The Project Gutenberg eBook of New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915, by Various

Title: New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW YORK TIMES CURRENT HISTORY; THE EUROPEAN WAR, VOL 2, NO. 5, AUGUST, 1915***

E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Linda Cantoni,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)

CURRENT HISTORY

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE

THE EUROPEAN WAR

AUGUST, 1915

THE LUSITANIA CASE

The American Note to Berlin of July 21

Steps Leading Up to President Wilson’s Rejection
of Germany’s Proposals

THE German Admiralty on Feb. 4 proclaimed a war zone around Great Britain announcing that every enemy merchant ship found therein would be destroyed "without its being always possible to avert the dangers threatening the crews and passengers on that account."

The text of this proclamation was made known by Ambassador Gerard on Feb. 6. Four days later the United States Government sent to Germany a note of protest which has come to be known as the "strict accountability note." After pointing out that a serious infringement of American rights on the high seas was likely to occur, should Germany carry out her war-zone decree in the manner she had proclaimed, it declared:

"If such a deplorable situation should arise, the Imperial German Government can readily appreciate that the Government of the United States would be constrained to hold the Imperial German Government to a strict accountability for such acts of their naval authorities and to take any steps it might be necessary to take to safeguard American lives and property and to secure to American citizens the full enjoyment of their acknowledged rights on the high seas."

The war-zone decree went into effect on Feb. 18. Two days later dispatches were cabled to Ambassador Page at London and to Ambassador Gerard at Berlin suggesting that a modus vivendi be entered into by England and Germany by which submarine warfare and sowing of mines at sea might be abandoned if foodstuffs were allowed to reach the German civil population under American consular inspection.

Germany replied to this on March 1, expressing her willingness to act favorably on the proposal. The same day the British Government stated that because of the war-zone decree of the German Government the British Government must take measures to prevent commodities of all kinds from reaching or leaving Germany. On March 15 the British Government flatly refused the modus vivendi suggestion.

On April 4 Count von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador at Washington, submitted a memorandum to the United States Government regarding German-American trade and the exportation of arms. Mr. Bryan replied to the memorandum on April 21, insisting that the United States was preserving her strict status of neutrality according to the accepted laws of nations.

On May 7 the Cunard steamship Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine in the war zone as decreed by Germany, and more than 100 American citizens perished, with 1,000 other persons on board.

Thereupon, on May 13, the United States transmitted to the German Government a note on the subject of this loss. It said:

"American citizens act within their indisputable rights in taking their ships and in traveling wherever their legitimate business calls them upon the high seas, and exercise those rights in what should be the well justified confidence that their lives will not be endangered by acts done in clear violation of universally acknowledged international obligations, and certainly in the confidence that their own Government will sustain them in the exercise of their rights."

"The Imperial 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 of maintaining the rights of the United States and its citizens and of safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment."

Germany replied to this note on May 29. It stated that it had heard that the Lusitania was an armed naval ship which had attempted to use American passengers as a protection, and that, anyway, such passengers should not have been present. It added:

"The German commanders are consequently no longer in a position to observe the rules of capture otherwise usual and with which they invariably complied before this."

To the foregoing the United States maintained in a note sent to the German Government on June 9 that the Lusitania was not an armed vessel and that she had sailed in accordance with the laws of the United States, and that "only her actual resistance to capture or refusal to stop when ordered to do so ... could have afforded the commander of the submarine any justification for so much as putting the lives of those on board the ship in jeopardy."

"It is upon this principle of humanity, as well as upon the law founded upon this principle, that the United States must stand."

Exactly one month later, on July 9, came Germany's reply. Its preamble praised the United States for its humane attitude and said that Germany was fully in accord therewith. Something, it asserted, should be done, for "the case of the Lusitania shows with horrible clearness to what jeopardizing of human lives the manner of conducting war employed by our adversaries leads," and that under certain conditions which it set forth, American ships might have safe passage through the war zone, or even some enemy ships flying the American flag. It continued:

"The Imperial Government, however, confidently hopes the American Government will assume to guarantee that these vessels have no contraband on board, details of arrangements for the unhampered passage of these vessels to be agreed upon by the naval authorities of both sides."

It is to this reply that the note of the United States Government made public on July 24 is an answer.

Germany's reply of July 8 and President Wilson's final rejoinder of July 21—which was given to the American press of July 24—are presented below, together with accounts of the recent German submarine attacks on the ships Armenian, Anglo-Californian, Normandy, and Orduna, involving American lives, and an appraisal of the German operations in the submarine "war zone" since February 18, 1915, when it was proclaimed. Also Austro-Hungary's note of June 29, protesting against American exports of arms, and an account of American and German press opinion on the Lusitania case are treated hereunder.

THE GERMAN MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS TO
THE AMERICAN AMBASSADOR AT BERLIN

The undersigned has the honor to make the following reply to his Excellency Ambassador Gerard to the note of the 10th ultimo re the impairment of American interests by the German submarine war:

The Imperial Government learned with satisfaction from the note how earnestly the Government of the United States is concerned in seeing the principles of humanity realized in the present war. Also this appeal finds ready echo in Germany, and the Imperial Government is quite willing to permit its statements and decisions in the present case to be governed by the principles of humanity just as it has done always.

The Imperial Government welcomed with gratitude when the American Government, in the note of May 15, itself recalled that Germany had always permitted itself to be governed by the principles of progress and humanity in dealing with the law of maritime war.

Since the time when Frederick the Great negotiated with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson the Treaty of Friendship and Commerce of September 9, 1785, between Prussia and the Republic of the West, German and American statesmen have, in fact, always stood together in the struggle for the freedom of the seas and for the protection of peaceable trade.

In the international proceedings which since have been conducted for the regulation of the laws of maritime war, Germany and America have jointly advocated progressive principles, especially the abolishment of the right of capture at sea and the protection of the interests of neutrals.

Even at the beginning of the present war the German Government immediately declared its willingness, in response to proposals of the American Government, to ratify the Declaration of London and thereby subject itself in the use of its naval forces to all the restrictions provided therein in favor of neutrals.

Germany likewise has been always tenacious of the principle that war should be conducted against the armed and organized forces of an enemy country, but that the enemy civilian population must be spared as far as possible from the measures of war. The Imperial Government cherishes the definite hope that some way will be found when peace is concluded, or perhaps earlier, to regulate the law of maritime war in a manner guaranteeing the freedom of the seas, and will welcome it with gratitude and satisfaction if it can work hand in hand with the American Government on that occasion.

If in the present war the principles which should be the ideal of the future have been traversed more and more, the longer its duration, the German Government has no guilt therein. It is known to the American Government how Germany's adversaries, by completely paralyzing peaceful traffic between Germany and neutral countries, have aimed from the very beginning and with increasing lack of consideration at the destruction not so much of the armed forces as the life of the German nation, repudiating in doing so all the rules of international law and disregarding all rights of neutrals.

On November 3, 1914, England declared the North Sea a war area, and by planting poorly anchored mines and by the stoppage and capture of vessels, made passage extremely dangerous and difficult for neutral shipping, thereby actually blockading neutral coasts and ports contrary to all international law. Long before the beginning of submarine war England practically completely intercepted legitimate neutral navigation to Germany also. Thus Germany was driven to a submarine war on trade.

On November 14, 1914, the English Premier declared in the House of Commons that it was one of England's principal tasks to prevent food for the German population from reaching Germany via neutral ports. Since March 1 England has been taking from neutral ships without further formality all merchandise proceeding to Germany, as well as all merchandise coming from Germany, even when neutral property. Just as it was also with the Boers, the German people is now to be given the choice of perishing from starvation with its women and children or of relinquishing its independence.

While our enemies thus loudly and openly proclaimed war without mercy until our utter destruction, we were conducting a war in self-defense for our national existence and for the sake of peace of an assured permanency. We have been obliged to adopt a submarine warfare to meet the declared intentions of our enemies and the method of warfare adopted by them in contravention of international law.

With all its efforts in principle to protect neutral life and property from damage as much as possible, the German Government recognized unreservedly in its memorandum of February 4 that the interests of neutrals might suffer from the submarine warfare. However, the American Government will also understand and appreciate that in the fight for existence, which has been forced upon Germany by its adversaries and announced by them, it is the sacred duty of the Imperial Government to do all within its power to protect and save the lives of German subjects. If the Imperial Government were derelict in these, its duties, it would be guilty before God and history of the violation of those principles of highest humanity which are the foundation of every national existence.

The case of the Lusitania shows with horrible clearness to what jeopardizing of human lives the manner of conducting war employed by our adversaries leads. In the most direct contradiction of international law all distinctions between merchantmen and war vessels have been obliterated by the order to British merchantmen to arm themselves and to ram submarines, and the promise of rewards therefor, and neutrals who use merchantmen as travelers thereby have been exposed in an increasing degree to all the dangers of war.

If the commander of the German submarine which destroyed the Lusitania had caused the crew and passengers to take to the boats before firing a torpedo this would have meant the sure destruction of his own vessel. After the experiences in sinking much smaller and less seaworthy vessels it was to be expected that a mighty ship like the Lusitania would remain above water long enough, even after the torpedoing, to permit passengers to enter the ship's boats. Circumstances of a very peculiar kind, especially the presence on board of large quantities of highly explosive materials, defeated this expectation.

In addition it may be pointed out that if the Lusitania had been spared, thousands of cases of munitions would have been sent to Germany's enemies and thereby thousands of German mothers and children robbed of breadwinners.

In the spirit of friendship wherewith the German nation has been imbued toward the Union (United States) and its inhabitants since the earliest days of its existence, the Imperial Government will always be ready to do all it can during the present war also to prevent the jeopardizing of lives of American citizens.

The Imperial Government, therefore, repeats the assurances that American ships will not be hindered in the prosecution of legitimate shipping and the lives of American citizens in neutral vessels shall not be placed in jeopardy.

In order to exclude any unforeseen dangers to American passenger steamers, made possible in view of the conduct of maritime war by Germany's adversaries, German submarines will be instructed to permit the free and safe passage of such passenger steamers when made recognizable by special markings and notified a reasonable time in advance. The Imperial Government, however, confidently hopes that the American Government will assume to guarantee that these vessels have no contraband on board, details of arrangements for the unhampered passage of these vessels to be agreed upon by the naval authorities of both sides.

In order to furnish adequate facilities for travel across the Atlantic for American citizens, the German Government submits for consideration a proposal to increase the number of available steamers by installing in passenger service a reasonable number of neutral steamers under the American flag, the exact number to be agreed upon under the same condition as the above-mentioned American steamers.

The Imperial Government believes it can assume that in this manner adequate facilities for travel across the Atlantic Ocean can be afforded American citizens. There would, therefore, appear to be no compelling necessity for American citizens to travel to Europe in time of war on ships carrying an enemy flag. In particular the Imperial Government is unable to admit that American citizens can protect an enemy ship through the mere fact of their presence on board.

Germany merely followed England's example when she declared part of the high seas an area of war. Consequently, accidents suffered by neutrals on enemy ships in this area of war cannot well be judged differently from accidents to which neutrals are at all times exposed at the seat of war on land, when they betake themselves into dangerous localities in spite of previous warnings. If, however, it should not be possible for the American Government to acquire an adequate number of neutral passenger steamers, the Imperial Government is prepared to interpose no objections to the placing under the American flag by the American Government of four enemy passenger steamers for passenger traffic between North America and England. Assurances of "free and safe" passage for American passenger steamers would then extend to apply under the identical pro-conditions to these formerly hostile passenger steamers.

The President of the United States has declared his readiness, in a way deserving of thanks, to communicate and suggest proposals to the Government of Great Britain with particular reference to the alteration of maritime war. The Imperial Government will always be glad to make use of the good offices of the President, and hopes that his efforts in the present case as well as in the direction of the lofty ideal of the freedom of the seas, will lead to an understanding.

The undersigned requests the Ambassador to bring the above to the knowledge of the American Government, and avails himself of the opportunity to renew to his Excellency the assurance of his most distinguished consideration.

The American Rejoinder

THE SECRETARY OF STATE AT WASHINGTON TO THE
AMERICAN AMBASSADOR AT BERLIN

You are instructed to deliver textually the following note to the Minister for Foreign Affairs:

The note of the Imperial German Government, dated the 8th day of July, 1915, has received the careful consideration of the Government of the United States, and it regrets to be obliged to say that it has found it very unsatisfactory, because it fails to meet the real differences between the two Governments, and indicates no way in which the accepted principles of law and humanity may be applied in the grave matter in controversy, but proposes, on the contrary, arrangements for a partial suspension of those principles which virtually set them aside.

The Government of the United States notes with satisfaction that the Imperial German Government recognizes without reservation the validity of the principles insisted on in the several communications which this Government has addressed to the Imperial German Government with regard to its announcement of a war zone and the use of submarines against merchantmen on the high seas—the principle that the high seas are free, that the character and cargo of a merchantman must first be ascertained before she can lawfully be seized or destroyed, and that the lives of noncombatants may in no case be put in jeopardy unless the vessel resists or seeks to escape after being summoned to submit to examination, for a belligerent act of retaliation is per se an act beyond the law, and the defense of an act as retaliatory is an admission that it is illegal.

The Government of the United States is, however, keenly disappointed to find that the Imperial German Government regards itself as in large degree exempt from the obligation to observe these principles, even when neutral vessels are concerned, by what it believes the policy and practice of the Government of Great Britain to be in the present war with regard to neutral commerce. The Imperial German Government will readily understand that the Government of the United States cannot discuss the policy of the Government of Great Britain with regard to neutral trade except with that Government itself, and that it must regard the conduct of other belligerent governments as irrelevant to any discussion with the Imperial German Government of what this Government regards as grave and unjustifiable violations of the rights of American citizens by German naval commanders.

Illegal and inhuman acts, however justifiable they may be thought to be, against an enemy who is believed to have acted in contravention of law and humanity, are manifestly indefensible when they deprive neutrals of their acknowledged rights, particularly when they violate the right to life itself. If a belligerent cannot retaliate against an enemy without injuring the lives of neutrals, as well as their property, humanity, as well as justice and a due regard for the dignity of neutral powers, should dictate that the practice be discontinued. If persisted in it would in such circumstances constitute an unpardonable offense against the sovereignty of the neutral nation affected.

The Government of the United States is not unmindful of the extraordinary conditions created by this war or of the radical alterations of circumstance and method of attack produced by the use of instrumentalities of naval warfare which the nations of the world cannot have had in view when the existing rules of international law were formulated, and it is ready to make every reasonable allowance for these novel and unexpected aspects of war at sea; but it cannot consent to abate any essential or fundamental right of its people because of a mere alteration of circumstance. The rights of neutrals in time of war are based upon principle, not upon expediency, and the principles are immutable. It is the duty and obligation of belligerents to find a way to adapt the new circumstances to them.

The events of the past two months have clearly indicated that it is possible and practicable to conduct such submarine operations as have characterized the activity of the Imperial German Navy within the so-called war zone in substantial accord with the accepted practices of regulated warfare. The whole world has looked with interest and increasing satisfaction at the demonstration of that possibility by German naval commanders. It is manifestly possible, therefore, to lift the whole practice of submarine attack above the criticism which it has aroused and remove the chief causes of offense.

In view of the admission of illegality made by the Imperial Government when it pleaded the right of retaliation in defense of its acts, and in view of the manifest possibility of conforming to the established rules of naval warfare, the Government of the United States cannot believe that the Imperial Government will longer refrain from disavowing the wanton act of its naval commander in sinking the Lusitania or from offering reparation for the American lives lost, so far as reparation can be made for a needless destruction of human life by an illegal act.

The Government of the United States, while not indifferent to the friendly spirit in which it is made, cannot accept the suggestion of the Imperial German Government that certain vessels be designated and agreed upon which shall be free on the seas now illegally proscribed. The very agreement would, by implication, subject other vessels to illegal attack, and would be a curtailment and therefore an abandonment of the principles for which this Government contends, and which in times of calmer counsels every nation would concede as of course.

The Government of the United States and the Imperial German Government are contending for the same great object, have long stood together in urging the very principles upon which the Government of the United States now so solemnly insists. They are both contending for the freedom of the seas. The Government of the United States will continue to contend for that freedom, from whatever quarter violated, without compromise and at any cost. It invites the practical co-operation of the Imperial German Government at this time, when co-operation may accomplish most and this great common object be most strikingly and effectively achieved.

The Imperial German Government expresses the hope that this object may be in some measure accomplished even before the present war ends. It can be. The Government of the United States not only feels obliged to insist upon it, by whomsoever violated or ignored, in the protection of its own citizens, but is also deeply interested in seeing it made practicable between the belligerents themselves, and holds itself ready at any time to act as the common friend who may be privileged to suggest a way.

In the meantime the very value which this Government sets upon the long and unbroken friendship between the people and Government of the United States and the people and Government of the German nation impels it to press very solemnly upon the Imperial German Government the necessity for a scrupulous observance of neutral rights in this critical matter. Friendship itself prompts it to say to the Imperial Government that repetition by the commanders of German naval vessels of acts in contravention of those rights must be regarded by the Government of the United States, when they affect American citizens, as deliberately unfriendly.

DR. ANTON MEYER-GERHARD
Sent by Count Bernstorff to inform the Kaiser upon
the state of American Opinion
(Photo from American Press Association.)

German and American Press Opinion

ON THE GERMAN NOTE OF JULY 8

THE German answer to the United States with regard to submarine warfare was reported from Berlin on July 10 as having caused the most intense satisfaction among the Germans and brought relief to them, for the mere thought that the submarine war would be abandoned would cause widespread resentment.

The Berlin newspapers printed long editorials approving the Government's stand and "conciliatory" tone. Captain Perseus, in the Tageblatt, said that the "new note makes clearer that the present course will be continued with the greatest possible consideration for American interests." The note "stands under the motto, 'On the way to an understanding,' without, however, failing to emphasize the firm determination that our interests must hold first place," in other words, that Germany "cannot surrender the advantages that the use of the submarine weapon gives to the German people."

"Feeling has undoubtedly cooled down somewhat on the other side of the water, and Americans will undoubtedly admit that it is not Germany that tries to monopolize the freedom of the seas for itself alone.

"In any event, we have now done our utmost and can quietly await what answer President Wilson and his advisers will think suitable."

George Bernhard in the Vossische Zeitung remarked that the publication of the note means "liberation from many of the doubts that have excited a large part of the German people in recent weeks. The note ... means unconditional refusal to let any outsider prescribe to us how far and with what weapons we may defend ourselves against England's hunger war."

What they considered the moderation of the note impressed most Berlin newspapers. Thus the Morgen Post said: "Those who had advised that we ought to humble ourselves before America will be just as disappointed as those who thought we ought to bring the fist down on the table and answer America's representations with a war threat."

Count von Reventlow, radical editor of the Tageszeitung, said: "The substance of the proposals is to create a situation making it unnecessary for Americans to travel to Europe on ships under an enemy flag," and the Tägliche Rundschau said that the "answer with gratifying decisiveness, guards the conscience of the nation in the question of continuing the submarine war," but it criticises the note for possibly going too far in making concessions, which "may prove impracticable and result in weakening the submarine war."

The unfavorable reception of Germany's note in the United States, as reported through English and French agencies, was read in Berlin with incredulity.

The Kreuz-Zeitung, the Tageszeitung, and the Boersen Zeitung expressed the belief that British and French news agencies had purposely selected unfavorable editorial expressions from the American newspapers for the sake of the effect they would have in Great Britain and France.

"Regarding the reception of the German note in America," the Kreuz-Zeitung said, "several additional reports from British sources are now at hand. Reuter's Telegram Company presents about a dozen short sentences from as many American papers. Were these really approximately a faithful picture of the thought of the American press as a unit, we should have to discard every hope of a possibility of an understanding. The conception of a great majority of the German people is that we showed in our note an earnest desire to meet, as far as possibly justified, American interests."

Like the Berlin press, German-American newspapers were unanimous in praise of the German note; to the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung it appeared a "sincere effort to meet the questions involved" and as "eminently satisfactory." The New Yorker Herold thought that any one with "even a spark of impartiality" would have to admit the "quiet, conciliatory tone of the German note" as "born of the consciousness in the heart of every German that Germany did not want the war"; that after it was forced on her she "waged it with honorable means." The Illinois Staats-Zeitung of Chicago declared it to be the "just demand of Germany" that Americans should not "by their presence on hostile boats try to protect war materials to be delivered by a friendly nation at a hostile shore." From the Cincinnati Freie Presse came the comment that Washington "has no business to procure safety on the ocean for British ships carrying ammunition."

The American newspapers were nearly unanimous in adverse criticism of the note. The New York Times said that Germany's request was "to suspend the law of nations, the laws of war and of humanity for her benefit." The Chicago Herald declared that the German answer "is disappointing to all who had hoped that it would clearly open the way to a continuance of friendly relations." While the San Francisco Chronicle discerned in the note "an entire absence of the belligerent spirit," it found that "Germany is asking us to abridge certain of our rights on the high seas." To the Denver Post the reply was the "extreme of arrogance, selfishness, and obstinacy," while The Atlanta (Ga.) Constitution remarks that German words and German deeds are separate matters: "The all-important fact remains that since President Wilson's first note was transmitted to that country, Germany has given us no single reasonable cause of complaint." The Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal believes the German reply would carry more weight and persuasion "if it could be considered wholly and apart as an ex parte statement." "Without equivocation and with a politeness of offensively insinuating," the Boston Transcript concludes, "Germany rejects each and all of our demands and attempts to bargain with respect to the future."

ON THE AMERICAN NOTE OF JULY 21

Publication of the American note in Berlin was delayed until July 25, owing to difficulty in translating its shades of meaning. While German statesmen and editors expressed keen appreciation of its literary style, the press was unanimous in considering the note disappointing, expressing pained surprise at the American stand. Captain Perseus, naval critic of the Berlin Tageblatt, said that the note "expresses a determination to rob us of the weapon to which we pin the greatest hopes in the war on England," and indicates that the "pro-British troublemakers have finally won over the President." Count von Reventlow in the Tageszeitung complains of the note's "far too threatening and peremptory tone." The Kreuz-Zeitung says: "We are trying hard to resist the thought that the United States with its standpoint as expressed in the note, aims at supporting England," and Georg Bernhard of the Vossische Zeitung believes that yielding to President Wilson's argument means "the weakening of Germany to the enemy's advantage," adding that any one who has this in mind "is not neutral, but takes sides against Germany and for her enemies." The Boersen Zeitung says it is compelled to say, with regret, that the note is very unsatisfactory and "one cannot escape feeling that the shadow of England stands behind it." The New Yorker Staats-Zeitung says that the note is distinguished for its "clear language," and quotes the phrase "deliberately unfriendly" while noting the demand for disavowal and reparation. "Of quite unusual weight," the Staats-Zeitung says, "is the hint on the fact that the United States and Germany, so far as the freedom of the seas is concerned, have the same object in view." "Sharp and clear is it also explained" that after the end of the war the United States is "ready to play the rôle of an intermediary, in order to find a practicable way out." In fact, the note handed to the Government in Berlin "is at the same time meant for London," since it expresses itself as determined to protect neutrals "against every one of the warring nations." The New Yorker Herold is "certain that the complications will be settled amicably," while the Illinois Staats-Zeitung feels that "apparently our Government has a secret agreement with England intentionally to provoke Germany."

In praise of this note American press opinion is again nearly unanimous. The New York World says that "what the President exacts of Germany is the minimum that a self-respecting nation can demand." The New York Tribune calls the note an admirable American document. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle says it is strongly put, but not too strongly, and the Boston Herald thinks there is no escape from its logic. The Philadelphia Public Ledger says "the final word of diplomacy has obviously been said," and the Administration cannot "engage in further debate or yield on any point." The Chicago Herald believes the note is couched in terms that "no intelligent man would resent from a neighbor whose friendship he values." The St. Louis Republic says: "One hundred and twenty-eight years of American history and tradition speak in President Wilson's vindication." The St. Paul Pioneer Press calls the note "a great American charter of rights," and the Charleston News and Courier declares that "we have drawn a line across which Germany must not step." The Portland Oregonian says: "If there was any expectation that the President's note to Germany would yield any measure of American rights or descend from the noble and impressive determination of the original warning to and demand upon Germany, it has not been fulfilled."

Austria-Hungary’s Protest

According to an Amsterdam dispatch to Reuter's Telegram Company it is stated from Vienna that the Austro-Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs sent a note to the American Ambassador at Vienna on June 29, drawing attention to the fact that commercial business in war material on a great scale is proceeding between the United States and Great Britain and her Allies, while Austria-Hungary and Germany are completely cut off from the American market.

It is set forth in the note that this subject has occupied the Government of the Dual Monarchy from the very beginning, and, although the Government is convinced that the American attitude arises from no other intention than to observe the strictest neutrality and international agreements, yet "the question arises whether conditions as they have developed during the course of the war, certainly independently of the wish of the American Government, are not of such a kind as in their effect to turn the intentions of the Washington Cabinet in a contrary direction.

"If this question is answered in the affirmative, and its affirmation cannot be doubted," according to the opinion of the Austro-Hungarian Government, "then the question follows whether it does not seem possible, or even necessary, that appropriate measures should be taken to make fully respected the wish of the American Government to remain a strictly impartial vis-à-vis of both belligerent parties."

"A neutral government cannot be allowed to trade in contraband unhindered, if the trade take the form and dimensions whereby the neutrality of the country will be endangered. The export of war material from the United States as a proceeding of the present war is not in consonance with the definition of neutrality. The American Government, therefore, is undoubtedly entitled to prohibit the export of war material.

"Regarding the possible objections that American industry is willing to supply Austria-Hungary and Germany, which, however, is impossible owing to the war situation, it may be pointed out that the American Government is in a position to redress this state of things. It would be quite sufficient to advise the enemies of Austria-Hungary and Germany that the supply of foodstuffs and war material would be suspended if legitimate trade in these articles between Americans and neutral countries was not permitted."

In conclusion, the Austro-Hungarian Government appeals to the United States, calling attention to the uninterrupted good relations and friendship between that country and the dual monarchy, to take the present note under careful consideration.

WHY AUSTRIA ACTED

A dispatch from Vienna, via London, dated July 16, gives the following information from The Associated Press:

From a highly authoritative source at the Foreign Office a representative of The Associated Press has received an explanation of the motives that are said to have inspired the dispatch of the Austro-Hungarian note to the United States regarding the American traffic in war munitions.

The Austro-Hungarian statesman who spoke said that, although the facts upon which the note was based had been in existence for a long time, the communication was sent only now, when, after great victories in Galicia, it could not be interpreted as a cry for help from a land in distress. He disavowed in advance any idea that the note was sent at the request or inspiration of Germany, asserting that the step was taken spontaneously in the hope that, owing to the undisturbed friendly relations between Austria-Hungary and the United States, the note would be assured a sympathetic reception in the latter country.

"The note," said this statesman, "is inspired by friendly feelings of the monarchy toward the Union, where so many of our subjects have found a second home. It is the speech of a friend to a friend—an attitude which we are the more justified in taking because the relations of the two states have never been clouded.

"It might, perhaps, easily be a source of wonder that, since the basic grounds of the note have been in existence for months, the note was not sent long ago; but there is a reason for its appearance at this particular time. In view of the incredible rumors and reports about the condition of the monarchy which have been circulating throughout the United States, this note would surely have been interpreted at an earlier stage of events as a confession of weakness, as an appeal for help in distress. Today, when a rich harvest is being garnered throughout the monarchy, when talk of starving out Austria-Hungary therefore is rendered idle, when complaints of shortage of ammunition are heard everywhere else except in the allied central monarchies, there cannot be the slightest question of this.

"On the other hand, it might be asked why the note, under these conditions, was issued at all. With nothing to check the victorious progress of the central powers in sight, with their ability to meet pressure in the economic field demonstrated, it might well be thought that it is a matter of indifference to them whether America continues her policy or not. That, however, is not the case. The problems of international law which this war has brought up are of far-reaching importance. The solutions reached will be standards of action for decades to come.

"For eminently practical as well as theoretical reasons, therefore, the monarchy is forced now not only to concern itself with the questions of the day, but also to feel its responsibility toward the future interests of mankind; and for this reason the Government thought it necessary to approach the subject under discussion—the more so because it felt that the previous debate pro and con had not, as it wished, led to the desired result, and because it believed that numbers of arguments specially laid down in The Hague Convention hitherto had escaped consideration.

"It may, of course, be assumed that the note is a product of mature consideration, and was drafted after consultation with international law experts of the first rank. The absence of the slightest hostile intent in it against the Union is shown not only by the opening phrases, but by the fact that it was published only after it leaked out in the United States that there was no objection to its publication.

"The question of whether Austria-Hungary feels that she is being cut off by America may be answered unreservedly in the affirmative. The military monarchy can and will continue the war as long as necessary. The population will, as hitherto, suffer neither starvation nor material want. But there are other interests than those connected primarily with war which every Government is bound to consider, and unhampered trade relations with the United States are of the greatest importance to us.

"Finally, not only material, also I might say sentimental, interests play a certain rôle not to be underestimated among the people. Many warm friends of America among us are painfully affected by the fact that actual conditions give the impression that America, even though unintentionally, differentiates between the belligerents.

"Austro-Hungarian statesmen, conscious of the great rôle that America will be called upon to play in the future, would forget their duty if they neglected to do everything in their power to clear away the circumstances that shake the confidence of the bravely fighting armies and the whole population in the justice of America. It is clear that the war would have been ended long ago if America had not supplied our enemies with the means of continuing it.

"The assumption that the Austro-Hungarian note was sent at the wish of the German Government is incorrect. On the contrary, it is a completely spontaneous demonstration, inspired wholly by the Austro-Hungarian considerations. We hope it will be received and judged in America in the same spirit in which it was sent."

MR. WOOLSEY’S OPINION

Theodore S. Woolsey, formerly Professor of International Law at Yale University, in Leslie's Weekly, for July 29, has an article entitled "The Case for the Munitions Trade." In part Professor Woolsey says:

In the midst of widespread industrial depression came a great war. This war intensified the depression. It cut off markets, raised freights, retarded payments, upset the whole commercial world and we suffered with the rest. Then shortly came a demand for certain products and certain manufactures caused by the war itself, varied, considerable, even unexpected. This demand grew until it became an appreciable factor in our industrial life, a welcome source of profit when so many other sources of profit were cut off. It was a good thing; at the same time it was a temporary, unnatural thing, and directly or indirectly it was based upon the desire of some of our friends to kill others of our friends. Accordingly people began to give this trade bad names. They called it unneutral, wrong, inhuman.

For the sake of our pockets we were adding to the sum of human suffering and slaughter, and they urged that, even if legally justified, ethically this trade was a blot upon our character as a humane and civilized people and must be stopped. Where does the truth lie? What can the munitions trade say for itself?

Naturally, it turns for justification first to the usage of other wars, to the recognized rules of international law. As expressed in Article 7, Convention XIII, of the 1907 Conference at The Hague, the law is as follows:

"A neutral power is not bound to prevent the export or transit, for the use of either belligerent, of arms, ammunitions or, in general, of anything which could be of use to an army or fleet."

The next previous article had prohibited a Government from engaging in this trade, so that the distinction between what the State and the individual may do is made perfectly clear, provided both belligerents are treated alike. To permit trade in arms with one belligerent and forbid it with another would be unneutral and illegal.

We permit the munitions trade with both belligerents, it is true, and yet, owing to the chances of war, the right to buy inures to the advantage of one only. Does this stamp our conduct as unneutral? Quite the contrary. To embargo munitions bought by one because the other side does not choose to buy would be the unneutral act. Germany doesn't buy because she cannot transport.

She cannot transport, because she does not care to contest the control of the sea with her enemies. Have we aught to do with that? To supplement her naval inferiority by denying to the Allies the fruits of their superiority would be equivalent to sharing in the war on the German side. Moreover, to assume and base action upon German naval inferiority in advance of any general trial of strength would be not only illegal, but even an insult to Germany. Notice that no complaints of our export of munitions have come from the German Government. To make such complaint would be to plead the baby act. Rather than risk her fleet by contesting the control of the sea, thus gaining her share of munitions imports, Germany has chosen to withdraw it behind fortifications, thus losing the munitions trade. Probably the decision is a sound one, but she must accept the results.

(1) German sympathizers who seek to minimize the advantage which sea power gives the Allies.

(2) Those who are governed by their emotions rather than by reason and respect for law. I would call the attention of both these classes to the usage, especially to the German usage, in other wars.

Professor Gregory, in an interesting article, gives statistics of the large German exports of arms to the British forces in the Boer war after the Boer trade had been cut off. In the Russo-Japanese war Krupp notoriously supplied both sides. In the Balkan war there was said to be competition between Krupp and Creusot in furnishing cannon. No state in the nature of things can satisfy its needs in war completely from its own resources. Every belligerent has bought, every neutral has allowed its citizens to sell, munitions since modern war began. England sympathized with the South in our civil war, yet sold to the North. She did the same in 1870 to France.

If the trade in munitions is to be forbidden, then every state must accumulate its own supply or greatly enlarge its arms manufacturing capacity, both wasteful processes. To say that a moderate trade is lawful which a big trade is not is like the excuse of the lady who thought her baby born out of wedlock did not matter because it was such a little one.

The critics of the munitions trade must note furthermore that in our own country that trade cannot be forbidden without explicit legislation.

At the outset of the Spanish war such legislation was passed, as a war measure, forbidding the export of coal or other war material at the discretion of the President. But by resolution of Congress of March 14, 1912, the 1898 resolution was so amended as to apply to American countries only. The reason for this distinction was, of course, to limit the danger of such exports of arms to our neighbor states, particularly to Mexico, as might endanger our own peace and safety. The general right to trade was left undisturbed.

But let us argue the question on ethical grounds alone. I can see no difference between a peace trade and a war trade from the humanitarian standpoint; between arming a neighbor by our exports in preparation for war and rearming him during war. In both cases we help him to kill. Now, if one regards all war as wrong, aid in waging war by trade in munitions, whether in peace time or war time, should be abhorrent to one's conscience. A Quaker gun is not only a paradox, but a sinful one.

Most of us, however, believe that a defensive war, against aggression threatening the life and liberties of a nation, is just and right. In the present war both parties claim to be fighting in self-defense. We are not their judge; we must take both at their word; what we owe both, ethically, is simply equality of treatment.

We help both alike in waging a just war. To do otherwise is to take part in their war. With the flux and flow of the contest which makes our trade valuable or worthless now to one side, now to the other, both ethically and legally we have nothing to do.

Armenian, Orduna, and Others

The diplomatic significance of the sinking of the Leyland liner Armenian on June 28 off the northwest coast of Cornwall is thus dwelt upon in a Washington dispatch to The New York Times, dated July 2, 1915:

The lessons to be derived from the destruction of the Leyland liner Armenian off the English coast are expected to have a most important bearing upon the diplomatic controversy between Germany and the United States over the safety of human life in the submarine warfare.

It is believed here that the Armenian affair demonstrates that it is possible for German submarines of the latest types, when equipped with outside rapid-fire guns, to comply with the demand of President Wilson that the belligerent right of visit and search must be complied with before merchantmen and passenger ships are torpedoed.

Whatever the facts as to minor detail, the outstanding lesson of the affair is that a merchantman tried to escape capture and was finally forced to halt and surrender by a pursuing submarine, and the destruction of the liner by torpedo was not attempted until after those on board who survived the chase had an opportunity to take to the boats. It is evident that if the Armenian's Captain had heeded the warning shots of the submarine and halted the steamer he could have submitted to visit and search and in all probability the destruction of the Armenian could have been effected without loss of life. All international law experts agree that a vessel that refuses to halt when challenged by warning shots from a properly commissioned belligerent war vessel proceeds at her own peril.

In its broader aspects, the Armenian incident presents the most important lesson that has come out of the German undersea campaign for consideration by those engaged in the diplomatic controversy over the various acts of the German submarines—and the lesson is considered extremely vital in its bearing on the pending negotiations, because, if it is at all possible for submarines to exercise the right of visit and search and they actually proceed in accordance with that rule, the Germans may proceed with their warfare against merchantmen carrying contraband without running counter to the expectations of the United States Government. Occasional merchantmen may try to escape capture or destruction by disregarding warning shots, but that will be their affair and the responsibility for loss of life due to efforts to elude submarines, and caused during the period of continued efforts to escape, would not then rest upon the submarines.

The effective use of rapid-fire guns mounted on submarines in bona fide efforts to halt merchant steamers for purpose of visit and search is the important factor in the situation. A submarine not so equipped would find it difficult, if not impossible, to apply the rule of visit and search. Without the outside guns such a submarine would possess no other effective weapon than the torpedo. The submarine that carried no exterior armament could not compel obedience to its mandate for the merchant Captain to stop without firing a torpedo and thus risking the destruction of life with the sinking of the steamer, and a submarine with no outside armament might run the risk, as frequently contended by the German Admiralty, of bomb attack from the rails of the merchant steamer when going alongside of such a vessel.

A submarine like the U-38, which sank the Armenian, carrying one or more outside guns, capable of discharging various kinds of shell, from blank shots to shrapnel, represents an important evolution in the development of marine warfare. Such a craft has the equipment to enable her to visit and search a passing merchantman, and to provide for the safe removal of officers, crew or passengers from a challenged steamer, before the destruction of the vessel. It is only necessary for such a submarine to fire her torpedoes as a last resort for the destruction of the steamer. With her exterior guns a submarine like the U-38, upon meeting a merchant vessel, may fire one or more warning shots, as Captain Trickey of the Armenian says the U-38 did.[1] The raider, he said, fired two warning shots, and when he turned away from her and put on speed, the submarine's guns opened fire on him with shrapnel.

THE ANGLO-CALIFORNIAN

Like the Armenian, the British merchantman Anglo-Californian refused to lie-to when signaled by a German submarine on July 2. Her crew of ninety-five included fifty Americans and Canadians. A Queenstown dispatch of July 5 gave the following account of the action:

The Anglo-Californian left Montreal for the British Isles on June 24. The submarine was sighted at 8 o'clock last Sunday morning. Captain Parslow ordered full steam ahead and wireless calls for aid were sent out. The submarine on the surface proved to be a far speedier craft than the steamer and rapidly overhauled her, meanwhile deluging her with shells. One shot put the wireless apparatus on the Anglo-Californian out of action. Finding that he could not escape by running for it Captain Parslow devoted his attention to manœuvring his ship so as to prevent the submarine from using torpedoes effectively.

"Our Captain was a brave man," said one of the narrators. "He kept at his post on the bridge, coolly giving orders as the submarine circled around us vainly seeking to get a position from which it could give us a death blow with a torpedo. All the while the under-water boat continued to rain, shot and shell upon us, and at times was so close that she was able to employ rifle fire effectively.

"At last one shell blew the Captain off the bridge, killing him outright and terribly mutilating him. Just before that he had given orders to launch the boats, but this was very difficult under the shell fire. Several men were struck down while working at the davits. Ultimately four boats were got overboard and were rowed away until picked up."

The son of Captain Parslow, serving as second mate, was standing by his father's side when the Captain was killed. The son was knocked down by the violence of the explosion. Springing to his feet, he seized the wheel, and, as ably as his father had done, continued dodging the submarine. Another shell burst alongside him, shattering one of the spokes of the wheel, but young Parslow retained his post.

The wireless SOS calls that had been sent out at the first alarm had reached those able to give more than passive assistance, however, and British destroyers appeared. On their approach the submarine abandoned the attack and submerged. Young Parslow was still at the wheel when the destroyers came up.

War zone area showing where the Armenian, (British); Normandy, (American); Anglo-Californian, (British), and Orduna, (British) ships were attacked during the month of July.

THE NORMANDY

How an American ship is alleged to have been used as a shield by a German submarine for the sinking of another vessel is related by members of the crew of the American bark Normandy, which has arrived here from Gulfport, Miss.

The story is that the Normandy was stopped by a German submarine sixty miles southwest of Tuskar Rock, off the southeast coast of Ireland, Friday night. The captain was called aboard the submarine, whence his papers were examined and found to show that the ship was chartered by an American firm January 5.

The captain of the bark, it was asserted, was allowed to return to the Normandy, but under the threat that his ship would be destroyed unless he stood by and obeyed orders. These orders, it was stated, were that he was to act as a shield for the submarine, which lay around the side of the bark, hiding itself from an approaching vessel.

This vessel proved to be the Russian steamer Leo. Presently the submarine submerged and proceeded around the bow of the Normandy, so the story went, and ten minutes later the crew of the Normandy saw the Leo blown up.

Twenty-five persons were on board, of whom eleven were drowned, including three stewardesses. Those saved included three Americans, Walter Emery of North Carolina, Harry Clark of Sierra, and Harry Whitney of Camden, N.J. All these three men when interviewed corroborated the above story. They declared that no opportunity was given those on board the Leo for saving lives.

The Captain of the Normandy told the survivors that he would have liked to signal their danger to them, but that he dared not do so, because his uninsured ship would then have been instantly sunk.

In a Washington dispatch to The New York Times, sent July 13, appeared the following:

The State Department received a short dispatch late this afternoon from Consul General Washington at Liverpool, confirming the report that three Americans were among those rescued by the American bark Normandy at the time of the sinking of the Russian merchant steamer Leo by a German submarine off the Irish coast Friday night. This is the case in which press dispatches asserted that the submarine commander forced the Captain of the Normandy to use his bark as a shield behind which the submarine hid before firing the torpedo which sank the Leo.

The cablegram from Consul General Washington makes no mention of this phase of the affair, and does not show whether the German submarine gave any warning to the commander of the Russian merchant ship before firing the shot which destroyed the latter vessel. The official message says that the Normandy was stopped by the submarine, that the Normandy's papers were examined, and that she was allowed to proceed. The message added that the Normandy rescued three American citizens who were members of the crew of the Leo, and names them as Walter Emery, seaman, of Swan Quarter, N.C.; Harry Whitney, steward, of Camden, N.J., and Harry Clark, fireman, of 113 East Fifty-second Street, Seattle, Wash.

THE ORDUNA

This is the official statement of Captain Thomas M. Taylor of the Cunard liner Orduna, concerning the attack made on his vessel by a German submarine off Queenstown, westbound, on the morning of July 9:

At 6.05 A.M., July 9, the lookout man on the after bridge rang the telegraph, at the same time pointing his hand downward and out on the port beam. The third officer was immediately sent aft to inquire what was seen. He returned quickly and reported both men had seen a torpedo pass across the stern from port to starboard, only ten feet clear of the rudder. In the meantime both the chief officer and myself distinctly saw the trail of the torpedo, extending from the stern to about 200 yards out on the port beam. About eight minutes afterwards the chief officer and I saw the submarine come to the surface about two points on the starboard quarter, a distance of about three-quarters of a mile, with five or six men on her deck, getting her guns ready.

I immediately ordered all possible steam, altered the course, and brought her right astern, when they began shelling us. The first shot struck the water abreast of the forecastle on the starboard side, about thirty feet off. The second dropped just under the bridge; third, abreast of No. 5 hatch, quite close alongside; fourth, under the stern, sending up a volume of water forty feet high; fifth and sixth and last shells all fell short. The firing then ceased, and the submarine was soon left far astern.

Marconi distress signals were sent out at once. We were thirty-seven miles south of Queenstown. I got a reply that assistance would be with us in an hour, but it was four hours before the small armored yacht Jennette appeared. I account for the torpedo missing the ship to their misjudging the speed, allowing fourteen knots instead of sixteen, which we were doing at the time. The torpedo passed only ten feet clear.

It was an ideal day for torpedo attack—light wind, slight ripple, clear weather. The periscope could only have been a few inches above water, for a very strict lookout was being kept at the time by chief and third officers and myself and four lookout men. However, we failed to see her before she fired the torpedo.

Not the least warning was given, and most or nearly all the passengers were asleep at the time. It was almost another case of brutal murder.

The President and the Cabinet decided today to have an investigation made in the case of the British steamer Orduna, which was attacked by a German submarine on July 9 while on her way from Liverpool to New York. This action was taken following the receipt of a statement from W.O. Thompson, counsel of the Federal Industrial Commission, who was a passenger on the ship.

Mr. Thompson did not see any torpedo fired at the Orduna by the German submarine, and was unable to give first-hand testimony that the Orduna had been fired on without notice. It was determined, however, that the report of Mr. Thompson justified the Government in making an investigation.

Accordingly, Secretary Lansing wrote a letter to Secretary McAdoo, requesting that his department undertake the investigation, which will probably be intrusted to the Collector of Customs at New York.

At the State Department it was said that the attention of the German Government had not been called to the charge that the Orduna was fired on by a German submarine without warning. Any action of that sort, if taken, will follow the investigation which is now ordered.

