Hague a law regulating the laws and usages of war.

"We refuse to believe that war has abolished the family of civilized powers, or the regulation to which they have freely consented.

"The American people has always displayed its respect for justice, its search for progress and an instinctive attachment for the laws of humanity. Therefore, it has won a moral influence which is recognized by the entire world. It is for this reason that Belgium, bound as she is to you by ties of commerce and increasing friendship, turns to the American people at this time to let you know the real truth of the present situation. Resolved to continue unflinching defence of its sovereignty and independence, it deems it a duty to bring to the attention of the civilized world the innumerable grave breaches of rights of mankind, of which she has been a victim.

"At the very moment we were leaving Belgium, the King recalled to us his trip to the United States and the vivid and strong impression your powerful and virile civilization left upon his mind. Our faith in your fairness, our confidence in your justice, in your spirit of generosity and sympathy, all these have dictated our present mission."

THE INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE.

In the report handed to President Wilson, the preface sets forth that the committee appointed to investigate the conduct of the German invaders, and all of the surrounding circumstances, consisted of Messrs. Cattier, professor at the Brussels University; Nys, counselor of the Brussels Court of Appeals; Verhaegen, counselor of the Brussels Court of Appeals; Wodon, professor at the Brussels University; Secretary, Mr. Gillard, Director of the Department of Justice. Afterwards, when the invasion made it necessary to transfer the seat of the government from Brussels to Antwerp, a sub-committee was appointed there, consisting of Mr. Cooreman, Minister of State; Members, Count Goblet d'Aviella, Minister of State, Vice President of the Senate; Messrs. Ryckmans, Senator; Strauss, Alderman of the City of Antwerp; Van Cutsem, Honorary President of the Law Court of Antwerp. Secretaries, Chevalier Ernst de Bunswyck, Chief Secretary of the Belgian Minister of Justice; Mr. Orts, Counselor of the Legation.

In brief the report submits first, that in violation of the perpetual treaty of June 26, 1831, Germany notified Belgium that France was about to march upon Germany, and that Germany proposed to frustrate such a move by sending its soldiers through Belgium; that the German government had no intention of making war against Belgium, and that if Belgium made no opposition it would evacuate Belgium after hostilities ceased, and during the period the German forces were in the country, would buy everything needed for its army. Belgium replied that it had assurance from France that France had no intention of invading Belgium, and that if France attempted to pass through Belgium would oppose such an act with force. It informed the German Imperial Government that it would similarly oppose any move on the part of Germany to pass through.

Nevertheless Germany proceeded at once through Belgium. Quoting articles from the Hague treaty, the commission's report reads:

THE DAYS OF BARBARISM.

"In the days of barbarism, the population of a territory occupied by the enemy was deprived of all judicial capacity. At that time," as Ghering writes ironically, "'the enemy was absolutely deprived of rights; everything he owned belonged to the gallant warrior who had wrenched it away from him. One had merely to lose it.'

"In our days the rules of warfare clearly establish the difference between the property of the government of the territory occupied and the property of individuals. While the present doctrine allows the conqueror to seize, in a general way, everything in the way of movable property belonging to the State, it obliges him, on the other hand, to respect the property of individuals, corporations and public provincial administrations.

"The Hague Convention, signed October 18, 1897, by all the civilized States, among others by Germany, contains the following stipulations regarding laws and customs of warfare on land:

"'Art. 46. The honor and right of the family, the life of the individual and private property, as well as religious convictions and the exercise of worship, must be respected. Private property cannot be confiscated.

"'Art. 47. Pillaging is formally prohibited.

"'Art. 53. When occupying territory, the army can only seize cash as well as funds and securities belonging entirely to the State; also depots of arms, ways and means of transportation, warehouses and provisions, and in a general way all movable property belonging to the State and liable to be used for warlike operations.

"'Art. 56. Property of municipalities, property of establishments consecrated to worship, to charity and instruction; to art and science, even though belonging to the State, will be treated as private property.'

"In defiance of these conventional rules, voluntarily and solemnly accepted by Germany, she has committed, from the beginning of her invasion of Belgian soil, numerous attacks upon private property."

GERMAN CUPIDITY.

At Hasselt, the report shows that on August 12, 1914, the Germans confiscated the funds of the branch of the National Bank, which amounted to 2,075,000 francs. At Liege, on entering the city, they forcibly seized the funds of a branch of the same bank, amounting to 4,000,000 francs. Moreover, upon finding at that branch bundles of bank notes of 5-franc denomination, representing an amount of 400,000 francs, and which were not yet signed, they forced a printer to sign those bank notes by means of a rubber stamp, which they had also seized, and afterwards put the notes in circulation. The bank, it is explained, was a shareholders' corporation, the capital having been obtained by subscription from private parties and was in no wise an institution of the State.

The enormity of this offence is made apparent by the fact that in the war of 1870, when the Prussians entered Rheims in the Franco-Prussian war, and they wanted to confiscate the funds of the branch of the National Bank of France, Crown Prince Frederick ordered that funds which were found at the bank could not be seized so long as they were not used for the maintenance of the French army, it having been contended by directors of the institution that the bank was not a State, but a private bank. But more than this Germany levied supplies from every Belgian city and tried to levy upon the city of Brussels the sum of 50,000,000 francs and the province of Brabant 450,000,000 francs.

TREATY OBLIGATIONS.

Categorically, the violation and disregard of every phase of the Hague treaty is described. In spite of the strict provision that undefended cities, villages and dwellings are not to be bombarded, and where bombardment is necessary the commanding officer of the attacking party must warn the authorities that such bombardment is to take place, German aeroplanes and dirigibles bombarded relentlessly from the beginning. In Antwerp a Zeppelin threw explosive bombs at the Royal Palace, but the missiles went astray, demolishing private residences, killing eight persons and injuring many. Servants were killed in their beds in one private house when the bombs tore away the top of the building.

"In the Place du Poids Public a bomb fell on the pavement. Fragments scattered all over the place. Not a house facing the square was untouched. A policeman was cut to pieces, all that was found of him being a leg covered with a few rags of his uniform. Five other persons who opened their windows were blown to atoms. The bed-rooms of two houses facing one another were visited. In the first there were three corpses. Blood was scattered all over the place. The floor was covered with fragments of windows and with blood-soaked underwear. On the ceiling and walls, parts of intestines and brains were visible. In the other house two old persons had been killed while looking down upon the street. Later Antwerp was bombarded, as was Heyst-op-den-Berg and the city of Malines, which was undefended, and where there was not a Belgian soldier. At Malines the batteries fired shell after shell in the direction of the Cathedral of Saint Rombault, a beautiful edifice, which was hit many times and badly damaged, though there was no military reason for the assault as the town was practically abandoned."

The commission turned over to President Wilson explosive bullets used by the Germans at Werchter, and submitted briefs from physicians who treated wounds made by the explosive bullets.

DETAILED ATROCITIES OUTLINED.

A few details of the atrocities are outlined as follows:

"German cavalry, occupying the village of Linsmeau, were attacked by some Belgian infantry and two Gendarmes. A German officer was killed by our troops during the fight, and subsequently buried at the request of the Belgian officer in command. None of the civilian population took part in the fight. Nevertheless, the village was invaded at dusk on August 10 by a strong force of German cavalry, artillery and machine guns. In spite of the assurance given by the Burgomaster that none of the peasants had taken part in the previous fighting two farms and six outlying houses were destroyed by gunfire and burned. All the male population were compelled to come forward and hand over what they possessed. No recently discharged firearms were found, but the invaders divided the peasants into three groups. Those in one group were bound and eleven of them placed in a ditch, whither they were afterward found dead, their skulls fractured by the butts of German rifles.

"During the night of August 10, German cavalry entered Velm in great numbers; the inhabitants were asleep. The Germans, without provocation, fired upon Mr. Deglimme-Gever's house, broke into it, destroyed furniture, looted money, burned barns, hay, corn stacks, farm implements, six oxen, and the contents of the farmyard. They carried off Mme. Deglimme half-naked, to a place two miles away. She was then let go and was fired upon as she fled, without being hit. Her husband was carried away in another direction."

Farmer Jeff Dierckx, of Neerhespen, bears witness to the following acts of cruelty committed by German cavalry at Orsmael Neerhespen, on August 10, 11 and 12:

SHOCKING BARBARITIES.

