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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of World's War Events, Vol. II, 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: World's War Events, Vol. II
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Francis J. Reynolds
+        Allen L. Churchill
+
+Release Date: July 4, 2008 [EBook #25963]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORLD'S WAR EVENTS, VOL. II ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: PRESIDENT WILSON READING HIS WAR MESSAGE TO CONGRESS,
+APRIL 2, 1917]
+
+
+
+
+WORLD'S WAR EVENTS
+
+RECORDED BY STATESMEN · COMMANDERS HISTORIANS AND BY MEN WHO FOUGHT OR
+SAW THE GREAT CAMPAIGNS
+
+
+        COMPILED AND EDITED BY
+        FRANCIS J. REYNOLDS
+        FORMER REFERENCE LIBRARIAN · LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
+
+AND
+
+        ALLEN L. CHURCHILL
+        ASSOCIATE EDITOR "THE STORY OF THE GREAT WAR"
+        ASSOCIATE EDITOR "THE NEW INTERNATIONAL
+        ENCYCLOPEDIA"
+
+
+
+VOLUME II
+
+[Illustration]
+
+        P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY
+        NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+Copyright 1919 BY P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+WORLD'S WAR EVENTS
+
+VOLUME II
+
+        BEGINNING WITH THE ATTACK AT VERDUN
+        EARLY IN 1916 THE STORY OF THE
+        WAR AND OF AMERICAN
+        AID IS CARRIED TO
+        THE CLOSE OF
+        1917
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    ARTICLE                                                          PAGE
+
+      I. THE BATTLE OF VERDUN                                          7
+            _Raoul Blanchard_
+
+     II. THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND BANK                                   30
+            _Admiral Sir John Jellicoe's Official Despatch_
+
+    III. TAKING THE COL DI LANA                                       55
+            _Lewis R. Freeman_
+
+     IV. THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME                                      67
+            _Sir Douglas Haig_
+
+      V. RUSSIA'S REFUGEES                                           114
+            _Gregory Mason_
+
+     VI. THE TRAGEDY OF RUMANIA                                      124
+            _Stanley Washburn_
+
+    VII. SIXTEEN MONTHS A WAR PRISONER                               142
+            _Private "Jack" Evans_
+
+   VIII. UNDER GERMAN RULE IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM                     159
+            _J. P. Whitaker_
+
+     IX. THE ANGLO-RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN IN TURKEY                        174
+            _James B. MacDonald_
+
+      X. KITCHENER                                                   188
+            _Lady St. Helier_
+
+     XI. WHY AMERICA BROKE WITH GERMANY                              194
+            _President Woodrow Wilson_
+
+    XII. HOW THE WAR CAME TO AMERICA                                 205
+            _Official Account_
+
+   XIII. THE WAR MESSAGE                                             226
+            _President Woodrow Wilson_
+
+    XIV. BRITISH OPERATIONS AT SALONIKI                              244
+            _Official Report of General Milne_
+
+     XV. IN PETROGRAD DURING THE SEVEN DAYS                          253
+            _Arno Dosch-Fleurot_
+
+    XVI. AMERICA'S FIRST SHOT                                        271
+            _J.R. Keen_
+
+   XVII. GERMAN ACTIVITIES IN THE UNITED STATES                      278
+            _House Committee on Foreign Affairs_
+
+  XVIII. PREPARING FOR WAR                                           298
+            _Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War_
+
+    XIX. THE CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM                                    344
+            _General E. H. H. Allenby_
+
+     XX. AMERICAN SHIPS AND GERMAN SUBMARINES                        369
+            _From Official Reports_
+
+
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF VERDUN
+
+RAOUL BLANCHARD
+
+Copyright, Atlantic Monthly, June, 1917.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Greatest drama of the war.]
+
+The Battle of Verdun, which continued through from February 21, 1916, to
+the 16th of December, ranks next to the Battle of the Marne as the
+greatest drama of the world war. Like the Marne, it represents the
+checkmate of a supreme effort on the part of the Germans to end the war
+swiftly by a thunderstroke. It surpasses the Battle of the Marne by the
+length of the struggle, the fury with which it was carried on, the huge
+scale of the operations. No complete analysis of it, however, has yet
+been published--only fragmentary accounts, dealing with the beginning or
+with mere episodes. Neither in France nor in Germany, up to the present
+moment, has the whole story of the battle been told, describing its
+vicissitudes, and following step by step the development of the stirring
+drama. That is the task I have set myself here.
+
+[Sidenote: German successes in France.]
+
+[Sidenote: Preparations for a great offensive.]
+
+The year 1915 was rich in successes for the Germans. In the West, thanks
+to an energetic defensive, they had held firm against the Allies'
+onslaughts in Artois and in Champagne. Their offensive in the East was
+most fruitful. Galicia had been almost completely recovered, the kingdom
+of Poland occupied, Courland, Lithuania, and Volhynia invaded. To the
+South they had crushed Serbia's opposition, saved Turkey, and won over
+Bulgaria. These triumphs, however, had not brought them peace, for the
+heart and soul of the Allies lay, after all, in the West--in England and
+France. The submarine campaign was counted on to keep England's hands
+tied; it remained, therefore, to attack and annihilate the French army.
+And so, in the autumn of 1915, preparations were begun on a huge scale
+for delivering a terrible blow in the West and dealing France the _coup
+de grâce_.
+
+The determination with which the Germans followed out this plan and the
+reckless way in which they drew on their resources leave no doubt as to
+the importance the operation held for them. They staked everything on
+putting their adversaries out of the running by breaking through their
+lines, marching on Paris, and shattering the confidence of the French
+people. This much they themselves admitted. The German press, at the
+beginning of the battle, treated it as a matter of secondary import,
+whose object was to open up free communications between Metz and the
+troops in the Argonne; but the proportions of the combat soon gave the
+lie to such modest estimates, and in the excitement of the first days
+official utterances betrayed how great were the expectations.
+
+[Sidenote: Troops urged to take Verdun.]
+
+[Sidenote: Objects of the campaign.]
+
+On March 4 the Crown Prince urged his already over-taxed troops to make
+one supreme effort to "capture Verdun, the heart of France"; and General
+von Deimling announced to the 15th Army Corps that this would be the
+last battle of the war. At Berlin, travelers from neutral countries
+leaving for Paris by way of Switzerland were told that the Germans would
+get there first. The Kaiser himself, replying toward the end of February
+to the good wishes of his faithful province of Brandenburg,
+congratulated himself publicly on seeing his warriors of the 3d Army
+Corps about to carry "the most important stronghold of our principal
+enemy." It is plain, then, that the object was to take Verdun, win a
+decisive victory, and start a tremendous onslaught which would bring
+the war to a triumphant close.
+
+We should next examine the reasons prompting the Germans to select
+Verdun as the vital point, the nature of the scene of operations, and
+the manner in which the preparation was made.
+
+[Sidenote: Strategic advantages to be gained.]
+
+[Sidenote: Verdun railways dominated by Germans.]
+
+Why did the Germans make their drive at Verdun, a powerful fortress
+defended by a complete system of detached outworks? Several reasons may
+be found for this. First of all, there were the strategic advantages of
+the operation. Ever since the Battle of the Marne and the German
+offensive against St. Mihiel, Verdun had formed a salient in the French
+front which was surrounded by the Germans on three sides,--northwest,
+east, and south,--and was consequently in greater peril than the rest of
+the French lines. Besides, Verdun was not far distant from Metz, the
+great German arsenal, the fountain-head for arms, food, and munitions.
+For the same reasons, the French defense of Verdun was made much harder
+because access to the city was commanded by the enemy. Of the two main
+railroads linking Verdun with France, the Lérouville line was cut off by
+the enemy at St. Mihiel; the second (leading through Châlons) was under
+ceaseless fire from the German artillery. There remained only a
+narrow-gauge road connecting Verdun and Bar-le-Duc. The fortress, then,
+was almost isolated.
+
+[Sidenote: Iron mines of Lorraine.]
+
+[Sidenote: Extent of Lotharingia.]
+
+For another reason, Verdun was too near, for the comfort of the Germans,
+to those immense deposits of iron ore in Lorraine which they have every
+intention of retaining after the war. The moral factor involved in the
+fall of Verdun was also immense. If the stronghold were captured, the
+French, who look on it as their chief bulwark in the East, would be
+greatly disheartened, whereas it would delight the souls of the
+Germans, who had been counting on its seizure since the beginning of the
+war. They have not forgotten that the ancient Lotharingia, created by a
+treaty signed eleven centuries ago at Verdun, extended as far as the
+Meuse. Finally, it is probable that the German General Staff intended to
+profit by a certain slackness on the part of the French, who, placing
+too much confidence in the strength of the position and the favorable
+nature of the surrounding countryside, had made little effort to augment
+their defensive value.
+
+[Sidenote: Serious obstacles to an offensive.]
+
+This value, as a matter of fact, was great. The theatre of operations at
+Verdun offers far fewer inducements to an offensive than the plains of
+Artois, Picardy, or Champagne. The rolling ground, the vegetation, the
+distribution of the population, all present serious obstacles.
+
+[Sidenote: The plateaus of the Meuse.]
+
+[Sidenote: Hills and ravines.]
+
+The relief-map of the region about Verdun shows the sharply marked
+division of two plateaus situated on either side of the river Meuse. The
+plateau which rises on the left bank, toward the Argonne, falls away on
+the side toward the Meuse in a deeply indented line of high but gently
+sloping bluffs, which include the Butte de Montfaucon, Hill 304, and the
+heights of Esnes and Montzéville. Fragments of this plateau, separated
+from the main mass by the action of watercourses, are scattered in long
+ridges over the space included between the line of bluffs and the Meuse:
+the two hills of Le Mont Homme (295 metres), the Côte de l'Oie, and,
+farther to the South, the ridge of Bois Bourrus and Marre. To the east
+of the river, the country is still more rugged. The plateau on this bank
+rises abruptly, and terminates at the plain of the Woëvre in the cliffs
+of the Côtes-de-Meuse, which tower 100 metres over the plain. The brooks
+which flow down to the Woëvre or to the Meuse have worn the cliffs and
+the plateau into a great number of hillocks called _côtes_: the Côte du
+Talon, Côte du Poivre, Côte de Froideterre, and the rest. The ravines
+separating these _côtes_ are deep and long: those of Vaux, Haudromont,
+and Fleury cut into the very heart of the plateau, leaving between them
+merely narrow ridges of land, easily to be defended.
+
+[Sidenote: Stretches of forest.]
+
+[Sidenote: Villages well placed for defense.]
+
+These natural defenses of the country are strengthened by the nature of
+the vegetation. On the rather sterile calcareous soil of the two
+plateaus the woods are thick and numerous. To the west, the approaches
+of Hill 304 are covered by the forest of Avocourt. On the east, long
+wooded stretches--the woods of Haumont, Caures, Wavrille, Herbebois, la
+Vauche, Haudromont, Hardaumont, la Caillette, and others--cover the
+narrow ridges of land and dominate the upper slopes of the ravines. The
+villages, often perched on the highest points of land, as their names
+ending in _mont_ indicate, are easily transformed into small fortresses;
+such are Haumont, Beaumont, Louvemont, Douaumont. Others follow the
+watercourses, making it easier to defend them--Malancourt, Béthincourt
+and Cumières, to the west of the Meuse; Vaux to the east.
+
+These hills, then, as well as the ravines, the woods, and the favorably
+placed villages, all facilitated the defense of the countryside. On the
+other hand, the assailants had one great advantage: the French positions
+were cut in two by the valley of the Meuse, one kilometre wide and quite
+deep, which, owing to swampy bottom-lands, could not be crossed except
+by the bridges of Verdun. The French troops on the right bank had
+therefore to fight with a river at their backs, thus imperiling their
+retreat. A grave danger, this, in the face of an enemy determined to
+take full advantage of the circumstance by attacking with undreamed-of
+violence.
+
+[Sidenote: Troops selected in October.]
+
+The German preparation was, from the start, formidable and painstaking.
+It was probably under way by the end of October, 1915, for at that time
+the troops selected to deliver the first crushing attack were withdrawn
+from the front and sent into training. Four months were thus set aside
+for this purpose. To make the decisive attack, the Germans made
+selection from four of their crack army corps, the 18th active, the 7th
+reserve, the 15th active (the Mühlhausen corps), and the 3d active,
+composed of Brandenburgers.
+
+[Sidenote: Artillery and munitions made ready.]
+
+These troops were sent to the interior to undergo special preparation.
+In addition to these 80,000 or 100,000 men, who were appointed to bear
+the brunt of the assault, the operation was to be supported by the Crown
+Prince's army on the right and by that of General von Strautz on the
+left--300,000 men more. Immense masses of artillery were gathered
+together to blast open the way; fourteen lines of railroad brought
+together from every direction the streams of arms and munitions. Heavy
+artillery was transported from the Russian and Serbian fronts. No light
+pieces were used in this operation--in the beginning, at any rate; only
+guns of large calibre, exceeding 200 millimetres, many of 370 and 420
+millimetres.
+
+[Sidenote: Reliance on heavy artillery.]
+
+The battle plans were based on the offensive power of the heavy
+artillery. The new formula was to run, "The artillery attacks, the
+infantry takes possession." In other words, a terrible bombardment was
+to play over every square yard of the terrain to be captured; when it
+was decided that the pulverization had been sufficient, a scouting-party
+of infantry would be sent out to look the situation over; behind them
+would come the pioneers, and then the first wave of the assault. In case
+the enemy still resisted, the infantry would retire and leave the field
+once more to the artillery.
+
+[Sidenote: The point selected for attack.]
+
+The point chosen for the attack was the plateau on the right bank of the
+Meuse. The Germans would thus avoid the obstacle of the cliffs of Côtes
+de Meuse, and, by seizing the ridges and passing around the ravines,
+they could drive down on Douaumont, which dominates the entire region,
+and from there fall on Verdun and capture the bridges. At the same time,
+the German right wing would assault the French positions on the left
+bank of the Meuse; the left wing would complete the encircling movement,
+and the entire French army of Verdun, driven back to the river and
+attacked from the rear, would be captured or destroyed.
+
+[Sidenote: A ten months' battle.]
+
+[Sidenote: The formidable German attack.]
+
+[Sidenote: Periods of fixation.]
+
+The Battle of Verdun lasted no less than ten months--from February 21 to
+December 16. First of all, came the formidable _German attack_, with its
+harvest of success during the first few days of the frontal drive, which
+was soon checked and forced to wear itself out in fruitless flank
+attacks, kept up until April 9. After this date the German programme
+became more modest: they merely wished to hold at Verdun sufficient
+French troops to forestall an offensive at some other point. This was
+the _period of German "fixation,"_ lasting from April to the middle of
+July. It then became the object of the French to hold the German forces
+and prevent transfer to the Somme. _French "fixation,"_ ended in the
+successes of October and December.
+
+[Sidenote: Lack of foresight on the part of French.]
+
+The first German onslaught was the most intense and critical moment of
+the battle. The violent frontal attack on the plateau east of the Meuse,
+magnificently executed, at first carried all before it. The commanders
+at Verdun had shown a lack of foresight. There were too few trenches,
+too few cannon, too few troops. The soldiers had had too little
+experience in the field, and it was their task to face the most
+terrific attack ever known.
+
+[Sidenote: The battle begins.]
+
+[Sidenote: French left driven backwards.]
+
+On the morning of February 21 the German artillery opened up a fire of
+infernal intensity. This artillery had been brought up in undreamed-of
+quantities. French aviators who flew over the enemy positions located so
+many batteries that they gave up marking them on their maps; the number
+was too great. The forest of Grémilly, northeast of the point of attack,
+was just a great cloud shot through with lightning-flashes. A deluge of
+shells fell on the French positions, annihilating the first line,
+attacking the batteries and finding their mark as far back as the city
+of Verdun. At five o'clock in the afternoon the first waves of infantry
+assaulted and carried the advanced French positions in the woods of
+Haumont and Caures. On the 22d the French left was driven back about
+four kilometres.
+
+[Sidenote: Fall of Herbebois.]
+
+The following day a terrible engagement took place along the entire line
+of attack, resulting toward evening in the retreat of both French wings;
+on the left Samognieux was taken by the Germans; on the right they
+occupied the strong position of Herbebois.
+
+[Sidenote: Germans enter Douaumont.]
+
+The situation developed rapidly on the 24th. The Germans enveloped the
+French centre, which formed a salient; at two in the afternoon they
+captured the important central position of Beaumont, and by nightfall
+had reached Louvemont and La Vauche forest, gathering in many prisoners.
+On the morning of the 25th the enemy stormed Bezonvaux, and entered the
+fort of Douaumont, already evacuated.
+
+[Illustration: FIRST ATTACK ON VERDUN]
+
+[Sidenote: Germans advance eight kilometres.]
+
+[Sidenote: General de Castelnau and General Pétain.]
+
+[Sidenote: Hand-to-hand fighting.]
+
+In less than five days the assaulting troops sent forward over the
+plateau had penetrated the French positions to a depth of eight
+kilometres, and were masters of the most important elements of the
+defense of the fortress. Verdun and its bridges were only seven
+kilometres distant. The commander of the fortified region himself
+proposed to evacuate the whole right bank of the Meuse; the troops
+established in the Woëvre were already falling back toward the bluffs of
+Côtes de Meuse. Most luckily, on this same day there arrived at Verdun
+some men of resource, together with substantial reinforcements. General
+de Castelnau, Chief of the General Staff, ordered the troops on the
+right bank to hold out at all costs. And on the evening of the 25th
+General Pétain took over the command of the entire sector. The Zouaves,
+on the left bank, were standing firm as rocks on the Côtes du Poivre,
+which cuts off access from the valley to Verdun. During this time the
+Germans, pouring forward from Douaumont, had already reached the Côte de
+Froideterre, and the French artillerymen, out-flanked, poured their fire
+into the gray masses as though with rifles. It was at this moment that
+the 39th division of the famous 20th French Army Corps of Nancy met the
+enemy in the open, and, after furious hand-to-hand fighting, broke the
+backbone of the attack.
+
+[Sidenote: The German frontal drive checked.]
+
+That was the end of it. The German tidal wave could go no farther. There
+were fierce struggles for several days longer, but all in vain. Starting
+on the 26th, five French counter-attacks drove back the enemy to a point
+just north of the fort of Douaumont, and recaptured the village of the
+same name. For three days the German attacking forces tried
+unsuccessfully to force these positions; their losses were terrible, and
+already they had to call in a division of reinforcements. After two days
+of quiet the contest began again at Douaumont, which was attacked by an
+entire army corps; the 4th of March found the village again in German
+hands. The impetus of the great blow had been broken, however, after
+five days of success, the attack had fallen flat.
+
+[Sidenote: German flank attacks.]
+
+Were the Germans then to renounce Verdun? After such vast preparations,
+after such great losses, after having roused such high hopes, this
+seemed impossible to the leaders of the German army. The frontal drive
+was to have been followed up by the attack of the wings, and it was now
+planned to carrying this out with the assistance of the Crown Prince's
+army, which was still intact. In this way the scheme so judiciously
+arranged would be accomplished in the appointed manner. Instead of
+adding the finishing touch to the victory, however, these wings now had
+the task of winning it completely--and the difference is no small one.
+
+[Sidenote: Genius of Pétain and Nivelle.]
+
+These flank attacks were delivered for over a month (March 6-April 9) on
+both sides of the river simultaneously, with an intensity and power
+which recalled the first days of the battle. But the French were now on
+their guard. They had received great reinforcements of artillery, and
+the nimble "75's," thanks to their speed and accuracy, barred off the
+positions under attack by a terrible curtain of fire. Moreover, their
+infantry contrived to pass through the enemy's barrage-fire, wait calmly
+until the assaulting infantry were within 30 metres of them, and then
+let loose the rapid-fire guns. They were also commanded by energetic and
+brilliant chiefs: General Pétain, who offset the insufficient railroad
+communications with the rear by putting in motion a great stream of more
+than 40,000 motor trucks, all traveling on strict schedule time; and
+General Nivelle, who directed operations on the right bank of the river,
+before taking command of the Army of Verdun. The German successes of the
+first days were not duplicated.
+
+[Sidenote: On the left of the Meuse.]
+
+[Sidenote: Le Mort Homme.]
+
+[Sidenote: Hill 304.]
+
+These new attacks began on the left of the Meuse. The Germans tried to
+turn the first line of the French defense by working down along the
+river, and then capture the second line. On March 6 two divisions
+stormed the villages of Forges and Regnéville, and attacked the woods of
+Corbeaux on the Côte de l'Oie, which they captured on the 10th. After
+several days of preparation, they fell suddenly upon one of the
+important elements of the second line, the hill of Le Mort Homme, but
+failed to carry it (March 14-16). Repulsed on the right, they tried the
+left. On March 20 a body of picked troops just back from the Russian
+front--the 11th Bavarian Division--stormed the French positions in the
+wood of Avocourt and moved on to Hill 304, where they obtained foothold
+for a short time before being driven back with losses of from 50 to 60
+per cent of their effectives.
+
+[Sidenote: Crown Prince brings up reserves.]
+
+[Sidenote: Village and fort of Vaux.]
+
+At the same time the Germans were furiously assaulting the positions of
+the French right wing east of the Meuse. From the 8th to the 10th of
+March the Crown Prince brought forward again the troops which had
+survived the ordeal of the first days, and added to them the fresh
+forces of the 5th Reserve Corps. The action developed along the Côte du
+Poivre, especially east of Douaumont, where it was directed against the
+village and fort of Vaux. The results were negative, except for a slight
+gain in the woods of Hardaumont. The 3d Corps had lost 22,000 men since
+the 21st of February--that is, almost its entire original strength. The
+5th Corps was simply massacred on the slopes of Vaux, without being able
+to reach the fort. New attempts against this position, on March 16 and
+18, were no more fruitful. The battle of the right wing, then, was also
+lost.
+
+[Sidenote: Fighting on both sides the Meuse.]
+
+The Germans hung on grimly. One last effort remained to be made. After a
+lull of six days (March 22-28) savage fighting started again on both
+sides of the river. On the right bank, from March 31 to April 2, the
+Germans got a foothold in the ravine of Vaux and along its slopes; but
+the French dislodged them the next day, inflicting great damage, and
+drove them back to Douaumont.
+
+[Sidenote: Avocourt retaken.]
+
+[Sidenote: Le Mort Homme like a volcano.]
+
+Their greatest effort was made on the left bank. Here the French took
+back the woods of Avocourt; from March 30 to the 8th of April, however,
+the Germans succeeded in breaking into their adversaries' first line,
+and on April 9, a sunny Sabbath-day, they delivered an attack against
+the entire second line, along a front of 11 kilometres, from Avocourt to
+the Meuse. There was terrific fighting, the heaviest that had taken
+place since February 26, and a worthy sequel to the original frontal
+attack. The artillery preparation was long and searching. The hill of Le
+Mort Homme, said an eye-witness, smoked like a volcano with innumerable
+craters. The assault was launched at noon, with five divisions, and in
+two hours it had been shattered. New attacks followed, but less orderly,
+less numerous, and more listless, until sundown. The checkmate was
+complete. "The 9th of April," said General Pétain to his troops, "is a
+day full of glory for your arms. The fierce assaults of the Crown
+Prince's soldiers have everywhere been thrown back. Infantry, artillery,
+sappers, and aviators of the Second Army have vied with one another in
+heroism. Courage, men: _on les aura_!"
+
+[Sidenote: German plans ruined.]
+
+And, indeed, this great attack of April 9, was the last general effort
+made by the German troops to carry out the programme of February--to
+capture Verdun and wipe out the French army which defended it. They had
+to give in. The French were on their guard now; they had artillery,
+munitions, and men. The defenders began to act as vigorously as the
+attackers; they took the offensive, recaptured the woods of La
+Caillette, and occupied the trenches before Le Mort Homme. The German
+plans were ruined. Some other scheme had to be thought out.
+
+[Sidenote: Verdun to be kept a battlefield.]
+
+[Sidenote: A battle of attrition.]
+
+Instead of employing only eight divisions of excellent troops, as
+originally planned, the Germans had little by little cast into the fiery
+furnace thirty divisions. This enormous sacrifice could not be allowed
+to count for nothing. The German High Command therefore decided to
+assign a less pretentious object to the abortive enterprise. The Crown
+Prince's offensive had fallen flat; but, at all events, it might succeed
+in preventing a French offensive. For this reason it was necessary that
+Verdun should remain a sore spot, a continually menaced sector, where
+the French would be obliged to send a steady stream of men, material,
+and munitions. It was hinted then in all the German papers that the
+struggle at Verdun was a battle of attrition, which would wear down the
+strength of the French by slow degrees. There was no talk now of
+thunderstrokes; it was all "the siege of Verdun." This time they
+expressed the true purpose of the German General Staff; the struggle
+which followed the fight of April 9, now took the character of a battle
+of fixation, in which the Germans tried to hold their adversaries'
+strongest units at Verdun and prevent their being transferred elsewhere.
+This state of affairs lasted from mid-April to well into July, when the
+progress of the Somme offensive showed the Germans that their efforts
+had been unavailing.
+
+[Sidenote: Germans still formidable.]
+
+It is true that during this new phase of the battle the offensive vigor
+of the Germans and their procedure in attacking were still formidable.
+
+Their artillery continued to perform prodigies. The medium-calibre
+pieces had now come into action, particularly the 150 mm. guns, with
+their amazing mobility of fire, which shelled the French first line, as
+well as their communications and batteries, with lightning speed. This
+storm of artillery continued night and day; it was the relentless,
+crushing continuity of the fire which exhausted the adversary and made
+the Battle of Verdun a hell on earth. There was one important
+difference, however: the infantry attacks now took place over restricted
+areas, which were rarely more than two kilometres in extent. The
+struggle was continual, but disconnected. Besides, it was rarely in
+progress on both sides of the river at once. Until the end of May the
+Germans did their worst on the left; then the French activities brought
+them back to the right side, and there they attacked with fury until
+mid-July.
+
+[Sidenote: A period of recuperation.]
+
+The end of April was a period of recuperation for the Germans. They were
+still suffering from the confusion caused by their set-backs of March,
+and especially of April 9. Only two attempts at an offensive were
+made--one on the Côte du Poivre (April 18) and one on the front south of
+Douaumont. Both were repulsed with great losses. The French, in turn,
+attacked on the 15th of April near Douaumont, on the 28th north of Le
+Mort Homme. It was not until May that the new German tactics were
+revealed: vigorous, but partial, attacks, directed now against one
+point, now against another.
+
+[Sidenote: Artillery directed against Hill 304.]
+
+[Sidenote: Cumières and Le Mort Homme.]
+
+On May 4 there began a terrible artillery preparation, directed against
+Hill 304. This was followed by attacks of infantry, which surged up the
+shell-blasted slopes, first to the northwest, then north, and finally
+northeast. The attack of the 7th was made by three divisions of fresh
+troops which had not previously been in action before Verdun. No gains
+were secured. Every foot of ground taken in the first rush was
+recaptured by French counter-attacks. During the night of the 18th a
+savage onslaught was made against the woods of Avocourt, without the
+least success. On the 20th and 21st, three divisions were hurled against
+Le Mort Homme, which they finally took; but they could go no farther.
+The 23d and 24th were terrible days. The Germans stormed the village of
+Cumières; their advance guard penetrated as far as Chattancourt. On the
+26th, however, the French were again in possession of Cumières and the
+slopes of Le Mort Homme; and if the Germans, by means of violent
+counter-attacks, were able to get a fresh foothold in the ruins of
+Cumières, they made no attempt to progress farther. The battles of the
+left river-bank were now over; on this side of the Meuse there were to
+be only unimportant local engagements and the usual artillery fire.
+
+[Sidenote: Battles on right of Meuse.]
+
+[Sidenote: Mangin's division attacks.]
+
+This shift of the German offensive activity from the left side of the
+Meuse to the right is explained by the activity shown at the same time
+in this sector by the French. The French command was not deceived by the
+German tactics; they intended to husband their strength for the future
+Somme offensive. For them Verdun was a sacrificial sector to which they
+sent, from now on, few men, scant munitions, and only artillery of the
+older type. Their object was only to hold firm, at all costs. However,
+the generals in charge of this thankless task, Pétain and Nivelle,
+decided that the best defensive plan consisted in attacking the enemy.
+To carry this out, they selected a soldier bronzed on the battlefields
+of Central Africa, the Soudan, and Morocco, General Mangin, who
+commanded the 5th Division and had already played a distinguished part
+in the struggle for Vaux, in March. On May 21 Mangin's division attacked
+on the right bank of the Meuse and occupied the quarries of Haudromont;
+on the 22d it stormed the German lines for a length of two kilometres,
+and took the fort of Douaumont with the exception of one salient.
+
+The Germans replied to this with the greatest energy; for two days and
+nights the battle raged round the ruins of the fort. Finally, on the
+night of the 24th, two new Bavarian divisions succeeded in getting a
+footing in this position, to which the immediate approaches were held by
+the French. This vigorous effort alarmed the enemy, and from now on,
+until the middle of July, all their strength was focused on the right
+bank of the river.
+
+[Sidenote: The bloodiest chapter of the battle.]
+
+[Sidenote: Intense barrage-fire.]
+
+This contest of the right bank began on May 31. It is, perhaps the
+bloodiest, the most terrible, chapter of all the operations before
+Verdun; for the Germans had determined to capture methodically, one by
+one, all the French positions, and get to the city. The first stake of
+this game was the possession of the fort of Vaux. Access to it was cut
+off from the French by a barrage-fire of unprecedented intensity; at the
+same time an assault was made against the trenches flanking the fort,
+and also against the defenses of the Fumin woods. On June 4 the enemy
+reached the superstructure of the fort and took possession, showering
+down hand-grenades and asphyxiating gas on the garrison, which was shut
+up in the casemates. After a heroic resistance the defenders succumbed
+to thirst and surrendered on June 7.
+
+[Sidenote: Thiaumont changes hands repeatedly.]
+
+Now that Vaux was captured, the German activity was directed against the
+ruins of the small fort of Thiaumont, which blocks the way to the Côte
+de Froideterre, and against the village of Fleury, dominating the mouth
+of a ravine leading to the Meuse. From June 8 to 20, terrible fighting
+won for the Germans the possession of Thiaumont; on the 23d, six
+divisions, representing a total of at least 70,000 men, were hurled
+against Fleury, which they held from the 23d to the 26th. The French,
+undaunted, returned to the charge. On August 30 they reoccupied
+Thiaumont, lost it at half-past three of the same day, recaptured it at
+half-past four, and were again driven out two days later. However, they
+remained close to the redoubt and the village.
+
+[Sidenote: Battles in July.]
+
+The Germans then turned south, against the fortifications which
+dominated the ridges and ravines. There, on a hillock, stands the fort
+of Souville, at approximately the same elevation as Douaumont. On July
+3, they captured the battery of Damloup, to the east; on the 12th, after
+insignificant fighting, they sent forward a huge mass of troops which
+got as far as the fort and battery of L'Hôpital. A counterattack drove
+them away again, but they dug themselves in about 800 metres away.
+
+[Sidenote: Germans cannot win Verdun.]
+
+After all, what had they accomplished? For twelve days they had been
+confronted with the uselessness of these bloody sacrifices. Verdun was
+out of reach; the offensive of the Somme was under way, and the French
+stood before the gates of Péronne. Decidedly, the Battle of Verdun was
+lost. Neither the onslaught of the first period nor the battles of
+fixation had brought about the desired end. It now became impossible to
+squander on this field of death the munitions and troops which the
+German army needed desperately at Péronne and Bapaume. The leaders of
+the German General Staff accepted the situation. Verdun held no further
+interest for them.
+
+[Sidenote: French take the initiative.]
+
+[Sidenote: General Nivelle's blows.]
+
+Verdun, however, continued to be of great interest to the French. In the
+first place, they could not endure seeing the enemy intrenched five
+kilometres away from the coveted city. Moreover, it was most important
+for them to prevent the Germans from weakening the Verdun front and
+transferring their men and guns to the Somme. The French troops,
+therefore, were to take the initiative out of the hands of the Germans
+and inaugurate, in their turn, a battle of fixation. This new situation
+presented two phases: in July and August the French were satisfied to
+worry the enemy with small forces and to oblige them to fight; in
+October and December General Nivelle, well supplied with troops and
+material, was able to strike two vigorous blows which took back from the
+Germans the larger part of all the territory they had won since February
+21.
+
+From July 15 to September 15, furious fighting was in progress on the
+slopes of the plateau stretching from Thiaumont to Damloup. This time,
+however, it was the French who attacked savagely, who captured ground,
+and who took prisoners. So impetuous were they that their adversaries,
+who asked for nothing but quiet, were obliged to be constantly on their
+guard and deliver costly counter-attacks.
+
+[Sidenote: Contest again around Thiaumont.]
+
+[Sidenote: French colonials take Fleury.]
+
+The contest raged most bitterly over the ruins of Thiaumont and Fleury.
+On the 15th of July the Zouaves broke into the southern part of the
+village, only to be driven out again. However, on the 19th and 20th the
+French freed Souville, and drew near to Fleury; from the 20th to the
+26th they forged ahead step by step, taking 800 prisoners. A general
+attack, delivered on August 3, carried the fort of Thiaumont and the
+village of Fleury, with 1500 prisoners. The Germans reacted violently;
+the 4th of August they reoccupied Fleury, a part of which was taken back
+by the French that same evening. From the 5th to the 9th the struggle
+went on ceaselessly, night and day, in the ruins of the village. During
+this time the adversaries took and retook Thiaumont, which the Germans
+held after the 8th. But on the 10th the Colonial regiment from Morocco
+reached Fleury, carefully prepared the assault, delivered it on the
+17th, and captured the northern and southern portions of the village,
+encircling the central part, which they occupied on the 18th. From this
+day Fleury remained in French hands. The German counter-assaults of the
+18th, 19th, and 20th of August were fruitless; the Moroccan Colonials
+held their conquest firmly.
+
+[Sidenote: The French advance.]
+
+On the 24th the French began to advance east of Fleury, in spite of
+incessant attacks which grew more intense on the 28th. Three hundred
+prisoners were taken between Fleury and Thiaumont on September 3, and
+300 more fell into their hands in the woods of Vaux-Chapître. On the 9th
+they took 300 more before Fleury.
+
+
+[Sidenote: French programme carried out.]
+
+It may be seen that the French troops had thoroughly carried out the
+programme assigned to them of attacking the enemy relentlessly, obliging
+him to counter-attack, and _holding_ him at Verdun. But the High Command
+was to surpass itself. By means of sharp attacks, it proposed to carry
+the strong positions which the Germans had dearly bought, from February
+to July, at the price of five months of terrible effort. This new plan
+was destined to be accomplished on October 24 and December 15.
+
+[Sidenote: Four hundred millimeter guns.]
+
+[Sidenote: Excellent troops.]
+
+Verdun was no longer looked on by the French as a "sacrificial sector."
+To this attack of October 24, destined to establish once for all the
+superiority of the soldier of France, it was determined to consecrate
+all the time and all the energy that were found necessary. A force of
+artillery which General Nivelle himself declared to be of exceptional
+strength was brought into position--no old-fashioned ordnance this time,
+but magnificent new pieces, among them long-range guns of 400
+millimetres calibre. The Germans had fifteen divisions on the Verdun
+front, but the French command judged it sufficient to make the attack
+with three divisions, which advanced along a front of seven kilometres.
+These, however, were made up of excellent troops, withdrawn from
+service in the first lines and trained for several weeks, who knew every
+inch of the ground. General Mangin was their commander.
+
+[Sidenote: French offensive in October.]
+
+[Sidenote: Germans evacuate Ft. Vaux.]
+
+The French artillery opened fire on October 21, by hammering away at the
+enemy's positions. A feint attack forced the Germans to reveal the
+location of their batteries, more than 130 of which were discovered and
+silenced. At 11.40 a.m., October 24, the assault started in the fog. The
+troops advanced on the run, preceded by a barrage-fire. On the left, the
+objective points were reached at 2.45 p.m., and the village of Douaumont
+captured. The fort was stormed at 3 o'clock by the Moroccan Colonials,
+and the few Germans who held out there surrendered when night came on.
+On the right, the woods surrounding Vaux were rushed with lightning
+speed. The battery of Damloup was taken by assault. Vaux alone resisted.
+In order to reduce it, the artillery preparation was renewed from
+October 28 to November 2, and the Germans evacuated the fort without
+fighting on the morning of the 2d. As they retreated, the French
+occupied the villages of Vaux and Damloup, at the foot of the _côtes_.
+
+Thus the attack on Douaumont and Vaux resulted in a real victory,
+attested to by the reoccupation of all the ground lost since the 25th of
+February, the capture of 15 cannon and more than 6000 prisoners. This,
+too, despite the orders found on German prisoners bidding them to "hold
+out at all cost" (25th Division), and to "make a desperate defense" (von
+Lochow). The French command, encouraged by this success, decided to do
+still better and to push on farther to the northeast.
+
+[Sidenote: Operations in December.]
+
+[Sidenote: Roads and railways constructed.]
+
+The operations of December 15 were more difficult. They were directed
+against a zone occupied by the enemy for more than nine months, during
+which time he had constructed a great network of communication trenches,
+field-railways, dug-outs built into the hillsides, forts, and redoubts.
+Moreover, the French attacks had to start from unfavorable ground, where
+ceaseless fighting had been in progress since the end of February, where
+the soil, pounded by millions of projectiles, had been reduced to a sort
+of volcanic ash, transformed by the rain into a mass of sticky mud in
+which men had been swallowed up bodily. Two whole divisions were needed
+to construct twenty-five kilometres of roads and ten kilometres of
+railway, make dug-outs and trenches, and bring the artillery up into
+position. All was ready in five weeks; but the Germans, finding out what
+was in preparation, had provided formidable means of defense.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Verdun ends in victory for the French.]
+
+The front to be attacked was held by five German divisions. Four others
+were held in reserve at the rear. On the French side, General Mangin had
+four divisions, three of which were composed of picked men, veterans of
+Verdun. The artillery preparation, made chiefly by pieces of 220, 274,
+and 370 mm., lasted for three full days. The assault was let loose on
+December 15, at 10 a.m.; on the left the French objectives were reached
+by noon; the whole spur of Hardaumont on the right was swiftly captured,
+and only a part of the German centre still resisted, east of Bezonvaux.
+This was reduced the next day. The Côte du Poivre was taken entire;
+Vacherauville, Louvemont, Bezonvaux as well. The front was now three
+kilometres from the fort of Douaumont. Over 11,000 prisoners were taken
+by the French, and 115 cannon. For a whole day their reconnoitring
+parties were able to advance in front of the new lines, destroying
+batteries and bringing in prisoners, without encountering any serious
+resistance.
+
+The success was undeniable. As a reply to the German peace proposals of
+December 12, the Battle of Verdun ended as a real victory; and this
+magnificent operation, in which the French had shown such superiority in
+infantry and artillery, seemed to be a pledge of future triumphs.
+
+[Sidenote: German plans and their outcome.]
+
+The conclusion is easily reached. In February and March Germany wished
+to end the war by crushing the French army at Verdun. She failed
+utterly. Then, from April to July, she wished to exhaust French military
+resources by a battle of fixation. Again she failed. The Somme offensive
+was the offspring of Verdun. Later on, from July to December, she was
+not able to elude the grasp of the French, and the last engagements,
+together with the vain struggles of the Germans for six months, showed
+to what extent General Nivelle's men had won the upper hand.
+
+The Battle of Verdun, beginning as a brilliant German offensive, ended
+as an offensive victory for the French. And so this terrible drama is an
+epitome of the whole great war: a brief term of success for the Germans
+at the start, due to a tremendous preparation which took careless
+adversaries by surprise--terrible and agonizing first moments, soon
+offset by energy, heroism, and the spirit of sacrifice; and finally,
+victory for the Soldiers of Right.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On May 31st, 1916, there was fought in the North Sea off Jutland, the
+most important naval battle of the Great War. While the battle was
+undecisive in some of the results attained, it was an English victory,
+in that the Germans suffered greater losses and were forced to flee. The
+narrative of this battle which follows is by the Admiral of the British
+Fleet.
+
+
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND BANK
+
+ADMIRAL SIR JOHN JELLICOE'S OFFICIAL DISPATCH
+
+
+The German High Sea Fleet was brought to action on 31st May, 1916, to
+the westward of the Jutland Bank, off the coast of Denmark.
+
+[Sidenote: The Grand Fleet sweeping the sea.]
+
+The ships of the Grand Fleet, in pursuance of the general policy of
+periodical sweeps through the North Sea, had left its bases on the
+previous day, in accordance with instructions issued by me.
+
+[Sidenote: The British scouting force.]
+
+In the early afternoon of Wednesday, 31st May, the 1st and 2nd
+Battle-cruiser Squadrons, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Light-cruiser Squadrons, and
+destroyers from the 1st, 9th, 10th, and 13th Flotillas, supported by the
+5th Battle Squadron, were, in accordance with my directions, scouting to
+the southward of the Battle Fleet, which was accompanied by the 3rd
+Battle-cruiser Squadron, 1st and 2nd Cruiser Squadrons, 4th
+Light-cruiser Squadron, 4th, 11th, and 12th Flotillas.
+
+The junction of the Battle Fleet with the scouting force after the enemy
+had been sighted was delayed owing to the southerly course steered by
+our advanced force during the first hour after commencing their action
+with the enemy battle-cruisers. This was, of course, unavoidable, as had
+our battle-cruisers not followed the enemy to the southward the main
+fleets would never have been in contact.
+
+[Sidenote: Vice Admiral Beatty commands battle cruisers.]
+
+The Battle-cruiser Fleet, gallantly led by Vice-Admiral Sir David
+Beatty, K.C.B., M.V.O., D.S.O., and admirably supported by the ships of
+the Fifth Battle Squadron under Rear-Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas, M.V.O.,
+fought an action under, at times, disadvantageous conditions, especially
+in regard to light, in a manner that was in keeping with the best
+traditions of the service.
+
+The following extracts from the report of Sir David Beatty give the
+course of events before the Battle Fleet came upon the scene:
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy ships sighted.]
+
+"At 2.20 p.m. reports were received from _Galatea_ (Commodore Edwyn S.
+Alexander-Sinclair, M.V.O., A.D.C.), indicating the presence of enemy
+vessels. The direction of advance was immediately altered to SSE., the
+course for Horn Reef, so as to place my force between the enemy and his
+base.
+
+[Sidenote: The German force.]
+
+"At 2.35 p.m. a considerable amount of smoke was sighted to the
+eastward. This made it clear that the enemy was to the northward and
+eastward, and that it would be impossible for him to round the Horn Reef
+without being brought to action. Course was accordingly altered to the
+eastward and subsequently to north-eastward, the enemy being sighted at
+3.31 p.m. Their force consisted of five battle-cruisers.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle begins at long range.]
+
+"After the first report of the enemy, the 1st and 3rd Light-cruiser
+Squadrons changed their direction, and, without waiting for orders,
+spread to the east, thereby forming a screen in advance of the
+Battle-cruiser Squadrons and 5th Battle Squadron by the time we had
+hauled up to the course of approach. They engaged enemy light-cruisers
+at long range. In the meantime the 2nd Light-cruiser Squadron had come
+in at high speed, and was able to take station ahead of the
+battle-cruisers by the time we turned to ESE., the course on which we
+first engaged the enemy. In this respect the work of the Light-cruiser
+Squadrons was excellent, and of great value.
+
+[Sidenote: Scout reports enemy force considerable.]
+
+"From a report from _Galatea_ at 2.25 p.m. it was evident that the enemy
+force was considerable, and not merely an isolated unit of
+light-cruisers, so at 2.45 p.m. I ordered _Engadine_ to send up a
+seaplane and scout to NNE. This order was carried out very quickly, and
+by 3.8 p.m. a seaplane was well under way; her first reports of the
+enemy were received in _Engadine_ about 3.30 p.m. Owing to clouds it was
+necessary to fly very low, and in order to identify four enemy
+light-cruisers the seaplane had to fly at a height of 900 feet within
+3,000 yards of them, the light-cruisers opening fire on her with every
+gun that would bear.
+
+[Sidenote: Line of battle formed.]
+
+"At 3.30 p.m. I increased speed to 25 knots, and formed line of battle,
+the 2nd Battle-cruiser Squadron forming astern of the 1st Battle-cruiser
+Squadron, with destroyers of the 13th and 9th Flotillas taking station
+ahead. I turned to ESE., slightly converging on the enemy, who were now
+at a range of 23,000 yards, and formed the ships on a line of bearing to
+clear the smoke. The 5th Battle Squadron, who had conformed to our
+movements, were now bearing NNW., 10,000 yards. The visibility at this
+time was good, the sun behind us and the wind SE. Being between the
+enemy and his base, our situation was both tactically and strategically
+good.
+
+[Sidenote: Running fight to southward.]
+
+"At 3.48 p.m. the action commenced at a range of 18,500 yards, both
+forces opening fire practically simultaneously. Course was altered to
+the southward, and subsequently the mean direction was SSE., the enemy
+steering a parallel course distant about 18,000 to 14,500 yards.
+
+"At 4.8 p.m. the 5th Battle Squadron came into action and opened fire at
+a range of 20,000 yards. The enemy's fire now seemed to slacken. The
+destroyer _Landrail_, of 9th Flotilla, who was on our port beam, trying
+to take station ahead, sighted the periscope of a submarine on her port
+quarter. Though causing considerable inconvenience from smoke, the
+presence of _Lydiard_ and _Landrail_ undoubtedly preserved the
+battle-cruisers from closer submarine attack. _Nottingham_ also reported
+a submarine on the starboard beam.
+
+[Sidenote: Destroyers in action.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy torpedo attack frustrated.]
+
+"Eight destroyers of the 13th Flotilla, _Nestor_, _Nomad_, _Nicator_,
+_Narborough_, _Pelican_, _Petard_, _Obdurate_, _Nerissa_, with _Moorsom_
+and _Morris_, of 10th Flotilla, _Turbulent_ and _Termagant_, of the 9th
+Flotilla, having been ordered to attack the enemy with torpedoes when
+opportunity offered, moved out at 4.15 p.m., simultaneously with a
+similar movement on the part of the enemy Destroyers. The attack was
+carried out in the most gallant manner, and with great determination.
+Before arriving at a favorable position to fire torpedoes, they
+intercepted an enemy force consisting of a light-cruiser and fifteen
+destroyers. A fierce engagement ensued at close quarters, with the
+result that the enemy were forced to retire on their battle-cruisers,
+having lost two destroyers sunk, and having their torpedo attack
+frustrated. Our destroyers sustained no loss in this engagement, but
+their attack on the enemy battle-cruisers was rendered less effective,
+owing to some of the destroyers having dropped astern during the fight.
+Their position was therefore unfavorable for torpedo attack.
+
+[Sidenote: Destroyers attack battleships.]
+
+"_Nestor_, _Nomad_, and _Nicator_ pressed home their attack on the
+battle-cruisers and fired two torpedoes at them, being subjected to a
+heavy fire from the enemy's secondary armament. _Nomad_ was badly hit,
+and apparently remained stopped between the lines. Subsequently _Nestor_
+and _Nicator_ altered course to the SE., and in a short time, the
+opposing battle-cruisers having turned 16 points, found themselves
+within close range of a number of enemy battleships. Nothing daunted,
+though under a terrific fire, they stood on, and their position being
+favorable for torpedo attack fired a torpedo at the second ship of the
+enemy line at a range of 3,000 yards. Before they could fire their
+fourth torpedo, _Nestor_ was badly hit and swung to starboard, _Nicator_
+altering course inside her to avoid collision, and thereby being
+prevented from firing the last torpedo. _Nicator_ made good her escape.
+_Nestor_ remained stopped, but was afloat when last seen. _Moorsom_ also
+carried out an attack on the enemy's battle fleet.
+
+[Sidenote: Officers of destroyers commended for gallantry.]
+
+"_Petard_, _Nerissa_, _Turbulent_, and _Termagant_ also pressed home
+their attack on the enemy battle cruisers, firing torpedoes after the
+engagement with enemy destroyers. _Petard_ reports that all her
+torpedoes must have crossed the enemy's line, while _Nerissa_ states
+that one torpedo appeared to strike the rear ship. These destroyer
+attacks were indicative of the spirit pervading His Majesty's Navy, and
+were worthy of its highest traditions. I propose to bring to your notice
+a recommendation of Commander Bingham and other Officers for some
+recognition of their conspicuous gallantry.
+
+[Sidenote: Visibility reduced.]
+
+"From 4.15 to 4.43 p.m. the conflict between the opposing
+battle-cruisers was of a very fierce and resolute character. The 5th
+Battle Squadron was engaging the enemy's rear ships, unfortunately at
+very long range. Our fire began to tell, the accuracy and rapidity of
+that of the enemy depreciating considerably. At 4.18 p.m. the third
+enemy ship was seen to be on fire. The visibility to the north-eastward
+had become considerably reduced, and the outline of the ships very
+indistinct.
+
+[Sidenote: Closing with the enemy's Battle Fleet.]
+
+"At 4.38 p.m. _Southampton_ reported the enemy's Battle Fleet ahead. The
+destroyers were recalled, and at 4.42 p.m. the enemy's Battle Fleet was
+sighted SE. Course was altered 16 points in succession to starboard, and
+I proceeded on a northerly course to lead them towards the Battle Fleet.
+The enemy battle-cruisers altered course shortly afterwards, and the
+action continued. _Southampton_, with the 2nd Light-cruiser Squadron,
+held on to the southward to observe. They closed to within 13,000 yards
+of the enemy Battle Fleet, and came under a very heavy but ineffective
+fire. _Southampton's_ reports were most valuable. The 5th Battle
+Squadron were now closing on an opposite course and engaging the enemy
+battle-cruisers with all guns. The position of the enemy Battle Fleet
+was communicated to them, and I ordered them to alter course 16 points.
+Led by Rear-Admiral Evan-Thomas, in _Barham_, this squadron supported us
+brilliantly and effectively.
+
+"At 4.57 p.m. the 5th Battle Squadron turned up astern of me and came
+under the fire of the leading ships of the enemy Battle Fleet.
+_Fearless_, with the destroyers of 1st Flotilla, joined the
+battle-cruisers, and, when speed admitted, took station ahead.
+_Champion_, with 13th Flotilla, took station on the 5th Battle Squadron.
+At 5 p.m. the 1st and 3rd Light-cruiser Squadrons, which had been
+following me on the southerly course, took station on my starboard bow;
+the 2nd Light-cruiser Squadron took station on my port quarter.
+
+[Sidenote: Weather conditions unfavorable.]
+
+[Sidenote: Following a northerly course.]
+
+[Sidenote: An enemy ship on fire.]
+
+"The weather conditions now became unfavorable, our ships being
+silhouetted against a clear horizon to the westward, while the enemy
+were for the most part obscured by mist, only showing up clearly at
+intervals. These conditions prevailed until we had turned their van at
+about 6 p.m. Between 5 and 6 p.m. the action continued on a northerly
+course, the range being about 14,000 yards. During this time the enemy
+received very severe punishment, and one of their battle-cruisers
+quitted the line in a considerably damaged condition. This came under my
+personal observation, and was corroborated by _Princess Royal_ and
+_Tiger_. Other enemy ships also showed signs of increasing injury. At
+5.5 p.m. _Onslow_ and _Moresby_, who had been detached to assist
+_Engadine_ with the seaplane, rejoined the battle-cruiser squadrons and
+took station on the starboard (engaged) bow of _Lion_. At 5.10 p.m.
+_Moresby_, being 2 points before the beam of the leading enemy ship,
+fired a torpedo at a ship in their line. Eight minutes later she
+observed a hit with a torpedo on what was judged to be the sixth ship in
+the line. _Moresby_ then passed between the lines to clear the range of
+smoke, and rejoined _Champion_. In corroboration of this, _Fearless_
+reports having seen an enemy heavy ship heavily on fire at about 5.10
+p.m., and shortly afterwards a huge cloud of smoke and steam.
+
+[Sidenote: Range of 14,000 yards.]
+
+"At 5.35 p.m. our course was NNE., and the estimated position of the
+Battle Fleet was N. 16 W., so we gradually hauled to the north-eastward,
+keeping the range of the enemy at 14,000 yards. He was gradually hauling
+to the eastward, receiving severe punishment at the head of his line,
+and probably acting on information received from his light-cruisers
+which had sighted and were engaged with the Third Battle-cruiser
+Squadron. Possibly Zeppelins were present also.
+
+[Sidenote: British Battle Fleet sighted.]
+
+"At 5.50 p.m. British cruisers were sighted on the port bow, and at 5.56
+p.m. the leading battleships of the Battle Fleet, bearing north 5 miles.
+I thereupon altered course to east, and proceeded at utmost speed. This
+brought the range of the enemy down to 12,000 yards. I made a report to
+you that the enemy battle-cruisers bore south-east. At this time only
+three of the enemy battle-cruisers were visible, closely followed by
+battleships of the _Koenig_ class.
+
+[Sidenote: Torpedo attack on enemy Battle Fleet.]
+
+"At about 6.5 p.m. _Onslow_, being on the engaged bow of _Lion_, sighted
+an enemy light-cruiser at a distance of 6,000 yards from us, apparently
+endeavoring to attack with torpedoes. _Onslow_ at once closed and
+engaged her, firing 58 rounds at a range of from 4,000 to 2,000 yards,
+scoring a number of hits. _Onslow_ then closed the enemy
+battle-cruisers, and orders were given for all torpedoes to be fired. At
+this moment she was struck amidships by a heavy shell, with the result
+that only one torpedo was fired. Thinking that all his torpedoes had
+gone, the Commanding Officer proceeded to retire at slow speed. Being
+informed that he still had three torpedoes, he closed with the
+light-cruiser previously engaged and torpedoed her. The enemy's Battle
+Fleet was then sighted, and the remaining torpedoes were fired at them
+and must have crossed the enemy's track. Damage then caused _Onslow_ to
+stop.
+
+        "At 7.15 p.m. _Defender_, whose speed had been
+        reduced to 10 knots, while on the disengaged
+        side of the battle-cruisers, by a shell which
+        damaged her foremost boiler, closed _Onslow_
+        and took her in tow. Shells were falling all
+        round them during this operation, which,
+        however, was successfully accomplished. During
+        the heavy weather of the ensuing night the tow
+        parted twice, but was re-secured. The two
+        struggled on together until 1 p.m., 1st June,
+        when _Onslow_ was transferred to tugs."
+
+[Sidenote: Course of the British Battle Fleet.]
+
+On receipt of the information that the enemy had been sighted, the
+British Battle Fleet, with its accompanying cruiser and destroyer force,
+proceeded at full speed on a SE. by S. course to close the
+Battle-cruiser Fleet. During the two hours that elapsed before the
+arrival of the Battle Fleet on the scene the steaming qualities of the
+older battleships were severely tested. Great credit is due to the
+engine-room departments for the manner in which they, as always,
+responded to the call, the whole Fleet maintaining a speed in excess of
+the trial speeds of some of the older vessels.
+
+[Sidenote: The Third Battle-cruiser Squadron.]
+
+The Third Battle-cruiser Squadron, commanded by Rear-Admiral the Hon.
+Horace L.A. Hood, C.B., M.V.O., D.S.O., which was in advance of the
+Battle Fleet, was ordered to reinforce Sir David Beatty. At 5.30 p.m.
+this squadron observed flashes of gunfire and heard the sound of guns to
+the south-westward. Rear-Admiral Hood sent the _Chester_ to investigate,
+and this ship engaged three or four enemy light-cruisers at about 5.45
+p.m. The engagement lasted for about twenty minutes, during which period
+Captain Lawson handled his vessel with great skill against heavy odds,
+and, although the ship suffered considerably in casualties, her fighting
+and steaming qualities were unimpaired, and at about 6.5 p.m. she
+rejoined the Third Battle-cruiser Squadron.
+
+The Third Battle-cruiser Squadron had turned to the north-westward, and
+at 6.10 p.m. sighted our battle-cruisers, the squadron taking station
+ahead of the _Lion_ at 6.21 p.m. in accordance with the orders of the
+Vice-Admiral Commanding Battle-cruiser Fleet. He reports as follows:
+
+[Sidenote: Hood's squadron takes station ahead.]
+
+"I ordered them to take station ahead, which was carried out
+magnificently, Rear-Admiral Hood bringing his squadron into action ahead
+in a most inspiring manner, worthy of his great naval ancestors. At 6.25
+p.m. I altered course to the ESE. in support of the Third Battle-cruiser
+Squadron, who were at this time only 8,000 yards from the enemy's
+leading ship. They were pouring a hot fire into her and caused her to
+turn to the westward of south. At the same time I made a report to you
+of the bearing and distance of the enemy battle-fleet.
+
+[Sidenote: Low visibility hinders both fleets.]
+
+"By 6.50 p.m. the battle-cruisers were clear of our leading battle
+squadron then bearing about NNW. 3 miles, and I ordered the Third
+Battle-cruiser Squadron to prolong the line astern and reduced to 18
+knots. The visibility at this time was very indifferent, not more than 4
+miles, and the enemy ships were temporarily lost sight of. It is
+interesting to note that after 6 p.m., although the visibility became
+reduced, it was undoubtedly more favorable to us than to the enemy. At
+intervals their ships showed up clearly, enabling us to punish them very
+severely and establish a definite superiority over them. From the report
+of other ships and my own observation it was clear that the enemy
+suffered considerable damage, battle-cruisers and battleships alike. The
+head of their line was crumpled up, leaving battleships as targets for
+the majority of our battle-cruisers. Before leaving us the Fifth Battle
+Squadron was also engaging battleships. The report of Rear-Admiral
+Evan-Thomas shows that excellent results were obtained, and it can be
+safely said that his magnificent squadron wrought great execution.
+
+[Sidenote: Light cruisers attack heavy enemy ships.]
+
+"From the report of Rear-Admiral T. D. W. Napier, M.V.O., the Third
+Light-cruiser Squadron, which had maintained its station on our
+starboard bow well ahead of the enemy, at 6.25 p.m. attacked with the
+torpedo. _Falmouth_ and _Yarmouth_ both fired torpedoes at the leading
+enemy battle-cruiser, and it is believed that one torpedo hit, as a
+heavy underwater explosion was observed. The Third Light-cruiser
+Squadron then gallantly attacked the heavy ships with gunfire, with
+impunity to themselves, thereby demonstrating that the fighting
+efficiency of the enemy had been seriously impaired. Rear-Admiral Napier
+deserves great credit for his determined and effective attack.
+_Indomitable_ reports that about this time one of the _Derfflinger_
+class fell out of the enemy's line."
+
+[Sidenote: Ships hard to distinguish in the mist.]
+
+Meanwhile, at 5.45 p.m., the report of guns had become audible to me,
+and at 5.55 p.m. flashes were visible from ahead round to the starboard
+beam, although in the mist no ships could be distinguished, and the
+position of the enemy's battle fleet could not be determined. The
+difference in estimated position by "reckoning" between _Iron Duke_ and
+_Lion_, which was inevitable under the circumstances, added to the
+uncertainty of the general situation.
+
+Shortly after 5.55 p.m. some of the cruisers ahead, under Rear-Admirals
+Herbert L. Heath, M.V.O., and Sir Robert Arbuthnot, Bt., M.V.O., were
+seen to be in action, and reports received show that _Defence_,
+flagship, and _Warrior_, of the First Cruiser Squadron, engaged an enemy
+light-cruiser at this time. She was subsequently observed to sink.
+
+At 6 p.m. _Canterbury_, which ship was in company with the Third
+Battle-cruiser Squadron, had engaged enemy light-cruisers which were
+firing heavily on the torpedo-boat destroyer _Shark_, _Acasta_, and
+_Christopher_; as a result of this engagement the _Shark_ was sunk.
+
+At 6 p.m. vessels, afterwards seen to be our battle-cruisers, were
+sighted by _Marlborough_ bearing before the starboard beam of the battle
+fleet.
+
+At the same time the Vice-Admiral Commanding, Battle-cruiser Fleet,
+reported to me the position of the enemy battle-cruisers, and at 6.14
+p.m. reported the position of the enemy battle fleet.
+
+At this period, when the battle fleet was meeting the battle-cruisers
+and the Fifth Battle Squadron, great care was necessary to ensure that
+our own ships were not mistaken for enemy vessels.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle Fleet in line of battle.]
