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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The New York Times Current History of the
+European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: July 27, 2005 [EBook #16363]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW YORK TIMES CURRENT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, James LaTondre and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+     [Transcriber: The original document contained a number of errors.
+     Obvious spelling mistakes have been corrected and a notation
+     included for each. There were three places with missing text that
+     have also been annotated. In addition, there were also a number of
+     inconsistencies in spelling (ex. Perceval Gibbon vs. Percival
+     Gibbon; Rennekampf vs. Rennenkampf) which have not been changed or
+     noted given the desire not to introduce unintentional errors.]
+
+
+[Illustration: FIELD MARSHAL SIR JOHN FRENCH
+Commanding the British Forces in France and Belgium
+(_From Painting by John St. Helier Lander._)]
+
+[Illustration: GEN. SIR HORACE SMITH-DORRIEN
+One of the British Corps Commanders
+(_From Painting by John St Helier Lander._)]
+
+
+
+
+THE NEW YORK TIMES
+
+CURRENT HISTORY OF THE EUROPEAN WAR
+
+JANUARY 23, 1915.
+
+
+
+
+Sir John French's Own Story
+
+The Famous Dispatches of the British Commander in Chief to Lord
+Kitchener, Secretary of State for War.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+*First Report from the Front*
+
+
+7th September, 1914.
+
+My lord: I have the honor to report the proceedings of the field force
+under my command up to the time of rendering this dispatch.
+
+1. The transport of the troops from England both by sea and by rail was
+effected in the best order and without a check. Each unit arrived at its
+destination in this country well within the scheduled time.
+
+The concentration was practically complete on the evening of Friday, the
+21st ultimo, and I was able to make dispositions to move the force
+during Saturday, the 22d, to positions I considered most favorable from
+which to commence operations which the French Commander in Chief, Gen.
+Joffre, requested me to undertake in pursuance of his plans in
+prosecution of the campaign.
+
+The line taken up extended along the line of the canal from Condé on the
+west, through Mons and Binche on the east. This line was taken up as
+follows:
+
+From Condé to Mons inclusive was assigned to the Second Corps, and to
+the right of the Second Corps from Mons the First Corps was posted. The
+Fifth Cavalry Brigade was placed at Binche.
+
+In the absence of my Third Army Corps I desired to keep the cavalry
+division as much as possible as a reserve to act on my outer flank, or
+move in support of any threatened part of the line. The forward
+reconnoissance was intrusted to Brig. Gen. Sir Philip Chetwode with the
+Fifth Cavalry Brigade, but I directed Gen. Allenby to send forward a few
+squadrons to assist in this work.
+
+During the 22d and 23d these advanced squadrons did some excellent work,
+some of them penetrating as far as Soignies, and several encounters took
+place in which our troops showed to great advantage.
+
+2. At 6 A.M., on Aug. 23, I assembled the commanders of the First and
+Second Corps and cavalry division at a point close to the position and
+explained the general situation of the Allies, and what I understood to
+be Gen. Joffre's plan. I discussed with them at some length the
+immediate situation in front of us.
+
+From information I received from French Headquarters I understood that
+little more than one, or at most two, of the enemy's army corps, with
+perhaps one cavalry division, were in front of my position; and I was
+aware of no attempted outflanking movement by the enemy. I was confirmed
+in this opinion by the fact that my patrols encountered no undue
+opposition in their reconnoitring operations. The observations of my
+aeroplanes seemed also to bear out this estimate.
+
+About 3 P.M. on Sunday, the 23d, reports began coming in to the effect
+that the enemy was commencing an attack on the Mons line, apparently in
+some strength, but that the right of the position from Mons and Bray was
+being particularly threatened.
+
+The commander of the First Corps had pushed his flank back to some high
+ground south of Bray, and the Fifth Cavalry Brigade evacuated Binche,
+moving slightly south; the enemy thereupon occupied Binche.
+
+The right of the Third Division, under Gen. Hamilton, was at Mons, which
+formed a somewhat dangerous salient; and I directed the commander of the
+Second Corps to be careful not to keep the troops on this salient too
+long, but, if threatened seriously, to draw back the centre behind Mons.
+This was done before dark. In the meantime, about 5 P.M., I received a
+most unexpected message from Gen. Joffre by telegraph, telling me that
+at least three German corps, viz., a reserve corps, the Fourth Corps and
+the Ninth Corps, were moving on my position in front, and that the
+Second Corps was engaged in a turning movement from the direction of
+Tournay. He also informed me that the two reserve French divisions and
+the Fifth French Army on my right were retiring, the Germans having on
+the previous day gained possession of the passages of the Sambre
+between Charleroi and Namur.
+
+3. In view of the possibility of my being driven from the Mons position,
+I had previously [Transcriber: original 'previouly'] ordered a position
+in rear to be reconnoitred. This position rested on the fortress of
+Maubeuge on the right and extended west to Jenlain, southeast of
+Valenciennes, on the left. The position was reported difficult to hold,
+because standing crops and buildings made the siting of trenches very
+difficult and limited the field of fire in many important localities. It
+nevertheless afforded a few good artillery positions.
+
+When the news of the retirement of the French and the heavy German
+threatening on my front reached me, I endeavored to confirm it by
+aeroplane [Transcriber: original 'areoplane'] reconnoissance; and as a
+result of this I determined to effect a retirement to the Maubeuge
+position at daybreak on the 24th.
+
+A certain amount of fighting continued along the whole line throughout
+the night and at daybreak on the 24th the Second Division from the
+neighborhood of Harmignies made a powerful demonstration as if to retake
+Binche. This was supported by the artillery of both the First and Second
+Divisions, while the First Division took up a supporting position in the
+neighborhood of Peissant. Under cover of this demonstration the Second
+Corps retired on the line Dour-Quarouble-Frameries. The Third Division
+on the right of the corps suffered considerable loss in this operation
+from the enemy, who had retaken Mons.
+
+The Second Corps halted on this line, where they partially intrenched
+themselves, enabling Sir Douglas Haig with the First Corps gradually to
+withdraw to the new position; and he effected this without much further
+loss, reaching the line Bavai-Maubeuge about 7 P.M. Toward midday the
+enemy appeared to be directing his principal effort against our left.
+
+I had previously ordered Gen. Allenby with the cavalry to act vigorously
+in advance of my left front and endeavor to take the pressure off.
+
+About 7:30 A.M. Gen. Allenby received a message from Sir Charles
+Fergusson, commanding the Fifth Division, saying that he was very hard
+pressed and in urgent need of support. On receipt of this message Gen.
+Allenby drew in the cavalry and endeavored to bring direct support to
+the Fifth Division.
+
+During the course of this operation Gen. De Lisle, of the Second Cavalry
+Brigade, thought he saw a good opportunity to paralyze the further
+advance of the enemy's infantry by making a mounted attack on his flank.
+He formed up and advanced for this purpose, but was held up by wire
+about 500 yards from his objective, and the Ninth Lancers and the
+Eighteenth Hussars suffered severely in the retirement of the brigade.
+
+The Nineteenth Infantry Brigade, which had been guarding the line of
+communications, was brought up by rail to Valenciennes on the 22d and
+23d. On the morning of the 24th they were moved out to a position south
+of Quarouble to support the left flank of the Second Corps.
+
+With the assistance of the cavalry Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien was enabled
+to effect his retreat to a new position; although, having two corps of
+the enemy on his front and one threatening his flank, he suffered great
+losses in doing so.
+
+At nightfall the position was occupied by the Second Corps to the west
+of Bavai, the First Corps to the right. The right was protected by the
+fortress of Maubeuge, the left by the Nineteenth Brigade in position
+between Jenlain and Bry, and the cavalry on the outer flank.
+
+4. The French were still retiring, and I had no support except such as
+was afforded by the Fortress of Maubeuge; and the determined attempts of
+the enemy to get round my left flank assured me that it was his
+intention to hem me against that place and surround me. I felt that not
+a moment must be lost in retiring to another position.
+
+I had every reason to believe that the enemy's forces were somewhat
+exhausted and I knew that they had suffered heavy losses. I hoped,
+therefore, that his pursuit would not be too vigorous to prevent me
+effecting my object.
+
+The operation, however, was full of danger and difficulty, not only
+owing to the very superior force in my front, but also to the exhaustion
+of the troops.
+
+The retirement was recommenced in the early morning of the 25th to a
+position in the neighborhood of Le Cateau, and rearguards were ordered
+to be clear of the Maubeuge-Bavai-Eth Road by 5:30 A.M.
+
+Two cavalry brigades, with the divisional cavalry of the Second Corps,
+covered the movement of the Second Corps. The remainder of the cavalry
+division, with the Nineteenth Brigade, the whole under the command of
+Gen. Allenby, covered the west flank.
+
+The Fourth Division commenced its detrainment at Le Cateau on Sunday,
+the 23d, and by the morning of the 25th eleven battalions and a brigade
+of artillery with divisional staff were available for service.
+
+I ordered Gen. Snow to move out to take up a position with his right
+south of Solesmes, his left resting on the Cambrai-Le Cateau Road south
+of La Chaprie. In this position the division rendered great help to the
+effective retirement of the Second and First Corps to the new position.
+
+Although the troops had been ordered to occupy the Cambrai-Le
+Cateau-Landrecies position, and the ground had, during the 25th, been
+partially prepared and intrenched, I had grave doubts--owing to the
+information I had received as to the accumulating strength of the enemy
+against me--as to the wisdom of standing there to fight.
+
+Having regard to the continued retirement of the French on my right, my
+exposed left flank, the tendency of the enemy's western corps (II.) to
+envelop me, and, more than all, the exhausted condition of the troops, I
+determined to make a great effort to continue the retreat till I could
+put some substantial obstacle, such as the Somme or the Oise, between my
+troops and the enemy, and afford the former some opportunity of rest and
+reorganization. Orders were, therefore, sent to the corps commanders to
+continue their retreat as soon as they possibly could toward the general
+line Vermand-St. Quentin-Ribemont.
+
+The cavalry, under Gen. Allenby, were ordered to cover the retirement.
+
+Throughout the 25th and far into the evening, the First Corps continued
+its march on Landrecies, following the road along the eastern border of
+the Forêt de Mormal, and arrived at Landrecies about 10 o'clock. I had
+intended that the corps should come further west so as to fill up the
+gap between Le Cateau and Landrecies, but the men were exhausted and
+could not get further in without rest.
+
+The enemy, however, would not allow them this rest, and about 9:30 P.M.
+a report was received that the Fourth Guards Brigade in Landrecies was
+heavily attacked by troops of the Ninth German Army Corps, who were
+coming through the forest on the north of the town. This brigade fought
+most gallantly, and caused the enemy to suffer tremendous loss in
+issuing from the forest into the narrow streets of the town. This loss
+has been estimated from reliable sources at from 700 to 1,000. At the
+same time information reached me from Sir Douglas Haig that his First
+Division was also heavily engaged south and east of Maroilles. I sent
+urgent messages to the commander of the two French reserve divisions on
+my right to come up to the assistance of the First Corps, which they
+eventually did. Partly owing to this assistance, but mainly to the
+skillful manner in which Sir Douglas Haig extricated his corps from an
+exceptionally difficult position in the darkness of the night, they were
+able at dawn to resume their march south toward Wassigny on Guise.
+
+By about 6 P.M. the Second Corps had got into position with their right
+on Le Cateau, their left in the neighborhood of Caudry, and the line of
+defense was continued thence by the Fourth Division toward Seranvillers,
+the left being thrown back.
+
+During the fighting on the 24th and 25th the cavalry became a good deal
+scattered, but by the early morning of the 26th Gen, Allenby had
+succeeded in concentrating two brigades to the south of Cambrai.
+
+The Fourth Division was placed under the orders of the general officer
+commanding the Second Army Corps.
+
+On the 24th the French cavalry corps, consisting of three divisions
+under Gen. Sordêt, had been in billets north of Avesnes. On my way back
+from Bavai, which was my "Poste de Commandement" during the fighting of
+the 23d and 24th, I visited Gen. Sordêt, and earnestly requested his
+co-operation and support. He promised to obtain sanction from his army
+commander to act on my left flank, but said that his horses were too
+tired to move before the next day. Although he rendered me valuable
+assistance later on in the course of the retirement, he was unable for
+the reasons given to afford me any support on the most critical day of
+all, viz., the 26th.
+
+At daybreak it became apparent that the enemy was throwing the bulk of
+his strength against the left of the position occupied by the Second
+Corps and the Fourth Division.
+
+At this time the guns of four German army corps were in position against
+them, and Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien reported to me that he judged it
+impossible to continue his retirement at daybreak (as ordered) in face
+of such an attack.
+
+I sent him orders to use his utmost endeavors to break off the action
+and retire at the earliest possible moment, as it was impossible for me
+to send him any support, the First Corps being at the moment incapable
+of movement.
+
+The French cavalry corps, under Gen. Sordêt, was coming up on our left
+rear early in the morning, and I sent an urgent message to him to do his
+utmost to come up and support the retirement of my left flank; but owing
+to the fatigue of his horses he found himself unable to intervene in any
+way.
+
+There had been no time to intrench the position properly, but the troops
+showed a magnificent front to the terrible fire which confronted them.
+
+The artillery, although outmatched by at least four to one, made a
+splendid fight, and inflicted heavy losses on their opponents.
+
+[Illustration: Map 1.--Showing the early stages of the retreat from
+Mons, Aug. 22 to Sept. 1.]
+
+At length it became apparent that, if complete annihilation was to be
+avoided, a retirement must be attempted; and the order was given to
+commence it about 3:30 P.M. The movement was covered with the most
+devoted intrepidity and determination by the artillery, which had itself
+suffered heavily, and the fine work done by the cavalry in the further
+retreat from the position assisted materially in the final completion of
+this most difficult and dangerous operation.
+
+Fortunately the enemy had himself suffered too heavily to engage in an
+energetic pursuit.
+
+I cannot close the brief account of this glorious stand of the British
+troops without putting on record my deep appreciation of the valuable
+services rendered by Gen. Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien.
+
+I say without hesitation that the saving of the left wing of the army
+under my command on the morning of the 26th August could never have been
+accomplished unless a commander of rare and unusual coolness,
+intrepidity, and determination had been present to personally conduct
+the operation.
+
+The retreat was continued far into the night of the 26th and through the
+27th and 28th, on which date the troops halted on the line
+Noyon-Chauny-La Fère, having then thrown off the weight of the enemy's
+pursuit.
+
+On the 27th and 28th I was much indebted to Gen. Sordêt and the French
+cavalry division which he commands for materially assisting my
+retirement and successfully driving back some of the enemy on Cambrai.
+
+Gen. D'Amade also, with the Sixty-first and Sixty-second French Reserve
+Divisions, moved down from the neighborhood of Arras on the enemy's
+right flank and took much pressure off the rear of the British forces.
+
+This closes the period covering the heavy fighting which commenced at
+Mons on Sunday afternoon, 23d August, and which really constituted a
+four days' battle.
+
+At this point, therefore, I propose to close the present dispatch.
+
+I deeply deplore the very serious losses which the British forces have
+suffered in this great battle; but they were inevitable in view of the
+fact that the British Army--only two days after a concentration by
+rail--was called upon to withstand a vigorous attack of five German army
+corps.
+
+It is impossible for me to speak too highly of the skill evinced by the
+two general officers commanding army corps; the self-sacrificing and
+devoted exertions of their staffs; the direction of the troops by
+divisional, brigade, and regimental leaders; the command of the smaller
+units by their officers; and the magnificent fighting spirit displayed
+by non-commissioned officers and men.
+
+I wish particularly to bring to your Lordship's notice the admirable
+work done by the Royal Flying Corps under Sir David Henderson. Their
+skill, energy, and perseverance [Transcriber: original 'perseverence']
+have been beyond all praise. They have furnished me with the most
+complete and accurate information, which has been of incalculable value
+in the conduct of the operations. Fired at constantly both by friend and
+foe, and not hesitating to fly in every kind of weather, they have
+remained undaunted throughout.
+
+Further, by actually fighting in the air, they have succeeded in
+destroying five of the enemy's machines.
+
+I wish to acknowledge with deep gratitude the incalculable assistance I
+received from the General and Personal Staffs at Headquarters during
+this trying period.
+
+Lieut. Gen. Sir Archibald Murray, Chief of the General Staff; Major Gen.
+Wilson, Sub-Chief of the General Staff; and all under them have worked
+day and night unceasingly with the utmost skill, self-sacrifice, and
+devotion; and the same acknowledgment is due by me to Brig. Gen. Hon. W.
+Lambton, my Military Secretary, and the personal Staff.
+
+In such operations as I have described the work of the Quartermaster
+General is of an extremely onerous nature. Major Gen. Sir William
+Robertson has met what appeared to be almost insuperable difficulties
+with his characteristic energy, skill, and determination; and it is
+largely owing to his exertions that the hardships and sufferings of the
+troops--inseparable from such operations--were not much greater.
+
+[Illustration: Map. 2.--The retreat continued. From Compiègne, Sept. 1,
+to the new position south of Meaux, Sept. 3 and 4.]
+
+[Illustration: Map 3.--Commencement of the battle of the Marne, Sept. 6
+(Sunday), morning.
+Concentration of the Germans on a central point, and the position of the
+British force when it resumed the offensive.]
+
+Major Gen. Sir Nevil Macready, the Adjutant General, has also been
+confronted with most onerous and difficult tasks in connection with
+disciplinary arrangements and the preparation of casualty lists. He has
+been indefatigable in his exertions to meet the difficult situations
+which arose.
+
+I have not yet been able to complete the list of officers whose names I
+desire to bring to your Lordship's notice for services rendered during
+the period under review; and, as I understand it is of importance that
+this dispatch should no longer be delayed, I propose to forward this
+list, separately, as soon as I can. I have the honor to be,
+
+Your Lordship's most obedient Servant,
+
+(Signed) J.D.P. FRENCH,
+Field Marshal,
+Commander in Chief, British Forces in the Field.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+*The Battle of the Marne.*
+
+
+17th September, 1914.
+
+My lord: In continuation of my dispatch of Sept. 7, I have the honor to
+report the further progress of the operations of the forces under my
+command from Aug. 28.
+
+On that evening the retirement of the force was followed closely by two
+of the enemy's cavalry columns, moving southeast from St. Quentin.
+
+The retreat in this part of the field was being covered by the Third and
+Fifth Cavalry Brigades. South of the Somme Gen. Gough, with the Third
+Cavalry Brigade, threw back the Uhlans of the Guard with considerable
+loss.
+
+Gen. Chetwode, with the Fifth Cavalry Brigade, encountered the eastern
+column near Cerizy, moving south. The brigade attacked and routed the
+column, the leading German regiment suffering very severe casualties
+and being almost broken up.
+
+The Seventh French Army Corps was now in course of being railed up from
+the south to the east of Amiens. On the 29th it nearly completed its
+detrainment, and the French Sixth Army got into position on my left, its
+right resting on Roye.
+
+The Fifth French Army was behind the line of the Oise, between La Fère
+and Guise.
+
+The pursuit of the enemy was very vigorous; some five or six German
+corps were on the Somme, facing the Fifth Army on the Oise. At least two
+corps were advancing toward my front, and were crossing the Somme east
+and west of Ham. Three or four more German corps were [Transcriber:
+original 'wree'] opposing the Sixth French Army on my left.
+
+This was the situation at 1 o'clock on the 29th, when I received a visit
+from Gen. Joffre at my headquarters.
+
+I strongly represented my position to the French Commander in Chief, who
+was most kind, cordial, and sympathetic, as he has always been. He told
+me that he had directed the Fifth French Army on the Oise to move
+forward and attack the Germans on the Somme, with a view to checking
+pursuit. He also told me of the formation of the Sixth French Army on my
+left flank, composed of the Seventh Army Corps, four reserve divisions,
+and Sordêt's corps of cavalry.
+
+I finally arranged with Gen. Joffre to effect a further short retirement
+toward the line Compiègne-Soissons, promising him, however, to do my
+utmost to keep always within a day's march of him.
+
+In pursuance of this arrangement the British forces retired to a
+position a few miles north of the line Compiègne-Soissons on the 29th.
+
+The right flank of the German Army was now reaching a point which
+appeared seriously to endanger my line of communications with Havre. I
+had already evacuated Amiens, into which place a German reserve division
+was reported to have moved.
+
+[Illustration: Map 4.--Sept. 6 (Sunday), evening. First advance toward
+the line of the Grand Morin.]
+
+Orders were given to change the base to St. Nazaire, and establish an
+advance base at Le Mans. This operation was well carried out by the
+Inspector General of Communications.
+
+In spite of a severe defeat inflicted upon the Guard Tenth and Guard
+Reserve Corps of the German Army by the First and Third French Corps on
+the right of the Fifth Army, it was not part of Gen. Joffre's plan to
+pursue this advantage; and a general retirement to the line of the Marne
+was ordered, to which the French forces in the more eastern theatre were
+directed to conform.
+
+A new Army (the Ninth) had been formed from three corps in the south by
+Gen. Joffre, and moved into the space between the right of the Fifth and
+left of the Fourth Armies.
+
+While closely adhering to his strategic conception to draw the enemy on
+at all points until a favorable situation was created from which to
+assume the offensive, Gen. Joffre found it necessary to modify from day
+to day the methods by which he sought to attain this object, owing to
+the development of the enemy's plans and changes in the general
+situation.
+
+In conformity with the movements of the French forces, my retirement
+continued practically from day to day. Although we were not severely
+pressed by the enemy, rearguard actions took place continually.
+
+On the 1st September, when retiring from the thickly wooded country to
+the south of Compiègne, the First Cavalry Brigade was overtaken by some
+German cavalry. They momentarily lost a horse artillery battery, and
+several officers and men were killed and wounded. With the help,
+however, of some detachments from the Third Corps operating on their
+left, they not only recovered their own guns, but succeeded in capturing
+twelve of the enemy's.
+
+Similarly, to the eastward, the First Corps, retiring south, also got
+into some very difficult forest country, and a somewhat severe rearguard
+action ensued at Villers-Cotterets, in which the Fourth Guards Brigade
+suffered considerably.
+
+On Sept. 3 the British forces were in position south of the Marne
+between Lagny and Signy-Signets. Up to this time I had been requested by
+Gen. Joffre to defend the passages of the river as long as possible, and
+to blow up the bridges in my front. After I had made the necessary
+dispositions, and the destruction of the bridges had been effected, I
+was asked by the French Commander in Chief to continue my retirement to
+a point some twelve miles in rear of the position I then occupied, with
+a view to taking up a second position behind the Seine. This retirement
+was duly carried out. In the meantime the enemy had thrown bridges and
+crossed the Marne in considerable force, and was threatening the Allies
+all along the line of the British forces and the Fifth and Ninth French
+Armies. Consequently several small outpost actions took place.
+
+On Saturday, Sept. 5, I met the French Commander in Chief at his
+request, and he informed me of his intention to take the offensive
+forthwith, as he considered conditions very favorable to success.
+
+Gen. Joffre announced to me his intention of wheeling up the left flank
+of the Sixth Army, pivoting on the Marne and directing it to move on the
+Ourcq; cross and attack the flank of the First German Army, which was
+then moving in a southeasterly direction east of that river.
+
+He requested me to effect a change of front to my right--my left resting
+on the Marne and my right on the Fifth Army--to fill the gap between
+that army and the Sixth. I was then to advance against the enemy in my
+front and join in the general offensive movement.
+
+These combined movements practically commenced on Sunday, Sept. 6, at
+sunrise; and on that day it may be said that a great battle opened on a
+front extending from Ermenonville, which was just in front of the left
+flank of the Sixth French Army, through Lizy on the Marne, Mauperthuis,
+which was about the British centre, Courtecon, which was on the left of
+the Fifth French Army, to Esternay and Charleville, the left of the
+Ninth Army under Gen. Foch, and so along the front of the Ninth, Fourth
+and Third French Armies to a point north of the fortress of Verdun.
+
+[Illustration: Map 5.--Sept. 8. Battle of the Marne.
+The great advance to the Petit Morin and the Marne, where important
+captures were made by the British.]
+
+This battle, in so far as the Sixth French Army, the British Army, the
+Fifth French Army, and the Ninth French Army were concerned, may be said
+to have concluded on the evening of Sept. 10, by which time the Germans
+had been driven back to the line Soissons-Rheims, with a loss of
+thousands of prisoners, many guns, and enormous masses of transport.
+
+About Sept. 3 the enemy appears to have changed his plans and to have
+determined to stop his advance south direct upon Paris, for on Sept. 4
+air reconnoissances showed that his main columns were moving in a
+southeasterly direction generally east of a line drawn through Nanteuil
+and Lizy on the Ourcq.
+
+On Sept. 5 several of these columns were observed to have crossed the
+Marne, while German troops, which were observed moving southeast up the
+left flank of the Ourcq on the 4th, were now reported to be halted and
+facing that river. Heads of the enemy's columns were seen crossing at
+Changis, La Ferte, Nogent, Château Thierry, and Mezy.
+
+Considerable German columns of all arms were seen to be converging on
+Montmirail, while before sunset large bivouacs of the enemy were located
+in the neighborhood of Coulommiers, south of Rebais, La Ferté-Gaucher,
+and Dagny.
+
+I should conceive it to have been about noon on Sept. 6, after the
+British forces had changed their front to the right and occupied the
+line Jouy-Le Chatel-Faremoutiers-Villeneuve Le Comte, and the advance of
+the Sixth French Army north of the Marne toward the Ourcq became
+apparent, that the enemy realized the powerful threat that was being
+made against the flank of his columns moving southeast, and began the
+great retreat which opened the battle above referred to.
+
+On the evening of Sept. 6, therefore, the fronts and positions of the
+opposing armies were roughly as follows:
+
+    Allies.
+
+    _Sixth French Army_.--Right on the Marne at Meux, left toward Betz.
+
+    _British Forces._--On the line Dagny-Coulommiers-Maison.
+
+    _Fifth French Army._--At Courtagon, right on Esternay.
+
+    _Conneau's Cavalry Corps._--Between the right of the British and the
+    left of the French Fifth Army.
+
+    Germans.
+
+    _Fourth Reserve and Second Corps._--East of the Ourcq and facing
+    that river.
+
+    _Ninth Cavalry Division._--West of Crecy.
+
+    _Second Cavalry Division._--North of Coulommiers.
+
+    _Fourth Corps._--Rebais.
+
+    _Third and Seventh Corps._--Southwest of Montmirail.
+
+All these troops constituted the First German Army, which was directed
+against the French Sixth Army on the Ourcq, and the British forces, and
+the left of the Fifth French Army south of the Marne.
+
+The Second German Army (IX., X., X.R., and Guard) was moving against the
+centre and right of the Fifth French Army and the Ninth French Army.
+
+On Sept. 7 both the Fifth and Sixth French Armies were heavily engaged
+on our flank. The Second and Fourth Reserve German Corps on the Ourcq
+vigorously opposed the advance of the French toward that river, but did
+not prevent the Sixth Army from gaining some headway, the Germans
+themselves suffering serious losses. The French Fifth Army threw the
+enemy back to the line of the Petit Morin River after inflicting severe
+losses upon them, especially about Montceaux, which was carried at the
+point of the bayonet.
+
+The enemy retreated before our advance, covered by his Second and Ninth
+and Guard Cavalry Divisions, which suffered severely.
+
+Our cavalry acted with great vigor, especially Gen. De Lisle's brigade,
+with the Ninth Lancers and Eighteenth Hussars.
+
+On Sept. 8 the enemy continued his retreat northward, and our army was
+successfully engaged during the day with strong rearguards of all arms
+on the Petit Morin River, thereby materially assisting the progress of
+the French armies on our right and left, against whom the enemy was
+making his greatest efforts. On both sides the enemy was thrown back
+with very heavy loss. The First Army Corps encountered stubborn
+resistance at La Trétoire, (north of Rabais.) The enemy occupied a
+strong position with infantry and guns on the northern bank of the Petit
+Morin River; they were dislodged with considerable loss. Several machine
+guns and many prisoners were captured, and upward of 200 German dead
+were left on the ground.
+
+[Illustration: Map 6.--Sept. 9. Forcing the passage of the Marne.
+This day the German retreat degenerated into a rout, and many captures
+were made.]
+
+The forcing of the Petit Morin at this point was much assisted by the
+cavalry and the First Division, which crossed higher up the stream.
+
+Later in the day a counter-attack by the enemy was well repulsed by the
+First Army Corps, a great many prisoners and some guns again falling
+into our hands.
+
+On this day (Sept. 8) the Second Army Corps encountered considerable
+opposition, but drove back the enemy at all points with great loss,
+making considerable captures.
+
+The Third Army Corps also drove back considerable bodies of the enemy's
+infantry and made some captures.
+
+On Sept. 9 the First and Second Army Corps forced the passage of the
+Marne and advanced some miles to the north of it. The Third Corps
+encountered considerable opposition, as the bridge at La Ferté was
+destroyed and the enemy held the town on the opposite bank in some
+strength, and thence persistently obstructed the construction of a
+bridge; so the passage was not effected until after nightfall.
+
+During the day's pursuit the enemy suffered heavy loss in killed and
+wounded, some hundreds of prisoners fell into our hands and a battery of
+eight machine guns was captured by the Second Division.
+
+On this day the Sixth French Army was heavily engaged west of the River
+Ourcq. The enemy had largely increased his force opposing them; and very
+heavy fighting ensued, in which the French were successful throughout.
+
+The left of the Fifth French Army reached the neighborhood of Château
+Thierry after the most severe fighting, having driven the enemy
+completely north of the river with great loss.
+
+The fighting of this army in the neighborhood of Montmirail was very
+severe.
+
+The advance was resumed at daybreak on the 10th up to the line of the
+Ourcq, opposed by strong rearguards of all arms. The First and Second
+Corps, assisted by the cavalry divisions on the right, the Third and
+Fifth Cavalry Brigades on the left, drove the enemy northward. Thirteen
+guns, seven machine guns, about 2,000 prisoners, and quantities of
+transport fell into our hands. The enemy left many dead on the field. On
+this day the French Fifth and Sixth Armies had little opposition.
+
+As the First and Second German Armies were now in full retreat, this
+evening marks the end of the battle which practically commenced on the
+morning of the 6th inst.; and it is at this point in the operations that
+I am concluding the present dispatch.
+
+Although I deeply regret [Transcriber: original 'regreat'] to have had
+to report heavy losses in killed and wounded throughout these
+operations, I do not think they have been excessive in view of the
+magnitude of the great fight, the outlines of which I have only been
+able very briefly to describe, and the demoralization and loss in killed
+and wounded which are known to have been caused to the enemy by the
+vigor and severity of the pursuit.
+
+In concluding this dispatch I must call your Lordship's special
+attention to the fact that from Sunday, Aug. 23, up to the present date,
+(Sept. 17,) from Mons back almost to the Seine, and from the Seine to
+the Aisne, the army under my command has been ceaselessly engaged
+without one single day's halt or rest of any kind.
+
+Since the date to which in this dispatch I have limited my report of the
+operations, a great battle on the Aisne has been proceeding. A full
+report of this battle will be made in an early further dispatch.
+
+[Illustration: Map 7--Sept. 10 (evening). End of the battle of the
+Marne.
+The Germans were driven over the Ourcq and retreated to the Aisne.]
+
+[Illustration: LIEUT. GEN. SIR DOUGLAS HAIG
+Commanding one of Gen. French's Corps
+(_From Painting by John St. Helier Lander._)]
+
+[Illustration: CROWN PRINCE WILHELM
+(_Copyright, Photographische Gesellschaft, by permission of the Berlin
+Photographic Co., N.Y._)]
+
+It will, however, be of interest to say here that, in spite of a very
+determined resistance on the part of the enemy, who is holding in
+strength and great tenacity a position peculiarly favorable to defense,
+the battle which commenced on the evening of the 12th inst. has, so far,
+forced the enemy back from his first position, secured the passage of
+the river, and inflicted great loss upon him, including the capture of
+over 2,000 prisoners and several guns. I have the honor to be your
+Lordship's most obedient servant,
+
+(Signed.) J.D.P. FRENCH,
+Field Marshal,
+Commanding in Chief, the British forces in the field.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+*The Battle of the Aisne.*
+
+
+8th October, 1914.
+
+My Lord: I have the honor to report the operations in which the British
+forces in France have been engaged since the evening of Sept. 10:
+
+1. In the early morning of the 11th the further pursuit of the enemy was
+commenced, and the three corps crossed the Ourcq practically unopposed,
+the cavalry reaching the line of the Aisne River, the Third and Fifth
+Brigades south of Soissons, the First, Second and the Fourth on the high
+ground at Couvrelles and Cerseuil.
+
+On the afternoon of the 12th, from the opposition encountered by the
+Sixth French Army to the west of Soissons, by the Third Corps southeast
+of that place, by the Second Corps south of Missy and Vailly, and
+certain indications all along the line, I formed the opinion that the
+enemy had, for the moment at any rate, arrested his retreat and was
+preparing to dispute the passage of the Aisne with some vigor.
+
+South of Soissons the Germans were holding Mont de Paris against the
+attack of the right of the French Sixth Army when the Third Corps
+reached the neighborhood of Buzancy, southeast of that place. With the
+assistance of the artillery of the Third Corps the French drove them
+back across the river at Soissons, where they destroyed the bridges.
+
+The heavy artillery fire which was visible for several miles in a
+westerly direction in the valley of the Aisne showed that the Sixth
+French Army was meeting with strong opposition all along the line.
+
+On this day the cavalry under Gen. Allenby reached the neighborhood of
+Braine and did good work in clearing the town and the high ground beyond
+it of strong hostile detachments. The Queen's Bays are particularly
+mentioned by the General as having assisted greatly in the success of
+this operation. They were well supported by the Third Division, which on
+this night bivouacked at Brenelle, south of the river.
+
+The Fifth Division approached Missy, but were unable to make headway.
+
+The First Army Corps reached the neighborhood of Vauxcéré without much
+opposition.
+
+In this manner the battle of the Aisne commenced.
+
+2. The Aisne Valley runs generally east and west, and consists of a
+flat-bottomed depression of width varying from half a mile to two miles,
+down which the river follows a winding course to the west, at some
+points near the southern slopes of the valley and at others near the
+northern. The high ground both on the north and south of the river is
+approximately 400 feet above the bottom of the valley, and is very
+similar in character, as are both slopes of the valley itself, which are
+broken into numerous rounded spurs and re-entrants. The most prominent
+of the former are the Chivre spur on the right bank and Sermoise spur on
+the left. Near the latter place the general plateau, on the south is
+divided by a subsidiary valley of much the same character, down which
+the small River Vesle flows to the main stream near Sermoise. The slopes
+of the plateau overlooking the Aisne on the north and south are of
+varying steepness, and are covered with numerous patches of wood, which
+also stretch upward and backward over the edge on to the top of the high
+ground. There are several villages and small towns dotted about in the
+valley itself and along its sides, the chief of which is the town of
+Soissons.
+
+The Aisne is a sluggish stream of some 170 feet in breadth, but, being
+15 feet deep in the centre, it is unfordable. Between Soissons on the
+west and Villiers on the east (the part of the river attacked and
+secured by the British forces) there are eleven road bridges across it.
+On the north bank a narrow-gauge railway runs from Soissons to Vailly,
+where it crosses the river and continues eastward along the south bank.
+From Soissons to Sermoise a double line of railway runs along the south
+bank, turning at the latter place up the Vesle Valley toward Bazoches.
+
+The position held by the enemy is a very strong one, either for delaying
+action or for a defensive battle. One of its chief military
+characteristics is that from the high ground on neither side can the top
+of the plateau on the other side be seen, except for small stretches.
+This is chiefly due to the woods on the edges of the slopes. Another
+important point is that all the bridges are under direct or high-angle
+artillery fire.
+
+The tract of country above described, which lies north of the Aisne, is
+well adapted to concealment, and was so skillfully turned to account by
+the enemy as to render it impossible to judge the real nature of his
+opposition to our passage of the river or accurately to gauge his
+strength; but I have every reason to conclude that strong rearguards of
+at least three army corps were holding the passages on the early morning
+of the 13th.
+
+3. On that morning I ordered the British forces to advance and make good
+the Aisne.
+
+The First Corps and the cavalry advanced on the river. The First
+Division was directed on Chamouille via the canal bridge at Bourg, and
+the Second Division on Courteçon and Presles via Pont-Arcy, and on the
+canal to the north of Braye via Chavonne. On the right the cavalry and
+First Division met with slight opposition and found a passage by means
+of the canal, which crosses the river by an aqueduct. The division was
+therefore able to press on, supported by the cavalry division on its
+outer flank, driving back the enemy in front of it.
+
+On the left the leading troops of the Second Division reached the river
+by 9 o'clock. The Fifth Infantry Brigade were only enabled to cross, in
+single file and under considerable shell fire, by means of the broken
+girder of the bridge, which was not entirely submerged in the river. The
+construction of a pontoon bridge was at once undertaken, and was
+completed by 5 o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+On the extreme left the Fourth Guards Brigade met with severe opposition
+at Chavonne, and it was only late in the afternoon that it was able to
+establish a foothold on the northern bank of the river by ferrying one
+battalion across in boats.
+
+By nightfall the First Division occupied the area of
+Moulins-Paissy-Geny, with posts at the village of Vendresse.
+
+The Second Division bivouacked as a whole on the southern bank of the
+river, leaving only the Fifth Brigade on the north bank to establish a
+bridge-head.
+
+The Second Corps found all the bridges in front of them destroyed except
+that of Condé, which was in possession of the enemy, and remained so
+until the end of the battle.
+
+In the approach to Missy, where the Fifth Division eventually crossed,
+there is some open ground which was swept by a heavy fire from the
+opposite bank. The Thirteenth Brigade was therefore unable to advance;
+but the Fourteenth, which was directed to the east of Venizel at a less
+exposed point, was rafted across, and by night established itself with
+its left at St. Marguérite. They were followed by the Fifteenth Brigade;
+and later on both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth supported the Fourth
+Division on their left in repelling a heavy counter-attack on the Third
+Corps.
+
+On the morning of the 13th the Third Corps found the enemy had
+established himself in strength on the Vregny plateau. The road bridge
+at Venizel was repaired during the morning, and a reconnoissance was
+made with a view to throwing a pontoon bridge at Soissons.
+
+The Twelfth Infantry Brigade crossed at Venizel, and was assembled at
+Bucy le Long by 1 P.M., but the bridge was so far damaged that
+artillery could only be man-handled across it. Meanwhile the
+construction of a bridge was commenced close to the road bridge at
+Venizel.
+
+At 2 P.M. the Twelfth Infantry Brigade attacked in the direction of
+Chivres and Vregny with the object of securing the high ground east of
+Chivres, as a necessary preliminary to a further advance northward. This
+attack made good progress, but at 5:30 P.M. the enemy's artillery and
+machine gun fire from the direction of Vregny became so severe that no
+further advance could be made. The positions reached were held till
+dark.
+
+The pontoon bridge at Venizel was completed at 5:30 P.M., when the Tenth
+Infantry Brigade crossed the river and moved to Bucy le Long.
+
+The Nineteenth Infantry Brigade moved to Billy-sur-Aisne, and before
+dark all the artillery of the division had crossed the river, with the
+exception of the heavy battery and one brigade of field artillery.
+
+During the night the positions gained by the Twelfth Infantry Brigade to
+the east of the stream running through Chivres were handed over to the
+Fifth Division.
+
+The section of the bridging train allotted to the Third Corps began to
+arrive in the neighborhood of Soissons late in the afternoon, when an
+attempt to throw a heavy pontoon bridge at Soissons had to be abandoned,
+owing to the fire of the enemy's heavy howitzers.
+
+In the evening the enemy retired at all points and intrenched himself on
+the high ground about two miles north of the river, along which runs the
+Chemin-des-Dames. Detachments of infantry, however, strongly intrenched
+in commanding points down slopes of the various spurs, were left in
+front of all three corps with powerful artillery in support of them.
+
+During the night of the 13th and on the 14th and following days the
+field companies were incessantly at work night and day. Eight pontoon
+bridges and one foot bridge were thrown across the river under
+generally very heavy artillery fire, which was incessantly kept up on to
+most of the crossings after completion. Three of the road bridges, i.e.,
+Venizel, Missy, and Vailly, and the railway bridge east of Vailly, were
+temporarily repaired so as to take foot traffic, and the Villiers Bridge
+made fit to carry weights up to six tons.
+
+Preparations were also made for the repair of the Missy, Vailly and
+Bourg bridges so as to take mechanical transport.
+
+The weather was very wet and added to the difficulties by cutting up the
+already indifferent approaches, entailing a large amount of work to
+repair and improve.
+
+The operations of the field companies during this most trying time are
+worthy of the best traditions of the Royal Engineers.
+
+4. On the evening of the 14th it was still impossible to decide whether
+the enemy was only making a temporary halt, covered by rearguards, or
+whether he intended to stand and defend the position.
+
+With a view to clearing up the situation I ordered a general advance.
+
+The action of the First Corps on this day under the direction and
+command of Sir Douglas Haig was of so skillful, bold, and decisive a
+character that he gained positions which alone have enabled me to
+maintain my position for more than three weeks of very severe fighting
+on the north bank of the river.
+
+The corps was directed to cross the line Moulins-Moussy by 7 A.M.
+
+On the right the General Officer commanding the First Division directed
+the Second Infantry Brigade (which was in billets and bivouacked about
+Moulins), and the Twenty-fifth Artillery Brigade (less one battery),
+under Gen. Bulfin, to move forward before daybreak, in order to protect
+the advance of the division sent up the valley to Vendresse. An
+officer's patrol sent out by this brigade reported a considerable force
+of the enemy near the factory north of Troyon, and the Brigadier
+accordingly directed two regiments (the King's Royal Rifles and the
+Royal Sussex Regiment) to move at 3 A.M. The Northamptonshire Regiment
+was ordered to move at 4 A.M. to occupy the spur east of Troyon. The
+remaining regiment of the brigade (the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment)
+moved at 5:30 A.M. to the village of Vendresse. The factory was found to
+be held in considerable strength by the enemy, and the Brigadier ordered
+the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment to support the King's Royal Rifles
+and the Sussex Regiment. Even with this support the force was unable to
+make headway, and on the arrival of the First Brigade the Coldstream
+Guards were moved up to support the right of the leading brigade (the
+Second), while the remainder of the First Brigade supported its left.
+
+[Illustration: Map 8.--Sept. 10 to 12. Showing the Germans' headlong
+retreat to their intrenched positions beyond the Aisne.]
+
+About noon the situation was, roughly, that the whole of these two
+brigades were extended along a line running east and west, north of the
+line Troyon and south of the Chemin-des-Dames. A party of the Loyal
+North Lancashire Regiment had seized and were holding the factory. The
+enemy had a line of intrenchments north and east of the factory in
+considerable strength, and every effort to advance against this line was
+driven back by heavy shell and machine-gun fire. The morning was wet and
+a heavy mist hung over the hills, so that the Twenty-fifth Artillery
+Brigade and the divisional artillery were unable to render effective
+support to the advanced troops until about 9 o'clock.
+
+By 10 o'clock the Third Infantry Brigade had reached a point one mile
+south of Vendresse, and from there it was ordered to continue the line
+of the First Brigade and to connect with and help the right of the
+Second Division. A strong hostile column was found to be advancing, and
+by a vigorous counterstroke with two of his battalions the Brigadier
+checked the advance of this column and relieved the pressure on the
+Second Division. From this period until late in the afternoon the
+fighting consisted of a series of attacks and counter-attacks. The
+counter-strokers by the enemy were delivered at first with great vigor,
+but later on they decreased in strength, and all were driven off with
+heavy loss.
+
+On the left the Sixth Infantry Brigade had been ordered to cross the
+river and to pass through the line held during the preceding night by
+the Fifth Infantry Brigade and occupy the Courteçon Ridge, while a
+detached force, consisting of the Fourth Guards Brigade and the
+Thirty-sixth Brigade Royal Field Artillery, under Brig. Gen. Perceval,
+were ordered to proceed to a point east of the village of Ostel.
+
+The Sixth Infantry Brigade crossed the river at Pont-Arcy, moved up the
+valley toward Braye, and at 9 A.M. had reached the line
+Tilleul-La-Buvelle. On the line they came under heavy artillery and
+rifle fire, and were unable to advance until supported by the
+Thirty-fourth Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, and the Forty-fourth
+Howitzer Brigade and the Heavy Artillery.
+
+The Fourth Guards Brigade crossed the river at 10 A.M. and met with very
+heavy opposition. It had to pass through dense woods; field artillery
+support was difficult to obtain; but one section of a field battery
+pushed up to and within the firing line. At 1 P.M. the left of the
+brigade was south of the Ostel Ridge.
+
+At this period of the action the enemy obtained a footing between the
+First and Second Corps, and threatened to cut the communications of the
+latter.
+
+Sir Douglas Haig was very hardly pressed and had no reserve in hand. I
+placed the cavalry division at his disposal, part of which he skillfully
+used to prolong and secure the left flank of the Guards Brigade. Some
+heavy fighting ensued, which resulted in the enemy being driven back
+with heavy loss.
+
+About 4 o'clock the weakening of the counter-attacks by the enemy and
+other indications tended to show that his resistance was decreasing, and
+a general advance was ordered by the army corps commander. Although
+meeting with considerable opposition and coming under very heavy
+artillery and rifle fire, the position of the corps at the end of the
+day's operations extended from the Chemin-des-Dames on the right,
+through Chivy, to Le Cour de Soupir, with the First Cavalry Brigade
+extending to the Chavonne-Soissons road.
+
+[Illustration: Map 9.--Sept. 13 and 14. Passage of the Aisne, when
+bridges were constructed under great difficulties.]
+
+On the right the corps was in close touch with the French Moroccan
+troops of the Eighteenth Corps, which were intrenched in echelon to its
+right rear. During the night they intrenched this position.
+
+Throughout the battle of the Aisne this advanced and commanding position
+was maintained, and I cannot speak too highly of the valuable services
+rendered by Sir Douglas Haig and the army corps under his command. Day
+after day and night after night the enemy's infantry has been hurled
+against him in violent counter-attack, which has never on any one
+occasion succeeded, while the trenches all over his position have been
+under continuous heavy artillery fire.
+
+The operations of the First Corps on this day resulted in the capture of
+several hundred prisoners, some field pieces and machine guns.
+
+The casualties were very severe, one brigade alone losing three of its
+four Colonels.
+
+The Third Division commenced a further advance, and had nearly reached
+the plateau of Aizy when they were driven back by a powerful
+counter-attack supported by heavy artillery. The division, however, fell
+back in the best order, and finally intrenched itself about a mile north
+of Vailly Bridge, effectively covering the passage.
+
+The Fourth and Fifth Divisions were unable to do more than maintain
+their ground.
+
+5. On the morning of the 15th, after close examination of the position,
+it became clear to me that the enemy was making a determined stand; and
+this view was confirmed by reports which reached me from the French
+armies fighting on my right and left, which clearly showed that a
+strongly intrenched line of defense was being taken up from the north of
+Compiègne, eastward and southeastward, along the whole Valley of the
+Aisne up to and beyond Rheims.
+
+A few days previously the Fortress of Maubeuge fell, and a considerable
+quantity of siege artillery was brought down from that place to
+strengthen the enemy's position in front of us.
+
+During the 15th shells fell in our position which have been judged by
+experts to be thrown by eight-inch siege guns with a range of 10,000
+yards. Throughout the whole course of the battle our troops have
+suffered very heavily from this fire, although its effect latterly was
+largely mitigated by more efficient and thorough intrenching, the
+necessity for which I impressed strongly upon army corps commanders. In
+order to assist them in this work all villages within the area of our
+occupation were searched for heavy intrenching tools, a large number of
+which were collected.
+
+In view of the peculiar formation of the ground on the north side of the
+river between Missy and Soissons, and its extraordinary adaptability to
+a force on the defensive, the Fifth Division found it impossible to
+maintain its position on the southern edge of the Chivres Plateau, as
+the enemy in possession of the Village of Vregny to the west was able to
+bring a flank fire to bear upon it. The division had, therefore, to
+retire to a line the left of which was at the village of Marguérite, and
+thence ran by the north edge of Missy back to the river to the east of
+that place.
+
+With great skill and tenacity Sir Charles Fergusson maintained this
+position throughout the whole battle, although his trenches were
+necessarily on lower ground than that occupied by the enemy on the
+southern edge of the plateau, which was only 400 yards away.
+
+Gen. Hamilton with the Third Division vigorously attacked to the north,
+and regained all the ground he had lost on the 15th, which throughout
+the battle has formed a most powerful and effective bridge-head.
+
+6. On the 16th the Sixth Division came up into line.
+
+It had been my intention to direct the First Corps to attack and seize
+the enemy's position on the Chemin-des-Dames, supporting it with this
+new reinforcement. I hoped, from the position thus gained, to bring
+effective fire to bear across the front of the Third Division, which,
+by securing the advance of the latter, would also take the pressure off
+the Fifth Division and the Third Corps.
+
+But any further advance of the First Corps would have dangerously
+exposed my right flank. And, further, I learned from the French
+Commander in Chief that he was strongly reinforcing the Sixth French
+Army on my left, with the intention of bringing up the allied left to
+attack the enemy's flank, and thus compel his retirement. I therefore
+sent the Sixth Division to join the Third Corps, with orders to keep it
+on the south side of the river, as it might be available in general
+reserve.
+
+On the 17th, 18th, and 19th the whole of our line was heavily bombarded,
+and the First Corps was constantly and heavily engaged. On the afternoon
+of the 17th the right flank of the First Division was seriously
+threatened. A counter-attack was made by the Northamptonshire Regiment
+in combination with the Queen's, and one battalion of the Divisional
+Reserve was moved up in support. The Northamptonshire Regiment, under
+cover of mist, crept up to within a hundred yards of the enemy's
+trenches and charged with the bayonet, driving them out of the trenches
+and up the hill. A very strong force of hostile infantry was then
+disclosed on the crest line. This new line was enfiladed by part of the
+Queen's and the King's Royal Rifles, which wheeled to their left on the
+extreme right of our infantry line, and were supported by a squadron of
+cavalry on their outer flank. The enemy's attack was ultimately driven
+back with heavy loss.
+
+On the 18th, during the night, the Gloucestershire Regiment advanced
+from their position near Chivy, filled in the enemy's trenches, and
+captured two Maxim guns.
+
+On the extreme right the Queen's were heavily attacked, but the enemy
+was repulsed with great loss. About midnight the attack was renewed on
+the First Division, supported by artillery fire, but was again
+repulsed.
+
+Shortly after midnight an attack was made on the left of the Second
+Division with considerable force, which was also thrown back.
+
+At about 1 P.M. on the 19th the Second Division drove back a heavy
+infantry attack strongly supported by artillery fire. At dusk the attack
+was renewed and again repulsed.
+
+On the 18th I discussed with the General Officer commanding the Second
+Army Corps and his divisional commanders the possibility of driving the
+enemy out of Condé, which lay between his two divisions, and seizing the
+bridge, which has remained throughout in his possession.
+
+As, however, I found that the bridge was closely commanded from all
+points on the south side, and that satisfactory arrangements were made
+to prevent any issue from it by the enemy by day or night, I decided
+that it was not necessary to incur the losses which an attack would
+entail, as, in view of the position of the Second and Third Corps, the
+enemy could make no use of Condé, and would be automatically forced out
+of it by any advance which might become possible for us.
+
+7. On this day information reached me from Gen. Joffre that he had found
+it necessary to make a new plan and to attack and envelop the German
+right flank.
+
+It was now evident to me that the battle in which we had been engaged
+since the 12th inst. must last some days longer, until the effect of
+this new flank movement could be felt and a way opened to drive the
+enemy from his positions.
+
+It thus became essential to establish some system of regular relief in
+the trenches, and I have used the infantry of the Sixth Division for
+this purpose with good results. The relieved brigades were brought back
+alternately south of the river and, with the artillery of the Sixth
+Division, formed a general reserve on which I could rely in case of
+necessity.
+
+The cavalry has rendered most efficient and ready help in the trenches,
+and have done all they possibly could to lighten the arduous and trying
+task which has of necessity fallen to the lot of the infantry.
+
+On the evening of the 19th and throughout the 20th the enemy again
+commenced to show considerable activity. On the former night a severe
+counter-attack on the Third Division was repulsed with considerable
+loss, and from early on Sunday morning various hostile attempts were
+made on the trenches of the First Division. During the day the enemy
+suffered another severe repulse in front of the Second Division, losing
+heavily in the attempt. In the course of the afternoon the enemy made
+desperate attempts against the trenches all along the front of the First
+Corps, but with similar results.
+
+After dark the enemy again attacked the Second Division, only to be
+again driven back.
+
+Our losses on these two days were considerable, but the number, as
+obtained, of the enemy's killed and wounded vastly exceeded them.
+
+As the troops of the First Army Corps were much exhausted by this
+continual fighting, I reinforced Sir Douglas Haig with a brigade from
+the reserve, and called upon the First Cavalry Division to assist them.
+
+On the night of the 21st another violent counter-attack was repulsed by
+the Third Division, the enemy losing heavily.
+
+On the 23d the four 6-inch howitzer batteries, which I had asked to be
+sent from home, arrived. Two batteries were handed over to the Second
+Corps and two to the First Corps. They were brought into action on the
+24th with very good results.
+
+Our experiences in this campaign seem to point to the employment of more
+heavy guns of a larger calibre in great battles which last for several
+days, during which time powerful intrenching work on both sides can be
+carried out. These batteries were used with considerable effect on the
+24th and the following days.
+
+8. On the 23d the action of Gen. de Castelnau's army on the allied left
+developed considerably, and apparently withdrew considerable forces of
+the enemy away from the centre and east. I am not aware whether it was
+due to this cause or not, but until the 26th it appeared as though the
+enemy's opposition in our front was weakening. On that day, however, a
+very marked renewal of activity commenced. A constant and vigorous
+artillery bombardment was maintained all day, and the Germans in front
+of the First Division were observed to be "sapping" up to our lines and
+trying to establish new trenches. Renewed counter-attacks were delivered
+and beaten off during the course of the day, and in the afternoon a
+well-timed attack by the First Division stopped the enemy's intrenching
+work.
+
+During the night of the 27th-28th the enemy again made the most
+determined attempts to capture the trenches of the First Division, but
+without the slightest success.
+
+Similar attacks were reported during these three days all along the line
+of the allied front, and it is certain that the enemy then made one last
+great effort to establish ascendency. He was, however, unsuccessful
+everywhere, and is reported to have suffered heavy losses. The same
+futile attempts were made all along our front up to the evening of the
+28th, when they died away, and have not since been renewed.
+
+On former occasions I have brought to your Lordship's notice the
+valuable services performed during this campaign by the Royal Artillery.
+
+Throughout the battle of the Aisne they have displayed the same skill,
+endurance, and tenacity, and I deeply appreciate the work they have
+done.
+
+Sir David Henderson and the Royal Flying Corps under his command have
+again proved their incalculable value. Great strides have been made in
+the development of the use of aircraft in the tactical sphere by
+establishing effective communication between aircraft and units in
+action.
+
+It is difficult to describe adequately and accurately the great strain
+to which officers and men were subjected almost every hour of the day
+and night throughout this battle.
+
+[Illustration: Map 10.--Sept. 15 to 28. This map shows the intrenched
+positions of the Germans, many of which the Allies took with great loss
+to the Germans.]
+
+I have described above the severe character of the artillery fire which
+was directed from morning till night not only upon the trenches, but
+over the whole surface of the ground occupied by our forces. It was not
+until a few days before the position was evacuated that the heavy guns
+were removed and the fire slackened. Attack and counter-attack occurred
+at all hours of the night and day throughout the whole position,
+demanding extreme vigilance, and permitting only a minimum of rest.
+
+The fact that between Sept. 12 to the date of this dispatch the total
+numbers of killed, wounded, and missing reached the figures amounting to
+561 officers, 12,980 men, proves the severity of the struggle.
+
+The tax on the endurance of the troops was further increased by the
+heavy rain and cold which prevailed for some ten or twelve days of this
+trying time.
+
+The battle of the Aisne has once more demonstrated the splendid spirit,
+gallantry, and devotion which animates the officers and men of his
+Majesty's forces.
+
+With reference to the last paragraph of my dispatch of Sept. 7, I append
+the names of officers, non-commissioned officers, and men brought
+forward for special mention by army corps commanders and heads of
+departments for services rendered from the commencement of the campaign
+up to the present date.
+
+I entirely agree with these recommendations and beg to submit them for
+your Lordship's consideration.
+
+I further wish to bring forward the names of the following officers who
+have rendered valuable service: Gen. Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien and Lieut.
+Gen. Sir Douglas Haig (commanding First and Second Corps, respectively)
+I have already mentioned in the present and former dispatches for
+particularly marked and distinguished service in critical situations.
+
+Since the commencement of the campaign they have carried out all my
+orders [Transcriber: original 'orders.'] and instructions with the
+utmost ability.
+
+Lieut. Gen. W.P. Pulteney took over the command of the Third Corps just
+before the commencement of the battle of the Marne. Throughout the
+subsequent operations he showed himself to be a most capable commander
+in the field, and has rendered very valuable services.
+
+Major Gen. E.H.H. Allenby and Major Gen. H. De La P. Gough have proved
+themselves to be cavalry leaders of a high order, and I am deeply
+indebted to them. The undoubted moral superiority which our cavalry has
+obtained over that of the enemy has been due to the skill with which
+they have turned to the best account the qualities inherent in the
+splendid troops they command.
+
+In my dispatch of the 7th September I mentioned the name of Brig. Gen.
+Sir David Henderson and his valuable work in command of the Royal Flying
+Corps; and I have once more to express my deep appreciation of the help
+he has since rendered me.
+
+Lieut. Gen. Sir Archibald Murray has continued to render me invaluable
+help as Chief of the Staff; and in his arduous and responsible duties he
+has been ably assisted by Major Gen. Henry Wilson, Sub-Chief.
+
+Lieut. Gen. Sir Nevil Macready and Lieut. Gen. Sir William Robertson
+have continued to perform excellent service as Adjutant General and
+Quartermaster General, respectively.
+
+The Director of Army Signals, Lieut. Col. J.S. Fowler, has materially
+assisted the operations by the skill and energy which he has displayed
+in the working of the important department over which he presides.
+
+My Military Secretary, Brig. Gen. the Hon. W. Lambton, has performed his
+arduous and difficult duties with much zeal and great efficiency.
+
+I am anxious also to bring to your Lordship's notice the following names
+of officers of my personal staff, who throughout these arduous
+operations have shown untiring zeal and energy in the performance of
+their duties:
+
+    _Aides de Camp._
+
+    Lieut. Col. Stanley Barry.
+    Lieut. Col. Lord Brooke.
+    Major Fitzgerald Watt.
+
+    _Extra Aide de Camp._
+
+    Capt. the Hon. F.E. Guest.
+
+    _Private Secretary._
+
+    Lieut. Col. Brindsley Fitzgerald.
+
+Major his Royal Highness Prince Arthur of Connaught, K.G., joined my
+staff as Aide de Camp on the 14th September.
+
+His Royal Highness's intimate knowledge of languages enabled me to
+employ him with great advantage on confidential missions of some
+importance, and his services have proved of considerable value.
+
+I cannot close this dispatch without informing your Lordship of the
+valuable services rendered by the Chief of the French Military Mission
+at my headquarters, Col. Victor Huguet of the French Artillery. He has
+displayed tact and judgment of a high order in many difficult
+situations, and has rendered conspicuous service to the allied cause. I
+have the honor to be, your Lordship's most obedient servant,
+
+J.D.P. French, Field Marshal,
+_Commanding in Chief the British Army in the Field._
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+*The Battle in Flanders.*
+
+[Official Abstract of Report for The Associated Press.]
+
+
+LONDON, Nov. 29.--A report from Field Marshal Sir John French covering
+the period of the battle in Flanders and the days immediately preceding
+it, issued today by the Official Press Bureau, shows that this battle
+was brought about, first, by the Allies' attempts to outflank the
+Germans, who countered, and then by the Allies' plans to move to the
+northeast to Ghent and Bruges, which also failed. After this the German
+offensive began, with the French coast ports as the objective, but this
+movement, like those of the Allies, met with failure.
+
+The Field Marshal, doubtless in response to the demands of the British
+public, tells what the various units of the expeditionary force have
+been doing--those that failed and were cut off and those who against
+superior numbers held the trenches for a month. He gives it as his
+opinion that the German losses have been thrice as great as those of the
+Allies, and speaks optimistically of the future.
+
+The report covers in a general way the activities of the British troops
+from Oct. 11 to Nov. 20.
+
+Summing up the situation in concluding his report, the Field Marshal
+says:
+
+"As I close this dispatch, signs are in evidence that we are possibly in
+the last stages of the battle from Ypres to Armentières. For several
+days past the artillery fire of the enemy has slackened considerably,
+and his infantry attacks have practically ceased."
+
+Discussing the general military situation of the Allies, as it appears
+to him at the time of writing, Sir John says:
+
+"It does not seem to be clearly understood that the operations in which
+we have been engaged embrace nearly all of the central part of the
+Continent of Europe, from the east to the west. The combined French,
+Belgian, and British Armies in the west and the Russian Army in the east
+are opposed to the united forces of Germany and Austria, acting as
+combined armies between us.
+
+"Our enemies elected at the commencement of the war to throw the weight
+of their forces against our armies in the west and to detach only a
+comparatively weak force, composed of very few of the first line troops
+and several corps of second and third line troops, to stem the Russian
+advance until the western forces could be defeated and overwhelmed.
+Their strength enabled them from the outset to throw greatly superior
+forces against us in the west. This precludes the possibility of our
+taking vigorous offensive action except when miscalculations and
+mistakes are made by their commanders, opening up special opportunities
+for successful attacks and pursuit.
+
+"The battle of the Marne was an example of this, as was also our advance
+from St. Omer and Hazebrouck to the line of the River Lys at the
+commencement of this battle. The rôle which our armies in the west have
+consequently been called upon to fulfill has been to occupy strong
+defensive positions, holding ground gained and inviting the enemy's
+attack, and to throw back these attacks, causing the enemy heavy losses
+in his retreat and following him up with powerful and successful
+counter-attacks to complete his discomfiture.
+
+"The value and significance of operations of this nature since the
+commencement of hostilities by the Allies' forces in the west lie in the
+fact that at the moment when the eastern provinces of Germany are in
+imminent danger of being overrun by the numerous and powerful armies of
+Russia, nearly the whole active army of Germany is tied down to a line
+of trenches extending from Verdun, on the Alsatian frontier, to the sea
+at Nieuport, east of Dunkirk, a distance of 260 miles, where they are
+held, with much reduced numbers and impaired morale, by the successful
+action of our troops in the west.
+
+"I cannot speak too highly of the services rendered by the Royal
+Artillery throughout the battle. In spite of the fact that the enemy
+brought up in support of his attacks guns of great range and shell
+power, our men have succeeded throughout in preventing the enemy from
+establishing anything in the nature of superiority in artillery. The
+skill, courage, and energy displayed by the commanders of the Royal
+Artillery have been very marked. The Royal Engineers have been
+indefatigable in their efforts to assist the infantry in field,
+fortification, and trench work.
+
+"I deeply regret the heavy casualties which we have suffered, but the
+nature of the fighting has been very desperate, and we have been
+assailed by vastly superior numbers. I have every reason to know that
+throughout the course of the battle we have placed at least three times
+as many of the enemy hors de combat in dead, wounded and prisoners.
+
+"Throughout these operations Gen. Foch has strained his resources to the
+utmost to afford me all the support he could. An expression of my warm
+gratitude is also due to Gen. Dubail, commanding the Eighth French Army
+Corps on my left, and to Gen. de Maud'huy, commanding the Tenth Army
+Corps on my right."
+
+Discussing the details of the engagement from Ypres to Armentières,
+Field Marshal Sir John French explains that he was impressed early in
+October with the necessity of giving the greatest possible support to
+the northern flank of the Allies in the effort to outflank the Germans
+and compel them to evacuate their positions. He says that the situation
+on the Aisne warranted the withdrawal of British troops from positions
+they held there, as the enemy had been weakened by continual attacks and
+the fortifications of the Allies much improved.
+
+The Field Marshal made known his view to Gen. Joffre, who agreed with
+it. The French General Staff arranged for the withdrawal of the British,
+which began on Oct. 3 and was completed on Oct. 19, when the First Army
+Corps, under Gen. Sir Douglas Haig detrained at St. Omer.
+
+The general plan, as arranged by Field Marshal French and Gen. Foch,
+commanding the French troops to the north of Noyon, was that the English
+should pivot on the French at Bethune, attacking the Germans on their
+flank and forcing their way north. In the event that the British forced
+the Germans out of their positions, making possible a forward movement
+of the Allies, the French and British were to march east, with Lille as
+the dividing line between the two armies, the English right being
+directed on Lille.
+
+The battle which forms the chief feature of Gen. French's report really
+began on Oct. 11, when Major Gen. Gough of the Second British Cavalry
+Brigade, first came in contact with German cavalry in the woods along
+the Bethune-Aire Canal. The English cavalry moved toward Hazebrouck,
+clearing the way for two army corps, which advanced rapidly in a
+northeasterly direction. For several days the progress of the British
+was only slightly interrupted, except at La Bassée, a high position,
+which Field Marshal French mentions as having stubbornly resisted.
+
+Field Marshal French says the Second Corps, under Gen. Smith-Dorrien,
+was opposed by overpowering forces of Germans, but nevertheless advanced
+until Oct. 18, when the German opposition compelled a reinforcement. Six
+days later the Lahore Division of the Indian army was sent to support
+the Second Corps.
+
+On Oct. 16 Sir Henry Rawlinson, who had covered the retreat of the
+Belgian army from Antwerp with two divisions of English cavalry and two
+divisions of French infantry, was stationed on the line east of Ypres
+under orders to operate over a wide front and to keep possession of all
+the ground held by the Allies until the First Army Corps could reach
+Ypres.
+
+Gen. Rawlinson was opposed by superior forces and was unable to prevent
+the Germans from getting large reinforcements. With four army corps
+holding a much wider front than their size justified, Field Marshal
+French says he faced a stubborn situation. The enemy was massed from the
+Lys, and there was imperative need for a strengthened line.
+
+However, the Field Marshal decided to send the First Corps north of
+Ypres to stop the reinforcements which might enable the Germans to flank
+the Allies. The shattered Belgian army and the wearied French troops'
+endeavors to check the German reinforcements were powerless, so the
+British commander sent fresh troops to prevent the Germans from
+executing movements which would have given them access to Channel ports.
+
+Sir Douglas Haig, with the First Army Corps, was sent Oct. 19 to capture
+Bruges and drive the enemy back toward Ghent, if possible. Meantime the
+Belgians intrenched themselves along the Ypres Canal. Sir John French
+commends the valor of the Belgians, who, he says, exhausted by weeks of
+constant fighting, maintained these positions gallantly.
+
+Because of the overwhelming numbers of the Germans opposing them, he
+says he enjoined a defensive rôle upon the three army corps located
+south of Ypres. While Gen. Haig made a slight advance, Sir John says it
+was wonderful that he was able to advance at all, owing to the bad roads
+and the overwhelming number of Germans, which made it impossible to
+carry out the original plan of moving to Bruges.
+
+The fighting gradually developed into bayonet charges. Field Marshal
+French says that Oct. 21 brought forth the hardest attack, made on the
+First Corps at Ypres, in the checking of which the Worcestershire
+Regiment displayed great gallantry. This day marked the most critical
+period in the great battle, according to the Commander in Chief, who
+says the recapture of the village of Gheluvelt through a rally of the
+Worcestershires was fraught with much consequence to the Allies.
+
+After referring to some of the battles in which the Indian troops took
+part, Field Marshal French says:
+
+"Since their arrival in this country and their occupation of the line
+allotted to them I have been much impressed by the initiative and
+resource displayed by the Indian troops. Some of the ruses they have
+employed to deceive the enemy have been attended with the best results
+and have doubtless kept the superior forces in front of them at bay. Our
+Indian sappers and miners have long enjoyed a high reputation for skill
+and resource. Without going into detail I can confidently assert that
+throughout their work in this campaign they have fully justified that
+reputation.
+
+"The General officer commanding the Indian army describes the conduct
+and bearing of these troops in strange and new surroundings to have been
+highly satisfactory, and I am enabled from my own observations to fully
+corroborate this statement."
+
+Sir John French goes on to say that, while the whole line continued to
+be heavily pressed, the Germans' efforts from Nov. 1 have been
+concentrated upon breaking through the line held by the First British
+and the Ninth French Corps and thus gaining possession of the town of
+Ypres. Three Bavarian and one German corps, in addition to other troops,
+were all directed against this northern line.
+
+About Nov. 10, after several units of these corps had been completely
+shattered in futile attacks, the Field Marshal continues, a division of
+the Prussian Guard, which had been operating in the vicinity of Arras,
+was moved up to this area with great speed and secrecy. Documents found
+on dead officers, the report says, proved that the Guard received the
+German Emperor's special command to break through and succeed where
+their comrades of the line had failed. They took the leading part in the
+vigorous attacks made against the centre on the 11th and 12th, says
+Field Marshal French, but, like their comrades, were repulsed with
+enormous casualties.
+
+He pays high tribute to Sir Douglas Haig and his divisional and brigade
+commanders, who, he says, "held the line with marvelous tenacity and
+undaunted courage." The Field Marshal predicts that "their deeds during
+these days of stress and trial will furnish some of the most brilliant
+chapters which will be found in the military history of our time."
+
+High praise is also given the Third Cavalry Division under Major Gen.
+Julian Byng, whose troops "were repeatedly called upon to restore
+situations at critical points and fill gaps in the line caused by the
+tremendous losses which occurred."
+
+The Commander in Chief makes special mention of Col. Gordon Chesney
+Wilson of the Royal Horse Guards, Major the Hon. Hugh Dawnay of the
+Second Life Guards, and Brig. Gen. FitzClarence of the Irish Guards, who
+were killed, and of Brig. Gen. the Earl of Cavan, who "on many occasions
+was conspicuous for the skill, coolness, and courage with which he led
+his troops."
+
+Of the Flying Corps the report says:
+
+"Every day new methods of employing them, both strategically and
+tactically, are discovered and put into practice."
+
+Concerning the Territorials who have been employed, the Field Marshal
+says the conduct and bearing of these units under fire and the efficient
+manner in which they have carried out the duties assigned to them "has
+imbued me with the highest hope as to the value and the help of the
+Territorial troops generally."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+*Story of the "Eye-Witness"*
+
+*By Col. E.D. Swinton of the Intelligence Department of the British
+General Staff.*
+
+     _From the beginning of the war world-wide attention has been
+     attracted to the reports issued from time to time as coming from
+     "an eye-witness at British General Headquarters." At first these
+     reports were erroneously ascribed to Marshal French himself, and
+     resulted in much admiring comment on his vivid and graphic way of
+     reporting. Later it became known that they were the work of Col.
+     Swinton, who was attached to Gen. French's headquarters in the
+     capacity of "official observer."_
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+*The Battle of the Aisne Begins*
+
+[By the "Official Observer," Col. E.D. Swinton.]
+
+
+General Headquarters,
+Sept. 18, 1914.
+
+Sept. 14, the Germans were making a determined resistance along the
+River Aisne. Opposition, which it was at first thought might possibly be
+of a rear-guard nature, not entailing material delay to our progress,
+has developed and has proved to be more serious than was anticipated.
+
+The action, now being fought by the Germans along their line, may, it is
+true, have been undertaken in order to gain time for some strategic
+operation or move, and may not be their main stand. But, if this is so,
+the fighting is naturally on a scale which as to extent of ground
+covered and duration of resistance, makes it undistinguishable in its
+progress from what is known as a "pitched battle," though the enemy
+certainly showed signs of considerable disorganization during the
+earlier days of their retirement phase.
+
+Whether it was originally intended by them to defend the position they
+took up as strenuously as they have done, or whether the delay, gained
+for them during the 12th and 13th by their artillery, has enabled them
+to develop their resistance and force their line to an extent not
+originally contemplated cannot yet be said.
+
+So far as we are concerned the action still being contested is the
+battle of the Aisne. The foe we are fighting is just across the river
+along the whole of our front to the east and west. The struggle is not
+confined to the valley of that river, though it will probably bear its
+name.
+
+The progress of our operations and the French armies nearest us for the
+14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th will now be described:
+
+On Monday, the 14th, those of our troops which had on the previous day
+crossed the Aisne, after driving in the German rear guards on that
+evening, found portions of the enemy's forces in prepared defensive
+positions on the right bank and could do little more than secure a
+footing north of the river. This, however, they maintained in spite of
+two counter-attacks delivered at dusk and 10 P.M., in which the fighting
+was severe.
+
+During the 14th, strong reinforcements of our troops were passed to the
+north bank, the troops crossing by ferry, by pontoon bridges, and by the
+remains of permanent bridges. Close co-operation with the French forces
+was maintained and the general progress made was good, although the
+opposition was vigorous and the state of the roads, after the heavy
+rains, made movements slow. One division alone failed to secure the
+ground it expected to.
+
+The First Army Corps, after repulsing repeated attacks, captured 600
+prisoners and twelve guns. The cavalry also took a number of prisoners.
+Many of the Germans taken belong to the reserve and Landwehr formations,
+which fact appears to indicate that the enemy is compelled to draw on
+other classes of soldiers to fill the gaps in his ranks.
+
+There was a heavy rain throughout the night of Sept. 14-15, and during
+the 15th. The situation of the British forces underwent no essential
+change. But it became more and more evident that the defensive
+preparations made by the enemy were more extensive than was at first
+apparent.
+
+In order to counterbalance these measures were taken by us to economize
+our troops and to secure protection from the hostile artillery fire,
+which was very fierce, and our men continued to improve their own
+intrenchments. The Germans bombarded our lines nearly all day, using
+heavy guns, brought, no doubt, from before Maubeuge, as well as those
+with the corps.
+
+All their counter attacks, however, failed, although in some places they
+were repeated six times. One made on the Fourth Guards Brigade was
+repulsed with heavy slaughter.
+
+An attempt to advance slightly, made by part of our line, was
+unsuccessful as regards gain of ground, but led to the withdrawal of
+part of the enemy's infantry and artillery.
+
+Further counter attacks made during the night were beaten off. Rain came
+on toward evening and continued intermittently until 9 A.M. on the 16th.
+Besides adding to the discomfort of the soldiers holding the line, the
+wet weather to some extent hampered the motor transport service, which
+was also hindered by broken bridges.
+
+On Wednesday, the 16th, there was little change in the situation
+opposite the British. The efforts made by the enemy were less active
+than on the previous day, although their bombardment continued
+throughout the morning and evening. Our artillery fire drove the
+defenders off one of the salients of their position, but they returned
+in the evening. Forty prisoners were taken by the Third Division.
+
+On Thursday, the 17th, the situation, still remained unchanged in its
+essentials. The German heavy artillery fire was more active than on the
+previous day. The only infantry attacks made by the enemy were on the
+extreme right of our position, and, as had happened before, were
+repulsed with heavy loss, chiefly, on this occasion, by our field
+artillery.
+
+In order to convey some idea of the nature of the fighting it may be
+said that along the greater part of our front the Germans have been
+driven back from the forward slopes on the north of the river. Their
+infantry are holding strong lines of trenches among and along the edge
+of the numerous woods which crown the slopes. These trenches are
+elaborately constructed and cleverly concealed. In many places there are
+wire entanglements and lengths of rabbit fencing.
+
+Both woods and open are carefully aligned, so that they can be swept by
+rifle fire and machine guns, which are invisible from our side of the
+valley. The ground in front of the infantry trenches is also, as a rule,
+under crossfire from the field artillery placed on neighboring features
+and under high-angle fire from pieces placed well back behind the woods
+on top of the plateau.
+
+A feature of this action, as of the previous fighting, is the use by the
+enemy of their numerous heavy howitzers, with which they are able to
+direct long-range fire all over the valley and right across it. Upon
+these they evidently place great reliance.
+
+Where our men are holding the forked edges of the high ground on the
+north side they are now strongly intrenched. They are well fed, and in
+spite of the wet weather of the last week are cheerful and confident.
+
+The bombardment by both sides has been very heavy, and on Sunday,
+Monday and Tuesday was practically continuous. Nevertheless, in spite of
+the general din caused by the reports of the immense number of heavy
+guns in action along our front on Wednesday, the arrival of the French
+force acting against the German right flank was at once announced on the
+east of our front, some miles away, by the continuous roar of their
+quick-firing artillery, with which their attack was opened.
+
+So far as the British are concerned, the greater part of this week has
+been passed in bombardment, in gaining ground by degrees, and in beating
+back severe counter-attacks with heavy slaughter. Our casualties have
+been severe, but it is probable that those of the enemy are heavier.
+
+The rain has caused a great drop in the temperature, and there is more
+than a distinct feeling of Autumn in the air, especially in the early
+mornings.
+
+On our right and left the French have been fighting fiercely and have
+also been gradually gaining ground [Transcriber: original 'gronud']. One
+village has already during this battle been captured and re-captured
+twice by each side, and at the time of writing remains in the hands of
+the Germans.
+
+The fighting has been at close quarters and of the most desperate
+nature, and the streets of the village are filled with dead on both
+sides.
+
+As an example of the spirit which is inspiring our allies, the following
+translation of an ordre du jour, published on Sept. 9 after the battle
+of Montmirail by the commander of the French Fifth Army, is given:
+
+     Soldiers: Upon the memorable fields of Montmirail, of Vauchamps, of
+     Champaubert, which a century ago witnessed the victories of our
+     ancestors over Blucher's Prussians, your vigorous offensive has
+     triumphed over the resistance of the Germans. Held on his flanks,
+     his centre broken, the enemy is now retreating toward the east and
+     north by forced marches. The most renowned army corps of old
+     Prussia, the contingents of Westphalia, of Hanover, of Brandenburg,
+     have retired in haste before you.
+
+     This first success is no more than the prelude. The enemy is
+     shaken, but not yet decisively beaten. You have still to undergo
+     severe hardships, to make long marches, to fight hard battles.
+
+     May the image of our country, soiled by barbarians, always remain
+     before your eyes. Never was it more necessary to sacrifice all for
+     her.
+
+     Saluting the heroes who have fallen in the fighting of the last few
+     days, my thoughts turn toward you, the victors in the next battle.
+     Forward, soldiers, for France!
+
+     FRANCHET D'ESPEREY,
+     General Commanding the Fifth Army.
+     Montmirail, Sept. 9, 1914.
+
+The Germans are a formidable enemy, well trained, long prepared, and
+brave. Their soldiers are carrying on the contest with skill and valor.
+Nevertheless they are fighting to win anyhow, regardless of all the
+rules of fair play, and there is evidence that they do not hesitate at
+anything in order to gain victory.
+
+A large number of the tales of their misbehaviors are exaggeration and
+some of the stringent precautions they have taken to guard themselves
+against the inhabitants of the areas traversed are possibly justifiable
+measures of war. But, at the same time, it has been definitely
+established that they have committed atrocities on many occasions and
+they have been guilty of brutal conduct.
+
+So many letters and statements of our wounded soldiers have been
+published in our newspapers that the following epistle from a German
+soldier of the Seventy-fourth Infantry Regiment, Tenth Corps, to his
+wife may also be of interest:
+
+"My Dear Wife: I have just been living through days that defy
+imagination. I should never have thought that men could stand it. Not a
+second has passed but my life has been in danger, and yet not a hair of
+my head has been hurt.
+
+"It was horrible! It was ghastly! but I have been saved for you and for
+our happiness, and I take heart again, although I am still terribly
+unnerved. God grant that I may see you again soon, and that this horror
+may soon be over.
+
+"None of us can do any more; human strength is at an end. I will try to
+tell you about it. On the 5th of September the enemy were reported to be
+taking up a position near St. Prix, southeast of Paris.
+
+"The Tenth Corps, which had made an astonishingly rapid advance, of
+course, was attacked on Sunday. Steep slopes led up to the heights,
+which were held in considerable force.
+
+"With our weak detachments of the Seventy-fourth and Ninety-first
+regiments we reached the crest and came under a terrible artillery fire
+that mowed us down. However, we entered St. Prix. Hardly had we done so
+than we were met with shell fire and a violent fusillade from the
+enemy's infantry.
+
+"Our Colonel was badly wounded--he is the third we have had. Fourteen
+men were killed around me. We got away in a lull without being hit.
+
+"The 7th, 8th, and 9th of September we were constantly under shell and
+shrapnel fire and suffered terrible losses. I was in a house which was
+hit several times. The fear of death, of agony, which is in every man's
+heart, and naturally so, is a terrible feeling.
+
+"How often I have thought of you, my darling, and what I suffered in
+that terrifying battle, which extended along a front of many miles near
+Montmirail, you cannot possibly imagine.
+
+"Our heavy artillery was being used for the siege of Maubeuge. We wanted
+it badly, as the enemy had theirs in force and kept up a furious
+bombardment. For four days I was under artillery fire. It was like hell,
+but a thousand times worse.
+
+"On the night of the 9th the order was given to retreat, as it would
+have been madness to attempt to hold our position with our few men, and
+we should have risked a terrible defeat the next day. The First and
+Third Armies had not been able to attack with us, as we had advanced too
+rapidly. Our morale was absolutely broken. In spite of unheard-of
+sacrifices we had achieved nothing.
+
+"I cannot understand how our army, after fighting three great battles
+and being terribly weakened, was sent against a position which the enemy
+had prepared for three weeks, but naturally I know nothing of the
+intentions of our Chiefs; they say nothing has been lost.
+
+"In a word, we retired toward Cormontreuil and Rheims by forced marches
+by day and night. We hear that three armies are going to get into line,
+intrench and rest, and then start afresh our victorious march on Paris.
+It was not a defeat, only a strategic retreat. I have confidence in our
+Chiefs that everything will be successful.
+
+"Our First Battalion, which has fought with unparalleled bravery, is
+reduced from 1,200 to 194 men. These numbers speak for themselves."
+
+Among the minor happenings of interest is the following:
+
+During a counter-attack by the German Fifty-third Regiment on positions
+of the Northampton and Queen's Regiments on Thursday, the 17th, a force
+of some 400 of the enemy were allowed to approach right up to the trench
+occupied by a platoon of the former regiment, owing to the fact that
+they had held up their hands and made gestures that were interpreted as
+signs that they wished to surrender. When they were actually on the
+parapet of the trench held, by the Northamptons they opened fire on our
+men at point-blank range.
+
+Unluckily for the enemy, however, flanking them and only some 400 yards
+away, there happened to be a machine gun manned by a detachment of the
+Queen's. This at once opened fire, cutting a lane through their mass,
+and they fell back to their own trench with great loss. Shortly
+afterward they were driven further back, with additional loss, by a
+battalion of Guards which came up in support.
+
+An incident, which occurred some little time ago during our retirement,
+is also worthy of record. On Aug. 28, during the battle fought by the
+French along the Oise between La Fere and Guise, one of the French
+commanders desired to make an air reconnoissance. It was found, however,
+that no observers were available.
+
+Wishing to help our allies as much as possible a British officer
+attached to this particular French army volunteered to go up with the
+pilot to observe. He had never been in an aeroplane, but he made the
+ascent and produced a valuable reconnoissance report.
+
+Incidentally he had a duel in the air at an altitude of 6,000 feet with
+the observer of a German Taube monoplane which approached. He fired
+several shots and drove off the hostile aeroplane. His action was much
+appreciated by the French.
+
+In view of the many statements made in the press as to the use of
+Zeppelins against us, it is interesting to note that the Royal Flying
+Corps, who had been out on reconnoissance every day since their arrival
+in France, have never seen a Zeppelin, though airships of a non-rigid
+type have been seen on two occasions near Marne.
+
+Late one evening two such were observed over the German forces. An
+aeroplane was dispatched against them, but in the darkness our pilots
+were uncertain of the airship's nationality and did not attack. It was
+afterward made clear that they could not have been French.
+
+A week later an officer, reconnoitring to the flank, saw an airship over
+the German forces and opposite the French. It had no distinguishing mark
+and was assumed to belong to the latter, though it is now known that it
+also must have been a German craft.
+
+The orders of the Royal Flying Corps are to attack Zeppelins at once,
+and there is some disappointment at the absence of those targets.
+
+The following special order has been issued today to the troops:
+
+     "Special Order of the Day,
+     By Field Marshal Sir John French,
+     G.C.B., G.C.V.O., K.C.M.G.,
+     Commander in Chief of the British Army in the Field.
+
+     "September 17, 1914.
+
+     "Once more I have to express my deep appreciation of the splendid
+     behavior of the officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of the
+     army under my command throughout the great battle of the Aisne,
+     which has been in progress since the evening of the 12th inst., and
+     the battle of the Marne, which lasted from the morning of the 6th
+     to the evening of the 10th and finally ended in the precipitate
+     flight of the enemy.
+
+     "When we were brought face to face with a position of extraordinary
+     strength, carefully intrenched and prepared for defense by an army
+     and staff which are thorough adepts in such work, throughout the
+     13th and 14th, that position was most gallantly attacked by the
+     British forces and the passage of the Aisne effected. This is the
+     third day the troops have been gallantly holding the position they
+     have gained against most desperate counter-attacks and the hail of
+     heavy artillery.
+
+     "I am unable to find adequately words in which to express the
+     admiration I feel for their magnificent conduct.
+
+     "The French armies on our right and left are making good progress,
+     and I feel sure that we have only to hold on with tenacity to the
+     ground we have won for a very short time longer when the Allies
+     will be again in full pursuit of a beaten enemy.
+
+     "The self-sacrificing devotion and splendid spirit of the British
+     army in France will carry all before it.
+
+     "J.D.P. FRENCH, Field Marshall,
+
+     "Commander in Chief of the British Army in the Field."
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+*The Slow Fight on the Aisne.*
+
+[Made Public Sept. 24.]
+
+
+The enemy is still maintaining himself along the whole front, and, in
+order to do so, is throwing into the fight detachments composed of units
+from different formations, the active army, reserve, and Landwehr, as is
+shown by the uniforms of the prisoners recently captured.
+
+Our progress, although slow on account of the strength of the defensive
+positions against which we are pressing, has in certain directions been
+continuous; but the present battle may well last for some days more
+before a decision is reached, since it now approximates somewhat to
+siege warfare.
+
+The Germans are making use of searchlights. This fact, coupled with
+their great strength in heavy artillery, leads to the supposition that
+they are employing material which may have been collected for the siege
+of Paris.
+
+The nature of the general situation after the operations of the 18th,
+19th, and 20th cannot better be summarized than as expressed recently
+by a neighboring French commander to his corps: "Having repulsed
+repeated and violent counter-attacks made by the enemy, we have a
+feeling that we have been victorious."
+
+So far as the British are concerned, the course of events during these
+three days can be described in a few words. During Friday, the 18th,
+artillery fire was kept up intermittently by both sides during daylight.
+At night the German centre attacked certain portions of our line,
+supporting the advance of their infantry, as always, by a heavy
+bombardment. But the strokes were not delivered with great vigor, and
+ceased about 2 A.M. During the day's fighting an aircraft gun of the
+Third Army Corps succeeded in bringing down a German aeroplane.
+
+News also was received that a body of French cavalry had demolished part
+of the railway to the north, so cutting, at least temporarily, one line
+of communication which is of particular importance to the enemy.
+
+On Saturday, the 19th, the bombardment was resumed by the Germans at an
+early hour and continued intermittently under reply from our own guns.
+Some of their infantry advanced from cover, apparently with the
+intention of attacking, but on coming under fire they retired. Otherwise
+the day was uneventful, except for the activity of the artillery, which
+is a matter of normal routine rather than an event.
+
+Another hostile aeroplane was brought down by us, and one of our
+aviators succeeded in dropping several bombs over the German line, one
+incendiary bomb falling with considerable effect on a transport park
+near La Fère.
+
+A buried store of the enemy's munitions of war was also found, not far
+from the Aisne, ten wagon loads of live shell and two wagon loads of
+cable being dug up. Traces were discovered of large quantities of stores
+having been burned--all tending to show that as far back as the Aisne
+the German retirement was hurried.
+
+There was a strong wind during the day, accompanied by a driving rain.
+This militated against the aerial reconnoissance.
+
+On Sunday, the 20th, nothing of importance occurred until the afternoon,
+when there was a break in the clouds and an interval of feeble sunshine,
+which was hardly powerful enough to warm the soaking troops. The Germans
+took advantage of this brief spell of fine weather to make several
+counter-attacks against different points. These were all repulsed with
+loss to the enemy, but the casualties incurred by us were by no means
+light.
+
+In one section of our firing line the occupants of the trenches were
+under the impression that they heard a military band in the enemy's
+lines just before the attack developed. It is now known that the German
+infantry started their advance with bands playing.
+
+The offensive against one or two points was renewed at dusk, with no
+greater success. The brunt of the resistance has naturally fallen upon
+the infantry. In spite of the fact that they have been drenched to the
+skin for some days and their trenches have been deep in mud and water,
+and in spite of the incessant night alarms and the almost continuous
+bombardment to which they have been subjected, they have on every
+occasion been ready for the enemy's infantry when the latter attempted
+to assault, and they have beaten them back with great loss. Indeed, the
+sight of the Pickelhauben [German spiked helmets] coming up has been a
+positive relief after long, trying hours of inaction under shell fire.
+
+The object of the great proportion of artillery the Germans employ is to
+beat down the resistance of their enemy by concentrated and prolonged
+fire, to shatter their nerves with high explosives, before the infantry
+attack is launched. They seem to have relied on doing this with us, but
+they have not done so, though it has taken them several costly
+experiments to discover this fact.
+
+From statements of prisoners it appears that they have been greatly
+disappointed by the moral effect produced by their heavy guns, which,
+despite the actual losses inflicted, has not been at all commensurate
+with the colossal expenditure of ammunition, which has really been
+wasted. By this it is not implied that their artillery fire is not good;
+it is more than good--it is excellent. But the British soldier is a
+difficult person to impress or depress, even by immense shells filled
+with a high explosive which detonate with terrific violence and form
+craters large enough to act as graves for five horses.
+
+The German howitzer shells are from 8 to 9 inches in calibre, and on
+impact they send up columns of greasy black smoke. On account of this
+they are irreverently dubbed "coal boxes," "black Marias," or "Jack
+Johnsons" by the soldiers. Men who take things in this spirit are, it
+seems, likely to throw out the calculations based on the loss of morale
+so carefully framed by the German military philosophers.
+
+A considerable amount of information has been gleaned from prisoners. It
+has been gathered that our bombardment on the 15th produced a great
+impression. The opinion is also reported that our infantry make such
+good use of ground that the German companies are decimated by our rifle
+fire before the British soldier can be seen.
+
+From an official diary captured by the First Army Corps it appears that
+one of the German corps contains an extraordinary mixture of units. If
+the composition of the other corps is similar, it may be assumed that
+the present efficiency of the enemy's forces is in no way comparable
+with what it was when the war commenced.
+
+The losses in officers are noted as having been especially severe. A
+brigade is stated to be commanded by a Major; some companies of food
+guards by one-year volunteers; while after the battle of Montmirail one
+regiment lost fifty-five out of sixty officers. The prisoners recently
+captured appreciate the fact that the march on Paris has failed and that
+their forces are retreating, but state that the object of this movement
+is explained by the officers as being to withdraw into closer touch
+with the supports, which have stayed too far in the rear.
+
+The officers are also endeavoring to encourage the troops by telling
+them that they will be at home by Christmas. A large number of the men
+believe that they are beaten. Following is an extract from one document:
+
+"With the English troops we have great difficulties. They have a queer
+way of causing losses to the enemy. They make good trenches, in which
+they wait patiently; they carefully measure the ranges for their rifle
+fire, and they open a truly hellish fire on the unsuspecting cavalry.
+This was the reason that we had such heavy losses.
+
+"According to our officers, the English striking forces are exhausted;
+the English people really never wanted war."
+
+From another source: "The English are very brave and fight to the last
+man. One of our companies has lost 130 men out of 240."
+
+The following letter, which refers to the fighting on the Aisne, has
+been printed and circulated to the troops:
+
+     LETTER FOUND ON GERMAN OFFICER OF SEVENTH RESERVE CORPS:
+
+     Cerny, South of Laon, Sept 14, 1914.
+
+     My Dear Parents: Our corps has the task of holding the heights
+     south of Cerny in all circumstances until the Fourteenth Corps on
+     our left flank can grip the enemy's flank. On our right are other
+     corps. We are fighting with the English Guards, Highlanders, and
+     Zouaves. The losses on both sides have been enormous. For the most
+     part this is due to the too brilliant French artillery.
+
+     The English are marvelously trained in making use of ground. One
+     never sees them, and one is constantly under fire. The French
+     airmen perform wonderful feats. We cannot get rid of them. As soon
+     as an airman has flown over us, ten minutes later we get their
+     shrapnel fire in our positions. We have little artillery in our
+     corps; without it we cannot get forward.
+
+     Three days ago our division took possession of these heights and
+     dug itself in. Two days ago, early in the morning, we were attacked
+     by an immensely superior English force, one brigade and two
+     battalions, and were turned out of our positions. The fellows took
+     five guns from us. It was a tremendous hand-to-hand fight.
+
+     How I escaped myself I am not clear. I then had to bring up
+     supports on foot. My horse was wounded, and the others were too
+     far in the rear. Then came up the Guards Jager Battalion, Fourth
+     Jager, Sixth Regiment, Reserve Regiment Thirteen, and Landwehr
+     Regiments Thirteen and Sixteen, and with the help of the artillery
+     we drove the fellows out of the position again. Our machine guns
+     did excellent work; the English fell in heaps.
+
+     In our battalion three Iron Crosses have been given, one to C.O.,
+     one to Capt. ----, and one to Surgeon ----. [Names probably
+     deleted.] Let us hope that we shall be the lucky ones next time.
+
+     During the first two days of the battle I had only one piece of
+     bread and no water. I spent the night in the rain without my
+     overcoat. The rest of my kit was on the horses which had been left
+     behind with the baggage and which cannot come up into the battle
+     because as soon as you put your nose up from behind cover the
+     bullets whistle.
+
+     War is terrible. We are all hoping that a decisive battle will end
+     the war, as our troops already have got round Paris. If we beat the
+     English the French resistance will soon be broken. Russia will be
+     very quickly dealt with; of this there is no doubt.
+
+     We received splendid help from the Austrian [Transcriber: original
+     'Austrain'] heavy artillery at Maubeuge. They bombarded Fort
+     Cerfontaine in such a way that there was not ten meters a parapet
+     which did not show enormous craters made by the shells. The armored
+     turrets were found upside down.
+
+     Yesterday evening, about 6, in the valley in which our reserves
+     stood there was such a terrible cannonade that we saw nothing of
+     the sky but a cloud of smoke. We had few casualties.
+
+Recently a pilot and observer of the Royal Flying Corps were forced by a
+breakage in their aeroplane to descend in the enemy's lines. The pilot
+managed to pancake his machine down to earth, and the two escaped into
+some thick under-growth in the woods.
+
+The enemy came up and seized and smashed the machine, but did not search
+for our men with much zeal. The latter lay hid till dark and then found
+their way to the Aisne, across which they swam, reaching camp in safety,
+but barefooted.
+
+Numerous floating bridges have been thrown across the Aisne and some of
+the pontoon bridges have been repaired under fire. On the 20th, Lieut.
+[name deleted] of the Third Signal Corps, Royal Engineers, was
+unfortunately drowned while attempting to swim across the river with a
+cable in order to open up fresh telegraphic communication on the north
+side.
+
+Espionage is still carried on by the enemy to a considerable extent.
+Recently the suspicions of some of the French troops were aroused by
+coming across a farm from which the horses had been removed. After some
+search they discovered a telephone which was connected by an underground
+cable with the German lines, and the owner of the farm paid the penalty
+in the usual way in war for his treachery.
+
+After some cases of village fighting which occurred earlier in the war
+it was reported by some of our officers that the Germans had attempted
+to approach to close quarters by forcing prisoners to march in front of
+them. The Germans have recently repeated the same trick on a larger
+scale against the French, as is shown by the copy of an order printed
+below. It is therein referred to as a ruse, but, if that term can be
+accepted, a distinctly illegal ruse.
+
+"During a recent night attack," the order reads, "the Germans drove a
+column of French prisoners in front of them. This action is to be
+brought to the notice of all our troops (1) in order to put them on
+their guard against such a dastardly ruse; (2) in order that every
+soldier may know how the Germans treat their prisoners. Our troops must
+not forget if they allow themselves to be taken prisoners the Germans
+will not fail to expose them to French bullets."
+
+Further evidence has now been collected of the misuse of the white flag
+and other signs of surrender. During an action on the 17th, owing to
+this, one officer was shot. During recent fighting, also, some German
+ambulance wagons advanced in order to collect the wounded. An order to
+cease firing was consequently given to our guns, which were firing on
+this particular section of ground. The German battery commanders at once
+took advantage of the lull in the action to climb up their observation
+ladders and on to a haystack to locate our guns, which soon afterward
+came under a far more accurate fire than any to which they had been
+subjected up to that time.
+
+A British officer, who was captured by the Germans and has since
+escaped, reports that while a prisoner he saw men who had been fighting
+subsequently put on Red Cross brassards.
+
+That irregular use of the protection afforded by the Geneva Convention
+is not uncommon is confirmed by the fact that on one occasion men in the
+uniform of combatant units have been captured wearing a Red Cross
+brassard hastily slipped over the arm. The excuse given has been that
+they had been detailed after the fight to look after the wounded.
+
+It is reported by a cavalry officer that the driver of a motor car with
+a machine gun mounted on it, which was captured, was wearing a Red
+Cross.
+
+Full details of the actual damage done to the cathedral at Rheims will
+doubtless have been cabled home, so that no description of it is
+necessary. The Germans bombarded the cathedral twice with their heavy
+artillery.
+
+One reason it caught alight so quickly was that on one side of it was
+some scaffolding which had been erected for restoration work. Straw had
+also been laid on the floor for the reception of the German wounded. It
+is to the credit of the French that practically all the German wounded
+were successfully extricated from the burning building.
+
+There was no justification on military grounds for this act of
+vandalism, which seems to have been caused by exasperation born of
+failure--a sign of impotence rather than strength. It is noteworthy that
+a well-known hotel not far from the cathedral, which was kept by a
+German, was not touched.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+*Two September Days.*
+
+[Made Public Sept. 28.]
+
+
+For four days there has been a comparative lull all along our front.
+This has been accompanied [Transcriber: original 'acompanied'] by a
+spell of fine weather, though the nights have been much colder. One
+cannot have everything, however, and one evil result of the sunshine
+has been the release of flies, which were torpid during the wet days.
+
+Advantage has been taken of the arrival of reinforcements to relieve by
+fresh troops the men who have been on the firing line for some time.
+Several units, therefore, have received their baptism of fire during the
+week.
+
+Since the last letter left headquarters evidence has been received which
+points to the fact that during the counter attacks on the night of Sept.
+20 German detachments of infantry fired into each other. This was the
+result of an attempt to carry out the dangerous expedient of a
+converging advance in the dark. Opposite one portion of our position
+considerable massing of hostile forces was observed before dark. Some
+hours later a furious fusillade [Transcriber: original 'fusilade'] was
+heard in front of our line, though no bullets came over our trenches.
+
+This narrative begins with Sept. 21 and covers only two days. There was
+but little rain on Sept. 21 and the weather took a turn for the better,
+which has been maintained. The action has been practically confined to
+the artillery, our guns at one point shelling and driving the enemy, who
+endeavored to construct a redoubt.
+
+The Germans expended a large number of heavy shells in a long range
+bombardment of the village of Missy (Department of the Aisne).
+Reconnoitring parties sent out during the night of Sept. 21-22
+discovered some deserted trenches. In them or in the woods over 100 dead
+and wounded were picked up. A number of rifles, ammunition and equipment
+were also found. There were other signs that portions of the enemy's
+forces had withdrawn some distance.
+
+The weather was also fine on Sept. 22 with less wind, and it was one of
+the most uneventful days we have passed since we reached the Aisne, that
+is, uneventful for the British. There was less artillery work on either
+side, the Germans giving the village of Paissy (Aisne) a taste of the
+"Jack Johnsons." The spot thus honored is not far from the ridge where
+there has been some of the most severe close fighting in which we have
+taken part. All over this No Man's Land, between the lines, bodies of
+German infantrymen were still lying in heaps where they had fallen at
+different times.
+
+Espionage plays so large a part in the conduct of the war by the Germans
+that it is difficult to avoid further reference to the subject. They
+have evidently never forgotten the saying of Frederick the Great: "When
+Marshall Soubise goes to war he is followed by a hundred cooks. When I
+take the field I am preceded by a hundred spies." Indeed until about
+twenty years ago there was a paragraph in their field service
+regulations directing that the service of protection in the field, such
+as outposts and advance guards, should always be supplemented by a
+system of espionage. Although such instructions are no longer made
+public the Germans, as is well known, still carry them into effect.
+
+Apart from the more elaborate arrangements which were made in peace time
+for obtaining information by paid agents some of the methods which are
+being employed for the collection or conveyance of intelligence are as
+follows:
+
+Men in plain clothes signal the German lines from points in the hands of
+the enemy by means of colored lights at nights and puffs of smoke from
+chimneys in the day time. Pseudo laborers working in the fields between
+the armies have been detected conveying information. Persons in plain
+clothes have acted as advanced scouts to the German cavalry when
+advancing.
+
+German officers or soldiers in plain clothes or French or British
+uniforms have remained in localities evacuated by the Germans in order
+to furnish them with intelligence. One spy of this kind was found by our
+troops hidden in a church tower. His presence was only discovered
+through the erratic movements of the hands of the church clock, which he
+was using to signal his friends by an improvised semaphore code. Had
+this man not been seized it is probable he would have signalled the time
+of arrival and the exact position of the headquarters staff of the force
+and a high explosive shell would then have mysteriously dropped on the
+building.
+
+Women spies have also been caught. Secret agents have been found at rail
+heads observing entrainments and detrainments. It is a simple matter for
+spies to mix with refugees who are moving about to and from their homes,
+and it is difficult for our troops, who speak neither French nor German,
+to detect them. The French have also found it necessary to search
+villages and casual wayfarers on the roads and to search for carrier
+pigeons.
+
+Among the precautions taken by us against spying is the following notice
+printed in French, posted up:
+
+     "Motor cars and bicycles other than those; carrying soldiers in
+     uniform may not circulate on the roads. Inhabitants may not leave
+     the localities in which they reside between 6 P.M. and 6 A.M.
+     Inhabitants may not quit their homes after 8 P.M. No person may on
+     any pretext pass through the British lines without an authorization
+     countersigned by a British officer."
+
+Events have moved so quietly for the last two months that anything
+connected with the mobilization of the British expeditionary force is
+now ancient history. Nevertheless, the following extract from a German
+order is evidence of the mystification of the army and a tribute to the
+value of the secrecy which was so well and so loyally maintained in
+England at the time:
+
+     "Tenth Reserve Army Corps Headquarters,
+
+     "Mont St. Guibert, Aug. 20, 1914.
+
+     "Corps Order, Aug. 20.
+
+     "The French troops in front of the Tenth Army Corps have retreated
+     south across the Sambre. Part of the Belgium army has been
+     withdrawn from Antwerp. It is reported that an English army has
+     disembarked at Calais and Boulogne, en route to Brussels."
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+*Fighting in the Air.*
+
+[Made Public Sept. 29.]
+
+
+Wednesday, Sept. 23, was a perfect Autumn day. It passed without
+incident as regards major operations. Although the enemy concentrated
+their heavy artillery upon the, plateau near Passy, nothing more than
+inconvenience was caused.
+
+The welcome absence of wind gave our airmen a chance of which they took
+full advantage by gathering much information. Unfortunately, one of our
+aviators, who had been particularly active in annoying the enemy by
+dropping bombs, was wounded in a duel in the air.
+
+Being alone on a single-seated monoplane, he was not able to use his
+rifle, and while circling above a German two-seated machine in an
+endeavor to get within pistol shot he was hit by the observer of the
+German machine, who was armed with a rifle. He managed to fly back over
+our lines, and by great good luck he descended close to a motor
+ambulance, which at once conveyed him to a hospital.
+
+Against this may be set off the fact that another of our flyers exploded
+a bomb among some led artillery horses, killing several and stampeding
+the others.
+
+On Thursday, Sept. 21, the fine weather continued, as did the lull in
+the action, the heavy German shells falling mostly near Pargnan, twelve
+miles south-southeast of Laon.
+
+On both Wednesday and Thursday the weather was so fine that many flights
+were made by the aviators, French, British, and German. These produced a
+corresponding activity among the anti-aircraft guns.
+
+So still and clear was the atmosphere toward evening on Wednesday and
+during the whole of Thursday that to those not especially on the lookout
+the presence of aeroplanes high up above them was first made known by
+the bursting of the projectiles aimed at them. The puffs of smoke from
+the detonation shell hung in the air for minutes on end, like balls of
+fleece cotton, before they slowly expanded and were dissipated.
+
+From the places mentioned as being the chief targets for the enemy's
+heavy howitzers, it will be seen that the Germans are not inclined to
+concentrate their fire systematically upon definite areas in which
+their aviators think they have located our guns, or upon villages where
+it is imagined our troops may be billeted. The result will be to give
+work to local builders.
+
+The growing resemblance of this battle to siege warfare has already been
+pointed out. The fact that the later actions of the Russo-Japanese war
+assumed a similar character was thought by many to have been due to
+exceptional causes, such as the narrowness of the theatre of operations
+between the Chinese frontier on the west and the mountainous country of
+Northern Korea on the east; the lack of roads, which limited the extent
+of ground over which it was possible for the rival armies to manoeuvre,
+and the fact that both forces were tied to one line of railroad.
+
+Such factors are not exerting any influence on the present battle.
+Nevertheless, a similar situation has been produced, owing firstly to
+the immense power of resistance possessed by an army which is amply
+equipped with heavy artillery and has sufficient time to fortify itself,
+and, secondly, to the vast size of the forces engaged, which at the
+present time stretch more than half way across France.
+
+The extent of the country covered is so great as to render slow any
+efforts to manoeuvre and march around to a flank in order to escape the
+costly expedient of a frontal attack against heavily fortified
+positions.
+
+To state that the methods of attack must approximate more closely to
+those of siege warfare the greater the resemblance of the defenses to
+those of a fortress is a platitude, but it is one which will bear
+repetition if it in any way assists to make the present situation clear.
+
+There is no doubt that the position on the Aisne was not hastily
+selected by the German Staff after the retreat had begun. From the
+choice of ground, and the care with which the fields of fire had been
+arranged to cover all possible avenues of approach, and from the amount
+of work already carried out, it is clear that the contingency of having
+to act on the defensive was not overlooked when the details of the
+strategically offensive campaign were arranged.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+*Technique of This Warfare.*
+
+[Made Public Oct. 9.]
+
+
+Wednesday, Sept. 30, merely marked another day's progress in the gradual
+development of the situation, and was distinguished by no activity
+beyond slight attacks by the enemy. There was also artillery fire at
+intervals. One of our airmen succeeded in dropping nine bombs, some of
+which fell on the enemy's rolling stock collected on the railway near
+Laon. Some of the enemy's front trenches were found empty at night; but
+nothing much can be deduced from this fact, for they are frequently
+evacuated in this way, no doubt to prevent the men in the back lines
+firing on their comrades in front of them.
+
+Thursday, Oct. 1, was a most perfect Autumn day, and the most peaceful
+that there has been since the two forces engaged on the Aisne. There was
+only desultory gunfire as targets offered. During the night the enemy
+made a few new trenches. A French aviator dropped one bomb on a railway
+station and three bombs on troops massed near it.
+
+The weather on Friday, the 2d, was very misty in the early hours, and it
+continued hazy until the late afternoon, becoming thicker again at
+night. The Germans were driven out of a mill which they had occupied as
+an advanced post, their guns and machine guns which supported it being
+knocked out one by one by well-directed artillery fire from a flank.
+During the night they made the usual two attacks on the customary spot
+in our lines, and as on previous occasions were repulsed. Two of their
+trenches were captured and filled in. Our loss was six men wounded.
+
+Up to Sept, 21 the air mileage made by our airmen since the beginning
+of the war amounted to 87,000 miles, an average of 2,000 miles per day,
+the total equaling nearly four times the circuit of the world. The total
+time spent in the air was 1,400 hours.
+
+There are many points connected with the fighting methods of either side
+that may be of interest. The following description was given by a
+battalion commander who has been at the front since the commencement of
+hostilities and has fought both in the open and behind intrenchments. It
+must, however, be borne in mind that it only represents the experiences
+of a particular unit. It deals with the tactics of the enemy's infantry:
+
+     The important points to watch are the heads of valleys and ravines,
+     woods--especially those on the sides of hollow ground--and all dead
+     ground to the front and flanks. The German officers are skilled in
+     leading troops forward under cover, in closed bodies, but once the
+     latter are deployed and there is no longer direct personal
+     leadership the men will not face heavy fire. Sometimes the advance
+     is made in a series of lines, with the men well opened out at five
+     or six paces interval; at other times it is made in a line, with
+     the men almost shoulder to shoulder, followed in all cases by
+     supports in close formation. The latter either waver when the front
+     line is checked, or crowd on to it, moving forward under the orders
+     of their officers, and the mass forms a magnificent target.
+     Prisoners have described the fire of our troops as pinning them to
+     the ground, and this is certainly borne out by their action.
+
+     When the Germans are not heavily intrenched no great losses are
+     incurred in advancing against them by the methods in which the
+     British Army has been instructed. For instance, in one attack over
+     fairly open ground against about an equal force of infantry
+     sheltered in a sunken road and in ditches we lost only 10 killed
+     and 60 wounded, while over 400 of the enemy surrendered after about
+     50 had been killed. Each side had the support of a battery, but the
+     fight for superiority from infantry fire took place at about 700
+     yards and lasted only half an hour. When the Germans were wavering
+     some of them put up the white flag, but others went on firing, and
+     our men continued to do the same. Eventually a large number of
+     white flags, improvised from handkerchiefs, pieces of shirt, white
+     biscuit bags, &c., were exhibited all along the line, and many men
+     hoisted their helmets on their rifles.
+
+     In the fighting behind intrenchments the Germans endeavor to gain
+     ground by making advances in line at dusk or just before dawn, and
+     then digging themselves in, in the hope, no doubt, that they may
+     eventually get so near as to be able, as at manoeuvres, to reach
+     the hostile trenches in a single rush. They have never succeeded in
+     doing this against us. If by creeping up in dead ground they do
+     succeed in gaining ground by night, they are easily driven back by
+     fire in the morning. A few of the braver men sometimes remain
+     behind, at ranges of even 300 or 400 yards, and endeavor to inflict
+     losses by sniping. Sharpshooters, also, are often noticed in trees
+     or wriggling about until they get good cover. The remedy is to take
+     the initiative and detail men to deal with the enemy's
+     sharpshooters.
+
+     A few night attacks have been made against us. Before one of them a
+     party crept up close to the British line and set alight a hayrick,
+     so that it should form a beacon on which the centre of the
+     attacking line marched. Generally, however, in the night and early
+     morning attacks, groups of forty or fifty men have come on, the
+     groups sometimes widely separated from one another and making every
+     endeavor to obtain any advantage from cover. Light balls and
+     searchlights have on some occasions been used. Latterly the attacks
+     have become more and more half-hearted. Against us the enemy has
+     never closed with the bayonet. The German trenches I have seen were
+     deep enough to shelter a man when firing standing, and had a step
+     down in rear for the supports to sit in.
+
+     As regards our own men, there was at first considerable reluctance
+     to intrench, as has always been the case at the commencement of a
+     war. Now, however, having bought experience dearly, their defenses
+     are such that they can defy the German artillery fire.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+*Becomes an Artillery Duel*.
+
+[Made Public Oct. 10.]
+
+
+Comparative calm on our front has continued through the fine and
+considerably warmer weather. The last six days have been slightly misty
+with clouds hanging low, so that conditions have not been very favorable
+for aerial reconnoissance.
+
+In regard to the latter, it is astonishing how quickly the habit is
+acquired, even by those who are not aviators, of thinking of the
+weather in terms of its suitability for flying. There has been a bright
+moon also, which has militated against night attacks.
+
+On Saturday, Oct. 3, practically nothing happened, except that each side
+shelled the other.
+
+Toward evening on Sunday, Oct. 4, there was a similar absence of
+activity. Opposite one portion of our line the enemy's bands played
+patriotic airs, and the audiences which gathered gave a chance to our
+waiting howitzers.
+
+Not only do their regimental bands perform occasionally, but with their
+proverbial fondness for music the Germans have in some places
+gramophones [Transcriber: original 'gramaphones'] in their trenches.
+
+On Monday, the 5th, there were three separate duels in the air between
+French and German aviators, one of which was visible from our trenches.
+Two of the struggles were, so far as could be seen, indecisive, but in
+the third the French airmen were victorious, and brought down their
+opponents, both of whom were killed by machine gun fire. The observer
+was so burned as to be unrecognizable.
+
+During the day some men of the Landwehr were taken prisoners by us. They
+were in very poor condition and wept copiously when captured. One, on
+being asked what he was crying for, explained that though they had been
+advised to surrender to the English, they believed that they would be
+shot.
+
+On that evening our airmen had an unusual amount of attention paid to
+them, both by the German aviators and their artillery of every
+description.
+
+One of our infantry patrols discovered 150 dead Germans in a wood, one
+and a half miles from our front. We sent a party out to bury them, but
+it was fired upon and had to withdraw.
+
+On Tuesday, the 6th, the enemy's guns were active in the afternoon. It
+is believed that the bombardment was due to anger because two of our
+howitzer shells had detonated right in one of the enemy's trenches,
+which was full of men. Three horses were killed by the German fire.
+
+Wednesday, the 7th, was uneventful.
+
+On Thursday, the 8th, the shelling by the enemy of a locality on our
+front, which has so far been the scene of their greatest efforts, was
+again continuous. Opposite one or two points the Germans have attempted
+to gain ground by sapping in some places with the view of secretly
+pushing forward machine guns in advance of their trenches, so that they
+can suddenly sweep with crossfire the space between our line and theirs,
+and so take any advance of ours on the flank.
+
+It is reported that at one point where the French were much annoyed by
+the fire of a German machine gun, which was otherwise inaccessible, they
+drove a mine gallery, 50 meters (about 164 feet) long, up to and under
+the emplacement, and blew up the gun. The man who drove the gallery
+belonged to a corps which was recruited in one of the coal-mining
+districts of France.
+
+The German machine guns are mounted on low sledges, and are
+inconspicuous and evidently easily moved.
+
+The fighting now consists mostly of shelling by the artillery of both
+sides and in front a line of fire from the machine guns as an occasional
+target offers. Our Maxims have been doing excellent work and have proved
+most efficient weapons for the sort of fighting in which we are now
+engaged.
+
+At times there are so many outbursts of their fire in different
+directions that it is possible for an expert to tell by comparison which
+of the guns have their springs adjusted and are well tuned up for the
+day. The amount of practice that our officers are now getting in the use
+of this weapon is proving most valuable in teaching them how to maintain
+it at concert pitch as an instrument and how to derive the best tactical
+results from its employment.
+
+Against us the Germans are not now expending so much gun ammunition as
+they have been, but they continue to fire at insignificant targets. They
+have the habit of suddenly dropping heavy shells without warning in
+localities of villages far behind our front line, possibly on the chance
+of catching some of our troops in bivouac or billets. They also fire a
+few rounds at night.
+
+The artillery has up to now played so great a part in the war that a few
+general remarks descriptive of the methods of its employment by the
+enemy are justified. Their field artillery armament consists of
+15-pounder quick-fire guns for horse and field batteries of divisions
+and there are, in addition, with each corps three to six batteries of
+4.3-inch field howitzers and about two batteries of 5.9-inch howitzers.
+With an army there are some 8.2-inch heavy howitzers.
+
+The accuracy of their fire is apt at first to cause some alarm, more
+especially as the guns are usually well concealed and the position and
+the direction from which the fire is proceeding are difficult of
+detection. But accurate as is their shooting, the German gunners have on
+the whole had little luck, and during the past three weeks an
+astonishingly small proportion of the number of shells fired by them
+have been really effective.
+
+Quite the most striking feature of their handling of the artillery is
+the speed with which they concentrate the fire upon any selected point.
+They dispense to a great extent with the method of ranging known by us
+as bracketing, especially when acting on the defensive, and direct their
+fire by means of squared maps and the telephone. Thus, when the target
+is found, its position on the map is telephoned to such batteries as it
+is desired to employ against that particular square.
+
+In addition to the guns employed to fire on the targets as they are
+picked up, others are told off to watch particular roads, and to deal
+with any of the enemy using them.
+
+Both for the location of targets and the communication of the effect of
+the fire, reliance is placed on observation from aeroplanes and balloons
+and on information supplied by special observers and secret agents, who
+are sent out ahead or left behind in the enemy's lines to communicate by
+telephone or signal. These observers have been found in haystacks,
+barns, and other buildings well in advance of the German lines.
+Balloons of the so-called sausage pattern remain up in the air for long
+periods for the purpose of discovering targets, and until our aviators
+made their influence felt by chasing all hostile aeroplanes on sight the
+latter were continually hovering over our troops in order to register
+their positions and to note where the headquarters, reserves, gun teams,
+&c., were located.
+
+If suitable targets are discovered the airman drops a smoke ball
+directly over it or lets fall some strips of tinsel, which glitter in
+the sun as they slowly descend to the earth. The range to the target is
+apparently ascertained by those near the guns by a large telemeter, or
+other range finder, which is kept trained on the aeroplane, so that when
+the signal is made the distance to the target vertically below is at
+once obtained. A few rounds are then fired, and the result is signalled
+back by the aviator according to some prearranged code.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+*A Fight in the Clouds.*
+
+[Dated Oct. 13.]
+
+
+From Friday the 9th of October until Monday the 12th so little occurred
+that a narrative of the events can be given in a few words. There has
+been the usual sporadic shelling of our trenches which has resulted in
+but little harm, so well dug in are our men, and on the night of the
+10th the Germans made yet a fresh assault, supported by artillery fire,
+against the point which has all along attracted most of their attention.
+
+The attempt was again a costly failure toward which our guns were able
+to contribute with great effect.
+
+Details have been received of an exciting encounter in midair. One of
+our aviators on a fast scouting monoplane sighted a hostile machine. He
+had two rifles, fixed one on either side of his engines, and at once
+gave chase, but lost sight of his opponent among the clouds. Soon,
+however, another machine hove into view which turned out to be a German
+Otto biplane, a type of machine which is not nearly so fast as our
+scouts. Our officer once again started a pursuit. He knew that owing to
+the position of the propeller of the hostile machine he could not be
+fired at when astern of his opponent. At sixty yards range he fired one
+rifle without apparent result. Then as his pace was carrying him ahead
+of his quarry he turned round, and, again coming to about the same
+distance behind, emptied his magazine at the German.
+
+The latter began at once to descend as if either he or his machine were
+hit, and shutting off his engine and volplaning to free his hands, the
+pursuer recharged his magazine. Unfortunately it jammed, but he managed
+to insert four cartridges and to fire them at his descending opponent,
+who disappeared into a cloud bank with dramatic suddenness. When the
+British officer emerged below the clouds he could see no sign of the
+other. He, therefore, climbed to an altitude of some 7,000 feet and came
+to the conclusion that the German must have come to earth in the French
+lines.
+
+The French airmen, too, have been very successful during the last three
+days, having dropped several bombs among the German cavalry and caused
+considerable loss and disorder, and having by similar means silenced a
+battery of field howitzers.
+
+The German anti-aircraft guns recently have been unusually active. From
+their rate of fire they seem to be nearly automatic, but so far they
+have not had much effect in reducing the air reconnoissances carried out
+by us.
+
+A striking feature of our line--to use the conventional term which so
+seldom expresses accurately the position taken up by an army--is that it
+consists really of a series of trenches not all placed alongside each
+other, but some more advanced than others, and many facing in different
+directions. At one place they run east and west along one side of a
+valley. At another almost north and south up some subsidiary valley.
+Here they line the edge of woods, and there they are on the reverse
+slope of a hill, or possibly along a sunken road, and at different
+points both the German and the British trenches jut out like
+promontories into what might be regarded as the opponents' territory.
+
+Though both sides have moved forward at certain points, and withdrawn at
+others, no very important change has been effected in their
+dispositions, in spite of the enemy's repeated counter attacks. These
+have been directed principally against one portion of the position won
+by us, but in spite of the lavish expenditure of life they have not so
+far succeeded in driving us back.
+
+The situation of the works in the German front line as a whole has been
+a matter of deliberate selection, for they have had the advantage of
+previous reconnaissance, being first in the field.
+
+Behind the front they now have several lines prepared for a step-by-step
+defense. Another point which might cause astonishment to a visitor to
+our intrenchments is the evident indifference displayed to the provision
+of an extended field of frontal rifle fire, which is generally accepted
+as being one of the great requirements of a defensive position. It is
+still desirable, if it can be obtained without the usually accompanying
+drawback of exposure to the direct fire of hostile artillery, but
+experience has shown that a short field of fire is sufficient to beat
+back the infantry assaults of the enemy, and by giving up direct fire at
+long or medium ranges and placing our trenches on the reverse slope of a
+hill or behind the crest, it is in many places possible to gain shelter
+from the frontal fire of the German guns, for the men are well trained
+in musketry and under good fire control, and the dead ground beyond the
+short range from their position has comparatively small terrors.
+
+Many of the front trenches of the Germans equally lack a distant field
+of fire, but if lost they would be rendered untenable by us by the fact
+that they would be exposed to a fire from the German guns in the rear
+and to cross-rifle fire from neighboring works.
+
+The extent to which cross-fire of all kinds is employed is also
+remarkable. Many localities and areas along the Aisne are not swept from
+the works directly in front of them, but are rendered untenable by
+rifle fire from neighboring features or by that of guns that are out of
+sight. So much is this the case that among these hills and valleys it is
+a difficult matter for troops to find out whence they are being shot at.
+
+There is a perpetual triangular duel. A's infantry can see nothing to
+shoot at, but are under fire from B's guns. The action of B's guns then
+brings upon them the attention of some of A's artillery waiting for a
+target, the latter being in their turn assailed by other batteries. And
+so it goes on. In a wooded country in spite of aeroplanes and balloons
+smokeless powder has made the localization and identification of targets
+a matter of supreme difficulty.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+*The Men in the Trenches.*
+
+[Dated Oct. 13.]
+
+
+On the firing line the men sleep and obtain shelter in dug-outs they
+have hollowed or cut under the sides of the trenches. These refuges are
+raised slightly above the bottom of the trench, so as to remain dry in
+wet weather. The floor of the trench also is sloped for purposes of
+draining. Some of the trenches are provided with overhead cover which
+gives protection from the weather as well as from shrapnel balls and
+splinters of shells. Considerable ingenuity has been exercised by the
+men in naming these shelters. Among the favorite designations are the
+"Hotel Cecil," the "Ritz Hotel," the "Billet-Doux Hotel," and the "Rue
+Dormir."
+
+On the road barricades also are to be found boards bearing this notice:
+"This way to the Prussians."
+
+Obstacles of every kind abound, and at night each side can hear the
+enemy driving pickets for entanglements, digging _trous-de-loup_, or
+working forward by sapping. In some places obstacles have been
+constructed by both sides so close together that some wag suggested
+that each side provide working parties to perform this fatigue duty
+alternately, inasmuch as the work of the enemy is now almost
+indistinguishable from ours, and serves the same purpose.
+
+Quarries and caves, to which allusion already has been made, provide
+ample accommodation for whole battalions, and most comfortable are these
+shelters which have been constructed in them. The northern slopes of the
+Aisne Valley fortunately are very steep, and this to a great extent
+protects us from the enemy's shells, many of which pass harmlessly over
+our heads, to burst in the meadows along the river bank.
+
+At all points subject to shell fire access to the firing line from
+behind is provided by communication trenches. These are now so good that
+it is possible to cross in safety a fire-swept zone to the advance
+trenches from billets in villages, bivouacs in quarries, or other places
+where the headquarters of units happen to be.
+
+It already has been mentioned that according to information obtained
+from the enemy fifteen Germans were killed by a bomb dropped upon the
+ammunition wagon of a cavalry column. It was thought at the time that
+this might have been the work of one of our airmen, who reported that he
+had dropped a hand grenade on this convoy, and had then got a bird's-eye
+view of the finest display of fireworks he had ever seen. From
+corroborative evidence it now appears that this was the case; that the
+grenade thrown by him probably was the cause of the destruction of a
+small convoy carrying field-gun and howitzer ammunition, which now has
+been found a total wreck.
+
+Along the road lie fourteen motor lorries, their iron skeletons twisted
+and broken. Everything inflammable has been burned, as have the stripped
+trees--some with split trunks--on either side of the road. Of the
+drivers, nothing remains except tattered boots and charred scraps of
+clothing, while the ground within a radius of fifty yards of the wagons
+is littered with pieces of iron, split brass cartridge cases, which have
+exploded, and some fixed-gun ammunition with live shells.
+
+If it were possible to reconstruct this incident, if it was, in fact,
+brought about as supposed, the grenade from the aeroplane must have
+detonated on the leading lorry, on one side of the road, and caused the
+cartridges carried by it to explode. Three vehicles immediately in the
+rear must then have been set on fire, with a similar result. Behind
+these are groups of four and two vehicles so jammed together as to
+suggest that they must have collided in desperate attempts to stop. On
+the other side of the road, almost level with the leading wagon, are
+found more vehicles, which probably were fired by the explosion of the
+first.
+
+If this appalling destruction was due to one hand grenade, it is an
+illustration of the potentialities of a small amount of high explosive
+detonated in the right spot, while the nature of the place where the
+disaster occurred, a narrow forest road between high trees, is a
+testimony to the skill of the airmen.
+
+It is only fair to add that some French newspapers claim this damage to
+the enemy was caused by the action of a detachment of their dragoons.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+*1,100 Dead in a Single Trench.*
+
+[Official Summary, Dated Oct. 27.]
+
+
+The Official Bureau makes public today the story of an eye-witness,
+supplementing the account issued on Oct. 24, and bringing the story of
+the general course of operations in France up to Oct. 20. The arrival of
+reinforcements, it says, enabled the British troops to assist in the
+extension of the Allies' line where the Germans advanced from the
+northeast and east, holding a front extending from Mont Descats, about
+ten miles northeast of Hazebrouck, through Meteren, five miles south of
+that point, and thence to Estaires, thirteen miles west of Lille, on the
+River Lys. The statement continues:
+
+"South of the Lys the German line extended to three miles east of
+Bethune to Vermelles. The Allies encountered resistance all along the
+line on the 12th and 13th, when the enemy's right fell back hastily.
+Bailleul, seventeen miles northwest by west of Lille, which had been
+occupied by the foe for eight days, was abandoned without a shot being
+fired.
+
+[Illustration: GEN. VON BÜLOW
+Commanding One of the German Armies in the West
+(_Copyright, Photographische Gesellschaft, by permission of the Berlin
+Photographic Co., N.Y._)]
+
+[Illustration: CROWN PRINCE RUPPRECHT OF BAVARIA
+(_Copyright, Photographische Gesellschaft, by permission of the Berlin
+Photographic Co., N.Y._)]
+
+"On the 14th our left wing advanced, driving the enemy back, and on the
+night of the 15th we were in possession of all the country on the left
+bank of the Lys to a point five miles below Armentières. The enemy
+retired from that town on the 16th, and the river line, to within a
+short distance of Frelinghien, fell into our hands.
+
+"The state of the crossings over the Lys indicated that no organized
+scheme of defense had been executed, some of the bridges being in a
+state of repair, others merely barricaded, while one was not even
+defended or broken.
+
+"The resistance offered to our advance on the 15th was of a most
+determined character. The fighting consisted of fiercely contested
+encounters, infantry attacks on the villages being unavailing until our
+howitzers reduced the houses to ruins. Other villages were taken and
+retaken three times before they were finally secured.
+
+"The French cavalry here gave welcome support, and on the evening of the
+16th the resistance was overcome, the enemy retiring five miles to the
+eastward."
+
+Describing an incident of the fighting on this night, the narrative says
+that the important crossing of the Lys at Warneton was strongly held by
+the Germans with a barricade loopholed at the bottom to enable the men
+to fire while lying down.
+
+"Our cavalry, with the artillery, blew the barricade to pieces and
+scattered the defenders," the narrative continues. "Advancing
+three-quarters of a mile our troops reached the square, when one of the
+buildings appeared to leap skyward. A sheet of flame and a shower of
+star shells at the same time made the place as light as day and enabled
+the enemy, ensconced in surrounding houses, to pour a devastating fire
+from rifles and machine guns. Our cavalry extricated themselves with the
+loss of one officer wounded and nine men killed and wounded, but a party
+of volunteers went back and carried off their wounded comrades from the
+inferno.
+
+"During the 17th, 18th, and 19th of October our right encountered strong
+opposition from the enemy about La Bassée, where they had established
+themselves behind embankments. On the centre and the left we made better
+progress, although the Germans were everywhere intrenched, and, in spite
+of the bombardment, held some villages on the Lys. At the close of each
+day a night counter stroke was delivered against one or another part of
+our line, but they were all repulsed.
+
+"Tuesday, Oct. 20, a determined but unsuccessful attack was made against
+virtually the whole of our line. At one point where one of our brigades
+made a counter attack 1,100 German dead were found in a trench and forty
+prisoners were taken."
+
+The narrative points out that the advance of the Allies has been
+hindered by the weather and the nature of the ground, together with the
+impossibility of knowing beforehand the reception that advance
+detachments were likely to meet in approaching any village or town. "One
+place may be evacuated hastily as untenable," the recital continues,
+"while another in the same general line will continue to resist for a
+considerable time. In some villages the inhabitants meet our cyclists
+with kisses, while at the next one the roads will, in all probability,
+have trenches cut across them and blocked with barricades and machine
+guns. Under these circumstances an incautious advance is severely
+punished, and it is impossible for large bodies of troops to push on
+until the front has been thoroughly reconnoitred. This work requires the
+highest qualities from our cavalry, our cyclists, and our advanced
+guards.
+
+Armored motor cars equipped with machine guns are now playing a part in
+the war, and have been most successful in dealing with small parties of
+German mounted troops. In their employment our gallant allies, the
+Belgians, who are now fighting with us and acquitting themselves nobly,
+have shown themselves to be experts. They appear to regard Uhlan hunting
+as a form of sport. The crews display the utmost dash and skill in this
+form of warfare, often going out several miles ahead of their own
+advanced troops and seldom failing to return loaded with spoils in the
+shape of lancers' caps, busbies, helmets, lances, rifles, and other
+trophies, which they distribute as souvenirs to the crowds in the market
+places of the frontier towns.
+
+Although the struggle in the northern area naturally attracts more
+attention than the one in the Aisne, the fighting in this region still
+continues. Although there has been no alteration in the general
+situation, the enemy has made certain changes in the positions of his
+heavy artillery, with the result that one or two places which formerly
+were safe are now subject to bombardment, while others which were
+approachable only at night or by crawling on hands and knees now serve
+as recreation grounds. At one point even a marquee tent has been
+erected.
+
+A story from this quarter illustrates a new use for the craters made by
+the explosions of the "Black Marias," the name given by the men to the
+projectiles of the big German howitzers. An officer on patrol stumbled
+in the dark on the German trenches. He turned and made for the British
+lines, but the fire directed at him was so heavy that he had to throw
+himself on the ground and crawl. There was no cover at hand, and his
+chances looked desperate, when he saw close by an enormous hole in the
+ground made by one of these large shells. Into this he scrambled and
+remained there for a night and a day. When night again came he succeeded
+in reaching our lines in safety.
+
+Official casualty lists of recent date which have been captured show
+that the losses of the Germans continue to be heavy. One single list
+shows that a company of German infantry had 139 men killed and wounded,
+or more than half of its war establishment. Other companies suffered
+almost as heavily. It further appears that the number of men reported
+missing--that is, those who have fallen into the hands of the enemy or
+who have become marauders--is much greater in the reserve battalions
+than in the first line units. This is evidence of the inferior quality
+of some of the reserves now being brought up to reinforce the enemy
+field army, and it is all the more encouraging, since every day adds to
+our first line strength.
+
+The arrival of the Indian contingents caused every one to realize that
+while the enemy was filling his depleted ranks with immature levies, we
+have large reserves of perfectly fresh and thoroughly trained troops to
+draw upon.
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+*Nature of Fighting Changes.*
+
+[Dated Oct. 26.]
+
+
+Before the narrative [Transcriber: original 'narative'] of the progress
+of the fighting near the Franco-Belgian frontier subsequent to Oct. 20
+is continued a brief description will be given of the movement of a
+certain fraction of our troops from its former line facing north, on the
+east of Paris, to its present position facing east, in the northwest
+corner of France, by which a portion of the British Army has been
+enabled to join hands with the incoming and growing stream of
+reinforcements.
+
+This is now an accomplished fact, as is generally known, and can
+therefore be explained in some detail without detriment. Mention will
+also be made of the gradual development up to Oct. 20 in the nature of
+the operations in this quarter of the theatre of war, which has recently
+come into such prominence.
+
+In its broad lines the transfer of strength by one combatant during the
+course of a great battle which has just been accomplished is somewhat
+remarkable. It can best be compared with the action of the Japanese
+during the battle of Mukden, when Gen. Oku withdrew a portion of his
+force from his front, moved it northward behind the line, and threw it
+into the fight again near the extreme left of the Japanese armies.
+
+In general direction, though not in scope or possible results, owing to
+the coast line being reached by the Allies, the parallel [Transcriber:
+original 'parellel'] is complete. The Japanese force concerned, however,
+was much smaller than ours and the distance covered by it was less than
+that from the Aisne to the Franco-Belgian frontier. Gen. Oku's troops,
+moreover, marched, whereas ours were moved by march, rail, and motor.
+
+What was implied in the actual withdrawal from contact with the enemy
+along the Aisne will be appreciated when the conditions under which we
+were then situated are recalled.
+
+In places the two lines were not one hundred yards apart, and for us no
+movement was possible during daylight. In some of the trenches which
+were under enfilade fire our men had to sit all day long close under the
+traverses--as are called those mounds of earth which stretch like
+partitions at intervals across a trench so as to give protection from
+lateral fire. Even where there was cover, such as that afforded by
+depressions or sunken roads, on the hillside below and behind our firing
+line, any attempt to cross the intervening space was met by fierce
+bursts of machine gun and shell fire.
+
+The men in the firing line were on duty for twenty-four hours at a time,
+and brought rations and water with them when they came on duty, for none
+could be sent up to them during the day. Even the wounded could not be
+removed until dark.
+
+The preliminary retirement of the units was therefore carried out
+gradually, under cover of darkness. That the Germans only once opened
+fire on them while so engaged was due to the care with which the
+operation was conducted, and also, probably, to the fact that the enemy
+were so accustomed to the recurrence of the sounds made by the reliefs
+of the men in the firing line and by the movement of the supply trains
+below that they were misled as to what was actually taking place.
+
+What the operation amounted to on our part was the evacuation of the
+trenches, under carefully made arrangements with the French who had to
+take our place in the trenches; the retirement to the river below--in
+many cases down a steep slope; the crossing of the river over the noisy
+plank roadways of floating or repaired bridges, which were mostly
+commanded by the enemy's guns--and the climb up to the top of the
+plateau on the south side.
+
+The rest of the move was a complicated feat of transportation which cut
+across some of the lines of communication of our allies; but it requires
+no description here. In spite of the various difficulties, the whole
+strategic operation of transferring the large number of troops from the
+Aisne was carried out without loss and practically without a hitch.
+
+As regards the change in the nature of the fighting in which we have
+recently been engaged, it has already been pointed out that the
+operations had up till then been of a preparatory nature and that the
+Germans were obviously seeking to delay us by advanced troops while
+heavier forces were being got ready and brought up to the scene of
+action. It was known that they were raising a new army, consisting of
+corps formed of Ersatz, (supernumerary reserves), volunteers, and other
+material which had not yet been drawn upon, and that part of it would in
+all probability be sent to the western theatre, either to cover the
+troops laying siege to Antwerp, in case that place should hold out, or,
+in the event of the capture of the fortress, to act in conjunction with
+the besieging force in a violent offensive movement toward the coast.
+
+After the fall of Antwerp and the release of the besieging troops there
+was a gradual increase in the strength of the opposition met with by us.
+
+The resistance of the detachments--which beyond the right extreme of the
+German fortified line near Bethune a fortnight ago consisted almost
+entirely of cavalry--grew more and more determined as more infantry and
+guns came into the front line, until Tuesday, Oct. 20, when the arrival
+opposite us of a large portion of the new formations and a considerable
+number of heavy guns enabled the enemy to assume the offensive
+practically against the whole of our line at the same time that they
+attacked the Belgians between us and the coast.
+
+The operations then really assumed a fresh complexion.
+
+Since that date, up to the 25th, apart from the operations on either
+side of us, there has been plenty of action to chronicle on our
+immediate front, where some of the heaviest fighting in which we have
+yet been engaged has taken place, resulting in immense loss to the
+Germans.
+
+On Wednesday, the 21st, the new German formations again pressed forward
+in force vigorously all along our line. On our right, south of the Lys,
+an attack on Violaines was repulsed with loss to the assailants.
+
+On the other hand, we were driven from some ground close by, to the
+north, but regained it by a counter attack.
+
+Still further north the Germans gained and retained some points.
+
+Their total casualties to the southeast of Armentieres are estimated at
+over 6,000.
+
+On the north of the Lys, in our centre, a fiercely contested action took
+place near La Gheir, which village was captured in the morning by the
+enemy and then retaken by us. In this direction the German casualties
+were also extremely heavy. They came on with the greatest bravery, in
+swarms, only to be swept away by our fire. One battalion of their 104th
+Regiment was practically wiped out, some 400 dead being picked up by us
+in our lines alone.
+
+Incidentally, by our counter attack, we took 130 prisoners and released
+some forty of our own men who had been surrounded and captured,
+including a subaltern of artillery who had been cut off while observing
+from a point of vantage.
+
+It is agreeable to record that our men were very well treated by their
+captors, who were Saxons, being placed in cellars for protection from
+the bombardment of our own guns.
+
+On our left our troops advanced against the German 26th Reserve Corps
+near Passchendaele, and were met by a determined counter offensive,
+which was driven back with great loss. At night the Germans renewed
+their efforts unsuccessfully in this quarter.
+
+At one point they tried a ruse which is no longer new. As they came up
+in a solid line two deep they shouted out: "Don't fire; we are the
+Coldstream Guards."
+
+But our men are getting used to tricks of this kind, and the only result
+of this "slimness" was that they allowed the enemy's infantry to
+approach, quite close before they swept them down with magazine fire.
+
+Apart from the 400 dead found near our lines in our centre, our patrols
+afterwards discovered some 300 dead further out in front of our left,
+killed by our artillery.
+
+Thursday, the 22d, saw a renewal of the pressure against us. We
+succeeded, however, in holding our ground in nearly every quarter.
+
+South of the Lys the enemy attacked from La Bassée, and gained Violaines
+and another point, but their effort against a third village was repulsed
+by artillery fire alone, the French and British guns working together
+very effectively. On the north of the river it was a day of minor
+attacks against us, which were all beaten back.
+
+The Germans advanced in the evening against our centre and left, and
+were again hurled back, though they gained some of our trenches in the
+latter quarter. By this time the enemy had succeeded in bringing up
+several heavy howitzers, and our casualties were considerable.
+
+On Friday, the 23d, all action south of the Lys on our right was
+confined to that of the artillery, several of the hostile batteries
+being silenced by our fire? In the centre their infantry again
+endeavored to force their way forward, and were only repulsed after
+determined fighting, leaving many dead on the ground and several
+prisoners in our hands. North of the Lys attacks at different points
+were repulsed.
+
+On our left the 23d was a bad day for the Germans. Advancing in our
+turn, we drove them from some of the trenches out of which they had
+turned us on the previous evening, captured 150 prisoners, and released
+some of our men whom they had taken.
+
+As the Germans retreated our guns did great execution among them.
+
+They afterwards made five desperate assaults on our trenches, advancing
+in mass and singing "Die Wacht am Rhein" as they came on. Each assault
+was easily beaten back, our troops waiting until the enemy came to very
+close range before they opened fire with rifles and Maxims, causing
+terrible havoc in the solid masses.
+
+During the fighting in this quarter on the night of the 22d and on the
+23d the German losses were again extremely heavy. We made over 600
+prisoners during that time and picked up 1,500 dead, killed on the
+latter day alone.
+
+Much of the slaughter was due to the point blank magazine fire of our
+men against the German assaults, while our field guns and howitzers,
+working in perfect combination, did their share when the enemy were
+repulsed. As they fell back they were subjected to a shower of shrapnel.
+When they sought shelter in villages or buildings they were shattered
+and driven out by high-explosive shells and then again caught by
+shrapnel as they came into the open.
+
+The troops to suffer so severely were mostly of Twenty-third Corps, one
+of their new formations.
+
+Certainly the way their advance was conducted showed a lack of training
+and faults in leading which the almost superhuman bravery of the
+soldiers could not counterbalance. It was a holocaust.
+
+The spectacle of these devoted men chanting a national song as they
+marched on to certain death was inspiring. It was at the same time
+pitiable.
+
+And if any proof were needed that untrained valor alone cannot gain the
+day in modern war, the advance of the Twenty-third German Corps on Oct.
+23 most assuredly furnished it.
+
+Besides doing its share of execution on the hostile infantry, our
+artillery in this quarter brought down a German captive balloon.
+
+As some gauge of the rate at which the guns were firing at what was for
+them an ideal target, it may be mentioned that one field battery
+expended 1,800 rounds of ammunition during the day.
+
+On Saturday, the 24th, action on our right was once more confined to
+that of artillery, except at night, when the Germans pressed on, only to
+be repulsed.
+
+In the centre, near Armentières, our troops withstood three separate
+attempts of the enemy to push forward, our guns coming into play with
+good effect. Against our left the German Twenty-seventh Corps made a
+violent effort with no success.
+
+On Sunday, the 25th, it was our turn to take the offensive. This was
+carried out by a portion of our left wing, which advanced, gained some
+ground, and took two guns and eighty prisoners. It is believed that six
+machine guns fell to the French.
+
+In the centre the fighting was severe, though generally indecisive in
+result, and the troops in some places were engaged in hand-to-hand
+combat. Toward evening we captured 200 prisoners.
+
+On the right action was again confined to that of the guns.
+
+Up to the night of the 25th, therefore, not only have we maintained our
+position against the great effort on the part of the enemy to break
+through to the west, or to force us back, which started on the 20th; we
+have on our left passed to the offensive.
+
+These six days, as may be gathered, have been spent by us in repelling a
+succession of desperate onslaughts. It is true that the efforts against
+us have been made to a great extent by partially trained men, some of
+whom appear to be suffering from lack of food. But it must not be
+forgotten that these troops, which are in great force, have only
+recently been brought into the field, and are therefore comparatively
+fresh. They are fighting also with the utmost determination, in spite
+of the fact that many of them are heartily sick of the war.
+
+The struggle has been of the most severe and sanguinary nature, and it
+seems that success will favor that side which is possessed of most
+endurance, or can bring up and fling fresh forces into the fray. Though
+we have undoubtedly inflicted immense loss upon the enemy, they have so
+far been able to fill up the gaps in their ranks and to return to the
+charge, and we have suffered heavily ourselves.
+
+One feature of the tactics now employed has been the use of cavalry in
+dismounted action, for on both sides many of the mounted troops are
+fighting in the trenches alongside the infantry.
+
+Armored motor cars, armed with Maxims and light quick-firing guns, also
+have recently played a useful part on our side, especially in helping to
+eject the enemy lurking in villages and isolated buildings. Against such
+parties the combined action of the quick-firer against the snipers in
+buildings, and the Maxim against them when they are driven into the
+open, is most efficacious.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+*The British Defense at Ypres.*
+
+[Dated Nov. 13.]
+
+
+The diminution in the force of the German rush to the west has not
+lasted long. The section of the front to the north of our forces was the
+first to meet the recrudescence of violence in the shape of an attack in
+the neighborhood of Dixmude and Bixschoote.
+
+Our turn came next. After eight days of comparative relaxation we were
+under constant pressure from Tuesday, Nov. 3, to Tuesday, the 10th. The
+next day saw a repetition of the great attempt of the Germans to break
+through our lines to the French coast.
+
+What was realized might happen did happen. In spite of the immense
+losses suffered by the enemy during the five-day attack against Ypres,
+which lasted from Oct. 29 to the 2d of this month, the cessation of
+their more violent efforts on the latter day did not signalize the
+abandonment of the whole project, but merely the temporary
+relinquishment of the main offensive until fresh troops had been massed
+to carry on what was proving to be a costly and difficult operation.
+
+Meanwhile the interval was employed in endeavoring to wear out the
+Allies by repeated local attacks of varying force and to shatter them by
+a prolonged and concentrated bombardment. By the 11th, therefore, it
+seems that they considered they had attained both objects, for on that
+day they recommenced the desperate battle for the possession of Ypres
+and its neighborhood.
+
+Though the struggle has not yet come to an end, this much can be said:
+The Germans have gained some ground, but they have not captured Ypres.
+
+In repulsing the enemy so far we have suffered heavy casualties, but
+battles of this fierce and prolonged nature cannot but be costly to both
+sides. We have the satisfaction of knowing that we have foiled the enemy
+in what appears to be at present his main object in the western theatre
+of operations, and have inflicted immensely greater losses on him than
+those we have suffered ourselves.
+
+To carry on the narrative for the three days of the 10th, 11th, and 12th
+of November:
+
+Tuesday, the 10th, was uneventful for us. At some distance beyond our
+left flank the enemy advanced in force against the French and were
+repulsed. Directly on our left, however, along the greater part of the
+front, shelling was less severe, and no infantry attacks took place.
+
+To the southeast of Ypres the enemy kept up a very heavy bombardment
+against our line, as well as that of the French. On our left centre the
+situation remained unchanged, both sides contenting themselves with
+furious cannonading. In our centre the Germans retained their hold on
+the small amount of ground which they had gained from us, but in doing
+so incurred a heavy loss from our artillery and machine gun fire.
+
+Incidentally, one of the houses held by the enemy was so knocked about
+by our fire that its defenders bolted. On their way to the rear they
+were met by reinforcements under an officer who halted them, evidently
+in an endeavor to persuade them to return. While the parley Was going on
+one of our machine guns was quietly moved to a position of vantage,
+whence it opened a most effective fire on the group.
+
+On our right one of the enemy's saps, which was being pushed toward our
+line, was attacked by us. All the men in it were captured.
+
+Wednesday, the 11th, was another day of desperate fighting. As day broke
+the Germans opened fire on our trenches to the north and south of the
+road from Menin to Ypres. This was probably the most furious artillery
+fire which they have yet employed against us.
+
+A few hours later they followed this by an infantry assault in force.
+This attack was carried out by the First and Fourth brigades of the
+Guard Corps, which, as we now know from prisoners, have been sent for to
+make a supreme effort to capture Ypres, since that task had proved too
+heavy for the infantry of the line.
+
+As the attackers surged forward they were met by our frontal fire, and
+since they were moving diagonally across part of our front they were
+also attacked on the flank by artillery, rifles, and machine guns.
+Though their casualties before they reached our line must have been
+enormous, such was their resolution and the momentum of the mass that in
+spite of the splendid resistance of our troops they succeeded in
+breaking through our line in three places near the road. They penetrated
+some distance into the woods behind our trenches, but were
+counter-attacked again, enfiladed by machine guns and driven back to
+their line of trenches, a certain portion of which they succeeded in
+holding, in spite of our efforts to expel them.
+
+What their total losses must have been during this advance may be gauged
+to some extent from the fact that the number of dead left in the woods
+behind our line alone amounted to 700.
+
+A simultaneous effort made to the south, a part of the same operation
+although not carried out by the Guard Corps, failed entirely, for when
+the attacking infantry massed in the woods close to our line, our guns
+opened on them with such effect that they did not push the assault home.
+
+As generally happens in operations in wooded country, the fighting to a
+great extent was carried on at close quarters. It was most desperate and
+confused. Scattered bodies of the enemy who had penetrated into the
+woods in the rear of our position could neither go backward nor forward,
+and were nearly all killed or captured.
+
+The portion of the line to the southeast of Ypres held by us was heavily
+shelled, but did not undergo any very serious infantry attack. That
+occupied by the French, however, was both bombarded and fiercely
+assaulted. On the rest of our front, save for the usual bombardment, all
+was comparatively quiet.
+
+On the right one of our trenches was mined and then abandoned. As soon
+as it was occupied by the enemy the charges were fired and several
+Germans were blown to pieces.
+
+Thursday, Nov. 12, was marked by a partial lull in the fighting all
+along our line. To the north a German force which had crossed the Yser
+and intrenched on the left bank was annihilated by a night attack with
+the bayonet, executed by the French. Slightly to the south the enemy was
+forced back for three-quarters of a mile. Immediately on our left the
+French were strongly attacked and driven back a short distance, our
+extreme left having to conform to this movement. Our allies soon
+recovered the ground they had lost, however, and this enabled us to
+advance also.
+
+To the southeast of Ypres the enemy's snipers were very active. On our
+centre and right the enemy's bombardment was maintained, but nothing
+worthy of special note occurred.
+
+The fact that on this day the advance against our line in front of Ypres
+was not pushed home after such an effort as that of Wednesday tends to
+show that for the moment the attacking troops had had enough.
+
+Although the failure of this great attack by the Guard Corps to
+accomplish their object cannot be described as a decisive event, it
+possibly marks the culmination if not the close of the second stage in
+the attempt to capture Ypres, arid it is not without significance. It
+has also a dramatic interest of its own. Having once definitely failed
+to achieve this object by means of the sheer weight of numbers, and
+having done their best to wear us down, the Germans brought in fresh
+picked troops to carry the Ypres salient by an assault from the north,
+the south and the east. That the Guard Corps should have been selected
+to act against the eastern edge of the salient may be taken as proof of
+the necessity felt by the Germans to gain this point in the line.
+
+Their dogged perseverance in pursuance of their objective claims
+whole-hearted admiration. The failure of one great attack, heralded as
+it was by an impassioned appeal to the troops made in the presence of
+the Emperor himself, but carried out by partially trained men, has been
+only the signal for another desperate effort in which the place of honor
+was assigned to the corps d'élite of the German Army.
+
+It must be admitted that the Guard Corps has retained that reputation
+for courage and contempt of death which it earned in 1870, when Emperor
+William I., after the battle of Gravelotte, wrote: "My Guard has found
+its grave in front of St. Privat," and the swarms of men who came up
+bravely to the British rifles in the woods around Ypres repeated the
+tactics of forty-four years ago when their dense columns, toiling up the
+slopes of St. Privat, melted away under the fire of the French.
+
+That the Germans are cunning fighters, and well up in all the tricks of
+the trade, has frequently been pointed out. For instance, they often
+succeed in ascertaining what regiment or brigade is opposed to them, and
+because of their knowledge of English, they are able to employ the
+information to some purpose. On a recent occasion, having by some means
+discovered the name of the commander of the company holding the trench
+they were attacking, they called him by name, asking if Captain ---- was
+there. Fortunately the pronunciation of the spokesman was somewhat
+defective, and their curiosity was rewarded by discovering that both the
+officer in question and his men were very much there.
+
+There have been reports from so many different quarters of the enemy
+having been seen wearing British and French uniforms that it is
+impossible to doubt their truth. One absolutely authentic case occurred
+during the fighting near Ypres. A man dressed in a uniform closely
+resembling that of a British staff officer suddenly appeared near our
+trenches and walked along the line. He asked if many casualties had been
+suffered, stated that the situation was serious, and that a general
+retirement had been ordered. A similar visit having been reported by
+several men in different trenches, orders were issued that this strange
+officer was to be detained if seen again. Unluckily he did not make
+another appearance.
+
+The following remarks taken from the diary of a German soldier are
+published not because there is reason to believe they are justified with
+regard to the conduct of German officers but because of their interest
+as a human document. Under date of Nov. 2 this German soldier wrote:
+
+     Previous to noon we were sent out in a regular storm of bullets on
+     the order of the Major. These gentlemen, the officers, send their
+     men forward in a most ridiculous way. They themselves remain far
+     behind, safely under cover. Our leadership is really scandalous.
+     Enormous losses on our side are partly from the fire of our own
+     people, for our leaders neither know where the enemy lies nor where
+     our own troops are, so that we often are fired on by our own men.
+     It is a marvel to me that we have got on as far as we have done.
+
+     Our Captain fell, as did also all our section leaders and a large
+     number of our men. Moreover, no purpose was served by this advance,
+     for we remained the rest of the day under cover; we could go
+     neither forward nor back, nor even shoot.
+
+     The trench we had taken was not occupied by us. The English
+     naturally took it back at night. That was the sole result. Then
+     when the enemy had intrenched themselves another attack was made,
+     costing us many lives and fifty prisoners. It is simply ridiculous,
+     this leadership. If only I had known it before! My opinion of
+     German officers has changed.
+
+     An Adjutant shouted to us from a trench far to the rear to cut down
+     a hedge in front of us. Bullets were whistling round from in front
+     and from behind. The gentleman himself, of course, remained behind.
+
+     The Fourth Company has now no leaders but a couple of non-coms.
+     When will my turn come! I hope to goodness I shall get home again.
+
+     In the trenches shells and shrapnel burst without ceasing. In the
+     evening we get a cup of rice and one-third of an apple per man. Let
+     us hope peace will soon come. Such a war is really too awful. The
+     English shoot like mad. If no reinforcements come up, especially
+     heavy artillery, we shall have a poor lookout and must retire.
+
+     The first day I went quietly into the fight with an indifference
+     which astonished me. Today, for the first time, in advancing, when
+     my comrades on the right and left were falling, I felt rather
+     nervous. But I lost that feeling again soon. One becomes horribly
+     indifferent.
+
+     I picked up a piece of bread by chance. Thank God! At least I have
+     something to eat.
+
+     There are about 70,000 English who must be attacked from all four
+     sides and destroyed. However, they defend themselves obstinately.
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+*Attacked by 750,000 Germans.*
+
+[Official Summary, Dated Dec. 3.]
+
+
+Col. E.D. Swinton of the Intelligence Department of the General Staff of
+the British Expeditionary Force in France and Belgium, in a narrative
+dated Nov. 26, gives a general review of the development of the
+situation of the force for six weeks preceding that date.
+
+There has recently been a lull in the active operations, he says. No
+progress has been made by either side, and yet there has come about an
+important modification comprising a readjustment in the scope of the
+part played by the British Army as a whole. He explains the movement
+from the River Aisne to the Belgian frontier to prolong the left flank
+of the French Army, and says that in attempting this the British force
+was compelled to assume responsibility for a very extended section of
+the front. He points out, as did Field Marshal Sir John French,
+Commander in Chief of the British forces, that the British held only
+one-twelfth of the line, so that the greater share of the common task of
+opposing the enemy fell and still falls to the French, while the
+Belgians played an almost vital part.
+
+With the fall of Antwerp the Germans made every effort to push forward a
+besieging force toward the west and hastened to bring up a new army
+corps which had been hastily raised and trained, their object being to
+drive the Allies out of Belgium and break through to Dunkirk and Calais.
+Altogether they had a quarter of a million of fresh men. Eventually the
+Germans had north of La Bassée about fourteen corps and eight cavalry
+divisions, that is, "a force of three-quarters of a million of men with
+which to attempt to drive the Allies into the sea. In addition, there
+was immensely powerful armament and heavy siege artillery, which also
+had been brought up from around Antwerp."
+
+The official eye-witness tells of the blows delivered by the Germans at
+Nieuport, Dixmude, and Ypres, where "at first the Allies were greatly
+outnumbered." For a whole month the British army around Ypres succeeded
+in holding its ground against repeated onslaughts made by vastly
+superior forces. The writer goes into details of the German attacks and
+describes how they were frustrated by the Allies.
+
+The British force, says Col. Swinton, which consisted all along of the
+same units, had "to withstand an almost continuous bombardment and to
+meet one desperate assault after another, each carried out by fresh
+units from the large numbers which the Germans were devoting to the
+operation." Finally the French came to their assistance, and "never was
+help more welcome; for by then our small local reserves had again and
+again been thrown into the fight in the execution of counter-attacks,
+and our men were exhausted by the incessant fighting."
+
+The British front now has been considerably shortened and in addition
+has been reinforced, while a lull in the activity has enabled the
+British to readjust their forces, strengthen their positions, and bring
+up reserves. There has, therefore, "been a great general improvement in
+the conditions under which we are carrying on the fight". Of the
+fighting which preceded this reorganization the writer says it is due
+solely to the resource, initiative, and endurance of the regimental
+officers and men that success has lain with the British. He continues:
+
+"As the struggle swayed backward and forward through wood and hamlet,
+the fighting assumed a most confused and desperate character. The units
+became inextricably mixed, and in many cases, in order to strengthen
+some threatened point or to fill a gap in the line, the officers had to
+collect and throw into the fight what men they could, regardless of the
+units to which they belonged. Our casualties have been severe; but we
+have been fighting a battle, and a battle implies casualties, and, heavy
+as they have been, it must be remembered that they have not been
+suffered in vain.
+
+"The duty of the French, Belgians, and British in the western theatre of
+operations has been to act as a containing force; in other words, to
+hold on to and to keep occupied as many of the enemy as possible while
+the Russians were attacking in the east. In this we have succeeded in
+playing our part, and by our resistance have contributed materially
+toward the success of the campaign. Moreover, our losses have not
+impaired our fighting efficiency. The troops have required only a slight
+respite in order to be able to continue the action with as much
+determination as ever. They are physically fit and well fed and have
+suffered merely from the fatigue which is inseparable from a protracted
+struggle such as they have been through. The severest handling by the
+enemy has never had more than a temporary effect on their spirits,
+which they have soon recovered, owing to the years of discipline and
+training to which the officers and men have been accustomed.
+
+"The value of such preparation is as noticeable on the side of the enemy
+as on our own. The phenomenal losses suffered by the Germans' new
+formations have been remarked, and they were in part due to their lack
+of training. Moreover, though at the first onset these formations
+advanced to the attack as gravely as their active corps, they have not
+by any means, shown the same recuperative powers. The Twenty-seventh
+Corps, for instance, which is a new formation composed principally of
+men with from only seven to twelve weeks' training, has not yet
+recovered from its first encounter with the British infantry around
+Becelaere, to the northeast of Ypres, a month ago. On the other hand,
+the Guards Corps, in spite of having suffered severely in Belgium, of
+having been thrown headlong across the Oise River at Guise and of having
+lost large numbers on the plains of Compiègne and on the banks of the
+Aisne River, advanced against Ypres on the 11th of November as bravely
+as they did on the 20th of August."
+
+The Allies, continues Col. Swinton, have made great sacrifices to defend
+against tremendous odds a line that could only be maintained by making
+these sacrifices; but the fact that the situation has been relieved is
+no reason for assuming that the enemy has abandoned his intention of
+pressing through to the sea. The writer points out that the Germans
+continue to attack with great courage, but little abated by failure,
+and, while they have not succeeded in gaining the Straits of Dover, they
+have been enabled to consolidate their position on the western front and
+retain all but a small portion of Belgium.
+
+"As well as they have fought, however," continues the narrative, "it is
+doubtful if their achievements are commensurate with their losses, which
+recently have been largely due to a lack of training and a comparative
+lack of discipline of the improvised units they put in the field."
+
+Col. Swinton concludes with the statement that, as the war is going to
+be one of exhaustion, after the regular armies of the belligerents have
+done their work it will be upon the raw material of the countries
+concerned that final success will depend.
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+*The Lull in November.*
+
+[Dated Nov. 29.]
+
+
+General inactivity is recorded along the English front, with the Germans
+pressing the attack in one quarter against the Indian troops, who have
+been extending their trenches in an endeavor to get in close quarters
+with the enemy. There has been some shelling of the rear of our front
+line south of the Lys, but this form of annoyance diminishes daily along
+the whole front. Sniping, however, is carried on almost incessantly.
+There seems to be little doubt that the Germans are employing civilians,
+either willingly or unwillingly, to dig trenches; some civilians have
+been seen and shot while engaged in this work.
+
+While it is necessary to accept the evidence of all prisoners with
+caution, there is a change in the views expressed by some officers
+captured recently which appears to be genuine. They admit the failure of
+the German strategy and profess to take a gloomy view of the future. At
+the same time it must be confessed that as yet there is no sign that
+their view is that generally held by the enemy, nor has there been any
+definite indication of a lack of morale among the German troops.
+
+The highways of Northern France are crowded with men responding to the
+various mobilization orders issued by the French Government.
+
+Thousands of such troops were encountered in the course of a short
+automobile trip. The strange procession includes a curious mixture of
+types. A considerable proportion of these new drafts are composed of
+middle-aged men of good physique and likely young men from the
+countryside.
+
+The change within the last few days of what may be termed the atmosphere
+of the battlefield has been marked. The noise of the cannonading has now
+decreased to such an extent that for hours at a time nothing is heard
+but the infrequent boom of one of the heavy guns of the Allies, the
+occasional rattle of machine guns, and the intermittent fire of snipers
+on either side. So far as the use of explosives is concerned, the
+greatest activity is found in local attacks with hand grenades and
+short-range howitzers. The enemy has practically ceased his efforts to
+break through the line by assaults, and he is now devoting his energies
+to the same type of siege operations which have been familiar to the
+Allies since the beginning of the battle of the Aisne.
+
+Subterranean life is the general rule in the neighborhood of the firing
+line. Even those men not actually engaged in fighting live in
+underground quarters. Some of these quarters, called "funk-holes" are
+quite elaborate and comfortable and contain many conveniences not found
+in the trenches on the firing line. They communicate with the firing
+line by zigzag approach trenches which make enfilading impossible.
+
+Attacks are made on the firing line trenches by blind saps, which are
+constructed by a special earth borer. When this secret tunnel reaches
+the enemy's trench, an assault is delivered amid a shower of hand
+grenades. The stormers endeavor to burst their way through the opening
+and then try to work along the trench. Machine guns are quickly brought
+up to repel a counter attack. Most of this fighting takes place at such
+close range that the guns on either side cannot be fired at the enemy's
+infantry without great risk of hitting their own men. Bombs have come to
+take the place of artillery, and they are being used in enormous
+quantities.
+
+The short-range howitzers are of three types, and those used by the
+Germans have come to be termed the "Jack Johnson" of close attack. The
+smaller bombs and grenades thrown by hand, although local in action, are
+very unpleasant, particularly between the inclosed space of a trench.
+These grenades are thrown continuously by both sides, and every trench
+assault is first preceded and then accompanied by showers of these
+murderous missiles. This kind of fighting is very deadly, and owing to
+the difficulty of observation it is at times somewhat blind. This
+difficulty has in a measure been decreased, however, by the use of the
+hyperscope, an instrument which works very much like the periscope on a
+submarine. It permits an observer to look out over the top of a parapet
+without raising his head above the protection of the trench.
+
+
+
+
+*THE DAWN OF A NEW DAY.*
+
+By EDWARD NEVILLE VOSE.
+
+
+THE old year dies 'mid gloom and woe--
+  The saddest year since Christ was born--
+And those who battle in the snow
+  All anxious-eyed look for the morn--
+The morn when wars shall be no more,
+  The morn when Might shall cease to reign,
+When hushed shall be the cannons' roar
+  And Peace shall rule the earth again.
+
+As we from far survey the fray
+  And strive to succor those who fall,
+Let each give thanks that not today
+  To us the clarion bugles call--
+That not today to us 'tis said:
+  "Bow down the knee, or pay the cost
+Till all ye loved are maimed or dead,
+  Till all ye had is wrecked and lost."
+
+Should that grim summons to us come
+  God grant we'd all play heroes' parts,
+And bravely fight for land and home
+  While red blood flows in loyal hearts.
+But now a duty nobler far
+  Has come to us in this great day--
+We are the nations' guiding star,
+  They look to us to lead the way.
+
+They look to us to lead the way
+  To liberty for all the world,
+The dawning of that better day
+  When war's torn banners shall be furled--
+The day when men of every race
+  Their right divine shall clearly see
+To rule themselves by their own grace,
+  Forever and forever free.
+
+
+
+
+*"Human Documents" of Battle*
+
+*By Men Who Saw or Took Part./*
+
+    _Written in the hurry and confusion of battle, and without the
+    opportunity at hand to check up the impressions given, it is of
+    course likely that these dispatches from special correspondents may
+    contain many things which history will correct. But as human
+    documents they have no equal, and history will not be able, however
+    she may correct matters of detail and partisan feeling, to offer
+    anything which will give a more vivid impression of the glare and
+    roar of battle than do these letters, penned by men actually in or
+    near the firing line at the moment of great events. As such_ THE
+    TIMES _offers them, not as frozen history, but as history in the
+    making, and has no apologies to make for an error of fact here and
+    there, for those very errors are in a way testimony that adds value
+    to the story--the story of honest and hard-driven human beings
+    writing what was passing before their eyes._
+
+
+
+
+*The German Entry Into Brussels*
+
+*By John Boon of The London Daily Mail.*
+
+
+BRUSSELS, via Alost, Aug. 20. (Thursday,) 10 P.M.
+
+The Germans entered Brussels shortly after 2 P.M. today without firing a
+shot.
+
+Yielding to the dictates of reason and humanity, the civil Government at
+the last moment disbanded the Civic Guard, which the Germans would not
+recognize. The soldiers and ordinary police were then entrusted with the
+maintenance of order.
+
+After a day of wild panic and slumberless nights the citizens remained
+at their windows. Few sought their couches.
+
+The morning broke brilliantly. The city was astir early, and on all lips
+were the words: "They are here" or "They are coming!"
+
+The "they" referred to were already outside the boundaries in great
+force. The artillery was packed off on the road to Waterloo. Horse,
+foot, and sapper were packed deep on the Louvain and Tervervueren roads.
+
+An enterprising motorist came in with the information and the crowds in
+the busy centres immediately became calm. At 11 o'clock it was reported
+that an officer with half a troop of hussars bearing white flags had
+halted outside the Louvain gate.
+
+The Burgomaster and four Sheriffs went in a motor car to meet the
+officers. They were conducted to the German military authorities at the
+head of the column. The meeting took place outside the barracks of the
+carabineers.
+
+The Burgomaster claimed for the citizens their rights under the laws of
+war regulating an unfortified capital. When roughly asked if he was
+prepared to surrender the city, with the threat that otherwise it would
+be bombarded, the Burgomaster said he would do so. He also decided to
+remove his scarf of office.
+
+The discussion was brief. When the Burgomaster handed over his scarf it
+was handed back to him and he was thus intrusted for the time being with
+the civil control of the citizens. The Germans gave him plainly to
+understand that he would be held responsible for any overt act on the
+part of the populace against the Germans.
+
+From noon until 2 o'clock the crowds waited expectantly. Shortly after 2
+o'clock the booming of cannon and later the sound of military music
+conveyed to the people of Brussels the intimation that the triumphant
+march of the enemy on the ancient city had begun.
+
+On they came, preceded by a scouting party of Uhlans, horse, foot, and
+artillery and sappers, with a siege train complete.
+
+A special feature of the procession was 100 motor cars on which
+quick-firers were mounted. Every regiment and battery was headed by a
+band, horse or foot.
+
+Now came the drums and fifes, now the blare of brass and soldiers
+singing "Die Wacht am Rhein" and "Deutschland Ueber Alles."
+
+Along the Chaussee de Louvain, past St. Josse and the Botanical Gardens,
+to the great open space in front of the Gare du Nord, the usual lounging
+place of the tired twaddlers of the city, swept the legions of the man
+who broke the peace of Europe.
+
+Among the cavalry were the famous Brunswick Death's Head Hussars and
+their companions on many bloody fields, the Zeiten Hussars. But where
+was the glorious garb of the German troops, the cherry-colored uniforms
+of the horsemen and the blue of the infantry? All is greenish,
+earth-color gray. All the hel- [Transcriber: Text missing in original.]
+are painted gray. The gun carriages are gray. Even the pontoon bridges
+are gray.
+
+To the quick-step beat of the drums the Kaiser's men march to the great
+Square Charles Rogier. Then at the whistling sound of the word of
+command--for the sonorous orders of the German officers seemed to have
+gone the way of the brilliant uniforms--the gray-clad ranks broke into
+the famous goose step, while the good people of Liége and Brussels gazed
+at the passing wonder with mouths agape.
+
+At the railroad station the great procession defiled to the boulevards
+and thence marched to encamp on the heights of the city called
+Kochelberg. It was truly a sight to have gladdened the eyes of the
+Kaiser, but on the sidewalks men were muttering beneath their breath:
+"They'll not pass here on their return. The Allies will do for them."
+
+Many of the younger men in the great array seemed exhausted after the
+long forced march, but as a man staggered his comrades in the ranks
+held him up.
+
+It was a great spectacle and an impressive one, but there were minor
+incidents that were of a less pleasant character.
+
+Two Belgian officers, manacled and fastened to the leather stirrups of
+two Uhlans, made a spectacle that caused a low murmur of resentment from
+the citizens. Instantly German horsemen backed their steeds into the
+closely packed ranks of the spectators, threatening them with uplifted
+swords and stilling the momentary revolt.
+
+At one point of the march a lame hawker offered flowers for sale to the
+soldiers. As he held up his posies a Captain of Hussars by a movement of
+his steed sent the poor wretch sprawling and bleeding in the dust. Then
+from the crowd a Frenchwoman, her heart scorning fear, cried out, "You
+brute!" so that all might hear.
+
+There was one gross pleasantry, too, perpetrated by a gunner who led
+along a bear, evidently the pet of his battery, which was dressed in the
+full regalia of a Belgian General.
+
+The bear was evidently intended to represent the King. He touched his
+cocked hat at intervals to his keeper.
+
+This particularly irritated the Belgians, but they wisely abstained from
+any overt manifestation or any unpleasant feature of behavior. The
+soldiery as they passed tore repeatedly at the national colors which
+every Belgian lady now wears on her breast.
+
+A more pleasant incident was when a party of Uhlans clamored for
+admittance at a villa on the Louvain road. They disposed of a dozen
+bottles of wine and bread and meat. The non-commissioned officer in
+command asked what the charge was and offered some gold pieces in
+payment. The money was refused.
+
+Near the steps of St. Gudule a party of officers of high rank, seated in
+a motor car, confiscated the stock of the news vendors. After greedily
+scanning the sheets they burst into loud laughter.
+
+Hour after hour, hour after hour, the Kaiser's legions marched into
+Brussels streets and boulevards. Some regiments made a very fine
+appearance, and it is well that the people of England should know this.
+It was notably so in the case of the Sixty-sixth, Fourth and
+Twenty-sixth Regiments. Not one man of these regiments showed any sign
+of excessive fatigue after the gruelling night of marching, and no doubt
+the order to "goose step" was designedly given to impress the onlookers
+with the powers of resistance of the German soldiers.
+
+[Illustration: The First Rush Into Belgium.]
+
+The railway stations, the Post Office and the Town Hall were at once
+closed. The national flag on the latter was pulled down and the German
+emblem hoisted in its place. Practically all the shops were closed and
+the blinds drawn on most of the windows.
+
+At the time of writing I have heard of no very untoward incident. The
+last train left Brussels at 9 o'clock on Wednesday night. Passengers to
+the city cannot pass beyond Denderleeuw, where there are strong German
+pickets.
+
+
+
+
+*The Fall of Antwerp*
+
+*By a Correspondent of The London Daily Chronicle, Who Was at Antwerp
+During the Siege.*
+
+[Special Dispatch to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
+
+
+LONDON, Oct. 11.--A Daily Chronicle correspondent who has just arrived
+from Antwerp tells the following story of his experiences:
+
+Antwerp has been surrendered. This last and bitterest blow which has
+fallen upon Belgium is full of poignant tragedy, but the tragedy is
+lightened by the gallantry with which the city was defended.
+
+Only at the last, to save the historic buildings and precious
+possessions of the ancient port, was its further defense abandoned.
+Already much of it had been shattered by the long-range German guns, and
+prolonged resistance against these tremendous engines of war was
+impossible.
+
+Owing to this the siege was perhaps the shortest in the annals of war
+that a fortified city ever sustained. I have already described its
+preliminaries and the many heroic efforts which were made by the
+Belgians to stem the tide of the enemy's advance, but the end could not
+long be delayed when the siege guns began the bombardment.
+
+It was at three minutes past noon on Friday that the Germans entered the
+city, which was formally surrendered by the Burgomaster, J. de Vos.
+Antwerp had then been under a devastating and continuous shell fire for
+over forty hours.
+
+It was difficult for me to ascertain precisely how the German attack was
+being constituted, but from officers and others who made journeys from
+the fighting lines into the city I gathered that the final assault
+consisted of a continuous bombardment of two hours' duration, from 7:30
+o'clock in the morning until 9:30.
+
+During that time there was a continuous rain of shells, and it was
+extraordinary to notice the precision with which they dropped just where
+they would do the most damage. I was told that the Germans used captive
+balloons, whose officers signaled to the gunners the points in the
+Belgian defense at which they should aim.
+
+The German guns, too, were concealed with such cleverness that their
+position could not be detected by the Belgians. Against such methods and
+against the terrible power of the German guns the Belgian artillery
+seemed quite ineffective. The firing came to an end at 9:30 o'clock
+Friday, and the garrison escaped, leaving only ruins behind them.
+
+[Illustration: GEN. VON KLUCK
+Commanding on the German Left Wing in the West
+(_Copyright, Photographische Gesellschaft, by permission of the Berlin
+Photographic Co., N.Y._)]
+
+[Illustration: GEN. VON HINDENBURG
+The German Commander in the East
+(_Copyright, Photographische Gesellschaft, by permission of the Berlin
+Photographic Co. N.Y._)]
+
+In order to gain time for an orderly retreat, a heavy fire was
+maintained against the Germans up to the last minute, and the forts were
+then blown up by the defenders as the Germans came in at the Gate of
+Malines. I was lucky enough to escape by the river to the north in a
+motor boat. The bombardment had then ceased, though many buildings were
+still blazing, and while the little boat sped down the Scheldt one could
+imagine the procession of the Kaiser's troops already goose-stepping
+their way through the well-nigh deserted streets.
+
+Those forty hours of shattering noise, almost without a lull, seem to me
+now a fantastic nightmare, but the harrowing sights I witnessed in many
+parts of the city cannot be forgotten. It was Wednesday night that the
+shells began to fall into the city. From then onward they must have
+averaged about ten a minute, and most of them came from the largest guns
+which the Germans possess--"Black Marias," as Tommy Atkins has
+christened them.
+
+Before the bombardment had been long in operation the civil population
+or a large proportion of it fell into a panic. It is impossible to blame
+these peaceful, quiet living burghers of Antwerp for the fears that
+possessed them when the merciless rain of German shells began to fall
+into the streets and on the roofs of their houses and public buildings.
+The Burgomaster had in his proclamation given them excellent advice to
+remain calm and he certainly set them an admirable example, but it was
+impossible to counsel the Belgians who knew what had happened to their
+fellow citizens in other towns which the Germans had passed through.
+
+Immense crowds of them, men, women and children, gathered along the
+quayside and at the railway stations in an effort to make a hasty exit
+from the city. Their condition was pitiable in the extreme. Family
+parties made up the biggest proportion of this vast crowd of broken men
+and women. There were husbands and wives with their groups of scared
+children unable to understand what was happening, yet dimly conscious in
+their childish way that something unusual and terrible and perilous had
+come into their lives.
+
+In many groups were to be seen old, old people, grandfathers and
+grandmothers of a family, and these in their shaking frailty and terror,
+which they could not withstand, were the more pitiable objects in the
+great gathering of stricken townsfolk. This pathetic clinging together
+of the family was one of the most affecting sights I witnessed, and I
+have not the slightest doubt that in the mad rush for refuge beyond the
+borders of their native land many family groups of this sort completely
+perished.
+
+All day and throughout the night these pitiful scenes continued, and
+when I went down to the quayside early Thursday, when the dawn was
+throwing a wan light over this part of the world, I found again a great
+host of citizens awaiting their chance of flight.
+
+In the dimness of the breaking day this gathering of "Les Misérables"
+presented, as it seemed to me, the tragedy of Belgium in all its horror.
+I shall never forget the sight. Words would fail to convey anything but
+a feeble picture of the depths of misery and despair there. People stood
+in dumb and patient ranks drawn down to the quayside by the announcement
+that two boats would leave at 11 o'clock for Ostend, and Ostend looks
+across to England, where lie their hopes.
+
+There were fully 40,000 of them assembled on the long quay, and all of
+them were inspired by the sure and certain hope that they would be among
+the lucky ones who would get on board one of the boats. Alas for their
+hopes, the two boats did not sail, and when they realized this I fancied
+I heard a low wail of anguish rise from the disappointed multitude.
+
+Other means of escape were, however, available in the shape of a dozen
+or fifteen tugboats, whose destinations were Rotterdam and Flushing and
+other ports of Holland. They were not vessels of any considerable
+passenger carrying capacity, and as there was no one to arrange a
+systematic embarkation a wild struggle followed among the frantic people
+to obtain places on the tugs. Men, women, and children fought
+desperately with each other to get on board, and in that moment of
+supreme anguish human nature was seen in one of its worst moods, but who
+can blame these stricken people? Shells that were destroying their homes
+and giving their beloved town to the flames were screaming over their
+heads. Their trade was not war; they were merchants, shopkeepers,
+comfortable citizens of more than middle age, and there were many women
+and children among them, and this horror had come upon them in a more
+appalling shape than it has visited any other civilized community in
+modern times.
+
+There was a scarcity of gangways to the boats and the only means of
+boarding them was by narrow planks sloping at a dangerous angle. Up
+these the fugitives struggled, and the strong elbowed the weak out of
+their way in their mad haste to escape. The marvel to me as I watched
+the scramble was that many were not crushed to death in the struggle to
+get on board or forced into the river and drowned. As it was, mishaps
+were very few. One old lady of 80 years slipped on one of the planks and
+fell against the side of the boat, fracturing her skull. Several people
+fell into the river and two were drowned, but that is the sum total of
+accidents as far as I could ascertain.
+
+By 2 o'clock Thursday most of the tugboats had got away, but there were
+still some 15,000 people who had not been able to escape, and had to
+await resignedly whatever fate was in store for them.
+
+I have endeavored to describe the scenes at the quayside on Thursday
+morning, and I now turn to the Central Station, where incidents of a
+similar kind were happening. There, as down by the river, an immense
+throng of people had assembled, and they were filled with dismay at the
+announcement that no trains were running. In their despair they prepared
+to leave the city on foot by crossing the pontoon bridge and marching
+toward the Dutch frontier.
+
+I cannot, of course, speak positively on the subject, but I should say
+the exodus of refugees from the city must have totaled 200,000
+persons--men, women, and children of all ages--or very nearly that vast
+number, and that out of a population which in normal times is 321,821.
+One might estimate that fully 70 per cent. of those folk had little or
+no money.
+
+There were three lines of exit. They could up to the time of the German
+invasion cross the pontoon bridge over the Scheldt; they could go along
+the countryside toward the Dutch frontier, or they could walk up the
+Scheldt toward the frontier and then cross by ferry to Belgian territory
+again.
+
+Many of the aged women among the refugees, terrorized and
+hunger-stricken, died, I am told, on the way to the Belgian frontier.
+The towns were crowded with pitiful wanderers, fleeing from the ruthless
+invaders, and they begged for crusts of bread. They were simply
+starving, and householders did what they could to help, cottagers giving
+to their utmost out of their meagre larders, but still there was a cry
+for food.
+
+I now return to the events of Thursday. At 12:30 o'clock in the
+afternoon, when the bombardment had already lasted over twelve hours,
+through the courtesy of a Belgian officer I was able to ascend to the
+roof of the cathedral, and from that point of vantage I looked down upon
+the scene in the city.
+
+All the southern portion of Antwerp appeared to be a desolate ruin.
+Whole streets were ablaze, and flames were rising in the air to the
+height of twenty and thirty feet. In another direction I could just
+discern through my glasses dimly in the distance the instruments of
+culture of the attacking German forces, ruthlessly pounding at the city
+and creeping nearer to it in the dark. At that moment I should say the
+enemy's front line was within four miles of Antwerp.
+
+From my elevated position I had an excellent view also of the great oil
+tanks on the opposite side of the Scheldt. They had been set on fire by
+four bombs from a German taube, and a huge, thick volume of black smoke
+was ascending 200 feet into the air. The oil had been burning furiously
+for several hours, and the whole neighborhood was enveloped in a mist of
+smoke.
+
+In all directions were fire and flames and oil-laden smoke. It was like
+a bit of Gustave Doré's idea of the infernal regions. From time to time
+great tongues of fire shot out from the tanks, and in this way, the
+flames greedily licking the sides of other tanks, the conflagration
+spread. How long this particular fire raged I cannot say, for I saw
+neither the beginning nor the end of it, but while I watched its
+progress it seemed to represent the limit of what a fire was capable of.
+
+After watching for some considerable time the panorama of destruction
+that lay unrolled all around me, I came down from my post of observation
+on the cathedral roof, and at the very moment I reached the street a
+28-centimeter shell struck a confectioner's shop between the Place Verte
+and the Place Meir. It was one of these high explosive shells, and the
+shop, a wooden structure, immediately burst into flames.
+
+The city by this time was almost deserted, and no attempt was made to
+extinguish the fires that had broken out all over the southern district.
+Indeed, there were no means of dealing with them.
+
+As far back as Tuesday in last week the water supply from the reservoir
+ten miles outside the city was cut off, and as this was the city's main
+source of supply, indeed practically its only source, great apprehension
+was felt. The reservoir is just behind Fort Waelhem, and the German
+shells had struck it, doing great mischief. It left Antwerp without any
+regular inflow of water, and the inhabitants had to do their best with
+artesian wells. Great efforts were made by the Belgians from time to
+time to repair the reservoir, but it was always thwarted by German shell
+fire. The health of the city was thereby menaced, for there was danger
+of an epidemic.
+
+Happily, stricken Antwerp was spared this added terror. It had plenty
+of other sorts, and some of these I experienced when, after leaving the
+cathedral, I made my way to the southern section of the city, where
+shells were bursting at the rate of five a minute. With great difficulty
+and not without risk I got as far as Rue la Moière.
+
+There I met a terror-stricken Belgian woman, the only other person in
+the streets besides myself. In hysterical gasps she told me the Banque
+Nationale and the Palais de Justice had been struck and were in flames,
+and that her husband had been hit by a shell just five minutes before I
+came upon the scene, his mangled remains lying not a hundred yards away
+from where we were standing.
+
+It was obviously impossible to proceed further, and so I retraced my
+steps toward the quay. As I was passing the Avenue de Keyser a shell
+burst within twenty yards of me. I was knocked down by the force of the
+concussion. A house not ten yards from where I was was struck and
+actually poured (I can think of no other word to describe what happened)
+into the street in a shower of bricks. A broken brick struck me on the
+shoulder, but its force was spent and I received no injury.
+
+I had scarcely picked myself up and was hastening to a place of safety,
+if there were one, when a man about 40 years of age, almost half naked,
+rushed out of a house, screaming loudly. He had gone mad.
+
+At this time I was fortunate enough to meet Frank Fox of The Morning
+Post. Mr. Fox is an ex-officer of artillery, and he told me he had found
+a hotel which, as long as the Germans fired in the direction they were
+then firing, was not within the reach of their guns. This was the Hotel
+Wagner, which stands behind the Opera House on the Boulevard de
+Commerce. It was the only hotel in the city except the Queens Hotel, in
+which some representatives of American newspapers had been staying, that
+was open. There I found Miss Louise Mack, an Australian authoress, and
+she, Fox, and myself were among the few British subjects left in the
+port.
+
+As night came the city presented a fantastic appearance as I watched it
+from the Hotel Wagner. The glare from the fires that had burst out in
+all directions could be seen for miles around. The bombardment was
+proceeding furiously, and German shells were bursting in every
+direction. I reckoned they were coming in that time at the rate of at
+least thirty a minute.
+
+I went to the Queens Hotel to ascertain what had become of the American
+journalists. I found they had left the city after having spent the night
+in a private house which had been struck three times by shells, and
+finally caught fire. Arthur Ruhl of the staff of Collier's Weekly had
+left for me this note:
+
+     Donald C. Thompson, photographer of The New York World, fitted up
+     for himself a cellar at 74 Rue de Peage, just by the Boulevard de
+     Keyser, where shrapnel fell with terrible force during the latter
+     part of Wednesday. With him were three other Americans. The entire
+     population, including, of course, the Government of Antwerp, have
+     made their escape across the pontoon bridge which still connects
+     the River Scheldt with the road toward Ghent. Two shells demolished
+     Thompson's retreat and at sundown it burst into flames. The
+     American Consul General and Vice Consul General had gone by this
+     time. The following Americans, all of them newspaper men, were
+     known to have spent the night in Antwerp; Arthur Ruhl, Horace
+     Green, staff of The New York Evening Post; Edward Eyre Hunt,
+     correspondent of The New York World; Edward Heigel of the staff of
+     The Chicago Daily Tribune, and Thompson himself.
+
+Except for the glare of burning buildings, which lit up the streets, the
+city was in absolute darkness, and near the quay I lost my way in the
+byroads trying to get back to the Hotel Wagner. For the second time that
+day I narrowly escaped death by a shell. One burst with terrific force
+about twenty-five yards from me. I heard its warning whirr, and rushed
+into a neighboring porch. Whether it was from concussion of the shell or
+in my anxiety to escape, I cannoned against a door and tumbled down. As
+I lay on the ground the house on the opposite side crashed in ruins. I
+remained still for several minutes feeling quite sick and unable to get
+up. Then I pulled myself together, and ran at full speed until I came
+to a street which I recognized, and found my way back to the hotel.
+
+As I hastened down the Avenue de Keyser shells were bursting in every
+quarter. Several fell into the adjoining street. At the hotel I found my
+friend Fox had been up to the Red Cross Hospital to inquire about a
+motor car in which we hoped to get away. It had gone, as had the entire
+personnel of the hospital.
+
+We began to wonder how we should escape. However, Fox had a bicycle, and
+Mr. Singleton, Chief of the Boy Scouts in Antwerp, had given me the key
+of a house not far off, in which he told me there was one if I wanted it
+in an emergency. I ventured into that dangerous part of the city again
+to get it. I got to the house safely and found the bicycle, but as there
+was no tube in the back tire it was useless. On my return journey I was
+startled to see in the street through which I had just walked a hole six
+feet deep, which had just been made by a shell.
+
+On returning to the hotel I joined in a meal, eaten under the weirdest
+[Transcriber: original 'wierdest'] conditions imaginable. Descending
+into the cellars of the hotel with Miss Mack and Mr. Fox we found the
+entire staff gathered there uncertain what to do and not knowing what
+was to happen to them. We were all hungry, and one of the men dashed
+upstairs to the kitchen and brought down whatever food he could lay his
+hands on, and we all partook of pot luck. Considering all the
+circumstances we made a very jolly meal of it. We toasted each other in
+good red wine of the country, pledging each other with "Vive la
+Belgique" and "Vive l'Angleterre," and altogether we were a merry party,
+although at the time German shells were whirling overhead and any moment
+one might have upset our picnic and buried us in the débris of the
+hotel.
+
+How many of the inhabitants of Antwerp remained in the city that night
+it is impossible to say, but it is pretty certain they were all in the
+cellars of their houses or shops.
+
+The admirable Burgomaster, M. De Vos, had in one of his several
+proclamations made many suggestions for safety during the bombardment
+for the benefit of those who took refuge in cellars. Among the most
+useful of them perhaps was that which recommended means of escape to
+adjoining cellars. The power of modern artillery is so tremendous that a
+cellar might very well become a tomb if shells were to fall on the
+building overhead.
+
+We went to bed early that night but sleep was impossible in the noise
+caused by the explosion of the shells in twenty different quarters of
+the town. About 3 o'clock in the morning a twenty-eight centimeter shell
+fell into the square in front of the hotel and broke all the windows in
+the neighboring house. In spite of the terrific din one got to sleep at
+last.
+
+About 6 o'clock Fox roused me and said he thought it was time we got
+out, as the Germans were entering the city. We hurried from the hotel,
+and found in the square a squad of Belgian soldiers who had just come in
+from the inner line of forts. They told us it was not safe for us to
+remain any longer. The streets were now completely deserted.
+
+I walked down to the quayside, and there I came across many wounded
+soldiers, who had been unable to get away in the hospital boat. On the
+quay piles of equipment had been abandoned; broken-down motor cars,
+kit-bags, helmets, rifles, knapsacks were littered in heaps. Ammunition
+had been dumped there and rendered useless. The Belgians had evidently
+attempted to set fire to the whole lot. A pile of stuff was still
+smoldering. I waited there for half an hour, and during that time
+hundreds of Belgian soldiers passed in retreat, the last contingent
+leaving at about 6:30 A.M.
+
+I went again to the Queen's Hotel to inquire what had become of the
+American newspaper men, and it was just about this time that the pontoon
+bridge which had been the way of the Belgian retreat was blown up to
+prevent pursuit by the Germans. The boats and woodwork of the
+superstructure burnt fiercely and in less than twenty minutes the whole
+affair was demolished.
+
+Safe exit from the city was now cut off. A Red Cross officer whom I met
+when standing by the quay had been a spectator of the blowing up of the
+bridge.
+
+"My God!" he said, running toward me, "it is awful!"
+
+"How are you going to get out?" I asked him.
+
+"I'm going to stay here and look after my wounded," he replied.
+
+In further talk with him I learned that the greater part of the second
+line of forts had fallen at midday the previous day and that there was
+nothing then to stop the Germans entering the city save a handful of
+Belgian soldiers in three or four forts. At 8 o'clock a shell struck the
+Town Hall.
+
+Fox had now joined me, and we took refuge in the cellars beneath the
+Town Hall. So far as I could gather, the remaining inhabitants of
+Antwerp must have assembled about this neighborhood, groups taking
+refuge in small and stuffy cellars, where developments were anxiously
+awaited. There must have been hundreds of people sheltered underground,
+and they included the Mexican and Dominican Consuls. Why these stayed I
+do not know, as none of their people were left behind. They were the
+only Consuls remaining in Antwerp.
+
+About 8:15 o'clock another shell struck the Town Hall, shattering the
+upper story and breaking every window in the place. That was the German
+way of telling the Burgomaster to hurry up. There was a tense feeling as
+we waited for tidings of some sort or other. A quarter of an hour later
+M. De Vos went out in his motor car toward the German line to discuss
+conditions on which the city should be surrendered.
+
+Another shell struck a furrier's shop opposite the Town Hall and the
+place burst into flames. Several of the gendarmes who had stayed behind
+were occupants of cellars, and two of them immediately rushed out to
+force a way into the shop in order that they might extinguish the fire.
+They found the door locked. It took them ten minutes to force an
+entrance. By this time the fire was burning fiercely, and at great
+personal risk one of the gendarmes made his way to the top floor of the
+premises, and there he endeavored to beat out the flames with a piece of
+timber torn from the roof. His efforts were futile, and he called for
+water. Soon a Flemish woman brought him two pailfuls, which Fox had
+carried to the house, and after half an hour's labor the fire was
+extinguished.
+
+The proprietor of the shop was among the people in the cellars across
+the way. The news that his house was aflame was broken to him and he
+rushed into the street. He gazed for a moment on the scene and burst
+into tears like a child.
+
+At 9 o'clock the bombardment of the city suddenly ceased and we
+understood the Burgomaster had by this time reached German headquarters.
+Still we waited, painfully anxious to learn what would be the ultimate
+fate of Antwerp. The Belgian soldiers hurried by on their way to the
+front. A number paused just as they reached a tobacconist's shop which
+had been wrecked by shells, scattering the stock in the street. There
+were cigars hurled across the pavement and roadway, and soldiers who had
+halted picked up a few of the cigars. A Belgian workman, taking
+advantage of this, entered the shop and began to stuff his pockets full
+of cigars and cigarettes, but immediately gendarmes hurried to the place
+and arrested him, the last arrest the Antwerp police will make for some
+time.
+
+At 10:30 o'clock proclamations were posted on walls of the Town Hall
+urging all in the city to surrender any arms in their possession and
+begging for a calm demeanor in the event of German occupation. The list
+was also posted of several prominent citizens who were appointed to look
+after the interests of those Belgians who remained.
+
+Just before noon a patrol of cyclists and armed and mounted gendarmes,
+who had escorted the Burgomaster to the gate of the city, informed Fox
+and myself that the Germans were entering by the gate of Malines. We
+hastily took our bicycles with the intention of making our way over the
+Dutch frontier. As we passed along the quay by a most timely stroke of
+luck we found a motor boat standing by. It was manned by a Belgian, and
+his mate.
+
+"Can you take us to Flushing?" we asked.
+
+"Yes," answered the Belgian.
+
+"How much?"
+
+"One hundred and fifty francs each."
+
+We were in that boat in thirty seconds and in another thirty seconds had
+started down the Scheldt. By this time the Germans were in the city.
+
+At a good ten knots we raced down the river. In twenty-five minutes we
+had reached the bend which blotted Antwerp from view. As we rounded the
+corner I turned for a last glimpse of the disappearing city. The
+Cathedral was still standing, its tower dominating surroundings. Here
+and there volumes of smoke were rising to the sky.
+
+It took us twelve hours to get to Flushing. On either side of the river
+thousands of refugees were fleeing from the invaders. They swarmed along
+the banks in continuous lines, a vast pilgrimage of the hopeless, many
+laden with household possessions which they had been able to gather at
+almost a moment's notice. Numbers were empty-handed and burdened at that
+in dragging their weary bodies along the miles which seemed never
+ending. It was a heartrending spectacle. Infinite pity must go out to
+those broken victims of the war, bowed veterans driven from home, going
+they knew not where; women with their crying children, famished for lack
+of food, all or nearly all leaving behind men folk who were still
+fighting their country's battle or mourning the loss of loved ones who
+had already sacrificed their lives.
+
+Where the Scheldt becomes Dutch property we were stopped by customs
+authorities and submitted to a rigorous examination. Dutch officials for
+a time believed we were either Belgian or English officers escaping, but
+eventually they were satisfied.
+
+Upon arriving at Flushing we found the town in a tremendous state of
+excitement. Great crowds of refugees were there, 10,000 or more, and
+the hotels were choked. Many wretched people had left their homes
+absolutely without any money and were forced to camp in the streets.
+There was a vast crowd waiting to get on the Flushing-Folkestone boat,
+and it appeared we would be balked in our endeavor to get to England
+that night. However, we discussed our position with the Superintendent
+of the line, and he very kindly got us a berth.
+
+
+
+
+*As the French Fell Back on Paris*
+
+*By G.H. Perris of The London Daily Chronicle.*
+
+[Special Dispatch to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
+
+
+CHÂTEAU [Transcriber: original 'Chateau'] THIERRY, Sunday, Sept. 13.--We
+first realized yesterday, in a little town of Brie which lies east of
+Paris, between the Seine and the Marne, how difficult it is to get food
+in the rear of two successive invasions. As in every other town in the
+region, all the shops were shut and nearly all the houses. It was only
+after a long search that we found an inn that could give us luncheon.
+
+There, in a large room with a low-beamed roof and a tiled floor, our
+stout landlady in blue cotton produced an excellent meal of melon,
+mutton, macaroni, and good ripe pears. Dogs and cats sprawled around us,
+and a big bowl of roses spoke of serenities that are now in general
+eclipse. At a neighboring table a group of peasants, too old for active
+service, were discussing their grievances.
+
+At a railway crossing just out of town we were blocked by a train of
+about a dozen big horse trucks and two passenger carriages, carrying
+wounded and prisoners to Paris from the fighting lines in the north. It
+had been a gloomy morning, and the rain now fell in torrents.
+Nevertheless the townsfolk crowded up, and for half an hour managed to
+conduct a satisfactory combination of profit and pity by supplying big
+flat loaves, bottles of wine, fruit, cigarettes, and jugs of water to
+those in the train who had money and some who had none. One very old
+woman in white, with a little red cross on her forehead, turned up to
+take advantage of the only opportunity ever likely to fall in her way. A
+great Turco in fez, blouse, and short, baggy breeches was very active in
+this commissariat work.
+
+Some of the Frenchmen on board were not wounded seriously enough to
+prevent their getting down on the roadway; and you may be sure they were
+not ashamed of their plaster patches and bandaged arms.
+
+There were about 300 German prisoners in the train. We got glimpses of
+them lying in the straw on the floor in the dark interior of the big
+trucks. I got on the footboard and looked into the open door of one car.
+Fifteen men were stretched upon straw, and two soldiers stood guard over
+them, rifle in hand. They all seemed in a state of extreme exhaustion.
+Some were asleep, others were eating large chunks of bread.
+
+In the middle of the car a young soldier who spoke French fairly well
+told me that the German losses during the last three days had been
+enormous; and then, stopping suddenly, he said:
+
+"Would it be possible, Sir, to get a little water for my fellows and
+myself?"
+
+"Certainly," I replied; and a man belonging to the station, who was
+passing with a jug, said at once that he would run and get some. The
+prisoner thanked me and added with a sigh:
+
+"They are very good fellows here."
+
+One jocular French guard had put on a spiked helmet which he was keeping
+as a trophy, and, so much does the habit make the man, he now looked
+uncannily like a German himself.
+
+As we passed through the villages to the northeast the contrast between
+abandoned houses and gardens rioting with the color of roses and dahlias
+and fruit-laden trees struck us like a blow.
+
+In Gourchamp a number of houses had been burned, and the neighboring
+fields showed that there had been fighting there; but it was Courtacon
+which presented the most grievous spectacle. Eighteen of its two dozen
+houses had been completely destroyed by fire. The walls were partly
+standing, but the floors and contents of the rooms were completely
+buried under the débris of roofs that had fallen in. In a little Post
+Office the telegraphic and telephonic instruments had been smashed. Just
+opposite is a small building including the office of the Mayor and the
+village school. The outside of the building and the outhouses were
+littered with the straw on which the Uhlans had slept. In the Mayor's
+office the drawers and cupboards had been broken open, and their
+contents had been scattered with the remnants of meals on the floor.
+
+But it is a scene in a little village school that will longest remain in
+my memory. The low forms, the master's desk, and the blackboard stand
+today as they did on July 25, which was no doubt the last day before the
+Summer vacation, as it was also the last week before the outbreak of the
+war. On the walls the charts remained which reminded these little ones
+daily that "Alcohol is the enemy," and had summoned them to follow the
+path of kindness, justice, and truth. The windows were smashed, broken
+cartridge cases lay about with wings of birds and other refuse. Near the
+door I saw chalked up, evidently in German handwriting, "Parti Paris,"
+("Left for Paris.")
+
+The invaders had sought to burn the place. There was one pile of partly
+burned straw under the school bookcase, the doors of which had been
+smashed, while some of the books had been thrown about. They had not
+even respected a little museum consisting of a few bottles of metal and
+chemical specimens; and when I turned to leave I perceived written
+across the blackboard in bold, fine writing, as the lesson of the day,
+these words: "A chaque jour suffit sa peine," ("Sufficient unto the day
+is the evil thereof.")
+
+One of the villagers gave us the following narrative of the experiences
+of the past week:
+
+"It was last Saturday, Sept. 5, that about 15,000 Uhlans arrived in the
+village with the intention of marching on Provins on the morrow. They
+probably learned during the night that the British and French lay in
+force across their road, and perhaps they may now have received orders
+to fall back.
+
+"At any rate, early Sunday morning they started to retire, when they met
+at the entrance to the village a regiment of chasseurs. This was the
+beginning of fighting which lasted all day. Under the pretext that we
+had learned of the presence of the French troops and had helped them to
+prepare a trap, the Germans sacked the whole of the village.
+
+"Naturally there was a panic. All the inhabitants--mostly women and
+children, because since the mobilization there have been only nine men
+in Courtacon--rushed from their cottages and many of them, lightly clad,
+fled across the fields and hid themselves in the neighboring woods.
+
+"In several cottages Germans, revolvers in hand, compelled the poor
+peasants to bring matches and themselves set fire to their homes. In
+less than an hour the village was like a furnace, the walls toppling
+down one by one. And all this time the fighting continued. It was a
+horrible spectacle.
+
+"Several of us were dragged to the edge of the road to be shot, and
+there we remained for some hours, believing our last day had come. A
+young village lad of 21 years, who was just going to leave to join the
+colors, was shot. Then the retreat was sounded, the Germans fled
+precipitately, and we were saved."
+
+I asked whether the cottages had not been fired by artillery.
+
+"Not a cannon shot fell here," he replied. "All that"--pointing to the
+ruined huts--"was done by incendiaries." And then he added:
+
+"Last Tuesday two French officers came in automobiles and brought with
+them a superior German officer whom they had made prisoner. They
+compelled him to become a witness of the mischief of which his
+fellow-countrymen had been guilty."
+
+A peasant woman passed, pushing a wheelbarrow containing some
+half-burned household goods and followed by her two small children.
+
+"Look," she said, "at the brutality of these Germans! My husband has
+gone to war and I am alone with my two little ones. With great
+difficulty we had managed to gather our crop, and they set fire to our
+little farm and burned everything."
+
+Half an hour later we were at La Ferté Gaucher, a small town on the
+Grand Morin, now first made famous by the fact that it was here that the
+German flight began after the severe fighting last Monday. The invaders
+had arrived only on Saturday and had the disagreeable surprise of
+finding that the river bridges had been broken down by the retreating
+French. The German commandant informed the municipal officials that if
+the sum of 60,000 francs ($12,000) was not produced he would burn the
+town. Then he compelled the people to set about rebuilding the bridge,
+and they worked day and night at this job under the eyes of soldiers
+with revolvers and rifles ready to shoot down any shirker.
+
+The relief of these people at the return of the Allies may be imagined.
+Here, as elsewhere, some houses were burned, but otherwise the damage
+did not appear to be very serious.
+
+
+
+
+*The Retreat to Paris*
+
+*By Philip Gibbs of The London Daily Chronicle.*
+
+[Special Dispatch to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
+
+
+NEAR AMIENS, Aug. 30.--Looking back on all I have seen during the last
+few days, I find it difficult to piece together the various incidents
+and impressions and to make one picture. It all seems to me now like a
+jigsaw puzzle of suffering and fear and courage and death--a litter of
+odd, disconnected scraps of human agony and of some big, grim scheme
+which, if one could only get the clue, would give a meaning, I suppose,
+to all these tears of women and children, to all these hurried movements
+of soldiers and people, to the death carts trailing back from unknown
+places, and to the great dark fear that has enveloped all the tract of
+country in Northwest France through which I have been traveling, driven
+like one of its victims from place to place. Out of all this welter of
+individual suffering and from all the fog of mystery which has
+enshrouded them until now, when the truth may be told, certain big facts
+with a clear and simple issue will emerge and give one courage.
+
+The French Army and our English troops are now holding good positions in
+a much stronger and closer line and stemming the tide of the German
+hordes rolling up to Paris. Gen. Pau, the hero of this war, after his
+swift return from the eastern front, where he repaired the deadly check
+at Mülhausen, has dealt a smashing blow at a German Army corps which was
+striking to the heart of France.
+
+Paris is still safe for the time being, with a great army of allied
+forces, French, English, and Belgians, drawn across the country as a
+barrier which surely will not be broken by the enemy. Nothing that has
+happened gives cause for that despair which has taken hold of people
+whose fears have exaggerated the facts, frightful enough when taken
+separately, but not giving any proof that resistance is impossible
+against the amazing onslaught of the German legions.
+
+I have been into the war zone and seen during the last five days men who
+are now holding the lines of defense. I have been among their dead and
+wounded, and have talked with soldiers marching fresh to the front. I
+have seen the horrid mess which is cleared up after the battle and the
+grim picture of retreat, but nothing that I have seen or heard from
+either British or French leads me to believe that our army has been
+smashed or the Allies demoralized.
+
+It is impossible to estimate our own losses. Our wounded are being
+brought back into Havre and Rouen, and undoubtedly there are large
+numbers of them. But, putting them at the highest, it is clear to me,
+from all information gained during the last five days, that there has
+been no overwhelming disaster, and that in the terrible actions fought
+on the four days from the 23d to the 27th, and afterward in the further
+retirement from the line of Cambrai and Le Cateau, swinging southward
+and eastward upon St. Quentin, our main forces, which were pressed by
+enormous numbers of the enemy, succeeded in withdrawing in good order,
+without having their lines broken, while inflicting a terrific
+punishment upon the German right.
+
+As I shall show in this narrative, retreats which seem fatal when seen
+close at hand and when described by those who belong to broken fragments
+of extended sections, are not altogether disastrous in their effect when
+viewed in their right perspective, away from the immediate misery which
+is their inevitable accompaniment.
+
+German audacity of attack against the heroic courage of the French and
+British forces, who fight every mile of ground during their retirement,
+is leading the enemy into a position from which there will be no retreat
+if their lines are broken. Unfortunately, there are hundreds of
+thousands of people who know nothing of the great issues and who are
+possessed by the great, blind fear which has driven them from their
+towns, villages, and homes.
+
+When the Germans swept around Lille they found, to their amazement, that
+this town, surrounded by forts, had been abandoned, and they had only to
+walk inside. This easy access to a town which should have been defended
+to the last gasp opened the way to the west of France.
+
+The left wing of the French, which was to the west of Mons, was
+supported by the English troops, all too weak to sustain the pressure of
+the tremendous odds which began to surge against them; and, realizing
+this perilous state of affairs, the brain at the centre of things, the
+controlling brain of Gen. Joffre and his Headquarters Staff, decreed
+that the northwest corner of France was untenable and that the main army
+of defense should withdraw into a stronger and closer formation.
+
+It was then that the great panic began, increasing in speed and terror
+during the end of last week. I was in the midst of it and saw
+unforgettable scenes of the enormous tragedy. It was a flight of
+hundreds and thousands of families from St. Omer and Roubaix, Bethune,
+Douai, Valenciennes, and Arras, who were driven away from their northern
+homes by the menace of approaching Uhlans. They are still being hunted
+by fear from place to place, where they can find no shelter and no
+permanent safety. The railways have been choked with them, and in these
+long fugitive trains which pass through stations there is no food or
+drink. The poor runaways, weary, filthy, and exhausted, spend long days
+and nights shunted onto side lines, while troop trains pass and pass,
+and are held up in towns where they can find no means of existence
+because the last civilian train has left.
+
+When the troops marched away from Boulogne and left it silent and
+unguarded I saw the inhabitants, utterly dismayed, standing despondently
+staring at placards posted up by order of the Governor, which announced
+the evacuation of the town and called upon them to be ready for all
+sacrifices in the service of their country. The customs officers left,
+the civil police disarmed, while a flag with nine black spots was made
+ready to be hoisted on the fort directly any Uhlans were sighted.
+
+The people of Boulogne could not understand, no Frenchman of the north
+can understand, why their ports and towns are silent after the tramp of
+so many regiments who have left a great tract of country open and
+undefended. In that corner of France the people listen intently for the
+first clatter of hoofs and for the first cry "Les Uhlans." Rumors came
+that the enemy has been seen in neighboring towns and villages. Can one
+wonder that mothers and fathers rush from their houses and wander forth
+in a blind, unreasoning way to swell the panic tide of fugitives,
+homeless and without food, dropping here and there on the wayside in
+utter weariness?
+
+I was lucky in getting out of Boulogne on the last train bound for
+Paris, though not guaranteed to reach the capital. As a matter of fact,
+I was even more lucky because it did not arrive at its destination and
+enabled me to alight in the war zone and proceed to more interesting
+places.
+
+I will tell at once the story of the French retirement when the Germans
+advanced from Namur down the valley of the Meuse, winning the way at a
+cost of human life as great as that of defeat, yet winning their way.
+For France the story of that retirement is as glorious as anything in
+her history. It was nearly a fortnight ago that the Germans concentrated
+their heaviest forces upon Namur and began to press southward and over
+the Meuse Valley. After the battle of Dinant the French Army, among whom
+were the Second and Seventh Corps, was heavily outnumbered and had to
+fall back gradually, in order to gain time for reinforcements to come
+up.
+
+French artillery was up on the wooded heights above the river and swept
+the German regiments with a storm of fire as they advanced. On the right
+bank the French infantry was intrenched, supported by field guns and
+mitrailleuses, and did deadly work before leaping from trenches which
+they occupied and taking up a position in new trenches further back,
+which they held with great tenacity.
+
+In justice to the Germans it must be said they were heroic in courage
+and reckless of their lives, and the valley of the Meuse was choked with
+their corpses. The river itself was strewn with the dead bodies of men
+and horses and literally ran red with blood.
+
+The most tremendous fighting took place for the possession of the
+bridges, but the French engineers blew them up one after another as they
+retired southward.
+
+No less than thirty-three bridges were destroyed in this way before they
+could be seized by the German advance guard. The fighting was extended
+for a considerable distance on either side of the Meuse and many
+engagements took place between French and German cavalry and regiments
+working away from the main armies.
+
+There was, for instance, a memorable encounter at Marville which is one
+of the most heroic episodes of the war. Five thousand French soldiers of
+all arms, with quick-firers, engaged 20,000 German infantry. In spite of
+being outnumbered, the French beat back the enemy from point to point in
+a fight lasting for twelve hours, inflicting tremendous punishment and
+suffering very few losses.
+
+The German officer captured expressed his unbounded admiration for the
+valor of the French troops, which he described as superb. It was only
+for fear of getting too far out of touch with the main forces that the
+gallant 5,000 desisted from their irresistible attack and retired with a
+large number of German helmets as trophies of the victorious action.
+
+Nevertheless, in accordance with the general plan which had been decided
+on by the Generals, in view of the superior numbers temporarily pressing
+upon them, the Germans succeeded in forcing their way steadily down the
+Meuse as far as Mezières, divided by a bridge from Charleville, on the
+other side of the river. This is in the neighborhood of Sedan and in the
+"trou," as it is called, which led to the great disaster of 1870, when
+the French were caught in a trap and threatened with annihilation by
+the Germans, who had taken possession of the surrounding heights.
+
+There was to be no repetition of that tragedy. The French were
+determined that this time the position should be reversed.
+
+On Monday the town of Charleville was evacuated, most of its civilians
+being sent away to join the wanderers who have had to leave their homes,
+and the French troops took up a magnificent position, commanding the
+town and the three bridges dividing them from Mezières. Mitrailleuses
+were hidden in the abandoned houses, and as a disagreeable shock to any
+German who might escape their fire was a number of the enemy's guns, no
+fewer than ninety-five of them, which had been captured and disabled by
+French troops in a series of battles down the river from Namur.
+
+The German outposts reached Charleville on Tuesday. They were allowed to
+ride quietly across the bridges into an apparently deserted town. Then
+suddenly their line of retreat was cut off, the three bridges were blown
+up by a contact mine, and the mitrailleuses hidden in the houses were
+played on the German cavalry across the streets, killing them in a
+frightful slaughter.
+
+It was for a little while sheer massacre, but the Germans fought with
+extraordinary tenacity, regardless of the heaped bodies of comrades and
+utterly reckless of their own lives. They, too, had brought quick-firers
+across the bridges, and, taking cover behind houses, trained their guns
+upon the houses from which the French gunners were firing. There was no
+way of escape for those heroic men, who voluntarily sacrificed
+themselves, and it is probable every man died, because at such a time
+the Germans were not in the habit of giving quarter.
+
+When the main German advance came down the valley, the French artillery
+on the heights raked them with a terrific fire, in which they suffered
+heavy losses, the forefront of the column being mowed down. But under
+this storm they proceeded with incredible coolness to their pontoon
+bridges across the river, and although hundreds of men died on the
+banks, they succeeded in their endeavor, while their guns searched the
+hills with shells and forced French gunners to retire from their
+positions.
+
+The occupation of Charleville was a German victory, but was also a
+German graveyard. After this historic episode in what has been an
+unending battle the main body of French withdrew before the Germans, who
+were now pouring down the valley, and retired to new ground.
+
+It was a retirement which has had one advantage in spite of its
+acknowledgment of the enemy's amazing pertinacity. It has enabled the
+allied armies to draw closer together, its firm front sweeping around in
+a crescent from Abbéville, around south of Amiens, and thence in an
+irregular line to the eastern frontier.
+
+On the map it is at first sight a rather unhappy thing to see that
+practically the whole of France north of Amiens lies open to German
+descent from Belgium. To break up the German Army piecemeal and lure it
+to its own destruction it was almost necessary to manoeuvre it into
+precisely the position which it now occupies. The success of Gen. Pau
+shows that the allied army is taking the offensive again, and that as a
+great fighting machine it is still powerful and menacing.
+
+I must again emphasize the difficulty of grasping the significance of a
+great campaign by isolated incidents, and the danger of drawing
+important deductions from the misfortunes in one part of the field. I do
+so because I have been tempted again and again during the past few days
+to fall into similar mistakes. Perhaps in my case it was pardonable.
+
+It is impossible for the armchair reader to realize the psychological
+effect of being mixed up in the panic of a great people and the retreat
+from a battlefield.
+
+The last real fighting was taking place at a village called Bapaume all
+day Friday. It was very heavy fighting here on the left centre of the
+great army commanded by Gen. Pau, and leading to a victory which has
+just been announced officially in France.
+
+A few minutes before midnight Friday, when they came back along the road
+to Amiens, crawling back slowly in a long, dismal trail, the ambulance
+wagons laden with the dead and dying, hay carts piled high with saddles
+and accoutrements, upon which lay, immobile like men already dead, the
+spent and exhausted soldiers, they passed through the crowds of silent
+people of Amiens, who only whispered as they stared at the procession.
+In the darkness a cuirassier, with head bent upon his chest, stumbled
+forward, leading his horse, too weak and tired to bear him.
+
+Many other men were leading poor beasts this way, and infantry soldiers,
+some with bandaged heads, clung to the backs of carts and wagons, and
+seemed asleep as they shuffled by.
+
+The light from roadside lamps gleamed upon blanched faces and glazed
+eyes, flashed into caverns of canvas-covered carts, where twisted men
+lay huddled on straw. Not a groan came from the carts, but every one
+knew it was a retreat.
+
+The carts carrying the quick and the dead rumbled by in a long convoy,
+the drooping heads of the soldiers turned neither right nor left for any
+greeting with friends.
+
+There was a hugger-mugger of uniforms, of provision carts, and with
+ambulances--it was a part of the wreckage and wastage of war; and to
+the onlookers, with the exaggeration, unconsciously, of the importance
+of the things close at hand and visible, it seemed terrible in its
+significance and an ominous reminder of 1870.
+
+Really this was an inevitable part of a serious battle, not necessarily
+a retreat from a great disaster.
+
+But more pitiful even than this drift back were scenes which followed.
+As I turned back into the town I saw thousands of boys who had been
+called to the colors and had been brought up from the country to be sent
+forward to second lines of defense.
+
+They were the reservists of the 1914 class, and many of them were
+shouting and singing, though here and there a white-faced boy tried to
+hide his tears as women from the crowd ran forward to embrace him. These
+lads were keeping up their valor by noisy demonstrations; but, having
+seen the death carts pass, I could not bear to look into the faces of
+those little ones who are following their fathers to the guns.
+
+Early next morning there was a thrill of anxiety in Amiens. Reports had
+come through that the railway line had been cut between Boulogne and
+Abbeville. There had been mysterious movements of regiments from the
+town barracks. They had moved out of Amiens, and there was a strange
+quietude in the streets. Hardly a man in uniform was to be seen in the
+places which had been filled with soldiers the day before.
+
+Only a few people realized the actual significance of this. How could
+they know that it was a part of the great plan to secure the safety of
+France? How could they realize that the town itself would be saved from
+possible bombardment by this withdrawal of the troops to positions which
+would draw the Germans into the open?
+
+The fighting on the Cambrai-Cateau line seems to have been more
+desperate even that the terrible actions at Mons and Charleroi. It was
+when the British troops had to swing around to a more southerly line to
+guard the roads to Paris, that the enemy attacked in prodigious numbers,
+and their immense superiority in machine guns did terrible work among
+officers and men.
+
+But on all sides, from the French officers, there is immense praise for
+the magnificent conduct of our troops, and in spite of all alarmist
+statements I am convinced from what I have heard that they have retired
+intact, keeping their lines together, and preventing their divisions
+from being broken and cut off.
+
+The list of casualties must be very great, but if I can believe the
+evidence of my own eyes in such towns as Rouen, where the Red Cross
+hospitals are concentrated, they are not heavy enough to suggest
+anything like a great and irretrievable disaster.
+
+DIEPPE, Sept. 3.--Let me describe briefly the facts which I have learned
+of in the last five days. When I escaped from Amiens, before the tunnel
+was broken up, and the Germans entered into possession of the town on
+Aug. 28, the front of the allied armies was in a crescent from
+Abbéville, south of Amiens on the wooded heights, and thence in an
+irregular line to south of Mézières. The British forces, under Sir John
+French, were at the left of the centre, supporting the heavy
+thrust-forward of the main German advance, while the right was commanded
+by Gen. Pau.
+
+On Sunday afternoon fighting was resumed along the whole line. The
+German vanguard had by this time been supported by a fresh army corps,
+which had been brought from Belgium. At least 1,000,000 men were on the
+move, pressing upon the allied forces with a ferocity of attack which
+has never before been equaled. Their cavalry swept across a great tract
+of country, squadron by squadron, like the mounted hordes of Attila, but
+armed with the dreadful weapons of modern warfare. Their artillery was
+in enormous numbers, and their columns advanced under cover of it, not
+like an army, but rather like a moving nation--I do not think, however,
+with equal pressure at all parts of the line. It formed itself into a
+battering ram with a pointed end, and this point was thrust at the heart
+of the English wing.
+
+It was impossible to resist this onslaught. If the British forces had
+stood against it they would have been crushed and broken. Our gunners
+were magnificent, and shelled the advancing German columns so that the
+dead lay heaped up along the way which was leading down to Paris; but as
+one of them told me: "It made no manner of difference; as soon as we had
+smashed one lot another followed, column after column, and by sheer
+weight of numbers we could do nothing to check them."
+
+After this the British forces fell back, fighting all the time. The line
+of the Allies was now in the shape of a V, the Germans thrusting their
+main attack deep into the angle.
+
+This position remained the same until Monday, or, rather, had completed
+itself by that date, the retirement of the troops being maintained with
+masterly skill and without any undue haste.
+
+Meanwhile Gen. Pau was sustaining a terrific attack on the French
+centre by the German left centre, which culminated on (date omitted).
+The River Oise, which runs between beautiful meadows, was choked with
+corpses and red with blood.
+
+From an eyewitness of this great battle, an officer of an infantry
+regiment, who escaped with a slight wound, I learned that the German
+onslaught had been repelled by a series of brilliant bayonet and cavalry
+charges.
+
+"The Germans," he said, "had the elite of their army engaged against us,
+including the Tenth Army Corps and the Imperial Guard, but the heroism
+of our troops was sublime. Every man knew that the safety of France
+depended upon him and was ready to sacrifice his life, if need be, with
+joyful enthusiasm. They not only resisted the enemy's attack but took
+the offensive, and, in spite of their overpowering numbers, gave them
+tremendous punishment. They had to recoil before our guns, which swept
+their ranks, and their columns were broken and routed.
+
+"Hundreds of them were bayoneted, and hundreds were hurled into the
+river. The whole field of battle was outlined by dead and dying men whom
+they had to abandon. Certainly their losses were enormous, and I felt
+that the German retreat was in full swing and that we could claim a real
+victory for the time being."
+
+Nevertheless the inevitable happened, owing to the vast reserves of the
+enemy, who brought up four divisions, and Gen. Pau was compelled to give
+ground.
+
+On Tuesday German skirmishers with light artillery were coming
+southward, and the sound of their field guns greeted my ears in that
+town which I shall always remember with unpleasant recollections in
+spite of its Old World beauty and the loveliness of the scene in which
+it is set. It seemed to me that this was the right place to be in order
+to get into touch with the French Army on the way to the capital. As a
+matter of fact, it was the wrong place from all points of view; it was
+nothing less than a deathtrap, and it was by a thousand-to-one chance
+that I succeeded in escaping quite a nasty kind of fate.
+
+I might have suspected that something was wrong with the place by the
+strange look on the face of a friendly French peasant, whom I met. He
+had described to me in a very vivid way the disposition of the French
+troops on the neighboring hills. Down the road came suddenly parties of
+peasants with fear in their eyes. Some of them were in farm carts and
+put their horses to a stumbling gallop.
+
+Women with blanched faces, carrying children in their arms, trudged
+along the dusty highway, and it was clear that these people were afraid
+of something behind them. There were not many of them, and when they had
+passed the countryside was strangely and uncannily quiet. There was only
+the sound of singing birds above fields which were flooded with the
+golden light of the setting sun.
+
+Then I came into the town. An intense silence brooded there among the
+narrow little streets below the old Norman church--a white jewel on the
+rising ground beyond. Almost every house was shuttered with blind eyes;
+but here and there I looked through an open window into deserted rooms.
+No human face returned my gaze. It was an abandoned town, emptied of all
+its people, who had fled with fear in their eyes, like those peasants
+along the roadway.
+
+But presently I saw a human form; it was the figure of a French dragoon
+with his carbine slung behind his back. He was stopping by the side of a
+number of gunpowder bags. A little further away were little groups of
+soldiers at work by two bridges, one over a stream and one over a road.
+They were working very calmly, and I could see what they were doing;
+they were mining bridges to blow them up at a given signal.
+
+As I went further I saw that the streets were strewn with broken bottles
+and littered with wire entanglements, very artfully and carefully made.
+
+It was a queer experience. It was obvious that there was very grim
+business being done, and that the soldiers were waiting for something
+to happen. At the railway station I quickly learned the truth; the
+Germans were only a few miles away, in great force. At any moment they
+might come down, smashing everything in their way and killing every
+human being along that road.
+
+The station master, a brave old type, and one or two porters had
+determined to stay on to the last. "We are here," he said, as though the
+Germans would have to reckon with him; but he was emphatic in his
+request for me to leave at once if another train could be got away,
+which was very uncertain. As a matter of fact, after a bad quarter of an
+hour I was put on the last train to escape from this threatened town,
+and left it with the sound of German guns in my ears, followed by a dull
+explosion when the bridge behind me was blown up.
+
+My train, in which there were only four other men, skirted the German
+army, and by a twist in the line almost ran into the enemy's country,
+but we rushed through the night, and the engine driver laughed and put
+his oily hand up to salute when I stepped out to the platform of an
+unknown station. "The Germans won't get us, after all," he said. It was
+a little risky, all the same.
+
+The station was crowded with French soldiers, and they were soon telling
+me their experience of the hard fighting in which they had been engaged.
+They were dirty, unshaven, dusty from head to foot, scorched by the
+August sun, in tattered uniforms and broken boots; but they were
+beautiful men for all their dirt, and the laughing courage, quiet
+confidence, and unbragging simplicity with which they assured me that
+the Germans would soon be caught in a death trap and sent to their
+destruction filled me with admiration which I cannot express in words.
+All the odds were against them; they had fought the hardest of all
+actions--the retirement from the fighting line--but they had absolute
+faith in the ultimate success of their allied arms.
+
+I managed to get to Paris. It was in the middle of the night, but
+extraordinary scenes were taking place. It had become known during the
+day that Paris was no longer the seat of the Government, which has
+moved to Bordeaux. The Parisians had had notice of four days in which to
+destroy their houses within the zone of fortifications, and, to add to
+the cold fear occasioned by this news, aeroplanes had dropped bombs upon
+the Gare de l'Est that afternoon.
+
+There was a rush last night to get away from the capital, and the
+railway stations were great camps of fugitives, in which the richest and
+poorest citizens were mingled with their women and children. But the
+tragedy deepened when it was heard that most of the lines to the east
+had been cut, and that the only line remaining open to Dieppe would
+probably be destroyed during the next few hours. A great wail of grief
+arose from the crowds, and the misery of these people was pitiful.
+
+Among them were groups of soldiers of many regiments. Many of them were
+wounded and lay on stretchers on the floor among crying babies and
+weary-eyed women. They had been beaten and were done for until the end
+of the war. But, alone among the panic-stricken crowd--panic-stricken,
+yet not noisy or hysterical, but very quiet and restrained for the most
+part--the soldiers were cheerful, and even gay.
+
+Among them were some British troops, and I had a talk with them. They
+had been fighting for ten days without cessation, and their story is
+typical of the way in which all our troops held themselves.
+
+"We had been fighting night and day," said a Sergeant. "For the whole of
+that time the only rest from fighting was when we were marching and
+retiring." He spoke of the German Army as an avalanche of armed men.
+"You can't mow that down," he said. "We kill them and kill them, and
+still they come on. They seem to have an inexhaustible supply of fresh
+troops. Directly we check them in one attack a fresh attack is
+developed. It is impossible to oppose such a mass of men with any
+success."
+
+This splendid fellow, who was severely wounded, was still so much master
+of himself, so supreme in his common sense, that he was able to get the
+right perspective about the general situation.
+
+"It is not right to say we have met with disaster," he said. "We have to
+expect that nowadays. Besides, what if a battalion was cut up? That did
+not mean defeat. While one regiment suffered, another got off lightly";
+and by the words of that Sergeant the public may learn to see the truth
+of what has happened. I can add my own evidence to his. All along the
+lines I have spoken to officers and men, and the actual truth is that
+the British Army is still unbroken, having retired in perfect order to
+good positions--the most marvelous feat ever accomplished in modern
+warfare.
+
+From Paris I went by the last train again which has got through to
+Dieppe. Lately I seem to have become an expert in catching the last
+train. It was only a branch line which struggles in an erratic way
+through the west of France, and the going was long and painful, because
+at every wayside station the carriages were besieged by people trying to
+escape. They were very patient and very brave. Even when they found that
+it was impossible to get one more human being on or one more package
+into the already crowded train they turned away in quiet grief, and when
+women wept over their babies it was silently and without abandonment to
+despair. The women of France are brave, God knows. I have seen their
+courage during the past ten days--gallantry surpassing that of the men,
+because of their own children in their arms without shelter, food, or
+safety in this terrible flight from the advancing enemy.
+
+Enormous herds of cattle were being driven into Paris. For miles the
+roads were thronged with them; and down other roads away from Paris
+families were trekking to far fields with their household goods piled
+into bullock carts, pony carts, and wheelbarrows.
+
+Two batteries of artillery were stationed by the line, and a regiment of
+infantry was hiding in the hollows of the grassy slopes. Their outposts
+were scanning the horizon, and it was obvious that the Germans were
+expected at this point in order to cut the last way of escape from the
+capital.
+
+One of the enemy's aeroplanes flew above our heads, circled around, and
+then disappeared. It dropped no bombs and was satisfied with its
+reconnoissance. The whistle of the train shrieked out, and there was a
+cheer from the French gunners as we went on our way to safety, leaving
+them behind at the post of peril.
+
+ST. PIERRE DU VAUVRAY, Sept. 6.--England received a hint yesterday as to
+a change in the German campaign, but only those who have been, as I
+have, into the very heart of this monstrous horror of war, seeing the
+flight of hundreds of thousands of people before an overwhelming enemy
+and following the lines of the allied armies in their steady retirement
+before an apparently irresistible advance, may realize even dimly the
+meaning of the amazing transformation that has happened during the last
+few days.
+
+For when I wrote my last dispatch from Arques-la-Bataille, after my
+adventures along the French and English lines, it seemed as inevitable
+as the rising of next day's sun that the Germans should enter Paris on
+the very day when I wrote my dispatch. Still not a single shot has come
+crashing upon the French fortifications.
+
+At least a million men--that is no exaggeration of a light pen, but the
+sober and actual truth--were advancing steadily upon the capital last
+Tuesday. They were close to Beauvais when I escaped from what was then a
+death-trap. They were fighting our British troops at Creil when I came
+to that town. Upon the following days they were holding our men in the
+Forest of Compiègne. They had been as near to Paris as Senlis, almost
+within gunshot of the outer forts.
+
+"Nothing seems to stop them," said many soldiers with whom I spoke. "We
+kill them and kill them, but they come on."
+
+The situation seemed to me almost ready for the supreme tragedy--the
+capture or destruction of Paris. The northwest of France lay very open
+to the enemy, abandoned as far south as Abbéville and Amiens, too
+lightly held by a mixed army corps of French and Algerian troops with
+their headquarters at Aumale.
+
+Here was an easy way to Paris.
+
+Always obsessed with the idea that the Germans must come from the east,
+the almost fatal error of this war, the French had girdled Paris with
+almost impenetrable forts on the east side, from those of Ecouen and
+Montmorency, by the far-flung forts of Chelles and Champigny, to those
+of Susy and Villeneuve, on the outer lines of the triple cordon; but on
+the west side, between Pontoise and Versailles, the defenses of Paris
+were weak. I say "were," because during the last three days thousands of
+men have been digging trenches and throwing up ramparts. Only the
+snakelike Seine, twining into Pegoud loop, forms a natural defense to
+the western approach to the city, none too secure against men who have
+crossed many rivers in their desperate assaults.
+
+This, then, was the Germans' chance; it was for this that they had
+fought their way westward and southward through incessant battlefields
+from Mons and Charleroi to St. Quentin and Amiens and down to Creil and
+Compiègne, flinging away human life as though it were but rubbish for
+deathpits. The prize of Paris, Paris the great and beautiful, seemed to
+be within their grasp.
+
+It was their intention to smash their way into it by this western entry
+and then to skin it alive. Holding this city at ransom, it was their
+idea to force France to her knees under threat of making a vast and
+desolate ruin of all those palaces and churches and noble buildings in
+which the soul of French history is enshrined.
+
+They might have done it but for one thing which has upset all the
+cold-blooded calculations of their staff, that thing which perhaps I may
+be pardoned for calling the miracle. They might have done it, I think,
+last Wednesday and Thursday, even perhaps as late as last Friday.
+
+I am not saying these things from rumor and hearsay, I am writing from
+the evidence of my own eyes after traveling several hundreds of miles in
+France during the last four days along the main strategical lines, grim
+sentinels guarding the last barriers to that approaching death which is
+sweeping on its way through France to the rich harvest of Paris, which
+it was eager to destroy.
+
+There was only one thing to do to escape from the menace of this death.
+By all the ways open, by any way, the population of Paris emptied itself
+like rushing rivers of humanity along all the lines which promised
+anything like safety.
+
+Only those stayed behind to whom life means very little away from Paris
+and who if death came desired to die in the city of their life.
+
+Again I write from what I saw and to tell the honest truth from what I
+suffered, for the fatigue of this hunting for facts behind the screen of
+war is exhausting to all but one's moral strength, and even to that.
+
+I found myself in the midst of a new and extraordinary activity of the
+French and English Armies. Regiments were being rushed up to the centre
+of the allied forces toward Creil, Montdidier, and Noyon. That was
+before last Tuesday, when the English troops [Transcriber: original
+'toops'] were fighting hard at Creil.
+
+This great movement continued for several days, putting to a severe test
+the French railway system, which is so wonderfully organized that it
+achieved this mighty transportation of troops with clockwork regularity.
+Working to a time table dictated by some great brain which in
+Headquarters Staff of the French Army, calculated with perfect precision
+the conditions of a network of lines on which troop trains might be run
+to a given point. It was an immense victory of organization, and a
+movement which heartened one observer at least to believe that the
+German deathblow would again be averted.
+
+I saw regiment after regiment entraining. Men from the Southern
+Provinces, speaking the patois of the South; men from the Eastern
+Departments whom I had seen a month before, at the beginning of the war,
+at Chalons and Epernay and Nancy, and men from the southwest and centre
+of France, in garrisons along the Loire. They were all in splendid
+spirits and utterly undaunted by the rapidity of the German advance.
+
+"It is nothing, my little one," said a dirty, unshaved gentleman with
+the laughing eyes of a D'Artagnan; "we shall bite their heads off. These
+brutal bosches are going to put themselves in a guetapens, a veritable
+deathtrap. We shall have them at last."
+
+Many of them had fought at Longwy and along the heights of the Vosges.
+The youngest of them had bristling beards, their blue coats with
+turned-back flaps were war worn and flanked with the dust of long
+marches; their red trousers were sloppy and stained, but they had not
+forgotten how to laugh, and the gallantry of their spirits was a joy to
+see.
+
+They are very proud, these French soldiers, of fighting side by side
+with their old foes. The English now, after long centuries of strife,
+from Edward, the Black Prince, to Wellington, are their brothers-in-arms
+upon the battlefields, and because I am English they offered me their
+cigarettes and made me one of them. But I realized even then that the
+individual is of no account in this inhuman business of war.
+
+It is only masses of men that matter, moved by common obedience at the
+dictation of mysterious far-off powers, and I thanked Heaven that masses
+of men were on the move rapidly in vast numbers and in the right
+direction to support the French lines which had fallen back from Amiens
+a few hours before I left that town, and whom I had followed in their
+retirement, back and back, with the English always strengthening their
+left, but retiring with them almost to the outskirts of Paris itself.
+
+Only this could save Paris--the rapid strengthening of the allied front
+by enormous reserves strong enough to hold back the arrow-shaped
+battering ram of the enemy's main army.
+
+Undoubtedly the French Headquarters Staff was working heroically and
+with fine intelligence to save the situation at the very gates of Paris.
+The country was being swept absolutely clean of troops in all parts of
+France, where they had been waiting as reserves.
+
+It was astounding to me to see, after those three days of rushing troop
+trains and of crowded stations not large enough to contain the
+regiments, how on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday last an air of profound
+solitude and peace had taken possession of all these routes.
+
+In my long journey through and about France and circling round Paris I
+found myself wondering sometimes whether all this war had not been a
+dreadful illusion without reality, and a transformation had taken place,
+startling in its change, from military turmoil to rural peace.
+
+Dijon was emptied of its troops. The road to Chalons was deserted by all
+but fugitives. The great armed camp at Chalons itself had been cleared
+out except for a small garrison. The troops at Tours had gone northward
+to the French centre. All our English reserves had been rushed up to the
+front from Havre and Rouen.
+
+There was only one deduction to be drawn from this great, swift
+movement--the French and English lines had been supported by every
+available battalion to save Paris from its menace of destruction, to
+meet the weight of the enemy's metal by a force strong enough to resist
+its mighty mass.
+
+It was still possible that the Germans might be smashed on their left
+wing, hurled back to the west between Paris and the sea, and cut off
+from their line of communications. It was undoubtedly this impending
+peril which scared the enemy's Headquarters Staff and upset all its
+calculations. They had not anticipated the rapidity of the supporting
+movement of the allied armies, and at the very gates of Paris they saw
+themselves balked of their prize, the greatest prize of the war, by the
+necessity of changing front.
+
+To do them justice, they realized instantly the new order of things,
+and with quick and marvelous decision did not hesitate to alter the
+direction of their main force. Instead of proceeding to the west of
+Paris they swung round steadily to the southeast in order to keep their
+armies away from the enveloping movement of the French and English and
+drive their famous wedge-like formation southward for the purpose of
+dividing the allied forces of the west from the French Army of the East.
+The miraculous had happened, and Paris, for a little time at least, is
+unmolested.
+
+That brings me back to the fighting at Creil and Compiègne, which
+preceded from last Tuesday until two days later.
+
+The guns were at work at midnight on Tuesday when I passed the English
+Headquarters. This battle had only one purpose so far as the Germans
+were concerned. It was to keep our British soldiers busy, as well as to
+hold the front of the French allies on our right, while their débordant
+movements took place behind this fighting screen.
+
+Once again, as throughout the war, they showed their immense superiority
+in mitrailleuses, which gives them marvelous mobility and a very deadly
+advantage. They masked these quick-firers with great skill until they
+had drawn on the English and French infantry and then spilled lead into
+their ranks. Once again, also the French were too impetuous, as they
+have always been, and as they still are, in spite of Gen. Joffre's
+severe rebuke.
+
+Careless of quick-firers, which experience should have taught them were
+masked behind the enemy's advance posts, they charged with the bayonet,
+and suffered needlessly heavy losses. One can only admire the gallantry
+of men who dare to charge on foot against the enemy's mounted men and
+who actually put a squadron of them to flight, but one must say again:
+"C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre."
+
+There have been many incidents of heroism in these last days of
+fighting. It is, for instance, immensely characteristic of the French
+spirit that an infantry battalion, having put to flight a detachment of
+German outposts in the forest of Compiègne, calmly sat down to have a
+picnic in the woods until, as they sat over their hot soup, laughing at
+their exploit, they were attacked by a new force and cut to pieces.
+
+But let me describe the new significance of the main German advance.
+Their right army has struck down to the southeast of Paris, through
+Château Thiery to La Ferté-sur-Jouarre and beyond. Their centre army is
+coming hard down from Troyes, in the Department of the Aube, and the
+army of the left has forced the French to evacuate Rheims and fall back
+in a southwesterly direction.
+
+It would not be right of me to indicate the present position of the
+British troops or describe the great scenes at their base, which is now
+removed to a position which enables our forces to hold the eastern
+approach to Paris. It is a wonderful sight to pass the commissariat
+camp, where, among other munitions of war, is a park of British
+aeroplanes, which are of vital importance to our work of reconnoissance.
+
+Looking, therefore, at the extraordinary transformation throughout the
+field of war in France, one thing stands out clear-cut and distinct.
+Having been thwarted in their purpose to walk through the western way to
+Paris by the enormous forces massed on their flanks, the Germans have
+adopted an entirely new plan of campaign and have thrust their armies
+deep down into the centre of France in order to divide the western
+armies of the Allies from the army on the eastern frontier. It is a
+menacing manoeuvre, and it cannot be hidden that the army of Lorraine is
+in danger of being cut off by the enemy's armies of the left.
+
+At the same time the German right is swinging round in a southwesterly
+direction in order to attack the allied forces on the east and south.
+Paris is thus left out of account for the time being, but it depends
+upon the issues of the next few days whether the threatened peril will
+be averted from it by the immense army now protecting it. I believe the
+spirit of our own troops and their French comrades is so splendid that
+with their new strength they will be equal to that formidable attack.
+
+Nothing certainly is being left to chance. For miles all around Paris
+trenches are being dug in the roads, and little sectional trenches on
+the broad roads of France, first one on this side of the way, and then
+one on the other side, so that a motor car traveling along the road has
+to drive in a series of sharp curves to avoid pitfalls.
+
+There was feverish activity on the west side of the Paris fortifications
+when I passed between St. Germain and St. Denis.
+
+Earthworks are being constantly thrown up between the forts, and the
+triple curves of the Seine are being intrenched so that thousands of men
+may take cover there and form a terrific defense against any attack.
+
+Gen. Galliéni, the Military Governor of Paris, is a man of energy and
+iron resolution, and no doubt under his command Paris, if it has to
+undergo a siege, (which God avert!) will defend itself well, now that it
+has had these precious days of respite.
+
+After wandering along the westerly and southerly roads I started for
+Paris when thousands and scores of thousands were flying from it. At
+that time I believed, as all France believed, that in a few hours German
+shells would be crashing across the fortifications of the city and that
+Paris the beautiful would be Paris the infernal. It needed a good deal
+of resolution on my part to go deliberately to a city from which the
+population was fleeing, and I confess quite honestly that I had a nasty
+sensation in the neighborhood of my waistcoat buttons at the thought.
+
+Along the road from Tours to Paris there were sixty unbroken miles of
+people--on my honor, I do not exaggerate, but write the absolute truth.
+They were all people who had despaired of breaking through the dense
+masses of their fellow-citizens camped around the railway stations, and
+had decided to take to the roads as the only way of escape.
+
+The vehicles were taxicabs, for which the rich paid fabulous prices;
+motor cars which had escaped military requisition, farmers' carts laden
+with several families and piles of household goods, shop carts drawn by
+horses already tired to the point of death because of the weight of the
+people who crowded behind pony traps and governess carts.
+
+Many persons, well dressed and belonging obviously to well-to-do
+bourgeoisie, were wheeling barrows like costers, but instead of
+trundling cabbages were pushing forward sleeping babies and little
+children, who seemed on the first stage to find new amusement and
+excitement in the journey from home; but for the most part they trudged
+along bravely, carrying their babies and holding the hands of their
+little ones.
+
+They were of all classes, rank and fortune being annihilated by the
+common tragedy. Elegant women whose beauty is known in Paris salons,
+whose frivolity, perhaps, in the past was the main purpose of their
+life, were now on a level with the peasant mothers of the French suburbs
+and with the midinettes of Montmartre, and their courage did not fail
+them so quickly.
+
+I looked into many proud, brave faces of these delicate women, walking
+in high-heeled shoes, all too frail for the hard-dusty roadways. They
+belonged to the same race and breed as those ladies who defied death
+with fine disdain upon the scaffold of the guillotine in the great
+Revolution.
+
+They were leaving Paris now, not because of any fears for themselves--I
+believe they were fearless--but because they had decided to save the
+little sons and daughters of soldier fathers.
+
+This great army in retreat was made up of every type familiar in Paris.
+
+Here were women of the gay world, poor creatures whose painted faces had
+been washed with tears, and whose tight skirts and white stockings were
+never made for a long march down the highways of France.
+
+Here also were thousands of those poor old ladies who live on a few
+francs a week in the top attics of the Paris streets, which Balzac knew;
+they had fled from their poor sanctuaries and some of them were still
+carrying cats and canaries, as dear to them as their own lives.
+
+There was one young woman who walked with a pet monkey on her shoulder
+while she carried a bird in a golden cage. Old men, who remembered 1870,
+gave their arms to old ladies to whom they had made love when the
+Prussians were at the gates of Paris then.
+
+It was pitiful to see these old people now hobbling along together.
+Pitiful, but beautiful also, because of their lasting love.
+
+Young boy students, with ties as black as their hats and rat-tail hair,
+marched in small companies of comrades, singing brave songs, as though
+they had no fear in their hearts, and very little food, I think, in
+their stomachs.
+
+Shopgirls and concierges, city clerks, old aristocrats, young boys and
+girls, who supported grandfathers and grandmothers and carried new-born
+babies and gave pick-a-back rides to little brothers and sisters, came
+along the way of retreat.
+
+Each human being in the vast torrent of life will have an unforgettable
+story of adventure to tell if life remains. As a novelist I should have
+been glad to get their narratives along this road for a great story of
+suffering and strange adventure, but there was no time for that and no
+excuse.
+
+When I met many of them they were almost beyond the power of words. The
+hot sun of this September had beaten down upon them--scorching them as
+in the glow of molten metal. Their tongues clave to their mouths with
+thirst.
+
+Some of them had that wild look in their eyes which is the first sign of
+the delirium of thirst and fatigue.
+
+Nothing to eat or drink could be found on the way from Paris. The little
+roadside cafés had been cleared out by the preceding hordes.
+
+Unless these people carried their own food and drink they could have
+none except of the charity of their comrades in misfortune, and that
+charity has exceeded all other acts of heroism in this war. Women gave
+their last biscuit, their last little drop of wine, to poor mothers
+whose children were famishing with thirst and hunger; peasant women fed
+other women's babies when their own were satisfied.
+
+It was a tragic road. At every mile of it there were people who had
+fainted on the roadside and poor old men and women who could go no
+further, but sat on the banks below the hedges, weeping silently or
+bidding younger ones go forward and leave them to their fate. Young
+women who had stepped out so jauntily at first were footsore and lame,
+so they limped along with lines of pain about their lips and eyes.
+
+Many of the taxicabs, bought at great prices, and many of the motor cars
+had broken down as I passed, and had been abandoned by their owners, who
+had decided to walk. Farmers' carts had bolted into ditches and lost
+their wheels. Wheelbarrows, too heavy to be trundled, had been tilted
+up, with all their household goods spilt into the roadway, and the
+children had been carried further, until at last darkness came, and
+their only shelter was a haystack in a field under the harvest moon.
+
+For days also I have been wedged up with fugitives in railway trains
+more dreadful than the open roads, stifling in their heat and
+heart-racking in their cargoes of misery. Poor women have wept
+hysterically clasping my hand, a stranger's hand, for comfort in their
+wretchedness and weakness. Yet on the whole they have shown amazing
+courage, and, after their tears, have laughed at their own breakdown,
+and, always children of France, have been superb, so that again and
+again I have wondered at the gallantry with which they endured this
+horror. Young boys have revealed the heroic strain in them and have
+played the part of men in helping their mothers. And yet, when I came at
+last into Paris against all this tide of retreat, it seemed a needless
+fear that had driven these people away.
+
+Then I passed long lines of beautiful little villas on the Seine side,
+utterly abandoned among their trees and flowers. A solitary fisherman
+held his line above the water as though all the world were at peace, and
+in a field close to the fortifications which I expected to see bursting
+with shells, an old peasant bent above the furrows and planted cabbages.