NEBRASKAN’S CASE

Ambassador Gerard on July 15 formally transmitted to Washington Germany's admission of liability and expression of regret for the attack by a German submarine on the American steamer Nebraskan.

Ambassador Gerard has telegraphed to the Department of State the following memorandum from the German Foreign Office relative to the damaging of the American steamer Nebraskan by a German submarine:

"The German Government received from newspaper reports the intelligence that the American steamer Nebraskan had been damaged by a mine or torpedo on the southwest coast of Ireland. It therefore started a thorough investigation of the case without delay, and from the result of the investigation it has become convinced that the damage to the Nebraskan was caused by an attack by a submarine.

"On the evening of May 25 last the submarine met a steamer bound westward without a flag and no neutral markings on her freeboard, about 65 nautical miles west of Fastnet Rock. No appliance of any kind for the illumination of the flag or markings was to be seen. In the twilight, which had already set in, the name of the steamer was not visible from the submarine. Since the commander of the submarine was obliged to assume from his wide experience in the area of maritime war that only English steamers, and no neutral steamers, traversed the war area without flag and markings, he attacked the vessel with a torpedo, in the conviction that he had an enemy vessel before him. Some time after the shot the commander saw that the vessel had in the meantime hoisted the American flag. As a consequence, he, of course, refrained from any further attack. Since the vessel remained afloat, he had no occasion to concern himself further with the boats which had been launched.

"It results from this that without a doubt that attack on the steamer Nebraskan was not meant for the American flag, nor is it traceable to any fault on the part of the commander of the German submarine, but is to be considered an unfortunate accident. The German Government expresses its regret at the occurrence to the Government of the United States of America and declares its readiness to make compensation for the damage thereby sustained by American citizens."

Results of Submarine Warfare

LIVERPOOL’S EXPERIENCE

Nearly 20,000 vessels have entered or left the port of Liverpool since the German submarine blockade began. This, said Sir A. Norman Hill, Secretary of the Liverpool Steamship Owners' Association, speaking at Liverpool yesterday, showed that the Germans had failed in their attempt to blockade British ports.

On these 20,000 voyages the Germans had captured or destroyed only twenty-nine ships, he continued. What did that represent? Ships which had sailed in and out of Liverpool had completed in safety 998 out of every 1,000 voyages upon which they started. That was a magnificent record, he held, of perils faced and overcome.

FIRST WEEK WITH NO LOSS

So far as British vessels were concerned, the German submarines drew a blank during the week ended yesterday. Not a single British merchant ship or fishing craft was sunk.

It was the first week since the war began that some loss to British shipping had not been occasioned by German cruisers, mines, or submarines.

During the week 1,326 vessels of more than 300 tons each arrived at or departed from ports of the United Kingdom.

The German war-zone decree went into effect on February 18. Since then the weekly losses of ships and lives from torpedoes have been as follows:

Of the two vessels torpedoed in the week of July 22, the Russian steamer Balwa was attacked on July 16. On the following day another Russian steamer, the General Radetzky, was torpedoed. Both hailed from Riga, and the crews of both were saved.

WARFARE MODIFIED?

A record reported to have been compiled chiefly from British Admiralty sources since the sinking of the Lusitania was published by The New York American on July 13, showing that out of 122 ships sunk by German submarines in the war zone, every passenger or sailor was saved on all but 14. Following is The American's summary:

GERMAN ACCOUNTS

In a Berlin dispatch of July 14, by wireless to Sayville, Long Island, the following was given out by the Overseas News Agency:

During the month of June twenty-nine British, three French, one Belgian, and nine Russian merchantmen were sunk by German submarines.

The total loss of the Entente Allies by submarines, including fishing steamers, which mostly were armed patrol boats, aggregated 125,000 tons.

The loss of human life was remarkably small, the submarines using every precaution and giving ample warning and time for crews to leave their ships if no resistance was attempted.

The total of losses in ships of the Allies' merchant marine around the English coast in the period between February 18 (the beginning of the German submarine war zone) and May 18, as compiled from German data, was published in the Frankfurter Zeitung of June 6. This publication, the first issue from German quarters, contains also a list of the various allied ships sunk, totaling 111, together with the nationality and tonnage of each, and a charted map of the British Isles showing where each ship was sunk.

In describing the achievements of the German submarine against their foes—the neutral ships sunk are not included—the Frankfurter Zeitung's article says:

In the period of three months since the 18th of February, a day memorable for history, our submarines have inflicted on the enemy merchant shipping, in the first place the English merchant marine, a total loss of 111 ships with a displacement of 234,239 tons. The figures may, perhaps, not seem especially large in comparison with the gigantic number of merchant ships flying the flag of the enemy. But in this method of warfare the percentage loss of ships of our opponent as compared with his total does not count, but rather the fact that through the regularity and inevitableness of the marine catastrophes the enemy shipping shall be disturbed as poignantly as possible, and that there should as a result of this disturbance appear in the economic life of England phenomena similar to those which the English plan of the isolation of Germany aims at without, however, having succeeded in getting any nearer to its goal, owing to the inherent strength and power of adaptation of German business.

The rise of prices now prevalent in England, and the paralyzing of great branches of trade which could not occur in an England that really ruled the sea, may be attributed in chief part to this war of the submarines. The advantage of the insular position of England has been greatly lessened, thanks to this excellent German weapon, even if it cannot be completely eliminated. But if one compares with the total voyages of the English merchant shipping the losses of the English merchant marine, amounting to more than 100 ships in a period of exactly ninety days, and a tonnage of 216,000 tons, (from the totals mentioned above there must be deducted the shares of France and Russia,) then we must consider only that part of the British merchant marine that entered ports of the island kingdom in this period or left them; and one must bear in mind further that a large number of those ships is contained several times in the English statistics, since they do coast service.

But as valuable booty for our submarines particularly those ships are to be regarded that import any kinds of commodities to England. And statistics will later be able to show on the basis of these figures the great success of the German submarine warfare, as indicated by figures.

A glance at the map that accompanies the list of losses suffices to show that mine fields as little as great distances are factors of decisive importance in the activities of our submarines. The closing of the English Channel and of the North Channel (between Ireland and Scotland) has not prevented our boats from penetrating wherever there was booty. Even on the northwest coast of Scotland and out in the west of Ireland the German submarines have carried on a successful hunt. The numbers in the little circles on the map represent the successive ships on the list.

The Frankfurter Zeitung adds figures given by the British Admiralty on the same subject. These, it says, total 130 merchant ships with a registered tonnage of 457,000 tons, from the beginning of the war to May 26. Added to these, it says, are 83 fishing vessels with a tonnage of 13,585 tons, making a total of 213 ships with 470,585 tons. It says:

These figures, however, are certainly incomplete, inasmuch as up to March 16 there had already been announced 145 ships with a total tonnage of 500,000 as lost, and the figures published by us above, based upon authentic material, concerning the victims of our submarines in three months, contradict beyond any power of dispute the euphemistic presentation of the British Admiralty. Even so, however, the English list still shows that since the beginning of the submarine warfare, although in that period there was little to speak of in the way of activities of the German cruisers abroad, the damage done to the English fleet has risen according to the confession of the Admiralty itself. Since Feb. 18, that is to say, since scarcely more than a quarter of a year, according to the English figures, no less than 56 British merchant ships with a tonnage of 187,000 tons (that is to say, more than 40 per cent. of the total number of merchant ships designated as lost) have been sunk. But if instead of these English figures the German compilation, which is indubitably correct, be accepted, then the entire picture changes considerably in our favor.

ADMIRAL SIR HENRY B. JACKSON
Who Succeeded Lord Fisher as First Sea Lord of the British Admiralty
(Photo by Elliott & Fry.)

REGINALD WARNEFORD

Young gallant soul, unversed in fear,
Who swiftly flew aloft to fame,
And made yourself a world-wide name,
Ere scarce had dawned your brief career.

To glory some but slowly climb
By painful inches of ascent,
And some, hereon though sternly bent,
Ne'er reach it all their life's long time.

But you—you soared as eagles soar;
At one strong flight you flashed on high;
The sudden chance came sudden nigh;
You seized it; off its spoils you bore.

And now, while still the welkin rings
With your unmatched heroic deed,
To pæan elegies succeed,
The mournful Muse your requiem sings.

A requiem, yet with triumph rife!
How not, while men their souls would give
To die your death, so they might live
Your "crowded hour of glorious life"?

Great hour, that knows not time nor tide,
Wild hour, that drinks an age's sweets,
Brave hour, that throbs with breathless feats,
Short hour, whose splendours long abide.

American Preparedness

By Theodore Roosevelt

In an address at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, delivered on July 21, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt said:

I HAVE a very strong feeling about the Panama Exposition. It was my good fortune to take the action in 1903, failure to take which, in exactly the shape I took it, would have meant that no Panama Canal would have been built for half a century, and, therefore, that there would have been no exposition to celebrate the building of the canal. In everything we did in connection with the acquiring of the Panama Zone we acted in a way to do absolute justice to all other nations, to benefit all other nations, including especially the adjacent States, and to render the utmost service, from the standpoint alike of honor and of material interest, to the United States. I am glad that this is the case, for if there were the slightest taint upon our title or our conduct it would have been an improper and shameful thing to hold this exposition.

The building of the canal nearly doubles the potential efficiency of the United States Navy, as long as it is fortified and is in our hands; but if left unfortified it would at once become a menace to us.

What is true as to our proper attitude in regard to the canal is no less true as regards our proper attitude concerning the interests of the United States taken as a whole. The canal is to be a great agency for peace; it can be such only, and exactly in proportion as it increased our potential efficiency in war.

Those men who like myself believe that the highest duty of this nation is to prepare itself against war so that it may safely trust its honor and interest to its own strength are advocating merely that we do as a nation regarding our general interests what we have already done in Panama. If, instead of acting as this nation did in the Fall of 1903, we had confined ourselves to debates in Congress and diplomatic notes; if, in other words, we had treated elocution as a substitute for action, we would have done nobody any good, and for ourselves we would have earned the hearty derision of all other nations—the canal would not even have been begun at the present day, and there would have been a general consensus of international opinion to the effect that we were totally unfit to perform any of the duties of international life, especially in connection with the Western hemisphere.

Unfortunately in the last few years we have as regards pretty much everything not connected with the Isthmus of Panama so failed in our duty of national preparedness that I fear there actually is a general consensus of opinion to precisely this effect among the nations of the world as regards the United States at the present day. This is primarily due to our unpreparedness.

We have been culpably, well-nigh criminally, remiss as a nation in not preparing ourselves, and if, with the lessons taught the world by the dreadful tragedies of the last twelve months, we continue with soft complacency to stand helpless and naked before the world, we shall excite only contempt and derision if and when disaster ultimately overwhelms us.

Preparedness against war does not invariably avert war any more than a fire department in a city will invariably avert a fire; and there are well-meaning foolish people who point out this fact as offering an excuse for unpreparedness. It would be just as sensible if after the Chicago fire Chicago had announced that it would abolish its fire department as for our people to take the same view as regards military preparedness. Some years ago I was looking over some very old newspapers contemporaneous with the early establishment of paid fire departments in this country, and to my amusement I came across a letter which argued against a paid fire department upon the ground that the knowledge of its existence would tend to make householders careless, and therefore would encourage fires.

Greece was not prepared for war when she went to war with Turkey a score of years ago. But this fact did not stop the war. It merely made the war unsuccessful for Greece. China was not prepared for war with Japan twenty-odd years ago, nor for war with the Allies who marched to Peking fifteen years ago.

Colonel Roosevelt then discussed in detail the cases of China and Belgium, comparing Belgium with Switzerland, and asserting that Switzerland would have met Belgium's fate if she had not been prepared to oppose invasion. Then taking up the case of China, he said:

She has acted on the theory that the worst peace was better than the best war, and therefore she has suffered all the evils of the worst war and the worst peace. The average Chinaman took the view that China was too proud to fight and in practice made evident his hearty approval of the sentiments of that abject pacifist song: "I Didn't Raise My Boy to be a Soldier," a song which should have as a companion piece one entitled: "I Didn't Raise my Girl to be a Mother," approval of which of course deprives any men or women of all right of kinship with the soldiers and with the mothers and wives of the soldiers, whose valor and services we commemorate on the Fourth of July and on Decoration Day; a song, the singing of which seems incredible to every man and woman capable of being stirred to lofty and generous enthusiasm by the tremendous surge of Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic." China has steadily refused to prepare for war. Accordingly China has had province after province lopped off her, until one-half of her territory is now under Japanese, Russian, English and French control.

The professional pacifists, the peace-at-any-price, non-resistance, universal arbitration people are now seeking to Chinafy this country.

During the past year or so this nation has negotiated some thirty all-inclusive peace treaties by which it is agreed that if any issue arises, no matter of what kind, between itself and any other nation, it would take no final steps about it until a commission of investigation had discussed the matter for a year. This was an explicit promise in each case that if American women were raped and American men murdered, as has actually occurred in Mexico; or American men, women, and children drowned on the high seas, as in the case of the Gulflight and Lusitania; or if a foreign power secured and fortified Magdalena Bay or the Island of St. Thomas, we would appoint a commission and listen to a year's conversation on the subject before taking action.

England and France entered into these treaties with us, and we begged Germany to enter into one, and, although Germany refused, yet if we were right in entering into them with England and France, we deprived ourselves of moral justification in refusing to fulfill their spirit as regards Germany. Personally I believe that it was absolutely necessary when the concrete case arose to repudiate the principle to which we had thus committed ourselves. But it was a shameful thing to have put ourselves in such a position that it had to be repudiated, and it was inexcusable of us to decline to follow the principle in the case of the Lusitania without at the same time making frank confession of our error and misconduct by notifying all the powers with whom we had already made the treaties that they were withdrawn, because in practice we had found it impossible and improper to follow out the principle to which they committed us.

First Year of the War

Military Résumés of Operations on All Fronts—
August, 1914 to August, 1915

By Lieutenant Walter E. Ives

One Year’s War

By Lieutenant Walter E. Ives

THE WESTERN CAMPAIGN

THE first year of the European war has drawn to a close. A résumé covering the military events it has produced brings to view two distinct phases of the campaign. The first phase comprises the period from Aug. 3 to Oct. 27, and consists of a tenacious effort to carry through the original plan of war of the German General Staff: to strike a crushing blow at France, and after putting her "hors de combat," to turn on the enemy in the East. The second phase comprises the time from Oct. 27 to the present, and consists in the pursuance of military aims forming the direct reversal of the original ones.

The campaign against France, in consequence of the German plan of strategy the first one to come into prominence, can, in its first phase, be divided into four periods.

The first period comprises the operations in Belgium, German Lorraine and Alsace, from Aug. 3 to Aug. 23, the day before the Battle for the Invasion of France, commonly, but incorrectly known as the battle of Mons.

The main blow at France was to come through Belgium. Five German armies out of eight were hurled against this gateway to Northern France. In Lorraine and Alsace the Germans were temporarily to remain on the defensive. The protection of Lorraine was intrusted to the Bavarian (Sixth) Army, that of Alsace to the remaining two armies.

The French plan of operation was to check the invasion of Belgium on the line Tongres-Liége-Longwy, where the Belgian Army, from a strictly military point of view, forming the advance guards of the French Army of the North, was holding strong positions, and with superior forces to strike at the German Army of Lorraine. The aim was, avoiding Metz, to reach the Moselle near Trier through the valley of the Saar, and to roll up the German Army of the North from its left wing. An invasion of Alsace was merely to satisfy political aspirations.

The German advance in Belgium, however, remained unchecked, and in Lorraine the battles of Dieuze and Saarbourg on Aug. 20 decided the issue in favor of the Bavarians. In Alsace the French were victorious over the Eighth Army and took Muelhausen, while further north, between Muenster and Shirmeck, the Seventh Army checked the French invasion.

Meanwhile the German avalanche in Belgium had reached the second line of defense, Brussels-Namur-Longwy, before the French Army of the North. The capture of Namur prompted the French staff to recall advance guards, which had reached the fortress just as it surrendered, and to accept battle in the line Mons-Charleroi-Givet-Longwy. The battle for the invasion of France and the retirement of the French armies in all the theatres of action which it caused opens the second period of the campaign against France.

The English contingent from Havre had joined the French Army just before the German onslaught began. The battle was lost by the Allies tactically and strategically through the defeat of their right wing at Longwy and Neufchateau, and through the encircling of their left wing at Mons. The direct result of the outcome was the German invasion of France; the indirect consequence (resulting from the necessity of drawing troops from the other fields of action to stem the German invasion) was the retirement of the French armies in Lorraine and Alsace to the line Verdun-Nancy-St. Die, and further south to the passes of the Vosges, which they have been holding ever since.

Sweeping on through Northern France, the German Army of the North was breaking up all resistance in its path, such as was attempted by the British at St. Quentin on Aug. 28, and was tearing with it all fortresses, such as Longwy, La Fère, Maubeuge, and others; but it was failing in its principal aim: to embrace the skillfully retreating enemy before he could reach the line Paris-Verdun, which he had selected and prepared for the next stand.

On Aug. 30 the German plan of strategy was changed, and it was resolved to break the centre of the enemy, throwing his left wing into Paris and on the Seine and his right wing into Verdun, Toul, and Epinal. The armies of the centre were pushed forward, while either wing held back. The Allies were established in the general line Paris-Verdun.

The battle ensuing on Sept. 5 and the retreat of the Germans to the Aisne are the events of the third period of this campaign, lasting from Sept. 5 to Sept. 28. On Sept. 8, while the German attacks had all but pierced the French centre, having already bent it back beyond the line Sezanne-Vitry, the German right wing found itself outflanked by a new allied army from Paris, which was rapidly moving northward and threatened to roll up the entire German battle front from the direction of Compiègne. The critical question, who would succeed first, the Allies in outflanking the German right or the Germans in piercing the French centre, was decided in favor of the Allies. Anglo-French strategy triumphed.

The tactical aspect of the situation, though, is best illustrated by the message sent to his commander-in-chief by General Foch, commanding the French Army of the Centre when he received the order to counter-attack: "My left has been forced back, my right is routed. I shall attack with the centre." When the counter-attack came it found but rear guards opposing it. The retreat of the Germans, their right flank constantly in danger of being rolled up, was a fine military achievement. On Sept. 12 it halted on the Aisne. In the regions northeast of Verdun the German left wing joined hands with the Sixth German Army, which had followed up the retirement of the French Army of Lorraine to the line Verdun-St. Die.

Thus resting on Metz with its left wing the German battle-front was strongly established on a line passing Verdun, to the east and northeast, extending from there in a general westerly direction to the valley of the Aisne as far as the region north of Compiègne, and from that point northward to the region west of Peronne and Cambrai.

The stability of this line, enabling a constant shifting of forces toward the right wing, and the arrival there of the army released from Maubeuge, made possible the extension of the battle-front to the region of Arras, and frustrated all flanking movements on the part of the Allies.

The situation was again safe, but the plan to put the French army hors de combat was far from having been realized. The German General Staff therefore decided on a new plan. Its purpose was to gain control of the northeast coast of France. A wedge should be driven between the two allied countries, and Pas-de-Calais made the base of further operations against both. The following out of this plan constitutes the fourth and last period of the first phase of the western campaign. It starts with the beginning of the siege of Antwerp on Sept. 28 and ends with the first battle of Ypres on Oct. 27.

The first step toward the accomplishment of the new aims was the capture of Antwerp. Antwerp in the hands of the Allies meant a constant menace to the German line of communication; in possession of the Germans it signified the key to Northern France. The fortress was taken on Oct. 9. The next point of strategic importance for the pursuance of the German plan was Lille, which was taken on Oct. 12.

But the change in the German plan of strategy had been recognized by the Allies, and a new English army from Havre was hurried to the line Bethune-Dunkirk to extend the allied left wing to the coast and block the road to Calais. It reached West Flanders on Oct. 13, and on Oct. 16 it came in contact with the German Army that approached from Antwerp. The latter joined the German right wing north of Lille and extended it to Westende. On the 18th, after having brought up all their reserves, the Germans began their onslaught to break through in the region of Dixmude and Ypres.

While, by Oct. 27, no appreciable impression had been made on the allied battleline, the situation in the eastern seat of war had begun to assume an alarming aspect, and necessitated the complete change in the German plan of strategy, which marks the beginning of the second phase of the war.

On the western front this second phase meant for the Germans the going into the defensive along the entire battleline, which the allied armies have been relentlessly attempting to break. In spite of their continuous heroic efforts only minor successes, such as that of the British at Neuve Chapelle and that of the French to the north of Arras, have been achieved. Counter attacks, forming the most essential element of the modern defensive, have been launched by the Germans incessantly, and have on several occasions resulted in successes similar to those of the Allies, as, for instance, at Soissons and at Ypres. On the whole, no changes of strategic importance have taken place, and the German wall in France stands firm to this day.

II.

THE EASTERN CAMPAIGN

While, in the early days of August, the bulk of the German Army was moving westward, not more than ten army corps were available for the campaign against Russia. To them and to the Austrian armies fell the task of laying the basis for the offensive contemplated for a later date. The plan of campaign was to draw the Russians into the Polish bag and tie it up. It was based on the knowledge that Russia's principal strategic aim must, under all circumstances, be Cracow, the gateway to Vienna and Berlin.

The enemy was to be allowed to reach it through Poland, while the Germans should hold on to East Prussia and the Austrians to Galicia, to flank the Russian advance from the north and south in preparation for a campaign against the Russian lines of communication. This scheme of bagging the enemy has governed all strategic moves of the campaign against Russia to this day.

But the Muscovites were on their guard. They paid little attention to the few German divisions that were thrown into Poland in August, in order to attract a Russian offensive, and began hammering at the Teutonic flanking positions along the East Prussian frontier in the north and the line Lublin-Tarnopol in the south.

While the Russian offensive in East Prussia came to grief at Tannenberg, it was most successful against Galicia, and the eighth week of the war already found the Russian invasion west of the San, Przemysl besieged, and the Austrian right wing flanked by vast bodies of cavalry, which had penetrated the Carpathian passes and reached the region of Munkacs.

To relieve the pressure exerted on their Allies and give them a chance once more to establish themselves in north-eastern Galicia, four German army corps invaded Poland and advanced toward Radom and Ivangorod. This counter move was successful. Menaced in their right flank, the Russians quickly took back their army beyond the San. The Austrians followed, raised the siege of Przemysl, and drove the invaders from Hungary and straightened out their line from Sandomir to Czernowitz.

Meanwhile heavy Russian reinforcements had been brought up from Ivangorod and were gradually put in action against the Germans east of Radom. On Oct. 24, as soon as the Russian superiority became alarming, the four German army corps, having, temporarily at least, accomplished their purpose of re-establishing the Austrian campaign, beat a hasty retreat toward Silesia, during which the second purpose of their invasion, to draw into the Polish bag great masses of Russian troops, was successfully achieved, the Russians having been led to believe that they were pursuing a great German army.

Simultaneously, though, with their advance in the path of the German retreat in Poland, the Russians once more concentrated vast forces against the menacing projection of the Austrian battleline in Galicia, and the early days of November witnessed the second invasion of the Austrian province. At the same time a new drive was made on East Prussia, and the Germans were forced back into the region of the Masurian Lakes.

The retirement of the entire Teutonic battleline before the Russians, who toward the end of October had reached the maximum of their strength, marks the end of the first phase of the eastern campaign. It had not accomplished all that had been expected of it. The enemy had been drawn far into South Poland, but the base of operations for the general offensive against his communications in the north had not been established just where it should have been, and the Russian frontier fortifications had been found better prepared for resistance than those of Belgium, while in the south the Austrian base of operations was entirely in the hands of the enemy.

The second phase of the eastern campaign was therefore opened from a new base—Thorn, where the main army had been gathered ever since Oct. 27, when the Russian danger had become alarming, and the offensive in the west had been abandoned. It was suddenly launched with irresistible force on Nov. 12, and rolled back numerically inferior Russian armies, whose task it had been to protect the right flank of the Russian advance on Silesia.

Recognizing the danger to their operations in South Poland and Galicia, where they had meanwhile approached the line of the Warta, Cracow, and Neu Sandec, the Russians threw troops into North Poland from all sides and succeeded in temporarily detaining the German advance there, while they were continuing their supreme efforts to break the Austro-German line south of Cracow. But the line held. At the same time the German drive in North Poland was making steady headway.

On Dec. 6 the Germans took Lodz, and further north advanced on Lowitz, and the Russian offensive in the Cracow district was given up. While all troops that could be spared were sent northeast to support the prepared lines of the Bzura and Rawka Rivers, the Russians in the south fell back behind the Nida and Dunajec, joining with their right wing their northern army in the region of Tomaschew, and extending their left through the region of Gorlitz and Torka toward the Pruth. In this line the Teutonic advance was checked. A new German drive on the road from Soldau to Warsaw could likewise make no headway beyond Mlawa, while on the other hand in East Prussia the Russian offensive had been brought to a standstill.

A siege warfare, like that in France, seemed imminent, except in the Bukowina, where Russian forces during January were driving Austrian troops before them. The Russian invasion of that province, however, so distant from all strategically important points, was but a political manœuvre.

The first movement of any consequence to occur was a desperate attempt of the Austrians early in February to push forward with their right wing in the direction of Stanislau, chiefly to bring relief to the garrison of Przemysl. Simultaneously they began sweeping the Russians out of Bukovina. The latter undertaking was successful, but the advance on Stanislau was thrown back toward Nadworna.

While the Austrian offensive was under way, General von Hindenburg unexpectedly launched a vigorous attack in East Prussia, which resulted in the destruction of the Russian East Prussian Army in the region of the Masurian Lakes. Once more a successful drive at the Russian "bread line" from the north seemed at hand. Already the armies pursuing the Russians were hammering at the Russian fortifications along the Niemen, Bobr, and Narew when the surrender of Przemysl, the siege of which had uninterruptedly gone on behind the Russian lines since November, on March 22 again presented to the Russians an opportunity to break the Austrian battleline.

To check the onslaught of the reinforced Russian armies against the Carpathian passes early in April, troops must be drawn from General von Hindenberg's armies, and the consequence was another deadlock in the north. Meanwhile the reinforced Teutonic troops were hurriedly concentrated for the counter-attack against the Russian offensive in the Carpathians, and a great drive began against the Russian positions on the Dunajec line, east of Cracow, early in May. Breaking all resistance, it swept on toward Jaroslau and Przemysl on a sixty-mile front.

Threatened in their right and left flanks, respectively, the Russian lines on the Nida and in the Carpathians fell back rapidly, while reinforcements were sent to stem the Teutonic advance along the San. But the Russian efforts were in vain. The momentum the Teutonic offensive had gained carried it across the river, while further south the Austrian right wing cleared the entire Carpathian front of the enemy, hotly pushing his retreat.

Przemysl was recaptured, the third Russian line of defense from Rawa-Ruska to Grodeck and the Dniester was broken, and the end of June saw Lemberg once more in the hands of the Teutons, and the Russian line on the defensive and sorely pressed along a front extending from the Bessarabian frontier along the Dniester to the mouth of the Zlota-Lipa, and from there along the Zlota-Lipa and the Bug, well into Russian territory, leaving the river southeast of Grubeschow, and continuing from there in a northwesterly direction to the region of Krasnik.

Here it joined hands with the left wing of the Russian Army of the Nida, which had retired before the Austro-German advance in a northeasterly direction, intrenching along a line from Krasnik across the Vistula and through Sjenno and Jastrshob (about fifteen miles southwest of Radom) to the region of Tomaschew on the Pilitza.

While this great Spring offensive from the Dunajec line was well under way, small German forces invaded the Russian province of Courland. Finding at first little resistance in the path of their unexpected advance, they took Libau and established themselves on the Dubissa-Windau line. During July the operations in Courland steadily assumed greater proportions.

Two bases for the campaign against the Russian lines of communication have thus been firmly established in the flanks of the Russian Armies west of the Vistula, both protruding far into their rear. Drives against the Dunaburg-Warsaw line from the north and the Minsk-Ivangorod line from the south will open the second year of the eastern campaign. The first year of the incessant struggle has brought the aims of the German strategy, the bagging of the Russian Armies, within sight of its realization.

III.

CAMPAIGNS OF MINOR IMPORTANCE

While the struggle in the two principal seats of war has been going on, the passing year has witnessed fighting also of secondary importance, though not less heroic, in three other fields of action: Serbia, Turkey, and the Austro-Italian frontier. Whereas Turkey joined the Teutons but three months after the beginning of hostilities, and Italy was involved only at the end of May, Serbia was one of the first nations to take the field.

Austria's campaign against the little kingdom could under no circumstances influence the events of the war, and was therefore void of any strategic importance. For this reason, but three Austrian Army corps were engaged in it.

The purpose was merely to keep the Serbians busy, and prevent them from invading Austrian soil. For the sake of the moral effect on the other Balkan States the capture of Belgrade should be attempted. In view of the strength of the Danube fortifications the operations were launched from Bosnia and resulted in the forcing of the Drina line and the capture of Valjevo on Nov. 17. The Serbian positions on the Danube having thus been flanked, the abandonment of Belgrade on Dec. 2 was a natural consequence of the Battle of Valjevo.

Misled by their successes into the belief that the Serbian army had been placed hors de combat, the Austrians advanced beyond the lines destined to constitute the object of their offensive. In the difficult mountain districts southeast of Valjevo the Serbians turned on the invaders with superior forces and defeated them. The Austrian retreat to the Drina which followed, necessitated the evacuation of Belgrade on Dec. 15. Since then, the situation on the Serbian frontier has been a deadlock, only desultory and insignificant fighting occurring for the rest of the year.

In contrast to the operations in Serbia, Turkey's campaign has direct bearing on the European war. Its chief feature, the closing of the Dardanelles, has been a serious blow to Russia. The frantic efforts of the Allies to open them are the plainest evidence of its importance.

The attempt in March to force the straits by naval power having resulted in failure, an army was landed on the west coast of Gallipoli, and after heavy fighting established itself on a line running from Eski-Hissarlik on the south coast of the peninsula to the region of Sari-Bair, on the north coast, constituting a front of approximately twenty miles, within five miles of the west coast. No progress further than this have the Allies been able to make up to the present, and the watch at the Dardanelles stands firm as yet.

The attacks of the Anglo-French armies, however, exerted influence on Turkey's operations in other fields of action. They caused the complete abandonment of a contemplated invasion of Egypt and compelled the Turkish troops to go on the defensive in the Caucasian seat of war. This enabled Russia to call back to Poland troops sorely needed there, with which they had had to check the Turkish advance on Kars in January. Since February both battlelines along the Caucasian front have been weakened and no fighting of any consequence has occurred in this campaign of merely secondary importance.

The operations in the latest field of action, along the Austro-Italian frontier, have been going on for but eight weeks, and do not, therefore, allow any conclusions as to their importance to be made as yet. So far the Italians have been unable to make any effective impression on either Austria's Tyrolese frontier or on the front of the Isonzo. All attempts to break through the Austrian lines have thus far failed. The aim of Austria's strategy is to maintain a deadlock until the issue has been decided in Poland.

In determining the results of the first year of the world war the question as to which side is holding the advantage at the close of this important period depends entirely upon what were the political aims of the adversaries. The Teutonic allies' contention has ever been, rightly or wrongly, that they are not waging a war for territorial aggrandizement, but purely one in self-defense. From this point of view they can be well satisfied with the results they have so far attained.

An American View

By the Military Expert of The New York Times

FIRST PHASE

Opening the Way to France Through Belgium

By Aug. 4, 1914, war had been declared by all the nations now engaged except Turkey and Italy. Subsequent events have proved that of them all the Teutonic allies were the only nations actually prepared and that as between Austria and Germany the preparation of the latter was much more complete. It was the Germans, therefore, who, with the entire campaign carefully mapped out in advance, took the initiative. Germany, too, at the very outset saw the one clear path to victory.

One or the other of her Continental enemies must not only be defeated, but crushed and eliminated from the conflict before the other could mobilize against her. One of them, Russia, would probably take the longer time to effect her mobilization. Russia had started, it is true, before war was declared. But interior railroads in Russia are few. Russia, too, is proverbially slow, if for no other reason than by virtue of her ponderous numbers. France, on the other hand, is checked and counter-checked by good strategic railroads, and, having no such vast territory over which her troops would have to be moved, would be able to mobilize in a much shorter time than her ally. England, for a few weeks at least, could be disregarded. Deceived as to the extent of Russian unpreparedness and believing that Russia's slowness would prevent an active offense for some weeks, Germany selected France as her first objective, and took immediate steps to hurl twenty-four army corps across the French border at various points, aiming at Paris.

These twenty-four corps were divided into three armies—the Army of the Meuse, based on Cologne; the Army of the Moselle, based on Metz and Coblenz, and the Army of the Rhine, based on Strassburg. All of these three armies were naturally to converge on Paris. The route of the Army of the Meuse would pass through Liége, Namur, and Maubeuge, and would therefore have to cross a part of Belgium; the Army of the Moselle would take a route through Sedan and Soissons, passing north of the Verdun fortress, but of necessity crossing the Duchy of Luxemburg; the Army of the Rhine, after crossing the screen of the Vosges Mountains, would pass through Nancy and Toul, between the fortresses of Epinal and Belfort.

It is obvious that the march to Paris would be most quickly achieved through the flat country of Belgium, where the French frontier is practically unguarded and only the weakly manned barrier fortresses of Belgium barred the way. The remainder of the French frontier from Luxemburg to Switzerland was well fortified, and Germany had no time to spend in reducing fortified places.

The main advance was therefore to take place through Belgium, the Army of the Moselle co-operating, while to the Army of the Rhine was assigned the offensive-defensive rôle of advancing to the barrier fortresses of Epinal and Belfort to check any French advance that might be directed against the communications of the Armies of the Moselle and the Meuse to the north. The railroad communications through the Belgian plain were splendidly adapted to this plan, backed as they were by the military railroads which Germany had constructed several years before, running through the industrial districts in the north of the German Empire up to the Belgian border.

Germany's first move was the invasion of Luxemburg, violating the neutrality of a State which, under the treaty making her independent and guaranteeing neutrality, (to which treaty Germany was a party,) was not permitted to maintain an army. Two days later Germany asked passage for her troops through Belgium, for the purpose of attacking France. Belgium promptly refused, and on Aug. 4 Germany began the forcing of this passage by an attack on Liége.

Thus, at the outset the German plan went awry. Although the contemplated line of advance was through Liége and Namur, it was not sufficient, with Belgium openly in arms to defend her country, to reduce only these two towns. The Belgian Army could, and later did, fall back to the north on Louvain, Brussels, and Antwerp, and so be directly on the German flank and in a position to strike at the line of communications. It was therefore necessary to subjugate all of Belgium either by destroying the Belgian Army or driving it before them in their advance.

Thus, the German advance was not only doomed to delay, but at least 100,000 troops were needed to garrison a hostile country and to protect the life lines running to the rear.

Three days after the attack on Liége opened the Germans penetrated between the outer forts, their infantry advancing in close formation and sustaining enormous losses. But Liége was worth the price paid. Some of the forts held out for days, but were finally reduced by the fire of the 42-centimeter guns—the first of the German surprises. The Belgian garrison, however, had done its work. The German advance was delayed for ten precious days, during which the first consignment of the British expeditionary force had reached the Continent and France and Russia had largely completed their mobilization.

As soon as it was realized that the unexpected Belgian resistance had retarded the German advance and in all probability had disarranged the German plan of campaign, the French, even before the guns of Liége had cooled, struck at Alsace, through the Belford Gap and over the Vosges Mountains. At first this French offensive was successful. Points on the Metz-Strassburg Railroad were taken and the town of Mülhausen captured. But almost before the news of success reached Paris the French had been defeated, not only in Alsace but also in Lorraine, whence French troops had been sent to engage the German Army of the Moselle. The result was the retirement of the French to the line of their first defense—a line that had been prepared for just such an emergency during the years since 1871.

While the German armies of the Moselle and of the Rhine were thus occupied in repelling the French advance the Army of the Meuse was forcing its way through Belgium. Throwing out a strong cavalry screen in its front, this army advanced through Tongres, St. Frond, Laugen, Haelen, and Terlemont, and finally confronted the Belgians on the line from Louvain to Namur. Fighting on this front filled almost a week, when the destruction of the fortifications of Namur forced the Belgians to fall back, pivoting on Louvain to the line from Louvain to Wavre, the last line in front of Brussels. On Aug. 20 the Belgians were defeated at Louvain and the Germans entered Brussels, the Belgian Government having previously retired to Antwerp. The first phase of the German advance was thus completed and the way to France was open.

SECOND PHASE

From the Fall of Brussels to von Kluck’s Retreat to the Aisne

Immediately following the fall of Namur, which forced the Belgians to take up the Louvain-Wavre line, the main German Army of the Meuse started for France, leaving possibly two army corps to drive the Belgians from Brussels and to protect their flank and their lines of communication. The German advance first came in contact with the French and British along a line from Mons to Charleroi, southwest of Brussels. The British were supposed to have been between two French armies, but for some reason the army which had been assigned to position on the British left did not appear. Being outflanked, a retreat followed, the French being defeated at the same time at Charleroi. The German Army of the Moselle then attacked along the Meuse, and, being also successful, was on the flank and rear of the British and French retreating from Mons and Charleroi.

Thus a great enveloping movement was disclosed which for some days gave every evidence of being successful. It was defeated, however, entirely by the British, who, though outflanked and outnumbered three to one, fought steadily night and day for six days, their small force holding in complete check all of von Kluck's army corps. Retreat was of course inevitable, but the retreat was made in good order and with the morale of the troops unshaken.

In the meantime the German General Staff, which had confidently expected to crush France before Russia could become a factor to be reckoned with, saw with alarm Russia pouring her troops into East Prussia in a drive against Königsberg, while in South Poland another Russian army was preparing a drive against Galicia, operating from the Ivangorod-Rowno railroad. Germany saw the Austrians being defeated everywhere; Lemberg, the capital of Galicia, captured; Przemysl masked, and the Russians fighting their way westward through Galicia between the Carpathians and the Vistula. But Austria's troubles at this stage were her own. Germany had all she could do to turn back the Russian invasion of East Prussia.

To face the peril on her eastern borders Germany detached several army corps—probably five—from the western front, with them reinforced her eastern army, and in a few days after their arrival inflicted a disastrous defeat on the Russians at Tannenburg, driving them back practically to their own borders. But the damage had been done. The armies of the west had been weakened at a critical point, and General Joffre was given the opportunity he had been seeking since the beginning of the war.

The French and British, whose retreat had carried them to the Marne, now outnumbered the Germans, and, what is more important, were able to concentrate their forces by calling in those troops who had been engaged in the counter-offensive in Alsace. Taking advantage of their superiority in numbers, the Allies took the offensive. Holding the Germans fast in the centre, the Paris garrison struck hurriedly northeast toward Soisson with the idea of getting around von Kluck's flank. For several days it seemed that von Kluck and his army must be captured. But, moving north with great rapidity, abandoning much of his artillery and supplies, he escaped the net Joffre had spread for him, and anchored himself securely behind the Aisne. The great German movement was thus brought to an abrupt halt, and they were now on the defensive. Paris was saved. For ten days the Allies fought desperately to cross the Aisne and force von Kluck to continue his retreat. But finally the effort was given up, and the two armies faced each other across the Aisne deadlocked.

The Russians meanwhile had not been idle. Although their operations against the reinforced German Army had a negative result, against the Austrians in Galicia their success continued. Przemysl had not been taken, but, hemming it in securely, the Russians passed on and took the fortified town of Jaroslau, near the lower San. The menace of the Russian invasion of Galicia then became apparent. Galicia, with her wealth of oil and minerals, the fertile plains of Hungary just the other side of the Carpathians, Cracow, opening the gate to Breslau and Berlin—these were the things the Teutons stood in danger of losing, and it is not surprising that they viewed the Russian advance with alarm.

There is but one more incident to record before closing what might well be considered the second phase of the war. That is the fall of Antwerp. It was Belgium's final sacrifice on the altar of her national honor. And no matter what our ancestry may be, nor how our sympathies may lie, we cannot but reverence a people whose sense of national duty and honor is so high that they are willing to sacrifice and do sacrifice their all to maintain it.

THIRD PHASE

From the Fall of Antwerp to the Beginning of the Battle for Warsaw

When it became apparent to General French that the line of the Aisne, to which the Germans had retreated after the battle of the Marne, was too strong to be forced, he withdrew his troops, about 100,000 men, from the line, his place being filled by the French reserves. The object of the withdrawal was another flanking movement against the German right. The idea seems to have been that by withdrawing and entraining at night the movement would be entirely concealed from the Germans until the British were actually in Belgium, and that an advance along the left bank of the Scheldt would turn the flank of the whole German army in France, compelling a general retreat. The movement was discovered by German air scouts, however, and the troops that had been before Antwerp met and checked the British, who took up finally the line along the Yser Canal, through Ypres to La Bassée, opposed by three German army corps.

But one thing saved the British from another defeat and prevented a more disastrous retreat than that from Mons and Charleroi. When the Germans took Antwerp the Belgian garrison of about 50,000 men escaped and by a brilliant retreat retired to a line from Nieuport to Dixmude. They thus guarded the left flank of the British line and by a stubborn resistance prevented this flank from being turned and the British driven south toward Paris. Nothing else prevented Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne from falling into German hands at this time.

As it afterward turned out, the German plan, after the fall of Antwerp, was a sudden drive to Calais. The plan was conceived and the movement begun at the same time General French put into execution his attempt to outflank the German position. These forces met on the Ypres-La Bassée line, and both were halted. It was a fortuitous chance, then, that the Germans were held back from the coast, as well as deprived of an opportunity to strike at Paris from the north. For three weeks the Germans battled fiercely, with almost total disregard for the loss of life involved. Finally the attack died out, and with its death the whole line from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier settled down to trench warfare.

While the armies in the west were checking each other until the status of a "stalemate" had been reached, affairs in the eastern theatre had been moving rapidly. Persuaded by German money, a temptation the Turk has ever been powerless to resist, Turkey late in October joined hands with the Teutons and declared war on the Allies. The Japanese, who had at the outset joined hands with England, had, after a wonderful defense by the Germans, taken the German Chinese city of Kiao-Chau. But of more importance still was the activity of the opposing armies in Russia and in Galicia.

After the battle of Fannenburg, in which Russia was defeated and driven back to her own borders, the Germans invaded Suwalki Province in Northern Poland. The Russians again took the offensive, defeated the Germans in the battle of Augustovo, and, pressing westward, again entered East Prussia in the region of the Mazurian Lakes. In this territory a deadlock followed, both Russians and Germans remaining with horns locked and unable to move until early Spring.

In Galicia, however, events moved with greater rapidity, and the results were vastly more important. After the fall of Lemberg and Jaroslau the Russians pressed forward across the San to Tarnow, masking Przemysl on the way, and took up a line along the Dunajec to the Carpathians and east through Galicia along the Dniester and the Pruth to the Rumanian frontier, thus threatening not only the plains of Hungary, which lay just across the Carpathian summits, but also Bukowina, the Crownland of Austria.

Austria's plight was desperate, and German assistance was necessary. Von Hindenburg's first attack on Warsaw, the battle being called the battle of the Vistula, was the answer. The Germans advanced against the Russian centre, the Austrians against the left in Galicia. At first both were successful, but heavy Russian reinforcements succeeded in turning the German left, almost at the very gates of Warsaw. The Germans were forced to retreat, and fell back to their own borders. The Austrians were at the same time compelled to retreat, due to the uncovering of their flank, and again Russia was in supreme control of Galicia as far west as Cracow. As the Germans retreated the Russians followed, and another invasion of Germany was threatened, and it was von Hindenburg again who was to throw it back.

This he did, driving forward in three columns, two of which were intended to move against the Russian flanks. The Russian centre fell back to Lodz, but the right was still threatened. Again Russia assembled her reserves, and before von Hindenburg realized the situation a Russian army was not only on his flank but in his rear. A retreat was necessary. The Germans, assisted by corps drawn from the west, cut their way out and escaped from the Russian trap through the failure of one of the Russian armies to co-operate in the movement in time. But the German offense had failed and the effort had been terribly expensive.

Another offense was immediately planned—this time to move along the Vistula and strike at Warsaw from the southwest. This also was a failure, and the two armies finally became deadlocked along the line of the Bzura and the Rawka Rivers.

No further fighting of importance in this theatre until February, when the battle of the Mazurian Lakes was fought. It will be recalled that after the German defeat at Augustovo the Russians pursued the Germans into the lake district, where the two armies became practically deadlocked. This situation was broken by the Germans, who suddenly attacked both flanks of the Russian army and inflicted upon it a disastrous defeat, in which one army corps surrendered and the remainder escaped only after enormous losses.