+
+I formed the battle fleet in line of battle on receipt of Sir David
+Beatty's report, and during deployment the fleets became engaged. Sir
+David Beatty had meanwhile formed the battle-cruisers ahead of the
+battle-fleet.
+
+[Sidenote: Commanders of the divisions of the Battle Fleet.] The
+divisions of the battle fleet were led by:
+
+    The Commander-in-Chief.
+    Vice-Admiral Sir Cecil Burney, K.C.B., K.C.M.G.
+    Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Jerram, K.C.B.
+    Vice-Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee, Bt., K.C.B., C.V.O., C.M.G.
+    Rear-Admiral Alexander L. Duff, C.B.
+    Rear-Admiral Arthur C. Leveson, C.B.
+    Rear-Admiral Ernest F. A. Gaunt, C.M.G.
+
+At 6.16 p.m. _Defence_ and _Warrior_ were observed passing down between
+the British and German Battle Fleets under a very heavy fire. _Defence_
+disappeared, and _Warrior_ passed to rear disabled.
+
+[Sidenote: Arbuthnot's ships disabled.]
+
+It is probable that Sir Robert Arbuthnot, during his engagement with the
+enemy's light-cruisers and in his desire to complete their destruction,
+was not aware of the approach of the enemy's heavy ships, owing to the
+mist, until he found himself in close proximity to the main fleet, and
+before he could withdraw his ships they were caught under a heavy fire
+and disabled. It is not known when _Black Prince_ of the same squadron,
+was sunk, but a wireless signal was received from her between 8 and 9
+p.m.
+
+The First Battle Squadron became engaged during deployment, the
+Vice-Admiral opening fire at 6.17 p.m. on a battleship of the _Kaiser_
+class. The other Battle Squadrons, which had previously been firing at
+an enemy light cruiser, opened fire at 6.30 p.m. on battleships of the
+_Koenig_ class.
+
+[Sidenote: Accident to the _Warspite_.]
+
+At 6.6 p.m. the Rear-Admiral Commanding Fifth Battle Squadron, then in
+company with the battle-cruisers, had sighted the starboard
+wing-division of the battle-fleet on the port bow of _Barham_, and the
+first intention of Rear-Admiral Evan-Thomas was to form ahead of the
+remainder of the battle-fleet, but on realizing the direction of
+deployment he was compelled to form astern, a man[oe]uvre which was well
+executed by the squadron under a heavy fire from the enemy battle-fleet.
+An accident to _Warspite's_ steering gear caused her helm to become
+jammed temporarily and took the ship in the direction of the enemy's
+line, during which time she was hit several times. Clever handling
+enabled Captain Edward M. Phillpotts to extricate his ship from a
+somewhat awkward situation.
+
+Owing principally to the mist, but partly to the smoke, it was possible
+to see only a few ships at a time in the enemy's battle line. Towards
+the van only some four or five ships were ever visible at once. More
+could be seen from the rear squadron, but never more than eight to
+twelve.
+
+[Sidenote: Action at shorter ranges.]
+
+The action between the battle-fleets lasted intermittently from 6.17
+p.m. to 8.20 p.m. at ranges between 9,000 and 12,000 yards, during which
+time the British Fleet made alterations of course from SE. by E. by W.
+in the endeavour to close. The enemy constantly turned away and opened
+the range under cover of destroyer attacks and smoke screens as the
+effect of the British fire was felt, and the alterations of course had
+the effect of bringing the British Fleet (which commenced the action in
+a position of advantage on the bow of the enemy) to a quarterly bearing
+from the enemy battle line, but at the same time placed us between the
+enemy and his bases.
+
+[Sidenote: Wreck of the _Invincible_.]
+
+At 6.55 p.m. _Iron Duke_ passed the wreck of _Invincible_, with Badger
+standing by.
+
+During the somewhat brief periods that the ships of the High Sea Fleet
+were visible through the mist, the heavy and effective fire kept up by
+the battleships and battle-cruisers of the Grand Fleet caused me much
+satisfaction, and the enemy vessels were seen to be constantly hit, some
+being observed to haul out of the line and at least one to sink. The
+enemy's return fire at this period was not effective, and the damage
+caused to our ships was insignificant.
+
+[Sidenote: Course of the Battle Fleet.]
+
+Regarding the battle-cruisers, Sir David Beatty reports:--
+
+"At 7.6 p.m. I received a signal from you that the course of the Fleet
+was south. Subsequently signals were received up to 8.46 p.m. showing
+that the course of the Battle Fleet was to the southwestward.
+
+[Sidenote: Visibility improves.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy destroyers make smoke screen.]
+
+"Between 7 and 7.12 p.m. we hauled round gradually to SW. by S. to
+regain touch with the enemy, and at 7.14 p.m. again sighted them at a
+range of about 15,000 yards. The ships sighted at this time were two
+battle-cruisers and two battleships, apparently of the _Koenig_ class.
+No doubt more continued the line to the northward, but that was all that
+could be seen. The visibility having improved considerably as the sun
+descended below the clouds, we re-engaged at 7.17 p.m. and increased
+speed to 22 knots. At 7.32 p.m. my course was SW., speed 18 knots, the
+leading enemy battleship bearing NW. by W. Again, after a very short
+time, the enemy showed signs of punishment, one ship being on fire,
+while another appeared to drop right astern. The destroyers at the head
+of the enemy's line emitted volumes of grey smoke, covering their
+capital ships as with a pall, under cover of which they turned away, and
+at 7.45 p.m. we lost sight of them.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy steams to westward.]
+
+"At 7.58 p.m. I ordered the First and Third Light-cruiser Squadrons to
+sweep to the westward and locate the head of the enemy's line, and at
+8.20 p.m. we altered course to west in support. We soon located two
+battle-cruisers and battleships, and were heavily engaged at a short
+range of about 10,000 yards. The leading ship was hit repeatedly by
+_Lion_, and turned away eight points, emitting very high flames and with
+a heavy list to port. _Princess Royal_ set fire to a three-funnelled
+battleship. _New Zealand_ and _Indomitable_ report that the third ship,
+which they both engaged, hauled out of the line, heeling over and on
+fire. The mist which now came down enveloped them, and _Falmouth_
+reported they were last seen at 8.38 p.m. steaming to the westward.
+
+[Sidenote: Shock felt.]
+
+"At 8.40 p.m. all our battle-cruisers felt a heavy shock as if struck by
+a mine or torpedo, or possibly sunken wreckage. As however, examination
+of the bottoms reveals no sign of such an occurrence, it is assumed that
+it indicated the blowing up of a great vessel.
+
+"I continued on a south-westerly course with my light cruisers spread
+until 9.24 p.m. Nothing further being sighted, I assumed that the enemy
+were to the north-westward, and that we had established ourselves well
+between him and his base. _Minotaur_ (Captain Arthur C. S. H. D'Aeth)
+was at this time bearing north 5 miles, and I asked her the position of
+the leading battle squadron of the Battle Fleet. Her reply was that it
+was in sight, but was last seen bearing NNE. I kept you informed of my
+position, course, and speed, also of the bearing of the enemy.
+
+[Sidenote: Expectation of locating enemy at daybreak.]
+
+"In view of the gathering darkness, and the fact that our strategical
+position was such as to make it appear certain that we should locate the
+enemy at daylight under most favorable circumstances, I did not consider
+it desirable or proper to close the enemy Battle Fleet during the dark
+hours. I therefore concluded that I should be carrying out your wishes
+by turning to the course of the Fleet, reporting to you that I had done
+so."
+
+[Sidenote: German torpedo attacks ineffective.]
+
+As was anticipated, the German Fleet appeared to rely very much on
+torpedo attacks, which were favored by the low visibility and by the
+fact that we had arrived in the position of a "following" or "chasing"
+fleet. A large number of torpedoes were apparently fired, but only one
+took effect (on _Marlborough_), and even in this case the ship was able
+to remain in the line and to continue the action. The enemy's efforts to
+keep out of effective gun range were aided by the weather conditions,
+which were ideal for the purpose. Two separate destroyer attacks were
+made by the enemy.
+
+[Sidenote: _Marlborough_ hit by a torpedo.]
+
+[Sidenote: Hits on enemy ships.]
+
+The First Battle Squadron, under Vice-Admiral Sir Cecil Burney, came
+into action at 6.17 p.m. with the enemy's Third Battle Squadron, at a
+range of about 11,000 yards, and administered severe punishment, both to
+the battleships and to the battle-cruisers and light-cruisers, which
+were also engaged. The fire of _Marlborough_ was particularly rapid and
+effective. This ship commenced at 6.17 p.m. by firing seven salvoes at a
+ship of the _Kaiser_ class, then engaged a cruiser, and again a
+battleship, and at 6.54 she was hit by a torpedo and took up a
+considerable list to starboard, but we opened at 7.3 p.m. at a cruiser
+and at 7.12 p.m. fired fourteen rapid salvoes at a ship of the _Koenig_
+class, hitting her frequently until she turned out of the line. The
+manner in which this effective fire was kept up in spite of the
+disadvantages due to the injury caused by the torpedo was most
+creditable to the ship and a very fine example to the squadron.
+
+The range decreased during the course of the action to 9,000 yards. The
+First Battle Squadron received more of the enemy's return fire than the
+remainder of the battle-fleet, with the exception of the Fifth Battle
+Squadron. _Colossus_ was hit, but was not seriously damaged, and other
+ships were straddled with fair frequency.
+
+[Sidenote: Range-taking difficult.]
+
+In the Fourth Battle Squadron--in which squadron my flagship _Iron Duke_
+was placed--Vice-Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee leading one of the
+divisions--the enemy engaged was the squadron consisting of the _Koenig_
+and _Kaiser_ class and some of the battle-cruisers, as well as disabled
+cruisers and light-cruisers. The mist rendered range-taking a difficult
+matter, but the fire of the squadron was effective. _Iron Duke_, having
+previously fired at a light-cruiser between the lines, opened fire at
+6.30 p.m. on a battleship of the _Koenig_ class at a range of 12,000
+yards. The latter was very quickly straddled, and hitting commenced at
+the second salvo and only ceased when the target ship turned away.
+
+[Sidenote: Firing at enemy battle cruisers.] The fire of other ships of
+the squadron was principally directed at enemy battle-cruisers and
+cruisers as they appeared out of the mist. Hits were observed to take
+effect on several ships.
+
+The ships of the Second Battle Squadron, under Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas
+Jerram, were in action with vessels of the _Kaiser_ or _Koenig_ classes
+between 6.30 and 7.20 p.m., and fired also at an enemy battle-cruiser
+which had dropped back apparently severely damaged.
+
+During the action between the battle fleets the Second Cruiser Squadron,
+ably commanded by Rear-Admiral Herbert L. Heath, M.V.O., with the
+addition of _Duke of Edinburgh_ of the First Cruiser Squadron, occupied
+a position at the van, and acted as a connecting link between the battle
+fleet and the battle-cruiser fleet. This squadron, although it carried
+out useful work, did not have an opportunity of coming into action.
+
+The attached cruisers _Boadicea_, _Active_, _Blanche_ and _Bellona_
+carried out their duties as repeating-ships with remarkable rapidity and
+accuracy under difficult conditions.
+
+[Sidenote: Light cruisers attack with torpedoes.]
+
+The Fourth Light-cruiser Squadron, under Commodore Charles E. Le
+Mesurier, occupied a position in the van until ordered to attack enemy
+destroyers at 7.20 p.m., and again at 8.18 p.m., when they supported the
+Eleventh Flotilla, which had moved out under Commodore James R. P.
+Hawksley, M.V.O., to attack. On each occasion the Fourth Light-cruiser
+Squadron was very well handled by Commodore Le Mesurier, his captains
+giving him excellent support, and their object was attained, although
+with some loss in the second attack, when the ships came under the heavy
+fire of the enemy battle fleet at between 6,500 and 8,000 yards. The
+_Calliope_ was hit several times, but did not sustain serious damage,
+although I regret to say she had several casualties. The light-cruisers
+attacked the enemy's battleships with torpedoes at this time, and an
+explosion on board a ship of the _Kaiser_ class was seen at 8.40 p.m.
+
+During these destroyer attacks four enemy torpedo-boat destroyers were
+sunk by the gunfire of battleships, light-cruisers, and destroyers.
+
+After the arrival of the British Battle Fleet the enemy's tactics were
+of a nature generally to avoid further action, in which they were
+favored by the conditions of visibility.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy entirely out of sight.]
+
+At 9 p.m. the enemy was entirely out of sight, and the threat of
+torpedo-boat-destroyer attacks during the rapidly approaching darkness
+made it necessary for me to dispose the fleet for the night, with a view
+to its safety from such attacks, whilst providing for a renewal of
+action at daylight. I accordingly man[oe]uvred to remain between the
+enemy and his bases, placing our flotillas in a position in which they
+would afford protection to the fleet from destroyer attack, and at the
+same time be favorably situated for attacking the enemy's heavy ships.
+
+During the night the British heavy ships were not attacked, but the
+Fourth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Flotillas, under Commodore Hawksley and
+Captains Charles J. Wintour and Anselan J. B. Stirling, delivered a
+series of very gallant and successful attacks on the enemy, causing him
+heavy losses.
+
+[Sidenote: Severe losses in the Fourth Flotilla.]
+
+It was during these attacks that severe losses in the Fourth Flotilla
+occurred, including that of _Tipperary_, with the gallant leader of the
+Flotilla, Captain Wintour. He had brought his flotilla to a high pitch
+of perfection, and although suffering severely from the fire of the
+enemy, a heavy toll of enemy vessels was taken, and many gallant actions
+were performed by the flotilla.
+
+Two torpedoes were seen to take effect on enemy vessels as the result of
+the attacks of the Fourth Flotilla, one being from _Spitfire_, and the
+other from either _Ardent_, _Ambuscade_, or _Garland_.
+
+[Sidenote: An enemy ship torpedoed.]
+
+The attack carried out by the Twelfth Flotilla was admirably executed.
+The squadron attacked, which consisted of six large vessels, besides
+light-cruisers, and comprised vessels of the _Kaiser_ class, was taken
+by surprise. A large number of torpedoes was fired, including some at
+the second and third ships in the line; those fired at the third ship
+took effect, and she was observed to blow up. A second attack, made
+twenty minutes later by _Mænad_ on the five vessels still remaining,
+resulted in the fourth ship in the line being also hit.
+
+The destroyers were under a heavy fire from the light-cruisers on
+reaching the rear of the line, but the _Onslaught_ was the only vessel
+which received any material injuries. In the _Onslaught_ Sub-Lieutenant
+Harry W. A. Kemmis, assisted by Midshipman Reginald G. Arnot, R.N.R.,
+the only executive officers not disabled, brought the ship successfully
+out of action and reached her home port.
+
+During the attack carried out by the Eleventh Flotilla, _Castor_ leading
+the flotilla, engaged and sank an enemy torpedo-boat-destroyer at
+point-blank range.
+
+Sir David Beatty reports:--
+
+[Sidenote: Engaging enemy destroyers.]
+
+"The Thirteenth Flotilla, under the command of Captain James U. Farie,
+in _Champion_, took station astern of the battle fleet for the night. At
+0.30 a.m. on Thursday, 1st June, a large vessel crossed the rear of the
+flotilla at high speed. She passed close to _Petard_ and _Turbulent_,
+switched on searchlights and opened a heavy fire, which disabled
+_Turbulent_. At 3.30 a.m. _Champion_ was engaged for a few minutes with
+four enemy destroyers. _Moresby_ reports four ships of _Deutschland_
+class sighted at 2.35 a.m., at whom she fired one torpedo. Two minutes
+later an explosion was felt by _Moresby_ and _Obdurate_.
+
+[Sidenote: Battleship of the _Kaiser_ class alone.]
+
+"_Fearless_ and the 1st Flotilla were very usefully employed as a
+submarine screen during the earlier part of the 31st May. At 6.10 p.m.,
+when joining the Battle Fleet, _Fearless_ was unable to follow the
+battle cruisers without fouling the battleships, and therefore took
+station at the rear of the line. She sighted during the night a
+battleship of the _Kaiser_ class steaming fast and entirely alone. She
+was not able to engage her, but believes she was attacked by destroyers
+further astern. A heavy explosion was observed astern not long after."
+
+[Sidenote: Deeds of the destroyers.]
+
+There were many gallant deeds performed by the destroyer flotillas; they
+surpassed the very highest expectations that I had formed of them.
+
+Apart from the proceedings of the flotillas, the Second Light-cruiser
+Squadron in the rear of the battle fleet was in close action for about
+15 minutes at 10.20 p.m. with a squadron comprising one enemy cruiser
+and four light-cruisers, during which period _Southampton_ and _Dublin_
+suffered rather heavy casualties, although their steaming and fighting
+qualities were not impaired. The return fire of the squadron appeared to
+be very effective.
+
+_Abdiel_, ably commanded by Commander Berwick Curtis, carried out her
+duties with the success which has always characterized her work.
+
+[Sidenote: The Battle Fleet searches for enemy vessels.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Marlborough_ sent to a base.]
+
+[Sidenote: The enemy had returned into port.]
+
+At daylight, 1st June, the battle fleet, being then to the southward and
+westward of the Horn Reef, turned to the northward in search of enemy
+vessels and for the purpose of collecting our own cruisers and
+torpedo-boat destroyers. At 2.30 a.m. Vice-Admiral Sir Cecil Burney
+transferred his flag from _Marlborough_ to _Revenge_, as the former ship
+had some difficulty in keeping up the speed of the squadron.
+_Marlborough_ was detached by my direction to a base, successfully
+driving off an enemy submarine attack en route. The visibility early on
+1st June (three to four miles) was less than on 31st May, and the
+torpedo-boat destroyers, being out of visual touch, did not rejoin until
+9 a.m. The British Fleet remained in the proximity of the battle-field
+and near the line of approach to German ports until 11 a.m. on 1st June,
+in spite of the disadvantage of long distances from fleet bases and the
+danger incurred in waters adjacent to enemy coasts from submarines and
+torpedo craft. The enemy, however, made no sign, and I was reluctantly
+compelled to the conclusion that the High Sea Fleet had returned into
+port. Subsequent events proved this assumption to have been correct. Our
+position must have been known to the enemy, as at 4 a.m. the Fleet
+engaged a Zeppelin for about five minutes, during which time she had
+ample opportunity to note and subsequently report the position and
+course of the British Fleet.
+
+[Sidenote: Large amount of wreckage.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Warrior_ evidently foundered.]
+
+The waters from the latitude of the Horn Reef to the scene of the action
+were thoroughly searched, and some survivors from the destroyers
+_Ardent_, _Fortune_, and _Tipperary_ were picked up, and the
+_Sparrowhawk_, which had been in collision and was no longer seaworthy,
+was sunk after her crew had been taken off. A large amount of wreckage
+was seen, but no enemy ships, and at 1.15 p.m., it being evident that
+the German Fleet had succeeded in returning to port, course was shaped
+for our bases, which were reached without further incident on Friday,
+2nd June. A cruiser squadron was detached to search for _Warrior_, which
+vessel had been abandoned whilst in tow of _Engadine_ on her way to the
+base owing to bad weather setting in and the vessel becoming
+unseaworthy, but no trace of her was discovered, and a further
+subsequent search by a light-cruiser squadron having failed to locate
+her, it is evident that she foundered.
+
+[Sidenote: Low visibility hinders accurate report of damage.]
+
+The conditions of low visibility under which the day action took place
+and the approach of darkness enhance the difficulty of giving an
+accurate report of the damage inflicted or the names of the ships sunk
+by our forces, but after a most careful examination of the evidence of
+all officers, who testified to seeing enemy vessels actually sink, and
+personal interviews with a large number of these officers, I am of
+opinion that the list shown in the enclosure gives the minimum in regard
+to numbers, though it is possibly not entirely accurate as regards the
+particular class of vessel, especially those which were sunk during the
+night attacks. In addition to the vessels sunk, it is unquestionable
+that many other ships were very seriously damaged by gunfire and by
+torpedo attack.
+
+[Sidenote: British ships lost in the battle.]
+
+I deeply regret to report the loss of H.M. ships:
+
+    1. _Queen Mary_, Battle-cruiser, 27,000 tons.
+    2. _Indefatigable_, Battle-cruiser, 18,750 tons.
+    3. _Invincible_, Battle-cruiser, 17,250 tons.
+    4. _Defence_, Armored cruiser, 14,600 tons.
+    5. _Black Prince_, Armored cruiser, 13,550 tons.
+    6. _Warrior_, Armored cruiser, 13,550 tons.
+    7. _Tipperary_, Destroyer, 1,430 tons.
+    8. _Ardent_, Destroyer, 935 tons.
+    9. _Fortune_, Destroyer, 935 tons.
+    10. _Shark_, Destroyer, 935 tons.
+    11. _Sparrowhawk_, Destroyer, 935 tons.
+    12. _Nestor_, Destroyer, 1,000 tons.
+    13. _Nomad_, Destroyer, 1,000 tons.
+    14. _Turbulent_, Destroyer, 1,430 tons.
+    Total, 113,300 tons;
+
+[Sidenote: Distinguished officers who went down.]
+
+[Sidenote: Gallantry of officers and men.]
+
+and still more do I regret the resultant heavy loss of life. The death
+of such gallant and distinguished officers as Rear-Admiral Sir Robert
+Arbuthnot, Bart., Rear-Admiral the Hon. Horace Hood, Captain Charles F.
+Sowerby, Captain Cecil I. Prowse, Captain Arthur L. Cay, Captain Thomas
+P. Bonham, Captain Charles J. Wintour, and Captain Stanley V. Ellis, and
+those who perished with them, is a serious loss to the navy and to the
+country. They led officers and men who were equally gallant, and whose
+death is mourned by their comrades in the Grand Fleet. They fell doing
+their duty nobly, a death which they would have been the first to
+desire.
+
+[Sidenote: Fighting qualities of the enemy.]
+
+The enemy fought with the gallantry that was expected of him. We
+particularly admired the conduct of those on board a disabled German
+light-cruiser which passed down the British line shortly after
+deployment, under a heavy fire, which was returned by the only gun left
+in action.
+
+[Sidenote: Heroism of the wounded.]
+
+The conduct of officers and men throughout the day and night actions was
+entirely beyond praise. No words of mine could do them justice. On all
+sides it is reported to me that the glorious traditions of the past were
+most worthily upheld--whether in heavy ships, cruisers, light-cruisers,
+or destroyers--the same admirable spirit prevailed. Officers and men
+were cool and determined, with a cheeriness that would have carried them
+through anything. The heroism of the wounded was the admiration of all.
+
+I cannot adequately express the pride with which the spirit of the Fleet
+filled me.
+
+[Sidenote: Work of the engine room department.]
+
+[Sidenote: No failures in material.]
+
+Details of the work of the various ships during action have now been
+given. It must never be forgotten, however, that the prelude to action
+is the work of the engine-room department, and that during action the
+officers and men of that department perform their most important duties
+without the incentive which a knowledge of the course of the action
+gives to those on deck. The qualities of discipline and endurance are
+taxed to the utmost under these conditions, and they were, as always,
+most fully maintained throughout the operations under review. Several
+ships attained speeds that had never before been reached, thus showing
+very clearly their high state of steaming efficiency. Failures in
+material were conspicuous by their absence, and several instances are
+reported of magnificent work on the part of the engine-room departments
+of injured ships.
+
+[Sidenote: Valuable work of artisans.]
+
+The artisan ratings also carried out much valuable work during and after
+the action; they could not have done better.
+
+[Sidenote: Success of the medical officers.]
+
+The work of the medical officers of the Fleet, carried out very largely
+under the most difficult conditions, was entirely admirable and
+invaluable. Lacking in many cases all the essentials for performing
+critical operations, and with their staff seriously depleted by
+casualties, they worked untiringly and with the greatest success. To
+them we owe a deep debt of gratitude.
+
+[Sidenote: Ships that sustained hardest fighting.]
+
+It will be seen that the hardest fighting fell to the lot of the
+Battle-cruiser Fleet (the units of which were less heavily armored than
+their opponents), the Fifth Battle Squadron, the First Cruiser Squadron,
+Fourth Light-cruiser Squadron, and the Flotillas. This was inevitable
+under the conditions and the squadrons and Flotillas mentioned, as well
+as the individual vessels composing them, were handled with conspicuous
+ability, as were also the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Squadrons of the Battle
+Fleet and the 2nd Cruiser Squadron.
+
+I desire to place on record my high appreciation of the manner in which
+all the vessels were handled. The conditions were such as to call for
+great skill and ability, quick judgment and decisions, and this was
+conspicuous throughout the day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The campaigns carried on by Italy against Austria were, as had been
+noted in a former chapter, among the most difficult of the war. The
+Italian troops fighting with the greatest gallantry in a mountainous
+and, in places, an impassable country, continued to capture Austrian
+fortified places, along the entire Isonzo front. One of the most daring
+and most brilliant of their exploits is told in the following pages.
+
+
+
+
+TAKING THE COL DI LANA
+
+LEWIS R. FREEMAN
+
+Copyright, World's Work, June, 1917.
+
+
+[Sidenote: A hot wind from the Mediterranean.]
+
+[Sidenote: Thaw and avalanches in the Alps.]
+
+Once or twice in every winter a thick, sticky, hot wind from somewhere
+on the other side of the Mediterranean breathes upon the snow and
+ice-locked Alpine valleys the breath of a false springtime. The Swiss
+guides, if I remember correctly, call it by a name which is pronounced
+as we do the word _fun_; but the incidence of such a wind means to them
+anything but what that signifies in English. To them--to all in the
+Alps, indeed--a spell of _fun_ weather means thaw, and thaw means
+avalanches; avalanches, too, at a time of the year when there is so much
+snow that the slides are under constant temptation to abandon their
+beaten tracks and gouge out new and unexpected channels for themselves.
+It is only the first-time visitor to the Alps who bridles under the
+Judas kiss of the wind called _fun_.
+
+[Sidenote: A hot wind in January.]
+
+It was on an early January day of one of these treacherous hot winds
+that I was motored up from the plain of Venezia to a certain sector of
+the Italian Alpine front, a sector almost as important strategically as
+it is beautiful scenically. What twelve hours previously had been a
+flint-hard, ice-paved road had dissolved to a river of soft slush, and
+one could sense rather than see the ominous premonitory twitchings in
+the lowering snow-banks as the lapping of the hot moist air relaxed the
+brake of the frost which had held them on the precipitous mountain
+sides. Every stretch where the road curved to the embrace of cliff or
+shelving valley wall was a possible ambush, and we slipped by them with
+muffled engine and hushed voices.
+
+[Sidenote: Skirting a lake.]
+
+Toward the middle of the short winter afternoon the gorge we had been
+following opened out into a narrow valley, and straight over across the
+little lake which the road skirted, reflected in the shimmering sheet of
+steaming water that the thaw was throwing out across the ice, was a
+vivid white triangle of towering mountain. A true granite Alp among the
+splintered Dolomites--a fortress among cathedrals--it was the
+outstanding, the dominating feature in a panorama which I knew from my
+map was made up of the mountain chain along which wriggled the
+interlocked lines of the Austro-Italian battle front.
+
+"Plainly a peak with a personality," I said to the officer at my side.
+"What is it called?"
+
+[Sidenote: The Col di Lana an important position.]
+
+"It's the Col di Lana," was the reply; "the mountain Colonel 'Peppino'
+Garibaldi took in a first attempt and Gelasio Caetani, the
+Italo-American mining engineer, afterward blew up and captured
+completely. It is one of the most important positions on our whole
+front, for whichever side holds it not only effectually blocks the
+enemy's advance, but has also an invaluable sally-port from which to
+launch his own. We simply _had_ to have it, and it was taken in what was
+probably the only way humanly possible. It's Colonel Garibaldi's
+headquarters, by the way, where we put up to-night and to-morrow;
+perhaps you can get him to tell you the story." . . .
+
+[Sidenote: The story of the Col di Lana.]
+
+By the light of a little spirit lamp and to the accompaniment of a
+steady drip of eaves and the rumble of distant avalanches of falling
+snow, Colonel Garibaldi, that evening, told me "the story:"
+
+[Sidenote: _Légion Italienne_ withdrawn]
+
+"The fighting that fell to the lot of the _Légion Italienne_ in January,
+1915, reduced its numbers to such an extent that it had to be withdrawn
+to rest and reform. Before it was in condition to take the field again,
+our country had taken the great decision and we were disbanded to go
+home and fight for Italy. Here--principally because it was thought best
+to incorporate the men in the units to which they (by training or
+residence) really belonged--it was found impracticable to maintain the
+integrity of the fourteen battalions--about 14,000 men in all--we had
+formed in France, and, as a consequence, the _Légion Italienne_ ceased
+to exist except as a glorious memory. We five surviving Garibaldi were
+given commissions in a brigade of Alpini that is a 'lineal descendant'
+of the famous _Cacciatore_ formed by my grandfather in 1859, and led by
+him against the Austrians in the war in which, with the aid of the
+French, we redeemed Lombardy for Italy.
+
+[Sidenote: Defensive and offensive advantages of the peak.]
+
+[Sidenote: Bitter struggle for the Col di Lana.]
+
+"In July I was given command of a battalion occupying a position at the
+foot of the Col di Lana. Perhaps you saw from the lake, as you came up,
+the commanding position of this mountain. If so, you will understand its
+supreme importance to us, whether for defensive or offensive purposes.
+Looking straight down the Cordevole Valley toward the plains of Italy,
+it not only furnished the Austrians an incomparable observation post,
+but also stood as an effectual barrier against any advance of our own
+toward the Livinallongo Valley and the important Pordoi Pass. We needed
+it imperatively for the safety of any line we established in this
+region; and just as imperatively would we need it when we were ready to
+push the Austrians back. Since it was just as important for the
+Austrians to maintain possession of this great natural fortress as it
+was for us to take it away from them, you will understand how it came
+about that the struggle for the Col di Lana was perhaps the bitterest
+that has yet been waged for any one point on the Alpine front.
+
+[Sidenote: The Alpini get a foothold.]
+
+[Sidenote: Col. Garibaldi takes command.]
+
+"Early in July, under cover of our guns to the south and east, the
+Alpini streamed down from the Cima di Falzarego and Sasso di Stria,
+which they had occupied shortly before, and secured what was at first
+but a precarious foothold on the stony lower eastern slope of the Col di
+Lana. Indeed, it was little more than a toe-hold at first; but the
+never-resting Alpini soon dug themselves in and became firmly
+established. It was to the command of this battalion of Alpini that I
+came on the 12th of July, after being given to understand that my work
+was to be the taking of the Col di Lana regardless of cost.
+
+[Sidenote: Scientific man-saving needed.]
+
+"This was the first time that I--or any other Garibaldi, for that matter
+(my grandfather, with his 'Thousand,' took Sicily from fifty times that
+number of Bourbon soldiers) had ever had enough, or even the promise of
+enough, men to make that 'regardless of cost' formula much more than a
+hollow mockery. But it is not in a Garibaldi to sacrifice men for any
+object whatever if there is any possible way of avoiding it. The period
+of indiscriminate frontal attacks had passed even before I left France,
+and ways were already being devised--mostly mining and better artillery
+protection--to make assaults less costly. Scientific 'man-saving,' in
+which my country has since made so much progress, was then in its
+infancy on the Italian front.
+
+[Sidenote: Out-gunned by the Austrians.]
+
+[Sidenote: First time of gallery-barracks.]
+
+"I found many difficulties in the way of putting into practice on the
+Col di Lana the man-saving theories I had seen in process of development
+in the Argonne. At that time the Austrians--who had appreciated the
+great importance of that mountain from the outset--had us heavily
+out-gunned while mining in the hard rock was too slow to make it worth
+while until some single position of crucial value hung in the balance.
+So--well, I simply did the best I could under the circumstances. The
+most I could do was to give my men as complete protection as possible
+while they were not fighting, and this end was accomplished by
+establishing them in galleries cut out of the solid rock. This was, I
+believe, the first time the 'gallery-barracks'--now quite the rule at
+all exposed points--were used on the Italian front.
+
+[Sidenote: Working under heavy fire.]
+
+"There was no other way in the beginning but to drive the enemy off the
+Col di Lana trench by trench, and this was the task I set myself to
+toward the end of July. What made the task an almost prohibitive one was
+the fact that the Austrian guns from Corte and Cherz--which we were in
+no position to reduce to silence--were able to rake us unmercifully.
+Every move we made during the next nine months was carried out under
+their fire, and there is no use in denying that we suffered heavily. I
+used no more men than I could possibly help using, and the Higher
+Command was very generous in the matter of reserves, and even in
+increasing the strength of the force at my disposal as we gradually got
+more room to work in. By the end of October my original command of a
+battalion had been increased largely.
+
+[Sidenote: Austrians hold one side and summit.]
+
+[Sidenote: Austrian position seems impregnable.]
+
+"The Austrians made a brave and skilful defense, but the steady pressure
+we were bringing to bear on them gradually forced them back up the
+mountain. By the first week in November we were in possession of three
+sides of the mountain, while the Austrians held the fourth side and--but
+most important of all--the summit. The latter presented a sheer wall of
+rock, more than 200 metres high, to us from any direction we were able
+to approach it, and on the crest of this cliff--the only point exposed
+to our artillery fire--the enemy had a cunningly concealed machine-gun
+post served by fourteen men. Back and behind, under shelter in a rock
+gallery, was a reserve of 200 men, who were expected to remain safely
+under cover during a bombardment and then sally forth to any infantry
+attack that might follow it. The handful in the machine-gun post, it was
+calculated, would be sufficient, and more than sufficient, to keep us
+from scaling the cliff before their reserves came up to support them;
+and so they would have been if there had been _only_ an infantry attack
+to reckon with. It failed to allow sufficiently, however, for the weight
+of the artillery we were bringing up, and the skill of our gunners. The
+apparent impregnability of the position was really its undoing.
+
+[Sidenote: Machine-gun post key position.]
+
+"This cunningly conceived plan of defense I had managed to get a pretty
+accurate idea of--no matter how--and I laid my own plans accordingly.
+All the guns I could get hold of I had emplaced in positions most
+favorable for concentrating on the real key to the summit--the exposed
+machine-gun post on the crown of the cliff--with the idea, if possible,
+of destroying men and guns completely, or, failing in that, at least to
+render it untenable for the reserves who would try to rally to its
+defense.
+
+[Sidenote: The Alpino thoroughly dependable.]
+
+"We had the position ranged to an inch, and so, fortunately, lost no
+time in 'feeling' for it. This, with the surprise incident to it, was
+perhaps the principal element in our success; for the plan--at least so
+far as _taking_ the summit was concerned--worked out quite as perfectly
+in action as upon paper. That is the great satisfaction of working with
+the Alpino, by the way: he is so sure, so dependable, that the 'human
+fallibility' element in a plan (always the most uncertain quantity) is
+practically eliminated.
+
+[Sidenote: Alpini scale the cliff.]
+
+"It is almost certain that our sudden gust of concentrated gunfire
+snuffed out the lives of all the men in the machine-gun post before
+they had time to send word of our developing infantry attack to the
+reserves in the gallery below. At any rate, these latter made no attempt
+whatever to swarm up to the defense of the crest, even after our
+artillery fire ceased. The consequence was that the 120 Alpini I sent to
+scale the cliff reached the top with only three casualties, these
+probably caused by rolling rocks or flying rock fragments. The Austrians
+in their big 'funk-hole' were taken completely by surprise, and 130 of
+them fell prisoners to considerably less than that number of Italians.
+The rest of the 200 escaped or were killed in their flight.
+
+[Sidenote: Difficulties of holding the summit.]
+
+[Sidenote: An Austrian counter-attack.]
+
+"So far it was so good; but, unfortunately, taking the summit and
+holding it were two entirely different matters. No sooner did the
+Austrians discover what had happened than they opened on the summit with
+all their available artillery. We have since ascertained that the fire
+of 120 guns was concentrated upon a space of 100 by 150 metres which
+offered the only approach to cover that the barren summit afforded.
+Fifty of my men, finding shelter in the lee of rocky ledges, remained
+right out on the summit; the others crept over the edge of the cliff and
+held on by their fingers and toes. Not a man of them sought safety by
+flight, though a retirement would have been quite justified, considering
+what a hell the Austrians' guns were making of the summit. The enemy
+counter-attacked at nightfall, but despite superior numbers and the
+almost complete exhaustion of that little band of Alpini heroes, they
+were able to retake only a half of the summit. Here, at a
+ten-metres-high ridge which roughly bisects the _cima_, the Alpini held
+the Austrians, and here, in turn, the latter held the reinforcements
+which I was finally able to send to the Alpini's aid. There, exposed to
+the fire of the guns of either side (and so comparatively safe from
+both), a line was established from which there seemed little probability
+that one combatant could drive the other, at least without a radical
+change from the methods so far employed.
+
+[Sidenote: Idea of blowing up positions.]
+
+"The idea of blowing up positions that cannot be taken otherwise is by
+no means a new one. Probably it dates back almost as far as the
+invention of gunpowder itself. Doubtless, if we only knew of them, there
+have been attempts to mine the Great Wall of China. It was, therefore,
+only natural that, when the Austrians had us held up before a position
+it was vitally necessary we should have, we should begin to consider the
+possibility of mining it as the only alternative. The conception of the
+plan did not necessarily originate in the mind of any one individual,
+however many have laid claim to it. It was the inevitable thing if we
+were not going to abandon striving for our objective.
+
+[Sidenote: Engineering operation of great magnitude.]
+
+"But while there was nothing new in the idea of the mine itself, in
+carrying out an engineering operation of such magnitude at so great an
+altitude and from a position constantly exposed to intense artillery
+fire there were presented many problems quite without precedent. It was
+these problems which gave us pause; but finally, despite the prospect of
+difficulties which we fully realized might at any time become
+prohibitive, it was decided to make the attempt to blow up that portion
+of the summit of the Col di Lana still held by the enemy.
+
+[Sidenote: Gelasio Caetani the engineer.]
+
+"The choice of the engineer for the work was a singularly fortunate one.
+Gelasio Caetani--he is a son of the Duke of Sermoneta--had operated as a
+mining engineer in the American West for a number of years previous to
+the war, and the practical experience gained in California and Alaska
+was invaluable preparation for the great task now set for him. His
+ready resource and great personal courage were also incalculable assets.
+
+[Sidenote: Miners from North America.]
+
+"Well, the tunnel was started about the middle of January, 1916. Some of
+my men--Italians who had hurried home to fight for their country when
+the war started--had had some previous experience with hand and machine
+drills in the mines of Colorado and British Columbia, but the most of
+our labor had to gain its experience as the work progressed. Considering
+this, as well as the difficulty of bringing up material (to say nothing
+of food and munitions), we made very good progress.
+
+[Sidenote: Mining under constant fire.]
+
+[Sidenote: Thirty-eight shells a minute.]
+
+"The worst thing about it all was the fact that it had to be done under
+the incessant fire of the Austrian artillery. I provided for the men as
+best as I could by putting them in galleries, where they were at least
+able to get their rest. When the enemy finally found out what we were up
+to they celebrated their discovery by a steady bombardment which lasted
+for fourteen days without interruption. During a certain forty-two hours
+of that fortnight there was, by actual count, an average of thirty-eight
+shells a minute exploding on our little position.
+
+[Sidenote: Silencing an Austrian battery.]
+
+"We were constantly confronted with new and perplexing problems--things
+which no one had ever been called upon to solve before--most of them in
+connection with transportation. How we contrived to surmount one of
+these I shall never forget. The Austrians had performed a brave and
+audacious feat in emplacing one of their batteries at a certain point,
+the fire from which threatened to make our position absolutely
+untenable. The location of this battery was so cunningly chosen that not
+one of our guns could reach it; and yet we _had_ to silence it--and for
+good--if we were going to go on with our work. The only point from
+which we could fire upon these destructive guns was so exposed that any
+artillery we might be able to mount there could only count on the
+shortest shrift under the fire of the hundred or more 'heavies' that the
+Austrians would be able to concentrate upon it. And yet (I figured),
+well employed, these few minutes might prove enough to do the work in.
+
+[Sidenote: A young giant endeavors to climb with a gun.]
+
+"And then there arose another difficulty. The smallest gun that would
+stand a chance of doing the job cut out for it weighed 120 kilos--about
+265 pounds; this just for the gun alone, with all detachable parts
+removed. But the point where the gun was to be mounted was so exposed
+that there was no chance of rigging up a cable-way, while the incline
+was so steep and rough that it was out of the question to try to drag it
+up with ropes. Just as we were on the verge of giving up in despair, one
+of the Alpini--a man of Herculean frame who had made his living in
+peace-time by breaking chains on his chest and performing other feats of
+strength--came and suggested that he be allowed to carry the gun up on
+his shoulders. Grasping at a straw, I let him indulge in a few 'practice
+man[oe]uvres'; but these only showed that, while the young Samson could
+shoulder and trot off with the gun without great effort, the task of
+lifting himself and his burden from foothold to foothold in the
+crumbling rock of the seventy-degree slope was too much for him.
+
+[Sidenote: Men pull man and gun to position.]
+
+"But out of this failure there came a new idea. Why not let my strong
+man simply support the weight of the gun on his shoulder--acting as a
+sort of ambulant gun-carriage, so to speak--while a line of men pulled
+him along with a rope?
+
+We rigged up a harness to equalize the pull on the broad back, and, with
+the aid of sixteen ordinary men, the feat was accomplished without a
+hitch. I am sorry to say, however, that poor Samson was laid up for a
+spell with racked muscles.
+
+"The gun--with the necessary parts and munition--was taken up in the
+night, and at daybreak it was set up and ready for action. It fired just
+forty shots before the Austrian 'heavies' blew it--and all but one or
+two of its brave crew--to pieces with a rain of high-explosive. But the
+troublesome Austrian battery was put so completely out of action that
+the enemy never thought it worth while to re-emplace it.
+
+[Sidenote: Italians mine and Austrians countermine.]
+
+[Sidenote: The final explosion.]
+
+"That is just a sample of the fantastic things we were doing all of the
+three months that we drove the tunnel under the summit of the Col di
+Lana. The last few weeks were further enlivened by the knowledge that
+the Austrians were countermining against us. Once they drove so near
+that we could feel the jar of their drills, but they exploded their mine
+just a few metres short of where it would have upset us for good and for
+all. All the time work went on until, on the 17th of April, the mine was
+finished, charged, and 'tamped.' That night, while every gun we could
+bring to bear rained shell upon the Austrian position, it was exploded.
+A crater 150 feet in diameter and sixty feet deep engulfed the ridge the
+enemy had occupied, and this our waiting Alpini rushed and firmly held.
+Austrian counterattacks were easily repulsed, and the Col di Lana was at
+last completely in Italian hands."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the late spring and summer of 1916, there was waged in France
+that great series of battles participated in by both British and French
+armies known as the battles of the Somme. Next to the defense of Verdun,
+they formed the most important military operations on the western front
+during that year. These battles are described in the narrative which
+follows.
+
+[Illustration: WESTERN BATTLE FRONT, AUGUST, 1916]
+
+
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME
+
+SIR DOUGLAS HAIG
+
+
+[Sidenote: An offensive summer campaign planned.]
+
+The principle of an offensive campaign during the Summer of 1916 had
+already been decided on by all the Allies. The various possible
+alternatives on the western front had been studied and discussed by
+General Joffre and myself, and we were in complete agreement as to the
+front to be attacked by the combined French and British armies.
+Preparations for our offensive had made considerable progress; but as
+the date on which the attack should begin was dependent on many doubtful
+factors, a final decision on that point was deferred until the general
+situation should become clearer.
+
+[Sidenote: British armies and supplies increasing.]
+
+Subject to the necessity of commencing operations before the Summer was
+too far advanced, and with due regard to the general situation, I
+desired to postpone my attack as long as possible. The British armies
+were growing in numbers and the supply of munitions was steadily
+increasing. Moreover, a very large proportion of the officers and men
+under my command were still far from being fully trained, and the longer
+the attack could be deferred the more efficient they would become. On
+the other hand, the Germans were continuing to press their attacks at
+Verdun, and both there and on the Italian front, where the Austrian
+offensive was gaining ground, it was evident that the strain might
+become too great to be borne unless timely action were taken to relieve
+it. Accordingly, while maintaining constant touch with General Joffre
+in regard to all these considerations, my preparations were pushed on,
+and I agreed, with the consent of his Majesty's Government, that my
+attack should be launched, whenever the general situation required it,
+with as great a force as I might then be able to make available.
+
+[Sidenote: Pressure on Italian front.]
+
+[Sidenote: Heroic French defense at Verdun.]
+
+By the end of May, 1916, the pressure of the enemy on the Italian front
+had assumed such serious proportions that the Russian campaign was
+opened early in June, and the brilliant successes gained by our allies
+against the Austrians at once caused a movement of German troops from
+the western to the eastern front. This, however, did not lessen the
+pressure on Verdun. The heroic defense of our French allies had already
+gained many weeks of inestimable value and had caused the enemy very
+heavy losses; but the strain continued to increase. In view, therefore,
+of the situation in the various theatres of war, it was eventually
+agreed between General Joffre and myself that the combined French and
+British offensive should not be postponed beyond the end of June.
+
+[Sidenote: Objects of new offensive.]
+
+The object of that offensive was threefold:
+
+(i.) To relieve the pressure on Verdun.
+
+(ii.) To assist our allies in the other theatres of war by stopping any
+further transfer of German troops from the western front.
+
+(iii.) To wear down the strength of the forces opposed to us.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy attempts at interference.]
+
+While my final preparations were in progress the enemy made two
+unsuccessful attempts to interfere with my arrangements. The first,
+directed on May 21, 1916, against our positions on the Vimy Ridge, south
+and southeast of Souchez, resulted in a small enemy gain of no strategic
+or tactical importance; and rather than weaken my offensive by involving
+additional troops in the task of recovering the lost ground, I decided
+to consolidate a position in rear of our original line.
+
+[Sidenote: A position lost and retaken.]
+
+The second enemy attack was delivered on June 2, 1916, on a front of
+over one and a half miles from Mount Sorrell to Hooge, and succeeded in
+penetrating to a maximum depth of 700 yards. As the southern part of the
+lost position commanded our trenches, I judged it necessary to recover
+it, and by an attack launched on June 13, 1916, carefully prepared and
+well executed, this was successfully accomplished by the troops on the
+spot.
+
+Neither of these enemy attacks succeeded in delaying the preparations
+for the major operations which I had in view.
+
+These preparations were necessarily very elaborate and took considerable
+time.
+
+[Sidenote: Vast stores accumulated.]
+
+[Sidenote: Shelter and communication facilities prepared.]
+
+Vast stocks of ammunition and stores of all kinds had to be accumulated
+beforehand within a convenient distance of our front. To deal with these
+many miles of new railways--both standard and narrow gauge--and trench
+tramways were laid. All available roads were improved, many others were
+made, and long causeways were built over marshy valleys. Many additional
+dugouts had to be provided as shelter for the troops, for use as
+dressing stations for the wounded, and as magazines for storing
+ammunition, food, water, and engineering material. Scores of miles of
+deep communication trenches had to be dug, as well as trenches for
+telephone wires, assembly and assault trenches, and numerous gun
+emplacements and observation posts.
+
+[Sidenote: Mining operations.]
+
+Important mining operations were undertaken, and charges were laid at
+various points beneath the enemy's lines.
+
+[Sidenote: Water supply insured.]
+
+Except in the river valleys, the existing supplies of water were
+hopelessly insufficient to meet the requirements of the numbers of men
+and horses to be concentrated in this area as the preparations for our
+offensive proceeded. To meet this difficulty many wells and borings were
+sunk, and over one hundred pumping plants were installed. More than one
+hundred and twenty miles of water mains were laid, and everything was
+got ready to insure an adequate water supply as our troops advanced.
+
+[Sidenote: Spirit of the troops.]
+
+Much of this preparatory work had to be done under very trying
+conditions, and was liable to constant interruption from the enemy's
+fire. The weather, on the whole, was bad, and the local accommodations
+totally insufficient for housing the troops employed, who consequently
+had to content themselves with such rough shelter as could be provided
+in the circumstances. All this labor, too, had to be carried out in
+addition to fighting and to the everyday work of maintaining existing
+defenses. It threw a very heavy strain on the troops, which was borne by
+them with a cheerfulness beyond all praise.
+
+[Sidenote: Formidable enemy position on the Somme and the Ancre.]
+
+The enemy's position to be attacked was of a very formidable character,
+situated on a high, undulating tract of ground, which rises to more than
+500 feet above sea level, and forms the watershed between the Somme on
+the one side and the rivers of Southwestern Belgium on the other. On the
+southern face of this watershed, the general trend of which is from
+east-southeast to west-northwest, the ground falls in a series of long
+irregular spurs and deep depressions to the valley of the Somme. Well
+down the forward slopes of this face the enemy's first system of
+defense, starting from the Somme near Curlu, ran at first northward for
+3,000 yards, then westward for 7,000 yards to near Fricourt, where it
+turned nearly due north, forming a great salient angle in the enemy's
+lines.
+
+Some 10,000 yards north of Fricourt the trenches crossed the River
+Ancre, a tributary of the Somme, and, still running northward, passed
+over the summit of the watershed, about Hébuterne and Gommecourt, and
+then down its northern spurs to Arras.
+
+On the 20,000-yard front between the Somme and the Ancre the enemy had a
+strong second system of defense, sited generally on or near the southern
+crest of the highest part of the watershed, at an average distance of
+from 3,000 to 5,000 yards behind his first system of trenches.
+
+[Sidenote: German methods of making position impregnable.]
+
+During nearly two years' preparation he had spared no pains to render
+these defenses impregnable. The first and second systems each consisted
+of several lines of deep trenches, well provided with bomb-proof
+shelters and with numerous communication trenches connecting them. The
+front of the trenches in each system was protected by wire
+entanglements, many of them in two belts forty yards broad, built of
+iron stakes interlaced with barbed wire, often almost as thick as a
+man's finger.
+
+[Sidenote: Veritable fortresses.]
+
+[Sidenote: Machine-gun emplacements.]
+
+The numerous woods and villages in and between these systems of defense
+had been turned into veritable fortresses. The deep cellars, usually to
+be found in the villages, and the numerous pits and quarries common to a
+chalk country were used to provide cover for machine guns and trench
+mortars. The existing cellars were supplemented by elaborate dugouts,
+sometimes in two stories, and these were connected up by passages as
+much as thirty feet below the surface of the ground. The salients in the
+enemy's lines, from which he could bring enfilade fire across his front,
+were made into self-contained forts, and often protected by mine fields,
+while strong redoubts and concrete machine-gun emplacements had been
+constructed in positions from which he could sweep his own trenches
+should these be taken. The ground lent itself to good artillery
+observation on the enemy's part, and he had skillfully arranged for
+cross-fire by his guns.
+
+[Sidenote: A composite system of great strength.]
+
+These various systems of defense, with the fortified localities and
+other supporting points between them, were cunningly sited to afford
+each other mutual assistance and to admit of the utmost possible
+development of enfilade and flanking fire by machine guns and artillery.
+They formed, in short, not merely a series of successive lines, but one
+composite system of enormous depth and strength.
+
+[Sidenote: Many lines prepared in the rear.]
+
+Behind this second system of trenches, in addition to woods, villages,
+and other strong points prepared for defense, the enemy had several
+other lines already completed; and we had learned from aeroplane
+reconnoisance that he was hard at work improving and strengthening these
+and digging fresh ones between them and still further back.
+
+In the area above described, between the Somme and the Ancre, our
+front-line trenches ran parallel and close to those of the enemy, but
+below them. We had good direct observation on his front system of
+trenches and on the various defenses sited on the slopes above us
+between his first and second systems; but the second system itself, in
+many places, could not be observed from the ground in our possession,
+while, except from the air, nothing could be seen of his more distant
+defenses.
+
+[Sidenote: The lines of the Allies.]
+
+North of the Ancre, where the opposing trenches ran transversely across
+the main ridge, the enemy's defenses were equally elaborate and
+formidable. So far as command of ground was concerned we were here
+practically on level terms, but, partly as a result of this, our direct
+observation over the ground held by the enemy was not so good as it was
+further south. On portions of this front the opposing first-line
+trenches were more widely separated from each other, while in the
+valleys to the north were many hidden gun positions from which the enemy
+could develop flanking fire on our troops as they advanced across the
+open.
+
+[Sidenote: Period of active operations.]
+
+The period of active operations dealt with in this dispatch divides
+itself roughly into three phases. The first phase opened with the attack
+of July 1, 1916, the success of which evidently came as a surprise to
+the enemy and caused considerable confusion and disorganization in his
+ranks.
+
+The advantages gained on that date and developed during the first half
+of July may be regarded as having been rounded off by the operations of
+July 14, 1916, and three following days, which gave us possession of the
+southern crest of the main plateau between Delville Wood and
+Bazentin-le-Petit.
+
+[Sidenote: The enemy's efforts to hold the ridge.]
+
+We then entered upon a contest lasting for many weeks, during which the
+enemy, having found his strongest defenses unavailing, and now fully
+alive to his danger, put forth his utmost efforts to keep his hold of
+the main ridge. This stage of the battle constituted a prolonged and
+severe struggle for mastery between the contending armies, in which,
+although progress was slow and difficult, the confidence of our troops
+in their ability to win was never shaken. Their tenacity and
+determination proved more than equal to their task, and by the first
+week in September they had established a fighting superiority that has
+left its mark on the enemy, of which possession of the ridge was merely
+the visible proof.
+
+[Sidenote: The plateau gained.]
+
+[Sidenote: Successes of the French south of the Somme]
+
+The way was then opened for the third phase, in which our advance was
+pushed down the forward slopes of the ridge and further extended on
+both flanks until, from Morval to Thiepval, the whole plateau and a good
+deal of ground beyond were in our possession. Meanwhile our gallant
+allies, in addition to great successes south of the Somme, had pushed
+their advance, against equally determined opposition and under most
+difficult tactical conditions, up the long slopes on our immediate
+right, and were now preparing to drive the enemy from the summit of the
+narrow and difficult portion of the main ridge which lies between the
+Combles Valley and the River Tortille, a stream flowing from the north
+into the Somme just below Péronne.
+
+[Sidenote: Careful artillery preparation.]
+
+Defenses of the nature described could only be attacked with any
+prospect of success after careful artillery preparation. It was
+accordingly decided that our bombardment should begin on June 24, 1916
+and a large force of artillery was brought into action for the purpose.
+
+[Sidenote: Gas discharges.]
+
+Artillery bombardments were also carried out daily at different points
+on the rest of our front, and during the period from June 24 to July 1,
+1916, gas was discharged with good effect at more than forty places
+along our line upon a frontage which in total amounted to over fifteen
+miles. Some seventy raids, too, were undertaken by our infantry between
+Gommecourt and our extreme left north of Ypres during the week preceding
+the attack, and these kept me well informed as to the enemy's
+dispositions, besides serving other useful purposes.
+
+[Sidenote: Attack by the Royal Flying Corps.]
+
+On June 25, 1916, the Royal Flying Corps carried out a general attack on
+the enemy's observation balloons, destroying nine of them, and depriving
+the enemy for the time being of this form of observation.
+
+[Sidenote: British and French co-operate in attack.]
+
+On July 1, 1916, at 7.30 a. m., after a final hour of exceptionally
+violent bombardment, our infantry assault was launched. Simultaneously
+the French attacked on both sides of the Somme, co-operating closely
+with us.
+
+The British main front of attack extended from Maricourt on our right,
+round the salient at Fricourt, to the Ancre in front of St. Pierre
+Divion. To assist this main attack by holding the enemy's reserves and
+occupying his artillery, the enemy's trenches north of the Ancre, as far
+as Serre, inclusive, were to be assaulted simultaneously, while further
+north a subsidiary attack was to be made on both sides of the salient at
+Gommecourt.
+
+[Sidenote: Rawlinson and Allenby.]
+
+I had intrusted the attack on the front from Maricourt to Serre to the
+Fourth Army, under the command of General Sir Henry S. Rawlinson, Bart.,
+K. C. B., K. C. V. O., with five army corps at his disposal. The
+subsidiary attack at Gommecourt was carried out by troops from the army
+commanded by General Sir E. H. H. Allenby, K. C. B.
+
+[Sidenote: Mines exploded under enemy lines.]
+
+[Sidenote: Advance over open ground.]
+
+[Sidenote: Trenches taken near Fricourt.]
+
+Just prior to the attack the mines which had been prepared under the
+enemy's lines were exploded, and smoke was discharged at many places
+along our front. Through this smoke our infantry advanced to the attack
+with the utmost steadiness in spite of the very heavy barrage of the
+enemy's guns. On our right our troops met with immediate success, and
+rapid progress was made. Before midday Montauban had been carried, and
+shortly afterward the Briqueterie, to the east, and the whole of the
+ridge to the west of the village were in our hands. Opposite Mametz part
+of our assembly trenches had been practically leveled by the enemy
+artillery, making it necessary for our infantry to advance to the attack
+across 400 yards of open ground. None the less they forced their way
+into Mametz, and reached their objective in the valley beyond, first
+throwing out a defensive flank toward Fricourt on their left. At the
+same time the enemy's trenches were entered north of Fricourt, so that
+the enemy's garrison in that village was pressed on three sides. Further
+north, though the village of La Boisselle and Ovillers for the time
+being resisted our attack, our troops drove deeply into the German lines
+on the flanks of these strongholds, and so paved the way for their
+capture later.
+
+[Sidenote: Fight for the Leipsic Salient.]
+
+On the spur running south from Thiepval the work known as the Leipsic
+Salient was stormed, and severe fighting took place for the possession
+of the village and its defenses. Here and north of the valley of the
+Ancre, as far as Serre, on the left flank of our attack, our initial
+successes were not sustained. Striking progress was made at many points,
+and parties of troops penetrated the enemy's positions to the outer
+defenses of Grandcourt, and also to Pendant Copse and Serre; but the
+enemy's continued resistance at Thiepval and Beaumont Hamel made it
+impossible to forward reinforcements and ammunition, and in spite of
+their gallant efforts our troops were forced to withdraw during the
+night to their own lines.
+
+[Sidenote: The attack at Gommecourt.]
+
+The subsidiary attack at Gommecourt also forced its way into the enemy's
+positions, but there met with such vigorous opposition that as soon as
+it was considered that the attack had fulfilled its object our troops
+were withdrawn.
+
+[Sidenote: Instructions to General Gough.]
+
+In view of the general situation at the end of the first day's
+operations I decided that the best course was to press forward on a
+front extending from our junction with the French to a point half way
+between La Boisselle and Contalmaison, and to limit the offensive on our
+left for the present to a slow and methodical advance. North of the
+Ancre such preparations were to be made as would hold the enemy to his
+positions and enable the attack to be resumed there later if desirable.
+In order that General Sir Henry Rawlinson might be left free to
+concentrate his attention on the portion of the front where the attack
+was to be pushed home, I also decided to place the operations against
+the front, La Boisselle to Serre, under the command of General Sir
+Hubert de la P. Gough, K. C. B., to whom I accordingly allotted the two
+northern corps of Sir Henry Rawlinson's army. My instructions to Sir
+Hubert Gough were that his army was to maintain a steady pressure on the
+front from La Boisselle to the Serre road and to act as a pivot on which
+our line could swing as our attacks on his right made progress toward
+the north.
+
+[Sidenote: Fricourt to Contalmaison.]
+
+During the succeeding days the attack was continued on these lines. In
+spite of strong counter-attacks on the Briqueterie and Montauban, by
+midday on July 2 our troops had captured Fricourt, and in the afternoon
+and evening stormed Fricourt Wood and the farm to the north. During July
+3 and 4 Bernajay and Caterpillar woods were also captured, and our
+troops pushed forward to the railway north of Mametz. On these days the
+reduction of La Boisselle was completed after hard fighting, while the
+outskirts of Contalmaison were reached on July 5. North of La Boisselle
+also the enemy's forces opposite us were kept constantly engaged, and
+our holding in the Leipsic Salient was gradually increased.
+
+[Sidenote: Result of five days' fighting.]
+
+[Sidenote: Prisoners taken.]
+
+To sum up the results of the fighting of these five days, on a front of
+over six miles, from the Briqueterie to La Boisselle, our troops had
+swept over the whole of the enemy's first and strongest system of
+defense, which he had done his utmost to render impregnable. They had
+driven him back over a distance of more than a mile, and had carried
+four elaborately fortified villages. The number of prisoners passed back
+at the close of July 5, 1916, had already reached the total of
+ninety-four officers and 5,724 other ranks.