+Then, at last, I walked through the streets of Paris and found them
+strangely quiet and tranquil.
+
+The people I met looked perfectly calm. There were a few children
+playing in the gardens of Champs Elysées and under the Arc de Triomph
+symbolical of the glory of France.
+
+I looked back upon the beauty of Paris all golden in the light of the
+setting sun, with its glinting spires and white gleaming palaces and
+rays of light flashing in front of the golden trophies of its monuments.
+Paris was still unbroken. No shell had come shattering into this city of
+splendor, and I thanked Heaven that for a little while the peril had
+passed.
+
+
+
+
+*A Zouave's Story*
+
+*By Philip Gibbs of The London Daily Chronicle.*
+
+[Special Dispatch to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
+
+
+CREIL, Sept. 10.--I could write this narrative as a historian, with
+details gathered from many different witnesses at various parts of the
+lines, in a cold and aloof way, but I prefer to tell it in the words of
+a young officer of the Zouaves who was in the thickest of fighting until
+when I met him and gave him wine and biscuits. He was put out of action
+by a piece of shell which smashed his left arm. He told me the story of
+the battle as he sat back, hiding his pain by a little careless smile of
+contempt, and splashed with blood which made a mess of his uniform.
+
+"For four days previous to Monday, Sept. 7," he said, "we were engaged
+in clearing out the German bosches from all the villages on the left
+bank of the Ourcq, which they had occupied in order to protect the flank
+of their right wing. Unfortunately for us the English heavy artillery,
+which would have smashed the beggars to bits, had not yet come up to
+help us, although we expected them with some anxiety, as big business
+events began as soon as we drove the outposts back to their main lines.
+
+"However, we were equal to the preliminary task, and, heartened by the
+news of an ammunition convoy which had been turned into a pretty
+fireworks display by 'Soixante-dix' Pau, my Zouaves, (as you see, I
+belong to the First Division, which has a reputation to keep up, n'est
+ce pas?) were in splendid form. Of course, they all laughed at me. They
+wanted to get near those German guns and nearer still to the gunners.
+That was before they knew the exact meaning of shellfire well.
+
+"They did good things, those Zouaves of mine, but it wasn't pleasant
+work. We fought from village to village, very close fighting, so that
+sometimes we could look into our enemy's eyes. The Moroccans were with
+us. The native troops are unlike my boys, who are Frenchmen, and they
+were like demons with their bayonet work.
+
+"Several of the villages were set on fire by the Germans before they
+retired from them, and soon great columns of smoke with pillars of
+flames and clouds of flying sparks rose up into the blue sky and made a
+picture of hell there, for really it was hell on earth. Our gunners were
+shelling Germans from pillar to post, as it were, and strewing the
+ground with their dead. It was across and among these dead bodies that
+we infantry had to charge.
+
+"They lay about in heaps. It made me sick, even in the excitement of it
+all. The enemy's quick-firers were marvelous. I am bound to say we did
+not get it all our own way. They always manoeuvre them in the same
+style, and a very clever style it is. First of all, they mask them with
+infantry; then, when the French charge, they reveal them and put us to
+the test under the most withering fire. It is almost impossible to stand
+against it, and in this case we had to retire after each rush for about
+250 meters. Then, quick as lightning, the Germans got their
+mitrailleuses across the ground which we had yielded to them and waited
+for us to come on again, when they repeated the same operation.
+
+"I can tell you it was pretty trying to the nerves. My Zouaves were very
+steady in spite of fairly heavy losses. It is quite untrue to say that
+the Germans have a greater number of mitrailleuses than the French. I
+believe that the proportion is exactly the same to each division, but
+they handle them more cleverly, and their fire is much more effective
+than ours.
+
+"In a village named Penchard there was some very sharp fighting, and
+some of our artillery was posted thereabout. Presently a German
+aeroplane came overhead, circling round in reconnoissance; but it was
+out for more than that. Suddenly it began to drop bombs and, whether by
+design or otherwise, they exploded in the middle of a field hospital.
+One of my friends, a young doctor, was wounded in the left arm by a
+bullet from one of these bombs, but I don't know what other casualties
+there were. The inevitable happened shortly after the disappearance of
+the aeroplane. German shells searched the position and found it with
+unpleasant accuracy. It is always the same. The German aeroplanes are
+really wonderful in the way they search out the positions of our guns.
+We always know that within half an hour of observation by aeroplane
+shells will begin to fall above gunners, unless they have altered their
+position. It was so in this fighting round Meaux yesterday.
+
+"For four days this hunting among the villages on the left bank of the
+Ourcq went on all the time, and we were not very happy with ourselves.
+The truth was we had no water and were four days thirsty. It was really
+terrible, for the heat was terrific during the day, and some of us were
+almost mad with thirst. Our tongues were blistered and swollen, our eyes
+had a silly kind of look in them, and at night we had horrid dreams. It
+was, I assure you, intolerable agony.
+
+"I have said we were four days without drink, and that was because we
+used our last water for our horses. A gentleman has to do that, you will
+agree, and a French soldier is not a barbarian. Even then the horses had
+to go without a drop of water for two days, and I'm not ashamed to say I
+wept salt tears to see the sufferings of those poor, innocent creatures
+who did not understand the meaning of all this bloody business and who
+wondered at our cruelty.
+
+"The nights were dreadful. All around us were burning villages, and at
+every faint puff of wind sparks floated about them like falling stars.
+
+"But other fires were burning. Under the cover of darkness the Germans
+had piled the dead into great heaps and had covered them with straw and
+paraffin; then they had set a torch to these funeral pyres.
+
+"Carrion crows were about in the dawn that followed. One of my own
+comrades lay very badly wounded, and when he wakened out of his
+unconsciousness one of these beastly birds was sitting on his chest
+waiting for him to die. That is war.
+
+"The German shells were terrifying. I confess to you that there were
+times when my nerves were absolutely gone. I crouched down with my men
+(we were in open formation) and ducked my head at the sound of the
+bursting shell, and I trembled in every limb as though I had a fit of
+ague.
+
+"It is true that in reality the German shells are not very effective.
+Only about one in four explodes nicely, but it is a bad thing when, as
+happened to me, the shells plopped around in a diameter of fifty meters.
+One hears the zip-zip of bullets, the boom of the great guns, the
+ste-tang of our French artillery, and in all this infernal experience of
+noise and stench, the screams at times of dying horses and men joined
+with the fury of gunfire and rising shrill above it, no man may boast of
+his courage. There were moments when I was a coward with all of them.
+
+"But one gets used to it, as to all things. My ague did not last long.
+Soon I was shouting and cheering. Again we cleared the enemy out of the
+village of Bregy, and that was where I fell, wounded in the arm pretty
+badly by a bit of shell. When I came to myself a brother officer told me
+things were going on well and that we had rolled back the German right.
+That was better than bandages to me. I felt very well again, in spite of
+my weakness.
+
+"It is the beginning of the end, and the Germans are on the run. They
+are exhausted and demoralized. Their pride has been broken; they are
+short of ammunition; they know their plans have failed.
+
+"Now that we have them on the move nothing will save them. This war is
+going to be finished quicker than people thought. I believe that in a
+few days the enemy will be broken and that we shall have nothing more to
+do than kill them as they fight back in retreat."
+
+That is the story, without any retouching of my pen, of a young
+Lieutenant of Zouaves whom I met after the battle of Meaux, with blood
+still splashed upon his uniform.
+
+It is a human story, giving the experience of only one individual in the
+great battle, but it gives also in outline a narrative of that great
+military operation which has done irreparable damage to the German right
+wing in its plan of campaign and thrust it back across the Ourcq in a
+great retiring movement which has also begun upon the German centre and
+left.
+
+
+
+
+*When War Burst on Arras*
+
+[A Special Dispatch to THE NEW YORK TIMES and The London Daily
+Chronicle.]
+
+
+A TOWN IN FRANCE, Oct. 7.--Arras has been the pivot of a fierce battle
+which, commencing Thursday, was still in progress when I was forced to
+leave the citadel three days later.
+
+In that period I was fortunate enough to penetrate into the firing line,
+and the experience is one that will never be dimmed in my memory. Like
+the movements of so many pawns on a mammoth chessboard was the feinting
+with scattered outposts to test the strength of the enemy.
+
+I saw the action open with skirmishes at Vitry-en-Artois, and next
+morning one of the hardest battles which make a link in the chain flung
+right across France of the gigantic battle of rivers was being
+prosecuted before my eyes.
+
+The days that ensued were full of feverish and hectic motion. Arras
+rattled and throbbed with the flow of an army and all the tragedy which
+war brings in its train. There were moments when its cobbled streets
+were threaded by streams of wounded from the country beyond. Guns boomed
+incessantly, a fitting requiem to the sad little processions which
+occasionally revealed that some poor fellow had sacrificed his life for
+the flag which accompanied him to his grave.
+
+I reached Arras on Sept. 29. The Germans had occupied it a fortnight
+earlier. Now it was placid, sleepy, and deserted, and bore no outward
+signs of having suffered from their occupation. I learned, however, that
+although they had refrained from demolishing buildings, there had been
+scenes of debauchery, and private houses had been ransacked.
+
+It was declared that the only German paying for anything during the
+whole of the fortnight's occupation was a member of the Hohenzollern
+family, an important officer who had made the Hôtel d'Univers his
+headquarters.
+
+I decided to pass on to Vitry-en-Artois, twelve miles distant and six
+kilometers from Douai, where I had heard the Allies were in force. Here
+I obtained a room in a hotel.
+
+Within a short while I saw armed cars. There came many warriors in many
+cars, cars fitted with mitrailleuses, cars advancing backward, cars with
+two soldiers in the back of each with their rifles rested on the back
+cushions and their fingers on the triggers, and with the muzzles of
+mitrailleuses pointing over their heads. Several cavalry scouts, too,
+are in the streets.
+
+Once I ventured my head a little outside of the door and was curtly
+warned to eliminate myself or possibly I would get shot. I eliminated
+myself for the moment.
+
+Now with dramatic suddenness death touches Vitry with her chill fingers.
+In the distance, right away beyond the bridge behind a bend in the road,
+there is a clatter of hoofs. It stops. Again it goes on and stops for
+about a couple of minutes, and then quite distinctly can be heard the
+sound of a body of horsemen proceeding at a walk.
+
+The cavalry scouts have vanished into big barns on either side of the
+road, and around the corner of the bridge comes a small body of German
+cavalry. They have passed the spot where the French scouts are hidden
+and I have retreated to my bedroom window, from where I can count twelve
+of the Death's Head riders.
+
+They are riding to their fate. Right slap up in front of the cars they
+come. A rifle shot rings out from where the French scouts are hidden,
+then another, and that is the signal for the inferno to be loosed.
+
+C-r-r-r-r-r-ack, and the mitrailleuse spits out a regular hail of death,
+vicious, whiplike, never-ceasing cracks. Two horses are down and three
+men lie prone in the road.
+
+The Germans have not fired a shot, all their energies being concentrated
+in wildly turning their horses to get back again round the bend.
+
+It is too late. Another two are toppled over by the scouts in the barns,
+and then cars are after them, still spitting out an unending hail of
+lead.
+
+It seems impossible that even a fly could live in such a stream of
+bullets, yet out of the dozen three get round the bend, and, galloping
+madly, make for the only spot where they can leave the road and get
+across country. Even the automobile and auto-mitrailleuse men cannot
+follow them there.
+
+These fellows seem perfectly satisfied with a bag of nine, obtained
+without a scratch. All are dead, one of them with over twenty wounds in
+him. Two horses are stone dead, and three others have to be put out of
+their misery. The other four are contentedly standing at the roadside
+munching grass, one with a hind leg lifted a few inches off the ground.
+
+The bodies of the dead Germans are laid side by side in a field to await
+burial. The uniforms are stripped of everything that can be removed,
+buttons and shoulder straps. The men in the cars take the water bottles,
+swords, and revolvers as mementos.
+
+I imperfectly understood the real meaning of this scrap. I had thought
+it was an encounter between stray forces. A talk with the driver of an
+armed car, however, enlarged my perspective. It was a meeting of the
+outposts of two great opposing armies, one of which was at Douai, the
+other at Cambrai. The feelers of both forces were being extended to
+discover the various positions, preparatory to a big battle, which was
+expected on the morrow (Oct. 1) along the line of
+Cambrai-Douai-Valenciennes.
+
+It was understood that the Germans had massed in force at Cambrai and
+strong wings were thrown out on both sides, the outposts of one wing, as
+we have already seen, coming into touch with the French at Vitry.
+
+From the reports of the auto-mitrailleuse men, who cover great
+distances in a day, similar skirmishing had been taking place at Etain,
+(where some farmhouses were burned,) Eterpigny, Croisilles, Boisleux,
+and Boyelles, these places ranging from ten to twenty kilometers from
+Arras.
+
+There was a general exodus from Vitry and I secured standing room in a
+wagon of the last train leaving for Arras. It was loaded with fugitives.
+
+Arras had changed completely on my return. Its calmness was gone. The
+station was empty of civilians, there were no trains running and the
+station entrance was in charge of a strong picket of soldiers, while the
+road outside echoed to the tread of infantry.
+
+I stood still in amazement, while my papers were being closely examined,
+and watched regiment after regiment of foot with their transport trains
+complete marching out on the road to Douai. This was part of the
+preparation for the big battle which I was told was going to begin
+tomorrow.
+
+In the town itself the transformation was still more amazing--soldiers
+in every street, cavalry, infantry, dragoons, lancers, and engineers in
+ones and twos, and parties of twenty or thirty picturesque Moroccans. I
+never saw such a medley of colors and expressions, and the whole town
+was full of them--material for one army corps at least.
+
+I installed myself in quarters at the Hôtel de l'Univers, with the
+intention of getting away the first thing in the morning if possible.
+But it was not possible. I was informed that Arras was now under
+military control, and no permits were being issued whatsoever. The
+Lieutenant who told me this smiled as I shrugged my shoulders.
+
+"You will bear witness, Monsieur, that I tried my best to get out," said
+I.
+
+"Certainly; but why go away?" he asked with a smile. "Arras est tres
+belle ville, Monsieur. You have a good hotel, a good bed, and good food.
+Why should you go out?"
+
+And so I stayed at Arras.
+
+That was Sept. 30. The next day I could hear guns. They started at about
+8 o'clock in the morning, the French guns being in position about five
+kilometers outside of Arras to the south, southeast, and east, sixteen
+batteries of France's artillery or 75-millimeter calibre.
+
+All day long the guns thundered and roared, and all day long I sat
+outside the café of the Hôtel des Voyageurs in the Place de la Gare. The
+station building was right in front of me. I longed for a position which
+would enable me to see over the tall buildings on to the battlefield
+beyond. Even the roof of the station would have suited. There was a
+little crowd of officials already there with their field glasses, and
+they could discern what was going on, for I noticed several pointing
+here and there whenever a particularly loud explosion was heard.
+
+Two men in civilian clothes sat down beside me and gave me "good day,"
+evidently curious as to my nationality. I invited them to join me in
+coffee and cognac, and during the ensuing conversation we all became
+very friendly, and I was given to understand that one of them was the
+volunteer driver of an auto-mitrailleuse who had just come off duty.
+
+I remarked that it would be very interesting to get a sight of what was
+going on behind the station.
+
+"Is it very near--the battle?"
+
+"About five kilometers, Monsieur. The German guns are ten kilometers
+distant. One of the German shells exploded behind the station this
+morning. Would Monsieur like to walk out a little way?"
+
+"But surely the pickets will not let me pass beyond the barrier," said
+I.
+
+My good friend of the auto-mitrailleuse smiled, rose, and buttoned up
+his coat. "Come with me," he invited.
+
+At the barrier we were stopped, but luck had not deserted me, for in the
+Sergeant in charge of the pickets I recognized another café acquaintance
+of the previous night. We shook hands, exchanged cigarettes, and
+proceeded up and down numerous streets, bearing always southward in the
+direction of the firing, until the open country was reached.
+
+My companion suddenly caught hold of my arm and we both jumped up the
+bank at the side of the road to let a long string of artillery drivers
+trot past on their way back for more ammunition. Another cloud of dust,
+and coming up behind us was a fresh lot of shells on the way out to the
+firing line.
+
+Right up in the sky ahead suddenly appeared a ball of yellow greeny
+smoke, which grew bigger and bigger, and then "boom" came the sound of a
+gun about three seconds afterward. A shell had burst in the air about
+300 yards away. Another and another came--all about the same place. They
+appeared to come from the direction of Bapaume.
+
+"Bad, very bad," commented my companion. And so it appeared to me, for
+the Germans were dropping their shells from the southeast, at least one
+kilometer over range. We were standing beside a strawstack and looking
+due south, watching the just discernible line of French guns, when we
+heard the ominous whistling screech of an approaching shell. Down on our
+faces behind the stack, down we went like lightning, and over to the
+left, not 200 yards away, rose a huge column of black smoke and earth,
+and just afterward a very loud boom. A big German gun had come into
+action, slightly nearer this time.
+
+Just behind a wood I could plainly see the smoke of the gun itself
+rising above the trees. Two more shells from the big gun exploded within
+twenty yards of each other, and then, with disconcerting suddenness, a
+French battery came into action within a hundred yards of our strawstack
+cover. They had evidently been there for some time, awaiting
+eventualities, for we had no suspicion of their proximity, and they were
+completely hidden.
+
+My ears are still tingling and buzzing from the sound of those guns. One
+after another the guns of this battery bombarded the newly taken up
+position of the German big guns, which replied with one shell every
+three minutes.
+
+Presently we had the satisfaction of hearing a violent explosion in the
+wood, and a column of smoke and flame rose up to a great height.
+
+Soixante-quinze had again scored, for the German guns had been put out
+of action. From out the French position came infantry, at this point
+thousands of little dots over the landscape, presenting a front of, I
+should think, about two miles, rapidly advancing in skirmishing order.
+Every now and then the sharp crackle of rifle fire could distinctly be
+heard.
+
+The French had advanced over a mile, and the Germans had hastily
+evacuated the wood. Other French batteries now came into action, and the
+German fire over the whole arc was becoming decidedly fainter and less
+frequent. This might, of course, be due to changing their positions on
+the German front.
+
+Wounded began to arrive, which showed that for the present at any rate,
+it was safe to go out to the trenches to collect them.
+
+Very few of them seemed badly hit, and the wounded French artillerymen
+seemed to be elated in spite of their wounds. Had not their beloved
+Soixante-quinze again scored? The time was 6 o'clock of a beautiful
+evening and the firing, though fairly continuous, was dropping off. The
+Germans had changed their positions and it was getting a little too hazy
+to make observation, although a French aeroplane was seen descending in
+wide circles over the German position, evidently quite regardless of the
+numerous small balls of smoke, which made their appearance in the sky in
+dangerous proximity to the daring pilot.
+
+It is very interesting to watch these aeroplane shells bursting in the
+air. First of all one sees a vivid little streak of bluish white light
+in the sky, and then instantaneously a smoke ball, which appears to be
+about the size of a football, is seen in the sky, always fairly close to
+the machine. Then there is the sound of an explosion like a giant
+cracker.
+
+Occasionally several guns will fire at about the same time, and it is
+weird to watch the various balls of smoke, apparently coming into being
+from nowhere, all around the machine. Sometimes one of these shells,
+which are filled with a species of shrapnel, bursts rather unpleasantly
+near the aeroplane, and then one sees the machine turn quickly and rise
+a little higher.
+
+Two or three holes have been neatly drilled through the planes. Perhaps
+one has appeared in the body of the machine, rather too near the pilot
+for safety; but it is a big gamble, anyhow, and besides the pilot has
+been instructed to find out where the various positions are, and he
+means to do it.
+
+So he simply rises a little higher and calmly continues his big circles
+over the German position.
+
+I take off my hat to these brave men, the aeroplane pilots. They are
+willing to chance their luck. What matters it if their machine gets hit,
+if the planes are riddled with holes? It will still fly, even if the
+engine gets a fatal wound and stops.
+
+The pilot, if he is high enough, can still glide to safety in his own
+lines. But (and it is a big "but") should a shrapnel ball find its
+billet in the pilot--well, one has only to die once, and it is a quick
+and sure death to fall with one's machine.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+*The Battles in Belgium*
+
+[An Associated Press Dispatch.]
+
+
+LONDON, Oct. 26, 4:40 A.M.--The correspondent of The Daily News, who has
+been in an armored train to the banks of the Yser, gives a good
+description of the battle in the North. He says:
+
+"The battle rages along the Yser with frightful destruction of life. Air
+engines, sea engines, and land engines deathsweep this desolate country,
+vertically, horizontally, and transversely. Through it the frail little
+human engines crawl and dig, walk and run, skirmishing, charging, and
+blundering in little individual fights and tussles, tired and puzzled,
+ordered here and there, sleeping where they can, never washing, and
+dying unnoticed. A friend may find himself firing on a friendly force,
+and few are to blame.
+
+"Thursday the Germans were driven back over the Yser; Friday they
+secured a footing again, and Saturday they were again hurled back. Now a
+bridge blown up by one side is repaired by the other; it is again blown
+up by the first, or left as a death trap till the enemy is actually
+crossing.
+
+"Actions by armored trains, some of them the most reckless adventures,
+are attempted daily. Each day accumulates an unwritten record of
+individual daring feats, accepted as part of the daily work. Day by day
+our men push out on these dangerous explorations, attacked by shell
+fire, in danger of cross-fire, dynamite, and ambuscades, bringing a
+priceless support to the threatened lines. As the armored train
+approaches the river under shell fire the car cracks with the constant
+thunder of guns aboard. It is amazing to see the angle at which the guns
+can be swung.
+
+"And overhead the airmen are busy venturing through fog and puffs of
+exploding shells to get one small fact of information. We used to regard
+the looping of the loop of the Germans overhead as a hare-brained piece
+of impudent defiance to our infantry fire. Now we know its means early
+trouble for the infantry.
+
+"Besides us, as we crawl up snuffing the lines like dogs on a scent,
+grim trainloads of wounded wait soundlessly in the sidings. Further up
+the line ambulances are coming slowly back. The bullets of machine guns
+begin to rattle on our armored coats. Shells we learned to disregard,
+but the machine gun is the master in this war.
+
+"Now we near the river at a flat country farm. The territory is scarred
+with trenches, and it is impossible to say at first who is in them, so
+incidental and separate are the fortunes of this riverside battle. The
+Germans are on our bank enfilading the lines of the Allies' trenches. We
+creep up and the Germans come into sight out of the trenches, rush to
+the bank, and are scattered and mashed. The Allies follow with a fierce
+bayonet charge.
+
+"The Germans do not wait. They rush to the bridges and are swept away by
+the deadliest destroyer of all, the machine gun. The bridge is blown up,
+but who can say by whom. Quickly the train runs back.
+
+"'A brisk day,' remarks the correspondent. 'Not so bad,' replies the
+officer. So the days pass."
+
+The Telegraph's correspondent in Belgium, who, accompanied by a son of
+the Belgian War Minister, M. de Broqueville, made a tour of the
+battleground in the Dixmude district last Wednesday, says:
+
+"No pen could do justice to the grandeur and horror of the scene. As far
+as the eye could reach nothing could be seen but burning villages and
+bursting shells. I realized for the first time how completely the motor
+car had revolutionized warfare and how every other factor was now
+dominated by the absence or presence of this unique means of transport.
+
+"Every road to the front was simply packed with cars. They seemed an
+ever-rolling, endless stream, going and returning to the front, while in
+many villages hundreds of private cars were parked under the control of
+the medical officer, waiting in readiness to carry the wounded.
+
+"Arrived at the firing line, a terrible scene presented itself. The
+shell fire from the German batteries was so terrific that Belgian
+soldiers and French marines were continually being blown out of their
+dugouts and sent scattering to cover. Elsewhere, also, little groups of
+peasants were forced to flee because their cellars began to fall in.
+These unfortunates had to make their way as best they could on foot to
+the rear. They were frightened to death by the bursting shells, and the
+sight of crying children among them was most pathetic.
+
+"Dixmude was the objective of the German attack, and shells were
+bursting all over it, crashing among the roofs and blowing whole streets
+to pieces. From a distance of three miles we could hear them crashing
+down, but the town itself was invisible, except for the flames and the
+smoke and clouds rising above it. The Belgians had only a few field
+batteries, so that the enemy's howitzers simply dominated the field, and
+the infantry trenches around the town had to rely upon their own unaided
+efforts.
+
+"Our progress along the road was suddenly stopped by one of the most
+horrible sights I have ever seen. A heavy howitzer shell had fallen and
+burst right in the midst of a Belgian battery, making its way to the
+front, causing terrible destruction. The mangled horses and men among
+the débris presented a shocking spectacle.
+
+"Eventually, we got into Dixmude itself, and every time a shell came
+crashing among the roofs we thought our end had come. The Hôtel de Ville
+(town hall) was a sad sight. The roof was completely riddled by shell,
+while inside was a scene of chaos. It was piled with loaves of bread,
+bicycles, and dead soldiers.
+
+"The battle redoubled in fury, and by 7 o'clock in the evening Dixmude
+was a furnace, presenting a scene of terrible grandeur. The horizon was
+red with burning homes.
+
+"Our return journey was a melancholy one, owing to the constant trains
+of wounded that were passing."
+
+The Daily Mail's Rotterdam correspondent, telegraphing Sunday evening,
+says:
+
+"Slowly but surely the Germans are being beaten back on the western
+wing, and old men and young lads are being hurried to the front. The
+enemy were in strong force at Dixmude, where the Allies were repulsed
+once, only to attack again with renewed vigor.
+
+"Roulers resembles a shambles. It was taken and retaken four times, and
+battered to ruins in the process. The German guns made the place
+untenable for the Allies.
+
+"An Oosburg message says the firing at Ostend is very heavy, and that
+the British are shelling the suburbs, which are held by the Germans.
+Last night and this morning large bodies of Germans left Bruges for
+Ostend. It is believed the Ostend piers have been blown up."
+
+"The position on the coast is stationary this morning," says a Daily
+Mail dispatch from Flushing, Netherlands, under date of Sunday. "There
+is less firing and it is more to the southward. No alteration of the
+situation is reported from Ostend.
+
+"The German losses are frightful. Three meadows near Ostend are heaped
+with dead. The wounded are now installed in private houses in Bruges,
+where large wooden sheds are being rushed up to receive additional
+injured. Thirty-seven farm wagons containing wounded, dying, and dead
+passed in one hour near Middelkerke.
+
+"The Germans have been working at new intrenchments between Coq sur Mer
+and Wenduyne to protect their road to Bruges."
+
+Gen. von Tripp and nearly all his staff, who were killed in a church
+tower at Leffinghe by the fire from the British warships, have been
+buried in Ostend.
+
+[Illustration: Flanders and Northern France--How the Battle Line Has
+Changed (Up to Jan. 1, 1915) Since the War Began.]
+
+
+
+
+*Seeking Wounded on Battle Front*
+
+By Philip Gibbs of The London Daily Chronicle.
+
+
+FURNES, Belgium, Oct. 21.--The staff of the English hospital, to which a
+mobile column has been attached for field work, has arrived here with a
+convoy of ambulances and motor cars. This little party of doctors,
+nurses, stretcher-bearers, and chauffeurs, under the direction of Dr.
+Bevis and Dr. Munro, has done splendid work in Belgium, and many of them
+were in the siege of Antwerp.
+
+Miss Macnaughton, the novelist, was one of those who went through this
+great test of courage, and Lady Dorothie Feilding, one of Lord Denbigh's
+daughters, won everybody's love by her gallantry and plucky devotion to
+duty in many perilous hours. She takes all risks with laughing courage.
+She has been under fire in many hot skirmishes, and has helped bring
+away the wounded from the fighting around Ghent when her own life might
+have paid the forfeit for defiance to bursting shells.
+
+This morning a flying column of the hospital was preparing to set out in
+search of wounded men on the firing line under direction of Lieut. de
+Broqueville, son of the Belgian War Minister. The Lieutenant, very cool
+and debonair, was arranging the order of the day with Dr. Munro. Lady
+Dorothie Feilding and the two other women in field kit stood by their
+cars, waiting for the password. There were four stretcher-bearers,
+including Mr. Gleeson, an American, who has worked with this party
+around Ghent and Antwerp, proving himself to be a man of calm and quiet
+courage at a critical moment, always ready to take great risks in order
+to bring in a wounded man.
+
+It was decided to take three ambulances and two motor cars. Lieut. de
+Broqueville anticipated a heavy day's work. He invited me to accompany
+the column in a car which I shared with Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett of The
+London Daily Telegraph, who also volunteered for the expedition.
+
+We set out before noon, winding our way through the streets of Furnes.
+We were asked to get into Dixmude, where there were many wounded. It is
+about ten miles away from Furnes. As we went along the road, nearer to
+the sound of the great guns which for the last hour or two had been
+firing incessantly, we passed many women and children. They were on
+their way to some place further from the firing. Poor old grandmothers
+in black bonnets and skirts trudged along the lines of poplars with
+younger women, who clasped their babies tightly in one hand, while with
+the other they carried heavy bundles of household goods.
+
+Along the road came German prisoners, marching rapidly between mounted
+guards. Many of them were wounded, and all of them had a wild, famished,
+terror-stricken look.
+
+At a turn in the road the battle lay before us, and we were in the zone
+of fire. Away across the fields was a line of villages with the town of
+Dixmude a little to the right of us, perhaps a mile and a quarter away.
+From each little town smoke was rising in separate columns which met at
+the top in a great black pall. At every moment this blackness was
+brightened by puffs of electric blue, extraordinarily vivid, as shells
+burst in the air. From the mass of houses in each town came jets of
+flame, following explosions which sounded with terrific thudding shocks.
+On a line of about nine miles there was an incessant cannonade. The
+farthest villages were already on fire.
+
+Quite close to us, only about half a mile across the fields to the left,
+there were Belgian batteries at work and rifle fire from many trenches.
+We were between two fires, and Belgian and German shells came screeching
+over our heads. The German shells were dropping quite close to us,
+plowing up the fields with great pits. We could hear them burst and
+scatter and could see them burrow.
+
+[Illustration: ADMIRAL SIR JOHN JELLICOE
+Commanding the British Fleets
+(_Photo from Rogers._)]
+
+[Illustration: GEN. VICTOR DANKL
+The Austrian Commander in the Russian Campaign
+(_Photo from Bain News Service._)]
+
+In front of us on the road lay a dreadful barrier, which brought us to a
+halt. A German shell had fallen right on top of an ammunition convoy.
+Four horses had been blown to pieces and their carcasses lay strewn
+across the road. The ammunition wagon had been broken into fragments and
+smashed and burned to cinders by the explosion of its own shells. A
+Belgian soldier lay dead, cut in half by a great fragment of steel.
+Further along the road were two other dead horses in pools of blood. It
+was a horrible and sickening sight, from which one turned away
+shuddering with cold sweat, but we had to pass it after some of this
+dead flesh had been dragged away.
+
+Further down the road we had left two of the cars in charge of Lady
+Dorothie Feilding and her two nurses. They were to wait there until we
+brought back some of the wounded. Two ambulances came on with our light
+car, commanded by Lieut. Broqueville and Dr. Munro. Mr. Gleeson asked me
+to help him as stretcher-bearer. Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett was to work with
+one of the other stretcher-bearers.
+
+I was in one of the ambulances, and Mr. Gleeson sat behind me in the
+narrow space between the stretchers. Over his shoulder he talked in a
+quiet voice of the job that lay before us. I was glad of that quiet
+voice, so placid in its courage. We went forward at what seemed to me a
+crawl, though I think it was a fair pace, shells bursting around us now
+on all sides, while shrapnel bullets sprayed the earth about us. It
+appeared to me an odd thing that we were still alive. Then we came into
+Dixmude.
+
+When I saw it for the first and last time it was a place of death and
+horror. The streets through which we passed were utterly deserted and
+wrecked from end to end, as though by an earthquake. Incessant
+explosions of shell fire crashed down upon the walls which still stood.
+Great gashes opened in the walls, which then toppled and fell. A roof
+came tumbling down with an appalling clatter. Like a house of cards
+blown by a puff of wind, a little shop suddenly collapsed into a mass of
+ruins. Here and there, further into the town, we saw living figures.
+They ran swiftly for a moment and then disappeared into dark caverns
+under toppling porticos. They were Belgian soldiers.
+
+We were now in a side street leading into the Town Hall square. It
+seemed impossible to pass, owing to the wreckage strewn across the road.
+"Try to take it," said Dr. Munro, who was sitting beside the chauffeur.
+We took it, bumping over heaps of débris, and then swept around into the
+square. It was a spacious place, with the Town Hall at one side of
+it--or what was left of the Town Hall; there was only the splendid shell
+of it left, sufficient for us to see the skeleton of a noble building
+which had once been the pride of Flemish craftsmen. Even as we turned
+toward it parts of it were falling upon the ruins already on the ground.
+I saw a great pillar lean forward and then topple down. A mass of
+masonry crashed from the portico. Some stiff, dark forms lay among the
+fallen stones; they were dead soldiers. I hardly glanced at them, for we
+were in search of the living.
+
+Our cars were brought to a halt outside the building, and we all climbed
+down. I lighted a cigarette, and I noticed two of the other men fumble
+for matches for the same purpose. We wanted something to steady our
+nerves. There was never a moment when shell fire was not bursting in
+that square. Shrapnel bullets whipped the stones. The Germans were
+making a target of the Town Hall and dropping their shells with dreadful
+exactitude on either side of it.
+
+I glanced toward the flaming furnace to the right of the building. There
+was a wonderful glow at the heart of it, yet it did not give me any
+warmth. At that moment Dr. Munro and Lieut. de Broqueville mounted the
+steps of the Town Hall, followed by Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett and myself. Mr.
+Gleeson was already taking down a stretcher; he had a little smile
+about his lips.
+
+A French officer and two men stood under the broken archway of the
+entrance, between the fallen pillars and masonry. A yard away from them
+lay a dead soldier, a handsome young man with clear-cut features turned
+upward to the gaping roof. A stream of blood was coagulating around his
+head, but did not touch the beauty of his face. Another dead man lay
+huddled up quite close, and his face was hidden.
+
+"Are there any wounded here, Sir?" asked our young Lieutenant. The other
+officer spoke excitedly. He was a brave man, but he could not hide the
+terror in his soul, because he had been standing so long waiting for
+death, which stood beside him, but did not touch him. It appeared from
+his words that there were several wounded men among the dead down in the
+cellar, and that he would be obliged to us if we could rescue them.
+
+We stood on some steps, looking down into that cellar. It was a dark
+hole, illumined dimly by a lantern, I think. I caught sight of a little
+heap of huddled bodies. Two soldiers, still unwounded, dragged three of
+them out and handed them up to us. The work of getting those three men
+into the first ambulance seemed to us interminable; it was really no
+more than fifteen or twenty minutes. During that time Dr. Munro,
+perfectly calm and quiet, was moving about the square, directing the
+work. Lieut. de Broqueville was making inquiries about other wounded in
+other houses. I lent a hand to one of the stretcher-bearers. What the
+others were doing I do not know, except that Mr. Gleeson's calm face
+made a clear-cut image on my brain.
+
+I had lost consciousness of myself. Something outside myself, as it
+seemed, was saying that there was no way of escape; that it was
+monstrous to suppose that all these bursting shells would not smash the
+ambulance to bits and finish the agony of the wounded, and that death
+was very hideous. I remember thinking, also, how ridiculous it was for
+men to kill one another like this and to make such hells on earth.
+
+Then Lieut. de Broqueville spoke a word of command; the first ambulance
+must now get back. I was with the first ambulance, in Mr. Gleeson's
+company. We had a full load of wounded men, and we were loitering. I put
+my head outside the cover and gave the word to the chauffeur. As I did
+so a shrapnel bullet came past my head, and, striking a piece of
+ironwork, flattened out and fell at my feet. I picked it up and put it
+in my pocket, though God alone knows why, for I was not in search of
+souvenirs.
+
+So we started with the first ambulance through those frightful streets
+again and out into the road to the country. "Very hot!" said one of the
+men--I think it was the chauffeur. Somebody else asked if we should get
+through with luck. Nobody answered the question. The wounded men with us
+were very quiet; I thought they were dead. There was only an incessant
+cannonade and the crashing of buildings. The mitrailleuses were at work
+now, spitting out bullets. It was a worse sound than that of the shells;
+it seemed more deadly in its rattle. I started back behind the car and
+saw the other ambulance in our wake. I did not see the motor car.
+
+Along the country roads the fields were still being plowed by shells
+which burst over our heads. We came to a halt again in a place where
+soldiers were crouched under cottage walls. There were few walls now,
+and inside some of the remaining cottages were many wounded men. Their
+comrades were giving them first aid and wiping the blood out of their
+eyes. We managed to take some of these on board. They were less quiet
+than the others we had, and groaned in a heartrending way.
+
+A little later we made a painful discovery--Lieut. de Broqueville, our
+gallant young leader, was missing. By some horrible mischance he had not
+taken his place in either of the ambulances or the motor cars. None of
+us had the least idea what had happened to him; we had all imagined that
+he had scrambled up like the rest of us, after giving the order to get
+away.
+
+There was only one thing to do--to get back in search of him. Even in
+the half hour since we had left the town Dixmude had burst into flames
+and was a great blazing torch. If de Broqueville were left in that hell
+he would not have a chance of life.
+
+It was Mr. Gleeson and Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett who, with great gallantry,
+volunteered to go back and search for our leader. They took the light
+car and sped back toward the burning town. The ambulances went on with
+their cargo of wounded, and Lady Dorothie Feilding and I were left alone
+for a little time in one of the cars. We drove back along the road
+toward Dixmude, and rescued another wounded man left in a wayside
+cottage.
+
+By this time there were five towns blazing in the darkness, and in spite
+of the awful suspense which we were now suffering we could not help
+staring at the fiendish splendor of that sight.
+
+Dr. Munro joined us again, and after consultation we decided to get as
+near to Dixmude as we could, in case our friends had to come out without
+their car or had been wounded.
+
+The German bombardment was now terrific. All the guns were concentrated
+upon Dixmude and the surrounding trenches. In the darkness under a
+stable wall I stood listening to the great crashes for an hour, when I
+had not expected such a lease of life. Inside the stable soldiers were
+sleeping in the straw, careless that at any moment a shell might burst
+through upon them. The hour seemed a night; then we saw the gleam of
+headlights, and an English voice called out.
+
+Ashmead-Bartlett and Gleeson had come back. They had gone to the
+entrance to Dixmude, but could get no further, owing to the flames and
+shells. They, too, had waited for an hour, but had not found de
+Broqueville. It seemed certain that he was dead; and, very sorrowfully,
+as there was nothing to be done, we drove back to Furnes.
+
+At the gate of the convent were some Belgian ambulances which had come
+from another part of the front with their wounded. I helped to carry
+one of them in, and strained my shoulders with the weight of the
+stretcher. Another wounded man put his arm around my neck, and then,
+with a dreadful cry, collapsed, so that I had to hold him in a strong
+grip. A third man, horribly smashed about the head, walked almost
+unaided into the operating room. Mr. Gleeson and I led him with just a
+touch on his arm. This morning he lies dead on a little pile of straw in
+a quiet corner of the courtyard.
+
+I sat down to a supper, which I had not expected to eat. There was a
+strange excitement in my body, which trembled a little after the day's
+adventures. It seemed very strange to be sitting down to table with
+cheerful faces about me, but some of the faces were not cheerful. Those
+of us who knew of the disappearance of de Broqueville sat silently over
+our soup.
+
+Then suddenly Lady Dorothie Feilding gave a little cry of joy, and
+Lieut. de Broqueville came walking briskly forward. It seemed a miracle;
+it was hardly less than that. For several hours after our departure from
+Dixmude he had remained in that inferno. He had missed us when he went
+down into the cellar to haul out another wounded man, forgetting that he
+had given us the order to start. There he had remained, with buildings
+crashing all around him until the German fire had died down a little. He
+succeeded in rescuing his wounded man, for whom he found room in a
+Belgian ambulance outside the town and walked back along the road to
+Furnes.
+
+We clasped hands and were thankful for his escape. This morning he has
+gone again to what is left of Dixmude with a flying column. Dr. Munro
+and Mr. Gleeson, with Lady Dorothie Feilding and her friends, are in the
+party, although in Dixmude German infantry have taken possession of the
+outer ruins.
+
+The courage of this English field ambulance under the Belgian Red Cross
+is one of those splendid things which shine through this devil's work of
+war.
+
+
+
+
+*At the Kaiser's Headquarters*
+
+By Cyril Brown of The New York Times.
+
+
+GERMAN GREAT HEADQUARTERS IN FRANCE, Oct. 20.--The most vulnerable,
+vital spot of the whole German Empire is, paradoxically, in France--the
+small city on the Meuse where the Grosses Hauptquartier, the brains of
+the whole German fighting organism, has been located for the last few
+weeks. After a lucky dash through the forbidden zone of France held by
+the Germans I managed to pay a surprise visit to the Great Headquarters,
+where, among other interesting sights, I have already seen the Kaiser,
+the King of Saxony, the Crown Prince, Major Langhorne, the American
+Military Attaché; Field Marshal von Moltke, and shoals of lesser
+celebrities with which the town is overrun. My stay is of indeterminate
+length, and only until the polite but insistent pressure which the
+Kaiser's secret police and the General Staff are bringing to bear on
+their unbidden guest to leave becomes irresistible.
+
+It was a sometime TIMES reader, a German brakeman, who had worked in New
+York and was proud of being able to speak "American," who helped me to
+slip aboard the military postzug (post train) that left the important
+military centre of L---- at 1:30 A.M. and started to crawl toward the
+front with a mixed cargo of snoring field chaplains, soldiers rejoining
+their units, officers with iron crosses pinned to their breasts,
+ambulance men who talked gruesome shop, fresh meat, surgical supplies,
+mail bags, &c. Sometimes the train would spurt up to twelve miles an
+hour. There were long stops at every station, while unshaven Landsturm
+men on guard scanned the car windows in search of spies by the light of
+their electric flash lamps. After many hours somebody said we were now
+in Belgium.
+
+There are no longer any bothersome customs formalities at the Belgian
+border, but the ghost of a house that had been knocked into a cocked hat
+by a shell indicated that we were in the land of the enemy. Houses that
+looked as if they had been struck by a Western cyclone now became more
+numerous. A village church steeple had a jagged hole clean through it.
+After more hours somebody else said we were in France. Every bridge,
+culvert, and crossroad was guarded by heavily bearded Landsturm men, who
+all looked alike in their funny, antiquated, high black leather
+helmets--usually in twos--the countryside dotted with cheery little
+watch fires.
+
+In the little French villages all lights were out in the houses. The
+streets were barred like railroad crossings except that the poles were
+painted in red-white-black stripes, a lantern hanging from the middle of
+the barrier to keep the many army automobiles that passed in the night
+from running amuck.
+
+Sedan, a beehive of activity, was reached at daybreak. Here most of the
+military, plus the Field Chaplains, got out. From here on daylight
+showed the picturesque ruin the French themselves had wrought--the
+frequent tangled wreckage of dynamited steel railway bridges sticking
+out of the waters of the river, piles of shattered masonry damming the
+current, here and there half an arch still standing of a once beautiful
+stone footbridge. I was told that over two hundred bridges had been
+blown up by the retreating French in their hopeless attempt to delay the
+German advance in this part of France alone.
+
+Several hours more of creeping over improvised wooden bridges and
+restored roadbeds brought the post train to the French city that had
+20,000 inhabitants before the war which the Kaiser and the Great
+Headquarters now occupy.
+
+Wooden signs printed in black letters, "Verboten," (forbidden,) now
+ornament the pretty little park, with its fountain still playing,
+outside the railroad station. The paths are guarded by picked
+grenadiers, not Landsturm men this time, while an officer of the guard
+makes his ceaseless rounds. Opposite the railroad station, on the other
+side of the little park, is an unpretentious villa of red brick and
+terra cotta trimmings, but two guard houses painted with red-white-black
+stripes flank the front door and give it a look of importance. The
+street at either end is barred by red, white and black striped poles and
+strapping grenadiers on guard are clustered thick about it. You don't
+need to ask who lives there. The red brick house (it would not rent for
+more than $100 a month in any New York suburb) is the present temporary
+residence of the Over War Lord. Its great attraction for the Kaiser, I
+am told, is the large, secluded garden in the rear where this other "man
+of destiny" loves to walk and meditate or, more usually, talk--though
+the few remaining French inhabitants could have a frequent opportunity
+of seeing him walk in the little closed public park if they were
+interested, but the natives seem outwardly utterly apathetic.
+
+Several of the Kaiser's household, in green Jäger uniforms, were
+lounging around the door for an early morning airing, while secret
+service men completed the picture by hovering in the immediate
+neighborhood. You can tell that they are German secret service agents
+because they all wear felt alpine hats, norfolk jackets, waterproof
+cloth capes and a bored expression. They have been away from Berlin for
+nearly three months now. About fifty of them constitute the "Secret
+Field Police" and their station house is half a block away from the
+Kaiser's residence.
+
+Just around the corner from the Kaiser, within a stone's throw of his
+back door, is another red-brick house with terra-cotta trimmings, rather
+larger and more imposing. The names of its new residents, "Hahnke,"
+"Caprivi," and "Graf von Moltke," are scrawled in white chalk on the
+stone post of the gateway. Further up the same street another chalk
+scrawl on a quite imposing mansion informed me that "The Imperial
+Chancellor" and "The Foreign Office" had set up shop there. Near by were
+Grand Admiral von Tirpitz's field quarters. A bank building on another
+principal street bore the sign, "War Cabinet."
+
+The Great General Staff occupies the quaint old Hotel de Ville. An
+unmolested ramble showed that all the best residences and business
+buildings in the heart of the town were required to house the members of
+the Great Headquarters, who number, in addition to the Kaiser and his
+personal entourage, thirty-six chiefs or department heads, including the
+Imperial Chancellor, the War Minister, the Chief of the Great General
+Staff, the Chief of the Naval General Staff, the Chief of the Ammunition
+Supply, the Chief of the Field Railways, the Chief of the Field
+Telephone and Telegraph Service, the Chief of the Sanitary Service, the
+Chief of the Volunteer Automobile Corps, &c., making, with secretaries,
+clerks, ordonnances, and necessary garrison, a community of 1,200 souls.
+
+I could not help wondering why the Allies' aviators weren't "on the
+job." A dozen, backed up by an intelligent Intelligence Department,
+could so obviously settle the fortunes of the war by blowing out the
+brains of their enemy. Perhaps that is why the whereabouts of the Great
+Headquarters is guarded as a jealous secret. The soldiers at the front
+don't know where it is, nor the man on the street at home, and, of
+course, its location is not breathed in the German press. Theoretically,
+only those immediately concerned are "in the know." Visitors are not
+allowed, neutral foreign correspondents are told by the authorities in
+Berlin that "it is impossible" to go to the Grosser Hauptquartier.
+
+Two aeroplane guns are mounted on the hills across the river at a point
+immediately opposite the Kaiser's residence, while near them a picked
+squad of sharpshooters is on the watch night and day for hostile fliers.
+To further safeguard not only the person of the Kaiser but the brains
+of the fighting machine the spy hunt is kept up here with unrelenting
+pertinacity.
+
+"We went over the town with a fine-tooth comb and cleaned out all the
+suspicious characters the very first day we arrived," said a friendly
+detective.
+
+"There are no cranks or anarchists left here. Today the order is going
+out to arrest all men of military age--between 18 and 45--but there are
+few, if any, left. We also made a house-to-house search for arms and
+collected three wagonloads, mostly old.
+
+"Our Kaiser is as safe here now as he would be anywhere in Germany. We
+know every one who arrives and leaves town. It seems impossible for a
+spy to slip in and still more to slip out again through the lines--but
+we are always on the watch for the impossible. The fear of spies is not
+a delusion or a form of madness, as you suggest. Here is one case of my
+personal knowledge: A German Boy Scout of 16, who had learned to speak
+French and English perfectly at school, volunteered his services and was
+attached to the staff of an army corps. This young chap succeeded in
+slipping into Rheims, where he was able to locate the positions of the
+French batteries and machine guns, and make his way back to our lines
+with this invaluable information. For this feat the boy received the
+Iron Cross. After being in the field for six weeks he got home-sick,
+however, and has been allowed to go home for a visit."
+
+From a spectacular point of view the Great Headquarters is rather
+disappointing. A few mixed patrols of Uhlans, dragoons, and hussars
+occasionally ride through the principal streets to exercise their
+horses. Occasionally, too, you see a small squad of strapping
+grenadiers, who break into the goose step on the slightest provocation
+as when they pass a General or other officer of the Great General Staff,
+whom you recognize by the broad red stripes on their "field gray"
+trousers.
+
+There is no pomp or ceremony even when royalty is running around at
+large. Thus when the King of Saxony arrived in town, a few hours after
+I did, no fuss was made whatever. The Saxon King and his staff, three
+touring car loads, all in field gray, drove straight to the villa
+assigned them, and, after reciprocal informal visits between King and
+Kaiser, the former left to visit some of the battlefields on which Saxon
+troops had fought, and later paid a visit to his troops at the front.
+For this exploit, the Kaiser promptly bestowed on him the Iron Cross,
+first and second class, on his return to town.
+
+Even the Kaiser's heart is not covered with medals, nor does he wear the
+gorgeous white plume parade helmet nowadays, when going out for a
+horse-back ride or a drive. I saw him come from a motor run late in the
+afternoon--four touring cars full of staff officers and personal
+entourage--and was struck by the complete absence of pomp and ceremony.
+In the second car sat the Kaiser, wearing the dirty green-gray uniform
+of his soldiers in the field. At a distance of fifteen feet, the Over
+War Lord looked physically fit, but quite sober--an intense earnestness
+of expression that seemed to mirror the sternness of the times.
+
+The Kaiser goes for a daily drive or ride about the countryside usually
+in the afternoon, but occasionally he is allowed to have a real outing
+by his solicitous entourage--a day and more rarely a [Transcriber: text
+missing in original]
+
+"His Majesty is never so happy as when he is among his troops at the
+front," another transplanted Berlin detective told me. "If his Majesty
+had his way he would be among them all the time, preferably sleeping
+under canvas and roughing it like the rest--eating the 'simple' food
+prepared by his private field kitchen. But his life is too valuable to
+be risked in that way, and his personal Adjutant, von Plessen, who
+watches over his Majesty like a mother or a governess, won't let him go
+to the front often. His Majesty loves his soldiers and would be among
+them right up at the firing line if he were not constantly watched and
+kept in check by his devoted von Plessen." However, the Kaiser sleeps
+within earshot of the not very distant thunder of the German heavy
+artillery pounding away at Rheims, plainly heard here at night when the
+wind blows from the right direction.
+
+Of barbarism or brutality the writer saw no signs, either here or at
+other French villages occupied by the Germans. The behavior of the
+common soldiers toward the natives is exemplary and in most cases
+kindly. There are many touches of human interest. I saw about a hundred
+of the most destitute hungry townsfolk, mostly women with little
+children, hanging around one of the barracks at the outskirts of the
+town until after supper the German soldiers came out and distributed the
+remnants of their black bread rations to them. It is not an uncommon
+sight to see staff officers as well as soldiers stopping on the streets
+to hand out small alms to the begging women and children. Many of the
+shops in town were closed and boarded up at the approach of the
+Prussians, but small hotel keepers, café proprietors, and tradesmen who
+had the nerve to remain and keep open are very well satisfied with the
+German invasion in one way, for they never made so much money before in
+their lives. Most of the German soldiers garrisoned here have picked up
+a few useful words of French; all of them can, and do, call for wine,
+white or red, in the vernacular. Moreover, they pay for all they
+[Transcriber: original 'them'] consume. I was astonished to see even the
+detectives paying real money for what they drank. Several tradesmen told
+me they had suffered chiefly at the hands of the French soldiers
+themselves, who had helped themselves freely to their stock before
+retreating, without paying, saying it was no use to leave good wine, for
+the Prussian swine.
+
+I had not prowled around the Great Headquarters for many hours when the
+Secret Field Police, patrolling all the streets, showed signs of
+curiosity, and to forestall the orthodox arrest and march to
+headquarters (already experienced [Transcriber: original 'experience']
+once, in Cologne) waited upon Lieut. Col. von Hahnke, Military
+Commandant of the city, and secured immunity in the form of the
+Commandant's signature on a scrap of paper stamped in purple ink with
+the Prussian eagle. Commandant Hahnke, after expressing the opinion that
+it was good that American newspaper men were coming to Germany to see
+for themselves, and hoping that "the truth" was beginning to become
+known on the other side, courteously sent his Adjutant along to get me
+past the guard at the Great General Staff and introduce me to Major
+Nikolai, Chief of Division III. B., in charge of newspaper
+correspondents and Military Attachés. Here, however, the freedom of the
+American press came into hopeless, but humorous, collision with the
+Prussian militarism.
+
+"Who are you? What are you doing here? How did you get here?" snapped
+the Prussian Major. A kind letter of introduction from Ambassador
+Gerard, requesting "all possible courtesy and assistance from the
+authorities of the countries through which he may pass," and emblazoned
+with the red seal of the United States of America, which had worked like
+magic on all previous occasions, had no effect on Major Nikolai. Neither
+had a letter from the American Consul at Cologne, nor a letter of
+introduction to Gen. von Buelow, nor any one of a dozen other impressive
+documents produced in succession for his benefit.
+
+"No foreign correspondents are permitted to be at the Great
+Headquarters. None has been allowed to come here. If we allow one to
+remain, fifty others will want to come, and we should be unable to keep
+an eye on all of them," he explained. "You must go back to Berlin at
+once."
+
+Reluctant permission was finally obtained to remain one night on the
+possibly unwarranted intimation that the great American people would
+consider it a "national affront" if an American newspaperman was not
+allowed to stay and see the American Military Attaché, Major Langhorne,
+who was away on a sightseeing tour near Verdun, but would be back in the
+morning. However, a long cross-examination had to be undergone at the
+hands of the venerable Herr Chief of the Secret Field Police Bauer, who
+was taking no chances at harboring an English spy in the Houptquartier
+disguised as a correspondent.
+
+I found Major Langhorne standing the strain of the campaign
+[Transcriber: original 'compaign'] well, and I gathered the impression
+that he intended to see the thing through, and that there was much which
+America could learn from the titanic operations of the Germans. Major
+Langhorne and the Argentinian, Brazilian, Chilean, Spanish, Rumanian,
+and Swedish military attachés are luxuriously quartered a mile and a
+half out of town in the handsome villa of M. Noll, the landscape
+painter, present whereabouts unknown. The attachés all have a sense of
+humor, "otherwise," said one of them, "we could never stand being cooped
+up here together." The gardener's daughter, a pretty young Frenchwoman,
+the only servant who remained behind when the household fled at the
+approach of the Germans, is both cook and housekeeper, and when I
+arrived I found the seven military attachés resolved into a board of
+strategy trying to work out the important problem of securing a pure
+milk supply for her four-month-old baby.
+
+Work consists of occasional motor runs to various points along the long
+front. I was told that recently Major Langhorne ran into some heavy
+shrapnel and shell fire, and was lucky to get away with a whole skin.
+When asked to tell about it, Major Langhorne passed it off laughingly as
+"all in the day's work."
+
+In spite of the fact that they are engaged in keeping their end up in a
+life-and-death fight for national existence, the Great General Staff has
+found time to give the American Military Attaché every possible
+opportunity to see actual fighting.
+
+The foreign military attachés have made many of their expeditions in
+company with the small band of German war correspondents, who live in
+another villa close by, under the constant chaperonage of Major von
+Rohrscheldt. They are allowed to see much, but send little. The relative
+position of the press in Germany is indicated by the fact that these
+German war correspondents are nicknamed "hunger candidates." A military
+expert who was well posted on American journalism explained to me,
+however, that the very tight censorship lid was not for the purpose of
+withholding news from the German people, but to keep valuable
+information from being handed to the enemy. He pointed out that the
+laconic German official dispatches dealt only with things actually
+accomplished, and were very bare of detail, while, on the other hand,
+the French and English press had been worth more than several army corps
+to the Germans, concluding, "It may be poor journalism, but it's the
+right way to make war."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+KAISERIN'S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION.
+
+
+Oct. 22.--It was hard to realize today that a great war was going on.
+Every building in town occupied by the Germans was decorated with the
+German flag in honor of the Kaiserin's birthday, and at night the
+principal ones, including that occupied by the "War Cabinet," were
+specially illuminated. All morning long, quantities of Generals came
+rolling up in touring cars to the Kaiser's door to pay their homage and
+offer congratulations. About noon the Crown Prince and staff arrived by
+motor from the direction of the headquarters of his army. The Crown
+Prince, who characteristically sat on the front seat next to the
+chauffeur, looked as boyish and immature as his former pictures--his
+military cap cocked slightly on one side. The responsibility of leading
+an army had apparently not had a sobering effect on the Crown Prince as
+yet, but I was told that the guiding brain and genius in the Crown
+Prince's army headquarters was not that of the Crown Prince, but of his
+chief adviser, Gen. von Haeseler, the brilliant cavalry leader of the
+war of 1870 and now the "grand old man" of the German Army, sharing with
+von Zeppelin the distinction of being the oldest living German Generals.
+It seemed still harder to realize that men were fighting and dying not
+fifty miles away when, after luncheon, Kaiser, Crown Prince, and staffs
+went for a two hours' automobile ride, the Crown Prince leaving late in
+the afternoon to rejoin his command.
+
+The only warlike notes in the day's picture were a German military
+aeroplane--one of the famous Taubes--that flew at a high altitude over
+the Great Headquarters toward the enemies' lines; a battalion of Saxon
+Landsturm that rested for an hour at the railroad station, then started
+on the final hike for the front, refreshed by a glimpse of their
+motoring Kaiser, and toward evening four automobile loads of wounded
+German officers, who arrived from the direction of Rheims, where it was
+rumored the French had made four desperate attempts to break through.
+
+Here one gets more and more the impression that the Germans in their
+war-making have learned a lesson from the hustling Americans--that they
+have managed to graft American speed to their native thoroughness,
+making a combination hard to beat. For instance, there is a regular
+relay service of high-power racing motor cars between the Great
+Headquarters and Berlin, the schedule calling for a total running time
+of something under a day and a half, beating the best time at present
+possible by train by four hours. One of the picked drivers, who has the
+last lap--through France--said his running schedule required him to
+average sixty miles an hour, and this running at night. A network of
+fast relay automobile services is also run from the Great Headquarters,
+through Belgium, linking up Brussels and Antwerp, and to the principal
+points on the long line of battle.
+
+How great a rôle the motor car plays among the Germans may be gathered
+from an estimate made to the writer that 40,000 cars were in use for
+military purposes. Many thousands of these are private automobiles
+operated by their wealthy owners as members of the Volunteer War
+Automobile Corps, of which Prince Waldemar, son of the sailor Prince
+Henry, is chief. Their ranks include many big business men, captains of
+industry, and men of social prominence and professional eminence.
+
+They wear a distinctive uniform, that of an infantry officer, with a
+collar of very dark red, and a short, purely ornamental sword or dagger.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BACK TO LUXEMBURG.
+
+
+LUXEMBURG, Oct. 24.--I have just returned from the German Great
+Headquarters in France, the visit terminating abruptly on the fourth
+day, when one of the Kaiser's secret field police woke me up at 7
+o'clock in the morning and regretfully said that his instructions were
+to see that I "did not oversleep" the first train out. The return
+journey along one of the German main lines of communication--through
+Eastern France, across a corner of Belgium and through Luxemburg--was
+full of interest, and confirmed the impression gathered at the centre of
+things, the Great Headquarters, that this twentieth century warfare is
+in the last analysis a gigantic business proposition which the Board of
+Directors (the Great General Staff) and the thirty-six department heads
+are conducting with the efficiency of a great American business
+corporation.
+
+The west-bound track is a continuous procession of freight trains--fresh
+consignments of raw material--men and ammunition--being rushed to the
+firing line to be ground out into victories. The first shipment we pass
+is an infantry battalion--first ten flatcars loaded with baggage,
+ammunition, provision wagons, and field kitchens, the latter already
+with fire lighted and soup cooking as the long train steams slowly
+along, for the trenches are only fifty miles away, and the Germans make
+a point of sending their troops into battle with full stomachs.
+
+After the flatcars come thirty box cars, all decorated with green
+branches and scrawled over with chalked witticism at the expense of the
+French and Russians. The men cheer as our train passes. A few kilometers
+further backed on to a siding, is a train of some twenty flatcars, each
+loaded with a touring car. Then we pass a battery of artillery on
+flatcars, the guns still garlanded with flowers; then a short freight
+train--six cars loaded with nothing but spare automobile tires--then a
+long train of heavy motor trucks, then more infantry trains, then an
+empty hospital train going back for another load, then a train of
+gasoline tank cars, more cheering infantry, more artillery, another
+empty hospital train, a pioneer train, a score of flatcars loaded with
+long, heavy piles, beams, steel girders, bridge spans, and lumber, then
+a passenger train load of German railway officials and servants going to
+operate the railways toward the coast, more infantry, food trains,
+ammunition trains, train loads of railway tracks already bolted to metal
+ties and merely needing to be laid down and pieced together, and so on
+in endless succession all through France and through Belgium. The
+two-track road, shaky in spots, especially when crossing rivers, is
+being worked to capacity, and how well the huge traffic is handled is
+surprising even to an American commuter.
+
+Our fast train stops at the mouth of a tunnel, then crawls ahead
+charily, for the French, before retreating, dynamited the tunnel. One
+track has been cleared, but the going is still bad. To keep it from
+being blocked again by falling débris the Germans have dug clean through
+the top of the hill, opening up a deep well of light into the tunnel.
+Looking up, you see a pioneer company in once cream-colored, now
+dirty-colored, fatigue uniform still digging away and terracing the
+sides of the big hole to prevent slides. Half an hour later we go slow
+again in crossing a new wooden bridge over the Meuse--only one track as
+yet. It took the German pioneers nearly a week to build the substitute
+for the old steel railway bridge dynamited by the French, whose four
+spans lie buckled up in the river. The pioneers are at work driving
+piles to carry a second track. The process is interesting. A
+forty-man-power pile driver is rigged upon the bow end of a French river
+barge with forty soldiers tugging at forty strands of the main rope.
+The "gang" foreman, a Captain in field gray, stands on the river bank
+and bellows the word of command. Up goes the heavy iron weight; another
+command, and down it drops on the pile. It looks like a painfully slow
+process, but the bridges are rebuilt just the same.
+
+Further on, a variety of interest is furnished to a squad of French
+prisoners being marched along the road. Then a spot of ant-hill-like
+activity where a German railway company is at work building a new branch
+line, hundreds of them having pickaxes and making the dirt fly. You half
+expect to see a swearing Irish foreman. It looks like home--all except
+the inevitable officer (distinguished by revolver and field glass)
+shouting commands.
+
+The intense activity of the Germans in rebuilding the torn-up railroads
+and pushing ahead new strategic lines, is one of the most interesting
+features of a tour now in France. I was told that they had pushed the
+railroad work so far that they were able to ship men and ammunition
+almost up to the fortified trenches. The Germanization of the railroads
+here has been completed by the importation of station Superintendents,
+station hands, track walkers, &c., from the Fatherland. The stretch over
+which we are traveling, for example, is in charge of Bavarians. The
+Bavarian and German flags hang out at every French station we pass.
+German signs everywhere, even German time. It looks as if they thought
+to stay forever.
+
+Now we creep past a long hospital train, full this time, which has
+turned out on a siding to give us the right of way--perhaps thirty
+all-steel cars--each fitted with two tiers of berths, eight to a side,
+sixteen to a car. Every berth is taken. One car is fitted up as an
+operating room, but fortunately no one is on the operating table as we
+crawl past. Another car is the private office of the surgeon in charge
+of the train. He is sitting at a big desk receiving reports form the
+orderlies. During the day we pass six of these splendidly appointed new
+all-steel hospital trains, all full of wounded. Some of them are able
+to sit up in their bunks and take a mild interest in us. Once, by a
+queer coincidence, we simultaneously pass the wounded going one way and
+cheering fresh troops going the other.
+
+
+
+
+*How the Belgians Fight*
+
+[By a Correspondent of The London Daily News.]
+
+
+LONDON, Oct. 28.--Writing from an unnamed place in Belgium a
+correspondent of The Daily News says:
+
+"The regiment I am concerned with was fifteen days and nights in the
+Antwerp trenches in countless engagements. It withdrew at dawn, hoping
+then to rest. It marched forty-five kilometers with shouldered rifles.
+In the next five days it marched nearly 200 kilometers until it reached
+the Nieuport and Dixmude line. By an error of judgment it got two days
+of drill and inspection in place of resting, then took its place in the
+front line on the Yser to face the most desperate of the German
+efforts."
+
+The correspondent quotes a young volunteer in this regiment as follows:
+
+"---- was evacuated by the Germans, and we were sent in at
+nightfall. As soon as they saw our lights they began shelling us. We
+lost terribly. A number of the men ran up the streets, but we got them
+together. I had about twenty and retired in order. We were 600 who went
+in, and must have left a third there.
+
+"In the morning we moved down to reinforce a network of trenches on our
+bank of the Yser. There was a farm on our right, and some of our men
+were firing at it, but the door opened and three officers in Belgian
+uniform came out shouting to us to cease fire, so we sent a detachment
+to the farm, and they were swept away by machine gun fire from the
+windows. No, I don't know what happened afterward about the farm. I lost
+sight of it.
+
+"We got into the trenches. They lay longways behind a raised artificial
+bank on our side of the river. At the northern end of them were mazes of
+cross trenches protecting them in case the Germans got across the bridge
+there and started to enfilade us. They were full of water. I was firing
+for six hours myself thigh deep in muddy water.
+
+"The Germans got across the bridge. We could not show head or hand over
+our bank. German machine guns shot us from crevices in their raised bank
+across the river only a few yards away. I was hours and hours dragging
+our wounded out of the cross trenches at the northern end of the bank
+southward and behind a mound till there was no more room for them there,
+and bringing up new men singly and two or three at a time from further
+down the trenches to take their places. We lost our officers, but I got
+the men to listen to me.
+
+"Some Germans shelled us with a cross fire. They got into the cross
+trenches. They fired down our lines from the side. We had to run back. I
+was too tired and sleepy to drag my feet. I think I must have fallen
+asleep.
+
+"We had an order to advance again. The French were behind us on either
+wing in support. I was too tired to get up. Some one kicked me. I looked
+up. They were three of my friends, volunteers like myself. We had all
+joined together. They apologized and ran forward. They are all wounded
+now, but we are all still alive, and I never have been hit once in
+thirty-four fights.
+
+"I got up. So did a man lying on the field in front of me. He was shot
+through the head and fell back on me. I got up again. A shell burst
+beside me and I saw three men, who were running past, just disappear. I
+was lying on my face again, and could not lift my head, either through
+fear or sleep, I don't know which.
+
+"I found myself running forward again. I called to men lying and running
+near and held my revolver at them. We were all charging with bayonets
+back at the Germans shooting us from our own trenches under the raised
+bank. They did not wait for us. They looked like frightened gray beetles
+as they scrambled up away over our bank and down into the river. It was
+dusk, but we shot at them over the bank. The water seemed full of them.
+We crouched in a big trench in muddy water behind the bank. No, we did
+not sleep, but my head and eyes seemed to go to sleep from time to time.
+
+"There were perhaps 200 left of our 600. I think there was one officer
+further along, but it was quite dark. Some of the men talked very low.
+Then I heard voices whispering and talking near us on the river side of
+our bank. It was of earth perhaps five feet high and six feet thick. On
+the other side the slope fell steeply to the river.
+
+"I sent a hush along the line. We listened quite silent. I thought I
+heard German words, an order passed along on the other side. I crawled
+up on to the bank, not showing my head, you know. It was really about
+300 Germans who had stayed there on our side under the bank, fearing to
+cross the river under our fire. So we stayed all through the night. We
+did not sleep nor did they.
+
+"There was just six feet of piled wet earth between us. We only
+whispered and could hear them muttering and the sound of their belts
+creaking and of water bottles being opened.
+
+"There was a thick gray mist hanging low in the morning. I crawled on to
+the bank again, holding my revolver out-stretched. A gray figure stood
+up in the mist below close to me. He looked like a British soldier in
+khaki. He said: 'It's all right, we are English,' and I said, 'But your
+accent isn't,' and I shot him through with my revolver. Some of our men
+crept to the bank, but they shot them, and some of theirs climbed over,
+but we fired at their heads or arms as they showed only a few feet
+away, and they fell backward [Transcriber: original 'bakward'] or on to
+us or lay hanging on the bank. Then we all waited.
+
+"As it grew lighter they did not dare move away, and none of us could
+get out alive or over the bank to use the bayonet. A few men made holes
+in the looser earth, and so we fired at each other through the bank here
+and there. Our guns could not help us, and theirs could not shoot
+across, for we were all together, and yet we could not get at each
+other. Some of the men--theirs and ours--got over lower down, so there
+was firing now and then, and two men were killed near me sliding down
+into the water in the trenches.
+
+"Somebody threw a cartridge case across close to me. On a paper inside
+was scrawled one word: 'Surrender!' We did not know if they wanted to
+surrender themselves or wanted us to surrender. They were more numerous,
+but we were better placed, so we went on scrapping and crawling around
+to get a shot at them.
+
+"Perhaps it was the French who got round at the ends. There was heavy
+firing. We heard quite close through the raised bank a few slipping down
+on the river edge and water splashing. Some of us pulled ourselves up on
+to the bank. I heard our men scrambling up on either side of me, but
+could not see them. I think I was too sleepy. I shouted to charge, and
+then must have fallen over on my head, rolling down the bank.
+
+"I am on the way down with these wounded. There are fifteen of us unhit
+here, but I think we came away just now with nearly a hundred out of our
+600 of yesterday."
+
+He was doing gallant Captain's work, a young, slight, ordinary Belgian
+trooper, a volunteer private in the ranks, muddy, limping, and
+unspeakably tired in muscle and nerve. His story is as nearly as
+possible in his own words, interrupted by blanks in his own
+consciousness of events--lapses familiar to men whose muscles and nerves
+are exhausted, but who must still work on without sleep.
+
+For the following ten hours, without pause, he acted as interpreter and
+most capable adviser in getting long trains of stretchers with his
+wounded Belgian compatriots down and on to the British hospital ships.
+
+
+
+
+*A Visit to the Firing Line in France*
+
+[By a Correspondent of THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
+
+
+PARIS, Sept. 30.--In company with several representatives of American
+newspapers, I was permitted to pass several days in "the zone of
+military activity," on credentials obtained at the personal request of
+Ambassador Herrick, that we might describe the destruction caused by the
+Germans in unfortified towns. Although I have given a parole to say
+nothing concerning the movement of the troops or to mention certain
+points that I visited, I am now permitted to send a report of a part of
+my experiences.
+
+We crossed the entire battlefield of the Marne, passed directly behind
+the lines of the battle still raging on the Aisne, accidentally getting
+under fire for an entire afternoon, and lunching in a hotel to the
+orchestra of bursting shells, one end of the building being blown away
+during the bombardment. We witnessed a battle between an armored French
+monoplane and a German battery, and also had the experience of being
+accused of being German spies by two men wearing the English uniform,
+who, on failing to account for their own German accent, were speedily
+taken away under guard with their "numbers up," as the French Commandant
+expressed what awaited them.
+
+On account of our exceptional credentials we were able to see more
+actual war than many correspondents, who when they learned that permits
+to go to the front were not forthcoming, went anyway, usually falling
+into the hands of the military authorities before getting far. In fact,
+getting arrested has been the chief occupation of the war correspondents
+in this war, even our accidental view of the fighting being sufficient
+to cause our speedy return to Paris under parole.
+
+Going over the battlefield of the Marne, we found the battle had
+followed much the same tactics as a cyclone, in that in some places
+nothing, not even the haystacks, had been disturbed, while in others
+everything, the villages, roads, and fields, had been utterly devastated
+by shells. We talked with the inhabitants of every village and always
+heard the same story--that during occupation the Germans, evidently
+having been ordered to be on their good behavior after the Belgian
+atrocities, had offered little trouble to the civilians, and had
+confined their activities to looting and wasting the provisions. Also
+that when retreating they had destroyed all the food they were unable to
+carry.
+
+Our baptism of fire appropriately came while we were in a church. At
+noon of the second day we motored into a deserted village, and were
+stopped by a sentry who acknowledged our credentials, but warned us if
+we intended to proceed to beware of bullets. But there was not a hostile
+sound to alarm us.
+
+As we drove carelessly over the brow of a hill where the road dipped
+down a valley into the town, we were in direct line with the German
+fire, as great holes in the ground and fallen trees testified. It is a
+wonder our big motor car was not an immediate mark. On the way in we
+noticed a church steeple shot completely off, so after finding an inn,
+where the proprietor came from the cellar and offered to guard our car
+and prepare luncheon, we decided first to examine the church. The
+innkeeper explained that we had come during a lull in the bombardment,
+but the silent, deserted place lulled all sense of danger. The verger
+showed us over the church and we were walking through the ruined nave
+when suddenly we heard a sound like the shrill whistling of the wind.
+
+"It begins again," our conductor said simply. As the speech ended we
+heard a loud boom and the sound of falling masonry as a shell struck the
+far end of the building. We hurried to the hotel, the shells screaming
+overhead. We saw the buildings tumbling into ruins, glass falling in
+fine powder and remnants of furniture hanging grotesquely from scraps of
+masonry.
+
+All my life I had wondered what would be the sensation if I ever were
+under fire--would I be afraid? To my intense relief I suddenly became
+fatalistic. I was under fire with a vengeance, but instead of being
+afraid I kept saying to myself, "Being afraid won't help matters;
+besides nothing will happen if we just keep close to the walls and away
+from the middle street."
+
+On the way we met two men in English uniform who later denounced us as
+spies. We hailed them, and they replied that they had been cut off from
+their regiment and were now fighting with the French. Just as luncheon
+was announced eight soldiers filed into the hotel, arrested us, and
+marched us before the Commandant, who saw that our papers were all
+right, but suggested that on account of the dangerous position we leave
+as soon as possible. We asked permission to finish our luncheon. It was
+lucky that we were arrested then--before the accusation that we were
+spies--for when that question arose there was no doubt in the mind of
+the Commandant concerning us, so our accusers' charge merely reacted
+upon themselves.
+
+During the episode of arrest there was another lull in the bombardment,
+which began again as we were seated at luncheon. All through the meal
+the shells whistled and screamed overhead, and the dishes rattled
+constantly on the table.
+
+When the meal was over the proprietor called us to witness what had
+happened to the far wing of the hotel. It was completely demolished.
+"Alert" had just been sounded, and the soldiers were running through the
+streets. We ran out in time to see a building falling half a block away,
+completely filling the street by which we had entered the town an hour
+earlier.
+
+In a few minutes we heard the sharp crackle of infantry fire about half
+a mile away, and we had a sudden desire to get away before the
+automobile retreat was cut off. Just then we heard the sound of an aero
+engine overhead. It was flying so low that through a glass we could
+easily see the whirring propeller. The machine was mounted with a
+rapid-fire gun which was trying to locate the German gunners, who
+immediately abandoned the destruction of the town in an attempt to bring
+it down. For ten minutes we saw shells bursting all about it. At times
+it was lost in smoke, but when the smoke cleared there was the monoplane
+still blazing away, always mounting to a higher level, and finally
+disappearing toward the French lines.
+
+There was another lull in the cannonade, and we were permitted to pass
+down the street near the river, where, by peering around a building, we
+could see where the German batteries were secreted in the hills. We were
+warned not to get into the street which led to the bridge, as the
+Germans raked that street with their fire if a single person appeared.
+We then took advantage of a lull in the firing and departed to the south
+at seventy miles an hour, in order to beat the shells, if any were aimed
+our way as we crossed the rise of the hill.
+
+
+
+
+*Unburied Dead Strew Lorraine*
+
+*By Philip Gibbs of The London Daily Chronicle.*
+
+
+DIJON, Sept. 26.--Although great interest is concentrated upon the
+northwest side of the line of of battle in France, it must not be
+forgotten that the east side is also of high importance. The operation
+of the French and German forces along the jagged frontier from north to
+south is of vital influence upon the whole field of war, and any great
+movement of troops in this direction affects the strategy of the
+Generals to command on the furthermost wings.
+
+It was a desire to know something of what had been happening in the east
+which led me to travel to the extreme right. Few correspondents have
+been in this part of the field since the beginning of the war. It is far
+from their own line of communications. For this reason there have been
+no detailed narratives of the fighting in Lorraine, and a strange
+silence has brooded over those battlefields. The spell of it has been
+broken only by official bulletins telling in a line or two the uncertain
+result of the ceaseless struggle for mastery.
+
+Here are regiments of young men who have the right already to call
+themselves veterans, for they have been fighting continually for six
+weeks in innumerable engagements, for the most part unrecorded in
+official dispatches. I had seen them answering the call to mobilization,
+singing joyously as they marched through the streets. Then they were
+smart fellows, clean shaven and spruce in their new blue coats and
+scarlet trousers. Now war has put its dirt upon them and seems to have
+aged them by fifteen years, leaving its ineffaceable imprint upon their
+faces. Their blue coats have changed to a dusty gray, but they are hard
+and tough for the most part, and Napoleon himself would not have wished
+for better fighting men.
+
+Now for the first time since the beginning of the war there will be a
+little respite on the Lorraine frontier, and in the wooded country of
+the two lost provinces there will be time to bury the dead which
+incumber its fields. Words are utterly inadequate to describe the
+horrors of the region to the east of the Meurthe, in and around the
+little towns of Blamont, Badonviller, Cirey-les-Forges, Arracourt,
+Château-Salins, Morhauge, and Baudrecourt, where for six weeks there has
+been incessant fighting. After the heavy battle of Sept. 4, when the
+Germans were repulsed with severe losses after an attack in force, both
+sides retired for about twelve miles and dug themselves into lines of
+trenches which they still hold; but every day since that date there has
+been a kind of guerrilla warfare, with small bodies of men fighting from
+village to village and from wood to wood, the forces on each side being
+scattered over a wide area in advance of their main lines. This method
+of warfare is even more terrible than a pitched battle.
+
+"It is absurd to talk of Red Cross work," said one of the French
+soldiers who had just come out of the trenches at Lunéville. "It has not
+existed as far as many of these fights are concerned How could it? A few
+litter-carriers came with us on some of our expeditions, but they were
+soon shot down, and after that the wounded just lay where they fell, or
+crawled away into the shelter of the woods. Those of us who were unhurt
+were not allowed to attend to our wounded comrades; it is against
+orders. We have to go on regardless of losses. My own best comrade was
+struck down by my side. I heard his cry and saw him lying there with
+blood oozing through his coat. My heart wept to leave him. He wanted me
+to take his money, but I just kissed his hand and went on, I suppose he
+died, for I could not find him when we retreated."
+
+[Illustration: Where the Armies are Contending in Alsace-Lorraine.]
+
+[Illustration: GRAND DUKE NICHOLAS NICHOLAIEVITCH
+The Russian Commander-in-Chief. _
+(Photo (C) by Underwood & Underwood._)]
+
+[Illustration: GEN. RENNENKAMPF
+The Russian General Who Was Removed by the Grand Duke
+[Transcriber: photo credit ineligible]]
+
+Another French soldier lay wounded at the edge of a wood ten miles from
+Lunéville. When he recovered consciousness he saw there were only dead
+and dying men around him. He remained for two days, unable to move his
+shattered limbs, and cried out for death to relieve him of his agony. At
+night he was numbed by cold; in the day thirst tortured him to the point
+of madness. Faint cries and groans came to his ears across the field. It
+was on the morning of the third day that French peasants came to rescue
+those who still remained alive.
+
+There have been several advances made by the French into Lorraine, and
+several retirements. On each occasion men have seen new horrors which
+have turned their stomachs. There are woods not far from Nancy from
+which there comes a pestilential stench which steals down the wind in
+gusts of obscene odor. For three weeks and more dead bodies of Germans
+and Frenchmen have lain rotting there. There are few grave diggers. The
+peasants have fled from their villages, and the soldiers have other work
+to do; so that the frontier fields on each side are littered with
+corruption, where plague and fever find holding ground.
+
+I have said that this warfare on the frontier is pitiless. This is a
+general statement of a truth to which there are exceptions. One of these
+was a reconciliation on the battlefield between French and German
+soldiers who lay wounded and abandoned near the little town of Blamont.
+When dawn came they conversed with each other while waiting for death. A
+French soldier gave his water bottle to a German officer who was crying
+out with thirst. The German sipped a little and then kissed the hand of
+the man who had been his enemy. "There will be no war on the other
+side," he said.
+
+Another Frenchman, who came from Montmartre, found a Luxembourger lying
+within a yard of him whom he had known as a messenger in a big hotel in
+Paris. The young German wept to see his old acquaintance. "It is
+stupid," he said, "this war. You and I were happy when we were good
+friends in Paris. Why should we have been made to fight with each
+other?" He died with his arms around the neck of the soldier who told me
+the story, unashamed of his own tears.
+
+I could tell a score of tales like this, told to me by men whose eyes
+were still haunted by the sight of these things; and perhaps one day
+they will be worth telling, so that people of little imagination may
+realize the meaning of this war and put away false heroics from their
+lips. It is dirty business, with no romance in it for any of those fine
+young Frenchmen I have learned to love, who still stay in the trenches
+on the frontier lines or march a little way into Lorraine and back
+again.
+
+Some of those trenches on either side are still filled with men leaning
+forward with their rifles pointing to the enemy--quite dead, in spite of
+their lifelike posture.
+
+
+
+
+*Along the German Lines Near Metz*
+
+[Correspondence of The Associated Press.]
+
+
+WITH THE GERMAN ARMY BEFORE METZ, Sept. 30, (by Courier to Holland and
+Mail to New York.)--A five-day trip to the front has taken the
+correspondent of The Associated Press through the German fortresses of
+Mainz, Saarbrücken, and Metz, through the frontier regions between Metz
+and the French fortress line from Verdun to Toul, into the actual
+battery positions from which German and Austrian heavy artillery were
+pounding their eight and twelve-inch shells into the French barrier
+forts and into the ranks of the French field army which has replaced the
+crumbling fortifications of steel and cement with ramparts of flesh and
+blood.
+
+Impressions at the end are those of some great industrial undertaking
+with powerful machinery in full operation and endless supply trains
+bringing up the raw materials for manufacture rather than of war as
+pictured.
+
+From a point of observation on a hillside above St. Mihiel the great
+battlefield on which a German army endeavoring to break through the line
+of barrier forts between Verdun and Toul and the opposing French forces
+could be surveyed in its entirety. In the foreground lay the level
+valley of the Meuse, with the towns of St. Mihiel and Banoncour nestling
+upon the green landscape. Beyond and behind the valley rose a tier of
+hills on which the French at this writing obstinately hold an intrenched
+position, checking the point of the German wedge, while the French
+forces from north and south beat upon the sides of the triangle, trying
+to force it back across the Meuse and out from the vitals of the French
+fortress line.
+
+Bursting shells threw up their columns of white or black fog around the
+edge of the panorama. Cloudlets of white smoke here and there showed
+where a position was being brought under shrapnel fire. An occasional
+aeroplane could be picked out hovering over the lines, but the infantry
+and the field battery positions could not be discerned even with a
+high-power field glass, so cleverly had the armies taken cover. The
+uninitiated observer would have believed this a deserted landscape
+rather than the scene of a great battle, which, if successful for the
+Germans, would force the main French Army to retreat from its intrenched
+positions along the Aisne River.
+
+About three miles away, across the Meuse, a quadrangular mound of black,
+plowed-up earth on the hillside marked the location of Fort Les
+Paroches, which had been silenced by the German mortars the night
+before. Fort Camp des Romains, so named because the Roman legions had
+centuries ago selected this site for a strategic encampment, had been
+stormed by Bavarian infantry two days earlier after its heavy guns had
+been put out of action, and artillery officers said that Fort Lionville,
+fifteen miles to the south and out of the range of vision, was then
+practically silenced, only one of its armored turrets continuing to
+answer the bombardment.
+
+The correspondent had spent the previous night at the fortress town of
+Metz, sleeping under the same roof with Prince Oscar of Prussia,
+invalided from the field in a state of physical breakdown; Prince
+William of Hohenzollern, father-in-law of ex-King Manuel, and other
+officers, either watching or engaged in the operations in the field, and
+had traveled by automobile to the battlefront thirty-five miles to the
+west. For the first part of the distance the road led through the hills
+on which are located the chain of forts comprising the fortress of Metz;
+but, although the General Staff officer in the car pointed now and then
+to a hill as the site of this or that fort, traces of the fortifications
+could only occasionally be made out. Usually they were so skillfully
+masked and concealed by woods or blended with the hillsides that nothing
+out of the ordinary was apparent, in striking contrast to the exposed
+position of the forts at the recently visited fortress of Liége, which
+advertised their presence from the sky line of the encompassing hills
+and fairly invited bombardment.
+
+The country as far as the frontier town of Gorze seemed bathed in
+absolute peace. No troops were seen, rarely were automobiles of the
+General Staff encountered, and men and women were working in the field
+and vineyards as if war were a thousand miles away instead of only next
+door.
+
+Beyond Gorze, however, the road leading southwest through Chambley and
+St. Benoît Vigneuilles to St. Mihiel was crowded with long columns of
+wagons and automobile trucks bearing reserve ammunition, provisions, and
+supplies to the front, or returning empty for new loads to the unnamed
+railroad base in the rear. Strikingly good march discipline was
+observed, part of the road being always left free from the passage of
+staff automobiles or marching troops. Life seemed most comfortable for
+the drivers and escorts, as the army in advance had been so long in
+position, and its railroad base was so near, that supplying it involved
+none of the sleepless nights and days and almost superhuman exertions
+falling to the lot of the train in the flying march of the German armies
+toward Paris.
+
+A few miles beyond Gorze the French frontier was passed, and from this
+point on the countryside, with its deserted farms, rotting shocks of
+wheat, and uncut fields of grain, trampled down by infantry and scarred
+with trenches, excavations for batteries, and pits caused by exploding
+shells, showed war's devastating heel prints.
+
+Main army headquarters, the residence and working quarters of a
+commanding General whose name may not yet be mentioned, were in Château
+Chambley, a fine French country house. In the château the commanding
+General made all as comfortable as in his own home. Telegraph wires led
+to it from various directions, a small headquarters guard lounged on the
+grass under the trees, a dozen automobiles and motor cycles were at
+hand, and grooms were leading about the chargers of the General and his
+staff. At St. Benoît, five miles further on, a subordinate headquarters
+was encountered, again in a château belonging to a rich French resident.
+The Continental soldier leaves tents to the American Army and quarters
+himself, whenever it is possible, comfortably in houses, wasting no
+energy in transporting and setting up tented cities for officers and
+men. No matter how fast or how far a German army moves, a completely
+equipped telegraph office is ready for the army commander five minutes
+after headquarters have been established.
+
+At St. Benoît a party of some 300 French prisoners was encountered,
+waiting outside headquarters. They were all fine young fellows, in
+striking contrast to the elderly reservist type which predominates in
+the German prison camps. They were evidently picked troops of the line,
+and were treated almost with deference by their guards, a detachment of
+bearded Landwehr men from South Germany. They were the survivors of the
+garrison of Fort Camp des Romains, who had put up such a desperate and
+spirited defense as to win the whole-hearted admiration and respect of
+the German officers and men. Their armored turrets and cemented
+bastions, although constructed after the best rules of fortification of
+a few years ago, had been battered about their ears in an unexpectedly
+short time by German and Austrian siege artillery. Their guns were
+silenced, and trenches were pushed up by an overwhelming force of
+pioneers and infantry to within five yards of their works before they
+retreated from the advanced intrenchments to the casemates of the fort.
+Here they maintained a stout resistance, and refused every summons to
+surrender. Hand grenades were brought up, bound to a backing of boards,
+and exploded against the openings into the casemates, filling these with
+showers of steel splinters. Pioneers, creeping up to the dead angle of
+the casemates, where the fire of the defenders could not reach them,
+directed smoke tubes and stinkpots against apertures in the citadel,
+filling the rooms with suffocating smoke and gases.
+
+"Have you had enough?" the defenders were asked, after the first smoke
+treatment.
+
+"No!" was the defiant answer.
+
+The operation was repeated a second and third time, the response to the
+demand for surrender each time growing weaker, until finally the
+defenders were no longer able to raise their rifles, and the fort was
+taken. When the survivors of the plucky garrison were able to march out,
+revived by the fresh air, they found their late opponents presenting
+arms before them in recognition of their gallant stand. They were
+granted the most honorable terms of surrender, their officers were
+allowed to retain their swords, and on their march toward an honorable
+captivity they were everywhere greeted with expressions of respect and
+admiration.
+
+The headquarters guard here was composed of a company of infantry. The
+company's field kitchen, the soup-boiler and oven on wheels, which the
+German army copied from the Russians and which the soldiers facetiously
+and affectionately name their "goulash cannon," had that day, the
+Captain said, fed 970 men, soldiers of his own and passing companies,
+headquarters attachés, wounded men and the detachment of French
+prisoners.
+
+Experienced German officers rank the field kitchens, with the sturdy
+legs of the infantry, the German heavy artillery and the aviation corps,
+as the most important factors in the showing made by the German armies.
+
+Beyond St. Benoît the Côte Lorraine, a range of wooded hills running
+north and south along the east bank of the Meuse, rises in steeply
+terraced slopes several hundred feet from the frontier plain,
+interposing a natural rampart between Germany and the French line of
+fortresses beyond the Meuse. The French had fortified these slopes with
+successive rows of trenches, permitting line above line of infantry to
+fire against an advancing enemy. For days a desperate struggle was waged
+for the possession of the heights, which was imperative for the German
+campaign against the line of fortresses.
+
+Germans do not mention the extent of their losses in any particular
+action, but it was admitted and evident that it had cost a high price to
+storm those steep slopes and win a position in the woods crowning the
+range from which their batteries could be directed against the French
+forts. Vigneuilles, a village at the foot of the hillside, shot into
+ruins by artillery and with every standing bit of house wall scarred
+with bullet marks from the hand-to-hand conflicts which had swayed to
+and fro in its streets, was typical of all the little stone-built towns
+serving as outposts to this natural fortress which had been the scene of
+imbittered attacks and counter-attacks before the German troops could
+fight their way up the hillsides.
+
+The combat is still raging on this day from north and south against the
+segment of this range captured by the Germans. The French, massing their
+troops by forest paths from Verdun and Toul, throw them against the
+Germans in desperate endeavors to break the lines which protect the
+sites for the German siege artillery, heavy mortars of 8-1/4 and 16-1/2
+inch calibre and an intermediate sized type, and for the Austrian
+automobile batteries of 12-inch siege guns.
+
+The correspondent had no opportunity to inspect at close range the
+16-1/2-inch guns, the "growlers" of Liége, Namur, and other fortresses,
+which Krupp and the German Army uncovered as the surprise of this war.
+They could be heard even from Metz speaking at five-minute intervals. A
+battery of them, dug into the ground so that only the gun muzzles
+projected above the pits, was observed in action at a distance of about
+a half mile, the flash of flames being visible even at this distance.
+
+Their smaller sisters were less coy. A dismounted battery of the
+intermediate calibre, details of which are not available for
+publication, was encountered by the roadside, awaiting repairs to the
+heavy traction engine in whose train it travels in sections along the
+country roads, while the German 8-1/4-inch (21 centimeter) and the
+Austrian 12-inch (30.5 centimeter) batteries were seen in action.
+
+The heavy German battery lay snugly hidden in a wood on the rolling
+heights of the Côte Lorraine. Better off than the French, whose aviators
+had for days repeatedly scrutinized every acre of land in the vicinity
+looking for these guns, we had fairly accurate directions how to find
+the battery, but even then it required some search and doubling back and
+forth before a languid artilleryman lounging by the roadside pointed
+with thumb over shoulder toward the hidden guns.
+
+These and the artillerymen were enjoying their midday rest, a pause
+which sets in every day with the regularity of the luncheon hour in a
+factory. The guns, two in this particular position, stood beneath a
+screen of thickly branching trees, the muzzles pointing toward round
+openings in this leafy roof. The gun carriages were screened with
+branches. The shelter tents of the men and the house for the ammunition
+had also been covered with green, and around the position a hedge of
+boughs kept off the prying eyes of possible French spies wandering
+through the woods.
+
+It was the noon pause, but the Lieutenant in charge of the guns, anxious
+to show them off to advantage, volunteered to telephone the battery
+commander, in his observation post four miles nearer the enemy, for
+permission to fire a shot or two against a village in which French
+troops were gathering for the attack. This battery had just finished
+with Les Paroches, a French barrier fort across the Meuse, and was now
+devoting its attention to such minor tasks. Only forts really counted,
+said the Lieutenant, recalling Fort Manonvillers, near Lunéville, the
+strongest French barrier fort, which was the battery's first "bag" of
+the war. Its capture, thanks to his guns, had cost the German Army only
+three lives, those of three pioneers accidentally killed by the fire of
+their own men. Now Les Paroches was a heap of crumbled earth and stone.
+In default of forts the guns were used against any "worthy target"--a
+"worthy target" being defined as a minimum of fifty infantrymen.
+
+At this moment the orderly reported that the battery commander
+authorized two shots against the village in question. At command the gun
+crew sprang to their posts about the mortar, which was already adjusted
+for its target, a little less than six miles away, the gun muzzle
+pointing skyward at an angle of about 60 degrees. As the gun was fired
+the projectile could be seen and followed in its course for several
+hundred feet. The report was not excessively loud.
+
+Before the report died away the crew were busy as bees about the gun.
+One man, with the hand elevating gear, rapidly cranked the barrel down
+to a level position, ready for loading. A second threw open the breech
+and extracted the brass cartridge case, carefully wiping [Transcriber:
+original 'wipping'] it out before depositing it among the empties; four
+more seized the heavy shell and lifted it to a cradle opposite the
+breech; a seventh rammed it home; number eight gingerly inserted the
+brass cartridge, half filled with a vaseline-like explosive; the breech
+was closed, and the gun pointer rapidly cranked the gun again into
+position. In less than thirty seconds the men sprang back from the gun,
+again loaded and aimed. A short wait, and the observer from his post
+near the village ordered "next shot fifty meters nearer."
+
+The gun pointer made the slight correction necessary, the mortar again
+sent its shell purring through the air against the village, which this
+time, it was learned, broke into flames, and while the men went back to
+their noonday rest, the Lieutenant explained the fine points of his
+beloved guns. One man, as had been seen, could manipulate the elevation
+gear with one hand easily and quickly; ten of his horses could take the
+mortar, weighing eight tons, anywhere; it could fire up to 500 shots per
+day. He was proud of the skillful concealment of his guns, which had
+been firing for four days from the same position without being
+discovered, although French aviators had located all the sister
+batteries, all of which had suffered loss from shrapnel fire.
+
+Along the roadside through the Côte Lorraine were here and there graves
+with rude crosses and penciled inscriptions. At the western edge of the
+forest the battle panorama of the Meuse Valley suddenly opened out, the
+hills falling away again steeply to the level valley below. The towns
+below--St. Mihiel and Banoncour--seemed absolutely deserted, not a
+person being visible even around the large barracks in the latter town.
+While the little party of officers and spectators, including the
+correspondent, were watching the artillery duel on the far horizon or
+endeavoring to pick out the infantry positions, a shrapnel suddenly
+burst directly before them, high in the air. There was a general stir,
+the assumption being that the French had taken the group on the
+hillside for a battery staff picking out positions for the guns; but as
+other shots were fired it was seen that the shrapnel was exploding
+regularly above the barracks, a mile and a half away, the French
+evidently suspecting the presence of German troops there.
+
+A ten-mile ride southward led to the position of the Austrian 12-inch
+battery. The two guns this time were planted by the side of the road,
+screened only in front by a little wood, but exposed to view from both
+sides, the rear, and above. For this greater exposure the battery had
+paid correspondingly, several of its men having been killed or wounded
+by hostile fire. Here, as in the German batteries, the war work in
+progress went on with a machinelike regularity and absence of
+spectacular features more characteristic of a rolling mill than a
+battle. The men at the guns went through their work with the deftness
+and absence of confusion of high-class mechanics. The heavy shells were
+rolled to the guns, hoisted by a chain winch to the breech opening, and
+discharged in uninteresting succession, a short pause coming after each
+shot, until the telephonic report from the observation stand was
+received. The battery had been firing all day at Fort Lionville, at a
+range of 9,400 meters, (nearly six miles,) and the battery commander was
+then endeavoring to put out of action the only gun turret which still
+answered the fire. The task of finding this comparatively minute target,
+forty or fifty feet in diameter, was being followed with an accuracy
+which promised eventual success.
+
+The shells from the guns started on their course with characteristic
+minute-long shrieks. Watches were pulled out to determine just how long
+the shrieks could be heard, and the uninitiated were preparing to hear
+the sound of the explosion itself. The battery chief explained, however,
+that this scream was due to the conditions immediately around the muzzle
+of the gun, and could not be heard from other points. He invited close
+watch of the atmosphere a hundred yards before the gun at the next shot.
+Not only could the projectile be seen plainly in the beginning of its
+flight, but the waves of billowing air, rushing back to fill the void
+left by the discharge and bounding and rebounding in a tempestuous sea
+of gas, could be distinctly observed. This airy commotion caused the
+sound heard for more than a minute.
+
+
+
+
+*The Slaughter in Alsace*
+
+*By John H. Cox of The London Standard.*
+
+
+BASLE, Switzerland, Aug. 19.--I have just returned from an inspection of
+the scenes of the recent fighting between the French and Germans in the
+southern districts of Alsace.
+
+Dispatches from Paris and Berlin describe the engagements between the
+frontier and Mülhausen as insignificant encounters between advance
+guards. If this be true in a military sense, and the preliminaries of
+the war produce the terrible effects I have witnessed, the disastrous
+results of the war itself will exceed human comprehension.
+
+As a Swiss subject I was equipped with identification papers and
+accompanied by four of my countrymen, all on bicycles.
+
+At the very outset the sight of peasants, men and women, unconcernedly
+at work in the fields gathering the harvest, struck me as strange and
+unnatural. The men were either old or well advanced in middle age.
+Everywhere women, girls, and mere lads were working.
+
+The first sign of war was the demolished villa of a Catholic priest at a
+village near Ransbach. This priest had lived there for many years,
+engaged in religious work and literary pursuits. After the outbreak of
+the war the German authorities jumped at the conclusion that he was an
+agent of the French Secret Service and that he had been in the habit of
+sending to Belfort information concerning German military movements and
+German measures for defense--very often by means of carrier pigeons.
+
+The Alsatians say that these accusations were utterly unjust; but last
+week a military party raided the priest's house, dragged him from his
+study, placed him against his own garden wall and shot him summarily as
+a traitor and spy. The house was searched from top to bottom, and
+numerous books and papers were removed, after which the building was
+destroyed by dynamite. The priest was buried without a coffin at the end
+of his little garden plot, and some of the villagers placed a rough
+cross on the mound which marked the place of interment.
+
+In the next large village we were told that it had been successively
+occupied by French and German troops and had been the scene of stiff
+infantry fighting.
+
+Here we found groups of old men and boys burying dead men and horses,
+whose bodies were already beginning to be a menace to health. The
+weather here has been exceptionally hot, and the countryside is bathed
+in blazing sunshine. Further on were a number of German soldiers beating
+about in the standing crops on both sides of the road, searching for
+dead and wounded. They said many of the wounded had crawled in among the
+wheat to escape being trodden upon by the troops marching along the
+road, and also to gain relief from the heat.
+
+On the outskirts of another large village we saw a garden bounded by a
+thick hedge, behind which a company of French infantry had taken their
+stand against the advancing German troops. Among the crushed flowers
+there were still lying fragments of French soldiers' equipments, two
+French caps stained with blood and three torn French tunics, likewise
+[Transcriber: original 'liewise'] dyed red. The walls of the cottage
+bore marks of rifle bullets, and the roof was partially burned.
+
+Passing through the villages we saw on all sides terrible signs of the
+devastation of war--houses burned, uncut grain trodden down and rendered
+useless, gardens trampled under foot; everywhere ruin and distress.
+
+At a small village locally known as Napoleon's Island we found the
+railway station demolished and the line of trucks the French had used as
+a barricade. These trucks had been almost shot to pieces, and many were
+stained with blood. Outside the station the small restaurant roof had
+been shot away; the windows were smashed, and much furniture had been
+destroyed. Nevertheless the proprietor had rearranged his damaged
+premises as well as possible and was serving customers as if nothing had
+happened.
+
+Just outside this village there are large common graves in which French
+and German soldiers lie buried together in their uniforms. Large mounds
+mark these sites. Here again the villagers have placed roughly hewn
+crosses.
+
+Not far from Huningen we met an intelligent Alsatian peasant who
+remembered the war of 1870 and had witnessed some engagements in the
+last few days. Here is his account of what he saw:
+
+"The bravery on both sides was amazing. The effects of artillery fire
+are terrific. The shells burst, and where you formerly saw a body of
+soldiers you see a heap of corpses or a number of figures writhing on
+the ground, torn and mutilated by the fragments of the shell. Those who
+are unhurt scatter for the moment, but quickly regain their composure
+and take up their positions in the fighting line as if nothing had
+happened. The effects of other weapons are as bad. It seems remarkable
+that soldiers can see the destruction worked all around them, yet can
+control their nerves sufficiently to continue fighting.
+
+"I remember the battles of 1870, in five or six of which I fought
+myself, but they bear no comparison with the battles of 1914. War
+forty-four years ago was child's play compared with war at the present
+time."
+
+In several villages the schools and churches and many cottages are
+filled with wounded Frenchmen and Germans, and everything is being done
+to relieve their sufferings. In the stress of fighting many wounded
+soldiers were left from three to ten or twelve hours lying in the fields
+or on the roads. The ambulance equipment of modern armies appears
+utterly inadequate, and most of the wounded were picked up by villagers.
+
+A French aeroplane from Belfort reconnoitred the German positions behind
+Mülhausen. As it passed over the German works at the Isteiner Klotz
+there ensued a continuous firing of machine guns and rifles. The
+aeroplane, which had swerved downward to give its two occupants a closer
+and clearer view of the German position, immediately rose to a much
+greater altitude and escaped injury. It cruised over the German position
+for more than an hour, now rising, now falling, always pursued by the
+bullets of the enemy.
+
+This aerial reconnoissance [Transcriber: original 'reconnoisance'], part
+of which was carried out at an altitude as low as 1,000 feet, was
+undertaken at terrible risk, but in this case the aeroplane escaped all
+injury and returned in the direction of Belfort, doubtless with all the
+information it had set out to collect.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     [Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
+
+BERNE, Aug. 22, (Dispatch to The London Morning Post.)--Gebweiler, in
+Alsace, twelve miles to the northwest of Mülhausen, was taken by the
+French at the point of the bayonet on Aug. 20. My correspondent, who has
+just arrived at Basle from the field of battle, says that eight
+battalions of the German One Hundred and Fourteenth Regiment, numbering
+about 10,000 men, engaged the French Army. The French artillery was
+deadly and caused great ravages among the Germans, few officers
+escaping.
+
+During the whole night the wounded were being transported to villages in
+the neighborhood, beyond the reach of artillery. All the buildings of
+Sierenz were filled with wounded.
+
+Hundreds of horses were stretched on the field of battle. Those of the
+German artillery were killed, and in consequence the German forces left
+their artillery, of which about twenty guns are now in the hands of the
+French.
+
+The object of the German troops was to cut off the retreat of the French
+and force them toward the Swiss frontier--an object which they failed to
+achieve.
+
+The wounded received here say that they passed a terrible night in the
+open, without water or other succor, with the pitiful neighing of
+wounded horses ringing in their ears.
+
+
+
+
+*Rennenkampf on the Prussian Border*
+
+[By a Correspondent of The London Daily Chronicle.]
+
+
+GRADNO, (via Petrograd,) Oct. 21.--I have returned here after a journey
+along the East Prussian frontier, as close to the scenes of daily
+fighting as I could obtain permission to go. The route was from the
+north of Suwalki southward to Graevo, a stretch of country recently in
+German occupation, but where now remains not a single German outpost.
+
+It is stimulating to see the Russian soldier in his habits as he lives
+and fights. I have seen many thousands of them camped in the rain,
+swamped in bogs, or marching indefatigably over the roads which are long
+quagmires of mud, always with an air of stolid contentment and the look
+of being bent on business. They include Baltic Province men speaking
+German. Jews from Riga and Libau are brigaded with huge Siberians, whose
+marching must constitute a world record. The Cossacks are past counting,
+and with them are long-coated, tight-belted Circassians and Kalmucks,
+all representing a mixture of races and languages like that of the
+British Empire itself.
+
+Actually the whole line is a battle front from north of Wirballen to
+well into Poland, and no day passes without contact with the Germans.
+This is an army in which every man has fought. Most of them have been in
+hand-to-hand conflict with the Germans. They have approached the front
+through a country which the enemy has devastated. There is no village
+which does not bear the mark of wanton destruction. I have seen these
+things for myself. Houses have been burned, others pillaged and the
+contents dragged into the streets and there smashed. Churches have been
+invariably gutted and defiled.
+
+It is impossible not to admire these endless battalions of Siberians.
+They are common objects of this countryside. I came past Suwalki as they
+were moving up, column after column, in gray overcoats aswing in the
+rhythm of their stride, like the kilts of Highlanders. It was they who
+bore the brunt of the fighting, unsupported by artillery, in forests of
+Augustowo, and, with the Baltic regiments, pushed on and took Lyck.
+These are the men who marched forty miles, starting at midnight, then
+went into action between Gor and Raigrod and delivered a bayonet charge
+which their officers still boast about today.
+
+I may not indicate the geography of the front on which the Russians and
+Germans are now facing each other, but the German general plan is to
+protect the railway and all approaches to a vital junction such as
+Goldapp and Insterburg. Between them and the frontier lies a country of
+singular difficulty for the troops. It is easy of defense, with small
+broken hills, innumerable lakes and roads winding in watered valleys
+among woods. The Germans have gone to earth in their usual lavish
+fashion, digging themselves in with a thoroughness worthy of permanent
+fortifications. Their trenches are five feet deep, with earthworks in
+front zig-zagging as a precaution against enfilading. Some of them are
+very cleverly hidden with growing bushes. All peasants remaining at the
+country-side in Prussia are compelled to work digging trenches. The
+emplacements [Transcriber: original 'implacements'] for guns of large
+calibre have concrete foundations.
+
+The Germans had fortified Suwalki, employing forced labor. They had
+connected up the trench system with telephone installation and appointed
+a Military Governor and other functionaries. Many German officers were
+joined there by their wives and families, who when they retired took
+with them souvenirs consisting of nearly every portable object of value
+in the town, besides much furniture and clothing.
+
+The Russian trenches are scarcely more than shallow grooves in the
+ground with earth thrown up in front of them, making barely sufficient
+cover for prone riflemen.
+
+At once the German outer positions were carried by storm with ghastly
+carnage.
+
+"We didn't dig much," said a Russian officer to me. "We knew we
+shouldn't stay there. We should either go forward or back, and we were
+sure to go forward."
+
+The cloud of patrols, mostly Cossacks, which flits unceasingly along the
+German front is the subject of innumerable stories.
+
+When the news was issued that the Kaiser had come east to take command
+of his army on this front a Cossack came in, driving before him a plump,
+distressed Prussian Captain whom he had gleaned during the day's work.
+
+"I've brought him," he announced. "I knew him by his mustache," and he
+produced an old picture postcard from his breast showing the Kaiser
+with his characteristic mustache.
+
+Near Augustowo the roads are literally blocked in many places with
+abandoned German transports which became trapped in the terribly muddy
+country. Dead horses in hundreds lie everywhere and the Russian Sanitary
+Corps is busy burying them. Yet the Russians who are still moving about
+this country retain not only their usual average health, but do not even
+complain.
+
+Between Augustowo and Raigrod a small stream is actually blocked with
+German stores, including much gun ammunition. The German advance which
+ended in this debacle has been the costliest defeat in point of
+materials which they have yet suffered.
+
+
+
+
+*The First Fight at Lodz*
+
+*By Percival Gibbon of The London Daily Chronicle.*
+
+
+WARSAW, Dec. 5, (by Courier to Petrograd.)--I have wired you previously
+of the German force which advanced around Lodz and was cut off south and
+east of the town. This consisted of two army corps--the Twenty-fifth
+Corps and the Third Guard Corps. The isolated force turned north and
+endeavored to cut its way out through the small town of Breziziny. It
+was at Breziziny that final disaster overtook them.
+
+The town and road lie in a hollow in the midst of wooded country, where
+the Germans were squeezed from the Vistula and pressed to the rear. They
+had fought a battle during the slow retirement of five days and were
+showing signs of being short of ammunition. On the fifth day they made
+their final attempt to pass through Breziziny. That was where that fine
+strategist and fighting man who held Ivangorod on the Vistula brought
+off the great dramatic coup for which he had been manoeuvring.
+
+The Germans were holding the town and pouring through when he began his
+general attack. Breziziny underwent nine hours of furious shelling and
+only half the town is now remaining. The Russian infantry again proved
+its sterling quality, and, supported by the tremendous fire of its own
+guns, drove home charge after charge, smashing the German resistance
+completely. By nightfall out of two army corps, numbering 80,000 men,
+there remained only a remnant.
+
+The number of prisoners reaches the total of about 20,000, and of the
+remainder fully 80 per cent, were killed or wounded. This is the
+estimate supplied to me. Owing to the small area on which the fighting
+was concentrated, the dead are lying in great mounds and walls at points
+where the charges were pushed home. For miles the countryside is dotted
+with dead.
+
+In the sparser grounds an unknown number of fugitives, most of whom are
+wounded, are lurking in the woods. From Rawa, south of Skierniwice,
+midway between Lodz and Warsaw, to Lodz on the line of the former German
+retreat and present advance, not a single village remains. All the
+burned-out district is utterly desolate.
+
+On Dec. 1, 2, and 3 the force conducting the defense of the town of Lodz
+was all but surrounded. The German positions were at Royicie on the
+southern road, within four miles of the long, straggling street which
+comprises most of the town of Lodz, while at Zgierz, seven miles to the
+north, they had a battery of heavy guns with which they shelled the town
+itself, killing several hundred civilians. The fire was chiefly directed
+on the railway and station and the Russian guns were unable for some
+time to locate the battery. It was discovered and reconnoitred at last
+by an aeroplane.
+
+[Illustration: The War in the East (with Net Change of Battle Line Up
+to Jan, 1, 1915) from Eastern Prussia to Galicia.]
+
+Then followed an act of heroism and harebrained enterprise which is now
+the talk of the whole army. On Thursday night last the Colonel of
+Artillery made his way out and with a little group of assistants
+contrived to drag a field telephone wire within half a mile of the
+German battery. While a searchlight was swinging over the face of the
+country, he lay on the ground, and from there directed the Russian guns,
+which with his help actually succeeded in silencing the battery. The
+Russian guns were at this time placed in the streets of Lodz.
+
+On Thursday night, when the attack culminated, there were 700 guns in
+action at one time on both sides, and throughout the night all was
+alight with flashes from the guns and bursting shells, and the thunder
+of the guns was faintly audible on the outskirts of Warsaw, sixty miles
+away.
+
+Then there followed a general assault of the Germans, a charge of huge
+masses of men, who followed up into the glare of the searchlights under
+an inferno of gunfire. Here again the Siberians demonstrated the
+qualities which have made them famous throughout the war. They met the
+Germans with a rifle fire from the trenches which not only stopped them
+but shattered them. They again played the old trick of allowing the
+enemy to approach within fifty feet, meanwhile holding their fire, and
+then blowing them off their feet with rifle fire and their use of the
+mitrailleuse.
+
+The attack failed utterly, and from the very manner of it the Russian
+losses could not be otherwise than light, while the German losses in the
+whole of the operations against Lodz and the neighboring positions
+exceed a hundred thousand killed. No guess at the number of their
+wounded can be attempted, but we know that score upon score of trains
+filled with them have gone west along the Kalisz line, and still
+continue to go.
+
+
+
+
+*The First Invasion of Servia*
+
+[By a Correspondent of The London Standard.]
+
+
+NISH, Servia, Aug. 31.--After the butcheries and atrocities which I
+witnessed during preceding battles I thought I would get accustomed and
+insensible to these scenes of blood, but from my last visit to the
+slaughter house I have brought such visions of horror that their very
+thought makes me shudder. The object of the Austrian Army seems to have
+been complete devastation.
+
+The fierce battle which the Servians gave them incessantly for more than
+a week may be divided into two conflicts of equal intensity which raged
+along the ridge of the heights of Tser. Each of the two slopes,
+descending one to the Save and the town of Shabatz and the other to the
+Drina, is now nothing but a charnel house.
+
+I could not say which of these two conflicts was more murderous, but
+this admirably fertile region, with its countless fruit trees, is now
+sheltering the last remains of hundreds of butchered men, women, and
+children.
+
+When after three days and three nights of truceless fighting the
+Servians succeeded in surprising the enemy in the middle of the night at
+Tser, the toll of dead was so colossal that the Servian troops were
+constrained for the time being to abandon burying the corpses.
+
+Everywhere the fighting was of the fiercest conceivable nature, for to
+resist the invaders was to the Servians a question of life and death. At
+several points they fought right up to the last man, succumbing but
+never falling back.
+
+The volunteer corps of Capt. Tankositch, the famous leader whose head
+Austria is so anxious to gain, was charged to defend Kroupage, situated
+south of the battle front, between Losnitza and Lionbovia. Considerable
+Austrian forces attempted to advance with the view of driving the
+Captain back.
+
+For two days and three nights Tankositch and 236 volunteers held their
+position. At last three whole Austrian regiments surrounded them, but
+rather than yield to the enemy Tankositch and his gallant miniature army
+resolved to fight to the last. In the dead of night he sent out a small
+group to meet the Austrians. This group, consisting of a mere handful of
+soldiers, hurled a shower of bombs at the enemy, cutting up his ranks,
+and secured a free pass.
+
+[Illustration: The Battlefield in Servia.]
+
+At the first break of day, when Tankositch counted his men, only
+forty-six answered the call. They surrounded more than a hundred
+prisoners.
+
+It will be realized that in the course of such sharp fighting the
+Servian losses must have been considerable, although they were much
+smaller than those of the enemy.
+
+The most pitiful and heartrending aspect of these scenes was presented
+by the long procession of Servian survivors from the neighboring
+villages, consisting of old men, women, and children, bringing in the
+heavy toll of mutilated human beings. At Valievo, the nearest town to
+the field of battle, large masses of Servian and Austrian wounded kept
+pouring in incessantly. About 10,000 have already arrived. All had to be
+examined, all had to have their wounds dressed, and at Valievo there are
+only six doctors.
+
+In spite of this appalling shortage of medical aid, I witnessed
+yesterday a most touching spectacle. A car drawn by oxen brought to the
+hospital at Valievo its load of mutilated soldiers. In the first portion
+of the car were three wounded Austrians and in the second two wounded
+Servians and two more Austrians. The convoys wanted to carry the
+Austrian wounded to the dressing room before their own wounded. A
+Servian doctor stopped them.
+
+"Bring the wounded in in the order in which they come," he commanded,
+and, without any regard for the nationality of his patients, the doctor
+and his colleagues commenced their humanitarian work.
+
+What are the Red Crosses of the neutral countries waiting for? Why do
+they not come here? In the name of gallant little Servia, in the name of
+a humane and pitiful people, I make urgent appeal to the Red Crosses to
+send a portion of their staff here. There are thousands of lives to be
+saved.
+
+Now I must begin a chapter of sorrows. I wanted to witness the
+Austro-Hungarian excesses a second time before speaking of them, so that
+I could give an exact and genuine account of actual facts. Courage
+failed me to see all, but what I have seen can be summed up in one
+phrase. In the environs of Shabatz the vanquished put the finishing
+touch to their acts of fearful savagery by butchering their Servian
+prisoners, whose corpses were found heaped up in the town.
+
+Yesterday and the day before I ran across country through Valievo toward
+Drina. Further north, barely forty miles from Valievo, at Seablatcha,
+the poor refugees who had fled from their houses before the onslaught of
+the Austrians showed me eight young people, tied one to another, who
+were all pierced by bayonets.
+
+Five miles from there, at Bella Tserka, fugitives of the village with
+indescribable despair were burying the mutilated, bodies of fourteen
+little girls. Six peasants were found hanging in an orchard.
+
+At Lychnitsa, on the Drina, about a hundred old men, inoffensive
+civilians, were massacred before the eyes of their wives and children.
+All the women and children were led over on the other side of the bank
+of the Drina in order to compel the Servians to stop their fire.
+
+It is not war that Austria-Hungary tried to make on Servia. That great
+nation wanted to exterminate the Servian people. She thought she would
+succeed before Servia had time to defend herself.
+
+Austrian prisoners affirm that they received orders to hang all those
+striving against their country, to burn all the enemy's villages, and
+put all their inhabitants to death.
+
+The Servian Quartermaster General is drawing up an official list of
+these Austro-Hungarian deeds.
+
+
+
+
+*The Attack on Tsing-tau*
+
+*By Jefferson Jones of The Minneapolis Journal and The Japan
+Advertiser.*
+
+
+JAPANESE HEADQUARTERS, Shantung, Nov. 2.--I have seen war from a grand
+stand seat. I never before heard of the possibility of witnessing a
+modern battle--the attack of warships, the fire of infantry and
+artillery, the manoeuvring of airships over the enemy's lines, the
+rolling up from the rear of reinforcements and supplies--all at one
+sweep of the eye; yet, after watching [Transcriber: original 'watchnig']
+for three days the siege of Tsing-tau from a position on Prinz Heinrich
+Berg, 1,000 feet above the sea level and but three miles from the
+beleaguered city, I am sure that there is actually such a thing as a
+theatre of war.
+
+On Oct. 31, the date of the anniversary of the birth of the Emperor of
+Japan, the actual bombardment of Tsing-tau began. All the residents of
+the little Chinese village of Tschang-tsun, where was fixed on that day
+the acting staff headquarters of the Japanese troops, had been awakened
+early in the morning by the roar of a German aeroplane over the village.
+Every one quickly dressed and, after a hasty breakfast, went out to the
+southern edge of the village to gaze toward Tsing-tau.
+
+A great black column of smoke was arising from the city and hung like a
+pall over the besieged. At first glance it seemed that one of the
+neighboring hills had turned into an active volcano and was emitting
+this column of smoke, but it was soon learned that the oil tanks in
+Tsing-tau were on fire.
+
+As the bombardment was scheduled to start late in the morning, we were
+invited to accompany members of the staff of the Japanese and British
+expeditionary forces on a trip to Prinz Heinrich Berg, there to watch
+the investment of the city. It was about a three-mile journey to this
+mountain, which had been the scene of some severe fighting between the
+German and Japanese troops earlier in the month.
+
+When we arrived at the summit there was the theatre of war laid out
+before us like a map. To the left were the Japanese and British cruisers
+in the Yellow Sea, preparing for the bombardment. Below was the Japanese
+battery, stationed near the Meeker House, which the Germans had burned
+in their retreat from the mountains. Directly ahead was the City of
+Tsing-tau, with the Austrian cruiser Kaiserin Elisabeth steaming about
+in the harbor, while to the right one could see the Kiao-Chau coast and
+central forts and redoubts and the intrenched Japanese and British
+camps.
+
+We had just couched ourselves comfortably between some large, jagged
+rocks, where we felt sure we were not in a direct line with the enemy's
+guns, when suddenly there was a flash as if some one had turned a large
+golden mirror in the field down beyond to the right. A little column of
+black smoke drifted away from one of the Japanese trenches, and a minute
+later those of us on the peak of Prinz Heinrich heard the sharp report
+of a field gun.
+
+"Gentlemen, the show has started," said the British Captain, as he
+removed his cap and started adjusting his "opera glass." No sooner had
+he said this than the reports of guns came from all directions with a
+continuous rumble as if a giant bowling alley were in use. Everywhere
+the valley at the rear of Tsing-tau was alive with golden flashes from
+discharging guns, and at the same time great clouds of bluish-white
+smoke would suddenly spring up around the German batteries where some
+Japanese shell had burst. Over near the greater harbor of Tsing-tau we
+could see flames licking up the Standard Oil Company's large tanks. We
+afterward learned that these had been set on fire by the Germans and
+not by a bursting shell.
+
+And then the warships in the Yellow Sea opened fire on Iltis Fort, and
+for three hours we continually played our glasses on the field--on
+Tsing-tau and on the warships. With glasses on the central redoubt of
+the Germans we watched the effects of the Japanese fire until the boom
+of guns from the German Fort A, on a little peninsula jutting out from
+Kiao-Chau Bay, toward the east, attracted our attention there. We could
+see the big siege gun on this fort rise up over the bunker, aim at a
+warship, fire, and then quickly go down again. And then we would turn
+our eyes toward the warships in time to see a fountain of water 200
+yards from a vessel, where the shell had struck. We scanned the city of
+Tsing-tau. The 150-ton crane in the greater harbor, which we had seen
+earlier in the day, and which was said to be the largest crane in the
+world, had disappeared and only its base remained standing. A Japanese
+shell had carried away the crane.
+
+But this first day's firing of the Japanese investing troops was mainly
+to test the range of the different batteries. The attempt also was made
+to silence the line of forts extending in the east from Iltis Hill, near
+the wireless and signal stations at the rear of Tsing-tau, to the coast
+fort near the burning oil tank on the west. In this they were partly
+successful, two guns at Iltis Fort being silenced by the guns at sea.
+
+On Nov. 1, the second day of the bombardment, we again stationed
+ourselves on the peak of Prinz Heinrich Berg. From the earliest hours of
+morning the Japanese and British forces had kept up a continuous fire on
+the German redoubts in front of the Iltis, Moltke, and Bismarck forts,
+and when we arrived at our seats it seemed as though the shells were
+dropping around the German trenches every minute. Particularly on the
+redoubt of Taitung-Chen was the Japanese fire heavy, and by early
+afternoon, through field glasses, this German redoubt appeared to have
+had an attack of smallpox, so pitted was it from the holes made by
+bursting Japanese shells. By nightfall many parts of the German
+redoubts had been destroyed, together with some machine guns. The result
+was the advancing of the Japanese lines several hundred yards from the
+bottom of the hills where they had rested earlier in the day.
+
+It was not until the third day of the bombardment that those of us
+stationed on Prinz Heinrich observed that our theatre of war had a
+curtain, a real asbestos one that screened the fire in the drops
+directly ahead of us from our eyes. We had learned that the theatre was
+equipped with pits, drops, a gallery for onlookers, exits, and an
+orchestra of booming cannon and rippling, roaring pompons; but that
+nature had provided it with a curtain--that was something new to us.
+
+We had reached the summit of the mountain about 11 A.M., just as some
+heavy clouds, evidently disturbed by the bombardment during the previous
+night, were dropping down into Litsun Valley and in front of Tsing-tau.
+For three hours we sat on the peak shivering in a blast from the sea,
+and all the while wondering just what was being enacted beyond the
+curtain. The firing had suddenly ceased, and with the filmy haze before
+our eyes we conjured up pictures of the Japanese troops making the
+general attack upon Iltis Fort, evidently the key to Tsing-tau, while
+the curtain, of the theatre of war was down.
+
+By early afternoon the clouds lifted, and with glasses we were able to
+distinguish fresh sappings of the Japanese infantry nearer to the German
+redoubts. The Japanese guns, which the day before were stationed below
+us to the left, near the Meeker House, had advanced half a mile and were
+on the road just outside the village of Ta-Yau. Turning our glasses on
+Kiao-Chau Bay, we discovered that the Kaiserin Elisabeth was missing,
+nor did a search of the shore line reveal her. Whether she was blown up
+by the Germans or had hidden behind one of the islands I do not know.
+
+All the guns were silent now, and the British Captain said: "Well,
+chaps, shall we take advantage of the intermission?"
+
+A half-hour later we were down the mountain and riding homeward toward
+Tschang-Tsun.
+
+To understand fully the operations of the Japanese troops in Shantung
+during the present Far Eastern war one must be acquainted with the
+topography of this peninsula, as well as with the conditions that exist
+for the successful movements of the troops.
+
+Since the disembarkation of the Japanese Army on Sept. 2 everything has
+seemingly favored the Germans. The country, which is unusually
+mountainous, offering natural strongholds for resisting the invading
+army, is practically devoid of roads in the hinterland. To add to this
+difficulty, the last two months in Shantung have seen heavy rains and
+floods which have really aided in holding off the ultimate fall of
+Kiao-Chau.
+
+One had only to see the road from Lanschan over Makung Pass, on which
+the Japanese troops were forced to rely for their supplies, partly to
+understand the reason for the German garrison at Tsing-tau still holding
+out. The road, especially near the base, is nothing but a sea of clay in
+which the military carts sink up to their hubs. Frequent rains every
+week keep the roadway softened up and thus render it necessary for the
+Japanese infantry to rebuild it and to construct drainage ditches in
+order that there may be no delay in getting supplies and ammunition to
+the troops at the front.
+
+The physical characteristics of Kiao-Chau make it an ideal fortress. The
+entrance of the bay is nearly two miles wide and is commanded by hills
+rising 600 feet directly in the rear of Tsing-tau. The ring of hills
+that surrounds the city does not extend back into the hinterland, and
+thus there is no screen behind which the Japanese forces can quickly
+invest the city. Germany has utilized the semicircle of hills in the
+construction of large concrete forts equipped with Krupp guns of 14 and
+16 inch calibre, which, for four or five miles back into the peninsula,
+command all approaches to the city.
+
+The Japanese Army in approaching Tsing-tau has had to do so practically
+in the open. The troops found no hills behind which they could with
+safety mount heavy siege guns without detection by the German garrison.
+In fact, the strategic plan for the capture of the town has been much
+like the plan adopted by the Japanese forces at Port Arthur--they have
+forced their approach by sappings. While this is a gradual method, it is
+certain of victory in the end and results in very little loss of life.
+
+The natural elevations of the Iltis, Bismarck, and Moltke forts at the
+rear of Tsing-tau have another advantage in that they are so situated
+that they are commanded by at least two other forts. All of the guns had
+been so placed that they can be turned on their neighbors if the
+occasion arises.
+
+A Japanese aeroplane soaring over Tsing-tau on Oct. 30 scattered
+thousands of paper handbills on which was printed the following
+announcement, in German, from the Staff Headquarters:
+
+"To the Honored Officers and Men in the Fortress: It is against the will
+of God as well as the principles of humanity to destroy and render
+useless arms, ships of war, merchantmen, and other works and
+constructions not in obedience to the necessity of war, but merely out
+of spite lest they fall into the hands of the enemy.
+
+"Trusting, as we do, that, as you hold dear the honor of civilization,
+you will not be betrayed into such base conduct. We beg you, however, to
+announce to us your own view as mentioned above."
+
+
+
+
+*The German Attack on Tahiti*
+
+*As Told by Miss Geni La France, an Eyewitness.*
+
+
+SAN FRANCISCO, Cal., Oct. 7.--Graphic stories of the plight of Papeéte,
+capital of Tahiti, in the Society Islands, were told here today by
+passengers arriving on the Union Steamship Company's liner Moana.
+Several of those on board the steamer were in Papeéte when the town was
+bombarded by the German cruisers Gneisenau and Scharnhorst. They said
+the place was in ruins and that the natives were still hiding in the
+hills, whence they fled when the bombardment began.
+
+The stories of those arriving on the Moana vary only in unimportant
+details. Perhaps the most graphic story was that told by Miss Geni La
+France, a French actress. She told of the Governor's heroism and his
+self-sacrificing devotion to duty, which caused him to face death rather
+than surrender. All of the passengers were loud in their praise of this
+Frenchman, who thought first of his country, next of his guests--for so
+he considered all travelers--and next of the city's residents.
+
+"While the shells screamed and exploded with a deafening roar, tearing
+buildings and leaving wreck and ruin in their wake, this old Governor
+was calm throughout," said Miss La France.
+
+"It was his bravery that enabled us to bear up under the terrible
+strain, although it was impossible to flee the city, as shells were
+exploding all about.
+
+"I was sitting on the veranda of the hotel, having a lovely holiday.
+Every one was happy and contented. The sunshine was lovely and warm and
+the natives were busy at their work. I noticed two dark ships steaming
+up the little river, but was too lazy and 'comfy' to take any interest
+in them.
+
+"Suddenly, without any warning, shots began exploding around us. Two of
+the houses near the hotel fell with a crash, and the natives began
+screaming and running in every direction. For a minute I didn't realize
+what was happening. But when another volley of shells burst dangerously
+near and some of the pieces just missed my head, I was flying, too.
+
+"Every one was shouting, 'To the hills, to the hills!' My manager could
+not obtain a wagon or any means of conveyance to take me there. I felt
+as if I had on a pair of magic boots that would carry me to the hills in
+three steps. But I didn't. It was a good six miles, over bad roads, and
+we had to run.
+
+"The shells from the German battleships kept breaking, and the
+explosions were terrible. I am sure that I made a record in sprinting
+that six miles. The cries of the people were terrible. I was simply
+terror-stricken and could not cry for fear. I seemed to realize that I
+must keep my strength in order to reach the hills.
+
+"We hid in the hills and the natives gave up their homes to the white
+people, and were especially kind to the women."
+
+"The native population probably hasn't come back from the hills yet, and
+when we left, two days after the bombardment, the European population
+was still dazed," said E.P. Titchener, a Wellington, New Zealand,
+merchant, who went through the bombardment.
+
+"From 8 o'clock until 10 the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau circled in the
+harbor, firing broadsides of eight-inch guns at the little gunboat Zelie
+and the warehouses beyond.
+
+"Only the American flag, which the American Consul hoisted, and an
+American sailing vessel also ran up, the two being in line before the
+main European residence section, saved that part of the town, for the
+German cruisers were careful not to fire in that direction."
+
+According to all accounts, the cruisers directed their fire solely
+toward the Zelie, but their marksmanship was said to be poor. Many shots
+fell short and many went wide, so that the whole business district, the
+general market, and the warehouses along the water front were peppered
+and riddled.
+
+The French replied from some old guns on the hills as well as three
+shots from the Zelie, but ineffectively.
+
+"It was plucky of the French to fire at all," said Mr. Titchener. "At 7
+o'clock we could see two war vessels approaching, and soon made out they
+were cruisers. They came on without a flag, and the Zelie, lying in the
+harbor, fired a blank shot.
+
+"Then the Germans hoisted their flag and the Zelie fired two shots. The
+Germans swung around and fired their broadsides, and all the crew of the
+Zelie scuttled ashore. No one was hurt.
+
+"The Germans continued to swing and fire. Their shells flew all over the
+town above the berth of the Zelie and the German prize ship Walkure,
+which the Zelie had captured. Perhaps not knowing they were firing into
+a German vessel, the Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst continued their wild
+cannonades.
+
+"During the two hours of bombardment a hundred shells from the big
+8-inch guns of the cruisers fell and exploded in the town. The sound was
+terrific, and nobody blamed the natives for running away.
+
+"With all the destruction, only three men were killed--one Chinaman and
+two natives. The Germans evidently made an effort to confine their fire,
+but many shots went wide, and these did the main mischief.
+
+"Finally, about 10 o'clock, without attempting to land, and not knowing
+that the German crew of the Walkure were prisoners in the town, the
+Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst steamed away and disappeared over the
+horizon. They sailed off to the westward, but of course we could not
+tell how they set their course when they got beyond our vision."
+
+The damage to Papeéte was estimated at $2,000,000. Two vessels were sunk
+and two blocks of business houses and residences were destroyed. The
+French set fire to a 40,000-ton coal pile to prevent the Germans
+replenishing their bunkers.
+
+The voyage of the Moana was fraught with adventure. From Papeéte the
+vessel, which flies the British flag, sailed with lights out and dodged
+four German cruisers after being warned by the wireless operator, who
+had picked up a German code message sent out by the cruisers which had
+razed the island city.
+
+
+
+
+*The Bloodless Capture of German Samoa*
+
+*By Malcolm Ross, F.R.G.S.*
+
+[Special Correspondence of THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
+
+
+WELLINGTON, N.Z., Sept. 19.--The advance detachment of the New Zealand
+Expeditionary Force which was ordered to seize German Samoa left
+Wellington in two troopships at dawn on Aug. 15, and was met in the
+ocean in latitude 36.0 south, longitude 178.30 east by three of the
+British cruisers in New Zealand waters--the Psyche, Pyramus, and
+Philomel.
+
+As it was known that the armored cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were
+still at large in Pacific waters, it was decided not to go direct to
+Samoa, but to shape a course direct for New Caledonia. For the next
+fortnight or so we were playing a game of hide and seek in the big
+islanded playground of the Pacific Ocean. The first evening out the
+Psyche signaled "Whereabouts of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau still unknown;
+troopships to extinguish all lights and proceed with only shaded lights
+at bow and stern." Military books and papers were quickly gathered
+together, and the remaining few minutes of daylight were used for
+getting into bed, while the difficult task was set us of trying to sleep
+the round of the clock. Thus, night after night, with lights out, we
+steamed along our northward track, the days being spent in drill and
+ball firing with rifles and the Maxim guns.
+
+On the morning of Aug. 2 we proceeded along the shores of New Caledonia
+and saw the big French cruiser Montcalm entering the harbor. Next day we
+were joined by the battle cruiser Australia and the light cruiser
+Melbourne. The contingent received an enthusiastic reception in New
+Caledonia. As we passed the Montcalm our band played the "Marseillaise,"
+and the band on the French cruiser responded with our national anthem.
+Cheers from the thousands of men afloat and the singing of patriotic
+songs added to the general enthusiasm, the French residents being
+greatly excited with the sudden and unexpected appearance of their
+allies from New Zealand.
+
+A delay of twenty-four hours was caused by one of the troopships
+grounding on a sand bank in the harbor, but on Sunday, Aug. 23, the
+expedition got safely away.
+
+We steamed through the Havannah Pass, at the southeastern end of the
+island, where we awaited Rear Admiral Sir George Patey, in command of
+the allied fleets. In due course the Australia and the Melbourne came up
+with us. Then in turn waited for the Montcalm. All the ships, eight in
+number, were now assembled, and they moved off in the evening light to
+take up position in the line ahead.
+
+Fiji was reached in due course, and at anchor in the harbor of Suva we
+found the Japanese collier Fukoku Maru, and learned that she had been
+coaling the German cruisers at the Caroline Islands just before the
+declaration of war. After the coaling had been completed the Japanese
+Captain went on to Samoa, calling at Apia. The Germans, however, would
+not allow him to land. The Japanese Captain had been paid for his coal
+by drafts on Germany, which, on reaching Suva, he found to be useless.
+He was therefore left without means to coal and reprovision. As he was
+not allowed to land at Samoa, he went on to Pago-Pago, in complete
+ignorance that war had been declared, and, not being able to get
+supplies there, left for Suva. At the latter port the harbor lights
+being extinguished, he ran his vessel on to the reef in the night time.
+Rockets were sent up, but no assistance could be given from the shore.
+Fortunately, however, he got off as the tide made; but it was a narrow
+call.
+
+In the early dawn of Aug. 30 we got our first glimpse of German Samoa.
+The American island of Tutuila was out of sight, away to the right, but
+presently we rounded the southeastern corner of the island of Upolu,
+with its beautiful wooded hills wreathing their summits in the morning
+mists, and saw the white line of surf breaking along its coral
+reef--historic Upolu, the home of Robert Louis Stevenson, the scene of
+wars and rebellions and international schemings, and the scene also of
+that devastating hurricane which wrecked six ships of war and ten other
+vessels, and sent 142 officers and men of the German and American Navies
+to their last sleep. The rusting ribs and plates of the Adler, the
+German flagship, pitched high inside the reef, still stare at us as a
+reminder of that memorable event.
+
+The Psyche went boldly on ahead, and after the harbor had been swept for
+mines she steamed in, under a flag of truce, and delivered a message
+from Admiral Patey, demanding the surrender of Apia. The Germans, who
+had been expecting their own fleet in, were surprised with the
+suddenness with which an overwhelming force had descended upon them, and
+decided to offer no resistance to a landing. Capt. Marshall promptly
+made a signal to the troopships to steam to their anchorages; motor
+launches, motor surfboats, and ships' boats were launched, and the men
+began to pour over the ships' sides and down the rope ladders into the
+boats.
+
+In a remarkably brief space of time the covering party was on shore,
+officers and men dashing out of the boats, up to the knees, and
+sometimes the waist, in water. The main street, the cross-roads, and the
+bridges were quickly in possession of our men, with their Maxims and
+rifles, and then, one after another, the motor boats and launches began
+to tow strings of boats, crammed with the men of the main body, toward
+the shore. The bluejackets of the beach party, who had already landed,
+urged them forward by word and deed in cheery fashion, and soon Apia was
+swarming with our troops.
+
+Guards were placed all about the Government buildings, and Col. Logan,
+with his staff, was quickly installed in the Government offices.
+
+Lieut. Col. Fulton dashed off to the telephone exchange and pulled out
+all the plugs, so that the residents could hold no intercommunication by
+that means. The Custom House and the offices of the Governor were also
+seized without a moment's loss of time. An armed party was dispatched
+along a bush road to seize the wireless station. Late that evening the
+man in charge rang up in some alarm to state that there was dynamite
+lying about and that the engine had been tampered with to such an extent
+that the apparatus could not be used until we got our own machinery in
+position.
+
+Meantime the German flag, that had flown over the island for fourteen
+years, was hauled down, the Germans present doffing their hats and
+standing bareheaded and silent on the veranda of the Supreme Court as
+they watched the soldier in khaki from New Zealand unceremoniously
+pulling it down, detaching it from the rope, and carrying it inside the
+building.
+
+Next morning the British flag was hoisted with all due ceremony. In the
+harbor the emblem of Britain's might fluttered from the masts of our
+cruiser escort, the Stars and Stripes waved in the tropic breeze above
+the palms surrounding the American Consulate, and out in the open sea
+the white ensign and tricolor flew on the powerful warships of the
+allied fleets of England and France.
+
+A large crowd of British and other residents and Samoans had gathered.
+In the background were groups of Chinese coolies, gazing wonderingly
+upon the scene. The balconies of the adjoining buildings were crowded
+with British and Samoans. Only the Germans were conspicuous by their
+absence. With undisguised feelings of sadness they had seen their own
+flag hauled down the day before. Naturally they had no desire to witness
+the flag of the rival nation going up in its place.
+
+A few minutes before 8 o'clock all was ready. Two bluejackets and a
+naval Lieutenant stood with the flag, awaiting the signal. The first gun
+of the royal salute from the Psyche boomed out across the bay. Then
+slowly, to the booming of twenty-one guns, the flag was hoisted to the
+summit of the staff, the officers, with drawn swords, silently watching
+it go up. With the sound of the last gun it reached the top of the
+flagstaff [Transcriber: original 'fliagstaff'] and fluttered out in the
+southeast trade wind above the tall palms of Upolo.
+
+There was a sharp order from the officer commanding the expedition, and
+the troops came to the royal salute. The national anthem--never more
+fervently sung--and three rousing cheers for King George followed.
+
+Then came the reading of the proclamation by Col. Logan, the troops
+formed up again, and, to the music of the, band of the Fifth Regiment,
+marched back to quarters.
+
+
+
+
+*How the Cressy Sank*
+
+*By Edgar Rowan of The London Daily Chronicle.*
+
+
+MUIDEN, Holland, Sept. 23.--(Dispatch to The London Daily
+Chronicle.)--When the history of this war comes to be written we shall
+put no black borders, as men without pride or hope, around the story of
+the loss of the cruisers Aboukir, Cressy, and Hogue. We shall write it
+in letters of gold, for the plain, unvarnished tale of those last
+moments, when the cruisers went down, helpless before a hidden foe,
+ranks among the countless deeds of quiet, unseen, unconscious heroism
+that make up the navy's splendid pages.
+
+It is easy to learn all that happened, for the officers want chiefly to
+tell how splendidly brave the men were, and the men pay a like tribute
+to the officers. The following appears to be a main outline of the
+disaster:
+
+The three cruisers had for some time been patrolling the North Sea. Soon
+after 6 o'clock Tuesday morning--there is disagreement as to the exact
+time--the Aboukir suddenly felt a shock on the port side. A dull
+explosion was heard and a column of water was thrown up mast high. The
+explosion wrecked the stokehole just forward of amidship and, judging by
+the speed with which the cruiser sank, tore the bottom open.
+
+Almost immediately the doomed cruiser began to settle. Except for the
+watch on deck, most of her crew, were asleep, wearied by constant vigil
+in bad weather, but in perfect order officers and men rushed to
+quarters. Quickfirers were manned in the hope of a dying shot at a
+submarine, but there was not a glimpse of one. Of the few boats carried
+when cleared for action, two were smashed in recent gales and another
+was wrecked by the explosion.
+
+The Aboukir's sister cruisers, each more than a mile away, saw and heard
+the explosion. They thought the Aboukir had been struck by a mine. They
+closed in and lowered boats. This sealed their own fate, for while they
+were standing by to rescue survivors, first the Hogue and then the
+Cressy was torpedoed.
+
+The Cressy appears to have seen the submarines in time to attempt to
+retaliate. She fired a few shots before she keeled over, broken in two,
+and sank. Whether she sank any submarines is not known.
+
+The men of the Aboukir afloat in the water hoped for everything from the
+arrival of her sister cruisers, and all survivors agree that when these
+also sank many gave up the struggle for life and went down. An officer
+told me that when swimming, after having lost his jacket in the grip of
+a drowning man, his chief thought was that the Germans had succeeded in
+sinking only three comparatively obsolete cruisers which shortly would
+have been scrapped anyway.
+
+Twenty-four men were saved on a target which floated off the Hogue's
+deck. The men were gathered on it for four hours waist deep in water.
+
+The rescued officers unite in praising the skill and daring of the
+German naval officers, and, far from bearing any grudge, they have
+nothing but professional praise for the submarines' feat.
+
+"Our only grievance," one said, "is that we did not have a shot at the
+Germans. Our only share in the war has been a few uncomfortable weeks of
+bad weather, mines, and submarines."
+
+When I entered the billiard room of the hotel here sheltering survivors
+and asked if any British officers were there, several unshaven men in
+the khaki working kit of the Dutch Army or in fishermen's jerseys got up
+from their chairs. Most of them had been saved in their pajamas, and
+they had to accept the first things in the way of clothing offered by
+the kindly Dutch. One Lieutenant apologized for closing the window, as
+he had only a thin jacket over his pajamas. He gladly accepted the loan
+of my overcoat while making a list of his men who had been saved.
+
+While the survivors are technically prisoners in this neutral country,
+to be interned until the end of the war, Muiden steadfastly refuses to
+regard them as other than honored guests. The soldiers posted before
+every building where officers or men are sheltered seem to be guards of
+honor rather than prison warders, and every one in the place is
+competing for the honor of lending clothes, running errands, or offering
+cigars for the survivors.
+
+When the Dutch steamer Flora arrived with survivors last night, flying
+her flag at half-mast and signaling for a doctor, the Red Cross
+authorities and the British Vice Consul, Mr. Rigorsberg, at once set the
+machinery in motion, and soon the officers were settled in hotels and
+the men were divided among a hospital, a church, and a young men's
+institute.
+
+I saw one bluejacket asleep covered with a white ensign. He had snatched
+it up before diving overboard. He held it in his teeth while in the
+water and refused to part with it when rescued. He is now prepared to
+fight any one who may attempt to steal this last relic of his ship.
+
+One survivor says that an English fishing boat also was sunk by the
+submarines, but the story is not confirmed.
+
+For hours Capt. Voorham of the Flora and Capt. Berkhout of the Titan,
+caring nothing for risks of mines and submarines, cruised over the scene
+of the disaster, and the gallant Dutch seamen were rewarded by the
+rescue of 400 survivors.
+
+Capt. Voorham, who landed all the survivors at Muiden, says:
+
+"We left Rotterdam early Tuesday. In the North Sea we saw a warship,
+which proved to be the Cressy. Not long afterward I saw her keel over,
+break in two and disappear. Our only thought then was to save as many
+survivors as possible. When we got to the spot where she disappeared
+boats approached us and we began to get the men in them aboard. It was a
+very difficult undertaking, as the survivors were exhausted and we were
+rolling heavily.
+
+"We also lowered our own boats and picked up many from the wreckage. All
+were practically naked and some were so exhausted that they had to be
+hauled aboard with tackle. Each as he recovered at once turned to help
+my small crew to save others. Later I saw the Titan approaching and
+signaled for help.
+
+"One man was brought aboard with his legs broken. It was touching to see
+how tenderly his mates handled him.
+
+"Presently the British destroyers approached. A survivor on my ship
+signaled with his arms that he was on a friendly ship, and the warships
+passed on.
+
+"Among those saved were two doctors, who worked hard to help the
+exhausted men. One man died after they had tried artificial respiration
+for an hour.
+
+"My men collected all the clothes and blankets on board and gave them to
+the survivors, and the cook was busy getting hot coffee and other food
+for my large party of guests.
+
+"By 11:30 we had picked up all the survivors we could see. Soon after we
+saw German submarines, and, thinking it best to get to the nearest port,
+called here."
+
+Remember that Capt. Voorham had only a comparatively small ship and a
+crew of only seventeen and realize the splendid work he did.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+*German Story of the Heligoland Fight*
+
+[Special Correspondence of THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
+
+
+LONDON, Sept. 8.--Copies of the Berliner Tageblatt have been received
+here containing the German account of the recent naval battle off
+Heligoland between British and German vessels.
+
+"Regarding the sinking of torpedo boat V-187," says the Tageblatt
+account, "an eyewitness says the small craft fought heroically to the
+bitter end against overwhelming odds. Quite unexpectedly the V-187 was
+attacked by a flotilla of English destroyers coming from the north.
+Hardly had the first shot been fired when more hostile destroyers, also
+submarines, arrived and surrounded the German craft.
+
+"The V-187, on which, in addition to the commander, was the flotilla
+chief, Capt. Wallis, defended itself to the utmost, but the steering
+gear was put out of business by several shots, and thus it was
+impossible to withdraw from the enemy. When the commander saw there was
+no further hope, the vessel was blown up so as not to fall into the
+enemy's hands. But even while she sank the guns not put out of action
+continued to be worked by the crew till the ship was swallowed up in the
+waves. The flotilla commander, as well as Commander Lechler, was lost,
+besides many of the crew.
+
+"The enemy deserves the greatest credit for their splendid rescue work.
+The English sailors, unmindful of their own safety, went about it in
+heroic fashion.
+
+"Boats were put out from the destroyers to save the survivors. While
+this rescue work was still under way stronger German forces approached,
+causing the English torpedo boats to withdraw, abandoning the small
+rescue boats which they had put out, and those who had been saved were
+now taken from the English boats aboard our ships.
+
+"When the thunder of the guns showed the enemy was near and engaged with
+our torpedo boats, the small armored cruiser Ariadne steamed out to take
+part in the scrap. As the Ariadne neared the outpost vessels it was
+observed that various of our lighter units were fighting with the
+English, which later, however, appeared to be escaping toward the west.
+
+"The long-suppressed keenness for fighting could not be gainsaid and the
+Ariadne pursued, although the fog made it impossible to estimate the
+strength of the enemy. Presently, not far from the Ariadne, two hostile
+cruisers loomed out of the mist--two dreadnought battle cruisers of
+30,000 tons' displacement, armed with eight 13.5-inch guns. What could
+the Ariadne, of 2,650 tons and armed with ten 4-inch guns, do against
+those two Goliath ships?
+
+"At the start of this unequal contest a shot struck the forward boiler
+room of the Ariadne and put half of her boilers out of business,
+lowering her speed by fifteen miles. Nevertheless, and despite the
+overwhelming superiority of the English, the fight lasted half an hour.
+The stern of the Ariadne was in flames, but the guns on her foredeck
+continued to be worked.
+
+"But the fight was over. The enemy disappeared to the westward. The crew
+of the Ariadne, now gathered on the foredeck, true to the navy's
+traditions, broke into three hurrahs for the War Lord, Kaiser Wilhelm.
+Then, to the singing of 'Deutschland Ueber Alles,' the sinking, burning
+ship was abandoned in good order. Two of our ships near by picked up the
+Ariadne's crew. Presently the Ariadne disappeared under the waves after
+the stern powder magazine had exploded.
+
+"The first officer, surgeon, chief engineer, and seventy men were lost.
+In addition, many were wounded."
+
+
+
+
+*The Sinking of the Cressy and the Hogue*
+
+*By the Senior Surviving Officers--Commander Bertram W.L. Nicholson and
+Commander Reginald A. Norton.*
+
+[By the Associated Press.]
+
+
+LONDON, Sept. 25.--The report to the Admiralty on the sinking of the
+Cressy, signed by Bertram W.L. Nicholson, Commander of the late H.M.S.
+Cressy, follows:
+
+"Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report in connection with
+the sinking of H.M.S. Cressy, in company with H.M.S. Aboukir and Hogue,
+on the morning of the 22d of September, while on patrol duty:
+
+"The Aboukir was struck at about 6:25 A.M. on the starboard beam. The
+Hogue and Cressy closed and took up a position, the Hogue ahead of the
+Aboukir, and the Cressy about 400 yards on her port beam. As soon as it
+was seen that the Aboukir was in danger of sinking all the boats were
+sent away from the Cressy, and a picket boat was hoisted out without
+steam up. When cutters full of the Aboukir's men were returning to the
+Cressy the Hogue was struck, apparently under the aft 9.2 magazine, as a
+very heavy explosion took place immediately. Almost directly after the
+Hogue was hit we observed a periscope on our port bow about 300 yards
+off.
+
+"Fire was immediately opened and the engines were put full speed ahead
+with the intention of running her down. Our gunner, Mr. Dougherty,
+positively asserts that he hit the periscope and that the submarine
+sank. An officer who was standing alongside the gunner thinks that the
+shell struck only floating timber, of which there was much about, but it
+was evidently the impression of the men on deck, who cheered and clapped
+heartily, that the submarine had been hit. This submarine did not fire a
+torpedo at the Cressy.
+
+"Capt. Johnson then manoeuvred the ship so as to render assistance to
+the crews of the Hogue and Aboukir. About five minutes later another
+periscope was seen on our starboard quarter and fire was opened. The
+track of the torpedo she fired at a range of 500 to 600 yards was
+plainly visible and it struck us on the starboard side just before the
+afterbridge.
+
+"The ship listed about 10 degrees to the starboard and remained steady.
+The time was 7:15 A.M. All the watertight doors, deadlights and scuttles
+had been securely closed before the torpedo struck the ship. All the
+mess stools and table shores, and all available timber below and on
+deck, had been previously got up and thrown over side for the saving of
+life.
+
+"A second torpedo fired by the same submarine missed and passed about 10
+feet astern. About a quarter of an hour after the first torpedo had hit
+a third torpedo fired from a submarine just before the starboard beam
+hit us under the No. 5 boiler room. The time was 7:30 A.M. The ship then
+began to heel rapidly, and finally turned keel up, remaining so for
+about twenty minutes before she finally sank, at 7:55 A.M.
+
+"A large number of men were saved by casting adrift on Pattern 3 target.
+The steam pinnace floated off her clutches, but filled and sank.
+
+"The second torpedo which struck the Cressy passed over the sinking hull
+of the Aboukir, narrowly missing it. It is possible that the same
+submarine fired all three torpedoes at the Cressy.
+
+"The conduct of the crew was excellent throughout. I have already
+remarked on the bravery displayed by Capt. Phillips, master of the
+trawler L.T. Coriander, and his crew, who picked up 156 officers and
+men."
+
+The report to the Admiralty of Commander Reginald A. Norton, late of
+H.M.S. Hogue, follows:
+
+"I have the honor to report as follows concerning the sinking of the
+Hogue, Aboukir, and Cressy: Between 6:15 and 6:30 A.M., H.M.S. Aboukir
+was struck by a torpedo. The Hogue closed on the Aboukir and I received
+orders to hoist out the launch, turn out and prepare all boats, and
+unlash all timber on the upper deck.
+
+"Two lifeboats were sent to the Aboukir, but before the launch could get
+away the Hogue was struck on the starboard side amidships by two
+torpedoes at intervals of ten to twenty seconds. The ship at once began
+to heel to starboard. After ordering the men to provide themselves with
+wood, hammocks, &c., and to get into the boats on the booms and take off
+their clothes, I went, by Capt. Nicholson's direction, to ascertain the
+damage done in the engine room. The artificer engineer informed me that
+the water was over the engine-room gratings.
+
+"While endeavoring to return to the bridge the water burst open the
+starboard entry port doors and the ship heeled rapidly. I told the men
+in the port battery to jump overboard, as the launch was close
+alongside, and soon afterward the ship lurched heavily to starboard.
+
+"I clung to a ringbolt for some time, but eventually was dropped on to
+the deck, and a huge wave washed me away. I climbed up the ship's side
+and again was washed off. Eventually, after swimming about from various
+overladen pieces of wreckage, I was picked up by a cutter from the
+Hogue, Coxswain L.S. Marks, which pulled about for some hours, picking
+up men and discharging them to our picket boat and steam pinnace and to
+the Dutch steamers Flora and Titan, and rescued, in this way, Commander
+Sells of the Aboukir, Engineer Commander Stokes, (with legs broken,)
+Fleet Paymaster Eldred, and about 120 others.
+
+"Finally, about 11 A.M., when we could find no more men in the water, we
+were picked up by the Lucifier, which proceeded to the Titan and took
+off from her all our men except about twenty who were too ill to be
+moved.
+
+"A Lowestoft trawler and the two Dutch ships Flora and Titan were
+extraordinarily kind, clothing and feeding our men. My boat's crew,
+consisting mainly of Royal Navy Reserve men, pulled and behaved
+remarkably well. I particularly wish to mention Petty Officer Halton,
+who, by encouraging the men in the water near me, undoubtedly saved many
+lives.
+
+"Lieut. Commander Phillips-Wolley, after hoisting out the launch, asked
+me if we should try to hoist out another boat, and endeavored to do so.
+The last I saw of him was on the after bridge, doing well.
+
+"Lieut. Commander Tillard was picked up by a launch. He got up a
+cutter's crew and saved many lives, as did Midshipman Cazalet in the
+Cressy's gig. Lieut. Chichester turned out the whaler very quickly.
+
+"A Dutch sailing trawler sailed close by, but went off without rendering
+any assistance [Transcriber: original 'asistance'], although we signaled
+to her from the Hogue to close after we were struck.
+
+"The Aboukir appeared to me to take about thirty-five minutes to sink,
+floating bottom up for about five minutes. The Hogue turned turtle very
+quickly--in about five minutes--and floated bottom up for several
+minutes. A dense black smoke was seen in the starboard battery, whether
+from coal or torpedo cordite I could not say. The upper deck was not
+blown up, and only one other small explosion occurred and we heeled
+over.
+
+"The Cressy I watched heel over from the cutter. She heeled over to
+starboard very slowly, dense black smoke issuing from her when she
+attained an angle of about 90 degrees, and she took a long time from
+this angle till she floated bottom up with the starboard screw slightly
+out of water. I consider it was thirty-five to forty-five minutes from
+the time she was struck till she was bottom up.
+
+"All the men on the Hogue behaved extraordinarily [Transcriber: original
+'extraordinarly'] well, obeying orders even when in the water swimming
+for their lives, and I witnessed many cases of great self-sacrifice and
+gallantry. Farmstone, an able seaman of the Hogue, jumped overboard from
+the launch to make room for others, and would not avail himself of
+assistance until all the men near by were picked up. He was in the water
+about half an hour.
+
+"There was no panic of any sort, the men taking off their clothes as
+ordered and falling in with hammock or wood. Capt. Nicholson, in our
+other cutter, as usual, was perfectly cool and rescued large numbers of
+men. I last saw him alongside the Flora. Engineer Commander Stokes, I
+believe, was in the engine room to the last, and Engineer Lieut.
+Commander Fendick got steam on the boat hoist and worked it in five
+minutes.
+
+"I have the honor to submit that I may be appointed to another ship as
+soon as I can get a kit."
+
+
+
+
+*The Sinking of the Hawke*
+
+[By a Correspondent of The London Daily Chronicle.]
+
+
+ABERDEEN, Scotland, Oct. 16.--The British cruiser Hawke was sunk in the
+North Sea yesterday by a German submarine, and of her crew of 400
+officers and men only 73 are known to have been saved.
+
+The cruiser Theseus, a sister ship of the Hawke, was attacked by the
+same submarine, but escaped because she obeyed the Admiralty's
+instructions and looked to her own safety instead of rushing to the aid
+of the Hawke's perishing crew.
+
+A survivor of the Hawke gives the following description of the disaster:
+"Within eight minutes the Hawke had gone under. Had the ship gone down
+forward or aft there would have been some chance for us to get the boats
+out and clear of the cruiser, but she keeled over on her beam ends, and
+so of all boats we lowered those on the starboard side were useless, and
+those on the port side were crushed as soon as they touched the water.
+
+"I was proud to be among such comrades. Everything was absolutely in
+perfect order. When the ship was struck a fearful explosion followed,
+and grime and dust were everywhere. I was amidships at the time, and
+could hardly see to grope my way to the ship's side. I heard orders
+given to lower the boats, and then some one shouted, 'Look after
+yourselves!' So I did that.
+
+"Most of the men on board were married men. We saw hundreds in the
+water, but we were afraid to pick them up as our boat was already
+overcrowded. So we threw our lifebelts to them. It was all we could do.
+
+"The weather was bitter cold, and I do not think that many, apart from
+those who were landed at Aberdeen, were saved."
+
+Here is the statement of a rescued stoker: "When the explosion occurred
+I, along with others who were in the engine room, was sent flying into
+space and was stunned for a time. When I came to my senses I found
+myself in the midst of what must be described as an absolute inferno.
+One of the cylinders of the engine had been completely wrecked, and
+steam was passing out in dense, scalding clouds. The horror of the
+situation was increased when a tank of oil fuel caught fire, and the
+flames advanced with frightful rapidity.
+
+"Seeing that there was not a ghost of a chance of doing any good by
+remaining in what was obviously a deathtrap, I determined to make a dash
+for it, and I scrambled up an iron ladder to the main deck. All this had
+happened in less time than it takes to tell it, but such is British
+pluck, coolness, and nerve even in such a situation that the commander
+and other officers were on the bridge, and as calmly as if we were on
+fleet manoeuvres the orders were given and as calmly obeyed.
+
+"The buglers sounded a stiff call which summoned every man to remain at
+his post. During the first minute or two many of us believed all that
+was wrong was a boiler explosion, but the rapidity with which the
+cruiser was making water on the starboard side quickly disabused all our
+minds of this belief. Realizing the actual situation, the commander gave
+orders to close all the watertight doors. Soon after that came orders to
+abandon the ship and get out the boats.
+
+"One cutter was being launched from the port side, but the Hawke at that
+moment heeled over before the boat could be got clear, and the cutter
+lurched against the cruiser's side and stove in one or two of her
+planks. As the Hawke went down a small pinnace and a raft which had been
+prepared for such an emergency floated free, but such was the onrush of
+men who had been thrown into the water that both were overcrowded. On
+the raft were about seventy men knee deep in water, and the pinnace also
+appeared to be overfilled.
+
+"When those who managed to make their way into the cutter, which was
+also in grave danger of being overturned, caught the last glimpse of
+these two craft they were in a precarious condition. The cutter moved
+around the wreck, picking up as many survivors as the boat would hold.
+All those aboard her who had put on lifebelts took them off and threw
+them to their comrades who were struggling in the water. Oars and other
+movable woodwork also were pitched overboard to help those clinging to
+the wreckage, many of whom were seen to sink."
+
+
+
+
+*The Emden's Last Fight*
+
+[By the Cable Operator at Cocos Islands.]
+
+
+KEELING, Cocos Islands, Nov. 12, (Dispatch to The London Daily
+Chronicle.)--It was early on Monday that the unexpected arrival of the
+German cruiser Emden broke the calm of these isolated little islands,
+which the distant news of the war had hitherto left unruffled. One of
+the islands is known as Direction Island, and here the Eastern Telegraph
+Company has a cable station and a staff engaged in relaying messages
+between Europe and Australia. Otherwise the inhabitants are all Malays,
+with the exception of the descendants of June Clunies Ross, a British
+naval officer who came to these islands ninety years ago and founded the
+line of "Uncrowned Kings."
+
+The war seemed to be very far away. The official bulletins passed
+through the cable station, but they gave us very little real news, and
+the only excitement was when it was rumored that the company was sending
+out rifles in case of a raid on the stations, and orders came that the
+beach must be patrolled by parties on the lookout for Germans. Then we
+heard from Singapore that a German cruiser had been dispatched to these
+islands, and toward the end of August one of the cable staff thought he
+saw searchlights out over the sea. Then suddenly we were awakened from
+our calm and were made to feel that we had suddenly become the most
+important place in the whole worldwide war area.
+
+At 6 o'clock on Monday morning a four-funneled cruiser arrived at full
+speed at the entrance to the lagoon. Our suspicions were aroused, for
+she was flying no flag and her fourth funnel was obviously a dummy made
+of painted canvas. Therefore we were not altogether surprised at the
+turn of events. The cruiser at once lowered away an armored launch and
+two boats, which came ashore and landed on Coral Beach three officers
+and forty men, all fully armed and having four Maxim guns.
+
+The Germans--for all doubt about the mysterious cruiser was now at
+end--at once rushed up to the cable station, and, entering the office,
+turned out the operators, smashed the instruments, and set armed guards
+over all the buildings. All the knives and firearms found in possession
+of the cable staff were at once confiscated.
+
+I should say here that, in spite of the excitement on the outside, all
+the work was carried on in the cable office as usual right up to the
+moment when the Germans burst in. A general call was sent out just
+before the wireless apparatus was blown up.
+
+The whole of the staff was placed under an armed guard while the
+instruments were being destroyed, but it is only fair to say that the
+Germans, working in well-disciplined fashion under their officers, were
+most civil. There was no such brutality as we hear characterizes the
+German Army's behavior toward civilians, and there were no attempts at
+pillaging.
+
+While the cable station was being put out of action the crew of the
+launch grappled for the cables and endeavored to cut them, but
+fortunately without success. The electrical stores were then blown up.
+
+At 9 A.M. we heard the sound of a siren from the Emden, and this was
+evidently the signal to the landing party to return to the ship, for
+they at once dashed for the boats, but the Emden got under way at once
+and the boats were left behind.
+
+Looking to the eastward, we could see the reason for this sudden
+departure, for a warship, which we afterward learned was the Australian
+cruiser Sydney, was coming up at full speed in pursuit. The Emden did
+not wait to discuss matters, but, firing her first shot at a range of
+about 3,700 yards, steamed north as hard as she could go.
+
+At first the firing of the Emden seemed excellent, while that of the
+Sydney was somewhat erratic. This, as I afterward learned, was due to
+the fact that the Australian cruiser's range-finder was put out of
+action by one of the only two shots the Germans got home. However, the
+British gunners soon overcame any difficulties that this may have caused
+and settled down to their work, so that before long two of the Emden's
+funnels had been shot away. She also lost one of her masts quite early
+in the fight. Both blazing away with their big guns, the two cruisers
+disappeared below the horizon, the Emden being on fire.
+
+After the great naval duel passed from our sight and we could turn our
+attention to the portion of the German crew that had been left behind,
+we found that these men had put off in their boats obedient to the
+signal of the siren, but when their ship steamed off without them they
+could do nothing else but come ashore again. On relanding they lined up
+on the shore of the lagoon, evidently determined to fight to the finish
+if the British cruiser sent a party ashore, but the dueling cruiser had
+disappeared, and at 6 P.M. the German raiders embarked on the old
+schooner Ayessa, which belongs to Mr. Ross, the "uncrowned king" of the
+islands. Seizing a quantity of clothes and stores, they sailed out, and
+have not been seen since.
+
+Early the next morning, Tuesday, Nov. 10, we saw the Sydney returning,
+and at 8:45 A.M. she anchored off the island. From various members of
+the crew I gathered some details of the running fight with the Emden.
+The Sydney, having an advantage in speed, was able to keep out of range
+of the Emden's guns and to bombard her with her own heavier metal. The
+engagement lasted eighty minutes, the Emden finally running ashore on
+North Keeling Island and becoming an utter wreck.
+
+Only two German shots proved effective. One of these failed to explode,
+but smashed the main range finder and killed one man. The other killed
+three men and wounded fourteen.
+
+Each of the cruisers attempted to torpedo the other, but both were
+unsuccessful, and the duel proved a contest in hard pounding at long
+range. The Sydney's speed during the fighting was twenty-six knots and
+the Emden's twenty-four knots, the British ship's superiority of two
+knots enabling her to choose the range at which the battle should be
+fought, and to make the most of her superior guns.
+
+The Sydney left here at 11 A.M. Tuesday in the hope of picking up any of
+the survivors of the Buresk, the collier that had been in attendance on
+the Emden and was sunk after an engagement on the previous day. Finally,
+with a number of wounded prisoners on board, the Sydney left here
+yesterday, and our few hours of war excitement were over.
+
+
+
+
+*Crowds See the Niger Sink*
+
+[By a Correspondent of The London Daily Chronicle.]
+
+
+DEAL, England, Nov. 11.--By the destruction of the British torpedo
+gunboat Niger, which was torpedoed and sunk by a submarine in the Downs
+this afternoon, the realities of war were brought home to the
+inhabitants of Deal and Walmer.
+
+A loud explosion was heard from the gunboat as she lay off the Deal
+pier, and great volumes of smoke enveloped the vessel. When the smoke
+cleared the Niger was observed to be settling down forward. Men, women,
+and children rushed to the sea front, exclaiming that the vessel had
+been torpedoed or mined. They soon realized that the Niger was doomed.
+The Deal and Kingsdown lifeboats as well as boats from other parts of
+the beach were launched in an effort to save the sailors.
+
+Consternation and almost panic prevailed among the hundreds who stood
+watching the ghastly sight from the beach. Fortunately, the North Deal
+galley Hope, commanded by Capt. John Budd, lay at anchor near the spot,
+waiting to land the pilot from a London steamer which was going down the
+channel. When the boatmen realized that the Niger had been hit by a
+submarine or mine, to use their own expression, they rowed like the very
+devil.
+
+"We saw the sailors," said Capt. Budd, "jumping from the vessel's side
+in dozens. As we neared the fast-disappearing vessel we came upon swarms
+of men struggling in the sea and heroically helping to support each
+other. Some were fully dressed, others only partly so. They were
+clinging to pieces of wreckage and deck furniture, and some were in
+lifeboats.
+
+"It was a heartrending spectacle. The men were so thick in the water
+that they grasped at our oars as we dipped them in the sea. We rescued
+so many and our own boat got so choked that we could not move. With our
+own gunwale only just out of the water, we were in danger of sinking
+ourselves.
+
+"We called to the men that we could take no more in or we should sink
+ourselves, but they continued to pour over the sides, and some hung to
+the stern of our boat. We had about fifty on board. Never had there been
+so many in the boat before. One burly sailor, whom we told to wait until
+the next boat came along, laughingly remarked [Transcriber: original
+'remared'] while he was in the water, 'All right, Cocky, I will hold on
+by my eyebrows,' and he drifted to another galley. Another Deal boat
+then came along and relieved us of some of our men.
+
+"Suddenly we heard a shout, and, looking around, saw the commander of
+the Niger waving and beckoning to us from the stern of the sinking ship.
+We could not go to him because our craft was so heavily laden. Another
+galley then came along, and, after taking out some of our men, together
+with those who were hanging on to our sides, we went closer to the
+sinking gunboat and took off some more men, and at the Captain's special
+request we waited until he took a final look around to see if there were
+any more men left on board the vessel.
+
+"By this time the ship was very nearly under water, and we shouted to
+him to hurry up, as the Niger had turned over on her side and was likely
+to go down at any moment. That brave Captain only just managed to jump
+in time, when the gunboat gave a lurch and sank on her side in eight
+fathoms of water. We were proud to rescue that Captain, for he was a
+true sailor."
+
+The other boats which picked up men were the Maple Leaf, the motor boat
+Naru, the Annie, the May, and the Deal lifeboat.
+
+The rescuing party saw one dead sailor floating by.
+
+The majority of those rescued received first aid on being landed at
+North Deal, and then they were taken in ambulances to the Marine
+Hospital at Walmer.
+
+One survivor, replying to a question as to whether the Niger was
+torpedoed or mined, replied:
+
+"Torpedoed, Sir. With the exception of the watch and the gun crews all
+were below at the time. The first order we received was to close the
+watertight doors."
+
+So far as I can ascertain at present only one man is missing. Four or
+five have been landed at Ramsgate. The crew is said to have numbered
+ninety-six officers and men.
+
+The sinking of the Niger came with tragic swiftness. It was
+comparatively a fine, peaceful day, and the people were resting on the
+promenade enjoying sea and fresh air. Anglers--men and women--were
+calmly fishing from the pier. One angler whom I interviewed this evening
+said:
+
+"I had just baited my line and cast it out when I heard two loud
+reports, like an explosion. I looked seaward and saw the Niger, only a
+mile away, enveloped in smoke or steam. When it had cleared away. I said
+to my fellow-anglers, 'Oh, he is letting off steam! When I looked at her
+again I was startled to notice that she was lower in the water.
+Fortunately I had slung across my shoulder a pair of glasses, and, on
+looking at the vessel through them, I noticed that they were attempting
+to lower the boats, while the remainder of the crew stood at attention
+on the deck. We could see that the vessel was sinking, and the lifeboats
+and other boats were hastening to the rescue.
+
+"The vessel then gradually disappeared, bow first, and after about
+fifteen minutes not a sign of her remained."
+
+
+
+
+*Lieut. Weddigen's Own Story*
+
+*By Herbert B. Swope.*
+
+[Copyright, 1914, by The Press Publishing Company (The New York World).]
+
+
+BERLIN, Sept. 30.--Through the kindness of the German Admiralty I am
+able to tell exclusively the story of Capt. Lieut. Otto Weddigen,
+commander of the now world famous submarine U-9, whose feat in
+destroying three English cruisers has lifted the German Navy to a lofty
+place in sea history.
+
+There is an inviolable rule in the German Army and Navy prohibiting
+officers from talking of their exploits, but because of the special
+nature of Weddigen's exploit an exception was made, and through the good
+offices of Count von Oppersdorf The World was granted the right of first
+telling Weddigen's remarkable story.
+
+It must be borne in mind that Lieut. Weddigen's account has been
+officially announced and verified by German Navy Headquarters. That will
+explain why certain details must be omitted, since they are of
+importance if further submarine excursions are undertaken against the
+British fleet. Following is Weddigen's tale, supplemented by the
+Admiralty Intelligence Department:
+
+By CAPT. LIEUT. OTTO WEDDIGEN.
+Commander of the German Submarine U-9.
+
+I am 32 years old and have been in the navy for years. For the last five
+years I have been attached to the submarine flotilla, and have been most
+interested in that branch of the navy. At the outbreak of the war our
+undersea boats were rendezvoused at certain harbors in the North Sea,
+the names of which I am restrained from divulging.
+
+Each of us felt and hoped that the Fatherland might be benefited by such
+individual efforts of ours as were possible at a time when our bigger
+sisters of the fleet were prohibited from activity. So we awaited
+commands from the Admiralty, ready for any undertaking that promised to
+do for the imperial navy what our brothers of the army were so
+gloriously accomplishing.
+
+It has already been told how I was married at the home of my brother in
+Wilhelmshaven to my boyhood sweetheart, Miss Prete of Hamburg, on Aug.
+16.
+
+Before that I had been steadily on duty with my boat, and I had to leave
+again the next day after my marriage. But both my bride and I wanted the
+ceremony to take place at the appointed time, and it did, although
+within twenty-four hours thereafter I had to go away on a venture that
+gave a good chance of making my new wife a widow. But she was as firm as
+I was that my first duty was to answer the call of our country, and she
+waved me away from the dock with good-luck wishes.
+
+I set out from a North Sea port on one of the arms of the Kiel Canal and
+set my course in a southwesterly direction. The name of the port I
+cannot state officially, but it has been guessed at; nor am I permitted
+to say definitely just when we started, but it was not many days before
+the morning of Sept. 22 when I fell in with my quarry.
+
+When I started from home the fact was kept quiet and a heavy sea helped
+to keep the secret, but when the action began the sun was bright and the
+water smooth--not the most favorable conditions for submarine work.
+
+I had sighted several ships during my passage, but they were not what I
+was seeking. English torpedo boats came within my reach, but I felt
+there was bigger game further on, so on I went. I traveled on the
+surface except when we sighted vessels, and then I submerged, not even
+showing my periscope, except when it was necessary to take bearings. It
+was ten minutes after 6 on the morning of last Tuesday when I caught
+sight of one of the big cruisers of the enemy.
+
+I was then eighteen sea miles northwest of the Hook of Holland. I had
+then traveled considerably more than 200 miles from my base. My boat was
+one of an old type, but she had been built on honor, and she was
+behaving beautifully. I had been going ahead partly submerged, with
+about five feet of my periscope showing. Almost immediately I caught
+sight of the first cruiser and two others. I submerged completely and
+laid my course so as to bring up in the centre of the trio, which held a
+sort of triangular formation. I could see their gray-black sides riding
+high over the water.
+
+When I first sighted them they were near enough for torpedo work, but I
+wanted to make my aim sure, so I went down and in on them. I had taken
+the position of the three ships before submerging, and I succeeded in
+getting another flash through my periscope before I began action. I soon
+reached what I regarded as a good shooting point.
+
+[The officer is not permitted to give this distance, but it is
+understood to have been considerably less than a mile, although the
+German torpedoes have an effective range of four miles.]
+
+[Illustration: CAPT. KARL VON MULLER
+Of the German Cruiser Emden
+(_Photo (C) by American Press Assn._)]
+
+[Illustration: GEN. JOSEPH JOFFRE
+The French Commander-in-Chief.
+(_Photo from International News Service._)]
+
+Then I loosed one of my torpedoes at the middle ship. I was then about
+twelve feet under water, and got the shot off in good shape, my men
+handling the boat as if she had been a skiff. I climbed to the surface
+to get a sight through my tube of the effect, and discovered that the
+shot had gone straight and true, striking the ship, which I later
+learned was the Aboukir, under one of her magazines, which in exploding
+helped the torpedo's work of destruction.
+
+There was a fountain of water, a burst of smoke, a flash of fire, and
+part of the cruiser rose in the air. Then I heard a roar and felt
+reverberations sent through the water by the detonation. She had been
+broken apart, and sank in a few minutes. The Aboukir had been stricken
+in a vital spot and by an unseen force; that made the blow all the
+greater.
+
+Her crew were brave, and even with death staring them in the face kept
+to their posts, ready to handle their useless guns, for I submerged at
+once. But I had stayed on top long enough to see the other cruisers,
+which I learned were the Cressy and the Hogue, turn and steam full speed
+to their dying sister, whose plight they could not understand, unless it
+had been due to an accident.
+
+The ships came on a mission of inquiry and rescue, for many of the
+Aboukir's crew were now in the water, the order having been given, "Each
+man for himself."
+
+But soon the other two English cruisers learned what had brought about
+the destruction so suddenly.
+
+As I reached my torpedo depth I sent a second charge at the nearest of
+the oncoming vessels, which was the Hogue. The English were playing my
+game, for I had scarcely to move out of my position, which was a great
+aid, since it helped to keep me from detection.
+
+On board my little boat the spirit of the German Navy was to be seen in
+its best form. With enthusiasm every man held himself in check and gave
+attention to the work in hand.
+
+The attack on the Hogue went true. But this time I did not have the
+advantageous aid of having the torpedo detonate under the magazine, so
+for twenty minutes the Hogue lay wounded and helpless on the surface
+before she heaved, half turned over and sank.
+
+But this time, the third cruiser knew of course that the enemy was upon
+her and she sought as best she could to defend herself. She loosed her
+torpedo defense batteries on boats, starboard and port, and stood her
+ground as if more anxious to help the many sailors who were in the water
+than to save herself. In common with the method of defending herself
+against a submarine attack, she steamed in a zigzag course, and this
+made it necessary for me to hold my torpedoes until I could lay a true
+course for them, which also made it necessary for me to get nearer to
+the Cressy. I had come to the surface for a view and saw how wildly the
+fire was being sent from the ship. Small wonder that was when they did
+not know where to shoot, although one shot went unpleasantly near us.
+
+When I got within suitable range I sent away my third attack. This time
+I sent a second torpedo after the first to make the strike doubly
+certain. My crew were aiming like sharpshooters and both torpedos went
+to their bullseye. My luck was with me again, for the enemy was made
+useless and at once began sinking by her head. Then she careened far
+over, but all the while her men stayed at the guns looking for their
+invisible foe. They were brave and true to their country's sea
+traditions. Then she eventually suffered a boiler explosion and
+completely turned turtle. With her keel uppermost she floated until the
+air got out from under her and then she sank with a loud sound, as if
+from a creature in pain.
+
+The whole affair had taken less than one hour from the time of shooting
+off the first torpedo until the Cressy went to the bottom. Not one of
+the three had been able to use any of its big guns. I knew the wireless
+of the three cruisers had been calling for aid. I was still quite able
+to defend myself, but I knew that news of the disaster would call many
+English submarines and torpedo boat destroyers, so, having done my
+appointed work, I set my course for home.
+
+My surmise was right, for before I got very far some British cruisers
+and destroyers were on the spot, and the destroyers took up the chase. I
+kept under water most of the way, but managed to get off a wireless to
+the German fleet that I was heading homeward and being pursued. I hoped
+to entice the enemy, by allowing them now and then a glimpse of me, into
+the zone in which they might be exposed to capture or destruction by
+German warships, but, although their destroyers saw me plainly at dusk
+on the 22d and made a final effort to stop me, they abandoned the
+attempt, as it was taking them too far from safety and needlessly
+exposing them to attack from our fleet and submarines.
+
+How much they feared our submarines and how wide was the agitation
+caused by good little U-9 is shown by the English reports that a whole
+flotilla of German submarines had attacked the cruisers and that this
+flotilla had approached under cover of the flag of Holland.
+
+These reports were absolutely untrue. U-9 was the only submarine on
+deck, and she flew the flag she still flies--the German naval
+ensign--which I hope to keep forever as a glorious memento and as an
+inspiration for devotion to the Fatherland.
+
+I reached the home port on the afternoon of the 23d, and on the 24th
+went to Wilhelmshaven, to find that news of my effort had become public.
+My wife, dry eyed when I went away, met me with tears. Then I learned
+that my little vessel and her brave crew had won the plaudit of the
+Kaiser, who conferred upon each of my co-workers the Iron Cross of the
+second class and upon me the Iron Cross of the first and second classes.
+
+     [Weddigen is the hero of the hour in Germany. He also wears a medal
+     for life-saving. Counting himself, Weddigen had twenty-six men. The
+     limit of time that his ship is capable of staying below the surface
+     is about six hours.]
+
+
+
+
+THE SOLILOQUY OF AN OLD SOLDIER.
+
+By O.C.A. CHILD.
+
+
+You need not watch for silver in your hair,
+  Or try to smooth the wrinkles from your eyes,
+Or wonder if you're getting quite too spare,
+  Or if your mount can bear a man your size.
+
+You'll never come to shirk the fastest flight,
+  To query if she really cares to dance,
+To find your eye less keen upon the sight,
+  Or lose your tennis wrist or golfing stance.
+
+For you the music ceased on highest note--
+  Your charge had won, you'd scattered them like sand,
+And then a little whisper in your throat,
+  And you asleep, your cheek upon your hand.
+
+Thrice happy fate, you met it in full cry,
+  Young, eager, loved, your glitt'ring world all joy--
+You ebbed not out, you died when tide was high,
+  An old campaigner envies you, my boy!
+
+
+
+
+*The War at Home*
+
+*How It Affects the Countries Whose Men Are At the Front.*
+
+
+
+
+*The Effects of War in Four Countries*
+
+*By Irvin S. Cobb.*
+
+[From THE NEW YORK TIMES [Transcriber: original 'TMIES'], Dec. 2, 1914.]
+
+     [_The following story of conditions in Belgium, Germany, France,
+     Holland, and England was sent by Irvin S. Cobb of The Saturday
+     Evening Post to the American [Transcriber: original 'Aerican'] Red
+     Cross, to be used in bringing home to Americans urgent need for
+     relief in the countries affected by the great war. Red Cross
+     contributions for suffering non-combatants are received at the Red
+     Cross offices in the Russell Sage Foundation Building, 130 East
+     Twenty-second Street. Such contributions should be addressed to
+     Jacob H. Schiff, Treasurer, and, if desired, the giver can
+     designate the country to the relief of which he wishes the donation
+     applied._]
+
+
+Recently I have been in four of the countries concerned in the present
+war--Belgium, France, Germany, and England. I was also in Holland,
+having traversed it from end to end within a week after the fall of
+Antwerp, when every road coming up out of the south was filled with
+Belgian refugees.
+
+In Belgium I saw this:
+
+Homeless men, women, and children by thousands and hundreds of
+thousands. Many of them had been prosperous, a few had been wealthy,
+practically all had been comfortable. Now, with scarcely an exception,
+they stood all upon one common plane of misery. They had lost their
+homes, their farms, their work-shops, their livings, and their means of
+making livings.
+
+I saw them tramping aimlessly along wind-swept, rain-washed roads,
+fleeing from burning and devastated villages. I saw them sleeping in
+open fields upon the miry earth, with no cover and no shelter. I saw
+them herded together in the towns and cities to which many of them
+ultimately fled, existing God alone knows how. I saw them--ragged,
+furtive scarecrows--prowling in the shattered ruins of their homes,
+seeking salvage where there was no salvage to be found. I saw them
+living like the beasts of the field, upon such things as the beasts of
+the field would reject.
+
+I saw them standing in long lines waiting for their poor share of the
+dole of a charity which already was nearly exhausted. I saw their towns
+when hardly one stone stood upon another. I saw their abandoned farm
+lands, where the harvests rotted in the furrows and the fruit hung
+mildewed and ungathered upon the trees. I saw their cities where trade
+was dead and credit was a thing which no longer existed. I saw them
+staggering from weariness and from the weakness of hunger. I saw all
+these sights repeated and multiplied infinitely--yes, and magnified,
+too--but not once did I see a man or woman or even a child that wept or
+cried out.
+
+If the Belgian soldiers won the world's admiration by the resistance
+which they made against tremendously overpowering numbers, the people of
+Belgium--the families of their soldiers--should have the world's
+admiration and pity for the courage, the patience, and the fortitude
+they have displayed under the load of an affliction too dolorous for any
+words to describe, too terrible for any imagination to picture.
+
+In France I saw a pastoral land overrun by soldiers and racked by war
+until it seemed the very earth would cry out for mercy. I saw a country
+literally stripped of its men in order that the regiments might be
+filled. I saw women hourly striving to do the ordained work of their
+fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons, hourly piecing together the
+jarred and broken fragments of their lives. I saw countless villages
+turned into smoking, filthy, ill-smelling heaps of ruins. I saw schools
+that were converted into hospitals and factories changed into barracks.
+
+I saw the industries that were abandoned and the shops that were bare of
+customers, the shopkeepers standing before empty shelves looking
+bankruptcy in the face. I saw the unburied dead lying between battle
+lines, where for weeks they had lain, and where for weeks, and perhaps
+months to come, they would continue to lie, and I saw the graves of
+countless numbers of other dead who were so hurriedly and carelessly
+buried that their limbs in places protruded through the soil, poisoning
+the air with hideous smells and giving abundant promise of the
+pestilence which must surely follow. I saw districts noted for their
+fecundity on the raw edge of famine, and a people proverbial for their
+light-heartedness who had forgotten how to smile.
+
+In Germany I saw innumerable men maimed and mutilated in every
+conceivable fashion. I saw these streams of wounded pouring back from
+the front endlessly. In two days I saw trains bearing 14,000 wounded men
+passing through one town. I saw people of all classes undergoing
+privations and enduring hardships in order that the forces at the front
+might have food and supplies. I saw thousands of women wearing widow's
+weeds, and thousands of children who had been orphaned.
+
+I saw great hosts of prisoners of war on their way to prison camps,
+where in the very nature of things they must forego all hope of having
+for months, and perhaps years, those small creature comforts which make
+life endurable to a civilized human being. I saw them, crusted with
+dirt, worn with incredible exertions, alive with crawling vermin, their
+uniforms already in tatters, and their broken shoes falling off their
+feet.
+
+On the day before I quit German soil--the war being then less than
+three months old--I counted, in the course of a short ride through the
+City of Aix-la-Chapelle two convalescent soldiers who were totally
+blind, three who had lost an arm, and one, a boy of 18 or thereabout,
+who had lost both arms. How many men less badly injured I saw in that
+afternoon I do not know; I hesitate even to try to estimate the total
+figure for fear I might be accused of exaggeration.
+
+In Holland I saw the people of an already crowded country wrestling
+valorously with the problem of striving to feed and house and care for
+the enormous numbers of penniless refugees who had come out of Belgium.
+I saw worn-out groups of peasants huddled on railroad platforms and
+along the railroad tracks, too weary to stir another step.
+
+In England I saw still more thousands of these refugees, bewildered,
+broken by misfortune, owning only what they wore upon their backs,
+speaking an alien tongue, strangers in a strange land. I saw, as I have
+seen in Holland, people of all classes giving of their time, their
+means, and their services to provide some temporary relief for these
+poor wanderers who were without a country. I saw the new recruits
+marching off, and I knew that for the children many of them were leaving
+behind there would be no Santa Claus unless the American people out of
+the fullness of their own abundance filled the Christmas stockings and
+stocked the Christmas larders.
+
+And seeing these things, I realized how tremendous was the need for
+organized and systematic aid then and how enormously that need would
+grow when Winter came--when the soldiers shivered in the trenches, and
+the hospital supplies ran low, as indeed they have before now begun to
+run low, and the winds searched through the holes made by the cannon
+balls and struck at the women and children cowering in their squalid and
+desolated homes. From my own experiences and observations I knew that
+more nurses, more surgeons, more surgical necessities, and yet more,
+past all calculating, would be sorely needed when the plague and famine
+and cold came to take their toll among armies that already were thinned
+by sickness and wounds.
+
+The American Red Cross, by the terms of the Treaty of Geneva, gives aid
+to the invalided and the injured soldiers of any army and all the
+armies. If any small word from me, attempting to describe actual
+conditions, can be of value to the American Red Cross in its campaign of
+mercy, I write it gladly. I wish only that I had the power to write
+lines which would make the American people see the situation as it is
+now--which would make them understand how infinitely worse that
+situation must surely become during the next few months.
+
+
+
+
+*How Paris Dropped Gayety*
+
+*By Anne Rittenhouse.*
+
+[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, Sept. 23, 1914.]
+
+
+On Friday night the Grand Boulevards were alive with people, motors,
+voitures, singing, dancing, and each café thronged by the gayest light
+hearts in the world.
+
+On Saturday night the boulevards were thronged with growling, ominous,
+surging crowds, with faces like those of the Commune, speaking strong
+words for and against war.
+
+On Sunday night mobs tore down signs, broke windows, shouted the
+"Marseillaise," wreaked their vengeance on those who belonged to a
+nation that France thought had plunged their country into ghastly war.
+Aliens sought shelter; hotels closed their massive doors intended for
+defense. Mounted troops corralled the mobs as cowboys round up
+belligerent cattle. Detached groups smashed and mishandled things that
+came in the way.
+
+Monday night a calm so intense that one felt frightened. Boulevards
+deserted, cafés closed, hotels shuttered. Patrols of the Civil Garde in
+massed formation. France was keeping her pledge to high civilization.
+Yellow circulars were pasted on the buildings warning all that France
+was in danger and appealing by that token to all male citizens to guard
+the women and the weak.
+
+At daylight only was the dead silence broken; France was marching to war
+at that hour. Will any one who was here forget that daily daybreak
+tramp, that measured march of the thousands going to the front? Cavalry
+with the sun striking the helmets; infantry with their scarlet overcoats
+too large; aviators with their boxed machines, the stormy petrels of
+modern war; and the dogs, veritably the dogs of war, going on the
+humanest mission of all, to search for the wounded in the woods of
+battle.
+
+And, side by side with the marching millions, on the pavement, were the
+women belonging to them; the women who were to stay behind.
+
+As though the Judgment Trumpet had sounded, France was changed in the
+twinkling of an eye. And added to that subconscious terror that lurked
+in every American soul of another revolution--a terror that was
+dispelled after the third day when France reached out her long arm and
+mobilized her people into a strong component whole with but one heart,
+was an inexplainable dread of this terrible calm.
+
+We knew about trained armies going to war, but here was a situation
+where the Biblical description of the Last Day was carried out, the man
+at the wheel dropped his work and was taken; he who was at the plowshare
+left his furrow....
+
+First we were afraid we would not have enough to eat. A famine was
+prophesied, and the credulous who know nothing of the vast sources which
+supply France with food clamored to get to England. Then there were
+frenzied stories of hotels closing and prices soaring. None of which
+happened or had any chance of happening. Food was never better, and
+today we have fruit that melts in the mouth; fish that swims in the
+sauce, the lack of which Talleyrand deplored in England; little green
+string beans that no other country produces or knows how to cook.
+
+Prices never rose for the fraction of a sou. If one had a credit at a
+hotel, all was well, but unless one had ready money in small notes, none
+of the restaurants would accept an order. Here, and here only, was a
+snag concerning food. It is true that women went for twenty-four hours
+without food, but the reason was the lack of small change, not of
+eatables.
+
+After the panic caused by a thousand rumors annexed to a dozen
+disheartening and revolutionary conditions, after the people felt that
+the Commune was the figment of imagination, not inspired prophecy; that
+money was getting easier; that, above all, America was looking after its
+own, though her move toward that end seemed to take months instead of
+days, and because we counted by heart-beats, not calendars; after all
+this, we found time and interest to observe the phenomena around us. We
+began to feel ashamed of our petty madness on the worldly subject of
+money and ships and safe passage home; our passionate, twentieth
+century, overindulged selves who were neither fighting nor giving our
+beloveds in battle, and who were harassing those who were in a death
+struggle. Never throughout the centuries to come, whether the map of
+Europe is changed or not, should the stranger within her gates ever
+forget the courtesy of Paris.
+
+At night powerful searchlights backed up by artillery guard the city
+from the monster of the air.
+
+This is fiction come true. It is Conan Doyle, Kipling, Wells come to
+measure. From the moment of sunset until sunrise those comets with an
+orbit patrol the skies. Pointing with blazing fingers to the moon and
+the stars, to the horizon, they proclaim that Paris watches while her
+people sleep.
+
+The idea has given comfort to thousands. You, in your safe, tranquil
+homes, cannot know the pleasure it gives to look out of the window in
+the wakeful nights and watch those wheeling comets circling, circling to
+catch the Zeppelin that may come.
+
+And behind the light is the gun. Rooftop artillery! The new warfare! On
+the roof of the fashionable Automobile Club on the Place de la Concorde
+the little blue firing guns wheel with the blazing fingers. Always ready
+to send shot and shell into a bulging speck in the sky that does not
+return the luminous signals. So on the roof of the Observatoir, so on
+the encircling environs; sometimes three, sometimes six, they are always
+going. People stand in the streets to watch, hypnotized by the moment
+into horizon gazing. There will be a speck in the sky; people grow
+tense; the comet catches it; is that wigwagging on the roof, those
+challenges in fire, returned? No. The speck passes; we breathe again.
+And so it goes: a ceaseless centre of interest. It is the novelty of the
+world war.
+
+The highest artillery in the world is on the Eiffel Tower. At its dizzy
+top, pointing to the sky, are machine guns that are trained to fire at
+an enemy's balloon. It is an answer to the prayer of the people that
+these guns have not yet been used.
+
+But it is not only in the artillery on the top of the Eiffel Tower that
+interest centres; it is in the wireless that sends the messages to land
+and sea, safeguarding armies and navies, patrolling the earth and water.
+Strange, isn't it, that the plaything of a nation has become its
+safeguard?
+
+That was a stirring day when Paris sang "God Save the King." Gen. French
+arrived from London, coming quietly to confer with M. Viviani, the
+Minister for War, and with President Poincaré. He was the first English
+General to come to the aid of France since Cromwell commissioned the
+British Ambassador to go to the aid of Anne of Austria. And the French
+heart responded as only it can; the people stood, with raised hats, in
+quadruple rows wherever he passed, as English, French, and foreign
+voices sang a benediction to Britain's King. History was made there.
+
+That night Gen. French dined at the Ritz among a few friends. Even the
+newspapers seemed not to know it, and those of us who had the good
+chance to be there enjoyed him at leisure. He wore his field uniform of
+khaki in strong contrast to the French Generals, who are always in
+glittering gold, although he represents an empire and they a republic.
+He is an admirable looking soldier, somewhat small of stature, firmly
+knit, bronzed, white haired, blue eyed, calm. He spoke of their
+responsibilities without exaggeration or amelioration. He did not make
+light of the task before his soldiers, and his grave manner seemed a
+prophecy of that terrible fight near Mons, above the French frontier,
+which was so soon to take place and where English blood was freely
+spilled for France's sake.
+
+Another day that we shall be glad we saw when it is written into the
+narrative history of this Summer by some future Mme. Sevigne, was when
+the first German flag arrived. Before it came, two soldiers exhibited a
+German frontier post in front of a café on the boulevard, which started
+the excitement, but the reception of the flag by the Government and its
+placement in the Invalides, where is Napoleon's tomb, was an hour of
+dramatic tenseness.
+
+The only music heard in Paris since the first day of August, the day of
+mobilization, accompanied this flag to its resting place along with
+those historic relics of former French victories. The procession went
+over the Alexander Bridge, that superb structure dedicated in honor of
+the Russian Czar, whose son is now fulfilling his pledge of friendship
+to France. The flag was met at the Invalides by the old soldiers who
+bore medals of the Franco-Prussian war. In the solemn inclosure, where
+all stood at salute, the veterans stood with lances. The flag was
+presented to an old sick soldier, who stumped forward on a wooden leg,
+his breast covered with the medals of the Crimea and the Italian
+campaign. He received it for France, and when it was placed over the
+organ, the listening crowds that jammed the Place des Invalides heard
+the singing of the "Marseillaise" by the cracked old voices first, then
+by the sturdier younger voices, and so it joined in, this vast concourse
+of solemn listeners.
+
+France has gone into this war with the spirit of the Crusaders, but the
+spirit of French wit cannot be repressed even under the most terrifying
+conditions. So after the news of the superhuman effort made by that
+national baby, Belgium, in detaining the huge German forces for many
+days, there was a placard on one of the gates at the station, placed
+there by some gay refugee, saying that a train de luxe would leave for
+Berlin the next day.
+
+It tickled the sensibilities of travelers very much, and it gave rise to
+the sale of postcards by an enterprising soul. These cards gave one the
+right, so they said, of a daily train to Berlin to visit the tomb of
+Guillame. They were bought by the thousands as souvenirs of the war and
+as one of the few things that caused a smile in this saddened city.
+
+Another incident that amused the people was the remark of a young
+soldier who had single-handed taken some German prisoners, and who, when
+asked whether he had done it by the revolver or the bayonet, answered
+that he had only held out a slice of bread and butter and the Germans
+had followed him.
+
+Amusement and irritation followed the order that all telephoning must be
+done in French. The sensation produced depended on the temperament of
+the person. Certainly queer things were said over the lines, and no one
+could blame the "Allo girl" for laughing. The majority of Americans took
+it in good part by saying that it was a French lesson for five cents.
+
+Another accomplishment that has been furthered in Paris during the last
+three weeks is bicycle riding. With the paucity of transportation some
+means of getting over the magnificent distances of this city had to be
+found. So people who could ride rented bicycles, and those who had not
+learned began to take lessons. The girls who work, and those who go on
+errands for the Croix Rouge, wear a most attractive costume of pale blue
+or violet. It has a short divided skirt, a slim blouse with
+blue-and-white striped collar; there is a small hat to match, and the
+young cyclists whirling around on their missions of mercy are a pleasant
+sight for very sad eyes.
+
+
+
+
+*Paris in October*
+
+[From The London Times, Oct. 21, 1914.]
+
+
+PARIS, Oct. 19.
+
+The more one studies the life of Paris at the present time, and
+especially its patriotic and benevolent activities, the more is one
+impressed by the unanimous determination of its inhabitants to face
+whatever may befall and to make the best of things. It is difficult to
+realize at first sight how completely, in the hour of trial, the
+traditional light-heartedness of the Parisian has been translated to a
+fine simplicity of courage and devotion to the common cause and to a
+high seriousness of patriotism. There is something splendidly impressive
+and stimulating in the spectacle of civilization's most sensitive
+culture suddenly confronted by the stern realities of a life-and-death
+struggle, and responding unanimously to the call of duty. Without
+hesitation or complaint, Paris has put away childish things, her toys,
+her luxury, and her laughter; today her whole life reflects only fixed
+purposes of united effort, of courage never, never to submit or yield,
+and this splendid determination is all the more significant for being
+undemonstrative and almost silent.
+
+We English people, who, observing chiefly the surface life of the French
+capital, have generally been disposed to regard the Parisian temperament
+as mutable and often impatient of adversity, must now make our
+confession of error and the amende honorable; for nothing could be more
+admirable than the attitude of all classes of the community in their
+stoic acceptance of the sacrifices and sufferings imposed upon them by
+this war at their gates. Especially striking is the philosophic
+acquiescence of the city, accustomed to know and to discuss all things,
+in the impenetrable [Transcriber: original 'impentrable'] veil of
+secrecy which conceals the movements and the fortunes of the French
+armies in the field. Go where you will, even among those of the very
+poor who have lost their breadwinners, and you will hear few criticisms
+and no complaints. The little midinette thrown out of employment, the
+shopkeeper faced with ruin, the artist reduced to actual want--they also
+are in the fighting line, and they are proud of it. The women of the
+thrifty middle class consider it just as much their duty to devote their
+savings of years to the common cause as their husbands and brothers do
+to bear arms against the enemy; only in the last extremity of need do
+they make appeal to the "Secours National" for assistance. And when they
+do, they are well content to live on a maintenance allowance of 1s. a
+day and 5d. for every child.
+
+The other Sunday morning at the hour of mass, when two German aeroplanes
+were engaged in their genial occupation of throwing bombs over the
+residential and business quarters of the city, I assisted at several
+sidewalk conversations in the district lying between the Madeleine and
+the Rue de Rivoli. Nowhere did I find the least sign of excitement.
+Indeed, there was curiously little interest shown as to the results of
+the explosions in that neighborhood; only a grim acceptance of this
+daily visitation as something to be added to the score in the final day
+of reckoning and some expression of surprise that the French aeroplanes
+(supposed to be constantly on the alert for these visitors) should not
+have found some means of putting an end to the nuisance. At the same
+time I heard several spectators express their admiration of the German
+aviators' courage and appreciation of the ease and grace with which they
+handled their beautiful machines. In the cafés that evening, when the
+full list of the casualties and damage had been published, one heard a
+good deal of criticism, seasoned with Attic salt, on the subject of the
+belated appearance of the French aeroplanes on the scene, and hopes that
+the boulevards might soon be rewarded by the spectacle of a duel in the
+air. They seem to think they have earned it.
+
+But in the afternoon all Paris was out--in the Jarden des Tuileries, in
+the Bois, at Vincennes, basking in the sunshine of a glorious Autumn
+day, Madame et Bébé bravely making the best of it in the absence of
+Monsieur. (Not that Monsieur is always absent; the proportion of men in
+the crowd, and men of serviceable age, was considerably larger than one
+might have expected.) If the object of the German aviators is to instill
+terror into the hearts of the Parisians they are wasting their time and
+their bombs.
+
+Those people in London who complain about not being able to get supper
+after the theatre, and other minor disturbances of their even tenor of
+existence, should spend a few days in Paris. They would observe how
+easily a community may learn to do without many things, and how the
+lesson itself becomes a moral tonic, unmistakably stimulating in its
+effects.
+
+Paris is reminded every morning of duty and discipline when it begins by
+doing without its beloved petits pains and croissants for breakfast, the
+order having gone forth that bakers, being short-handed, are to make
+only pain de ménage. Similarly, because the majority of journalists and
+popular writers are under arms, Paris does without its accustomed daily
+refreshment of ephemeral literature, its comic and illustrated press,
+its literary and artistic causeries, its feuilletons, and chroniques. It
+does without its theatres, its music halls, without politics, art, and
+social amenities, without barbers, florists, and motor cars, partly
+because there are not men enough to keep these things going, and partly
+because, even if there were, la patrie comes first, so that thrifty
+self-denial has become the duty of every good citizen. If the telephone
+breaks down, (as it usually does,) there is no one to repair it, so the
+subscriber goes without; if the trains and trams cease running on
+regular schedules the Parisian accepts the fact and stays at home.
+
+In normal times life is made up of the sum of little things, but at
+great moments the little things cease to count. How true this is in
+Paris today one may judge from the correspondence and records of the
+"Secours National"; they reveal an intense and widespread impulse of
+personal pride in self-denial, and prove that the heart of the Parisian
+bourgeoisie is sound to the core.
+
+To a foreigner, accustomed to the Paris of literary and artistic
+traditions, perhaps the most remarkable feature in the life of the city
+today lies in the absence of articulate public opinion, and apparently
+of public interest, in everything outside the immediate issues of the
+war. With one or two exceptions, such as the Temps and the Débats, the
+press of the capital practically confines itself to recording the events
+and progress of the campaign; nothing else matters. So far as Paris is
+concerned, all the rest of the world, from China to Peru, might be
+non-existent. Neither the political nor the economic consequences of the
+war are seriously examined or discussed; the sole business of the
+newspapers consists in supplementing, to the best of their abilities,
+the meagre war news supplied through official channels. Some interest
+attaches, of course, to the attitude of Italy; but, beyond that, all
+things sublunary seem to have faded into a remote distance of
+unreality--sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
+
+The explanation [Transcriber: original 'explaantion'] of this attitude
+of complete detachment lies, no doubt, chiefly in the fact that the men
+who make and exchange political opinions have gone to Bordeaux, while
+most of those who create and guide public (as distinct from political)
+opinion, have exchanged the pen for the sword. Just as Paris, for want
+of bakers, has only one kind of bread, so, for want of the men who
+usually inspire public opinion, her press has concentrated upon one
+absorbing idea, écraser les allemands. Moreover, for want of printers
+and of advertisers, most of the daily papers have now dwindled to
+microscopic proportions. The virile intelligence of Paris journalism and
+the nimble and adventurous inquisitiveness, which are its normally
+distinguishing characteristics, have gone, like everything else, to the
+front. As the editor of the Gil Blas says in a farewell poster to his
+subscribers: "Youth has only one duty to perform in these days. Our
+chief and all the staff have joined the colors. Whenever events shall
+permit, Gil Blas will resume its cheerful way. A bien-tôt."
+
+
+
+
+*France and England As Seen in War Time*
+
+*An Interview With F. Hopkinson Smith.*
+
+[From THE NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY MAGAZINE, Dec. 6, 1914.]
+
+
+F. Hopkinson Smith was in France when the war broke out, he spent
+September in London, and is now back in New York. He has brought home
+many sketches. Not sketches which suggest war in the least, but which
+were made with the thought of the war lurking in the background.
+
+"Curiously enough," he said, without waiting for any opening question
+from THE TIMES reporter--Mr. Smith often interviews himself--"curiously
+enough, I was on my way to Rheims to make a sketch of the Cathedral when
+the war broke out. I had started out to make a series of sketches of the
+great European cathedrals. Not etchings, but charcoal sketches.
+
+"Let me say here, too, that cathedrals for the most part ought not to be
+etched. You lose too many shadows, though you gain in line; but in the
+etching you have to cross-hatch so heavily with ink that the result is
+just ink, and not shadow at all. Charcoal gives you depth and
+transparency. I was eager to do a series of the cathedrals, as I had
+done a series for the Dickens and Thackeray books, and had planned to
+give my, entire Summer to it.
+
+"I had been in London for some time. I had sketched in Westminster, in
+St. Bartholomew's. Everything peaceful and quiet. It seems now as if we
+ought to have felt--all of us, the people on the streets, I,
+shopkeepers, every one--the approach of this tremendous war. But we
+didn't, of course. No one in England had the faintest suspicion that
+this terrible inhuman thing was going to happen.
+
+"I went on to France. I sketched Notre Dame, over which they exploded
+shells a month or so later. I did some work in the beautiful St.
+Etienne. I sauntered down into South Normandy and was stopping for a
+little color work at the Inn of William the Conqueror before going on to
+Rheims."
+
+These water colors of French farms, French inns, and French gardens are
+glimpses caught at the very eleventh hour before France put on a totally
+different aspect.
+
+"The war broke out. There at the quiet little French inn everything
+suddenly changed color. It was quick, it was quiet. There was a complete
+change in the snap of a finger. All the chauffeurs and the porters and
+the waiters--men who had been there for years and with whom we who visit
+there Summer after Summer have grown familiar--suddenly stopped work,
+gave up their jobs, were turned into soldiers. One hardly recognized
+them.
+
+"We were all stunned. I realized that I could not go on to Rheims, that
+I probably should not get down into Italy. I scarcely realized at first
+what that meant. I could not conceive, none of us could conceive," Mr.
+Smith exploded violently, "that any one, under any necessity whatsoever,
+should lay hands on the Rheims Cathedral. It's too monstrous! The world
+will never forgive it, never!
+
+"The world is divided, I tell you! It is not a Double Alliance and a
+Triple Entente; it is not a Germany and a Russia and a United States and
+an Italy and an England. That is not the division of the world just now.
+There are two sides, and only two sides. There is barbarism on the one
+hand, civilization on the other; there is brutality and there is
+humanity. And humanity is going to win, but the sacrifices are
+awful--awful!"
+
+"How about the feeling in France, Mr. Smith?"
+
+"I can't tell you how overwhelmingly pathetic it is--the sight of these
+brave Frenchmen. Every one has remarked it. Once and for all the
+tradition that the French are an excitable, emotional people with no
+grip on their passions and no rein on their impulses--that fiction is
+dead for all time.
+
+"I saw that whole first act of France's drama. I saw the French people
+stand still on that first day and take breath. Then I saw France set to
+work. She was unprepared, but she was ready in spirit. There was no
+excitement, there were no demonstrations. The men climbed into their
+trains without any exhibitions of patriotism, without any outbursts.
+There were many women crying quietly, with children huddled about their
+skirts.
+
+"The spirit of England is different, but there is the same lack of
+excitement. I chartered a motor bus when the war broke out and got to
+Paris, and then went back to London, where I sketched for a month, saw
+my friends, and talked war.
+
+"Making sketches in war time is very different, by the way, from making
+sketches in time of peace. It is a business full of possibilities, when
+all manner of spy suspicions are afloat. I made up my mind to do a
+sketch of the Royal Exchange. Not as I should have done it a year
+before, mind you, nor even three months before, but now, with the
+thought of bomb-dropping Zeppelins in the back of my mind. It occurred
+to me when I was hurrying along one rainy evening in a taxi past the
+Stock Exchange, the Globe Insurance, the Bank of England. Everywhere
+cabs drawn up along the curbing, cabs slipping past, people, great
+moving crowds of people with their umbrellas up, moving off down
+Threadneedle and Victoria.
+
+"A lot of human life and some very beautiful architecture and a good
+part of the world's business, all concentrated here. And I thought to
+myself what might happen should the cultured Germans get as far as
+London, and should the defenders of the world's civilization drop a bomb
+down into the heart of things here. I pictured to myself what havoc
+could be wrought.
+
+"And I thought, too, of places like Southwark. Ever been in Southwark?
+Horrible. A year before, when I was making the sketches for my Dickens
+book, I spent a great deal of time in the Southwark section. Now, with
+the prospect of Zeppelins, I thought again of Southwark. A bomb in a
+Southwark street! Good Lord, can you imagine the horror of it! There
+fifty or sixty families are packed into a single tenement, and the
+houses in their turn are packed one against the next along streets so
+narrow that the buildings seem to be nodding to each other, touching
+foreheads almost. Desperately poor people, children swarming every
+moment of the day and night up and down these dark stairways, up and
+down these hideously dark streets. Now drop a bomb in the midst of it
+all. That is what Englishmen are thinking of now.
+
+"I didn't go over into Southwark; I couldn't stand it. The next day I
+went back to the Stock Exchange to make my sketch. I've done sketches in
+London before--every nook and cranny of it--but this time I felt a
+little nervous when I got there with my umbrella and my little tools.
+But I managed it. I said to the bobby, I said--"
+
+And then Mr. Smith, getting up from his chair and relapsing into the
+frown that always means he is going to tell a story, showed how he
+managed it. It is impossible to reproduce Mr. Smith's inimitable manner.
+
+"'Are you, now?' said I.
+
+"'Well, 'ow can I tell?' said he.
+
+"'But if you're the excellent English bobby that I believe you to be,'
+said I, 'you'll see at once that I'm an honest American artist just here
+to do a little sketching.'
+
+"'I tell you,' said he. W'y don't you just pop hup and see 'Is Lordship
+the Mayor?'
+
+"And so I did pop up and I told the Lord Mayor my troubles, and he waved
+me a hearty wave of his hand and said he'd do anything to oblige an
+American, and I came down again, and here was the bobby still very
+upright but watching my approach from the tail of his eye. And I
+pretended I had never seen him, but as I went past I slipped him a
+cigar, and when I passed back again he twinkled his eye. Stuck between
+the buttons of his coat, there being no other place, was my fat cigar.
+
+"I made my sketch of the Royal Exchange. I want Americans to see what
+can happen if His Imperial Lowness over on the Continent sees fit to
+send his Zeppelins to England. Not being big enough nor strong enough to
+injure England vitally, he can take this method of injury, he can injure
+women and children and maim horses, destroy business and works of art
+and blow up the congested districts.
+
+"We have seen what the Savior of the World's Culture could do in France
+and Belgium; it is small wonder that all England has in the back of her
+head surmises as to what he might accomplish if some of his air craft
+crossed the Channel. By which I do not mean to say that the English are
+apprehensive. They are not nervous. I have spent more than a month with
+them, among my own friends, learning the general temper of the country.
+
+"There are no demonstrations, there is no boasting, no display. London
+is much the same as it always was. At night London is darkened, in
+accordance with the order of Oct. 9, but that is about all the
+difference. It is so dark that you can hardly get up Piccadilly, but
+London takes her amusements about as usual. The theatres are not
+overcrowded, but neither are they empty. For luncheons and for dinners
+Prince's is full, the Carlton is full. The searchlights are playing over
+the city looking for those Zeppelins. That is a new wrinkle to me; the
+idea of blinding the men up there at the wheel with a powerful light is
+a good one.
+
+"These Englishmen have their teeth set. They know perfectly well that
+they are fighting for their existence. All this talk of the necessity of
+drumming up patriotism in England is bosh. England has no organized
+publicity bureau such as Germany, and in contrast she may have seemed
+quiet to the point of apathy. But don't fancy that Englishmen are
+apathetic. They are slow and they are sure. They are just beginning to
+realize that they have these fellows by the back of the necks. Before I
+left London I saw every day in the Temple Gardens, down by the
+Embankment, that steady drill of thousands of young men in straw hats,
+yellow shoes, and business suits. I felt their spirit.
+
+"There is a great fundamental difference between the spirit of Germany
+and the spirit of the Allies, and the whole world has recognized it.
+With the Allies there has been no boasting, even now when they realize
+that the top is reached and this war is on the down grade. There is
+determination, but there is no cock-sureness, no goose-step. There is
+no insolence.
+
+"Why, in the last analysis, is the whole world against Germany? Because
+of her insufferable insolence. It is an insolence which has been fairly
+bred in the bone of every German soldier. I can give you a little
+concrete instance. My daughter-in-law had been serving in one of the
+Paris hospitals ever since the war broke out. She was finally placed on
+a committee which was to meet the trainloads of wounded soldiers when
+they first arrived.
+
+"In one of the cars one day there was a wounded officer, a German. He
+spoke no French, and a young French Lieutenant, very courteous, was
+trying to make him understand something. My daughter, too, had no
+success. Finally a young German, a common soldier who was in the same
+car, said to this German officer: 'I am an Alsatian; I can interpret for
+you.'
+
+"'How dare you!' And the German officer turned to him in perfect fury.
+'How do you, a common soldier, dare to speak to me, an officer!' And
+with that he struck the Alsatian full in the face with what little
+strength he had left.
+
+"Now there is an example of the attitude to which the German military
+has been trained.
+
+"On another occasion, when a French officer, after one of the battles,
+came courteously to the commanding German officer of the division and
+said, 'Sir, you are my prisoner,' the German spat in his face. That is
+all very dramatic and you may say that he showed much spirit, but you
+could hardly call it a sporting spirit, surely not a civilized spirit.
+
+"It is this domineering spirit that the whole world is resenting.
+Nothing that Germany can do through her well-organized press agents can
+conceal that insolence which has been a continuous policy for many
+years. American opinion is almost unanimous in its opposition to Germany
+for this one reason.
+
+"Sir Gilbert Parker recently sent me a whole bundle of papers asking me
+to judge England's case fairly and ask my friends in America to do the
+same. I wrote back and asked him: 'Why do you waste stamps sending
+evidence to America? America has the evidence, and if there has been any
+anti-English feeling in America, von Bernstorff and Dernburg long since
+demolished it.'
+
+"The world has never witnessed anything so far-reaching as this policy
+of insolence. Men who in daily life are cultured and fine, whose ideals
+are high and noble, who have achieved names for themselves in
+literature, art, and science--we all have many friends among them--have
+become unconsciously tinctured with this policy. They are intelligent
+men, but, by the gods, when they get on this subject of Germany's place
+in the sun, they become paranoiacs! This idea of their pre-eminence has
+become a disease with Germany. Germany is actually sick with it, and the
+medicine that will cure her will be pretty bitter.
+
+"I see that George Bernard Shaw presumes to announce that this policy of
+insolence, this extreme militarism, has been just as prominent in
+England and in France. Mr. Shaw is great fun and very wise about a lot
+of things; moreover, he has lived in England a great deal longer than I
+have, but just the same he is dead wrong when he makes such a statement.
+I have many old friends in the army and the navy, many in politics, and
+some of them are of the pronounced soldier, the militarist type. Not one
+of them would ever dare to write such a book as Bernhardi has written,
+and I don't believe there's one of them that would take any stock in a
+man like Nietzsche. Mr. Shaw is dead wrong here; worse than that, he is
+writing nonsense.
+
+"We live from day to day hoping that the end will be the absolute
+annihilation of the militarist principle, this get-off-the-earth
+attitude.
+
+"And what has all this," concluded Mr. Smith suddenly, "to do with art?
+I'm sure I don't know. No one is thinking about art now."
+
+"But you haven't told me where your sympathies are in this war, Mr.
+Smith."
+
+"Hey? I don't have any sympathies, as you see. I'm neutral as President
+Wilson bids me be; I don't care who licks Germany, not even if it is
+Japan."
+
+
+
+
+*The Helpless Victims*
+
+*By Mrs. Nina Larrey Duryee.*
+
+[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, Sept. 9, 1914.]
+
+
+Hotel Windsor.
+
+DINARD, France, Sept. 1, 1914.
+
+_To the Editor of The New York Times_:
+
+This is written in great haste to catch the rare boat to England. The
+author is an American woman, who has spent nine happy Summers in this
+beautiful corner of France, where thousands of her compatriots have
+likewise enjoyed Brittany's kindly hospitality.
+
+Yesterday I saw issuing through St. Malo's eleventh century gates 300
+Belgian refugees, headed by our Dinard Mayor, M. Cralard. I try to write
+calmly of that procession of the half-starved, terror-ridden throng, but
+with the memory of those pinched faces and the stories we heard of
+murder, carnage, burning towns, insulted women, it is difficult to
+restrain indignation. They had come from Charleroi and Mons--old men,
+women, and little children. Not a man of strength or middle age among
+them, for they are dead or away fighting the barbarians who invested
+their little country against all honorable dealings.
+
+Such a procession! They had slept in fields, eaten berries, carrots dug
+from the earth by their hands; drunk from muddy pools, always with those
+beings behind them who had driven them at the point of their bayonets
+from their poor homes. Looking back, they had seen flames against the
+sky, heard screams for pity from those too ill to leave, silenced by
+bullets.
+
+Here are some of the tales, which our Mayor vouches for, which I heard:
+
+One young mother, who had seen her husband shot, tried to put aside the
+rifle of the assassin. She was holding her year-old baby on her breast.
+The butt of that rifle was beaten down, crushing in her baby's chest. It
+still lives, and I heard it's gasping breath.
+
+Another young girl, in remnants of a pretty silk dress, hatless, her
+fragile shoes soleless, and her feet bleeding, is quite mad from the
+horrors of seeing her old father shot and her two younger brothers taken
+away to go before the advancing enemy as shields against English
+bullets. She has forgotten her name, town, and kin, and, "like a leaf in
+the storm," is adrift on the world penniless.
+
+I saw sitting in a row on a bench in the shed seven little girls, none
+of them more than six. Not one of them has now father, mother, or home.
+None can tell whence they came, or to whom they belong. Three are
+plainly of gentle birth. They were with nurses when the horde of
+Prussians fell upon them, and the latter were kept--for the soldier's
+pleasure.
+
+There is an old man, formerly the proud proprietor of a bakery, who
+escaped with the tiny delivery cart pulled by a Belgian dog. Within the
+cart are the remains of his prosperous past--a coat, photos of his dead
+wife, and his three sons at the front, and a brass kettle.
+
+I heard from an aged man how he escaped death. He, with other villagers,
+was locked into a room, and from without the German carbines were thrust
+through the blinds. Those within were told to "dance for their lives,"
+and the German bullets picked them off, one by one, from the street. He
+had the presence of mind to fall as though dead, and when the house was
+set on fire crawled out through a window into the cowshed and got away.
+
+Now, these stories are not the worst or the only ones. Nor are these 300
+refugees more than a drop of sand on a beach of the thousands upon
+thousands who are at this moment in like case. They are pouring through
+the country now, dazed with trouble, robbed of all they possess.
+
+Who can help them, even to work? No one has money. Even those rich
+villa people, Americans, are unable to pay their servants. There is no
+"work" save in the fields garnering crops, for which no wages are paid.
+Their country is a devastated waste, tenanted by the enemy, who spread
+like a tidal wave of destruction in all directions. We take the better
+class into our homes, clothe them and feed them gladly, that we may in a
+minute way repay the debt civilization owes their husbands, sons, and
+fathers. France, too, is invaded, and now thousands more of French are
+homeless and penniless.
+
+We in this formerly gay, fashionable little town see nothing of the
+pageantry of war--only its horrors, as trains leave with us hundreds of
+wounded from the front. In their bodies we find dumdum bullets, and we
+hear tales which confirm those of the refugees.
+
+Will America help them? I, an American woman, could weep for the
+inadequacy of my pen, for I beg your pity, your compassion, and your
+help. Not since the days of Rome's cruelty has civilization been so
+outraged.
+
+I beg your paper to print this, and to start a subscription for this far
+corner of France, where the tide of war throws its wreckage. The Winter
+is ahead, and with hunger, cold, lack of supplies, and isolation will
+create untold suffering. Paris, too, is now sending refugees from its
+besieged gates. Every corner is already filled, and hundreds pour in
+every day. The garages, best hotels, villas, and cafés are already
+filled with "those that suffer for honor's sake." The Croix Rouge does
+splendid work for the wounded soldiers, but who will help these victims
+of war? Fifty cents will buy shoes for a baby's feet. Ten cents will buy
+ten pieces of bread. A dollar will buy a widow a shawl. Who will give?
+Deny yourselves some little pleasure--a cigar, a drink of soda water, a
+theatre seat--and send the price to these starved, beaten people,
+innocent of any crime.
+
+You American women, who tuck your children into their clean beds at
+night, remember these children, reared as carefully as yours, without
+relatives, money, or future. They will be placed on farms to do a
+peasant's work with peasants. These women bereft of all that was dear
+face a barren future. These aged men anticipate for their only remaining
+blessing death, which will take them from a world which has used them
+ill.
+
+America is neutral. Let her remain so, but compassion has no
+nationality. We are all children of one Father. Send us help. These poor
+creatures hold out to you pleading hands for succor.
+
+NINA LARREY DURYEE.
+
+P.S.--I beg you to publish this. I am the daughter-in-law of the Gen.
+Duryee of the Duryee Zouaves, who fought through our civil war with
+honor. Our Ambassador, Mr. Herrick, and his wife know me socially. Any
+funds you can gather please send to M. Grolard, Marie de Dinard,
+Municipality de Dinard, Ille-et-Vilaine, France, or to Le Banque Boutin,
+Dinard, France.
+
+
+
+
+*A New Russia Meets Germany*
+
+*By Perceval Gibbon.*
+
+[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, Oct. 26, 1914.]
+
+
+VILNA, Russia, Sept. 28.--For a fact as great as Russia one needs a
+symbol by which to apprehend it For me, till now, the symbol has been a
+memory of Moscow in the Winter of 1905, the Winter of revolution, when
+the barricades were up in the streets and the dragoons worked among the
+crowds like slaughtermen in a shambles. Toward that arched gateway
+leading from the Red Square into the Kremlin came soldiers on foot,
+bringing with them prisoners dredged out of the turmoil, two armed men
+to each battered and terrified captive, whose white and bloodstained
+face stared startling and ghastly between the gray uniform greatcoats.
+The first of them came to the deep arch, in whose recess is a lamplit
+shrine; I stood aside to see them go past. The soldiers were wrenching
+the man along by the arms, each holding him on one side; I recall yet
+the prisoner's lean, miserable face, with the suggestion it had of
+dissolute and desperate youth; and as they came abreast of the faintly
+gleaming ikon in the gate they let him go for a moment. His dazed eyes
+wandered up to the shrine; he was already bareheaded, and with a
+shaking, uncertain hand he crossed himself in the intricate Russian
+fashion. The soldiers who guarded him, too--they shuffled their rifles
+to a convenient hold to have a right hand free; they crossed themselves
+and their lips moved. Then they were through the arch and out upon the
+snow within the walls, and once again they had hold of their man and
+were thrusting him along to the prison which for him was the antechamber
+of death.
+
+That was Russia then. Prisoner and captors, soldiers and
+revolutionaries, blinded and bewildered by the rush and dazzle of
+affairs, straining asunder yet linked, knitted into a unity of the
+spirit which they neither understood nor questioned.
+
+But a week ago, on those still, dreary lands which border the Prussian
+frontier, there was evidence of a Russia that has been born or made
+since those hectic days in Moscow. The Germans who had forced Gen.
+Rennenkampf to withdraw to the border were making an attempt to envelop
+his left wing. Their columns, issuing from the maze of lakes and hills
+in Masurenland, came across the border on both banks of the little River
+Amulew, and fell upon him. There is a road in those parts that drifts
+south along the frontier, an unmade, unholy Russian road, ribbed with
+outcrops of stone, a purgatory to travel upon till the snow clothes it
+and one can go by sledge. Away to the southwest, beyond the patches of
+firwood and the gray, steeply [Transcriber: original 'steply'] rolling
+land, there toned the far diapason of artillery; strings of army
+transport, Red Cross vehicles, and miscellaneous men straggled upon the
+road.
+
+From beyond the nearest shoulder of land sounded suddenly some gigantic
+and hoarse whistle, an ear-shattering roar of warning and urgency. There
+was shouting and a stir of movement; the wagons and Red Cross vans began
+to pull out to one side; and over the brow of the hill, hurtling into
+sight, huge, unbelievably swift, roaring upon its whistle, tore a great,
+gray-painted motor lorry, packed with khaki-clad infantrymen. It was
+going at a hideous speed, leaping its tons of weight insanely from rock
+ridge to traffic-churned slough in the road; there was only time to note
+its immensity and uproar and the ranked faces of the men swaying in
+their places, and it was by, and another was bounding into sight behind
+it. A hundred and odd of them, each with thirty men on board--three
+battalions to reinforce the threatened left wing--a mighty instrument of
+war, mightily wielded. It was Russia as she is today, under way and
+gathering speed.
+
+At Rennenkampf's headquarters at Wirballen, where formerly one changed
+trains going from Berlin to Petersburg, one sees the fashion in which
+Russia shapes for war. Here, beneath a little bridge with a black and
+white striped sentry box upon it, its muddy banks partitioned with
+rotten planks into goose-pens, runs that feeble stream which separates
+Russia from Germany. Upon its further side, what is left of Eydtkuhnen,
+the Prussian frontier village, looms drearily through its screen of
+willows--walls smoke-blackened and roofless, crumbling in piles of
+fallen brick across its single street, which was dreary enough at its
+best. To the north and south, and behind to the eastward, are the camps,
+a city full, a country full of men armed and equipped; the mean and ugly
+village thrills to the movement and purpose. On the roof of the
+schoolhouse there lifts itself against the pale Autumn sky the cobweb
+mast and stays of the wireless apparatus, and in the courtyard below and
+in the shabby street in front there is a surge of automobiles, motor
+cycles, mounted orderlies--all the message-carrying machinery of a staff
+office. The military telephone wires loop across the street, and spray
+out in a dozen directions over the flat and trodden fields; for within
+the dynamic kernel to all this elaborate shell is Rennenkampf, the
+Prussian-Russian who governs the gate of Germany.
+
+[Illustration: GEN. PAUL PAU
+Commanding one of the French Armies
+(_Photo from Underwood & Underwood._)]
+
+[Illustration: GEN. D'AMADE
+Commanding One of the French Armies
+(_Photo from Bain News Service._)]
+
+Here is the brain of the army. Its limbs go swinging by at all hours, in
+battalions and brigades, or at the trot, with a jingle of bits and
+scabbards, or at the walk, with bump and clank, as the gun wheels clear
+the ruts. It is the infantry--that fills the eye--fine, big stuff, man
+for man the biggest infantry in the world.
+
+Their uniform of peaked cap, trousers tucked into knee-boots, and khaki
+blouse is workmanlike, and the serious middle-aged officers trudging
+beside them are hardly distinguishable from the men. They have not yet
+learned the use of the short, broad-bladed bayonets; theirs are of the
+old three-cornered section type with which the Bulgarians drove the
+Turks to Chataldja; but there is something else that they have learned.
+Since the first days of the mobilization that brought them from their
+homes there is not a man among them that has tasted strong drink. In
+1904 the men came drunk from their homes to the centres; one saw them
+about the streets and on the railways and in the gutters. But these men
+have been sober from the start, and will perforce be sober to the end.
+
+Of all that elaborate and copious machinery of war which Russia has
+built up since her failure in Manchuria there is nothing so impressive
+as this. Her thousand and odd aeroplanes, her murderously expert
+artillery, her neat and successful field wireless telegraph, even her
+strategy, count as secondary to it. The chief of her weaknesses in the
+past has been the slowness of her mobilization; Germany, with her plans
+laid and tested for a mobilization in four days, could count on time
+enough to strike before Russia could move. She used her advantage to
+effect when Austria planted the seed of this present war by the
+annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina; she was able to present Russia in
+all her unpreparedness with the alternatives of war in twenty-four hours
+or accepting the situation. But this time it has been different.
+
+At Petrograd one sees how different. Hither from the northern and
+eastern Governments come the men who are to swell Rennenkampf's force.
+Their cadres, the skeletons of the battalions of which they are the
+flesh, are waiting for them--officers, organization, equipment, all is
+ready. The endless trains decant them; they swing in leisurely columns
+through the streets to their depots, motley as a circus--foresters,
+moujiks in fetid sheepskins, cattlemen, and rivermen, Siberians,
+tow-haired Finns, the wide gamut of the races of Russia, all big or
+biggish, with those impassive, blunt-featured faces that mask the
+Russian soul, and all sober. No need now to make men of them before
+making soldiers; no inferno at the way side-stations and troop trains
+turning up days late. It is as if, at the cost of those annual
+780,000,000 rubles, Russia had bought the clue to victory.
+
+West beyond Eydtkuhnen, under the pearl-gray northern sky, lies East
+Prussia. Hereabout it is flat and fertile, with lavish, eye-fatiguing
+levels of cornland stretching away to Insterburg and beyond to
+Königsberg's formidable girdle of forts. Here are many villages, and
+scattered between them innumerable hamlets of only two or three houses,
+and a small town or two. Most of them are empty now; the German army
+that leans its back on the Vistula's fortresses has cleared this country
+like a dancing floor for its work. It has rearranged it as one
+rearranges the furniture in a room; whole populations have been
+transported, roads broken, bridges blown up, strategically unnecessary;
+villages burned. Nothing remains on the ground that has not its purpose
+assigned--not even the people, and their purpose has been clear for
+some time past. The Russians have been over this ground already, and
+fell back from it after their defeat between Osterode and Allenstein.
+Their advance was through villages lifeless and deserted and over empty
+roads; the retreat was through a country that swarmed with hostile life.
+Roads were blocked with farm carts, houses along their route took fire
+mysteriously, signaling their movement and direction, and answered from
+afar by other conflagrations; bridges that had been sound enough before
+blew up at the last moment. What the Belgians were charged with, and
+their country laid waste for, all East Prussia is organized to do daily
+as an established and carefully schooled auxiliary to the army.
+
+A few days since there arrived a prisoner, driven in on foot by a
+mounted Cossack, sent back by the officer commanding the reconnoissance
+party which had captured him. He came up the street, shuffling at a
+quick walk to keep ahead of the horse and the thin, sinister Cossack--an
+elderly farmer, in work-stained clothes, with the lean neck and pursed
+jaws of a hard bargainer. In all his bearing and person there was
+evident the man of toilsome life who had prospered a little; in that
+soldier-thronged street, in his posture of a prisoner with the Cossack's
+revolver at his back, he was conspicuous and grotesque. His eyes, under
+the gray pent of his brows, were uneasy, and through all his commonplace
+quality and his show of fortitude there was a gleam of the fear of death
+that made him tragic. He had been found on his farm doing nothing in
+particular; it was out of simply general suspicion that the Russian
+officer had ordered him to be searched. The result was the discovery of
+a typewritten paper, giving precise instructions as to how a German
+civilian in East Prussia must act toward the enemy--how to signal
+movements of infantry, of cavalry, of artillery; how to estimate the
+numbers of a body of men, and what to say if questioned, and the like--a
+document conceived and executed with true Prussian exactitude and
+clearness, a masterpiece in the literature of espionage.
+
+For him there was no hope; even The Hague Convention, which permits
+mine-laying, does not protect spies, however earnestly and dangerously
+they serve their country. He passed, always at the same forced shuffle
+of reluctant feet, toward his judges and his doom.
+
+
+
+
+*Belgian Cities Germanized*
+
+*By Cyril Brown,*
+
+Staff Correspondent of THE NEW YORK TIMES.
+
+
+BRUSSELS, Nov. 4.--Of all the war capitals of Europe, Brussels under the
+German occupation is probably the gayest and the most deceptive. It
+certainly outrivals Berlin in life and brilliancy, as Berlin outshines
+London. The Germans are free spenders afield; their influx here by
+thousands has put large sums of money into circulation, resulting in a
+spell of artificial, perhaps superficial, prosperity.
+
+The crowds surging all day up and down the principal shopping street,
+the Rue Neuve, overflow the sidewalks and fill the street. Well-dressed
+crowds promenade along the circular boulevard all afternoon and into the
+night. Places of amusement and the cafés are crowded. The hundreds of
+automobiles loaded with officers speeding about the streets, with
+musical military horns blowing, add to the gay illusion.
+
+Nowhere save at the Great Headquarters in France, where the Kaiser stays
+when not haranguing his troops at the front, will you see such a
+brilliant galaxy of high officers--and every day seems a holiday in
+Brussels.
+
+You catch the sinister undercurrent in the more obscure little cafés.
+Here you will find some Belgian patriot who is glad of the chance to
+unbosom himself to a safe American. Perhaps he will speak with
+unprintable bitterness of the shame of the Brussels women who, he says,
+wave handkerchiefs and smile friendly greetings at the singing troop
+trains passing through the suburbs on their way to the front, or give
+flowers and cigars to the returning streams of wounded. They ought to be
+shot as traitresses, he says. For the honor of the Belgian women, he
+adds, these form only a small percentage.
+
+You are not surprised when well-informed neutral residents tell you that
+these people "have murder in their hearts, and that if the Germans ever
+retreat in a rout through Belgium, Heaven help the straggler and the
+rear guard." Nor that copies of English papers, whose reading is
+forbidden, are nevertheless smuggled in, and that copies of The London
+Times fetch as high as 200 francs, reading circles being often formed at
+20 francs per head.
+
+But there are no hopeful signs here of a German retreat. Brussels has
+not been "practically evacuated." On the contrary, one gets
+overwhelmingly the impression that the Germans expect to stay forever.
+No cannon are posted on commanding avenues or squares. There are no
+serious measures for the defense of the capital. The military and civil
+Governments occupy the principal public buildings, and seem to be
+working with typical German thoroughness. The Government offices begin
+to assume an air of permanence.
+
+As conquerors go, the invaders seem to be bearing themselves well. There
+is apparently no desire to "rub it in," the military Government
+seemingly pursuing the wise policy of trying to spare the feelings of
+the natives as much as possible, perhaps in the impossible hope of
+ultimately conciliating them. German flags are flown sparingly. Only
+small squads of Landsturm are now occasionally seen marching through the
+streets. Even from the bitterest Belgians one hears no stories of
+"insult, shame, or wrong."
+
+At the same time, swift and harsh punishment is meted out to any one
+whose actions are thought to tend to impair German military authority or
+dignity. Thus placards posted on many street corners day before
+yesterday informed the people that a Belgian city policeman had been
+sentenced to five years' imprisonment for "interfering with a German
+official in the discharge of his duty, assaulting a soldier, and
+attempting to free a prisoner." For this, also, a fine of 5,000,000
+france ($1,000,000) was imposed on the City of Brussels. Another
+policeman was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for alleged similar
+offenses.
+
+An interesting history of the German occupation can be reconstructed
+from these same placards pasted on buildings. Here is one, dating from
+the early days, forbidding bicycle riding in the country and announcing
+that civilian cyclists will be shot at sight. If you look long enough
+you can also find a mutilated specimen of ex-Burgomaster Max's famous
+"dementi," in which he virtually calls the German Military Governor of
+Liége and, by implication, the German Government, "liar." The Bruxellois
+must be fickle and quick to forget, for I did not hear the picturesque
+Max's name mentioned once.
+
+The realities of the military occupation are brought home to the people
+perhaps most at the Gare du Nord and the Place de la Gare, where the
+Civic Guards, in their curious comic opera caps, are reinforced by
+German gendarmes with rifles slung over their shoulders. Civilians are
+not allowed to cross this square in front of the railway station. "Keep
+to the sidewalk" is the brusque order to those who stray. Also the park
+in front of the Royal Palace is closed to the public. Three bright red
+gasoline tank wagons among the trees give it an incongruous touch, while
+the walks and drives are used as an exercising ground for officers'
+mounts. All the windows of the Royal Palace are decorated with the sign
+of the Red Cross.
+
+Brussels just now is humorously a victim of the double standard--not
+moral, but financial. All kinds of money go here on the basis of 1 mark
+equaling 1 franc 25 centimes, but shopkeepers still fix prices and
+waiters bring bills in francs, and when payment is tendered in marks you
+generally get change in both--a proceeding that involves elaborate
+mathematical computations. At the next table to you in the restaurant of
+the Palace Hotel, once a favorite stopping place for Anglo-American
+travelers, but now virtually an exclusive German officers' club, with
+the distinction of a double guard posted at the front door, sits a
+short, fiercely mustached General of some sort--evidently a person of
+great importance from the commotion his entry caused among all the other
+officers in the room. In his buttonhole he wears the Iron Cross of the
+second class, the Iron Cross of the first class pinned to his breast,
+and underneath the rare "Pour le Merite Order, with Swords." His bill
+amounts to about 7 francs, for he consumed the regular 4-franc table
+d'hôte, plus a full bottle of red Burgundy. He tenders a blue 100-mark
+bill in payment and gets in return a baffling heap of change, including
+1 and 2 franc Belgium paper notes, 5 and 10 mark German bills, Belgian
+and German silver, and Belgian nickel coins with holes punched in the
+centres. The General takes out his pencil and begins elaborate
+calculations on the menu--then sends for the head waiter. It takes some
+time and much talk to convince him that he is not being "short changed."
+The double standard furnishes many of these humorous interludes.
+
+Equally exasperating is the double time standard. The Germans set their
+official clocks and watches by Berlin time, but have made no attempt to
+force it on the natives, who continue loyal to Belgian time, which is
+one hour behind Berlin.
+
+Brand Whitlock, the American Minister to Belgium, who runs a strong risk
+of having a statue erected to him some day by the grateful Belgian
+people, is quite the happiest, most relieved-looking person in Brussels
+since he heard the good news that all America was hard at work
+collecting food for the Belgians and that England would not prevent its
+delivery. Soon after the German occupation of Brussels a committee was
+organized to give food to the poor here, of which Mr. Whitlock and the
+Spanish Minister were patrons. Three weeks ago the Ministerial allies
+discovered that the situation was exceedingly grave, not only here but
+all over Belgium. Committees came to see Mr. Whitlock from Louvain,
+Liége, Namur, Charleroi, Mons, Dinant, &c., and the people, I was told,
+were within four weeks of absolute starvation. Mr. Whitlock got the
+German Military Governor of Belgium, Field Marshal von der Goltz, to
+give the Spanish Minister and himself a guarantee in writing that any
+food sent in for the poor Belgians would not be requisitioned for the
+German Army.
+
+The next thing was to get the permission of England; so two weeks ago
+Secretary Gibson was sent to London with Baron Lambert, a banker, and M.
+Franqui to get England's permission as well as a first shipment of food.
+Two weeks ago Mr. Whitlock sent a long letter to the State Department
+and to President Wilson, asking them to do something. At least one
+phrase of Mr. Whitlock's coinage has been going the rounds here. In the
+various preliminary discussions as to whose responsibility it was to
+take care of the Belgian people there was considerable talk about Hague
+conventions. "Starving people can't eat Hague conventions" was his
+answer.
+
+Minister Whitlock also feels vastly relieved that he has got practically
+all non-official Americans out of Belgium, the twoscore still here being
+mostly resident business men, with a sprinkling of the boldest tourists,
+who are staying "to see the fun," in spite of Ministerial warnings.
+
+Mr. Whitlock believes he has broken the world's record by being eight
+Ministers at once. At one time he was representing Germany, Austria,
+Great Britain, Japan, Servia, Denmark, and Lichtenstein. When he told a
+German officer that he represented Lichtenstein--which is said to be a
+small sovereign State somewhere, dependent on Austria--the officer
+laughed and said: "Theoretically, Germany is still at war with
+Lichtenstein and has been since 1866, it having been overlooked in the
+peace shuffle." The reason for representing Denmark, which isn't at war
+with anybody, is that the Danish Minister is equally accredited to
+Belgium and The Hague, and had no Secretary to leave behind when he
+departed Hagueward. Of course, the American flag does not fly over the
+Danish Legation here. In addition, the French and Russian interests were
+also offered to Mr. Whitlock, but he was so full of responsibility that
+he had to ask to be excused.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LOUVAIN, Nov. 5.--Louvain now presents the ghastly spectacle of a dead
+city, buried under ruins, slowly coming to life again, and continues to
+give full scope to the morbid streak in human nature; for sightseers
+continue to flock here in increasing numbers from Antwerp, Brussels,
+and, in fact, all over Belgium, excepting from over the deadline of the
+operating zone. With the Bruxellois especially the trip is a favorite
+outing on a pleasant Sunday. The Germans have succeeded in restoring the
+train service to the extent of two passenger trains daily between here
+and Brussels and one between here and Antwerp, and the military
+authorities pursue a surprisingly liberal policy in giving traveling
+passes to the Belgian population. In addition to those who come by
+train, a steady procession of automobiles passes through all day; and
+next week, when a Berlin-Brussels express service is to be started, the
+local touring season will have a further boom.
+
+About 5 per cent of the original population have come crawling back, and
+the three companies of Landsturm garrisoned here, together with the
+sightseers, form their source of revenue. The more courageous
+shopkeepers who have come back and reopened their stores are coining
+money as never in peace times--especially the little confectionery and
+pastry shops, where the soldiers off duty come for afternoon coffee,
+and the one tailor's shop which is open. Workmen are putting the
+finishing touches to the new pine-board roof on the cathedral and are
+making efforts to "restore" the stone exterior. The famous Gothic Hôtel
+de Ville is now protected by a high board fence, and two bearded
+Landsturm men mount guard there day and night. A gang of laborers is
+making headway in cleaning up the interior of the hopelessly ruined
+University Library, and the streets are all cleared of débris. The
+academic halls of the main university building, which suffered little
+damage, are not silent, for one of the Landsturm companies is quartered
+there. I found half a hundred of them and two cows in the university
+quadrangle or campus. The men were all unshaven, but of a good-natured
+sort, and many were the rough German jokes as they watched a comrade
+milking the cows preparatory to their slaughter on the spot by the
+company butcher, who stood in waiting, while at the same time the
+gray-haired university castellan was getting ready to take a time
+exposure of the cows.
+
+"And yet they say we Germans are barbarians," laughed an under officer.
+"I bet you won't find that the French soldiers, or the highly civilized
+English gentlemen, either, have a photographer come to take a picture of
+the cows they are about to eat."
+
+The venerable university guardian continued to do a brisk business
+making group pictures and solo portraits of Landsturm under officers and
+men at two francs per dozen postcards, till a Lieutenant appeared on the
+scene and the bugle sounded in the court for "boot inspection." All
+promptly lined up in double file against the brick university wall and
+presented feet for the critical eye of the inspector--all except the
+company cooks, who were busy among their pots and pans and open-air cook
+stoves set up in the academic stone portico.
+
+The last of the former students of the University of Louvain was
+probably the well-dressed, meek-looking young Chinese, eating luncheon
+at the near-by restaurant--the only one open in town. The German
+soldiers, fortunately, did not mistake him for a Japanese, and he has
+not been molested.
+
+There are touches of grim humor among the ruins. Here on the main
+street, for example, is a pink placard stuck on a stick on top of the
+heap of brick and mortar that was once a store. It reads: "Elegant
+corsets: Removed to Rue Malines 21." And again, on a number of houses
+that escaped the torch are pasted neatly printed little signs bearing
+the legend: "This house is to be protected. Soldiers are not allowed to
+enter houses or to set fire to them without orders from the
+Kommandantur."
+
+The inhabitants who have no stores to keep seem continually to wander
+aimlessly in the streets; and here, too, is the sight, common now all
+over Belgium, of many women with children begging. Especially they
+linger around the entrances to the barracks, for hunger has given them a
+keen nose for bread, and they have soon learned that the soldier will
+give them what they have left over from their ample rations. The German
+Government is trying to stimulate the return of the population, and is
+apparently doing its best to help them to earn a living by providing
+work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ANTWERP, Nov. 6.--The Germans are working incessantly to repair the
+fortifications of Antwerp, mount new and heavier guns, and put the whole
+place into a state of defense. The importance attached to their almost
+feverish activities is indicated by the fact that Field Marshal von der
+Goltz, the Military Governor of Belgium, ran over from Brussels and made
+a tour of inspection of the double girdle of forts yesterday. His
+Excellency von Frankenberg and Ludwigsdorf, Personal Adjutant of the
+Military Governor of Antwerp, said to me in the course of a cordial
+interview:
+
+"We have two principal interests in our work here: First, that Antwerp
+shall become a place of great military importance again and be prepared
+against attacks from the enemy, although that contingency doesn't seem
+very probable."
+
+His Excellency was unwilling to hazard a guess as to how long the
+Germans could hold Antwerp against an allied siege, but said: "I believe
+we could hold out longer against the Allies than they did against the
+Germans. Our second interest is to revive trade and industry and the
+life of the city generally. When we first came here there were only
+soldiers and hungry dogs on the streets; now, as you can see, the dead
+city is coming to life in short order."
+
+He scouted the idea that the people of Belgium had been or were on the
+brink of starvation as the result of German occupation, saying that the
+very contrary was the case. "Belgium is a country which cannot sustain
+itself--it produces only enough food for roughly 3,000,000 out of its
+5,000,000 population, because Belgium is an industrial country, and food
+for the remaining 2,000,000 has to be imported. Heretofore most of this
+food has come from Holland, whence some is still coming, but in no great
+quantity. We have taken the problem of food supply up with the Belgian
+Government, as much as there is one left, namely, with the
+municipalities, and at our suggestion an 'Intercommunistic Commission'
+has been organized, so that everything possible can be done to help the
+country. This commission sits in Brussels, and when any town or village
+or district has no more food on hand the fact is reported and it gets
+from the commission what is required. What food supplies we found here
+we took charge of to prevent their being plundered, and also because we,
+as a belligerent, had to supply our own necessities; that is the right
+of war. But by no means have we used up all the food supplies ourselves,
+nor set them aside for our own use; but a large part has been set aside
+for this commission, to be used for the poor, and another part will be
+given back in a short time for trade purposes, so that commerce will be
+revived again.