"An old man of the latter village had his arm sliced in three longitudinal cuts; he was then hanged head downward and burned alive. Young girls have been raped and little children outraged at Orsmael, where several inhabitants suffered mutilations too horrible to describe. A Belgian soldier belonging to a battalion of cyclist carbineers who had been wounded and made prisoner was hanged, while another who was tending his comrade was bound to a telegraph pole and shot."

The sacking of Louvain, which was one of the vile acts of the Germans during the early days of the war, is described briefly in the report of the commission as follows:

"The Germans entered Louvain on Wednesday, August 19, after having set fire to the towns through which they passed.

"From the moment of their having entered the city of Louvain, the Germans requisitioned lodgings and victuals for their troops. They entered every private bank of the city and took over the bank funds. German soldiers broke the doors of houses abandoned by their inhabitants, pillaged them and indulged in orgies.

"The German authorities took hostages; the mayor of the city, Senator Vander Kelen, the Vice Rector of the Catholic University, the Dean of the City; magistrates and aldermen were also detained. All arms down to fencing foils had been handed over to the town administration and deposited by the said authorities in the Church of St. Peter.

"In the neighboring village, Corbeck-Loo, a young matron, 22 years old, whose husband was in the army, was surprised on Wednesday, August 19, with several of her relatives, by a band of German soldiers. The persons who accompanied her were locked in an abandoned house, while she was taken into another house, where she was successively violated by five soldiers.

LUSTFUL CRUELTY OF THE GERMANS.

"In the same village, on Thursday, August 20, German soldiers were searching a house where a young girl of 16 lived with her parents. They carried her into an abandoned house and, while some of them kept the father and mother off, others went into the house, the cellar of which was open, and forced the young woman to drink. Afterwards they carried her out on the lawn in front of the house and violated her successively. She continued to resist and they pierced her breast with bayonets. Having been abandoned by the soldiers after their abominable attacks, the girl was carried off by her parents, and the following day, owing to the gravity of her condition, she was administered the last rites of the church by the priest of the parish and carried to the hospital at Louvain."

Upon entering villages occupied by the Germans after they were driven back to Louvain, the report says the Belgian soldiers found that the German soldiers had sacked, ravaged and set fire to the villages everywhere, taking with them and driving before them all the male inhabitants. "Upon entering Hofstade, the Belgian soldiers found the corpse of an old woman who had been killed by bayonet thrusts; she still held in her hand the needle with which she was sewing when attacked; one mother and her son, aged about 15 years, lay there pierced with bayonet wounds; one man was found hung.

"In Sempst, a neighboring village, were found corpses of two men partially burned. One of them was found with legs cut off to the knees; the other was minus his arms and legs. A workman had been pierced with bayonets, afterward while he was still living the Germans soaked him with petroleum and locked him in a house which they set on fire. An old man and his son had been killed by sabre cuts; a cyclist had been killed by bullets; a woman coming out of her house had been stricken down in the same manner."

A LAME EXCUSE OFFERED.

Concerning the sacking of Louvain itself, the report says that one detachment of the Germans met another detachment while in full flight from the Belgian soldiers, and attacked one another. This was the basis for the pretext that they had been attacked by the citizenry of Louvain and was responsible for the bombardment of the city. The bombarding lasted until 10 o'clock at night, and afterward the German soldiers set fire to the city.

"The houses which had not taken fire were entered by German soldiers, who were throwing fire grenades, some of which seem to have been provided for the occasion. The largest part of the city of Louvain, especially the quarters of 'Ville Haute,' comprising the modern houses, the Cathedral of St. Peter, the University Halls, with the whole library of the University with its manuscripts, its collections, the largest part of the scientific institutions and the town theatre were at the moment being consumed by flames.

"The commission deems it necessary, in the midst of these horrors, to insist on the crime of lese-humanity which the deliberate annihilation of an academic library—a library which was one of the treasures of our time—constitutes.

"Numerous corpses of civilians covered the streets and squares. On the routes from Louvain to Tirlemont alone one witness testifies to having seen more than fifty of them. On the threshold of houses were found burnt corpses of people, who, surprised in their cellars by the fire, had tried to escape and fell into the heap of live embers. The suburbs of Louvain were given up to the same fate. It can be said that the whole region between Malines and Louvain and most of the suburbs of Louvain have been devastated and destroyed.

BASE INDIGNITIES TO CLERGYMEN.

"A group of 75 persons, among whom were several notables of the city, such as Father Coloboet and a Spanish priest, and also an American priest, were conducted, during the morning of Wednesday, August 26, to the square in front of the station. The men were brutally separated from their wives and children, after having received the most abominable treatment after repeated threats of being shot, and were driven in front of the German troops as far as the village of Campenhout. They were locked, during the night, in the church. The following day, at 4 o'clock, a German officer came to tell them that they might all confess themselves and that they would be shot half an hour later. When, finally, they were released, the report continues, they were recaptured by another German brigade and compelled to march to Malines, where they were finally liberated.

"An eye witness testified that he met nothing except burned villages, crazed peasants, lifting to each comer their arms, as mark of submission. From each house was hanging a white flag, even from those that had been set on fire, and rags of them were found hanging from the ruins. The fire began a little above the American College, and the city is entirely destroyed, with the exception of the town hall and the depot. Today the fire continues and the Germans, instead of trying to stop it—seem rather to maintain it by throwing straw into the flames, as I have myself seen behind the Hotel de Ville. The Cathedral and the theatre have been destroyed and fallen in, and also the library. The town resembles an old city in ruins, in the midst of which drunken soldiers are circulating, carrying around bottles of wine and liquor; the officers themselves being installed in arm chairs, sitting around tables and drinking like their own men.

"In the streets dead horses are decaying, horses which are completely inflated, and the smell of the fire and the decaying animals is such that it has followed me for a long time."

And the policy which developed such outrageous conduct on the part of the Kaiser's soldiers in the early days of the war, against which Belgium protested to the world, inspired brutal acts, ruthlessness and cruelty at every stage and during every period of the war. Nowhere is there written a single line which tells of the humanitarian acts of the German soldiers. Those who fight against them acknowledge their stoical bravery, the efficiency of the army, the navy and the people as a whole, but there is no reflection of refined instincts in any of the acts of Germany or the Germans.

THE AMERICAN MINISTER'S REPORT.

Of those conditions which existed in Belgium when the German soldiers overran the country, America's own minister to the devastated country, Brand Whitlock, sent a report to the State Department in the beginning of 1917, when President Wilson was protesting against the treatment accorded the helpless people of Belgium by the Germans.

Mr. Whitlock tells how the Germans determined to put the Belgians thrown out of employment to work for them. "In August," says the report, dealing with the treatment of the helpless Belgians, "Von Hindenburg was appointed supreme commander. He is said to have criticised Von Bissing's policy as too mild, and there was a quarrel; Von Bissing went to Berlin to protest, threatened to resign, but did not. He returned, and a German official said that Belgium would now be subjected to a more terrible regime, would learn what war was. The prophecy has been vindicated.

"The deportations began in October in the Etape, at Ghent and at Bruges. The policy spread; the rich industrial districts at Hainaut, the mines and steel works about Charleroi were next attacked, and they seized men in Brabant, even in Brussels, despite some indications and even predictions of the civil authorities that the policy was about to be abandoned.

"As by one of the ironies of life the winter has been more excessively cold than Belgium has ever known it and while many of those who presented themselves were adequately protected against the cold, many of them were without overcoats. The men, shivering from cold and fear, the parting from weeping wives and children, the barrels of brutal Uhlans, all this made the scene a pitiable and distressing one.

RAGE, TERROR AND DESPAIR.

"The rage, the terror and despair excited by this measure all over Belgium were beyond anything we had witnessed since the day the Germans poured into Brussels. The delegates of the commission for relief in Belgium, returning to Brussels, told the most distressing stories of the scenes of cruelty and sorrow attending the seizures. And daily, hourly almost, since that time, appalling stories have been related by Belgians coming to the legation. It is impossible for us to verify them, first because it is necessary for us to exercise all possible tact in dealing with the subject at all, and secondly because there is no means of communication between the Occupations Gebiet and the Etappey Gebiet.

"I am constantly in receipt of reports from all over Belgium that tend to bear the stories one constantly hears of brutality and cruelty. A number of men sent back to Mons are said to be in a dying condition, many of them tubercular. At Molines and at Antwerp returned men have died, their friends asserting that they have been victims of neglect and cruelty, of cold, of exposure, of hunger.