But the victory, like other German victories, while decisive as far as the particular Russian army involved was concerned, did nothing toward hastening peace. The beginning of Spring found the armies in both theatres completely at a standstill, except in Galicia.

In the west since the failure of the German drive on Calais there has been no movement that has affected the general situation. The anniversary of the declaration of war finds the lines of the Germans and the French practically where they were six months ago. A number of battles have been fought for the possession of certain points of vantage—in the Champagne, the Argonne, at Neuve Chapelle, Ypres, Les Eparges, Hartmannsweilerkopf, Metzeral, Souchez—but they have resulted in only a local effect, although they have been accompanied in almost every case by losses that have been staggering.

The principal event of the Spring in the west has been the advent of Italy into the maelstrom. But this has not affected the situation up to the present time. Italy has a hard problem on her hands which must be solved before she can make herself felt. She has but one line of advance—the line of the Isonzo. But she dare not advance and leave the passes through the Tyrolean and the Carnic Alps open for Germany and Austria to pour troops in against her flank and rear. Her task therefore is first to stop every pass by which this can be done; and then, and then only, is she ready to move. This is being done, but the task is a difficult one, the country impossible from a military viewpoint, and progress necessarily slow.

In the east, however, the coming of Spring brought a series of the most tremendous movements of the war. The Allies began an operation against the Dardanelles, with the object of forcing the strait, taking Constantinople, and thus at once releasing the great store of grain in Southern Russia and providing a means of getting ammunition to Russia from the west. The operations at first were entirely naval. But after serious loss, with no corresponding advantage, it was realized that the naval forces alone were not sufficient, and troops were landed on the western end of the Gallipoli Peninsula. This force has been for three months hammering at the positions of the Turks along the Achibaba line, but, except for the possible influence on the Balkan States of the presence of these expeditionary forces on Gallipoli, little headway has been made. Certain it is that there is no indication that the near future will bring the Allies into Constantinople.

In Galicia the Spring began with the capitulation of Przemysl and the surrender to the Russians of about 125,000 Austrians. This was the greatest victory in the eastern theatre thus far, and immediately opened the way wide to the passes in the Carpathians that led to the Hungarian plains and to Cracow. Russia evidently felt that if she confined her operations to Austria she could, by pushing the attack into Hungary, crush Austria completely and eliminate her from the war. Accordingly, the opportunity of laying siege to Cracow was passed by and Russian efforts concentrated in forcing the Carpathian passes.

For weeks the battle of the Carpathians was in progress. The Austrians, reinforced by strong German contingents, fought desperately, and, although several of the passes were finally captured, Uzok Pass, the centre of the line and the key to the whole Carpathian situation, held out. While the battle for its possession was in progress the Germans were quietly concentrating along the Dunajec. Suddenly their attack was launched, the line of the Dunajec forced, and the Russian flank and their lines of communication were seriously involved. To prevent being cut off, the forces in the Carpathians were compelled to fall back to their lateral lines. Preponderance of artillery forced the retreat through Galicia, and in an incredibly short time Jaroslaw, Przemysl, and Lemberg were again in the hands of the Teutons and Galicia practically cleared of the Russian invaders.

Earlier in the Spring the Germans under von Bülow had landed in Northern Russia and the Gulf of Riga, and, gradually working south, had effected a junction with von Hindenburg's army in front of Warsaw. Coming north through Galicia, Mackensen had driven the Russians back to the line of the Ivangorod-Lublin railroad and had established connections with von Hindenburg's right. Von Linsengen and the Austrian Archduke Francis Joseph completed the line facing the Russians along the upper Viprez, the Bug, the Flota Lipa, and the Dniester. Simultaneously, with all flanks guarded, the Teutons began to close in on Warsaw in the most stupendous military movement of history. As this article is written it seems that nothing can save the Polish capital; before it goes to press, even Warsaw may be in German hands. One thing is evident—the Kaiser has returned to his plan of a year ago—Napoleon's plan—the only plan that can succeed—completely to crush one opponent first and then turn against the other; only now it is Russia and not France upon which the blows are falling.

Note: A military review of the European warfare during August will appear in the next number of Current History, in connection with the Chronology.—[Editor, Current History.]

Inferences from Eleven Months
of the European Conflict

By Charles W. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard University

THE inferences of the first importance are military and naval. In the conduct of war on land it has been demonstrated during the past eleven months that success in battle depends primarily on the possession and skillful use of artillery and machine guns. The nation which can command the largest quantity of artillery in great variety of calibre and range, has developed the amplest and quickest means of transporting artillery and supplies of all sorts, and whose troops can use mortars, howitzers, and cannon at the highest speed and with the greatest accuracy will have important advantages over an enemy less well provided, or less skillful. Before every assault by infantry artillery must sweep and plow the position to be captured, and so soon as the enemy has lost a trench or a redoubt the enemy's artillery will try to destroy the successful troops with shell and shrapnel, before the enemy's infantry makes a counter-attack. Whenever troops have open ground to cross before they reach the intrenchments of the enemy, they encounter a withering fire from machine guns, which is so effective that assaults over open ground have, for the most part, to be undertaken at night or in fog, or by some sort of surprise.

In general the defense has great advantage over the attack, as regards expenditure of both men and munitions. So decided is the advantage of the defense, that Germany can dismiss all those apprehensions about invasion by the Russian hordes with which she set out on this war. Success in military movements on a large scale depends on the means of transportation at hand; and these means of transportation must include railroads, automobiles, and horse wagons, the function of the automobile being of high importance wherever the roads are tolerably good. There is little use for cavalry in the new fighting; for aeroplanes can do better scouting and more distant raiding than cavalry ever could, and large bodies of infantry with their indispensable supplies can be moved faster and further by automobiles than cavalry could ever be.

The aeroplane also defeats the former use of cavalry to screen from the enemy's view the movements of troops and their trains behind the actual fronts. Moreover, cavalry cannot stand at all against the new artillery and the machine gun. An old-fashioned cavalry charge in the open is useless, and indeed impossible. Aerial warfare is still undeveloped, but the war has proved that the aeroplane, even in its present imperfect condition, is a useful instrument. The Zeppelin, on the other hand, seems to be too fragile and too unmanageable for effective use in war. Rifle fire is of far less importance than artillery and machine gun fire; and, indeed, the abandonment of the rifle as the principal arm for infantry is clearly suggested.

COUNT ZEPPELIN
Inventor of the Air-ship that has Still to Demonstrate
its Efficiency as an Engine of War

Elaborate forts made of iron and concrete are of little use against a competent invader, and fortifications round about cities are of no use for protection against an enemy that possesses adequate artillery. For the defense of a frontier, or of the approaches to a railroad junction or a city, a system of trenches is immeasurably superior to forts, particularly if behind the trenches a network of railways or of smooth highways exists. Wounds are often inflicted by jagged pieces of metal which carry bits of dirty clothing and skin into the wounds, and the wounded often lie on the ground for hours or even days before aid can reach them. Hence the surgery of this war is largely the surgery of infected wounds, and not of smooth aseptic cuts and holes. A considerable percentage of deaths and permanent disabilities among the wounded is the inevitable result. Surgeons and dressers are more exposed to death and wounds than in former wars, because of the large use of artillery of long range, the field hospitals being often under fire.

From these changes in the methods of war on land it may be safely inferred that a nation which would be strong in war on land must be strong in all sorts of manufacturing, and particularly in the metallurgical industries. A nation chiefly devoted to agriculture and the ancient trades cannot succeed in modern war, unless it can beg, borrow, or buy from sympathizers or allies the necessary artillery and munitions. No amount of courage and devotion in troops can make up for an inadequate supply of artillery, machine guns, shells, and shrapnel, or for the lack of ample means of rapid transportation. Only in a rough country without good roads, like the United States in 1861-65, or Serbia or Russia now, can the rifle, light artillery, and horse or ox wagons win any considerable success; and in such a country the trench method can bring about a stalemate, if the combatants are well matched in strength, diligence, and courage.

The changes in naval warfare are almost equally remarkable. Mines and submarines can make the offensive operation of dreadnoughts and cruisers near ports practically impossible, and can inflict great damage on an enemy's commerce. Hence important modifications in the rules concerning effective blockade. In squadron actions victory will probably go to the side which has the gun of longest range well-manned. Defeated war vessels sink as a rule with almost all on board. Commercial vessels can seldom be taken into port as prizes, and must therefore be sunk to make their capture effective. There have been no actions between large fleets; but the indications are that a defeated fleet would be sunk for the most part, the only vessels to escape being some of the speedier sort. Crews would go down with their vessels. Shore batteries of long-range guns can keep at a distance a considerable fleet, and can sink vessels that come too near. Mines and shore batteries together can prevent the passage of war vessels through straits ten to fifteen miles wide, no matter how powerful the vessel's batteries may be. Every war vessel is now filled with machinery of various sorts, much of which is delicate or easily disabled. Hence a single shell exploding violently in a sensitive spot may render a large ship unmanageable, and therefore an easy victim. A crippled ship will probably be sunk, unless a port is near.

To build and keep in perfect condition a modern fleet requires dockyards and machine shops of large capacity, and great metallurgical industries always in operation within the country which maintains the fleet. No small nation can create a powerful fleet; and no nation which lives chiefly by agriculture can maintain one. A great naval power must be a mining, manufacturing, and commercial power, with a sound banking system available all over the world.

The war has proved that it is possible for a combination of strong naval powers to sweep off the ocean in a few months all the warships of any single great power, except submarines, and all its commerce. Germany has already suffered that fate, and incidentally the loss of all her colonies, except portions of German East Africa and Kamerun, both of which remnants are vigorously assailed and will soon be lost. Nevertheless, she still exports and imports through neutral countries, though to a small amount in comparison with the volume of her normal trade. Here is another illustration of the general truth that colonies are never so good to trade with as independent and prosperous nations.

Again the war has proved that it is not possible in a normal year to reduce by blockade or non-intercourse the food supply of a large nation to the point of starvation, or even of great distress, although the nation has been in the habit of importing a considerable fraction of its food supply. An intelligent population will make many economies in its food, abstain from superfluities, raise more food from its soil, use grains for food instead of drinks, and buy food from neutral countries so long as its hard money holds out. Any large country which has a long seaboard or neutral neighbors can probably prevent its noncombatant population from suffering severely from want of food or clothing while at war. This would not be true of the districts in which actual fighting takes place or over which armies pass; for in the regions of actual battle modern warfare is terribly destructive—as Belgium, Northern France, Poland, and Serbia know.

A manufacturing people whose commercial vessels are driven off the seas will, of course, suffer the loss of such raw materials of its industries as habitually came to it over seas in its own bottoms—a loss mitigated, however, by the receipt of some raw materials from or through neutral countries. This abridgment of its productive industries will, in the long run, greatly diminish its powers of resistance in war; but much time may be needed for the full development of this serious disability.

Because of the great costliness of the artillery, munitions of war, and means of transportation used in the present war, the borrowings of all the combatant nations are heavy beyond any precedent; so that already all the nations involved have been compelled to raise the rates of interest on the immense loans they have put upon the market. The burdens thus being prepared for the coming generations in the belligerent nations will involve very high rates of taxation in all the countries now at war. If these burdens continue to accumulate for two or three years more, no financier, however experienced and far-seeing, can imagine today how the resulting loans are to be paid or how the burden of taxation necessary to pay the interest on them can be borne or how the indemnities probably to be exacted can be paid within any reasonable period by the defeated nation or nations.

It follows from these established facts that a small nation—a nation of not more than fifteen millions, for example—can have no independent existence in Europe except as a member of a federation of States having similar habits, tendencies, and hopes, and united in an offensive and defensive alliance, or under guarantees given by a group of strong and trustworthy nations. The firm establishment of several such federations, or the giving of such guarantees by a group of powerful and faith-keeping nations ought to be one of the outcomes of the war of 1914-15. Unless some such arrangement is reached, no small State will be safe from conquest and absorption by any strong, aggressive military power which covets it—not even if its people live chiefly by mining and manufacturing as the Belgians did.

The small States, being very determined to exist and to obtain their natural or historical racial boundaries, the problem of permanent or any durable peace in Europe resolves itself into this: How can the small or smaller nations be protected from attack by some larger nation which believes that might makes right and is mighty in industries, commerce, finance, and the military and naval arts? The experience gained during the past year proves that there is but one effective protection against such a power, namely, a firm league of other powers—not necessarily numerous—which together are stronger in industries, commerce, finance, and the military and naval arts than the aggressive and ambitious nation which heartily believes in its own invincibility and cherishes the ambition to conquer and possess.

Such a league is the present combination of Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, and Japan against the aggressive Central Monarchies and Turkey; but this combination was not formed deliberately and with conscious purpose to protect small States, to satisfy natural national aspirations, and to make durable peace possible by removing both fear of invasion and fear of the cutting off of overseas food and raw materials. In spite of the lack of an explicit and comprehensive purpose to attain these wise and precious ends, the solidity of the alliance during a year of stupendous efforts to resist military aggression on the part of Germany and Austria-Hungary certainly affords good promise of success for a somewhat larger league in which all the European nations—some, like the Scandinavian and the Balkans, by representation in groups—and the United States should be included. Such a league would have to act through a distinct and permanent council or commission which would not serve arbitrary power, or any peculiar national interest, and would not in the least resemble the "Concert of Europe," or any of the disastrous special conferences of diplomatists and Ministers for Foreign Affairs, called after wars since that of 1870-71 to "settle" the questions the wars raised.

The experience of the past twelve months proves that such a league could prevent any nation which disobeyed its orders from making use of the oceans and from occupying the territory of any other nation. Reduction of armaments, diminution of taxation, and durable peace would ensue as soon as general confidence was established that the league would fairly administer international justice, and that its military and naval forces were ready and effective. Its function would be limited to the prevention and punishment of violation of international agreements, or, in other words, to the enforcement of treaty obligations, until new treaties were made.

The present alliance is of good promise in three important respects—its members refuse to make any separate peace, they co-operate cordially and efficiently in military measures, and the richer members help the poorer financially. These policies have been hastily devised and adopted in the midst of strenuous fighting on an immense scale. If deliberately planned and perfected in times of peace, they could be made in the highest degree effective toward durable peace.

The war has demonstrated that the international agreements for the mitigation of the horrors of war, made by treaties, conferences, and conventions in times of peace, may go for nothing in time of war; because they have no sanction, or, in other words, lack penalties capable of systematic enforcement. To provide the lacking sanction and the physical force capable of compelling the payment of penalties for violating international agreements would be one of the best functions of the international council which the present alliance foreshadows. Some years would probably be required to satisfy the nations concerned that the sanction was real and the force trustworthy and sufficient. The absolute necessity of inventing and applying a sanction for international law, if Europe is to have international peace and any national liberty, will be obvious to any one who has once perceived that the present war became inevitable when Austria-Hungary, in violation of an international agreement to which she was herself a party, seized and absorbed Bosnia and Herzegovina, and became general and fierce when Germany, under Prussian lead, in violation of an international agreement to which she was herself a party, entered and plundered neutralized Belgium.

A strong, trustworthy international alliance to preserve the freedom of the seas under all circumstances would secure for Great Britain and her federated commonwealths everything secured by the burdensome two-navies policy which now secures the freedom of the seas for British purposes. The same international alliance would secure for Germany the same complete freedom of the seas which in times of peace between Germany and Great Britain she has long enjoyed by favor of Great Britain, but has lost in time of war with the Triple Entente. This security, with the general acceptance of the policy of the "open door," would fully meet Germany's need of indefinite expansion for her manufacturing industries and her commerce, and of room "in the sun" for her surplus population.

It is a safe inference from the events of the past six months that the longer the war lasts the more significant will be the political and social changes which result from it. It is not to be expected, and perhaps not to be desired, that the ruling class in the countries autocratically governed should themselves draw this inference at present, but all lovers of freedom and justice will find consolation for the prolongation of the war in this hopeful reflection.

To devise the wise constitution of an international council or commission with properly limited powers, and to determine the most promising composition of an international army and an international navy are serious tasks, but not beyond the available international wisdom and goodwill, provided that the tasks be intrusted to international publicists, business men of large experience, and successful administrators, rather than to professional diplomatists and soldiers. To dismiss such a noble enterprise with the remark that it is "academic," or beyond the reach of "practical" politics, is unworthy of courageous and humane men; for it seems now to be the only way out of the horrible abyss into which civilization has fallen. At any rate, some such machinery must be put into successful operation before any limitation of national armaments can be effected. The war has shown to what a catastrophe competitive national arming has led, and would probably again lead the most civilized nations of Europe. Shall the white race despair of escaping from this hell? The only way of escape in sight is the establishment of a rational international community. Should the enterprise fail after fair trial, the world will be no worse off than it was in July, 1914, or is today.

Whoever studies the events of the past year with some knowledge of political philosophy and history, and with the love of his neighbor in his heart, will discover, amid the horrors of the time and its moral chaos, three hopeful leadings for humanitarian effort, each involving a great constructive invention. He will see that humanity needs supremely a sanction for international law, rescue from alcoholism, and a sound basis for just and unselfish human relations in the great industries, and particularly in the machinery industries. The war has brought out all three of these needs with terrible force and vividness. Somehow they must be met, if the white race is to succeed in "the pursuit of happiness," or even to hold the gains already made.

“Revenge for Elisabeth!”

The Vienna "Arbeiter Zeitung" of June 22, 1915, prints the appeal of Dr. Wolfgang Madjera, a well-known authority on municipal affairs, which he has issued to Austrian soldiers departing for the Italian front. He says:

"The day has arrived," says Herr Madjera, "when you will have to revenge your murdered Empress [the late Empress Elisabeth who was murdered in Geneva by an Italian named Luccheni]. It was a son of that land which has now committed a scandalous act of treason on Austria who made your old Emperor a lonely man on his throne of thorns. Take a thousandfold revenge on the brethren of that miserable wretch. Austria's warriors feel the strength within them to defeat and smash with iron hand the raised hand of the murderer. It is Luccheni's spirit which leads the army of our enemy. May Elisabeth's spirit lead our spirit!"

H.I.M. FRANCIS JOSEPH I.
Latest Portrait of the Venerable Sovereign of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire
(Photo from Bain.)

A Year of the War in Africa and Asia

By Charles Johnston

I. RE-MAPPING THE WORLD.

SPEAKING on July 14, A. Bonar Law, British Colonial Secretary, announced that the Entente Allies have already occupied 450,000 square miles of German colonial possessions. Add Turkish possessions in Asia in the hands of the Entente powers, and the total reaches 500,000 square miles.

Two outstanding facts are that this transfer, if permanent, will change the destiny of all Africa and Asia, and that, for the first time in history, the oversea dominions of Britain have initiated and carried on wars of conquest, Australia and New Zealand, in union, having already taken 100,000 square miles of German colonies in the Pacific; while the Union of South Africa has conquered German Southwest Africa.

In other parts of Africa, France and Belgium are co-operating with English imperial forces, while in East Africa and on the Persian Gulf the brunt of the fighting is being borne by British Indian troops and troops provided by the Princes of India. The movement now in progress will, if completed, give the Entente powers the whole of Africa; will give Britain all Southern Asia, from the Mount Sinai peninsula to Siam; and will, in all probability, make the Entente powers heirs of the whole Eastern Hemisphere.

These immense territories are the ultimate stakes of the battles in France, in Poland, on the Dardanelles. We lose sight of them, perhaps, in the details of local fighting. In reality, nothing less is being effected than the re-mapping of the whole eastern hemisphere.

II. TOGOLAND AND KAMERUN.

On Aug. 1, a year ago, German colonial possessions in Africa totaled over a million square miles, in four regions—Togo, Kamerun, Southwest Africa, and East Africa. Togo, running from the north shore of the Gulf of Guinea, is wedged between French and English colonies. In August, France and England joined in attacking it, and on Aug. 26 their occupation was complete, a rich area of 33,000 square miles thus passing from Germany to the Entente powers.

Togo, the German Colony which was surrendered to a Franco-English expeditionary force.

Kamerun, in the elbow of the Gulf of Guinea, is about ten times as large, one-third of this having been conceded by France to Germany in 1911, through the agency of M. Caillaux. Recent letters to The London Times describe the fighting there:

On the 7th (May) we had a trying experience. Our company commander went out with myself and another subaltern and about forty men. We crossed the Mungo River in canoes, and then did a long and very difficult march all through the night in absolute dense forest. However the guides managed it passes comprehension.

About 5 in the morning, when it was just getting light, our advance party were just on the point of stumbling on to the German outpost, when what should happen but an elephant suddenly walked in between and scattered our opposing parties in all directions. I was in the rear of our little column, and was left in bewilderment, all our carriers dropping their loads and every one disappearing into the bush. After a few minutes we got our men together and our scouts went forward again, and found the Germans had bolted from their outpost, but soon returned and opened fire on our scouts.

I hope you have heard ere this of our capture of Duala and Bonaberi, and our further advance along the Duala Railway to Tusa, and along the Wari River to Jabassi. The heat and climate are very trying. It's awfully hot, far hotter than the last coast place I was in; a drier heat and sun infinitely more powerful, and yet the rains are full on and we get terrific tornadoes. The nights, however, are cooler.

We are surrounded by mangrove swamps, and they breed mosquitos, and consequently malaria and black-water fever.

This is quite a pretty little place (Duala) with some jolly houses, typical German of the Schloss villa type; nice inside and out. The country is pretty, the soil good. A good deal of timber and rubber. I found some beautiful tusks the other day, worth a good bit. Elephants abound. The native villages around are totally different from other West African ones—here their houses are mostly one long mud or palm erection, with thatched roof, and are divided into compartments instead of the smaller separate huts one is accustomed to see in these parts.

The notices all over the place are strangely reminiscent of, say, the Black Forest—"Bäkerei," "Conditorei," &c., and yet it is the heart of tropical Africa. None of the natives, strange to say, talk German; all pigeon English. The Hausa boys are splendid chaps, as different from the Duala boys or Sierra Leone boys as chalk from cheese. Smile and make an idiotic but beautiful remark, they rush with a roar of laughter for the biggest load.

We get some beautiful sunset effects here. At sundown night before last, on the sea near mouth of river, it was absolutely gorgeous with the purple mountains standing clear out against the orange and emerald sky and the dark gray shapes of our ships lying sombrely in the background, talking to each other in flashing Morse. The great mountain, Fernando Po, standing up out of the water to starboard and the Peak of Cameroon (13,760 feet) wreathed in mist to port; Victoria invisible, as also Buea—both hidden behind the clouds as we passed disdainfully by and entered the estuary of the Cameroon River.

As an added detail for West Africa, it should be recorded that, on March 19, a combined French and Belgian force occupied Molundu in the German Congo territory, and Ngaundere on June 29.

III. WITH BOTHA IN SOUTHWEST AFRICA.

On July 13 a resolution, moved by Premier Asquith, was passed by acclamation in the House of Commons thanking General Louis Botha, General Smuts and the forces of the Union of South Africa for their work in "the remarkable campaign which has just been brought to a remarkable and glorious conclusion." Premier Asquith concluded:

The German dominion of Southwest Africa has ceased to exist. I ask the House to testify to the admiration of the whole empire for its gratitude to the illustrious General who has rendered such an inestimable service to the empire, which he entered by adoption and of which he has become one of the most honored and cherished sons, and to his dauntless and much enduring troops, whether of Burgher or British birth, who fought like brethren, side by side, in the cause which is equally dear to them as to us—the broadening of the bounds of human liberty.

GENERAL LOUIS BOTHA
The Boer Commander Who Added German Southwest Africa
to the British Crown
(Photo from Medem Photo Service.)

The event which the British Premier thus read into the minutes of history marks the end of a campaign begun by General Botha on Sept. 27, when troops of the Union of South Africa first entered German territory. On Christmas Day Walfisch (Whale) Bay was occupied, and on Jan. 14 Swakopmund, a military railroad joining them being finished a month later.

The progress of General Botha's campaign from the south and west is thus summarized by The Sphere (July 3):

The occupation of Windhoek was effected by General Botha's North Damaraland forces working along the railway from Swakopmund. At the former place General Vanderventer joined up with General Botha's forces. The force from Swakopmund met with considerable opposition, first at Tretskopje, a small township in the great Namib Desert fifty miles to the northeast of Swakopmund, and secondly at Otjimbingwe, on the Swakop River, sixty miles northwest of Windhoek.

Apart from these two determined stands, however, little other opposition was encountered, and Karibib was occupied on May 5 and Okahandja and Windhoek on May 12. With the fall of the latter place 3,000 Europeans and 12,000 natives became prisoners.

The wireless station—one of Germany's most valuable high-power stations, which was able to communicate with one relay only with Berlin—was captured almost intact, and much rolling stock also fell into the hands of the Union forces.

The advance from the south along the Lüderitzbucht-Seeheim-Keetmanshoop Railway, approximately 500 miles in length, was made by two forces which joined hands at Keetmanshoop. The advance from Aus (captured on April 1) was made by General Smuts's forces. Colonel (afterward General) Vanderventer, moving up from the direction of Warmbad and Kalkfontein, around the flanks of Karas Mountain, pushed on after reaching Keetmanshoop in the direction of Gibeon. Bethany had previously been occupied during the advance to Seeheim. At Kabus, twenty miles to the north of Keetmanshoop, and at Gibeon pitched battles were fought between General Vanderventer's forces and the enemy. No other opposition of importance was encountered, and the operations were brought to a successful conclusion at Windhoek.

A part of the German forces had retreated to the northward, intending to carry on guerrilla warfare in the hills. General Botha went in pursuit. A Reuter's telegram, dated June 26, announced that Otjivarongo, approximately 120 miles north of Karibib, on the Otavi Railway, was occupied on that day by General Botha, the enemy having retired northward during the previous night. General Botha's movements have again been characterized by rapid and extraordinary marching through dense bush country, which is almost waterless. The retirement of the enemy was more suggestive of a flight than a strategic retreat.

A telegram from Lord Buxton, the Governor General of the Union of South Africa, to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, concludes the story:

This morning, July 9, General Botha accepted from Governor Seitz the surrender of all the German forces in Southwest Africa. Hostilities have ceased and the campaign has thus been brought to a successful conclusion.

The newly conquered territory, which is half as large again as the German Empire, is destined to become a part of the South African Union. As a great part of it is 5,000 feet above sea level, it is well adapted for white settlers. Its chief resources are diamond mines and grazing.

General Botha's force is likely to be divided between the European seat of war, to which the South African Union has up to the present sent no troops, and German East Africa, much of which still remains in the hands of the Germans.

IV. GERMAN EAST AFRICA.

The early stage of the struggle for German East Africa is lucidly summarized in The Sphere for May 8:

The fighting in British East Africa (immediately north of the German colony) may be said to have really begun toward the end of September, 1914, when the Germans made a determined attempt to capture Mombasa, the commercial capital of British East Africa and the terminus of the Uganda Railway.

Previous to this, somewhat half-hearted attempts had been made by them to wreck the railway line at various points, destroy the telegraph, and occupy Voi and Mombasa. The Germans, who were in strong force, were, however, for various reasons, unable to cut the railway or even to destroy the bridge across the Tsava River, and they were beaten back both at Voi and the post at Taveta.

The attack on Mombasa itself was repulsed at Gazi, some twenty-five miles to the southwest. The German plan of action was to move up the road from Vanga to Mombasa, arriving at the latter place somewhere about the time the Königsburg was expected to arrive and bombard it from the sea. The Königsburg was, of course, prevented from doing this by the proximity of British warships, and the land attack was also frustrated.

The Germans were held at Nargerimi by a mere handful of Arabs and King's African Rifles—about 300 men all told—until the arrival of the Indian troops strengthened our position and the enemy was beaten back to his original lines.

The next big actions were the British attack on Tanga and Jassin very early in November; this was the direct outcome of the German attack on Mombasa. Tanga is a post of considerable importance in German East Africa, and lies midway between Zanzibar and Mombasa. It is the seaport of an important railway line which connects it with Moshi, lying among the foothills of Kilimanjaro (18,700 feet) and which taps most of the intervening country.

The force dispatched for the attack on Tanga consisted of 4,000 Indian Imperial Service troops, 1,000 Indian regulars, together with 1,000 white regulars. The force took no kit of any kind except rations. It was disembarked from the troopship near Tanga, and then moved against the position.

The day the British attacked, however, 1,000 Germans had been rushed up from Moshi and then took up a position to the right of the town. With them were great numbers of quick-firing guns of various sorts. This unexpected reinforcement made the capture of Tanga almost impossible by the forces present. During the fight many casualties were incurred on both sides.

As regards the advance against Tanga and Jassin, the German forces which had previously advanced on Mombasa were, up to as recently as January, maintaining themselves in the valley of the Umba River. To drive them from their positions a column of 1,800 men, composed of Indians and King's African Rifles, with artillery, was dispatched.

After gaining Jassin and leaving a garrison of 300 men, the post was attacked and subsequently surrendered to a force of 2,000 Germans. The minor operations along the Anglo-German frontier include the attack on Shirati—a German post on the southeast shore of Lake Victoria Nyanza—on Jan. 9.

Fighting also took place near Karunga in March, and on this occasion the German force was driven back in disorder and with heavy loss into their own territory, while Kisu—which had been captured by the Germans—was reoccupied after the defeat of Karunga. On Jan. 10 the large Island of Mafia, off the coast of the German colony, was taken by the British and is being administered by them.

The history of the war in this region is brought up to date by a British Press Bureau statement issued on June 30:

Further details are now to hand of the operations which have been taking place west of Lake Victoria Nyanza. It will be remembered that the general scheme for the attack on Bukoba was to be a simultaneous advance on the part of two forces, one starting from the line of the Kagera River, south of Uganda, the other starting on steamers from Kisumu.

The junction of the two forces was successfully accomplished, and the attack took place on June 22. During the action the enemy received reinforcements which brought his force up to 400 rifles, and he made a most determined resistance, the Arabs especially fighting most bravely. They were, however, heavily outnumbered, and eventually the whole force broke and fled, utterly demoralized.... Our troops distinguished themselves greatly, both in the arduous march from the Kagera and in the subsequent fighting. A telegram was sent on June 28 from Lord Kitchener to Major Gen. Tighe, commanding the troops in British East Africa, congratulating him on the success of the operations.

V. THE PERSIAN GULF AND MESOPOTAMIA.

Turkey's entry into the war has had four results: 1, The annexation of Cyprus (previously a protectorate) by Britain on Nov. 5; 2, the British expedition against Turkish territory on the Persian Gulf two weeks later; 3, the loss of Turkey's suzerainty over Egypt, which became a British protectorate under a Sultan on Dec. 17, and, 4, the attack on the Gallipoli Peninsula, still in progress.

An excellent summary of the Persian Gulf expedition is given in The Sphere, May 15:

The Shatt-el-Arab, (the united Euphrates and Tigris,) for the greater part of its course, forms the boundary between Persia and Turkey. Some twenty miles below Basra (or Bussorah) it is joined by the Kasun, near whose course, about a hundred miles from its mouth, are the Anglo-Persian Company's oil fields.

The effective protection of these is necessarily an object of vital importance. It was also of considerable importance to create a diversion which should cause the Osmanli Generals to feel uneasiness as to a possible advance up the Euphrates. Whether more than the occupation of Basra and the protection of the oil fields was or is intended cannot, of course, be at present definitely stated.

The expeditionary force, under Lieut. Gen. Sir Arthur Barrett, consisted—apparently—of three Indo-British infantry brigades, a brigade of Indian cavalry, and artillery and auxiliary services in proportion—in all probability some 15,000 to 18,000 men. It included at least three British battalions—the Second Dorsets, the Second Norfolks, and the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry.

The advanced brigade reached the Shatt-el-Arab on Nov. 7, and after a brief fight occupied Fao, a few miles up the river. On the 9th a night attack was made upon it by a force from Basra, which was easily beaten off. Shortly afterwards the main body of the expeditionary force began to arrive, and by the 16th it had entirely disembarked at Saniyeh, a place above Fao.

The weather was wretched. Rain converted the alluvial flats into a wilderness of mud. The men were drenched and caked with the riverine clay, the very rifles were often choked.

Meanwhile the advance guard carried out a reconnoissance up the river and located the enemy in position at Sahilo, about nine miles distant. They numbered about 5,000 men, with twelve guns, under General Subr Bey, the Vali (Governor) of Basra. The reconnoissance carried an advanced position with a loss of sixty killed and wounded, and withdrew unmolested to report.

On the 17th General Barrett paraded for the attack the bulk of his force. After a trying march through a veritable quagmire, the troops sometimes up to their waists in slush, the division at about 9 A.M. came within range of the Turkish position, and the leading brigade, the Belgaum, (Major Gen. Fry,) deployed for attack.

The ground was absolutely open, and the Turks had a perfect field of fire. On our side the men had the greatest difficulty in getting forward through the clayey mud-beds and the worn-out horses could not bring up the field artillery. Nevertheless, the Belgaum brigade steadily advanced, and the attack being presently supported by other troops and assisted by the first of the two gunboats on the river, at last closed upon the Turkish intrenchments and carried them, capturing two guns and one hundred prisoners, besides inflicting a very heavy loss in killed and wounded.

The retreat of the enemy was assisted by a mirage which disconcerted our gunners. Subr Bey retreated on Basra, but he had no hope of being able to hold the big spreading place with his small force, and evacuated it. He retreated to Kurna, where the Tigris joins the Euphrates. There he intrenched himself. His main body was in Kurna, a large village encircled by palm groves, in the marshy angle formed by the two rivers, with a strong detachment in the straggling village of Mazera, on the left bank of the Tigris.

On Dec. 7 General Fry advanced upon the Kurna position. The defenders of Mazera made a hard fight of it, assisted by the strength of their position among a maze of pottery works backed up by the ubiquitous palms, but in the afternoon the village was carried.

Kurna was now isolated, but its capture presented great difficulties. All through the 8th General Fry bombarded it from Mazera, while his infantry were slowly ferried over higher up. This was prepared by some daring sappers, who swam the broad river and fixed a wire rope by which the boats were worked backward and forward, and an advance was made against Kurna from the rear.

Subr Bey had lost very heavily at Mazera, so he accepted the inevitable and surrendered. So a brilliant little episode came to a victorious conclusion. Subr Bey was returned his sword and complimented on his stubborn defense.

The capture of Kurna secured the possession of the Basra region. Since then operations have been directed to securing it against Turkish attempts at recovery.

A recent stage of this campaign is thus described in The Pioneer Mail (Allahabad) June 4, 1915:

It is announced from Simla that on the morning of May 31 a further advance up the Tigris River was made by the British expeditionary force in close co-operation with the navy. Notwithstanding the excessive heat the troops advanced with great dash and determination, and successively captured four positions held by the enemy. As far as reported we suffered only a few casualties. Valuable work was performed by our aeroplanes. The operations are proceeding.

VI. THE “UNREST” IN INDIA.

The splendid work done by Indian regulars and Indian imperial forces (the forces supplied by native Princes) in Europe, in Africa, in Egypt, in Mesopotamia is a sufficient answer to the suggestion that British influence in India has been weakened by the war. The enthusiastic formation of volunteer corps, both of Europeans and of natives, is a further proof that the peoples of India, now more than ever, realize the benefits of liberty and security which they enjoy. In India the torpedoing of the Lusitania made a profound impression, as the native press proves.

A notable trial, the Lahore conspiracy case, disclosed the curious fact that almost the only case of "unrest" in India was "made in America" by returned emigrants from Canada and California, who, on their way back, were interviewed by the German Consuls at Chinese ports and advised to stir up an insurrection. This they tried to do, using bombs made of brass inkpots, and bombarding the houses of well-to-do natives, seeking in this way to raise money to finance the rising.

The Pioneer Mail (Allahabad) gives an interesting account of the trial of these peculiar patriots, half of whom seem to have informed on the other half. It appears that they, or others like them, were instrumental in causing the recent riot at Singapore, in which some twenty European men and women were killed.

VII. GERMAN ISLANDS IN THE PACIFIC.

A curious result of the world war has been the expeditions initiated by the great oversea dominions of Britain and by India. The work of two of these, in Africa and Mesopotamia, has been already described. There remain the joint Australian and New Zealand expeditions against the island colonies of Germany and the great semi-continental area of New Guinea.

A lively account of the expedition against the Samoa Islands is printed in The Sydney Bulletin for Sept. 24:

The recent expedition to Samoa furnished many surprises, chief among which was the adaptability of the Maorilanders to military discipline. When the men came on board the transports (Moeraki and Monowai) discipline simply wasn't in their dictionaries. They acknowledged orders with a "Right O, Sport," or with an argument. Companies were referred to as mobs, the commanding officer as the boss or the admiral....

The night before we reached Samoa an English military officer on board told me it was remarkable, and highly creditable, the rapidity with which the men had adapted themselves to the changed circumstances....

The expedition called at Noumea to pick up the French warship Montcalm, also the Australia and Melbourne of ours. Noumea had been very worried since the war began, lest the German fleet from Samoa would come along and bombard the place. Had notices up to the effect that five shots would signify the arrival of the Germans, and that every inhabitant was then to grab rations and make for the horizon. The welcome the French handed to us would have stirred the blood of a jellyfish.

Samoa proved a walk-over. Not a gun, not a ship, not a mine. A bunch of schoolboys with Shanghais and a hatful of rocks could have taken it. The German fleet that was supposed to be waiting to welcome us hadn't been around for eleven months. Seemingly the German fleet has gone into the business of not being around.

VIII. GERMAN NEW GUINEA.

The Australasian (Melbourne) for Sept. 19 prints the following, describing the conquest of German New Guinea, which, with the Bismarck Archipelago, off the coast, has an area of 90,000 square miles—something less than half the size of the German Empire:

The Minister for Defense (Mr. Millen) has received the following further information by wireless regarding the operations at Herbertshohe and Rabaul, from Admiral Patey: The Australian naval reserve captured the wireless station at Herbertshohe at 1 P.M. on Sept. 12, after eighteen hours' bush fighting over about six miles. Herbertshohe and Rabaul, the seat of Government, have been garrisoned and a base has been established at Simpsonshafen.

Have prisoners: German officers, 2, including commandant; German non-commissioned officers, 15; and native police, 56. German casualties about 20 to 30 killed. Simpsonshafen swept and ready to be entered Sept. 12.

Naval force landed under Commander Beresford of the Australian Navy met with vigorous opposition. Advanced party at dawn established landing before enemy aware of intention. From within a few hundred yards of landing bush fight for almost four miles. Roads and fronts also mined in places, and stations intrenched. Officer commanding German forces in trench 500 yards seaward side of station has surrendered unconditionally.

Our force have reconnoitred enemy strength holding station. Have landed 12-pounder guns, and if station does not surrender intend shelling. Regret to report following casualties: 4 killed, 3 wounded.

Later a wireless message from Rear-Admiral Sir George Patey informed the Minister for Defense (Mr. E.D. Millen) on Monday, Sept. 14, that, as a result of the operations of the Australian Expeditionary Force, Rabaul, the seat of government in German New Guinea, had been occupied. The British flag was hoisted over the town at 3:30 on Sunday afternoon (Sept. 13, 1914) and it was saluted. A proclamation was then read by Rear-Admiral Patey, formerly setting out the occupation.

Apia (Samoa) had been occupied by British forces on Aug. 29. The Caroline Islands, first occupied by Japan, were turned over to New Zealand. The Marshall and Solomon Islands were likewise occupied on Dec. 9, thus completing the tale of Germany's colonial possessions in the Pacific.

There remain large areas in Kamerun and East Africa, but in both cases the coast line is in the possession of the Entente powers.

IX. FIGHTING IN THE CAUCASUS.

The first considerable battle in the Caucasus, after Turkey entered the war, was decided in favor of Russia, on Jan. 3. On Jan. 16 the Eleventh Corps of the Turkish Army was cut up at Kara Urgaun. On Jan. 30 the Russians occupied Tabriz. On Feb. 8 Trebizond was bombarded by Russian destroyers. On May 4 the Turks were again defeated, leaving 3,500 dead.

The most recent considerable action was the taking of the ancient and important City of Van, which is graphically described in Novoe Vremya, June 19:

"When our armies scattered the forces of Halil Bey and gained marked successes in the western part of Azerbijan, the question of taking Van and the more important towns on Lake Van arose. At the same time we received news of the desperate situation of the Christians (Armenians) of the Van vilayet, who had been compelled to take up arms against the Kurds.

"Our division was directed to go to Van through the Sanjak of Bajazet, crossing the Tatar Pass under fire of Turkish regulars and Kurds. In spite of the Spring season, the whole pass was covered with a thick carpet of snow, in places up to our men's belts. At the highest point of the pass, 10,000 feet, we were forced to halt. After a brief rest we reached Taparitz and were immediately in contact with the enemy, who attacked with shell and rifle fire, but we soon silenced them with our rifles and machine guns. Scattering, the Turks and Kurds hid among the rocks and sniped at us.

"From Taparitz we advanced much more rapidly along the Abaga Valley, then turned to the west along the River Bendimach-Su, the best route to Van. We were informed that Begri-Kala was strongly occupied by Turks who were determined to defend it to the last.

"They began an irregular fire, which soon developed into a hotly contested battle. We were compelled to reply with bullet and bayonet. We took several mountain guns, many rifles and cartridges and much ammunition. Many of the enemy threw up their hands and surrendered. We liberated several dozen Christian girls who had been captured by the Kurds at the time of the Turk and Kurd raid on the Armenian villages.

"We then resumed our march on Van, after driving the Turks from the Village of Sor. The enemy gathered in the Town of Janik, one march from Van, on the northeast shore of Lake Van. To take Janik cost us several days' fighting. The Turks fought desperately, undaunted by enormous losses, their dead falling in heaps on all sides. The Turkish infantry fought a brave and honorable fight, but the Kurds are foul fighters, murdering and looting.

"Attacking directly with only a part of our forces, we sent the rest by a long detour around the enemy's position, taking the Turks in flank; then our men charged with the bayonet, and the fight was over.

"The fall of Janik decided the fate of Van. On the night of May 5 (18) the Turks evacuated Van, leaving twenty-six guns, 3,000 poods (a pood equals 36 pounds) of powder, their treasure and documents; they went so silently that the inhabitants did not know of it until the next morning.

"On May 6 (19) the birthday of Czar Nicholas II., we entered antique Van, the centre of the large and once wealthy vilayet of the same name, amid extraordinary rejoicings, the entire Christian population coming forth to meet us, strewing flowers and green branches in the streets and decking our soldiers with garlands.

"The capture of Van is as important politically as it is strategically. The advance on Mush and Bitlis is a necessary consequence."

An “Insult” to War

On Friday night at Carnegie Hall Miss Jane Addams stated that in the present war, in order to get soldiers to charge with the bayonet, all nations are forced first to make them drunk. I quote from The Times report:

In Germany they have a regular formula for it [she said]. In England they use rum and the French resort to absinthe. In other words, therefore, in the terrible bayonet charges they speak of with dread, the men must be doped before they start.

In this war the French or English soldier who has been killed in a bayonet charge gave his life to protect his home and country. For his supreme exit he had prepared himself by months of discipline. Through the Winter in the trenches he has endured shells, disease, snow and ice. For months he had been separated from his wife, children, friends—all those he most loved. When the order to charge came it was for them he gave his life, that against those who destroyed Belgium they might preserve their home, might live to enjoy peace.

Miss Addams denies him the credit of his sacrifice. She strips him of honor and courage. She tells his children, "Your father did not die for France, or for England, or for you; he died because he was drunk."

In my opinion, since the war began, no statement had been so unworthy or so untrue and ridiculous. The contempt it shows for the memory of the dead is appalling; the credulity and ignorance it displays are inconceivable.

Miss Addams does not know that even from France they have banished absinthe. If she doubts that in this France had succeeded let her ask for it. I asked for it, and each maître d'hôtel treated me as though I had proposed we should assassinate General Joffre.

If Miss Addams does know that the French Government has banished absinthe, then she is accusing it of openly receiving the congratulations of the world for destroying the drug while secretly using it to make fiends of the army. If what Miss Addams states is true, then the French Government is rotten, French officers deserve only court-martial, and French soldiers are cowards.

If we are to believe her, the Canadians at Ypres, the Australians in the Dardanelles, the English and the French on the Aisne made no supreme sacrifice, but were killed in a drunken brawl.

Miss Addams desires peace. So does every one else. But she will not attain peace by misrepresentation. I have seen more of this war and other wars than Miss Addams, and I know all war to be wicked, wasteful, and unintelligent, and where Miss Addams can furnish one argument in favor of peace I will furnish a hundred. But against this insult, flung by a complacent and self-satisfied woman at men who gave their lives for men, I protest. And I believe that with me are all those women and men who respect courage and honor.