+
+"There is no place in Belgium where the people have starved. Their most
+pressing need now would appear to be money, for many are unemployed and
+many others disinclined to work. At one place where we were told the
+people were starving we found stores crammed full of food--but the
+inhabitants had no money and the shopkeepers wouldn't give them credit.
+
+"Everything is being done by us to revive business so that the people
+can again earn money. If America had not been so tender-hearted as to
+send foodstuffs, and if the food supply had run out, we should certainly
+have considered it our duty to bring food from Germany, for we are for
+the time being the Government here, and it is our duty to see that the
+people do not starve."
+
+German newspaper readers are not aware that their Kaiser had a narrow
+escape from the bombs of the Allies' airmen at Thielt, for the fact of
+the War Lord's recent invasion of Belgium has been kept as nearly a dead
+secret as possible. I learned from an especially well-informed source in
+Brussels that the object of the Kaiser's visit was not only to encourage
+his troops but to reprove his Generals. According to this informant, who
+is frequently in touch with high officers in their more mellow moods,
+when military reticence somewhat relaxes, the Kaiser was said to be in a
+towering rage at the failure of his army to make headway against the
+English and Belgians on the coast, and to have decided to go in person
+to see about it; also there has been considerable cautiously veiled
+criticism of his persistent "interference" in the conduct of the
+campaign.
+
+Having last seen the Kaiser two weeks ago motoring at the German Great
+Headquarters in Eastern France, I picked up his trail at Louvain,
+through which place he passed by night a week ago in a special train in
+the direction of Lille, after a scouting pilot engine had returned and
+reported "all safe." On his return journey from Flanders he was rumored
+to have "put up" at the Palais d'Arenberg in Brussels.
+
+It is significant that the following notice has been placarded on the
+outside of the building occupied by the Military Government, next door
+to the Hotel St. Antoine: "Reports that the French and English are
+marching on Antwerp are without foundation; the public is warned against
+helping to circulate these false reports." All day crowds hang about the
+door where this notice is posted among official German news bulletins.
+The burghers of Antwerp are well informed about the varying fortunes of
+the war, for several papers printed in French are allowed to appear,
+under the German censorship, which seems surprisingly easygoing here and
+eminently fair, allowing them to print not merely the official German
+accounts circulated by the Wolff Bureau, but the official English,
+French, Russian, and even Belgian bulletins as well, in addition to
+matter copied from the Dutch papers, which are also allowed to circulate
+here.
+
+If things look doubtful in the north, the Germans are looking
+confidently to the south, where the next big victory is hoped for. I
+learn that Gen. von Beseler, "the conqueror of Antwerp," as his popular
+picture postcard title reads, is now in charge of operations around
+Verdun, and that four of the new 42-centimeter mortars, in addition to
+more than thirty of the 30.5-centimeter, are already in place there. On
+the strength of this combination well-informed German officers
+confidently expect the quick fall of Verdun as soon as Beseler gives the
+order for the "Brummers" to speak--rather high-priced oratory, for I was
+told by an artillery officer that it cost the taxpayers 36,000 marks
+($9,000) every time one of the 42-centimeter mortars was fired.
+
+
+
+
+*The Belgian Ruin*
+
+*By J.H. Whitehouse, M.P.*
+
+[An Associated Press Interview, Published Oct. 2, 1914.]
+
+
+LONDON, Oct. 1.--A graphic picture of the desolation of Belgium was
+brought to London today by J.H. Whitehouse, member of Parliament from
+Lanarkshire, who has just returned from a tour around Antwerp for the
+purpose of assisting in the relief measures.
+
+"Having always regarded war as the negation of all that is good," said
+Mr. Whitehouse tonight, "I desired to see what its ravages were in a
+country exposed to all its fury, and what steps were possible to
+mitigate them. I do not think that any one here has realized the plight
+of the civilian population of Belgium today, and can only attempt to
+give any picture of this by describing some of my own experiences."
+
+Mr. Whitehouse made the journey outside Antwerp with two military cars,
+attended by Belgian officials. In describing the damage which he says
+the Belgians had to inflict upon themselves to supplement the defenses
+of Antwerp, he said:
+
+"Hundreds of thousands of trees had been cut down, so that at some
+points of our journey we had the impression of passing through a
+wilderness of roots. The tree trunks had all been removed so as to
+afford no cover to the enemy. All houses had been blown up or otherwise
+destroyed. Later we passed through the country which had been flooded as
+a further measure of defense. The damage resulting from these
+precautionary measures alone amounted to £10,000,000, ($50,000,000.)
+
+"In the villages all ordinary life was arrested. Women and children were
+standing or sitting dumb and patient by the roadside. Half way to
+Termonde we could plainly hear the booming of guns and saw many
+evidences of the battle which was then raging.
+
+"I had read newspaper accounts of the destruction of Termonde and had
+seen photographs, but they had not conveyed to my mind any realization
+of the horror of what actually happened. Termonde a few weeks ago was a
+beautiful city of about 16,000 inhabitants--a city in which the dignity
+of its buildings harmonized with the natural beauty of its situation, a
+city which contained some buildings of surpassing interest.
+
+"I went through street after street, square after square, and I found
+every house entirely destroyed with all its contents. It was not the
+result of the bombardment; it was systematic destruction. In each house
+a separate bomb had been placed, which had blown up the interior and set
+fire to the contents. All that remained in every case were portions of
+the outer walls, which were still constantly falling, and inside the
+cinders of the contents of the buildings. Not a shred of furniture or
+anything else remained.
+
+"This sight continued throughout the entire extent of what had been a
+considerable town. It had an indescribable influence upon observers
+which no printed description or even pictorial record could give. This
+influence was increased by the utter silence of the city, broken only by
+the sound of the guns.
+
+"Of the population I thought that not a soul remained. I was wrong, for
+as we turned into a square where the wreck of what had been one of the
+most beautiful of Gothic churches met my eyes a blind woman and her
+daughter groped among the ruins. They were the sole living creatures in
+the whole town.
+
+"Shops, factories, churches, and houses of the wealthy--all were
+similarly destroyed. One qualification only have I to make of this
+statement: Two or perhaps three houses bore the German command in chalk
+that they were not to be burned. These remained standing, but deserted,
+amid the ruins on either side. Where a destroyed house had obviously
+contained articles of value looting had taken place.
+
+"I inquired what had become of the population. It was a question to
+which no direct reply could be given. They had fled in all directions.
+Some had reached Antwerp, but a greater number were wandering about the
+country, panic-stricken and starving. Many were already dead.
+
+"What happened at Termonde was similar to what had happened in other
+parts of Belgium under military occupation of Germany. The result is
+that conditions have been set up for the civilian population throughout
+the occupied territory of unexampled misery. Comparatively few refugees
+have reached this country. Others remain wandering about Belgium,
+flocking into other towns and villages, or flying to points a little way
+across the Dutch frontier.
+
+"Sometimes when a town has been bombarded the Germans have withdrawn and
+the civilians have returned to their homes, only to flee again at the
+renewed attack. A case in point is Malines, which, on Sunday last, as I
+was about to try to reach it, was again bombarded. The inhabitants were
+then unable to leave, as the town was surrounded, but when the
+bombardment ceased there was a great exodus.
+
+"The whole life of the nation has been arrested. Food supplies which
+would ordinarily reach the civilian population are being taken by the
+German troops for their own support. The peasants and poor are without
+the necessities of life, and conditions of starvation grow more acute
+every day. Even where there is a supply of wheat available the peasants
+are not allowed to use their windmills, owing to the German fear that
+they will send signals to the Belgian Army.
+
+"We are, therefore, face to face with a fact which has rarely, if ever,
+occurred in the history of the world--an entire nation is in a state of
+famine, and that within half a day's journey of our own shores.
+
+"The completeness of the destruction in each individual case was
+explained to me later by the Belgian Ministers, who described numerous
+appliances which the German soldiers carried for destroying property.
+Not only were hand bombs of various sizes and descriptions carried, but
+each soldier was supplied with a quantity of small black disks a little
+bigger than a sixpenny piece. I saw some of these disks which had been
+taken from German soldiers on the field of battle. These were described
+to me as composed of compressed benzine. When lighted they burned
+brilliantly for a few minutes, and are sufficient to start whatever fire
+is necessary after the explosion of a bomb.
+
+"To the conditions of famine and homelessness which exist on such a
+stupendous scale there must be added one which is bad--the mental panic
+in which many survivors remain. I understood how inevitable this was
+when I saw and heard what they passed through; eyewitnesses of
+unimpeachable character described the sufferings of women and children
+at Liége. As they fled from their burning houses, clinging to their
+husbands and fathers, they were violently pulled from them and saw them
+shot a few yards from them.
+
+"I should supplement what I have said regarding the condition of Belgium
+with some reference to Antwerp itself, where the excited Government now
+sits. It is a wonderful contrast to the rest of the country, and the
+first impression of the visitor is that there is little change between
+its life now and in the days of peace. I approached it by water, and in
+the early morning it rose before me like a fairy city. Its skyline was
+beautifully broken by the spires and towers of its churches, including
+the incomparable Gothic Cathedral.
+
+"When I entered its shops were open, its streets crowded, and everywhere
+there was eager activity. By midday the streets became congested. Early
+editions of the papers were eagerly bought and great crowds assembled
+wherever a telegram giving news could be read. This continued until
+early evening, but by 8 o'clock a most extraordinary change had fallen
+upon the city.
+
+"Not a light of any kind in house or shop was to be seen. No lamps were
+lit in the streets and the city was plunged into absolute darkness. Not
+a soul remained in the streets. To the darkness there was added profound
+silence. It was as though this amazing city had been suddenly blotted
+out."
+
+
+
+
+*The Wounded Serb*
+
+[From The London Times, Oct. 18, 1914.]
+
+
+VALIEVO, Sept. 25.
+
+Valievo lies at the terminus of a narrow-gauge railway which joins the
+Belgrade-Salonika line at Mladinovatz. Along this single track of iron
+road the entire transport of the Servian Army is being effected.
+Westward come trains packed with food, fodder, munitions, and troops;
+eastward go long convoys crowded with maimed humanity. At Mladinovatz
+all this mass of commissariat and suffering must needs be transferred
+from or to the broad-gauge line. In this situation lies not the least of
+the problems which beset the Servians in their struggle with the
+Austrian invaders.
+
+Valievo itself is a picturesque little town which in peace time is
+famous as the centre of the Servian prune trade. Its cobbled streets
+are, in the main, spacious and well planned. There still remain a few
+relics of the Turkish occupation--overhanging eaves, trellised windows,
+and the like--but these one must needs seek in the by-ways. I picture
+Valievo under normal conditions as one of the most attractive of Balkan
+townships.
+
+Nor has the tableau lost anything in the framing, for it is encircled by
+a molding of verdant hills which run off into a sweep of seeming endless
+woods. The vista from my hotel window is almost aggravatingly English.
+Across the red-tiled roofs of intervening cottages rises the hillside--a
+checkerboard of grassy slopes and patches of woodland intersected by a
+brown road which runs upward until the summit, surmounted by a
+whitewashed shrine, amid a cluster of walnut trees, touches the gray
+sky.
+
+But Valievo is not now to be seen under normal conditions. From the
+street below rises the sound of clatter and creak as the rude oxen
+wagons bump over the cobblestones. Morning, noon, and night they rumble
+along unceasingly, and whenever I look down I see martial figures clad
+in tattered, muddy, and blood-stained uniforms, with rudely bandaged
+body or head or foot. Every now and then a woman breaks from the crowd
+of waiting loiterers and rushes up to a maimed acquaintance. They
+exchange but a few sentences, and then she turns, buries her head in her
+apron, and stumbles along the street wailing a bitter lament for some
+husband, brother, or son who shall return no more. A friend supports and
+leads her home; but the onlooking soldiers regard the scene with
+indifference and snap out a rude advice "not to make a fuss." They brook
+no wailing for Serbs who have died for Servia.
+
+The town itself has been transformed into one huge camp of wounded. All
+adaptable buildings--halls, cafés, school-rooms--have been rapidly
+commandeered for hospitals. Sometimes there are beds, more often rudely
+made straw mattresses, for little Servia, worn out by two hard wars, is
+ill-equipped to resist the onslaught of a great power. For 16 days a
+fierce battle has been raging near the frontier, and wounded have been
+pouring in much more rapidly than accommodation can be found for them.
+
+And in the streets--what misery! The lame, the halt, the maimed. Men
+with damaged leg or foot hopping along painfully by the aid of a
+friendly baton; men nursing broken arms or shattered hands; men with
+bandaged heads; men being carried from operating shops to café floors;
+men with body wounds lying on stretchers--all with ragged,
+blood-bespattered remnants of what once were uniforms. One sees little
+of the glory of war in Valievo. The Servian Medical Staff, deprived on
+this occasion of outside assistance, and short alike of doctors,
+surgeons, nurses, and material, is striving heroically to cope with its
+task. Where they have been able to equip hospitals the work has been
+very creditably done. One building is almost exclusively devoted to
+cases where amputations have been necessary. It is clean, orderly, and
+the patients are obviously well cared for. Here, when I entered a ward
+of some thirty beds in which every man lay with a bandaged stump where
+his leg should be, I think I saw the Servian spirit at its best. They
+had been newly operated upon, their sufferings must have been great, and
+for them all the future is black with forebodings. There is no patriotic
+fund in little Servia. Yet amid all the pain of body and uncertainty of
+mind that must have been theirs they did not complain. All they desired
+to know was whether the Schwaba (Austrians) had been beaten out of
+Servia.
+
+But it is when one leaves the organized hospitals and wends one's way
+through the crowds of wounded who block the pavements, and enters a
+lower-class café, that the appalling tragedy of it all fills even the
+spectator with a sense of hopelessness. There, like cattle upon their
+bed of straw, lie sufferers from all manner of hurts. They remain mute
+and uncomplaining, just as they have been dropped down from the incoming
+oxen transports. Their wounds--three, four, or five days old--have yet
+received no attention save the primitive first-aid of the battlefield.
+Blood poisoning is setting in; limbs that prompt dressing would have
+saved are fast becoming victims for the surgeon's knife. Most of them
+know the risk they run, for this is their third war--often, too, their
+third wound--in two short years. Yet the doctors cannot come, because
+every man of them is already doing more than human energy allows. It is
+a heartrending sight to look down upon this helpless mass and to realize
+that many of them have been sentenced to painful death for mere lack of
+primitive medical attention.
+
+One wonders whether, now that half Europe has been transformed into a
+vast slaughterhouse, appeals for sympathy can be other than in vain.
+
+
+
+
+*ANOTHER "HAPPY THOUGHT."*
+
+By WINIFRED ARNOLD.
+
+
+The world is so full
+  Of a number of Kings!--
+That's probably what is the
+  Matter with things.
+
+
+
+
+*Spy Organization in England*
+
+*British Home Office Communication, Oct. 9.*
+
+
+In view of the anxiety naturally felt by the public with regard to the
+system of espionage on which Germany has placed so much reliance and to
+which attention has been directed by recent reports from the seat of
+war, it may be well to state briefly the steps which the Home Office,
+acting on behalf of the Admiralty and War Office, has taken to deal with
+the matter in this country. The secrecy which it has hitherto been
+desirable in the public interest to observe on certain points cannot any
+longer be maintained owing to the evidence which it is necessary to
+produce in cases against spies that are now pending.
+
+It was clearly ascertained five or six years ago that the Germans were
+making great efforts to establish a system of espionage in this country,
+and in order to trace and thwart these efforts a Special Intelligence
+Department was established by the Admiralty and the War Office which has
+ever since acted in the closest co-operation with the Home Office and
+metropolitan police and the principal provincial police forces. In 1911,
+by the passing of the Official Secrets act, 1911, the law with regard to
+espionage, which had hitherto been confused and defective, was put on a
+clear basis and extended so as to embrace every possible mode of
+obtaining and conveying to the enemy information which might be useful
+in war.
+
+The Special Intelligence Department, supported by all the means which
+could be placed at its disposal by the Home Secretary, was able in three
+years, from 1911 to 1914, to discover the ramifications of the German
+Secret Service in England. In spite of enormous efforts and lavish
+expenditure of money by the enemy, little valuable information passed
+into their hands. The agents, of whose identity knowledge was obtained
+by the Special Intelligence Department, were watched and shadowed
+without, in general, taking any hostile action or allowing them to know
+that their movements were watched. When, however, any actual step was
+taken to convey plans or documents of importance from this country to
+Germany, the spy was arrested, and in such case evidence sufficient to
+secure his conviction was usually found in his possession. Proceedings
+under the Official Secrets act were taken by the Director of Public
+Prosecutions, and in six cases sentences were passed varying from
+eighteen months to six years' penal servitude. At the same time steps
+were taken to mark down and keep under observation all the agents known
+to be engaged in this traffic, so that when any necessity arose the
+police might lay hands on them at once; and, accordingly, on the 4th of
+August, before the declaration of war, instructions were given by the
+Home Secretary for the arrest of twenty known spies, and all were
+arrested. This figure does not cover a large number--upward of 200--who
+were noted as under suspicion or to be kept under special observation.
+The great majority of these were interned at or soon after the
+declaration of war.
+
+None of the men arrested in pursuance of the orders issued on Aug. 4 has
+yet been brought to trial, partly because the officers whose evidence
+would have been required were engaged in urgent duties in the early days
+of the war, but mainly because the prosecution by disclosing the means
+adopted to track out the spies and prove their guilt would have hampered
+the Intelligence Department in its further efforts. They were and still
+are held as prisoners under the powers given to the Secretary of State
+by the Aliens Restriction act. One of them, however, who established a
+claim to British nationality, has now been formally charged; and, the
+reasons for delay no longer existing, it is a matter for consideration
+whether the same course should now be taken with regard to some of the
+other known spies.
+
+Although this action taken on August 4 is believed to have broken up the
+spy organization which had been established before the war, it is still
+necessary to take the most rigorous measures to prevent the
+establishment of any fresh organization and to deal with individual
+spies who might previously have been working in this country outside the
+organization, or who might be sent here under the guise of neutrals
+after the declaration of war. In carrying this out the Home Office and
+War Office have now the assistance of the cable censorship, and also of
+the postal censorship, which, established originally to deal with
+correspondence with Germany and Austria, has been gradually extended (as
+the necessary staff could be obtained) so as to cover communications
+with those neutral countries through which correspondence might readily
+pass to Germany or Austria. The censorship has been extremely effective
+in stopping secret communications by cable or letter with the enemy, but
+as its existence was necessarily known to them it has not, except in a
+few instances, produced materials for the detection of espionage.
+
+On Aug. 5 the Aliens Restriction act was passed, and within an hour of
+its passing an order in council was made which gave the Home Office and
+the police stringent powers to deal with aliens, and especially enemy
+aliens, who under this act could be stopped from entering or leaving the
+United Kingdom, and were prohibited while residing in this country from
+having in their possession any wireless or signaling apparatus of any
+kind, or any carrier or homing pigeons. Under this order all those
+districts where the Admiralty or War Office considered it undesirable
+that enemy aliens should reside have been cleared by the police of
+Germans and Austrians, with the exception of a few persons, chiefly
+women and children, whose character and antecedents are such that the
+local Chief Constable, in whose discretion the matter is vested by the
+order, considered that all ground for suspicion was precluded. At the
+same time the Post Office, acting under the powers given them by the
+Wireless Telegraphy acts, dismantled all private wireless stations; and
+they established a special system of wireless detection by which any
+station actually used for the transmission of messages from this country
+could be discovered. The police have co-operated successfully in this
+matter with the Post Office.
+
+New and still more stringent powers for dealing with espionage were
+given by the Defense of the Realm act, which was passed by the Home
+Secretary through the House of Commons and received the Royal Assent on
+Aug. 8. Orders in council have been made under this act which prohibit,
+in the widest possible terms, any attempt on the part either of aliens
+or of British subjects to communicate any information which "is
+calculated to be or might be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy";
+and any person offending against this prohibition is liable to be tried
+by court-martial and sentenced to penal servitude for life. The effect
+of these orders is to make espionage a military offense. Power is given
+both to the police and to the military authorities to arrest without a
+warrant any person whose behavior is such as to give rise to suspicion,
+and any person so arrested by the police would be handed over to the
+military authorities for trial by court-martial. Only in the event of
+the military authorities holding that there is no prima facie case of
+espionage or any other offense triable by military law is a prisoner
+handed back to the civil authorities to consider whether he should be
+charged with failing to register or with any other offense under the
+Aliens Restriction act.
+
+The present position is therefore that espionage has been made by
+statute a military offense triable by court-martial. If tried under the
+Defense of the Realm act the maximum punishment is penal servitude for
+life; but if dealt with outside that act as a war crime the punishment
+of death can be inflicted.
+
+At the present moment one case is pending in which a person charged
+with attempting to convey information to the enemy is now awaiting his
+trial by court-martial; but in no other case has any clear trace been
+discovered of any attempt to convey information to the enemy, and there
+is good reason to believe that the spy organization crushed at the
+outbreak of the war has not been re-established.
+
+How completely that system had been suppressed in the early days of the
+war is clear from the fact disclosed in a German Army order--that on the
+21st of August the German military commanders were still ignorant of the
+dispatch and movements of the British expeditionary force, although
+these had been known for many days to a large number of people in this
+country.
+
+The fact, however, of this initial success does not prevent the
+possibility of fresh attempts at espionage being made, and there is no
+relaxation in the efforts of the Intelligence Department and of the
+police to watch and detect any attempts in this direction. In carrying
+out their duties the military and police authorities would expect that
+persons having information of cases of suspected espionage would
+communicate the grounds of the suspicion to local military authority or
+to the local police, who are in direct communication with the Special
+Intelligence Department, instead of causing unnecessary public alarm and
+possibly giving warning to the spies by public speeches or letters to
+the press. In cases in which the Director of Public Prosecutions has
+appealed to the authors of such letters and speeches to supply him with
+the evidence upon which their statements were founded in order that he
+might consider the question of prosecuting the offender, no evidence of
+any value has as yet been forthcoming.
+
+Among other measures which have been taken has been the registration, by
+order of the Secretary of State made under the Defense of the Realm act,
+of all persons keeping carrier or homing pigeons. The importation and
+the conveyance by rail of these birds have been prohibited, and, with
+the valuable assistance of the National Homing Union, a system of
+registration has been extended to the whole of the United Kingdom, and
+measures have been taken which, it is believed, will be effective to
+prevent the possibility of any birds being kept in this country which
+would fly to the Continent.
+
+Another matter which has engaged the closest attention of the police has
+been the possibility of conspiracies to commit outrage. No trace
+whatever has been discovered of any such conspiracy, and no outrage of
+any sort has yet been committed by any alien--not even telegraph wires
+having been maliciously cut since the beginning of the war. Nevertheless
+it has been necessary to bear in mind the possibility that such a secret
+conspiracy might exist or might be formed among alien enemies resident
+in this country. Accordingly, immediately after the commencement of
+hostilities, rigorous search was made by the police in the houses of
+Germans and Austrians, in their clubs, and in all places where they were
+likely to resort. In a few cases individuals were found who were in
+possession of a gun or pistol which they had not declared, and in one or
+two cases there were small collections of ancient firearms, and in such
+cases the offenders have been prosecuted and punished; but no store of
+effective arms--still less any bombs or instruments of destruction--have
+so far been discovered. From the beginning any Germans or Austrians who
+were deemed by the police to be likely to be dangerous were apprehended,
+handed over to the military authorities, and detained as prisoners of
+war; and, as soon as the military authorities desired it, general action
+was taken to arrest and hand over to military custody Germans of
+military age, subject to exceptions which have properly been made on
+grounds of policy. About 9,000 Germans and Austrians of military age
+have been so arrested and are held as prisoners of war in detention
+camps, and among them are included those who are regarded by the police
+as likely in any possible event to take part in any outbreak of disorder
+or incendiarism.
+
+
+
+
+*Chronology of the War*
+
+*Showing Progress of Campaigns on All Fronts and Collateral Events to
+and Including Oct. 15, 1914.[A]*
+
+
+*CAMPAIGN IN EASTERN EUROPE*
+
+July 21--Situation threatens European war; fear that Russia will aid
+Servia.
+
+July 23--Austria sends ultimatum to Servia; Austrian Army Corps
+mobilized at Temesvar, and fleet gathers at Semlin.
+
+July 24--Russia will ask Austria to extend time for Servia's reply to
+ultimatum; Austria will brook no interference.
+
+July 25--Servia's reply to ultimatum unsatisfactory; Russian Army
+mobilizing.
+
+July 26--Servian Army mobilizing; Russian warning to Germany.
+
+July 27--Austrian Army invades Servia; Servians blow up bridge across
+Danube; report of mobilizing of Montenegrin Army; Austria denounces
+Servia's reply to ultimatum; Cossacks fire on Germans at frontier.
+
+July 28--Austria declares war on Servia and Emperor issues manifesto;
+fighting along River Drina; Russian forces mass on eastern border.
+
+July 29--Russian intervention imminent; Austrians bombard Belgrade;
+Servians blow up bridges at Semlin.
+
+July 30--Kaiser calls on Russia to halt mobilization within twenty-four
+hours; war activity in Warsaw; Austrians repulsed at Losnitza;
+Montenegrins occupy Cattaro.
+
+July 31--Russians blow up railway bridge on Vienna-Warsaw line; Servians
+check Austrians at Semendria and on Bosnian frontier; France replies to
+German note about Russia; Czar, Kaiser, and King George may yet arrange
+peace; following Council of Ministers at Peterhof, Russia sends no reply
+to German note and calls out reserves; France and England still trying
+to adjust matters between Russia and Austria; Russian mobilization
+order; Austria orders military and naval mobilization.
+
+Aug. 1--Germany declares war on Russia, Kaiser signs mobilization order;
+German patrol near Prostken fired on by Russians.
+
+Aug. 2--Russians cross German frontier and seize railroad station:
+Montenegrin King signs mobilization order.
+
+Aug. 3--Germans seize three cities in Russian Poland; Czar calls
+Russians to war; fighting on Drina River.
+
+Aug. 4--Russians defeated in attack on Memel; Serbs defeat Austrians
+near Semendria; Turkey mobilizes.
+
+Aug. 5--Austria declares war on Russia; Russian patrols raid East
+Prussia; Servian flag hoisted at Delarme, Austria; Belgrade bombarded;
+Germans repulse Russian cavalry at Soldau and Neidenberg.
+
+Aug. 7--Montenegro declares war against Austria; Austrians bombard
+Belgrade; Servians annihilate Austrian regiment.
+
+Aug. 8--Servia declares war on Germany; fighting between Germans and
+Russians at Eydtkuhnen; German force lands in Finland; Austrians
+evacuate Visigard; Austrians burn Russian villages near Rumanian border.
+
+Aug. 9--Russians repulsed by Germans near Tilsit; Germans capture motor
+cars carrying money to Russia; Russians enter Austria; Austrians occupy
+town and customs station of Andrejew, Russian Poland; Turkey mobilizing
+[Transcriber: original 'mobolizing'] on Bulgarian frontier.
+
+Aug. 10--Montenegrins occupy Scutari; Belgrade again bombarded; Servians
+penetrate Bosnia; Austrians bombard Antivari; Germans concentrate on
+Russian frontier.
+
+Aug. 11--Russians guard Finland; Russian cavalry routs Austrians in
+Galicia; Italy demands explanation from Austria of bombardment of
+Antivari; Russians advance into Germany.
+
+Aug. 12--German attempt to reoccupy Eydtkuhnen unsuccessful; Austrians
+and Germans defeated on Russian frontier; Russian visitors to German
+health resorts tell of ill-treatment; Servians and Montenegrins advance
+on Bosnia; Prince George of Servia wounded.
+
+Aug. 13--Russians capture Sokal; Cossacks annihilate two
+Austrian-cavalry regiments; German troops before Kalisz threaten to
+shoot every tenth inhabitant if further resistance is shown.
+
+Aug. 14--Russians defeat Austrians on the Dniester; unrest in Turkey.
+
+Aug. 15--Berlin reports capture of 23 Russian Generals and Admirals by
+Germans; Greece wants explanation from Turkey of concentration of troops
+near border; Russians raid East Prussia; fighting between Austrians and
+Servians on the Save and the Danube; Turkish Ambassador says Turkey was
+not hostile in buying German cruisers.
+
+Aug. 16--Germans fail to retake Eydtkuhnen.
+
+Aug. 17--Russia demands of Turkey unrestricted use of Dardanelles;
+prisoners a problem for both sides; Russian Army marches on Austria and
+Germany; minor engagements on frontier; Servians check Austrians'
+advance; Greece hears that Turkish troops are approaching and sends
+warning that corresponding measures will be taken.
+
+Aug. 18--Servia reports Austrian defeat near Saboc.
+
+Aug. 19--Austrians defeated by Serbs at Shabats; Russians report victory
+over Austrians in Padolia; Germans report capture of Russians in East
+Prussia; Russians driven out of Germany; Italian refugees complain of
+German outrages.
+
+Aug. 20--Russians occupy Gumbinnen and Lyck in East Prussia; Austrians
+occupy Miechow, Russian Poland.
+
+Aug. 21--Serbs defeat Austrians in four days' battle near Losnitza;
+Russians successfully advance on Austro-German frontier.
+
+Aug. 22--Russians report continued successes on Austro-German frontier;
+Servians report capture of Austrian guns in pursuit of defeated force
+across the Drina.
+
+Aug. 23--Russian Army pushes fifty miles into Prussia, capturing three
+towns; Servian version of victory at Losnitza confirmed in Rome;
+Montenegrins continue attack.
+
+Aug. 24--Austria abandons Servian campaign to meet Russian attack; two
+Russian armies crush Germans in the east; retreating armies lay waste
+the country.
+
+Aug. 25--Russians spread on broad front over East Prussia and Galicia
+and repulse Austrians at Kielce; Germans report Russian defeat near
+Gumbinnen; Servians chase Austrians along whole front; report of German
+outrages on Jews in Kalisz.
+
+Aug. 26--Russians sweep over Prussia in three lines, menacing Königsberg
+and Posen; Germans reported fleeing from Elbing district; report of
+Russian advance into Austria; Austrians drive Russians from Krasnik.
+
+Aug. 27--Russians take Tilsit; Germans retreat toward Königsberg and
+Allenstein; Austrians routed in Galicia; French troops join Montenegrins
+to operate against Austria.
+
+Aug. 28--Russians reach Allenstein; Russians continue advance in
+Galicia; Serbs defeat Austrians at Shabats.
+
+Aug. 29--Russians invest Königsberg and occupy Allenstein; Germans claim
+victories; Russians draw net around Lemberg; Austrians claim occupation
+of Zamost.
+
+Aug. 30--Russians advance in East Prussia, to the Vistula and bombard
+Thorn and Graudenz; panic in Danzig; battle between Russians and
+Austrians in Poland; Austrians defeated at Lemberg; Russians gain ground
+against Austrians and win battle at Zamost; Germans in East Prussia get
+reinforcements and report capture of 30,000 Russians; Poland almost
+clear of German troops.
+
+Sept. 1--Russians inflict crushing defeat on Austrians on Galician
+frontier; Germans announce defeat of three Russian army corps near
+Allenstein.
+
+Sept. 2--Russians seize fortified positions around Lemberg, admit
+advance into East Prussia temporarily checked; new invasion of Germany
+planned; Turkey lands troops in Asia Minor; Montenegrins defeat
+Austrians near Bilek.
+
+Sept. 3--Austrians report success at Lublin; Cossacks rout German
+scouting party from Thorn; Russians take capital of Bukowina.
+
+Sept. 5--Russians take Lemberg and Halicz and march toward Poland;
+Austrians defeated at Tomaszow; Russian refugees tell of destruction of
+Kalisch by Germans; twenty Russian army corps march on Prussia, ten hold
+Austria back; Austrians defeated near Lublin.
+
+Sept. 6--Russians attack Germans on left bank of the Vistula, occupy
+Stryk regions, capture Forty-fifth Austrian Regiment near Krasnystaw,
+capture Austrian aeroplane and a Zeppelin and take year's provisions at
+Lemberg.
+
+Sept. 7--Austrians retreat; Russians closing in on Przemysl.
+
+Sept. 8--Russians take Nikolaieff and Mikolajow; Gen. Ruzsky engages
+Gen. Auffenberg's army in Poland; Austrians claim advance into Russian
+Poland and defeat of Serbs near Mitrovica; Servian invasion of Bosnia
+begun.
+
+Sept. 9--Battle at Rava-Russka; Austrians evacuate Russian Poland;
+Germans claim capture of part of Russian Imperial Guard; Serbs and
+Montenegrins advance into Bosnia.
+
+Sept. 10--Russians invade Silesia and menace Breslau; Austro-German
+forces defeated at Lublin; Serbs cross the Save.
+
+Sept. 11--Serbs take Semlin; Montenegrins take Folcha and join with
+Serbs in march on Serajevo; Germans defeat invading Finland force at
+Lyck; Polish miners at Berdzin wreck German train by concealing
+explosive in fuel; Russians occupy Suczawa and Hatna; Russians fight on
+Austrian and German border; Austrians resume offensive near Lemberg.
+
+Sept. 12--Russians defeat Austrians in battle near Tomaszow; German
+attack in East Prussia checked; successes of Serbs against Austrians
+continue.
+
+Sept. 13--Russian victories west and northwest of Lemberg; Russo-Serb
+Army plans advance on Budapest; Montenegrins will invest Bosnia.
+
+Sept. 14--Austrians rally for battle before Przemsyl; Russians cross the
+San; Germans defeated near Miawa and send reinforcements to Memel.
+
+Sept. 15--Russians occupy Grodek; Austrians hemmed in between Rivers San
+and Vistula; Germans report defeat of Russian Armies of Vina and Grodno;
+Russians say Germans have been driven back across frontier; Serbs invade
+Hungary.
+
+Sept. 16--Austrians still retreat in Galicia; Servians continue advance
+into Bosnia; Montenegrins defeat Austrians near Koulilovo.
+
+Sept. 17--Austrians flee before Russians toward Cracow; Gen. Rennekampf
+blocks flanking movement by Germans; Servian artillery repulses Austrian
+warships that shell Semlin and Belgrade.
+
+Sept. 18--Russians take Siniava and Sambor; Austrian rear guard thrown
+back beyond the San; prisoners and ammunition captured near Memirov;
+Germans advance against Russians in Suwalki Province; Russians halt
+offensive German movement and plan new invasion of East Poland; Germans
+retreat from Kielce Province to rally Austrians defeated at Krasnik;
+Russians enter Kazeshow.
+
+Sept. 20--Russians attack Jaroslaw and Przemysl and seize Sambor and
+Kresheshov; Gen. Auffenberg's army separated from Gen. Dankl's; Germans
+defeated near Sandomierz; Gen. Rennenkampf checks German advance in East
+Prussia; Servians defeat Austrians near Novi-Bazar.
+
+Sept. 21--Russians take Dubiecko and surround Gen. Dankl's army;
+Servians win near Krupani, evacuate Semlin.
+
+Sept. 22--Austrians defeated on the Drina near Krupani; Russians occupy
+Jaroslaw and again move to attack Königsberg.
+
+Sept. 23--Russians take Wislok; Austrian retreat from Przemysl through
+Carpathians cut off; Cossacks raid Czenstochowa; French land guns at
+Antivari.
+
+Sept. 24--Advance guards of Russian forces arrive before Cracow; Germans
+defeated at Subin; Russians again occupy Soldau; Montenegrins report
+capture of Pratzho and Montak in Bosnia.
+
+Sept. 25--Russians occupy Czyschky and Felstyn; Germans occupy Cracow,
+population flees; Przemysl cut off from all communication; battle
+between Serbs and Austrians near Zvorkni.
+
+Sept. 26--Greater part of Przemysl occupied by Russians; Germans
+concentrated in Prussia for impending battle.
+
+Sept. 27--Russians halt German advance in Suwalki and enter town of
+Przemysl; Serbs and Montenegrins reach Rumania; Germans in weak position
+on the Niemen River.
+
+Sept. 28--Montenegrins within artillery range of Serajevo; Serbs occupy
+mountains near by; Bosnians join invading army; Russians occupy Dembica
+and take another fort at Przemysl, cross Carpathians, and invade
+Hungary.
+
+Sept. 29--Russians sweep across the Carpathians and over Northern
+Hungary; Servians retake Semlin.
+
+Sept. 30--Germans fail in attempt to cross the River Niemen; retreating
+Austrians surrounded near Dukia; Hungarians retake Uzsok Pass; Servians
+and Montenegrins close to capital of Bosnia.
+
+Oct. 2--Russians break German centre and take up new battle line from
+Mariampol to Ossowitz; Germans bombard Ossowitz; Russians claim
+victories in Lodz and Suwalki, and take two Przemysl forts.
+
+Oct. 3--Germans are evacuating Russian Poland; Russians advance on
+Transylvania; fighting at Augustowo; Servians raid Semlin and destroy
+forts.
+
+Oct. 4--Russians defeat Germans at Augustowo and advance reaches Nugy
+Valley in Hungary; Germans make unsuccessful attacks on Ossowitz forts;
+Germans lured into a trap on the Niemen.
+
+Oct. 5--Two Russian armies advance toward Allenstein; fighting near
+Warsaw; Russians are near Cracow; Germans fortify heights between
+Breslau and Cracow; Austrians claim victory over Montenegrins in East
+Bosnia; Servians approach Serajevo fortifications.
+
+Oct. 6--Germans claim victories near Suwalki and Augustowo; Russian
+forces from the Baltic close in on Germans, and announce German retreat
+from positions between Wirballen and Lyck; Austrians claim victory at
+Uzsok Pass, but Cossacks are reported eighty miles from Budapest.
+
+Oct. 7--Germans bring reinforcements from Königsberg and check Russians;
+Russians shell Przemysl; Austrians report victory in Hungary near Tesco.
+
+Oct. 8--Russians claim repulse of Germans in Russian Poland and capture
+of Biala; Germans deny Russian advance in Suwalki; gains by Montenegrins
+in Herzegovina.
+
+Oct. 9--Russians announce reoccupation of Lyck; Przemysl reported on
+fire.
+
+Oct. 10--Russians claim that Germans are retiring from Lyck; Austrians
+report successes throughout Galicia.
+
+Oct. 11--Montenegrins defeat Austrians near Kalenovitch; Russians
+[Transcriber: original 'Rusians'] sweep through Bukoi Bukowina;
+Austrians rush help to Przemysl.
+
+Oct. 12--Russians abandon siege of Przemysl and retreat from Galicia;
+German-Austrian army captures many prisoners.
+
+Oct. 13--Fall of Warsaw believed near; British Consul asks for American
+protection; Montenegrins defeat Austrians near Serajevo.
+
+Oct. 14--Germans report defeat of Russians at Warsaw and recapture of
+Lyck; Servians in Bosnia beaten back.
+
+Oct. 15--Berlin reports advance of eight Russian army corps against Bast
+Prussia; account made public of how Gen. von Hindenburg lured Gen.
+Rennenkampf into trap at Tennenberg; Russians report victory over
+Austrians south of Przemysl.
+
+
+*CAMPAIGN IN WESTERN EUROPE.*
+
+July 26--Belgium increases army to enforce neutrality.
+
+July 27--Belgian Army mobilizes, Holland prepares to maintain
+neutrality.
+
+July 28--French Army moves to frontier.
+
+July 29--Belgium calls out reserves.
+
+July 30--England takes defensive measures.
+
+July 31--Belgium mobilizes.
+
+Aug. 1--France mobilizes after Germany asks her intentions; will respect
+neutrality of Belgium.
+
+Aug. 2--Germany sends ultimatum to Belgium, seizes Luxemburg, and
+invades France; fighting at Longwy, three German spies arrested in
+England.
+
+Aug. 3--Berlin reports acts of hostility by French; England will protect
+French coast and defend Belgium; France promises to guard Belgian
+neutrality; France holds that war with Germany began automatically with
+invasion of her territory.
+
+Aug. 4--England declares war on Germany as Kaiser rejects ultimatum on
+Belgian neutrality; Germany declares war on Belgium; attack on Liége
+repulsed; Germans cross French border near Mars-la-Tour and Moineville.
+
+Aug. 5--French repulse Germans at border; many Germans killed in attack
+on Liége, Crown Prince bringing aid, French Army rushing up.
+
+Aug. 6--Germans take two forts at Liége; French Army coming; English
+coast towns arm.
+
+Aug. 7--Rapid mobilization of French on frontier; French occupy two
+towns in Alsace-Lorraine; Kaiser and King of Belgium call nations to
+arms; Bavarians beaten by French at Marrehan; Germans enter Liége, forts
+still held by Belgians; Germans get armistice to bury dead.
+
+Aug. 8--Holland guards frontier; conflicting reports of fall of Liége;
+French forces in Belgium; British land on Continent; French take
+Mülhausen after battle at Altkirch; German spies try to blow up tunnels
+and bridges near Paris.
+
+Aug. 9--Germans in Alsace fall back on Neu Breisach; Kaiser leaves for
+front; Belgian War Minister denies capture of Liége, Germans in city but
+forts untaken; French and English reinforce Belgians; Governor and
+Bishop of Liége held as hostages; German warning of reprisals; Germans
+arrested in England; Holland captures and disarms Uhlans at Maastricht.
+
+Aug. 10--France breaks off diplomatic relations with Austria; French
+student tells how Germans shot refugees; French patrols cover Eifel
+district in Germany; French open way into Alsace by capturing Bonhomme
+and Sainte Marie; 100 German spies put to death in Belgium; more caught;
+Germans forced by French to plan new campaign in Belgium; Allies claim
+success in cavalry encounters; Germans moving through Esch.
+
+Aug. 11--Germans attack French frontier, take Lagarde and intrench south
+of Liége; Belgians retake Loncin fort; Kaiser claims victory at Liége;
+French Army forced back in Alsace; minor checks to Germans; German siege
+guns before Liége; German advance directed at gap between Verdun and
+Longwy.
+
+Aug. 12--Germany tries again to negotiate with Belgium for passage of
+army; Germans bombard Point-a-Mousson; Germans move on Brussels and are
+driven back by Belgians' left wing; Germans report victory in Alsace;
+Germans reported to have shot French wounded; German spies terrorize
+Belgium; battle near Tongres; German official says Kaiser halted attack
+on Liége and denies heavy losses; Germans complete bridge for siege
+artillery; Paris papers say Germans burned village of Affleville and
+shot farmers.
+
+Aug. 13--England declares war on Austria; Belgians beat off Germans in
+two-day fight; Namur defenses strengthened; battles at Diest, Haelen,
+and Eghezee; Germans shoot woman accused of attempt to blow up Alsatian
+tunnel; British, French, and Belgians charge cruelties by German troops;
+report that Germans hold Diest; German guns reported wrecked by fire
+from Liége forts; French report severe defeat of Germans by
+counter-attack at Pont-a-Mousson; Swiss report that Germans lost 10,000
+in Alsace; Swiss disarm German troops; Italy's troops guard Alpine
+passes.
+
+Aug. 14--Germans mass to attack Allies and move toward Brussels;
+bombardment of Liége renewed; attempt to storm Pontisse fails; British
+Commander French and French Gen. Joffre meet at headquarters; French and
+Belgian forts exchange officers; French win in battle in Vosges
+Mountains.
+
+Aug. 15--Armies of Germany and Allies face each other on 248-mile battle
+front; French storm three towns and retake Thann in Alsace; battling at
+Liége forts continues; Germans said to have shot innocent people in
+Linsmeau for slaying an officer.
+
+Aug. 16--Fighting at Mülhausen renewed; French take offensive along line
+from Lunéville to Saarburg; clash near Dinant; Germans damage Vise;
+general advance of French on eastern frontier; South Belgium barricaded;
+Belgian cyclists fight strong German force; rumor that Austrians are in
+Belgium.
+
+Aug. 17--French forces sweep on toward Strassburg; desultory fighting
+clears ground between Germans and Allies; Belgians say Germans torture
+prisoners; Belgian seat of Government moved to Antwerp.
+
+Aug. 18--British force lands in France; German advance on Brussels
+checked; Germans evacuate Saarburg; French take two batteries; Germans
+start second fire in Vise.
+
+Aug. 19--Fighting near Altkirch; Paris prepares for eventualities;
+Allies fall back and may quit Brussels; Germans occupy Louvain; French
+report further advance into Alsace; Germans retake Ville.
+
+Aug. 20--French reoccupy Mülhausen, but are checked in Lorraine; other
+French gains in Alsace; German cavalry occupies Brussels; Belgian Army
+retires on Antwerp; French victory near Lunéville; Germans defeat
+Belgians at Aerschot.
+
+Aug. 21--French withdraw from Lorraine; Germans rush through Brussels,
+capture Ghent, levy war taxes on Brussels and Liége, and will try to
+seize Ostend; England says tax levy is violation of Hague treaty; German
+assault on Namur begins; report of German vengeance on town of Tongres;
+Antwerp, new seat of Government, prepares for defense; Germans hold
+Audun-la-Roman and continue to cross the Meuse.
+
+Aug. 22--French deny German report of victory between Metz and the
+Vosges; Germans continue bombardment of Namur forts and face Allies on
+twenty-mile front to Charleroi; main force is aimed at Lille; battle
+between English and Germans at Waterloo; French close in on Colmar;
+fight between German and English cavalry at Colmar; fear that Belgian
+cities may not be able to pay indemnity; Germans accused of shooting
+Burgomaster and citizens of Aerschot without provocation.
+
+Aug. 23--Allies take offensive against Germans along 150-mile line from
+Mons to Luxemburg; Belgian commander blows up one Liége fort; others
+hold out; French repel three days' attack on Mülhausen intrenchments;
+France protests to Hague against use of dumdum bullets by Germans.
+
+Aug. 24--Allies fall back before German attack on Belgium; report that
+Namur has fallen; account made public of battle at Charleroi; Germans,
+led by Crown Prince in Lorraine, pursue French beyond Longwy; success of
+force headed by Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria at Lunéville, Blamont and
+Cirey; French defeated at Neuf-chateau by forces under Grand Duke
+Albrecht of Württemberg; Germans begin another attack on Mülhausen;
+English cavalry brigade defeated by Germans south of Brussels; Germans
+set fire to Hussigny and resume fire at Liége.
+
+Aug. 25--Battle on new 200-mile-line between Germans and Allies; Germans
+capture five Namur forts and are attacking others; French withdraw from
+Alsace to frontier; Allies gain to the south; Germans levy tax on
+Brabant; report that Lorrainers betrayed French troops to Germans.
+
+Aug. 26--Allies fall back a short distance in Belgium; Belgian success
+at Malines; French claim success near Nancy and Lunéville; report that
+Lille is abandoned; big battle in Lorraine; Germans fire houses in
+Liége; Berlin announces British rout at Maubeuge.
+
+Aug. 27--Germans take Longwy and all Namur forts; British-French line
+falls back on right flank; French reoccupy Lille; details given out of
+fighting at Mons; Germans take Malines and tax Tourant and Charleroi;
+announcement of German bombardment of Malines; Paris prepares for
+possible siege.
+
+Aug. 28--Austria declares war on Belgium; Belgians retake Malines and
+advance to Brussels; Germans defeat Allies along entire line; report
+that fall of Namur was due to heavy fog; Germans sack and burn Louvain;
+art treasures destroyed.
+
+Aug. 29--German force withdrawn from Belgium to meet Russians; French
+right wins at Guise, left reinforced but repulsed; Germans march on La
+Fere; Allies evacuate Boulogne; account made public of the heroic
+defense of Longwy; details given out of fall of Namur; Germans blow up
+bridges on railway from Antwerp to frontier; French bayoneted company of
+Germans accused of treachery; Military Governor of Paris orders
+destruction of houses obstructing forts' fire.
+
+Aug. 30--French left wing again driven back; Allies' lines reinforced;
+Germans recalled to Brussels to hold city; French reported successful
+near Amiens.
+
+Aug. 31--Paris defense plans rushed; Allies' left flank again driven
+back.
+
+Sept. 1--Allies' centre hard pressed; German attack on Belfort fails;
+British flank reinforced; Germans fortify Brussels.
+
+Sept. 2--French move capital temporarily to Bordeaux to allow Allies to
+pivot left wing on Paris; German cavalry corps defeated by British near
+Compiègne; another pushes on to Soissons; French report success in
+Lorraine.
+
+Sept. 3--Report that Russian troops have been transported to Belgium;
+Germans take La Fere and Amiens and move to attack Laon and Rheims;
+Austrians sent to reinforce German left wing; Germans are twenty-five
+miles from Paris.
+
+Sept. 4--Germans neglect Paris and move eastward; German right wing
+reported checked and driven back to St. Quentin; Allies driven back
+behind Conde; Germans move toward Verdun; Germans bombard Termonde;
+fighting in Alost.
+
+Sept. 5--Germans take Rheims and three forts at Maubeuge; Belgians trap
+Germans in flooded area near Malines; Germans take Termonde; Germans
+abandon attack on Belfort.
+
+Sept. 6--German right wing checked near Paris; Kaiser directs attack on
+Nancy; account made public of evacuation of Senlis and Chantilly.
+
+Sept. 7--It is now plain that the German march on Paris has been
+deflected; Allies force Germans back in 160-mile battle from
+Nanteuil-le-Hardouin to Verdun and report defeat of Crown Prince's army;
+Germans defeat Belgians near Melle and march to occupy Ghent; repulsed
+at Capelle-au-Bois.
+
+Sept. 8--British push German right over the Marne; French win on the
+Ourcq; fighting at Vitry.
+
+Sept. 9--Germans claim capture of Maubeuge; British cross the Marne;
+Germans fall back; have evacuated Upper Alsace.
+
+Sept. 10--Gen. von Stein admits defeat by Allies; Belgians reoccupy
+Termonde, Aerschot, and Diest; French join British across Marne in
+pursuing Germans; fighting near Vitry and other points in centre.
+
+Sept. 11--German line west of Revigny retreats, but captures fort near
+Verdun; Gen. Pau seizes German supply train; account given out of battle
+at Meaux; British report annihilation of German Jaeger regiment; French
+deny fall of Maubeuege and recapture Mülhausen; Germans march south from
+Ghent, Belgians in pursuit.
+
+Sept. 12--Belgians cut German Army in two by victory at Cortenberg;
+whole German line in France retreats, Lunéville retaken; Belgians
+repulse German sortie at Louvain and advance on Brussels.
+
+Sept. 13--Germans repulsed at Nancy and Lunéville, evacuate Amiens, lose
+Revigny and Brabant-le-Roi; Crown Prince's Army threatened; fighting at
+Louvain and Malines; heavy fighting at Bortzy; battle between Thann and
+Sennheim.
+
+Sept. 14--Amiens reoccupied by French; Fort of Troyon relieved; Germans
+make stand on the Aisne; Germans lay waste to Senlis.
+
+Sept. 15--German Crown Prince's army driven back to the Orne; French
+reoccupy Rheims; fighting on the Aisne; new intrenched positions taken
+by German armies; La Ferte ransacked by Germans; Franco-Belgian
+successes at Alost and Rousbrugge.
+
+Sept. 16--New battle on from Noyon to Verdun; army from Douen is
+circling von Kluck's corps; Germans move nearer Antwerp.
+
+Sept. 17--German Army strengthened between Berry-au-Bac and Argonne;
+French advance in Woevre district; deadlock on right flank; Belgians
+repulse attack on Termonde.
+
+Sept. 18--Germans complete bombardment of Termonde; now known that
+Maubeuge has fallen; Allies' left advances six miles; Germans report
+gain in centre; Germans intrench on the Sambre; Germans send scouting
+parties into Belgium.
+
+Sept. 19--Germans fortify along the Rhine; Allies advance on left and
+right wings and drive back army of German Crown Prince; heavy fighting
+at Rheims; Germans capture Beaumont; German shells hit Cathedral of
+Notre Dame and Church of St. Remi in Rheims.
+
+Sept. 20--Germans badly damage Rheims; Allies make slight gains;
+fighting near Soissons; Germans report offensive move; Allies capture
+Souain; Belgians retake Lanaeken; Germans bring siege guns up to
+Antwerp.
+
+Sept. 21--Allies gain between Rheims and Argonne, take Massiges and
+Mesnil; Germans claim capture of Craonne hills and Betheny; Belgians
+repulse German assault on Fort Waelhem; Termonde under fire again.
+
+Sept. 22--Germans claim victories at Craonne and Betheny; their right
+turned between Peronne and St. Quentin; desultory fighting near Malines
+and Alost.
+
+Sept. 23--Allies advance on left wing near Lassigny; Germans bombard
+Verdun; Germans prepare for campaign in Southern Belgium.
+
+Sept. 24--French take Peronne; Germans take Varennes; Belgians report
+victory near Antwerp.
+
+Sept. 25--Allies beaten back by Germans at Noyon, but renew offensive
+after being reinforced; Germans advance southeast of Verdun; quarries
+from Giraumont to Machemok strengthen German position; campaign in
+Alsace halted by snow.
+
+Sept. 26--Germans take Fort des Romaines and cross the Meuse; Germans
+burn Bilsen; Austrian and German artillery menace Antwerp.
+
+Sept. 27--Allies repulse charges on right and left wings; Germans gain
+in centre; Verdun forts withdraw fire; French reinforced on the Meuse;
+Germans again bombard Malines.
+
+Sept. 28--Allies make slight progress on heights of the Meuse; fog in
+Woevre district causes suspension of fighting; Belgians retake Alost and
+repulse Germans at Malines.
+
+Sept. 29--Germans occupy Moll and Malines, bombard Lierre, and shell
+outer forts of Antwerp; fighting on the Aisne continues.
+
+Sept. 30--Allies drive back both German wings and retake St. Mihiel;
+French trap Germans in quarries; Germans destroy town of Orchies;
+Belgians renew bombardment of Lierre.
+
+Oct. 1--Belgians repulse German attacks on Antwerp forts; Germans
+capture Roye and claim success in attack on Albert; French report gains;
+French shell Germans in quarries; Scheldt River interferes with attack
+of Germans on Antwerp; Belgians bombard church at Termonde to drive
+Germans from steeple.
+
+Oct. 2--Allies checked after pushing north to Arras; Germans driven back
+across the Meuse; Germans report two Antwerp forts silenced; Cologne
+prepares for defense; Belgians report German repulse at one Antwerp fort
+and at Termonde.
+
+Oct. 3--Battle at Roye; Germans claim victory near Toul; Belgians near
+Antwerp fall back.
+
+Oct. 4--Berlin reports capture of Forts Wavre, St. Catherine, and
+Dorpweld, and of Termonde; Allies defeat flanking movement and
+battleground shifts to vicinity of Arras; Allies claim success in Woevre
+and Soissons regions; British forces aid in defense of Antwerp; Fort
+Walheim damaged; Germans take two villages on Dutch border near
+Maastricht.
+
+Oct. 5--Germans gain on right wing, take three Antwerp forts, and resume
+offensive in Argonne district and along the Meuse.
+
+Oct. 6--Antwerp warned that bombardment is near; desperate fighting on
+the Oise; Allies gain at Soissons; German column near Lille; French hold
+strong positions in Alsace.
+
+Oct. 7--Germans report bombardment of Lanaeken when civilians attack
+them; Germans closing in on Antwerp and have crossed the Nethe; fighting
+near Ghent; Allies drive German cavalry back from Lille and gain at
+Roye; skirmish at Ypres; Allies reinforced; Germans are still shelling
+Rheims.
+
+Oct. 8--Antwerp bombarded by German siege guns and Zeppelins; Germans
+cross the Scheldt; Allies gain near Arras, which is being shelled by
+Germans; Germans cut railway lines near Ypres; cavalry fights on the
+Belgian frontier.
+
+Oct. 9--Germans claim progress near St. Mihiel and in the Argonne
+district; Germans report fall of Fort Breendonk; Antwerp aflame;
+fighting around Roye; cavalry battles near Lille; Germans occupy
+Courtrai and destroy bridges between Brussels and Mons.
+
+Oct. 10--Antwerp surrenders, Belgian Army escapes; widespread ruin in
+city; some British troops driven into Holland; fighting at Arras
+continues; Germans bombard Lokeron; Germans report gains at St. Mihiel
+and in the Argonne region.
+
+Oct. 11--Germans occupy Antwerp; main British and Belgian defending
+armies reach Ostend; fighting near Soissons; German attacks in Caronne
+region repulsed; Allies win in centre; Arras free from Germans; British
+official report tells how the Germans were routed near Bray.
+
+Oct. 12--Germans enter Ghent; Allies fight to check German
+reinforcements; fighting at Lasigny and Lens; Germans mass around Ypres;
+cavalry fighting near Lille.
+
+Oct. 13--Germans press on toward Ostend; severe fighting in Argonne
+district; Germans take Lille and occupy Hazebrouck and Ypres; Germans
+occupy Ghent and move on Bruges.
+
+Oct. 14--Belgian Army leaves Ostend and joins Allies in field; Allies
+reoccupy Ypres; French gain near border; German battalion trapped in
+canal in Lorraine.
+
+Oct. 15--Allies retake Estaires and report gains at several points;
+Germans deny repulses and occupy Bruges, Thielt, Daume, and Esschen;
+German convoy captured by French.
+
+
+*CAMPAIGN IN THE FAR EAST.*
+
+Aug. 4--Japanese Government's proclamation prepares people for war in
+behalf of England.
+
+Aug. 6--Germans fortify Tsing-tau.
+
+Aug. 11--Japan requisitions transports.
+
+Aug. 16--Japan sends ultimatum to Germany demanding withdrawal of fleet
+in Far Eastern waters and giving up of Kiao-Chau.
+
+Aug. 17--Official announcement that Japan's action will be limited to
+China Sea and to protection of her trade; ultimatum to Germany made with
+concurrence of England.
+
+Aug. 18--Count Okuma emphasizes Japan's limitation of war and England
+reassures United States.
+
+Aug. 19--Germany will reject Japan's demands.
+
+Aug. 20--Kaiser orders resistance to Japan at Kiao-Chau; Japanese
+Foreign Office makes statement explaining ultimatum to Germany.
+
+Aug. 22--Germany ignores Japan's demands: time limit ends, Japanese
+envoy ordered to leave Berlin; Japan is expected to make war move at
+once.
+
+Aug. 23--Japan declares war on Germany.
+
+Aug. 24--Germans blow up bridges to halt Japanese invasion of Kiao-Chau.
+
+Aug. 26--War declared by Austria against Japan; British destroy German
+wireless and cable stations on Island of Yap.
+
+Aug. 29--Germans lay mines at Kiao-Chau and fire at landing party at
+Cape Jaeschke.
+
+Aug. 30--Japanese troops landed near Kiao-Chau; forts fire at destroyer.
+
+Aug. 31--Japanese occupy two islands.
+
+Sept. 2--Japan lands force at Lung-kow; German Legation protests against
+violation of China's neutrality.
+
+Sept. 3--Japanese occupy seven islands near Kiao-Chau, clear waters of
+mines, and land more troops at Lung-kow; China protests against
+violation of her neutrality.
+
+Sept. 9--Japanese advance southward in Shantung.
+
+Sept. 14--Japanese flank Kiao-Chau.
+
+Sept. 15--Japanese cavalry captures Chimo; vanguard of Japanese Army
+reaches Kiao-Chau.
+
+Sept. 19--Japanese seize Kiao-Chau station and train and land troops at
+Laoshan.
+
+Sept. 20--Japanese cavalry in clash with German outposts near Tsing-tau.
+
+Sept. 22--Australians seize German wireless station on Island of Nauru.
+
+Sept. 24--British troops land near Laoshan, China.
+
+Sept. 26--Japanese advance on Fangate, where Germans hold valuable
+mines.
+
+Sept. 27--Japanese defeat Germans on outskirts of Kiao-Chau; food supply
+in city short.
+
+Sept. 28--Japanese approach Tsing-tau.
+
+Sept. 29--Japanese invest Tsing-tau; Chinese blow up railroad bridges to
+hinder progress of Japanese troops.
+
+Sept. 30--Germans abandon artillery as Japanese reach Lao-Che.
+
+Oct. 1--Germans destroy railroad bridge at Ta-yu-ho.
+
+Oct. 4--Japanese march along railroad to Wei-Hsein; one Chinese killed.
+
+Oct. 5--Japanese repulse night attack of Germans at Tsing-tau.
+
+Oct. 6--Germans plan to destroy Shantung Railway.
+
+Oct. 7--Japanese seize Island of Yap; Japanese bring siege guns before
+Tsing-tau.
+
+Oct. 8--German fire slackens at Tsing-tau.
+
+Oct. 13--Arrangements made for departure of non-combatants before final
+attack on Kiao-Chau.
+
+
+*CAMPAIGN IN AFRICA.*
+
+Aug. 8--British seize Port Lome, Togoland.
+
+Aug. 9--French are in Togoland.
+
+Aug. 26--Germans surrender Togoland.
+
+Aug. 28--German troops attack Belgian Congo.
+
+Sept. 10--Germans defeated by British in Nyassaland.
+
+Sept. 13--Germans occupy Karangu, British East Africa.
+
+Sept. 15--British defeat Germans in Namaqualand.
+
+Sept. 18--Germans defeated by garrison of seven British at Nakob.
+
+Sept. 22--Germans repulsed in attack on fort in Voi district.
+
+Sept. 24--Germans at Schuckmannsberg surrender to police.
+
+Sept. 25--Australian force takes German New Guinea.
+
+Sept. 26--French seize Coco Beach, Kamerun; British occupy Luederitz
+Bay; Germans raid Walfish Bay.
+
+Sept. 28--German Congo seized by British and French.
+
+Oct. 13--Detachment of Boers under Col. Maritz rebels because of the
+pro-British stand taken by the Government of South Africa; martial law
+proclaimed in colony; British imprison Germans in British East Africa
+and Germans imprison British in German East Africa.
+
+Oct. 14--There are but few men in the Maritz rebel force; silence of
+Boer leaders is found disquieting in England.
+
+Oct. 15--Col. Brits's force captures eighty rebels under Col. Maritz;
+Gen. Botha takes field; prominent men arrested on charge of treason.
+
+
+*NAVAL RECORD*.
+
+July 26--British and French fleets ready for action; Servian vessels in
+Danube seized by Austrians; German fleet ordered concentrated in home
+waters; Italy masses fleet.
+
+July 29 and 30--British fleet leaves Portland; British and German fleets
+in Far East mobilize.
+
+July 31--German squadron stops merchant vessels in Danish waters;
+British warships near; Montenegrin King's yacht escapes Austrian
+destroyers.
+
+Aug. 2--Fight between German and Russian cruisers off Libau; German High
+Sea Fleet seizes Wilson liner Castro and a collier; fleets assemble in
+Far East.
+
+Aug. 3--Germans chase Norwegian food ship.
+
+Aug. 4--Rival warships off Port of New York; British mine layer sunk by
+German fleet; British fleet will aim to destroy Kiel Canal.
+
+Aug. 5--British third flotilla has battle with Germans in North Sea;
+cruiser Amphion damaged; German mine layer Koenigen Luise sunk; many
+German merchant ships seized by English, French, and Russians; Germans
+bombard Sveaborg, torpedo boat blown up.
+
+Aug. 6--British cruiser Amphion sunk by mine; French capture German tank
+steamer; Germans capture Russian ship.
+
+Aug. 7--British and German cruisers reported in fight off Brazilian
+coast; British steamers destroyed by mines off German and Turkish
+coasts; British capture German steamer Schlesien; German merchant ship
+captured by French; Germans capture Russian cruiser; Japanese warships
+off port of Tsing-tau; German cruisers Goeben and Breslau leave Genoa.
+
+Aug. 8--Thirty-six German ships seized by Belgians; Russians capture
+Austrian and German merchant steamers; British capture German ship, said
+to be North German Lloyd liner; naval fight in Adriatic; interest in
+position of Goeben and Breslau; bombardment of Libau reported by ship
+Captain.
+
+Aug. 9--British sink German submarine; cruiser Essex takes ship at sea;
+Goeben and Breslau in the Dardanelles; two German steamers taken at
+Rouen and one at Colombo; England and France protest against German
+steamer Karlsruhe coaling at Porto Rico; firing off Shanghai; British
+fleet proceeds to Tsing-tau; Austrian cruisers bombard Antivari.
+
+Aug. 10--Cruiser Birmingham sinks German submarine U-15; British close
+North Sea to fishing fleets; Dutch steamer sunk in Baltic; Belgians
+seize two Austrian steamers; English and Canadian steamers hunt in
+Atlantic for German cruisers.
+
+Aug. 11--Battle in the Adriatic; Russians capture twenty German merchant
+vessels in Baltic.
+
+Aug. 12--German destroyer sunk by mine off South Gedser.
+
+Aug. 13--German cruisers bombard Windau; France will check Austria's
+navy; British said to have bottled up German Far Eastern squadron;
+German cruisers Goeben and Breslau are flying Turkish flag.
+
+Aug. 15--Japanese Navy sails to join British fleet; Triple Entente
+demands that Turkey repatriate crews of German cruisers; Austrian liner
+blown up by mine in the Adriatic; British capture Austrian liner
+Marienbad; German steamer W.W. Schneefels brought to Gibraltar as war
+prize.
+
+Aug. 16--French fleet said to have sunk two Austrian ships in the
+Adriatic.
+
+Aug. 17--German dreadnought said to be damaged in Norwegian port; French
+sink Austrian cruiser in the Adriatic; German cruiser Karlsruhe said to
+have sunk four British merchantmen; British cruisers capture
+Hamburg-American liners Cap Ortegal and Santa Catharina.
+
+Aug. 18--Two German cruisers captured and taken to Hongkong; fight
+between British and German patrol fleets.
+
+Aug. 20--British steamer Hostilius captured by German cruiser Dresden;
+German fleet said to have shelled three Russian ports.
+
+Aug. 21--British and French warships and Montenegrin batteries bombard
+Cattaro; two German Hansa liners seized at Bombay and Hamburg-American
+ship at Rangoon.
+
+Aug. 22--Steamers Maryland and Broberg sunk by mines in North Sea; two
+Dutch steamers reported sunk; German cruiser Dresden sinks British
+steamer Hyades; British cruiser Glasgow captures German ship Santa
+Kathina; French capture German four-master and Austrian steamer; account
+made public of sinking of Austrian battleship Zrinyi.
+
+Aug. 23--Anglo-French fleets destroy Austrian cruiser Zenta and bombard
+Cattaro; Dutch steamer Alcor blown up by Russians to block Hango harbor;
+report that French, English, and Russian vessels are aiding Japan to
+blockade Kiao-Chau.
+
+Aug. 24--Japanese fleet has begun bombardment of Tsing-tau; Cattaro
+badly damaged by British and French fleets.
+
+Aug. 25--German steamer Elizabeth sunk.
+
+Aug. 26--British defeated in battle with German torpedo boat off
+Kiao-Chau.
+
+Aug. 27--British cruiser Highflyer sinks Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse;
+British marines occupy Ostend; German cruiser Magdeburg sunk in Gulf of
+Finland; mines in North Sea sink a Danish and a Norwegian steamer;
+Japanese bombard island near Kiao-Chau and blockade port.
+
+Aug. 28--British fleet sinks two German cruisers, sets fire to third,
+and sinks two torpedo boats off Heligoland; Germans fire at Japanese
+fleet near Kiao-Chau; Austrian destroyer sunk by British off Corfu;
+British cruiser Welland sinks German torpedo destroyer; other German
+ships captured; six vessels blown up in North Sea by mines; Russians
+capture crew of German cruiser Magdeburg.
+
+Aug. 29--Port of Cape Jaeschke blocked by Japanese warships; passenger
+steamer destroyed by mines near Russian port.
+
+Aug. 30--British official account of battle off Heligoland; New Zealand
+expeditionary force captures Apia.
+
+Aug. 31--German gunboat shells abandoned Japanese destroyer at
+Kiao-Chau.
+
+Sept. 2--British and French ships again bombard Cattaro; steam drifter
+Eyrie sunk by mine in North Sea.
+
+Sept. 4--British cruiser sinks Austrian steamer Bathori in Bay of
+Biscay; British gunboat Speedy sunk by mine in North Sea; British
+steamship Bowes Castle sunk by German cruiser off St. Lucia.
+
+Sept. 5--German ships sink fifteen British trawlers in North Sea.
+
+Sept. 6--Cruiser Pathfinder destroyed by mine.
+
+Sept. 7--British submarine strikes German warships in Bremerhaven
+Harbor.
+
+Sept. 10--British capture German, collier.
+
+Sept. 11--Germans destroy Russian steamer Uleaborg.
+
+Sept. 12--Australian Navy occupies Herbertshoehe in Bismarck
+Archipelago; British take German coal ship Heinze.
+
+Sept. 14--Germans capture Fanning Island and cable station; German
+cruiser Hela sunk.
+
+Sept. 17--German fleets fire on each other in Baltic by mistake; British
+cruiser seizes Holland-America, liner Ryndam: French cruiser Conde
+captures German storeship Helna; Canadian Pacific liner made a British
+cruiser in Pacific; German cruiser Luxemburg reported to have sunk three
+British freighters in West Indies.
+
+Sept. 19--Australian submarine AE-1 lost; Austrian warship Viribus
+Unitis damaged in Adriatic.
+
+Sept. 20--Carmania sinks German merchant cruiser Cap Trafalgar; German
+cruiser Königsberg disables British cruiser Pegasus; fighting between
+British and German ships in Kamerun River, Africa; six British ships
+captured by German cruiser Emden; damaged Russian warships arrive at
+Helsingfors; Austrian torpedo boat 27 sunk at Pola; German cruiser
+Stettin fights British warships.
+
+Sept. 21--British steamer Clan Matheson sunk by German cruiser Emden;
+crews of six captured vessels landed in India.
+
+Sept. 22--British cruiser Berwick captures Hamburg-American liner
+Spreewald and two German colliers; German submarine U-9 sinks British
+cruisers Cressy, Aboukir, and Hogue in North Sea; British steamer
+Belgian King sunk near Cape Kureli.
+
+Sept. 23--Russian cruiser Bayan sinks German cruiser and two torpedo
+boats; Germany says submarine U-9 sunk British ships unaided in North
+Sea fight yesterday; Austrian cruisers Maria Theresia and Admiral Staun
+damaged; trawler Kilmarnock sunk by mine.
+
+Sept. 24--Two Austrian torpedo boats and one destroyer sunk by mines in
+the Adriatic; Norwegian steamer Hesvik sunk in North Sea; cruiser Emden
+bombards Madras; Anglo-French fleet again bombards Cattaro.
+
+Sept. 25--Kronprinz Wilhelm sinks British steamer Indian Prince; British
+charge that Germans fired on Carmania after white flag was raised.
+
+Sept. 26--Fortress of Pelagosa dismantled by Anglo-French fleet; British
+cruiser Cornwall seizes Dutch steamer with coal consigned to Rio de
+Janeiro; French gunboat Surprise sinks two German ships and seizes Coco
+Beach, West Africa; British capture German ship Ossa and seize American
+ship Lorenzo and Norwegian ship Thor accused of coaling German cruiser.
+
+Sept. 28--French warship sunk at Cattaro by forts.
+
+Sept. 29--German cruiser Emden has sunk five British steamers in Gulf of
+Bengal and has destroyed all tank steamers at Madras; British warships
+bombard Tsing-tau forts.
+
+Sept. 30--British cruiser Cumberland captures Hamburg-American liner
+Arnfried and nine merchant steamers; Italian ships sunk by Austrian
+mines.
+
+Oct. 1--Account given out of bombardment of Windau by German squadron;
+fighting between German and Japanese warships in Kiao-Chau Harbor.
+
+Oct. 2--British Admiralty plans to lay mines as counterstroke to German
+policy; German cruisers shell Papeéte, capital of French Island of
+Tahiti; French gunboat sinks German auxiliary ships Rhios and Itolo;
+German cruiser Liepzig sinks Union oil tanker Elsinore.
+
+Oct. 3--German cruiser Karlsruhe sinks seven British ships; British
+steamer Dawdon and Norwegian steamer Thomos sunk by mines; German
+steamer Mark bottled up in Philippine port; Italian boat sunk by
+Austrian mine; Japanese cruiser blown up by mine in Laoshan Bay.
+
+Oct. 4--Anglo-French fleet bombards Cattaro and destroys Lustica; Dutch
+steamer Nieuwland sunk by mine in North Sea; Rear Admiral Troubridge
+recalled from Mediterranean to London to explain escape of German
+cruisers Goeben and Breslau.
+
+Oct. 5--Japanese capture Jaluit Island; British grain ship sunk by mine
+near Dover; Japanese shells hit German gunboat Iltis in Tsing-tau
+Harbor.
+
+Oct. 6--French lay mines in Adriatic to offset similar action by
+Austrians.
+
+Oct. 7--British submarine sinks German destroyer off mouth of River Ems;
+six Austrian torpedo craft reported sunk by mines in the Adriatic;
+British trawler blown up in the North Sea.
+
+Oct. 9--It is announced that thirty-two German merchant ships were
+destroyed at Antwerp.
+
+Oct. 10--Japanese warships silence Iltis forts.
+
+Oct. 11--French fleet sinks two Austrian torpedo boats.
+
+Oct. 12--German submarine sinks Russian cruiser Pallada.
+
+Oct. 13--Russians claim that Germans lost two submarines in attack on
+Pallada.
+
+Oct. 14--Report denied by Germans.
+
+Oct. 15--British cruiser Yarmouth sinks German liner Markomannia.
+
+
+*AERIAL RECORD.*
+
+Aug. 2--Report that French aviators have dropped bombs on Nürnberg;
+German troops shoot down French aeroplanes near Wesel; report that
+Garros, French aviator, wrecked German airship at Longwy; French
+aeroplanes dispatched toward Nancy.
+
+Aug. 3--German airships fly over Belgium.
+
+Aug. 5--Duel between Belgian and German aviators; Austrians report
+destruction of Russian aeroplane.
+
+Aug. 13--German aeroplane pursued by Belgians; German aviator throws
+bomb on Vesoul.
+
+Aug. 15--Harmless bombs thrown by German aviators on Vesoul and Lure;
+French aviators throw bombs on Zeppelins in Metz; five men wounded in
+Namur by bombs thrown from German aeroplanes.
+
+Aug. 18--Three Zeppelins wrecked by gunfire, one by fall; German
+monoplane drops bombs on Lunéville; German aeroplane destroyed near
+Samno, Russia.
+
+Aug. 19--German monoplane captured in Belgium.
+
+Aug. 20--Pegoud's airship destroyed in flight to drop bombs in Germany;
+Dutch capture German aeroplanes.
+
+Aug. 23--French destroy Zeppelin.
+
+Aug. 24--France believes five German Zeppelins are out of action.
+
+Aug. 25--Zeppelin bombs fall in Antwerp.
+
+Aug. 29--Russians bring down Zeppelin.
+
+Aug. 30--German aeroplane drops bombs on Paris; French Embassy in
+Washington denies that aeroplanes bombarded Nürnberg.
+
+Aug. 31--German aeroplane drops bombs on Paris.
+
+Sept. 1--German aeroplane drops bombs on Paris.
+
+Sept. 2--Fight between French and German aeroplanes; Zeppelin renews
+attack on Antwerp.
+
+Sept. 3--German aeroplanes drop bombs on British transport on the Seine
+and on Belfort; German aeroplane over Paris destroyed, aviators killed.
+
+Sept. 4--Three German aeroplanes wrecked by French.
+
+Sept. 9--Russian and Austrian aviators killed in battle.
+
+Sept. 12--German aviators killed in battle with French near Troyes.
+
+Sept. 14--Japanese aeroplane drops bomb in Kiao-Chau.
+
+Sept. 17--Berlin claims that no Zeppelins have been destroyed.
+
+Sept. 18--Bomb dropped on Antwerp; Japanese aviator sets fire to ship in
+Kiao-Chau Bay.
+
+Sept. 20--Vedrines kills German aviator; French aviator Chevilliard
+captured by Germans.
+
+Sept. 21--Japanese aeroplanes wreck two forts at Tsing-tau.
+
+Sept. 23--British drop bombs on Zeppelin shed at Düsseldorf; London
+fears Zeppelin attacks and reduces lights to minimum.
+
+Sept. 24--Zeppelin drops three bombs in Belgium; French capture five
+Taube machines from Germans; destruction of Zeppelin by Russians near
+Sieradz.
+
+Sept. 25--Duel between Belgian and German aviators over Brussels;
+Zeppelin drops bombs in Ostend; London prepares to repel attacks.
+
+Sept. 26--Zeppelin raids Warsaw.
+
+Sept. 27--Man killed and child crippled in Paris; three killed in
+Warsaw.
+
+Sept. 29--Zeppelin drops bombs on two Belgian towns.
+
+Sept. 30--Japanese aeroplanes attack Kiao-Chau Harbor.
+
+Oct. 1--Zeppelin drops bomb near Antwerp, but is driven off.
+
+Oct. 2--Germans report capture of thirty French aeroplanes; it is
+learned that aviators patrolled the Straits of Dover during passage of
+British expeditionary force; German aviators drop messages to Russian
+troops.
+
+Oct. 5--Searchlight tests made in London in preparation for Zeppelin
+raids.
+
+Oct. 6--It is announced that German airship aided in sinking British
+cruisers; commander and crew decorated by Kaiser.
+
+Oct. 7--London insures against damage from Zeppelin raids as air fleet
+is prepared at Wilhelmshaven; French aviators set fire to German
+aeroplanes.
+
+Oct. 8--German aeroplanes drop bombs on Paris and Antwerp.
+
+Oct. 9--British air squadron destroys Zeppelin in hangar at Düsseldorf.
+
+Oct. 11--Three killed, fourteen injured from bombs dropped on Paris by
+German aviators; Zeppelin over Ostend driven away by guns; Japanese
+drop bombs in Tsing-tau.
+
+Oct. 12--Six more bombs dropped on Paris.
+
+Oct. 13--French rout German aviators near Paris.
+
+Oct. 14--French aviator decorated for bringing down German; Cossacks
+bring down Zeppelin near Warsaw; bombs dropped on Nancy.
+
+
+*AMERICAN INTERESTS.*
+
+July 26--Americans are leaving Carlsbad and other resorts.
+
+July 29--Tourists in Paris abandon plans to go eastward; many in London
+take chances and go into Austria.
+
+July 31--Exodus from Geneva; war panic among American tourists in Paris;
+President Wilson directs State Department to ask Ambassador Herrick to
+remain at his post; many left in London as sailing of the Imperator is
+canceled.
+
+Aug. 1--Many demand passports in France; Americans in London will
+organize for relief work.
+
+Aug. 2--Americans in Paris form committee to aid countrymen; refugees
+from Continent arrive in London; Ambassador Gerard appeals for funds;
+State Department has no funds, but will forward deposits for refugees.
+
+Aug. 3--Bankers and Treasury Department officials agree on plan for
+$3,500,000 gold shipment to tourists; hundreds reach Paris after many
+hardships; fear in Berlin; both houses of Congress pass bill
+appropriating $250,000 for relief; embassies will distribute funds.
+
+Aug. 4--Mrs. O.H. Kahn loses automobiles in France; tourists unable to
+leave Germany; many destitute in Paris; automobiles requisitioned for
+war; President Wilson approves plan to send $5,000,000 from bankers and
+national appropriation of $2,500,000 in gold; cruiser Tennessee will
+carry it.
+
+Aug. 5--Ambassador Herrick issues transports to stranded in Paris;
+millionaires leave in cattle train for Havre; Ambassador Page praises
+spirit of refugees; two committees in London to relieve distress;
+cruiser Tennessee prepares to sail with relief fund; Congress votes
+$2,500,000 appropriation; cruiser North Carolina will follow with more
+gold if needed; Mayor Mitchel appoints relief committee.
+
+Aug. 6--Americans in London get funds from Transportation Committee;
+many obtain certificates of American citizenship in Paris; Tennessee
+leaves with gold; Secretary Garrison will use transports rather than pay
+exorbitant prices to charter ships; Board of Relief named to supervise
+distribution of funds appropriated by Congress.
+
+Aug. 7--Baroness von Andre and Anne W.N. Davis tell of brutal treatment
+by German soldiers; Mrs. Philip Lydig tells of kind treatment by French;
+Mrs. Herrick's American Ambulance Corps organized; $100,000 sent by
+Treasury to Paris and $25,000 to Italy; many Americans leave via
+Denmark; French and German railways will be open for departure of
+Americans after mobilization is completed.
+
+Aug. 8--A.M. Huntington and wife reported to be arrested in Bavaria and
+held as spies; 7,000 Americans leave England; committee of American and
+English bankers formed to administer $3,000,000 gold shipment; Secretary
+Garrison confers with Haniel von Heimhausen, German Chargé d'Affaires,
+who says Americans will be allowed to leave Germany.
+
+Aug. 9--One thousand five hundred Americans apply [Transcriber: original
+'appy'] at Paris Embassy for transports; refugees arrive on the New
+York; mines menace relief cruisers.
+
+Aug. 10--Mayor of Berlin and others move to care for refugees in
+Germany; many stranded in Bermuda.
+
+Aug. 11--Cancellation of sailing of Olympic causes rush for steerage on
+ships leaving London; Mrs. W.H. Page heads committee to look after
+school teachers; Secretary Bryan orders Ambassador Gerard to make
+representations regarding Mr. and Mrs. Huntington.
+
+Aug. 12--One thousand refugees arrive in New York, on S.S. Philadelphia;
+Embassy in Paris arranges for relief of tourists all over France;
+Secretary Bryan says Huntingtons are safe; refugees arrive on
+Holland-America liner Potsdam.
+
+Aug. 13--Ambassador Page is seeking ships that may be chartered in
+London; army officers will aid relief work in Paris; fourteen tourists
+reached England via Arctic Sea; Secretary Bryan warns all Americans
+going abroad to get passports; emergency passports to be issued; people
+in Berlin open homes to Americans; Minister Whitlock reports Consulate
+at Liége exposed to fire.
+
+Aug. 14--More than 300 Americans arrive in Rotterdam from Berlin.
+
+Aug. 15--Seven ships leave England; less need for transport; German
+Foreign Office says Huntington was not arrested; Ambassador Herrick
+arranges for sailings of the Espagne and the Rochambeau; refugees in
+Rotterdam report generous treatment while in Germany; Germany will
+provide trains to carry Americans to Bremen and will let cruiser
+Tennessee land there; Gerard says Americans are now free to leave
+Germany; ships leaving Italian ports.
+
+Aug. 16--Cruisers Tennessee and North Carolina arrive at Falmouth with
+gold.
+
+Aug. 17--Eighteen ships that will leave England, within a week can
+accommodate 20,000; London refugees given gold from cruiser Tennessee;
+5,000 stranded in Italy; Nieuw Amsterdam and Laconia reach New York.
+
+Aug. 18--Refugees from Copenhagen arrive on the United States; tourists
+flock into Genoa; members of Mayor Mitchel's Committee meet every
+steamer and are prepared to help the needy.
+
+Aug. 19--Relief cruiser North Carolina reaches Cherbourg with Major
+Hedekin; Miss Morgan's villa accepted as hospital; the Tennessee held at
+Falmouth.
+
+Aug. 20--Payment on funds sent on Tennessee delayed in London.
+
+Aug. 21--American Rhodes scholars help in harvesting in Brittany;
+missionaries urge sending ship with gold to Turkey; gold from the North
+Carolina sent to Italy.
+
+Aug. 22--Refugees arrive on Campania, Baltic, and St. Louis; Ambassador
+Gerard denies that Americans have been ill-treated in Germany; cruiser
+Tennessee at Rotterdam.
+
+Aug. 23--Refugees in London tell of kindness of Austrians; the Tennessee
+left too little gold in England and France.
+
+Aug. 24--Assistant Secretary Breckinridge reaches Berlin with gold;
+Ambassador Herrick makes arrangements for Americans in Switzerland.
+
+Aug. 26--Art students in Paris in sad plight; few tourists now ask aid
+in London; students leave German universities; refugees from Italy
+express satisfaction with arrangements of Government Relief Committee;
+relief bureau established at The Hague.
+
+Aug. 27--Cruiser North Carolina sent to Turkey.
+
+Aug. 28--German Government furnishes gold to Ambassador Gerard.
+
+Aug. 31--London again crowded with refugees; tourists in Denmark safe.
+
+Sept. 3--Turkish Government will not permit the North Carolina to go to
+Constantinople; Americans in London help Belgian refugees.
+
+Sept. 4--Tennessee takes Americans across Channel; British soldiers give
+up quarters for them at Havre; North Carolina starts for Smyrna.
+
+Sept. 9--Refugee aid cost $100,000 in five days in London.
+
+Sept. 10--Passports to be required of all in England.
+
+Sept. 12--Major Hedekin reports nearly all tourists out of France and
+Switzerland.
+
+Sept. 13--Treasury Department will receive no further deposits; sailors
+on the Tennessee cheer British transport.
+
+Sept. 23--Money from North Carolina reaches Constantinople.
+
+Sept. 28--Americans leaving Brussels.
+
+Sept. 29--Tennessee ordered to Adriatic.
+
+Oct. 10--Consul Deedmeyer says he was forced to leave Chemnitz because
+of bad treatment from Germans.
+
+
+*AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.*
+
+July 24--Minister at Belgrade prepares to leave.
+
+July 25--Diplomatic relations severed with Servia; martial law
+proclaimed; Servian Gen. Putnik seized.
+
+July 26--Servian envoy dismissed; Emperor Francis Joseph takes decisive
+part in country's action; war measures taken.
+
+July 27--Army deserters sought in Cuba.
+
+July 28--Emperor will take command at Vienna headquarters; food prices
+raised in Vienna.
+
+July 29--Emperor sends letter to the Czar.
+
+July 30--Government may declare war on Russia; newspaper correspondents
+expelled from Semlin; Emperor cheered in Vienna; men up to 50 years of
+age called to service; Count Salm-Hoogstraetem says Slavs in Austrian
+Army will be loyal.
+
+July 31--Government assures Italy that there is no desire for more
+territory.
+
+Aug. 1--Whole nation wants war; Government was pressed by Germany to
+discuss matters with Russia and to localize war.
+
+Aug. 2--Cadets in military academies made Lieutenants; Countess
+Széchényi places palace at disposal of army.
+
+Aug. 5--United States represents France at Vienna and Austria at Paris;
+food prices fixed; Church permits marriages without publication of bans.
+
+Aug. 6--Russian Ambassador receives passports.
+
+Aug. 7--Pressure brought to bear on Italy to aid.
+
+Aug. 8--Threat to declare war on Italy; full text published of ultimatum
+to Servia, of Servia's reply, of circular note to powers, and of notes
+exchanged with Germany.
+
+Aug. 10--Government acknowledges receipt of President Wilson's offer of
+good offices.
+
+Aug. 11--Army corps marches along Swiss border to relieve Germans in
+Alsace; Italy demands explanation of shelling of Antivari; United States
+will look after French interests.
+
+Aug. 13--Troops mutiny on southern frontier; United States will look
+after interests in England; Prince Hohenlohe arrested in Canada.
+
+Aug. 14--Currency question acute; insubordination of troops; Government
+tells Italy British declaration of war was based upon lies.
+
+Aug. 16--Martial law, proclaimed on Italian border; Consul arrested in
+St. Petersburg.
+
+Aug. 18--Army mobilization accompanied by disorder and mutiny.
+
+Aug. 19--Massacre at Prague after Czech uprising.
+
+Aug. 25--Troops massing on Italian frontier; Government will join war
+with Japan; passports handed to Ambassador.
+
+Aug. 27--Fortification of Vienna begun; children of murdered Archduke
+sent to Switzerland.
+
+Aug. 29--Country reported seething with rebellion.
+
+Aug. 30--Servians charge atrocities by retreating Austrians.
+
+Sept. 3--Troops sent to reinforce German left wing.
+
+Sept. 4--Mutiny of Czech soldiers in Vienna, many shot; Gen. Bobrinsky
+appointed Governor of Galicia.
+
+Sept. 5--Reports that Italians in Istria and Goerz have been shot for
+treason without trial stirs Italy; England releases Austrian ships from
+her ports.
+
+Sept. 6--Year's provisions seized at Lemberg; England orders Consular
+officers out of Egypt.
+
+Sept. 7--Vienna makes hasty preparations for defense; possibility of
+famine.
+
+Sept. 8--Government appeals to Jews in Poland to fight against Russia.
+
+Sept. 10--Panic in Cracow; Archduke Frederick admits loss of 120,000 men
+in Galicia.
+
+Sept. 11--Berlin paper tells of agreement with Germany before war
+started not to make peace separately.
+
+Sept. 14--Troops admit that there have been no Russian cruelties; Vienna
+official report claims victories.
+
+Sept. 16--Guns taken by Russians bear initials of German Emperor.
+
+Sept. 17--Report of preliminary steps for peace with Russia; all
+available men called to arms.
+
+Sept. 18--Police forbid public to spread unfavorable war news.
+
+Sept. 21--Field Marshal Vodinowski executed on charge of aiding
+Russians; Field Marshal Foreich commits suicide after being cashiered
+for defeat.
+
+Sept. 23--Serbs captured at Shabats to be court-martialed for firing at
+troops.
+
+Sept. 24--Italian frontier fortified.
+
+Sept. 27--Cholera spreading among wounded soldiers.
+
+Oct. 2--Emperor is urged to shift Government from Vienna.
+
+Oct. 3--Alarm in Vienna over possibility of Russian invasion.
+
+Oct. 8--Panic in Hungary as Russians advance.
+
+Oct. 9--Much distress in Vienna.
+
+Oct. 12--Archbishop accuses Hungarian soldiers of atrocities in Russian
+Poland.
+
+Oct. 13--Report that eight commanders have been dismissed and two have
+killed themselves.
+
+Oct. 14--Austrian guns were used by Germans at Antwerp.
+
+
+*BELGIUM.*
+
+July 29--Antwerp's trade paralyzed.
+
+July 30--Forts provisioned; export of horses and vehicles prohibited.
+
+July 31--State Railway trains into Germany suspended.
+
+Aug. 1--Government buys entire wheat supply in Antwerp.
+
+Aug, 2--Neutrality an issue with England; German Ambassador said to have
+promised that there will be no invasion; guards mobilized at Liége and
+Namur to hold bridges; Civic Guard called out; Parliament summoned.
+
+Aug. 3--Antwerp in state of siege; King appeals to King George; England
+will defend neutrality; frontier being intrenched.
+
+Aug. 4--King addresses Parliament; Socialist Leader Vandervelde joins
+Cabinet.
+
+Aug. 5--King Albert takes command of troops.
+
+Aug. 7--King issues proclamation to army.
+
+Aug. 8--King thanks President Poincaré for aid.
+
+Aug. 9--Gratitude to Belgian people expressed by French Academy; English
+and French stamps sold in Post Offices.
+
+Aug. 10--Germans mobbed in Brussels.
+
+Aug. 11--Government asks Holland's intentions if neutrality is violated;
+Germany tries to negotiate for passage of her army.
+
+Aug. 13--Tribute to Belgians from Premier Asquith; Government will
+appeal to neutrals because of alleged German atrocities; German
+prisoners treated kindly.
+
+Aug. 14--American Vice Consul Duras says Germans underrated Belgians;
+fighting spirit due to inspiration of growing democracy; people of Liége
+deprived of all means of communication; Government feeds soldiers'
+children.
+
+Aug. 15--Refugees say that Germans executed priest held as hostage.
+
+Aug. 22--France pledges aid; report that Minister Whitlock offered to
+take Brussels under American protection at time of its surrender.
+
+Aug. 23--Report persists, but United States denies that he was
+authorized to offer protection; panic in Ghent and Ostend; German
+General's proclamation to Brussels; Cologne Gazette defends levy on
+Brussels; country praised in French army bulletin.
+
+Aug. 24--Government rejects another German plea for free passage for
+troops; Brussels pays first installment of fine; documents sent to
+London in support of atrocity charges against Germans; Minister at
+Washington protests to State Department against German statements of
+Belgium's conduct on battlefield; legation in London issues note
+protesting against reprisals.
+
+Aug. 25--Minister Whitlock reports to Secretary Bryan that he persuaded
+Brussels authorities not to oppose Germans; statement made by Minister
+in London charging German atrocities; text published of communications
+with Germany concerning passage of troops; fugitives rush to Holland.
+
+Aug. 26--Refugees flock to Paris; Ministers of foreign powers protest to
+Berlin against Zeppelin attack on Antwerp; Foreign Minister sends
+protest to Washington; Baron von der Goltz made military ruler in part
+occupied by Germans.
+
+Aug. 27--Resolution in British Parliament for expression of gratitude to
+Belgian heroes.
+
+Aug. 28--Men in captured towns ordered by Germans to help with harvest;
+Germans name hostages because of failure of Brussels to pay war levy.
+
+Aug. 29--Germany defends destruction of Louvain and other repressive
+measures; commission to protest against atrocities may not be received
+by President Wilson.
+
+Aug. 30--Gen. Leman's defense of Liége praised by German officer;
+Antwerp in darkness to guard against Zeppelin attacks; Government's
+reply to Austria's declaration of war; Gen. von Stein says Germany will
+grant no concession.
+
+Sept. 1--Mrs. H.H. Harjes tells of German cruelties; refugees must leave
+Antwerp because of scarcity of food; four men guarantee payment of
+Brussels fine; Dutch artists protest to Kaiser against destruction of
+Louvain.
+
+Sept. 2--English residents ordered out of Brussels.
+
+Sept. 4--Namur citizens starving; officials at Brussels warn citizens
+against giving Germans excuse for reprisals.
+
+Sept. 5--Germans change clocks to German time; new official German
+statement accuses citizens.
+
+Sept. 6--American newspaper correspondents say they saw no cruel acts by
+Germans; names announced of famous paintings ruined in Louvain and of
+buildings lost and saved; refugees flock to London.
+
+Sept. 7--Officers tell of German atrocities; charges that Germans
+destroyed Dinant and shot many inhabitants.
+
+Sept. 8--Survivors tell of attack on Namur; list of fines made public
+imposed on Belgian cities.
+
+Sept. 9--Mayor of Ghent sends appeal to President Wilson concerning
+German atrocities; council of defense formed.
+
+Sept. 10--Stories of German atrocities greatly exaggerated, says Bank
+Director Helfferich.
+
+Sept. 11--Gen. Leman asks King to pardon him for losing Liége; Prince
+Henry of Reuss charges atrocities; Mrs. N.L. Duryee describes horrors of
+German invasion; Gen. von Boehn replies to charges of German atrocities
+in Aerschot; London Daily News says Termonde was burned for lack of
+ransom; destruction in towns near Namur; lawyers and Judges in Brussels
+refuse to adopt German customs.
+
+Sept. 15--Foreign diplomats inspect conditions in Malines.
+
+Sept. 16--Belgian Commission, which charges German atrocities, received
+by President Wilson.
+
+Sept. 21--German official statement issued on destruction of Louvain.
+
+Sept. 22--Only newspapers published in Germany allowed to be sold in
+Brussels.
+
+Sept. 25--Nobleman charges that American and Spanish investigators were
+deceived by Germans on sacking of Louvain.
+
+Sept. 26--Ostend protests to President Wilson against dropping of bombs
+by Germans; outrages against Germans charged by Bethmann-Hollweg.
+
+Oct. 4--Government issues "Gray Paper" on negotiations with Germany,
+showing negotiations with Germany and other powers concerning the war,
+(printed in full in THE NEW YORK TIMES of Oct. 18.)
+
+Oct. 7--Government moved from Antwerp to Ostend; all able-bodied men of
+Antwerp called out for defense of city.
+
+Oct. 8--King and part of army move out of Antwerp; refugees flee in
+great numbers to Holland and England.
+
+Oct. 9--Government protests to neutrals against monopolizing by Germans
+of foodstuffs in Brussels.
+
+Oct. 10--Germans deny that there is famine in Brussels; much suffering
+among Antwerp refugees; German coin put on same basis as Belgian.
+
+Oct. 12--Large quantities of stores fall into German hands in Antwerp
+and many prisoners taken; refugees crowd Ostend; people will be allowed
+to return to their homes in Antwerp.
+
+Oct. 13--Government moves to France, and will be established at Havre.
+
+
+*CANADA*.
+
+July 30--Halifax garrison active.
+
+Aug. 1--Cabinet meets, will send to England offer of men.
+
+Aug. 2--Ten thousand men volunteer; Royal Naval Reserve called out;
+fishermen will respond.
+
+Aug. 3--Ports of Quebec and Montreal in charge of military authorities;
+militia called to duty; reserves to sail for England.
+
+Aug. 4--Cabinet meeting; mobilization of expeditionary force begins;
+message of appreciation from King George; British and French reservists
+sail.
+
+Aug. 5--Country-wide response to call for service; Government buys two
+submarines built for Chilean Navy; Montreal port guarded; German
+Consulate at Vancouver attacked.
+
+Aug. 6--Austrian and German Consulates stoned in Winnipeg; England
+accepts offer of expeditionary force; Sydney is being fortified.
+
+Aug. 7--German Consuls asked to leave country.
+
+Aug. 9--Canada's offer of 1,000,000 bags of flour accepted by England.
+
+Aug. 10--Cruisers hunt in Atlantic for German ships; ports closed; much
+grain goes to England.
+
+Aug. 14--National Chapter of the Imperial Order of Daughters of the
+Empire will equip hospital ship for Admiralty; married men not accepted
+for service without permission of wives; cruiser Good Hope arrives at
+Halifax; American mass meeting called in Toronto.
+
+Aug. 15--Japanese of British Columbia want to form regiment.
+
+Aug. 17--Americans of Toronto will raise fund for soldiers' families.
+
+Aug. 18--Emergency session of Parliament opened by Duke of Connaught;
+war vote to be $50,000,000.
+
+Aug. 19--Parliament endorses [Transcriber: original 'indorses']
+England's participation in war; speeches by Premier Borden and Sir
+Wilfrid Laurier; women exercise veto power to prevent husbands from
+going to war.
+
+Aug. 21--Move in Parliament to contribute million bags of flour to
+Belgium; all war measures passed; Bank of Montreal will contribute
+$100,000 for patriotic purposes; two cruisers added to naval force at
+Esquimalt.
+
+Aug. 22--War session of Parliament ended; troops on way to Quebec.
+
+Aug. 23--Princess Patricia presents flag to Light Infantry.
+
+Aug. 25--Second army is being mobilized.
+
+Aug. 26--Applications by letter from American citizens for army service
+refused.
+
+Aug. 29--All available troops to be maintained under arms; Princess
+Patricia Light Infantry sails from Montreal.
+
+Aug. 30--Troops delayed at Quebec.
+
+Aug. 31--England accepts food offers from Alberta and Quebec;
+unsuccessful [Transcriber: original 'unsucccessful'] attempt to wreck
+troop train near Montreal; volunteers will replace Bermuda garrison.
+
+Sept. 10--Declared that Department of Militia and Defense kept secret
+the passage of Indian troops through the Dominion.
+
+Sept. 11--Passage of Indian troops denied; officials of White Pass &
+Yukon Railway warn Germans and Austrians not to try to pass through the
+Yukon.
+
+Sept. 24--Thirty-two thousand troops sail.
+
+Sept. 28--Laurier wants French-Canadian regiment.
+
+Sept. 30--Cadets from Royal Military College sail for England.
+
+Oct. 5--Col. Hughes. Minister of Militia, says he can raise another
+large contingent of men; second expeditionary force is to be organized.
+
+Oct. 7--New York Staats-Zeitung barred from the mails.
+
+Oct. 8--First [Transcriber: original 'Frist'] contingent of troops
+reaches Southampton.
+
+
+*ENGLAND.*
+
+July 24--England will side with Russia in event of hostilities with
+Austria.
+
+July 27--Sir Edward Grey asks France, Italy, and Germany to confer with
+England to avert general conflict.
+
+July 28--Germany refuses to accept Sir Edward Grey's proposal for
+conference, but sends conciliatory reply; nation averse to war, but will
+aid Allies; Home Rule strife forgotten.
+
+July 29--Report that Grey is forming new peace proposals; London Times
+pessimistic.
+
+July 30--Unionist papers declare England must fight if Germany attacks
+France; war preparations continue; political parties declare truce;
+amending bill to Home Rule bill dropped; preparations in Far East, at
+Malta, and Cape Town.
+
+July 31--Government joins France in trying to adjust matters between
+Russia and Austria; country is calm; preparations at Hongkong for
+hostilities.
+
+Aug. 1--Sir Edward Grey favors throwing weight of navy at once in favor
+of France and Russia; Lloyd George does not favor participation; special
+meeting of Cabinet called; King George appeals to Czar for peace;
+Cabinet in night session; Belgian neutrality an issue; London Times
+denounces Germany.
+
+Aug. 3--Sir Edward Grey addresses House of Commons; country will defend
+French coast; Redmond pledges Ireland's aid.
+
+Aug. 4--Ambassador leaves Berlin; King issues call to arms and thanks
+colonies for their support; Government controls railways and takes
+foreign warships building in her ports; Vice Admiral Jellicoe takes
+command of fleet; papers in London reduced in size; people advised to
+economize.
+
+Aug. 5--Food prices rise; order specifying contrabands of war; bill
+passes House of Commons to restrain movements of undesirable aliens;
+many spies arrested; women volunteer as nurses; King's message to fleet;
+Prince of Wales wants to fight; United States will care for interests in
+Germany; German cable cut at Azores.
+
+Aug. 6--House of Commons grants army increase of 500,000 men; royal
+decrees revoke prohibition against importation of arms into Ireland,
+making trading with enemy illegal, prohibit English vessels from
+carrying contraband of war between foreign ports, and make it high
+treason to lend money to Germany; Asquith says "White Paper" issued by
+Government shows how Sir Edward Grey tried to obtain peace; coast towns
+arm; contraband of war announced.
+
+Aug. 7--Rush of volunteers; Prince of Wales receives commission in
+Grenadier Guards; Embassies stoned in Dresden and Berlin.
+
+Aug. 8--Parliament passes bill providing for Government seizure of
+foodstuffs; Capt. Fox, commander of the lost Amphion, given new command.
+
+Aug. 9--More Germans arrested.
+
+Aug. 10--Newfoundland offers men; Government acknowledges receipt of
+President Wilson's offer of good offices.
+
+Aug. 11--King inspects troops at Aldershot; mobilization of Territorials
+completed; Information Bureau gives out official war news; Admiralty
+notifies United States of planting of mines in North Sea; Secretary
+Bryan transmits Germany's request for permission to send messages
+through London to the United States; Admiralty says Atlantic is safe,
+but that Germans have laid mines in North Sea.
+
+Aug. 12--Exports of foodstuffs forbidden, no Americans barred.
+
+Aug. 14--Prisoners of War Information Bureau formed; money situation
+improved; embassy informs Secretary Bryan of rules governing aliens;
+Kitchener's plan for raising new army contemplates long war.
+
+Aug. 15--College men volunteer.
+
+Aug. 16--Refugees from Berlin reach Scotland and tell of abuses; J.E.
+Redmond says he has rifles for Irish volunteers.
+
+Aug. 17--Government reassures the United States that Japan's activities
+will be limited.
+
+Aug. 20--Troops impress French favorably.
+
+Aug. 21--Public told to watch for notes from aeroplanes; country
+protests against German levy of war tax on Liége and Brussels; press
+asks President Wilson to try to stop violation of rules of war.
+
+Aug. 22--Admiralty says Germany violates Hague rules by planting mines
+in North Sea; protest to United States against allowing fuel to be
+carried to German cruisers at sea.
+
+Aug. 23--Full text of British "White Paper" published in THE NEW YORK
+TIMES.
+
+Aug. 24--First casualty list of expeditionary army includes Earl of
+Leven and Melville.
+
+Aug. 25--Kitchener appeals for men; probability of three years' war
+discussed.
+
+Aug. 26--Recruiting active; Indian Moslems loyal; members of staffs in
+Munich complain of bad treatment by German military authorities; Daily
+Chronicle warns against quarrel with United States on contraband
+question; army's marching song for this war is "It's a Long Way to
+Tipperary."
+
+Aug. 27--Army's pluck lauded by Gen. Joffre; Parliament votes expression
+of admiration of Belgians.
+
+Aug. 28--Sir John French's report on activities of troops read in
+Parliament; Peeresses sign letter expressing devotion to country.
+
+Aug. 29--Message to Scots Grays from Russian Czar; Lord Roberts says
+hundreds of thousands of men will be needed and assails young men who go
+on playing games; navy congratulated by Canadian Premier and Sir John
+French.
+
+Aug. 30--Lord Kitchener tells of British share in fighting in Belgium
+and France and of loss of life, but says troops have been reinforced.
+
+Sept. 1--Government asks United States to care for her interests in
+event of war with Turkey; Anglo-American corps being formed in London.
+
+Sept. 3--Many recruits join army.
+
+Sept. 4--Asquith, Balfour, Bonar Law, Churchill, and others speak in
+London Guildhall, appealing for volunteers; 700 Ulster volunteers enroll
+in one hour.
+
+Sept. 5--Allies sign agreement that none shall make peace without
+consent of all; official denial that dumdum bullets were used; London
+agreement regarding contraband will be adhered to as far as is
+practicable.
+
+Sept. 6--Churchill announces formation of one marine and two naval
+brigades.
+
+Sept, 8--Gen. Joffre expresses thanks for army's support; Kitchener's
+reply; five thousand recruits in one day; German prisoners held in
+concentration camps.
+
+Sept. 9--Government will not consent to peace proposals unless Germany
+will acknowledge that Belgium is entitled to redress; troops praised by
+Belgians.
+
+Sept. 10--House of Commons votes to add 500,000 men to regular army.
+
+Sept. 12--Permission from Greece to establish naval base at Lemnos;
+complete equipment for Territorials lacking.
+
+Sept. 16--John Redmond calls Irish to arms.
+
+Sept. 17--Prize courts established.
+
+Sept. 19--Lloyd George appeals for Welsh recruits.
+
+Sept. 20--Casualty list shows many officers killed or wounded.
+
+Sept. 21--Percentage of officers in casualty lists out of proportion to
+number of men.
+
+Sept. 24--Censorship tightened.
+
+Sept. 25--Admiralty publishes report on sinking of three cruisers in
+North Sea, saying disabled ships must look after themselves; shortage of
+rifles denied in London Spectator; Asquith and Redmond appeal to Ireland
+for aid.
+
+Oct. 4--Thousands of Irish enlist.
+
+Oct. 8--Sportsmen's Battalion organized by Mrs. Cunliffe Owen.
+
+Oct. 9--Government will not allow American army and navy officers to
+observe operations.
+
+Oct. 11--Loss of officers is a peril.
+
+Oct. 12--Fall of Antwerp aids recruiting; infantry standard lowered to
+admit more men; London Morning Post condemns Churchill's attempt to
+relieve Antwerp with small naval force.
+
+Oct. 14--Foreign Office denies existence of secret agreement with
+Belgium, which Germans charge is shown by documents found in Brussels.
+
+
+*FRANCE.*
+
+July 24--Government will side with Russia in event of hostilities with
+Austria.
+
+July 25--Paris mobs want war; President Poincaré and Premier Viviani
+absent from France.
+
+July 26--Emergency council of Cabinet held; people see hand of Germany.
+
+July 27--Government agrees to Sir Edward Grey's proposal for conference
+to avert conflict; general impression that Germany inspired Austria's
+act; President Poincaré hurries home; anti-war demonstrations in Paris;
+Ambassador tries to enlist Germany's aid for mediation.
+
+July 28--Army moves to frontier; Socialists protest against war.
+
+July 29--Demonstration as Poincaré returns from Russia; Cabinet council;
+business at standstill in Paris.
+
+July 30--Troops guard railroad.
+
+July 31--Answer to Germany's note about Russia; Government joins with
+England in trying to adjust matters between Russia and Austria;
+steamship La France taken over in service of Government.
+
+Aug. 1--President Poincaré orders mobilization after Germany asks
+intention of Government concerning her ultimatum to Russia; Cabinet
+council; Delcassé becomes. War Minister; American Ambassador and Consul
+will look after German affairs; Government promises to respect Belgian
+neutrality unless another power violates it; German Ambassador is
+leaving.
+
+Aug. 2--Ambassador Cambon blames Germany for conflict; state of siege
+declared in France and Algiers; Socialists patriotic; railway
+communication with Germany and Belgium cut off.
+
+Aug. 3--Berlin reports acts of hostility by French; Ambassador leaves
+Berlin and German Ambassador leaves Paris; riots in Paris.
+
+Aug. 4--Paris newspapers reduced in size; General Staff prepared for
+German moves; Prince Roland Bonaparte offers services; Gen. Joseph
+Joffre leaves for frontier; statement by Premier Viviani in Chamber of
+Deputies; war measures passed; many Americans want to fight for France.
+
+Aug. 5--War bills voted in Parliament; United States represents Austria
+at Paris and France at Vienna; President Poincaré's address to nation;
+Gen. Pau will command one arm.
+
+Aug. 6--Ambassador embraced by the Czar; Premier Viviani asks women to
+gather crops; army under command of Gen. Joffre.
+
+Aug. 8--President Poincaré replies to King Albert's message of thanks;
+Paris City Council changes name of Rue de Berlin to Rue de Liége.
+
+Aug. 9--Academy salutes Belgians; martial law proclaimed.
+
+Aug. 10--J.G. Demombynes, student, tells how Germans killed French
+refugees on frontier; diplomatic relations with Austria broken off;
+Government acknowledges receipt of President Wilson's offer of good
+offices.
+
+Aug. 13--Dr. Alexis Carrel goes to front as surgeon.
+
+Aug. 17--Garibaldi offers to raise army; Prince Antoine of Orleans wants
+to fight for France.
+
+Aug. 18--American volunteer corps raised in Paris; severe military law
+enforced; Carthusian monks, who were expelled, return to fight.
+
+Aug. 19--Third reserve army raised; Gen. Joffre in supreme command.
+
+Aug. 20--Government will protest to powers against German atrocities
+which it charges.
+
+Aug. 21--Prefects ordered to take note of atrocities; foreign volunteers
+mobilize in Paris; service of Anglo-American Rough Riders accepted.
+
+Aug. 22--Government charges Germans with using dumdum bullets; Paris
+food prices low.
+
+Aug. 23--Government protests to The Hague against use of dumdum bullets
+by Germans; army bulletin praises Belgians; success of Gen. Pau thrills
+people.
+
+Aug. 26--Refugees from frontier flock to Paris; American volunteers go
+to Rouen to enter training.
+
+Aug. 27--Government presents affidavits to neutral countries that German
+officer shot at Red Cross nurses.
+
+Aug. 30--1914 reserves to be called out; Paris stores food; Vice Admiral
+de Lapeyrere will command allied forces in Mediterranean.
+
+Sept. 2--Germans accused of setting fire to wood that sheltered St.
+Quentin refugees.
+
+Sept. 3--Gen. Gallieni issues proclamation to people of Paris; many
+leave city; Government in Bordeaux; Havre guarded.
+
+Sept. 4--Exodus from Paris continues; sanitary precautions taken.
+
+Sept. 5--Schools of Paris closed; Cabinet takes steps to send food to
+country districts.
+
+Sept. 6--Gen. Joffre warns troops against premature attacks in mass;
+siege awaited calmly; 1915 recruits called out; neutral diplomats want
+Ambassador [Transcriber: original 'Ambasador'] Herrick to ask United
+States to protest against possible destruction of Paris art treasures;
+Germans levy war taxes on captured cities.
+
+Sept. 8--Suggestion to have art works regarded as international property
+taken into consideration by President Wilson.
+
+Sept. 9--Decree ordering all men exempt from service because of
+ill-health to be reexamined; many regret flight from Paris.
+
+Sept. 10--Gens. Exelmans and Toutee wounded; military authorities warn
+Parisians against overconfidence; intrenchments dug.
+
+Sept. 11--President Poincaré sends message to President Wilson in answer
+to Kaiser's charges on dumdum bullets; Government commandeers all
+automobiles; Gen. Joffre and army congratulated by President Poincaré.
+
+Sept. 12--Road from Havre to Paris reopened, rail service being resumed;
+fresh troops ready in Paris.
+
+Sept. 14--Much booty has been taken from Germans; Senlis laid waste.
+
+Sept. 16--Troops accused of destroying German field hospital and killing
+doctors.
+
+Sept. 18--Stricter watch on spies; minors allowed to enlist, with
+permission of mothers.
+
+Sept. 19--Suffering in Lunéville; statement issued by Washington
+Embassy to show that Germany began the war.
+
+Sept. 20--Northern France is being laid waste; Menier château raided.
+
+Sept. 21--Foreign Office sends protest to neutrals against bombardment
+of Rheims Cathedral; Ambassador Jusserand lays complaint before United
+States State Department.
+
+Sept. 22--Loss in officers very heavy; their uniforms may be changed;
+refugees return to Paris.
+
+Sept. 23--Germans say they were compelled to bombard Rheims.
+
+Sept. 24--Germans admit aiming one shell at Rheims Cathedral to drive
+out observers; refugees advertise in newspapers for relatives.
+
+Sept. 25--Germans again shell Rheims Cathedral; formal complaint of
+German atrocities filed at United States State Department; statement by
+Ambassador Jusserand.
+
+Sept. 26--Stricter news censorship in Paris; Belgian refugees aid in
+gathering grapes at Bordeaux.
+
+Sept. 28--Joffre denies Rheims Cathedral was being used for observatory;
+two German spies shot.
+
+Sept. 30--Association of Architects expels German members.
+
+Oct. 2--French soldiers are charged by German Foreign Office with
+torturing wounded at Orchies.
+
+Oct. 4--German charges officially denied.
+
+Oct. 6--German prisoners sentenced to die for looting.
+
+Oct. 7--French are charged by Germans with themselves pillaging French
+towns, an alleged order of Gen. Joffre being quoted.
+
+Oct. 11--Problem of caring for refugees becomes serious.
+
+Oct. 15--Learned societies plan expulsion of German members.
+
+
+*GERMANY.*
+
+July 23--Government approves of Austria's course in Servian trouble.
+
+July 25--Berlin mobs want war; Kaiser leaves Norway for Berlin.
+
+July 26--War spirit in Berlin; French believe Government had hand in
+trouble, despite explanation of Baron von Schoen; Government wants
+Austro-Servian quarrel localized.
+
+July 27--Kaiser returns to Berlin and confers with military officers;
+Government was warned of mobilization of entire Russian Army; France
+still suspects that Government inspired Austria's note to Servia.
+
+July 28--Socialist anti-war meetings fail.
+
+July 29--Kaiser holds naval council of war and exchanges messages with
+the Czar.
+
+July 30--Government calls on Russia to stop mobilization within
+twenty-four hours; three questions put to Russia; panic at Saarbrucken;
+Cabinet meets at Potsdam; troops massing at Tsing-tau.
+
+July 31--Nation put under martial law; Kaiser makes speech in Berlin;
+"nuptials of war" of Prince Oscar and Countess von Bassewitz; Reichstag
+summoned; Crown Prince assigned to command.
+
+Aug. 1--Government's inquiry about France's intentions concerning
+ultimatum to Russia causes French mobilization; Kaiser signs
+mobilization order; Reichstag convoked; war speech by Chancellor;
+Government pressed Austria hard for understanding with Russia and tried
+to localize war; reserves in China go to Tsing-tau; officials in South
+Africa hurry home.
+
+Aug. 2--Russian Ambassador receives passport; ships at sea ordered to
+seek neutral port; Minister von Pourtales made demands upon Russian
+Foreign Minister three times; Albert Ballin says Kaiser sought peace;
+martial law declared in Kiao-Chau.
+
+Aug. 3--Rumor of invasion of Holland, but Minister gives assurance that
+neutrality will be respected; United States will protect German
+interests in Russia and other countries.
+
+Aug. 4--British envoy leaves Berlin; appeal made to Italy; Reichstag
+opens; speeches by Kaiser and by Chancellor, who promises to make
+reparation to Luxemburg and Belgium after the war; emergency measures.
+
+Aug. 5--Russian Ambassador and staff assaulted in Berlin; Embassy in St.
+Petersburg wrecked; school children sent to garner crops.
+
+Aug. 7--Report that pressure was brought to bear on Italy to secure aid;
+Kaiser's proclamation to nation; soldiers march cheerfully to war;
+British Embassies stoned in Dresden and Berlin.
+
+Aug. 8--Threat to declare war on Italy; Russian official papers blame
+Germany for war; papers says Government is traduced.
+
+Aug. 9--Hermann Wendel, Socialist member of Reichstag, volunteers for
+service in the army.
+
+Aug. 10--Men of the Landsturm being mobilized.
+
+Aug. 11--Anti-war riots in Berlin.
+
+Aug. 12--Official hints that Kaiser halted attack on Liége to prevent
+further loss of life; attempt on life of Crown Prince at
+Aix-la-Chapelle; receipt of President Wilson's offer of good offices
+acknowledged.
+
+Aug. 13--Troops in Belgian Luxemburg said to be starving; British,
+French, and Belgians charge cruelties by troops.
+
+Aug. 14--Chancellor states Germany's case and calls war a life-and-death
+struggle of the German and the Slav; report that Kaiser sent personal
+telegrams to Belgian King demanding surrender of Liége forts; aviators
+drop pamphlets over Poland urging revolt against Russia.
+
+Aug. 15--Government said to have asked Ambassador Whitlock to repeat to
+Belgium offer of increased territory in return for free passage of
+troops; belief that acquisition of Russian Poland is sought; many
+members of Hohenzollern family in field; French and English signs
+removed from shops.
+
+Aug. 16--Prisoners well treated by French; French say officers' corps is
+tyrannical and demoralized; Russians accused of cruelty.
+
+Aug. 17--Untrained men called to colors; Paris journal reports prisoners
+bitter against Kaiser.
+
+Aug. 18--Chancellor said to have called treaty guaranteeing Belgian
+neutrality a "scrap of paper"; E.G. Treat says Kaiser called the Czar an
+Asiatic barbarian.
+
+Aug. 19--Speech in Reichstag shows that Socialists are backing
+Government.
+
+Aug. 20--Alsatian Deputies escape to France; Kaiser said to be
+responsible for attacks on Liége; Government asks United States to
+represent her in Far East in event of war with Japan.
+
+Aug. 21--Committee of merchants works to aid trade and addresses
+explanation of the war to Americans; French charge German prisoners with
+robbing the dead.
+
+Aug. 22--Japanese envoy ordered to leave Berlin; American Ambassador
+will look after interests of Japan; dumdum bullets not used by Germans,
+it is declared; great mortality of officers attracts attention; England
+protests to United States against allowing fuel to be carried to
+cruisers at sea.
+
+Aug. 24--Full text of German "White Paper" printed in THE NEW YORK
+TIMES; German-Japanese Commercial Treaty will cease to be effective;
+statements on Belgium's conduct on battlefield protested against by
+Belgian Minister at Washington; Berlin newspapers given to returning
+Americans to meet alleged false reports.
+
+Aug. 25--Kaiser decorates two sons and Duke of Württemberg for bravery;
+tax levied on Brabant; boys from 16 to 19 years ordered to drill.
+
+Aug. 26--Prince of Saxe-Meiningen killed at Namur; food supply
+limitless, says Count von Bernstorff.
+
+Aug. 27--Food prices fixed by Government.
+
+Aug. 28--Emperor orders Ministry to care for fleeing population of East
+Prussia; army to be sent from Alsace.
+
+Aug. 29--Force withdrawn from Belgium to meet Russians; name of
+Englische Strasse in Berlin changed to Deutsche Strasse; Japanese State
+debt seized.
+
+Aug. 31--Fourteen staff officers captives of Allies; many losses have
+occurred in charges of massed infantry; Gen. von Stein says there will
+be no concession to Belgium; railways again open.
+
+Sept. 1--German officers take charge of mobilization of Turkish Army;
+Socialist manifesto assailing the Kaiser.
+
+Sept. 2--Casualty lists show heavy losses; new gun developed by Krupp
+hurls powerful shell; wireless reports to Washington Embassy accuse
+Russians of atrocities.
+
+Sept. 4--Czar says he will take from Prussia more than Kaiser gets in
+Belgium; Namur citizens starving.
+
+Sept. 5--Six hundred Japanese students captured on Dutch frontier; new
+official statement puts blame for destruction of Louvain on citizens;
+Prince Lichnowsky goes to front; Russian refugees from Germany charge
+cruelty.
+
+Sept. 6--Reichstag leaders pledge nation's entire strength.
+
+Sept. 8--Professors in universities will renounce distinctions conferred
+upon them by British universities.
+
+Sept. 9--Attempts made to obtain Dutch sympathy; Kaiser sends message to
+President Wilson, charging use of dumdum bullets by Allies.
+
+Sept. 10--Experts from Krupp works brought down in aeroplane by
+Belgians.
+
+Sept. 11--Prince Engalitcheff charges atrocities on Russian border;
+Consular officers leave Egypt; aviators decorated by Kaiser.
+
+Sept. 12--Crown Prince appeals for tobacco for men; many officers and
+men decorated.
+
+Sept. 13--Gen. von Boehn's reply to Belgian charges of atrocities in
+Aerschot.
+
+Sept. 16--Government notifies China that Germany reserves right to deal
+with Chinese Empire as she sees fit because of breach of neutrality;
+placard set up in Compiègne asserting sovereignty over territories
+occupied.
+
+Sept. 17--Ambassador Gerard reports peace talk with Chancellor, who
+suggests that United States ask Allies their terms; heavy losses
+reported.
+
+Sept. 18--Prussian Guard Corps said to be wiped out; eight army corps
+leave Belgium and France for eastern frontier; Crown Prince appeals for
+clothing for soldiers.
+
+Sept. 19--Prince August William receives the Iron Cross; stories of
+looting in French towns; fine demanded of Lunéville; food problem acute
+for army in the west.
+
+Sept. 20--Some States of empire said to resent Prussia's plunging
+country into war.
+
+Sept. 21--Dutch traffic along the Rhine halted; soldiers' diaries show
+shortage of rations; discontent among Bavarian troops; French find iron
+crosses inscribed "1814-1914."
+
+Sept. 22--Troops accused of atrocities in report of Sir John French;
+Frenchwoman says artillerymen shelled hospital at Etain.
+
+Sept. 24--Fine of $600,000 exacted from Tournai, Belgium, for death of
+one Uhaln.
+
+Sept. 25--General Staff lists prisoners for exchange and admits totals
+announced were erroneous; thirty-first casualty list given out.
+
+Sept. 26--Krupp works running night and day.
+
+Sept. 27--Epidemic of typhoid among soldiers.
+
+Sept. 28--Brussels used as intrenched camp; shortage of horses.
+
+Sept. 29--Big Krupp guns being placed on warships; Winter clothing for
+army ordered; Rotterdam hears that soldiers are ill from lack of food
+because commissariat broke down.
+
+Sept. 30--Krupp guns are dubbed "Busy Berthas"; women give gold
+ornaments in exchange for iron rings.
+
+Oct. 4--The King of Bavaria is in command of six army corps in Silesia.
+
+Oct. 5--Losses at Antwerp shown to be heavy.
+
+Oct. 8--Director of Berlin Royal Museum says that works of art brought
+into Germany will not be retained.
+
+Oct. 12--Prussia's losses estimated at 211,000; officials guard Antwerp
+from plunderers.
+
+Oct. 14--Notice sent to Holland that status of River Scheldt will be
+continued as heretofore; rejoicing in Berlin over fall of Antwerp.
+
+
+*HOLLAND.*
+
+July 30--Government declares neutrality.
+
+July 31--Mobilization of army ordered; Austrian Government steamer
+detained for time, but released.
+
+Aug. 2--Country may be flooded to prevent invasion; fear that Germany
+may not respect neutrality; bill in Parliament to stabilize food prices.
+
+Aug. 3--Rumor of invasion, but German Minister promises that neutrality
+will be respected.
+
+Aug. 5--Reservists in America summoned.
+
+Aug. 6--Neutrality in Anglo-German and Belgo-German wars declared.
+
+Aug. 8--Frontier guarded.
+
+Aug. 9--Uhlans captured and disarmed at Maastricht.
+
+Aug. 10--Queen Wilhelmina suggests formation of committee to aid the
+needy.
+
+Aug. 11--Martial law in several provinces.
+
+Aug. 13--Troops massed on frontier; some districts flooded.
+
+Aug. 15--Queen orders Court festivities canceled.
+
+Aug. 16--Paralysis of trade in Rotterdam will render thousands
+destitute.
+
+Aug. 18--Everything ready to flood frontier if Germany strikes.
+
+Aug. 20--Food supply causes anxiety; patrols capture German aeroplane.
+
+Aug. 21--Country prepared against invasion; soldiers fire on Zeppelin
+using searchlight; declaration of neutrality renewed; bakers making
+bread from potatoes; people of Tongres flee from Germans.
+
+Aug. 23--Minister of Industry and Commerce assures England that goods
+will not be improperly supplied to Germany.
+
+Aug. 25--Mobilization ceased.
+
+Aug. 29--Southern frontier under martial law.
+
+Sept. 9--Germans want people's sympathy; some places put in state of
+siege; rice substituted for wheat flour.
+
+Sept. 15--Artists protest to German Emperor against destruction of
+Louvain.
+
+Sept. 26--Martial law on eastern frontier to stop smuggling of goods
+into Germany.
+
+Oct. 2--Neutrality is being maintained at great cost; trade is
+paralyzed.
+
+Oct. 3--Severe embargo on foodstuffs.
+
+Oct. 7--Amsterdam fixes price of wheat.
+
+
+*INDIA.*
+
+Aug. 15--Mass meetings in Calcutta and Bombay to voice people's loyalty
+to England.
+
+Aug. 26--Moslems still loyal to England.
+
+Aug. 28--Troops will be sent to France.
+
+Sept. 9--Men and money offered to England; message from Viceroy read in
+House of Commons.
+
+Sept. 14--German tale of revolution denied; loyalty reported by British
+Foreign Office.
+
+Sept. 15--Mussulmans in Russia support declaration of loyalty to
+England.
+
+Sept. 21--Aga Khan, leader of Mohammedans, offers to enlist; potentates
+eager to serve.
+
+Sept. 24--Preparations for comfort of soldiers being made in England.
+
+Oct. 1--Troops land in France; message to them from King George.
+
+Oct. 2--Great welcome given to troops at Marseilles.
+
+
+*ITALY.*
+
+July 24--Country will simply safeguard her interests in the Balkans and
+on the Adriatic; appeal made to other countries to be conciliatory.
+
+July 25--No disposition to espouse Austria's cause.
+
+July 26--Government looks to England to prevent war.
+
+July 28--Concentration of the first and second naval squadrons ordered
+at Gaeta; warships on the Clyde ordered home.
+
+July 31--Government assured that Austria is not seeking more territory.
+
+Aug. 1--Government informs Germany of neutrality and says obligations
+under Triple Alliance apply only to defensive war.
+
+Aug. 2--Cabinet ratifies declaration of neutrality; Government orders
+all Bourses closed.
+
+Aug. 3--Fleet assembles in Far East; neutrality formally proclaimed, but
+reserves are called to colors.
+
+Aug. 5--Report of German ultimatum to Italy; war may be declared on
+Austria.
+
+Aug. 6--Ambassador to London justifies attitude of neutrality.
+
+Aug. 7--Germany and Austria bring strong pressure to bear to obtain aid.
+
+Aug. 8--Germany and Austria threaten war; King said to be indignant at
+reported offer of colonies in return for aid.
+
+Aug. 13--Alpine passes and northern frontier guarded.
+
+Aug. 14--Government aroused by report that Turkey has purchased two
+German cruisers.
+
+Aug. 16--Strong feeling in favor of England.
+
+Aug. 19--Refugees from Germany complain, of outrages.
+
+Aug. 21--Prefects vote against joining with Germany.
+
+Aug. 24--German Ambassador's efforts fail to persuade press to advocate
+intervention; Allies are pressing Italy.
+
+Aug. 31--Romans leave cards at Belgian Legation to show sympathy over
+Louvain.
+
+Sept. 7--Socialist Reform Party endorses [Transcriber: original
+'indorses'] neutrality.
+
+Sept. 13--Populace of Rome cheers for France.
+
+Sept. 14--Radicals favor war; anti-Austrian demonstration in Rome.
+
+Sept. 16--Rioters in large cities demand aid to Allies.
+
+Sept, 20--More than 500,000 men are under arms.
+
+Sept. 21--Damage to Rheims Cathedral arouses sympathy for France;
+British Embassy in Rome cheered.
+
+Sept. 22--Thousands offer to enlist in British Army.
+
+Sept. 30--Gabriele d'Annunzio urges country to join Allies.
+
+
+*JAPAN.*
+
+July 30--Alliance with England may involve Government in war in case of
+attack on British warships.
+
+Aug. 1--Navy prepared.
+
+Aug. 2--Emperor summons Council and asks War Minister to report on
+condition of army; warships get ready.
+
+Aug. 4--Proclamation prepares people for war on behalf of England.
+
+Aug. 5--Count Okuma says Japan would have liked to join the United
+States in mediation offer.
+
+Aug. 7--Warships off Tsing-tau; reserve army officers told to be ready;
+navy squadrons organized.
+
+Aug. 11--Army aboard transports.
+
+Aug. 12--Telegraphic communication with Europe interrupted; Ambassador
+confers with Russian Foreign Minister.
+
+Aug. 17--Official announcement in London that Japanese operations will
+be confined to China Sea and to protection; ultimatum to Germany made
+with concurrence of England.
+
+Aug. 18--Count Okuma emphasizes war limitation and England reassures the
+United States; ultimatum to Germany was not inspired by England.
+
+Aug. 20--Count Okuma denies that Government has territorial ambitions.
+
+Aug. 21--United States sends formal declaration of policy bearing on
+ultimatum.
+
+Sept. 5--Baron Kato makes speech in Diet outlining events leading up to
+war with Germany and break with Austria, and thanking United States for
+good offices.
+
+Sept. 10--Government tells Russia that no peace will be concluded until
+Allies consent.
+
+Sept. 15--Papers controlled by Germans ordered suppressed.
+
+Sept. 26--Charges of misconduct on part of troops in China denied at
+Washington Embassy.
+
+Oct. 5--Assurance given to China that Shantung Railroad will only be
+used temporarily.
+
+Oct. 7--Ambassador Guthrie and embassy at Washington assure State
+Department that taking of Jaluit Island is only a temporary move.
+
+Oct. 15--England tells China that she cannot interfere with the
+occupation of railroad.
+
+
+*RUSSIA.*
+
+July 21--Belief that Government will aid Servia in possible conflict
+with Austria.
+
+July 24--Cabinet meets; Government will ask Austria to extend time
+allowed for Servia's answer to ultimatum.
+
+July 25--Army is mobilizing.
+
+July 26--Warning to Germany against invasion of Servia; army manoeuvres
+countermanded, but Government still hopes for peace.
+
+July 27--Czar warns Germany of general mobilization of army.
+
+July 28--Force masses on eastern border; lights along Black Sea coast
+ordered extinguished.
+
+July 29--Intervention imminent; prayers for Serb victory; Baltic lights
+out; Czar summons reservists.
+
+July 30--Germany demands halting of mobilization within twenty-four
+hours and sends Grand Duke of Hesse to urge peace; war activity in
+Warsaw; railroads taken over.
+
+July 31--Railway bridge on Vienna-Warsaw line blown up; no reply sent to
+German note; mobilization order.
+
+Aug. 3--Czar issues statement outlining events leading up to war.
+
+Aug. 8--Czar addresses Duma and Council of Empire; Duma pledges people
+to country's defense.
+
+Aug. 9--Minister Sazonof, in speech before Duma, blames Austria for war.
+
+Aug. 10--Government acknowledges receipt of President Wilson's offer of
+good offices.
+
+Aug. 14--Army works in secret, 5,500,000 men mobilized; Poles support
+Russia.
+
+Aug. 15--Home rule promised to Poland after war if people remain loyal.
+
+Aug. 16--Poles enthusiastic over promise of autonomy.
+
+Aug. 17--Unrestricted use of Dardanelles demanded of Turkey.
+
+Aug. 18--Many Poles join army.
+
+Aug. 24--Finns loyal.
+
+Aug. 27--Poles loyal; St. Petersburg well supplied with food.
+
+Sept. 1--Name of St. Petersburg changed to Petrograd; other cities with
+German names would have them Russianized; Germany charges atrocities in
+East Prussia.
+
+Sept. 3--Report that soldiers have been sent to Belgium through
+Scotland.
+
+Sept. 4--Gen. Bobrinsky appointed Governor of Galicia.
+
+Sept. 6--Year's provisions seized at Lemberg, which is to be called
+Lvov.
+
+Sept. 12--Prisoners are proving a problem.
+
+Sept. 14--British Press Bureau denies that troops have landed in Belgium
+or France.
+
+Sept. 16--Proclamation issued to captured Austrian districts.
+
+Sept. 21--"Orange Book" shows Government's negotiations in cause of
+peace.
+
+Sept. 27--Full text of "Orange Book" printed in THE NEW YORK TIMES.
+
+Sept. 28--Soldiers occupy Tilsit estate of German Emperor; war fund
+presented to Czar by Petrograd bankers.
+
+Oct. 8--Lemberg made a province.
+
+Oct. 15--Refugees are a serious problem in Warsaw.
+
+
+*SERVIA.*
+
+July 25--Parliament will meet in special session; King Peter moves
+capital from Belgrade to Kraguyavatz.
+
+July 26--Army mobilizing; Crown Prince will command it; panic in
+Belgrade as people flee.
+
+July 28--King Peter goes to Nish.
+
+Aug. 4--Sending of press dispatches forbidden.
+
+Aug. 8--Full text given out of Austria's ultimatum and of reply.
+
+Sept. 19--Government will conclude peace with Austria only by acting
+with Triple Entente.
+
+
+*RESERVISTS.*
+
+July 26--Ambassador Dumba tells Consuls to warn Austrian reservists to
+prepare to return for service; Serbs in New York ready to sail.
+
+July 27--Austrians await call.
+
+July 28--Chicago Serbs anxious to return home.
+
+July 29--Reservists ordered to return to Austria; Servians in Indiana
+ordered to await call.
+
+July 30--Servians in New York prepare to sail; Giuseppe Garibaldi will
+fight for Servia if Italy remains neutral.
+
+Aug. 1--Mass meeting of Slavs in Central Opera House, New York City; Dr.
+Winter issues proclamation for general mobilization of Austrians in New
+York district.
+
+Aug. 2--Swiss called to colors; Germany and France recall all military
+reserves; England sends for naval reserves.
+
+Aug. 4--Many flock to consulates; Servians fight to sail on Greek ship;
+French and British reservists leave Canada; Austro-Hungarian Military
+Benevolent Society formed in New York; hotels affected by leaving of
+French chefs.
+
+Aug. 5--Canadians respond to call; 2,000 Frenchmen sail on La Lorraine.
+
+Aug. 6--Attempt to ship Austrians, Hungarians and Germans given up;
+English and French to go; many leave destitute families.
+
+Aug. 7--Reservists will go as individuals, not as organized parties, by
+order of Department of Commerce.
+
+Aug. 15--Many Frenchmen sail on the Rochambeau; Dutch and Germans on the
+Potsdam; Secretary Bryan says men in America cannot be forced to join
+foreign armies.
+
+Aug. 22--British ordered to be ready for call to colors.
+
+Aug. 25--German and Austrian reservists on the Potsdam taken prisoners
+at Falmouth, England.
+
+Aug. 31--British vessels take Austrian and German reservists from two
+Pacific Mail liners near Hongkong.
+
+Sept. 5--German reservists from Holland-America liner Nieuw Amsterdam
+held prisoners by France; French reservists sail on the Espagne; Germans
+from Puerto Colombia reach New York.
+
+Sept. 9--British cruiser captures the Noordam and makes German
+reservists prisoners.
+
+Sept. 25--Germans taken from Holland-America liner Absteldyk by British.
+
+
+*RELIEF WORK.*
+
+Aug. 1--Hungarians form committee to aid New York families.
+
+Aug. 2--Austrian headquarters established in New York City.
+
+Aug. 6--Prince of Wales starts fund.
+
+Aug. 7--American women of title in England start fund; American
+Ambulance Corps organized in Paris by Mrs. Herrick.
+
+Aug. 8--Committee of American women formed in London to aid sufferers;
+gift from Mrs. Whitelaw Reid and many other contributions; Belgians in
+New York form relief committee; French fund started in New York.
+
+Aug. 10--French-Belgian relief fund started in New York.
+
+Aug. 11--Ambassador Herrick asks Red Cross to send hospital supplies to
+Paris.
+
+Aug. 12--Duchess of Sutherland is at head of French Red Cross work in
+Brussels.
+
+Aug. 13--Rothschilds give $200,000 to French fund.
+
+Aug. 14--Prince of Wales fund reaches $5,000,000.
+
+Aug. 15--English nurses arrive in Brussels; Germans in New York start
+fund.
+
+Aug. 17--Servian societies aid Servian Red Cross.
+
+Aug. 21--Relief fund started in New York by German Historical Society,
+which gives iron ring as souvenir to contributors.
+
+Aug. 24--Ex-Empress Eugenie contributes to French fund.
+
+Aug. 27--Noblemen in England offer homes to Red Cross.
+
+Aug. 31--Appeal for aid in equipment of American Hospital in Paris.
+
+Sept. 1--British War Office accepts Oldway House equipped as hospital by
+American women; large contributions in London.
+
+Sept. 7--American ambulance corps first on field near Paris.
+
+Sept. 8--Mrs. W.E. Corey places château in France at the disposal of the
+Red Cross.
+
+Sept. 12--Hanotaux issues appeal for French refugees; Duchess of
+Marlborough to aid servants out of work; Duchess of Westminster a nurse.
+
+Sept. 13--Briand thanks American women for care of wounded in Paris;
+Ambassador Jusserand will forward money for French Red Cross.
+
+Sept. 14--Chinese send Red Cross men to aid Japanese and Germans at
+Kiao-Chau; American Red Cross steamship Red Cross sails from New York.
+
+Sept. 15--Work of rich American women praised by French Socialist organ;
+Mrs. Penfield organizes corps of Red Cross workers in Vienna; Prince of
+Wales fund increased by soccer teams.
+
+Sept. 17--Babies and Mothers' League formed in London.
+
+Sept. 19--Committee of Mercy formed in New York City.
+
+Sept. 20--Belgian Legation in Washington plans aid for women and
+children.
+
+Sept. 23--Lady Paget appeals to American women for socks.
+
+Sept. 25--American Women's Fund in London gives six motor ambulances;
+home of Mr. and Mrs. C.M. Depew on the Oise used for hospital.
+
+Sept. 28--Appeal for Belgian relief addressed to Canada repeated to
+United States.
+
+Sept. 29--England generous in offering homes to Belgian refugees.
+
+Sept. 30--Duchess of Marlborough to act for Committee of Mercy in Great
+Britain.
+
+Oct. 5--Prince of Wales fund reaches $15,000,000.
+
+Oct. 8--Mrs. J.P. Morgan on shipboard knits socks for soldiers; praise
+is given to the work done by the American Ambulance Hospital in Paris
+under Dr. J.A. Blake.
+
+
+*PEACE AND MEDIATION.*
+
+Sept. 7--Germany reported ready for peace; Oscar Straus and diplomats
+confer with Secretary Bryan.
+
+Sept. 8--Secretary Bryan and Ambassador Spring-Rice deny peace
+proposals.
+
+Sept. 10--Bankers' peace movement afoot; German banks feel strain; Pope
+issues appeal.
+
+Sept. 11--Apostolic Delegate in Washington has mission on mediation to
+President Wilson; opinion in England that peace moves must wait.
+
+Sept. 12--Kaiser has received informal inquiry from United States
+Government; Allies will unite in demanding compensation for Belgium.
+
+Sept. 17--Report of preliminary steps for peace between Austria and
+Russia; Ambassador Gerard reports conversation with German Chancellor,
+suggesting that Allies state terms.
+
+Sept. 18--England denies that Germany and Austria have made peace
+proposals; Gerard's message will probably be sent to Allies, but United
+States will make no further move at present; President Wilson receives
+appeal from women of all nations and from General Conference of Friends.
+
+Sept. 19--Ambassador Gerard's message has not been forwarded to any
+embassy; National Peace Council in England thanks President Wilson for
+mediation offer.
+
+Sept. 21--President Wilson believes time has not come to move for peace;
+he receives appeal from suffragists.
+
+Sept. 23--Ambassador von Bernstorff denies that German Government
+initiated peace propositions.
+
+Sept. 26--Churches start peace campaigns to further efforts made by
+President Wilson.
+
+Oct. 4--Prayers for peace held in churches throughout United States in
+accordance with request in proclamation by President Wilson.
+
+
+
+
+*THE MEN OF THE EMDEN.*
+
+By THOMAS R. YBARRA.
+
+
+What matter if you
+    Be stanch and true
+To the British blood in the veins of you,
+When it's "hip hurrah!" for a deed well done,
+For a fight well fought and a race well run--
+    What matter if you be true?
+    Hats off to the Emden's crew!
+
+Theirs was the life of the storm-god's folk,
+  Uncounted miles from the Fatherland,
+With a foe beneath every wisp of smoke,
+  And a menace in every strip of strand.
+Up, glasses! Paul Jones was but one of these,
+  Hull, Bainbridge, Decatur, their brothers, too!
+    (Ha! those pirate nights
+      In a ring of foes,
+    When you douse your lights
+      And drive home your blows!)
+      Hats off to the Emden's crew!
+
+Erect on the wave-washed decks stood they
+  And heard with a Viking's grim delight
+The whirr of the wings of death by day
+  And the voice of death in their dreams by night!
+Under the sweep of the wings of death,
+By the blazing gun, in the tempest's breath,
+  While a world of enemies strove and fumed,
+  Remote, unaided, undaunted, doomed,
+They stood--is there any, friend or foe,
+  Who will choke a cheer?--who can still but scoff?
+    No, no, by the gods of valor, no!
+      To the Emden's crew--
+                        Hats off!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote A: The second installment of this chronology, recording events
+to and including Jan. 7, 1915, will appear in the next issue. The
+chronology will then be continued in each succeeding issue.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The New York Times Current History of
+the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW YORK TIMES CURRENT ***
+
+***** This file should be named 16363-8.txt or 16363-8.zip *****
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+   <head>
+      <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
+      <title>The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1 Issue 4</title>
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The New York Times Current History of the
+European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: July 27, 2005 [EBook #16363]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW YORK TIMES CURRENT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, James LaTondre and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+      <blockquote>
+         <p>[<i>Transcriber: The original document contained a number of errors.
+         Obvious spelling mistakes have been corrected and a notation included
+         for each. There were three places with missing text that have also
+         been annotated. In addition, there were also a number of
+         inconsistencies in spelling (ex. Perceval Gibbon vs. Percival Gibbon;
+         Rennekampf vs. Rennenkampf) which have not been changed or noted given
+         the desire not to introduce unintentional errors.</i>]</p>
+      </blockquote>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image001-full.jpg">
+         <img src="images/image001.jpg"
+            alt="Field Marshal Sir John French"
+            title="Field Marshal Sir John French"/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption ctr"><span class="bscaps">Field Marshal Sir John French</span><br />
+         Commanding the British Forces in France and Belgium<br />
+         (<i>From Painting by John St. Helier Lander.</i>)</p>
+      </div>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image002-full.jpg">
+         <img src="images/image002.jpg"
+            alt="Gen. Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien"
+            title="Gen. Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien"/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption ctr"><span class="bscaps">Gen. Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien</span><br />
+         One of the British Corps Commanders<br />
+         (<i>From Painting by John St Helier Lander.</i>)</p>
+      </div>
+
+
+      <h1 class="one">The New York Times</h1>
+      <h1 class="two">Current History Of The European War</h1>
+      <h2>January 23, 1915.</h2>
+
+      <hr class="major" />
+
+      <h2>Sir John French's Own Story</h2>
+      <p class="h2">The Famous Dispatches of the British Commander in Chief to Lord
+      Kitchener, Secretary of State for War.</p>
+
+      <h3 class="one">I.</h3>
+      <h3 class="two">First Report from the Front</h3>
+
+      <p class="right">7th September, 1914.</p>
+
+      <p>MY LORD: I have the honor to report the proceedings of the field force
+      under my command up to the time of rendering this dispatch.</p>
+
+      <p>1. The transport of the troops from England both by sea and by rail
+      was effected in the best order and without a check. Each unit arrived at
+      its destination in this country well within the scheduled time.</p>
+
+      <p>The concentration was practically complete on the evening of Friday,
+      the 21st ultimo, and I was able to make dispositions to move the force
+      during Saturday, the 22d, to positions I considered most favorable from
+      which to commence operations which the French Commander in Chief, Gen.
+      Joffre, requested me to undertake in pursuance of his plans in
+      prosecution of the campaign.</p>
+
+      <p>The line taken up extended along the line of the canal from
+      Cond&eacute; on the west, through Mons and Binche on the east. This line
+      was taken up as follows:</p>
+
+      <p>From Cond&eacute; to Mons inclusive was assigned to the Second Corps,
+      and to the right of the Second Corps from Mons the First Corps was
+      posted. The Fifth Cavalry Brigade was placed at Binche.</p>
+
+      <p>In the absence of my Third Army Corps I desired to keep the cavalry
+      division as much as possible as a reserve to act on my outer flank, or
+      move in support of any threatened part of the line. The forward
+      reconnoissance was intrusted to Brig. Gen. Sir Philip Chetwode with the
+      Fifth Cavalry Brigade, but I directed Gen. Allenby to send forward a few
+      squadrons to assist in this work.</p>
+
+      <p>During the 22d and 23d these advanced squadrons did some excellent
+      work, some of them penetrating as far as Soignies, and several encounters
+      took place in which our troops showed to great advantage.</p>
+
+      <p>2. At 6 A.M., on Aug. 23, I assembled the commanders of the First and
+      Second Corps and cavalry division at a point close to the position and
+      explained the general situation of the Allies, and what I understood to
+      be Gen. Joffre's plan. I discussed with them at some length the immediate
+      situation in front of us.</p>
+
+      <p>From information I received from French Headquarters I understood that
+      little more than one, or at most two, of the enemy's army corps, with
+      perhaps one cavalry division, were in front of my position; and I was
+      aware of no attempted outflanking movement by the enemy. I was confirmed
+      in this opinion by the fact that my patrols encountered no undue
+      opposition in their reconnoitring operations. The observations of my
+      aeroplanes seemed also to bear out this estimate.</p>
+
+      <p>About 3 P.M. on Sunday, the 23d, reports began coming in to the effect
+      that the enemy was commencing an attack on the Mons line, apparently in
+      some strength, but that the right of the position from Mons and Bray was
+      being particularly threatened.</p>
+
+      <p>The commander of the First Corps had pushed his flank back to some
+      high ground south of Bray, and the Fifth Cavalry Brigade evacuated
+      Binche, moving slightly south; the enemy thereupon occupied Binche.</p>
+
+      <p>The right of the Third Division, under Gen. Hamilton, was at Mons,
+      which formed a somewhat dangerous salient; and I directed the commander
+      of the Second Corps to be careful not to keep the troops on this salient
+      too long, but, if threatened seriously, to draw back the centre behind
+      Mons.  This was done before dark. In the meantime, about 5 P.M., I
+      received a most unexpected message from Gen. Joffre by telegraph, telling
+      me that at least three German corps, viz., a reserve corps, the Fourth
+      Corps and the Ninth Corps, were moving on my position in front, and that
+      the Second Corps was engaged in a turning movement from the direction of
+      Tournay. He also informed me that the two reserve French divisions and
+      the Fifth French Army on my right were retiring, the Germans having on
+      the previous day gained possession of the passages of the Sambre between
+      Charleroi and Namur.</p>
+
+      <p>3. In view of the possibility of my being driven from the Mons
+      position, I had
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'previouly']">previously</ins>
+      ordered a position in rear to be reconnoitred. This position rested on
+      the fortress of Maubeuge on the right and extended west to Jenlain,
+      southeast of Valenciennes, on the left. The position was reported
+      difficult to hold, because standing crops and buildings made the siting
+      of trenches very difficult and limited the field of fire in many
+      important localities. It nevertheless afforded a few good artillery
+      positions.</p>
+
+      <p>When the news of the retirement of the French and the heavy German
+      threatening on my front reached me, I endeavored to confirm it by
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'areoplane']">aeroplane</ins>
+      reconnoissance; and as a result of this I determined to effect a
+      retirement to the Maubeuge position at daybreak on the 24th.</p>
+
+      <p>A certain amount of fighting continued along the whole line throughout
+      the night and at daybreak on the 24th the Second Division from the
+      neighborhood of Harmignies made a powerful demonstration as if to retake
+      Binche. This was supported by the artillery of both the First and Second
+      Divisions, while the First Division took up a supporting position in the
+      neighborhood of Peissant. Under cover of this demonstration the Second
+      Corps retired on the line Dour-Quarouble-Frameries. The Third Division on
+      the right of the corps suffered considerable loss in this operation from
+      the enemy, who had retaken Mons.</p>
+
+      <p>The Second Corps halted on this line, where they partially intrenched
+      themselves, enabling Sir Douglas Haig with the First Corps gradually to
+      withdraw to the new position; and he effected this without much further
+      loss, reaching the line Bavai-Maubeuge about 7 P.M. Toward midday the
+      enemy appeared to be directing his principal effort against our left.</p>
+
+      <p>I had previously ordered Gen. Allenby with the cavalry to act
+      vigorously in advance of my left front and endeavor to take the pressure
+      off.</p>
+
+      <p>About 7:30 A.M. Gen. Allenby received a message from Sir Charles
+      Fergusson, commanding the Fifth Division, saying that he was very hard
+      pressed and in urgent need of support. On receipt of this message Gen.
+      Allenby drew in the cavalry and endeavored to bring direct support to the
+      Fifth Division.</p>
+
+      <p>During the course of this operation Gen. De Lisle, of the Second
+      Cavalry Brigade, thought he saw a good opportunity to paralyze the
+      further advance of the enemy's infantry by making a mounted attack on his
+      flank.  He formed up and advanced for this purpose, but was held up by
+      wire about 500 yards from his objective, and the Ninth Lancers and the
+      Eighteenth Hussars suffered severely in the retirement of the
+      brigade.</p>
+
+      <p>The Nineteenth Infantry Brigade, which had been guarding the line of
+      communications, was brought up by rail to Valenciennes on the 22d and
+      23d. On the morning of the 24th they were moved out to a position south
+      of Quarouble to support the left flank of the Second Corps.</p>
+
+      <p>With the assistance of the cavalry Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien was
+      enabled to effect his retreat to a new position; although, having two
+      corps of the enemy on his front and one threatening his flank, he
+      suffered great losses in doing so.</p>
+
+      <p>At nightfall the position was occupied by the Second Corps to the west
+      of Bavai, the First Corps to the right. The right was protected by the
+      fortress of Maubeuge, the left by the Nineteenth Brigade in position
+      between Jenlain and Bry, and the cavalry on the outer flank.</p>
+
+      <p>4. The French were still retiring, and I had no support except such as
+      was afforded by the Fortress of Maubeuge; and the determined attempts of
+      the enemy to get round my left flank assured me that it was his intention
+      to hem me against that place and surround me. I felt that not a moment
+      must be lost in retiring to another position.</p>
+
+      <p>I had every reason to believe that the enemy's forces were somewhat
+      exhausted and I knew that they had suffered heavy losses. I hoped,
+      therefore, that his pursuit would not be too vigorous to prevent me
+      effecting my object.</p>
+
+      <p>The operation, however, was full of danger and difficulty, not only
+      owing to the very superior force in my front, but also to the exhaustion
+      of the troops.</p>
+
+      <p>The retirement was recommenced in the early morning of the 25th to a
+      position in the neighborhood of Le Cateau, and rearguards were ordered to
+      be clear of the Maubeuge-Bavai-Eth Road by 5:30 A.M.</p>
+
+      <p>Two cavalry brigades, with the divisional cavalry of the Second Corps,
+      covered the movement of the Second Corps. The remainder of the cavalry
+      division, with the Nineteenth Brigade, the whole under the command of
+      Gen. Allenby, covered the west flank.</p>
+
+      <p>The Fourth Division commenced its detrainment at Le Cateau on Sunday,
+      the 23d, and by the morning of the 25th eleven battalions and a brigade
+      of artillery with divisional staff were available for service.</p>
+
+      <p>I ordered Gen. Snow to move out to take up a position with his right
+      south of Solesmes, his left resting on the Cambrai-Le Cateau Road south
+      of La Chaprie. In this position the division rendered great help to the
+      effective retirement of the Second and First Corps to the new
+      position.</p>
+
+      <p>Although the troops had been ordered to occupy the Cambrai-Le
+      Cateau-Landrecies position, and the ground had, during the 25th, been
+      partially prepared and intrenched, I had grave doubts&mdash;owing to the
+      information I had received as to the accumulating strength of the enemy
+      against me&mdash;as to the wisdom of standing there to fight.</p>
+
+      <p>Having regard to the continued retirement of the French on my right,
+      my exposed left flank, the tendency of the enemy's western corps (II.) to
+      envelop me, and, more than all, the exhausted condition of the troops, I
+      determined to make a great effort to continue the retreat till I could
+      put some substantial obstacle, such as the Somme or the Oise, between my
+      troops and the enemy, and afford the former some opportunity of rest and
+      reorganization. Orders were, therefore, sent to the corps commanders to
+      continue their retreat as soon as they possibly could toward the general
+      line Vermand-St. Quentin-Ribemont.</p>
+
+      <p>The cavalry, under Gen. Allenby, were ordered to cover the
+      retirement.</p>
+
+      <p>Throughout the 25th and far into the evening, the First Corps
+      continued its march on Landrecies, following the road along the eastern
+      border of the For&ecirc;t de Mormal, and arrived at Landrecies about 10
+      o'clock. I had intended that the corps should come further west so as to
+      fill up the gap between Le Cateau and Landrecies, but the men were
+      exhausted and could not get further in without rest.</p>
+
+      <p>The enemy, however, would not allow them this rest, and about 9:30
+      P.M.  a report was received that the Fourth Guards Brigade in Landrecies
+      was heavily attacked by troops of the Ninth German Army Corps, who were
+      coming through the forest on the north of the town. This brigade fought
+      most gallantly, and caused the enemy to suffer tremendous loss in issuing
+      from the forest into the narrow streets of the town. This loss has been
+      estimated from reliable sources at from 700 to 1,000. At the same time
+      information reached me from Sir Douglas Haig that his First Division was
+      also heavily engaged south and east of Maroilles. I sent urgent messages
+      to the commander of the two French reserve divisions on my right to come
+      up to the assistance of the First Corps, which they eventually did.
+      Partly owing to this assistance, but mainly to the skillful manner in
+      which Sir Douglas Haig extricated his corps from an exceptionally
+      difficult position in the darkness of the night, they were able at dawn
+      to resume their march south toward Wassigny on Guise.</p>
+
+      <p>By about 6 P.M. the Second Corps had got into position with their
+      right on Le Cateau, their left in the neighborhood of Caudry, and the
+      line of defense was continued thence by the Fourth Division toward
+      Seranvillers, the left being thrown back.</p>
+
+      <p>During the fighting on the 24th and 25th the cavalry became a good
+      deal scattered, but by the early morning of the 26th Gen, Allenby had
+      succeeded in concentrating two brigades to the south of Cambrai.</p>
+
+      <p>The Fourth Division was placed under the orders of the general officer
+      commanding the Second Army Corps.</p>
+
+      <p>On the 24th the French cavalry corps, consisting of three divisions
+      under Gen. Sord&ecirc;t, had been in billets north of Avesnes. On my way
+      back from Bavai, which was my "Poste de Commandement" during the fighting
+      of the 23d and 24th, I visited Gen. Sord&ecirc;t, and earnestly requested
+      his co-operation and support. He promised to obtain sanction from his
+      army commander to act on my left flank, but said that his horses were too
+      tired to move before the next day. Although he rendered me valuable
+      assistance later on in the course of the retirement, he was unable for
+      the reasons given to afford me any support on the most critical day of
+      all, viz., the 26th.</p>
+
+      <p>At daybreak it became apparent that the enemy was throwing the bulk of
+      his strength against the left of the position occupied by the Second
+      Corps and the Fourth Division.</p>
+
+      <p>At this time the guns of four German army corps were in position
+      against them, and Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien reported to me that he judged
+      it impossible to continue his retirement at daybreak (as ordered) in face
+      of such an attack.</p>
+
+      <p>I sent him orders to use his utmost endeavors to break off the action
+      and retire at the earliest possible moment, as it was impossible for me
+      to send him any support, the First Corps being at the moment incapable of
+      movement.</p>
+
+      <p>The French cavalry corps, under Gen. Sord&ecirc;t, was coming up on
+      our left rear early in the morning, and I sent an urgent message to him
+      to do his utmost to come up and support the retirement of my left flank;
+      but owing to the fatigue of his horses he found himself unable to
+      intervene in any way.</p>
+
+      <p>There had been no time to intrench the position properly, but the troops
+      showed a magnificent front to the terrible fire which confronted them.</p>
+
+      <p>The artillery, although outmatched by at least four to one, made a
+      splendid fight, and inflicted heavy losses on their opponents.</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image003-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image003.jpg"
+            alt="Map 1.&mdash;Showing the early stages of the retreat from Mons, Aug. 22 to Sept. 1."
+            title="Map 1.&mdash;Showing the early stages of the retreat from Mons, Aug. 22 to Sept. 1."/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><b>Map 1.&mdash;Showing the early stages of the retreat from
+         Mons, Aug. 22 to Sept. 1.</b></p>
+      </div>
+
+      <p>At length it became apparent that, if complete annihilation was to be
+      avoided, a retirement must be attempted; and the order was given to
+      commence it about 3:30 P.M. The movement was covered with the most
+      devoted intrepidity and determination by the artillery, which had itself
+      suffered heavily, and the fine work done by the cavalry in the further
+      retreat from the position assisted materially in the final completion of
+      this most difficult and dangerous operation.</p>
+
+      <p>Fortunately the enemy had himself suffered too heavily to engage in an
+      energetic pursuit.</p>
+
+      <p>I cannot close the brief account of this glorious stand of the British
+      troops without putting on record my deep appreciation of the valuable
+      services rendered by Gen. Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien.</p>
+
+      <p>I say without hesitation that the saving of the left wing of the army
+      under my command on the morning of the 26th August could never have been
+      accomplished unless a commander of rare and unusual coolness,
+      intrepidity, and determination had been present to personally conduct the
+      operation.</p>
+
+      <p>The retreat was continued far into the night of the 26th and through
+      the 27th and 28th, on which date the troops halted on the line
+      Noyon-Chauny-La F&egrave;re, having then thrown off the weight of the
+      enemy's pursuit.</p>
+
+      <p>On the 27th and 28th I was much indebted to Gen. Sord&ecirc;t and the
+      French cavalry division which he commands for materially assisting my
+      retirement and successfully driving back some of the enemy on
+      Cambrai.</p>
+
+      <p>Gen. D'Amade also, with the Sixty-first and Sixty-second French
+      Reserve Divisions, moved down from the neighborhood of Arras on the
+      enemy's right flank and took much pressure off the rear of the British
+      forces.</p>
+
+      <p>This closes the period covering the heavy fighting which commenced at
+      Mons on Sunday afternoon, 23d August, and which really constituted a four
+      days' battle.</p>
+
+      <p>At this point, therefore, I propose to close the present dispatch.</p>
+
+      <p>I deeply deplore the very serious losses which the British forces have
+      suffered in this great battle; but they were inevitable in view of the
+      fact that the British Army&mdash;only two days after a concentration by
+      rail&mdash;was called upon to withstand a vigorous attack of five German
+      army corps.</p>
+
+      <p>It is impossible for me to speak too highly of the skill evinced by
+      the two general officers commanding army corps; the self-sacrificing and
+      devoted exertions of their staffs; the direction of the troops by
+      divisional, brigade, and regimental leaders; the command of the smaller
+      units by their officers; and the magnificent fighting spirit displayed by
+      non-commissioned officers and men.</p>
+
+      <p>I wish particularly to bring to your Lordship's notice the admirable
+      work done by the Royal Flying Corps under Sir David Henderson. Their
+      skill, energy, and
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'perseverence']">perseverance</ins>
+      have been beyond all praise. They have furnished me with the most
+      complete and accurate information, which has been of incalculable value
+      in the conduct of the operations. Fired at constantly both by friend and
+      foe, and not hesitating to fly in every kind of weather, they have
+      remained undaunted throughout.</p>
+
+      <p>Further, by actually fighting in the air, they have succeeded in
+      destroying five of the enemy's machines.</p>
+
+      <p>I wish to acknowledge with deep gratitude the incalculable assistance
+      I received from the General and Personal Staffs at Headquarters during
+      this trying period.</p>
+
+      <p>Lieut. Gen. Sir Archibald Murray, Chief of the General Staff; Major
+      Gen.  Wilson, Sub-Chief of the General Staff; and all under them have
+      worked day and night unceasingly with the utmost skill, self-sacrifice,
+      and devotion; and the same acknowledgment is due by me to Brig. Gen. Hon.
+      W.  Lambton, my Military Secretary, and the personal Staff.</p>
+
+      <p>In such operations as I have described the work of the Quartermaster
+      General is of an extremely onerous nature. Major Gen. Sir William
+      Robertson has met what appeared to be almost insuperable difficulties
+      with his characteristic energy, skill, and determination; and it is
+      largely owing to his exertions that the hardships and sufferings of the
+      troops&mdash;inseparable from such operations&mdash;were not much
+      greater.</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image004-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image004.jpg"
+            alt="Map. 2.&mdash;The retreat continued. From Compi&egrave;gne, Sept. 1, to the new position south of Meaux, Sept. 3 and 4."
+            title="Map. 2.&mdash;The retreat continued. From Compi&egrave;gne, Sept. 1, to the new position south of Meaux, Sept. 3 and 4."/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><b>Map. 2.&mdash;The retreat continued. From Compi&egrave;gne,
+         Sept. 1, to the new position south of Meaux, Sept. 3 and 4.</b></p>
+      </div>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image005-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image005.jpg"
+            alt="Map 3.&mdash;Commencement of the battle of the Marne, Sept. 6 (Sunday), morning."
+            title="Map 3.&mdash;Commencement of the battle of the Marne, Sept. 6 (Sunday), morning."/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><b>Map 3.&mdash;Commencement of the battle of the Marne,
+         Sept. 6 (Sunday), morning.</b><br />
+         Concentration of the Germans on a central point, and the position of the
+         British force when it resumed the offensive.</p>
+      </div>
+
+      <p>Major Gen. Sir Nevil Macready, the Adjutant General, has also been
+      confronted with most onerous and difficult tasks in connection with
+      disciplinary arrangements and the preparation of casualty lists. He has
+      been indefatigable in his exertions to meet the difficult situations
+      which arose.</p>
+
+      <p>I have not yet been able to complete the list of officers whose names
+      I desire to bring to your Lordship's notice for services rendered during
+      the period under review; and, as I understand it is of importance that
+      this dispatch should no longer be delayed, I propose to forward this
+      list, separately, as soon as I can. I have the honor to be,</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Your Lordship's most obedient Servant,</p>
+
+      <p class="signature">(Signed) J.D.P. FRENCH,<br />
+      Field Marshal,<br />
+      Commander in Chief, British Forces in the Field.</p>
+
+
+      <h3 class="one">II.</h3>
+      <h3 class="two">The Battle of the Marne.</h3>
+
+      <p class="right">7th September, 1914.</p>
+
+      <p>MY LORD: In continuation of my dispatch of Sept. 7, I have the honor
+      to report the further progress of the operations of the forces under my
+      command from Aug. 28.</p>
+
+      <p>On that evening the retirement of the force was followed closely by
+      two of the enemy's cavalry columns, moving southeast from St.
+      Quentin.</p>
+
+      <p>The retreat in this part of the field was being covered by the Third
+      and Fifth Cavalry Brigades. South of the Somme Gen. Gough, with the Third
+      Cavalry Brigade, threw back the Uhlans of the Guard with considerable
+      loss.</p>
+
+      <p>Gen. Chetwode, with the Fifth Cavalry Brigade, encountered the eastern
+      column near Cerizy, moving south. The brigade attacked and routed the
+      column, the leading German regiment suffering very severe casualties and
+      being almost broken up.</p>
+
+      <p>The Seventh French Army Corps was now in course of being railed up
+      from the south to the east of Amiens. On the 29th it nearly completed its
+      detrainment, and the French Sixth Army got into position on my left, its
+      right resting on Roye.</p>
+
+      <p>The Fifth French Army was behind the line of the Oise, between La
+      F&egrave;re and Guise.</p>
+
+      <p>The pursuit of the enemy was very vigorous; some five or six German
+      corps were on the Somme, facing the Fifth Army on the Oise. At least two
+      corps were advancing toward my front, and were crossing the Somme east
+      and west of Ham. Three or four more German corps
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'wree']">were</ins>
+      opposing the Sixth French Army on my left.</p>
+
+      <p>This was the situation at 1 o'clock on the 29th, when I received a
+      visit from Gen. Joffre at my headquarters.</p>
+
+      <p>I strongly represented my position to the French Commander in Chief,
+      who was most kind, cordial, and sympathetic, as he has always been. He
+      told me that he had directed the Fifth French Army on the Oise to move
+      forward and attack the Germans on the Somme, with a view to checking
+      pursuit. He also told me of the formation of the Sixth French Army on my
+      left flank, composed of the Seventh Army Corps, four reserve divisions,
+      and Sord&ecirc;t's corps of cavalry.</p>
+
+      <p>I finally arranged with Gen. Joffre to effect a further short
+      retirement toward the line Compi&egrave;gne-Soissons, promising him,
+      however, to do my utmost to keep always within a day's march of him.</p>
+
+      <p>In pursuance of this arrangement the British forces retired to a
+      position a few miles north of the line Compi&egrave;gne-Soissons on the
+      29th.</p>
+
+      <p>The right flank of the German Army was now reaching a point which
+      appeared seriously to endanger my line of communications with Havre. I
+      had already evacuated Amiens, into which place a German reserve division
+      was reported to have moved.</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image006-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image006.jpg"
+            alt="Map 4.&mdash;Sept. 6 (Sunday), evening. First advance toward the line of the Grand Morin."
+            title="Map 4.&mdash;Sept. 6 (Sunday), evening. First advance toward the line of the Grand Morin."/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><b>Map 4.&mdash;Sept. 6 (Sunday), evening. First advance
+         toward the line of the Grand Morin.</b></p>
+      </div>
+
+      <p>Orders were given to change the base to St. Nazaire, and establish an
+      advance base at Le Mans. This operation was well carried out by the
+      Inspector General of Communications.</p>
+
+      <p>In spite of a severe defeat inflicted upon the Guard Tenth and Guard
+      Reserve Corps of the German Army by the First and Third French Corps on
+      the right of the Fifth Army, it was not part of Gen. Joffre's plan to
+      pursue this advantage; and a general retirement to the line of the Marne
+      was ordered, to which the French forces in the more eastern theatre were
+      directed to conform.</p>
+
+      <p>A new Army (the Ninth) had been formed from three corps in the south
+      by Gen. Joffre, and moved into the space between the right of the Fifth
+      and left of the Fourth Armies.</p>
+
+      <p>While closely adhering to his strategic conception to draw the enemy
+      on at all points until a favorable situation was created from which to
+      assume the offensive, Gen. Joffre found it necessary to modify from day
+      to day the methods by which he sought to attain this object, owing to the
+      development of the enemy's plans and changes in the general
+      situation.</p>
+
+      <p>In conformity with the movements of the French forces, my retirement
+      continued practically from day to day. Although we were not severely
+      pressed by the enemy, rearguard actions took place continually.</p>
+
+      <p>On the 1st September, when retiring from the thickly wooded country to
+      the south of Compi&egrave;gne, the First Cavalry Brigade was overtaken by
+      some German cavalry. They momentarily lost a horse artillery battery, and
+      several officers and men were killed and wounded. With the help, however,
+      of some detachments from the Third Corps operating on their left, they
+      not only recovered their own guns, but succeeded in capturing twelve of
+      the enemy's.</p>
+
+      <p>Similarly, to the eastward, the First Corps, retiring south, also got
+      into some very difficult forest country, and a somewhat severe rearguard
+      action ensued at Villers-Cotterets, in which the Fourth Guards Brigade
+      suffered considerably.</p>
+
+      <p>On Sept. 3 the British forces were in position south of the Marne
+      between Lagny and Signy-Signets. Up to this time I had been requested by
+      Gen. Joffre to defend the passages of the river as long as possible, and
+      to blow up the bridges in my front. After I had made the necessary
+      dispositions, and the destruction of the bridges had been effected, I was
+      asked by the French Commander in Chief to continue my retirement to a
+      point some twelve miles in rear of the position I then occupied, with a
+      view to taking up a second position behind the Seine. This retirement was
+      duly carried out. In the meantime the enemy had thrown bridges and
+      crossed the Marne in considerable force, and was threatening the Allies
+      all along the line of the British forces and the Fifth and Ninth French
+      Armies. Consequently several small outpost actions took place.</p>
+
+      <p>On Saturday, Sept. 5, I met the French Commander in Chief at his
+      request, and he informed me of his intention to take the offensive
+      forthwith, as he considered conditions very favorable to success.</p>
+
+      <p>Gen. Joffre announced to me his intention of wheeling up the left
+      flank of the Sixth Army, pivoting on the Marne and directing it to move
+      on the Ourcq; cross and attack the flank of the First German Army, which
+      was then moving in a southeasterly direction east of that river.</p>
+
+      <p>He requested me to effect a change of front to my right&mdash;my left
+      resting on the Marne and my right on the Fifth Army&mdash;to fill the gap
+      between that army and the Sixth. I was then to advance against the enemy
+      in my front and join in the general offensive movement.</p>
+
+      <p>These combined movements practically commenced on Sunday, Sept. 6, at
+      sunrise; and on that day it may be said that a great battle opened on a
+      front extending from Ermenonville, which was just in front of the left
+      flank of the Sixth French Army, through Lizy on the Marne, Mauperthuis,
+      which was about the British centre, Courtecon, which was on the left of
+      the Fifth French Army, to Esternay and Charleville, the left of the Ninth
+      Army under Gen. Foch, and so along the front of the Ninth, Fourth and
+      Third French Armies to a point north of the fortress of Verdun.</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image007-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image007.jpg"
+            alt="Map 5.&mdash;Sept. 8. Battle of the Marne."
+            title="Map 5.&mdash;Sept. 8. Battle of the Marne."/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><b>Map 5.&mdash;Sept. 8. Battle of the Marne.</b><br />
+         The great advance to the Petit Morin and the Marne, where important
+         captures were made by the British.</p>
+      </div>
+
+      <p>This battle, in so far as the Sixth French Army, the British Army, the
+      Fifth French Army, and the Ninth French Army were concerned, may be said
+      to have concluded on the evening of Sept. 10, by which time the Germans
+      had been driven back to the line Soissons-Rheims, with a loss of
+      thousands of prisoners, many guns, and enormous masses of transport.</p>
+
+      <p>About Sept. 3 the enemy appears to have changed his plans and to have
+      determined to stop his advance south direct upon Paris, for on Sept. 4
+      air reconnoissances showed that his main columns were moving in a
+      southeasterly direction generally east of a line drawn through Nanteuil
+      and Lizy on the Ourcq.</p>
+
+      <p>On Sept. 5 several of these columns were observed to have crossed the
+      Marne, while German troops, which were observed moving southeast up the
+      left flank of the Ourcq on the 4th, were now reported to be halted and
+      facing that river. Heads of the enemy's columns were seen crossing at
+      Changis, La Ferte, Nogent, Ch&acirc;teau Thierry, and Mezy.</p>
+
+      <p>Considerable German columns of all arms were seen to be converging on
+      Montmirail, while before sunset large bivouacs of the enemy were located
+      in the neighborhood of Coulommiers, south of Rebais, La
+      Fert&eacute;-Gaucher, and Dagny.</p>
+
+      <p>I should conceive it to have been about noon on Sept. 6, after the
+      British forces had changed their front to the right and occupied the line
+      Jouy-Le Chatel-Faremoutiers-Villeneuve Le Comte, and the advance of the
+      Sixth French Army north of the Marne toward the Ourcq became apparent,
+      that the enemy realized the powerful threat that was being made against
+      the flank of his columns moving southeast, and began the great retreat
+      which opened the battle above referred to.</p>
+
+      <p>On the evening of Sept. 6, therefore, the fronts and positions of the
+      opposing armies were roughly as follows:</p>
+
+      <h4>Allies.</h4>
+      <p class="noindent"><i>Sixth French Army.</i>&mdash;Right on the Marne at Meux, left toward Betz.<br />
+      <i>British Forces</i>.&mdash;On the line Dagny-Coulommiers-Maison.<br />
+      <i>Fifth French Army</i>.&mdash;At Courtagon, right on Esternay.<br />
+      <i>Conneau's Cavalry Corps</i>.&mdash;Between the right of the British and the
+      left of the French Fifth Army.</p>
+
+      <h4>Germans.</h4>
+      <p class="noindent"><i>Fourth Reserve and Second Corps</i>.&mdash;East of the Ourcq and facing
+      that river.<br />
+      <i>Ninth Cavalry Division</i>.&mdash;West of Crecy.<br />
+      <i>Second Cavalry Division</i>.&mdash;North of Coulommiers.<br />
+      <i>Fourth Corps</i>.&mdash;Rebais.<br />
+      <i>Third and Seventh Corps</i>.&mdash;Southwest of Montmirail.</p>
+
+      <p>All these troops constituted the First German Army, which was directed
+      against the French Sixth Army on the Ourcq, and the British forces, and
+      the left of the Fifth French Army south of the Marne.</p>
+
+      <p>The Second German Army (IX., X., X.R., and Guard) was moving against
+      the centre and right of the Fifth French Army and the Ninth French
+      Army.</p>
+
+      <p>On Sept. 7 both the Fifth and Sixth French Armies were heavily engaged
+      on our flank. The Second and Fourth Reserve German Corps on the Ourcq
+      vigorously opposed the advance of the French toward that river, but did
+      not prevent the Sixth Army from gaining some headway, the Germans
+      themselves suffering serious losses. The French Fifth Army threw the
+      enemy back to the line of the Petit Morin River after inflicting severe
+      losses upon them, especially about Montceaux, which was carried at the
+      point of the bayonet.</p>
+
+      <p>The enemy retreated before our advance, covered by his Second and
+      Ninth and Guard Cavalry Divisions, which suffered severely.</p>
+
+      <p>Our cavalry acted with great vigor, especially Gen. De Lisle's
+      brigade, with the Ninth Lancers and Eighteenth Hussars.</p>
+
+      <p>On Sept. 8 the enemy continued his retreat northward, and our army was
+      successfully engaged during the day with strong rearguards of all arms on
+      the Petit Morin River, thereby materially assisting the progress of the
+      French armies on our right and left, against whom the enemy was making
+      his greatest efforts. On both sides the enemy was thrown back with very
+      heavy loss. The First Army Corps encountered stubborn resistance at La
+      Tr&eacute;toire, (north of Rabais.) The enemy occupied a strong position with
+      infantry and guns on the northern bank of the Petit Morin River; they
+      were dislodged with considerable loss. Several machine guns and many
+      prisoners were captured, and upward of 200 German dead were left on the
+      ground.</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image008-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image008.jpg"
+            alt="Map 6.&mdash;Sept. 9. Forcing the passage of the Marne."
+            title="Map 6.&mdash;Sept. 9. Forcing the passage of the Marne."/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><b>Map 6.&mdash;Sept. 9. Forcing the passage of the
+         Marne.</b><br /> This day the German retreat degenerated into a rout,
+         and many captures were made.</p>
+      </div>
+
+      <p>The forcing of the Petit Morin at this point was much assisted by the
+      cavalry and the First Division, which crossed higher up the stream.</p>
+
+      <p>Later in the day a counter-attack by the enemy was well repulsed by
+      the First Army Corps, a great many prisoners and some guns again falling
+      into our hands.</p>
+
+      <p>On this day (Sept. 8) the Second Army Corps encountered considerable
+      opposition, but drove back the enemy at all points with great loss,
+      making considerable captures.</p>
+
+      <p>The Third Army Corps also drove back considerable bodies of the
+      enemy's infantry and made some captures.</p>
+
+      <p>On Sept. 9 the First and Second Army Corps forced the passage of the
+      Marne and advanced some miles to the north of it. The Third Corps
+      encountered considerable opposition, as the bridge at La Fert&eacute; was
+      destroyed and the enemy held the town on the opposite bank in some
+      strength, and thence persistently obstructed the construction of a
+      bridge; so the passage was not effected until after nightfall.</p>
+
+      <p>During the day's pursuit the enemy suffered heavy loss in killed and
+      wounded, some hundreds of prisoners fell into our hands and a battery of
+      eight machine guns was captured by the Second Division.</p>
+
+      <p>On this day the Sixth French Army was heavily engaged west of the
+      River Ourcq. The enemy had largely increased his force opposing them; and
+      very heavy fighting ensued, in which the French were successful
+      throughout.</p>
+
+      <p>The left of the Fifth French Army reached the neighborhood of
+      Ch&acirc;teau Thierry after the most severe fighting, having driven the
+      enemy completely north of the river with great loss.</p>
+
+      <p>The fighting of this army in the neighborhood of Montmirail was very
+      severe.</p>
+
+      <p>The advance was resumed at daybreak on the 10th up to the line of the
+      Ourcq, opposed by strong rearguards of all arms. The First and Second
+      Corps, assisted by the cavalry divisions on the right, the Third and
+      Fifth Cavalry Brigades on the left, drove the enemy northward. Thirteen
+      guns, seven machine guns, about 2,000 prisoners, and quantities of
+      transport fell into our hands. The enemy left many dead on the field. On
+      this day the French Fifth and Sixth Armies had little opposition.</p>
+
+      <p>As the First and Second German Armies were now in full retreat, this
+      evening marks the end of the battle which practically commenced on the
+      morning of the 6th inst.; and it is at this point in the operations that
+      I am concluding the present dispatch.</p>
+
+      <p>Although I deeply
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'regreat']">regret</ins>
+      to have had to report heavy losses in killed and wounded throughout these
+      operations, I do not think they have been excessive in view of the
+      magnitude of the great fight, the outlines of which I have only been able
+      very briefly to describe, and the demoralization and loss in killed and
+      wounded which are known to have been caused to the enemy by the vigor and
+      severity of the pursuit.</p>
+
+      <p>In concluding this dispatch I must call your Lordship's special
+      attention to the fact that from Sunday, Aug. 23, up to the present date,
+      (Sept. 17,) from Mons back almost to the Seine, and from the Seine to the
+      Aisne, the army under my command has been ceaselessly engaged without one
+      single day's halt or rest of any kind.</p>
+
+      <p>Since the date to which in this dispatch I have limited my report of
+      the operations, a great battle on the Aisne has been proceeding. A full
+      report of this battle will be made in an early further dispatch.</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image009-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image009.jpg"
+            alt="Map 7&mdash;Sept. 10 (evening). End of the battle of the Marne."
+            title="Map 7&mdash;Sept. 10 (evening). End of the battle of the Marne."/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><b>Map 7&mdash;Sept. 10 (evening). End of the battle of
+         the Marne.</b><br />The Germans were driven over the Ourcq and retreated
+         to the Aisne.</p>
+      </div>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image010-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image010.jpg"
+            alt="Lieut. Gen. Sir Douglas Haig"
+            title="Lieut. Gen. Sir Douglas Haig"/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><span class="bscaps">Lieut. Gen. Sir Douglas Haig</span><br />
+         Commanding one of Gen. French's Corps<br />
+         (<i>From Painting by John St. Helier Lander.</i>)</p>
+      </div>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image011-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image011.jpg"
+            alt="Crown Prince Wilhelm"
+            title="Crown Prince Wilhelm"/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><span class="bscaps">Crown Prince Wilhelm</span><br />
+         (<i>Copyright, Photographische Gesellschaft, by permission of the
+            Berlin Photographic Co., N.Y.</i>)</p>
+      </div>
+
+      <p>It will, however, be of interest to say here that, in spite of a very
+      determined resistance on the part of the enemy, who is holding in
+      strength and great tenacity a position peculiarly favorable to defense,
+      the battle which commenced on the evening of the 12th inst. has, so far,
+      forced the enemy back from his first position, secured the passage of the
+      river, and inflicted great loss upon him, including the capture of over
+      2,000 prisoners and several guns. I have the honor to be your Lordship's
+      most obedient servant,</p>
+
+      <p class="signature">(Signed.) J.D.P. FRENCH,<br />
+      Field Marshal,<br />
+      Commanding in Chief, the British forces in the field.</p>
+
+
+      <h3 class="one">III.</h3>
+      <h3 class="two">The Battle of the Aisne.</h3>
+
+      <p class="right">8th October, 1914.</p>
+
+      <p>MY LORD: I have the honor to report the operations in which the
+      British forces in France have been engaged since the evening of Sept.
+      10:</p>
+
+      <p>1. In the early morning of the 11th the further pursuit of the enemy
+      was commenced, and the three corps crossed the Ourcq practically
+      unopposed, the cavalry reaching the line of the Aisne River, the Third
+      and Fifth Brigades south of Soissons, the First, Second and the Fourth on
+      the high ground at Couvrelles and Cerseuil.</p>
+
+      <p>On the afternoon of the 12th, from the opposition encountered by the
+      Sixth French Army to the west of Soissons, by the Third Corps southeast
+      of that place, by the Second Corps south of Missy and Vailly, and certain
+      indications all along the line, I formed the opinion that the enemy had,
+      for the moment at any rate, arrested his retreat and was preparing to
+      dispute the passage of the Aisne with some vigor.</p>
+
+      <p>South of Soissons the Germans were holding Mont de Paris against the
+      attack of the right of the French Sixth Army when the Third Corps reached
+      the neighborhood of Buzancy, southeast of that place. With the assistance
+      of the artillery of the Third Corps the French drove them back across the
+      river at Soissons, where they destroyed the bridges.</p>
+
+      <p>The heavy artillery fire which was visible for several miles in a
+      westerly direction in the valley of the Aisne showed that the Sixth
+      French Army was meeting with strong opposition all along the line.</p>
+
+      <p>On this day the cavalry under Gen. Allenby reached the neighborhood of
+      Braine and did good work in clearing the town and the high ground beyond
+      it of strong hostile detachments. The Queen's Bays are particularly
+      mentioned by the General as having assisted greatly in the success of
+      this operation. They were well supported by the Third Division, which on
+      this night bivouacked at Brenelle, south of the river.</p>
+
+      <p>The Fifth Division approached Missy, but were unable to make
+      headway.</p>
+
+      <p>The First Army Corps reached the neighborhood of
+      Vauxc&eacute;r&eacute; without much opposition.</p>
+
+      <p>In this manner the battle of the Aisne commenced.</p>
+
+      <p>2. The Aisne Valley runs generally east and west, and consists of a
+      flat-bottomed depression of width varying from half a mile to two miles,
+      down which the river follows a winding course to the west, at some points
+      near the southern slopes of the valley and at others near the northern.
+      The high ground both on the north and south of the river is approximately
+      400 feet above the bottom of the valley, and is very similar in
+      character, as are both slopes of the valley itself, which are broken into
+      numerous rounded spurs and re-entrants. The most prominent of the former
+      are the Chivre spur on the right bank and Sermoise spur on the left. Near
+      the latter place the general plateau, on the south is divided by a
+      subsidiary valley of much the same character, down which the small River
+      Vesle flows to the main stream near Sermoise. The slopes of the plateau
+      overlooking the Aisne on the north and south are of varying steepness,
+      and are covered with numerous patches of wood, which also stretch upward
+      and backward over the edge on to the top of the high ground. There are
+      several villages and small towns dotted about in the valley itself and
+      along its sides, the chief of which is the town of Soissons.</p>
+
+      <p>The Aisne is a sluggish stream of some 170 feet in breadth, but, being
+      15 feet deep in the centre, it is unfordable. Between Soissons on the
+      west and Villiers on the east (the part of the river attacked and secured
+      by the British forces) there are eleven road bridges across it.  On the
+      north bank a narrow-gauge railway runs from Soissons to Vailly, where it
+      crosses the river and continues eastward along the south bank.  From
+      Soissons to Sermoise a double line of railway runs along the south bank,
+      turning at the latter place up the Vesle Valley toward Bazoches.</p>
+
+      <p>The position held by the enemy is a very strong one, either for
+      delaying action or for a defensive battle. One of its chief military
+      characteristics is that from the high ground on neither side can the top
+      of the plateau on the other side be seen, except for small stretches.
+      This is chiefly due to the woods on the edges of the slopes. Another
+      important point is that all the bridges are under direct or high-angle
+      artillery fire.</p>
+
+      <p>The tract of country above described, which lies north of the Aisne,
+      is well adapted to concealment, and was so skillfully turned to account
+      by the enemy as to render it impossible to judge the real nature of his
+      opposition to our passage of the river or accurately to gauge his
+      strength; but I have every reason to conclude that strong rearguards of
+      at least three army corps were holding the passages on the early morning
+      of the 13th.</p>
+
+      <p>3. On that morning I ordered the British forces to advance and make
+      good the Aisne.</p>
+
+      <p>The First Corps and the cavalry advanced on the river. The First
+      Division was directed on Chamouille via the canal bridge at Bourg, and
+      the Second Division on Courte&ccedil;on and Presles via Pont-Arcy, and on
+      the canal to the north of Braye via Chavonne. On the right the cavalry
+      and First Division met with slight opposition and found a passage by
+      means of the canal, which crosses the river by an aqueduct. The division
+      was therefore able to press on, supported by the cavalry division on its
+      outer flank, driving back the enemy in front of it.</p>
+
+      <p>On the left the leading troops of the Second Division reached the
+      river by 9 o'clock. The Fifth Infantry Brigade were only enabled to
+      cross, in single file and under considerable shell fire, by means of the
+      broken girder of the bridge, which was not entirely submerged in the
+      river. The construction of a pontoon bridge was at once undertaken, and
+      was completed by 5 o'clock in the afternoon.</p>
+
+      <p>On the extreme left the Fourth Guards Brigade met with severe
+      opposition at Chavonne, and it was only late in the afternoon that it was
+      able to establish a foothold on the northern bank of the river by
+      ferrying one battalion across in boats.</p>
+
+      <p>By nightfall the First Division occupied the area of
+      Moulins-Paissy-Geny, with posts at the village of Vendresse.</p>
+
+      <p>The Second Division bivouacked as a whole on the southern bank of the
+      river, leaving only the Fifth Brigade on the north bank to establish a
+      bridge-head.</p>
+
+      <p>The Second Corps found all the bridges in front of them destroyed
+      except that of Cond&eacute;, which was in possession of the enemy, and
+      remained so until the end of the battle.</p>
+
+      <p>In the approach to Missy, where the Fifth Division eventually crossed,
+      there is some open ground which was swept by a heavy fire from the
+      opposite bank. The Thirteenth Brigade was therefore unable to advance;
+      but the Fourteenth, which was directed to the east of Venizel at a less
+      exposed point, was rafted across, and by night established itself with
+      its left at St. Margu&eacute;rite. They were followed by the Fifteenth
+      Brigade; and later on both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth supported the
+      Fourth Division on their left in repelling a heavy counter-attack on the
+      Third Corps.</p>
+
+      <p>On the morning of the 13th the Third Corps found the enemy had
+      established himself in strength on the Vregny plateau. The road bridge at
+      Venizel was repaired during the morning, and a reconnoissance was made
+      with a view to throwing a pontoon bridge at Soissons.</p>
+
+      <p>The Twelfth Infantry Brigade crossed at Venizel, and was assembled at
+      Bucy le Long by 1 P.M., but the bridge was so far damaged that artillery
+      could only be man-handled across it. Meanwhile the construction of a
+      bridge was commenced close to the road bridge at Venizel.</p>
+
+      <p>At 2 P.M. the Twelfth Infantry Brigade attacked in the direction of
+      Chivres and Vregny with the object of securing the high ground east of
+      Chivres, as a necessary preliminary to a further advance northward. This
+      attack made good progress, but at 5:30 P.M. the enemy's artillery and
+      machine gun fire from the direction of Vregny became so severe that no
+      further advance could be made. The positions reached were held till
+      dark.</p>
+
+      <p>The pontoon bridge at Venizel was completed at 5:30 P.M., when the
+      Tenth Infantry Brigade crossed the river and moved to Bucy le Long.</p>
+
+      <p>The Nineteenth Infantry Brigade moved to Billy-sur-Aisne, and before
+      dark all the artillery of the division had crossed the river, with the
+      exception of the heavy battery and one brigade of field artillery.</p>
+
+      <p>During the night the positions gained by the Twelfth Infantry Brigade
+      to the east of the stream running through Chivres were handed over to the
+      Fifth Division.</p>
+
+      <p>The section of the bridging train allotted to the Third Corps began to
+      arrive in the neighborhood of Soissons late in the afternoon, when an
+      attempt to throw a heavy pontoon bridge at Soissons had to be abandoned,
+      owing to the fire of the enemy's heavy howitzers.</p>
+
+      <p>In the evening the enemy retired at all points and intrenched himself
+      on the high ground about two miles north of the river, along which runs
+      the Chemin-des-Dames. Detachments of infantry, however, strongly
+      intrenched in commanding points down slopes of the various spurs, were
+      left in front of all three corps with powerful artillery in support of
+      them.</p>
+
+      <p>During the night of the 13th and on the 14th and following days the
+      field companies were incessantly at work night and day. Eight pontoon
+      bridges and one foot bridge were thrown across the river under generally
+      very heavy artillery fire, which was incessantly kept up on to most of
+      the crossings after completion. Three of the road bridges, i.e., Venizel,
+      Missy, and Vailly, and the railway bridge east of Vailly, were
+      temporarily repaired so as to take foot traffic, and the Villiers Bridge
+      made fit to carry weights up to six tons.</p>
+
+      <p>Preparations were also made for the repair of the Missy, Vailly and
+      Bourg bridges so as to take mechanical transport.</p>
+
+      <p>The weather was very wet and added to the difficulties by cutting up
+      the already indifferent approaches, entailing a large amount of work to
+      repair and improve.</p>
+
+      <p>The operations of the field companies during this most trying time are
+      worthy of the best traditions of the Royal Engineers.</p>
+
+      <p>4. On the evening of the 14th it was still impossible to decide
+      whether the enemy was only making a temporary halt, covered by
+      rearguards, or whether he intended to stand and defend the position.</p>
+
+      <p>With a view to clearing up the situation I ordered a general
+      advance.</p>
+
+      <p>The action of the First Corps on this day under the direction and
+      command of Sir Douglas Haig was of so skillful, bold, and decisive a
+      character that he gained positions which alone have enabled me to
+      maintain my position for more than three weeks of very severe fighting on
+      the north bank of the river.</p>
+
+      <p>The corps was directed to cross the line Moulins-Moussy by 7 A.M.</p>
+
+      <p>On the right the General Officer commanding the First Division
+      directed the Second Infantry Brigade (which was in billets and bivouacked
+      about Moulins), and the Twenty-fifth Artillery Brigade (less one
+      battery), under Gen. Bulfin, to move forward before daybreak, in order to
+      protect the advance of the division sent up the valley to Vendresse. An
+      officer's patrol sent out by this brigade reported a considerable force
+      of the enemy near the factory north of Troyon, and the Brigadier
+      accordingly directed two regiments (the King's Royal Rifles and the Royal
+      Sussex Regiment) to move at 3 A.M. The Northamptonshire Regiment was
+      ordered to move at 4 A.M. to occupy the spur east of Troyon. The
+      remaining regiment of the brigade (the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment)
+      moved at 5:30 A.M. to the village of Vendresse. The factory was found to
+      be held in considerable strength by the enemy, and the Brigadier ordered
+      the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment to support the King's Royal Rifles
+      and the Sussex Regiment. Even with this support the force was unable to
+      make headway, and on the arrival of the First Brigade the Coldstream
+      Guards were moved up to support the right of the leading brigade (the
+      Second), while the remainder of the First Brigade supported its left.</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image012-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image012.jpg"
+            alt="Map 8.&mdash;Sept. 10 to 12. Showing the Germans' headlong retreat to their intrenched positions beyond the Aisne."
+            title="Map 8.&mdash;Sept. 10 to 12. Showing the Germans' headlong retreat to their intrenched positions beyond the Aisne."/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><b>Map 8.&mdash;Sept. 10 to 12. Showing the Germans'
+         headlong retreat to their intrenched positions beyond the
+         Aisne.</b></p>
+      </div>
+
+      <p>About noon the situation was, roughly, that the whole of these two
+      brigades were extended along a line running east and west, north of the
+      line Troyon and south of the Chemin-des-Dames. A party of the Loyal North
+      Lancashire Regiment had seized and were holding the factory. The enemy
+      had a line of intrenchments north and east of the factory in considerable
+      strength, and every effort to advance against this line was driven back
+      by heavy shell and machine-gun fire. The morning was wet and a heavy mist
+      hung over the hills, so that the Twenty-fifth Artillery Brigade and the
+      divisional artillery were unable to render effective support to the
+      advanced troops until about 9 o'clock.</p>
+
+      <p>By 10 o'clock the Third Infantry Brigade had reached a point one mile
+      south of Vendresse, and from there it was ordered to continue the line of
+      the First Brigade and to connect with and help the right of the Second
+      Division. A strong hostile column was found to be advancing, and by a
+      vigorous counterstroke with two of his battalions the Brigadier checked
+      the advance of this column and relieved the pressure on the Second
+      Division. From this period until late in the afternoon the fighting
+      consisted of a series of attacks and counter-attacks. The
+      counter-strokers by the enemy were delivered at first with great vigor,
+      but later on they decreased in strength, and all were driven off with
+      heavy loss.</p>
+
+      <p>On the left the Sixth Infantry Brigade had been ordered to cross the
+      river and to pass through the line held during the preceding night by the
+      Fifth Infantry Brigade and occupy the Courte&ccedil;on Ridge, while a
+      detached force, consisting of the Fourth Guards Brigade and the
+      Thirty-sixth Brigade Royal Field Artillery, under Brig. Gen. Perceval,
+      were ordered to proceed to a point east of the village of Ostel.</p>
+
+      <p>The Sixth Infantry Brigade crossed the river at Pont-Arcy, moved up
+      the valley toward Braye, and at 9 A.M. had reached the line
+      Tilleul-La-Buvelle. On the line they came under heavy artillery and rifle
+      fire, and were unable to advance until supported by the Thirty-fourth
+      Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, and the Forty-fourth Howitzer Brigade and
+      the Heavy Artillery.</p>
+
+      <p>The Fourth Guards Brigade crossed the river at 10 A.M. and met with
+      very heavy opposition. It had to pass through dense woods; field
+      artillery support was difficult to obtain; but one section of a field
+      battery pushed up to and within the firing line. At 1 P.M. the left of
+      the brigade was south of the Ostel Ridge.</p>
+
+      <p>At this period of the action the enemy obtained a footing between the
+      First and Second Corps, and threatened to cut the communications of the
+      latter.</p>
+
+      <p>Sir Douglas Haig was very hardly pressed and had no reserve in hand. I
+      placed the cavalry division at his disposal, part of which he skillfully
+      used to prolong and secure the left flank of the Guards Brigade. Some
+      heavy fighting ensued, which resulted in the enemy being driven back with
+      heavy loss.</p>
+
+      <p>About 4 o'clock the weakening of the counter-attacks by the enemy and
+      other indications tended to show that his resistance was decreasing, and
+      a general advance was ordered by the army corps commander. Although
+      meeting with considerable opposition and coming under very heavy
+      artillery and rifle fire, the position of the corps at the end of the
+      day's operations extended from the Chemin-des-Dames on the right, through
+      Chivy, to Le Cour de Soupir, with the First Cavalry Brigade extending to
+      the Chavonne-Soissons road.</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image013-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image013.jpg"
+            alt="Map 9.&mdash;Sept. 13 and 14. Passage of the Aisne, when bridges were constructed under great difficulties."
+            title="Map 9.&mdash;Sept. 13 and 14. Passage of the Aisne, when bridges were constructed under great difficulties."/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><b>Map 9.&mdash;Sept. 13 and 14. Passage of the Aisne,
+         when bridges were constructed under great difficulties.</b></p>
+      </div>
+
+      <p>On the right the corps was in close touch with the French Moroccan
+      troops of the Eighteenth Corps, which were intrenched in echelon to its
+      right rear. During the night they intrenched this position.</p>
+
+      <p>Throughout the battle of the Aisne this advanced and commanding
+      position was maintained, and I cannot speak too highly of the valuable
+      services rendered by Sir Douglas Haig and the army corps under his
+      command. Day after day and night after night the enemy's infantry has
+      been hurled against him in violent counter-attack, which has never on any
+      one occasion succeeded, while the trenches all over his position have
+      been under continuous heavy artillery fire.</p>
+
+      <p>The operations of the First Corps on this day resulted in the capture
+      of several hundred prisoners, some field pieces and machine guns.</p>
+
+      <p>The casualties were very severe, one brigade alone losing three of its
+      four Colonels.</p>
+
+      <p>The Third Division commenced a further advance, and had nearly reached
+      the plateau of Aizy when they were driven back by a powerful
+      counter-attack supported by heavy artillery. The division, however, fell
+      back in the best order, and finally intrenched itself about a mile north
+      of Vailly Bridge, effectively covering the passage.</p>
+
+      <p>The Fourth and Fifth Divisions were unable to do more than maintain
+      their ground.</p>
+
+      <p>5. On the morning of the 15th, after close examination of the
+      position, it became clear to me that the enemy was making a determined
+      stand; and this view was confirmed by reports which reached me from the
+      French armies fighting on my right and left, which clearly showed that a
+      strongly intrenched line of defense was being taken up from the north of
+      Compi&egrave;gne, eastward and southeastward, along the whole Valley of
+      the Aisne up to and beyond Rheims.</p>
+
+      <p>A few days previously the Fortress of Maubeuge fell, and a
+      considerable quantity of siege artillery was brought down from that place
+      to strengthen the enemy's position in front of us.</p>
+
+      <p>During the 15th shells fell in our position which have been judged by
+      experts to be thrown by eight-inch siege guns with a range of 10,000
+      yards. Throughout the whole course of the battle our troops have suffered
+      very heavily from this fire, although its effect latterly was largely
+      mitigated by more efficient and thorough intrenching, the necessity for
+      which I impressed strongly upon army corps commanders. In order to assist
+      them in this work all villages within the area of our occupation were
+      searched for heavy intrenching tools, a large number of which were
+      collected.</p>
+
+      <p>In view of the peculiar formation of the ground on the north side of
+      the river between Missy and Soissons, and its extraordinary adaptability
+      to a force on the defensive, the Fifth Division found it impossible to
+      maintain its position on the southern edge of the Chivres Plateau, as the
+      enemy in possession of the Village of Vregny to the west was able to
+      bring a flank fire to bear upon it. The division had, therefore, to
+      retire to a line the left of which was at the village of
+      Margu&eacute;rite, and thence ran by the north edge of Missy back to the
+      river to the east of that place.</p>
+
+      <p>With great skill and tenacity Sir Charles Fergusson maintained this
+      position throughout the whole battle, although his trenches were
+      necessarily on lower ground than that occupied by the enemy on the
+      southern edge of the plateau, which was only 400 yards away.</p>
+
+      <p>Gen. Hamilton with the Third Division vigorously attacked to the
+      north, and regained all the ground he had lost on the 15th, which
+      throughout the battle has formed a most powerful and effective
+      bridge-head.</p>
+
+      <p>6. On the 16th the Sixth Division came up into line.</p>
+
+      <p>It had been my intention to direct the First Corps to attack and seize
+      the enemy's position on the Chemin-des-Dames, supporting it with this new
+      reinforcement. I hoped, from the position thus gained, to bring effective
+      fire to bear across the front of the Third Division, which, by securing
+      the advance of the latter, would also take the pressure off the Fifth
+      Division and the Third Corps.</p>
+
+      <p>But any further advance of the First Corps would have dangerously
+      exposed my right flank. And, further, I learned from the French Commander
+      in Chief that he was strongly reinforcing the Sixth French Army on my
+      left, with the intention of bringing up the allied left to attack the
+      enemy's flank, and thus compel his retirement. I therefore sent the Sixth
+      Division to join the Third Corps, with orders to keep it on the south
+      side of the river, as it might be available in general reserve.</p>
+
+      <p>On the 17th, 18th, and 19th the whole of our line was heavily
+      bombarded, and the First Corps was constantly and heavily engaged. On the
+      afternoon of the 17th the right flank of the First Division was seriously
+      threatened. A counter-attack was made by the Northamptonshire Regiment in
+      combination with the Queen's, and one battalion of the Divisional Reserve
+      was moved up in support. The Northamptonshire Regiment, under cover of
+      mist, crept up to within a hundred yards of the enemy's trenches and
+      charged with the bayonet, driving them out of the trenches and up the
+      hill. A very strong force of hostile infantry was then disclosed on the
+      crest line. This new line was enfiladed by part of the Queen's and the
+      King's Royal Rifles, which wheeled to their left on the extreme right of
+      our infantry line, and were supported by a squadron of cavalry on their
+      outer flank. The enemy's attack was ultimately driven back with heavy
+      loss.</p>
+
+      <p>On the 18th, during the night, the Gloucestershire Regiment advanced
+      from their position near Chivy, filled in the enemy's trenches, and
+      captured two Maxim guns.</p>
+
+      <p>On the extreme right the Queen's were heavily attacked, but the enemy
+      was repulsed with great loss. About midnight the attack was renewed on
+      the First Division, supported by artillery fire, but was again
+      repulsed.</p>
+
+      <p>Shortly after midnight an attack was made on the left of the Second
+      Division with considerable force, which was also thrown back.</p>
+
+      <p>At about 1 P.M. on the 19th the Second Division drove back a heavy
+      infantry attack strongly supported by artillery fire. At dusk the attack
+      was renewed and again repulsed.</p>
+
+      <p>On the 18th I discussed with the General Officer commanding the Second
+      Army Corps and his divisional commanders the possibility of driving the
+      enemy out of Cond&eacute;, which lay between his two divisions, and
+      seizing the bridge, which has remained throughout in his possession.</p>
+
+      <p>As, however, I found that the bridge was closely commanded from all
+      points on the south side, and that satisfactory arrangements were made to
+      prevent any issue from it by the enemy by day or night, I decided that it
+      was not necessary to incur the losses which an attack would entail, as,
+      in view of the position of the Second and Third Corps, the enemy could
+      make no use of Cond&eacute;, and would be automatically forced out of it
+      by any advance which might become possible for us.</p>
+
+      <p>7. On this day information reached me from Gen. Joffre that he had
+      found it necessary to make a new plan and to attack and envelop the
+      German right flank.</p>
+
+      <p>It was now evident to me that the battle in which we had been engaged
+      since the 12th inst. must last some days longer, until the effect of this
+      new flank movement could be felt and a way opened to drive the enemy from
+      his positions.</p>
+
+      <p>It thus became essential to establish some system of regular relief in
+      the trenches, and I have used the infantry of the Sixth Division for this
+      purpose with good results. The relieved brigades were brought back
+      alternately south of the river and, with the artillery of the Sixth
+      Division, formed a general reserve on which I could rely in case of
+      necessity.</p>
+
+      <p>The cavalry has rendered most efficient and ready help in the
+      trenches, and have done all they possibly could to lighten the arduous
+      and trying task which has of necessity fallen to the lot of the
+      infantry.</p>
+
+      <p>On the evening of the 19th and throughout the 20th the enemy again
+      commenced to show considerable activity. On the former night a severe
+      counter-attack on the Third Division was repulsed with considerable loss,
+      and from early on Sunday morning various hostile attempts were made on
+      the trenches of the First Division. During the day the enemy suffered
+      another severe repulse in front of the Second Division, losing heavily in
+      the attempt. In the course of the afternoon the enemy made desperate
+      attempts against the trenches all along the front of the First Corps, but
+      with similar results.</p>
+
+      <p>After dark the enemy again attacked the Second Division, only to be
+      again driven back.</p>
+
+      <p>Our losses on these two days were considerable, but the number, as
+      obtained, of the enemy's killed and wounded vastly exceeded them.</p>
+
+      <p>As the troops of the First Army Corps were much exhausted by this
+      continual fighting, I reinforced Sir Douglas Haig with a brigade from the
+      reserve, and called upon the First Cavalry Division to assist them.</p>
+
+      <p>On the night of the 21st another violent counter-attack was repulsed
+      by the Third Division, the enemy losing heavily.</p>
+
+      <p>On the 23d the four 6-inch howitzer batteries, which I had asked to be
+      sent from home, arrived. Two batteries were handed over to the Second
+      Corps and two to the First Corps. They were brought into action on the
+      24th with very good results.</p>
+
+      <p>Our experiences in this campaign seem to point to the employment of
+      more heavy guns of a larger calibre in great battles which last for
+      several days, during which time powerful intrenching work on both sides
+      can be carried out. These batteries were used with considerable effect on
+      the 24th and the following days.</p>
+
+      <p>8. On the 23d the action of Gen. de Castelnau's army on the allied
+      left developed considerably, and apparently withdrew considerable forces
+      of the enemy away from the centre and east. I am not aware whether it was
+      due to this cause or not, but until the 26th it appeared as though the
+      enemy's opposition in our front was weakening. On that day, however, a
+      very marked renewal of activity commenced. A constant and vigorous
+      artillery bombardment was maintained all day, and the Germans in front of
+      the First Division were observed to be "sapping" up to our lines and
+      trying to establish new trenches. Renewed counter-attacks were delivered
+      and beaten off during the course of the day, and in the afternoon a
+      well-timed attack by the First Division stopped the enemy's intrenching
+      work.</p>
+
+      <p>During the night of the 27th-28th the enemy again made the most
+      determined attempts to capture the trenches of the First Division, but
+      without the slightest success.</p>
+
+      <p>Similar attacks were reported during these three days all along the
+      line of the allied front, and it is certain that the enemy then made one
+      last great effort to establish ascendency. He was, however, unsuccessful
+      everywhere, and is reported to have suffered heavy losses. The same
+      futile attempts were made all along our front up to the evening of the
+      28th, when they died away, and have not since been renewed.</p>
+
+      <p>On former occasions I have brought to your Lordship's notice the
+      valuable services performed during this campaign by the Royal
+      Artillery.</p>
+
+      <p>Throughout the battle of the Aisne they have displayed the same skill,
+      endurance, and tenacity, and I deeply appreciate the work they have
+      done.</p>
+
+      <p>Sir David Henderson and the Royal Flying Corps under his command have
+      again proved their incalculable value. Great strides have been made in
+      the development of the use of aircraft in the tactical sphere by
+      establishing effective communication between aircraft and units in
+      action.</p>
+
+      <p>It is difficult to describe adequately and accurately the great strain
+      to which officers and men were subjected almost every hour of the day and
+      night throughout this battle.</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image014-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image014.jpg"
+            alt="Map 10.&mdash;Sept. 15 to 28. This map shows the intrenched positions of the Germans, many of which the Allies took with great loss to the Germans."
+            title="Map 10.&mdash;Sept. 15 to 28. This map shows the intrenched positions of the Germans, many of which the Allies took with great loss to the Germans."/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><b>Map 10.&mdash;Sept. 15 to 28. This map shows the
+         intrenched positions of the Germans, many of which the Allies took
+         with great loss to the Germans.</b></p>
+      </div>
+
+      <p>I have described above the severe character of the artillery fire
+      which was directed from morning till night not only upon the trenches,
+      but over the whole surface of the ground occupied by our forces. It was
+      not until a few days before the position was evacuated that the heavy
+      guns were removed and the fire slackened. Attack and counter-attack
+      occurred at all hours of the night and day throughout the whole position,
+      demanding extreme vigilance, and permitting only a minimum of rest.</p>
+
+      <p>The fact that between Sept. 12 to the date of this dispatch the total
+      numbers of killed, wounded, and missing reached the figures amounting to
+      561 officers, 12,980 men, proves the severity of the struggle.</p>
+
+      <p>The tax on the endurance of the troops was further increased by the
+      heavy rain and cold which prevailed for some ten or twelve days of this
+      trying time.</p>
+
+      <p>The battle of the Aisne has once more demonstrated the splendid
+      spirit, gallantry, and devotion which animates the officers and men of
+      his Majesty's forces.</p>
+
+      <p>With reference to the last paragraph of my dispatch of Sept. 7, I
+      append the names of officers, non-commissioned officers, and men brought
+      forward for special mention by army corps commanders and heads of
+      departments for services rendered from the commencement of the campaign
+      up to the present date.</p>
+
+      <p>I entirely agree with these recommendations and beg to submit them for
+      your Lordship's consideration.</p>
+
+      <p>I further wish to bring forward the names of the following officers
+      who have rendered valuable service: Gen. Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien and
+      Lieut.  Gen. Sir Douglas Haig (commanding First and Second Corps,
+      respectively) I have already mentioned in the present and former
+      dispatches for particularly marked and distinguished service in critical
+      situations.</p>
+
+      <p>Since the commencement of the campaign they have carried out all my
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'orders.']">orders</ins>
+      and instructions with the utmost ability.</p>
+
+      <p>Lieut. Gen. W.P. Pulteney took over the command of the Third Corps
+      just before the commencement of the battle of the Marne. Throughout the
+      subsequent operations he showed himself to be a most capable commander in
+      the field, and has rendered very valuable services.</p>
+
+      <p>Major Gen. E.H.H. Allenby and Major Gen. H. De La P. Gough have proved
+      themselves to be cavalry leaders of a high order, and I am deeply
+      indebted to them. The undoubted moral superiority which our cavalry has
+      obtained over that of the enemy has been due to the skill with which they
+      have turned to the best account the qualities inherent in the splendid
+      troops they command.</p>
+
+      <p>In my dispatch of the 7th September I mentioned the name of Brig. Gen.
+      Sir David Henderson and his valuable work in command of the Royal Flying
+      Corps; and I have once more to express my deep appreciation of the help
+      he has since rendered me.</p>
+
+      <p>Lieut. Gen. Sir Archibald Murray has continued to render me invaluable
+      help as Chief of the Staff; and in his arduous and responsible duties he
+      has been ably assisted by Major Gen. Henry Wilson, Sub-Chief.</p>
+
+      <p>Lieut. Gen. Sir Nevil Macready and Lieut. Gen. Sir William Robertson
+      have continued to perform excellent service as Adjutant General and
+      Quartermaster General, respectively.</p>
+
+      <p>The Director of Army Signals, Lieut. Col. J.S. Fowler, has materially
+      assisted the operations by the skill and energy which he has displayed in
+      the working of the important department over which he presides.</p>
+
+      <p>My Military Secretary, Brig. Gen. the Hon. W. Lambton, has performed
+      his arduous and difficult duties with much zeal and great efficiency.</p>
+
+      <p>I am anxious also to bring to your Lordship's notice the following
+      names of officers of my personal staff, who throughout these arduous
+      operations have shown untiring zeal and energy in the performance of
+      their duties:</p>
+
+      <p class="center"><i>Aides de Camp</i>.<br />
+      Lieut. Col. Stanley Barry.<br />
+      Lieut. Col. Lord Brooke.<br />
+      Major Fitzgerald Watt.</p>
+
+      <p class="center"><i>Extra Aide de Camp</i>.<br />
+      Capt. the Hon. F.E. Guest.</p>
+
+      <p class="center"><i>Private Secretary</i>.<br />
+      Lieut. Col. Brindsley Fitzgerald.</p>
+
+      <p>Major his Royal Highness Prince Arthur of Connaught, K.G., joined my
+      staff as Aide de Camp on the 14th September.</p>
+
+      <p>His Royal Highness's intimate knowledge of languages enabled me to
+      employ him with great advantage on confidential missions of some
+      importance, and his services have proved of considerable value.</p>
+
+      <p>I cannot close this dispatch without informing your Lordship of the
+      valuable services rendered by the Chief of the French Military Mission at
+      my headquarters, Col. Victor Huguet of the French Artillery. He has
+      displayed tact and judgment of a high order in many difficult situations,
+      and has rendered conspicuous service to the allied cause. I have the
+      honor to be, your Lordship's most obedient servant,</p>
+
+      <p class="signature">J.D.P. French, Field Marshal,<br />
+      <i>Commanding in Chief the British Army in the Field</i>.</p>
+
+
+      <h3 class="one">IV.</h3>
+      <h3 class="two">The Battle in Flanders.</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Official Abstract of Report for The Associated Press.]</p>
+
+      <p>LONDON, Nov. 29.&mdash;A report from Field Marshal Sir John French
+      covering the period of the battle in Flanders and the days immediately
+      preceding it, issued today by the Official Press Bureau, shows that this
+      battle was brought about, first, by the Allies' attempts to outflank the
+      Germans, who countered, and then by the Allies' plans to move to the
+      northeast to Ghent and Bruges, which also failed. After this the German
+      offensive began, with the French coast ports as the objective, but this
+      movement, like those of the Allies, met with failure.</p>
+
+      <p>The Field Marshal, doubtless in response to the demands of the British
+      public, tells what the various units of the expeditionary force have been
+      doing&mdash;those that failed and were cut off and those who against
+      superior numbers held the trenches for a month. He gives it as his
+      opinion that the German losses have been thrice as great as those of the
+      Allies, and speaks optimistically of the future.</p>
+
+      <p>The report covers in a general way the activities of the British
+      troops from Oct. 11 to Nov. 20.</p>
+
+      <p>Summing up the situation in concluding his report, the Field Marshal
+      says:</p>
+
+      <p>"As I close this dispatch, signs are in evidence that we are possibly
+      in the last stages of the battle from Ypres to Armenti&egrave;res. For
+      several days past the artillery fire of the enemy has slackened
+      considerably, and his infantry attacks have practically ceased."</p>
+
+      <p>Discussing the general military situation of the Allies, as it appears
+      to him at the time of writing, Sir John says:</p>
+
+      <p>"It does not seem to be clearly understood that the operations in
+      which we have been engaged embrace nearly all of the central part of the
+      Continent of Europe, from the east to the west. The combined French,
+      Belgian, and British Armies in the west and the Russian Army in the east
+      are opposed to the united forces of Germany and Austria, acting as
+      combined armies between us.</p>
+
+      <p>"Our enemies elected at the commencement of the war to throw the
+      weight of their forces against our armies in the west and to detach only
+      a comparatively weak force, composed of very few of the first line troops
+      and several corps of second and third line troops, to stem the Russian
+      advance until the western forces could be defeated and overwhelmed.
+      Their strength enabled them from the outset to throw greatly superior
+      forces against us in the west. This precludes the possibility of our
+      taking vigorous offensive action except when miscalculations and mistakes
+      are made by their commanders, opening up special opportunities for
+      successful attacks and pursuit.</p>
+
+      <p>"The battle of the Marne was an example of this, as was also our
+      advance from St. Omer and Hazebrouck to the line of the River Lys at the
+      commencement of this battle. The r&ocirc;le which our armies in the west
+      have consequently been called upon to fulfill has been to occupy strong
+      defensive positions, holding ground gained and inviting the enemy's
+      attack, and to throw back these attacks, causing the enemy heavy losses
+      in his retreat and following him up with powerful and successful
+      counter-attacks to complete his discomfiture.</p>
+
+      <p>"The value and significance of operations of this nature since the
+      commencement of hostilities by the Allies' forces in the west lie in the
+      fact that at the moment when the eastern provinces of Germany are in
+      imminent danger of being overrun by the numerous and powerful armies of
+      Russia, nearly the whole active army of Germany is tied down to a line of
+      trenches extending from Verdun, on the Alsatian frontier, to the sea at
+      Nieuport, east of Dunkirk, a distance of 260 miles, where they are held,
+      with much reduced numbers and impaired morale, by the successful action
+      of our troops in the west.</p>
+
+      <p>"I cannot speak too highly of the services rendered by the Royal
+      Artillery throughout the battle. In spite of the fact that the enemy
+      brought up in support of his attacks guns of great range and shell power,
+      our men have succeeded throughout in preventing the enemy from
+      establishing anything in the nature of superiority in artillery. The
+      skill, courage, and energy displayed by the commanders of the Royal
+      Artillery have been very marked. The Royal Engineers have been
+      indefatigable in their efforts to assist the infantry in field,
+      fortification, and trench work.</p>
+
+      <p>"I deeply regret the heavy casualties which we have suffered, but the
+      nature of the fighting has been very desperate, and we have been assailed
+      by vastly superior numbers. I have every reason to know that throughout
+      the course of the battle we have placed at least three times as many of
+      the enemy hors de combat in dead, wounded and prisoners.</p>
+
+      <p>"Throughout these operations Gen. Foch has strained his resources to
+      the utmost to afford me all the support he could. An expression of my
+      warm gratitude is also due to Gen. Dubail, commanding the Eighth French
+      Army Corps on my left, and to Gen. de Maud'huy, commanding the Tenth Army
+      Corps on my right."</p>
+
+      <p>Discussing the details of the engagement from Ypres to
+      Armenti&egrave;res, Field Marshal Sir John French explains that he was
+      impressed early in October with the necessity of giving the greatest
+      possible support to the northern flank of the Allies in the effort to
+      outflank the Germans and compel them to evacuate their positions. He says
+      that the situation on the Aisne warranted the withdrawal of British
+      troops from positions they held there, as the enemy had been weakened by
+      continual attacks and the fortifications of the Allies much improved.</p>
+
+      <p>The Field Marshal made known his view to Gen. Joffre, who agreed with
+      it. The French General Staff arranged for the withdrawal of the British,
+      which began on Oct. 3 and was completed on Oct. 19, when the First Army
+      Corps, under Gen. Sir Douglas Haig detrained at St. Omer.</p>
+
+      <p>The general plan, as arranged by Field Marshal French and Gen. Foch,
+      commanding the French troops to the north of Noyon, was that the English
+      should pivot on the French at Bethune, attacking the Germans on their
+      flank and forcing their way north. In the event that the British forced
+      the Germans out of their positions, making possible a forward movement of
+      the Allies, the French and British were to march east, with Lille as the
+      dividing line between the two armies, the English right being directed on
+      Lille.</p>
+
+      <p>The battle which forms the chief feature of Gen. French's report
+      really began on Oct. 11, when Major Gen. Gough of the Second British
+      Cavalry Brigade, first came in contact with German cavalry in the woods
+      along the Bethune-Aire Canal. The English cavalry moved toward
+      Hazebrouck, clearing the way for two army corps, which advanced rapidly
+      in a northeasterly direction. For several days the progress of the
+      British was only slightly interrupted, except at La Bass&eacute;e, a high
+      position, which Field Marshal French mentions as having stubbornly
+      resisted.</p>
+
+      <p>Field Marshal French says the Second Corps, under Gen. Smith-Dorrien,
+      was opposed by overpowering forces of Germans, but nevertheless advanced
+      until Oct. 18, when the German opposition compelled a reinforcement. Six
+      days later the Lahore Division of the Indian army was sent to support the
+      Second Corps.</p>
+
+      <p>On Oct. 16 Sir Henry Rawlinson, who had covered the retreat of the
+      Belgian army from Antwerp with two divisions of English cavalry and two
+      divisions of French infantry, was stationed on the line east of Ypres
+      under orders to operate over a wide front and to keep possession of all
+      the ground held by the Allies until the First Army Corps could reach
+      Ypres.</p>
+
+      <p>Gen. Rawlinson was opposed by superior forces and was unable to
+      prevent the Germans from getting large reinforcements. With four army
+      corps holding a much wider front than their size justified, Field Marshal
+      French says he faced a stubborn situation. The enemy was massed from the
+      Lys, and there was imperative need for a strengthened line.</p>
+
+      <p>However, the Field Marshal decided to send the First Corps north of
+      Ypres to stop the reinforcements which might enable the Germans to flank
+      the Allies. The shattered Belgian army and the wearied French troops'
+      endeavors to check the German reinforcements were powerless, so the
+      British commander sent fresh troops to prevent the Germans from executing
+      movements which would have given them access to Channel ports.</p>
+
+      <p>Sir Douglas Haig, with the First Army Corps, was sent Oct. 19 to
+      capture Bruges and drive the enemy back toward Ghent, if possible.
+      Meantime the Belgians intrenched themselves along the Ypres Canal. Sir
+      John French commends the valor of the Belgians, who, he says, exhausted
+      by weeks of constant fighting, maintained these positions gallantly.</p>
+
+      <p>Because of the overwhelming numbers of the Germans opposing them, he
+      says he enjoined a defensive r&ocirc;le upon the three army corps located
+      south of Ypres. While Gen. Haig made a slight advance, Sir John says it
+      was wonderful that he was able to advance at all, owing to the bad roads
+      and the overwhelming number of Germans, which made it impossible to carry
+      out the original plan of moving to Bruges.</p>
+
+      <p>The fighting gradually developed into bayonet charges. Field Marshal
+      French says that Oct. 21 brought forth the hardest attack, made on the
+      First Corps at Ypres, in the checking of which the Worcestershire
+      Regiment displayed great gallantry. This day marked the most critical
+      period in the great battle, according to the Commander in Chief, who says
+      the recapture of the village of Gheluvelt through a rally of the
+      Worcestershires was fraught with much consequence to the Allies.</p>
+
+      <p>After referring to some of the battles in which the Indian troops took
+      part, Field Marshal French says:</p>
+
+      <p>"Since their arrival in this country and their occupation of the line
+      allotted to them I have been much impressed by the initiative and
+      resource displayed by the Indian troops. Some of the ruses they have
+      employed to deceive the enemy have been attended with the best results
+      and have doubtless kept the superior forces in front of them at bay. Our
+      Indian sappers and miners have long enjoyed a high reputation for skill
+      and resource. Without going into detail I can confidently assert that
+      throughout their work in this campaign they have fully justified that
+      reputation.</p>
+
+      <p>"The General officer commanding the Indian army describes the conduct
+      and bearing of these troops in strange and new surroundings to have been
+      highly satisfactory, and I am enabled from my own observations to fully
+      corroborate this statement."</p>
+
+      <p>Sir John French goes on to say that, while the whole line continued to
+      be heavily pressed, the Germans' efforts from Nov. 1 have been
+      concentrated upon breaking through the line held by the First British and
+      the Ninth French Corps and thus gaining possession of the town of Ypres.
+      Three Bavarian and one German corps, in addition to other troops, were
+      all directed against this northern line.</p>
+
+      <p>About Nov. 10, after several units of these corps had been completely
+      shattered in futile attacks, the Field Marshal continues, a division of
+      the Prussian Guard, which had been operating in the vicinity of Arras,
+      was moved up to this area with great speed and secrecy. Documents found
+      on dead officers, the report says, proved that the Guard received the
+      German Emperor's special command to break through and succeed where their
+      comrades of the line had failed. They took the leading part in the
+      vigorous attacks made against the centre on the 11th and 12th, says Field
+      Marshal French, but, like their comrades, were repulsed with enormous
+      casualties.</p>
+
+      <p>He pays high tribute to Sir Douglas Haig and his divisional and
+      brigade commanders, who, he says, "held the line with marvelous tenacity
+      and undaunted courage." The Field Marshal predicts that "their deeds
+      during these days of stress and trial will furnish some of the most
+      brilliant chapters which will be found in the military history of our
+      time."</p>
+
+      <p>High praise is also given the Third Cavalry Division under Major Gen.
+      Julian Byng, whose troops "were repeatedly called upon to restore
+      situations at critical points and fill gaps in the line caused by the
+      tremendous losses which occurred."</p>
+
+      <p>The Commander in Chief makes special mention of Col. Gordon Chesney
+      Wilson of the Royal Horse Guards, Major the Hon. Hugh Dawnay of the
+      Second Life Guards, and Brig. Gen. FitzClarence of the Irish Guards, who
+      were killed, and of Brig. Gen. the Earl of Cavan, who "on many occasions
+      was conspicuous for the skill, coolness, and courage with which he led
+      his troops."</p>
+
+      <p>Of the Flying Corps the report says:</p>
+
+      <p>"Every day new methods of employing them, both strategically and
+      tactically, are discovered and put into practice."</p>
+
+      <p>Concerning the Territorials who have been employed, the Field Marshal
+      says the conduct and bearing of these units under fire and the efficient
+      manner in which they have carried out the duties assigned to them "has
+      imbued me with the highest hope as to the value and the help of the
+      Territorial troops generally."</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image015-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image015.jpg"
+            alt="Illustration"
+            title="Illustration"/>
+         </a>
+      </div>
+
+
+      <h2>Story of the "Eye-Witness"</h2>
+      <p class="h2">By Col. E.D. Swinton of the Intelligence Department of the
+      British General Staff.</p>
+
+      <blockquote>
+         <p><i>From the beginning of the war world-wide attention has been
+            attracted to the reports issued from time to time as coming from
+            "an eye-witness at British General Headquarters." At first these
+            reports were erroneously ascribed to Marshal French himself, and
+            resulted in much admiring comment on his vivid and graphic way of
+            reporting. Later it became known that they were the work of Col.
+            Swinton, who was attached to Gen. French's headquarters in the
+            capacity of "official observer."</i></p>
+      </blockquote>
+
+
+      <h3 class="one">I.</h3>
+      <h3 class="two">The Battle of the Aisne Begins</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[By the "Official Observer," Col. E.D. Swinton.]</p>
+
+      <p class="right">General Headquarters,<br />
+      Sept. 18, 1914.</p>
+
+      <p>Sept. 14, the Germans were making a determined resistance along the
+      River Aisne. Opposition, which it was at first thought might possibly be
+      of a rear-guard nature, not entailing material delay to our progress, has
+      developed and has proved to be more serious than was anticipated.</p>
+
+      <p>The action, now being fought by the Germans along their line, may, it
+      is true, have been undertaken in order to gain time for some strategic
+      operation or move, and may not be their main stand. But, if this is so,
+      the fighting is naturally on a scale which as to extent of ground covered
+      and duration of resistance, makes it undistinguishable in its progress
+      from what is known as a "pitched battle," though the enemy certainly
+      showed signs of considerable disorganization during the earlier days of
+      their retirement phase.</p>
+
+      <p>Whether it was originally intended by them to defend the position they
+      took up as strenuously as they have done, or whether the delay, gained
+      for them during the 12th and 13th by their artillery, has enabled them to
+      develop their resistance and force their line to an extent not originally
+      contemplated cannot yet be said.</p>
+
+      <p>So far as we are concerned the action still being contested is the
+      battle of the Aisne. The foe we are fighting is just across the river
+      along the whole of our front to the east and west. The struggle is not
+      confined to the valley of that river, though it will probably bear its
+      name.</p>
+
+      <p>The progress of our operations and the French armies nearest us for
+      the 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th will now be described:</p>
+
+      <p>On Monday, the 14th, those of our troops which had on the previous day
+      crossed the Aisne, after driving in the German rear guards on that
+      evening, found portions of the enemy's forces in prepared defensive
+      positions on the right bank and could do little more than secure a
+      footing north of the river. This, however, they maintained in spite of
+      two counter-attacks delivered at dusk and 10 P.M., in which the fighting
+      was severe.</p>
+
+      <p>During the 14th, strong reinforcements of our troops were passed to
+      the north bank, the troops crossing by ferry, by pontoon bridges, and by
+      the remains of permanent bridges. Close co-operation with the French
+      forces was maintained and the general progress made was good, although
+      the opposition was vigorous and the state of the roads, after the heavy
+      rains, made movements slow. One division alone failed to secure the
+      ground it expected to.</p>
+
+      <p>The First Army Corps, after repulsing repeated attacks, captured 600
+      prisoners and twelve guns. The cavalry also took a number of prisoners.
+      Many of the Germans taken belong to the reserve and Landwehr formations,
+      which fact appears to indicate that the enemy is compelled to draw on
+      other classes of soldiers to fill the gaps in his ranks.</p>
+
+      <p>There was a heavy rain throughout the night of Sept. 14-15, and during
+      the 15th. The situation of the British forces underwent no essential
+      change. But it became more and more evident that the defensive
+      preparations made by the enemy were more extensive than was at first
+      apparent.</p>
+
+      <p>In order to counterbalance these measures were taken by us to
+      economize our troops and to secure protection from the hostile artillery
+      fire, which was very fierce, and our men continued to improve their own
+      intrenchments. The Germans bombarded our lines nearly all day, using
+      heavy guns, brought, no doubt, from before Maubeuge, as well as those
+      with the corps.</p>
+
+      <p>All their counter attacks, however, failed, although in some places
+      they were repeated six times. One made on the Fourth Guards Brigade was
+      repulsed with heavy slaughter.</p>
+
+      <p>An attempt to advance slightly, made by part of our line, was
+      unsuccessful as regards gain of ground, but led to the withdrawal of part
+      of the enemy's infantry and artillery.</p>
+
+      <p>Further counter attacks made during the night were beaten off. Rain
+      came on toward evening and continued intermittently until 9 A.M. on the
+      16th.  Besides adding to the discomfort of the soldiers holding the line,
+      the wet weather to some extent hampered the motor transport service,
+      which was also hindered by broken bridges.</p>
+
+      <p>On Wednesday, the 16th, there was little change in the situation
+      opposite the British. The efforts made by the enemy were less active than
+      on the previous day, although their bombardment continued throughout the
+      morning and evening. Our artillery fire drove the defenders off one of
+      the salients of their position, but they returned in the evening. Forty
+      prisoners were taken by the Third Division.</p>
+
+      <p>On Thursday, the 17th, the situation, still remained unchanged in its
+      essentials. The German heavy artillery fire was more active than on the
+      previous day. The only infantry attacks made by the enemy were on the
+      extreme right of our position, and, as had happened before, were repulsed
+      with heavy loss, chiefly, on this occasion, by our field artillery.</p>
+
+      <p>In order to convey some idea of the nature of the fighting it may be
+      said that along the greater part of our front the Germans have been
+      driven back from the forward slopes on the north of the river. Their
+      infantry are holding strong lines of trenches among and along the edge of
+      the numerous woods which crown the slopes. These trenches are elaborately
+      constructed and cleverly concealed. In many places there are wire
+      entanglements and lengths of rabbit fencing.</p>
+
+      <p>Both woods and open are carefully aligned, so that they can be swept
+      by rifle fire and machine guns, which are invisible from our side of the
+      valley. The ground in front of the infantry trenches is also, as a rule,
+      under crossfire from the field artillery placed on neighboring features
+      and under high-angle fire from pieces placed well back behind the woods
+      on top of the plateau.</p>
+
+      <p>A feature of this action, as of the previous fighting, is the use by
+      the enemy of their numerous heavy howitzers, with which they are able to
+      direct long-range fire all over the valley and right across it. Upon
+      these they evidently place great reliance.</p>
+
+      <p>Where our men are holding the forked edges of the high ground on the
+      north side they are now strongly intrenched. They are well fed, and in
+      spite of the wet weather of the last week are cheerful and confident.</p>
+
+      <p>The bombardment by both sides has been very heavy, and on Sunday,
+      Monday and Tuesday was practically continuous. Nevertheless, in spite of
+      the general din caused by the reports of the immense number of heavy guns
+      in action along our front on Wednesday, the arrival of the French force
+      acting against the German right flank was at once announced on the east
+      of our front, some miles away, by the continuous roar of their
+      quick-firing artillery, with which their attack was opened.</p>
+
+      <p>So far as the British are concerned, the greater part of this week has
+      been passed in bombardment, in gaining ground by degrees, and in beating
+      back severe counter-attacks with heavy slaughter. Our casualties have
+      been severe, but it is probable that those of the enemy are heavier.</p>
+
+      <p>The rain has caused a great drop in the temperature, and there is more
+      than a distinct feeling of Autumn in the air, especially in the early
+      mornings.</p>
+
+      <p>On our right and left the French have been fighting fiercely and have
+      also been gradually gaining
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'gronud']">ground</ins>.
+      One village has already during this battle been captured and re-captured
+      twice by each side, and at the time of writing remains in the hands of
+      the Germans.</p>
+
+      <p>The fighting has been at close quarters and of the most desperate
+      nature, and the streets of the village are filled with dead on both
+      sides.</p>
+
+      <p>As an example of the spirit which is inspiring our allies, the
+      following translation of an ordre du jour, published on Sept. 9 after the
+      battle of Montmirail by the commander of the French Fifth Army, is
+      given:</p>
+
+      <blockquote>
+         <p>Soldiers: Upon the memorable fields of Montmirail, of Vauchamps, of
+         Champaubert, which a century ago witnessed the victories of our
+         ancestors over Blucher's Prussians, your vigorous offensive has
+         triumphed over the resistance of the Germans. Held on his flanks, his
+         centre broken, the enemy is now retreating toward the east and north
+         by forced marches. The most renowned army corps of old Prussia, the
+         contingents of Westphalia, of Hanover, of Brandenburg, have retired in
+         haste before you.</p>
+
+         <p>This first success is no more than the prelude. The enemy is
+         shaken, but not yet decisively beaten. You have still to undergo
+         severe hardships, to make long marches, to fight hard battles.</p>
+
+         <p>May the image of our country, soiled by barbarians, always remain
+         before your eyes. Never was it more necessary to sacrifice all for
+         her.</p>
+
+         <p>Saluting the heroes who have fallen in the fighting of the last few
+         days, my thoughts turn toward you, the victors in the next battle.
+         Forward, soldiers, for France!</p>
+
+         <p class="signature">FRANCHET D'ESPEREY,<br />
+         General Commanding the Fifth Army.<br />
+         Montmirail, Sept. 9, 1914.</p>
+      </blockquote>
+
+      <p>The Germans are a formidable enemy, well trained, long prepared, and
+      brave. Their soldiers are carrying on the contest with skill and valor.
+      Nevertheless they are fighting to win anyhow, regardless of all the rules
+      of fair play, and there is evidence that they do not hesitate at anything
+      in order to gain victory.</p>
+
+      <p>A large number of the tales of their misbehaviors are exaggeration and
+      some of the stringent precautions they have taken to guard themselves
+      against the inhabitants of the areas traversed are possibly justifiable
+      measures of war. But, at the same time, it has been definitely
+      established that they have committed atrocities on many occasions and
+      they have been guilty of brutal conduct.</p>
+
+      <p>So many letters and statements of our wounded soldiers have been
+      published in our newspapers that the following epistle from a German
+      soldier of the Seventy-fourth Infantry Regiment, Tenth Corps, to his wife
+      may also be of interest:</p>
+
+      <p>"My Dear Wife: I have just been living through days that defy
+      imagination. I should never have thought that men could stand it. Not a
+      second has passed but my life has been in danger, and yet not a hair of
+      my head has been hurt.</p>
+
+      <p>"It was horrible! It was ghastly! but I have been saved for you and
+      for our happiness, and I take heart again, although I am still terribly
+      unnerved. God grant that I may see you again soon, and that this horror
+      may soon be over.</p>
+
+      <p>"None of us can do any more; human strength is at an end. I will try
+      to tell you about it. On the 5th of September the enemy were reported to
+      be taking up a position near St. Prix, southeast of Paris.</p>
+
+      <p>"The Tenth Corps, which had made an astonishingly rapid advance, of
+      course, was attacked on Sunday. Steep slopes led up to the heights, which
+      were held in considerable force.</p>
+
+      <p>"With our weak detachments of the Seventy-fourth and Ninety-first
+      regiments we reached the crest and came under a terrible artillery fire
+      that mowed us down. However, we entered St. Prix. Hardly had we done so
+      than we were met with shell fire and a violent fusillade from the enemy's
+      infantry.</p>
+
+      <p>"Our Colonel was badly wounded&mdash;he is the third we have had.
+      Fourteen men were killed around me. We got away in a lull without being
+      hit.</p>
+
+      <p>"The 7th, 8th, and 9th of September we were constantly under shell and
+      shrapnel fire and suffered terrible losses. I was in a house which was
+      hit several times. The fear of death, of agony, which is in every man's
+      heart, and naturally so, is a terrible feeling.</p>
+
+      <p>"How often I have thought of you, my darling, and what I suffered in
+      that terrifying battle, which extended along a front of many miles near
+      Montmirail, you cannot possibly imagine.</p>
+
+      <p>"Our heavy artillery was being used for the siege of Maubeuge. We
+      wanted it badly, as the enemy had theirs in force and kept up a furious
+      bombardment. For four days I was under artillery fire. It was like hell,
+      but a thousand times worse.</p>
+
+      <p>"On the night of the 9th the order was given to retreat, as it would
+      have been madness to attempt to hold our position with our few men, and
+      we should have risked a terrible defeat the next day. The First and Third
+      Armies had not been able to attack with us, as we had advanced too
+      rapidly. Our morale was absolutely broken. In spite of unheard-of
+      sacrifices we had achieved nothing.</p>
+
+      <p>"I cannot understand how our army, after fighting three great battles
+      and being terribly weakened, was sent against a position which the enemy
+      had prepared for three weeks, but naturally I know nothing of the
+      intentions of our Chiefs; they say nothing has been lost.</p>
+
+      <p>"In a word, we retired toward Cormontreuil and Rheims by forced
+      marches by day and night. We hear that three armies are going to get into
+      line, intrench and rest, and then start afresh our victorious march on
+      Paris.  It was not a defeat, only a strategic retreat. I have confidence
+      in our Chiefs that everything will be successful.</p>
+
+      <p>"Our First Battalion, which has fought with unparalleled bravery, is
+      reduced from 1,200 to 194 men. These numbers speak for themselves."</p>
+
+      <p>Among the minor happenings of interest is the following:</p>
+
+      <p>During a counter-attack by the German Fifty-third Regiment on
+      positions of the Northampton and Queen's Regiments on Thursday, the 17th,
+      a force of some 400 of the enemy were allowed to approach right up to the
+      trench occupied by a platoon of the former regiment, owing to the fact
+      that they had held up their hands and made gestures that were interpreted
+      as signs that they wished to surrender. When they were actually on the
+      parapet of the trench held, by the Northamptons they opened fire on our
+      men at point-blank range.</p>
+
+      <p>Unluckily for the enemy, however, flanking them and only some 400
+      yards away, there happened to be a machine gun manned by a detachment of
+      the Queen's. This at once opened fire, cutting a lane through their mass,
+      and they fell back to their own trench with great loss. Shortly afterward
+      they were driven further back, with additional loss, by a battalion of
+      Guards which came up in support.</p>
+
+      <p>An incident, which occurred some little time ago during our
+      retirement, is also worthy of record. On Aug. 28, during the battle
+      fought by the French along the Oise between La Fere and Guise, one of the
+      French commanders desired to make an air reconnoissance. It was found,
+      however, that no observers were available.</p>
+
+      <p>Wishing to help our allies as much as possible a British officer
+      attached to this particular French army volunteered to go up with the
+      pilot to observe. He had never been in an aeroplane, but he made the
+      ascent and produced a valuable reconnoissance report.</p>
+
+      <p>Incidentally he had a duel in the air at an altitude of 6,000 feet
+      with the observer of a German Taube monoplane which approached. He fired
+      several shots and drove off the hostile aeroplane. His action was much
+      appreciated by the French.</p>
+
+      <p>In view of the many statements made in the press as to the use of
+      Zeppelins against us, it is interesting to note that the Royal Flying
+      Corps, who had been out on reconnoissance every day since their arrival
+      in France, have never seen a Zeppelin, though airships of a non-rigid
+      type have been seen on two occasions near Marne.</p>
+
+      <p>Late one evening two such were observed over the German forces. An
+      aeroplane was dispatched against them, but in the darkness our pilots
+      were uncertain of the airship's nationality and did not attack. It was
+      afterward made clear that they could not have been French.</p>
+
+      <p>A week later an officer, reconnoitring to the flank, saw an airship
+      over the German forces and opposite the French. It had no distinguishing
+      mark and was assumed to belong to the latter, though it is now known that
+      it also must have been a German craft.</p>
+
+      <p>The orders of the Royal Flying Corps are to attack Zeppelins at once,
+      and there is some disappointment at the absence of those targets.</p>
+
+      <p>The following special order has been issued today to the troops:</p>
+
+      <blockquote>
+         <p class="center">"Special Order of the Day,<br />
+         By Field Marshal Sir John French,<br />
+         G.C.B., G.C.V.O., K.C.M.G.,<br />
+         Commander in Chief of the British Army in the Field.</p>
+
+         <p class="right">"September 17, 1914.</p>
+
+         <p>"Once more I have to express my deep appreciation of the splendid
+         behavior of the officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of the
+         army under my command throughout the great battle of the Aisne, which
+         has been in progress since the evening of the 12th inst., and the
+         battle of the Marne, which lasted from the morning of the 6th to the
+         evening of the 10th and finally ended in the precipitate flight of the
+         enemy.</p>
+
+         <p>"When we were brought face to face with a position of extraordinary
+         strength, carefully intrenched and prepared for defense by an army and
+         staff which are thorough adepts in such work, throughout the 13th and
+         14th, that position was most gallantly attacked by the British forces
+         and the passage of the Aisne effected. This is the third day the
+         troops have been gallantly holding the position they have gained
+         against most desperate counter-attacks and the hail of heavy
+         artillery.</p>
+
+         <p>"I am unable to find adequately words in which to express the
+         admiration I feel for their magnificent conduct.</p>
+
+         <p>"The French armies on our right and left are making good progress,
+         and I feel sure that we have only to hold on with tenacity to the
+         ground we have won for a very short time longer when the Allies will
+         be again in full pursuit of a beaten enemy.</p>
+
+         <p>"The self-sacrificing devotion and splendid spirit of the British
+         army in France will carry all before it.</p>
+
+         <p class="signature">"J.D.P. FRENCH, Field Marshall,<br />
+         "Commander in Chief of the British Army in the Field."</p>
+      </blockquote>
+
+
+      <h3 class="one">II.</h3>
+      <h3 class="two">The Slow Fight on the Aisne.</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Made Public Sept. 24.]</p>
+
+      <p>The enemy is still maintaining himself along the whole front, and, in
+      order to do so, is throwing into the fight detachments composed of units
+      from different formations, the active army, reserve, and Landwehr, as is
+      shown by the uniforms of the prisoners recently captured.</p>
+
+      <p>Our progress, although slow on account of the strength of the
+      defensive positions against which we are pressing, has in certain
+      directions been continuous; but the present battle may well last for some
+      days more before a decision is reached, since it now approximates
+      somewhat to siege warfare.</p>
+
+      <p>The Germans are making use of searchlights. This fact, coupled with
+      their great strength in heavy artillery, leads to the supposition that
+      they are employing material which may have been collected for the siege
+      of Paris.</p>
+
+      <p>The nature of the general situation after the operations of the 18th,
+      19th, and 20th cannot better be summarized than as expressed recently by
+      a neighboring French commander to his corps: "Having repulsed repeated
+      and violent counter-attacks made by the enemy, we have a feeling that we
+      have been victorious."</p>
+
+      <p>So far as the British are concerned, the course of events during these
+      three days can be described in a few words. During Friday, the 18th,
+      artillery fire was kept up intermittently by both sides during daylight.
+      At night the German centre attacked certain portions of our line,
+      supporting the advance of their infantry, as always, by a heavy
+      bombardment. But the strokes were not delivered with great vigor, and
+      ceased about 2 A.M. During the day's fighting an aircraft gun of the
+      Third Army Corps succeeded in bringing down a German aeroplane.</p>
+
+      <p>News also was received that a body of French cavalry had demolished
+      part of the railway to the north, so cutting, at least temporarily, one
+      line of communication which is of particular importance to the enemy.</p>
+
+      <p>On Saturday, the 19th, the bombardment was resumed by the Germans at
+      an early hour and continued intermittently under reply from our own guns.
+      Some of their infantry advanced from cover, apparently with the intention
+      of attacking, but on coming under fire they retired. Otherwise the day
+      was uneventful, except for the activity of the artillery, which is a
+      matter of normal routine rather than an event.</p>
+
+      <p>Another hostile aeroplane was brought down by us, and one of our
+      aviators succeeded in dropping several bombs over the German line, one
+      incendiary bomb falling with considerable effect on a transport park near
+      La F&egrave;re.</p>
+
+      <p>A buried store of the enemy's munitions of war was also found, not far
+      from the Aisne, ten wagon loads of live shell and two wagon loads of
+      cable being dug up. Traces were discovered of large quantities of stores
+      having been burned&mdash;all tending to show that as far back as the
+      Aisne the German retirement was hurried.</p>
+
+      <p>There was a strong wind during the day, accompanied by a driving rain.
+      This militated against the aerial reconnoissance.</p>
+
+      <p>On Sunday, the 20th, nothing of importance occurred until the
+      afternoon, when there was a break in the clouds and an interval of feeble
+      sunshine, which was hardly powerful enough to warm the soaking troops.