"I have had requests from the burgomasters of ten communes asking that permission be obtained to send to the deported men in Germany packages of food similar to those that are being sent to prisoners of war. Thus far the German authorities have refused to permit this except in special instances, and returning Belgians claim that even when such packages are received they are used by the camp authorities only as another means of coercing them to sign the agreements to work.

A MORTAL BLOW TO BELGIANS.

"By the deportation of Belgians to work in Germany," says Mr. Whitlock's report, "they have dealt a mortal blow to any prospect they may ever have had of being tolerated by the population of Flanders; in tearing away from nearly every humble home in the land a husband and a father or a son and brother; they have lighted a fire of hatred that will never go out; they have brought home to every heart in the land, in a way that will impress its horror indelibly on the memory of three generations, a realization of what German methods mean, not as with the early atrocities in the heat of passion and the first lust of war, but by one of those deeds that make one despair of the future of the human race, a deed coldly planned, studiously matured, and deliberately and systematically executed, a deed so cruel that German soldiers are said to have wept in its execution, and so monstrous that even German officers are now said to be ashamed."

And if these acts were not sufficient to convince the world that Germany "is without the pale" so far as civilized warfare is concerned her conduct in wantonly destroying property in Flanders while in retreat could permit of no other conclusion.

After the violation of Belgium and the destruction of the Lusitania and the adoption of the policy of sinking neutral ships on sight for military advantage, or "necessity," why shouldn't the soldiers pollute wells, kill trees, carry off the girls, smash the household furniture not worth taking away and smear the pictures on the wall, just for revenge or in the sheer lust of destruction?

It makes no difference, so far as the principles of humanity are concerned, whether the German army is in victory or suffering defeat, advancing or retreating. The treatment accorded the evacuated cities of the Somme district was foretold by the treatment of the cities occupied early in the war. Here is the wording of an order posted during the victorious invasion of Belgium:

"Order—To the people of Liege. The population of Andenne, after making a display of peaceful intentions toward our troops, attacked them in the most treacherous manner. With my authority the general commanding these troops has reduced the town to ashes and has had 110 persons shot. I bring this fact to the knowledge of the people of Liege in order that they may know what fate to expect should they adopt a similar attitude.

GENERAL VON BULOW. Liege, Aug. 22, 1914."

CRUEL EXTREME OF PUNISHMENT.

And yet this order showed only a cruel extreme of punishment where some punishment was to be expected. It was left for the retreating Germans of 1917 to destroy, without provocation and without purpose, motived by revenge and obsessed by the Nietschean doctrine of "spare not."

Before Bapaume was evacuated it was deliberately converted into a mass of muck. There is no Bapaume now. It is perfectly understandable that the retreating soldiers should destroy their trenches and put up the question, "Tommy, how do you like your new trenches?" But why smear filth over the photograph of three little girls, a family treasure? All around Bapaume the villages were looted and the night the deliverers entered the destroyers made the sky lurid with the fires of towns and hamlets. Some 300 in the evacuated region were burned.

At Nesle, Roye and Ham there was not time enough to destroy everything. The house of a doctor at Nesle, a specially attractive home, was not blown down for strategic purposes, but some soldiers did find time to drive axes through the mahogany panels of the beds and smash the clocks and mirrors. They were angry at being compelled to leave the house.

Villages like Cressy, near Nesle, where a shell never fell in the course of the war, have been completely destroyed.

PERONNE A HOPELESS RUIN.

There is not a habitable house left in Peronne. The sixteenth century church of St. Jean is but a relic. W. Beach Thomas wrote after the retreat that nothing was left that was valuable enough to be worth collection by a penny tinker or a rag-and-bone merchant. Foul what you cannot have, was the motto.

The famous ruins of the Feudal Castle of Coucy, one of the finest relics of architecture of its period, was wantonly blown up by the Germans on retreat. It was built in the thirteenth century by Enguerrand III and passed to the French crown in 1498, and was one of the great historic landmarks of Northern France.

Coucy was one of the noblest relics of the Middle Ages, respected by the most barbarous wars of the past, whose donjon (greatest in all Europe) dates almost from Charlemagne, harmless, time-wrecked, illustrious Coucy!

To give an idea of Coucy's importance, the French, in their first astonishment and sorrow, proposed to make reprisals on Hindenburg, should it take ten years. Of course, they will not; it is not their way.

Coucy is a mountain of blasted stones. Shoun Kelly, American, owned one of the outer towers of the great castle and the story of its ownership is the American antithesis of German ravage. Americans were always faithful tourists to Coucy; but among them, one loved more than all the glorious old ruin and its story which began with Enguerrand, the Sire of Coucy, in the year 1210. This was the late Edmund Kelly, of New York and Paris, international lawyer and for many years counsel of the American Embassy in Paris. He meditated on the motto of old Enguerrand: "I am not king, nor prince, nor duke, nor even count: I am the Sire of Coucy!" In fact, the Sire made a record for standing off local kings.

"He was a good American ahead of his time," said Lawyer Kelly; and he took to reading up the ancient chronicles, how Enguerrand's descendants stood off royalty for some 200 years, until finally bought out by the wealthy Louis of Orleans, and all the later glories of the place. Mazarin dismantled Coucy, but left it standing in its beauty; and Lawyer Kelly discovered it to be a State museum, impossible to be purchased, in these latter days, even by a millionaire. Not being one, he preferred it so, loving Coucy more than ever, the cultured American did the next best thing.

A LITTLE TOWN REDUCED.

The little town, once so rich, had dwindled since Mazarin. On the castle side stood two massive towers of the inner defense, belonging to the town. Mr. Kelly asked Mayor and department legislature to make a price on the nearest. As soon as he had bought his tower, he used loving care restoring it. He pierced windows through walls 16 feet thick. He built rooms in three stories, furnishing them in massive antique style. The tower roof was his shady terrace, covered with a little grove of century-old trees! From it he dominated Coucy. All its soul of beauty lay beneath his view.

All was systematically blown up, the town, the towers, the castle, by retreating Germans in their rage. Just masses of crumbled stones. The German papers boast that it took 28 tons of high explosives, and any one can see, this hour, the plain of Coucy covered with a white layer of powdered limestone, for miles around.

What for? To clear a battlefield, they say. It is not true. Nothing is cleared. The masses of crumbled stone remained, when they fled their "battlefield."

The donjon was very high. It stood on a kind of bluff or elevation, overlooking the country, and before the days of aeroplanes it might have been used for observation. The donjon walls were 16 yards thick, not feet, but yards! No other tower in Europe had those dimensions. They tell a story about Mazarin. He deemed so strong a place, so near to Paris, might be dangerous to the Crown; so he dismantled Coucy militarily, without destroying its architectural beauty. The donjon worried him in those days when artillery could make no impression on its massive thickness. So Mazarin put 16 barrels of powder inside the tower, and set them off. The tower just converted itself into gun barrel! The powder blew out all the stories and the roof—shot them up like a gun pointed at the sky! But the tower stood, exactly as before.

OF MASSIVE ARCHITECTURE.

The masonry was admittedly the heaviest achieved by the Middle Ages. From the donjon extended three great vaulted halls. Massive buildings continued. There was a Gothic chapel, a Tribunal Hall, the Hall of the Nine Peers (whose statues remained), the Hall of the Nine Countesses (whose medallion-portraits were carved on the monumental chimney). There was a Romanesque chapel (relic from Charlemagne, like the original donjon), the separate Fortified Chateau of the Chatelain (the Sire's First Officer), and so on, and so on.

The retreating Germans have not only blown up Coucy, but that other priceless relic, the Tower of the Grand Constable and the entire historic Chateau of Ham, and equally the Castle of Peronne, a jewel of beauty—all in one corner of the Vallois! On the smoking wreck of Peronne, they left a humorous placard:

"Nicht aergen! Tur wundern! Don't be angry, just wonder!" Noyon and Peronne are sacked and ruined. At Chauny 1800 houses out of 2500 were deliberately burned, and at a distance they bombarded the remainder, full of old folks and children whom they had parked there. All the public buildings, churches, hospitals and poorhouse were blown up. Three hundred towns and villages were burning at one time in this small section of the Cradle of France. Hindenburg was at Roisel when they rounded up the populations, went through their pockets for their money (giving "receipts"), took their clothes off their backs (so that all the American relief agencies in Paris were overwhelmed with telegrams of appeal) and burgled all the safes in banks and business houses before setting fire to the town and blowing up the main street!

ACCORDING TO THE PRINCIPLE OF WAR.