+
+[Sidenote: Readjustments and reliefs.]
+
+[Sidenote: Contalmaison and Mametz Wood.]
+
+After the five days' heavy and continuous fighting just described it was
+essential to carry out certain readjustments and reliefs of the forces
+engaged. In normal conditions of enemy resistance the amount of progress
+that can be made at any time without a pause in the general advance is
+necessarily limited. Apart from the physical exhaustion of the attacking
+troops and the considerable distance separating the enemy's successive
+main systems of defense, special artillery preparation was required
+before a successful assault could be delivered. Meanwhile, however,
+local operations were continued in spite of much unfavorable weather.
+The attack on Contalmaison and Mametz Wood was undertaken on July 7,
+1916, and after three days' obstinate fighting, in the course of which
+the enemy delivered several powerful counterattacks, the village and the
+whole of the wood, except its northern border, were finally secured. On
+July 7 also a footing was gained in the other defenses of Ovillers,
+while on July 9, 1916, on our extreme right, Maltz Horn Farm--an
+important point on the spur north of Hardecourt--was secured.
+
+[Sidenote: British troops in Trones Wood.]
+
+A thousand yards north of this farm our troops had succeeded at the
+second attempt in establishing themselves on July 8, 1916, in the
+southern end of Trones Wood. The enemy's positions in the northern and
+eastern parts of this wood were very strong, and no less than eight
+powerful German counterattacks were made here during the next five days.
+In the course of this struggle portions of the wood changed hands
+several times; but we were left eventually, on July 13, 1916, in
+possession of the southern part of it.
+
+[Sidenote: Assault on the German second system of defense.]
+
+Meanwhile Mametz Wood had been entirely cleared of the enemy, and with
+Trones Wood also practically in our possession we were in a position to
+undertake an assault upon the enemy's second system of defense.
+Arrangements were accordingly made for an attack to be delivered at
+daybreak on the morning of July 14, 1916, against a front extending from
+Longueval to Bazentin-le-Petit Wood, both inclusive. Contalmaison Villa,
+on a spur 1,000 yards west of Bazentin-le-Petit Wood, had already been
+captured to secure the left flank of the attack, and advantage had been
+taken of the progress made by our infantry to move our artillery forward
+into new positions. The preliminary bombardment had opened on July 11,
+1916. The opportunities offered by the ground for enfilading the enemy's
+lines were fully utilized, and did much to secure the success of our
+attack.
+
+[Sidenote: A night operation of magnitude.]
+
+In the early hours of July 4, 1916, the attacking troops moved out over
+the open for a distance of from about 1,000 to 1,400 yards, and lined up
+in the darkness just below the crest and some 300 to 500 yards from the
+enemy's trenches. Their advance was covered by strong patrols, and their
+correct deployment had been insured by careful previous preparations.
+The whole movement was carried out unobserved and without touch being
+lost in any case. The decision to attempt a night operation of this
+magnitude with an army, the bulk of which had been raised since the
+beginning of the war, was perhaps the highest tribute that could be paid
+to the quality of our troops. It would not have been possible but for
+the most careful preparation and forethought, as well as thorough
+reconnoissance of the ground, which was, in many cases, made personally
+by divisional, brigade, and battalion commanders and their staffs before
+framing their detailed orders for the advance.
+
+[Sidenote: The assault on July 14.]
+
+The actual assault was delivered at 3.25 a.m. on July 14, 1916, when
+there was just sufficient light to be able to distinguish friend from
+foe at short ranges, and along the whole front attacked our troops,
+preceded by a very effective artillery barrage, swept over the enemy's
+first trenches and on into the defenses beyond.
+
+[Sidenote: Trones Wood cleared of the enemy.]
+
+[Sidenote: Longueval occupied.]
+
+On our right the enemy was driven from his last foothold in Trones Wood,
+and by 8 a.m. we had cleared the whole of it, relieving a body of 170
+men who had maintained themselves all night in the northern corner of
+the wood, although completely surrounded by the enemy. Our position in
+the wood was finally consolidated, and strong patrols were sent out from
+it in the direction of Guillemont and Longueval. The southern half of
+this latter village was already in the hands of the troops who had
+advanced west of Trones Wood. The northern half, with the exception of
+two strong points, was captured by 4 p.m. after a severe struggle.
+
+[Sidenote: The enemy counterattacks.]
+
+In the centre of our attack Bazentin-le-Grand village and wood were also
+gained, and our troops pushing northward captured Bazentin-le-Petit
+village and the cemetery to the east. Here the enemy counterattacked
+twice about midday without success, and again in the afternoon, on the
+latter occasion momentarily reoccupying the northern half of the village
+as far as the church. Our troops immediately returned to the attack and
+drove him out again with heavy losses. To the left of the village
+Bazentin-le-Petit Wood was cleared, in spite of the considerable
+resistance of the enemy along its western edge, where we successfully
+repulsed a counterattack. In the afternoon further ground was gained to
+the west of the wood, and posts were established immediately south of
+Pozières.
+
+[Sidenote: General Rawlinson employs cavalry.]
+
+The enemy's troops, who had been severely handled in these attacks and
+counterattacks, began to show signs of disorganization, and it was
+reported early in the afternoon that it was possible to advance to High
+Wood. General Rawlinson, who had held a force of cavalry in readiness
+for such an eventuality, decided to employ a part of it. As the fight
+progressed small bodies of this force had pushed forward gradually,
+keeping in close touch with the development of the action, and prepared
+to seize quickly any opportunity that might occur. A squadron now came
+up on the flanks of our infantry, who entered High Wood at about 8 p.m.,
+and, after some hand-to-hand fighting, cleared the whole of the wood
+with the exception of the northern apex. Acting mounted in co-operation
+with the infantry, the cavalry came into action with good effect,
+killing several of the enemy and capturing some prisoners.
+
+[Sidenote: British withdrawn from High Wood.]
+
+On July 15, 1916, the battle still continued, though on a reduced scale.
+Arrow Head Copse, between the southern edge of Trones Wood and
+Guillemont, and Waterlot Farm on the Longueval-Guillemont road, were
+seized, and Delville Wood was captured and held against several hostile
+counterattacks. In Longueval fierce fighting continued until dusk for
+the possession of the two strong points and the orchards to the north of
+the village. The situation in this area made the position of our troops
+in High Wood somewhat precarious, and they now began to suffer numerous
+casualties from the enemy's heavy shelling. Accordingly orders were
+given for their withdrawal, and this was effected during the night of
+July 15-16, 1916, without interference by the enemy. All the wounded
+were brought in.
+
+[Sidenote: Progress toward Pozières.]
+
+In spite of repeated enemy counterattacks further progress was made on
+the night of July 16, 1916, along the enemy's main second-line trenches
+northwest of Bazentin-le-Petit Wood to within 500 yards of the northeast
+corner of the village of Pozières, which our troops were already
+approaching from the south.
+
+[Sidenote: Ovillers captured.]
+
+Meanwhile the operations further north had also made progress. Since the
+attack of July 7, 1916, the enemy in and about Ovillers had been pressed
+relentlessly and gradually driven back by incessant bombing attacks and
+local assaults, in accordance with the general instructions I had given
+to General Sir Hubert Gough. On July 16, 1916, a large body of the
+garrison of Ovillers surrendered, and that night and during the
+following day, by a direct advance from the west across No Man's Land,
+our troops carried the remainder of the village and pushed out along the
+spur to the north and eastward toward Pozières.
+
+[Sidenote: A new line definitely established.]
+
+The results of the operations of July 4, 1916, and subsequent days were
+of considerable importance. The enemy's second main system of defense
+had been captured on a front of over three miles. We had again forced
+him back more than a mile, and had gained possession of the southern
+crest of the main ridge on a front of 6,000 yards. Four more of his
+fortified villages and three woods had been wrested from him by
+determined fighting, and our advanced troops had penetrated as far as
+his third line of defense. In spite of a resolute resistance and many
+counterattacks, in which the enemy had suffered severely, our line was
+definitely established from Maltz Horn Farm, where we met the French
+left, northward along the eastern edge of Trones Wood to Longueval,
+then westward past Bazentin-le-Grand to the northern corner of
+Bazentin-le-Petit and Bazentin-le-Petit Wood, and then westward again
+past the southern face of Pozières to the north of Ovillers. Posts were
+established at Arrow Head Copse and Waterlot Farm, while we had troops
+thrown forward in Delville Wood and toward High Wood, though their
+position was not yet secure.
+
+[Sidenote: Sir Henry Rawlinson commended.]
+
+I cannot speak too highly of the skill, daring endurance, and
+determination by which these results had been achieved. Great credit is
+due to Sir Henry Rawlinson for the thoroughness and care with which this
+difficult undertaking was planned; while the advance and deployment made
+by night without confusion, and the complete success of the subsequent
+attack, constitute a striking tribute to the discipline and spirit of
+the troops engaged, as well as to the powers of leadership and
+organization of their commanders and staffs.
+
+[Sidenote: Guns and prisoners taken.]
+
+During these operations and their development on the 15th a number of
+enemy guns were taken, making a total capture since July 1, 1916, of
+eight heavy howitzers, four heavy guns, forty-two field and light guns
+and field howitzers, thirty trench mortars, and fifty-two machine guns.
+Very considerable losses had been inflicted on the enemy, and the
+prisoners captured amounted to over 2,000, bringing the total since July
+1, 1916, to over 10,000.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy able to bring up fresh troops.]
+
+There was strong evidence that the enemy forces engaged on the battle
+front had been severely shaken by the repeated successes gained by
+ourselves and our allies; but the great strength and depth of his
+defenses had secured for him sufficient time to bring up fresh troops,
+and he had still many powerful fortifications, both trenches, villages,
+and woods, to which he could cling in our front and on our flanks.
+
+We had, indeed, secured a footing on the main ridge, but only on a front
+of 6,000 yards, and desirous though I was to follow up quickly the
+successes we had won, it was necessary first to widen this front.
+
+[Sidenote: Pozières and Thiepval still to be carried.]
+
+West of Bazentin-le-Petit the villages of Pozières and Thiepval,
+together with the whole elaborate system of trenches around, between and
+on the main ridge behind them, had still to be carried. An advance
+further east would, however, eventually turn these defenses, and all
+that was for the present required on the left flank of our attack was a
+steady, methodical, step by step advance as already ordered.
+
+[Sidenote: Salient at Delville, Wood and Longueval.]
+
+On our right flank the situation called for stronger measures. At
+Delville Wood and Longueval our lines formed a sharp salient, from which
+our front ran on the one side westward to Pozières, and on the other
+southward to Maltz Horn Farm. At Maltz Horn Farm our lines joined the
+French, and the allied front continued still southward to the village of
+Hem, on the Somme.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy's advantages.]
+
+This pronounced salient invited counterattacks by the enemy. He
+possessed direct observation on it all around from Guillemont on the
+southeast to High Wood on the northwest. He could bring a concentric
+fire of artillery, to bear not only on the wood and village, but also on
+the confined space behind, through which ran the French communications
+as well as ours, where great numbers of guns, besides ammunition and
+impediments of all sorts, had necessarily to be crowded together. Having
+been in occupation of this ground for nearly two years, he knew every
+foot of it, and could not fail to appreciate the possibilities of
+causing us heavy loss there by indirect artillery fire; while it was
+evident that, if he could drive in the salient in our line and so gain
+direct observation on the ground behind, our position in that area would
+become very uncomfortable.
+
+[Sidenote: Confidence in the troops]
+
+If there had not been good grounds for confidence that the enemy was not
+capable of driving from this position troops who had shown themselves
+able to wrest it from him, the situation would have been an anxious one.
+In any case it was clear that the first requirement at the moment was
+that our right flank, and the French troops in extension of it, should
+swing up into line with our centre. To effect this, however, strong
+enemy positions had to be captured both by ourselves and by our allies.
+
+[Sidenote: Plateau from Delville Wood to Morval]
+
+[Sidenote: New enemy defenses.]
+
+From Delville Wood the main plateau extends for 4,000 yards
+east-northeast to Les Boeufs and Morval, and for about the same distance
+southeastward to Leuze and Bouleau Woods, which stand above and about
+1,000 yards to the west of Combles. To bring my right up into line with
+the rest of my front it was necessary to capture Guillemont, Falfemont
+Farm, and Leuze Wood, and then Ginchy and Bouleau Woods. These
+localities were naturally very strong, and they had been elaborately
+fortified. The enemy's main second-line system of defense ran in front
+of them from Waterlot Farm, which was already in our hands,
+southeastward to Falfemont Farm, and thence southward to the Somme. The
+importance of holding us back in this area could not escape the enemy's
+notice, and he had dug and wired many new trenches, both in front of and
+behind his original lines. He had also brought up fresh troops, and
+there was no possibility of taking him by surprise.
+
+[Sidenote: Rain and unfavorable ground.]
+
+[Sidenote: Constant haze.]
+
+The task before us was, therefore, a very difficult one and entailed a
+real trial of strength between the opposing forces. At this juncture its
+difficulties were increased by unfavorable weather. The nature of the
+ground limited the possibility of direct observation of our artillery
+fire, and we were consequently much dependent on observation from the
+air. As in that element we had attained almost complete superiority, all
+that we required was a clear atmosphere; but with this we were not
+favored for several weeks. We had rather more rain than is usual in July
+and August, and even when no rain fell there was an almost constant haze
+and frequent low clouds.
+
+[Sidenote: British and French must advance together.]
+
+[Sidenote: Positions the French must capture.]
+
+In swinging up my own right it was very important that the French line
+north of the Somme should be advanced at the same time in close
+combination with the movement of the British troops. The line of
+demarkation agreed on between the French commander and myself ran from
+Maltz Horn Farm due eastward to the Combles Valley and then
+northeastward up that valley to a point midway between Sailly-Saillisel
+and Morval. These two villages had been fixed upon as objectives,
+respectively, of the French left and of my right. In order to advance in
+co-operation with my right, and eventually to reach Sailly-Saillisel,
+our allies had still to fight their way up that portion of the main
+ridge which lies between the Combles Valley on the west and the River
+Tortille on the east. To do so they had to capture, in the first place,
+the strongly fortified villages of Maurepas, Le Forest, Rancourt, and
+Frégicourt, besides many woods and strong systems of trenches. As the
+high ground on each side of the Combles Valley commands the slopes of
+the ridge on the opposite side, it was essential that the advance of the
+two armies should be simultaneous and made in the closest co-operation.
+This was fully recognized by both armies, and our plans were made
+accordingly.
+
+[Sidenote: A pause necessary.]
+
+To carry out the necessary preparations to deal with the difficult
+situation outlined above a short pause was necessary, to enable tired
+troops to be relieved and guns to be moved forward; while at the same
+time old communications had to be improved and new ones made.
+Intrenchments against probable counterattacks could not be neglected,
+and fresh dispositions of troops were required for the new attacks to be
+directed eastward.
+
+[Sidenote: Pressure on whole front.]
+
+It was also necessary to continue such pressure on the rest of our
+front, not only on the Ancre, but further south, as would make it
+impossible for the enemy to devote himself entirely to resisting the
+advance between Delville Wood and the Somme. In addition, it was
+desirable further to secure our hold on the main ridge west of Delville
+Wood by gaining more ground to our front in that direction. Orders were
+therefore issued in accordance with the general considerations explained
+above, and, without relaxing pressure along the enemy's front from
+Delville Wood to the west, preparations for an attack on Guillemont were
+pushed on.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy counterattack on Delville Wood.]
+
+During the afternoon of July 18, 1916, the enemy developed his expected
+counterattack against Delville Wood, after heavy preliminary shelling.
+By sheer weight of numbers, and at very heavy cost, he forced his way
+through the northern and northeastern portion of the wood and into the
+northern half of Longueval, which our troops had cleared only that
+morning. In the southeast corner of the wood he was held up by a gallant
+defense, and further south three attacks on our positions in Waterlot
+Farm failed.
+
+[Sidenote: Progress bought by hard fighting.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy in great strength.]
+
+This enemy attack on Delville Wood marked the commencement of the long,
+closely contested struggle which was not finally decided in our favor
+till the fall of Guillemont on September 3, 1916, a decision which was
+confirmed by the capture of Ginchy six days later. Considerable gains
+were indeed made during this period, but progress was slow, and bought
+only by hard fighting. A footing was established in High Wood on July
+20, 1916, and our line linked up thence with Longueval. A subsequent
+advance by the Fourth Army on July 23, 1916, on a wide front from
+Guillemont to Pozières found the enemy in great strength all along the
+line, with machine guns and forward troops in shell holes and newly
+constructed trenches well in front of his main defenses. Although ground
+was won, the strength of the resistance experienced showed that the
+hostile troops had recovered from their previous confusion sufficiently
+to necessitate long and careful preparation before further successes on
+any great scale could be secured.
+
+[Sidenote: Two powerful counterattacks.]
+
+An assault delivered simultaneously on this date by General Gough's army
+against Pozières gained considerable results, and by the morning of July
+25, 1916, the whole of that village was carried, including the cemetery,
+and important progress was made along the enemy's trenches to the
+northeast. That evening, after heavy artillery preparation, the enemy
+launched two more powerful counterattacks, the one directed against our
+new position in and around High Wood and the other delivered from the
+northwest of Delville Wood. Both attacks were completely broken up with
+very heavy losses to the enemy.
+
+[Sidenote: Delville Wood recovered.]
+
+On July 27, 1916, the remainder of Delville Wood was recovered, and two
+days later the northern portion of Longueval and the orchards were
+cleared of the enemy, after severe fighting, in which our own and the
+enemy's artillery were very active.
+
+[Sidenote: Fighting at Guillemont.]
+
+On July 30, 1916, the village of Guillemont and Falfemont Farm to the
+southeast were attacked, in conjunction with a French attack north of
+the Somme. A battalion entered Guillemont, and part of it passed
+through to the far side; but as the battalions on either flank did not
+reach their objectives, it was obliged to fall back, after holding out
+for some hours on the western edge of the village. In a subsequent local
+attack on August 7, 1916, our troops again entered Guillemont, but were
+again compelled to fall back owing to the failure of a simultaneous
+effort against the enemy's trenches on the flanks of the village.
+
+[Sidenote: Dominating enemy positions.]
+
+[Sidenote: Series of French and British attacks.]
+
+The ground to the south of Guillemont was dominated by the enemy's
+positions in and about that village. It was therefore hoped that these
+positions might be captured first, before an advance to the south of
+them in the direction of Falfemont Farm was pushed further forward. It
+had now become evident, however, that Guillemont could not be captured
+as an isolated enterprise without very heavy loss, and, accordingly,
+arrangements were made with the French Army on our immediate right for a
+series of combined attacks, to be delivered in progressive stages, which
+should embrace Maurepas, Falfemont Farm, Guillemont, Leuze Wood, and
+Ginchy.
+
+[Sidenote: Attacks and counterattacks.]
+
+An attempt on August 16, 1916, to carry out the first stage of the
+prearranged scheme met with only partial success, and two days later,
+after a preliminary bombardment lasting thirty-six hours, a larger
+combined attack was undertaken. In spite of a number of enemy
+counterattacks the most violent of which leveled at the point of
+junction of the British with the French, succeeded in forcing our allies
+and ourselves back from a part of the ground won--very valuable progress
+was made, and our troops established themselves in the outskirts of
+Guillemont village and occupied Guillemont Station. A violent
+counterattack on Guillemont Station was repulsed on August 23, 1916, and
+next day further important progress was made on a wide front north and
+east of Delville Wood.
+
+[Sidenote: Advance by bombing and sapping.]
+
+[Sidenote: Progress near Thiepval.]
+
+Apart from the operations already described, others of a minor
+character, yet involving much fierce and obstinate fighting, continued
+during this period on the fronts of both the British armies. Our lines
+were pushed forward wherever possible by means of local attacks and by
+bombing and sapping, and the enemy was driven out of various forward
+positions from which he might hamper our progress. By these means many
+gains were made which, though small in themselves, in the aggregate
+represented very considerable advances. In this way our line was brought
+to the crest of the ridge above Martinpuich, and Pozières Windmill and
+the high ground north of the village were secured, and with them
+observation over Martinpuich and Courcelette and the enemy's gun
+positions in their neighborhood and around Le Sars. At a later date our
+troops reached the defenses of Mouquet Farm, northwest of Pozières, and
+made progress in the enemy's trenches south of Thiepval. The enemy's
+counter-attacks were incessant and frequently of great violence, but
+they were made in vain and at heavy cost to him. The fierceness of the
+fighting can be gathered from the fact that one regiment of the German
+Guards Reserve Corps which had been in the Thiepval salient opposite
+Mouquet Farm is known to have lost 1,400 men in fifteen days.
+
+[Sidenote: A general attack.]
+
+The first two days of September, 1916, on both army fronts were spent in
+preparation for a more general attack, which the gradual progress made
+during the preceding month had placed us in a position to undertake. Our
+assault was delivered at 12 noon on September 3, 1916, on a front
+extending from our extreme right to the third enemy trenches on the
+right bank of the Ancre, north of Hamel. Our allies attacked
+simultaneously on our right.
+
+[Sidenote: Guillemont stormed.]
+
+[Sidenote: Counterattacks on Guillemont.]
+
+Guillemont was stormed and at once consolidated, and our troops pushed
+on unchecked to Ginchy and the line of the road running south to Wedge
+Wood. Ginchy was also seized, but here, in the afternoon, we were very
+strongly counterattacked. For three days the tide of attack and
+counterattack swayed backward and forward among the ruined houses of the
+village, till, in the end, for three days more the greater part of it
+remained in the enemy's possession. Three counterattacks made on the
+evening of September 3, 1916, against our troops in Guillemont all
+failed, with considerable loss to the enemy. We also gained ground north
+of Delville Wood and in High Wood, though here an enemy counterattack
+recovered part of the ground won.
+
+On the front of General Gough's army, though the enemy suffered heavy
+losses in personnel, our gain in ground was slight.
+
+[Sidenote: British assault on Falfemont Farm.]
+
+In order to keep touch with the French who were attacking on our right
+the assault on Falfemont Farm on September 3, 1916, was delivered three
+hours before the opening of the main assault. In the impetus of their
+first rush our troops reached the farm, but could not hold it.
+Nevertheless, they pushed on to the north of it, and on September 4,
+1916, delivered a series of fresh assaults upon it from the west and
+north.
+
+[Sidenote: Leuze Wood cleared.]
+
+Ultimately this strongly fortified position was occupied piece by piece,
+and by the morning of September 5, 1916, the whole of it was in our
+possession. Meanwhile further progress had been made to the northeast of
+the farm, where considerable initiative was shown by the local
+commanders. By the evening of the same day our troops were established
+strongly in Leuze Wood, which on the following day was finally cleared
+of the enemy.
+
+[Sidenote: Advance on the right.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy's barrier broken.]
+
+In spite of the fact that most of Ginchy and of High Wood remained in
+the enemy's hands, very noteworthy progress had been made in the course
+of these four days' operations, exceeding anything that had been
+achieved since July 14, 1916. Our right was advanced on a front of
+nearly two miles to an average depth of nearly one mile, penetrating the
+enemy's original second line of defense on this front, and capturing
+strongly fortified positions at Falfemont Farm, Leuze Wood, Guillemont,
+and southeast of Delville Wood, where reached the western outskirts of
+Ginchy. More important than this gain in territory was the fact that the
+barrier which for seven weeks the enemy had maintained against our
+further advance had at last been broken. Over 1,000 prisoners were taken
+and many machine guns captured or destroyed in the course of the
+fighting.
+
+Preparations for a further attack upon Ginchy continued without
+intermission, and at 4.45 p.m. on September 9, 1916, the attack was
+reopened on the whole of the Fourth Army front. At Ginchy and to the
+north of Leuze Wood it met with almost immediate success. On the right
+the enemy's line was seized over a front of more than 1,000 yards from
+the southwest corner of Bouleau Woods, in a northwesterly direction, to
+a point just south of the Guillemont-Morval tramway. Our troops again
+forced their way into Ginchy, and passing beyond it carried the line of
+enemy trenches to the east. Further progress was made east of Delville
+Wood and south and east of High Wood.
+
+[Sidenote: German prisoners taken.]
+
+Over 500 prisoners were taken in the operations of September 9, 1916,
+and following days, making the total since July 1, 1916, over 17,000.
+
+[Sidenote: French progress.]
+
+Meanwhile the French had made great progress on our right, bringing
+their line forward to Louage Wood (just south of Combles)--Le
+Forest-Clery-sur-Somme, all three inclusive. The weak salient in the
+allied line had therefore disappeared and we had gained the front
+required for further operations.
+
+[Sidenote: Ability of new armies.]
+
+[Sidenote: Depth of enemy fortifications.]
+
+[Sidenote: Failure of counterattacks.]
+
+Still more importance, however, lay in the proof afforded by the results
+described of the ability of our new armies, not only to rush the enemy's
+strongest defenses, as had been accomplished on July 1 and 14, 1916, but
+also to wear down and break his power of resistance by a steady,
+relentless pressure, as they had done during the weeks of this fierce
+and protracted struggle. As has already been recounted, the preparations
+made for our assault on July 1, 1916, had been long and elaborate; but
+though the enemy knew that an attack was coming, it would seem that he
+considered the troops already on the spot, secure in their apparently
+impregnable defenses, would suffice to deal with it. The success of that
+assault, combined with the vigor and determination with which our troops
+pressed their advantage, and followed by the successful night attack of
+July 14, 1916, all served to awaken him to a fuller realization of his
+danger. The great depth of his system of fortification, to which
+reference has been made, gave him time to reorganize his defeated
+troops, and to hurry up numerous fresh divisions and more guns. Yet in
+spite of this, he was still pushed back, steadily and continuously.
+Trench after trench and strong point after strong point were wrested
+from him. The great majority of his frequent counterattacks failed
+completely, with heavy loss; while the few that achieved temporary local
+success purchased it dearly, and were soon thrown back from the ground
+they had for the moment regained.
+
+The enemy had, it is true, delayed our advance considerably, but the
+effort had cost him dear; and the comparative collapse of his resistance
+during the last few days of the struggle justified the belief that in
+the long run decisive victory would lie with our troops, who had
+displayed such fine fighting qualities and such indomitable endurance
+and resolution.
+
+[Sidenote: Mouquet Farm in hands of British.]
+
+Practically the whole of the forward crest of the main ridge on a front
+of some 9,000 yards, from Delville Wood to the road above Mouquet Farm,
+was now in our hands, and with it the advantage of observation over the
+slopes beyond. East of Delville Wood, for a further 3,000 yards to Leuze
+Wood, we were firmly established on the main ridge, while further east,
+across the Combles Valley, the French were advancing victoriously on our
+right. But though the centre of our line was well placed, on our flanks
+there was still difficult ground to be won.
+
+[Sidenote: High ground from Ginchy to Morval.]
+
+From Ginchy the crest of the high ground runs northward for 2,000 yards,
+and then eastward, in a long spur, for nearly 4,000 yards. Near the
+eastern extremity of this spur stands the village of Morval commanding a
+wide field of view and fire in every direction. At Leuze Wood my right
+was still 2,000 yards from its objective at this village, and between
+lay a broad and deep branch of the main Combles Valley, completely
+commanded by the Morval spur, and flanked, not only from its head
+northeast of Ginchy, but also from the high ground east of the Combles
+Valley, which looks directly into it.
+
+[Sidenote: The French near Combles.]
+
+Up this high ground beyond the Combles Valley the French were working
+their way toward their objective at Sailly-Saillisel, situated due east
+of Morval, and standing at the same level. Between these two villages
+the ground falls away to the head of the Combles Valley, which runs
+thence in a southwesterly direction. In the bottom of this valley lies
+the small town of Combles, then well fortified and strongly held, though
+dominated by my right at Leuze Wood and by the French left on the
+opposite heights. It had been agreed between the French and myself that
+an assault on Combles would not be necessary, as the place could be
+rendered untenable by pressing forward along the ridges above it on
+either side.
+
+[Sidenote: Difficulties in way of French advance.]
+
+The capture of Morval from the south presented a very difficult problem,
+while the capture of Sailly-Saillisel, at that time some 3,000 yards to
+the north of the French left, was in some respects even more difficult.
+The line of the French advance was narrowed almost to a defile by the
+extensive and strongly fortified Wood of St. Pierre Vaast on the one
+side, and on the other by the Combles Valley, which, with the branches
+running out from it and the slopes each side, is completely commanded,
+as has been pointed out, by the heights bounding the valley on the east
+and west.
+
+[Sidenote: Close cooperation necessary on right.]
+
+On my right flank, therefore, the progress of the French and British
+forces was still interdependent, and the closest cooperation continued
+to be necessary in order to gain the further ground required to enable
+my centre to advance on a sufficiently wide front. To cope with such a
+situation unity of command is usually essential, but in this case the
+cordial good feeling between the allied armies, and the earnest desire
+of each to assist the other, proved equally effective, and removed all
+difficulties.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy defense on main ridge over Thiepval.]
+
+On my left flank the front of General Gough's army bent back from the
+main ridge near Mouquet Farm down a spur descending southwestward, and
+then crossed a broad valley to the Wonderwork, a strong point situated
+in the enemy's front-line system near the southern end of the spur on
+the higher slopes of which Thiepval stands. Opposite this part of our
+line we had still to carry the enemy's original defenses on the main
+ridge above Thiepval, and in the village itself, defenses which may
+fairly be described as being as nearly impregnable as nature, art, and
+the unstinted labor of nearly two years could make them.
+
+[Sidenote: British advance on Thiepval defenses.]
+
+[Sidenote: Positions might be rushed.]
+
+Our advance on Thiepval and on the defenses above it had been carried
+out up to this date, in accordance with my instructions given on July 3,
+1916, by a slow and methodical progression, in which great skill and
+much patience and endurance had been displayed with entirely
+satisfactory results. General Gough's army had, in fact, acted most
+successfully in the required manner as a pivot to the remainder of the
+attack. The Thiepval defenses were known to be exceptionally strong, and
+as immediate possession of them was not necessary to the development of
+my plans after July 1, 1916, there had been no need to incur the heavy
+casualties to be expected in an attempt to rush them. The time was now
+approaching, although it had not yet arrived, when their capture would
+become necessary; but from the positions we had now reached and those
+which we expected shortly to obtain, I had no doubt that they could be
+rushed when required without undue loss. An important part of the
+remaining positions required for my assault on them was now won by a
+highly successful enterprise carried out on the evening of September 14,
+1916, by which the Wonderwork was stormed.
+
+[Sidenote: Plan of combined attack.]
+
+[Sidenote: Main effort against Rancourt and Frégicourt.]
+
+The general plan of the combined allied attack which was opened on
+September 15 was to pivot on the high ground south of the Ancre and
+north of the Albert-Bapaume road, while the Fourth Army devoted its
+whole effort to the rearmost of the enemy's original systems of defense
+between Morval and Le Sars. Should our success in this direction warrant
+it I made arrangements to enable me to extend the left of the attack to
+embrace the villages of Martinpuich and Courcelette. As soon as our
+advance on this front had reached the Morval line, the time would have
+arrived to bring forward my left across the Thiepval Ridge. Meanwhile on
+my right our allies arranged to continue the line of advance in close
+co-operation with me from the Somme to the slopes above Combles, but
+directing their main effort northward against the villages of Rancourt
+and Frégicourt, so as to complete the isolation of Combles and open the
+way for their attack upon Sailly-Saillisel.
+
+A methodical bombardment was commenced at 6 a.m. on September 12, 1916,
+and was continued steadily and uninterruptedly till the moment of
+attack.
+
+[Sidenote: Bombardment and infantry assault.]
+
+At 6.20 a.m. on September 15, 1916 the infantry assault commenced, and
+at the same moment the bombardment became intense. Our new heavily
+armored cars, known as "tanks," now brought into action for the first
+time, successfully co-operated with the infantry, and, coming as a
+surprise to the enemy rank and file, gave valuable help in breaking down
+their resistance.
+
+[Sidenote: Tanks enter Flers.]
+
+[Sidenote: High Wood carried.]
+
+[Sidenote: Capture of the Quadrilateral.]
+
+The advance met with immediate success on almost the whole of the front
+attacked. At 8.40 a.m. "tanks" were seen to be entering Flers, followed
+by large numbers of troops. Fighting continued in Flers for some time,
+but by 10 a.m. our troops had reached the north side of the village, and
+by midday had occupied the enemy's trenches for some distance beyond. On
+our right our line was advanced to within assaulting distance of the
+strong line of defense running before Morval, Les Boeufs, and
+Gueudecourt, and on our left High Wood was at last carried after many
+hours of very severe fighting, reflecting great credit on the attacking
+battalions. Our success made it possible to carry out during the
+afternoon that part of the plan which provided for the capture of
+Martinpuich and Courcelette, and by the end of the day both these
+villages were in our hands. On September 18, 1916, the work of this day
+was completed by the capture of the Quadrilateral, an enemy stronghold
+which had hitherto blocked the progress of our right toward Morval.
+Further progress was also made between Flers and Martinpuich.
+
+[Sidenote: Results of four days' fighting.]
+
+The result of the fighting of September 15, 1916, and following days was
+a gain more considerable than any which had attended our arms in the
+course of a single operation since the commencement of the offensive. In
+the course of one day's fighting we had broken through two of the
+enemy's main defensive systems and had advanced on a front of over six
+miles to an average depth of a mile. In the course of this advance we
+had taken three large villages, each powerfully organized for prolonged
+resistance. Two of these villages had been carried by assault with short
+preparation in the course of a few hours' fighting. All this had been
+accomplished with a small number of casualties in comparison with the
+troops employed, and in spite of the fact that, as was afterward
+discovered, the attack did not come as a complete surprise to the enemy.
+
+[Sidenote: Prisoners taken.]
+
+The total number of prisoners taken by us in these operations since
+their commencement on the evening of September 14, 1916, amounted at
+this date to over 4,000, including 127 officers.
+
+[Sidenote: General attack launched.]
+
+[Sidenote: Objectives taken.]
+
+Preparations for our further advance were again hindered by bad weather,
+but at 12.35 p.m. on September 25, 1916, after a bombardment commenced
+early in the morning of the 24th, a general attack by the Allies was
+launched on the whole front between the Somme and Martinpuich. The
+objectives on the British front included the villages of Morval, Les
+Boeufs, and Gueudecourt, and a belt of country about 1,000 yards deep
+curving round the north of Flers to a point midway between that village
+and Martinpuich. By nightfall the whole of these objectives were in our
+hands, with the exception of the village of Gueudecourt, before which
+our troops met with very serious resistance from a party of the enemy in
+a section of his fourth main system of defense.
+
+[Sidenote: French take Rancourt.]
+
+[Sidenote: Combles occupied.]
+
+On our right our allies carried the village of Rancourt, and advanced
+their line to the outskirts of Frégicourt, capturing that village also
+during the night and early morning. Combles was therefore nearly
+surrounded by the allied forces, and in the early morning of September
+26, 1916, the village was occupied simultaneously by the allied forces,
+the British to the north and the French to the south of the railway. The
+capture of Combles in this inexpensive fashion represented a not
+inconsiderable tactical success. Though lying in a hollow, the village
+was very strongly fortified, and possessed, in addition to the works
+which the enemy had constructed, exceptionally large cellars and
+galleries, at a great depth under ground, sufficient to give effectual
+shelter to troops and material under the heaviest bombardment. Great
+quantities of stores and ammunition of all sorts were found in these
+cellars when the village was taken.
+
+[Sidenote: Gueudecourt carried.]
+
+[Sidenote: Few casualties.]
+
+On the same day Gueudecourt was carried, after the protecting trench to
+the west had been captured in a somewhat interesting fashion. In the
+early morning a "tank" started down the portion of the trench held by
+the enemy from the northwest, firing its machine guns and followed by
+bombers. The enemy could not escape, as we held the trench at the
+southern end. At the same time an aeroplane flew down the length of the
+trench, also firing a machine gun at the enemy holding it. These then
+waved white handkerchiefs in token of surrender, and when this was
+reported by the aeroplane the infantry accepted the surrender of the
+garrison. By 8.30 a.m. the whole trench had been cleared, great numbers
+of the enemy had been killed, and 8 officers and 362 of the ranks made
+prisoners. Our total casualties amounted to five.
+
+[Sidenote: Tactical value of the main ridge.]
+
+The success of the Fourth Army had now brought our advance to the stage
+at which I judged it advisable that Thiepval should be taken, in order
+to bring our left flank into line and establish it on the main ridge
+above that village, the possession of which would be of considerable
+tactical value in future operations.
+
+[Sidenote: New attack on Thiepval.]
+
+Accordingly at 12.25 p.m. on September 26, 1916, before the enemy had
+been given time to recover from the blow struck by the Fourth Army, a
+general attack was launched against Thiepval and the Thiepval Ridge. The
+objective consisted of the whole of the high ground still remaining in
+enemy hands extending over a front of some 3,000 yards north and east of
+Thiepval, and including, in addition to that fortress, the Zollern
+Redoubt, the Stuff Redoubt, and the Schwaben Redoubt, with the
+connecting lines of trenches.
+
+[Sidenote: Strong enemy resistance.]
+
+The attack was a brilliant success. On the right our troops reached the
+system of enemy trenches which formed their objectives without great
+difficulty. In Thiepval and the strong works to the north of it the
+enemy's resistance was more desperate. Three waves of our attacking
+troops carried the outer defenses of Mouquet Farm, and, pushing on,
+entered Zollern Redoubt, which they stormed and consolidated. In the
+strong point formed by the buildings of the farm itself, the enemy
+garrison, securely posted in deep cellars, held out until 6 p.m., when
+their last defenses were forced by a working party of a pioneer
+battalion acting on its own initiative.
+
+[Sidenote: Thiepval taken.]
+
+On the left of the attack fierce fighting, in which "tanks" again gave
+valuable assistance to our troops, continued in Thiepval during that day
+and the following night, but by 8.30 a.m. on September 27, 1916 the
+whole of the village of Thiepval was in our hands.
+
+[Sidenote: Prisoners.]
+
+Some 2,300 prisoners were taken in the course of the fighting on the
+Thiepval Ridge on these and the subsequent days, bringing the total
+number of prisoners taken in the battle area in the operations of
+September 14-30, 1916, to nearly 10,000. In the same period we had
+captured 27 guns, over 200 machine guns, and some 40 trench mortars.
+
+[Sidenote: Stuff and Schwaben Redoubts.]
+
+On the same date the south and west sides of Stuff Redoubt were carried
+by our troops, together with the length of trench connecting that strong
+point with Schwaben Redoubt to the west and also the greater part of the
+enemy's defensive line eastward along the northern slopes of the ridge.
+Schwaben Redoubt was assaulted during the afternoon, and in spite of
+counterattacks, delivered by strong enemy reenforcements, we captured
+the whole of the southern face of the redoubt and pushed out patrols to
+the northern face and toward St. Pierre Divion.
+
+Our line was also advanced north of Courcelette, while on the Fourth
+Army front a further portion of the enemy's fourth-system of defense
+northwest of Gueudecourt was carried on a front of a mile. Between these
+two points the enemy fell back upon his defenses running in front of
+Eaucourt l'Abbaye and Le Sars, and on the afternoon and evening of
+September 27, 1916, our troops were able to make a very considerable
+advance in this area without encountering serious opposition until
+within a few hundred yards of this line. The ground thus occupied
+extended to a depth of from 500 to 600 yards on a front of nearly two
+miles between the Bazentin-le-Petit, Lingy, Thilloy, and Albert-Bapaume
+roads.
+
+[Sidenote: Destremont Farm carried.]
+
+Destremont Farm, southwest of Le Sars, was carried by a single company
+on September 29, 1916, and on the afternoon of October 1, 1916, a
+successful attack was launched against Eaucourt l'Abbaye and the enemy
+defenses to the east and west of it, comprising a total front of about
+3,000 yards. Our artillery barrage was extremely accurate, and
+contributed greatly to the success of the attack. Bomb fighting
+continued among the buildings during the next two days, but by the
+evening of October 3 the whole of Eaucourt l'Abbaye was in our hands.
+
+[Sidenote: Fourth Army attacks.]
+
+At the end of September, 1916, I had handed over Morval to the French,
+in order to facilitate their attacks on Sailly-Saillisel, and on October
+7, 1916, after a postponement rendered necessary by three days'
+continuous rain, our allies made a considerable advance in the direction
+of the latter village. On the same day the Fourth Army attacked along
+the whole front from Les Boeufs to Destremont Farm in support of the
+operations of our allies.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy's trenches east of Gueudecourt taken.]
+
+The village of Le Sars was captured, together with the quarry to the
+northwest, while considerable progress was made at other points along
+the front attacked. In particular, to the east of Gueudecourt, the
+enemy's trenches were carried on a breadth of some 2,000 yards, and a
+footing gained on the crest of the long spur which screens the defenses
+of Le Transloy from the southwest. Nearly 1,000 prisoners were secured
+by the Fourth Army in the course of these operations.
+
+With the exception of his positions in the neighborhood of
+Sailly-Saillisel, and his scanty foothold on the northern crest of the
+high ground above Thiepval, the enemy had now been driven from the whole
+of the ridge lying between the Tortille and the Ancre.
+
+[Sidenote: Germans make repeated counterattacks.]
+
+[Sidenote: British situation satisfactory.]
+
+Possession of the northwestern portion of the ridge north of the latter
+village carried with it observation over the valley of the Ancre between
+Miraumont and Hamel and the spurs and valleys held by the enemy on the
+right bank of the river. The Germans, therefore, made desperate efforts
+to cling to their last remaining trenches in this area, and in the
+course of the three weeks following our advance made repeated
+counterattacks at heavy cost in the vain hope of recovering the ground
+they had lost. During this period our gains in the neighborhood of Stuff
+and Schwaben Redoubts were gradually increased and secured in readiness
+for future operations; and I was quite confident of the ability of our
+troops, not only to repulse the enemy's attacks, but to clear him
+entirely from his last positions on the ridge whenever it should suit my
+plans to do so. I was, therefore, well content with the situation on
+this flank.
+
+Along the centre of our line from Gueudecourt to the west of Le Sars
+similar considerations applied. As we were already well down the forward
+slopes of the ridge on his front, it was for the time being inadvisable
+to make any serious advance. Pending developments elsewhere all that was
+necessary or indeed desirable was to carry on local operations to
+improve our positions and to keep the enemy fully employed.
+
+[Sidenote: Strong enemy positions in eastern flank.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy resistance weakens.]
+
+On our eastern flank, on the other hand, it was important to gain
+ground. Here the enemy still possessed a strong system of trenches
+covering the villages of Le Transloy and Beaulencourt and the town of
+Bapaume; but, although he was digging with feverish haste, he had not
+yet been able to create any very formidable defenses behind this line.
+In this direction, in fact, we had at last reached a stage at which a
+successful attack might reasonably be expected to yield much greater
+results than anything we had yet attained. The resistance of the troops
+opposed to us had seriously weakened in the course of our recent
+operations, and there was no reason to suppose that the effort required
+would not be within our powers.
+
+[Sidenote: Necessity to gain spur and heights.]
+
+The last completed system of defense, before Le Transloy, was flanked to
+the south by the enemy's positions at Sailly-Saillisel, and screened to
+the west by the spur lying between Le Transloy and Les Boeufs. A
+necessary preliminary, therefore, to an assault upon it was to secure
+the spur and the Sailly-Saillisel heights. Possession of the high ground
+at this latter village would at once give a far better command over the
+ground to the north and northwest, secure the flank of our operations
+toward Le Transloy, and deprive the enemy of observation over the allied
+communications in the Combles Valley. In view of the enemy's efforts to
+construct new systems of defense behind the Le Transloy spur, was
+extended and secured time in dealing with the situation.
+
+[Sidenote: Rain and fog a hindrance.]
+
+Unfortunately, at this juncture, very unfavorable weather set in and
+continued with scarcely a break during the remainder of October and the
+early part of November. Poor visibility seriously interfered with the
+work of our artillery, and constant rain turned the mass of hastily dug
+trenches for which we were fighting into channels of deep mud. The
+country roads, broken by countless shell craters, that cross the deep
+stretch of ground we had lately won, rapidly became almost impassable,
+making the supply of food, stores, and ammunition a serious problem.
+These conditions multiplied the difficulties of attack to such an extent
+that it was found impossible to exploit the situation with the rapidity
+necessary to enable us to reap the full benefits of the advantages we
+had gained.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy has time to reorganize.]
+
+None the less, my right flank continued to assist the operations of our
+allies against Saillisel, and attacks were made to this end, whenever a
+slight improvement in the weather made the co-operation of artillery and
+infantry at all possible. The delay in our advance, however, though
+unavoidable, had given the enemy time to reorganize and rally his
+troops. His resistance again became stubborn and he seized every
+favorable opportunity for counterattacks. Trenches changed hands with
+great frequency, the conditions of ground making it difficult to renew
+exhausted supplies of bombs and ammunition, or to consolidate the ground
+won, and so rendering it an easier matter to take a battered trench than
+to hold it.
+
+[Sidenote: French take Sailly-Saillisel.]
+
+On September 12 and 18, 1916, further gains were made to the east of the
+Les Boeufs-Gueudecourt line and east of Le Sars, and some hundreds of
+prisoners were taken. On these dates, despite all the difficulties of
+ground, the French first reached and then captured the villages of
+Sailly-Saillisel, but the moment for decisive action was rapidly passing
+away, while the weather showed no signs of improvement. By this time,
+too, the ground had already become so bad that nothing less than a
+prolonged period of drying weather, which at that season of the year was
+most unlikely to occur, would suit our purpose.
+
+[Sidenote: New line established.]
+
+In these circumstances, while continuing to do all that was possible to
+improve my position on my right flank, I determined to press on with
+preparations for the exploitation of the favorable local situation on my
+left flank. At midday on October 21, 1916, during a short spell of fine,
+cold weather, the line of Regina Trench and Stuff Trench, from the west
+Courcelette-Pys road westward to Schwaben Redoubt, was attacked with
+complete success. Assisted by an excellent artillery preparation and
+barrage, our infantry carried the whole of their objectives very quickly
+and with remarkably little loss, and our new line was firmly established
+in spite of the enemy's shell fire. Over one thousand prisoners were
+taken in the course of the day's fighting, a figure only slightly
+exceeded by our casualties.
+
+[Sidenote: Part of Regina trench carried.]
+
+On October 23, 1916, and again on November 5, 1916, while awaiting
+better weather for further operations on the Ancre, our attacks on the
+enemy's positions to the east of Les Boeufs and Gueudecourt were
+renewed, in conjunction with French operations against the
+Sailly-Saillisel heights and St. Pierre Vaast Wood. Considerable further
+progress was achieved. Our footing at the crest of Le Transloy Spur was
+extended and secured, and the much-contested tangle of trenches at our
+junction with the French left at last passed definitely into our
+possession. Many smaller gains were made in this neighborhood by local
+assaults during these days, in spite of the difficult conditions of the
+ground. In particular, on November 10, 1916, after a day of improved
+weather, the portion of Regina Trench lying to the east of the
+Courcelette-Pys road was carried on a front of about one thousand yards.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy losses.]
+
+Throughout these operations the enemy's counterattacks were very
+numerous and determined, succeeding indeed in the evening of October 23,
+1916, in regaining a portion of the ground east of Le Sars taken from
+him by our attack on that day. On all other occasions his attacks were
+broken by our artillery or infantry and the losses incurred by him in
+these attempts, made frequently with considerable effectives, were
+undoubtedly very severe.
+
+[Sidenote: Preparations for attack on the Ancre.]
+
+On November 9, 1916, the long-continued bad weather took a turn for the
+better, and thereafter remained dry and cold, with frosty nights and
+misty mornings, for some days. Final preparations were therefore pushed
+on for the attack on the Ancre, though, as the ground was still very bad
+in places, it was necessary to limit the operations to what it would be
+reasonably possible to consolidate and hold under the existing
+conditions.
+
+[Sidenote: Permanent line of enemy fortifications.]
+
+The enemy's defenses in this area were already extremely formidable when
+they resisted our assault on July 1, 1916, and the succeeding period of
+four months had been spent in improving and adding to them in the light
+of the experience he had gained in the course of our attacks further
+south. The hamlet of St. Pierre Divion and the villages of
+Beaucourt-sur-Ancre and Beaumont Hamel, like the rest of the villages
+forming part of the enemy's original front in this district, were
+evidently intended by him to form a permanent line of fortifications,
+while he developed his offensive elsewhere. Realizing that his position
+in them had become a dangerous one, the enemy had multiplied the number
+of his guns covering this part of his line, and at the end of October
+introduced an additional division on his front between Grandcourt and
+Hébuterne.
+
+[Sidenote: Barrage to cover infantry.]
+
+At 5 o'clock on the morning of November 11, 1916, the special
+bombardment preliminary to the attack was commenced. It continued with
+bursts of great intensity until 5.45 o'clock on the morning of November
+13, 1916, when it developed into a very effective barrage covering the
+assaulting infantry.
+
+[Sidenote: St. Pierre Divion taken.]
+
+At that hour our troops advanced on the enemy's position through dense
+fog, and rapidly entered his first-line trenches on almost the whole
+front attacked, from east of Schwaben Redoubt to the north of Serre.
+South of the Ancre, where our assault was directed northward against the
+enemy's trenches on the northern slopes of the Thiepval Ridge, it met
+with a success altogether remarkable for rapidity of execution and
+lightness of cost. By 7.20 a.m. our objectives east of St. Pierre Divion
+had been captured, and the Germans in and about that hamlet were hemmed
+in between our troops and the river. Many of the enemy were driven into
+their dugouts and surrendered, and at 9 a.m. the number of prisoners was
+actually greater than the attacking force. St. Pierre Divion soon fell,
+and in this area nearly 1,400 prisoners were taken by a single division
+at the expense of less than 600 casualties. The rest of our forces
+operating south of the Ancre attained their objectives with equal
+completeness and success.
+
+[Sidenote: Objectives reached on right bank of Ancre.]
+
+North of the river the struggle was more severe, but very satisfactory
+results were achieved. Though parties of the enemy held out for some
+hours during the day in strong points at various places along his first
+line and in Beaumont Hamel, the main attack pushed on. The troops
+attacking close to the right bank of the Ancre reached their second
+objectives to the west and northwest of Beaucourt during the morning,
+and held on there for the remainder of the day and night, though
+practically isolated from the rest of our attacking troops. Their
+tenacity was of the utmost value, and contributed very largely to the
+success of the operations. At nightfall our troops were established on
+the western outskirts of Beaucourt, in touch with our forces south of
+the river, and held a line along the station road from the Ancre toward
+Beaumont Hamel, where we occupied the village. Further north the
+enemy's first-line system for a distance of about half a mile beyond
+Beaumont Hamel was also in our hands. Still further north--opposite
+Serre--the ground was so heavy that it became necessary to abandon the
+attack at an early stage, although, despite all difficulties, our troops
+had in places reached the enemy's trenches in the course of their
+assault.
+
+[Sidenote: Beaumont carried.]
+
+Next morning, at an early hour, the attack was renewed between Beaucourt
+and the top of the spur just north of Beaumont Hamel. The whole of
+Beaumont was carried, and our line extended to the northwest along the
+Beaucourt road across the southern end of the Beaumont Hamel spur. The
+number of our prisoners steadily rose, and during this and the
+succeeding days our front was carried forward eastward and northward up
+the slopes of the Beaumont Hamel spur.
+
+[Sidenote: Allies command Ancre Valley.]
+
+The results of this attack were very satisfactory, especially as before
+its completion bad weather had set in again. We had secured the command
+of the Ancre Valley on both banks of the river at the point where it
+entered the enemy's lines, and, without great cost to ourselves, losses
+had been inflicted on the enemy which he himself admitted to be
+considerable. Our final total of prisoners taken in these operations,
+and their development during the subsequent days, exceeded 7,200,
+including 149 officers.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy kept on alert.]
+
+Throughout the period dealt with in this dispatch the rôle of the other
+armies holding our defensive line from the northern limits of the battle
+front to beyond Ypres was necessarily a secondary one, but their task
+was neither light nor unimportant. While required to give precedence in
+all respects to the needs of the Somme battle, they were responsible for
+the security of the line held by them and for keeping the enemy on
+their front constantly on the alert. Their rôle was a very trying one,
+entailing heavy work on the troops and constant vigilance on the part of
+commanders and staffs. It was carried out to my entire satisfaction, and
+in an unfailing spirit of unselfish and broad-minded devotion to the
+general good, which is deserving of the highest commendation.
+
+[Sidenote: Great number of raids.]
+
+Some idea of the thoroughness with which their duties were performed can
+be gathered from the fact that in the period of four and a half months
+from July 1, 1916, some 360 raids were carried out, in the course of
+which the enemy suffered many casualties and some hundreds of prisoners
+were taken by us. The largest of these operations was undertaken on July
+19, 1916, in the neighborhood of Armentières. Our troops penetrated
+deeply into the enemy's defenses, doing much damage to his works and
+inflicting severe losses upon him.
+
+[Sidenote: Main objects of offensive achieved.]
+
+The three main objects with which we had commenced our offensive in July
+had already been achieved at the date when this account closes, in spite
+of the fact that the heavy Autumn rains had prevented full advantage
+from being taken of the favorable situation created by our advance, at a
+time when we had good grounds for hoping to achieve yet more important
+successes.
+
+Verdun had been relieved, the main German forces had been held on the
+western front, and the enemy's strength had been very considerably worn
+down.
+
+[Sidenote: Ample compensation for sacrifices.]
+
+Any one of these three results is in itself sufficient to justify the
+Somme battle. The attainment of all three of them affords ample
+compensation for the splendid efforts of our troops and for the
+sacrifices made by ourselves and our allies. They have brought us a long
+step forward toward the final victory of the allied cause.
+
+[Sidenote: German failure at Verdun.]
+
+The desperate struggle for the possession of Verdun had invested that
+place with a moral and political importance out of all proportion to its
+military value. Its fall would undoubtedly have been proclaimed as a
+great victory for our enemies, and would have shaken the faith of many
+in our ultimate success. The failure of the enemy to capture it, despite
+great efforts and very heavy losses, was a severe blow to his prestige,
+especially in view of the confidence he had openly expressed as to the
+results of the struggle.
+
+[Sidenote: Eastward movement of German troops checked.]
+
+Information obtained both during the progress of the Somme battle and
+since the suspension of active operations has fully established the
+effect of our offensive in keeping the enemy's main forces tied to the
+western front. A movement of German troops eastward, which had commenced
+in June as a result of the Russian successes, continued for a short time
+only after the opening of the allied attack. Thereafter the enemy forces
+that moved east consisted, with one exception, of divisions that had
+been exhausted in the Somme battle, and these troops were already
+replaced on the western front by fresh divisions. In November the
+strength of the enemy in the western theatre of war was greater than in
+July, notwithstanding the abandonment of his offensive at Verdun.
+
+[Sidenote: Somme offensive relieved Verdun.]
+
+It is possible that if Verdun had fallen large forces might still have
+been employed in an endeavor further to exploit that success. It is,
+however, far more probable, in view of developments in the eastern
+theatre, that a considerable transfer of troops in that direction would
+have followed. It is therefore justifiable to conclude that the Somme
+offensive not only relieved Verdun but held large forces which would
+otherwise have been employed against our allies in the east.
+
+The third great object of the allied operations on the Somme was the
+wearing down of the enemy's powers of resistance. Any statement of the
+extent to which this has been attained must depend in some degree on
+estimates.
+
+There is, nevertheless, sufficient evidence to place it beyond doubt
+that the enemy's losses in men and material have been very considerably
+higher than those of the Allies, while morally the balance of advantage
+on our side is still greater.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy resistance feebler.]
+
+During the period under review a steady deterioration took place in the
+morale of large numbers of the enemy's troops. Many of them, it is true,
+fought with the greatest determination, even in the latest encounters,
+but the resistance of still larger numbers became latterly decidedly
+feebler than it had been in the earlier stages of the battle. Aided by
+the great depth of his defenses and by the frequent reliefs which his
+resources in men enabled him to effect, discipline and training held the
+machine together sufficiently to enable the enemy to rally and
+reorganize his troops after each fresh defeat. As our advance
+progressed, four-fifths of the total number of divisions engaged on the
+western front were thrown one after another into the Somme battle, some
+of them twice, and some three times; and toward the end of the
+operations, when the weather unfortunately broke, there can be no doubt
+that his power of resistance had been very seriously diminished.
+
+[Sidenote: Prisoners and guns taken.]
+
+The number of prisoners taken by us in the Somme battle between July 1
+and November 18, 1916, is just over 38,000, including over 800 officers.
+During the same period we captured 29 heavy guns, 96 field guns and
+field howitzers, 136 trench mortars, and 514 machine guns.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The war fell with special severity upon the people of the poorer classes
+in Russia, many of whom, upon the advance of the German and Austrian
+armies, were compelled to flee from their homes in a practically
+destitute condition. A graphic description of the pitiable plight of
+these unfortunate people is given in the following pages.
+
+
+
+
+RUSSIA'S REFUGEES
+
+GREGORY MASON
+
+Copyright, Outlook, January 19, 1916.
+
+
+[Sidenote: A Russian freight train with passengers.]
+
+Near Moscow, on a siding of the railway that runs from Moscow to Warsaw
+through Smolensk, was a string of thirteen freight cars, the short,
+chunky Russian kind--barely half as long as the American--looking as
+flimsy, top-heavy, and unwieldy as houseboats on wheels. No locomotive
+was tied to the string, and from the windward side, where the cars were
+whitewashed by the biting blizzard that had already stopped all traffic
+with its drifted barricades, they had the desolate look of stranded
+empties. But the leeward door of each car was open a few inches,
+permitting the egress of odors that told any one who chanced to pass
+that the big rolling boxes were loaded with human freight, closely
+packed and long on the journey.
+
+[Sidenote: Old women at work.]
+
+I pushed the door of one car back and looked in. At first in the
+semi-gloom nothing was visible, but gradually, against a crack in the
+opposite car wall that let through a streak of gray light with a ribbon
+of snow that rustled as it fell on the straw-covered floor, there grew
+the dull silhouette of two old women, who sat facing each other in the
+straw, laboriously pounding corn into flour in a big earthen bowl
+between them.
+
+[Sidenote: Emaciated children and dead babies.]
+
+The young Pole who was with me climbed into the car and probed its
+recesses with a spear of light from a pocket flash-lamp. The old women
+stopped pounding to lift toward us wrinkled faces that expressed fear
+and hate when the tiny searchlight was turned on their dim, blinking
+eyes. Another pair of hags in a far corner, propped against a bale of
+hay and bound together like Siamese twins in a brown horse-blanket,
+moved their eyes feebly, but nothing more. They were paralyzed. A score
+of children that had been huddled here and there in the straw in twos
+and threes for warmth's sake came slowly to life and crowded around us,
+lifting a ring of wan, emaciated little faces. Three, too feeble to
+stand, sat up and stared at the strange light. The bodies of four small
+babies moved not at all--were, in fact, lifeless.
+
+[Sidenote: Refugees from Poland.]
+
+[Sidenote: Herded like cattle by soldiers.]
+
+These people were refugees from a rural part of Poland, made homeless by
+the Russian military decree which ordered the destruction of all
+buildings and the removal of all civilians from the rearward path of the
+Muscovite army as it fell back before the battering attacks of the
+Germans from Warsaw to Dwinsk. For ten days these four old women and
+twenty-seven children had been in that car, with no fire, few warm
+clothes, and only a little dried meat, corn flour, and water to sustain
+life in them. This the meager fare had failed to do in the case of the
+four youngest. Since they had been herded into that cold box like cattle
+by soldiers at the station to which they had driven or walked from their
+blazing homes, they had been moved eastward daily in the joggling car,
+which traveled slowly and by fits and starts, unvisited by any one, not
+knowing their destination, and now too low in mind and body to care.
+
+[Sidenote: Children forget their families.]
+
+The two old creatures who were paralyzed when they had been dumped into
+the car were now apparently dying; several of the children swayed with
+weakness as they stood, clutching at the biscuits and sweet chocolate
+which we drew from our pockets. Five of them were grandchildren of one
+of the paralytics, three designated one of the wrinkled flour-makers by
+the Polish equivalent of "granny," but none of the others knew where
+their parents were, and six of them had forgotten their own family names
+or had never known them.
+
+[Sidenote: Moscow and Petrograd overcrowded.]