+      The Germans took advantage of this brief spell of fine weather to make
+      several counter-attacks against different points. These were all repulsed
+      with loss to the enemy, but the casualties incurred by us were by no
+      means light.</p>
+
+      <p>In one section of our firing line the occupants of the trenches were
+      under the impression that they heard a military band in the enemy's lines
+      just before the attack developed. It is now known that the German
+      infantry started their advance with bands playing.</p>
+
+      <p>The offensive against one or two points was renewed at dusk, with no
+      greater success. The brunt of the resistance has naturally fallen upon
+      the infantry. In spite of the fact that they have been drenched to the
+      skin for some days and their trenches have been deep in mud and water,
+      and in spite of the incessant night alarms and the almost continuous
+      bombardment to which they have been subjected, they have on every
+      occasion been ready for the enemy's infantry when the latter attempted to
+      assault, and they have beaten them back with great loss. Indeed, the
+      sight of the Pickelhauben [German spiked helmets] coming up has been a
+      positive relief after long, trying hours of inaction under shell
+      fire.</p>
+
+      <p>The object of the great proportion of artillery the Germans employ is
+      to beat down the resistance of their enemy by concentrated and prolonged
+      fire, to shatter their nerves with high explosives, before the infantry
+      attack is launched. They seem to have relied on doing this with us, but
+      they have not done so, though it has taken them several costly
+      experiments to discover this fact.</p>
+
+      <p>From statements of prisoners it appears that they have been greatly
+      disappointed by the moral effect produced by their heavy guns, which,
+      despite the actual losses inflicted, has not been at all commensurate
+      with the colossal expenditure of ammunition, which has really been
+      wasted. By this it is not implied that their artillery fire is not good;
+      it is more than good&mdash;it is excellent. But the British soldier is a
+      difficult person to impress or depress, even by immense shells filled
+      with a high explosive which detonate with terrific violence and form
+      craters large enough to act as graves for five horses.</p>
+
+      <p>The German howitzer shells are from 8 to 9 inches in calibre, and on
+      impact they send up columns of greasy black smoke. On account of this
+      they are irreverently dubbed "coal boxes," "black Marias," or "Jack
+      Johnsons" by the soldiers. Men who take things in this spirit are, it
+      seems, likely to throw out the calculations based on the loss of morale
+      so carefully framed by the German military philosophers.</p>
+
+      <p>A considerable amount of information has been gleaned from prisoners.
+      It has been gathered that our bombardment on the 15th produced a great
+      impression. The opinion is also reported that our infantry make such good
+      use of ground that the German companies are decimated by our rifle fire
+      before the British soldier can be seen.</p>
+
+      <p>From an official diary captured by the First Army Corps it appears
+      that one of the German corps contains an extraordinary mixture of units.
+      If the composition of the other corps is similar, it may be assumed that
+      the present efficiency of the enemy's forces is in no way comparable with
+      what it was when the war commenced.</p>
+
+      <p>The losses in officers are noted as having been especially severe. A
+      brigade is stated to be commanded by a Major; some companies of food
+      guards by one-year volunteers; while after the battle of Montmirail one
+      regiment lost fifty-five out of sixty officers. The prisoners recently
+      captured appreciate the fact that the march on Paris has failed and that
+      their forces are retreating, but state that the object of this movement
+      is explained by the officers as being to withdraw into closer touch with
+      the supports, which have stayed too far in the rear.</p>
+
+      <p>The officers are also endeavoring to encourage the troops by telling
+      them that they will be at home by Christmas. A large number of the men
+      believe that they are beaten. Following is an extract from one
+      document:</p>
+
+      <p>"With the English troops we have great difficulties. They have a queer
+      way of causing losses to the enemy. They make good trenches, in which
+      they wait patiently; they carefully measure the ranges for their rifle
+      fire, and they open a truly hellish fire on the unsuspecting cavalry.
+      This was the reason that we had such heavy losses.</p>
+
+      <p>"According to our officers, the English striking forces are exhausted;
+      the English people really never wanted war."</p>
+
+      <p>From another source: "The English are very brave and fight to the last
+      man. One of our companies has lost 130 men out of 240."</p>
+
+      <p>The following letter, which refers to the fighting on the Aisne, has
+      been printed and circulated to the troops:</p>
+
+      <blockquote>
+         <p class="center"><span class="pscaps">Letter Found on German Officer of Seventh Reserve
+            Corps</span>:</p>
+
+         <p class="right">Cerny, South of Laon, Sept 14, 1914.</p>
+
+         <p>My Dear Parents: Our corps has the task of holding the heights
+         south of Cerny in all circumstances until the Fourteenth Corps on our
+         left flank can grip the enemy's flank. On our right are other corps.
+         We are fighting with the English Guards, Highlanders, and Zouaves. The
+         losses on both sides have been enormous. For the most part this is due
+         to the too brilliant French artillery.</p>
+
+         <p>The English are marvelously trained in making use of ground. One
+         never sees them, and one is constantly under fire. The French airmen
+         perform wonderful feats. We cannot get rid of them. As soon as an
+         airman has flown over us, ten minutes later we get their shrapnel fire
+         in our positions. We have little artillery in our corps; without it we
+         cannot get forward.</p>
+
+         <p>Three days ago our division took possession of these heights and
+         dug itself in. Two days ago, early in the morning, we were attacked by
+         an immensely superior English force, one brigade and two battalions,
+         and were turned out of our positions. The fellows took five guns from
+         us. It was a tremendous hand-to-hand fight.</p>
+
+         <p>How I escaped myself I am not clear. I then had to bring up
+         supports on foot. My horse was wounded, and the others were too far in
+         the rear. Then came up the Guards Jager Battalion, Fourth Jager, Sixth
+         Regiment, Reserve Regiment Thirteen, and Landwehr Regiments Thirteen
+         and Sixteen, and with the help of the artillery we drove the fellows
+         out of the position again. Our machine guns did excellent work; the
+         English fell in heaps.</p>
+
+         <p>In our battalion three Iron Crosses have been given, one to C.O.,
+         one to Capt. &mdash;&mdash;, and one to Surgeon &mdash;&mdash;. [Names
+         probably deleted.] Let us hope that we shall be the lucky ones next
+         time.</p>
+
+         <p>During the first two days of the battle I had only one piece of
+         bread and no water. I spent the night in the rain without my overcoat.
+         The rest of my kit was on the horses which had been left behind with
+         the baggage and which cannot come up into the battle because as soon
+         as you put your nose up from behind cover the bullets whistle.</p>
+
+         <p>War is terrible. We are all hoping that a decisive battle will end
+         the war, as our troops already have got round Paris. If we beat the
+         English the French resistance will soon be broken. Russia will be very
+         quickly dealt with; of this there is no doubt.</p>
+
+         <p>We received splendid help from the
+         <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'Austrain']">Austrian</ins>
+         heavy artillery at Maubeuge. They bombarded Fort Cerfontaine in such a
+         way that there was not ten meters a parapet which did not show
+         enormous craters made by the shells. The armored turrets were found
+         upside down.</p>
+
+         <p>Yesterday evening, about 6, in the valley in which our reserves
+         stood there was such a terrible cannonade that we saw nothing of the
+         sky but a cloud of smoke. We had few casualties.</p>
+      </blockquote>
+
+      <p>Recently a pilot and observer of the Royal Flying Corps were forced by
+      a breakage in their aeroplane to descend in the enemy's lines. The pilot
+      managed to pancake his machine down to earth, and the two escaped into
+      some thick under-growth in the woods.</p>
+
+      <p>The enemy came up and seized and smashed the machine, but did not
+      search for our men with much zeal. The latter lay hid till dark and then
+      found their way to the Aisne, across which they swam, reaching camp in
+      safety, but barefooted.</p>
+
+      <p>Numerous floating bridges have been thrown across the Aisne and some
+      of the pontoon bridges have been repaired under fire. On the 20th, Lieut.
+      [name deleted] of the Third Signal Corps, Royal Engineers, was
+      unfortunately drowned while attempting to swim across the river with a
+      cable in order to open up fresh telegraphic communication on the north
+      side.</p>
+
+      <p>Espionage is still carried on by the enemy to a considerable extent.
+      Recently the suspicions of some of the French troops were aroused by
+      coming across a farm from which the horses had been removed. After some
+      search they discovered a telephone which was connected by an underground
+      cable with the German lines, and the owner of the farm paid the penalty
+      in the usual way in war for his treachery.</p>
+
+      <p>After some cases of village fighting which occurred earlier in the war
+      it was reported by some of our officers that the Germans had attempted to
+      approach to close quarters by forcing prisoners to march in front of
+      them. The Germans have recently repeated the same trick on a larger scale
+      against the French, as is shown by the copy of an order printed below. It
+      is therein referred to as a ruse, but, if that term can be accepted, a
+      distinctly illegal ruse.</p>
+
+      <p>"During a recent night attack," the order reads, "the Germans drove a
+      column of French prisoners in front of them. This action is to be brought
+      to the notice of all our troops (1) in order to put them on their guard
+      against such a dastardly ruse; (2) in order that every soldier may know
+      how the Germans treat their prisoners. Our troops must not forget if they
+      allow themselves to be taken prisoners the Germans will not fail to
+      expose them to French bullets."</p>
+
+      <p>Further evidence has now been collected of the misuse of the white
+      flag and other signs of surrender. During an action on the 17th, owing to
+      this, one officer was shot. During recent fighting, also, some German
+      ambulance wagons advanced in order to collect the wounded. An order to
+      cease firing was consequently given to our guns, which were firing on
+      this particular section of ground. The German battery commanders at once
+      took advantage of the lull in the action to climb up their observation
+      ladders and on to a haystack to locate our guns, which soon afterward
+      came under a far more accurate fire than any to which they had been
+      subjected up to that time.</p>
+
+      <p>A British officer, who was captured by the Germans and has since
+      escaped, reports that while a prisoner he saw men who had been fighting
+      subsequently put on Red Cross brassards.</p>
+
+      <p>That irregular use of the protection afforded by the Geneva Convention
+      is not uncommon is confirmed by the fact that on one occasion men in the
+      uniform of combatant units have been captured wearing a Red Cross
+      brassard hastily slipped over the arm. The excuse given has been that
+      they had been detailed after the fight to look after the wounded.</p>
+
+      <p>It is reported by a cavalry officer that the driver of a motor car
+      with a machine gun mounted on it, which was captured, was wearing a Red
+      Cross.</p>
+
+      <p>Full details of the actual damage done to the cathedral at Rheims will
+      doubtless have been cabled home, so that no description of it is
+      necessary. The Germans bombarded the cathedral twice with their heavy
+      artillery.</p>
+
+      <p>One reason it caught alight so quickly was that on one side of it was
+      some scaffolding which had been erected for restoration work. Straw had
+      also been laid on the floor for the reception of the German wounded. It
+      is to the credit of the French that practically all the German wounded
+      were successfully extricated from the burning building.</p>
+
+      <p>There was no justification on military grounds for this act of
+      vandalism, which seems to have been caused by exasperation born of
+      failure&mdash;a sign of impotence rather than strength. It is noteworthy
+      that a well-known hotel not far from the cathedral, which was kept by a
+      German, was not touched.</p>
+
+
+      <h3 class="one">III.</h3>
+      <h3 class="two">Two September Days.</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Made Public Sept. 28.]</p>
+
+      <p>For four days there has been a comparative lull all along our front.
+      This has been
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'acompanied']">accompanied</ins>
+      by a spell of fine weather, though the nights have been much colder. One
+      cannot have everything, however, and one evil result of the sunshine has
+      been the release of flies, which were torpid during the wet days.</p>
+
+      <p>Advantage has been taken of the arrival of reinforcements to relieve
+      by fresh troops the men who have been on the firing line for some time.
+      Several units, therefore, have received their baptism of fire during the
+      week.</p>
+
+      <p>Since the last letter left headquarters evidence has been received
+      which points to the fact that during the counter attacks on the night of
+      Sept.  20 German detachments of infantry fired into each other. This was
+      the result of an attempt to carry out the dangerous expedient of a
+      converging advance in the dark. Opposite one portion of our position
+      considerable massing of hostile forces was observed before dark. Some
+      hours later a furious
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'fusilade']">fusillade</ins>
+      was heard in front of our line, though no bullets came over our
+      trenches.</p>
+
+      <p>This narrative begins with Sept. 21 and covers only two days. There
+      was but little rain on Sept. 21 and the weather took a turn for the
+      better, which has been maintained. The action has been practically
+      confined to the artillery, our guns at one point shelling and driving the
+      enemy, who endeavored to construct a redoubt.</p>
+
+      <p>The Germans expended a large number of heavy shells in a long range
+      bombardment of the village of Missy (Department of the Aisne).
+      Reconnoitring parties sent out during the night of Sept. 21-22 discovered
+      some deserted trenches. In them or in the woods over 100 dead and wounded
+      were picked up. A number of rifles, ammunition and equipment were also
+      found. There were other signs that portions of the enemy's forces had
+      withdrawn some distance.</p>
+
+      <p>The weather was also fine on Sept. 22 with less wind, and it was one
+      of the most uneventful days we have passed since we reached the Aisne,
+      that is, uneventful for the British. There was less artillery work on
+      either side, the Germans giving the village of Paissy (Aisne) a taste of
+      the "Jack Johnsons." The spot thus honored is not far from the ridge
+      where there has been some of the most severe close fighting in which we
+      have taken part. All over this No Man's Land, between the lines, bodies
+      of German infantrymen were still lying in heaps where they had fallen at
+      different times.</p>
+
+      <p>Espionage plays so large a part in the conduct of the war by the
+      Germans that it is difficult to avoid further reference to the subject.
+      They have evidently never forgotten the saying of Frederick the Great:
+      "When Marshall Soubise goes to war he is followed by a hundred cooks.
+      When I take the field I am preceded by a hundred spies." Indeed until
+      about twenty years ago there was a paragraph in their field service
+      regulations directing that the service of protection in the field, such
+      as outposts and advance guards, should always be supplemented by a system
+      of espionage. Although such instructions are no longer made public the
+      Germans, as is well known, still carry them into effect.</p>
+
+      <p>Apart from the more elaborate arrangements which were made in peace
+      time for obtaining information by paid agents some of the methods which
+      are being employed for the collection or conveyance of intelligence are
+      as follows:</p>
+
+      <p>Men in plain clothes signal the German lines from points in the hands
+      of the enemy by means of colored lights at nights and puffs of smoke from
+      chimneys in the day time. Pseudo laborers working in the fields between
+      the armies have been detected conveying information. Persons in plain
+      clothes have acted as advanced scouts to the German cavalry when
+      advancing.</p>
+
+      <p>German officers or soldiers in plain clothes or French or British
+      uniforms have remained in localities evacuated by the Germans in order to
+      furnish them with intelligence. One spy of this kind was found by our
+      troops hidden in a church tower. His presence was only discovered through
+      the erratic movements of the hands of the church clock, which he was
+      using to signal his friends by an improvised semaphore code. Had this man
+      not been seized it is probable he would have signalled the time of
+      arrival and the exact position of the headquarters staff of the force and
+      a high explosive shell would then have mysteriously dropped on the
+      building.</p>
+
+      <p>Women spies have also been caught. Secret agents have been found at
+      rail heads observing entrainments and detrainments. It is a simple matter
+      for spies to mix with refugees who are moving about to and from their
+      homes, and it is difficult for our troops, who speak neither French nor
+      German, to detect them. The French have also found it necessary to search
+      villages and casual wayfarers on the roads and to search for carrier
+      pigeons.</p>
+
+      <p>Among the precautions taken by us against spying is the following
+      notice printed in French, posted up:</p>
+
+      <blockquote>
+         <p>"Motor cars and bicycles other than those; carrying soldiers in
+         uniform may not circulate on the roads. Inhabitants may not leave the
+         localities in which they reside between 6 P.M. and 6 A.M.  Inhabitants
+         may not quit their homes after 8 P.M. No person may on any pretext
+         pass through the British lines without an authorization countersigned
+         by a British officer."</p>
+      </blockquote>
+
+      <p>Events have moved so quietly for the last two months that anything
+      connected with the mobilization of the British expeditionary force is now
+      ancient history. Nevertheless, the following extract from a German order
+      is evidence of the mystification of the army and a tribute to the value
+      of the secrecy which was so well and so loyally maintained in England at
+      the time:</p>
+
+      <blockquote>
+         <p class="right">"Tenth Reserve Army Corps Headquarters,<br />
+         "Mont St. Guibert, Aug. 20, 1914.</p>
+
+         <p>"Corps Order, Aug. 20.</p>
+
+         <p>"The French troops in front of the Tenth Army Corps have retreated
+         south across the Sambre. Part of the Belgium army has been withdrawn
+         from Antwerp. It is reported that an English army has disembarked at
+         Calais and Boulogne, en route to Brussels."</p>
+      </blockquote>
+
+
+      <h3 class="one">IV.</h3>
+      <h3 class="two">Fighting in the Air.</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Made Public Sept. 29.]</p>
+
+      <p>Wednesday, Sept. 23, was a perfect Autumn day. It passed without
+      incident as regards major operations. Although the enemy concentrated
+      their heavy artillery upon the, plateau near Passy, nothing more than
+      inconvenience was caused.</p>
+
+      <p>The welcome absence of wind gave our airmen a chance of which they
+      took full advantage by gathering much information. Unfortunately, one of
+      our aviators, who had been particularly active in annoying the enemy by
+      dropping bombs, was wounded in a duel in the air.</p>
+
+      <p>Being alone on a single-seated monoplane, he was not able to use his
+      rifle, and while circling above a German two-seated machine in an
+      endeavor to get within pistol shot he was hit by the observer of the
+      German machine, who was armed with a rifle. He managed to fly back over
+      our lines, and by great good luck he descended close to a motor
+      ambulance, which at once conveyed him to a hospital.</p>
+
+      <p>Against this may be set off the fact that another of our flyers
+      exploded a bomb among some led artillery horses, killing several and
+      stampeding the others.</p>
+
+      <p>On Thursday, Sept. 21, the fine weather continued, as did the lull in
+      the action, the heavy German shells falling mostly near Pargnan, twelve
+      miles south-southeast of Laon.</p>
+
+      <p>On both Wednesday and Thursday the weather was so fine that many
+      flights were made by the aviators, French, British, and German. These
+      produced a corresponding activity among the anti-aircraft guns.</p>
+
+      <p>So still and clear was the atmosphere toward evening on Wednesday and
+      during the whole of Thursday that to those not especially on the lookout
+      the presence of aeroplanes high up above them was first made known by the
+      bursting of the projectiles aimed at them. The puffs of smoke from the
+      detonation shell hung in the air for minutes on end, like balls of fleece
+      cotton, before they slowly expanded and were dissipated.</p>
+
+      <p>From the places mentioned as being the chief targets for the enemy's
+      heavy howitzers, it will be seen that the Germans are not inclined to
+      concentrate their fire systematically upon definite areas in which their
+      aviators think they have located our guns, or upon villages where it is
+      imagined our troops may be billeted. The result will be to give work to
+      local builders.</p>
+
+      <p>The growing resemblance of this battle to siege warfare has already
+      been pointed out. The fact that the later actions of the Russo-Japanese
+      war assumed a similar character was thought by many to have been due to
+      exceptional causes, such as the narrowness of the theatre of operations
+      between the Chinese frontier on the west and the mountainous country of
+      Northern Korea on the east; the lack of roads, which limited the extent
+      of ground over which it was possible for the rival armies to manoeuvre,
+      and the fact that both forces were tied to one line of railroad.</p>
+
+      <p>Such factors are not exerting any influence on the present battle.
+      Nevertheless, a similar situation has been produced, owing firstly to the
+      immense power of resistance possessed by an army which is amply equipped
+      with heavy artillery and has sufficient time to fortify itself, and,
+      secondly, to the vast size of the forces engaged, which at the present
+      time stretch more than half way across France.</p>
+
+      <p>The extent of the country covered is so great as to render slow any
+      efforts to manoeuvre and march around to a flank in order to escape the
+      costly expedient of a frontal attack against heavily fortified
+      positions.</p>
+
+      <p>To state that the methods of attack must approximate more closely to
+      those of siege warfare the greater the resemblance of the defenses to
+      those of a fortress is a platitude, but it is one which will bear
+      repetition if it in any way assists to make the present situation
+      clear.</p>
+
+      <p>There is no doubt that the position on the Aisne was not hastily
+      selected by the German Staff after the retreat had begun. From the choice
+      of ground, and the care with which the fields of fire had been arranged
+      to cover all possible avenues of approach, and from the amount of work
+      already carried out, it is clear that the contingency of having to act on
+      the defensive was not overlooked when the details of the strategically
+      offensive campaign were arranged.</p>
+
+
+      <h3 class="one">V.</h3>
+      <h3 class="two">Technique of This Warfare.</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Made Public Oct. 9.]</p>
+
+      <p>Wednesday, Sept. 30, merely marked another day's progress in the
+      gradual development of the situation, and was distinguished by no
+      activity beyond slight attacks by the enemy. There was also artillery
+      fire at intervals. One of our airmen succeeded in dropping nine bombs,
+      some of which fell on the enemy's rolling stock collected on the railway
+      near Laon. Some of the enemy's front trenches were found empty at night;
+      but nothing much can be deduced from this fact, for they are frequently
+      evacuated in this way, no doubt to prevent the men in the back lines
+      firing on their comrades in front of them.</p>
+
+      <p>Thursday, Oct. 1, was a most perfect Autumn day, and the most peaceful
+      that there has been since the two forces engaged on the Aisne. There was
+      only desultory gunfire as targets offered. During the night the enemy
+      made a few new trenches. A French aviator dropped one bomb on a railway
+      station and three bombs on troops massed near it.</p>
+
+      <p>The weather on Friday, the 2d, was very misty in the early hours, and
+      it continued hazy until the late afternoon, becoming thicker again at
+      night. The Germans were driven out of a mill which they had occupied as
+      an advanced post, their guns and machine guns which supported it being
+      knocked out one by one by well-directed artillery fire from a flank.
+      During the night they made the usual two attacks on the customary spot in
+      our lines, and as on previous occasions were repulsed. Two of their
+      trenches were captured and filled in. Our loss was six men wounded.</p>
+
+      <p>Up to Sept, 21 the air mileage made by our airmen since the beginning
+      of the war amounted to 87,000 miles, an average of 2,000 miles per day,
+      the total equaling nearly four times the circuit of the world. The total
+      time spent in the air was 1,400 hours.</p>
+
+      <p>There are many points connected with the fighting methods of either
+      side that may be of interest. The following description was given by a
+      battalion commander who has been at the front since the commencement of
+      hostilities and has fought both in the open and behind intrenchments. It
+      must, however, be borne in mind that it only represents the experiences
+      of a particular unit. It deals with the tactics of the enemy's
+      infantry:</p>
+
+      <blockquote>
+         <p>The important points to watch are the heads of valleys and ravines,
+         woods&mdash;especially those on the sides of hollow ground&mdash;and
+         all dead ground to the front and flanks. The German officers are
+         skilled in leading troops forward under cover, in closed bodies, but
+         once the latter are deployed and there is no longer direct personal
+         leadership the men will not face heavy fire. Sometimes the advance is
+         made in a series of lines, with the men well opened out at five or six
+         paces interval; at other times it is made in a line, with the men
+         almost shoulder to shoulder, followed in all cases by supports in
+         close formation. The latter either waver when the front line is
+         checked, or crowd on to it, moving forward under the orders of their
+         officers, and the mass forms a magnificent target.  Prisoners have
+         described the fire of our troops as pinning them to the ground, and
+         this is certainly borne out by their action.</p>
+
+         <p>When the Germans are not heavily intrenched no great losses are
+         incurred in advancing against them by the methods in which the British
+         Army has been instructed. For instance, in one attack over fairly open
+         ground against about an equal force of infantry sheltered in a sunken
+         road and in ditches we lost only 10 killed and 60 wounded, while over
+         400 of the enemy surrendered after about 50 had been killed. Each side
+         had the support of a battery, but the fight for superiority from
+         infantry fire took place at about 700 yards and lasted only half an
+         hour. When the Germans were wavering some of them put up the white
+         flag, but others went on firing, and our men continued to do the same.
+         Eventually a large number of white flags, improvised from
+         handkerchiefs, pieces of shirt, white biscuit bags, &amp;c., were
+         exhibited all along the line, and many men hoisted their helmets on
+         their rifles.</p>
+
+         <p>In the fighting behind intrenchments the Germans endeavor to gain
+         ground by making advances in line at dusk or just before dawn, and
+         then digging themselves in, in the hope, no doubt, that they may
+         eventually get so near as to be able, as at manoeuvres, to reach the
+         hostile trenches in a single rush. They have never succeeded in doing
+         this against us. If by creeping up in dead ground they do succeed in
+         gaining ground by night, they are easily driven back by fire in the
+         morning. A few of the braver men sometimes remain behind, at ranges of
+         even 300 or 400 yards, and endeavor to inflict losses by sniping.
+         Sharpshooters, also, are often noticed in trees or wriggling about
+         until they get good cover. The remedy is to take the initiative and
+         detail men to deal with the enemy's sharpshooters.</p>
+
+         <p>A few night attacks have been made against us. Before one of them a
+         party crept up close to the British line and set alight a hayrick, so
+         that it should form a beacon on which the centre of the attacking line
+         marched. Generally, however, in the night and early morning attacks,
+         groups of forty or fifty men have come on, the groups sometimes widely
+         separated from one another and making every endeavor to obtain any
+         advantage from cover. Light balls and searchlights have on some
+         occasions been used. Latterly the attacks have become more and more
+         half-hearted. Against us the enemy has never closed with the bayonet.
+         The German trenches I have seen were deep enough to shelter a man when
+         firing standing, and had a step down in rear for the supports to sit
+         in.</p>
+
+         <p>As regards our own men, there was at first considerable reluctance
+         to intrench, as has always been the case at the commencement of a war.
+         Now, however, having bought experience dearly, their defenses are such
+         that they can defy the German artillery fire.</p>
+      </blockquote>
+
+
+      <h3 class="one">VI.</h3>
+      <h3 class="two">Becomes an Artillery Duel.</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Made Public Oct. 10.]</p>
+
+      <p>Comparative calm on our front has continued through the fine and
+      considerably warmer weather. The last six days have been slightly misty
+      with clouds hanging low, so that conditions have not been very favorable
+      for aerial reconnoissance.</p>
+
+      <p>In regard to the latter, it is astonishing how quickly the habit is
+      acquired, even by those who are not aviators, of thinking of the weather
+      in terms of its suitability for flying. There has been a bright moon
+      also, which has militated against night attacks.</p>
+
+      <p>On Saturday, Oct. 3, practically nothing happened, except that each
+      side shelled the other.</p>
+
+      <p>Toward evening on Sunday, Oct. 4, there was a similar absence of
+      activity. Opposite one portion of our line the enemy's bands played
+      patriotic airs, and the audiences which gathered gave a chance to our
+      waiting howitzers.</p>
+
+      <p>Not only do their regimental bands perform occasionally, but with
+      their proverbial fondness for music the Germans have in some places
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'gramaphones']">gramophones</ins>
+      in their trenches.</p>
+
+      <p>On Monday, the 5th, there were three separate duels in the air between
+      French and German aviators, one of which was visible from our trenches.
+      Two of the struggles were, so far as could be seen, indecisive, but in
+      the third the French airmen were victorious, and brought down their
+      opponents, both of whom were killed by machine gun fire. The observer was
+      so burned as to be unrecognizable.</p>
+
+      <p>During the day some men of the Landwehr were taken prisoners by us.
+      They were in very poor condition and wept copiously when captured. One,
+      on being asked what he was crying for, explained that though they had
+      been advised to surrender to the English, they believed that they would
+      be shot.</p>
+
+      <p>On that evening our airmen had an unusual amount of attention paid to
+      them, both by the German aviators and their artillery of every
+      description.</p>
+
+      <p>One of our infantry patrols discovered 150 dead Germans in a wood, one
+      and a half miles from our front. We sent a party out to bury them, but it
+      was fired upon and had to withdraw.</p>
+
+      <p>On Tuesday, the 6th, the enemy's guns were active in the afternoon. It
+      is believed that the bombardment was due to anger because two of our
+      howitzer shells had detonated right in one of the enemy's trenches, which
+      was full of men. Three horses were killed by the German fire.</p>
+
+      <p>Wednesday, the 7th, was uneventful.</p>
+
+      <p>On Thursday, the 8th, the shelling by the enemy of a locality on our
+      front, which has so far been the scene of their greatest efforts, was
+      again continuous. Opposite one or two points the Germans have attempted
+      to gain ground by sapping in some places with the view of secretly
+      pushing forward machine guns in advance of their trenches, so that they
+      can suddenly sweep with crossfire the space between our line and theirs,
+      and so take any advance of ours on the flank.</p>
+
+      <p>It is reported that at one point where the French were much annoyed by
+      the fire of a German machine gun, which was otherwise inaccessible, they
+      drove a mine gallery, 50 meters (about 164 feet) long, up to and under
+      the emplacement, and blew up the gun. The man who drove the gallery
+      belonged to a corps which was recruited in one of the coal-mining
+      districts of France.</p>
+
+      <p>The German machine guns are mounted on low sledges, and are
+      inconspicuous and evidently easily moved.</p>
+
+      <p>The fighting now consists mostly of shelling by the artillery of both
+      sides and in front a line of fire from the machine guns as an occasional
+      target offers. Our Maxims have been doing excellent work and have proved
+      most efficient weapons for the sort of fighting in which we are now
+      engaged.</p>
+
+      <p>At times there are so many outbursts of their fire in different
+      directions that it is possible for an expert to tell by comparison which
+      of the guns have their springs adjusted and are well tuned up for the
+      day. The amount of practice that our officers are now getting in the use
+      of this weapon is proving most valuable in teaching them how to maintain
+      it at concert pitch as an instrument and how to derive the best tactical
+      results from its employment.</p>
+
+      <p>Against us the Germans are not now expending so much gun ammunition as
+      they have been, but they continue to fire at insignificant targets. They
+      have the habit of suddenly dropping heavy shells without warning in
+      localities of villages far behind our front line, possibly on the chance
+      of catching some of our troops in bivouac or billets. They also fire a
+      few rounds at night.</p>
+
+      <p>The artillery has up to now played so great a part in the war that a
+      few general remarks descriptive of the methods of its employment by the
+      enemy are justified. Their field artillery armament consists of
+      15-pounder quick-fire guns for horse and field batteries of divisions and
+      there are, in addition, with each corps three to six batteries of
+      4.3-inch field howitzers and about two batteries of 5.9-inch howitzers.
+      With an army there are some 8.2-inch heavy howitzers.</p>
+
+      <p>The accuracy of their fire is apt at first to cause some alarm, more
+      especially as the guns are usually well concealed and the position and
+      the direction from which the fire is proceeding are difficult of
+      detection. But accurate as is their shooting, the German gunners have on
+      the whole had little luck, and during the past three weeks an
+      astonishingly small proportion of the number of shells fired by them have
+      been really effective.</p>
+
+      <p>Quite the most striking feature of their handling of the artillery is
+      the speed with which they concentrate the fire upon any selected point.
+      They dispense to a great extent with the method of ranging known by us as
+      bracketing, especially when acting on the defensive, and direct their
+      fire by means of squared maps and the telephone. Thus, when the target is
+      found, its position on the map is telephoned to such batteries as it is
+      desired to employ against that particular square.</p>
+
+      <p>In addition to the guns employed to fire on the targets as they are
+      picked up, others are told off to watch particular roads, and to deal
+      with any of the enemy using them.</p>
+
+      <p>Both for the location of targets and the communication of the effect
+      of the fire, reliance is placed on observation from aeroplanes and
+      balloons and on information supplied by special observers and secret
+      agents, who are sent out ahead or left behind in the enemy's lines to
+      communicate by telephone or signal. These observers have been found in
+      haystacks, barns, and other buildings well in advance of the German
+      lines.  Balloons of the so-called sausage pattern remain up in the air
+      for long periods for the purpose of discovering targets, and until our
+      aviators made their influence felt by chasing all hostile aeroplanes on
+      sight the latter were continually hovering over our troops in order to
+      register their positions and to note where the headquarters, reserves,
+      gun teams, &amp;c., were located.</p>
+
+      <p>If suitable targets are discovered the airman drops a smoke ball
+      directly over it or lets fall some strips of tinsel, which glitter in the
+      sun as they slowly descend to the earth. The range to the target is
+      apparently ascertained by those near the guns by a large telemeter, or
+      other range finder, which is kept trained on the aeroplane, so that when
+      the signal is made the distance to the target vertically below is at once
+      obtained. A few rounds are then fired, and the result is signalled back
+      by the aviator according to some prearranged code.</p>
+
+
+      <h3 class="one">VII.</h3>
+      <h3 class="two">A Fight in the Clouds.</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Dated Oct. 13.]</p>
+
+      <p>From Friday the 9th of October until Monday the 12th so little
+      occurred that a narrative of the events can be given in a few words.
+      There has been the usual sporadic shelling of our trenches which has
+      resulted in but little harm, so well dug in are our men, and on the night
+      of the 10th the Germans made yet a fresh assault, supported by artillery
+      fire, against the point which has all along attracted most of their
+      attention.</p>
+
+      <p>The attempt was again a costly failure toward which our guns were able
+      to contribute with great effect.</p>
+
+      <p>Details have been received of an exciting encounter in midair. One of
+      our aviators on a fast scouting monoplane sighted a hostile machine. He
+      had two rifles, fixed one on either side of his engines, and at once gave
+      chase, but lost sight of his opponent among the clouds. Soon, however,
+      another machine hove into view which turned out to be a German Otto
+      biplane, a type of machine which is not nearly so fast as our scouts. Our
+      officer once again started a pursuit. He knew that owing to the position
+      of the propeller of the hostile machine he could not be fired at when
+      astern of his opponent. At sixty yards range he fired one rifle without
+      apparent result. Then as his pace was carrying him ahead of his quarry he
+      turned round, and, again coming to about the same distance behind,
+      emptied his magazine at the German.</p>
+
+      <p>The latter began at once to descend as if either he or his machine
+      were hit, and shutting off his engine and volplaning to free his hands,
+      the pursuer recharged his magazine. Unfortunately it jammed, but he
+      managed to insert four cartridges and to fire them at his descending
+      opponent, who disappeared into a cloud bank with dramatic suddenness.
+      When the British officer emerged below the clouds he could see no sign of
+      the other. He, therefore, climbed to an altitude of some 7,000 feet and
+      came to the conclusion that the German must have come to earth in the
+      French lines.</p>
+
+      <p>The French airmen, too, have been very successful during the last
+      three days, having dropped several bombs among the German cavalry and
+      caused considerable loss and disorder, and having by similar means
+      silenced a battery of field howitzers.</p>
+
+      <p>The German anti-aircraft guns recently have been unusually active.
+      From their rate of fire they seem to be nearly automatic, but so far they
+      have not had much effect in reducing the air reconnoissances carried out
+      by us.</p>
+
+      <p>A striking feature of our line&mdash;to use the conventional term
+      which so seldom expresses accurately the position taken up by an
+      army&mdash;is that it consists really of a series of trenches not all
+      placed alongside each other, but some more advanced than others, and many
+      facing in different directions. At one place they run east and west along
+      one side of a valley. At another almost north and south up some
+      subsidiary valley.  Here they line the edge of woods, and there they are
+      on the reverse slope of a hill, or possibly along a sunken road, and at
+      different points both the German and the British trenches jut out like
+      promontories into what might be regarded as the opponents' territory.</p>
+
+      <p>Though both sides have moved forward at certain points, and withdrawn
+      at others, no very important change has been effected in their
+      dispositions, in spite of the enemy's repeated counter attacks. These
+      have been directed principally against one portion of the position won by
+      us, but in spite of the lavish expenditure of life they have not so far
+      succeeded in driving us back.</p>
+
+      <p>The situation of the works in the German front line as a whole has
+      been a matter of deliberate selection, for they have had the advantage of
+      previous reconnaissance, being first in the field.</p>
+
+      <p>Behind the front they now have several lines prepared for a
+      step-by-step defense. Another point which might cause astonishment to a
+      visitor to our intrenchments is the evident indifference displayed to the
+      provision of an extended field of frontal rifle fire, which is generally
+      accepted as being one of the great requirements of a defensive position.
+      It is still desirable, if it can be obtained without the usually
+      accompanying drawback of exposure to the direct fire of hostile
+      artillery, but experience has shown that a short field of fire is
+      sufficient to beat back the infantry assaults of the enemy, and by giving
+      up direct fire at long or medium ranges and placing our trenches on the
+      reverse slope of a hill or behind the crest, it is in many places
+      possible to gain shelter from the frontal fire of the German guns, for
+      the men are well trained in musketry and under good fire control, and the
+      dead ground beyond the short range from their position has comparatively
+      small terrors.</p>
+
+      <p>Many of the front trenches of the Germans equally lack a distant field
+      of fire, but if lost they would be rendered untenable by us by the fact
+      that they would be exposed to a fire from the German guns in the rear and
+      to cross-rifle fire from neighboring works.</p>
+
+      <p>The extent to which cross-fire of all kinds is employed is also
+      remarkable. Many localities and areas along the Aisne are not swept from
+      the works directly in front of them, but are rendered untenable by rifle
+      fire from neighboring features or by that of guns that are out of sight.
+      So much is this the case that among these hills and valleys it is a
+      difficult matter for troops to find out whence they are being shot
+      at.</p>
+
+      <p>There is a perpetual triangular duel. A's infantry can see nothing to
+      shoot at, but are under fire from B's guns. The action of B's guns then
+      brings upon them the attention of some of A's artillery waiting for a
+      target, the latter being in their turn assailed by other batteries. And
+      so it goes on. In a wooded country in spite of aeroplanes and balloons
+      smokeless powder has made the localization and identification of targets
+      a matter of supreme difficulty.</p>
+
+
+      <h3 class="one">VIII.</h3>
+      <h3 class="two">The Men in the Trenches.</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Dated Oct. 13.]</p>
+
+      <p>On the firing line the men sleep and obtain shelter in dug-outs they
+      have hollowed or cut under the sides of the trenches.  These refuges are
+      raised slightly above the bottom of the trench, so as to remain dry in
+      wet weather. The floor of the trench also is sloped for purposes of
+      draining. Some of the trenches are provided with overhead cover which
+      gives protection from the weather as well as from shrapnel balls and
+      splinters of shells. Considerable ingenuity has been exercised by the men
+      in naming these shelters. Among the favorite designations are the "Hotel
+      Cecil," the "Ritz Hotel," the "Billet-Doux Hotel," and the "Rue
+      Dormir."</p>
+
+      <p>On the road barricades also are to be found boards bearing this
+      notice: "This way to the Prussians."</p>
+
+      <p>Obstacles of every kind abound, and at night each side can hear the
+      enemy driving pickets for entanglements, digging <i>trous-de-loup</i>, or
+      working forward by sapping. In some places obstacles have been
+      constructed by both sides so close together that some wag suggested that
+      each side provide working parties to perform this fatigue duty
+      alternately, inasmuch as the work of the enemy is now almost
+      indistinguishable from ours, and serves the same purpose.</p>
+
+      <p>Quarries and caves, to which allusion already has been made, provide
+      ample accommodation for whole battalions, and most comfortable are these
+      shelters which have been constructed in them. The northern slopes of the
+      Aisne Valley fortunately are very steep, and this to a great extent
+      protects us from the enemy's shells, many of which pass harmlessly over
+      our heads, to burst in the meadows along the river bank.</p>
+
+      <p>At all points subject to shell fire access to the firing line from
+      behind is provided by communication trenches. These are now so good that
+      it is possible to cross in safety a fire-swept zone to the advance
+      trenches from billets in villages, bivouacs in quarries, or other places
+      where the headquarters of units happen to be.</p>
+
+      <p>It already has been mentioned that according to information obtained
+      from the enemy fifteen Germans were killed by a bomb dropped upon the
+      ammunition wagon of a cavalry column. It was thought at the time that
+      this might have been the work of one of our airmen, who reported that he
+      had dropped a hand grenade on this convoy, and had then got a bird's-eye
+      view of the finest display of fireworks he had ever seen. From
+      corroborative evidence it now appears that this was the case; that the
+      grenade thrown by him probably was the cause of the destruction of a
+      small convoy carrying field-gun and howitzer ammunition, which now has
+      been found a total wreck.</p>
+
+      <p>Along the road lie fourteen motor lorries, their iron skeletons
+      twisted and broken. Everything inflammable has been burned, as have the
+      stripped trees&mdash;some with split trunks&mdash;on either side of the
+      road. Of the drivers, nothing remains except tattered boots and charred
+      scraps of clothing, while the ground within a radius of fifty yards of
+      the wagons is littered with pieces of iron, split brass cartridge cases,
+      which have exploded, and some fixed-gun ammunition with live shells.</p>
+
+      <p>If it were possible to reconstruct this incident, if it was, in fact,
+      brought about as supposed, the grenade from the aeroplane must have
+      detonated on the leading lorry, on one side of the road, and caused the
+      cartridges carried by it to explode. Three vehicles immediately in the
+      rear must then have been set on fire, with a similar result. Behind these
+      are groups of four and two vehicles so jammed together as to suggest that
+      they must have collided in desperate attempts to stop. On the other side
+      of the road, almost level with the leading wagon, are found more
+      vehicles, which probably were fired by the explosion of the first.</p>
+
+      <p>If this appalling destruction was due to one hand grenade, it is an
+      illustration of the potentialities of a small amount of high explosive
+      detonated in the right spot, while the nature of the place where the
+      disaster occurred, a narrow forest road between high trees, is a
+      testimony to the skill of the airmen.</p>
+
+      <p>It is only fair to add that some French newspapers claim this damage
+      to the enemy was caused by the action of a detachment of their
+      dragoons.</p>
+
+
+      <h3 class="one">IX.</h3>
+      <h3 class="two">1,100 Dead in a Single Trench.</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Official Summary, Dated Oct. 27.]</p>
+
+      <p>The Official Bureau makes public today the story of an eye-witness,
+      supplementing the account issued on Oct. 24, and bringing the story of
+      the general course of operations in France up to Oct. 20.  The arrival of
+      reinforcements, it says, enabled the British troops to assist in the
+      extension of the Allies' line where the Germans advanced from the
+      northeast and east, holding a front extending from Mont Descats, about
+      ten miles northeast of Hazebrouck, through Meteren, five miles south of
+      that point, and thence to Estaires, thirteen miles west of Lille, on the
+      River Lys. The statement continues:</p>
+
+      <p>"South of the Lys the German line extended to three miles east of
+      Bethune to Vermelles. The Allies encountered resistance all along the
+      line on the 12th and 13th, when the enemy's right fell back hastily.
+      Bailleul, seventeen miles northwest by west of Lille, which had been
+      occupied by the foe for eight days, was abandoned without a shot being
+      fired.</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image016-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image016.jpg"
+            alt="Gen. von B&uuml;low"
+            title="Gen. von B&uuml;low"/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><span class="bscaps">Gen. von B&uuml;low</span><br />
+         Commanding One of the German Armies in the West<br />
+         (<i>Copyright, Photographische Gesellschaft, by permission of the
+            Berlin Photographic Co., N.Y.</i>)</p>
+      </div>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image017-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image017.jpg"
+            alt="Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria"
+            title="Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria"/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><span class="bscaps">Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria</span><br />
+         (<i>Copyright, Photographische Gesellschaft, by permission of the
+            Berlin Photographic Co., N.Y.</i>)</p>
+      </div>
+
+      <p>"On the 14th our left wing advanced, driving the enemy back, and on
+      the night of the 15th we were in possession of all the country on the
+      left bank of the Lys to a point five miles below Armenti&egrave;res. The
+      enemy retired from that town on the 16th, and the river line, to within a
+      short distance of Frelinghien, fell into our hands.</p>
+
+      <p>"The state of the crossings over the Lys indicated that no organized
+      scheme of defense had been executed, some of the bridges being in a state
+      of repair, others merely barricaded, while one was not even defended or
+      broken.</p>
+
+      <p>"The resistance offered to our advance on the 15th was of a most
+      determined character. The fighting consisted of fiercely contested
+      encounters, infantry attacks on the villages being unavailing until our
+      howitzers reduced the houses to ruins. Other villages were taken and
+      retaken three times before they were finally secured.</p>
+
+      <p>"The French cavalry here gave welcome support, and on the evening of
+      the 16th the resistance was overcome, the enemy retiring five miles to
+      the eastward."</p>
+
+      <p>Describing an incident of the fighting on this night, the narrative
+      says that the important crossing of the Lys at Warneton was strongly held
+      by the Germans with a barricade loopholed at the bottom to enable the men
+      to fire while lying down.</p>
+
+      <p>"Our cavalry, with the artillery, blew the barricade to pieces and
+      scattered the defenders," the narrative continues. "Advancing
+      three-quarters of a mile our troops reached the square, when one of the
+      buildings appeared to leap skyward. A sheet of flame and a shower of star
+      shells at the same time made the place as light as day and enabled the
+      enemy, ensconced in surrounding houses, to pour a devastating fire from
+      rifles and machine guns. Our cavalry extricated themselves with the loss
+      of one officer wounded and nine men killed and wounded, but a party of
+      volunteers went back and carried off their wounded comrades from the
+      inferno.</p>
+
+      <p>"During the 17th, 18th, and 19th of October our right encountered
+      strong opposition from the enemy about La Bass&eacute;e, where they had
+      established themselves behind embankments. On the centre and the left we
+      made better progress, although the Germans were everywhere intrenched,
+      and, in spite of the bombardment, held some villages on the Lys. At the
+      close of each day a night counter stroke was delivered against one or
+      another part of our line, but they were all repulsed.</p>
+
+      <p>"Tuesday, Oct. 20, a determined but unsuccessful attack was made
+      against virtually the whole of our line. At one point where one of our
+      brigades made a counter attack 1,100 German dead were found in a trench
+      and forty prisoners were taken."</p>
+
+      <p>The narrative points out that the advance of the Allies has been
+      hindered by the weather and the nature of the ground, together with the
+      impossibility of knowing beforehand the reception that advance
+      detachments were likely to meet in approaching any village or town. "One
+      place may be evacuated hastily as untenable," the recital continues,
+      "while another in the same general line will continue to resist for a
+      considerable time. In some villages the inhabitants meet our cyclists
+      with kisses, while at the next one the roads will, in all probability,
+      have trenches cut across them and blocked with barricades and machine
+      guns. Under these circumstances an incautious advance is severely
+      punished, and it is impossible for large bodies of troops to push on
+      until the front has been thoroughly reconnoitred. This work requires the
+      highest qualities from our cavalry, our cyclists, and our advanced
+      guards.</p>
+
+      <p>Armored motor cars equipped with machine guns are now playing a part
+      in the war, and have been most successful in dealing with small parties
+      of German mounted troops. In their employment our gallant allies, the
+      Belgians, who are now fighting with us and acquitting themselves nobly,
+      have shown themselves to be experts. They appear to regard Uhlan hunting
+      as a form of sport. The crews display the utmost dash and skill in this
+      form of warfare, often going out several miles ahead of their own
+      advanced troops and seldom failing to return loaded with spoils in the
+      shape of lancers' caps, busbies, helmets, lances, rifles, and other
+      trophies, which they distribute as souvenirs to the crowds in the market
+      places of the frontier towns.</p>
+
+      <p>Although the struggle in the northern area naturally attracts more
+      attention than the one in the Aisne, the fighting in this region still
+      continues. Although there has been no alteration in the general
+      situation, the enemy has made certain changes in the positions of his
+      heavy artillery, with the result that one or two places which formerly
+      were safe are now subject to bombardment, while others which were
+      approachable only at night or by crawling on hands and knees now serve as
+      recreation grounds. At one point even a marquee tent has been
+      erected.</p>
+
+      <p>A story from this quarter illustrates a new use for the craters made
+      by the explosions of the "Black Marias," the name given by the men to the
+      projectiles of the big German howitzers. An officer on patrol stumbled in
+      the dark on the German trenches. He turned and made for the British
+      lines, but the fire directed at him was so heavy that he had to throw
+      himself on the ground and crawl. There was no cover at hand, and his
+      chances looked desperate, when he saw close by an enormous hole in the
+      ground made by one of these large shells. Into this he scrambled and
+      remained there for a night and a day. When night again came he succeeded
+      in reaching our lines in safety.</p>
+
+      <p>Official casualty lists of recent date which have been captured show
+      that the losses of the Germans continue to be heavy. One single list
+      shows that a company of German infantry had 139 men killed and wounded,
+      or more than half of its war establishment. Other companies suffered
+      almost as heavily. It further appears that the number of men reported
+      missing&mdash;that is, those who have fallen into the hands of the enemy
+      or who have become marauders&mdash;is much greater in the reserve
+      battalions than in the first line units. This is evidence of the inferior
+      quality of some of the reserves now being brought up to reinforce the
+      enemy field army, and it is all the more encouraging, since every day
+      adds to our first line strength.</p>
+
+      <p>The arrival of the Indian contingents caused every one to realize that
+      while the enemy was filling his depleted ranks with immature levies, we
+      have large reserves of perfectly fresh and thoroughly trained troops to
+      draw upon.</p>
+
+
+      <h3 class="one">X.</h3>
+      <h3 class="two">Nature of Fighting Changes.</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Dated Oct. 26.]</p>
+
+      <p>Before the
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'narative']">narrative</ins>
+      of the progress of the fighting near the Franco-Belgian frontier
+      subsequent to Oct. 20 is continued a brief description will be given of
+      the movement of a certain fraction of our troops from its former line
+      facing north, on the east of Paris, to its present position facing east,
+      in the northwest corner of France, by which a portion of the British Army
+      has been enabled to join hands with the incoming and growing stream of
+      reinforcements.</p>
+
+      <p>This is now an accomplished fact, as is generally known, and can
+      therefore be explained in some detail without detriment. Mention will
+      also be made of the gradual development up to Oct. 20 in the nature of
+      the operations in this quarter of the theatre of war, which has recently
+      come into such prominence.</p>
+
+      <p>In its broad lines the transfer of strength by one combatant during
+      the course of a great battle which has just been accomplished is somewhat
+      remarkable. It can best be compared with the action of the Japanese
+      during the battle of Mukden, when Gen. Oku withdrew a portion of his
+      force from his front, moved it northward behind the line, and threw it
+      into the fight again near the extreme left of the Japanese armies.</p>
+
+      <p>In general direction, though not in scope or possible results, owing
+      to the coast line being reached by the Allies, the
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'parellel']">parallel</ins>
+      is complete. The Japanese force concerned, however, was much smaller than
+      ours and the distance covered by it was less than that from the Aisne to
+      the Franco-Belgian frontier. Gen. Oku's troops, moreover, marched,
+      whereas ours were moved by march, rail, and motor.</p>
+
+      <p>What was implied in the actual withdrawal from contact with the enemy
+      along the Aisne will be appreciated when the conditions under which we
+      were then situated are recalled.</p>
+
+      <p>In places the two lines were not one hundred yards apart, and for us
+      no movement was possible during daylight. In some of the trenches which
+      were under enfilade fire our men had to sit all day long close under the
+      traverses&mdash;as are called those mounds of earth which stretch like
+      partitions at intervals across a trench so as to give protection from
+      lateral fire. Even where there was cover, such as that afforded by
+      depressions or sunken roads, on the hillside below and behind our firing
+      line, any attempt to cross the intervening space was met by fierce bursts
+      of machine gun and shell fire.</p>
+
+      <p>The men in the firing line were on duty for twenty-four hours at a
+      time, and brought rations and water with them when they came on duty, for
+      none could be sent up to them during the day. Even the wounded could not
+      be removed until dark.</p>
+
+      <p>The preliminary retirement of the units was therefore carried out
+      gradually, under cover of darkness. That the Germans only once opened
+      fire on them while so engaged was due to the care with which the
+      operation was conducted, and also, probably, to the fact that the enemy
+      were so accustomed to the recurrence of the sounds made by the reliefs of
+      the men in the firing line and by the movement of the supply trains below
+      that they were misled as to what was actually taking place.</p>
+
+      <p>What the operation amounted to on our part was the evacuation of the
+      trenches, under carefully made arrangements with the French who had to
+      take our place in the trenches; the retirement to the river
+      below&mdash;in many cases down a steep slope; the crossing of the river
+      over the noisy plank roadways of floating or repaired bridges, which were
+      mostly commanded by the enemy's guns&mdash;and the climb up to the top of
+      the plateau on the south side.</p>
+
+      <p>The rest of the move was a complicated feat of transportation which
+      cut across some of the lines of communication of our allies; but it
+      requires no description here. In spite of the various difficulties, the
+      whole strategic operation of transferring the large number of troops from
+      the Aisne was carried out without loss and practically without a
+      hitch.</p>
+
+      <p>As regards the change in the nature of the fighting in which we have
+      recently been engaged, it has already been pointed out that the
+      operations had up till then been of a preparatory nature and that the
+      Germans were obviously seeking to delay us by advanced troops while
+      heavier forces were being got ready and brought up to the scene of
+      action. It was known that they were raising a new army, consisting of
+      corps formed of Ersatz, (supernumerary reserves), volunteers, and other
+      material which had not yet been drawn upon, and that part of it would in
+      all probability be sent to the western theatre, either to cover the
+      troops laying siege to Antwerp, in case that place should hold out, or,
+      in the event of the capture of the fortress, to act in conjunction with
+      the besieging force in a violent offensive movement toward the coast.</p>
+
+      <p>After the fall of Antwerp and the release of the besieging troops
+      there was a gradual increase in the strength of the opposition met with
+      by us.</p>
+
+      <p>The resistance of the detachments&mdash;which beyond the right extreme
+      of the German fortified line near Bethune a fortnight ago consisted
+      almost entirely of cavalry&mdash;grew more and more determined as more
+      infantry and guns came into the front line, until Tuesday, Oct. 20, when
+      the arrival opposite us of a large portion of the new formations and a
+      considerable number of heavy guns enabled the enemy to assume the
+      offensive practically against the whole of our line at the same time that
+      they attacked the Belgians between us and the coast.</p>
+
+      <p>The operations then really assumed a fresh complexion.</p>
+
+      <p>Since that date, up to the 25th, apart from the operations on either
+      side of us, there has been plenty of action to chronicle on our immediate
+      front, where some of the heaviest fighting in which we have yet been
+      engaged has taken place, resulting in immense loss to the Germans.</p>
+
+      <p>On Wednesday, the 21st, the new German formations again pressed
+      forward in force vigorously all along our line. On our right, south of
+      the Lys, an attack on Violaines was repulsed with loss to the
+      assailants.</p>
+
+      <p>On the other hand, we were driven from some ground close by, to the
+      north, but regained it by a counter attack.</p>
+
+      <p>Still further north the Germans gained and retained some points.</p>
+
+      <p>Their total casualties to the southeast of Armentieres are estimated
+      at over 6,000.</p>
+
+      <p>On the north of the Lys, in our centre, a fiercely contested action
+      took place near La Gheir, which village was captured in the morning by
+      the enemy and then retaken by us. In this direction the German casualties
+      were also extremely heavy. They came on with the greatest bravery, in
+      swarms, only to be swept away by our fire. One battalion of their 104th
+      Regiment was practically wiped out, some 400 dead being picked up by us
+      in our lines alone.</p>
+
+      <p>Incidentally, by our counter attack, we took 130 prisoners and
+      released some forty of our own men who had been surrounded and captured,
+      including a subaltern of artillery who had been cut off while observing
+      from a point of vantage.</p>
+
+      <p>It is agreeable to record that our men were very well treated by their
+      captors, who were Saxons, being placed in cellars for protection from the
+      bombardment of our own guns.</p>
+
+      <p>On our left our troops advanced against the German 26th Reserve Corps
+      near Passchendaele, and were met by a determined counter offensive, which
+      was driven back with great loss. At night the Germans renewed their
+      efforts unsuccessfully in this quarter.</p>
+
+      <p>At one point they tried a ruse which is no longer new. As they came up
+      in a solid line two deep they shouted out: "Don't fire; we are the
+      Coldstream Guards."</p>
+
+      <p>But our men are getting used to tricks of this kind, and the only
+      result of this "slimness" was that they allowed the enemy's infantry to
+      approach, quite close before they swept them down with magazine fire.</p>
+
+      <p>Apart from the 400 dead found near our lines in our centre, our
+      patrols afterwards discovered some 300 dead further out in front of our
+      left, killed by our artillery.</p>
+
+      <p>Thursday, the 22d, saw a renewal of the pressure against us. We
+      succeeded, however, in holding our ground in nearly every quarter.</p>
+
+      <p>South of the Lys the enemy attacked from La Bass&eacute;e, and gained
+      Violaines and another point, but their effort against a third village was
+      repulsed by artillery fire alone, the French and British guns working
+      together very effectively. On the north of the river it was a day of
+      minor attacks against us, which were all beaten back.</p>
+
+      <p>The Germans advanced in the evening against our centre and left, and
+      were again hurled back, though they gained some of our trenches in the
+      latter quarter. By this time the enemy had succeeded in bringing up
+      several heavy howitzers, and our casualties were considerable.</p>
+
+      <p>On Friday, the 23d, all action south of the Lys on our right was
+      confined to that of the artillery, several of the hostile batteries being
+      silenced by our fire? In the centre their infantry again endeavored to
+      force their way forward, and were only repulsed after determined
+      fighting, leaving many dead on the ground and several prisoners in our
+      hands. North of the Lys attacks at different points were repulsed.</p>
+
+      <p>On our left the 23d was a bad day for the Germans. Advancing in our
+      turn, we drove them from some of the trenches out of which they had
+      turned us on the previous evening, captured 150 prisoners, and released
+      some of our men whom they had taken.</p>
+
+      <p>As the Germans retreated our guns did great execution among them.</p>
+
+      <p>They afterwards made five desperate assaults on our trenches,
+      advancing in mass and singing "Die Wacht am Rhein" as they came on. Each
+      assault was easily beaten back, our troops waiting until the enemy came
+      to very close range before they opened fire with rifles and Maxims,
+      causing terrible havoc in the solid masses.</p>
+
+      <p>During the fighting in this quarter on the night of the 22d and on the
+      23d the German losses were again extremely heavy. We made over 600
+      prisoners during that time and picked up 1,500 dead, killed on the latter
+      day alone.</p>
+
+      <p>Much of the slaughter was due to the point blank magazine fire of our
+      men against the German assaults, while our field guns and howitzers,
+      working in perfect combination, did their share when the enemy were
+      repulsed. As they fell back they were subjected to a shower of shrapnel.
+      When they sought shelter in villages or buildings they were shattered and
+      driven out by high-explosive shells and then again caught by shrapnel as
+      they came into the open.</p>
+
+      <p>The troops to suffer so severely were mostly of Twenty-third Corps,
+      one of their new formations.</p>
+
+      <p>Certainly the way their advance was conducted showed a lack of
+      training and faults in leading which the almost superhuman bravery of the
+      soldiers could not counterbalance. It was a holocaust.</p>
+
+      <p>The spectacle of these devoted men chanting a national song as they
+      marched on to certain death was inspiring. It was at the same time
+      pitiable.</p>
+
+      <p>And if any proof were needed that untrained valor alone cannot gain
+      the day in modern war, the advance of the Twenty-third German Corps on
+      Oct.  23 most assuredly furnished it.</p>
+
+      <p>Besides doing its share of execution on the hostile infantry, our
+      artillery in this quarter brought down a German captive balloon.</p>
+
+      <p>As some gauge of the rate at which the guns were firing at what was
+      for them an ideal target, it may be mentioned that one field battery
+      expended 1,800 rounds of ammunition during the day.</p>
+
+      <p>On Saturday, the 24th, action on our right was once more confined to
+      that of artillery, except at night, when the Germans pressed on, only to
+      be repulsed.</p>
+
+      <p>In the centre, near Armenti&egrave;res, our troops withstood three
+      separate attempts of the enemy to push forward, our guns coming into play
+      with good effect. Against our left the German Twenty-seventh Corps made a
+      violent effort with no success.</p>
+
+      <p>On Sunday, the 25th, it was our turn to take the offensive. This was
+      carried out by a portion of our left wing, which advanced, gained some
+      ground, and took two guns and eighty prisoners. It is believed that six
+      machine guns fell to the French.</p>
+
+      <p>In the centre the fighting was severe, though generally indecisive in
+      result, and the troops in some places were engaged in hand-to-hand
+      combat. Toward evening we captured 200 prisoners.</p>
+
+      <p>On the right action was again confined to that of the guns.</p>
+
+      <p>Up to the night of the 25th, therefore, not only have we maintained
+      our position against the great effort on the part of the enemy to break
+      through to the west, or to force us back, which started on the 20th; we
+      have on our left passed to the offensive.</p>
+
+      <p>These six days, as may be gathered, have been spent by us in repelling
+      a succession of desperate onslaughts. It is true that the efforts against
+      us have been made to a great extent by partially trained men, some of
+      whom appear to be suffering from lack of food. But it must not be
+      forgotten that these troops, which are in great force, have only recently
+      been brought into the field, and are therefore comparatively fresh. They
+      are fighting also with the utmost determination, in spite of the fact
+      that many of them are heartily sick of the war.</p>
+
+      <p>The struggle has been of the most severe and sanguinary nature, and it
+      seems that success will favor that side which is possessed of most
+      endurance, or can bring up and fling fresh forces into the fray. Though
+      we have undoubtedly inflicted immense loss upon the enemy, they have so
+      far been able to fill up the gaps in their ranks and to return to the
+      charge, and we have suffered heavily ourselves.</p>
+
+      <p>One feature of the tactics now employed has been the use of cavalry in
+      dismounted action, for on both sides many of the mounted troops are
+      fighting in the trenches alongside the infantry.</p>
+
+      <p>Armored motor cars, armed with Maxims and light quick-firing guns,
+      also have recently played a useful part on our side, especially in
+      helping to eject the enemy lurking in villages and isolated buildings.
+      Against such parties the combined action of the quick-firer against the
+      snipers in buildings, and the Maxim against them when they are driven
+      into the open, is most efficacious.</p>
+
+
+      <h3 class="one">XI.</h3>
+      <h3 class="two">The British Defense at Ypres.</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Dated Nov. 13.]</p>
+
+      <p>The diminution in the force of the German rush to the west has not
+      lasted long. The section of the front to the north of our forces was the
+      first to meet the recrudescence of violence in the shape of an attack in
+      the neighborhood of Dixmude and Bixschoote.</p>
+
+      <p>Our turn came next. After eight days of comparative relaxation we were
+      under constant pressure from Tuesday, Nov. 3, to Tuesday, the 10th. The
+      next day saw a repetition of the great attempt of the Germans to break
+      through our lines to the French coast.</p>
+
+      <p>What was realized might happen did happen. In spite of the immense
+      losses suffered by the enemy during the five-day attack against Ypres,
+      which lasted from Oct. 29 to the 2d of this month, the cessation of their
+      more violent efforts on the latter day did not signalize the abandonment
+      of the whole project, but merely the temporary relinquishment of the main
+      offensive until fresh troops had been massed to carry on what was proving
+      to be a costly and difficult operation.</p>
+
+      <p>Meanwhile the interval was employed in endeavoring to wear out the
+      Allies by repeated local attacks of varying force and to shatter them by
+      a prolonged and concentrated bombardment. By the 11th, therefore, it
+      seems that they considered they had attained both objects, for on that
+      day they recommenced the desperate battle for the possession of Ypres and
+      its neighborhood.</p>
+
+      <p>Though the struggle has not yet come to an end, this much can be said:
+      The Germans have gained some ground, but they have not captured
+      Ypres.</p>
+
+      <p>In repulsing the enemy so far we have suffered heavy casualties, but
+      battles of this fierce and prolonged nature cannot but be costly to both
+      sides. We have the satisfaction of knowing that we have foiled the enemy
+      in what appears to be at present his main object in the western theatre
+      of operations, and have inflicted immensely greater losses on him than
+      those we have suffered ourselves.</p>
+
+      <p>To carry on the narrative for the three days of the 10th, 11th, and
+      12th of November:</p>
+
+      <p>Tuesday, the 10th, was uneventful for us. At some distance beyond our
+      left flank the enemy advanced in force against the French and were
+      repulsed. Directly on our left, however, along the greater part of the
+      front, shelling was less severe, and no infantry attacks took place.</p>
+
+      <p>To the southeast of Ypres the enemy kept up a very heavy bombardment
+      against our line, as well as that of the French. On our left centre the
+      situation remained unchanged, both sides contenting themselves with
+      furious cannonading. In our centre the Germans retained their hold on the
+      small amount of ground which they had gained from us, but in doing so
+      incurred a heavy loss from our artillery and machine gun fire.</p>
+
+      <p>Incidentally, one of the houses held by the enemy was so knocked about
+      by our fire that its defenders bolted. On their way to the rear they were
+      met by reinforcements under an officer who halted them, evidently in an
+      endeavor to persuade them to return. While the parley Was going on one of
+      our machine guns was quietly moved to a position of vantage, whence it
+      opened a most effective fire on the group.</p>
+
+      <p>On our right one of the enemy's saps, which was being pushed toward
+      our line, was attacked by us. All the men in it were captured.</p>
+
+      <p>Wednesday, the 11th, was another day of desperate fighting. As day
+      broke the Germans opened fire on our trenches to the north and south of
+      the road from Menin to Ypres. This was probably the most furious
+      artillery fire which they have yet employed against us.</p>
+
+      <p>A few hours later they followed this by an infantry assault in force.
+      This attack was carried out by the First and Fourth brigades of the Guard
+      Corps, which, as we now know from prisoners, have been sent for to make a
+      supreme effort to capture Ypres, since that task had proved too heavy for
+      the infantry of the line.</p>
+
+      <p>As the attackers surged forward they were met by our frontal fire, and
+      since they were moving diagonally across part of our front they were also
+      attacked on the flank by artillery, rifles, and machine guns.  Though
+      their casualties before they reached our line must have been enormous,
+      such was their resolution and the momentum of the mass that in spite of
+      the splendid resistance of our troops they succeeded in breaking through
+      our line in three places near the road. They penetrated some distance
+      into the woods behind our trenches, but were counter-attacked again,
+      enfiladed by machine guns and driven back to their line of trenches, a
+      certain portion of which they succeeded in holding, in spite of our
+      efforts to expel them.</p>
+
+      <p>What their total losses must have been during this advance may be
+      gauged to some extent from the fact that the number of dead left in the
+      woods behind our line alone amounted to 700.</p>
+
+      <p>A simultaneous effort made to the south, a part of the same operation
+      although not carried out by the Guard Corps, failed entirely, for when
+      the attacking infantry massed in the woods close to our line, our guns
+      opened on them with such effect that they did not push the assault
+      home.</p>
+
+      <p>As generally happens in operations in wooded country, the fighting to
+      a great extent was carried on at close quarters. It was most desperate
+      and confused. Scattered bodies of the enemy who had penetrated into the
+      woods in the rear of our position could neither go backward nor forward,
+      and were nearly all killed or captured.</p>
+
+      <p>The portion of the line to the southeast of Ypres held by us was
+      heavily shelled, but did not undergo any very serious infantry attack.
+      That occupied by the French, however, was both bombarded and fiercely
+      assaulted. On the rest of our front, save for the usual bombardment, all
+      was comparatively quiet.</p>
+
+      <p>On the right one of our trenches was mined and then abandoned. As soon
+      as it was occupied by the enemy the charges were fired and several
+      Germans were blown to pieces.</p>
+
+      <p>Thursday, Nov. 12, was marked by a partial lull in the fighting all
+      along our line. To the north a German force which had crossed the Yser
+      and intrenched on the left bank was annihilated by a night attack with
+      the bayonet, executed by the French. Slightly to the south the enemy was
+      forced back for three-quarters of a mile. Immediately on our left the
+      French were strongly attacked and driven back a short distance, our
+      extreme left having to conform to this movement. Our allies soon
+      recovered the ground they had lost, however, and this enabled us to
+      advance also.</p>
+
+      <p>To the southeast of Ypres the enemy's snipers were very active. On our
+      centre and right the enemy's bombardment was maintained, but nothing
+      worthy of special note occurred.</p>
+
+      <p>The fact that on this day the advance against our line in front of
+      Ypres was not pushed home after such an effort as that of Wednesday tends
+      to show that for the moment the attacking troops had had enough.</p>
+
+      <p>Although the failure of this great attack by the Guard Corps to
+      accomplish their object cannot be described as a decisive event, it
+      possibly marks the culmination if not the close of the second stage in
+      the attempt to capture Ypres, arid it is not without significance. It has
+      also a dramatic interest of its own. Having once definitely failed to
+      achieve this object by means of the sheer weight of numbers, and having
+      done their best to wear us down, the Germans brought in fresh picked
+      troops to carry the Ypres salient by an assault from the north, the south
+      and the east. That the Guard Corps should have been selected to act
+      against the eastern edge of the salient may be taken as proof of the
+      necessity felt by the Germans to gain this point in the line.</p>
+
+      <p>Their dogged perseverance in pursuance of their objective claims
+      whole-hearted admiration. The failure of one great attack, heralded as it
+      was by an impassioned appeal to the troops made in the presence of the
+      Emperor himself, but carried out by partially trained men, has been only
+      the signal for another desperate effort in which the place of honor was
+      assigned to the corps d'&eacute;lite of the German Army.</p>
+
+      <p>It must be admitted that the Guard Corps has retained that reputation
+      for courage and contempt of death which it earned in 1870, when Emperor
+      William I., after the battle of Gravelotte, wrote: "My Guard has found
+      its grave in front of St. Privat," and the swarms of men who came up
+      bravely to the British rifles in the woods around Ypres repeated the
+      tactics of forty-four years ago when their dense columns, toiling up the
+      slopes of St. Privat, melted away under the fire of the French.</p>
+
+      <p>That the Germans are cunning fighters, and well up in all the tricks
+      of the trade, has frequently been pointed out. For instance, they often
+      succeed in ascertaining what regiment or brigade is opposed to them, and
+      because of their knowledge of English, they are able to employ the
+      information to some purpose. On a recent occasion, having by some means
+      discovered the name of the commander of the company holding the trench
+      they were attacking, they called him by name, asking if Captain
+      &mdash;&mdash; was there. Fortunately the pronunciation of the spokesman
+      was somewhat defective, and their curiosity was rewarded by discovering
+      that both the officer in question and his men were very much there.</p>
+
+      <p>There have been reports from so many different quarters of the enemy
+      having been seen wearing British and French uniforms that it is
+      impossible to doubt their truth. One absolutely authentic case occurred
+      during the fighting near Ypres. A man dressed in a uniform closely
+      resembling that of a British staff officer suddenly appeared near our
+      trenches and walked along the line. He asked if many casualties had been
+      suffered, stated that the situation was serious, and that a general
+      retirement had been ordered. A similar visit having been reported by
+      several men in different trenches, orders were issued that this strange
+      officer was to be detained if seen again. Unluckily he did not make
+      another appearance.</p>
+
+      <p>The following remarks taken from the diary of a German soldier are
+      published not because there is reason to believe they are justified with
+      regard to the conduct of German officers but because of their interest as
+      a human document. Under date of Nov. 2 this German soldier wrote:</p>
+
+      <blockquote>
+         <p>Previous to noon we were sent out in a regular storm of bullets on
+         the order of the Major. These gentlemen, the officers, send their men
+         forward in a most ridiculous way. They themselves remain far behind,
+         safely under cover. Our leadership is really scandalous.  Enormous
+         losses on our side are partly from the fire of our own people, for our
+         leaders neither know where the enemy lies nor where our own troops
+         are, so that we often are fired on by our own men.  It is a marvel to
+         me that we have got on as far as we have done.</p>
+
+         <p>Our Captain fell, as did also all our section leaders and a large
+         number of our men. Moreover, no purpose was served by this advance,
+         for we remained the rest of the day under cover; we could go neither
+         forward nor back, nor even shoot.</p>
+
+         <p>The trench we had taken was not occupied by us. The English
+         naturally took it back at night. That was the sole result. Then when
+         the enemy had intrenched themselves another attack was made, costing
+         us many lives and fifty prisoners. It is simply ridiculous, this
+         leadership. If only I had known it before! My opinion of German
+         officers has changed.</p>
+
+         <p>An Adjutant shouted to us from a trench far to the rear to cut down
+         a hedge in front of us. Bullets were whistling round from in front and
+         from behind. The gentleman himself, of course, remained behind.</p>
+
+         <p>The Fourth Company has now no leaders but a couple of non-coms.
+         When will my turn come! I hope to goodness I shall get home again.</p>
+
+         <p>In the trenches shells and shrapnel burst without ceasing. In the
+         evening we get a cup of rice and one-third of an apple per man. Let us
+         hope peace will soon come. Such a war is really too awful. The English
+         shoot like mad. If no reinforcements come up, especially heavy
+         artillery, we shall have a poor lookout and must retire.</p>
+
+         <p>The first day I went quietly into the fight with an indifference
+         which astonished me. Today, for the first time, in advancing, when my
+         comrades on the right and left were falling, I felt rather nervous.
+         But I lost that feeling again soon. One becomes horribly
+         indifferent.</p>
+
+         <p>I picked up a piece of bread by chance. Thank God! At least I have
+         something to eat.</p>
+
+         <p>There are about 70,000 English who must be attacked from all four
+         sides and destroyed. However, they defend themselves obstinately.</p>
+      </blockquote>
+
+
+      <h3 class="one">XII.</h3>
+      <h3 class="two">Attacked by 750,000 Germans.</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Official Summary, Dated Dec. 3.]</p>
+
+      <p>Col. E.D. Swinton of the Intelligence Department of the General Staff
+      of the British Expeditionary Force in France and Belgium, in a narrative
+      dated Nov. 26, gives a general review of the development of the situation
+      of the force for six weeks preceding that date.</p>
+
+      <p>There has recently been a lull in the active operations, he says. No
+      progress has been made by either side, and yet there has come about an
+      important modification comprising a readjustment in the scope of the part
+      played by the British Army as a whole. He explains the movement from the
+      River Aisne to the Belgian frontier to prolong the left flank of the
+      French Army, and says that in attempting this the British force was
+      compelled to assume responsibility for a very extended section of the
+      front. He points out, as did Field Marshal Sir John French, Commander in
+      Chief of the British forces, that the British held only one-twelfth of
+      the line, so that the greater share of the common task of opposing the
+      enemy fell and still falls to the French, while the Belgians played an
+      almost vital part.</p>
+
+      <p>With the fall of Antwerp the Germans made every effort to push forward
+      a besieging force toward the west and hastened to bring up a new army
+      corps which had been hastily raised and trained, their object being to
+      drive the Allies out of Belgium and break through to Dunkirk and Calais.
+      Altogether they had a quarter of a million of fresh men. Eventually the
+      Germans had north of La Bass&eacute;e about fourteen corps and eight cavalry
+      divisions, that is, "a force of three-quarters of a million of men with
+      which to attempt to drive the Allies into the sea. In addition, there was
+      immensely powerful armament and heavy siege artillery, which also had
+      been brought up from around Antwerp."</p>
+
+      <p>The official eye-witness tells of the blows delivered by the Germans
+      at Nieuport, Dixmude, and Ypres, where "at first the Allies were greatly
+      outnumbered." For a whole month the British army around Ypres succeeded
+      in holding its ground against repeated onslaughts made by vastly superior
+      forces. The writer goes into details of the German attacks and describes
+      how they were frustrated by the Allies.</p>
+
+      <p>The British force, says Col. Swinton, which consisted all along of the
+      same units, had "to withstand an almost continuous bombardment and to
+      meet one desperate assault after another, each carried out by fresh units
+      from the large numbers which the Germans were devoting to the operation."
+      Finally the French came to their assistance, and "never was help more
+      welcome; for by then our small local reserves had again and again been
+      thrown into the fight in the execution of counter-attacks, and our men
+      were exhausted by the incessant fighting."</p>
+
+      <p>The British front now has been considerably shortened and in addition
+      has been reinforced, while a lull in the activity has enabled the British
+      to readjust their forces, strengthen their positions, and bring up
+      reserves. There has, therefore, "been a great general improvement in the
+      conditions under which we are carrying on the fight". Of the fighting
+      which preceded this reorganization the writer says it is due solely to
+      the resource, initiative, and endurance of the regimental officers and
+      men that success has lain with the British. He continues:</p>
+
+      <p>"As the struggle swayed backward and forward through wood and hamlet,
+      the fighting assumed a most confused and desperate character. The units
+      became inextricably mixed, and in many cases, in order to strengthen some
+      threatened point or to fill a gap in the line, the officers had to
+      collect and throw into the fight what men they could, regardless of the
+      units to which they belonged. Our casualties have been severe; but we
+      have been fighting a battle, and a battle implies casualties, and, heavy
+      as they have been, it must be remembered that they have not been suffered
+      in vain.</p>
+
+      <p>"The duty of the French, Belgians, and British in the western theatre
+      of operations has been to act as a containing force; in other words, to
+      hold on to and to keep occupied as many of the enemy as possible while
+      the Russians were attacking in the east. In this we have succeeded in
+      playing our part, and by our resistance have contributed materially
+      toward the success of the campaign. Moreover, our losses have not
+      impaired our fighting efficiency. The troops have required only a slight
+      respite in order to be able to continue the action with as much
+      determination as ever. They are physically fit and well fed and have
+      suffered merely from the fatigue which is inseparable from a protracted
+      struggle such as they have been through. The severest handling by the
+      enemy has never had more than a temporary effect on their spirits, which
+      they have soon recovered, owing to the years of discipline and training
+      to which the officers and men have been accustomed.</p>
+
+      <p>"The value of such preparation is as noticeable on the side of the
+      enemy as on our own. The phenomenal losses suffered by the Germans' new
+      formations have been remarked, and they were in part due to their lack of
+      training. Moreover, though at the first onset these formations advanced
+      to the attack as gravely as their active corps, they have not by any
+      means, shown the same recuperative powers. The Twenty-seventh Corps, for
+      instance, which is a new formation composed principally of men with from
+      only seven to twelve weeks' training, has not yet recovered from its
+      first encounter with the British infantry around Becelaere, to the
+      northeast of Ypres, a month ago. On the other hand, the Guards Corps, in
+      spite of having suffered severely in Belgium, of having been thrown
+      headlong across the Oise River at Guise and of having lost large numbers
+      on the plains of Compi&egrave;gne and on the banks of the Aisne River,
+      advanced against Ypres on the 11th of November as bravely as they did on
+      the 20th of August."</p>
+
+      <p>The Allies, continues Col. Swinton, have made great sacrifices to
+      defend against tremendous odds a line that could only be maintained by
+      making these sacrifices; but the fact that the situation has been
+      relieved is no reason for assuming that the enemy has abandoned his
+      intention of pressing through to the sea. The writer points out that the
+      Germans continue to attack with great courage, but little abated by
+      failure, and, while they have not succeeded in gaining the Straits of
+      Dover, they have been enabled to consolidate their position on the
+      western front and retain all but a small portion of Belgium.</p>
+
+      <p>"As well as they have fought, however," continues the narrative, "it
+      is doubtful if their achievements are commensurate with their losses,
+      which recently have been largely due to a lack of training and a
+      comparative lack of discipline of the improvised units they put in the
+      field."</p>
+
+      <p>Col. Swinton concludes with the statement that, as the war is going to
+      be one of exhaustion, after the regular armies of the belligerents have
+      done their work it will be upon the raw material of the countries
+      concerned that final success will depend.</p>
+
+
+      <h3 class="one">XIII.</h3>
+      <h3 class="two">The Lull in November.</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Dated Nov. 29.]</p>
+
+      <p>General inactivity is recorded along the English front, with the
+      Germans pressing the attack in one quarter against the Indian troops, who
+      have been extending their trenches in an endeavor to get in close
+      quarters with the enemy. There has been some shelling of the rear of our
+      front line south of the Lys, but this form of annoyance diminishes daily
+      along the whole front. Sniping, however, is carried on almost
+      incessantly.  There seems to be little doubt that the Germans are
+      employing civilians, either willingly or unwillingly, to dig trenches;
+      some civilians have been seen and shot while engaged in this work.</p>
+
+      <p>While it is necessary to accept the evidence of all prisoners with
+      caution, there is a change in the views expressed by some officers
+      captured recently which appears to be genuine. They admit the failure of
+      the German strategy and profess to take a gloomy view of the future. At
+      the same time it must be confessed that as yet there is no sign that
+      their view is that generally held by the enemy, nor has there been any
+      definite indication of a lack of morale among the German troops.</p>
+
+      <p>The highways of Northern France are crowded with men responding to the
+      various mobilization orders issued by the French Government.</p>
+
+      <p>Thousands of such troops were encountered in the course of a short
+      automobile trip. The strange procession includes a curious mixture of
+      types. A considerable proportion of these new drafts are composed of
+      middle-aged men of good physique and likely young men from the
+      countryside.</p>
+
+      <p>The change within the last few days of what may be termed the
+      atmosphere of the battlefield has been marked. The noise of the
+      cannonading has now decreased to such an extent that for hours at a time
+      nothing is heard but the infrequent boom of one of the heavy guns of the
+      Allies, the occasional rattle of machine guns, and the intermittent fire
+      of snipers on either side. So far as the use of explosives is concerned,
+      the greatest activity is found in local attacks with hand grenades and
+      short-range howitzers. The enemy has practically ceased his efforts to
+      break through the line by assaults, and he is now devoting his energies
+      to the same type of siege operations which have been familiar to the
+      Allies since the beginning of the battle of the Aisne.</p>
+
+      <p>Subterranean life is the general rule in the neighborhood of the
+      firing line. Even those men not actually engaged in fighting live in
+      underground quarters. Some of these quarters, called "funk-holes" are
+      quite elaborate and comfortable and contain many conveniences not found
+      in the trenches on the firing line. They communicate with the firing line
+      by zigzag approach trenches which make enfilading impossible.</p>
+
+      <p>Attacks are made on the firing line trenches by blind saps, which are
+      constructed by a special earth borer. When this secret tunnel reaches the
+      enemy's trench, an assault is delivered amid a shower of hand grenades.
+      The stormers endeavor to burst their way through the opening and then try
+      to work along the trench. Machine guns are quickly brought up to repel a
+      counter attack. Most of this fighting takes place at such close range
+      that the guns on either side cannot be fired at the enemy's infantry
+      without great risk of hitting their own men. Bombs have come to take the
+      place of artillery, and they are being used in enormous quantities.</p>
+
+      <p>The short-range howitzers are of three types, and those used by the
+      Germans have come to be termed the "Jack Johnson" of close attack. The
+      smaller bombs and grenades thrown by hand, although local in action, are
+      very unpleasant, particularly between the inclosed space of a trench.
+      These grenades are thrown continuously by both sides, and every trench
+      assault is first preceded and then accompanied by showers of these
+      murderous missiles. This kind of fighting is very deadly, and owing to
+      the difficulty of observation it is at times somewhat blind. This
+      difficulty has in a measure been decreased, however, by the use of the
+      hyperscope, an instrument which works very much like the periscope on a
+      submarine. It permits an observer to look out over the top of a parapet
+      without raising his head above the protection of the trench.</p>
+
+
+      <div class="poem">
+         <div class="title">The Dawn of a New Day.</div>
+         <div class="author">By Edward Neville Vose.</div>
+         <div class="stanza">
+            <div>The old year dies 'mid gloom and woe&mdash;</div>
+            <div class="i1">The saddest year since Christ was born&mdash;</div>
+            <div>And those who battle in the snow</div>
+            <div class="i1">All anxious-eyed look for the morn&mdash;</div>
+            <div>The morn when wars shall be no more,</div>
+            <div class="i1">The morn when Might shall cease to reign,</div>
+            <div>When hushed shall be the cannons' roar</div>
+            <div class="i1">And Peace shall rule the earth again.</div>
+         </div>
+         <div class="stanza">
+            <div>As we from far survey the fray</div>
+            <div class="i1">And strive to succor those who fall,</div>
+            <div>Let each give thanks that not today</div>
+            <div class="i1">To us the clarion bugles call&mdash;</div>
+            <div>That not today to us 'tis said:</div>
+            <div class="i1">"Bow down the knee, or pay the cost</div>
+            <div>Till all ye loved are maimed or dead,</div>
+            <div class="i1">Till all ye had is wrecked and lost."</div>
+         </div>
+         <div class="stanza">
+            <div>Should that grim summons to us come</div>
+            <div class="i1">God grant we'd all play heroes' parts,</div>
+            <div>And bravely fight for land and home</div>
+            <div class="i1">While red blood flows in loyal hearts.</div>
+            <div>But now a duty nobler far</div>
+            <div class="i1">Has come to us in this great day&mdash;</div>
+            <div>We are the nations' guiding star,</div>
+            <div class="i1">They look to us to lead the way.</div>
+         </div>
+         <div class="stanza">
+            <div>They look to us to lead the way</div>
+            <div class="i1">To liberty for all the world,</div>
+            <div>The dawning of that better day</div>
+            <div class="i1">When war's torn banners shall be furled&mdash;</div>
+            <div>The day when men of every race</div>
+            <div class="i1">Their right divine shall clearly see</div>
+            <div>To rule themselves by their own grace,</div>
+            <div class="i1">Forever and forever free.</div>
+         </div>
+      </div>
+
+
+      <h2>"Human Documents" of Battle</h2>
+      <p class="h2">By Men Who Saw or Took Part.</p>
+
+      <blockquote>
+         <p><i>Written in the hurry and confusion of battle, and without the
+            opportunity at hand to check up the impressions given, it is of
+            course likely that these dispatches from special correspondents may
+            contain many things which history will correct. But as human
+            documents they have no equal, and history will not be able, however
+            she may correct matters of detail and partisan feeling, to offer
+            anything which will give a more vivid impression of the glare and
+            roar of battle than do these letters, penned by men actually in or
+            near the firing line at the moment of great events. As such</i>
+         <span class="pscaps">The Times</span> <i>offers them, not as frozen
+            history, but as history in the making, and has no apologies to make
+            for an error of fact here and there, for those very errors are in a
+            way testimony that adds value to the story&mdash;the story of
+            honest and hard-driven human beings writing what was passing before
+            their eyes</i>.</p>
+      </blockquote>
+
+
+      <h3>The German Entry Into Brussels</h3>
+      <p class="h3"><b>By John Boon of The London Daily Mail.</b></p>
+
+      <p class="right">BRUSSELS, via Alost, Aug. 20. (Thursday,) 10 P.M.</p>
+
+      <p>The Germans entered Brussels shortly after 2 P.M. today without firing
+      a shot.</p>
+
+      <p>Yielding to the dictates of reason and humanity, the civil Government
+      at the last moment disbanded the Civic Guard, which the Germans would not
+      recognize. The soldiers and ordinary police were then entrusted with the
+      maintenance of order.</p>
+
+      <p>After a day of wild panic and slumberless nights the citizens remained
+      at their windows. Few sought their couches.</p>
+
+      <p>The morning broke brilliantly. The city was astir early, and on all
+      lips were the words: "They are here" or "They are coming!"</p>
+
+      <p>The "they" referred to were already outside the boundaries in great
+      force. The artillery was packed off on the road to Waterloo. Horse, foot,
+      and sapper were packed deep on the Louvain and Tervervueren roads.</p>
+
+      <p>An enterprising motorist came in with the information and the crowds
+      in the busy centres immediately became calm. At 11 o'clock it was
+      reported that an officer with half a troop of hussars bearing white flags
+      had halted outside the Louvain gate.</p>
+
+      <p>The Burgomaster and four Sheriffs went in a motor car to meet the
+      officers. They were conducted to the German military authorities at the
+      head of the column. The meeting took place outside the barracks of the
+      carabineers.</p>
+
+      <p>The Burgomaster claimed for the citizens their rights under the laws
+      of war regulating an unfortified capital. When roughly asked if he was
+      prepared to surrender the city, with the threat that otherwise it would
+      be bombarded, the Burgomaster said he would do so. He also decided to
+      remove his scarf of office.</p>
+
+      <p>The discussion was brief. When the Burgomaster handed over his scarf
+      it was handed back to him and he was thus intrusted for the time being
+      with the civil control of the citizens. The Germans gave him plainly to
+      understand that he would be held responsible for any overt act on the
+      part of the populace against the Germans.</p>
+
+      <p>From noon until 2 o'clock the crowds waited expectantly. Shortly after
+      2 o'clock the booming of cannon and later the sound of military music
+      conveyed to the people of Brussels the intimation that the triumphant
+      march of the enemy on the ancient city had begun.</p>
+
+      <p>On they came, preceded by a scouting party of Uhlans, horse, foot, and
+      artillery and sappers, with a siege train complete.</p>
+
+      <p>A special feature of the procession was 100 motor cars on which
+      quick-firers were mounted. Every regiment and battery was headed by a
+      band, horse or foot.</p>
+
+      <p>Now came the drums and fifes, now the blare of brass and soldiers
+      singing "Die Wacht am Rhein" and "Deutschland Ueber Alles."</p>
+
+      <p>Along the Chaussee de Louvain, past St. Josse and the Botanical
+      Gardens, to the great open space in front of the Gare du Nord, the usual
+      lounging place of the tired twaddlers of the city, swept the legions of
+      the man who broke the peace of Europe.</p>
+
+      <p>Among the cavalry were the famous Brunswick Death's Head Hussars and
+      their companions on many bloody fields, the Zeiten Hussars. But where was
+      the glorious garb of the German troops, the cherry-colored uniforms of
+      the horsemen and the blue of the infantry? All is greenish, earth-color
+      gray. All the hel- [<i>Transcriber: Text missing in original.</i>] are
+      painted gray. The gun carriages are gray. Even the pontoon bridges are
+      gray.</p>
+
+      <p>To the quick-step beat of the drums the Kaiser's men march to the
+      great Square Charles Rogier. Then at the whistling sound of the word of
+      command&mdash;for the sonorous orders of the German officers seemed to
+      have gone the way of the brilliant uniforms&mdash;the gray-clad ranks
+      broke into the famous goose step, while the good people of Li&eacute;ge
+      and Brussels gazed at the passing wonder with mouths agape.</p>
+
+      <p>At the railroad station the great procession defiled to the boulevards
+      and thence marched to encamp on the heights of the city called
+      Kochelberg. It was truly a sight to have gladdened the eyes of the
+      Kaiser, but on the sidewalks men were muttering beneath their breath:
+      "They'll not pass here on their return. The Allies will do for them."</p>
+
+      <p>Many of the younger men in the great array seemed exhausted after the
+      long forced march, but as a man staggered his comrades in the ranks held
+      him up.</p>
+
+      <p>It was a great spectacle and an impressive one, but there were minor
+      incidents that were of a less pleasant character.</p>
+
+      <p>Two Belgian officers, manacled and fastened to the leather stirrups of
+      two Uhlans, made a spectacle that caused a low murmur of resentment from
+      the citizens. Instantly German horsemen backed their steeds into the
+      closely packed ranks of the spectators, threatening them with uplifted
+      swords and stilling the momentary revolt.</p>
+
+      <p>At one point of the march a lame hawker offered flowers for sale to
+      the soldiers. As he held up his posies a Captain of Hussars by a movement
+      of his steed sent the poor wretch sprawling and bleeding in the dust.
+      Then from the crowd a Frenchwoman, her heart scorning fear, cried out,
+      "You brute!" so that all might hear.</p>
+
+      <p>There was one gross pleasantry, too, perpetrated by a gunner who led
+      along a bear, evidently the pet of his battery, which was dressed in the
+      full regalia of a Belgian General.</p>
+
+      <p>The bear was evidently intended to represent the King. He touched his
+      cocked hat at intervals to his keeper.</p>
+
+      <p>This particularly irritated the Belgians, but they wisely abstained
+      from any overt manifestation or any unpleasant feature of behavior. The
+      soldiery as they passed tore repeatedly at the national colors which
+      every Belgian lady now wears on her breast.</p>
+
+      <p>A more pleasant incident was when a party of Uhlans clamored for
+      admittance at a villa on the Louvain road. They disposed of a dozen
+      bottles of wine and bread and meat. The non-commissioned officer in
+      command asked what the charge was and offered some gold pieces in
+      payment. The money was refused.</p>
+
+      <p>Near the steps of St. Gudule a party of officers of high rank, seated
+      in a motor car, confiscated the stock of the news vendors. After greedily
+      scanning the sheets they burst into loud laughter.</p>
+
+      <p>Hour after hour, hour after hour, the Kaiser's legions marched into
+      Brussels streets and boulevards. Some regiments made a very fine
+      appearance, and it is well that the people of England should know this.
+      It was notably so in the case of the Sixty-sixth, Fourth and Twenty-sixth
+      Regiments. Not one man of these regiments showed any sign of excessive
+      fatigue after the gruelling night of marching, and no doubt the order to
+      "goose step" was designedly given to impress the onlookers with the
+      powers of resistance of the German soldiers.</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image018-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image018.jpg"
+            alt="The First Rush Into Belgium."
+            title="The First Rush Into Belgium."/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><b>The First Rush Into Belgium.</b></p>
+      </div>
+
+      <p>The railway stations, the Post Office and the Town Hall were at once
+      closed. The national flag on the latter was pulled down and the German
+      emblem hoisted in its place. Practically all the shops were closed and
+      the blinds drawn on most of the windows.</p>
+
+      <p>At the time of writing I have heard of no very untoward incident. The
+      last train left Brussels at 9 o'clock on Wednesday night. Passengers to
+      the city cannot pass beyond Denderleeuw, where there are strong German
+      pickets.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>The Fall of Antwerp</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3"><b>By a Correspondent of The London Daily Chronicle, Who Was
+         at Antwerp During the Siege.</b></p>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Special Dispatch to <span class="pscaps">The New York Times</span>.]</p>
+
+      <p>LONDON, Oct. 11.&mdash;A Daily Chronicle correspondent who has just
+      arrived from Antwerp tells the following story of his experiences:</p>
+
+      <p>Antwerp has been surrendered. This last and bitterest blow which has
+      fallen upon Belgium is full of poignant tragedy, but the tragedy is
+      lightened by the gallantry with which the city was defended.</p>
+
+      <p>Only at the last, to save the historic buildings and precious
+      possessions of the ancient port, was its further defense abandoned.
+      Already much of it had been shattered by the long-range German guns, and
+      prolonged resistance against these tremendous engines of war was
+      impossible.</p>
+
+      <p>Owing to this the siege was perhaps the shortest in the annals of war
+      that a fortified city ever sustained. I have already described its
+      preliminaries and the many heroic efforts which were made by the Belgians
+      to stem the tide of the enemy's advance, but the end could not long be
+      delayed when the siege guns began the bombardment.</p>
+
+      <p>It was at three minutes past noon on Friday that the Germans entered
+      the city, which was formally surrendered by the Burgomaster, J. de Vos.
+      Antwerp had then been under a devastating and continuous shell fire for
+      over forty hours.</p>
+
+      <p>It was difficult for me to ascertain precisely how the German attack
+      was being constituted, but from officers and others who made journeys
+      from the fighting lines into the city I gathered that the final assault
+      consisted of a continuous bombardment of two hours' duration, from 7:30
+      o'clock in the morning until 9:30.</p>
+
+      <p>During that time there was a continuous rain of shells, and it was
+      extraordinary to notice the precision with which they dropped just where
+      they would do the most damage. I was told that the Germans used captive
+      balloons, whose officers signaled to the gunners the points in the
+      Belgian defense at which they should aim.</p>
+
+      <p>The German guns, too, were concealed with such cleverness that their
+      position could not be detected by the Belgians. Against such methods and
+      against the terrible power of the German guns the Belgian artillery
+      seemed quite ineffective. The firing came to an end at 9:30 o'clock
+      Friday, and the garrison escaped, leaving only ruins behind them.</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image019-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image019.jpg"
+            alt="Gen. von Kluck"
+            title="Gen. von Kluck"/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><span class="bscaps">Gen. von Kluck</span><br />
+         Commanding on the German Left Wing in the West<br />
+         (<i>Copyright, Photographische Gesellschaft, by permission of the
+            Berlin Photographic Co., N.Y.</i>)</p>
+      </div>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image020-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image020.jpg"
+            alt="Gen. von Hindenburg"
+            title="Gen. von Hindenburg"/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><span class="bscaps">Gen. von Hindenburg</span><br />
+         The German Commander in the East<br />
+         (<i>Copyright, Photographische Gesellschaft, by permission of the
+            Berlin Photographic Co. N.Y.</i>)</p>
+      </div>
+
+      <p>In order to gain time for an orderly retreat, a heavy fire was
+      maintained against the Germans up to the last minute, and the forts were
+      then blown up by the defenders as the Germans came in at the Gate of
+      Malines. I was lucky enough to escape by the river to the north in a
+      motor boat. The bombardment had then ceased, though many buildings were
+      still blazing, and while the little boat sped down the Scheldt one could
+      imagine the procession of the Kaiser's troops already goose-stepping
+      their way through the well-nigh deserted streets.</p>
+
+      <p>Those forty hours of shattering noise, almost without a lull, seem to
+      me now a fantastic nightmare, but the harrowing sights I witnessed in
+      many parts of the city cannot be forgotten. It was Wednesday night that
+      the shells began to fall into the city. From then onward they must have
+      averaged about ten a minute, and most of them came from the largest guns
+      which the Germans possess&mdash;"Black Marias," as Tommy Atkins has
+      christened them.</p>
+
+      <p>Before the bombardment had been long in operation the civil population
+      or a large proportion of it fell into a panic. It is impossible to blame
+      these peaceful, quiet living burghers of Antwerp for the fears that
+      possessed them when the merciless rain of German shells began to fall
+      into the streets and on the roofs of their houses and public buildings.
+      The Burgomaster had in his proclamation given them excellent advice to
+      remain calm and he certainly set them an admirable example, but it was
+      impossible to counsel the Belgians who knew what had happened to their
+      fellow citizens in other towns which the Germans had passed through.</p>
+
+      <p>Immense crowds of them, men, women and children, gathered along the
+      quayside and at the railway stations in an effort to make a hasty exit
+      from the city. Their condition was pitiable in the extreme. Family
+      parties made up the biggest proportion of this vast crowd of broken men
+      and women. There were husbands and wives with their groups of scared
+      children unable to understand what was happening, yet dimly conscious in
+      their childish way that something unusual and terrible and perilous had
+      come into their lives.</p>
+
+      <p>In many groups were to be seen old, old people, grandfathers and
+      grandmothers of a family, and these in their shaking frailty and terror,
+      which they could not withstand, were the more pitiable objects in the
+      great gathering of stricken townsfolk. This pathetic clinging together of
+      the family was one of the most affecting sights I witnessed, and I have
+      not the slightest doubt that in the mad rush for refuge beyond the
+      borders of their native land many family groups of this sort completely
+      perished.</p>
+
+      <p>All day and throughout the night these pitiful scenes continued, and
+      when I went down to the quayside early Thursday, when the dawn was
+      throwing a wan light over this part of the world, I found again a great
+      host of citizens awaiting their chance of flight.</p>
+
+      <p>In the dimness of the breaking day this gathering of "Les
+      Mis&eacute;rables" presented, as it seemed to me, the tragedy of Belgium
+      in all its horror.  I shall never forget the sight. Words would fail to
+      convey anything but a feeble picture of the depths of misery and despair
+      there. People stood in dumb and patient ranks drawn down to the quayside
+      by the announcement that two boats would leave at 11 o'clock for Ostend,
+      and Ostend looks across to England, where lie their hopes.</p>
+
+      <p>There were fully 40,000 of them assembled on the long quay, and all of
+      them were inspired by the sure and certain hope that they would be among
+      the lucky ones who would get on board one of the boats. Alas for their
+      hopes, the two boats did not sail, and when they realized this I fancied
+      I heard a low wail of anguish rise from the disappointed multitude.</p>
+
+      <p>Other means of escape were, however, available in the shape of a dozen
+      or fifteen tugboats, whose destinations were Rotterdam and Flushing and
+      other ports of Holland. They were not vessels of any considerable
+      passenger carrying capacity, and as there was no one to arrange a
+      systematic embarkation a wild struggle followed among the frantic people
+      to obtain places on the tugs. Men, women, and children fought desperately
+      with each other to get on board, and in that moment of supreme anguish
+      human nature was seen in one of its worst moods, but who can blame these
+      stricken people? Shells that were destroying their homes and giving their
+      beloved town to the flames were screaming over their heads. Their trade
+      was not war; they were merchants, shopkeepers, comfortable citizens of
+      more than middle age, and there were many women and children among them,
+      and this horror had come upon them in a more appalling shape than it has
+      visited any other civilized community in modern times.</p>
+
+      <p>There was a scarcity of gangways to the boats and the only means of
+      boarding them was by narrow planks sloping at a dangerous angle. Up these
+      the fugitives struggled, and the strong elbowed the weak out of their way
+      in their mad haste to escape. The marvel to me as I watched the scramble
+      was that many were not crushed to death in the struggle to get on board
+      or forced into the river and drowned. As it was, mishaps were very few.
+      One old lady of 80 years slipped on one of the planks and fell against
+      the side of the boat, fracturing her skull. Several people fell into the
+      river and two were drowned, but that is the sum total of accidents as far
+      as I could ascertain.</p>
+
+      <p>By 2 o'clock Thursday most of the tugboats had got away, but there
+      were still some 15,000 people who had not been able to escape, and had to
+      await resignedly whatever fate was in store for them.</p>
+
+      <p>I have endeavored to describe the scenes at the quayside on Thursday
+      morning, and I now turn to the Central Station, where incidents of a
+      similar kind were happening. There, as down by the river, an immense
+      throng of people had assembled, and they were filled with dismay at the
+      announcement that no trains were running. In their despair they prepared
+      to leave the city on foot by crossing the pontoon bridge and marching
+      toward the Dutch frontier.</p>
+
+      <p>I cannot, of course, speak positively on the subject, but I should say
+      the exodus of refugees from the city must have totaled 200,000
+      persons&mdash;men, women, and children of all ages&mdash;or very nearly
+      that vast number, and that out of a population which in normal times is
+      321,821.  One might estimate that fully 70 per cent. of those folk had
+      little or no money.</p>
+
+      <p>There were three lines of exit. They could up to the time of the
+      German invasion cross the pontoon bridge over the Scheldt; they could go
+      along the countryside toward the Dutch frontier, or they could walk up
+      the Scheldt toward the frontier and then cross by ferry to Belgian
+      territory again.</p>
+
+      <p>Many of the aged women among the refugees, terrorized and
+      hunger-stricken, died, I am told, on the way to the Belgian frontier.
+      The towns were crowded with pitiful wanderers, fleeing from the ruthless
+      invaders, and they begged for crusts of bread. They were simply starving,
+      and householders did what they could to help, cottagers giving to their
+      utmost out of their meagre larders, but still there was a cry for
+      food.</p>
+
+      <p>I now return to the events of Thursday. At 12:30 o'clock in the
+      afternoon, when the bombardment had already lasted over twelve hours,
+      through the courtesy of a Belgian officer I was able to ascend to the
+      roof of the cathedral, and from that point of vantage I looked down upon
+      the scene in the city.</p>
+
+      <p>All the southern portion of Antwerp appeared to be a desolate ruin.
+      Whole streets were ablaze, and flames were rising in the air to the
+      height of twenty and thirty feet. In another direction I could just
+      discern through my glasses dimly in the distance the instruments of
+      culture of the attacking German forces, ruthlessly pounding at the city
+      and creeping nearer to it in the dark. At that moment I should say the
+      enemy's front line was within four miles of Antwerp.</p>
+
+      <p>From my elevated position I had an excellent view also of the great
+      oil tanks on the opposite side of the Scheldt. They had been set on fire
+      by four bombs from a German taube, and a huge, thick volume of black
+      smoke was ascending 200 feet into the air. The oil had been burning
+      furiously for several hours, and the whole neighborhood was enveloped in
+      a mist of smoke.</p>
+
+      <p>In all directions were fire and flames and oil-laden smoke. It was
+      like a bit of Gustave Dor&eacute;'s idea of the infernal regions. From
+      time to time great tongues of fire shot out from the tanks, and in this
+      way, the flames greedily licking the sides of other tanks, the
+      conflagration spread. How long this particular fire raged I cannot say,
+      for I saw neither the beginning nor the end of it, but while I watched
+      its progress it seemed to represent the limit of what a fire was capable
+      of.</p>
+
+      <p>After watching for some considerable time the panorama of destruction
+      that lay unrolled all around me, I came down from my post of observation
+      on the cathedral roof, and at the very moment I reached the street a
+      28-centimeter shell struck a confectioner's shop between the Place Verte
+      and the Place Meir. It was one of these high explosive shells, and the
+      shop, a wooden structure, immediately burst into flames.</p>
+
+      <p>The city by this time was almost deserted, and no attempt was made to
+      extinguish the fires that had broken out all over the southern district.
+      Indeed, there were no means of dealing with them.</p>
+
+      <p>As far back as Tuesday in last week the water supply from the
+      reservoir ten miles outside the city was cut off, and as this was the
+      city's main source of supply, indeed practically its only source, great
+      apprehension was felt. The reservoir is just behind Fort Waelhem, and the
+      German shells had struck it, doing great mischief. It left Antwerp
+      without any regular inflow of water, and the inhabitants had to do their
+      best with artesian wells. Great efforts were made by the Belgians from
+      time to time to repair the reservoir, but it was always thwarted by
+      German shell fire. The health of the city was thereby menaced, for there
+      was danger of an epidemic.</p>
+
+      <p>Happily, stricken Antwerp was spared this added terror. It had plenty
+      of other sorts, and some of these I experienced when, after leaving the
+      cathedral, I made my way to the southern section of the city, where
+      shells were bursting at the rate of five a minute. With great difficulty
+      and not without risk I got as far as Rue la Moi&egrave;re.</p>
+
+      <p>There I met a terror-stricken Belgian woman, the only other person in
+      the streets besides myself. In hysterical gasps she told me the Banque
+      Nationale and the Palais de Justice had been struck and were in flames,
+      and that her husband had been hit by a shell just five minutes before I
+      came upon the scene, his mangled remains lying not a hundred yards away
+      from where we were standing.</p>
+
+      <p>It was obviously impossible to proceed further, and so I retraced my
+      steps toward the quay. As I was passing the Avenue de Keyser a shell
+      burst within twenty yards of me. I was knocked down by the force of the
+      concussion. A house not ten yards from where I was was struck and
+      actually poured (I can think of no other word to describe what happened)
+      into the street in a shower of bricks. A broken brick struck me on the
+      shoulder, but its force was spent and I received no injury.</p>
+
+      <p>I had scarcely picked myself up and was hastening to a place of
+      safety, if there were one, when a man about 40 years of age, almost half
+      naked, rushed out of a house, screaming loudly. He had gone mad.</p>
+
+      <p>At this time I was fortunate enough to meet Frank Fox of The Morning
+      Post. Mr. Fox is an ex-officer of artillery, and he told me he had found
+      a hotel which, as long as the Germans fired in the direction they were
+      then firing, was not within the reach of their guns. This was the Hotel
+      Wagner, which stands behind the Opera House on the Boulevard de Commerce.
+      It was the only hotel in the city except the Queens Hotel, in which some
+      representatives of American newspapers had been staying, that was open.
+      There I found Miss Louise Mack, an Australian authoress, and she, Fox,
+      and myself were among the few British subjects left in the port.</p>
+
+      <p>As night came the city presented a fantastic appearance as I watched
+      it from the Hotel Wagner. The glare from the fires that had burst out in
+      all directions could be seen for miles around. The bombardment was
+      proceeding furiously, and German shells were bursting in every direction.
+      I reckoned they were coming in that time at the rate of at least thirty a
+      minute.</p>
+
+      <p>I went to the Queens Hotel to ascertain what had become of the
+      American journalists. I found they had left the city after having spent
+      the night in a private house which had been struck three times by shells,
+      and finally caught fire. Arthur Ruhl of the staff of Collier's Weekly had
+      left for me this note:</p>
+
+      <blockquote>
+         <p>Donald C. Thompson, photographer of The New York World, fitted up
+         for himself a cellar at 74 Rue de Peage, just by the Boulevard de
+         Keyser, where shrapnel fell with terrible force during the latter part
+         of Wednesday. With him were three other Americans. The entire
+         population, including, of course, the Government of Antwerp, have made
+         their escape across the pontoon bridge which still connects the River
+         Scheldt with the road toward Ghent. Two shells demolished Thompson's
+         retreat and at sundown it burst into flames. The American Consul
+         General and Vice Consul General had gone by this time. The following
+         Americans, all of them newspaper men, were known to have spent the
+         night in Antwerp; Arthur Ruhl, Horace Green, staff of The New York
+         Evening Post; Edward Eyre Hunt, correspondent of The New York World;
+         Edward Heigel of the staff of The Chicago Daily Tribune, and Thompson
+         himself.</p>
+      </blockquote>
+
+      <p>Except for the glare of burning buildings, which lit up the streets,
+      the city was in absolute darkness, and near the quay I lost my way in the
+      byroads trying to get back to the Hotel Wagner. For the second time that
+      day I narrowly escaped death by a shell. One burst with terrific force
+      about twenty-five yards from me. I heard its warning whirr, and rushed
+      into a neighboring porch. Whether it was from concussion of the shell or
+      in my anxiety to escape, I cannoned against a door and tumbled down. As I
+      lay on the ground the house on the opposite side crashed in ruins. I
+      remained still for several minutes feeling quite sick and unable to get
+      up. Then I pulled myself together, and ran at full speed until I came to
+      a street which I recognized, and found my way back to the hotel.</p>
+
+      <p>As I hastened down the Avenue de Keyser shells were bursting in every
+      quarter. Several fell into the adjoining street. At the hotel I found my
+      friend Fox had been up to the Red Cross Hospital to inquire about a motor
+      car in which we hoped to get away. It had gone, as had the entire
+      personnel of the hospital.</p>
+
+      <p>We began to wonder how we should escape. However, Fox had a bicycle,
+      and Mr. Singleton, Chief of the Boy Scouts in Antwerp, had given me the
+      key of a house not far off, in which he told me there was one if I wanted
+      it in an emergency. I ventured into that dangerous part of the city again
+      to get it. I got to the house safely and found the bicycle, but as there
+      was no tube in the back tire it was useless. On my return journey I was
+      startled to see in the street through which I had just walked a hole six
+      feet deep, which had just been made by a shell.</p>
+
+      <p>On returning to the hotel I joined in a meal, eaten under the
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'wierdest']">weirdest</ins>
+      conditions imaginable. Descending into the cellars of the hotel with Miss
+      Mack and Mr. Fox we found the entire staff gathered there uncertain what
+      to do and not knowing what was to happen to them. We were all hungry, and
+      one of the men dashed upstairs to the kitchen and brought down whatever
+      food he could lay his hands on, and we all partook of pot luck.
+      Considering all the circumstances we made a very jolly meal of it. We
+      toasted each other in good red wine of the country, pledging each other
+      with "Vive la Belgique" and "Vive l'Angleterre," and altogether we were a
+      merry party, although at the time German shells were whirling overhead
+      and any moment one might have upset our picnic and buried us in the
+      d&eacute;bris of the hotel.</p>
+
+      <p>How many of the inhabitants of Antwerp remained in the city that night
+      it is impossible to say, but it is pretty certain they were all in the
+      cellars of their houses or shops.</p>
+
+      <p>The admirable Burgomaster, M. De Vos, had in one of his several
+      proclamations made many suggestions for safety during the bombardment for
+      the benefit of those who took refuge in cellars. Among the most useful of
+      them perhaps was that which recommended means of escape to adjoining
+      cellars. The power of modern artillery is so tremendous that a cellar
+      might very well become a tomb if shells were to fall on the building
+      overhead.</p>
+
+      <p>We went to bed early that night but sleep was impossible in the noise
+      caused by the explosion of the shells in twenty different quarters of the
+      town. About 3 o'clock in the morning a twenty-eight centimeter shell fell
+      into the square in front of the hotel and broke all the windows in the
+      neighboring house. In spite of the terrific din one got to sleep at
+      last.</p>
+
+      <p>About 6 o'clock Fox roused me and said he thought it was time we got
+      out, as the Germans were entering the city. We hurried from the hotel,
+      and found in the square a squad of Belgian soldiers who had just come in
+      from the inner line of forts. They told us it was not safe for us to
+      remain any longer. The streets were now completely deserted.</p>
+
+      <p>I walked down to the quayside, and there I came across many wounded
+      soldiers, who had been unable to get away in the hospital boat. On the
+      quay piles of equipment had been abandoned; broken-down motor cars,
+      kit-bags, helmets, rifles, knapsacks were littered in heaps. Ammunition
+      had been dumped there and rendered useless. The Belgians had evidently
+      attempted to set fire to the whole lot. A pile of stuff was still
+      smoldering. I waited there for half an hour, and during that time
+      hundreds of Belgian soldiers passed in retreat, the last contingent
+      leaving at about 6:30 A.M.</p>
+
+      <p>I went again to the Queen's Hotel to inquire what had become of the
+      American newspaper men, and it was just about this time that the pontoon
+      bridge which had been the way of the Belgian retreat was blown up to
+      prevent pursuit by the Germans. The boats and woodwork of the
+      superstructure burnt fiercely and in less than twenty minutes the whole
+      affair was demolished.</p>
+
+      <p>Safe exit from the city was now cut off. A Red Cross officer whom I
+      met when standing by the quay had been a spectator of the blowing up of
+      the bridge.</p>
+
+      <p>"My God!" he said, running toward me, "it is awful!"</p>
+
+      <p>"How are you going to get out?" I asked him.</p>
+
+      <p>"I'm going to stay here and look after my wounded," he replied.</p>
+
+      <p>In further talk with him I learned that the greater part of the second
+      line of forts had fallen at midday the previous day and that there was
+      nothing then to stop the Germans entering the city save a handful of
+      Belgian soldiers in three or four forts. At 8 o'clock a shell struck the
+      Town Hall.</p>
+
+      <p>Fox had now joined me, and we took refuge in the cellars beneath the
+      Town Hall. So far as I could gather, the remaining inhabitants of Antwerp
+      must have assembled about this neighborhood, groups taking refuge in
+      small and stuffy cellars, where developments were anxiously awaited.
+      There must have been hundreds of people sheltered underground, and they
+      included the Mexican and Dominican Consuls. Why these stayed I do not
+      know, as none of their people were left behind. They were the only
+      Consuls remaining in Antwerp.</p>
+
+      <p>About 8:15 o'clock another shell struck the Town Hall, shattering the
+      upper story and breaking every window in the place. That was the German
+      way of telling the Burgomaster to hurry up. There was a tense feeling as
+      we waited for tidings of some sort or other. A quarter of an hour later
+      M. De Vos went out in his motor car toward the German line to discuss
+      conditions on which the city should be surrendered.</p>
+
+      <p>Another shell struck a furrier's shop opposite the Town Hall and the
+      place burst into flames. Several of the gendarmes who had stayed behind
+      were occupants of cellars, and two of them immediately rushed out to
+      force a way into the shop in order that they might extinguish the fire.
+      They found the door locked. It took them ten minutes to force an
+      entrance. By this time the fire was burning fiercely, and at great
+      personal risk one of the gendarmes made his way to the top floor of the
+      premises, and there he endeavored to beat out the flames with a piece of
+      timber torn from the roof. His efforts were futile, and he called for
+      water. Soon a Flemish woman brought him two pailfuls, which Fox had
+      carried to the house, and after half an hour's labor the fire was
+      extinguished.</p>
+
+      <p>The proprietor of the shop was among the people in the cellars across
+      the way. The news that his house was aflame was broken to him and he
+      rushed into the street. He gazed for a moment on the scene and burst into
+      tears like a child.</p>
+
+      <p>At 9 o'clock the bombardment of the city suddenly ceased and we
+      understood the Burgomaster had by this time reached German headquarters.
+      Still we waited, painfully anxious to learn what would be the ultimate
+      fate of Antwerp. The Belgian soldiers hurried by on their way to the
+      front. A number paused just as they reached a tobacconist's shop which
+      had been wrecked by shells, scattering the stock in the street. There
+      were cigars hurled across the pavement and roadway, and soldiers who had
+      halted picked up a few of the cigars. A Belgian workman, taking advantage
+      of this, entered the shop and began to stuff his pockets full of cigars
+      and cigarettes, but immediately gendarmes hurried to the place and
+      arrested him, the last arrest the Antwerp police will make for some
+      time.</p>
+
+      <p>At 10:30 o'clock proclamations were posted on walls of the Town Hall
+      urging all in the city to surrender any arms in their possession and
+      begging for a calm demeanor in the event of German occupation. The list
+      was also posted of several prominent citizens who were appointed to look
+      after the interests of those Belgians who remained.</p>
+
+      <p>Just before noon a patrol of cyclists and armed and mounted gendarmes,
+      who had escorted the Burgomaster to the gate of the city, informed Fox
+      and myself that the Germans were entering by the gate of Malines. We
+      hastily took our bicycles with the intention of making our way over the
+      Dutch frontier. As we passed along the quay by a most timely stroke of
+      luck we found a motor boat standing by. It was manned by a Belgian, and
+      his mate.</p>
+
+      <p>"Can you take us to Flushing?" we asked.</p>
+
+      <p>"Yes," answered the Belgian.</p>
+
+      <p>"How much?"</p>
+
+      <p>"One hundred and fifty francs each."</p>
+
+      <p>We were in that boat in thirty seconds and in another thirty seconds
+      had started down the Scheldt. By this time the Germans were in the
+      city.</p>
+
+      <p>At a good ten knots we raced down the river. In twenty-five minutes we
+      had reached the bend which blotted Antwerp from view. As we rounded the
+      corner I turned for a last glimpse of the disappearing city. The
+      Cathedral was still standing, its tower dominating surroundings. Here and
+      there volumes of smoke were rising to the sky.</p>
+
+      <p>It took us twelve hours to get to Flushing. On either side of the
+      river thousands of refugees were fleeing from the invaders. They swarmed
+      along the banks in continuous lines, a vast pilgrimage of the hopeless,
+      many laden with household possessions which they had been able to gather
+      at almost a moment's notice. Numbers were empty-handed and burdened at
+      that in dragging their weary bodies along the miles which seemed never
+      ending. It was a heartrending spectacle. Infinite pity must go out to
+      those broken victims of the war, bowed veterans driven from home, going
+      they knew not where; women with their crying children, famished for lack
+      of food, all or nearly all leaving behind men folk who were still
+      fighting their country's battle or mourning the loss of loved ones who
+      had already sacrificed their lives.</p>
+
+      <p>Where the Scheldt becomes Dutch property we were stopped by customs
+      authorities and submitted to a rigorous examination. Dutch officials for
+      a time believed we were either Belgian or English officers escaping, but
+      eventually they were satisfied.</p>
+
+      <p>Upon arriving at Flushing we found the town in a tremendous state of
+      excitement. Great crowds of refugees were there, 10,000 or more, and the
+      hotels were choked. Many wretched people had left their homes absolutely
+      without any money and were forced to camp in the streets.  There was a
+      vast crowd waiting to get on the Flushing-Folkestone boat, and it
+      appeared we would be balked in our endeavor to get to England that night.
+      However, we discussed our position with the Superintendent of the line,
+      and he very kindly got us a berth.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>As the French Fell Back on Paris</h3>
+      <p class="h3"><b>By G.H. Perris of The London Daily Chronicle.</b></p>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Special Dispatch to <span class="pscaps">The New York Times</span>.]</p>
+
+      <p><ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'CHATEAU']">CH&Acirc;TEAU</ins>
+      THIERRY, Sunday, Sept. 13.&mdash;We first realized yesterday, in a little town
+      of Brie which lies east of Paris, between the Seine and the Marne, how
+      difficult it is to get food in the rear of two successive invasions. As
+      in every other town in the region, all the shops were shut and nearly all
+      the houses. It was only after a long search that we found an inn that
+      could give us luncheon.</p>
+
+      <p>There, in a large room with a low-beamed roof and a tiled floor, our
+      stout landlady in blue cotton produced an excellent meal of melon,
+      mutton, macaroni, and good ripe pears. Dogs and cats sprawled around us,
+      and a big bowl of roses spoke of serenities that are now in general
+      eclipse. At a neighboring table a group of peasants, too old for active
+      service, were discussing their grievances.</p>
+
+      <p>At a railway crossing just out of town we were blocked by a train of
+      about a dozen big horse trucks and two passenger carriages, carrying
+      wounded and prisoners to Paris from the fighting lines in the north. It
+      had been a gloomy morning, and the rain now fell in torrents.
+      Nevertheless the townsfolk crowded up, and for half an hour managed to
+      conduct a satisfactory combination of profit and pity by supplying big
+      flat loaves, bottles of wine, fruit, cigarettes, and jugs of water to
+      those in the train who had money and some who had none. One very old
+      woman in white, with a little red cross on her forehead, turned up to
+      take advantage of the only opportunity ever likely to fall in her way. A
+      great Turco in fez, blouse, and short, baggy breeches was very active in
+      this commissariat work.</p>
+
+      <p>Some of the Frenchmen on board were not wounded seriously enough to
+      prevent their getting down on the roadway; and you may be sure they were
+      not ashamed of their plaster patches and bandaged arms.</p>
+
+      <p>There were about 300 German prisoners in the train. We got glimpses of
+      them lying in the straw on the floor in the dark interior of the big
+      trucks. I got on the footboard and looked into the open door of one car.
+      Fifteen men were stretched upon straw, and two soldiers stood guard over
+      them, rifle in hand. They all seemed in a state of extreme exhaustion.
+      Some were asleep, others were eating large chunks of bread.</p>
+
+      <p>In the middle of the car a young soldier who spoke French fairly well
+      told me that the German losses during the last three days had been
+      enormous; and then, stopping suddenly, he said:</p>
+
+      <p>"Would it be possible, Sir, to get a little water for my fellows and
+      myself?"</p>
+
+      <p>"Certainly," I replied; and a man belonging to the station, who was
+      passing with a jug, said at once that he would run and get some. The
+      prisoner thanked me and added with a sigh:</p>
+
+      <p>"They are very good fellows here."</p>
+
+      <p>One jocular French guard had put on a spiked helmet which he was
+      keeping as a trophy, and, so much does the habit make the man, he now
+      looked uncannily like a German himself.</p>
+
+      <p>As we passed through the villages to the northeast the contrast
+      between abandoned houses and gardens rioting with the color of roses and
+      dahlias and fruit-laden trees struck us like a blow.</p>
+
+      <p>In Gourchamp a number of houses had been burned, and the neighboring
+      fields showed that there had been fighting there; but it was Courtacon
+      which presented the most grievous spectacle. Eighteen of its two dozen
+      houses had been completely destroyed by fire. The walls were partly
+      standing, but the floors and contents of the rooms were completely buried
+      under the d&eacute;bris of roofs that had fallen in. In a little Post
+      Office the telegraphic and telephonic instruments had been smashed. Just
+      opposite is a small building including the office of the Mayor and the
+      village school. The outside of the building and the outhouses were
+      littered with the straw on which the Uhlans had slept. In the Mayor's
+      office the drawers and cupboards had been broken open, and their contents
+      had been scattered with the remnants of meals on the floor.</p>
+
+      <p>But it is a scene in a little village school that will longest remain
+      in my memory. The low forms, the master's desk, and the blackboard stand
+      today as they did on July 25, which was no doubt the last day before the
+      Summer vacation, as it was also the last week before the outbreak of the
+      war. On the walls the charts remained which reminded these little ones
+      daily that "Alcohol is the enemy," and had summoned them to follow the
+      path of kindness, justice, and truth. The windows were smashed, broken
+      cartridge cases lay about with wings of birds and other refuse. Near the
+      door I saw chalked up, evidently in German handwriting, "Parti Paris,"
+      ("Left for Paris.")</p>
+
+      <p>The invaders had sought to burn the place. There was one pile of
+      partly burned straw under the school bookcase, the doors of which had
+      been smashed, while some of the books had been thrown about. They had not
+      even respected a little museum consisting of a few bottles of metal and
+      chemical specimens; and when I turned to leave I perceived written across
+      the blackboard in bold, fine writing, as the lesson of the day, these
+      words: "A chaque jour suffit sa peine," ("Sufficient unto the day is the
+      evil thereof.")</p>
+
+      <p>One of the villagers gave us the following narrative of the
+      experiences of the past week:</p>
+
+      <p>"It was last Saturday, Sept. 5, that about 15,000 Uhlans arrived in
+      the village with the intention of marching on Provins on the morrow. They
+      probably learned during the night that the British and French lay in
+      force across their road, and perhaps they may now have received orders to
+      fall back.</p>
+
+      <p>"At any rate, early Sunday morning they started to retire, when they
+      met at the entrance to the village a regiment of chasseurs. This was the
+      beginning of fighting which lasted all day. Under the pretext that we had
+      learned of the presence of the French troops and had helped them to
+      prepare a trap, the Germans sacked the whole of the village.</p>
+
+      <p>"Naturally there was a panic. All the inhabitants&mdash;mostly women
+      and children, because since the mobilization there have been only nine
+      men in Courtacon&mdash;rushed from their cottages and many of them,
+      lightly clad, fled across the fields and hid themselves in the
+      neighboring woods.</p>
+
+      <p>"In several cottages Germans, revolvers in hand, compelled the poor
+      peasants to bring matches and themselves set fire to their homes. In less
+      than an hour the village was like a furnace, the walls toppling down one
+      by one. And all this time the fighting continued. It was a horrible
+      spectacle.</p>
+
+      <p>"Several of us were dragged to the edge of the road to be shot, and
+      there we remained for some hours, believing our last day had come. A
+      young village lad of 21 years, who was just going to leave to join the
+      colors, was shot. Then the retreat was sounded, the Germans fled
+      precipitately, and we were saved."</p>
+
+      <p>I asked whether the cottages had not been fired by artillery.</p>
+
+      <p>"Not a cannon shot fell here," he replied. "All that"&mdash;pointing
+      to the ruined huts&mdash;"was done by incendiaries." And then he
+      added:</p>
+
+      <p>"Last Tuesday two French officers came in automobiles and brought with
+      them a superior German officer whom they had made prisoner. They
+      compelled him to become a witness of the mischief of which his
+      fellow-countrymen had been guilty."</p>
+
+      <p>A peasant woman passed, pushing a wheelbarrow containing some
+      half-burned household goods and followed by her two small children.</p>
+
+      <p>"Look," she said, "at the brutality of these Germans! My husband has
+      gone to war and I am alone with my two little ones. With great difficulty
+      we had managed to gather our crop, and they set fire to our little farm
+      and burned everything."</p>
+
+      <p>Half an hour later we were at La Fert&eacute; Gaucher, a small town on
+      the Grand Morin, now first made famous by the fact that it was here that
+      the German flight began after the severe fighting last Monday. The
+      invaders had arrived only on Saturday and had the disagreeable surprise
+      of finding that the river bridges had been broken down by the retreating
+      French. The German commandant informed the municipal officials that if
+      the sum of 60,000 francs ($12,000) was not produced he would burn the
+      town. Then he compelled the people to set about rebuilding the bridge,
+      and they worked day and night at this job under the eyes of soldiers with
+      revolvers and rifles ready to shoot down any shirker.</p>
+
+      <p>The relief of these people at the return of the Allies may be
+      imagined.  Here, as elsewhere, some houses were burned, but otherwise the
+      damage did not appear to be very serious.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>The Retreat to Paris</h3>
+      <p class="h3"><b>By Philip Gibbs of The London Daily Chronicle.</b></p>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Special Dispatch to <span class="pscaps">The New York Times</span>.]</p>
+
+      <p>NEAR AMIENS, Aug. 30.&mdash;Looking back on all I have seen during the
+      last few days, I find it difficult to piece together the various
+      incidents and impressions and to make one picture. It all seems to me now
+      like a jigsaw puzzle of suffering and fear and courage and death&mdash;a
+      litter of odd, disconnected scraps of human agony and of some big, grim
+      scheme which, if one could only get the clue, would give a meaning, I
+      suppose, to all these tears of women and children, to all these hurried
+      movements of soldiers and people, to the death carts trailing back from
+      unknown places, and to the great dark fear that has enveloped all the
+      tract of country in Northwest France through which I have been traveling,
+      driven like one of its victims from place to place.  Out of all this
+      welter of individual suffering and from all the fog of mystery which has
+      enshrouded them until now, when the truth may be told, certain big facts
+      with a clear and simple issue will emerge and give one courage.</p>
+
+      <p>The French Army and our English troops are now holding good positions
+      in a much stronger and closer line and stemming the tide of the German
+      hordes rolling up to Paris. Gen. Pau, the hero of this war, after his
+      swift return from the eastern front, where he repaired the deadly check
+      at M&uuml;lhausen, has dealt a smashing blow at a German Army corps which
+      was striking to the heart of France.</p>
+
+      <p>Paris is still safe for the time being, with a great army of allied
+      forces, French, English, and Belgians, drawn across the country as a
+      barrier which surely will not be broken by the enemy. Nothing that has
+      happened gives cause for that despair which has taken hold of people
+      whose fears have exaggerated the facts, frightful enough when taken
+      separately, but not giving any proof that resistance is impossible
+      against the amazing onslaught of the German legions.</p>
+
+      <p>I have been into the war zone and seen during the last five days men
+      who are now holding the lines of defense. I have been among their dead
+      and wounded, and have talked with soldiers marching fresh to the front. I
+      have seen the horrid mess which is cleared up after the battle and the
+      grim picture of retreat, but nothing that I have seen or heard from
+      either British or French leads me to believe that our army has been
+      smashed or the Allies demoralized.</p>
+
+      <p>It is impossible to estimate our own losses. Our wounded are being
+      brought back into Havre and Rouen, and undoubtedly there are large
+      numbers of them. But, putting them at the highest, it is clear to me,
+      from all information gained during the last five days, that there has
+      been no overwhelming disaster, and that in the terrible actions fought on
+      the four days from the 23d to the 27th, and afterward in the further
+      retirement from the line of Cambrai and Le Cateau, swinging southward and
+      eastward upon St. Quentin, our main forces, which were pressed by
+      enormous numbers of the enemy, succeeded in withdrawing in good order,
+      without having their lines broken, while inflicting a terrific punishment
+      upon the German right.</p>
+
+      <p>As I shall show in this narrative, retreats which seem fatal when seen
+      close at hand and when described by those who belong to broken fragments
+      of extended sections, are not altogether disastrous in their effect when
+      viewed in their right perspective, away from the immediate misery which
+      is their inevitable accompaniment.</p>
+
+      <p>German audacity of attack against the heroic courage of the French and
+      British forces, who fight every mile of ground during their retirement,
+      is leading the enemy into a position from which there will be no retreat
+      if their lines are broken. Unfortunately, there are hundreds of thousands
+      of people who know nothing of the great issues and who are possessed by
+      the great, blind fear which has driven them from their towns, villages,
+      and homes.</p>
+
+      <p>When the Germans swept around Lille they found, to their amazement,
+      that this town, surrounded by forts, had been abandoned, and they had
+      only to walk inside. This easy access to a town which should have been
+      defended to the last gasp opened the way to the west of France.</p>
+
+      <p>The left wing of the French, which was to the west of Mons, was
+      supported by the English troops, all too weak to sustain the pressure of
+      the tremendous odds which began to surge against them; and, realizing
+      this perilous state of affairs, the brain at the centre of things, the
+      controlling brain of Gen. Joffre and his Headquarters Staff, decreed that
+      the northwest corner of France was untenable and that the main army of
+      defense should withdraw into a stronger and closer formation.</p>
+
+      <p>It was then that the great panic began, increasing in speed and terror
+      during the end of last week. I was in the midst of it and saw
+      unforgettable scenes of the enormous tragedy. It was a flight of hundreds
+      and thousands of families from St. Omer and Roubaix, Bethune, Douai,
+      Valenciennes, and Arras, who were driven away from their northern homes
+      by the menace of approaching Uhlans. They are still being hunted by fear
+      from place to place, where they can find no shelter and no permanent
+      safety. The railways have been choked with them, and in these long
+      fugitive trains which pass through stations there is no food or drink.
+      The poor runaways, weary, filthy, and exhausted, spend long days and
+      nights shunted onto side lines, while troop trains pass and pass, and are
+      held up in towns where they can find no means of existence because the
+      last civilian train has left.</p>
+
+      <p>When the troops marched away from Boulogne and left it silent and
+      unguarded I saw the inhabitants, utterly dismayed, standing despondently
+      staring at placards posted up by order of the Governor, which announced
+      the evacuation of the town and called upon them to be ready for all
+      sacrifices in the service of their country. The customs officers left,
+      the civil police disarmed, while a flag with nine black spots was made
+      ready to be hoisted on the fort directly any Uhlans were sighted.</p>
+
+      <p>The people of Boulogne could not understand, no Frenchman of the north
+      can understand, why their ports and towns are silent after the tramp of
+      so many regiments who have left a great tract of country open and
+      undefended. In that corner of France the people listen intently for the
+      first clatter of hoofs and for the first cry "Les Uhlans." Rumors came
+      that the enemy has been seen in neighboring towns and villages. Can one
+      wonder that mothers and fathers rush from their houses and wander forth
+      in a blind, unreasoning way to swell the panic tide of fugitives,
+      homeless and without food, dropping here and there on the wayside in
+      utter weariness?</p>
+
+      <p>I was lucky in getting out of Boulogne on the last train bound for
+      Paris, though not guaranteed to reach the capital. As a matter of fact, I
+      was even more lucky because it did not arrive at its destination and
+      enabled me to alight in the war zone and proceed to more interesting
+      places.</p>
+
+      <p>I will tell at once the story of the French retirement when the
+      Germans advanced from Namur down the valley of the Meuse, winning the way
+      at a cost of human life as great as that of defeat, yet winning their
+      way.  For France the story of that retirement is as glorious as anything
+      in her history. It was nearly a fortnight ago that the Germans
+      concentrated their heaviest forces upon Namur and began to press
+      southward and over the Meuse Valley. After the battle of Dinant the
+      French Army, among whom were the Second and Seventh Corps, was heavily
+      outnumbered and had to fall back gradually, in order to gain time for
+      reinforcements to come up.</p>
+
+      <p>French artillery was up on the wooded heights above the river and
+      swept the German regiments with a storm of fire as they advanced. On the
+      right bank the French infantry was intrenched, supported by field guns
+      and mitrailleuses, and did deadly work before leaping from trenches which
+      they occupied and taking up a position in new trenches further back,
+      which they held with great tenacity.</p>
+
+      <p>In justice to the Germans it must be said they were heroic in courage
+      and reckless of their lives, and the valley of the Meuse was choked with
+      their corpses. The river itself was strewn with the dead bodies of men
+      and horses and literally ran red with blood.</p>
+
+      <p>The most tremendous fighting took place for the possession of the
+      bridges, but the French engineers blew them up one after another as they
+      retired southward.</p>
+
+      <p>No less than thirty-three bridges were destroyed in this way before
+      they could be seized by the German advance guard. The fighting was
+      extended for a considerable distance on either side of the Meuse and many
+      engagements took place between French and German cavalry and regiments
+      working away from the main armies.</p>
+
+      <p>There was, for instance, a memorable encounter at Marville which is
+      one of the most heroic episodes of the war. Five thousand French soldiers
+      of all arms, with quick-firers, engaged 20,000 German infantry. In spite
+      of being outnumbered, the French beat back the enemy from point to point
+      in a fight lasting for twelve hours, inflicting tremendous punishment and
+      suffering very few losses.</p>
+
+      <p>The German officer captured expressed his unbounded admiration for the
+      valor of the French troops, which he described as superb. It was only for
+      fear of getting too far out of touch with the main forces that the
+      gallant 5,000 desisted from their irresistible attack and retired with a
+      large number of German helmets as trophies of the victorious action.</p>
+
+      <p>Nevertheless, in accordance with the general plan which had been
+      decided on by the Generals, in view of the superior numbers temporarily
+      pressing upon them, the Germans succeeded in forcing their way steadily
+      down the Meuse as far as Mezi&egrave;res, divided by a bridge from
+      Charleville, on the other side of the river. This is in the neighborhood
+      of Sedan and in the "trou," as it is called, which led to the great
+      disaster of 1870, when the French were caught in a trap and threatened
+      with annihilation by the Germans, who had taken possession of the
+      surrounding heights.</p>
+
+      <p>There was to be no repetition of that tragedy. The French were
+      determined that this time the position should be reversed.</p>
+
+      <p>On Monday the town of Charleville was evacuated, most of its civilians
+      being sent away to join the wanderers who have had to leave their homes,
+      and the French troops took up a magnificent position, commanding the town
+      and the three bridges dividing them from Mezi&egrave;res. Mitrailleuses
+      were hidden in the abandoned houses, and as a disagreeable shock to any
+      German who might escape their fire was a number of the enemy's guns, no
+      fewer than ninety-five of them, which had been captured and disabled by
+      French troops in a series of battles down the river from Namur.</p>
+
+      <p>The German outposts reached Charleville on Tuesday. They were allowed
+      to ride quietly across the bridges into an apparently deserted town. Then
+      suddenly their line of retreat was cut off, the three bridges were blown
+      up by a contact mine, and the mitrailleuses hidden in the houses were
+      played on the German cavalry across the streets, killing them in a
+      frightful slaughter.</p>
+
+      <p>It was for a little while sheer massacre, but the Germans fought with
+      extraordinary tenacity, regardless of the heaped bodies of comrades and
+      utterly reckless of their own lives. They, too, had brought quick-firers
+      across the bridges, and, taking cover behind houses, trained their guns
+      upon the houses from which the French gunners were firing. There was no
+      way of escape for those heroic men, who voluntarily sacrificed
+      themselves, and it is probable every man died, because at such a time the
+      Germans were not in the habit of giving quarter.</p>
+
+      <p>When the main German advance came down the valley, the French
+      artillery on the heights raked them with a terrific fire, in which they
+      suffered heavy losses, the forefront of the column being mowed down. But
+      under this storm they proceeded with incredible coolness to their pontoon
+      bridges across the river, and although hundreds of men died on the banks,
+      they succeeded in their endeavor, while their guns searched the hills
+      with shells and forced French gunners to retire from their positions.</p>
+
+      <p>The occupation of Charleville was a German victory, but was also a
+      German graveyard. After this historic episode in what has been an
+      unending battle the main body of French withdrew before the Germans, who
+      were now pouring down the valley, and retired to new ground.</p>
+
+      <p>It was a retirement which has had one advantage in spite of its
+      acknowledgment of the enemy's amazing pertinacity. It has enabled the
+      allied armies to draw closer together, its firm front sweeping around in
+      a crescent from Abb&eacute;ville, around south of Amiens, and thence in
+      an irregular line to the eastern frontier.</p>
+
+      <p>On the map it is at first sight a rather unhappy thing to see that
+      practically the whole of France north of Amiens lies open to German
+      descent from Belgium. To break up the German Army piecemeal and lure it
+      to its own destruction it was almost necessary to manoeuvre it into
+      precisely the position which it now occupies. The success of Gen. Pau
+      shows that the allied army is taking the offensive again, and that as a
+      great fighting machine it is still powerful and menacing.</p>
+
+      <p>I must again emphasize the difficulty of grasping the significance of
+      a great campaign by isolated incidents, and the danger of drawing
+      important deductions from the misfortunes in one part of the field. I do
+      so because I have been tempted again and again during the past few days
+      to fall into similar mistakes. Perhaps in my case it was pardonable.</p>
+
+      <p>It is impossible for the armchair reader to realize the psychological
+      effect of being mixed up in the panic of a great people and the retreat
+      from a battlefield.</p>
+
+      <p>The last real fighting was taking place at a village called Bapaume
+      all day Friday. It was very heavy fighting here on the left centre of the
+      great army commanded by Gen. Pau, and leading to a victory which has just
+      been announced officially in France.</p>
+
+      <p>A few minutes before midnight Friday, when they came back along the
+      road to Amiens, crawling back slowly in a long, dismal trail, the
+      ambulance wagons laden with the dead and dying, hay carts piled high with
+      saddles and accoutrements, upon which lay, immobile like men already
+      dead, the spent and exhausted soldiers, they passed through the crowds of
+      silent people of Amiens, who only whispered as they stared at the
+      procession.  In the darkness a cuirassier, with head bent upon his chest,
+      stumbled forward, leading his horse, too weak and tired to bear him.</p>
+
+      <p>Many other men were leading poor beasts this way, and infantry
+      soldiers, some with bandaged heads, clung to the backs of carts and
+      wagons, and seemed asleep as they shuffled by.</p>
+
+      <p>The light from roadside lamps gleamed upon blanched faces and glazed
+      eyes, flashed into caverns of canvas-covered carts, where twisted men lay
+      huddled on straw. Not a groan came from the carts, but every one knew it
+      was a retreat.</p>
+
+      <p>The carts carrying the quick and the dead rumbled by in a long convoy,
+      the drooping heads of the soldiers turned neither right nor left for any
+      greeting with friends.</p>
+
+      <p>There was a hugger-mugger of uniforms, of provision carts, and with
+      ambulances&mdash;it was a part of the wreckage and wastage of war; and to
+      the onlookers, with the exaggeration, unconsciously, of the importance of
+      the things close at hand and visible, it seemed terrible in its
+      significance and an ominous reminder of 1870.</p>
+
+      <p>Really this was an inevitable part of a serious battle, not
+      necessarily a retreat from a great disaster.</p>
+
+      <p>But more pitiful even than this drift back were scenes which followed.
+      As I turned back into the town I saw thousands of boys who had been
+      called to the colors and had been brought up from the country to be sent
+      forward to second lines of defense.</p>
+
+      <p>They were the reservists of the 1914 class, and many of them were
+      shouting and singing, though here and there a white-faced boy tried to
+      hide his tears as women from the crowd ran forward to embrace him. These
+      lads were keeping up their valor by noisy demonstrations; but, having
+      seen the death carts pass, I could not bear to look into the faces of
+      those little ones who are following their fathers to the guns.</p>
+
+      <p>Early next morning there was a thrill of anxiety in Amiens. Reports
+      had come through that the railway line had been cut between Boulogne and
+      Abbeville. There had been mysterious movements of regiments from the town
+      barracks. They had moved out of Amiens, and there was a strange quietude
+      in the streets. Hardly a man in uniform was to be seen in the places
+      which had been filled with soldiers the day before.</p>
+
+      <p>Only a few people realized the actual significance of this. How could
+      they know that it was a part of the great plan to secure the safety of
+      France? How could they realize that the town itself would be saved from
+      possible bombardment by this withdrawal of the troops to positions which
+      would draw the Germans into the open?</p>
+
+      <p>The fighting on the Cambrai-Cateau line seems to have been more
+      desperate even that the terrible actions at Mons and Charleroi. It was
+      when the British troops had to swing around to a more southerly line to
+      guard the roads to Paris, that the enemy attacked in prodigious numbers,
+      and their immense superiority in machine guns did terrible work among
+      officers and men.</p>
+
+      <p>But on all sides, from the French officers, there is immense praise
+      for the magnificent conduct of our troops, and in spite of all alarmist
+      statements I am convinced from what I have heard that they have retired
+      intact, keeping their lines together, and preventing their divisions from
+      being broken and cut off.</p>
+
+      <p>The list of casualties must be very great, but if I can believe the
+      evidence of my own eyes in such towns as Rouen, where the Red Cross
+      hospitals are concentrated, they are not heavy enough to suggest anything
+      like a great and irretrievable disaster.</p>
+
+      <p>DIEPPE, Sept. 3.&mdash;Let me describe briefly the facts which I have
+      learned of in the last five days. When I escaped from Amiens, before the
+      tunnel was broken up, and the Germans entered into possession of the town
+      on Aug. 28, the front of the allied armies was in a crescent from
+      Abb&eacute;ville, south of Amiens on the wooded heights, and thence in an
+      irregular line to south of M&eacute;zi&egrave;res. The British forces,
+      under Sir John French, were at the left of the centre, supporting the
+      heavy thrust-forward of the main German advance, while the right was
+      commanded by Gen. Pau.</p>
+
+      <p>On Sunday afternoon fighting was resumed along the whole line. The
+      German vanguard had by this time been supported by a fresh army corps,
+      which had been brought from Belgium. At least 1,000,000 men were on the
+      move, pressing upon the allied forces with a ferocity of attack which has
+      never before been equaled. Their cavalry swept across a great tract of
+      country, squadron by squadron, like the mounted hordes of Attila, but
+      armed with the dreadful weapons of modern warfare. Their artillery was in
+      enormous numbers, and their columns advanced under cover of it, not like
+      an army, but rather like a moving nation&mdash;I do not think, however,
+      with equal pressure at all parts of the line. It formed itself into a
+      battering ram with a pointed end, and this point was thrust at the heart
+      of the English wing.</p>
+
+      <p>It was impossible to resist this onslaught. If the British forces had
+      stood against it they would have been crushed and broken. Our gunners
+      were magnificent, and shelled the advancing German columns so that the
+      dead lay heaped up along the way which was leading down to Paris; but as
+      one of them told me: "It made no manner of difference; as soon as we had
+      smashed one lot another followed, column after column, and by sheer
+      weight of numbers we could do nothing to check them."</p>
+
+      <p>After this the British forces fell back, fighting all the time. The
+      line of the Allies was now in the shape of a V, the Germans thrusting
+      their main attack deep into the angle.</p>
+
+      <p>This position remained the same until Monday, or, rather, had
+      completed itself by that date, the retirement of the troops being
+      maintained with masterly skill and without any undue haste.</p>
+
+      <p>Meanwhile Gen. Pau was sustaining a terrific attack on the French
+      centre by the German left centre, which culminated on (date omitted).
+      The River Oise, which runs between beautiful meadows, was choked with
+      corpses and red with blood.</p>
+
+      <p>From an eyewitness of this great battle, an officer of an infantry
+      regiment, who escaped with a slight wound, I learned that the German
+      onslaught had been repelled by a series of brilliant bayonet and cavalry
+      charges.</p>
+
+      <p>"The Germans," he said, "had the elite of their army engaged against
+      us, including the Tenth Army Corps and the Imperial Guard, but the
+      heroism of our troops was sublime. Every man knew that the safety of
+      France depended upon him and was ready to sacrifice his life, if need be,
+      with joyful enthusiasm. They not only resisted the enemy's attack but
+      took the offensive, and, in spite of their overpowering numbers, gave
+      them tremendous punishment. They had to recoil before our guns, which
+      swept their ranks, and their columns were broken and routed.</p>
+
+      <p>"Hundreds of them were bayoneted, and hundreds were hurled into the
+      river. The whole field of battle was outlined by dead and dying men whom
+      they had to abandon. Certainly their losses were enormous, and I felt
+      that the German retreat was in full swing and that we could claim a real
+      victory for the time being."</p>
+
+      <p>Nevertheless the inevitable happened, owing to the vast reserves of
+      the enemy, who brought up four divisions, and Gen. Pau was compelled to
+      give ground.</p>
+
+      <p>On Tuesday German skirmishers with light artillery were coming
+      southward, and the sound of their field guns greeted my ears in that town
+      which I shall always remember with unpleasant recollections in spite of
+      its Old World beauty and the loveliness of the scene in which it is set.
+      It seemed to me that this was the right place to be in order to get into
+      touch with the French Army on the way to the capital. As a matter of
+      fact, it was the wrong place from all points of view; it was nothing less
+      than a deathtrap, and it was by a thousand-to-one chance that I succeeded
+      in escaping quite a nasty kind of fate.</p>
+
+      <p>I might have suspected that something was wrong with the place by the
+      strange look on the face of a friendly French peasant, whom I met. He had
+      described to me in a very vivid way the disposition of the French troops
+      on the neighboring hills. Down the road came suddenly parties of peasants
+      with fear in their eyes. Some of them were in farm carts and put their
+      horses to a stumbling gallop.</p>
+
+      <p>Women with blanched faces, carrying children in their arms, trudged
+      along the dusty highway, and it was clear that these people were afraid
+      of something behind them. There were not many of them, and when they had
+      passed the countryside was strangely and uncannily quiet. There was only
+      the sound of singing birds above fields which were flooded with the
+      golden light of the setting sun.</p>
+
+      <p>Then I came into the town. An intense silence brooded there among the
+      narrow little streets below the old Norman church&mdash;a white jewel on
+      the rising ground beyond. Almost every house was shuttered with blind
+      eyes; but here and there I looked through an open window into deserted
+      rooms.  No human face returned my gaze. It was an abandoned town, emptied
+      of all its people, who had fled with fear in their eyes, like those
+      peasants along the roadway.</p>
+
+      <p>But presently I saw a human form; it was the figure of a French
+      dragoon with his carbine slung behind his back. He was stopping by the
+      side of a number of gunpowder bags. A little further away were little
+      groups of soldiers at work by two bridges, one over a stream and one over
+      a road.  They were working very calmly, and I could see what they were
+      doing; they were mining bridges to blow them up at a given signal.</p>
+
+      <p>As I went further I saw that the streets were strewn with broken
+      bottles and littered with wire entanglements, very artfully and carefully
+      made.</p>
+
+      <p>It was a queer experience. It was obvious that there was very grim
+      business being done, and that the soldiers were waiting for something to
+      happen. At the railway station I quickly learned the truth; the Germans
+      were only a few miles away, in great force. At any moment they might come
+      down, smashing everything in their way and killing every human being
+      along that road.</p>
+
+      <p>The station master, a brave old type, and one or two porters had
+      determined to stay on to the last. "We are here," he said, as though the
+      Germans would have to reckon with him; but he was emphatic in his request
+      for me to leave at once if another train could be got away, which was
+      very uncertain. As a matter of fact, after a bad quarter of an hour I was
+      put on the last train to escape from this threatened town, and left it
+      with the sound of German guns in my ears, followed by a dull explosion
+      when the bridge behind me was blown up.</p>
+
+      <p>My train, in which there were only four other men, skirted the German
+      army, and by a twist in the line almost ran into the enemy's country, but
+      we rushed through the night, and the engine driver laughed and put his
+      oily hand up to salute when I stepped out to the platform of an unknown
+      station. "The Germans won't get us, after all," he said. It was a little
+      risky, all the same.</p>
+
+      <p>The station was crowded with French soldiers, and they were soon
+      telling me their experience of the hard fighting in which they had been
+      engaged.  They were dirty, unshaven, dusty from head to foot, scorched by
+      the August sun, in tattered uniforms and broken boots; but they were
+      beautiful men for all their dirt, and the laughing courage, quiet
+      confidence, and unbragging simplicity with which they assured me that the
+      Germans would soon be caught in a death trap and sent to their
+      destruction filled me with admiration which I cannot express in words.
+      All the odds were against them; they had fought the hardest of all
+      actions&mdash;the retirement from the fighting line&mdash;but they had
+      absolute faith in the ultimate success of their allied arms.</p>
+
+      <p>I managed to get to Paris. It was in the middle of the night, but
+      extraordinary scenes were taking place. It had become known during the
+      day that Paris was no longer the seat of the Government, which has moved
+      to Bordeaux. The Parisians had had notice of four days in which to
+      destroy their houses within the zone of fortifications, and, to add to
+      the cold fear occasioned by this news, aeroplanes had dropped bombs upon
+      the Gare de l'Est that afternoon.</p>
+
+      <p>There was a rush last night to get away from the capital, and the
+      railway stations were great camps of fugitives, in which the richest and
+      poorest citizens were mingled with their women and children. But the
+      tragedy deepened when it was heard that most of the lines to the east had
+      been cut, and that the only line remaining open to Dieppe would probably
+      be destroyed during the next few hours. A great wail of grief arose from
+      the crowds, and the misery of these people was pitiful.</p>
+
+      <p>Among them were groups of soldiers of many regiments. Many of them
+      were wounded and lay on stretchers on the floor among crying babies and
+      weary-eyed women. They had been beaten and were done for until the end of
+      the war. But, alone among the panic-stricken crowd&mdash;panic-stricken,
+      yet not noisy or hysterical, but very quiet and restrained for the most
+      part&mdash;the soldiers were cheerful, and even gay.</p>
+
+      <p>Among them were some British troops, and I had a talk with them. They
+      had been fighting for ten days without cessation, and their story is
+      typical of the way in which all our troops held themselves.</p>
+
+      <p>"We had been fighting night and day," said a Sergeant. "For the whole
+      of that time the only rest from fighting was when we were marching and
+      retiring." He spoke of the German Army as an avalanche of armed men.
+      "You can't mow that down," he said. "We kill them and kill them, and
+      still they come on. They seem to have an inexhaustible supply of fresh
+      troops. Directly we check them in one attack a fresh attack is developed.
+      It is impossible to oppose such a mass of men with any success."</p>
+
+      <p>This splendid fellow, who was severely wounded, was still so much
+      master of himself, so supreme in his common sense, that he was able to
+      get the right perspective about the general situation.</p>
+
+      <p>"It is not right to say we have met with disaster," he said. "We have
+      to expect that nowadays. Besides, what if a battalion was cut up? That
+      did not mean defeat. While one regiment suffered, another got off
+      lightly"; and by the words of that Sergeant the public may learn to see
+      the truth of what has happened. I can add my own evidence to his. All
+      along the lines I have spoken to officers and men, and the actual truth
+      is that the British Army is still unbroken, having retired in perfect
+      order to good positions&mdash;the most marvelous feat ever accomplished
+      in modern warfare.</p>
+
+      <p>From Paris I went by the last train again which has got through to
+      Dieppe. Lately I seem to have become an expert in catching the last
+      train. It was only a branch line which struggles in an erratic way
+      through the west of France, and the going was long and painful, because
+      at every wayside station the carriages were besieged by people trying to
+      escape. They were very patient and very brave. Even when they found that
+      it was impossible to get one more human being on or one more package into
+      the already crowded train they turned away in quiet grief, and when women
+      wept over their babies it was silently and without abandonment to
+      despair. The women of France are brave, God knows. I have seen their
+      courage during the past ten days&mdash;gallantry surpassing that of the
+      men, because of their own children in their arms without shelter, food,
+      or safety in this terrible flight from the advancing enemy.</p>
+
+      <p>Enormous herds of cattle were being driven into Paris. For miles the
+      roads were thronged with them; and down other roads away from Paris
+      families were trekking to far fields with their household goods piled
+      into bullock carts, pony carts, and wheelbarrows.</p>
+
+      <p>Two batteries of artillery were stationed by the line, and a regiment
+      of infantry was hiding in the hollows of the grassy slopes. Their
+      outposts were scanning the horizon, and it was obvious that the Germans
+      were expected at this point in order to cut the last way of escape from
+      the capital.</p>
+
+      <p>One of the enemy's aeroplanes flew above our heads, circled around,
+      and then disappeared. It dropped no bombs and was satisfied with its
+      reconnoissance. The whistle of the train shrieked out, and there was a
+      cheer from the French gunners as we went on our way to safety, leaving
+      them behind at the post of peril.</p>
+
+      <p>ST. PIERRE DU VAUVRAY, Sept. 6.&mdash;England received a hint
+      yesterday as to a change in the German campaign, but only those who have
+      been, as I have, into the very heart of this monstrous horror of war,
+      seeing the flight of hundreds of thousands of people before an
+      overwhelming enemy and following the lines of the allied armies in their
+      steady retirement before an apparently irresistible advance, may realize
+      even dimly the meaning of the amazing transformation that has happened
+      during the last few days.</p>
+
+      <p>For when I wrote my last dispatch from Arques-la-Bataille, after my
+      adventures along the French and English lines, it seemed as inevitable as
+      the rising of next day's sun that the Germans should enter Paris on the
+      very day when I wrote my dispatch. Still not a single shot has come
+      crashing upon the French fortifications.</p>
+
+      <p>At least a million men&mdash;that is no exaggeration of a light pen,
+      but the sober and actual truth&mdash;were advancing steadily upon the
+      capital last Tuesday. They were close to Beauvais when I escaped from
+      what was then a death-trap. They were fighting our British troops at
+      Creil when I came to that town. Upon the following days they were holding
+      our men in the Forest of Compi&egrave;gne. They had been as near to Paris
+      as Senlis, almost within gunshot of the outer forts.</p>
+
+      <p>"Nothing seems to stop them," said many soldiers with whom I spoke.
+      "We kill them and kill them, but they come on."</p>
+
+      <p>The situation seemed to me almost ready for the supreme
+      tragedy&mdash;the capture or destruction of Paris. The northwest of
+      France lay very open to the enemy, abandoned as far south as
+      Abb&eacute;ville and Amiens, too lightly held by a mixed army corps of
+      French and Algerian troops with their headquarters at Aumale.</p>
+
+      <p>Here was an easy way to Paris.</p>
+
+      <p>Always obsessed with the idea that the Germans must come from the
+      east, the almost fatal error of this war, the French had girdled Paris
+      with almost impenetrable forts on the east side, from those of Ecouen and
+      Montmorency, by the far-flung forts of Chelles and Champigny, to those of
+      Susy and Villeneuve, on the outer lines of the triple cordon; but on the
+      west side, between Pontoise and Versailles, the defenses of Paris were
+      weak. I say "were," because during the last three days thousands of men
+      have been digging trenches and throwing up ramparts. Only the snakelike
+      Seine, twining into Pegoud loop, forms a natural defense to the western
+      approach to the city, none too secure against men who have crossed many
+      rivers in their desperate assaults.</p>
+
+      <p>This, then, was the Germans' chance; it was for this that they had
+      fought their way westward and southward through incessant battlefields
+      from Mons and Charleroi to St. Quentin and Amiens and down to Creil and
+      Compi&egrave;gne, flinging away human life as though it were but rubbish
+      for deathpits. The prize of Paris, Paris the great and beautiful, seemed
+      to be within their grasp.</p>
+
+      <p>It was their intention to smash their way into it by this western
+      entry and then to skin it alive. Holding this city at ransom, it was
+      their idea to force France to her knees under threat of making a vast and
+      desolate ruin of all those palaces and churches and noble buildings in
+      which the soul of French history is enshrined.</p>
+
+      <p>They might have done it but for one thing which has upset all the
+      cold-blooded calculations of their staff, that thing which perhaps I may
+      be pardoned for calling the miracle. They might have done it, I think,
+      last Wednesday and Thursday, even perhaps as late as last Friday.</p>
+
+      <p>I am not saying these things from rumor and hearsay, I am writing from
+      the evidence of my own eyes after traveling several hundreds of miles in
+      France during the last four days along the main strategical lines, grim
+      sentinels guarding the last barriers to that approaching death which is
+      sweeping on its way through France to the rich harvest of Paris, which it
+      was eager to destroy.</p>
+
+      <p>There was only one thing to do to escape from the menace of this
+      death.  By all the ways open, by any way, the population of Paris emptied
+      itself like rushing rivers of humanity along all the lines which promised
+      anything like safety.</p>
+
+      <p>Only those stayed behind to whom life means very little away from
+      Paris and who if death came desired to die in the city of their life.</p>
+
+      <p>Again I write from what I saw and to tell the honest truth from what I
+      suffered, for the fatigue of this hunting for facts behind the screen of
+      war is exhausting to all but one's moral strength, and even to that.</p>
+
+      <p>I found myself in the midst of a new and extraordinary activity of the
+      French and English Armies. Regiments were being rushed up to the centre
+      of the allied forces toward Creil, Montdidier, and Noyon. That was before
+      last Tuesday, when the English
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'toops']">troops</ins>
+      were fighting hard at Creil.</p>
+
+      <p>This great movement continued for several days, putting to a severe
+      test the French railway system, which is so wonderfully organized that it
+      achieved this mighty transportation of troops with clockwork regularity.
+      Working to a time table dictated by some great brain which in
+      Headquarters Staff of the French Army, calculated with perfect precision
+      the conditions of a network of lines on which troop trains might be run
+      to a given point. It was an immense victory of organization, and a
+      movement which heartened one observer at least to believe that the German
+      deathblow would again be averted.</p>
+
+      <p>I saw regiment after regiment entraining. Men from the Southern
+      Provinces, speaking the patois of the South; men from the Eastern
+      Departments whom I had seen a month before, at the beginning of the war,
+      at Chalons and Epernay and Nancy, and men from the southwest and centre
+      of France, in garrisons along the Loire. They were all in splendid
+      spirits and utterly undaunted by the rapidity of the German advance.</p>
+
+      <p>"It is nothing, my little one," said a dirty, unshaved gentleman with
+      the laughing eyes of a D'Artagnan; "we shall bite their heads off. These
+      brutal bosches are going to put themselves in a guetapens, a veritable
+      deathtrap. We shall have them at last."</p>
+
+      <p>Many of them had fought at Longwy and along the heights of the Vosges.
+      The youngest of them had bristling beards, their blue coats with
+      turned-back flaps were war worn and flanked with the dust of long
+      marches; their red trousers were sloppy and stained, but they had not
+      forgotten how to laugh, and the gallantry of their spirits was a joy to
+      see.</p>
+
+      <p>They are very proud, these French soldiers, of fighting side by side
+      with their old foes. The English now, after long centuries of strife,
+      from Edward, the Black Prince, to Wellington, are their brothers-in-arms
+      upon the battlefields, and because I am English they offered me their
+      cigarettes and made me one of them. But I realized even then that the
+      individual is of no account in this inhuman business of war.</p>
+
+      <p>It is only masses of men that matter, moved by common obedience at the
+      dictation of mysterious far-off powers, and I thanked Heaven that masses
+      of men were on the move rapidly in vast numbers and in the right
+      direction to support the French lines which had fallen back from Amiens a
+      few hours before I left that town, and whom I had followed in their
+      retirement, back and back, with the English always strengthening their
+      left, but retiring with them almost to the outskirts of Paris itself.</p>
+
+      <p>Only this could save Paris&mdash;the rapid strengthening of the allied
+      front by enormous reserves strong enough to hold back the arrow-shaped
+      battering ram of the enemy's main army.</p>
+
+      <p>Undoubtedly the French Headquarters Staff was working heroically and
+      with fine intelligence to save the situation at the very gates of Paris.
+      The country was being swept absolutely clean of troops in all parts of
+      France, where they had been waiting as reserves.</p>
+
+      <p>It was astounding to me to see, after those three days of rushing
+      troop trains and of crowded stations not large enough to contain the
+      regiments, how on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday last an air of profound
+      solitude and peace had taken possession of all these routes.</p>
+
+      <p>In my long journey through and about France and circling round Paris I
+      found myself wondering sometimes whether all this war had not been a
+      dreadful illusion without reality, and a transformation had taken place,
+      startling in its change, from military turmoil to rural peace.</p>
+
+      <p>Dijon was emptied of its troops. The road to Chalons was deserted by
+      all but fugitives. The great armed camp at Chalons itself had been
+      cleared out except for a small garrison. The troops at Tours had gone
+      northward to the French centre. All our English reserves had been rushed
+      up to the front from Havre and Rouen.</p>
+
+      <p>There was only one deduction to be drawn from this great, swift
+      movement&mdash;the French and English lines had been supported by every
+      available battalion to save Paris from its menace of destruction, to meet
+      the weight of the enemy's metal by a force strong enough to resist its
+      mighty mass.</p>
+
+      <p>It was still possible that the Germans might be smashed on their left
+      wing, hurled back to the west between Paris and the sea, and cut off from
+      their line of communications. It was undoubtedly this impending peril
+      which scared the enemy's Headquarters Staff and upset all its
+      calculations. They had not anticipated the rapidity of the supporting
+      movement of the allied armies, and at the very gates of Paris they saw
+      themselves balked of their prize, the greatest prize of the war, by the
+      necessity of changing front.</p>
+
+      <p>To do them justice, they realized instantly the new order of things,
+      and with quick and marvelous decision did not hesitate to alter the
+      direction of their main force. Instead of proceeding to the west of Paris
+      they swung round steadily to the southeast in order to keep their armies
+      away from the enveloping movement of the French and English and drive
+      their famous wedge-like formation southward for the purpose of dividing
+      the allied forces of the west from the French Army of the East.  The
+      miraculous had happened, and Paris, for a little time at least, is
+      unmolested.</p>
+
+      <p>That brings me back to the fighting at Creil and Compi&egrave;gne,
+      which preceded from last Tuesday until two days later.</p>
+
+      <p>The guns were at work at midnight on Tuesday when I passed the English
+      Headquarters. This battle had only one purpose so far as the Germans were
+      concerned. It was to keep our British soldiers busy, as well as to hold
+      the front of the French allies on our right, while their d&eacute;bordant
+      movements took place behind this fighting screen.</p>
+
+      <p>Once again, as throughout the war, they showed their immense
+      superiority in mitrailleuses, which gives them marvelous mobility and a
+      very deadly advantage. They masked these quick-firers with great skill
+      until they had drawn on the English and French infantry and then spilled
+      lead into their ranks. Once again, also the French were too impetuous, as
+      they have always been, and as they still are, in spite of Gen. Joffre's
+      severe rebuke.</p>
+
+      <p>Careless of quick-firers, which experience should have taught them
+      were masked behind the enemy's advance posts, they charged with the
+      bayonet, and suffered needlessly heavy losses. One can only admire the
+      gallantry of men who dare to charge on foot against the enemy's mounted
+      men and who actually put a squadron of them to flight, but one must say
+      again: "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre."</p>
+
+      <p>There have been many incidents of heroism in these last days of
+      fighting. It is, for instance, immensely characteristic of the French
+      spirit that an infantry battalion, having put to flight a detachment of
+      German outposts in the forest of Compi&egrave;gne, calmly sat down to
+      have a picnic in the woods until, as they sat over their hot soup,
+      laughing at their exploit, they were attacked by a new force and cut to
+      pieces.</p>
+
+      <p>But let me describe the new significance of the main German advance.
+      Their right army has struck down to the southeast of Paris, through
+      Ch&acirc;teau Thiery to La Fert&eacute;-sur-Jouarre and beyond. Their
+      centre army is coming hard down from Troyes, in the Department of the
+      Aube, and the army of the left has forced the French to evacuate Rheims
+      and fall back in a southwesterly direction.</p>
+
+      <p>It would not be right of me to indicate the present position of the
+      British troops or describe the great scenes at their base, which is now
+      removed to a position which enables our forces to hold the eastern
+      approach to Paris. It is a wonderful sight to pass the commissariat camp,
+      where, among other munitions of war, is a park of British aeroplanes,
+      which are of vital importance to our work of reconnoissance.</p>
+
+      <p>Looking, therefore, at the extraordinary transformation throughout the
+      field of war in France, one thing stands out clear-cut and distinct.
+      Having been thwarted in their purpose to walk through the western way to
+      Paris by the enormous forces massed on their flanks, the Germans have
+      adopted an entirely new plan of campaign and have thrust their armies
+      deep down into the centre of France in order to divide the western armies
+      of the Allies from the army on the eastern frontier. It is a menacing
+      manoeuvre, and it cannot be hidden that the army of Lorraine is in danger
+      of being cut off by the enemy's armies of the left.</p>
+
+      <p>At the same time the German right is swinging round in a southwesterly
+      direction in order to attack the allied forces on the east and south.
+      Paris is thus left out of account for the time being, but it depends upon
+      the issues of the next few days whether the threatened peril will be
+      averted from it by the immense army now protecting it. I believe the
+      spirit of our own troops and their French comrades is so splendid that
+      with their new strength they will be equal to that formidable attack.</p>
+
+      <p>Nothing certainly is being left to chance. For miles all around Paris
+      trenches are being dug in the roads, and little sectional trenches on the
+      broad roads of France, first one on this side of the way, and then one on
+      the other side, so that a motor car traveling along the road has to drive
+      in a series of sharp curves to avoid pitfalls.</p>
+
+      <p>There was feverish activity on the west side of the Paris
+      fortifications when I passed between St. Germain and St. Denis.</p>
+
+      <p>Earthworks are being constantly thrown up between the forts, and the
+      triple curves of the Seine are being intrenched so that thousands of men
+      may take cover there and form a terrific defense against any attack.</p>
+
+      <p>Gen. Galli&eacute;ni, the Military Governor of Paris, is a man of
+      energy and iron resolution, and no doubt under his command Paris, if it
+      has to undergo a siege, (which God avert!) will defend itself well, now
+      that it has had these precious days of respite.</p>
+
+      <p>After wandering along the westerly and southerly roads I started for
+      Paris when thousands and scores of thousands were flying from it. At that
+      time I believed, as all France believed, that in a few hours German
+      shells would be crashing across the fortifications of the city and that
+      Paris the beautiful would be Paris the infernal. It needed a good deal of
+      resolution on my part to go deliberately to a city from which the
+      population was fleeing, and I confess quite honestly that I had a nasty
+      sensation in the neighborhood of my waistcoat buttons at the thought.</p>
+
+      <p>Along the road from Tours to Paris there were sixty unbroken miles of
+      people&mdash;on my honor, I do not exaggerate, but write the absolute
+      truth.  They were all people who had despaired of breaking through the
+      dense masses of their fellow-citizens camped around the railway stations,
+      and had decided to take to the roads as the only way of escape.</p>
+
+      <p>The vehicles were taxicabs, for which the rich paid fabulous prices;
+      motor cars which had escaped military requisition, farmers' carts laden
+      with several families and piles of household goods, shop carts drawn by
+      horses already tired to the point of death because of the weight of the
+      people who crowded behind pony traps and governess carts.</p>
+
+      <p>Many persons, well dressed and belonging obviously to well-to-do
+      bourgeoisie, were wheeling barrows like costers, but instead of trundling
+      cabbages were pushing forward sleeping babies and little children, who
+      seemed on the first stage to find new amusement and excitement in the
+      journey from home; but for the most part they trudged along bravely,
+      carrying their babies and holding the hands of their little ones.</p>
+
+      <p>They were of all classes, rank and fortune being annihilated by the
+      common tragedy. Elegant women whose beauty is known in Paris salons,
+      whose frivolity, perhaps, in the past was the main purpose of their life,
+      were now on a level with the peasant mothers of the French suburbs and
+      with the midinettes of Montmartre, and their courage did not fail them so
+      quickly.</p>
+
+      <p>I looked into many proud, brave faces of these delicate women, walking
+      in high-heeled shoes, all too frail for the hard-dusty roadways. They
+      belonged to the same race and breed as those ladies who defied death with
+      fine disdain upon the scaffold of the guillotine in the great
+      Revolution.</p>
+
+      <p>They were leaving Paris now, not because of any fears for
+      themselves&mdash;I believe they were fearless&mdash;but because they had
+      decided to save the little sons and daughters of soldier fathers.</p>
+
+      <p>This great army in retreat was made up of every type familiar in
+      Paris.</p>
+
+      <p>Here were women of the gay world, poor creatures whose painted faces
+      had been washed with tears, and whose tight skirts and white stockings
+      were never made for a long march down the highways of France.</p>
+
+      <p>Here also were thousands of those poor old ladies who live on a few
+      francs a week in the top attics of the Paris streets, which Balzac knew;
+      they had fled from their poor sanctuaries and some of them were still
+      carrying cats and canaries, as dear to them as their own lives.</p>
+
+      <p>There was one young woman who walked with a pet monkey on her shoulder
+      while she carried a bird in a golden cage. Old men, who remembered 1870,
+      gave their arms to old ladies to whom they had made love when the
+      Prussians were at the gates of Paris then.</p>
+
+      <p>It was pitiful to see these old people now hobbling along together.
+      Pitiful, but beautiful also, because of their lasting love.</p>
+
+      <p>Young boy students, with ties as black as their hats and rat-tail
+      hair, marched in small companies of comrades, singing brave songs, as
+      though they had no fear in their hearts, and very little food, I think,
+      in their stomachs.</p>
+
+      <p>Shopgirls and concierges, city clerks, old aristocrats, young boys and
+      girls, who supported grandfathers and grandmothers and carried new-born
+      babies and gave pick-a-back rides to little brothers and sisters, came
+      along the way of retreat.</p>
+
+      <p>Each human being in the vast torrent of life will have an
+      unforgettable story of adventure to tell if life remains. As a novelist I
+      should have been glad to get their narratives along this road for a great
+      story of suffering and strange adventure, but there was no time for that
+      and no excuse.</p>
+
+      <p>When I met many of them they were almost beyond the power of words.
+      The hot sun of this September had beaten down upon them&mdash;scorching
+      them as in the glow of molten metal. Their tongues clave to their mouths
+      with thirst.</p>
+
+      <p>Some of them had that wild look in their eyes which is the first sign
+      of the delirium of thirst and fatigue.</p>
+
+      <p>Nothing to eat or drink could be found on the way from Paris. The
+      little roadside caf&eacute;s had been cleared out by the preceding
+      hordes.</p>
+
+      <p>Unless these people carried their own food and drink they could have
+      none except of the charity of their comrades in misfortune, and that
+      charity has exceeded all other acts of heroism in this war. Women gave
+      their last biscuit, their last little drop of wine, to poor mothers whose
+      children were famishing with thirst and hunger; peasant women fed other
+      women's babies when their own were satisfied.</p>
+
+      <p>It was a tragic road. At every mile of it there were people who had
+      fainted on the roadside and poor old men and women who could go no
+      further, but sat on the banks below the hedges, weeping silently or
+      bidding younger ones go forward and leave them to their fate. Young women
+      who had stepped out so jauntily at first were footsore and lame, so they
+      limped along with lines of pain about their lips and eyes.</p>
+
+      <p>Many of the taxicabs, bought at great prices, and many of the motor
+      cars had broken down as I passed, and had been abandoned by their owners,
+      who had decided to walk. Farmers' carts had bolted into ditches and lost
+      their wheels. Wheelbarrows, too heavy to be trundled, had been tilted up,
+      with all their household goods spilt into the roadway, and the children
+      had been carried further, until at last darkness came, and their only
+      shelter was a haystack in a field under the harvest moon.</p>
+
+      <p>For days also I have been wedged up with fugitives in railway trains
+      more dreadful than the open roads, stifling in their heat and
+      heart-racking in their cargoes of misery. Poor women have wept
+      hysterically clasping my hand, a stranger's hand, for comfort in their
+      wretchedness and weakness. Yet on the whole they have shown amazing
+      courage, and, after their tears, have laughed at their own breakdown,
+      and, always children of France, have been superb, so that again and again
+      I have wondered at the gallantry with which they endured this horror.
+      Young boys have revealed the heroic strain in them and have played the
+      part of men in helping their mothers. And yet, when I came at last into
+      Paris against all this tide of retreat, it seemed a needless fear that
+      had driven these people away.</p>
+
+      <p>Then I passed long lines of beautiful little villas on the Seine side,
+      utterly abandoned among their trees and flowers. A solitary fisherman
+      held his line above the water as though all the world were at peace, and
+      in a field close to the fortifications which I expected to see bursting
+      with shells, an old peasant bent above the furrows and planted cabbages.
+      Then, at last, I walked through the streets of Paris and found them
+      strangely quiet and tranquil.</p>
+
+      <p>The people I met looked perfectly calm. There were a few children
+      playing in the gardens of Champs Elys&eacute;es and under the Arc de
+      Triomph symbolical of the glory of France.</p>
+
+      <p>I looked back upon the beauty of Paris all golden in the light of the
+      setting sun, with its glinting spires and white gleaming palaces and rays
+      of light flashing in front of the golden trophies of its monuments.
+      Paris was still unbroken. No shell had come shattering into this city of
+      splendor, and I thanked Heaven that for a little while the peril had
+      passed.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>A Zouave's Story</h3>
+      <p class="h3"><b>By Philip Gibbs of The London Daily Chronicle.</b></p>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Special Dispatch to <span class="pscaps">The New York Times</span>.]</p>
+
+      <p>CREIL, Sept. 10.&mdash;I could write this narrative as a historian,
+      with details gathered from many different witnesses at various parts of
+      the lines, in a cold and aloof way, but I prefer to tell it in the words
+      of a young officer of the Zouaves who was in the thickest of fighting
+      until when I met him and gave him wine and biscuits. He was put out of
+      action by a piece of shell which smashed his left arm. He told me the
+      story of the battle as he sat back, hiding his pain by a little careless
+      smile of contempt, and splashed with blood which made a mess of his
+      uniform.</p>
+
+      <p>"For four days previous to Monday, Sept. 7," he said, "we were engaged
+      in clearing out the German bosches from all the villages on the left bank
+      of the Ourcq, which they had occupied in order to protect the flank of
+      their right wing. Unfortunately for us the English heavy artillery, which
+      would have smashed the beggars to bits, had not yet come up to help us,
+      although we expected them with some anxiety, as big business events began
+      as soon as we drove the outposts back to their main lines.</p>
+
+      <p>"However, we were equal to the preliminary task, and, heartened by the
+      news of an ammunition convoy which had been turned into a pretty
+      fireworks display by 'Soixante-dix' Pau, my Zouaves, (as you see, I
+      belong to the First Division, which has a reputation to keep up, n'est ce
+      pas?) were in splendid form. Of course, they all laughed at me. They
+      wanted to get near those German guns and nearer still to the gunners.
+      That was before they knew the exact meaning of shellfire well.</p>
+
+      <p>"They did good things, those Zouaves of mine, but it wasn't pleasant
+      work.  We fought from village to village, very close fighting, so that
+      sometimes we could look into our enemy's eyes. The Moroccans were with
+      us.  The native troops are unlike my boys, who are Frenchmen, and they
+      were like demons with their bayonet work.</p>
+
+      <p>"Several of the villages were set on fire by the Germans before they
+      retired from them, and soon great columns of smoke with pillars of flames
+      and clouds of flying sparks rose up into the blue sky and made a picture
+      of hell there, for really it was hell on earth. Our gunners were shelling
+      Germans from pillar to post, as it were, and strewing the ground with
+      their dead. It was across and among these dead bodies that we infantry
+      had to charge.</p>
+
+      <p>"They lay about in heaps. It made me sick, even in the excitement of
+      it all.  The enemy's quick-firers were marvelous. I am bound to say we
+      did not get it all our own way. They always manoeuvre them in the same
+      style, and a very clever style it is. First of all, they mask them with
+      infantry; then, when the French charge, they reveal them and put us to
+      the test under the most withering fire. It is almost impossible to stand
+      against it, and in this case we had to retire after each rush for about
+      250 meters. Then, quick as lightning, the Germans got their mitrailleuses
+      across the ground which we had yielded to them and waited for us to come
+      on again, when they repeated the same operation.</p>
+
+      <p>"I can tell you it was pretty trying to the nerves. My Zouaves were
+      very steady in spite of fairly heavy losses. It is quite untrue to say
+      that the Germans have a greater number of mitrailleuses than the French.
+      I believe that the proportion is exactly the same to each division, but
+      they handle them more cleverly, and their fire is much more effective
+      than ours.</p>
+
+      <p>"In a village named Penchard there was some very sharp fighting, and
+      some of our artillery was posted thereabout. Presently a German aeroplane
+      came overhead, circling round in reconnoissance; but it was out for more
+      than that. Suddenly it began to drop bombs and, whether by design or
+      otherwise, they exploded in the middle of a field hospital.  One of my
+      friends, a young doctor, was wounded in the left arm by a bullet from one
+      of these bombs, but I don't know what other casualties there were. The
+      inevitable happened shortly after the disappearance of the aeroplane.
+      German shells searched the position and found it with unpleasant
+      accuracy. It is always the same. The German aeroplanes are really
+      wonderful in the way they search out the positions of our guns.  We
+      always know that within half an hour of observation by aeroplane shells
+      will begin to fall above gunners, unless they have altered their
+      position. It was so in this fighting round Meaux yesterday.</p>
+
+      <p>"For four days this hunting among the villages on the left bank of the
+      Ourcq went on all the time, and we were not very happy with ourselves.
+      The truth was we had no water and were four days thirsty. It was really
+      terrible, for the heat was terrific during the day, and some of us were
+      almost mad with thirst. Our tongues were blistered and swollen, our eyes
+      had a silly kind of look in them, and at night we had horrid dreams. It
+      was, I assure you, intolerable agony.</p>
+
+      <p>"I have said we were four days without drink, and that was because we
+      used our last water for our horses. A gentleman has to do that, you will
+      agree, and a French soldier is not a barbarian. Even then the horses had
+      to go without a drop of water for two days, and I'm not ashamed to say I
+      wept salt tears to see the sufferings of those poor, innocent creatures
+      who did not understand the meaning of all this bloody business and who
+      wondered at our cruelty.</p>
+
+      <p>"The nights were dreadful. All around us were burning villages, and at
+      every faint puff of wind sparks floated about them like falling
+      stars.</p>
+
+      <p>"But other fires were burning. Under the cover of darkness the Germans
+      had piled the dead into great heaps and had covered them with straw and
+      paraffin; then they had set a torch to these funeral pyres.</p>
+
+      <p>"Carrion crows were about in the dawn that followed. One of my own
+      comrades lay very badly wounded, and when he wakened out of his
+      unconsciousness one of these beastly birds was sitting on his chest
+      waiting for him to die. That is war.</p>
+
+      <p>"The German shells were terrifying. I confess to you that there were
+      times when my nerves were absolutely gone. I crouched down with my men
+      (we were in open formation) and ducked my head at the sound of the
+      bursting shell, and I trembled in every limb as though I had a fit of
+      ague.</p>
+
+      <p>"It is true that in reality the German shells are not very effective.
+      Only about one in four explodes nicely, but it is a bad thing when, as
+      happened to me, the shells plopped around in a diameter of fifty meters.
+      One hears the zip-zip of bullets, the boom of the great guns, the
+      ste-tang of our French artillery, and in all this infernal experience of
+      noise and stench, the screams at times of dying horses and men joined
+      with the fury of gunfire and rising shrill above it, no man may boast of
+      his courage. There were moments when I was a coward with all of them.</p>
+
+      <p>"But one gets used to it, as to all things. My ague did not last long.
+      Soon I was shouting and cheering. Again we cleared the enemy out of the
+      village of Bregy, and that was where I fell, wounded in the arm pretty
+      badly by a bit of shell. When I came to myself a brother officer told me
+      things were going on well and that we had rolled back the German right.
+      That was better than bandages to me. I felt very well again, in spite of
+      my weakness.</p>
+
+      <p>"It is the beginning of the end, and the Germans are on the run. They
+      are exhausted and demoralized. Their pride has been broken; they are
+      short of ammunition; they know their plans have failed.</p>
+
+      <p>"Now that we have them on the move nothing will save them. This war is
+      going to be finished quicker than people thought. I believe that in a few
+      days the enemy will be broken and that we shall have nothing more to do
+      than kill them as they fight back in retreat."</p>
+
+      <p>That is the story, without any retouching of my pen, of a young
+      Lieutenant of Zouaves whom I met after the battle of Meaux, with blood
+      still splashed upon his uniform.</p>
+
+      <p>It is a human story, giving the experience of only one individual in
+      the great battle, but it gives also in outline a narrative of that great
+      military operation which has done irreparable damage to the German right
+      wing in its plan of campaign and thrust it back across the Ourcq in a
+      great retiring movement which has also begun upon the German centre and
+      left.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>When War Burst on Arras</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[A Special Dispatch to <span class="pscaps">The New York Times</span> and The London
+      Daily Chronicle.]</p>
+
+      <p>A TOWN IN FRANCE, Oct. 7.&mdash;Arras has been the pivot of a fierce
+      battle which, commencing Thursday, was still in progress when I was
+      forced to leave the citadel three days later.</p>
+
+      <p>In that period I was fortunate enough to penetrate into the firing
+      line, and the experience is one that will never be dimmed in my memory.
+      Like the movements of so many pawns on a mammoth chessboard was the
+      feinting with scattered outposts to test the strength of the enemy.</p>
+
+      <p>I saw the action open with skirmishes at Vitry-en-Artois, and next
+      morning one of the hardest battles which make a link in the chain flung
+      right across France of the gigantic battle of rivers was being prosecuted
+      before my eyes.</p>
+
+      <p>The days that ensued were full of feverish and hectic motion. Arras
+      rattled and throbbed with the flow of an army and all the tragedy which
+      war brings in its train. There were moments when its cobbled streets were
+      threaded by streams of wounded from the country beyond. Guns boomed
+      incessantly, a fitting requiem to the sad little processions which
+      occasionally revealed that some poor fellow had sacrificed his life for
+      the flag which accompanied him to his grave.</p>
+
+      <p>I reached Arras on Sept. 29. The Germans had occupied it a fortnight
+      earlier. Now it was placid, sleepy, and deserted, and bore no outward
+      signs of having suffered from their occupation. I learned, however, that
+      although they had refrained from demolishing buildings, there had been
+      scenes of debauchery, and private houses had been ransacked.</p>
+
+      <p>It was declared that the only German paying for anything during the
+      whole of the fortnight's occupation was a member of the Hohenzollern
+      family, an important officer who had made the H&ocirc;tel d'Univers his
+      headquarters.</p>
+
+      <p>I decided to pass on to Vitry-en-Artois, twelve miles distant and six
+      kilometers from Douai, where I had heard the Allies were in force. Here I
+      obtained a room in a hotel.</p>
+
+      <p>Within a short while I saw armed cars. There came many warriors in
+      many cars, cars fitted with mitrailleuses, cars advancing backward, cars
+      with two soldiers in the back of each with their rifles rested on the
+      back cushions and their fingers on the triggers, and with the muzzles of
+      mitrailleuses pointing over their heads. Several cavalry scouts, too, are
+      in the streets.</p>
+
+      <p>Once I ventured my head a little outside of the door and was curtly
+      warned to eliminate myself or possibly I would get shot. I eliminated
+      myself for the moment.</p>
+
+      <p>Now with dramatic suddenness death touches Vitry with her chill
+      fingers.  In the distance, right away beyond the bridge behind a bend in
+      the road, there is a clatter of hoofs. It stops. Again it goes on and
+      stops for about a couple of minutes, and then quite distinctly can be
+      heard the sound of a body of horsemen proceeding at a walk.</p>
+
+      <p>The cavalry scouts have vanished into big barns on either side of the
+      road, and around the corner of the bridge comes a small body of German
+      cavalry. They have passed the spot where the French scouts are hidden and
+      I have retreated to my bedroom window, from where I can count twelve of
+      the Death's Head riders.</p>
+
+      <p>They are riding to their fate. Right slap up in front of the cars they
+      come. A rifle shot rings out from where the French scouts are hidden,
+      then another, and that is the signal for the inferno to be loosed.</p>
+
+      <p>C-r-r-r-r-r-ack, and the mitrailleuse spits out a regular hail of
+      death, vicious, whiplike, never-ceasing cracks. Two horses are down and
+      three men lie prone in the road.</p>
+
+      <p>The Germans have not fired a shot, all their energies being
+      concentrated in wildly turning their horses to get back again round the
+      bend.</p>
+
+      <p>It is too late. Another two are toppled over by the scouts in the
+      barns, and then cars are after them, still spitting out an unending hail
+      of lead.</p>
+
+      <p>It seems impossible that even a fly could live in such a stream of
+      bullets, yet out of the dozen three get round the bend, and, galloping
+      madly, make for the only spot where they can leave the road and get
+      across country. Even the automobile and auto-mitrailleuse men cannot
+      follow them there.</p>
+
+      <p>These fellows seem perfectly satisfied with a bag of nine, obtained
+      without a scratch. All are dead, one of them with over twenty wounds in
+      him. Two horses are stone dead, and three others have to be put out of
+      their misery. The other four are contentedly standing at the roadside
+      munching grass, one with a hind leg lifted a few inches off the
+      ground.</p>
+
+      <p>The bodies of the dead Germans are laid side by side in a field to
+      await burial. The uniforms are stripped of everything that can be
+      removed, buttons and shoulder straps. The men in the cars take the water
+      bottles, swords, and revolvers as mementos.</p>
+
+      <p>I imperfectly understood the real meaning of this scrap. I had thought
+      it was an encounter between stray forces. A talk with the driver of an
+      armed car, however, enlarged my perspective. It was a meeting of the
+      outposts of two great opposing armies, one of which was at Douai, the
+      other at Cambrai. The feelers of both forces were being extended to
+      discover the various positions, preparatory to a big battle, which was
+      expected on the morrow (Oct. 1) along the line of
+      Cambrai-Douai-Valenciennes.</p>
+
+      <p>It was understood that the Germans had massed in force at Cambrai and
+      strong wings were thrown out on both sides, the outposts of one wing, as
+      we have already seen, coming into touch with the French at Vitry.</p>
+
+      <p>From the reports of the auto-mitrailleuse men, who cover great
+      distances in a day, similar skirmishing had been taking place at Etain,
+      (where some farmhouses were burned,) Eterpigny, Croisilles, Boisleux, and
+      Boyelles, these places ranging from ten to twenty kilometers from
+      Arras.</p>
+
+      <p>There was a general exodus from Vitry and I secured standing room in a
+      wagon of the last train leaving for Arras. It was loaded with
+      fugitives.</p>
+
+      <p>Arras had changed completely on my return. Its calmness was gone. The
+      station was empty of civilians, there were no trains running and the
+      station entrance was in charge of a strong picket of soldiers, while the
+      road outside echoed to the tread of infantry.</p>
+
+      <p>I stood still in amazement, while my papers were being closely
+      examined, and watched regiment after regiment of foot with their
+      transport trains complete marching out on the road to Douai. This was
+      part of the preparation for the big battle which I was told was going to
+      begin tomorrow.</p>
+
+      <p>In the town itself the transformation was still more
+      amazing&mdash;soldiers in every street, cavalry, infantry, dragoons,
+      lancers, and engineers in ones and twos, and parties of twenty or thirty
+      picturesque Moroccans. I never saw such a medley of colors and
+      expressions, and the whole town was full of them&mdash;material for one
+      army corps at least.</p>
+
+      <p>I installed myself in quarters at the H&ocirc;tel de l'Univers, with
+      the intention of getting away the first thing in the morning if possible.
+      But it was not possible. I was informed that Arras was now under military
+      control, and no permits were being issued whatsoever. The Lieutenant who
+      told me this smiled as I shrugged my shoulders.</p>
+
+      <p>"You will bear witness, Monsieur, that I tried my best to get out,"
+      said I.</p>
+
+      <p>"Certainly; but why go away?" he asked with a smile. "Arras est tres
+      belle ville, Monsieur. You have a good hotel, a good bed, and good food.
+      Why should you go out?"</p>
+
+      <p>And so I stayed at Arras.</p>
+
+      <p>That was Sept. 30. The next day I could hear guns. They started at
+      about 8 o'clock in the morning, the French guns being in position about
+      five kilometers outside of Arras to the south, southeast, and east,
+      sixteen batteries of France's artillery or 75-millimeter calibre.</p>
+
+      <p>All day long the guns thundered and roared, and all day long I sat
+      outside the caf&eacute; of the H&ocirc;tel des Voyageurs in the Place de
+      la Gare. The station building was right in front of me. I longed for a
+      position which would enable me to see over the tall buildings on to the
+      battlefield beyond. Even the roof of the station would have suited. There
+      was a little crowd of officials already there with their field glasses,
+      and they could discern what was going on, for I noticed several pointing
+      here and there whenever a particularly loud explosion was heard.</p>
+
+      <p>Two men in civilian clothes sat down beside me and gave me "good day,"
+      evidently curious as to my nationality. I invited them to join me in
+      coffee and cognac, and during the ensuing conversation we all became very
+      friendly, and I was given to understand that one of them was the
+      volunteer driver of an auto-mitrailleuse who had just come off duty.</p>
+
+      <p>I remarked that it would be very interesting to get a sight of what
+      was going on behind the station.</p>
+
+      <p>"Is it very near&mdash;the battle?"</p>
+
+      <p>"About five kilometers, Monsieur. The German guns are ten kilometers
+      distant. One of the German shells exploded behind the station this
+      morning. Would Monsieur like to walk out a little way?"</p>
+
+      <p>"But surely the pickets will not let me pass beyond the barrier," said
+      I.</p>
+
+      <p>My good friend of the auto-mitrailleuse smiled, rose, and buttoned up
+      his coat. "Come with me," he invited.</p>
+
+      <p>At the barrier we were stopped, but luck had not deserted me, for in
+      the Sergeant in charge of the pickets I recognized another caf&eacute;
+      acquaintance of the previous night. We shook hands, exchanged cigarettes,
+      and proceeded up and down numerous streets, bearing always southward in
+      the direction of the firing, until the open country was reached.</p>
+
+      <p>My companion suddenly caught hold of my arm and we both jumped up the
+      bank at the side of the road to let a long string of artillery drivers
+      trot past on their way back for more ammunition. Another cloud of dust,
+      and coming up behind us was a fresh lot of shells on the way out to the
+      firing line.</p>
+
+      <p>Right up in the sky ahead suddenly appeared a ball of yellow greeny
+      smoke, which grew bigger and bigger, and then "boom" came the sound of a
+      gun about three seconds afterward. A shell had burst in the air about 300
+      yards away. Another and another came&mdash;all about the same place. They
+      appeared to come from the direction of Bapaume.</p>
+
+      <p>"Bad, very bad," commented my companion. And so it appeared to me, for
+      the Germans were dropping their shells from the southeast, at least one
+      kilometer over range. We were standing beside a strawstack and looking
+      due south, watching the just discernible line of French guns, when we
+      heard the ominous whistling screech of an approaching shell. Down on our
+      faces behind the stack, down we went like lightning, and over to the
+      left, not 200 yards away, rose a huge column of black smoke and earth,
+      and just afterward a very loud boom. A big German gun had come into
+      action, slightly nearer this time.</p>
+
+      <p>Just behind a wood I could plainly see the smoke of the gun itself
+      rising above the trees. Two more shells from the big gun exploded within
+      twenty yards of each other, and then, with disconcerting suddenness, a
+      French battery came into action within a hundred yards of our strawstack
+      cover. They had evidently been there for some time, awaiting
+      eventualities, for we had no suspicion of their proximity, and they were
+      completely hidden.</p>
+
+      <p>My ears are still tingling and buzzing from the sound of those guns.
+      One after another the guns of this battery bombarded the newly taken up
+      position of the German big guns, which replied with one shell every three
+      minutes.</p>
+
+      <p>Presently we had the satisfaction of hearing a violent explosion in
+      the wood, and a column of smoke and flame rose up to a great height.</p>
+
+      <p>Soixante-quinze had again scored, for the German guns had been put out
+      of action. From out the French position came infantry, at this point
+      thousands of little dots over the landscape, presenting a front of, I
+      should think, about two miles, rapidly advancing in skirmishing order.
+      Every now and then the sharp crackle of rifle fire could distinctly be
+      heard.</p>
+
+      <p>The French had advanced over a mile, and the Germans had hastily
+      evacuated the wood. Other French batteries now came into action, and the
+      German fire over the whole arc was becoming decidedly fainter and less
+      frequent. This might, of course, be due to changing their positions on
+      the German front.</p>
+
+      <p>Wounded began to arrive, which showed that for the present at any
+      rate, it was safe to go out to the trenches to collect them.</p>
+
+      <p>Very few of them seemed badly hit, and the wounded French artillerymen
+      seemed to be elated in spite of their wounds. Had not their beloved
+      Soixante-quinze again scored? The time was 6 o'clock of a beautiful
+      evening and the firing, though fairly continuous, was dropping off. The
+      Germans had changed their positions and it was getting a little too hazy
+      to make observation, although a French aeroplane was seen descending in
+      wide circles over the German position, evidently quite regardless of the
+      numerous small balls of smoke, which made their appearance in the sky in
+      dangerous proximity to the daring pilot.</p>
+
+      <p>It is very interesting to watch these aeroplane shells bursting in the
+      air. First of all one sees a vivid little streak of bluish white light in
+      the sky, and then instantaneously a smoke ball, which appears to be about
+      the size of a football, is seen in the sky, always fairly close to the
+      machine. Then there is the sound of an explosion like a giant
+      cracker.</p>
+
+      <p>Occasionally several guns will fire at about the same time, and it is
+      weird to watch the various balls of smoke, apparently coming into being
+      from nowhere, all around the machine. Sometimes one of these shells,
+      which are filled with a species of shrapnel, bursts rather unpleasantly
+      near the aeroplane, and then one sees the machine turn quickly and rise a
+      little higher.</p>
+
+      <p>Two or three holes have been neatly drilled through the planes.
+      Perhaps one has appeared in the body of the machine, rather too near the
+      pilot for safety; but it is a big gamble, anyhow, and besides the pilot
+      has been instructed to find out where the various positions are, and he
+      means to do it.</p>
+
+      <p>So he simply rises a little higher and calmly continues his big
+      circles over the German position.</p>
+
+      <p>I take off my hat to these brave men, the aeroplane pilots. They are
+      willing to chance their luck. What matters it if their machine gets hit,
+      if the planes are riddled with holes? It will still fly, even if the
+      engine gets a fatal wound and stops.</p>
+
+      <p>The pilot, if he is high enough, can still glide to safety in his own
+      lines. But (and it is a big "but") should a shrapnel ball find its billet
+      in the pilot&mdash;well, one has only to die once, and it is a quick and sure
+      death to fall with one's machine.</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image021-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image021.jpg"
+            alt="Illustration"
+            title="Illustration"/>
+         </a>
+      </div>
+
+
+      <h3>The Battles in Belgium</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[An Associated Press Dispatch.]</p>
+
+      <p>LONDON, Oct. 26, 4:40 A.M.&mdash;The correspondent of The Daily News,
+      who has been in an armored train to the banks of the Yser, gives a good
+      description of the battle in the North. He says:</p>
+
+      <p>"The battle rages along the Yser with frightful destruction of life.
+      Air engines, sea engines, and land engines deathsweep this desolate
+      country, vertically, horizontally, and transversely. Through it the frail
+      little human engines crawl and dig, walk and run, skirmishing, charging,
+      and blundering in little individual fights and tussles, tired and
+      puzzled, ordered here and there, sleeping where they can, never washing,
+      and dying unnoticed. A friend may find himself firing on a friendly
+      force, and few are to blame.</p>
+
+      <p>"Thursday the Germans were driven back over the Yser; Friday they
+      secured a footing again, and Saturday they were again hurled back. Now a
+      bridge blown up by one side is repaired by the other; it is again blown
+      up by the first, or left as a death trap till the enemy is actually
+      crossing.</p>
+
+      <p>"Actions by armored trains, some of them the most reckless adventures,
+      are attempted daily. Each day accumulates an unwritten record of
+      individual daring feats, accepted as part of the daily work. Day by day
+      our men push out on these dangerous explorations, attacked by shell fire,
+      in danger of cross-fire, dynamite, and ambuscades, bringing a priceless
+      support to the threatened lines. As the armored train approaches the
+      river under shell fire the car cracks with the constant thunder of guns
+      aboard. It is amazing to see the angle at which the guns can be
+      swung.</p>
+
+      <p>"And overhead the airmen are busy venturing through fog and puffs of
+      exploding shells to get one small fact of information. We used to regard
+      the looping of the loop of the Germans overhead as a hare-brained piece
+      of impudent defiance to our infantry fire. Now we know its means early
+      trouble for the infantry.</p>
+
+      <p>"Besides us, as we crawl up snuffing the lines like dogs on a scent,
+      grim trainloads of wounded wait soundlessly in the sidings. Further up
+      the line ambulances are coming slowly back. The bullets of machine guns
+      begin to rattle on our armored coats. Shells we learned to disregard, but
+      the machine gun is the master in this war.</p>
+
+      <p>"Now we near the river at a flat country farm. The territory is
+      scarred with trenches, and it is impossible to say at first who is in
+      them, so incidental and separate are the fortunes of this riverside
+      battle. The Germans are on our bank enfilading the lines of the Allies'
+      trenches. We creep up and the Germans come into sight out of the
+      trenches, rush to the bank, and are scattered and mashed. The Allies
+      follow with a fierce bayonet charge.</p>
+
+      <p>"The Germans do not wait. They rush to the bridges and are swept away
+      by the deadliest destroyer of all, the machine gun. The bridge is blown
+      up, but who can say by whom. Quickly the train runs back.</p>
+
+      <p>"'A brisk day,' remarks the correspondent. 'Not so bad,' replies the
+      officer. So the days pass."</p>
+
+      <p>The Telegraph's correspondent in Belgium, who, accompanied by a son of
+      the Belgian War Minister, M. de Broqueville, made a tour of the
+      battleground in the Dixmude district last Wednesday, says:</p>
+
+      <p>"No pen could do justice to the grandeur and horror of the scene. As
+      far as the eye could reach nothing could be seen but burning villages and
+      bursting shells. I realized for the first time how completely the motor
+      car had revolutionized warfare and how every other factor was now
+      dominated by the absence or presence of this unique means of
+      transport.</p>
+
+      <p>"Every road to the front was simply packed with cars. They seemed an
+      ever-rolling, endless stream, going and returning to the front, while in
+      many villages hundreds of private cars were parked under the control of
+      the medical officer, waiting in readiness to carry the wounded.</p>
+
+      <p>"Arrived at the firing line, a terrible scene presented itself. The
+      shell fire from the German batteries was so terrific that Belgian
+      soldiers and French marines were continually being blown out of their
+      dugouts and sent scattering to cover. Elsewhere, also, little groups of
+      peasants were forced to flee because their cellars began to fall in.
+      These unfortunates had to make their way as best they could on foot to
+      the rear. They were frightened to death by the bursting shells, and the
+      sight of crying children among them was most pathetic.</p>
+
+      <p>"Dixmude was the objective of the German attack, and shells were
+      bursting all over it, crashing among the roofs and blowing whole streets
+      to pieces. From a distance of three miles we could hear them crashing
+      down, but the town itself was invisible, except for the flames and the
+      smoke and clouds rising above it. The Belgians had only a few field
+      batteries, so that the enemy's howitzers simply dominated the field, and
+      the infantry trenches around the town had to rely upon their own unaided
+      efforts.</p>
+
+      <p>"Our progress along the road was suddenly stopped by one of the most
+      horrible sights I have ever seen. A heavy howitzer shell had fallen and
+      burst right in the midst of a Belgian battery, making its way to the
+      front, causing terrible destruction. The mangled horses and men among the
+      d&eacute;bris presented a shocking spectacle.</p>
+
+      <p>"Eventually, we got into Dixmude itself, and every time a shell came
+      crashing among the roofs we thought our end had come. The H&ocirc;tel de
+      Ville (town hall) was a sad sight. The roof was completely riddled by
+      shell, while inside was a scene of chaos. It was piled with loaves of
+      bread, bicycles, and dead soldiers.</p>
+
+      <p>"The battle redoubled in fury, and by 7 o'clock in the evening Dixmude
+      was a furnace, presenting a scene of terrible grandeur. The horizon was
+      red with burning homes.</p>
+
+      <p>"Our return journey was a melancholy one, owing to the constant trains
+      of wounded that were passing."</p>
+
+      <p>The Daily Mail's Rotterdam correspondent, telegraphing Sunday evening,
+      says:</p>
+
+      <p>"Slowly but surely the Germans are being beaten back on the western
+      wing, and old men and young lads are being hurried to the front. The
+      enemy were in strong force at Dixmude, where the Allies were repulsed
+      once, only to attack again with renewed vigor.</p>
+
+      <p>"Roulers resembles a shambles. It was taken and retaken four times,
+      and battered to ruins in the process. The German guns made the place
+      untenable for the Allies.</p>
+
+      <p>"An Oosburg message says the firing at Ostend is very heavy, and that
+      the British are shelling the suburbs, which are held by the Germans.
+      Last night and this morning large bodies of Germans left Bruges for
+      Ostend. It is believed the Ostend piers have been blown up."</p>
+
+      <p>"The position on the coast is stationary this morning," says a Daily
+      Mail dispatch from Flushing, Netherlands, under date of Sunday. "There is
+      less firing and it is more to the southward. No alteration of the
+      situation is reported from Ostend.</p>
+
+      <p>"The German losses are frightful. Three meadows near Ostend are heaped
+      with dead. The wounded are now installed in private houses in Bruges,
+      where large wooden sheds are being rushed up to receive additional
+      injured. Thirty-seven farm wagons containing wounded, dying, and dead
+      passed in one hour near Middelkerke.</p>
+
+      <p>"The Germans have been working at new intrenchments between Coq sur
+      Mer and Wenduyne to protect their road to Bruges."</p>
+
+      <p>Gen. von Tripp and nearly all his staff, who were killed in a church
+      tower at Leffinghe by the fire from the British warships, have been
+      buried in Ostend.</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image022-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image022.jpg"
+            alt="Flanders and Northern France&mdash;How the Battle Line Has Changed (Up to Jan. 1, 1915) Since the War Began."
+            title="Flanders and Northern France&mdash;How the Battle Line Has Changed (Up to Jan. 1, 1915) Since the War Began."/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><b>Flanders and Northern France&mdash;How the Battle
+         Line Has Changed (Up to Jan. 1, 1915) Since the War Began.</b></p>
+      </div>
+
+
+      <h3>Seeking Wounded on Battle Front</h3>
+      <p class="h3"><b>By Philip Gibbs of The London Daily Chronicle.</b></p>
+
+      <p>FURNES, Belgium, Oct. 21.&mdash;The staff of the English hospital, to
+      which a mobile column has been attached for field work, has arrived here
+      with a convoy of ambulances and motor cars. This little party of doctors,
+      nurses, stretcher-bearers, and chauffeurs, under the direction of Dr.
+      Bevis and Dr. Munro, has done splendid work in Belgium, and many of them
+      were in the siege of Antwerp.</p>
+
+      <p>Miss Macnaughton, the novelist, was one of those who went through this
+      great test of courage, and Lady Dorothie Feilding, one of Lord Denbigh's
+      daughters, won everybody's love by her gallantry and plucky devotion to
+      duty in many perilous hours. She takes all risks with laughing courage.
+      She has been under fire in many hot skirmishes, and has helped bring away
+      the wounded from the fighting around Ghent when her own life might have
+      paid the forfeit for defiance to bursting shells.</p>
+
+      <p>This morning a flying column of the hospital was preparing to set out
+      in search of wounded men on the firing line under direction of Lieut. de
+      Broqueville, son of the Belgian War Minister. The Lieutenant, very cool
+      and debonair, was arranging the order of the day with Dr. Munro. Lady
+      Dorothie Feilding and the two other women in field kit stood by their
+      cars, waiting for the password. There were four stretcher-bearers,
+      including Mr. Gleeson, an American, who has worked with this party around
+      Ghent and Antwerp, proving himself to be a man of calm and quiet courage
+      at a critical moment, always ready to take great risks in order to bring
+      in a wounded man.</p>
+
+      <p>It was decided to take three ambulances and two motor cars. Lieut. de
+      Broqueville anticipated a heavy day's work. He invited me to accompany
+      the column in a car which I shared with Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett of The
+      London Daily Telegraph, who also volunteered for the expedition.</p>
+
+      <p>We set out before noon, winding our way through the streets of Furnes.
+      We were asked to get into Dixmude, where there were many wounded. It is
+      about ten miles away from Furnes. As we went along the road, nearer to
+      the sound of the great guns which for the last hour or two had been
+      firing incessantly, we passed many women and children. They were on their
+      way to some place further from the firing. Poor old grandmothers in black
+      bonnets and skirts trudged along the lines of poplars with younger women,
+      who clasped their babies tightly in one hand, while with the other they
+      carried heavy bundles of household goods.</p>
+
+      <p>Along the road came German prisoners, marching rapidly between mounted
+      guards. Many of them were wounded, and all of them had a wild, famished,
+      terror-stricken look.</p>
+
+      <p>At a turn in the road the battle lay before us, and we were in the
+      zone of fire. Away across the fields was a line of villages with the town
+      of Dixmude a little to the right of us, perhaps a mile and a quarter
+      away.  From each little town smoke was rising in separate columns which
+      met at the top in a great black pall. At every moment this blackness was
+      brightened by puffs of electric blue, extraordinarily vivid, as shells
+      burst in the air. From the mass of houses in each town came jets of
+      flame, following explosions which sounded with terrific thudding shocks.
+      On a line of about nine miles there was an incessant cannonade. The
+      farthest villages were already on fire.</p>
+
+      <p>Quite close to us, only about half a mile across the fields to the
+      left, there were Belgian batteries at work and rifle fire from many
+      trenches.  We were between two fires, and Belgian and German shells came
+      screeching over our heads. The German shells were dropping quite close to
+      us, plowing up the fields with great pits. We could hear them burst and
+      scatter and could see them burrow.</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image023-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image023.jpg"
+            alt="Admiral Sir John Jellicoe"
+            title="Admiral Sir John Jellicoe"/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><span class="bscaps">Admiral Sir John Jellicoe</span><br />
+         Commanding the British Fleets<br />
+         (<i>Photo from Rogers.</i>)</p>
+      </div>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image024-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image024.jpg"
+            alt="Gen. Victor Dankl"
+            title="Gen. Victor Dankl"/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><span class="bscaps">Gen. Victor Dankl</span><br />
+         The Austrian Commander in the Russian Campaign<br />
+         (<i>Photo from Bain News Service.</i>)</p>
+      </div>
+
+      <p>In front of us on the road lay a dreadful barrier, which brought us to
+      a halt. A German shell had fallen right on top of an ammunition convoy.
+      Four horses had been blown to pieces and their carcasses lay strewn
+      across the road. The ammunition wagon had been broken into fragments and
+      smashed and burned to cinders by the explosion of its own shells. A
+      Belgian soldier lay dead, cut in half by a great fragment of steel.
+      Further along the road were two other dead horses in pools of blood. It
+      was a horrible and sickening sight, from which one turned away shuddering
+      with cold sweat, but we had to pass it after some of this dead flesh had
+      been dragged away.</p>
+
+      <p>Further down the road we had left two of the cars in charge of Lady
+      Dorothie Feilding and her two nurses. They were to wait there until we
+      brought back some of the wounded. Two ambulances came on with our light
+      car, commanded by Lieut. Broqueville and Dr. Munro. Mr. Gleeson asked me
+      to help him as stretcher-bearer. Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett was to work with
+      one of the other stretcher-bearers.</p>
+
+      <p>I was in one of the ambulances, and Mr. Gleeson sat behind me in the
+      narrow space between the stretchers. Over his shoulder he talked in a
+      quiet voice of the job that lay before us. I was glad of that quiet
+      voice, so placid in its courage. We went forward at what seemed to me a
+      crawl, though I think it was a fair pace, shells bursting around us now
+      on all sides, while shrapnel bullets sprayed the earth about us. It
+      appeared to me an odd thing that we were still alive. Then we came into
+      Dixmude.</p>
+
+      <p>When I saw it for the first and last time it was a place of death and
+      horror. The streets through which we passed were utterly deserted and
+      wrecked from end to end, as though by an earthquake. Incessant explosions
+      of shell fire crashed down upon the walls which still stood.  Great
+      gashes opened in the walls, which then toppled and fell. A roof came
+      tumbling down with an appalling clatter. Like a house of cards blown by a
+      puff of wind, a little shop suddenly collapsed into a mass of ruins. Here
+      and there, further into the town, we saw living figures.  They ran
+      swiftly for a moment and then disappeared into dark caverns under
+      toppling porticos. They were Belgian soldiers.</p>
+
+      <p>We were now in a side street leading into the Town Hall square. It
+      seemed impossible to pass, owing to the wreckage strewn across the road.
+      "Try to take it," said Dr. Munro, who was sitting beside the chauffeur.
+      We took it, bumping over heaps of d&eacute;bris, and then swept around
+      into the square. It was a spacious place, with the Town Hall at one side
+      of it&mdash;or what was left of the Town Hall; there was only the
+      splendid shell of it left, sufficient for us to see the skeleton of a
+      noble building which had once been the pride of Flemish craftsmen. Even
+      as we turned toward it parts of it were falling upon the ruins already on
+      the ground.  I saw a great pillar lean forward and then topple down. A
+      mass of masonry crashed from the portico. Some stiff, dark forms lay
+      among the fallen stones; they were dead soldiers. I hardly glanced at
+      them, for we were in search of the living.</p>
+
+      <p>Our cars were brought to a halt outside the building, and we all
+      climbed down. I lighted a cigarette, and I noticed two of the other men
+      fumble for matches for the same purpose. We wanted something to steady
+      our nerves. There was never a moment when shell fire was not bursting in
+      that square. Shrapnel bullets whipped the stones. The Germans were making
+      a target of the Town Hall and dropping their shells with dreadful
+      exactitude on either side of it.</p>
+
+      <p>I glanced toward the flaming furnace to the right of the building.
+      There was a wonderful glow at the heart of it, yet it did not give me any
+      warmth. At that moment Dr. Munro and Lieut. de Broqueville mounted the
+      steps of the Town Hall, followed by Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett and myself. Mr.
+      Gleeson was already taking down a stretcher; he had a little smile about
+      his lips.</p>
+
+      <p>A French officer and two men stood under the broken archway of the
+      entrance, between the fallen pillars and masonry. A yard away from them
+      lay a dead soldier, a handsome young man with clear-cut features turned
+      upward to the gaping roof. A stream of blood was coagulating around his
+      head, but did not touch the beauty of his face. Another dead man lay
+      huddled up quite close, and his face was hidden.</p>
+
+      <p>"Are there any wounded here, Sir?" asked our young Lieutenant. The
+      other officer spoke excitedly. He was a brave man, but he could not hide
+      the terror in his soul, because he had been standing so long waiting for
+      death, which stood beside him, but did not touch him. It appeared from
+      his words that there were several wounded men among the dead down in the
+      cellar, and that he would be obliged to us if we could rescue them.</p>
+
+      <p>We stood on some steps, looking down into that cellar. It was a dark
+      hole, illumined dimly by a lantern, I think. I caught sight of a little
+      heap of huddled bodies. Two soldiers, still unwounded, dragged three of
+      them out and handed them up to us. The work of getting those three men
+      into the first ambulance seemed to us interminable; it was really no more
+      than fifteen or twenty minutes. During that time Dr. Munro, perfectly
+      calm and quiet, was moving about the square, directing the work. Lieut.
+      de Broqueville was making inquiries about other wounded in other houses.
+      I lent a hand to one of the stretcher-bearers. What the others were doing
+      I do not know, except that Mr. Gleeson's calm face made a clear-cut image
+      on my brain.</p>
+
+      <p>I had lost consciousness of myself. Something outside myself, as it
+      seemed, was saying that there was no way of escape; that it was monstrous
+      to suppose that all these bursting shells would not smash the ambulance
+      to bits and finish the agony of the wounded, and that death was very
+      hideous. I remember thinking, also, how ridiculous it was for men to kill
+      one another like this and to make such hells on earth.</p>
+
+      <p>Then Lieut. de Broqueville spoke a word of command; the first
+      ambulance must now get back. I was with the first ambulance, in Mr.
+      Gleeson's company. We had a full load of wounded men, and we were
+      loitering. I put my head outside the cover and gave the word to the
+      chauffeur. As I did so a shrapnel bullet came past my head, and, striking
+      a piece of ironwork, flattened out and fell at my feet. I picked it up
+      and put it in my pocket, though God alone knows why, for I was not in
+      search of souvenirs.</p>
+
+      <p>So we started with the first ambulance through those frightful streets
+      again and out into the road to the country. "Very hot!" said one of the
+      men&mdash;I think it was the chauffeur. Somebody else asked if we should
+      get through with luck. Nobody answered the question. The wounded men with
+      us were very quiet; I thought they were dead. There was only an incessant
+      cannonade and the crashing of buildings. The mitrailleuses were at work
+      now, spitting out bullets. It was a worse sound than that of the shells;
+      it seemed more deadly in its rattle. I started back behind the car and
+      saw the other ambulance in our wake. I did not see the motor car.</p>
+
+      <p>Along the country roads the fields were still being plowed by shells
+      which burst over our heads. We came to a halt again in a place where
+      soldiers were crouched under cottage walls. There were few walls now, and
+      inside some of the remaining cottages were many wounded men. Their
+      comrades were giving them first aid and wiping the blood out of their
+      eyes. We managed to take some of these on board. They were less quiet
+      than the others we had, and groaned in a heartrending way.</p>
+
+      <p>A little later we made a painful discovery&mdash;Lieut. de
+      Broqueville, our gallant young leader, was missing. By some horrible
+      mischance he had not taken his place in either of the ambulances or the
+      motor cars. None of us had the least idea what had happened to him; we
+      had all imagined that he had scrambled up like the rest of us, after
+      giving the order to get away.</p>
+
+      <p>There was only one thing to do&mdash;to get back in search of him.
+      Even in the half hour since we had left the town Dixmude had burst into
+      flames and was a great blazing torch. If de Broqueville were left in that
+      hell he would not have a chance of life.</p>
+
+      <p>It was Mr. Gleeson and Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett who, with great gallantry,
+      volunteered to go back and search for our leader. They took the light car
+      and sped back toward the burning town. The ambulances went on with their
+      cargo of wounded, and Lady Dorothie Feilding and I were left alone for a
+      little time in one of the cars. We drove back along the road toward
+      Dixmude, and rescued another wounded man left in a wayside cottage.</p>
+
+      <p>By this time there were five towns blazing in the darkness, and in
+      spite of the awful suspense which we were now suffering we could not help
+      staring at the fiendish splendor of that sight.</p>
+
+      <p>Dr. Munro joined us again, and after consultation we decided to get as
+      near to Dixmude as we could, in case our friends had to come out without
+      their car or had been wounded.</p>
+
+      <p>The German bombardment was now terrific. All the guns were
+      concentrated upon Dixmude and the surrounding trenches. In the darkness
+      under a stable wall I stood listening to the great crashes for an hour,
+      when I had not expected such a lease of life. Inside the stable soldiers
+      were sleeping in the straw, careless that at any moment a shell might
+      burst through upon them. The hour seemed a night; then we saw the gleam
+      of headlights, and an English voice called out.</p>
+
+      <p>Ashmead-Bartlett and Gleeson had come back. They had gone to the
+      entrance to Dixmude, but could get no further, owing to the flames and
+      shells. They, too, had waited for an hour, but had not found de
+      Broqueville. It seemed certain that he was dead; and, very sorrowfully,
+      as there was nothing to be done, we drove back to Furnes.</p>
+
+      <p>At the gate of the convent were some Belgian ambulances which had come
+      from another part of the front with their wounded. I helped to carry one
+      of them in, and strained my shoulders with the weight of the stretcher.
+      Another wounded man put his arm around my neck, and then, with a dreadful
+      cry, collapsed, so that I had to hold him in a strong grip. A third man,
+      horribly smashed about the head, walked almost unaided into the operating
+      room. Mr. Gleeson and I led him with just a touch on his arm. This
+      morning he lies dead on a little pile of straw in a quiet corner of the
+      courtyard.</p>
+
+      <p>I sat down to a supper, which I had not expected to eat. There was a
+      strange excitement in my body, which trembled a little after the day's
+      adventures. It seemed very strange to be sitting down to table with
+      cheerful faces about me, but some of the faces were not cheerful. Those
+      of us who knew of the disappearance of de Broqueville sat silently over
+      our soup.</p>
+
+      <p>Then suddenly Lady Dorothie Feilding gave a little cry of joy, and
+      Lieut. de Broqueville came walking briskly forward. It seemed a miracle;
+      it was hardly less than that. For several hours after our departure from
+      Dixmude he had remained in that inferno. He had missed us when he went
+      down into the cellar to haul out another wounded man, forgetting that he
+      had given us the order to start. There he had remained, with buildings
+      crashing all around him until the German fire had died down a little. He
+      succeeded in rescuing his wounded man, for whom he found room in a
+      Belgian ambulance outside the town and walked back along the road to
+      Furnes.</p>
+
+      <p>We clasped hands and were thankful for his escape. This morning he has
+      gone again to what is left of Dixmude with a flying column. Dr. Munro and
+      Mr. Gleeson, with Lady Dorothie Feilding and her friends, are in the
+      party, although in Dixmude German infantry have taken possession of the
+      outer ruins.</p>
+
+      <p>The courage of this English field ambulance under the Belgian Red
+      Cross is one of those splendid things which shine through this devil's
+      work of war.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>At the Kaiser's Headquarters</h3>
+      <p class="h3"><b>By Cyril Brown of The New York Times.</b></p>
+
+      <p>GERMAN GREAT HEADQUARTERS IN FRANCE, Oct. 20.&mdash;The most
+      vulnerable, vital spot of the whole German Empire is, paradoxically, in
+      France&mdash;the small city on the Meuse where the Grosses Hauptquartier,
+      the brains of the whole German fighting organism, has been located for
+      the last few weeks. After a lucky dash through the forbidden zone of
+      France held by the Germans I managed to pay a surprise visit to the Great
+      Headquarters, where, among other interesting sights, I have already seen
+      the Kaiser, the King of Saxony, the Crown Prince, Major Langhorne, the
+      American Military Attach&eacute;; Field Marshal von Moltke, and shoals of
+      lesser celebrities with which the town is overrun. My stay is of
+      indeterminate length, and only until the polite but insistent pressure
+      which the Kaiser's secret police and the General Staff are bringing to
+      bear on their unbidden guest to leave becomes irresistible.</p>
+
+      <p>It was a sometime <span class="pscaps">Times</span> reader, a German
+      brakeman, who had worked in New York and was proud of being able to speak
+      "American," who helped me to slip aboard the military postzug (post
+      train) that left the important military centre of L&mdash;&mdash; at 1:30
+      A.M. and started to crawl toward the front with a mixed cargo of snoring
+      field chaplains, soldiers rejoining their units, officers with iron
+      crosses pinned to their breasts, ambulance men who talked gruesome shop,
+      fresh meat, surgical supplies, mail bags, &amp;c. Sometimes the train
+      would spurt up to twelve miles an hour. There were long stops at every
+      station, while unshaven Landsturm men on guard scanned the car windows in
+      search of spies by the light of their electric flash lamps. After many
+      hours somebody said we were now in Belgium.</p>
+
+      <p>There are no longer any bothersome customs formalities at the Belgian
+      border, but the ghost of a house that had been knocked into a cocked hat
+      by a shell indicated that we were in the land of the enemy. Houses that
+      looked as if they had been struck by a Western cyclone now became more
+      numerous. A village church steeple had a jagged hole clean through it.
+      After more hours somebody else said we were in France. Every bridge,
+      culvert, and crossroad was guarded by heavily bearded Landsturm men, who
+      all looked alike in their funny, antiquated, high black leather
+      helmets&mdash;usually in twos&mdash;the countryside dotted with cheery
+      little watch fires.</p>
+
+      <p>In the little French villages all lights were out in the houses. The
+      streets were barred like railroad crossings except that the poles were
+      painted in red-white-black stripes, a lantern hanging from the middle of
+      the barrier to keep the many army automobiles that passed in the night
+      from running amuck.</p>
+
+      <p>Sedan, a beehive of activity, was reached at daybreak. Here most of
+      the military, plus the Field Chaplains, got out. From here on daylight
+      showed the picturesque ruin the French themselves had wrought&mdash;the
+      frequent tangled wreckage of dynamited steel railway bridges sticking out
+      of the waters of the river, piles of shattered masonry damming the
+      current, here and there half an arch still standing of a once beautiful
+      stone footbridge. I was told that over two hundred bridges had been blown
+      up by the retreating French in their hopeless attempt to delay the German
+      advance in this part of France alone.</p>
+
+      <p>Several hours more of creeping over improvised wooden bridges and
+      restored roadbeds brought the post train to the French city that had
+      20,000 inhabitants before the war which the Kaiser and the Great
+      Headquarters now occupy.</p>
+
+      <p>Wooden signs printed in black letters, "Verboten," (forbidden,) now
+      ornament the pretty little park, with its fountain still playing, outside
+      the railroad station. The paths are guarded by picked grenadiers, not
+      Landsturm men this time, while an officer of the guard makes his
+      ceaseless rounds. Opposite the railroad station, on the other side of the
+      little park, is an unpretentious villa of red brick and terra cotta
+      trimmings, but two guard houses painted with red-white-black stripes
+      flank the front door and give it a look of importance. The street at
+      either end is barred by red, white and black striped poles and strapping
+      grenadiers on guard are clustered thick about it. You don't need to ask
+      who lives there. The red brick house (it would not rent for more than
+      $100 a month in any New York suburb) is the present temporary residence
+      of the Over War Lord. Its great attraction for the Kaiser, I am told, is
+      the large, secluded garden in the rear where this other "man of destiny"
+      loves to walk and meditate or, more usually, talk&mdash;though the few
+      remaining French inhabitants could have a frequent opportunity of seeing
+      him walk in the little closed public park if they were interested, but
+      the natives seem outwardly utterly apathetic.</p>
+
+      <p>Several of the Kaiser's household, in green J&auml;ger uniforms, were
+      lounging around the door for an early morning airing, while secret
+      service men completed the picture by hovering in the immediate
+      neighborhood. You can tell that they are German secret service agents
+      because they all wear felt alpine hats, norfolk jackets, waterproof cloth
+      capes and a bored expression. They have been away from Berlin for nearly
+      three months now. About fifty of them constitute the "Secret Field
+      Police" and their station house is half a block away from the Kaiser's
+      residence.</p>
+
+      <p>Just around the corner from the Kaiser, within a stone's throw of his
+      back door, is another red-brick house with terra-cotta trimmings, rather
+      larger and more imposing. The names of its new residents, "Hahnke,"
+      "Caprivi," and "Graf von Moltke," are scrawled in white chalk on the
+      stone post of the gateway. Further up the same street another chalk
+      scrawl on a quite imposing mansion informed me that "The Imperial
+      Chancellor" and "The Foreign Office" had set up shop there. Near by were
+      Grand Admiral von Tirpitz's field quarters. A bank building on another
+      principal street bore the sign, "War Cabinet."</p>
+
+      <p>The Great General Staff occupies the quaint old Hotel de Ville. An
+      unmolested ramble showed that all the best residences and business
+      buildings in the heart of the town were required to house the members of
+      the Great Headquarters, who number, in addition to the Kaiser and his
+      personal entourage, thirty-six chiefs or department heads, including the
+      Imperial Chancellor, the War Minister, the Chief of the Great General
+      Staff, the Chief of the Naval General Staff, the Chief of the Ammunition
+      Supply, the Chief of the Field Railways, the Chief of the Field Telephone
+      and Telegraph Service, the Chief of the Sanitary Service, the Chief of
+      the Volunteer Automobile Corps, &amp;c., making, with secretaries,
+      clerks, ordonnances, and necessary garrison, a community of 1,200
+      souls.</p>
+
+      <p>I could not help wondering why the Allies' aviators weren't "on the
+      job." A dozen, backed up by an intelligent Intelligence Department, could
+      so obviously settle the fortunes of the war by blowing out the brains of
+      their enemy. Perhaps that is why the whereabouts of the Great
+      Headquarters is guarded as a jealous secret. The soldiers at the front
+      don't know where it is, nor the man on the street at home, and, of
+      course, its location is not breathed in the German press. Theoretically,
+      only those immediately concerned are "in the know." Visitors are not
+      allowed, neutral foreign correspondents are told by the authorities in
+      Berlin that "it is impossible" to go to the Grosser Hauptquartier.</p>
+
+      <p>Two aeroplane guns are mounted on the hills across the river at a
+      point immediately opposite the Kaiser's residence, while near them a
+      picked squad of sharpshooters is on the watch night and day for hostile
+      fliers.  To further safeguard not only the person of the Kaiser but the
+      brains of the fighting machine the spy hunt is kept up here with
+      unrelenting pertinacity.</p>
+
+      <p>"We went over the town with a fine-tooth comb and cleaned out all the
+      suspicious characters the very first day we arrived," said a friendly
+      detective.</p>
+
+      <p>"There are no cranks or anarchists left here. Today the order is going
+      out to arrest all men of military age&mdash;between 18 and 45&mdash;but
+      there are few, if any, left. We also made a house-to-house search for
+      arms and collected three wagonloads, mostly old.</p>
+
+      <p>"Our Kaiser is as safe here now as he would be anywhere in Germany. We
+      know every one who arrives and leaves town. It seems impossible for a spy
+      to slip in and still more to slip out again through the lines&mdash;but
+      we are always on the watch for the impossible. The fear of spies is not a
+      delusion or a form of madness, as you suggest. Here is one case of my
+      personal knowledge: A German Boy Scout of 16, who had learned to speak
+      French and English perfectly at school, volunteered his services and was
+      attached to the staff of an army corps. This young chap succeeded in
+      slipping into Rheims, where he was able to locate the positions of the
+      French batteries and machine guns, and make his way back to our lines
+      with this invaluable information. For this feat the boy received the Iron
+      Cross. After being in the field for six weeks he got home-sick, however,
+      and has been allowed to go home for a visit."</p>
+
+      <p>From a spectacular point of view the Great Headquarters is rather
+      disappointing. A few mixed patrols of Uhlans, dragoons, and hussars
+      occasionally ride through the principal streets to exercise their horses.
+      Occasionally, too, you see a small squad of strapping grenadiers, who
+      break into the goose step on the slightest provocation as when they pass
+      a General or other officer of the Great General Staff, whom you recognize
+      by the broad red stripes on their "field gray" trousers.</p>
+
+      <p>There is no pomp or ceremony even when royalty is running around at
+      large. Thus when the King of Saxony arrived in town, a few hours after I
+      did, no fuss was made whatever. The Saxon King and his staff, three
+      touring car loads, all in field gray, drove straight to the villa
+      assigned them, and, after reciprocal informal visits between King and
+      Kaiser, the former left to visit some of the battlefields on which Saxon
+      troops had fought, and later paid a visit to his troops at the front.
+      For this exploit, the Kaiser promptly bestowed on him the Iron Cross,
+      first and second class, on his return to town.</p>
+
+      <p>Even the Kaiser's heart is not covered with medals, nor does he wear
+      the gorgeous white plume parade helmet nowadays, when going out for a
+      horse-back ride or a drive. I saw him come from a motor run late in the
+      afternoon&mdash;four touring cars full of staff officers and personal
+      entourage&mdash;and was struck by the complete absence of pomp and ceremony.
+      In the second car sat the Kaiser, wearing the dirty green-gray uniform of
+      his soldiers in the field. At a distance of fifteen feet, the Over War
+      Lord looked physically fit, but quite sober&mdash;an intense earnestness of
+      expression that seemed to mirror the sternness of the times.</p>
+
+      <p>The Kaiser goes for a daily drive or ride about the countryside
+      usually in the afternoon, but occasionally he is allowed to have a real
+      outing by his solicitous entourage&mdash;a day and more rarely a
+      [<i>Transcriber: text missing in original</i>]</p>
+
+      <p>"His Majesty is never so happy as when he is among his troops at the
+      front," another transplanted Berlin detective told me. "If his Majesty
+      had his way he would be among them all the time, preferably sleeping
+      under canvas and roughing it like the rest&mdash;eating the 'simple' food
+      prepared by his private field kitchen. But his life is too valuable to be
+      risked in that way, and his personal Adjutant, von Plessen, who watches
+      over his Majesty like a mother or a governess, won't let him go to the
+      front often. His Majesty loves his soldiers and would be among them right
+      up at the firing line if he were not constantly watched and kept in check
+      by his devoted von Plessen." However, the Kaiser sleeps within earshot of
+      the not very distant thunder of the German heavy artillery pounding away
+      at Rheims, plainly heard here at night when the wind blows from the right
+      direction.</p>
+
+      <p>Of barbarism or brutality the writer saw no signs, either here or at
+      other French villages occupied by the Germans. The behavior of the common
+      soldiers toward the natives is exemplary and in most cases kindly. There
+      are many touches of human interest. I saw about a hundred of the most
+      destitute hungry townsfolk, mostly women with little children, hanging
+      around one of the barracks at the outskirts of the town until after
+      supper the German soldiers came out and distributed the remnants of their
+      black bread rations to them. It is not an uncommon sight to see staff
+      officers as well as soldiers stopping on the streets to hand out small
+      alms to the begging women and children. Many of the shops in town were
+      closed and boarded up at the approach of the Prussians, but small hotel
+      keepers, caf&eacute; proprietors, and tradesmen who had the nerve to
+      remain and keep open are very well satisfied with the German invasion in
+      one way, for they never made so much money before in their lives. Most of
+      the German soldiers garrisoned here have picked up a few useful words of
+      French; all of them can, and do, call for wine, white or red, in the
+      vernacular. Moreover, they pay for all
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'them']">they</ins>
+      consume. I was astonished to see even the detectives paying real money
+      for what they drank. Several tradesmen told me they had suffered chiefly
+      at the hands of the French soldiers themselves, who had helped themselves
+      freely to their stock before retreating, without paying, saying it was no
+      use to leave good wine, for the Prussian swine.</p>
+
+      <p>I had not prowled around the Great Headquarters for many hours when
+      the Secret Field Police, patrolling all the streets, showed signs of
+      curiosity, and to forestall the orthodox arrest and march to headquarters
+      (already
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'experience']">experienced</ins>
+      once, in Cologne) waited upon Lieut. Col. von Hahnke, Military Commandant
+      of the city, and secured immunity in the form of the Commandant's
+      signature on a scrap of paper stamped in purple ink with the Prussian
+      eagle. Commandant Hahnke, after expressing the opinion that it was good
+      that American newspaper men were coming to Germany to see for themselves,
+      and hoping that "the truth" was beginning to become known on the other
+      side, courteously sent his Adjutant along to get me past the guard at the
+      Great General Staff and introduce me to Major Nikolai, Chief of Division
+      III.  B., in charge of newspaper correspondents and Military Attach&eacute;s.
+      Here, however, the freedom of the American press came into hopeless, but
+      humorous, collision with the Prussian militarism.</p>
+
+      <p>"Who are you? What are you doing here? How did you get here?" snapped
+      the Prussian Major. A kind letter of introduction from Ambassador Gerard,
+      requesting "all possible courtesy and assistance from the authorities of
+      the countries through which he may pass," and emblazoned with the red
+      seal of the United States of America, which had worked like magic on all
+      previous occasions, had no effect on Major Nikolai. Neither had a letter
+      from the American Consul at Cologne, nor a letter of introduction to Gen.
+      von Buelow, nor any one of a dozen other impressive documents produced in
+      succession for his benefit.</p>
+
+      <p>"No foreign correspondents are permitted to be at the Great
+      Headquarters. None has been allowed to come here. If we allow one to
+      remain, fifty others will want to come, and we should be unable to keep
+      an eye on all of them," he explained. "You must go back to Berlin at
+      once."</p>
+
+      <p>Reluctant permission was finally obtained to remain one night on the
+      possibly unwarranted intimation that the great American people would
+      consider it a "national affront" if an American newspaperman was not
+      allowed to stay and see the American Military Attach&eacute;, Major
+      Langhorne, who was away on a sightseeing tour near Verdun, but would be
+      back in the morning. However, a long cross-examination had to be
+      undergone at the hands of the venerable Herr Chief of the Secret Field
+      Police Bauer, who was taking no chances at harboring an English spy in
+      the Houptquartier disguised as a correspondent.</p>
+
+      <p>I found Major Langhorne standing the strain of the <ins
+         class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original
+         'compaign']">campaign</ins> well, and I gathered the impression that
+      he intended to see the thing through, and that there was much which
+      America could learn from the titanic operations of the Germans. Major
+      Langhorne and the Argentinian, Brazilian, Chilean, Spanish, Rumanian, and
+      Swedish military attach&eacute;s are luxuriously quartered a mile and a
+      half out of town in the handsome villa of M. Noll, the landscape painter,
+      present whereabouts unknown. The attach&eacute;s all have a sense of
+      humor, "otherwise," said one of them, "we could never stand being cooped
+      up here together." The gardener's daughter, a pretty young Frenchwoman,
+      the only servant who remained behind when the household fled at the
+      approach of the Germans, is both cook and housekeeper, and when I arrived
+      I found the seven military attach&eacute;s resolved into a board of
+      strategy trying to work out the important problem of securing a pure milk
+      supply for her four-month-old baby.</p>
+
+      <p>Work consists of occasional motor runs to various points along the
+      long front. I was told that recently Major Langhorne ran into some heavy
+      shrapnel and shell fire, and was lucky to get away with a whole skin.
+      When asked to tell about it, Major Langhorne passed it off laughingly as
+      "all in the day's work."</p>
+
+      <p>In spite of the fact that they are engaged in keeping their end up in
+      a life-and-death fight for national existence, the Great General Staff
+      has found time to give the American Military Attach&eacute; every possible
+      opportunity to see actual fighting.</p>
+
+      <p>The foreign military attach&eacute;s have made many of their
+      expeditions in company with the small band of German war correspondents,
+      who live in another villa close by, under the constant chaperonage of
+      Major von Rohrscheldt. They are allowed to see much, but send little. The
+      relative position of the press in Germany is indicated by the fact that
+      these German war correspondents are nicknamed "hunger candidates." A
+      military expert who was well posted on American journalism explained to
+      me, however, that the very tight censorship lid was not for the purpose
+      of withholding news from the German people, but to keep valuable
+      information from being handed to the enemy. He pointed out that the
+      laconic German official dispatches dealt only with things actually
+      accomplished, and were very bare of detail, while, on the other hand, the
+      French and English press had been worth more than several army corps to
+      the Germans, concluding, "It may be poor journalism, but it's the right
+      way to make war."</p>
+
+      <hr class="minor" />
+
+      <p class="center">KAISERIN'S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION.</p>
+
+      <p>Oct. 22.&mdash;It was hard to realize today that a great war was going
+      on.  Every building in town occupied by the Germans was decorated with
+      the German flag in honor of the Kaiserin's birthday, and at night the
+      principal ones, including that occupied by the "War Cabinet," were
+      specially illuminated. All morning long, quantities of Generals came
+      rolling up in touring cars to the Kaiser's door to pay their homage and
+      offer congratulations. About noon the Crown Prince and staff arrived by
+      motor from the direction of the headquarters of his army. The Crown
+      Prince, who characteristically sat on the front seat next to the
+      chauffeur, looked as boyish and immature as his former pictures&mdash;his
+      military cap cocked slightly on one side. The responsibility of leading
+      an army had apparently not had a sobering effect on the Crown Prince as
+      yet, but I was told that the guiding brain and genius in the Crown
+      Prince's army headquarters was not that of the Crown Prince, but of his
+      chief adviser, Gen. von Haeseler, the brilliant cavalry leader of the war
+      of 1870 and now the "grand old man" of the German Army, sharing with von
+      Zeppelin the distinction of being the oldest living German Generals.  It
+      seemed still harder to realize that men were fighting and dying not fifty
+      miles away when, after luncheon, Kaiser, Crown Prince, and staffs went
+      for a two hours' automobile ride, the Crown Prince leaving late in the
+      afternoon to rejoin his command.</p>
+
+      <p>The only warlike notes in the day's picture were a German military
+      aeroplane&mdash;one of the famous Taubes&mdash;that flew at a high
+      altitude over the Great Headquarters toward the enemies' lines; a
+      battalion of Saxon Landsturm that rested for an hour at the railroad
+      station, then started on the final hike for the front, refreshed by a
+      glimpse of their motoring Kaiser, and toward evening four automobile
+      loads of wounded German officers, who arrived from the direction of
+      Rheims, where it was rumored the French had made four desperate attempts
+      to break through.</p>
+
+      <p>Here one gets more and more the impression that the Germans in their
+      war-making have learned a lesson from the hustling Americans&mdash;that
+      they have managed to graft American speed to their native thoroughness,
+      making a combination hard to beat. For instance, there is a regular relay
+      service of high-power racing motor cars between the Great Headquarters
+      and Berlin, the schedule calling for a total running time of something
+      under a day and a half, beating the best time at present possible by
+      train by four hours. One of the picked drivers, who has the last
+      lap&mdash;through France&mdash;said his running schedule required him to
+      average sixty miles an hour, and this running at night. A network of fast
+      relay automobile services is also run from the Great Headquarters,
+      through Belgium, linking up Brussels and Antwerp, and to the principal
+      points on the long line of battle.</p>
+
+      <p>How great a r&ocirc;le the motor car plays among the Germans may be
+      gathered from an estimate made to the writer that 40,000 cars were in use
+      for military purposes. Many thousands of these are private automobiles
+      operated by their wealthy owners as members of the Volunteer War
+      Automobile Corps, of which Prince Waldemar, son of the sailor Prince
+      Henry, is chief. Their ranks include many big business men, captains of
+      industry, and men of social prominence and professional eminence.</p>
+
+      <p>They wear a distinctive uniform, that of an infantry officer, with a
+      collar of very dark red, and a short, purely ornamental sword or
+      dagger.</p>
+
+      <hr class="minor" />
+
+      <p class="center">BACK TO LUXEMBURG.</p>
+
+      <p>LUXEMBURG, Oct. 24.&mdash;I have just returned from the German Great
+      Headquarters in France, the visit terminating abruptly on the fourth day,
+      when one of the Kaiser's secret field police woke me up at 7 o'clock in
+      the morning and regretfully said that his instructions were to see that I
+      "did not oversleep" the first train out. The return journey along one of
+      the German main lines of communication&mdash;through Eastern France,
+      across a corner of Belgium and through Luxemburg&mdash;was full of
+      interest, and confirmed the impression gathered at the centre of things,
+      the Great Headquarters, that this twentieth century warfare is in the
+      last analysis a gigantic business proposition which the Board of
+      Directors (the Great General Staff) and the thirty-six department heads
+      are conducting with the efficiency of a great American business
+      corporation.</p>
+
+      <p>The west-bound track is a continuous procession of freight
+      trains&mdash;fresh consignments of raw material&mdash;men and
+      ammunition&mdash;being rushed to the firing line to be ground out into
+      victories. The first shipment we pass is an infantry
+      battalion&mdash;first ten flatcars loaded with baggage, ammunition,
+      provision wagons, and field kitchens, the latter already with fire
+      lighted and soup cooking as the long train steams slowly along, for the
+      trenches are only fifty miles away, and the Germans make a point of
+      sending their troops into battle with full stomachs.</p>
+
+      <p>After the flatcars come thirty box cars, all decorated with green
+      branches and scrawled over with chalked witticism at the expense of the
+      French and Russians. The men cheer as our train passes. A few kilometers
+      further backed on to a siding, is a train of some twenty flatcars, each
+      loaded with a touring car. Then we pass a battery of artillery on
+      flatcars, the guns still garlanded with flowers; then a short freight
+      train&mdash;six cars loaded with nothing but spare automobile
+      tires&mdash;then a long train of heavy motor trucks, then more infantry
+      trains, then an empty hospital train going back for another load, then a
+      train of gasoline tank cars, more cheering infantry, more artillery,
+      another empty hospital train, a pioneer train, a score of flatcars loaded
+      with long, heavy piles, beams, steel girders, bridge spans, and lumber,
+      then a passenger train load of German railway officials and servants
+      going to operate the railways toward the coast, more infantry, food
+      trains, ammunition trains, train loads of railway tracks already bolted
+      to metal ties and merely needing to be laid down and pieced together, and
+      so on in endless succession all through France and through Belgium. The
+      two-track road, shaky in spots, especially when crossing rivers, is being
+      worked to capacity, and how well the huge traffic is handled is
+      surprising even to an American commuter.</p>
+
+      <p>Our fast train stops at the mouth of a tunnel, then crawls ahead
+      charily, for the French, before retreating, dynamited the tunnel. One
+      track has been cleared, but the going is still bad. To keep it from being
+      blocked again by falling d&eacute;bris the Germans have dug clean through
+      the top of the hill, opening up a deep well of light into the tunnel.
+      Looking up, you see a pioneer company in once cream-colored, now
+      dirty-colored, fatigue uniform still digging away and terracing the sides
+      of the big hole to prevent slides. Half an hour later we go slow again in
+      crossing a new wooden bridge over the Meuse&mdash;only one track as yet.
+      It took the German pioneers nearly a week to build the substitute for the
+      old steel railway bridge dynamited by the French, whose four spans lie
+      buckled up in the river. The pioneers are at work driving piles to carry
+      a second track. The process is interesting. A forty-man-power pile driver
+      is rigged upon the bow end of a French river barge with forty soldiers
+      tugging at forty strands of the main rope.  The "gang" foreman, a Captain
+      in field gray, stands on the river bank and bellows the word of command.