The German official communique said that it was "all done uniquely according to the technical principles of modern war." At Berlin they caused an American correspondent to cable these words to his papers: "The enemy will find great difficulty to take shelter on a battlefield where everything has been completely razed. We regret the destruction of a beautiful region of France, but it was necessary to transform it into a clear field of battle before we quit it."

They blew up the precious Romanesque Church of Tracy-le-Val (which dates before the Gothic). The church was situated in the midst of the great forest of Laigue; they blew up the church—and left the forest standing! No battlefield was cleared, but they hacked the bark to kill great noble trees by thousands. They made no effort to clear the forest; but weeping old French peasants told how half a German regiment was occupied three days in barking trees to prevent the sap from mounting. The crushed pearl of architecture lies in a dying forest.

At Le Novion, torch in hand, they burned 223 houses; but all the gutted walls are standing.

What technical principles of war command the wholesale destruction of young fruit trees? In 20 orchards, by count, in sweet Leury (hidden at the bottom of a valley) every peach, plum, apricot and pear tree has been assassinated—hacked and standing, when the trunks are thick, and sprawling, severed by one blow of a sharp hatchet, young trees from the thickness of your wrists to your thumb. The French, with loving care, trained peach and pear trees against sunny walls, as if they were grapevines. The slender trunks are cut—and the garden walls left standing.

DESECRATION OF TREES.

The soldiers spared neither the orchards nor the single trees that took a generation to grow, and would have borne fruit for generations to come. Reapers and binders and other farming machines were collected and broken to pieces. One might see a measure of advantage that the deliverers would gain from these things if not destroyed, but it is an awful war doctrine that refuses to discriminate between the immediate and the eventual, the direct and the indirect, the important and the negligible advantage that would impoverish posterity to get a dime in cash. No military advantage is sufficient motive for such wanton ravishment. It is military fanaticism.

Ambassador Sharp, after a 100-mile trip through the evacuated territory, declared that never before in the history of the world had there been such a thorough destruction by either a vanquished or victorious army.

One thing alone was left, after the red-brick villages had been turned into heaps and the murdered fruit trees into black fagots, on the hill outside of St. Quentin. This was the log hut and shooting box of the Kaiser's son, Eitel Friederick. Its white-barked beech was unburnt, its glass windows unbroken, its inside adornments unlooted, the tables and chairs of its terrace beer garden remained. All around the works of man and God were destroyed. The contrast made this destroyer's lodge a sort of boast of his destruction.

The shocking ruin to human life in the evacuated region is of even greater moment. The half-starved civilians of Bapaume were forced to make trenches there and later for the defense of Cambrai also. All men and boys strong enough to work were taken along with the retreating forces. Near Peronne some hundreds of old men, women and children were found locked in a barn. One woman pathetically asked of an English officer, "Are you many?" And he was able to answer, "We are two millions now," and see her anxiety turned to relief and joy. Children who had been slowly starving for a year wandered about the ruins of their homes, but soon found reasons for smiling at the soldiers who had rescued them.

NEITHER MEAT NOR MILK.

These children had had no meat for months and no milk for a year and had almost forgotten the taste of butter. They probably never received a quarter of the rations Americans sent. Girls were compelled to attend the market gardens, and then the Germans took all the produce. The region was desolated and left inhabited by women and children moribund with misery and starvation.

At Noyon, where the Germans had concentrated 10,000 Belgian refugees, they promised to leave the American Relief Committee with sufficient supplies to feed them. But the last patrols completely sacked the American relief storehouses of all eatables and then dynamited the building. And it was from this place that fifty young women, from 18 to 25 years of age, were taken by the officers. Their distracted mothers were told that they were to be used as "officers' servants."

At Ham, when a mother of six children, seeing her husband and two eldest daughters being carried away, remonstrated, she was told that as an alternative she might find their bodies in a canal in the rear of the house.

Nothing could be more significant of the Government's attitude than the incident told by James W. Gerard. The people of a town were imprisoned or fined for their conduct toward a delayed train of Canadian prisoners. When he heard it he thought that at last the Government was going to put a stop to the maltreatment of prisoners. But he learned on investigation that the townsfolk had been punished for giving a little food and drink to the starving and fainting prisoners.

And yet the most singularly brutal phase of this destruction of nature and wealth and art and life is the German defense of it. War is always hell and most of the awful things in this war have had their counterparts in other conflicts, though the Teutonic element has brought some peculiar refinements of cussedness and has given a thoroughness and "pep" and "kick" to the war business.

BETTER PREPARED NEXT TIME.

German writers, instead of making excuses for turning the nation into a war machine for forty years, complain that Germany was not prepared as she should have been and would be better prepared next time. Her professors do not regret that the soldiers at the front are so unrestrained in cruelty, but urge that they are too soft and kind to make effective war. The German correspondents all write enthusiastically of the devastation of the country they are leaving and of the desert created by German genius. Editors speak of the mercy which tempered the necessary hardness towards this once beautiful stretch of country and its inhabitants. The destruction of property which can serve no military purpose is defended on the ground that it is legitimate from a strategic point of view.

This all amounts to saying everything must give way to the considerations of war. It is taking the argument in the fable of the wolf and the lamb as serious philosophy and accepting the position of the wolf. They fail entirely to see the humor of the fable, and hence the fallacy of the wolf's argument.

The greatest hope of civilization, which trembled for a time before the spectre of German barbarity, is that frightfulness cannot endure the long and full test. The great initial advantages are more than offset by new opponents. The gain of the invasion of Belgium was canceled by England coming into the war. The advantage against England of the U-boat campaign was more than canceled by the entrance of the United States in the war.

Irvin Cobb says that the trouble with the Germans is that they are not "good sports and lack a sense of humor. It is impossible to conceive of a group of German officers playing football or baseball or cricket and abiding by the rules of the game. If Barbara Frietchie had said to a Prussian Stonewall Jackson, 'Shoot, if you must, my gray old head,' he'd have done it as a matter of course."



CHAPTER VII.

THE SLINKING SUBMARINE.

A VORACIOUS SEA MONSTER—THE RUTHLESS DESTRUCTIVE POLICY OF GERMANY—STARVATION OF NATIONS THE GOAL—HOW THE SUBMARINES OPERATE—SOME PERSONAL EXPERIENCES.

Almost the entire story of the world war is written around the development of the submarine. One can scarcely think of the terrible conflict without bringing to mind the wonderful "underseas" boat which has made infamous Germany famous. The truth is that, in so far as America is concerned, the conflict was precipitated by the ruthless submarine warfare which Germany waged as part of her plan to starve out England, France, Belgium—and all nations which opposed her.

The slinking submarine proved an efficient instrument, whose activities clearly indicated the diabolical intent and purpose of Germany to make the whole world suffer, if necessary, to the end that she might gain her point and perpetuate the Hohenzollern dynasty. It was not so much that her submarines wrought havoc—for death and disaster stalk always with war—but the methods by which Germany waged their warfare and disregarded all the rules which had been laid down for the guidance of civilized countries at war proved conclusively that even the innocent could expect no quarter from her.

The story of the sinking of the brave ocean steamship Lusitania on May 7, 1915, contains in its brief recital a typical illustration of Germany's lack of humanitarian instincts. The vessel, torpedoed off the coast of Ireland, went to the bottom of the ocean, carrying to death more than 1150 persons, many of them prominent Americans. With an audaciousness which has no counterpart in the history of civilized warfare, German agents in the United States had caused advertisements to be printed in the public press, warning citizens against sailing on the vessel, and advised that she was in danger of being destroyed.

The world stood aghast and believed it impossible that Germany should carry out her threat, but they were soon to be disillusioned. Because the handsome vessel passed through a zone of the seas which the Teuton war lords declared blockaded, they sent a torpedo from an underseas boat into her bowels. The horrors of that event are still fresh in the minds of millions. No such ruthless and wanton destruction of innocent human beings had been accomplished by a so-called civilization at war.

THE DUTIES OF WAR CAST ASIDE.

Articles of The Hague agreement defining the rights and duties of nations at war, and which Germany had accepted, were thrust aside and disregarded by Imperial Germany. The Hohenzollern dynasty was above rules and regulations. International law and the rights of non-combatants at sea were as nothing. That all nations had agreed that the enemy ship must give the captain of the vessel attacked opportunity to land innocent passengers was forgotten. There had not been a word of warning.

And Germany, and the adherents of the Imperial Government, expressing regret that Americans should have been sacrificed, professed deep sorrow on one hand and on the other shouted with glee. America protested vigorously, quoting the laws and demanding that Germany recognize them—not merely that she leave American vessels alone—and give assurance that no such further acts would be committed.