The Drive at Warsaw

Germany’s Story of the Eastern Campaign

Battles of Radymno, Przemysl, Lemberg, the Dniester,
Krasnik, Przasnysz, Ostrolenka

The grand sweep of the victorious German armies through Galicia and into Poland, on a more tremendous scale than has hitherto been witnessed in the warfare of history, is recorded in the semi-official German accounts of the Wolff Telegraphic Bureau, published by the Frankfurter Zeitung from June 3 to June 29, and translated below. The official German reports of the campaign concentrated upon the Polish capital of Warsaw follow. On July 19 a Petrograd dispatch to the London Morning Post reported that Emperor William had telegraphed his sister, the Queen of Greece, to the effect that he had "paralyzed Russia for at least six months to come" and was on the eve of "delivering a coup on the western front that will make all Europe tremble."

H.M. QUEEN SOPHIA OF GREECE
Sister of Kaiser Wilhelm, and an Ardent Germanophile
(Photo from Bain.)

STORMING OF RADYMNO

The semi-official report dispatched by the Wolff Telegraphic Bureau from Berlin on June 3, 1915, reads as follows:

FROM the Great Headquarters we learn the following concerning the battles at Radymno:

The corps of General von Mackensen, on the evening of the 23d of May, stood on both sides of the San in a great bow directed toward the east. On the right wing Bavarian troops stood on the watch facing the northwest front of the fortress of Przemysl. In touch with the Bavarian troops German and Austro-Hungarian forces stood south of the San before the strongly fortified bridgehead of Radymno. Farther north still other troops linked up with the army.

The bridgehead of Radymno consisted of a threefold line of field works. There was in the first place the main position well provided with wire entanglements. This ran along the heights that lie westward of the village of Ostroro and through the low lands of the San up to this river. Then there was a well-constructed intermediate position which was laid through the long straggling village of Ostroro. Finally there was the so-called bridgehead of Zagrody which was constructed for the protection of the street and railroad bridges crossing the river to the east of Radymno. Air-men had photographed all these positions and had reduced the views by the photogrammeter and transferred them to the map.

The first task was to render the enemy's main positions ripe for attack. With this object the artillery on the afternoon of May 23 began its fire, which was continued on the next day. From the heights near Jaroslau could be seen the valley of the San lying in the mists, out of which jutted the cupola towers of Radymno and the hamlets of Ostroro, Wietlin, Wysocko, etc. The artillery fire was raised to the utmost pitch of intensity. The heavy projectiles howling, furrowed the air, lit great fires as they struck and excavated vast pits in the earth. The Russian artillery replied.

At six o'clock in the morning the long infantry lines rose in their storming positions and advanced to the attack. The flyers reported that behind the enemy's positions they observed grazing cattle and baggage carts. The enemy seemed not to expect a serious attack. Anyhow, the Petersburg bulletin had announced that the battles in Galicia had decreased in intensity, that the Teutonic allies had practically throughout gone over to the defensive.

At six-thirty in the morning the enemy's main position in its whole extent was in the hands of the German troops. Shaken by the heavy artillery fire the enemy had made only brief resistance; he was in hasty retreat toward the east.

But just in that direction and into Radymno, whence the enemy's reinforcements were to be expected, the artillery had in the meantime turned its fire. Great clouds of smoke covered these villages set afire by the bombardment. The Russians thus did not have the chance to take permanent footing in Ostroro. The troops holding the town surrendered, leaving hundreds of guns and great quantities of ammunition in the hands of the victors.

Along the whole line the German infantry was now advancing upon Radymno and the villages connecting with this place, Skolowszo and Zamojsce. With every step forward the number of prisoners was increased. Soon one division reported to headquarters that it did not have enough men to attend to the removal of the great masses of prisoners without prejudice to the conduct of the action. Cavalry was therefore assigned to this task.

At Radymno the enemy's troops had become jammed in crowds. A wooden wagon bridge over the San had been burned down too soon. From the position of the staff directing the battle one could see the leaping flames and the clouds of heavy black smoke caused by the pouring on of naphtha. One could also see long columns fleeing eastward covering the street toward Dunkowice with their disordered crowds. As the Russian recruits which had been gathered in Radymno made only a brief resistance, this place together with all the artillery which was attempting to escape through the town to the San, was also lost. Only at the bridgehead of Zagrody did the Russian leaders, by hastily bringing up fresh reserves, finally check the attack of the Germans. On this day 70 officers, 9,000 men, 42 machine guns, 52 cannon of which 10 were heavy, 14 ammunition wagons, and extensive other booty was reported. But also on the north bank of the San a great battle had developed.

PRZEMYSL

A semi-official dispatch by the Wolff Telegraphic Bureau dated Berlin, June 6, said:

From the Great Headquarters we have received the following telegram concerning the fall of the fortress Przemysl:

When on the 2d of May the offensive of the allies in West Galicia began, few probably could have imagined that four weeks later the heavy guns of the Central Powers would open their fire on Przemysl. The Russian staff was not likely to have been prepared for this possibility. Its decision swayed this way and that, whether, as originally planned, to hold the fortress, for "political reasons" or "voluntarily to withdraw" from it. Constantly our airmen reported the marching of troops in and out of the fortress. On the 21st of May the decision seemed to have been reached to abandon it. In spite of this, eight days later the place was stubbornly defended.

General von Kneussl pushed the line of his Bavarian regiments from the north closer to the fortress to shut in the foe. About eleven o'clock in the forenoon the heavy batteries began to engage the forts on the north front. In the night from the 30th to the 31st of May the infantry pushed forward closer to the wire entanglements. It awaited the effect of the heavy artillery. This confined the defenders to their bomb-proof shelters, so that our infantry could step out of its trenches and from the top of the breastworks watch the tremendous drama of destruction. The lighter guns of the assailants found ideal positions in the battery emplacements formerly built by the Russians as part of their siege works when operating against the Austrians in Przemysl. So, too, General von Kneussl with his staff found shelter near, and the chief of artillery in the observation station constructed by the Russians near Batycze. From this point, distant from the line of forts only a little more than two kilometers, one could observe the whole front of Forts 10 and 11. On the 31st of May, at four in the afternoon, the heavy guns ceased firing. Simultaneously the infantry, Bavarian regiments, a Prussian regiment and a detachment of Austrian sharp-shooters, moved to the attack. The destruction of the works and advanced points of support of the fortress by the heavy artillery had such a shattering and depressing effect on its garrison that it was not capable of offering any effective resistance to the attacking infantry.

The troops manning Forts 10a, 11a, and 11, such of them as did not lie buried in the shattered casemates, fled, leaving behind their entire war material, including a great number of the newest light and heavy Russian guns. The enemy replied to the assailants who pushed forward to the circular connecting road, only with artillery fire, and in the night made no counter attack of any kind. On the 1st of June the enemy threw several single battalions into a counter attack. These attacks were repulsed without difficulty.

The heavy artillery now fought down Forts 10 and 11. The Prussian infantry regiment No. 45, jointly with Bavarian troops, stormed two earthworks lying to the east of Fort 11 which the enemy had stubbornly defended. On the 2d of June, at noon, the 22d regiment of Bavarian infantry stormed Fort 10, in which all "bombproofs" except one had been made heaps of débris by the action of the heavy artillery. A battalion of fusiliers of the Queen Augusta Guard regiment of grenadiers in the evening took Fort 12. Works 10b, 9a and 9b capitulated.

In the evening the troops of General von Kneussl began the attack in the direction of the city. The village Zurawica and the fortified positions of the enemy situated there were captured. The enemy now desisted from all further resistance. Thus the German troops, followed later by the 4th Austro-Hungarian cavalry division were able to occupy the strongly built inner line of forts, and at 3 o'clock in the morning after making numerous prisoners, to march into the relieved city of Przemysl.

Here, where a battalion of the third infantry regiment of the Guard was the first troop to enter, there was still a last halt before the burned bridges over the San. But these were soon replaced with military bridges. After a siege of only four days the fortress of Przemysl was again in the hands of the allies. The Russians had in vain attacked this fortress for months. Although they brought hecatombs of bloody sacrifices they had not succeeded in taking the fortress by storm. Only by starvation did they bring it to fall, and they were enabled to enjoy their possession only nine weeks. Energetic and daring leadership, supported by heroically fighting troops and excellent heavy artillery, had in the briefest possible space of time reduced the great fortress.

BATTLE OF GRODEK

A semi-official dispatch by the Wolff Telegraphic Bureau, dated Berlin, June 27, reported as follows:

From the Great Headquarters we have received the following telegram about the battle for Grodek and the Wereszyca position:

In the night from the 15th to the 16th of June the enemy began his retreat in front of the allied troops in an easterly and northeasterly direction. He was now unquestionably withdrawing to his defenses on the Wereszyca and the so-called Grodek position. The Wereszyca is a little stream that rises in the hilly lands of Magierow and flows in a southerly course to the Dniester. Insignificant as the streamlet is in itself, it yet forms, because of the width of its valley and the ten rather large lakes in it, a locality peculiarly well fitted for defense.

Whatever was lacking to the situation in natural strength had been supplied by art. This the Russians displayed above all in the Grodek position which, joining the Wereszyca on the north at Janow, stretches for a distance of more than 70 kilometres in a northwestern direction as far as the region of Narol Miasto. Thousands of laborers had here worked for months to construct a fortified position which does honor to the Russian engineers. Here extensive clearings have been made in the forests. Dozens of works for infantry defense, hundreds of kilometres of rifle trenches, covering and connecting trenches, had been dug, the hilly forest land quite transformed, and finally vast wire entanglements stretched along the entire Wereszyca and Grodek front. Taken as a whole this position formed the last great bulwark with which the Russians hoped to check their victorious opponents and to bring their advance upon Lemberg to a permanent halt.

The Russian army found itself incapable of acting up to these expectations of its leaders. A cavalry regiment of the Guard, with the cannon and machine guns assigned to it, succeeded on the 16th of June, on the road Jaworow-Niemirow, in making a surprise attack on a Russian infantry brigade marching northward to the Grodek position and in scattering it in the forests. In the evening the city of Niemirow was stormed. On the 18th of June the armies of General von Mackensen deployed into line of battle before the Russian positions. On the following day they moved to the attack. Early in the morning the decisive onslaught was made on the Grodek position and in the evening on the Wereszyca line. Very soon the hostile positions on both sides of the Sosnina forest were taken. Four of the enemy's guns were captured, and the Russian positions on Mt. Horoszyko, which had been built up into a veritable fortress, were stormed.

The main attack was made by regiments of the Prussian Guard. Before them lay, to the west of Magierow, Hill 350. Even from a distance it can be seen that this elevation, rising to a height of fifty metres above the slope, is the key to the whole position. The defenses consisted of two rows of trenches, lying one over the other, with strong cover, and with wire entanglements and abattis in front of them. At daybreak began the artillery battle. This already at six o'clock in the morning resulted in the complete subduing of the Russian artillery, which, as always in the recently preceding days, held back and only very cautiously and with sparing use of ammunition took part in the battle. At seven the hostile position was considered ripe for storming and the infantry attack ordered. Although the forces manning the heights still took up the fire against the attackers, it was without, however, inflicting on them losses worth mentioning. The German heavy artillery had done its duty. The enemy was so demoralized that, although in the beginning he kept up his fire, he preferred to absent himself before the entry of the Germans into his trenches.

More than 700 prisoners and about a dozen machine guns fell into the hands of the attackers. In the ditches that were taken alone there lay 200 dead Russians. In the meantime the attack was directed against the neighboring sections. Soon the Russians found themselves compelled also to vacate without giving battle the very strong position running north of the street that leads to Magierow, with its front toward the south. Since the German troops were able to penetrate with the fleeing enemy into Magierow and to advance north of the city toward the east, the position at Bialo-Piaskowa also became untenable. The Russians flowed backward and only at Lawryko again tried to get a firm footing. Late in the evening a Guard regiment took the railroad station of Dabrocin, where but a short time before the Russians had been trans-shipping troops, and thus won the Lemberg-Rawa-Ruska road. The adjoining corps in the evening stood about on a level with the regiments of the Guard. Again penetration of the Russian front had succeeded to a width of 25 kilometres, and the fate of Lemberg had been decided here and on the Wereszyca. This line was stormed late in the evening and partly in the early morning hours of the 20th of June. The German corps, which on this day had been joined by the German Emperor, stormed the hostile positions of Stawki as far as the Bulawa outwork. Since the morning hours of the 20th of June the enemy, who in places had already withdrawn in the night, was in full retreat toward the east along the whole front. The pursuit was at once undertaken. On the evening of the same day Royal and Imperial troops stood close before the fortifications of Lemberg.

THE FALL OF LEMBERG

A semi-official report dispatch by the Wolff Telegraphic Bureau from Berlin, June 28, reads:

From the Great Headquarters we have received the following telegram about the taking of Lemberg:

The Russians entered Lemberg, the capital of Galicia, a city of 250,000 inhabitants, in the beginning of September, 1914. They at once restored to the city its Polish name, Lwow, and during their reign in the beautiful town made themselves exceedingly well at home. They began promptly to develop Lemberg into a great fortress and for the further protection of their new possession to construct the fortified lines of Grodek and Wereszyca. The protective works of Lemberg built by the Austrians were strengthened and extended by the Russians, especially along the south and southwest fronts. The existing depot facilities were enlarged and a number of railways, both field and permanent, extended throughout the domain of the fortress. To guarantee the maintenance of the fortress of Lemberg, even in case the Grodek position should be penetrated and have to be given up, a strongly fortified supporting work had been built. This ran along the heights to the west of the Lemberg-Rawa-Ruska railway to the vicinity of Dobrocin.

After the armies of General von Mackensen had broken through the Grodek and Wereszyca position, German divisions and allied troops struck these supporting works. The centre of the Army Boehm-Ermolli simultaneously approached the west from Lemberg. The main body of this army attacked sections of the hostile army which had prepared for renewed resistance behind the Szczerzek and Stavczonka streams and in contact with the fortress on the south. This position on the evening of the 21st of June was successfully penetrated at several points and the attacking troops were pushed closer to the defenses on the west front of Lemberg. German connecting troops under the leadership of General von der Marwitz on the same day stormed the most important points of the stubbornly defended supporting position. They thus compelled the enemy to evacuate this position in the whole of its extent and opened for the adjacent Austrian troops the road to the defenses on the northwest front of the fortress. In consequence the Austro-Hungarian troops were able on the 22d of June to take the works on the northwest and west fronts.

At five o'clock in the morning fell the fortification Rzesna, soon thereafter Sknilow, and toward eleven Lysa Gora. This work was conquered by infantry regiment No. 34, "William I., German Emperor and King of Prussia." In the Rzesna fortification alone, besides gun limbers and machine guns, 400 prisoners were taken who belonged to no less than eighteen different Russian divisions. In the work there was found, besides masses of weapons and ammunition, a large number of unopened wooden boxes containing steel blinders (Stahlblenden).

At noon of that day the victorious troops set foot in the Galician capital in which the Russians had ruled for nearly ten months. About four o'clock in the afternoon the Austrian commander made his entry into the city, which was quite undamaged and decked with flags. In the streets, in the windows and on balconies stood thousands and thousands of the inhabitants, who enthusiastically greeted their deliverers and showered the automobiles with a rain of flowers. The next day the commander-in-chief, General von Mackensen, congratulated in Lemberg the conqueror of the fortress, the Austrian General of Cavalry von Boehm-Ermolli. The German Emperor, on receiving the announcement of the fall of Lemberg, sent the following telegram to General von Mackensen:

"Accept on the crowning event of your brilliantly led Galician campaign, the fall of Lemberg, my warmest congratulations. It completes an operation which, systematically prepared and executed with energy and skill, has led in only six weeks to successes in battles and amount of booty, and that, too, in the open field, seldom recorded in the history of wars. To God's gracious support we, in the first instance, owe this shining victory, and then to your battle-tried leadership and the bravery of the allied troops under you, both fighting in true comradeship. As an expression of my thankful recognition I appoint you field marshal.

(Signed) "Wilhelm I.R."

At the same time the commander of the Austrian army, Grand Duke Frederick, was appointed a Prussian general field marshal. The faithful working together of the allied armies had borne rich fruits.

THE CZAR’S RESCRIPT

The following Imperial Rescript addressed to the Premier, M. Goremykin, was announced at Petrograd on June 30:

From all parts of the country I have received appeals testifying to the firm determination of the Russian peoples to devote their strength to the work of equipping the Army. I derive from this national unanimity the unshakable assurance of a brilliant future. A prolonged war calls for ever-fresh efforts. But, surmounting growing difficulties and parrying the vicissitudes which are inevitable in war, let us strengthen in our hearts the resolution to carry on the struggle, with the help of God, to the complete triumph of the Russian arms. The enemy must be crushed, for without that peace is impossible.

With firm faith in the inexhaustible strength of Russia, I anticipate that the governmental and public institutions of Russian industry and all faithful sons of the Fatherland, without distinction of ideas and classes, will work together in harmony to satisfy the needs of our valiant Army. This is the only and, henceforth, the national problem to which must be directed all the thoughts of united Russia, invincible in her unity.

Having formed, for the discussion of questions of supplying the Army, a special commission, in which members of the Legislative Chambers and representatives of industry participate, I recognize the necessity, in consequence, of advancing the date of the reopening of these Legislative bodies in order to hear the voice of the country.

Having decided that the sessions of the Duma and the Council of the Empire shall be resumed in the month of August at the latest, I rely on the Council of Ministers to draw up, according to my indications, the Bills necessitated by a time of war.—Reuter.

RUSSIA’S DEFENSIVE PLAN

The Russian defense is now a two-fold and rather complex process. Along the frontiers the army is parrying blows of the enemy and wearing him down, avoiding big battles, losing territory indeed, little by little, but gaining time and husbanding resources.

The other side of the process is the rally of the nation to the support of the army. It would be wholly wrong to regard the gradual advance of the Germans and Austrians in Russian territory as evidence that Russian resistance is breaking down. On the contrary the nation has never been so thoroughly aroused as now.

The broad back of the Russian soldier has done marvels in sustaining the heavy burden of war, but when retreat in Galicia began it suddenly flashed on the nation that this was not enough—valor must be reinforced by technique. The attitude of the nation to the war immediately changed. Formerly it was a spectator watching with eager hope mingled with anxiety the deeds of the army that was part of its very self. Now it has become an active reserve of the army and in securing liberty to act it has gained in moral force.

The Cabinet is being strengthened, more effective contact is being established between the Government and the nation, and the War Office is now the centre of popular interest.

Russia has not yet followed the example of her allies in appointing a Minister of Munitions, but the course of events is tending in this direction and the new War Minister, General Polivanoff, commands the confidence of the Duma and nation generally. The War Office has become the focus of the new national organizing movement of which all existing public bodies are being made the nucleus.

FIGHTING ON TWO RIVERS

The statement issued by the German Army Headquarters Staff in Berlin on June 30 reported:

Between the Bug and the Vistula Rivers the German and Austro-Hungarian troops have reached the districts of Belz, Komanow and Zamosc and the northern border of the forest-plantations in the Tanew section. Also on a line formed by the banks of the Vistula and in the district of Zawichost, to the east of Zarow, the enemy has commenced a retreat.

An enemy aeroplane was forced to descend behind our lines. The occupants of the machine were made prisoners.

On July 1 the situation on the Russian front was thus officially reported from Berlin:

Eastern theatre of war: Our positions here are unchanged. The booty taken during June amounts to two flags and 25,695 prisoners, of whom 120 were officers; seven cannon, six mine throwers, fifty-two machine guns, and one aeroplane, besides much material of war.

Southeastern theatre of war: After bitter fighting the troops under General von Linsingen yesterday stormed the Russian positions east of the Gnila Lipa River near Kunioze and Luozynoe and to the north of Rohatyn. Three officers and 2,328 men were made prisoners and five machine guns were captured.

East of Lemberg the Austro-Hungarian troops have pressed forward into the enemy positions. The army under Field Marshal von Mackensen is continuing to press forward between the Bug and Vistula Rivers. West of the Vistula, after stubborn fighting by the Russians, the Teutonic allies are advancing on both sides of the Kamenna in pursuit.

The total amount of captures during June made by the Teutonic allied troops under General von Linsingen, Field Marshal von Mackensen, and General von Woyrich amounts to 409 officers and 140,650 men and 80 cannon and 268 machine guns.

From Vienna—The following official communication was issued on July 1 by the War Office:

Battles in Eastern Galicia continued on July 1 on the Gnila Lipa and in the region east of Lemberg. Our troops advanced in several places on the heights east of the Gnila Lipa and broke through hostile positions. The allied troops also succeeded, after stubborn fighting, in reaching the eastern bank of the Rohatyn.

On the Dniester complete calm prevails. In the region of the source of the Wieprz we occupied Zamoso, north of the Tanew all lower lands are occupied. West of the Vistula our troops pursued the flying enemy up to Tarlow.

The total booty taken during June by the allied troops during the fighting in the northeast comprises 521 officers and 194,000 men, 93 guns, 164 machine guns, 78 caisson, and 100 military railroad carriages.

KRASNIK REACHED

In the Eastern Theatre: Southwest of Kalwarya, after stubborn fighting we took a mine position from the enemy and made 600 Russians prisoners.

In the Southeastern Theatre: After storming the heights southeast of Bu-Kaszowice, north of Halicz, the Russians along the whole front from the district of Maryampol to just north of Firjilow have been obliged to retreat. Troops under General von Linsingen are pursuing the defeated enemy.

Up to yesterday we had taken 7,765 prisoners, of whom 11 are officers. We also captured eighteen machine guns.

In the Southeastern Theatre: North of the Dniester River our troops are advancing under continuous fighting in pursuit of the enemy and penetrating by way of the line of Mariampol, Narajoa and Miasto toward the Zlota Lipa section. They have reached the Bug at several places between Kamionka and Strzumilowa and below Krylow and are quickly advancing in a northerly direction between the Bug and the Vistula.

The lowlands of the Labunka now are in our possession, after our opponents had offered stubborn resistance at certain places.

German troops also obtained a firm foothold on the northern bank of the river in the Wysnica section, between Krasnik and the mouth of the Labunka.

Between the left bank of the Vistula and the Pilica River the situation remains generally unchanged.

The following Austrian official war statement was given out in Vienna on July 3:

In East Galicia the Teutonic allied troops are advancing, pursuing the enemy east of Halicz and across the Narajowska, and to the north attacking successfully on the heights east of Janozyn. On the Bug River the situation is unchanged.

Between the Vistula and the Bug Rivers the Teutonic allied troops are steadily advancing, with fierce fighting. Zamosc has been stormed. West of there the Russians everywhere have been repulsed beyond the Por Plain, which is in our possession. At several places we forced a passage of the brook.

East of Krasnik, for which fighting is still proceeding, Studzianki has been captured. The village of Wysnica, west of Krasnik, also was stormed. Here and elsewhere in this sector the enemy was repulsed.

Friday on the Por and near Krasnik, 4,800 prisoners were captured, and three machine guns were taken.

Following is the official report of the operations on the front in Galicia and Southern Poland, wirelessed July 4 from Berlin to Sayville, N.Y.:

General von Linsingen's army, in full pursuit of the enemy, is advancing toward the Zlota Lipa. Three thousand Russians were taken prisoners yesterday. Under pressure of the Germans the enemy is evacuating his positions from Narajow to Miasto, and to the north of Przemyslany from Kamionka to Krylow.

ON ZLOTA LIPA RIVER

Following is the Austrian official war statement given out from Vienna on July 6:

In Eastern Galicia the Teutonic allied troops under General von Linsingen, after two weeks of successful battles, have reached the Zlota Lipa River, the western bank of which has been cleared of the enemy. In the sectors of Kamionka Strumilowa and Krasno battles against the Russian rearguards are continuing.

Near Krylow (on the Bug River), in Southern Russian Poland, near the Galician border, the enemy has evacuated the western bank of the Bug and burned the village of Krylow.

The Teutonic allied troops drove the enemy from positions north of the small River Por and advanced to Faras and Plonka.

The western army, commanded by Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, after several days' battle, broke through the Russian front on both sides of Krasnik and drove the Russians back with heavy losses in a northerly direction. We captured twenty-nine officers and 8,000 men and took six caissons and six machine guns.

No apprehension is entertained as to the fate of Warsaw, for the city bids fair to be protected. Even if the Germans should reach Ivangorod, this would not necessarily involve the surrender of Warsaw.

The Russian waiting game in fact has been justified. The critic of the Novoe Vremya correctly explains the withdrawal as a manœuvre deliberately undertaken with the object of accepting battle under the best conditions for the Russians. He adds that on the Vistula front the ground which offers the Russians the greatest advantage is that with Brest Litovsk as a base, Ivangorod on the right flank and a strong army occupying the flank and rear positions in relation to the right flank of General von Boehm-Ermolli's Army.

The War Department at Vienna on July 6 gave out the following official statement:

The Russians, who, in the second battle of Krasnik, were defeated by the army of Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, are retreating in a northern and north-eastern direction, pursued by the Austrians who are pressing to attack.

The Austrians on Monday captured the district of Cieszanow and the heights north of Wysnica. Under pressure of our advance the enemy is retreating on the Wieprz beyond Tarnogora. Our booty in this fighting has increased to 41 officers and 11,500 men and 17 machine guns.

German Army Headquarters wirelessed the following report from Berlin to Sayville, N.Y., on July 7:

During pursuit of the Russians to the Zlota Lipa River from July 3 to July 5 the Germans captured 3,850 men. The number of prisoners made south of Biale River has been increased to seven officers and about 800 men.

In Poland, south of the Vistula, the Germans stormed Height 95, to the east of Dolowatka and south of Borzymow. The Russian losses were very considerable. Ten machine guns, one revolver gun and a quantity of rifles were taken.

"The scarcity of rifles with the Russians is growing greater daily. The reserves are unarmed until they begin the attack, and then they take rifles from their fallen comrades. The Russian artillery fire, however, has grown more active."

DEFEAT AT KRASNIK

The relative subsidence of activity on the part of the Teutonic allies during the last week may be explained by the fact that the goal set for the Lemberg campaign already has been attained. This was the recapture of the city and the securing of strong defensive positions to the eastward and northward. These positions have now been secured along the line of the Zlota Lipa and Bug Rivers and the ridge to the northward of Krasnik.

The Russians attempted a counter-offensive from Lubin against the Austro-German positions north of Krasnik, bringing up heavy reinforcements for this purpose. Owing to this movement the Austrian troops, which had rushed beyond the positions originally selected, withdrew to the ridge, where they have been successfully resisting all Russian attacks. They feel secure in their present positions, and it is believed here that they can be easily held against whatever forces Russia can throw against them.

Indications now point to a period of quiet along the Russo-Galician front, while the Teutonic allies are preparing for operations in other quarters.

This statement from Russian General Headquarters was published in Petrograd on July 14:

In the direction of Lomza (Russian Poland) on the evening of July 12 and also on the 13th, the enemy developed an intensive artillery fire. On the right bank of the Pissa, on July 13, the Germans succeeded in capturing Russian trenches on a front of two versts (about one and one-third miles). They, however, were driven back by a counter-attack and the trenches were recaptured.

On both banks of the Shikva stubborn fighting has taken place. Considerable enemy forces between the Orjetz (Orzyc?) and the Lydymia adopted the offensive and the Russians, declining a decisive engagement, retreated during the night of the 13th to their second line of positions. On the left bank of the Vistula the situation is unchanged.

In the battle near Wilkolaz, south of Lublin, during the week ending July 11 the Russians captured 97 officers and 22,464 men.

In the Cholm region engagements have taken place along the Volitza River, and on the night of July 13 we captured over 150 prisoners.

On the rest of the front there have been the usual artillery engagements. On the evening of July 12 the enemy assumed the offensive on the Narew front.

PRZASNYSZ OCCUPIED

In the eastern theater: In the course of minor fights on the Windau below Koltany 425 Russians were taken prisoners.

South of the Niemen River, in the neighborhood of Kalwarya, our troops captured several outer positions at Franziskowa and Osowa and maintained them against fierce counter-attacks.

South of Kolno we captured the village of Konsya, and the enemy positions east of this village and south of the Tartak line. Two thousand four hundred prisoners and eight machine guns fell into our hands.

Battles in the neighborhood of Przasnysz are being continued. Several enemy lines were captured by our troops, and the City of Przasnysz, for which we were fighting hotly in the last days of February, and which was strongly fortified by the Russians, we have occupied by our troops.

GERMAN “NUT-CRACKER”

The Germans have opened a new campaign for the conquest of Russia. Their plan is to catch the Russian armies like a nut between nutcrackers.

The German line of advance from the northwest lies between the Mlawa-Warsaw Railway line and the River Pissa and from the south from the Galician line. On paper the German scheme is that these two fronts shall move to meet one another and everything between them must be ground to powder. But the nut to be cracked is rather a formidable area of space and well fortified, the kernel sound and healthy, being formed of the Russian armies inspired not merely with the righteousness of their cause, but the fullest confidence in themselves and absolute devotion to the proved genius of their Commander in Chief. The area referred to cannot be less than eighty miles in extent, north to south, by 120 miles west to east. That is the mere nucleus and minimum area, as contained between the Novo Georgievsk fortress in the north to the Ivangorod fortress in the south and the Russian lines on the Bzura in the west to Brest-Litovsk on the east.

The Germans have an incalculable amount of fighting to face before they win to that area, the nut to be cracked, and then the cracking is still to be done. It is all sheer frontal fighting. The Germans have been twelve months trying frontal attacks against Warsaw on a comparatively narrow front, and in vain. What chance have they of success by dividing their forces against the united strength of Russia?

BREAKING RUSSIA’S LINES

The offensive movement begun a few days ago in the eastern theatre of war, under command of Field Marshal von Hindenburg, has led to great results. The army of General von Bülow, which on July 14 crossed the Windau River near and north of Kurshany, continued its victorious advance. Eleven officers and 2,450 men were taken prisoners, and three cannon and five machine guns were captured.

The army of General von Gallwitz proceeded against the Russian positions in the district south and southeast of Olawa. After a brilliant attack three Russian lines, situated behind each other northwest and northeast of Przasnysz, were pierced. Dzielin was captured and Lipa was reached and attacked by pressure exerted from both these directions. The Russians retreated, after the evacuation of Przasnysz on the 14th, to their line of defense from Ciechanow to Krasnosielo, lying behind them. On the 15th German troops also took these enemy positions by storm, and pierced the position south of Zielona, over a front of seven kilometers, forcing their opponents to retreat. They were supported by troops under General von Scholtz, which are occupied with a pursuit from the direction of Kolno. Since yesterday the Russians have been retreating on the center front, between the Pissa and Vistula Rivers, in the direction of Narew.

Southeastern Theatre of War.—After the Teutonic allies had taken during the last few days a series of Russian positions on the River Bug and between the Bug and the Vistula, important battles developed yesterday on this entire front under the leadership of Field Marshal von Mackensen. West of the Vierpz, in the district southwest of Krasnostav, German troops broke through the enemy's line. So far 28 officers and 6,380 men have fallen into our hands, and 9 machine guns have been captured.

West of the Upper Vistula the offensive has again been begun by the army of General von Woyrich.

An official statement issued by general headquarters in Vienna on July 18 says:

On the Bug River, in the region of Sokol, our troops drove the enemy from a series of stubbornly defended places. To the northeast of Sienvno we broke through the Russian front.

The enemy is evacuating his positions between the Vistula and the Kielce-Radom Railway.

Between the Vistula and the Bug Rivers important battles have developed favorably for the allied troops. Some Austro-Hungarians, operating closely with the Germans west of Grabovetz, took an important enemy point of support after storming it several times, and pressed forward into the enemy's main position.

On the Upper Bystrcz and north of Krasnik our troops took advanced positions of the enemy. The offensive also was resumed successfully west of the Vistula.

BERLIN’S REJOICING

The news of Field Marshal von Hindenburg's newest surprise for the Russians, which the War Office announces has resulted in important victories, was made known late yesterday, causing general rejoicing and the appearance of flags all over the city.

Military critics attach great significance to the breaking of the Russian lines and the consequent Russian retreat toward the Narew River, particularly as the German advance between the Pissa and Vistula rivers threatens to crumple the right flank positions of the Russians.

With Field Marshal von Mackensen proceeding against the other flank, the maintenance of communications offers a serious problem for the Russians. The breaking of the Russian line near Krasnostav, thirty-four miles south of Lublin, brings the Germans dangerously near Cholm and Lublin, both of which points are of the highest importance for the Russians in maintaining their position in the Vistula region.

The following official bulletin concerning the operations was issued tonight by the War Office:

Portions of the army of General von Buelow have defeated the Russian forces near Autz, where 3,620 men and six guns and three machine guns were captured. They are pursuing the enemy in an easterly direction.

Other portions of this army are fighting to the northeast of Kurshany. East of that town an enemy advance position has been stormed.

On the southeastern front the offensive was taken by the army under General von Woyrich, which made successful progress under the heavy fire of the enemy.

Our troops on Saturday morning took a narrow point in the wire entanglements of a strongly fortified enemy main position, and through this opening stormed an enemy trench on a front of 2,000 meters (about a mile and a third). In the course of the day the wedge was widened and pushed forward, with tenacious hand-to-hand fighting, far into the enemy's position.

In the evening the enemy's Moscow Grenadier Corps was defeated by our landwehr and reserve troops. The enemy retreated during the night behind the Iljanka River to the district south of Zwolen, suffering heavy losses in their retirement.

Between the Pissa and Vistula Rivers the Russian troops are retreating and the troops of General von Schaltz and von Gallwitz are close behind them.

The enemy is attacked and driven back where he offers resistance in prepared positions.

Reserve troops and a levy of troops of General von Schaltz have stormed the towns of Poremky and Wykplock, and regiments of General von Gallwitz have broken through the extended positions of Mlodzi, Nome and Kaniewo. The number of prisoners was considerably increased and four guns were captured.

From the north of the Vistula to the Pilica the Russians also have begun to retreat. Our troops in a short engagement during the pursuit made 620 prisoners.

Between the Upper Vistula and the Bug fighting continues under the command of Field Marshal von Mackensen. The Russians have been driven by the German troops from the hills of Biclaczkowice, south of Piaski, as far as Krosnoskow, and both these places have been taken by storm. The fire of the Siberian army corps could not ward off defeat. We made more than 1000 prisoners.

WARSAW’S EVACUATION

An Associated Press dispatch from London dated July 20 recorded the doubt in the English capital of Warsaw's holding out, as follows:

The Morning Post's Budapest correspondent reports that the gradual evacuation of Warsaw has been ordered by the Russians.

Continued successes of the great Teutonic movement against the Polish capital were indicated in the German official bulletin received from Berlin this morning. This stated that the Russians were retreating along the whole front between the Vistula and the Bug. The bulletin reads:

The Germans have occupied Tukum and Windau (Province of Courland).

Between the Vistula and the Bug the battle continues with unabated violence.

The Austro-Hungarians have forced a crossing of the Wolicza River in the neighborhood of Grabovetz and advanced across the Bug to the north of Sokal, the Russians having during the night retreated along the whole front between the Vistula and the Bug.

The Germans captured from July 16 to July 18 16,000 prisoners and twenty-three machine guns.

That German columns have occupied Tukum, thirty-eight miles west of Riga, and Doblen eighteen miles west of Mitau, is admitted by an official statement issued at the headquarters of the Russian general staff. The same report admits that the Austrians have gained the right bank of the Volitza and have crossed the Bug River on a front reaching to Sokal. The bulletin says:

On the Narew front the night of the 18th the enemy took the offensive, capturing the village of Poredy, on the right bank of the Pissa River. On the left bank of the Skwa enemy attacks against the villages of Vyk and Pchetchniak were repulsed with success. West of the Omulew our troops, retiring progressively toward a bridgehead on the Narew, delivered on the evening of the 17th a rearguard action of a stubborn character near the town of Mahoff. Near the village of Karnevo we made a brilliant counter-attack.

In the direction of Lublin enemy attacks during the 18th on the front Wilkolaz-Vychawa (east and north of Krasnik) were successfully repulsed.

At dawn of the 18th the enemy captured Krasnostav, thirty-four miles south of Lublin on the Vieprz, and crossed upstream. During the course of the 19th enemy attacks between the stream flowing from Rybtchevbitze toward the village of Piaski and the Vieprz remained without result. On the right bank of the Vieprz we repulsed near Krasnostav and the River Volitza many extremely stubborn enemy attacks.

Nevertheless, near the mouth of the Volitza and the village of Gaevniki the enemy succeeded in establishing himself on the right bank of this river, after which we judged it advisable to retire to our second-line positions.

In the region of the village of Grabovetz on the 18th we repulsed four furious enemy attacks on a wide front, supported by a curtain of fire from his artillery.

Between Geneichva and the Bug on the evening of the 17th, after a desperate fight we drove the enemy from all the trenches previously occupied by him.

On the Bug energetic fighting continued against the enemy, who crossed on the 18th on the front Skomorskhy-Sokal.

With the German Field Marshals, von Hindenburg on the north and von Mackensen on the south, whipping forward the two ends of a great arc around the city, it is realized in England that Grand Duke Nicholas, Commander in Chief of the Russian armies, has the most severe task imposed on him since the outbreak of the European war, and the military writers of some of the London papers seem to think that the task is well-nigh impossible.

There was sustained confidence that Germany's previous violent attacks along the Bzura-Rawka front would never pierce the Russian line, but the present colossal co-ordinate movement was developed with such suddenness, and has been carried so far without meeting serious Russian resistance, that more and more the British press is discounting the fall of the Polish capital, and, while not giving up all hope of its retention, is pointing out the enormous difficulty the Russian armies have labored under from the start by the existence of such a salient.

From the shores of the Gulf of Riga in the north to that part of Southern Poland into which they drove the Russians back from Galicia, the Austro-German armies are still surging forward, and if Warsaw can be denied them it will be almost a miracle.

This seems to be the opinion even among those in England who heretofore have been hopeful that the Russians would turn and deliver a counter-blow, and news of the evacuation of the Polish capital, followed by the triumphant entry of the Germans amid such scenes as were enacted at Przemysl and Lemberg, would come as no surprise.

The German official statement, beginning at the northern tip of the eastern battle line, records the progress of the German troops to within about fifty miles of Riga. Then, following the great battle arc southward, chronicles further successes in the sector northeast of Warsaw, culminating in the capture of Ostrolenka, one of the fortresses designed to shield the capital.

The acute peril to Warsaw is accentuated by the Russian official communication which says that German columns are within artillery range of the fortress of Novo Georgievsk, the key to the capital from the northwest, and only about twenty miles from it.

Immediately southwest of the city, seventeen miles from it, Blonie has fallen, and further south Grojec, twenty-six miles distant, while German cavalry have captured Radom, capital of the province of that name, on the railroad to the great fortress of Ivangorod. The Lublin-Chelm Railway is still in the hands of the Russians, so far as is known, but the Russian Commander-in-Chief has issued, through the Civil Governor, an order that in case of a retreat from the town of Lublin, the male population is to attach itself to the retiring troops.

The belief is expressed in Danish military circles, according to a Copenhagen dispatch to the Exchange Telegraph Company, that the Germans intend to use Windau and Tukum as bases for operations designed to result in the capture of Riga, which would be used as a new naval base after the Gulf of Riga had been cleared of mines.

OSTROLENKA FORT TAKEN

Eastern theatre of war: In Courland the Russians were repulsed near Grosschmarden, east of Tukum, and near Gruendorf and Usingen. East of Kurshany the enemy also is retreating before our attack.

North of Novgorod, on the Narew, German troops captured enemy positions north of the confluence of the Skroda and Pissa rivers. Fresh Landsturm troops who were under fire for the first time especially distinguished themselves. North of the mouth of the Skwa we reached the Narew. The permanent fortifications of Ostrolenka, on the northwest bank of the river, were captured.

South of the Vistula our troops advanced into hostile positions to Blonie and Grojec. (Blonie is seventeen miles west of Warsaw, and Grojec twenty-six miles south of the city.) In rearguard fighting the Russians lost 560 prisoners and two machine guns.

Southeastern theatre of war: German Landwehr and reserve troops of the army of General von Woyrich repulsed superior forces of the enemy from their position at Ilzanka. All counter attacks made by Russian reserves, which were brought up quickly, were repulsed. We captured more than 5,000 prisoners. Our troops are closely pursuing the enemy. Our cavalry already has reached the railway line from Radom to Ivangorod.

A bulletin, issued early on July 20, had announced the capture of the Baltic port of Windau, thus bringing the Germans within a few miles of Riga, seat of the Governor General of the Baltic Provinces. It read:

German troops occupied Tukum and captured Windau. (Windau is a seaport in Courland on the Baltic Sea at the mouth of the Windau River, 100 miles northwest of Mitau.) Pursuing the enemy, who was defeated on the Aa River at Alt Autz, our troops yesterday undiminished energy, and at some points report that progress has been made.

They are operating, however, through country which the retiring troops have laid waste and in which what roads there are, are little suited for the movement of the heavy artillery which is necessary for the bombardment of the great fortresses that bar their way.

It is not expected, therefore, that decisive actions on any of the fronts will be fought for a few days yet, although the battle between the Vistula and the Bug Rivers, where the German Field Marshal von Mackensen's army is advancing toward the Lublin-Chelm Railroad, has about reached a climax. Here, according to the German official communication issued this afternoon, the Germans have succeeded in breaking the obstinate resistance of the Russians at several points and forced them to retreat.

Naval Losses During the War

The following diagram, compiled mainly from information given in a June number of the Naval and Military Record and appearing in the London Morning Post of July 8, 1915, shows the different causes of loss to each side in tonnage of capital ships, gunboats, destroyers, submarines, torpedo-boats, and armed merchantmen to the end of May. The diagram being drawn to scale the true proportion of each loss from each cause can be accurately gauged at a glance. It will be seen that the Triple Entente and Japan have had no loss from capture or internment, that the Entente's characteristic of fighting has been "above board," i.e., by gunfire, while that of the enemy has been by submarines and mines.

Battles in the West

Sir John French’s Own Story

France’s “Eyewitness” Reports and Germany’s Offensive
in the Argonne

Since June 15, 1915, the British army, reinforced by divisions of the "new" army now in France, has held practically the same position on the front to the north and south of Ypres. The subjoined report by Sir John French, Commanding-in-Chief the British forces in France, published July 12, covers the operations from April 5 down to June 15, and deals particularly with the great poison-gas attacks by the enemy, the capture and loss of Hill 60, the second battle of Ypres, and the battle of Festubert. It embodies the story by Sir Herbert Plumer of the terrible fighting that began May 5. France's official reports, following, tell of the battle of Hilgenfirst in the Vosges, the week's battle in the Fecht valley, the 120 days' struggle between Betlaine and Arras, and the battle of Fontenelle. The Crown Prince's "drive" in the Argonne resulting in German advantages is also dealt with.

FROM THE FIELD-MARSHAL COMMANDING-IN-CHIEF
THE BRITISH ARMY IN FRANCE

I HAVE the honor to report that since the date of my last dispatch (April 5, 1915) the Army in France under my command has been heavily engaged opposite both flanks of the line held by the British Forces.

1. In the North the town and district of Ypres has once more in this campaign been successfully defended against vigorous and sustained attacks made by large forces of the enemy and supported by a mass of heavy and field artillery, which, not only in number, but also in weight and caliber, is superior to any concentration of guns which has previously assailed that part of the line.

In the South a vigorous offensive has again been taken by troops of the First Army, in the course of which a large area of entrenched and fortified ground has been captured from the enemy, whilst valuable support has been afforded to the attack which our Allies have carried on with such marked success against the enemy's positions to the east of Arras and Lens.

2. I much regret that during the period under report the fighting has been characterized on the enemy's side by a cynical and barbarous disregard of the well-known usages of civilized war and a flagrant defiance of The Hague Convention.[2]

All the scientific resources of Germany have apparently been brought into play to produce a gas of so virulent and poisonous a nature that any human being brought into contact with it is first paralyzed and then meets with a lingering and agonizing death.

The enemy has invariably preceded, prepared and supported his attacks by a discharge in stupendous volume of these poisonous gas fumes whenever the wind was favorable.

Such weather conditions have only prevailed to any extent in the neighborhood of Ypres, and there can be no doubt that the effect of these poisonous fumes materially influenced the operations in that theater, until experience suggested effective counter-measures, which have since been so perfected as to render them innocuous.

The brain power and thought which has evidently been at work before this unworthy method of making war reached the pitch of efficiency which has been demonstrated in its practice shows that the Germans must have harbored these designs for a long time.

As a soldier I cannot help expressing the deepest regret and some surprise that an Army which hitherto has claimed to be the chief exponent of the chivalry of war should have stooped to employ such devices against brave and gallant foes.

BATTLE OF HILL 60

3. On the night of Saturday, April 17, a commanding hill which afforded the enemy excellent artillery observation toward the west and northwest was successfully mined and captured.