+      Up goes the heavy iron weight; another command, and down it drops on the
+      pile. It looks like a painfully slow process, but the bridges are rebuilt
+      just the same.</p>
+
+      <p>Further on, a variety of interest is furnished to a squad of French
+      prisoners being marched along the road. Then a spot of ant-hill-like
+      activity where a German railway company is at work building a new branch
+      line, hundreds of them having pickaxes and making the dirt fly. You half
+      expect to see a swearing Irish foreman. It looks like home&mdash;all
+      except the inevitable officer (distinguished by revolver and field glass)
+      shouting commands.</p>
+
+      <p>The intense activity of the Germans in rebuilding the torn-up
+      railroads and pushing ahead new strategic lines, is one of the most
+      interesting features of a tour now in France. I was told that they had
+      pushed the railroad work so far that they were able to ship men and
+      ammunition almost up to the fortified trenches. The Germanization of the
+      railroads here has been completed by the importation of station
+      Superintendents, station hands, track walkers, &amp;c., from the
+      Fatherland.  The stretch over which we are traveling, for example, is in
+      charge of Bavarians. The Bavarian and German flags hang out at every
+      French station we pass.  German signs everywhere, even German time. It
+      looks as if they thought to stay forever.</p>
+
+      <p>Now we creep past a long hospital train, full this time, which has
+      turned out on a siding to give us the right of way&mdash;perhaps thirty
+      all-steel cars&mdash;each fitted with two tiers of berths, eight to a
+      side, sixteen to a car. Every berth is taken. One car is fitted up as an
+      operating room, but fortunately no one is on the operating table as we
+      crawl past. Another car is the private office of the surgeon in charge of
+      the train. He is sitting at a big desk receiving reports form the
+      orderlies. During the day we pass six of these splendidly appointed new
+      all-steel hospital trains, all full of wounded. Some of them are able to
+      sit up in their bunks and take a mild interest in us. Once, by a queer
+      coincidence, we simultaneously pass the wounded going one way and
+      cheering fresh troops going the other.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>How the Belgians Fight</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[By a Correspondent of The London Daily News.]</p>
+
+      <p>LONDON, Oct. 28.&mdash;Writing from an unnamed place in Belgium a
+      correspondent of The Daily News says:</p>
+
+      <p>"The regiment I am concerned with was fifteen days and nights in the
+      Antwerp trenches in countless engagements. It withdrew at dawn, hoping
+      then to rest. It marched forty-five kilometers with shouldered rifles.
+      In the next five days it marched nearly 200 kilometers until it reached
+      the Nieuport and Dixmude line. By an error of judgment it got two days of
+      drill and inspection in place of resting, then took its place in the
+      front line on the Yser to face the most desperate of the German
+      efforts."</p>
+
+      <p>The correspondent quotes a young volunteer in this regiment as
+      follows:</p>
+
+      <p>"&mdash;&mdash; was evacuated by the Germans, and we were sent in at
+      nightfall.  As soon as they saw our lights they began shelling us. We
+      lost terribly.  A number of the men ran up the streets, but we got them
+      together. I had about twenty and retired in order. We were 600 who went
+      in, and must have left a third there.</p>
+
+      <p>"In the morning we moved down to reinforce a network of trenches on
+      our bank of the Yser. There was a farm on our right, and some of our men
+      were firing at it, but the door opened and three officers in Belgian
+      uniform came out shouting to us to cease fire, so we sent a detachment to
+      the farm, and they were swept away by machine gun fire from the windows.
+      No, I don't know what happened afterward about the farm. I lost sight of
+      it.</p>
+
+      <p>"We got into the trenches. They lay longways behind a raised
+      artificial bank on our side of the river. At the northern end of them
+      were mazes of cross trenches protecting them in case the Germans got
+      across the bridge there and started to enfilade us. They were full of
+      water. I was firing for six hours myself thigh deep in muddy water.</p>
+
+      <p>"The Germans got across the bridge. We could not show head or hand
+      over our bank. German machine guns shot us from crevices in their raised
+      bank across the river only a few yards away. I was hours and hours
+      dragging our wounded out of the cross trenches at the northern end of the
+      bank southward and behind a mound till there was no more room for them
+      there, and bringing up new men singly and two or three at a time from
+      further down the trenches to take their places. We lost our officers, but
+      I got the men to listen to me.</p>
+
+      <p>"Some Germans shelled us with a cross fire. They got into the cross
+      trenches. They fired down our lines from the side. We had to run back. I
+      was too tired and sleepy to drag my feet. I think I must have fallen
+      asleep.</p>
+
+      <p>"We had an order to advance again. The French were behind us on either
+      wing in support. I was too tired to get up. Some one kicked me. I looked
+      up. They were three of my friends, volunteers like myself. We had all
+      joined together. They apologized and ran forward. They are all wounded
+      now, but we are all still alive, and I never have been hit once in
+      thirty-four fights.</p>
+
+      <p>"I got up. So did a man lying on the field in front of me. He was shot
+      through the head and fell back on me. I got up again. A shell burst
+      beside me and I saw three men, who were running past, just disappear. I
+      was lying on my face again, and could not lift my head, either through
+      fear or sleep, I don't know which.</p>
+
+      <p>"I found myself running forward again. I called to men lying and
+      running near and held my revolver at them. We were all charging with
+      bayonets back at the Germans shooting us from our own trenches under the
+      raised bank. They did not wait for us. They looked like frightened gray
+      beetles as they scrambled up away over our bank and down into the river.
+      It was dusk, but we shot at them over the bank. The water seemed full of
+      them.  We crouched in a big trench in muddy water behind the bank. No, we
+      did not sleep, but my head and eyes seemed to go to sleep from time to
+      time.</p>
+
+      <p>"There were perhaps 200 left of our 600. I think there was one officer
+      further along, but it was quite dark. Some of the men talked very low.
+      Then I heard voices whispering and talking near us on the river side of
+      our bank. It was of earth perhaps five feet high and six feet thick. On
+      the other side the slope fell steeply to the river.</p>
+
+      <p>"I sent a hush along the line. We listened quite silent. I thought I
+      heard German words, an order passed along on the other side. I crawled up
+      on to the bank, not showing my head, you know. It was really about 300
+      Germans who had stayed there on our side under the bank, fearing to cross
+      the river under our fire. So we stayed all through the night. We did not
+      sleep nor did they.</p>
+
+      <p>"There was just six feet of piled wet earth between us. We only
+      whispered and could hear them muttering and the sound of their belts
+      creaking and of water bottles being opened.</p>
+
+      <p>"There was a thick gray mist hanging low in the morning. I crawled on
+      to the bank again, holding my revolver out-stretched. A gray figure stood
+      up in the mist below close to me. He looked like a British soldier in
+      khaki. He said: 'It's all right, we are English,' and I said, 'But your
+      accent isn't,' and I shot him through with my revolver. Some of our men
+      crept to the bank, but they shot them, and some of theirs climbed over,
+      but we fired at their heads or arms as they showed only a few feet away,
+      and they fell
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'bakward']">backward</ins>
+      or on to us or lay hanging on the bank. Then we all waited.</p>
+
+      <p>"As it grew lighter they did not dare move away, and none of us could
+      get out alive or over the bank to use the bayonet. A few men made holes
+      in the looser earth, and so we fired at each other through the bank here
+      and there. Our guns could not help us, and theirs could not shoot across,
+      for we were all together, and yet we could not get at each other. Some of
+      the men&mdash;theirs and ours&mdash;got over lower down, so there was
+      firing now and then, and two men were killed near me sliding down into
+      the water in the trenches.</p>
+
+      <p>"Somebody threw a cartridge case across close to me. On a paper inside
+      was scrawled one word: 'Surrender!' We did not know if they wanted to
+      surrender themselves or wanted us to surrender. They were more numerous,
+      but we were better placed, so we went on scrapping and crawling around to
+      get a shot at them.</p>
+
+      <p>"Perhaps it was the French who got round at the ends. There was heavy
+      firing. We heard quite close through the raised bank a few slipping down
+      on the river edge and water splashing. Some of us pulled ourselves up on
+      to the bank. I heard our men scrambling up on either side of me, but
+      could not see them. I think I was too sleepy. I shouted to charge, and
+      then must have fallen over on my head, rolling down the bank.</p>
+
+      <p>"I am on the way down with these wounded. There are fifteen of us
+      unhit here, but I think we came away just now with nearly a hundred out
+      of our 600 of yesterday."</p>
+
+      <p>He was doing gallant Captain's work, a young, slight, ordinary Belgian
+      trooper, a volunteer private in the ranks, muddy, limping, and
+      unspeakably tired in muscle and nerve. His story is as nearly as possible
+      in his own words, interrupted by blanks in his own consciousness of
+      events&mdash;lapses familiar to men whose muscles and nerves are exhausted,
+      but who must still work on without sleep.</p>
+
+      <p>For the following ten hours, without pause, he acted as interpreter
+      and most capable adviser in getting long trains of stretchers with his
+      wounded Belgian compatriots down and on to the British hospital
+      ships.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>A Visit to the Firing Line in France</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[By a Correspondent of <span class="pscaps">The New York Times</span>.]</p>
+
+      <p>PARIS, Sept. 30.&mdash;In company with several representatives of
+      American newspapers, I was permitted to pass several days in "the zone of
+      military activity," on credentials obtained at the personal request of
+      Ambassador Herrick, that we might describe the destruction caused by the
+      Germans in unfortified towns. Although I have given a parole to say
+      nothing concerning the movement of the troops or to mention certain
+      points that I visited, I am now permitted to send a report of a part of
+      my experiences.</p>
+
+      <p>We crossed the entire battlefield of the Marne, passed directly behind
+      the lines of the battle still raging on the Aisne, accidentally getting
+      under fire for an entire afternoon, and lunching in a hotel to the
+      orchestra of bursting shells, one end of the building being blown away
+      during the bombardment. We witnessed a battle between an armored French
+      monoplane and a German battery, and also had the experience of being
+      accused of being German spies by two men wearing the English uniform,
+      who, on failing to account for their own German accent, were speedily
+      taken away under guard with their "numbers up," as the French Commandant
+      expressed what awaited them.</p>
+
+      <p>On account of our exceptional credentials we were able to see more
+      actual war than many correspondents, who when they learned that permits
+      to go to the front were not forthcoming, went anyway, usually falling
+      into the hands of the military authorities before getting far. In fact,
+      getting arrested has been the chief occupation of the war correspondents
+      in this war, even our accidental view of the fighting being sufficient to
+      cause our speedy return to Paris under parole.</p>
+
+      <p>Going over the battlefield of the Marne, we found the battle had
+      followed much the same tactics as a cyclone, in that in some places
+      nothing, not even the haystacks, had been disturbed, while in others
+      everything, the villages, roads, and fields, had been utterly devastated
+      by shells. We talked with the inhabitants of every village and always
+      heard the same story&mdash;that during occupation the Germans, evidently
+      having been ordered to be on their good behavior after the Belgian
+      atrocities, had offered little trouble to the civilians, and had confined
+      their activities to looting and wasting the provisions. Also that when
+      retreating they had destroyed all the food they were unable to carry.</p>
+
+      <p>Our baptism of fire appropriately came while we were in a church. At
+      noon of the second day we motored into a deserted village, and were
+      stopped by a sentry who acknowledged our credentials, but warned us if we
+      intended to proceed to beware of bullets. But there was not a hostile
+      sound to alarm us.</p>
+
+      <p>As we drove carelessly over the brow of a hill where the road dipped
+      down a valley into the town, we were in direct line with the German fire,
+      as great holes in the ground and fallen trees testified. It is a wonder
+      our big motor car was not an immediate mark. On the way in we noticed a
+      church steeple shot completely off, so after finding an inn, where the
+      proprietor came from the cellar and offered to guard our car and prepare
+      luncheon, we decided first to examine the church. The innkeeper explained
+      that we had come during a lull in the bombardment, but the silent,
+      deserted place lulled all sense of danger. The verger showed us over the
+      church and we were walking through the ruined nave when suddenly we heard
+      a sound like the shrill whistling of the wind.</p>
+
+      <p>"It begins again," our conductor said simply. As the speech ended we
+      heard a loud boom and the sound of falling masonry as a shell struck the
+      far end of the building. We hurried to the hotel, the shells screaming
+      overhead. We saw the buildings tumbling into ruins, glass falling in fine
+      powder and remnants of furniture hanging grotesquely from scraps of
+      masonry.</p>
+
+      <p>All my life I had wondered what would be the sensation if I ever were
+      under fire&mdash;would I be afraid? To my intense relief I suddenly became
+      fatalistic. I was under fire with a vengeance, but instead of being
+      afraid I kept saying to myself, "Being afraid won't help matters; besides
+      nothing will happen if we just keep close to the walls and away from the
+      middle street."</p>
+
+      <p>On the way we met two men in English uniform who later denounced us as
+      spies. We hailed them, and they replied that they had been cut off from
+      their regiment and were now fighting with the French. Just as luncheon
+      was announced eight soldiers filed into the hotel, arrested us, and
+      marched us before the Commandant, who saw that our papers were all right,
+      but suggested that on account of the dangerous position we leave as soon
+      as possible. We asked permission to finish our luncheon. It was lucky
+      that we were arrested then&mdash;before the accusation that we were
+      spies&mdash;for when that question arose there was no doubt in the mind
+      of the Commandant concerning us, so our accusers' charge merely reacted
+      upon themselves.</p>
+
+      <p>During the episode of arrest there was another lull in the
+      bombardment, which began again as we were seated at luncheon. All through
+      the meal the shells whistled and screamed overhead, and the dishes
+      rattled constantly on the table.</p>
+
+      <p>When the meal was over the proprietor called us to witness what had
+      happened to the far wing of the hotel. It was completely demolished.
+      "Alert" had just been sounded, and the soldiers were running through the
+      streets. We ran out in time to see a building falling half a block away,
+      completely filling the street by which we had entered the town an hour
+      earlier.</p>
+
+      <p>In a few minutes we heard the sharp crackle of infantry fire about
+      half a mile away, and we had a sudden desire to get away before the
+      automobile retreat was cut off. Just then we heard the sound of an aero
+      engine overhead. It was flying so low that through a glass we could
+      easily see the whirring propeller. The machine was mounted with a
+      rapid-fire gun which was trying to locate the German gunners, who
+      immediately abandoned the destruction of the town in an attempt to bring
+      it down. For ten minutes we saw shells bursting all about it. At times it
+      was lost in smoke, but when the smoke cleared there was the monoplane
+      still blazing away, always mounting to a higher level, and finally
+      disappearing toward the French lines.</p>
+
+      <p>There was another lull in the cannonade, and we were permitted to pass
+      down the street near the river, where, by peering around a building, we
+      could see where the German batteries were secreted in the hills. We were
+      warned not to get into the street which led to the bridge, as the Germans
+      raked that street with their fire if a single person appeared.  We then
+      took advantage of a lull in the firing and departed to the south at
+      seventy miles an hour, in order to beat the shells, if any were aimed our
+      way as we crossed the rise of the hill.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>Unburied Dead Strew Lorraine</h3>
+      <p class="h3"><b>By Philip Gibbs of The London Daily Chronicle.</b></p>
+
+      <p>DIJON, Sept. 26.&mdash;Although great interest is concentrated upon
+      the northwest side of the line of of battle in France, it must not be
+      forgotten that the east side is also of high importance.  The operation
+      of the French and German forces along the jagged frontier from north to
+      south is of vital influence upon the whole field of war, and any great
+      movement of troops in this direction affects the strategy of the Generals
+      to command on the furthermost wings.</p>
+
+      <p>It was a desire to know something of what had been happening in the
+      east which led me to travel to the extreme right. Few correspondents have
+      been in this part of the field since the beginning of the war. It is far
+      from their own line of communications. For this reason there have been no
+      detailed narratives of the fighting in Lorraine, and a strange silence
+      has brooded over those battlefields. The spell of it has been broken only
+      by official bulletins telling in a line or two the uncertain result of
+      the ceaseless struggle for mastery.</p>
+
+      <p>Here are regiments of young men who have the right already to call
+      themselves veterans, for they have been fighting continually for six
+      weeks in innumerable engagements, for the most part unrecorded in
+      official dispatches. I had seen them answering the call to mobilization,
+      singing joyously as they marched through the streets. Then they were
+      smart fellows, clean shaven and spruce in their new blue coats and
+      scarlet trousers. Now war has put its dirt upon them and seems to have
+      aged them by fifteen years, leaving its ineffaceable imprint upon their
+      faces. Their blue coats have changed to a dusty gray, but they are hard
+      and tough for the most part, and Napoleon himself would not have wished
+      for better fighting men.</p>
+
+      <p>Now for the first time since the beginning of the war there will be a
+      little respite on the Lorraine frontier, and in the wooded country of the
+      two lost provinces there will be time to bury the dead which incumber its
+      fields. Words are utterly inadequate to describe the horrors of the
+      region to the east of the Meurthe, in and around the little towns of
+      Blamont, Badonviller, Cirey-les-Forges, Arracourt, Ch&acirc;teau-Salins,
+      Morhauge, and Baudrecourt, where for six weeks there has been incessant
+      fighting. After the heavy battle of Sept. 4, when the Germans were
+      repulsed with severe losses after an attack in force, both sides retired
+      for about twelve miles and dug themselves into lines of trenches which
+      they still hold; but every day since that date there has been a kind of
+      guerrilla warfare, with small bodies of men fighting from village to
+      village and from wood to wood, the forces on each side being scattered
+      over a wide area in advance of their main lines. This method of warfare
+      is even more terrible than a pitched battle.</p>
+
+      <p>"It is absurd to talk of Red Cross work," said one of the French
+      soldiers who had just come out of the trenches at Lun&eacute;ville. "It
+      has not existed as far as many of these fights are concerned How could
+      it? A few litter-carriers came with us on some of our expeditions, but
+      they were soon shot down, and after that the wounded just lay where they
+      fell, or crawled away into the shelter of the woods. Those of us who were
+      unhurt were not allowed to attend to our wounded comrades; it is against
+      orders.  We have to go on regardless of losses. My own best comrade was
+      struck down by my side. I heard his cry and saw him lying there with
+      blood oozing through his coat. My heart wept to leave him. He wanted me
+      to take his money, but I just kissed his hand and went on, I suppose he
+      died, for I could not find him when we retreated."</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image025-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image025.jpg"
+            alt="Where the Armies are Contending in Alsace-Lorraine."
+            title="Where the Armies are Contending in Alsace-Lorraine."/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><b>Where the Armies are Contending in Alsace-Lorraine.</b></p>
+      </div>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image026-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image026.jpg"
+            alt="Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievitch"
+            title="Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievitch"/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><span class="bscaps">Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievitch</span><br />
+         The Russian Commander-in-Chief.<br />
+         (<i>Photo (C) by Underwood &amp; Underwood.</i>)</p>
+      </div>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image027-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image027.jpg"
+            alt="Gen. Rennenkampf"
+            title="Gen. Rennenkampf"/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><span class="bscaps">Gen. Rennenkampf</span><br />
+         The Russian General Who Was Removed by the Grand Duke<br />
+         [<i>Transcriber: photo credit ineligible</i>]</p>
+      </div>
+
+      <p>Another French soldier lay wounded at the edge of a wood ten miles
+      from Lun&eacute;ville. When he recovered consciousness he saw there were
+      only dead and dying men around him. He remained for two days, unable to
+      move his shattered limbs, and cried out for death to relieve him of his
+      agony.  At night he was numbed by cold; in the day thirst tortured him to
+      the point of madness. Faint cries and groans came to his ears across the
+      field. It was on the morning of the third day that French peasants came
+      to rescue those who still remained alive.</p>
+
+      <p>There have been several advances made by the French into Lorraine, and
+      several retirements. On each occasion men have seen new horrors which
+      have turned their stomachs. There are woods not far from Nancy from which
+      there comes a pestilential stench which steals down the wind in gusts of
+      obscene odor. For three weeks and more dead bodies of Germans and
+      Frenchmen have lain rotting there. There are few grave diggers. The
+      peasants have fled from their villages, and the soldiers have other work
+      to do; so that the frontier fields on each side are littered with
+      corruption, where plague and fever find holding ground.</p>
+
+      <p>I have said that this warfare on the frontier is pitiless. This is a
+      general statement of a truth to which there are exceptions. One of these
+      was a reconciliation on the battlefield between French and German
+      soldiers who lay wounded and abandoned near the little town of Blamont.
+      When dawn came they conversed with each other while waiting for death. A
+      French soldier gave his water bottle to a German officer who was crying
+      out with thirst. The German sipped a little and then kissed the hand of
+      the man who had been his enemy. "There will be no war on the other side,"
+      he said.</p>
+
+      <p>Another Frenchman, who came from Montmartre, found a Luxembourger
+      lying within a yard of him whom he had known as a messenger in a big
+      hotel in Paris. The young German wept to see his old acquaintance. "It is
+      stupid," he said, "this war. You and I were happy when we were good
+      friends in Paris. Why should we have been made to fight with each other?"
+      He died with his arms around the neck of the soldier who told me the
+      story, unashamed of his own tears.</p>
+
+      <p>I could tell a score of tales like this, told to me by men whose eyes
+      were still haunted by the sight of these things; and perhaps one day they
+      will be worth telling, so that people of little imagination may realize
+      the meaning of this war and put away false heroics from their lips. It is
+      dirty business, with no romance in it for any of those fine young
+      Frenchmen I have learned to love, who still stay in the trenches on the
+      frontier lines or march a little way into Lorraine and back again.</p>
+
+      <p>Some of those trenches on either side are still filled with men
+      leaning forward with their rifles pointing to the enemy&mdash;quite dead,
+      in spite of their lifelike posture.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>Along the German Lines Near Metz</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Correspondence of The Associated Press.]</p>
+
+      <p>WITH THE GERMAN ARMY BEFORE METZ, Sept. 30, (by Courier to Holland and
+      Mail to New York.)&mdash;A five-day trip to the front has taken the
+      correspondent of The Associated Press through the German fortresses of
+      Mainz, Saarbr&uuml;cken, and Metz, through the frontier regions between
+      Metz and the French fortress line from Verdun to Toul, into the actual
+      battery positions from which German and Austrian heavy artillery were
+      pounding their eight and twelve-inch shells into the French barrier forts
+      and into the ranks of the French field army which has replaced the
+      crumbling fortifications of steel and cement with ramparts of flesh and
+      blood.</p>
+
+      <p>Impressions at the end are those of some great industrial undertaking
+      with powerful machinery in full operation and endless supply trains
+      bringing up the raw materials for manufacture rather than of war as
+      pictured.</p>
+
+      <p>From a point of observation on a hillside above St. Mihiel the great
+      battlefield on which a German army endeavoring to break through the line
+      of barrier forts between Verdun and Toul and the opposing French forces
+      could be surveyed in its entirety. In the foreground lay the level valley
+      of the Meuse, with the towns of St. Mihiel and Banoncour nestling upon
+      the green landscape. Beyond and behind the valley rose a tier of hills on
+      which the French at this writing obstinately hold an intrenched position,
+      checking the point of the German wedge, while the French forces from
+      north and south beat upon the sides of the triangle, trying to force it
+      back across the Meuse and out from the vitals of the French fortress
+      line.</p>
+
+      <p>Bursting shells threw up their columns of white or black fog around
+      the edge of the panorama. Cloudlets of white smoke here and there showed
+      where a position was being brought under shrapnel fire. An occasional
+      aeroplane could be picked out hovering over the lines, but the infantry
+      and the field battery positions could not be discerned even with a
+      high-power field glass, so cleverly had the armies taken cover. The
+      uninitiated observer would have believed this a deserted landscape rather
+      than the scene of a great battle, which, if successful for the Germans,
+      would force the main French Army to retreat from its intrenched positions
+      along the Aisne River.</p>
+
+      <p>About three miles away, across the Meuse, a quadrangular mound of
+      black, plowed-up earth on the hillside marked the location of Fort Les
+      Paroches, which had been silenced by the German mortars the night before.
+      Fort Camp des Romains, so named because the Roman legions had centuries
+      ago selected this site for a strategic encampment, had been stormed by
+      Bavarian infantry two days earlier after its heavy guns had been put out
+      of action, and artillery officers said that Fort Lionville, fifteen miles
+      to the south and out of the range of vision, was then practically
+      silenced, only one of its armored turrets continuing to answer the
+      bombardment.</p>
+
+      <p>The correspondent had spent the previous night at the fortress town of
+      Metz, sleeping under the same roof with Prince Oscar of Prussia,
+      invalided from the field in a state of physical breakdown; Prince William
+      of Hohenzollern, father-in-law of ex-King Manuel, and other officers,
+      either watching or engaged in the operations in the field, and had
+      traveled by automobile to the battlefront thirty-five miles to the west.
+      For the first part of the distance the road led through the hills on
+      which are located the chain of forts comprising the fortress of Metz;
+      but, although the General Staff officer in the car pointed now and then
+      to a hill as the site of this or that fort, traces of the fortifications
+      could only occasionally be made out. Usually they were so skillfully
+      masked and concealed by woods or blended with the hillsides that nothing
+      out of the ordinary was apparent, in striking contrast to the exposed
+      position of the forts at the recently visited fortress of Li&eacute;ge,
+      which advertised their presence from the sky line of the encompassing
+      hills and fairly invited bombardment.</p>
+
+      <p>The country as far as the frontier town of Gorze seemed bathed in
+      absolute peace. No troops were seen, rarely were automobiles of the
+      General Staff encountered, and men and women were working in the field
+      and vineyards as if war were a thousand miles away instead of only next
+      door.</p>
+
+      <p>Beyond Gorze, however, the road leading southwest through Chambley and
+      St. Beno&icirc;t Vigneuilles to St. Mihiel was crowded with long columns of
+      wagons and automobile trucks bearing reserve ammunition, provisions, and
+      supplies to the front, or returning empty for new loads to the unnamed
+      railroad base in the rear. Strikingly good march discipline was observed,
+      part of the road being always left free from the passage of staff
+      automobiles or marching troops. Life seemed most comfortable for the
+      drivers and escorts, as the army in advance had been so long in position,
+      and its railroad base was so near, that supplying it involved none of the
+      sleepless nights and days and almost superhuman exertions falling to the
+      lot of the train in the flying march of the German armies toward
+      Paris.</p>
+
+      <p>A few miles beyond Gorze the French frontier was passed, and from this
+      point on the countryside, with its deserted farms, rotting shocks of
+      wheat, and uncut fields of grain, trampled down by infantry and scarred
+      with trenches, excavations for batteries, and pits caused by exploding
+      shells, showed war's devastating heel prints.</p>
+
+      <p>Main army headquarters, the residence and working quarters of a
+      commanding General whose name may not yet be mentioned, were in
+      Ch&acirc;teau Chambley, a fine French country house. In the ch&acirc;teau
+      the commanding General made all as comfortable as in his own home.
+      Telegraph wires led to it from various directions, a small headquarters
+      guard lounged on the grass under the trees, a dozen automobiles and motor
+      cycles were at hand, and grooms were leading about the chargers of the
+      General and his staff.  At St. Beno&icirc;t, five miles further on, a
+      subordinate headquarters was encountered, again in a ch&acirc;teau
+      belonging to a rich French resident.  The Continental soldier leaves
+      tents to the American Army and quarters himself, whenever it is possible,
+      comfortably in houses, wasting no energy in transporting and setting up
+      tented cities for officers and men.  No matter how fast or how far a
+      German army moves, a completely equipped telegraph office is ready for
+      the army commander five minutes after headquarters have been
+      established.</p>
+
+      <p>At St. Beno&icirc;t a party of some 300 French prisoners was encountered,
+      waiting outside headquarters. They were all fine young fellows, in
+      striking contrast to the elderly reservist type which predominates in the
+      German prison camps. They were evidently picked troops of the line, and
+      were treated almost with deference by their guards, a detachment of
+      bearded Landwehr men from South Germany. They were the survivors of the
+      garrison of Fort Camp des Romains, who had put up such a desperate and
+      spirited defense as to win the whole-hearted admiration and respect of
+      the German officers and men. Their armored turrets and cemented bastions,
+      although constructed after the best rules of fortification of a few years
+      ago, had been battered about their ears in an unexpectedly short time by
+      German and Austrian siege artillery. Their guns were silenced, and
+      trenches were pushed up by an overwhelming force of pioneers and infantry
+      to within five yards of their works before they retreated from the
+      advanced intrenchments to the casemates of the fort.  Here they
+      maintained a stout resistance, and refused every summons to surrender.
+      Hand grenades were brought up, bound to a backing of boards, and exploded
+      against the openings into the casemates, filling these with showers of
+      steel splinters. Pioneers, creeping up to the dead angle of the
+      casemates, where the fire of the defenders could not reach them, directed
+      smoke tubes and stinkpots against apertures in the citadel, filling the
+      rooms with suffocating smoke and gases.</p>
+
+      <p>"Have you had enough?" the defenders were asked, after the first smoke
+      treatment.</p>
+
+      <p>"No!" was the defiant answer.</p>
+
+      <p>The operation was repeated a second and third time, the response to
+      the demand for surrender each time growing weaker, until finally the
+      defenders were no longer able to raise their rifles, and the fort was
+      taken. When the survivors of the plucky garrison were able to march out,
+      revived by the fresh air, they found their late opponents presenting arms
+      before them in recognition of their gallant stand. They were granted the
+      most honorable terms of surrender, their officers were allowed to retain
+      their swords, and on their march toward an honorable captivity they were
+      everywhere greeted with expressions of respect and admiration.</p>
+
+      <p>The headquarters guard here was composed of a company of infantry. The
+      company's field kitchen, the soup-boiler and oven on wheels, which the
+      German army copied from the Russians and which the soldiers facetiously
+      and affectionately name their "goulash cannon," had that day, the Captain
+      said, fed 970 men, soldiers of his own and passing companies,
+      headquarters attach&eacute;s, wounded men and the detachment of French
+      prisoners.</p>
+
+      <p>Experienced German officers rank the field kitchens, with the sturdy
+      legs of the infantry, the German heavy artillery and the aviation corps,
+      as the most important factors in the showing made by the German
+      armies.</p>
+
+      <p>Beyond St. Beno&icirc;t the C&ocirc;te Lorraine, a range of wooded
+      hills running north and south along the east bank of the Meuse, rises in
+      steeply terraced slopes several hundred feet from the frontier plain,
+      interposing a natural rampart between Germany and the French line of
+      fortresses beyond the Meuse. The French had fortified these slopes with
+      successive rows of trenches, permitting line above line of infantry to
+      fire against an advancing enemy. For days a desperate struggle was waged
+      for the possession of the heights, which was imperative for the German
+      campaign against the line of fortresses.</p>
+
+      <p>Germans do not mention the extent of their losses in any particular
+      action, but it was admitted and evident that it had cost a high price to
+      storm those steep slopes and win a position in the woods crowning the
+      range from which their batteries could be directed against the French
+      forts. Vigneuilles, a village at the foot of the hillside, shot into
+      ruins by artillery and with every standing bit of house wall scarred with
+      bullet marks from the hand-to-hand conflicts which had swayed to and fro
+      in its streets, was typical of all the little stone-built towns serving
+      as outposts to this natural fortress which had been the scene of
+      imbittered attacks and counter-attacks before the German troops could
+      fight their way up the hillsides.</p>
+
+      <p>The combat is still raging on this day from north and south against
+      the segment of this range captured by the Germans. The French, massing
+      their troops by forest paths from Verdun and Toul, throw them against the
+      Germans in desperate endeavors to break the lines which protect the sites
+      for the German siege artillery, heavy mortars of 8-1/4 and 16-1/2 inch
+      calibre and an intermediate sized type, and for the Austrian automobile
+      batteries of 12-inch siege guns.</p>
+
+      <p>The correspondent had no opportunity to inspect at close range the
+      16-1/2-inch guns, the "growlers" of Li&eacute;ge, Namur, and other fortresses,
+      which Krupp and the German Army uncovered as the surprise of this war.
+      They could be heard even from Metz speaking at five-minute intervals. A
+      battery of them, dug into the ground so that only the gun muzzles
+      projected above the pits, was observed in action at a distance of about a
+      half mile, the flash of flames being visible even at this distance.</p>
+
+      <p>Their smaller sisters were less coy. A dismounted battery of the
+      intermediate calibre, details of which are not available for publication,
+      was encountered by the roadside, awaiting repairs to the heavy traction
+      engine in whose train it travels in sections along the country roads,
+      while the German 8-1/4-inch (21 centimeter) and the Austrian 12-inch
+      (30.5 centimeter) batteries were seen in action.</p>
+
+      <p>The heavy German battery lay snugly hidden in a wood on the rolling
+      heights of the C&ocirc;te Lorraine. Better off than the French, whose aviators
+      had for days repeatedly scrutinized every acre of land in the vicinity
+      looking for these guns, we had fairly accurate directions how to find the
+      battery, but even then it required some search and doubling back and
+      forth before a languid artilleryman lounging by the roadside pointed with
+      thumb over shoulder toward the hidden guns.</p>
+
+      <p>These and the artillerymen were enjoying their midday rest, a pause
+      which sets in every day with the regularity of the luncheon hour in a
+      factory. The guns, two in this particular position, stood beneath a
+      screen of thickly branching trees, the muzzles pointing toward round
+      openings in this leafy roof. The gun carriages were screened with
+      branches. The shelter tents of the men and the house for the ammunition
+      had also been covered with green, and around the position a hedge of
+      boughs kept off the prying eyes of possible French spies wandering
+      through the woods.</p>
+
+      <p>It was the noon pause, but the Lieutenant in charge of the guns,
+      anxious to show them off to advantage, volunteered to telephone the
+      battery commander, in his observation post four miles nearer the enemy,
+      for permission to fire a shot or two against a village in which French
+      troops were gathering for the attack. This battery had just finished with
+      Les Paroches, a French barrier fort across the Meuse, and was now
+      devoting its attention to such minor tasks. Only forts really counted,
+      said the Lieutenant, recalling Fort Manonvillers, near Lun&eacute;ville, the
+      strongest French barrier fort, which was the battery's first "bag" of the
+      war. Its capture, thanks to his guns, had cost the German Army only three
+      lives, those of three pioneers accidentally killed by the fire of their
+      own men. Now Les Paroches was a heap of crumbled earth and stone.  In
+      default of forts the guns were used against any "worthy target"&mdash;a
+      "worthy target" being defined as a minimum of fifty infantrymen.</p>
+
+      <p>At this moment the orderly reported that the battery commander
+      authorized two shots against the village in question. At command the gun
+      crew sprang to their posts about the mortar, which was already adjusted
+      for its target, a little less than six miles away, the gun muzzle
+      pointing skyward at an angle of about 60 degrees. As the gun was fired
+      the projectile could be seen and followed in its course for several
+      hundred feet. The report was not excessively loud.</p>
+
+      <p>Before the report died away the crew were busy as bees about the gun.
+      One man, with the hand elevating gear, rapidly cranked the barrel down to
+      a level position, ready for loading. A second threw open the breech and
+      extracted the brass cartridge case, carefully
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'wipping']">wiping</ins>
+      it out before depositing it among the empties; four more seized the heavy
+      shell and lifted it to a cradle opposite the breech; a seventh rammed it
+      home; number eight gingerly inserted the brass cartridge, half filled
+      with a vaseline-like explosive; the breech was closed, and the gun
+      pointer rapidly cranked the gun again into position. In less than thirty
+      seconds the men sprang back from the gun, again loaded and aimed. A short
+      wait, and the observer from his post near the village ordered "next shot
+      fifty meters nearer."</p>
+
+      <p>The gun pointer made the slight correction necessary, the mortar again
+      sent its shell purring through the air against the village, which this
+      time, it was learned, broke into flames, and while the men went back to
+      their noonday rest, the Lieutenant explained the fine points of his
+      beloved guns. One man, as had been seen, could manipulate the elevation
+      gear with one hand easily and quickly; ten of his horses could take the
+      mortar, weighing eight tons, anywhere; it could fire up to 500 shots per
+      day. He was proud of the skillful concealment of his guns, which had been
+      firing for four days from the same position without being discovered,
+      although French aviators had located all the sister batteries, all of
+      which had suffered loss from shrapnel fire.</p>
+
+      <p>Along the roadside through the C&ocirc;te Lorraine were here and there
+      graves with rude crosses and penciled inscriptions. At the western edge
+      of the forest the battle panorama of the Meuse Valley suddenly opened
+      out, the hills falling away again steeply to the level valley below. The
+      towns below&mdash;St. Mihiel and Banoncour&mdash;seemed absolutely deserted, not a
+      person being visible even around the large barracks in the latter town.
+      While the little party of officers and spectators, including the
+      correspondent, were watching the artillery duel on the far horizon or
+      endeavoring to pick out the infantry positions, a shrapnel suddenly burst
+      directly before them, high in the air. There was a general stir, the
+      assumption being that the French had taken the group on the hillside for
+      a battery staff picking out positions for the guns; but as other shots
+      were fired it was seen that the shrapnel was exploding regularly above
+      the barracks, a mile and a half away, the French evidently suspecting the
+      presence of German troops there.</p>
+
+      <p>A ten-mile ride southward led to the position of the Austrian 12-inch
+      battery. The two guns this time were planted by the side of the road,
+      screened only in front by a little wood, but exposed to view from both
+      sides, the rear, and above. For this greater exposure the battery had
+      paid correspondingly, several of its men having been killed or wounded by
+      hostile fire. Here, as in the German batteries, the war work in progress
+      went on with a machinelike regularity and absence of spectacular features
+      more characteristic of a rolling mill than a battle. The men at the guns
+      went through their work with the deftness and absence of confusion of
+      high-class mechanics. The heavy shells were rolled to the guns, hoisted
+      by a chain winch to the breech opening, and discharged in uninteresting
+      succession, a short pause coming after each shot, until the telephonic
+      report from the observation stand was received. The battery had been
+      firing all day at Fort Lionville, at a range of 9,400 meters, (nearly six
+      miles,) and the battery commander was then endeavoring to put out of
+      action the only gun turret which still answered the fire. The task of
+      finding this comparatively minute target, forty or fifty feet in
+      diameter, was being followed with an accuracy which promised eventual
+      success.</p>
+
+      <p>The shells from the guns started on their course with characteristic
+      minute-long shrieks. Watches were pulled out to determine just how long
+      the shrieks could be heard, and the uninitiated were preparing to hear
+      the sound of the explosion itself. The battery chief explained, however,
+      that this scream was due to the conditions immediately around the muzzle
+      of the gun, and could not be heard from other points. He invited close
+      watch of the atmosphere a hundred yards before the gun at the next shot.
+      Not only could the projectile be seen plainly in the beginning of its
+      flight, but the waves of billowing air, rushing back to fill the void
+      left by the discharge and bounding and rebounding in a tempestuous sea of
+      gas, could be distinctly observed. This airy commotion caused the sound
+      heard for more than a minute.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>The Slaughter in Alsace</h3>
+      <p class="h3"><b>By John H. Cox of The London Standard.</b></p>
+
+      <p>BASLE, Switzerland, Aug. 19.&mdash;I have just returned
+      from an inspection of the scenes of the recent fighting between the
+      French and Germans in the southern districts of Alsace.</p>
+
+      <p>Dispatches from Paris and Berlin describe the engagements between the
+      frontier and M&uuml;lhausen as insignificant encounters between advance
+      guards. If this be true in a military sense, and the preliminaries of the
+      war produce the terrible effects I have witnessed, the disastrous results
+      of the war itself will exceed human comprehension.</p>
+
+      <p>As a Swiss subject I was equipped with identification papers and
+      accompanied by four of my countrymen, all on bicycles.</p>
+
+      <p>At the very outset the sight of peasants, men and women, unconcernedly
+      at work in the fields gathering the harvest, struck me as strange and
+      unnatural. The men were either old or well advanced in middle age.
+      Everywhere women, girls, and mere lads were working.</p>
+
+      <p>The first sign of war was the demolished villa of a Catholic priest at
+      a village near Ransbach. This priest had lived there for many years,
+      engaged in religious work and literary pursuits. After the outbreak of
+      the war the German authorities jumped at the conclusion that he was an
+      agent of the French Secret Service and that he had been in the habit of
+      sending to Belfort information concerning German military movements and
+      German measures for defense&mdash;very often by means of carrier pigeons.</p>
+
+      <p>The Alsatians say that these accusations were utterly unjust; but last
+      week a military party raided the priest's house, dragged him from his
+      study, placed him against his own garden wall and shot him summarily as a
+      traitor and spy. The house was searched from top to bottom, and numerous
+      books and papers were removed, after which the building was destroyed by
+      dynamite. The priest was buried without a coffin at the end of his little
+      garden plot, and some of the villagers placed a rough cross on the mound
+      which marked the place of interment.</p>
+
+      <p>In the next large village we were told that it had been successively
+      occupied by French and German troops and had been the scene of stiff
+      infantry fighting.</p>
+
+      <p>Here we found groups of old men and boys burying dead men and horses,
+      whose bodies were already beginning to be a menace to health. The weather
+      here has been exceptionally hot, and the countryside is bathed in blazing
+      sunshine. Further on were a number of German soldiers beating about in
+      the standing crops on both sides of the road, searching for dead and
+      wounded. They said many of the wounded had crawled in among the wheat to
+      escape being trodden upon by the troops marching along the road, and also
+      to gain relief from the heat.</p>
+
+      <p>On the outskirts of another large village we saw a garden bounded by a
+      thick hedge, behind which a company of French infantry had taken their
+      stand against the advancing German troops. Among the crushed flowers
+      there were still lying fragments of French soldiers' equipments, two
+      French caps stained with blood and three torn French tunics,
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'liewise']">likewise</ins>
+      dyed red. The walls of the cottage bore marks of rifle bullets, and the
+      roof was partially burned.</p>
+
+      <p>Passing through the villages we saw on all sides terrible signs of the
+      devastation of war&mdash;houses burned, uncut grain trodden down and rendered
+      useless, gardens trampled under foot; everywhere ruin and distress.</p>
+
+      <p>At a small village locally known as Napoleon's Island we found the
+      railway station demolished and the line of trucks the French had used as
+      a barricade. These trucks had been almost shot to pieces, and many were
+      stained with blood. Outside the station the small restaurant roof had
+      been shot away; the windows were smashed, and much furniture had been
+      destroyed. Nevertheless the proprietor had rearranged his damaged
+      premises as well as possible and was serving customers as if nothing had
+      happened.</p>
+
+      <p>Just outside this village there are large common graves in which
+      French and German soldiers lie buried together in their uniforms. Large
+      mounds mark these sites. Here again the villagers have placed roughly
+      hewn crosses.</p>
+
+      <p>Not far from Huningen we met an intelligent Alsatian peasant who
+      remembered the war of 1870 and had witnessed some engagements in the last
+      few days. Here is his account of what he saw:</p>
+
+      <p>"The bravery on both sides was amazing. The effects of artillery fire
+      are terrific. The shells burst, and where you formerly saw a body of
+      soldiers you see a heap of corpses or a number of figures writhing on the
+      ground, torn and mutilated by the fragments of the shell. Those who are
+      unhurt scatter for the moment, but quickly regain their composure and
+      take up their positions in the fighting line as if nothing had happened.
+      The effects of other weapons are as bad. It seems remarkable that
+      soldiers can see the destruction worked all around them, yet can control
+      their nerves sufficiently to continue fighting.</p>
+
+      <p>"I remember the battles of 1870, in five or six of which I fought
+      myself, but they bear no comparison with the battles of 1914. War
+      forty-four years ago was child's play compared with war at the present
+      time."</p>
+
+      <p>In several villages the schools and churches and many cottages are
+      filled with wounded Frenchmen and Germans, and everything is being done
+      to relieve their sufferings. In the stress of fighting many wounded
+      soldiers were left from three to ten or twelve hours lying in the fields
+      or on the roads. The ambulance equipment of modern armies appears utterly
+      inadequate, and most of the wounded were picked up by villagers.</p>
+
+      <p>A French aeroplane from Belfort reconnoitred the German positions
+      behind M&uuml;lhausen. As it passed over the German works at the Isteiner
+      Klotz there ensued a continuous firing of machine guns and rifles. The
+      aeroplane, which had swerved downward to give its two occupants a closer
+      and clearer view of the German position, immediately rose to a much
+      greater altitude and escaped injury. It cruised over the German position
+      for more than an hour, now rising, now falling, always pursued by the
+      bullets of the enemy.</p>
+
+      <p>This aerial
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'reconnoisance']">reconnoissance,</ins>
+      part of which was carried out at an altitude as low as 1,000 feet, was
+      undertaken at terrible risk, but in this case the aeroplane escaped all
+      injury and returned in the direction of Belfort, doubtless with all the
+      information it had set out to collect.</p>
+
+      <hr class="minor" />
+
+      <p class="center">[Special Cable to <span class="pscaps">The New York Times</span>.]</p>
+
+      <p>BERNE, Aug. 22, (Dispatch to The London Morning
+      Post.)&mdash;Gebweiler, in Alsace, twelve miles to the northwest of M&uuml;lhausen,
+      was taken by the French at the point of the bayonet on Aug. 20. My
+      correspondent, who has just arrived at Basle from the field of battle,
+      says that eight battalions of the German One Hundred and Fourteenth
+      Regiment, numbering about 10,000 men, engaged the French Army. The French
+      artillery was deadly and caused great ravages among the Germans, few
+      officers escaping.</p>
+
+      <p>During the whole night the wounded were being transported to villages
+      in the neighborhood, beyond the reach of artillery. All the buildings of
+      Sierenz were filled with wounded.</p>
+
+      <p>Hundreds of horses were stretched on the field of battle. Those of the
+      German artillery were killed, and in consequence the German forces left
+      their artillery, of which about twenty guns are now in the hands of the
+      French.</p>
+
+      <p>The object of the German troops was to cut off the retreat of the
+      French and force them toward the Swiss frontier&mdash;an object which they
+      failed to achieve.</p>
+
+      <p>The wounded received here say that they passed a terrible night in the
+      open, without water or other succor, with the pitiful neighing of wounded
+      horses ringing in their ears.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>Rennenkampf on the Prussian Border</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[By a Correspondent of The London Daily Chronicle.]</p>
+
+      <p>GRADNO, (via Petrograd,) Oct. 21.&mdash;I have returned
+      here after a journey along the East Prussian frontier, as close to the
+      scenes of daily fighting as I could obtain permission to go. The route
+      was from the north of Suwalki southward to Graevo, a stretch of country
+      recently in German occupation, but where now remains not a single German
+      outpost.</p>
+
+      <p>It is stimulating to see the Russian soldier in his habits as he lives
+      and fights. I have seen many thousands of them camped in the rain,
+      swamped in bogs, or marching indefatigably over the roads which are long
+      quagmires of mud, always with an air of stolid contentment and the look
+      of being bent on business. They include Baltic Province men speaking
+      German. Jews from Riga and Libau are brigaded with huge Siberians, whose
+      marching must constitute a world record. The Cossacks are past counting,
+      and with them are long-coated, tight-belted Circassians and Kalmucks, all
+      representing a mixture of races and languages like that of the British
+      Empire itself.</p>
+
+      <p>Actually the whole line is a battle front from north of Wirballen to
+      well into Poland, and no day passes without contact with the Germans.
+      This is an army in which every man has fought. Most of them have been in
+      hand-to-hand conflict with the Germans. They have approached the front
+      through a country which the enemy has devastated. There is no village
+      which does not bear the mark of wanton destruction. I have seen these
+      things for myself. Houses have been burned, others pillaged and the
+      contents dragged into the streets and there smashed. Churches have been
+      invariably gutted and defiled.</p>
+
+      <p>It is impossible not to admire these endless battalions of Siberians.
+      They are common objects of this countryside. I came past Suwalki as they
+      were moving up, column after column, in gray overcoats aswing in the
+      rhythm of their stride, like the kilts of Highlanders. It was they who
+      bore the brunt of the fighting, unsupported by artillery, in forests of
+      Augustowo, and, with the Baltic regiments, pushed on and took Lyck.
+      These are the men who marched forty miles, starting at midnight, then
+      went into action between Gor and Raigrod and delivered a bayonet charge
+      which their officers still boast about today.</p>
+
+      <p>I may not indicate the geography of the front on which the Russians
+      and Germans are now facing each other, but the German general plan is to
+      protect the railway and all approaches to a vital junction such as
+      Goldapp and Insterburg. Between them and the frontier lies a country of
+      singular difficulty for the troops. It is easy of defense, with small
+      broken hills, innumerable lakes and roads winding in watered valleys
+      among woods. The Germans have gone to earth in their usual lavish
+      fashion, digging themselves in with a thoroughness worthy of permanent
+      fortifications. Their trenches are five feet deep, with earthworks in
+      front zig-zagging as a precaution against enfilading. Some of them are
+      very cleverly hidden with growing bushes. All peasants remaining at the
+      country-side in Prussia are compelled to work digging trenches. The
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'implacements']">emplacements</ins>
+      for guns of large calibre have concrete foundations.</p>
+
+      <p>The Germans had fortified Suwalki, employing forced labor. They had
+      connected up the trench system with telephone installation and appointed
+      a Military Governor and other functionaries. Many German officers were
+      joined there by their wives and families, who when they retired took with
+      them souvenirs consisting of nearly every portable object of value in the
+      town, besides much furniture and clothing.</p>
+
+      <p>The Russian trenches are scarcely more than shallow grooves in the
+      ground with earth thrown up in front of them, making barely sufficient
+      cover for prone riflemen.</p>
+
+      <p>At once the German outer positions were carried by storm with ghastly
+      carnage.</p>
+
+      <p>"We didn't dig much," said a Russian officer to me. "We knew we
+      shouldn't stay there. We should either go forward or back, and we were
+      sure to go forward."</p>
+
+      <p>The cloud of patrols, mostly Cossacks, which flits unceasingly along
+      the German front is the subject of innumerable stories.</p>
+
+      <p>When the news was issued that the Kaiser had come east to take command
+      of his army on this front a Cossack came in, driving before him a plump,
+      distressed Prussian Captain whom he had gleaned during the day's
+      work.</p>
+
+      <p>"I've brought him," he announced. "I knew him by his mustache," and he
+      produced an old picture postcard from his breast showing the Kaiser with
+      his characteristic mustache.</p>
+
+      <p>Near Augustowo the roads are literally blocked in many places with
+      abandoned German transports which became trapped in the terribly muddy
+      country. Dead horses in hundreds lie everywhere and the Russian Sanitary
+      Corps is busy burying them. Yet the Russians who are still moving about
+      this country retain not only their usual average health, but do not even
+      complain.</p>
+
+      <p>Between Augustowo and Raigrod a small stream is actually blocked with
+      German stores, including much gun ammunition. The German advance which
+      ended in this debacle has been the costliest defeat in point of materials
+      which they have yet suffered.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>The First Fight at Lodz</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3"><b>By Percival Gibbon of The London Daily Chronicle.</b></p>
+
+      <p>WARSAW, Dec. 5, (by Courier to Petrograd.)&mdash;I have
+      wired you previously of the German force which advanced around Lodz and
+      was cut off south and east of the town. This consisted of two army
+      corps&mdash;the Twenty-fifth Corps and the Third Guard Corps. The isolated
+      force turned north and endeavored to cut its way out through the small
+      town of Breziziny. It was at Breziziny that final disaster overtook
+      them.</p>
+
+      <p>The town and road lie in a hollow in the midst of wooded country,
+      where the Germans were squeezed from the Vistula and pressed to the rear.
+      They had fought a battle during the slow retirement of five days and were
+      showing signs of being short of ammunition. On the fifth day they made
+      their final attempt to pass through Breziziny. That was where that fine
+      strategist and fighting man who held Ivangorod on the Vistula brought off
+      the great dramatic coup for which he had been manoeuvring.</p>
+
+      <p>The Germans were holding the town and pouring through when he began
+      his general attack. Breziziny underwent nine hours of furious shelling
+      and only half the town is now remaining. The Russian infantry again
+      proved its sterling quality, and, supported by the tremendous fire of its
+      own guns, drove home charge after charge, smashing the German resistance
+      completely. By nightfall out of two army corps, numbering 80,000 men,
+      there remained only a remnant.</p>
+
+      <p>The number of prisoners reaches the total of about 20,000, and of the
+      remainder fully 80 per cent, were killed or wounded. This is the estimate
+      supplied to me. Owing to the small area on which the fighting was
+      concentrated, the dead are lying in great mounds and walls at points
+      where the charges were pushed home. For miles the countryside is dotted
+      with dead.</p>
+
+      <p>In the sparser grounds an unknown number of fugitives, most of whom
+      are wounded, are lurking in the woods. From Rawa, south of Skierniwice,
+      midway between Lodz and Warsaw, to Lodz on the line of the former German
+      retreat and present advance, not a single village remains. All the
+      burned-out district is utterly desolate.</p>
+
+      <p>On Dec. 1, 2, and 3 the force conducting the defense of the town of
+      Lodz was all but surrounded. The German positions were at Royicie on the
+      southern road, within four miles of the long, straggling street which
+      comprises most of the town of Lodz, while at Zgierz, seven miles to the
+      north, they had a battery of heavy guns with which they shelled the town
+      itself, killing several hundred civilians. The fire was chiefly directed
+      on the railway and station and the Russian guns were unable for some time
+      to locate the battery. It was discovered and reconnoitred at last by an
+      aeroplane.</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image028-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image028.jpg"
+            alt="The War in the East (with Net Change of Battle Line Up to Jan, 1, 1915) from Eastern Prussia to Galicia."
+            title="The War in the East (with Net Change of Battle Line Up to Jan, 1, 1915) from Eastern Prussia to Galicia."/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><b>The War in the East (with Net Change of Battle
+         Line Up to Jan, 1, 1915) from Eastern Prussia to Galicia.</b></p>
+      </div>
+
+      <p>Then followed an act of heroism and harebrained enterprise which is
+      now the talk of the whole army. On Thursday night last the Colonel of
+      Artillery made his way out and with a little group of assistants
+      contrived to drag a field telephone wire within half a mile of the German
+      battery. While a searchlight was swinging over the face of the country,
+      he lay on the ground, and from there directed the Russian guns, which
+      with his help actually succeeded in silencing the battery. The Russian
+      guns were at this time placed in the streets of Lodz.</p>
+
+      <p>On Thursday night, when the attack culminated, there were 700 guns in
+      action at one time on both sides, and throughout the night all was alight
+      with flashes from the guns and bursting shells, and the thunder of the
+      guns was faintly audible on the outskirts of Warsaw, sixty miles
+      away.</p>
+
+      <p>Then there followed a general assault of the Germans, a charge of huge
+      masses of men, who followed up into the glare of the searchlights under
+      an inferno of gunfire. Here again the Siberians demonstrated the
+      qualities which have made them famous throughout the war. They met the
+      Germans with a rifle fire from the trenches which not only stopped them
+      but shattered them. They again played the old trick of allowing the enemy
+      to approach within fifty feet, meanwhile holding their fire, and then
+      blowing them off their feet with rifle fire and their use of the
+      mitrailleuse.</p>
+
+      <p>The attack failed utterly, and from the very manner of it the Russian
+      losses could not be otherwise than light, while the German losses in the
+      whole of the operations against Lodz and the neighboring positions exceed
+      a hundred thousand killed. No guess at the number of their wounded can be
+      attempted, but we know that score upon score of trains filled with them
+      have gone west along the Kalisz line, and still continue to go.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>The First Invasion of Servia</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[By a Correspondent of The London Standard.]</p>
+
+      <p>NISH, Servia, Aug. 31.&mdash;After the butcheries and atrocities which
+      I witnessed during preceding battles I thought I would get accustomed and
+      insensible to these scenes of blood, but from my last visit to the
+      slaughter house I have brought such visions of horror that their very
+      thought makes me shudder. The object of the Austrian Army seems to have
+      been complete devastation.</p>
+
+      <p>The fierce battle which the Servians gave them incessantly for more
+      than a week may be divided into two conflicts of equal intensity which
+      raged along the ridge of the heights of Tser. Each of the two slopes,
+      descending one to the Save and the town of Shabatz and the other to the
+      Drina, is now nothing but a charnel house.</p>
+
+      <p>I could not say which of these two conflicts was more murderous, but
+      this admirably fertile region, with its countless fruit trees, is now
+      sheltering the last remains of hundreds of butchered men, women, and
+      children.</p>
+
+      <p>When after three days and three nights of truceless fighting the
+      Servians succeeded in surprising the enemy in the middle of the night at
+      Tser, the toll of dead was so colossal that the Servian troops were
+      constrained for the time being to abandon burying the corpses.</p>
+
+      <p>Everywhere the fighting was of the fiercest conceivable nature, for to
+      resist the invaders was to the Servians a question of life and death. At
+      several points they fought right up to the last man, succumbing but never
+      falling back.</p>
+
+      <p>The volunteer corps of Capt. Tankositch, the famous leader whose head
+      Austria is so anxious to gain, was charged to defend Kroupage, situated
+      south of the battle front, between Losnitza and Lionbovia. Considerable
+      Austrian forces attempted to advance with the view of driving the Captain
+      back.</p>
+
+      <p>For two days and three nights Tankositch and 236 volunteers held their
+      position. At last three whole Austrian regiments surrounded them, but
+      rather than yield to the enemy Tankositch and his gallant miniature army
+      resolved to fight to the last. In the dead of night he sent out a small
+      group to meet the Austrians. This group, consisting of a mere handful of
+      soldiers, hurled a shower of bombs at the enemy, cutting up his ranks,
+      and secured a free pass.</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image029-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image029.jpg"
+            alt="The Battlefield in Servia."
+            title="The Battlefield in Servia."/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><b>The Battlefield in Servia.</b></p>
+      </div>
+
+      <p>At the first break of day, when Tankositch counted his men, only
+      forty-six answered the call. They surrounded more than a hundred
+      prisoners.</p>
+
+      <p>It will be realized that in the course of such sharp fighting the
+      Servian losses must have been considerable, although they were much
+      smaller than those of the enemy.</p>
+
+      <p>The most pitiful and heartrending aspect of these scenes was presented
+      by the long procession of Servian survivors from the neighboring
+      villages, consisting of old men, women, and children, bringing in the
+      heavy toll of mutilated human beings. At Valievo, the nearest town to the
+      field of battle, large masses of Servian and Austrian wounded kept
+      pouring in incessantly. About 10,000 have already arrived. All had to be
+      examined, all had to have their wounds dressed, and at Valievo there are
+      only six doctors.</p>
+
+      <p>In spite of this appalling shortage of medical aid, I witnessed
+      yesterday a most touching spectacle. A car drawn by oxen brought to the
+      hospital at Valievo its load of mutilated soldiers. In the first portion
+      of the car were three wounded Austrians and in the second two wounded
+      Servians and two more Austrians. The convoys wanted to carry the Austrian
+      wounded to the dressing room before their own wounded. A Servian doctor
+      stopped them.</p>
+
+      <p>"Bring the wounded in in the order in which they come," he commanded,
+      and, without any regard for the nationality of his patients, the doctor
+      and his colleagues commenced their humanitarian work.</p>
+
+      <p>What are the Red Crosses of the neutral countries waiting for? Why do
+      they not come here? In the name of gallant little Servia, in the name of
+      a humane and pitiful people, I make urgent appeal to the Red Crosses to
+      send a portion of their staff here. There are thousands of lives to be
+      saved.</p>
+
+      <p>Now I must begin a chapter of sorrows. I wanted to witness the
+      Austro-Hungarian excesses a second time before speaking of them, so that
+      I could give an exact and genuine account of actual facts. Courage failed
+      me to see all, but what I have seen can be summed up in one phrase. In
+      the environs of Shabatz the vanquished put the finishing touch to their
+      acts of fearful savagery by butchering their Servian prisoners, whose
+      corpses were found heaped up in the town.</p>
+
+      <p>Yesterday and the day before I ran across country through Valievo
+      toward Drina. Further north, barely forty miles from Valievo, at
+      Seablatcha, the poor refugees who had fled from their houses before the
+      onslaught of the Austrians showed me eight young people, tied one to
+      another, who were all pierced by bayonets.</p>
+
+      <p>Five miles from there, at Bella Tserka, fugitives of the village with
+      indescribable despair were burying the mutilated, bodies of fourteen
+      little girls. Six peasants were found hanging in an orchard.</p>
+
+      <p>At Lychnitsa, on the Drina, about a hundred old men, inoffensive
+      civilians, were massacred before the eyes of their wives and children.
+      All the women and children were led over on the other side of the bank of
+      the Drina in order to compel the Servians to stop their fire.</p>
+
+      <p>It is not war that Austria-Hungary tried to make on Servia. That great
+      nation wanted to exterminate the Servian people. She thought she would
+      succeed before Servia had time to defend herself.</p>
+
+      <p>Austrian prisoners affirm that they received orders to hang all those
+      striving against their country, to burn all the enemy's villages, and put
+      all their inhabitants to death.</p>
+
+      <p>The Servian Quartermaster General is drawing up an official list of
+      these Austro-Hungarian deeds.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>The Attack on Tsing-tau</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3"><b>By Jefferson Jones of The Minneapolis Journal and The
+         Japan Advertiser.</b></p>
+
+      <p>JAPANESE HEADQUARTERS, Shantung, Nov. 2.&mdash;I have seen
+      war from a grand stand seat. I never before heard of the possibility of
+      witnessing a modern battle&mdash;the attack of warships, the fire of infantry
+      and artillery, the manoeuvring of airships over the enemy's lines, the
+      rolling up from the rear of reinforcements and supplies&mdash;all at one sweep
+      of the eye; yet, after
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'watchnig']">watching</ins>
+      for three days the siege of Tsing-tau from a position on Prinz Heinrich
+      Berg, 1,000 feet above the sea level and but three miles from the
+      beleaguered city, I am sure that there is actually such a thing as a
+      theatre of war.</p>
+
+      <p>On Oct. 31, the date of the anniversary of the birth of the Emperor of
+      Japan, the actual bombardment of Tsing-tau began. All the residents of
+      the little Chinese village of Tschang-tsun, where was fixed on that day
+      the acting staff headquarters of the Japanese troops, had been awakened
+      early in the morning by the roar of a German aeroplane over the village.
+      Every one quickly dressed and, after a hasty breakfast, went out to the
+      southern edge of the village to gaze toward Tsing-tau.</p>
+
+      <p>A great black column of smoke was arising from the city and hung like
+      a pall over the besieged. At first glance it seemed that one of the
+      neighboring hills had turned into an active volcano and was emitting this
+      column of smoke, but it was soon learned that the oil tanks in Tsing-tau
+      were on fire.</p>
+
+      <p>As the bombardment was scheduled to start late in the morning, we were
+      invited to accompany members of the staff of the Japanese and British
+      expeditionary forces on a trip to Prinz Heinrich Berg, there to watch the
+      investment of the city. It was about a three-mile journey to this
+      mountain, which had been the scene of some severe fighting between the
+      German and Japanese troops earlier in the month.</p>
+
+      <p>When we arrived at the summit there was the theatre of war laid out
+      before us like a map. To the left were the Japanese and British cruisers
+      in the Yellow Sea, preparing for the bombardment. Below was the Japanese
+      battery, stationed near the Meeker House, which the Germans had burned in
+      their retreat from the mountains. Directly ahead was the City of
+      Tsing-tau, with the Austrian cruiser Kaiserin Elisabeth steaming about in
+      the harbor, while to the right one could see the Kiao-Chau coast and
+      central forts and redoubts and the intrenched Japanese and British
+      camps.</p>
+
+      <p>We had just couched ourselves comfortably between some large, jagged
+      rocks, where we felt sure we were not in a direct line with the enemy's
+      guns, when suddenly there was a flash as if some one had turned a large
+      golden mirror in the field down beyond to the right. A little column of
+      black smoke drifted away from one of the Japanese trenches, and a minute
+      later those of us on the peak of Prinz Heinrich heard the sharp report of
+      a field gun.</p>
+
+      <p>"Gentlemen, the show has started," said the British Captain, as he
+      removed his cap and started adjusting his "opera glass." No sooner had he
+      said this than the reports of guns came from all directions with a
+      continuous rumble as if a giant bowling alley were in use. Everywhere the
+      valley at the rear of Tsing-tau was alive with golden flashes from
+      discharging guns, and at the same time great clouds of bluish-white smoke
+      would suddenly spring up around the German batteries where some Japanese
+      shell had burst. Over near the greater harbor of Tsing-tau we could see
+      flames licking up the Standard Oil Company's large tanks. We afterward
+      learned that these had been set on fire by the Germans and not by a
+      bursting shell.</p>
+
+      <p>And then the warships in the Yellow Sea opened fire on Iltis Fort, and
+      for three hours we continually played our glasses on the field&mdash;on
+      Tsing-tau and on the warships. With glasses on the central redoubt of the
+      Germans we watched the effects of the Japanese fire until the boom of
+      guns from the German Fort A, on a little peninsula jutting out from
+      Kiao-Chau Bay, toward the east, attracted our attention there. We could
+      see the big siege gun on this fort rise up over the bunker, aim at a
+      warship, fire, and then quickly go down again. And then we would turn our
+      eyes toward the warships in time to see a fountain of water 200 yards
+      from a vessel, where the shell had struck. We scanned the city of
+      Tsing-tau. The 150-ton crane in the greater harbor, which we had seen
+      earlier in the day, and which was said to be the largest crane in the
+      world, had disappeared and only its base remained standing. A Japanese
+      shell had carried away the crane.</p>
+
+      <p>But this first day's firing of the Japanese investing troops was
+      mainly to test the range of the different batteries. The attempt also was
+      made to silence the line of forts extending in the east from Iltis Hill,
+      near the wireless and signal stations at the rear of Tsing-tau, to the
+      coast fort near the burning oil tank on the west. In this they were
+      partly successful, two guns at Iltis Fort being silenced by the guns at
+      sea.</p>
+
+      <p>On Nov. 1, the second day of the bombardment, we again stationed
+      ourselves on the peak of Prinz Heinrich Berg. From the earliest hours of
+      morning the Japanese and British forces had kept up a continuous fire on
+      the German redoubts in front of the Iltis, Moltke, and Bismarck forts,
+      and when we arrived at our seats it seemed as though the shells were
+      dropping around the German trenches every minute. Particularly on the
+      redoubt of Taitung-Chen was the Japanese fire heavy, and by early
+      afternoon, through field glasses, this German redoubt appeared to have
+      had an attack of smallpox, so pitted was it from the holes made by
+      bursting Japanese shells. By nightfall many parts of the German redoubts
+      had been destroyed, together with some machine guns. The result was the
+      advancing of the Japanese lines several hundred yards from the bottom of
+      the hills where they had rested earlier in the day.</p>
+
+      <p>It was not until the third day of the bombardment that those of us
+      stationed on Prinz Heinrich observed that our theatre of war had a
+      curtain, a real asbestos one that screened the fire in the drops directly
+      ahead of us from our eyes. We had learned that the theatre was equipped
+      with pits, drops, a gallery for onlookers, exits, and an orchestra of
+      booming cannon and rippling, roaring pompons; but that nature had
+      provided it with a curtain&mdash;that was something new to us.</p>
+
+      <p>We had reached the summit of the mountain about 11 A.M., just as some
+      heavy clouds, evidently disturbed by the bombardment during the previous
+      night, were dropping down into Litsun Valley and in front of Tsing-tau.
+      For three hours we sat on the peak shivering in a blast from the sea, and
+      all the while wondering just what was being enacted beyond the curtain.
+      The firing had suddenly ceased, and with the filmy haze before our eyes
+      we conjured up pictures of the Japanese troops making the general attack
+      upon Iltis Fort, evidently the key to Tsing-tau, while the curtain, of
+      the theatre of war was down.</p>
+
+      <p>By early afternoon the clouds lifted, and with glasses we were able to
+      distinguish fresh sappings of the Japanese infantry nearer to the German
+      redoubts. The Japanese guns, which the day before were stationed below us
+      to the left, near the Meeker House, had advanced half a mile and were on
+      the road just outside the village of Ta-Yau. Turning our glasses on
+      Kiao-Chau Bay, we discovered that the Kaiserin Elisabeth was missing, nor
+      did a search of the shore line reveal her. Whether she was blown up by
+      the Germans or had hidden behind one of the islands I do not know.</p>
+
+      <p>All the guns were silent now, and the British Captain said: "Well,
+      chaps, shall we take advantage of the intermission?"</p>
+
+      <p>A half-hour later we were down the mountain and riding homeward toward
+      Tschang-Tsun.</p>
+
+      <p>To understand fully the operations of the Japanese troops in Shantung
+      during the present Far Eastern war one must be acquainted with the
+      topography of this peninsula, as well as with the conditions that exist
+      for the successful movements of the troops.</p>
+
+      <p>Since the disembarkation of the Japanese Army on Sept. 2 everything
+      has seemingly favored the Germans. The country, which is unusually
+      mountainous, offering natural strongholds for resisting the invading
+      army, is practically devoid of roads in the hinterland. To add to this
+      difficulty, the last two months in Shantung have seen heavy rains and
+      floods which have really aided in holding off the ultimate fall of
+      Kiao-Chau.</p>
+
+      <p>One had only to see the road from Lanschan over Makung Pass, on which
+      the Japanese troops were forced to rely for their supplies, partly to
+      understand the reason for the German garrison at Tsing-tau still holding
+      out. The road, especially near the base, is nothing but a sea of clay in
+      which the military carts sink up to their hubs. Frequent rains every week
+      keep the roadway softened up and thus render it necessary for the
+      Japanese infantry to rebuild it and to construct drainage ditches in
+      order that there may be no delay in getting supplies and ammunition to
+      the troops at the front.</p>
+
+      <p>The physical characteristics of Kiao-Chau make it an ideal fortress.
+      The entrance of the bay is nearly two miles wide and is commanded by
+      hills rising 600 feet directly in the rear of Tsing-tau. The ring of
+      hills that surrounds the city does not extend back into the hinterland,
+      and thus there is no screen behind which the Japanese forces can quickly
+      invest the city. Germany has utilized the semicircle of hills in the
+      construction of large concrete forts equipped with Krupp guns of 14 and
+      16 inch calibre, which, for four or five miles back into the peninsula,
+      command all approaches to the city.</p>
+
+      <p>The Japanese Army in approaching Tsing-tau has had to do so
+      practically in the open. The troops found no hills behind which they
+      could with safety mount heavy siege guns without detection by the German
+      garrison.  In fact, the strategic plan for the capture of the town has
+      been much like the plan adopted by the Japanese forces at Port
+      Arthur&mdash;they have forced their approach by sappings. While this is a
+      gradual method, it is certain of victory in the end and results in very
+      little loss of life.</p>
+
+      <p>The natural elevations of the Iltis, Bismarck, and Moltke forts at the
+      rear of Tsing-tau have another advantage in that they are so situated
+      that they are commanded by at least two other forts. All of the guns had
+      been so placed that they can be turned on their neighbors if the occasion
+      arises.</p>
+
+      <p>A Japanese aeroplane soaring over Tsing-tau on Oct. 30 scattered
+      thousands of paper handbills on which was printed the following
+      announcement, in German, from the Staff Headquarters:</p>
+
+      <p>"To the Honored Officers and Men in the Fortress: It is against the
+      will of God as well as the principles of humanity to destroy and render
+      useless arms, ships of war, merchantmen, and other works and
+      constructions not in obedience to the necessity of war, but merely out of
+      spite lest they fall into the hands of the enemy.</p>
+
+      <p>"Trusting, as we do, that, as you hold dear the honor of civilization,
+      you will not be betrayed into such base conduct. We beg you, however, to
+      announce to us your own view as mentioned above."</p>
+
+
+      <h3>The German Attack on Tahiti</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3"><b>As Told by Miss Geni La France, an Eyewitness.</b></p>
+
+      <p>SAN FRANCISCO, Cal., Oct. 7.&mdash;Graphic stories of the
+      plight of Pape&eacute;te, capital of Tahiti, in the Society Islands, were told
+      here today by passengers arriving on the Union Steamship Company's liner
+      Moana.  Several of those on board the steamer were in Pape&eacute;te when the
+      town was bombarded by the German cruisers Gneisenau and Scharnhorst. They
+      said the place was in ruins and that the natives were still hiding in the
+      hills, whence they fled when the bombardment began.</p>
+
+      <p>The stories of those arriving on the Moana vary only in unimportant
+      details. Perhaps the most graphic story was that told by Miss Geni La
+      France, a French actress. She told of the Governor's heroism and his
+      self-sacrificing devotion to duty, which caused him to face death rather
+      than surrender. All of the passengers were loud in their praise of this
+      Frenchman, who thought first of his country, next of his guests&mdash;for so
+      he considered all travelers&mdash;and next of the city's residents.</p>
+
+      <p>"While the shells screamed and exploded with a deafening roar, tearing
+      buildings and leaving wreck and ruin in their wake, this old Governor was
+      calm throughout," said Miss La France.</p>
+
+      <p>"It was his bravery that enabled us to bear up under the terrible
+      strain, although it was impossible to flee the city, as shells were
+      exploding all about.</p>
+
+      <p>"I was sitting on the veranda of the hotel, having a lovely holiday.
+      Every one was happy and contented. The sunshine was lovely and warm and
+      the natives were busy at their work. I noticed two dark ships steaming up
+      the little river, but was too lazy and 'comfy' to take any interest in
+      them.</p>
+
+      <p>"Suddenly, without any warning, shots began exploding around us. Two
+      of the houses near the hotel fell with a crash, and the natives began
+      screaming and running in every direction. For a minute I didn't realize
+      what was happening. But when another volley of shells burst dangerously
+      near and some of the pieces just missed my head, I was flying, too.</p>
+
+      <p>"Every one was shouting, 'To the hills, to the hills!' My manager
+      could not obtain a wagon or any means of conveyance to take me there. I
+      felt as if I had on a pair of magic boots that would carry me to the
+      hills in three steps. But I didn't. It was a good six miles, over bad
+      roads, and we had to run.</p>
+
+      <p>"The shells from the German battleships kept breaking, and the
+      explosions were terrible. I am sure that I made a record in sprinting
+      that six miles. The cries of the people were terrible. I was simply
+      terror-stricken and could not cry for fear. I seemed to realize that I
+      must keep my strength in order to reach the hills.</p>
+
+      <p>"We hid in the hills and the natives gave up their homes to the white
+      people, and were especially kind to the women."</p>
+
+      <p>"The native population probably hasn't come back from the hills yet,
+      and when we left, two days after the bombardment, the European population
+      was still dazed," said E.P. Titchener, a Wellington, New Zealand,
+      merchant, who went through the bombardment.</p>
+
+      <p>"From 8 o'clock until 10 the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau circled in the
+      harbor, firing broadsides of eight-inch guns at the little gunboat Zelie
+      and the warehouses beyond.</p>
+
+      <p>"Only the American flag, which the American Consul hoisted, and an
+      American sailing vessel also ran up, the two being in line before the
+      main European residence section, saved that part of the town, for the
+      German cruisers were careful not to fire in that direction."</p>
+
+      <p>According to all accounts, the cruisers directed their fire solely
+      toward the Zelie, but their marksmanship was said to be poor. Many shots
+      fell short and many went wide, so that the whole business district, the
+      general market, and the warehouses along the water front were peppered
+      and riddled.</p>
+
+      <p>The French replied from some old guns on the hills as well as three
+      shots from the Zelie, but ineffectively.</p>
+
+      <p>"It was plucky of the French to fire at all," said Mr. Titchener. "At
+      7 o'clock we could see two war vessels approaching, and soon made out
+      they were cruisers. They came on without a flag, and the Zelie, lying in
+      the harbor, fired a blank shot.</p>
+
+      <p>"Then the Germans hoisted their flag and the Zelie fired two shots.
+      The Germans swung around and fired their broadsides, and all the crew of
+      the Zelie scuttled ashore. No one was hurt.</p>
+
+      <p>"The Germans continued to swing and fire. Their shells flew all over
+      the town above the berth of the Zelie and the German prize ship Walkure,
+      which the Zelie had captured. Perhaps not knowing they were firing into a
+      German vessel, the Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst continued their wild
+      cannonades.</p>
+
+      <p>"During the two hours of bombardment a hundred shells from the big
+      8-inch guns of the cruisers fell and exploded in the town. The sound was
+      terrific, and nobody blamed the natives for running away.</p>
+
+      <p>"With all the destruction, only three men were killed&mdash;one Chinaman
+      and two natives. The Germans evidently made an effort to confine their
+      fire, but many shots went wide, and these did the main mischief.</p>
+
+      <p>"Finally, about 10 o'clock, without attempting to land, and not
+      knowing that the German crew of the Walkure were prisoners in the town,
+      the Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst steamed away and disappeared over the
+      horizon. They sailed off to the westward, but of course we could not tell
+      how they set their course when they got beyond our vision."</p>
+
+      <p>The damage to Pape&eacute;te was estimated at $2,000,000. Two vessels were
+      sunk and two blocks of business houses and residences were destroyed. The
+      French set fire to a 40,000-ton coal pile to prevent the Germans
+      replenishing their bunkers.</p>
+
+      <p>The voyage of the Moana was fraught with adventure. From Pape&eacute;te the
+      vessel, which flies the British flag, sailed with lights out and dodged
+      four German cruisers after being warned by the wireless operator, who had
+      picked up a German code message sent out by the cruisers which had razed
+      the island city.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>The Bloodless Capture of German Samoa</h3>
+      <p class="h3"><b>By Malcolm Ross, F.R.G.S.</b></p>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Special Correspondence of <span class="pscaps">The New York Times</span>.]</p>
+
+      <p>WELLINGTON, N.Z., Sept. 19.&mdash;The advance detachment
+      of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force which was ordered to seize German
+      Samoa left Wellington in two troopships at dawn on Aug. 15, and was met
+      in the ocean in latitude 36.0 south, longitude 178.30 east by three of
+      the British cruisers in New Zealand waters&mdash;the Psyche, Pyramus, and
+      Philomel.</p>
+
+      <p>As it was known that the armored cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau
+      were still at large in Pacific waters, it was decided not to go direct to
+      Samoa, but to shape a course direct for New Caledonia. For the next
+      fortnight or so we were playing a game of hide and seek in the big
+      islanded playground of the Pacific Ocean. The first evening out the
+      Psyche signaled "Whereabouts of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau still unknown;
+      troopships to extinguish all lights and proceed with only shaded lights
+      at bow and stern." Military books and papers were quickly gathered
+      together, and the remaining few minutes of daylight were used for getting
+      into bed, while the difficult task was set us of trying to sleep the
+      round of the clock. Thus, night after night, with lights out, we steamed
+      along our northward track, the days being spent in drill and ball firing
+      with rifles and the Maxim guns.</p>
+
+      <p>On the morning of Aug. 2 we proceeded along the shores of New
+      Caledonia and saw the big French cruiser Montcalm entering the harbor.
+      Next day we were joined by the battle cruiser Australia and the light
+      cruiser Melbourne. The contingent received an enthusiastic reception in
+      New Caledonia. As we passed the Montcalm our band played the
+      "Marseillaise," and the band on the French cruiser responded with our
+      national anthem.  Cheers from the thousands of men afloat and the singing
+      of patriotic songs added to the general enthusiasm, the French residents
+      being greatly excited with the sudden and unexpected appearance of their
+      allies from New Zealand.</p>
+
+      <p>A delay of twenty-four hours was caused by one of the troopships
+      grounding on a sand bank in the harbor, but on Sunday, Aug. 23, the
+      expedition got safely away.</p>
+
+      <p>We steamed through the Havannah Pass, at the southeastern end of the
+      island, where we awaited Rear Admiral Sir George Patey, in command of the
+      allied fleets. In due course the Australia and the Melbourne came up with
+      us. Then in turn waited for the Montcalm. All the ships, eight in number,
+      were now assembled, and they moved off in the evening light to take up
+      position in the line ahead.</p>
+
+      <p>Fiji was reached in due course, and at anchor in the harbor of Suva we
+      found the Japanese collier Fukoku Maru, and learned that she had been
+      coaling the German cruisers at the Caroline Islands just before the
+      declaration of war. After the coaling had been completed the Japanese
+      Captain went on to Samoa, calling at Apia. The Germans, however, would
+      not allow him to land. The Japanese Captain had been paid for his coal by
+      drafts on Germany, which, on reaching Suva, he found to be useless.  He
+      was therefore left without means to coal and reprovision. As he was not
+      allowed to land at Samoa, he went on to Pago-Pago, in complete ignorance
+      that war had been declared, and, not being able to get supplies there,
+      left for Suva. At the latter port the harbor lights being extinguished,
+      he ran his vessel on to the reef in the night time.  Rockets were sent
+      up, but no assistance could be given from the shore.  Fortunately,
+      however, he got off as the tide made; but it was a narrow call.</p>
+
+      <p>In the early dawn of Aug. 30 we got our first glimpse of German Samoa.
+      The American island of Tutuila was out of sight, away to the right, but
+      presently we rounded the southeastern corner of the island of Upolu, with
+      its beautiful wooded hills wreathing their summits in the morning mists,
+      and saw the white line of surf breaking along its coral reef&mdash;historic
+      Upolu, the home of Robert Louis Stevenson, the scene of wars and
+      rebellions and international schemings, and the scene also of that
+      devastating hurricane which wrecked six ships of war and ten other
+      vessels, and sent 142 officers and men of the German and American Navies
+      to their last sleep. The rusting ribs and plates of the Adler, the German
+      flagship, pitched high inside the reef, still stare at us as a reminder
+      of that memorable event.</p>
+
+      <p>The Psyche went boldly on ahead, and after the harbor had been swept
+      for mines she steamed in, under a flag of truce, and delivered a message
+      from Admiral Patey, demanding the surrender of Apia. The Germans, who had
+      been expecting their own fleet in, were surprised with the suddenness
+      with which an overwhelming force had descended upon them, and decided to
+      offer no resistance to a landing. Capt. Marshall promptly made a signal
+      to the troopships to steam to their anchorages; motor launches, motor
+      surfboats, and ships' boats were launched, and the men began to pour over
+      the ships' sides and down the rope ladders into the boats.</p>
+
+      <p>In a remarkably brief space of time the covering party was on shore,
+      officers and men dashing out of the boats, up to the knees, and sometimes
+      the waist, in water. The main street, the cross-roads, and the bridges
+      were quickly in possession of our men, with their Maxims and rifles, and
+      then, one after another, the motor boats and launches began to tow
+      strings of boats, crammed with the men of the main body, toward the
+      shore. The bluejackets of the beach party, who had already landed, urged
+      them forward by word and deed in cheery fashion, and soon Apia was
+      swarming with our troops.</p>
+
+      <p>Guards were placed all about the Government buildings, and Col. Logan,
+      with his staff, was quickly installed in the Government offices.</p>
+
+      <p>Lieut. Col. Fulton dashed off to the telephone exchange and pulled out
+      all the plugs, so that the residents could hold no intercommunication by
+      that means. The Custom House and the offices of the Governor were also
+      seized without a moment's loss of time. An armed party was dispatched
+      along a bush road to seize the wireless station. Late that evening the
+      man in charge rang up in some alarm to state that there was dynamite
+      lying about and that the engine had been tampered with to such an extent
+      that the apparatus could not be used until we got our own machinery in
+      position.</p>
+
+      <p>Meantime the German flag, that had flown over the island for fourteen
+      years, was hauled down, the Germans present doffing their hats and
+      standing bareheaded and silent on the veranda of the Supreme Court as
+      they watched the soldier in khaki from New Zealand unceremoniously
+      pulling it down, detaching it from the rope, and carrying it inside the
+      building.</p>
+
+      <p>Next morning the British flag was hoisted with all due ceremony. In
+      the harbor the emblem of Britain's might fluttered from the masts of our
+      cruiser escort, the Stars and Stripes waved in the tropic breeze above
+      the palms surrounding the American Consulate, and out in the open sea the
+      white ensign and tricolor flew on the powerful warships of the allied
+      fleets of England and France.</p>
+
+      <p>A large crowd of British and other residents and Samoans had gathered.
+      In the background were groups of Chinese coolies, gazing wonderingly upon
+      the scene. The balconies of the adjoining buildings were crowded with
+      British and Samoans. Only the Germans were conspicuous by their absence.
+      With undisguised feelings of sadness they had seen their own flag hauled
+      down the day before. Naturally they had no desire to witness the flag of
+      the rival nation going up in its place.</p>
+
+      <p>A few minutes before 8 o'clock all was ready. Two bluejackets and a
+      naval Lieutenant stood with the flag, awaiting the signal. The first gun
+      of the royal salute from the Psyche boomed out across the bay. Then
+      slowly, to the booming of twenty-one guns, the flag was hoisted to the
+      summit of the staff, the officers, with drawn swords, silently watching
+      it go up. With the sound of the last gun it reached the top of the
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'fliagstaff']">flagstaff</ins>
+      and fluttered out in the southeast trade wind above the tall palms of
+      Upolo.</p>
+
+      <p>There was a sharp order from the officer commanding the expedition,
+      and the troops came to the royal salute. The national anthem&mdash;never more
+      fervently sung&mdash;and three rousing cheers for King George followed.</p>
+
+      <p>Then came the reading of the proclamation by Col. Logan, the troops
+      formed up again, and, to the music of the, band of the Fifth Regiment,
+      marched back to quarters.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>How the Cressy Sank</h3>
+      <p class="h3"><b>By Edgar Rowan of The London Daily Chronicle.</b></p>
+
+      <p>MUIDEN, Holland, Sept. 23.&mdash;(Dispatch to The London
+      Daily Chronicle.)&mdash;When the history of this war comes to be written we
+      shall put no black borders, as men without pride or hope, around the
+      story of the loss of the cruisers Aboukir, Cressy, and Hogue. We shall
+      write it in letters of gold, for the plain, unvarnished tale of those
+      last moments, when the cruisers went down, helpless before a hidden foe,
+      ranks among the countless deeds of quiet, unseen, unconscious heroism
+      that make up the navy's splendid pages.</p>
+
+      <p>It is easy to learn all that happened, for the officers want chiefly
+      to tell how splendidly brave the men were, and the men pay a like tribute
+      to the officers. The following appears to be a main outline of the
+      disaster:</p>
+
+      <p>The three cruisers had for some time been patrolling the North Sea.
+      Soon after 6 o'clock Tuesday morning&mdash;there is disagreement as to the
+      exact time&mdash;the Aboukir suddenly felt a shock on the port side. A dull
+      explosion was heard and a column of water was thrown up mast high. The
+      explosion wrecked the stokehole just forward of amidship and, judging by
+      the speed with which the cruiser sank, tore the bottom open.</p>
+
+      <p>Almost immediately the doomed cruiser began to settle. Except for the
+      watch on deck, most of her crew, were asleep, wearied by constant vigil
+      in bad weather, but in perfect order officers and men rushed to quarters.
+      Quickfirers were manned in the hope of a dying shot at a submarine, but
+      there was not a glimpse of one. Of the few boats carried when cleared for
+      action, two were smashed in recent gales and another was wrecked by the
+      explosion.</p>
+
+      <p>The Aboukir's sister cruisers, each more than a mile away, saw and
+      heard the explosion. They thought the Aboukir had been struck by a mine.
+      They closed in and lowered boats. This sealed their own fate, for while
+      they were standing by to rescue survivors, first the Hogue and then the
+      Cressy was torpedoed.</p>
+
+      <p>The Cressy appears to have seen the submarines in time to attempt to
+      retaliate. She fired a few shots before she keeled over, broken in two,
+      and sank. Whether she sank any submarines is not known.</p>
+
+      <p>The men of the Aboukir afloat in the water hoped for everything from
+      the arrival of her sister cruisers, and all survivors agree that when
+      these also sank many gave up the struggle for life and went down. An
+      officer told me that when swimming, after having lost his jacket in the
+      grip of a drowning man, his chief thought was that the Germans had
+      succeeded in sinking only three comparatively obsolete cruisers which
+      shortly would have been scrapped anyway.</p>
+
+      <p>Twenty-four men were saved on a target which floated off the Hogue's
+      deck. The men were gathered on it for four hours waist deep in water.</p>
+
+      <p>The rescued officers unite in praising the skill and daring of the
+      German naval officers, and, far from bearing any grudge, they have
+      nothing but professional praise for the submarines' feat.</p>
+
+      <p>"Our only grievance," one said, "is that we did not have a shot at the
+      Germans. Our only share in the war has been a few uncomfortable weeks of
+      bad weather, mines, and submarines."</p>
+
+      <p>When I entered the billiard room of the hotel here sheltering
+      survivors and asked if any British officers were there, several unshaven
+      men in the khaki working kit of the Dutch Army or in fishermen's jerseys
+      got up from their chairs. Most of them had been saved in their pajamas,
+      and they had to accept the first things in the way of clothing offered by
+      the kindly Dutch. One Lieutenant apologized for closing the window, as he
+      had only a thin jacket over his pajamas. He gladly accepted the loan of
+      my overcoat while making a list of his men who had been saved.</p>
+
+      <p>While the survivors are technically prisoners in this neutral country,
+      to be interned until the end of the war, Muiden steadfastly refuses to
+      regard them as other than honored guests. The soldiers posted before
+      every building where officers or men are sheltered seem to be guards of
+      honor rather than prison warders, and every one in the place is competing
+      for the honor of lending clothes, running errands, or offering cigars for
+      the survivors.</p>
+
+      <p>When the Dutch steamer Flora arrived with survivors last night, flying
+      her flag at half-mast and signaling for a doctor, the Red Cross
+      authorities and the British Vice Consul, Mr. Rigorsberg, at once set the
+      machinery in motion, and soon the officers were settled in hotels and the
+      men were divided among a hospital, a church, and a young men's
+      institute.</p>
+
+      <p>I saw one bluejacket asleep covered with a white ensign. He had
+      snatched it up before diving overboard. He held it in his teeth while in
+      the water and refused to part with it when rescued. He is now prepared to
+      fight any one who may attempt to steal this last relic of his ship.</p>
+
+      <p>One survivor says that an English fishing boat also was sunk by the
+      submarines, but the story is not confirmed.</p>
+
+      <p>For hours Capt. Voorham of the Flora and Capt. Berkhout of the Titan,
+      caring nothing for risks of mines and submarines, cruised over the scene
+      of the disaster, and the gallant Dutch seamen were rewarded by the rescue
+      of 400 survivors.</p>
+
+      <p>Capt. Voorham, who landed all the survivors at Muiden, says:</p>
+
+      <p>"We left Rotterdam early Tuesday. In the North Sea we saw a warship,
+      which proved to be the Cressy. Not long afterward I saw her keel over,
+      break in two and disappear. Our only thought then was to save as many
+      survivors as possible. When we got to the spot where she disappeared
+      boats approached us and we began to get the men in them aboard. It was a
+      very difficult undertaking, as the survivors were exhausted and we were
+      rolling heavily.</p>
+
+      <p>"We also lowered our own boats and picked up many from the wreckage.
+      All were practically naked and some were so exhausted that they had to be
+      hauled aboard with tackle. Each as he recovered at once turned to help my
+      small crew to save others. Later I saw the Titan approaching and signaled
+      for help.</p>
+
+      <p>"One man was brought aboard with his legs broken. It was touching to
+      see how tenderly his mates handled him.</p>
+
+      <p>"Presently the British destroyers approached. A survivor on my ship
+      signaled with his arms that he was on a friendly ship, and the warships
+      passed on.</p>
+
+      <p>"Among those saved were two doctors, who worked hard to help the
+      exhausted men. One man died after they had tried artificial respiration
+      for an hour.</p>
+
+      <p>"My men collected all the clothes and blankets on board and gave them
+      to the survivors, and the cook was busy getting hot coffee and other food
+      for my large party of guests.</p>
+
+      <p>"By 11:30 we had picked up all the survivors we could see. Soon after
+      we saw German submarines, and, thinking it best to get to the nearest
+      port, called here."</p>
+
+      <p>Remember that Capt. Voorham had only a comparatively small ship and a
+      crew of only seventeen and realize the splendid work he did.</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image030-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image030.jpg"
+            alt="Illustration"
+            title="Illustration"/>
+         </a>
+      </div>
+
+
+      <h3>German Story of the Heligoland Fight</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Special Correspondence of <span class="pscaps">The New York Times</span>.]</p>
+
+      <p>LONDON, Sept. 8.&mdash;Copies of the Berliner Tageblatt
+      have been received here containing the German account of the recent naval
+      battle off Heligoland between British and German vessels.</p>
+
+      <p>"Regarding the sinking of torpedo boat V-187," says the Tageblatt
+      account, "an eyewitness says the small craft fought heroically to the
+      bitter end against overwhelming odds. Quite unexpectedly the V-187 was
+      attacked by a flotilla of English destroyers coming from the north.
+      Hardly had the first shot been fired when more hostile destroyers, also
+      submarines, arrived and surrounded the German craft.</p>
+
+      <p>"The V-187, on which, in addition to the commander, was the flotilla
+      chief, Capt. Wallis, defended itself to the utmost, but the steering gear
+      was put out of business by several shots, and thus it was impossible to
+      withdraw from the enemy. When the commander saw there was no further
+      hope, the vessel was blown up so as not to fall into the enemy's hands.
+      But even while she sank the guns not put out of action continued to be
+      worked by the crew till the ship was swallowed up in the waves. The
+      flotilla commander, as well as Commander Lechler, was lost, besides many
+      of the crew.</p>
+
+      <p>"The enemy deserves the greatest credit for their splendid rescue
+      work.  The English sailors, unmindful of their own safety, went about it
+      in heroic fashion.</p>
+
+      <p>"Boats were put out from the destroyers to save the survivors. While
+      this rescue work was still under way stronger German forces approached,
+      causing the English torpedo boats to withdraw, abandoning the small
+      rescue boats which they had put out, and those who had been saved were
+      now taken from the English boats aboard our ships.</p>
+
+      <p>"When the thunder of the guns showed the enemy was near and engaged
+      with our torpedo boats, the small armored cruiser Ariadne steamed out to
+      take part in the scrap. As the Ariadne neared the outpost vessels it was
+      observed that various of our lighter units were fighting with the
+      English, which later, however, appeared to be escaping toward the
+      west.</p>
+
+      <p>"The long-suppressed keenness for fighting could not be gainsaid and
+      the Ariadne pursued, although the fog made it impossible to estimate the
+      strength of the enemy. Presently, not far from the Ariadne, two hostile
+      cruisers loomed out of the mist&mdash;two dreadnought battle cruisers of
+      30,000 tons' displacement, armed with eight 13.5-inch guns. What could
+      the Ariadne, of 2,650 tons and armed with ten 4-inch guns, do against
+      those two Goliath ships?</p>
+
+      <p>"At the start of this unequal contest a shot struck the forward boiler
+      room of the Ariadne and put half of her boilers out of business, lowering
+      her speed by fifteen miles. Nevertheless, and despite the overwhelming
+      superiority of the English, the fight lasted half an hour.  The stern of
+      the Ariadne was in flames, but the guns on her foredeck continued to be
+      worked.</p>
+
+      <p>"But the fight was over. The enemy disappeared to the westward. The
+      crew of the Ariadne, now gathered on the foredeck, true to the navy's
+      traditions, broke into three hurrahs for the War Lord, Kaiser Wilhelm.
+      Then, to the singing of 'Deutschland Ueber Alles,' the sinking, burning
+      ship was abandoned in good order. Two of our ships near by picked up the
+      Ariadne's crew. Presently the Ariadne disappeared under the waves after
+      the stern powder magazine had exploded.</p>
+
+      <p>"The first officer, surgeon, chief engineer, and seventy men were
+      lost.  In addition, many were wounded."</p>
+
+
+      <h3>The Sinking of the Cressy and the Hogue</h3>
+      <p class="h3"><b>By the Senior Surviving Officers&mdash;Commander Bertram W.L.
+         Nicholson and Commander Reginald A. Norton.</b></p>
+
+      <p class="h3">[By the Associated Press.]</p>
+
+      <p>LONDON, Sept. 25.&mdash;The report to the Admiralty on the
+      sinking of the Cressy, signed by Bertram W.L. Nicholson, Commander of the
+      late H.M.S.  Cressy, follows:</p>
+
+      <p>"Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report in connection
+      with the sinking of H.M.S. Cressy, in company with H.M.S. Aboukir and
+      Hogue, on the morning of the 22d of September, while on patrol duty:</p>
+
+      <p>"The Aboukir was struck at about 6:25 A.M. on the starboard beam. The
+      Hogue and Cressy closed and took up a position, the Hogue ahead of the
+      Aboukir, and the Cressy about 400 yards on her port beam. As soon as it
+      was seen that the Aboukir was in danger of sinking all the boats were
+      sent away from the Cressy, and a picket boat was hoisted out without
+      steam up. When cutters full of the Aboukir's men were returning to the
+      Cressy the Hogue was struck, apparently under the aft 9.2 magazine, as a
+      very heavy explosion took place immediately. Almost directly after the
+      Hogue was hit we observed a periscope on our port bow about 300 yards
+      off.</p>
+
+      <p>"Fire was immediately opened and the engines were put full speed ahead
+      with the intention of running her down. Our gunner, Mr. Dougherty,
+      positively asserts that he hit the periscope and that the submarine sank.
+      An officer who was standing alongside the gunner thinks that the shell
+      struck only floating timber, of which there was much about, but it was
+      evidently the impression of the men on deck, who cheered and clapped
+      heartily, that the submarine had been hit. This submarine did not fire a
+      torpedo at the Cressy.</p>
+
+      <p>"Capt. Johnson then manoeuvred the ship so as to render assistance to
+      the crews of the Hogue and Aboukir. About five minutes later another
+      periscope was seen on our starboard quarter and fire was opened. The
+      track of the torpedo she fired at a range of 500 to 600 yards was plainly
+      visible and it struck us on the starboard side just before the
+      afterbridge.</p>
+
+      <p>"The ship listed about 10 degrees to the starboard and remained
+      steady.  The time was 7:15 A.M. All the watertight doors, deadlights and
+      scuttles had been securely closed before the torpedo struck the ship. All
+      the mess stools and table shores, and all available timber below and on
+      deck, had been previously got up and thrown over side for the saving of
+      life.</p>
+
+      <p>"A second torpedo fired by the same submarine missed and passed about
+      10 feet astern. About a quarter of an hour after the first torpedo had
+      hit a third torpedo fired from a submarine just before the starboard beam
+      hit us under the No. 5 boiler room. The time was 7:30 A.M. The ship then
+      began to heel rapidly, and finally turned keel up, remaining so for about
+      twenty minutes before she finally sank, at 7:55 A.M.</p>
+
+      <p>"A large number of men were saved by casting adrift on Pattern 3
+      target.  The steam pinnace floated off her clutches, but filled and
+      sank.</p>
+
+      <p>"The second torpedo which struck the Cressy passed over the sinking
+      hull of the Aboukir, narrowly missing it. It is possible that the same
+      submarine fired all three torpedoes at the Cressy.</p>
+
+      <p>"The conduct of the crew was excellent throughout. I have already
+      remarked on the bravery displayed by Capt. Phillips, master of the
+      trawler L.T. Coriander, and his crew, who picked up 156 officers and
+      men."</p>
+
+      <p>The report to the Admiralty of Commander Reginald A. Norton, late of
+      H.M.S. Hogue, follows:</p>
+
+      <p>"I have the honor to report as follows concerning the sinking of the
+      Hogue, Aboukir, and Cressy: Between 6:15 and 6:30 A.M., H.M.S. Aboukir
+      was struck by a torpedo. The Hogue closed on the Aboukir and I received
+      orders to hoist out the launch, turn out and prepare all boats, and
+      unlash all timber on the upper deck.</p>
+
+      <p>"Two lifeboats were sent to the Aboukir, but before the launch could
+      get away the Hogue was struck on the starboard side amidships by two
+      torpedoes at intervals of ten to twenty seconds. The ship at once began
+      to heel to starboard. After ordering the men to provide themselves with
+      wood, hammocks, &amp;c., and to get into the boats on the booms and take
+      off their clothes, I went, by Capt. Nicholson's direction, to ascertain
+      the damage done in the engine room. The artificer engineer informed me
+      that the water was over the engine-room gratings.</p>
+
+      <p>"While endeavoring to return to the bridge the water burst open the
+      starboard entry port doors and the ship heeled rapidly. I told the men in
+      the port battery to jump overboard, as the launch was close alongside,
+      and soon afterward the ship lurched heavily to starboard.</p>
+
+      <p>"I clung to a ringbolt for some time, but eventually was dropped on to
+      the deck, and a huge wave washed me away. I climbed up the ship's side
+      and again was washed off. Eventually, after swimming about from various
+      overladen pieces of wreckage, I was picked up by a cutter from the Hogue,
+      Coxswain L.S. Marks, which pulled about for some hours, picking up men
+      and discharging them to our picket boat and steam pinnace and to the
+      Dutch steamers Flora and Titan, and rescued, in this way, Commander Sells
+      of the Aboukir, Engineer Commander Stokes, (with legs broken,) Fleet
+      Paymaster Eldred, and about 120 others.</p>
+
+      <p>"Finally, about 11 A.M., when we could find no more men in the water,
+      we were picked up by the Lucifier, which proceeded to the Titan and took
+      off from her all our men except about twenty who were too ill to be
+      moved.</p>
+
+      <p>"A Lowestoft trawler and the two Dutch ships Flora and Titan were
+      extraordinarily kind, clothing and feeding our men. My boat's crew,
+      consisting mainly of Royal Navy Reserve men, pulled and behaved
+      remarkably well. I particularly wish to mention Petty Officer Halton,
+      who, by encouraging the men in the water near me, undoubtedly saved many
+      lives.</p>
+
+      <p>"Lieut. Commander Phillips-Wolley, after hoisting out the launch,
+      asked me if we should try to hoist out another boat, and endeavored to do
+      so.  The last I saw of him was on the after bridge, doing well.</p>
+
+      <p>"Lieut. Commander Tillard was picked up by a launch. He got up a
+      cutter's crew and saved many lives, as did Midshipman Cazalet in the
+      Cressy's gig. Lieut. Chichester turned out the whaler very quickly.</p>
+
+      <p>"A Dutch sailing trawler sailed close by, but went off without
+      rendering any
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'asistance']">assistance,</ins>
+      although we signaled to her from the Hogue to close after we were
+      struck.</p>
+
+      <p>"The Aboukir appeared to me to take about thirty-five minutes to sink,
+      floating bottom up for about five minutes. The Hogue turned turtle very
+      quickly&mdash;in about five minutes&mdash;and floated bottom up for several
+      minutes. A dense black smoke was seen in the starboard battery, whether
+      from coal or torpedo cordite I could not say. The upper deck was not
+      blown up, and only one other small explosion occurred and we heeled
+      over.</p>
+
+      <p>"The Cressy I watched heel over from the cutter. She heeled over to
+      starboard very slowly, dense black smoke issuing from her when she
+      attained an angle of about 90 degrees, and she took a long time from this
+      angle till she floated bottom up with the starboard screw slightly out of
+      water. I consider it was thirty-five to forty-five minutes from the time
+      she was struck till she was bottom up.</p>
+
+      <p>"All the men on the Hogue behaved
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'extraordinarly']">extraordinarily</ins>
+      well, obeying orders even when in the water swimming for their lives, and
+      I witnessed many cases of great self-sacrifice and gallantry. Farmstone,
+      an able seaman of the Hogue, jumped overboard from the launch to make
+      room for others, and would not avail himself of assistance until all the
+      men near by were picked up. He was in the water about half an hour.</p>
+
+      <p>"There was no panic of any sort, the men taking off their clothes as
+      ordered and falling in with hammock or wood. Capt. Nicholson, in our
+      other cutter, as usual, was perfectly cool and rescued large numbers of
+      men. I last saw him alongside the Flora. Engineer Commander Stokes, I
+      believe, was in the engine room to the last, and Engineer Lieut.
+      Commander Fendick got steam on the boat hoist and worked it in five
+      minutes.</p>
+
+      <p>"I have the honor to submit that I may be appointed to another ship as
+      soon as I can get a kit."</p>
+
+
+      <h3>The Sinking of the Hawke</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[By a Correspondent of The London Daily Chronicle.]</p>
+
+      <p>ABERDEEN, Scotland, Oct. 16.&mdash;The British cruiser
+      Hawke was sunk in the North Sea yesterday by a German submarine, and of
+      her crew of 400 officers and men only 73 are known to have been
+      saved.</p>
+
+      <p>The cruiser Theseus, a sister ship of the Hawke, was attacked by the
+      same submarine, but escaped because she obeyed the Admiralty's
+      instructions and looked to her own safety instead of rushing to the aid
+      of the Hawke's perishing crew.</p>
+
+      <p>A survivor of the Hawke gives the following description of the
+      disaster: "Within eight minutes the Hawke had gone under. Had the ship
+      gone down forward or aft there would have been some chance for us to get
+      the boats out and clear of the cruiser, but she keeled over on her beam
+      ends, and so of all boats we lowered those on the starboard side were
+      useless, and those on the port side were crushed as soon as they touched
+      the water.</p>
+
+      <p>"I was proud to be among such comrades. Everything was absolutely in
+      perfect order. When the ship was struck a fearful explosion followed, and
+      grime and dust were everywhere. I was amidships at the time, and could
+      hardly see to grope my way to the ship's side. I heard orders given to
+      lower the boats, and then some one shouted, 'Look after yourselves!' So I
+      did that.</p>
+
+      <p>"Most of the men on board were married men. We saw hundreds in the
+      water, but we were afraid to pick them up as our boat was already
+      overcrowded. So we threw our lifebelts to them. It was all we could
+      do.</p>
+
+      <p>"The weather was bitter cold, and I do not think that many, apart from
+      those who were landed at Aberdeen, were saved."</p>
+
+      <p>Here is the statement of a rescued stoker: "When the explosion
+      occurred I, along with others who were in the engine room, was sent
+      flying into space and was stunned for a time. When I came to my senses I
+      found myself in the midst of what must be described as an absolute
+      inferno.  One of the cylinders of the engine had been completely wrecked,
+      and steam was passing out in dense, scalding clouds. The horror of the
+      situation was increased when a tank of oil fuel caught fire, and the
+      flames advanced with frightful rapidity.</p>
+
+      <p>"Seeing that there was not a ghost of a chance of doing any good by
+      remaining in what was obviously a deathtrap, I determined to make a dash
+      for it, and I scrambled up an iron ladder to the main deck. All this had
+      happened in less time than it takes to tell it, but such is British
+      pluck, coolness, and nerve even in such a situation that the commander
+      and other officers were on the bridge, and as calmly as if we were on
+      fleet manoeuvres the orders were given and as calmly obeyed.</p>
+
+      <p>"The buglers sounded a stiff call which summoned every man to remain
+      at his post. During the first minute or two many of us believed all that
+      was wrong was a boiler explosion, but the rapidity with which the cruiser
+      was making water on the starboard side quickly disabused all our minds of
+      this belief. Realizing the actual situation, the commander gave orders to
+      close all the watertight doors. Soon after that came orders to abandon
+      the ship and get out the boats.</p>
+
+      <p>"One cutter was being launched from the port side, but the Hawke at
+      that moment heeled over before the boat could be got clear, and the
+      cutter lurched against the cruiser's side and stove in one or two of her
+      planks. As the Hawke went down a small pinnace and a raft which had been
+      prepared for such an emergency floated free, but such was the onrush of
+      men who had been thrown into the water that both were overcrowded. On the
+      raft were about seventy men knee deep in water, and the pinnace also
+      appeared to be overfilled.</p>
+
+      <p>"When those who managed to make their way into the cutter, which was
+      also in grave danger of being overturned, caught the last glimpse of
+      these two craft they were in a precarious condition. The cutter moved
+      around the wreck, picking up as many survivors as the boat would hold.
+      All those aboard her who had put on lifebelts took them off and threw
+      them to their comrades who were struggling in the water. Oars and other
+      movable woodwork also were pitched overboard to help those clinging to
+      the wreckage, many of whom were seen to sink."</p>
+
+
+      <h3>The Emden's Last Fight</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[By the Cable Operator at Cocos Islands.]</p>
+
+      <p>KEELING, Cocos Islands, Nov. 12, (Dispatch to The
+      London Daily Chronicle.)&mdash;It was early on Monday that the unexpected
+      arrival of the German cruiser Emden broke the calm of these isolated
+      little islands, which the distant news of the war had hitherto left
+      unruffled. One of the islands is known as Direction Island, and here the
+      Eastern Telegraph Company has a cable station and a staff engaged in
+      relaying messages between Europe and Australia. Otherwise the inhabitants
+      are all Malays, with the exception of the descendants of June Clunies
+      Ross, a British naval officer who came to these islands ninety years ago
+      and founded the line of "Uncrowned Kings."</p>
+
+      <p>The war seemed to be very far away. The official bulletins passed
+      through the cable station, but they gave us very little real news, and
+      the only excitement was when it was rumored that the company was sending
+      out rifles in case of a raid on the stations, and orders came that the
+      beach must be patrolled by parties on the lookout for Germans. Then we
+      heard from Singapore that a German cruiser had been dispatched to these
+      islands, and toward the end of August one of the cable staff thought he
+      saw searchlights out over the sea. Then suddenly we were awakened from
+      our calm and were made to feel that we had suddenly become the most
+      important place in the whole worldwide war area.</p>
+
+      <p>At 6 o'clock on Monday morning a four-funneled cruiser arrived at full
+      speed at the entrance to the lagoon. Our suspicions were aroused, for she
+      was flying no flag and her fourth funnel was obviously a dummy made of
+      painted canvas. Therefore we were not altogether surprised at the turn of
+      events. The cruiser at once lowered away an armored launch and two boats,
+      which came ashore and landed on Coral Beach three officers and forty men,
+      all fully armed and having four Maxim guns.</p>
+
+      <p>The Germans&mdash;for all doubt about the mysterious cruiser was now at
+      end&mdash;at once rushed up to the cable station, and, entering the office,
+      turned out the operators, smashed the instruments, and set armed guards
+      over all the buildings. All the knives and firearms found in possession
+      of the cable staff were at once confiscated.</p>
+
+      <p>I should say here that, in spite of the excitement on the outside, all
+      the work was carried on in the cable office as usual right up to the
+      moment when the Germans burst in. A general call was sent out just before
+      the wireless apparatus was blown up.</p>
+
+      <p>The whole of the staff was placed under an armed guard while the
+      instruments were being destroyed, but it is only fair to say that the
+      Germans, working in well-disciplined fashion under their officers, were
+      most civil. There was no such brutality as we hear characterizes the
+      German Army's behavior toward civilians, and there were no attempts at
+      pillaging.</p>
+
+      <p>While the cable station was being put out of action the crew of the
+      launch grappled for the cables and endeavored to cut them, but
+      fortunately without success. The electrical stores were then blown
+      up.</p>
+
+      <p>At 9 A.M. we heard the sound of a siren from the Emden, and this was
+      evidently the signal to the landing party to return to the ship, for they
+      at once dashed for the boats, but the Emden got under way at once and the
+      boats were left behind.</p>
+
+      <p>Looking to the eastward, we could see the reason for this sudden
+      departure, for a warship, which we afterward learned was the Australian
+      cruiser Sydney, was coming up at full speed in pursuit. The Emden did not
+      wait to discuss matters, but, firing her first shot at a range of about
+      3,700 yards, steamed north as hard as she could go.</p>
+
+      <p>At first the firing of the Emden seemed excellent, while that of the
+      Sydney was somewhat erratic. This, as I afterward learned, was due to the
+      fact that the Australian cruiser's range-finder was put out of action by
+      one of the only two shots the Germans got home. However, the British
+      gunners soon overcame any difficulties that this may have caused and
+      settled down to their work, so that before long two of the Emden's
+      funnels had been shot away. She also lost one of her masts quite early in
+      the fight. Both blazing away with their big guns, the two cruisers
+      disappeared below the horizon, the Emden being on fire.</p>
+
+      <p>After the great naval duel passed from our sight and we could turn our
+      attention to the portion of the German crew that had been left behind, we
+      found that these men had put off in their boats obedient to the signal of
+      the siren, but when their ship steamed off without them they could do
+      nothing else but come ashore again. On relanding they lined up on the
+      shore of the lagoon, evidently determined to fight to the finish if the
+      British cruiser sent a party ashore, but the dueling cruiser had
+      disappeared, and at 6 P.M. the German raiders embarked on the old
+      schooner Ayessa, which belongs to Mr. Ross, the "uncrowned king" of the
+      islands. Seizing a quantity of clothes and stores, they sailed out, and
+      have not been seen since.</p>
+
+      <p>Early the next morning, Tuesday, Nov. 10, we saw the Sydney returning,
+      and at 8:45 A.M. she anchored off the island. From various members of the
+      crew I gathered some details of the running fight with the Emden.  The
+      Sydney, having an advantage in speed, was able to keep out of range of
+      the Emden's guns and to bombard her with her own heavier metal. The
+      engagement lasted eighty minutes, the Emden finally running ashore on
+      North Keeling Island and becoming an utter wreck.</p>
+
+      <p>Only two German shots proved effective. One of these failed to
+      explode, but smashed the main range finder and killed one man. The other
+      killed three men and wounded fourteen.</p>
+
+      <p>Each of the cruisers attempted to torpedo the other, but both were
+      unsuccessful, and the duel proved a contest in hard pounding at long
+      range. The Sydney's speed during the fighting was twenty-six knots and
+      the Emden's twenty-four knots, the British ship's superiority of two
+      knots enabling her to choose the range at which the battle should be
+      fought, and to make the most of her superior guns.</p>
+
+      <p>The Sydney left here at 11 A.M. Tuesday in the hope of picking up any
+      of the survivors of the Buresk, the collier that had been in attendance
+      on the Emden and was sunk after an engagement on the previous day.
+      Finally, with a number of wounded prisoners on board, the Sydney left
+      here yesterday, and our few hours of war excitement were over.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>Crowds See the Niger Sink</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[By a Correspondent of The London Daily Chronicle.]</p>
+
+      <p>DEAL, England, Nov. 11.&mdash;By the destruction of the
+      British torpedo gunboat Niger, which was torpedoed and sunk by a
+      submarine in the Downs this afternoon, the realities of war were brought
+      home to the inhabitants of Deal and Walmer.</p>
+
+      <p>A loud explosion was heard from the gunboat as she lay off the Deal
+      pier, and great volumes of smoke enveloped the vessel. When the smoke
+      cleared the Niger was observed to be settling down forward. Men, women,
+      and children rushed to the sea front, exclaiming that the vessel had been
+      torpedoed or mined. They soon realized that the Niger was doomed.  The
+      Deal and Kingsdown lifeboats as well as boats from other parts of the
+      beach were launched in an effort to save the sailors.</p>
+
+      <p>Consternation and almost panic prevailed among the hundreds who stood
+      watching the ghastly sight from the beach. Fortunately, the North Deal
+      galley Hope, commanded by Capt. John Budd, lay at anchor near the spot,
+      waiting to land the pilot from a London steamer which was going down the
+      channel. When the boatmen realized that the Niger had been hit by a
+      submarine or mine, to use their own expression, they rowed like the very
+      devil.</p>
+
+      <p>"We saw the sailors," said Capt. Budd, "jumping from the vessel's side
+      in dozens. As we neared the fast-disappearing vessel we came upon swarms
+      of men struggling in the sea and heroically helping to support each
+      other. Some were fully dressed, others only partly so. They were clinging
+      to pieces of wreckage and deck furniture, and some were in lifeboats.</p>
+
+      <p>"It was a heartrending spectacle. The men were so thick in the water
+      that they grasped at our oars as we dipped them in the sea. We rescued so
+      many and our own boat got so choked that we could not move. With our own
+      gunwale only just out of the water, we were in danger of sinking
+      ourselves.</p>
+
+      <p>"We called to the men that we could take no more in or we should sink
+      ourselves, but they continued to pour over the sides, and some hung to
+      the stern of our boat. We had about fifty on board. Never had there been
+      so many in the boat before. One burly sailor, whom we told to wait until
+      the next boat came along, laughingly
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'remared']">remarked</ins>
+      while he was in the water, 'All right, Cocky, I will hold on by my
+      eyebrows,' and he drifted to another galley. Another Deal boat then came
+      along and relieved us of some of our men.</p>
+
+      <p>"Suddenly we heard a shout, and, looking around, saw the commander of
+      the Niger waving and beckoning to us from the stern of the sinking ship.
+      We could not go to him because our craft was so heavily laden. Another
+      galley then came along, and, after taking out some of our men, together
+      with those who were hanging on to our sides, we went closer to the
+      sinking gunboat and took off some more men, and at the Captain's special
+      request we waited until he took a final look around to see if there were
+      any more men left on board the vessel.</p>
+
+      <p>"By this time the ship was very nearly under water, and we shouted to
+      him to hurry up, as the Niger had turned over on her side and was likely
+      to go down at any moment. That brave Captain only just managed to jump in
+      time, when the gunboat gave a lurch and sank on her side in eight fathoms
+      of water. We were proud to rescue that Captain, for he was a true
+      sailor."</p>
+
+      <p>The other boats which picked up men were the Maple Leaf, the motor
+      boat Naru, the Annie, the May, and the Deal lifeboat.</p>
+
+      <p>The rescuing party saw one dead sailor floating by.</p>
+
+      <p>The majority of those rescued received first aid on being landed at
+      North Deal, and then they were taken in ambulances to the Marine Hospital
+      at Walmer.</p>
+
+      <p>One survivor, replying to a question as to whether the Niger was
+      torpedoed or mined, replied:</p>
+
+      <p>"Torpedoed, Sir. With the exception of the watch and the gun crews all
+      were below at the time. The first order we received was to close the
+      watertight doors."</p>
+
+      <p>So far as I can ascertain at present only one man is missing. Four or
+      five have been landed at Ramsgate. The crew is said to have numbered
+      ninety-six officers and men.</p>
+
+      <p>The sinking of the Niger came with tragic swiftness. It was
+      comparatively a fine, peaceful day, and the people were resting on the
+      promenade enjoying sea and fresh air. Anglers&mdash;men and women&mdash;were calmly
+      fishing from the pier. One angler whom I interviewed this evening
+      said:</p>
+
+      <p>"I had just baited my line and cast it out when I heard two loud
+      reports, like an explosion. I looked seaward and saw the Niger, only a
+      mile away, enveloped in smoke or steam. When it had cleared away. I said
+      to my fellow-anglers, 'Oh, he is letting off steam! When I looked at her
+      again I was startled to notice that she was lower in the water.
+      Fortunately I had slung across my shoulder a pair of glasses, and, on
+      looking at the vessel through them, I noticed that they were attempting
+      to lower the boats, while the remainder of the crew stood at attention on
+      the deck. We could see that the vessel was sinking, and the lifeboats and
+      other boats were hastening to the rescue.</p>
+
+      <p>"The vessel then gradually disappeared, bow first, and after about
+      fifteen minutes not a sign of her remained."</p>
+
+
+      <h3>Lieut. Weddigen's Own Story</h3>
+      <p class="h3"><b>By Herbert B. Swope.</b></p>
+
+      <p class="h3">[Copyright, 1914, by The Press Publishing Company (The New
+      York World).]</p>
+
+      <p>BERLIN, Sept. 30.&mdash;Through the kindness of the German
+      Admiralty I am able to tell exclusively the story of Capt. Lieut. Otto
+      Weddigen, commander of the now world famous submarine U-9, whose feat in
+      destroying three English cruisers has lifted the German Navy to a lofty
+      place in sea history.</p>
+
+      <p>There is an inviolable rule in the German Army and Navy prohibiting
+      officers from talking of their exploits, but because of the special
+      nature of Weddigen's exploit an exception was made, and through the good
+      offices of Count von Oppersdorf The World was granted the right of first
+      telling Weddigen's remarkable story.</p>
+
+      <p>It must be borne in mind that Lieut. Weddigen's account has been
+      officially announced and verified by German Navy Headquarters. That will
+      explain why certain details must be omitted, since they are of importance
+      if further submarine excursions are undertaken against the British fleet.
+      Following is Weddigen's tale, supplemented by the Admiralty Intelligence
+      Department:</p>
+
+      <p class="right">By CAPT. LIEUT. OTTO WEDDIGEN.<br />
+      Commander of the German Submarine U-9.</p>
+
+      <p>I am 32 years old and have been in the navy for years. For the last
+      five years I have been attached to the submarine flotilla, and have been
+      most interested in that branch of the navy. At the outbreak of the war
+      our undersea boats were rendezvoused at certain harbors in the North Sea,
+      the names of which I am restrained from divulging.</p>
+
+      <p>Each of us felt and hoped that the Fatherland might be benefited by
+      such individual efforts of ours as were possible at a time when our
+      bigger sisters of the fleet were prohibited from activity. So we awaited
+      commands from the Admiralty, ready for any undertaking that promised to
+      do for the imperial navy what our brothers of the army were so gloriously
+      accomplishing.</p>
+
+      <p>It has already been told how I was married at the home of my brother
+      in Wilhelmshaven to my boyhood sweetheart, Miss Prete of Hamburg, on Aug.
+      16.</p>
+
+      <p>Before that I had been steadily on duty with my boat, and I had to
+      leave again the next day after my marriage. But both my bride and I
+      wanted the ceremony to take place at the appointed time, and it did,
+      although within twenty-four hours thereafter I had to go away on a
+      venture that gave a good chance of making my new wife a widow. But she
+      was as firm as I was that my first duty was to answer the call of our
+      country, and she waved me away from the dock with good-luck wishes.</p>
+
+      <p>I set out from a North Sea port on one of the arms of the Kiel Canal
+      and set my course in a southwesterly direction. The name of the port I
+      cannot state officially, but it has been guessed at; nor am I permitted
+      to say definitely just when we started, but it was not many days before
+      the morning of Sept. 22 when I fell in with my quarry.</p>
+
+      <p>When I started from home the fact was kept quiet and a heavy sea
+      helped to keep the secret, but when the action began the sun was bright
+      and the water smooth&mdash;not the most favorable conditions for submarine
+      work.</p>
+
+      <p>I had sighted several ships during my passage, but they were not what
+      I was seeking. English torpedo boats came within my reach, but I felt
+      there was bigger game further on, so on I went. I traveled on the surface
+      except when we sighted vessels, and then I submerged, not even showing my
+      periscope, except when it was necessary to take bearings. It was ten
+      minutes after 6 on the morning of last Tuesday when I caught sight of one
+      of the big cruisers of the enemy.</p>
+
+      <p>I was then eighteen sea miles northwest of the Hook of Holland. I had
+      then traveled considerably more than 200 miles from my base. My boat was
+      one of an old type, but she had been built on honor, and she was behaving
+      beautifully. I had been going ahead partly submerged, with about five
+      feet of my periscope showing. Almost immediately I caught sight of the
+      first cruiser and two others. I submerged completely and laid my course
+      so as to bring up in the centre of the trio, which held a sort of
+      triangular formation. I could see their gray-black sides riding high over
+      the water.</p>
+
+      <p>When I first sighted them they were near enough for torpedo work, but
+      I wanted to make my aim sure, so I went down and in on them. I had taken
+      the position of the three ships before submerging, and I succeeded in
+      getting another flash through my periscope before I began action. I soon
+      reached what I regarded as a good shooting point.</p>
+
+      <p>[The officer is not permitted to give this distance, but it is
+      understood to have been considerably less than a mile, although the
+      German torpedoes have an effective range of four miles.]</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image031-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image031.jpg"
+            alt="Capt. Karl von Muller"
+            title="Capt. Karl von Muller"/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><span class="bscaps">Capt. Karl von Muller</span><br />
+         Of the German Cruiser Emden<br />
+         (<i>Photo (C) by American Press Assn</i>.)</p>
+      </div>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image032-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image032.jpg"
+            alt="Gen. Joseph Joffre"
+            title="Gen. Joseph Joffre"/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><span class="bscaps">Gen. Joseph Joffre</span><br />
+         The French Commander-in-Chief.<br />
+         (<i>Photo from International News Service</i>.)</p>
+      </div>
+
+      <p>Then I loosed one of my torpedoes at the middle ship. I was then about
+      twelve feet under water, and got the shot off in good shape, my men
+      handling the boat as if she had been a skiff. I climbed to the surface to
+      get a sight through my tube of the effect, and discovered that the shot
+      had gone straight and true, striking the ship, which I later learned was
+      the Aboukir, under one of her magazines, which in exploding helped the
+      torpedo's work of destruction.</p>
+
+      <p>There was a fountain of water, a burst of smoke, a flash of fire, and
+      part of the cruiser rose in the air. Then I heard a roar and felt
+      reverberations sent through the water by the detonation. She had been
+      broken apart, and sank in a few minutes. The Aboukir had been stricken in
+      a vital spot and by an unseen force; that made the blow all the
+      greater.</p>
+
+      <p>Her crew were brave, and even with death staring them in the face kept
+      to their posts, ready to handle their useless guns, for I submerged at
+      once. But I had stayed on top long enough to see the other cruisers,
+      which I learned were the Cressy and the Hogue, turn and steam full speed
+      to their dying sister, whose plight they could not understand, unless it
+      had been due to an accident.</p>
+
+      <p>The ships came on a mission of inquiry and rescue, for many of the
+      Aboukir's crew were now in the water, the order having been given, "Each
+      man for himself."</p>
+
+      <p>But soon the other two English cruisers learned what had brought about
+      the destruction so suddenly.</p>
+
+      <p>As I reached my torpedo depth I sent a second charge at the nearest of
+      the oncoming vessels, which was the Hogue. The English were playing my
+      game, for I had scarcely to move out of my position, which was a great
+      aid, since it helped to keep me from detection.</p>
+
+      <p>On board my little boat the spirit of the German Navy was to be seen
+      in its best form. With enthusiasm every man held himself in check and
+      gave attention to the work in hand.</p>
+
+      <p>The attack on the Hogue went true. But this time I did not have the
+      advantageous aid of having the torpedo detonate under the magazine, so
+      for twenty minutes the Hogue lay wounded and helpless on the surface
+      before she heaved, half turned over and sank.</p>
+
+      <p>But this time, the third cruiser knew of course that the enemy was
+      upon her and she sought as best she could to defend herself. She loosed
+      her torpedo defense batteries on boats, starboard and port, and stood her
+      ground as if more anxious to help the many sailors who were in the water
+      than to save herself. In common with the method of defending herself
+      against a submarine attack, she steamed in a zigzag course, and this made
+      it necessary for me to hold my torpedoes until I could lay a true course
+      for them, which also made it necessary for me to get nearer to the
+      Cressy. I had come to the surface for a view and saw how wildly the fire
+      was being sent from the ship. Small wonder that was when they did not
+      know where to shoot, although one shot went unpleasantly near us.</p>
+
+      <p>When I got within suitable range I sent away my third attack. This
+      time I sent a second torpedo after the first to make the strike doubly
+      certain. My crew were aiming like sharpshooters and both torpedos went to
+      their bullseye. My luck was with me again, for the enemy was made useless
+      and at once began sinking by her head. Then she careened far over, but
+      all the while her men stayed at the guns looking for their invisible foe.
+      They were brave and true to their country's sea traditions. Then she
+      eventually suffered a boiler explosion and completely turned turtle. With
+      her keel uppermost she floated until the air got out from under her and
+      then she sank with a loud sound, as if from a creature in pain.</p>
+
+      <p>The whole affair had taken less than one hour from the time of
+      shooting off the first torpedo until the Cressy went to the bottom. Not
+      one of the three had been able to use any of its big guns. I knew the
+      wireless of the three cruisers had been calling for aid. I was still
+      quite able to defend myself, but I knew that news of the disaster would
+      call many English submarines and torpedo boat destroyers, so, having done
+      my appointed work, I set my course for home.</p>
+
+      <p>My surmise was right, for before I got very far some British cruisers
+      and destroyers were on the spot, and the destroyers took up the chase. I
+      kept under water most of the way, but managed to get off a wireless to
+      the German fleet that I was heading homeward and being pursued. I hoped
+      to entice the enemy, by allowing them now and then a glimpse of me, into
+      the zone in which they might be exposed to capture or destruction by
+      German warships, but, although their destroyers saw me plainly at dusk on
+      the 22d and made a final effort to stop me, they abandoned the attempt,
+      as it was taking them too far from safety and needlessly exposing them to
+      attack from our fleet and submarines.</p>
+
+      <p>How much they feared our submarines and how wide was the agitation
+      caused by good little U-9 is shown by the English reports that a whole
+      flotilla of German submarines had attacked the cruisers and that this
+      flotilla had approached under cover of the flag of Holland.</p>
+
+      <p>These reports were absolutely untrue. U-9 was the only submarine on
+      deck, and she flew the flag she still flies&mdash;the German naval
+      ensign&mdash;which I hope to keep forever as a glorious memento and as an
+      inspiration for devotion to the Fatherland.</p>
+
+      <p>I reached the home port on the afternoon of the 23d, and on the 24th
+      went to Wilhelmshaven, to find that news of my effort had become public.
+      My wife, dry eyed when I went away, met me with tears. Then I learned
+      that my little vessel and her brave crew had won the plaudit of the
+      Kaiser, who conferred upon each of my co-workers the Iron Cross of the
+      second class and upon me the Iron Cross of the first and second
+      classes.</p>
+
+      <blockquote>
+         <p>[Weddigen is the hero of the hour in Germany. He also wears a medal
+         for life-saving. Counting himself, Weddigen had twenty-six men. The
+         limit of time that his ship is capable of staying below the surface is
+         about six hours.]</p>
+      </blockquote>
+
+
+      <div class="poem">
+         <div class="title">The Soliloquy of an Old Soldier.</div>
+         <div class="author">By O.C.A. Child.</div>
+         <div class="stanza">
+            <div>You need not watch for silver in your hair,</div>
+            <div class="i1">Or try to smooth the wrinkles from your eyes,</div>
+            <div>Or wonder if you're getting quite too spare,</div>
+            <div class="i1">Or if your mount can bear a man your size.</div>
+         </div>
+         <div class="stanza">
+            <div>You'll never come to shirk the fastest flight,</div>
+            <div class="i1">To query if she really cares to dance,</div>
+            <div>To find your eye less keen upon the sight,</div>
+            <div class="i1">Or lose your tennis wrist or golfing stance.</div>
+         </div>
+         <div class="stanza">
+            <div>For you the music ceased on highest note&mdash;</div>
+            <div class="i1">Your charge had won, you'd scattered them like sand,</div>
+            <div>And then a little whisper in your throat,</div>
+            <div class="i1">And you asleep, your cheek upon your hand.</div>
+         </div>
+         <div class="stanza">
+            <div>Thrice happy fate, you met it in full cry,</div>
+            <div class="i1">Young, eager, loved, your glitt'ring world all joy&mdash;</div>
+            <div>You ebbed not out, you died when tide was high,</div>
+            <div class="i1">An old campaigner envies you, my boy!</div>
+         </div>
+      </div>
+
+
+      <h2>The War at Home</h2>
+      <p class="h2">How It Affects the Countries Whose Men Are At the Front.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>The Effects of War in Four Countries</h3>
+      <p class="h3"><b>By Irvin S. Cobb.</b></p>
+
+      <p class="h3">[From <span class="pscaps">The New York
+         <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'TMIES']">Times</ins></span>,
+      Dec. 2, 1914.]</p>
+
+      <blockquote>
+         <p>[<i>The following story of conditions in Belgium, Germany, France,
+            Holland, and England was sent by Irvin S. Cobb of The Saturday
+            Evening Post to the
+            <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'Aerican']">American</ins>
+            Red Cross, to be used in bringing home to Americans urgent need for
+            relief in the countries affected by the great war. Red Cross
+            contributions for suffering non-combatants are received at the Red
+            Cross offices in the Russell Sage Foundation Building, 130 East
+            Twenty-second Street. Such contributions should be addressed to
+            Jacob H. Schiff, Treasurer, and, if desired, the giver can
+            designate the country to the relief of which he wishes the donation
+            applied</i>.]</p>
+      </blockquote>
+
+      <p>Recently I have been in four of the countries concerned in the present
+      war&mdash;Belgium, France, Germany, and England. I was also in Holland, having
+      traversed it from end to end within a week after the fall of Antwerp,
+      when every road coming up out of the south was filled with Belgian
+      refugees.</p>
+
+      <p>In Belgium I saw this:</p>
+
+      <p>Homeless men, women, and children by thousands and hundreds of
+      thousands. Many of them had been prosperous, a few had been wealthy,
+      practically all had been comfortable. Now, with scarcely an exception,
+      they stood all upon one common plane of misery. They had lost their
+      homes, their farms, their work-shops, their livings, and their means of
+      making livings.</p>
+
+      <p>I saw them tramping aimlessly along wind-swept, rain-washed roads,
+      fleeing from burning and devastated villages. I saw them sleeping in open
+      fields upon the miry earth, with no cover and no shelter. I saw them
+      herded together in the towns and cities to which many of them ultimately
+      fled, existing God alone knows how. I saw them&mdash;ragged, furtive
+      scarecrows&mdash;prowling in the shattered ruins of their homes, seeking
+      salvage where there was no salvage to be found. I saw them living like
+      the beasts of the field, upon such things as the beasts of the field
+      would reject.</p>
+
+      <p>I saw them standing in long lines waiting for their poor share of the
+      dole of a charity which already was nearly exhausted. I saw their towns
+      when hardly one stone stood upon another. I saw their abandoned farm
+      lands, where the harvests rotted in the furrows and the fruit hung
+      mildewed and ungathered upon the trees. I saw their cities where trade
+      was dead and credit was a thing which no longer existed. I saw them
+      staggering from weariness and from the weakness of hunger. I saw all
+      these sights repeated and multiplied infinitely&mdash;yes, and magnified,
+      too&mdash;but not once did I see a man or woman or even a child that wept or
+      cried out.</p>
+
+      <p>If the Belgian soldiers won the world's admiration by the resistance
+      which they made against tremendously overpowering numbers, the people of
+      Belgium&mdash;the families of their soldiers&mdash;should have the world's
+      admiration and pity for the courage, the patience, and the fortitude they
+      have displayed under the load of an affliction too dolorous for any words
+      to describe, too terrible for any imagination to picture.</p>
+
+      <p>In France I saw a pastoral land overrun by soldiers and racked by war
+      until it seemed the very earth would cry out for mercy. I saw a country
+      literally stripped of its men in order that the regiments might be
+      filled. I saw women hourly striving to do the ordained work of their
+      fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons, hourly piecing together the jarred
+      and broken fragments of their lives. I saw countless villages turned into
+      smoking, filthy, ill-smelling heaps of ruins. I saw schools that were
+      converted into hospitals and factories changed into barracks.</p>
+
+      <p>I saw the industries that were abandoned and the shops that were bare
+      of customers, the shopkeepers standing before empty shelves looking
+      bankruptcy in the face. I saw the unburied dead lying between battle
+      lines, where for weeks they had lain, and where for weeks, and perhaps
+      months to come, they would continue to lie, and I saw the graves of
+      countless numbers of other dead who were so hurriedly and carelessly
+      buried that their limbs in places protruded through the soil, poisoning
+      the air with hideous smells and giving abundant promise of the pestilence
+      which must surely follow. I saw districts noted for their fecundity on
+      the raw edge of famine, and a people proverbial for their
+      light-heartedness who had forgotten how to smile.</p>
+
+      <p>In Germany I saw innumerable men maimed and mutilated in every
+      conceivable fashion. I saw these streams of wounded pouring back from the
+      front endlessly. In two days I saw trains bearing 14,000 wounded men
+      passing through one town. I saw people of all classes undergoing
+      privations and enduring hardships in order that the forces at the front
+      might have food and supplies. I saw thousands of women wearing widow's
+      weeds, and thousands of children who had been orphaned.</p>
+
+      <p>I saw great hosts of prisoners of war on their way to prison camps,
+      where in the very nature of things they must forego all hope of having
+      for months, and perhaps years, those small creature comforts which make
+      life endurable to a civilized human being. I saw them, crusted with dirt,
+      worn with incredible exertions, alive with crawling vermin, their
+      uniforms already in tatters, and their broken shoes falling off their
+      feet.</p>
+
+      <p>On the day before I quit German soil&mdash;the war being then less than
+      three months old&mdash;I counted, in the course of a short ride through the
+      City of Aix-la-Chapelle two convalescent soldiers who were totally blind,
+      three who had lost an arm, and one, a boy of 18 or thereabout, who had
+      lost both arms. How many men less badly injured I saw in that afternoon I
+      do not know; I hesitate even to try to estimate the total figure for fear
+      I might be accused of exaggeration.</p>
+
+      <p>In Holland I saw the people of an already crowded country wrestling
+      valorously with the problem of striving to feed and house and care for
+      the enormous numbers of penniless refugees who had come out of Belgium.
+      I saw worn-out groups of peasants huddled on railroad platforms and along
+      the railroad tracks, too weary to stir another step.</p>
+
+      <p>In England I saw still more thousands of these refugees, bewildered,
+      broken by misfortune, owning only what they wore upon their backs,
+      speaking an alien tongue, strangers in a strange land. I saw, as I have
+      seen in Holland, people of all classes giving of their time, their means,
+      and their services to provide some temporary relief for these poor
+      wanderers who were without a country. I saw the new recruits marching
+      off, and I knew that for the children many of them were leaving behind
+      there would be no Santa Claus unless the American people out of the
+      fullness of their own abundance filled the Christmas stockings and
+      stocked the Christmas larders.</p>
+
+      <p>And seeing these things, I realized how tremendous was the need for
+      organized and systematic aid then and how enormously that need would grow
+      when Winter came&mdash;when the soldiers shivered in the trenches, and the
+      hospital supplies ran low, as indeed they have before now begun to run
+      low, and the winds searched through the holes made by the cannon balls
+      and struck at the women and children cowering in their squalid and
+      desolated homes. From my own experiences and observations I knew that
+      more nurses, more surgeons, more surgical necessities, and yet more, past
+      all calculating, would be sorely needed when the plague and famine and
+      cold came to take their toll among armies that already were thinned by
+      sickness and wounds.</p>
+
+      <p>The American Red Cross, by the terms of the Treaty of Geneva, gives
+      aid to the invalided and the injured soldiers of any army and all the
+      armies. If any small word from me, attempting to describe actual
+      conditions, can be of value to the American Red Cross in its campaign of
+      mercy, I write it gladly. I wish only that I had the power to write lines
+      which would make the American people see the situation as it is
+      now&mdash;which would make them understand how infinitely worse that situation
+      must surely become during the next few months.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>How Paris Dropped Gayety</h3>
+      <p class="h3"><b>By Anne Rittenhouse.</b></p>
+
+      <p class="h3">[From <span class="pscaps">The New York Times</span>, Sept. 23, 1914.]</p>
+
+      <p>On Friday night the Grand Boulevards were alive with
+      people, motors, voitures, singing, dancing, and each caf&eacute; thronged by the
+      gayest light hearts in the world.</p>
+
+      <p>On Saturday night the boulevards were thronged with growling, ominous,
+      surging crowds, with faces like those of the Commune, speaking strong
+      words for and against war.</p>
+
+      <p>On Sunday night mobs tore down signs, broke windows, shouted the
+      "Marseillaise," wreaked their vengeance on those who belonged to a nation
+      that France thought had plunged their country into ghastly war.  Aliens
+      sought shelter; hotels closed their massive doors intended for defense.
+      Mounted troops corralled the mobs as cowboys round up belligerent cattle.
+      Detached groups smashed and mishandled things that came in the way.</p>
+
+      <p>Monday night a calm so intense that one felt frightened. Boulevards
+      deserted, caf&eacute;s closed, hotels shuttered. Patrols of the Civil Garde in
+      massed formation. France was keeping her pledge to high civilization.
+      Yellow circulars were pasted on the buildings warning all that France was
+      in danger and appealing by that token to all male citizens to guard the
+      women and the weak.</p>
+
+      <p>At daylight only was the dead silence broken; France was marching to
+      war at that hour. Will any one who was here forget that daily daybreak
+      tramp, that measured march of the thousands going to the front? Cavalry
+      with the sun striking the helmets; infantry with their scarlet overcoats
+      too large; aviators with their boxed machines, the stormy petrels of
+      modern war; and the dogs, veritably the dogs of war, going on the
+      humanest mission of all, to search for the wounded in the woods of
+      battle.</p>
+
+      <p>And, side by side with the marching millions, on the pavement, were
+      the women belonging to them; the women who were to stay behind.</p>
+
+      <p>As though the Judgment Trumpet had sounded, France was changed in the
+      twinkling of an eye. And added to that subconscious terror that lurked in
+      every American soul of another revolution&mdash;a terror that was dispelled
+      after the third day when France reached out her long arm and mobilized
+      her people into a strong component whole with but one heart, was an
+      inexplainable dread of this terrible calm.</p>
+
+      <p>We knew about trained armies going to war, but here was a situation
+      where the Biblical description of the Last Day was carried out, the man
+      at the wheel dropped his work and was taken; he who was at the plowshare
+      left his furrow....</p>
+
+      <p>First we were afraid we would not have enough to eat. A famine was
+      prophesied, and the credulous who know nothing of the vast sources which
+      supply France with food clamored to get to England. Then there were
+      frenzied stories of hotels closing and prices soaring. None of which
+      happened or had any chance of happening. Food was never better, and today
+      we have fruit that melts in the mouth; fish that swims in the sauce, the
+      lack of which Talleyrand deplored in England; little green string beans
+      that no other country produces or knows how to cook.</p>
+
+      <p>Prices never rose for the fraction of a sou. If one had a credit at a
+      hotel, all was well, but unless one had ready money in small notes, none
+      of the restaurants would accept an order. Here, and here only, was a snag
+      concerning food. It is true that women went for twenty-four hours without
+      food, but the reason was the lack of small change, not of eatables.</p>
+
+      <p>After the panic caused by a thousand rumors annexed to a dozen
+      disheartening and revolutionary conditions, after the people felt that
+      the Commune was the figment of imagination, not inspired prophecy; that
+      money was getting easier; that, above all, America was looking after its
+      own, though her move toward that end seemed to take months instead of
+      days, and because we counted by heart-beats, not calendars; after all
+      this, we found time and interest to observe the phenomena around us. We
+      began to feel ashamed of our petty madness on the worldly subject of
+      money and ships and safe passage home; our passionate, twentieth century,
+      overindulged selves who were neither fighting nor giving our beloveds in
+      battle, and who were harassing those who were in a death struggle. Never
+      throughout the centuries to come, whether the map of Europe is changed or
+      not, should the stranger within her gates ever forget the courtesy of
+      Paris.</p>
+
+      <p>At night powerful searchlights backed up by artillery guard the city
+      from the monster of the air.</p>
+
+      <p>This is fiction come true. It is Conan Doyle, Kipling, Wells come to
+      measure. From the moment of sunset until sunrise those comets with an
+      orbit patrol the skies. Pointing with blazing fingers to the moon and the
+      stars, to the horizon, they proclaim that Paris watches while her people
+      sleep.</p>
+
+      <p>The idea has given comfort to thousands. You, in your safe, tranquil
+      homes, cannot know the pleasure it gives to look out of the window in the
+      wakeful nights and watch those wheeling comets circling, circling to
+      catch the Zeppelin that may come.</p>
+
+      <p>And behind the light is the gun. Rooftop artillery! The new warfare!
+      On the roof of the fashionable Automobile Club on the Place de la
+      Concorde the little blue firing guns wheel with the blazing fingers.
+      Always ready to send shot and shell into a bulging speck in the sky that
+      does not return the luminous signals. So on the roof of the Observatoir,
+      so on the encircling environs; sometimes three, sometimes six, they are
+      always going. People stand in the streets to watch, hypnotized by the
+      moment into horizon gazing. There will be a speck in the sky; people grow
+      tense; the comet catches it; is that wigwagging on the roof, those
+      challenges in fire, returned? No. The speck passes; we breathe again.
+      And so it goes: a ceaseless centre of interest. It is the novelty of the
+      world war.</p>
+
+      <p>The highest artillery in the world is on the Eiffel Tower. At its
+      dizzy top, pointing to the sky, are machine guns that are trained to fire
+      at an enemy's balloon. It is an answer to the prayer of the people that
+      these guns have not yet been used.</p>
+
+      <p>But it is not only in the artillery on the top of the Eiffel Tower
+      that interest centres; it is in the wireless that sends the messages to
+      land and sea, safeguarding armies and navies, patrolling the earth and
+      water.  Strange, isn't it, that the plaything of a nation has become its
+      safeguard?</p>
+
+      <p>That was a stirring day when Paris sang "God Save the King." Gen.
+      French arrived from London, coming quietly to confer with M. Viviani, the
+      Minister for War, and with President Poincar&eacute;. He was the first English
+      General to come to the aid of France since Cromwell commissioned the
+      British Ambassador to go to the aid of Anne of Austria. And the French
+      heart responded as only it can; the people stood, with raised hats, in
+      quadruple rows wherever he passed, as English, French, and foreign voices
+      sang a benediction to Britain's King. History was made there.</p>
+
+      <p>That night Gen. French dined at the Ritz among a few friends. Even the
+      newspapers seemed not to know it, and those of us who had the good chance
+      to be there enjoyed him at leisure. He wore his field uniform of khaki in
+      strong contrast to the French Generals, who are always in glittering
+      gold, although he represents an empire and they a republic.  He is an
+      admirable looking soldier, somewhat small of stature, firmly knit,
+      bronzed, white haired, blue eyed, calm. He spoke of their
+      responsibilities without exaggeration or amelioration. He did not make
+      light of the task before his soldiers, and his grave manner seemed a
+      prophecy of that terrible fight near Mons, above the French frontier,
+      which was so soon to take place and where English blood was freely
+      spilled for France's sake.</p>
+
+      <p>Another day that we shall be glad we saw when it is written into the
+      narrative history of this Summer by some future Mme. Sevigne, was when
+      the first German flag arrived. Before it came, two soldiers exhibited a
+      German frontier post in front of a caf&eacute; on the boulevard, which started
+      the excitement, but the reception of the flag by the Government and its
+      placement in the Invalides, where is Napoleon's tomb, was an hour of
+      dramatic tenseness.</p>
+
+      <p>The only music heard in Paris since the first day of August, the day
+      of mobilization, accompanied this flag to its resting place along with
+      those historic relics of former French victories. The procession went
+      over the Alexander Bridge, that superb structure dedicated in honor of
+      the Russian Czar, whose son is now fulfilling his pledge of friendship to
+      France. The flag was met at the Invalides by the old soldiers who bore
+      medals of the Franco-Prussian war. In the solemn inclosure, where all
+      stood at salute, the veterans stood with lances. The flag was presented
+      to an old sick soldier, who stumped forward on a wooden leg, his breast
+      covered with the medals of the Crimea and the Italian campaign. He
+      received it for France, and when it was placed over the organ, the
+      listening crowds that jammed the Place des Invalides heard the singing of
+      the "Marseillaise" by the cracked old voices first, then by the sturdier
+      younger voices, and so it joined in, this vast concourse of solemn
+      listeners.</p>
+
+      <p>France has gone into this war with the spirit of the Crusaders, but
+      the spirit of French wit cannot be repressed even under the most
+      terrifying conditions. So after the news of the superhuman effort made by
+      that national baby, Belgium, in detaining the huge German forces for many
+      days, there was a placard on one of the gates at the station, placed
+      there by some gay refugee, saying that a train de luxe would leave for
+      Berlin the next day.</p>
+
+      <p>It tickled the sensibilities of travelers very much, and it gave rise
+      to the sale of postcards by an enterprising soul. These cards gave one
+      the right, so they said, of a daily train to Berlin to visit the tomb of
+      Guillame. They were bought by the thousands as souvenirs of the war and
+      as one of the few things that caused a smile in this saddened city.</p>
+
+      <p>Another incident that amused the people was the remark of a young
+      soldier who had single-handed taken some German prisoners, and who, when
+      asked whether he had done it by the revolver or the bayonet, answered
+      that he had only held out a slice of bread and butter and the Germans had
+      followed him.</p>
+
+      <p>Amusement and irritation followed the order that all telephoning must
+      be done in French. The sensation produced depended on the temperament of
+      the person. Certainly queer things were said over the lines, and no one
+      could blame the "Allo girl" for laughing. The majority of Americans took
+      it in good part by saying that it was a French lesson for five cents.</p>
+
+      <p>Another accomplishment that has been furthered in Paris during the
+      last three weeks is bicycle riding. With the paucity of transportation
+      some means of getting over the magnificent distances of this city had to
+      be found. So people who could ride rented bicycles, and those who had not
+      learned began to take lessons. The girls who work, and those who go on
+      errands for the Croix Rouge, wear a most attractive costume of pale blue
+      or violet. It has a short divided skirt, a slim blouse with
+      blue-and-white striped collar; there is a small hat to match, and the
+      young cyclists whirling around on their missions of mercy are a pleasant
+      sight for very sad eyes.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>Paris in October</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[From The London Times, Oct. 21, 1914.]</p>
+
+      <p class="right">PARIS, Oct. 19.</p>
+
+      <p>The more one studies the life of Paris at the present
+      time, and especially its patriotic and benevolent activities, the more is
+      one impressed by the unanimous determination of its inhabitants to face
+      whatever may befall and to make the best of things. It is difficult to
+      realize at first sight how completely, in the hour of trial, the
+      traditional light-heartedness of the Parisian has been translated to a
+      fine simplicity of courage and devotion to the common cause and to a high
+      seriousness of patriotism. There is something splendidly impressive and
+      stimulating in the spectacle of civilization's most sensitive culture
+      suddenly confronted by the stern realities of a life-and-death struggle,
+      and responding unanimously to the call of duty. Without hesitation or
+      complaint, Paris has put away childish things, her toys, her luxury, and
+      her laughter; today her whole life reflects only fixed purposes of united
+      effort, of courage never, never to submit or yield, and this splendid
+      determination is all the more significant for being undemonstrative and
+      almost silent.</p>
+
+      <p>We English people, who, observing chiefly the surface life of the
+      French capital, have generally been disposed to regard the Parisian
+      temperament as mutable and often impatient of adversity, must now make
+      our confession of error and the amende honorable; for nothing could be
+      more admirable than the attitude of all classes of the community in their
+      stoic acceptance of the sacrifices and sufferings imposed upon them by
+      this war at their gates. Especially striking is the philosophic
+      acquiescence of the city, accustomed to know and to discuss all things,
+      in the
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'impentrable']">impenetrable</ins>
+      veil of secrecy which conceals the movements and the fortunes of the
+      French armies in the field. Go where you will, even among those of the
+      very poor who have lost their breadwinners, and you will hear few
+      criticisms and no complaints.  The little midinette thrown out of
+      employment, the shopkeeper faced with ruin, the artist reduced to actual
+      want&mdash;they also are in the fighting line, and they are proud of it. The
+      women of the thrifty middle class consider it just as much their duty to
+      devote their savings of years to the common cause as their husbands and
+      brothers do to bear arms against the enemy; only in the last extremity of
+      need do they make appeal to the "Secours National" for assistance. And
+      when they do, they are well content to live on a maintenance allowance of
+      1s. a day and 5d. for every child.</p>
+
+      <p>The other Sunday morning at the hour of mass, when two German
+      aeroplanes were engaged in their genial occupation of throwing bombs over
+      the residential and business quarters of the city, I assisted at several
+      sidewalk conversations in the district lying between the Madeleine and
+      the Rue de Rivoli. Nowhere did I find the least sign of excitement.
+      Indeed, there was curiously little interest shown as to the results of
+      the explosions in that neighborhood; only a grim acceptance of this daily
+      visitation as something to be added to the score in the final day of
+      reckoning and some expression of surprise that the French aeroplanes
+      (supposed to be constantly on the alert for these visitors) should not
+      have found some means of putting an end to the nuisance. At the same time
+      I heard several spectators express their admiration of the German
+      aviators' courage and appreciation of the ease and grace with which they
+      handled their beautiful machines. In the caf&eacute;s that evening, when the
+      full list of the casualties and damage had been published, one heard a
+      good deal of criticism, seasoned with Attic salt, on the subject of the
+      belated appearance of the French aeroplanes on the scene, and hopes that
+      the boulevards might soon be rewarded by the spectacle of a duel in the
+      air. They seem to think they have earned it.</p>
+
+      <p>But in the afternoon all Paris was out&mdash;in the Jarden des Tuileries,
+      in the Bois, at Vincennes, basking in the sunshine of a glorious Autumn
+      day, Madame et B&eacute;b&eacute; bravely making the best of it in the absence of
+      Monsieur. (Not that Monsieur is always absent; the proportion of men in
+      the crowd, and men of serviceable age, was considerably larger than one
+      might have expected.) If the object of the German aviators is to instill
+      terror into the hearts of the Parisians they are wasting their time and
+      their bombs.</p>
+
+      <p>Those people in London who complain about not being able to get supper
+      after the theatre, and other minor disturbances of their even tenor of
+      existence, should spend a few days in Paris. They would observe how
+      easily a community may learn to do without many things, and how the
+      lesson itself becomes a moral tonic, unmistakably stimulating in its
+      effects.</p>
+
+      <p>Paris is reminded every morning of duty and discipline when it begins
+      by doing without its beloved petits pains and croissants for breakfast,
+      the order having gone forth that bakers, being short-handed, are to make
+      only pain de m&eacute;nage. Similarly, because the majority of journalists and
+      popular writers are under arms, Paris does without its accustomed daily
+      refreshment of ephemeral literature, its comic and illustrated press, its
+      literary and artistic causeries, its feuilletons, and chroniques. It does
+      without its theatres, its music halls, without politics, art, and social
+      amenities, without barbers, florists, and motor cars, partly because
+      there are not men enough to keep these things going, and partly because,
+      even if there were, la patrie comes first, so that thrifty self-denial
+      has become the duty of every good citizen. If the telephone breaks down,
+      (as it usually does,) there is no one to repair it, so the subscriber
+      goes without; if the trains and trams cease running on regular schedules
+      the Parisian accepts the fact and stays at home.</p>
+
+      <p>In normal times life is made up of the sum of little things, but at
+      great moments the little things cease to count. How true this is in Paris
+      today one may judge from the correspondence and records of the "Secours
+      National"; they reveal an intense and widespread impulse of personal
+      pride in self-denial, and prove that the heart of the Parisian
+      bourgeoisie is sound to the core.</p>
+
+      <p>To a foreigner, accustomed to the Paris of literary and artistic
+      traditions, perhaps the most remarkable feature in the life of the city
+      today lies in the absence of articulate public opinion, and apparently of
+      public interest, in everything outside the immediate issues of the war.
+      With one or two exceptions, such as the Temps and the D&eacute;bats, the press
+      of the capital practically confines itself to recording the events and
+      progress of the campaign; nothing else matters. So far as Paris is
+      concerned, all the rest of the world, from China to Peru, might be
+      non-existent. Neither the political nor the economic consequences of the
+      war are seriously examined or discussed; the sole business of the
+      newspapers consists in supplementing, to the best of their abilities, the
+      meagre war news supplied through official channels. Some interest
+      attaches, of course, to the attitude of Italy; but, beyond that, all
+      things sublunary seem to have faded into a remote distance of
+      unreality&mdash;sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.</p>
+
+      <p>The
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'explaantion']">explanation</ins>
+      of this attitude of complete detachment lies, no doubt, chiefly in the
+      fact that the men who make and exchange political opinions have gone to
+      Bordeaux, while most of those who create and guide public (as distinct
+      from political) opinion, have exchanged the pen for the sword. Just as
+      Paris, for want of bakers, has only one kind of bread, so, for want of
+      the men who usually inspire public opinion, her press has concentrated
+      upon one absorbing idea, &eacute;craser les allemands. Moreover, for want of
+      printers and of advertisers, most of the daily papers have now dwindled
+      to microscopic proportions. The virile intelligence of Paris journalism
+      and the nimble and adventurous inquisitiveness, which are its normally
+      distinguishing characteristics, have gone, like everything else, to the
+      front. As the editor of the Gil Blas says in a farewell poster to his
+      subscribers: "Youth has only one duty to perform in these days. Our chief
+      and all the staff have joined the colors. Whenever events shall permit,
+      Gil Blas will resume its cheerful way. A bien-t&ocirc;t."</p>
+
+
+      <h3>France and England As Seen in War Time</h3>
+      <p class="h3"><b>An Interview With F. Hopkinson Smith.</b></p>
+
+      <p class="h3">[From <span class="pscaps">The New York Times Sunday Magazine</span>, Dec. 6,
+      1914.]</p>
+
+      <p>F. Hopkinson Smith was in France when the war broke
+      out, he spent September in London, and is now back in New York. He has
+      brought home many sketches. Not sketches which suggest war in the least,
+      but which were made with the thought of the war lurking in the
+      background.</p>
+
+      <p>"Curiously enough," he said, without waiting for any opening question
+      from <span class="pscaps">The Times</span> reporter&mdash;Mr. Smith often interviews himself&mdash;"curiously
+      enough, I was on my way to Rheims to make a sketch of the Cathedral when
+      the war broke out. I had started out to make a series of sketches of the
+      great European cathedrals. Not etchings, but charcoal sketches.</p>
+
+      <p>"Let me say here, too, that cathedrals for the most part ought not to
+      be etched. You lose too many shadows, though you gain in line; but in the
+      etching you have to cross-hatch so heavily with ink that the result is
+      just ink, and not shadow at all. Charcoal gives you depth and
+      transparency. I was eager to do a series of the cathedrals, as I had done
+      a series for the Dickens and Thackeray books, and had planned to give my,
+      entire Summer to it.</p>
+
+      <p>"I had been in London for some time. I had sketched in Westminster, in
+      St. Bartholomew's. Everything peaceful and quiet. It seems now as if we
+      ought to have felt&mdash;all of us, the people on the streets, I, shopkeepers,
+      every one&mdash;the approach of this tremendous war. But we didn't, of course.
+      No one in England had the faintest suspicion that this terrible inhuman
+      thing was going to happen.</p>
+
+      <p>"I went on to France. I sketched Notre Dame, over which they exploded
+      shells a month or so later. I did some work in the beautiful St.
+      Etienne. I sauntered down into South Normandy and was stopping for a
+      little color work at the Inn of William the Conqueror before going on to
+      Rheims."</p>
+
+      <p>These water colors of French farms, French inns, and French gardens
+      are glimpses caught at the very eleventh hour before France put on a
+      totally different aspect.</p>
+
+      <p>"The war broke out. There at the quiet little French inn everything
+      suddenly changed color. It was quick, it was quiet. There was a complete
+      change in the snap of a finger. All the chauffeurs and the porters and
+      the waiters&mdash;men who had been there for years and with whom we who visit
+      there Summer after Summer have grown familiar&mdash;suddenly stopped work,
+      gave up their jobs, were turned into soldiers. One hardly recognized
+      them.</p>
+
+      <p>"We were all stunned. I realized that I could not go on to Rheims,
+      that I probably should not get down into Italy. I scarcely realized at
+      first what that meant. I could not conceive, none of us could conceive,"
+      Mr.  Smith exploded violently, "that any one, under any necessity
+      whatsoever, should lay hands on the Rheims Cathedral. It's too monstrous!
+      The world will never forgive it, never!</p>
+
+      <p>"The world is divided, I tell you! It is not a Double Alliance and a
+      Triple Entente; it is not a Germany and a Russia and a United States and
+      an Italy and an England. That is not the division of the world just now.
+      There are two sides, and only two sides. There is barbarism on the one
+      hand, civilization on the other; there is brutality and there is
+      humanity. And humanity is going to win, but the sacrifices are
+      awful&mdash;awful!"</p>
+
+      <p>"How about the feeling in France, Mr. Smith?"</p>
+
+      <p>"I can't tell you how overwhelmingly pathetic it is&mdash;the sight of
+      these brave Frenchmen. Every one has remarked it. Once and for all the
+      tradition that the French are an excitable, emotional people with no grip
+      on their passions and no rein on their impulses&mdash;that fiction is dead for
+      all time.</p>
+
+      <p>"I saw that whole first act of France's drama. I saw the French people
+      stand still on that first day and take breath. Then I saw France set to
+      work. She was unprepared, but she was ready in spirit. There was no
+      excitement, there were no demonstrations. The men climbed into their
+      trains without any exhibitions of patriotism, without any outbursts.
+      There were many women crying quietly, with children huddled about their
+      skirts.</p>
+
+      <p>"The spirit of England is different, but there is the same lack of
+      excitement. I chartered a motor bus when the war broke out and got to
+      Paris, and then went back to London, where I sketched for a month, saw my
+      friends, and talked war.</p>
+
+      <p>"Making sketches in war time is very different, by the way, from
+      making sketches in time of peace. It is a business full of possibilities,
+      when all manner of spy suspicions are afloat. I made up my mind to do a
+      sketch of the Royal Exchange. Not as I should have done it a year before,
+      mind you, nor even three months before, but now, with the thought of
+      bomb-dropping Zeppelins in the back of my mind. It occurred to me when I
+      was hurrying along one rainy evening in a taxi past the Stock Exchange,
+      the Globe Insurance, the Bank of England. Everywhere cabs drawn up along
+      the curbing, cabs slipping past, people, great moving crowds of people
+      with their umbrellas up, moving off down Threadneedle and Victoria.</p>
+
+      <p>"A lot of human life and some very beautiful architecture and a good
+      part of the world's business, all concentrated here. And I thought to
+      myself what might happen should the cultured Germans get as far as
+      London, and should the defenders of the world's civilization drop a bomb
+      down into the heart of things here. I pictured to myself what havoc could
+      be wrought.</p>
+
+      <p>"And I thought, too, of places like Southwark. Ever been in Southwark?
+      Horrible. A year before, when I was making the sketches for my Dickens
+      book, I spent a great deal of time in the Southwark section. Now, with
+      the prospect of Zeppelins, I thought again of Southwark. A bomb in a
+      Southwark street! Good Lord, can you imagine the horror of it! There
+      fifty or sixty families are packed into a single tenement, and the houses
+      in their turn are packed one against the next along streets so narrow
+      that the buildings seem to be nodding to each other, touching foreheads
+      almost. Desperately poor people, children swarming every moment of the
+      day and night up and down these dark stairways, up and down these
+      hideously dark streets. Now drop a bomb in the midst of it all. That is
+      what Englishmen are thinking of now.</p>
+
+      <p>"I didn't go over into Southwark; I couldn't stand it. The next day I
+      went back to the Stock Exchange to make my sketch. I've done sketches in
+      London before&mdash;every nook and cranny of it&mdash;but this time I felt a little
+      nervous when I got there with my umbrella and my little tools.  But I
+      managed it. I said to the bobby, I said&mdash;"</p>
+
+      <p>And then Mr. Smith, getting up from his chair and relapsing into the
+      frown that always means he is going to tell a story, showed how he
+      managed it. It is impossible to reproduce Mr. Smith's inimitable
+      manner.</p>
+
+      <p>"'Are you, now?' said I.</p>
+
+      <p>"'Well, 'ow can I tell?' said he.</p>
+
+      <p>"'But if you're the excellent English bobby that I believe you to be,'
+      said I, 'you'll see at once that I'm an honest American artist just here
+      to do a little sketching.'</p>
+
+      <p>"'I tell you,' said he. W'y don't you just pop hup and see 'Is
+      Lordship the Mayor?'</p>
+
+      <p>"And so I did pop up and I told the Lord Mayor my troubles, and he
+      waved me a hearty wave of his hand and said he'd do anything to oblige an
+      American, and I came down again, and here was the bobby still very
+      upright but watching my approach from the tail of his eye. And I
+      pretended I had never seen him, but as I went past I slipped him a cigar,
+      and when I passed back again he twinkled his eye. Stuck between the
+      buttons of his coat, there being no other place, was my fat cigar.</p>
+
+      <p>"I made my sketch of the Royal Exchange. I want Americans to see what
+      can happen if His Imperial Lowness over on the Continent sees fit to send
+      his Zeppelins to England. Not being big enough nor strong enough to
+      injure England vitally, he can take this method of injury, he can injure
+      women and children and maim horses, destroy business and works of art and
+      blow up the congested districts.</p>
+
+      <p>"We have seen what the Savior of the World's Culture could do in
+      France and Belgium; it is small wonder that all England has in the back
+      of her head surmises as to what he might accomplish if some of his air
+      craft crossed the Channel. By which I do not mean to say that the English
+      are apprehensive. They are not nervous. I have spent more than a month
+      with them, among my own friends, learning the general temper of the
+      country.</p>
+
+      <p>"There are no demonstrations, there is no boasting, no display. London
+      is much the same as it always was. At night London is darkened, in
+      accordance with the order of Oct. 9, but that is about all the
+      difference. It is so dark that you can hardly get up Piccadilly, but
+      London takes her amusements about as usual. The theatres are not
+      overcrowded, but neither are they empty. For luncheons and for dinners
+      Prince's is full, the Carlton is full. The searchlights are playing over
+      the city looking for those Zeppelins. That is a new wrinkle to me; the
+      idea of blinding the men up there at the wheel with a powerful light is a
+      good one.</p>
+
+      <p>"These Englishmen have their teeth set. They know perfectly well that
+      they are fighting for their existence. All this talk of the necessity of
+      drumming up patriotism in England is bosh. England has no organized
+      publicity bureau such as Germany, and in contrast she may have seemed
+      quiet to the point of apathy. But don't fancy that Englishmen are
+      apathetic. They are slow and they are sure. They are just beginning to
+      realize that they have these fellows by the back of the necks. Before I
+      left London I saw every day in the Temple Gardens, down by the
+      Embankment, that steady drill of thousands of young men in straw hats,
+      yellow shoes, and business suits. I felt their spirit.</p>
+
+      <p>"There is a great fundamental difference between the spirit of Germany
+      and the spirit of the Allies, and the whole world has recognized it.
+      With the Allies there has been no boasting, even now when they realize
+      that the top is reached and this war is on the down grade. There is
+      determination, but there is no cock-sureness, no goose-step. There is no
+      insolence.</p>
+
+      <p>"Why, in the last analysis, is the whole world against Germany?
+      Because of her insufferable insolence. It is an insolence which has been
+      fairly bred in the bone of every German soldier. I can give you a little
+      concrete instance. My daughter-in-law had been serving in one of the
+      Paris hospitals ever since the war broke out. She was finally placed on a
+      committee which was to meet the trainloads of wounded soldiers when they
+      first arrived.</p>
+
+      <p>"In one of the cars one day there was a wounded officer, a German. He
+      spoke no French, and a young French Lieutenant, very courteous, was
+      trying to make him understand something. My daughter, too, had no
+      success. Finally a young German, a common soldier who was in the same
+      car, said to this German officer: 'I am an Alsatian; I can interpret for
+      you.'</p>
+
+      <p>"'How dare you!' And the German officer turned to him in perfect fury.
+      'How do you, a common soldier, dare to speak to me, an officer!' And with
+      that he struck the Alsatian full in the face with what little strength he
+      had left.</p>
+
+      <p>"Now there is an example of the attitude to which the German military
+      has been trained.</p>
+
+      <p>"On another occasion, when a French officer, after one of the battles,
+      came courteously to the commanding German officer of the division and
+      said, 'Sir, you are my prisoner,' the German spat in his face. That is
+      all very dramatic and you may say that he showed much spirit, but you
+      could hardly call it a sporting spirit, surely not a civilized
+      spirit.</p>
+
+      <p>"It is this domineering spirit that the whole world is resenting.
+      Nothing that Germany can do through her well-organized press agents can
+      conceal that insolence which has been a continuous policy for many years.
+      American opinion is almost unanimous in its opposition to Germany for
+      this one reason.</p>
+
+      <p>"Sir Gilbert Parker recently sent me a whole bundle of papers asking
+      me to judge England's case fairly and ask my friends in America to do the
+      same. I wrote back and asked him: 'Why do you waste stamps sending
+      evidence to America? America has the evidence, and if there has been any
+      anti-English feeling in America, von Bernstorff and Dernburg long since
+      demolished it.'</p>
+
+      <p>"The world has never witnessed anything so far-reaching as this policy
+      of insolence. Men who in daily life are cultured and fine, whose ideals
+      are high and noble, who have achieved names for themselves in literature,
+      art, and science&mdash;we all have many friends among them&mdash;have become
+      unconsciously tinctured with this policy. They are intelligent men, but,
+      by the gods, when they get on this subject of Germany's place in the sun,
+      they become paranoiacs! This idea of their pre-eminence has become a
+      disease with Germany. Germany is actually sick with it, and the medicine
+      that will cure her will be pretty bitter.</p>
+
+      <p>"I see that George Bernard Shaw presumes to announce that this policy
+      of insolence, this extreme militarism, has been just as prominent in
+      England and in France. Mr. Shaw is great fun and very wise about a lot of
+      things; moreover, he has lived in England a great deal longer than I
+      have, but just the same he is dead wrong when he makes such a statement.
+      I have many old friends in the army and the navy, many in politics, and
+      some of them are of the pronounced soldier, the militarist type. Not one
+      of them would ever dare to write such a book as Bernhardi has written,
+      and I don't believe there's one of them that would take any stock in a
+      man like Nietzsche. Mr. Shaw is dead wrong here; worse than that, he is
+      writing nonsense.</p>
+
+      <p>"We live from day to day hoping that the end will be the absolute
+      annihilation of the militarist principle, this get-off-the-earth
+      attitude.</p>
+
+      <p>"And what has all this," concluded Mr. Smith suddenly, "to do with
+      art?  I'm sure I don't know. No one is thinking about art now."</p>
+
+      <p>"But you haven't told me where your sympathies are in this war, Mr.
+      Smith."</p>
+
+      <p>"Hey? I don't have any sympathies, as you see. I'm neutral as
+      President Wilson bids me be; I don't care who licks Germany, not even if
+      it is Japan."</p>
+
+
+      <h3>The Helpless Victims</h3>
+      <p class="h3"><b>By Mrs. Nina Larrey Duryee.</b></p>
+
+      <p class="h3">[From <span class="pscaps">The New York Times</span>, Sept. 9, 1914.]</p>
+
+
+      <p class="right">Hotel Windsor.<br />
+      DINARD, France, Sept. 1, 1914.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent"><i>To the Editor of The New York Times</i>:</p>
+
+      <p>This is written in great haste to catch the rare boat
+      to England. The author is an American woman, who has spent nine happy
+      Summers in this beautiful corner of France, where thousands of her
+      compatriots have likewise enjoyed Brittany's kindly hospitality.</p>
+
+      <p>Yesterday I saw issuing through St. Malo's eleventh century gates 300
+      Belgian refugees, headed by our Dinard Mayor, M. Cralard. I try to write
+      calmly of that procession of the half-starved, terror-ridden throng, but
+      with the memory of those pinched faces and the stories we heard of
+      murder, carnage, burning towns, insulted women, it is difficult to
+      restrain indignation. They had come from Charleroi and Mons&mdash;old men,
+      women, and little children. Not a man of strength or middle age among
+      them, for they are dead or away fighting the barbarians who invested
+      their little country against all honorable dealings.</p>
+
+      <p>Such a procession! They had slept in fields, eaten berries, carrots
+      dug from the earth by their hands; drunk from muddy pools, always with
+      those beings behind them who had driven them at the point of their
+      bayonets from their poor homes. Looking back, they had seen flames
+      against the sky, heard screams for pity from those too ill to leave,
+      silenced by bullets.</p>
+
+      <p>Here are some of the tales, which our Mayor vouches for, which I
+      heard:</p>
+
+      <p>One young mother, who had seen her husband shot, tried to put aside
+      the rifle of the assassin. She was holding her year-old baby on her
+      breast.  The butt of that rifle was beaten down, crushing in her baby's
+      chest. It still lives, and I heard it's gasping breath.</p>
+
+      <p>Another young girl, in remnants of a pretty silk dress, hatless, her
+      fragile shoes soleless, and her feet bleeding, is quite mad from the
+      horrors of seeing her old father shot and her two younger brothers taken
+      away to go before the advancing enemy as shields against English bullets.
+      She has forgotten her name, town, and kin, and, "like a leaf in the
+      storm," is adrift on the world penniless.</p>
+
+      <p>I saw sitting in a row on a bench in the shed seven little girls, none
+      of them more than six. Not one of them has now father, mother, or home.
+      None can tell whence they came, or to whom they belong. Three are plainly
+      of gentle birth. They were with nurses when the horde of Prussians fell
+      upon them, and the latter were kept&mdash;for the soldier's pleasure.</p>
+
+      <p>There is an old man, formerly the proud proprietor of a bakery, who
+      escaped with the tiny delivery cart pulled by a Belgian dog. Within the
+      cart are the remains of his prosperous past&mdash;a coat, photos of his dead
+      wife, and his three sons at the front, and a brass kettle.</p>
+
+      <p>I heard from an aged man how he escaped death. He, with other
+      villagers, was locked into a room, and from without the German carbines
+      were thrust through the blinds. Those within were told to "dance for
+      their lives," and the German bullets picked them off, one by one, from
+      the street. He had the presence of mind to fall as though dead, and when
+      the house was set on fire crawled out through a window into the cowshed
+      and got away.</p>
+
+      <p>Now, these stories are not the worst or the only ones. Nor are these
+      300 refugees more than a drop of sand on a beach of the thousands upon
+      thousands who are at this moment in like case. They are pouring through
+      the country now, dazed with trouble, robbed of all they possess.</p>
+
+      <p>Who can help them, even to work? No one has money. Even those rich
+      villa people, Americans, are unable to pay their servants. There is no
+      "work" save in the fields garnering crops, for which no wages are paid.
+      Their country is a devastated waste, tenanted by the enemy, who spread
+      like a tidal wave of destruction in all directions. We take the better
+      class into our homes, clothe them and feed them gladly, that we may in a
+      minute way repay the debt civilization owes their husbands, sons, and
+      fathers. France, too, is invaded, and now thousands more of French are
+      homeless and penniless.</p>
+
+      <p>We in this formerly gay, fashionable little town see nothing of the
+      pageantry of war&mdash;only its horrors, as trains leave with us hundreds of
+      wounded from the front. In their bodies we find dumdum bullets, and we
+      hear tales which confirm those of the refugees.</p>
+
+      <p>Will America help them? I, an American woman, could weep for the
+      inadequacy of my pen, for I beg your pity, your compassion, and your
+      help. Not since the days of Rome's cruelty has civilization been so
+      outraged.</p>
+
+      <p>I beg your paper to print this, and to start a subscription for this
+      far corner of France, where the tide of war throws its wreckage. The
+      Winter is ahead, and with hunger, cold, lack of supplies, and isolation
+      will create untold suffering. Paris, too, is now sending refugees from
+      its besieged gates. Every corner is already filled, and hundreds pour in
+      every day. The garages, best hotels, villas, and caf&eacute;s are already filled
+      with "those that suffer for honor's sake." The Croix Rouge does splendid
+      work for the wounded soldiers, but who will help these victims of war?
+      Fifty cents will buy shoes for a baby's feet. Ten cents will buy ten
+      pieces of bread. A dollar will buy a widow a shawl. Who will give?  Deny
+      yourselves some little pleasure&mdash;a cigar, a drink of soda water, a
+      theatre seat&mdash;and send the price to these starved, beaten people,
+      innocent of any crime.</p>
+
+      <p>You American women, who tuck your children into their clean beds at
+      night, remember these children, reared as carefully as yours, without
+      relatives, money, or future. They will be placed on farms to do a
+      peasant's work with peasants. These women bereft of all that was dear
+      face a barren future. These aged men anticipate for their only remaining
+      blessing death, which will take them from a world which has used them
+      ill.</p>
+
+      <p>America is neutral. Let her remain so, but compassion has no
+      nationality. We are all children of one Father. Send us help. These poor
+      creatures hold out to you pleading hands for succor.</p>
+
+      <p class="right">NINA LARREY DURYEE.</p>
+
+      <p>P.S.&mdash;I beg you to publish this. I am the daughter-in-law of the Gen.
+      Duryee of the Duryee Zouaves, who fought through our civil war with
+      honor. Our Ambassador, Mr. Herrick, and his wife know me socially. Any
+      funds you can gather please send to M.  Grolard, Marie de Dinard,
+      Municipality de Dinard, Ille-et-Vilaine, France, or to Le Banque Boutin,
+      Dinard, France.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>A New Russia Meets Germany</h3>
+      <p class="h3"><b>By Perceval Gibbon.</b></p>
+
+      <p class="h3">[From <span class="pscaps">The New York Times</span>, Oct. 26, 1914.]</p>
+
+      <p>VILNA, Russia, Sept. 28.&mdash;For a fact as great as
+      Russia one needs a symbol by which to apprehend it For me, till now, the
+      symbol has been a memory of Moscow in the Winter of 1905, the Winter of
+      revolution, when the barricades were up in the streets and the dragoons
+      worked among the crowds like slaughtermen in a shambles. Toward that
+      arched gateway leading from the Red Square into the Kremlin came soldiers
+      on foot, bringing with them prisoners dredged out of the turmoil, two
+      armed men to each battered and terrified captive, whose white and
+      bloodstained face stared startling and ghastly between the gray uniform
+      greatcoats.  The first of them came to the deep arch, in whose recess is
+      a lamplit shrine; I stood aside to see them go past. The soldiers were
+      wrenching the man along by the arms, each holding him on one side; I
+      recall yet the prisoner's lean, miserable face, with the suggestion it
+      had of dissolute and desperate youth; and as they came abreast of the
+      faintly gleaming ikon in the gate they let him go for a moment. His dazed
+      eyes wandered up to the shrine; he was already bareheaded, and with a
+      shaking, uncertain hand he crossed himself in the intricate Russian
+      fashion. The soldiers who guarded him, too&mdash;they shuffled their rifles to
+      a convenient hold to have a right hand free; they crossed themselves and
+      their lips moved. Then they were through the arch and out upon the snow
+      within the walls, and once again they had hold of their man and were
+      thrusting him along to the prison which for him was the antechamber of
+      death.</p>
+
+      <p>That was Russia then. Prisoner and captors, soldiers and
+      revolutionaries, blinded and bewildered by the rush and dazzle of
+      affairs, straining asunder yet linked, knitted into a unity of the spirit
+      which they neither understood nor questioned.</p>
+
+      <p>But a week ago, on those still, dreary lands which border the Prussian
+      frontier, there was evidence of a Russia that has been born or made since
+      those hectic days in Moscow. The Germans who had forced Gen.  Rennenkampf
+      to withdraw to the border were making an attempt to envelop his left
+      wing. Their columns, issuing from the maze of lakes and hills in
+      Masurenland, came across the border on both banks of the little River
+      Amulew, and fell upon him. There is a road in those parts that drifts
+      south along the frontier, an unmade, unholy Russian road, ribbed with
+      outcrops of stone, a purgatory to travel upon till the snow clothes it
+      and one can go by sledge. Away to the southwest, beyond the patches of
+      firwood and the gray,
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'steply']">steeply</ins>
+      rolling land, there toned the far diapason of artillery; strings of army
+      transport, Red Cross vehicles, and miscellaneous men straggled upon the
+      road.</p>
+
+      <p>From beyond the nearest shoulder of land sounded suddenly some
+      gigantic and hoarse whistle, an ear-shattering roar of warning and
+      urgency. There was shouting and a stir of movement; the wagons and Red
+      Cross vans began to pull out to one side; and over the brow of the hill,
+      hurtling into sight, huge, unbelievably swift, roaring upon its whistle,
+      tore a great, gray-painted motor lorry, packed with khaki-clad
+      infantrymen. It was going at a hideous speed, leaping its tons of weight
+      insanely from rock ridge to traffic-churned slough in the road; there was
+      only time to note its immensity and uproar and the ranked faces of the
+      men swaying in their places, and it was by, and another was bounding into
+      sight behind it. A hundred and odd of them, each with thirty men on
+      board&mdash;three battalions to reinforce the threatened left wing&mdash;a mighty
+      instrument of war, mightily wielded. It was Russia as she is today, under
+      way and gathering speed.</p>
+
+      <p>At Rennenkampf's headquarters at Wirballen, where formerly one changed
+      trains going from Berlin to Petersburg, one sees the fashion in which
+      Russia shapes for war. Here, beneath a little bridge with a black and
+      white striped sentry box upon it, its muddy banks partitioned with rotten
+      planks into goose-pens, runs that feeble stream which separates Russia
+      from Germany. Upon its further side, what is left of Eydtkuhnen, the
+      Prussian frontier village, looms drearily through its screen of
+      willows&mdash;walls smoke-blackened and roofless, crumbling in piles of fallen
+      brick across its single street, which was dreary enough at its best. To
+      the north and south, and behind to the eastward, are the camps, a city
+      full, a country full of men armed and equipped; the mean and ugly village
+      thrills to the movement and purpose. On the roof of the schoolhouse there
+      lifts itself against the pale Autumn sky the cobweb mast and stays of the
+      wireless apparatus, and in the courtyard below and in the shabby street
+      in front there is a surge of automobiles, motor cycles, mounted
+      orderlies&mdash;all the message-carrying machinery of a staff office. The
+      military telephone wires loop across the street, and spray out in a dozen
+      directions over the flat and trodden fields; for within the dynamic
+      kernel to all this elaborate shell is Rennenkampf, the Prussian-Russian
+      who governs the gate of Germany.</p>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image033-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image033.jpg"
+            alt="Gen. Paul Pau"
+            title="Gen. Paul Pau"/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><span class="bscaps">Gen. Paul Pau</span><br />
+         Commanding one of the French Armies<br />
+         (<i>Photo from Underwood &amp; Underwood</i>.)</p>
+      </div>
+
+      <div class="ctr">
+         <a href="images/image034-full.jpg">
+            <img src="images/image034.jpg"
+            alt="Gen. D'Amade"
+            title="Gen. D'Amade"/>
+         </a>
+         <p class="caption"><span class="bscaps">Gen. D'Amade</span><br />
+         Commanding One of the French Armies<br />
+         (<i>Photo from Bain News Service</i>.)</p>
+      </div>
+
+      <p>Here is the brain of the army. Its limbs go swinging by at all hours,
+      in battalions and brigades, or at the trot, with a jingle of bits and
+      scabbards, or at the walk, with bump and clank, as the gun wheels clear
+      the ruts. It is the infantry&mdash;that fills the eye&mdash;fine, big stuff, man
+      for man the biggest infantry in the world.</p>
+
+      <p>Their uniform of peaked cap, trousers tucked into knee-boots, and
+      khaki blouse is workmanlike, and the serious middle-aged officers
+      trudging beside them are hardly distinguishable from the men. They have
+      not yet learned the use of the short, broad-bladed bayonets; theirs are
+      of the old three-cornered section type with which the Bulgarians drove
+      the Turks to Chataldja; but there is something else that they have
+      learned.  Since the first days of the mobilization that brought them from
+      their homes there is not a man among them that has tasted strong drink.
+      In 1904 the men came drunk from their homes to the centres; one saw them
+      about the streets and on the railways and in the gutters. But these men
+      have been sober from the start, and will perforce be sober to the
+      end.</p>
+
+      <p>Of all that elaborate and copious machinery of war which Russia has
+      built up since her failure in Manchuria there is nothing so impressive as
+      this. Her thousand and odd aeroplanes, her murderously expert artillery,
+      her neat and successful field wireless telegraph, even her strategy,
+      count as secondary to it. The chief of her weaknesses in the past has
+      been the slowness of her mobilization; Germany, with her plans laid and
+      tested for a mobilization in four days, could count on time enough to
+      strike before Russia could move. She used her advantage to effect when
+      Austria planted the seed of this present war by the annexation of Bosnia
+      and Herzegovina; she was able to present Russia in all her unpreparedness
+      with the alternatives of war in twenty-four hours or accepting the
+      situation. But this time it has been different.</p>
+
+      <p>At Petrograd one sees how different. Hither from the northern and
+      eastern Governments come the men who are to swell Rennenkampf's force.
+      Their cadres, the skeletons of the battalions of which they are the
+      flesh, are waiting for them&mdash;officers, organization, equipment, all is
+      ready. The endless trains decant them; they swing in leisurely columns
+      through the streets to their depots, motley as a circus&mdash;foresters,
+      moujiks in fetid sheepskins, cattlemen, and rivermen, Siberians,
+      tow-haired Finns, the wide gamut of the races of Russia, all big or
+      biggish, with those impassive, blunt-featured faces that mask the Russian
+      soul, and all sober. No need now to make men of them before making
+      soldiers; no inferno at the way side-stations and troop trains turning up
+      days late. It is as if, at the cost of those annual 780,000,000 rubles,
+      Russia had bought the clue to victory.</p>
+
+      <p>West beyond Eydtkuhnen, under the pearl-gray northern sky, lies East
+      Prussia. Hereabout it is flat and fertile, with lavish, eye-fatiguing
+      levels of cornland stretching away to Insterburg and beyond to
+      K&ouml;nigsberg's formidable girdle of forts. Here are many villages, and
+      scattered between them innumerable hamlets of only two or three houses,
+      and a small town or two. Most of them are empty now; the German army that
+      leans its back on the Vistula's fortresses has cleared this country like
+      a dancing floor for its work. It has rearranged it as one rearranges the
+      furniture in a room; whole populations have been transported, roads
+      broken, bridges blown up, strategically unnecessary; villages burned.
+      Nothing remains on the ground that has not its purpose assigned&mdash;not even
+      the people, and their purpose has been clear for some time past. The
+      Russians have been over this ground already, and fell back from it after
+      their defeat between Osterode and Allenstein.  Their advance was through
+      villages lifeless and deserted and over empty roads; the retreat was
+      through a country that swarmed with hostile life.  Roads were blocked
+      with farm carts, houses along their route took fire mysteriously,
+      signaling their movement and direction, and answered from afar by other
+      conflagrations; bridges that had been sound enough before blew up at the
+      last moment. What the Belgians were charged with, and their country laid
+      waste for, all East Prussia is organized to do daily as an established
+      and carefully schooled auxiliary to the army.</p>
+
+      <p>A few days since there arrived a prisoner, driven in on foot by a
+      mounted Cossack, sent back by the officer commanding the reconnoissance
+      party which had captured him. He came up the street, shuffling at a quick
+      walk to keep ahead of the horse and the thin, sinister Cossack&mdash;an
+      elderly farmer, in work-stained clothes, with the lean neck and pursed
+      jaws of a hard bargainer. In all his bearing and person there was evident
+      the man of toilsome life who had prospered a little; in that
+      soldier-thronged street, in his posture of a prisoner with the Cossack's
+      revolver at his back, he was conspicuous and grotesque. His eyes, under
+      the gray pent of his brows, were uneasy, and through all his commonplace
+      quality and his show of fortitude there was a gleam of the fear of death
+      that made him tragic. He had been found on his farm doing nothing in
+      particular; it was out of simply general suspicion that the Russian
+      officer had ordered him to be searched. The result was the discovery of a
+      typewritten paper, giving precise instructions as to how a German
+      civilian in East Prussia must act toward the enemy&mdash;how to signal
+      movements of infantry, of cavalry, of artillery; how to estimate the
+      numbers of a body of men, and what to say if questioned, and the like&mdash;a
+      document conceived and executed with true Prussian exactitude and
+      clearness, a masterpiece in the literature of espionage.</p>
+
+      <p>For him there was no hope; even The Hague Convention, which permits
+      mine-laying, does not protect spies, however earnestly and dangerously
+      they serve their country. He passed, always at the same forced shuffle of
+      reluctant feet, toward his judges and his doom.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>Belgian Cities Germanized</h3>
+      <p class="h3"><b>By Cyril Brown,</b></p>
+
+      <p class="h3">Staff Correspondent of <span class="pscaps">The New York Times</span>.</p>
+
+      <p>BRUSSELS, Nov. 4.&mdash;Of all the war capitals of Europe,
+      Brussels under the German occupation is probably the gayest and the most
+      deceptive. It certainly outrivals Berlin in life and brilliancy, as
+      Berlin outshines London. The Germans are free spenders afield; their
+      influx here by thousands has put large sums of money into circulation,
+      resulting in a spell of artificial, perhaps superficial, prosperity.</p>
+
+      <p>The crowds surging all day up and down the principal shopping street,
+      the Rue Neuve, overflow the sidewalks and fill the street. Well-dressed
+      crowds promenade along the circular boulevard all afternoon and into the
+      night. Places of amusement and the caf&eacute;s are crowded. The hundreds of
+      automobiles loaded with officers speeding about the streets, with musical
+      military horns blowing, add to the gay illusion.</p>
+
+      <p>Nowhere save at the Great Headquarters in France, where the Kaiser
+      stays when not haranguing his troops at the front, will you see such a
+      brilliant galaxy of high officers&mdash;and every day seems a holiday in
+      Brussels.</p>
+
+      <p>You catch the sinister undercurrent in the more obscure little caf&eacute;s.
+      Here you will find some Belgian patriot who is glad of the chance to
+      unbosom himself to a safe American. Perhaps he will speak with
+      unprintable bitterness of the shame of the Brussels women who, he says,
+      wave handkerchiefs and smile friendly greetings at the singing troop
+      trains passing through the suburbs on their way to the front, or give
+      flowers and cigars to the returning streams of wounded. They ought to be
+      shot as traitresses, he says. For the honor of the Belgian women, he
+      adds, these form only a small percentage.</p>
+
+      <p>You are not surprised when well-informed neutral residents tell you
+      that these people "have murder in their hearts, and that if the Germans
+      ever retreat in a rout through Belgium, Heaven help the straggler and the
+      rear guard." Nor that copies of English papers, whose reading is
+      forbidden, are nevertheless smuggled in, and that copies of The London
+      Times fetch as high as 200 francs, reading circles being often formed at
+      20 francs per head.</p>
+
+      <p>But there are no hopeful signs here of a German retreat. Brussels has
+      not been "practically evacuated." On the contrary, one gets
+      overwhelmingly the impression that the Germans expect to stay forever.
+      No cannon are posted on commanding avenues or squares. There are no
+      serious measures for the defense of the capital. The military and civil
+      Governments occupy the principal public buildings, and seem to be working
+      with typical German thoroughness. The Government offices begin to assume
+      an air of permanence.</p>
+
+      <p>As conquerors go, the invaders seem to be bearing themselves well.
+      There is apparently no desire to "rub it in," the military Government
+      seemingly pursuing the wise policy of trying to spare the feelings of the
+      natives as much as possible, perhaps in the impossible hope of ultimately
+      conciliating them. German flags are flown sparingly. Only small squads of
+      Landsturm are now occasionally seen marching through the streets. Even
+      from the bitterest Belgians one hears no stories of "insult, shame, or
+      wrong."</p>
+
+      <p>At the same time, swift and harsh punishment is meted out to any one
+      whose actions are thought to tend to impair German military authority or
+      dignity. Thus placards posted on many street corners day before yesterday
+      informed the people that a Belgian city policeman had been sentenced to
+      five years' imprisonment for "interfering with a German official in the
+      discharge of his duty, assaulting a soldier, and attempting to free a
+      prisoner." For this, also, a fine of 5,000,000 france ($1,000,000) was
+      imposed on the City of Brussels. Another policeman was sentenced to three
+      years' imprisonment for alleged similar offenses.</p>
+
+      <p>An interesting history of the German occupation can be reconstructed
+      from these same placards pasted on buildings. Here is one, dating from
+      the early days, forbidding bicycle riding in the country and announcing
+      that civilian cyclists will be shot at sight. If you look long enough you
+      can also find a mutilated specimen of ex-Burgomaster Max's famous
+      "dementi," in which he virtually calls the German Military Governor of
+      Li&eacute;ge and, by implication, the German Government, "liar." The Bruxellois
+      must be fickle and quick to forget, for I did not hear the picturesque
+      Max's name mentioned once.</p>
+
+      <p>The realities of the military occupation are brought home to the
+      people perhaps most at the Gare du Nord and the Place de la Gare, where
+      the Civic Guards, in their curious comic opera caps, are reinforced by
+      German gendarmes with rifles slung over their shoulders. Civilians are
+      not allowed to cross this square in front of the railway station. "Keep
+      to the sidewalk" is the brusque order to those who stray. Also the park
+      in front of the Royal Palace is closed to the public. Three bright red
+      gasoline tank wagons among the trees give it an incongruous touch, while
+      the walks and drives are used as an exercising ground for officers'
+      mounts. All the windows of the Royal Palace are decorated with the sign
+      of the Red Cross.</p>
+
+      <p>Brussels just now is humorously a victim of the double standard&mdash;not
+      moral, but financial. All kinds of money go here on the basis of 1 mark
+      equaling 1 franc 25 centimes, but shopkeepers still fix prices and
+      waiters bring bills in francs, and when payment is tendered in marks you
+      generally get change in both&mdash;a proceeding that involves elaborate
+      mathematical computations. At the next table to you in the restaurant of
+      the Palace Hotel, once a favorite stopping place for Anglo-American
+      travelers, but now virtually an exclusive German officers' club, with the
+      distinction of a double guard posted at the front door, sits a short,
+      fiercely mustached General of some sort&mdash;evidently a person of great
+      importance from the commotion his entry caused among all the other
+      officers in the room. In his buttonhole he wears the Iron Cross of the
+      second class, the Iron Cross of the first class pinned to his breast, and
+      underneath the rare "Pour le Merite Order, with Swords." His bill amounts
+      to about 7 francs, for he consumed the regular 4-franc table d'h&ocirc;te, plus
+      a full bottle of red Burgundy. He tenders a blue 100-mark bill in payment
+      and gets in return a baffling heap of change, including 1 and 2 franc
+      Belgium paper notes, 5 and 10 mark German bills, Belgian and German
+      silver, and Belgian nickel coins with holes punched in the centres. The
+      General takes out his pencil and begins elaborate calculations on the
+      menu&mdash;then sends for the head waiter. It takes some time and much talk to
+      convince him that he is not being "short changed." The double standard
+      furnishes many of these humorous interludes.</p>
+
+      <p>Equally exasperating is the double time standard. The Germans set
+      their official clocks and watches by Berlin time, but have made no
+      attempt to force it on the natives, who continue loyal to Belgian time,
+      which is one hour behind Berlin.</p>
+
+      <p>Brand Whitlock, the American Minister to Belgium, who runs a strong
+      risk of having a statue erected to him some day by the grateful Belgian
+      people, is quite the happiest, most relieved-looking person in Brussels
+      since he heard the good news that all America was hard at work collecting
+      food for the Belgians and that England would not prevent its delivery.
+      Soon after the German occupation of Brussels a committee was organized to
+      give food to the poor here, of which Mr. Whitlock and the Spanish
+      Minister were patrons. Three weeks ago the Ministerial allies discovered
+      that the situation was exceedingly grave, not only here but all over
+      Belgium. Committees came to see Mr. Whitlock from Louvain, Li&eacute;ge, Namur,
+      Charleroi, Mons, Dinant, &amp;c., and the people, I was told, were within
+      four weeks of absolute starvation. Mr. Whitlock got the German Military
+      Governor of Belgium, Field Marshal von der Goltz, to give the Spanish
+      Minister and himself a guarantee in writing that any food sent in for the
+      poor Belgians would not be requisitioned for the German Army.</p>
+
+      <p>The next thing was to get the permission of England; so two weeks ago
+      Secretary Gibson was sent to London with Baron Lambert, a banker, and M.
+      Franqui to get England's permission as well as a first shipment of food.
+      Two weeks ago Mr. Whitlock sent a long letter to the State Department and
+      to President Wilson, asking them to do something. At least one phrase of
+      Mr. Whitlock's coinage has been going the rounds here. In the various
+      preliminary discussions as to whose responsibility it was to take care of
+      the Belgian people there was considerable talk about Hague conventions.
+      "Starving people can't eat Hague conventions" was his answer.</p>
+
+      <p>Minister Whitlock also feels vastly relieved that he has got
+      practically all non-official Americans out of Belgium, the twoscore still
+      here being mostly resident business men, with a sprinkling of the boldest
+      tourists, who are staying "to see the fun," in spite of Ministerial
+      warnings.</p>
+
+      <p>Mr. Whitlock believes he has broken the world's record by being eight
+      Ministers at once. At one time he was representing Germany, Austria,
+      Great Britain, Japan, Servia, Denmark, and Lichtenstein. When he told a
+      German officer that he represented Lichtenstein&mdash;which is said to be a
+      small sovereign State somewhere, dependent on Austria&mdash;the officer
+      laughed and said: "Theoretically, Germany is still at war with
+      Lichtenstein and has been since 1866, it having been overlooked in the
+      peace shuffle." The reason for representing Denmark, which isn't at war
+      with anybody, is that the Danish Minister is equally accredited to
+      Belgium and The Hague, and had no Secretary to leave behind when he
+      departed Hagueward. Of course, the American flag does not fly over the
+      Danish Legation here. In addition, the French and Russian interests were
+      also offered to Mr. Whitlock, but he was so full of responsibility that
+      he had to ask to be excused.</p>
+
+      <hr class="minor" />
+
+      <p>LOUVAIN, Nov. 5.&mdash;Louvain now presents the ghastly
+      spectacle of a dead city, buried under ruins, slowly coming to life
+      again, and continues to give full scope to the morbid streak in human
+      nature; for sightseers continue to flock here in increasing numbers from
+      Antwerp, Brussels, and, in fact, all over Belgium, excepting from over
+      the deadline of the operating zone. With the Bruxellois especially the
+      trip is a favorite outing on a pleasant Sunday. The Germans have
+      succeeded in restoring the train service to the extent of two passenger
+      trains daily between here and Brussels and one between here and Antwerp,
+      and the military authorities pursue a surprisingly liberal policy in
+      giving traveling passes to the Belgian population. In addition to those
+      who come by train, a steady procession of automobiles passes through all
+      day; and next week, when a Berlin-Brussels express service is to be
+      started, the local touring season will have a further boom.</p>
+
+      <p>About 5 per cent of the original population have come crawling back,
+      and the three companies of Landsturm garrisoned here, together with the
+      sightseers, form their source of revenue. The more courageous shopkeepers
+      who have come back and reopened their stores are coining money as never
+      in peace times&mdash;especially the little confectionery and pastry shops,
+      where the soldiers off duty come for afternoon coffee, and the one
+      tailor's shop which is open. Workmen are putting the finishing touches to
+      the new pine-board roof on the cathedral and are making efforts to
+      "restore" the stone exterior. The famous Gothic H&ocirc;tel de Ville is now
+      protected by a high board fence, and two bearded Landsturm men mount
+      guard there day and night. A gang of laborers is making headway in
+      cleaning up the interior of the hopelessly ruined University Library, and
+      the streets are all cleared of d&eacute;bris. The academic halls of the main
+      university building, which suffered little damage, are not silent, for
+      one of the Landsturm companies is quartered there. I found half a hundred
+      of them and two cows in the university quadrangle or campus. The men were
+      all unshaven, but of a good-natured sort, and many were the rough German
+      jokes as they watched a comrade milking the cows preparatory to their
+      slaughter on the spot by the company butcher, who stood in waiting, while
+      at the same time the gray-haired university castellan was getting ready
+      to take a time exposure of the cows.</p>
+
+      <p>"And yet they say we Germans are barbarians," laughed an under
+      officer.  "I bet you won't find that the French soldiers, or the highly
+      civilized English gentlemen, either, have a photographer come to take a
+      picture of the cows they are about to eat."</p>
+
+      <p>The venerable university guardian continued to do a brisk business
+      making group pictures and solo portraits of Landsturm under officers and
+      men at two francs per dozen postcards, till a Lieutenant appeared on the
+      scene and the bugle sounded in the court for "boot inspection." All
+      promptly lined up in double file against the brick university wall and
+      presented feet for the critical eye of the inspector&mdash;all except the
+      company cooks, who were busy among their pots and pans and open-air cook
+      stoves set up in the academic stone portico.</p>
+
+      <p>The last of the former students of the University of Louvain was
+      probably the well-dressed, meek-looking young Chinese, eating luncheon at
+      the near-by restaurant&mdash;the only one open in town. The German soldiers,
+      fortunately, did not mistake him for a Japanese, and he has not been
+      molested.</p>
+
+      <p>There are touches of grim humor among the ruins. Here on the main
+      street, for example, is a pink placard stuck on a stick on top of the
+      heap of brick and mortar that was once a store. It reads: "Elegant
+      corsets: Removed to Rue Malines 21." And again, on a number of houses
+      that escaped the torch are pasted neatly printed little signs bearing the
+      legend: "This house is to be protected. Soldiers are not allowed to enter
+      houses or to set fire to them without orders from the Kommandantur."</p>
+
+      <p>The inhabitants who have no stores to keep seem continually to wander
+      aimlessly in the streets; and here, too, is the sight, common now all
+      over Belgium, of many women with children begging. Especially they linger
+      around the entrances to the barracks, for hunger has given them a keen
+      nose for bread, and they have soon learned that the soldier will give
+      them what they have left over from their ample rations. The German
+      Government is trying to stimulate the return of the population, and is
+      apparently doing its best to help them to earn a living by providing
+      work.</p>
+
+      <hr class="minor" />
+
+      <p>ANTWERP, Nov. 6.&mdash;The Germans are working incessantly
+      to repair the fortifications of Antwerp, mount new and heavier guns, and
+      put the whole place into a state of defense. The importance attached to
+      their almost feverish activities is indicated by the fact that Field
+      Marshal von der Goltz, the Military Governor of Belgium, ran over from
+      Brussels and made a tour of inspection of the double girdle of forts
+      yesterday. His Excellency von Frankenberg and Ludwigsdorf, Personal
+      Adjutant of the Military Governor of Antwerp, said to me in the course of
+      a cordial interview:</p>
+
+      <p>"We have two principal interests in our work here: First, that Antwerp
+      shall become a place of great military importance again and be prepared
+      against attacks from the enemy, although that contingency doesn't seem
+      very probable."</p>
+
+      <p>His Excellency was unwilling to hazard a guess as to how long the
+      Germans could hold Antwerp against an allied siege, but said: "I believe
+      we could hold out longer against the Allies than they did against the
+      Germans. Our second interest is to revive trade and industry and the life
+      of the city generally. When we first came here there were only soldiers
+      and hungry dogs on the streets; now, as you can see, the dead city is
+      coming to life in short order."</p>
+
+      <p>He scouted the idea that the people of Belgium had been or were on the
+      brink of starvation as the result of German occupation, saying that the
+      very contrary was the case. "Belgium is a country which cannot sustain
+      itself&mdash;it produces only enough food for roughly 3,000,000 out of its
+      5,000,000 population, because Belgium is an industrial country, and food
+      for the remaining 2,000,000 has to be imported. Heretofore most of this
+      food has come from Holland, whence some is still coming, but in no great
+      quantity. We have taken the problem of food supply up with the Belgian
+      Government, as much as there is one left, namely, with the
+      municipalities, and at our suggestion an 'Intercommunistic Commission'
+      has been organized, so that everything possible can be done to help the
+      country. This commission sits in Brussels, and when any town or village
+      or district has no more food on hand the fact is reported and it gets
+      from the commission what is required. What food supplies we found here we
+      took charge of to prevent their being plundered, and also because we, as
+      a belligerent, had to supply our own necessities; that is the right of
+      war. But by no means have we used up all the food supplies ourselves, nor
+      set them aside for our own use; but a large part has been set aside for
+      this commission, to be used for the poor, and another part will be given
+      back in a short time for trade purposes, so that commerce will be revived
+      again.</p>
+
+      <p>"There is no place in Belgium where the people have starved. Their
+      most pressing need now would appear to be money, for many are unemployed
+      and many others disinclined to work. At one place where we were told the
+      people were starving we found stores crammed full of food&mdash;but the
+      inhabitants had no money and the shopkeepers wouldn't give them
+      credit.</p>
+
+      <p>"Everything is being done by us to revive business so that the people
+      can again earn money. If America had not been so tender-hearted as to
+      send foodstuffs, and if the food supply had run out, we should certainly
+      have considered it our duty to bring food from Germany, for we are for
+      the time being the Government here, and it is our duty to see that the
+      people do not starve."</p>
+
+      <p>German newspaper readers are not aware that their Kaiser had a narrow
+      escape from the bombs of the Allies' airmen at Thielt, for the fact of
+      the War Lord's recent invasion of Belgium has been kept as nearly a dead
+      secret as possible. I learned from an especially well-informed source in
+      Brussels that the object of the Kaiser's visit was not only to encourage
+      his troops but to reprove his Generals. According to this informant, who
+      is frequently in touch with high officers in their more mellow moods,
+      when military reticence somewhat relaxes, the Kaiser was said to be in a
+      towering rage at the failure of his army to make headway against the
+      English and Belgians on the coast, and to have decided to go in person to
+      see about it; also there has been considerable cautiously veiled
+      criticism of his persistent "interference" in the conduct of the
+      campaign.</p>
+
+      <p>Having last seen the Kaiser two weeks ago motoring at the German Great
+      Headquarters in Eastern France, I picked up his trail at Louvain, through
+      which place he passed by night a week ago in a special train in the
+      direction of Lille, after a scouting pilot engine had returned and
+      reported "all safe." On his return journey from Flanders he was rumored
+      to have "put up" at the Palais d'Arenberg in Brussels.</p>
+
+      <p>It is significant that the following notice has been placarded on the
+      outside of the building occupied by the Military Government, next door to
+      the Hotel St. Antoine: "Reports that the French and English are marching
+      on Antwerp are without foundation; the public is warned against helping
+      to circulate these false reports." All day crowds hang about the door
+      where this notice is posted among official German news bulletins.  The
+      burghers of Antwerp are well informed about the varying fortunes of the
+      war, for several papers printed in French are allowed to appear, under
+      the German censorship, which seems surprisingly easygoing here and
+      eminently fair, allowing them to print not merely the official German
+      accounts circulated by the Wolff Bureau, but the official English,
+      French, Russian, and even Belgian bulletins as well, in addition to
+      matter copied from the Dutch papers, which are also allowed to circulate
+      here.</p>
+
+      <p>If things look doubtful in the north, the Germans are looking
+      confidently to the south, where the next big victory is hoped for. I
+      learn that Gen. von Beseler, "the conqueror of Antwerp," as his popular
+      picture postcard title reads, is now in charge of operations around
+      Verdun, and that four of the new 42-centimeter mortars, in addition to
+      more than thirty of the 30.5-centimeter, are already in place there. On
+      the strength of this combination well-informed German officers
+      confidently expect the quick fall of Verdun as soon as Beseler gives the
+      order for the "Brummers" to speak&mdash;rather high-priced oratory, for I was
+      told by an artillery officer that it cost the taxpayers 36,000 marks
+      ($9,000) every time one of the 42-centimeter mortars was fired.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>The Belgian Ruin</h3>
+      <p class="h3"><b>By J.H. Whitehouse, M.P.</b></p>
+
+      <p class="h3">[An Associated Press Interview, Published Oct. 2,
+      1914.]</p>
+
+      <p>LONDON, Oct. 1.&mdash;A graphic picture of the desolation
+      of Belgium was brought to London today by J.H. Whitehouse, member of
+      Parliament from Lanarkshire, who has just returned from a tour around
+      Antwerp for the purpose of assisting in the relief measures.</p>
+
+      <p>"Having always regarded war as the negation of all that is good," said
+      Mr. Whitehouse tonight, "I desired to see what its ravages were in a
+      country exposed to all its fury, and what steps were possible to mitigate
+      them. I do not think that any one here has realized the plight of the
+      civilian population of Belgium today, and can only attempt to give any
+      picture of this by describing some of my own experiences."</p>
+
+      <p>Mr. Whitehouse made the journey outside Antwerp with two military
+      cars, attended by Belgian officials. In describing the damage which he
+      says the Belgians had to inflict upon themselves to supplement the
+      defenses of Antwerp, he said:</p>
+
+      <p>"Hundreds of thousands of trees had been cut down, so that at some
+      points of our journey we had the impression of passing through a
+      wilderness of roots. The tree trunks had all been removed so as to afford
+      no cover to the enemy. All houses had been blown up or otherwise
+      destroyed. Later we passed through the country which had been flooded as
+      a further measure of defense. The damage resulting from these
+      precautionary measures alone amounted to &pound;10,000,000, ($50,000,000.)</p>
+
+      <p>"In the villages all ordinary life was arrested. Women and children
+      were standing or sitting dumb and patient by the roadside. Half way to
+      Termonde we could plainly hear the booming of guns and saw many evidences
+      of the battle which was then raging.</p>
+
+      <p>"I had read newspaper accounts of the destruction of Termonde and had
+      seen photographs, but they had not conveyed to my mind any realization of
+      the horror of what actually happened. Termonde a few weeks ago was a
+      beautiful city of about 16,000 inhabitants&mdash;a city in which the dignity
+      of its buildings harmonized with the natural beauty of its situation, a
+      city which contained some buildings of surpassing interest.</p>
+
+      <p>"I went through street after street, square after square, and I found
+      every house entirely destroyed with all its contents. It was not the
+      result of the bombardment; it was systematic destruction. In each house a
+      separate bomb had been placed, which had blown up the interior and set
+      fire to the contents. All that remained in every case were portions of
+      the outer walls, which were still constantly falling, and inside the
+      cinders of the contents of the buildings. Not a shred of furniture or
+      anything else remained.</p>
+
+      <p>"This sight continued throughout the entire extent of what had been a
+      considerable town. It had an indescribable influence upon observers which
+      no printed description or even pictorial record could give. This
+      influence was increased by the utter silence of the city, broken only by
+      the sound of the guns.</p>
+
+      <p>"Of the population I thought that not a soul remained. I was wrong,
+      for as we turned into a square where the wreck of what had been one of
+      the most beautiful of Gothic churches met my eyes a blind woman and her
+      daughter groped among the ruins. They were the sole living creatures in
+      the whole town.</p>
+
+      <p>"Shops, factories, churches, and houses of the wealthy&mdash;all were
+      similarly destroyed. One qualification only have I to make of this
+      statement: Two or perhaps three houses bore the German command in chalk
+      that they were not to be burned. These remained standing, but deserted,
+      amid the ruins on either side. Where a destroyed house had obviously
+      contained articles of value looting had taken place.</p>
+
+      <p>"I inquired what had become of the population. It was a question to
+      which no direct reply could be given. They had fled in all directions.
+      Some had reached Antwerp, but a greater number were wandering about the
+      country, panic-stricken and starving. Many were already dead.</p>
+
+      <p>"What happened at Termonde was similar to what had happened in other
+      parts of Belgium under military occupation of Germany. The result is that
+      conditions have been set up for the civilian population throughout the
+      occupied territory of unexampled misery. Comparatively few refugees have
+      reached this country. Others remain wandering about Belgium, flocking
+      into other towns and villages, or flying to points a little way across
+      the Dutch frontier.</p>
+
+      <p>"Sometimes when a town has been bombarded the Germans have withdrawn
+      and the civilians have returned to their homes, only to flee again at the
+      renewed attack. A case in point is Malines, which, on Sunday last, as I
+      was about to try to reach it, was again bombarded. The inhabitants were
+      then unable to leave, as the town was surrounded, but when the
+      bombardment ceased there was a great exodus.</p>
+
+      <p>"The whole life of the nation has been arrested. Food supplies which
+      would ordinarily reach the civilian population are being taken by the
+      German troops for their own support. The peasants and poor are without
+      the necessities of life, and conditions of starvation grow more acute
+      every day. Even where there is a supply of wheat available the peasants
+      are not allowed to use their windmills, owing to the German fear that
+      they will send signals to the Belgian Army.</p>
+
+      <p>"We are, therefore, face to face with a fact which has rarely, if
+      ever, occurred in the history of the world&mdash;an entire nation is in a
+      state of famine, and that within half a day's journey of our own
+      shores.</p>
+
+      <p>"The completeness of the destruction in each individual case was
+      explained to me later by the Belgian Ministers, who described numerous
+      appliances which the German soldiers carried for destroying property.
+      Not only were hand bombs of various sizes and descriptions carried, but
+      each soldier was supplied with a quantity of small black disks a little
+      bigger than a sixpenny piece. I saw some of these disks which had been
+      taken from German soldiers on the field of battle. These were described
+      to me as composed of compressed benzine. When lighted they burned
+      brilliantly for a few minutes, and are sufficient to start whatever fire
+      is necessary after the explosion of a bomb.</p>
+
+      <p>"To the conditions of famine and homelessness which exist on such a
+      stupendous scale there must be added one which is bad&mdash;the mental panic
+      in which many survivors remain. I understood how inevitable this was when
+      I saw and heard what they passed through; eyewitnesses of unimpeachable
+      character described the sufferings of women and children at Li&eacute;ge. As
+      they fled from their burning houses, clinging to their husbands and
+      fathers, they were violently pulled from them and saw them shot a few
+      yards from them.</p>
+
+      <p>"I should supplement what I have said regarding the condition of
+      Belgium with some reference to Antwerp itself, where the excited
+      Government now sits. It is a wonderful contrast to the rest of the
+      country, and the first impression of the visitor is that there is little
+      change between its life now and in the days of peace. I approached it by
+      water, and in the early morning it rose before me like a fairy city. Its
+      skyline was beautifully broken by the spires and towers of its churches,
+      including the incomparable Gothic Cathedral.</p>
+
+      <p>"When I entered its shops were open, its streets crowded, and
+      everywhere there was eager activity. By midday the streets became
+      congested. Early editions of the papers were eagerly bought and great
+      crowds assembled wherever a telegram giving news could be read. This
+      continued until early evening, but by 8 o'clock a most extraordinary
+      change had fallen upon the city.</p>
+
+      <p>"Not a light of any kind in house or shop was to be seen. No lamps
+      were lit in the streets and the city was plunged into absolute darkness.
+      Not a soul remained in the streets. To the darkness there was added
+      profound silence. It was as though this amazing city had been suddenly
+      blotted out."</p>
+
+
+      <h3>The Wounded Serb</h3>
+
+      <p class="h3">[From The London Times, Oct. 18, 1914.]</p>
+
+      <p class="right">VALIEVO, Sept. 25.</p>
+
+      <p>Valievo lies at the terminus of a narrow-gauge
+      railway which joins the Belgrade-Salonika line at Mladinovatz. Along this
+      single track of iron road the entire transport of the Servian Army is
+      being effected.  Westward come trains packed with food, fodder,
+      munitions, and troops; eastward go long convoys crowded with maimed
+      humanity. At Mladinovatz all this mass of commissariat and suffering must
+      needs be transferred from or to the broad-gauge line. In this situation
+      lies not the least of the problems which beset the Servians in their
+      struggle with the Austrian invaders.</p>
+
+      <p>Valievo itself is a picturesque little town which in peace time is
+      famous as the centre of the Servian prune trade. Its cobbled streets are,
+      in the main, spacious and well planned. There still remain a few relics
+      of the Turkish occupation&mdash;overhanging eaves, trellised windows, and the
+      like&mdash;but these one must needs seek in the by-ways. I picture Valievo
+      under normal conditions as one of the most attractive of Balkan
+      townships.</p>
+
+      <p>Nor has the tableau lost anything in the framing, for it is encircled
+      by a molding of verdant hills which run off into a sweep of seeming
+      endless woods. The vista from my hotel window is almost aggravatingly
+      English.  Across the red-tiled roofs of intervening cottages rises the
+      hillside&mdash;a checkerboard of grassy slopes and patches of woodland
+      intersected by a brown road which runs upward until the summit,
+      surmounted by a whitewashed shrine, amid a cluster of walnut trees,
+      touches the gray sky.</p>
+
+      <p>But Valievo is not now to be seen under normal conditions. From the
+      street below rises the sound of clatter and creak as the rude oxen wagons
+      bump over the cobblestones. Morning, noon, and night they rumble along
+      unceasingly, and whenever I look down I see martial figures clad in
+      tattered, muddy, and blood-stained uniforms, with rudely bandaged body or
+      head or foot. Every now and then a woman breaks from the crowd of waiting
+      loiterers and rushes up to a maimed acquaintance. They exchange but a few
+      sentences, and then she turns, buries her head in her apron, and stumbles
+      along the street wailing a bitter lament for some husband, brother, or
+      son who shall return no more. A friend supports and leads her home; but
+      the onlooking soldiers regard the scene with indifference and snap out a
+      rude advice "not to make a fuss." They brook no wailing for Serbs who
+      have died for Servia.</p>
+
+      <p>The town itself has been transformed into one huge camp of wounded.
+      All adaptable buildings&mdash;halls, caf&eacute;s, school-rooms&mdash;have been rapidly
+      commandeered for hospitals. Sometimes there are beds, more often rudely
+      made straw mattresses, for little Servia, worn out by two hard wars, is
+      ill-equipped to resist the onslaught of a great power. For 16 days a
+      fierce battle has been raging near the frontier, and wounded have been
+      pouring in much more rapidly than accommodation can be found for
+      them.</p>
+
+      <p>And in the streets&mdash;what misery! The lame, the halt, the maimed. Men
+      with damaged leg or foot hopping along painfully by the aid of a friendly
+      baton; men nursing broken arms or shattered hands; men with bandaged
+      heads; men being carried from operating shops to caf&eacute; floors; men with
+      body wounds lying on stretchers&mdash;all with ragged, blood-bespattered
+      remnants of what once were uniforms. One sees little of the glory of war
+      in Valievo. The Servian Medical Staff, deprived on this occasion of
+      outside assistance, and short alike of doctors, surgeons, nurses, and
+      material, is striving heroically to cope with its task. Where they have
+      been able to equip hospitals the work has been very creditably done. One
+      building is almost exclusively devoted to cases where amputations have
+      been necessary. It is clean, orderly, and the patients are obviously well
+      cared for. Here, when I entered a ward of some thirty beds in which every
+      man lay with a bandaged stump where his leg should be, I think I saw the
+      Servian spirit at its best. They had been newly operated upon, their
+      sufferings must have been great, and for them all the future is black
+      with forebodings. There is no patriotic fund in little Servia. Yet amid
+      all the pain of body and uncertainty of mind that must have been theirs
+      they did not complain. All they desired to know was whether the Schwaba
+      (Austrians) had been beaten out of Servia.</p>
+
+      <p>But it is when one leaves the organized hospitals and wends one's way
+      through the crowds of wounded who block the pavements, and enters a
+      lower-class caf&eacute;, that the appalling tragedy of it all fills even the
+      spectator with a sense of hopelessness. There, like cattle upon their bed
+      of straw, lie sufferers from all manner of hurts. They remain mute and
+      uncomplaining, just as they have been dropped down from the incoming oxen
+      transports. Their wounds&mdash;three, four, or five days old&mdash;have yet
+      received no attention save the primitive first-aid of the battlefield.
+      Blood poisoning is setting in; limbs that prompt dressing would have
+      saved are fast becoming victims for the surgeon's knife. Most of them
+      know the risk they run, for this is their third war&mdash;often, too, their
+      third wound&mdash;in two short years. Yet the doctors cannot come, because
+      every man of them is already doing more than human energy allows. It is a
+      heartrending sight to look down upon this helpless mass and to realize
+      that many of them have been sentenced to painful death for mere lack of
+      primitive medical attention.</p>
+
+      <p>One wonders whether, now that half Europe has been transformed into a
+      vast slaughterhouse, appeals for sympathy can be other than in vain.</p>
+
+
+      <div class="poem">
+         <div class="title">Another "Happy Thought."</div>
+         <div class="author">By Winifred Arnold.</div>
+         <div class="stanza">
+            <div>The world is so full</div>
+            <div class="i1">Of a number of Kings!&mdash;</div>
+            <div>That's probably what is the</div>
+            <div class="i1">Matter with things.</div>
+         </div>
+      </div>
+
+
+      <h2>Spy Organization in England</h2>
+      <p class="h2">British Home Office Communication, Oct. 9.</p>
+
+      <p>In view of the anxiety naturally felt by the public
+      with regard to the system of espionage on which Germany has placed so
+      much reliance and to which attention has been directed by recent reports
+      from the seat of war, it may be well to state briefly the steps which the
+      Home Office, acting on behalf of the Admiralty and War Office, has taken
+      to deal with the matter in this country. The secrecy which it has
+      hitherto been desirable in the public interest to observe on certain
+      points cannot any longer be maintained owing to the evidence which it is
+      necessary to produce in cases against spies that are now pending.</p>
+
+      <p>It was clearly ascertained five or six years ago that the Germans were
+      making great efforts to establish a system of espionage in this country,
+      and in order to trace and thwart these efforts a Special Intelligence
+      Department was established by the Admiralty and the War Office which has
+      ever since acted in the closest co-operation with the Home Office and
+      metropolitan police and the principal provincial police forces. In 1911,
+      by the passing of the Official Secrets act, 1911, the law with regard to
+      espionage, which had hitherto been confused and defective, was put on a
+      clear basis and extended so as to embrace every possible mode of
+      obtaining and conveying to the enemy information which might be useful in
+      war.</p>
+
+      <p>The Special Intelligence Department, supported by all the means which
+      could be placed at its disposal by the Home Secretary, was able in three
+      years, from 1911 to 1914, to discover the ramifications of the German
+      Secret Service in England. In spite of enormous efforts and lavish
+      expenditure of money by the enemy, little valuable information passed
+      into their hands. The agents, of whose identity knowledge was obtained by
+      the Special Intelligence Department, were watched and shadowed without,
+      in general, taking any hostile action or allowing them to know that their
+      movements were watched. When, however, any actual step was taken to
+      convey plans or documents of importance from this country to Germany, the
+      spy was arrested, and in such case evidence sufficient to secure his
+      conviction was usually found in his possession. Proceedings under the
+      Official Secrets act were taken by the Director of Public Prosecutions,
+      and in six cases sentences were passed varying from eighteen months to
+      six years' penal servitude. At the same time steps were taken to mark
+      down and keep under observation all the agents known to be engaged in
+      this traffic, so that when any necessity arose the police might lay hands
+      on them at once; and, accordingly, on the 4th of August, before the
+      declaration of war, instructions were given by the Home Secretary for the
+      arrest of twenty known spies, and all were arrested. This figure does not
+      cover a large number&mdash;upward of 200&mdash;who were noted as under suspicion or
+      to be kept under special observation.  The great majority of these were
+      interned at or soon after the declaration of war.</p>
+
+      <p>None of the men arrested in pursuance of the orders issued on Aug. 4
+      has yet been brought to trial, partly because the officers whose evidence
+      would have been required were engaged in urgent duties in the early days
+      of the war, but mainly because the prosecution by disclosing the means
+      adopted to track out the spies and prove their guilt would have hampered
+      the Intelligence Department in its further efforts. They were and still
+      are held as prisoners under the powers given to the Secretary of State by
+      the Aliens Restriction act. One of them, however, who established a claim
+      to British nationality, has now been formally charged; and, the reasons
+      for delay no longer existing, it is a matter for consideration whether
+      the same course should now be taken with regard to some of the other
+      known spies.</p>
+
+      <p>Although this action taken on August 4 is believed to have broken up
+      the spy organization which had been established before the war, it is
+      still necessary to take the most rigorous measures to prevent the
+      establishment of any fresh organization and to deal with individual spies
+      who might previously have been working in this country outside the
+      organization, or who might be sent here under the guise of neutrals after
+      the declaration of war. In carrying this out the Home Office and War
+      Office have now the assistance of the cable censorship, and also of the
+      postal censorship, which, established originally to deal with
+      correspondence with Germany and Austria, has been gradually extended (as
+      the necessary staff could be obtained) so as to cover communications with
+      those neutral countries through which correspondence might readily pass
+      to Germany or Austria. The censorship has been extremely effective in
+      stopping secret communications by cable or letter with the enemy, but as
+      its existence was necessarily known to them it has not, except in a few
+      instances, produced materials for the detection of espionage.</p>
+
+      <p>On Aug. 5 the Aliens Restriction act was passed, and within an hour of
+      its passing an order in council was made which gave the Home Office and
+      the police stringent powers to deal with aliens, and especially enemy
+      aliens, who under this act could be stopped from entering or leaving the
+      United Kingdom, and were prohibited while residing in this country from
+      having in their possession any wireless or signaling apparatus of any
+      kind, or any carrier or homing pigeons. Under this order all those
+      districts where the Admiralty or War Office considered it undesirable
+      that enemy aliens should reside have been cleared by the police of
+      Germans and Austrians, with the exception of a few persons, chiefly women
+      and children, whose character and antecedents are such that the local
+      Chief Constable, in whose discretion the matter is vested by the order,
+      considered that all ground for suspicion was precluded. At the same time
+      the Post Office, acting under the powers given them by the Wireless
+      Telegraphy acts, dismantled all private wireless stations; and they
+      established a special system of wireless detection by which any station
+      actually used for the transmission of messages from this country could be
+      discovered. The police have co-operated successfully in this matter with
+      the Post Office.</p>
+
+      <p>New and still more stringent powers for dealing with espionage were
+      given by the Defense of the Realm act, which was passed by the Home
+      Secretary through the House of Commons and received the Royal Assent on
+      Aug. 8. Orders in council have been made under this act which prohibit,
+      in the widest possible terms, any attempt on the part either of aliens or
+      of British subjects to communicate any information which "is calculated
+      to be or might be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy"; and any
+      person offending against this prohibition is liable to be tried by
+      court-martial and sentenced to penal servitude for life. The effect of
+      these orders is to make espionage a military offense. Power is given both
+      to the police and to the military authorities to arrest without a warrant
+      any person whose behavior is such as to give rise to suspicion, and any
+      person so arrested by the police would be handed over to the military
+      authorities for trial by court-martial. Only in the event of the military
+      authorities holding that there is no prima facie case of espionage or any
+      other offense triable by military law is a prisoner handed back to the
+      civil authorities to consider whether he should be charged with failing
+      to register or with any other offense under the Aliens Restriction
+      act.</p>
+
+      <p>The present position is therefore that espionage has been made by
+      statute a military offense triable by court-martial. If tried under the
+      Defense of the Realm act the maximum punishment is penal servitude for
+      life; but if dealt with outside that act as a war crime the punishment of
+      death can be inflicted.</p>
+
+      <p>At the present moment one case is pending in which a person charged
+      with attempting to convey information to the enemy is now awaiting his
+      trial by court-martial; but in no other case has any clear trace been
+      discovered of any attempt to convey information to the enemy, and there
+      is good reason to believe that the spy organization crushed at the
+      outbreak of the war has not been re-established.</p>
+
+      <p>How completely that system had been suppressed in the early days of
+      the war is clear from the fact disclosed in a German Army order&mdash;that on
+      the 21st of August the German military commanders were still ignorant of
+      the dispatch and movements of the British expeditionary force, although
+      these had been known for many days to a large number of people in this
+      country.</p>
+
+      <p>The fact, however, of this initial success does not prevent the
+      possibility of fresh attempts at espionage being made, and there is no
+      relaxation in the efforts of the Intelligence Department and of the
+      police to watch and detect any attempts in this direction. In carrying
+      out their duties the military and police authorities would expect that
+      persons having information of cases of suspected espionage would
+      communicate the grounds of the suspicion to local military authority or
+      to the local police, who are in direct communication with the Special
+      Intelligence Department, instead of causing unnecessary public alarm and
+      possibly giving warning to the spies by public speeches or letters to the
+      press. In cases in which the Director of Public Prosecutions has appealed
+      to the authors of such letters and speeches to supply him with the
+      evidence upon which their statements were founded in order that he might
+      consider the question of prosecuting the offender, no evidence of any
+      value has as yet been forthcoming.</p>
+
+      <p>Among other measures which have been taken has been the registration,
+      by order of the Secretary of State made under the Defense of the Realm
+      act, of all persons keeping carrier or homing pigeons. The importation
+      and the conveyance by rail of these birds have been prohibited, and, with
+      the valuable assistance of the National Homing Union, a system of
+      registration has been extended to the whole of the United Kingdom, and
+      measures have been taken which, it is believed, will be effective to
+      prevent the possibility of any birds being kept in this country which
+      would fly to the Continent.</p>
+
+      <p>Another matter which has engaged the closest attention of the police
+      has been the possibility of conspiracies to commit outrage. No trace
+      whatever has been discovered of any such conspiracy, and no outrage of
+      any sort has yet been committed by any alien&mdash;not even telegraph wires
+      having been maliciously cut since the beginning of the war. Nevertheless
+      it has been necessary to bear in mind the possibility that such a secret
+      conspiracy might exist or might be formed among alien enemies resident in
+      this country. Accordingly, immediately after the commencement of
+      hostilities, rigorous search was made by the police in the houses of
+      Germans and Austrians, in their clubs, and in all places where they were
+      likely to resort. In a few cases individuals were found who were in
+      possession of a gun or pistol which they had not declared, and in one or
+      two cases there were small collections of ancient firearms, and in such
+      cases the offenders have been prosecuted and punished; but no store of
+      effective arms&mdash;still less any bombs or instruments of destruction&mdash;have
+      so far been discovered. From the beginning any Germans or Austrians who
+      were deemed by the police to be likely to be dangerous were apprehended,
+      handed over to the military authorities, and detained as prisoners of
+      war; and, as soon as the military authorities desired it, general action
+      was taken to arrest and hand over to military custody Germans of military
+      age, subject to exceptions which have properly been made on grounds of
+      policy. About 9,000 Germans and Austrians of military age have been so
+      arrested and are held as prisoners of war in detention camps, and among
+      them are included those who are regarded by the police as likely in any
+      possible event to take part in any outbreak of disorder or
+      incendiarism.</p>
+
+
+      <h2>Chronology of the War</h2>
+      <p class="h2"><b>Showing Progress of Campaigns on All Fronts and
+         Collateral Events to and Including Oct. 15, 1914.
+         <a name="FNanchorA"></a><a href="#FootnoteA" class="fnref">A</a>
+      </b></p>
+
+
+      <h3>CAMPAIGN IN EASTERN EUROPE</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 21&mdash;Situation threatens European war; fear that
+      Russia will aid Servia.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 23&mdash;Austria sends ultimatum to Servia; Austrian
+      Army Corps mobilized at Temesvar, and fleet gathers at Semlin.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 24&mdash;Russia will ask Austria to extend time for
+      Servia's reply to ultimatum; Austria will brook no interference.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 25&mdash;Servia's reply to ultimatum unsatisfactory;
+      Russian Army mobilizing.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 26&mdash;Servian Army mobilizing; Russian warning to
+      Germany.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 27&mdash;Austrian Army invades Servia; Servians blow
+      up bridge across Danube; report of mobilizing of Montenegrin Army;
+      Austria denounces Servia's reply to ultimatum; Cossacks fire on Germans
+      at frontier.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 28&mdash;Austria declares war on Servia and Emperor
+      issues manifesto; fighting along River Drina; Russian forces mass on
+      eastern border.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 29&mdash;Russian intervention imminent; Austrians
+      bombard Belgrade; Servians blow up bridges at Semlin.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 30&mdash;Kaiser calls on Russia to halt mobilization
+      within twenty-four hours; war activity in Warsaw; Austrians repulsed at
+      Losnitza; Montenegrins occupy Cattaro.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 31&mdash;Russians blow up railway bridge on
+      Vienna-Warsaw line; Servians check Austrians at Semendria and on Bosnian
+      frontier; France replies to German note about Russia; Czar, Kaiser, and
+      King George may yet arrange peace; following Council of Ministers at
+      Peterhof, Russia sends no reply to German note and calls out reserves;
+      France and England still trying to adjust matters between Russia and
+      Austria; Russian mobilization order; Austria orders military and naval
+      mobilization.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 1&mdash;Germany declares war on Russia, Kaiser signs
+      mobilization order; German patrol near Prostken fired on by Russians.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 2&mdash;Russians cross German frontier and seize
+      railroad station: Montenegrin King signs mobilization order.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 3&mdash;Germans seize three cities in Russian Poland;
+      Czar calls Russians to war; fighting on Drina River.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 4&mdash;Russians defeated in attack on Memel; Serbs
+      defeat Austrians near Semendria; Turkey mobilizes.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 5&mdash;Austria declares war on Russia; Russian
+      patrols raid East Prussia; Servian flag hoisted at Delarme, Austria;
+      Belgrade bombarded; Germans repulse Russian cavalry at Soldau and
+      Neidenberg.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 7&mdash;Montenegro declares war against Austria;
+      Austrians bombard Belgrade; Servians annihilate Austrian regiment.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 8&mdash;Servia declares war on Germany; fighting
+      between Germans and Russians at Eydtkuhnen; German force lands in
+      Finland; Austrians evacuate Visigard; Austrians burn Russian villages
+      near Rumanian border.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 9&mdash;Russians repulsed by Germans near Tilsit;
+      Germans capture motor cars carrying money to Russia; Russians enter
+      Austria; Austrians occupy town and customs station of Andrejew, Russian
+      Poland; Turkey
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'mobolizing']">mobilizing</ins>
+      on Bulgarian frontier.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 10&mdash;Montenegrins occupy Scutari; Belgrade again
+      bombarded; Servians penetrate Bosnia; Austrians bombard Antivari; Germans
+      concentrate on Russian frontier.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 11&mdash;Russians guard Finland; Russian cavalry
+      routs Austrians in Galicia; Italy demands explanation from Austria of
+      bombardment of Antivari; Russians advance into Germany.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 12&mdash;German attempt to reoccupy Eydtkuhnen
+      unsuccessful; Austrians and Germans defeated on Russian frontier; Russian
+      visitors to German health resorts tell of ill-treatment; Servians and
+      Montenegrins advance on Bosnia; Prince George of Servia wounded.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 13&mdash;Russians capture Sokal; Cossacks annihilate
+      two Austrian-cavalry regiments; German troops before Kalisz threaten to
+      shoot every tenth inhabitant if further resistance is shown.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 14&mdash;Russians defeat Austrians on the Dniester;
+      unrest in Turkey.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 15&mdash;Berlin reports capture of 23 Russian
+      Generals and Admirals by Germans; Greece wants explanation from Turkey of
+      concentration of troops near border; Russians raid East Prussia; fighting
+      between Austrians and Servians on the Save and the Danube; Turkish
+      Ambassador says Turkey was not hostile in buying German cruisers.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 16&mdash;Germans fail to retake Eydtkuhnen.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 17&mdash;Russia demands of Turkey unrestricted use of
+      Dardanelles; prisoners a problem for both sides; Russian Army marches on
+      Austria and Germany; minor engagements on frontier; Servians check
+      Austrians' advance; Greece hears that Turkish troops are approaching and
+      sends warning that corresponding measures will be taken.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 18&mdash;Servia reports Austrian defeat near
+      Saboc.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 19&mdash;Austrians defeated by Serbs at Shabats;
+      Russians report victory over Austrians in Padolia; Germans report capture
+      of Russians in East Prussia; Russians driven out of Germany; Italian
+      refugees complain of German outrages.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 20&mdash;Russians occupy Gumbinnen and Lyck in East
+      Prussia; Austrians occupy Miechow, Russian Poland.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 21&mdash;Serbs defeat Austrians in four days' battle
+      near Losnitza; Russians successfully advance on Austro-German
+      frontier.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 22&mdash;Russians report continued successes on
+      Austro-German frontier; Servians report capture of Austrian guns in
+      pursuit of defeated force across the Drina.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 23&mdash;Russian Army pushes fifty miles into
+      Prussia, capturing three towns; Servian version of victory at Losnitza
+      confirmed in Rome; Montenegrins continue attack.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 24&mdash;Austria abandons Servian campaign to meet
+      Russian attack; two Russian armies crush Germans in the east; retreating
+      armies lay waste the country.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 25&mdash;Russians spread on broad front over East
+      Prussia and Galicia and repulse Austrians at Kielce; Germans report
+      Russian defeat near Gumbinnen; Servians chase Austrians along whole
+      front; report of German outrages on Jews in Kalisz.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 26&mdash;Russians sweep over Prussia in three lines,
+      menacing K&ouml;nigsberg and Posen; Germans reported fleeing from Elbing
+      district; report of Russian advance into Austria; Austrians drive
+      Russians from Krasnik.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 27&mdash;Russians take Tilsit; Germans retreat toward
+      K&ouml;nigsberg and Allenstein; Austrians routed in Galicia; French troops
+      join Montenegrins to operate against Austria.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 28&mdash;Russians reach Allenstein; Russians continue
+      advance in Galicia; Serbs defeat Austrians at Shabats.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 29&mdash;Russians invest K&ouml;nigsberg and occupy
+      Allenstein; Germans claim victories; Russians draw net around Lemberg;
+      Austrians claim occupation of Zamost.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 30&mdash;Russians advance in East Prussia, to the
+      Vistula and bombard Thorn and Graudenz; panic in Danzig; battle between
+      Russians and Austrians in Poland; Austrians defeated at Lemberg; Russians
+      gain ground against Austrians and win battle at Zamost; Germans in East
+      Prussia get reinforcements and report capture of 30,000 Russians; Poland
+      almost clear of German troops.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 1&mdash;Russians inflict crushing defeat on
+      Austrians on Galician frontier; Germans announce defeat of three Russian
+      army corps near Allenstein.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 2&mdash;Russians seize fortified positions around
+      Lemberg, admit advance into East Prussia temporarily checked; new
+      invasion of Germany planned; Turkey lands troops in Asia Minor;
+      Montenegrins defeat Austrians near Bilek.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 3&mdash;Austrians report success at Lublin; Cossacks
+      rout German scouting party from Thorn; Russians take capital of
+      Bukowina.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 5&mdash;Russians take Lemberg and Halicz and march
+      toward Poland; Austrians defeated at Tomaszow; Russian refugees tell of
+      destruction of Kalisch by Germans; twenty Russian army corps march on
+      Prussia, ten hold Austria back; Austrians defeated near Lublin.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 6&mdash;Russians attack Germans on left bank of the
+      Vistula, occupy Stryk regions, capture Forty-fifth Austrian Regiment near
+      Krasnystaw, capture Austrian aeroplane and a Zeppelin and take year's
+      provisions at Lemberg.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 7&mdash;Austrians retreat; Russians closing in on
+      Przemysl.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 8&mdash;Russians take Nikolaieff and Mikolajow; Gen.
+      Ruzsky engages Gen. Auffenberg's army in Poland; Austrians claim advance
+      into Russian Poland and defeat of Serbs near Mitrovica; Servian invasion
+      of Bosnia begun.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 9&mdash;Battle at Rava-Russka; Austrians evacuate
+      Russian Poland; Germans claim capture of part of Russian Imperial Guard;
+      Serbs and Montenegrins advance into Bosnia.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 10&mdash;Russians invade Silesia and menace Breslau;
+      Austro-German forces defeated at Lublin; Serbs cross the Save.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 11&mdash;Serbs take Semlin; Montenegrins take Folcha
+      and join with Serbs in march on Serajevo; Germans defeat invading Finland
+      force at Lyck; Polish miners at Berdzin wreck German train by concealing
+      explosive in fuel; Russians occupy Suczawa and Hatna; Russians fight on
+      Austrian and German border; Austrians resume offensive near Lemberg.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 12&mdash;Russians defeat Austrians in battle near
+      Tomaszow; German attack in East Prussia checked; successes of Serbs
+      against Austrians continue.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 13&mdash;Russian victories west and northwest of
+      Lemberg; Russo-Serb Army plans advance on Budapest; Montenegrins will
+      invest Bosnia.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 14&mdash;Austrians rally for battle before Przemsyl;
+      Russians cross the San; Germans defeated near Miawa and send
+      reinforcements to Memel.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 15&mdash;Russians occupy Grodek; Austrians hemmed in
+      between Rivers San and Vistula; Germans report defeat of Russian Armies
+      of Vina and Grodno; Russians say Germans have been driven back across
+      frontier; Serbs invade Hungary.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 16&mdash;Austrians still retreat in Galicia;
+      Servians continue advance into Bosnia; Montenegrins defeat Austrians near
+      Koulilovo.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 17&mdash;Austrians flee before Russians toward
+      Cracow; Gen. Rennekampf blocks flanking movement by Germans; Servian
+      artillery repulses Austrian warships that shell Semlin and Belgrade.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 18&mdash;Russians take Siniava and Sambor; Austrian
+      rear guard thrown back beyond the San; prisoners and ammunition captured
+      near Memirov; Germans advance against Russians in Suwalki Province;
+      Russians halt offensive German movement and plan new invasion of East
+      Poland; Germans retreat from Kielce Province to rally Austrians defeated
+      at Krasnik; Russians enter Kazeshow.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 20&mdash;Russians attack Jaroslaw and Przemysl and
+      seize Sambor and Kresheshov; Gen. Auffenberg's army separated from Gen.
+      Dankl's; Germans defeated near Sandomierz; Gen. Rennenkampf checks German
+      advance in East Prussia; Servians defeat Austrians near Novi-Bazar.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 21&mdash;Russians take Dubiecko and surround Gen.