Contending that the sinking of the ship was justifiable, in the exigencies of war, Germany ceased for a short time her wanton sinking of boats without warning. For almost a year her underseas crafts had been preying upon the small British coasting vessels, and sunk hundreds of fishing boats, trawlers and steamships. England's mercantile marine was the object of the Teuton's attacks, and no one had anticipated any danger to Americans or American interests.

Germany had no reasons for desiring to attack American boats and she promised to mend her ways. There followed a brief period in which no vessels were sunk on which were Americans, and then without warning the campaign against all vessels was renewed. A dozen were sunk on which were American seamen or non-combatant passengers, none of whom was given warning or time to land before a torpedo sent the boat to the bottom of the ocean. Threats on the part of President Wilson to take action against Germany finally brought another cessation.

GROWING DISTRESS AND AMAZEMENT.

"The sinking of the British passenger steamship Fabala and other German acts constitute a series of events which the Government of the United States has observed with growing concern, distress and amazement," said President Wilson in a note on the submarine warfare. "This Government cannot admit the adoption of such measures or such a warning of danger as in any degree an abbreviation of the rights of American shipmasters or American citizens, bound on lawful errands as passengers on merchant ships of belligerent nationality. It must hold the Imperial German Government to a strict accountability for any infringement of those rights, international or incidental.

"The objection to their present method of attack lies in the practical impossibility of employing submarines in the destruction of commerce without disregarding those rules of fairness, reason, justice and humanity which all modern opinions regard as imperative.

"American citizens act within their indisputable rights in taking their ships and traveling wherever their legitimate business calls them upon the high seas.

"No warning that an unlawful and an inhuman act will be committed can possibly be accepted as an excuse or palliation for that act, or as an abatement of the responsibility for its commission. * * *

"The Imperial German Government will not expect the Government of the United States to omit any word or any act necessary to the performance of its sacred duty or the inalienable rights of the United States and its citizens, and of safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment."

WHOLESALE DESTRUCTION OF VESSELS.

Apparently Germany modified her submarine policy for a period of upward of a year, or until in February, 1917, when to the astonished world she threw aside all pretense and declared her intention of destroying any vessel which attempted to cross or sailed into a zone which she established along the English coast and around English and French ports. America's further protests availed not; her citizens, many of them, went to the bottom of the seas, and some of them suffered almost unbelievable cruelties or neglect, when the captain of a German sea raider with some humanitarian instincts permitted these innocent passengers or seamen to be rescued from the torpedoed vessels on which they were.

Even the Red Cross vessels and Belgian relief ships carrying supplies and food to the maimed or sick at war and the starving children of Belgium did not escape the torpedo from the submarine. English hospital ships were attacked, and men unable to protect themselves were subjected to danger because the Germans feared that something might be carried on the boat which would prove valuable to the Allied forces in making war.

Dozens—even hundreds of vessels of all sorts—were sunk from week to week. Food and supplies for the Allied forces were destroyed, until both England and France were threatened with starvation.

All this was the work of the submarine.

One smiled twenty-five years ago when he read that highly imaginative story of Jules Verne, "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," and wondered if it would ever be possible for man to create such a marvelous underseas craft as that which the famous French writer described. Today the imaginative detail of the submarine which the novelist described has been crystallized, and the world has learned that dreams sometimes come true.

Marvelous things have been developed by the war which is involving the peace and security of the world, but no single device has had such an effect upon the warfare and upon the methods of waging it as the diabolical submarine, which, like an assassin in the night, sneaks upon the great ships along the water highways of the world and sends them with their human freight to the bottom of the ocean.

TORPEDO'S DEADLY WORK.

A giant cigar-shaped missile, whose nose is pointed with guncotton and filled with high explosives—and which the world knows as the torpedo—launches forth from the submarine, and speeding under the drive of a propeller at the stern steers its way into the side of the battleship or great steamship. The torpedo plunges into the bowels of the vessel. There is a tremendous explosion, and the water-tight compartments of the vessel are torn open; the boat fills, and the pride of the seas is no more.

Had the vessel's master and her crew any warning? No; unless the vigilant officer on the bridge should note a thin pole with a hooked end projecting above the surface of the ocean some miles away, and turning his glasses upon it discover that it is the "eye" of a submarine—the periscope—which is protruding above the surface. Then he may turn his larger vessel and ram the submarine, or change the course of his craft so that the torpedo launched by the submarine will miss its mark, or perhaps expert gunners may turn the muzzles of their rapid-fire guns upon the underseas craft and riddle it before it can get far enough below the surface of the water to make the attack upon it futile.

EFFICIENCY OF THE SUBMARINE.

The enormous inroads on the world's shipping made by German submarines during the war shows the efficiency of this diabolical device. In the first two years and a half of the war statistics were compiled to show that more than 10 per cent of the world's merchant marine was destroyed by Germany's underseas craft of the U-boat type. Incidentally, the name U-boat as applied to submarines developed because Germany, instead of naming these slinking boats, as is the custom with surface-cruising vessels, painted upon the conning tower or nose of the craft the letter U, representing the word "underseas," coupled with the numeral denoting the number of the boat. Thus those who sail the ocean highways came to recognize the fact that a conning tower or low, sharp-nosed craft bearing the mystic characters U-9 was a German underseas boat No. 9.

The statistical records at the end of April, 1917, showed that nearly 3000 vessels of almost 5,000,000 gross tons were destroyed by the U-boats in the war. More than half of the vessels sunk belonged to England. Norway and France were the next greatest sufferers from the submarine warfare. In one week after Germany announced her intention to give no quarter, but to sink any vessel which came within the range of the U-boat torpedoes, the toll of ships lost was more than 400,000 tons.

At the beginning of the war the submarine was to all intents and purposes a novelty—a boat of recognized possibilities, but existing very largely in the experimental stage. Its use was very largely ignored by naval men, although it was conceded that when properly developed it would prove a wonderful agency of destruction. The proud commanders of the great battleships, with their 10, 12 and 14 inch guns, which sent great shells miles across the ocean, looked down upon the little underseas boat, and applied to it the sobriquet of "tin sardine."

But the "tin sardine" has grown up, and the commander of the monster war vessel is at the mercy of the little craft which he ridiculed. A short time ago Holland, the American inventor of the modern submarine, died of a broken heart. His type was necessarily an experimental one. He built five boats before he was able to sell one to the United States Government, and this latter one, after being bought by a junk dealer, who intended to break it up for its metals, was finally rescued from such an inglorious end by the city of New York, which has placed it in her municipal museum.

PRINCIPLE OF THE SUBMARINE.

Germany has developed the highest type of submarines, which she has used to the fullest advantage. The principle of the submarine is that of a floating bottle. An empty bottle, as every one knows, will float on the surface, but submerges as soon as it is filled with water. The submarine has, as part of its constructive features, a number of compartments which, as they are filled or emptied of water, enables the craft to submerge or rise.

At the bow and stern, respectively, there are two horizontal rudders, and as these are manipulated at various angles so the bow points either upward or downward, and with a steady gliding motion the submarine slides under or is brought to the surface.

This, in brief, is the story of the submarine. Its history is another matter; its radius of action and results achieved one of the marvels of the ages. A long-sheathed body, the shape of a cigar with the butt end to the fore, the inside filled with machinery and compactness the order of the day, might be regarded as a fair description from a physical standpoint. It has spread terror to all corners of the earth, and, taken in proportion to its size and steaming radius, may well be said to be the superior of the super-dreadnought.

The manner in which the submarine is operated is difficult to describe. It leads a sort of dual existence. When cruising along the surface "awash," it is propelled like a motorboat, the power being provided by a gasoline engine; but when it dives or submerges it is operated underwater by electric motors, and the steering, pumping, handling, loading and firing of the torpedoes is done pneumatically and electrically. The interior of the submarine is a marvel of mechanical complexity and scientific detail. There are gauges to show the water pressure, to indicate the speed, to show the depth; sensitive devices by which the commander can tell of the approach of vessels; wheels, cranks, levers and instruments which are used in driving and controlling this almost human mechanical agency of the seafighter.

SUBMARINE AN ANOMALY IN WARFARE.

The submarine is the sudden and amazing problem of the naval world. While naval men assert with confidence that it can never win the mastery of the seas, in the same breath they will admit that it may easily prevent the older and better known types of ships from establishing the mastery that was once theirs. It is an anomaly in warfare.