This hill, known as Hill 60, lies opposite the northern extremity of the line held by the 2d Corps.

The operation was planned and the mining commenced by Major-General Bulfin before the ground was handed over to the troops under Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Fergusson, under whose supervision the operation was carried out.

The mines were successfully fired at 7 P.M. on the 17th inst., and immediately afterwards the hill was attacked and gained, without difficulty, by the 1st Battalion Royal West Kent Regiment and the 2d Battalion King's Own Scottish Borderers. The attack was well supported by the Divisional Artillery, assisted by French and Belgian batteries.

During the night several of the enemy's counter-attacks were repulsed with heavy loss, and fierce hand-to-hand fighting took place; but on the early morning of the 18th the enemy succeeded in forcing back the troops holding the right of the hill to the reverse slope, where, however, they hung on throughout the day.

On the evening of the 18th these two battalions were relieved by the 2d Battalion West Riding Regiment and the 2d Battalion King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, who again stormed the hill under cover of heavy artillery fire, and the enemy was driven off at the point of the bayonet.

On the 20th and following days many unsuccessful attacks by the enemy were made on Hill 60, which was continually shelled by heavy artillery.

On May 1 another attempt to recapture Hill 60 was supported by great volumes of asphyxiating gas, which caused nearly all the men along a front of about 400 yards to be immediately struck down by its fumes.

The splendid courage with which the leaders rallied their men and subdued the natural tendency to panic (which is inevitable on such occasions), combined with the prompt intervention of supports, once more drove the enemy back.

A second and more severe "gas" attack, under much more favorable weather conditions, enabled the enemy to recapture this position on May 5.

The enemy owes his success in this last attack entirely to the use of asphyxiating gas. It was only a few days later that the means, which have since proved so effective, of counteracting this method of making war were put into practice. Had it been otherwise, the enemy's attack on May 5 would most certainly have shared the fate of all the many previous attempts he had made.

SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES

4. It was at the commencement of the second battle of Ypres on the evening of April 22, referred to in paragraph 1 of his report, that the enemy first made use of asphyxiating gas.

Some days previously I had complied with General Joffre's request to take over the trenches occupied by the French, and on the evening of the 22d the troops holding the lines east of Ypres were posted as follows:

From Steenstraate to the east of Langemarck, as far as the Poelcappelle Road, a French Division.

Thence, in a south-easterly direction toward the Passchendaele-Becelaere Road, the Canadian Division.

Thence a Division took up the line in a southerly direction east of Zonnebeke to a point west of Becelaere, whence another Division continued the line southeast to the northern limit of the Corps on its right.

Of the 5th Corps there were four battalions in Divisional Reserve about Ypres; the Canadian Division had one battalion of Divisional Reserve and the 1st Canadian Brigade in Army Reserve. An Infantry Brigade, which had just been withdrawn after suffering heavy losses on Hill 60, was resting about Vlamernighe.

Following a heavy bombardment, the enemy attacked the French Division at about 5 P.M., using asphyxiating gases for the first time. Aircraft reported that at about 5 P.M. thick yellow smoke had been seen issuing from the German trenches between Langemarck and Bixschoote. The French reported that two simultaneous attacks had been made east of the Ypres-Staden Railway, in which these asphyxiating gases had been employed.

The Arras region, showing battle line and scene of fiercest battle in recent months.

What follows almost defies description. The effect of these poisonous gases was so virulent as to render the whole of the line held by the French Division mentioned above practically incapable of any action at all. It was at first impossible for any one to realize what had actually happened. The smoke and fumes hid everything from sight, and hundreds of men were thrown into a comatose or dying condition, and within an hour the whole position had to be abandoned, together with about fifty guns.

I wish particularly to repudiate any idea of attaching the least blame to the French Division for this unfortunate incident.

After all the examples our gallant Allies have shown of dogged and tenacious courage in the many trying situations in which they have been placed throughout the course of this campaign it is quite superfluous for me to dwell on this aspect of the incident, and I would only express my firm conviction that, if any troops in the world had been able to hold their trenches in the face of such a treacherous and altogether unexpected onslaught, the French Division would have stood firm.

THE CANADIANS’ PART

The left flank of the Canadian Division was thus left dangerously exposed to serious attack in flank, and there appeared to be a prospect of their being overwhelmed and of a successful attempt by the Germans to cut off the British troops occupying the salient to the East.

In spite of the danger to which they were exposed the Canadians held their ground with a magnificent display of tenacity and courage; and it is not too much to say that the bearing and conduct of these splendid troops averted a disaster which might have been attended with the most serious consequences.

They were supported with great promptitude by the reserves of the divisions holding the salient and by a brigade which had been resting in billets.

Throughout the night the enemy's attacks were repulsed, effective counter-attacks were delivered, and at length touch was gained with the French right, and a new line was formed.

The 2d London Heavy Battery, which had been attached to the Canadian Division, was posted behind the right of the French Division, and, being involved in their retreat, fell into the enemy's hands. It was recaptured by the Canadians in their counter-attack, but the guns could not be withdrawn before the Canadians were again driven back.

During the night I directed the Cavalry Corps and the Northumbrian Division, which was then in general reserve, to move to the west of Ypres, and placed these troops at the disposal of the General Officer Commanding the Second Army. I also directed other reserve troops from the 3d Corps and the First Army to be held in readiness to meet eventualities.

In the confusion of the gas and smoke the Germans succeeded in capturing the bridge at Steenstraate and some works south of Lizerne, all of which were in occupation by the French.

The enemy having thus established himself to the west of the Ypres Canal, I was somewhat apprehensive of his succeeding in driving a wedge between the French and Belgian troops at this point. I directed, therefore, that some of the reinforcements sent north should be used to support and assist General Putz, should he find difficulty in preventing any further advance of the Germans west of the canal.

At about ten o'clock on the morning of the 23d connection was finally ensured between the left of the Canadian Division and the French right, about 800 yards east of the canal; but as this entailed the maintenance by the British troops of a much longer line than that which they had held before the attack commenced on the previous night, there were no reserves available for counter-attack until reinforcements, which were ordered up from the Second Army, were able to deploy to the east of Ypres.

Early on the morning of the 23d I went to see General Foch, and from him I received a detailed account of what had happened, as reported by General Putz. General Foch informed me that it was his intention to make good the original line and regain the trenches which the French Division had lost. He expressed the desire that I should maintain my present line, assuring me that the original position would be re-established in a few days. General Foch further informed me that he had ordered up large French reinforcements, which were now on their way, and that troops from the North had already arrived to reinforce General Putz.

I fully concurred in the wisdom of the General's wish to re-establish our old line, and agreed to co-operate in the way he desired, stipulating, however, that if the position was not re-established within a limited time I could not allow the British troops to remain in so exposed a situation as that which the action of the previous twenty-four hours had compelled them to occupy.

During the whole of the 23d the enemy's artillery was very active, and his attacks all along the front were supported by some heavy guns which had been brought down from the coast in the neighborhood of Ostend.

The loss of the guns on the night of the 22d prevented this fire from being kept down, and much aggravated the situation. Our positions, however, were well maintained by the vigorous counter-attacks made by the 5th Corps.

During the day I directed two brigades of the 3d Corps, and the Lahore Division of the Indian Corps, to be moved up to the Ypres area and placed at the disposal of the Second Army.

In the course of these two or three days many circumstances combined to render the situation east of the Ypres Canal very critical and most difficult to deal with.

The confusion caused by the sudden retirement of the French Division, and the necessity for closing up the gap and checking the enemy's advance at all costs, led to a mixing up of units and a sudden shifting of the areas of command, which was quite unavoidable. Fresh units, as they came up from the South, had to be pushed into the firing line in an area swept by artillery fire, which, owing to the capture of the French guns, we were unable to keep down.

HEAVY CASUALTIES

All this led to very heavy casualties, and I wish to place on record the deep admiration which I feel for the resource and presence of mind evinced by the leaders actually on the spot.

The parts taken by Major-General Snow and Brigadier-General Hull were reported to me as being particularly marked in this respect.

An instance of this occurred on the afternoon of the 24th, when the enemy succeeded in breaking through the line at St. Julien.

Brigadier-General Hull, acting under the orders of Lieutenant-General Alderson, organized a powerful counter-attack with his own brigade and some of the nearest available units. He was called upon to control, with only his brigade staff, parts of battalions from six separate divisions which were quite new to the ground. Although the attack did not succeed in retaking St. Julien, it effectually checked the enemy's further advance.

It was only on the morning of the 25th that the enemy were able to force back the left of the Canadian Division from the point where it had originally joined the French line.

During the night, and the early morning of the 25th, the enemy directed a heavy attack against the Division at Broodseinde cross-roads, which was supported by a powerful shell fire, but he failed to make any progress.

During the whole of this time the town of Ypres and all the roads to the East and West were uninterruptedly subjected to a violent artillery fire, but in spite of this the supply of both food and ammunition was maintained throughout with order and efficiency.

During the afternoon of the 25th many German prisoners were taken, including some officers. The hand-to-hand fighting was very severe, and the enemy suffered heavy loss.

During the 26th the Lahore Division and a Cavalry Division were pushed up into the fighting line, the former on the right of the French, the latter in support of the 5th Corps.

In the afternoon the Lahore Division, in conjunction with the French right, succeeded in pushing the enemy back some little distance toward the north, but their further advance was stopped owing to the continual employment by the enemy of asphyxiating gas.

On the right of the Lahore Division the Northumberland Infantry Brigade advanced against St. Julien and actually succeeded in entering, and for a time occupying, the southern portion of that village. They were, however, eventually driven back, largely owing to gas, and finally occupied a line a short way to the south. This attack was most successfully and gallantly led by Brigadier-General Riddell, who, I regret to say, was killed during the progress of the operation.

Although no attack was made on the southeastern side of the salient, the troops operating to the east of Ypres were subjected to heavy artillery fire from this direction, which took some of the battalions, which were advancing north to the attack, in reverse.

Some gallant attempts made by the Lahore Division on the 27th, in conjunction with the French, pushed the enemy further north; but they were partially frustrated by the constant fumes of gas to which they were exposed. In spite of this, however, a certain amount of ground was gained.

The French had succeeded in retaking Lizerne, and had made some progress at Steenstraate and Het Sas; but up to the evening of the 28th no further progress had been made toward the recapture of the original line.

I sent instructions, therefore, to Sir Herbert Plumer, who was now in charge of the operation, to take preliminary measures for the retirement to the new line which had been fixed upon.

GENERAL ERICH VON FALKENHAYN
Chief of the General Staff of the German Army
(Photo from Ruschin.)

STRONG REINFORCEMENTS

On the morning of the 29th I had another interview with General Foch, who informed me that strong reinforcements were hourly arriving to support General Putz, and urged me to postpone issuing orders for any retirement until the result of his attack, which was timed to commence at daybreak on the 30th, should be known. To this I agreed, and instructed Sir Herbert Plumer accordingly.

No substantial advance having been made by the French, I issued orders to Sir Herbert Plumer at one o'clock on May 1 to commence his withdrawal to the new line.

The retirement was commenced the following night, and the new line was occupied on the morning of May 4.

I am of opinion that this retirement, carried out deliberately with scarcely any loss, and in the face of an enemy in position, reflects the greatest possible credit on Sir Herbert Plumer and those who so efficiently carried out his orders.

The successful conduct of this operation was the more remarkable from the fact that on the evening of May 2, when it was only half completed, the enemy made a heavy attack, with the usual gas accompaniment, on St. Julien and the line to the west of it.

An attack on a line to the east of Fortuin was made at the same time under similar conditions.

In both cases our troops were at first driven from their trenches by gas fumes, but on the arrival of the supporting battalions and two brigades of a cavalry division, which were sent up in support from about Potijze, all the lost trenches were regained at night.

On May 3, while the retirement was still going on, another violent attack was directed on the northern face of the salient. This was also driven back with heavy loss to the enemy.

Further attempts of the enemy during the night of the 3d to advance from the woods west of St. Julien were frustrated entirely by the fire of our artillery.

During the whole of the 4th the enemy heavily shelled the trenches we had evacuated, quite unaware that they were no longer occupied. So soon as the retirement was discovered the Germans commenced to entrench opposite our new line and to advance their guns to new positions. Our artillery, assisted by aeroplanes, caused him considerable loss in carrying out these operations.

Up to the morning of the 8th the enemy made attacks at short intervals, covered by gas, on all parts of the line to the east of Ypres, but was everywhere driven back with heavy loss.

Throughout the whole period since the first break of the line on the night of April 22 all the troops in this area had been constantly subjected to violent artillery bombardment from a large mass of guns with an unlimited supply of ammunition. It proved impossible whilst under so vastly superior fire of artillery to dig efficient trenches, or to properly reorganize the line, after the confusion and demoralization called by the first great gas surprise and the subsequent almost daily gas attacks. Nor was it until after this date (May 8) that effective preventatives had been devised and provided. In these circumstances a violent bombardment of nearly the whole of the 5th Corps front broke out at 7 A.M. on the morning of the 8th, which gradually concentrated on the front of the Division between north and south of Frezenberg. This fire completely obliterated the trenches and caused enormous losses.

The artillery bombardment was shortly followed by a heavy infantry attack, before which our line had to give way.

SIR H. PLUMER’S STORY [3]

"The right of one brigade was broken about 10.15 A.M.; then its centre, and then part of the left of the brigade in the next section to the south. The Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, however, although suffering very heavily, stuck to their fire or support trenches throughout the day. At this time two battalions were moved to General Headquarters second line astride the Menin road to support and cover the left of their division.

"At 12.25 P.M. the center of a brigade further to the left also broke; its right battalion, however, the 1st Suffolks, which had been refused to cover a gap, still held on, and were apparently surrounded and overwhelmed. Meanwhile, three more battalions had been moved up to reinforce, two other battalions were moved up in support to General Headquarters line and an infantry brigade came up to the grounds of Vlamertinghe Chateau in corps reserve.

"At 11.30 A.M. a small party of Germans attempted to advance against the left of the British line, but were destroyed by the 2d Essex Regiment.

"A counter-attack was launched at 3.30 P.M. by the 1st York and Lancaster Regiment, 3d Middlesex Regiment, 2d East Surrey Regiment, 2d Royal Dublin Fusiliers, and the 1st Royal Warwickshire Regiment. The counter-attack reached Frezenberg, but was eventually driven back and held up on a line running about north and south through Verlorenhoek, despite repeated efforts to advance. The 12th London Regiment on the left succeeded at great cost in reaching the original trench line, and did considerable execution with their machine gun.

"The 7th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and the 1st East Lancashire Regiment attacked in a northeasterly direction toward Wieltje, and connected the old trench line with the ground gained by the counter-attack, the line being consolidated during the night.

"During the night orders were received that two Cavalry Divisions would be moved up and placed at the disposal of the 5th Corps, and a Territorial Division would be moved up to be used if required.

"On the 9th the Germans again repeated their bombardment. Very heavy shell fire was concentrated for two hours on the trenches of the 2d Gloucestershire Regiment and 2d Cameron Highlanders, followed by an infantry attack which was successfully repulsed. The Germans again bombarded the salient, and a further attack in the afternoon succeeded in occupying 150 yards of trench. The Gloucesters counter-attacked, but suffered heavily, and the attack failed. The salient being very exposed to shell fire from both flanks, as well as in front, it was deemed advisable not to attempt to retake the trench at night, and a retrenchment was therefore dug across it.

"At 3 P.M. the enemy started to shell the whole front of the center Division, and it was reported that the right Brigade of this Division was being heavily punished, but continued to maintain its line.

"The trenches of the Brigades on the left center were also heavily shelled during the day and attacked by infantry. Both attacks were repulsed.

"On the 10th instant the trenches on either side of the Menin-Ypres road were shelled very severely all the morning. The 2d Cameron Highlanders, 9th Royal Scots, and the 3d and 4th King's Royal Rifles, however, repulsed an attack made, under cover of gas, with heavy loss. Finally, when the trenches had been practically destroyed and a large number of the garrison buried, the 3d King's Royal Rifles and 4th Rifle Brigade fell back to the trenches immediately west of Bellewaarde Wood. So heavy had been the shell fire that the proposal to join up the line with a switch through the wood had to be abandoned, the trees broken by the shells forming an impassable entanglement.

"After a comparatively quiet night and morning (10th-11th) the hostile artillery fire was concentrated on the trenches of the 2d Cameron Highlanders and 1st Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders at a slightly more northern point than on the previous day. The Germans attacked in force and gained a footing in part of the trenches, but were promptly ejected by a supporting company of the 9th Royal Scots. After a second short artillery bombardment the Germans again attacked about 5.15 P.M., but were again repulsed by rifle and machine-gun fire. A third bombardment followed, and this time the Germans succeeded in gaining a trench—or rather what was left of it—a local counter-attack failing. However, during the night the enemy were again driven out. The trench by this time being practically non-existent, the garrison found it untenable under the very heavy shell fire the enemy brought to bear upon it, and the trench was evacuated. Twice more did the German snipers creep back into it, and twice more they were ejected. Finally, a retrenchment was made, cutting off the salient which had been contested throughout the day. It was won owing solely to the superior weight and number of the enemy's guns, but both our infantry and our artillery took a very heavy toll of the enemy, and the ground lost has proved of little use to the enemy.

"On the remainder of the front the day passed comparatively quietly, though most parts of the line underwent intermittent shelling by guns of various calibers.

"With the assistance of the Royal Flying Corps the 31st Heavy Battery scored a direct hit on a German gun, and the North Midland Heavy Battery got on to some German howitzers with great success.

"With the exception of another very heavy burst of shell fire against the right Division early in the morning the 12th passed uneventfully.

"On the night of the 12th-13th the line was reorganized, the center Division retiring into Army Reserve to rest, and their places being taken in the trenches by the two Cavalry Divisions; the Artillery and Engineers of the center Division forming with them what was known as the 'Cavalry Force,' under the command of General De Lisle.

"On the 13th, the various reliefs having been completed without incident, the heaviest bombardment yet experienced broke out at 4.30 A.M., and continued with little intermission throughout the day. At about 7.45 A.M. the Cavalry Brigade astride the railway, having suffered very severely, and their trenches having been obliterated, fell back about 800 yards. The North Somerset Yeomanry, on the right of the Brigade, although also suffering severely, hung on to their trenches throughout the day, and actually advanced and attacked the enemy with the bayonet. The Brigade on its right also maintained its position; as did also the Cavalry Division, except the left squadron, which, when reduced to sixteen men, fell back. The 2d Essex Regiment, realizing the situation, promptly charged and retook the trench, holding it till relieved by the cavalry. Meanwhile a counter-attack by two cavalry brigades was launched at 2.30 P.M., and succeeded, in spite of very heavy shrapnel and rifle fire, in regaining the original line of trenches, turning out the Germans who had entered it, and in some cases pursuing them for some distance. But a very heavy shell fire was again opened on them, and they were again compelled to retire to an irregular line in rear, principally the craters of shell holes. The enemy in their counter-attack suffered very severe losses.

"The fighting in other parts of the line was little less severe. The 1st East Lancashire Regiment were shelled out of their trenches, but their support company and the 2d Essex Regiment, again acting on their own initiative, won them back. The enemy penetrated into the farm at the northeast corner of the line, but the 1st Rifle Brigade, after a severe struggle, expelled them. The 1st Hampshire Regiment also repelled an attack, and killed every German who got within fifty yards of their trenches. The 5th London Regiment, despite very heavy casualties, maintained their position unfalteringly. At the southern end of the line the left brigade was once again heavily shelled, as indeed was the whole front. At the end of a very hard day's fighting, our line remained in its former position, with the exception of the short distance lost by one cavalry division. Later, the line was pushed forward, and a new line was dug in a less exposed position, slightly in rear of that originally held. The night passed quietly.

"Working parties of from 1,200 to 1,800 men have been found every night by a Territorial Division and other units for work on rear lines of defence, in addition to the work performed by the garrisons in reconstructing the front line trenches which were daily destroyed by shell fire.

"The work performed by the Royal Flying Corps has been invaluable. Apart from the hostile aeroplanes actually destroyed, our airmen have prevented a great deal of aerial reconnaissance by the enemy, and have registered a large number of targets with our artillery.

"There have been many cases of individual gallantry. As instances, may be given the following:

"During one of the heavy attacks made against our infantry gas was seen rolling forward from the enemy's trenches. Private Lynn, of the 2d Lancashire Fusiliers, at once rushed to the machine-gun without waiting to adjust his respirator. Single-handed he kept his gun in action the whole time the gas was rolling over, actually hoisting it on the parapet to get a better field of fire. Although nearly suffocated by the gas, he poured a stream of lead into the advancing enemy and checked their attack. He was carried to his dug-out, but, hearing another attack was imminent, he tried to get back to his gun. Twenty-four hours later he died in great agony from the effects of the gas.

"A young subaltern in a cavalry regiment went forward alone one afternoon to reconnoiter. He got into a wood 1,200 yards in front of our lines, which he found occupied by Germans, and came back with the information that the enemy had evacuated a trench and were digging another—information which proved most valuable to the artillery as well as to his own unit.

"A patrol of two officers and a non-commissioned officer of the 1st Cambridgeshires went out one night to reconnoiter a German trench 350 yards away. Creeping along the parapet of the trench they heard sounds indicating the presence of six or seven of the enemy. Further on they heard deep snores apparently proceeding from a dug-out immediately beneath them. Although they knew that the garrison of the trench outnumbered them they decided to procure an identification. Unfortunately in pulling out a clasp knife with which to cut off the sleeper's identity disc, one of the officer's revolvers went off. A conversation in agitated whispers broke out in the German trench, but the patrol crept safely away, the garrison being too startled to fire.

"Despite the very severe shelling to which the troops had been subjected, which obliterated trenches and caused very many casualties, the spirit of all ranks remains excellent. The enemy's losses, particularly on May 10 and 13, have unquestionably been serious. On the latter day they evacuated trenches (in face of the cavalry counter-attack) in which were afterwards found quantities of equipment and some of their own wounded. The enemy have been seen stripping our dead, and on three occasions men in khaki have been seen advancing."

JOINT BRITISH AND FRENCH ATTACKS

The fight went on by the exchange of desultory shell and rifle fire, but without any remarkable incident until the morning of May 24. During this period, however, the French on our left had attained considerable success. On May 15 they captured Steenstraate and the trenches in Het Sas, and on May 16 they drove the enemy headlong over the canal, finding 2,000 German dead. On May 17 they made a substantial advance on the east side of the canal, and on May 20 they repelled a German counter-attack, making a further advance in the same direction, and taking 100 prisoners.

On the early morning of May 24 a violent outburst of gas against nearly the whole front was followed by heavy shell fire, and the most determined attack was delivered against our position east of Ypres.

The hour the attack commenced was 2.45 A.M. A large proportion of the men were asleep, and the attack was too sudden to give them time to put on their respirators.

The 2d Royal Irish and the 9th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, overcome by gas fumes, were driven out of a farm held in front of the left Division, and this the enemy proceeded to hold and fortify.

All attempts to retake this farm during the day failed, and during the night of May 24-25 the General Officer Commanding the left Division decided to take up a new line which, although slightly in rear of the old one, he considered to be a much better position. This operation was successfully carried out.

Throughout the day the whole line was subjected to one of the most violent artillery attacks which it had ever undergone; and the 5th Corps and the Cavalry Divisions engaged had to fight hard to maintain their positions. On the following day, however, the line was consolidated, joining the right of the French at the same place as before, and passing through Wieltje (which was strongly fortified) in a southerly direction on to Hooge, where the cavalry have since strongly occupied the chateau, and pushed our line further east.

In pursuance of a promise which I made to the French Commander-in-Chief to support an attack which his troops were making on May 9 between the right of my line and Arras, I directed Sir Douglas Haig to carry out on that date an attack on the German trenches in the neighborhood of Rougebanc (northwest of Fromelles) by the 4th Corps, and between Neuve Chapelle and Givenchy by the 1st and Indian Corps.

Half an hour later the 8th Division of the 4th Corps captured the first line of German trenches about Rougebanc, and some detachments seized a few localities beyond this line. It was soon found, however, that the position was much stronger than had been anticipated and that a more extensive artillery preparation was necessary to crush the resistance offered by his numerous fortified posts.

Throughout May 9 and 10 repeated efforts were made to make further progress. Not only was this found to be impossible, but the violence of the enemy's machine-gun fire from his posts on the flanks rendered the captured trenches so difficult to hold that all the units of the 4th Corps had to retire to their original position by the morning of May 10.

GENERAL PLAN OF ATTACK

The 1st and Indian Divisions south of Neuve Chapelle met with no greater success, and on the evening of May 10 I sanctioned Sir Douglas Haig's proposal to concentrate all our available resources on the southern point of attack.

The 7th Division was moved round from the 4th Corps area to support this attack, and I directed the General Officer Commanding the First Army to delay it long enough to insure a powerful and deliberate artillery preparation.

The operations of May 9 and 10 formed part of a general plan of attack which the Allies were conjointly conducting on a line extending from the north of Arras to the south of Armentieres; and, although immediate progress was not made during this time by the British forces, their attack assisted in securing the brilliant successes attained by the French forces on their right, not only by holding the enemy in their front, but by drawing off a part of the German reinforcements which were coming up to support their forces east of Arras.

On May 15 I moved the Canadian Division into the 1st Corps area and placed them at the disposal of Sir Douglas Haig.

The infantry of the Indian Corps and the 2d Division of the 1st Corps advanced to the attack of the enemy's trenches which extended from Richebourg L'Avoué in a south-westerly direction.

Before daybreak the 2d Division had succeeded in capturing two lines of the enemy's trenches, but the Indian Corps were unable to make any progress owing to the strength of the enemy's defenses in the neighborhood of Richebourg L'Avoué.

BATTLE OF FESTUBERT

At daybreak the 7th Division, on the night of the 2d, advanced to the attack, and by 7 A.M. had entrenched themselves on a line running nearly north and south, halfway between their original trenches and La Quinque Rue, having cleared and captured several lines of the enemy's trenches, including a number of fortified posts.

As it was found impossible for the Indian Corps to make any progress in face of the enemy's defenses, Sir Douglas Haig directed the attack to be suspended at this point and ordered the Indian Corps to form a defensive flank.

The remainder of the day was spent in securing and consolidating positions which had been won, and endeavoring to unite the inner flanks of the 7th and 2d Divisions, which were separated by trenches and posts strongly held by the enemy.

Various attempts which were made throughout the day to secure this object had not succeeded at nightfall in driving the enemy back.

The German communications leading to the rear of their positions were systematically shelled throughout the night.

Fighting was resumed at daybreak; and by eleven o'clock the 7th Division had made a considerable advance, capturing several more of the enemy's trenches. The task allotted to this Division was to push on in the direction of Rue D'Ouvert, Chateau St. Roch and Canteleux.

The 2d Division was directed to push on when the situation permitted toward the Rue de Marais and Violaines.

The Indian Division was ordered to extend its front far enough to enable it to keep touch with the left of the 2d Division when they advanced.

On this day I gave orders for the 51st (Highland) Division to move into the neighborhood of Estaires to be ready to support the operations of the First Army.

At about noon the enemy was driven out of the trenches and posts which he occupied between the two Divisions, the inner flanks of which were thus enabled to join hands.

By nightfall the 2d and 7th Divisions had made good progress, the area of captured ground being considerably extended to the right by the successful operations of the latter.

The state of the weather on the morning of May 18 much hindered an effective artillery bombardment, and further attacks had, consequently, to be postponed.

Infantry attacks were made throughout the line in the course of the afternoon and evening, but, although not very much progress was made, the line was advanced to the La Quinque Rue-Bethune Road before nightfall.

On May 19 the 7th and 2d Divisions were drawn out of the line to rest. The 7th Division was relieved by the Canadian Division and the 2d Division by the 51st (Highland) Division.

Sir Douglas Haig placed the Canadian and 51st Divisions, together with the artillery of the 2d and 7th Divisions, under the command of Lieutenant-General Alderson, whom he directed to conduct the operations which had hitherto been carried on by the General Officer Commanding First Corps; and he directed the 7th Division to remain in Army Reserve.

During the night of May 19-20 a small post of the enemy in front of La Quinque Rue was captured.

During the night of May 20-21 the Canadian Division brilliantly carried on the excellent progress made by the 7th Division by seizing several of the enemy's trenches and pushing forward their whole line several hundred yards. A number of prisoners and some machine guns were captured.

On May 22 the 51st (Highland) Division was attached to the Indian Corps, and the General Officer Commanding the Indian Corps took charge of the operations at La Quinque Rue, Lieutenant-General Alderson with the Canadians conducting the operations to the north of that place.

On this day the Canadian Division extended their line slightly to the right and repulsed three very severe hostile counter-attacks.

On May 24 and 25 the 47th Division (2d London Territorial) succeeded in taking some more of the enemy's trenches and making good the ground gained to the east and north.

I had now reason to consider that the battle, which was commenced by the First Army on May 9 and renewed on May 16, having attained for the moment the immediate object I had in view, should not be further actively proceeded with; and I gave orders to Sir Douglas Haig to curtail his artillery attack and to strengthen and consolidate the ground he had won.

In the battle of Festubert above described the enemy was driven from a position which was strongly entrenched and fortified, and ground was won on a front of four miles to an average depth of 600 yards.

The enemy is known to have suffered very heavy losses, and in the course of the battle 785 prisoners and ten machine guns were captured. A number of machine guns were also destroyed by our fire.

During the period under report the Army under my command has taken over trenches occupied by some other French divisions.

I am much indebted to General D'Urbal, commanding the 10th French Army, for the valuable and efficient support received throughout the battle of Festubert from three groups of French 75 centimetre guns.

In spite of very unfavorable weather conditions, rendering observation most difficult, our own artillery did excellent work throughout the battle.

As an instance of the successful attempts to deceive the enemy in this respect it may be mentioned that on the afternoon of May 24 a bombardment of about an hour was carried out by the 6th Division with the object of distracting attention from the Ypres salient.

Considerable damage was done to the enemy's parapets and wire; and that the desired impression was produced on the enemy is evident from the German wireless news on that day, which stated, "West of Lille the English attempts to attack were nipped in the bud."

I have much pleasure in again expressing my warm appreciation of the admirable manner in which all branches of the Medical Services now in the field, under the direction of Surgeon-General Sir Arthur Sloggett, have met and dealt with the many difficult situations resulting from the operations during the last two months.

The medical units at the front were frequently exposed to the enemy's fire, and many casualties occurred amongst the officers of the regimental Medical Service. At all times the officers, non-commissioned officers and men, and nurses carried out their duties with fearless bravery and great devotion to the welfare of the sick and wounded.

The whole organization of the Medical Services reflects the highest credit on all concerned.

I have once more to call your Lordship's attention to the part taken by the Royal Flying Corps in the general progress of the campaign, and I wish particularly to mention the invaluable assistance they rendered in the operations described in this report, under the able direction of Major-General Sir David Henderson.

The Royal Flying Corps is becoming more and more an indispensable factor in combined operations. In co-operation with the artillery, in particular, there has been continuous improvement both in the methods and in the technical material employed. The ingenuity and technical skill displayed by the officers of the Royal Flying Corps in effecting this improvement have been most marked.

Since my last dispatch there has been a considerable increase both in the number and in the activity of German aeroplanes in our front. During this period there have been more than sixty combats in the air, in which not one British aeroplane has been lost. As these flights take place almost invariably over or behind the German lines, only one hostile aeroplane has been brought down in our territory. Five more, however, have been definitely wrecked behind their own lines, and many have been chased down and forced to land in most unsuitable ground.

In spite of the opposition of hostile aircraft, and the great number of anti-aircraft guns employed by the enemy, air reconnaissance has been carried out with regularity and accuracy.

I desire to bring to your Lordship's notice the assistance given by the French military authorities, and in particular by General Hirschauer, Director of the French Aviation Service, and his assistants, Colonel Bottieaux and Colonel Stammler, in the supply of aeronautical material, without which the efficiency of the Royal Flying Corps would have been seriously impaired.

In this dispatch I wish again to remark upon the exceptionally good work done throughout this campaign by the Army Service Corps and by the Army Ordnance Department, not only in the field, but also on the lines of communication and at the base ports.

To foresee and meet the requirements in the matter of ammunition, stores, equipment, supplies, and transport has entailed on the part of the officers, non-commissioned officers and men of these services a sustained effort which has never been relaxed since the beginning of the war, and which has been rewarded by the most conspicuous success.

The close co-operation of the Railway Transport Department, whose excellent work, in combination with the French Railway Staff, has ensured the regularity of the maintenance services, has greatly contributed to this success.

The degree of efficiency to which these services have been brought was well demonstrated in the course of the second battle of Ypres.

The roads between Poperinghe and Ypres, over which transport, supply and ammunition columns had to pass, were continually searched by hostile heavy artillery during the day and night; whilst the passage of the canal through the town of Ypres, and along the roads east of that town, could only be effected under most difficult and dangerous conditions as regards hostile shell fire. Yet, throughout the whole five or six weeks during which these conditions prevailed the work was carried on with perfect order and efficiency.

THE “NEW” BRITISH ARMY

Since the date of my last report some divisions of the "New" Army have arrived in this country.

I made a close inspection of one division, formed up on parade, and have at various times seen several units belonging to others.

These divisions have as yet had very little experience in actual fighting; but, judging from all I have seen, I am of opinion that they ought to prove a valuable addition to any fighting force.

As regards the infantry, their physique is excellent, whilst their bearing and appearance on parade reflects great credit on the officers and staffs responsible for their training. The units appear to be thoroughly well officered and commanded. The equipment is in good order and efficient.

Several units of artillery have been tested in the firing line behind the trenches, and I hear very good reports of them. Their shooting has been extremely good, and they are quite fit to take their places in the line.

The Pioneer Battalions have created a very favorable impression, the officers being keen and ingenious, and the men of good physique and good diggers. The equipment is suitable. The training in field works has been good, but, generally speaking, they require the assistance of Regular Royal Engineers as regards laying out of important works. Man for man in digging the battalions should do practically the same amount of work as an equivalent number of sappers, and in riveting, entanglements, etc., a great deal more than the ordinary infantry battalions.

During the months of April and May several divisions of the Territorial Force joined the Army under my command.

Experience has shown that these troops have now reached a standard of efficiency which enables them to be usefully employed in complete divisional units.

Several divisions have been so employed; some in the trenches, others in the various offensive and defensive operations reported in this dispatch.

In whatever kind of work these units have been engaged, they have all borne an active and distinguished part, and have proved themselves thoroughly reliable and efficient.

The opinion I have expressed in former dispatches as to the use and value of the Territorial Force has been fully justified by recent events.

The Prime Minister was kind enough to accept an invitation from me to visit the Army in France, and arrived at my Headquarters on May 30.

Mr. Asquith made an exhaustive tour of the front, the hospitals and all the administrative arrangements made by Corps Commanders for the health and comfort of men behind the trenches.

It was a great encouragement to all ranks to see the Prime Minister amongst them; and the eloquent words which on several occasions he addressed to the troops had a most powerful and beneficial effect.

As I was desirous that the French Commander-in-Chief should see something of the British troops, I asked General Joffre to be kind enough to inspect a division on parade.

The General accepted my invitation, and on May 27 he inspected the 7th Division, under the command of Major-General H. de la P. Gough, C.B., which was resting behind the trenches.

General Joffre subsequently expressed to me in a letter the pleasure it gave him to see the British troops, and his appreciation of their appearance on parade. He requested me to make this known to all ranks.

The Moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Right Rev. Dr. Wallace Williamson, Dean of the Order of the Thistle, visited the Army in France between May 7 and 17, and made a tour of the Scottish regiments with excellent results.

In spite of the constant strain put upon them by the arduous nature of the fighting which they are called upon to carry out daily and almost hourly, the spirit which animates all ranks of the Army in France remains high and confident.

This splendid spirit is particularly manifested by the men in hospital, even amongst those who are mortally wounded.

The invariable question which comes from lips hardly able to utter a sound is, "How are things going on at the front?"

In conclusion, I desire to bring to your Lordship's special notice the valuable services rendered by General Sir Douglas Haig in his successful handling of the troops of the First Army throughout the Battle of Festubert, and Lieutenant-General Sir Herbert Plumer for his fine defence of Ypres throughout the arduous and difficult operations during the latter part of April and the month of May.

France’s “Eyewitness” Reports

HILGENFIRST

The following details published in Paris on July 11 by an official "Eyewitness" with the French army of the desperate fighting which resulted in the capture of the summit of Hilgenfirst, more than 3,000 feet high, in the Langenfeldkopf region, in the Vosges Mountains, are given in an account of the struggle written by an official eyewitness with the French army.

In the fight for the capture of the eminence of Hilgenfirst, one company of our advance guard which forced a breach in the German lines was cut off from its battalion as the result of a German counter-attack. This company, nevertheless, succeeded in maintaining the conquered position four days until finally relieved.

On June 14 the Sixth Company of the Seventh Battalion crawled from its trenches and deployed toward a clearing in the woods opposite. It then charged, taking the German trenches. The Germans fled to the woods, leaving a quick-firer. Our men immediately began fortifying the position, but our sentries reported that German patrols had been seen encircling the French. Other companies were ordered forward immediately to support the one in the trench.

Meanwhile large German reinforcements had been brought up, making it impossible to reach our men. The captain in the trench, realizing that he was surrounded, ordered some of his men to form a hollow square and defend the position while others dug trenches on four sides. The Germans attacked in great force with quick firers and rifles, but withdrew at nightfall after a battle lasting two hours. Our men defending the position numbered 137, including five officers. One officer and twenty-seven men were wounded.

The following day, despite a well-directed fire from our main positions, the Germans again attacked in large numbers, advancing in columns of four. The situation now began to look critical, but at the crucial moment a hail of shrapnel from our 75.8 completely decimated one advancing column. The edge of the wood out of which the column advanced was piled high with German bodies and the remainder of the force scattered in flight.

In the afternoon the Germans again prepared for an attack, but the attempt was frustrated by our infantry fire. During the night the captain told off men to rest in squads, the others being constantly on the alert. At dawn a second lieutenant and a few men surprised a small German scouting detachment of twenty men commanded by a non-commissioned officer. Our men threw themselves upon the Germans, killing the officer and two men, the others taking to their heels at top speed.

At 10 o'clock the main body of our troops succeeded in establishing communications with the isolated company which called for help in the provincial dialect. We answered that we would attack at nightfall, but that the attack would be preceded by a heavy bombardment.

Accordingly, they constructed heavy bomb-proof shelters on the four sides of the square and anxiously waited. At 9 o'clock the attack was begun with artillery, quick firers and rifles, but it was insufficient to drive out the Germans, who had in the meanwhile established well-protected trenches and, with an excellent telephone system, made any surprise movement impossible.

The company's rations were now becoming very low. Delirious cries of the wounded added to the discomfiture of the men. The following morning a German patrol tried to take the position by storm, and some of the men succeeded even in mounting the parapet. These were driven off by a quick firer which had been captured from the Germans. On other advancing troops of the enemy huge boulders, dug from the hillside, were rolled down and we succeeded in dispersing the attack.

Another attack was prepared by us for that night, but the danger was great on account of the narrowness of the position occupied by the company. The captain of the company was ordered to light fires at the opposite ends of his position, so that our artillery could better regulate its fire, as there was great danger of killing our own men.

The artillery opened a crushing fire, and the Germans began to retreat. As they passed the company's position their men were mowed down by the exactness of the fire of our troops, and finally the brave company was delivered.

The general in command of the army in the Vosges said, in complimenting the men for their bravery, the company henceforth should be called "Company Sid Ibrahim."

BATTLE OF FONTENELLE

The official French "Eyewitness" at the front reported on July 18 giving details of the French success in the battle of Fontenelle, in the Vosges. The scene of the conflict is in the neighborhood of the village of Senones and the forest of Ormont, and the ground is described as undulating and cut by deep ravines.

It was in this region, says the observer, that the Germans, after the battle of the Marne, look up a position on a summit commanding the surrounding countryside. This hill was Height 627, which is known as Fontenelle.

On June 22, after severe losses, the enemy succeeded in occupying Fontenelle, says the observer. Although we counter-attacked vigorously, taking 142 prisoners, the enemy held the summit. General Van Kuderzen, in a report dated July 3, said that after a careful inspection of the German works and trenches he finally believed that the hill had been transformed into an impregnable fortress, and that its capture would necessitate tremendous losses.

On July 8 all necessary preparations for the attack had been completed. The same day, at nightfall, three columns, aided by a remarkably accurate artillery fire, took a portion of the enemy's trenches. In the center we also attacked, forcing the enemy to the west of Launois in ten minutes. The attack on the left proceeded more slowly, but, aided by gathering darkness, we took possession of the northwestern portion of the hill.

At daybreak not only the whole of the summit had been retaken, but a majority of the German defenses as far as the road from Launois to Moyen-Moutier. Thanks to our artillery, all preparations for counter-attacks were immediately stopped.

During the battles of July 8 and 9 we took 881 prisoners, including 21 officers. When questioned the prisoners gave great praise to our excellent artillery marksmanship, saying: "We did not believe there could be such a hell of fire."

BETWEEN BETHUNE AND ARRAS

An Associated Press dispatch dated on the heights of Notre Dame de Lorette, near Arras, July 10, gave the following account of the 120 days' fight ended successfully by the use of high explosives:

After fighting 120 days for the hill country between Bethune and Arras, the French forces are in possession of all the eminences looking out upon the plain of Flanders. Lille, Douai, and Chambrai all are visible from here.

Every position along the broad national road between Arras and Bethune has been won except Souchez, and last night another quarter mile of trenches in the Souchez web was torn away. The attack was made under parachute rocket lights, the French burning bluish white and the Germans greenish white, covering the scene of the desperate conflict with a ghastly glow.

The most desperate fighting has been along the short ten-mile front from Arras to Aix-Noulette, which began March 9 with the taking of a few hundred yards of trenches on the watershed of Notre Dame de Lorette, where there are the ruins of an old Merovingian military road. Every day since then some section of the German trenches has been taken, lost, or retaken.

Each side has been employing formidable artillery both of small and heavy calibre, the French guns being somewhat more numerous and served with unlimited quantities of high explosive shells.

A correspondent of The Associated Press today went through five or six miles of the trenches formerly held by the Germans and reconstructed by the French, who now have abandoned them to move forward. Upward of 100,000 Germans have fallen or been captured in these trenches, according to the French official count, since the second week of March. The French losses, the correspondent was confidentially informed, while serious, have been much smaller than those of the Germans. There are thickets of little crosses made of twigs tied together, marking the graves between the trenches. Some of these graves have been torn up by the shell fire.

Almost every square yard of this region is marked by miniature craters caused by exploding shells. Spots where shells penetrated the earth without exploding are indicated by signs bearing the words "Live Shell."

One line of the German works was just below the summit of a steep slope which, from the nature of the ground, could not be shelled without danger to the French position a little higher up. The Germans were sheltered in dugouts under the hillside, and their French assailants, sliding or jumping down into the trenches, were shot or bayoneted from caves. The line was finally taken by tossing grenades by the basketful into the trenches until most of the defenders in the concaved shelters were killed or wounded. Every curve or angle in the miles of labyrinthine cuttings has its story of tragedy and heroism.

In the party which went over this ground and into the firing trenches within calling distance of the German lines with The Associated Press correspondent were Owen Johnson, Arnold Bennett, Walter Hale and George H. Mair, the last representing the British Foreign Office. As they approached the lines one shell from a four-inch gun burst within twenty-five yards of them, while others exploded only thirty or forty yards away. This incident seemed greatly to amuse the soldiers in the trenches, who laughed heartily at the embarrassment of the civilians.

The visitors were invited by the soldiers into their shelters, which are dry caves with narrow entrances and with clay floors covered with matting or sacking and faintly illuminated by the light which filters in from the entrance or by bits of candle on the inside. Men who had been on duty throughout the night were sleeping in these caves.

The men on the firing line express the utmost confidence that what was done yesterday and this morning they can keep on doing until the war has been won. They never hear the vague, unverified reports circulated in Paris, sometimes of tremendous and impossible victories, sometimes sinister hints of disaster. They know what they have done since March 9, when they were ordered to act on this part of the Aisne. They talk as a matter of course of another winter campaign, because, they say, it will take another year to break the German power.

ARRAS’ GRASS-GROWN STREETS

Shells have been dropping into Arras at intervals today, as they have been for 250 days. Each twenty-four hours a few more buildings crumple or burn, although the Fire Department still is efficient in extinguishing flames.

One thousand civilians out of a former population of 35,000 are still here. There were 4,000 in December when The Associated Press correspondent first visited the town. A few scores of the inhabitants have been killed or wounded, while the others have been persuaded by the military authorities to go away. None of those remaining thinks of sleeping anywhere except in a cellar. The rest of their time they spend out of doors, when no shells are falling.