+
+The other twelve cars were like this one except that all of them had at
+least two or three--and usually six or seven--feeble, crackly-voiced old
+men with their complement of women and children, and one contained three
+young fellows of twenty who had probably smuggled themselves into the
+car and who cringed when my Polish interpreter lunged on them with his
+rapier of light and retreated into a corner where two cows stood with
+necks crossed in affection. These youths knew they had no business in
+that car, for even in the chaos of retreat the word had been passed
+among the civilian refugees: "Women, children, and old men first in the
+cars; young men can walk." But there have not been enough cars even for
+the weak, the very young, and the very aged, and thousands, perhaps tens
+of thousands, have found their graves along the slushy, muddy roads they
+were following toward Petrograd and Moscow from the occupied provinces
+of Poland and the Baltic. These people in the freight cars at least had
+had transportation and a crude kind of shelter. But of the two million
+refugees who are overcrowding Moscow and Petrograd, to the great
+detriment of the health average of the two Russian capitals, many
+thousands came there several hundred weary miles on foot. And others,
+less determined or weaker, are still straggling in or are lingering by
+the way, some of the latter dying and some finding shelter in small
+towns between the twin big cities and the front.
+
+[Sidenote: Millions of refugees.]
+
+[Sidenote: People of all ranks and stations.]
+
+Some estimates place the number of Russian refugees at from ten to
+fifteen million; thirteen million is the estimate of the Tatiana
+Committee, one of the most influential relief organizations in Russia,
+named after the second daughter of the Czar, who is its honorary head.
+By race the refugees are principally Poles, Jews, Letts, and
+Lithuanians, but they come from all ranks and stations of life, rich and
+poor alike, now all poor, thrown from their homes with nothing but the
+clothes on their bodies by the grim chances of war.
+
+[Sidenote: Thousands must starve and freeze.]
+
+In times of peace and prosperity the sudden impoverishment of such a
+large mass of people would tax the relief and charity of Russia to the
+limit; but now, when all food prices are from one hundred to three
+hundred per cent higher than before the war--when even the well-to-do
+have difficulty to get enough bread, sugar, and coal--it is inevitable
+that thousands of these homeless ones should starve and freeze to death.
+Thousands have already suffered this fate, but hundreds of thousands,
+perhaps a million or more, will die this way before spring unless relief
+comes quickly and bountifully from abroad, for Russia cannot cope with
+the emergency alone. Unless Russia's allies or neutrals begin at once to
+pour into Russia a stream of food to fill the stomachs of these hungry,
+homeless ones, this will be the bitterest winter in Russian history, a
+winter whose horrors will far transcend the terrible winter of 1812,
+when Napoleon ravaged Poland and sacked Moscow.
+
+[Sidenote: Great Britain must bolster weaker allies.]
+
+Great Britain, who is holding up some of her weaker allies in many ways,
+sweeping mines from the White Sea for Russia, and with France bolstering
+the remnant of the Belgian army in Flanders, is doing much to alleviate
+the suffering of Russia's refugees by unofficial action. The Great
+Britain to Poland Fund, organized and supported by such prominent
+Britons as Lady Byron, Viscount Bryce, the Duke of Newcastle, the Earl
+of Rosebery, and the Lord Mayor of London, at the instance of Princess
+Bariatinsky, who is better known as the famous Russian actress, Madame
+Yavorska, is feeding between 4,000 and 7,000 refugees daily at
+Petrograd, Moscow, Minsk, and at several small towns close to the front.
+
+[Sidenote: The Petrograd "Feeding Point."]
+
+[Sidenote: Sheds for shelter.]
+
+The Petrograd "Feeding Point" is a long, hastily built shed of
+unfinished lumber a stone's-throw from the Warsaw station. This site was
+well selected, for the long stone railway station, open at both ends
+like an aviation hangar, is the center of refugee population in the
+Czar's city. Not only were several hundred homeless men, women, and
+children sleeping on the cold stone floors of the draughty station, but
+other hundreds were lying about in odd corners here and there, in empty
+trucks and freight cars, lying within a few feet of where the crowded
+refugee train had left them, with no hope or ambition to make them move
+on. Still other hundreds, more fortunate than these, were sheltered in
+three sheds, similar to the "Refugees' Restaurant" in their unfinished
+board construction, which had been built by the Government. Each of
+these sheds, about thirty by sixty feet in dimensions, housed between
+two and three hundred persons. This crowding was made possible by the
+presence of platforms built one above another in triple or quadruple
+deck "nests" about the room, where people of both sexes and of all ages
+slept, cooked and ate such food as they could beg, and lay all day long
+with expressionless, bulging eyes, half stupefied in the stifling stench
+of the place.
+
+[Sidenote: Lines before the feeding stations.]
+
+Twice a day a line formed before the door of the feeding station of such
+persons as were known to have no private food supply, and when the door
+opened they surged in, getting brass tickets at the threshold which each
+one exchanged in the far end of the room for a large square piece of
+Russian _chorny khleb_--black bread--and a steaming bowl of good old
+English porridge served to them by the bustling ladies of the British
+Colony. Only enough were admitted at a time to fill the double row of
+board tables, yet every day from 1,000 to 1,400 were fed.
+
+[Sidenote: The gayety of hungry youth.]
+
+It was interesting to stand at the elbow of the buxom, indefatigably
+good-natured English lady who wielded the porridge spoon and watch the
+long, hungry file which melted away toward the tables when it reached
+the tall, bottomless urn that held the fragrant, steaming cereal. First
+came a dozen boys and girls who had lost their parents but not the
+irresistible gayety of hungry youth in the presence of food.
+
+[Sidenote: A one-time rich man.]
+
+[Sidenote: Bitterness toward the Government.]
+
+They took their bread and porridge without even a mumbled
+"_Spassiba_"--thanks--and shouldered each other for seats at the tables.
+Then came a blind old man led by his two grandsons. His thanks were
+pathetically profuse. Next another graybeard, carrying an ivory cane and
+wearing a handsome fur coat, the only indications of his recent high
+station in provincial society except the unmistakable reserve and
+dignity of gentility. After him was a handsome Lett, who had been a
+station agent in Courland till his station was dynamited in the Russian
+retreat. None of the children gave any thanks for the food; in fact,
+hardly any one did except the very old. The attitude of the others
+seemed to be that of people who were getting only a small part of their
+just due. Perhaps that was because they may not have realized that they
+were being fed by England, not by Russia, and toward Russia all of them
+were bitter even those who lived in the shelters the Government had
+built. This bitterness was indicated by the refusal of most of them to
+accept work proffered them by provincial or municipal officials.
+
+[Sidenote: No wish to begin over.]
+
+Their attitude is that, inasmuch as the Government has deliberately
+wiped out their homes and destroyed their means of livelihood, it is the
+Government's duty to support them in comfortable idleness. They seem to
+feel that it is adding insult to injury to ask them to begin over again
+in a new environment and work for their living. I asked a young Lettish
+railway man, living in one of the board barracks near the Warsaw
+station, why he had refused an offer of employment in the railway yards
+hard by.
+
+"Why should I work for Russia?" he asked, bitterly. "Russia has taken
+from me my pretty home, my good job, and my wife and two children, who
+died on the road in that awful blizzard recently. Why should I work for
+Russia?"
+
+"But you will starve if you do not," I suggested.
+
+[Sidenote: Gloomy resignation.]
+
+"_Nichevo!_"--it doesn't matter--he muttered, in gloomy resignation.
+
+[Sidenote: A great mistake.]
+
+[Sidenote: Everything destroyed.]
+
+The majority of the refugees feel the way this man does. I do not refer
+to the refugees who left their homes voluntarily through fear of the
+advancing Germans, but to that greater number who were forced to leave
+by the compulsion of their own Government, which deliberately destroyed
+their homes as a military measure. Every Russian, even the military
+officers who were responsible for this policy of destruction, now
+realize that the adoption of that policy was one of the greatest
+mistakes Russia has made during the war. For it has cost her the support
+of a large and important body of Letts, Poles, Jews, and Lithuanians.
+The theory was that to leave large masses of civilians behind the
+forward-pushing German lines would provide Germany with a large number
+of spies, as well as with sustenance for its armies. To some extent,
+too, it was believed that buildings left standing in the Russian retreat
+might serve as protection and cover for German artillery. So everything
+was destroyed--farm-houses, barns, churches, schools, orchards, even
+haystacks. Whenever the Russian lines retracted before the unbearable
+pounding of the terrible German guns, they left only a desert for the
+Kaiser's men to cross.
+
+[Sidenote: Loss too great to be compensated by gain.]
+
+War is not a parlor game. A great deal of destruction is inevitable in
+the nature of war, and sometimes in wars of the past commanders have
+deliberately laid waste large sections of beautiful country to handicap
+the enemy, and the results have justified this destruction. A ten per
+cent social and economic loss is gladly borne by a nation at war for a
+ninety per cent military gain. Perhaps a commander is even justified in
+inflicting a forty-nine per cent social and economic loss on his country
+for a fifty-one per cent military gain. But the deliberate ravaging of
+Poland and the Baltic provinces was a ninety per cent social and
+economic loss for a ten per cent military gain--something that is never
+justifiable.
+
+[Sidenote: Relief should meet refugees.]
+
+It is very difficult for a general to remember that there are other
+factors in war besides the military factors, and we must not be too
+severe in our criticism of the Russian General Staff because it saw only
+the ten per cent military gain and overlooked the ninety per cent
+political and economic loss. The order which made a desert of thousands
+of square miles of the best territory in Russia was countermanded,
+anyway, but not until the harm had been done. But now the only concern
+of Russia and of the friends of Russia should be to confine the damage
+to the irremediable minimum. To that end it is necessary to handle the
+great streams of refugees intelligently. The influx into Petrograd and
+Moscow should be stopped. Relief organization should go out from these
+cities toward the front, stop the refugees where they meet them, and
+there make provision for them to spend the winter. To this purpose
+hundreds and thousands of sleeping barracks and soup kitchens like those
+in Petrograd must be built along the provincial highways. Thousands of
+these people will never again see the familiar environment where they
+have lived all their lives, even if Russia regains her lost provinces.
+But more of them will be able to return eventually, and there will be
+less suffering among them this winter, if they are stopped where they
+are and are not allowed to flow into the two Russian capitals, so
+terribly overcrowded already, and into the colder country north and east
+of Petrograd and Moscow.
+
+[Sidenote: Russia unable to handle situation.]
+
+I understand that this policy has been adopted by the Tatiana Committee.
+But Russia alone cannot handle the situation; she must have generous aid
+from outside.
+
+[Sidenote: America a synonym for service.]
+
+A young American, Mr. Thomas Whittemore, who was in Sofia when Bulgaria
+went to war, left there declining an invitation of the Queen of Bulgaria
+to head a branch of the Red Cross, because his sympathies were with the
+Allies, and is now in Russia working out a programme for the relief of
+Russia's refugees under the auspices of the Tatiana Committee. He is out
+on the roads in an automobile constantly, meeting the incoming human
+flotsam and jetsam of war, and his recommendations will have the weight
+of authority. America has become a synonym for service in France,
+Belgium, and Servia, but thus far America has done next to nothing for
+Russia. Shall America, who responded so splendidly to the appeal of
+Belgium and Servia, ignore the needs of the stricken people of Poland
+and the Baltic provinces, whose sufferings are greater than the
+sufferings of the Belgians, certainly as great as the sufferings of the
+Servians?
+
+[Sidenote: War's most moving sight.]
+
+There are many pathetic things in war--soldiers wasted with disease,
+blasted in arm and leg with explosive shell, withered in eye and lung by
+the terrible gas; but none of these things is so moving as the sight of
+little children, homeless, parentless, and with clothing worn and torn
+by travel, sleeping in empty freight cars, cold railway stations, or on
+the very blizzard-swept sidewalks of Russian cities, and slowly dying
+because they have no food.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rumania hesitated long before entering the war. The sympathies of her
+people were strongly with the Allies, for military and economic reasons
+connected with German domination of her resources made her actual
+military participation with the Allied Armies difficult and dangerous.
+The decision, however, was made in the late summer of 1916, and an
+attack was made by the Rumanian army against Austrian forces. This was
+followed by successes which continued until Bulgaria began hostilities
+against the Rumanian army. Shortly after, a German army under General
+Mackensen against Rumania was started which ended in the capture of
+Bucharest in December, 1916.
+
+
+
+
+THE TRAGEDY OF RUMANIA
+
+STANLEY WASHBURN
+
+Copyright, Atlantic Monthly, December, 1917.
+
+
+[Sidenote: What it meant for Rumania to fight.]
+
+More than a year has now elapsed since Rumania entered the war. What is
+meant for this little country to abandon neutrality is not generally
+realized. Here in America we know that so long as the British fleet
+dominated the seas we were safe, and that we should have ample
+opportunity to prepare ourselves for the vicissitudes of war and to make
+the preparations that are now being undertaken and carried out by the
+administration of President Wilson. Canada and Australia likewise knew
+that they were in no danger of attack.
+
+[Sidenote: War's terrible cost.]
+
+But the case of Rumania was far different. She knew with a terrible
+certainty that the moment she entered the war she would be the target
+for attack on a frontier over twelve hundred kilometres long. The world
+criticized her for remaining neutral, and yet one wonders how many
+countries would have staked their national future as Rumania did when
+she entered the war. In a short fourteen months she has seen more than
+one half of her army destroyed, her fertile plains pass into the hands
+of her enemies, and her great oil industry almost wiped out. To-day her
+army, supported by Russians, is holding with difficulty hardly twenty
+per cent of what, before the war, was one of the most fertile and
+prosperous small kingdoms of Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: Why nations went to war.]
+
+[Sidenote: America's reasons.]
+
+When America entered the war she assumed, in a large measure, the
+obligations to which the Allies were already committed. It seems of
+paramount importance under these circumstances that the case and the
+cause of Rumania be more thoroughly understood in this country. Other
+countries entered the war through necessities of various sorts. America
+committed herself to the conflict for a cause which even the cynical
+German propaganda, hard as it has tried, has been unable to distort into
+a selfish or commercial one. We are preparing to share in every way the
+sacrifices, both in blood and wealth, which our allies have been making
+these past three years. And as our reward we ask for no selfish or
+commercial rights, nor do we seek to acquire extension of territory or
+acquisition of privilege in any part of the world. We have entered the
+war solely, because of wrongs committed in the past, and with the just
+determination that similar wrongs shall never again be perpetrated. No
+country and no people on this globe are more responsive to an
+obligation, and more determined to fulfill such an obligation when
+recognized, than are the American people.
+
+[Sidenote: The author in Rumania.]
+
+For nearly two years prior to the entrance of Rumania into the war I had
+been attached to the Russian Imperial Staff in the field, as special
+correspondent of the London "Times." I went to Rumania in September,
+1916, directly from the staff of the then Tsar, with a request from the
+highest authority in Russia to the highest command in Rumania that every
+opportunity for studying the situation be given me. These letters gave
+me instant access to the King and Queen of Rumania, to the Rumanian
+General Staff, and to other persons of importance in the Rumanian
+administration. I remained in that country until late in the autumn,
+motoring more than five thousand kilometres, and touching the Rumanian
+front at many places. My opinion, then, of the Rumanian cause is based
+on first-hand evidence obtained at the time.
+
+[Sidenote: An interview with the King.]
+
+When I arrived in Rumania, in September, the army was still at the high
+tide of its advance in Transylvania and the world was lauding without
+stint the bravery and efficiency of Rumanian troops. Two days after my
+arrival I lunched with the King, and had the first of a series of
+interviews with him on the status of the case of Rumania. Inasmuch as
+without the consent of its sovereign the entrance of Rumania into the
+war would have been impossible, I should first present the King's view
+of her case as His Majesty, after several conversations, authorized me
+to present it.
+
+[Sidenote: The King of Rumania decides for war.]
+
+The King himself, as all the world knows, is a Hohenzollern. His
+personal feelings must, therefore, in a measure, be affected by the fact
+that most of his relatives and friends are fighting on the German side.
+There is, however, not the slightest evidence to indicate that he has
+ever allowed the fact of his German blood to weigh against the true
+interests of Rumania. A conversation which illustrates the attitude of
+the King at this time is one which the Princess ----, one of the most
+clever and best-informed women in Rumania, related to me in Bucharest.
+The day before the declaration of war the most pro-German of the
+Rumanian ministers, who had the name of being the leader of the
+pro-German party in the capital, spent several hours putting forth every
+effort to prevent the declaration of war by the King. The minister,
+making no headway, finally said, "The Germans are sure to win. Your
+Majesty must realize that it is impossible to beat a Hohenzollern." The
+King replied, "I think it can be done, nevertheless." To this the
+defender of the German cause answered, "Can you show me a single case
+where a Hohenzollern has been beaten?" The King replied, "I can. I am a
+Hohenzollern, and I have beaten my own blood instincts for the sake of
+Rumania."
+
+[Sidenote: Personality of the King of Rumania.]
+
+One beautiful autumn afternoon, at the royal shooting-box outside of
+Bucharest, the King talked freely about his motives and the cause of his
+people. We had finished luncheon and he had dismissed his suite. He and
+the Crown Prince and myself were left in the unpretentious study. Here,
+over a map-strewn table, it was the custom of the King to study the
+problems of the campaign. A tired, harassed-looking man of about sixty,
+clad in the blue uniform of the Hussars of his Guard, he paced the
+floor, and with deep emotion emphasized the case of his country and the
+motives which had induced Rumania to enter the war.
+
+This earnest presentation of his opinion I placed in writing at that
+time, and the sentences quoted here were a part of the statement
+published in the London "Times." So far as I know, this is the only
+occasion on which the King outlined in a definite way his personal view
+of the Rumania case.
+
+His Majesty began by laying stress on the necessity for interpreting
+Rumania truthfully to the world, now that her enemies were doing their
+utmost to misrepresent her; the necessity for understanding the genius
+of the people and the sacrifices and dangers which the country faced. He
+urged that Rumania had not been moved by mere policy or expediency, but
+that her action was based on the highest principles of nationality and
+national ideals.
+
+[Sidenote: The nation moved by ties of race and blood.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Bulgar a menace.]
+
+"In Rumania as in Russia," said the King, "the tie of race and blood
+underlies all other considerations, and the appeal of our purest
+Rumanian blood which lies beyond the Transylvanian Alps has ever been
+the strongest influence in the public opinion of all Rumania, from the
+throne to the lowest peasant. Inasmuch as Hungary was the master that
+held millions of our blood in perpetual bondage, Hungary has been our
+traditional enemy. The Bulgar, with his efficient and unquestionably
+courageous army, on a frontier difficult to defend, has logically become
+our southern menace, and as a latent threat has been accepted
+secondarily as a potential enemy."
+
+[Sidenote: German friendship an asset.]
+
+[Sidenote: Rumania's long frontier.]
+
+After stating that, although at the beginning of the war Rumanian
+sympathy had leaped instantly to France and England, the Rumanians had
+realized that, economically, the friendship of Germany was an asset in
+the development of Rumanian industries, the King added that,
+nevertheless, as the Great War progressed, there had developed in
+Rumania a moral issue in regard to the war. The frightfulness and
+lawlessness practiced by the Central Powers had a profound effect upon
+the Rumanian people, and the country began to feel the subtle force of
+enemy intrigue endeavoring to force her into war against her own real
+interests. Let us remember, when we would criticize Rumania for her
+early inactivity, that she was, in the words of her King, "a small power
+with a small army surrounded by giants"; that she had a western frontier
+1,000 kilometres long--greater than the English and French fronts
+combined--and a Bulgarian frontier, almost undefended and near her
+capital, stretching for other hundreds of kilometres on the south. With
+Russia in retreat, Rumania would have been instantly annihilated if she
+had acted. She had to wait till she could be reasonably sure of
+protecting herself and of being supported by her allies. She waited not
+a moment longer.
+
+[Sidenote: Prisoners and noncombatants well-treated.]
+
+After pointing out the great risks which Rumania had run, as a small
+country, and the deterring effect of the fate of Serbia and Belgium,
+the King continued, "Notwithstanding the savagery with which the enemy
+is attacking us and the cruelty with which our defenseless women and
+children are being massacred, this government will endeavor to prevent
+bitterness from dominating its actions in the way of reprisals on
+prisoners or defenseless noncombatants; and to this end orders have been
+issued to our troops that, regardless of previous provocation, those who
+fall into our hands shall be treated with kindness; for it is not the
+common soldiers or the innocent people who must be held responsible for
+the policy adopted by the enemy governments."
+
+The interview ended with the King's assurance that Rumanians would not
+falter in their allegiance to England the just, to France, their brother
+in Latin blood, and to Russia, their immediate neighbor.
+
+"With confidence in the justice of our cause, with faith in our allies,
+and with the knowledge that our people are capable of every fortitude,
+heroism, sacrifice, which may be demanded of them, we look forward
+soberly and seriously to the problems that confront us, but with the
+certainty that our sacrifices will not be in vain, and that ultimate
+victory must and will be the inevitable outcome. In the achievement of
+this result the people of Rumania, from the throne to the lowliest
+peasant, are willing to pay the price."
+
+[Sidenote: Rumanians realized their danger.]
+
+When it is realized that these conversations took place in September and
+the first days of October, it must be clear, I think, that neither the
+King nor the Queen had ever felt that Rumania entered the war in
+absolute security, but that they always realized the danger of their
+situation and moved only because their faith in the Allies was such as
+to lead them to believe that they had at least a fair chance to
+cooperate with them without the certainty of destruction.
+
+To emphasize further the fact that both realized this danger even before
+the war started, I would mention one occasion some weeks later, when the
+fear of the German invasion of Rumania was becoming a tangible one.
+During a conversation with the King and the Queen together, in regard to
+this menace, the Queen turned impulsively to the King and said, "This is
+exactly what we have feared. We, at least, never imagined that Rumania
+was going to have an easy victory, and we have always felt the danger of
+our coming into the war."
+
+The King looked very tired and nervous, having spent all that day with
+the General Staff weighing news from the front which was increasingly
+adverse. "Yes," he said, as he pulled his beard, "we were never misled
+as to what might happen."
+
+So much then for the psychology of the sovereigns of Rumania as I
+received it from their own lips.
+
+[Sidenote: Russian efforts to aid Rumania.]
+
+Ever since the loss of Bucharest the world has been asking why Rumania
+entered the war. It seems to be the general opinion that her action at
+that time was unwarranted and that she had been betrayed. There has even
+been a widely circulated report that Germany, through the King, has
+intrigued to bring about this disaster. Again, I have heard that the
+Russian High Command had purposely sacrificed Rumania. At this time,
+when much of the evidence is still unattainable, it is impossible for me
+to make absolutely authoritative statements, but immediately after
+leaving Rumania I spent three hours with General Brussiloff discussing
+the situation. A few days later I had the privilege of meeting the
+former Tsar at Kieff (to whom the Queen had given me a letter), and I
+know from his own lips his feelings in regard to Rumania. Subsequently,
+I was at the headquarters of the Russian High Command and there learned
+at first hand the extraordinary efforts that Alexieff was making to
+support Rumania. The British efforts to cooperate with Rumania and
+prevent disaster I knew thoroughly at that time.
+
+[Sidenote: Lack of vision and foresight.]
+
+I never saw the slightest evidence that either Russia or her allies had
+any intention whatever of disregarding their duties or their
+responsibilities to this little country. That there was lack of vision
+and foresight on all sides is quite apparent. But that there was bad
+faith on the part of any of the contracting parties I do not believe. It
+is probably true that the reactionary government in Petrograd was glad
+to see the Rumanian disaster, but it must be realized that this was a
+military situation primarily, and that ninety per cent of it in the
+first three months was in the hands, not of the Petrograd politicians
+but of the military authorities at the front. Brussiloff and Alexieff
+are men incapable of intrigue or bad faith. The Emperor, with whom I
+talked at Kieff, and the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlowna nearly wept at the
+misfortune of Rumania, and I am certain that the former Tsar was in no
+way a party to any breach of faith with this little ally.
+
+[Sidenote: Military conditions prior to Rumania's venture.]
+
+[Sidenote: Failure of Germans at Verdun.]
+
+I have said that there was not bad faith toward Rumania on the part of
+the Allies when they induced her to enter the war, and that there was
+not lack of intelligence on the part of Rumania when she followed their
+advice. In order to understand the point of view of the Allies it is
+necessary to have clearly in mind the military conditions existing in
+the whole theatre of operations during the six months prior to Rumania's
+fatal venture. In February the Germans had assembled a large portion of
+their mobile reserves for their effort against Verdun. The constant
+wastage of German human material continued almost without intermission
+into May, with spasmodic recurrences up to the present time. Hundreds of
+thousands of Germans were drawn from the visible supply of enemy manhood
+by these offensives. By early May the failure of the Verdun venture had
+probably become manifest to the German High Command, and there is
+evidence that they were commencing to conserve their troops for other
+purposes.
+
+[Sidenote: General Brussiloff's offensive.]
+
+On the 5th of June there began in Galicia and Volhynia the great
+offensive of General Brussiloff which lasted, almost without
+intermission, on one or another part of his front, until October. By the
+middle of June this drive of the Russians began to divert German troops
+for the defense of Kovel. In July started the British-French offensive
+in the West.
+
+[Sidenote: German troops diverted to Eastern front.]
+
+With their reservoirs of men already greatly reduced by the Verdun
+attacks, the Germans, by the middle of July, were compelled to find
+supports to meet the continuous offensives on both the Eastern and
+Western fronts. I cannot estimate the number of troops required by them
+against the French and British, but I do know that between the 5th of
+June and the 30th of August a total of thirty divisions of enemy troops
+were diverted from other fronts against Brussiloff alone. This heavy
+diversion was the only thing that prevented the Russians from taking
+Kovel in July and forcing the entire German line in the East. So
+continuous and pressing were the Russian attacks that more than two
+months elapsed before the enemy could bring this offensive to a final
+stop on the Kovel sector. Enemy formations arriving were ground up in
+detail as fast as they came, and by the middle of July it was clear to
+us, who were on the fighting line in Volhynia, that the Germans were
+having extraordinary difficulties in filling their losses from day to
+day. In June their first supports came by army corps; in July they were
+coming by divisions; and early in August we checked the arrival of
+single regiments, while the Austrians were often so hard pressed that
+they sent isolated battalions to fill the holes in their lines.
+
+[Sidenote: Teuton losses.]
+
+In the meantime the Russians had cleared the Bukovina of the enemy. It
+was believed that Rumania could put in the field twenty-two divisions of
+excellent troops. The enemy losses in prisoners alone, up to the first
+of September, from Brussiloff's offensive, were above four hundred
+thousand and over four hundred guns. It seemed then that these extra
+twenty-two divisions thrown in by Rumania could meet but little
+resistance.
+
+[Sidenote: The Allied plan of operation.]
+
+[Sidenote: Munitions to come daily from Russia.]
+
+In order that the Rumanian attempt to cooperate might be safeguarded in
+the highest degree, a coordinated plan of operations on the part of the
+Allies was agreed upon with Rumania. The allied force in Saloniki under
+General Sarrail was to commence a heavy offensive intended to pin down
+the Bulgarian and Turkish forces to the southern line, thus protecting
+the Rumanian line of the Danube. Brussiloff's left flank in Galicia was
+to start a drive through the Bukovina toward the Hungarian plain, thus
+relieving the Rumanians from any pressure on the south. A Russian force
+of fifty thousand men in the Dobrudja was to protect the Rumanian left.
+This, in view of the apparent shortage of enemy reserves, seemed to
+protect the army of Rumania on both flanks in its advance into
+Transylvania. In addition Rumania was to receive certain shipments of
+munitions of war daily from Russia. It was the opinion of the military
+advisers in Rumania that under no circumstances could the Germans divert
+against her within three months more than sixteen divisions, while some
+of the experts advising her placed the number as low as ten.
+
+[Sidenote: Bulgar and Austrian attack.]
+
+[Sidenote: Rumanians on defensive.]
+
+Now let us see what happened. For some reason, which I do not know, the
+offensive on the south was delayed, and when it did start it attained no
+important results nor did it detain sufficient enemy troops in that
+vicinity to relieve Rumania. On the contrary, heavy forces of Bulgars
+and Austrians immediately attacked the line of the Danube, taking the
+Rumanian stronghold of Turtekaia, with the bulk of the Rumanian heavy
+guns. In order to safeguard Bucharest, then threatened, the Rumanians
+were obliged to withdraw troops from their Transylvania advance, which
+up to this time had been highly successful. These withdrawals
+represented the difference between an offensive and a defensive, and the
+Transylvania campaign potentially failed when Bucharest was threatened
+from the south.
+
+[Sidenote: Defense in Dobrudja falls.]
+
+The Russian expedition in the Dobrudja, which was supported by a
+Rumanian division and a mixed division of Serbs and Slavs, partially
+recruited from prisoners captured by the Russians, failed to work in
+harmony, and the protection of the Rumanian left became, after the
+capture of Turtekaia, a negligible factor which ultimately collapsed
+entirely. Thus we see in the beginning that through no bad faith the
+southern assets on which Rumania depended proved to be of little or no
+value to her.
+
+[Sidenote: The case with Brussiloff's army.]
+
+There still remained the Russian agreement to cooperate in Galicia and
+the Bukovina. I can speak of this situation with authority because I had
+been on the southwestern front almost without intermission since June,
+and know that there was every intent on the part of Brussiloff to carry
+out to the limit of his capacity his end of the programme. The success
+of this, however, was impaired by a situation, over which he had no
+control, which developed in Galicia in September. It must not be
+forgotten that all the Russian troops on the southwestern front had been
+fighting constantly for nearly three months. When I came through Galicia
+on my way to Rumania I found Brussiloff's four southern armies engaged
+in a tremendous action. Early in September they had made substantial
+advances in the direction of Lemberg, and were in sight of Halicz on the
+Dniester when they began to encounter terrific and sustained
+counter-attacks.
+
+[Sidenote: Efforts to coöperate with Rumania.]
+
+That the force of this may be understood I would mention the case of the
+army attacking Halicz. When I first went to the southwestern front in
+June, there were facing this army three Austrian divisions, three
+Austrian cavalry divisions, and one German division. In September, at
+the very moment when Brussiloff was supposed to be heavily supporting
+Rumania, there were sent against this same army--on a slightly extended
+front--three Austrian divisions, two Austrian cavalry divisions, two
+Turkish divisions, and nine German divisions. The army on the extreme
+Russian left, whose duty it was to participate in the offensive in the
+Bukovina, had made important advances toward Lemberg from the south, and
+just at the time that Rumania entered the war it also was subjected to
+tremendous enemy counter-attacks. For several weeks it held its position
+only with the greatest difficulty and by diverting to itself most of the
+available reserves. Something more than one army corps did endeavor to
+coöperate with Rumania, but the situation I have described in Galicia
+made it impossible for sufficient supports to reach the Bukovina
+offensive to enable it to fulfill its mission.
+
+[Sidenote: Reasons for delay in munitions.]
+
+Thus we see that after the first month of the campaign the coöperative
+factors which alone had justified Rumania's entering into the war had
+proved to be failures. The arrival of material from Russia was delayed
+because, after Turtekaia was taken, a new Russian corps was sent to the
+Dobrudja to stiffen up that front. The railroad communications were bad
+and immediately became congested by the movements of troops, thus
+interfering with the shipping of badly needed material. I have since
+heard the Russian reactionary government charged with purposely holding
+up these shipments; but I am inclined to believe that my explanation of
+the cause of the delays in the arrival of material is the correct one.
+
+[Sidenote: Allies underestimated German force.]
+
+The greatest mistake on the part of the Allies was their estimate of the
+number of troops that the Germans could send to Rumania during the fall
+of 1916. As I have said, experts placed this number at from ten to
+sixteen divisions, but, to the best of my judgment, they sent, between
+the 1st of September and the 1st of January, not less than thirty. The
+German commitments to the Rumanian front came by express, and the
+Russian supports, because of the paucity of lines of communication, came
+by freight. The moment that it became evident what the Germans could do
+in the way of sending troops, Rumania was doomed.
+
+[Sidenote: Russians too late to save Bucharest.]
+
+The move of Alexieff and the Russian High Command in the middle of
+October, which is one of tangible record and not of opinion, should
+absolutely eliminate the charges of bad faith on the part of Russia, for
+he immediately appropriated for the support of Rumania between eight and
+ten army corps, which were instantly placed in motion, regardless of the
+adverse condition their absence caused on his own front. It is quite
+true that these troops arrived too late to save Bucharest; but that they
+came as quickly as possible, I can assert without reservation, for I was
+on the various lines of communication for nearly a month and found them
+blocked with these corps, which represented the cream of the Russian
+army, to make good the moral obligations of Russia to Rumania. In
+November I had a talk with Brussiloff, who authorized me to quote him as
+follows on the Rumanian situation:
+
+[Sidenote: Rumania feels bitterness of defeat.]
+
+
+                                 H.Q.--S.W.F.--Nov. 7.
+
+        Rumania is now feeling for the first time the
+        pressure of war and the bitterness of defeat;
+        but Rumania must realize that her defeats are
+        but incidents in the greater campaign; for
+        behind her stands great Russia, who will see to
+        it that her brave little ally, who has come
+        into the war for a just cause, does not
+        ultimately suffer for daring to espouse this
+        cause for which we are all fighting. I can
+        speak with authority when I state that, from
+        the Emperor down to the common soldier, there
+        is a united sentiment in Russia that Rumania
+        shall be protected, helped, and supported in
+        every way possible. Rumanians must feel faith
+        in Russia and the Russian people, and must also
+        know that in the efforts we are making to save
+        them sentiment is the dominant factor, and we
+        are not doing it merely as a question of
+        protecting our own selfish interest and our
+        left flank.
+
+[Sidenote: No wanton breach of faith.]
+
+It seems to me that the evidence I have submitted above clears the
+Allies, including Russia, of any wanton breach of faith toward Rumania,
+though the failure of their intention to relieve her certainly does not
+diminish their responsibility toward her in the future.
+
+[Sidenote: Germans on defensive in the north.]
+
+In the final analysis the determining factor in the ruin of Rumania was
+the failure of the Allies to foresee the number of troops the Germans
+could send against them. Their reasoning up to a certain point was
+accurate. In July, August, and for part of September it was, I believe,
+almost impossible for the Germans to send troops to Transylvania, which
+accounts for the rapidity of the Rumanian advance at the beginning of
+their operations. The fallacy in the Allied reasoning seems to me to
+have been that every one overlooked certain vital factors in the German
+situation. First, that she would ultimately support any threat against
+Hungary to the limit of her capacity, even if she had to evacuate
+Belgium to get troops for this purpose. For with Hungary out of the war
+it is a mate in five moves for the Central Empires. Second: the Allies
+failed to analyze correctly the troop situation on the eastern front,
+apparently failing to grasp one vital point. An army can defend itself
+in winter, with the heavy cold and snows of Russia sweeping the barren
+spaces, with perhaps sixty per cent of the number of troops required to
+hold those identical lines in summer. It should have been obvious that,
+when the cold weather set in in the north, the Germans would take
+advantage of this situation, and by going on the defensive in the north
+release the margin representing the difference in men required to hold
+their lines in summer and in winter. Possibly the same condition applies
+to the west, though I cannot speak with any authority on that subject.
+Apparently this obvious action of the Germans is exactly what happened.
+When their northern front had been combed, we find forces subtracted
+piecemeal from the north, reaching an aggregate of thirty divisions, or
+at least nearly fifteen divisions more than had been anticipated. The
+doom of Rumania was sealed.
+
+[Sidenote: Retreating armies must reach defenses.]
+
+What happened in the Russian effort to support Rumania is exactly what
+has occurred in nearly all the drives that I have been in during this
+war. An army once started in retreat in the face of superior forces can
+hold only when supported _en bloc_ or when it reaches a fortified line.
+The Germans with all their cleverness and efficiency were not able to
+stop the Russian offensive of 1916 until they had fallen back on the
+fortified lines of the Stokhod in front of Kovel. In the Galician drive
+against the Russians in 1915, the armies of the Tsar were not able to
+hold until they reached the San River, on which they fought a series of
+rear-guard actions.
+
+[Sidenote: Russian corps on Sereth line.]
+
+So it was in Rumania. The Russian corps arriving on the installment plan
+were swept away by the momentum of the advancing enemy, who could not be
+halted until the fortified line of the Sereth was reached.
+
+[Sidenote: Rumanians played the game.]
+
+[Sidenote: Russia in chaos.]
+
+Whether one blames the Allies for lack of vision or not, I think one
+must at least acquit Rumania of any responsibility for her own undoing.
+Her case as represented by the King seems a just and sufficient reason
+for her having entered the war. Her action during the war has been
+straightforward and direct, and I have never heard of any reason to
+believe that the King or the Rumanian High Command has ever looked back
+in the furrow since they made the decision to fight on the side of the
+Allies. They followed the advice given them as to their participation in
+the war. They have played the game to the limit of their resources and
+to-day stand in a position almost unparalleled in its pathos and
+acuteness. In front of them, as they struggle with courage and
+desperation for the small fragment of their kingdom that remains, are
+the formations of the Turks, Bulgars, Austrians, Hungarians, and
+Germans, with Mackensen striving to give them a death-blow. Behind them
+is Russia in chaos. German agitators and irresponsible revolutionists
+have striven in vain to destroy the morale of their army and shake their
+faith in their government and their sovereign. It is estimated that
+three million Rumanian refugees have taken shelter behind their lines.
+Their civil population, or that portion of it which remains, will this
+winter be destitute of almost every necessity of life.
+
+[Sidenote: Obligation of Allies to Rumania.]
+
+This, then, is the case of Rumania, and if we and the other Allies have
+not a moral obligation to the King and Queen and the government of that
+little country, to support them in every way possible, then surely we
+have no obligation to any one.
+
+Sentiment, however, is not the only factor in the Rumanian case. There
+is also the problem of sound policy. In spite of all her distress and
+her discouragements Rumania has been able to save from the wreckage, and
+to reconstruct, an army which it is said can muster between three and
+four hundred thousand men.
+
+[Sidenote: Rumanian army well drilled.]
+
+These soldiers are well drilled by French officers, filled with
+enthusiasm and fighting daily, and are even now diverting enemy troops
+toward Rumania which would otherwise be available for fighting British,
+French, and American troops in the west.
+
+The Rumanians are the matrix of the Russian left flank, and if, through
+lack of support and the necessities of life, they go out of the war, the
+solidity of the Russian left is destroyed and the capture of Odessa
+probably foreordained.
+
+A few hundred million dollars would probably keep Rumania fighting for
+another year. It is a conservative estimate to state that it will take
+ten times that amount, and at least six months' delay, to place the
+equivalent number of trained American troops on any fighting front.
+
+[Sidenote: Every assistance should be given.]
+
+It is, I think, obvious that from the point of view of sound military
+policy, as well as moral and ethical obligation, every American whose
+heart is in this war should be behind the President of the United States
+without reserve, in any effort he may make or recommend, in extending
+assistance to Rumania in this the hour of her greatest peril.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Germany's treatment of prisoners of war.]
+
+Prisoners taken by the Germans were overworked and disciplined with much
+insolence and cruelty. For infractions of their iron rules the Germans
+inflicted the severest penalties. The food supplied was insufficient and
+of very poor quality, so that men might actually have starved had it not
+been for boxes sent from home through the Red Cross. In the following
+chapter, a Canadian soldier, who finally escaped after three
+unsuccessful attempts, describes the life of prisoners and other workers
+in the Westphalian coal mines.
+
+
+
+
+SIXTEEN MONTHS A WAR PRISONER
+
+PRIVATE "JACK" EVANS
+
+Copyright, Forum, May 1918.
+
+
+I was in Germany as prisoner of war from June, 1916, to September, 1917.
+
+[Sidenote: Captured at third battle of Ypres.]
+
+[Sidenote: A giant shell blows up the dugout.]
+
+My story starts with my capture at the third battle of Ypres. The Fourth
+Canadian Mounted Rifles were in the front line at Zillebeke. We had been
+terribly pounded by German artillery, in fact, almost annihilated. After
+a hideous night, morning, June 2, 1916, dawned beautiful and clear. At
+5.30 I turned in for a little sleep with four other fellows who made up
+the machine-gun crew with me. Lance Corporal Wedgewood, in charge of the
+gun, remained awake to clean it. I had just got into a sound sleep when
+it seemed as if the whole crust of the earth were torn asunder in one
+mammoth explosion, and I found myself buried beneath sandbags and loose
+earth. I escaped death only by a miracle and managed to dig my way out.
+A giant shell had blown up our dugout. Two of the boys were killed.
+
+"We're in for it," said Wedgewood. "They'll keep this up for a while and
+they'll come over. We must get the gun out."
+
+[Sidenote: German barrage almost wipes out the Fourth.]
+
+The gun had been buried by the explosion, but we managed to get it out
+and were cleaning it up again when another trench mortar shell came
+over. It destroyed all but 300 rounds of ammunition. Then the
+bombardment started in earnest. Shells rained on us like hailstones. The
+German artillery started a barrage behind us that looked almost like a
+wall of flame; so we knew that there was no hope whatever of help
+reaching us.
+
+Our men dropped off one by one. The walls of our trench were battered to
+greasy sand heaps. The dead lay everywhere. Soon only Wedgewood, another
+chap, and myself were left.
+
+"They've cleaned us out now. The whole battalion's gone," he said.
+
+As far as we could see along the line there was nothing left, not even
+trenches--just churned-up earth and mutilated bodies. The gallant Fourth
+had stood its ground in the face of probably the worst hell that had yet
+visited the Canadian lines and had been wiped out!
+
+It was not long before the other fellow was finished by a piece of
+shrapnel. I was wounded in the back with a splinter from a shell which
+broke overhead and then another got me in the knee. I bled freely, but
+luckily neither wound was serious. About 1.30 we saw a star shell go up
+over the German lines.
+
+"They're coming!" cried Wedgewood, and we jumped to the gun.
+
+[Sidenote: The two men remaining fire the machine gun.]
+
+The Germans were about seventy-five yards off when we got the gun
+trained on them. We gave them our 300 rounds and did great damage; the
+oncoming troops wavered and the front line crumpled up, but the rest
+came on.
+
+[Sidenote: Captured by Germans.]
+
+What followed does not remain very clearly in my mind. We tried to
+retreat. Every move was agony for me. We did not go far, however. Some
+of the Germans had got around us and we ran right into four of them. We
+doubled back and found ourselves completely surrounded. A ring of steel
+and fierce, pitiless eyes! I expected they would butcher us there and
+then. The worst we got, however, was a series of kicks as we were
+marching through the lines in the German communication trenches.
+
+[Sidenote: The night in a stable at Menin.]
+
+We were given quick treatment at a dressing station and escorted with
+other prisoners back to Menin by Uhlans. The wounded were made to get
+along as best they could. We passed through several small towns where
+the Belgian people tried to give us food. The Uhlans rode along and
+thrust them back with their lances in the most cold-blooded way. We
+reached Menin about 10 o'clock that night and were given black bread and
+coffee--or something that passed by that name. The night was spent in a
+horse stable with guards all around us with fixed bayonets. The next day
+we were lined up before a group of German officers, who asked us
+questions about the numbers and disposition of the British forces, and
+we lied extravagantly. They knew we were lying, and finally gave it up.
+
+[Sidenote: In cattle trucks to Dülmen camp.]
+
+During the next day and a half, traveling in cattle trucks, we had one
+meal, a bowl of soup. It was weak and nauseating. We took it gratefully,
+however, for we were nearly starved.
+
+[Sidenote: Food bad and insufficient.]
+
+Finally we arrived at Dülmen camp, where I was kept two months. The food
+was bad, and very, very scanty. For breakfast we had black bread and
+coffee; for dinner, soup (I still shudder at the thought of turnip
+soup), and sometimes a bit of dog meat for supper, a gritty, tasteless
+porridge, which we called "sand storm." We used to sit around with our
+bowls of this concoction and extract a grim comfort from the hope that
+some day Kaiser Bill would be in captivity and we might be allowed to
+feed him on "sand storm."
+
+[Sidenote: The American Ambassador's visit.]
+
+While I was at Dülmen we had quite a number of visitors. One day Mr.
+Gerard, the American Ambassador, appeared. He looked us over with great
+concern and asked us a number of questions. "Is there anything I can do
+for you?" he asked as he was leaving.
+
+"See if you can get them to give us more food," one of us begged.
+
+"I shall speak to the camp commander about it," promised Mr. Gerard.
+
+I do not doubt that he did so--but there was no change in the menu and
+no increase in the quantities served.
+
+[Sidenote: Arrival at the coal mine.]
+
+After two months at Dülmen prison camp we got word that we were to be
+sent to work on a farm. We conjured up visions of open fields and fresh
+air and clean straw to sleep in and perhaps even real food to eat. They
+loaded fifty of us into one car and sent us off, and when we reached our
+farm we found it was a coal mine!
+
+As we tumbled off the train, stiff, weary, and disappointed, we were
+regarded curiously by a small group of people who worked in the mines.
+They were a heavy looking lot--oldish men with beards, and dull, stolid
+women. They regarded us with sullen hostility, but there was no fire in
+their antagonism. Some of the men spat and muttered "Schweinhunds!" That
+was all.
+
+[Sidenote: The prison camp.]
+
+We were marched off to the "Black Hole." It was a large camp with large
+frame buildings, which had been erected especially for the purpose.
+There was one building for the French prisoners, one for the Russians,
+and one for the British and Canadian contingent. Barbed wire
+entanglements surrounded the camp and there were sentries with drawn
+bayonets everywhere.
+
+[Sidenote: Heavy work and slender rations.]
+
+We were greeted with considerable interest by the other prisoners. There
+were about two hundred of our men there and all of them seemed in bad
+shape. They had been subjected to the heaviest kind of work on the
+slenderest rations and were pretty well worn out.
+
+[Sidenote: A strike for safeguards.]
+
+Some of us were selected for the mine and some were told off for coke
+making, which, as we soon learned, was sheer unadulterated hell. I was
+selected for the coke mine and put in three days at it--three days of
+smarting eyes and burning lungs, of aching and weary muscles. Then my
+chum, Billy Flanagan, was buried under an avalanche of falling coal and
+killed. There were no safeguards in the mine and the same accident might
+occur again at any time. So we struck.
+
+[Sidenote: Kept at "attention" thirty-six hours.]
+
+The officers took it as a matter of course. We were lined up and ordered
+to stand rigidly at "attention." No food was served, not even a glass of
+water was allowed us. We stood there for thirty-six hours. Man after man
+fainted from sheer exhaustion. When one of us dropped he was dragged out
+of the ranks to a corner, where a bucket of water was thrown over him,
+and, as soon as consciousness returned, he was yanked to his feet and
+forced to return to the line. All this time sentries marched up and down
+and if one of us moved he got a jab with the butt end of the gun. Every
+half hour an officer would come along and bark out at us:
+
+"Are you for work ready now?"
+
+Finally, when some of our fellows were on the verge of insanity, we gave
+in in a body.
+
+[Sidenote: Awakened at 4 a. m.]
+
+[Sidenote: Turnip soup the chief article of diet.]
+
+After that things settled down into a steady and dull routine. We were
+routed out at 4 o'clock in the morning. The sentries would come in and
+beat the butts of their rifles on the wooden floor and roar "Raus!" at
+the top of their voices. If any sleep-sodden prisoners lingered a
+second, they were roughly hauled out and kicked into active obedience.
+Then a cup of black coffee was served out to us and at 5 o'clock we were
+marched to the mines. There was a dressing room at the mine where we
+stripped off our prisoners' garb and donned working clothes. We stayed
+in the mines until 3.30 in the afternoon and the "staggers"--our pet
+name for the foremen--saw to it that we had a busy time of it. Then we
+changed back into our prison clothes and marched to barracks, where a
+bowl of turnip soup was given us and a half pound of bread. We were
+supposed to save some of the bread to eat with our coffee in the
+morning. Our hunger was so great, however, that there was rarely any of
+the bread left in the morning. At 7 o'clock we received another bowl of
+turnip soup and were then supposed to go to bed.
+
+If it had not been for the parcels of food that we received from friends
+at home and from the Red Cross we would certainly have starved. We were
+able to eke out our prison fare by carefully husbanding the food that
+came from the outside.
+
+[Sidenote: Citizen miners also complain about food.]
+
+The citizens working in the mines when I first arrived were mostly
+middle-aged. Many were quite venerable in appearance and of little
+actual use. They were willing enough to work and work hard; but they
+complained continually about the lack of food.
+
+That was the burden of their conversation, always, food--bread, butter,
+potatoes, schinken (ham)! They were living on meager rations and the
+situation grew steadily worse. The people that I worked with were in
+almost as bad a plight as we prisoners of war. In the course of a few
+months I could detect sad changes in them.
+
+[Sidenote: German miners also severely disciplined.]
+
+The German miners were quite as much at the mercy of the officers as we
+were. Discipline was rigid and they were "strafed" for any infraction of
+rules; that is, they were subjected to cuts in pay. Lateness, laziness,
+or insubordination were punished by the deduction of so many marks from
+their weekly earnings, and all on the say-so of the "stagger" in charge
+of the squad. At a certain hour each day an official would come around
+and hand each civilian a slip of paper. I asked one of my companions
+what it was all about.
+
+[Sidenote: No bread tickets for those who do not work.]
+
+"Bread tickets," he explained. "If they don't turn up for work, they
+don't get their bread tickets and have to go hungry."
+
+The same rule applied to the women who worked around the head of the
+mine, pushing carts and loading the coal. If they came to work, they
+received their bread tickets; if they failed to turn up, the little
+mouths at home would go unfed for a day.
+
+[Sidenote: German women at the mines.]
+
+I often used to stop for a moment or so on my way to or from the pit
+head and watch these poor women at work. Some of them went barefoot, but
+the most of them wore wooden shoes. They appeared to be pretty much of
+one class, uneducated, dull, and just about as ruggedly built as their
+men. They seemed quite capable of handling the heavy work given them.
+There were exceptions, however. Here and there among the gray-clad
+groups I could pick out women of a slenderer mold. These were women of
+refinement and good education who had been compelled to turn to any
+class of work to feed their children. Their husbands and sons were at
+the front or already killed.
+
+The food restrictions caused bitterness among all the mine workers.
+There were angry discussions whenever a group of them got together. For
+several days this became very marked.
+
+"There's going to be trouble here," my friend, the English Tommy, told
+me. "These people say their families are starving. They will strike one
+of these days."
+
+The very next day, as we marched up to work in the dull gray of the
+early morning, we found noisy crowds of men and women around the
+buildings at the mine. A ring of sentries had been placed all around.
+
+[Sidenote: Bread strike of the citizen miners.]
+
+"Strike's on! There's a bread strike all through the mining country!"
+was the whispered news that ran down the line of prisoners. We were
+delighted, because it meant that we would have a holiday. The
+authorities did not dare let us go into the mines with the civilians
+out; they were afraid we might wreck it. So we were marched back to camp
+and stayed there until the strike was over.
+
+[Sidenote: The strikers win and new rules are formulated.]
+
+The strike ended finally and the people came back to work, jubilant. The
+authorities had given in for two reasons, as far as we could judge. The
+first was the dire need of coal, which made any interruption of work at
+the mines a calamity. The second was the fact that food riots were
+occurring in many parts and it was deemed wise to placate the people.
+
+But the triumph of the workers was not complete. The very next day we
+noticed signs plastered up in conspicuous places with the familiar word
+"Verboten" in bold type at the top. One of our fellows who could read
+German edged up close enough to see one of the placards.
+
+"There won't be any more strikes," he informed us. "The authorities have
+made it illegal for more than four civilians to stand together at any
+time or talk together. Any infringement of the rule will be jail for
+them. That means no more meetings."
+
+There was much muttering in the mine that day, but it was done in groups
+of four or less. I learned afterward, when I became sufficiently
+familiar with the language and with the miners themselves to talk with
+them, that they bitterly resented this order.
+
+[Sidenote: Strike leaders disappear from the mine.]
+
+I found that the active leaders in the strike shortly afterward
+disappeared from the mine. Those who could possibly be passed for
+military service were drafted into the army. This was intended as an
+intimation to the rest that they must "be good" in future. The fear of
+being drafted for the army hung over them all like a thunder cloud. They
+knew what it meant and they feared it above everything.
+
+When I first arrived at the mine there were quite a few able-bodied men
+and boys around sixteen and seventeen years of age at work there.
+Gradually they were weeded out for the army. When I left none were there
+but the oldest men and those who could not possibly qualify for any
+branch of the service.
+
+[Sidenote: Talks with the German miner.]
+
+In the latter stages of my experience at the mine I was able to talk
+more or less freely with my fellow workers. A few of the Germans had
+picked up a little English. There was one fellow who had a son in the
+United States and who knew about as much English as I knew German, and
+we were able to converse. If I did not know the "Deutsch" for what I
+wanted to say, he generally could understand it in English. He was
+continually making terrific indictments of the German Government, yet he
+hated England to such a degree that he would splutter and get purple in
+the face whenever he mentioned the word. However, he could find it in
+his heart to be decent to isolated specimens of Englishmen.
+
+I first got talking with Fritz one day when the papers had announced the
+repulse of a British attack on the western front.
+
+[Sidenote: Fritz's view of British attacks.]
+
+"It's always the same. They are always attacking us," he cursed. "Of
+course, it's true that we repulse them. They are but English and they
+can't break the German army. But how are we to win the war if it is
+always the English who attack?"
+
+"Do you still think Germany can win?" I asked.
+
+"No!" He fairly spat at me. "We can't beat you now. But you can't beat
+us! This war will go on until your pig-headed Lloyd George gives in."
+
+"Or," I suggested gently, "until your pig-headed Junker Government gives
+in."
+
+"They never will!" he said, a little proudly, but sadly too. "Every man
+will be killed in the army--my two sons, all--and we will starve before
+it is all over!"
+
+[Sidenote: The Germans no longer hope for a big victory.]
+
+The German citizens, in that section at least, had given up hope of
+being able to score the big victory that was in every mind when the war
+started. What the outcome would be did not seem to be clear to them. All
+they knew was that the work meant misery for them, and that, as far as
+they could see, this misery would continue on and on indefinitely. They
+had lost confidence in the newspapers. It was plain to be seen that the
+stereotyped rubber-stamped kind of official news that got into the
+papers did not satisfy them. Many's the time I heard bitter curses
+heaped upon the Hobenzollerns by lips that were flabby and colorless
+from starvation.
+
+[Sidenote: News of unrestricted submarine warfare.]
+
+There was much excitement among them when, early in 1917, the news
+spread that unrestricted submarine warfare was to be resumed. Old Fritz
+came over to me with a newspaper in his hand and his eyes fairly popping
+with excitement.
+
+"This will end it!" he declared. "We are going to starve you out, you
+English."
+
+"You'll bring America in," I told him.
+
+"No, no!" he said, quite confidently. "The Yankees won't come in. They
+are making too much money as it is. They won't fight. See, here it is in
+the paper. It is stated clearly here that the United States will not
+fight. It doesn't dare to fight!"
+
+But when the news came that the United States had actually declared war
+they were a sad lot. I took the first opportunity to pump old Fritz
+about the views of his companions.
+
+"It's bad, bad," he said, shaking his head dolefully.
+
+"Then you are afraid of the Americans, after all?" I said.
+
+[Sidenote: Why Fritz was sorry to have America in the war.]
+
+Fritz laughed, with a short, contemptuous note. "No, it is not that," he
+said. "England will be starved out before the Americans can come in and
+then it will all be over. But--just between us, you and me--most of us
+here were intending to go to America, after the war, where we would be
+free from all this. But--now the United States won't let us in after the
+war!"
+
+I shall never forget the day that the papers announced the refusal of
+the English labor delegates to go to Stockholm. One excited miner struck
+me across the face with the open newspaper in his hand.
+
+[Sidenote: Hatred of the English.]
+
+"Always, always the same!" he almost screamed. "The English block
+everything. They will not join and what good can come now of the
+conference? They will not be content and the war must go on!"
+
+[Sidenote: Shortage in necessities of life.]
+
+The food shortage reached a crisis about the time that I managed, after
+three futile attempts, to escape. Frequently, when the people took their
+bread tickets to the stores they found that supplies had been exhausted
+and that there was nothing to be obtained. Prices had gone sky-high.
+Bacon, for instance, $2.50 and more a pound. A cake of soap cost 85
+cents. Cleanliness became a luxury. These prices are indicative of the
+whole range and it is not hard to see the struggle these poor mine
+people were having to keep alive at all.
+
+[Sidenote: Prisoners receive food from England.]
+
+[Sidenote: Germans wonder at food of starving England.]
+
+At this time our parcels from England were coming along fairly regularly
+and we were better off for food than the Germans themselves. Owing to
+the long shift we were compelled to do in the mines we fell into the
+habit of "hoarding" our food parcels and carrying a small lunch to the
+mines each day. These lunches had to be carefully secreted or the
+Germans would steal them. They could not understand how it was that
+starving England could send food abroad to us. The sight of these
+lunches helped to undermine their faith in the truth of the official
+information they read in the newspapers.
+
+[Sidenote: Wages spent for soap.]
+
+Our lot at the mines was almost unendurable. We were supposed to receive
+four and a half marks (90 cents) a week for our labor, but there was
+continual "strafing" to reduce the amount. If we looked sideways at a
+"stagger," we were likely to receive a welt with a pick handle and a
+strafe of several marks. Sometimes we only received a mark or two for a
+week's work. Most of this we spent for soap. It was impossible to work
+in the mine and not become indescribably dirty, and soap became an
+absolute necessity.
+
+[Sidenote: Uncomfortable quarters.]
+
+We lived under conditions of great discomfort in the camp, 250 of us in
+30 x 30 quarters. There were two stoves in the building in which coke
+was burned, but the place was terribly cold. The walls at all seasons
+were so damp that pictures tacked up on them mildewed in a short time.
+Our bunks contained straw which was never replenished and we all became
+infested with fleas. Some nights it was impossible to sleep on account
+of the activity of these pests. On account of the dampness and cold we
+always slept in our clothes.
+
+[Sidenote: Cruelty of discipline.]
+
+[Sidenote: Seven plan to escape.]
+
+Discipline was rigorous and cruel. We were knocked around and given
+terms of solitary confinement and made to stand at attention for hours
+at the least provocation. Many of the prisoners were killed--murdered by
+the cruelty. It became more than flesh and blood could stand. One day
+seven of us got together and made a solemn compact to escape. We would
+keep at it, we decided, no matter what happened, until we got away. Six
+of us are now safely at home. The seventh, my chum, J. W. Nicholson, is
+still a prisoner.
+
+I made four attempts to escape before I finally succeeded. The first
+time a group of us made a tunnel out under the barricade, starting
+beneath the flooring of the barracks. We crawled out at night and had
+put fifteen miles between us and the camp before we were finally caught.
+I got seven days' "black" that time, solitary confinement in a narrow
+stone cell, without a ray of light, on black bread and water.
+
+[Sidenote: Two attempts to escape fail and are punished.]
+
+The second attempt was again by means of a tunnel. A chum of mine,
+William Raesides, who had come over with the 8th C. M. R.'s, was my
+companion that time. We were caught by bloodhounds after twenty miles
+and they gave us ten days' "black."
+
+[Sidenote: The third attempt.]
+
+The third attempt was made in company with my chum Nicholson, and we
+planned it out very carefully. Friends in England sent through suits of
+civilian clothes to us.
+
+The next day we dressed up for the attempt by putting on our "civies"
+first and then drawing our prisoner's uniform over them. When we got to
+the mine we took off the uniform and slipped the mining clothes on over
+the others. We worked all day. Coming up from work in the late
+afternoon, Nick and I held back until everyone else had gone. We went up
+alone in the hoist and tore off our mining clothes as we ascended,
+dropping each piece back into the pit as we discarded it.
+
+It was fairly dark when we got out of the hoist and the guards did not
+pay much attention to us. There was a small building at the mine head
+where we prisoners washed and dressed after work and a separate exit for
+the civilians. Nick and I took the civilian exit and walked out into
+the street without any interference.
+
+[Sidenote: Near the Dutch border.]
+
+We could both speak enough German to pass, so we boldly struck out for
+the Dutch border, which was about 85 miles away, traveling only during
+the night. We had a map that a miner had sold to us for a cake of soap
+and we guided our course by that. We got to the border line without any
+trouble whatever, but were caught through overconfidence, due to a
+mistake in the map. Close to the line was a milepost indicating that a
+certain Dutch town was two miles west. The map indicated that this town
+was four miles within the Dutch border.