+      Dankl's army; Servians win near Krupani, evacuate Semlin.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 22&mdash;Austrians defeated on the Drina near
+      Krupani; Russians occupy Jaroslaw and again move to attack
+      K&ouml;nigsberg.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 23&mdash;Russians take Wislok; Austrian retreat from
+      Przemysl through Carpathians cut off; Cossacks raid Czenstochowa; French
+      land guns at Antivari.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 24&mdash;Advance guards of Russian forces arrive
+      before Cracow; Germans defeated at Subin; Russians again occupy Soldau;
+      Montenegrins report capture of Pratzho and Montak in Bosnia.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 25&mdash;Russians occupy Czyschky and Felstyn;
+      Germans occupy Cracow, population flees; Przemysl cut off from all
+      communication; battle between Serbs and Austrians near Zvorkni.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 26&mdash;Greater part of Przemysl occupied by
+      Russians; Germans concentrated in Prussia for impending battle.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 27&mdash;Russians halt German advance in Suwalki and
+      enter town of Przemysl; Serbs and Montenegrins reach Rumania; Germans in
+      weak position on the Niemen River.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 28&mdash;Montenegrins within artillery range of
+      Serajevo; Serbs occupy mountains near by; Bosnians join invading army;
+      Russians occupy Dembica and take another fort at Przemysl, cross
+      Carpathians, and invade Hungary.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 29&mdash;Russians sweep across the Carpathians and
+      over Northern Hungary; Servians retake Semlin.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 30&mdash;Germans fail in attempt to cross the River
+      Niemen; retreating Austrians surrounded near Dukia; Hungarians retake
+      Uzsok Pass; Servians and Montenegrins close to capital of Bosnia.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 2&mdash;Russians break German centre and take up new
+      battle line from Mariampol to Ossowitz; Germans bombard Ossowitz;
+      Russians claim victories in Lodz and Suwalki, and take two Przemysl
+      forts.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 3&mdash;Germans are evacuating Russian Poland;
+      Russians advance on Transylvania; fighting at Augustowo; Servians raid
+      Semlin and destroy forts.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 4&mdash;Russians defeat Germans at Augustowo and
+      advance reaches Nugy Valley in Hungary; Germans make unsuccessful attacks
+      on Ossowitz forts; Germans lured into a trap on the Niemen.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 5&mdash;Two Russian armies advance toward Allenstein;
+      fighting near Warsaw; Russians are near Cracow; Germans fortify heights
+      between Breslau and Cracow; Austrians claim victory over Montenegrins in
+      East Bosnia; Servians approach Serajevo fortifications.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 6&mdash;Germans claim victories near Suwalki and
+      Augustowo; Russian forces from the Baltic close in on Germans, and
+      announce German retreat from positions between Wirballen and Lyck;
+      Austrians claim victory at Uzsok Pass, but Cossacks are reported eighty
+      miles from Budapest.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 7&mdash;Germans bring reinforcements from K&ouml;nigsberg
+      and check Russians; Russians shell Przemysl; Austrians report victory in
+      Hungary near Tesco.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 8&mdash;Russians claim repulse of Germans in Russian
+      Poland and capture of Biala; Germans deny Russian advance in Suwalki;
+      gains by Montenegrins in Herzegovina.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 9&mdash;Russians announce reoccupation of Lyck;
+      Przemysl reported on fire.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 10&mdash;Russians claim that Germans are retiring
+      from Lyck; Austrians report successes throughout Galicia.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 11&mdash;Montenegrins defeat Austrians near
+      Kalenovitch;
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'Rusians']">Russians</ins>
+      sweep through Bukoi Bukowina; Austrians rush help to Przemysl.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 12&mdash;Russians abandon siege of Przemysl and
+      retreat from Galicia; German-Austrian army captures many prisoners.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 13&mdash;Fall of Warsaw believed near; British Consul
+      asks for American protection; Montenegrins defeat Austrians near
+      Serajevo.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 14&mdash;Germans report defeat of Russians at Warsaw
+      and recapture of Lyck; Servians in Bosnia beaten back.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 15&mdash;Berlin reports advance of eight Russian army
+      corps against Bast Prussia; account made public of how Gen. von
+      Hindenburg lured Gen. Rennenkampf into trap at Tennenberg; Russians
+      report victory over Austrians south of Przemysl.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>CAMPAIGN IN WESTERN EUROPE.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 26&mdash;Belgium increases army to enforce
+      neutrality.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 27&mdash;Belgian Army mobilizes, Holland prepares to
+      maintain neutrality.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 28&mdash;French Army moves to frontier.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 29&mdash;Belgium calls out reserves.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 30&mdash;England takes defensive measures.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 31&mdash;Belgium mobilizes.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 1&mdash;France mobilizes after Germany asks her
+      intentions; will respect neutrality of Belgium.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 2&mdash;Germany sends ultimatum to Belgium, seizes
+      Luxemburg, and invades France; fighting at Longwy, three German spies
+      arrested in England.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 3&mdash;Berlin reports acts of hostility by French;
+      England will protect French coast and defend Belgium; France promises to
+      guard Belgian neutrality; France holds that war with Germany began
+      automatically with invasion of her territory.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 4&mdash;England declares war on Germany as Kaiser
+      rejects ultimatum on Belgian neutrality; Germany declares war on Belgium;
+      attack on Li&eacute;ge repulsed; Germans cross French border near Mars-la-Tour
+      and Moineville.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 5&mdash;French repulse Germans at border; many
+      Germans killed in attack on Li&eacute;ge, Crown Prince bringing aid, French Army
+      rushing up.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 6&mdash;Germans take two forts at Li&eacute;ge; French Army
+      coming; English coast towns arm.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 7&mdash;Rapid mobilization of French on frontier;
+      French occupy two towns in Alsace-Lorraine; Kaiser and King of Belgium
+      call nations to arms; Bavarians beaten by French at Marrehan; Germans
+      enter Li&eacute;ge, forts still held by Belgians; Germans get armistice to bury
+      dead.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 8&mdash;Holland guards frontier; conflicting reports
+      of fall of Li&eacute;ge; French forces in Belgium; British land on Continent;
+      French take M&uuml;lhausen after battle at Altkirch; German spies try to blow
+      up tunnels and bridges near Paris.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 9&mdash;Germans in Alsace fall back on Neu Breisach;
+      Kaiser leaves for front; Belgian War Minister denies capture of Li&eacute;ge,
+      Germans in city but forts untaken; French and English reinforce Belgians;
+      Governor and Bishop of Li&eacute;ge held as hostages; German warning of
+      reprisals; Germans arrested in England; Holland captures and disarms
+      Uhlans at Maastricht.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 10&mdash;France breaks off diplomatic relations with
+      Austria; French student tells how Germans shot refugees; French patrols
+      cover Eifel district in Germany; French open way into Alsace by capturing
+      Bonhomme and Sainte Marie; 100 German spies put to death in Belgium; more
+      caught; Germans forced by French to plan new campaign in Belgium; Allies
+      claim success in cavalry encounters; Germans moving through Esch.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 11&mdash;Germans attack French frontier, take Lagarde
+      and intrench south of Li&eacute;ge; Belgians retake Loncin fort; Kaiser claims
+      victory at Li&eacute;ge; French Army forced back in Alsace; minor checks to
+      Germans; German siege guns before Li&eacute;ge; German advance directed at gap
+      between Verdun and Longwy.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 12&mdash;Germany tries again to negotiate with
+      Belgium for passage of army; Germans bombard Point-a-Mousson; Germans
+      move on Brussels and are driven back by Belgians' left wing; Germans
+      report victory in Alsace; Germans reported to have shot French wounded;
+      German spies terrorize Belgium; battle near Tongres; German official says
+      Kaiser halted attack on Li&eacute;ge and denies heavy losses; Germans complete
+      bridge for siege artillery; Paris papers say Germans burned village of
+      Affleville and shot farmers.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 13&mdash;England declares war on Austria; Belgians
+      beat off Germans in two-day fight; Namur defenses strengthened; battles
+      at Diest, Haelen, and Eghezee; Germans shoot woman accused of attempt to
+      blow up Alsatian tunnel; British, French, and Belgians charge cruelties
+      by German troops; report that Germans hold Diest; German guns reported
+      wrecked by fire from Li&eacute;ge forts; French report severe defeat of Germans
+      by counter-attack at Pont-a-Mousson; Swiss report that Germans lost
+      10,000 in Alsace; Swiss disarm German troops; Italy's troops guard Alpine
+      passes.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 14&mdash;Germans mass to attack Allies and move
+      toward Brussels; bombardment of Li&eacute;ge renewed; attempt to storm Pontisse
+      fails; British Commander French and French Gen. Joffre meet at
+      headquarters; French and Belgian forts exchange officers; French win in
+      battle in Vosges Mountains.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 15&mdash;Armies of Germany and Allies face each other
+      on 248-mile battle front; French storm three towns and retake Thann in
+      Alsace; battling at Li&eacute;ge forts continues; Germans said to have shot
+      innocent people in Linsmeau for slaying an officer.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 16&mdash;Fighting at M&uuml;lhausen renewed; French take
+      offensive along line from Lun&eacute;ville to Saarburg; clash near Dinant;
+      Germans damage Vise; general advance of French on eastern frontier; South
+      Belgium barricaded; Belgian cyclists fight strong German force; rumor
+      that Austrians are in Belgium.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 17&mdash;French forces sweep on toward Strassburg;
+      desultory fighting clears ground between Germans and Allies; Belgians say
+      Germans torture prisoners; Belgian seat of Government moved to
+      Antwerp.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 18&mdash;British force lands in France; German
+      advance on Brussels checked; Germans evacuate Saarburg; French take two
+      batteries; Germans start second fire in Vise.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 19&mdash;Fighting near Altkirch; Paris prepares for
+      eventualities; Allies fall back and may quit Brussels; Germans occupy
+      Louvain; French report further advance into Alsace; Germans retake
+      Ville.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 20&mdash;French reoccupy M&uuml;lhausen, but are checked
+      in Lorraine; other French gains in Alsace; German cavalry occupies
+      Brussels; Belgian Army retires on Antwerp; French victory near Lun&eacute;ville;
+      Germans defeat Belgians at Aerschot.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 21&mdash;French withdraw from Lorraine; Germans rush
+      through Brussels, capture Ghent, levy war taxes on Brussels and Li&eacute;ge,
+      and will try to seize Ostend; England says tax levy is violation of Hague
+      treaty; German assault on Namur begins; report of German vengeance on
+      town of Tongres; Antwerp, new seat of Government, prepares for defense;
+      Germans hold Audun-la-Roman and continue to cross the Meuse.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 22&mdash;French deny German report of victory between
+      Metz and the Vosges; Germans continue bombardment of Namur forts and face
+      Allies on twenty-mile front to Charleroi; main force is aimed at Lille;
+      battle between English and Germans at Waterloo; French close in on
+      Colmar; fight between German and English cavalry at Colmar; fear that
+      Belgian cities may not be able to pay indemnity; Germans accused of
+      shooting Burgomaster and citizens of Aerschot without provocation.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 23&mdash;Allies take offensive against Germans along
+      150-mile line from Mons to Luxemburg; Belgian commander blows up one
+      Li&eacute;ge fort; others hold out; French repel three days' attack on M&uuml;lhausen
+      intrenchments; France protests to Hague against use of dumdum bullets by
+      Germans.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 24&mdash;Allies fall back before German attack on
+      Belgium; report that Namur has fallen; account made public of battle at
+      Charleroi; Germans, led by Crown Prince in Lorraine, pursue French beyond
+      Longwy; success of force headed by Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria at
+      Lun&eacute;ville, Blamont and Cirey; French defeated at Neuf-chateau by forces
+      under Grand Duke Albrecht of W&uuml;rttemberg; Germans begin another attack on
+      M&uuml;lhausen; English cavalry brigade defeated by Germans south of Brussels;
+      Germans set fire to Hussigny and resume fire at Li&eacute;ge.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 25&mdash;Battle on new 200-mile-line between Germans
+      and Allies; Germans capture five Namur forts and are attacking others;
+      French withdraw from Alsace to frontier; Allies gain to the south;
+      Germans levy tax on Brabant; report that Lorrainers betrayed French
+      troops to Germans.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 26&mdash;Allies fall back a short distance in
+      Belgium; Belgian success at Malines; French claim success near Nancy and
+      Lun&eacute;ville; report that Lille is abandoned; big battle in Lorraine;
+      Germans fire houses in Li&eacute;ge; Berlin announces British rout at
+      Maubeuge.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 27&mdash;Germans take Longwy and all Namur forts;
+      British-French line falls back on right flank; French reoccupy Lille;
+      details given out of fighting at Mons; Germans take Malines and tax
+      Tourant and Charleroi; announcement of German bombardment of Malines;
+      Paris prepares for possible siege.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 28&mdash;Austria declares war on Belgium; Belgians
+      retake Malines and advance to Brussels; Germans defeat Allies along
+      entire line; report that fall of Namur was due to heavy fog; Germans sack
+      and burn Louvain; art treasures destroyed.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 29&mdash;German force withdrawn from Belgium to meet
+      Russians; French right wins at Guise, left reinforced but repulsed;
+      Germans march on La Fere; Allies evacuate Boulogne; account made public
+      of the heroic defense of Longwy; details given out of fall of Namur;
+      Germans blow up bridges on railway from Antwerp to frontier; French
+      bayoneted company of Germans accused of treachery; Military Governor of
+      Paris orders destruction of houses obstructing forts' fire.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 30&mdash;French left wing again driven back; Allies'
+      lines reinforced; Germans recalled to Brussels to hold city; French
+      reported successful near Amiens.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 31&mdash;Paris defense plans rushed; Allies' left
+      flank again driven back.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 1&mdash;Allies' centre hard pressed; German attack
+      on Belfort fails; British flank reinforced; Germans fortify Brussels.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 2&mdash;French move capital temporarily to Bordeaux
+      to allow Allies to pivot left wing on Paris; German cavalry corps
+      defeated by British near Compi&egrave;gne; another pushes on to Soissons; French
+      report success in Lorraine.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 3&mdash;Report that Russian troops have been
+      transported to Belgium; Germans take La Fere and Amiens and move to
+      attack Laon and Rheims; Austrians sent to reinforce German left wing;
+      Germans are twenty-five miles from Paris.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 4&mdash;Germans neglect Paris and move eastward;
+      German right wing reported checked and driven back to St. Quentin; Allies
+      driven back behind Conde; Germans move toward Verdun; Germans bombard
+      Termonde; fighting in Alost.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 5&mdash;Germans take Rheims and three forts at
+      Maubeuge; Belgians trap Germans in flooded area near Malines; Germans
+      take Termonde; Germans abandon attack on Belfort.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 6&mdash;German right wing checked near Paris; Kaiser
+      directs attack on Nancy; account made public of evacuation of Senlis and
+      Chantilly.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 7&mdash;It is now plain that the German march on
+      Paris has been deflected; Allies force Germans back in 160-mile battle
+      from Nanteuil-le-Hardouin to Verdun and report defeat of Crown Prince's
+      army; Germans defeat Belgians near Melle and march to occupy Ghent;
+      repulsed at Capelle-au-Bois.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 8&mdash;British push German right over the Marne;
+      French win on the Ourcq; fighting at Vitry.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 9&mdash;Germans claim capture of Maubeuge; British
+      cross the Marne; Germans fall back; have evacuated Upper Alsace.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 10&mdash;Gen. von Stein admits defeat by Allies;
+      Belgians reoccupy Termonde, Aerschot, and Diest; French join British
+      across Marne in pursuing Germans; fighting near Vitry and other points in
+      centre.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 11&mdash;German line west of Revigny retreats, but
+      captures fort near Verdun; Gen. Pau seizes German supply train; account
+      given out of battle at Meaux; British report annihilation of German
+      Jaeger regiment; French deny fall of Maubeuege and recapture M&uuml;lhausen;
+      Germans march south from Ghent, Belgians in pursuit.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 12&mdash;Belgians cut German Army in two by victory
+      at Cortenberg; whole German line in France retreats, Lun&eacute;ville retaken;
+      Belgians repulse German sortie at Louvain and advance on Brussels.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 13&mdash;Germans repulsed at Nancy and Lun&eacute;ville,
+      evacuate Amiens, lose Revigny and Brabant-le-Roi; Crown Prince's Army
+      threatened; fighting at Louvain and Malines; heavy fighting at Bortzy;
+      battle between Thann and Sennheim.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 14&mdash;Amiens reoccupied by French; Fort of Troyon
+      relieved; Germans make stand on the Aisne; Germans lay waste to
+      Senlis.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 15&mdash;German Crown Prince's army driven back to
+      the Orne; French reoccupy Rheims; fighting on the Aisne; new intrenched
+      positions taken by German armies; La Ferte ransacked by Germans;
+      Franco-Belgian successes at Alost and Rousbrugge.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 16&mdash;New battle on from Noyon to Verdun; army
+      from Douen is circling von Kluck's corps; Germans move nearer
+      Antwerp.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 17&mdash;German Army strengthened between
+      Berry-au-Bac and Argonne; French advance in Woevre district; deadlock on
+      right flank; Belgians repulse attack on Termonde.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 18&mdash;Germans complete bombardment of Termonde;
+      now known that Maubeuge has fallen; Allies' left advances six miles;
+      Germans report gain in centre; Germans intrench on the Sambre; Germans
+      send scouting parties into Belgium.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 19&mdash;Germans fortify along the Rhine; Allies
+      advance on left and right wings and drive back army of German Crown
+      Prince; heavy fighting at Rheims; Germans capture Beaumont; German shells
+      hit Cathedral of Notre Dame and Church of St. Remi in Rheims.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 20&mdash;Germans badly damage Rheims; Allies make
+      slight gains; fighting near Soissons; Germans report offensive move;
+      Allies capture Souain; Belgians retake Lanaeken; Germans bring siege guns
+      up to Antwerp.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 21&mdash;Allies gain between Rheims and Argonne,
+      take Massiges and Mesnil; Germans claim capture of Craonne hills and
+      Betheny; Belgians repulse German assault on Fort Waelhem; Termonde under
+      fire again.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 22&mdash;Germans claim victories at Craonne and
+      Betheny; their right turned between Peronne and St. Quentin; desultory
+      fighting near Malines and Alost.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 23&mdash;Allies advance on left wing near Lassigny;
+      Germans bombard Verdun; Germans prepare for campaign in Southern
+      Belgium.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 24&mdash;French take Peronne; Germans take Varennes;
+      Belgians report victory near Antwerp.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 25&mdash;Allies beaten back by Germans at Noyon, but
+      renew offensive after being reinforced; Germans advance southeast of
+      Verdun; quarries from Giraumont to Machemok strengthen German position;
+      campaign in Alsace halted by snow.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 26&mdash;Germans take Fort des Romaines and cross
+      the Meuse; Germans burn Bilsen; Austrian and German artillery menace
+      Antwerp.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 27&mdash;Allies repulse charges on right and left
+      wings; Germans gain in centre; Verdun forts withdraw fire; French
+      reinforced on the Meuse; Germans again bombard Malines.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 28&mdash;Allies make slight progress on heights of
+      the Meuse; fog in Woevre district causes suspension of fighting; Belgians
+      retake Alost and repulse Germans at Malines.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 29&mdash;Germans occupy Moll and Malines, bombard
+      Lierre, and shell outer forts of Antwerp; fighting on the Aisne
+      continues.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 30&mdash;Allies drive back both German wings and
+      retake St. Mihiel; French trap Germans in quarries; Germans destroy town
+      of Orchies; Belgians renew bombardment of Lierre.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 1&mdash;Belgians repulse German attacks on Antwerp
+      forts; Germans capture Roye and claim success in attack on Albert; French
+      report gains; French shell Germans in quarries; Scheldt River interferes
+      with attack of Germans on Antwerp; Belgians bombard church at Termonde to
+      drive Germans from steeple.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 2&mdash;Allies checked after pushing north to Arras;
+      Germans driven back across the Meuse; Germans report two Antwerp forts
+      silenced; Cologne prepares for defense; Belgians report German repulse at
+      one Antwerp fort and at Termonde.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 3&mdash;Battle at Roye; Germans claim victory near
+      Toul; Belgians near Antwerp fall back.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 4&mdash;Berlin reports capture of Forts Wavre, St.
+      Catherine, and Dorpweld, and of Termonde; Allies defeat flanking movement
+      and battleground shifts to vicinity of Arras; Allies claim success in
+      Woevre and Soissons regions; British forces aid in defense of Antwerp;
+      Fort Walheim damaged; Germans take two villages on Dutch border near
+      Maastricht.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 5&mdash;Germans gain on right wing, take three
+      Antwerp forts, and resume offensive in Argonne district and along the
+      Meuse.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 6&mdash;Antwerp warned that bombardment is near;
+      desperate fighting on the Oise; Allies gain at Soissons; German column
+      near Lille; French hold strong positions in Alsace.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 7&mdash;Germans report bombardment of Lanaeken when
+      civilians attack them; Germans closing in on Antwerp and have crossed the
+      Nethe; fighting near Ghent; Allies drive German cavalry back from Lille
+      and gain at Roye; skirmish at Ypres; Allies reinforced; Germans are still
+      shelling Rheims.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 8&mdash;Antwerp bombarded by German siege guns and
+      Zeppelins; Germans cross the Scheldt; Allies gain near Arras, which is
+      being shelled by Germans; Germans cut railway lines near Ypres; cavalry
+      fights on the Belgian frontier.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 9&mdash;Germans claim progress near St. Mihiel and in
+      the Argonne district; Germans report fall of Fort Breendonk; Antwerp
+      aflame; fighting around Roye; cavalry battles near Lille; Germans occupy
+      Courtrai and destroy bridges between Brussels and Mons.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 10&mdash;Antwerp surrenders, Belgian Army escapes;
+      widespread ruin in city; some British troops driven into Holland;
+      fighting at Arras continues; Germans bombard Lokeron; Germans report
+      gains at St. Mihiel and in the Argonne region.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 11&mdash;Germans occupy Antwerp; main British and
+      Belgian defending armies reach Ostend; fighting near Soissons; German
+      attacks in Caronne region repulsed; Allies win in centre; Arras free from
+      Germans; British official report tells how the Germans were routed near
+      Bray.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 12&mdash;Germans enter Ghent; Allies fight to check
+      German reinforcements; fighting at Lasigny and Lens; Germans mass around
+      Ypres; cavalry fighting near Lille.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 13&mdash;Germans press on toward Ostend; severe
+      fighting in Argonne district; Germans take Lille and occupy Hazebrouck
+      and Ypres; Germans occupy Ghent and move on Bruges.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 14&mdash;Belgian Army leaves Ostend and joins Allies
+      in field; Allies reoccupy Ypres; French gain near border; German
+      battalion trapped in canal in Lorraine.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 15&mdash;Allies retake Estaires and report gains at
+      several points; Germans deny repulses and occupy Bruges, Thielt, Daume,
+      and Esschen; German convoy captured by French.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>CAMPAIGN IN THE FAR EAST.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 4&mdash;Japanese Government's proclamation prepares
+      people for war in behalf of England.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 6&mdash;Germans fortify Tsing-tau.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 11&mdash;Japan requisitions transports.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 16&mdash;Japan sends ultimatum to Germany demanding
+      withdrawal of fleet in Far Eastern waters and giving up of Kiao-Chau.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 17&mdash;Official announcement that Japan's action
+      will be limited to China Sea and to protection of her trade; ultimatum to
+      Germany made with concurrence of England.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 18&mdash;Count Okuma emphasizes Japan's limitation of
+      war and England reassures United States.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 19&mdash;Germany will reject Japan's demands.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 20&mdash;Kaiser orders resistance to Japan at
+      Kiao-Chau; Japanese Foreign Office makes statement explaining ultimatum
+      to Germany.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 22&mdash;Germany ignores Japan's demands: time limit
+      ends, Japanese envoy ordered to leave Berlin; Japan is expected to make
+      war move at once.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 23&mdash;Japan declares war on Germany.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 24&mdash;Germans blow up bridges to halt Japanese
+      invasion of Kiao-Chau.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 26&mdash;War declared by Austria against Japan;
+      British destroy German wireless and cable stations on Island of Yap.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 29&mdash;Germans lay mines at Kiao-Chau and fire at
+      landing party at Cape Jaeschke.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 30&mdash;Japanese troops landed near Kiao-Chau; forts
+      fire at destroyer.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 31&mdash;Japanese occupy two islands.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 2&mdash;Japan lands force at Lung-kow; German
+      Legation protests against violation of China's neutrality.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 3&mdash;Japanese occupy seven islands near
+      Kiao-Chau, clear waters of mines, and land more troops at Lung-kow; China
+      protests against violation of her neutrality.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 9&mdash;Japanese advance southward in Shantung.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 14&mdash;Japanese flank Kiao-Chau.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 15&mdash;Japanese cavalry captures Chimo; vanguard
+      of Japanese Army reaches Kiao-Chau.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 19&mdash;Japanese seize Kiao-Chau station and train
+      and land troops at Laoshan.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 20&mdash;Japanese cavalry in clash with German
+      outposts near Tsing-tau.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 22&mdash;Australians seize German wireless station
+      on Island of Nauru.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 24&mdash;British troops land near Laoshan,
+      China.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 26&mdash;Japanese advance on Fangate, where Germans
+      hold valuable mines.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 27&mdash;Japanese defeat Germans on outskirts of
+      Kiao-Chau; food supply in city short.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 28&mdash;Japanese approach Tsing-tau.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 29&mdash;Japanese invest Tsing-tau; Chinese blow up
+      railroad bridges to hinder progress of Japanese troops.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 30&mdash;Germans abandon artillery as Japanese reach
+      Lao-Che.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 1&mdash;Germans destroy railroad bridge at
+      Ta-yu-ho.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 4&mdash;Japanese march along railroad to Wei-Hsein;
+      one Chinese killed.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 5&mdash;Japanese repulse night attack of Germans at
+      Tsing-tau.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 6&mdash;Germans plan to destroy Shantung Railway.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 7&mdash;Japanese seize Island of Yap; Japanese bring
+      siege guns before Tsing-tau.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 8&mdash;German fire slackens at Tsing-tau.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 13&mdash;Arrangements made for departure of
+      non-combatants before final attack on Kiao-Chau.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>CAMPAIGN IN AFRICA.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 8&mdash;British seize Port Lome, Togoland.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 9&mdash;French are in Togoland.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 26&mdash;Germans surrender Togoland.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 28&mdash;German troops attack Belgian Congo.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 10&mdash;Germans defeated by British in
+      Nyassaland.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 13&mdash;Germans occupy Karangu, British East
+      Africa.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 15&mdash;British defeat Germans in Namaqualand.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 18&mdash;Germans defeated by garrison of seven
+      British at Nakob.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 22&mdash;Germans repulsed in attack on fort in Voi
+      district.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 24&mdash;Germans at Schuckmannsberg surrender to
+      police.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 25&mdash;Australian force takes German New
+      Guinea.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 26&mdash;French seize Coco Beach, Kamerun; British
+      occupy Luederitz Bay; Germans raid Walfish Bay.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 28&mdash;German Congo seized by British and
+      French.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 13&mdash;Detachment of Boers under Col. Maritz rebels
+      because of the pro-British stand taken by the Government of South Africa;
+      martial law proclaimed in colony; British imprison Germans in British
+      East Africa and Germans imprison British in German East Africa.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 14&mdash;There are but few men in the Maritz rebel
+      force; silence of Boer leaders is found disquieting in England.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 15&mdash;Col. Brits's force captures eighty rebels
+      under Col. Maritz; Gen. Botha takes field; prominent men arrested on
+      charge of treason.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>NAVAL RECORD.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 26&mdash;British and French fleets ready for action;
+      Servian vessels in Danube seized by Austrians; German fleet ordered
+      concentrated in home waters; Italy masses fleet.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 29 and 30&mdash;British fleet leaves Portland;
+      British and German fleets in Far East mobilize.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 31&mdash;German squadron stops merchant vessels in
+      Danish waters; British warships near; Montenegrin King's yacht escapes
+      Austrian destroyers.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 2&mdash;Fight between German and Russian cruisers off
+      Libau; German High Sea Fleet seizes Wilson liner Castro and a collier;
+      fleets assemble in Far East.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 3&mdash;Germans chase Norwegian food ship.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 4&mdash;Rival warships off Port of New York; British
+      mine layer sunk by German fleet; British fleet will aim to destroy Kiel
+      Canal.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 5&mdash;British third flotilla has battle with
+      Germans in North Sea; cruiser Amphion damaged; German mine layer Koenigen
+      Luise sunk; many German merchant ships seized by English, French, and
+      Russians; Germans bombard Sveaborg, torpedo boat blown up.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 6&mdash;British cruiser Amphion sunk by mine; French
+      capture German tank steamer; Germans capture Russian ship.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 7&mdash;British and German cruisers reported in fight
+      off Brazilian coast; British steamers destroyed by mines off German and
+      Turkish coasts; British capture German steamer Schlesien; German merchant
+      ship captured by French; Germans capture Russian cruiser; Japanese
+      warships off port of Tsing-tau; German cruisers Goeben and Breslau leave
+      Genoa.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 8&mdash;Thirty-six German ships seized by Belgians;
+      Russians capture Austrian and German merchant steamers; British capture
+      German ship, said to be North German Lloyd liner; naval fight in
+      Adriatic; interest in position of Goeben and Breslau; bombardment of
+      Libau reported by ship Captain.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 9&mdash;British sink German submarine; cruiser Essex
+      takes ship at sea; Goeben and Breslau in the Dardanelles; two German
+      steamers taken at Rouen and one at Colombo; England and France protest
+      against German steamer Karlsruhe coaling at Porto Rico; firing off
+      Shanghai; British fleet proceeds to Tsing-tau; Austrian cruisers bombard
+      Antivari.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 10&mdash;Cruiser Birmingham sinks German submarine
+      U-15; British close North Sea to fishing fleets; Dutch steamer sunk in
+      Baltic; Belgians seize two Austrian steamers; English and Canadian
+      steamers hunt in Atlantic for German cruisers.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 11&mdash;Battle in the Adriatic; Russians capture
+      twenty German merchant vessels in Baltic.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 12&mdash;German destroyer sunk by mine off South
+      Gedser.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 13&mdash;German cruisers bombard Windau; France will
+      check Austria's navy; British said to have bottled up German Far Eastern
+      squadron; German cruisers Goeben and Breslau are flying Turkish flag.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 15&mdash;Japanese Navy sails to join British fleet;
+      Triple Entente demands that Turkey repatriate crews of German cruisers;
+      Austrian liner blown up by mine in the Adriatic; British capture Austrian
+      liner Marienbad; German steamer W.W. Schneefels brought to Gibraltar as
+      war prize.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 16&mdash;French fleet said to have sunk two Austrian
+      ships in the Adriatic.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 17&mdash;German dreadnought said to be damaged in
+      Norwegian port; French sink Austrian cruiser in the Adriatic; German
+      cruiser Karlsruhe said to have sunk four British merchantmen; British
+      cruisers capture Hamburg-American liners Cap Ortegal and Santa
+      Catharina.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 18&mdash;Two German cruisers captured and taken to
+      Hongkong; fight between British and German patrol fleets.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 20&mdash;British steamer Hostilius captured by German
+      cruiser Dresden; German fleet said to have shelled three Russian
+      ports.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 21&mdash;British and French warships and Montenegrin
+      batteries bombard Cattaro; two German Hansa liners seized at Bombay and
+      Hamburg-American ship at Rangoon.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 22&mdash;Steamers Maryland and Broberg sunk by mines
+      in North Sea; two Dutch steamers reported sunk; German cruiser Dresden
+      sinks British steamer Hyades; British cruiser Glasgow captures German
+      ship Santa Kathina; French capture German four-master and Austrian
+      steamer; account made public of sinking of Austrian battleship
+      Zrinyi.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 23&mdash;Anglo-French fleets destroy Austrian cruiser
+      Zenta and bombard Cattaro; Dutch steamer Alcor blown up by Russians to
+      block Hango harbor; report that French, English, and Russian vessels are
+      aiding Japan to blockade Kiao-Chau.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 24&mdash;Japanese fleet has begun bombardment of
+      Tsing-tau; Cattaro badly damaged by British and French fleets.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 25&mdash;German steamer Elizabeth sunk.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 26&mdash;British defeated in battle with German
+      torpedo boat off Kiao-Chau.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 27&mdash;British cruiser Highflyer sinks Kaiser
+      Wilhelm der Grosse; British marines occupy Ostend; German cruiser
+      Magdeburg sunk in Gulf of Finland; mines in North Sea sink a Danish and a
+      Norwegian steamer; Japanese bombard island near Kiao-Chau and blockade
+      port.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 28&mdash;British fleet sinks two German cruisers,
+      sets fire to third, and sinks two torpedo boats off Heligoland; Germans
+      fire at Japanese fleet near Kiao-Chau; Austrian destroyer sunk by British
+      off Corfu; British cruiser Welland sinks German torpedo destroyer; other
+      German ships captured; six vessels blown up in North Sea by mines;
+      Russians capture crew of German cruiser Magdeburg.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 29&mdash;Port of Cape Jaeschke blocked by Japanese
+      warships; passenger steamer destroyed by mines near Russian port.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 30&mdash;British official account of battle off
+      Heligoland; New Zealand expeditionary force captures Apia.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 31&mdash;German gunboat shells abandoned Japanese
+      destroyer at Kiao-Chau.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 2&mdash;British and French ships again bombard
+      Cattaro; steam drifter Eyrie sunk by mine in North Sea.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 4&mdash;British cruiser sinks Austrian steamer
+      Bathori in Bay of Biscay; British gunboat Speedy sunk by mine in North
+      Sea; British steamship Bowes Castle sunk by German cruiser off St.
+      Lucia.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 5&mdash;German ships sink fifteen British trawlers
+      in North Sea.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 6&mdash;Cruiser Pathfinder destroyed by mine.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 7&mdash;British submarine strikes German warships in
+      Bremerhaven Harbor.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 10&mdash;British capture German, collier.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 11&mdash;Germans destroy Russian steamer
+      Uleaborg.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 12&mdash;Australian Navy occupies Herbertshoehe in
+      Bismarck Archipelago; British take German coal ship Heinze.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 14&mdash;Germans capture Fanning Island and cable
+      station; German cruiser Hela sunk.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 17&mdash;German fleets fire on each other in Baltic
+      by mistake; British cruiser seizes Holland-America, liner Ryndam: French
+      cruiser Conde captures German storeship Helna; Canadian Pacific liner
+      made a British cruiser in Pacific; German cruiser Luxemburg reported to
+      have sunk three British freighters in West Indies.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 19&mdash;Australian submarine AE-1 lost; Austrian
+      warship Viribus Unitis damaged in Adriatic.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 20&mdash;Carmania sinks German merchant cruiser Cap
+      Trafalgar; German cruiser K&ouml;nigsberg disables British cruiser Pegasus;
+      fighting between British and German ships in Kamerun River, Africa; six
+      British ships captured by German cruiser Emden; damaged Russian warships
+      arrive at Helsingfors; Austrian torpedo boat 27 sunk at Pola; German
+      cruiser Stettin fights British warships.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 21&mdash;British steamer Clan Matheson sunk by
+      German cruiser Emden; crews of six captured vessels landed in India.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 22&mdash;British cruiser Berwick captures
+      Hamburg-American liner Spreewald and two German colliers; German
+      submarine U-9 sinks British cruisers Cressy, Aboukir, and Hogue in North
+      Sea; British steamer Belgian King sunk near Cape Kureli.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 23&mdash;Russian cruiser Bayan sinks German cruiser
+      and two torpedo boats; Germany says submarine U-9 sunk British ships
+      unaided in North Sea fight yesterday; Austrian cruisers Maria Theresia
+      and Admiral Staun damaged; trawler Kilmarnock sunk by mine.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 24&mdash;Two Austrian torpedo boats and one
+      destroyer sunk by mines in the Adriatic; Norwegian steamer Hesvik sunk in
+      North Sea; cruiser Emden bombards Madras; Anglo-French fleet again
+      bombards Cattaro.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 25&mdash;Kronprinz Wilhelm sinks British steamer
+      Indian Prince; British charge that Germans fired on Carmania after white
+      flag was raised.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 26&mdash;Fortress of Pelagosa dismantled by
+      Anglo-French fleet; British cruiser Cornwall seizes Dutch steamer with
+      coal consigned to Rio de Janeiro; French gunboat Surprise sinks two
+      German ships and seizes Coco Beach, West Africa; British capture German
+      ship Ossa and seize American ship Lorenzo and Norwegian ship Thor accused
+      of coaling German cruiser.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 28&mdash;French warship sunk at Cattaro by
+      forts.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 29&mdash;German cruiser Emden has sunk five British
+      steamers in Gulf of Bengal and has destroyed all tank steamers at Madras;
+      British warships bombard Tsing-tau forts.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 30&mdash;British cruiser Cumberland captures
+      Hamburg-American liner Arnfried and nine merchant steamers; Italian ships
+      sunk by Austrian mines.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 1&mdash;Account given out of bombardment of Windau by
+      German squadron; fighting between German and Japanese warships in
+      Kiao-Chau Harbor.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 2&mdash;British Admiralty plans to lay mines as
+      counterstroke to German policy; German cruisers shell Pape&eacute;te, capital of
+      French Island of Tahiti; French gunboat sinks German auxiliary ships
+      Rhios and Itolo; German cruiser Liepzig sinks Union oil tanker
+      Elsinore.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 3&mdash;German cruiser Karlsruhe sinks seven British
+      ships; British steamer Dawdon and Norwegian steamer Thomos sunk by mines;
+      German steamer Mark bottled up in Philippine port; Italian boat sunk by
+      Austrian mine; Japanese cruiser blown up by mine in Laoshan Bay.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 4&mdash;Anglo-French fleet bombards Cattaro and
+      destroys Lustica; Dutch steamer Nieuwland sunk by mine in North Sea; Rear
+      Admiral Troubridge recalled from Mediterranean to London to explain
+      escape of German cruisers Goeben and Breslau.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 5&mdash;Japanese capture Jaluit Island; British grain
+      ship sunk by mine near Dover; Japanese shells hit German gunboat Iltis in
+      Tsing-tau Harbor.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 6&mdash;French lay mines in Adriatic to offset
+      similar action by Austrians.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 7&mdash;British submarine sinks German destroyer off
+      mouth of River Ems; six Austrian torpedo craft reported sunk by mines in
+      the Adriatic; British trawler blown up in the North Sea.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 9&mdash;It is announced that thirty-two German
+      merchant ships were destroyed at Antwerp.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 10&mdash;Japanese warships silence Iltis forts.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 11&mdash;French fleet sinks two Austrian torpedo
+      boats.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 12&mdash;German submarine sinks Russian cruiser
+      Pallada.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 13&mdash;Russians claim that Germans lost two
+      submarines in attack on Pallada.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 14&mdash;Report denied by Germans.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 15&mdash;British cruiser Yarmouth sinks German liner
+      Markomannia.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>AERIAL RECORD.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 2&mdash;Report that French aviators have dropped
+      bombs on N&uuml;rnberg; German troops shoot down French aeroplanes near Wesel;
+      report that Garros, French aviator, wrecked German airship at Longwy;
+      French aeroplanes dispatched toward Nancy.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 3&mdash;German airships fly over Belgium.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 5&mdash;Duel between Belgian and German aviators;
+      Austrians report destruction of Russian aeroplane.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 13&mdash;German aeroplane pursued by Belgians; German
+      aviator throws bomb on Vesoul.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 15&mdash;Harmless bombs thrown by German aviators on
+      Vesoul and Lure; French aviators throw bombs on Zeppelins in Metz; five
+      men wounded in Namur by bombs thrown from German aeroplanes.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 18&mdash;Three Zeppelins wrecked by gunfire, one by
+      fall; German monoplane drops bombs on Lun&eacute;ville; German aeroplane
+      destroyed near Samno, Russia.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 19&mdash;German monoplane captured in Belgium.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 20&mdash;Pegoud's airship destroyed in flight to drop
+      bombs in Germany; Dutch capture German aeroplanes.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 23&mdash;French destroy Zeppelin.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 24&mdash;France believes five German Zeppelins are
+      out of action.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 25&mdash;Zeppelin bombs fall in Antwerp.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 29&mdash;Russians bring down Zeppelin.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 30&mdash;German aeroplane drops bombs on Paris;
+      French Embassy in Washington denies that aeroplanes bombarded
+      N&uuml;rnberg.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 31&mdash;German aeroplane drops bombs on Paris.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 1&mdash;German aeroplane drops bombs on Paris.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 2&mdash;Fight between French and German aeroplanes;
+      Zeppelin renews attack on Antwerp.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 3&mdash;German aeroplanes drop bombs on British
+      transport on the Seine and on Belfort; German aeroplane over Paris
+      destroyed, aviators killed.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 4&mdash;Three German aeroplanes wrecked by
+      French.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 9&mdash;Russian and Austrian aviators killed in
+      battle.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 12&mdash;German aviators killed in battle with
+      French near Troyes.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 14&mdash;Japanese aeroplane drops bomb in
+      Kiao-Chau.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 17&mdash;Berlin claims that no Zeppelins have been
+      destroyed.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 18&mdash;Bomb dropped on Antwerp; Japanese aviator
+      sets fire to ship in Kiao-Chau Bay.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 20&mdash;Vedrines kills German aviator; French
+      aviator Chevilliard captured by Germans.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 21&mdash;Japanese aeroplanes wreck two forts at
+      Tsing-tau.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 23&mdash;British drop bombs on Zeppelin shed at
+      D&uuml;sseldorf; London fears Zeppelin attacks and reduces lights to
+      minimum.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 24&mdash;Zeppelin drops three bombs in Belgium;
+      French capture five Taube machines from Germans; destruction of Zeppelin
+      by Russians near Sieradz.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 25&mdash;Duel between Belgian and German aviators
+      over Brussels; Zeppelin drops bombs in Ostend; London prepares to repel
+      attacks.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 26&mdash;Zeppelin raids Warsaw.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 27&mdash;Man killed and child crippled in Paris;
+      three killed in Warsaw.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 29&mdash;Zeppelin drops bombs on two Belgian
+      towns.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 30&mdash;Japanese aeroplanes attack Kiao-Chau
+      Harbor.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 1&mdash;Zeppelin drops bomb near Antwerp, but is
+      driven off.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 2&mdash;Germans report capture of thirty French
+      aeroplanes; it is learned that aviators patrolled the Straits of Dover
+      during passage of British expeditionary force; German aviators drop
+      messages to Russian troops.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 5&mdash;Searchlight tests made in London in
+      preparation for Zeppelin raids.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 6&mdash;It is announced that German airship aided in
+      sinking British cruisers; commander and crew decorated by Kaiser.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 7&mdash;London insures against damage from Zeppelin
+      raids as air fleet is prepared at Wilhelmshaven; French aviators set fire
+      to German aeroplanes.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 8&mdash;German aeroplanes drop bombs on Paris and
+      Antwerp.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 9&mdash;British air squadron destroys Zeppelin in
+      hangar at D&uuml;sseldorf.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 11&mdash;Three killed, fourteen injured from bombs
+      dropped on Paris by German aviators; Zeppelin over Ostend driven away by
+      guns; Japanese drop bombs in Tsing-tau.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 12&mdash;Six more bombs dropped on Paris.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 13&mdash;French rout German aviators near Paris.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 14&mdash;French aviator decorated for bringing down
+      German; Cossacks bring down Zeppelin near Warsaw; bombs dropped on
+      Nancy.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>AMERICAN INTERESTS.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 26&mdash;Americans are leaving Carlsbad and other
+      resorts.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 29&mdash;Tourists in Paris abandon plans to go
+      eastward; many in London take chances and go into Austria.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 31&mdash;Exodus from Geneva; war panic among American
+      tourists in Paris; President Wilson directs State Department to ask
+      Ambassador Herrick to remain at his post; many left in London as sailing
+      of the Imperator is canceled.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 1&mdash;Many demand passports in France; Americans in
+      London will organize for relief work.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 2&mdash;Americans in Paris form committee to aid
+      countrymen; refugees from Continent arrive in London; Ambassador Gerard
+      appeals for funds; State Department has no funds, but will forward
+      deposits for refugees.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 3&mdash;Bankers and Treasury Department officials
+      agree on plan for $3,500,000 gold shipment to tourists; hundreds reach
+      Paris after many hardships; fear in Berlin; both houses of Congress pass
+      bill appropriating $250,000 for relief; embassies will distribute
+      funds.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 4&mdash;Mrs. O.H. Kahn loses automobiles in France;
+      tourists unable to leave Germany; many destitute in Paris; automobiles
+      requisitioned for war; President Wilson approves plan to send $5,000,000
+      from bankers and national appropriation of $2,500,000 in gold; cruiser
+      Tennessee will carry it.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 5&mdash;Ambassador Herrick issues transports to
+      stranded in Paris; millionaires leave in cattle train for Havre;
+      Ambassador Page praises spirit of refugees; two committees in London to
+      relieve distress; cruiser Tennessee prepares to sail with relief fund;
+      Congress votes $2,500,000 appropriation; cruiser North Carolina will
+      follow with more gold if needed; Mayor Mitchel appoints relief
+      committee.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 6&mdash;Americans in London get funds from
+      Transportation Committee; many obtain certificates of American
+      citizenship in Paris; Tennessee leaves with gold; Secretary Garrison will
+      use transports rather than pay exorbitant prices to charter ships; Board
+      of Relief named to supervise distribution of funds appropriated by
+      Congress.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 7&mdash;Baroness von Andre and Anne W.N. Davis tell
+      of brutal treatment by German soldiers; Mrs. Philip Lydig tells of kind
+      treatment by French; Mrs. Herrick's American Ambulance Corps organized;
+      $100,000 sent by Treasury to Paris and $25,000 to Italy; many Americans
+      leave via Denmark; French and German railways will be open for departure
+      of Americans after mobilization is completed.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 8&mdash;A.M. Huntington and wife reported to be
+      arrested in Bavaria and held as spies; 7,000 Americans leave England;
+      committee of American and English bankers formed to administer $3,000,000
+      gold shipment; Secretary Garrison confers with Haniel von Heimhausen,
+      German Charg&eacute; d'Affaires, who says Americans will be allowed to leave
+      Germany.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 9&mdash;One thousand five hundred Americans
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'appy']">apply</ins>
+      at Paris Embassy for transports; refugees arrive on the New York; mines
+      menace relief cruisers.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 10&mdash;Mayor of Berlin and others move to care for
+      refugees in Germany; many stranded in Bermuda.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 11&mdash;Cancellation of sailing of Olympic causes
+      rush for steerage on ships leaving London; Mrs. W.H. Page heads committee
+      to look after school teachers; Secretary Bryan orders Ambassador Gerard
+      to make representations regarding Mr. and Mrs. Huntington.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 12&mdash;One thousand refugees arrive in New York, on
+      S.S. Philadelphia; Embassy in Paris arranges for relief of tourists all
+      over France; Secretary Bryan says Huntingtons are safe; refugees arrive
+      on Holland-America liner Potsdam.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 13&mdash;Ambassador Page is seeking ships that may be
+      chartered in London; army officers will aid relief work in Paris;
+      fourteen tourists reached England via Arctic Sea; Secretary Bryan warns
+      all Americans going abroad to get passports; emergency passports to be
+      issued; people in Berlin open homes to Americans; Minister Whitlock
+      reports Consulate at Li&eacute;ge exposed to fire.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 14&mdash;More than 300 Americans arrive in Rotterdam
+      from Berlin.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 15&mdash;Seven ships leave England; less need for
+      transport; German Foreign Office says Huntington was not arrested;
+      Ambassador Herrick arranges for sailings of the Espagne and the
+      Rochambeau; refugees in Rotterdam report generous treatment while in
+      Germany; Germany will provide trains to carry Americans to Bremen and
+      will let cruiser Tennessee land there; Gerard says Americans are now free
+      to leave Germany; ships leaving Italian ports.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 16&mdash;Cruisers Tennessee and North Carolina arrive
+      at Falmouth with gold.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 17&mdash;Eighteen ships that will leave England,
+      within a week can accommodate 20,000; London refugees given gold from
+      cruiser Tennessee; 5,000 stranded in Italy; Nieuw Amsterdam and Laconia
+      reach New York.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 18&mdash;Refugees from Copenhagen arrive on the
+      United States; tourists flock into Genoa; members of Mayor Mitchel's
+      Committee meet every steamer and are prepared to help the needy.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 19&mdash;Relief cruiser North Carolina reaches
+      Cherbourg with Major Hedekin; Miss Morgan's villa accepted as hospital;
+      the Tennessee held at Falmouth.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 20&mdash;Payment on funds sent on Tennessee delayed
+      in London.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 21&mdash;American Rhodes scholars help in harvesting
+      in Brittany; missionaries urge sending ship with gold to Turkey; gold
+      from the North Carolina sent to Italy.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 22&mdash;Refugees arrive on Campania, Baltic, and St.
+      Louis; Ambassador Gerard denies that Americans have been ill-treated in
+      Germany; cruiser Tennessee at Rotterdam.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 23&mdash;Refugees in London tell of kindness of
+      Austrians; the Tennessee left too little gold in England and France.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 24&mdash;Assistant Secretary Breckinridge reaches
+      Berlin with gold; Ambassador Herrick makes arrangements for Americans in
+      Switzerland.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 26&mdash;Art students in Paris in sad plight; few
+      tourists now ask aid in London; students leave German universities;
+      refugees from Italy express satisfaction with arrangements of Government
+      Relief Committee; relief bureau established at The Hague.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 27&mdash;Cruiser North Carolina sent to Turkey.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 28&mdash;German Government furnishes gold to
+      Ambassador Gerard.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 31&mdash;London again crowded with refugees; tourists
+      in Denmark safe.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 3&mdash;Turkish Government will not permit the North
+      Carolina to go to Constantinople; Americans in London help Belgian
+      refugees.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 4&mdash;Tennessee takes Americans across Channel;
+      British soldiers give up quarters for them at Havre; North Carolina
+      starts for Smyrna.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 9&mdash;Refugee aid cost $100,000 in five days in
+      London.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 10&mdash;Passports to be required of all in
+      England.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 12&mdash;Major Hedekin reports nearly all tourists
+      out of France and Switzerland.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 13&mdash;Treasury Department will receive no further
+      deposits; sailors on the Tennessee cheer British transport.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 23&mdash;Money from North Carolina reaches
+      Constantinople.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 28&mdash;Americans leaving Brussels.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 29&mdash;Tennessee ordered to Adriatic.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 10&mdash;Consul Deedmeyer says he was forced to leave
+      Chemnitz because of bad treatment from Germans.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 24&mdash;Minister at Belgrade prepares to leave.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 25&mdash;Diplomatic relations severed with Servia;
+      martial law proclaimed; Servian Gen. Putnik seized.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 26&mdash;Servian envoy dismissed; Emperor Francis
+      Joseph takes decisive part in country's action; war measures taken.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 27&mdash;Army deserters sought in Cuba.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 28&mdash;Emperor will take command at Vienna
+      headquarters; food prices raised in Vienna.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 29&mdash;Emperor sends letter to the Czar.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 30&mdash;Government may declare war on Russia;
+      newspaper correspondents expelled from Semlin; Emperor cheered in Vienna;
+      men up to 50 years of age called to service; Count Salm-Hoogstraetem says
+      Slavs in Austrian Army will be loyal.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 31&mdash;Government assures Italy that there is no
+      desire for more territory.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 1&mdash;Whole nation wants war; Government was
+      pressed by Germany to discuss matters with Russia and to localize
+      war.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 2&mdash;Cadets in military academies made
+      Lieutenants; Countess Sz&eacute;ch&eacute;nyi places palace at disposal of army.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 5&mdash;United States represents France at Vienna and
+      Austria at Paris; food prices fixed; Church permits marriages without
+      publication of bans.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 6&mdash;Russian Ambassador receives passports.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 7&mdash;Pressure brought to bear on Italy to aid.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 8&mdash;Threat to declare war on Italy; full text
+      published of ultimatum to Servia, of Servia's reply, of circular note to
+      powers, and of notes exchanged with Germany.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 10&mdash;Government acknowledges receipt of President
+      Wilson's offer of good offices.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 11&mdash;Army corps marches along Swiss border to
+      relieve Germans in Alsace; Italy demands explanation of shelling of
+      Antivari; United States will look after French interests.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 13&mdash;Troops mutiny on southern frontier; United
+      States will look after interests in England; Prince Hohenlohe arrested in
+      Canada.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 14&mdash;Currency question acute; insubordination of
+      troops; Government tells Italy British declaration of war was based upon
+      lies.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 16&mdash;Martial law, proclaimed on Italian border;
+      Consul arrested in St. Petersburg.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 18&mdash;Army mobilization accompanied by disorder
+      and mutiny.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 19&mdash;Massacre at Prague after Czech uprising.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 25&mdash;Troops massing on Italian frontier;
+      Government will join war with Japan; passports handed to Ambassador.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 27&mdash;Fortification of Vienna begun; children of
+      murdered Archduke sent to Switzerland.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 29&mdash;Country reported seething with
+      rebellion.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 30&mdash;Servians charge atrocities by retreating
+      Austrians.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 3&mdash;Troops sent to reinforce German left
+      wing.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 4&mdash;Mutiny of Czech soldiers in Vienna, many
+      shot; Gen. Bobrinsky appointed Governor of Galicia.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 5&mdash;Reports that Italians in Istria and Goerz
+      have been shot for treason without trial stirs Italy; England releases
+      Austrian ships from her ports.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 6&mdash;Year's provisions seized at Lemberg; England
+      orders Consular officers out of Egypt.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 7&mdash;Vienna makes hasty preparations for defense;
+      possibility of famine.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 8&mdash;Government appeals to Jews in Poland to
+      fight against Russia.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 10&mdash;Panic in Cracow; Archduke Frederick admits
+      loss of 120,000 men in Galicia.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 11&mdash;Berlin paper tells of agreement with
+      Germany before war started not to make peace separately.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 14&mdash;Troops admit that there have been no
+      Russian cruelties; Vienna official report claims victories.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 16&mdash;Guns taken by Russians bear initials of
+      German Emperor.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 17&mdash;Report of preliminary steps for peace with
+      Russia; all available men called to arms.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 18&mdash;Police forbid public to spread unfavorable
+      war news.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 21&mdash;Field Marshal Vodinowski executed on charge
+      of aiding Russians; Field Marshal Foreich commits suicide after being
+      cashiered for defeat.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 23&mdash;Serbs captured at Shabats to be
+      court-martialed for firing at troops.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 24&mdash;Italian frontier fortified.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 27&mdash;Cholera spreading among wounded
+      soldiers.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 2&mdash;Emperor is urged to shift Government from
+      Vienna.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 3&mdash;Alarm in Vienna over possibility of Russian
+      invasion.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 8&mdash;Panic in Hungary as Russians advance.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 9&mdash;Much distress in Vienna.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 12&mdash;Archbishop accuses Hungarian soldiers of
+      atrocities in Russian Poland.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 13&mdash;Report that eight commanders have been
+      dismissed and two have killed themselves.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 14&mdash;Austrian guns were used by Germans at
+      Antwerp.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>BELGIUM.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 29&mdash;Antwerp's trade paralyzed.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 30&mdash;Forts provisioned; export of horses and
+      vehicles prohibited.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 31&mdash;State Railway trains into Germany
+      suspended.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 1&mdash;Government buys entire wheat supply in
+      Antwerp.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug, 2&mdash;Neutrality an issue with England; German
+      Ambassador said to have promised that there will be no invasion; guards
+      mobilized at Li&eacute;ge and Namur to hold bridges; Civic Guard called out;
+      Parliament summoned.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 3&mdash;Antwerp in state of siege; King appeals to
+      King George; England will defend neutrality; frontier being
+      intrenched.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 4&mdash;King addresses Parliament; Socialist Leader
+      Vandervelde joins Cabinet.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 5&mdash;King Albert takes command of troops.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 7&mdash;King issues proclamation to army.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 8&mdash;King thanks President Poincar&eacute; for aid.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 9&mdash;Gratitude to Belgian people expressed by
+      French Academy; English and French stamps sold in Post Offices.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 10&mdash;Germans mobbed in Brussels.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 11&mdash;Government asks Holland's intentions if
+      neutrality is violated; Germany tries to negotiate for passage of her
+      army.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 13&mdash;Tribute to Belgians from Premier Asquith;
+      Government will appeal to neutrals because of alleged German atrocities;
+      German prisoners treated kindly.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 14&mdash;American Vice Consul Duras says Germans
+      underrated Belgians; fighting spirit due to inspiration of growing
+      democracy; people of Li&eacute;ge deprived of all means of communication;
+      Government feeds soldiers' children.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 15&mdash;Refugees say that Germans executed priest
+      held as hostage.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 22&mdash;France pledges aid; report that Minister
+      Whitlock offered to take Brussels under American protection at time of
+      its surrender.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 23&mdash;Report persists, but United States denies
+      that he was authorized to offer protection; panic in Ghent and Ostend;
+      German General's proclamation to Brussels; Cologne Gazette defends levy
+      on Brussels; country praised in French army bulletin.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 24&mdash;Government rejects another German plea for
+      free passage for troops; Brussels pays first installment of fine;
+      documents sent to London in support of atrocity charges against Germans;
+      Minister at Washington protests to State Department against German
+      statements of Belgium's conduct on battlefield; legation in London issues
+      note protesting against reprisals.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 25&mdash;Minister Whitlock reports to Secretary Bryan
+      that he persuaded Brussels authorities not to oppose Germans; statement
+      made by Minister in London charging German atrocities; text published of
+      communications with Germany concerning passage of troops; fugitives rush
+      to Holland.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 26&mdash;Refugees flock to Paris; Ministers of
+      foreign powers protest to Berlin against Zeppelin attack on Antwerp;
+      Foreign Minister sends protest to Washington; Baron von der Goltz made
+      military ruler in part occupied by Germans.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 27&mdash;Resolution in British Parliament for
+      expression of gratitude to Belgian heroes.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 28&mdash;Men in captured towns ordered by Germans to
+      help with harvest; Germans name hostages because of failure of Brussels
+      to pay war levy.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 29&mdash;Germany defends destruction of Louvain and
+      other repressive measures; commission to protest against atrocities may
+      not be received by President Wilson.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 30&mdash;Gen. Leman's defense of Li&eacute;ge praised by
+      German officer; Antwerp in darkness to guard against Zeppelin attacks;
+      Government's reply to Austria's declaration of war; Gen. von Stein says
+      Germany will grant no concession.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 1&mdash;Mrs. H.H. Harjes tells of German cruelties;
+      refugees must leave Antwerp because of scarcity of food; four men
+      guarantee payment of Brussels fine; Dutch artists protest to Kaiser
+      against destruction of Louvain.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 2&mdash;English residents ordered out of
+      Brussels.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 4&mdash;Namur citizens starving; officials at
+      Brussels warn citizens against giving Germans excuse for reprisals.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 5&mdash;Germans change clocks to German time; new
+      official German statement accuses citizens.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 6&mdash;American newspaper correspondents say they
+      saw no cruel acts by Germans; names announced of famous paintings ruined
+      in Louvain and of buildings lost and saved; refugees flock to London.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 7&mdash;Officers tell of German atrocities; charges
+      that Germans destroyed Dinant and shot many inhabitants.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 8&mdash;Survivors tell of attack on Namur; list of
+      fines made public imposed on Belgian cities.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 9&mdash;Mayor of Ghent sends appeal to President
+      Wilson concerning German atrocities; council of defense formed.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 10&mdash;Stories of German atrocities greatly
+      exaggerated, says Bank Director Helfferich.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 11&mdash;Gen. Leman asks King to pardon him for
+      losing Li&eacute;ge; Prince Henry of Reuss charges atrocities; Mrs. N.L. Duryee
+      describes horrors of German invasion; Gen. von Boehn replies to charges
+      of German atrocities in Aerschot; London Daily News says Termonde was
+      burned for lack of ransom; destruction in towns near Namur; lawyers and
+      Judges in Brussels refuse to adopt German customs.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 15&mdash;Foreign diplomats inspect conditions in
+      Malines.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 16&mdash;Belgian Commission, which charges German
+      atrocities, received by President Wilson.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 21&mdash;German official statement issued on
+      destruction of Louvain.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 22&mdash;Only newspapers published in Germany
+      allowed to be sold in Brussels.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 25&mdash;Nobleman charges that American and Spanish
+      investigators were deceived by Germans on sacking of Louvain.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 26&mdash;Ostend protests to President Wilson against
+      dropping of bombs by Germans; outrages against Germans charged by
+      Bethmann-Hollweg.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 4&mdash;Government issues "Gray Paper" on
+      negotiations with Germany, showing negotiations with Germany and other
+      powers concerning the war, (printed in full in <span class="pscaps">The New York Times</span> of Oct.
+      18.)</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 7&mdash;Government moved from Antwerp to Ostend; all
+      able-bodied men of Antwerp called out for defense of city.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 8&mdash;King and part of army move out of Antwerp;
+      refugees flee in great numbers to Holland and England.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 9&mdash;Government protests to neutrals against
+      monopolizing by Germans of foodstuffs in Brussels.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 10&mdash;Germans deny that there is famine in
+      Brussels; much suffering among Antwerp refugees; German coin put on same
+      basis as Belgian.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 12&mdash;Large quantities of stores fall into German
+      hands in Antwerp and many prisoners taken; refugees crowd Ostend; people
+      will be allowed to return to their homes in Antwerp.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 13&mdash;Government moves to France, and will be
+      established at Havre.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>CANADA.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 30&mdash;Halifax garrison active.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 1&mdash;Cabinet meets, will send to England offer of
+      men.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 2&mdash;Ten thousand men volunteer; Royal Naval
+      Reserve called out; fishermen will respond.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 3&mdash;Ports of Quebec and Montreal in charge of
+      military authorities; militia called to duty; reserves to sail for
+      England.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 4&mdash;Cabinet meeting; mobilization of
+      expeditionary force begins; message of appreciation from King George;
+      British and French reservists sail.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 5&mdash;Country-wide response to call for service;
+      Government buys two submarines built for Chilean Navy; Montreal port
+      guarded; German Consulate at Vancouver attacked.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 6&mdash;Austrian and German Consulates stoned in
+      Winnipeg; England accepts offer of expeditionary force; Sydney is being
+      fortified.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 7&mdash;German Consuls asked to leave country.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 9&mdash;Canada's offer of 1,000,000 bags of flour
+      accepted by England.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 10&mdash;Cruisers hunt in Atlantic for German ships;
+      ports closed; much grain goes to England.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 14&mdash;National Chapter of the Imperial Order of
+      Daughters of the Empire will equip hospital ship for Admiralty; married
+      men not accepted for service without permission of wives; cruiser Good
+      Hope arrives at Halifax; American mass meeting called in Toronto.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 15&mdash;Japanese of British Columbia want to form
+      regiment.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 17&mdash;Americans of Toronto will raise fund for
+      soldiers' families.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 18&mdash;Emergency session of Parliament opened by
+      Duke of Connaught; war vote to be $50,000,000.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 19&mdash;Parliament
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'indorses']">endorses</ins>
+      England's participation in war; speeches by Premier Borden and Sir
+      Wilfrid Laurier; women exercise veto power to prevent husbands from going
+      to war.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 21&mdash;Move in Parliament to contribute million
+      bags of flour to Belgium; all war measures passed; Bank of Montreal will
+      contribute $100,000 for patriotic purposes; two cruisers added to naval
+      force at Esquimalt.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 22&mdash;War session of Parliament ended; troops on
+      way to Quebec.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 23&mdash;Princess Patricia presents flag to Light
+      Infantry.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 25&mdash;Second army is being mobilized.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 26&mdash;Applications by letter from American
+      citizens for army service refused.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 29&mdash;All available troops to be maintained under
+      arms; Princess Patricia Light Infantry sails from Montreal.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 30&mdash;Troops delayed at Quebec.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 31&mdash;England accepts food offers from Alberta and
+      Quebec;
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'unsucccessful']">unsuccessful</ins>
+      attempt to wreck troop train near Montreal; volunteers will replace
+      Bermuda garrison.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 10&mdash;Declared that Department of Militia and
+      Defense kept secret the passage of Indian troops through the
+      Dominion.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 11&mdash;Passage of Indian troops denied; officials
+      of White Pass &amp; Yukon Railway warn Germans and Austrians not to try to
+      pass through the Yukon.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 24&mdash;Thirty-two thousand troops sail.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 28&mdash;Laurier wants French-Canadian regiment.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 30&mdash;Cadets from Royal Military College sail for
+      England.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 5&mdash;Col. Hughes. Minister of Militia, says he can
+      raise another large contingent of men; second expeditionary force is to
+      be organized.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 7&mdash;New York Staats-Zeitung barred from the
+      mails.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 8&mdash;<ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'Frist']">First</ins>
+      contingent of troops reaches Southampton.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>ENGLAND.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 24&mdash;England will side with Russia in event of
+      hostilities with Austria.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 27&mdash;Sir Edward Grey asks France, Italy, and
+      Germany to confer with England to avert general conflict.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 28&mdash;Germany refuses to accept Sir Edward Grey's
+      proposal for conference, but sends conciliatory reply; nation averse to
+      war, but will aid Allies; Home Rule strife forgotten.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 29&mdash;Report that Grey is forming new peace
+      proposals; London Times pessimistic.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 30&mdash;Unionist papers declare England must fight
+      if Germany attacks France; war preparations continue; political parties
+      declare truce; amending bill to Home Rule bill dropped; preparations in
+      Far East, at Malta, and Cape Town.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 31&mdash;Government joins France in trying to adjust
+      matters between Russia and Austria; country is calm; preparations at
+      Hongkong for hostilities.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 1&mdash;Sir Edward Grey favors throwing weight of
+      navy at once in favor of France and Russia; Lloyd George does not favor
+      participation; special meeting of Cabinet called; King George appeals to
+      Czar for peace; Cabinet in night session; Belgian neutrality an issue;
+      London Times denounces Germany.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 3&mdash;Sir Edward Grey addresses House of Commons;
+      country will defend French coast; Redmond pledges Ireland's aid.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 4&mdash;Ambassador leaves Berlin; King issues call to
+      arms and thanks colonies for their support; Government controls railways
+      and takes foreign warships building in her ports; Vice Admiral Jellicoe
+      takes command of fleet; papers in London reduced in size; people advised
+      to economize.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 5&mdash;Food prices rise; order specifying
+      contrabands of war; bill passes House of Commons to restrain movements of
+      undesirable aliens; many spies arrested; women volunteer as nurses;
+      King's message to fleet; Prince of Wales wants to fight; United States
+      will care for interests in Germany; German cable cut at Azores.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 6&mdash;House of Commons grants army increase of
+      500,000 men; royal decrees revoke prohibition against importation of arms
+      into Ireland, making trading with enemy illegal, prohibit English vessels
+      from carrying contraband of war between foreign ports, and make it high
+      treason to lend money to Germany; Asquith says "White Paper" issued by
+      Government shows how Sir Edward Grey tried to obtain peace; coast towns
+      arm; contraband of war announced.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 7&mdash;Rush of volunteers; Prince of Wales receives
+      commission in Grenadier Guards; Embassies stoned in Dresden and
+      Berlin.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 8&mdash;Parliament passes bill providing for
+      Government seizure of foodstuffs; Capt. Fox, commander of the lost
+      Amphion, given new command.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 9&mdash;More Germans arrested.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 10&mdash;Newfoundland offers men; Government
+      acknowledges receipt of President Wilson's offer of good offices.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 11&mdash;King inspects troops at Aldershot;
+      mobilization of Territorials completed; Information Bureau gives out
+      official war news; Admiralty notifies United States of planting of mines
+      in North Sea; Secretary Bryan transmits Germany's request for permission
+      to send messages through London to the United States; Admiralty says
+      Atlantic is safe, but that Germans have laid mines in North Sea.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 12&mdash;Exports of foodstuffs forbidden, no
+      Americans barred.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 14&mdash;Prisoners of War Information Bureau formed;
+      money situation improved; embassy informs Secretary Bryan of rules
+      governing aliens; Kitchener's plan for raising new army contemplates long
+      war.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 15&mdash;College men volunteer.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 16&mdash;Refugees from Berlin reach Scotland and tell
+      of abuses; J.E.  Redmond says he has rifles for Irish volunteers.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 17&mdash;Government reassures the United States that
+      Japan's activities will be limited.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 20&mdash;Troops impress French favorably.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 21&mdash;Public told to watch for notes from
+      aeroplanes; country protests against German levy of war tax on Li&eacute;ge and
+      Brussels; press asks President Wilson to try to stop violation of rules
+      of war.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 22&mdash;Admiralty says Germany violates Hague rules
+      by planting mines in North Sea; protest to United States against allowing
+      fuel to be carried to German cruisers at sea.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 23&mdash;Full text of British "White Paper" published
+      in <span class="pscaps">The New York Times</span>.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 24&mdash;First casualty list of expeditionary army
+      includes Earl of Leven and Melville.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 25&mdash;Kitchener appeals for men; probability of
+      three years' war discussed.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 26&mdash;Recruiting active; Indian Moslems loyal;
+      members of staffs in Munich complain of bad treatment by German military
+      authorities; Daily Chronicle warns against quarrel with United States on
+      contraband question; army's marching song for this war is "It's a Long
+      Way to Tipperary."</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 27&mdash;Army's pluck lauded by Gen. Joffre;
+      Parliament votes expression of admiration of Belgians.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 28&mdash;Sir John French's report on activities of
+      troops read in Parliament; Peeresses sign letter expressing devotion to
+      country.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 29&mdash;Message to Scots Grays from Russian Czar;
+      Lord Roberts says hundreds of thousands of men will be needed and assails
+      young men who go on playing games; navy congratulated by Canadian Premier
+      and Sir John French.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 30&mdash;Lord Kitchener tells of British share in
+      fighting in Belgium and France and of loss of life, but says troops have
+      been reinforced.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 1&mdash;Government asks United States to care for
+      her interests in event of war with Turkey; Anglo-American corps being
+      formed in London.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 3&mdash;Many recruits join army.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 4&mdash;Asquith, Balfour, Bonar Law, Churchill, and
+      others speak in London Guildhall, appealing for volunteers; 700 Ulster
+      volunteers enroll in one hour.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 5&mdash;Allies sign agreement that none shall make
+      peace without consent of all; official denial that dumdum bullets were
+      used; London agreement regarding contraband will be adhered to as far as
+      is practicable.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 6&mdash;Churchill announces formation of one marine
+      and two naval brigades.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept, 8&mdash;Gen. Joffre expresses thanks for army's
+      support; Kitchener's reply; five thousand recruits in one day; German
+      prisoners held in concentration camps.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 9&mdash;Government will not consent to peace
+      proposals unless Germany will acknowledge that Belgium is entitled to
+      redress; troops praised by Belgians.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 10&mdash;House of Commons votes to add 500,000 men
+      to regular army.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 12&mdash;Permission from Greece to establish naval
+      base at Lemnos; complete equipment for Territorials lacking.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 16&mdash;John Redmond calls Irish to arms.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 17&mdash;Prize courts established.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 19&mdash;Lloyd George appeals for Welsh
+      recruits.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 20&mdash;Casualty list shows many officers killed or
+      wounded.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 21&mdash;Percentage of officers in casualty lists
+      out of proportion to number of men.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 24&mdash;Censorship tightened.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 25&mdash;Admiralty publishes report on sinking of
+      three cruisers in North Sea, saying disabled ships must look after
+      themselves; shortage of rifles denied in London Spectator; Asquith and
+      Redmond appeal to Ireland for aid.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 4&mdash;Thousands of Irish enlist.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 8&mdash;Sportsmen's Battalion organized by Mrs.
+      Cunliffe Owen.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 9&mdash;Government will not allow American army and
+      navy officers to observe operations.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 11&mdash;Loss of officers is a peril.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 12&mdash;Fall of Antwerp aids recruiting; infantry
+      standard lowered to admit more men; London Morning Post condemns
+      Churchill's attempt to relieve Antwerp with small naval force.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 14&mdash;Foreign Office denies existence of secret
+      agreement with Belgium, which Germans charge is shown by documents found
+      in Brussels.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>FRANCE.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 24&mdash;Government will side with Russia in event of
+      hostilities with Austria.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 25&mdash;Paris mobs want war; President Poincar&eacute; and
+      Premier Viviani absent from France.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 26&mdash;Emergency council of Cabinet held; people
+      see hand of Germany.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 27&mdash;Government agrees to Sir Edward Grey's
+      proposal for conference to avert conflict; general impression that
+      Germany inspired Austria's act; President Poincar&eacute; hurries home; anti-war
+      demonstrations in Paris; Ambassador tries to enlist Germany's aid for
+      mediation.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 28&mdash;Army moves to frontier; Socialists protest
+      against war.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 29&mdash;Demonstration as Poincar&eacute; returns from
+      Russia; Cabinet council; business at standstill in Paris.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 30&mdash;Troops guard railroad.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 31&mdash;Answer to Germany's note about Russia;
+      Government joins with England in trying to adjust matters between Russia
+      and Austria; steamship La France taken over in service of Government.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 1&mdash;President Poincar&eacute; orders mobilization after
+      Germany asks intention of Government concerning her ultimatum to Russia;
+      Cabinet council; Delcass&eacute; becomes. War Minister; American Ambassador and
+      Consul will look after German affairs; Government promises to respect
+      Belgian neutrality unless another power violates it; German Ambassador is
+      leaving.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 2&mdash;Ambassador Cambon blames Germany for
+      conflict; state of siege declared in France and Algiers; Socialists
+      patriotic; railway communication with Germany and Belgium cut off.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 3&mdash;Berlin reports acts of hostility by French;
+      Ambassador leaves Berlin and German Ambassador leaves Paris; riots in
+      Paris.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 4&mdash;Paris newspapers reduced in size; General
+      Staff prepared for German moves; Prince Roland Bonaparte offers services;
+      Gen. Joseph Joffre leaves for frontier; statement by Premier Viviani in
+      Chamber of Deputies; war measures passed; many Americans want to fight
+      for France.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 5&mdash;War bills voted in Parliament; United States
+      represents Austria at Paris and France at Vienna; President Poincar&eacute;'s
+      address to nation; Gen. Pau will command one arm.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 6&mdash;Ambassador embraced by the Czar; Premier
+      Viviani asks women to gather crops; army under command of Gen.
+      Joffre.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 8&mdash;President Poincar&eacute; replies to King Albert's
+      message of thanks; Paris City Council changes name of Rue de Berlin to
+      Rue de Li&eacute;ge.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 9&mdash;Academy salutes Belgians; martial law
+      proclaimed.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 10&mdash;J.G. Demombynes, student, tells how Germans
+      killed French refugees on frontier; diplomatic relations with Austria
+      broken off; Government acknowledges receipt of President Wilson's offer
+      of good offices.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 13&mdash;Dr. Alexis Carrel goes to front as
+      surgeon.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 17&mdash;Garibaldi offers to raise army; Prince
+      Antoine of Orleans wants to fight for France.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 18&mdash;American volunteer corps raised in Paris;
+      severe military law enforced; Carthusian monks, who were expelled, return
+      to fight.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 19&mdash;Third reserve army raised; Gen. Joffre in
+      supreme command.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 20&mdash;Government will protest to powers against
+      German atrocities which it charges.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 21&mdash;Prefects ordered to take note of atrocities;
+      foreign volunteers mobilize in Paris; service of Anglo-American Rough
+      Riders accepted.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 22&mdash;Government charges Germans with using dumdum
+      bullets; Paris food prices low.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 23&mdash;Government protests to The Hague against use
+      of dumdum bullets by Germans; army bulletin praises Belgians; success of
+      Gen. Pau thrills people.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 26&mdash;Refugees from frontier flock to Paris;
+      American volunteers go to Rouen to enter training.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 27&mdash;Government presents affidavits to neutral
+      countries that German officer shot at Red Cross nurses.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 30&mdash;1914 reserves to be called out; Paris stores
+      food; Vice Admiral de Lapeyrere will command allied forces in
+      Mediterranean.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 2&mdash;Germans accused of setting fire to wood that
+      sheltered St.  Quentin refugees.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 3&mdash;Gen. Gallieni issues proclamation to people
+      of Paris; many leave city; Government in Bordeaux; Havre guarded.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 4&mdash;Exodus from Paris continues; sanitary
+      precautions taken.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 5&mdash;Schools of Paris closed; Cabinet takes steps
+      to send food to country districts.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 6&mdash;Gen. Joffre warns troops against premature
+      attacks in mass; siege awaited calmly; 1915 recruits called out; neutral
+      diplomats want
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'Ambasador']">Ambassador</ins>
+      Herrick to ask United States to protest against possible destruction of
+      Paris art treasures; Germans levy war taxes on captured cities.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 8&mdash;Suggestion to have art works regarded as
+      international property taken into consideration by President Wilson.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 9&mdash;Decree ordering all men exempt from service
+      because of ill-health to be reexamined; many regret flight from
+      Paris.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 10&mdash;Gens. Exelmans and Toutee wounded; military
+      authorities warn Parisians against overconfidence; intrenchments dug.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 11&mdash;President Poincar&eacute; sends message to
+      President Wilson in answer to Kaiser's charges on dumdum bullets;
+      Government commandeers all automobiles; Gen. Joffre and army
+      congratulated by President Poincar&eacute;.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 12&mdash;Road from Havre to Paris reopened, rail
+      service being resumed; fresh troops ready in Paris.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 14&mdash;Much booty has been taken from Germans;
+      Senlis laid waste.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 16&mdash;Troops accused of destroying German field
+      hospital and killing doctors.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 18&mdash;Stricter watch on spies; minors allowed to
+      enlist, with permission of mothers.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 19&mdash;Suffering in Lun&eacute;ville; statement issued by
+      Washington Embassy to show that Germany began the war.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 20&mdash;Northern France is being laid waste; Menier
+      ch&acirc;teau raided.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 21&mdash;Foreign Office sends protest to neutrals
+      against bombardment of Rheims Cathedral; Ambassador Jusserand lays
+      complaint before United States State Department.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 22&mdash;Loss in officers very heavy; their uniforms
+      may be changed; refugees return to Paris.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 23&mdash;Germans say they were compelled to bombard
+      Rheims.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 24&mdash;Germans admit aiming one shell at Rheims
+      Cathedral to drive out observers; refugees advertise in newspapers for
+      relatives.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 25&mdash;Germans again shell Rheims Cathedral;
+      formal complaint of German atrocities filed at United States State
+      Department; statement by Ambassador Jusserand.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 26&mdash;Stricter news censorship in Paris; Belgian
+      refugees aid in gathering grapes at Bordeaux.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 28&mdash;Joffre denies Rheims Cathedral was being
+      used for observatory; two German spies shot.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 30&mdash;Association of Architects expels German
+      members.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 2&mdash;French soldiers are charged by German Foreign
+      Office with torturing wounded at Orchies.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 4&mdash;German charges officially denied.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 6&mdash;German prisoners sentenced to die for
+      looting.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 7&mdash;French are charged by Germans with themselves
+      pillaging French towns, an alleged order of Gen. Joffre being quoted.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 11&mdash;Problem of caring for refugees becomes
+      serious.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 15&mdash;Learned societies plan expulsion of German
+      members.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>GERMANY.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 23&mdash;Government approves of Austria's course in
+      Servian trouble.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 25&mdash;Berlin mobs want war; Kaiser leaves Norway
+      for Berlin.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 26&mdash;War spirit in Berlin; French believe
+      Government had hand in trouble, despite explanation of Baron von Schoen;
+      Government wants Austro-Servian quarrel localized.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 27&mdash;Kaiser returns to Berlin and confers with
+      military officers; Government was warned of mobilization of entire
+      Russian Army; France still suspects that Government inspired Austria's
+      note to Servia.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 28&mdash;Socialist anti-war meetings fail.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 29&mdash;Kaiser holds naval council of war and
+      exchanges messages with the Czar.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 30&mdash;Government calls on Russia to stop
+      mobilization within twenty-four hours; three questions put to Russia;
+      panic at Saarbrucken; Cabinet meets at Potsdam; troops massing at
+      Tsing-tau.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 31&mdash;Nation put under martial law; Kaiser makes
+      speech in Berlin; "nuptials of war" of Prince Oscar and Countess von
+      Bassewitz; Reichstag summoned; Crown Prince assigned to command.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 1&mdash;Government's inquiry about France's
+      intentions concerning ultimatum to Russia causes French mobilization;
+      Kaiser signs mobilization order; Reichstag convoked; war speech by
+      Chancellor; Government pressed Austria hard for understanding with Russia
+      and tried to localize war; reserves in China go to Tsing-tau; officials
+      in South Africa hurry home.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 2&mdash;Russian Ambassador receives passport; ships
+      at sea ordered to seek neutral port; Minister von Pourtales made demands
+      upon Russian Foreign Minister three times; Albert Ballin says Kaiser
+      sought peace; martial law declared in Kiao-Chau.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 3&mdash;Rumor of invasion of Holland, but Minister
+      gives assurance that neutrality will be respected; United States will
+      protect German interests in Russia and other countries.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 4&mdash;British envoy leaves Berlin; appeal made to
+      Italy; Reichstag opens; speeches by Kaiser and by Chancellor, who
+      promises to make reparation to Luxemburg and Belgium after the war;
+      emergency measures.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 5&mdash;Russian Ambassador and staff assaulted in
+      Berlin; Embassy in St.  Petersburg wrecked; school children sent to
+      garner crops.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 7&mdash;Report that pressure was brought to bear on
+      Italy to secure aid; Kaiser's proclamation to nation; soldiers march
+      cheerfully to war; British Embassies stoned in Dresden and Berlin.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 8&mdash;Threat to declare war on Italy; Russian
+      official papers blame Germany for war; papers says Government is
+      traduced.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 9&mdash;Hermann Wendel, Socialist member of
+      Reichstag, volunteers for service in the army.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 10&mdash;Men of the Landsturm being mobilized.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 11&mdash;Anti-war riots in Berlin.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 12&mdash;Official hints that Kaiser halted attack on
+      Li&eacute;ge to prevent further loss of life; attempt on life of Crown Prince at
+      Aix-la-Chapelle; receipt of President Wilson's offer of good offices
+      acknowledged.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 13&mdash;Troops in Belgian Luxemburg said to be
+      starving; British, French, and Belgians charge cruelties by troops.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 14&mdash;Chancellor states Germany's case and calls
+      war a life-and-death struggle of the German and the Slav; report that
+      Kaiser sent personal telegrams to Belgian King demanding surrender of
+      Li&eacute;ge forts; aviators drop pamphlets over Poland urging revolt against
+      Russia.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 15&mdash;Government said to have asked Ambassador
+      Whitlock to repeat to Belgium offer of increased territory in return for
+      free passage of troops; belief that acquisition of Russian Poland is
+      sought; many members of Hohenzollern family in field; French and English
+      signs removed from shops.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 16&mdash;Prisoners well treated by French; French say
+      officers' corps is tyrannical and demoralized; Russians accused of
+      cruelty.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 17&mdash;Untrained men called to colors; Paris
+      journal reports prisoners bitter against Kaiser.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 18&mdash;Chancellor said to have called treaty
+      guaranteeing Belgian neutrality a "scrap of paper"; E.G. Treat says
+      Kaiser called the Czar an Asiatic barbarian.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 19&mdash;Speech in Reichstag shows that Socialists
+      are backing Government.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 20&mdash;Alsatian Deputies escape to France; Kaiser
+      said to be responsible for attacks on Li&eacute;ge; Government asks United
+      States to represent her in Far East in event of war with Japan.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 21&mdash;Committee of merchants works to aid trade
+      and addresses explanation of the war to Americans; French charge German
+      prisoners with robbing the dead.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 22&mdash;Japanese envoy ordered to leave Berlin;
+      American Ambassador will look after interests of Japan; dumdum bullets
+      not used by Germans, it is declared; great mortality of officers attracts
+      attention; England protests to United States against allowing fuel to be
+      carried to cruisers at sea.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 24&mdash;Full text of German "White Paper" printed in
+      <span class="pscaps">The New York Times</span>; German-Japanese Commercial Treaty will cease to be
+      effective; statements on Belgium's conduct on battlefield protested
+      against by Belgian Minister at Washington; Berlin newspapers given to
+      returning Americans to meet alleged false reports.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 25&mdash;Kaiser decorates two sons and Duke of
+      W&uuml;rttemberg for bravery; tax levied on Brabant; boys from 16 to 19 years
+      ordered to drill.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 26&mdash;Prince of Saxe-Meiningen killed at Namur;
+      food supply limitless, says Count von Bernstorff.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 27&mdash;Food prices fixed by Government.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 28&mdash;Emperor orders Ministry to care for fleeing
+      population of East Prussia; army to be sent from Alsace.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 29&mdash;Force withdrawn from Belgium to meet
+      Russians; name of Englische Strasse in Berlin changed to Deutsche
+      Strasse; Japanese State debt seized.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 31&mdash;Fourteen staff officers captives of Allies;
+      many losses have occurred in charges of massed infantry; Gen. von Stein
+      says there will be no concession to Belgium; railways again open.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 1&mdash;German officers take charge of mobilization
+      of Turkish Army; Socialist manifesto assailing the Kaiser.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 2&mdash;Casualty lists show heavy losses; new gun
+      developed by Krupp hurls powerful shell; wireless reports to Washington
+      Embassy accuse Russians of atrocities.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 4&mdash;Czar says he will take from Prussia more
+      than Kaiser gets in Belgium; Namur citizens starving.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 5&mdash;Six hundred Japanese students captured on
+      Dutch frontier; new official statement puts blame for destruction of
+      Louvain on citizens; Prince Lichnowsky goes to front; Russian refugees
+      from Germany charge cruelty.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 6&mdash;Reichstag leaders pledge nation's entire
+      strength.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 8&mdash;Professors in universities will renounce
+      distinctions conferred upon them by British universities.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 9&mdash;Attempts made to obtain Dutch sympathy;
+      Kaiser sends message to President Wilson, charging use of dumdum bullets
+      by Allies.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 10&mdash;Experts from Krupp works brought down in
+      aeroplane by Belgians.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 11&mdash;Prince Engalitcheff charges atrocities on
+      Russian border; Consular officers leave Egypt; aviators decorated by
+      Kaiser.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 12&mdash;Crown Prince appeals for tobacco for men;
+      many officers and men decorated.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 13&mdash;Gen. von Boehn's reply to Belgian charges
+      of atrocities in Aerschot.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 16&mdash;Government notifies China that Germany
+      reserves right to deal with Chinese Empire as she sees fit because of
+      breach of neutrality; placard set up in Compi&egrave;gne asserting sovereignty
+      over territories occupied.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 17&mdash;Ambassador Gerard reports peace talk with
+      Chancellor, who suggests that United States ask Allies their terms; heavy
+      losses reported.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 18&mdash;Prussian Guard Corps said to be wiped out;
+      eight army corps leave Belgium and France for eastern frontier; Crown
+      Prince appeals for clothing for soldiers.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 19&mdash;Prince August William receives the Iron
+      Cross; stories of looting in French towns; fine demanded of Lun&eacute;ville;
+      food problem acute for army in the west.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 20&mdash;Some States of empire said to resent
+      Prussia's plunging country into war.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 21&mdash;Dutch traffic along the Rhine halted;
+      soldiers' diaries show shortage of rations; discontent among Bavarian
+      troops; French find iron crosses inscribed "1814-1914."</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 22&mdash;Troops accused of atrocities in report of
+      Sir John French; Frenchwoman says artillerymen shelled hospital at
+      Etain.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 24&mdash;Fine of $600,000 exacted from Tournai,
+      Belgium, for death of one Uhaln.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 25&mdash;General Staff lists prisoners for exchange
+      and admits totals announced were erroneous; thirty-first casualty list
+      given out.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 26&mdash;Krupp works running night and day.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 27&mdash;Epidemic of typhoid among soldiers.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 28&mdash;Brussels used as intrenched camp; shortage
+      of horses.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 29&mdash;Big Krupp guns being placed on warships;
+      Winter clothing for army ordered; Rotterdam hears that soldiers are ill
+      from lack of food because commissariat broke down.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 30&mdash;Krupp guns are dubbed "Busy Berthas"; women
+      give gold ornaments in exchange for iron rings.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 4&mdash;The King of Bavaria is in command of six army
+      corps in Silesia.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 5&mdash;Losses at Antwerp shown to be heavy.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 8&mdash;Director of Berlin Royal Museum says that
+      works of art brought into Germany will not be retained.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 12&mdash;Prussia's losses estimated at 211,000;
+      officials guard Antwerp from plunderers.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 14&mdash;Notice sent to Holland that status of River
+      Scheldt will be continued as heretofore; rejoicing in Berlin over fall of
+      Antwerp.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>HOLLAND.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 30&mdash;Government declares neutrality.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 31&mdash;Mobilization of army ordered; Austrian
+      Government steamer detained for time, but released.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 2&mdash;Country may be flooded to prevent invasion;
+      fear that Germany may not respect neutrality; bill in Parliament to
+      stabilize food prices.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 3&mdash;Rumor of invasion, but German Minister
+      promises that neutrality will be respected.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 5&mdash;Reservists in America summoned.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 6&mdash;Neutrality in Anglo-German and Belgo-German
+      wars declared.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 8&mdash;Frontier guarded.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 9&mdash;Uhlans captured and disarmed at
+      Maastricht.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 10&mdash;Queen Wilhelmina suggests formation of
+      committee to aid the needy.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 11&mdash;Martial law in several provinces.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 13&mdash;Troops massed on frontier; some districts
+      flooded.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 15&mdash;Queen orders Court festivities canceled.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 16&mdash;Paralysis of trade in Rotterdam will render
+      thousands destitute.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 18&mdash;Everything ready to flood frontier if
+      Germany strikes.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 20&mdash;Food supply causes anxiety; patrols capture
+      German aeroplane.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 21&mdash;Country prepared against invasion; soldiers
+      fire on Zeppelin using searchlight; declaration of neutrality renewed;
+      bakers making bread from potatoes; people of Tongres flee from
+      Germans.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 23&mdash;Minister of Industry and Commerce assures
+      England that goods will not be improperly supplied to Germany.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 25&mdash;Mobilization ceased.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 29&mdash;Southern frontier under martial law.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 9&mdash;Germans want people's sympathy; some places
+      put in state of siege; rice substituted for wheat flour.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 15&mdash;Artists protest to German Emperor against
+      destruction of Louvain.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 26&mdash;Martial law on eastern frontier to stop
+      smuggling of goods into Germany.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 2&mdash;Neutrality is being maintained at great cost;
+      trade is paralyzed.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 3&mdash;Severe embargo on foodstuffs.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 7&mdash;Amsterdam fixes price of wheat.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>INDIA.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 15&mdash;Mass meetings in Calcutta and Bombay to
+      voice people's loyalty to England.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 26&mdash;Moslems still loyal to England.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 28&mdash;Troops will be sent to France.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 9&mdash;Men and money offered to England; message
+      from Viceroy read in House of Commons.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 14&mdash;German tale of revolution denied; loyalty
+      reported by British Foreign Office.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 15&mdash;Mussulmans in Russia support declaration of
+      loyalty to England.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 21&mdash;Aga Khan, leader of Mohammedans, offers to
+      enlist; potentates eager to serve.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 24&mdash;Preparations for comfort of soldiers being
+      made in England.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 1&mdash;Troops land in France; message to them from
+      King George.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 2&mdash;Great welcome given to troops at
+      Marseilles.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>ITALY.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 24&mdash;Country will simply safeguard her interests
+      in the Balkans and on the Adriatic; appeal made to other countries to be
+      conciliatory.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 25&mdash;No disposition to espouse Austria's
+      cause.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 26&mdash;Government looks to England to prevent
+      war.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 28&mdash;Concentration of the first and second naval
+      squadrons ordered at Gaeta; warships on the Clyde ordered home.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 31&mdash;Government assured that Austria is not
+      seeking more territory.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 1&mdash;Government informs Germany of neutrality and
+      says obligations under Triple Alliance apply only to defensive war.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 2&mdash;Cabinet ratifies declaration of neutrality;
+      Government orders all Bourses closed.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 3&mdash;Fleet assembles in Far East; neutrality
+      formally proclaimed, but reserves are called to colors.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 5&mdash;Report of German ultimatum to Italy; war may
+      be declared on Austria.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 6&mdash;Ambassador to London justifies attitude of
+      neutrality.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 7&mdash;Germany and Austria bring strong pressure to
+      bear to obtain aid.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 8&mdash;Germany and Austria threaten war; King said
+      to be indignant at reported offer of colonies in return for aid.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 13&mdash;Alpine passes and northern frontier
+      guarded.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 14&mdash;Government aroused by report that Turkey has
+      purchased two German cruisers.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 16&mdash;Strong feeling in favor of England.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 19&mdash;Refugees from Germany complain, of
+      outrages.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 21&mdash;Prefects vote against joining with
+      Germany.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 24&mdash;German Ambassador's efforts fail to persuade
+      press to advocate intervention; Allies are pressing Italy.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 31&mdash;Romans leave cards at Belgian Legation to
+      show sympathy over Louvain.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 7&mdash;Socialist Reform Party
+      <ins class="correction" title="[Transcriber: original 'indorses']">endorses</ins>
+      neutrality.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 13&mdash;Populace of Rome cheers for France.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 14&mdash;Radicals favor war; anti-Austrian
+      demonstration in Rome.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 16&mdash;Rioters in large cities demand aid to
+      Allies.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept, 20&mdash;More than 500,000 men are under arms.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 21&mdash;Damage to Rheims Cathedral arouses sympathy
+      for France; British Embassy in Rome cheered.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 22&mdash;Thousands offer to enlist in British
+      Army.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 30&mdash;Gabriele d'Annunzio urges country to join
+      Allies.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>JAPAN.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 30&mdash;Alliance with England may involve Government
+      in war in case of attack on British warships.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 1&mdash;Navy prepared.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 2&mdash;Emperor summons Council and asks War Minister
+      to report on condition of army; warships get ready.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 4&mdash;Proclamation prepares people for war on
+      behalf of England.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 5&mdash;Count Okuma says Japan would have liked to
+      join the United States in mediation offer.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 7&mdash;Warships off Tsing-tau; reserve army officers
+      told to be ready; navy squadrons organized.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 11&mdash;Army aboard transports.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 12&mdash;Telegraphic communication with Europe
+      interrupted; Ambassador confers with Russian Foreign Minister.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 17&mdash;Official announcement in London that
+      Japanese operations will be confined to China Sea and to protection;
+      ultimatum to Germany made with concurrence of England.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 18&mdash;Count Okuma emphasizes war limitation and
+      England reassures the United States; ultimatum to Germany was not
+      inspired by England.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 20&mdash;Count Okuma denies that Government has
+      territorial ambitions.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 21&mdash;United States sends formal declaration of
+      policy bearing on ultimatum.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 5&mdash;Baron Kato makes speech in Diet outlining
+      events leading up to war with Germany and break with Austria, and
+      thanking United States for good offices.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 10&mdash;Government tells Russia that no peace will
+      be concluded until Allies consent.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 15&mdash;Papers controlled by Germans ordered
+      suppressed.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 26&mdash;Charges of misconduct on part of troops in
+      China denied at Washington Embassy.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 5&mdash;Assurance given to China that Shantung
+      Railroad will only be used temporarily.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 7&mdash;Ambassador Guthrie and embassy at Washington
+      assure State Department that taking of Jaluit Island is only a temporary
+      move.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 15&mdash;England tells China that she cannot
+      interfere with the occupation of railroad.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>RUSSIA.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 21&mdash;Belief that Government will aid Servia in
+      possible conflict with Austria.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 24&mdash;Cabinet meets; Government will ask Austria
+      to extend time allowed for Servia's answer to ultimatum.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 25&mdash;Army is mobilizing.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 26&mdash;Warning to Germany against invasion of
+      Servia; army manoeuvres countermanded, but Government still hopes for
+      peace.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 27&mdash;Czar warns Germany of general mobilization
+      of army.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 28&mdash;Force masses on eastern border; lights along
+      Black Sea coast ordered extinguished.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 29&mdash;Intervention imminent; prayers for Serb
+      victory; Baltic lights out; Czar summons reservists.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 30&mdash;Germany demands halting of mobilization
+      within twenty-four hours and sends Grand Duke of Hesse to urge peace; war
+      activity in Warsaw; railroads taken over.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 31&mdash;Railway bridge on Vienna-Warsaw line blown
+      up; no reply sent to German note; mobilization order.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 3&mdash;Czar issues statement outlining events
+      leading up to war.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 8&mdash;Czar addresses Duma and Council of Empire;
+      Duma pledges people to country's defense.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 9&mdash;Minister Sazonof, in speech before Duma,
+      blames Austria for war.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 10&mdash;Government acknowledges receipt of President
+      Wilson's offer of good offices.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 14&mdash;Army works in secret, 5,500,000 men
+      mobilized; Poles support Russia.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 15&mdash;Home rule promised to Poland after war if
+      people remain loyal.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 16&mdash;Poles enthusiastic over promise of
+      autonomy.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 17&mdash;Unrestricted use of Dardanelles demanded of
+      Turkey.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 18&mdash;Many Poles join army.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 24&mdash;Finns loyal.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 27&mdash;Poles loyal; St. Petersburg well supplied
+      with food.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 1&mdash;Name of St. Petersburg changed to Petrograd;
+      other cities with German names would have them Russianized; Germany
+      charges atrocities in East Prussia.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 3&mdash;Report that soldiers have been sent to
+      Belgium through Scotland.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 4&mdash;Gen. Bobrinsky appointed Governor of
+      Galicia.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 6&mdash;Year's provisions seized at Lemberg, which
+      is to be called Lvov.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 12&mdash;Prisoners are proving a problem.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 14&mdash;British Press Bureau denies that troops
+      have landed in Belgium or France.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 16&mdash;Proclamation issued to captured Austrian
+      districts.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 21&mdash;"Orange Book" shows Government's
+      negotiations in cause of peace.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 27&mdash;Full text of "Orange Book" printed in <span class="pscaps">The
+         New York Times</span>.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 28&mdash;Soldiers occupy Tilsit estate of German
+      Emperor; war fund presented to Czar by Petrograd bankers.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 8&mdash;Lemberg made a province.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 15&mdash;Refugees are a serious problem in
+      Warsaw.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>SERVIA.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 25&mdash;Parliament will meet in special session;
+      King Peter moves capital from Belgrade to Kraguyavatz.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 26&mdash;Army mobilizing; Crown Prince will command
+      it; panic in Belgrade as people flee.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 28&mdash;King Peter goes to Nish.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 4&mdash;Sending of press dispatches forbidden.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 8&mdash;Full text given out of Austria's ultimatum
+      and of reply.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 19&mdash;Government will conclude peace with Austria
+      only by acting with Triple Entente.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>RESERVISTS.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 26&mdash;Ambassador Dumba tells Consuls to warn
+      Austrian reservists to prepare to return for service; Serbs in New York
+      ready to sail.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 27&mdash;Austrians await call.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 28&mdash;Chicago Serbs anxious to return home.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 29&mdash;Reservists ordered to return to Austria;
+      Servians in Indiana ordered to await call.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">July 30&mdash;Servians in New York prepare to sail;
+      Giuseppe Garibaldi will fight for Servia if Italy remains neutral.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 1&mdash;Mass meeting of Slavs in Central Opera House,
+      New York City; Dr.  Winter issues proclamation for general mobilization
+      of Austrians in New York district.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 2&mdash;Swiss called to colors; Germany and France
+      recall all military reserves; England sends for naval reserves.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 4&mdash;Many flock to consulates; Servians fight to
+      sail on Greek ship; French and British reservists leave Canada;
+      Austro-Hungarian Military Benevolent Society formed in New York; hotels
+      affected by leaving of French chefs.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 5&mdash;Canadians respond to call; 2,000 Frenchmen
+      sail on La Lorraine.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 6&mdash;Attempt to ship Austrians, Hungarians and
+      Germans given up; English and French to go; many leave destitute
+      families.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 7&mdash;Reservists will go as individuals, not as
+      organized parties, by order of Department of Commerce.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 15&mdash;Many Frenchmen sail on the Rochambeau; Dutch
+      and Germans on the Potsdam; Secretary Bryan says men in America cannot be
+      forced to join foreign armies.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 22&mdash;British ordered to be ready for call to
+      colors.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 25&mdash;German and Austrian reservists on the
+      Potsdam taken prisoners at Falmouth, England.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 31&mdash;British vessels take Austrian and German
+      reservists from two Pacific Mail liners near Hongkong.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 5&mdash;German reservists from Holland-America liner
+      Nieuw Amsterdam held prisoners by France; French reservists sail on the
+      Espagne; Germans from Puerto Colombia reach New York.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 9&mdash;British cruiser captures the Noordam and
+      makes German reservists prisoners.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 25&mdash;Germans taken from Holland-America liner
+      Absteldyk by British.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>RELIEF WORK.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 1&mdash;Hungarians form committee to aid New York
+      families.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 2&mdash;Austrian headquarters established in New York
+      City.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 6&mdash;Prince of Wales starts fund.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 7&mdash;American women of title in England start
+      fund; American Ambulance Corps organized in Paris by Mrs. Herrick.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 8&mdash;Committee of American women formed in London
+      to aid sufferers; gift from Mrs. Whitelaw Reid and many other
+      contributions; Belgians in New York form relief committee; French fund
+      started in New York.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 10&mdash;French-Belgian relief fund started in New
+      York.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 11&mdash;Ambassador Herrick asks Red Cross to send
+      hospital supplies to Paris.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 12&mdash;Duchess of Sutherland is at head of French
+      Red Cross work in Brussels.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 13&mdash;Rothschilds give $200,000 to French
+      fund.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 14&mdash;Prince of Wales fund reaches $5,000,000.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 15&mdash;English nurses arrive in Brussels; Germans
+      in New York start fund.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 17&mdash;Servian societies aid Servian Red Cross.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 21&mdash;Relief fund started in New York by German
+      Historical Society, which gives iron ring as souvenir to
+      contributors.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 24&mdash;Ex-Empress Eugenie contributes to French
+      fund.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 27&mdash;Noblemen in England offer homes to Red
+      Cross.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Aug. 31&mdash;Appeal for aid in equipment of American
+      Hospital in Paris.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 1&mdash;British War Office accepts Oldway House
+      equipped as hospital by American women; large contributions in
+      London.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 7&mdash;American ambulance corps first on field near
+      Paris.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 8&mdash;Mrs. W.E. Corey places ch&acirc;teau in France at
+      the disposal of the Red Cross.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 12&mdash;Hanotaux issues appeal for French refugees;
+      Duchess of Marlborough to aid servants out of work; Duchess of
+      Westminster a nurse.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 13&mdash;Briand thanks American women for care of
+      wounded in Paris; Ambassador Jusserand will forward money for French Red
+      Cross.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 14&mdash;Chinese send Red Cross men to aid Japanese
+      and Germans at Kiao-Chau; American Red Cross steamship Red Cross sails
+      from New York.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 15&mdash;Work of rich American women praised by
+      French Socialist organ; Mrs. Penfield organizes corps of Red Cross
+      workers in Vienna; Prince of Wales fund increased by soccer teams.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 17&mdash;Babies and Mothers' League formed in
+      London.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 19&mdash;Committee of Mercy formed in New York
+      City.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 20&mdash;Belgian Legation in Washington plans aid
+      for women and children.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 23&mdash;Lady Paget appeals to American women for
+      socks.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 25&mdash;American Women's Fund in London gives six
+      motor ambulances; home of Mr. and Mrs. C.M. Depew on the Oise used for
+      hospital.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 28&mdash;Appeal for Belgian relief addressed to
+      Canada repeated to United States.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 29&mdash;England generous in offering homes to
+      Belgian refugees.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 30&mdash;Duchess of Marlborough to act for Committee
+      of Mercy in Great Britain.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 5&mdash;Prince of Wales fund reaches $15,000,000.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 8&mdash;Mrs. J.P. Morgan on shipboard knits socks for
+      soldiers; praise is given to the work done by the American Ambulance
+      Hospital in Paris under Dr. J.A. Blake.</p>
+
+
+      <h3>PEACE AND MEDIATION.</h3>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 7&mdash;Germany reported ready for peace; Oscar
+      Straus and diplomats confer with Secretary Bryan.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 8&mdash;Secretary Bryan and Ambassador Spring-Rice
+      deny peace proposals.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 10&mdash;Bankers' peace movement afoot; German banks
+      feel strain; Pope issues appeal.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 11&mdash;Apostolic Delegate in Washington has
+      mission on mediation to President Wilson; opinion in England that peace
+      moves must wait.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 12&mdash;Kaiser has received informal inquiry from
+      United States Government; Allies will unite in demanding compensation for
+      Belgium.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 17&mdash;Report of preliminary steps for peace
+      between Austria and Russia; Ambassador Gerard reports conversation with
+      German Chancellor, suggesting that Allies state terms.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 18&mdash;England denies that Germany and Austria
+      have made peace proposals; Gerard's message will probably be sent to
+      Allies, but United States will make no further move at present; President
+      Wilson receives appeal from women of all nations and from General
+      Conference of Friends.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 19&mdash;Ambassador Gerard's message has not been
+      forwarded to any embassy; National Peace Council in England thanks
+      President Wilson for mediation offer.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 21&mdash;President Wilson believes time has not come
+      to move for peace; he receives appeal from suffragists.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 23&mdash;Ambassador von Bernstorff denies that
+      German Government initiated peace propositions.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Sept. 26&mdash;Churches start peace campaigns to further
+      efforts made by President Wilson.</p>
+
+      <p class="noindent">Oct. 4&mdash;Prayers for peace held in churches throughout
+      United States in accordance with request in proclamation by President
+      Wilson.</p>
+
+
+      <div class="poem">
+         <div class="title">The Men of the Emden.</div>
+         <div class="author">By Thomas R. Ybarra.</div>
+         <div class="stanza">
+            <div>What matter if you</div>
+            <div class="i1">Be stanch and true</div>
+            <div>To the British blood in the veins of you,</div>
+            <div>When it's "hip hurrah!" for a deed well done,</div>
+            <div>For a fight well fought and a race well run&mdash;</div>
+            <div class="i1">What matter if you be true?</div>
+            <div class="i1">Hats off to the Emden's crew!</div>
+         </div>
+         <div class="stanza">
+            <div>Theirs was the life of the storm-god's folk,</div>
+            <div class="i1">Uncounted miles from the Fatherland,</div>
+            <div>With a foe beneath every wisp of smoke,</div>
+            <div class="i1">And a menace in every strip of strand.</div>
+            <div>Up, glasses! Paul Jones was but one of these,</div>
+            <div class="i1">Hull, Bainbridge, Decatur, their brothers, too!</div>
+            <div class="i2">(Ha! those pirate nights</div>
+            <div class="i3">In a ring of foes,</div>
+            <div class="i2">When you douse your lights</div>
+            <div class="i3">And drive home your blows!)</div>
+            <div class="i4">Hats off to the Emden's crew!</div>
+         </div>
+         <div class="stanza">
+            <div>Erect on the wave-washed decks stood they</div>
+            <div class="i1">And heard with a Viking's grim delight</div>
+            <div>The whirr of the wings of death by day</div>
+            <div class="i1">And the voice of death in their dreams by night!</div>
+            <div>Under the sweep of the wings of death,</div>
+            <div>By the blazing gun, in the tempest's breath,</div>
+            <div class="i1">While a world of enemies strove and fumed,</div>
+            <div class="i1">Remote, unaided, undaunted, doomed,</div>
+            <div>They stood&mdash;is there any, friend or foe,</div>
+            <div class="i1">Who will choke a cheer?&mdash;who can still but scoff?</div>
+            <div class="i2">No, no, by the gods of valor, no!</div>
+            <div class="i3">To the Emden's crew&mdash;</div>
+            <div class="i10">Hats off!</div>
+         </div>
+      </div>
+
+      <p class="noindent">FOOTNOTE:</p>
+
+      <div class="note">
+      <a name="FootnoteA"></a>
+      <a href="#FNanchorA">[A]</a>
+      The second installment of this chronology, recording events
+      to and including Jan. 7, 1915, will appear in the next issue. The
+      chronology will then be continued in each succeeding issue.
+      </div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The New York Times Current History of
+the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW YORK TIMES CURRENT ***
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+   </body>
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+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,14870 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The New York Times Current History of the
+European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: July 27, 2005 [EBook #16363]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW YORK TIMES CURRENT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, James LaTondre and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+     [Transcriber: The original document contained a number of errors.
+     Obvious spelling mistakes have been corrected and a notation
+     included for each. There were three places with missing text that
+     have also been annotated. In addition, there were also a number of
+     inconsistencies in spelling (ex. Perceval Gibbon vs. Percival
+     Gibbon; Rennekampf vs. Rennenkampf) which have not been changed or
+     noted given the desire not to introduce unintentional errors.]
+
+
+[Illustration: FIELD MARSHAL SIR JOHN FRENCH
+Commanding the British Forces in France and Belgium
+(_From Painting by John St. Helier Lander._)]
+
+[Illustration: GEN. SIR HORACE SMITH-DORRIEN
+One of the British Corps Commanders
+(_From Painting by John St Helier Lander._)]
+
+
+
+
+THE NEW YORK TIMES
+
+CURRENT HISTORY OF THE EUROPEAN WAR
+
+JANUARY 23, 1915.
+
+
+
+
+Sir John French's Own Story
+
+The Famous Dispatches of the British Commander in Chief to Lord
+Kitchener, Secretary of State for War.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+*First Report from the Front*
+
+
+7th September, 1914.
+
+My lord: I have the honor to report the proceedings of the field force
+under my command up to the time of rendering this dispatch.
+
+1. The transport of the troops from England both by sea and by rail was
+effected in the best order and without a check. Each unit arrived at its
+destination in this country well within the scheduled time.
+
+The concentration was practically complete on the evening of Friday, the
+21st ultimo, and I was able to make dispositions to move the force
+during Saturday, the 22d, to positions I considered most favorable from
+which to commence operations which the French Commander in Chief, Gen.
+Joffre, requested me to undertake in pursuance of his plans in
+prosecution of the campaign.
+
+The line taken up extended along the line of the canal from Conde on the
+west, through Mons and Binche on the east. This line was taken up as
+follows:
+
+From Conde to Mons inclusive was assigned to the Second Corps, and to
+the right of the Second Corps from Mons the First Corps was posted. The
+Fifth Cavalry Brigade was placed at Binche.
+
+In the absence of my Third Army Corps I desired to keep the cavalry
+division as much as possible as a reserve to act on my outer flank, or
+move in support of any threatened part of the line. The forward
+reconnoissance was intrusted to Brig. Gen. Sir Philip Chetwode with the
+Fifth Cavalry Brigade, but I directed Gen. Allenby to send forward a few
+squadrons to assist in this work.
+
+During the 22d and 23d these advanced squadrons did some excellent work,
+some of them penetrating as far as Soignies, and several encounters took
+place in which our troops showed to great advantage.
+
+2. At 6 A.M., on Aug. 23, I assembled the commanders of the First and
+Second Corps and cavalry division at a point close to the position and
+explained the general situation of the Allies, and what I understood to
+be Gen. Joffre's plan. I discussed with them at some length the
+immediate situation in front of us.
+
+From information I received from French Headquarters I understood that
+little more than one, or at most two, of the enemy's army corps, with
+perhaps one cavalry division, were in front of my position; and I was
+aware of no attempted outflanking movement by the enemy. I was confirmed
+in this opinion by the fact that my patrols encountered no undue
+opposition in their reconnoitring operations. The observations of my
+aeroplanes seemed also to bear out this estimate.
+
+About 3 P.M. on Sunday, the 23d, reports began coming in to the effect
+that the enemy was commencing an attack on the Mons line, apparently in
+some strength, but that the right of the position from Mons and Bray was
+being particularly threatened.
+
+The commander of the First Corps had pushed his flank back to some high
+ground south of Bray, and the Fifth Cavalry Brigade evacuated Binche,
+moving slightly south; the enemy thereupon occupied Binche.
+
+The right of the Third Division, under Gen. Hamilton, was at Mons, which
+formed a somewhat dangerous salient; and I directed the commander of the
+Second Corps to be careful not to keep the troops on this salient too
+long, but, if threatened seriously, to draw back the centre behind Mons.
+This was done before dark. In the meantime, about 5 P.M., I received a
+most unexpected message from Gen. Joffre by telegraph, telling me that
+at least three German corps, viz., a reserve corps, the Fourth Corps and
+the Ninth Corps, were moving on my position in front, and that the
+Second Corps was engaged in a turning movement from the direction of
+Tournay. He also informed me that the two reserve French divisions and
+the Fifth French Army on my right were retiring, the Germans having on
+the previous day gained possession of the passages of the Sambre
+between Charleroi and Namur.
+
+3. In view of the possibility of my being driven from the Mons position,
+I had previously [Transcriber: original 'previouly'] ordered a position
+in rear to be reconnoitred. This position rested on the fortress of
+Maubeuge on the right and extended west to Jenlain, southeast of
+Valenciennes, on the left. The position was reported difficult to hold,
+because standing crops and buildings made the siting of trenches very
+difficult and limited the field of fire in many important localities. It
+nevertheless afforded a few good artillery positions.
+
+When the news of the retirement of the French and the heavy German
+threatening on my front reached me, I endeavored to confirm it by
+aeroplane [Transcriber: original 'areoplane'] reconnoissance; and as a
+result of this I determined to effect a retirement to the Maubeuge
+position at daybreak on the 24th.
+
+A certain amount of fighting continued along the whole line throughout
+the night and at daybreak on the 24th the Second Division from the
+neighborhood of Harmignies made a powerful demonstration as if to retake
+Binche. This was supported by the artillery of both the First and Second
+Divisions, while the First Division took up a supporting position in the
+neighborhood of Peissant. Under cover of this demonstration the Second
+Corps retired on the line Dour-Quarouble-Frameries. The Third Division
+on the right of the corps suffered considerable loss in this operation
+from the enemy, who had retaken Mons.
+
+The Second Corps halted on this line, where they partially intrenched
+themselves, enabling Sir Douglas Haig with the First Corps gradually to
+withdraw to the new position; and he effected this without much further
+loss, reaching the line Bavai-Maubeuge about 7 P.M. Toward midday the
+enemy appeared to be directing his principal effort against our left.
+
+I had previously ordered Gen. Allenby with the cavalry to act vigorously
+in advance of my left front and endeavor to take the pressure off.
+
+About 7:30 A.M. Gen. Allenby received a message from Sir Charles
+Fergusson, commanding the Fifth Division, saying that he was very hard
+pressed and in urgent need of support. On receipt of this message Gen.
+Allenby drew in the cavalry and endeavored to bring direct support to
+the Fifth Division.
+
+During the course of this operation Gen. De Lisle, of the Second Cavalry
+Brigade, thought he saw a good opportunity to paralyze the further
+advance of the enemy's infantry by making a mounted attack on his flank.
+He formed up and advanced for this purpose, but was held up by wire
+about 500 yards from his objective, and the Ninth Lancers and the
+Eighteenth Hussars suffered severely in the retirement of the brigade.
+
+The Nineteenth Infantry Brigade, which had been guarding the line of
+communications, was brought up by rail to Valenciennes on the 22d and
+23d. On the morning of the 24th they were moved out to a position south
+of Quarouble to support the left flank of the Second Corps.
+
+With the assistance of the cavalry Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien was enabled
+to effect his retreat to a new position; although, having two corps of
+the enemy on his front and one threatening his flank, he suffered great
+losses in doing so.
+
+At nightfall the position was occupied by the Second Corps to the west
+of Bavai, the First Corps to the right. The right was protected by the
+fortress of Maubeuge, the left by the Nineteenth Brigade in position
+between Jenlain and Bry, and the cavalry on the outer flank.
+
+4. The French were still retiring, and I had no support except such as
+was afforded by the Fortress of Maubeuge; and the determined attempts of
+the enemy to get round my left flank assured me that it was his
+intention to hem me against that place and surround me. I felt that not
+a moment must be lost in retiring to another position.
+
+I had every reason to believe that the enemy's forces were somewhat
+exhausted and I knew that they had suffered heavy losses. I hoped,
+therefore, that his pursuit would not be too vigorous to prevent me
+effecting my object.
+
+The operation, however, was full of danger and difficulty, not only
+owing to the very superior force in my front, but also to the exhaustion
+of the troops.
+
+The retirement was recommenced in the early morning of the 25th to a
+position in the neighborhood of Le Cateau, and rearguards were ordered
+to be clear of the Maubeuge-Bavai-Eth Road by 5:30 A.M.
+
+Two cavalry brigades, with the divisional cavalry of the Second Corps,
+covered the movement of the Second Corps. The remainder of the cavalry
+division, with the Nineteenth Brigade, the whole under the command of
+Gen. Allenby, covered the west flank.
+
+The Fourth Division commenced its detrainment at Le Cateau on Sunday,
+the 23d, and by the morning of the 25th eleven battalions and a brigade
+of artillery with divisional staff were available for service.
+
+I ordered Gen. Snow to move out to take up a position with his right
+south of Solesmes, his left resting on the Cambrai-Le Cateau Road south
+of La Chaprie. In this position the division rendered great help to the
+effective retirement of the Second and First Corps to the new position.
+
+Although the troops had been ordered to occupy the Cambrai-Le
+Cateau-Landrecies position, and the ground had, during the 25th, been
+partially prepared and intrenched, I had grave doubts--owing to the
+information I had received as to the accumulating strength of the enemy
+against me--as to the wisdom of standing there to fight.
+
+Having regard to the continued retirement of the French on my right, my
+exposed left flank, the tendency of the enemy's western corps (II.) to
+envelop me, and, more than all, the exhausted condition of the troops, I
+determined to make a great effort to continue the retreat till I could
+put some substantial obstacle, such as the Somme or the Oise, between my
+troops and the enemy, and afford the former some opportunity of rest and
+reorganization. Orders were, therefore, sent to the corps commanders to
+continue their retreat as soon as they possibly could toward the general
+line Vermand-St. Quentin-Ribemont.
+
+The cavalry, under Gen. Allenby, were ordered to cover the retirement.
+
+Throughout the 25th and far into the evening, the First Corps continued
+its march on Landrecies, following the road along the eastern border of
+the Foret de Mormal, and arrived at Landrecies about 10 o'clock. I had
+intended that the corps should come further west so as to fill up the
+gap between Le Cateau and Landrecies, but the men were exhausted and
+could not get further in without rest.
+
+The enemy, however, would not allow them this rest, and about 9:30 P.M.
+a report was received that the Fourth Guards Brigade in Landrecies was
+heavily attacked by troops of the Ninth German Army Corps, who were
+coming through the forest on the north of the town. This brigade fought
+most gallantly, and caused the enemy to suffer tremendous loss in
+issuing from the forest into the narrow streets of the town. This loss
+has been estimated from reliable sources at from 700 to 1,000. At the
+same time information reached me from Sir Douglas Haig that his First
+Division was also heavily engaged south and east of Maroilles. I sent
+urgent messages to the commander of the two French reserve divisions on
+my right to come up to the assistance of the First Corps, which they
+eventually did. Partly owing to this assistance, but mainly to the
+skillful manner in which Sir Douglas Haig extricated his corps from an
+exceptionally difficult position in the darkness of the night, they were
+able at dawn to resume their march south toward Wassigny on Guise.
+
+By about 6 P.M. the Second Corps had got into position with their right
+on Le Cateau, their left in the neighborhood of Caudry, and the line of
+defense was continued thence by the Fourth Division toward Seranvillers,
+the left being thrown back.
+
+During the fighting on the 24th and 25th the cavalry became a good deal
+scattered, but by the early morning of the 26th Gen, Allenby had
+succeeded in concentrating two brigades to the south of Cambrai.
+
+The Fourth Division was placed under the orders of the general officer
+commanding the Second Army Corps.
+
+On the 24th the French cavalry corps, consisting of three divisions
+under Gen. Sordet, had been in billets north of Avesnes. On my way back
+from Bavai, which was my "Poste de Commandement" during the fighting of
+the 23d and 24th, I visited Gen. Sordet, and earnestly requested his
+co-operation and support. He promised to obtain sanction from his army
+commander to act on my left flank, but said that his horses were too
+tired to move before the next day. Although he rendered me valuable
+assistance later on in the course of the retirement, he was unable for
+the reasons given to afford me any support on the most critical day of
+all, viz., the 26th.
+
+At daybreak it became apparent that the enemy was throwing the bulk of
+his strength against the left of the position occupied by the Second
+Corps and the Fourth Division.
+
+At this time the guns of four German army corps were in position against
+them, and Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien reported to me that he judged it
+impossible to continue his retirement at daybreak (as ordered) in face
+of such an attack.
+
+I sent him orders to use his utmost endeavors to break off the action
+and retire at the earliest possible moment, as it was impossible for me
+to send him any support, the First Corps being at the moment incapable
+of movement.
+
+The French cavalry corps, under Gen. Sordet, was coming up on our left
+rear early in the morning, and I sent an urgent message to him to do his
+utmost to come up and support the retirement of my left flank; but owing
+to the fatigue of his horses he found himself unable to intervene in any
+way.
+
+There had been no time to intrench the position properly, but the troops
+showed a magnificent front to the terrible fire which confronted them.
+
+The artillery, although outmatched by at least four to one, made a
+splendid fight, and inflicted heavy losses on their opponents.
+
+[Illustration: Map 1.--Showing the early stages of the retreat from
+Mons, Aug. 22 to Sept. 1.]
+
+At length it became apparent that, if complete annihilation was to be
+avoided, a retirement must be attempted; and the order was given to
+commence it about 3:30 P.M. The movement was covered with the most
+devoted intrepidity and determination by the artillery, which had itself
+suffered heavily, and the fine work done by the cavalry in the further
+retreat from the position assisted materially in the final completion of
+this most difficult and dangerous operation.
+
+Fortunately the enemy had himself suffered too heavily to engage in an
+energetic pursuit.
+
+I cannot close the brief account of this glorious stand of the British
+troops without putting on record my deep appreciation of the valuable
+services rendered by Gen. Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien.
+
+I say without hesitation that the saving of the left wing of the army
+under my command on the morning of the 26th August could never have been
+accomplished unless a commander of rare and unusual coolness,
+intrepidity, and determination had been present to personally conduct
+the operation.
+
+The retreat was continued far into the night of the 26th and through the
+27th and 28th, on which date the troops halted on the line
+Noyon-Chauny-La Fere, having then thrown off the weight of the enemy's
+pursuit.
+
+On the 27th and 28th I was much indebted to Gen. Sordet and the French
+cavalry division which he commands for materially assisting my
+retirement and successfully driving back some of the enemy on Cambrai.
+
+Gen. D'Amade also, with the Sixty-first and Sixty-second French Reserve
+Divisions, moved down from the neighborhood of Arras on the enemy's
+right flank and took much pressure off the rear of the British forces.
+
+This closes the period covering the heavy fighting which commenced at
+Mons on Sunday afternoon, 23d August, and which really constituted a
+four days' battle.
+
+At this point, therefore, I propose to close the present dispatch.
+
+I deeply deplore the very serious losses which the British forces have
+suffered in this great battle; but they were inevitable in view of the
+fact that the British Army--only two days after a concentration by
+rail--was called upon to withstand a vigorous attack of five German army
+corps.
+
+It is impossible for me to speak too highly of the skill evinced by the
+two general officers commanding army corps; the self-sacrificing and
+devoted exertions of their staffs; the direction of the troops by
+divisional, brigade, and regimental leaders; the command of the smaller
+units by their officers; and the magnificent fighting spirit displayed
+by non-commissioned officers and men.
+
+I wish particularly to bring to your Lordship's notice the admirable
+work done by the Royal Flying Corps under Sir David Henderson. Their
+skill, energy, and perseverance [Transcriber: original 'perseverence']
+have been beyond all praise. They have furnished me with the most
+complete and accurate information, which has been of incalculable value
+in the conduct of the operations. Fired at constantly both by friend and
+foe, and not hesitating to fly in every kind of weather, they have
+remained undaunted throughout.
+
+Further, by actually fighting in the air, they have succeeded in
+destroying five of the enemy's machines.
+
+I wish to acknowledge with deep gratitude the incalculable assistance I
+received from the General and Personal Staffs at Headquarters during
+this trying period.
+
+Lieut. Gen. Sir Archibald Murray, Chief of the General Staff; Major Gen.
+Wilson, Sub-Chief of the General Staff; and all under them have worked
+day and night unceasingly with the utmost skill, self-sacrifice, and
+devotion; and the same acknowledgment is due by me to Brig. Gen. Hon. W.
+Lambton, my Military Secretary, and the personal Staff.
+
+In such operations as I have described the work of the Quartermaster
+General is of an extremely onerous nature. Major Gen. Sir William
+Robertson has met what appeared to be almost insuperable difficulties
+with his characteristic energy, skill, and determination; and it is
+largely owing to his exertions that the hardships and sufferings of the
+troops--inseparable from such operations--were not much greater.
+
+[Illustration: Map. 2.--The retreat continued. From Compiegne, Sept. 1,
+to the new position south of Meaux, Sept. 3 and 4.]
+
+[Illustration: Map 3.--Commencement of the battle of the Marne, Sept. 6
+(Sunday), morning.
+Concentration of the Germans on a central point, and the position of the
+British force when it resumed the offensive.]
+
+Major Gen. Sir Nevil Macready, the Adjutant General, has also been
+confronted with most onerous and difficult tasks in connection with
+disciplinary arrangements and the preparation of casualty lists. He has
+been indefatigable in his exertions to meet the difficult situations
+which arose.
+
+I have not yet been able to complete the list of officers whose names I
+desire to bring to your Lordship's notice for services rendered during
+the period under review; and, as I understand it is of importance that
+this dispatch should no longer be delayed, I propose to forward this
+list, separately, as soon as I can. I have the honor to be,
+
+Your Lordship's most obedient Servant,
+
+(Signed) J.D.P. FRENCH,
+Field Marshal,
+Commander in Chief, British Forces in the Field.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+*The Battle of the Marne.*
+
+
+17th September, 1914.
+
+My lord: In continuation of my dispatch of Sept. 7, I have the honor to
+report the further progress of the operations of the forces under my
+command from Aug. 28.
+
+On that evening the retirement of the force was followed closely by two
+of the enemy's cavalry columns, moving southeast from St. Quentin.
+
+The retreat in this part of the field was being covered by the Third and
+Fifth Cavalry Brigades. South of the Somme Gen. Gough, with the Third
+Cavalry Brigade, threw back the Uhlans of the Guard with considerable
+loss.
+
+Gen. Chetwode, with the Fifth Cavalry Brigade, encountered the eastern
+column near Cerizy, moving south. The brigade attacked and routed the
+column, the leading German regiment suffering very severe casualties
+and being almost broken up.
+
+The Seventh French Army Corps was now in course of being railed up from
+the south to the east of Amiens. On the 29th it nearly completed its
+detrainment, and the French Sixth Army got into position on my left, its
+right resting on Roye.
+
+The Fifth French Army was behind the line of the Oise, between La Fere
+and Guise.
+
+The pursuit of the enemy was very vigorous; some five or six German
+corps were on the Somme, facing the Fifth Army on the Oise. At least two
+corps were advancing toward my front, and were crossing the Somme east
+and west of Ham. Three or four more German corps were [Transcriber:
+original 'wree'] opposing the Sixth French Army on my left.
+
+This was the situation at 1 o'clock on the 29th, when I received a visit
+from Gen. Joffre at my headquarters.
+
+I strongly represented my position to the French Commander in Chief, who
+was most kind, cordial, and sympathetic, as he has always been. He told
+me that he had directed the Fifth French Army on the Oise to move
+forward and attack the Germans on the Somme, with a view to checking
+pursuit. He also told me of the formation of the Sixth French Army on my
+left flank, composed of the Seventh Army Corps, four reserve divisions,
+and Sordet's corps of cavalry.
+
+I finally arranged with Gen. Joffre to effect a further short retirement
+toward the line Compiegne-Soissons, promising him, however, to do my
+utmost to keep always within a day's march of him.
+
+In pursuance of this arrangement the British forces retired to a
+position a few miles north of the line Compiegne-Soissons on the 29th.
+
+The right flank of the German Army was now reaching a point which
+appeared seriously to endanger my line of communications with Havre. I
+had already evacuated Amiens, into which place a German reserve division
+was reported to have moved.
+
+[Illustration: Map 4.--Sept. 6 (Sunday), evening. First advance toward
+the line of the Grand Morin.]
+
+Orders were given to change the base to St. Nazaire, and establish an
+advance base at Le Mans. This operation was well carried out by the
+Inspector General of Communications.
+
+In spite of a severe defeat inflicted upon the Guard Tenth and Guard
+Reserve Corps of the German Army by the First and Third French Corps on
+the right of the Fifth Army, it was not part of Gen. Joffre's plan to
+pursue this advantage; and a general retirement to the line of the Marne
+was ordered, to which the French forces in the more eastern theatre were
+directed to conform.
+
+A new Army (the Ninth) had been formed from three corps in the south by
+Gen. Joffre, and moved into the space between the right of the Fifth and
+left of the Fourth Armies.
+
+While closely adhering to his strategic conception to draw the enemy on
+at all points until a favorable situation was created from which to
+assume the offensive, Gen. Joffre found it necessary to modify from day
+to day the methods by which he sought to attain this object, owing to
+the development of the enemy's plans and changes in the general
+situation.
+
+In conformity with the movements of the French forces, my retirement
+continued practically from day to day. Although we were not severely
+pressed by the enemy, rearguard actions took place continually.
+
+On the 1st September, when retiring from the thickly wooded country to
+the south of Compiegne, the First Cavalry Brigade was overtaken by some
+German cavalry. They momentarily lost a horse artillery battery, and
+several officers and men were killed and wounded. With the help,
+however, of some detachments from the Third Corps operating on their
+left, they not only recovered their own guns, but succeeded in capturing
+twelve of the enemy's.
+
+Similarly, to the eastward, the First Corps, retiring south, also got
+into some very difficult forest country, and a somewhat severe rearguard
+action ensued at Villers-Cotterets, in which the Fourth Guards Brigade
+suffered considerably.
+
+On Sept. 3 the British forces were in position south of the Marne
+between Lagny and Signy-Signets. Up to this time I had been requested by
+Gen. Joffre to defend the passages of the river as long as possible, and
+to blow up the bridges in my front. After I had made the necessary
+dispositions, and the destruction of the bridges had been effected, I
+was asked by the French Commander in Chief to continue my retirement to
+a point some twelve miles in rear of the position I then occupied, with
+a view to taking up a second position behind the Seine. This retirement
+was duly carried out. In the meantime the enemy had thrown bridges and
+crossed the Marne in considerable force, and was threatening the Allies
+all along the line of the British forces and the Fifth and Ninth French
+Armies. Consequently several small outpost actions took place.
+
+On Saturday, Sept. 5, I met the French Commander in Chief at his
+request, and he informed me of his intention to take the offensive
+forthwith, as he considered conditions very favorable to success.
+
+Gen. Joffre announced to me his intention of wheeling up the left flank
+of the Sixth Army, pivoting on the Marne and directing it to move on the
+Ourcq; cross and attack the flank of the First German Army, which was
+then moving in a southeasterly direction east of that river.
+
+He requested me to effect a change of front to my right--my left resting
+on the Marne and my right on the Fifth Army--to fill the gap between
+that army and the Sixth. I was then to advance against the enemy in my
+front and join in the general offensive movement.
+
+These combined movements practically commenced on Sunday, Sept. 6, at
+sunrise; and on that day it may be said that a great battle opened on a
+front extending from Ermenonville, which was just in front of the left
+flank of the Sixth French Army, through Lizy on the Marne, Mauperthuis,
+which was about the British centre, Courtecon, which was on the left of
+the Fifth French Army, to Esternay and Charleville, the left of the
+Ninth Army under Gen. Foch, and so along the front of the Ninth, Fourth
+and Third French Armies to a point north of the fortress of Verdun.
+
+[Illustration: Map 5.--Sept. 8. Battle of the Marne.
+The great advance to the Petit Morin and the Marne, where important
+captures were made by the British.]
+
+This battle, in so far as the Sixth French Army, the British Army, the
+Fifth French Army, and the Ninth French Army were concerned, may be said
+to have concluded on the evening of Sept. 10, by which time the Germans
+had been driven back to the line Soissons-Rheims, with a loss of
+thousands of prisoners, many guns, and enormous masses of transport.
+
+About Sept. 3 the enemy appears to have changed his plans and to have
+determined to stop his advance south direct upon Paris, for on Sept. 4
+air reconnoissances showed that his main columns were moving in a
+southeasterly direction generally east of a line drawn through Nanteuil
+and Lizy on the Ourcq.
+
+On Sept. 5 several of these columns were observed to have crossed the
+Marne, while German troops, which were observed moving southeast up the
+left flank of the Ourcq on the 4th, were now reported to be halted and
+facing that river. Heads of the enemy's columns were seen crossing at
+Changis, La Ferte, Nogent, Chateau Thierry, and Mezy.
+
+Considerable German columns of all arms were seen to be converging on
+Montmirail, while before sunset large bivouacs of the enemy were located
+in the neighborhood of Coulommiers, south of Rebais, La Ferte-Gaucher,
+and Dagny.
+
+I should conceive it to have been about noon on Sept. 6, after the
+British forces had changed their front to the right and occupied the
+line Jouy-Le Chatel-Faremoutiers-Villeneuve Le Comte, and the advance of
+the Sixth French Army north of the Marne toward the Ourcq became
+apparent, that the enemy realized the powerful threat that was being
+made against the flank of his columns moving southeast, and began the
+great retreat which opened the battle above referred to.
+
+On the evening of Sept. 6, therefore, the fronts and positions of the
+opposing armies were roughly as follows:
+
+    Allies.
+
+    _Sixth French Army_.--Right on the Marne at Meux, left toward Betz.
+
+    _British Forces._--On the line Dagny-Coulommiers-Maison.
+
+    _Fifth French Army._--At Courtagon, right on Esternay.
+
+    _Conneau's Cavalry Corps._--Between the right of the British and the
+    left of the French Fifth Army.
+
+    Germans.
+
+    _Fourth Reserve and Second Corps._--East of the Ourcq and facing
+    that river.
+
+    _Ninth Cavalry Division._--West of Crecy.
+
+    _Second Cavalry Division._--North of Coulommiers.
+
+    _Fourth Corps._--Rebais.
+
+    _Third and Seventh Corps._--Southwest of Montmirail.
+
+All these troops constituted the First German Army, which was directed
+against the French Sixth Army on the Ourcq, and the British forces, and
+the left of the Fifth French Army south of the Marne.
+
+The Second German Army (IX., X., X.R., and Guard) was moving against the
+centre and right of the Fifth French Army and the Ninth French Army.
+
+On Sept. 7 both the Fifth and Sixth French Armies were heavily engaged
+on our flank. The Second and Fourth Reserve German Corps on the Ourcq
+vigorously opposed the advance of the French toward that river, but did
+not prevent the Sixth Army from gaining some headway, the Germans
+themselves suffering serious losses. The French Fifth Army threw the
+enemy back to the line of the Petit Morin River after inflicting severe
+losses upon them, especially about Montceaux, which was carried at the
+point of the bayonet.
+
+The enemy retreated before our advance, covered by his Second and Ninth
+and Guard Cavalry Divisions, which suffered severely.
+
+Our cavalry acted with great vigor, especially Gen. De Lisle's brigade,
+with the Ninth Lancers and Eighteenth Hussars.
+
+On Sept. 8 the enemy continued his retreat northward, and our army was
+successfully engaged during the day with strong rearguards of all arms
+on the Petit Morin River, thereby materially assisting the progress of
+the French armies on our right and left, against whom the enemy was
+making his greatest efforts. On both sides the enemy was thrown back
+with very heavy loss. The First Army Corps encountered stubborn
+resistance at La Tretoire, (north of Rabais.) The enemy occupied a
+strong position with infantry and guns on the northern bank of the Petit
+Morin River; they were dislodged with considerable loss. Several machine
+guns and many prisoners were captured, and upward of 200 German dead
+were left on the ground.
+
+[Illustration: Map 6.--Sept. 9. Forcing the passage of the Marne.
+This day the German retreat degenerated into a rout, and many captures
+were made.]
+
+The forcing of the Petit Morin at this point was much assisted by the
+cavalry and the First Division, which crossed higher up the stream.
+
+Later in the day a counter-attack by the enemy was well repulsed by the
+First Army Corps, a great many prisoners and some guns again falling
+into our hands.
+
+On this day (Sept. 8) the Second Army Corps encountered considerable
+opposition, but drove back the enemy at all points with great loss,
+making considerable captures.
+
+The Third Army Corps also drove back considerable bodies of the enemy's
+infantry and made some captures.
+
+On Sept. 9 the First and Second Army Corps forced the passage of the
+Marne and advanced some miles to the north of it. The Third Corps
+encountered considerable opposition, as the bridge at La Ferte was
+destroyed and the enemy held the town on the opposite bank in some
+strength, and thence persistently obstructed the construction of a
+bridge; so the passage was not effected until after nightfall.
+
+During the day's pursuit the enemy suffered heavy loss in killed and
+wounded, some hundreds of prisoners fell into our hands and a battery of
+eight machine guns was captured by the Second Division.
+
+On this day the Sixth French Army was heavily engaged west of the River
+Ourcq. The enemy had largely increased his force opposing them; and very
+heavy fighting ensued, in which the French were successful throughout.
+
+The left of the Fifth French Army reached the neighborhood of Chateau
+Thierry after the most severe fighting, having driven the enemy
+completely north of the river with great loss.
+
+The fighting of this army in the neighborhood of Montmirail was very
+severe.
+
+The advance was resumed at daybreak on the 10th up to the line of the
+Ourcq, opposed by strong rearguards of all arms. The First and Second
+Corps, assisted by the cavalry divisions on the right, the Third and
+Fifth Cavalry Brigades on the left, drove the enemy northward. Thirteen
+guns, seven machine guns, about 2,000 prisoners, and quantities of
+transport fell into our hands. The enemy left many dead on the field. On
+this day the French Fifth and Sixth Armies had little opposition.
+
+As the First and Second German Armies were now in full retreat, this
+evening marks the end of the battle which practically commenced on the
+morning of the 6th inst.; and it is at this point in the operations that
+I am concluding the present dispatch.
+
+Although I deeply regret [Transcriber: original 'regreat'] to have had
+to report heavy losses in killed and wounded throughout these
+operations, I do not think they have been excessive in view of the
+magnitude of the great fight, the outlines of which I have only been
+able very briefly to describe, and the demoralization and loss in killed
+and wounded which are known to have been caused to the enemy by the
+vigor and severity of the pursuit.
+
+In concluding this dispatch I must call your Lordship's special
+attention to the fact that from Sunday, Aug. 23, up to the present date,
+(Sept. 17,) from Mons back almost to the Seine, and from the Seine to
+the Aisne, the army under my command has been ceaselessly engaged
+without one single day's halt or rest of any kind.
+
+Since the date to which in this dispatch I have limited my report of the
+operations, a great battle on the Aisne has been proceeding. A full
+report of this battle will be made in an early further dispatch.
+
+[Illustration: Map 7--Sept. 10 (evening). End of the battle of the
+Marne.
+The Germans were driven over the Ourcq and retreated to the Aisne.]
+
+[Illustration: LIEUT. GEN. SIR DOUGLAS HAIG
+Commanding one of Gen. French's Corps
+(_From Painting by John St. Helier Lander._)]
+
+[Illustration: CROWN PRINCE WILHELM
+(_Copyright, Photographische Gesellschaft, by permission of the Berlin
+Photographic Co., N.Y._)]
+
+It will, however, be of interest to say here that, in spite of a very
+determined resistance on the part of the enemy, who is holding in
+strength and great tenacity a position peculiarly favorable to defense,
+the battle which commenced on the evening of the 12th inst. has, so far,
+forced the enemy back from his first position, secured the passage of
+the river, and inflicted great loss upon him, including the capture of
+over 2,000 prisoners and several guns. I have the honor to be your
+Lordship's most obedient servant,
+
+(Signed.) J.D.P. FRENCH,
+Field Marshal,
+Commanding in Chief, the British forces in the field.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+*The Battle of the Aisne.*
+
+
+8th October, 1914.
+
+My Lord: I have the honor to report the operations in which the British
+forces in France have been engaged since the evening of Sept. 10:
+
+1. In the early morning of the 11th the further pursuit of the enemy was
+commenced, and the three corps crossed the Ourcq practically unopposed,
+the cavalry reaching the line of the Aisne River, the Third and Fifth
+Brigades south of Soissons, the First, Second and the Fourth on the high
+ground at Couvrelles and Cerseuil.
+
+On the afternoon of the 12th, from the opposition encountered by the
+Sixth French Army to the west of Soissons, by the Third Corps southeast
+of that place, by the Second Corps south of Missy and Vailly, and
+certain indications all along the line, I formed the opinion that the
+enemy had, for the moment at any rate, arrested his retreat and was
+preparing to dispute the passage of the Aisne with some vigor.
+
+South of Soissons the Germans were holding Mont de Paris against the
+attack of the right of the French Sixth Army when the Third Corps
+reached the neighborhood of Buzancy, southeast of that place. With the
+assistance of the artillery of the Third Corps the French drove them
+back across the river at Soissons, where they destroyed the bridges.
+
+The heavy artillery fire which was visible for several miles in a
+westerly direction in the valley of the Aisne showed that the Sixth
+French Army was meeting with strong opposition all along the line.
+
+On this day the cavalry under Gen. Allenby reached the neighborhood of
+Braine and did good work in clearing the town and the high ground beyond
+it of strong hostile detachments. The Queen's Bays are particularly
+mentioned by the General as having assisted greatly in the success of
+this operation. They were well supported by the Third Division, which on
+this night bivouacked at Brenelle, south of the river.
+
+The Fifth Division approached Missy, but were unable to make headway.
+
+The First Army Corps reached the neighborhood of Vauxcere without much
+opposition.
+
+In this manner the battle of the Aisne commenced.
+
+2. The Aisne Valley runs generally east and west, and consists of a
+flat-bottomed depression of width varying from half a mile to two miles,
+down which the river follows a winding course to the west, at some
+points near the southern slopes of the valley and at others near the
+northern. The high ground both on the north and south of the river is
+approximately 400 feet above the bottom of the valley, and is very
+similar in character, as are both slopes of the valley itself, which are
+broken into numerous rounded spurs and re-entrants. The most prominent
+of the former are the Chivre spur on the right bank and Sermoise spur on
+the left. Near the latter place the general plateau, on the south is
+divided by a subsidiary valley of much the same character, down which
+the small River Vesle flows to the main stream near Sermoise. The slopes
+of the plateau overlooking the Aisne on the north and south are of
+varying steepness, and are covered with numerous patches of wood, which
+also stretch upward and backward over the edge on to the top of the high
+ground. There are several villages and small towns dotted about in the
+valley itself and along its sides, the chief of which is the town of
+Soissons.
+
+The Aisne is a sluggish stream of some 170 feet in breadth, but, being
+15 feet deep in the centre, it is unfordable. Between Soissons on the
+west and Villiers on the east (the part of the river attacked and
+secured by the British forces) there are eleven road bridges across it.
+On the north bank a narrow-gauge railway runs from Soissons to Vailly,
+where it crosses the river and continues eastward along the south bank.
+From Soissons to Sermoise a double line of railway runs along the south
+bank, turning at the latter place up the Vesle Valley toward Bazoches.
+
+The position held by the enemy is a very strong one, either for delaying
+action or for a defensive battle. One of its chief military
+characteristics is that from the high ground on neither side can the top
+of the plateau on the other side be seen, except for small stretches.
+This is chiefly due to the woods on the edges of the slopes. Another
+important point is that all the bridges are under direct or high-angle
+artillery fire.
+
+The tract of country above described, which lies north of the Aisne, is
+well adapted to concealment, and was so skillfully turned to account by
+the enemy as to render it impossible to judge the real nature of his
+opposition to our passage of the river or accurately to gauge his
+strength; but I have every reason to conclude that strong rearguards of
+at least three army corps were holding the passages on the early morning
+of the 13th.
+
+3. On that morning I ordered the British forces to advance and make good
+the Aisne.
+
+The First Corps and the cavalry advanced on the river. The First
+Division was directed on Chamouille via the canal bridge at Bourg, and
+the Second Division on Courtecon and Presles via Pont-Arcy, and on the
+canal to the north of Braye via Chavonne. On the right the cavalry and
+First Division met with slight opposition and found a passage by means
+of the canal, which crosses the river by an aqueduct. The division was
+therefore able to press on, supported by the cavalry division on its
+outer flank, driving back the enemy in front of it.
+
+On the left the leading troops of the Second Division reached the river
+by 9 o'clock. The Fifth Infantry Brigade were only enabled to cross, in
+single file and under considerable shell fire, by means of the broken
+girder of the bridge, which was not entirely submerged in the river. The
+construction of a pontoon bridge was at once undertaken, and was
+completed by 5 o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+On the extreme left the Fourth Guards Brigade met with severe opposition
+at Chavonne, and it was only late in the afternoon that it was able to
+establish a foothold on the northern bank of the river by ferrying one
+battalion across in boats.
+
+By nightfall the First Division occupied the area of
+Moulins-Paissy-Geny, with posts at the village of Vendresse.
+
+The Second Division bivouacked as a whole on the southern bank of the
+river, leaving only the Fifth Brigade on the north bank to establish a
+bridge-head.
+
+The Second Corps found all the bridges in front of them destroyed except
+that of Conde, which was in possession of the enemy, and remained so
+until the end of the battle.
+
+In the approach to Missy, where the Fifth Division eventually crossed,
+there is some open ground which was swept by a heavy fire from the
+opposite bank. The Thirteenth Brigade was therefore unable to advance;
+but the Fourteenth, which was directed to the east of Venizel at a less
+exposed point, was rafted across, and by night established itself with
+its left at St. Marguerite. They were followed by the Fifteenth Brigade;
+and later on both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth supported the Fourth
+Division on their left in repelling a heavy counter-attack on the Third
+Corps.
+
+On the morning of the 13th the Third Corps found the enemy had
+established himself in strength on the Vregny plateau. The road bridge
+at Venizel was repaired during the morning, and a reconnoissance was
+made with a view to throwing a pontoon bridge at Soissons.
+
+The Twelfth Infantry Brigade crossed at Venizel, and was assembled at
+Bucy le Long by 1 P.M., but the bridge was so far damaged that
+artillery could only be man-handled across it. Meanwhile the
+construction of a bridge was commenced close to the road bridge at
+Venizel.
+
+At 2 P.M. the Twelfth Infantry Brigade attacked in the direction of
+Chivres and Vregny with the object of securing the high ground east of
+Chivres, as a necessary preliminary to a further advance northward. This
+attack made good progress, but at 5:30 P.M. the enemy's artillery and
+machine gun fire from the direction of Vregny became so severe that no
+further advance could be made. The positions reached were held till
+dark.
+
+The pontoon bridge at Venizel was completed at 5:30 P.M., when the Tenth
+Infantry Brigade crossed the river and moved to Bucy le Long.
+
+The Nineteenth Infantry Brigade moved to Billy-sur-Aisne, and before
+dark all the artillery of the division had crossed the river, with the
+exception of the heavy battery and one brigade of field artillery.
+
+During the night the positions gained by the Twelfth Infantry Brigade to
+the east of the stream running through Chivres were handed over to the
+Fifth Division.
+
+The section of the bridging train allotted to the Third Corps began to
+arrive in the neighborhood of Soissons late in the afternoon, when an
+attempt to throw a heavy pontoon bridge at Soissons had to be abandoned,
+owing to the fire of the enemy's heavy howitzers.
+
+In the evening the enemy retired at all points and intrenched himself on
+the high ground about two miles north of the river, along which runs the
+Chemin-des-Dames. Detachments of infantry, however, strongly intrenched
+in commanding points down slopes of the various spurs, were left in
+front of all three corps with powerful artillery in support of them.
+
+During the night of the 13th and on the 14th and following days the
+field companies were incessantly at work night and day. Eight pontoon
+bridges and one foot bridge were thrown across the river under
+generally very heavy artillery fire, which was incessantly kept up on to
+most of the crossings after completion. Three of the road bridges, i.e.,
+Venizel, Missy, and Vailly, and the railway bridge east of Vailly, were
+temporarily repaired so as to take foot traffic, and the Villiers Bridge
+made fit to carry weights up to six tons.
+
+Preparations were also made for the repair of the Missy, Vailly and
+Bourg bridges so as to take mechanical transport.
+
+The weather was very wet and added to the difficulties by cutting up the
+already indifferent approaches, entailing a large amount of work to
+repair and improve.
+
+The operations of the field companies during this most trying time are
+worthy of the best traditions of the Royal Engineers.
+
+4. On the evening of the 14th it was still impossible to decide whether
+the enemy was only making a temporary halt, covered by rearguards, or
+whether he intended to stand and defend the position.
+
+With a view to clearing up the situation I ordered a general advance.
+
+The action of the First Corps on this day under the direction and
+command of Sir Douglas Haig was of so skillful, bold, and decisive a
+character that he gained positions which alone have enabled me to
+maintain my position for more than three weeks of very severe fighting
+on the north bank of the river.
+
+The corps was directed to cross the line Moulins-Moussy by 7 A.M.
+
+On the right the General Officer commanding the First Division directed
+the Second Infantry Brigade (which was in billets and bivouacked about
+Moulins), and the Twenty-fifth Artillery Brigade (less one battery),
+under Gen. Bulfin, to move forward before daybreak, in order to protect
+the advance of the division sent up the valley to Vendresse. An
+officer's patrol sent out by this brigade reported a considerable force
+of the enemy near the factory north of Troyon, and the Brigadier
+accordingly directed two regiments (the King's Royal Rifles and the
+Royal Sussex Regiment) to move at 3 A.M. The Northamptonshire Regiment
+was ordered to move at 4 A.M. to occupy the spur east of Troyon. The
+remaining regiment of the brigade (the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment)
+moved at 5:30 A.M. to the village of Vendresse. The factory was found to
+be held in considerable strength by the enemy, and the Brigadier ordered
+the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment to support the King's Royal Rifles
+and the Sussex Regiment. Even with this support the force was unable to
+make headway, and on the arrival of the First Brigade the Coldstream
+Guards were moved up to support the right of the leading brigade (the
+Second), while the remainder of the First Brigade supported its left.
+
+[Illustration: Map 8.--Sept. 10 to 12. Showing the Germans' headlong
+retreat to their intrenched positions beyond the Aisne.]
+
+About noon the situation was, roughly, that the whole of these two
+brigades were extended along a line running east and west, north of the
+line Troyon and south of the Chemin-des-Dames. A party of the Loyal
+North Lancashire Regiment had seized and were holding the factory. The
+enemy had a line of intrenchments north and east of the factory in
+considerable strength, and every effort to advance against this line was
+driven back by heavy shell and machine-gun fire. The morning was wet and
+a heavy mist hung over the hills, so that the Twenty-fifth Artillery
+Brigade and the divisional artillery were unable to render effective
+support to the advanced troops until about 9 o'clock.
+
+By 10 o'clock the Third Infantry Brigade had reached a point one mile
+south of Vendresse, and from there it was ordered to continue the line
+of the First Brigade and to connect with and help the right of the
+Second Division. A strong hostile column was found to be advancing, and
+by a vigorous counterstroke with two of his battalions the Brigadier
+checked the advance of this column and relieved the pressure on the
+Second Division. From this period until late in the afternoon the
+fighting consisted of a series of attacks and counter-attacks. The
+counter-strokers by the enemy were delivered at first with great vigor,
+but later on they decreased in strength, and all were driven off with
+heavy loss.
+
+On the left the Sixth Infantry Brigade had been ordered to cross the
+river and to pass through the line held during the preceding night by
+the Fifth Infantry Brigade and occupy the Courtecon Ridge, while a
+detached force, consisting of the Fourth Guards Brigade and the
+Thirty-sixth Brigade Royal Field Artillery, under Brig. Gen. Perceval,
+were ordered to proceed to a point east of the village of Ostel.
+
+The Sixth Infantry Brigade crossed the river at Pont-Arcy, moved up the
+valley toward Braye, and at 9 A.M. had reached the line
+Tilleul-La-Buvelle. On the line they came under heavy artillery and
+rifle fire, and were unable to advance until supported by the
+Thirty-fourth Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, and the Forty-fourth
+Howitzer Brigade and the Heavy Artillery.
+
+The Fourth Guards Brigade crossed the river at 10 A.M. and met with very
+heavy opposition. It had to pass through dense woods; field artillery
+support was difficult to obtain; but one section of a field battery
+pushed up to and within the firing line. At 1 P.M. the left of the
+brigade was south of the Ostel Ridge.
+
+At this period of the action the enemy obtained a footing between the
+First and Second Corps, and threatened to cut the communications of the
+latter.
+
+Sir Douglas Haig was very hardly pressed and had no reserve in hand. I
+placed the cavalry division at his disposal, part of which he skillfully
+used to prolong and secure the left flank of the Guards Brigade. Some
+heavy fighting ensued, which resulted in the enemy being driven back
+with heavy loss.
+
+About 4 o'clock the weakening of the counter-attacks by the enemy and
+other indications tended to show that his resistance was decreasing, and
+a general advance was ordered by the army corps commander. Although
+meeting with considerable opposition and coming under very heavy
+artillery and rifle fire, the position of the corps at the end of the
+day's operations extended from the Chemin-des-Dames on the right,
+through Chivy, to Le Cour de Soupir, with the First Cavalry Brigade
+extending to the Chavonne-Soissons road.
+
+[Illustration: Map 9.--Sept. 13 and 14. Passage of the Aisne, when
+bridges were constructed under great difficulties.]
+
+On the right the corps was in close touch with the French Moroccan
+troops of the Eighteenth Corps, which were intrenched in echelon to its
+right rear. During the night they intrenched this position.
+
+Throughout the battle of the Aisne this advanced and commanding position
+was maintained, and I cannot speak too highly of the valuable services
+rendered by Sir Douglas Haig and the army corps under his command. Day
+after day and night after night the enemy's infantry has been hurled
+against him in violent counter-attack, which has never on any one
+occasion succeeded, while the trenches all over his position have been
+under continuous heavy artillery fire.
+
+The operations of the First Corps on this day resulted in the capture of
+several hundred prisoners, some field pieces and machine guns.
+
+The casualties were very severe, one brigade alone losing three of its
+four Colonels.
+
+The Third Division commenced a further advance, and had nearly reached
+the plateau of Aizy when they were driven back by a powerful
+counter-attack supported by heavy artillery. The division, however, fell
+back in the best order, and finally intrenched itself about a mile north
+of Vailly Bridge, effectively covering the passage.
+
+The Fourth and Fifth Divisions were unable to do more than maintain
+their ground.
+
+5. On the morning of the 15th, after close examination of the position,
+it became clear to me that the enemy was making a determined stand; and
+this view was confirmed by reports which reached me from the French
+armies fighting on my right and left, which clearly showed that a
+strongly intrenched line of defense was being taken up from the north of
+Compiegne, eastward and southeastward, along the whole Valley of the
+Aisne up to and beyond Rheims.
+
+A few days previously the Fortress of Maubeuge fell, and a considerable
+quantity of siege artillery was brought down from that place to
+strengthen the enemy's position in front of us.
+
+During the 15th shells fell in our position which have been judged by
+experts to be thrown by eight-inch siege guns with a range of 10,000
+yards. Throughout the whole course of the battle our troops have
+suffered very heavily from this fire, although its effect latterly was
+largely mitigated by more efficient and thorough intrenching, the
+necessity for which I impressed strongly upon army corps commanders. In
+order to assist them in this work all villages within the area of our
+occupation were searched for heavy intrenching tools, a large number of
+which were collected.
+
+In view of the peculiar formation of the ground on the north side of the
+river between Missy and Soissons, and its extraordinary adaptability to
+a force on the defensive, the Fifth Division found it impossible to
+maintain its position on the southern edge of the Chivres Plateau, as
+the enemy in possession of the Village of Vregny to the west was able to
+bring a flank fire to bear upon it. The division had, therefore, to
+retire to a line the left of which was at the village of Marguerite, and
+thence ran by the north edge of Missy back to the river to the east of
+that place.
+
+With great skill and tenacity Sir Charles Fergusson maintained this
+position throughout the whole battle, although his trenches were
+necessarily on lower ground than that occupied by the enemy on the
+southern edge of the plateau, which was only 400 yards away.
+
+Gen. Hamilton with the Third Division vigorously attacked to the north,
+and regained all the ground he had lost on the 15th, which throughout
+the battle has formed a most powerful and effective bridge-head.
+
+6. On the 16th the Sixth Division came up into line.
+
+It had been my intention to direct the First Corps to attack and seize
+the enemy's position on the Chemin-des-Dames, supporting it with this
+new reinforcement. I hoped, from the position thus gained, to bring
+effective fire to bear across the front of the Third Division, which,
+by securing the advance of the latter, would also take the pressure off
+the Fifth Division and the Third Corps.
+
+But any further advance of the First Corps would have dangerously
+exposed my right flank. And, further, I learned from the French
+Commander in Chief that he was strongly reinforcing the Sixth French
+Army on my left, with the intention of bringing up the allied left to
+attack the enemy's flank, and thus compel his retirement. I therefore
+sent the Sixth Division to join the Third Corps, with orders to keep it
+on the south side of the river, as it might be available in general
+reserve.
+
+On the 17th, 18th, and 19th the whole of our line was heavily bombarded,
+and the First Corps was constantly and heavily engaged. On the afternoon
+of the 17th the right flank of the First Division was seriously
+threatened. A counter-attack was made by the Northamptonshire Regiment
+in combination with the Queen's, and one battalion of the Divisional
+Reserve was moved up in support. The Northamptonshire Regiment, under
+cover of mist, crept up to within a hundred yards of the enemy's
+trenches and charged with the bayonet, driving them out of the trenches
+and up the hill. A very strong force of hostile infantry was then
+disclosed on the crest line. This new line was enfiladed by part of the
+Queen's and the King's Royal Rifles, which wheeled to their left on the
+extreme right of our infantry line, and were supported by a squadron of
+cavalry on their outer flank. The enemy's attack was ultimately driven
+back with heavy loss.
+
+On the 18th, during the night, the Gloucestershire Regiment advanced
+from their position near Chivy, filled in the enemy's trenches, and
+captured two Maxim guns.
+
+On the extreme right the Queen's were heavily attacked, but the enemy
+was repulsed with great loss. About midnight the attack was renewed on
+the First Division, supported by artillery fire, but was again
+repulsed.
+
+Shortly after midnight an attack was made on the left of the Second
+Division with considerable force, which was also thrown back.
+
+At about 1 P.M. on the 19th the Second Division drove back a heavy
+infantry attack strongly supported by artillery fire. At dusk the attack
+was renewed and again repulsed.
+
+On the 18th I discussed with the General Officer commanding the Second
+Army Corps and his divisional commanders the possibility of driving the
+enemy out of Conde, which lay between his two divisions, and seizing the
+bridge, which has remained throughout in his possession.
+
+As, however, I found that the bridge was closely commanded from all
+points on the south side, and that satisfactory arrangements were made
+to prevent any issue from it by the enemy by day or night, I decided
+that it was not necessary to incur the losses which an attack would
+entail, as, in view of the position of the Second and Third Corps, the
+enemy could make no use of Conde, and would be automatically forced out
+of it by any advance which might become possible for us.
+
+7. On this day information reached me from Gen. Joffre that he had found
+it necessary to make a new plan and to attack and envelop the German
+right flank.
+
+It was now evident to me that the battle in which we had been engaged
+since the 12th inst. must last some days longer, until the effect of
+this new flank movement could be felt and a way opened to drive the
+enemy from his positions.
+
+It thus became essential to establish some system of regular relief in
+the trenches, and I have used the infantry of the Sixth Division for
+this purpose with good results. The relieved brigades were brought back
+alternately south of the river and, with the artillery of the Sixth
+Division, formed a general reserve on which I could rely in case of
+necessity.
+
+The cavalry has rendered most efficient and ready help in the trenches,
+and have done all they possibly could to lighten the arduous and trying
+task which has of necessity fallen to the lot of the infantry.
+
+On the evening of the 19th and throughout the 20th the enemy again
+commenced to show considerable activity. On the former night a severe
+counter-attack on the Third Division was repulsed with considerable
+loss, and from early on Sunday morning various hostile attempts were
+made on the trenches of the First Division. During the day the enemy
+suffered another severe repulse in front of the Second Division, losing
+heavily in the attempt. In the course of the afternoon the enemy made
+desperate attempts against the trenches all along the front of the First
+Corps, but with similar results.
+
+After dark the enemy again attacked the Second Division, only to be
+again driven back.
+
+Our losses on these two days were considerable, but the number, as
+obtained, of the enemy's killed and wounded vastly exceeded them.
+
+As the troops of the First Army Corps were much exhausted by this
+continual fighting, I reinforced Sir Douglas Haig with a brigade from
+the reserve, and called upon the First Cavalry Division to assist them.
+
+On the night of the 21st another violent counter-attack was repulsed by
+the Third Division, the enemy losing heavily.
+
+On the 23d the four 6-inch howitzer batteries, which I had asked to be
+sent from home, arrived. Two batteries were handed over to the Second
+Corps and two to the First Corps. They were brought into action on the
+24th with very good results.
+
+Our experiences in this campaign seem to point to the employment of more
+heavy guns of a larger calibre in great battles which last for several
+days, during which time powerful intrenching work on both sides can be
+carried out. These batteries were used with considerable effect on the
+24th and the following days.
+
+8. On the 23d the action of Gen. de Castelnau's army on the allied left
+developed considerably, and apparently withdrew considerable forces of
+the enemy away from the centre and east. I am not aware whether it was
+due to this cause or not, but until the 26th it appeared as though the
+enemy's opposition in our front was weakening. On that day, however, a
+very marked renewal of activity commenced. A constant and vigorous
+artillery bombardment was maintained all day, and the Germans in front
+of the First Division were observed to be "sapping" up to our lines and
+trying to establish new trenches. Renewed counter-attacks were delivered
+and beaten off during the course of the day, and in the afternoon a
+well-timed attack by the First Division stopped the enemy's intrenching
+work.
+
+During the night of the 27th-28th the enemy again made the most
+determined attempts to capture the trenches of the First Division, but
+without the slightest success.
+
+Similar attacks were reported during these three days all along the line
+of the allied front, and it is certain that the enemy then made one last
+great effort to establish ascendency. He was, however, unsuccessful
+everywhere, and is reported to have suffered heavy losses. The same
+futile attempts were made all along our front up to the evening of the
+28th, when they died away, and have not since been renewed.
+
+On former occasions I have brought to your Lordship's notice the
+valuable services performed during this campaign by the Royal Artillery.
+
+Throughout the battle of the Aisne they have displayed the same skill,
+endurance, and tenacity, and I deeply appreciate the work they have
+done.
+
+Sir David Henderson and the Royal Flying Corps under his command have
+again proved their incalculable value. Great strides have been made in
+the development of the use of aircraft in the tactical sphere by
+establishing effective communication between aircraft and units in
+action.
+
+It is difficult to describe adequately and accurately the great strain
+to which officers and men were subjected almost every hour of the day
+and night throughout this battle.
+
+[Illustration: Map 10.--Sept. 15 to 28. This map shows the intrenched
+positions of the Germans, many of which the Allies took with great loss
+to the Germans.]
+
+I have described above the severe character of the artillery fire which
+was directed from morning till night not only upon the trenches, but
+over the whole surface of the ground occupied by our forces. It was not
+until a few days before the position was evacuated that the heavy guns
+were removed and the fire slackened. Attack and counter-attack occurred
+at all hours of the night and day throughout the whole position,
+demanding extreme vigilance, and permitting only a minimum of rest.
+
+The fact that between Sept. 12 to the date of this dispatch the total
+numbers of killed, wounded, and missing reached the figures amounting to
+561 officers, 12,980 men, proves the severity of the struggle.
+
+The tax on the endurance of the troops was further increased by the
+heavy rain and cold which prevailed for some ten or twelve days of this
+trying time.
+
+The battle of the Aisne has once more demonstrated the splendid spirit,
+gallantry, and devotion which animates the officers and men of his
+Majesty's forces.
+
+With reference to the last paragraph of my dispatch of Sept. 7, I append
+the names of officers, non-commissioned officers, and men brought
+forward for special mention by army corps commanders and heads of
+departments for services rendered from the commencement of the campaign
+up to the present date.
+
+I entirely agree with these recommendations and beg to submit them for
+your Lordship's consideration.
+
+I further wish to bring forward the names of the following officers who
+have rendered valuable service: Gen. Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien and Lieut.
+Gen. Sir Douglas Haig (commanding First and Second Corps, respectively)
+I have already mentioned in the present and former dispatches for
+particularly marked and distinguished service in critical situations.
+
+Since the commencement of the campaign they have carried out all my
+orders [Transcriber: original 'orders.'] and instructions with the
+utmost ability.
+
+Lieut. Gen. W.P. Pulteney took over the command of the Third Corps just
+before the commencement of the battle of the Marne. Throughout the
+subsequent operations he showed himself to be a most capable commander
+in the field, and has rendered very valuable services.
+
+Major Gen. E.H.H. Allenby and Major Gen. H. De La P. Gough have proved
+themselves to be cavalry leaders of a high order, and I am deeply
+indebted to them. The undoubted moral superiority which our cavalry has
+obtained over that of the enemy has been due to the skill with which
+they have turned to the best account the qualities inherent in the
+splendid troops they command.
+
+In my dispatch of the 7th September I mentioned the name of Brig. Gen.
+Sir David Henderson and his valuable work in command of the Royal Flying
+Corps; and I have once more to express my deep appreciation of the help
+he has since rendered me.
+
+Lieut. Gen. Sir Archibald Murray has continued to render me invaluable
+help as Chief of the Staff; and in his arduous and responsible duties he
+has been ably assisted by Major Gen. Henry Wilson, Sub-Chief.
+
+Lieut. Gen. Sir Nevil Macready and Lieut. Gen. Sir William Robertson
+have continued to perform excellent service as Adjutant General and
+Quartermaster General, respectively.
+
+The Director of Army Signals, Lieut. Col. J.S. Fowler, has materially
+assisted the operations by the skill and energy which he has displayed
+in the working of the important department over which he presides.
+
+My Military Secretary, Brig. Gen. the Hon. W. Lambton, has performed his
+arduous and difficult duties with much zeal and great efficiency.
+
+I am anxious also to bring to your Lordship's notice the following names
+of officers of my personal staff, who throughout these arduous
+operations have shown untiring zeal and energy in the performance of
+their duties:
+
+    _Aides de Camp._
+
+    Lieut. Col. Stanley Barry.
+    Lieut. Col. Lord Brooke.
+    Major Fitzgerald Watt.
+
+    _Extra Aide de Camp._
+
+    Capt. the Hon. F.E. Guest.
+
+    _Private Secretary._
+
+    Lieut. Col. Brindsley Fitzgerald.
+
+Major his Royal Highness Prince Arthur of Connaught, K.G., joined my
+staff as Aide de Camp on the 14th September.
+
+His Royal Highness's intimate knowledge of languages enabled me to
+employ him with great advantage on confidential missions of some
+importance, and his services have proved of considerable value.
+
+I cannot close this dispatch without informing your Lordship of the
+valuable services rendered by the Chief of the French Military Mission
+at my headquarters, Col. Victor Huguet of the French Artillery. He has
+displayed tact and judgment of a high order in many difficult
+situations, and has rendered conspicuous service to the allied cause. I
+have the honor to be, your Lordship's most obedient servant,
+
+J.D.P. French, Field Marshal,
+_Commanding in Chief the British Army in the Field._
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+*The Battle in Flanders.*
+
+[Official Abstract of Report for The Associated Press.]
+
+
+LONDON, Nov. 29.--A report from Field Marshal Sir John French covering
+the period of the battle in Flanders and the days immediately preceding
+it, issued today by the Official Press Bureau, shows that this battle
+was brought about, first, by the Allies' attempts to outflank the
+Germans, who countered, and then by the Allies' plans to move to the
+northeast to Ghent and Bruges, which also failed. After this the German
+offensive began, with the French coast ports as the objective, but this
+movement, like those of the Allies, met with failure.
+
+The Field Marshal, doubtless in response to the demands of the British
+public, tells what the various units of the expeditionary force have
+been doing--those that failed and were cut off and those who against
+superior numbers held the trenches for a month. He gives it as his
+opinion that the German losses have been thrice as great as those of the
+Allies, and speaks optimistically of the future.
+
+The report covers in a general way the activities of the British troops
+from Oct. 11 to Nov. 20.
+
+Summing up the situation in concluding his report, the Field Marshal
+says:
+
+"As I close this dispatch, signs are in evidence that we are possibly in
+the last stages of the battle from Ypres to Armentieres. For several
+days past the artillery fire of the enemy has slackened considerably,
+and his infantry attacks have practically ceased."
+
+Discussing the general military situation of the Allies, as it appears
+to him at the time of writing, Sir John says:
+
+"It does not seem to be clearly understood that the operations in which
+we have been engaged embrace nearly all of the central part of the
+Continent of Europe, from the east to the west. The combined French,
+Belgian, and British Armies in the west and the Russian Army in the east
+are opposed to the united forces of Germany and Austria, acting as
+combined armies between us.
+
+"Our enemies elected at the commencement of the war to throw the weight
+of their forces against our armies in the west and to detach only a
+comparatively weak force, composed of very few of the first line troops
+and several corps of second and third line troops, to stem the Russian
+advance until the western forces could be defeated and overwhelmed.
+Their strength enabled them from the outset to throw greatly superior
+forces against us in the west. This precludes the possibility of our
+taking vigorous offensive action except when miscalculations and
+mistakes are made by their commanders, opening up special opportunities
+for successful attacks and pursuit.
+
+"The battle of the Marne was an example of this, as was also our advance
+from St. Omer and Hazebrouck to the line of the River Lys at the
+commencement of this battle. The role which our armies in the west have
+consequently been called upon to fulfill has been to occupy strong
+defensive positions, holding ground gained and inviting the enemy's
+attack, and to throw back these attacks, causing the enemy heavy losses
+in his retreat and following him up with powerful and successful
+counter-attacks to complete his discomfiture.
+
+"The value and significance of operations of this nature since the
+commencement of hostilities by the Allies' forces in the west lie in the
+fact that at the moment when the eastern provinces of Germany are in
+imminent danger of being overrun by the numerous and powerful armies of
+Russia, nearly the whole active army of Germany is tied down to a line
+of trenches extending from Verdun, on the Alsatian frontier, to the sea
+at Nieuport, east of Dunkirk, a distance of 260 miles, where they are
+held, with much reduced numbers and impaired morale, by the successful
+action of our troops in the west.
+
+"I cannot speak too highly of the services rendered by the Royal
+Artillery throughout the battle. In spite of the fact that the enemy
+brought up in support of his attacks guns of great range and shell
+power, our men have succeeded throughout in preventing the enemy from
+establishing anything in the nature of superiority in artillery. The
+skill, courage, and energy displayed by the commanders of the Royal
+Artillery have been very marked. The Royal Engineers have been
+indefatigable in their efforts to assist the infantry in field,
+fortification, and trench work.
+
+"I deeply regret the heavy casualties which we have suffered, but the
+nature of the fighting has been very desperate, and we have been
+assailed by vastly superior numbers. I have every reason to know that
+throughout the course of the battle we have placed at least three times
+as many of the enemy hors de combat in dead, wounded and prisoners.
+
+"Throughout these operations Gen. Foch has strained his resources to the
+utmost to afford me all the support he could. An expression of my warm
+gratitude is also due to Gen. Dubail, commanding the Eighth French Army
+Corps on my left, and to Gen. de Maud'huy, commanding the Tenth Army
+Corps on my right."
+
+Discussing the details of the engagement from Ypres to Armentieres,
+Field Marshal Sir John French explains that he was impressed early in
+October with the necessity of giving the greatest possible support to
+the northern flank of the Allies in the effort to outflank the Germans
+and compel them to evacuate their positions. He says that the situation
+on the Aisne warranted the withdrawal of British troops from positions
+they held there, as the enemy had been weakened by continual attacks and
+the fortifications of the Allies much improved.
+
+The Field Marshal made known his view to Gen. Joffre, who agreed with
+it. The French General Staff arranged for the withdrawal of the British,
+which began on Oct. 3 and was completed on Oct. 19, when the First Army
+Corps, under Gen. Sir Douglas Haig detrained at St. Omer.
+
+The general plan, as arranged by Field Marshal French and Gen. Foch,
+commanding the French troops to the north of Noyon, was that the English
+should pivot on the French at Bethune, attacking the Germans on their
+flank and forcing their way north. In the event that the British forced
+the Germans out of their positions, making possible a forward movement
+of the Allies, the French and British were to march east, with Lille as
+the dividing line between the two armies, the English right being
+directed on Lille.
+
+The battle which forms the chief feature of Gen. French's report really
+began on Oct. 11, when Major Gen. Gough of the Second British Cavalry
+Brigade, first came in contact with German cavalry in the woods along
+the Bethune-Aire Canal. The English cavalry moved toward Hazebrouck,
+clearing the way for two army corps, which advanced rapidly in a
+northeasterly direction. For several days the progress of the British
+was only slightly interrupted, except at La Bassee, a high position,
+which Field Marshal French mentions as having stubbornly resisted.
+
+Field Marshal French says the Second Corps, under Gen. Smith-Dorrien,
+was opposed by overpowering forces of Germans, but nevertheless advanced
+until Oct. 18, when the German opposition compelled a reinforcement. Six
+days later the Lahore Division of the Indian army was sent to support
+the Second Corps.
+
+On Oct. 16 Sir Henry Rawlinson, who had covered the retreat of the
+Belgian army from Antwerp with two divisions of English cavalry and two
+divisions of French infantry, was stationed on the line east of Ypres
+under orders to operate over a wide front and to keep possession of all
+the ground held by the Allies until the First Army Corps could reach
+Ypres.
+
+Gen. Rawlinson was opposed by superior forces and was unable to prevent
+the Germans from getting large reinforcements. With four army corps
+holding a much wider front than their size justified, Field Marshal
+French says he faced a stubborn situation. The enemy was massed from the
+Lys, and there was imperative need for a strengthened line.
+
+However, the Field Marshal decided to send the First Corps north of
+Ypres to stop the reinforcements which might enable the Germans to flank
+the Allies. The shattered Belgian army and the wearied French troops'
+endeavors to check the German reinforcements were powerless, so the
+British commander sent fresh troops to prevent the Germans from
+executing movements which would have given them access to Channel ports.
+
+Sir Douglas Haig, with the First Army Corps, was sent Oct. 19 to capture
+Bruges and drive the enemy back toward Ghent, if possible. Meantime the
+Belgians intrenched themselves along the Ypres Canal. Sir John French
+commends the valor of the Belgians, who, he says, exhausted by weeks of
+constant fighting, maintained these positions gallantly.
+
+Because of the overwhelming numbers of the Germans opposing them, he
+says he enjoined a defensive role upon the three army corps located
+south of Ypres. While Gen. Haig made a slight advance, Sir John says it
+was wonderful that he was able to advance at all, owing to the bad roads
+and the overwhelming number of Germans, which made it impossible to
+carry out the original plan of moving to Bruges.
+
+The fighting gradually developed into bayonet charges. Field Marshal
+French says that Oct. 21 brought forth the hardest attack, made on the
+First Corps at Ypres, in the checking of which the Worcestershire
+Regiment displayed great gallantry. This day marked the most critical
+period in the great battle, according to the Commander in Chief, who
+says the recapture of the village of Gheluvelt through a rally of the
+Worcestershires was fraught with much consequence to the Allies.
+
+After referring to some of the battles in which the Indian troops took
+part, Field Marshal French says:
+
+"Since their arrival in this country and their occupation of the line
+allotted to them I have been much impressed by the initiative and
+resource displayed by the Indian troops. Some of the ruses they have
+employed to deceive the enemy have been attended with the best results
+and have doubtless kept the superior forces in front of them at bay. Our
+Indian sappers and miners have long enjoyed a high reputation for skill
+and resource. Without going into detail I can confidently assert that
+throughout their work in this campaign they have fully justified that
+reputation.
+
+"The General officer commanding the Indian army describes the conduct
+and bearing of these troops in strange and new surroundings to have been
+highly satisfactory, and I am enabled from my own observations to fully
+corroborate this statement."
+
+Sir John French goes on to say that, while the whole line continued to
+be heavily pressed, the Germans' efforts from Nov. 1 have been
+concentrated upon breaking through the line held by the First British
+and the Ninth French Corps and thus gaining possession of the town of
+Ypres. Three Bavarian and one German corps, in addition to other troops,
+were all directed against this northern line.
+
+About Nov. 10, after several units of these corps had been completely
+shattered in futile attacks, the Field Marshal continues, a division of
+the Prussian Guard, which had been operating in the vicinity of Arras,
+was moved up to this area with great speed and secrecy. Documents found
+on dead officers, the report says, proved that the Guard received the
+German Emperor's special command to break through and succeed where
+their comrades of the line had failed. They took the leading part in the
+vigorous attacks made against the centre on the 11th and 12th, says
+Field Marshal French, but, like their comrades, were repulsed with
+enormous casualties.
+
+He pays high tribute to Sir Douglas Haig and his divisional and brigade
+commanders, who, he says, "held the line with marvelous tenacity and
+undaunted courage." The Field Marshal predicts that "their deeds during
+these days of stress and trial will furnish some of the most brilliant
+chapters which will be found in the military history of our time."
+
+High praise is also given the Third Cavalry Division under Major Gen.
+Julian Byng, whose troops "were repeatedly called upon to restore
+situations at critical points and fill gaps in the line caused by the
+tremendous losses which occurred."
+
+The Commander in Chief makes special mention of Col. Gordon Chesney
+Wilson of the Royal Horse Guards, Major the Hon. Hugh Dawnay of the
+Second Life Guards, and Brig. Gen. FitzClarence of the Irish Guards, who
+were killed, and of Brig. Gen. the Earl of Cavan, who "on many occasions
+was conspicuous for the skill, coolness, and courage with which he led
+his troops."
+
+Of the Flying Corps the report says:
+
+"Every day new methods of employing them, both strategically and
+tactically, are discovered and put into practice."
+
+Concerning the Territorials who have been employed, the Field Marshal
+says the conduct and bearing of these units under fire and the efficient
+manner in which they have carried out the duties assigned to them "has
+imbued me with the highest hope as to the value and the help of the
+Territorial troops generally."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+*Story of the "Eye-Witness"*
+
+*By Col. E.D. Swinton of the Intelligence Department of the British
+General Staff.*
+
+     _From the beginning of the war world-wide attention has been
+     attracted to the reports issued from time to time as coming from
+     "an eye-witness at British General Headquarters." At first these
+     reports were erroneously ascribed to Marshal French himself, and
+     resulted in much admiring comment on his vivid and graphic way of
+     reporting. Later it became known that they were the work of Col.
+     Swinton, who was attached to Gen. French's headquarters in the
+     capacity of "official observer."_
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+*The Battle of the Aisne Begins*
+
+[By the "Official Observer," Col. E.D. Swinton.]
+
+
+General Headquarters,
+Sept. 18, 1914.
+
+Sept. 14, the Germans were making a determined resistance along the
+River Aisne. Opposition, which it was at first thought might possibly be
+of a rear-guard nature, not entailing material delay to our progress,
+has developed and has proved to be more serious than was anticipated.
+
+The action, now being fought by the Germans along their line, may, it is
+true, have been undertaken in order to gain time for some strategic
+operation or move, and may not be their main stand. But, if this is so,
+the fighting is naturally on a scale which as to extent of ground
+covered and duration of resistance, makes it undistinguishable in its
+progress from what is known as a "pitched battle," though the enemy
+certainly showed signs of considerable disorganization during the
+earlier days of their retirement phase.
+
+Whether it was originally intended by them to defend the position they
+took up as strenuously as they have done, or whether the delay, gained
+for them during the 12th and 13th by their artillery, has enabled them
+to develop their resistance and force their line to an extent not
+originally contemplated cannot yet be said.
+
+So far as we are concerned the action still being contested is the
+battle of the Aisne. The foe we are fighting is just across the river
+along the whole of our front to the east and west. The struggle is not
+confined to the valley of that river, though it will probably bear its
+name.
+
+The progress of our operations and the French armies nearest us for the
+14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th will now be described:
+
+On Monday, the 14th, those of our troops which had on the previous day
+crossed the Aisne, after driving in the German rear guards on that
+evening, found portions of the enemy's forces in prepared defensive
+positions on the right bank and could do little more than secure a
+footing north of the river. This, however, they maintained in spite of
+two counter-attacks delivered at dusk and 10 P.M., in which the fighting
+was severe.
+
+During the 14th, strong reinforcements of our troops were passed to the
+north bank, the troops crossing by ferry, by pontoon bridges, and by the
+remains of permanent bridges. Close co-operation with the French forces
+was maintained and the general progress made was good, although the
+opposition was vigorous and the state of the roads, after the heavy
+rains, made movements slow. One division alone failed to secure the
+ground it expected to.
+
+The First Army Corps, after repulsing repeated attacks, captured 600
+prisoners and twelve guns. The cavalry also took a number of prisoners.
+Many of the Germans taken belong to the reserve and Landwehr formations,
+which fact appears to indicate that the enemy is compelled to draw on
+other classes of soldiers to fill the gaps in his ranks.
+
+There was a heavy rain throughout the night of Sept. 14-15, and during
+the 15th. The situation of the British forces underwent no essential
+change. But it became more and more evident that the defensive
+preparations made by the enemy were more extensive than was at first
+apparent.
+
+In order to counterbalance these measures were taken by us to economize
+our troops and to secure protection from the hostile artillery fire,
+which was very fierce, and our men continued to improve their own
+intrenchments. The Germans bombarded our lines nearly all day, using
+heavy guns, brought, no doubt, from before Maubeuge, as well as those
+with the corps.
+
+All their counter attacks, however, failed, although in some places they
+were repeated six times. One made on the Fourth Guards Brigade was
+repulsed with heavy slaughter.
+
+An attempt to advance slightly, made by part of our line, was
+unsuccessful as regards gain of ground, but led to the withdrawal of
+part of the enemy's infantry and artillery.
+
+Further counter attacks made during the night were beaten off. Rain came
+on toward evening and continued intermittently until 9 A.M. on the 16th.
+Besides adding to the discomfort of the soldiers holding the line, the
+wet weather to some extent hampered the motor transport service, which
+was also hindered by broken bridges.
+
+On Wednesday, the 16th, there was little change in the situation
+opposite the British. The efforts made by the enemy were less active
+than on the previous day, although their bombardment continued
+throughout the morning and evening. Our artillery fire drove the
+defenders off one of the salients of their position, but they returned
+in the evening. Forty prisoners were taken by the Third Division.
+
+On Thursday, the 17th, the situation, still remained unchanged in its
+essentials. The German heavy artillery fire was more active than on the
+previous day. The only infantry attacks made by the enemy were on the
+extreme right of our position, and, as had happened before, were
+repulsed with heavy loss, chiefly, on this occasion, by our field
+artillery.
+
+In order to convey some idea of the nature of the fighting it may be
+said that along the greater part of our front the Germans have been
+driven back from the forward slopes on the north of the river. Their
+infantry are holding strong lines of trenches among and along the edge
+of the numerous woods which crown the slopes. These trenches are
+elaborately constructed and cleverly concealed. In many places there are
+wire entanglements and lengths of rabbit fencing.
+
+Both woods and open are carefully aligned, so that they can be swept by
+rifle fire and machine guns, which are invisible from our side of the
+valley. The ground in front of the infantry trenches is also, as a rule,
+under crossfire from the field artillery placed on neighboring features
+and under high-angle fire from pieces placed well back behind the woods
+on top of the plateau.
+
+A feature of this action, as of the previous fighting, is the use by the
+enemy of their numerous heavy howitzers, with which they are able to
+direct long-range fire all over the valley and right across it. Upon
+these they evidently place great reliance.
+
+Where our men are holding the forked edges of the high ground on the
+north side they are now strongly intrenched. They are well fed, and in
+spite of the wet weather of the last week are cheerful and confident.
+
+The bombardment by both sides has been very heavy, and on Sunday,
+Monday and Tuesday was practically continuous. Nevertheless, in spite of
+the general din caused by the reports of the immense number of heavy
+guns in action along our front on Wednesday, the arrival of the French
+force acting against the German right flank was at once announced on the
+east of our front, some miles away, by the continuous roar of their
+quick-firing artillery, with which their attack was opened.
+
+So far as the British are concerned, the greater part of this week has
+been passed in bombardment, in gaining ground by degrees, and in beating
+back severe counter-attacks with heavy slaughter. Our casualties have
+been severe, but it is probable that those of the enemy are heavier.
+
+The rain has caused a great drop in the temperature, and there is more
+than a distinct feeling of Autumn in the air, especially in the early
+mornings.
+
+On our right and left the French have been fighting fiercely and have
+also been gradually gaining ground [Transcriber: original 'gronud']. One
+village has already during this battle been captured and re-captured
+twice by each side, and at the time of writing remains in the hands of
+the Germans.
+
+The fighting has been at close quarters and of the most desperate
+nature, and the streets of the village are filled with dead on both
+sides.
+
+As an example of the spirit which is inspiring our allies, the following
+translation of an ordre du jour, published on Sept. 9 after the battle
+of Montmirail by the commander of the French Fifth Army, is given:
+
+     Soldiers: Upon the memorable fields of Montmirail, of Vauchamps, of
+     Champaubert, which a century ago witnessed the victories of our
+     ancestors over Blucher's Prussians, your vigorous offensive has
+     triumphed over the resistance of the Germans. Held on his flanks,
+     his centre broken, the enemy is now retreating toward the east and
+     north by forced marches. The most renowned army corps of old
+     Prussia, the contingents of Westphalia, of Hanover, of Brandenburg,
+     have retired in haste before you.
+
+     This first success is no more than the prelude. The enemy is
+     shaken, but not yet decisively beaten. You have still to undergo
+     severe hardships, to make long marches, to fight hard battles.
+
+     May the image of our country, soiled by barbarians, always remain
+     before your eyes. Never was it more necessary to sacrifice all for
+     her.
+
+     Saluting the heroes who have fallen in the fighting of the last few
+     days, my thoughts turn toward you, the victors in the next battle.
+     Forward, soldiers, for France!
+
+     FRANCHET D'ESPEREY,
+     General Commanding the Fifth Army.
+     Montmirail, Sept. 9, 1914.
+
+The Germans are a formidable enemy, well trained, long prepared, and
+brave. Their soldiers are carrying on the contest with skill and valor.
+Nevertheless they are fighting to win anyhow, regardless of all the
+rules of fair play, and there is evidence that they do not hesitate at
+anything in order to gain victory.
+
+A large number of the tales of their misbehaviors are exaggeration and
+some of the stringent precautions they have taken to guard themselves
+against the inhabitants of the areas traversed are possibly justifiable
+measures of war. But, at the same time, it has been definitely
+established that they have committed atrocities on many occasions and
+they have been guilty of brutal conduct.
+
+So many letters and statements of our wounded soldiers have been
+published in our newspapers that the following epistle from a German
+soldier of the Seventy-fourth Infantry Regiment, Tenth Corps, to his
+wife may also be of interest:
+
+"My Dear Wife: I have just been living through days that defy
+imagination. I should never have thought that men could stand it. Not a
+second has passed but my life has been in danger, and yet not a hair of
+my head has been hurt.
+
+"It was horrible! It was ghastly! but I have been saved for you and for
+our happiness, and I take heart again, although I am still terribly
+unnerved. God grant that I may see you again soon, and that this horror
+may soon be over.
+
+"None of us can do any more; human strength is at an end. I will try to
+tell you about it. On the 5th of September the enemy were reported to be
+taking up a position near St. Prix, southeast of Paris.
+
+"The Tenth Corps, which had made an astonishingly rapid advance, of
+course, was attacked on Sunday. Steep slopes led up to the heights,
+which were held in considerable force.
+
+"With our weak detachments of the Seventy-fourth and Ninety-first
+regiments we reached the crest and came under a terrible artillery fire
+that mowed us down. However, we entered St. Prix. Hardly had we done so
+than we were met with shell fire and a violent fusillade from the
+enemy's infantry.
+
+"Our Colonel was badly wounded--he is the third we have had. Fourteen
+men were killed around me. We got away in a lull without being hit.
+
+"The 7th, 8th, and 9th of September we were constantly under shell and
+shrapnel fire and suffered terrible losses. I was in a house which was
+hit several times. The fear of death, of agony, which is in every man's
+heart, and naturally so, is a terrible feeling.
+
+"How often I have thought of you, my darling, and what I suffered in
+that terrifying battle, which extended along a front of many miles near
+Montmirail, you cannot possibly imagine.
+
+"Our heavy artillery was being used for the siege of Maubeuge. We wanted
+it badly, as the enemy had theirs in force and kept up a furious
+bombardment. For four days I was under artillery fire. It was like hell,
+but a thousand times worse.
+
+"On the night of the 9th the order was given to retreat, as it would
+have been madness to attempt to hold our position with our few men, and
+we should have risked a terrible defeat the next day. The First and
+Third Armies had not been able to attack with us, as we had advanced too
+rapidly. Our morale was absolutely broken. In spite of unheard-of
+sacrifices we had achieved nothing.
+
+"I cannot understand how our army, after fighting three great battles
+and being terribly weakened, was sent against a position which the enemy
+had prepared for three weeks, but naturally I know nothing of the
+intentions of our Chiefs; they say nothing has been lost.
+
+"In a word, we retired toward Cormontreuil and Rheims by forced marches
+by day and night. We hear that three armies are going to get into line,
+intrench and rest, and then start afresh our victorious march on Paris.
+It was not a defeat, only a strategic retreat. I have confidence in our
+Chiefs that everything will be successful.
+
+"Our First Battalion, which has fought with unparalleled bravery, is
+reduced from 1,200 to 194 men. These numbers speak for themselves."
+
+Among the minor happenings of interest is the following:
+
+During a counter-attack by the German Fifty-third Regiment on positions
+of the Northampton and Queen's Regiments on Thursday, the 17th, a force
+of some 400 of the enemy were allowed to approach right up to the trench
+occupied by a platoon of the former regiment, owing to the fact that
+they had held up their hands and made gestures that were interpreted as
+signs that they wished to surrender. When they were actually on the
+parapet of the trench held, by the Northamptons they opened fire on our
+men at point-blank range.
+
+Unluckily for the enemy, however, flanking them and only some 400 yards
+away, there happened to be a machine gun manned by a detachment of the
+Queen's. This at once opened fire, cutting a lane through their mass,
+and they fell back to their own trench with great loss. Shortly
+afterward they were driven further back, with additional loss, by a
+battalion of Guards which came up in support.
+
+An incident, which occurred some little time ago during our retirement,
+is also worthy of record. On Aug. 28, during the battle fought by the
+French along the Oise between La Fere and Guise, one of the French
+commanders desired to make an air reconnoissance. It was found, however,
+that no observers were available.
+
+Wishing to help our allies as much as possible a British officer
+attached to this particular French army volunteered to go up with the
+pilot to observe. He had never been in an aeroplane, but he made the
+ascent and produced a valuable reconnoissance report.
+
+Incidentally he had a duel in the air at an altitude of 6,000 feet with
+the observer of a German Taube monoplane which approached. He fired
+several shots and drove off the hostile aeroplane. His action was much
+appreciated by the French.
+
+In view of the many statements made in the press as to the use of
+Zeppelins against us, it is interesting to note that the Royal Flying
+Corps, who had been out on reconnoissance every day since their arrival
+in France, have never seen a Zeppelin, though airships of a non-rigid
+type have been seen on two occasions near Marne.
+
+Late one evening two such were observed over the German forces. An
+aeroplane was dispatched against them, but in the darkness our pilots
+were uncertain of the airship's nationality and did not attack. It was
+afterward made clear that they could not have been French.
+
+A week later an officer, reconnoitring to the flank, saw an airship over
+the German forces and opposite the French. It had no distinguishing mark
+and was assumed to belong to the latter, though it is now known that it
+also must have been a German craft.
+
+The orders of the Royal Flying Corps are to attack Zeppelins at once,
+and there is some disappointment at the absence of those targets.
+
+The following special order has been issued today to the troops:
+
+     "Special Order of the Day,
+     By Field Marshal Sir John French,
+     G.C.B., G.C.V.O., K.C.M.G.,
+     Commander in Chief of the British Army in the Field.
+
+     "September 17, 1914.
+
+     "Once more I have to express my deep appreciation of the splendid
+     behavior of the officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of the
+     army under my command throughout the great battle of the Aisne,
+     which has been in progress since the evening of the 12th inst., and
+     the battle of the Marne, which lasted from the morning of the 6th
+     to the evening of the 10th and finally ended in the precipitate
+     flight of the enemy.
+
+     "When we were brought face to face with a position of extraordinary
+     strength, carefully intrenched and prepared for defense by an army
+     and staff which are thorough adepts in such work, throughout the
+     13th and 14th, that position was most gallantly attacked by the
+     British forces and the passage of the Aisne effected. This is the
+     third day the troops have been gallantly holding the position they
+     have gained against most desperate counter-attacks and the hail of
+     heavy artillery.
+
+     "I am unable to find adequately words in which to express the
+     admiration I feel for their magnificent conduct.
+
+     "The French armies on our right and left are making good progress,
+     and I feel sure that we have only to hold on with tenacity to the
+     ground we have won for a very short time longer when the Allies
+     will be again in full pursuit of a beaten enemy.
+
+     "The self-sacrificing devotion and splendid spirit of the British
+     army in France will carry all before it.
+
+     "J.D.P. FRENCH, Field Marshall,
+
+     "Commander in Chief of the British Army in the Field."
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+*The Slow Fight on the Aisne.*
+
+[Made Public Sept. 24.]
+
+
+The enemy is still maintaining himself along the whole front, and, in
+order to do so, is throwing into the fight detachments composed of units
+from different formations, the active army, reserve, and Landwehr, as is
+shown by the uniforms of the prisoners recently captured.
+
+Our progress, although slow on account of the strength of the defensive
+positions against which we are pressing, has in certain directions been
+continuous; but the present battle may well last for some days more
+before a decision is reached, since it now approximates somewhat to
+siege warfare.
+
+The Germans are making use of searchlights. This fact, coupled with
+their great strength in heavy artillery, leads to the supposition that
+they are employing material which may have been collected for the siege
+of Paris.
+
+The nature of the general situation after the operations of the 18th,
+19th, and 20th cannot better be summarized than as expressed recently
+by a neighboring French commander to his corps: "Having repulsed
+repeated and violent counter-attacks made by the enemy, we have a
+feeling that we have been victorious."
+
+So far as the British are concerned, the course of events during these
+three days can be described in a few words. During Friday, the 18th,
+artillery fire was kept up intermittently by both sides during daylight.
+At night the German centre attacked certain portions of our line,
+supporting the advance of their infantry, as always, by a heavy
+bombardment. But the strokes were not delivered with great vigor, and
+ceased about 2 A.M. During the day's fighting an aircraft gun of the
+Third Army Corps succeeded in bringing down a German aeroplane.
+
+News also was received that a body of French cavalry had demolished part
+of the railway to the north, so cutting, at least temporarily, one line
+of communication which is of particular importance to the enemy.
+
+On Saturday, the 19th, the bombardment was resumed by the Germans at an
+early hour and continued intermittently under reply from our own guns.
+Some of their infantry advanced from cover, apparently with the
+intention of attacking, but on coming under fire they retired. Otherwise
+the day was uneventful, except for the activity of the artillery, which
+is a matter of normal routine rather than an event.
+
+Another hostile aeroplane was brought down by us, and one of our
+aviators succeeded in dropping several bombs over the German line, one
+incendiary bomb falling with considerable effect on a transport park
+near La Fere.
+
+A buried store of the enemy's munitions of war was also found, not far
+from the Aisne, ten wagon loads of live shell and two wagon loads of
+cable being dug up. Traces were discovered of large quantities of stores
+having been burned--all tending to show that as far back as the Aisne
+the German retirement was hurried.
+
+There was a strong wind during the day, accompanied by a driving rain.
+This militated against the aerial reconnoissance.
+
+On Sunday, the 20th, nothing of importance occurred until the afternoon,
+when there was a break in the clouds and an interval of feeble sunshine,
+which was hardly powerful enough to warm the soaking troops. The Germans
+took advantage of this brief spell of fine weather to make several
+counter-attacks against different points. These were all repulsed with
+loss to the enemy, but the casualties incurred by us were by no means
+light.
+
+In one section of our firing line the occupants of the trenches were
+under the impression that they heard a military band in the enemy's
+lines just before the attack developed. It is now known that the German
+infantry started their advance with bands playing.
+
+The offensive against one or two points was renewed at dusk, with no
+greater success. The brunt of the resistance has naturally fallen upon
+the infantry. In spite of the fact that they have been drenched to the
+skin for some days and their trenches have been deep in mud and water,
+and in spite of the incessant night alarms and the almost continuous
+bombardment to which they have been subjected, they have on every
+occasion been ready for the enemy's infantry when the latter attempted
+to assault, and they have beaten them back with great loss. Indeed, the
+sight of the Pickelhauben [German spiked helmets] coming up has been a
+positive relief after long, trying hours of inaction under shell fire.
+
+The object of the great proportion of artillery the Germans employ is to
+beat down the resistance of their enemy by concentrated and prolonged
+fire, to shatter their nerves with high explosives, before the infantry
+attack is launched. They seem to have relied on doing this with us, but
+they have not done so, though it has taken them several costly
+experiments to discover this fact.
+
+From statements of prisoners it appears that they have been greatly
+disappointed by the moral effect produced by their heavy guns, which,
+despite the actual losses inflicted, has not been at all commensurate
+with the colossal expenditure of ammunition, which has really been
+wasted. By this it is not implied that their artillery fire is not good;
+it is more than good--it is excellent. But the British soldier is a
+difficult person to impress or depress, even by immense shells filled
+with a high explosive which detonate with terrific violence and form
+craters large enough to act as graves for five horses.
+
+The German howitzer shells are from 8 to 9 inches in calibre, and on
+impact they send up columns of greasy black smoke. On account of this
+they are irreverently dubbed "coal boxes," "black Marias," or "Jack
+Johnsons" by the soldiers. Men who take things in this spirit are, it
+seems, likely to throw out the calculations based on the loss of morale
+so carefully framed by the German military philosophers.
+
+A considerable amount of information has been gleaned from prisoners. It
+has been gathered that our bombardment on the 15th produced a great
+impression. The opinion is also reported that our infantry make such
+good use of ground that the German companies are decimated by our rifle
+fire before the British soldier can be seen.
+
+From an official diary captured by the First Army Corps it appears that
+one of the German corps contains an extraordinary mixture of units. If
+the composition of the other corps is similar, it may be assumed that
+the present efficiency of the enemy's forces is in no way comparable
+with what it was when the war commenced.
+
+The losses in officers are noted as having been especially severe. A
+brigade is stated to be commanded by a Major; some companies of food
+guards by one-year volunteers; while after the battle of Montmirail one
+regiment lost fifty-five out of sixty officers. The prisoners recently
+captured appreciate the fact that the march on Paris has failed and that
+their forces are retreating, but state that the object of this movement
+is explained by the officers as being to withdraw into closer touch
+with the supports, which have stayed too far in the rear.
+
+The officers are also endeavoring to encourage the troops by telling
+them that they will be at home by Christmas. A large number of the men
+believe that they are beaten. Following is an extract from one document:
+
+"With the English troops we have great difficulties. They have a queer
+way of causing losses to the enemy. They make good trenches, in which
+they wait patiently; they carefully measure the ranges for their rifle
+fire, and they open a truly hellish fire on the unsuspecting cavalry.
+This was the reason that we had such heavy losses.
+
+"According to our officers, the English striking forces are exhausted;
+the English people really never wanted war."
+
+From another source: "The English are very brave and fight to the last
+man. One of our companies has lost 130 men out of 240."
+
+The following letter, which refers to the fighting on the Aisne, has
+been printed and circulated to the troops:
+
+     LETTER FOUND ON GERMAN OFFICER OF SEVENTH RESERVE CORPS:
+
+     Cerny, South of Laon, Sept 14, 1914.
+
+     My Dear Parents: Our corps has the task of holding the heights
+     south of Cerny in all circumstances until the Fourteenth Corps on
+     our left flank can grip the enemy's flank. On our right are other
+     corps. We are fighting with the English Guards, Highlanders, and
+     Zouaves. The losses on both sides have been enormous. For the most
+     part this is due to the too brilliant French artillery.
+
+     The English are marvelously trained in making use of ground. One
+     never sees them, and one is constantly under fire. The French
+     airmen perform wonderful feats. We cannot get rid of them. As soon
+     as an airman has flown over us, ten minutes later we get their
+     shrapnel fire in our positions. We have little artillery in our
+     corps; without it we cannot get forward.
+
+     Three days ago our division took possession of these heights and
+     dug itself in. Two days ago, early in the morning, we were attacked
+     by an immensely superior English force, one brigade and two
+     battalions, and were turned out of our positions. The fellows took
+     five guns from us. It was a tremendous hand-to-hand fight.
+
+     How I escaped myself I am not clear. I then had to bring up
+     supports on foot. My horse was wounded, and the others were too
+     far in the rear. Then came up the Guards Jager Battalion, Fourth
+     Jager, Sixth Regiment, Reserve Regiment Thirteen, and Landwehr
+     Regiments Thirteen and Sixteen, and with the help of the artillery
+     we drove the fellows out of the position again. Our machine guns
+     did excellent work; the English fell in heaps.
+
+     In our battalion three Iron Crosses have been given, one to C.O.,
+     one to Capt. ----, and one to Surgeon ----. [Names probably
+     deleted.] Let us hope that we shall be the lucky ones next time.
+
+     During the first two days of the battle I had only one piece of
+     bread and no water. I spent the night in the rain without my
+     overcoat. The rest of my kit was on the horses which had been left
+     behind with the baggage and which cannot come up into the battle
+     because as soon as you put your nose up from behind cover the
+     bullets whistle.
+
+     War is terrible. We are all hoping that a decisive battle will end
+     the war, as our troops already have got round Paris. If we beat the
+     English the French resistance will soon be broken. Russia will be
+     very quickly dealt with; of this there is no doubt.
+
+     We received splendid help from the Austrian [Transcriber: original
+     'Austrain'] heavy artillery at Maubeuge. They bombarded Fort
+     Cerfontaine in such a way that there was not ten meters a parapet
+     which did not show enormous craters made by the shells. The armored
+     turrets were found upside down.
+
+     Yesterday evening, about 6, in the valley in which our reserves
+     stood there was such a terrible cannonade that we saw nothing of
+     the sky but a cloud of smoke. We had few casualties.
+
+Recently a pilot and observer of the Royal Flying Corps were forced by a
+breakage in their aeroplane to descend in the enemy's lines. The pilot
+managed to pancake his machine down to earth, and the two escaped into
+some thick under-growth in the woods.
+
+The enemy came up and seized and smashed the machine, but did not search
+for our men with much zeal. The latter lay hid till dark and then found
+their way to the Aisne, across which they swam, reaching camp in safety,
+but barefooted.
+
+Numerous floating bridges have been thrown across the Aisne and some of
+the pontoon bridges have been repaired under fire. On the 20th, Lieut.
+[name deleted] of the Third Signal Corps, Royal Engineers, was
+unfortunately drowned while attempting to swim across the river with a
+cable in order to open up fresh telegraphic communication on the north
+side.
+
+Espionage is still carried on by the enemy to a considerable extent.
+Recently the suspicions of some of the French troops were aroused by
+coming across a farm from which the horses had been removed. After some
+search they discovered a telephone which was connected by an underground
+cable with the German lines, and the owner of the farm paid the penalty
+in the usual way in war for his treachery.
+
+After some cases of village fighting which occurred earlier in the war
+it was reported by some of our officers that the Germans had attempted
+to approach to close quarters by forcing prisoners to march in front of
+them. The Germans have recently repeated the same trick on a larger
+scale against the French, as is shown by the copy of an order printed
+below. It is therein referred to as a ruse, but, if that term can be
+accepted, a distinctly illegal ruse.
+
+"During a recent night attack," the order reads, "the Germans drove a
+column of French prisoners in front of them. This action is to be
+brought to the notice of all our troops (1) in order to put them on
+their guard against such a dastardly ruse; (2) in order that every
+soldier may know how the Germans treat their prisoners. Our troops must
+not forget if they allow themselves to be taken prisoners the Germans
+will not fail to expose them to French bullets."
+
+Further evidence has now been collected of the misuse of the white flag
+and other signs of surrender. During an action on the 17th, owing to
+this, one officer was shot. During recent fighting, also, some German
+ambulance wagons advanced in order to collect the wounded. An order to
+cease firing was consequently given to our guns, which were firing on
+this particular section of ground. The German battery commanders at once
+took advantage of the lull in the action to climb up their observation
+ladders and on to a haystack to locate our guns, which soon afterward
+came under a far more accurate fire than any to which they had been
+subjected up to that time.
+
+A British officer, who was captured by the Germans and has since
+escaped, reports that while a prisoner he saw men who had been fighting
+subsequently put on Red Cross brassards.
+
+That irregular use of the protection afforded by the Geneva Convention
+is not uncommon is confirmed by the fact that on one occasion men in the
+uniform of combatant units have been captured wearing a Red Cross
+brassard hastily slipped over the arm. The excuse given has been that
+they had been detailed after the fight to look after the wounded.
+
+It is reported by a cavalry officer that the driver of a motor car with
+a machine gun mounted on it, which was captured, was wearing a Red
+Cross.
+
+Full details of the actual damage done to the cathedral at Rheims will
+doubtless have been cabled home, so that no description of it is
+necessary. The Germans bombarded the cathedral twice with their heavy
+artillery.
+
+One reason it caught alight so quickly was that on one side of it was
+some scaffolding which had been erected for restoration work. Straw had
+also been laid on the floor for the reception of the German wounded. It
+is to the credit of the French that practically all the German wounded
+were successfully extricated from the burning building.
+
+There was no justification on military grounds for this act of
+vandalism, which seems to have been caused by exasperation born of
+failure--a sign of impotence rather than strength. It is noteworthy that
+a well-known hotel not far from the cathedral, which was kept by a
+German, was not touched.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+*Two September Days.*
+
+[Made Public Sept. 28.]
+
+
+For four days there has been a comparative lull all along our front.
+This has been accompanied [Transcriber: original 'acompanied'] by a
+spell of fine weather, though the nights have been much colder. One
+cannot have everything, however, and one evil result of the sunshine
+has been the release of flies, which were torpid during the wet days.
+
+Advantage has been taken of the arrival of reinforcements to relieve by
+fresh troops the men who have been on the firing line for some time.
+Several units, therefore, have received their baptism of fire during the
+week.
+
+Since the last letter left headquarters evidence has been received which
+points to the fact that during the counter attacks on the night of Sept.
+20 German detachments of infantry fired into each other. This was the
+result of an attempt to carry out the dangerous expedient of a
+converging advance in the dark. Opposite one portion of our position
+considerable massing of hostile forces was observed before dark. Some
+hours later a furious fusillade [Transcriber: original 'fusilade'] was
+heard in front of our line, though no bullets came over our trenches.
+
+This narrative begins with Sept. 21 and covers only two days. There was
+but little rain on Sept. 21 and the weather took a turn for the better,
+which has been maintained. The action has been practically confined to
+the artillery, our guns at one point shelling and driving the enemy, who
+endeavored to construct a redoubt.
+
+The Germans expended a large number of heavy shells in a long range
+bombardment of the village of Missy (Department of the Aisne).
+Reconnoitring parties sent out during the night of Sept. 21-22
+discovered some deserted trenches. In them or in the woods over 100 dead
+and wounded were picked up. A number of rifles, ammunition and equipment
+were also found. There were other signs that portions of the enemy's
+forces had withdrawn some distance.
+
+The weather was also fine on Sept. 22 with less wind, and it was one of
+the most uneventful days we have passed since we reached the Aisne, that
+is, uneventful for the British. There was less artillery work on either
+side, the Germans giving the village of Paissy (Aisne) a taste of the
+"Jack Johnsons." The spot thus honored is not far from the ridge where
+there has been some of the most severe close fighting in which we have
+taken part. All over this No Man's Land, between the lines, bodies of
+German infantrymen were still lying in heaps where they had fallen at
+different times.
+
+Espionage plays so large a part in the conduct of the war by the Germans
+that it is difficult to avoid further reference to the subject. They
+have evidently never forgotten the saying of Frederick the Great: "When
+Marshall Soubise goes to war he is followed by a hundred cooks. When I
+take the field I am preceded by a hundred spies." Indeed until about
+twenty years ago there was a paragraph in their field service
+regulations directing that the service of protection in the field, such
+as outposts and advance guards, should always be supplemented by a
+system of espionage. Although such instructions are no longer made
+public the Germans, as is well known, still carry them into effect.
+
+Apart from the more elaborate arrangements which were made in peace time
+for obtaining information by paid agents some of the methods which are
+being employed for the collection or conveyance of intelligence are as
+follows:
+
+Men in plain clothes signal the German lines from points in the hands of
+the enemy by means of colored lights at nights and puffs of smoke from
+chimneys in the day time. Pseudo laborers working in the fields between
+the armies have been detected conveying information. Persons in plain
+clothes have acted as advanced scouts to the German cavalry when
+advancing.
+
+German officers or soldiers in plain clothes or French or British
+uniforms have remained in localities evacuated by the Germans in order
+to furnish them with intelligence. One spy of this kind was found by our
+troops hidden in a church tower. His presence was only discovered
+through the erratic movements of the hands of the church clock, which he
+was using to signal his friends by an improvised semaphore code. Had
+this man not been seized it is probable he would have signalled the time
+of arrival and the exact position of the headquarters staff of the force
+and a high explosive shell would then have mysteriously dropped on the
+building.
+
+Women spies have also been caught. Secret agents have been found at rail
+heads observing entrainments and detrainments. It is a simple matter for
+spies to mix with refugees who are moving about to and from their homes,
+and it is difficult for our troops, who speak neither French nor German,
+to detect them. The French have also found it necessary to search
+villages and casual wayfarers on the roads and to search for carrier
+pigeons.
+
+Among the precautions taken by us against spying is the following notice
+printed in French, posted up:
+
+     "Motor cars and bicycles other than those; carrying soldiers in
+     uniform may not circulate on the roads. Inhabitants may not leave
+     the localities in which they reside between 6 P.M. and 6 A.M.
+     Inhabitants may not quit their homes after 8 P.M. No person may on
+     any pretext pass through the British lines without an authorization
+     countersigned by a British officer."
+
+Events have moved so quietly for the last two months that anything
+connected with the mobilization of the British expeditionary force is
+now ancient history. Nevertheless, the following extract from a German
+order is evidence of the mystification of the army and a tribute to the
+value of the secrecy which was so well and so loyally maintained in
+England at the time:
+
+     "Tenth Reserve Army Corps Headquarters,
+
+     "Mont St. Guibert, Aug. 20, 1914.
+
+     "Corps Order, Aug. 20.
+
+     "The French troops in front of the Tenth Army Corps have retreated
+     south across the Sambre. Part of the Belgium army has been
+     withdrawn from Antwerp. It is reported that an English army has
+     disembarked at Calais and Boulogne, en route to Brussels."
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+*Fighting in the Air.*
+
+[Made Public Sept. 29.]
+
+
+Wednesday, Sept. 23, was a perfect Autumn day. It passed without
+incident as regards major operations. Although the enemy concentrated
+their heavy artillery upon the, plateau near Passy, nothing more than
+inconvenience was caused.
+
+The welcome absence of wind gave our airmen a chance of which they took
+full advantage by gathering much information. Unfortunately, one of our
+aviators, who had been particularly active in annoying the enemy by
+dropping bombs, was wounded in a duel in the air.
+
+Being alone on a single-seated monoplane, he was not able to use his
+rifle, and while circling above a German two-seated machine in an
+endeavor to get within pistol shot he was hit by the observer of the
+German machine, who was armed with a rifle. He managed to fly back over
+our lines, and by great good luck he descended close to a motor
+ambulance, which at once conveyed him to a hospital.
+
+Against this may be set off the fact that another of our flyers exploded
+a bomb among some led artillery horses, killing several and stampeding
+the others.
+
+On Thursday, Sept. 21, the fine weather continued, as did the lull in
+the action, the heavy German shells falling mostly near Pargnan, twelve
+miles south-southeast of Laon.
+
+On both Wednesday and Thursday the weather was so fine that many flights
+were made by the aviators, French, British, and German. These produced a
+corresponding activity among the anti-aircraft guns.
+
+So still and clear was the atmosphere toward evening on Wednesday and
+during the whole of Thursday that to those not especially on the lookout
+the presence of aeroplanes high up above them was first made known by
+the bursting of the projectiles aimed at them. The puffs of smoke from
+the detonation shell hung in the air for minutes on end, like balls of
+fleece cotton, before they slowly expanded and were dissipated.
+
+From the places mentioned as being the chief targets for the enemy's
+heavy howitzers, it will be seen that the Germans are not inclined to
+concentrate their fire systematically upon definite areas in which
+their aviators think they have located our guns, or upon villages where
+it is imagined our troops may be billeted. The result will be to give
+work to local builders.
+
+The growing resemblance of this battle to siege warfare has already been
+pointed out. The fact that the later actions of the Russo-Japanese war
+assumed a similar character was thought by many to have been due to
+exceptional causes, such as the narrowness of the theatre of operations
+between the Chinese frontier on the west and the mountainous country of
+Northern Korea on the east; the lack of roads, which limited the extent
+of ground over which it was possible for the rival armies to manoeuvre,
+and the fact that both forces were tied to one line of railroad.
+
+Such factors are not exerting any influence on the present battle.
+Nevertheless, a similar situation has been produced, owing firstly to
+the immense power of resistance possessed by an army which is amply
+equipped with heavy artillery and has sufficient time to fortify itself,
+and, secondly, to the vast size of the forces engaged, which at the
+present time stretch more than half way across France.
+
+The extent of the country covered is so great as to render slow any
+efforts to manoeuvre and march around to a flank in order to escape the
+costly expedient of a frontal attack against heavily fortified
+positions.
+
+To state that the methods of attack must approximate more closely to
+those of siege warfare the greater the resemblance of the defenses to
+those of a fortress is a platitude, but it is one which will bear
+repetition if it in any way assists to make the present situation clear.
+
+There is no doubt that the position on the Aisne was not hastily
+selected by the German Staff after the retreat had begun. From the
+choice of ground, and the care with which the fields of fire had been
+arranged to cover all possible avenues of approach, and from the amount
+of work already carried out, it is clear that the contingency of having
+to act on the defensive was not overlooked when the details of the
+strategically offensive campaign were arranged.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+*Technique of This Warfare.*
+
+[Made Public Oct. 9.]
+
+
+Wednesday, Sept. 30, merely marked another day's progress in the gradual
+development of the situation, and was distinguished by no activity
+beyond slight attacks by the enemy. There was also artillery fire at
+intervals. One of our airmen succeeded in dropping nine bombs, some of
+which fell on the enemy's rolling stock collected on the railway near
+Laon. Some of the enemy's front trenches were found empty at night; but
+nothing much can be deduced from this fact, for they are frequently
+evacuated in this way, no doubt to prevent the men in the back lines
+firing on their comrades in front of them.
+
+Thursday, Oct. 1, was a most perfect Autumn day, and the most peaceful
+that there has been since the two forces engaged on the Aisne. There was
+only desultory gunfire as targets offered. During the night the enemy
+made a few new trenches. A French aviator dropped one bomb on a railway
+station and three bombs on troops massed near it.
+
+The weather on Friday, the 2d, was very misty in the early hours, and it
+continued hazy until the late afternoon, becoming thicker again at
+night. The Germans were driven out of a mill which they had occupied as
+an advanced post, their guns and machine guns which supported it being
+knocked out one by one by well-directed artillery fire from a flank.
+During the night they made the usual two attacks on the customary spot
+in our lines, and as on previous occasions were repulsed. Two of their
+trenches were captured and filled in. Our loss was six men wounded.
+
+Up to Sept, 21 the air mileage made by our airmen since the beginning
+of the war amounted to 87,000 miles, an average of 2,000 miles per day,
+the total equaling nearly four times the circuit of the world. The total
+time spent in the air was 1,400 hours.
+
+There are many points connected with the fighting methods of either side
+that may be of interest. The following description was given by a
+battalion commander who has been at the front since the commencement of
+hostilities and has fought both in the open and behind intrenchments. It
+must, however, be borne in mind that it only represents the experiences
+of a particular unit. It deals with the tactics of the enemy's infantry:
+
+     The important points to watch are the heads of valleys and ravines,
+     woods--especially those on the sides of hollow ground--and all dead
+     ground to the front and flanks. The German officers are skilled in
+     leading troops forward under cover, in closed bodies, but once the
+     latter are deployed and there is no longer direct personal
+     leadership the men will not face heavy fire. Sometimes the advance
+     is made in a series of lines, with the men well opened out at five
+     or six paces interval; at other times it is made in a line, with
+     the men almost shoulder to shoulder, followed in all cases by
+     supports in close formation. The latter either waver when the front
+     line is checked, or crowd on to it, moving forward under the orders
+     of their officers, and the mass forms a magnificent target.
+     Prisoners have described the fire of our troops as pinning them to
+     the ground, and this is certainly borne out by their action.
+
+     When the Germans are not heavily intrenched no great losses are
+     incurred in advancing against them by the methods in which the
+     British Army has been instructed. For instance, in one attack over
+     fairly open ground against about an equal force of infantry
+     sheltered in a sunken road and in ditches we lost only 10 killed
+     and 60 wounded, while over 400 of the enemy surrendered after about
+     50 had been killed. Each side had the support of a battery, but the
+     fight for superiority from infantry fire took place at about 700
+     yards and lasted only half an hour. When the Germans were wavering
+     some of them put up the white flag, but others went on firing, and
+     our men continued to do the same. Eventually a large number of
+     white flags, improvised from handkerchiefs, pieces of shirt, white
+     biscuit bags, &c., were exhibited all along the line, and many men
+     hoisted their helmets on their rifles.
+
+     In the fighting behind intrenchments the Germans endeavor to gain
+     ground by making advances in line at dusk or just before dawn, and
+     then digging themselves in, in the hope, no doubt, that they may
+     eventually get so near as to be able, as at manoeuvres, to reach
+     the hostile trenches in a single rush. They have never succeeded in
+     doing this against us. If by creeping up in dead ground they do
+     succeed in gaining ground by night, they are easily driven back by
+     fire in the morning. A few of the braver men sometimes remain
+     behind, at ranges of even 300 or 400 yards, and endeavor to inflict
+     losses by sniping. Sharpshooters, also, are often noticed in trees
+     or wriggling about until they get good cover. The remedy is to take
+     the initiative and detail men to deal with the enemy's
+     sharpshooters.
+
+     A few night attacks have been made against us. Before one of them a
+     party crept up close to the British line and set alight a hayrick,
+     so that it should form a beacon on which the centre of the
+     attacking line marched. Generally, however, in the night and early
+     morning attacks, groups of forty or fifty men have come on, the
+     groups sometimes widely separated from one another and making every
+     endeavor to obtain any advantage from cover. Light balls and
+     searchlights have on some occasions been used. Latterly the attacks
+     have become more and more half-hearted. Against us the enemy has
+     never closed with the bayonet. The German trenches I have seen were
+     deep enough to shelter a man when firing standing, and had a step
+     down in rear for the supports to sit in.
+
+     As regards our own men, there was at first considerable reluctance
+     to intrench, as has always been the case at the commencement of a
+     war. Now, however, having bought experience dearly, their defenses
+     are such that they can defy the German artillery fire.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+*Becomes an Artillery Duel*.
+
+[Made Public Oct. 10.]
+
+
+Comparative calm on our front has continued through the fine and
+considerably warmer weather. The last six days have been slightly misty
+with clouds hanging low, so that conditions have not been very favorable
+for aerial reconnoissance.
+
+In regard to the latter, it is astonishing how quickly the habit is
+acquired, even by those who are not aviators, of thinking of the
+weather in terms of its suitability for flying. There has been a bright
+moon also, which has militated against night attacks.
+
+On Saturday, Oct. 3, practically nothing happened, except that each side
+shelled the other.
+
+Toward evening on Sunday, Oct. 4, there was a similar absence of
+activity. Opposite one portion of our line the enemy's bands played
+patriotic airs, and the audiences which gathered gave a chance to our
+waiting howitzers.
+
+Not only do their regimental bands perform occasionally, but with their
+proverbial fondness for music the Germans have in some places
+gramophones [Transcriber: original 'gramaphones'] in their trenches.
+
+On Monday, the 5th, there were three separate duels in the air between
+French and German aviators, one of which was visible from our trenches.
+Two of the struggles were, so far as could be seen, indecisive, but in
+the third the French airmen were victorious, and brought down their
+opponents, both of whom were killed by machine gun fire. The observer
+was so burned as to be unrecognizable.
+
+During the day some men of the Landwehr were taken prisoners by us. They
+were in very poor condition and wept copiously when captured. One, on
+being asked what he was crying for, explained that though they had been
+advised to surrender to the English, they believed that they would be
+shot.
+
+On that evening our airmen had an unusual amount of attention paid to
+them, both by the German aviators and their artillery of every
+description.
+
+One of our infantry patrols discovered 150 dead Germans in a wood, one
+and a half miles from our front. We sent a party out to bury them, but
+it was fired upon and had to withdraw.
+
+On Tuesday, the 6th, the enemy's guns were active in the afternoon. It
+is believed that the bombardment was due to anger because two of our
+howitzer shells had detonated right in one of the enemy's trenches,
+which was full of men. Three horses were killed by the German fire.
+
+Wednesday, the 7th, was uneventful.
+
+On Thursday, the 8th, the shelling by the enemy of a locality on our
+front, which has so far been the scene of their greatest efforts, was
+again continuous. Opposite one or two points the Germans have attempted
+to gain ground by sapping in some places with the view of secretly
+pushing forward machine guns in advance of their trenches, so that they
+can suddenly sweep with crossfire the space between our line and theirs,
+and so take any advance of ours on the flank.
+
+It is reported that at one point where the French were much annoyed by
+the fire of a German machine gun, which was otherwise inaccessible, they
+drove a mine gallery, 50 meters (about 164 feet) long, up to and under
+the emplacement, and blew up the gun. The man who drove the gallery
+belonged to a corps which was recruited in one of the coal-mining
+districts of France.
+
+The German machine guns are mounted on low sledges, and are
+inconspicuous and evidently easily moved.
+
+The fighting now consists mostly of shelling by the artillery of both
+sides and in front a line of fire from the machine guns as an occasional
+target offers. Our Maxims have been doing excellent work and have proved
+most efficient weapons for the sort of fighting in which we are now
+engaged.
+
+At times there are so many outbursts of their fire in different
+directions that it is possible for an expert to tell by comparison which
+of the guns have their springs adjusted and are well tuned up for the
+day. The amount of practice that our officers are now getting in the use
+of this weapon is proving most valuable in teaching them how to maintain
+it at concert pitch as an instrument and how to derive the best tactical
+results from its employment.
+
+Against us the Germans are not now expending so much gun ammunition as
+they have been, but they continue to fire at insignificant targets. They
+have the habit of suddenly dropping heavy shells without warning in
+localities of villages far behind our front line, possibly on the chance
+of catching some of our troops in bivouac or billets. They also fire a
+few rounds at night.
+
+The artillery has up to now played so great a part in the war that a few
+general remarks descriptive of the methods of its employment by the
+enemy are justified. Their field artillery armament consists of
+15-pounder quick-fire guns for horse and field batteries of divisions
+and there are, in addition, with each corps three to six batteries of
+4.3-inch field howitzers and about two batteries of 5.9-inch howitzers.
+With an army there are some 8.2-inch heavy howitzers.
+
+The accuracy of their fire is apt at first to cause some alarm, more
+especially as the guns are usually well concealed and the position and
+the direction from which the fire is proceeding are difficult of
+detection. But accurate as is their shooting, the German gunners have on
+the whole had little luck, and during the past three weeks an
+astonishingly small proportion of the number of shells fired by them
+have been really effective.
+
+Quite the most striking feature of their handling of the artillery is
+the speed with which they concentrate the fire upon any selected point.
+They dispense to a great extent with the method of ranging known by us
+as bracketing, especially when acting on the defensive, and direct their
+fire by means of squared maps and the telephone. Thus, when the target
+is found, its position on the map is telephoned to such batteries as it
+is desired to employ against that particular square.
+
+In addition to the guns employed to fire on the targets as they are
+picked up, others are told off to watch particular roads, and to deal
+with any of the enemy using them.
+
+Both for the location of targets and the communication of the effect of
+the fire, reliance is placed on observation from aeroplanes and balloons
+and on information supplied by special observers and secret agents, who
+are sent out ahead or left behind in the enemy's lines to communicate by
+telephone or signal. These observers have been found in haystacks,
+barns, and other buildings well in advance of the German lines.
+Balloons of the so-called sausage pattern remain up in the air for long
+periods for the purpose of discovering targets, and until our aviators
+made their influence felt by chasing all hostile aeroplanes on sight the
+latter were continually hovering over our troops in order to register
+their positions and to note where the headquarters, reserves, gun teams,
+&c., were located.
+
+If suitable targets are discovered the airman drops a smoke ball
+directly over it or lets fall some strips of tinsel, which glitter in
+the sun as they slowly descend to the earth. The range to the target is
+apparently ascertained by those near the guns by a large telemeter, or
+other range finder, which is kept trained on the aeroplane, so that when
+the signal is made the distance to the target vertically below is at
+once obtained. A few rounds are then fired, and the result is signalled
+back by the aviator according to some prearranged code.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+*A Fight in the Clouds.*
+
+[Dated Oct. 13.]
+
+
+From Friday the 9th of October until Monday the 12th so little occurred
+that a narrative of the events can be given in a few words. There has
+been the usual sporadic shelling of our trenches which has resulted in
+but little harm, so well dug in are our men, and on the night of the
+10th the Germans made yet a fresh assault, supported by artillery fire,
+against the point which has all along attracted most of their attention.
+
+The attempt was again a costly failure toward which our guns were able
+to contribute with great effect.
+
+Details have been received of an exciting encounter in midair. One of
+our aviators on a fast scouting monoplane sighted a hostile machine. He
+had two rifles, fixed one on either side of his engines, and at once
+gave chase, but lost sight of his opponent among the clouds. Soon,
+however, another machine hove into view which turned out to be a German
+Otto biplane, a type of machine which is not nearly so fast as our
+scouts. Our officer once again started a pursuit. He knew that owing to
+the position of the propeller of the hostile machine he could not be
+fired at when astern of his opponent. At sixty yards range he fired one
+rifle without apparent result. Then as his pace was carrying him ahead
+of his quarry he turned round, and, again coming to about the same
+distance behind, emptied his magazine at the German.
+
+The latter began at once to descend as if either he or his machine were
+hit, and shutting off his engine and volplaning to free his hands, the
+pursuer recharged his magazine. Unfortunately it jammed, but he managed
+to insert four cartridges and to fire them at his descending opponent,
+who disappeared into a cloud bank with dramatic suddenness. When the
+British officer emerged below the clouds he could see no sign of the
+other. He, therefore, climbed to an altitude of some 7,000 feet and came
+to the conclusion that the German must have come to earth in the French
+lines.
+
+The French airmen, too, have been very successful during the last three
+days, having dropped several bombs among the German cavalry and caused
+considerable loss and disorder, and having by similar means silenced a
+battery of field howitzers.
+
+The German anti-aircraft guns recently have been unusually active. From
+their rate of fire they seem to be nearly automatic, but so far they
+have not had much effect in reducing the air reconnoissances carried out
+by us.
+
+A striking feature of our line--to use the conventional term which so
+seldom expresses accurately the position taken up by an army--is that it
+consists really of a series of trenches not all placed alongside each
+other, but some more advanced than others, and many facing in different
+directions. At one place they run east and west along one side of a
+valley. At another almost north and south up some subsidiary valley.
+Here they line the edge of woods, and there they are on the reverse
+slope of a hill, or possibly along a sunken road, and at different
+points both the German and the British trenches jut out like
+promontories into what might be regarded as the opponents' territory.
+
+Though both sides have moved forward at certain points, and withdrawn at
+others, no very important change has been effected in their
+dispositions, in spite of the enemy's repeated counter attacks. These
+have been directed principally against one portion of the position won
+by us, but in spite of the lavish expenditure of life they have not so
+far succeeded in driving us back.
+
+The situation of the works in the German front line as a whole has been
+a matter of deliberate selection, for they have had the advantage of
+previous reconnaissance, being first in the field.
+
+Behind the front they now have several lines prepared for a step-by-step
+defense. Another point which might cause astonishment to a visitor to
+our intrenchments is the evident indifference displayed to the provision
+of an extended field of frontal rifle fire, which is generally accepted
+as being one of the great requirements of a defensive position. It is
+still desirable, if it can be obtained without the usually accompanying
+drawback of exposure to the direct fire of hostile artillery, but
+experience has shown that a short field of fire is sufficient to beat
+back the infantry assaults of the enemy, and by giving up direct fire at
+long or medium ranges and placing our trenches on the reverse slope of a
+hill or behind the crest, it is in many places possible to gain shelter
+from the frontal fire of the German guns, for the men are well trained
+in musketry and under good fire control, and the dead ground beyond the
+short range from their position has comparatively small terrors.
+
+Many of the front trenches of the Germans equally lack a distant field
+of fire, but if lost they would be rendered untenable by us by the fact
+that they would be exposed to a fire from the German guns in the rear
+and to cross-rifle fire from neighboring works.
+
+The extent to which cross-fire of all kinds is employed is also
+remarkable. Many localities and areas along the Aisne are not swept from
+the works directly in front of them, but are rendered untenable by
+rifle fire from neighboring features or by that of guns that are out of
+sight. So much is this the case that among these hills and valleys it is
+a difficult matter for troops to find out whence they are being shot at.
+
+There is a perpetual triangular duel. A's infantry can see nothing to
+shoot at, but are under fire from B's guns. The action of B's guns then
+brings upon them the attention of some of A's artillery waiting for a
+target, the latter being in their turn assailed by other batteries. And
+so it goes on. In a wooded country in spite of aeroplanes and balloons
+smokeless powder has made the localization and identification of targets
+a matter of supreme difficulty.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+*The Men in the Trenches.*
+
+[Dated Oct. 13.]
+
+
+On the firing line the men sleep and obtain shelter in dug-outs they
+have hollowed or cut under the sides of the trenches. These refuges are
+raised slightly above the bottom of the trench, so as to remain dry in
+wet weather. The floor of the trench also is sloped for purposes of
+draining. Some of the trenches are provided with overhead cover which
+gives protection from the weather as well as from shrapnel balls and
+splinters of shells. Considerable ingenuity has been exercised by the
+men in naming these shelters. Among the favorite designations are the
+"Hotel Cecil," the "Ritz Hotel," the "Billet-Doux Hotel," and the "Rue
+Dormir."
+
+On the road barricades also are to be found boards bearing this notice:
+"This way to the Prussians."
+
+Obstacles of every kind abound, and at night each side can hear the
+enemy driving pickets for entanglements, digging _trous-de-loup_, or
+working forward by sapping. In some places obstacles have been
+constructed by both sides so close together that some wag suggested
+that each side provide working parties to perform this fatigue duty
+alternately, inasmuch as the work of the enemy is now almost
+indistinguishable from ours, and serves the same purpose.
+
+Quarries and caves, to which allusion already has been made, provide
+ample accommodation for whole battalions, and most comfortable are these
+shelters which have been constructed in them. The northern slopes of the
+Aisne Valley fortunately are very steep, and this to a great extent
+protects us from the enemy's shells, many of which pass harmlessly over
+our heads, to burst in the meadows along the river bank.
+
+At all points subject to shell fire access to the firing line from
+behind is provided by communication trenches. These are now so good that
+it is possible to cross in safety a fire-swept zone to the advance
+trenches from billets in villages, bivouacs in quarries, or other places
+where the headquarters of units happen to be.
+
+It already has been mentioned that according to information obtained
+from the enemy fifteen Germans were killed by a bomb dropped upon the
+ammunition wagon of a cavalry column. It was thought at the time that
+this might have been the work of one of our airmen, who reported that he
+had dropped a hand grenade on this convoy, and had then got a bird's-eye
+view of the finest display of fireworks he had ever seen. From
+corroborative evidence it now appears that this was the case; that the
+grenade thrown by him probably was the cause of the destruction of a
+small convoy carrying field-gun and howitzer ammunition, which now has
+been found a total wreck.
+
+Along the road lie fourteen motor lorries, their iron skeletons twisted
+and broken. Everything inflammable has been burned, as have the stripped
+trees--some with split trunks--on either side of the road. Of the
+drivers, nothing remains except tattered boots and charred scraps of
+clothing, while the ground within a radius of fifty yards of the wagons
+is littered with pieces of iron, split brass cartridge cases, which have
+exploded, and some fixed-gun ammunition with live shells.
+
+If it were possible to reconstruct this incident, if it was, in fact,
+brought about as supposed, the grenade from the aeroplane must have
+detonated on the leading lorry, on one side of the road, and caused the
+cartridges carried by it to explode. Three vehicles immediately in the
+rear must then have been set on fire, with a similar result. Behind
+these are groups of four and two vehicles so jammed together as to
+suggest that they must have collided in desperate attempts to stop. On
+the other side of the road, almost level with the leading wagon, are
+found more vehicles, which probably were fired by the explosion of the
+first.
+
+If this appalling destruction was due to one hand grenade, it is an
+illustration of the potentialities of a small amount of high explosive
+detonated in the right spot, while the nature of the place where the
+disaster occurred, a narrow forest road between high trees, is a
+testimony to the skill of the airmen.
+
+It is only fair to add that some French newspapers claim this damage to
+the enemy was caused by the action of a detachment of their dragoons.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+*1,100 Dead in a Single Trench.*
+
+[Official Summary, Dated Oct. 27.]
+
+
+The Official Bureau makes public today the story of an eye-witness,
+supplementing the account issued on Oct. 24, and bringing the story of
+the general course of operations in France up to Oct. 20. The arrival of
+reinforcements, it says, enabled the British troops to assist in the
+extension of the Allies' line where the Germans advanced from the
+northeast and east, holding a front extending from Mont Descats, about
+ten miles northeast of Hazebrouck, through Meteren, five miles south of
+that point, and thence to Estaires, thirteen miles west of Lille, on the
+River Lys. The statement continues:
+
+"South of the Lys the German line extended to three miles east of
+Bethune to Vermelles. The Allies encountered resistance all along the
+line on the 12th and 13th, when the enemy's right fell back hastily.
+Bailleul, seventeen miles northwest by west of Lille, which had been
+occupied by the foe for eight days, was abandoned without a shot being
+fired.
+
+[Illustration: GEN. VON BUeLOW
+Commanding One of the German Armies in the West
+(_Copyright, Photographische Gesellschaft, by permission of the Berlin
+Photographic Co., N.Y._)]
+
+[Illustration: CROWN PRINCE RUPPRECHT OF BAVARIA
+(_Copyright, Photographische Gesellschaft, by permission of the Berlin
+Photographic Co., N.Y._)]
+
+"On the 14th our left wing advanced, driving the enemy back, and on the
+night of the 15th we were in possession of all the country on the left
+bank of the Lys to a point five miles below Armentieres. The enemy
+retired from that town on the 16th, and the river line, to within a
+short distance of Frelinghien, fell into our hands.
+
+"The state of the crossings over the Lys indicated that no organized
+scheme of defense had been executed, some of the bridges being in a
+state of repair, others merely barricaded, while one was not even
+defended or broken.
+
+"The resistance offered to our advance on the 15th was of a most
+determined character. The fighting consisted of fiercely contested
+encounters, infantry attacks on the villages being unavailing until our
+howitzers reduced the houses to ruins. Other villages were taken and
+retaken three times before they were finally secured.
+
+"The French cavalry here gave welcome support, and on the evening of the
+16th the resistance was overcome, the enemy retiring five miles to the
+eastward."
+
+Describing an incident of the fighting on this night, the narrative says
+that the important crossing of the Lys at Warneton was strongly held by
+the Germans with a barricade loopholed at the bottom to enable the men
+to fire while lying down.
+
+"Our cavalry, with the artillery, blew the barricade to pieces and
+scattered the defenders," the narrative continues. "Advancing
+three-quarters of a mile our troops reached the square, when one of the
+buildings appeared to leap skyward. A sheet of flame and a shower of
+star shells at the same time made the place as light as day and enabled
+the enemy, ensconced in surrounding houses, to pour a devastating fire
+from rifles and machine guns. Our cavalry extricated themselves with the
+loss of one officer wounded and nine men killed and wounded, but a party
+of volunteers went back and carried off their wounded comrades from the
+inferno.
+
+"During the 17th, 18th, and 19th of October our right encountered strong
+opposition from the enemy about La Bassee, where they had established
+themselves behind embankments. On the centre and the left we made better
+progress, although the Germans were everywhere intrenched, and, in spite
+of the bombardment, held some villages on the Lys. At the close of each
+day a night counter stroke was delivered against one or another part of
+our line, but they were all repulsed.
+
+"Tuesday, Oct. 20, a determined but unsuccessful attack was made against
+virtually the whole of our line. At one point where one of our brigades
+made a counter attack 1,100 German dead were found in a trench and forty
+prisoners were taken."
+
+The narrative points out that the advance of the Allies has been
+hindered by the weather and the nature of the ground, together with the
+impossibility of knowing beforehand the reception that advance
+detachments were likely to meet in approaching any village or town. "One
+place may be evacuated hastily as untenable," the recital continues,
+"while another in the same general line will continue to resist for a
+considerable time. In some villages the inhabitants meet our cyclists
+with kisses, while at the next one the roads will, in all probability,
+have trenches cut across them and blocked with barricades and machine
+guns. Under these circumstances an incautious advance is severely
+punished, and it is impossible for large bodies of troops to push on
+until the front has been thoroughly reconnoitred. This work requires the
+highest qualities from our cavalry, our cyclists, and our advanced
+guards.
+
+Armored motor cars equipped with machine guns are now playing a part in
+the war, and have been most successful in dealing with small parties of
+German mounted troops. In their employment our gallant allies, the
+Belgians, who are now fighting with us and acquitting themselves nobly,
+have shown themselves to be experts. They appear to regard Uhlan hunting
+as a form of sport. The crews display the utmost dash and skill in this
+form of warfare, often going out several miles ahead of their own
+advanced troops and seldom failing to return loaded with spoils in the
+shape of lancers' caps, busbies, helmets, lances, rifles, and other
+trophies, which they distribute as souvenirs to the crowds in the market
+places of the frontier towns.
+
+Although the struggle in the northern area naturally attracts more
+attention than the one in the Aisne, the fighting in this region still
+continues. Although there has been no alteration in the general
+situation, the enemy has made certain changes in the positions of his
+heavy artillery, with the result that one or two places which formerly
+were safe are now subject to bombardment, while others which were
+approachable only at night or by crawling on hands and knees now serve
+as recreation grounds. At one point even a marquee tent has been
+erected.
+
+A story from this quarter illustrates a new use for the craters made by
+the explosions of the "Black Marias," the name given by the men to the
+projectiles of the big German howitzers. An officer on patrol stumbled
+in the dark on the German trenches. He turned and made for the British
+lines, but the fire directed at him was so heavy that he had to throw
+himself on the ground and crawl. There was no cover at hand, and his
+chances looked desperate, when he saw close by an enormous hole in the
+ground made by one of these large shells. Into this he scrambled and
+remained there for a night and a day. When night again came he succeeded
+in reaching our lines in safety.
+
+Official casualty lists of recent date which have been captured show
+that the losses of the Germans continue to be heavy. One single list
+shows that a company of German infantry had 139 men killed and wounded,
+or more than half of its war establishment. Other companies suffered
+almost as heavily. It further appears that the number of men reported
+missing--that is, those who have fallen into the hands of the enemy or
+who have become marauders--is much greater in the reserve battalions
+than in the first line units. This is evidence of the inferior quality
+of some of the reserves now being brought up to reinforce the enemy
+field army, and it is all the more encouraging, since every day adds to
+our first line strength.
+
+The arrival of the Indian contingents caused every one to realize that
+while the enemy was filling his depleted ranks with immature levies, we
+have large reserves of perfectly fresh and thoroughly trained troops to
+draw upon.
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+*Nature of Fighting Changes.*
+
+[Dated Oct. 26.]
+
+
+Before the narrative [Transcriber: original 'narative'] of the progress
+of the fighting near the Franco-Belgian frontier subsequent to Oct. 20
+is continued a brief description will be given of the movement of a
+certain fraction of our troops from its former line facing north, on the
+east of Paris, to its present position facing east, in the northwest
+corner of France, by which a portion of the British Army has been
+enabled to join hands with the incoming and growing stream of
+reinforcements.
+
+This is now an accomplished fact, as is generally known, and can
+therefore be explained in some detail without detriment. Mention will
+also be made of the gradual development up to Oct. 20 in the nature of
+the operations in this quarter of the theatre of war, which has recently
+come into such prominence.
+
+In its broad lines the transfer of strength by one combatant during the
+course of a great battle which has just been accomplished is somewhat
+remarkable. It can best be compared with the action of the Japanese
+during the battle of Mukden, when Gen. Oku withdrew a portion of his
+force from his front, moved it northward behind the line, and threw it
+into the fight again near the extreme left of the Japanese armies.
+
+In general direction, though not in scope or possible results, owing to
+the coast line being reached by the Allies, the parallel [Transcriber:
+original 'parellel'] is complete. The Japanese force concerned, however,
+was much smaller than ours and the distance covered by it was less than
+that from the Aisne to the Franco-Belgian frontier. Gen. Oku's troops,
+moreover, marched, whereas ours were moved by march, rail, and motor.
+
+What was implied in the actual withdrawal from contact with the enemy
+along the Aisne will be appreciated when the conditions under which we
+were then situated are recalled.
+
+In places the two lines were not one hundred yards apart, and for us no
+movement was possible during daylight. In some of the trenches which
+were under enfilade fire our men had to sit all day long close under the
+traverses--as are called those mounds of earth which stretch like
+partitions at intervals across a trench so as to give protection from
+lateral fire. Even where there was cover, such as that afforded by
+depressions or sunken roads, on the hillside below and behind our firing
+line, any attempt to cross the intervening space was met by fierce
+bursts of machine gun and shell fire.
+
+The men in the firing line were on duty for twenty-four hours at a time,
+and brought rations and water with them when they came on duty, for none
+could be sent up to them during the day. Even the wounded could not be
+removed until dark.
+
+The preliminary retirement of the units was therefore carried out
+gradually, under cover of darkness. That the Germans only once opened
+fire on them while so engaged was due to the care with which the
+operation was conducted, and also, probably, to the fact that the enemy
+were so accustomed to the recurrence of the sounds made by the reliefs
+of the men in the firing line and by the movement of the supply trains
+below that they were misled as to what was actually taking place.
+
+What the operation amounted to on our part was the evacuation of the
+trenches, under carefully made arrangements with the French who had to
+take our place in the trenches; the retirement to the river below--in
+many cases down a steep slope; the crossing of the river over the noisy
+plank roadways of floating or repaired bridges, which were mostly
+commanded by the enemy's guns--and the climb up to the top of the
+plateau on the south side.
+
+The rest of the move was a complicated feat of transportation which cut
+across some of the lines of communication of our allies; but it requires
+no description here. In spite of the various difficulties, the whole
+strategic operation of transferring the large number of troops from the
+Aisne was carried out without loss and practically without a hitch.
+
+As regards the change in the nature of the fighting in which we have
+recently been engaged, it has already been pointed out that the
+operations had up till then been of a preparatory nature and that the
+Germans were obviously seeking to delay us by advanced troops while
+heavier forces were being got ready and brought up to the scene of
+action. It was known that they were raising a new army, consisting of
+corps formed of Ersatz, (supernumerary reserves), volunteers, and other
+material which had not yet been drawn upon, and that part of it would in
+all probability be sent to the western theatre, either to cover the
+troops laying siege to Antwerp, in case that place should hold out, or,
+in the event of the capture of the fortress, to act in conjunction with
+the besieging force in a violent offensive movement toward the coast.
+
+After the fall of Antwerp and the release of the besieging troops there
+was a gradual increase in the strength of the opposition met with by us.
+
+The resistance of the detachments--which beyond the right extreme of the
+German fortified line near Bethune a fortnight ago consisted almost
+entirely of cavalry--grew more and more determined as more infantry and
+guns came into the front line, until Tuesday, Oct. 20, when the arrival
+opposite us of a large portion of the new formations and a considerable
+number of heavy guns enabled the enemy to assume the offensive
+practically against the whole of our line at the same time that they
+attacked the Belgians between us and the coast.
+
+The operations then really assumed a fresh complexion.
+
+Since that date, up to the 25th, apart from the operations on either
+side of us, there has been plenty of action to chronicle on our
+immediate front, where some of the heaviest fighting in which we have
+yet been engaged has taken place, resulting in immense loss to the
+Germans.
+
+On Wednesday, the 21st, the new German formations again pressed forward
+in force vigorously all along our line. On our right, south of the Lys,
+an attack on Violaines was repulsed with loss to the assailants.
+
+On the other hand, we were driven from some ground close by, to the
+north, but regained it by a counter attack.
+
+Still further north the Germans gained and retained some points.
+
+Their total casualties to the southeast of Armentieres are estimated at
+over 6,000.
+
+On the north of the Lys, in our centre, a fiercely contested action took
+place near La Gheir, which village was captured in the morning by the
+enemy and then retaken by us. In this direction the German casualties
+were also extremely heavy. They came on with the greatest bravery, in
+swarms, only to be swept away by our fire. One battalion of their 104th
+Regiment was practically wiped out, some 400 dead being picked up by us
+in our lines alone.
+
+Incidentally, by our counter attack, we took 130 prisoners and released
+some forty of our own men who had been surrounded and captured,
+including a subaltern of artillery who had been cut off while observing
+from a point of vantage.
+
+It is agreeable to record that our men were very well treated by their
+captors, who were Saxons, being placed in cellars for protection from
+the bombardment of our own guns.
+
+On our left our troops advanced against the German 26th Reserve Corps
+near Passchendaele, and were met by a determined counter offensive,
+which was driven back with great loss. At night the Germans renewed
+their efforts unsuccessfully in this quarter.
+
+At one point they tried a ruse which is no longer new. As they came up
+in a solid line two deep they shouted out: "Don't fire; we are the
+Coldstream Guards."
+
+But our men are getting used to tricks of this kind, and the only result
+of this "slimness" was that they allowed the enemy's infantry to
+approach, quite close before they swept them down with magazine fire.
+
+Apart from the 400 dead found near our lines in our centre, our patrols
+afterwards discovered some 300 dead further out in front of our left,
+killed by our artillery.
+
+Thursday, the 22d, saw a renewal of the pressure against us. We
+succeeded, however, in holding our ground in nearly every quarter.
+
+South of the Lys the enemy attacked from La Bassee, and gained Violaines
+and another point, but their effort against a third village was repulsed
+by artillery fire alone, the French and British guns working together
+very effectively. On the north of the river it was a day of minor
+attacks against us, which were all beaten back.
+
+The Germans advanced in the evening against our centre and left, and
+were again hurled back, though they gained some of our trenches in the
+latter quarter. By this time the enemy had succeeded in bringing up
+several heavy howitzers, and our casualties were considerable.
+
+On Friday, the 23d, all action south of the Lys on our right was
+confined to that of the artillery, several of the hostile batteries
+being silenced by our fire? In the centre their infantry again
+endeavored to force their way forward, and were only repulsed after
+determined fighting, leaving many dead on the ground and several
+prisoners in our hands. North of the Lys attacks at different points
+were repulsed.
+
+On our left the 23d was a bad day for the Germans. Advancing in our
+turn, we drove them from some of the trenches out of which they had
+turned us on the previous evening, captured 150 prisoners, and released
+some of our men whom they had taken.
+
+As the Germans retreated our guns did great execution among them.
+
+They afterwards made five desperate assaults on our trenches, advancing
+in mass and singing "Die Wacht am Rhein" as they came on. Each assault
+was easily beaten back, our troops waiting until the enemy came to very
+close range before they opened fire with rifles and Maxims, causing
+terrible havoc in the solid masses.
+
+During the fighting in this quarter on the night of the 22d and on the
+23d the German losses were again extremely heavy. We made over 600
+prisoners during that time and picked up 1,500 dead, killed on the
+latter day alone.
+
+Much of the slaughter was due to the point blank magazine fire of our
+men against the German assaults, while our field guns and howitzers,
+working in perfect combination, did their share when the enemy were
+repulsed. As they fell back they were subjected to a shower of shrapnel.
+When they sought shelter in villages or buildings they were shattered
+and driven out by high-explosive shells and then again caught by
+shrapnel as they came into the open.
+
+The troops to suffer so severely were mostly of Twenty-third Corps, one
+of their new formations.
+
+Certainly the way their advance was conducted showed a lack of training
+and faults in leading which the almost superhuman bravery of the
+soldiers could not counterbalance. It was a holocaust.
+
+The spectacle of these devoted men chanting a national song as they
+marched on to certain death was inspiring. It was at the same time
+pitiable.
+
+And if any proof were needed that untrained valor alone cannot gain the
+day in modern war, the advance of the Twenty-third German Corps on Oct.
+23 most assuredly furnished it.
+
+Besides doing its share of execution on the hostile infantry, our
+artillery in this quarter brought down a German captive balloon.
+
+As some gauge of the rate at which the guns were firing at what was for
+them an ideal target, it may be mentioned that one field battery
+expended 1,800 rounds of ammunition during the day.
+
+On Saturday, the 24th, action on our right was once more confined to
+that of artillery, except at night, when the Germans pressed on, only to
+be repulsed.
+
+In the centre, near Armentieres, our troops withstood three separate
+attempts of the enemy to push forward, our guns coming into play with
+good effect. Against our left the German Twenty-seventh Corps made a
+violent effort with no success.
+
+On Sunday, the 25th, it was our turn to take the offensive. This was
+carried out by a portion of our left wing, which advanced, gained some
+ground, and took two guns and eighty prisoners. It is believed that six
+machine guns fell to the French.
+
+In the centre the fighting was severe, though generally indecisive in
+result, and the troops in some places were engaged in hand-to-hand
+combat. Toward evening we captured 200 prisoners.