The streets, which formerly were filled with traffic, are now grass-grown. Two postmen deliver the mail, which comes regularly once a day by military post. Several shops located underground are open for business. Displayed on cellar doors are baskets of fresh vegetables, which can be bought at about the same prices as in Paris. Inside the principal grocery are many standard brands of American, French, and British canned goods.

About half the outer walls of the beautiful City Hall are still standing, but there remains only one jagged corner of the imposing belfry which once adorned the great square of Arras. A citizen occupying a cellar on the other side of the square counted the shells which struck the belfry, and says it took 360 to shatter the beautiful bit of architecture.

ARRAS CATHEDRAL

Since June 27 the Germans have systematically bombarded various parts of Arras with projectiles of all calibres, says an official communication given out today by the French War Department.

On June 27 the bombardment was extremely violent and was executed by six-inch, eight-inch and seventeen-inch guns, between the hours of 8 A.M. and 2 P.M., and between 6 P.M. and 7:30 P.M. The fire was directed particularly at the citadel and neighboring streets.

On July 3, toward 6:30 o'clock in the evening, a further bombardment took place in which incendiary shells were used, and they started a most violent fire.

On July 5 at 4:30 P.M., the statement continues, the enemy recommenced its bombardment of the city, concentrating its fire upon the environs of the cathedral, more especially upon St. Vaast, the ancient Bishop's palace, which had been transformed into a museum. Incendiary shells set the building on fire, and the use of fuse shells from three-inch and four-inch guns prevented our organizing to combat the fire, which soon assumed great proportions and completely destroyed the palace. During the night there was an intermittent bombardment.

On July 6, about 7 A.M., shells fell on the Cathedral, the roof of which took fire, and, despite the efforts of our troops, was entirely consumed, as were the Cathedral organs.

The departmental archives, which had been deposited in the Palace of St. Vaast, had been placed in the cellar of the palace before the bombardment and were saved. The sacred ornaments and part of the furnishings in the Cathedral were removed.

IN THE FECHT VALLEY

The French official "Eyewitness" reported on July 15 the French victory in the battle of Metzeral in upper Alsace, as follows:

The operations by which our troops captured the towns of Metzeral and Sondernach, which are situated in the Fecht Valley, have been remarkable because of the means employed and the results obtained, and as the Alpine troops have been forced to surmount all possible difficulties.

Metzeral, the eyewitness explains, is situated in a valley surrounded by high hills, the sides of which dropped precipitously down to the Fecht region. On these hills was stationed artillery, to the rear of which, within easy access, large reinforcements could be massed and brought to the front when needed. He continued:

From prisoners we learned that the Germans considered their position impregnable. It was surrounded by several lines of trenches and barbed wire entanglements. We made long preparations for the attack, concentrating troops and bringing supplies up the Vosges through winding, narrow, and hastily constructed roads, twenty miles in length. New trenches were dug, mines laid, and various other details attended to.

On June 15, after prolonged and heavy artillery fire on both sides of the valley, the attack was begun against Hill 830, on which we captured trenches situated on the slopes, taking two companies prisoners. A portion of the trenches on Braunkopf also fell into our hands.

At Eichwald we gained less, as here the German fortifications were strongest. At Anlass, also, although many grenades were thrown, the fortifications were of such a character as to make it impossible to break through.

On the day following the attack was resumed, with the purpose of gaining us all the positions on Braunkopf and Hill 830. We began at this point to encircle Eichwald, as the road to Metzeral now lay open. The Germans remained at Anlass, where our attack always stopped, and with their fire across the valley on Braunkopf made it impossible for us to proceed.

All our efforts were now concentrated on Anlass. We attacked on June 18 and 19, and on the 20th the German positions fell into our hands. Our troops continued on down the valley, capturing 6 officers, 11 non-commissioned officers, and 140 men.

An attack directed at the same time against Winterhagel, situated to the south of Anlass, was marked by a sad incident. A small group of chasseurs who succeeded in breaking through the barbed-wire entanglements found themselves under a crossfire of quick-firers. The men tried to construct a shelter with the tools they carried. The Germans cried "Surrender!" Not one man answered. The quick-firers accomplished their work, and the men were found lying with faces to the ground, as if they had dropped when drawn up in line for parade.

Our attacks were now centred on Metzeral. The factory at Steinbruck was taken on the night of June 17, and a battalion entered Altenkof the day following. On June 21 our men came down from Braunkopf, surrounded the village on the north, and took the railway station. The Germans in Metzeral, threatened with capture, placed quick-firers in several houses to protect their retreat and prepared to set the place on fire. Our artillery quickly demolished the houses in which German artillery had been placed, and our troops entered the flaming streets from the north and west. The village was burned.

On the two following nights, while our troops harassed the retreating enemy, Winterhagel and Sondernach fell into our hands and our line was established along the length of the valley of the Fecht as far as Sondernach.

The action resulted in the capture of 20 officers, 53 non-commissioned officers, and 638 men.

The Crown Prince in the Argonne

An Associated Press dispatch from Paris stated on June 30 that the German attempt to divert the attention of the French from the latter's offensive in the region north of Arras has been productive of gains in the Argonne, where a three-days' bombardment of the French trenches was followed by the capture of French positions near Bagatelle. Elsewhere, particularly on the Yser, to the north of Arras, north of Verdun and near Metzeral in Alsace, there have been artillery exchanges without notable results.

The dispatch recorded the following French official communication, issued June 30:

In the Argonne, after a bombardment lasting three days, the Germans attacked our positions on the road between Binarville and Le Four de Paris, but were twice repulsed. They succeeded only in their third attack in gaining a foothold in some parts of our lines near Bagatelle, and they were everywhere else thrown back after a violent engagement.

There has been a bombardment on the front north of Verdun, in the Bois d'Ailly, as well as in the region of Metzeral.

In the Argonne the Germans continue their offensive. Our booty has increased considerably, and amounted on July 1 and 2 to 2,556 prisoners—among them 37 officers—25 machine guns, 72 mine throwers, and one revolver gun.

It was reported from London on July 14 that the attack of the German Crown Prince's army in the Argonne, having for its objective the investment of the French forts of the Verdun area, had resulted in an advance of two-thirds of a mile and the capture of 2,581 prisoners and several pieces of artillery, according to German official reports. A communique issued in Paris, while admitting the German success, asserts that nowhere did the assailants gain more than a quarter of a mile and announces that the Crown Prince's offensive had been definitely checked.

In the Argonne a German attack resulted in complete success northeast of Vienne-le-Château. Our troops took by storm the enemy positions in the hills extending over a width of three kilometers (about a mile and three-quarters) and a depth of one kilometer. Hill No. 285, La Fille Morte, is in our possession. Two thousand five hundred and eighty-one uninjured prisoners, including fifty-one officers, fell into our hands. In addition, 300 wounded were taken under our care. Two field cannon, two revolver cannon, six machine guns, and a large quantity of tools were captured. Our troops advanced as far as the positions of the French artillery and rendered eight cannon useless. These are now standing between the French and German lines.

The French made repeated attempts yesterday, which lasted into the night, to recapture the positions we took from them in the Forest of Argonne. Notwithstanding the employment of large quantities of ammunition and of strong forces recently brought up, all their attacks broke down. In many places there was bitter fighting with hand grenades and encounters at close quarters.

The enemy paid for his unsuccessful efforts with extraordinarily heavy losses. The number of French prisoners has been increased to 68 officers and 3,688 men.

The success of our troops was all the more remarkable as, according to corresponding statements made by prisoners, the French had prepared for a great attack against our positions on the Argonne front on July 14, their national festival day.

French attacks delivered yesterday and the day before to the west of the Argonne Forest failed in the face of the North German Landwehr, who inflicted large and sanguinary losses on the enemy in bitter hand-to-hand fighting. We captured 462 prisoners.

Since June 20 our troops have fought continually in the Argonne and to the west of that forest, with the exception of short interruptions. In addition to the gain in territory and booty in materials a total of 116 officers and 7,009 French prisoners has been reached up to the present.

On our front which joins the Argonne to the east, lively artillery battles are in progress. Attacks made by the enemy in this region were repulsed without difficulty.

In a dispatch from Berlin, dated July 16, by Wireless to Sayville, N.Y., it is reported that in the news items given out by the Overseas News Agency was the following:

German military tacticians point out that the German victory in the Forest of Argonne, in France, is of special importance, as it shows that the connections toward Western France are gradually being cut.

The large amount of war materials captured by the Germans in the last battle illustrates the importance attributed to the positions by the French commanders. The French, however, were unable to resist the terrific offensive of the Crown Prince's army.

Gallipoli’s Shambles

Allied Operations Around the Turks’ Fortress of
Achi Baba

The subjoined narratives, official and semi-official, show clearly the formidable nature of the Allies' land undertaking in the attempt to force the passage of the Dardanelles. It will be noted that Compton Mackenzie, the novelist, has temporarily replaced E. Ashmead-Bartlett as the British press "eyewitness" on the peninsula, and that General Sir Ian Hamilton's reports have for the first time begun to appear. A notable sketch of his career appears in the Atlantic Monthly for July by the pen of Alfred G. Gardiner. A poet and a man of romantic ancestry and taste, experienced in commands in India, in Egypt, and in South Africa, General Hamilton was called by the late Lord Roberts the ablest commander in the field. For his qualities of daring and inspiration, as well as for his coolness in directing the complex movements of the battlefield, he was chosen for this most dangerous and bloody of enterprises against the German-officered Turks.[4]

Mr. Mackenzie estimates the losses of the Turks up to June 30 at not less than 70,000. Prime Minister Asquith in the House of Commons, on July 1, announced that the British naval and military losses up to May 31 aggregated 38,635 officers and men. Yet the great fortress of Achi Baba, by that time one of the most powerful in the world, was untaken up to July 20, and the French and British Allies held but a small corner of the area to be conquered.

BATTLE OF THE LONGEST DAY

By Compton Mackenzie

THE battle of the Fourth of June ended with substantial progress on our centre, although on our left and on our right, notwithstanding the most violent charges and counter-charges, we were unable to consolidate some of our initial gains. The reason of this may be found in the natural strongholds of the Turkish flanks, natural strongholds that are helped by the most elaborate fortifications.

The British and French line from the Aegean to the Dardanelles is confronted by rising ground that culminates in the centre with the flat summit of Achi Baba, 800 ft. high. On either side the ground falls away to the sea in ravines and dry watercourses (deres), which the Turks have had time to make impregnable to any except those superb troops that are now fighting to pass over them.

There is no room upon the Gallipoli Peninsula to find weak points, and we are now in the position of having to storm an immensely strong fortress, the advanced works of which, by an amazing feat of arms, we already hold, and the glacis of which has to be crossed before we move forward to the assault upon the bastion of Achi Baba and beyond to the final assault upon the very walls of that fortress, the Kilid Bahr Plateau.

Farther up the coast the Australians and New Zealanders have made a lodgment upon one of the strongest advanced works of the Kilid Bahr Plateau. As seen from the northwest here they threaten the communications of the "fortress" and are drawing against them a large part of the garrison. This is composed of the flower of the Turkish Army, and, notwithstanding casualties that must already amount to 70,000, the troops are fighting with gallantry—with desperation, indeed, because they realize that when the bastion of Achi Baba falls the occupation of the Kilid Bahr Plateau becomes a mere question of time, and that when Kilid Bahr falls the doom of Constantinople is at hand. In view of the difficulties—were it not for the landing one would be tempted to say the impossibilities—which confront our men, the gain of a score of yards in the Gallipoli Peninsula may fairly represent for the purposes of comparison a gain of 500 yards in the Western theatre of war. Therefore, to find its importance the gain of 500 yards on June 4 must be measured with affairs like Neuve Chapelle; and the few quiet days that succeeded may be accepted as repose.

Map of Gallipoli Peninsula, showing the mountainous
nature of the terrain, and Achi Baba.

After a violent effort on the night of June 11 to 12 there was a brilliant little action by the Border Regiment and the South Wales Borderers which resulted in the gain of two trenches. On the 16th the enemy, led by a Turkish and a German officer, made an assault on the trenches of the 88th Brigade, but were driven off with loss. However, that night the trenches gained by the two regiments on the 11th were heavily bombed, so heavily that our men were forced to retire about 30 yards and dig themselves in. At dawn we were able to enfilade with machine-guns the vacated trenches.

Then the Dublin Fusiliers charged with the bayonet, and once more gave us possession of our gains at heavy cost to the Turks, whose dead filled one trench.

On the evening of the 18th the enemy bombarded very heavily another portion of our trenches on this side of the line. They were evidently attempting in miniature our own methods of Neuve Chapelle and June 4, as immediately after the bombardment they were seen to be massing for an attack. However, the imitation ended rather abruptly at this point, and the affair petered out.

On the evening of the 19th the Turks by a fierce attack, managed to get into an awkward salient which had remained in our hands after June 4. For some time there was great difficulty in recovering this, but the 5th Royal Scots and a company of the Worcesters, led by Lieut.-Colonel Wilson of the former regiment, made a glorious attack, and drove out the Turks.

Of the Royal Scots, one can add nothing but that they are Edinburgh Territorials brought in by the fortune of war to make the twelfth regiment of the immortal 29th Division whose deeds since April 25 might have stirred the ghost of Homer to sing their valour.

Mention has been made already of the difficulties that oppose our advance upon the two flanks. On June 21 it was determined to straighten the line upon the extreme right, and at 1.30 A.M. the preliminary bombardment began. The dawn had been clear, but soon a curtain of silver, through which gleamed the ghost of the rising sun, hung over the Kereves Dere. This was the smoke of bursting shells. Slowly as the sun climbed up the curtain became more substantial. Then it seemed to droop and sweep along the hollows like a vanishing mist of dawn, and during a respite the thin blue smoke of the bivouac fires came tranquilly up into the still air. The respite was very brief, and the bombardment began again with greater fierceness than before. The 75's drummed unceasingly. The reverberation of the 125's and of the howitzers shook the observation post. Over the Kereves Dere, and beyond, upon the sloping shoulders of Achi Baba, the curtain became a pall. The sun climbed higher and higher. All that first mirage of beauty had disappeared, and there was nothing but the monstrous shapes of bursting shells, giants of smoke that appeared one after another along the Turkish lines. All through the morning the cannonade went on.

By noon the Second Division of the French had on the left stormed and captured all the Turkish trenches of the first two lines. Even the Haricot Redoubt, with its damnable entanglements and its maze of communicating trenches, was in French hands. On the right, however, the First Division, after reaching their objective, had been counter-attacked so effectively that they had fallen back. Again they advanced; again they took the trenches; again they were driven out. It began to look as if the victory upon the left would be fruitless, that the position would become an untenable salient and the Haricot Redoubt revert to the enemy.

At this moment a message was sent to say that the trenches must be recaptured, and, when recaptured, held. There were still five hours of daylight for this battle of the longest day. British guns and howitzers were asked for and were lent at once. The bombardment was resumed throughout that afternoon, and at half-past five it seemed as if every gun on earth were pouring shells on the Turkish lines.

At six o'clock the third assault was delivered. In one trench there was a temporary shortage of ammunition, but the enemy fought even with stones and sticks and fists. A battalion came hurrying up from the Turkish right to reinforce it, was caught on open ground by the drumming 75's, and it melted away. Six hundred yards of Turkish trenches were taken, and still the bombardment was continued in order to ward off the counter-attack that was anticipated.

The smoke of the shells, which at dawn had been ethereal, almost translucent, was now, in the sunset, turbid and sinister, yet the sunset was very splendid, flaming in crimson streamers over Imbros, tinting the east with rosy reflections and turning the peaks of Asia to sapphires. It had a peculiar significance on this longest day of the year, crowning as it did those precious five hours of daylight that, for the French, had been fraught with such achievement. Slowly the colour faded out, and now, minute by minute, the flashes of the guns became more distinct; the smoke was merged in the gathering dusk, and away over the more distant Turkish lines the bursts of shrapnel came out like stars against the brief twilight. One knew the anxiety there would be in the darkness that now was falling upon this 21st of June, but in the morning we heard gladly that the enemy's counter-attacks had failed, and that our Allies were indeed firmly established.

The Turkish casualties were at least 7,000. One trench, 200 yards long and 10 feet deep, was brimming over with the dead. They were valiant those dead men. French officers who have fought in the West say that, as a fighting unit, one Turk is worth two Germans; in fact, with his back to the wall, the Turk is magnificent. The French casualties were marvellously few considering what a day it had been, what an enemy was being attacked, and how much had been gained.

The right of the line now commands Kereves Dere, and the profile of Achi Baba seems to write itself less solidly against the sky.

ATTACK BY LAND AND SEA

General Sir Ian Hamilton reports that the plan of operations on the 28th was to throw forward the left of his line southeast of Krithia, pivoting on a point about one mile from the sea, and after advancing on the extreme left for about half a mile to establish a new line facing east on ground thus gained. This plan entailed the capture in succession of two lines of the Turkish trenches east of the Saghir Dere, and five lines of trenches west of it. The Australian Corps was ordered to co-operate by making a vigorous demonstration.

The action opened at nine o'clock with a bombardment by heavy artillery. The assistance rendered by the French in this bombardment was most valuable.

At 10.20 the Field Artillery opened fire to cut wire in front of Turkish trenches, and this was effectively done. The effect on the enemy's trench near the sea was great. The very accurate fire of his Majesty's ships Talbot, Scorpion and Wolverine succeeded in keeping down his artillery fire from that quarter.

At 10.45 a small Turkish advanced work in the Saghir Dere known as the Boomerang Redoubt was assaulted. This little fort, which was very strongly sited and protected by extra strong wire entanglements, has long been a source of trouble. After special bombardment by trench mortar, and while bombardment of surrounding trenches was at its height, part of the Border Regiment at the exact moment prescribed leapt from their trenches as one man like a pack of hounds, and pouring out of cover raced across, and took the work most brilliantly.

The artillery bombardment increased in intensity till 11 A.M., when the range was lengthened, and infantry advanced. The infantry attack was carried out with great dash along the whole line.

West of Saghir Dere three lines of trenches were captured with little opposition. The trenches were full of dead Turks, many buried by the bombardment, and one hundred prisoners were taken in them.

East of the Ravine the Royal Scots made a fine attack, capturing the two lines of trenches assigned to their objective, but the remainder of the Brigade on their right met with severe opposition and were unable to get forward.

At 11.30 the Royal Fusiliers led its Brigade in the second phase of the attack west of the Ravine. The Brigade advanced with great steadiness and resolution through the trenches already captured, and on across the open, and taking two more lines of trenches reached the objective allotted to them, the Lancashire Fusiliers inclining half-right and forming line to connect with our new position east of the Ravine.

The northernmost objective had now been attained, but the Gurkhas pressing on under the cliffs captured an important knoll still further forward, actually due west of Krithia. This they fortified and held during the night, making our total gain on the left precisely one thousand yards.

During the afternoon the trenches, a small portion of which remained uncaptured on the right, were attacked, but the enemy held on stubbornly supported by machine-guns and artillery, and the attacks did not succeed.

During the night the enemy counter-attacked the furthest trenches gained, but was repulsed with heavy loss. A party of Turks, who penetrated from the flank between two lines of captured trenches, was subjected to machine-gun fire at daybreak, suffered very heavily, and the survivors surrendered.

Except for a small portion of trench already mentioned, which is still held by the enemy, all and more than was hoped for from operations has been gained. On the extreme left the line has been pushed forward to a specially strong point well beyond the limit of the advance originally contemplated.

All engaged did well, but certainly the chief factor in the success was the splendid attack carried out by the 29th Division, whose conduct on this, as on previous occasions, was beyond praise.

AUSTRALIANS IN ACTION

The British Press Bureau states on July 1 that, in continuation of his last message respecting the British advance in the Gallipoli Peninsula, Sir Ian Hamilton had reported as follows:

Further details have now been received with regard to the part played by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps in the operations of the 29th. As previously stated, the General Officer Commanding the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps was instructed to undertake operations with a view to preventing the enemy in his front from detaching troops to the southern area.

Between 11.30 A.M. and 12 noon the action was opened, His Majesty's ships Humber, Pincher, and Chelmer engaging enemy's heavy guns. At 1 P.M. part of the Second Light Horse Brigade and the Third Infantry Brigade moved out on the right of the position, advancing some 700 yards, when the enemy was encountered in strength. Meanwhile the artillery engaged the enemy's reserves, which were collecting in the ravine opposite right centre, by shelling them effectively with guns and howitzers.

About 2.30 P.M. the enemy appeared to be preparing a counter-attack against the left of our advanced troops, but on howitzer and machine-gun fire being turned on the enemy's attacks were easily repulsed. The retirement of the advanced troops was begun at 3 P.M., well covered by rifle, machine-gun, and artillery fire, and the troops were all back in the trenches between 4.30 and 5.30 P.M.

Our machine-guns and artillery did considerable execution. Naval gun fire also gave valuable assistance. Demonstrations made after dark at 8.45 and 11.30 P.M. with flares, star shell, and destroyer bombardment were successfully carried out.

The Eighth Corps report 180 prisoners taken since the morning of the 28th, namely, 38 of the Sixteenth Regiment, 139 of the Thirty-third Regiment, and three of the Thirteenth Regiment. A Circassian prisoner carried a wounded private of Royal Scots into our lines under fire.

ATTACKED BY THE TURKS

Sir Ian Hamilton reported, as published by the British Press Bureau on July 6, the following details of the attack made by the Turks on the night of 29th-30th June:

About 2 A.M. searchlights of His Majesty's ship Scorpion discovered half a Turkish battalion advancing near the sea northwest of Krithia. Scorpion opened fire, and few of the enemy got away. Simultaneously the enemy attacked the knoll we captured due west of Krithia, advancing from a nullah in close formation in several lines. The attack came under artillery and enfilade rifle fire, and the enemy lost heavily. The foremost Turks got within forty yards of the parapet, but only a few returned.

The Turks made several heavy bomb attacks during the night, our troops being twice driven back a short distance. Early in the morning we regained these trenches by bayonet attack, and they have since been strengthened.

At 5.30 A.M. 2,000 Turks, moving from Krithia into the ravine, were scattered by machine-gun fire. The operations reflect great credit on the vigilance and accurate shooting of His Majesty's ship Scorpion. The Turkish losses in the nullah and ravine are estimated at 1,500 to 2,000 dead.

About 10 P.M. on the 30th of June the Turks again attacked with bombs a portion of the most northerly trench captured by us on 28th. An officer of the Gurkhas being wounded, not dangerously as it turned out, the men became infuriated, flung all their bombs at the enemy, and then charging down out of the trench used their kukris for the first time and with excellent effect. About dawn the Turks once more attempted an attack over the open, but nearly the whole of these attacking forces, about half a battalion, were shot down, and a final bomb attack, though commenced, failed utterly.

Further reports from Australia and New Zealand Corps, as to the enemy's attack on 29th-30th on our right flank, state that the action commenced by very heavy fire from midnight till 1.30 A.M., to which our men only replied by a series of cheers. The Turks then launched their attack, and came right on with bayonet and bombs. Those who succeeded in getting into our saps were instantly killed; the remainder were dealt with by bomb and rifle fire from the 7th and 8th Light Horse. By 2 A.M. the enemy broke, and many were killed while withdrawing. The enemy's attack was strongest on his right. They were completely taken aback by a concealed sap constructed well ahead of our main line, and the dead are lying thickly in front of this. Some got into the sap and several across it; all these were wiped out by fire from the main parapet farther back.

Following the defeat of this attack, the enemy attacked at 3 A.M. on our left, and 30 men came over the parapets in front of the right of Quinn's Post. These were duly polished off. Prisoners brought in state that three fresh battalions were employed in the main attack, which was made by the personal order of Enver Pasha, who, as they definitely assert, was present in the trenches on June 29. This is confirmed by the statement of an intelligent Armenian prisoner captured on that date. According to him, stringent orders were recently issued that no further attacks were to be made, because if the Turks remained on the defensive the British would be forced to attack, and would suffer as severely as the Turks had hitherto suffered. But Enver Pasha, when he arrived in the northern section, overrode this instruction, and orders were received by the prisoner's regiment that the Australians were to be driven into the sea.

On July 2, after a heavy bombardment of our advanced positions by high explosives and shrapnel, lasting half an hour, the enemy infantry advanced, but were driven back to the main nullah about a mile to our front by the accurate shooting of His Majesty's ship Scorpion and by our rifle and machine-gun fire. About 7 P.M. the Turkish artillery recommenced their bombardment, under cover of which two battalions emerged from the nullah to the northeast of our most advanced trench and commenced an attack across the open, advancing in two regular lines. At the outset very effective shrapnel fire from the 10th Battery Royal Field Artillery caused great execution among the attackers. Gurkha supports then advanced, and there being insufficient room in trenches took up a position on some excavated earth in rear, whence deadly rifle fire was poured into the advancing lines. Turkish officers could be seen endeavouring to get their men forward, but they would not face the fire and retreated in disorder after suffering heavy casualties.

The ground in front of our trenches in every direction can be seen covered with Turkish dead, and patrols sent out at night report that the valleys and ravine are also full of them. There can be no possible doubt that the enemy's losses have been very heavy. After checking and counter-checking reports from all sources, I put down their total casualties between June 28 and July 2 at 5,150 killed and 15,000 wounded. The number of killed is, therefore, approximately correct, while the wounded is an estimate based partly on the knowledge of the number already reported arrived at Constantinople, and on experience of proportion of wounded to killed in previous engagements. Since June 29 the total amount of Turkish arms and ammunition collected is 516 rifles, 51 bayonets, 200 sets of equipment, 126,400 rounds of ammunition, 100 bombs.

The following is an extract from captured divisional orders: "There is nothing that causes us more sorrow, increases the courage of the enemy, and encourages him to attack more freely, causing us great losses, than the losing of these trenches. Henceforth commanders who surrender these trenches, from whatever side the attack may come, before the last man is killed will be punished in the same way as if they had run away. Especially will the commanders of units told off to guard a certain front be punished if, instead of thinking about their work, supporting their units and giving information to the higher command, they only take action after a regrettable incident has taken place.

"I hope that this will not occur again. I give notice that if it does I shall carry out the punishment. I do not desire to see a blot made on the courage of our men by those who escape from the trenches to avoid the rifle and machine-gun fire of the enemy. Henceforth I shall hold responsible all officers who do not shoot with their revolvers all the privates who try to escape from the trenches on any pretext. Commander of the 11th Div., Colonel Rifaat."

To the copy from which this extract was taken the following note is appended: "To Commander of the 1st Battalion. The contents will be communicated to the officers, and I promise to carry out the orders till the last drop of our blood has been shed. Sign and return. Signed. Hassan, Commander, 127th Regiment. Then follow signatures company commanders."

HEAVY TURKISH LOSSES

The British Press Bureau on July 7 issued this report by General Ian Hamilton:

The night of July 3-4 was quiet in the northern section, but at 4 A.M. the enemy started a heavy bombardment of the trenches. All the guns previously used against us, and some new ones, were in action, but the bombardment died away about 6 A.M. without doing much damage. During the bombardment about twenty 11.2-inch shells were dropped from a Turkish battleship in the strait.

In the southern section the Turks kept up a heavy musketry fire along the whole line during the night and did not leave their trenches. At 4 A.M. their batteries started the most violent bombardment that has yet been experienced. At least 5,000 rounds of artillery ammunition were expended by them.

Meanwhile this shelling of our lines on the peninsula proved the preliminary to a general attack on our front with special efforts at certain points. The principal effort was made at the junction of the Royal Naval Division section with that of the French.

Here, at 7.30 A.M., the Turks drove back our advanced troops and assaulted a portion of the line held by the Royal Naval Division. Some fifty Turks gained a footing in our trench, where, nevertheless, some men of the Royal Naval Division held on to our supports, and the men who had retired counter-attacked immediately and hurled the Turks out of the trench again.

Another attack on the right of the Twenty-ninth Division section, was practically wiped out by rifle and machine-gun fire. On our left the Turks massed in a nullah, to the northeast of our newly-captured trenches, and attempted several attacks. None of these was able to get home owing to the steadiness of our troops and our effective artillery support. The bombardment died down toward 11 A.M., though it was resumed at intervals.

Not only was the result a complete failure, but while our losses were negligible and no impression was made on our line, the enemy added a large number to his recent very heavy casualties. It seems plain from the disjointed nature of his attack that he is finding it difficult to drive his infantry forward to face our fire.

SLAUGHTER BY CANNON LIGHT

In a dispatch by George Renwick to The London Daily Chronicle, dated at Lemnos, July 11, the following description of fighting, followed by heavy Turco-German casualties, appeared:

The heaviest fighting which has taken place on Gallipoli Peninsula since the allied forces landed there began late on Tuesday and lasted well into Wednesday. It resulted in a swing forward of the southern line of the allied armies for five furlongs and in the infliction of staggering losses on the enemy. Those who were in the battle place the Turco-German casualties at 7,000 killed and from 14,000 to 15,000 wounded. Many prisoners were taken.

The whole army in the southern part of the peninsula was engaged, and the Australians and New Zealanders further north also played a part. The victory marks a definite stage in the initial work of throwing forces around Achi Baba, which may now be described as one of the strongest fortresses in the world.

The Allies had been resting in comparative tranquillity and the Turks had evidently become persuaded the enemy was experiencing a shortage of ammunition. This belief convinced them of the excellent opportunity of driving the invaders into the sea. Late Tuesday night the first signs of the enemy's movement were detected. No time was lost in flashing a warning message to headquarters. The French were soon alert and the artillery at that portion of the line against which the attack was being prepared was quickly and strongly reinforced.

French and British machine guns were rushed to the front until a perfect wall of heavy and light guns was in position. Then there came a short interval of silence and waiting, almost oppressive. Suddenly the stillness was broken by a tremendous burst of shells from the Turkish guns, and for a time shrapnel poured down on the French front. But the men were safely positioned in dugouts and little loss resulted. From the strait loud booming began. The battered Goeben was at work again, and during the bombardment she pounded our right with some forty 11-inch shells. Many did not burst—they were apparently of Turkish manufacture.

This hail of shells lasted just an hour and a half and was the severest bombardment to which our lines have been subjected during the weeks of struggle on the peninsula. No sooner had the heavy fire ceased than great solid masses of Turks leaped forward to the attack. On they came, the silence unbroken save for their shouts, until they reached a point within sixty or seventy yards of the French position. Then from 200 well placed machine guns a devastating answering fire burst from our Allies' trenches, and the rifles joined in, 20,000 of them. The big guns flared and cast a lurid light over the scene.

Italy’s War on Austria

Second Month Closes with Offensive Operations in Swing
Against Gorizia

On July 23, after two months of her war against Austria, an appraisement may be taken of Italy's extensive and business-like preparation for the conflict. Rapidly the passes leading to the Trentino, Carinthia, Friuli, and the valley of the Isonzo were secured, almost over night; and then, with the regularity of a railway time-table, the Italians began their hard, patient work, in hitherto impassable regions, of neutralizing the Trentino, so as to make impossible an invasion from that territory, and of linking up their columns along the Isonzo, so that now, at the beginning of August, a battle-front of seventy-five miles extending from Tarvis to the Adriatic, is ready to move eastward in the direction of Klagenfurt, beyond which there are no Austrian fortifications until Vienna is reached, 170 miles away—about as far as Cape Cod is from New York City. The right flank of this battle-front has been developed along the Carso plateau so as to neutralize, as the Trentino was neutralized, the Peninsula of Istria with the great commercial port of Trieste, the naval base of Pola, and the Hungarian Free City of Fiume.

THE Italian field of activity saw during the week ended July 24 the blazing out of the Italian offensive. Italy apparently was then satisfied that all the passages by means of which Austria could pour troops to attack her rear are effectively stopped and has therefore begun a determined advance along the Isonzo front from Tarvis to the Adriatic, with the object of breaking down completely Austria's first defensive screen. The battle is, as is natural, centring around Gorizia.

GENERAL CARLO CANEVA
One of the Most Conspicuous of Italian Military Commanders
(Photo from Central News.)

Once Gorizia falls, the Italian problem in so far as Trieste is concerned, will be near solution. The Italians have made notable advances in Cadore and along the Isonzo, on the plateau of Carso. But Gorizia must be taken before a decided local victory can be recorded. The fighting has not progressed as yet to the point where definite information is available, but in late July it seemed to have reached the culminating stage. The surroundings of Gorizia, which is the key to the Isonzo district and the junction of five main roads and four main railway lines, are protected with all manner of fortifications. The official report from Rome on June 25 recorded the Italian occupation of Globna, north of Plava, and of the edge of the plateau between Sagrado and Monfalcone. From that date reports from Vienna recorded continuous and heavy Italian attacks from the bridgehead at Goritz to the sea. The correspondent of the Berliner Tageblatt at the Isonzo front reported on July 7 that the second great Italian offensive had forced its way into the Austrian line at Podzora—a height covering the bridgehead at Goritz—and at Vermegliano, between Doberdo and Monfalcone. A Geneva dispatch, dated July 14, reported the capture by the Italians of two miles of trenches in the Carnic Alps, the Alpine troops dragging their artillery to an altitude of 6,600 feet near Roskopel, and capturing to the south of Gorizia two important forts. On July 16 a dispatch from Rome told of a war council at the front held by King Victor Emmanuel and Premier Salandra, with Count Cadorna, Chief of the General Staff, and General Porro, his chief assistant. A Vienna official dispatch of that date reported increased artillery activity in the coast district and in Carinthia. Two passes at a height of over 10,000 feet were taken by the Italians at Venerodolol and Brizio, as reported July 17, and on July 18 they began an advance in Cadore, attacking a ring of powerful forts at a great height at Paneveggio, San Pelegrino, Monet, Livinallongo, and Tresassi, while Goritz was shelled from land and air.

Then began, on July 20, a great general Italian assault on a 75-mile line from Tarvis to the Adriatic shore. A dispatch from Turin from the correspondent of The London Daily Chronicle announced a victorious advance by the Italians on the Carso plateau, east of Sagrado, with the capture of 2,000 Austrian prisoners. The War Office in Rome reported on July 21 that while the Italian defense continued to develop energetically in Cadore, and the artillery was effectively working in Carnia, the struggle in the Isonzo zone continued with increasing intensity. Toward Goritz the Italians gained part of the line of the heights which form the right bank of the river commanding the town and the Isonzo bridges. On the Carso Plateau the Austrians were reported driven from some trenches, and 3,500 prisoners and much material captured. On July 22 the fall of Goritz and Tolmino was reported to be near, the War Office in Rome announcing a development of the offensive "along the whole front from Monte Nero to the Carso Plateau. Vienna reported that the heavy attacks were being repulsed. But on July 23 the official report from Rome for the first time declared that the Italian armies in the battle along the whole Isonzo front were achieving success," which was "constantly becoming more clearly apparent." On July 24 a dispatch from Udine said that General Cadorna was personally directing the battle in the presence of King Victor Emmanuel and the Duke of Aosta. A Milan dispatch to The London Daily News on July 25 reported the evacuation of Goritz by the Austrian General Staff in view of the imminence of its fall. Below appears a prospective account of Italy's formidable task, written on July 1 by an Italian correspondent of The London Morning Post.

The Task of Italy

The Italian battle for the conquest of the fortified lines on the Isonzo and the entrenched camps of Gorizia is one of the most important in the European conflict. The battle of the Isonzo is not to be regarded as a mere episode, but a prolonged siege over a front of more than a hundred miles of a natural fortress, consisting of a chain of precipitous mountains. Perhaps never before in a European war has the value of individual qualities been shown so conclusively as by the Italian troops in this war. The very steep cliffs, which are almost perpendicular, along the course of the river are almost impossible to scale. The mountain passes which open along the river are very few and also narrow. In addition the geological nature of that district, composed of strong walls of granite towers, which dominate the River Isonzo, is favorable to its defence.

To this natural defense have been added strong fortifications built by the Austrians during past years in anticipation of being used for the subjugation of Italians at some time or other. Finally, during the last nine months of Italy's neutrality the Austrians have employed the latest technical improvements in defensive warfare, and I have never seen their equal during my excursions to the front in France and Belgium, not even at Antwerp. This remark applies especially to Carso and Gorizia.

The artillery officers of the Italian Military Staff whom I met at the front have explained to me the nature of the Austrian defensive works. Upon the Carso and around Gorizia the Austrians have placed innumerable batteries of powerful guns mounted on rails and protected by armor plates. Numerous other artillery advantages are possessed by the Austrians in the form of medium and smaller guns, though the efficiency of their action is modified by the long distances separating the armies.

In view of these advantages possessed by the Austrians, the Italians have accomplished marvels and are worthy of great admiration. The infantry is much exposed while crossing large and deep rivers. With the exception of the two positions of Podgora and Sabotino, all the Austrian line on the Isonzo has been taken by the Italians.

To the conquest of Gorizia are directed the efforts of the Eastern Italian Army. The Italian infantry which crossed the Isonzo ran against a net of trenches which the Austrians had excavated and constructed in cement all along the edge of the hills which dominate the course of the river. These trenches, already occupying a position nearly impregnable because so mountainous, are defended by every modern protective device. They are armed with numerous machine-guns surrounded by wire entanglements, through which runs a strong electric current. These lines of trenches follow without interruption from the banks of the Isonzo to the summit of the mountains which dominate it. They form a kind of formidable staircase, which must be conquered step by step with enormous sacrifice. The Italian troops have accomplished this marvel.

The crossing of the Isonzo and the conquest of the first mountainous positions were accomplished by the Italians in four strategic places: At Caporetto, at Tolurino, at Plava, and at Sagrado. These four places, situated in the strong line of Austrian defense, are about twenty miles distant from one another. The chain of fortifications of which Gorizia is a center was broken in these four essential points. The immediate effect has been the disorganization of the defensive plans of the enemy. The crossing of the river was accomplished generally at night, and was conducted with a rapidity which took the enemy by surprise. Complete regiments crossed in the night upon light bridges constructed in a short time by the engineers, whose technical skill was equal to their audacity. These "bridge-heads," which were constructed with incredible courage, made possible an attack by the reinforcements which followed them. When these came in contact with the lower lines of the Austrian trenches they attacked the defenders in such a way that the latter were unable to impede seriously the more important work of the construction of strong bridges.

Two Devoted Nations

By MAURICE MAETERLINCK

The subjoined letter, dedicated by the Belgian writer to stricken Poland, was received on July 12, 1915, by the Polish Relief Committee of New York, of which Mme. Marcella Sembrich is President.

In the Name of Belgium I Bring the Homage of a Martyred Nation to the Nation Crucified:

Of all the people engaged in this frightful war, Poland and Belgium will have suffered most, and we must add (though all the horrors of war are most revolting) they will have suffered most innocently. They are two victims of their innocence and grandeur of soul.

In misfortune and in glory their fates are the same. One, in sacrificing herself wholly to a cult, to an unparalleled passion for honor, has by breaking the first blow of barbarous invasion probably saved Europe, just as the other, the older sister, in grief and heroism several centuries ago saved Europe many times.

They are now joined forever in the memory of men. Across the combats and the sorrows which they are now enduring their hands meet in the same sacrifice, in the same invincible hope. Today these countries are but ruins. Nothing remains of them. They appear to be dead. But we, who are their sons and who know them as we know our mother, we know, we feel in our hearts, that they were never more alive, never purer, never more beautiful.

After having offered to the world a great example of pride, of abnegation, of heroism, they are again giving to it a deeper lesson, a more valuable, a more efficacious one. They are proving that no misfortune counts, that nothing is lost while the soul does not abdicate. The powers of darkness will never prevail against the forces of light and love that are leading humanity towards the heights which victory is already making clear to us on the horizon.

Rumania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece

Comment About Continued Neutrality from the
Balkan and Russian Capitals

AN elaborate argument that Italy is about to co-operate with the Allies at the Dardanelles in order to influence Greece and the Balkan States generally to intervene against the Germanic Powers appeared in The Frankfurter Zeitung near the close of June. A dispatch from Bucharest on July 12 announced that Austria had made concessions to Rumania in the hope of averting intervention by that Power, accompanying the offer with an ultimatum setting a month for Rumania's reply. The German Social-Democratic paper Vorwaerts published on July 17 a statement that Rumania had definitely refused to permit German arms and ammunition to traverse her territory to Turkey. This shows a distinct turning away from the German propaganda in that kingdom, which on May 26 spoke through the editorial columns of Moldova, a daily of Bucharest, as follows:

We must tread in the path opened to us by the late King Carol and the great Rumanian statesmen. We must always be attached to the Central European Powers, from which we shall secure the fulfillment of our aspirations, on that day when we shall move against Russia.

TAKE JONESCO
A Former Cabinet Minister, and Leader of Pro-Ally Party in Rumania
(Photo from Central News.)

From Lupte, a Nationalist daily of Bucharest, a definite declaration of the kingdom's policy was demanded on June 4:

The smaller a nation is the more dangerous to her existence are diplomatic intrigues. Mr. Bratiano's Government has for the past eight months been coquetting with Petrograd as well as with Berlin and Vienna. With which side are we in this war? The two belligerent groups are asking this and the same question is asked of Bulgaria and Greece. We must have a sound national policy, for in this most modern war there is no profit in the old Machiavellian tactics.

That a crisis is approaching in Balkan affairs is clearly indicated in an editorial warning headed "Beware, ye Balkan Peoples!" appearing on May 29 in Dnevnik, an independent Bulgarian daily of Sofia. It says:

The lust of Europe for territorial aggrandizement becomes every day more pronounced. From a struggle for self-defense this has become a war of conquest. Germany has appropriated Belgium, Russia fights for the Bosporus and Constantinople, Italy has almost taken Albania—with the approval of Austria, as we have discovered. The westernmost edge of the Balkan Peninsula has fallen; tomorrow the easternmost extremity will fall, together with Constantinople. Will the European Powers then spare us?... What the United States of America did for the preservation of their independence against foreign conquest we Balkan peoples must do unless we would see our doom sealed.

"The Dangers of a Neutral Policy" is the theme of Mir, the organ of the Bulgarian Nationalist Party of Sofia, which on May 29 said: "If Bulgaria remains neutral to the end of the war, she runs the risk of being condemned to live forever within the narrow limits she has today, hemmed in on every side. The duty of the Balkan States is to act in a war which will solve all pending political and national problems."

Serbia's jealousy of Italy, despite that nation's late adhesion to the Allies, was voiced on May 25 by Politika, a Nationalist daily of Belgrade, which accuses Italy of trying to profit at Serbia's expense. The Entente Powers must pay for Italian aid, this paper says; and Italy may be "satisfied with Savoy, Corsica, Malta, Tunis, Algiers, Asia Minor, or Egypt."

In the left upper corner, the Bulgarian daily Narodai Prava (National Rights) of Sofia, semi-official organ of the Bulgarian Government of Dr. B. Radoslavoff; upper right, the Athenian daily Athinæ (Athens), representing the extreme anti-Venizelists; at lower right, the daily Politika (Politics), an independent paper of Belgrade, Serbia; lower left, the Bucharest (Rumania) daily Dimineata (Morning), an Interventionist paper, and, at center, the Constantinople Khavar (Star), a Pro-Islamist daily.

The Ottoman Empire being under martial law, comment by the Turkish papers regarding military and political events is restricted by the Government. But Enver Pasha, the all-powerful young Turk leader, and his colleague for the Interior, Talaat Bey, early in May gave an interview printed in the Vienna Neue Freie Presse. Enver Pasha predicts the collapse of the Allied campaign on the Gallipoli Peninsula, where the French and British hold a small corner against overwhelming odds. "The bringing thither of provisions is extremely difficult," he says, and "even the drinking water for the troops must be brought from the ships." Both he and Talaat Bey report the morale of the Turkish troops to be excellent, "as many of the older officers have been replaced by energetic young men."

H.R.H. PRINCE GEORGE
Duke of Sparta and Crown Prince of Greece
(Photo from P.S. Rogers.)

DEMETRIOS GOUNARIS
Leader of the Neutralist Party, who Succeeded
Venizelos as Premier of Greece

Greece is in suspense. The Kairoi, an independent daily of Athens, said on June 22 that, while Greece does not forget her debt to the three protective powers, France, England, and Russia, she must nevertheless weigh the promise of Germany to give full protection to Greek interests in the event of her continued neutrality. "Just how Germany keeps her promises," this paper says, is "shown by Cavalla, the Macedonian city allotted to Greece after the second Balkan war at the express instance of the Kaiser;" and it notes that the Entente Powers are now eager to cede this territory to Bulgaria. The Embros, an independent daily of Athens, prophesied on June 22:

We can afford to follow events with growing solicitude and remain neutral as long as we may. Whether or not we maintain this neutrality to the end our action can change neither the fortunes of Greece nor the position of other Powers. It is to be presumed that the power driving this giant conflict to the conclusion has more remote motives and that to all appearance, the war will end without any of the participants suffering a crushing defeat.