+
+[Sidenote: Captured and punished again.]
+
+"We're over!" we shouted when we saw that welcome milepost. Throwing
+caution aside, we marched boldly forward, right into a couple of
+sentries with fixed bayonets!
+
+It was two weeks' "black" they meted out to us that time. The
+Kommandant's eyes snapped as he passed sentence. I knew he would have
+been much more strict on me as the three-time offender had it not been
+that the need for coal was so dire that labor, even the labor of a
+recalcitrant prisoner, was valuable.
+
+"No prisoner has yet escaped from this Kommando!" he shouted, "and none
+shall. Any further attempts will be punished with the utmost severity."
+
+[Sidenote: A new method of getaway planned.]
+
+Nevertheless they took the precaution to break up my partnership with
+Nicholson, putting him on the night shift. I immediately went into
+partnership with Private W. M. Masters, of Toronto, and we planned to
+make our getaway by an entirely new method.
+
+The building at the mine where we changed clothes before and after work
+was equipped with a bathroom in one corner, with a window with one iron
+bar intersecting. Outside the window was a bush and beyond that open
+country. A sentry was always posted outside the building, but he had
+three sides to watch and we knew that, if we could only move that bar,
+we could manage to elude the sentry. So we started to work on the bar.
+
+[Sidenote: Four months' steady work.]
+
+I had found a bit of wire which I kept secreted about me and every
+night, after washing up, we would dig for a few minutes at the brickwork
+around the bar. It was slow, tedious and disappointing work. Gradually,
+however, we scooped the brick out around the bar and after nearly four
+months' application we had it so loosened that a tug would pull it out.
+
+[Sidenote: Night in a bog.]
+
+The next day Masters and I were the last in the bathroom, and when the
+sentry's round had taken him to the other side of the building, we
+wrenched out the bar, raised the window and wriggled through head first,
+breaking our fall in the bush outside. We got through without attracting
+attention and ran across the country into a swamp, where we soon lost
+our way and wallowed around all night up to our knees in the bog,
+suffering severely from the cold and damp. Early in our flight the
+report of a gun from the camp warned us that our absence had been
+discovered. Our adventure in the swamp saved us from capture, for the
+roads were patrolled by cavalry that night.
+
+We found our way out of the swamp near morning, emerging on the western
+side. By the sale of more soap to miners we had acquired another map and
+a compass, so we had little difficulty in determining our whereabouts
+and settling our course for the border. For food we had each brought
+along ten biscuits, the result of several weeks' hoarding.
+
+That day we stayed on the edge of the swamp, never stirring for a moment
+from the shelter of a clump of bushes. One slept while the other
+watched. No one came near us and we heard no signs of our pursuers.
+Night came on most mercifully dark and we struck out along the roads at
+a smart clip.
+
+We traveled all night, making probably twenty-five miles. It was
+necessary, we knew, to make the most of our strength in the earlier
+stages of the dash. As our food gave out we would be less capable of
+covering the ground. So we spurred ourselves on to renewed effort and
+ate the miles up in a sort of frenzy.
+
+This kept up for four days and nights. We kept going as hard as our
+waning strength would permit and we were cautious in the extreme. Even
+at that we had many narrow escapes.
+
+[Sidenote: Crossing the Lippe River.]
+
+Our greatest difficulty was when we struck the Lippe River. Our first
+plan was to swim across, but we found that we had not the strength left
+for this feat. We lost a day as a result. The second night we found a
+scow tied up along the bank and got across that way.
+
+[Sidenote: Rapid progress, though starving.]
+
+By this time we were slowly starving on our feet, we were wet through
+continuously, and such sleep as we got was broken and fitful. Before we
+had been four days out we were reduced to gaunt, tattered, dirty
+scarecrows. We staggered as we walked and sometimes one of us would drop
+on the road through sheer weakness. Through it all we kept up our frenzy
+for speed and it was surprising how much ground we forced ourselves to
+cover in a night. And, no matter how much the pangs of hunger gnawed at
+us, we conserved our fast dwindling supply of biscuit. Less than two
+biscuits a day was our limit!
+
+Finally we reached a point that I recognized from my previous attempt to
+escape. It was about four miles from the border. We had two biscuits
+left between us. The next day we feasted royally and extravagantly on
+those two biscuits. No longer did we need to hoard our supplies, for the
+next night would tell the tale.
+
+[Sidenote: Safe past the German sentries.]
+
+By the greatest good fortune night came on dark and cloudy. Not a star
+showed in the sky. We crawled cautiously and painfully toward the
+border. At every sound we stopped and flattened out. Twice we saw
+sentries close at hand, but both times we got by safely. Finally we
+reached what we judged must be the last line of sentries. We had crawled
+across a ploughed field and reached a road lined on both sides with
+trees where sentries were passing up and down.
+
+"It's the border!" we whispered.
+
+When the nearest sentry had reached the far end of his beat we doubled
+up like jack-knives and dashed across that road, plunging through the
+trees on the other side. Not a sound came from the sentries. We struck
+across fields with delirious speed, we reeled along like drunken men,
+laughing and gasping and sometimes reaching out for a mutual handshake.
+
+[Sidenote: Across the border in Holland.]
+
+Then we got a final scare. Marching up the road toward us was what
+looked like a white sheet. Our nerves were badly shattered, and that
+moving thing froze my blood, but it was a scare of brief duration. The
+sheet soon resolved itself into two girls in white dresses, walking up
+the road with a man. We scurried to the side of the road as soon as we
+made them out. Then I decided to test the matter of our whereabouts and
+stepped out to accost them.
+
+"Have you a match?" I asked in German.
+
+The man did not understand me!
+
+We were in Holland--_and free_!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Little was heard from the Belgians themselves of the hardships and
+suffering endured by them under the rule of the Germans. Occasionally,
+however, an eye-witness from the outside was able to present some
+aspects of the terrible picture. The narrative of such an eye-witness is
+given in the following pages.
+
+
+
+
+UNDER GERMAN RULE IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM
+
+J. P. WHITAKER
+
+
+[Sidenote: The German iron heel on Roubaix.]
+
+Toward the end of March, 1915, a distinct change became noticeable in
+the policy of the German military authorities, and for the first time
+the people of Roubaix began to feel the iron heel. The allied
+Governments had formally declared their intention of blockading Germany
+and the German Army had been given a sharp lesson at Neuve Chapelle.
+Whether these two events had anything to do with the change, or whether
+it was merely a coincidence, I do not know; the fact remains that our
+German governors who had hitherto treated us with tolerable leniency
+chose about this time to initiate a régime of stringent regulation and
+repression.
+
+[Sidenote: Identification papers.]
+
+The first sign of the new policy was the issue of posters calling on all
+men, women, and children over the age of 14 to go to the Town Hall and
+take out identification papers, while all men between 17 and 50 were
+required also to obtain a control card.
+
+Up to this time I had escaped any interference from the Germans, perhaps
+because I scarcely ventured into the streets for the first two months of
+the German occupation, and possibly also because, from a previous long
+residence in Roubaix, I spoke French fluently. Strangely enough, though
+I went to the Town Hall with the rest and supplied true particulars of
+my age and nationality, papers were issued to me as a matter of course,
+and never during the whole two years and more of my presence in their
+midst did the enemy molest me in any way.
+
+[Sidenote: Control cards for men of military age.]
+
+The only incident which throws any light on this curious immunity
+occurred about the middle of 1915. Like all other men of military age, I
+was required to present myself once a month at a public hall, in order
+to have my control card, which was divided into squares for the months
+of the year, marked in the proper space with an official stamp "Kontrol,
+July," or "August," or whatever the month might be. We were summoned for
+this process by groups, first those from 17 to 25, then those from 25 to
+35, and so on. Hundreds of young fellows would gather in a room, and one
+by one, as their names were called, would take their cards to be stamped
+by a noncommissioned officer sitting at a table on the far side of the
+room. On the occasion I have in mind, the noncommissioned officer said
+to me, "You are French, aren't you?" I answered, "No." "Are you
+Belgian?" "No," again. "You are Dutch, then?" A third time I replied
+"No."
+
+At this stage an officer who had been sauntering up and down the room
+smoking a cigarette came to the table, took up my card, and turning to
+the man behind the table, remarked, "It's all right. He's an American."
+I did not trouble to enlighten him. That is probably why I enjoyed
+comparative liberty.
+
+[Sidenote: The German policy of enslavement.]
+
+Enslavement is part of the deliberate policy of the Germans in France.
+It began by the taking of hostages at the very outset of their
+possession of Roubaix. A number of the leading men in the civic and
+business life of the town were marked out and compelled to attend by
+turns at the Town Hall, to be shot on the spot at the least sign of
+revolt among the townspeople.
+
+[Sidenote: Treatment of girl mill operatives who refuse to work.]
+
+
+Not a few of the mill owners were ordered to weave cloth for the
+invaders, and on their refusal were sent to Germany and held to ransom.
+Many of the mill operatives, quite young girls, were directed to sew
+sandbags for the German trenches. They, too, refused, but the Germans
+had their own ways of dealing with what they regarded as juvenile
+obstinacy. They dragged the girls to a disused cinema hall, and kept
+them there without food or water until their will was broken.
+
+Barbarity reached its climax in the so-called "deportations." They were
+just slave raids, brutal and undisguised.
+
+[Sidenote: The deportations or slave raids.]
+
+[Sidenote: Taken to an unknown fate.]
+
+The procedure was this: The town was divided into districts. At 3
+o'clock in the morning a cordon of troops would be drawn round a
+district--the Prussian Guard and especially, I believe, the Sixty-ninth
+Regiment, played a great part in this diabolical crime--and officers and
+noncommissioned officers would knock at every door until the household
+was roused. A handbill, about octavo size, was handed in, and the
+officer passed on to the next house. The handbill contained printed
+orders that every member of the household must rise and dress
+immediately, pack up a couple of blankets, a change of linen, a pair of
+stout boots, a spoon and fork, and a few other small articles, and be
+ready for the second visit in half an hour. When the officer returned,
+the family were marshaled before him, and he picked out those whom he
+wanted with a curt "You will come," "And you," "And you." Without even
+time for leave-taking, the selected victims were paraded in the street
+and marched to a mill on the outskirts of the town. There they were
+imprisoned for three days, without any means of communication with
+friends or relatives, all herded together indiscriminately and given but
+the barest modicum of food. Then, like so many cattle, they were sent
+away to an unknown fate.
+
+[Sidenote: Girls put to farm labor.]
+
+Months afterward some of them came back, emaciated and utterly worn out,
+ragged and verminous, broken in all but spirit. I spoke with numbers of
+the men. They had been told by the Germans, they said, that they were
+going to work on the land. They found that only the women and girls were
+put to farm labor.
+
+[Sidenote: Men do construction work in Ardennes.]
+
+[Sidenote: Very little food.]
+
+[Sidenote: No complaints permitted.]
+
+The men were taken to the French Ardennes and compelled to mend roads,
+man sawmills and forges, build masonry, and toil at other manual tasks.
+Rough hutments formed their barracks. They were under constant guard
+both there and at their work, and they were marched under escort from
+the huts to work and from work to the huts. For food each man was given
+a two-pound loaf of German bread every five days, a little boiled rice,
+and a pint of coffee a day. At 8 o'clock in the morning, after a
+breakfast consisting of a slice of bread and a cup of coffee, they went
+to work. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon they returned for the night and
+took their second meal--dinner, tea, and supper all in one. Often they
+were buffeted and generally ill-used by their taskmasters. If they fell
+ill, cold water, internally or externally, was the invariable remedy.
+Once a commission came to see them at work, but they had been warned
+beforehand that any man who complained of his treatment would suffer for
+it. One of them was bold enough to protest to the visitors against a
+particularly flagrant case of ill-usage. That man disappeared a few days
+later.
+
+[Sidenote: The Belgian frontier is closed.]
+
+Long before this the food problem had become acute in Roubaix.
+Simultaneously with the establishment of the system of personal control
+over the inhabitants the Germans closed the frontier between France and
+Belgium and forbade us to approach within half a mile of the border
+line. The immediate effect of this isolation was to reduce to an
+insignificant trickle the copious stream of foodstuffs which until then
+poured in from Belgium--not the starving Belgium of fiction, but the
+well supplied Belgium of fact.
+
+[Sidenote: Fabulous prices for meat.]
+
+Butchers and bakers and provision dealers had to shut their shops, and
+the town became almost wholly dependent on supplies brought in by the
+American Relief Commission. Fresh meat was soon unobtainable, except by
+those few people who could afford to pay fabulous prices for joints
+smuggled across the frontier. Months ago meat cost 32 francs a kilogram
+(about 13 shillings a pound) and an egg cost 1 franc 25 (a shilling).
+Obviously such things were beyond the reach of the bulk of the people,
+and had it not been for the efforts of the Relief Commission we should
+all have starved.
+
+[Sidenote: Foodstuffs supplied by the Relief Commission.]
+
+The commission opened a food depot, a local committee issued tickets for
+the various articles, and rich and poor alike had to wait their turn at
+the depot to procure the allotted rations. The chief foodstuffs supplied
+were: Rice, flaked maize, bacon, lard, coffee, bread, condensed milk
+(occasionally), haricot beans, lentils, and a very small allowance of
+sugar. Potatoes could not be bought at any price.
+
+[Sidenote: The Germans intercept mine food.]
+
+Unfortunately, though I regret that I should have to record it, there is
+evidence that by some means or other the German Army contrived to
+intercept for itself a part of the food sent by the American Commission.
+One who had good reason to know told me that more than once trainloads
+which, according to a notification sent to him, had left Brussels for
+Roubaix failed to arrive. I know also that analysis of the bread showed
+that in some cases German rye flour, including 30 per cent of sawdust,
+had been substituted for the white American flour, producing an
+indigestible putty-like substance which brought illness and death to
+many. Indeed, the mortality from this cause was so heavy at one period
+that all the grave diggers in the town could not keep pace with it.
+
+[Sidenote: Germans eager to buy food.]
+
+One could easily understand how great must have been the temptation to
+the Germans to tap for themselves the food which friends abroad had sent
+for their victims. It is a significant fact that soldiers in Roubaix
+were eager to buy rice from those who had obtained it at the depot at
+four francs (3s 4d) the pound in order, as they said, "to send it home."
+I shall describe later how utterly different were the conditions in
+Belgium as I saw them.
+
+Meagre as were the food supplies for the civilians in Roubaix, those
+issued to the German soldiers toward the end of my stay were little
+better.
+
+At first the householders, on whom the soldiers were billeted, were
+required to feed them and to recover the cost from the municipal
+authorities.
+
+[Sidenote: Change of demeanor of soldiery.]
+
+Of all the things I saw and heard in Roubaix and Lille none impressed me
+more than the wonderful change which came over the outlook and demeanor
+of the German soldiery between October, 1914, and October, 1915.
+
+I had many opportunities of mingling with them, more, in fact, than I
+cared to have, for now and again during this period two or three of them
+were actually billeted on the good folk with whom I lodged.
+
+[Sidenote: Already tired of war.]
+
+I knew just sufficient of the German language to be able to chat with
+them, and they made no attempt to conceal from me their real feelings. I
+am merely repeating the statement made to me over and over again by many
+German soldiers when I say that the men in the ranks are thoroughly
+tired of the war, that they have abandoned all thought of conquest, and
+that they fight on only because they believe that their homes and
+families are at stake.
+
+On that Autumn morning when the first German troops came into Roubaix
+they came flushed with victory, full of confidence in their strength,
+marching with their eyes fixed on Paris and London. They sang aloud as
+they swung through our streets. They sing no more. Instead, as I saw
+with my own eyes, many of them show in their faces the abject misery
+which is in their hearts.
+
+[Sidenote: Expect end of war in November, 1916.]
+
+Last year scores of them told me, quite independently, that the war
+would come to an end on November 17, 1916. How that date came to be
+fixed by the prophets nobody knew, but the belief in the prophecy was
+universal among the soldiers.
+
+[Sidenote: Soldiers more courteous than officers.]
+
+As a rule, the soldiers did not maltreat the civilians in Roubaix,
+except when they were acting under the orders of their officers; when,
+for example, they were tearing people from their homes to work as
+slaves. They had, however, the right of traveling without payment on the
+tramcars, and they frequently exercised this right to such an extent as
+to preclude the townsfolk from the use of the cars.
+
+[Sidenote: Officers requisition supplies.]
+
+Apart from that annoyance, there was little ground for complaint of the
+general behavior of the soldiers. The conduct of the officers was very
+different. For a long time they made a habit of requisitioning from
+shopkeepers and others supplies of food for which they had no intention
+of paying. One day an officer drove up in a trap to a shop kept by an
+acquaintance of mine and "bought" sardines, chocolate, bread, and fancy
+cakes to the value of about 200 francs (about $40). He produced a piece
+of paper and borrowed a pair of scissors with which to cut off a slip.
+On this slip he wrote a few words in German, and then, handing it to
+the shopkeeper, he went off with his purchases. The shopkeeper, on
+presenting the paper at the Kommandantur, was informed that the
+inscription ran, "For the loan of scissors, 200 francs," and that the
+signature was unknown. Payment was therefore refused. This case, I
+believe, was by no means an isolated one.
+
+When an officer was billeted on a house, he would insist on turning the
+family out of the dining room and drawing room and sleeping in the best
+bedroom; sometimes he would eject people entirely from their home.
+
+[Sidenote: A docile private soldier.]
+
+By contrast the docile private soldier was almost a welcome guest. I
+remember well one quite friendly fellow who was lodged for some time in
+the same house as myself and some English over military age in the
+suburb of Croix. He came to me in great glee one day with a letter from
+his wife in which she warned him to beware of "the English cutthroats."
+She went on to give him a long series of instructions for his safety. He
+was to barricade his bedroom door every night, to sleep always with his
+knife under his pillow, and never to take anything we offered him to eat
+or drink.
+
+[Sidenote: Few civilian offenses.]
+
+Despite the temptations to crime and insubordination which naturally
+attend an idle manufacturing population of some 125,000 people, there
+were very few civilian offenses against the law, German or French, among
+the inhabitants of Roubaix.
+
+[Sidenote: Time hangs heavily.]
+
+Time hung heavily on our hands. Cut off from the outer world except by
+the occasional arrival of smuggled French and English newspapers, we
+spent our time reading and playing cards, and at the last I hoped I
+might never be reduced to this form of amusement again. In the two and a
+half years cut out of my life and completely wasted I played as many
+games of cards as will satisfy me for the rest of my existence.
+
+[Sidenote: The gendarmerie called "Green devils."]
+
+But even if the inhabitants, in their enforced idleness, had any
+temptation to be insubordinate, they had a far greater inducement to
+keep the law in the bridled savagery of the German gendarmerie. These
+creatures, who from the color of their uniform and the brutality of
+their conduct were known as the "green devils," seemed to revel in sheer
+cruelty. They scour the towns on bicycles and the outlying districts on
+horseback, always accompanied by a dog as savage as his master, and at
+the slightest provocation or without even the slenderest pretext they
+fall upon civilians with brutish violence.
+
+[Sidenote: Women badly treated.]
+
+It was not uncommon for one of these men to chase a woman on his
+bicycle, and when he had caught her, batter her head and body with the
+machine. Many times they would strike women with the flat of their
+sabres. One of them was seen to unleash his dog against an old woman,
+and laugh when the savage beast tore open the woman's flesh from thigh
+to knee.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Crossing Belgium.]
+
+In January Mr. Whitaker crossed the line into Belgium with the aid of
+smuggler friends, traversed that country, chiefly on foot, and two
+months later escaped into Holland and so to England. In Belgium he was
+astonished to find what looked like prosperity when compared with
+conditions in the occupied provinces of France. After expressing
+gratitude to Belgian friends and a desire to tell only what is truth, he
+proceeds:
+
+[Sidenote: No sign of privations.]
+
+The first fact I have to declare is that nowhere in my wanderings did I
+see any sign of starvation. Nowhere did I notice such privation of food
+as I had known in Northern France. Near the French frontier, it is true,
+the meals I took in inns and private cottages were far from sumptuous,
+but as I drew nearer to the Dutch frontier the amount and variety of the
+food to be obtained changed in an ascending scale, until at Antwerp one
+could almost forget, so far as the table was concerned, that the world
+was at war.
+
+[Sidenote: The diet at Roubaix, France.]
+
+Let me give a few comparisons. At Roubaix, in France, at the time when I
+left in the first week of this year, my daily diet was as follows:
+Breakfast--coffee, bread and butter (butter was a luxury beyond the
+reach of the working people, who had to be content with lard); midday
+meal--vegetable soup, bread, boiled rice, and at rare intervals an egg
+or a tiny piece of fresh meat; supper--boiled rice and bread. Just over
+the border, in Belgium, the food conditions were a little better. The
+ticket system prevailed, and the villagers were dependent on the depots
+of the American Relief Commission, supplemented by local produce.
+
+A little further, and one passed the line of demarkation between the
+étape--the part of Belgium which is governed by General von Denk,
+formerly commanding the troops at Valenciennes--and the governement
+général, under the command of General von Bissing.
+
+[Sidenote: The first fresh meat in weeks.]
+
+Here a distinct change was noticeable. My first meal in this area
+included fillet of beef, the first fresh meat I had tasted for weeks.
+Tickets were still needed to buy bread and other things supplied by the
+Relief Commission, but other foodstuffs could be bought without
+restriction.
+
+[Sidenote: A dinner at Brussels.]
+
+At Brussels the food supply seems to be nearly normal. My Sunday dinner
+there consisted of excellent soup, a generous helping of roast leg of
+mutton, potatoes, haricot beans, white bread, cheese, and jam, and wine
+or beer, as preferred; while for supper I had cold meat, fried potatoes,
+and bread.
+
+[Sidenote: Food conditions at Antwerp.]
+
+At Antwerp, with two French friends who accompanied me on my journey
+through Belgium, I walked into a middle-class café at midday. I ordered
+a steak with fried potatoes and my friends ordered pork chops. Without
+any question about tickets we were served. We added bread, cheese, and
+butter to complete the meal and washed it down with draft light beer.
+Later in the day we took supper in the same café--an egg omelette, fried
+potatoes, bread, cheese, and butter. And the cost of both meals together
+was less than the cost of the steak alone in Roubaix.
+
+[Sidenote: Appearance of Brussels.]
+
+The policy of the Germans appears to be to interfere as little as
+possible with the everyday life of the country. The fruits of this
+policy are seen in a remarkable degree in Brussels. All day long the
+main streets of the city are full of bustle and all the outward
+manifestations of prosperity.
+
+[Sidenote: Business going on.]
+
+Women in short, fashionable skirts, with high-topped fancy boots, stroll
+completely at their ease along the pavement, studying the smart things
+with which the drapers' shop windows are dressed. Jewelers' shops,
+provision stores, tobacconists, and the rest show every sign of
+"business as usual." I bought at quite a reasonable price a packet of
+Egyptian cigarettes, bearing the name of a well-known brand of English
+manufacture, and I recalled how, not many miles away in harassed France,
+I had seen rhubarb leaves hanging from upper windows to dry, so that the
+French smoker might use them instead of the tobacco which he could not
+buy. Even the sweetstuff shops had well-stocked windows.
+
+[Sidenote: Theaters and cinema palaces open.]
+
+The theaters, music halls, cinema palaces, and cafés of Brussels were
+open and crowded. On the second night of my visit I went with my two
+French companions to the Théâtre Molière and heard a Belgian company in
+Paul Hervieu's play, "La Course du Flambeau." The whole building was
+packed with Belgians, thoroughly enjoying the performance. So far as I
+could tell, the only reminder that we were in the fallen capital of an
+occupied country was the presence in the front row of the stalls of two
+German soldiers, whose business, so I learned, was to see that nothing
+disrespectful to Germany and her armies was allowed to creep into the
+play.
+
+[Sidenote: An ordinary cinema performance.]
+
+At another theater, according to the posters, "Véronique" was produced,
+and a third bill announced "The Merry Widow." At the Théâtre de la
+Monnaie, which has been taken over by the Germans, operas and plays are
+given for the benefit of the soldiers and German civilians. One
+afternoon I spent a couple of hours in a cinema hall. A continuous
+performance was provided, and people came and went as they chose, but
+throughout the program the place was well filled. The films shown had no
+relation to the war. They were of the ordinary dramatic or comic types,
+and I fancy they were of pre-war manufacture. Nothing of topical
+interest was exhibited.
+
+[Sidenote: Scenes in Antwerp like those in Brussels.]
+
+All the scenes which I have described in Brussels were reproduced in
+Antwerp. There was a slightly closer supervision over the comings and
+goings of the inhabitants, but there was the same unreal atmosphere of
+contentment and real appearance of plenty. Though a good number of
+officers were in evidence, the military arm of Germany was not
+sufficiently displayed to produce any intimidation. Perhaps the most
+obvious mark, here and in the capital, that all was not normal was the
+complete absence of private motor cars and cabs from the streets.
+
+[Sidenote: Belgium still has cattle.]
+
+In the country districts two things struck me as unfamiliar after my
+long months in France. About Roubaix not a single head of cattle was to
+be seen; in Belgium every farm had its cows. In Belgium the mounted
+gendarmerie--the "green devils" whose infamous conduct in the Roubaix
+district I have described--were unknown. Their place was filled by
+military police, who, by comparison with the gendarmes, were gentleness
+itself.
+
+I do not profess to know the state of affairs in parts of Belgium which
+I did not visit, but I do know that my narrative of the conditions of
+life that came under my personal inspection has come as a great surprise
+to many people who imagine the whole of Belgium is starving.
+
+[Sidenote: Belgium better fed than occupied France.]
+
+We in hungry Roubaix looked out on Belgium as the land of promise. The
+Flemish workers who came into the town from time to time from Belgium
+were well fed and prosperous looking, a great contrast to the French of
+Roubaix and Lille. The Belgian children that I saw were healthy and of
+good appearance, quite unlike the wasted little ones of France, with
+hollow blue rings round their eyes.
+
+[Sidenote: Germany desires a state in Belgium.]
+
+The people of Roubaix, knowing these facts, are convinced that the
+Germans are endeavoring to lay the foundations of a vassal State in
+Belgium. Foiled in their attempts to capture Calais, the Germans believe
+that Zeebrugge and Ostend are capable of development as harbors for
+aggressive action against England. The French do not doubt that the
+enemy will make a desperate struggle before giving up Antwerp.
+
+The picture I have presented of Belgium as I saw it is, of course,
+vastly different from the outraged Belgium of the first stage of the
+war.
+
+[Sidenote: The people not to be seduced.]
+
+Lest there should arise any misunderstanding, I complete the picture by
+stating my conviction, based on intimate talks with Belgian men and
+women, that the population as a whole are keeping a firm upper lip, and
+that attempts by the Germans to seduce them from their allegiance by
+blandishment and bribery will fail as surely as the efforts of
+frightfulness.
+
+Mr. Whitaker's account of his escape into Holland closes thus:
+
+[Sidenote: Nearing Holland.]
+
+When we drew near to the wires, just before midnight, we lay on the
+ground and wriggled along until we were within fifty yards of Holland.
+There we lay for what seemed to be an interminable time. We saw patrols
+passing. An officer came along and inspected the sentries. Everything
+was oppressively quiet.
+
+[Sidenote: Through the electrified barbed wire.]
+
+Each sentry moved to and fro over a distance of a couple of hundred
+yards. Opposite the place where we lay two of them met. Choosing his
+opportunity, one of my comrades, who had provided himself with rubber
+gloves some weeks before for this critical moment, rushed forward to the
+spot where the two sentries had just met. Scrambling through barbed wire
+and over an unelectrified wire, he grasped the electrified wires and
+wriggled between them. We came close on his heels. He held the deadly
+electrified wires apart with lengths of thick plate glass with which he
+had come provided while first my other companions and then I crawled
+through. Before the sentries returned we had run some hundreds of yards
+into No Man's Land between the electrified wires and the real Dutch
+frontier.
+
+[Sidenote: Arrival at Rotterdam.]
+
+Only one danger remained. We had no certainty that the Dutch frontier
+guards would not hand us back to the Germans. We took no risks, though
+it meant wading through a stream waist deep. Our troubles were now
+practically over. By rapid stages we proceeded to Rotterdam.
+
+I was without money. My watch I had given to the Belgian villager in
+whose cottage I had found refuge. My clothes were shabby from frequent
+soakings and hard wear. I had shaved only once in Belgium, and a stubby
+growth of beard did not improve my general appearance.
+
+[Sidenote: Sent on to London.]
+
+At Rotterdam I reported myself to the British Consul. I was treated with
+the utmost kindness. My expenses during the next four or five days,
+while I waited for a boat, were paid and I was given my fare to Hull.
+There I was searched by two military police and questioned closely by an
+examining board. My papers were taken and I was told to go to London and
+apply for them at the Home Office. As I was again practically without
+means I was given permission to go to my home in Bradford before
+proceeding to London.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In cooperation with the British forces, a Russian army took part in
+movements against Bagdad and Turkish cities in Armenia and Persia. These
+military movements were marked by varying success on the part of the
+Russian and Turkish forces. Certain phases of this campaign are
+described in the following chapter.
+
+
+
+
+THE ANGLO-RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN IN TURKEY
+
+JAMES B. MACDONALD
+
+Copyright, American Review of Reviews, April, 1916.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mesopotamia important to Great Britain.]
+
+It is perhaps not generally realized how important the future of
+Mesopotamia is to the British, or why they originally sent an expedition
+there which has since developed into a more ambitious campaign. Ever
+since the Napoleonic period British influence and interests have been
+supreme from Bagdad to the Persian Gulf, and this was the one quarter of
+the globe where they successfully held off the German trader with his
+political backing.
+
+[Sidenote: Great Britain's war with Persia.]
+
+[Sidenote: British steamer on the Tigris.]
+
+It will be recalled that early in Queen Victoria's reign Great Britain
+engaged in a war with Persia, and landed troops at Bushire in assertion
+of their rights. Ever since they have policed the Persian Gulf, put down
+piracy, slave and gun-running, and lighted the places dangerous to
+navigation. These interests having been entrusted to the Government of
+India, news affecting them seldom finds its way into Western papers.
+Previous to the war a line of British steamers plied regularly up the
+River Tigris to Bagdad, the center of the caravan trade with Persia. The
+foreign trade of this town alone in 1912 amounted to $19,000,000, and it
+was nearly all in the hands of merchants in Great Britain or India.
+Germany exported $500,000 worth of goods there annually. Basra, farther
+down the river, exports annually about 75,000 tons of dates, valued at
+$2,900,000. It also does a large export trade in wheat.
+
+[Sidenote: An irrigation scheme.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Persian oil fields controlled by Great Britain.]
+
+[Sidenote: Native tribes subsidized.]
+
+A large irrigation scheme was partly completed before the war, near the
+ancient town of Babylon, under the direction of a famous Anglo-Indian
+engineer, Sir William Willcocks. When finished it was to cost
+$105,000,000, and was expected to reclaim some 2,800,000 acres of land
+of great productibility. It will, therefore, be seen that Britain had
+some considerable stake in the country. In addition to this, the British
+Government, shortly before the war, invested $10,000,000 in acquiring
+control of the Anglo-Persian oil fields, which is the principal source
+of supply for oil fuel for their navy. By this means they avoided the
+risk of great American corporations cornering the supply of oil fuel and
+holding up their navy. John Bull upon occasion shows some gleamings of
+shrewdness. This deal is on a par with their purchase of sufficient
+shares to control the Suez Canal. The Anglo-Persian oil fields are
+situated across the border in Persia, and the oil is led in pipes down
+the Karam River valley, a tributary of the combined Tigris and Euphrates
+rivers. The native tribes in the neighborhood were subsidized to protect
+the pipe-line, or, rather, to leave it alone.
+
+[Sidenote: Russia and Great Britain in Persia.]
+
+[Sidenote: German railways must end at Bagdad.]
+
+During recent years Persia has fallen into decay. Politically she is
+more sick than "the sick man of the East." The people have a religion of
+their own and worship the sun, although quite a number of Moslems have
+settled in their midst. Being cognizant of German designs to create a
+great Eastern empire in Mesopotamia and Persia, which would threaten
+India, Egypt, and the Russian East, Britain and Russia came together and
+formed a kind of Monroe Doctrine of their own. They said, in effect,
+northern Persia shall be Russia's sphere of influence, and southern
+Persia shall be Britain's sphere of influence. They both recognized that
+a great military power, like Germany, permanently established at
+Bagdad, with aggressive tendencies, would imperil their Eastern
+dominions, and both were prepared to make it a _casus belli_--Britain,
+further, a few years ago informed Germany that the area from Bagdad to
+the head of the Gulf was her "Garden of Eden," and any attempt to carry
+German railways south of Bagdad would bring on war. The Emperor William
+apparently did not mind this opposition by Britain and Russia to his
+Oriental ambition, provided he could find a passage through the Balkans.
+
+[Sidenote: Persian gendarmes officered by Swedes.]
+
+[Sidenote: Fairy-tales of Turkish conquest.]
+
+At the time Britain and Russia came to an agreement regarding Persia
+they were not on so good a footing with each other as they are to-day.
+In order that neither should get an advantage over the other, it was
+decided that the Persian gendarmes--about 6,000 in number--should be
+officered by neutrals, and, unfortunately as it turned out for the
+Allies, they mutually chose Swedes. On the outbreak of war neither
+Britain nor Russia desired that Persia should be brought into it. The
+German ambassador in Persia, however, had other views, and suborned
+Swedish officers in command of the Persian gendarmes. Partly by this
+means, and partly by Turkish agents, a rebellion was brought about
+within the Russian sphere. Religion had nothing to do with the trouble
+in Persia. Turkish forces entered Persian Kurdistan and announced that
+they were on their way to conquer India and the Russian East, while
+their compatriots would overrun Egypt. These were the fairy-tales with
+which the Germans had originally enticed the Turks into the war. The
+Turks were willing to believe them, and apparently did believe them. The
+responsible Germans had no such illusions, but hoped to attain their
+ends by causing internal disturbances within India and Egypt. These
+German canards, put about in war time, have been adopted by some
+writers in this country as the foundation from which to write
+contemporary history. It may interest them to know that India possesses
+the strongest natural frontiers in the world.
+
+[Sidenote: Strategy depends on geography.]
+
+Strategy nowadays is very largely a matter of geography. Modern armies
+are circumscribed in their movements by the available means of
+transportation, whether these be by railroad, river, or roadway, and
+this means geography applied in giving direction to troop movements.
+
+[Sidenote: Geographies of the war area.]
+
+Before entering into a review of the combined Anglo-Russian campaign a
+preliminary survey of the strategical geography of the war area will
+make the position more clear.
+
+[Sidenote: Constantinople once the world clearing-house.]
+
+[Sidenote: Still the easiest route.]
+
+In ancient times the only practical way by road and ferry from Europe
+to Asia or Africa was by way of the Balkan valleys and across the
+Bosphorus or Dardanelles. Hence arose the importance of the
+ferryhouse--Constantinople. That city in those days was the center of
+the known world and the clearing-house for the merchandise of Asia,
+Africa, and Europe. From Scutari, on the opposite shore, the overland
+route meandered across Asia Minor to Aleppo in Syria. Here the sign-post
+to India pointed down the Euphrates Valley, by way of Bagdad, while that
+to Egypt and Arabia followed the Levant or eastern shore of the
+Mediterranean. Between each fork lay the Syrian desert. A glance at the
+map shows the reason why in those days this was the only practical
+route, as to-day it is the easiest. The wall of the Ural Mountains, the
+Caspian Sea, the Caucasian Mountains, and the Black Sea shut out direct
+communication from Europe to Asia, or _vice versa_, except by the
+Constantinople ferry or a sea voyage.
+
+[Sidenote: Another practical route.]
+
+[Sidenote: The road for invasion of Egypt or India.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Taurus range is the natural frontier of Egypt.]
+
+In Asia Minor progress was further barred by the watershed of the
+Euphrates and Tigris rivers to the south, and the Caucasian Mountains
+to the east. A practical way was found at the lower elevations of the
+Taurus and Amanus mountains--two parallel spurs which strike the sea at
+the Gulf of Alexandretta. This narrow neck of the bottle, as it were, is
+of enormous military importance alike to the Turks and to the British.
+Through it must pass any army of invasion by land from Europe or Asia
+Minor to Egypt or India; and, conversely, through it must pass any
+invading army from Mesopotamia into Asia Minor. If the British should
+conquer Mesopotamia and should intend to hold it--as they undoubtedly
+would--they will have no strategical frontiers until they secure the
+watershed of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and the Taurus passage. If
+they secure the latter, Syria, Palestine, and Arabia will fall to them
+like apples off a tree. It would then be no longer necessary to defend
+the Suez Canal. The natural frontier of Egypt is the Taurus mountain
+range. Asia Minor is the real Turkey; the other portions of the
+empire--Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Arabia, and Turkey in Europe--are
+only appendages. The eastern door into Asia Minor is Erzerum, and the
+southern door is the Taurus passage. Turkey can only part with these at
+the cost of her life. Russia has already captured Erzerum, and the
+British possess the Island of Cyprus, which commands the head of the
+Gulf of Alexandretta--twenty miles from the Taurus passage. That is,
+broadly, the situation.
+
+[Sidenote: Aleppo is the starting point of caravan routes.]
+
+Near the crossing of the Taurus and Amanus mountains lies the city of
+Aleppo, the starting-point for the overland caravan routes to Bagdad and
+India, and also to Damascus, Mecca, and Egypt. Just as surely as pioneer
+travelers always chose the easiest route, so the railways of to-day
+follow in their footsteps. The physical features of nature constrained
+both modern as well as ancient armies to travel the same way. Hence a
+railway map of the Balkans and of Asiatic Turkey is a first
+consideration in appreciating the strategical bearings of the
+Anglo-Russian campaign in Turkey-in-Asia, or the alleged rival
+Germanic-Turkish schemes for the invasion of Egypt, Persia, and India.
+Of no less importance is a knowledge of the available sea routes and
+inland rivers.
+
+[Sidenote: Bulgaria and Turkey depend on aid from Germany.]
+
+The ability of Bulgaria and Turkey to carry on the war depends on aid
+from Germany in men, munitions, and money. These allies are the weakest
+members of the Central Group, and may be the first to give in if
+circumstances are adverse to their adventure.
+
+[Sidenote: The importance of the Balkan railway.]
+
+Their sole communication with the Central Powers is by the Balkan
+railway from the Danube to Constantinople by way of Sofia. If this line
+is severed, then these nations are out of the game. The Allies have all
+winter been organizing the defenses of Salonica as a _pied-à-terre_ for
+such an attack. Should Rumania join the Allies in the spring, then a
+further attack may be expected from the north, in which Russian troops
+would join. Turkey is now too preoccupied with her own troubles to be
+able to assist Bulgaria.
+
+[Sidenote: Asia Minor's only important line.]
+
+[Sidenote: Railway planned from Aleppo to Bagdad.]
+
+In Asia Minor the only railway of importance is the trunk line from
+Scutari, on the Bosphorus, to the Taurus Tunnel, in course of completion
+near Adana. One branch runs west to Smyrna, and another east to Angora.
+Beyond the Taurus Tunnel is another in course of completion through the
+Amanus Mountains. Every person and everything destined for the Bagdad
+front or for the invasion of Egypt has to be transported over these
+mountains. So also have rails for the completion of the Aleppo-to-Bagdad
+railway. These tunnels are expected to be finished this year--when it
+will be too late. From Aleppo the Syrian railway runs south through
+Damascus to Medina and Mecca in Arabia. Branches reach the Levant
+seaports of Tripoli, Beirut, and Haifa. Another railway was started from
+Aleppo to Bagdad shortly before the war, and construction begun at both
+ends. We have no reliable information as to how far it has progressed,
+but the presumption is that there is a large gap between Ras-el-ain and
+Mosul and between the latter place and Samara.
+
+[Sidenote: The city of Aleppo key of railways as once of caravan
+routes.]
+
+It is at once apparent how important the city of Aleppo is as the
+junction for the three main railways of Asiatic Turkey. Napoleon
+considered that it was the key to India, because it commanded the
+caravan routes. To-day it would be more correct to say that Aleppo is
+the key to the outer _approaches_ to India and Egypt, the inner defenses
+of which are impregnable.
+
+[Sidenote: Reasons for a British army in Egypt.]
+
+[Sidenote: Vantage points held by Great Britain.]
+
+The British maintain a large army in Egypt not so much because it is
+required there as because it is a most convenient central camp within
+striking distance of all the battle-fronts in the East. This permits of
+throwing a large army secretly and unexpectedly where it can be most
+effective. Similar camps are available at Malta and Cyprus. Any attack
+on Egypt on a formidable scale would be a veritable trap for the
+invaders. It will be recalled that when Britain held up the Russian
+advance on Constantinople, in 1878, she entered into a treaty with
+Turkey guaranteeing the latter in the possession of Asia Minor (only)
+against all enemies. The consideration was the lease of the Island of
+Cyprus, which dominates the Taurus passage. In other words, Britain
+holds the cork with which she can close the Syrian tube and put the
+closure on any invasion of India or Egypt from this side. This treaty
+was abrogated some eighteen months ago, when Turkey declared war on the
+British Empire. Britain, in consequence, annexed Egypt and Cyprus.
+
+At the outbreak of the war the Indian Government, apparently off their
+own bat, despatched a small force to the Persian oil fields to seize and
+hold the pipe-line, which had been tampered with and the supply cut off
+for a time.
+
+[Sidenote: The Turks threaten Basra.]
+
+[Sidenote: British advance up the Tigris to Kut-el-Amara.]
+
+It became necessary to hold in force three triangular points--Basra,
+Muhammereh, and Awaz. A strong Turkish force, with headquarters at
+Amara, was equidistant about 100 miles from both Basra and Awaz, and
+could elect to strike the divided British forces either by coming down
+the Tigris River to Basra, or by going overland to Awaz. Reinforcements
+were sent from India, and Amara occupied. The oil fields seemed secure.
+Then the unexpected happened. A Turkish army came down the
+Shat-el-Hai--an ancient canal or waterway connecting the Tigris River at
+Kut-el-Amara with the Euphrates at Nasiriyeh (or Nasdi)--about 100 miles
+to the west of Basra--and threatened the latter place. (Shat-el-Hai
+means the river which flows by the village of Hai. Kut-el-Amara means
+the fort of Amara and is not to be confused with the town of Amara lower
+down the Tigris River.) This led to the British driving the Turks out of
+Nasiriyeh and also advancing up the Tigris River from Amara to occupy
+Kut-el-Amara, where a battle was fought. The Turks were strongly
+entrenched and expected to hold up the Anglo-Indian troops here, but a
+turning movement made them retire on Bagdad--about 100 miles to the
+northwest. It was known that large Turkish reinforcements were on the
+way to Bagdad and an attempt was made to anticipate them.
+
+[Sidenote: General Townshend's attempt to take Bagdad.]
+
+General Townshend advanced on Bagdad with less than a division of mixed
+Anglo-Indian troops--some 16,000 to 20,000 strong. At Ctesiphon he found
+a Turkish army of four divisions, with two others in reserve, awaiting
+him. After a two days' indecisive battle, Townshend, recognizing he had
+insufficient forces, retired on his forward base at Kut-el-Amara. The
+Arabs in the neighborhood awaited the issue of the battle, ready to take
+sides, for the time being, with the winner.
+
+[Sidenote: The Turks much stronger in numbers.]
+
+[Sidenote: Secret of European success in Asia.]
+
+It says much for the stamina of this composite division that, although
+opposed throughout by five or six times their number of Turks and
+Turkish irregulars, the latter were unable to overwhelm them. To the
+Western mind, unacquainted with the mentality and moral weakness of the
+Moslem under certain circumstances, this may appear a most foolhardy
+adventure. To the Anglo-Indian the most obvious thing to do when in a
+tight corner is to go for the enemy no matter what their numbers. All
+Europeans in India develop an extraordinary pride in race, and an
+inherent contempt for numbers. It is the secret of their success there.
+Most Moslems fight well when posted behind strong natural defenses. In
+open country, such as Mesopotamia, they do not show to so much
+advantage. Another trait is that when their line of retreat is
+threatened they are more timorous than European troops. This weakness
+will have important bearings on the future of the campaign on the Tigris
+Valley, because the communications of the Turks are threatened by the
+Russians far in their rear and in more than one place.
+
+[Sidenote: Kut-el-Amara of great strategical importance.]
+
+Townshend's camp at Kut-el-Amara is well supplied with stores and
+munitions, and will soon be relieved. When his retreat was cut off at
+the bend of the Tigris River he could still have retired safely by
+following the Shat-el-Hai to Nasiriyeh. There was no thought, however,
+of retreat, Kut-el-Amara is geographically of great strategical
+importance, and the British garrison there has served the useful purpose
+of detaining large forces of the enemy where it was desired they should
+remain while important Allied developments were taking place in their
+flank and rear. Most of these Turkish reinforcements were withdrawn from
+Armenia when the depth of winter appeared to make it impossible for the
+Russians to break through the lofty hills of Caucasia.
+
+[Sidenote: Turks deceived by rumor about Grand Duke Nicholas.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Grand Duke's strategy.]
+
+The rumor, so diligently put about, that the Grand Duke Nicholas had
+been retired in disgrace, after so ably extricating the Russian armies
+in Poland, and that he had been sent to Caucasia, served its purpose.
+The Turks were deceived by it, and sent part of their forces from
+Armenia to oppose the Anglo-Indian advance on Bagdad and arrived in time
+to turn the scale after the battle of Ctesiphon. When the Grand Duke
+fell on the unwary Turks their defeat was complete. Flying from Erzerum,
+one army made for Trebizond, another for the Lake Van district, and the
+rest went due west towards Sivas. The Grand Duke's right wing, center,
+and left are following in the same directions. He has two flying wings
+further south--one in the Lake Urumia district and the other advancing
+along the main caravan route from Kermanshah to Bagdad, while the
+British are furthest south at Kut-el-Amara. It will be observed that the
+whole of the Allied armies from the Black Sea to Kut-el-Amara are in
+perfect echelon formation, and it would be a strange coincidence if this
+just happened--say, by accident. Like the Syrian and Arabian littoral,
+Mesopotamia is another tube confined within the Syrian desert on the one
+side and the mountains of Armenia and Persia on the ether. All egress is
+stopped by the Allies' echelon formation, except by Aleppo.
+
+[Sidenote: Possible to cut Turkish Empire in two.]
+
+Petrograd advices at the time of writing (March 9th) state that the
+Grand Duke's main army is making for the Gulf of Alexandretta with
+intent to cut the Turkish Empire in two. This is not only possible, but
+highly probable, and the echelon formation of the Allies, together with
+the configuration of the country, lends itself to such an operation. The
+British army in Egypt and the British fleet could in such an eventuality
+coöperate to advantage.
+
+[Sidenote: Russians must take Trebizond.]
+
+[Sidenote: Turks will endeavor to hold Armenian Taurus.]
+
+[Sidenote: The road that Xenophon traveled.]
+
+As a preliminary the Russians must clear their right wing by capturing
+Trebizond and utilizing it as a sea base. Asia Minor is a high
+tableland, in shape like the sole of a boot turned upside down, with the
+highlands of Armenia representing the heel. The Turks, having lost their
+only base and headquarters at Erzerum, have now to rush troops, guns,
+and stores from Constantinople to the railhead at Angora and endeavor to
+rally their defeated forces to the east of Sivas. In the meantime, the
+Russians will have overrun some 250 miles of Turkish territory before
+they are held up even temporarily. The Turkish army in Syria will be
+rushed to Diarbekr to rally their defeated right wing and endeavor to
+hold the Armenian Taurus Mountains against the Grand Duke's left wing.
+If the Russians break through here, then all is lost to the Turks in the
+south. They, however, have a most difficult task before them, because
+the hills here reach their highest. There is a road of sorts, because we
+know that Xenophon in ancient times traveled it with his 10,000 Greeks,
+and the Turks did the same recently, when they sent reinforcements to
+Bagdad. Both must have traveled light, and the Russians will have to do
+the same. This means that the Turks on the south will be better supplied
+with guns than their opponents, who will have to rely once more on
+their bayonets.
+
+[Sidenote: British forces in the south ample.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Tigris and other available routes.]
+
+[Sidenote: Plans of the British army.]
+
+[Sidenote: Russian and British forces would join.]
+
+In the extreme south the British have ample force now to carry out their
+part of the contract. We know that some 80,000 veteran Indian troops
+have arrived from France, as well as other large reinforcements from
+India. It is unlikely that these will all proceed up the Tigris River,
+because sufficient troops are already there who are restricted to a
+narrow front, owing to the salt marshes between the bend of the river
+and the Persian mountains. Two other routes are available, the
+Shat-el-Hai from Nasiriyeh to relieve the garrison at Kut-el-Amara from
+the south, and the Euphrates River, to attack Bagdad from the southwest,
+while the Russian flying wing at Kermanshah threatens it from the
+northeast. The Turkish report of heavy fighting at Nasiriyeh would
+indicate that one or both of these routes were being taken. Athens
+reports that Bagdad is about to fall. As it falls, a British flotilla
+will ascend the Euphrates and make direct for Aleppo. The British army
+from Kut-el-Amara and the Russians from Kermanshah will, after the fall
+of Bagdad--which is a foregone conclusion--ascend the Tigris River to
+Mosul, where they may be expected to get in touch with the other Russian
+flying wing from the Lake Urumia district. The combined force will then
+be in a position to force a junction with the Grand Duke's left wing,
+and then continue their advance on Aleppo.
+
+[Sidenote: Turkish army might retire to defend the Taurus passage.]
+
+Should the main army of the Grand Duke, as reported, converge on the
+Gulf of Alexandretta with intent to destroy the Turkish southern army,
+then the latter would be in a very dangerous position, because their
+northern army being, as yet, without a base or organization, is not in a
+position to take the offensive to assist them. If, on the other hand,
+the Turkish army of the south declines battle at Aleppo and retires to
+defend the Taurus passage, after abandoning half their Empire to the
+Allies, the latter will, if they have not previously anticipated it,
+have a difficult problem to solve as to how they are going to get their
+large forces in the south over the Taurus range to assist the Grand Duke
+in the final struggle. The forcing of the Taurus passage will mean
+fighting on a narrow front and will take time.
+
+So far this campaign had been conducted as one of India's little wars,
+which come as regularly as intermittent fever.
+
+[Sidenote: The Russians enter Armenia and later withdraw.]
+
+When Turkey entered the war she reckoned that Russia was so busy on the
+German and Austrian frontiers as to be unable to meet an attack in her
+rear. Turkey thereupon concentrated her main armies at Erzerum and
+invaded Caucasia. The Russians beat them back and entered Armenia, where
+the inhabitants assisted them. The same cause which led to the
+retirement from Poland--shortage of ammunition--compelled the Russians
+also to withdraw from Armenia.
+
+[Sidenote: Britain's reverse at Gallipoli.]
+
+Contemporary with these events, Britain met with a severe reverse on the
+Gallipoli peninsula, which likewise injured her prestige in the East.
+
+[Sidenote: An Anglo-Russian campaign from Kurna to the Black Sea.]
+
+It became a matter of first importance with both Britain and Russia that
+they should not only reinstate their prestige in the East in striking
+fashion, but that they should end once and for all time German intrigue
+and Turkish weakness in the East. These considerations were contributing
+factors in bringing about a joint war council and an Allied Grand Staff.
+The latter immediately took hold of the military situation in Asiatic
+Turkey, and the isolated operations of Britain and Russia in these parts
+now changed into a great Anglo-Russian campaign stretching from the
+junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers to the Black Sea.
+
+The drama unfolding before us promises to be one of the most sensational
+in the great world war. The end of the Ottoman Empire appears in sight.
+Its heirs and successors may be the other great Moslem powers--Britain,
+Russia, France, and Italy. The last two have yet to be heard from on the
+western shores of Asia Minor.
+
+[Sidenote: The possible future.]
+
+The future may see the British in possession of Turkey's first capital,
+Mosul; the French in possession of their second capital, Konia; the
+Russians in possession of their third and last capital, Constantinople,
+and the Italians occupying Smyrna. Each of these powers is a Mohammedan
+empire in itself; and the greatest Moslem country in the world is the
+British Empire.
+
+[Sidenote: Britain may be stronger than ever in the East.]
+
+The Moslems in India not only approve of the idea of removing the
+Sheik-Ul-Islam, head of the Mohammedan creed, from Constantinople to
+Delhi or Cairo, under British protection, but the head of their church
+in India volunteered as a private soldier to fight in France, and is now
+with the Anglo-Indian army in Mesopotamia. It would seem as if Britain
+and Russia, at the end of this war, would find themselves stronger than
+ever in the East.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Great Britain suffered one of her greatest losses during the war on June
+7, 1916, when the cruiser _Hampshire_, on board of which was Earl
+Kitchener on his way to Russia, was sunk by a German mine or torpedo.
+Over 300 lives were lost in this disaster. Earl Kitchener had been
+throughout the war the chief force in raising and training the British
+army, and to his ability and zeal was due largely the great feats of
+landing large numbers of British troops in France within a time which in
+the period of peace would have been considered impossible.
+
+
+
+
+KITCHENER
+
+LADY ST. HELIER
+
+Copyright, Harper's Magazine, October, 1916.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Lord Kitchener a mystery to the outside world.]
+
+[Sidenote: Fond of old friends.]
+
+To the outside world Lord Kitchener was something of a mystery; they
+knew little of him personally, he shunned publicity, he was not a seeker
+after popularity. Though he had few personal friends, he was endeared to
+that chosen few in a way unique and rare. He was shy and reserved about
+the deep things of life, but a charming companion in ordinary ways--very
+amusing and agreeable. He had a great sense of humor, and his rapid
+intuition gave him a wonderful insight into character, and he soon
+arrived at a just estimate of people, and of the motives of those with
+whom he came into contact. He did not make many new friends, and the
+people who knew him well, and with whom his holidays or hours of
+relaxation were passed, were confined to those he had known for many
+years. He always impressed one with a deep sense of decency in
+conversation and conduct; one felt in talking to him how impossible it
+would be to drift into the easy-going discussion of questions and
+problems of our modern life, and it seemed impossible to imagine his
+taking a silent acquiescence in the jokes and insinuations which are not
+considered now extraordinary or unpleasant.
+
+[Sidenote: Economy in expenditure in Egypt.]
+
+[Sidenote: Kitchener's unsparing activity in South Africa.]
+
+Lord Kitchener's strength lay in the fact that his views broadened as he
+went on in life. As long as he was confined to Egypt and had to carry
+out his task with the minimum of force and expenditure, he was careful
+even to penuriousness, and his subordinates groaned under his exacting
+economy; but he was justified in his care by the wonderful development
+of the country devolving from his unsparing activity. When he went to
+South Africa with a great staff and unlimited funds, he took a new
+departure. He worked himself unceasingly, and exacted the same from
+those around him, but he recognized inevitable limitations and was most
+considerate.
+
+[Sidenote: Medical aid for Egyptian women organized.]
+
+[Sidenote: Trained English nurses sent to Egypt.]
+
+[Sidenote: Lives of babies saved.]
+
+[Sidenote: Expected to return to Egypt.]
+
+Ceaseless activity characterized his work in Egypt, when he went there
+after failing to be appointed Viceroy of India, which most of his
+friends anticipated, and which he would have accepted. Perhaps Egypt was
+a disappointment after the wider sphere India presented, but nothing
+ever prevented him from doing what came to him to do and giving his best
+to it. When he returned there, the question of infant mortality and the
+unhygienic condition of Egyptian women during child-bearing, from the
+neglect and ignorance of the most elementary measures, came under his
+observation, and he was deeply interested in devising means of providing
+medical treatment for them, and of training native women in midwifery
+and all that would conduce to improving the conditions under which they
+lived. He enlisted the sympathy and interest of the wives of officials,
+and of Englishwomen in Egypt, and carried out a scheme which in itself
+was a wonderful example of what his interest and driving power could
+accomplish. These women whose help he enlisted could tell endless
+stories of the task he set them to do and his tacit refusal to listen to
+any difficulties that arose in carrying it out. A number of trained
+English nurses were despatched to Egypt and sent to different
+localities, where they gave training to a large number of native women
+in midwifery and kindred subjects. The scheme was a great success, and
+the benefit it has been to thousands of native women is indescribable,
+as regards both their general treatment and the care of themselves and
+their children at birth. Little was known about the subject in England,
+and much less about all that was done to mitigate the evil; but it was a
+wonderful piece of administration, though perhaps not one that appealed
+specially to him; and when some one, knowing what had been achieved,
+congratulated him on his success and the boon it was to the women in
+Egypt, his characteristic reply was: "I am told I have saved the lives
+of ten thousand babies. I suppose that is something to have done." At
+that time, only a fortnight before the prospect of war seemed possible,
+he was talking with the keenest interest of his return to Egypt and of
+what he had still to do there.
+
+[Sidenote: The dinner at Lord French's.]
+
+There are incidents in life which leave lasting impressions, and one of
+a large dinner at Lord French's about the same time, at which Lord K.,
+Lord Haldane, and others were present, comes to my mind; probably no one
+there but those three men had an idea of the threatening cloud which
+broke in so short a time over England, and the important part two of
+them would take in it. Lord K., as the world knows, was on the point of
+returning to Egypt; in fact, he had started when he was recalled, almost
+on board the steamer at Dover.
+
+[Sidenote: The country expects Lord Kitchener to head the War Office.]
+
+The two questions which moved the soul of the English people to its
+deepest depth were, undoubtedly, what part the country was going to take
+when it was realized that war was inevitable, and, after that, who was
+to preside at the War Office. There might have been hesitation on the
+one point; on the other there was none, and the silent, deep
+determination with which the people waited to be told that Lord
+Kitchener was to be Secretary of State for War can only be realized by
+those who went through those anxious days. There was never a doubt or
+hesitation in the mind of the country that Lord K. was the only person
+who could satisfy its requirements, and the acclamation with which the
+news flashed through the country when he was appointed Secretary of
+State for War was overwhelming, while those who were thrown into contact
+with him give a marvelous account of the cool, rapid, and soldier-like
+way in which he accepted the great position. He quickly installed
+himself at the War Office, even to sleeping there, so that he was ever
+at the call of his office, and lived there till Lady Wantage placed her
+house in Carlton Gardens, close by, at his disposal. Later on the King
+offered him St. James's Palace, and those neighbors who rose early
+enough saw him daily start off on his morning walk to his office, where
+he remained all day.
+
+[Sidenote: Lord Kitchener's arduous two years.]
+
+The last two crowded years of Lord Kitchener's life, full of their
+anxieties and responsibilities, had not changed him; but though he had
+aged, and the constant strain had told on him, he had altered outwardly
+but little. The office life was irksome, and the want of exercise to a
+man of his active habits very trying, for he hardly ever left London
+except for an occasional week-end at Broome. His intended visit to
+Russia was not known, and, like so many of his visits to France and the
+army at the front, were only made public after his return. Those who saw
+him that last week and knew of his going, tell how he longed for the
+change and how eagerly he looked forward to his holiday.
+
+[Sidenote: The great task completed.]
+
+[Sidenote: The farewell visit to the King and to the Grand Fleet.]
+
+The last few months, with the controversies over conscription, had
+harassed him. He was not a keen believer in the conscript principle; he
+was more than justified in his preference for a voluntary army by the
+response he had received on his appeal to the manhood of England. There
+was a wonderful completion of the task he had undertaken in those last
+few days. He had raised his millions, and the country had accepted the
+inevitable imposition of compulsion, and with it that chapter of his
+life was finished. He had met the House of Commons, and, uncertain as
+the result of that conference was, like all he did, it was one of his
+greatest successes. He had no indecision when it was proposed to him
+that he should meet the Commons, and, as was always the case, the result
+was never in doubt. What passed has never been divulged, but he left an
+impression on the two hundred members who were present which was perhaps
+one of the best tributes ever paid him. After his farewell to the King,
+his last visit to Broome and to Sir John Jellicoe and the Grand Fleet,
+he set sail for the shore he never reached, and the end had come. It was
+perhaps the most perfect end of such a life--a life full of high
+endeavor and completion. The service he had rendered his country by
+raising her armies and foreseeing the probable duration of the war could
+not have been performed by any other living man. If, as his critics say,
+he depended too much on his own individual endeavors, he was not to be
+blamed when we read day by day of the glorious deeds of the armies he
+had created.