+
+On the right action was again confined to that of the guns.
+
+Up to the night of the 25th, therefore, not only have we maintained our
+position against the great effort on the part of the enemy to break
+through to the west, or to force us back, which started on the 20th; we
+have on our left passed to the offensive.
+
+These six days, as may be gathered, have been spent by us in repelling a
+succession of desperate onslaughts. It is true that the efforts against
+us have been made to a great extent by partially trained men, some of
+whom appear to be suffering from lack of food. But it must not be
+forgotten that these troops, which are in great force, have only
+recently been brought into the field, and are therefore comparatively
+fresh. They are fighting also with the utmost determination, in spite
+of the fact that many of them are heartily sick of the war.
+
+The struggle has been of the most severe and sanguinary nature, and it
+seems that success will favor that side which is possessed of most
+endurance, or can bring up and fling fresh forces into the fray. Though
+we have undoubtedly inflicted immense loss upon the enemy, they have so
+far been able to fill up the gaps in their ranks and to return to the
+charge, and we have suffered heavily ourselves.
+
+One feature of the tactics now employed has been the use of cavalry in
+dismounted action, for on both sides many of the mounted troops are
+fighting in the trenches alongside the infantry.
+
+Armored motor cars, armed with Maxims and light quick-firing guns, also
+have recently played a useful part on our side, especially in helping to
+eject the enemy lurking in villages and isolated buildings. Against such
+parties the combined action of the quick-firer against the snipers in
+buildings, and the Maxim against them when they are driven into the
+open, is most efficacious.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+*The British Defense at Ypres.*
+
+[Dated Nov. 13.]
+
+
+The diminution in the force of the German rush to the west has not
+lasted long. The section of the front to the north of our forces was the
+first to meet the recrudescence of violence in the shape of an attack in
+the neighborhood of Dixmude and Bixschoote.
+
+Our turn came next. After eight days of comparative relaxation we were
+under constant pressure from Tuesday, Nov. 3, to Tuesday, the 10th. The
+next day saw a repetition of the great attempt of the Germans to break
+through our lines to the French coast.
+
+What was realized might happen did happen. In spite of the immense
+losses suffered by the enemy during the five-day attack against Ypres,
+which lasted from Oct. 29 to the 2d of this month, the cessation of
+their more violent efforts on the latter day did not signalize the
+abandonment of the whole project, but merely the temporary
+relinquishment of the main offensive until fresh troops had been massed
+to carry on what was proving to be a costly and difficult operation.
+
+Meanwhile the interval was employed in endeavoring to wear out the
+Allies by repeated local attacks of varying force and to shatter them by
+a prolonged and concentrated bombardment. By the 11th, therefore, it
+seems that they considered they had attained both objects, for on that
+day they recommenced the desperate battle for the possession of Ypres
+and its neighborhood.
+
+Though the struggle has not yet come to an end, this much can be said:
+The Germans have gained some ground, but they have not captured Ypres.
+
+In repulsing the enemy so far we have suffered heavy casualties, but
+battles of this fierce and prolonged nature cannot but be costly to both
+sides. We have the satisfaction of knowing that we have foiled the enemy
+in what appears to be at present his main object in the western theatre
+of operations, and have inflicted immensely greater losses on him than
+those we have suffered ourselves.
+
+To carry on the narrative for the three days of the 10th, 11th, and 12th
+of November:
+
+Tuesday, the 10th, was uneventful for us. At some distance beyond our
+left flank the enemy advanced in force against the French and were
+repulsed. Directly on our left, however, along the greater part of the
+front, shelling was less severe, and no infantry attacks took place.
+
+To the southeast of Ypres the enemy kept up a very heavy bombardment
+against our line, as well as that of the French. On our left centre the
+situation remained unchanged, both sides contenting themselves with
+furious cannonading. In our centre the Germans retained their hold on
+the small amount of ground which they had gained from us, but in doing
+so incurred a heavy loss from our artillery and machine gun fire.
+
+Incidentally, one of the houses held by the enemy was so knocked about
+by our fire that its defenders bolted. On their way to the rear they
+were met by reinforcements under an officer who halted them, evidently
+in an endeavor to persuade them to return. While the parley Was going on
+one of our machine guns was quietly moved to a position of vantage,
+whence it opened a most effective fire on the group.
+
+On our right one of the enemy's saps, which was being pushed toward our
+line, was attacked by us. All the men in it were captured.
+
+Wednesday, the 11th, was another day of desperate fighting. As day broke
+the Germans opened fire on our trenches to the north and south of the
+road from Menin to Ypres. This was probably the most furious artillery
+fire which they have yet employed against us.
+
+A few hours later they followed this by an infantry assault in force.
+This attack was carried out by the First and Fourth brigades of the
+Guard Corps, which, as we now know from prisoners, have been sent for to
+make a supreme effort to capture Ypres, since that task had proved too
+heavy for the infantry of the line.
+
+As the attackers surged forward they were met by our frontal fire, and
+since they were moving diagonally across part of our front they were
+also attacked on the flank by artillery, rifles, and machine guns.
+Though their casualties before they reached our line must have been
+enormous, such was their resolution and the momentum of the mass that in
+spite of the splendid resistance of our troops they succeeded in
+breaking through our line in three places near the road. They penetrated
+some distance into the woods behind our trenches, but were
+counter-attacked again, enfiladed by machine guns and driven back to
+their line of trenches, a certain portion of which they succeeded in
+holding, in spite of our efforts to expel them.
+
+What their total losses must have been during this advance may be gauged
+to some extent from the fact that the number of dead left in the woods
+behind our line alone amounted to 700.
+
+A simultaneous effort made to the south, a part of the same operation
+although not carried out by the Guard Corps, failed entirely, for when
+the attacking infantry massed in the woods close to our line, our guns
+opened on them with such effect that they did not push the assault home.
+
+As generally happens in operations in wooded country, the fighting to a
+great extent was carried on at close quarters. It was most desperate and
+confused. Scattered bodies of the enemy who had penetrated into the
+woods in the rear of our position could neither go backward nor forward,
+and were nearly all killed or captured.
+
+The portion of the line to the southeast of Ypres held by us was heavily
+shelled, but did not undergo any very serious infantry attack. That
+occupied by the French, however, was both bombarded and fiercely
+assaulted. On the rest of our front, save for the usual bombardment, all
+was comparatively quiet.
+
+On the right one of our trenches was mined and then abandoned. As soon
+as it was occupied by the enemy the charges were fired and several
+Germans were blown to pieces.
+
+Thursday, Nov. 12, was marked by a partial lull in the fighting all
+along our line. To the north a German force which had crossed the Yser
+and intrenched on the left bank was annihilated by a night attack with
+the bayonet, executed by the French. Slightly to the south the enemy was
+forced back for three-quarters of a mile. Immediately on our left the
+French were strongly attacked and driven back a short distance, our
+extreme left having to conform to this movement. Our allies soon
+recovered the ground they had lost, however, and this enabled us to
+advance also.
+
+To the southeast of Ypres the enemy's snipers were very active. On our
+centre and right the enemy's bombardment was maintained, but nothing
+worthy of special note occurred.
+
+The fact that on this day the advance against our line in front of Ypres
+was not pushed home after such an effort as that of Wednesday tends to
+show that for the moment the attacking troops had had enough.
+
+Although the failure of this great attack by the Guard Corps to
+accomplish their object cannot be described as a decisive event, it
+possibly marks the culmination if not the close of the second stage in
+the attempt to capture Ypres, arid it is not without significance. It
+has also a dramatic interest of its own. Having once definitely failed
+to achieve this object by means of the sheer weight of numbers, and
+having done their best to wear us down, the Germans brought in fresh
+picked troops to carry the Ypres salient by an assault from the north,
+the south and the east. That the Guard Corps should have been selected
+to act against the eastern edge of the salient may be taken as proof of
+the necessity felt by the Germans to gain this point in the line.
+
+Their dogged perseverance in pursuance of their objective claims
+whole-hearted admiration. The failure of one great attack, heralded as
+it was by an impassioned appeal to the troops made in the presence of
+the Emperor himself, but carried out by partially trained men, has been
+only the signal for another desperate effort in which the place of honor
+was assigned to the corps d'elite of the German Army.
+
+It must be admitted that the Guard Corps has retained that reputation
+for courage and contempt of death which it earned in 1870, when Emperor
+William I., after the battle of Gravelotte, wrote: "My Guard has found
+its grave in front of St. Privat," and the swarms of men who came up
+bravely to the British rifles in the woods around Ypres repeated the
+tactics of forty-four years ago when their dense columns, toiling up the
+slopes of St. Privat, melted away under the fire of the French.
+
+That the Germans are cunning fighters, and well up in all the tricks of
+the trade, has frequently been pointed out. For instance, they often
+succeed in ascertaining what regiment or brigade is opposed to them, and
+because of their knowledge of English, they are able to employ the
+information to some purpose. On a recent occasion, having by some means
+discovered the name of the commander of the company holding the trench
+they were attacking, they called him by name, asking if Captain ---- was
+there. Fortunately the pronunciation of the spokesman was somewhat
+defective, and their curiosity was rewarded by discovering that both the
+officer in question and his men were very much there.
+
+There have been reports from so many different quarters of the enemy
+having been seen wearing British and French uniforms that it is
+impossible to doubt their truth. One absolutely authentic case occurred
+during the fighting near Ypres. A man dressed in a uniform closely
+resembling that of a British staff officer suddenly appeared near our
+trenches and walked along the line. He asked if many casualties had been
+suffered, stated that the situation was serious, and that a general
+retirement had been ordered. A similar visit having been reported by
+several men in different trenches, orders were issued that this strange
+officer was to be detained if seen again. Unluckily he did not make
+another appearance.
+
+The following remarks taken from the diary of a German soldier are
+published not because there is reason to believe they are justified with
+regard to the conduct of German officers but because of their interest
+as a human document. Under date of Nov. 2 this German soldier wrote:
+
+     Previous to noon we were sent out in a regular storm of bullets on
+     the order of the Major. These gentlemen, the officers, send their
+     men forward in a most ridiculous way. They themselves remain far
+     behind, safely under cover. Our leadership is really scandalous.
+     Enormous losses on our side are partly from the fire of our own
+     people, for our leaders neither know where the enemy lies nor where
+     our own troops are, so that we often are fired on by our own men.
+     It is a marvel to me that we have got on as far as we have done.
+
+     Our Captain fell, as did also all our section leaders and a large
+     number of our men. Moreover, no purpose was served by this advance,
+     for we remained the rest of the day under cover; we could go
+     neither forward nor back, nor even shoot.
+
+     The trench we had taken was not occupied by us. The English
+     naturally took it back at night. That was the sole result. Then
+     when the enemy had intrenched themselves another attack was made,
+     costing us many lives and fifty prisoners. It is simply ridiculous,
+     this leadership. If only I had known it before! My opinion of
+     German officers has changed.
+
+     An Adjutant shouted to us from a trench far to the rear to cut down
+     a hedge in front of us. Bullets were whistling round from in front
+     and from behind. The gentleman himself, of course, remained behind.
+
+     The Fourth Company has now no leaders but a couple of non-coms.
+     When will my turn come! I hope to goodness I shall get home again.
+
+     In the trenches shells and shrapnel burst without ceasing. In the
+     evening we get a cup of rice and one-third of an apple per man. Let
+     us hope peace will soon come. Such a war is really too awful. The
+     English shoot like mad. If no reinforcements come up, especially
+     heavy artillery, we shall have a poor lookout and must retire.
+
+     The first day I went quietly into the fight with an indifference
+     which astonished me. Today, for the first time, in advancing, when
+     my comrades on the right and left were falling, I felt rather
+     nervous. But I lost that feeling again soon. One becomes horribly
+     indifferent.
+
+     I picked up a piece of bread by chance. Thank God! At least I have
+     something to eat.
+
+     There are about 70,000 English who must be attacked from all four
+     sides and destroyed. However, they defend themselves obstinately.
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+*Attacked by 750,000 Germans.*
+
+[Official Summary, Dated Dec. 3.]
+
+
+Col. E.D. Swinton of the Intelligence Department of the General Staff of
+the British Expeditionary Force in France and Belgium, in a narrative
+dated Nov. 26, gives a general review of the development of the
+situation of the force for six weeks preceding that date.
+
+There has recently been a lull in the active operations, he says. No
+progress has been made by either side, and yet there has come about an
+important modification comprising a readjustment in the scope of the
+part played by the British Army as a whole. He explains the movement
+from the River Aisne to the Belgian frontier to prolong the left flank
+of the French Army, and says that in attempting this the British force
+was compelled to assume responsibility for a very extended section of
+the front. He points out, as did Field Marshal Sir John French,
+Commander in Chief of the British forces, that the British held only
+one-twelfth of the line, so that the greater share of the common task of
+opposing the enemy fell and still falls to the French, while the
+Belgians played an almost vital part.
+
+With the fall of Antwerp the Germans made every effort to push forward a
+besieging force toward the west and hastened to bring up a new army
+corps which had been hastily raised and trained, their object being to
+drive the Allies out of Belgium and break through to Dunkirk and Calais.
+Altogether they had a quarter of a million of fresh men. Eventually the
+Germans had north of La Bassee about fourteen corps and eight cavalry
+divisions, that is, "a force of three-quarters of a million of men with
+which to attempt to drive the Allies into the sea. In addition, there
+was immensely powerful armament and heavy siege artillery, which also
+had been brought up from around Antwerp."
+
+The official eye-witness tells of the blows delivered by the Germans at
+Nieuport, Dixmude, and Ypres, where "at first the Allies were greatly
+outnumbered." For a whole month the British army around Ypres succeeded
+in holding its ground against repeated onslaughts made by vastly
+superior forces. The writer goes into details of the German attacks and
+describes how they were frustrated by the Allies.
+
+The British force, says Col. Swinton, which consisted all along of the
+same units, had "to withstand an almost continuous bombardment and to
+meet one desperate assault after another, each carried out by fresh
+units from the large numbers which the Germans were devoting to the
+operation." Finally the French came to their assistance, and "never was
+help more welcome; for by then our small local reserves had again and
+again been thrown into the fight in the execution of counter-attacks,
+and our men were exhausted by the incessant fighting."
+
+The British front now has been considerably shortened and in addition
+has been reinforced, while a lull in the activity has enabled the
+British to readjust their forces, strengthen their positions, and bring
+up reserves. There has, therefore, "been a great general improvement in
+the conditions under which we are carrying on the fight". Of the
+fighting which preceded this reorganization the writer says it is due
+solely to the resource, initiative, and endurance of the regimental
+officers and men that success has lain with the British. He continues:
+
+"As the struggle swayed backward and forward through wood and hamlet,
+the fighting assumed a most confused and desperate character. The units
+became inextricably mixed, and in many cases, in order to strengthen
+some threatened point or to fill a gap in the line, the officers had to
+collect and throw into the fight what men they could, regardless of the
+units to which they belonged. Our casualties have been severe; but we
+have been fighting a battle, and a battle implies casualties, and, heavy
+as they have been, it must be remembered that they have not been
+suffered in vain.
+
+"The duty of the French, Belgians, and British in the western theatre of
+operations has been to act as a containing force; in other words, to
+hold on to and to keep occupied as many of the enemy as possible while
+the Russians were attacking in the east. In this we have succeeded in
+playing our part, and by our resistance have contributed materially
+toward the success of the campaign. Moreover, our losses have not
+impaired our fighting efficiency. The troops have required only a slight
+respite in order to be able to continue the action with as much
+determination as ever. They are physically fit and well fed and have
+suffered merely from the fatigue which is inseparable from a protracted
+struggle such as they have been through. The severest handling by the
+enemy has never had more than a temporary effect on their spirits,
+which they have soon recovered, owing to the years of discipline and
+training to which the officers and men have been accustomed.
+
+"The value of such preparation is as noticeable on the side of the enemy
+as on our own. The phenomenal losses suffered by the Germans' new
+formations have been remarked, and they were in part due to their lack
+of training. Moreover, though at the first onset these formations
+advanced to the attack as gravely as their active corps, they have not
+by any means, shown the same recuperative powers. The Twenty-seventh
+Corps, for instance, which is a new formation composed principally of
+men with from only seven to twelve weeks' training, has not yet
+recovered from its first encounter with the British infantry around
+Becelaere, to the northeast of Ypres, a month ago. On the other hand,
+the Guards Corps, in spite of having suffered severely in Belgium, of
+having been thrown headlong across the Oise River at Guise and of having
+lost large numbers on the plains of Compiegne and on the banks of the
+Aisne River, advanced against Ypres on the 11th of November as bravely
+as they did on the 20th of August."
+
+The Allies, continues Col. Swinton, have made great sacrifices to defend
+against tremendous odds a line that could only be maintained by making
+these sacrifices; but the fact that the situation has been relieved is
+no reason for assuming that the enemy has abandoned his intention of
+pressing through to the sea. The writer points out that the Germans
+continue to attack with great courage, but little abated by failure,
+and, while they have not succeeded in gaining the Straits of Dover, they
+have been enabled to consolidate their position on the western front and
+retain all but a small portion of Belgium.
+
+"As well as they have fought, however," continues the narrative, "it is
+doubtful if their achievements are commensurate with their losses, which
+recently have been largely due to a lack of training and a comparative
+lack of discipline of the improvised units they put in the field."
+
+Col. Swinton concludes with the statement that, as the war is going to
+be one of exhaustion, after the regular armies of the belligerents have
+done their work it will be upon the raw material of the countries
+concerned that final success will depend.
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+*The Lull in November.*
+
+[Dated Nov. 29.]
+
+
+General inactivity is recorded along the English front, with the Germans
+pressing the attack in one quarter against the Indian troops, who have
+been extending their trenches in an endeavor to get in close quarters
+with the enemy. There has been some shelling of the rear of our front
+line south of the Lys, but this form of annoyance diminishes daily along
+the whole front. Sniping, however, is carried on almost incessantly.
+There seems to be little doubt that the Germans are employing civilians,
+either willingly or unwillingly, to dig trenches; some civilians have
+been seen and shot while engaged in this work.
+
+While it is necessary to accept the evidence of all prisoners with
+caution, there is a change in the views expressed by some officers
+captured recently which appears to be genuine. They admit the failure of
+the German strategy and profess to take a gloomy view of the future. At
+the same time it must be confessed that as yet there is no sign that
+their view is that generally held by the enemy, nor has there been any
+definite indication of a lack of morale among the German troops.
+
+The highways of Northern France are crowded with men responding to the
+various mobilization orders issued by the French Government.
+
+Thousands of such troops were encountered in the course of a short
+automobile trip. The strange procession includes a curious mixture of
+types. A considerable proportion of these new drafts are composed of
+middle-aged men of good physique and likely young men from the
+countryside.
+
+The change within the last few days of what may be termed the atmosphere
+of the battlefield has been marked. The noise of the cannonading has now
+decreased to such an extent that for hours at a time nothing is heard
+but the infrequent boom of one of the heavy guns of the Allies, the
+occasional rattle of machine guns, and the intermittent fire of snipers
+on either side. So far as the use of explosives is concerned, the
+greatest activity is found in local attacks with hand grenades and
+short-range howitzers. The enemy has practically ceased his efforts to
+break through the line by assaults, and he is now devoting his energies
+to the same type of siege operations which have been familiar to the
+Allies since the beginning of the battle of the Aisne.
+
+Subterranean life is the general rule in the neighborhood of the firing
+line. Even those men not actually engaged in fighting live in
+underground quarters. Some of these quarters, called "funk-holes" are
+quite elaborate and comfortable and contain many conveniences not found
+in the trenches on the firing line. They communicate with the firing
+line by zigzag approach trenches which make enfilading impossible.
+
+Attacks are made on the firing line trenches by blind saps, which are
+constructed by a special earth borer. When this secret tunnel reaches
+the enemy's trench, an assault is delivered amid a shower of hand
+grenades. The stormers endeavor to burst their way through the opening
+and then try to work along the trench. Machine guns are quickly brought
+up to repel a counter attack. Most of this fighting takes place at such
+close range that the guns on either side cannot be fired at the enemy's
+infantry without great risk of hitting their own men. Bombs have come to
+take the place of artillery, and they are being used in enormous
+quantities.
+
+The short-range howitzers are of three types, and those used by the
+Germans have come to be termed the "Jack Johnson" of close attack. The
+smaller bombs and grenades thrown by hand, although local in action, are
+very unpleasant, particularly between the inclosed space of a trench.
+These grenades are thrown continuously by both sides, and every trench
+assault is first preceded and then accompanied by showers of these
+murderous missiles. This kind of fighting is very deadly, and owing to
+the difficulty of observation it is at times somewhat blind. This
+difficulty has in a measure been decreased, however, by the use of the
+hyperscope, an instrument which works very much like the periscope on a
+submarine. It permits an observer to look out over the top of a parapet
+without raising his head above the protection of the trench.
+
+
+
+
+*THE DAWN OF A NEW DAY.*
+
+By EDWARD NEVILLE VOSE.
+
+
+THE old year dies 'mid gloom and woe--
+  The saddest year since Christ was born--
+And those who battle in the snow
+  All anxious-eyed look for the morn--
+The morn when wars shall be no more,
+  The morn when Might shall cease to reign,
+When hushed shall be the cannons' roar
+  And Peace shall rule the earth again.
+
+As we from far survey the fray
+  And strive to succor those who fall,
+Let each give thanks that not today
+  To us the clarion bugles call--
+That not today to us 'tis said:
+  "Bow down the knee, or pay the cost
+Till all ye loved are maimed or dead,
+  Till all ye had is wrecked and lost."
+
+Should that grim summons to us come
+  God grant we'd all play heroes' parts,
+And bravely fight for land and home
+  While red blood flows in loyal hearts.
+But now a duty nobler far
+  Has come to us in this great day--
+We are the nations' guiding star,
+  They look to us to lead the way.
+
+They look to us to lead the way
+  To liberty for all the world,
+The dawning of that better day
+  When war's torn banners shall be furled--
+The day when men of every race
+  Their right divine shall clearly see
+To rule themselves by their own grace,
+  Forever and forever free.
+
+
+
+
+*"Human Documents" of Battle*
+
+*By Men Who Saw or Took Part./*
+
+    _Written in the hurry and confusion of battle, and without the
+    opportunity at hand to check up the impressions given, it is of
+    course likely that these dispatches from special correspondents may
+    contain many things which history will correct. But as human
+    documents they have no equal, and history will not be able, however
+    she may correct matters of detail and partisan feeling, to offer
+    anything which will give a more vivid impression of the glare and
+    roar of battle than do these letters, penned by men actually in or
+    near the firing line at the moment of great events. As such_ THE
+    TIMES _offers them, not as frozen history, but as history in the
+    making, and has no apologies to make for an error of fact here and
+    there, for those very errors are in a way testimony that adds value
+    to the story--the story of honest and hard-driven human beings
+    writing what was passing before their eyes._
+
+
+
+
+*The German Entry Into Brussels*
+
+*By John Boon of The London Daily Mail.*
+
+
+BRUSSELS, via Alost, Aug. 20. (Thursday,) 10 P.M.
+
+The Germans entered Brussels shortly after 2 P.M. today without firing a
+shot.
+
+Yielding to the dictates of reason and humanity, the civil Government at
+the last moment disbanded the Civic Guard, which the Germans would not
+recognize. The soldiers and ordinary police were then entrusted with the
+maintenance of order.
+
+After a day of wild panic and slumberless nights the citizens remained
+at their windows. Few sought their couches.
+
+The morning broke brilliantly. The city was astir early, and on all lips
+were the words: "They are here" or "They are coming!"
+
+The "they" referred to were already outside the boundaries in great
+force. The artillery was packed off on the road to Waterloo. Horse,
+foot, and sapper were packed deep on the Louvain and Tervervueren roads.
+
+An enterprising motorist came in with the information and the crowds in
+the busy centres immediately became calm. At 11 o'clock it was reported
+that an officer with half a troop of hussars bearing white flags had
+halted outside the Louvain gate.
+
+The Burgomaster and four Sheriffs went in a motor car to meet the
+officers. They were conducted to the German military authorities at the
+head of the column. The meeting took place outside the barracks of the
+carabineers.
+
+The Burgomaster claimed for the citizens their rights under the laws of
+war regulating an unfortified capital. When roughly asked if he was
+prepared to surrender the city, with the threat that otherwise it would
+be bombarded, the Burgomaster said he would do so. He also decided to
+remove his scarf of office.
+
+The discussion was brief. When the Burgomaster handed over his scarf it
+was handed back to him and he was thus intrusted for the time being with
+the civil control of the citizens. The Germans gave him plainly to
+understand that he would be held responsible for any overt act on the
+part of the populace against the Germans.
+
+From noon until 2 o'clock the crowds waited expectantly. Shortly after 2
+o'clock the booming of cannon and later the sound of military music
+conveyed to the people of Brussels the intimation that the triumphant
+march of the enemy on the ancient city had begun.
+
+On they came, preceded by a scouting party of Uhlans, horse, foot, and
+artillery and sappers, with a siege train complete.
+
+A special feature of the procession was 100 motor cars on which
+quick-firers were mounted. Every regiment and battery was headed by a
+band, horse or foot.
+
+Now came the drums and fifes, now the blare of brass and soldiers
+singing "Die Wacht am Rhein" and "Deutschland Ueber Alles."
+
+Along the Chaussee de Louvain, past St. Josse and the Botanical Gardens,
+to the great open space in front of the Gare du Nord, the usual lounging
+place of the tired twaddlers of the city, swept the legions of the man
+who broke the peace of Europe.
+
+Among the cavalry were the famous Brunswick Death's Head Hussars and
+their companions on many bloody fields, the Zeiten Hussars. But where
+was the glorious garb of the German troops, the cherry-colored uniforms
+of the horsemen and the blue of the infantry? All is greenish,
+earth-color gray. All the hel- [Transcriber: Text missing in original.]
+are painted gray. The gun carriages are gray. Even the pontoon bridges
+are gray.
+
+To the quick-step beat of the drums the Kaiser's men march to the great
+Square Charles Rogier. Then at the whistling sound of the word of
+command--for the sonorous orders of the German officers seemed to have
+gone the way of the brilliant uniforms--the gray-clad ranks broke into
+the famous goose step, while the good people of Liege and Brussels gazed
+at the passing wonder with mouths agape.
+
+At the railroad station the great procession defiled to the boulevards
+and thence marched to encamp on the heights of the city called
+Kochelberg. It was truly a sight to have gladdened the eyes of the
+Kaiser, but on the sidewalks men were muttering beneath their breath:
+"They'll not pass here on their return. The Allies will do for them."
+
+Many of the younger men in the great array seemed exhausted after the
+long forced march, but as a man staggered his comrades in the ranks
+held him up.
+
+It was a great spectacle and an impressive one, but there were minor
+incidents that were of a less pleasant character.
+
+Two Belgian officers, manacled and fastened to the leather stirrups of
+two Uhlans, made a spectacle that caused a low murmur of resentment from
+the citizens. Instantly German horsemen backed their steeds into the
+closely packed ranks of the spectators, threatening them with uplifted
+swords and stilling the momentary revolt.
+
+At one point of the march a lame hawker offered flowers for sale to the
+soldiers. As he held up his posies a Captain of Hussars by a movement of
+his steed sent the poor wretch sprawling and bleeding in the dust. Then
+from the crowd a Frenchwoman, her heart scorning fear, cried out, "You
+brute!" so that all might hear.
+
+There was one gross pleasantry, too, perpetrated by a gunner who led
+along a bear, evidently the pet of his battery, which was dressed in the
+full regalia of a Belgian General.
+
+The bear was evidently intended to represent the King. He touched his
+cocked hat at intervals to his keeper.
+
+This particularly irritated the Belgians, but they wisely abstained from
+any overt manifestation or any unpleasant feature of behavior. The
+soldiery as they passed tore repeatedly at the national colors which
+every Belgian lady now wears on her breast.
+
+A more pleasant incident was when a party of Uhlans clamored for
+admittance at a villa on the Louvain road. They disposed of a dozen
+bottles of wine and bread and meat. The non-commissioned officer in
+command asked what the charge was and offered some gold pieces in
+payment. The money was refused.
+
+Near the steps of St. Gudule a party of officers of high rank, seated in
+a motor car, confiscated the stock of the news vendors. After greedily
+scanning the sheets they burst into loud laughter.
+
+Hour after hour, hour after hour, the Kaiser's legions marched into
+Brussels streets and boulevards. Some regiments made a very fine
+appearance, and it is well that the people of England should know this.
+It was notably so in the case of the Sixty-sixth, Fourth and
+Twenty-sixth Regiments. Not one man of these regiments showed any sign
+of excessive fatigue after the gruelling night of marching, and no doubt
+the order to "goose step" was designedly given to impress the onlookers
+with the powers of resistance of the German soldiers.
+
+[Illustration: The First Rush Into Belgium.]
+
+The railway stations, the Post Office and the Town Hall were at once
+closed. The national flag on the latter was pulled down and the German
+emblem hoisted in its place. Practically all the shops were closed and
+the blinds drawn on most of the windows.
+
+At the time of writing I have heard of no very untoward incident. The
+last train left Brussels at 9 o'clock on Wednesday night. Passengers to
+the city cannot pass beyond Denderleeuw, where there are strong German
+pickets.
+
+
+
+
+*The Fall of Antwerp*
+
+*By a Correspondent of The London Daily Chronicle, Who Was at Antwerp
+During the Siege.*
+
+[Special Dispatch to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
+
+
+LONDON, Oct. 11.--A Daily Chronicle correspondent who has just arrived
+from Antwerp tells the following story of his experiences:
+
+Antwerp has been surrendered. This last and bitterest blow which has
+fallen upon Belgium is full of poignant tragedy, but the tragedy is
+lightened by the gallantry with which the city was defended.
+
+Only at the last, to save the historic buildings and precious
+possessions of the ancient port, was its further defense abandoned.
+Already much of it had been shattered by the long-range German guns, and
+prolonged resistance against these tremendous engines of war was
+impossible.
+
+Owing to this the siege was perhaps the shortest in the annals of war
+that a fortified city ever sustained. I have already described its
+preliminaries and the many heroic efforts which were made by the
+Belgians to stem the tide of the enemy's advance, but the end could not
+long be delayed when the siege guns began the bombardment.
+
+It was at three minutes past noon on Friday that the Germans entered the
+city, which was formally surrendered by the Burgomaster, J. de Vos.
+Antwerp had then been under a devastating and continuous shell fire for
+over forty hours.
+
+It was difficult for me to ascertain precisely how the German attack was
+being constituted, but from officers and others who made journeys from
+the fighting lines into the city I gathered that the final assault
+consisted of a continuous bombardment of two hours' duration, from 7:30
+o'clock in the morning until 9:30.
+
+During that time there was a continuous rain of shells, and it was
+extraordinary to notice the precision with which they dropped just where
+they would do the most damage. I was told that the Germans used captive
+balloons, whose officers signaled to the gunners the points in the
+Belgian defense at which they should aim.
+
+The German guns, too, were concealed with such cleverness that their
+position could not be detected by the Belgians. Against such methods and
+against the terrible power of the German guns the Belgian artillery
+seemed quite ineffective. The firing came to an end at 9:30 o'clock
+Friday, and the garrison escaped, leaving only ruins behind them.
+
+[Illustration: GEN. VON KLUCK
+Commanding on the German Left Wing in the West
+(_Copyright, Photographische Gesellschaft, by permission of the Berlin
+Photographic Co., N.Y._)]
+
+[Illustration: GEN. VON HINDENBURG
+The German Commander in the East
+(_Copyright, Photographische Gesellschaft, by permission of the Berlin
+Photographic Co. N.Y._)]
+
+In order to gain time for an orderly retreat, a heavy fire was
+maintained against the Germans up to the last minute, and the forts were
+then blown up by the defenders as the Germans came in at the Gate of
+Malines. I was lucky enough to escape by the river to the north in a
+motor boat. The bombardment had then ceased, though many buildings were
+still blazing, and while the little boat sped down the Scheldt one could
+imagine the procession of the Kaiser's troops already goose-stepping
+their way through the well-nigh deserted streets.
+
+Those forty hours of shattering noise, almost without a lull, seem to me
+now a fantastic nightmare, but the harrowing sights I witnessed in many
+parts of the city cannot be forgotten. It was Wednesday night that the
+shells began to fall into the city. From then onward they must have
+averaged about ten a minute, and most of them came from the largest guns
+which the Germans possess--"Black Marias," as Tommy Atkins has
+christened them.
+
+Before the bombardment had been long in operation the civil population
+or a large proportion of it fell into a panic. It is impossible to blame
+these peaceful, quiet living burghers of Antwerp for the fears that
+possessed them when the merciless rain of German shells began to fall
+into the streets and on the roofs of their houses and public buildings.
+The Burgomaster had in his proclamation given them excellent advice to
+remain calm and he certainly set them an admirable example, but it was
+impossible to counsel the Belgians who knew what had happened to their
+fellow citizens in other towns which the Germans had passed through.
+
+Immense crowds of them, men, women and children, gathered along the
+quayside and at the railway stations in an effort to make a hasty exit
+from the city. Their condition was pitiable in the extreme. Family
+parties made up the biggest proportion of this vast crowd of broken men
+and women. There were husbands and wives with their groups of scared
+children unable to understand what was happening, yet dimly conscious in
+their childish way that something unusual and terrible and perilous had
+come into their lives.
+
+In many groups were to be seen old, old people, grandfathers and
+grandmothers of a family, and these in their shaking frailty and terror,
+which they could not withstand, were the more pitiable objects in the
+great gathering of stricken townsfolk. This pathetic clinging together
+of the family was one of the most affecting sights I witnessed, and I
+have not the slightest doubt that in the mad rush for refuge beyond the
+borders of their native land many family groups of this sort completely
+perished.
+
+All day and throughout the night these pitiful scenes continued, and
+when I went down to the quayside early Thursday, when the dawn was
+throwing a wan light over this part of the world, I found again a great
+host of citizens awaiting their chance of flight.
+
+In the dimness of the breaking day this gathering of "Les Miserables"
+presented, as it seemed to me, the tragedy of Belgium in all its horror.
+I shall never forget the sight. Words would fail to convey anything but
+a feeble picture of the depths of misery and despair there. People stood
+in dumb and patient ranks drawn down to the quayside by the announcement
+that two boats would leave at 11 o'clock for Ostend, and Ostend looks
+across to England, where lie their hopes.
+
+There were fully 40,000 of them assembled on the long quay, and all of
+them were inspired by the sure and certain hope that they would be among
+the lucky ones who would get on board one of the boats. Alas for their
+hopes, the two boats did not sail, and when they realized this I fancied
+I heard a low wail of anguish rise from the disappointed multitude.
+
+Other means of escape were, however, available in the shape of a dozen
+or fifteen tugboats, whose destinations were Rotterdam and Flushing and
+other ports of Holland. They were not vessels of any considerable
+passenger carrying capacity, and as there was no one to arrange a
+systematic embarkation a wild struggle followed among the frantic people
+to obtain places on the tugs. Men, women, and children fought
+desperately with each other to get on board, and in that moment of
+supreme anguish human nature was seen in one of its worst moods, but who
+can blame these stricken people? Shells that were destroying their homes
+and giving their beloved town to the flames were screaming over their
+heads. Their trade was not war; they were merchants, shopkeepers,
+comfortable citizens of more than middle age, and there were many women
+and children among them, and this horror had come upon them in a more
+appalling shape than it has visited any other civilized community in
+modern times.
+
+There was a scarcity of gangways to the boats and the only means of
+boarding them was by narrow planks sloping at a dangerous angle. Up
+these the fugitives struggled, and the strong elbowed the weak out of
+their way in their mad haste to escape. The marvel to me as I watched
+the scramble was that many were not crushed to death in the struggle to
+get on board or forced into the river and drowned. As it was, mishaps
+were very few. One old lady of 80 years slipped on one of the planks and
+fell against the side of the boat, fracturing her skull. Several people
+fell into the river and two were drowned, but that is the sum total of
+accidents as far as I could ascertain.
+
+By 2 o'clock Thursday most of the tugboats had got away, but there were
+still some 15,000 people who had not been able to escape, and had to
+await resignedly whatever fate was in store for them.
+
+I have endeavored to describe the scenes at the quayside on Thursday
+morning, and I now turn to the Central Station, where incidents of a
+similar kind were happening. There, as down by the river, an immense
+throng of people had assembled, and they were filled with dismay at the
+announcement that no trains were running. In their despair they prepared
+to leave the city on foot by crossing the pontoon bridge and marching
+toward the Dutch frontier.
+
+I cannot, of course, speak positively on the subject, but I should say
+the exodus of refugees from the city must have totaled 200,000
+persons--men, women, and children of all ages--or very nearly that vast
+number, and that out of a population which in normal times is 321,821.
+One might estimate that fully 70 per cent. of those folk had little or
+no money.
+
+There were three lines of exit. They could up to the time of the German
+invasion cross the pontoon bridge over the Scheldt; they could go along
+the countryside toward the Dutch frontier, or they could walk up the
+Scheldt toward the frontier and then cross by ferry to Belgian territory
+again.
+
+Many of the aged women among the refugees, terrorized and
+hunger-stricken, died, I am told, on the way to the Belgian frontier.
+The towns were crowded with pitiful wanderers, fleeing from the ruthless
+invaders, and they begged for crusts of bread. They were simply
+starving, and householders did what they could to help, cottagers giving
+to their utmost out of their meagre larders, but still there was a cry
+for food.
+
+I now return to the events of Thursday. At 12:30 o'clock in the
+afternoon, when the bombardment had already lasted over twelve hours,
+through the courtesy of a Belgian officer I was able to ascend to the
+roof of the cathedral, and from that point of vantage I looked down upon
+the scene in the city.
+
+All the southern portion of Antwerp appeared to be a desolate ruin.
+Whole streets were ablaze, and flames were rising in the air to the
+height of twenty and thirty feet. In another direction I could just
+discern through my glasses dimly in the distance the instruments of
+culture of the attacking German forces, ruthlessly pounding at the city
+and creeping nearer to it in the dark. At that moment I should say the
+enemy's front line was within four miles of Antwerp.
+
+From my elevated position I had an excellent view also of the great oil
+tanks on the opposite side of the Scheldt. They had been set on fire by
+four bombs from a German taube, and a huge, thick volume of black smoke
+was ascending 200 feet into the air. The oil had been burning furiously
+for several hours, and the whole neighborhood was enveloped in a mist of
+smoke.
+
+In all directions were fire and flames and oil-laden smoke. It was like
+a bit of Gustave Dore's idea of the infernal regions. From time to time
+great tongues of fire shot out from the tanks, and in this way, the
+flames greedily licking the sides of other tanks, the conflagration
+spread. How long this particular fire raged I cannot say, for I saw
+neither the beginning nor the end of it, but while I watched its
+progress it seemed to represent the limit of what a fire was capable of.
+
+After watching for some considerable time the panorama of destruction
+that lay unrolled all around me, I came down from my post of observation
+on the cathedral roof, and at the very moment I reached the street a
+28-centimeter shell struck a confectioner's shop between the Place Verte
+and the Place Meir. It was one of these high explosive shells, and the
+shop, a wooden structure, immediately burst into flames.
+
+The city by this time was almost deserted, and no attempt was made to
+extinguish the fires that had broken out all over the southern district.
+Indeed, there were no means of dealing with them.
+
+As far back as Tuesday in last week the water supply from the reservoir
+ten miles outside the city was cut off, and as this was the city's main
+source of supply, indeed practically its only source, great apprehension
+was felt. The reservoir is just behind Fort Waelhem, and the German
+shells had struck it, doing great mischief. It left Antwerp without any
+regular inflow of water, and the inhabitants had to do their best with
+artesian wells. Great efforts were made by the Belgians from time to
+time to repair the reservoir, but it was always thwarted by German shell
+fire. The health of the city was thereby menaced, for there was danger
+of an epidemic.
+
+Happily, stricken Antwerp was spared this added terror. It had plenty
+of other sorts, and some of these I experienced when, after leaving the
+cathedral, I made my way to the southern section of the city, where
+shells were bursting at the rate of five a minute. With great difficulty
+and not without risk I got as far as Rue la Moiere.
+
+There I met a terror-stricken Belgian woman, the only other person in
+the streets besides myself. In hysterical gasps she told me the Banque
+Nationale and the Palais de Justice had been struck and were in flames,
+and that her husband had been hit by a shell just five minutes before I
+came upon the scene, his mangled remains lying not a hundred yards away
+from where we were standing.
+
+It was obviously impossible to proceed further, and so I retraced my
+steps toward the quay. As I was passing the Avenue de Keyser a shell
+burst within twenty yards of me. I was knocked down by the force of the
+concussion. A house not ten yards from where I was was struck and
+actually poured (I can think of no other word to describe what happened)
+into the street in a shower of bricks. A broken brick struck me on the
+shoulder, but its force was spent and I received no injury.
+
+I had scarcely picked myself up and was hastening to a place of safety,
+if there were one, when a man about 40 years of age, almost half naked,
+rushed out of a house, screaming loudly. He had gone mad.
+
+At this time I was fortunate enough to meet Frank Fox of The Morning
+Post. Mr. Fox is an ex-officer of artillery, and he told me he had found
+a hotel which, as long as the Germans fired in the direction they were
+then firing, was not within the reach of their guns. This was the Hotel
+Wagner, which stands behind the Opera House on the Boulevard de
+Commerce. It was the only hotel in the city except the Queens Hotel, in
+which some representatives of American newspapers had been staying, that
+was open. There I found Miss Louise Mack, an Australian authoress, and
+she, Fox, and myself were among the few British subjects left in the
+port.
+
+As night came the city presented a fantastic appearance as I watched it
+from the Hotel Wagner. The glare from the fires that had burst out in
+all directions could be seen for miles around. The bombardment was
+proceeding furiously, and German shells were bursting in every
+direction. I reckoned they were coming in that time at the rate of at
+least thirty a minute.
+
+I went to the Queens Hotel to ascertain what had become of the American
+journalists. I found they had left the city after having spent the night
+in a private house which had been struck three times by shells, and
+finally caught fire. Arthur Ruhl of the staff of Collier's Weekly had
+left for me this note:
+
+     Donald C. Thompson, photographer of The New York World, fitted up
+     for himself a cellar at 74 Rue de Peage, just by the Boulevard de
+     Keyser, where shrapnel fell with terrible force during the latter
+     part of Wednesday. With him were three other Americans. The entire
+     population, including, of course, the Government of Antwerp, have
+     made their escape across the pontoon bridge which still connects
+     the River Scheldt with the road toward Ghent. Two shells demolished
+     Thompson's retreat and at sundown it burst into flames. The
+     American Consul General and Vice Consul General had gone by this
+     time. The following Americans, all of them newspaper men, were
+     known to have spent the night in Antwerp; Arthur Ruhl, Horace
+     Green, staff of The New York Evening Post; Edward Eyre Hunt,
+     correspondent of The New York World; Edward Heigel of the staff of
+     The Chicago Daily Tribune, and Thompson himself.
+
+Except for the glare of burning buildings, which lit up the streets, the
+city was in absolute darkness, and near the quay I lost my way in the
+byroads trying to get back to the Hotel Wagner. For the second time that
+day I narrowly escaped death by a shell. One burst with terrific force
+about twenty-five yards from me. I heard its warning whirr, and rushed
+into a neighboring porch. Whether it was from concussion of the shell or
+in my anxiety to escape, I cannoned against a door and tumbled down. As
+I lay on the ground the house on the opposite side crashed in ruins. I
+remained still for several minutes feeling quite sick and unable to get
+up. Then I pulled myself together, and ran at full speed until I came
+to a street which I recognized, and found my way back to the hotel.
+
+As I hastened down the Avenue de Keyser shells were bursting in every
+quarter. Several fell into the adjoining street. At the hotel I found my
+friend Fox had been up to the Red Cross Hospital to inquire about a
+motor car in which we hoped to get away. It had gone, as had the entire
+personnel of the hospital.
+
+We began to wonder how we should escape. However, Fox had a bicycle, and
+Mr. Singleton, Chief of the Boy Scouts in Antwerp, had given me the key
+of a house not far off, in which he told me there was one if I wanted it
+in an emergency. I ventured into that dangerous part of the city again
+to get it. I got to the house safely and found the bicycle, but as there
+was no tube in the back tire it was useless. On my return journey I was
+startled to see in the street through which I had just walked a hole six
+feet deep, which had just been made by a shell.
+
+On returning to the hotel I joined in a meal, eaten under the weirdest
+[Transcriber: original 'wierdest'] conditions imaginable. Descending
+into the cellars of the hotel with Miss Mack and Mr. Fox we found the
+entire staff gathered there uncertain what to do and not knowing what
+was to happen to them. We were all hungry, and one of the men dashed
+upstairs to the kitchen and brought down whatever food he could lay his
+hands on, and we all partook of pot luck. Considering all the
+circumstances we made a very jolly meal of it. We toasted each other in
+good red wine of the country, pledging each other with "Vive la
+Belgique" and "Vive l'Angleterre," and altogether we were a merry party,
+although at the time German shells were whirling overhead and any moment
+one might have upset our picnic and buried us in the debris of the
+hotel.
+
+How many of the inhabitants of Antwerp remained in the city that night
+it is impossible to say, but it is pretty certain they were all in the
+cellars of their houses or shops.
+
+The admirable Burgomaster, M. De Vos, had in one of his several
+proclamations made many suggestions for safety during the bombardment
+for the benefit of those who took refuge in cellars. Among the most
+useful of them perhaps was that which recommended means of escape to
+adjoining cellars. The power of modern artillery is so tremendous that a
+cellar might very well become a tomb if shells were to fall on the
+building overhead.
+
+We went to bed early that night but sleep was impossible in the noise
+caused by the explosion of the shells in twenty different quarters of
+the town. About 3 o'clock in the morning a twenty-eight centimeter shell
+fell into the square in front of the hotel and broke all the windows in
+the neighboring house. In spite of the terrific din one got to sleep at
+last.
+
+About 6 o'clock Fox roused me and said he thought it was time we got
+out, as the Germans were entering the city. We hurried from the hotel,
+and found in the square a squad of Belgian soldiers who had just come in
+from the inner line of forts. They told us it was not safe for us to
+remain any longer. The streets were now completely deserted.
+
+I walked down to the quayside, and there I came across many wounded
+soldiers, who had been unable to get away in the hospital boat. On the
+quay piles of equipment had been abandoned; broken-down motor cars,
+kit-bags, helmets, rifles, knapsacks were littered in heaps. Ammunition
+had been dumped there and rendered useless. The Belgians had evidently
+attempted to set fire to the whole lot. A pile of stuff was still
+smoldering. I waited there for half an hour, and during that time
+hundreds of Belgian soldiers passed in retreat, the last contingent
+leaving at about 6:30 A.M.
+
+I went again to the Queen's Hotel to inquire what had become of the
+American newspaper men, and it was just about this time that the pontoon
+bridge which had been the way of the Belgian retreat was blown up to
+prevent pursuit by the Germans. The boats and woodwork of the
+superstructure burnt fiercely and in less than twenty minutes the whole
+affair was demolished.
+
+Safe exit from the city was now cut off. A Red Cross officer whom I met
+when standing by the quay had been a spectator of the blowing up of the
+bridge.
+
+"My God!" he said, running toward me, "it is awful!"
+
+"How are you going to get out?" I asked him.
+
+"I'm going to stay here and look after my wounded," he replied.
+
+In further talk with him I learned that the greater part of the second
+line of forts had fallen at midday the previous day and that there was
+nothing then to stop the Germans entering the city save a handful of
+Belgian soldiers in three or four forts. At 8 o'clock a shell struck the
+Town Hall.
+
+Fox had now joined me, and we took refuge in the cellars beneath the
+Town Hall. So far as I could gather, the remaining inhabitants of
+Antwerp must have assembled about this neighborhood, groups taking
+refuge in small and stuffy cellars, where developments were anxiously
+awaited. There must have been hundreds of people sheltered underground,
+and they included the Mexican and Dominican Consuls. Why these stayed I
+do not know, as none of their people were left behind. They were the
+only Consuls remaining in Antwerp.
+
+About 8:15 o'clock another shell struck the Town Hall, shattering the
+upper story and breaking every window in the place. That was the German
+way of telling the Burgomaster to hurry up. There was a tense feeling as
+we waited for tidings of some sort or other. A quarter of an hour later
+M. De Vos went out in his motor car toward the German line to discuss
+conditions on which the city should be surrendered.
+
+Another shell struck a furrier's shop opposite the Town Hall and the
+place burst into flames. Several of the gendarmes who had stayed behind
+were occupants of cellars, and two of them immediately rushed out to
+force a way into the shop in order that they might extinguish the fire.
+They found the door locked. It took them ten minutes to force an
+entrance. By this time the fire was burning fiercely, and at great
+personal risk one of the gendarmes made his way to the top floor of the
+premises, and there he endeavored to beat out the flames with a piece of
+timber torn from the roof. His efforts were futile, and he called for
+water. Soon a Flemish woman brought him two pailfuls, which Fox had
+carried to the house, and after half an hour's labor the fire was
+extinguished.
+
+The proprietor of the shop was among the people in the cellars across
+the way. The news that his house was aflame was broken to him and he
+rushed into the street. He gazed for a moment on the scene and burst
+into tears like a child.
+
+At 9 o'clock the bombardment of the city suddenly ceased and we
+understood the Burgomaster had by this time reached German headquarters.
+Still we waited, painfully anxious to learn what would be the ultimate
+fate of Antwerp. The Belgian soldiers hurried by on their way to the
+front. A number paused just as they reached a tobacconist's shop which
+had been wrecked by shells, scattering the stock in the street. There
+were cigars hurled across the pavement and roadway, and soldiers who had
+halted picked up a few of the cigars. A Belgian workman, taking
+advantage of this, entered the shop and began to stuff his pockets full
+of cigars and cigarettes, but immediately gendarmes hurried to the place
+and arrested him, the last arrest the Antwerp police will make for some
+time.
+
+At 10:30 o'clock proclamations were posted on walls of the Town Hall
+urging all in the city to surrender any arms in their possession and
+begging for a calm demeanor in the event of German occupation. The list
+was also posted of several prominent citizens who were appointed to look
+after the interests of those Belgians who remained.
+
+Just before noon a patrol of cyclists and armed and mounted gendarmes,
+who had escorted the Burgomaster to the gate of the city, informed Fox
+and myself that the Germans were entering by the gate of Malines. We
+hastily took our bicycles with the intention of making our way over the
+Dutch frontier. As we passed along the quay by a most timely stroke of
+luck we found a motor boat standing by. It was manned by a Belgian, and
+his mate.
+
+"Can you take us to Flushing?" we asked.
+
+"Yes," answered the Belgian.
+
+"How much?"
+
+"One hundred and fifty francs each."
+
+We were in that boat in thirty seconds and in another thirty seconds had
+started down the Scheldt. By this time the Germans were in the city.
+
+At a good ten knots we raced down the river. In twenty-five minutes we
+had reached the bend which blotted Antwerp from view. As we rounded the
+corner I turned for a last glimpse of the disappearing city. The
+Cathedral was still standing, its tower dominating surroundings. Here
+and there volumes of smoke were rising to the sky.
+
+It took us twelve hours to get to Flushing. On either side of the river
+thousands of refugees were fleeing from the invaders. They swarmed along
+the banks in continuous lines, a vast pilgrimage of the hopeless, many
+laden with household possessions which they had been able to gather at
+almost a moment's notice. Numbers were empty-handed and burdened at that
+in dragging their weary bodies along the miles which seemed never
+ending. It was a heartrending spectacle. Infinite pity must go out to
+those broken victims of the war, bowed veterans driven from home, going
+they knew not where; women with their crying children, famished for lack
+of food, all or nearly all leaving behind men folk who were still
+fighting their country's battle or mourning the loss of loved ones who
+had already sacrificed their lives.
+
+Where the Scheldt becomes Dutch property we were stopped by customs
+authorities and submitted to a rigorous examination. Dutch officials for
+a time believed we were either Belgian or English officers escaping, but
+eventually they were satisfied.
+
+Upon arriving at Flushing we found the town in a tremendous state of
+excitement. Great crowds of refugees were there, 10,000 or more, and
+the hotels were choked. Many wretched people had left their homes
+absolutely without any money and were forced to camp in the streets.
+There was a vast crowd waiting to get on the Flushing-Folkestone boat,
+and it appeared we would be balked in our endeavor to get to England
+that night. However, we discussed our position with the Superintendent
+of the line, and he very kindly got us a berth.
+
+
+
+
+*As the French Fell Back on Paris*
+
+*By G.H. Perris of The London Daily Chronicle.*
+
+[Special Dispatch to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
+
+
+CHATEAU [Transcriber: original 'Chateau'] THIERRY, Sunday, Sept. 13.--We
+first realized yesterday, in a little town of Brie which lies east of
+Paris, between the Seine and the Marne, how difficult it is to get food
+in the rear of two successive invasions. As in every other town in the
+region, all the shops were shut and nearly all the houses. It was only
+after a long search that we found an inn that could give us luncheon.
+
+There, in a large room with a low-beamed roof and a tiled floor, our
+stout landlady in blue cotton produced an excellent meal of melon,
+mutton, macaroni, and good ripe pears. Dogs and cats sprawled around us,
+and a big bowl of roses spoke of serenities that are now in general
+eclipse. At a neighboring table a group of peasants, too old for active
+service, were discussing their grievances.
+
+At a railway crossing just out of town we were blocked by a train of
+about a dozen big horse trucks and two passenger carriages, carrying
+wounded and prisoners to Paris from the fighting lines in the north. It
+had been a gloomy morning, and the rain now fell in torrents.
+Nevertheless the townsfolk crowded up, and for half an hour managed to
+conduct a satisfactory combination of profit and pity by supplying big
+flat loaves, bottles of wine, fruit, cigarettes, and jugs of water to
+those in the train who had money and some who had none. One very old
+woman in white, with a little red cross on her forehead, turned up to
+take advantage of the only opportunity ever likely to fall in her way. A
+great Turco in fez, blouse, and short, baggy breeches was very active in
+this commissariat work.
+
+Some of the Frenchmen on board were not wounded seriously enough to
+prevent their getting down on the roadway; and you may be sure they were
+not ashamed of their plaster patches and bandaged arms.
+
+There were about 300 German prisoners in the train. We got glimpses of
+them lying in the straw on the floor in the dark interior of the big
+trucks. I got on the footboard and looked into the open door of one car.
+Fifteen men were stretched upon straw, and two soldiers stood guard over
+them, rifle in hand. They all seemed in a state of extreme exhaustion.
+Some were asleep, others were eating large chunks of bread.
+
+In the middle of the car a young soldier who spoke French fairly well
+told me that the German losses during the last three days had been
+enormous; and then, stopping suddenly, he said:
+
+"Would it be possible, Sir, to get a little water for my fellows and
+myself?"
+
+"Certainly," I replied; and a man belonging to the station, who was
+passing with a jug, said at once that he would run and get some. The
+prisoner thanked me and added with a sigh:
+
+"They are very good fellows here."
+
+One jocular French guard had put on a spiked helmet which he was keeping
+as a trophy, and, so much does the habit make the man, he now looked
+uncannily like a German himself.
+
+As we passed through the villages to the northeast the contrast between
+abandoned houses and gardens rioting with the color of roses and dahlias
+and fruit-laden trees struck us like a blow.
+
+In Gourchamp a number of houses had been burned, and the neighboring
+fields showed that there had been fighting there; but it was Courtacon
+which presented the most grievous spectacle. Eighteen of its two dozen
+houses had been completely destroyed by fire. The walls were partly
+standing, but the floors and contents of the rooms were completely
+buried under the debris of roofs that had fallen in. In a little Post
+Office the telegraphic and telephonic instruments had been smashed. Just
+opposite is a small building including the office of the Mayor and the
+village school. The outside of the building and the outhouses were
+littered with the straw on which the Uhlans had slept. In the Mayor's
+office the drawers and cupboards had been broken open, and their
+contents had been scattered with the remnants of meals on the floor.
+
+But it is a scene in a little village school that will longest remain in
+my memory. The low forms, the master's desk, and the blackboard stand
+today as they did on July 25, which was no doubt the last day before the
+Summer vacation, as it was also the last week before the outbreak of the
+war. On the walls the charts remained which reminded these little ones
+daily that "Alcohol is the enemy," and had summoned them to follow the
+path of kindness, justice, and truth. The windows were smashed, broken
+cartridge cases lay about with wings of birds and other refuse. Near the
+door I saw chalked up, evidently in German handwriting, "Parti Paris,"
+("Left for Paris.")
+
+The invaders had sought to burn the place. There was one pile of partly
+burned straw under the school bookcase, the doors of which had been
+smashed, while some of the books had been thrown about. They had not
+even respected a little museum consisting of a few bottles of metal and
+chemical specimens; and when I turned to leave I perceived written
+across the blackboard in bold, fine writing, as the lesson of the day,
+these words: "A chaque jour suffit sa peine," ("Sufficient unto the day
+is the evil thereof.")
+
+One of the villagers gave us the following narrative of the experiences
+of the past week:
+
+"It was last Saturday, Sept. 5, that about 15,000 Uhlans arrived in the
+village with the intention of marching on Provins on the morrow. They
+probably learned during the night that the British and French lay in
+force across their road, and perhaps they may now have received orders
+to fall back.
+
+"At any rate, early Sunday morning they started to retire, when they met
+at the entrance to the village a regiment of chasseurs. This was the
+beginning of fighting which lasted all day. Under the pretext that we
+had learned of the presence of the French troops and had helped them to
+prepare a trap, the Germans sacked the whole of the village.
+
+"Naturally there was a panic. All the inhabitants--mostly women and
+children, because since the mobilization there have been only nine men
+in Courtacon--rushed from their cottages and many of them, lightly clad,
+fled across the fields and hid themselves in the neighboring woods.
+
+"In several cottages Germans, revolvers in hand, compelled the poor
+peasants to bring matches and themselves set fire to their homes. In
+less than an hour the village was like a furnace, the walls toppling
+down one by one. And all this time the fighting continued. It was a
+horrible spectacle.
+
+"Several of us were dragged to the edge of the road to be shot, and
+there we remained for some hours, believing our last day had come. A
+young village lad of 21 years, who was just going to leave to join the
+colors, was shot. Then the retreat was sounded, the Germans fled
+precipitately, and we were saved."
+
+I asked whether the cottages had not been fired by artillery.
+
+"Not a cannon shot fell here," he replied. "All that"--pointing to the
+ruined huts--"was done by incendiaries." And then he added:
+
+"Last Tuesday two French officers came in automobiles and brought with
+them a superior German officer whom they had made prisoner. They
+compelled him to become a witness of the mischief of which his
+fellow-countrymen had been guilty."
+
+A peasant woman passed, pushing a wheelbarrow containing some
+half-burned household goods and followed by her two small children.
+
+"Look," she said, "at the brutality of these Germans! My husband has
+gone to war and I am alone with my two little ones. With great
+difficulty we had managed to gather our crop, and they set fire to our
+little farm and burned everything."
+
+Half an hour later we were at La Ferte Gaucher, a small town on the
+Grand Morin, now first made famous by the fact that it was here that the
+German flight began after the severe fighting last Monday. The invaders
+had arrived only on Saturday and had the disagreeable surprise of
+finding that the river bridges had been broken down by the retreating
+French. The German commandant informed the municipal officials that if
+the sum of 60,000 francs ($12,000) was not produced he would burn the
+town. Then he compelled the people to set about rebuilding the bridge,
+and they worked day and night at this job under the eyes of soldiers
+with revolvers and rifles ready to shoot down any shirker.
+
+The relief of these people at the return of the Allies may be imagined.
+Here, as elsewhere, some houses were burned, but otherwise the damage
+did not appear to be very serious.
+
+
+
+
+*The Retreat to Paris*
+
+*By Philip Gibbs of The London Daily Chronicle.*
+
+[Special Dispatch to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
+
+
+NEAR AMIENS, Aug. 30.--Looking back on all I have seen during the last
+few days, I find it difficult to piece together the various incidents
+and impressions and to make one picture. It all seems to me now like a
+jigsaw puzzle of suffering and fear and courage and death--a litter of
+odd, disconnected scraps of human agony and of some big, grim scheme
+which, if one could only get the clue, would give a meaning, I suppose,
+to all these tears of women and children, to all these hurried movements
+of soldiers and people, to the death carts trailing back from unknown
+places, and to the great dark fear that has enveloped all the tract of
+country in Northwest France through which I have been traveling, driven
+like one of its victims from place to place. Out of all this welter of
+individual suffering and from all the fog of mystery which has
+enshrouded them until now, when the truth may be told, certain big facts
+with a clear and simple issue will emerge and give one courage.
+
+The French Army and our English troops are now holding good positions in
+a much stronger and closer line and stemming the tide of the German
+hordes rolling up to Paris. Gen. Pau, the hero of this war, after his
+swift return from the eastern front, where he repaired the deadly check
+at Muelhausen, has dealt a smashing blow at a German Army corps which was
+striking to the heart of France.
+
+Paris is still safe for the time being, with a great army of allied
+forces, French, English, and Belgians, drawn across the country as a
+barrier which surely will not be broken by the enemy. Nothing that has
+happened gives cause for that despair which has taken hold of people
+whose fears have exaggerated the facts, frightful enough when taken
+separately, but not giving any proof that resistance is impossible
+against the amazing onslaught of the German legions.
+
+I have been into the war zone and seen during the last five days men who
+are now holding the lines of defense. I have been among their dead and
+wounded, and have talked with soldiers marching fresh to the front. I
+have seen the horrid mess which is cleared up after the battle and the
+grim picture of retreat, but nothing that I have seen or heard from
+either British or French leads me to believe that our army has been
+smashed or the Allies demoralized.
+
+It is impossible to estimate our own losses. Our wounded are being
+brought back into Havre and Rouen, and undoubtedly there are large
+numbers of them. But, putting them at the highest, it is clear to me,
+from all information gained during the last five days, that there has
+been no overwhelming disaster, and that in the terrible actions fought
+on the four days from the 23d to the 27th, and afterward in the further
+retirement from the line of Cambrai and Le Cateau, swinging southward
+and eastward upon St. Quentin, our main forces, which were pressed by
+enormous numbers of the enemy, succeeded in withdrawing in good order,
+without having their lines broken, while inflicting a terrific
+punishment upon the German right.
+
+As I shall show in this narrative, retreats which seem fatal when seen
+close at hand and when described by those who belong to broken fragments
+of extended sections, are not altogether disastrous in their effect when
+viewed in their right perspective, away from the immediate misery which
+is their inevitable accompaniment.
+
+German audacity of attack against the heroic courage of the French and
+British forces, who fight every mile of ground during their retirement,
+is leading the enemy into a position from which there will be no retreat
+if their lines are broken. Unfortunately, there are hundreds of
+thousands of people who know nothing of the great issues and who are
+possessed by the great, blind fear which has driven them from their
+towns, villages, and homes.
+
+When the Germans swept around Lille they found, to their amazement, that
+this town, surrounded by forts, had been abandoned, and they had only to
+walk inside. This easy access to a town which should have been defended
+to the last gasp opened the way to the west of France.
+
+The left wing of the French, which was to the west of Mons, was
+supported by the English troops, all too weak to sustain the pressure of
+the tremendous odds which began to surge against them; and, realizing
+this perilous state of affairs, the brain at the centre of things, the
+controlling brain of Gen. Joffre and his Headquarters Staff, decreed
+that the northwest corner of France was untenable and that the main army
+of defense should withdraw into a stronger and closer formation.
+
+It was then that the great panic began, increasing in speed and terror
+during the end of last week. I was in the midst of it and saw
+unforgettable scenes of the enormous tragedy. It was a flight of
+hundreds and thousands of families from St. Omer and Roubaix, Bethune,
+Douai, Valenciennes, and Arras, who were driven away from their northern
+homes by the menace of approaching Uhlans. They are still being hunted
+by fear from place to place, where they can find no shelter and no
+permanent safety. The railways have been choked with them, and in these
+long fugitive trains which pass through stations there is no food or
+drink. The poor runaways, weary, filthy, and exhausted, spend long days
+and nights shunted onto side lines, while troop trains pass and pass,
+and are held up in towns where they can find no means of existence
+because the last civilian train has left.
+
+When the troops marched away from Boulogne and left it silent and
+unguarded I saw the inhabitants, utterly dismayed, standing despondently
+staring at placards posted up by order of the Governor, which announced
+the evacuation of the town and called upon them to be ready for all
+sacrifices in the service of their country. The customs officers left,
+the civil police disarmed, while a flag with nine black spots was made
+ready to be hoisted on the fort directly any Uhlans were sighted.
+
+The people of Boulogne could not understand, no Frenchman of the north
+can understand, why their ports and towns are silent after the tramp of
+so many regiments who have left a great tract of country open and
+undefended. In that corner of France the people listen intently for the
+first clatter of hoofs and for the first cry "Les Uhlans." Rumors came
+that the enemy has been seen in neighboring towns and villages. Can one
+wonder that mothers and fathers rush from their houses and wander forth
+in a blind, unreasoning way to swell the panic tide of fugitives,
+homeless and without food, dropping here and there on the wayside in
+utter weariness?
+
+I was lucky in getting out of Boulogne on the last train bound for
+Paris, though not guaranteed to reach the capital. As a matter of fact,
+I was even more lucky because it did not arrive at its destination and
+enabled me to alight in the war zone and proceed to more interesting
+places.
+
+I will tell at once the story of the French retirement when the Germans
+advanced from Namur down the valley of the Meuse, winning the way at a
+cost of human life as great as that of defeat, yet winning their way.
+For France the story of that retirement is as glorious as anything in
+her history. It was nearly a fortnight ago that the Germans concentrated
+their heaviest forces upon Namur and began to press southward and over
+the Meuse Valley. After the battle of Dinant the French Army, among whom
+were the Second and Seventh Corps, was heavily outnumbered and had to
+fall back gradually, in order to gain time for reinforcements to come
+up.
+
+French artillery was up on the wooded heights above the river and swept
+the German regiments with a storm of fire as they advanced. On the right
+bank the French infantry was intrenched, supported by field guns and
+mitrailleuses, and did deadly work before leaping from trenches which
+they occupied and taking up a position in new trenches further back,
+which they held with great tenacity.
+
+In justice to the Germans it must be said they were heroic in courage
+and reckless of their lives, and the valley of the Meuse was choked with
+their corpses. The river itself was strewn with the dead bodies of men
+and horses and literally ran red with blood.
+
+The most tremendous fighting took place for the possession of the
+bridges, but the French engineers blew them up one after another as they
+retired southward.
+
+No less than thirty-three bridges were destroyed in this way before they
+could be seized by the German advance guard. The fighting was extended
+for a considerable distance on either side of the Meuse and many
+engagements took place between French and German cavalry and regiments
+working away from the main armies.
+
+There was, for instance, a memorable encounter at Marville which is one
+of the most heroic episodes of the war. Five thousand French soldiers of
+all arms, with quick-firers, engaged 20,000 German infantry. In spite of
+being outnumbered, the French beat back the enemy from point to point in
+a fight lasting for twelve hours, inflicting tremendous punishment and
+suffering very few losses.
+
+The German officer captured expressed his unbounded admiration for the
+valor of the French troops, which he described as superb. It was only
+for fear of getting too far out of touch with the main forces that the
+gallant 5,000 desisted from their irresistible attack and retired with a
+large number of German helmets as trophies of the victorious action.
+
+Nevertheless, in accordance with the general plan which had been decided
+on by the Generals, in view of the superior numbers temporarily pressing
+upon them, the Germans succeeded in forcing their way steadily down the
+Meuse as far as Mezieres, divided by a bridge from Charleville, on the
+other side of the river. This is in the neighborhood of Sedan and in the
+"trou," as it is called, which led to the great disaster of 1870, when
+the French were caught in a trap and threatened with annihilation by
+the Germans, who had taken possession of the surrounding heights.
+
+There was to be no repetition of that tragedy. The French were
+determined that this time the position should be reversed.
+
+On Monday the town of Charleville was evacuated, most of its civilians
+being sent away to join the wanderers who have had to leave their homes,
+and the French troops took up a magnificent position, commanding the
+town and the three bridges dividing them from Mezieres. Mitrailleuses
+were hidden in the abandoned houses, and as a disagreeable shock to any
+German who might escape their fire was a number of the enemy's guns, no
+fewer than ninety-five of them, which had been captured and disabled by
+French troops in a series of battles down the river from Namur.
+
+The German outposts reached Charleville on Tuesday. They were allowed to
+ride quietly across the bridges into an apparently deserted town. Then
+suddenly their line of retreat was cut off, the three bridges were blown
+up by a contact mine, and the mitrailleuses hidden in the houses were
+played on the German cavalry across the streets, killing them in a
+frightful slaughter.
+
+It was for a little while sheer massacre, but the Germans fought with
+extraordinary tenacity, regardless of the heaped bodies of comrades and
+utterly reckless of their own lives. They, too, had brought quick-firers
+across the bridges, and, taking cover behind houses, trained their guns
+upon the houses from which the French gunners were firing. There was no
+way of escape for those heroic men, who voluntarily sacrificed
+themselves, and it is probable every man died, because at such a time
+the Germans were not in the habit of giving quarter.
+
+When the main German advance came down the valley, the French artillery
+on the heights raked them with a terrific fire, in which they suffered
+heavy losses, the forefront of the column being mowed down. But under
+this storm they proceeded with incredible coolness to their pontoon
+bridges across the river, and although hundreds of men died on the
+banks, they succeeded in their endeavor, while their guns searched the
+hills with shells and forced French gunners to retire from their
+positions.
+
+The occupation of Charleville was a German victory, but was also a
+German graveyard. After this historic episode in what has been an
+unending battle the main body of French withdrew before the Germans, who
+were now pouring down the valley, and retired to new ground.
+
+It was a retirement which has had one advantage in spite of its
+acknowledgment of the enemy's amazing pertinacity. It has enabled the
+allied armies to draw closer together, its firm front sweeping around in
+a crescent from Abbeville, around south of Amiens, and thence in an
+irregular line to the eastern frontier.
+
+On the map it is at first sight a rather unhappy thing to see that
+practically the whole of France north of Amiens lies open to German
+descent from Belgium. To break up the German Army piecemeal and lure it
+to its own destruction it was almost necessary to manoeuvre it into
+precisely the position which it now occupies. The success of Gen. Pau
+shows that the allied army is taking the offensive again, and that as a
+great fighting machine it is still powerful and menacing.
+
+I must again emphasize the difficulty of grasping the significance of a
+great campaign by isolated incidents, and the danger of drawing
+important deductions from the misfortunes in one part of the field. I do
+so because I have been tempted again and again during the past few days
+to fall into similar mistakes. Perhaps in my case it was pardonable.
+
+It is impossible for the armchair reader to realize the psychological
+effect of being mixed up in the panic of a great people and the retreat
+from a battlefield.
+
+The last real fighting was taking place at a village called Bapaume all
+day Friday. It was very heavy fighting here on the left centre of the
+great army commanded by Gen. Pau, and leading to a victory which has
+just been announced officially in France.
+
+A few minutes before midnight Friday, when they came back along the road
+to Amiens, crawling back slowly in a long, dismal trail, the ambulance
+wagons laden with the dead and dying, hay carts piled high with saddles
+and accoutrements, upon which lay, immobile like men already dead, the
+spent and exhausted soldiers, they passed through the crowds of silent
+people of Amiens, who only whispered as they stared at the procession.
+In the darkness a cuirassier, with head bent upon his chest, stumbled
+forward, leading his horse, too weak and tired to bear him.
+
+Many other men were leading poor beasts this way, and infantry soldiers,
+some with bandaged heads, clung to the backs of carts and wagons, and
+seemed asleep as they shuffled by.
+
+The light from roadside lamps gleamed upon blanched faces and glazed
+eyes, flashed into caverns of canvas-covered carts, where twisted men
+lay huddled on straw. Not a groan came from the carts, but every one
+knew it was a retreat.
+
+The carts carrying the quick and the dead rumbled by in a long convoy,
+the drooping heads of the soldiers turned neither right nor left for any
+greeting with friends.
+
+There was a hugger-mugger of uniforms, of provision carts, and with
+ambulances--it was a part of the wreckage and wastage of war; and to
+the onlookers, with the exaggeration, unconsciously, of the importance
+of the things close at hand and visible, it seemed terrible in its
+significance and an ominous reminder of 1870.
+
+Really this was an inevitable part of a serious battle, not necessarily
+a retreat from a great disaster.
+
+But more pitiful even than this drift back were scenes which followed.
+As I turned back into the town I saw thousands of boys who had been
+called to the colors and had been brought up from the country to be sent
+forward to second lines of defense.
+
+They were the reservists of the 1914 class, and many of them were
+shouting and singing, though here and there a white-faced boy tried to
+hide his tears as women from the crowd ran forward to embrace him. These
+lads were keeping up their valor by noisy demonstrations; but, having
+seen the death carts pass, I could not bear to look into the faces of
+those little ones who are following their fathers to the guns.
+
+Early next morning there was a thrill of anxiety in Amiens. Reports had
+come through that the railway line had been cut between Boulogne and
+Abbeville. There had been mysterious movements of regiments from the
+town barracks. They had moved out of Amiens, and there was a strange
+quietude in the streets. Hardly a man in uniform was to be seen in the
+places which had been filled with soldiers the day before.
+
+Only a few people realized the actual significance of this. How could
+they know that it was a part of the great plan to secure the safety of
+France? How could they realize that the town itself would be saved from
+possible bombardment by this withdrawal of the troops to positions which
+would draw the Germans into the open?
+
+The fighting on the Cambrai-Cateau line seems to have been more
+desperate even that the terrible actions at Mons and Charleroi. It was
+when the British troops had to swing around to a more southerly line to
+guard the roads to Paris, that the enemy attacked in prodigious numbers,
+and their immense superiority in machine guns did terrible work among
+officers and men.
+
+But on all sides, from the French officers, there is immense praise for
+the magnificent conduct of our troops, and in spite of all alarmist
+statements I am convinced from what I have heard that they have retired
+intact, keeping their lines together, and preventing their divisions
+from being broken and cut off.
+
+The list of casualties must be very great, but if I can believe the
+evidence of my own eyes in such towns as Rouen, where the Red Cross
+hospitals are concentrated, they are not heavy enough to suggest
+anything like a great and irretrievable disaster.
+
+DIEPPE, Sept. 3.--Let me describe briefly the facts which I have learned
+of in the last five days. When I escaped from Amiens, before the tunnel
+was broken up, and the Germans entered into possession of the town on
+Aug. 28, the front of the allied armies was in a crescent from
+Abbeville, south of Amiens on the wooded heights, and thence in an
+irregular line to south of Mezieres. The British forces, under Sir John
+French, were at the left of the centre, supporting the heavy
+thrust-forward of the main German advance, while the right was commanded
+by Gen. Pau.
+
+On Sunday afternoon fighting was resumed along the whole line. The
+German vanguard had by this time been supported by a fresh army corps,
+which had been brought from Belgium. At least 1,000,000 men were on the
+move, pressing upon the allied forces with a ferocity of attack which
+has never before been equaled. Their cavalry swept across a great tract
+of country, squadron by squadron, like the mounted hordes of Attila, but
+armed with the dreadful weapons of modern warfare. Their artillery was
+in enormous numbers, and their columns advanced under cover of it, not
+like an army, but rather like a moving nation--I do not think, however,
+with equal pressure at all parts of the line. It formed itself into a
+battering ram with a pointed end, and this point was thrust at the heart
+of the English wing.
+
+It was impossible to resist this onslaught. If the British forces had
+stood against it they would have been crushed and broken. Our gunners
+were magnificent, and shelled the advancing German columns so that the
+dead lay heaped up along the way which was leading down to Paris; but as
+one of them told me: "It made no manner of difference; as soon as we had
+smashed one lot another followed, column after column, and by sheer
+weight of numbers we could do nothing to check them."
+
+After this the British forces fell back, fighting all the time. The line
+of the Allies was now in the shape of a V, the Germans thrusting their
+main attack deep into the angle.
+
+This position remained the same until Monday, or, rather, had completed
+itself by that date, the retirement of the troops being maintained with
+masterly skill and without any undue haste.
+
+Meanwhile Gen. Pau was sustaining a terrific attack on the French
+centre by the German left centre, which culminated on (date omitted).
+The River Oise, which runs between beautiful meadows, was choked with
+corpses and red with blood.
+
+From an eyewitness of this great battle, an officer of an infantry
+regiment, who escaped with a slight wound, I learned that the German
+onslaught had been repelled by a series of brilliant bayonet and cavalry
+charges.
+
+"The Germans," he said, "had the elite of their army engaged against us,
+including the Tenth Army Corps and the Imperial Guard, but the heroism
+of our troops was sublime. Every man knew that the safety of France
+depended upon him and was ready to sacrifice his life, if need be, with
+joyful enthusiasm. They not only resisted the enemy's attack but took
+the offensive, and, in spite of their overpowering numbers, gave them
+tremendous punishment. They had to recoil before our guns, which swept
+their ranks, and their columns were broken and routed.
+
+"Hundreds of them were bayoneted, and hundreds were hurled into the
+river. The whole field of battle was outlined by dead and dying men whom
+they had to abandon. Certainly their losses were enormous, and I felt
+that the German retreat was in full swing and that we could claim a real
+victory for the time being."
+
+Nevertheless the inevitable happened, owing to the vast reserves of the
+enemy, who brought up four divisions, and Gen. Pau was compelled to give
+ground.
+
+On Tuesday German skirmishers with light artillery were coming
+southward, and the sound of their field guns greeted my ears in that
+town which I shall always remember with unpleasant recollections in
+spite of its Old World beauty and the loveliness of the scene in which
+it is set. It seemed to me that this was the right place to be in order
+to get into touch with the French Army on the way to the capital. As a
+matter of fact, it was the wrong place from all points of view; it was
+nothing less than a deathtrap, and it was by a thousand-to-one chance
+that I succeeded in escaping quite a nasty kind of fate.
+
+I might have suspected that something was wrong with the place by the
+strange look on the face of a friendly French peasant, whom I met. He
+had described to me in a very vivid way the disposition of the French
+troops on the neighboring hills. Down the road came suddenly parties of
+peasants with fear in their eyes. Some of them were in farm carts and
+put their horses to a stumbling gallop.
+
+Women with blanched faces, carrying children in their arms, trudged
+along the dusty highway, and it was clear that these people were afraid
+of something behind them. There were not many of them, and when they had
+passed the countryside was strangely and uncannily quiet. There was only
+the sound of singing birds above fields which were flooded with the
+golden light of the setting sun.
+
+Then I came into the town. An intense silence brooded there among the
+narrow little streets below the old Norman church--a white jewel on the
+rising ground beyond. Almost every house was shuttered with blind eyes;
+but here and there I looked through an open window into deserted rooms.
+No human face returned my gaze. It was an abandoned town, emptied of all
+its people, who had fled with fear in their eyes, like those peasants
+along the roadway.
+
+But presently I saw a human form; it was the figure of a French dragoon
+with his carbine slung behind his back. He was stopping by the side of a
+number of gunpowder bags. A little further away were little groups of
+soldiers at work by two bridges, one over a stream and one over a road.
+They were working very calmly, and I could see what they were doing;
+they were mining bridges to blow them up at a given signal.
+
+As I went further I saw that the streets were strewn with broken bottles
+and littered with wire entanglements, very artfully and carefully made.
+
+It was a queer experience. It was obvious that there was very grim
+business being done, and that the soldiers were waiting for something
+to happen. At the railway station I quickly learned the truth; the
+Germans were only a few miles away, in great force. At any moment they
+might come down, smashing everything in their way and killing every
+human being along that road.
+
+The station master, a brave old type, and one or two porters had
+determined to stay on to the last. "We are here," he said, as though the
+Germans would have to reckon with him; but he was emphatic in his
+request for me to leave at once if another train could be got away,
+which was very uncertain. As a matter of fact, after a bad quarter of an
+hour I was put on the last train to escape from this threatened town,
+and left it with the sound of German guns in my ears, followed by a dull
+explosion when the bridge behind me was blown up.
+
+My train, in which there were only four other men, skirted the German
+army, and by a twist in the line almost ran into the enemy's country,
+but we rushed through the night, and the engine driver laughed and put
+his oily hand up to salute when I stepped out to the platform of an
+unknown station. "The Germans won't get us, after all," he said. It was
+a little risky, all the same.
+
+The station was crowded with French soldiers, and they were soon telling
+me their experience of the hard fighting in which they had been engaged.
+They were dirty, unshaven, dusty from head to foot, scorched by the
+August sun, in tattered uniforms and broken boots; but they were
+beautiful men for all their dirt, and the laughing courage, quiet
+confidence, and unbragging simplicity with which they assured me that
+the Germans would soon be caught in a death trap and sent to their
+destruction filled me with admiration which I cannot express in words.
+All the odds were against them; they had fought the hardest of all
+actions--the retirement from the fighting line--but they had absolute
+faith in the ultimate success of their allied arms.
+
+I managed to get to Paris. It was in the middle of the night, but
+extraordinary scenes were taking place. It had become known during the
+day that Paris was no longer the seat of the Government, which has
+moved to Bordeaux. The Parisians had had notice of four days in which to
+destroy their houses within the zone of fortifications, and, to add to
+the cold fear occasioned by this news, aeroplanes had dropped bombs upon
+the Gare de l'Est that afternoon.
+
+There was a rush last night to get away from the capital, and the
+railway stations were great camps of fugitives, in which the richest and
+poorest citizens were mingled with their women and children. But the
+tragedy deepened when it was heard that most of the lines to the east
+had been cut, and that the only line remaining open to Dieppe would
+probably be destroyed during the next few hours. A great wail of grief
+arose from the crowds, and the misery of these people was pitiful.
+
+Among them were groups of soldiers of many regiments. Many of them were
+wounded and lay on stretchers on the floor among crying babies and
+weary-eyed women. They had been beaten and were done for until the end
+of the war. But, alone among the panic-stricken crowd--panic-stricken,
+yet not noisy or hysterical, but very quiet and restrained for the most
+part--the soldiers were cheerful, and even gay.
+
+Among them were some British troops, and I had a talk with them. They
+had been fighting for ten days without cessation, and their story is
+typical of the way in which all our troops held themselves.
+
+"We had been fighting night and day," said a Sergeant. "For the whole of
+that time the only rest from fighting was when we were marching and
+retiring." He spoke of the German Army as an avalanche of armed men.
+"You can't mow that down," he said. "We kill them and kill them, and
+still they come on. They seem to have an inexhaustible supply of fresh
+troops. Directly we check them in one attack a fresh attack is
+developed. It is impossible to oppose such a mass of men with any
+success."
+
+This splendid fellow, who was severely wounded, was still so much master
+of himself, so supreme in his common sense, that he was able to get the
+right perspective about the general situation.
+
+"It is not right to say we have met with disaster," he said. "We have to
+expect that nowadays. Besides, what if a battalion was cut up? That did
+not mean defeat. While one regiment suffered, another got off lightly";
+and by the words of that Sergeant the public may learn to see the truth
+of what has happened. I can add my own evidence to his. All along the
+lines I have spoken to officers and men, and the actual truth is that
+the British Army is still unbroken, having retired in perfect order to
+good positions--the most marvelous feat ever accomplished in modern
+warfare.
+
+From Paris I went by the last train again which has got through to
+Dieppe. Lately I seem to have become an expert in catching the last
+train. It was only a branch line which struggles in an erratic way
+through the west of France, and the going was long and painful, because
+at every wayside station the carriages were besieged by people trying to
+escape. They were very patient and very brave. Even when they found that
+it was impossible to get one more human being on or one more package
+into the already crowded train they turned away in quiet grief, and when
+women wept over their babies it was silently and without abandonment to
+despair. The women of France are brave, God knows. I have seen their
+courage during the past ten days--gallantry surpassing that of the men,
+because of their own children in their arms without shelter, food, or
+safety in this terrible flight from the advancing enemy.
+
+Enormous herds of cattle were being driven into Paris. For miles the
+roads were thronged with them; and down other roads away from Paris
+families were trekking to far fields with their household goods piled
+into bullock carts, pony carts, and wheelbarrows.
+
+Two batteries of artillery were stationed by the line, and a regiment of
+infantry was hiding in the hollows of the grassy slopes. Their outposts
+were scanning the horizon, and it was obvious that the Germans were
+expected at this point in order to cut the last way of escape from the
+capital.
+
+One of the enemy's aeroplanes flew above our heads, circled around, and
+then disappeared. It dropped no bombs and was satisfied with its
+reconnoissance. The whistle of the train shrieked out, and there was a
+cheer from the French gunners as we went on our way to safety, leaving
+them behind at the post of peril.
+
+ST. PIERRE DU VAUVRAY, Sept. 6.--England received a hint yesterday as to
+a change in the German campaign, but only those who have been, as I
+have, into the very heart of this monstrous horror of war, seeing the
+flight of hundreds of thousands of people before an overwhelming enemy
+and following the lines of the allied armies in their steady retirement
+before an apparently irresistible advance, may realize even dimly the
+meaning of the amazing transformation that has happened during the last
+few days.
+
+For when I wrote my last dispatch from Arques-la-Bataille, after my
+adventures along the French and English lines, it seemed as inevitable
+as the rising of next day's sun that the Germans should enter Paris on
+the very day when I wrote my dispatch. Still not a single shot has come
+crashing upon the French fortifications.
+
+At least a million men--that is no exaggeration of a light pen, but the
+sober and actual truth--were advancing steadily upon the capital last
+Tuesday. They were close to Beauvais when I escaped from what was then a
+death-trap. They were fighting our British troops at Creil when I came
+to that town. Upon the following days they were holding our men in the
+Forest of Compiegne. They had been as near to Paris as Senlis, almost
+within gunshot of the outer forts.
+
+"Nothing seems to stop them," said many soldiers with whom I spoke. "We
+kill them and kill them, but they come on."
+
+The situation seemed to me almost ready for the supreme tragedy--the
+capture or destruction of Paris. The northwest of France lay very open
+to the enemy, abandoned as far south as Abbeville and Amiens, too
+lightly held by a mixed army corps of French and Algerian troops with
+their headquarters at Aumale.
+
+Here was an easy way to Paris.
+
+Always obsessed with the idea that the Germans must come from the east,
+the almost fatal error of this war, the French had girdled Paris with
+almost impenetrable forts on the east side, from those of Ecouen and
+Montmorency, by the far-flung forts of Chelles and Champigny, to those
+of Susy and Villeneuve, on the outer lines of the triple cordon; but on
+the west side, between Pontoise and Versailles, the defenses of Paris
+were weak. I say "were," because during the last three days thousands of
+men have been digging trenches and throwing up ramparts. Only the
+snakelike Seine, twining into Pegoud loop, forms a natural defense to
+the western approach to the city, none too secure against men who have
+crossed many rivers in their desperate assaults.
+
+This, then, was the Germans' chance; it was for this that they had
+fought their way westward and southward through incessant battlefields
+from Mons and Charleroi to St. Quentin and Amiens and down to Creil and
+Compiegne, flinging away human life as though it were but rubbish for
+deathpits. The prize of Paris, Paris the great and beautiful, seemed to
+be within their grasp.
+
+It was their intention to smash their way into it by this western entry
+and then to skin it alive. Holding this city at ransom, it was their
+idea to force France to her knees under threat of making a vast and
+desolate ruin of all those palaces and churches and noble buildings in
+which the soul of French history is enshrined.
+
+They might have done it but for one thing which has upset all the
+cold-blooded calculations of their staff, that thing which perhaps I may
+be pardoned for calling the miracle. They might have done it, I think,
+last Wednesday and Thursday, even perhaps as late as last Friday.
+
+I am not saying these things from rumor and hearsay, I am writing from
+the evidence of my own eyes after traveling several hundreds of miles in
+France during the last four days along the main strategical lines, grim
+sentinels guarding the last barriers to that approaching death which is
+sweeping on its way through France to the rich harvest of Paris, which
+it was eager to destroy.
+
+There was only one thing to do to escape from the menace of this death.
+By all the ways open, by any way, the population of Paris emptied itself
+like rushing rivers of humanity along all the lines which promised
+anything like safety.
+
+Only those stayed behind to whom life means very little away from Paris
+and who if death came desired to die in the city of their life.
+
+Again I write from what I saw and to tell the honest truth from what I
+suffered, for the fatigue of this hunting for facts behind the screen of
+war is exhausting to all but one's moral strength, and even to that.
+
+I found myself in the midst of a new and extraordinary activity of the
+French and English Armies. Regiments were being rushed up to the centre
+of the allied forces toward Creil, Montdidier, and Noyon. That was
+before last Tuesday, when the English troops [Transcriber: original
+'toops'] were fighting hard at Creil.
+
+This great movement continued for several days, putting to a severe test
+the French railway system, which is so wonderfully organized that it
+achieved this mighty transportation of troops with clockwork regularity.
+Working to a time table dictated by some great brain which in
+Headquarters Staff of the French Army, calculated with perfect precision
+the conditions of a network of lines on which troop trains might be run
+to a given point. It was an immense victory of organization, and a
+movement which heartened one observer at least to believe that the
+German deathblow would again be averted.
+
+I saw regiment after regiment entraining. Men from the Southern
+Provinces, speaking the patois of the South; men from the Eastern
+Departments whom I had seen a month before, at the beginning of the war,
+at Chalons and Epernay and Nancy, and men from the southwest and centre
+of France, in garrisons along the Loire. They were all in splendid
+spirits and utterly undaunted by the rapidity of the German advance.
+
+"It is nothing, my little one," said a dirty, unshaved gentleman with
+the laughing eyes of a D'Artagnan; "we shall bite their heads off. These
+brutal bosches are going to put themselves in a guetapens, a veritable
+deathtrap. We shall have them at last."
+
+Many of them had fought at Longwy and along the heights of the Vosges.
+The youngest of them had bristling beards, their blue coats with
+turned-back flaps were war worn and flanked with the dust of long
+marches; their red trousers were sloppy and stained, but they had not
+forgotten how to laugh, and the gallantry of their spirits was a joy to
+see.
+
+They are very proud, these French soldiers, of fighting side by side
+with their old foes. The English now, after long centuries of strife,
+from Edward, the Black Prince, to Wellington, are their brothers-in-arms
+upon the battlefields, and because I am English they offered me their
+cigarettes and made me one of them. But I realized even then that the
+individual is of no account in this inhuman business of war.
+
+It is only masses of men that matter, moved by common obedience at the
+dictation of mysterious far-off powers, and I thanked Heaven that masses
+of men were on the move rapidly in vast numbers and in the right
+direction to support the French lines which had fallen back from Amiens
+a few hours before I left that town, and whom I had followed in their
+retirement, back and back, with the English always strengthening their
+left, but retiring with them almost to the outskirts of Paris itself.
+
+Only this could save Paris--the rapid strengthening of the allied front
+by enormous reserves strong enough to hold back the arrow-shaped
+battering ram of the enemy's main army.
+
+Undoubtedly the French Headquarters Staff was working heroically and
+with fine intelligence to save the situation at the very gates of Paris.
+The country was being swept absolutely clean of troops in all parts of
+France, where they had been waiting as reserves.
+
+It was astounding to me to see, after those three days of rushing troop
+trains and of crowded stations not large enough to contain the
+regiments, how on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday last an air of profound
+solitude and peace had taken possession of all these routes.
+
+In my long journey through and about France and circling round Paris I
+found myself wondering sometimes whether all this war had not been a
+dreadful illusion without reality, and a transformation had taken place,
+startling in its change, from military turmoil to rural peace.
+
+Dijon was emptied of its troops. The road to Chalons was deserted by all
+but fugitives. The great armed camp at Chalons itself had been cleared
+out except for a small garrison. The troops at Tours had gone northward
+to the French centre. All our English reserves had been rushed up to the
+front from Havre and Rouen.
+
+There was only one deduction to be drawn from this great, swift
+movement--the French and English lines had been supported by every
+available battalion to save Paris from its menace of destruction, to
+meet the weight of the enemy's metal by a force strong enough to resist
+its mighty mass.
+
+It was still possible that the Germans might be smashed on their left
+wing, hurled back to the west between Paris and the sea, and cut off
+from their line of communications. It was undoubtedly this impending
+peril which scared the enemy's Headquarters Staff and upset all its
+calculations. They had not anticipated the rapidity of the supporting
+movement of the allied armies, and at the very gates of Paris they saw
+themselves balked of their prize, the greatest prize of the war, by the
+necessity of changing front.
+
+To do them justice, they realized instantly the new order of things,
+and with quick and marvelous decision did not hesitate to alter the
+direction of their main force. Instead of proceeding to the west of
+Paris they swung round steadily to the southeast in order to keep their
+armies away from the enveloping movement of the French and English and
+drive their famous wedge-like formation southward for the purpose of
+dividing the allied forces of the west from the French Army of the East.
+The miraculous had happened, and Paris, for a little time at least, is
+unmolested.
+
+That brings me back to the fighting at Creil and Compiegne, which
+preceded from last Tuesday until two days later.
+
+The guns were at work at midnight on Tuesday when I passed the English
+Headquarters. This battle had only one purpose so far as the Germans
+were concerned. It was to keep our British soldiers busy, as well as to
+hold the front of the French allies on our right, while their debordant
+movements took place behind this fighting screen.
+
+Once again, as throughout the war, they showed their immense superiority
+in mitrailleuses, which gives them marvelous mobility and a very deadly
+advantage. They masked these quick-firers with great skill until they
+had drawn on the English and French infantry and then spilled lead into
+their ranks. Once again, also the French were too impetuous, as they
+have always been, and as they still are, in spite of Gen. Joffre's
+severe rebuke.
+
+Careless of quick-firers, which experience should have taught them were
+masked behind the enemy's advance posts, they charged with the bayonet,
+and suffered needlessly heavy losses. One can only admire the gallantry
+of men who dare to charge on foot against the enemy's mounted men and
+who actually put a squadron of them to flight, but one must say again:
+"C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre."
+
+There have been many incidents of heroism in these last days of
+fighting. It is, for instance, immensely characteristic of the French
+spirit that an infantry battalion, having put to flight a detachment of
+German outposts in the forest of Compiegne, calmly sat down to have a
+picnic in the woods until, as they sat over their hot soup, laughing at
+their exploit, they were attacked by a new force and cut to pieces.
+
+But let me describe the new significance of the main German advance.
+Their right army has struck down to the southeast of Paris, through
+Chateau Thiery to La Ferte-sur-Jouarre and beyond. Their centre army is
+coming hard down from Troyes, in the Department of the Aube, and the
+army of the left has forced the French to evacuate Rheims and fall back
+in a southwesterly direction.
+
+It would not be right of me to indicate the present position of the
+British troops or describe the great scenes at their base, which is now
+removed to a position which enables our forces to hold the eastern
+approach to Paris. It is a wonderful sight to pass the commissariat
+camp, where, among other munitions of war, is a park of British
+aeroplanes, which are of vital importance to our work of reconnoissance.
+
+Looking, therefore, at the extraordinary transformation throughout the
+field of war in France, one thing stands out clear-cut and distinct.
+Having been thwarted in their purpose to walk through the western way to
+Paris by the enormous forces massed on their flanks, the Germans have
+adopted an entirely new plan of campaign and have thrust their armies
+deep down into the centre of France in order to divide the western
+armies of the Allies from the army on the eastern frontier. It is a
+menacing manoeuvre, and it cannot be hidden that the army of Lorraine is
+in danger of being cut off by the enemy's armies of the left.
+
+At the same time the German right is swinging round in a southwesterly
+direction in order to attack the allied forces on the east and south.
+Paris is thus left out of account for the time being, but it depends
+upon the issues of the next few days whether the threatened peril will
+be averted from it by the immense army now protecting it. I believe the
+spirit of our own troops and their French comrades is so splendid that
+with their new strength they will be equal to that formidable attack.
+
+Nothing certainly is being left to chance. For miles all around Paris
+trenches are being dug in the roads, and little sectional trenches on
+the broad roads of France, first one on this side of the way, and then
+one on the other side, so that a motor car traveling along the road has
+to drive in a series of sharp curves to avoid pitfalls.
+
+There was feverish activity on the west side of the Paris fortifications
+when I passed between St. Germain and St. Denis.
+
+Earthworks are being constantly thrown up between the forts, and the
+triple curves of the Seine are being intrenched so that thousands of men
+may take cover there and form a terrific defense against any attack.
+
+Gen. Gallieni, the Military Governor of Paris, is a man of energy and
+iron resolution, and no doubt under his command Paris, if it has to
+undergo a siege, (which God avert!) will defend itself well, now that it
+has had these precious days of respite.
+
+After wandering along the westerly and southerly roads I started for
+Paris when thousands and scores of thousands were flying from it. At
+that time I believed, as all France believed, that in a few hours German
+shells would be crashing across the fortifications of the city and that
+Paris the beautiful would be Paris the infernal. It needed a good deal
+of resolution on my part to go deliberately to a city from which the
+population was fleeing, and I confess quite honestly that I had a nasty
+sensation in the neighborhood of my waistcoat buttons at the thought.
+
+Along the road from Tours to Paris there were sixty unbroken miles of
+people--on my honor, I do not exaggerate, but write the absolute truth.
+They were all people who had despaired of breaking through the dense
+masses of their fellow-citizens camped around the railway stations, and
+had decided to take to the roads as the only way of escape.
+
+The vehicles were taxicabs, for which the rich paid fabulous prices;
+motor cars which had escaped military requisition, farmers' carts laden
+with several families and piles of household goods, shop carts drawn by
+horses already tired to the point of death because of the weight of the
+people who crowded behind pony traps and governess carts.
+
+Many persons, well dressed and belonging obviously to well-to-do
+bourgeoisie, were wheeling barrows like costers, but instead of
+trundling cabbages were pushing forward sleeping babies and little
+children, who seemed on the first stage to find new amusement and
+excitement in the journey from home; but for the most part they trudged
+along bravely, carrying their babies and holding the hands of their
+little ones.
+
+They were of all classes, rank and fortune being annihilated by the
+common tragedy. Elegant women whose beauty is known in Paris salons,
+whose frivolity, perhaps, in the past was the main purpose of their
+life, were now on a level with the peasant mothers of the French suburbs
+and with the midinettes of Montmartre, and their courage did not fail
+them so quickly.
+
+I looked into many proud, brave faces of these delicate women, walking
+in high-heeled shoes, all too frail for the hard-dusty roadways. They
+belonged to the same race and breed as those ladies who defied death
+with fine disdain upon the scaffold of the guillotine in the great
+Revolution.
+
+They were leaving Paris now, not because of any fears for themselves--I
+believe they were fearless--but because they had decided to save the
+little sons and daughters of soldier fathers.
+
+This great army in retreat was made up of every type familiar in Paris.
+
+Here were women of the gay world, poor creatures whose painted faces had
+been washed with tears, and whose tight skirts and white stockings were
+never made for a long march down the highways of France.
+
+Here also were thousands of those poor old ladies who live on a few
+francs a week in the top attics of the Paris streets, which Balzac knew;
+they had fled from their poor sanctuaries and some of them were still
+carrying cats and canaries, as dear to them as their own lives.
+
+There was one young woman who walked with a pet monkey on her shoulder
+while she carried a bird in a golden cage. Old men, who remembered 1870,
+gave their arms to old ladies to whom they had made love when the
+Prussians were at the gates of Paris then.
+
+It was pitiful to see these old people now hobbling along together.
+Pitiful, but beautiful also, because of their lasting love.
+
+Young boy students, with ties as black as their hats and rat-tail hair,
+marched in small companies of comrades, singing brave songs, as though
+they had no fear in their hearts, and very little food, I think, in
+their stomachs.
+
+Shopgirls and concierges, city clerks, old aristocrats, young boys and
+girls, who supported grandfathers and grandmothers and carried new-born
+babies and gave pick-a-back rides to little brothers and sisters, came
+along the way of retreat.
+
+Each human being in the vast torrent of life will have an unforgettable
+story of adventure to tell if life remains. As a novelist I should have
+been glad to get their narratives along this road for a great story of
+suffering and strange adventure, but there was no time for that and no
+excuse.
+
+When I met many of them they were almost beyond the power of words. The
+hot sun of this September had beaten down upon them--scorching them as
+in the glow of molten metal. Their tongues clave to their mouths with
+thirst.
+
+Some of them had that wild look in their eyes which is the first sign of
+the delirium of thirst and fatigue.
+
+Nothing to eat or drink could be found on the way from Paris. The little
+roadside cafes had been cleared out by the preceding hordes.
+
+Unless these people carried their own food and drink they could have
+none except of the charity of their comrades in misfortune, and that
+charity has exceeded all other acts of heroism in this war. Women gave
+their last biscuit, their last little drop of wine, to poor mothers
+whose children were famishing with thirst and hunger; peasant women fed
+other women's babies when their own were satisfied.
+
+It was a tragic road. At every mile of it there were people who had
+fainted on the roadside and poor old men and women who could go no
+further, but sat on the banks below the hedges, weeping silently or
+bidding younger ones go forward and leave them to their fate. Young
+women who had stepped out so jauntily at first were footsore and lame,
+so they limped along with lines of pain about their lips and eyes.
+
+Many of the taxicabs, bought at great prices, and many of the motor cars
+had broken down as I passed, and had been abandoned by their owners, who
+had decided to walk. Farmers' carts had bolted into ditches and lost
+their wheels. Wheelbarrows, too heavy to be trundled, had been tilted
+up, with all their household goods spilt into the roadway, and the
+children had been carried further, until at last darkness came, and
+their only shelter was a haystack in a field under the harvest moon.
+
+For days also I have been wedged up with fugitives in railway trains
+more dreadful than the open roads, stifling in their heat and
+heart-racking in their cargoes of misery. Poor women have wept
+hysterically clasping my hand, a stranger's hand, for comfort in their
+wretchedness and weakness. Yet on the whole they have shown amazing
+courage, and, after their tears, have laughed at their own breakdown,
+and, always children of France, have been superb, so that again and
+again I have wondered at the gallantry with which they endured this
+horror. Young boys have revealed the heroic strain in them and have
+played the part of men in helping their mothers. And yet, when I came at
+last into Paris against all this tide of retreat, it seemed a needless
+fear that had driven these people away.
+
+Then I passed long lines of beautiful little villas on the Seine side,
+utterly abandoned among their trees and flowers. A solitary fisherman
+held his line above the water as though all the world were at peace, and
+in a field close to the fortifications which I expected to see bursting
+with shells, an old peasant bent above the furrows and planted cabbages.
+Then, at last, I walked through the streets of Paris and found them
+strangely quiet and tranquil.
+
+The people I met looked perfectly calm. There were a few children
+playing in the gardens of Champs Elysees and under the Arc de Triomph
+symbolical of the glory of France.
+
+I looked back upon the beauty of Paris all golden in the light of the
+setting sun, with its glinting spires and white gleaming palaces and
+rays of light flashing in front of the golden trophies of its monuments.
+Paris was still unbroken. No shell had come shattering into this city of
+splendor, and I thanked Heaven that for a little while the peril had
+passed.
+
+
+
+
+*A Zouave's Story*
+
+*By Philip Gibbs of The London Daily Chronicle.*
+
+[Special Dispatch to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
+
+
+CREIL, Sept. 10.--I could write this narrative as a historian, with
+details gathered from many different witnesses at various parts of the
+lines, in a cold and aloof way, but I prefer to tell it in the words of
+a young officer of the Zouaves who was in the thickest of fighting until
+when I met him and gave him wine and biscuits. He was put out of action
+by a piece of shell which smashed his left arm. He told me the story of
+the battle as he sat back, hiding his pain by a little careless smile of
+contempt, and splashed with blood which made a mess of his uniform.
+
+"For four days previous to Monday, Sept. 7," he said, "we were engaged
+in clearing out the German bosches from all the villages on the left
+bank of the Ourcq, which they had occupied in order to protect the flank
+of their right wing. Unfortunately for us the English heavy artillery,
+which would have smashed the beggars to bits, had not yet come up to
+help us, although we expected them with some anxiety, as big business
+events began as soon as we drove the outposts back to their main lines.
+
+"However, we were equal to the preliminary task, and, heartened by the
+news of an ammunition convoy which had been turned into a pretty
+fireworks display by 'Soixante-dix' Pau, my Zouaves, (as you see, I
+belong to the First Division, which has a reputation to keep up, n'est
+ce pas?) were in splendid form. Of course, they all laughed at me. They
+wanted to get near those German guns and nearer still to the gunners.
+That was before they knew the exact meaning of shellfire well.
+
+"They did good things, those Zouaves of mine, but it wasn't pleasant
+work. We fought from village to village, very close fighting, so that
+sometimes we could look into our enemy's eyes. The Moroccans were with
+us. The native troops are unlike my boys, who are Frenchmen, and they
+were like demons with their bayonet work.
+
+"Several of the villages were set on fire by the Germans before they
+retired from them, and soon great columns of smoke with pillars of
+flames and clouds of flying sparks rose up into the blue sky and made a
+picture of hell there, for really it was hell on earth. Our gunners were
+shelling Germans from pillar to post, as it were, and strewing the
+ground with their dead. It was across and among these dead bodies that
+we infantry had to charge.
+
+"They lay about in heaps. It made me sick, even in the excitement of it
+all. The enemy's quick-firers were marvelous. I am bound to say we did
+not get it all our own way. They always manoeuvre them in the same
+style, and a very clever style it is. First of all, they mask them with
+infantry; then, when the French charge, they reveal them and put us to
+the test under the most withering fire. It is almost impossible to stand
+against it, and in this case we had to retire after each rush for about
+250 meters. Then, quick as lightning, the Germans got their
+mitrailleuses across the ground which we had yielded to them and waited
+for us to come on again, when they repeated the same operation.
+
+"I can tell you it was pretty trying to the nerves. My Zouaves were very
+steady in spite of fairly heavy losses. It is quite untrue to say that
+the Germans have a greater number of mitrailleuses than the French. I
+believe that the proportion is exactly the same to each division, but
+they handle them more cleverly, and their fire is much more effective
+than ours.
+
+"In a village named Penchard there was some very sharp fighting, and
+some of our artillery was posted thereabout. Presently a German
+aeroplane came overhead, circling round in reconnoissance; but it was
+out for more than that. Suddenly it began to drop bombs and, whether by
+design or otherwise, they exploded in the middle of a field hospital.
+One of my friends, a young doctor, was wounded in the left arm by a
+bullet from one of these bombs, but I don't know what other casualties
+there were. The inevitable happened shortly after the disappearance of
+the aeroplane. German shells searched the position and found it with
+unpleasant accuracy. It is always the same. The German aeroplanes are
+really wonderful in the way they search out the positions of our guns.
+We always know that within half an hour of observation by aeroplane
+shells will begin to fall above gunners, unless they have altered their
+position. It was so in this fighting round Meaux yesterday.
+
+"For four days this hunting among the villages on the left bank of the
+Ourcq went on all the time, and we were not very happy with ourselves.
+The truth was we had no water and were four days thirsty. It was really
+terrible, for the heat was terrific during the day, and some of us were
+almost mad with thirst. Our tongues were blistered and swollen, our eyes
+had a silly kind of look in them, and at night we had horrid dreams. It
+was, I assure you, intolerable agony.
+
+"I have said we were four days without drink, and that was because we
+used our last water for our horses. A gentleman has to do that, you will
+agree, and a French soldier is not a barbarian. Even then the horses had
+to go without a drop of water for two days, and I'm not ashamed to say I
+wept salt tears to see the sufferings of those poor, innocent creatures
+who did not understand the meaning of all this bloody business and who
+wondered at our cruelty.
+
+"The nights were dreadful. All around us were burning villages, and at
+every faint puff of wind sparks floated about them like falling stars.
+
+"But other fires were burning. Under the cover of darkness the Germans
+had piled the dead into great heaps and had covered them with straw and
+paraffin; then they had set a torch to these funeral pyres.
+
+"Carrion crows were about in the dawn that followed. One of my own
+comrades lay very badly wounded, and when he wakened out of his
+unconsciousness one of these beastly birds was sitting on his chest
+waiting for him to die. That is war.
+
+"The German shells were terrifying. I confess to you that there were
+times when my nerves were absolutely gone. I crouched down with my men
+(we were in open formation) and ducked my head at the sound of the
+bursting shell, and I trembled in every limb as though I had a fit of
+ague.
+
+"It is true that in reality the German shells are not very effective.
+Only about one in four explodes nicely, but it is a bad thing when, as
+happened to me, the shells plopped around in a diameter of fifty meters.
+One hears the zip-zip of bullets, the boom of the great guns, the
+ste-tang of our French artillery, and in all this infernal experience of
+noise and stench, the screams at times of dying horses and men joined
+with the fury of gunfire and rising shrill above it, no man may boast of
+his courage. There were moments when I was a coward with all of them.
+
+"But one gets used to it, as to all things. My ague did not last long.
+Soon I was shouting and cheering. Again we cleared the enemy out of the
+village of Bregy, and that was where I fell, wounded in the arm pretty
+badly by a bit of shell. When I came to myself a brother officer told me
+things were going on well and that we had rolled back the German right.
+That was better than bandages to me. I felt very well again, in spite of
+my weakness.
+
+"It is the beginning of the end, and the Germans are on the run. They
+are exhausted and demoralized. Their pride has been broken; they are
+short of ammunition; they know their plans have failed.
+
+"Now that we have them on the move nothing will save them. This war is
+going to be finished quicker than people thought. I believe that in a
+few days the enemy will be broken and that we shall have nothing more to
+do than kill them as they fight back in retreat."
+
+That is the story, without any retouching of my pen, of a young
+Lieutenant of Zouaves whom I met after the battle of Meaux, with blood
+still splashed upon his uniform.
+
+It is a human story, giving the experience of only one individual in the
+great battle, but it gives also in outline a narrative of that great
+military operation which has done irreparable damage to the German right
+wing in its plan of campaign and thrust it back across the Ourcq in a
+great retiring movement which has also begun upon the German centre and
+left.
+
+
+
+
+*When War Burst on Arras*
+
+[A Special Dispatch to THE NEW YORK TIMES and The London Daily
+Chronicle.]
+
+
+A TOWN IN FRANCE, Oct. 7.--Arras has been the pivot of a fierce battle
+which, commencing Thursday, was still in progress when I was forced to
+leave the citadel three days later.
+
+In that period I was fortunate enough to penetrate into the firing line,
+and the experience is one that will never be dimmed in my memory. Like
+the movements of so many pawns on a mammoth chessboard was the feinting
+with scattered outposts to test the strength of the enemy.
+
+I saw the action open with skirmishes at Vitry-en-Artois, and next
+morning one of the hardest battles which make a link in the chain flung
+right across France of the gigantic battle of rivers was being
+prosecuted before my eyes.
+
+The days that ensued were full of feverish and hectic motion. Arras
+rattled and throbbed with the flow of an army and all the tragedy which
+war brings in its train. There were moments when its cobbled streets
+were threaded by streams of wounded from the country beyond. Guns boomed
+incessantly, a fitting requiem to the sad little processions which
+occasionally revealed that some poor fellow had sacrificed his life for
+the flag which accompanied him to his grave.
+
+I reached Arras on Sept. 29. The Germans had occupied it a fortnight
+earlier. Now it was placid, sleepy, and deserted, and bore no outward
+signs of having suffered from their occupation. I learned, however, that
+although they had refrained from demolishing buildings, there had been
+scenes of debauchery, and private houses had been ransacked.
+
+It was declared that the only German paying for anything during the
+whole of the fortnight's occupation was a member of the Hohenzollern
+family, an important officer who had made the Hotel d'Univers his
+headquarters.
+
+I decided to pass on to Vitry-en-Artois, twelve miles distant and six
+kilometers from Douai, where I had heard the Allies were in force. Here
+I obtained a room in a hotel.
+
+Within a short while I saw armed cars. There came many warriors in many
+cars, cars fitted with mitrailleuses, cars advancing backward, cars with
+two soldiers in the back of each with their rifles rested on the back
+cushions and their fingers on the triggers, and with the muzzles of
+mitrailleuses pointing over their heads. Several cavalry scouts, too,
+are in the streets.
+
+Once I ventured my head a little outside of the door and was curtly
+warned to eliminate myself or possibly I would get shot. I eliminated
+myself for the moment.
+
+Now with dramatic suddenness death touches Vitry with her chill fingers.
+In the distance, right away beyond the bridge behind a bend in the road,
+there is a clatter of hoofs. It stops. Again it goes on and stops for
+about a couple of minutes, and then quite distinctly can be heard the
+sound of a body of horsemen proceeding at a walk.
+
+The cavalry scouts have vanished into big barns on either side of the
+road, and around the corner of the bridge comes a small body of German
+cavalry. They have passed the spot where the French scouts are hidden
+and I have retreated to my bedroom window, from where I can count twelve
+of the Death's Head riders.
+
+They are riding to their fate. Right slap up in front of the cars they
+come. A rifle shot rings out from where the French scouts are hidden,
+then another, and that is the signal for the inferno to be loosed.
+
+C-r-r-r-r-r-ack, and the mitrailleuse spits out a regular hail of death,
+vicious, whiplike, never-ceasing cracks. Two horses are down and three
+men lie prone in the road.
+
+The Germans have not fired a shot, all their energies being concentrated
+in wildly turning their horses to get back again round the bend.
+
+It is too late. Another two are toppled over by the scouts in the barns,
+and then cars are after them, still spitting out an unending hail of
+lead.
+
+It seems impossible that even a fly could live in such a stream of
+bullets, yet out of the dozen three get round the bend, and, galloping
+madly, make for the only spot where they can leave the road and get
+across country. Even the automobile and auto-mitrailleuse men cannot
+follow them there.
+
+These fellows seem perfectly satisfied with a bag of nine, obtained
+without a scratch. All are dead, one of them with over twenty wounds in
+him. Two horses are stone dead, and three others have to be put out of
+their misery. The other four are contentedly standing at the roadside
+munching grass, one with a hind leg lifted a few inches off the ground.
+
+The bodies of the dead Germans are laid side by side in a field to await
+burial. The uniforms are stripped of everything that can be removed,
+buttons and shoulder straps. The men in the cars take the water bottles,
+swords, and revolvers as mementos.
+
+I imperfectly understood the real meaning of this scrap. I had thought
+it was an encounter between stray forces. A talk with the driver of an
+armed car, however, enlarged my perspective. It was a meeting of the
+outposts of two great opposing armies, one of which was at Douai, the
+other at Cambrai. The feelers of both forces were being extended to
+discover the various positions, preparatory to a big battle, which was
+expected on the morrow (Oct. 1) along the line of
+Cambrai-Douai-Valenciennes.
+
+It was understood that the Germans had massed in force at Cambrai and
+strong wings were thrown out on both sides, the outposts of one wing, as
+we have already seen, coming into touch with the French at Vitry.
+
+From the reports of the auto-mitrailleuse men, who cover great
+distances in a day, similar skirmishing had been taking place at Etain,
+(where some farmhouses were burned,) Eterpigny, Croisilles, Boisleux,
+and Boyelles, these places ranging from ten to twenty kilometers from
+Arras.
+
+There was a general exodus from Vitry and I secured standing room in a
+wagon of the last train leaving for Arras. It was loaded with fugitives.
+
+Arras had changed completely on my return. Its calmness was gone. The
+station was empty of civilians, there were no trains running and the
+station entrance was in charge of a strong picket of soldiers, while the
+road outside echoed to the tread of infantry.
+
+I stood still in amazement, while my papers were being closely examined,
+and watched regiment after regiment of foot with their transport trains
+complete marching out on the road to Douai. This was part of the
+preparation for the big battle which I was told was going to begin
+tomorrow.
+
+In the town itself the transformation was still more amazing--soldiers
+in every street, cavalry, infantry, dragoons, lancers, and engineers in
+ones and twos, and parties of twenty or thirty picturesque Moroccans. I
+never saw such a medley of colors and expressions, and the whole town
+was full of them--material for one army corps at least.
+
+I installed myself in quarters at the Hotel de l'Univers, with the
+intention of getting away the first thing in the morning if possible.
+But it was not possible. I was informed that Arras was now under
+military control, and no permits were being issued whatsoever. The
+Lieutenant who told me this smiled as I shrugged my shoulders.
+
+"You will bear witness, Monsieur, that I tried my best to get out," said
+I.
+
+"Certainly; but why go away?" he asked with a smile. "Arras est tres
+belle ville, Monsieur. You have a good hotel, a good bed, and good food.
+Why should you go out?"
+
+And so I stayed at Arras.
+
+That was Sept. 30. The next day I could hear guns. They started at about
+8 o'clock in the morning, the French guns being in position about five
+kilometers outside of Arras to the south, southeast, and east, sixteen
+batteries of France's artillery or 75-millimeter calibre.
+
+All day long the guns thundered and roared, and all day long I sat
+outside the cafe of the Hotel des Voyageurs in the Place de la Gare. The
+station building was right in front of me. I longed for a position which
+would enable me to see over the tall buildings on to the battlefield
+beyond. Even the roof of the station would have suited. There was a
+little crowd of officials already there with their field glasses, and
+they could discern what was going on, for I noticed several pointing
+here and there whenever a particularly loud explosion was heard.
+
+Two men in civilian clothes sat down beside me and gave me "good day,"
+evidently curious as to my nationality. I invited them to join me in
+coffee and cognac, and during the ensuing conversation we all became
+very friendly, and I was given to understand that one of them was the
+volunteer driver of an auto-mitrailleuse who had just come off duty.
+
+I remarked that it would be very interesting to get a sight of what was
+going on behind the station.
+
+"Is it very near--the battle?"
+
+"About five kilometers, Monsieur. The German guns are ten kilometers
+distant. One of the German shells exploded behind the station this
+morning. Would Monsieur like to walk out a little way?"
+
+"But surely the pickets will not let me pass beyond the barrier," said
+I.
+
+My good friend of the auto-mitrailleuse smiled, rose, and buttoned up
+his coat. "Come with me," he invited.
+
+At the barrier we were stopped, but luck had not deserted me, for in the
+Sergeant in charge of the pickets I recognized another cafe acquaintance
+of the previous night. We shook hands, exchanged cigarettes, and
+proceeded up and down numerous streets, bearing always southward in the
+direction of the firing, until the open country was reached.
+
+My companion suddenly caught hold of my arm and we both jumped up the
+bank at the side of the road to let a long string of artillery drivers
+trot past on their way back for more ammunition. Another cloud of dust,
+and coming up behind us was a fresh lot of shells on the way out to the
+firing line.
+
+Right up in the sky ahead suddenly appeared a ball of yellow greeny
+smoke, which grew bigger and bigger, and then "boom" came the sound of a
+gun about three seconds afterward. A shell had burst in the air about
+300 yards away. Another and another came--all about the same place. They
+appeared to come from the direction of Bapaume.
+
+"Bad, very bad," commented my companion. And so it appeared to me, for
+the Germans were dropping their shells from the southeast, at least one
+kilometer over range. We were standing beside a strawstack and looking
+due south, watching the just discernible line of French guns, when we
+heard the ominous whistling screech of an approaching shell. Down on our
+faces behind the stack, down we went like lightning, and over to the
+left, not 200 yards away, rose a huge column of black smoke and earth,
+and just afterward a very loud boom. A big German gun had come into
+action, slightly nearer this time.
+
+Just behind a wood I could plainly see the smoke of the gun itself
+rising above the trees. Two more shells from the big gun exploded within
+twenty yards of each other, and then, with disconcerting suddenness, a
+French battery came into action within a hundred yards of our strawstack
+cover. They had evidently been there for some time, awaiting
+eventualities, for we had no suspicion of their proximity, and they were
+completely hidden.
+
+My ears are still tingling and buzzing from the sound of those guns. One
+after another the guns of this battery bombarded the newly taken up
+position of the German big guns, which replied with one shell every
+three minutes.
+
+Presently we had the satisfaction of hearing a violent explosion in the
+wood, and a column of smoke and flame rose up to a great height.
+
+Soixante-quinze had again scored, for the German guns had been put out
+of action. From out the French position came infantry, at this point
+thousands of little dots over the landscape, presenting a front of, I
+should think, about two miles, rapidly advancing in skirmishing order.
+Every now and then the sharp crackle of rifle fire could distinctly be
+heard.
+
+The French had advanced over a mile, and the Germans had hastily
+evacuated the wood. Other French batteries now came into action, and the
+German fire over the whole arc was becoming decidedly fainter and less
+frequent. This might, of course, be due to changing their positions on
+the German front.
+
+Wounded began to arrive, which showed that for the present at any rate,
+it was safe to go out to the trenches to collect them.
+
+Very few of them seemed badly hit, and the wounded French artillerymen
+seemed to be elated in spite of their wounds. Had not their beloved
+Soixante-quinze again scored? The time was 6 o'clock of a beautiful
+evening and the firing, though fairly continuous, was dropping off. The
+Germans had changed their positions and it was getting a little too hazy
+to make observation, although a French aeroplane was seen descending in
+wide circles over the German position, evidently quite regardless of the
+numerous small balls of smoke, which made their appearance in the sky in
+dangerous proximity to the daring pilot.
+
+It is very interesting to watch these aeroplane shells bursting in the
+air. First of all one sees a vivid little streak of bluish white light
+in the sky, and then instantaneously a smoke ball, which appears to be
+about the size of a football, is seen in the sky, always fairly close to
+the machine. Then there is the sound of an explosion like a giant
+cracker.
+
+Occasionally several guns will fire at about the same time, and it is
+weird to watch the various balls of smoke, apparently coming into being
+from nowhere, all around the machine. Sometimes one of these shells,
+which are filled with a species of shrapnel, bursts rather unpleasantly
+near the aeroplane, and then one sees the machine turn quickly and rise
+a little higher.
+
+Two or three holes have been neatly drilled through the planes. Perhaps
+one has appeared in the body of the machine, rather too near the pilot
+for safety; but it is a big gamble, anyhow, and besides the pilot has
+been instructed to find out where the various positions are, and he
+means to do it.
+
+So he simply rises a little higher and calmly continues his big circles
+over the German position.
+
+I take off my hat to these brave men, the aeroplane pilots. They are
+willing to chance their luck. What matters it if their machine gets hit,
+if the planes are riddled with holes? It will still fly, even if the
+engine gets a fatal wound and stops.
+
+The pilot, if he is high enough, can still glide to safety in his own
+lines. But (and it is a big "but") should a shrapnel ball find its
+billet in the pilot--well, one has only to die once, and it is a quick
+and sure death to fall with one's machine.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+*The Battles in Belgium*
+
+[An Associated Press Dispatch.]
+
+
+LONDON, Oct. 26, 4:40 A.M.--The correspondent of The Daily News, who has
+been in an armored train to the banks of the Yser, gives a good
+description of the battle in the North. He says:
+
+"The battle rages along the Yser with frightful destruction of life. Air
+engines, sea engines, and land engines deathsweep this desolate country,
+vertically, horizontally, and transversely. Through it the frail little
+human engines crawl and dig, walk and run, skirmishing, charging, and
+blundering in little individual fights and tussles, tired and puzzled,
+ordered here and there, sleeping where they can, never washing, and
+dying unnoticed. A friend may find himself firing on a friendly force,
+and few are to blame.
+
+"Thursday the Germans were driven back over the Yser; Friday they
+secured a footing again, and Saturday they were again hurled back. Now a
+bridge blown up by one side is repaired by the other; it is again blown
+up by the first, or left as a death trap till the enemy is actually
+crossing.
+
+"Actions by armored trains, some of them the most reckless adventures,
+are attempted daily. Each day accumulates an unwritten record of
+individual daring feats, accepted as part of the daily work. Day by day
+our men push out on these dangerous explorations, attacked by shell
+fire, in danger of cross-fire, dynamite, and ambuscades, bringing a
+priceless support to the threatened lines. As the armored train
+approaches the river under shell fire the car cracks with the constant
+thunder of guns aboard. It is amazing to see the angle at which the guns
+can be swung.
+
+"And overhead the airmen are busy venturing through fog and puffs of
+exploding shells to get one small fact of information. We used to regard
+the looping of the loop of the Germans overhead as a hare-brained piece
+of impudent defiance to our infantry fire. Now we know its means early
+trouble for the infantry.
+
+"Besides us, as we crawl up snuffing the lines like dogs on a scent,
+grim trainloads of wounded wait soundlessly in the sidings. Further up
+the line ambulances are coming slowly back. The bullets of machine guns
+begin to rattle on our armored coats. Shells we learned to disregard,
+but the machine gun is the master in this war.
+
+"Now we near the river at a flat country farm. The territory is scarred
+with trenches, and it is impossible to say at first who is in them, so
+incidental and separate are the fortunes of this riverside battle. The
+Germans are on our bank enfilading the lines of the Allies' trenches. We
+creep up and the Germans come into sight out of the trenches, rush to
+the bank, and are scattered and mashed. The Allies follow with a fierce
+bayonet charge.
+
+"The Germans do not wait. They rush to the bridges and are swept away by
+the deadliest destroyer of all, the machine gun. The bridge is blown up,
+but who can say by whom. Quickly the train runs back.
+
+"'A brisk day,' remarks the correspondent. 'Not so bad,' replies the
+officer. So the days pass."
+
+The Telegraph's correspondent in Belgium, who, accompanied by a son of
+the Belgian War Minister, M. de Broqueville, made a tour of the
+battleground in the Dixmude district last Wednesday, says:
+
+"No pen could do justice to the grandeur and horror of the scene. As far
+as the eye could reach nothing could be seen but burning villages and
+bursting shells. I realized for the first time how completely the motor
+car had revolutionized warfare and how every other factor was now
+dominated by the absence or presence of this unique means of transport.
+
+"Every road to the front was simply packed with cars. They seemed an
+ever-rolling, endless stream, going and returning to the front, while in
+many villages hundreds of private cars were parked under the control of
+the medical officer, waiting in readiness to carry the wounded.
+
+"Arrived at the firing line, a terrible scene presented itself. The
+shell fire from the German batteries was so terrific that Belgian
+soldiers and French marines were continually being blown out of their
+dugouts and sent scattering to cover. Elsewhere, also, little groups of
+peasants were forced to flee because their cellars began to fall in.
+These unfortunates had to make their way as best they could on foot to
+the rear. They were frightened to death by the bursting shells, and the
+sight of crying children among them was most pathetic.
+
+"Dixmude was the objective of the German attack, and shells were
+bursting all over it, crashing among the roofs and blowing whole streets
+to pieces. From a distance of three miles we could hear them crashing
+down, but the town itself was invisible, except for the flames and the
+smoke and clouds rising above it. The Belgians had only a few field
+batteries, so that the enemy's howitzers simply dominated the field, and
+the infantry trenches around the town had to rely upon their own unaided
+efforts.
+
+"Our progress along the road was suddenly stopped by one of the most
+horrible sights I have ever seen. A heavy howitzer shell had fallen and
+burst right in the midst of a Belgian battery, making its way to the
+front, causing terrible destruction. The mangled horses and men among
+the debris presented a shocking spectacle.
+
+"Eventually, we got into Dixmude itself, and every time a shell came
+crashing among the roofs we thought our end had come. The Hotel de Ville
+(town hall) was a sad sight. The roof was completely riddled by shell,
+while inside was a scene of chaos. It was piled with loaves of bread,
+bicycles, and dead soldiers.
+
+"The battle redoubled in fury, and by 7 o'clock in the evening Dixmude
+was a furnace, presenting a scene of terrible grandeur. The horizon was
+red with burning homes.
+
+"Our return journey was a melancholy one, owing to the constant trains
+of wounded that were passing."
+
+The Daily Mail's Rotterdam correspondent, telegraphing Sunday evening,
+says:
+
+"Slowly but surely the Germans are being beaten back on the western
+wing, and old men and young lads are being hurried to the front. The
+enemy were in strong force at Dixmude, where the Allies were repulsed
+once, only to attack again with renewed vigor.
+
+"Roulers resembles a shambles. It was taken and retaken four times, and
+battered to ruins in the process. The German guns made the place
+untenable for the Allies.
+
+"An Oosburg message says the firing at Ostend is very heavy, and that
+the British are shelling the suburbs, which are held by the Germans.
+Last night and this morning large bodies of Germans left Bruges for
+Ostend. It is believed the Ostend piers have been blown up."
+
+"The position on the coast is stationary this morning," says a Daily
+Mail dispatch from Flushing, Netherlands, under date of Sunday. "There
+is less firing and it is more to the southward. No alteration of the
+situation is reported from Ostend.
+
+"The German losses are frightful. Three meadows near Ostend are heaped
+with dead. The wounded are now installed in private houses in Bruges,
+where large wooden sheds are being rushed up to receive additional
+injured. Thirty-seven farm wagons containing wounded, dying, and dead
+passed in one hour near Middelkerke.
+
+"The Germans have been working at new intrenchments between Coq sur Mer
+and Wenduyne to protect their road to Bruges."
+
+Gen. von Tripp and nearly all his staff, who were killed in a church
+tower at Leffinghe by the fire from the British warships, have been
+buried in Ostend.
+
+[Illustration: Flanders and Northern France--How the Battle Line Has
+Changed (Up to Jan. 1, 1915) Since the War Began.]
+
+
+
+
+*Seeking Wounded on Battle Front*
+
+By Philip Gibbs of The London Daily Chronicle.
+
+
+FURNES, Belgium, Oct. 21.--The staff of the English hospital, to which a
+mobile column has been attached for field work, has arrived here with a
+convoy of ambulances and motor cars. This little party of doctors,
+nurses, stretcher-bearers, and chauffeurs, under the direction of Dr.
+Bevis and Dr. Munro, has done splendid work in Belgium, and many of them
+were in the siege of Antwerp.
+
+Miss Macnaughton, the novelist, was one of those who went through this
+great test of courage, and Lady Dorothie Feilding, one of Lord Denbigh's
+daughters, won everybody's love by her gallantry and plucky devotion to
+duty in many perilous hours. She takes all risks with laughing courage.
+She has been under fire in many hot skirmishes, and has helped bring
+away the wounded from the fighting around Ghent when her own life might
+have paid the forfeit for defiance to bursting shells.
+
+This morning a flying column of the hospital was preparing to set out in
+search of wounded men on the firing line under direction of Lieut. de
+Broqueville, son of the Belgian War Minister. The Lieutenant, very cool
+and debonair, was arranging the order of the day with Dr. Munro. Lady
+Dorothie Feilding and the two other women in field kit stood by their
+cars, waiting for the password. There were four stretcher-bearers,
+including Mr. Gleeson, an American, who has worked with this party
+around Ghent and Antwerp, proving himself to be a man of calm and quiet
+courage at a critical moment, always ready to take great risks in order
+to bring in a wounded man.
+
+It was decided to take three ambulances and two motor cars. Lieut. de
+Broqueville anticipated a heavy day's work. He invited me to accompany
+the column in a car which I shared with Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett of The
+London Daily Telegraph, who also volunteered for the expedition.
+
+We set out before noon, winding our way through the streets of Furnes.
+We were asked to get into Dixmude, where there were many wounded. It is
+about ten miles away from Furnes. As we went along the road, nearer to
+the sound of the great guns which for the last hour or two had been
+firing incessantly, we passed many women and children. They were on
+their way to some place further from the firing. Poor old grandmothers
+in black bonnets and skirts trudged along the lines of poplars with
+younger women, who clasped their babies tightly in one hand, while with
+the other they carried heavy bundles of household goods.
+
+Along the road came German prisoners, marching rapidly between mounted
+guards. Many of them were wounded, and all of them had a wild, famished,
+terror-stricken look.
+
+At a turn in the road the battle lay before us, and we were in the zone
+of fire. Away across the fields was a line of villages with the town of
+Dixmude a little to the right of us, perhaps a mile and a quarter away.
+From each little town smoke was rising in separate columns which met at
+the top in a great black pall. At every moment this blackness was
+brightened by puffs of electric blue, extraordinarily vivid, as shells
+burst in the air. From the mass of houses in each town came jets of
+flame, following explosions which sounded with terrific thudding shocks.
+On a line of about nine miles there was an incessant cannonade. The
+farthest villages were already on fire.
+
+Quite close to us, only about half a mile across the fields to the left,
+there were Belgian batteries at work and rifle fire from many trenches.
+We were between two fires, and Belgian and German shells came screeching
+over our heads. The German shells were dropping quite close to us,
+plowing up the fields with great pits. We could hear them burst and
+scatter and could see them burrow.
+
+[Illustration: ADMIRAL SIR JOHN JELLICOE
+Commanding the British Fleets
+(_Photo from Rogers._)]
+
+[Illustration: GEN. VICTOR DANKL
+The Austrian Commander in the Russian Campaign
+(_Photo from Bain News Service._)]
+
+In front of us on the road lay a dreadful barrier, which brought us to a
+halt. A German shell had fallen right on top of an ammunition convoy.
+Four horses had been blown to pieces and their carcasses lay strewn
+across the road. The ammunition wagon had been broken into fragments and
+smashed and burned to cinders by the explosion of its own shells. A
+Belgian soldier lay dead, cut in half by a great fragment of steel.
+Further along the road were two other dead horses in pools of blood. It
+was a horrible and sickening sight, from which one turned away
+shuddering with cold sweat, but we had to pass it after some of this
+dead flesh had been dragged away.
+
+Further down the road we had left two of the cars in charge of Lady
+Dorothie Feilding and her two nurses. They were to wait there until we
+brought back some of the wounded. Two ambulances came on with our light
+car, commanded by Lieut. Broqueville and Dr. Munro. Mr. Gleeson asked me
+to help him as stretcher-bearer. Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett was to work with
+one of the other stretcher-bearers.
+
+I was in one of the ambulances, and Mr. Gleeson sat behind me in the
+narrow space between the stretchers. Over his shoulder he talked in a
+quiet voice of the job that lay before us. I was glad of that quiet
+voice, so placid in its courage. We went forward at what seemed to me a
+crawl, though I think it was a fair pace, shells bursting around us now
+on all sides, while shrapnel bullets sprayed the earth about us. It
+appeared to me an odd thing that we were still alive. Then we came into
+Dixmude.
+
+When I saw it for the first and last time it was a place of death and
+horror. The streets through which we passed were utterly deserted and
+wrecked from end to end, as though by an earthquake. Incessant
+explosions of shell fire crashed down upon the walls which still stood.
+Great gashes opened in the walls, which then toppled and fell. A roof
+came tumbling down with an appalling clatter. Like a house of cards
+blown by a puff of wind, a little shop suddenly collapsed into a mass of
+ruins. Here and there, further into the town, we saw living figures.
+They ran swiftly for a moment and then disappeared into dark caverns
+under toppling porticos. They were Belgian soldiers.
+
+We were now in a side street leading into the Town Hall square. It
+seemed impossible to pass, owing to the wreckage strewn across the road.
+"Try to take it," said Dr. Munro, who was sitting beside the chauffeur.
+We took it, bumping over heaps of debris, and then swept around into the
+square. It was a spacious place, with the Town Hall at one side of
+it--or what was left of the Town Hall; there was only the splendid shell
+of it left, sufficient for us to see the skeleton of a noble building
+which had once been the pride of Flemish craftsmen. Even as we turned
+toward it parts of it were falling upon the ruins already on the ground.
+I saw a great pillar lean forward and then topple down. A mass of
+masonry crashed from the portico. Some stiff, dark forms lay among the
+fallen stones; they were dead soldiers. I hardly glanced at them, for we
+were in search of the living.
+
+Our cars were brought to a halt outside the building, and we all climbed
+down. I lighted a cigarette, and I noticed two of the other men fumble
+for matches for the same purpose. We wanted something to steady our
+nerves. There was never a moment when shell fire was not bursting in
+that square. Shrapnel bullets whipped the stones. The Germans were
+making a target of the Town Hall and dropping their shells with dreadful
+exactitude on either side of it.
+
+I glanced toward the flaming furnace to the right of the building. There
+was a wonderful glow at the heart of it, yet it did not give me any
+warmth. At that moment Dr. Munro and Lieut. de Broqueville mounted the
+steps of the Town Hall, followed by Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett and myself. Mr.
+Gleeson was already taking down a stretcher; he had a little smile
+about his lips.
+
+A French officer and two men stood under the broken archway of the
+entrance, between the fallen pillars and masonry. A yard away from them
+lay a dead soldier, a handsome young man with clear-cut features turned
+upward to the gaping roof. A stream of blood was coagulating around his
+head, but did not touch the beauty of his face. Another dead man lay
+huddled up quite close, and his face was hidden.
+
+"Are there any wounded here, Sir?" asked our young Lieutenant. The other
+officer spoke excitedly. He was a brave man, but he could not hide the
+terror in his soul, because he had been standing so long waiting for
+death, which stood beside him, but did not touch him. It appeared from
+his words that there were several wounded men among the dead down in the
+cellar, and that he would be obliged to us if we could rescue them.
+
+We stood on some steps, looking down into that cellar. It was a dark
+hole, illumined dimly by a lantern, I think. I caught sight of a little
+heap of huddled bodies. Two soldiers, still unwounded, dragged three of
+them out and handed them up to us. The work of getting those three men
+into the first ambulance seemed to us interminable; it was really no
+more than fifteen or twenty minutes. During that time Dr. Munro,
+perfectly calm and quiet, was moving about the square, directing the
+work. Lieut. de Broqueville was making inquiries about other wounded in
+other houses. I lent a hand to one of the stretcher-bearers. What the
+others were doing I do not know, except that Mr. Gleeson's calm face
+made a clear-cut image on my brain.
+
+I had lost consciousness of myself. Something outside myself, as it
+seemed, was saying that there was no way of escape; that it was
+monstrous to suppose that all these bursting shells would not smash the
+ambulance to bits and finish the agony of the wounded, and that death
+was very hideous. I remember thinking, also, how ridiculous it was for
+men to kill one another like this and to make such hells on earth.
+
+Then Lieut. de Broqueville spoke a word of command; the first ambulance
+must now get back. I was with the first ambulance, in Mr. Gleeson's
+company. We had a full load of wounded men, and we were loitering. I put
+my head outside the cover and gave the word to the chauffeur. As I did
+so a shrapnel bullet came past my head, and, striking a piece of
+ironwork, flattened out and fell at my feet. I picked it up and put it
+in my pocket, though God alone knows why, for I was not in search of
+souvenirs.
+
+So we started with the first ambulance through those frightful streets
+again and out into the road to the country. "Very hot!" said one of the
+men--I think it was the chauffeur. Somebody else asked if we should get
+through with luck. Nobody answered the question. The wounded men with us
+were very quiet; I thought they were dead. There was only an incessant
+cannonade and the crashing of buildings. The mitrailleuses were at work
+now, spitting out bullets. It was a worse sound than that of the shells;
+it seemed more deadly in its rattle. I started back behind the car and
+saw the other ambulance in our wake. I did not see the motor car.
+
+Along the country roads the fields were still being plowed by shells
+which burst over our heads. We came to a halt again in a place where
+soldiers were crouched under cottage walls. There were few walls now,
+and inside some of the remaining cottages were many wounded men. Their
+comrades were giving them first aid and wiping the blood out of their
+eyes. We managed to take some of these on board. They were less quiet
+than the others we had, and groaned in a heartrending way.
+
+A little later we made a painful discovery--Lieut. de Broqueville, our
+gallant young leader, was missing. By some horrible mischance he had not
+taken his place in either of the ambulances or the motor cars. None of
+us had the least idea what had happened to him; we had all imagined that
+he had scrambled up like the rest of us, after giving the order to get
+away.
+
+There was only one thing to do--to get back in search of him. Even in
+the half hour since we had left the town Dixmude had burst into flames
+and was a great blazing torch. If de Broqueville were left in that hell
+he would not have a chance of life.
+
+It was Mr. Gleeson and Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett who, with great gallantry,
+volunteered to go back and search for our leader. They took the light
+car and sped back toward the burning town. The ambulances went on with
+their cargo of wounded, and Lady Dorothie Feilding and I were left alone
+for a little time in one of the cars. We drove back along the road
+toward Dixmude, and rescued another wounded man left in a wayside
+cottage.
+
+By this time there were five towns blazing in the darkness, and in spite
+of the awful suspense which we were now suffering we could not help
+staring at the fiendish splendor of that sight.
+
+Dr. Munro joined us again, and after consultation we decided to get as
+near to Dixmude as we could, in case our friends had to come out without
+their car or had been wounded.
+
+The German bombardment was now terrific. All the guns were concentrated
+upon Dixmude and the surrounding trenches. In the darkness under a
+stable wall I stood listening to the great crashes for an hour, when I
+had not expected such a lease of life. Inside the stable soldiers were
+sleeping in the straw, careless that at any moment a shell might burst
+through upon them. The hour seemed a night; then we saw the gleam of
+headlights, and an English voice called out.
+
+Ashmead-Bartlett and Gleeson had come back. They had gone to the
+entrance to Dixmude, but could get no further, owing to the flames and
+shells. They, too, had waited for an hour, but had not found de
+Broqueville. It seemed certain that he was dead; and, very sorrowfully,
+as there was nothing to be done, we drove back to Furnes.
+
+At the gate of the convent were some Belgian ambulances which had come
+from another part of the front with their wounded. I helped to carry
+one of them in, and strained my shoulders with the weight of the
+stretcher. Another wounded man put his arm around my neck, and then,
+with a dreadful cry, collapsed, so that I had to hold him in a strong
+grip. A third man, horribly smashed about the head, walked almost
+unaided into the operating room. Mr. Gleeson and I led him with just a
+touch on his arm. This morning he lies dead on a little pile of straw in
+a quiet corner of the courtyard.
+
+I sat down to a supper, which I had not expected to eat. There was a
+strange excitement in my body, which trembled a little after the day's
+adventures. It seemed very strange to be sitting down to table with
+cheerful faces about me, but some of the faces were not cheerful. Those
+of us who knew of the disappearance of de Broqueville sat silently over
+our soup.
+
+Then suddenly Lady Dorothie Feilding gave a little cry of joy, and
+Lieut. de Broqueville came walking briskly forward. It seemed a miracle;
+it was hardly less than that. For several hours after our departure from
+Dixmude he had remained in that inferno. He had missed us when he went
+down into the cellar to haul out another wounded man, forgetting that he
+had given us the order to start. There he had remained, with buildings
+crashing all around him until the German fire had died down a little. He
+succeeded in rescuing his wounded man, for whom he found room in a
+Belgian ambulance outside the town and walked back along the road to
+Furnes.
+
+We clasped hands and were thankful for his escape. This morning he has
+gone again to what is left of Dixmude with a flying column. Dr. Munro
+and Mr. Gleeson, with Lady Dorothie Feilding and her friends, are in the
+party, although in Dixmude German infantry have taken possession of the
+outer ruins.
+
+The courage of this English field ambulance under the Belgian Red Cross
+is one of those splendid things which shine through this devil's work of
+war.
+
+
+
+
+*At the Kaiser's Headquarters*
+
+By Cyril Brown of The New York Times.
+
+
+GERMAN GREAT HEADQUARTERS IN FRANCE, Oct. 20.--The most vulnerable,
+vital spot of the whole German Empire is, paradoxically, in France--the
+small city on the Meuse where the Grosses Hauptquartier, the brains of
+the whole German fighting organism, has been located for the last few
+weeks. After a lucky dash through the forbidden zone of France held by
+the Germans I managed to pay a surprise visit to the Great Headquarters,
+where, among other interesting sights, I have already seen the Kaiser,
+the King of Saxony, the Crown Prince, Major Langhorne, the American
+Military Attache; Field Marshal von Moltke, and shoals of lesser
+celebrities with which the town is overrun. My stay is of indeterminate
+length, and only until the polite but insistent pressure which the
+Kaiser's secret police and the General Staff are bringing to bear on
+their unbidden guest to leave becomes irresistible.
+
+It was a sometime TIMES reader, a German brakeman, who had worked in New
+York and was proud of being able to speak "American," who helped me to
+slip aboard the military postzug (post train) that left the important
+military centre of L---- at 1:30 A.M. and started to crawl toward the
+front with a mixed cargo of snoring field chaplains, soldiers rejoining
+their units, officers with iron crosses pinned to their breasts,
+ambulance men who talked gruesome shop, fresh meat, surgical supplies,
+mail bags, &c. Sometimes the train would spurt up to twelve miles an
+hour. There were long stops at every station, while unshaven Landsturm
+men on guard scanned the car windows in search of spies by the light of
+their electric flash lamps. After many hours somebody said we were now
+in Belgium.
+
+There are no longer any bothersome customs formalities at the Belgian
+border, but the ghost of a house that had been knocked into a cocked hat
+by a shell indicated that we were in the land of the enemy. Houses that
+looked as if they had been struck by a Western cyclone now became more
+numerous. A village church steeple had a jagged hole clean through it.
+After more hours somebody else said we were in France. Every bridge,
+culvert, and crossroad was guarded by heavily bearded Landsturm men, who
+all looked alike in their funny, antiquated, high black leather
+helmets--usually in twos--the countryside dotted with cheery little
+watch fires.
+
+In the little French villages all lights were out in the houses. The
+streets were barred like railroad crossings except that the poles were
+painted in red-white-black stripes, a lantern hanging from the middle of
+the barrier to keep the many army automobiles that passed in the night
+from running amuck.
+
+Sedan, a beehive of activity, was reached at daybreak. Here most of the
+military, plus the Field Chaplains, got out. From here on daylight
+showed the picturesque ruin the French themselves had wrought--the
+frequent tangled wreckage of dynamited steel railway bridges sticking
+out of the waters of the river, piles of shattered masonry damming the
+current, here and there half an arch still standing of a once beautiful
+stone footbridge. I was told that over two hundred bridges had been
+blown up by the retreating French in their hopeless attempt to delay the
+German advance in this part of France alone.
+
+Several hours more of creeping over improvised wooden bridges and
+restored roadbeds brought the post train to the French city that had
+20,000 inhabitants before the war which the Kaiser and the Great
+Headquarters now occupy.
+
+Wooden signs printed in black letters, "Verboten," (forbidden,) now
+ornament the pretty little park, with its fountain still playing,
+outside the railroad station. The paths are guarded by picked
+grenadiers, not Landsturm men this time, while an officer of the guard
+makes his ceaseless rounds. Opposite the railroad station, on the other
+side of the little park, is an unpretentious villa of red brick and
+terra cotta trimmings, but two guard houses painted with red-white-black
+stripes flank the front door and give it a look of importance. The
+street at either end is barred by red, white and black striped poles and
+strapping grenadiers on guard are clustered thick about it. You don't
+need to ask who lives there. The red brick house (it would not rent for
+more than $100 a month in any New York suburb) is the present temporary
+residence of the Over War Lord. Its great attraction for the Kaiser, I
+am told, is the large, secluded garden in the rear where this other "man
+of destiny" loves to walk and meditate or, more usually, talk--though
+the few remaining French inhabitants could have a frequent opportunity
+of seeing him walk in the little closed public park if they were
+interested, but the natives seem outwardly utterly apathetic.
+
+Several of the Kaiser's household, in green Jaeger uniforms, were
+lounging around the door for an early morning airing, while secret
+service men completed the picture by hovering in the immediate
+neighborhood. You can tell that they are German secret service agents
+because they all wear felt alpine hats, norfolk jackets, waterproof
+cloth capes and a bored expression. They have been away from Berlin for
+nearly three months now. About fifty of them constitute the "Secret
+Field Police" and their station house is half a block away from the
+Kaiser's residence.
+
+Just around the corner from the Kaiser, within a stone's throw of his
+back door, is another red-brick house with terra-cotta trimmings, rather
+larger and more imposing. The names of its new residents, "Hahnke,"
+"Caprivi," and "Graf von Moltke," are scrawled in white chalk on the
+stone post of the gateway. Further up the same street another chalk
+scrawl on a quite imposing mansion informed me that "The Imperial
+Chancellor" and "The Foreign Office" had set up shop there. Near by were
+Grand Admiral von Tirpitz's field quarters. A bank building on another
+principal street bore the sign, "War Cabinet."
+
+The Great General Staff occupies the quaint old Hotel de Ville. An
+unmolested ramble showed that all the best residences and business
+buildings in the heart of the town were required to house the members of
+the Great Headquarters, who number, in addition to the Kaiser and his
+personal entourage, thirty-six chiefs or department heads, including the
+Imperial Chancellor, the War Minister, the Chief of the Great General
+Staff, the Chief of the Naval General Staff, the Chief of the Ammunition
+Supply, the Chief of the Field Railways, the Chief of the Field
+Telephone and Telegraph Service, the Chief of the Sanitary Service, the
+Chief of the Volunteer Automobile Corps, &c., making, with secretaries,
+clerks, ordonnances, and necessary garrison, a community of 1,200 souls.
+
+I could not help wondering why the Allies' aviators weren't "on the
+job." A dozen, backed up by an intelligent Intelligence Department,
+could so obviously settle the fortunes of the war by blowing out the
+brains of their enemy. Perhaps that is why the whereabouts of the Great
+Headquarters is guarded as a jealous secret. The soldiers at the front
+don't know where it is, nor the man on the street at home, and, of
+course, its location is not breathed in the German press. Theoretically,
+only those immediately concerned are "in the know." Visitors are not
+allowed, neutral foreign correspondents are told by the authorities in
+Berlin that "it is impossible" to go to the Grosser Hauptquartier.
+
+Two aeroplane guns are mounted on the hills across the river at a point
+immediately opposite the Kaiser's residence, while near them a picked
+squad of sharpshooters is on the watch night and day for hostile fliers.
+To further safeguard not only the person of the Kaiser but the brains
+of the fighting machine the spy hunt is kept up here with unrelenting
+pertinacity.
+
+"We went over the town with a fine-tooth comb and cleaned out all the
+suspicious characters the very first day we arrived," said a friendly
+detective.
+
+"There are no cranks or anarchists left here. Today the order is going
+out to arrest all men of military age--between 18 and 45--but there are
+few, if any, left. We also made a house-to-house search for arms and
+collected three wagonloads, mostly old.
+
+"Our Kaiser is as safe here now as he would be anywhere in Germany. We
+know every one who arrives and leaves town. It seems impossible for a
+spy to slip in and still more to slip out again through the lines--but
+we are always on the watch for the impossible. The fear of spies is not
+a delusion or a form of madness, as you suggest. Here is one case of my
+personal knowledge: A German Boy Scout of 16, who had learned to speak
+French and English perfectly at school, volunteered his services and was
+attached to the staff of an army corps. This young chap succeeded in
+slipping into Rheims, where he was able to locate the positions of the
+French batteries and machine guns, and make his way back to our lines
+with this invaluable information. For this feat the boy received the
+Iron Cross. After being in the field for six weeks he got home-sick,
+however, and has been allowed to go home for a visit."
+
+From a spectacular point of view the Great Headquarters is rather
+disappointing. A few mixed patrols of Uhlans, dragoons, and hussars
+occasionally ride through the principal streets to exercise their
+horses. Occasionally, too, you see a small squad of strapping
+grenadiers, who break into the goose step on the slightest provocation
+as when they pass a General or other officer of the Great General Staff,
+whom you recognize by the broad red stripes on their "field gray"
+trousers.
+
+There is no pomp or ceremony even when royalty is running around at
+large. Thus when the King of Saxony arrived in town, a few hours after
+I did, no fuss was made whatever. The Saxon King and his staff, three
+touring car loads, all in field gray, drove straight to the villa
+assigned them, and, after reciprocal informal visits between King and
+Kaiser, the former left to visit some of the battlefields on which Saxon
+troops had fought, and later paid a visit to his troops at the front.
+For this exploit, the Kaiser promptly bestowed on him the Iron Cross,
+first and second class, on his return to town.
+
+Even the Kaiser's heart is not covered with medals, nor does he wear the
+gorgeous white plume parade helmet nowadays, when going out for a
+horse-back ride or a drive. I saw him come from a motor run late in the
+afternoon--four touring cars full of staff officers and personal
+entourage--and was struck by the complete absence of pomp and ceremony.
+In the second car sat the Kaiser, wearing the dirty green-gray uniform
+of his soldiers in the field. At a distance of fifteen feet, the Over
+War Lord looked physically fit, but quite sober--an intense earnestness
+of expression that seemed to mirror the sternness of the times.
+
+The Kaiser goes for a daily drive or ride about the countryside usually
+in the afternoon, but occasionally he is allowed to have a real outing
+by his solicitous entourage--a day and more rarely a [Transcriber: text
+missing in original]
+
+"His Majesty is never so happy as when he is among his troops at the
+front," another transplanted Berlin detective told me. "If his Majesty
+had his way he would be among them all the time, preferably sleeping
+under canvas and roughing it like the rest--eating the 'simple' food
+prepared by his private field kitchen. But his life is too valuable to
+be risked in that way, and his personal Adjutant, von Plessen, who
+watches over his Majesty like a mother or a governess, won't let him go
+to the front often. His Majesty loves his soldiers and would be among
+them right up at the firing line if he were not constantly watched and
+kept in check by his devoted von Plessen." However, the Kaiser sleeps
+within earshot of the not very distant thunder of the German heavy
+artillery pounding away at Rheims, plainly heard here at night when the
+wind blows from the right direction.
+
+Of barbarism or brutality the writer saw no signs, either here or at
+other French villages occupied by the Germans. The behavior of the
+common soldiers toward the natives is exemplary and in most cases
+kindly. There are many touches of human interest. I saw about a hundred
+of the most destitute hungry townsfolk, mostly women with little
+children, hanging around one of the barracks at the outskirts of the
+town until after supper the German soldiers came out and distributed the
+remnants of their black bread rations to them. It is not an uncommon
+sight to see staff officers as well as soldiers stopping on the streets
+to hand out small alms to the begging women and children. Many of the
+shops in town were closed and boarded up at the approach of the
+Prussians, but small hotel keepers, cafe proprietors, and tradesmen who
+had the nerve to remain and keep open are very well satisfied with the
+German invasion in one way, for they never made so much money before in
+their lives. Most of the German soldiers garrisoned here have picked up
+a few useful words of French; all of them can, and do, call for wine,
+white or red, in the vernacular. Moreover, they pay for all they
+[Transcriber: original 'them'] consume. I was astonished to see even the
+detectives paying real money for what they drank. Several tradesmen told
+me they had suffered chiefly at the hands of the French soldiers
+themselves, who had helped themselves freely to their stock before
+retreating, without paying, saying it was no use to leave good wine, for
+the Prussian swine.
+
+I had not prowled around the Great Headquarters for many hours when the
+Secret Field Police, patrolling all the streets, showed signs of
+curiosity, and to forestall the orthodox arrest and march to
+headquarters (already experienced [Transcriber: original 'experience']
+once, in Cologne) waited upon Lieut. Col. von Hahnke, Military
+Commandant of the city, and secured immunity in the form of the
+Commandant's signature on a scrap of paper stamped in purple ink with
+the Prussian eagle. Commandant Hahnke, after expressing the opinion that
+it was good that American newspaper men were coming to Germany to see
+for themselves, and hoping that "the truth" was beginning to become
+known on the other side, courteously sent his Adjutant along to get me
+past the guard at the Great General Staff and introduce me to Major
+Nikolai, Chief of Division III. B., in charge of newspaper
+correspondents and Military Attaches. Here, however, the freedom of the
+American press came into hopeless, but humorous, collision with the
+Prussian militarism.
+
+"Who are you? What are you doing here? How did you get here?" snapped
+the Prussian Major. A kind letter of introduction from Ambassador
+Gerard, requesting "all possible courtesy and assistance from the
+authorities of the countries through which he may pass," and emblazoned
+with the red seal of the United States of America, which had worked like
+magic on all previous occasions, had no effect on Major Nikolai. Neither
+had a letter from the American Consul at Cologne, nor a letter of
+introduction to Gen. von Buelow, nor any one of a dozen other impressive
+documents produced in succession for his benefit.
+
+"No foreign correspondents are permitted to be at the Great
+Headquarters. None has been allowed to come here. If we allow one to
+remain, fifty others will want to come, and we should be unable to keep
+an eye on all of them," he explained. "You must go back to Berlin at
+once."
+
+Reluctant permission was finally obtained to remain one night on the
+possibly unwarranted intimation that the great American people would
+consider it a "national affront" if an American newspaperman was not
+allowed to stay and see the American Military Attache, Major Langhorne,
+who was away on a sightseeing tour near Verdun, but would be back in the
+morning. However, a long cross-examination had to be undergone at the
+hands of the venerable Herr Chief of the Secret Field Police Bauer, who
+was taking no chances at harboring an English spy in the Houptquartier
+disguised as a correspondent.
+
+I found Major Langhorne standing the strain of the campaign
+[Transcriber: original 'compaign'] well, and I gathered the impression
+that he intended to see the thing through, and that there was much which
+America could learn from the titanic operations of the Germans. Major
+Langhorne and the Argentinian, Brazilian, Chilean, Spanish, Rumanian,
+and Swedish military attaches are luxuriously quartered a mile and a
+half out of town in the handsome villa of M. Noll, the landscape
+painter, present whereabouts unknown. The attaches all have a sense of
+humor, "otherwise," said one of them, "we could never stand being cooped
+up here together." The gardener's daughter, a pretty young Frenchwoman,
+the only servant who remained behind when the household fled at the
+approach of the Germans, is both cook and housekeeper, and when I
+arrived I found the seven military attaches resolved into a board of
+strategy trying to work out the important problem of securing a pure
+milk supply for her four-month-old baby.
+
+Work consists of occasional motor runs to various points along the long
+front. I was told that recently Major Langhorne ran into some heavy
+shrapnel and shell fire, and was lucky to get away with a whole skin.
+When asked to tell about it, Major Langhorne passed it off laughingly as
+"all in the day's work."
+
+In spite of the fact that they are engaged in keeping their end up in a
+life-and-death fight for national existence, the Great General Staff has
+found time to give the American Military Attache every possible
+opportunity to see actual fighting.
+
+The foreign military attaches have made many of their expeditions in
+company with the small band of German war correspondents, who live in
+another villa close by, under the constant chaperonage of Major von
+Rohrscheldt. They are allowed to see much, but send little. The relative
+position of the press in Germany is indicated by the fact that these
+German war correspondents are nicknamed "hunger candidates." A military
+expert who was well posted on American journalism explained to me,
+however, that the very tight censorship lid was not for the purpose of
+withholding news from the German people, but to keep valuable
+information from being handed to the enemy. He pointed out that the
+laconic German official dispatches dealt only with things actually
+accomplished, and were very bare of detail, while, on the other hand,
+the French and English press had been worth more than several army corps
+to the Germans, concluding, "It may be poor journalism, but it's the
+right way to make war."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+KAISERIN'S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION.
+
+
+Oct. 22.--It was hard to realize today that a great war was going on.
+Every building in town occupied by the Germans was decorated with the
+German flag in honor of the Kaiserin's birthday, and at night the
+principal ones, including that occupied by the "War Cabinet," were
+specially illuminated. All morning long, quantities of Generals came
+rolling up in touring cars to the Kaiser's door to pay their homage and
+offer congratulations. About noon the Crown Prince and staff arrived by
+motor from the direction of the headquarters of his army. The Crown
+Prince, who characteristically sat on the front seat next to the
+chauffeur, looked as boyish and immature as his former pictures--his
+military cap cocked slightly on one side. The responsibility of leading
+an army had apparently not had a sobering effect on the Crown Prince as
+yet, but I was told that the guiding brain and genius in the Crown
+Prince's army headquarters was not that of the Crown Prince, but of his
+chief adviser, Gen. von Haeseler, the brilliant cavalry leader of the
+war of 1870 and now the "grand old man" of the German Army, sharing with
+von Zeppelin the distinction of being the oldest living German Generals.
+It seemed still harder to realize that men were fighting and dying not
+fifty miles away when, after luncheon, Kaiser, Crown Prince, and staffs
+went for a two hours' automobile ride, the Crown Prince leaving late in
+the afternoon to rejoin his command.
+
+The only warlike notes in the day's picture were a German military
+aeroplane--one of the famous Taubes--that flew at a high altitude over
+the Great Headquarters toward the enemies' lines; a battalion of Saxon
+Landsturm that rested for an hour at the railroad station, then started
+on the final hike for the front, refreshed by a glimpse of their
+motoring Kaiser, and toward evening four automobile loads of wounded
+German officers, who arrived from the direction of Rheims, where it was
+rumored the French had made four desperate attempts to break through.
+
+Here one gets more and more the impression that the Germans in their
+war-making have learned a lesson from the hustling Americans--that they
+have managed to graft American speed to their native thoroughness,
+making a combination hard to beat. For instance, there is a regular
+relay service of high-power racing motor cars between the Great
+Headquarters and Berlin, the schedule calling for a total running time
+of something under a day and a half, beating the best time at present
+possible by train by four hours. One of the picked drivers, who has the
+last lap--through France--said his running schedule required him to
+average sixty miles an hour, and this running at night. A network of
+fast relay automobile services is also run from the Great Headquarters,
+through Belgium, linking up Brussels and Antwerp, and to the principal
+points on the long line of battle.
+
+How great a role the motor car plays among the Germans may be gathered
+from an estimate made to the writer that 40,000 cars were in use for
+military purposes. Many thousands of these are private automobiles
+operated by their wealthy owners as members of the Volunteer War
+Automobile Corps, of which Prince Waldemar, son of the sailor Prince
+Henry, is chief. Their ranks include many big business men, captains of
+industry, and men of social prominence and professional eminence.
+
+They wear a distinctive uniform, that of an infantry officer, with a
+collar of very dark red, and a short, purely ornamental sword or dagger.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BACK TO LUXEMBURG.
+
+
+LUXEMBURG, Oct. 24.--I have just returned from the German Great
+Headquarters in France, the visit terminating abruptly on the fourth
+day, when one of the Kaiser's secret field police woke me up at 7
+o'clock in the morning and regretfully said that his instructions were
+to see that I "did not oversleep" the first train out. The return
+journey along one of the German main lines of communication--through
+Eastern France, across a corner of Belgium and through Luxemburg--was
+full of interest, and confirmed the impression gathered at the centre of
+things, the Great Headquarters, that this twentieth century warfare is
+in the last analysis a gigantic business proposition which the Board of
+Directors (the Great General Staff) and the thirty-six department heads
+are conducting with the efficiency of a great American business
+corporation.
+
+The west-bound track is a continuous procession of freight trains--fresh
+consignments of raw material--men and ammunition--being rushed to the
+firing line to be ground out into victories. The first shipment we pass
+is an infantry battalion--first ten flatcars loaded with baggage,
+ammunition, provision wagons, and field kitchens, the latter already
+with fire lighted and soup cooking as the long train steams slowly
+along, for the trenches are only fifty miles away, and the Germans make
+a point of sending their troops into battle with full stomachs.
+
+After the flatcars come thirty box cars, all decorated with green
+branches and scrawled over with chalked witticism at the expense of the
+French and Russians. The men cheer as our train passes. A few kilometers
+further backed on to a siding, is a train of some twenty flatcars, each
+loaded with a touring car. Then we pass a battery of artillery on
+flatcars, the guns still garlanded with flowers; then a short freight
+train--six cars loaded with nothing but spare automobile tires--then a
+long train of heavy motor trucks, then more infantry trains, then an
+empty hospital train going back for another load, then a train of
+gasoline tank cars, more cheering infantry, more artillery, another
+empty hospital train, a pioneer train, a score of flatcars loaded with
+long, heavy piles, beams, steel girders, bridge spans, and lumber, then
+a passenger train load of German railway officials and servants going to
+operate the railways toward the coast, more infantry, food trains,
+ammunition trains, train loads of railway tracks already bolted to metal
+ties and merely needing to be laid down and pieced together, and so on
+in endless succession all through France and through Belgium. The
+two-track road, shaky in spots, especially when crossing rivers, is
+being worked to capacity, and how well the huge traffic is handled is
+surprising even to an American commuter.
+
+Our fast train stops at the mouth of a tunnel, then crawls ahead
+charily, for the French, before retreating, dynamited the tunnel. One
+track has been cleared, but the going is still bad. To keep it from
+being blocked again by falling debris the Germans have dug clean through
+the top of the hill, opening up a deep well of light into the tunnel.
+Looking up, you see a pioneer company in once cream-colored, now
+dirty-colored, fatigue uniform still digging away and terracing the
+sides of the big hole to prevent slides. Half an hour later we go slow
+again in crossing a new wooden bridge over the Meuse--only one track as
+yet. It took the German pioneers nearly a week to build the substitute
+for the old steel railway bridge dynamited by the French, whose four
+spans lie buckled up in the river. The pioneers are at work driving
+piles to carry a second track. The process is interesting. A
+forty-man-power pile driver is rigged upon the bow end of a French river
+barge with forty soldiers tugging at forty strands of the main rope.
+The "gang" foreman, a Captain in field gray, stands on the river bank
+and bellows the word of command. Up goes the heavy iron weight; another
+command, and down it drops on the pile. It looks like a painfully slow
+process, but the bridges are rebuilt just the same.
+
+Further on, a variety of interest is furnished to a squad of French
+prisoners being marched along the road. Then a spot of ant-hill-like
+activity where a German railway company is at work building a new branch
+line, hundreds of them having pickaxes and making the dirt fly. You half
+expect to see a swearing Irish foreman. It looks like home--all except
+the inevitable officer (distinguished by revolver and field glass)
+shouting commands.
+
+The intense activity of the Germans in rebuilding the torn-up railroads
+and pushing ahead new strategic lines, is one of the most interesting
+features of a tour now in France. I was told that they had pushed the
+railroad work so far that they were able to ship men and ammunition
+almost up to the fortified trenches. The Germanization of the railroads
+here has been completed by the importation of station Superintendents,
+station hands, track walkers, &c., from the Fatherland. The stretch over
+which we are traveling, for example, is in charge of Bavarians. The
+Bavarian and German flags hang out at every French station we pass.
+German signs everywhere, even German time. It looks as if they thought
+to stay forever.
+
+Now we creep past a long hospital train, full this time, which has
+turned out on a siding to give us the right of way--perhaps thirty
+all-steel cars--each fitted with two tiers of berths, eight to a side,
+sixteen to a car. Every berth is taken. One car is fitted up as an
+operating room, but fortunately no one is on the operating table as we
+crawl past. Another car is the private office of the surgeon in charge
+of the train. He is sitting at a big desk receiving reports form the
+orderlies. During the day we pass six of these splendidly appointed new
+all-steel hospital trains, all full of wounded. Some of them are able
+to sit up in their bunks and take a mild interest in us. Once, by a
+queer coincidence, we simultaneously pass the wounded going one way and
+cheering fresh troops going the other.
+
+
+
+
+*How the Belgians Fight*
+
+[By a Correspondent of The London Daily News.]
+
+
+LONDON, Oct. 28.--Writing from an unnamed place in Belgium a
+correspondent of The Daily News says:
+
+"The regiment I am concerned with was fifteen days and nights in the
+Antwerp trenches in countless engagements. It withdrew at dawn, hoping
+then to rest. It marched forty-five kilometers with shouldered rifles.
+In the next five days it marched nearly 200 kilometers until it reached
+the Nieuport and Dixmude line. By an error of judgment it got two days
+of drill and inspection in place of resting, then took its place in the
+front line on the Yser to face the most desperate of the German
+efforts."
+
+The correspondent quotes a young volunteer in this regiment as follows:
+
+"---- was evacuated by the Germans, and we were sent in at
+nightfall. As soon as they saw our lights they began shelling us. We
+lost terribly. A number of the men ran up the streets, but we got them
+together. I had about twenty and retired in order. We were 600 who went
+in, and must have left a third there.
+
+"In the morning we moved down to reinforce a network of trenches on our
+bank of the Yser. There was a farm on our right, and some of our men
+were firing at it, but the door opened and three officers in Belgian
+uniform came out shouting to us to cease fire, so we sent a detachment
+to the farm, and they were swept away by machine gun fire from the
+windows. No, I don't know what happened afterward about the farm. I lost
+sight of it.
+
+"We got into the trenches. They lay longways behind a raised artificial
+bank on our side of the river. At the northern end of them were mazes of
+cross trenches protecting them in case the Germans got across the bridge
+there and started to enfilade us. They were full of water. I was firing
+for six hours myself thigh deep in muddy water.
+
+"The Germans got across the bridge. We could not show head or hand over
+our bank. German machine guns shot us from crevices in their raised bank
+across the river only a few yards away. I was hours and hours dragging
+our wounded out of the cross trenches at the northern end of the bank
+southward and behind a mound till there was no more room for them there,
+and bringing up new men singly and two or three at a time from further
+down the trenches to take their places. We lost our officers, but I got
+the men to listen to me.
+
+"Some Germans shelled us with a cross fire. They got into the cross
+trenches. They fired down our lines from the side. We had to run back. I
+was too tired and sleepy to drag my feet. I think I must have fallen
+asleep.
+
+"We had an order to advance again. The French were behind us on either
+wing in support. I was too tired to get up. Some one kicked me. I looked
+up. They were three of my friends, volunteers like myself. We had all
+joined together. They apologized and ran forward. They are all wounded
+now, but we are all still alive, and I never have been hit once in
+thirty-four fights.
+
+"I got up. So did a man lying on the field in front of me. He was shot
+through the head and fell back on me. I got up again. A shell burst
+beside me and I saw three men, who were running past, just disappear. I
+was lying on my face again, and could not lift my head, either through
+fear or sleep, I don't know which.
+
+"I found myself running forward again. I called to men lying and running
+near and held my revolver at them. We were all charging with bayonets
+back at the Germans shooting us from our own trenches under the raised
+bank. They did not wait for us. They looked like frightened gray beetles
+as they scrambled up away over our bank and down into the river. It was
+dusk, but we shot at them over the bank. The water seemed full of them.
+We crouched in a big trench in muddy water behind the bank. No, we did
+not sleep, but my head and eyes seemed to go to sleep from time to time.
+
+"There were perhaps 200 left of our 600. I think there was one officer
+further along, but it was quite dark. Some of the men talked very low.
+Then I heard voices whispering and talking near us on the river side of
+our bank. It was of earth perhaps five feet high and six feet thick. On
+the other side the slope fell steeply to the river.
+
+"I sent a hush along the line. We listened quite silent. I thought I
+heard German words, an order passed along on the other side. I crawled
+up on to the bank, not showing my head, you know. It was really about
+300 Germans who had stayed there on our side under the bank, fearing to
+cross the river under our fire. So we stayed all through the night. We
+did not sleep nor did they.
+
+"There was just six feet of piled wet earth between us. We only
+whispered and could hear them muttering and the sound of their belts
+creaking and of water bottles being opened.
+
+"There was a thick gray mist hanging low in the morning. I crawled on to
+the bank again, holding my revolver out-stretched. A gray figure stood
+up in the mist below close to me. He looked like a British soldier in
+khaki. He said: 'It's all right, we are English,' and I said, 'But your
+accent isn't,' and I shot him through with my revolver. Some of our men
+crept to the bank, but they shot them, and some of theirs climbed over,
+but we fired at their heads or arms as they showed only a few feet
+away, and they fell backward [Transcriber: original 'bakward'] or on to
+us or lay hanging on the bank. Then we all waited.
+
+"As it grew lighter they did not dare move away, and none of us could
+get out alive or over the bank to use the bayonet. A few men made holes
+in the looser earth, and so we fired at each other through the bank here
+and there. Our guns could not help us, and theirs could not shoot
+across, for we were all together, and yet we could not get at each
+other. Some of the men--theirs and ours--got over lower down, so there
+was firing now and then, and two men were killed near me sliding down
+into the water in the trenches.
+
+"Somebody threw a cartridge case across close to me. On a paper inside
+was scrawled one word: 'Surrender!' We did not know if they wanted to
+surrender themselves or wanted us to surrender. They were more numerous,
+but we were better placed, so we went on scrapping and crawling around
+to get a shot at them.
+
+"Perhaps it was the French who got round at the ends. There was heavy
+firing. We heard quite close through the raised bank a few slipping down
+on the river edge and water splashing. Some of us pulled ourselves up on
+to the bank. I heard our men scrambling up on either side of me, but
+could not see them. I think I was too sleepy. I shouted to charge, and
+then must have fallen over on my head, rolling down the bank.
+
+"I am on the way down with these wounded. There are fifteen of us unhit
+here, but I think we came away just now with nearly a hundred out of our
+600 of yesterday."
+
+He was doing gallant Captain's work, a young, slight, ordinary Belgian
+trooper, a volunteer private in the ranks, muddy, limping, and
+unspeakably tired in muscle and nerve. His story is as nearly as
+possible in his own words, interrupted by blanks in his own
+consciousness of events--lapses familiar to men whose muscles and nerves
+are exhausted, but who must still work on without sleep.
+
+For the following ten hours, without pause, he acted as interpreter and
+most capable adviser in getting long trains of stretchers with his
+wounded Belgian compatriots down and on to the British hospital ships.
+
+
+
+
+*A Visit to the Firing Line in France*
+
+[By a Correspondent of THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
+
+
+PARIS, Sept. 30.--In company with several representatives of American
+newspapers, I was permitted to pass several days in "the zone of
+military activity," on credentials obtained at the personal request of
+Ambassador Herrick, that we might describe the destruction caused by the
+Germans in unfortified towns. Although I have given a parole to say
+nothing concerning the movement of the troops or to mention certain
+points that I visited, I am now permitted to send a report of a part of
+my experiences.
+
+We crossed the entire battlefield of the Marne, passed directly behind
+the lines of the battle still raging on the Aisne, accidentally getting
+under fire for an entire afternoon, and lunching in a hotel to the
+orchestra of bursting shells, one end of the building being blown away
+during the bombardment. We witnessed a battle between an armored French
+monoplane and a German battery, and also had the experience of being
+accused of being German spies by two men wearing the English uniform,
+who, on failing to account for their own German accent, were speedily
+taken away under guard with their "numbers up," as the French Commandant
+expressed what awaited them.
+
+On account of our exceptional credentials we were able to see more
+actual war than many correspondents, who when they learned that permits
+to go to the front were not forthcoming, went anyway, usually falling
+into the hands of the military authorities before getting far. In fact,
+getting arrested has been the chief occupation of the war correspondents
+in this war, even our accidental view of the fighting being sufficient
+to cause our speedy return to Paris under parole.
+
+Going over the battlefield of the Marne, we found the battle had
+followed much the same tactics as a cyclone, in that in some places
+nothing, not even the haystacks, had been disturbed, while in others
+everything, the villages, roads, and fields, had been utterly devastated
+by shells. We talked with the inhabitants of every village and always
+heard the same story--that during occupation the Germans, evidently
+having been ordered to be on their good behavior after the Belgian
+atrocities, had offered little trouble to the civilians, and had
+confined their activities to looting and wasting the provisions. Also
+that when retreating they had destroyed all the food they were unable to
+carry.
+
+Our baptism of fire appropriately came while we were in a church. At
+noon of the second day we motored into a deserted village, and were
+stopped by a sentry who acknowledged our credentials, but warned us if
+we intended to proceed to beware of bullets. But there was not a hostile
+sound to alarm us.
+
+As we drove carelessly over the brow of a hill where the road dipped
+down a valley into the town, we were in direct line with the German
+fire, as great holes in the ground and fallen trees testified. It is a
+wonder our big motor car was not an immediate mark. On the way in we
+noticed a church steeple shot completely off, so after finding an inn,
+where the proprietor came from the cellar and offered to guard our car
+and prepare luncheon, we decided first to examine the church. The
+innkeeper explained that we had come during a lull in the bombardment,
+but the silent, deserted place lulled all sense of danger. The verger
+showed us over the church and we were walking through the ruined nave
+when suddenly we heard a sound like the shrill whistling of the wind.
+
+"It begins again," our conductor said simply. As the speech ended we
+heard a loud boom and the sound of falling masonry as a shell struck the
+far end of the building. We hurried to the hotel, the shells screaming
+overhead. We saw the buildings tumbling into ruins, glass falling in
+fine powder and remnants of furniture hanging grotesquely from scraps of
+masonry.
+
+All my life I had wondered what would be the sensation if I ever were
+under fire--would I be afraid? To my intense relief I suddenly became
+fatalistic. I was under fire with a vengeance, but instead of being
+afraid I kept saying to myself, "Being afraid won't help matters;
+besides nothing will happen if we just keep close to the walls and away
+from the middle street."
+
+On the way we met two men in English uniform who later denounced us as
+spies. We hailed them, and they replied that they had been cut off from
+their regiment and were now fighting with the French. Just as luncheon
+was announced eight soldiers filed into the hotel, arrested us, and
+marched us before the Commandant, who saw that our papers were all
+right, but suggested that on account of the dangerous position we leave
+as soon as possible. We asked permission to finish our luncheon. It was
+lucky that we were arrested then--before the accusation that we were
+spies--for when that question arose there was no doubt in the mind of
+the Commandant concerning us, so our accusers' charge merely reacted
+upon themselves.
+
+During the episode of arrest there was another lull in the bombardment,
+which began again as we were seated at luncheon. All through the meal
+the shells whistled and screamed overhead, and the dishes rattled
+constantly on the table.
+
+When the meal was over the proprietor called us to witness what had
+happened to the far wing of the hotel. It was completely demolished.
+"Alert" had just been sounded, and the soldiers were running through the
+streets. We ran out in time to see a building falling half a block away,
+completely filling the street by which we had entered the town an hour
+earlier.
+
+In a few minutes we heard the sharp crackle of infantry fire about half
+a mile away, and we had a sudden desire to get away before the
+automobile retreat was cut off. Just then we heard the sound of an aero
+engine overhead. It was flying so low that through a glass we could
+easily see the whirring propeller. The machine was mounted with a
+rapid-fire gun which was trying to locate the German gunners, who
+immediately abandoned the destruction of the town in an attempt to bring
+it down. For ten minutes we saw shells bursting all about it. At times
+it was lost in smoke, but when the smoke cleared there was the monoplane
+still blazing away, always mounting to a higher level, and finally
+disappearing toward the French lines.
+
+There was another lull in the cannonade, and we were permitted to pass
+down the street near the river, where, by peering around a building, we
+could see where the German batteries were secreted in the hills. We were
+warned not to get into the street which led to the bridge, as the
+Germans raked that street with their fire if a single person appeared.
+We then took advantage of a lull in the firing and departed to the south
+at seventy miles an hour, in order to beat the shells, if any were aimed
+our way as we crossed the rise of the hill.
+
+
+
+
+*Unburied Dead Strew Lorraine*
+
+*By Philip Gibbs of The London Daily Chronicle.*
+
+
+DIJON, Sept. 26.--Although great interest is concentrated upon the
+northwest side of the line of of battle in France, it must not be
+forgotten that the east side is also of high importance. The operation
+of the French and German forces along the jagged frontier from north to
+south is of vital influence upon the whole field of war, and any great
+movement of troops in this direction affects the strategy of the
+Generals to command on the furthermost wings.
+
+It was a desire to know something of what had been happening in the east
+which led me to travel to the extreme right. Few correspondents have
+been in this part of the field since the beginning of the war. It is far
+from their own line of communications. For this reason there have been
+no detailed narratives of the fighting in Lorraine, and a strange
+silence has brooded over those battlefields. The spell of it has been
+broken only by official bulletins telling in a line or two the uncertain
+result of the ceaseless struggle for mastery.
+
+Here are regiments of young men who have the right already to call
+themselves veterans, for they have been fighting continually for six
+weeks in innumerable engagements, for the most part unrecorded in
+official dispatches. I had seen them answering the call to mobilization,
+singing joyously as they marched through the streets. Then they were
+smart fellows, clean shaven and spruce in their new blue coats and
+scarlet trousers. Now war has put its dirt upon them and seems to have
+aged them by fifteen years, leaving its ineffaceable imprint upon their
+faces. Their blue coats have changed to a dusty gray, but they are hard
+and tough for the most part, and Napoleon himself would not have wished
+for better fighting men.
+
+Now for the first time since the beginning of the war there will be a
+little respite on the Lorraine frontier, and in the wooded country of
+the two lost provinces there will be time to bury the dead which
+incumber its fields. Words are utterly inadequate to describe the
+horrors of the region to the east of the Meurthe, in and around the
+little towns of Blamont, Badonviller, Cirey-les-Forges, Arracourt,
+Chateau-Salins, Morhauge, and Baudrecourt, where for six weeks there has
+been incessant fighting. After the heavy battle of Sept. 4, when the
+Germans were repulsed with severe losses after an attack in force, both
+sides retired for about twelve miles and dug themselves into lines of
+trenches which they still hold; but every day since that date there has
+been a kind of guerrilla warfare, with small bodies of men fighting from
+village to village and from wood to wood, the forces on each side being
+scattered over a wide area in advance of their main lines. This method
+of warfare is even more terrible than a pitched battle.
+
+"It is absurd to talk of Red Cross work," said one of the French
+soldiers who had just come out of the trenches at Luneville. "It has not
+existed as far as many of these fights are concerned How could it? A few
+litter-carriers came with us on some of our expeditions, but they were
+soon shot down, and after that the wounded just lay where they fell, or
+crawled away into the shelter of the woods. Those of us who were unhurt
+were not allowed to attend to our wounded comrades; it is against
+orders. We have to go on regardless of losses. My own best comrade was
+struck down by my side. I heard his cry and saw him lying there with
+blood oozing through his coat. My heart wept to leave him. He wanted me
+to take his money, but I just kissed his hand and went on, I suppose he
+died, for I could not find him when we retreated."
+
+[Illustration: Where the Armies are Contending in Alsace-Lorraine.]
+
+[Illustration: GRAND DUKE NICHOLAS NICHOLAIEVITCH
+The Russian Commander-in-Chief. _
+(Photo (C) by Underwood & Underwood._)]
+
+[Illustration: GEN. RENNENKAMPF
+The Russian General Who Was Removed by the Grand Duke
+[Transcriber: photo credit ineligible]]
+
+Another French soldier lay wounded at the edge of a wood ten miles from
+Luneville. When he recovered consciousness he saw there were only dead
+and dying men around him. He remained for two days, unable to move his
+shattered limbs, and cried out for death to relieve him of his agony. At
+night he was numbed by cold; in the day thirst tortured him to the point
+of madness. Faint cries and groans came to his ears across the field. It
+was on the morning of the third day that French peasants came to rescue
+those who still remained alive.
+
+There have been several advances made by the French into Lorraine, and
+several retirements. On each occasion men have seen new horrors which
+have turned their stomachs. There are woods not far from Nancy from
+which there comes a pestilential stench which steals down the wind in
+gusts of obscene odor. For three weeks and more dead bodies of Germans
+and Frenchmen have lain rotting there. There are few grave diggers. The
+peasants have fled from their villages, and the soldiers have other work
+to do; so that the frontier fields on each side are littered with
+corruption, where plague and fever find holding ground.
+
+I have said that this warfare on the frontier is pitiless. This is a
+general statement of a truth to which there are exceptions. One of these
+was a reconciliation on the battlefield between French and German
+soldiers who lay wounded and abandoned near the little town of Blamont.
+When dawn came they conversed with each other while waiting for death. A
+French soldier gave his water bottle to a German officer who was crying
+out with thirst. The German sipped a little and then kissed the hand of
+the man who had been his enemy. "There will be no war on the other
+side," he said.
+
+Another Frenchman, who came from Montmartre, found a Luxembourger lying
+within a yard of him whom he had known as a messenger in a big hotel in
+Paris. The young German wept to see his old acquaintance. "It is
+stupid," he said, "this war. You and I were happy when we were good
+friends in Paris. Why should we have been made to fight with each
+other?" He died with his arms around the neck of the soldier who told me
+the story, unashamed of his own tears.
+
+I could tell a score of tales like this, told to me by men whose eyes
+were still haunted by the sight of these things; and perhaps one day
+they will be worth telling, so that people of little imagination may
+realize the meaning of this war and put away false heroics from their
+lips. It is dirty business, with no romance in it for any of those fine
+young Frenchmen I have learned to love, who still stay in the trenches
+on the frontier lines or march a little way into Lorraine and back
+again.
+
+Some of those trenches on either side are still filled with men leaning
+forward with their rifles pointing to the enemy--quite dead, in spite of
+their lifelike posture.
+
+
+
+
+*Along the German Lines Near Metz*
+
+[Correspondence of The Associated Press.]
+
+
+WITH THE GERMAN ARMY BEFORE METZ, Sept. 30, (by Courier to Holland and
+Mail to New York.)--A five-day trip to the front has taken the
+correspondent of The Associated Press through the German fortresses of
+Mainz, Saarbruecken, and Metz, through the frontier regions between Metz
+and the French fortress line from Verdun to Toul, into the actual
+battery positions from which German and Austrian heavy artillery were
+pounding their eight and twelve-inch shells into the French barrier
+forts and into the ranks of the French field army which has replaced the
+crumbling fortifications of steel and cement with ramparts of flesh and
+blood.
+
+Impressions at the end are those of some great industrial undertaking
+with powerful machinery in full operation and endless supply trains
+bringing up the raw materials for manufacture rather than of war as
+pictured.
+
+From a point of observation on a hillside above St. Mihiel the great
+battlefield on which a German army endeavoring to break through the line
+of barrier forts between Verdun and Toul and the opposing French forces
+could be surveyed in its entirety. In the foreground lay the level
+valley of the Meuse, with the towns of St. Mihiel and Banoncour nestling
+upon the green landscape. Beyond and behind the valley rose a tier of
+hills on which the French at this writing obstinately hold an intrenched
+position, checking the point of the German wedge, while the French
+forces from north and south beat upon the sides of the triangle, trying
+to force it back across the Meuse and out from the vitals of the French
+fortress line.
+
+Bursting shells threw up their columns of white or black fog around the
+edge of the panorama. Cloudlets of white smoke here and there showed
+where a position was being brought under shrapnel fire. An occasional
+aeroplane could be picked out hovering over the lines, but the infantry
+and the field battery positions could not be discerned even with a
+high-power field glass, so cleverly had the armies taken cover. The
+uninitiated observer would have believed this a deserted landscape
+rather than the scene of a great battle, which, if successful for the
+Germans, would force the main French Army to retreat from its intrenched
+positions along the Aisne River.
+
+About three miles away, across the Meuse, a quadrangular mound of black,
+plowed-up earth on the hillside marked the location of Fort Les
+Paroches, which had been silenced by the German mortars the night
+before. Fort Camp des Romains, so named because the Roman legions had
+centuries ago selected this site for a strategic encampment, had been
+stormed by Bavarian infantry two days earlier after its heavy guns had
+been put out of action, and artillery officers said that Fort Lionville,
+fifteen miles to the south and out of the range of vision, was then
+practically silenced, only one of its armored turrets continuing to
+answer the bombardment.
+
+The correspondent had spent the previous night at the fortress town of
+Metz, sleeping under the same roof with Prince Oscar of Prussia,
+invalided from the field in a state of physical breakdown; Prince
+William of Hohenzollern, father-in-law of ex-King Manuel, and other
+officers, either watching or engaged in the operations in the field, and
+had traveled by automobile to the battlefront thirty-five miles to the
+west. For the first part of the distance the road led through the hills
+on which are located the chain of forts comprising the fortress of Metz;
+but, although the General Staff officer in the car pointed now and then
+to a hill as the site of this or that fort, traces of the fortifications
+could only occasionally be made out. Usually they were so skillfully
+masked and concealed by woods or blended with the hillsides that nothing
+out of the ordinary was apparent, in striking contrast to the exposed
+position of the forts at the recently visited fortress of Liege, which
+advertised their presence from the sky line of the encompassing hills
+and fairly invited bombardment.
+
+The country as far as the frontier town of Gorze seemed bathed in
+absolute peace. No troops were seen, rarely were automobiles of the
+General Staff encountered, and men and women were working in the field
+and vineyards as if war were a thousand miles away instead of only next
+door.
+
+Beyond Gorze, however, the road leading southwest through Chambley and
+St. Benoit Vigneuilles to St. Mihiel was crowded with long columns of
+wagons and automobile trucks bearing reserve ammunition, provisions, and
+supplies to the front, or returning empty for new loads to the unnamed
+railroad base in the rear. Strikingly good march discipline was
+observed, part of the road being always left free from the passage of
+staff automobiles or marching troops. Life seemed most comfortable for
+the drivers and escorts, as the army in advance had been so long in
+position, and its railroad base was so near, that supplying it involved
+none of the sleepless nights and days and almost superhuman exertions
+falling to the lot of the train in the flying march of the German armies
+toward Paris.
+
+A few miles beyond Gorze the French frontier was passed, and from this
+point on the countryside, with its deserted farms, rotting shocks of
+wheat, and uncut fields of grain, trampled down by infantry and scarred
+with trenches, excavations for batteries, and pits caused by exploding
+shells, showed war's devastating heel prints.
+
+Main army headquarters, the residence and working quarters of a
+commanding General whose name may not yet be mentioned, were in Chateau
+Chambley, a fine French country house. In the chateau the commanding
+General made all as comfortable as in his own home. Telegraph wires led
+to it from various directions, a small headquarters guard lounged on the
+grass under the trees, a dozen automobiles and motor cycles were at
+hand, and grooms were leading about the chargers of the General and his
+staff. At St. Benoit, five miles further on, a subordinate headquarters
+was encountered, again in a chateau belonging to a rich French resident.
+The Continental soldier leaves tents to the American Army and quarters
+himself, whenever it is possible, comfortably in houses, wasting no
+energy in transporting and setting up tented cities for officers and
+men. No matter how fast or how far a German army moves, a completely
+equipped telegraph office is ready for the army commander five minutes
+after headquarters have been established.
+
+At St. Benoit a party of some 300 French prisoners was encountered,
+waiting outside headquarters. They were all fine young fellows, in
+striking contrast to the elderly reservist type which predominates in
+the German prison camps. They were evidently picked troops of the line,
+and were treated almost with deference by their guards, a detachment of
+bearded Landwehr men from South Germany. They were the survivors of the
+garrison of Fort Camp des Romains, who had put up such a desperate and
+spirited defense as to win the whole-hearted admiration and respect of
+the German officers and men. Their armored turrets and cemented
+bastions, although constructed after the best rules of fortification of
+a few years ago, had been battered about their ears in an unexpectedly
+short time by German and Austrian siege artillery. Their guns were
+silenced, and trenches were pushed up by an overwhelming force of
+pioneers and infantry to within five yards of their works before they
+retreated from the advanced intrenchments to the casemates of the fort.
+Here they maintained a stout resistance, and refused every summons to
+surrender. Hand grenades were brought up, bound to a backing of boards,
+and exploded against the openings into the casemates, filling these with
+showers of steel splinters. Pioneers, creeping up to the dead angle of
+the casemates, where the fire of the defenders could not reach them,
+directed smoke tubes and stinkpots against apertures in the citadel,
+filling the rooms with suffocating smoke and gases.
+
+"Have you had enough?" the defenders were asked, after the first smoke
+treatment.
+
+"No!" was the defiant answer.
+
+The operation was repeated a second and third time, the response to the
+demand for surrender each time growing weaker, until finally the
+defenders were no longer able to raise their rifles, and the fort was
+taken. When the survivors of the plucky garrison were able to march out,
+revived by the fresh air, they found their late opponents presenting
+arms before them in recognition of their gallant stand. They were
+granted the most honorable terms of surrender, their officers were
+allowed to retain their swords, and on their march toward an honorable
+captivity they were everywhere greeted with expressions of respect and
+admiration.
+
+The headquarters guard here was composed of a company of infantry. The
+company's field kitchen, the soup-boiler and oven on wheels, which the
+German army copied from the Russians and which the soldiers facetiously
+and affectionately name their "goulash cannon," had that day, the
+Captain said, fed 970 men, soldiers of his own and passing companies,
+headquarters attaches, wounded men and the detachment of French
+prisoners.
+
+Experienced German officers rank the field kitchens, with the sturdy
+legs of the infantry, the German heavy artillery and the aviation corps,
+as the most important factors in the showing made by the German armies.
+
+Beyond St. Benoit the Cote Lorraine, a range of wooded hills running
+north and south along the east bank of the Meuse, rises in steeply
+terraced slopes several hundred feet from the frontier plain,
+interposing a natural rampart between Germany and the French line of
+fortresses beyond the Meuse. The French had fortified these slopes with
+successive rows of trenches, permitting line above line of infantry to
+fire against an advancing enemy. For days a desperate struggle was waged
+for the possession of the heights, which was imperative for the German
+campaign against the line of fortresses.
+
+Germans do not mention the extent of their losses in any particular
+action, but it was admitted and evident that it had cost a high price to
+storm those steep slopes and win a position in the woods crowning the
+range from which their batteries could be directed against the French
+forts. Vigneuilles, a village at the foot of the hillside, shot into
+ruins by artillery and with every standing bit of house wall scarred
+with bullet marks from the hand-to-hand conflicts which had swayed to
+and fro in its streets, was typical of all the little stone-built towns
+serving as outposts to this natural fortress which had been the scene of
+imbittered attacks and counter-attacks before the German troops could
+fight their way up the hillsides.
+
+The combat is still raging on this day from north and south against the
+segment of this range captured by the Germans. The French, massing their
+troops by forest paths from Verdun and Toul, throw them against the
+Germans in desperate endeavors to break the lines which protect the
+sites for the German siege artillery, heavy mortars of 8-1/4 and 16-1/2
+inch calibre and an intermediate sized type, and for the Austrian
+automobile batteries of 12-inch siege guns.
+
+The correspondent had no opportunity to inspect at close range the
+16-1/2-inch guns, the "growlers" of Liege, Namur, and other fortresses,
+which Krupp and the German Army uncovered as the surprise of this war.
+They could be heard even from Metz speaking at five-minute intervals. A
+battery of them, dug into the ground so that only the gun muzzles
+projected above the pits, was observed in action at a distance of about
+a half mile, the flash of flames being visible even at this distance.
+
+Their smaller sisters were less coy. A dismounted battery of the
+intermediate calibre, details of which are not available for
+publication, was encountered by the roadside, awaiting repairs to the
+heavy traction engine in whose train it travels in sections along the
+country roads, while the German 8-1/4-inch (21 centimeter) and the
+Austrian 12-inch (30.5 centimeter) batteries were seen in action.
+
+The heavy German battery lay snugly hidden in a wood on the rolling
+heights of the Cote Lorraine. Better off than the French, whose aviators
+had for days repeatedly scrutinized every acre of land in the vicinity
+looking for these guns, we had fairly accurate directions how to find
+the battery, but even then it required some search and doubling back and
+forth before a languid artilleryman lounging by the roadside pointed
+with thumb over shoulder toward the hidden guns.
+
+These and the artillerymen were enjoying their midday rest, a pause
+which sets in every day with the regularity of the luncheon hour in a
+factory. The guns, two in this particular position, stood beneath a
+screen of thickly branching trees, the muzzles pointing toward round
+openings in this leafy roof. The gun carriages were screened with
+branches. The shelter tents of the men and the house for the ammunition
+had also been covered with green, and around the position a hedge of
+boughs kept off the prying eyes of possible French spies wandering
+through the woods.
+
+It was the noon pause, but the Lieutenant in charge of the guns, anxious
+to show them off to advantage, volunteered to telephone the battery
+commander, in his observation post four miles nearer the enemy, for
+permission to fire a shot or two against a village in which French
+troops were gathering for the attack. This battery had just finished
+with Les Paroches, a French barrier fort across the Meuse, and was now
+devoting its attention to such minor tasks. Only forts really counted,
+said the Lieutenant, recalling Fort Manonvillers, near Luneville, the
+strongest French barrier fort, which was the battery's first "bag" of
+the war. Its capture, thanks to his guns, had cost the German Army only
+three lives, those of three pioneers accidentally killed by the fire of
+their own men. Now Les Paroches was a heap of crumbled earth and stone.
+In default of forts the guns were used against any "worthy target"--a
+"worthy target" being defined as a minimum of fifty infantrymen.
+
+At this moment the orderly reported that the battery commander
+authorized two shots against the village in question. At command the gun
+crew sprang to their posts about the mortar, which was already adjusted
+for its target, a little less than six miles away, the gun muzzle
+pointing skyward at an angle of about 60 degrees. As the gun was fired
+the projectile could be seen and followed in its course for several
+hundred feet. The report was not excessively loud.
+
+Before the report died away the crew were busy as bees about the gun.
+One man, with the hand elevating gear, rapidly cranked the barrel down
+to a level position, ready for loading. A second threw open the breech
+and extracted the brass cartridge case, carefully wiping [Transcriber:
+original 'wipping'] it out before depositing it among the empties; four
+more seized the heavy shell and lifted it to a cradle opposite the
+breech; a seventh rammed it home; number eight gingerly inserted the
+brass cartridge, half filled with a vaseline-like explosive; the breech
+was closed, and the gun pointer rapidly cranked the gun again into
+position. In less than thirty seconds the men sprang back from the gun,
+again loaded and aimed. A short wait, and the observer from his post
+near the village ordered "next shot fifty meters nearer."
+
+The gun pointer made the slight correction necessary, the mortar again
+sent its shell purring through the air against the village, which this
+time, it was learned, broke into flames, and while the men went back to
+their noonday rest, the Lieutenant explained the fine points of his
+beloved guns. One man, as had been seen, could manipulate the elevation
+gear with one hand easily and quickly; ten of his horses could take the
+mortar, weighing eight tons, anywhere; it could fire up to 500 shots per
+day. He was proud of the skillful concealment of his guns, which had
+been firing for four days from the same position without being
+discovered, although French aviators had located all the sister
+batteries, all of which had suffered loss from shrapnel fire.
+
+Along the roadside through the Cote Lorraine were here and there graves
+with rude crosses and penciled inscriptions. At the western edge of the
+forest the battle panorama of the Meuse Valley suddenly opened out, the
+hills falling away again steeply to the level valley below. The towns
+below--St. Mihiel and Banoncour--seemed absolutely deserted, not a
+person being visible even around the large barracks in the latter town.
+While the little party of officers and spectators, including the
+correspondent, were watching the artillery duel on the far horizon or
+endeavoring to pick out the infantry positions, a shrapnel suddenly
+burst directly before them, high in the air. There was a general stir,
+the assumption being that the French had taken the group on the
+hillside for a battery staff picking out positions for the guns; but as
+other shots were fired it was seen that the shrapnel was exploding
+regularly above the barracks, a mile and a half away, the French
+evidently suspecting the presence of German troops there.
+
+A ten-mile ride southward led to the position of the Austrian 12-inch
+battery. The two guns this time were planted by the side of the road,
+screened only in front by a little wood, but exposed to view from both
+sides, the rear, and above. For this greater exposure the battery had
+paid correspondingly, several of its men having been killed or wounded
+by hostile fire. Here, as in the German batteries, the war work in
+progress went on with a machinelike regularity and absence of
+spectacular features more characteristic of a rolling mill than a
+battle. The men at the guns went through their work with the deftness
+and absence of confusion of high-class mechanics. The heavy shells were
+rolled to the guns, hoisted by a chain winch to the breech opening, and
+discharged in uninteresting succession, a short pause coming after each
+shot, until the telephonic report from the observation stand was
+received. The battery had been firing all day at Fort Lionville, at a
+range of 9,400 meters, (nearly six miles,) and the battery commander was
+then endeavoring to put out of action the only gun turret which still
+answered the fire. The task of finding this comparatively minute target,
+forty or fifty feet in diameter, was being followed with an accuracy
+which promised eventual success.
+
+The shells from the guns started on their course with characteristic
+minute-long shrieks. Watches were pulled out to determine just how long
+the shrieks could be heard, and the uninitiated were preparing to hear
+the sound of the explosion itself. The battery chief explained, however,
+that this scream was due to the conditions immediately around the muzzle
+of the gun, and could not be heard from other points. He invited close
+watch of the atmosphere a hundred yards before the gun at the next shot.
+Not only could the projectile be seen plainly in the beginning of its
+flight, but the waves of billowing air, rushing back to fill the void
+left by the discharge and bounding and rebounding in a tempestuous sea
+of gas, could be distinctly observed. This airy commotion caused the
+sound heard for more than a minute.
+
+
+
+
+*The Slaughter in Alsace*
+
+*By John H. Cox of The London Standard.*
+
+
+BASLE, Switzerland, Aug. 19.--I have just returned from an inspection of
+the scenes of the recent fighting between the French and Germans in the
+southern districts of Alsace.
+
+Dispatches from Paris and Berlin describe the engagements between the
+frontier and Muelhausen as insignificant encounters between advance
+guards. If this be true in a military sense, and the preliminaries of
+the war produce the terrible effects I have witnessed, the disastrous
+results of the war itself will exceed human comprehension.
+
+As a Swiss subject I was equipped with identification papers and
+accompanied by four of my countrymen, all on bicycles.
+
+At the very outset the sight of peasants, men and women, unconcernedly
+at work in the fields gathering the harvest, struck me as strange and
+unnatural. The men were either old or well advanced in middle age.
+Everywhere women, girls, and mere lads were working.
+
+The first sign of war was the demolished villa of a Catholic priest at a
+village near Ransbach. This priest had lived there for many years,
+engaged in religious work and literary pursuits. After the outbreak of
+the war the German authorities jumped at the conclusion that he was an
+agent of the French Secret Service and that he had been in the habit of
+sending to Belfort information concerning German military movements and
+German measures for defense--very often by means of carrier pigeons.
+
+The Alsatians say that these accusations were utterly unjust; but last
+week a military party raided the priest's house, dragged him from his
+study, placed him against his own garden wall and shot him summarily as
+a traitor and spy. The house was searched from top to bottom, and
+numerous books and papers were removed, after which the building was
+destroyed by dynamite. The priest was buried without a coffin at the end
+of his little garden plot, and some of the villagers placed a rough
+cross on the mound which marked the place of interment.
+
+In the next large village we were told that it had been successively
+occupied by French and German troops and had been the scene of stiff
+infantry fighting.
+
+Here we found groups of old men and boys burying dead men and horses,
+whose bodies were already beginning to be a menace to health. The
+weather here has been exceptionally hot, and the countryside is bathed
+in blazing sunshine. Further on were a number of German soldiers beating
+about in the standing crops on both sides of the road, searching for
+dead and wounded. They said many of the wounded had crawled in among the
+wheat to escape being trodden upon by the troops marching along the
+road, and also to gain relief from the heat.
+
+On the outskirts of another large village we saw a garden bounded by a
+thick hedge, behind which a company of French infantry had taken their
+stand against the advancing German troops. Among the crushed flowers
+there were still lying fragments of French soldiers' equipments, two
+French caps stained with blood and three torn French tunics, likewise
+[Transcriber: original 'liewise'] dyed red. The walls of the cottage
+bore marks of rifle bullets, and the roof was partially burned.
+
+Passing through the villages we saw on all sides terrible signs of the
+devastation of war--houses burned, uncut grain trodden down and rendered
+useless, gardens trampled under foot; everywhere ruin and distress.
+
+At a small village locally known as Napoleon's Island we found the
+railway station demolished and the line of trucks the French had used as
+a barricade. These trucks had been almost shot to pieces, and many were
+stained with blood. Outside the station the small restaurant roof had
+been shot away; the windows were smashed, and much furniture had been
+destroyed. Nevertheless the proprietor had rearranged his damaged
+premises as well as possible and was serving customers as if nothing had
+happened.
+
+Just outside this village there are large common graves in which French
+and German soldiers lie buried together in their uniforms. Large mounds
+mark these sites. Here again the villagers have placed roughly hewn
+crosses.
+
+Not far from Huningen we met an intelligent Alsatian peasant who
+remembered the war of 1870 and had witnessed some engagements in the
+last few days. Here is his account of what he saw:
+
+"The bravery on both sides was amazing. The effects of artillery fire
+are terrific. The shells burst, and where you formerly saw a body of
+soldiers you see a heap of corpses or a number of figures writhing on
+the ground, torn and mutilated by the fragments of the shell. Those who
+are unhurt scatter for the moment, but quickly regain their composure
+and take up their positions in the fighting line as if nothing had
+happened. The effects of other weapons are as bad. It seems remarkable
+that soldiers can see the destruction worked all around them, yet can
+control their nerves sufficiently to continue fighting.
+
+"I remember the battles of 1870, in five or six of which I fought
+myself, but they bear no comparison with the battles of 1914. War
+forty-four years ago was child's play compared with war at the present
+time."
+
+In several villages the schools and churches and many cottages are
+filled with wounded Frenchmen and Germans, and everything is being done
+to relieve their sufferings. In the stress of fighting many wounded
+soldiers were left from three to ten or twelve hours lying in the fields
+or on the roads. The ambulance equipment of modern armies appears
+utterly inadequate, and most of the wounded were picked up by villagers.
+
+A French aeroplane from Belfort reconnoitred the German positions behind
+Muelhausen. As it passed over the German works at the Isteiner Klotz
+there ensued a continuous firing of machine guns and rifles. The
+aeroplane, which had swerved downward to give its two occupants a closer
+and clearer view of the German position, immediately rose to a much
+greater altitude and escaped injury. It cruised over the German position
+for more than an hour, now rising, now falling, always pursued by the
+bullets of the enemy.
+
+This aerial reconnoissance [Transcriber: original 'reconnoisance'], part
+of which was carried out at an altitude as low as 1,000 feet, was
+undertaken at terrible risk, but in this case the aeroplane escaped all
+injury and returned in the direction of Belfort, doubtless with all the
+information it had set out to collect.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     [Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
+
+BERNE, Aug. 22, (Dispatch to The London Morning Post.)--Gebweiler, in
+Alsace, twelve miles to the northwest of Muelhausen, was taken by the
+French at the point of the bayonet on Aug. 20. My correspondent, who has
+just arrived at Basle from the field of battle, says that eight
+battalions of the German One Hundred and Fourteenth Regiment, numbering
+about 10,000 men, engaged the French Army. The French artillery was
+deadly and caused great ravages among the Germans, few officers
+escaping.
+
+During the whole night the wounded were being transported to villages in
+the neighborhood, beyond the reach of artillery. All the buildings of
+Sierenz were filled with wounded.
+
+Hundreds of horses were stretched on the field of battle. Those of the
+German artillery were killed, and in consequence the German forces left
+their artillery, of which about twenty guns are now in the hands of the
+French.
+
+The object of the German troops was to cut off the retreat of the French
+and force them toward the Swiss frontier--an object which they failed to
+achieve.
+
+The wounded received here say that they passed a terrible night in the
+open, without water or other succor, with the pitiful neighing of
+wounded horses ringing in their ears.
+
+
+
+
+*Rennenkampf on the Prussian Border*
+
+[By a Correspondent of The London Daily Chronicle.]
+
+
+GRADNO, (via Petrograd,) Oct. 21.--I have returned here after a journey
+along the East Prussian frontier, as close to the scenes of daily
+fighting as I could obtain permission to go. The route was from the
+north of Suwalki southward to Graevo, a stretch of country recently in
+German occupation, but where now remains not a single German outpost.
+
+It is stimulating to see the Russian soldier in his habits as he lives
+and fights. I have seen many thousands of them camped in the rain,
+swamped in bogs, or marching indefatigably over the roads which are long
+quagmires of mud, always with an air of stolid contentment and the look
+of being bent on business. They include Baltic Province men speaking
+German. Jews from Riga and Libau are brigaded with huge Siberians, whose
+marching must constitute a world record. The Cossacks are past counting,
+and with them are long-coated, tight-belted Circassians and Kalmucks,
+all representing a mixture of races and languages like that of the
+British Empire itself.
+
+Actually the whole line is a battle front from north of Wirballen to
+well into Poland, and no day passes without contact with the Germans.
+This is an army in which every man has fought. Most of them have been in
+hand-to-hand conflict with the Germans. They have approached the front
+through a country which the enemy has devastated. There is no village
+which does not bear the mark of wanton destruction. I have seen these
+things for myself. Houses have been burned, others pillaged and the
+contents dragged into the streets and there smashed. Churches have been
+invariably gutted and defiled.
+
+It is impossible not to admire these endless battalions of Siberians.
+They are common objects of this countryside. I came past Suwalki as they
+were moving up, column after column, in gray overcoats aswing in the
+rhythm of their stride, like the kilts of Highlanders. It was they who
+bore the brunt of the fighting, unsupported by artillery, in forests of
+Augustowo, and, with the Baltic regiments, pushed on and took Lyck.
+These are the men who marched forty miles, starting at midnight, then
+went into action between Gor and Raigrod and delivered a bayonet charge
+which their officers still boast about today.
+
+I may not indicate the geography of the front on which the Russians and
+Germans are now facing each other, but the German general plan is to
+protect the railway and all approaches to a vital junction such as
+Goldapp and Insterburg. Between them and the frontier lies a country of
+singular difficulty for the troops. It is easy of defense, with small
+broken hills, innumerable lakes and roads winding in watered valleys
+among woods. The Germans have gone to earth in their usual lavish
+fashion, digging themselves in with a thoroughness worthy of permanent
+fortifications. Their trenches are five feet deep, with earthworks in
+front zig-zagging as a precaution against enfilading. Some of them are
+very cleverly hidden with growing bushes. All peasants remaining at the
+country-side in Prussia are compelled to work digging trenches. The
+emplacements [Transcriber: original 'implacements'] for guns of large
+calibre have concrete foundations.
+
+The Germans had fortified Suwalki, employing forced labor. They had
+connected up the trench system with telephone installation and appointed
+a Military Governor and other functionaries. Many German officers were
+joined there by their wives and families, who when they retired took
+with them souvenirs consisting of nearly every portable object of value
+in the town, besides much furniture and clothing.
+
+The Russian trenches are scarcely more than shallow grooves in the
+ground with earth thrown up in front of them, making barely sufficient
+cover for prone riflemen.
+
+At once the German outer positions were carried by storm with ghastly
+carnage.
+
+"We didn't dig much," said a Russian officer to me. "We knew we
+shouldn't stay there. We should either go forward or back, and we were
+sure to go forward."
+
+The cloud of patrols, mostly Cossacks, which flits unceasingly along the
+German front is the subject of innumerable stories.
+
+When the news was issued that the Kaiser had come east to take command
+of his army on this front a Cossack came in, driving before him a plump,
+distressed Prussian Captain whom he had gleaned during the day's work.
+
+"I've brought him," he announced. "I knew him by his mustache," and he
+produced an old picture postcard from his breast showing the Kaiser
+with his characteristic mustache.
+
+Near Augustowo the roads are literally blocked in many places with
+abandoned German transports which became trapped in the terribly muddy
+country. Dead horses in hundreds lie everywhere and the Russian Sanitary
+Corps is busy burying them. Yet the Russians who are still moving about
+this country retain not only their usual average health, but do not even
+complain.
+
+Between Augustowo and Raigrod a small stream is actually blocked with
+German stores, including much gun ammunition. The German advance which
+ended in this debacle has been the costliest defeat in point of
+materials which they have yet suffered.
+
+
+
+
+*The First Fight at Lodz*
+
+*By Percival Gibbon of The London Daily Chronicle.*
+
+
+WARSAW, Dec. 5, (by Courier to Petrograd.)--I have wired you previously
+of the German force which advanced around Lodz and was cut off south and
+east of the town. This consisted of two army corps--the Twenty-fifth
+Corps and the Third Guard Corps. The isolated force turned north and
+endeavored to cut its way out through the small town of Breziziny. It
+was at Breziziny that final disaster overtook them.
+
+The town and road lie in a hollow in the midst of wooded country, where
+the Germans were squeezed from the Vistula and pressed to the rear. They
+had fought a battle during the slow retirement of five days and were
+showing signs of being short of ammunition. On the fifth day they made
+their final attempt to pass through Breziziny. That was where that fine
+strategist and fighting man who held Ivangorod on the Vistula brought
+off the great dramatic coup for which he had been manoeuvring.
+
+The Germans were holding the town and pouring through when he began his
+general attack. Breziziny underwent nine hours of furious shelling and
+only half the town is now remaining. The Russian infantry again proved
+its sterling quality, and, supported by the tremendous fire of its own
+guns, drove home charge after charge, smashing the German resistance
+completely. By nightfall out of two army corps, numbering 80,000 men,
+there remained only a remnant.
+
+The number of prisoners reaches the total of about 20,000, and of the
+remainder fully 80 per cent, were killed or wounded. This is the
+estimate supplied to me. Owing to the small area on which the fighting
+was concentrated, the dead are lying in great mounds and walls at points
+where the charges were pushed home. For miles the countryside is dotted
+with dead.
+
+In the sparser grounds an unknown number of fugitives, most of whom are
+wounded, are lurking in the woods. From Rawa, south of Skierniwice,
+midway between Lodz and Warsaw, to Lodz on the line of the former German
+retreat and present advance, not a single village remains. All the
+burned-out district is utterly desolate.
+
+On Dec. 1, 2, and 3 the force conducting the defense of the town of Lodz
+was all but surrounded. The German positions were at Royicie on the
+southern road, within four miles of the long, straggling street which
+comprises most of the town of Lodz, while at Zgierz, seven miles to the
+north, they had a battery of heavy guns with which they shelled the town
+itself, killing several hundred civilians. The fire was chiefly directed
+on the railway and station and the Russian guns were unable for some
+time to locate the battery. It was discovered and reconnoitred at last
+by an aeroplane.
+
+[Illustration: The War in the East (with Net Change of Battle Line Up
+to Jan, 1, 1915) from Eastern Prussia to Galicia.]
+
+Then followed an act of heroism and harebrained enterprise which is now
+the talk of the whole army. On Thursday night last the Colonel of
+Artillery made his way out and with a little group of assistants
+contrived to drag a field telephone wire within half a mile of the
+German battery. While a searchlight was swinging over the face of the
+country, he lay on the ground, and from there directed the Russian guns,
+which with his help actually succeeded in silencing the battery. The
+Russian guns were at this time placed in the streets of Lodz.
+
+On Thursday night, when the attack culminated, there were 700 guns in
+action at one time on both sides, and throughout the night all was
+alight with flashes from the guns and bursting shells, and the thunder
+of the guns was faintly audible on the outskirts of Warsaw, sixty miles
+away.
+
+Then there followed a general assault of the Germans, a charge of huge
+masses of men, who followed up into the glare of the searchlights under
+an inferno of gunfire. Here again the Siberians demonstrated the
+qualities which have made them famous throughout the war. They met the
+Germans with a rifle fire from the trenches which not only stopped them
+but shattered them. They again played the old trick of allowing the
+enemy to approach within fifty feet, meanwhile holding their fire, and
+then blowing them off their feet with rifle fire and their use of the
+mitrailleuse.
+
+The attack failed utterly, and from the very manner of it the Russian
+losses could not be otherwise than light, while the German losses in the
+whole of the operations against Lodz and the neighboring positions
+exceed a hundred thousand killed. No guess at the number of their
+wounded can be attempted, but we know that score upon score of trains
+filled with them have gone west along the Kalisz line, and still
+continue to go.
+
+
+
+
+*The First Invasion of Servia*
+
+[By a Correspondent of The London Standard.]
+
+
+NISH, Servia, Aug. 31.--After the butcheries and atrocities which I
+witnessed during preceding battles I thought I would get accustomed and
+insensible to these scenes of blood, but from my last visit to the
+slaughter house I have brought such visions of horror that their very
+thought makes me shudder. The object of the Austrian Army seems to have
+been complete devastation.
+
+The fierce battle which the Servians gave them incessantly for more than
+a week may be divided into two conflicts of equal intensity which raged
+along the ridge of the heights of Tser. Each of the two slopes,
+descending one to the Save and the town of Shabatz and the other to the
+Drina, is now nothing but a charnel house.
+
+I could not say which of these two conflicts was more murderous, but
+this admirably fertile region, with its countless fruit trees, is now
+sheltering the last remains of hundreds of butchered men, women, and
+children.
+
+When after three days and three nights of truceless fighting the
+Servians succeeded in surprising the enemy in the middle of the night at
+Tser, the toll of dead was so colossal that the Servian troops were
+constrained for the time being to abandon burying the corpses.
+
+Everywhere the fighting was of the fiercest conceivable nature, for to
+resist the invaders was to the Servians a question of life and death. At
+several points they fought right up to the last man, succumbing but
+never falling back.
+
+The volunteer corps of Capt. Tankositch, the famous leader whose head
+Austria is so anxious to gain, was charged to defend Kroupage, situated
+south of the battle front, between Losnitza and Lionbovia. Considerable
+Austrian forces attempted to advance with the view of driving the
+Captain back.
+
+For two days and three nights Tankositch and 236 volunteers held their
+position. At last three whole Austrian regiments surrounded them, but
+rather than yield to the enemy Tankositch and his gallant miniature army
+resolved to fight to the last. In the dead of night he sent out a small
+group to meet the Austrians. This group, consisting of a mere handful of
+soldiers, hurled a shower of bombs at the enemy, cutting up his ranks,
+and secured a free pass.
+
+[Illustration: The Battlefield in Servia.]
+
+At the first break of day, when Tankositch counted his men, only
+forty-six answered the call. They surrounded more than a hundred
+prisoners.
+
+It will be realized that in the course of such sharp fighting the
+Servian losses must have been considerable, although they were much
+smaller than those of the enemy.
+
+The most pitiful and heartrending aspect of these scenes was presented
+by the long procession of Servian survivors from the neighboring
+villages, consisting of old men, women, and children, bringing in the
+heavy toll of mutilated human beings. At Valievo, the nearest town to
+the field of battle, large masses of Servian and Austrian wounded kept
+pouring in incessantly. About 10,000 have already arrived. All had to be
+examined, all had to have their wounds dressed, and at Valievo there are
+only six doctors.
+
+In spite of this appalling shortage of medical aid, I witnessed
+yesterday a most touching spectacle. A car drawn by oxen brought to the
+hospital at Valievo its load of mutilated soldiers. In the first portion
+of the car were three wounded Austrians and in the second two wounded
+Servians and two more Austrians. The convoys wanted to carry the
+Austrian wounded to the dressing room before their own wounded. A
+Servian doctor stopped them.
+
+"Bring the wounded in in the order in which they come," he commanded,
+and, without any regard for the nationality of his patients, the doctor
+and his colleagues commenced their humanitarian work.
+
+What are the Red Crosses of the neutral countries waiting for? Why do
+they not come here? In the name of gallant little Servia, in the name of
+a humane and pitiful people, I make urgent appeal to the Red Crosses to
+send a portion of their staff here. There are thousands of lives to be
+saved.
+
+Now I must begin a chapter of sorrows. I wanted to witness the
+Austro-Hungarian excesses a second time before speaking of them, so that
+I could give an exact and genuine account of actual facts. Courage
+failed me to see all, but what I have seen can be summed up in one
+phrase. In the environs of Shabatz the vanquished put the finishing
+touch to their acts of fearful savagery by butchering their Servian
+prisoners, whose corpses were found heaped up in the town.
+
+Yesterday and the day before I ran across country through Valievo toward
+Drina. Further north, barely forty miles from Valievo, at Seablatcha,
+the poor refugees who had fled from their houses before the onslaught of
+the Austrians showed me eight young people, tied one to another, who
+were all pierced by bayonets.
+
+Five miles from there, at Bella Tserka, fugitives of the village with
+indescribable despair were burying the mutilated, bodies of fourteen
+little girls. Six peasants were found hanging in an orchard.
+
+At Lychnitsa, on the Drina, about a hundred old men, inoffensive
+civilians, were massacred before the eyes of their wives and children.
+All the women and children were led over on the other side of the bank
+of the Drina in order to compel the Servians to stop their fire.
+
+It is not war that Austria-Hungary tried to make on Servia. That great
+nation wanted to exterminate the Servian people. She thought she would
+succeed before Servia had time to defend herself.
+
+Austrian prisoners affirm that they received orders to hang all those
+striving against their country, to burn all the enemy's villages, and
+put all their inhabitants to death.
+
+The Servian Quartermaster General is drawing up an official list of
+these Austro-Hungarian deeds.
+
+
+
+
+*The Attack on Tsing-tau*
+
+*By Jefferson Jones of The Minneapolis Journal and The Japan
+Advertiser.*
+
+
+JAPANESE HEADQUARTERS, Shantung, Nov. 2.--I have seen war from a grand
+stand seat. I never before heard of the possibility of witnessing a
+modern battle--the attack of warships, the fire of infantry and
+artillery, the manoeuvring of airships over the enemy's lines, the
+rolling up from the rear of reinforcements and supplies--all at one
+sweep of the eye; yet, after watching [Transcriber: original 'watchnig']
+for three days the siege of Tsing-tau from a position on Prinz Heinrich
+Berg, 1,000 feet above the sea level and but three miles from the
+beleaguered city, I am sure that there is actually such a thing as a
+theatre of war.
+
+On Oct. 31, the date of the anniversary of the birth of the Emperor of
+Japan, the actual bombardment of Tsing-tau began. All the residents of
+the little Chinese village of Tschang-tsun, where was fixed on that day
+the acting staff headquarters of the Japanese troops, had been awakened
+early in the morning by the roar of a German aeroplane over the village.
+Every one quickly dressed and, after a hasty breakfast, went out to the
+southern edge of the village to gaze toward Tsing-tau.
+
+A great black column of smoke was arising from the city and hung like a
+pall over the besieged. At first glance it seemed that one of the
+neighboring hills had turned into an active volcano and was emitting
+this column of smoke, but it was soon learned that the oil tanks in
+Tsing-tau were on fire.
+
+As the bombardment was scheduled to start late in the morning, we were
+invited to accompany members of the staff of the Japanese and British
+expeditionary forces on a trip to Prinz Heinrich Berg, there to watch
+the investment of the city. It was about a three-mile journey to this
+mountain, which had been the scene of some severe fighting between the
+German and Japanese troops earlier in the month.
+
+When we arrived at the summit there was the theatre of war laid out
+before us like a map. To the left were the Japanese and British cruisers
+in the Yellow Sea, preparing for the bombardment. Below was the Japanese
+battery, stationed near the Meeker House, which the Germans had burned
+in their retreat from the mountains. Directly ahead was the City of
+Tsing-tau, with the Austrian cruiser Kaiserin Elisabeth steaming about
+in the harbor, while to the right one could see the Kiao-Chau coast and
+central forts and redoubts and the intrenched Japanese and British
+camps.
+
+We had just couched ourselves comfortably between some large, jagged
+rocks, where we felt sure we were not in a direct line with the enemy's
+guns, when suddenly there was a flash as if some one had turned a large
+golden mirror in the field down beyond to the right. A little column of
+black smoke drifted away from one of the Japanese trenches, and a minute
+later those of us on the peak of Prinz Heinrich heard the sharp report
+of a field gun.
+
+"Gentlemen, the show has started," said the British Captain, as he
+removed his cap and started adjusting his "opera glass." No sooner had
+he said this than the reports of guns came from all directions with a
+continuous rumble as if a giant bowling alley were in use. Everywhere
+the valley at the rear of Tsing-tau was alive with golden flashes from
+discharging guns, and at the same time great clouds of bluish-white
+smoke would suddenly spring up around the German batteries where some
+Japanese shell had burst. Over near the greater harbor of Tsing-tau we
+could see flames licking up the Standard Oil Company's large tanks. We
+afterward learned that these had been set on fire by the Germans and
+not by a bursting shell.
+
+And then the warships in the Yellow Sea opened fire on Iltis Fort, and
+for three hours we continually played our glasses on the field--on
+Tsing-tau and on the warships. With glasses on the central redoubt of
+the Germans we watched the effects of the Japanese fire until the boom
+of guns from the German Fort A, on a little peninsula jutting out from
+Kiao-Chau Bay, toward the east, attracted our attention there. We could
+see the big siege gun on this fort rise up over the bunker, aim at a
+warship, fire, and then quickly go down again. And then we would turn
+our eyes toward the warships in time to see a fountain of water 200
+yards from a vessel, where the shell had struck. We scanned the city of
+Tsing-tau. The 150-ton crane in the greater harbor, which we had seen
+earlier in the day, and which was said to be the largest crane in the
+world, had disappeared and only its base remained standing. A Japanese
+shell had carried away the crane.
+
+But this first day's firing of the Japanese investing troops was mainly
+to test the range of the different batteries. The attempt also was made
+to silence the line of forts extending in the east from Iltis Hill, near
+the wireless and signal stations at the rear of Tsing-tau, to the coast
+fort near the burning oil tank on the west. In this they were partly
+successful, two guns at Iltis Fort being silenced by the guns at sea.
+
+On Nov. 1, the second day of the bombardment, we again stationed
+ourselves on the peak of Prinz Heinrich Berg. From the earliest hours of
+morning the Japanese and British forces had kept up a continuous fire on
+the German redoubts in front of the Iltis, Moltke, and Bismarck forts,
+and when we arrived at our seats it seemed as though the shells were
+dropping around the German trenches every minute. Particularly on the
+redoubt of Taitung-Chen was the Japanese fire heavy, and by early
+afternoon, through field glasses, this German redoubt appeared to have
+had an attack of smallpox, so pitted was it from the holes made by
+bursting Japanese shells. By nightfall many parts of the German
+redoubts had been destroyed, together with some machine guns. The result
+was the advancing of the Japanese lines several hundred yards from the
+bottom of the hills where they had rested earlier in the day.
+
+It was not until the third day of the bombardment that those of us
+stationed on Prinz Heinrich observed that our theatre of war had a
+curtain, a real asbestos one that screened the fire in the drops
+directly ahead of us from our eyes. We had learned that the theatre was
+equipped with pits, drops, a gallery for onlookers, exits, and an
+orchestra of booming cannon and rippling, roaring pompons; but that
+nature had provided it with a curtain--that was something new to us.
+
+We had reached the summit of the mountain about 11 A.M., just as some
+heavy clouds, evidently disturbed by the bombardment during the previous
+night, were dropping down into Litsun Valley and in front of Tsing-tau.
+For three hours we sat on the peak shivering in a blast from the sea,
+and all the while wondering just what was being enacted beyond the
+curtain. The firing had suddenly ceased, and with the filmy haze before
+our eyes we conjured up pictures of the Japanese troops making the
+general attack upon Iltis Fort, evidently the key to Tsing-tau, while
+the curtain, of the theatre of war was down.
+
+By early afternoon the clouds lifted, and with glasses we were able to
+distinguish fresh sappings of the Japanese infantry nearer to the German
+redoubts. The Japanese guns, which the day before were stationed below
+us to the left, near the Meeker House, had advanced half a mile and were
+on the road just outside the village of Ta-Yau. Turning our glasses on
+Kiao-Chau Bay, we discovered that the Kaiserin Elisabeth was missing,
+nor did a search of the shore line reveal her. Whether she was blown up
+by the Germans or had hidden behind one of the islands I do not know.
+
+All the guns were silent now, and the British Captain said: "Well,
+chaps, shall we take advantage of the intermission?"
+
+A half-hour later we were down the mountain and riding homeward toward
+Tschang-Tsun.
+
+To understand fully the operations of the Japanese troops in Shantung
+during the present Far Eastern war one must be acquainted with the
+topography of this peninsula, as well as with the conditions that exist
+for the successful movements of the troops.
+
+Since the disembarkation of the Japanese Army on Sept. 2 everything has
+seemingly favored the Germans. The country, which is unusually
+mountainous, offering natural strongholds for resisting the invading
+army, is practically devoid of roads in the hinterland. To add to this
+difficulty, the last two months in Shantung have seen heavy rains and
+floods which have really aided in holding off the ultimate fall of
+Kiao-Chau.
+
+One had only to see the road from Lanschan over Makung Pass, on which
+the Japanese troops were forced to rely for their supplies, partly to
+understand the reason for the German garrison at Tsing-tau still holding
+out. The road, especially near the base, is nothing but a sea of clay in
+which the military carts sink up to their hubs. Frequent rains every
+week keep the roadway softened up and thus render it necessary for the
+Japanese infantry to rebuild it and to construct drainage ditches in
+order that there may be no delay in getting supplies and ammunition to
+the troops at the front.
+
+The physical characteristics of Kiao-Chau make it an ideal fortress. The
+entrance of the bay is nearly two miles wide and is commanded by hills
+rising 600 feet directly in the rear of Tsing-tau. The ring of hills
+that surrounds the city does not extend back into the hinterland, and
+thus there is no screen behind which the Japanese forces can quickly
+invest the city. Germany has utilized the semicircle of hills in the
+construction of large concrete forts equipped with Krupp guns of 14 and
+16 inch calibre, which, for four or five miles back into the peninsula,
+command all approaches to the city.
+
+The Japanese Army in approaching Tsing-tau has had to do so practically
+in the open. The troops found no hills behind which they could with
+safety mount heavy siege guns without detection by the German garrison.
+In fact, the strategic plan for the capture of the town has been much
+like the plan adopted by the Japanese forces at Port Arthur--they have
+forced their approach by sappings. While this is a gradual method, it is
+certain of victory in the end and results in very little loss of life.
+
+The natural elevations of the Iltis, Bismarck, and Moltke forts at the
+rear of Tsing-tau have another advantage in that they are so situated
+that they are commanded by at least two other forts. All of the guns had
+been so placed that they can be turned on their neighbors if the
+occasion arises.
+
+A Japanese aeroplane soaring over Tsing-tau on Oct. 30 scattered
+thousands of paper handbills on which was printed the following
+announcement, in German, from the Staff Headquarters:
+
+"To the Honored Officers and Men in the Fortress: It is against the will
+of God as well as the principles of humanity to destroy and render
+useless arms, ships of war, merchantmen, and other works and
+constructions not in obedience to the necessity of war, but merely out
+of spite lest they fall into the hands of the enemy.
+
+"Trusting, as we do, that, as you hold dear the honor of civilization,
+you will not be betrayed into such base conduct. We beg you, however, to
+announce to us your own view as mentioned above."
+
+
+
+
+*The German Attack on Tahiti*
+
+*As Told by Miss Geni La France, an Eyewitness.*
+
+
+SAN FRANCISCO, Cal., Oct. 7.--Graphic stories of the plight of Papeete,
+capital of Tahiti, in the Society Islands, were told here today by
+passengers arriving on the Union Steamship Company's liner Moana.
+Several of those on board the steamer were in Papeete when the town was
+bombarded by the German cruisers Gneisenau and Scharnhorst. They said
+the place was in ruins and that the natives were still hiding in the
+hills, whence they fled when the bombardment began.
+
+The stories of those arriving on the Moana vary only in unimportant
+details. Perhaps the most graphic story was that told by Miss Geni La
+France, a French actress. She told of the Governor's heroism and his
+self-sacrificing devotion to duty, which caused him to face death rather
+than surrender. All of the passengers were loud in their praise of this
+Frenchman, who thought first of his country, next of his guests--for so
+he considered all travelers--and next of the city's residents.
+
+"While the shells screamed and exploded with a deafening roar, tearing
+buildings and leaving wreck and ruin in their wake, this old Governor
+was calm throughout," said Miss La France.
+
+"It was his bravery that enabled us to bear up under the terrible
+strain, although it was impossible to flee the city, as shells were
+exploding all about.
+
+"I was sitting on the veranda of the hotel, having a lovely holiday.
+Every one was happy and contented. The sunshine was lovely and warm and
+the natives were busy at their work. I noticed two dark ships steaming
+up the little river, but was too lazy and 'comfy' to take any interest
+in them.
+
+"Suddenly, without any warning, shots began exploding around us. Two of
+the houses near the hotel fell with a crash, and the natives began
+screaming and running in every direction. For a minute I didn't realize
+what was happening. But when another volley of shells burst dangerously
+near and some of the pieces just missed my head, I was flying, too.
+
+"Every one was shouting, 'To the hills, to the hills!' My manager could
+not obtain a wagon or any means of conveyance to take me there. I felt
+as if I had on a pair of magic boots that would carry me to the hills in
+three steps. But I didn't. It was a good six miles, over bad roads, and
+we had to run.
+
+"The shells from the German battleships kept breaking, and the
+explosions were terrible. I am sure that I made a record in sprinting
+that six miles. The cries of the people were terrible. I was simply
+terror-stricken and could not cry for fear. I seemed to realize that I
+must keep my strength in order to reach the hills.
+
+"We hid in the hills and the natives gave up their homes to the white
+people, and were especially kind to the women."
+
+"The native population probably hasn't come back from the hills yet, and
+when we left, two days after the bombardment, the European population
+was still dazed," said E.P. Titchener, a Wellington, New Zealand,
+merchant, who went through the bombardment.
+
+"From 8 o'clock until 10 the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau circled in the
+harbor, firing broadsides of eight-inch guns at the little gunboat Zelie
+and the warehouses beyond.
+
+"Only the American flag, which the American Consul hoisted, and an
+American sailing vessel also ran up, the two being in line before the
+main European residence section, saved that part of the town, for the
+German cruisers were careful not to fire in that direction."
+
+According to all accounts, the cruisers directed their fire solely
+toward the Zelie, but their marksmanship was said to be poor. Many shots
+fell short and many went wide, so that the whole business district, the
+general market, and the warehouses along the water front were peppered
+and riddled.
+
+The French replied from some old guns on the hills as well as three
+shots from the Zelie, but ineffectively.
+
+"It was plucky of the French to fire at all," said Mr. Titchener. "At 7
+o'clock we could see two war vessels approaching, and soon made out they
+were cruisers. They came on without a flag, and the Zelie, lying in the
+harbor, fired a blank shot.
+
+"Then the Germans hoisted their flag and the Zelie fired two shots. The
+Germans swung around and fired their broadsides, and all the crew of the
+Zelie scuttled ashore. No one was hurt.
+
+"The Germans continued to swing and fire. Their shells flew all over the
+town above the berth of the Zelie and the German prize ship Walkure,
+which the Zelie had captured. Perhaps not knowing they were firing into
+a German vessel, the Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst continued their wild
+cannonades.
+
+"During the two hours of bombardment a hundred shells from the big
+8-inch guns of the cruisers fell and exploded in the town. The sound was
+terrific, and nobody blamed the natives for running away.
+
+"With all the destruction, only three men were killed--one Chinaman and
+two natives. The Germans evidently made an effort to confine their fire,
+but many shots went wide, and these did the main mischief.
+
+"Finally, about 10 o'clock, without attempting to land, and not knowing
+that the German crew of the Walkure were prisoners in the town, the
+Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst steamed away and disappeared over the
+horizon. They sailed off to the westward, but of course we could not
+tell how they set their course when they got beyond our vision."
+
+The damage to Papeete was estimated at $2,000,000. Two vessels were sunk
+and two blocks of business houses and residences were destroyed. The
+French set fire to a 40,000-ton coal pile to prevent the Germans
+replenishing their bunkers.
+
+The voyage of the Moana was fraught with adventure. From Papeete the
+vessel, which flies the British flag, sailed with lights out and dodged
+four German cruisers after being warned by the wireless operator, who
+had picked up a German code message sent out by the cruisers which had
+razed the island city.
+
+
+
+
+*The Bloodless Capture of German Samoa*
+
+*By Malcolm Ross, F.R.G.S.*
+
+[Special Correspondence of THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
+
+
+WELLINGTON, N.Z., Sept. 19.--The advance detachment of the New Zealand
+Expeditionary Force which was ordered to seize German Samoa left
+Wellington in two troopships at dawn on Aug. 15, and was met in the
+ocean in latitude 36.0 south, longitude 178.30 east by three of the
+British cruisers in New Zealand waters--the Psyche, Pyramus, and
+Philomel.
+
+As it was known that the armored cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were
+still at large in Pacific waters, it was decided not to go direct to
+Samoa, but to shape a course direct for New Caledonia. For the next
+fortnight or so we were playing a game of hide and seek in the big
+islanded playground of the Pacific Ocean. The first evening out the
+Psyche signaled "Whereabouts of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau still unknown;
+troopships to extinguish all lights and proceed with only shaded lights
+at bow and stern." Military books and papers were quickly gathered
+together, and the remaining few minutes of daylight were used for
+getting into bed, while the difficult task was set us of trying to sleep
+the round of the clock. Thus, night after night, with lights out, we
+steamed along our northward track, the days being spent in drill and
+ball firing with rifles and the Maxim guns.
+
+On the morning of Aug. 2 we proceeded along the shores of New Caledonia
+and saw the big French cruiser Montcalm entering the harbor. Next day we
+were joined by the battle cruiser Australia and the light cruiser
+Melbourne. The contingent received an enthusiastic reception in New
+Caledonia. As we passed the Montcalm our band played the "Marseillaise,"
+and the band on the French cruiser responded with our national anthem.
+Cheers from the thousands of men afloat and the singing of patriotic
+songs added to the general enthusiasm, the French residents being
+greatly excited with the sudden and unexpected appearance of their
+allies from New Zealand.
+
+A delay of twenty-four hours was caused by one of the troopships
+grounding on a sand bank in the harbor, but on Sunday, Aug. 23, the
+expedition got safely away.
+
+We steamed through the Havannah Pass, at the southeastern end of the
+island, where we awaited Rear Admiral Sir George Patey, in command of
+the allied fleets. In due course the Australia and the Melbourne came up
+with us. Then in turn waited for the Montcalm. All the ships, eight in
+number, were now assembled, and they moved off in the evening light to
+take up position in the line ahead.
+
+Fiji was reached in due course, and at anchor in the harbor of Suva we
+found the Japanese collier Fukoku Maru, and learned that she had been
+coaling the German cruisers at the Caroline Islands just before the
+declaration of war. After the coaling had been completed the Japanese
+Captain went on to Samoa, calling at Apia. The Germans, however, would
+not allow him to land. The Japanese Captain had been paid for his coal
+by drafts on Germany, which, on reaching Suva, he found to be useless.
+He was therefore left without means to coal and reprovision. As he was
+not allowed to land at Samoa, he went on to Pago-Pago, in complete
+ignorance that war had been declared, and, not being able to get
+supplies there, left for Suva. At the latter port the harbor lights
+being extinguished, he ran his vessel on to the reef in the night time.
+Rockets were sent up, but no assistance could be given from the shore.
+Fortunately, however, he got off as the tide made; but it was a narrow
+call.
+
+In the early dawn of Aug. 30 we got our first glimpse of German Samoa.
+The American island of Tutuila was out of sight, away to the right, but
+presently we rounded the southeastern corner of the island of Upolu,
+with its beautiful wooded hills wreathing their summits in the morning
+mists, and saw the white line of surf breaking along its coral
+reef--historic Upolu, the home of Robert Louis Stevenson, the scene of
+wars and rebellions and international schemings, and the scene also of
+that devastating hurricane which wrecked six ships of war and ten other
+vessels, and sent 142 officers and men of the German and American Navies
+to their last sleep. The rusting ribs and plates of the Adler, the
+German flagship, pitched high inside the reef, still stare at us as a
+reminder of that memorable event.
+
+The Psyche went boldly on ahead, and after the harbor had been swept for
+mines she steamed in, under a flag of truce, and delivered a message
+from Admiral Patey, demanding the surrender of Apia. The Germans, who
+had been expecting their own fleet in, were surprised with the
+suddenness with which an overwhelming force had descended upon them, and
+decided to offer no resistance to a landing. Capt. Marshall promptly
+made a signal to the troopships to steam to their anchorages; motor
+launches, motor surfboats, and ships' boats were launched, and the men
+began to pour over the ships' sides and down the rope ladders into the
+boats.
+
+In a remarkably brief space of time the covering party was on shore,
+officers and men dashing out of the boats, up to the knees, and
+sometimes the waist, in water. The main street, the cross-roads, and the
+bridges were quickly in possession of our men, with their Maxims and
+rifles, and then, one after another, the motor boats and launches began
+to tow strings of boats, crammed with the men of the main body, toward
+the shore. The bluejackets of the beach party, who had already landed,
+urged them forward by word and deed in cheery fashion, and soon Apia was
+swarming with our troops.
+
+Guards were placed all about the Government buildings, and Col. Logan,
+with his staff, was quickly installed in the Government offices.
+
+Lieut. Col. Fulton dashed off to the telephone exchange and pulled out
+all the plugs, so that the residents could hold no intercommunication by
+that means. The Custom House and the offices of the Governor were also
+seized without a moment's loss of time. An armed party was dispatched
+along a bush road to seize the wireless station. Late that evening the
+man in charge rang up in some alarm to state that there was dynamite
+lying about and that the engine had been tampered with to such an extent
+that the apparatus could not be used until we got our own machinery in
+position.
+
+Meantime the German flag, that had flown over the island for fourteen
+years, was hauled down, the Germans present doffing their hats and
+standing bareheaded and silent on the veranda of the Supreme Court as
+they watched the soldier in khaki from New Zealand unceremoniously
+pulling it down, detaching it from the rope, and carrying it inside the
+building.
+
+Next morning the British flag was hoisted with all due ceremony. In the
+harbor the emblem of Britain's might fluttered from the masts of our
+cruiser escort, the Stars and Stripes waved in the tropic breeze above
+the palms surrounding the American Consulate, and out in the open sea
+the white ensign and tricolor flew on the powerful warships of the
+allied fleets of England and France.
+
+A large crowd of British and other residents and Samoans had gathered.
+In the background were groups of Chinese coolies, gazing wonderingly
+upon the scene. The balconies of the adjoining buildings were crowded
+with British and Samoans. Only the Germans were conspicuous by their
+absence. With undisguised feelings of sadness they had seen their own
+flag hauled down the day before. Naturally they had no desire to witness
+the flag of the rival nation going up in its place.
+
+A few minutes before 8 o'clock all was ready. Two bluejackets and a
+naval Lieutenant stood with the flag, awaiting the signal. The first gun
+of the royal salute from the Psyche boomed out across the bay. Then
+slowly, to the booming of twenty-one guns, the flag was hoisted to the
+summit of the staff, the officers, with drawn swords, silently watching
+it go up. With the sound of the last gun it reached the top of the
+flagstaff [Transcriber: original 'fliagstaff'] and fluttered out in the
+southeast trade wind above the tall palms of Upolo.
+
+There was a sharp order from the officer commanding the expedition, and
+the troops came to the royal salute. The national anthem--never more
+fervently sung--and three rousing cheers for King George followed.
+
+Then came the reading of the proclamation by Col. Logan, the troops
+formed up again, and, to the music of the, band of the Fifth Regiment,
+marched back to quarters.
+
+
+
+
+*How the Cressy Sank*
+
+*By Edgar Rowan of The London Daily Chronicle.*
+
+
+MUIDEN, Holland, Sept. 23.--(Dispatch to The London Daily
+Chronicle.)--When the history of this war comes to be written we shall
+put no black borders, as men without pride or hope, around the story of
+the loss of the cruisers Aboukir, Cressy, and Hogue. We shall write it
+in letters of gold, for the plain, unvarnished tale of those last
+moments, when the cruisers went down, helpless before a hidden foe,
+ranks among the countless deeds of quiet, unseen, unconscious heroism
+that make up the navy's splendid pages.
+
+It is easy to learn all that happened, for the officers want chiefly to
+tell how splendidly brave the men were, and the men pay a like tribute
+to the officers. The following appears to be a main outline of the
+disaster:
+
+The three cruisers had for some time been patrolling the North Sea. Soon
+after 6 o'clock Tuesday morning--there is disagreement as to the exact
+time--the Aboukir suddenly felt a shock on the port side. A dull
+explosion was heard and a column of water was thrown up mast high. The
+explosion wrecked the stokehole just forward of amidship and, judging by
+the speed with which the cruiser sank, tore the bottom open.
+
+Almost immediately the doomed cruiser began to settle. Except for the
+watch on deck, most of her crew, were asleep, wearied by constant vigil
+in bad weather, but in perfect order officers and men rushed to
+quarters. Quickfirers were manned in the hope of a dying shot at a
+submarine, but there was not a glimpse of one. Of the few boats carried
+when cleared for action, two were smashed in recent gales and another
+was wrecked by the explosion.
+
+The Aboukir's sister cruisers, each more than a mile away, saw and heard
+the explosion. They thought the Aboukir had been struck by a mine. They
+closed in and lowered boats. This sealed their own fate, for while they
+were standing by to rescue survivors, first the Hogue and then the
+Cressy was torpedoed.
+
+The Cressy appears to have seen the submarines in time to attempt to
+retaliate. She fired a few shots before she keeled over, broken in two,
+and sank. Whether she sank any submarines is not known.
+
+The men of the Aboukir afloat in the water hoped for everything from the
+arrival of her sister cruisers, and all survivors agree that when these
+also sank many gave up the struggle for life and went down. An officer
+told me that when swimming, after having lost his jacket in the grip of
+a drowning man, his chief thought was that the Germans had succeeded in
+sinking only three comparatively obsolete cruisers which shortly would
+have been scrapped anyway.
+
+Twenty-four men were saved on a target which floated off the Hogue's
+deck. The men were gathered on it for four hours waist deep in water.
+
+The rescued officers unite in praising the skill and daring of the
+German naval officers, and, far from bearing any grudge, they have
+nothing but professional praise for the submarines' feat.
+
+"Our only grievance," one said, "is that we did not have a shot at the
+Germans. Our only share in the war has been a few uncomfortable weeks of
+bad weather, mines, and submarines."
+
+When I entered the billiard room of the hotel here sheltering survivors
+and asked if any British officers were there, several unshaven men in
+the khaki working kit of the Dutch Army or in fishermen's jerseys got up
+from their chairs. Most of them had been saved in their pajamas, and
+they had to accept the first things in the way of clothing offered by
+the kindly Dutch. One Lieutenant apologized for closing the window, as
+he had only a thin jacket over his pajamas. He gladly accepted the loan
+of my overcoat while making a list of his men who had been saved.