Many are the tales of horror told by survivors of ships which have been torpedoed by the undersea boats of the Teutons. The lordly Lusitania, on board of which were some of the leading lights of literature and some of the world's wealthy men, was sent to the bottom without the least warning. Neutral shipping has been devastated, and men, women and children have been murdered by the hand of the Kaiser, as exemplified in the lurking submarine.

One of the dastardly tragedies of the war was the sinking of the Lars Kruse, a ship flying the Danish flag and which had been chartered by the Belgian Relief Commission. This was sunk in the early part of February, 1917, and the crew of nineteen men, together with the captain and other officers, with the exception of the first mate and Axel Moeller, the first engineer, perished in the bitter cold sea. No warning was given by the attacking submarine; indeed, no sight of it was had by the crew. Delivering its torpedo as it lay submerged, it silently stole away into the night after the murders had been done.

In the maritime court in Copenhagen Mr. Moeller tells of the sinking of the ship. Dressed as the regulations of the German autocrat demanded, with the balloon, flag and bunting displayed at each of the mastheads, together with other marks of identification, the ship was steaming along in the bright moonlight when she was struck, according to the testimony of the engineer.

SHIP NOT STRUCK BY A MINE.

The fact that the ship was hit near the fourth hatch alone combats the theory that she was struck by a mine. In this latter case the mine would have struck her nearer the bow. The ship was near the mouth of the English channel when hit. In an instant she started to settle, and the crew at once lowered away the single lifeboat.

The boat had hardly started over the side, however, before the ship lurched, and with a mighty heave went down stern first. She seemed to turn a back somersault, according to the engineer, and because of the fact that the lifeboat was not clear it was dragged under. The men succeeded in cutting the ropes, however, and the lifeboat came to the surface, although bottom side up. Engineer Moeller was struck on the head as the boat came to the surface, but, although he was momentarily stunned, the icy water quickly revived him.

Striking out for the lifeboat, the engineer soon had a tight grip on her side. A man struggling in the water grasped his wrist, but by a quick movement he wrenched himself free, and then, climbing upon the boat, reached out and caught the man by the hand. Then began a slow struggle to get him aboard, but the men were unequal to the task, and the man in the water sank. Part of the skin and flesh of his hand remained in the fingers of Moeller, showing the desperation with which he had clung to the man's hand.

Three other men, who were fast becoming exhausted, were assisted upon the boat, where they lay sprawled across its bottom. Four others were in the water, making a total of seven who were alive.

Water and air were freezing cold, and Moeller, who was in the water, together with three others, held to the gunwales with stiffened fingers. Within the hour one of the sailors gave up the struggle, and with a farewell to the others slid quietly into the depths.

PASSENGERS' AGONIZING SUFFERINGS.

Finally Moeller climbed upon the upturned boat, where he lay listening to the shrieks of his companions. He said that their cries were most pitiful. The cabin boy was the next victim. He cried pitifully for a time, but finally became silent and slid into the water. One after another, the men died of exposure and slipped into the peaceful sea.

After a time the only persons remaining, besides the third mate, were the two who had thrown themselves across the bottom of the boat. Finally one of them gave up the struggle, and the other, in an effort to combat the cold, pulled the clothes from his dead body and wrapped them about himself. The boat settled a little, and finally both were corpses, lying with feet and hands dipping into the sea. The engineer said that he did not have the heart to push their bodies into the water, although he knew they were dead.

Finally the third mate was the only other man alive. The clothes of the engineer were frozen fast to his body, and he felt that he was dying of cold. The third mate started to get a sort of bluish black from the cold, and with a gasping cry he attempted to sit up straight. Then reason left him, and for a couple of hours he shouted and shrieked, and, as the sun began to streak the sky and dawn brought slight comfort, the demented man raved and swore.

Then a flash of reason seemed to return to him and he spoke to Moeller.

"I'm going," he said. "Give my love to my wife."

The man had been married just before starting on this ill-fated voyage. With this farewell message on his lips he died. When Moeller returned to his home he found that it was impossible to deliver the message to the wife of the dead man, because of the fact that worry had driven her insane.

TROUSERS USED AS SIGNAL.

Shortly after the death of his companion Moeller saw the smoke of a steamer on the horizon. Summoning all his strength, he tore the trousers from the limbs of one of the dead men, and, using them as a means of signaling, swung them about his head to attract attention. As the engineer made every effort to attract the attention of those aboard the steamship, he saw a sneaking submarine slowly edging toward her. This made him shout all the louder, thinking thereby to warn the captain of the ship of his danger. His efforts were vain, however, and in a short time the ship had gone to the bottom and the crew was adrift in the lifeboats. The sunken ship proved to be a Russian steamer.

In his efforts to attract the attention of the intended victim of the U-boat, the drifting man had attracted the attention of the captain of the submarine, and it was this boat to which his cold-stiffened body was hauled a few minutes later. It was a time before his numb body could be thawed out.

Seeming to know from which ship he had been cast off, the engineer was closely questioned by the captain of the submarine. As the captain talked he made motions, as though to shut out from before his eyes a horrible sight. He told Moeller afterwards that the most horrible sight he had ever seen was the overturned boat with the two corpses laying on it, and the lone man signaling for help. The victim was black from cold, and his legs were rubbed by members of the crew. Port wine was given him, and later food and coffee.

Then the captain continued his questioning. He knew the name of the boat on which Moeller had been engineer, and from his intimate knowledge of the sinking of her, the engineer felt sure it was his submarine that had done the work.

SUBMARINE TOWS RUSSIAN SHIP.

Turning his attention to the lifeboats of the Russian ship which he had just torpedoed, the captain of the submarine promised to tow them to the French coast. He had been towing them but two hours, however, when he came below and told Moeller that he had sighted a French destroyer, and that he would have to make his escape. He gave the engineer his choice of staying on the submarine, in which case it would be fourteen days before he touched port, after which he was promised his freedom, or the privilege of getting aboard one of the lifeboats, and taking his chances of rescue by the destroyer.

Electing to take his chances in the lifeboat, Moeller was fitted out with new clothing, the outfit being topped off with a fur-lined overcoat. It turned out, however, that the captain had taken this clothing from the stores of the Russian steamer before sinking her, and the engineer learned when he got into the lifeboat that he was wearing the greatcoat of one of the shivering Russians.

Just before submerging the U-boat set off a couple of red-light bombs, for the purpose of attracting the attention of the crew of the destroyer, and submerged. The drifters were picked up by the destroyer, which steamed for France. The captain of the U-boat had promised Moeller that he would not attack the destroyer, although he had been trailing her for two weeks. The U-boat was sunk before she reached port, and all perished.

An American importer who, because of his German name and the intimate relations he enjoyed with certain important men in Berlin, had been taken to the hearts of some of the leaders, became a factor in pro-German activities in Cuba. He was taken into the confidences of many of the officials and learned the plans of the Tirpitz group.

Deciding that his allegiance was American, he returned to the United States. In his possession were many of the inner secrets of the German Government, and these were given to the officials in Washington. His information with reference to the submarine has been of great value to the government.

For the sake of convenience we will call the man Johann Schmidt. This is his story:

THE U-BOAT TYPE OF SUBMERSIBLE.

Germany's most successful and highly developed class of submarine has been, of course, the U-boat type of submersible. These are the terrors of the sea which have succeeded in crossing the Atlantic, and have been developed both as the fighting and as the commercial U-boat.

Herr Schmidt reported that Germany was constructing submarines 25 per cent larger than anything the United States had ever seen or heard of. His information was to the effect that Germany had a building capacity for ten submarines a week. The ability to produce these boats with such rapidity is due to the process of standardization—the practice of modern efficiency which has made it possible for American factories to turn out such big quantities of automobiles in a limited period.

All parts of the German U-boats are made in standard sizes and from the same original pattern. Consequently, these parts are turned out by machinery in replica, and the building of the finished boats is merely a matter of assembling them at points to which the various parts have been shipped. The Diesel oil engine, which is regarded as the ideal power-producing engine for submarines, has been developed to its highest state of efficiency by Germany, and is made at the famous Krupp gun works, the great engine works in Augsburg, Emden and Nuremburg, and other less well-known places in Germany.

It has been estimated that Germany has anywhere from 250 to 500 submarines, and it is said that the aim is to produce 1000 of these craft, to absolutely destroy the commerce of the seas and starve into submission England and France.

HOW SUBMARINES WORK.