+
+The country staggered under the blow of his death, and one can never
+forget the silent grief and dismay of that dreadful day with its
+horrible tragedy. The grief was universal and personal, and the tributes
+to his work and memory were spoken from the heart by the great leaders
+of both parties. No more touching and pathetic tribute was ever said
+than the speech made by Lord Derby in the House of Lords on the
+resolution in reference to his death. There is not one word to be
+altered from beginning to end, but the concluding words must go to
+every heart and find an echo:
+
+[Sidenote: The whole machinery of the new armies in running order.]
+
+Lord Kitchener said good-by to the nation at a moment when he left the
+whole of the machinery of the great armies that he had created in
+running order, and when it only required skilled engineers to keep going
+his work. It was really as if Providence in its wisdom had given him the
+rest he never would have given to himself.
+
+With the memory of a great naval battle fresh in our minds we must all
+realize how rich a harvest of death the sea has reaped. We in these
+islands from time immemorial had paid a heavy toll to the sea for our
+insular security, but, speaking as the friend of a friend, I can say
+that the sea never executed a heavier toll than when Lord Kitchener,
+coffined in a British man-of-war, passed to the Great Beyond.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How and why America joined with the Allies against Germany in April,
+1917, is told in the three articles following. The summaries contained
+therein are official, and the war message of President Wilson condenses
+the reasons which impelled the United States, after long delay, to throw
+the force of its strength and resources against the German Empire.
+
+
+
+
+WHY AMERICA BROKE WITH GERMANY
+
+PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON
+
+
+[Sidenote: Germany proclaims ruthless submarine warfare.]
+
+The Imperial German Government on the 31st day of January announced to
+this Government and to the Governments of the other neutral nations that
+on and after the 1st day of February, the present month, it would adopt
+a policy with regard to the use of submarines against all shipping
+seeking to pass through certain designated areas of the high seas, to
+which it is clearly my duty to call your attention.
+
+[Sidenote: The _Sussex_ case.]
+
+Let me remind the Congress that on the 18th of April last, in view of
+the sinking on the 24th of March of the cross-channel steamship _Sussex_
+by a German submarine without summons or warning, and the consequent
+loss of lives of several citizens of the United States who were
+passengers aboard her, this Government addressed a note to the Imperial
+German Government, in which it made the following statement:
+
+[Sidenote: The note to the Imperial German Government.]
+
+"If it is still the purpose of the Imperial German Government to
+prosecute relentless and indiscriminate warfare against vessels of
+commerce by the use of submarines without regard to what the Government
+of the United States must consider the sacred and indisputable rules of
+international law and the universally recognized dictates of humanity,
+the Government of the United States is at last forced to the conclusion
+that there is but one course it can pursue. Unless the Imperial
+Government should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of
+its present methods of submarine warfare against passenger and freight
+carrying vessels, the Government of the United States can have no choice
+but to sever diplomatic relations with the German Empire altogether."
+
+In reply to this declaration the Imperial German Government gave this
+Government the following assurance:
+
+[Sidenote: Germany's assurances to the United States.]
+
+"The German Government is prepared to do its utmost to confine the
+operations of war for the rest of its duration to the fighting forces of
+the belligerents, thereby also insuring the freedom of the seas, a
+principle upon which the German Government believes now, as before, to
+be in agreement with the Government of the United States.
+
+[Sidenote: Promises that merchant vessels shall not be sunk without
+warning.]
+
+"The German Government, guided by this idea, notifies the Government of
+the United States that the German naval forces have received the
+following orders: In accordance with the general principles of visit and
+search and destruction of merchant vessels recognized by international
+law, such vessels, both within and without the area declared a naval war
+zone, shall not be sunk without warning and without saving human lives,
+unless these ships attempt to escape or offer resistance.
+
+"But," it added, "neutrals cannot expect that Germany, forced to fight
+for her existence, shall, for the sake of neutral interest, restrict the
+use of an effective weapon if her enemy is permitted to continue to
+apply at will methods of warfare violating the rules of international
+law. Such a demand would be incompatible with the character of
+neutrality, and the German Government is convinced that the Government
+of the United States does not think of making such a demand, knowing
+that the Government of the United States has repeatedly declared that
+it is determined to restore the principle of the freedom of the seas,
+from whatever quarter it has been violated."
+
+To this the Government of the United States replied on the 8th of May,
+accepting, of course, the assurance given, but adding:
+
+[Sidenote: The reply of the United States.]
+
+[Sidenote: Rights of American citizens do not depend on conduct of
+another government.]
+
+"The Government of the United States feels it necessary to state that it
+takes it for granted that the Imperial German Government does not intend
+to imply that the maintenance of its newly announced policy is in any
+way contingent upon the course or result of diplomatic negotiations
+between the Government of the United States and any other belligerent
+Government, notwithstanding the fact that certain passages in the
+Imperial Government's note of the 4th inst. might appear to be
+susceptible of that construction. In order, however, to avoid any
+misunderstanding, the Government of the United States notifies the
+Imperial Government that it cannot for a moment entertain, much less
+discuss, a suggestion that respect by German naval authorities for the
+rights of citizens of the United States upon the high seas should in any
+way or in the slightest degree be made contingent upon the conduct of
+any other Government, affecting the rights of neutrals and
+noncombatants. Responsibility in such matters is single, not joint,
+absolute, not relative."
+
+To this note of the 8th of May the Imperial German Government made no
+reply.
+
+On the 31st of January, the Wednesday of the present week, the German
+Ambassador handed to the Secretary of State, along with a formal note, a
+memorandum which contained the following statement:
+
+"The Imperial Government therefore does not doubt that the Government of
+the United States will understand the situation thus forced upon Germany
+by the Entente Allies' brutal methods of war and by their determination
+to destroy the Central Powers, and that the Government of the United
+States will further realize that the now openly disclosed intention of
+the Entente Allies gives back to Germany the freedom of action which she
+reserved in her note addressed to the Government of the United States on
+May 4, 1916.
+
+[Sidenote: Germany will sink all ships within zone proclaimed.]
+
+"Under these circumstances, Germany will meet the illegal measures of
+her enemies by forcibly preventing, after February 1, 1917, in a zone
+around Great Britain, France, Italy, and in the Eastern Mediterranean,
+all navigation, that of neutrals included, from and to England and from
+and to France, &c. All ships met within the zone will be sunk."
+
+I think that you will agree with me that, in view of this declaration,
+which suddenly and without prior intimation of any kind deliberately
+withdraws the solemn assurance given in the Imperial Government's note
+of the 4th of May, 1916, this Government has no alternative consistent
+with the dignity and honor of the United States but to take the course
+which, in its note of the 18th of April, 1916, it announced that it
+would take in the event that the German Government did not declare and
+effect an abandonment of the methods of submarine warfare which it was
+then employing and to which it now purposes again to resort.
+
+[Sidenote: Diplomatic relations with Germany are severed.]
+
+I have therefore directed the Secretary of State to announce to his
+Excellency the German Ambassador that all diplomatic relations between
+the United States and the German Empire are severed and that the
+American Ambassador to Berlin will immediately be withdrawn; and, in
+accordance with this decision, to hand to his Excellency his passports.
+
+[Sidenote: Hard to believe Germany will carry out threats.]
+
+Notwithstanding this unexpected action of the German Government, this
+sudden and deplorable renunciation of its assurances, given this
+Government at one of the most critical moments of tension in the
+relations of the two Governments, I refuse to believe that it is the
+intention of the German authorities to do in fact what they have warned
+us they will feel at liberty to do. I cannot bring myself to believe
+that they will indeed pay no regard to the ancient friendship between
+their people and our own or to the solemn obligations which have been
+exchanged between them, and destroy American ships and take the lives of
+American citizens in the willful prosecution of the ruthless naval
+program they have announced their intention to adopt. Only actual overt
+acts on their part can make me believe it even now.
+
+If this inveterate confidence on my part in the sobriety and prudent
+foresight of their purpose should unhappily prove unfounded; if American
+ships and American lives should in fact be sacrificed by their naval
+commanders in heedless contravention on the just and reasonable
+understandings of international law and the obvious dictates of
+humanity, I shall take the liberty of coming again before the Congress
+to ask that authority be given me to use any means that may be necessary
+for the protection of our seamen and our people in the prosecution of
+their peaceful and legitimate errands on the high seas. I can do nothing
+less. I take it for granted that all neutral Governments will take the
+same course.
+
+[Sidenote: America does not desire war with Germany.]
+
+We do not desire any hostile conflict with the Imperial German
+Government. We are the sincere friends of the German people, and
+earnestly desire to remain at peace with the Government which speaks for
+them. We shall not believe that they are hostile to us unless and until
+we are obliged to believe it; and we purpose nothing more than the
+reasonable defense of the undoubted rights of our people. We wish to
+serve no selfish ends. We seek merely to stand true alike in thought and
+in action to the immemorial principles of our people, which I have
+sought to express in my address to the Senate only two weeks ago--seek
+merely to vindicate our rights to liberty and justice and an unmolested
+life. These are the bases of peace, not war. God grant that we may not
+be challenged to defend them by acts of willful injustice on the part of
+the Government of Germany!
+
+[Sidenote: Reasons for addressing Congress.]
+
+I have again asked the privilege of addressing you because we are moving
+through critical times during which it seems to me to be my duty to keep
+in close touch with the houses of Congress, so that neither counsel nor
+action shall run at cross-purposes between us.
+
+On the 3rd of February I officially informed you of the sudden and
+unexpected action of the Imperial German Government in declaring its
+intention to disregard the promises it had made to this Government in
+April last and undertake immediate submarine operations against all
+commerce, whether of belligerents or of neutrals, that should seek to
+approach Great Britain and Ireland, the Atlantic coasts of Europe, or
+the harbors of the Eastern Mediterranean and to conduct those operations
+without regard to the established restrictions of international
+practice, without regard to any considerations of humanity even which
+might interfere with their object.
+
+[Sidenote: The German ruthless policy in practice.]
+
+That policy was forthwith put into practice. It has now been in active
+exhibition for nearly four weeks. Its practical results are not fully
+disclosed. The commerce of other neutral nations is suffering severely,
+but not, perhaps, very much more severely than it was already suffering
+before the 1st of February, when the new policy of the Imperial
+Government was put into operation.
+
+[Sidenote: American commerce suffers.]
+
+We have asked the cooperation of the other neutral Governments to
+prevent these depredations, but I fear none of them has thought it wise
+to join us in any common course of action. Our own commerce has
+suffered, is suffering, rather in apprehension than in fact, rather
+because so many of our ships are timidly keeping to their home ports
+than because American ships have been sunk.
+
+[Sidenote: American vessels sunk.]
+
+Two American vessels have been sunk, the _Housatonic_ and the _Lyman M.
+Law_. The case of the _Housatonic_, which was carrying foodstuffs
+consigned to a London firm, was essentially like the case of the _Frye_,
+in which, it will be recalled, the German Government admitted its
+liability for damages, and the lives of the crew, as in the case of the
+_Frye_, were safeguarded with reasonable care.
+
+The case of the _Law_, which was carrying lemon-box staves to Palermo,
+discloses a ruthlessness of method which deserves grave condemnation,
+but was accompanied by no circumstances which might not have been
+expected at any time in connection with the use of the submarine against
+merchantmen as the German Government has used it.
+
+[Sidenote: Congestion of shipping in American ports.]
+
+In sum, therefore, the situation we find ourselves in with regard to the
+actual conduct of the German submarine warfare against commerce and its
+effects upon our own ships and people is substantially the same that it
+was when I addressed you on the 3rd of February, except for the tying up
+of our shipping in our own ports because of the unwillingness of our
+ship owners to risk their vessels at sea without insurance or adequate
+protection, and the very serious congestion of our commerce which has
+resulted--a congestion which is growing rapidly more and more serious
+every day.
+
+This, in itself, might presently accomplish, in effect, what the new
+German submarine orders were meant to accomplish, so far as we are
+concerned. We can only say, therefore, that the overt act which I have
+ventured to hope the German commanders would in fact avoid has not
+occurred.
+
+[Sidenote: Indications that German ruthlessness will continue.]
+
+But while this is happily true, it must be admitted that there have been
+certain additional indications and expressions of purpose on the part of
+the German press and the German authorities which have increased rather
+than lessened the impression that, if our ships and our people are
+spared, it will be because of fortunate circumstances or because the
+commanders of the German submarines which they may happen to encounter
+exercise an unexpected discretion and restraint, rather than because of
+the instructions under which those commanders are acting.
+
+[Sidenote: Situation full of danger.]
+
+It would be foolish to deny that the situation is fraught with the
+gravest possibilities and dangers. No thoughtful man can fail to see
+that the necessity for definite action may come at any time if we are,
+in fact and not in word merely, to defend our elementary rights as a
+neutral nation. It would be most imprudent to be unprepared.
+
+I cannot in such circumstances be unmindful of the fact that the
+expiration of the term of the present Congress is immediately at hand by
+constitutional limitation and that it would in all likelihood require an
+unusual length of time to assemble and organize the Congress which is to
+succeed it.
+
+[Sidenote: The President asks for authority.]
+
+I feel that I ought, in view of that fact, to obtain from you full and
+immediate assurance of the authority which I may need at any moment to
+exercise. No doubt I already possess that authority without special
+warrant of law, by the plain implication of my constitutional duties and
+powers; but I prefer in the present circumstances not to act upon
+general implication. I wish to feel that the authority and the power of
+the Congress are behind me in whatever it may become necessary for me to
+do. We are jointly the servants of the people and must act together and
+in their spirit, so far as we can divine and interpret it.
+
+[Sidenote: Necessary to defend commerce and lives.]
+
+No one doubts what it is our duty to do. We must defend our commerce and
+the lives of our people in the midst of the present trying circumstances
+with discretion but with clear and steadfast purpose. Only the method
+and the extent remain to be chosen, upon the occasion, if occasion
+should indeed arise.
+
+[Sidenote: Diplomatic means fail.]
+
+Since it has unhappily proved impossible to safeguard our neutral rights
+by diplomatic means against the unwarranted infringements they are
+suffering at the hands of Germany, there may be no recourse but to armed
+neutrality, which we shall know how to maintain and for which there is
+abundant American precedent.
+
+It is devoutly to be hoped that it will not be necessary to put armed
+forces anywhere into action. The American people do not desire it, and
+our desire is not different from theirs. I am sure that they will
+understand the spirit in which I am now acting, the purpose I hold
+nearest my heart and would wish to exhibit in everything I do.
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Wilson the friend of peace.]
+
+I am anxious that the people of the nations at war also should
+understand and not mistrust us. I hope that I need give no further
+proofs and assurances than I have already given throughout nearly three
+years of anxious patience that I am the friend of peace and mean to
+preserve it for America so long as I am able. I am not now proposing or
+contemplating war or any steps that need lead to it. I merely request
+that you will accord me by your own vote and definite bestowal the
+means and the authority to safeguard in practice the right of a great
+people, who are at peace and who are desirous of exercising none but the
+rights of peace, to follow the pursuit of peace in quietness and
+good-will--rights recognized time out of mind by all the civilized
+nations of the world.
+
+[Sidenote: America not seeking war.]
+
+No course of my choosing or of theirs will lead to war. War can come
+only by the willful acts and aggressions of others.
+
+You will understand why I can make no definite proposals or forecasts of
+action now and must ask for your supporting authority in the most
+general terms. The form in which action may become necessary cannot yet
+be foreseen.
+
+[Sidenote: Merchant ships should be supplied with defensive arms.]
+
+I believe that the people will be willing to trust me to act with
+restraint, with prudence, and in the true spirit of amity and good faith
+that they have themselves displayed throughout these trying months; and
+it is in that belief that I request that you will authorize me to supply
+our merchant ships with defensive arms should that become necessary, and
+with the means of using them, and to employ any other instrumentalities
+or methods that may be necessary and adequate to protect our ships and
+our people in their legitimate and peaceful pursuits on the seas. I
+request also that you will grant me at the same time, along with the
+powers I ask, a sufficient credit to enable me to provide adequate means
+of protection where they are lacking, including adequate insurance
+against the present war risks.
+
+I have spoken of our commerce and of the legitimate errands of our
+people on the seas, but you will not be misled as to my main
+thought--the thought that lies beneath these phrases and gives them
+dignity and weight. It is not of material interest merely that we are
+thinking. It is, rather, of fundamental human rights, chief of all the
+rights of life itself.
+
+[Sidenote: To protect the lives of noncombatants.]
+
+I am thinking not only of the right of Americans to go and come about
+their proper business by way of the sea, but also of something much
+deeper, much more fundamental than that. I am thinking of those rights
+of humanity without which there is no civilization. My theme is of those
+great principles of compassion and of protection which mankind has
+sought to throw about human lives, the lives of noncombatants, the lives
+of men who are peacefully at work keeping the industrial processes of
+the world quick and vital, the lives of women and children and of those
+who supply the labor which ministers to their sustenance. We are
+speaking of no selfish material rights, but of rights which our hearts
+support and whose foundation is that righteous passion for justice upon
+which all law, all structures alike of family, of State, and of mankind
+must rest, as upon the ultimate base of our existence and our liberty.
+
+I cannot imagine any man with American principles at his heart
+hesitating to defend these things.
+
+
+
+
+HOW THE WAR CAME TO AMERICA
+
+OFFICIAL ACCOUNT
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Monroe Doctrine a warning to the old world.]
+
+In the years when the Republic was still struggling for existence, in
+the face of threatened encroachments by hostile monarchies over the sea,
+in order to make the New World safe for democracy our forefathers
+established here the policy that soon came to be known as the Monroe
+Doctrine. Warning the Old World not to interfere in the political life
+of the New, our Government pledged itself in return to abstain from
+interference in the political conflicts of Europe; and history has
+vindicated the wisdom of this course. We were then too weak to influence
+the destinies of Europe, and it was vital to mankind that this first
+great experiment in government of and by the people should not be
+disturbed by foreign attack.
+
+[Sidenote: Our isolation fast becoming imaginary.]
+
+Reenforced by the experience of our expanding national life, this
+doctrine has been ever since the dominating element in the growth of our
+foreign policy. Whether or not we could have maintained it in case of
+concerted attack from abroad, it has seemed of such importance to us
+that we were at all times ready to go to war in its defense. And though
+since it was first enunciated our strength has grown by leaps and
+bounds, although in that time the vast increase in our foreign trade and
+of travel abroad, modern transport, modern mails, the cables, and the
+wireless have brought us close to Europe and have made our isolation
+more and more imaginary, there has been until the outbreak of the
+present conflict small desire on our part to abrogate, or even amend,
+the old familiar tradition which has for so long given us peace.
+
+[Sidenote: American statement in the minutes of The Hague.]
+
+In both conferences at The Hague, in 1899 and 1907, we reaffirmed this
+policy. As our delegates signed the First Convention in regard to
+arbitration, they read into the minutes this statement:
+
+"Nothing contained in this convention shall be so construed as to
+require the United States of America to depart from its traditional
+policy of not intruding upon, interfering with, or entangling itself in
+the political questions or policy or internal administration of any
+foreign State; nor shall anything contained in the said convention be
+construed to imply a relinquishment by the United States of America of
+its traditional attitude toward purely American questions."
+
+On the eve of the war our position toward other nations might have been
+summarized under three heads:
+
+[Sidenote: The Monroe Doctrine.]
+
+I. The Monroe Doctrine.--We had pledged ourselves to defend the New
+World from European aggression, and we had by word and deed made it
+clear that we would not intervene in any European dispute.
+
+[Sidenote: The Freedom of the Seas.]
+
+II. The Freedom of the Seas.--In every naval conference our influence
+had been given in support of the principle that sea law to be just and
+worthy of general respect must be based on the consent of the governed.
+
+[Sidenote: Settlement of disputes by arbitration.]
+
+III. Arbitration.--As we had secured peace at home by referring
+interstate disputes to a Federal tribunal, we urged a similar settlement
+of international controversies. Our ideal was a permanent world court.
+We had already signed arbitration treaties not only with great powers
+which might conceivably attack us, but even more freely with weaker
+neighbors in order to show our good faith in recognizing the equality of
+all nations both great and small. We had made plain to the nations our
+purpose to forestall by every means in our power the recurrence of wars
+in the world.
+
+The outbreak of war in 1914 caught this nation by surprise. The peoples
+of Europe had had at least some warnings of the coming storm, but to us
+such a blind, savage onslaught on the ideals of civilization had
+appeared impossible.
+
+[Sidenote: The war incomprehensible.]
+
+The war was incomprehensible. Either side was championed here by
+millions living among us who were of European birth. Their contradictory
+accusations threw our thought into disarray, and in the first chaotic
+days we could see no clear issue that affected our national policy.
+There was not direct assault on our rights. It seemed at first to most
+of us a purely European dispute, and our minds were not prepared to take
+sides in such a conflict. The President's proclamation of neutrality was
+received by us as natural and inevitable. It was quickly followed by his
+appeal to "the citizens of the Republic."
+
+[Sidenote: American neutrality natural.]
+
+"Every man who really loves America will act and speak in the true
+spirit of neutrality," he said, "which is the spirit of impartiality and
+fairness and friendliness to all concerned. * * * It will be easy to
+excite passion and difficult to allay it." He expressed the fear that
+our nation might become divided in camps of hostile opinion. "Such
+divisions among us * * * might seriously stand in the way of the proper
+performance of our duty as the one great nation at peace, the one people
+holding itself ready to play a part of impartial mediation and speak
+counsels of peace and accommodation, not as a partisan, but as a
+friend."
+
+[Sidenote: The United States must be the mediator.]
+
+This purpose--the preservation of a strict neutrality in order that
+later we might be of use in the great task of mediation--dominated all
+the President's early speeches.
+
+[Sidenote: Invasion of Belgium stirs American opinion.]
+
+The spirit of neutrality was not easy to maintain. Public opinion was
+deeply stirred by the German invasion of Belgium and by reports of
+atrocities there. The Royal Belgian Commission, which came in September,
+1914, to lay their country's cause for complaint before our National
+Government, was received with sympathy and respect. The President in his
+reply reserved our decision in the affair. It was the only course he
+could take without an abrupt departure from our most treasured
+traditions of non-interference in Old World disputes. But the sympathy
+of America went out to the Belgians in the heroic tragedy, and from
+every section of our land money contributions and supplies of food and
+clothing poured over to the Commission for Relief in Belgium, which was
+under the able management of our fellow-countrymen abroad.
+
+Still, the thought of taking an active part in this European war was
+very far from most of our minds. The nation shared with the President
+the belief that by maintaining a strict neutrality we could best serve
+Europe at the end as impartial mediators.
+
+[Sidenote: Complication on the seas imperils American neutrality.]
+
+But in the very first days of the war our Government foresaw that
+complications on the seas might put us in grave risk of being drawn into
+the conflict. No neutral nation could foretell what violations of its
+vital interests at sea might be attempted by the belligerents. And so,
+on August 6, 1914, our Secretary of State dispatched an identical note
+to all the powers then at war, calling attention to the risk of serious
+trouble arising out of this uncertainty of neutrals as to their maritime
+rights, and proposing that the Declaration of London be accepted by all
+nations for the duration of the war.
+
+[Sidenote: German Government stirs opinion hostile to United States.]
+
+[Sidenote: American policy not inconsistent with American traditions.]
+
+In the first year of the war the Government of Germany stirred up among
+its people a feeling of resentment against the United States on account
+of our insistence upon our right as a neutral nation to trade in
+munitions with the belligerent powers. Our legal right in the matter was
+not seriously questioned by Germany. She could not have done so
+consistently, for as recently as the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913 both
+Germany and Austria sold munitions to the belligerents. Their appeals to
+us in the present war were not to observe international law, but to
+revise it in their interest. And these appeals they tried to make on
+moral and humanitarian grounds. But upon "the moral issue" involved, the
+stand taken by the United States was consistent with its traditional
+policy and with obvious common sense.
+
+For, if, with all other neutrals, we refused to sell munitions to
+belligerents, we could never in time of a war of our own obtain
+munitions from neutrals, and the nation which had accumulated the
+largest reserves of war supplies in time of peace would be assured of
+victory.
+
+The militarist State that invested its money in arsenals would be at a
+fatal advantage over the free people who invested their wealth in
+schools. To write into international law that neutrals should not trade
+in munitions would be to hand over the world to the rule of the nation
+with the largest armament factories. Such a policy the United States of
+America could not accept.
+
+[Sidenote: Controversy about German submarine war zone.]
+
+[Sidenote: The sinking of the _Lusitania_.]
+
+But our principal controversy with the German Government, and the one
+which rendered the situation at once acute, rose out of their
+announcement of a sea zone where their submarines would operate in
+violation of all accepted principles of international law. Our
+indignation at such a threat was soon rendered passionate by the sinking
+of the _Lusitania_. This attack upon our rights was not only grossly
+illegal; it defied the fundamental concepts of humanity.
+
+[Sidenote: Murder of noncombatants not to be settled by litigation.]
+
+Aggravating restraints on our trade were grievances which could be
+settled by litigation after the war, but the wanton murder of peaceable
+men and of innocent women and children, citizens of a nation with which
+Germany was at peace, was a crime against the civilized world which
+could never be settled in any court.
+
+Our Government, however, inspired still by a desire to preserve peace if
+possible, used every resource of diplomacy to force the German
+Government to abandon such attacks. This diplomatic correspondence,
+which has already been published, proves beyond doubt that our
+Government sought by every honorable means to preserve faith in that
+mutual sincerity between nations which is the only basis of sound
+diplomatic interchange.
+
+[Sidenote: Bad faith of the Imperial German Government.]
+
+But evidence of the bad faith of the Imperial German Government soon
+piled up on every hand. Honest efforts on our part to establish a firm
+basis of good neighborliness with the German people were met by their
+Government with quibbles, misrepresentations, and counter-accusations
+against their enemies abroad.
+
+And meanwhile in this country official agents of the Central
+Powers--protected from criminal prosecution by diplomatic
+immunity--conspired against our internal peace and placed spies and
+agents provocateurs throughout the length and breadth of our land, and
+even in high positions of trust in departments of our Government.
+
+[Sidenote: German agents in Latin America, in Japan and the West
+Indies.]
+
+While expressing a cordial friendship for the people of the United
+States, the Government of Germany had its agents at work both in Latin
+America and Japan. They bought or subsidized papers and supported
+speakers there to rouse feelings of bitterness and distrust against us
+in those friendly nations, in order to embroil us in war. They were
+inciting to insurrection in Cuba, in Haiti, and in Santo Domingo; their
+hostile hand was stretched out to take the Danish Islands; and
+everywhere in South America they were abroad sowing the seeds of
+dissension, trying to stir up one nation against another and all against
+the United States.
+
+[Sidenote: Assaults on the Monroe Doctrine.]
+
+In their sum these various operations amounted to direct assault upon
+the Monroe Doctrine. And even if we had given up our right to travel on
+the sea, even if we had surrendered to German threats and abandoned our
+legitimate trade in munitions, the German offensive in the New World, in
+our own land and among our neighbors, was becoming too serious to be
+ignored.
+
+[Sidenote: Recall of the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador.]
+
+So long as it was possible, the Government of the United States tried to
+believe that such activities, the evidence of which was already in a
+large measure at hand, were the work of irresponsible and misguided
+individuals. It was only reluctantly, in the face of overwhelming proof,
+that the recall of the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador and of the German
+Military and Naval Attachés was demanded.
+
+Proof of their criminal violations of our hospitality was presented to
+their Governments. But these Governments in reply offered no apologies
+nor did they issue reprimands. It became clear that such intrigue was
+their settled policy.
+
+In the meantime the attacks of the German submarines upon the lives and
+property of American citizens had gone on; the protests of our
+Government were now sharp and ominous, and this nation was rapidly
+being drawn into a state of war.
+
+The break would have come sooner if our Government had not been
+restrained by the vain hope that saner counsels might still prevail in
+Germany. For it was well known to us that the German people had to a
+very large extent been kept in ignorance of many of the secret crimes of
+their Government against us.
+
+[Sidenote: Tension relieved by _Sussex_ agreement.]
+
+And the presence of a faction of German public opinion less hostile to
+this country was shown when their Government acquiesced to some degree
+in our demands at the time of the _Sussex_ outrage, and for nearly a
+year maintained at least a pretense of observing the pledge they had
+made to us. The tension was abated.
+
+While the war spirit was growing in some sections of our nation, there
+was still no widespread desire to take part in the conflict abroad; for
+the tradition of non-interference in Europe's political affairs was too
+deeply rooted in our national life to be easily overthrown.
+
+Moreover, two other considerations strengthened our Government in its
+efforts to remain neutral in this war. The first was our traditional
+sense of responsibility toward all the republics of the New World.
+Throughout the crisis our Government was in constant communication with
+the countries of Central and South America.
+
+[Sidenote: Opinion in Central and South America.]
+
+They, too, preferred the ways of peace. And there was a very obvious
+obligation upon us to safeguard their interests with our own.
+
+The second consideration, which had been so often developed in the
+President's speeches, was the hope that by keeping aloof from the bitter
+passions abroad, by preserving untroubled here the holy ideals of
+civilized intercourse between nations, we might be free at the end of
+this war to bind up the wounds of the conflict, to be the restorers and
+rebuilders of the wrecked structure of the world.
+
+[Sidenote: German compliance not in good faith.]
+
+All these motives held us back, but it was not long until we were beset
+by further complications. We soon had reason to believe that the recent
+compliance of the German Government had not been made to us in good
+faith, and was only temporary, and by the end of 1916 it was plain that
+our neutral status had again been made unsafe through the
+ever-increasing aggressiveness of the German autocracy. There was a
+general agreement here with the statement of our President on October
+26, 1916, that this conflict was the last great war involving the world
+in which we would remain neutral.
+
+[Sidenote: Peace move on behalf of the Central powers.]
+
+It was in this frame of mind, fearing we might be drawn into the war if
+it did not soon come to an end, that the President began the preparation
+of his note, asking the belligerent powers to define their war aims. But
+before he had completed it the world was surprised by the peace move of
+the German Government--an identical note on behalf of the German Empire,
+Austro-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey, sent through neutral powers on
+December 12, 1916, to the Governments of the Allies proposing
+negotiations for peace.
+
+While expressing the wish to end this war--"a catastrophe which
+thousands of years of common civilization was unable to prevent and
+which injures the most precious achievements of humanity"--the greater
+portion of the note was couched in terms that gave small hope of a
+lasting peace.
+
+Boasting of German conquests, "the glorious deeds of our armies," the
+note implanted in neutral minds the belief that it was the purpose of
+the Imperial German Government to insist upon such conditions as would
+leave all Central Europe under German dominance and so build up an
+empire which would menace the whole liberal world.
+
+[Sidenote: A veiled threat to neutral nations.]
+
+Moreover, the German proposal was accompanied by a thinly veiled threat
+to all neutral nations; and from a thousand sources, official and
+unofficial, the word came to Washington that unless the neutrals use
+their influence to bring the war to an end on terms dictated from
+Berlin, Germany and her allies would consider themselves henceforth free
+from any obligations to respect the rights of neutrals.
+
+The Kaiser ordered the neutrals to exert pressure on the Entente to
+bring the war to an abrupt end, or to beware of the consequences. Clear
+warnings were brought to our Government that if the German peace move
+should not be successful, the submarines would be unleashed for a more
+intense and ruthless war upon all commerce.
+
+[Sidenote: The President's note to the belligerents.]
+
+On the 18th of December the President dispatched his note to all the
+belligerent powers, asking them to define their war aims. There was
+still hope in our minds that the mutual suspicions between the warring
+powers might be decreased, and the menace of future German aggression
+and dominance be removed, by finding a guaranty of good faith in a
+league of nations.
+
+There was a chance that by the creation of such a league as part of the
+peace negotiations the war could now be brought to an end before our
+nation was involved. Two statements issued to the press by our Secretary
+of State, upon the day the note was dispatched, threw a clear light on
+the seriousness with which our Government viewed the crisis.
+
+From this point events moved rapidly. The powers of the Entente replied
+to the German peace note. Neutral nations took action on the note of
+the President, and from both belligerents replies to this note were soon
+in our hands.
+
+[Sidenote: The German reply evasive.]
+
+The German reply was evasive--in accord with their traditional
+preference for diplomacy behind closed doors. Refusing to state to the
+world their terms, Germany and her allies merely proposed a conference.
+They adjourned all discussion of any plan for a league of peace until
+after hostilities should end.
+
+[Sidenote: Our concern the lasting restoration of peace.]
+
+The response of the Entente Powers was frank and in harmony with our
+principal purpose. Many questions raised in the statement of their aims
+were so purely European in character as to have small interest for us;
+but our great concern in Europe was the lasting restoration of peace,
+and it was clear that this was also the chief interest of the Entente
+nations.
+
+As to the wisdom of some of the measures they proposed toward this end,
+we might differ in opinion, but the trend of their proposals was the
+establishment of just frontiers based on the rights of all nations, the
+small as well as the great, to decide their own destinies.
+
+The aims of the belligerents were now becoming clear. From the outbreak
+of hostilities the German Government had claimed that it was fighting a
+war of defense. But the tone of its recent proposals had been that of a
+conqueror. It sought a peace based on victory.
+
+[Sidenote: Central Empires desire domination over other races.]
+
+The Central Empires aspired to extend their domination over other races.
+They were willing to make liberal terms to any one of their enemies, in
+a separate peace which would free their hands to crush other opponents.
+But they were not willing to accept any peace which did not, all fronts
+considered, leave them victors and the dominating imperial power of
+Europe.
+
+The war aims of the Entente showed a determination to thwart this
+ambition of the Imperial German Government. Against the German peace to
+further German growth and aggression the Entente Powers offered a plan
+for a European peace that should make the whole Continent secure.
+
+[Sidenote: The kind of peace America desires.]
+
+At this juncture the President read his address to the Senate, on
+January 22, 1917, in which he outlined the kind of peace the United
+States of America could join in guaranteeing. His words were addressed
+not only to the Senate and this nation, but to people of all countries:
+
+"May I not add that I hope and believe that I am in effect speaking for
+liberals and friends of humanity in every nation and of every program of
+liberty? I would fain believe that I am speaking for the silent mass of
+mankind everywhere who have as yet had no place or opportunity to speak
+their real hearts out concerning the death and ruin they see to have
+come already upon the persons and the homes they hold most dear."
+
+[Sidenote: The peace of the people.]
+
+The address was a rebuke to those who still cherished dreams of a world
+dominated by one nation. For the peace he outlined was not that of a
+victorious Emperor, it was not the peace of Cæsar. It was in behalf of
+all the world, and it was a peace of the people:
+
+"No peace can last, or ought to last, which does not recognize and
+accept the principle that Governments derive all their just powers from
+the consent of the governed, and that no right anywhere exists to hand
+people about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property.
+
+[Sidenote: Each people should determine its own polity.]
+
+"I am proposing, as it were, that the nations should with one accord
+adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the world;
+that no nation should seek to extend its policy over any other nation or
+people, but that every people should be left free to determine its own
+polity, its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid,
+the little along with the great and powerful.
+
+"I am proposing that all nations henceforth avoid entangling alliances
+which would draw them into competitions of power, catch them in a net of
+intrigue and selfish rivalry and disturb their own affairs with
+influences intruded from without. There is no entangling alliance in a
+concert of power. When all unite to act in the same sense and with the
+same purpose, all act in the common interest and are free to live their
+own lives under a common protection.
+
+[Sidenote: Seas must be free.]
+
+"I am proposing government by the consent of the governed; that freedom
+of the seas which in international conference after conference
+representatives of the United States have urged with the eloquence of
+those who are convinced disciples of liberty, and that moderation of
+armaments which makes of armies and navies a power for order merely, not
+an instrument of aggression or of selfish violence.
+
+"And the paths of the sea must, alike in law and in fact, be free. The
+freedom of the seas is the sine qua non of peace, equality, and
+co-operation.
+
+[Sidenote: Question of limiting armaments.]
+
+"It is a problem closely connected with the limitation of naval armament
+and the co-operation of the navies of the world in keeping the seas at
+once free and safe. And the question of limiting naval armaments opens
+the wider and perhaps more difficult question of the limitation of
+armies and of all programs of military preparation. * * * There can be
+no sense of safety and equality among the nations if great
+preponderating armaments are henceforth to continue here and there to be
+built up and maintained.
+
+[Sidenote: How peace must be made secure.]
+
+"Mere agreements may not make peace secure. It will be absolutely
+necessary that a force be created as a guarantor of the permanency of
+the settlement so much greater than the force of any nation now engaged
+or any alliance hitherto formed or projected that no nation, no probable
+combination of nations, could face or withstand it. If the peace
+presently to be made is to endure, it must be a peace made secure by the
+organized major force of mankind."
+
+[Sidenote: Entente peoples welcome President Wilson's views.]
+
+[Sidenote: The German note to Mexico.]
+
+If there were any doubt in our minds as to which of the great alliances
+was the more in sympathy with these ideals, it was removed by the
+popular response abroad to this address of the President. For, while
+exception was taken to some parts of it in Britain and France, it was
+plain that so far as the peoples of the Entente were concerned the
+President had been amply justified in stating that he spoke for all
+forward-looking, liberal-minded men and women. It was not so in Germany.
+The people there who could be reached, and whose hearts were stirred by
+this enunciation of the principles of a people's peace, were too few or
+too oppressed to make their voices heard in the councils of their
+nation. Already, on January 16, 1917, unknown to the people of Germany,
+Herr Zimmermann, their Secretary of Foreign Affairs, had secretly
+dispatched a note to their Minister in Mexico, informing him of the
+German intention to repudiate the _Sussex_ pledge and instructing him to
+offer to the Mexican Government New Mexico and Arizona if Mexico would
+join with Japan in attacking the United States.
+
+[Sidenote: Sinister German intrigues in the New World.]
+
+In the new year of 1917, as through our acceptance of world
+responsibilities so plainly indicated in the President's utterances in
+regard to a league of nations we felt ourselves now drawing nearer to a
+full accord with the Powers of the Entente; and, as on the other hand,
+we found ourselves more and more outraged at the German Government's
+methods of conducting warfare and their brutal treatment of people in
+their conquered lands; as we more and more uncovered their hostile
+intrigues against the peace of the New World; and, above all, as the
+sinister and anti-democratic ideals of their ruling class became
+manifest in their manoeuvres for a peace of conquest--the Imperial
+German Government abruptly threw aside the mask.
+
+[Sidenote: The new submarine war zone proclaimed.]
+
+On the last day of January, 1917, Count Bernstorff handed to Mr. Lansing
+a note, in which his Government announced its purpose to intensify and
+render more ruthless the operations of their submarines at sea, in a
+manner against which our Government had protested from the beginning.
+The German Chancellor also stated before the Imperial Diet that the
+reason this ruthless policy had not been earlier employed was simply
+because the Imperial Government had not then been ready to act. In
+brief, under the guise of friendship and the cloak of false promises, it
+had been preparing this attack.
+
+[Sidenote: Count Bernstorff receives his passports.]
+
+This was the direct challenge. There was no possible answer except to
+hand their Ambassador his passports and so have done with a diplomatic
+correspondence which had been vitiated from the start by the often
+proved bad faith of the Imperial Government.
+
+On the same day, February 3, 1917, the President addressed both houses
+of our Congress and announced the complete severance of our relations
+with Germany. The reluctance with which he took this step was evident in
+every word. But diplomacy had failed, and it would have been the
+hollowest pretense to maintain relations. At the same time, however, he
+made it plain that he did not regard this act as tantamount to a
+declaration of war. Here for the first time the President made his sharp
+distinction between government and people in undemocratic lands:
+
+[Sidenote: American attitude toward the German people.]
+
+"We are the sincere friends of the German people," he said, "and
+earnestly desire to remain at peace with the Government which speaks for
+them. * * * God grant we may not be challenged by acts of willful
+injustice on the part of the Government of Germany."
+
+[Sidenote: Submarine order must be withdrawn.]
+
+In this address of the President, and in its indorsement by the Senate,
+there was a solemn warning; for we still had hope that the German
+Government might hesitate to drive us to war. But it was soon evident
+that our warning had fallen on deaf ears. The tortuous ways and means of
+German official diplomacy were clearly shown in the negotiations opened
+by them through the Swiss Legation on the 10th of February. In no word
+of their proposals did the German Government meet the real issue between
+us. And our State Department replied that no minor negotiations could be
+entertained until the main issue had been met by the withdrawal of the
+submarine order.
+
+[Sidenote: President Wilson advises armed neutrality.]
+
+By the 1st of March it had become plain that the Imperial Government,
+unrestrained by the warning in the President's address to Congress on
+February 3, was determined to make good its threat. The President then
+again appeared before Congress to report the development of the crisis
+and to ask the approval of the representatives of the nation for the
+course of armed neutrality upon which, under his constitutional
+authority, he had now determined. More than 500 of the 531 members of
+the two houses of Congress showed themselves ready and anxious to act;
+and the armed neutrality declaration would have been accepted if it had
+not been for the legal death of the Sixty-fourth Congress on March 4.
+
+No "overt" act, however, was ordered by our Government until Count
+Bernstorff had reached Berlin and Mr. Gerard was in Washington. For the
+German Ambassador on his departure had begged that no irrevocable
+decision should be taken until he had had the chance to make one final
+plea for peace to his sovereign. We do not know the nature of his report
+to the Kaiser; we know only that, even if he kept his pledge and urged
+an eleventh-hour revocation of the submarine order, he was unable to
+sway the policy of the Imperial Government.
+
+[Sidenote: Armed guards on American merchant ships.]
+
+And so, having exhausted every resource of patience, our Government on
+the 12th of March finally issued orders to place armed guards on our
+merchant ships.
+
+With the definite break in diplomatic relations there vanished the last
+vestige of cordiality toward the Government of Germany. Our attitude was
+now to change. So long as we had maintained a strict neutrality in the
+war, for the reason that circumstances might arise in which Europe would
+have need of an impartial mediator, for us to have given official heed
+to the accusations of either party would have been to prejudge the case
+before all the evidence was in.
+
+[Sidenote: Germany is forcing the United States into war.]
+
+But now at last, with the breaking of friendly relations with the German
+Government, we were relieved of the oppressive duty of endeavoring to
+maintain a judicial detachment from the rights and wrongs involved in
+the war. We were no longer the outside observers striving to hold an
+even balance of judgment between disputants. One party by direct attack
+upon our rights and liberties was forcing us into the conflict. And,
+much as we had hoped to keep out of the fray, it was no little relief to
+be free at last from that reserve which is expected of a judge.
+
+[Sidenote: Perfidy of the German Government.]
+
+Much evidence had been presented to us of things so abhorrent to our
+ideas of humanity that they had seemed incredible, things we had been
+loath to believe, and with heavy hearts we had sought to reserve our
+judgment. But with the breaking of relations with the Government of
+Germany that duty at last was ended. The perfidy of that Government in
+its dealings with this nation relieved us of the necessity of striving
+to give them the benefit of the doubt in regard to their crimes abroad.
+The Government which under cover of profuse professions of friendship
+had tried to embroil us in war with Mexico and Japan could not expect us
+to believe in its good faith in other matters. The men whose paid agents
+dynamited our factories here were capable of the infamies reported
+against them over the sea. Their Government's protestations, that their
+purpose was self-defense and the freeing of small nations, fell like a
+house of cards before the revelation of their "peace terms."
+
+[Sidenote: The German record.]
+
+[Sidenote: Arrogant intolerance of the Prussians.]
+
+And judging the German Government now in the light of our own experience
+through the long and patient years of our honest attempt to keep the
+peace, we could see the great autocracy and read her record through the
+war. And we found that record damnable. Beginning long before the war in
+Prussian opposition to every effort that was made by other nations and
+our own to do away with warfare, the story of the autocracy has been one
+of vast preparations for war combined with an attitude of arrogant
+intolerance toward all other points of view, all other systems of
+governments, all other hopes and dreams of men.
+
+With a fanatical faith in the destiny of German Kultur as the system
+that must rule the world, the Imperial Government's actions have through
+years of boasting, double dealing, and deceit tended toward aggression
+upon the rights of others. And, if there still be any doubt as to which
+nation began this war, there can be no uncertainty as to which one was
+most prepared, most exultant at the chance, and ready instantly to march
+upon other nations--even those who had given no offense.
+
+[Sidenote: Atrocities in Belgium and Servia.]
+
+The wholesale depredations and hideous atrocities in Belgium and in
+Serbia were doubtless part and parcel with the Imperial Government's
+purpose to terrorize small nations into abject submission for
+generations to come. But in this the autocracy has been blind. For its
+record in those countries, and in Poland and in Northern France, has
+given not only to the Allies but to liberal peoples throughout the world
+the conviction that this menace to human liberties everywhere must be
+utterly shorn of its power for harm.
+
+[Sidenote: German defiance of law and humanity.]
+
+For the evil it has effected has ranged far out of Europe--out upon the
+open seas, where its submarines, in defiance of law and the concepts of
+humanity, have blown up neutral vessels and covered the waves with the
+dead and the dying, men and women and children alike. Its agents have
+conspired against the peace of neutral nations everywhere, sowing the
+seeds of dissension, ceaselessly endeavoring by tortuous methods of
+deceit, of bribery, false promises, and intimidation to stir up brother
+nations one against the other, in order that the liberal world might not
+be able to unite, in order that the autocracy might emerge triumphant
+from the war.
+
+[Sidenote: The rulers of Germany must go.]
+
+All this we know from our own experience with the Imperial Government.
+As they have dealt with Europe, so they have dealt with us and with all
+mankind. And so out of these years the conviction has grown that until
+the German Nation is divested of such rulers democracy cannot be safe.
+
+[Sidenote: German relation with the Russian autocracy.]
+
+There remained but one element to confuse the issue. One other great
+autocracy, the Government of the Russian Czar, had long been hostile to
+free institutions; it had been a stronghold of tyrannies reaching far
+back into the past, and its presence among the Allies had seemed to be
+in disaccord with the great liberal principles they were upholding in
+this war. Russia had been a source of doubt. Repeatedly during the
+conflict liberal Europe had been startled by the news of secret accord
+between the Kaiser and the Czar.
+
+[Sidenote: The people of Russia overthrow the Czar's Government.]
+
+But now at this crucial time for our nation, on the eve of our entrance
+into the war, the free men of all the world were thrilled and heartened
+by the news that the people of Russia had risen to throw off their
+Government and found a new democracy; and the torch of freedom in Russia
+lit up the last dark phases of the situation abroad. Here, indeed, was a
+fit partner for the League of Honor. The conviction was finally
+crystallized in American minds and hearts that this war across the sea
+was no mere conflict between dynasties, but a stupendous civil war of
+all the world; a new campaign in the age-old war, the prize of which is
+liberty. Here, at last, was a struggle in which all who love freedom
+have a stake. Further neutrality on our part would have been a crime
+against our ancestors, who had given their lives that we might be free.
+
+"The world must be made safe for democracy."
+
+[Sidenote: The President's message to Congress.]
+
+On the 2d of April, 1917, the President read to the new Congress his
+message, in which he asked the Representatives of the nation to declare
+the existence of a state of war, and in the early hours of the 6th of
+April the House by an overwhelming vote accepted the joint resolution
+which had already passed the Senate.
+
+"_Whereas_, The Imperial German Government has committed repeated acts
+of war against the Government and the people of the United States of
+America: Therefore be it
+
+[Sidenote: The declaration of the existence of a state of war.]
+
+"_Resolved_ by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
+States of America in Congress assembled, That the state of war between
+the United States and the Imperial German Government which has thus been
+thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and that the
+President be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to employ the
+entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources
+of the Government to carry on the war against the Imperial German
+Government, and to bring the conflict to a successful termination all
+the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the
+United States."
+
+Neutrality was a thing of the past. The time had come when the
+President's proud prophecy was fulfilled:
+
+[Sidenote: America guided by moral force.]
+
+"There will come that day when the world will say, 'This America that we
+thought was full of a multitude of contrary counsels now speaks with the
+great volume of the heart's accord, and that great heart of America has
+behind it the supreme moral force of righteousness and hope and the
+liberty of mankind.'"
+
+
+
+
+THE WAR MESSAGE
+
+PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON
+
+
+[Sidenote: Why Congress was called in extraordinary session.]
+
+I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because there are
+serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made, and made
+immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible
+that I should assume the responsibility of making.
+
+On the 3d of February last I officially laid before you the
+extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government that on and
+after the first day of February it was its purpose to put aside all
+restraints of law or of humanity and use its submarines to sink every
+vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and
+Ireland or the western coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled
+by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean.
+
+[Sidenote: The question of submarine warfare.]
+
+[Sidenote: A cruel and unmanly business.]
+
+That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare earlier
+in the war, but since April of last year the Imperial Government had
+somewhat restrained the commanders of its undersea craft, in conformity
+with its promise, then given to us, that passenger boats should not be
+sunk and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which its
+submarines might seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered or
+escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a
+fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. The precautions
+taken were meagre and haphazard enough, as was proved in distressing
+instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly
+business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed.
+
+[Sidenote: Germany sweeps all restriction away.]
+
+The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind,
+whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination,
+their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning
+and without thought of help or mercy for those on board, the vessels of
+friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents. Even hospital ships
+and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of
+Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe conduct through the
+proscribed areas by the German Government itself and were distinguished
+by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reckless
+lack of compassion or of principle.
+
+[Sidenote: International law on the seas.]
+
+I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in
+fact be done by any Government that had hitherto subscribed to humane
+practices of civilized nations. International law had its origin in the
+attempt to set up some law which would be respected and observed upon
+the seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where lay the free
+highways of the world. By painful stage after stage has that law been
+built up, with meagre enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished
+that could be accomplished, but always with a clear view, at least, of
+what the heart and conscience of mankind demanded.
+
+[Sidenote: Germany shows no scruples of humanity.]
+
+This minimum of right the German Government has swept aside, under the
+plea of retaliation and necessity and because it had no weapons which it
+could use at sea except these, which it is impossible to employ, as it
+is employing them, without throwing to the wind all scruples of humanity
+or of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the
+intercourse of the world.
+
+[Sidenote: Lives cannot be paid for.]
+
+I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and
+serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of
+the lives of noncombatants, men, women, and children, engaged in
+pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern
+history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for;
+the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be. The present German
+submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.
+
+[Sidenote: American lives taken at at sea.]
+
+It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American
+lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of,
+but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been
+sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no
+discrimination.
+
+[Sidenote: Our motive vindication of human right.]
+
+The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how
+it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a
+moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our
+character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feeling away.
+Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the
+physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right, of
+human right, of which we are only a single champion.
+
+[Sidenote: Submarines are in effect outlaws.]
+
+[Sidenote: Must be dealt with on sight.]
+
+When I addressed the Congress on the 26th of February last I thought
+that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right
+to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our
+people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now
+appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws,
+when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant
+shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks, as
+the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves
+against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open
+sea. It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed,
+to endeavor to destroy them before they have shown their own intention.
+They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all.
+
+[Sidenote: Armed neutrality ineffectual]
+
+The German Government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all
+within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defense
+of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their
+right to defend. The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which
+we have placed on our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale
+of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed
+neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances and in
+the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual; it is likely
+only to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically certain
+to draw us into the war without either the rights or the effectiveness
+of belligerents. There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of
+making; we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most
+sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated.
+The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs;
+they cut to the very roots of human life.
+
+[Sidenote: Course of Germany actually war on the United States.]
+
+With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the
+step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves,
+but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I
+advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial
+German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the
+Government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the
+status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it; and that it
+take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough
+state of defense, but also to exert all its power and employ all its
+resources to bring the Government of the German Empire to terms and end
+the war.
+
+[Sidenote: Necessary to co-operate with Ententes.]
+
+What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable
+co-operation in counsel and action with the Governments now at war with
+Germany, and, as incident to that, the extension to those Governments of
+the most liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may so
+far as possible be added to theirs.
+
+[Sidenote: Resources must be organized.]
+
+It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material
+resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the
+incidental needs of the nation in the most abundant and yet the most
+economical and efficient way possible.
+
+It will involve the immediate full equipment of the navy in all
+respects, but particularly in supplying it with the best means of
+dealing with the enemy's submarines.
+
+[Sidenote: A great army must be raised.]
+
+It will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United
+States, already provided for by law in case of war, of at least 500,000
+men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of
+universal liability to service, and also the authorization of subsequent
+additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and
+can be handled in training.
+
+[Sidenote: The Government will need adequate credits.]
+
+It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the
+Government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be sustained
+by the present generation, by well-conceived taxation.
+
+I say sustained so far as may be equitable by taxation, because it seems
+to me that it would be most unwise to base the credits, which will now
+be necessary, entirely on money borrowed. It is our duty, I most
+respectfully urge, to protect our people, so far as we may, against the
+very serious hardships and evils which would be likely to arise out of
+the inflation which would be produced by vast loans.
+
+[Sidenote: Nations must obtain supplies from us.]
+
+In carrying out the measures by which these things are to be
+accomplished we should keep constantly in mind the wisdom of interfering
+as little as possible in our own preparation and in the equipment of our
+own military forces with the duty--for it will be a very practical
+duty--of supplying the nations already at war with Germany with the
+materials which they can obtain only from us or by our assistance. They
+are in the field, and we should help them in every way to be effective
+there.
+
+[Sidenote: Measure suggested to accomplish nation's ends.]
+
+I shall take the liberty of suggesting, through the several executive
+departments of the Government, for the consideration of your committees,
+measures for the accomplishment of the several objects I have mentioned.
+I hope that it will be your pleasure to deal with them as having been
+framed after very careful thought by the branch of the Government upon
+whom the responsibility of conducting the war and safeguarding the
+nation will most directly fall.
+
+[Sidenote: Concert of purpose and action among free peoples.]
+
+While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very
+clear, and make very clear to all the world, what our motives and our
+objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual and
+normal course by the unhappy events of the last two months, and I do not
+believe that the thought of the nation has been altered or clouded by
+them. I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind when
+I addressed the Senate on the 22d of January last; the same that I had
+in mind when I addressed the Congress on the 3d of February and on the
+26th of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the
+principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against
+selfish and autocratic power, and to set up among the really free and
+self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of
+action as will henceforth insure the observance of those principles.
+
+[Sidenote: Standards of conduct for nations.]
+
+Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the
+world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that
+peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic Governments,
+backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not
+by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such
+circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be
+insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for
+wrong done shall be observed among nations and their Governments that
+are observed among the individual citizens of civilized States.
+
+[Sidenote: A war determined upon by rulers.]
+
+We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling toward
+them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse
+that their Government acted in entering this war. It was not with their
+previous knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars
+used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days, when peoples were
+nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in
+the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were
+accustomed to use their fellow-men as pawns and tools.
+
+[Sidenote: Such aggression impossible where people rule.]
+
+Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor States with spies or
+set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of
+affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest.
+Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where
+no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of
+deception or aggression, carried, it may be, from generation to
+generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the
+privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded confidences of a
+narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public
+opinion commands and insists upon full information concerning all of the
+nation's affairs.
+
+[Sidenote: Only a partnership of democratic nations can maintain peace.]
+
+A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a
+partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic Government could be
+trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a
+league of honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals
+away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and
+render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart.
+Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a
+common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of
+their own.
+
+[Sidenote: What is happening in Russia.]
+
+Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope
+for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things
+that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was
+known by those who knew her best to have been always in fact democratic
+at heart in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate
+relationships of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their
+habitual attitude toward life. The autocracy that crowned the summit of
+her political structure, long as it had stood and terrible as was the
+reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, character, or
+purpose; and now it has been shaken off and the great, generous Russian
+people have been added, in all their naive majesty and might, to the
+forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for
+peace. Here is a fit partner for a League of Honor.
+
+[Sidenote: Prussia has filled America with spies.]
+
+One of the things that have served to convince us that the Prussian
+autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very
+outset of the present war it has filled our unsuspecting communities,
+and even our offices of government, with spies and set criminal
+intrigues everywhere afoot against our national unity of counsel, our
+peace within and without, our industries and our commerce. Indeed, it is
+now evident that its spies were here even before the war began; and it
+is unhappily not a matter of conjecture, but a fact proved in our courts
+of justice, that the intrigues which have more than once come perilously
+near to disturbing the peace and dislocating the industries of the
+country, have been carried on at the instigation, with the support, and
+even under the personal direction of official agents of the Imperial
+Government accredited to the Government of the United States.
+
+[Sidenote: The United States has been generous.]
+
+Even in checking these things and trying to extirpate them we have
+sought to put the most generous interpretation possible upon them
+because we knew that their source lay, not in any hostile feeling or
+purpose of the German people toward us, (who were, no doubt, as ignorant
+of them as we ourselves were,) but only in the selfish designs of a
+Government that did what it pleased and told its people nothing. But
+they have played their part in serving to convince us at last that that
+Government entertains no real friendship for us, and means to act
+against our peace and security at its convenience. That it means to stir
+up enemies against us at our very doors the intercepted note to the
+German Minister at Mexico City is eloquent evidence.
+
+[Sidenote: Why we accept the challenge.]
+
+We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know that
+in such a Government, following such methods, we can never have a
+friend; and that in the presence of its organized power, always lying in
+wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, there can be no assured
+security for the democratic Governments of the world. We are now about
+to accept the gage of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall,
+if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify
+its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts
+with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the
+ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the
+German peoples included; for the rights of nations, great and small, and
+the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of
+obedience.
+
+[Sidenote: America has no selfish ends to serve.]
+
+The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted
+upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish
+ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no
+indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices
+we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of
+mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as
+secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.
+
+[Sidenote: America will observe principles of right.]
+
+Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish object, seeking
+nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free
+peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as
+belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio
+the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.
+
+[Sidenote: Germany only has actually made war on America.]
+
+I have said nothing of the Governments allied with the Imperial
+Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or
+challenged us to defend our right and our honor. The Austro-Hungarian
+Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified indorsement and
+acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare, adopted now
+without disguise by the Imperial German Government, and it has therefore
+not been possible for this Government to receive Count Tarnowski, the
+Ambassador recently accredited to this Government by the Imperial and
+Royal Government of Austria-Hungary; but that Government has not
+actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the
+seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a
+discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter
+this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are no
+other means of defending our rights.
+
+[Sidenote: America fights the irresponsible Government of Germany.]
+
+It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in
+a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not
+with enmity toward a people or with the desire to bring any injury or
+disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible
+Government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of
+right and is running amuck.
+
+We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and
+shall desire nothing so much as the early re-establishment of intimate
+relations of mutual advantage between us, however hard it may be for
+them for the time being to believe that this is spoken from our hearts.
+We have borne with their present Government through all these bitter
+months because of that friendship, exercising a patience and forbearance
+which would otherwise have been impossible.
+
+[Sidenote: Most Americans of German birth are loyal to the United
+States.]
+
+We shall happily still have an opportunity to prove that friendship in
+our daily attitude and actions toward the millions of men and women of
+German birth and native sympathy who live among us and share our life,
+and we shall be proud to prove it toward all who are in fact loyal to
+their neighbors and to the Government in the hour of test. They are most
+of them as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other
+fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking
+and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If
+there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of
+stern repression; but, if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only
+here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and
+malignant few.
+
+[Sidenote: Trial and sacrifice ahead.]
+
+It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress,
+which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be,
+many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful
+thing to lead this great, peaceful people into war, into the most
+terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be
+in the balance.
+
+[Sidenote: America will fight for democracy.]
+
+But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the
+things which we have always carried nearest our hearts--for democracy,
+for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their
+own Governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a
+universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall
+bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last
+free.
+
+To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything
+that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who
+know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood
+and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and
+the peace which she has treasured.
+
+God helping her, she can do no other.
+
+
+DECLARATION OF WAR
+
+[Sidenote: Germany has made war on the United States.]
+
+_Whereas_, The Imperial German Government has committed repeated acts of
+war against the Government and the people of the United States of
+America; therefore, be it
+
+[Sidenote: War is formally declared.]
+
+_Resolved_, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
+States of America in Congress assembled. That the state of war between
+the United States and the Imperial German Government, which has thus
+been thrust upon the United States, is hereby formally declared; and
+
+[Sidenote: The President is given full authority.]
+
+That the President be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to
+employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the
+resources of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial German
+Government; and to bring the conflict to a successful termination all
+the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the
+United States.
+
+
+PROCLAMATION TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
+
+BY PRESIDENT WILSON
+
+[Sidenote: Congress has declared war.]