While Russian aspirations are generally considered to be in harmony with those of the Balkan kingdoms, the following extracts from Russian papers representing varying shades of Muscovite opinion show now an unfavorable or critical attitude. Thus the foremost organ of the Panslavist Party, the Russian weekly Slavianski Izvestija, April No. 8, disapproved the Bulgarian plea to give Thrace and Adrianople through Russian influence. Of the Macedonian question this paper said:

Bulgarians expect that Russia will get for them Macedonia Thrace, and Dobrudja, to reward their honest labors. Alas, they must learn that not every day, but every hour, Macedonia is receding from their grasp. For Russia the Macedonian question hardly exists. If Macedonia finds it hard to be under heroic and benevolent Serbia, what would become of her on the day when she should fall into the hands of Bulgaria? And should we Russians, in order to assure Macedonia such a future, grieve now our dear ally Serbia?

The semi-official Novoye Vremya of Petrograd commented on May 27, on the statement of the Bulgarian Premier Radoslavoff published in Vienna, that Bulgaria cannot engage to intervene without a formal treaty, a policy, it believes, that says but one thing, namely: "You Russians tricked us Bulgarians once; you shall not trick us again." This attitude of Bulgaria shows, the Novoye Vremya thinks, "how thick-headed and insensate its people are." The Birjevaja Viedomosti, a standpat Russian daily of Petrograd, on May 23 warned Serbia that, whereas the war began in her behalf and on her account rivers of blood are flowing, her complaints of the allotment of Dalmatia to Italy should not "assert principles which have nothing to do with actualities." The same newspaper says of the whole Balkan situation:

The German policy of von Buelow, having failed in Rome, is courting failure in Bucharest. In fact, all the German promises to Rumania seem to go no further than sharpening the Rumanian appetite for Russian Bessarabia, while holding out as a last bait the cession of a small parcel of Bukowina—supposing the Hungarians never consent to yielding Transylvania to Rumania.

On the other hand, Germany promises Bulgaria the Turkish province of Thrace and Serbian and Greek Macedonia; but these compensations have as much value as the cessions of Corsica and Nice and Tunis in the early days of the war.

But Germany cannot give to Bulgaria Serbian Macedonia so long as the Austrian armies are not masters of the whole of Serbia; she cannot give her Thrace because Turkey objects to such cession, and Turkey is her ally; and, finally, she cannot urge Greece too closely to cede Cavalla to Bulgaria, because such a pressure may bring a contrary result, i.e. make Greece to declare herself openly an ally of the Entente. Therefore both Bulgaria and Rumania must perforce side with the great European Alliance. Had Italy remained neutral matters would be different, but as it is now Bulgars and Rumanians, and the Balkan peoples in general, have to fight with us, unless they want the diplomacy of the Entente to disappoint utterly the ever-growing appetite of these small nationalities....

It will be noted that all the opinions quoted concerning the Balkans relate to the division of territory as the price of neutrality or intervention.

Dr. Conybeare’s Recantation

By SIR WALTER RALEIGH

Sir,—During a recent visit to America I saw Dr. Conybeare's letter in a paper called the Vital Issue. All who know Dr. Conybeare know him to be honest and frank, and to be very deeply distressed by the sufferings and cruelties of the war. After my return, I wrote to him, pointing out that his letter is being widely circulated in America, and that the material points in his accusation of Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Asquith have been answered. I enclose Dr. Conybeare's reply, for which he desires the fullest publicity.

Dear Sir Walter Raleigh,—During the past week I have been studying afresh the published records of the diplomatic transactions of last July, and on my return to Oxford I find your kind letter, and therefore take the liberty of addressing this to yourself. My new study has forced upon me the conviction that in my letter to a friend residing in America, which, against my wishes and injunctions, was published there, apart from the deplorable tone of my allusions to Sir E. Grey and Mr. Asquith, I was quite wrong in imputing the motives which I did, especially to the former. It does appear to me, as I read these dispatches over again, that Sir Edward throughout had in view the peace of Europe, and that I ought to have set down to the awful contingencies with which he was faced many passages which I was guilty of grossly misinterpreting. I was too ready to forget that in the years of the Balkan wars it was after all he alone who, by his patient and conciliatory treatment of the situation, held in check the antagonistic forces which last July he was ultimately unable to control. I was too ready to ascribe to want of good will on his part results which harsh necessity entailed on him; and I deeply regret that I mistook his aims and, in my endeavour to be fair to the enemy, was grossly unjust to him. I am only anxious to undo, if it be still possible, some of the harm which my hasty judgment and intemperate language has caused.

If you think it would do any good to print this, I beg you to send it to The Times and Morning Post, whose remarks led me to go back once more to the documentary sources. Second thoughts are best, and if I had only kept my American letter till the morning for revision, I should first have struck out all the vituperation and all the imputation of motives, and have ended by never sending it at all.

The Case of Muenter

Attack on Mr. Morgan’s Life and the Setting of
Fire-Bombs on Ships

THAT a group of bankers in New York City, headed by J.P. Morgan & Company, was negotiating with the British Treasury authorities for the flotation in the United States of $100,000,000 of the new British war loan was announced in the newspapers on July 3, 1915. Mr. Morgan's firm had handled contracts to furnish war munitions to the Allies, amounting to $500,000,000, and this had been widely published. On the morning of July 3 J.P. Morgan was attacked and wounded with a revolver at his country estate on East Island, near Glen Cove, Long Island, by Erich Muenter, alias Frank Holt. Holt was an Instructor in German at Cornell University; Muenter was a Harvard instructor for whom the police had been seeking since the spring of 1906 on a charge of murdering his wife. After his suicide in jail on July 6, Professor C.N. Gould, of the University of Chicago, and Professor Hugo Muensterberg, of Harvard, among others, identified Holt and Muenter as the same person.

Whose Life was Recently Attempted, because of his relations with the
Allied Governments in the Supply of War Munitions.

The lower picture is of Erich Muenter, Alias Frank Holt, His Assailant.
Photograph taken Immediately after his Arrest.

Muenter's insane attack on Mr. Morgan, because he had failed to "use his influence to prevent the exportation of arms and ammunition," followed the wrecking of the United States Senate reception room in the Capitol at Washington on July 2 by the explosion of an infernal machine set by Muenter. On July 6 a trunk owned by Muenter containing twenty pounds of explosives was found in New York. During his stay in jail Muenter wrote to his wife that two ships were to sink at sea on July 7, if his calculations went right, naming the Philadelphia and the Saxonia. The ships were duly warned by wireless, but no bombs were found aboard them, nor were any confederates of Muenter discovered. On July 7 the steamship Minnehaha reported by wireless a "fire caused by explosion" under control.

Incendiary bombs had been discovered aboard four freight steamships sailing from New York for Havre in April and May. On July 12 Secretary of the Navy Daniels, acting on advices received from The New Orleans Picayune, directed the naval radio station at Arlington, Virginia, to flash a warning to all ships at sea to be on the lookout for bombs supposed to have been placed on board certain vessels, and warning particularly the steamers Howth Head and Baron Napier that information had come to the Navy Department that explosive bombs might have been placed on those two vessels. All ships were requested to try to communicate with the Howth Head and the Baron Napier. On July 11 a written threat to assassinate J.P. Morgan, Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, the British Ambassador, and destroy by bombs British ships clearing from American ports, thus carrying out some of the plans of Erich Muenter, was reported in a letter signed "Pearce," who styled himself a partner and intimate associate of Muenter. This letter was received by The New Orleans Times-Picayune.

SIR CECIL ARTHUR SPRING-RICE
British Ambassador to Washington. Present When J.P. Morgan was
Assaulted by Erich Muenter, Alias Holt

Two more "Pearce" letters were received on July 13 by an afternoon newspaper of New Orleans and by its Chief of Police, saying that Erich Muenter had taught the writer the use of explosives. On the same day the Samland of the Atlantic Transport Line and the Strathlay, chartered by the Fabre Line, survived attempts to destroy them by fire bombs, and on July 15 "Pearce" threatened in another letter to destroy the Rochambeau. A bomb thought to be intended for the Orduna in a car loaded with coal consigned to the Cunard Line was discovered at Morrisville, N.J., on July 18. The Washington Times, the Philadelphia Public-Ledger and the Brooklyn Eagle received on July 16, 19 and 20, respectively, letters from "Pearce" declaring that henceforth persons leaving America on British ships would do so at their peril, and harking back to the German Embassy's warning before the Lusitania was torpedoed. On July 26 an SOS call was received at the Fire Island station, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and by the coast guard ship Mohawk, but the distressed ship's appeal for help was broken off before her name or position could be given. "Pearce's" letter to The Brooklyn Eagle reads as follows:

"Sir: You people of Brooklyn have already had one experience with the work of our men, and so, perhaps, it will be unnecessary to say more than a few words of warning. The Kirkoswald affair is still fresh in your memory; therefore, we will not waste words discussing this matter. The purpose of this communication is to warn the American citizens living in your vicinity to keep clear of British vessels sailing from Brooklyn, New York, New Orleans, Savannah, Newport News, and Montreal. Our men are now operating from each of these ports, and Americans will do well to heed this warning ere it is too late.

"The Imperial German Government derives no satisfaction or profit from the killing of neutral Americans, and we are instructed to go to great lengths in order to give timely warnings to all Americans who contemplate voyages to Europe within the next two months. The explosive operations will supplement the submarine operations, which have proved inadequate to prevent the enemy from importing munitions from America.

"We earnestly advise Americans who find it imperative to travel to Europe to sail only on vessels flying the American flag. Such steamers as those of the American Line, for instance, will be perfectly immune from either submarine or explosive operation. The Imperial German Government will, if requested, offer no objection to the American Government pressing into service the interned German vessels if the American vessels are found to be unable to accommodate the traffic to Europe. By publishing this warning American lives may be spared.

"The circumstances under which this communication is written make it impossible for us to affix our proper signatures; therefore, we trust that you will accept for a signature our pen name.

Devotion to the Kaiser

The annual general conference of the clergy of the North German Lutheran Churches met in Berlin during the week of June 24, 1915, and sent the following "telegram of devotion" to the Kaiser:

"Your Imperial and Royal Majesty will most graciously deign to accept this most humble blessing and the assurance of true German devotion from the preachers of the North German Evangelical Conference assembled in conference. We raise our eyes with respect and love to your Majesty, the powerful and purposeful leader of the German nation. We are filled with the consciousness that the sources of German power are unconquerable, not only because of the complete union of the German princes and peoples, but because of the unexampled spirit of sacrifice which animates rich and poor alike, and, before all else, because we are a praying nation.

"However great the pressure of our enemies may be on our victorious armies, the army of those who are praying at home will wrestle all the more earnestly in prayer, praying before God's throne for victory."

Scientists and the Military

Movement in Great Britain and the United States to Consult
Civilian Experts

EARLY in June, H.G. Wells, the "novelist of science," wrote to the London Times a letter urging the necessity of mobilizing Great Britain's scientific and inventive forces for the war. On June 22 The London Times printed a second letter from Mr. Wells proposing the establishment of a bureau for inventors—"a small department collateral rather than subordinate to the War Office and Admiralty." At the annual meeting in London of the British Science Guild on July 1, eminent scientists and chemists, Sir William Mather, Sir William Ramsay, Sir Boverton Redwood, Sir Philip Magnus, Professor Petry, Sir Ronald Ross, Sir Archibald Geikie and Sir Alexander Pedler, condemned the attitude adopted by the British Government toward science in connection with the war, and demanded that in future greater use should be made of the opportunities afforded by scientific knowledge in the prosecution of the struggle. A letter conveying this opinion was sent by these scientists to Prime Minister Asquith. On July 18 it was announced in London that a number of eminent scientists and inventors had been appointed to assist Admiral Lord Fisher, as Chairman of the Invention Board, to co-ordinate and encourage scientific work in relation to the requirements of the British navy. Lord Bryce was said to be instrumental in this undertaking.

THOMAS A. EDISON
The American Inventor, Now Associated With the Navy Department
as Chief of the Advisory Board of Civilian Inventors and Engineers

In the United States a similar movement was in progress. The New York Times published on May 30 an interview with Thomas A. Edison declaring that in its preparations for war the American Government should "maintain a great research laboratory, jointly under military and naval and civilian control." In this could be developed the "continually increasing possibilities of great guns, the minutiae of new explosives, all the technique of military and naval progression, without any vast expense." If any foreign power should seriously consider an attack upon this country "a hundred men of special training quickly would be at work here upon new means of repelling the invaders," Mr. Edison said; "I would be at it, myself."

Secretary of the Navy Daniels thereupon wrote to Mr. Edison a congratulatory letter, saying: "I think your ideas and mine coincide if an interview with you recently published in The New York Times was correct." He added:

One of the imperative needs of the navy, in my judgment, is machinery and facilities for utilizing the natural inventive genius of Americans to meet the new conditions of warfare as shown abroad, and it is my intention if a practical way can be worked out, as I think it can be, to establish at the earliest moment a department of invention and development, to which all ideas and suggestions, either from the service or from civilian inventors, can be referred for determination as to whether they contain practical suggestions for us to take up and perfect....

What I want to ask is if you would be willing, as a service to your country, to act as an adviser to this board, to take such things as seem to you to be of value, but which we are not, at present, equipped to investigate, and to use your own magnificent facilities in such investigation if you feel it worth while.

The consequence was Mr. Edison's appointment to head an advisory board of civilian inventors and engineers for a Bureau of Invention and Development created in the Navy Department. After a conference with Mr. Edison Secretary Daniels on July 19 wrote to eight leading scientific societies asking each of them to select two members to serve on the Naval Advisory Committee, and as a first fruit of the movement it was announced on July 23 that at the request of Mr. Edison, the American Society of Aeronautic Engineers had been formed with Henry A. Wise Wood as President and Orville Wright, Glenn H. Curtiss, W. Starling Burgess, Peter Cooper Hewitt, Elmer A. Sperry and John Hays Hammond, Jr., as Vice-presidents.

Hudson Maxim on Explosives

HUDSON MAXIM
American Inventor of High Explosives and Other Materials of War
(Photo by White.)

The New York Times on July 11 printed an interview with Hudson Maxim, the inventor of explosives, in which Mr. Maxim said:

Modern war is a warfare of explosives. The highly developed methods of defense, designed especially against explosives, are practically proof against everything but them.

Attacking forces must disemburrow the defending forces; they must be blasted out of the ground. This warfare amounts, literally, to that. It is as if boys hunted woodchucks with dynamite.

Each of the hard-won successes of the war has been a victory for well-placed high explosives. In the last fight around Przemysl the Germans fired in one hour, from field guns, 200,000 shells carrying high explosives.

Reports indicate that the result of this was literally unprecedented. It actually changed the topography of the country. Valleys were dug and hills razed.

Recently Lloyd George used an expressive phrase. "The trenches," he said, "were sprayed with exploding shells."

Such "spraying" only could be possible through the use of an incredible number of explosive projectiles.

America's plants for the production of explosives, cartridges, shrapnel, and rifles have so increased their capacity that we have today ten times the capacity which we had at the time of the war's outbreak, and, for certain things, the increase has been even greater. By the middle of next winter our capacity will be thirtyfold what it was at the beginning of the war.

Thus the fighting among other nations has done much toward preparing us for war, and, therefore, much toward insuring international peace for us, but even our tremendous contribution to the supplies of the Allies amounts to only about 2 per cent. of what they are consuming, and the war has not been running a year.

This indicates that if we should suddenly be involved in warfare with a great power we should be whipped unless we devised means for the increase of our productivity of war supplies, especially explosives and all ammunition materials, by a hundredfold.

The consumption of war material has been unprecedented, and this indicates what may be expected in future wars. In trench fighting, for example, it is estimated that four times as many rifles as men are required. The fighting man must have two because one quickly gets hot and becomes unusable; he must have a third so that he may still have two if one is hit by the return fire or otherwise rendered inefficient; he must have the fourth so that at least one of his weapons may be in the arms hospital undergoing repairs if necessary, and be ready for him in case one of his others is demolished. This development of modern warfare means that a million modern soldiers need four million modern rifles.

This indicates the enormous necessities which would devolve upon this country in case we were forced into a war. During the past week I have received a cable from an old friend in England who has been selling war munitions to the Allies. He asked me how quickly I could get a million rifles made in the United States. The best bids I have been able to obtain have guaranteed a first delivery at the end of one year and final deliveries at the end of three years.

One of the chief developments in the matter of explosives has been the fact that the United States has found it possible to teach Europe much during this war in regard to smokeless powder. Several years ago the du Pont Powder Company developed a smokeless rifle powder which permits the firing of more than 20,000 rounds from an ordinary army rifle without destroying its accuracy.

When the du Ponts developed their new rifle powder the best European powder destroyed the rifling and accuracy of the gun at about 3,000 rounds. This American invention, therefore, has increased the life of military rifles by sevenfold. Say that an equipment of military rifles cost at the rate of, say, $20 each, and we will find that this means a saving of, roughly, $100,000,000 in the equipment of a million men with one rifle each, and, as they need four rifles each, it means a saving of $400,000,000.

American smokeless powder for cannon also has its advantages. It erodes the guns much less than any European powder except, possibly, that of the Germans. They have a pure nitro-cellulose powder somewhat similar in quality to that of the United States, but ours has an advantage in being multi-perforated, whereby a higher velocity is insured at a lower pressure with, in consequence, a lessened erosive effect upon the guns.

In the early nineties I made the discovery that tri-nitro-cellulose, when combined with pyro-nitro-cellulose, could be much more readily gelatinated and made an excellent smokeless powder, while powder made from pure nitro-cellulose would warp and crack all to pieces in drying. The present German powder is made from such a compound of tri-nitro-cellulose and soluble nitro-cellulose.

Nevertheless, this compound is a makeshift as compared with the nitro-cellulose used by this Government. Ours is a far better explosive, and is less erosive on the guns, because the gases which it generates are not so hot. We have the best smokeless powder in the world, and, after this war is over, our powder will be universally used.

Thor!

By BEATRICE BARRY

I am the God of War—yea, God of Battle am I,
And the evil men speak about me has moved me to fierce reply.
Does not the surgeon's knife
Torture—to save a life?
So, for the life of nations, men learn to fight and die—
Even die!

Craven through love or fear do the weak of the earth await me
Tensely, with bated breath—yea, teaching their sons to hate me.
Lured by my rolling drum,
Nevertheless they come
Proudly, their youth and manhood offering up to sate me!

You who would grudge me aught but harvest of woe and shame—
Answer me, you who hate me, cursing my very name—
When was a serf made free,
Save and alone through me?
When was a tyrant vanquished, save through my purging flame?

After an age of peace do your sons wax soft, their weakness
Shown in a love of ease, of sensuousness, and sleekness;
Then, lest a nation die,
Loud rings my battle-cry!
Lo, they forsake snug warmth for desolate cold and bleakness!

I am the God of War—yea, God of Battle am I,
And the bolts of my savage anger I hurl from a threatening sky.
Speak of me as you will,
Swift though I be to kill,
I have made men of weaklings—I teach men how to die—
Even I!

“I am the Gravest Danger”

By George Bernard Shaw

In a cablegram to The New York Times, dated July 17, 1915, it is reported that an article by George Bernard Shaw in The New Statesman begins with a review of Professor Gilbert Murray's book, "The Foreign Policy of Sir Edward Grey," and ends with the following characteristic reference to himself:

"Like other Socialists, I have been too much preoccupied with the atrocities of peace and the problems they raise to pay due attention to the atrocities of war, but I have not been unconscious of the European question and I have made a few shots at solutions from time to time. None of these have been received with the smallest approval, but at least I may be permitted to point out that they have all come out right.

"I steadily ridiculed anti-armament agitation, and urged that our armaments should be doubled, trebled, quadrupled, as they might have been without costing the country one farthing that we were not wasting in the most mischievous manner.

"I said that the only policy which would secure the peace of Europe was a policy of using powerful armament to guarantee France against Germany and Germany against Russia, aiming finally at a great peace insurance league of the whole northwest of Europe with the United States of America in defense of Western democratic civilization against the menace of the East and possible crusades from primitive black Christians in Africa.

"When the war broke out I said some more things which were frantically contradicted and which have all turned out to be precisely true. I set the example of sharp criticism of the Government and the War Office, which was denounced as treasonable and which now proves to be the only way of saving our army from annihilation, the Government having meanwhile collapsed and vanished, as every ordinarily self-possessed person foresaw that it must.

"One fact seems established by this beyond doubt; to wit, that I am the gravest public danger that confronts England, because I have the strange power of turning the nation passionately away from the truth by the simple act of uttering it. The necessity for contradicting me, for charging heroically in the opposite direction to that pointed out by me, is part of the delirium of war fever.

"Sir Edward Grey, on the other hand, is spoken well of by all men, but he, too, is the victim of a mysterious fate. He is, as Professor Murray has repeatedly testified, the most truthful of men, yet he never opens his mouth without deceiving us. He is the most loyal of simple, manly souls, yet he is accused of betraying every country and every diplomatist who trusted him. He is the kindest of men, and yet he has implicated us in the tortures of Denshawai and brought upon us the slaughters of Armageddon.

"Clearly, there are two men in England who must be sent into permanent retirement. Depend on it, there is something fundamentally wrong with them. It is a pity, for they are stuffed with the rarest of virtues—though I say it, who should not. One of them is Sir Edward Grey and the other is G.B.S."

THE EUROPEAN WAR AS
SEEN BY CARTOONISTS

[American Cartoon]

The Postscript

[German Cartoon]

The Paper Blockade

"Look out there, mate; don't puff so hard,
or you'll smash up Churchill's blockade!"

[American Cartoon]

Donnerwetter!

[German Cartoon]

The Powder Chest

John Bull: "Don't be afraid, Mister Moneymaker. There's no
safer way to travel to Europe than on my peaceful vessel!"

[English Cartoon]

In the Eastern Arena

It was the policy of the retiarius to retreat in order
to gather his net together for a fresh cast.

[French Cartoon]

Circumstances Alter Cases

When Wilson's daughter is aboard one of these days it won't be a laughing matter.

[German Cartoon]

A Risky Road

[American Cartoon]

Sherman Was Right!

[Italian Cartoon]

On the Bosporus

The Belligerents’ Munitions

Growing Problems of Germany and Her Opponents in
Supplying Arms

The threatened strike in the Krupp works at Essen, Germany, simultaneously with the strike of the Welsh coal miners and the walkout in the Remington Arms Factory in the United States, would tend to show that labor in the belligerent and neutral countries is seeking advantages under the strain of the enormous output of munitions to feed the war. Only in France, whose people are making supreme sacrifices, and in Russia, whose factories are not yet organized for the nation, does industrial peace prevail. In England the Munitions bill, with its proposals for compulsory arbitration and for limiting profits unweakened, was passed on July 1st. The bill retained, also, the power for the Government to proclaim the extension of its strike-stopping authority to other trades than the munitions trades.

An account of the conditions relating to labor in the various countries, beginning with the speech, in part, of Lloyd George, introducing the Munitions bill in the House of Commons on June 20, appears below.

A Volunteer Army of Workers

By Lloyd George, British Minister of Munitions

Addressing the House of Commons on June 20, 1915, Mr. Lloyd George said, in part:

WHAT I want to impress not merely upon the House but on the country is that the duration of the war, the toll of life and limb levied by the war, the amount of exhaustion caused by the war, the economic and financial effect—and in order to understand the whole depth and meaning of the problem with which we are confronted I would state the ultimate victory or defeat in this war—depend on the supply of munitions which the rival countries can produce to equip their armies in the field. That is the cardinal fact of the military situation in this war. (Cheers.)

I heard the other day on very good authority—and this will give the House an idea of the tremendous preparations made by the enemy for this war and of the expansion which has taken place even since the war—that the Central European Powers are turning out 250,000 shells per day. That is very nearly eight million shells per month. The problem of victory for us is how to equal, how to surpass, that tremendous production. (Hear, hear.)

The Central European Powers have probably attained something like the limits of their possible output. We have only just crossed the threshold of our possibilities. In France I had the privilege of meeting M. Thomas, the Under Secretary for War, a man to whose great organizing capacity a good deal of the success of the French provisions of war is attributable, and I am very reassured not merely as to what France is doing and what France can do but as to what we can do when I take into account what France has already accomplished.

Let us see the position France is in. Her most important industrial provinces were in the hands of the enemy. Seventy per cent. of her steel production was in the hands of the enemy. She had mobilized an enormous army and therefore had withdrawn a very considerable proportion of her population from industry. She is not at best as great an industrial country as we are. She is much of an agricultural and pastoral country. It is true that we have certain disadvantages compared with France, and they are important. She has not the same gigantic Navy to draw upon the engineering establishments of the country. That makes a very great difference. She has more complete command over her labor. That makes an enormous difference, not merely in the mobility of labor and the readiness with which she can transfer that labor from one center to another, but in the discipline which obtains in the workshops. She has another advantage with her arsenals, which at the outbreak of war corresponded to the magnitude of her Army—a huge Army. We had a small Army to provide for. She, in addition to that, had undoubtedly a very great trade with other countries in the production of munitions of war. These are the advantages and disadvantages. Still, knowing these things and taking them all into account, the surplus of our engineering resources available for the materials of war is undoubtedly greater than that of France, and if we produce these things within the next few months as much as they are likely to produce the Allies would not merely equal the production of the Central Powers, but they would have an overwhelming superiority over the enemy in the material essential to victory. That is the first great fact I would like to get into the minds of all those who can render assistance to the country.

Germany has achieved a temporary preponderance of material. She has done it in two ways. She accumulated great stores before the war. She has mobilized the whole of her industries after the war, having no doubt taken steps before the war to be ready for the mobilization of the workshops immediately after war was declared. Her preponderance in two or three directions is very notable. I mention this because it is essential they should be understood in inviting the assistance of the community to enable us to compete with this formidable enemy. The superiority of the Germans in material was most marked in their heavy guns, their high explosive shells, their rifles, and perhaps most of all their machine-guns. These have turned out to be about the most formidable weapons in the war. They have almost superseded the rifle and rendered it unnecessary.

The machinery for rifles and machine-guns takes eight and nine months to construct before you begin to turn a single rifle or machine-gun. The Germans have undoubtedly anticipated the character of the war in the way no other Power has done. They realized it was going to be a great trench war. They had procured an adequate supply of machinery applicable to those conditions. The professional man was essentially a very conservative one—(hear, hear)—and there are competent soldiers who even today assume that his phase is purely a temporary one, that it would not last long, and we shall be back on the old lines.

I have no doubt much time was lost owing to that opposition. The Germans never harbored that delusion, and were fully prepared to batter down the deepest trenches of the enemy with the heavy guns and high explosives, and to defend their own trenches with machine-guns. That is the story of the war for ten months. We assumed that victory was rather due as a tribute from fate, and our problem now is to organize victory, and not take it for granted. (Cheers.) To do that the whole engineering and chemical resources of this country—of the whole Empire—must be mobilized. When that is done France and ourselves alone, without Italy or Russia, can overtop the whole Teutonic output.

The plan on which we have proceeded until recently I explained to the House in April. We recognized that the arsenals then in existence were quite inadequate to supply the new Army or even the old Army, giving the necessary material and taking into account the rate at which ammunition was being expended. We had, therefore, to organize new sources of supply, and the War Office was of opinion that the best method of attaining that object was to work through existing firms, so as to have expert control and direction over companies and workshops, which up to that time had no experience in turning out shells and guns and ammunition of all sorts. There was a great deal to be said for that. There was, first of all, a difficulty unless something of that kind was done of mobilizing all the resources at the disposal of the State. The total Army Estimates were £28,000,000 in the year of peace. They suddenly became £700,000,000. All that represents not merely twenty or twenty-five times as much money; it means twenty or twenty-five times as much work. It means more than that, because it has to be done under pressure. The sort of business which takes years to build up, develop, strengthen, and improve has suddenly to be done in about five, six, seven, or eight months. The War Office came to the conclusion that the best way of doing that was to utilize the skill of existing firms which were capable of doing this work. The War Office staff are hard-working, capable men, but there are not enough. There is one consideration which cannot be left out of account, and that is that men who are quite equal to running long-established businesses run on old-established lines, may not always be adequate to the task of organizing and administering a business thirty times its size on novel and original lines.

To be quite candid, the organizing firms—the armament firms—were also inadequate to the gigantic task cast upon them of not merely organizing their own work but of developing the resources of the country outside. They could not command the stock, and sub-contracting has undoubtedly been a failure. Sub-contracting has produced something like 10,000 shells a month. We have only been at it a few days, and we have already placed with responsible firms orders for 150,000 shells a month. In a very short time I am confident it will be a quarter of a million or 300,000. (Cheers.) It is a process of inviting business men to organize themselves and to assist us to develop the resources of their district.

We have secured a very large number of business men; many business men are engaged in organizing and directing their own business, business which is just as essential to the State in a period of war as even the organization of this office; but still there are the services of many able business men which are available, and we propose to utilize them to the full, first, in the Central Office to organize it; secondly, in the localities to organize the resources there; and, thirdly, we propose to have a great Central Advisory Committee of business men to aid us to come to the right conclusions in dealing with the business community.

I should like just to point out two or three of the difficulties, in order to show the steps which are taken to overcome them. The first difficulty, of course, is that of materials. There is, as I pointed out, material of which you have abundance in this country, but there are others which you have got to husband very carefully, and there is other material on which you have got to spend a considerable sum of money in order to be able to develop it at a later stage. With regard to this question, I think that it might be necessary ultimately for us to take complete control of the Metal Market, so that available material should not be wasted on non-essential work. (Hear, hear.) To a certain extent we have done that.

I should like to say a word with regard to raw material for explosives. We are building new factories so that the expansion of explosives shall keep pace with that of shells, and in this respect, again, I should like to dwell upon the importance of keeping up our coal supplies in this country. It is the basis of all our high-explosives, and if there were a shortage for any reason the consequences would be very calamitous.

Sometimes we do not get the best in these yards through the slackness of a minority and sometimes through regulations, useful, perhaps essential, in times of peace for the protection of men against undue pressure and strain, but which in times of war have the effect of restricting output. If these are withdrawn no doubt it increases the strain on the men, and in a long course of years they could not stand it. But in times of war everybody is working at full strain, and therefore it is difficult to exaggerate the importance of suspending restrictions which have the effect of diminishing the output of war material.

The fourth point is that the danger of having stoppages of work by means of strikes and lock-outs ought to be removed during the time of the war. (Hear, hear.) I should have liked to have seen strikes and lock-outs during the war made impossible in any trade, and I do not despair of getting the assent of those who object to compulsory arbitration under normal conditions to a temporary application of that principle during the period of the war.

The next step is one in which the Trade Unions are concerned. There was a very frank discussion between the leaders of the Trade Unions and myself, and I was bound to point out that if there were an inadequate supply of labor for the purpose of turning out munitions of war which are necessary for the safety of the country compulsion would be inevitable.

They put forward as an alternative that the Government should give them the chance of supplying that number of men. They said, "Give us seven days, and if in seven days we cannot get the men we will admit that our case is considerably weakened." They asked us to place the whole machinery of Government at their disposal, because they had not the organization to enlist the number. We have arranged terms upon which the men are to be enlisted, and tomorrow morning the seven days begin. Advertisements will appear in all the papers, an office has been organized, and the Trade Union representatives are sitting there in council directing the recruiting operations. I am not sure, but I believe my honorable friend Mr. Brace is the Adjutant-General. Tomorrow we hope to be able to make a start. We have 180 town halls in different parts of the country placed entirely at our disposal as recruiting offices. We invite the assistance of everybody to try to secure as many volunteers as they possibly can—men who are not engaged upon Government work now, skilled men—to enroll themselves in the Trade Union army for the purpose of going anywhere where the Government invited them to go to assist in turning out different munitions of war. If there are any honorable friends of mine who are opposed to compulsion, the most effective service they can render to voluntarism is to make this army a success. (Cheers.) If we succeed by these means—and the Board of Trade, the Munitions Department, and the War Office are placing all their services at the disposal of this new recruiting office—if within seven days we secure the labor, then the need for industrial compulsion will to that extent have been taken away.

CALL TO BRITISH WORKERS

In a special cable dispatch to The New York Times, dated June 24, appeared the following:

"England expects every workman to do his duty," is the new rendering of Nelson's Trafalgar signal which is being flagged throughout the country today. Lloyd George has issued an appeal to organized labor to come forward within the next seven days in a last supreme effort on behalf of the voluntary system, and if it fails nothing remains but compulsion.

The appeal is being put before them by advertisements in newspapers, by speeches from labor leaders, and by meetings throughout the country. A new workmen's army is being recruited just as Kitchener's army was, and only seven days are given to gather together what may be termed a mobile army of industry. It is estimated that a quarter of a million men well equipped for the purposes required are available outside the ranks of those already engaged in the manufacture of munitions. Nearly two hundred industrial recruiting offices throughout the country opened at six o'clock last night, and, judging by reports already to hand, the voluntary system seems again likely to justify itself.

"To British Workmen: Your skill is needed," runs one advertisement. "There are thousands of skilled men who are burning to do something for King and country. By becoming a war munitions volunteer each of them can do his bit for his homeland. Get into a factory and supply the firing line."

Posters and small bills with both an artistic and literary "punch" are being prepared and sent out for distribution. Newspapers with special working class clientèle are making direct appeals to their readers.

TEN THOUSAND MEN A DAY

Mr. H.E. Morgan, of the War Munitions Ministry, said in an interview printed by The London Daily Chronicle on July 1:

The War Munition Volunteers have amply justified their formation. During the last two days the enrolments throughout the country have averaged ten thousand skilled and fully qualified mechanics, who are exactly the type of worker we want. So far as the men are concerned, the voluntary principle in industrial labor has triumphed.

We have already transferred a large number of skilled mechanics from non-war work to munition making, and daily the number grows. London compares excellently with other places as regards the number of volunteers, but naturally most of the men are coming from the great engineering centres in the North and Midlands.

A REGISTER OF 90,000

In a London dispatch of the Associated Press, dated July 16, this report appeared:

After upward of a fortnight's work in the six hundred bureaus which were opened when the Minister of Munitions, David Lloyd George, gave labor the opportunity voluntarily to enroll as munitions operatives, closed today with a total registration of ninety thousand men. Registration hereafter will be carried out through the labor exchanges.

More men are needed, but the chief difficulty now is to place them on war work with a minimum of red tape. H.G. Morgan, assistant director of the Munitions Department, said today that this problem was causing some unrest among the workers, but that the transfers would take time, for the Government was anxious not to disturb industry more than necessary.

"The problem almost amounts to a rearrangement of the whole skilled labor of the country," said Mr. Morgan. "This, of course, will take considerable time."

THE CAMPAIGN CONTINUED

The Daily Chronicle says that a campaign to urge munition workers to even greater efforts is to open today with a meeting at Grantham, and next week meetings will be held at Luton, Gloucester, Stafford, Preston, and other centres. In the course of the next few weeks hundreds of meetings will take place in all parts of the Kingdom.

The campaign has been organized by the Munitions Parliamentary Committee, the secretaries of which have received the following letter from Munitions Minister Lloyd George:

"I am glad to hear that members of the House are responding so enthusiastically to my pressing appeal to them to undertake a campaign in the country to impress upon employers and workers in munitions shops the urgent and even vital necessity for a grand and immediate increase in the output of munitions of war."

Professor Mantoux has been asked by the French Munitions Minister to keep in touch with the campaign and to report from time to time as to the results achieved. It is felt that what affects England affects France, and later a similar campaign may be inaugurated in that country.

COAL STRIKE IN WALES

Most of the coal for Great Britain's navy comes from South Wales, and the supply was reduced by the enlistment of sixty thousand Welsh miners in the army. The labor crisis was first threatened three months ago, when the miners gave notice that they would terminate the existing agreements on July 1, and, in lieu of these, they proposed a national program, giving an all-around increase in wages. The owners objected to the consideration of the new terms during the war and asked the miners to accept the existing agreements plus a war bonus. After a series of conferences the union officials agreed to recommend a compromise, which was arranged through the Board of Trade. The miners, however, voted yesterday against this, and the Government was obliged to take action.

The Executive Committee of the South Wales Miners' Federation, most of the members of which are opposed to the strike, came to London today and conferred with Walter Runciman, President of the Board of Trade, who, it is understood, made new proposals for a settlement of the trouble, which will be considered at a meeting in the morning.

There is no indication of any weakening on the part of the men. Even the men in one district who last night decided to resume work reversed their decision, and not a pick was moving today.

However, the impression still prevails that a few days will see an end of the walkout. It is not believed that the introduction of the Munitions of War act can force the men to return to work, for it is impossible to bring 150,000 men before the courts to impose fines for contravening the act.

In fact, the resort to this measure is believed rather to have made the situation worse, and the men's demands now include its withdrawal so far as coal mining is concerned.

Subject to ratification by the miners themselves through delegates who will assemble tomorrow, representatives of the Government and of the coal mine owners on the one hand, and the Executive Committee of the South Wales Miners' Federation on the other, agreed today to terms that, it is thought, will end the coal miners' strike, which, since last Thursday, has tied up the South Wales coal fields and menaced the fuel supply of the navy.

The terms arrived at grant a substantial increase in wages and involve concessions to the strikers which are considered by their Executive Committee as tantamount to an admission of the miners' claims on nearly all the outstanding points. Tonight the delegates were visiting their districts, canvassing the sentiment there preparatory to tomorrow's vote.

If tomorrow's meeting should bring a settlement of the strike the thanks of the country will go chiefly to David Lloyd George, the Munitions Minister, for it was his arrival here last night that paved the way for breaking the deadlock between the miners and the mine owners.

If the vote tomorrow is favorable to ending the strike, two hundred thousand men will return to work immediately and agree to abide by the terms of the settlement until six months after the termination of the war.

AMMUNITION IN FRANCE

M. Millerand, French Minister of War, after the Senate had approved, on June 29, the bill appropriating $1,200,000,000 for war expenses of the third quarter of the year, reported as quoted by the Associated Press:

From August 1 to April 1 France has increased her military production sixfold. The curve for munitions has never ceased to mount, nor that representing the manufacture of our 75s. I can give satisfying assurances also regarding the heavy artillery and small arms. From the 1st of January to the 15th of May the other essentials of the war have been equally encouraging. We are determined to pursue our enemies, whatever arms they may employ.

Yves Guyot, the economist and late Minister of Public Works in France, said to The New York Times correspondent on July 3:

France can hold her own against Germany. She herself makes all the shells that play such havoc in the enemy's ranks, and she will keep on making all she needs.

The munitions problem in France is not so acute as in England. In France as soon as the war started we began turning out the shells as fast as our factories could work. So, in a short time, they were going full blast. We have been able to supply our army with ample ammunition and to have shells enough to shake up the enemy whenever we put on spurts.

It is vitally important that England has come to the realization of the need of equipping her own army with adequate ammunition. Up to now the English Army has been sadly handicapped, but with the energetic Lloyd George in command the munitions output in the near future is certain to bring a sudden change in the status of England in the war.

We in France being in such immediate contact with the horrors of war had a stern sense of the necessity of fully equipping our army forced upon us at the very beginning of the conflict. The only thing we have lacked has been steel, and we have been getting some of that from our old friend, the United States. France has steel plants, and they do a tremendous amount of work, but altogether they do not turn out enough for our ammunition works. So we had to turn elsewhere for some of this product, and it was America that came to our aid.

We have got the steel with which to make shells. Our workmen are well organized and the whole spirit prevailing among them is to help France to win the bloodiest war of her history.

The London Daily Chronicle in an interview with Albert Thomas, French Minister of Munitions, quoted him as follows on July 8:

It is our duty to organize victory. To this we are bending all our energies. The war may be long; difficulties may reach us of which we had no prevision at the start; but we shall keep on until the end.

We know how great are the resources of Britain. We know what immense efforts she has put forth, which have been a surprise not only to us but to the enemy as well, and we have every reason for believing and knowing that these immense resources will continue to be used in the service of the Allies.

Understand me, I do not say that our common task is an easy one, nor do I say that we are on the eve of a speedy victory; but what I do say is that be the struggle long or short, we are both ready to double, to treble, to quadruple, and, if necessary, to increase tenfold the output of munitions of war.

We have pooled our resources, and I, for one, have no doubt, that these resources are great enough to stand any strain which we may be called upon to put upon them; nor have I any fear of an ultimate triumph. All the great moral forces of the world are on our side. The Allies are fighting for the freeing of Europe from the domination of militarism; and that is fighting into which every democrat can throw himself heart and soul. Defeat in such a cause is unthinkable.

RUSSIAN INDUSTRIALISTS RALLY

The Petrograd correspondent of the London Morning Post reported on June 11th the annual assembly of leading members of the world of commerce and industry, as follows:

Speakers urged a general rally round the Rulers of the States, and proposals were made that they should express collectively to the Ministers the readiness of the whole industrial and mercantile class represented at that congress to place themselves at the disposal of the State for the purpose of making better provision for the war. The example of England in instituting a Ministry of Munitions should serve as a guide to Russia. A deputation, it was urged, should be appointed to lay at the feet of the Emperor the heartfelt desire of all to devote themselves to the sole purpose of obtaining victory over Germanism and to expound the ideas of their class for the best means of employing their resources. England had turned all its manufacturing resources into factories of munitions of war, and Russia must do the same.

Some speakers referred to the lack of capital for the proper exploitation of the resources of the country, saying that this would be especially felt after the war was over. The Congress, however, declined to look beyond the all-important need of the moment, namely, to direct the entire resources of the country to the achievement of victory over Germanism.

The final sitting was attended by the President of the Duma, M. Rodzjanko, whose speech was listened to with profound feeling. The Congress passed with acclamation various patriotic resolutions, its main decision being to establish immediately a Central Committee for the provision of munitions of war. It is expected that by this means Russia will be able to accomplish what England is believed to be achieving in the same direction. Every factory and workshop throughout the country is to be organized for the supply of everything needed by the armies in the field.

SPEEDING GERMAN WORKMEN

A "Neutral" correspondent of The London Daily Chronicle, just returned from Germany, was thus quoted in a cable dispatch to The New York Times on June 28:

It is in towns, particularly industrial towns, where one sees how entirely the German nation is organized for war. Into these towns an enormous number of men have been drafted from the country to work in factories, which are humming day and night with activity to keep up the supply of all things necessary for the fighting line.

In general, the relations between capital and labor there have experienced notable amelioration. Indeed, the impression one gains in traveling about Germany is one of absolute settled industrial peace, but I know this has only been secured because all parties know that the first signs of dissatisfaction would be treated "with the utmost rigor of the law."

At some of the largest factories men are often at work fifteen, twenty, and even thirty hours on a stretch, with only short intervals for rest. Though it is said that there are ample stocks of all kinds of ammunition, there is noted daily and nightly a feverish haste in the factories where it is made.

The Government has not officially taken over the factories, but it is well known that all factory owners who want Government work can get it, and, as this is almost the only profitable use to which factories can just now be put, there is no lack of candidates for recognition as army contractors.

Whenever a Government contract is given out there is a clause in the contract which fixes rates of wages for every grade of workmen so that any questions of increases that the men might raise are out of the hands of the employer, and he points to the fact that both he and the workmen are in the hands of the State. Strikes are therefore unknown, a further deterrent being the knowledge that any man who does not do his utmost without murmuring will quickly be embodied in some regiment destined for one of the hottest places at the front.

In factories where Government work is being done wages are high, and even in the few cases where wages of certain unskilled workers have fallen, the men are allowed to work practically until they drop and so make up by more hours what they have lost by the lowered rates.

There is keen competition to obtain work in the factories working for the State, as the men engaged in these know almost certainly that for some time at least they will not be sent to the front, which seems to be the chief dread underlying all other thoughts and feelings.

For work done on Sunday wages are 50 per cent. higher than the usual rate. The men are encouraged to work on Sundays and overtime on weekdays and the prices of food are so high they need little encouragement. Where women have taken the places of men their wages are in most cases lower.

KRUPPS’ IMPENDING STRIKE

A report has reached Basle that a big strike is threatened at the Krupp Works at Essen, Germany, the movement being headed by the Union of Metallurgical Workmen and the Association of Mechanics. They demand higher wages, the report says, because of the increased cost of living and shorter hours because of the great strain under which they work.

The workmen, according to these advices, are in an angry mood and threaten the destruction of machinery unless their demands are granted immediately, as they have been put off for three months with promises. Several high officials have arrived at the Krupp Works in an effort to straighten out matters and calm the workmen, the advices add, and Bertha Krupp is expected to visit the plant and use her great influence with the workers.