+
+While the survivors are technically prisoners in this neutral country,
+to be interned until the end of the war, Muiden steadfastly refuses to
+regard them as other than honored guests. The soldiers posted before
+every building where officers or men are sheltered seem to be guards of
+honor rather than prison warders, and every one in the place is
+competing for the honor of lending clothes, running errands, or offering
+cigars for the survivors.
+
+When the Dutch steamer Flora arrived with survivors last night, flying
+her flag at half-mast and signaling for a doctor, the Red Cross
+authorities and the British Vice Consul, Mr. Rigorsberg, at once set the
+machinery in motion, and soon the officers were settled in hotels and
+the men were divided among a hospital, a church, and a young men's
+institute.
+
+I saw one bluejacket asleep covered with a white ensign. He had snatched
+it up before diving overboard. He held it in his teeth while in the
+water and refused to part with it when rescued. He is now prepared to
+fight any one who may attempt to steal this last relic of his ship.
+
+One survivor says that an English fishing boat also was sunk by the
+submarines, but the story is not confirmed.
+
+For hours Capt. Voorham of the Flora and Capt. Berkhout of the Titan,
+caring nothing for risks of mines and submarines, cruised over the scene
+of the disaster, and the gallant Dutch seamen were rewarded by the
+rescue of 400 survivors.
+
+Capt. Voorham, who landed all the survivors at Muiden, says:
+
+"We left Rotterdam early Tuesday. In the North Sea we saw a warship,
+which proved to be the Cressy. Not long afterward I saw her keel over,
+break in two and disappear. Our only thought then was to save as many
+survivors as possible. When we got to the spot where she disappeared
+boats approached us and we began to get the men in them aboard. It was a
+very difficult undertaking, as the survivors were exhausted and we were
+rolling heavily.
+
+"We also lowered our own boats and picked up many from the wreckage. All
+were practically naked and some were so exhausted that they had to be
+hauled aboard with tackle. Each as he recovered at once turned to help
+my small crew to save others. Later I saw the Titan approaching and
+signaled for help.
+
+"One man was brought aboard with his legs broken. It was touching to see
+how tenderly his mates handled him.
+
+"Presently the British destroyers approached. A survivor on my ship
+signaled with his arms that he was on a friendly ship, and the warships
+passed on.
+
+"Among those saved were two doctors, who worked hard to help the
+exhausted men. One man died after they had tried artificial respiration
+for an hour.
+
+"My men collected all the clothes and blankets on board and gave them to
+the survivors, and the cook was busy getting hot coffee and other food
+for my large party of guests.
+
+"By 11:30 we had picked up all the survivors we could see. Soon after we
+saw German submarines, and, thinking it best to get to the nearest port,
+called here."
+
+Remember that Capt. Voorham had only a comparatively small ship and a
+crew of only seventeen and realize the splendid work he did.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+*German Story of the Heligoland Fight*
+
+[Special Correspondence of THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
+
+
+LONDON, Sept. 8.--Copies of the Berliner Tageblatt have been received
+here containing the German account of the recent naval battle off
+Heligoland between British and German vessels.
+
+"Regarding the sinking of torpedo boat V-187," says the Tageblatt
+account, "an eyewitness says the small craft fought heroically to the
+bitter end against overwhelming odds. Quite unexpectedly the V-187 was
+attacked by a flotilla of English destroyers coming from the north.
+Hardly had the first shot been fired when more hostile destroyers, also
+submarines, arrived and surrounded the German craft.
+
+"The V-187, on which, in addition to the commander, was the flotilla
+chief, Capt. Wallis, defended itself to the utmost, but the steering
+gear was put out of business by several shots, and thus it was
+impossible to withdraw from the enemy. When the commander saw there was
+no further hope, the vessel was blown up so as not to fall into the
+enemy's hands. But even while she sank the guns not put out of action
+continued to be worked by the crew till the ship was swallowed up in the
+waves. The flotilla commander, as well as Commander Lechler, was lost,
+besides many of the crew.
+
+"The enemy deserves the greatest credit for their splendid rescue work.
+The English sailors, unmindful of their own safety, went about it in
+heroic fashion.
+
+"Boats were put out from the destroyers to save the survivors. While
+this rescue work was still under way stronger German forces approached,
+causing the English torpedo boats to withdraw, abandoning the small
+rescue boats which they had put out, and those who had been saved were
+now taken from the English boats aboard our ships.
+
+"When the thunder of the guns showed the enemy was near and engaged with
+our torpedo boats, the small armored cruiser Ariadne steamed out to take
+part in the scrap. As the Ariadne neared the outpost vessels it was
+observed that various of our lighter units were fighting with the
+English, which later, however, appeared to be escaping toward the west.
+
+"The long-suppressed keenness for fighting could not be gainsaid and the
+Ariadne pursued, although the fog made it impossible to estimate the
+strength of the enemy. Presently, not far from the Ariadne, two hostile
+cruisers loomed out of the mist--two dreadnought battle cruisers of
+30,000 tons' displacement, armed with eight 13.5-inch guns. What could
+the Ariadne, of 2,650 tons and armed with ten 4-inch guns, do against
+those two Goliath ships?
+
+"At the start of this unequal contest a shot struck the forward boiler
+room of the Ariadne and put half of her boilers out of business,
+lowering her speed by fifteen miles. Nevertheless, and despite the
+overwhelming superiority of the English, the fight lasted half an hour.
+The stern of the Ariadne was in flames, but the guns on her foredeck
+continued to be worked.
+
+"But the fight was over. The enemy disappeared to the westward. The crew
+of the Ariadne, now gathered on the foredeck, true to the navy's
+traditions, broke into three hurrahs for the War Lord, Kaiser Wilhelm.
+Then, to the singing of 'Deutschland Ueber Alles,' the sinking, burning
+ship was abandoned in good order. Two of our ships near by picked up the
+Ariadne's crew. Presently the Ariadne disappeared under the waves after
+the stern powder magazine had exploded.
+
+"The first officer, surgeon, chief engineer, and seventy men were lost.
+In addition, many were wounded."
+
+
+
+
+*The Sinking of the Cressy and the Hogue*
+
+*By the Senior Surviving Officers--Commander Bertram W.L. Nicholson and
+Commander Reginald A. Norton.*
+
+[By the Associated Press.]
+
+
+LONDON, Sept. 25.--The report to the Admiralty on the sinking of the
+Cressy, signed by Bertram W.L. Nicholson, Commander of the late H.M.S.
+Cressy, follows:
+
+"Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report in connection with
+the sinking of H.M.S. Cressy, in company with H.M.S. Aboukir and Hogue,
+on the morning of the 22d of September, while on patrol duty:
+
+"The Aboukir was struck at about 6:25 A.M. on the starboard beam. The
+Hogue and Cressy closed and took up a position, the Hogue ahead of the
+Aboukir, and the Cressy about 400 yards on her port beam. As soon as it
+was seen that the Aboukir was in danger of sinking all the boats were
+sent away from the Cressy, and a picket boat was hoisted out without
+steam up. When cutters full of the Aboukir's men were returning to the
+Cressy the Hogue was struck, apparently under the aft 9.2 magazine, as a
+very heavy explosion took place immediately. Almost directly after the
+Hogue was hit we observed a periscope on our port bow about 300 yards
+off.
+
+"Fire was immediately opened and the engines were put full speed ahead
+with the intention of running her down. Our gunner, Mr. Dougherty,
+positively asserts that he hit the periscope and that the submarine
+sank. An officer who was standing alongside the gunner thinks that the
+shell struck only floating timber, of which there was much about, but it
+was evidently the impression of the men on deck, who cheered and clapped
+heartily, that the submarine had been hit. This submarine did not fire a
+torpedo at the Cressy.
+
+"Capt. Johnson then manoeuvred the ship so as to render assistance to
+the crews of the Hogue and Aboukir. About five minutes later another
+periscope was seen on our starboard quarter and fire was opened. The
+track of the torpedo she fired at a range of 500 to 600 yards was
+plainly visible and it struck us on the starboard side just before the
+afterbridge.
+
+"The ship listed about 10 degrees to the starboard and remained steady.
+The time was 7:15 A.M. All the watertight doors, deadlights and scuttles
+had been securely closed before the torpedo struck the ship. All the
+mess stools and table shores, and all available timber below and on
+deck, had been previously got up and thrown over side for the saving of
+life.
+
+"A second torpedo fired by the same submarine missed and passed about 10
+feet astern. About a quarter of an hour after the first torpedo had hit
+a third torpedo fired from a submarine just before the starboard beam
+hit us under the No. 5 boiler room. The time was 7:30 A.M. The ship then
+began to heel rapidly, and finally turned keel up, remaining so for
+about twenty minutes before she finally sank, at 7:55 A.M.
+
+"A large number of men were saved by casting adrift on Pattern 3 target.
+The steam pinnace floated off her clutches, but filled and sank.
+
+"The second torpedo which struck the Cressy passed over the sinking hull
+of the Aboukir, narrowly missing it. It is possible that the same
+submarine fired all three torpedoes at the Cressy.
+
+"The conduct of the crew was excellent throughout. I have already
+remarked on the bravery displayed by Capt. Phillips, master of the
+trawler L.T. Coriander, and his crew, who picked up 156 officers and
+men."
+
+The report to the Admiralty of Commander Reginald A. Norton, late of
+H.M.S. Hogue, follows:
+
+"I have the honor to report as follows concerning the sinking of the
+Hogue, Aboukir, and Cressy: Between 6:15 and 6:30 A.M., H.M.S. Aboukir
+was struck by a torpedo. The Hogue closed on the Aboukir and I received
+orders to hoist out the launch, turn out and prepare all boats, and
+unlash all timber on the upper deck.
+
+"Two lifeboats were sent to the Aboukir, but before the launch could get
+away the Hogue was struck on the starboard side amidships by two
+torpedoes at intervals of ten to twenty seconds. The ship at once began
+to heel to starboard. After ordering the men to provide themselves with
+wood, hammocks, &c., and to get into the boats on the booms and take off
+their clothes, I went, by Capt. Nicholson's direction, to ascertain the
+damage done in the engine room. The artificer engineer informed me that
+the water was over the engine-room gratings.
+
+"While endeavoring to return to the bridge the water burst open the
+starboard entry port doors and the ship heeled rapidly. I told the men
+in the port battery to jump overboard, as the launch was close
+alongside, and soon afterward the ship lurched heavily to starboard.
+
+"I clung to a ringbolt for some time, but eventually was dropped on to
+the deck, and a huge wave washed me away. I climbed up the ship's side
+and again was washed off. Eventually, after swimming about from various
+overladen pieces of wreckage, I was picked up by a cutter from the
+Hogue, Coxswain L.S. Marks, which pulled about for some hours, picking
+up men and discharging them to our picket boat and steam pinnace and to
+the Dutch steamers Flora and Titan, and rescued, in this way, Commander
+Sells of the Aboukir, Engineer Commander Stokes, (with legs broken,)
+Fleet Paymaster Eldred, and about 120 others.
+
+"Finally, about 11 A.M., when we could find no more men in the water, we
+were picked up by the Lucifier, which proceeded to the Titan and took
+off from her all our men except about twenty who were too ill to be
+moved.
+
+"A Lowestoft trawler and the two Dutch ships Flora and Titan were
+extraordinarily kind, clothing and feeding our men. My boat's crew,
+consisting mainly of Royal Navy Reserve men, pulled and behaved
+remarkably well. I particularly wish to mention Petty Officer Halton,
+who, by encouraging the men in the water near me, undoubtedly saved many
+lives.
+
+"Lieut. Commander Phillips-Wolley, after hoisting out the launch, asked
+me if we should try to hoist out another boat, and endeavored to do so.
+The last I saw of him was on the after bridge, doing well.
+
+"Lieut. Commander Tillard was picked up by a launch. He got up a
+cutter's crew and saved many lives, as did Midshipman Cazalet in the
+Cressy's gig. Lieut. Chichester turned out the whaler very quickly.
+
+"A Dutch sailing trawler sailed close by, but went off without rendering
+any assistance [Transcriber: original 'asistance'], although we signaled
+to her from the Hogue to close after we were struck.
+
+"The Aboukir appeared to me to take about thirty-five minutes to sink,
+floating bottom up for about five minutes. The Hogue turned turtle very
+quickly--in about five minutes--and floated bottom up for several
+minutes. A dense black smoke was seen in the starboard battery, whether
+from coal or torpedo cordite I could not say. The upper deck was not
+blown up, and only one other small explosion occurred and we heeled
+over.
+
+"The Cressy I watched heel over from the cutter. She heeled over to
+starboard very slowly, dense black smoke issuing from her when she
+attained an angle of about 90 degrees, and she took a long time from
+this angle till she floated bottom up with the starboard screw slightly
+out of water. I consider it was thirty-five to forty-five minutes from
+the time she was struck till she was bottom up.
+
+"All the men on the Hogue behaved extraordinarily [Transcriber: original
+'extraordinarly'] well, obeying orders even when in the water swimming
+for their lives, and I witnessed many cases of great self-sacrifice and
+gallantry. Farmstone, an able seaman of the Hogue, jumped overboard from
+the launch to make room for others, and would not avail himself of
+assistance until all the men near by were picked up. He was in the water
+about half an hour.
+
+"There was no panic of any sort, the men taking off their clothes as
+ordered and falling in with hammock or wood. Capt. Nicholson, in our
+other cutter, as usual, was perfectly cool and rescued large numbers of
+men. I last saw him alongside the Flora. Engineer Commander Stokes, I
+believe, was in the engine room to the last, and Engineer Lieut.
+Commander Fendick got steam on the boat hoist and worked it in five
+minutes.
+
+"I have the honor to submit that I may be appointed to another ship as
+soon as I can get a kit."
+
+
+
+
+*The Sinking of the Hawke*
+
+[By a Correspondent of The London Daily Chronicle.]
+
+
+ABERDEEN, Scotland, Oct. 16.--The British cruiser Hawke was sunk in the
+North Sea yesterday by a German submarine, and of her crew of 400
+officers and men only 73 are known to have been saved.
+
+The cruiser Theseus, a sister ship of the Hawke, was attacked by the
+same submarine, but escaped because she obeyed the Admiralty's
+instructions and looked to her own safety instead of rushing to the aid
+of the Hawke's perishing crew.
+
+A survivor of the Hawke gives the following description of the disaster:
+"Within eight minutes the Hawke had gone under. Had the ship gone down
+forward or aft there would have been some chance for us to get the boats
+out and clear of the cruiser, but she keeled over on her beam ends, and
+so of all boats we lowered those on the starboard side were useless, and
+those on the port side were crushed as soon as they touched the water.
+
+"I was proud to be among such comrades. Everything was absolutely in
+perfect order. When the ship was struck a fearful explosion followed,
+and grime and dust were everywhere. I was amidships at the time, and
+could hardly see to grope my way to the ship's side. I heard orders
+given to lower the boats, and then some one shouted, 'Look after
+yourselves!' So I did that.
+
+"Most of the men on board were married men. We saw hundreds in the
+water, but we were afraid to pick them up as our boat was already
+overcrowded. So we threw our lifebelts to them. It was all we could do.
+
+"The weather was bitter cold, and I do not think that many, apart from
+those who were landed at Aberdeen, were saved."
+
+Here is the statement of a rescued stoker: "When the explosion occurred
+I, along with others who were in the engine room, was sent flying into
+space and was stunned for a time. When I came to my senses I found
+myself in the midst of what must be described as an absolute inferno.
+One of the cylinders of the engine had been completely wrecked, and
+steam was passing out in dense, scalding clouds. The horror of the
+situation was increased when a tank of oil fuel caught fire, and the
+flames advanced with frightful rapidity.
+
+"Seeing that there was not a ghost of a chance of doing any good by
+remaining in what was obviously a deathtrap, I determined to make a dash
+for it, and I scrambled up an iron ladder to the main deck. All this had
+happened in less time than it takes to tell it, but such is British
+pluck, coolness, and nerve even in such a situation that the commander
+and other officers were on the bridge, and as calmly as if we were on
+fleet manoeuvres the orders were given and as calmly obeyed.
+
+"The buglers sounded a stiff call which summoned every man to remain at
+his post. During the first minute or two many of us believed all that
+was wrong was a boiler explosion, but the rapidity with which the
+cruiser was making water on the starboard side quickly disabused all our
+minds of this belief. Realizing the actual situation, the commander gave
+orders to close all the watertight doors. Soon after that came orders to
+abandon the ship and get out the boats.
+
+"One cutter was being launched from the port side, but the Hawke at that
+moment heeled over before the boat could be got clear, and the cutter
+lurched against the cruiser's side and stove in one or two of her
+planks. As the Hawke went down a small pinnace and a raft which had been
+prepared for such an emergency floated free, but such was the onrush of
+men who had been thrown into the water that both were overcrowded. On
+the raft were about seventy men knee deep in water, and the pinnace also
+appeared to be overfilled.
+
+"When those who managed to make their way into the cutter, which was
+also in grave danger of being overturned, caught the last glimpse of
+these two craft they were in a precarious condition. The cutter moved
+around the wreck, picking up as many survivors as the boat would hold.
+All those aboard her who had put on lifebelts took them off and threw
+them to their comrades who were struggling in the water. Oars and other
+movable woodwork also were pitched overboard to help those clinging to
+the wreckage, many of whom were seen to sink."
+
+
+
+
+*The Emden's Last Fight*
+
+[By the Cable Operator at Cocos Islands.]
+
+
+KEELING, Cocos Islands, Nov. 12, (Dispatch to The London Daily
+Chronicle.)--It was early on Monday that the unexpected arrival of the
+German cruiser Emden broke the calm of these isolated little islands,
+which the distant news of the war had hitherto left unruffled. One of
+the islands is known as Direction Island, and here the Eastern Telegraph
+Company has a cable station and a staff engaged in relaying messages
+between Europe and Australia. Otherwise the inhabitants are all Malays,
+with the exception of the descendants of June Clunies Ross, a British
+naval officer who came to these islands ninety years ago and founded the
+line of "Uncrowned Kings."
+
+The war seemed to be very far away. The official bulletins passed
+through the cable station, but they gave us very little real news, and
+the only excitement was when it was rumored that the company was sending
+out rifles in case of a raid on the stations, and orders came that the
+beach must be patrolled by parties on the lookout for Germans. Then we
+heard from Singapore that a German cruiser had been dispatched to these
+islands, and toward the end of August one of the cable staff thought he
+saw searchlights out over the sea. Then suddenly we were awakened from
+our calm and were made to feel that we had suddenly become the most
+important place in the whole worldwide war area.
+
+At 6 o'clock on Monday morning a four-funneled cruiser arrived at full
+speed at the entrance to the lagoon. Our suspicions were aroused, for
+she was flying no flag and her fourth funnel was obviously a dummy made
+of painted canvas. Therefore we were not altogether surprised at the
+turn of events. The cruiser at once lowered away an armored launch and
+two boats, which came ashore and landed on Coral Beach three officers
+and forty men, all fully armed and having four Maxim guns.
+
+The Germans--for all doubt about the mysterious cruiser was now at
+end--at once rushed up to the cable station, and, entering the office,
+turned out the operators, smashed the instruments, and set armed guards
+over all the buildings. All the knives and firearms found in possession
+of the cable staff were at once confiscated.
+
+I should say here that, in spite of the excitement on the outside, all
+the work was carried on in the cable office as usual right up to the
+moment when the Germans burst in. A general call was sent out just
+before the wireless apparatus was blown up.
+
+The whole of the staff was placed under an armed guard while the
+instruments were being destroyed, but it is only fair to say that the
+Germans, working in well-disciplined fashion under their officers, were
+most civil. There was no such brutality as we hear characterizes the
+German Army's behavior toward civilians, and there were no attempts at
+pillaging.
+
+While the cable station was being put out of action the crew of the
+launch grappled for the cables and endeavored to cut them, but
+fortunately without success. The electrical stores were then blown up.
+
+At 9 A.M. we heard the sound of a siren from the Emden, and this was
+evidently the signal to the landing party to return to the ship, for
+they at once dashed for the boats, but the Emden got under way at once
+and the boats were left behind.
+
+Looking to the eastward, we could see the reason for this sudden
+departure, for a warship, which we afterward learned was the Australian
+cruiser Sydney, was coming up at full speed in pursuit. The Emden did
+not wait to discuss matters, but, firing her first shot at a range of
+about 3,700 yards, steamed north as hard as she could go.
+
+At first the firing of the Emden seemed excellent, while that of the
+Sydney was somewhat erratic. This, as I afterward learned, was due to
+the fact that the Australian cruiser's range-finder was put out of
+action by one of the only two shots the Germans got home. However, the
+British gunners soon overcame any difficulties that this may have caused
+and settled down to their work, so that before long two of the Emden's
+funnels had been shot away. She also lost one of her masts quite early
+in the fight. Both blazing away with their big guns, the two cruisers
+disappeared below the horizon, the Emden being on fire.
+
+After the great naval duel passed from our sight and we could turn our
+attention to the portion of the German crew that had been left behind,
+we found that these men had put off in their boats obedient to the
+signal of the siren, but when their ship steamed off without them they
+could do nothing else but come ashore again. On relanding they lined up
+on the shore of the lagoon, evidently determined to fight to the finish
+if the British cruiser sent a party ashore, but the dueling cruiser had
+disappeared, and at 6 P.M. the German raiders embarked on the old
+schooner Ayessa, which belongs to Mr. Ross, the "uncrowned king" of the
+islands. Seizing a quantity of clothes and stores, they sailed out, and
+have not been seen since.
+
+Early the next morning, Tuesday, Nov. 10, we saw the Sydney returning,
+and at 8:45 A.M. she anchored off the island. From various members of
+the crew I gathered some details of the running fight with the Emden.
+The Sydney, having an advantage in speed, was able to keep out of range
+of the Emden's guns and to bombard her with her own heavier metal. The
+engagement lasted eighty minutes, the Emden finally running ashore on
+North Keeling Island and becoming an utter wreck.
+
+Only two German shots proved effective. One of these failed to explode,
+but smashed the main range finder and killed one man. The other killed
+three men and wounded fourteen.
+
+Each of the cruisers attempted to torpedo the other, but both were
+unsuccessful, and the duel proved a contest in hard pounding at long
+range. The Sydney's speed during the fighting was twenty-six knots and
+the Emden's twenty-four knots, the British ship's superiority of two
+knots enabling her to choose the range at which the battle should be
+fought, and to make the most of her superior guns.
+
+The Sydney left here at 11 A.M. Tuesday in the hope of picking up any of
+the survivors of the Buresk, the collier that had been in attendance on
+the Emden and was sunk after an engagement on the previous day. Finally,
+with a number of wounded prisoners on board, the Sydney left here
+yesterday, and our few hours of war excitement were over.
+
+
+
+
+*Crowds See the Niger Sink*
+
+[By a Correspondent of The London Daily Chronicle.]
+
+
+DEAL, England, Nov. 11.--By the destruction of the British torpedo
+gunboat Niger, which was torpedoed and sunk by a submarine in the Downs
+this afternoon, the realities of war were brought home to the
+inhabitants of Deal and Walmer.
+
+A loud explosion was heard from the gunboat as she lay off the Deal
+pier, and great volumes of smoke enveloped the vessel. When the smoke
+cleared the Niger was observed to be settling down forward. Men, women,
+and children rushed to the sea front, exclaiming that the vessel had
+been torpedoed or mined. They soon realized that the Niger was doomed.
+The Deal and Kingsdown lifeboats as well as boats from other parts of
+the beach were launched in an effort to save the sailors.
+
+Consternation and almost panic prevailed among the hundreds who stood
+watching the ghastly sight from the beach. Fortunately, the North Deal
+galley Hope, commanded by Capt. John Budd, lay at anchor near the spot,
+waiting to land the pilot from a London steamer which was going down the
+channel. When the boatmen realized that the Niger had been hit by a
+submarine or mine, to use their own expression, they rowed like the very
+devil.
+
+"We saw the sailors," said Capt. Budd, "jumping from the vessel's side
+in dozens. As we neared the fast-disappearing vessel we came upon swarms
+of men struggling in the sea and heroically helping to support each
+other. Some were fully dressed, others only partly so. They were
+clinging to pieces of wreckage and deck furniture, and some were in
+lifeboats.
+
+"It was a heartrending spectacle. The men were so thick in the water
+that they grasped at our oars as we dipped them in the sea. We rescued
+so many and our own boat got so choked that we could not move. With our
+own gunwale only just out of the water, we were in danger of sinking
+ourselves.
+
+"We called to the men that we could take no more in or we should sink
+ourselves, but they continued to pour over the sides, and some hung to
+the stern of our boat. We had about fifty on board. Never had there been
+so many in the boat before. One burly sailor, whom we told to wait until
+the next boat came along, laughingly remarked [Transcriber: original
+'remared'] while he was in the water, 'All right, Cocky, I will hold on
+by my eyebrows,' and he drifted to another galley. Another Deal boat
+then came along and relieved us of some of our men.
+
+"Suddenly we heard a shout, and, looking around, saw the commander of
+the Niger waving and beckoning to us from the stern of the sinking ship.
+We could not go to him because our craft was so heavily laden. Another
+galley then came along, and, after taking out some of our men, together
+with those who were hanging on to our sides, we went closer to the
+sinking gunboat and took off some more men, and at the Captain's special
+request we waited until he took a final look around to see if there were
+any more men left on board the vessel.
+
+"By this time the ship was very nearly under water, and we shouted to
+him to hurry up, as the Niger had turned over on her side and was likely
+to go down at any moment. That brave Captain only just managed to jump
+in time, when the gunboat gave a lurch and sank on her side in eight
+fathoms of water. We were proud to rescue that Captain, for he was a
+true sailor."
+
+The other boats which picked up men were the Maple Leaf, the motor boat
+Naru, the Annie, the May, and the Deal lifeboat.
+
+The rescuing party saw one dead sailor floating by.
+
+The majority of those rescued received first aid on being landed at
+North Deal, and then they were taken in ambulances to the Marine
+Hospital at Walmer.
+
+One survivor, replying to a question as to whether the Niger was
+torpedoed or mined, replied:
+
+"Torpedoed, Sir. With the exception of the watch and the gun crews all
+were below at the time. The first order we received was to close the
+watertight doors."
+
+So far as I can ascertain at present only one man is missing. Four or
+five have been landed at Ramsgate. The crew is said to have numbered
+ninety-six officers and men.
+
+The sinking of the Niger came with tragic swiftness. It was
+comparatively a fine, peaceful day, and the people were resting on the
+promenade enjoying sea and fresh air. Anglers--men and women--were
+calmly fishing from the pier. One angler whom I interviewed this evening
+said:
+
+"I had just baited my line and cast it out when I heard two loud
+reports, like an explosion. I looked seaward and saw the Niger, only a
+mile away, enveloped in smoke or steam. When it had cleared away. I said
+to my fellow-anglers, 'Oh, he is letting off steam! When I looked at her
+again I was startled to notice that she was lower in the water.
+Fortunately I had slung across my shoulder a pair of glasses, and, on
+looking at the vessel through them, I noticed that they were attempting
+to lower the boats, while the remainder of the crew stood at attention
+on the deck. We could see that the vessel was sinking, and the lifeboats
+and other boats were hastening to the rescue.
+
+"The vessel then gradually disappeared, bow first, and after about
+fifteen minutes not a sign of her remained."
+
+
+
+
+*Lieut. Weddigen's Own Story*
+
+*By Herbert B. Swope.*
+
+[Copyright, 1914, by The Press Publishing Company (The New York World).]
+
+
+BERLIN, Sept. 30.--Through the kindness of the German Admiralty I am
+able to tell exclusively the story of Capt. Lieut. Otto Weddigen,
+commander of the now world famous submarine U-9, whose feat in
+destroying three English cruisers has lifted the German Navy to a lofty
+place in sea history.
+
+There is an inviolable rule in the German Army and Navy prohibiting
+officers from talking of their exploits, but because of the special
+nature of Weddigen's exploit an exception was made, and through the good
+offices of Count von Oppersdorf The World was granted the right of first
+telling Weddigen's remarkable story.
+
+It must be borne in mind that Lieut. Weddigen's account has been
+officially announced and verified by German Navy Headquarters. That will
+explain why certain details must be omitted, since they are of
+importance if further submarine excursions are undertaken against the
+British fleet. Following is Weddigen's tale, supplemented by the
+Admiralty Intelligence Department:
+
+By CAPT. LIEUT. OTTO WEDDIGEN.
+Commander of the German Submarine U-9.
+
+I am 32 years old and have been in the navy for years. For the last five
+years I have been attached to the submarine flotilla, and have been most
+interested in that branch of the navy. At the outbreak of the war our
+undersea boats were rendezvoused at certain harbors in the North Sea,
+the names of which I am restrained from divulging.
+
+Each of us felt and hoped that the Fatherland might be benefited by such
+individual efforts of ours as were possible at a time when our bigger
+sisters of the fleet were prohibited from activity. So we awaited
+commands from the Admiralty, ready for any undertaking that promised to
+do for the imperial navy what our brothers of the army were so
+gloriously accomplishing.
+
+It has already been told how I was married at the home of my brother in
+Wilhelmshaven to my boyhood sweetheart, Miss Prete of Hamburg, on Aug.
+16.
+
+Before that I had been steadily on duty with my boat, and I had to leave
+again the next day after my marriage. But both my bride and I wanted the
+ceremony to take place at the appointed time, and it did, although
+within twenty-four hours thereafter I had to go away on a venture that
+gave a good chance of making my new wife a widow. But she was as firm as
+I was that my first duty was to answer the call of our country, and she
+waved me away from the dock with good-luck wishes.
+
+I set out from a North Sea port on one of the arms of the Kiel Canal and
+set my course in a southwesterly direction. The name of the port I
+cannot state officially, but it has been guessed at; nor am I permitted
+to say definitely just when we started, but it was not many days before
+the morning of Sept. 22 when I fell in with my quarry.
+
+When I started from home the fact was kept quiet and a heavy sea helped
+to keep the secret, but when the action began the sun was bright and the
+water smooth--not the most favorable conditions for submarine work.
+
+I had sighted several ships during my passage, but they were not what I
+was seeking. English torpedo boats came within my reach, but I felt
+there was bigger game further on, so on I went. I traveled on the
+surface except when we sighted vessels, and then I submerged, not even
+showing my periscope, except when it was necessary to take bearings. It
+was ten minutes after 6 on the morning of last Tuesday when I caught
+sight of one of the big cruisers of the enemy.
+
+I was then eighteen sea miles northwest of the Hook of Holland. I had
+then traveled considerably more than 200 miles from my base. My boat was
+one of an old type, but she had been built on honor, and she was
+behaving beautifully. I had been going ahead partly submerged, with
+about five feet of my periscope showing. Almost immediately I caught
+sight of the first cruiser and two others. I submerged completely and
+laid my course so as to bring up in the centre of the trio, which held a
+sort of triangular formation. I could see their gray-black sides riding
+high over the water.
+
+When I first sighted them they were near enough for torpedo work, but I
+wanted to make my aim sure, so I went down and in on them. I had taken
+the position of the three ships before submerging, and I succeeded in
+getting another flash through my periscope before I began action. I soon
+reached what I regarded as a good shooting point.
+
+[The officer is not permitted to give this distance, but it is
+understood to have been considerably less than a mile, although the
+German torpedoes have an effective range of four miles.]
+
+[Illustration: CAPT. KARL VON MULLER
+Of the German Cruiser Emden
+(_Photo (C) by American Press Assn._)]
+
+[Illustration: GEN. JOSEPH JOFFRE
+The French Commander-in-Chief.
+(_Photo from International News Service._)]
+
+Then I loosed one of my torpedoes at the middle ship. I was then about
+twelve feet under water, and got the shot off in good shape, my men
+handling the boat as if she had been a skiff. I climbed to the surface
+to get a sight through my tube of the effect, and discovered that the
+shot had gone straight and true, striking the ship, which I later
+learned was the Aboukir, under one of her magazines, which in exploding
+helped the torpedo's work of destruction.
+
+There was a fountain of water, a burst of smoke, a flash of fire, and
+part of the cruiser rose in the air. Then I heard a roar and felt
+reverberations sent through the water by the detonation. She had been
+broken apart, and sank in a few minutes. The Aboukir had been stricken
+in a vital spot and by an unseen force; that made the blow all the
+greater.
+
+Her crew were brave, and even with death staring them in the face kept
+to their posts, ready to handle their useless guns, for I submerged at
+once. But I had stayed on top long enough to see the other cruisers,
+which I learned were the Cressy and the Hogue, turn and steam full speed
+to their dying sister, whose plight they could not understand, unless it
+had been due to an accident.
+
+The ships came on a mission of inquiry and rescue, for many of the
+Aboukir's crew were now in the water, the order having been given, "Each
+man for himself."
+
+But soon the other two English cruisers learned what had brought about
+the destruction so suddenly.
+
+As I reached my torpedo depth I sent a second charge at the nearest of
+the oncoming vessels, which was the Hogue. The English were playing my
+game, for I had scarcely to move out of my position, which was a great
+aid, since it helped to keep me from detection.
+
+On board my little boat the spirit of the German Navy was to be seen in
+its best form. With enthusiasm every man held himself in check and gave
+attention to the work in hand.
+
+The attack on the Hogue went true. But this time I did not have the
+advantageous aid of having the torpedo detonate under the magazine, so
+for twenty minutes the Hogue lay wounded and helpless on the surface
+before she heaved, half turned over and sank.
+
+But this time, the third cruiser knew of course that the enemy was upon
+her and she sought as best she could to defend herself. She loosed her
+torpedo defense batteries on boats, starboard and port, and stood her
+ground as if more anxious to help the many sailors who were in the water
+than to save herself. In common with the method of defending herself
+against a submarine attack, she steamed in a zigzag course, and this
+made it necessary for me to hold my torpedoes until I could lay a true
+course for them, which also made it necessary for me to get nearer to
+the Cressy. I had come to the surface for a view and saw how wildly the
+fire was being sent from the ship. Small wonder that was when they did
+not know where to shoot, although one shot went unpleasantly near us.
+
+When I got within suitable range I sent away my third attack. This time
+I sent a second torpedo after the first to make the strike doubly
+certain. My crew were aiming like sharpshooters and both torpedos went
+to their bullseye. My luck was with me again, for the enemy was made
+useless and at once began sinking by her head. Then she careened far
+over, but all the while her men stayed at the guns looking for their
+invisible foe. They were brave and true to their country's sea
+traditions. Then she eventually suffered a boiler explosion and
+completely turned turtle. With her keel uppermost she floated until the
+air got out from under her and then she sank with a loud sound, as if
+from a creature in pain.
+
+The whole affair had taken less than one hour from the time of shooting
+off the first torpedo until the Cressy went to the bottom. Not one of
+the three had been able to use any of its big guns. I knew the wireless
+of the three cruisers had been calling for aid. I was still quite able
+to defend myself, but I knew that news of the disaster would call many
+English submarines and torpedo boat destroyers, so, having done my
+appointed work, I set my course for home.
+
+My surmise was right, for before I got very far some British cruisers
+and destroyers were on the spot, and the destroyers took up the chase. I
+kept under water most of the way, but managed to get off a wireless to
+the German fleet that I was heading homeward and being pursued. I hoped
+to entice the enemy, by allowing them now and then a glimpse of me, into
+the zone in which they might be exposed to capture or destruction by
+German warships, but, although their destroyers saw me plainly at dusk
+on the 22d and made a final effort to stop me, they abandoned the
+attempt, as it was taking them too far from safety and needlessly
+exposing them to attack from our fleet and submarines.
+
+How much they feared our submarines and how wide was the agitation
+caused by good little U-9 is shown by the English reports that a whole
+flotilla of German submarines had attacked the cruisers and that this
+flotilla had approached under cover of the flag of Holland.
+
+These reports were absolutely untrue. U-9 was the only submarine on
+deck, and she flew the flag she still flies--the German naval
+ensign--which I hope to keep forever as a glorious memento and as an
+inspiration for devotion to the Fatherland.
+
+I reached the home port on the afternoon of the 23d, and on the 24th
+went to Wilhelmshaven, to find that news of my effort had become public.
+My wife, dry eyed when I went away, met me with tears. Then I learned
+that my little vessel and her brave crew had won the plaudit of the
+Kaiser, who conferred upon each of my co-workers the Iron Cross of the
+second class and upon me the Iron Cross of the first and second classes.
+
+     [Weddigen is the hero of the hour in Germany. He also wears a medal
+     for life-saving. Counting himself, Weddigen had twenty-six men. The
+     limit of time that his ship is capable of staying below the surface
+     is about six hours.]
+
+
+
+
+THE SOLILOQUY OF AN OLD SOLDIER.
+
+By O.C.A. CHILD.
+
+
+You need not watch for silver in your hair,
+  Or try to smooth the wrinkles from your eyes,
+Or wonder if you're getting quite too spare,
+  Or if your mount can bear a man your size.
+
+You'll never come to shirk the fastest flight,
+  To query if she really cares to dance,
+To find your eye less keen upon the sight,
+  Or lose your tennis wrist or golfing stance.
+
+For you the music ceased on highest note--
+  Your charge had won, you'd scattered them like sand,
+And then a little whisper in your throat,
+  And you asleep, your cheek upon your hand.
+
+Thrice happy fate, you met it in full cry,
+  Young, eager, loved, your glitt'ring world all joy--
+You ebbed not out, you died when tide was high,
+  An old campaigner envies you, my boy!
+
+
+
+
+*The War at Home*
+
+*How It Affects the Countries Whose Men Are At the Front.*
+
+
+
+
+*The Effects of War in Four Countries*
+
+*By Irvin S. Cobb.*
+
+[From THE NEW YORK TIMES [Transcriber: original 'TMIES'], Dec. 2, 1914.]
+
+     [_The following story of conditions in Belgium, Germany, France,
+     Holland, and England was sent by Irvin S. Cobb of The Saturday
+     Evening Post to the American [Transcriber: original 'Aerican'] Red
+     Cross, to be used in bringing home to Americans urgent need for
+     relief in the countries affected by the great war. Red Cross
+     contributions for suffering non-combatants are received at the Red
+     Cross offices in the Russell Sage Foundation Building, 130 East
+     Twenty-second Street. Such contributions should be addressed to
+     Jacob H. Schiff, Treasurer, and, if desired, the giver can
+     designate the country to the relief of which he wishes the donation
+     applied._]
+
+
+Recently I have been in four of the countries concerned in the present
+war--Belgium, France, Germany, and England. I was also in Holland,
+having traversed it from end to end within a week after the fall of
+Antwerp, when every road coming up out of the south was filled with
+Belgian refugees.
+
+In Belgium I saw this:
+
+Homeless men, women, and children by thousands and hundreds of
+thousands. Many of them had been prosperous, a few had been wealthy,
+practically all had been comfortable. Now, with scarcely an exception,
+they stood all upon one common plane of misery. They had lost their
+homes, their farms, their work-shops, their livings, and their means of
+making livings.
+
+I saw them tramping aimlessly along wind-swept, rain-washed roads,
+fleeing from burning and devastated villages. I saw them sleeping in
+open fields upon the miry earth, with no cover and no shelter. I saw
+them herded together in the towns and cities to which many of them
+ultimately fled, existing God alone knows how. I saw them--ragged,
+furtive scarecrows--prowling in the shattered ruins of their homes,
+seeking salvage where there was no salvage to be found. I saw them
+living like the beasts of the field, upon such things as the beasts of
+the field would reject.
+
+I saw them standing in long lines waiting for their poor share of the
+dole of a charity which already was nearly exhausted. I saw their towns
+when hardly one stone stood upon another. I saw their abandoned farm
+lands, where the harvests rotted in the furrows and the fruit hung
+mildewed and ungathered upon the trees. I saw their cities where trade
+was dead and credit was a thing which no longer existed. I saw them
+staggering from weariness and from the weakness of hunger. I saw all
+these sights repeated and multiplied infinitely--yes, and magnified,
+too--but not once did I see a man or woman or even a child that wept or
+cried out.
+
+If the Belgian soldiers won the world's admiration by the resistance
+which they made against tremendously overpowering numbers, the people of
+Belgium--the families of their soldiers--should have the world's
+admiration and pity for the courage, the patience, and the fortitude
+they have displayed under the load of an affliction too dolorous for any
+words to describe, too terrible for any imagination to picture.
+
+In France I saw a pastoral land overrun by soldiers and racked by war
+until it seemed the very earth would cry out for mercy. I saw a country
+literally stripped of its men in order that the regiments might be
+filled. I saw women hourly striving to do the ordained work of their
+fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons, hourly piecing together the
+jarred and broken fragments of their lives. I saw countless villages
+turned into smoking, filthy, ill-smelling heaps of ruins. I saw schools
+that were converted into hospitals and factories changed into barracks.
+
+I saw the industries that were abandoned and the shops that were bare of
+customers, the shopkeepers standing before empty shelves looking
+bankruptcy in the face. I saw the unburied dead lying between battle
+lines, where for weeks they had lain, and where for weeks, and perhaps
+months to come, they would continue to lie, and I saw the graves of
+countless numbers of other dead who were so hurriedly and carelessly
+buried that their limbs in places protruded through the soil, poisoning
+the air with hideous smells and giving abundant promise of the
+pestilence which must surely follow. I saw districts noted for their
+fecundity on the raw edge of famine, and a people proverbial for their
+light-heartedness who had forgotten how to smile.
+
+In Germany I saw innumerable men maimed and mutilated in every
+conceivable fashion. I saw these streams of wounded pouring back from
+the front endlessly. In two days I saw trains bearing 14,000 wounded men
+passing through one town. I saw people of all classes undergoing
+privations and enduring hardships in order that the forces at the front
+might have food and supplies. I saw thousands of women wearing widow's
+weeds, and thousands of children who had been orphaned.
+
+I saw great hosts of prisoners of war on their way to prison camps,
+where in the very nature of things they must forego all hope of having
+for months, and perhaps years, those small creature comforts which make
+life endurable to a civilized human being. I saw them, crusted with
+dirt, worn with incredible exertions, alive with crawling vermin, their
+uniforms already in tatters, and their broken shoes falling off their
+feet.
+
+On the day before I quit German soil--the war being then less than
+three months old--I counted, in the course of a short ride through the
+City of Aix-la-Chapelle two convalescent soldiers who were totally
+blind, three who had lost an arm, and one, a boy of 18 or thereabout,
+who had lost both arms. How many men less badly injured I saw in that
+afternoon I do not know; I hesitate even to try to estimate the total
+figure for fear I might be accused of exaggeration.
+
+In Holland I saw the people of an already crowded country wrestling
+valorously with the problem of striving to feed and house and care for
+the enormous numbers of penniless refugees who had come out of Belgium.
+I saw worn-out groups of peasants huddled on railroad platforms and
+along the railroad tracks, too weary to stir another step.
+
+In England I saw still more thousands of these refugees, bewildered,
+broken by misfortune, owning only what they wore upon their backs,
+speaking an alien tongue, strangers in a strange land. I saw, as I have
+seen in Holland, people of all classes giving of their time, their
+means, and their services to provide some temporary relief for these
+poor wanderers who were without a country. I saw the new recruits
+marching off, and I knew that for the children many of them were leaving
+behind there would be no Santa Claus unless the American people out of
+the fullness of their own abundance filled the Christmas stockings and
+stocked the Christmas larders.
+
+And seeing these things, I realized how tremendous was the need for
+organized and systematic aid then and how enormously that need would
+grow when Winter came--when the soldiers shivered in the trenches, and
+the hospital supplies ran low, as indeed they have before now begun to
+run low, and the winds searched through the holes made by the cannon
+balls and struck at the women and children cowering in their squalid and
+desolated homes. From my own experiences and observations I knew that
+more nurses, more surgeons, more surgical necessities, and yet more,
+past all calculating, would be sorely needed when the plague and famine
+and cold came to take their toll among armies that already were thinned
+by sickness and wounds.
+
+The American Red Cross, by the terms of the Treaty of Geneva, gives aid
+to the invalided and the injured soldiers of any army and all the
+armies. If any small word from me, attempting to describe actual
+conditions, can be of value to the American Red Cross in its campaign of
+mercy, I write it gladly. I wish only that I had the power to write
+lines which would make the American people see the situation as it is
+now--which would make them understand how infinitely worse that
+situation must surely become during the next few months.
+
+
+
+
+*How Paris Dropped Gayety*
+
+*By Anne Rittenhouse.*
+
+[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, Sept. 23, 1914.]
+
+
+On Friday night the Grand Boulevards were alive with people, motors,
+voitures, singing, dancing, and each cafe thronged by the gayest light
+hearts in the world.
+
+On Saturday night the boulevards were thronged with growling, ominous,
+surging crowds, with faces like those of the Commune, speaking strong
+words for and against war.
+
+On Sunday night mobs tore down signs, broke windows, shouted the
+"Marseillaise," wreaked their vengeance on those who belonged to a
+nation that France thought had plunged their country into ghastly war.
+Aliens sought shelter; hotels closed their massive doors intended for
+defense. Mounted troops corralled the mobs as cowboys round up
+belligerent cattle. Detached groups smashed and mishandled things that
+came in the way.
+
+Monday night a calm so intense that one felt frightened. Boulevards
+deserted, cafes closed, hotels shuttered. Patrols of the Civil Garde in
+massed formation. France was keeping her pledge to high civilization.
+Yellow circulars were pasted on the buildings warning all that France
+was in danger and appealing by that token to all male citizens to guard
+the women and the weak.
+
+At daylight only was the dead silence broken; France was marching to war
+at that hour. Will any one who was here forget that daily daybreak
+tramp, that measured march of the thousands going to the front? Cavalry
+with the sun striking the helmets; infantry with their scarlet overcoats
+too large; aviators with their boxed machines, the stormy petrels of
+modern war; and the dogs, veritably the dogs of war, going on the
+humanest mission of all, to search for the wounded in the woods of
+battle.
+
+And, side by side with the marching millions, on the pavement, were the
+women belonging to them; the women who were to stay behind.
+
+As though the Judgment Trumpet had sounded, France was changed in the
+twinkling of an eye. And added to that subconscious terror that lurked
+in every American soul of another revolution--a terror that was
+dispelled after the third day when France reached out her long arm and
+mobilized her people into a strong component whole with but one heart,
+was an inexplainable dread of this terrible calm.
+
+We knew about trained armies going to war, but here was a situation
+where the Biblical description of the Last Day was carried out, the man
+at the wheel dropped his work and was taken; he who was at the plowshare
+left his furrow....
+
+First we were afraid we would not have enough to eat. A famine was
+prophesied, and the credulous who know nothing of the vast sources which
+supply France with food clamored to get to England. Then there were
+frenzied stories of hotels closing and prices soaring. None of which
+happened or had any chance of happening. Food was never better, and
+today we have fruit that melts in the mouth; fish that swims in the
+sauce, the lack of which Talleyrand deplored in England; little green
+string beans that no other country produces or knows how to cook.
+
+Prices never rose for the fraction of a sou. If one had a credit at a
+hotel, all was well, but unless one had ready money in small notes, none
+of the restaurants would accept an order. Here, and here only, was a
+snag concerning food. It is true that women went for twenty-four hours
+without food, but the reason was the lack of small change, not of
+eatables.
+
+After the panic caused by a thousand rumors annexed to a dozen
+disheartening and revolutionary conditions, after the people felt that
+the Commune was the figment of imagination, not inspired prophecy; that
+money was getting easier; that, above all, America was looking after its
+own, though her move toward that end seemed to take months instead of
+days, and because we counted by heart-beats, not calendars; after all
+this, we found time and interest to observe the phenomena around us. We
+began to feel ashamed of our petty madness on the worldly subject of
+money and ships and safe passage home; our passionate, twentieth
+century, overindulged selves who were neither fighting nor giving our
+beloveds in battle, and who were harassing those who were in a death
+struggle. Never throughout the centuries to come, whether the map of
+Europe is changed or not, should the stranger within her gates ever
+forget the courtesy of Paris.
+
+At night powerful searchlights backed up by artillery guard the city
+from the monster of the air.
+
+This is fiction come true. It is Conan Doyle, Kipling, Wells come to
+measure. From the moment of sunset until sunrise those comets with an
+orbit patrol the skies. Pointing with blazing fingers to the moon and
+the stars, to the horizon, they proclaim that Paris watches while her
+people sleep.
+
+The idea has given comfort to thousands. You, in your safe, tranquil
+homes, cannot know the pleasure it gives to look out of the window in
+the wakeful nights and watch those wheeling comets circling, circling to
+catch the Zeppelin that may come.
+
+And behind the light is the gun. Rooftop artillery! The new warfare! On
+the roof of the fashionable Automobile Club on the Place de la Concorde
+the little blue firing guns wheel with the blazing fingers. Always ready
+to send shot and shell into a bulging speck in the sky that does not
+return the luminous signals. So on the roof of the Observatoir, so on
+the encircling environs; sometimes three, sometimes six, they are always
+going. People stand in the streets to watch, hypnotized by the moment
+into horizon gazing. There will be a speck in the sky; people grow
+tense; the comet catches it; is that wigwagging on the roof, those
+challenges in fire, returned? No. The speck passes; we breathe again.
+And so it goes: a ceaseless centre of interest. It is the novelty of the
+world war.
+
+The highest artillery in the world is on the Eiffel Tower. At its dizzy
+top, pointing to the sky, are machine guns that are trained to fire at
+an enemy's balloon. It is an answer to the prayer of the people that
+these guns have not yet been used.
+
+But it is not only in the artillery on the top of the Eiffel Tower that
+interest centres; it is in the wireless that sends the messages to land
+and sea, safeguarding armies and navies, patrolling the earth and water.
+Strange, isn't it, that the plaything of a nation has become its
+safeguard?
+
+That was a stirring day when Paris sang "God Save the King." Gen. French
+arrived from London, coming quietly to confer with M. Viviani, the
+Minister for War, and with President Poincare. He was the first English
+General to come to the aid of France since Cromwell commissioned the
+British Ambassador to go to the aid of Anne of Austria. And the French
+heart responded as only it can; the people stood, with raised hats, in
+quadruple rows wherever he passed, as English, French, and foreign
+voices sang a benediction to Britain's King. History was made there.
+
+That night Gen. French dined at the Ritz among a few friends. Even the
+newspapers seemed not to know it, and those of us who had the good
+chance to be there enjoyed him at leisure. He wore his field uniform of
+khaki in strong contrast to the French Generals, who are always in
+glittering gold, although he represents an empire and they a republic.
+He is an admirable looking soldier, somewhat small of stature, firmly
+knit, bronzed, white haired, blue eyed, calm. He spoke of their
+responsibilities without exaggeration or amelioration. He did not make
+light of the task before his soldiers, and his grave manner seemed a
+prophecy of that terrible fight near Mons, above the French frontier,
+which was so soon to take place and where English blood was freely
+spilled for France's sake.
+
+Another day that we shall be glad we saw when it is written into the
+narrative history of this Summer by some future Mme. Sevigne, was when
+the first German flag arrived. Before it came, two soldiers exhibited a
+German frontier post in front of a cafe on the boulevard, which started
+the excitement, but the reception of the flag by the Government and its
+placement in the Invalides, where is Napoleon's tomb, was an hour of
+dramatic tenseness.
+
+The only music heard in Paris since the first day of August, the day of
+mobilization, accompanied this flag to its resting place along with
+those historic relics of former French victories. The procession went
+over the Alexander Bridge, that superb structure dedicated in honor of
+the Russian Czar, whose son is now fulfilling his pledge of friendship
+to France. The flag was met at the Invalides by the old soldiers who
+bore medals of the Franco-Prussian war. In the solemn inclosure, where
+all stood at salute, the veterans stood with lances. The flag was
+presented to an old sick soldier, who stumped forward on a wooden leg,
+his breast covered with the medals of the Crimea and the Italian
+campaign. He received it for France, and when it was placed over the
+organ, the listening crowds that jammed the Place des Invalides heard
+the singing of the "Marseillaise" by the cracked old voices first, then
+by the sturdier younger voices, and so it joined in, this vast concourse
+of solemn listeners.
+
+France has gone into this war with the spirit of the Crusaders, but the
+spirit of French wit cannot be repressed even under the most terrifying
+conditions. So after the news of the superhuman effort made by that
+national baby, Belgium, in detaining the huge German forces for many
+days, there was a placard on one of the gates at the station, placed
+there by some gay refugee, saying that a train de luxe would leave for
+Berlin the next day.
+
+It tickled the sensibilities of travelers very much, and it gave rise to
+the sale of postcards by an enterprising soul. These cards gave one the
+right, so they said, of a daily train to Berlin to visit the tomb of
+Guillame. They were bought by the thousands as souvenirs of the war and
+as one of the few things that caused a smile in this saddened city.
+
+Another incident that amused the people was the remark of a young
+soldier who had single-handed taken some German prisoners, and who, when
+asked whether he had done it by the revolver or the bayonet, answered
+that he had only held out a slice of bread and butter and the Germans
+had followed him.
+
+Amusement and irritation followed the order that all telephoning must be
+done in French. The sensation produced depended on the temperament of
+the person. Certainly queer things were said over the lines, and no one
+could blame the "Allo girl" for laughing. The majority of Americans took
+it in good part by saying that it was a French lesson for five cents.
+
+Another accomplishment that has been furthered in Paris during the last
+three weeks is bicycle riding. With the paucity of transportation some
+means of getting over the magnificent distances of this city had to be
+found. So people who could ride rented bicycles, and those who had not
+learned began to take lessons. The girls who work, and those who go on
+errands for the Croix Rouge, wear a most attractive costume of pale blue
+or violet. It has a short divided skirt, a slim blouse with
+blue-and-white striped collar; there is a small hat to match, and the
+young cyclists whirling around on their missions of mercy are a pleasant
+sight for very sad eyes.
+
+
+
+
+*Paris in October*
+
+[From The London Times, Oct. 21, 1914.]
+
+
+PARIS, Oct. 19.
+
+The more one studies the life of Paris at the present time, and
+especially its patriotic and benevolent activities, the more is one
+impressed by the unanimous determination of its inhabitants to face
+whatever may befall and to make the best of things. It is difficult to
+realize at first sight how completely, in the hour of trial, the
+traditional light-heartedness of the Parisian has been translated to a
+fine simplicity of courage and devotion to the common cause and to a
+high seriousness of patriotism. There is something splendidly impressive
+and stimulating in the spectacle of civilization's most sensitive
+culture suddenly confronted by the stern realities of a life-and-death
+struggle, and responding unanimously to the call of duty. Without
+hesitation or complaint, Paris has put away childish things, her toys,
+her luxury, and her laughter; today her whole life reflects only fixed
+purposes of united effort, of courage never, never to submit or yield,
+and this splendid determination is all the more significant for being
+undemonstrative and almost silent.
+
+We English people, who, observing chiefly the surface life of the French
+capital, have generally been disposed to regard the Parisian temperament
+as mutable and often impatient of adversity, must now make our
+confession of error and the amende honorable; for nothing could be more
+admirable than the attitude of all classes of the community in their
+stoic acceptance of the sacrifices and sufferings imposed upon them by
+this war at their gates. Especially striking is the philosophic
+acquiescence of the city, accustomed to know and to discuss all things,
+in the impenetrable [Transcriber: original 'impentrable'] veil of
+secrecy which conceals the movements and the fortunes of the French
+armies in the field. Go where you will, even among those of the very
+poor who have lost their breadwinners, and you will hear few criticisms
+and no complaints. The little midinette thrown out of employment, the
+shopkeeper faced with ruin, the artist reduced to actual want--they also
+are in the fighting line, and they are proud of it. The women of the
+thrifty middle class consider it just as much their duty to devote their
+savings of years to the common cause as their husbands and brothers do
+to bear arms against the enemy; only in the last extremity of need do
+they make appeal to the "Secours National" for assistance. And when they
+do, they are well content to live on a maintenance allowance of 1s. a
+day and 5d. for every child.
+
+The other Sunday morning at the hour of mass, when two German aeroplanes
+were engaged in their genial occupation of throwing bombs over the
+residential and business quarters of the city, I assisted at several
+sidewalk conversations in the district lying between the Madeleine and
+the Rue de Rivoli. Nowhere did I find the least sign of excitement.
+Indeed, there was curiously little interest shown as to the results of
+the explosions in that neighborhood; only a grim acceptance of this
+daily visitation as something to be added to the score in the final day
+of reckoning and some expression of surprise that the French aeroplanes
+(supposed to be constantly on the alert for these visitors) should not
+have found some means of putting an end to the nuisance. At the same
+time I heard several spectators express their admiration of the German
+aviators' courage and appreciation of the ease and grace with which they
+handled their beautiful machines. In the cafes that evening, when the
+full list of the casualties and damage had been published, one heard a
+good deal of criticism, seasoned with Attic salt, on the subject of the
+belated appearance of the French aeroplanes on the scene, and hopes that
+the boulevards might soon be rewarded by the spectacle of a duel in the
+air. They seem to think they have earned it.
+
+But in the afternoon all Paris was out--in the Jarden des Tuileries, in
+the Bois, at Vincennes, basking in the sunshine of a glorious Autumn
+day, Madame et Bebe bravely making the best of it in the absence of
+Monsieur. (Not that Monsieur is always absent; the proportion of men in
+the crowd, and men of serviceable age, was considerably larger than one
+might have expected.) If the object of the German aviators is to instill
+terror into the hearts of the Parisians they are wasting their time and
+their bombs.
+
+Those people in London who complain about not being able to get supper
+after the theatre, and other minor disturbances of their even tenor of
+existence, should spend a few days in Paris. They would observe how
+easily a community may learn to do without many things, and how the
+lesson itself becomes a moral tonic, unmistakably stimulating in its
+effects.
+
+Paris is reminded every morning of duty and discipline when it begins by
+doing without its beloved petits pains and croissants for breakfast, the
+order having gone forth that bakers, being short-handed, are to make
+only pain de menage. Similarly, because the majority of journalists and
+popular writers are under arms, Paris does without its accustomed daily
+refreshment of ephemeral literature, its comic and illustrated press,
+its literary and artistic causeries, its feuilletons, and chroniques. It
+does without its theatres, its music halls, without politics, art, and
+social amenities, without barbers, florists, and motor cars, partly
+because there are not men enough to keep these things going, and partly
+because, even if there were, la patrie comes first, so that thrifty
+self-denial has become the duty of every good citizen. If the telephone
+breaks down, (as it usually does,) there is no one to repair it, so the
+subscriber goes without; if the trains and trams cease running on
+regular schedules the Parisian accepts the fact and stays at home.
+
+In normal times life is made up of the sum of little things, but at
+great moments the little things cease to count. How true this is in
+Paris today one may judge from the correspondence and records of the
+"Secours National"; they reveal an intense and widespread impulse of
+personal pride in self-denial, and prove that the heart of the Parisian
+bourgeoisie is sound to the core.
+
+To a foreigner, accustomed to the Paris of literary and artistic
+traditions, perhaps the most remarkable feature in the life of the city
+today lies in the absence of articulate public opinion, and apparently
+of public interest, in everything outside the immediate issues of the
+war. With one or two exceptions, such as the Temps and the Debats, the
+press of the capital practically confines itself to recording the events
+and progress of the campaign; nothing else matters. So far as Paris is
+concerned, all the rest of the world, from China to Peru, might be
+non-existent. Neither the political nor the economic consequences of the
+war are seriously examined or discussed; the sole business of the
+newspapers consists in supplementing, to the best of their abilities,
+the meagre war news supplied through official channels. Some interest
+attaches, of course, to the attitude of Italy; but, beyond that, all
+things sublunary seem to have faded into a remote distance of
+unreality--sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
+
+The explanation [Transcriber: original 'explaantion'] of this attitude
+of complete detachment lies, no doubt, chiefly in the fact that the men
+who make and exchange political opinions have gone to Bordeaux, while
+most of those who create and guide public (as distinct from political)
+opinion, have exchanged the pen for the sword. Just as Paris, for want
+of bakers, has only one kind of bread, so, for want of the men who
+usually inspire public opinion, her press has concentrated upon one
+absorbing idea, ecraser les allemands. Moreover, for want of printers
+and of advertisers, most of the daily papers have now dwindled to
+microscopic proportions. The virile intelligence of Paris journalism and
+the nimble and adventurous inquisitiveness, which are its normally
+distinguishing characteristics, have gone, like everything else, to the
+front. As the editor of the Gil Blas says in a farewell poster to his
+subscribers: "Youth has only one duty to perform in these days. Our
+chief and all the staff have joined the colors. Whenever events shall
+permit, Gil Blas will resume its cheerful way. A bien-tot."
+
+
+
+
+*France and England As Seen in War Time*
+
+*An Interview With F. Hopkinson Smith.*
+
+[From THE NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY MAGAZINE, Dec. 6, 1914.]
+
+
+F. Hopkinson Smith was in France when the war broke out, he spent
+September in London, and is now back in New York. He has brought home
+many sketches. Not sketches which suggest war in the least, but which
+were made with the thought of the war lurking in the background.
+
+"Curiously enough," he said, without waiting for any opening question
+from THE TIMES reporter--Mr. Smith often interviews himself--"curiously
+enough, I was on my way to Rheims to make a sketch of the Cathedral when
+the war broke out. I had started out to make a series of sketches of the
+great European cathedrals. Not etchings, but charcoal sketches.
+
+"Let me say here, too, that cathedrals for the most part ought not to be
+etched. You lose too many shadows, though you gain in line; but in the
+etching you have to cross-hatch so heavily with ink that the result is
+just ink, and not shadow at all. Charcoal gives you depth and
+transparency. I was eager to do a series of the cathedrals, as I had
+done a series for the Dickens and Thackeray books, and had planned to
+give my, entire Summer to it.
+
+"I had been in London for some time. I had sketched in Westminster, in
+St. Bartholomew's. Everything peaceful and quiet. It seems now as if we
+ought to have felt--all of us, the people on the streets, I,
+shopkeepers, every one--the approach of this tremendous war. But we
+didn't, of course. No one in England had the faintest suspicion that
+this terrible inhuman thing was going to happen.
+
+"I went on to France. I sketched Notre Dame, over which they exploded
+shells a month or so later. I did some work in the beautiful St.
+Etienne. I sauntered down into South Normandy and was stopping for a
+little color work at the Inn of William the Conqueror before going on to
+Rheims."
+
+These water colors of French farms, French inns, and French gardens are
+glimpses caught at the very eleventh hour before France put on a totally
+different aspect.
+
+"The war broke out. There at the quiet little French inn everything
+suddenly changed color. It was quick, it was quiet. There was a complete
+change in the snap of a finger. All the chauffeurs and the porters and
+the waiters--men who had been there for years and with whom we who visit
+there Summer after Summer have grown familiar--suddenly stopped work,
+gave up their jobs, were turned into soldiers. One hardly recognized
+them.
+
+"We were all stunned. I realized that I could not go on to Rheims, that
+I probably should not get down into Italy. I scarcely realized at first
+what that meant. I could not conceive, none of us could conceive," Mr.
+Smith exploded violently, "that any one, under any necessity whatsoever,
+should lay hands on the Rheims Cathedral. It's too monstrous! The world
+will never forgive it, never!
+
+"The world is divided, I tell you! It is not a Double Alliance and a
+Triple Entente; it is not a Germany and a Russia and a United States and
+an Italy and an England. That is not the division of the world just now.
+There are two sides, and only two sides. There is barbarism on the one
+hand, civilization on the other; there is brutality and there is
+humanity. And humanity is going to win, but the sacrifices are
+awful--awful!"
+
+"How about the feeling in France, Mr. Smith?"
+
+"I can't tell you how overwhelmingly pathetic it is--the sight of these
+brave Frenchmen. Every one has remarked it. Once and for all the
+tradition that the French are an excitable, emotional people with no
+grip on their passions and no rein on their impulses--that fiction is
+dead for all time.
+
+"I saw that whole first act of France's drama. I saw the French people
+stand still on that first day and take breath. Then I saw France set to
+work. She was unprepared, but she was ready in spirit. There was no
+excitement, there were no demonstrations. The men climbed into their
+trains without any exhibitions of patriotism, without any outbursts.
+There were many women crying quietly, with children huddled about their
+skirts.
+
+"The spirit of England is different, but there is the same lack of
+excitement. I chartered a motor bus when the war broke out and got to
+Paris, and then went back to London, where I sketched for a month, saw
+my friends, and talked war.
+
+"Making sketches in war time is very different, by the way, from making
+sketches in time of peace. It is a business full of possibilities, when
+all manner of spy suspicions are afloat. I made up my mind to do a
+sketch of the Royal Exchange. Not as I should have done it a year
+before, mind you, nor even three months before, but now, with the
+thought of bomb-dropping Zeppelins in the back of my mind. It occurred
+to me when I was hurrying along one rainy evening in a taxi past the
+Stock Exchange, the Globe Insurance, the Bank of England. Everywhere
+cabs drawn up along the curbing, cabs slipping past, people, great
+moving crowds of people with their umbrellas up, moving off down
+Threadneedle and Victoria.
+
+"A lot of human life and some very beautiful architecture and a good
+part of the world's business, all concentrated here. And I thought to
+myself what might happen should the cultured Germans get as far as
+London, and should the defenders of the world's civilization drop a bomb
+down into the heart of things here. I pictured to myself what havoc
+could be wrought.
+
+"And I thought, too, of places like Southwark. Ever been in Southwark?
+Horrible. A year before, when I was making the sketches for my Dickens
+book, I spent a great deal of time in the Southwark section. Now, with
+the prospect of Zeppelins, I thought again of Southwark. A bomb in a
+Southwark street! Good Lord, can you imagine the horror of it! There
+fifty or sixty families are packed into a single tenement, and the
+houses in their turn are packed one against the next along streets so
+narrow that the buildings seem to be nodding to each other, touching
+foreheads almost. Desperately poor people, children swarming every
+moment of the day and night up and down these dark stairways, up and
+down these hideously dark streets. Now drop a bomb in the midst of it
+all. That is what Englishmen are thinking of now.
+
+"I didn't go over into Southwark; I couldn't stand it. The next day I
+went back to the Stock Exchange to make my sketch. I've done sketches in
+London before--every nook and cranny of it--but this time I felt a
+little nervous when I got there with my umbrella and my little tools.
+But I managed it. I said to the bobby, I said--"
+
+And then Mr. Smith, getting up from his chair and relapsing into the
+frown that always means he is going to tell a story, showed how he
+managed it. It is impossible to reproduce Mr. Smith's inimitable manner.
+
+"'Are you, now?' said I.
+
+"'Well, 'ow can I tell?' said he.
+
+"'But if you're the excellent English bobby that I believe you to be,'
+said I, 'you'll see at once that I'm an honest American artist just here
+to do a little sketching.'
+
+"'I tell you,' said he. W'y don't you just pop hup and see 'Is Lordship
+the Mayor?'
+
+"And so I did pop up and I told the Lord Mayor my troubles, and he waved
+me a hearty wave of his hand and said he'd do anything to oblige an
+American, and I came down again, and here was the bobby still very
+upright but watching my approach from the tail of his eye. And I
+pretended I had never seen him, but as I went past I slipped him a
+cigar, and when I passed back again he twinkled his eye. Stuck between
+the buttons of his coat, there being no other place, was my fat cigar.
+
+"I made my sketch of the Royal Exchange. I want Americans to see what
+can happen if His Imperial Lowness over on the Continent sees fit to
+send his Zeppelins to England. Not being big enough nor strong enough to
+injure England vitally, he can take this method of injury, he can injure
+women and children and maim horses, destroy business and works of art
+and blow up the congested districts.
+
+"We have seen what the Savior of the World's Culture could do in France
+and Belgium; it is small wonder that all England has in the back of her
+head surmises as to what he might accomplish if some of his air craft
+crossed the Channel. By which I do not mean to say that the English are
+apprehensive. They are not nervous. I have spent more than a month with
+them, among my own friends, learning the general temper of the country.
+
+"There are no demonstrations, there is no boasting, no display. London
+is much the same as it always was. At night London is darkened, in
+accordance with the order of Oct. 9, but that is about all the
+difference. It is so dark that you can hardly get up Piccadilly, but
+London takes her amusements about as usual. The theatres are not
+overcrowded, but neither are they empty. For luncheons and for dinners
+Prince's is full, the Carlton is full. The searchlights are playing over
+the city looking for those Zeppelins. That is a new wrinkle to me; the
+idea of blinding the men up there at the wheel with a powerful light is
+a good one.
+
+"These Englishmen have their teeth set. They know perfectly well that
+they are fighting for their existence. All this talk of the necessity of
+drumming up patriotism in England is bosh. England has no organized
+publicity bureau such as Germany, and in contrast she may have seemed
+quiet to the point of apathy. But don't fancy that Englishmen are
+apathetic. They are slow and they are sure. They are just beginning to
+realize that they have these fellows by the back of the necks. Before I
+left London I saw every day in the Temple Gardens, down by the
+Embankment, that steady drill of thousands of young men in straw hats,
+yellow shoes, and business suits. I felt their spirit.
+
+"There is a great fundamental difference between the spirit of Germany
+and the spirit of the Allies, and the whole world has recognized it.
+With the Allies there has been no boasting, even now when they realize
+that the top is reached and this war is on the down grade. There is
+determination, but there is no cock-sureness, no goose-step. There is
+no insolence.
+
+"Why, in the last analysis, is the whole world against Germany? Because
+of her insufferable insolence. It is an insolence which has been fairly
+bred in the bone of every German soldier. I can give you a little
+concrete instance. My daughter-in-law had been serving in one of the
+Paris hospitals ever since the war broke out. She was finally placed on
+a committee which was to meet the trainloads of wounded soldiers when
+they first arrived.
+
+"In one of the cars one day there was a wounded officer, a German. He
+spoke no French, and a young French Lieutenant, very courteous, was
+trying to make him understand something. My daughter, too, had no
+success. Finally a young German, a common soldier who was in the same
+car, said to this German officer: 'I am an Alsatian; I can interpret for
+you.'
+
+"'How dare you!' And the German officer turned to him in perfect fury.
+'How do you, a common soldier, dare to speak to me, an officer!' And
+with that he struck the Alsatian full in the face with what little
+strength he had left.
+
+"Now there is an example of the attitude to which the German military
+has been trained.
+
+"On another occasion, when a French officer, after one of the battles,
+came courteously to the commanding German officer of the division and
+said, 'Sir, you are my prisoner,' the German spat in his face. That is
+all very dramatic and you may say that he showed much spirit, but you
+could hardly call it a sporting spirit, surely not a civilized spirit.
+
+"It is this domineering spirit that the whole world is resenting.
+Nothing that Germany can do through her well-organized press agents can
+conceal that insolence which has been a continuous policy for many
+years. American opinion is almost unanimous in its opposition to Germany
+for this one reason.
+
+"Sir Gilbert Parker recently sent me a whole bundle of papers asking me
+to judge England's case fairly and ask my friends in America to do the
+same. I wrote back and asked him: 'Why do you waste stamps sending
+evidence to America? America has the evidence, and if there has been any
+anti-English feeling in America, von Bernstorff and Dernburg long since
+demolished it.'
+
+"The world has never witnessed anything so far-reaching as this policy
+of insolence. Men who in daily life are cultured and fine, whose ideals
+are high and noble, who have achieved names for themselves in
+literature, art, and science--we all have many friends among them--have
+become unconsciously tinctured with this policy. They are intelligent
+men, but, by the gods, when they get on this subject of Germany's place
+in the sun, they become paranoiacs! This idea of their pre-eminence has
+become a disease with Germany. Germany is actually sick with it, and the
+medicine that will cure her will be pretty bitter.
+
+"I see that George Bernard Shaw presumes to announce that this policy of
+insolence, this extreme militarism, has been just as prominent in
+England and in France. Mr. Shaw is great fun and very wise about a lot
+of things; moreover, he has lived in England a great deal longer than I
+have, but just the same he is dead wrong when he makes such a statement.
+I have many old friends in the army and the navy, many in politics, and
+some of them are of the pronounced soldier, the militarist type. Not one
+of them would ever dare to write such a book as Bernhardi has written,
+and I don't believe there's one of them that would take any stock in a
+man like Nietzsche. Mr. Shaw is dead wrong here; worse than that, he is
+writing nonsense.
+
+"We live from day to day hoping that the end will be the absolute
+annihilation of the militarist principle, this get-off-the-earth
+attitude.
+
+"And what has all this," concluded Mr. Smith suddenly, "to do with art?
+I'm sure I don't know. No one is thinking about art now."
+
+"But you haven't told me where your sympathies are in this war, Mr.
+Smith."
+
+"Hey? I don't have any sympathies, as you see. I'm neutral as President
+Wilson bids me be; I don't care who licks Germany, not even if it is
+Japan."
+
+
+
+
+*The Helpless Victims*
+
+*By Mrs. Nina Larrey Duryee.*
+
+[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, Sept. 9, 1914.]
+
+
+Hotel Windsor.
+
+DINARD, France, Sept. 1, 1914.
+
+_To the Editor of The New York Times_:
+
+This is written in great haste to catch the rare boat to England. The
+author is an American woman, who has spent nine happy Summers in this
+beautiful corner of France, where thousands of her compatriots have
+likewise enjoyed Brittany's kindly hospitality.
+
+Yesterday I saw issuing through St. Malo's eleventh century gates 300
+Belgian refugees, headed by our Dinard Mayor, M. Cralard. I try to write
+calmly of that procession of the half-starved, terror-ridden throng, but
+with the memory of those pinched faces and the stories we heard of
+murder, carnage, burning towns, insulted women, it is difficult to
+restrain indignation. They had come from Charleroi and Mons--old men,
+women, and little children. Not a man of strength or middle age among
+them, for they are dead or away fighting the barbarians who invested
+their little country against all honorable dealings.
+
+Such a procession! They had slept in fields, eaten berries, carrots dug
+from the earth by their hands; drunk from muddy pools, always with those
+beings behind them who had driven them at the point of their bayonets
+from their poor homes. Looking back, they had seen flames against the
+sky, heard screams for pity from those too ill to leave, silenced by
+bullets.
+
+Here are some of the tales, which our Mayor vouches for, which I heard:
+
+One young mother, who had seen her husband shot, tried to put aside the
+rifle of the assassin. She was holding her year-old baby on her breast.
+The butt of that rifle was beaten down, crushing in her baby's chest. It
+still lives, and I heard it's gasping breath.
+
+Another young girl, in remnants of a pretty silk dress, hatless, her
+fragile shoes soleless, and her feet bleeding, is quite mad from the
+horrors of seeing her old father shot and her two younger brothers taken
+away to go before the advancing enemy as shields against English
+bullets. She has forgotten her name, town, and kin, and, "like a leaf in
+the storm," is adrift on the world penniless.
+
+I saw sitting in a row on a bench in the shed seven little girls, none
+of them more than six. Not one of them has now father, mother, or home.
+None can tell whence they came, or to whom they belong. Three are
+plainly of gentle birth. They were with nurses when the horde of
+Prussians fell upon them, and the latter were kept--for the soldier's
+pleasure.
+
+There is an old man, formerly the proud proprietor of a bakery, who
+escaped with the tiny delivery cart pulled by a Belgian dog. Within the
+cart are the remains of his prosperous past--a coat, photos of his dead
+wife, and his three sons at the front, and a brass kettle.
+
+I heard from an aged man how he escaped death. He, with other villagers,
+was locked into a room, and from without the German carbines were thrust
+through the blinds. Those within were told to "dance for their lives,"
+and the German bullets picked them off, one by one, from the street. He
+had the presence of mind to fall as though dead, and when the house was
+set on fire crawled out through a window into the cowshed and got away.
+
+Now, these stories are not the worst or the only ones. Nor are these 300
+refugees more than a drop of sand on a beach of the thousands upon
+thousands who are at this moment in like case. They are pouring through
+the country now, dazed with trouble, robbed of all they possess.
+
+Who can help them, even to work? No one has money. Even those rich
+villa people, Americans, are unable to pay their servants. There is no
+"work" save in the fields garnering crops, for which no wages are paid.
+Their country is a devastated waste, tenanted by the enemy, who spread
+like a tidal wave of destruction in all directions. We take the better
+class into our homes, clothe them and feed them gladly, that we may in a
+minute way repay the debt civilization owes their husbands, sons, and
+fathers. France, too, is invaded, and now thousands more of French are
+homeless and penniless.
+
+We in this formerly gay, fashionable little town see nothing of the
+pageantry of war--only its horrors, as trains leave with us hundreds of
+wounded from the front. In their bodies we find dumdum bullets, and we
+hear tales which confirm those of the refugees.
+
+Will America help them? I, an American woman, could weep for the
+inadequacy of my pen, for I beg your pity, your compassion, and your
+help. Not since the days of Rome's cruelty has civilization been so
+outraged.
+
+I beg your paper to print this, and to start a subscription for this far
+corner of France, where the tide of war throws its wreckage. The Winter
+is ahead, and with hunger, cold, lack of supplies, and isolation will
+create untold suffering. Paris, too, is now sending refugees from its
+besieged gates. Every corner is already filled, and hundreds pour in
+every day. The garages, best hotels, villas, and cafes are already
+filled with "those that suffer for honor's sake." The Croix Rouge does
+splendid work for the wounded soldiers, but who will help these victims
+of war? Fifty cents will buy shoes for a baby's feet. Ten cents will buy
+ten pieces of bread. A dollar will buy a widow a shawl. Who will give?
+Deny yourselves some little pleasure--a cigar, a drink of soda water, a
+theatre seat--and send the price to these starved, beaten people,
+innocent of any crime.
+
+You American women, who tuck your children into their clean beds at
+night, remember these children, reared as carefully as yours, without
+relatives, money, or future. They will be placed on farms to do a
+peasant's work with peasants. These women bereft of all that was dear
+face a barren future. These aged men anticipate for their only remaining
+blessing death, which will take them from a world which has used them
+ill.
+
+America is neutral. Let her remain so, but compassion has no
+nationality. We are all children of one Father. Send us help. These poor
+creatures hold out to you pleading hands for succor.
+
+NINA LARREY DURYEE.
+
+P.S.--I beg you to publish this. I am the daughter-in-law of the Gen.
+Duryee of the Duryee Zouaves, who fought through our civil war with
+honor. Our Ambassador, Mr. Herrick, and his wife know me socially. Any
+funds you can gather please send to M. Grolard, Marie de Dinard,
+Municipality de Dinard, Ille-et-Vilaine, France, or to Le Banque Boutin,
+Dinard, France.
+
+
+
+
+*A New Russia Meets Germany*
+
+*By Perceval Gibbon.*
+
+[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, Oct. 26, 1914.]
+
+
+VILNA, Russia, Sept. 28.--For a fact as great as Russia one needs a
+symbol by which to apprehend it For me, till now, the symbol has been a
+memory of Moscow in the Winter of 1905, the Winter of revolution, when
+the barricades were up in the streets and the dragoons worked among the
+crowds like slaughtermen in a shambles. Toward that arched gateway
+leading from the Red Square into the Kremlin came soldiers on foot,
+bringing with them prisoners dredged out of the turmoil, two armed men
+to each battered and terrified captive, whose white and bloodstained
+face stared startling and ghastly between the gray uniform greatcoats.
+The first of them came to the deep arch, in whose recess is a lamplit
+shrine; I stood aside to see them go past. The soldiers were wrenching
+the man along by the arms, each holding him on one side; I recall yet
+the prisoner's lean, miserable face, with the suggestion it had of
+dissolute and desperate youth; and as they came abreast of the faintly
+gleaming ikon in the gate they let him go for a moment. His dazed eyes
+wandered up to the shrine; he was already bareheaded, and with a
+shaking, uncertain hand he crossed himself in the intricate Russian
+fashion. The soldiers who guarded him, too--they shuffled their rifles
+to a convenient hold to have a right hand free; they crossed themselves
+and their lips moved. Then they were through the arch and out upon the
+snow within the walls, and once again they had hold of their man and
+were thrusting him along to the prison which for him was the antechamber
+of death.
+
+That was Russia then. Prisoner and captors, soldiers and
+revolutionaries, blinded and bewildered by the rush and dazzle of
+affairs, straining asunder yet linked, knitted into a unity of the
+spirit which they neither understood nor questioned.
+
+But a week ago, on those still, dreary lands which border the Prussian
+frontier, there was evidence of a Russia that has been born or made
+since those hectic days in Moscow. The Germans who had forced Gen.
+Rennenkampf to withdraw to the border were making an attempt to envelop
+his left wing. Their columns, issuing from the maze of lakes and hills
+in Masurenland, came across the border on both banks of the little River
+Amulew, and fell upon him. There is a road in those parts that drifts
+south along the frontier, an unmade, unholy Russian road, ribbed with
+outcrops of stone, a purgatory to travel upon till the snow clothes it
+and one can go by sledge. Away to the southwest, beyond the patches of
+firwood and the gray, steeply [Transcriber: original 'steply'] rolling
+land, there toned the far diapason of artillery; strings of army
+transport, Red Cross vehicles, and miscellaneous men straggled upon the
+road.
+
+From beyond the nearest shoulder of land sounded suddenly some gigantic
+and hoarse whistle, an ear-shattering roar of warning and urgency. There
+was shouting and a stir of movement; the wagons and Red Cross vans began
+to pull out to one side; and over the brow of the hill, hurtling into
+sight, huge, unbelievably swift, roaring upon its whistle, tore a great,
+gray-painted motor lorry, packed with khaki-clad infantrymen. It was
+going at a hideous speed, leaping its tons of weight insanely from rock
+ridge to traffic-churned slough in the road; there was only time to note
+its immensity and uproar and the ranked faces of the men swaying in
+their places, and it was by, and another was bounding into sight behind
+it. A hundred and odd of them, each with thirty men on board--three
+battalions to reinforce the threatened left wing--a mighty instrument of
+war, mightily wielded. It was Russia as she is today, under way and
+gathering speed.
+
+At Rennenkampf's headquarters at Wirballen, where formerly one changed
+trains going from Berlin to Petersburg, one sees the fashion in which
+Russia shapes for war. Here, beneath a little bridge with a black and
+white striped sentry box upon it, its muddy banks partitioned with
+rotten planks into goose-pens, runs that feeble stream which separates
+Russia from Germany. Upon its further side, what is left of Eydtkuhnen,
+the Prussian frontier village, looms drearily through its screen of
+willows--walls smoke-blackened and roofless, crumbling in piles of
+fallen brick across its single street, which was dreary enough at its
+best. To the north and south, and behind to the eastward, are the camps,
+a city full, a country full of men armed and equipped; the mean and ugly
+village thrills to the movement and purpose. On the roof of the
+schoolhouse there lifts itself against the pale Autumn sky the cobweb
+mast and stays of the wireless apparatus, and in the courtyard below and
+in the shabby street in front there is a surge of automobiles, motor
+cycles, mounted orderlies--all the message-carrying machinery of a staff
+office. The military telephone wires loop across the street, and spray
+out in a dozen directions over the flat and trodden fields; for within
+the dynamic kernel to all this elaborate shell is Rennenkampf, the
+Prussian-Russian who governs the gate of Germany.
+
+[Illustration: GEN. PAUL PAU
+Commanding one of the French Armies
+(_Photo from Underwood & Underwood._)]
+
+[Illustration: GEN. D'AMADE
+Commanding One of the French Armies
+(_Photo from Bain News Service._)]
+
+Here is the brain of the army. Its limbs go swinging by at all hours, in
+battalions and brigades, or at the trot, with a jingle of bits and
+scabbards, or at the walk, with bump and clank, as the gun wheels clear
+the ruts. It is the infantry--that fills the eye--fine, big stuff, man
+for man the biggest infantry in the world.
+
+Their uniform of peaked cap, trousers tucked into knee-boots, and khaki
+blouse is workmanlike, and the serious middle-aged officers trudging
+beside them are hardly distinguishable from the men. They have not yet
+learned the use of the short, broad-bladed bayonets; theirs are of the
+old three-cornered section type with which the Bulgarians drove the
+Turks to Chataldja; but there is something else that they have learned.
+Since the first days of the mobilization that brought them from their
+homes there is not a man among them that has tasted strong drink. In
+1904 the men came drunk from their homes to the centres; one saw them
+about the streets and on the railways and in the gutters. But these men
+have been sober from the start, and will perforce be sober to the end.
+
+Of all that elaborate and copious machinery of war which Russia has
+built up since her failure in Manchuria there is nothing so impressive
+as this. Her thousand and odd aeroplanes, her murderously expert
+artillery, her neat and successful field wireless telegraph, even her
+strategy, count as secondary to it. The chief of her weaknesses in the
+past has been the slowness of her mobilization; Germany, with her plans
+laid and tested for a mobilization in four days, could count on time
+enough to strike before Russia could move. She used her advantage to
+effect when Austria planted the seed of this present war by the
+annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina; she was able to present Russia in
+all her unpreparedness with the alternatives of war in twenty-four hours
+or accepting the situation. But this time it has been different.
+
+At Petrograd one sees how different. Hither from the northern and
+eastern Governments come the men who are to swell Rennenkampf's force.
+Their cadres, the skeletons of the battalions of which they are the
+flesh, are waiting for them--officers, organization, equipment, all is
+ready. The endless trains decant them; they swing in leisurely columns
+through the streets to their depots, motley as a circus--foresters,
+moujiks in fetid sheepskins, cattlemen, and rivermen, Siberians,
+tow-haired Finns, the wide gamut of the races of Russia, all big or
+biggish, with those impassive, blunt-featured faces that mask the
+Russian soul, and all sober. No need now to make men of them before
+making soldiers; no inferno at the way side-stations and troop trains
+turning up days late. It is as if, at the cost of those annual
+780,000,000 rubles, Russia had bought the clue to victory.
+
+West beyond Eydtkuhnen, under the pearl-gray northern sky, lies East
+Prussia. Hereabout it is flat and fertile, with lavish, eye-fatiguing
+levels of cornland stretching away to Insterburg and beyond to
+Koenigsberg's formidable girdle of forts. Here are many villages, and
+scattered between them innumerable hamlets of only two or three houses,
+and a small town or two. Most of them are empty now; the German army
+that leans its back on the Vistula's fortresses has cleared this country
+like a dancing floor for its work. It has rearranged it as one
+rearranges the furniture in a room; whole populations have been
+transported, roads broken, bridges blown up, strategically unnecessary;
+villages burned. Nothing remains on the ground that has not its purpose
+assigned--not even the people, and their purpose has been clear for
+some time past. The Russians have been over this ground already, and
+fell back from it after their defeat between Osterode and Allenstein.
+Their advance was through villages lifeless and deserted and over empty
+roads; the retreat was through a country that swarmed with hostile life.
+Roads were blocked with farm carts, houses along their route took fire
+mysteriously, signaling their movement and direction, and answered from
+afar by other conflagrations; bridges that had been sound enough before
+blew up at the last moment. What the Belgians were charged with, and
+their country laid waste for, all East Prussia is organized to do daily
+as an established and carefully schooled auxiliary to the army.
+
+A few days since there arrived a prisoner, driven in on foot by a
+mounted Cossack, sent back by the officer commanding the reconnoissance
+party which had captured him. He came up the street, shuffling at a
+quick walk to keep ahead of the horse and the thin, sinister Cossack--an
+elderly farmer, in work-stained clothes, with the lean neck and pursed
+jaws of a hard bargainer. In all his bearing and person there was
+evident the man of toilsome life who had prospered a little; in that
+soldier-thronged street, in his posture of a prisoner with the Cossack's
+revolver at his back, he was conspicuous and grotesque. His eyes, under
+the gray pent of his brows, were uneasy, and through all his commonplace
+quality and his show of fortitude there was a gleam of the fear of death
+that made him tragic. He had been found on his farm doing nothing in
+particular; it was out of simply general suspicion that the Russian
+officer had ordered him to be searched. The result was the discovery of
+a typewritten paper, giving precise instructions as to how a German
+civilian in East Prussia must act toward the enemy--how to signal
+movements of infantry, of cavalry, of artillery; how to estimate the
+numbers of a body of men, and what to say if questioned, and the like--a
+document conceived and executed with true Prussian exactitude and
+clearness, a masterpiece in the literature of espionage.
+
+For him there was no hope; even The Hague Convention, which permits
+mine-laying, does not protect spies, however earnestly and dangerously
+they serve their country. He passed, always at the same forced shuffle
+of reluctant feet, toward his judges and his doom.
+
+
+
+
+*Belgian Cities Germanized*
+
+*By Cyril Brown,*
+
+Staff Correspondent of THE NEW YORK TIMES.
+
+
+BRUSSELS, Nov. 4.--Of all the war capitals of Europe, Brussels under the
+German occupation is probably the gayest and the most deceptive. It
+certainly outrivals Berlin in life and brilliancy, as Berlin outshines
+London. The Germans are free spenders afield; their influx here by
+thousands has put large sums of money into circulation, resulting in a
+spell of artificial, perhaps superficial, prosperity.
+
+The crowds surging all day up and down the principal shopping street,
+the Rue Neuve, overflow the sidewalks and fill the street. Well-dressed
+crowds promenade along the circular boulevard all afternoon and into the
+night. Places of amusement and the cafes are crowded. The hundreds of
+automobiles loaded with officers speeding about the streets, with
+musical military horns blowing, add to the gay illusion.
+
+Nowhere save at the Great Headquarters in France, where the Kaiser stays
+when not haranguing his troops at the front, will you see such a
+brilliant galaxy of high officers--and every day seems a holiday in
+Brussels.
+
+You catch the sinister undercurrent in the more obscure little cafes.
+Here you will find some Belgian patriot who is glad of the chance to
+unbosom himself to a safe American. Perhaps he will speak with
+unprintable bitterness of the shame of the Brussels women who, he says,
+wave handkerchiefs and smile friendly greetings at the singing troop
+trains passing through the suburbs on their way to the front, or give
+flowers and cigars to the returning streams of wounded. They ought to be
+shot as traitresses, he says. For the honor of the Belgian women, he
+adds, these form only a small percentage.
+
+You are not surprised when well-informed neutral residents tell you that
+these people "have murder in their hearts, and that if the Germans ever
+retreat in a rout through Belgium, Heaven help the straggler and the
+rear guard." Nor that copies of English papers, whose reading is
+forbidden, are nevertheless smuggled in, and that copies of The London
+Times fetch as high as 200 francs, reading circles being often formed at
+20 francs per head.
+
+But there are no hopeful signs here of a German retreat. Brussels has
+not been "practically evacuated." On the contrary, one gets
+overwhelmingly the impression that the Germans expect to stay forever.
+No cannon are posted on commanding avenues or squares. There are no
+serious measures for the defense of the capital. The military and civil
+Governments occupy the principal public buildings, and seem to be
+working with typical German thoroughness. The Government offices begin
+to assume an air of permanence.
+
+As conquerors go, the invaders seem to be bearing themselves well. There
+is apparently no desire to "rub it in," the military Government
+seemingly pursuing the wise policy of trying to spare the feelings of
+the natives as much as possible, perhaps in the impossible hope of
+ultimately conciliating them. German flags are flown sparingly. Only
+small squads of Landsturm are now occasionally seen marching through the
+streets. Even from the bitterest Belgians one hears no stories of
+"insult, shame, or wrong."
+
+At the same time, swift and harsh punishment is meted out to any one
+whose actions are thought to tend to impair German military authority or
+dignity. Thus placards posted on many street corners day before
+yesterday informed the people that a Belgian city policeman had been
+sentenced to five years' imprisonment for "interfering with a German
+official in the discharge of his duty, assaulting a soldier, and
+attempting to free a prisoner." For this, also, a fine of 5,000,000
+france ($1,000,000) was imposed on the City of Brussels. Another
+policeman was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for alleged similar
+offenses.
+
+An interesting history of the German occupation can be reconstructed
+from these same placards pasted on buildings. Here is one, dating from
+the early days, forbidding bicycle riding in the country and announcing
+that civilian cyclists will be shot at sight. If you look long enough
+you can also find a mutilated specimen of ex-Burgomaster Max's famous
+"dementi," in which he virtually calls the German Military Governor of
+Liege and, by implication, the German Government, "liar." The Bruxellois
+must be fickle and quick to forget, for I did not hear the picturesque
+Max's name mentioned once.
+
+The realities of the military occupation are brought home to the people
+perhaps most at the Gare du Nord and the Place de la Gare, where the
+Civic Guards, in their curious comic opera caps, are reinforced by
+German gendarmes with rifles slung over their shoulders. Civilians are
+not allowed to cross this square in front of the railway station. "Keep
+to the sidewalk" is the brusque order to those who stray. Also the park
+in front of the Royal Palace is closed to the public. Three bright red
+gasoline tank wagons among the trees give it an incongruous touch, while
+the walks and drives are used as an exercising ground for officers'
+mounts. All the windows of the Royal Palace are decorated with the sign
+of the Red Cross.
+
+Brussels just now is humorously a victim of the double standard--not
+moral, but financial. All kinds of money go here on the basis of 1 mark
+equaling 1 franc 25 centimes, but shopkeepers still fix prices and
+waiters bring bills in francs, and when payment is tendered in marks you
+generally get change in both--a proceeding that involves elaborate
+mathematical computations. At the next table to you in the restaurant of
+the Palace Hotel, once a favorite stopping place for Anglo-American
+travelers, but now virtually an exclusive German officers' club, with
+the distinction of a double guard posted at the front door, sits a
+short, fiercely mustached General of some sort--evidently a person of
+great importance from the commotion his entry caused among all the other
+officers in the room. In his buttonhole he wears the Iron Cross of the
+second class, the Iron Cross of the first class pinned to his breast,
+and underneath the rare "Pour le Merite Order, with Swords." His bill
+amounts to about 7 francs, for he consumed the regular 4-franc table
+d'hote, plus a full bottle of red Burgundy. He tenders a blue 100-mark
+bill in payment and gets in return a baffling heap of change, including
+1 and 2 franc Belgium paper notes, 5 and 10 mark German bills, Belgian
+and German silver, and Belgian nickel coins with holes punched in the
+centres. The General takes out his pencil and begins elaborate
+calculations on the menu--then sends for the head waiter. It takes some
+time and much talk to convince him that he is not being "short changed."
+The double standard furnishes many of these humorous interludes.
+
+Equally exasperating is the double time standard. The Germans set their
+official clocks and watches by Berlin time, but have made no attempt to
+force it on the natives, who continue loyal to Belgian time, which is
+one hour behind Berlin.
+
+Brand Whitlock, the American Minister to Belgium, who runs a strong risk
+of having a statue erected to him some day by the grateful Belgian
+people, is quite the happiest, most relieved-looking person in Brussels
+since he heard the good news that all America was hard at work
+collecting food for the Belgians and that England would not prevent its
+delivery. Soon after the German occupation of Brussels a committee was
+organized to give food to the poor here, of which Mr. Whitlock and the
+Spanish Minister were patrons. Three weeks ago the Ministerial allies
+discovered that the situation was exceedingly grave, not only here but
+all over Belgium. Committees came to see Mr. Whitlock from Louvain,
+Liege, Namur, Charleroi, Mons, Dinant, &c., and the people, I was told,
+were within four weeks of absolute starvation. Mr. Whitlock got the
+German Military Governor of Belgium, Field Marshal von der Goltz, to
+give the Spanish Minister and himself a guarantee in writing that any
+food sent in for the poor Belgians would not be requisitioned for the
+German Army.
+
+The next thing was to get the permission of England; so two weeks ago
+Secretary Gibson was sent to London with Baron Lambert, a banker, and M.
+Franqui to get England's permission as well as a first shipment of food.
+Two weeks ago Mr. Whitlock sent a long letter to the State Department
+and to President Wilson, asking them to do something. At least one
+phrase of Mr. Whitlock's coinage has been going the rounds here. In the
+various preliminary discussions as to whose responsibility it was to
+take care of the Belgian people there was considerable talk about Hague
+conventions. "Starving people can't eat Hague conventions" was his
+answer.
+
+Minister Whitlock also feels vastly relieved that he has got practically
+all non-official Americans out of Belgium, the twoscore still here being
+mostly resident business men, with a sprinkling of the boldest tourists,
+who are staying "to see the fun," in spite of Ministerial warnings.
+
+Mr. Whitlock believes he has broken the world's record by being eight
+Ministers at once. At one time he was representing Germany, Austria,
+Great Britain, Japan, Servia, Denmark, and Lichtenstein. When he told a
+German officer that he represented Lichtenstein--which is said to be a
+small sovereign State somewhere, dependent on Austria--the officer
+laughed and said: "Theoretically, Germany is still at war with
+Lichtenstein and has been since 1866, it having been overlooked in the
+peace shuffle." The reason for representing Denmark, which isn't at war
+with anybody, is that the Danish Minister is equally accredited to
+Belgium and The Hague, and had no Secretary to leave behind when he
+departed Hagueward. Of course, the American flag does not fly over the
+Danish Legation here. In addition, the French and Russian interests were
+also offered to Mr. Whitlock, but he was so full of responsibility that
+he had to ask to be excused.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LOUVAIN, Nov. 5.--Louvain now presents the ghastly spectacle of a dead
+city, buried under ruins, slowly coming to life again, and continues to
+give full scope to the morbid streak in human nature; for sightseers
+continue to flock here in increasing numbers from Antwerp, Brussels,
+and, in fact, all over Belgium, excepting from over the deadline of the
+operating zone. With the Bruxellois especially the trip is a favorite
+outing on a pleasant Sunday. The Germans have succeeded in restoring the
+train service to the extent of two passenger trains daily between here
+and Brussels and one between here and Antwerp, and the military
+authorities pursue a surprisingly liberal policy in giving traveling
+passes to the Belgian population. In addition to those who come by
+train, a steady procession of automobiles passes through all day; and
+next week, when a Berlin-Brussels express service is to be started, the
+local touring season will have a further boom.
+
+About 5 per cent of the original population have come crawling back, and
+the three companies of Landsturm garrisoned here, together with the
+sightseers, form their source of revenue. The more courageous
+shopkeepers who have come back and reopened their stores are coining
+money as never in peace times--especially the little confectionery and
+pastry shops, where the soldiers off duty come for afternoon coffee,
+and the one tailor's shop which is open. Workmen are putting the
+finishing touches to the new pine-board roof on the cathedral and are
+making efforts to "restore" the stone exterior. The famous Gothic Hotel
+de Ville is now protected by a high board fence, and two bearded
+Landsturm men mount guard there day and night. A gang of laborers is
+making headway in cleaning up the interior of the hopelessly ruined
+University Library, and the streets are all cleared of debris. The
+academic halls of the main university building, which suffered little
+damage, are not silent, for one of the Landsturm companies is quartered
+there. I found half a hundred of them and two cows in the university
+quadrangle or campus. The men were all unshaven, but of a good-natured
+sort, and many were the rough German jokes as they watched a comrade
+milking the cows preparatory to their slaughter on the spot by the
+company butcher, who stood in waiting, while at the same time the
+gray-haired university castellan was getting ready to take a time
+exposure of the cows.
+
+"And yet they say we Germans are barbarians," laughed an under officer.
+"I bet you won't find that the French soldiers, or the highly civilized
+English gentlemen, either, have a photographer come to take a picture of
+the cows they are about to eat."
+
+The venerable university guardian continued to do a brisk business
+making group pictures and solo portraits of Landsturm under officers and
+men at two francs per dozen postcards, till a Lieutenant appeared on the
+scene and the bugle sounded in the court for "boot inspection." All
+promptly lined up in double file against the brick university wall and
+presented feet for the critical eye of the inspector--all except the
+company cooks, who were busy among their pots and pans and open-air cook
+stoves set up in the academic stone portico.
+
+The last of the former students of the University of Louvain was
+probably the well-dressed, meek-looking young Chinese, eating luncheon
+at the near-by restaurant--the only one open in town. The German
+soldiers, fortunately, did not mistake him for a Japanese, and he has
+not been molested.
+
+There are touches of grim humor among the ruins. Here on the main
+street, for example, is a pink placard stuck on a stick on top of the
+heap of brick and mortar that was once a store. It reads: "Elegant
+corsets: Removed to Rue Malines 21." And again, on a number of houses
+that escaped the torch are pasted neatly printed little signs bearing
+the legend: "This house is to be protected. Soldiers are not allowed to
+enter houses or to set fire to them without orders from the
+Kommandantur."
+
+The inhabitants who have no stores to keep seem continually to wander
+aimlessly in the streets; and here, too, is the sight, common now all
+over Belgium, of many women with children begging. Especially they
+linger around the entrances to the barracks, for hunger has given them a
+keen nose for bread, and they have soon learned that the soldier will
+give them what they have left over from their ample rations. The German
+Government is trying to stimulate the return of the population, and is
+apparently doing its best to help them to earn a living by providing
+work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ANTWERP, Nov. 6.--The Germans are working incessantly to repair the
+fortifications of Antwerp, mount new and heavier guns, and put the whole
+place into a state of defense. The importance attached to their almost
+feverish activities is indicated by the fact that Field Marshal von der
+Goltz, the Military Governor of Belgium, ran over from Brussels and made
+a tour of inspection of the double girdle of forts yesterday. His
+Excellency von Frankenberg and Ludwigsdorf, Personal Adjutant of the
+Military Governor of Antwerp, said to me in the course of a cordial
+interview:
+
+"We have two principal interests in our work here: First, that Antwerp
+shall become a place of great military importance again and be prepared
+against attacks from the enemy, although that contingency doesn't seem
+very probable."
+
+His Excellency was unwilling to hazard a guess as to how long the
+Germans could hold Antwerp against an allied siege, but said: "I believe
+we could hold out longer against the Allies than they did against the
+Germans. Our second interest is to revive trade and industry and the
+life of the city generally. When we first came here there were only
+soldiers and hungry dogs on the streets; now, as you can see, the dead
+city is coming to life in short order."
+
+He scouted the idea that the people of Belgium had been or were on the
+brink of starvation as the result of German occupation, saying that the
+very contrary was the case. "Belgium is a country which cannot sustain
+itself--it produces only enough food for roughly 3,000,000 out of its
+5,000,000 population, because Belgium is an industrial country, and food
+for the remaining 2,000,000 has to be imported. Heretofore most of this
+food has come from Holland, whence some is still coming, but in no great
+quantity. We have taken the problem of food supply up with the Belgian
+Government, as much as there is one left, namely, with the
+municipalities, and at our suggestion an 'Intercommunistic Commission'
+has been organized, so that everything possible can be done to help the
+country. This commission sits in Brussels, and when any town or village
+or district has no more food on hand the fact is reported and it gets
+from the commission what is required. What food supplies we found here
+we took charge of to prevent their being plundered, and also because we,
+as a belligerent, had to supply our own necessities; that is the right
+of war. But by no means have we used up all the food supplies ourselves,
+nor set them aside for our own use; but a large part has been set aside
+for this commission, to be used for the poor, and another part will be
+given back in a short time for trade purposes, so that commerce will be
+revived again.
+
+"There is no place in Belgium where the people have starved. Their most
+pressing need now would appear to be money, for many are unemployed and
+many others disinclined to work. At one place where we were told the
+people were starving we found stores crammed full of food--but the
+inhabitants had no money and the shopkeepers wouldn't give them credit.
+
+"Everything is being done by us to revive business so that the people
+can again earn money. If America had not been so tender-hearted as to
+send foodstuffs, and if the food supply had run out, we should certainly
+have considered it our duty to bring food from Germany, for we are for
+the time being the Government here, and it is our duty to see that the
+people do not starve."
+
+German newspaper readers are not aware that their Kaiser had a narrow
+escape from the bombs of the Allies' airmen at Thielt, for the fact of
+the War Lord's recent invasion of Belgium has been kept as nearly a dead
+secret as possible. I learned from an especially well-informed source in
+Brussels that the object of the Kaiser's visit was not only to encourage
+his troops but to reprove his Generals. According to this informant, who
+is frequently in touch with high officers in their more mellow moods,
+when military reticence somewhat relaxes, the Kaiser was said to be in a
+towering rage at the failure of his army to make headway against the
+English and Belgians on the coast, and to have decided to go in person
+to see about it; also there has been considerable cautiously veiled
+criticism of his persistent "interference" in the conduct of the
+campaign.
+
+Having last seen the Kaiser two weeks ago motoring at the German Great
+Headquarters in Eastern France, I picked up his trail at Louvain,
+through which place he passed by night a week ago in a special train in
+the direction of Lille, after a scouting pilot engine had returned and
+reported "all safe." On his return journey from Flanders he was rumored
+to have "put up" at the Palais d'Arenberg in Brussels.
+
+It is significant that the following notice has been placarded on the
+outside of the building occupied by the Military Government, next door
+to the Hotel St. Antoine: "Reports that the French and English are
+marching on Antwerp are without foundation; the public is warned against
+helping to circulate these false reports." All day crowds hang about the
+door where this notice is posted among official German news bulletins.
+The burghers of Antwerp are well informed about the varying fortunes of
+the war, for several papers printed in French are allowed to appear,
+under the German censorship, which seems surprisingly easygoing here and
+eminently fair, allowing them to print not merely the official German
+accounts circulated by the Wolff Bureau, but the official English,
+French, Russian, and even Belgian bulletins as well, in addition to
+matter copied from the Dutch papers, which are also allowed to circulate
+here.
+
+If things look doubtful in the north, the Germans are looking
+confidently to the south, where the next big victory is hoped for. I
+learn that Gen. von Beseler, "the conqueror of Antwerp," as his popular
+picture postcard title reads, is now in charge of operations around
+Verdun, and that four of the new 42-centimeter mortars, in addition to
+more than thirty of the 30.5-centimeter, are already in place there. On
+the strength of this combination well-informed German officers
+confidently expect the quick fall of Verdun as soon as Beseler gives the
+order for the "Brummers" to speak--rather high-priced oratory, for I was
+told by an artillery officer that it cost the taxpayers 36,000 marks
+($9,000) every time one of the 42-centimeter mortars was fired.
+
+
+
+
+*The Belgian Ruin*
+
+*By J.H. Whitehouse, M.P.*
+
+[An Associated Press Interview, Published Oct. 2, 1914.]
+
+
+LONDON, Oct. 1.--A graphic picture of the desolation of Belgium was
+brought to London today by J.H. Whitehouse, member of Parliament from
+Lanarkshire, who has just returned from a tour around Antwerp for the
+purpose of assisting in the relief measures.
+
+"Having always regarded war as the negation of all that is good," said
+Mr. Whitehouse tonight, "I desired to see what its ravages were in a
+country exposed to all its fury, and what steps were possible to
+mitigate them. I do not think that any one here has realized the plight
+of the civilian population of Belgium today, and can only attempt to
+give any picture of this by describing some of my own experiences."
+
+Mr. Whitehouse made the journey outside Antwerp with two military cars,
+attended by Belgian officials. In describing the damage which he says
+the Belgians had to inflict upon themselves to supplement the defenses
+of Antwerp, he said:
+
+"Hundreds of thousands of trees had been cut down, so that at some
+points of our journey we had the impression of passing through a
+wilderness of roots. The tree trunks had all been removed so as to
+afford no cover to the enemy. All houses had been blown up or otherwise
+destroyed. Later we passed through the country which had been flooded as
+a further measure of defense. The damage resulting from these
+precautionary measures alone amounted to L10,000,000, ($50,000,000.)
+
+"In the villages all ordinary life was arrested. Women and children were
+standing or sitting dumb and patient by the roadside. Half way to
+Termonde we could plainly hear the booming of guns and saw many
+evidences of the battle which was then raging.
+
+"I had read newspaper accounts of the destruction of Termonde and had
+seen photographs, but they had not conveyed to my mind any realization
+of the horror of what actually happened. Termonde a few weeks ago was a
+beautiful city of about 16,000 inhabitants--a city in which the dignity
+of its buildings harmonized with the natural beauty of its situation, a
+city which contained some buildings of surpassing interest.
+
+"I went through street after street, square after square, and I found
+every house entirely destroyed with all its contents. It was not the
+result of the bombardment; it was systematic destruction. In each house
+a separate bomb had been placed, which had blown up the interior and set
+fire to the contents. All that remained in every case were portions of
+the outer walls, which were still constantly falling, and inside the
+cinders of the contents of the buildings. Not a shred of furniture or
+anything else remained.
+
+"This sight continued throughout the entire extent of what had been a
+considerable town. It had an indescribable influence upon observers
+which no printed description or even pictorial record could give. This
+influence was increased by the utter silence of the city, broken only by
+the sound of the guns.
+
+"Of the population I thought that not a soul remained. I was wrong, for
+as we turned into a square where the wreck of what had been one of the
+most beautiful of Gothic churches met my eyes a blind woman and her
+daughter groped among the ruins. They were the sole living creatures in
+the whole town.
+
+"Shops, factories, churches, and houses of the wealthy--all were
+similarly destroyed. One qualification only have I to make of this
+statement: Two or perhaps three houses bore the German command in chalk
+that they were not to be burned. These remained standing, but deserted,
+amid the ruins on either side. Where a destroyed house had obviously
+contained articles of value looting had taken place.
+
+"I inquired what had become of the population. It was a question to
+which no direct reply could be given. They had fled in all directions.
+Some had reached Antwerp, but a greater number were wandering about the
+country, panic-stricken and starving. Many were already dead.
+
+"What happened at Termonde was similar to what had happened in other
+parts of Belgium under military occupation of Germany. The result is
+that conditions have been set up for the civilian population throughout
+the occupied territory of unexampled misery. Comparatively few refugees
+have reached this country. Others remain wandering about Belgium,
+flocking into other towns and villages, or flying to points a little way
+across the Dutch frontier.
+
+"Sometimes when a town has been bombarded the Germans have withdrawn and
+the civilians have returned to their homes, only to flee again at the
+renewed attack. A case in point is Malines, which, on Sunday last, as I
+was about to try to reach it, was again bombarded. The inhabitants were
+then unable to leave, as the town was surrounded, but when the
+bombardment ceased there was a great exodus.
+
+"The whole life of the nation has been arrested. Food supplies which
+would ordinarily reach the civilian population are being taken by the
+German troops for their own support. The peasants and poor are without
+the necessities of life, and conditions of starvation grow more acute
+every day. Even where there is a supply of wheat available the peasants
+are not allowed to use their windmills, owing to the German fear that
+they will send signals to the Belgian Army.
+
+"We are, therefore, face to face with a fact which has rarely, if ever,
+occurred in the history of the world--an entire nation is in a state of
+famine, and that within half a day's journey of our own shores.
+
+"The completeness of the destruction in each individual case was
+explained to me later by the Belgian Ministers, who described numerous
+appliances which the German soldiers carried for destroying property.
+Not only were hand bombs of various sizes and descriptions carried, but
+each soldier was supplied with a quantity of small black disks a little
+bigger than a sixpenny piece. I saw some of these disks which had been
+taken from German soldiers on the field of battle. These were described
+to me as composed of compressed benzine. When lighted they burned
+brilliantly for a few minutes, and are sufficient to start whatever fire
+is necessary after the explosion of a bomb.
+
+"To the conditions of famine and homelessness which exist on such a
+stupendous scale there must be added one which is bad--the mental panic
+in which many survivors remain. I understood how inevitable this was
+when I saw and heard what they passed through; eyewitnesses of
+unimpeachable character described the sufferings of women and children
+at Liege. As they fled from their burning houses, clinging to their
+husbands and fathers, they were violently pulled from them and saw them
+shot a few yards from them.
+
+"I should supplement what I have said regarding the condition of Belgium
+with some reference to Antwerp itself, where the excited Government now
+sits. It is a wonderful contrast to the rest of the country, and the
+first impression of the visitor is that there is little change between
+its life now and in the days of peace. I approached it by water, and in
+the early morning it rose before me like a fairy city. Its skyline was
+beautifully broken by the spires and towers of its churches, including
+the incomparable Gothic Cathedral.
+
+"When I entered its shops were open, its streets crowded, and everywhere
+there was eager activity. By midday the streets became congested. Early
+editions of the papers were eagerly bought and great crowds assembled
+wherever a telegram giving news could be read. This continued until
+early evening, but by 8 o'clock a most extraordinary change had fallen
+upon the city.
+
+"Not a light of any kind in house or shop was to be seen. No lamps were
+lit in the streets and the city was plunged into absolute darkness. Not
+a soul remained in the streets. To the darkness there was added profound
+silence. It was as though this amazing city had been suddenly blotted
+out."
+
+
+
+
+*The Wounded Serb*
+
+[From The London Times, Oct. 18, 1914.]
+
+
+VALIEVO, Sept. 25.
+
+Valievo lies at the terminus of a narrow-gauge railway which joins the
+Belgrade-Salonika line at Mladinovatz. Along this single track of iron
+road the entire transport of the Servian Army is being effected.
+Westward come trains packed with food, fodder, munitions, and troops;
+eastward go long convoys crowded with maimed humanity. At Mladinovatz
+all this mass of commissariat and suffering must needs be transferred
+from or to the broad-gauge line. In this situation lies not the least of
+the problems which beset the Servians in their struggle with the
+Austrian invaders.
+
+Valievo itself is a picturesque little town which in peace time is
+famous as the centre of the Servian prune trade. Its cobbled streets
+are, in the main, spacious and well planned. There still remain a few
+relics of the Turkish occupation--overhanging eaves, trellised windows,
+and the like--but these one must needs seek in the by-ways. I picture
+Valievo under normal conditions as one of the most attractive of Balkan
+townships.
+
+Nor has the tableau lost anything in the framing, for it is encircled by
+a molding of verdant hills which run off into a sweep of seeming endless
+woods. The vista from my hotel window is almost aggravatingly English.
+Across the red-tiled roofs of intervening cottages rises the hillside--a
+checkerboard of grassy slopes and patches of woodland intersected by a
+brown road which runs upward until the summit, surmounted by a
+whitewashed shrine, amid a cluster of walnut trees, touches the gray
+sky.
+
+But Valievo is not now to be seen under normal conditions. From the
+street below rises the sound of clatter and creak as the rude oxen
+wagons bump over the cobblestones. Morning, noon, and night they rumble
+along unceasingly, and whenever I look down I see martial figures clad
+in tattered, muddy, and blood-stained uniforms, with rudely bandaged
+body or head or foot. Every now and then a woman breaks from the crowd
+of waiting loiterers and rushes up to a maimed acquaintance. They
+exchange but a few sentences, and then she turns, buries her head in her
+apron, and stumbles along the street wailing a bitter lament for some
+husband, brother, or son who shall return no more. A friend supports and
+leads her home; but the onlooking soldiers regard the scene with
+indifference and snap out a rude advice "not to make a fuss." They brook
+no wailing for Serbs who have died for Servia.
+
+The town itself has been transformed into one huge camp of wounded. All
+adaptable buildings--halls, cafes, school-rooms--have been rapidly
+commandeered for hospitals. Sometimes there are beds, more often rudely
+made straw mattresses, for little Servia, worn out by two hard wars, is
+ill-equipped to resist the onslaught of a great power. For 16 days a
+fierce battle has been raging near the frontier, and wounded have been
+pouring in much more rapidly than accommodation can be found for them.
+
+And in the streets--what misery! The lame, the halt, the maimed. Men
+with damaged leg or foot hopping along painfully by the aid of a
+friendly baton; men nursing broken arms or shattered hands; men with
+bandaged heads; men being carried from operating shops to cafe floors;
+men with body wounds lying on stretchers--all with ragged,
+blood-bespattered remnants of what once were uniforms. One sees little
+of the glory of war in Valievo. The Servian Medical Staff, deprived on
+this occasion of outside assistance, and short alike of doctors,
+surgeons, nurses, and material, is striving heroically to cope with its
+task. Where they have been able to equip hospitals the work has been
+very creditably done. One building is almost exclusively devoted to
+cases where amputations have been necessary. It is clean, orderly, and
+the patients are obviously well cared for. Here, when I entered a ward
+of some thirty beds in which every man lay with a bandaged stump where
+his leg should be, I think I saw the Servian spirit at its best. They
+had been newly operated upon, their sufferings must have been great, and
+for them all the future is black with forebodings. There is no patriotic
+fund in little Servia. Yet amid all the pain of body and uncertainty of
+mind that must have been theirs they did not complain. All they desired
+to know was whether the Schwaba (Austrians) had been beaten out of
+Servia.
+
+But it is when one leaves the organized hospitals and wends one's way
+through the crowds of wounded who block the pavements, and enters a
+lower-class cafe, that the appalling tragedy of it all fills even the
+spectator with a sense of hopelessness. There, like cattle upon their
+bed of straw, lie sufferers from all manner of hurts. They remain mute
+and uncomplaining, just as they have been dropped down from the incoming
+oxen transports. Their wounds--three, four, or five days old--have yet
+received no attention save the primitive first-aid of the battlefield.
+Blood poisoning is setting in; limbs that prompt dressing would have
+saved are fast becoming victims for the surgeon's knife. Most of them
+know the risk they run, for this is their third war--often, too, their
+third wound--in two short years. Yet the doctors cannot come, because
+every man of them is already doing more than human energy allows. It is
+a heartrending sight to look down upon this helpless mass and to realize
+that many of them have been sentenced to painful death for mere lack of
+primitive medical attention.
+
+One wonders whether, now that half Europe has been transformed into a
+vast slaughterhouse, appeals for sympathy can be other than in vain.
+
+
+
+
+*ANOTHER "HAPPY THOUGHT."*
+
+By WINIFRED ARNOLD.
+
+
+The world is so full
+  Of a number of Kings!--
+That's probably what is the
+  Matter with things.
+
+
+
+
+*Spy Organization in England*
+
+*British Home Office Communication, Oct. 9.*
+
+
+In view of the anxiety naturally felt by the public with regard to the
+system of espionage on which Germany has placed so much reliance and to
+which attention has been directed by recent reports from the seat of
+war, it may be well to state briefly the steps which the Home Office,
+acting on behalf of the Admiralty and War Office, has taken to deal with
+the matter in this country. The secrecy which it has hitherto been
+desirable in the public interest to observe on certain points cannot any
+longer be maintained owing to the evidence which it is necessary to
+produce in cases against spies that are now pending.
+
+It was clearly ascertained five or six years ago that the Germans were
+making great efforts to establish a system of espionage in this country,
+and in order to trace and thwart these efforts a Special Intelligence
+Department was established by the Admiralty and the War Office which has
+ever since acted in the closest co-operation with the Home Office and
+metropolitan police and the principal provincial police forces. In 1911,
+by the passing of the Official Secrets act, 1911, the law with regard to
+espionage, which had hitherto been confused and defective, was put on a
+clear basis and extended so as to embrace every possible mode of
+obtaining and conveying to the enemy information which might be useful
+in war.
+
+The Special Intelligence Department, supported by all the means which
+could be placed at its disposal by the Home Secretary, was able in three
+years, from 1911 to 1914, to discover the ramifications of the German
+Secret Service in England. In spite of enormous efforts and lavish
+expenditure of money by the enemy, little valuable information passed
+into their hands. The agents, of whose identity knowledge was obtained
+by the Special Intelligence Department, were watched and shadowed
+without, in general, taking any hostile action or allowing them to know
+that their movements were watched. When, however, any actual step was
+taken to convey plans or documents of importance from this country to
+Germany, the spy was arrested, and in such case evidence sufficient to
+secure his conviction was usually found in his possession. Proceedings
+under the Official Secrets act were taken by the Director of Public
+Prosecutions, and in six cases sentences were passed varying from
+eighteen months to six years' penal servitude. At the same time steps
+were taken to mark down and keep under observation all the agents known
+to be engaged in this traffic, so that when any necessity arose the
+police might lay hands on them at once; and, accordingly, on the 4th of
+August, before the declaration of war, instructions were given by the
+Home Secretary for the arrest of twenty known spies, and all were
+arrested. This figure does not cover a large number--upward of 200--who
+were noted as under suspicion or to be kept under special observation.
+The great majority of these were interned at or soon after the
+declaration of war.
+
+None of the men arrested in pursuance of the orders issued on Aug. 4 has
+yet been brought to trial, partly because the officers whose evidence
+would have been required were engaged in urgent duties in the early days
+of the war, but mainly because the prosecution by disclosing the means
+adopted to track out the spies and prove their guilt would have hampered
+the Intelligence Department in its further efforts. They were and still
+are held as prisoners under the powers given to the Secretary of State
+by the Aliens Restriction act. One of them, however, who established a
+claim to British nationality, has now been formally charged; and, the
+reasons for delay no longer existing, it is a matter for consideration
+whether the same course should now be taken with regard to some of the
+other known spies.
+
+Although this action taken on August 4 is believed to have broken up the
+spy organization which had been established before the war, it is still
+necessary to take the most rigorous measures to prevent the
+establishment of any fresh organization and to deal with individual
+spies who might previously have been working in this country outside the
+organization, or who might be sent here under the guise of neutrals
+after the declaration of war. In carrying this out the Home Office and
+War Office have now the assistance of the cable censorship, and also of
+the postal censorship, which, established originally to deal with
+correspondence with Germany and Austria, has been gradually extended (as
+the necessary staff could be obtained) so as to cover communications
+with those neutral countries through which correspondence might readily
+pass to Germany or Austria. The censorship has been extremely effective
+in stopping secret communications by cable or letter with the enemy, but
+as its existence was necessarily known to them it has not, except in a
+few instances, produced materials for the detection of espionage.
+
+On Aug. 5 the Aliens Restriction act was passed, and within an hour of
+its passing an order in council was made which gave the Home Office and
+the police stringent powers to deal with aliens, and especially enemy
+aliens, who under this act could be stopped from entering or leaving the
+United Kingdom, and were prohibited while residing in this country from
+having in their possession any wireless or signaling apparatus of any
+kind, or any carrier or homing pigeons. Under this order all those
+districts where the Admiralty or War Office considered it undesirable
+that enemy aliens should reside have been cleared by the police of
+Germans and Austrians, with the exception of a few persons, chiefly
+women and children, whose character and antecedents are such that the
+local Chief Constable, in whose discretion the matter is vested by the
+order, considered that all ground for suspicion was precluded. At the
+same time the Post Office, acting under the powers given them by the
+Wireless Telegraphy acts, dismantled all private wireless stations; and
+they established a special system of wireless detection by which any
+station actually used for the transmission of messages from this country
+could be discovered. The police have co-operated successfully in this
+matter with the Post Office.
+
+New and still more stringent powers for dealing with espionage were
+given by the Defense of the Realm act, which was passed by the Home
+Secretary through the House of Commons and received the Royal Assent on
+Aug. 8. Orders in council have been made under this act which prohibit,
+in the widest possible terms, any attempt on the part either of aliens
+or of British subjects to communicate any information which "is
+calculated to be or might be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy";
+and any person offending against this prohibition is liable to be tried
+by court-martial and sentenced to penal servitude for life. The effect
+of these orders is to make espionage a military offense. Power is given
+both to the police and to the military authorities to arrest without a
+warrant any person whose behavior is such as to give rise to suspicion,
+and any person so arrested by the police would be handed over to the
+military authorities for trial by court-martial. Only in the event of
+the military authorities holding that there is no prima facie case of
+espionage or any other offense triable by military law is a prisoner
+handed back to the civil authorities to consider whether he should be
+charged with failing to register or with any other offense under the
+Aliens Restriction act.
+
+The present position is therefore that espionage has been made by
+statute a military offense triable by court-martial. If tried under the
+Defense of the Realm act the maximum punishment is penal servitude for
+life; but if dealt with outside that act as a war crime the punishment
+of death can be inflicted.
+
+At the present moment one case is pending in which a person charged
+with attempting to convey information to the enemy is now awaiting his
+trial by court-martial; but in no other case has any clear trace been
+discovered of any attempt to convey information to the enemy, and there
+is good reason to believe that the spy organization crushed at the
+outbreak of the war has not been re-established.
+
+How completely that system had been suppressed in the early days of the
+war is clear from the fact disclosed in a German Army order--that on the
+21st of August the German military commanders were still ignorant of the
+dispatch and movements of the British expeditionary force, although
+these had been known for many days to a large number of people in this
+country.
+
+The fact, however, of this initial success does not prevent the
+possibility of fresh attempts at espionage being made, and there is no
+relaxation in the efforts of the Intelligence Department and of the
+police to watch and detect any attempts in this direction. In carrying
+out their duties the military and police authorities would expect that
+persons having information of cases of suspected espionage would
+communicate the grounds of the suspicion to local military authority or
+to the local police, who are in direct communication with the Special
+Intelligence Department, instead of causing unnecessary public alarm and
+possibly giving warning to the spies by public speeches or letters to
+the press. In cases in which the Director of Public Prosecutions has
+appealed to the authors of such letters and speeches to supply him with
+the evidence upon which their statements were founded in order that he
+might consider the question of prosecuting the offender, no evidence of
+any value has as yet been forthcoming.
+
+Among other measures which have been taken has been the registration, by
+order of the Secretary of State made under the Defense of the Realm act,
+of all persons keeping carrier or homing pigeons. The importation and
+the conveyance by rail of these birds have been prohibited, and, with
+the valuable assistance of the National Homing Union, a system of
+registration has been extended to the whole of the United Kingdom, and
+measures have been taken which, it is believed, will be effective to
+prevent the possibility of any birds being kept in this country which
+would fly to the Continent.
+
+Another matter which has engaged the closest attention of the police has
+been the possibility of conspiracies to commit outrage. No trace
+whatever has been discovered of any such conspiracy, and no outrage of
+any sort has yet been committed by any alien--not even telegraph wires
+having been maliciously cut since the beginning of the war. Nevertheless
+it has been necessary to bear in mind the possibility that such a secret
+conspiracy might exist or might be formed among alien enemies resident
+in this country. Accordingly, immediately after the commencement of
+hostilities, rigorous search was made by the police in the houses of
+Germans and Austrians, in their clubs, and in all places where they were
+likely to resort. In a few cases individuals were found who were in
+possession of a gun or pistol which they had not declared, and in one or
+two cases there were small collections of ancient firearms, and in such
+cases the offenders have been prosecuted and punished; but no store of
+effective arms--still less any bombs or instruments of destruction--have
+so far been discovered. From the beginning any Germans or Austrians who
+were deemed by the police to be likely to be dangerous were apprehended,
+handed over to the military authorities, and detained as prisoners of
+war; and, as soon as the military authorities desired it, general action
+was taken to arrest and hand over to military custody Germans of
+military age, subject to exceptions which have properly been made on
+grounds of policy. About 9,000 Germans and Austrians of military age
+have been so arrested and are held as prisoners of war in detention
+camps, and among them are included those who are regarded by the police
+as likely in any possible event to take part in any outbreak of disorder
+or incendiarism.
+
+
+
+
+*Chronology of the War*
+
+*Showing Progress of Campaigns on All Fronts and Collateral Events to
+and Including Oct. 15, 1914.[A]*
+
+
+*CAMPAIGN IN EASTERN EUROPE*
+
+July 21--Situation threatens European war; fear that Russia will aid
+Servia.
+
+July 23--Austria sends ultimatum to Servia; Austrian Army Corps
+mobilized at Temesvar, and fleet gathers at Semlin.
+
+July 24--Russia will ask Austria to extend time for Servia's reply to
+ultimatum; Austria will brook no interference.
+
+July 25--Servia's reply to ultimatum unsatisfactory; Russian Army
+mobilizing.
+
+July 26--Servian Army mobilizing; Russian warning to Germany.
+
+July 27--Austrian Army invades Servia; Servians blow up bridge across
+Danube; report of mobilizing of Montenegrin Army; Austria denounces
+Servia's reply to ultimatum; Cossacks fire on Germans at frontier.
+
+July 28--Austria declares war on Servia and Emperor issues manifesto;
+fighting along River Drina; Russian forces mass on eastern border.
+
+July 29--Russian intervention imminent; Austrians bombard Belgrade;
+Servians blow up bridges at Semlin.
+
+July 30--Kaiser calls on Russia to halt mobilization within twenty-four
+hours; war activity in Warsaw; Austrians repulsed at Losnitza;
+Montenegrins occupy Cattaro.
+
+July 31--Russians blow up railway bridge on Vienna-Warsaw line; Servians
+check Austrians at Semendria and on Bosnian frontier; France replies to
+German note about Russia; Czar, Kaiser, and King George may yet arrange
+peace; following Council of Ministers at Peterhof, Russia sends no reply
+to German note and calls out reserves; France and England still trying
+to adjust matters between Russia and Austria; Russian mobilization
+order; Austria orders military and naval mobilization.
+
+Aug. 1--Germany declares war on Russia, Kaiser signs mobilization order;
+German patrol near Prostken fired on by Russians.
+
+Aug. 2--Russians cross German frontier and seize railroad station:
+Montenegrin King signs mobilization order.
+
+Aug. 3--Germans seize three cities in Russian Poland; Czar calls
+Russians to war; fighting on Drina River.
+
+Aug. 4--Russians defeated in attack on Memel; Serbs defeat Austrians
+near Semendria; Turkey mobilizes.
+
+Aug. 5--Austria declares war on Russia; Russian patrols raid East
+Prussia; Servian flag hoisted at Delarme, Austria; Belgrade bombarded;
+Germans repulse Russian cavalry at Soldau and Neidenberg.
+
+Aug. 7--Montenegro declares war against Austria; Austrians bombard
+Belgrade; Servians annihilate Austrian regiment.
+
+Aug. 8--Servia declares war on Germany; fighting between Germans and
+Russians at Eydtkuhnen; German force lands in Finland; Austrians
+evacuate Visigard; Austrians burn Russian villages near Rumanian border.
+
+Aug. 9--Russians repulsed by Germans near Tilsit; Germans capture motor
+cars carrying money to Russia; Russians enter Austria; Austrians occupy
+town and customs station of Andrejew, Russian Poland; Turkey mobilizing
+[Transcriber: original 'mobolizing'] on Bulgarian frontier.
+
+Aug. 10--Montenegrins occupy Scutari; Belgrade again bombarded; Servians
+penetrate Bosnia; Austrians bombard Antivari; Germans concentrate on
+Russian frontier.
+
+Aug. 11--Russians guard Finland; Russian cavalry routs Austrians in
+Galicia; Italy demands explanation from Austria of bombardment of
+Antivari; Russians advance into Germany.
+
+Aug. 12--German attempt to reoccupy Eydtkuhnen unsuccessful; Austrians
+and Germans defeated on Russian frontier; Russian visitors to German
+health resorts tell of ill-treatment; Servians and Montenegrins advance
+on Bosnia; Prince George of Servia wounded.
+
+Aug. 13--Russians capture Sokal; Cossacks annihilate two
+Austrian-cavalry regiments; German troops before Kalisz threaten to
+shoot every tenth inhabitant if further resistance is shown.
+
+Aug. 14--Russians defeat Austrians on the Dniester; unrest in Turkey.
+
+Aug. 15--Berlin reports capture of 23 Russian Generals and Admirals by
+Germans; Greece wants explanation from Turkey of concentration of troops
+near border; Russians raid East Prussia; fighting between Austrians and
+Servians on the Save and the Danube; Turkish Ambassador says Turkey was
+not hostile in buying German cruisers.
+
+Aug. 16--Germans fail to retake Eydtkuhnen.
+
+Aug. 17--Russia demands of Turkey unrestricted use of Dardanelles;
+prisoners a problem for both sides; Russian Army marches on Austria and
+Germany; minor engagements on frontier; Servians check Austrians'
+advance; Greece hears that Turkish troops are approaching and sends
+warning that corresponding measures will be taken.
+
+Aug. 18--Servia reports Austrian defeat near Saboc.
+
+Aug. 19--Austrians defeated by Serbs at Shabats; Russians report victory
+over Austrians in Padolia; Germans report capture of Russians in East
+Prussia; Russians driven out of Germany; Italian refugees complain of
+German outrages.
+
+Aug. 20--Russians occupy Gumbinnen and Lyck in East Prussia; Austrians
+occupy Miechow, Russian Poland.
+
+Aug. 21--Serbs defeat Austrians in four days' battle near Losnitza;
+Russians successfully advance on Austro-German frontier.
+
+Aug. 22--Russians report continued successes on Austro-German frontier;
+Servians report capture of Austrian guns in pursuit of defeated force
+across the Drina.
+
+Aug. 23--Russian Army pushes fifty miles into Prussia, capturing three
+towns; Servian version of victory at Losnitza confirmed in Rome;
+Montenegrins continue attack.
+
+Aug. 24--Austria abandons Servian campaign to meet Russian attack; two
+Russian armies crush Germans in the east; retreating armies lay waste
+the country.
+
+Aug. 25--Russians spread on broad front over East Prussia and Galicia
+and repulse Austrians at Kielce; Germans report Russian defeat near
+Gumbinnen; Servians chase Austrians along whole front; report of German
+outrages on Jews in Kalisz.
+
+Aug. 26--Russians sweep over Prussia in three lines, menacing Koenigsberg
+and Posen; Germans reported fleeing from Elbing district; report of
+Russian advance into Austria; Austrians drive Russians from Krasnik.
+
+Aug. 27--Russians take Tilsit; Germans retreat toward Koenigsberg and
+Allenstein; Austrians routed in Galicia; French troops join Montenegrins
+to operate against Austria.
+
+Aug. 28--Russians reach Allenstein; Russians continue advance in
+Galicia; Serbs defeat Austrians at Shabats.
+
+Aug. 29--Russians invest Koenigsberg and occupy Allenstein; Germans claim
+victories; Russians draw net around Lemberg; Austrians claim occupation
+of Zamost.
+
+Aug. 30--Russians advance in East Prussia, to the Vistula and bombard
+Thorn and Graudenz; panic in Danzig; battle between Russians and
+Austrians in Poland; Austrians defeated at Lemberg; Russians gain ground
+against Austrians and win battle at Zamost; Germans in East Prussia get
+reinforcements and report capture of 30,000 Russians; Poland almost
+clear of German troops.
+
+Sept. 1--Russians inflict crushing defeat on Austrians on Galician
+frontier; Germans announce defeat of three Russian army corps near
+Allenstein.
+
+Sept. 2--Russians seize fortified positions around Lemberg, admit
+advance into East Prussia temporarily checked; new invasion of Germany
+planned; Turkey lands troops in Asia Minor; Montenegrins defeat
+Austrians near Bilek.
+
+Sept. 3--Austrians report success at Lublin; Cossacks rout German
+scouting party from Thorn; Russians take capital of Bukowina.
+
+Sept. 5--Russians take Lemberg and Halicz and march toward Poland;
+Austrians defeated at Tomaszow; Russian refugees tell of destruction of
+Kalisch by Germans; twenty Russian army corps march on Prussia, ten hold
+Austria back; Austrians defeated near Lublin.
+
+Sept. 6--Russians attack Germans on left bank of the Vistula, occupy
+Stryk regions, capture Forty-fifth Austrian Regiment near Krasnystaw,
+capture Austrian aeroplane and a Zeppelin and take year's provisions at
+Lemberg.
+
+Sept. 7--Austrians retreat; Russians closing in on Przemysl.
+
+Sept. 8--Russians take Nikolaieff and Mikolajow; Gen. Ruzsky engages
+Gen. Auffenberg's army in Poland; Austrians claim advance into Russian
+Poland and defeat of Serbs near Mitrovica; Servian invasion of Bosnia
+begun.
+
+Sept. 9--Battle at Rava-Russka; Austrians evacuate Russian Poland;
+Germans claim capture of part of Russian Imperial Guard; Serbs and
+Montenegrins advance into Bosnia.
+
+Sept. 10--Russians invade Silesia and menace Breslau; Austro-German
+forces defeated at Lublin; Serbs cross the Save.
+
+Sept. 11--Serbs take Semlin; Montenegrins take Folcha and join with
+Serbs in march on Serajevo; Germans defeat invading Finland force at
+Lyck; Polish miners at Berdzin wreck German train by concealing
+explosive in fuel; Russians occupy Suczawa and Hatna; Russians fight on
+Austrian and German border; Austrians resume offensive near Lemberg.
+
+Sept. 12--Russians defeat Austrians in battle near Tomaszow; German
+attack in East Prussia checked; successes of Serbs against Austrians
+continue.
+
+Sept. 13--Russian victories west and northwest of Lemberg; Russo-Serb
+Army plans advance on Budapest; Montenegrins will invest Bosnia.
+
+Sept. 14--Austrians rally for battle before Przemsyl; Russians cross the
+San; Germans defeated near Miawa and send reinforcements to Memel.
+
+Sept. 15--Russians occupy Grodek; Austrians hemmed in between Rivers San
+and Vistula; Germans report defeat of Russian Armies of Vina and Grodno;
+Russians say Germans have been driven back across frontier; Serbs invade
+Hungary.
+
+Sept. 16--Austrians still retreat in Galicia; Servians continue advance
+into Bosnia; Montenegrins defeat Austrians near Koulilovo.
+
+Sept. 17--Austrians flee before Russians toward Cracow; Gen. Rennekampf
+blocks flanking movement by Germans; Servian artillery repulses Austrian
+warships that shell Semlin and Belgrade.
+
+Sept. 18--Russians take Siniava and Sambor; Austrian rear guard thrown
+back beyond the San; prisoners and ammunition captured near Memirov;
+Germans advance against Russians in Suwalki Province; Russians halt
+offensive German movement and plan new invasion of East Poland; Germans
+retreat from Kielce Province to rally Austrians defeated at Krasnik;
+Russians enter Kazeshow.
+
+Sept. 20--Russians attack Jaroslaw and Przemysl and seize Sambor and
+Kresheshov; Gen. Auffenberg's army separated from Gen. Dankl's; Germans
+defeated near Sandomierz; Gen. Rennenkampf checks German advance in East
+Prussia; Servians defeat Austrians near Novi-Bazar.
+
+Sept. 21--Russians take Dubiecko and surround Gen. Dankl's army;
+Servians win near Krupani, evacuate Semlin.
+
+Sept. 22--Austrians defeated on the Drina near Krupani; Russians occupy
+Jaroslaw and again move to attack Koenigsberg.
+
+Sept. 23--Russians take Wislok; Austrian retreat from Przemysl through
+Carpathians cut off; Cossacks raid Czenstochowa; French land guns at
+Antivari.
+
+Sept. 24--Advance guards of Russian forces arrive before Cracow; Germans
+defeated at Subin; Russians again occupy Soldau; Montenegrins report
+capture of Pratzho and Montak in Bosnia.
+
+Sept. 25--Russians occupy Czyschky and Felstyn; Germans occupy Cracow,
+population flees; Przemysl cut off from all communication; battle
+between Serbs and Austrians near Zvorkni.
+
+Sept. 26--Greater part of Przemysl occupied by Russians; Germans
+concentrated in Prussia for impending battle.
+
+Sept. 27--Russians halt German advance in Suwalki and enter town of
+Przemysl; Serbs and Montenegrins reach Rumania; Germans in weak position
+on the Niemen River.
+
+Sept. 28--Montenegrins within artillery range of Serajevo; Serbs occupy
+mountains near by; Bosnians join invading army; Russians occupy Dembica
+and take another fort at Przemysl, cross Carpathians, and invade
+Hungary.
+
+Sept. 29--Russians sweep across the Carpathians and over Northern
+Hungary; Servians retake Semlin.
+
+Sept. 30--Germans fail in attempt to cross the River Niemen; retreating
+Austrians surrounded near Dukia; Hungarians retake Uzsok Pass; Servians
+and Montenegrins close to capital of Bosnia.
+
+Oct. 2--Russians break German centre and take up new battle line from
+Mariampol to Ossowitz; Germans bombard Ossowitz; Russians claim
+victories in Lodz and Suwalki, and take two Przemysl forts.
+
+Oct. 3--Germans are evacuating Russian Poland; Russians advance on
+Transylvania; fighting at Augustowo; Servians raid Semlin and destroy
+forts.
+
+Oct. 4--Russians defeat Germans at Augustowo and advance reaches Nugy
+Valley in Hungary; Germans make unsuccessful attacks on Ossowitz forts;
+Germans lured into a trap on the Niemen.
+
+Oct. 5--Two Russian armies advance toward Allenstein; fighting near
+Warsaw; Russians are near Cracow; Germans fortify heights between
+Breslau and Cracow; Austrians claim victory over Montenegrins in East
+Bosnia; Servians approach Serajevo fortifications.
+
+Oct. 6--Germans claim victories near Suwalki and Augustowo; Russian
+forces from the Baltic close in on Germans, and announce German retreat
+from positions between Wirballen and Lyck; Austrians claim victory at
+Uzsok Pass, but Cossacks are reported eighty miles from Budapest.
+
+Oct. 7--Germans bring reinforcements from Koenigsberg and check Russians;
+Russians shell Przemysl; Austrians report victory in Hungary near Tesco.
+
+Oct. 8--Russians claim repulse of Germans in Russian Poland and capture
+of Biala; Germans deny Russian advance in Suwalki; gains by Montenegrins
+in Herzegovina.
+
+Oct. 9--Russians announce reoccupation of Lyck; Przemysl reported on
+fire.
+
+Oct. 10--Russians claim that Germans are retiring from Lyck; Austrians
+report successes throughout Galicia.
+
+Oct. 11--Montenegrins defeat Austrians near Kalenovitch; Russians
+[Transcriber: original 'Rusians'] sweep through Bukoi Bukowina;
+Austrians rush help to Przemysl.
+
+Oct. 12--Russians abandon siege of Przemysl and retreat from Galicia;
+German-Austrian army captures many prisoners.
+
+Oct. 13--Fall of Warsaw believed near; British Consul asks for American
+protection; Montenegrins defeat Austrians near Serajevo.
+
+Oct. 14--Germans report defeat of Russians at Warsaw and recapture of
+Lyck; Servians in Bosnia beaten back.
+
+Oct. 15--Berlin reports advance of eight Russian army corps against Bast
+Prussia; account made public of how Gen. von Hindenburg lured Gen.
+Rennenkampf into trap at Tennenberg; Russians report victory over
+Austrians south of Przemysl.
+
+
+*CAMPAIGN IN WESTERN EUROPE.*
+
+July 26--Belgium increases army to enforce neutrality.
+
+July 27--Belgian Army mobilizes, Holland prepares to maintain
+neutrality.
+
+July 28--French Army moves to frontier.
+
+July 29--Belgium calls out reserves.
+
+July 30--England takes defensive measures.
+
+July 31--Belgium mobilizes.
+
+Aug. 1--France mobilizes after Germany asks her intentions; will respect
+neutrality of Belgium.
+
+Aug. 2--Germany sends ultimatum to Belgium, seizes Luxemburg, and
+invades France; fighting at Longwy, three German spies arrested in
+England.
+
+Aug. 3--Berlin reports acts of hostility by French; England will protect
+French coast and defend Belgium; France promises to guard Belgian
+neutrality; France holds that war with Germany began automatically with
+invasion of her territory.
+
+Aug. 4--England declares war on Germany as Kaiser rejects ultimatum on
+Belgian neutrality; Germany declares war on Belgium; attack on Liege
+repulsed; Germans cross French border near Mars-la-Tour and Moineville.
+
+Aug. 5--French repulse Germans at border; many Germans killed in attack
+on Liege, Crown Prince bringing aid, French Army rushing up.
+
+Aug. 6--Germans take two forts at Liege; French Army coming; English
+coast towns arm.
+
+Aug. 7--Rapid mobilization of French on frontier; French occupy two
+towns in Alsace-Lorraine; Kaiser and King of Belgium call nations to
+arms; Bavarians beaten by French at Marrehan; Germans enter Liege, forts
+still held by Belgians; Germans get armistice to bury dead.
+
+Aug. 8--Holland guards frontier; conflicting reports of fall of Liege;
+French forces in Belgium; British land on Continent; French take
+Muelhausen after battle at Altkirch; German spies try to blow up tunnels
+and bridges near Paris.
+
+Aug. 9--Germans in Alsace fall back on Neu Breisach; Kaiser leaves for
+front; Belgian War Minister denies capture of Liege, Germans in city but
+forts untaken; French and English reinforce Belgians; Governor and
+Bishop of Liege held as hostages; German warning of reprisals; Germans
+arrested in England; Holland captures and disarms Uhlans at Maastricht.
+
+Aug. 10--France breaks off diplomatic relations with Austria; French
+student tells how Germans shot refugees; French patrols cover Eifel
+district in Germany; French open way into Alsace by capturing Bonhomme
+and Sainte Marie; 100 German spies put to death in Belgium; more caught;
+Germans forced by French to plan new campaign in Belgium; Allies claim
+success in cavalry encounters; Germans moving through Esch.
+
+Aug. 11--Germans attack French frontier, take Lagarde and intrench south
+of Liege; Belgians retake Loncin fort; Kaiser claims victory at Liege;
+French Army forced back in Alsace; minor checks to Germans; German siege
+guns before Liege; German advance directed at gap between Verdun and
+Longwy.
+
+Aug. 12--Germany tries again to negotiate with Belgium for passage of
+army; Germans bombard Point-a-Mousson; Germans move on Brussels and are
+driven back by Belgians' left wing; Germans report victory in Alsace;
+Germans reported to have shot French wounded; German spies terrorize
+Belgium; battle near Tongres; German official says Kaiser halted attack
+on Liege and denies heavy losses; Germans complete bridge for siege
+artillery; Paris papers say Germans burned village of Affleville and
+shot farmers.
+
+Aug. 13--England declares war on Austria; Belgians beat off Germans in
+two-day fight; Namur defenses strengthened; battles at Diest, Haelen,
+and Eghezee; Germans shoot woman accused of attempt to blow up Alsatian
+tunnel; British, French, and Belgians charge cruelties by German troops;
+report that Germans hold Diest; German guns reported wrecked by fire
+from Liege forts; French report severe defeat of Germans by
+counter-attack at Pont-a-Mousson; Swiss report that Germans lost 10,000
+in Alsace; Swiss disarm German troops; Italy's troops guard Alpine
+passes.
+
+Aug. 14--Germans mass to attack Allies and move toward Brussels;
+bombardment of Liege renewed; attempt to storm Pontisse fails; British
+Commander French and French Gen. Joffre meet at headquarters; French and
+Belgian forts exchange officers; French win in battle in Vosges
+Mountains.
+
+Aug. 15--Armies of Germany and Allies face each other on 248-mile battle
+front; French storm three towns and retake Thann in Alsace; battling at
+Liege forts continues; Germans said to have shot innocent people in
+Linsmeau for slaying an officer.
+
+Aug. 16--Fighting at Muelhausen renewed; French take offensive along line
+from Luneville to Saarburg; clash near Dinant; Germans damage Vise;
+general advance of French on eastern frontier; South Belgium barricaded;
+Belgian cyclists fight strong German force; rumor that Austrians are in
+Belgium.
+
+Aug. 17--French forces sweep on toward Strassburg; desultory fighting
+clears ground between Germans and Allies; Belgians say Germans torture
+prisoners; Belgian seat of Government moved to Antwerp.
+
+Aug. 18--British force lands in France; German advance on Brussels
+checked; Germans evacuate Saarburg; French take two batteries; Germans
+start second fire in Vise.
+
+Aug. 19--Fighting near Altkirch; Paris prepares for eventualities;
+Allies fall back and may quit Brussels; Germans occupy Louvain; French
+report further advance into Alsace; Germans retake Ville.
+
+Aug. 20--French reoccupy Muelhausen, but are checked in Lorraine; other
+French gains in Alsace; German cavalry occupies Brussels; Belgian Army
+retires on Antwerp; French victory near Luneville; Germans defeat
+Belgians at Aerschot.
+
+Aug. 21--French withdraw from Lorraine; Germans rush through Brussels,
+capture Ghent, levy war taxes on Brussels and Liege, and will try to
+seize Ostend; England says tax levy is violation of Hague treaty; German
+assault on Namur begins; report of German vengeance on town of Tongres;
+Antwerp, new seat of Government, prepares for defense; Germans hold
+Audun-la-Roman and continue to cross the Meuse.
+
+Aug. 22--French deny German report of victory between Metz and the
+Vosges; Germans continue bombardment of Namur forts and face Allies on
+twenty-mile front to Charleroi; main force is aimed at Lille; battle
+between English and Germans at Waterloo; French close in on Colmar;
+fight between German and English cavalry at Colmar; fear that Belgian
+cities may not be able to pay indemnity; Germans accused of shooting
+Burgomaster and citizens of Aerschot without provocation.
+
+Aug. 23--Allies take offensive against Germans along 150-mile line from
+Mons to Luxemburg; Belgian commander blows up one Liege fort; others
+hold out; French repel three days' attack on Muelhausen intrenchments;
+France protests to Hague against use of dumdum bullets by Germans.
+
+Aug. 24--Allies fall back before German attack on Belgium; report that
+Namur has fallen; account made public of battle at Charleroi; Germans,
+led by Crown Prince in Lorraine, pursue French beyond Longwy; success of
+force headed by Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria at Luneville, Blamont and
+Cirey; French defeated at Neuf-chateau by forces under Grand Duke
+Albrecht of Wuerttemberg; Germans begin another attack on Muelhausen;
+English cavalry brigade defeated by Germans south of Brussels; Germans
+set fire to Hussigny and resume fire at Liege.
+
+Aug. 25--Battle on new 200-mile-line between Germans and Allies; Germans
+capture five Namur forts and are attacking others; French withdraw from
+Alsace to frontier; Allies gain to the south; Germans levy tax on
+Brabant; report that Lorrainers betrayed French troops to Germans.
+
+Aug. 26--Allies fall back a short distance in Belgium; Belgian success
+at Malines; French claim success near Nancy and Luneville; report that
+Lille is abandoned; big battle in Lorraine; Germans fire houses in
+Liege; Berlin announces British rout at Maubeuge.
+
+Aug. 27--Germans take Longwy and all Namur forts; British-French line
+falls back on right flank; French reoccupy Lille; details given out of
+fighting at Mons; Germans take Malines and tax Tourant and Charleroi;
+announcement of German bombardment of Malines; Paris prepares for
+possible siege.
+
+Aug. 28--Austria declares war on Belgium; Belgians retake Malines and
+advance to Brussels; Germans defeat Allies along entire line; report
+that fall of Namur was due to heavy fog; Germans sack and burn Louvain;
+art treasures destroyed.
+
+Aug. 29--German force withdrawn from Belgium to meet Russians; French
+right wins at Guise, left reinforced but repulsed; Germans march on La
+Fere; Allies evacuate Boulogne; account made public of the heroic
+defense of Longwy; details given out of fall of Namur; Germans blow up
+bridges on railway from Antwerp to frontier; French bayoneted company of
+Germans accused of treachery; Military Governor of Paris orders
+destruction of houses obstructing forts' fire.
+
+Aug. 30--French left wing again driven back; Allies' lines reinforced;
+Germans recalled to Brussels to hold city; French reported successful
+near Amiens.
+
+Aug. 31--Paris defense plans rushed; Allies' left flank again driven
+back.
+
+Sept. 1--Allies' centre hard pressed; German attack on Belfort fails;
+British flank reinforced; Germans fortify Brussels.
+
+Sept. 2--French move capital temporarily to Bordeaux to allow Allies to
+pivot left wing on Paris; German cavalry corps defeated by British near
+Compiegne; another pushes on to Soissons; French report success in
+Lorraine.
+
+Sept. 3--Report that Russian troops have been transported to Belgium;
+Germans take La Fere and Amiens and move to attack Laon and Rheims;
+Austrians sent to reinforce German left wing; Germans are twenty-five
+miles from Paris.
+
+Sept. 4--Germans neglect Paris and move eastward; German right wing
+reported checked and driven back to St. Quentin; Allies driven back
+behind Conde; Germans move toward Verdun; Germans bombard Termonde;
+fighting in Alost.
+
+Sept. 5--Germans take Rheims and three forts at Maubeuge; Belgians trap
+Germans in flooded area near Malines; Germans take Termonde; Germans
+abandon attack on Belfort.
+
+Sept. 6--German right wing checked near Paris; Kaiser directs attack on
+Nancy; account made public of evacuation of Senlis and Chantilly.
+
+Sept. 7--It is now plain that the German march on Paris has been
+deflected; Allies force Germans back in 160-mile battle from
+Nanteuil-le-Hardouin to Verdun and report defeat of Crown Prince's army;
+Germans defeat Belgians near Melle and march to occupy Ghent; repulsed
+at Capelle-au-Bois.
+
+Sept. 8--British push German right over the Marne; French win on the
+Ourcq; fighting at Vitry.
+
+Sept. 9--Germans claim capture of Maubeuge; British cross the Marne;
+Germans fall back; have evacuated Upper Alsace.
+
+Sept. 10--Gen. von Stein admits defeat by Allies; Belgians reoccupy
+Termonde, Aerschot, and Diest; French join British across Marne in
+pursuing Germans; fighting near Vitry and other points in centre.
+
+Sept. 11--German line west of Revigny retreats, but captures fort near
+Verdun; Gen. Pau seizes German supply train; account given out of battle
+at Meaux; British report annihilation of German Jaeger regiment; French
+deny fall of Maubeuege and recapture Muelhausen; Germans march south from
+Ghent, Belgians in pursuit.
+
+Sept. 12--Belgians cut German Army in two by victory at Cortenberg;
+whole German line in France retreats, Luneville retaken; Belgians
+repulse German sortie at Louvain and advance on Brussels.
+
+Sept. 13--Germans repulsed at Nancy and Luneville, evacuate Amiens, lose
+Revigny and Brabant-le-Roi; Crown Prince's Army threatened; fighting at
+Louvain and Malines; heavy fighting at Bortzy; battle between Thann and
+Sennheim.
+
+Sept. 14--Amiens reoccupied by French; Fort of Troyon relieved; Germans
+make stand on the Aisne; Germans lay waste to Senlis.
+
+Sept. 15--German Crown Prince's army driven back to the Orne; French
+reoccupy Rheims; fighting on the Aisne; new intrenched positions taken
+by German armies; La Ferte ransacked by Germans; Franco-Belgian
+successes at Alost and Rousbrugge.
+
+Sept. 16--New battle on from Noyon to Verdun; army from Douen is
+circling von Kluck's corps; Germans move nearer Antwerp.
+
+Sept. 17--German Army strengthened between Berry-au-Bac and Argonne;
+French advance in Woevre district; deadlock on right flank; Belgians
+repulse attack on Termonde.
+
+Sept. 18--Germans complete bombardment of Termonde; now known that
+Maubeuge has fallen; Allies' left advances six miles; Germans report
+gain in centre; Germans intrench on the Sambre; Germans send scouting
+parties into Belgium.
+
+Sept. 19--Germans fortify along the Rhine; Allies advance on left and
+right wings and drive back army of German Crown Prince; heavy fighting
+at Rheims; Germans capture Beaumont; German shells hit Cathedral of
+Notre Dame and Church of St. Remi in Rheims.
+
+Sept. 20--Germans badly damage Rheims; Allies make slight gains;
+fighting near Soissons; Germans report offensive move; Allies capture
+Souain; Belgians retake Lanaeken; Germans bring siege guns up to
+Antwerp.
+
+Sept. 21--Allies gain between Rheims and Argonne, take Massiges and
+Mesnil; Germans claim capture of Craonne hills and Betheny; Belgians
+repulse German assault on Fort Waelhem; Termonde under fire again.
+
+Sept. 22--Germans claim victories at Craonne and Betheny; their right
+turned between Peronne and St. Quentin; desultory fighting near Malines
+and Alost.
+
+Sept. 23--Allies advance on left wing near Lassigny; Germans bombard
+Verdun; Germans prepare for campaign in Southern Belgium.
+
+Sept. 24--French take Peronne; Germans take Varennes; Belgians report
+victory near Antwerp.
+
+Sept. 25--Allies beaten back by Germans at Noyon, but renew offensive
+after being reinforced; Germans advance southeast of Verdun; quarries
+from Giraumont to Machemok strengthen German position; campaign in
+Alsace halted by snow.
+
+Sept. 26--Germans take Fort des Romaines and cross the Meuse; Germans
+burn Bilsen; Austrian and German artillery menace Antwerp.
+
+Sept. 27--Allies repulse charges on right and left wings; Germans gain
+in centre; Verdun forts withdraw fire; French reinforced on the Meuse;
+Germans again bombard Malines.
+
+Sept. 28--Allies make slight progress on heights of the Meuse; fog in
+Woevre district causes suspension of fighting; Belgians retake Alost and
+repulse Germans at Malines.
+
+Sept. 29--Germans occupy Moll and Malines, bombard Lierre, and shell
+outer forts of Antwerp; fighting on the Aisne continues.
+
+Sept. 30--Allies drive back both German wings and retake St. Mihiel;
+French trap Germans in quarries; Germans destroy town of Orchies;
+Belgians renew bombardment of Lierre.
+
+Oct. 1--Belgians repulse German attacks on Antwerp forts; Germans
+capture Roye and claim success in attack on Albert; French report gains;
+French shell Germans in quarries; Scheldt River interferes with attack
+of Germans on Antwerp; Belgians bombard church at Termonde to drive
+Germans from steeple.
+
+Oct. 2--Allies checked after pushing north to Arras; Germans driven back
+across the Meuse; Germans report two Antwerp forts silenced; Cologne
+prepares for defense; Belgians report German repulse at one Antwerp fort
+and at Termonde.
+
+Oct. 3--Battle at Roye; Germans claim victory near Toul; Belgians near
+Antwerp fall back.
+
+Oct. 4--Berlin reports capture of Forts Wavre, St. Catherine, and
+Dorpweld, and of Termonde; Allies defeat flanking movement and
+battleground shifts to vicinity of Arras; Allies claim success in Woevre
+and Soissons regions; British forces aid in defense of Antwerp; Fort
+Walheim damaged; Germans take two villages on Dutch border near
+Maastricht.
+
+Oct. 5--Germans gain on right wing, take three Antwerp forts, and resume
+offensive in Argonne district and along the Meuse.
+
+Oct. 6--Antwerp warned that bombardment is near; desperate fighting on
+the Oise; Allies gain at Soissons; German column near Lille; French hold
+strong positions in Alsace.
+
+Oct. 7--Germans report bombardment of Lanaeken when civilians attack
+them; Germans closing in on Antwerp and have crossed the Nethe; fighting
+near Ghent; Allies drive German cavalry back from Lille and gain at
+Roye; skirmish at Ypres; Allies reinforced; Germans are still shelling
+Rheims.
+
+Oct. 8--Antwerp bombarded by German siege guns and Zeppelins; Germans
+cross the Scheldt; Allies gain near Arras, which is being shelled by
+Germans; Germans cut railway lines near Ypres; cavalry fights on the
+Belgian frontier.
+
+Oct. 9--Germans claim progress near St. Mihiel and in the Argonne
+district; Germans report fall of Fort Breendonk; Antwerp aflame;
+fighting around Roye; cavalry battles near Lille; Germans occupy
+Courtrai and destroy bridges between Brussels and Mons.
+
+Oct. 10--Antwerp surrenders, Belgian Army escapes; widespread ruin in
+city; some British troops driven into Holland; fighting at Arras
+continues; Germans bombard Lokeron; Germans report gains at St. Mihiel
+and in the Argonne region.
+
+Oct. 11--Germans occupy Antwerp; main British and Belgian defending
+armies reach Ostend; fighting near Soissons; German attacks in Caronne
+region repulsed; Allies win in centre; Arras free from Germans; British
+official report tells how the Germans were routed near Bray.
+
+Oct. 12--Germans enter Ghent; Allies fight to check German
+reinforcements; fighting at Lasigny and Lens; Germans mass around Ypres;
+cavalry fighting near Lille.
+
+Oct. 13--Germans press on toward Ostend; severe fighting in Argonne
+district; Germans take Lille and occupy Hazebrouck and Ypres; Germans
+occupy Ghent and move on Bruges.
+
+Oct. 14--Belgian Army leaves Ostend and joins Allies in field; Allies
+reoccupy Ypres; French gain near border; German battalion trapped in
+canal in Lorraine.
+
+Oct. 15--Allies retake Estaires and report gains at several points;
+Germans deny repulses and occupy Bruges, Thielt, Daume, and Esschen;
+German convoy captured by French.
+
+
+*CAMPAIGN IN THE FAR EAST.*
+
+Aug. 4--Japanese Government's proclamation prepares people for war in
+behalf of England.
+
+Aug. 6--Germans fortify Tsing-tau.
+
+Aug. 11--Japan requisitions transports.
+
+Aug. 16--Japan sends ultimatum to Germany demanding withdrawal of fleet
+in Far Eastern waters and giving up of Kiao-Chau.
+
+Aug. 17--Official announcement that Japan's action will be limited to
+China Sea and to protection of her trade; ultimatum to Germany made with
+concurrence of England.
+
+Aug. 18--Count Okuma emphasizes Japan's limitation of war and England
+reassures United States.
+
+Aug. 19--Germany will reject Japan's demands.
+
+Aug. 20--Kaiser orders resistance to Japan at Kiao-Chau; Japanese
+Foreign Office makes statement explaining ultimatum to Germany.
+
+Aug. 22--Germany ignores Japan's demands: time limit ends, Japanese
+envoy ordered to leave Berlin; Japan is expected to make war move at
+once.
+
+Aug. 23--Japan declares war on Germany.
+
+Aug. 24--Germans blow up bridges to halt Japanese invasion of Kiao-Chau.
+
+Aug. 26--War declared by Austria against Japan; British destroy German
+wireless and cable stations on Island of Yap.
+
+Aug. 29--Germans lay mines at Kiao-Chau and fire at landing party at
+Cape Jaeschke.
+
+Aug. 30--Japanese troops landed near Kiao-Chau; forts fire at destroyer.
+
+Aug. 31--Japanese occupy two islands.
+
+Sept. 2--Japan lands force at Lung-kow; German Legation protests against
+violation of China's neutrality.
+
+Sept. 3--Japanese occupy seven islands near Kiao-Chau, clear waters of
+mines, and land more troops at Lung-kow; China protests against
+violation of her neutrality.
+
+Sept. 9--Japanese advance southward in Shantung.
+
+Sept. 14--Japanese flank Kiao-Chau.
+
+Sept. 15--Japanese cavalry captures Chimo; vanguard of Japanese Army
+reaches Kiao-Chau.
+
+Sept. 19--Japanese seize Kiao-Chau station and train and land troops at
+Laoshan.
+
+Sept. 20--Japanese cavalry in clash with German outposts near Tsing-tau.
+
+Sept. 22--Australians seize German wireless station on Island of Nauru.
+
+Sept. 24--British troops land near Laoshan, China.
+
+Sept. 26--Japanese advance on Fangate, where Germans hold valuable
+mines.
+
+Sept. 27--Japanese defeat Germans on outskirts of Kiao-Chau; food supply
+in city short.
+
+Sept. 28--Japanese approach Tsing-tau.
+
+Sept. 29--Japanese invest Tsing-tau; Chinese blow up railroad bridges to
+hinder progress of Japanese troops.
+
+Sept. 30--Germans abandon artillery as Japanese reach Lao-Che.
+
+Oct. 1--Germans destroy railroad bridge at Ta-yu-ho.
+
+Oct. 4--Japanese march along railroad to Wei-Hsein; one Chinese killed.
+
+Oct. 5--Japanese repulse night attack of Germans at Tsing-tau.
+
+Oct. 6--Germans plan to destroy Shantung Railway.
+
+Oct. 7--Japanese seize Island of Yap; Japanese bring siege guns before
+Tsing-tau.
+
+Oct. 8--German fire slackens at Tsing-tau.
+
+Oct. 13--Arrangements made for departure of non-combatants before final
+attack on Kiao-Chau.
+
+
+*CAMPAIGN IN AFRICA.*
+
+Aug. 8--British seize Port Lome, Togoland.
+
+Aug. 9--French are in Togoland.
+
+Aug. 26--Germans surrender Togoland.
+
+Aug. 28--German troops attack Belgian Congo.
+
+Sept. 10--Germans defeated by British in Nyassaland.
+
+Sept. 13--Germans occupy Karangu, British East Africa.
+
+Sept. 15--British defeat Germans in Namaqualand.
+
+Sept. 18--Germans defeated by garrison of seven British at Nakob.
+
+Sept. 22--Germans repulsed in attack on fort in Voi district.
+
+Sept. 24--Germans at Schuckmannsberg surrender to police.
+
+Sept. 25--Australian force takes German New Guinea.
+
+Sept. 26--French seize Coco Beach, Kamerun; British occupy Luederitz
+Bay; Germans raid Walfish Bay.
+
+Sept. 28--German Congo seized by British and French.
+
+Oct. 13--Detachment of Boers under Col. Maritz rebels because of the
+pro-British stand taken by the Government of South Africa; martial law
+proclaimed in colony; British imprison Germans in British East Africa
+and Germans imprison British in German East Africa.
+
+Oct. 14--There are but few men in the Maritz rebel force; silence of
+Boer leaders is found disquieting in England.
+
+Oct. 15--Col. Brits's force captures eighty rebels under Col. Maritz;
+Gen. Botha takes field; prominent men arrested on charge of treason.
+
+
+*NAVAL RECORD*.
+
+July 26--British and French fleets ready for action; Servian vessels in
+Danube seized by Austrians; German fleet ordered concentrated in home
+waters; Italy masses fleet.
+
+July 29 and 30--British fleet leaves Portland; British and German fleets
+in Far East mobilize.
+
+July 31--German squadron stops merchant vessels in Danish waters;
+British warships near; Montenegrin King's yacht escapes Austrian
+destroyers.
+
+Aug. 2--Fight between German and Russian cruisers off Libau; German High
+Sea Fleet seizes Wilson liner Castro and a collier; fleets assemble in
+Far East.
+
+Aug. 3--Germans chase Norwegian food ship.
+
+Aug. 4--Rival warships off Port of New York; British mine layer sunk by
+German fleet; British fleet will aim to destroy Kiel Canal.
+
+Aug. 5--British third flotilla has battle with Germans in North Sea;
+cruiser Amphion damaged; German mine layer Koenigen Luise sunk; many
+German merchant ships seized by English, French, and Russians; Germans
+bombard Sveaborg, torpedo boat blown up.
+
+Aug. 6--British cruiser Amphion sunk by mine; French capture German tank
+steamer; Germans capture Russian ship.
+
+Aug. 7--British and German cruisers reported in fight off Brazilian
+coast; British steamers destroyed by mines off German and Turkish
+coasts; British capture German steamer Schlesien; German merchant ship
+captured by French; Germans capture Russian cruiser; Japanese warships
+off port of Tsing-tau; German cruisers Goeben and Breslau leave Genoa.
+
+Aug. 8--Thirty-six German ships seized by Belgians; Russians capture
+Austrian and German merchant steamers; British capture German ship, said
+to be North German Lloyd liner; naval fight in Adriatic; interest in
+position of Goeben and Breslau; bombardment of Libau reported by ship
+Captain.
+
+Aug. 9--British sink German submarine; cruiser Essex takes ship at sea;
+Goeben and Breslau in the Dardanelles; two German steamers taken at
+Rouen and one at Colombo; England and France protest against German
+steamer Karlsruhe coaling at Porto Rico; firing off Shanghai; British
+fleet proceeds to Tsing-tau; Austrian cruisers bombard Antivari.
+
+Aug. 10--Cruiser Birmingham sinks German submarine U-15; British close
+North Sea to fishing fleets; Dutch steamer sunk in Baltic; Belgians
+seize two Austrian steamers; English and Canadian steamers hunt in
+Atlantic for German cruisers.
+
+Aug. 11--Battle in the Adriatic; Russians capture twenty German merchant
+vessels in Baltic.
+
+Aug. 12--German destroyer sunk by mine off South Gedser.
+
+Aug. 13--German cruisers bombard Windau; France will check Austria's
+navy; British said to have bottled up German Far Eastern squadron;
+German cruisers Goeben and Breslau are flying Turkish flag.
+
+Aug. 15--Japanese Navy sails to join British fleet; Triple Entente
+demands that Turkey repatriate crews of German cruisers; Austrian liner
+blown up by mine in the Adriatic; British capture Austrian liner
+Marienbad; German steamer W.W. Schneefels brought to Gibraltar as war
+prize.
+
+Aug. 16--French fleet said to have sunk two Austrian ships in the
+Adriatic.
+
+Aug. 17--German dreadnought said to be damaged in Norwegian port; French
+sink Austrian cruiser in the Adriatic; German cruiser Karlsruhe said to
+have sunk four British merchantmen; British cruisers capture
+Hamburg-American liners Cap Ortegal and Santa Catharina.
+
+Aug. 18--Two German cruisers captured and taken to Hongkong; fight
+between British and German patrol fleets.
+
+Aug. 20--British steamer Hostilius captured by German cruiser Dresden;
+German fleet said to have shelled three Russian ports.
+
+Aug. 21--British and French warships and Montenegrin batteries bombard
+Cattaro; two German Hansa liners seized at Bombay and Hamburg-American
+ship at Rangoon.
+
+Aug. 22--Steamers Maryland and Broberg sunk by mines in North Sea; two
+Dutch steamers reported sunk; German cruiser Dresden sinks British
+steamer Hyades; British cruiser Glasgow captures German ship Santa
+Kathina; French capture German four-master and Austrian steamer; account
+made public of sinking of Austrian battleship Zrinyi.
+
+Aug. 23--Anglo-French fleets destroy Austrian cruiser Zenta and bombard
+Cattaro; Dutch steamer Alcor blown up by Russians to block Hango harbor;
+report that French, English, and Russian vessels are aiding Japan to
+blockade Kiao-Chau.
+
+Aug. 24--Japanese fleet has begun bombardment of Tsing-tau; Cattaro
+badly damaged by British and French fleets.
+
+Aug. 25--German steamer Elizabeth sunk.
+
+Aug. 26--British defeated in battle with German torpedo boat off
+Kiao-Chau.
+
+Aug. 27--British cruiser Highflyer sinks Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse;
+British marines occupy Ostend; German cruiser Magdeburg sunk in Gulf of
+Finland; mines in North Sea sink a Danish and a Norwegian steamer;
+Japanese bombard island near Kiao-Chau and blockade port.
+
+Aug. 28--British fleet sinks two German cruisers, sets fire to third,
+and sinks two torpedo boats off Heligoland; Germans fire at Japanese
+fleet near Kiao-Chau; Austrian destroyer sunk by British off Corfu;
+British cruiser Welland sinks German torpedo destroyer; other German
+ships captured; six vessels blown up in North Sea by mines; Russians
+capture crew of German cruiser Magdeburg.
+
+Aug. 29--Port of Cape Jaeschke blocked by Japanese warships; passenger
+steamer destroyed by mines near Russian port.
+
+Aug. 30--British official account of battle off Heligoland; New Zealand
+expeditionary force captures Apia.
+
+Aug. 31--German gunboat shells abandoned Japanese destroyer at
+Kiao-Chau.
+
+Sept. 2--British and French ships again bombard Cattaro; steam drifter
+Eyrie sunk by mine in North Sea.
+
+Sept. 4--British cruiser sinks Austrian steamer Bathori in Bay of
+Biscay; British gunboat Speedy sunk by mine in North Sea; British
+steamship Bowes Castle sunk by German cruiser off St. Lucia.
+
+Sept. 5--German ships sink fifteen British trawlers in North Sea.
+
+Sept. 6--Cruiser Pathfinder destroyed by mine.
+
+Sept. 7--British submarine strikes German warships in Bremerhaven
+Harbor.
+
+Sept. 10--British capture German, collier.
+
+Sept. 11--Germans destroy Russian steamer Uleaborg.
+
+Sept. 12--Australian Navy occupies Herbertshoehe in Bismarck
+Archipelago; British take German coal ship Heinze.
+
+Sept. 14--Germans capture Fanning Island and cable station; German
+cruiser Hela sunk.
+
+Sept. 17--German fleets fire on each other in Baltic by mistake; British
+cruiser seizes Holland-America, liner Ryndam: French cruiser Conde
+captures German storeship Helna; Canadian Pacific liner made a British
+cruiser in Pacific; German cruiser Luxemburg reported to have sunk three
+British freighters in West Indies.
+
+Sept. 19--Australian submarine AE-1 lost; Austrian warship Viribus
+Unitis damaged in Adriatic.
+
+Sept. 20--Carmania sinks German merchant cruiser Cap Trafalgar; German
+cruiser Koenigsberg disables British cruiser Pegasus; fighting between
+British and German ships in Kamerun River, Africa; six British ships
+captured by German cruiser Emden; damaged Russian warships arrive at
+Helsingfors; Austrian torpedo boat 27 sunk at Pola; German cruiser
+Stettin fights British warships.
+
+Sept. 21--British steamer Clan Matheson sunk by German cruiser Emden;
+crews of six captured vessels landed in India.
+
+Sept. 22--British cruiser Berwick captures Hamburg-American liner
+Spreewald and two German colliers; German submarine U-9 sinks British
+cruisers Cressy, Aboukir, and Hogue in North Sea; British steamer
+Belgian King sunk near Cape Kureli.
+
+Sept. 23--Russian cruiser Bayan sinks German cruiser and two torpedo
+boats; Germany says submarine U-9 sunk British ships unaided in North
+Sea fight yesterday; Austrian cruisers Maria Theresia and Admiral Staun
+damaged; trawler Kilmarnock sunk by mine.
+
+Sept. 24--Two Austrian torpedo boats and one destroyer sunk by mines in
+the Adriatic; Norwegian steamer Hesvik sunk in North Sea; cruiser Emden
+bombards Madras; Anglo-French fleet again bombards Cattaro.
+
+Sept. 25--Kronprinz Wilhelm sinks British steamer Indian Prince; British
+charge that Germans fired on Carmania after white flag was raised.
+
+Sept. 26--Fortress of Pelagosa dismantled by Anglo-French fleet; British
+cruiser Cornwall seizes Dutch steamer with coal consigned to Rio de
+Janeiro; French gunboat Surprise sinks two German ships and seizes Coco
+Beach, West Africa; British capture German ship Ossa and seize American
+ship Lorenzo and Norwegian ship Thor accused of coaling German cruiser.
+
+Sept. 28--French warship sunk at Cattaro by forts.
+
+Sept. 29--German cruiser Emden has sunk five British steamers in Gulf of
+Bengal and has destroyed all tank steamers at Madras; British warships
+bombard Tsing-tau forts.
+
+Sept. 30--British cruiser Cumberland captures Hamburg-American liner
+Arnfried and nine merchant steamers; Italian ships sunk by Austrian
+mines.
+
+Oct. 1--Account given out of bombardment of Windau by German squadron;
+fighting between German and Japanese warships in Kiao-Chau Harbor.
+
+Oct. 2--British Admiralty plans to lay mines as counterstroke to German
+policy; German cruisers shell Papeete, capital of French Island of
+Tahiti; French gunboat sinks German auxiliary ships Rhios and Itolo;
+German cruiser Liepzig sinks Union oil tanker Elsinore.
+
+Oct. 3--German cruiser Karlsruhe sinks seven British ships; British
+steamer Dawdon and Norwegian steamer Thomos sunk by mines; German
+steamer Mark bottled up in Philippine port; Italian boat sunk by
+Austrian mine; Japanese cruiser blown up by mine in Laoshan Bay.
+
+Oct. 4--Anglo-French fleet bombards Cattaro and destroys Lustica; Dutch
+steamer Nieuwland sunk by mine in North Sea; Rear Admiral Troubridge
+recalled from Mediterranean to London to explain escape of German
+cruisers Goeben and Breslau.
+
+Oct. 5--Japanese capture Jaluit Island; British grain ship sunk by mine
+near Dover; Japanese shells hit German gunboat Iltis in Tsing-tau
+Harbor.
+
+Oct. 6--French lay mines in Adriatic to offset similar action by
+Austrians.
+
+Oct. 7--British submarine sinks German destroyer off mouth of River Ems;
+six Austrian torpedo craft reported sunk by mines in the Adriatic;
+British trawler blown up in the North Sea.
+
+Oct. 9--It is announced that thirty-two German merchant ships were
+destroyed at Antwerp.
+
+Oct. 10--Japanese warships silence Iltis forts.
+
+Oct. 11--French fleet sinks two Austrian torpedo boats.
+
+Oct. 12--German submarine sinks Russian cruiser Pallada.
+
+Oct. 13--Russians claim that Germans lost two submarines in attack on
+Pallada.
+
+Oct. 14--Report denied by Germans.
+
+Oct. 15--British cruiser Yarmouth sinks German liner Markomannia.
+
+
+*AERIAL RECORD.*
+
+Aug. 2--Report that French aviators have dropped bombs on Nuernberg;
+German troops shoot down French aeroplanes near Wesel; report that
+Garros, French aviator, wrecked German airship at Longwy; French
+aeroplanes dispatched toward Nancy.
+
+Aug. 3--German airships fly over Belgium.
+
+Aug. 5--Duel between Belgian and German aviators; Austrians report
+destruction of Russian aeroplane.
+
+Aug. 13--German aeroplane pursued by Belgians; German aviator throws
+bomb on Vesoul.
+
+Aug. 15--Harmless bombs thrown by German aviators on Vesoul and Lure;
+French aviators throw bombs on Zeppelins in Metz; five men wounded in
+Namur by bombs thrown from German aeroplanes.
+
+Aug. 18--Three Zeppelins wrecked by gunfire, one by fall; German
+monoplane drops bombs on Luneville; German aeroplane destroyed near
+Samno, Russia.
+
+Aug. 19--German monoplane captured in Belgium.
+
+Aug. 20--Pegoud's airship destroyed in flight to drop bombs in Germany;
+Dutch capture German aeroplanes.
+
+Aug. 23--French destroy Zeppelin.
+
+Aug. 24--France believes five German Zeppelins are out of action.
+
+Aug. 25--Zeppelin bombs fall in Antwerp.
+
+Aug. 29--Russians bring down Zeppelin.
+
+Aug. 30--German aeroplane drops bombs on Paris; French Embassy in
+Washington denies that aeroplanes bombarded Nuernberg.
+
+Aug. 31--German aeroplane drops bombs on Paris.
+
+Sept. 1--German aeroplane drops bombs on Paris.
+
+Sept. 2--Fight between French and German aeroplanes; Zeppelin renews
+attack on Antwerp.
+
+Sept. 3--German aeroplanes drop bombs on British transport on the Seine
+and on Belfort; German aeroplane over Paris destroyed, aviators killed.
+
+Sept. 4--Three German aeroplanes wrecked by French.
+
+Sept. 9--Russian and Austrian aviators killed in battle.
+
+Sept. 12--German aviators killed in battle with French near Troyes.
+
+Sept. 14--Japanese aeroplane drops bomb in Kiao-Chau.
+
+Sept. 17--Berlin claims that no Zeppelins have been destroyed.
+
+Sept. 18--Bomb dropped on Antwerp; Japanese aviator sets fire to ship in
+Kiao-Chau Bay.
+
+Sept. 20--Vedrines kills German aviator; French aviator Chevilliard
+captured by Germans.
+
+Sept. 21--Japanese aeroplanes wreck two forts at Tsing-tau.
+
+Sept. 23--British drop bombs on Zeppelin shed at Duesseldorf; London
+fears Zeppelin attacks and reduces lights to minimum.
+
+Sept. 24--Zeppelin drops three bombs in Belgium; French capture five
+Taube machines from Germans; destruction of Zeppelin by Russians near
+Sieradz.
+
+Sept. 25--Duel between Belgian and German aviators over Brussels;
+Zeppelin drops bombs in Ostend; London prepares to repel attacks.
+
+Sept. 26--Zeppelin raids Warsaw.
+
+Sept. 27--Man killed and child crippled in Paris; three killed in
+Warsaw.
+
+Sept. 29--Zeppelin drops bombs on two Belgian towns.
+
+Sept. 30--Japanese aeroplanes attack Kiao-Chau Harbor.
+
+Oct. 1--Zeppelin drops bomb near Antwerp, but is driven off.
+
+Oct. 2--Germans report capture of thirty French aeroplanes; it is
+learned that aviators patrolled the Straits of Dover during passage of
+British expeditionary force; German aviators drop messages to Russian
+troops.
+
+Oct. 5--Searchlight tests made in London in preparation for Zeppelin
+raids.
+
+Oct. 6--It is announced that German airship aided in sinking British
+cruisers; commander and crew decorated by Kaiser.
+
+Oct. 7--London insures against damage from Zeppelin raids as air fleet
+is prepared at Wilhelmshaven; French aviators set fire to German
+aeroplanes.
+
+Oct. 8--German aeroplanes drop bombs on Paris and Antwerp.
+
+Oct. 9--British air squadron destroys Zeppelin in hangar at Duesseldorf.
+
+Oct. 11--Three killed, fourteen injured from bombs dropped on Paris by
+German aviators; Zeppelin over Ostend driven away by guns; Japanese
+drop bombs in Tsing-tau.
+
+Oct. 12--Six more bombs dropped on Paris.
+
+Oct. 13--French rout German aviators near Paris.
+
+Oct. 14--French aviator decorated for bringing down German; Cossacks
+bring down Zeppelin near Warsaw; bombs dropped on Nancy.
+
+
+*AMERICAN INTERESTS.*
+
+July 26--Americans are leaving Carlsbad and other resorts.
+
+July 29--Tourists in Paris abandon plans to go eastward; many in London
+take chances and go into Austria.
+
+July 31--Exodus from Geneva; war panic among American tourists in Paris;
+President Wilson directs State Department to ask Ambassador Herrick to
+remain at his post; many left in London as sailing of the Imperator is
+canceled.
+
+Aug. 1--Many demand passports in France; Americans in London will
+organize for relief work.
+
+Aug. 2--Americans in Paris form committee to aid countrymen; refugees
+from Continent arrive in London; Ambassador Gerard appeals for funds;
+State Department has no funds, but will forward deposits for refugees.
+
+Aug. 3--Bankers and Treasury Department officials agree on plan for
+$3,500,000 gold shipment to tourists; hundreds reach Paris after many
+hardships; fear in Berlin; both houses of Congress pass bill
+appropriating $250,000 for relief; embassies will distribute funds.
+
+Aug. 4--Mrs. O.H. Kahn loses automobiles in France; tourists unable to
+leave Germany; many destitute in Paris; automobiles requisitioned for
+war; President Wilson approves plan to send $5,000,000 from bankers and
+national appropriation of $2,500,000 in gold; cruiser Tennessee will
+carry it.
+
+Aug. 5--Ambassador Herrick issues transports to stranded in Paris;
+millionaires leave in cattle train for Havre; Ambassador Page praises
+spirit of refugees; two committees in London to relieve distress;
+cruiser Tennessee prepares to sail with relief fund; Congress votes
+$2,500,000 appropriation; cruiser North Carolina will follow with more
+gold if needed; Mayor Mitchel appoints relief committee.
+
+Aug. 6--Americans in London get funds from Transportation Committee;
+many obtain certificates of American citizenship in Paris; Tennessee
+leaves with gold; Secretary Garrison will use transports rather than pay
+exorbitant prices to charter ships; Board of Relief named to supervise
+distribution of funds appropriated by Congress.
+
+Aug. 7--Baroness von Andre and Anne W.N. Davis tell of brutal treatment
+by German soldiers; Mrs. Philip Lydig tells of kind treatment by French;
+Mrs. Herrick's American Ambulance Corps organized; $100,000 sent by
+Treasury to Paris and $25,000 to Italy; many Americans leave via
+Denmark; French and German railways will be open for departure of
+Americans after mobilization is completed.
+
+Aug. 8--A.M. Huntington and wife reported to be arrested in Bavaria and
+held as spies; 7,000 Americans leave England; committee of American and
+English bankers formed to administer $3,000,000 gold shipment; Secretary
+Garrison confers with Haniel von Heimhausen, German Charge d'Affaires,
+who says Americans will be allowed to leave Germany.
+
+Aug. 9--One thousand five hundred Americans apply [Transcriber: original
+'appy'] at Paris Embassy for transports; refugees arrive on the New
+York; mines menace relief cruisers.
+
+Aug. 10--Mayor of Berlin and others move to care for refugees in
+Germany; many stranded in Bermuda.
+
+Aug. 11--Cancellation of sailing of Olympic causes rush for steerage on
+ships leaving London; Mrs. W.H. Page heads committee to look after
+school teachers; Secretary Bryan orders Ambassador Gerard to make
+representations regarding Mr. and Mrs. Huntington.
+
+Aug. 12--One thousand refugees arrive in New York, on S.S. Philadelphia;
+Embassy in Paris arranges for relief of tourists all over France;
+Secretary Bryan says Huntingtons are safe; refugees arrive on
+Holland-America liner Potsdam.
+
+Aug. 13--Ambassador Page is seeking ships that may be chartered in
+London; army officers will aid relief work in Paris; fourteen tourists
+reached England via Arctic Sea; Secretary Bryan warns all Americans
+going abroad to get passports; emergency passports to be issued; people
+in Berlin open homes to Americans; Minister Whitlock reports Consulate
+at Liege exposed to fire.
+
+Aug. 14--More than 300 Americans arrive in Rotterdam from Berlin.
+
+Aug. 15--Seven ships leave England; less need for transport; German
+Foreign Office says Huntington was not arrested; Ambassador Herrick
+arranges for sailings of the Espagne and the Rochambeau; refugees in
+Rotterdam report generous treatment while in Germany; Germany will
+provide trains to carry Americans to Bremen and will let cruiser
+Tennessee land there; Gerard says Americans are now free to leave
+Germany; ships leaving Italian ports.
+
+Aug. 16--Cruisers Tennessee and North Carolina arrive at Falmouth with
+gold.
+
+Aug. 17--Eighteen ships that will leave England, within a week can
+accommodate 20,000; London refugees given gold from cruiser Tennessee;
+5,000 stranded in Italy; Nieuw Amsterdam and Laconia reach New York.
+
+Aug. 18--Refugees from Copenhagen arrive on the United States; tourists
+flock into Genoa; members of Mayor Mitchel's Committee meet every
+steamer and are prepared to help the needy.
+
+Aug. 19--Relief cruiser North Carolina reaches Cherbourg with Major
+Hedekin; Miss Morgan's villa accepted as hospital; the Tennessee held at
+Falmouth.
+
+Aug. 20--Payment on funds sent on Tennessee delayed in London.
+
+Aug. 21--American Rhodes scholars help in harvesting in Brittany;
+missionaries urge sending ship with gold to Turkey; gold from the North
+Carolina sent to Italy.
+
+Aug. 22--Refugees arrive on Campania, Baltic, and St. Louis; Ambassador
+Gerard denies that Americans have been ill-treated in Germany; cruiser
+Tennessee at Rotterdam.
+
+Aug. 23--Refugees in London tell of kindness of Austrians; the Tennessee
+left too little gold in England and France.
+
+Aug. 24--Assistant Secretary Breckinridge reaches Berlin with gold;
+Ambassador Herrick makes arrangements for Americans in Switzerland.
+
+Aug. 26--Art students in Paris in sad plight; few tourists now ask aid
+in London; students leave German universities; refugees from Italy
+express satisfaction with arrangements of Government Relief Committee;
+relief bureau established at The Hague.
+
+Aug. 27--Cruiser North Carolina sent to Turkey.
+
+Aug. 28--German Government furnishes gold to Ambassador Gerard.
+
+Aug. 31--London again crowded with refugees; tourists in Denmark safe.
+
+Sept. 3--Turkish Government will not permit the North Carolina to go to
+Constantinople; Americans in London help Belgian refugees.
+
+Sept. 4--Tennessee takes Americans across Channel; British soldiers give
+up quarters for them at Havre; North Carolina starts for Smyrna.
+
+Sept. 9--Refugee aid cost $100,000 in five days in London.
+
+Sept. 10--Passports to be required of all in England.
+
+Sept. 12--Major Hedekin reports nearly all tourists out of France and
+Switzerland.
+
+Sept. 13--Treasury Department will receive no further deposits; sailors
+on the Tennessee cheer British transport.
+
+Sept. 23--Money from North Carolina reaches Constantinople.
+
+Sept. 28--Americans leaving Brussels.
+
+Sept. 29--Tennessee ordered to Adriatic.
+
+Oct. 10--Consul Deedmeyer says he was forced to leave Chemnitz because
+of bad treatment from Germans.
+
+
+*AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.*
+
+July 24--Minister at Belgrade prepares to leave.
+
+July 25--Diplomatic relations severed with Servia; martial law
+proclaimed; Servian Gen. Putnik seized.
+
+July 26--Servian envoy dismissed; Emperor Francis Joseph takes decisive
+part in country's action; war measures taken.
+
+July 27--Army deserters sought in Cuba.
+
+July 28--Emperor will take command at Vienna headquarters; food prices
+raised in Vienna.
+
+July 29--Emperor sends letter to the Czar.
+
+July 30--Government may declare war on Russia; newspaper correspondents
+expelled from Semlin; Emperor cheered in Vienna; men up to 50 years of
+age called to service; Count Salm-Hoogstraetem says Slavs in Austrian
+Army will be loyal.
+
+July 31--Government assures Italy that there is no desire for more
+territory.
+
+Aug. 1--Whole nation wants war; Government was pressed by Germany to
+discuss matters with Russia and to localize war.
+
+Aug. 2--Cadets in military academies made Lieutenants; Countess
+Szechenyi places palace at disposal of army.
+
+Aug. 5--United States represents France at Vienna and Austria at Paris;
+food prices fixed; Church permits marriages without publication of bans.
+
+Aug. 6--Russian Ambassador receives passports.
+
+Aug. 7--Pressure brought to bear on Italy to aid.
+
+Aug. 8--Threat to declare war on Italy; full text published of ultimatum
+to Servia, of Servia's reply, of circular note to powers, and of notes
+exchanged with Germany.
+
+Aug. 10--Government acknowledges receipt of President Wilson's offer of
+good offices.
+
+Aug. 11--Army corps marches along Swiss border to relieve Germans in
+Alsace; Italy demands explanation of shelling of Antivari; United States
+will look after French interests.
+
+Aug. 13--Troops mutiny on southern frontier; United States will look
+after interests in England; Prince Hohenlohe arrested in Canada.
+
+Aug. 14--Currency question acute; insubordination of troops; Government
+tells Italy British declaration of war was based upon lies.
+
+Aug. 16--Martial law, proclaimed on Italian border; Consul arrested in
+St. Petersburg.
+
+Aug. 18--Army mobilization accompanied by disorder and mutiny.
+
+Aug. 19--Massacre at Prague after Czech uprising.
+
+Aug. 25--Troops massing on Italian frontier; Government will join war
+with Japan; passports handed to Ambassador.
+
+Aug. 27--Fortification of Vienna begun; children of murdered Archduke
+sent to Switzerland.
+
+Aug. 29--Country reported seething with rebellion.
+
+Aug. 30--Servians charge atrocities by retreating Austrians.
+
+Sept. 3--Troops sent to reinforce German left wing.
+
+Sept. 4--Mutiny of Czech soldiers in Vienna, many shot; Gen. Bobrinsky
+appointed Governor of Galicia.
+
+Sept. 5--Reports that Italians in Istria and Goerz have been shot for
+treason without trial stirs Italy; England releases Austrian ships from
+her ports.
+
+Sept. 6--Year's provisions seized at Lemberg; England orders Consular
+officers out of Egypt.
+
+Sept. 7--Vienna makes hasty preparations for defense; possibility of
+famine.
+
+Sept. 8--Government appeals to Jews in Poland to fight against Russia.
+
+Sept. 10--Panic in Cracow; Archduke Frederick admits loss of 120,000 men
+in Galicia.
+
+Sept. 11--Berlin paper tells of agreement with Germany before war
+started not to make peace separately.
+
+Sept. 14--Troops admit that there have been no Russian cruelties; Vienna
+official report claims victories.
+
+Sept. 16--Guns taken by Russians bear initials of German Emperor.
+
+Sept. 17--Report of preliminary steps for peace with Russia; all
+available men called to arms.
+
+Sept. 18--Police forbid public to spread unfavorable war news.
+
+Sept. 21--Field Marshal Vodinowski executed on charge of aiding
+Russians; Field Marshal Foreich commits suicide after being cashiered
+for defeat.
+
+Sept. 23--Serbs captured at Shabats to be court-martialed for firing at
+troops.
+
+Sept. 24--Italian frontier fortified.
+
+Sept. 27--Cholera spreading among wounded soldiers.
+
+Oct. 2--Emperor is urged to shift Government from Vienna.
+
+Oct. 3--Alarm in Vienna over possibility of Russian invasion.
+
+Oct. 8--Panic in Hungary as Russians advance.
+
+Oct. 9--Much distress in Vienna.
+
+Oct. 12--Archbishop accuses Hungarian soldiers of atrocities in Russian
+Poland.
+
+Oct. 13--Report that eight commanders have been dismissed and two have
+killed themselves.
+
+Oct. 14--Austrian guns were used by Germans at Antwerp.
+
+
+*BELGIUM.*
+
+July 29--Antwerp's trade paralyzed.
+
+July 30--Forts provisioned; export of horses and vehicles prohibited.
+
+July 31--State Railway trains into Germany suspended.
+
+Aug. 1--Government buys entire wheat supply in Antwerp.
+
+Aug, 2--Neutrality an issue with England; German Ambassador said to have
+promised that there will be no invasion; guards mobilized at Liege and
+Namur to hold bridges; Civic Guard called out; Parliament summoned.
+
+Aug. 3--Antwerp in state of siege; King appeals to King George; England
+will defend neutrality; frontier being intrenched.
+
+Aug. 4--King addresses Parliament; Socialist Leader Vandervelde joins
+Cabinet.
+
+Aug. 5--King Albert takes command of troops.
+
+Aug. 7--King issues proclamation to army.
+
+Aug. 8--King thanks President Poincare for aid.
+
+Aug. 9--Gratitude to Belgian people expressed by French Academy; English
+and French stamps sold in Post Offices.
+
+Aug. 10--Germans mobbed in Brussels.
+
+Aug. 11--Government asks Holland's intentions if neutrality is violated;
+Germany tries to negotiate for passage of her army.
+
+Aug. 13--Tribute to Belgians from Premier Asquith; Government will
+appeal to neutrals because of alleged German atrocities; German
+prisoners treated kindly.
+
+Aug. 14--American Vice Consul Duras says Germans underrated Belgians;
+fighting spirit due to inspiration of growing democracy; people of Liege
+deprived of all means of communication; Government feeds soldiers'
+children.
+
+Aug. 15--Refugees say that Germans executed priest held as hostage.
+
+Aug. 22--France pledges aid; report that Minister Whitlock offered to
+take Brussels under American protection at time of its surrender.
+
+Aug. 23--Report persists, but United States denies that he was
+authorized to offer protection; panic in Ghent and Ostend; German
+General's proclamation to Brussels; Cologne Gazette defends levy on
+Brussels; country praised in French army bulletin.
+
+Aug. 24--Government rejects another German plea for free passage for
+troops; Brussels pays first installment of fine; documents sent to
+London in support of atrocity charges against Germans; Minister at
+Washington protests to State Department against German statements of
+Belgium's conduct on battlefield; legation in London issues note
+protesting against reprisals.
+
+Aug. 25--Minister Whitlock reports to Secretary Bryan that he persuaded
+Brussels authorities not to oppose Germans; statement made by Minister
+in London charging German atrocities; text published of communications
+with Germany concerning passage of troops; fugitives rush to Holland.
+
+Aug. 26--Refugees flock to Paris; Ministers of foreign powers protest to
+Berlin against Zeppelin attack on Antwerp; Foreign Minister sends
+protest to Washington; Baron von der Goltz made military ruler in part
+occupied by Germans.
+
+Aug. 27--Resolution in British Parliament for expression of gratitude to
+Belgian heroes.
+
+Aug. 28--Men in captured towns ordered by Germans to help with harvest;
+Germans name hostages because of failure of Brussels to pay war levy.
+
+Aug. 29--Germany defends destruction of Louvain and other repressive
+measures; commission to protest against atrocities may not be received
+by President Wilson.
+
+Aug. 30--Gen. Leman's defense of Liege praised by German officer;
+Antwerp in darkness to guard against Zeppelin attacks; Government's
+reply to Austria's declaration of war; Gen. von Stein says Germany will
+grant no concession.
+
+Sept. 1--Mrs. H.H. Harjes tells of German cruelties; refugees must leave
+Antwerp because of scarcity of food; four men guarantee payment of
+Brussels fine; Dutch artists protest to Kaiser against destruction of
+Louvain.
+
+Sept. 2--English residents ordered out of Brussels.
+
+Sept. 4--Namur citizens starving; officials at Brussels warn citizens
+against giving Germans excuse for reprisals.
+
+Sept. 5--Germans change clocks to German time; new official German
+statement accuses citizens.
+
+Sept. 6--American newspaper correspondents say they saw no cruel acts by
+Germans; names announced of famous paintings ruined in Louvain and of
+buildings lost and saved; refugees flock to London.
+
+Sept. 7--Officers tell of German atrocities; charges that Germans
+destroyed Dinant and shot many inhabitants.
+
+Sept. 8--Survivors tell of attack on Namur; list of fines made public
+imposed on Belgian cities.
+
+Sept. 9--Mayor of Ghent sends appeal to President Wilson concerning
+German atrocities; council of defense formed.
+
+Sept. 10--Stories of German atrocities greatly exaggerated, says Bank
+Director Helfferich.
+
+Sept. 11--Gen. Leman asks King to pardon him for losing Liege; Prince
+Henry of Reuss charges atrocities; Mrs. N.L. Duryee describes horrors of
+German invasion; Gen. von Boehn replies to charges of German atrocities
+in Aerschot; London Daily News says Termonde was burned for lack of
+ransom; destruction in towns near Namur; lawyers and Judges in Brussels
+refuse to adopt German customs.
+
+Sept. 15--Foreign diplomats inspect conditions in Malines.
+
+Sept. 16--Belgian Commission, which charges German atrocities, received
+by President Wilson.
+
+Sept. 21--German official statement issued on destruction of Louvain.
+
+Sept. 22--Only newspapers published in Germany allowed to be sold in
+Brussels.
+
+Sept. 25--Nobleman charges that American and Spanish investigators were
+deceived by Germans on sacking of Louvain.
+
+Sept. 26--Ostend protests to President Wilson against dropping of bombs
+by Germans; outrages against Germans charged by Bethmann-Hollweg.
+
+Oct. 4--Government issues "Gray Paper" on negotiations with Germany,
+showing negotiations with Germany and other powers concerning the war,
+(printed in full in THE NEW YORK TIMES of Oct. 18.)
+
+Oct. 7--Government moved from Antwerp to Ostend; all able-bodied men of
+Antwerp called out for defense of city.
+
+Oct. 8--King and part of army move out of Antwerp; refugees flee in
+great numbers to Holland and England.
+
+Oct. 9--Government protests to neutrals against monopolizing by Germans
+of foodstuffs in Brussels.
+
+Oct. 10--Germans deny that there is famine in Brussels; much suffering
+among Antwerp refugees; German coin put on same basis as Belgian.
+
+Oct. 12--Large quantities of stores fall into German hands in Antwerp
+and many prisoners taken; refugees crowd Ostend; people will be allowed
+to return to their homes in Antwerp.
+
+Oct. 13--Government moves to France, and will be established at Havre.
+
+
+*CANADA*.
+
+July 30--Halifax garrison active.
+
+Aug. 1--Cabinet meets, will send to England offer of men.
+
+Aug. 2--Ten thousand men volunteer; Royal Naval Reserve called out;
+fishermen will respond.
+
+Aug. 3--Ports of Quebec and Montreal in charge of military authorities;
+militia called to duty; reserves to sail for England.
+
+Aug. 4--Cabinet meeting; mobilization of expeditionary force begins;
+message of appreciation from King George; British and French reservists
+sail.
+
+Aug. 5--Country-wide response to call for service; Government buys two
+submarines built for Chilean Navy; Montreal port guarded; German
+Consulate at Vancouver attacked.
+
+Aug. 6--Austrian and German Consulates stoned in Winnipeg; England
+accepts offer of expeditionary force; Sydney is being fortified.
+
+Aug. 7--German Consuls asked to leave country.
+
+Aug. 9--Canada's offer of 1,000,000 bags of flour accepted by England.
+
+Aug. 10--Cruisers hunt in Atlantic for German ships; ports closed; much
+grain goes to England.
+
+Aug. 14--National Chapter of the Imperial Order of Daughters of the
+Empire will equip hospital ship for Admiralty; married men not accepted
+for service without permission of wives; cruiser Good Hope arrives at
+Halifax; American mass meeting called in Toronto.
+
+Aug. 15--Japanese of British Columbia want to form regiment.
+
+Aug. 17--Americans of Toronto will raise fund for soldiers' families.
+
+Aug. 18--Emergency session of Parliament opened by Duke of Connaught;
+war vote to be $50,000,000.
+
+Aug. 19--Parliament endorses [Transcriber: original 'indorses']
+England's participation in war; speeches by Premier Borden and Sir
+Wilfrid Laurier; women exercise veto power to prevent husbands from
+going to war.
+
+Aug. 21--Move in Parliament to contribute million bags of flour to
+Belgium; all war measures passed; Bank of Montreal will contribute
+$100,000 for patriotic purposes; two cruisers added to naval force at
+Esquimalt.
+
+Aug. 22--War session of Parliament ended; troops on way to Quebec.
+
+Aug. 23--Princess Patricia presents flag to Light Infantry.
+
+Aug. 25--Second army is being mobilized.
+
+Aug. 26--Applications by letter from American citizens for army service
+refused.
+
+Aug. 29--All available troops to be maintained under arms; Princess
+Patricia Light Infantry sails from Montreal.
+
+Aug. 30--Troops delayed at Quebec.
+
+Aug. 31--England accepts food offers from Alberta and Quebec;
+unsuccessful [Transcriber: original 'unsucccessful'] attempt to wreck
+troop train near Montreal; volunteers will replace Bermuda garrison.
+
+Sept. 10--Declared that Department of Militia and Defense kept secret
+the passage of Indian troops through the Dominion.
+
+Sept. 11--Passage of Indian troops denied; officials of White Pass &
+Yukon Railway warn Germans and Austrians not to try to pass through the
+Yukon.
+
+Sept. 24--Thirty-two thousand troops sail.
+
+Sept. 28--Laurier wants French-Canadian regiment.
+
+Sept. 30--Cadets from Royal Military College sail for England.
+
+Oct. 5--Col. Hughes. Minister of Militia, says he can raise another
+large contingent of men; second expeditionary force is to be organized.
+
+Oct. 7--New York Staats-Zeitung barred from the mails.
+
+Oct. 8--First [Transcriber: original 'Frist'] contingent of troops
+reaches Southampton.
+
+
+*ENGLAND.*
+
+July 24--England will side with Russia in event of hostilities with
+Austria.
+
+July 27--Sir Edward Grey asks France, Italy, and Germany to confer with
+England to avert general conflict.
+
+July 28--Germany refuses to accept Sir Edward Grey's proposal for
+conference, but sends conciliatory reply; nation averse to war, but will
+aid Allies; Home Rule strife forgotten.
+
+July 29--Report that Grey is forming new peace proposals; London Times
+pessimistic.
+
+July 30--Unionist papers declare England must fight if Germany attacks
+France; war preparations continue; political parties declare truce;
+amending bill to Home Rule bill dropped; preparations in Far East, at
+Malta, and Cape Town.
+
+July 31--Government joins France in trying to adjust matters between
+Russia and Austria; country is calm; preparations at Hongkong for
+hostilities.
+
+Aug. 1--Sir Edward Grey favors throwing weight of navy at once in favor
+of France and Russia; Lloyd George does not favor participation; special
+meeting of Cabinet called; King George appeals to Czar for peace;
+Cabinet in night session; Belgian neutrality an issue; London Times
+denounces Germany.
+
+Aug. 3--Sir Edward Grey addresses House of Commons; country will defend
+French coast; Redmond pledges Ireland's aid.
+
+Aug. 4--Ambassador leaves Berlin; King issues call to arms and thanks
+colonies for their support; Government controls railways and takes
+foreign warships building in her ports; Vice Admiral Jellicoe takes
+command of fleet; papers in London reduced in size; people advised to
+economize.
+
+Aug. 5--Food prices rise; order specifying contrabands of war; bill
+passes House of Commons to restrain movements of undesirable aliens;
+many spies arrested; women volunteer as nurses; King's message to fleet;
+Prince of Wales wants to fight; United States will care for interests in
+Germany; German cable cut at Azores.
+
+Aug. 6--House of Commons grants army increase of 500,000 men; royal
+decrees revoke prohibition against importation of arms into Ireland,
+making trading with enemy illegal, prohibit English vessels from
+carrying contraband of war between foreign ports, and make it high
+treason to lend money to Germany; Asquith says "White Paper" issued by
+Government shows how Sir Edward Grey tried to obtain peace; coast towns
+arm; contraband of war announced.
+
+Aug. 7--Rush of volunteers; Prince of Wales receives commission in
+Grenadier Guards; Embassies stoned in Dresden and Berlin.
+
+Aug. 8--Parliament passes bill providing for Government seizure of
+foodstuffs; Capt. Fox, commander of the lost Amphion, given new command.
+
+Aug. 9--More Germans arrested.
+
+Aug. 10--Newfoundland offers men; Government acknowledges receipt of
+President Wilson's offer of good offices.
+
+Aug. 11--King inspects troops at Aldershot; mobilization of Territorials
+completed; Information Bureau gives out official war news; Admiralty
+notifies United States of planting of mines in North Sea; Secretary
+Bryan transmits Germany's request for permission to send messages
+through London to the United States; Admiralty says Atlantic is safe,
+but that Germans have laid mines in North Sea.
+
+Aug. 12--Exports of foodstuffs forbidden, no Americans barred.
+
+Aug. 14--Prisoners of War Information Bureau formed; money situation
+improved; embassy informs Secretary Bryan of rules governing aliens;
+Kitchener's plan for raising new army contemplates long war.
+
+Aug. 15--College men volunteer.
+
+Aug. 16--Refugees from Berlin reach Scotland and tell of abuses; J.E.
+Redmond says he has rifles for Irish volunteers.
+
+Aug. 17--Government reassures the United States that Japan's activities
+will be limited.
+
+Aug. 20--Troops impress French favorably.
+
+Aug. 21--Public told to watch for notes from aeroplanes; country
+protests against German levy of war tax on Liege and Brussels; press
+asks President Wilson to try to stop violation of rules of war.
+
+Aug. 22--Admiralty says Germany violates Hague rules by planting mines
+in North Sea; protest to United States against allowing fuel to be
+carried to German cruisers at sea.
+
+Aug. 23--Full text of British "White Paper" published in THE NEW YORK
+TIMES.
+
+Aug. 24--First casualty list of expeditionary army includes Earl of
+Leven and Melville.
+
+Aug. 25--Kitchener appeals for men; probability of three years' war
+discussed.
+
+Aug. 26--Recruiting active; Indian Moslems loyal; members of staffs in
+Munich complain of bad treatment by German military authorities; Daily
+Chronicle warns against quarrel with United States on contraband
+question; army's marching song for this war is "It's a Long Way to
+Tipperary."
+
+Aug. 27--Army's pluck lauded by Gen. Joffre; Parliament votes expression
+of admiration of Belgians.
+
+Aug. 28--Sir John French's report on activities of troops read in
+Parliament; Peeresses sign letter expressing devotion to country.
+
+Aug. 29--Message to Scots Grays from Russian Czar; Lord Roberts says
+hundreds of thousands of men will be needed and assails young men who go
+on playing games; navy congratulated by Canadian Premier and Sir John
+French.
+
+Aug. 30--Lord Kitchener tells of British share in fighting in Belgium
+and France and of loss of life, but says troops have been reinforced.
+
+Sept. 1--Government asks United States to care for her interests in
+event of war with Turkey; Anglo-American corps being formed in London.
+
+Sept. 3--Many recruits join army.
+
+Sept. 4--Asquith, Balfour, Bonar Law, Churchill, and others speak in
+London Guildhall, appealing for volunteers; 700 Ulster volunteers enroll
+in one hour.
+
+Sept. 5--Allies sign agreement that none shall make peace without
+consent of all; official denial that dumdum bullets were used; London
+agreement regarding contraband will be adhered to as far as is
+practicable.
+
+Sept. 6--Churchill announces formation of one marine and two naval
+brigades.
+
+Sept, 8--Gen. Joffre expresses thanks for army's support; Kitchener's
+reply; five thousand recruits in one day; German prisoners held in
+concentration camps.
+
+Sept. 9--Government will not consent to peace proposals unless Germany
+will acknowledge that Belgium is entitled to redress; troops praised by
+Belgians.
+
+Sept. 10--House of Commons votes to add 500,000 men to regular army.
+
+Sept. 12--Permission from Greece to establish naval base at Lemnos;
+complete equipment for Territorials lacking.
+
+Sept. 16--John Redmond calls Irish to arms.
+
+Sept. 17--Prize courts established.
+
+Sept. 19--Lloyd George appeals for Welsh recruits.
+
+Sept. 20--Casualty list shows many officers killed or wounded.
+
+Sept. 21--Percentage of officers in casualty lists out of proportion to
+number of men.
+
+Sept. 24--Censorship tightened.
+
+Sept. 25--Admiralty publishes report on sinking of three cruisers in
+North Sea, saying disabled ships must look after themselves; shortage of
+rifles denied in London Spectator; Asquith and Redmond appeal to Ireland
+for aid.
+
+Oct. 4--Thousands of Irish enlist.
+
+Oct. 8--Sportsmen's Battalion organized by Mrs. Cunliffe Owen.
+
+Oct. 9--Government will not allow American army and navy officers to
+observe operations.
+
+Oct. 11--Loss of officers is a peril.
+
+Oct. 12--Fall of Antwerp aids recruiting; infantry standard lowered to
+admit more men; London Morning Post condemns Churchill's attempt to
+relieve Antwerp with small naval force.
+
+Oct. 14--Foreign Office denies existence of secret agreement with
+Belgium, which Germans charge is shown by documents found in Brussels.
+
+
+*FRANCE.*
+
+July 24--Government will side with Russia in event of hostilities with
+Austria.
+
+July 25--Paris mobs want war; President Poincare and Premier Viviani
+absent from France.
+
+July 26--Emergency council of Cabinet held; people see hand of Germany.
+
+July 27--Government agrees to Sir Edward Grey's proposal for conference
+to avert conflict; general impression that Germany inspired Austria's
+act; President Poincare hurries home; anti-war demonstrations in Paris;
+Ambassador tries to enlist Germany's aid for mediation.
+
+July 28--Army moves to frontier; Socialists protest against war.
+
+July 29--Demonstration as Poincare returns from Russia; Cabinet council;
+business at standstill in Paris.
+
+July 30--Troops guard railroad.
+
+July 31--Answer to Germany's note about Russia; Government joins with
+England in trying to adjust matters between Russia and Austria;
+steamship La France taken over in service of Government.
+
+Aug. 1--President Poincare orders mobilization after Germany asks
+intention of Government concerning her ultimatum to Russia; Cabinet
+council; Delcasse becomes. War Minister; American Ambassador and Consul
+will look after German affairs; Government promises to respect Belgian
+neutrality unless another power violates it; German Ambassador is
+leaving.
+
+Aug. 2--Ambassador Cambon blames Germany for conflict; state of siege
+declared in France and Algiers; Socialists patriotic; railway
+communication with Germany and Belgium cut off.
+
+Aug. 3--Berlin reports acts of hostility by French; Ambassador leaves
+Berlin and German Ambassador leaves Paris; riots in Paris.
+
+Aug. 4--Paris newspapers reduced in size; General Staff prepared for
+German moves; Prince Roland Bonaparte offers services; Gen. Joseph
+Joffre leaves for frontier; statement by Premier Viviani in Chamber of
+Deputies; war measures passed; many Americans want to fight for France.
+
+Aug. 5--War bills voted in Parliament; United States represents Austria
+at Paris and France at Vienna; President Poincare's address to nation;
+Gen. Pau will command one arm.
+
+Aug. 6--Ambassador embraced by the Czar; Premier Viviani asks women to
+gather crops; army under command of Gen. Joffre.
+
+Aug. 8--President Poincare replies to King Albert's message of thanks;
+Paris City Council changes name of Rue de Berlin to Rue de Liege.
+
+Aug. 9--Academy salutes Belgians; martial law proclaimed.
+
+Aug. 10--J.G. Demombynes, student, tells how Germans killed French
+refugees on frontier; diplomatic relations with Austria broken off;
+Government acknowledges receipt of President Wilson's offer of good
+offices.
+
+Aug. 13--Dr. Alexis Carrel goes to front as surgeon.
+
+Aug. 17--Garibaldi offers to raise army; Prince Antoine of Orleans wants
+to fight for France.
+
+Aug. 18--American volunteer corps raised in Paris; severe military law
+enforced; Carthusian monks, who were expelled, return to fight.
+
+Aug. 19--Third reserve army raised; Gen. Joffre in supreme command.
+
+Aug. 20--Government will protest to powers against German atrocities
+which it charges.
+
+Aug. 21--Prefects ordered to take note of atrocities; foreign volunteers
+mobilize in Paris; service of Anglo-American Rough Riders accepted.
+
+Aug. 22--Government charges Germans with using dumdum bullets; Paris
+food prices low.
+
+Aug. 23--Government protests to The Hague against use of dumdum bullets
+by Germans; army bulletin praises Belgians; success of Gen. Pau thrills
+people.
+
+Aug. 26--Refugees from frontier flock to Paris; American volunteers go
+to Rouen to enter training.
+
+Aug. 27--Government presents affidavits to neutral countries that German
+officer shot at Red Cross nurses.
+
+Aug. 30--1914 reserves to be called out; Paris stores food; Vice Admiral
+de Lapeyrere will command allied forces in Mediterranean.
+
+Sept. 2--Germans accused of setting fire to wood that sheltered St.
+Quentin refugees.
+
+Sept. 3--Gen. Gallieni issues proclamation to people of Paris; many
+leave city; Government in Bordeaux; Havre guarded.
+
+Sept. 4--Exodus from Paris continues; sanitary precautions taken.
+
+Sept. 5--Schools of Paris closed; Cabinet takes steps to send food to
+country districts.
+
+Sept. 6--Gen. Joffre warns troops against premature attacks in mass;
+siege awaited calmly; 1915 recruits called out; neutral diplomats want
+Ambassador [Transcriber: original 'Ambasador'] Herrick to ask United
+States to protest against possible destruction of Paris art treasures;
+Germans levy war taxes on captured cities.
+
+Sept. 8--Suggestion to have art works regarded as international property
+taken into consideration by President Wilson.
+
+Sept. 9--Decree ordering all men exempt from service because of
+ill-health to be reexamined; many regret flight from Paris.
+
+Sept. 10--Gens. Exelmans and Toutee wounded; military authorities warn
+Parisians against overconfidence; intrenchments dug.
+
+Sept. 11--President Poincare sends message to President Wilson in answer
+to Kaiser's charges on dumdum bullets; Government commandeers all
+automobiles; Gen. Joffre and army congratulated by President Poincare.
+
+Sept. 12--Road from Havre to Paris reopened, rail service being resumed;
+fresh troops ready in Paris.
+
+Sept. 14--Much booty has been taken from Germans; Senlis laid waste.
+
+Sept. 16--Troops accused of destroying German field hospital and killing
+doctors.
+
+Sept. 18--Stricter watch on spies; minors allowed to enlist, with
+permission of mothers.
+
+Sept. 19--Suffering in Luneville; statement issued by Washington
+Embassy to show that Germany began the war.
+
+Sept. 20--Northern France is being laid waste; Menier chateau raided.
+
+Sept. 21--Foreign Office sends protest to neutrals against bombardment
+of Rheims Cathedral; Ambassador Jusserand lays complaint before United
+States State Department.
+
+Sept. 22--Loss in officers very heavy; their uniforms may be changed;
+refugees return to Paris.
+
+Sept. 23--Germans say they were compelled to bombard Rheims.
+
+Sept. 24--Germans admit aiming one shell at Rheims Cathedral to drive
+out observers; refugees advertise in newspapers for relatives.
+
+Sept. 25--Germans again shell Rheims Cathedral; formal complaint of
+German atrocities filed at United States State Department; statement by
+Ambassador Jusserand.
+
+Sept. 26--Stricter news censorship in Paris; Belgian refugees aid in
+gathering grapes at Bordeaux.
+
+Sept. 28--Joffre denies Rheims Cathedral was being used for observatory;
+two German spies shot.
+
+Sept. 30--Association of Architects expels German members.
+
+Oct. 2--French soldiers are charged by German Foreign Office with
+torturing wounded at Orchies.
+
+Oct. 4--German charges officially denied.
+
+Oct. 6--German prisoners sentenced to die for looting.
+
+Oct. 7--French are charged by Germans with themselves pillaging French
+towns, an alleged order of Gen. Joffre being quoted.
+
+Oct. 11--Problem of caring for refugees becomes serious.
+
+Oct. 15--Learned societies plan expulsion of German members.
+
+
+*GERMANY.*
+
+July 23--Government approves of Austria's course in Servian trouble.
+
+July 25--Berlin mobs want war; Kaiser leaves Norway for Berlin.
+
+July 26--War spirit in Berlin; French believe Government had hand in
+trouble, despite explanation of Baron von Schoen; Government wants
+Austro-Servian quarrel localized.
+
+July 27--Kaiser returns to Berlin and confers with military officers;
+Government was warned of mobilization of entire Russian Army; France
+still suspects that Government inspired Austria's note to Servia.
+
+July 28--Socialist anti-war meetings fail.
+
+July 29--Kaiser holds naval council of war and exchanges messages with
+the Czar.
+
+July 30--Government calls on Russia to stop mobilization within
+twenty-four hours; three questions put to Russia; panic at Saarbrucken;
+Cabinet meets at Potsdam; troops massing at Tsing-tau.
+
+July 31--Nation put under martial law; Kaiser makes speech in Berlin;
+"nuptials of war" of Prince Oscar and Countess von Bassewitz; Reichstag
+summoned; Crown Prince assigned to command.
+
+Aug. 1--Government's inquiry about France's intentions concerning
+ultimatum to Russia causes French mobilization; Kaiser signs
+mobilization order; Reichstag convoked; war speech by Chancellor;
+Government pressed Austria hard for understanding with Russia and tried
+to localize war; reserves in China go to Tsing-tau; officials in South
+Africa hurry home.
+
+Aug. 2--Russian Ambassador receives passport; ships at sea ordered to
+seek neutral port; Minister von Pourtales made demands upon Russian
+Foreign Minister three times; Albert Ballin says Kaiser sought peace;
+martial law declared in Kiao-Chau.
+
+Aug. 3--Rumor of invasion of Holland, but Minister gives assurance that
+neutrality will be respected; United States will protect German
+interests in Russia and other countries.
+
+Aug. 4--British envoy leaves Berlin; appeal made to Italy; Reichstag
+opens; speeches by Kaiser and by Chancellor, who promises to make
+reparation to Luxemburg and Belgium after the war; emergency measures.
+
+Aug. 5--Russian Ambassador and staff assaulted in Berlin; Embassy in St.
+Petersburg wrecked; school children sent to garner crops.
+
+Aug. 7--Report that pressure was brought to bear on Italy to secure aid;
+Kaiser's proclamation to nation; soldiers march cheerfully to war;
+British Embassies stoned in Dresden and Berlin.
+
+Aug. 8--Threat to declare war on Italy; Russian official papers blame
+Germany for war; papers says Government is traduced.
+
+Aug. 9--Hermann Wendel, Socialist member of Reichstag, volunteers for
+service in the army.
+
+Aug. 10--Men of the Landsturm being mobilized.
+
+Aug. 11--Anti-war riots in Berlin.
+
+Aug. 12--Official hints that Kaiser halted attack on Liege to prevent
+further loss of life; attempt on life of Crown Prince at
+Aix-la-Chapelle; receipt of President Wilson's offer of good offices
+acknowledged.
+
+Aug. 13--Troops in Belgian Luxemburg said to be starving; British,
+French, and Belgians charge cruelties by troops.
+
+Aug. 14--Chancellor states Germany's case and calls war a life-and-death
+struggle of the German and the Slav; report that Kaiser sent personal
+telegrams to Belgian King demanding surrender of Liege forts; aviators
+drop pamphlets over Poland urging revolt against Russia.
+
+Aug. 15--Government said to have asked Ambassador Whitlock to repeat to
+Belgium offer of increased territory in return for free passage of
+troops; belief that acquisition of Russian Poland is sought; many
+members of Hohenzollern family in field; French and English signs
+removed from shops.
+
+Aug. 16--Prisoners well treated by French; French say officers' corps is
+tyrannical and demoralized; Russians accused of cruelty.
+
+Aug. 17--Untrained men called to colors; Paris journal reports prisoners
+bitter against Kaiser.
+
+Aug. 18--Chancellor said to have called treaty guaranteeing Belgian
+neutrality a "scrap of paper"; E.G. Treat says Kaiser called the Czar an
+Asiatic barbarian.
+
+Aug. 19--Speech in Reichstag shows that Socialists are backing
+Government.
+
+Aug. 20--Alsatian Deputies escape to France; Kaiser said to be
+responsible for attacks on Liege; Government asks United States to
+represent her in Far East in event of war with Japan.
+
+Aug. 21--Committee of merchants works to aid trade and addresses
+explanation of the war to Americans; French charge German prisoners with
+robbing the dead.
+
+Aug. 22--Japanese envoy ordered to leave Berlin; American Ambassador
+will look after interests of Japan; dumdum bullets not used by Germans,
+it is declared; great mortality of officers attracts attention; England
+protests to United States against allowing fuel to be carried to
+cruisers at sea.
+
+Aug. 24--Full text of German "White Paper" printed in THE NEW YORK
+TIMES; German-Japanese Commercial Treaty will cease to be effective;
+statements on Belgium's conduct on battlefield protested against by
+Belgian Minister at Washington; Berlin newspapers given to returning
+Americans to meet alleged false reports.
+
+Aug. 25--Kaiser decorates two sons and Duke of Wuerttemberg for bravery;
+tax levied on Brabant; boys from 16 to 19 years ordered to drill.
+
+Aug. 26--Prince of Saxe-Meiningen killed at Namur; food supply
+limitless, says Count von Bernstorff.
+
+Aug. 27--Food prices fixed by Government.
+
+Aug. 28--Emperor orders Ministry to care for fleeing population of East
+Prussia; army to be sent from Alsace.
+
+Aug. 29--Force withdrawn from Belgium to meet Russians; name of
+Englische Strasse in Berlin changed to Deutsche Strasse; Japanese State
+debt seized.
+
+Aug. 31--Fourteen staff officers captives of Allies; many losses have
+occurred in charges of massed infantry; Gen. von Stein says there will
+be no concession to Belgium; railways again open.
+
+Sept. 1--German officers take charge of mobilization of Turkish Army;
+Socialist manifesto assailing the Kaiser.
+
+Sept. 2--Casualty lists show heavy losses; new gun developed by Krupp
+hurls powerful shell; wireless reports to Washington Embassy accuse
+Russians of atrocities.
+
+Sept. 4--Czar says he will take from Prussia more than Kaiser gets in
+Belgium; Namur citizens starving.
+
+Sept. 5--Six hundred Japanese students captured on Dutch frontier; new
+official statement puts blame for destruction of Louvain on citizens;
+Prince Lichnowsky goes to front; Russian refugees from Germany charge
+cruelty.
+
+Sept. 6--Reichstag leaders pledge nation's entire strength.
+
+Sept. 8--Professors in universities will renounce distinctions conferred
+upon them by British universities.
+
+Sept. 9--Attempts made to obtain Dutch sympathy; Kaiser sends message to
+President Wilson, charging use of dumdum bullets by Allies.
+
+Sept. 10--Experts from Krupp works brought down in aeroplane by
+Belgians.
+
+Sept. 11--Prince Engalitcheff charges atrocities on Russian border;
+Consular officers leave Egypt; aviators decorated by Kaiser.
+
+Sept. 12--Crown Prince appeals for tobacco for men; many officers and
+men decorated.
+
+Sept. 13--Gen. von Boehn's reply to Belgian charges of atrocities in
+Aerschot.
+
+Sept. 16--Government notifies China that Germany reserves right to deal
+with Chinese Empire as she sees fit because of breach of neutrality;
+placard set up in Compiegne asserting sovereignty over territories
+occupied.
+
+Sept. 17--Ambassador Gerard reports peace talk with Chancellor, who
+suggests that United States ask Allies their terms; heavy losses
+reported.
+
+Sept. 18--Prussian Guard Corps said to be wiped out; eight army corps
+leave Belgium and France for eastern frontier; Crown Prince appeals for
+clothing for soldiers.
+
+Sept. 19--Prince August William receives the Iron Cross; stories of
+looting in French towns; fine demanded of Luneville; food problem acute
+for army in the west.
+
+Sept. 20--Some States of empire said to resent Prussia's plunging
+country into war.
+
+Sept. 21--Dutch traffic along the Rhine halted; soldiers' diaries show
+shortage of rations; discontent among Bavarian troops; French find iron
+crosses inscribed "1814-1914."
+
+Sept. 22--Troops accused of atrocities in report of Sir John French;
+Frenchwoman says artillerymen shelled hospital at Etain.
+
+Sept. 24--Fine of $600,000 exacted from Tournai, Belgium, for death of
+one Uhaln.
+
+Sept. 25--General Staff lists prisoners for exchange and admits totals
+announced were erroneous; thirty-first casualty list given out.
+
+Sept. 26--Krupp works running night and day.
+
+Sept. 27--Epidemic of typhoid among soldiers.
+
+Sept. 28--Brussels used as intrenched camp; shortage of horses.
+
+Sept. 29--Big Krupp guns being placed on warships; Winter clothing for
+army ordered; Rotterdam hears that soldiers are ill from lack of food
+because commissariat broke down.
+
+Sept. 30--Krupp guns are dubbed "Busy Berthas"; women give gold
+ornaments in exchange for iron rings.
+
+Oct. 4--The King of Bavaria is in command of six army corps in Silesia.
+
+Oct. 5--Losses at Antwerp shown to be heavy.
+
+Oct. 8--Director of Berlin Royal Museum says that works of art brought
+into Germany will not be retained.
+
+Oct. 12--Prussia's losses estimated at 211,000; officials guard Antwerp
+from plunderers.
+
+Oct. 14--Notice sent to Holland that status of River Scheldt will be
+continued as heretofore; rejoicing in Berlin over fall of Antwerp.
+
+
+*HOLLAND.*
+
+July 30--Government declares neutrality.
+
+July 31--Mobilization of army ordered; Austrian Government steamer
+detained for time, but released.
+
+Aug. 2--Country may be flooded to prevent invasion; fear that Germany
+may not respect neutrality; bill in Parliament to stabilize food prices.
+
+Aug. 3--Rumor of invasion, but German Minister promises that neutrality
+will be respected.
+
+Aug. 5--Reservists in America summoned.
+
+Aug. 6--Neutrality in Anglo-German and Belgo-German wars declared.
+
+Aug. 8--Frontier guarded.
+
+Aug. 9--Uhlans captured and disarmed at Maastricht.
+
+Aug. 10--Queen Wilhelmina suggests formation of committee to aid the
+needy.
+
+Aug. 11--Martial law in several provinces.
+
+Aug. 13--Troops massed on frontier; some districts flooded.
+
+Aug. 15--Queen orders Court festivities canceled.
+
+Aug. 16--Paralysis of trade in Rotterdam will render thousands
+destitute.
+
+Aug. 18--Everything ready to flood frontier if Germany strikes.
+
+Aug. 20--Food supply causes anxiety; patrols capture German aeroplane.
+
+Aug. 21--Country prepared against invasion; soldiers fire on Zeppelin
+using searchlight; declaration of neutrality renewed; bakers making
+bread from potatoes; people of Tongres flee from Germans.
+
+Aug. 23--Minister of Industry and Commerce assures England that goods
+will not be improperly supplied to Germany.
+
+Aug. 25--Mobilization ceased.
+
+Aug. 29--Southern frontier under martial law.
+
+Sept. 9--Germans want people's sympathy; some places put in state of
+siege; rice substituted for wheat flour.
+
+Sept. 15--Artists protest to German Emperor against destruction of
+Louvain.
+
+Sept. 26--Martial law on eastern frontier to stop smuggling of goods
+into Germany.
+
+Oct. 2--Neutrality is being maintained at great cost; trade is
+paralyzed.
+
+Oct. 3--Severe embargo on foodstuffs.
+
+Oct. 7--Amsterdam fixes price of wheat.
+
+
+*INDIA.*
+
+Aug. 15--Mass meetings in Calcutta and Bombay to voice people's loyalty
+to England.
+
+Aug. 26--Moslems still loyal to England.
+
+Aug. 28--Troops will be sent to France.
+
+Sept. 9--Men and money offered to England; message from Viceroy read in
+House of Commons.
+
+Sept. 14--German tale of revolution denied; loyalty reported by British
+Foreign Office.
+
+Sept. 15--Mussulmans in Russia support declaration of loyalty to
+England.
+
+Sept. 21--Aga Khan, leader of Mohammedans, offers to enlist; potentates
+eager to serve.
+
+Sept. 24--Preparations for comfort of soldiers being made in England.
+
+Oct. 1--Troops land in France; message to them from King George.
+
+Oct. 2--Great welcome given to troops at Marseilles.
+
+
+*ITALY.*
+
+July 24--Country will simply safeguard her interests in the Balkans and
+on the Adriatic; appeal made to other countries to be conciliatory.
+
+July 25--No disposition to espouse Austria's cause.
+
+July 26--Government looks to England to prevent war.
+
+July 28--Concentration of the first and second naval squadrons ordered
+at Gaeta; warships on the Clyde ordered home.
+
+July 31--Government assured that Austria is not seeking more territory.
+
+Aug. 1--Government informs Germany of neutrality and says obligations
+under Triple Alliance apply only to defensive war.
+
+Aug. 2--Cabinet ratifies declaration of neutrality; Government orders
+all Bourses closed.
+
+Aug. 3--Fleet assembles in Far East; neutrality formally proclaimed, but
+reserves are called to colors.
+
+Aug. 5--Report of German ultimatum to Italy; war may be declared on
+Austria.
+
+Aug. 6--Ambassador to London justifies attitude of neutrality.
+
+Aug. 7--Germany and Austria bring strong pressure to bear to obtain aid.
+
+Aug. 8--Germany and Austria threaten war; King said to be indignant at
+reported offer of colonies in return for aid.
+
+Aug. 13--Alpine passes and northern frontier guarded.
+
+Aug. 14--Government aroused by report that Turkey has purchased two
+German cruisers.
+
+Aug. 16--Strong feeling in favor of England.
+
+Aug. 19--Refugees from Germany complain, of outrages.
+
+Aug. 21--Prefects vote against joining with Germany.
+
+Aug. 24--German Ambassador's efforts fail to persuade press to advocate
+intervention; Allies are pressing Italy.
+
+Aug. 31--Romans leave cards at Belgian Legation to show sympathy over
+Louvain.
+
+Sept. 7--Socialist Reform Party endorses [Transcriber: original
+'indorses'] neutrality.
+
+Sept. 13--Populace of Rome cheers for France.
+
+Sept. 14--Radicals favor war; anti-Austrian demonstration in Rome.
+
+Sept. 16--Rioters in large cities demand aid to Allies.
+
+Sept, 20--More than 500,000 men are under arms.
+
+Sept. 21--Damage to Rheims Cathedral arouses sympathy for France;
+British Embassy in Rome cheered.
+
+Sept. 22--Thousands offer to enlist in British Army.
+
+Sept. 30--Gabriele d'Annunzio urges country to join Allies.
+
+
+*JAPAN.*
+
+July 30--Alliance with England may involve Government in war in case of
+attack on British warships.
+
+Aug. 1--Navy prepared.
+
+Aug. 2--Emperor summons Council and asks War Minister to report on
+condition of army; warships get ready.
+
+Aug. 4--Proclamation prepares people for war on behalf of England.
+
+Aug. 5--Count Okuma says Japan would have liked to join the United
+States in mediation offer.
+
+Aug. 7--Warships off Tsing-tau; reserve army officers told to be ready;
+navy squadrons organized.
+
+Aug. 11--Army aboard transports.
+
+Aug. 12--Telegraphic communication with Europe interrupted; Ambassador
+confers with Russian Foreign Minister.
+
+Aug. 17--Official announcement in London that Japanese operations will
+be confined to China Sea and to protection; ultimatum to Germany made
+with concurrence of England.
+
+Aug. 18--Count Okuma emphasizes war limitation and England reassures the
+United States; ultimatum to Germany was not inspired by England.
+
+Aug. 20--Count Okuma denies that Government has territorial ambitions.
+
+Aug. 21--United States sends formal declaration of policy bearing on
+ultimatum.
+
+Sept. 5--Baron Kato makes speech in Diet outlining events leading up to
+war with Germany and break with Austria, and thanking United States for
+good offices.
+
+Sept. 10--Government tells Russia that no peace will be concluded until
+Allies consent.
+
+Sept. 15--Papers controlled by Germans ordered suppressed.
+
+Sept. 26--Charges of misconduct on part of troops in China denied at
+Washington Embassy.
+
+Oct. 5--Assurance given to China that Shantung Railroad will only be
+used temporarily.
+
+Oct. 7--Ambassador Guthrie and embassy at Washington assure State
+Department that taking of Jaluit Island is only a temporary move.
+
+Oct. 15--England tells China that she cannot interfere with the
+occupation of railroad.
+
+
+*RUSSIA.*
+
+July 21--Belief that Government will aid Servia in possible conflict
+with Austria.
+
+July 24--Cabinet meets; Government will ask Austria to extend time
+allowed for Servia's answer to ultimatum.
+
+July 25--Army is mobilizing.
+
+July 26--Warning to Germany against invasion of Servia; army manoeuvres
+countermanded, but Government still hopes for peace.
+
+July 27--Czar warns Germany of general mobilization of army.
+
+July 28--Force masses on eastern border; lights along Black Sea coast
+ordered extinguished.
+
+July 29--Intervention imminent; prayers for Serb victory; Baltic lights
+out; Czar summons reservists.
+
+July 30--Germany demands halting of mobilization within twenty-four
+hours and sends Grand Duke of Hesse to urge peace; war activity in
+Warsaw; railroads taken over.
+
+July 31--Railway bridge on Vienna-Warsaw line blown up; no reply sent to
+German note; mobilization order.
+
+Aug. 3--Czar issues statement outlining events leading up to war.
+
+Aug. 8--Czar addresses Duma and Council of Empire; Duma pledges people
+to country's defense.
+
+Aug. 9--Minister Sazonof, in speech before Duma, blames Austria for war.
+
+Aug. 10--Government acknowledges receipt of President Wilson's offer of
+good offices.
+
+Aug. 14--Army works in secret, 5,500,000 men mobilized; Poles support
+Russia.
+
+Aug. 15--Home rule promised to Poland after war if people remain loyal.
+
+Aug. 16--Poles enthusiastic over promise of autonomy.
+
+Aug. 17--Unrestricted use of Dardanelles demanded of Turkey.
+
+Aug. 18--Many Poles join army.
+
+Aug. 24--Finns loyal.
+
+Aug. 27--Poles loyal; St. Petersburg well supplied with food.
+
+Sept. 1--Name of St. Petersburg changed to Petrograd; other cities with
+German names would have them Russianized; Germany charges atrocities in
+East Prussia.
+
+Sept. 3--Report that soldiers have been sent to Belgium through
+Scotland.
+
+Sept. 4--Gen. Bobrinsky appointed Governor of Galicia.
+
+Sept. 6--Year's provisions seized at Lemberg, which is to be called
+Lvov.
+
+Sept. 12--Prisoners are proving a problem.
+
+Sept. 14--British Press Bureau denies that troops have landed in Belgium
+or France.
+
+Sept. 16--Proclamation issued to captured Austrian districts.
+
+Sept. 21--"Orange Book" shows Government's negotiations in cause of
+peace.
+
+Sept. 27--Full text of "Orange Book" printed in THE NEW YORK TIMES.
+
+Sept. 28--Soldiers occupy Tilsit estate of German Emperor; war fund
+presented to Czar by Petrograd bankers.
+
+Oct. 8--Lemberg made a province.
+
+Oct. 15--Refugees are a serious problem in Warsaw.
+
+
+*SERVIA.*
+
+July 25--Parliament will meet in special session; King Peter moves
+capital from Belgrade to Kraguyavatz.
+
+July 26--Army mobilizing; Crown Prince will command it; panic in
+Belgrade as people flee.
+
+July 28--King Peter goes to Nish.
+
+Aug. 4--Sending of press dispatches forbidden.
+
+Aug. 8--Full text given out of Austria's ultimatum and of reply.
+
+Sept. 19--Government will conclude peace with Austria only by acting
+with Triple Entente.
+
+
+*RESERVISTS.*
+
+July 26--Ambassador Dumba tells Consuls to warn Austrian reservists to
+prepare to return for service; Serbs in New York ready to sail.
+
+July 27--Austrians await call.
+
+July 28--Chicago Serbs anxious to return home.
+
+July 29--Reservists ordered to return to Austria; Servians in Indiana
+ordered to await call.
+
+July 30--Servians in New York prepare to sail; Giuseppe Garibaldi will
+fight for Servia if Italy remains neutral.
+
+Aug. 1--Mass meeting of Slavs in Central Opera House, New York City; Dr.
+Winter issues proclamation for general mobilization of Austrians in New
+York district.
+
+Aug. 2--Swiss called to colors; Germany and France recall all military
+reserves; England sends for naval reserves.
+
+Aug. 4--Many flock to consulates; Servians fight to sail on Greek ship;
+French and British reservists leave Canada; Austro-Hungarian Military
+Benevolent Society formed in New York; hotels affected by leaving of
+French chefs.
+
+Aug. 5--Canadians respond to call; 2,000 Frenchmen sail on La Lorraine.
+
+Aug. 6--Attempt to ship Austrians, Hungarians and Germans given up;
+English and French to go; many leave destitute families.
+
+Aug. 7--Reservists will go as individuals, not as organized parties, by
+order of Department of Commerce.
+
+Aug. 15--Many Frenchmen sail on the Rochambeau; Dutch and Germans on the
+Potsdam; Secretary Bryan says men in America cannot be forced to join
+foreign armies.
+
+Aug. 22--British ordered to be ready for call to colors.
+
+Aug. 25--German and Austrian reservists on the Potsdam taken prisoners
+at Falmouth, England.
+
+Aug. 31--British vessels take Austrian and German reservists from two
+Pacific Mail liners near Hongkong.
+
+Sept. 5--German reservists from Holland-America liner Nieuw Amsterdam
+held prisoners by France; French reservists sail on the Espagne; Germans
+from Puerto Colombia reach New York.
+
+Sept. 9--British cruiser captures the Noordam and makes German
+reservists prisoners.
+
+Sept. 25--Germans taken from Holland-America liner Absteldyk by British.
+
+
+*RELIEF WORK.*
+
+Aug. 1--Hungarians form committee to aid New York families.
+
+Aug. 2--Austrian headquarters established in New York City.
+
+Aug. 6--Prince of Wales starts fund.
+
+Aug. 7--American women of title in England start fund; American
+Ambulance Corps organized in Paris by Mrs. Herrick.
+
+Aug. 8--Committee of American women formed in London to aid sufferers;
+gift from Mrs. Whitelaw Reid and many other contributions; Belgians in
+New York form relief committee; French fund started in New York.
+
+Aug. 10--French-Belgian relief fund started in New York.
+
+Aug. 11--Ambassador Herrick asks Red Cross to send hospital supplies to
+Paris.
+
+Aug. 12--Duchess of Sutherland is at head of French Red Cross work in
+Brussels.
+
+Aug. 13--Rothschilds give $200,000 to French fund.
+
+Aug. 14--Prince of Wales fund reaches $5,000,000.
+
+Aug. 15--English nurses arrive in Brussels; Germans in New York start
+fund.
+
+Aug. 17--Servian societies aid Servian Red Cross.
+
+Aug. 21--Relief fund started in New York by German Historical Society,
+which gives iron ring as souvenir to contributors.
+
+Aug. 24--Ex-Empress Eugenie contributes to French fund.
+
+Aug. 27--Noblemen in England offer homes to Red Cross.
+
+Aug. 31--Appeal for aid in equipment of American Hospital in Paris.
+
+Sept. 1--British War Office accepts Oldway House equipped as hospital by
+American women; large contributions in London.
+
+Sept. 7--American ambulance corps first on field near Paris.
+
+Sept. 8--Mrs. W.E. Corey places chateau in France at the disposal of the
+Red Cross.
+
+Sept. 12--Hanotaux issues appeal for French refugees; Duchess of
+Marlborough to aid servants out of work; Duchess of Westminster a nurse.
+
+Sept. 13--Briand thanks American women for care of wounded in Paris;
+Ambassador Jusserand will forward money for French Red Cross.
+
+Sept. 14--Chinese send Red Cross men to aid Japanese and Germans at
+Kiao-Chau; American Red Cross steamship Red Cross sails from New York.
+
+Sept. 15--Work of rich American women praised by French Socialist organ;
+Mrs. Penfield organizes corps of Red Cross workers in Vienna; Prince of
+Wales fund increased by soccer teams.
+
+Sept. 17--Babies and Mothers' League formed in London.
+
+Sept. 19--Committee of Mercy formed in New York City.
+
+Sept. 20--Belgian Legation in Washington plans aid for women and
+children.
+
+Sept. 23--Lady Paget appeals to American women for socks.
+
+Sept. 25--American Women's Fund in London gives six motor ambulances;
+home of Mr. and Mrs. C.M. Depew on the Oise used for hospital.
+
+Sept. 28--Appeal for Belgian relief addressed to Canada repeated to
+United States.
+
+Sept. 29--England generous in offering homes to Belgian refugees.
+
+Sept. 30--Duchess of Marlborough to act for Committee of Mercy in Great
+Britain.
+
+Oct. 5--Prince of Wales fund reaches $15,000,000.
+
+Oct. 8--Mrs. J.P. Morgan on shipboard knits socks for soldiers; praise
+is given to the work done by the American Ambulance Hospital in Paris
+under Dr. J.A. Blake.
+
+
+*PEACE AND MEDIATION.*
+
+Sept. 7--Germany reported ready for peace; Oscar Straus and diplomats
+confer with Secretary Bryan.
+
+Sept. 8--Secretary Bryan and Ambassador Spring-Rice deny peace
+proposals.
+
+Sept. 10--Bankers' peace movement afoot; German banks feel strain; Pope
+issues appeal.
+
+Sept. 11--Apostolic Delegate in Washington has mission on mediation to
+President Wilson; opinion in England that peace moves must wait.
+
+Sept. 12--Kaiser has received informal inquiry from United States
+Government; Allies will unite in demanding compensation for Belgium.
+
+Sept. 17--Report of preliminary steps for peace between Austria and
+Russia; Ambassador Gerard reports conversation with German Chancellor,
+suggesting that Allies state terms.
+
+Sept. 18--England denies that Germany and Austria have made peace
+proposals; Gerard's message will probably be sent to Allies, but United
+States will make no further move at present; President Wilson receives
+appeal from women of all nations and from General Conference of Friends.
+
+Sept. 19--Ambassador Gerard's message has not been forwarded to any
+embassy; National Peace Council in England thanks President Wilson for
+mediation offer.
+
+Sept. 21--President Wilson believes time has not come to move for peace;
+he receives appeal from suffragists.
+
+Sept. 23--Ambassador von Bernstorff denies that German Government
+initiated peace propositions.
+
+Sept. 26--Churches start peace campaigns to further efforts made by
+President Wilson.
+
+Oct. 4--Prayers for peace held in churches throughout United States in
+accordance with request in proclamation by President Wilson.
+
+
+
+
+*THE MEN OF THE EMDEN.*
+
+By THOMAS R. YBARRA.
+
+
+What matter if you
+    Be stanch and true
+To the British blood in the veins of you,
+When it's "hip hurrah!" for a deed well done,
+For a fight well fought and a race well run--
+    What matter if you be true?
+    Hats off to the Emden's crew!
+
+Theirs was the life of the storm-god's folk,
+  Uncounted miles from the Fatherland,
+With a foe beneath every wisp of smoke,
+  And a menace in every strip of strand.
+Up, glasses! Paul Jones was but one of these,
+  Hull, Bainbridge, Decatur, their brothers, too!
+    (Ha! those pirate nights
+      In a ring of foes,
+    When you douse your lights
+      And drive home your blows!)
+      Hats off to the Emden's crew!
+
+Erect on the wave-washed decks stood they
+  And heard with a Viking's grim delight
+The whirr of the wings of death by day
+  And the voice of death in their dreams by night!
+Under the sweep of the wings of death,
+By the blazing gun, in the tempest's breath,
+  While a world of enemies strove and fumed,
+  Remote, unaided, undaunted, doomed,
+They stood--is there any, friend or foe,
+  Who will choke a cheer?--who can still but scoff?
+    No, no, by the gods of valor, no!
+      To the Emden's crew--
+                        Hats off!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote A: The second installment of this chronology, recording events
+to and including Jan. 7, 1915, will appear in the next issue. The
+chronology will then be continued in each succeeding issue.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The New York Times Current History of
+the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW YORK TIMES CURRENT ***
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