+
+_Whereas_, The Congress of the United States, in the exercise of the
+constitutional authority vested in them, have resolved by joint
+resolution of the Senate and House of Representatives, bearing date this
+day, "that a state of war between the United States and the Imperial
+German Government which has been thrust upon the United States is hereby
+formally declared";
+
+_Whereas_, It is provided by Section 4,067 of the Revised Statutes as
+follows:
+
+[Sidenote: Proclamation regarding alien enemies.]
+
+"Whenever there is declared a war between the United States and any
+foreign nation or Government or any invasion or predatory incursion is
+perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the
+United States by any foreign nation or Government, and the President
+makes public proclamation of the event, all native citizens, denizens,
+or subjects of a hostile nation or Government being male of the age of
+14 years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not
+actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained,
+secured, and removed as alien enemies. The President is authorized in
+any such event by his proclamation thereof, or other public acts, to
+direct the conduct to be observed on the part of the United States
+toward the aliens who become so liable; the manner and degree of the
+restraint to which they shall be subject and in what cases and upon what
+security their residence shall be permitted, and to provide for the
+removal of those who, not being permitted to reside within the United
+States, refuse or neglect to depart therefrom; and to establish any such
+regulations which are found necessary in the premises and for the public
+safety."
+
+_Whereas_, By Sections 4,068, 4,069, and 4,070 of the Revised Statutes,
+further provision is made relative to alien enemies;
+
+[Sidenote: All officers of the United States are warned to be vigilant.]
+
+_Now, therefore_, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of
+America, do hereby proclaim, to all whom it may concern, that a state of
+war exists between the United States and the Imperial German Government,
+and I do specially direct all officers, civil or military, of the United
+States that they exercise vigilance and zeal in the discharge of the
+duties incident to such a state of war, and I do, moreover, earnestly
+appeal to all American citizens that they, in loyal devotion to their
+country, dedicated from its foundation to the principles of liberty and
+justice, uphold the laws of the land, and give undivided and willing
+support to those measures which may be adopted by the constitutional
+authorities in prosecuting the war to a successful issue and in
+obtaining a secure and just peace;
+
+And, acting under and by virtue of the authority vested in me by the
+Constitution of the United States and the said sections of the Revised
+Statutes,
+
+[Sidenote: Conduct to be observed toward alien enemies.]
+
+I do hereby further proclaim and direct that the conduct to be observed
+on the part of the United States toward all natives, citizens, denizens,
+or subjects of Germany, being male of the age of 14 years and upward,
+who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, who
+for the purpose of this proclamation and under such sections of the
+Revised Statutes are termed alien enemies, shall be as follows:
+
+[Sidenote: Alien enemies must preserve the peace.]
+
+All alien enemies are enjoined to preserve the peace toward the United
+States and to refrain from crime against the public safety and from
+violating the laws of the United States and of the States and
+Territories thereof, and to refrain from actual hostility or giving
+information, aid, or comfort to the enemies of the United States and to
+comply strictly with the regulations which are hereby, or which may be
+from time to time promulgated by the President, and so long as they
+shall conduct themselves in accordance with law they shall be
+undisturbed in the peaceful pursuit of their lives and occupations, and
+be accorded the consideration due to all peaceful and law-abiding
+persons, except so far as restrictions may be necessary for their own
+protection and for the safety of the United States, and toward such
+alien enemies as conduct themselves in accordance with law all citizens
+of the United States are enjoined to preserve the peace and to treat
+them with all such friendliness as may be compatible with loyalty and
+allegiance to the United States.
+
+[Sidenote: Penalties added to those prescribed by law.]
+
+And all alien enemies who fail to conduct themselves as so enjoined, in
+addition to all other penalties prescribed by law, shall be liable to
+restraint or to give security or to remove and depart from the United
+States, in the manner prescribed by Sections 4,069 and 4,070 of the
+Revised Statutes and as prescribed in the regulations duly promulgated
+by the President.
+
+[Sidenote: The necessary regulations.]
+
+And pursuant to the authority vested in me, I hereby declare and
+establish the following regulations, which I find necessary in the
+premises and for the public safety:
+
+[Sidenote: Cannot possess weapons.]
+
+1. An alien enemy shall not have in his possession at any time or place
+any firearms, weapons, or implements of war, or component parts thereof,
+ammunition, Maxim or other silencer, arms, or explosives or material
+used in the manufacture of explosives;
+
+[Sidenote: No signaling devices or cipher codes.]
+
+2. An alien enemy shall not have in his possession at any time or place,
+or use or operate, any aircraft or wireless apparatus, or any form of
+signaling device or any form of cipher code or any paper, document, or
+book written or printed in cipher or in which there may be invisible
+writing;
+
+[Sidenote: Property may be seized.]
+
+3. All property found in the possession of an alien enemy in violation
+of the foregoing regulations shall be subject to seizure by the United
+States;
+
+[Sidenote: Must not approach forts or munition works.]
+
+4. An alien enemy shall not approach or be found within one-half of a
+mile of any Federal or State fort, camp, arsenal, aircraft station,
+Government or naval vessel, navy yard, factory, or workshop for the
+manufacture of munitions of war or of any products for the use of the
+army or navy;
+
+[Sidenote: Must not speak or write against the United States.]
+
+5. An alien enemy shall not write, print, or publish any attack or
+threat against the Government or Congress of the United States, or
+either branch thereof, or against the measures or policy of the United
+States, or against the persons or property of any person in the
+military, naval, or civil service of the United States, or of the States
+or Territories, or of the District of Columbia, or of the municipal
+governments therein;
+
+[Sidenote: Must not commit any hostile act.]
+
+6. An alien enemy shall not commit or abet any hostile acts against the
+United States or give information, aid, or comfort to its enemies;
+
+[Sidenote: Must not enter prohibited areas.]
+
+7. An alien enemy shall not reside in or continue to reside in, to
+remain in, or enter any locality which the President may from time to
+time designate by an Executive order as a prohibitive area, in which
+residence by an alien enemy shall be found by him to constitute a danger
+to the public peace and safety of the United States, except by permit
+from the President and except under such limitations or restrictions as
+the President may prescribe;
+
+[Sidenote: May be made to remove by executive order.]
+
+8. An alien enemy whom the President shall have reasonable cause to
+believe to be aiding or about to aid the enemy or to be at large to the
+danger of the public peace or safety of the United States, or to have
+violated or to be about to violate any of these regulations, shall
+remove to any location designated by the President by Executive order,
+and shall not remove therefrom without permit, or shall depart from the
+United States if so required by the President;
+
+[Sidenote: Cannot leave country without permission.]
+
+9. No alien enemy shall depart from the United States until he shall
+have received such permit as the President shall prescribe, or except
+under order of a court, Judge, or Justice, under Sections 4,069 and
+4,070 of the Revised Statutes;
+
+[Sidenote: Entering United States regulated.]
+
+10. No alien enemy shall land in or enter the United States except under
+such restrictions and at such places as the President may prescribe;
+
+[Sidenote: May be obliged to register.]
+
+11. If necessary to prevent violation of the regulations, all alien
+enemies will be obliged to register;
+
+[Sidenote: Alien enemies who violate rules to be arrested.]
+
+12. An alien enemy whom there may be reasonable cause to believe to be
+aiding or about to aid the enemy, or who may be at large to the danger
+of the public peace or safety, or who violates or who attempts to
+violate or of whom there is reasonable grounds to believe that he is
+about to violate, any regulation to be promulgated by the President or
+any criminal law of the United States, or of the States or Territories
+thereof, will be subject to summary arrest by the United States Marshal,
+or his Deputy, or such other officers as the President shall designate,
+and to confinement in such penitentiary, prison, jail, military camp, or
+other place of detention as may be directed by the President.
+
+This proclamation and the regulations herein contained shall extend and
+apply to all land and water, continental or insular, in any way within
+the jurisdiction of the United States.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Saloniki was one of the mysteries of the war. News from that city was
+brief and unsatisfying in the main. Great things, however, were done
+there, and none greater than those accomplished by the British. Some of
+these accomplishments are told in the pages that follow.
+
+
+
+
+BRITISH OPERATIONS AT SALONIKI
+
+OFFICIAL REPORT OF GENERAL MILNE
+
+
+[Sidenote: Reinforcements needed north of Saloniki.]
+
+[Sidenote: Italy to send 300,000.]
+
+Since the conference at Rome the situation in Macedonia has been
+radically changed. The weakness of General Sarrail's position lay in the
+fact that neither England nor France felt free to send from the critical
+western front the large reinforcements of men which the situation north
+of Saloniki called for. Italy had the men, but was unwilling to send
+them and to incur the heavy additional expense of maintaining them in
+Macedonia. The conference at Rome, in which Premier Lloyd George was the
+dominant figure, overcame that reluctance, probably promising Italy
+parts of the Turkish Empire that had been earlier assigned tentatively
+to Greece and guaranteeing the cost of the new expedition. The result
+has been immediate and of the highest importance. Rome dispatches
+indicate that Italy has sent, or is sending, a force of not less than
+300,000 men; that these troops, to avoid the danger of submarines, are
+being dispatched, not to Saloniki, but to Avlona, which is within forty
+miles of the Italian coast; and, finally, these Italian forces have not
+only built an excellent highway through the Albanian mountains but have
+already joined forces with General Sarrail's right wing at Monastir. All
+these facts indicate early activity in the Macedonian sector.
+
+[Sidenote: General G. F. Milne's report.]
+
+This glimpse of present conditions will serve to introduce the following
+report of General G. F. Milne, commanding the British Saloniki Army in
+Macedonia, on last Summer's operations in that sector. His report,
+submitted to the British War Office early in December, 1916, covered the
+army's operations from May 9, 1916, to October 8, 1916. The official
+text of the report is here reproduced, with a few minor omissions:
+
+[Sidenote: Found army concentrated near Saloniki.]
+
+[Sidenote: British forces responsible for front on east and northeast.]
+
+[Sidenote: Construction of defenses.]
+
+"On May 9, 1916, the greater part of the army was concentrated within
+the fortified lines of Saloniki, extending from Stavros on the east to
+near the Galiko River on the west; a mixed force, consisting of a
+mounted brigade and a division, had been pushed forward to the north of
+Kukush in order to support the French Army which had advanced and was
+watching the right bank of the Struma River and the northern frontier of
+Greece. Further moves in this direction were contemplated, but, in order
+to keep the army concentrated, I entered into an agreement with General
+Sarrail by which the British forces should become responsible for that
+portion of the allied front which covered Saloniki from the east and
+northeast. By this arrangement a definite and independent area was
+allotted to the army under my command. On June 8, 1916, the troops
+commenced to occupy advanced positions along the right bank of the River
+Struma and its tributary, the River Butkova, from Lake Tachinos to
+Lozista village. By the end of July, on the demobilization of the Greek
+Army, this occupation had extended to the sea at Chai Aghizi. Along the
+whole front the construction of a line of resistance was begun; work on
+trenches, entanglements, bridgeheads, and supporting points was
+commenced; for administrative purposes the reconstruction of the
+Saloniki-Seres road was undertaken and the cutting of wagon tracks
+through the mountainous country was pushed forward.
+
+[Sidenote: British take over line near Doiran.]
+
+[Sidenote: Capture of Horseshoe Hill.]
+
+"On July 20, 1916, in accordance with the policy laid down in my
+instructions, and in order to release French troops for employment
+elsewhere, I began to take over the line south and west of Lake Doiran,
+and commenced preparations for a joint offensive on this front. This
+move was completed by August 2, 1916, and on the 10th of that month an
+offensive was commenced against the Bulgarian defenses south of the line
+Doiran-Hill 535. The French captured Hills 227 and La Tortue, while the
+British occupied in succession those features of the main 535 ridge now
+known as Kidney Hill and Horseshoe Hill, and, pushing forward,
+established a series of advanced posts on the line Doldzeli-Reselli. The
+capture of Horseshoe Hill was successfully carried out on the night of
+August 17-18, 1916, by the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light
+Infantry at the point of the bayonet in the face of stubborn opposition.
+The enemy's counterattacks were repulsed with heavy loss.
+
+[Sidenote: The Bulgarian advance.]
+
+[Sidenote: British and French attack.]
+
+"On August 17, 1916, the Bulgarians, who, at the end of May, had entered
+Greek territory by the Struma Valley and moved down as far as Demir
+Hissar, continued their advance into Greek Macedonia. Columns of all
+arms advanced from seven different points, between Sarisaban, on the
+Mesta, and Demir Hissar. The four eastern columns converged on the
+country about Drama and Kavala, while the remainder moved southward on
+to the line of the Struma from Demir Hissar toward Orfano. On August 19,
+1916, a mounted brigade with one battery carried out a strong
+reconnoissance, and found the enemy in some force on the line
+Prosenik-Barakli Djuma; on the following day, after being reinforced by
+a battalion, this brigade again advanced in conjunction with the French
+detachment. These attacking troops, after encountering the enemy in
+force on the line Kalendra-Prosenik-Haznatar, withdrew after dark to
+the right bank of the Struma. The French detachment was subsequently
+placed under the orders of the General Officer Commanding British troops
+on this front, and received instructions to cooperate in the defense of
+the river line.
+
+[Sidenote: Bridges over Angista River destroyed.]
+
+"On August 21, 1916, the railway bridge near Angista Station was
+demolished by a detachment from the Neohori garrison, and three days
+later two road bridges over the Angista River were destroyed. Both these
+operations were well carried out by yeomanry, engineers, and cyclists in
+the face of hostile opposition.
+
+[Sidenote: Bulgarians in Eastern Macedonia.]
+
+"The Bulgarians continued their advance into Eastern Macedonia unopposed
+by the Greek garrison, and it was estimated that by the end of August
+the enemy's forces, extending from Demir Hissar southward in the Seres
+sector of the Struma front, comprised the complete Seventh Bulgarian
+Division, with two or three regiments of the Eleventh Macedonian
+Division, which had moved eastward from their positions on the Beles
+Mountain to act as a reserve to the Seventh Division, and at the same
+time to occupy the defenses from Vetrina-Pujovo northward. Opposite the
+Lower Struma was a brigade of the Second Division, with a brigade of the
+Tenth Division, in occupation of the coast and the zone of country
+between Orfano and the Drama-Kavala road. This brigade of the Tenth
+Division was supported by another brigade in the Drama Kavala area. As a
+result of this advance and of a similar move in the west General Sarrail
+decided to intrust to the British Army the task of maintaining the
+greater portion of the right and center of the allied line.
+
+[Sidenote: Northumberland Fusiliers capture Nevolien.]
+
+"On September 10, 1916, detachments crossed the river above Lake
+Tachinos at five places between Bajraktar Mah and Dragos, while a sixth
+detachment crossed lower down at Neohori. The villages of Oraoman and
+Kato Gudeli were occupied, and Northumberland Fusiliers gallantly
+captured Nevolien, taking thirty prisoners and driving the enemy out of
+the village. The latter lost heavily during their retirement and in
+their subsequent counterattack. They also suffered severely from our
+artillery fire in attempting to follow our prearranged movements to
+regain the right bank of the river.
+
+[Sidenote: Rise in the Struma River hinders operations.]
+
+"On the 15th similar operations were undertaken, six small columns
+crossing the river between Lake Tachinos and Orljak bridge. The villages
+of Kato Gudeli, Dzami Mah, Agomah, and Komarjan were burned and
+twenty-seven prisoners were taken. The enemy's counterattacks completely
+broke down under the accurate fire of our guns on the right bank of the
+river. On the 23d a similar scheme was put into action, but a sudden
+rise of three feet in the Struma interfered with the bridging
+operations. Nevertheless, the enemy's trenches at Yenimah were captured,
+fourteen prisoners taken, and three other villages raided. Considerable
+help was given on each occasion by the French detachment under Colonel
+Bescoins, and much information was obtained which proved to be of
+considerable value during subsequent operations.
+
+[Sidenote: British attack Matzikovo salient.]
+
+[Sidenote: Heavy artillery fire from the enemy.]
+
+[Sidenote: British carry out bombing raids.]
+
+"On the Doiran-River Vardar front there remained as before the whole of
+the Bulgarian Ninth Division, less one regiment; a brigade of the Second
+Division and at least two-thirds of the German 101st Division, which had
+intrenched the salient north of Matzikovo on the usual German system. To
+assist the general offensive by the Allies I ordered this salient to be
+attacked at the same time as the allied operations in the Florina area
+commenced. With this object in view the whole of the enemy's intrenched
+position was subjected to a heavy bombardment from Septem. 11 to 13,
+1916, the southwest corner of the salient known as the Piton des
+Mitrailleuses being specially selected for destruction. The enemy's
+position was occupied during the night 13th-14th, after a skillfully
+planned and gallant assault, in which the King's Liverpool Regiment and
+Lancashire Fusiliers specially distinguished themselves. Over 200
+Germans were killed in the work, chiefly by bombing, and seventy-one
+prisoners were brought in. During the 14th the enemy concentrated from
+three directions a very heavy artillery fire, and delivered several
+counterattacks, which were for the most part broken up under the fire of
+our guns. Some of the enemy, however, succeeded in forcing an entrance
+into the work, and severe fighting followed. As hostile reinforcements
+were increasing in numbers, and as the rocky nature of the ground
+rendered rapid consolidation difficult, the troops were withdrawn in the
+evening to their original line, the object of the attack having been
+accomplished. This withdrawal was conducted with little loss, thanks to
+the very effective fire of the artillery. During the bombardment and
+subsequent counterattack the enemy's losses must have been considerable.
+On the same front on the night of the 20th-21st, after bombarding the
+hostile positions on the Crête des Tentes, a strong detachment raided
+and bombed the trenches and dugouts, retiring quickly with little loss.
+A similar raid was carried out northeast of Doldzeli.
+
+"In addition to these operations and raids, constant combats took place
+between patrols, many prisoners being captured, and several bombing
+raids were carried out by the Royal Flying Corps.
+
+[Sidenote: Operations on a more extensive scale.]
+
+[Sidenote: Bridging the Struma River.]
+
+"In order further to assist the progress of our allies toward Monastir
+by maintaining such a continuous offensive as would insure no
+transference of Bulgarian troops from the Struma front to the west, I
+now issued instructions for operations on a more extensive scale than
+those already reported. In accordance with these the General Officer
+Commanding on that front commenced operations by seizing and holding
+certain villages on the left bank of the river with a view to enlarging
+the bridgehead opposite Orljak, whence he would be in a position to
+threaten a further movement either on Seres or on Demir Hissar. The high
+ground on the right bank of the river enabled full use to be made of our
+superiority in artillery, which contributed greatly to the success of
+these operations. The river itself formed a potential danger, owing to
+the rapidity with which its waters rise after heavy rain in the
+mountains, but on the night of September 29, 1916, sufficient bridges
+had been constructed by the Royal Engineers for the passage of all arms.
+During the night of September 29-30 the attacking infantry crossed below
+Orljak bridge and formed up on the left bank.
+
+[Sidenote: Scotch troops take several villages.]
+
+"At dawn on the following morning the Gloucesters and the Cameron
+Highlanders advanced under cover of an artillery bombardment, and by 8
+a.m. had seized the village of Karadjakoi Bala. Shortly after the
+occupation of the village the enemy opened a heavy and accurate
+artillery fire, but the remaining two battalions of the brigade, the
+Royal Scots and Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, though suffering
+severely from enfilade fire, pushed on against Karadjakoi Zir. By 5.30
+p. m. that village also was occupied, in spite of the stubborn
+resistance of the enemy. Attempts to bring forward hostile
+reinforcements were frustrated during the day by our artillery, but
+during the night the Bulgarians launched several strong counterattacks,
+which were repulsed with heavy loss.
+
+[Sidenote: Capture of Yenikoi.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy counterattacks.]
+
+[Sidenote: British consolidate new line.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy casualties heavy.]
+
+"During the following night determined counterattacks of the enemy were
+again repulsed, and by the evening of October 2, 1916, the position had
+been fully consolidated. Preparations were at once made to extend the
+position by the capture of Yenikoi, an important village on the main
+Seres road. This operation was successfully carried out by an infantry
+brigade, composed of the Royal Munster and Royal Dublin Fusiliers, on
+the morning of October 3, 1916, after bombardment by our artillery. By 7
+a. m. the village was in our hands. During the day the enemy launched
+three heavy counterattacks. The first two were stopped by artillery
+fire, which caused severe loss. At 4 p. m. the village, the ground in
+the rear, and the bridges were subjected to an unexpectedly heavy
+bombardment from several heavy batteries which had hitherto not
+disclosed their positions. Following on the bombardment was the heaviest
+counterattack of the day, six or seven battalions advancing from the
+direction of Homondos, Kalendra, and Topalova with a view to enveloping
+our positions. This attack was carried forward with great determination,
+and some detachments succeeded in entering the northern portion of
+Yenikoi, where hard fighting continued all night, until fresh
+reinforcements succeeded in clearing out such enemy as survived. During
+the following day the consolidation of our new line was continued under
+artillery fire. On the 5th, after a bombardment, the village of Nevolien
+was occupied, the Bulgarian garrison retiring on the approach of our
+infantry. By the following evening the front extended from Komarjan on
+the right via Yenikoi to Elisan on the left. On the 7th a strong
+reconnoissance by mounted troops located the enemy on the Demir
+Hissar-Seres railway, with advanced posts approximately on the line of
+the Belica stream and a strong garrison in Barakli Djuma. On October 8,
+1916, our troops had reached the line Agomah-Homondos-Elisan-Ormanli,
+with the mounted troops on the line Kispeki-Kalendra. The enemy's
+casualties during these few days were heavy.
+
+[Sidenote: Assistance of the Royal Flying Corps.]
+
+"I consider that the success of these operations was due to the skill
+and decision with which they were conducted by Lieutenant General C. J.
+Briggs, C. B., and to the excellent cooperation of all arms, which was
+greatly assisted by the exceptional facilities for observation of
+artillery fire. The Royal Flying Corps, in spite of the difficulties
+which they had to overcome and the great strain on their resources,
+rendered valuable assistance. Armored motor cars were used with effect.
+* * *
+
+"On the enforcement of martial law the management of the three lines of
+railway radiating from Saloniki had to be undertaken by the Allies; one
+line, the Junction-Saloniki-Constantinople, is now entirely administered
+by the British Army; this, together with the additional railway traffic
+involved by the arrival of the Serbian Army, as well as the Russian and
+Italian troops, has thrown a considerable strain on the railway
+directorate."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Russia, after three years of warfare against Austria and Germany, during
+which millions of her soldiers were killed and wounded, startled the
+world suddenly, in February, 1917, by casting out the Czar and
+establishing a provisional government, which purported to be a
+government by the people and not by the bureaucracy. The dramatic events
+of the first days of the revolution are described in the following
+chapter.
+
+
+
+
+IN PETROGRAD DURING THE SEVEN DAYS
+
+ARNO DOSCH-FLEUROT
+
+Copyright, World's Work, July, 1917.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Cossacks trotting through the Nevsky in Petrograd.]
+
+A crowd of ordinary citizens were passing in front of the Singer
+Building on the Nevsky in Petrograd at noon February 25th, Russian time
+(March 10th), stopping occasionally to watch a company of Cossacks
+amiably roughing some students with a miscellaneous following who
+insisted on assembling across the street before the wide, sweeping
+colonnades of Kasan Cathedral. As the Cossacks trotted through, hands
+empty, rifles slung on shoulders, the crowds cheered, the Cossacks
+laughed.
+
+A few trolley cars had stopped, though not stalled, and groups of
+curious on-lookers had crowded in for a grandstand view. The only people
+who did not seem interested in the spectacle were hundreds of women with
+shawls over their heads who had been standing in line for many hours
+before the bread-shops along the Catherine Canal.
+
+[Sidenote: Some Cossacks and infantry in side streets.]
+
+[Sidenote: People charged by police.]
+
+People were going about their affairs up and down the Nevsky without
+being stopped, and sleighs were passing constantly. Cossacks and a few
+companies of infantrymen were beginning to appear on the side streets in
+considerable numbers, but, as a demonstration over the lack of bread in
+the Russian capital had been going on at intervals for two days with
+very little violence, people were beginning to get used to it. I arrived
+from the direction of the Moika Canal just as the cannon boomed midday
+and I felt sufficiently unhurried to correct my watch. Then I hailed a
+British general in uniform who had arrived, also unimpeded, from the
+opposite direction, and we had just stopped to comment on the unusual
+attitude of populace and Cossacks, when there was a sudden rush of
+people around the corner from the Catherine Canal and before we could
+even reach the doubtful protection of a doorway a company of mounted
+police charged around the corner and started up the Nevsky on the
+sidewalk. We were obviously harmless onlookers, fur-clad bourgeois, but
+the police plunged through at a hard trot, bare sabres flashing in the
+cold sunshine. The British general and I were knocked down together and
+escaped trampling only because the police were splendidly mounted, and a
+well-bred horse will not step on a man if he can help it.
+
+[Sidenote: Display of stupid physical force.]
+
+This was a display of that well-known stupid physical force which used
+to be the basis of strength of the Russian Empire. Its ruthlessness, its
+carelessness of life, however innocent, terrorized, and, we used to
+think, won respect. We know better now, especially those of us who were
+eye-witnesses of the Russian revolution, and saw how the police provoked
+a quarrel they could not handle.
+
+[Sidenote: Crowds begin to be dangerously large.]
+
+I watched the growth of the revolt with wonder. Knowing something of the
+dissatisfaction in the country, I marveled at the stupidity of the
+Government in permitting the police to handle its inception as they did.
+Any hundred New York or London policemen, or any hundred Petrograd
+policemen, could have prevented the demonstrations by the simple process
+of closing the streets. But they let people crowd in from the side
+streets to see what was going on even when the crowds were beginning to
+be dangerously large, and, having permitted them to come, charged among
+them at random as if expressly making them angry.
+
+[Sidenote: Ease with which Czar was overthrown.]
+
+I look back now at the time before the Revolution. The life of Petrograd
+is much as it was to outward appearances except that the new republican
+soldiers are now policing the streets, occasional citizens are wearing
+brassarts showing they are deputies of some sort or members of
+law-and-order committees, and there is a certain joyous freedom in the
+walk of every one. Here, in one corner of this vast empire, a revolt
+lacking all signs of terrorism, growing out of nothing into a sudden
+burst of indignation, knocked over the most absolute of autocracies.
+Just to look, it is hard to believe it true. As a Socialist said to me
+to-day: "The empire was rotten ready. One kick of a soldier's boot, and
+the throne with all its panoplies disappeared, leaving nothing but
+dust."
+
+I asked President Rodzianko of the Duma the other day:
+
+[Sidenote: Revolution inevitable after Duma was dissolved.]
+
+"From what date was the revolution inevitable?"
+
+I expected him to name one of the days immediately before the revolt,
+but he replied:
+
+"When the Duma was dissolved in December without being granted a
+responsible ministry."
+
+"How late might the Emperor have saved his throne?"
+
+"New Year's. If he had granted a responsible ministry then, it would not
+have been too late."
+
+[Sidenote: The Government brought Cossacks to Petrograd.]
+
+The Government was either blind or too arrogant to take precautions. It
+had fears of an uprising at the reconvening of the Duma and brought
+13,000 Cossacks to Petrograd to put fear into the hearts of the people,
+but it permitted a shortage of flour which had been noticeable for
+several weeks to become really serious just at this moment. There were
+large districts of working people practically without bread from the
+time the Duma reconvened up to the moment of the revolution.
+
+[Sidenote: Situation needed a great ruler.]
+
+In the palace at Tsarskoe-Selo the seriousness of the situation was not
+ignored, but the preventive measures were lamentable. The Emperor, also,
+went to the front. If he had been a big enough man to be an emperor he
+would certainly never have done so. That left the neurasthenic Empress
+and the crafty, small-minded Protopopoff to handle a problem that needed
+a real man as great as Emperor Peter or Alexander III.
+
+[Sidenote: The author on the point of leaving Russia.]
+
+[Sidenote: The appearance of Cossacks.]
+
+When the Duma reconvened without disorders it never occurred to me that
+the Government would be foolish enough to let the flour situation get
+worse. I was so used by this time to see the Duma keep a calm front in
+the face of imperial rebuffs that I thought Russia was going to continue
+to muddle on to the end of the war and, though I thought I was rather
+well-posted, I confess I was on the point of leaving Russia to return to
+the western front, where the spring campaign was about to begin with
+vigor. As late as the Wednesday before the revolution I was preparing to
+leave. That day I learned that several small strikes which had occurred
+in scattered factories could not be settled and that several other
+factories were forced to close because workmen, having no bread, refused
+to report. Still I remember I was not too preoccupied by these reports
+to discuss the possibility of a German offensive against Italy with our
+military attaché, Lieutenant Francis B. Riggs, as we strolled down the
+Nevsky in the middle of the afternoon. We had reached the Fontanka Canal
+when we passed three Cossacks riding abreast at a walk up the street.
+They were the first Cossacks to make a public appearance, and they
+brought to the mind of every Petrograd citizen the recollection of the
+barbarities of the revolution of 1905. Their appearance was a challenge
+to the people of Petrograd. They seemed to say, "Yes, we are here." If
+any one had said to me that afternoon, "These Cossacks are going to
+start a revolution which will set Russia free within a week," I should
+have regarded him as a lunatic with an original twist.
+
+[Sidenote: Petrograd life normal.]
+
+The life of Petrograd was still normal as late as Thursday morning
+February 23d, Russian style (March 8th). The bread lines were very long,
+but Russians are patient and would have submitted to standing four or
+five hours in the cold if in the end they had always been rewarded, but
+shops were being closed with long lines still before them, and the
+disappointed were turning away with bitter remarks.
+
+[Sidenote: The historic spot for protests.]
+
+[Sidenote: Cossacks merely keep the crowd on sidewalks.]
+
+The open ground before Kasan Cathedral is the historic spot for protests
+and, true to tradition, the first demonstration against the bread
+shortage began there Thursday morning toward noon. There were not more
+than a dozen men speaking to groups of passing citizens. Each gathered a
+constantly changing audience, like an orator in Union Square, New York.
+But the Nevsky is always a busy street and it does not take much to give
+the appearance of a crowd. Examining that crowd, I could see it had not
+more than a hundred or two intent listeners. A company of Cossacks
+appeared to disperse it, but they confined themselves to riding up and
+down the curbs keeping the people on the sidewalks. The wide street was,
+as usual, full of passing sleighs and automobiles. Even then, at the
+beginning, it must have occurred to the military commander, General
+Khabaloff, that the Cossacks were taking it easy, or perhaps the police
+acted on their own initiative; at any rate the scene did not become
+exciting until mounted police arrived, riding on the sidewalk and
+scattering the curious onlookers pell-mell. By one o'clock the Nevsky
+was calm again, and the street cars, which had been blocked for an hour,
+started once more.
+
+[Sidenote: Duma discusses food situation.]
+
+[Sidenote: The first snarl of the mob.]
+
+That afternoon I went to the Duma, where the mismanagement of the food
+situation throughout Russia was being discussed. I had a glass of tea
+with a member of the liberal Cadet Party, and he seemed more concerned
+with the victualing of the country than with the particular situation in
+Petrograd. Toward evening I drove back along the Nevsky and my
+'ishvoshik was blocked for a few minutes while a wave of working people,
+in unusual numbers for that part of town, passed. They were being urged
+on by Cossacks, but they were mostly smiling, women were hanging to
+their husbands' arms, and they were decidedly unhurried. It was not a
+crowd that could be in any sense called a mob, and was perfectly
+orderly, but it did not go fast enough to suit the police and a dozen of
+them came trotting up. Their appearance wiped the smile away, and when
+they began really roughing I heard the first murmurings of the snarl
+which only an infuriated mob can produce. I wondered what the police
+were up to. They were obviously provoking trouble. I felt then we might
+be in for serious difficulties--and the attitude of the police gave me
+the fear.
+
+[Sidenote: Watching for the Cossacks to act.]
+
+[Sidenote: A red flag.]
+
+Friday morning only a few street cars were running, but the city was
+quiet enough until after ten in the morning. Then the agitators, their
+small following, and the onlookers, sure now of having a spectacle,
+began gathering in considerable numbers. I was still expecting the rough
+work to commence with the Cossacks, but after watching them from the
+colonnades of the cathedral for half an hour I walked out through the
+crowd and, shifted but slightly out of my route by the sway of the crowd
+as Cossacks trotted up and down the street, crossed the thick of it.
+Green student caps were conspicuous, and one of the students told me
+the universities had gone on strike in sympathy with the bread
+demonstration. As a company of Cossacks swung by, lances in rest, rifles
+slung on their shoulders, I scanned their faces without finding anything
+ferocious there. Some one waved a red flag, the first I had seen, before
+them, but they passed, unnoticing.
+
+[Sidenote: Crowd not yet dangerous.]
+
+This time the crowd did not break up but began to bunch here and there
+as far as the Fontanka Canal. All afternoon the Cossacks kept them
+stirring, and occasionally the police gave them a real roughing. Each
+time the police appeared, I heard that menacing murmur, but by Friday
+evening, when the day's crowd disappeared, the increase in discontent
+and anger had not developed sufficiently in twenty-four hours to be
+really dangerous. I felt the Government still had plenty of time to
+remove the discontent, and an announcement pasted up conspicuously
+everywhere saying there would be no lack of bread seemed like an
+assurance that the Government would somehow overnight provide all bakers
+with sufficient flour. That was the one obvious thing to do.
+
+[Sidenote: A tour of the Wiborg factory district.]
+
+During the afternoon I made a long tour through the Wiborg factory
+district, which was thickly policed by infantrymen. Occasional street
+cars were still running, but otherwise the district was ominously
+silent. The bread-lines were very long here, and on the corners were
+groups of workmen. Their silent gravity struck me as being something to
+reckon with. Still the lack of real trouble on the Nevsky as I came back
+in a measure reassured me.
+
+[Sidenote: Crowd friendly with Cossacks.]
+
+Saturday morning the crowd on the Nevsky gathered at the early Petrograd
+hour of ten, but they seemed to be there to encourage the Cossacks.
+Wherever the Cossacks passed, individuals called out to them cheerfully
+and, even though they crowded in so close to the trotting horsemen as to
+be occasionally knocked about, they took it good-humoredly and went on
+cheering. I went away for an hour or so and when I returned the
+fraternizing of the crowd and the Cossacks was increasingly evident. By
+this time all sorts of ordinary citizens, catching the sense of events,
+were joining in the general acclamation. I was just beginning to get a
+glimmering of the meaning of all this when I was bowled over by the
+mounted police in front of the Singer Building.
+
+[Sidenote: Crowd beginning to challenge police.]
+
+[Sidenote: Soldiers fire but wound few.]
+
+[Sidenote: Police inviting quarrel.]
+
+The more timorous average citizens began to lose interest, but the
+workmen and students who were in the Nevsky now in considerable numbers,
+and arriving hourly, accepted the challenge of the police. They began
+throwing bottles, the police charged afresh, and by the early part of
+Saturday afternoon there was really a mob on the Nevsky. Liberally mixed
+through the whole, though, were the ordinary onlookers, many of them
+young girls. The Nevsky widens for a space before the Gastenidwor (the
+Russian adaptation of the oriental bazaar), and infantrymen were now
+detailed to hold the people back at the point of the bayonet. Meanwhile,
+all the side streets were wide open and the appearance of a large, angry
+mob was kept up by constant arrivals. The crowd becoming unwieldy, the
+soldiers fired into it several times, but they did not wound many,
+indicating that they were extracting many bullets before they fired. The
+shooting only augmented the crowd, as Russians do not frighten very
+easily, and though at a few points it was necessary to turn the corner,
+I found no difficulty in going back and forth all afternoon between
+Kasan Cathedral and the Nicola Station--the main stretch of the Nevsky.
+There was general roughing along this mile and a half of street which
+could have been stopped at any time in fifteen minutes by closing the
+streets. Instead, the police charged with increasing violence without
+doing anything to prevent the people coming from other parts of town.
+The idea was now unescapable that the police were inviting the people to
+a quarrel.
+
+[Sidenote: Rioting at the Nicola Station.]
+
+[Sidenote: Evident Cossacks are with people.]
+
+The Cossacks were sometimes riding pretty fast themselves, but never
+with the violence of the police, and the cheering was continuous. At any
+point I could tell by the quality of the howl that went up from the mob
+whether it was being stirred by Cossacks or police. At the Nicola
+Station the rioting was the roughest, the police freely using their
+sabres. The crowd, though unarmed, stood its ground and howled back, and
+when possible caught an isolated mounted policeman and disarmed him. In
+one case the mob had already disarmed and was unseating a policeman, and
+other sections of the mob were rushing up to have a turn at manhandling
+him, when a single Cossack, with nothing in his hands, forced his way
+through and rescued the policeman, amid the cheers of the same people
+who were harassing him. It was quite evident that the people and the
+Cossacks were on the same side, and only the unbelievable stupid old
+Russian Government could have ignored it.
+
+[Sidenote: Machine guns installed.]
+
+At nightfall the crowd had had its fill of roughing, but Sunday was
+evidently to be the real day. There would have been, of course, nothing
+on the Nevsky, if properly policed, and I have been unable to understand
+how the old Government, unless overconfident of its autocratic power and
+disdainful of the people, could have let things go on. But though half
+the regiments in Petrograd were on the point of revolt and their
+sympathy with the people was evident even to a foreigner, Sunday was
+mismanaged like the days before. It was even worse. The powers that
+were had, as early as Friday, been so silly as to send armored motor
+cars screeching up and down the Nevsky. Now they began installing
+machine guns where they could play on the crowd. Up to this time I had
+been a neutral, if disgusted, spectator, but now I hoped the police and
+the whole imperial régime would pay bitterly for their insolence and
+stupidity. The few corpses I encountered during the day on the Nevsky
+could not even add to the feeling. They were the mere casualties of a
+movement that was beginning to attain large proportions.
+
+[Sidenote: Many soldiers firing blanks.]
+
+[Sidenote: At the French theatre.]
+
+The late afternoon and evening of Sunday were bloody. The Nevsky was
+finally closed except for cross traffic, and at the corner of the
+Sadovia and the Nevsky by the national library there was a machine gun
+going steadily. But it was in the hands of soldiers and they were firing
+blanks. The soldiers everywhere seemed to be firing blanks, but there
+was carnage enough. The way the crowds persisted showed their capacity
+for revolution. The talk was for the first time seriously revolutionary,
+and the red flags remained flying by the hour. That evening the air was
+for the first time electric with danger, but the possibilities of the
+next morning were not sufficiently evident to prevent me from going to
+the French theatre. There were a sufficient number of other people, of
+the same mind, including many officers, to fill half the seats.
+
+[Sidenote: Imperial box saluted for the last time.]
+
+As usual, between the acts, the officers stood up, facing the imperial
+box, which neither the Emperor nor any one else ever occupied. This act
+of empty homage, which always grated on my democratic nerves in a
+Russian theatre, was being performed by these officers--though they did
+not even seem to suspect it--for the last time.
+
+[Sidenote: Lively rifle fire Sunday night.]
+
+On my way home at midnight I picked up from wayfarers rumors of soldiers
+attacking the police, soldiers fighting among themselves and rioting in
+barracks. But outwardly there was calm until three in the morning, when
+I heard in my room on the Moika Canal side of the Hotel de France some
+very lively rifle fire from the direction of the Catherine Canal. This
+sounded more like the real thing than anything so far, so I dressed and
+tried to get near enough to learn what was going on. But for the first
+time the streets were really closed. The firing kept up steadily until
+four. Farther on in the great barracks along the Neva beyond the Litenie
+it kept up until the revolting soldiers had command.
+
+[Sidenote: Revolt spreads like a prairie fire.]
+
+I regret not having seen the revolt getting under way in that quarter. I
+regret missing the small incidents, the moments when the revolt hung in
+the balance, when it was the question of whether a certain company would
+join, for when I reached there it was still in its inception and the
+most interesting thing about it was to watch it spread like a prairie
+fire.
+
+[Sidenote: The Duma dissolved.]
+
+Still not realizing, like most people in Petrograd, that we were within
+a few hours of a sweeping revolt, I wasted some precious hours that
+morning trying to learn what could be done with the censor. But toward
+noon I heard the Duma had been dissolved, and, as there had not been
+since Sunday any street cars, 'ishvoshiks, or other means of conveyance,
+I started out afoot with Roger Lewis of the Associated Press to walk the
+three miles to the Duma.
+
+[Sidenote: A silence like that of Louvain.]
+
+The hush of impending events hung over the entire city. I remember
+nothing like that silence since the day the Germans entered Louvain. On
+every street were the bread lines longer than ever. All along the
+Catherine Canal, the snow was pounded by many feet and spotted with
+blood. But there were no soldiers and few police. We hurried along the
+Nevsky, gathering rumors of the fight that was actually going on down by
+the arsenal on the Litenie. But many shops were open and there was a
+semblance of business. All was so quiet we could not make out the
+meaning of a company of infantry drawn up in a hollow square commanding
+the four points at the junction of the Litenie and Nevsky, ordinarily
+one of the busiest corners in the world.
+
+[Sidenote: Cavalry commands arrive.]
+
+[Sidenote: The barricade on the Litenie.]
+
+[Sidenote: Haphazard rifle-fire.]
+
+But as soon as we turned down the Litenie we could hear shots farther
+down, and the pedestrians were mostly knotted in doorways. Scattered
+cavalry commands were arriving from the side streets, and the Litenie
+began looking a little too hot. So we chose a parallel street for
+several blocks until we were within three blocks of the Neva, where we
+had to cross the Litenie in front of a company drawn up across the
+street ready to fire toward the arsenal, where there was sporadic rifle
+fire. Here there were bigger knots of curious citizens projecting
+themselves farther and farther toward the middle of the street, hoping
+for a better view, until a nearer shot frightened them closer to the
+walls. The barricade on the Litenie by the arsenal, the one barricade
+the revolution produced, was just beginning to be built two hundred feet
+away as Lewis and I reached the shelter of the Fourshtatzkaya, on the
+same street as the American Embassy. By crossing the Litenie we had
+entered the zone of the revolutionists. We did not realize this,
+however, and were puzzled by the sight of a soldier carrying simply a
+bayonet, and another with a bare officer's sword. A fourteen-year-old
+boy stood in the middle of the street with a rifle in his hand, trifling
+with it. It exploded in his hand, and when he saw the ruin of the
+breech block he unfixed the bayonet, threw down the gun, and ran around
+the corner. A student came up the street examining the mechanism of a
+revolver. There seemed to be rifle-fire in every direction, even in the
+same street, but haphazard.
+
+[Sidenote: An officer recruiting for the revolution.]
+
+If we had not been living in a troubled atmosphere these small
+indications would have impressed us deeply, but neither of us gathered
+immediately the significance of events. Before we reached the next
+corner we passed troops who evidently did not know yet whether or not
+they were still on the side of the Government. An automobile appeared
+full of soldiers, an officer standing on the seat. He waved toward him
+all the soldiers in sight and began haranguing them. There was no red
+flag in sight, and, until we caught his words, we thought he was urging
+them to remain loyal. He was really recruiting for the revolution.
+
+[Sidenote: Automobiles and motor trucks.]
+
+As we kept on toward the Duma we encountered other automobiles, many of
+them, and motor trucks, literally bristling with guns and sabres. Half
+the men were civilians and the number of young boys with revolvers who
+looked me over made me feel it was a very easy time in which to be
+killed. I was wearing an English trench coat and a fur cap, so to
+prevent any mistake of identity I stopped and presented a full view to
+each passing motor. Still I knew my continued existence depended on the
+sanity of any one of thirty or forty very excited men and boys on each
+truck, and when I reached the protection of the enormous crowd that was
+storming the entrance to the Duma I felt more comfortable.
+
+[Sidenote: The Duma waits, but finally takes command.]
+
+The Duma had just been dismissed by imperial decree, an ironical
+circumstance in view of the thousands of soldiers and civilians massed
+before its doors under the red flag. Their leaders were within, asking
+the Duma to form a provisional government. The Duma was not yet
+convinced, and the mental confusion within was more bewildering than the
+revolution without. This was early in the afternoon, and the Duma held
+off for hours. Even when it was known that the Preobarzhenski regiment,
+which began its career with Peter the Great, had turned revolutionary,
+the Duma insisted on waiting. But at nine o'clock in the evening, when
+every police station, every court, was on fire and the revolutionists
+completely controlled the city, President Rodzianko decided that the
+Duma must take command.
+
+[Sidenote: Automobiles dart boldly everywhere.]
+
+It is interesting to watch a revolution grow, and even at this time,
+early Monday afternoon, the revolutionists controlled only a corner of
+Petrograd. They were working up excitement, and, as often before in the
+war, the motor trucks played an important part. They thundered back and
+forth through doubtful streets, students, soldiers, and workmen standing
+tight and bristling with bayonets like porcupines. They carried
+conviction of force, and, as each foray met with less resistance, it was
+not long before they were dashing boldly everywhere. That accounts for
+the rapid control of the city. It could not have been done afoot.
+
+[Sidenote: The revolutionists take the arsenal.]
+
+All day, from the time the arsenal fell into their hands, the
+revolutionists felt their strength growing, and from noon on no attack
+was led against them. At first the soldiers simply gave up their guns
+and mixed in the crowd, but they grew bolder, too, when they saw the
+workmen forming into regiments and marching up the Fourshtatzkaya, still
+fumbling with the triggers of their rifles to see how they met the enemy
+at the next corner. The coolness of these revolutionists, their
+willingness to die for their cause, won the respect of a small group of
+us who were standing before the American Embassy. The group was
+composed chiefly of Embassy attachés who wanted to go over to the old
+Austrian Embassy, used by us as the headquarters for the relief of
+German and Austrian prisoners in Russia; but though it was only a five
+minutes' walk, the hottest corner in the revolution lay between.
+
+[Sidenote: Soldiers ground arms and become revolutionists.]
+
+When we left the Embassy, Captain McCulley, the American Naval Attaché,
+said he knew a way to get out of the revolutionary quarter without
+passing a line of fire. So he edged us off toward the distant Nevsky
+along several blood-blotched streets in which there were occasional
+groups of soldiers who did not know which way to turn. Then, as the
+Bycenie, beyond, suddenly filled with revolutionists coming from some
+other quarter, we turned to cross the Litenie. Twenty minutes earlier
+Captain McCulley had passed there and the Government troops controlled
+for another quarter mile. Now we passed a machine-gun company commanding
+the street, which dared not fire because there was a line of soldiers
+between it and a vast crowd pouring through the street toward us. The
+crowd had already overwhelmed and made revolutionists out of hundreds of
+soldiers, and the situation for a moment was dramatically tense.
+
+Down the bisecting Litenie another crowd was advancing, filling the wide
+street. Before it there was also a company of soldiers, and it did not
+know whether to face the Bycenie or the river. Three immense mobs were
+overwhelming it, though it knew of but two. Suddenly, just at the moment
+when we expected a shower of bullets, and flattened ourselves against a
+doorway, the company grounded arms and in three seconds was in the arms
+of the revolution.
+
+[Sidenote: Company after company joins.]
+
+As we retreated to the Nevsky ahead of the victorious crowd we could see
+company after company turn, as if suddenly deciding not to shoot, and
+join.
+
+[Sidenote: Thunder of motor trucks.]
+
+I walked rapidly back to the Morskaya and down to the cable office,
+which I found closed, not encountering on the whole two miles a single
+soldier or policeman until I reached St. Isaac's Cathedral, where a
+regiment of marines turned up the Morskaya toward the Nevsky, swinging
+along behind a band. Five minutes later I followed them up the Morskaya,
+but before I reached the Gorokawaya, half the distance, I could hear the
+thunder of the revolutionary motor trucks and the glad howls of the
+revolutionists. They had run the length of the Nevsky, and the city,
+except this little corner, was theirs. The shooting began at once, and
+for the next three hours on both the Morskaya and the Moika there was
+steady firing. This was still going on when, at nine in the evening, I
+passed around the edge of the fight, crossed Winter Palace Square,
+deserted except for a company of Cossacks dimly outlined against the
+Winter Palace across the square. By passing under the arch into the head
+of Morskaya again I was once more with the revolutionists.
+
+I have since asked Mr. Milukoff, now Minister of Foreign Affairs, at
+that moment a member of the Duma's Committee of Safety, how much of an
+organization there was behind the events of that day.
+
+[Sidenote: The organization a spontaneous growth.]
+
+"There was some incipient organization certainly," he replied, "though
+even now I could not be more definite. But for the most part it was
+spontaneous growth. The Duma was not revolutionary, and we held off
+until it became necessary for us to take hold. We were the only
+government left."
+
+[Sidenote: Duma is forced to adopt democratic programme.]
+
+The rapid work was done by the Socialists, who quickly formed the
+Council of Workmen and Soldiers' Deputies and formulated the programme
+which has come to be the Russian Declaration of Independence. They
+consented to support the Duma if it adopted their democratic programme.
+There was nothing else for the Duma to do, and the main issues of the
+new Government were worked out before Tuesday morning, within
+twenty-four hours of the beginning of the revolution. Since then I have
+been repeatedly impressed with the organizing ability of the men in
+control, and their ability to take matters rapidly in hand.
+
+[Sidenote: The crowd feels its power.]
+
+[Sidenote: Not much terrorism.]
+
+Monday night the city was in the hands of the mob. Anybody could have a
+gun. Public safety lay in the released spirits of the Russian workmen
+who saw the vision of liberty before them. Tuesday was the most
+dangerous day, as the crowd was beginning to feel its power, and the
+amount of shooting going on everywhere must have been out of all
+proportion to the sniping on the part of cornered police. But the
+searching of apartments for arms was carried on with some semblance of
+order, and usually there was a student in command. The individual
+stories of officers who refused to surrender and fought to the end in
+their apartments are endless, but these individual fights were lost in
+the victorious sweep of the day. Tuesday evening the real business of
+burning police stations and prisons and destroying records went on
+throughout the city, but the actual burnings, while picturesque, lacked
+the terrorism one might expect. Still I felt that the large number of
+irresponsible civilians carrying arms might do what they pleased.
+
+The same idea evidently occurred to the Committee of Safety, as it began
+at once disarming the irresponsible, and its work was so quick and
+effective that there were very few civilians not registered as
+responsible police who still had fire-arms on Wednesday morning.
+
+[Sidenote: Regiments sent to Petrograd join revolutionists.]
+
+As late as Wednesday there was a possibility of troops being sent
+against Petrograd, but all the regiments for miles around joined the
+revolution before they entered the city. There was obviously no one who
+wanted to uphold the old monarchy, and it fell without even dramatic
+incident to mark its end. To us in Petrograd the abdication of the
+Emperor had just one significance. It brought the army over at a stroke.
+The country, long saturated with democratic principles, accepted the new
+Government as naturally as if it had been chosen by a national vote.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The credit of the first shot fired on the American side in the Great War
+fell to the crew of the American ship, _Mongolia_. A narrative of this
+dramatic event is given in the chapter following.
+
+
+
+
+AMERICA'S FIRST SHOT
+
+J. R. KEEN
+
+Copyright, New York Times, April 27, 1919.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Gunners of the _Mongolia_ hit a submarine.]
+
+April 19 has long been celebrated in Massachusetts because of the battle
+of Lexington, but henceforth the Bay State can keep with added pride a
+day which has acquired national interest in this war, for on that date
+the S. S. _Mongolia_, bound from New York to London, under command of
+Captain Emery Rice, while proceeding up the English Channel, fired on an
+attacking submarine at 5.24 in the morning, smashing its periscope and
+causing the U-boat to disappear.
+
+[Sidenote: Officers from Massachusetts.]
+
+The gun crew who made this clean hit at 1,000 yards were under command
+of Lieutenant Bruce R. Ware, United States Navy, and the fact of special
+interest in Massachusetts is that both Rice and Ware were born in that
+State, the Captain receiving his training for the sea in the
+Massachusetts Nautical School and the Lieutenant being a graduate of
+Annapolis.
+
+[Sidenote: Dangerous voyages and cargoes.]
+
+The _Mongolia_, a merchantman of 13,638 tons, had been carrying
+munitions to Great Britain since January, 1916, when she reached New
+York Harbor from San Francisco, coming by way of Cape Horn, and she had
+already made nine voyages to England. In those voyages her officers and
+men had faced many of the greatest perils of the war. Her cargoes had
+consisted of TNT, of ammunition, of powder, of fuses, and of shells. At
+one time while carrying this dangerous freight Captain Rice saw, as he
+stood on the bridge during a storm, a lightning bolt strike the ship
+forward just where a great quantity of powder was stored, and held his
+breath as he waited to see "whether he was going up or going down."
+
+[Sidenote: Warnings of U-boats.]
+
+Captain Rice has since died, and among his papers now in my possession
+are many of the warnings of the presence of U-boats sent to his ship by
+the British Admiralty during 1916, when every vessel approaching the
+British coast was in danger from those assassins of the sea.
+
+[Sidenote: _Mongolia_ sails in spite of German edict.]
+
+After February 1, 1917, when the Huns made their "war zone" declaration,
+the question with us at home whether the _Mongolia_ would continue to
+sail in defiance of that edict of ruthless warfare became a matter of
+acute anxiety. The ship completed her eighth voyage on February 7, when
+she reached New York and found the whole country discussing the burning
+question, "Would the United States allow the Imperial German Government
+to dictate how and where our ships should go?" There was never but one
+answer in the mind of Captain Rice. At home he simply said, "I shall
+sail on schedule, armed or unarmed. Does any one suppose I would let
+those damned Prussians drive me off the ocean?"
+
+In the office of the International Mercantile Marine he expressed
+himself more politely, but with equal determination, to the President of
+the company, P. A. S. Franklin, to whom he said, "I am prepared, so are
+my officers, to sail with or without arms, but of course I would rather
+have arms."
+
+[Sidenote: Arms slow to get.]
+
+But the arms were slow to get, and the _Mongolia_, loaded with her
+super-dangerous cargo, cleared from New York on February 20, the first
+one of our boats to reach England after the "war zone" declaration, I
+believe. Captain Rice arrived in London about the time when Captain
+Tucker of the S. S. _Orleans_ reached Bordeaux, the latter being the
+first American to reach France in safety after the same declaration.
+
+[Sidenote: Spies try to learn sailing dates.]
+
+Early in February of 1917 we became aware that German spies were making
+a persistent attempt to get into our home to find out when the
+_Mongolia_ was sailing, and if the ship was to be armed. The first spy
+came up the back stairs in the guise of an employe engaged in delivering
+household supplies. He accomplished nothing, and the incident was
+dismissed from our minds, but the second spy came up the front stairs
+and effected an entrance, and this event roused us to the dangers around
+Captain Rice even in his own country and showed the intense
+determination of the Germans to prevent, if they could, any more big
+cargoes of munitions reaching England on the _Mongolia_. Our second
+visitor was a man who had been an officer in the German Army years
+before. After leaving Germany he came to the United States and became a
+citizen.
+
+[Sidenote: A German-American turns German spy.]
+
+In August, 1914, when the Huns invaded Belgium, he became all German
+again and returned to Europe to serve with the German Army on the French
+front, from which region he was ordered by the German Government back to
+the United States, where his command of English and knowledge of the
+country made him valuable to the propaganda and spy groups here. All
+this and much more I found out shortly after his visit, but the
+afternoon he called I (I was alone at the time) received him without
+suspicion, since he said he came to pay his respects to Captain Rice,
+whom he had known in China.
+
+[Sidenote: Deceiving the spy.]
+
+It was not until his apparently casual questions about the time of the
+_Mongolia's_ sailing and whether she was to be armed became annoying
+that "I woke up," and looking attentively at this over-curious visitor,
+I encountered a look of such cold hostility that with a shock I
+realized I was dealing with a spy, one who was probably armed, and who
+appeared determined to get the information he sought. In a few seconds
+of swift thinking I decided the best thing to do was to make him believe
+that Captain Rice himself did not know whether his ship was going out
+again, and that no one could tell what course of action the ship owners
+would take. After forty minutes of probing for information he departed,
+convinced there was no information to be had from me.
+
+[Sidenote: How signals could be sent by German agents.]
+
+It was ascertained that his New York home was in an apartment house on
+the highest point of land in Manhattan. In this same house there lived
+another German, who received many young men, all Teutons, as visitors,
+some of whom spent much time with him on the roof. The possibility of
+their signaling out to sea from this elevation is too obvious to be
+dwelt on, and it is beyond doubt that some of the submarines' most
+effective work at this time and later was due to the activities of these
+German agents allowed at large by our too-trustful laws of citizenship.
+So exact and timely was much of the information these spies secured that
+the _Mongolia_ on one of her voyages to England picked up a wireless
+message sent in the _Mongolia's_ own secret code, saying that the
+_Montana_ was sinking, giving her position, and asking the _Mongolia_ to
+come to her rescue, but it had happened that when the _Mongolia_ left
+New York Harbor at the beginning of this very voyage one of her officers
+had noticed the _Montana_ lying in the harbor.
+
+[Sidenote: _Mongolia_ is armed with three 6-inch guns.]
+
+When the _Mongolia_ returned on March 30, 1917, from this unarmed voyage
+she was given three six-inch guns, two forward and one aft, and a gun
+crew from the U. S. S. _Texas_, under Lieutenant Bruce R. Ware, who had
+already made his mark in gunnery.
+
+The _Mongolia_ left New York on her tenth voyage April 7 with the
+following officers:
+
+[Sidenote: The officers on the voyage.]
+
+Commander, Emery Rice; in command of armed guard, Lieutenant Bruce R.
+Ware; Chief officer, Thomas Blau; First Officer, W. E. Wollaston; Second
+Officer, Charles W. Krieg; Third Officer, Joseph C. Lutz; Fourth
+Officer, Carroll D. Riley; Cadets, Fred Earl Wilcox and Theodore
+Forsell; Doctor, Charles Rendell; Assistant Purser, J. T. Wylie; Chief
+Steward, W. T. Heath; Chief Engineer, James W. Condon; First Assistant
+Engineer, Clarence Irwin; Second Assistant Engineer, William Hodgkiss;
+Third Assistant Engineer, L. R. Tinto. Six junior engineers--William
+Hasenfus, E. Larkin, Perry McComb, Sidney Murray, J. R. Fletcher,
+Lawrence Paterson, Refrigerator Engineer, H. Johnson, Electrician, E.
+Powers; Dock Engineer, V. Hansen.
+
+[Sidenote: Entries from the ship's log.]
+
+The log of the ship for that voyage contains these entries:
+
+
+    Sailed from New York April 7, 1917.
+    Arrived Falmouth, England, April 18, 1917.
+    Left Falmouth, England, April 18, 1917, p. m.
+    On April 19, 5.24 a. m., fired on submarine.
+    Arrived Tilbury, London, April 21.
+    Left Tilbury, London, May 2.
+    Arrived New York, May 13.
+
+The Captain's report to the London office of the International
+Mercantile Marine is dated April 21, 1917, and says:
+
+"I beg to report that the S. S. _Mongolia_ under my command, while
+proceeding up Channel on April 19 at 5.24 a. m. encountered a submarine,
+presumably German, in Latitude 50·30 degrees North, Longitude 32 degrees
+West; 9 miles South 37 degrees East true from the Overs Light vessel.
+
+"The weather at the time: calm to light airs, sea smooth, hazy with
+visibility about 3 miles; speed of the ship fifteen knots, course North
+74 degrees East true, to pass close to the Royal Sovereign Light vessel.
+
+[Sidenote: A periscope sighted.]
+
+"The periscope was first sighted broad on the port bow, distant about
+one-half mile, by Chief Officer Blau in charge of the bridge watch at
+the time. His shout of 'submarine on the port bow' brought Lieutenant
+Ware and myself quickly out of the chart room on to the bridge, where we
+immediately saw the swirling wake left by the submarine as it submerged.
+
+[Sidenote: Lieutenant Ware gives the range.]
+
+"The armed guard under Lieutenant Ware, United States Navy, were
+standing by all guns at the time, which were fully loaded, and while
+Lieutenant Ware gave the range to the guns I ordered the helm put
+hard-a-starboard with the object of lessening the broadside angle of the
+ship to an approaching torpedo.
+
+[Sidenote: The shot goes home.]
+
+[Sidenote: Efficiency of the gunners.]