The Frankfort Gazette, according to the news reaching Basle, has warned the administration of the Krupp plant of the seriousness of the situation, and has advised that the men's demands be granted. Meanwhile, the reports state, several regiments have been moved to the vicinity of the works to be available should the trouble result in a strike.

According to a telegram from Munich to Swiss papers, the German military authorities have informed the management and union officials of the Krupps, where disputes occasioned by the increased cost of living have arisen in several departments, that in no circumstances will a strike be tolerated.

An important meeting was held at Essen yesterday, according to advices received at Basle, between the administration of the Krupp gun works and representatives of the workmen, in order to settle the dispute which has arisen over the demands of the men for an increase in wages.

Directly and indirectly, about one hundred thousand men are involved. Minor cases in which machinery has been destroyed have been reported.

The military authorities before the meeting, the Basle advices say, warned both sides that unless an immediate arrangement was reached severe measures would be employed.

The Krupp officials are understood to have granted a portion of the demands of the employees, which has brought about a temporary peace, but the workmen still appear to be dissatisfied, and many have left the works.

A strike would greatly affect the supply of munitions, and for this reason the military have adopted rigorous precautions.

On the same date the following brief cable was sent to The New York Times from London:

A telegram to The Daily Express from Geneva says many men have already left the Krupp works because they are unable to bear the strain of incessant labor, and would rather take their chances in the trenches than continue work at Essen under the present conditions.

REMINGTON ARMS STRIKE

In a special dispatch to The New York Times, dated Bridgeport, Conn., July 14, appeared the following news of labor trouble in the American munitions factory:

One hundred workmen, twenty guards, and the Bridgeport police reserves took a hand in a riot tonight at the new plant of the Remington Arms Company, where it is planned to make small arms for the Allies. The riot brings to fever heat the labor excitement of the last week, which yesterday caused the walkout of the structural ironworkers at the plant and today a walkout of the millwrights and the ironworkers on the new plant of the sister company, the Remington Union Metallic Cartridge Company.

The three thousand workmen have been stirred into a great unrest in the last week by some unseen influence. Major Walter W. Penfield, U.S.A., retired, head of the arms plant, says pro-Germans are back of the strike. This the labor leaders deny.

On July 15 the spread of the strike was reported in a special dispatch from Bridgeport to The New York Times:

The strike at the giant new plant of the Remington Arms Company under construction to make arms for the Allies, as well as, it is supposed, for the United States Government, spread today from the proportions of a picayune family labor quarrel to an imminent industrial war which would paralyze Bridgeport, curtailing the shipment of arms and ammunition from this centre, and which threatens to spread to other cities in the United States, especially to those where munitions of war are being manufactured.

On July 20 The New York Times published the demands of the workmen at the Remington Arms plant, as outlined by J.J. Keppler, vice-president of the Machinists' Union:

"There are at present," he replied, "just three demands. If the strike goes further the demands will increase. The demands are:

"1. Recognition of the millwrights as members of the metal trade unions and not of the carpenters', and fixing of the responsibility for the order some one gave for the millwrights to join the carpenters' union, an attempt on the part of the Remington or the Stewart people to dictate the international management of the unions.

"2. A guarantee of a permanent eight-hour day in all plants in Bridgeport making war munitions. This carries with it a demand for a guarantee of a minimum wage and double pay for overtime.

In addition, of course, Mr. Johnston demands that Major Penfield retract his charge of German influence being back of the strike.

A check, if not a defeat, administered to the fomenters of the strike was reported to The New York Times in a Bridgeport dispatch dated July 20, as follows:

John A. Johnston, International vice-president of the Iron Workers' Union, and J.J. Keppler, vice-president of the Machinists', were on hand to inaugurate the big strike. All of Bridgeport's available policemen were on duty at the plant.

As the whistle blew the crowd surged about the gates, where barbed wire and guards held them back. Five minutes passed, ten, twenty, and 12.30 saw Keppler and Johnston pacing up and down before the plant awaiting their men. At 1 o'clock not a machinist had issued from the portals. The hoarse whistle blew, calling back the two thousand workers to their task, and Keppler and Johnston and the rest were left in wonder.

Before the noon whistle blew, Major Walter G. Penfield, works manager of the plant, placed guards at all the exits to ask the machinists to wait a few minutes. They did. The foreman told them that, on behalf of the Remington Company, Major Penfield desired to assure them a permanent eight-hour day, beginning August 1, and to guarantee a dollar a day increase in pay.

The Power of the Purse

How “Silver Bullets” Are Made in Britain

By Prime Minister Asquith

For the first time in the financial history of Great Britain, Prime Minister Asquith declared in his Guildhall speech of June 29, an unlimited and democratic war loan was popularized, appealing to all classes, including the poorest, and advertising the sale through the Post Office of vouchers for as low as 5 shillings to be turned into stock. His speech was intended also to initiate a movement for saving and thrift among the people as the only secure means against national impoverishment by the war.

A statement by Reginald McKenna, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the House of Commons on July 13, showed that approximately £600,000,000, or $3,000,000,000, had been subscribed, making this the greatest war loan raised in the history of any nation. The total number of subscribers through the Bank of England was 550,000, aggregating £570,000,000, or $2,850,000,000, while 547,000 persons had subscribed $75,000,000 through the Post Office. Besides this no estimate of the small vouchers taken out had been made, and the Post Office subscriptions had not been closed. The gigantic total, Mr. McKenna said, represented only new money, and not any stock which will be issued for purposes of conversion. Prime Minister Asquith's speech appears in full below.

THIS is, I think, the third time since the war began that I have had the privilege of addressing you in this hall. On the first occasion, as far back as September last, I came here to appeal to you to supply men to be trained to fight our battles at the front. Today I have come to ask you here in the City of London for what is equally necessary for the success of our cause—for the ways and means which no community in the Empire is better qualified to provide, to organise, and to replenish.

This is the costliest war that has ever been waged. A hundred years ago our ancestors spent eight hundred millions to vindicate, as we are vindicating today, the freedom of Europe, in a war which lasted the best part of 20 years, which brings out a rough average of considerably less than a million pounds a week. Our total expenditure today approaches for one year a thousand millions, and we are spending now, and are likely to spend for weeks and months to come, something like three million pounds a day. Our daily revenue from taxation, I suppose, works out less than three-quarters of a million per day.

Those are facts which speak for themselves, and they show the urgent necessity, not only for a loan, but for a national loan—a loan far larger in its scale, far broader in its basis, and far more imperious in its demand upon every class and every section of the community than any in our history.

For the first time in our financial experience no limit has been placed on the amount to be raised; and that means that every citizen in the country is invited to subscribe as much as he can to help us to a complete and speedy victory. I need not dwell on its attractiveness from the mere investor's point of view. Indeed, the only criticism which I have heard in or outside the House of Commons is that it is perhaps a little too generous in its terms. That is a fault, if it be a fault, upon the right side.

For £100 in cash you get £100 in stock, with interest at 4½ per cent. on the credit of the British Exchequer. The loan is redeemable in thirty years, when every subscriber, or those who succeed him, must get his money back in full, and the Government retain an option to repay at the end of ten years. That is the earliest date on which any question of re-investment can arise. Further, the stock or bonds will be accepted at par, with an allowance for accrued interest as the equivalent of cash, for subscription to any loan that the Government may issue in this country throughout the war.

I want especially to emphasise that this is for the first time in our financial history a great democratic loan. The State is appealing to all classes, including those whose resources are most limited, to step in and contribute their share to meet a supreme national need. The Post Office will receive subscriptions for £5, or any multiple of £5, and will sell vouchers for 5s. and upwards which can be gradually accumulated, and by December 1st next turned into stock of the new loan.

Every advantage which is given to the big capitalist is granted also in the same degree to the smallest supporter of the country's credit and finance. And, under such conditions, I am confident that the success of the loan as a financial instrument ought to be, and indeed is now, absolutely secured. (Cheers.)

This meeting was called not only to advertise the advantages of the War Loan, but to initiate a concerted national movement for what may be called war economy. My text is a very simple one. It is this: "Waste on the part either of individuals or of classes, which is always foolish and shortsighted, is, in these times, nothing short of a national danger." According to statisticians, the annual income of this country—I speak of the country and not of the Government—the annual income of this country is from two thousand two hundred and fifty to two thousand four hundred millions, and the annual expenditure of all classes is estimated at something like two thousand millions. It follows that the balance annually saved and invested, either at home or abroad, is normally between three hundred and four hundred millions.

Upon a nation so circumstanced, and with such habits, there has suddenly descended—for we did not anticipate it, nor prepared the way for it—the thundercloud of war—war which, as we now know well, if we add to our own direct expenditure the financing of other countries, will cost us in round figures about a thousand millions in the year. Now how are we, who normally have only three hundred or four hundred millions to spare in a year, to meet this huge and unexpected extraordinary draft upon our resources?

The courses open are four. The first is the sale of investments or property. We have, it is said, invested abroad something like four thousand millions sterling. Can we draw upon that to finance the war? Well, there are two things to be said about any such suggestion. The first is that our power of sale is limited by the power of other countries to buy, and that power, under existing conditions, is strictly limited.

The second thing to be said is this: That, if we were to try, assuming it to be practicable, to pay for the war in this way, we should end it so much poorer. The war must, in any case, impoverish us to some extent, but we should end it so much poorer, because the income we now receive, mainly from goods and services from abroad, would be proportionately, and permanently, reduced. I dismiss that, therefore, as out of the question.

Similar considerations seem to show the impracticability on any considerable scale of a second possible expedient, namely, borrowing abroad. The amount that could be raised in any foreign market at this moment, in comparison with the sum required, is practically infinitesimal, and, if it were possible on any considerable scale, we should again have to face the prospects of ending the war a debtor country, with a huge annual drain on our goods and our services, which would flow abroad in the payment of interest and the redemption of principal. That again, therefore, for all practical purposes, may be brushed aside.

There is a third course—payment out of our gold reserve, but that need only be stated to be discarded. We cannot impair the basis of the great system of credit which has made this City of London the financial centre and capital of the world.

There remains only one course, the one we have come here today to advocate, and to press upon our fellow-countrymen—to diminish our expenditure and to increase our savings.

If you save more you can lend the State more, and the nation will be proportionately enabled to pay for the war out of its own pocket. A second proposition, equally simple, and equally true, is this. If you spend less, you either reduce the cost and volume of our imports, or you leave a larger volume of commodities available for export.

The state of the trade balance between ourselves and other countries at this moment affords grounds—I do not say for anxiety, but for serious thought. If you look at the Board of Trade returns for the first five months—that is, to the end of the month of May—of the present year—you will find, as compared with the corresponding period of last year, that our imports have increased by thirty-five and a half millions; while our exports and re-exports have decreased by seventy-three and three-quarter millions. What does that mean? It means a total addition in five months of our indebtedness to other countries of nearly a hundred and ten millions, and if that rate were to continue till we reached the end of a completed year, the figure of indebtedness would rise to over two hundred and sixty millions.

That is a serious prospect, and I want to ask you, and those outside, how can that tendency be counteracted? The answer is a very simple one—by reducing all unnecessary expenditure, first, of imported goods—familiar illustrations are tea, tobacco, wine, sugar, petrol; I could easily add to the list—and that would mean that we should have to buy less from abroad; and next, as regards goods which are made at home—you can take as an illustration beer—setting a larger quantity free for export, which means that we have more to sell abroad, and enable capital and labour here at home to be more usefully and appropriately applied. That may seem a rather dry and technical argument—(laughter)—but it goes to the root of the whole matter.

If you ask me to state the result in a sentence, it is this: All money that is spent in these days on superfluous comforts or luxuries, whether in the shape of goods or in the shape of services, means the diversion of energy which can be better employed in the national interests, either in supplying the needs of our fighting forces in the field or in making commodities for export which will go to reduce our indebtedness abroad.

And, on the other hand, every saving we make by the curtailment and limitation of our productive expenditure increases the resources which can be put by our people at the disposal of the State for the triumphant vindication of our cause.

I said our cause. That, after all, is the summary and conclusion of the whole matter. We are making here and throughout the Empire a great national and Imperial effort, unique, supreme. The recruiting of soldiers and sailors, the provision of munitions, the organisation of our industries, the practice of economy, the avoidance of waste, the accumulation of adequate war funds, the mobilisation of all our forces, moral, material, personal—all these are contributory and convergent streams which are directed to and concentrated upon one unifying end, one absorbing and governing purpose.

It is not merely with us a question of self-preservation, of safeguarding against hostile design and attack the fabric which has withstood so many storms of our corporate and national life. That in itself would justify all our endeavours. But there is something even larger and worthier at stake in this great testing trial of our people.

There is not a man or a woman among us but he or she is touched even in the faintest degree with a sense of the higher issues which now hang in the balance, who has not, during this last year, become growingly conscious that, in the order of Providence, we here have been entrusted with the guardianship of interests and ideals which stretch far beyond the shores of these islands, beyond even the confines of our world-spread Empire, which concern the whole future of humanity. (Cheers.)

Is right or is force to dominate mankind? Comfort, prosperity, luxury, a well-fed and securely sheltered existence, not without the embellishments and concentrations of art and literature, and perhaps some conventional type of religion—all these we can purchase at a price, but at what a price! At the sacrifice of what makes life, national or personal, alone worth living. My Lord Mayor and citizens of London, we are not going to make that sacrifice (loud and prolonged cheers, the audience rising and waving their hats). Rather than make it, we shall fight to the end, to the last farthing of our money, to the last ounce of our strength, to the last drop of our blood. (Loud cheers.)

Cases Reserved

By SIR OWEN SEAMAN

"The Government are of opinion that the general question of personal responsibility shall be reserved until the end of the War."—Mr. Balfour in the House.

Let sentence wait. The apportionment of blame
To those who compassed each inhuman wrong
Can bide till Justice bares her sword of flame;
But let your memories be long!

And, lest they fail you, wearied into sleep,
Bring out your tablets wrought of molten steel;
There let the record be charáctered deep
In biting acid, past repeal.

And not their names alone, of high estate,
Drunk with desire of power, at whose mere nod
The slaves that execute their lust of hate
Laugh at the laws of man and God;

But also theirs who shame their English breed,
Who go their ways and eat and drink and play,
Or find in England's bitter hour of need
Their chance of pouching heavier pay;

And theirs, the little talkers, who delight
To beard their betters, on great tasks intent,
Cheapening our statecraft in the alien's sight
For joy of self-advertisement.

Today, with hands to weightier business set,
Silent contempt is all you can afford;
But put them on your list and they shall get,
When you are free, their full reward.

New Recruiting in Britain

By Field Marshal Earl Kitchener, Secretary of State for War

State registration of all persons, male and female, between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five, the particulars to include each person's age, work, and employers, and his registering to be accompanied by an invitation that he volunteer for work for which he may have special fitness, was the provision introduced in the House of Commons on June 29, 1915, and passed by that body on July 8. In explaining the bill's intent its introducer, Mr. Walter Long, who is President of the Local Government Board, replied on July 9 to the objection of critics who saw in it the first steps to compulsory service. He said that the National Register stood or fell by itself. So far as the use of it went, so far as the adoption of compulsion went, he declared frankly that the Prime Minister would be the last man in England to say, in the face of the situation in which Britons found themselves, anything which would prevent the Government adopting compulsory service tomorrow if they believed it to be right and necessary in order to bring this war to an end. Their hands were absolutely free. On the same day Earl Kitchener opened a recruiting campaign with a speech in the London Guildhall, which appears in part below.

The Lord Mayor of London, in calling upon Lord Kitchener, said the Empire had indeed been highly fortunate in having him at the head of the War Office in this great national crisis. Earl Kitchener was received with cheers as he said:

HITHERTO the remarks that I have found it necessary to make on the subject of recruiting have been mainly addressed to the House of Lords; but I have felt that the time had now come when I may with advantage avail myself of the courteous invitation of the Lord Mayor to appear among you, and in this historic Guildhall make another and a larger demand on the resources of British manhood. Enjoying as I do the privilege of a Freeman of this great City—(hear, hear!)—I can be sure that words uttered in the heart of London will be spread broadcast throughout the Empire. (Cheers.) Our thoughts naturally turn to the splendid efforts of the Oversea Dominions and India, who, from the earliest days of the war, have ranged themselves side by side with the Mother Country. The prepared armed forces of India were the first to take the field, closely followed by the gallant Canadians—(cheers)—who are now fighting alongside their British and French comrades in Flanders, and are there presenting a solid and impenetrable front against the enemy. In the Dardanelles the Australians and New Zealanders—(cheers)—combined with the same elements, have already accomplished a feat of arms of almost unexampled brilliancy, and are pushing the campaign to a successful conclusion. In each of these great Dominions new and large contingents are being prepared, while South Africa, not content with the successful conclusion of the arduous campaign in South-West Africa, is now offering large forces to engage the enemy in the main theatre of war. (Cheers.) Strengthened by the unflinching support of our fellow-citizens across the seas, we seek to develop our own military resources to their utmost limits, and this is the purpose which brings us together today.

Napoleon, when asked what were the three things necessary for a successful war, replied: "Money, money, money." Today we vary that phrase, and say: "Men, material, and money." As regards the supply of money for the war, the Government are negotiating a new loan, the marked success of which is greatly due to the very favorable response made by the City. To meet the need for material, the energetic manner in which the new Ministry of Munitions is coping with the many difficulties which confront the production of our great requirements affords abundant proof that this very important work is being dealt with in a highly satisfactory manner. (Cheers.) There still remains the vital need for men to fill the ranks of our Armies, and it is to emphasize this point and bring it home to the people of this country that I have come here this afternoon. When I took up the office that I hold, I did so as a soldier, not as a politician—(loud cheers)—and I warned my fellow countrymen that the war would be not only arduous, but long. (Hear, hear.) In one of my earliest statements made after the beginning of the war I said that I should require "More men, and still more, until the enemy is crushed." I repeat that statement today with even greater insistence. All the reasons which led me to think in August, 1914, that this war would be a prolonged one hold good at the present time. It is true we are in an immeasurably better situation now than ten months ago—(hear, hear)—but the position today is at least as serious as it was then. The thorough preparedness of Germany, due to her strenuous efforts, sustained at high pressure for some forty years, have issued in a military organization as complex in character as it is perfect in machinery. Never before has any nation been so elaborately organized for imposing her will upon the other nations of the world; and her vast resources of military strength are wielded by an autocracy which is peculiarly adapted for the conduct of war. It is true that Germany's long preparation has enabled her to utilize her whole resources from the very commencement of the war, while our policy is one of gradually increasing our effective forces. It might be said with truth that she must decrease, whilst we must increase.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the value of the response that has been made to my previous appeals, but I am here today to make another demand on the manhood of the country to come forward to its defence. I was from the first unwilling to ask for a supply of men in excess of the equipment available for them. I hold it to be most undesirable that soldiers, keen to take their place in the field, should be thus checked and possibly discouraged, or that the completion of this training should be hampered owing to lack of arms. We have now happily reached a period when it can be said that this drawback has been surmounted, and that the troops in training can be supplied with sufficient arms and material to turn them out as efficient soldiers.

When the great rush of recruiting occurred in August and September of last year, there was a natural difficulty in finding accommodation for the many thousands who answered to the call for men to complete the existing armed forces and the New Armies. Now, however, I am glad to say we have throughout the country provided accommodation calculated to be sufficient and suitable for our requirements. Further, there was in the early autumn a very natural difficulty in clothing and equipping the newly raised units. Now we are able to clothe and equip all recruits as they come in, and thus the call for men is no longer restricted by any limitations, such as the lack of material for training.

It is an axiom that the larger an army is, the greater is its need of an ever-swelling number of men of recruitable age to maintain it at its full strength; yet, at the very same time the supply of those very men is automatically decreasing. Nor must it be forgotten that the great demand which has arisen for the supply of munitions, equipment, etc., for the armed forces of this country and of our Allies also, as well as the economic and financial necessity of keeping up the production of manufactured goods, involves the retention of a large number of men in various trades and manufactures, many of whom would otherwise be available for the Colors. In respect of our great and increasing military requirements for men, I am glad to state how much we are indebted to the help given to the Recruiting Staff of the Regular Army and to the Territorial Associations throughout the country by the many Voluntary Recruiting Committees formed in all the counties and cities, and in many important boroughs for this purpose.

The public has watched with eager interest the growth and the rapidly acquired efficiency of the New Armies, whose dimensions have already reached a figure which only a short while ago would have been considered utterly unthinkable. (Cheers.) But there is a tendency, perhaps, to overlook the fact that these larger armies require still larger reserves, to make good the wastage at the front. And one cannot ignore the certainty that our requirements in this respect will be large, continuous, and persistent; for one feels that our gallant soldiers in the fighting line are beckoning, with an urgency at once imperious and pathetic, to those who remain at home to come out and play their part too. Recruiting meetings, recruiting marches, and the unwearied labors of the recruiting officers, committees, and individuals have borne good fruit, and I look forward with confidence to such labors being continued as energetically as hitherto.

But we must go a step further, so as to attract and attach individuals who from shyness—(laughter)—or other causes—(renewed laughter)—have not yet yielded to their own patriotic impulses. The Government have asked Parliament to pass a Registration Bill, with the object of ascertaining how many men and women there are in the country between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five eligible for the national service, whether in the navy or army, or for the manufacture of munitions, or to fulfil other necessary services. When this registration is completed we shall anyhow be able to note the men between the ages of nineteen and forty not required for munition or other necessary industrial work and therefore available, if physically fit, for the fighting line. Steps will be taken to approach, with a view to enlistment, all possible candidates for the Army—unmarried men to be preferred before married men, as far as may be. (Loud cheers.) Of course, the work of completing the registration will extend over some weeks, and meanwhile it is of vital and paramount importance that as large a number of men as possible should press forward to enlist, so that the men's training may be complete when they are required for the field. I would urge all employers to help in this matter, by releasing all men qualified for service with the Colors and replacing them by men of unrecruitable age, or by women, as has already been found feasible in so many cases.

When the registration becomes operative I feel sure that the Corporation of the City of London will not be content with its earlier efforts, intensely valuable as they have been, but will use its great facilities to set an example of canvassing for the cause. This canvass should be addressed with stern emphasis to such unpatriotic employers as, according to returns, have restrained their men from enlisting.

What the numbers required are likely to be it is clearly inexpedient to shout abroad. (Hear, hear.) Our constant refusal to publish either these or any other figures likely to prove useful to the enemy needs neither explanation nor apology. It is often urged that if more information were given as to the work and whereabouts of various units, recruiting would be strongly stimulated. But this is the precise information which would be of the greatest value to the enemy, and it is agreeable to note that a German Prince in high command ruefully recorded the other day his complete ignorance as to our New Armies. (Laughter and cheers.)

But one set of figures, available for everybody, and indicating with sufficient particularity the needs of our forces in the field, is supplied by the casualty lists. With regard to these lists, however—serious and sad as they necessarily are—let two points be borne in mind, first, that a very large percentage of the casualties represents comparatively slight hurts, the sufferers from which in time return to the front; and, secondly, that, if the figures seem to run very high, the magnitude of the operations is thereby suggested. Indeed, these casualty lists, whose great length may now and again induce undue depression of spirits, are an instructive indication of the huge extent of the operations undertaken now reached by the British forces in the field.

American War Supplies

By George Wellington Porter

The subjoined article appraising the stimulation given to the war industries of the United States by the European conflict appeared originally in The New York Times of July 18.

WITHIN the last ten months contracts for war supplies estimated to exceed $1,000,000,000 have been placed in the United States.

When war was declared last August this country was suffering from acute industrial depression; many factories shut down, others operating on short time, and labor without employment. After the paralyzing effect of the news that war was declared had worn away, business men here realized the great opportunity about to be afforded them of furnishing war supplies which must soon be in demand. Their expectations were soon fulfilled, as almost immediately most of the Governments sent commissions to the United States. Some had orders to buy, while others were authorized to get prices and submit samples.

It was not long until mills and factories were being operated to capacity, turning out boots and shoes, blankets, sweaters, socks, underwear, &c. The manufacturers of these articles were merely required to secure additional help in order to increase their plants' production.

The situation was different in relation to filling orders for arms and ammunition. At first, as was natural, this business was placed with concerns engaged in the manufacture of these commodities. Shortly they were swamped with orders, and to be able to fill them plants were enlarged, new equipment added, and additional help employed.

More and more orders came pouring in, and, as the arms and munition houses were by this time up to and some over capacity, acceptance by them of further business was impossible. Here, then, was the opportunity for the manufacturers of rails, rivets, electrical and agricultural machinery, locomotives, &c., to secure their share of this enormous business being offered. The manner in which they arose to the occasion is striking testimony of the great resourcefulness, efficiency, ingenuity, and adaptability of the American manufacturer.

The question of labor was of minor importance, due primarily to the fact that many thousands of men were without employment and anxious to secure work, and secondarily for the reason that skilled labor was not an essential factor. Most of the work is done by machinery and in a short period of time a mechanic of ordinary intelligence will become proficient in running a machine. The necessary trained labor could be secured without difficulty. Numbers of highly trained employes at Government arsenals are now with private arms and ammunition concerns. The labor problem therefore was negligible. However, three serious difficulties had yet to be overcome by the manufacturers wishing to engage in this new line of business—the securing of new machinery, raw materials, and capital.

The larger concerns had machinery and apparatus on hand suitable to most of the work, but much new machinery was needed, especially for the manufacture of rifles, and needed in a hurry. Time is the essence of these war supplies contracts, and, as many manufacturers agreed to make early deliveries, it was up to them to secure this new machinery and have it installed without delay; otherwise they could not manufacture and make deliveries as agreed to.

In this event they would suffer the penalty for non-fulfillment, as stipulated in the bond given by them to the purchaser at the time of signing the contract. These bonds are known as "fulfillment bonds" and are issued by responsible surety companies, usually to the amount of 5 per cent. of the total contract price, on behalf of the vendors, guaranteeing their deliveries and fulfillment of the contract.

In the earlier stages of this war supply business the question of his ability to secure raw materials with which to manufacture arms and ammunition or picric acid—this latter being used to manufacture higher explosives—was of no great concern to the manufacturer taking an order; but as orders came pouring in from abroad for ever larger amounts of supplies it was clearly evident that the demand for raw materials would shortly equal, if not exceed, the supply thereof. This condition was soon brought about, and today is one to be most seriously reckoned with by the manufacturer before accepting a contract.

Some of the materials needed with which to manufacture the supplies are mild carbon steel for the barrels, bayonets, bolt, and locks; well-seasoned ash or maple, straight-grained, for the stocks; brass, iron, powder, antimony, benzol or phenol, sulphuric acid, nitric acid, and caustic soda, &c. Of these various materials the most difficult to secure are those used in the manufacture of picric acid.

Today it is almost impossible to secure phenol, certainly in any considerable quantities, and it is almost as difficult to secure sulphuric acid and nitric acid. Germany has been the source of supply in the past for picric acid. Before the war it sold around 35 cents to 40 cents per pound, dry basis; recently it has sold at over $2 per pound for spot, that is immediate delivery, and is quoted at from $1.25 to $1.60 per pound for early future deliveries.

Antimony is becoming so scarce, never having been produced in any great quantity in this country, that in the new contracts being submitted for shrapnel shell it is stipulated that some other hardening ingredients may be substituted in the bullets, either totally or partly replacing the antimony.

Brass is essential to the manufacture of cartridges. The term "brass" is commonly understood to mean an alloy of copper and zinc.

Up to a short time ago electrolytic copper was selling at 20½ cents a pound, lead at 7 cents a pound, commercial zinc at 29½ cents a pound. Zinc ore, from which spelter is obtained, reached the price of $112 a ton. American spelter was nearly $500 a ton, compared with $110 a ton before the war. Spelter was almost unobtainable. In England the situation was acute, the metal there being quoted only nominally at around $550 a ton for immediate delivery.

Within the last few days prices have dropped materially, but how long they will remain at these lower levels it is impossible to predict. If the war continues for any length of time the demand for all these metals is certainly bound to increase, and this will automatically again send up prices.

The world's production of spelter in 1913 (the latest authentic figures obtainable) was 1,093,635 short tons. Of this the United States produced 346,676 tons, or 31.7 per cent.; Germany, 312,075 tons, or 28.6 per cent.; Belgium, 217,928 tons, or 19.9 per cent.; France and Spain, 78,289 tons; and Great Britain, 65,197 tons. The world's production of spelter in 1913 exceeded that of 1912 by 25,590 tons, or 2.2 per cent. The greatest increase was contributed by Germany, which exceeded its production of 1912 by 4.4 per cent. The United States made a gain of 2.3 per cent. The excess of the world's production over consumption in 1913 was only 27,316 tons.

As can be seen from the above figures, Germany has control of practically one-half, possibly now over one-half, of the world's production of spelter. Her position with respect to iron and coal is equally strong, the United States not included. In 1913 Germany's production of pig iron was 19,000 tons; Great Britain, 10,500 tons; France, 5,225 tons; Russia, 4,475 tons; Austria and Belgium, over 2,000 tons each; Italy, negligible. She has captured a large proportion of the coal resources of France as well. Her strength is her own plus that of conquered territory.

Before a contract for war supplies is let, more particularly with reference to contracts for arms and ammunition, the manufacturer is requested to "qualify." This means he must show his ability to "make good" on the contract he wishes to secure. If he is now or has been in the past successfully engaged in the manufacture of the particular article in question, this is usually sufficient; if it is out of his regular line, then he must prove to the satisfaction of the War Department or the purchasing agent, as the case may be, that he has the technical knowledge necessary for its production. In either event he must have an efficient organization, suitable plants, with proper equipment and men to operate same; also the necessary raw materials in hand or under option to purchase.

In most instances the manufacturer taking these war orders has been obliged to enlarge his plants, add new machinery and purchase raw materials so as to be able to handle the business. This meant the expenditure of large amounts of money on his part.

He did not have to depend, however, upon his own normal financial resources, as the contracts carry a substantial cash payment in advance, usually 25 per cent. of the total contract price. This advance payment is deposited in some New York bank simultaneously with the manufacturer's depositing a surety bond guaranteeing his deliveries, and upon the manufacturer executing an additional surety bond guaranteeing his responsibility he could draw down all or any part of the cash advance he might wish to use for his immediate needs.

Before issuing these bonds the surety companies make rigid examination as to the ability of the manufacturer to fulfill his contract. The commission charged for issuing these bonds is from 2½ to 5 per cent. on the amount involved. The demand for bonds has been so great during the last six months that it has taxed to the limit the combined resources of all the surety companies in the country.

The remaining part of the contract price is usually guaranteed by bankers' irrevocable letters of credit or deposits made with New York banks, to be drawn against as the goods are delivered, f.o.b. the factory—that is, free on board the cars—or f.a.s. the seaboard—that is, free alongside ship—as the terms may provide.

Banks here are beginning to purchase bank acceptances or bank-accepted bills of exchange, and in this manner payment is also being made to American manufacturers for goods sold to the Allies. For example, when a purchasing agent in Paris places an order for ammunition here he makes arrangements whereby the manufacturer will be authorized to draw on a New York banking institution at a stipulated maturity, and after acceptance of his drafts by such banking institution he could then negotiate these time drafts with his own banker—thus making them, less the discount, equivalent to cash—through whom they could be rediscounted by the Federal Reserve banks. These bank-accepted bills are discounted at a nominal rate of interest.

Before the war we were a debtor nation; today we are rapidly becoming, if we have not already become, a creditor nation. A year ago we were selling abroad only about as much goods as we were buying; now the balance of trade is greatly in our favor, due to the enormous export of foodstuffs and war supplies of all kinds. Monthly our exports are exceeding our imports by many millions of dollars. This indicates that foreign nations are going into debt to us.

At the time of writing this article foreign exchange was quoted as follows: London exchange, sterling, 4.76½; Paris exchange, franc, 5.45¾. By paying down $4.76½ in New York you can get £1 in London, which on a par gold basis is equivalent to $4.86 in London. By paying down 94½ cents in New York you can get the equivalent to 100 cents in Paris.

We now come to another interesting phase of this war supply business, namely, how some persons thought these war orders could be secured and how they are actually being placed. Almost immediately after the declaration of war, most of the belligerent Governments dispatched "commissions" to the United States. Some had orders to buy, and others were authorized to get prices and submit samples. In an incredibly short period of time it became generally known that foreign Governments were shopping and buying in our markets. The knowledge of this fact brought about a condition unique in our business life.

Men in all walks of life, from porters, barbers, clerks in offices, to doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, merchants, Wall Street brokers and bankers, seemed suddenly imbued with the idea of securing or bringing about the placing of a war order. Self-appointed agents, middlemen and brokers sprang up over night like mushrooms, each and every one claiming he had an order or could get an order for war supplies; or, as the case might be, he personally knew some manufacturer, or he knew a friend who had a friend who knew a manufacturer, who in turn wished to secure a contract. An official in one of our large steel companies told me some weeks ago that among others who had called at his company's offices, asking prices on shrapnel, was an undertaker.

In most instances the lack of salesmanship experience, to say nothing of any knowledge of the business and how the particular articles are manufactured, was of no consequence to the self-appointed agent in his mad desire for business.

The lobbies of our New York hotels were filled with horsemen and would-be horsemen, some months ago, almost every State being represented as far west as California; also with manufacturers and manufacturers' agents, all eager to secure a "war contract," be it for horses, shrapnel, rifles, picric acid, guncotton, toluol, cartridges, boots, shoes, sweaters, blankets, machinery and materials, &c. The very atmosphere of Manhattan Island seems impregnated with "war contractitis." We breathe it, we think it, we see it, we talk it, on our way downtown, at our offices and places of business, at our clubs, on our way home at night, in our homes, and I have been told that some have even slept it, the disease taking the shape of a nightmare.

The day of the broker, if indeed he ever had one in this business, is passed. The original commissioners have been withdrawn, or those who have been kept here are now acting as inspectors and have been replaced by purchasing agents. The firm of J.P. Morgan & Co. has been acting as purchasing agent for the English Government for some months past, is now acting in like capacity for the French Government, and has also done considerable buying for the Russian Government.

In order properly to handle this vast volume of business, a separate department was created, known as the Export Department. Connected with this department are experts in all lines—men who are thoroughly familiar with the various Governments' requirements, who know what prices should be paid, who are in close touch with each market, and who understand fully the materials they are buying.

There are a few more concerns, among which are one or two banks, trust companies, and Wall Street houses, which also have formed separate organizations for the purpose of purchasing war supplies for the Allies. As all these concerns are in close touch with the manufacturers and will only deal directly with them, the brokers and middlemen have very little, if any, chance of doing business.

Magazinists of the World on the War

Condensed from the Leading Reviews

While the armies and generals of the belligerents are trying to execute by force the policies of their respective Governments, their publicists are not less busy in the work of voicing the national aspirations. Moreover, such a critical examination of the status of each armed Power, from its own standpoint and in comparisons and contrasts with its opponents, has never been conducted before the peoples of the world. It is a time of national heart-searchings, both among the warring nations and of neutrals whose destinies are only less affected. Résumés of this great process as reflected in the world's leading reviews appear below, beginning with the British publications.

Germany’s Long-Nourished Powers

THAT Germany has been preparing forty years for this war is flatly contradicted by J. Ellis Barker in his article entitled "The Secret of Germany's Strength," appearing in the Nineteenth Century and After for July.

Not forty years, but for 260 years, since Frederick William, the Great Elector, came to the Prussian throne, the slow-growing plants of German efficiency and thoroughness have steadily unfolded, Mr. Barker says, in the administrative, military, financial, and economic policy that make modern Germany. It was the Great Elector who "ruthlessly and tyrannously suppressed existing self-government in his possessions, and gave to his scattered and parochially minded subjects a strong sense of unity," thus clearing the way for his successors. Frederick William I. founded in the Prussia prepared by his grandfather "a perfectly organized modern State, a model administration, and created a perfectly equipped and ever ready army." Of him Mr. Barker says:

The German people are often praised for their thoroughness, industry, frugality, and thrift. These qualities are not natural to them. They received them from their rulers, and especially from Frederick William the First. He was an example to his people, and his son carried on the paternal tradition. Both Kings acted not only with thoroughness, industry, frugality, and economy, but they enforced these qualities upon their subjects. Both punished idlers of every rank of society, even of the most exalted. The regime of Thorough prevailed under these Kings who ruled during seventy-three years. These seventy-three years of hard training gave to the Prussian people those sterling qualities which are particularly their own, and by which they can easily be distinguished from the easy-going South Germans and Austrians who have not similarly been disciplined.

While the Great Elector prepared the ground, and King Frederick William I. firmly laid the foundations, "Frederick the Great erected thereon the edifice of modern Germany." Mr. Barker adds:

Among the many pupils of Frederick the Great was Bismarck. It is no exaggeration to say that the writings which Frederick the Great addressed to posterity are the arcana imperii of modern Germany. Those who desire to learn the secret of Germany's strength, wealth, and efficiency, should therefore most carefully study the teachings of Frederick the Great.

Frederick's "Political Testament" of 1752 addressed to his successors begins with the significant words:

"The first duty of a citizen consists in serving his country. I have tried to fulfil that duty in all the different phases of my life."

Frederick William I. looked out for the education of his successors in his own militarist ideals. Instructing Major Borcke in 1751 on the tutoring of his grand-nephew, the Heir-Presumptive of Prussia, he wrote:

It is very important that he should love the Army. Therefore he must be told at all occasions and by all whom he meets that men of birth who are not soldiers are pitiful wretches. He must be taken to see the troops drilling as often as he likes. He ought to be shown the Cadets, and be given five or six of them to drill. That should be an amusement for him, not a duty. The great point is that he should become fond of military affairs, and the worst that could happen would be if he should become bored with them. He should be allowed to talk to all, to cadets, soldiers, citizens and officers, to increase his self-reliance.

A thorough monarchist, who noted that "when Sweden was turned into a republic it became weak," Frederick the Great preached a doctrine not different from that which inspires the speeches of Kaiser Wilhelm II. when he said in his "Political Testament" of 1752:

As Prussia is surrounded by powerful states my successors must be prepared for frequent wars. The soldiers must be given the highest positions in Prussia for the same reason for which they received them in ancient Rome when that State conquered the world. Honors and rewards stimulate and encourage talent and praise arouses men to a generous emulation. It encourages men to enter the army. It is paradoxical to treat officers contemptuously and call theirs an honored profession. The men who are the principal supports of the State must be encouraged and be preferred to the soft and insipid society men who can only grace an ante-chamber.

Mr. Barker comments on the fact that in 1776, thirteen years after the ruinous Seven Years' War, Frederick the Great had accumulated financial resources sufficient to pay for another war lasting four years, and that he pursued the food policy of his fathers "which is still pursued by the Prusso-German Government." Moreover, he first exalted the German professor:

Total number of ships definitely reported sunk by German submarines in sixty-four days, since the Lusitania was torpedoed	122
Number of ships on which any loss of life occurred	14
[Note: Some of these fatalities occurred, according to British Admiralty reports, either from explosion of torpedoes or from upsetting of lifeboats, or from gunfire of submarines while the enemy ship was trying to escape.]
Total loss of life on 122 ships, from all causes	131

Week Ending	Vessels.	Lives.
February 25	11	9
March 4	1	0
March 11	7	38
March 18	6	13
March 25	7	2
April 1	13	165
April 8	8	13
April 15	4	0
April 22	3	10
April 29	3	0
May 6	24	5
May 13	2	1,260
May 20	7	13
May 27	7	7
June 3	19	32
June 10	36	21
June 17	19	19
June 24	3	1
July 1	9	29
July 8	15	2
July 15	12	13
July 22	2	0
	——	——
Total	218	1,652

The Project Gutenberg eBook, New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915, by Various

E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Linda Cantoni, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)

CURRENT HISTORY A MONTHLY MAGAZINE THE EUROPEAN WAR AUGUST, 1915

CONTENTS

THE LUSITANIA CASE

The American Note to Berlin of July 21 Steps Leading Up to President Wilson’s Rejection of Germany’s Proposals

THE GERMAN MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS TO THE AMERICAN AMBASSADOR AT BERLIN

The American Rejoinder

THE SECRETARY OF STATE AT WASHINGTON TO THE AMERICAN AMBASSADOR AT BERLIN

German and American Press Opinion

ON THE GERMAN NOTE OF JULY 8

ON THE AMERICAN NOTE OF JULY 21

Austria-Hungary’s Protest

WHY AUSTRIA ACTED

MR. WOOLSEY’S OPINION

Armenian, Orduna, and Others

THE ANGLO-CALIFORNIAN

THE NORMANDY

THE ORDUNA

NEBRASKAN’S CASE

Results of Submarine Warfare

LIVERPOOL’S EXPERIENCE

FIRST WEEK WITH NO LOSS

WARFARE MODIFIED?

GERMAN ACCOUNTS

REGINALD WARNEFORD

American Preparedness

By Theodore Roosevelt

First Year of the War

Military Résumés of Operations on All Fronts— August, 1914 to August, 1915

By Lieutenant Walter E. Ives

One Year’s War

By Lieutenant Walter E. Ives

I.

THE WESTERN CAMPAIGN

II.

THE EASTERN CAMPAIGN

III.

CAMPAIGNS OF MINOR IMPORTANCE

An American View

By the Military Expert of The New York Times

FIRST PHASE

Opening the Way to France Through Belgium

SECOND PHASE

From the Fall of Brussels to von Kluck’s Retreat to the Aisne

THIRD PHASE

From the Fall of Antwerp to the Beginning of the Battle for Warsaw

Inferences from Eleven Months of the European Conflict

By Charles W. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard University

“Revenge for Elisabeth!”

A Year of the War in Africa and Asia

By Charles Johnston

I. RE-MAPPING THE WORLD.

II. TOGOLAND AND KAMERUN.

III. WITH BOTHA IN SOUTHWEST AFRICA.

IV. GERMAN EAST AFRICA.

V. THE PERSIAN GULF AND MESOPOTAMIA.

VI. THE “UNREST” IN INDIA.

VII. GERMAN ISLANDS IN THE PACIFIC.

VIII. GERMAN NEW GUINEA.

IX. FIGHTING IN THE CAUCASUS.

An “Insult” to War

The Drive at Warsaw

Germany’s Story of the Eastern Campaign

Battles of Radymno, Przemysl, Lemberg, the Dniester, Krasnik, Przasnysz, Ostrolenka

STORMING OF RADYMNO

PRZEMYSL

BATTLE OF GRODEK

THE FALL OF LEMBERG

THE CZAR’S RESCRIPT

RUSSIA’S DEFENSIVE PLAN

FIGHTING ON TWO RIVERS

KRASNIK REACHED

ON ZLOTA LIPA RIVER

DEFEAT AT KRASNIK

PRZASNYSZ OCCUPIED

GERMAN “NUT-CRACKER”

BREAKING RUSSIA’S LINES

BERLIN’S REJOICING

WARSAW’S EVACUATION

E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Linda Cantoni,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)

CURRENT HISTORY

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE

THE EUROPEAN WAR

AUGUST, 1915

The American Note to Berlin of July 21

Steps Leading Up to President Wilson’s Rejection
of Germany’s Proposals

THE GERMAN MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS TO
THE AMERICAN AMBASSADOR AT BERLIN

THE SECRETARY OF STATE AT WASHINGTON TO THE
AMERICAN AMBASSADOR AT BERLIN

Military Résumés of Operations on All Fronts—
August, 1914 to August, 1915

Inferences from Eleven Months
of the European Conflict

Battles of Radymno, Przemysl, Lemberg, the Dniester,
Krasnik, Przasnysz, Ostrolenka

France’s “Eyewitness” Reports and Germany’s Offensive
in the Argonne

FROM THE FIELD-MARSHAL COMMANDING-IN-CHIEF
THE BRITISH ARMY IN FRANCE

SIR H. PLUMER’S STORY [3]

Allied Operations Around the Turks’ Fortress of
Achi Baba

Second Month Closes with Offensive Operations in Swing
Against Gorizia

Comment About Continued Neutrality from the
Balkan and Russian Capitals

Attack on Mr. Morgan’s Life and the Setting of
Fire-Bombs on Ships

Movement in Great Britain and the United States to Consult
Civilian Experts

THE EUROPEAN WAR AS
SEEN BY CARTOONISTS

[American Cartoon]

The Postscript

[German Cartoon]

The Paper Blockade

[American Cartoon]

Donnerwetter!

[German Cartoon]

The Powder Chest

[English Cartoon]

In the Eastern Arena

[French Cartoon]

Circumstances Alter Cases

[German Cartoon]

A Risky Road

[American Cartoon]

Sherman Was Right!

[Italian Cartoon]

On the Bosporus

Growing Problems of Germany and Her Opponents in
Supplying Arms