According to Herr Schmidt, the submarines work in groups of four. Because of the limited capacity of the boats for carrying provisions, supplies and fuel, it is necessary for them to have supply bases, to which they can return and secure torpedoes. In operation each group consists of four submarines, traveling along in a diamond-shaped formation, one in front, one on either flank and one in rear. Eight miles separate the boats. The leading submarine carries the extra gasoline and supplies and acts as a scoutship; she sights a vessel, reports its speed and direction and then submerges—her task is done.

The two torpedo carriers on either flank immediately change their courses so as to converge on the prey, and they arrive one on either side of her—they get her in between them. The boat in the rear keeps them informed as to the doomed ship's progress, and submerges at the last moment. She carries the extra crews for the fighting pair. The U-boats are fairly well protected against the onslaught of the light torpedo-boat destroyers and chasers, because the decks are protected by several feet of water at almost all times, while the commanding tower is covered with from two to three inches of the best steel armor plate.

It is related that at the outset of the U-boat menace, England ordered its commanding officers to ram the U-boats on sight. The length to which the Germans will go in an effort to win is illustrated by the fact that, in consequence of this order, a Von Tirpitz council presented this answer: Attacking submarines were equipped with explosive mines containing 300 to 400 pounds of nitroglycerin or guncotton. To the top of this mine was fastened a fake periscope. This devilish device was attached to the submarine by a light cable, and towed along the surface of the water 1000 feet or more behind the submarine. The result that would follow any attempt on the part of a commander to run down one of these decoys is readily imagined.

DESCRIPTION OF A PERISCOPE.

The periscope is distinctly a submarine device which is worthy of brief description. It is, in effect, a long tube, with an elbow joint at the top and a similar one at the bottom. At the elbow joints at both ends are arranged reflectors. The reflector in the upper end catches the object which comes within the range of vision, and reflects the image down the tube to the mirror at the lower elbow, where the pilot sees it. The principle of the periscope is the same as that of the "busybody," familiar to householders, and which is placed on the sill of an upper window, so that a person inside the house may see who is at the front door.

The Germans have recently devised a new form of periscope, designed to make the device invisible to the lookout of approaching boats. This device consists of two mirrors, put together like a "Y" lying on its side, the wide part in front. These skim through the waves and converge the image upon the low periscope's lens, which shoots the light down the tube to the receiving apparatus below. When looked at from a distance the mirrors reflect the surface of the sea, so that a lookout sees nothing but the waves as they are reflected in the mirror.

The Germans use the bottom of the sea as regular "land" for their supply bases, and when the submarines go to the surface it is precisely like an aeroplane mounting the air. The submarine fleet boasts also of "mother boats." They lie on the bottom of the ocean, in designated places, and rise at night to hand out their supplies. Crews are changed and tired men go back to the bottom to rest up, while fresher comrades take their places.

So, too, the submarine, with its ability to rest on the bottom of the sea, has become an efficient boat for mine laying. The mine layers work from the undersea boats without fear of disturbance, the divers walking out from the submarines to the floor of the sea without being seen or without ever coming to the surface.

TALES OF REMARKABLE EXPLOITS.

American citizens landed from vessels sunk by German submarines tell remarkable tales of the strenuous exploits of the U-boats. In one case three undersea boats appeared simultaneously alongside the ship, one being a submarine cruiser, 800 feet long, and the others old-fashioned submarines, with a length of about 120 feet.

In another case a German submarine wore an elaborate disguise of a fishing boat. This submarine carried a gun which had a range of nearly five miles.

In at least two cases the crews of vessels sunk by submarines were rescued from open boats by passing ships, only to suffer a repetition of disaster when the ship on which they had taken refuge fell prey to an underwater boat.

A seaman from Pensacola, who was a member of the crew of a Swedish sailing vessel, said:

"We were almost within sight of land late in the afternoon when we observed a Norwegian sailing vessel in an encounter with a submarine eight miles away. Apprehending that our turn would come next, we prepared a lifeboat. A 300-foot submarine came up to us in due course and fired three warning shots from its heavy gun.

"We pulled our boat over to the lifeboat from the Norwegian ship previously sunk, and a dozen hours later were picked up by a British steamer. We had only a brief stay on the British boat, as she was torpedoed the same morning. After a few hours in the boats we were found by a British patrol and landed."

A Baltimore seaman from a Danish sailing vessel said:

THE SHIP ABANDONED.

"We abandoned ship in response to three shots from a submarine. Thereupon the submarine fired twenty-two shots into the hull of the ship, sinking her. We tried to speak with the submarine commander, but he told us he was in a hurry, as he had to attend to a Norwegian bark which was waiting a short distance off.

"We pulled for the nearest land, and all our twenty-five men got ashore safe, although both lifeboats were badly smashed up in the surf as we were beaching them."

A Philadelphian described the manner in which his steamer escaped being sunk.

"We were attacked by a submarine disguised as a fishing vessel," he said. "She opened fire on us at five miles, sending fifteen shots at us, and smashing our wireless. She pursued us for an hour. We did not use our gun. Finally a British patrol boat appeared. The submarine submerged, disguise and all, presenting a ludicrous sight as the carefully prepared equipment simulating a fishing boat sank beneath the waves."

The captain of an American sailing ship which was sunk said:

"Submarines are lying along the sea lanes in regular nests. They keep well under the water most of the time, coming up now and then for periscopic observations, or on hearing the approach of merchant craft, which often can be identified readily by the sound of the engines. By thus conserving fuel the submarines are able to remain away from their base a long time, and also they find means of renewing their stores from ships which they sink.

"The U-boat which sank us had been out for six weeks. She had one British captain on board. She renewed all her supplies from our boat and took all the nautical instruments. The submarine gave us a sharp signal to halt, with a shell from a distance of two miles. It was good marksmanship. The shot hit the ship squarely, but caused no casualties. We stopped and took to the boats. The submarine came up in leisurely fashion, sank the ship with bombs and passed the time of day with our boats. She had a crew of thirty-seven, and was 250 feet long."

"We were picked up by a Norwegian sailing vessel, on which we spent six days. She was then attacked by a 120-foot submarine. We all took to the Norwegian's boats. The submarine commander declined to look at the Norwegian captain's papers. We had another twenty-four hours in open boats, and then were picked up by a British patrol and landed."



CHAPTER VIII.

THWARTING THE U-BOAT.

NETS TO ENTANGLE THE SEA SHARKS OF WAR—"CHASERS" OR "SKIMMING-DISH" BOATS—"BLIMPS" AND SEAPLANES—HUNTING THE SUBMARINE WITH "LANCE," BOMB AND GUN—A SAILOR'S DESCRIPTION.

The advantage which Germany gained by the development of what has been termed the super-submarine placed the other nations where it became absolutely necessary for them to concentrate their energies in an effort to counteract the devastation which the U-boats brought upon the seas. England tried first to protect the English channel and many of its ports with mines, floating bombs and submarine nets, and while the latter served as barriers which prevented the submarines penetrating into some of the important waters and harbors, they could act merely in a protective sense.

The submarine net is a specially devised net with heavy iron or wire meshes, similar to a fishing net. These nets—miles in length—were born of the nets originally devised to sweep harbors clear of mines. They are carried between two boats described as trawlers, which are a form of sea-going tug with powerful engines, that can draw a heavy load. A heavy cable runs from trawler to trawler, and from this the chain net is suspended in the water. It is heavily weighted at the bottom so as to hold it in a perpendicular position. The trawlers steaming along, side by side, sweep up with the net anything which may be placed in the water for the purpose of blowing up or injuring vessels.

The submarine nets in some places have been anchored to form a regular barrier against the passage of submarine boats, and in this way were effective, but their use could in no way restrict the underseas boats in their work upon the open seas.

The most effective plan of overcoming the dire consequences of the U-boat warfare was found, therefore, to lie in the use of submarine chasers and airships, the two operating together in conjunction with the battleships, cruisers and torpedo boat destroyers.

The submarine chaser is a light-draught, high-powered, skimming-dish type of husky motorboat, mounting rapid-fire, 3 or 4-inch guns. In order to prove effective against the submarine it is necessary to have many of these boats, and it is a matter of particular interest that the marvelous resources of the United States at the time of her entrance into the war enabled her to immediately begin a campaign for the construction of chasers, which would be able to guard the seas in the channels of traffic and along the ports into which the submarine might attempt to sneak.

NO EXPERT NAVAL KNOWLEDGE REQUIRED.

The operation of the chaser does not require the degree of technical skill and knowledge of naval strategy required in the handling of ships of the naval type. A fleet of chasers is manned largely by naval reserves, who have a certain amount of training, but who are neither navigators nor experts in naval affairs. The operations are, however, directed by the naval authorities.

The submarine chaser is effective because it draws very little water, has high speed, can be quickly turned and diverted from its course and does not present any great depth of hull at which the submarine can fire a torpedo. It would be possible for a torpedo to pass under a chaser without hitting it—if the submarine cared to waste such an expensive weapon on so small an adversary. When the submarine attempts to come to the surface and use the rapid-fire gun with which she is armed she is at a disadvantage, because it takes her several minutes to emerge. Additional time is required to swing the gun up through its automatic hatch while the men scramble to the deck to man it.

The chaser, with a speed of approximately 35 to 40 miles an hour, will travel somewhere between a mile and a half to two miles in this period. Its gun has been ready from the start, and the chaser has had half a dozen shots or so with only a single hit needed to put the submarine out of commission. Even if the submarine is at the surface and has her gun mounted ready for action, she is at a disadvantage with the chaser. The chaser, taking advantage of her speed and small size, goes skimming across the water at the rate of 40 miles an hour, and it takes a mighty fine gunner to be able to hit a small craft, going in a zigzag course over the water at such speed.

The chaser may continue to circle the submarine awaiting her opportunity which will of necessity come when the U-boat attempts to submerge. The submarine must go through the regular form of running back her gun, and battening down the water-tight hatches, before she can submerge, and the latter process again takes several minutes. Therefore while the submarine is preparing to dip, the chaser can run upon her and let loose the fire from its rapid-fire gun.

A POOR SURFACE FIGHTER.

The submarine, by very virtue of the qualities which make it a good submarine, is a poor boat for surface fighting. It can carry no very heavy armament, and it is not heavily armored. The problem of stowing away all the heavy machinery, supplies, torpedoes and devices necessary for her operations and maneuvering has presented about all the difficulties the constructors have been able to handle. The highest speed of the submarine is not in excess of 20 miles an hour. The submarine must be light and easy to handle. It gains in steadiness and certainty of operation with increased size, but it loses in capacity for quick and delicate maneuvering.

In addition the submarine has what is termed a strategic vulnerability. A shot which might mean nothing more serious than a hole in the side to a surface boat would end the submarine's usefulness for underseas work and convert her into a helpless hulk of surface craft.

The submarine is an easy quarry for a chaser, for even when submerged and moving along, the U-boat creates a distinct wave on the surface of the water which can be followed by the chaser. The little boats are just what their name implies—chasers—and besides having the qualities already described they may conceal themselves behind large steamers, and when the submarine in preparing to launch a torpedo makes its presence known the chaser may speed from its hiding place and drive the underseas craft away, even if it does not succeed in injuring it.

OPERATING IN CONNECTION WITH AN AEROPLANE.

The chasers also have a special facility of operation in connection with the aeroplane or seaplane, principally because of their high speed; and next to the chaser the aeroplane is one of the submarine's worst enemies. Used in conjunction with the regular torpedo boat destroyers of the navy, the chaser and the aeroplane promise in future wars to minimize the effectiveness of the underseas craft. This is proven by the fact that immediately after the United States naval forces joined those of the Allies in European waters, the disasters resultant upon submarine attacks were greatly reduced. The speedy destroyers, while not actually sinking many submarines, by their vigilance prevented the submarine from operating.

Large types of the chasers ordered in this country by the Russian Government are 72 feet long by 11 feet 3 inches wide and draw 3 feet 3 inches of water. Each boat carries three of the 8-cylinder 6-3/4 x 7-3/4 Duesenberg, 350 to 400 horsepower motors. The boats carry an 18-inch torpedo tube amidships and a 47-millimetre rapid-fire gun on the forward deck. They are controlled from the bridge deck with a sheltered cabin for the quartermaster, with controls from either the shelter or bridge deck. They have a guaranteed speed of twenty-eight knots.

Deck arrangements consist of the following: A hatch to the fo'castle, followed by; the emplacement for the rapid-fire gun. Following this is the steering shelter containing duplicate controls, &c., for the engine room and for the steering. Immediately aft of the steering shelter is the bridge deck, located on top of the engine room trunk house. The entire after half of the vessel is a clear sweep of deck with the exception of a booby hatch to crews' quarters well aft.

The boats are arranged for wireless with foremast and jigger mast. Rail stanchions in the way of the torpedo tube are hinged down, giving clear sweep to the tube for firing purposes.

PROVISION FOR OFFICERS AND CREW.

Below decks ample space has been provided for the crew and officers. The forepeak is arranged for chain lockers and bosun's gear lockers, followed by ship's galley, which has two pipe berths. Next to the galley is located the officers' cabin and wireless room, which is entered by a hatch from the steering shelter. This cabin accommodates two officers and includes lavatory, officers' desks, wireless desk and folding mess table.

Next aft is the machinery space, in which are located the three eight cylinder Duesenberg motors, a three k.w. universal lighting set, the necessary oil tanks, batteries and a work bench. The next compartment contains fuel tanks, with 1300 gallons capacity. Aft of this compartment is located the crew's quarters, berthing eight men, with lavatory attached. The hull is divided into six water-tight compartments by steel bulkheads.

The hull is of wooden construction, as developed for this service by the builders.

The 72-footers develop a speed of twenty-eight knots and have a cruising radius exceeding 1200 miles. The design of the hull is the concave bottom, square bilge type, developed for this particular service. It furnishes a steady gun platform, which, with the necessary speed, is the most vital feature of a submarine chaser.

The demand for speed and stability was borne out by the experience of the Russian and Italian navies in their active work and no consideration at all is given propositions from these two countries which do not range well about twenty-five knots.

Exceptional success was attained by the Russian Black Sea and by the Italian high speed fleets in actual use and their demand for exceptional speed was based on experience.

It is a well known fact that the Russian government was successful in patrolling its shores and in protecting its harbors and shipping. The Italian government also was exceptionally successful in maintaining its mercantile fleet in comparative safety and in protecting its harbors against the offensive work of enemy submarines. The entire Italian fleet of submarine chasers consists of high speed, high powered motor patrol boats, most of which were equipped with American made motors.

CATALOGUED AS "PATROL BOATS."

In a general way the "chasers" are catalogued in naval circles as "patrol boats." England has thousands of them, ranging from motorboats to naval auxiliaries, raking the English Channel, the North Sea and the waters all about the British Isles. As a rule the boats work in groups of five or six, one boat serving as a flagship—and often there is a "blimp" attached to the fleet. The armament of these small vessels is distinctive. Each carries, besides a deck gun, a "depth charge," half a dozen lance bombs and arms for each member of the crew. The deck gun fires a shell that weighs about thirteen pounds.

The "depth charge" is a submarine bomb, so constructed that it is discharged at any determined depth of water when thrown overboard. If the water is 100 feet deep the bomb will explode at that depth. The bombs are used to drop in places where the submarine has been located or is expected of lurking in the bottom of the sea. While the exploding bomb may not strike the underseas boat it will create havoc on board the underwater craft if discharged in close proximity, the extra water pressure exerted causing disarrangement of the delicate mechanism, if not rendering the boat unfit for service.

Some of the patrol boats of the English have been armed with "lance bombs." These are bombs of highly explosive character which are fastened to the end of a long pole or staff. They are used just as a harpoon is used when by chance a submarine may emerge from the water in too close proximity to the chaser. It is not of record that any U-boats have been sunk with these strange javelins, but official reports show that the boats are armed with them for emergencies.

CHASER TROUBLES THE SUBMARINE.

What with dragging bombs through the water, and setting traps and nests for the submarines, the chasers make great trouble for the underseas craft, but the ingenious Germans are constantly on the alert, and it has been proved that in one or two instances at least the submarines cut their way through the heavy chain nets which were set to catch them near Havre. It was said that the submarine was provided with steel knives or wire cutters, and shears operated by electricity or pneumatic pressure, which enabled the boat to cut its way through the barrier of chains and wires.

As a means of visualizing the operations of the "chaser" and giving some idea of the excitement which attends the attempt to run down the underseas craft, the following description by an English sailor is interesting. The chase occurred off the Isle of Wight:

"Offshore a short distance was a patrol boat lying very low and flying distress signals. We had run over to her and learned that about an hour before the periscope of a submarine had been stuck up not far from her, then the craft had submerged, appeared again about a mile away, and fired four shots, which let in enough water slowly to sink the patrol, which before the war had been nothing but a dirty little trawler.