+
+"Lieutenant Ware's order of 'train on the starboard quarter and report
+when you bear on a submarine's periscope' was answered almost
+immediately by the after gun's crew, who were then ordered to commence
+firing. One shot was fired from the after gun which struck in the centre
+of the swirl created by the submarine, causing a quantity of light blue
+smoke to hang over the spot where the submarine disappeared for some
+time. This was the only shot fired, and the submarine was not seen
+again, and after zigzagging until the weather became very thick the ship
+was again put on her course. Passed through the Gateway off Folkestone
+at 10.45 a. m. and anchored at 11.01 a. m., as I considered the weather
+too thick to proceed. I feel that the _Mongolia's_ safe arrival at
+London is due to a large extent to the zeal and ability in the execution
+of his duties displayed by Lieutenant B. R. Ware, United States Navy,
+who has been untiring in his efforts to bring the men under his command
+to a high state of efficiency, and who has kept a continuous watch for
+the past five days. His co-operation with the ship's officers has been
+of the closest, and his men and guns were always ready. Also to Mr.
+Blau, the chief officer, a large measure of credit is due, for had he
+not seen the periscope at the exact moment of its appearance it is
+possible that all our precautions would have been useless.
+
+                          Signed. EMERY RICE,
+                                      "Commander S. S. _Mongolia_."
+
+[Sidenote: _Mongolia's_ officers marked men.]
+
+The fame of the first engagement made the _Mongolia's_ officers marked
+men. When Captain Rice returned home he reported that Consul General
+Skinner in London had told him that the Germans had set a price of
+50,000 marks on his head, and letters expressing hatred and revenge
+reached us in New York from points as far away as Kansas City. On the
+other hand, the pride felt in the great ship's exploit brought scores of
+letters from officers and men who applied for service on her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+German agents were industrious throughout the United States, long before
+the American Government broke with Germany. Her activities were carried
+on in the form of propaganda and by more violent deeds. A complete
+account of these activities as revealed in a congressional investigation
+follows.
+
+
+
+
+GERMAN ACTIVITIES IN THE UNITED STATES
+
+FROM REPORT OF HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
+
+
+[Sidenote: Momentous results must follow.]
+
+It is with the deepest sense of responsibility of the momentous results
+which will follow the passage of this resolution that your committee
+reports it to the House, with the recommendation that it be passed.
+
+The conduct of the Imperial German Government toward this Government,
+its citizens, and its interests has been so discourteous, unjust, cruel,
+barbarous, and so lacking in honesty and fair dealing that it has
+constituted a violation of the course of conduct which should obtain
+between friendly nations.
+
+In addition to this, the German Government is actually making war upon
+the people and the commerce of this country, and leaves no course open
+to this Government but to accept its gage of battle, declare that a
+state of war exists, and wage that war vigorously.
+
+[Sidenote: The announcement of the submarine war zone.]
+
+On the 31st day of January, 1917, notice was given by the Imperial
+German Government to this Government that after the following
+day--"Germany will meet the illegal measures of her enemies by forcibly
+preventing, in a zone around Great Britain, France, Italy, and in the
+Eastern Mediterranean, all navigation, that of neutrals included, from
+and to England and from and to France, &c. All ships met within that
+zone will be sunk."
+
+[Sidenote: American ships sunk.]
+
+Since that day seven American ships flying the American flag have been
+sunk and between twenty-five and thirty American lives have been lost
+as a result of the prosecution of the submarine warfare in accordance
+with the above declaration. This is war. War waged by the Imperial
+German Government upon this country and its people.
+
+[Sidenote: Review of Germany's hostile acts.]
+
+A brief review of some of the hostile and illegal acts of the German
+Government toward this Government and its officers and its people is
+herewith given.
+
+[Sidenote: German note of February, 1915.]
+
+In the memorial of the Imperial German Government accompanying its
+proclamation of February 4, 1915, in regard to submarine warfare, that
+Government declared: "The German Navy has received instructions to
+abstain from all violence against neutral vessels recognizable as such."
+In the note of the German Government dated February 16, 1915, in reply
+to the American note of February 10, it was declared that "It is very
+far indeed from the intention of the German Government * * * ever to
+destroy neutral lives and neutral property. * * * The commanders of
+German submarines have been instructed, as was already stated in the
+note of the 4th instant, to abstain from violence to American merchant
+ships when they are recognizable as such."
+
+[Sidenote: American lives lost on many torpedoed ships.]
+
+Nevertheless, the German Government proceeded to carry out its plans of
+submarine warfare and torpedoed the British passenger steamer _Falaba_
+on March 27, 1915, when one American life was lost, attacked the
+American steamer _Cushing_ April 28 by airship, and made submarine
+attacks upon the American tank steamer _Gulflight_ May 1, the British
+passenger steamer _Lusitania_ May 7, when 114 American lives were lost,
+and the American steamer _Nebraskan_ on May 25, in all of which over 125
+citizens of the United States lost their lives, not to mention hundreds
+of noncombatants who were lost and hundreds of Americans and
+noncombatants whose lives were put in jeopardy.
+
+The British mule boat _Armenian_ was torpedoed on June 28, as a result
+of which twenty Americans are reported missing.
+
+On July 8, 1915, in a note to Ambassador Gerard, arguing in defense of
+its method of warfare and particularly of its submarine commander in the
+_Lusitania_ case, it is stated:
+
+[Sidenote: German defense of German submarine warfare.]
+
+"The Imperial Government therefore repeats the assurances that American
+ships will not be hindered in the prosecution of legitimate shipping and
+the lives of American citizens on neutral vessels shall not be placed in
+jeopardy.
+
+"In order to exclude any unforeseen dangers to American passenger
+steamers * * * the German submarines will be instructed to permit the
+free and safe passage of such passenger steamers when made recognizable
+by special markings and notified a reasonable time in advance."
+
+[Sidenote: American ships attacked later.]
+
+Subsequently the following vessels carrying American citizens were
+attacked by submarines: British liner _Orduna_, July 9; Russian steamer
+_Leo_, July 9; American steamer _Leelanaw_, July 25; British passenger
+liner _Arabic_, August 19; British mule ship _Nicosian_, August 19;
+British steamer _Hesperian_, September 4. In these attacks twenty-three
+Americans lost their lives, not to mention the large number whose lives
+were placed in jeopardy.
+
+Following these events, conspicuous by their wantonness and violation of
+every rule of humanity and maritime warfare, the German Ambassador, by
+instructions from his Government, on September 1 gave the following
+assurances to the Government of the United States:
+
+"Liners will not be sunk by our submarines without warning and without
+safety of the lives of noncombatants, provided that the liners do not
+try to escape or offer resistance."
+
+[Sidenote: Germany gives assurance of regard for lives of
+noncombatants.]
+
+On September 9, in a reply as to the submarine attack on the _Orduna_,
+the German Government renewed these assurances in the following
+language:
+
+[Sidenote: The _Orduna_ case.]
+
+"The first attack on the _Orduna_ by a torpedo was not in accordance
+with the existing instructions, which provide that large passenger
+steamers are to be torpedoed only after previous warning and after the
+rescuing of passengers and crew. The failure to observe the instructions
+was based on an error which is at any rate comprehensible and the
+repetition of which appears to be out of the question, in view of the
+more explicit instructions issued in the meantime. Moreover, the
+commanders of the submarines have been reminded that it is their duty to
+exercise greater care and to observe carefully the orders issued."
+
+The German Government could not more clearly have stated that liners or
+large passenger steamers would not be torpedoed except upon previous
+warning and after the passengers and crew had been put in places of
+safety.
+
+[Sidenote: Statement about the _William P. Frye_.]
+
+On November 29 the German Government states, in connection with the case
+of the American vessel _William P. Frye_:
+
+[Sidenote: Germany promises to protect passengers.]
+
+"The German naval forces will sink only such American vessels as are
+loaded with absolute contraband, when the preconditions provided by the
+Declaration of London are present. In this the German Government quite
+shares the view of the American Government that all possible care must
+be taken for the security of the crew and passengers of a vessel to be
+sunk. Consequently the persons found on board of a vessel may not be
+ordered into her lifeboats except when the general conditions--that is
+to say, the weather, the condition of the sea, and the neighborhood of
+the coasts--afford absolute certainty that the boats will reach the
+nearest port."
+
+[Sidenote: An American Consul drowned.]
+
+Following this accumulative series of assurances, however, there seems
+to have been no abatement in the rigor of submarine warfare, for attacks
+were made in the Mediterranean upon the American steamer _Communipaw_ on
+December 3, the American steamer _Petrolite_ December 5, the Japanese
+liner _Yasaka Maru_ December 21, and the passenger liner _Persia_
+December 30. In the sinking of the _Persia_ out of a total of some 500
+passengers and crew only 165 were saved. Among those lost was an
+American Consul traveling to his post.
+
+On January 7, eight days after the sinking of the _Persia_, the German
+Government notified the Government of the United States through its
+Ambassador in Washington as follows:
+
+[Sidenote: Submarines in Mediterranean ordered to respect international
+law.]
+
+"1. German submarines in the Mediterranean had, from the beginning,
+orders to conduct cruiser warfare against enemy merchant vessels only in
+accordance with the general principles of international law, and in
+particular measures of reprisal, as applied in the war zone around the
+British Isles, were to be excluded.
+
+"2. German submarines are therefore permitted to destroy enemy merchant
+vessels in the Mediterranean, _i. e._, passenger as well as freight
+ships as far as they do not try to escape or offer resistance--only
+after passengers and crews have been accorded safety."
+
+Clearly the assurances of the German Government that neutral and enemy
+merchant vessels, passenger as well as freight ships, should not be
+destroyed except upon the passengers and crew being accorded safety
+stood as the official position of the Imperial German Government.
+
+[Sidenote: Germany offers indemnity for Americans lost on _Lusitania_.]
+
+On February 16, 1916, the German Ambassador communicated to the
+Department of State an expression of regret for the loss of American
+lives on the _Lusitania_, and proposed to pay a suitable indemnity. In
+the course of this note he said:
+
+"Germany has * * * limited her submarine warfare because of her
+long-standing friendship with the United States and because by the
+sinking of the _Lusitania_, which caused the death of citizens of the
+United States, the German retaliation affected neutrals, which was not
+the intention, as retaliation should be confined to enemy subjects."
+
+[Sidenote: French unarmed _Patria_ attacked.]
+
+[Sidenote: The _Sussex_ torpedoed without warning.]
+
+On March 1, 1916, the unarmed French passenger steamer _Patria_,
+carrying a number of American citizens, was attacked without warning. On
+March 9 the Norwegian bark _Silius_, riding at anchor in Havre Roads,
+was torpedoed by an unseen submarine and one of the seven Americans on
+board was injured. On March 16 the Dutch passenger steamer _Tubantia_
+was sunk in the North Sea by a torpedo. On March 16 the British steamer
+_Berwindale_ was torpedoed without warning off Bantry Island with four
+Americans on board. On March 24 the British unarmed steamer _Englishman_
+was, after a chase, torpedoed and sunk by the submarine _U-19_, as a
+result of which one American on board perished. On March 24 the unarmed
+French cross-Channel steamer _Sussex_ was torpedoed without warning,
+several of the twenty-four American passengers being injured. On March
+27 the unarmed British liner _Manchester Engineer_ was sunk by an
+explosion without prior warning, with Americans on board, and on March
+28 the British steamer _Eagle Point_, carrying a Hotchkiss gun, which
+she did not use, was chased, overtaken, and sunk by a torpedo after the
+persons on board had taken to the boats.
+
+[Sidenote: America will hold Germany responsible.]
+
+The American note of February 10, 1915, stated that should German
+vessels of war "destroy on the high seas an American vessel or the
+lives of American citizens it would be difficult for the Government of
+the United States to view the act in any other light than an
+indefensible violation of neutral rights which it would be very hard,
+indeed, to reconcile with the friendly relations so happily subsisting
+between the two Governments," and that if such a deplorable situation
+should arise, "the Government of the United States would be constrained
+to hold the Imperial Government to a strict accountability for such acts
+of their naval authorities."
+
+In the American note of May 13, 1915, the Government stated:
+
+"The imperial Government will not expect the Government of the United
+States to omit any word or act necessary to the performance of its
+sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the United States and its
+citizens and in safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment."
+
+In the note of July 21, 1915, the United States Government said that--
+
+"Repetition by the commanders of German naval vessels of acts in
+contravention of those rights must be regarded by the Government of the
+United States, when they affect American citizens, as deliberately
+unfriendly."
+
+In a communication of April 18, 1916, the American Government said:
+
+[Sidenote: The United States insists on regard for international law.]
+
+"If it is still the purpose of the Imperial Government to prosecute
+relentless and indiscriminate warfare against vessels of commerce by the
+use of submarines without regard to what the Government of the United
+States must consider the sacred and indisputable rules of international
+law and the universally recognized dictates of humanity, the Government
+of the United States is at last forced to the conclusion that there is
+but one course it can pursue. Unless the Imperial Government should not
+immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of
+submarine warfare against passenger and freight carrying vessels the
+Government of the United States can have no choice but to sever
+diplomatic relations with the German Empire altogether."
+
+[Sidenote: Germany gives definite assurances.]
+
+The German Government replied to this communication on May 4, 1916,
+giving definite assurances that new orders had been issued to the German
+naval forces "in accordance with the general principles of visit and
+search and the destruction of merchant vessels recognized by
+international law." And this agreement was substantially complied with
+for many months, but finally, on January 31, 1917, notice was given that
+after the following day--
+
+[Sidenote: The notice of January 31, 1917.]
+
+"Germany will meet the illegal measures of her enemies by forcibly
+preventing in a zone around Great Britain, France, Italy, and in the
+Eastern Mediterranean all navigation, that of neutrals included, from
+and to England and from and to France, &c. All ships met within that
+zone will be sunk."
+
+In view of this Government's warning of April 18, 1916, and the Imperial
+German Government's pledge of May 4 of the same year, the Government of
+the United States, on February 3, 1917, stated to the Imperial German
+Government that--
+
+[Sidenote: The course of the United States.]
+
+"In view of this declaration, which withdraws suddenly and without prior
+intimation the solemn assurance given in the Imperial Government's note
+of May 4, 1916, this Government has no alternative consistent with the
+dignity and honor of the United States but to take the course which it
+explicitly announced in its note of April 18, 1916, it would take in the
+event that the Imperial Government did not declare and effect an
+abandonment of the methods of submarine warfare then employed and to
+which the Imperial Government now purposes again to resort.
+
+[Sidenote: Diplomatic relations with Germany severed.]
+
+"The President has, therefore, directed me to announce to your
+Excellency that all diplomatic relation between the United States and
+the German Empire are severed, and that the American Ambassador at
+Berlin will be immediately withdrawn, and, in accordance with such
+announcement, to deliver to your Excellency your passports."
+
+[Sidenote: American ships torpedoed.]
+
+On February 3 one American ship was sunk, and since that date six
+American ships flying the American flag have been torpedoed, with a loss
+of about thirteen American citizens. In addition, fifty or more foreign
+vessels of both belligerent and neutral nationality with Americans on
+board have been torpedoed, in most cases without warning, with a
+consequent loss of several American citizens.
+
+[Sidenote: German officials violate laws of United States.]
+
+Since the beginning of the war German officials in the United States
+have engaged in many improper activities in violation of the laws of the
+United States and of their obligations as officials in a neutral
+country. Count von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador, Captain von Papen,
+Military Attaché of the embassy, Captain Boy-Ed, Naval Attaché, as well
+as various Consular officers and other officials, were involved in these
+activities, which were very widespread.
+
+The following instances are chosen at random from the cases which have
+come to the knowledge of the Government:
+
+[Sidenote: The German Embassy furnishes funds to be used illegally.]
+
+I. By direct instruction received from the Foreign Office in Berlin the
+German Embassy in this country furnished funds and issued orders to the
+Indian Independence Committee of the Indian Nationalist Party in the
+United States. These instructions were usually conveyed to the committee
+by the military information bureau in New York (von Igel), or by the
+German Consulates in New York and San Francisco.
+
+[Sidenote 1: Indian revolutionary propaganda.]
+
+Dr. Chakrabarty, recently arrested in New York City, received, all in
+all, according to his own admission, some $60,000 from von Igel. He
+claims that the greater portion of this money was used for defraying the
+expenses of the Indian revolutionary propaganda in this country and, as
+he says, for educational purposes. While this is in itself true, it is
+not all that was done by the revolutionists. They have sent
+representatives to the Far East to stir up trouble in India, and they
+have attempted to ship arms and ammunition to India. These expeditions
+have failed. The German Embassy also employed Ernest T. Euphrat to carry
+instructions and information between Berlin and Washington under an
+American passport.
+
+[Sidenote 2: Germans on parole escaped.]
+
+II. Officers of interned German warships have violated their word of
+honor and escaped. In one instance the German Consul at Richmond
+furnished the money to purchase a boat to enable six warrant officers of
+the steamer Kronprinz Wilhelm to escape after breaking their parole.
+
+[Sidenote 3: Fraudulent passports secured.]
+
+III. Under the supervision of Captain von Papen and Wolf von Igel, Hans
+von Wedell and, subsequently, Carl Ruroede maintained a regular office
+for the procurement of fraudulent passports for German reservists. These
+operations were directed and financed in part by Captain von Papen and
+Wolf von Igel. Indictments were returned, Carl Ruroede sentenced to the
+penitentiary, and a number of German officers fined. Von Wedell escaped
+and has apparently been drowned at sea. Von Wedell's operations were
+also known to high officials in Germany. When von Wedell became
+suspicious that forgeries committed by him on a passport application
+had become known, he conferred with Captain von Papen and obtained money
+from him wherewith to make his escape.
+
+[Sidenote: American passport covers unneutral activities.]
+
+IV. James J. F. Archibald, under cover of an American passport and in
+the pay of the German Government through Ambassador Bernstorff, carried
+dispatches for Ambassador Dumba and otherwise engaged in unneutral
+activities.
+
+[Sidenote: Spies sent to England.]
+
+V. Albert O. Sander, Charles Wunnenberg, and others, German agents in
+this country, were engaged, among other activities, in sending spies to
+England, equipped with American passports, for the purpose of securing
+military information. Several such men have been sent. Sander and
+Wunnenberg have pleaded guilty to indictments brought against them in
+New York City, as has George Voux Bacon, one of the men sent abroad by
+them.
+
+[Sidenote: American passports counterfeited.]
+
+VI. American passports have been counterfeited and counterfeits found on
+German agents. Baron von Cupenberg, a German agent, when arrested
+abroad, bore a counterfeit of an American passport issued to Gustav C.
+Roeder; Irving Guy Ries received an American passport, went to Germany,
+where the police retained his passports for twenty-four hours. Later a
+German spy named Carl Paul Julius Hensel was arrested in London with a
+counterfeit of the Ries passport in his possession.
+
+[Sidenote: Coaling German warships.]
+
+VII. Prominent officials of the Hamburg-American Line, who, under the
+direction of Captain Boy-Ed, endeavored to provide German warships at
+sea with coal and other supplies in violation of the statutes of the
+United States, have been tried and convicted and sentenced to the
+penitentiary. Some twelve or more vessels were involved in this plan.
+
+[Sidenote: Indictments returned.]
+
+VIII. Under the direction of Captain Boy-Ed and the German Consulate at
+San Francisco, and in violation of our law, the steamships _Sacramento_
+and _Mazatlan_ carried supplies from San Francisco to German war
+vessels. The _Olsen_ and _Mahoney_, which were engaged in a similar
+enterprise, were detained. The money for these ventures was furnished by
+Captain Boy-Ed. Indictments have been returned in connection with these
+matters against a large number of persons.
+
+[Sidenote: The case of Werner Horn.]
+
+IX. Werner Horn, a Lieutenant in the German reserve, was furnished funds
+by Captain Franz von Papen and sent, with dynamite, under orders to blow
+up the International Bridge at Vanceboro, Maine. He was partially
+successful. He is now under indictment for the unlawful transportation
+of dynamite on passenger trains and is in jail awaiting trial following
+the dismissal of his appeal by the Supreme Court.
+
+[Sidenote: Plot to blow up factory.]
+
+X. Captain von Papen furnished funds to Albert Kaltschmidt of Detroit,
+who is involved in a plot to blow up a factory at Walkerville, Canada,
+and the armory at Windsor, Canada.
+
+[Sidenote: Bombs on ships.]
+
+XI. Robert Fay, Walter Scholtz, and Paul Doeche have been convicted and
+sentenced to the penitentiary and three others are under indictment for
+conspiracy to prepare bombs and attach them to allied ships leaving New
+York Harbor. Fay, who was the principal in this scheme, was a German
+soldier. He testified that he received finances from a German secret
+agent in Brussels, and told Von Papen of his plans, who advised him that
+his device was not practicable, but that he should go ahead with it, and
+if he could make it work he would consider it.
+
+[Sidenote: Incendiary bombs on allied vessels.]
+
+XII. Under the direction of Captain von Papen and Wolf von Igel, Dr.
+Walter T. Scheele, Captain von Kleist, Captain Wolpert of the Atlas
+Steamship Company, and Captain Rode of the Hamburg-American Line
+manufactured incendiary bombs and placed them on board allied vessels.
+The shells in which the chemicals were placed were made on board the
+steamship _Friedrich der Grosse_. Scheele was furnished $1,000 by von
+Igel wherewith to become a fugitive from justice.
+
+[Sidenote: Rintelen's plots.]
+
+XIII. Captain Franz Rintelen, a reserve officer in the German Navy, came
+to this country secretly for the purpose of preventing the exportation
+of munitions of war to the Allies and of getting to Germany needed
+supplies. He organized and financed Labor's National Peace Council in an
+effort to bring about an embargo on the shipment of munitions of war,
+tried to bring about strikes, &c.
+
+[Sidenote: Conspiracy to wreck vessels and blow up railroad tunnels.]
+
+XIV. Consul General Bopp, at San Francisco, Vice Consul General von
+Schaick, Baron George Wilhelm von Brincken (an employe of the
+consulate), Charles C. Crowley, and Mrs. Margaret W. Cornell (secret
+agents of the German Consulate at San Francisco) have been convicted of
+conspiracy to send agents into Canada to blow up railroad tunnels and
+bridges, and to wreck vessels sailing from Pacific Coast ports with war
+material for Russia and Japan.
+
+[Sidenote: Spies sent to Canada.]
+
+XV. Paul Koenig, head of the secret service work of the Hamburg-American
+Line, by direction of his superior officers, largely augmented his
+organization and under the direction of von Papen, Boy-Ed, and Albert
+carried on secret work for the German Government. He secured and sent
+spies to Canada to gather information concerning the Welland Canal, the
+movements of Canadian troops to England, bribed an employe of a bank for
+information concerning shipments to the Allies, sent spies to Europe on
+American passports to secure military information, and was involved with
+Captain von Papen in plans to place bombs on ships of the Allies
+leaving New York Harbor, &c. Von Papen, Boy-Ed, and Albert had frequent
+conferences with Koenig in his office, at theirs, and at outside places.
+Koenig and certain of his associates are under indictment.
+
+[Sidenote: Attempt on Welland Canal.]
+
+XVI. Captain von Papen, Captain Hans Tauscher, Wolf von Igel, and a
+number of German reservists organized an expedition to go into Canada,
+destroy the Welland Canal, and endeavor to terrorize Canadians in order
+to delay the sending of troops from Canada to Europe. Indictments have
+been returned against these persons. Wolf von Igel furnished Fritzen,
+one of the conspirators in this case, money on which to flee from New
+York City, Fritzen is now in jail in New York City.
+
+[Sidenote: Revolt in India plotted.]
+
+XVII. With money furnished by official German representatives in this
+country, a cargo of arms and ammunition was purchased and shipped on
+board the schooner _Annie Larsen_. Through the activities of German
+official representatives in this country and other Germans a number of
+Indians were procured to form an expedition to go on the steamship
+_Maverick_, meet the _Annie Larsen_, take over her cargo, and endeavor
+to bring about a revolution in India. This plan involved the sending of
+a German officer to drill Indian recruits and the entire plan was
+managed and directed by Captain von Papen, Captain Hans Tauscher, and
+other official German representatives in this country.
+
+[Sidenote: False affidavit about the _Lusitania_.]
+
+XVIII. Gustav Stahl, a German reservist, made an affidavit which he
+admitted was false, regarding the armament of the _Lusitania_, which
+affidavit was forwarded to the State Department by Ambassador von
+Bernstorff. He plead guilty to an indictment charging perjury, and was
+sentenced to the penitentiary. Koenig, herein mentioned, was active in
+securing this affidavit.
+
+[Sidenote: Interference with manufacturers.]
+
+XIX. The German Embassy organized, directed, and financed the Hans Libau
+Employment Agency, through which extended efforts were made to induce
+employes of manufacturers engaged in supplying various kinds of material
+to the Allies to give up their positions in an effort to interfere with
+the output of such manufacturers. Von Papen indorsed this organization
+as a military measure, and it was hoped through its propaganda to
+cripple munition factories.
+
+[Sidenote: Newspapers financed.]
+
+XX. The German Government has assisted financially a number of
+newspapers in this country in return for pro-German propaganda.
+
+[Sidenote: Mexican difficulties increased.]
+
+XXI. Many facts have been secured indicating that Germans have aided and
+encouraged financially and otherwise the activities of one or the other
+faction in Mexico, the purpose being to keep the United States occupied
+along its borders and to prevent the exportation of munitions of war to
+the Allies; see, in this connection, the activities of Rintelen,
+Stallforth, Kopf, the German Consul at Chihuahua; Krum-Hellen, Felix
+Somerfeld (Villa's representative at New York), Carl Heynen, Gustav
+Steinberg, and many others.
+
+[Sidenote: Relief ships plainly marked.]
+
+When the Commission for Relief in Belgium began its work in October,
+1914, it received from the German authorities, through the various
+Governments concerned, definite written assurances that ships engaged in
+carrying cargoes for the relief of the civil population of Belgium and
+Northern France should be immune from attack. In order that there may be
+no room for attacks upon these ships through misunderstanding, each ship
+is given a safe conduct by the German diplomatic representative in the
+country from which it sails, and, in addition, bears conspicuously upon
+its sides markings which have been agreed upon with the German
+authorities; furthermore, similar markings are painted upon the decks
+of the ships in order that they may be readily recognized by airplanes.
+
+Upon the rupture of relations with Germany the commission was definitely
+assured by the German Government that its ships would be immune from
+attack by following certain prescribed courses and conforming to the
+arrangements previously made.
+
+[Sidenote: Unwarranted attacks.]
+
+Despite these solemn assurances there have been several unwarranted
+attacks upon ships under charter to the commission.
+
+On March 7 or 8 the Norwegian ship _Storstad_, carrying 10,000 tons of
+corn from Buenos Aires to Rotterdam for the commission was sunk in broad
+daylight by a German submarine despite the conspicuous markings of the
+commission which the submarine could not help observing. The _Storstad_
+was repeatedly shelled without warning and finally torpedoed.
+
+[Sidenote: Men killed on torpedoed relief ships.]
+
+On March 19 the steamships _Tunisie_ and _Haelen_, under charter to the
+commission, proceeding to the United States under safe conducts and
+guarantees from the German Minister at The Hague and bearing conspicuous
+marking of the commission, were attacked without warning by a German
+submarine outside the danger zone (56 degrees 15 minutes north, 5
+degrees 32 minutes east). The ships were not sunk, but on the _Haelen_
+seven men were killed, including the first and third officers; a port
+boat was sunk; a hole was made in the port bunker above the water line;
+and the ships sustained sundry damages to decks and engines.
+
+[Sidenote: Consular officers suffer indignities.]
+
+Various Consular officers have suffered indignities and humiliation at
+the hands of German frontier authorities. The following are
+illustrations:
+
+Mr. Pike, Consul at St. Gall, Switzerland, on proceeding to his post
+with a passport duly indorsed by German officials in New York and
+Copenhagen, was on November 26, 1916, subjected to great indignities at
+Warnemünde on the German frontier. Mr. Pike refused to submit to search
+of his person, the removal of his clothing, or the seizure of his
+official reports and papers of a private and confidential nature. He was
+therefore obliged to return to Copenhagen.
+
+Mr. Murphy, the Consul General at Sofia, and his wife, provided with
+passports from the German legations at The Hague and Copenhagen, were on
+two occasions stripped and searched and subjected to great humiliation
+at the same frontier station. No consideration was given them because of
+their official position.
+
+[Sidenote: Outrageous behavior of German officials.]
+
+Such has been the behavior on the part of German officials
+notwithstanding that Consular officials hold positions of dignity and
+responsibility under their Government and that during the present war
+Germany has been placed under deep obligation to American Consular
+officers by their efforts in the protection of German interests.
+
+[Sidenote: Neutrals on the _Yarrowdale_ held as prisoners.]
+
+On January 19, Mr. Gerard telegraphed that the evening papers contained
+a report that the English steamer _Yarrowdale_ had been brought to
+Swinemünde as prize with 469 prisoners on board taken from ships
+captured by German auxiliary cruisers; that among these prisoners were
+103 neutrals.
+
+After repeated inquiries Mr. Gerard learned that there were among the
+_Yarrowdale_ prisoners seventy-two men claiming American citizenship.
+
+On February 4 Mr. Gerard was informed by Count Montgelas of the Foreign
+Office that the Americans taken on the _Yarrowdale_ would be released
+immediately on the ground that they could not have known at the time of
+sailing that it was Germany's intention to treat armed merchantmen as
+ships of war.
+
+Despite this assurance, the prisoners were not released, but some time
+prior to February 17 the German Minister for Foreign Affairs told the
+Spanish Ambassador that the American prisoners from the _Yarrowdale_
+would be liberated "in a very short time."
+
+[Sidenote: A formal demand for release of _Yarrowdale_ prisoners.]
+
+Upon receipt of this information a formal demand was made through the
+Spanish Ambassador at Berlin for the immediate release of these men. The
+message sent the Spanish Ambassador was as follows:
+
+[Sidenote: American prisoners must be released.]
+
+"If _Yarrowdale_ prisoners have not been released, please make formal
+demand in the name of the United States for their immediate release. If
+they are not promptly released and allowed to cross the frontier without
+further delay, please state to the Foreign Minister that this policy of
+the Imperial Government, if continued, apparently without the slightest
+justification, will oblige the Government of the United States to
+consider what measures it may be necessary to take in order to obtain
+satisfaction for the continued detention of these innocent American
+citizens."
+
+[Sidenote: _Yarrowdale_ men reach Switzerland.]
+
+On February 25 the American Ambassador at Madrid was informed by the
+Spanish Foreign Office that the _Yarrowdale_ prisoners had been released
+on the 16th inst. The foregoing statement appears to have been based on
+erroneous information. The men finally reached Zurich, Switzerland, on
+the afternoon of March 11.
+
+[Sidenote: Treatment cruel and heartless.]
+
+Official reports now in the possession of the Department of State
+indicate that these American sailors were from the moment of their
+arrival in Germany, on January 3, subjected to the most cruel and
+heartless treatment. Although the weather was very cold, they were given
+no suitable clothes, and many of them stood about for hours barefoot in
+the snow. The food supplied them was utterly inadequate. After one cup
+of coffee in the morning almost the only article of food given them was
+boiled frosted cabbage, with mush once a week and beans once a week. One
+member of the crew states that, without provocation, he was severely
+kicked in the abdomen by a German officer. He appears still to be
+suffering severely from this assault. Another sailor is still suffering
+from a wound caused by shrapnel fired by the Germans at an open boat in
+which he and his companions had taken refuge after the sinking of the
+_Georgic_.
+
+[Sidenote: Drowning preferred to German prison.]
+
+All of the men stated that their treatment had been so inhuman that
+should a submarine be sighted in the course of their voyage home they
+would prefer to be drowned rather than have any further experience in
+German prison camps.
+
+It is significant that the inhuman treatment accorded these American
+sailors occurred a month before the break in relations and while Germany
+was on every occasion professing the most cordial friendship for the
+United States.
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Gerard is deprived of means of communication.]
+
+After the suspension of diplomatic relations the German authorities cut
+off the telephone at the embassy at Berlin and suppressed Mr. Gerard's
+communication by telegraph and post. Mr. Gerard was not even permitted
+to send to American Consular officers in Germany the instructions he had
+received for them from the Department of State. Neither was he allowed
+to receive his mail. Just before he left Berlin the telephonic
+communication at the embassy was restored and some telegrams and letters
+were delivered. No apologies were offered, however.
+
+[Sidenote: The German note to Mexico.]
+
+The Government of the United States is in possession of instructions
+addressed by the German Minister for Foreign Affairs to the German
+Minister to Mexico concerning a proposed alliance of Germany, Japan, and
+Mexico to make war on the United States. The text of this document is as
+follows:
+
+                                            "BERLIN, January 19, 1917.
+
+"On the 1st of February we intend to begin submarine warfare
+unrestricted. In spite of this it is our intention to endeavor to keep
+neutral the United States of America.
+
+[Sidenote: Basis of alliance proposed to Mexico.]
+
+"If this attempt is not successful, we propose an alliance on the
+following basis with Mexico: That we shall make war together and
+together make peace. We shall give general financial support, and it is
+understood that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in New Mexico,
+Texas, and Arizona. The details are left to you for settlement.
+
+[Sidenote: Japan to be included.]
+
+"You are instructed to inform the President of Mexico of the above in
+the greatest confidence as soon as it is certain there will be an
+outbreak of war with the United States, and suggest that the President
+of Mexico on his own initiative should communicate with Japan suggesting
+adherence at once to this plan; at the same time offer to mediate
+between Germany and Japan.
+
+"Please call to the attention of the President of Mexico that the
+employment of ruthless submarine warfare now promises to compel England
+to make peace in a few months.
+
+                                                "(Signed) ZIMMERMANN."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The United States was, to a large extent, unprepared for war on the
+outbreak of hostilities with Germany. But when the step finally was
+taken, all the industrial, economic, and military resources, of the
+country, were mobilized. An account of how this was accomplished and the
+results of these efforts are described in the pages following.
+
+
+
+
+PREPARING FOR WAR
+
+NEWTON D. BAKER
+
+SECRETARY OF WAR
+
+
+[Sidenote: State of war formally declared.]
+
+[Sidenote: Neutrality had delayed military preparations.]
+
+[Sidenote: Great armies necessary.]
+
+[Sidenote: Organization of finance, agriculture and industry.]
+
+On the 6th day of April Congress declared "That the state of war between
+the United States and the Imperial German Government which had been
+thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared." By this
+declaration and the proclamation of the President pursuant thereto, the
+United States entered the great conflict which had raged in Europe from
+August, 1914, as a belligerent power, and began immediately to prepare
+to defend the rights of the Nation, which for months had been endangered
+and denied by high-handed and inhuman acts of the German Government both
+on land and sea. The peaceful ambitions of our people had long postponed
+our entrance into the conflict; and adherence to a strict neutrality
+through long months of delicate situations delayed the beginning of
+active military preparation. At once, however, upon a declaration of a
+state of war, Congress began the consideration of the measures necessary
+for the enlargement of the military forces and the coordination of the
+industrial strength of the Nation. It was understood at the outset that
+war under modern conditions involved not only larger armies than the
+United States had ever assembled, but also more far-reaching
+modifications of our ordinary industrial processes and wider departures
+from the peace-time activities of the people. The task of the United
+States was not only immediately to increase its naval and military
+forces, not only to order the agricultural and industrial life of the
+Nation to support these enlarged military establishments, but also to
+bear an increasing financial, industrial, and agricultural burden for
+the support of those nations which, since 1914, have been in arms
+against the Imperial German Government and have borne not only the full
+force of the attack of its great military machine, but also the
+continuing drain upon their economic resources and their capacity for
+production which so titanic and long-continued a struggle necessarily
+entail.
+
+[Sidenote: The whole people wish to help.]
+
+[Sidenote: Benevolent and philanthropic societies.]
+
+The first response from the country to the act of Congress in declaring
+a state of war came in the form of offers of services from the people,
+and for weeks there poured into the War Department an almost bewildering
+stream of letters and visitors offering service of every kind. Without
+distinction of age, sex, or occupation, without distinction of
+geographical location or sectional difference, the people arose with but
+one thought in their mind, that of tendering themselves, their talents,
+and their substance for the best use the country could make of them in
+the emergency. Organizations and associations sprang up over night in
+thousands of places, inspired by the hope that collective offers and
+aggregations of strength and facilities might be more readily
+assimilated by the Government; and benevolent and philanthropic
+societies began to form for the purpose of taking up as far as might be
+the vicarious griefs which follow in the train of military operations.
+There was at the outset some inevitable crossing of purposes and
+duplication of effort, and perhaps there may have been some
+disappointment that a more instantaneous use could not be made of all
+this wealth of willingness and patriotic spirit; but it was a superb and
+inspiring spectacle. Out of the body of a nation devoted to productive
+and peaceful pursuits, and evidencing its collective spirit only upon
+occasions for the settlement of domestic and institutional questions,
+there arose the figure of a national spirit which had lain dormant until
+summoned by a national emergency; but which, when it emerged, was seen
+to embody loyalty to our institutions, unity of purpose, and willingness
+to sacrifice on the part of our entire people as their underlying and
+dominant character.
+
+[Sidenote: Great national strength in a free people.]
+
+Those who believed that the obvious and daily exhibition of power which
+takes place in an autocracy is necessary for national strength,
+discovered that a finer, and freer, and greater national strength
+subsists in a free people, and that the silent processes of democracy,
+with their normal accent on the freedom of individuals, nevertheless
+afford springs of collective action and inspiration for self-sacrifice
+as wide and effective as they are spontaneous. The several Government
+departments, the Council of National Defense, and other agencies of a
+more or less formal character subdivided the work of organization.
+Congress rapidly perfected its legislative program, and in a few weeks
+very definite direction began to appear in the work of preparation.
+
+[Sidenote: Act to increase Military Establishment.]
+
+The act of May 18, 1917, entitled "An act to authorize the President to
+increase temporarily the Military Establishment of the United States,"
+looked to three sources for the Army which it created:
+
+[Sidenote: Regular Army to be increased.]
+
+1. The regular Army, of which the actual strength on June 30, 1917, was
+250,157 men and officers. The provisions of the act, however,
+contemplated an increase of the Regular Army to 18,033 officers and
+470,185 enlisted men, the increase being effected by the immediate call
+of the increments provided in the National Defense Act of 1916, and the
+raising of all branches of the service to war strength.
+
+[Sidenote: National Guard to be reorganized.]
+
+2. The National Guard, reorganized under the National Defense Act, and
+containing on the 30th of June, 1917, approximately 3,803 officers and
+107,320 enlisted men. The National Guard, however, by recruiting of its
+numbers and the raising of all arms to war strength, contemplated a
+total of 13,377 officers and 456,800 enlisted men.
+
+[Sidenote: National Army to be raised by Selective Draft.]
+
+3. In addition to this, the act provided for a National Army, raised by
+the process of selective conscription or draft, of which the President
+was empowered to summon two units of 500,000 men each at such time as he
+should determine wise.
+
+[Sidenote: National Guard training camps.]
+
+On the 3d day of July, 1917, the President by proclamation called into
+the Federal service and drafted the National Guard of the several States
+and the District of Columbia. And 16 divisional camps were established
+for their mobilization and training, as follows:
+
+Charlotte, N. C.; Spartanburg, S. C.; Augusta, Ga.; Anniston, Ala.;
+Greenville, S. C.; Macon, Ga.; Waco, Tex.; Houston, Tex.; Deming, N.
+Mex.; Fort Sill, Okla.; Forth Worth, Tex.; Montgomery, Ala.;
+Hattiesburg, Miss.; Alexandria, La.; Buena Vista, Cal.; Palo Alto, Cal.
+
+[Sidenote: Voluntary enlistment in the Regular Army and National Guard.]
+
+[Sidenote: A spirit of cooperation.]
+
+The principle of voluntary enlistment to fill up the ranks of the
+Regular Army and the National Guard, and to raise them to war strength
+was preserved in the act of May 18, 1917, the maximum age for enlistment
+in both services being fixed at 40 years. Even before the passage of the
+act, however, very great recruiting activity was shown throughout the
+country, the total number of enlistments in the Regular Army for the
+fiscal year 1917 being 160,084. The record of National Guard enlistments
+has not yet been completely compiled, but the act authorizing a
+temporary increase in the military establishment provided that any
+deficiency remaining in either the Regular Army or the National Guard
+should be made up by selective conscription. The introduction of this
+new method of enlistment so far affected the whole question of selection
+for military service that any deductions, either favorable or
+unfavorable, from the number of voluntary enlistments, would be
+unwarranted. It is entirely just to say that the States generally showed
+a most sympathetic spirit of cooperation with the National Government,
+and the National Guard responded with zeal and enthusiasm to the
+President's call.
+
+[Sidenote: No exact precedent to follow.]
+
+[Sidenote: England finally resorted to draft.]
+
+[Sidenote: Organized industry back of armies.]
+
+In the preparation of the act providing for the temporary increase in
+the Military Establishment, very earnest consideration was given by the
+committees of the two Houses of Congress and by the Department to the
+principles which would be followed in creating a military establishment
+under modern conditions adequate for the tremendous emergency facing the
+Nation. Our own history and experience with the volunteer system
+afforded little precedent because of the new conditions, and the
+experience of European nations was neither uniform nor wholly adequate.
+Our adversary, the German Empire, had for many years followed the
+practice of universal compulsory military training and service, so that
+it was a nation of trained soldiers. In France the same situation had
+existed. In England, on the other hand, the volunteer system had
+continued, and the British army was relatively a small body. The
+urgency, however, of the British need at the outbreak of the war, and
+the unbroken traditions of England, were against even the delay
+necessary to consider the principle upon which action might best be
+taken, so that England's first effort was reduced to that volunteer
+system, and her subsequent resort to the draft was made after a long
+experience in raising vast numbers of men by volunteer enlistment as a
+result of campaigns of agitation and patriotic appeal. The war in
+Europe, however, had lasted long enough to make quite clear the
+character of the contest. It was obviously no such war as had ever
+before occurred, both in the vast numbers of men necessary to be engaged
+in strictly military occupations and in the elaborate and far-reaching
+organization of industrial and civil society of the Nation back of the
+Army.
+
+Our military legislation was drafted after very earnest consideration,
+to accomplish the following objects:
+
+1. To provide in successive bodies adequate numbers of men to be trained
+and used as combatant forces.
+
+2. To select for these armies men of suitable age and strength.
+
+[Sidenote: Universal obligation to service.]
+
+3. To distribute the burden of the military defense of the Nation in the
+most equitable and democratic manner, and to that end to recognize the
+universality of the obligation of service.
+
+[Sidenote: Necessary men to be kept in industry.]
+
+4. To reserve to the public authorities power so to control the
+selection of soldiers as to prevent the absorption of men indispensable
+to agriculture and industry, and to prevent the loss of national
+strength involved by the acceptance into military service of men whose
+greatest usefulness is in scientific pursuits or in production.
+
+5. To select, so far as may be, those men for military service whose
+families and domestic obligations could best bear their separation from
+home and dependents, and thus to cause the least possible distress among
+the families of the Nation which are dependent upon the daily earnings
+of husbands and fathers for their support.
+
+These considerations, shortly stated, amount to a policy which,
+recognizing the life of the nation as a whole, and assuming both the
+obligation and the willingness of the citizen to give the maximum of
+service, institutes a national process for the expression of our
+military, industrial, and financial strength, all at their highest, and
+with the least waste, loss, and distress.
+
+[Sidenote: Regular Army and National Guard increased.]
+
+The act of Congress authorizing the President to increase temporarily
+the Military Establishment of the United States, approved May 18, 1917,
+provided for the raising and maintaining by selective draft of
+increments (in addition to the Regular Army and National Guard) of
+500,000 men each, together with recruit training units for the
+maintenance of such increments at the maximum strength, and the raising,
+organizing, and maintaining of additional auxiliary forces, and also for
+raising and maintaining at their maximum strength, by selective draft
+when necessary, the Regular Army and the National Guard drafted into the
+service of the United States.
+
+[Sidenote: Male citizens between 21 and 30 years liable to military
+service.]
+
+It also provided that such draft "shall be based upon liability to
+military service of all male citizens, or male persons not alien
+enemies, who have declared their intention to become citizens, between
+the ages of 21 and 30 years, both inclusive"; that the several States,
+Territories, and the District of Columbia should furnish their
+proportionate shares or quotas of the citizen soldiery determined in
+proportion to the population thereof, with certain credits allowed for
+volunteer enlistments in branches of the service then organized and
+existing.
+
+The Nation was confronted with the task of constructing, without delay,
+an organization by which the selection might be made for the entire
+country by means of a uniform and regulated system.
+
+[Sidenote: The Provost Marshal General begins registration.]
+
+A suggestion of administration, incomplete because of entirely different
+conditions, arose from the precedent of the Civil War draft; and on May
+22, 1917, the Judge Advocate General was detailed as "Provost Marshal
+General" and charged with the execution, under the Secretary of War, of
+so much of the act of May 18 "as relates to the registration and the
+selective draft." Plans had already been formulated for the operation of
+the selective draft, and with the formal designation of the Provost
+Marshal General the work of organization began.
+
+[Sidenote: State organization utilized.]
+
+It was obvious that to build up a new Federal organization would require
+a greater period of time than was afforded by the military necessity.
+The existing governmental organizations of the several States presented
+an available substitute, and the statute authorized their use. This
+expedient was unprecedented, but its practice has abundantly justified
+its adoption.
+
+[Sidenote: State registration boards.]
+
+The immediate need was for a comprehensive registration of every male of
+draft age. To effect this registration each State was divided into
+districts containing a population of approximately 30,000, in each of
+which a registration board was appointed by the governor. Usually this
+board consisted of the sheriff, the county health officer, and the
+county clerk; and where the county's population, exclusive of cities of
+more than 30,000 inhabitants, exceeded that number, additional
+registration boards were appointed. Cities of over 30,000 were treated
+as separate units. The election district was established as the actual
+unit for registration in order that the normal election machinery might
+be utilized, and a registrar for every 800 of population in each voting
+or election precinct was appointed by the registration board. In cities
+approximating 30,000 of population, the registration board was made up
+of city officials, and where the population exceeded the unit number
+additional registration boards of three members were appointed, one a
+licensed physician.
+
+[Sidenote: The scheme of organization.]
+
+Governors and mayors were given considerable latitude in making
+geographical divisions of the States and cities for the purpose of
+defining registration jurisdictions; the only limitation being that
+approximately 30,000 inhabitants should be included within the confines
+of a district. The general scheme was that the board of three should
+exercise supervision over the precinct registrars, the governors
+supervising the work of the registration boards, while the mayors of
+cities containing 30,000 or more inhabitants acted as intermediaries
+between governors and registration boards. Each State was constituted a
+separate unit and each governor was charged with the execution of the
+law in his State.
+
+[Sidenote: Ten million young men register.]
+
+By proclamation of the President, dated May 18, 1917, Tuesday, June 5,
+1917, was designated as registration day throughout the United States,
+with the exception of Alaska, Hawaii, and Porto Rico; and, due to the
+fact that registration organization of the States had been so quickly
+and thoroughly completed, about 10,000,000 male citizens of the
+designated ages were registered on the day set, and the first step in
+the operation of the selective service law was accomplished.
+
+Registration consisted in entering on a card essential facts necessary
+to a complete identification of the registrant and a preliminary survey
+of his domestic and economic circumstances.
+
+[Sidenote: Citizens carry out registration.]
+
+It is noteworthy that this registration throughout the entire country
+was carried out in the main by the voluntary and energetic efforts of
+citizens, and the Government was thereby saved a very great expense
+through the efficient organization which had been constructed and
+furnished with all necessary materials during the short period of
+sixteen days.
+
+[Sidenote: Examination, selection, and mobilization.]
+
+[Sidenote: Representative citizens of each community employed.]
+
+With registration completed there followed the operation of examination,
+selection, and mobilization. The unit jurisdiction of approximately
+30,000 of population was maintained as far as possible, and for each
+district or division a local board of three members was appointed by the
+President upon the recommendation of the governor. The board members
+were residents of the districts they served, and the personnel comprised
+representative and responsible citizens of the community, including
+usually a licensed physician. In many cases registration boards were
+reappointed local boards. Such boards exercised original jurisdiction in
+all cases except claims for discharge on account of engagement in
+industry or agriculture.
+
+In every Federal judicial district one or more district boards were
+organized, consisting usually of five but in some cases of a larger
+number of members, comprising leading citizens of the community and
+appointed by the President upon the recommendation of the governor.
+District boards exercised appellate jurisdiction over local boards and
+original jurisdiction in industrial and agricultural claims.
+
+[Sidenote: The order of liability of registrants.]
+
+[Sidenote: Numbered cards.]
+
+[Sidenote: The drawing in Washington on July 20, 1917.]
+
+The initial step in the process of examination and selection was to
+establish the order of liability of each of the 10,000,000 registrants
+to be called for service. The cards within the jurisdiction of each
+local board, taken as a unit, had been serially numbered when completed
+and filed; and duplicates of the cards so numbered were deposited with
+the governor and with the district boards. The average number of
+registrants within the jurisdiction of a local board was about 2,500,
+the highest being 10,319. In order to establish the order of liability
+of each registrant in relation to the other registrants within the
+jurisdiction of the same local board, a drawing was held July 20, 1917,
+in the Public Hearing Room of the Senate Office Building in Washington,
+as a result of which every registrant was given an order number and his
+liability to be called for examination and selection determined by the
+order number.
+
+The official lists of the numbers drawn by lot were furnished to every
+local board and from these lists the boards made up the availability
+order list of all registrants within their respective jurisdictions.
+
+[Sidenote: Physical examination and elimination.]
+
+The determination of the order of availability left only the process of
+physical examination and elimination. The War Department, through the
+Provost Marshal General's Office, had already determined and given
+notice of the number of men to be furnished by each State, and at the
+date of the drawing practically every State had ascertained and notified
+its local boards of the number required to complete their respective
+quotas for the first draft. The calculations of the War Department and
+of the States for the quotas were based upon section 2 of the act of May
+18.
+
+Immediately upon the completion of the order of call lists, the local
+boards began to summon for physical examination, beginning with the man
+who was No. 1 on the list, and continuing in numerical sequence, a
+sufficient number of registrants to fill their quotas. The average
+number summoned for the first examination was about twice the number
+required--i. e., if a board's quota was 105, the first 210 registrants
+of that jurisdiction were called for physical examination.
+
+[Sidenote: Certain officials and classes exempted.]
+
+The Selective Service Law required certain persons to be exempted from
+military service, including Federal and State legislative, executive,
+and judicial officers, ministers of religion, students of divinity,
+persons in the military or naval service of the United States, and
+certain aliens. The law further authorized the discharge from draft,
+under such regulations as the President might prescribe, of county and
+municipal officers, customhouse clerks and other persons employed by the
+United States in certain classes of work, pilots and mariners, and,
+within prescribed limitations, registrants in a status with respect to
+persons dependent upon them for support, and persons found physically or
+morally unfit. Exemption from combatant service only was authorized in
+the case of persons found to be members of any well-recognized religious
+sect or organization whose existing creed or principles forbid its
+members to participate in war in any form, and whose religious
+convictions are against war or participation therein.
+
+[Sidenote: Rules governing discharges.]
+
+On June 30, 1917, the President promulgated rules and regulations as
+authorized by the law prescribing the reasons for and manner of granting
+discharges, and the procedure of local and district boards.
+
+The selective service system required the 4,557 local boards to conduct
+the physical examination of registrants within their jurisdictions, and
+to determine and dispose of claims of exemption and discharge in the
+first instance, excepting industrial and agricultural claims.
+
+[Sidenote: The power of the district boards.]
+
+The 156 district boards which were established as above stated, proved
+to be the fulcrum of balance between the local boards and the
+registrants. In practically every instance their members have been
+chosen from among the most able and conspicuous representatives of the
+legal and medical professions, and from the fields of industry,
+commerce, and labor.
+
+[Sidenote: Appeal agents appointed.]
+
+By regulation the case of every person discharged from the operation of
+the selective service law by a local board on the ground of dependency
+was automatically taken to the district board for review, the appeal
+being noted by Government appeal agents appointed by the Provost Marshal
+General.
+
+[Sidenote: Dependency cases the most difficult.]
+
+Registrants whose claims were disallowed by local boards appealed in
+large numbers to district boards. Thus was obtained a high degree of
+uniformity of decisions in dependency cases, which were by far the most
+difficult of determination and disposition, as well as the most
+numerous, of the classes of cases throughout the first draft.
+
+Cases involving claims for discharge on agricultural and industrial
+grounds, of which district boards have original jurisdiction, are
+appealable to the President, and to date approximately 20,000 of these
+have been received and indexed, of which about 80 per cent are claims
+for discharge based on agricultural grounds and 20 per cent on
+industrial grounds. Of cases already disposed of on appeal from the
+district boards less than 7 per cent have been reversed. The pending of
+an appeal to the President does not operate as a stay of induction into
+military service except where the district board has expressly so
+directed, and the number of such stays is negligible.
+
+[Sidenote: The total cost of the draft.]
+
+The total cost of the draft can not be estimated accurately at this
+time, but, based upon the data at hand, the total registration and
+selection of the first 687,000 men has amounted to an approximate
+expenditure of $5,600,000, or about $8.11 unit cost.
+
+[Sidenote: Universal willingness to serve.]
+
+[Sidenote: High quality of men obtained.]
+
+The unprecedented character of this undertaking is a matter of common
+knowledge. Congress, in the consideration of the act which authorized
+it, entertained grave doubts as to whether a plan could be devised which
+would apply so new a principle of selection for national service without
+much misunderstanding and unhappiness. But the results have been of a
+most inspiring kind and have demonstrated the universal willingness of
+our people to serve in the defense of our liberties and to commit the
+selection of the Nation's defenders to the Nation itself. The men
+selected have reported to the camps and are in course of training. They
+constitute as fine a body of raw material as were ever trained in
+military science. They are already acquiring the smartness and soldierly
+bearing characteristic of American troops, and those who once thought
+that the volunteer spirit was necessary to insure contentment and zeal
+in soldiers now freely admit that the men selected under this act have
+these qualities in high degree and that it proceeds out of a patriotic
+willingness on the part of the men to bear their part of the national
+burden and to do their duty at the Nation's call.
+
+[Sidenote: Ability of Provost Marshal General.]
+
+[Sidenote: This mode of selection made necessary by conditions of modern
+war.]
+
+[Sidenote: The democratic fairness of the plan.]
+
+The success of this great undertaking is, of course, primarily due to
+the painstaking forethought and the statesmanlike breadth of view with
+which the Provost Marshal General and his associates organized the
+machinery for its execution. But other elements have contributed to its
+success, and first among these was the determination to rely upon the
+cooperation of the governors of States and State agencies in the
+assembling of the registration and exemption boards. By reason of this
+association of State and local agencies with the National Government the
+law came as no outside mandate enforced by soldiers, but as a working
+of the home institutions in the hands of neighbors and acquaintances
+pursuing a clear process of selection, and resulting in a gift by the
+States to the Nation of a body of men to be trained. The press of the
+country cooperated in a most helpful way, drawing the obvious
+distinctions between this mode of selection and those punitive drafts
+which have sometimes been resorted to after the failure of volunteering,
+and pointing out the young men of the country that the changed
+conditions of warfare made necessary a mode of selection which would
+preserve the industrial life of the Nation as a foundation for
+successful military operations. Indeed, the country seemed generally to
+have caught enough of the lessons of the European war to have realized
+the necessity of this procedure, and from the very beginning criticism
+was silenced and doubt answered by the obvious wisdom of the law.
+Moreover, the unquestioned fairness of the arrangements, the absence of
+all power of substitution, the fact that the processes of the law were
+worked out publicly, all cooperated to surround the draft with
+assurances of fairness and equality, so that throughout the whole
+country the attitude of the people toward the law was one of approval
+and confidence, and I feel very sure that those who at the beginning had
+any doubts would now with one accord agree that the selective service
+act provides not only a necessary mode of selecting the great armies
+needed under modern conditions, but that it provides a better and more
+democratic and a fairer method of distributing the burden of national
+defense than any other system as yet suggested.
+
+[Sidenote: Fundamental questions settled.]
+
+[Sidenote: Unity of spirit of American people.]
+
+This does not mean, of course, that the law is perfect either in its
+language or in its execution, nor does it mean that improvements may not
+be made as our experience grows and as the need for more intense
+national efforts increases; but such amendments as may hereafter be
+required will proceed with the fundamental questions settled and we have
+now only to consider changes which may be required to a better ordering
+of our military strength and a more efficient maintenance of our
+industrial and agricultural life during the stress of war. The passage
+and execution of this law may be regarded as a milestone in our progress
+toward self-consciousness and national strength. Its acceptance shows
+the unity of spirit of our people, and its operation shows that a
+democracy has in its institutions the concentrated energy necessary to
+great national activities however much they may be scattered and
+dispersed, in the interest of the preservation of individual liberty, in
+time of peace.
+
+[Sidenote: The Officer's Reserve Corps.]
+
+[Sidenote: Physicians commissioned in the Medical Department.]
+
+[Sidenote: Men from the Plattsburg training camps.]
+
+The problem presented involved not merely the selection of forces to be
+trained into armies but officers to do the training. By the provisions
+of the national defense act of June 3, 1916, Officers' Reserve Corps had
+been authorized. Rules and regulations for their organization were
+promulgated in July, 1916, and amended in March, 1917. Immediately upon
+the passage of the act, the building up of lists of reserve officers in
+the various sections of the Military Establishment was undertaken, with
+the result that at the end of the fiscal year some of the branches of
+the service had substantial lists of men available for duty in the event
+of call. The largest number of commissions were issued in the technical
+services, for which professional nonmilitary training was the principal
+requisite. The largest reserve corps was that in the Medical Department,
+in which more than 12,000 physicians were commissioned. The expansion of
+these technical services proceeded easily upon the basis of the reserve
+corps beginning, but the number of applicants for commissions in the
+strictly military or combatant branches of the service was relatively
+small. They consisted of men who had had military experience either in
+the Regular Army or the National Guard, and men who were graduates of
+schools and colleges affording military training, and of the training
+camps which for several years had been maintained at Plattsburg and
+throughout the country. Their number, however, was wholly inadequate,
+and their experience, while it had afforded the elements of military
+discipline, had not been such as was plainly required to train men for
+participation in the European war with its changed methods and
+conditions. The virtue of the law authorizing the Officers' Reserve
+Corps, however, became instantly apparent upon the declaration of war,
+as it enabled the department to establish officers' training camps for
+the rapid production of officers.
+
+[Sidenote: A series of officers training camps.]
+
+[Sidenote: Officers commissioned.]
+
+Accepting the Plattsburg experiment as the basis and using funds
+appropriated by Congress for an enlargement of the Plattsburg system of
+training, the department established a series of training camps, sixteen
+in number, which were opened on the 15th of May, 1917. The camps were
+scattered throughout the United States so as to afford the opportunity
+of entrance and training with the least inconvenience and expense of
+travel to prepare throughout the entire country. Officers previously
+commissioned in the reserve corps were required to attend the camps,
+and, in addition, approximately 30,000 selected candidates were accepted
+from among the much greater number who applied for admission. These
+camps were organized and conducted under the supervision of department
+commanders; applicants were required to state their qualifications and a
+rough apportionment was attempted among the candidates to the several
+States. At the conclusion of the camp, 27,341 officers were
+commissioned and directed to report at the places selected for the
+training of the new army. By this process, we supplied not only the
+officers needed for the National Army but filled the roster of the
+Regular Army, to which substantial additions were necessary by reason of
+the addition of the full number of increments provided by the National
+Defense Act of 1916.
+
+[Sidenote: The second series of officers' training camps.]
+
+[Sidenote: Officers needed also for staff duties.]
+
+[Sidenote: Constant experimentation necessary.]
+
+[Sidenote: Victory rests on science as much as on soldiers.]
+
+The results of the first series of camps were most satisfactory and,
+anticipating the calling of further increments of the National Army, a
+second series of camps was authorized, to begin August 27, 1917, under
+rules for the selection of candidates and their apportionment throughout
+the country which were much more searching and embodied those
+improvements which are always possible in the light of experience.
+Approximately 20,000 candidates are now attending this second series of
+camps, and those found qualified will shortly be commissioned and
+absorbed into the Army for the performance of the expanding volume of
+duties which the progress of preparation daily brings about. It is to be
+remembered that the need for officers exists not only in connection with
+the actual training of troops in camp and the leadership of troops in
+the field, but a vast number of officers must constantly be employed in
+staff duties, and great numbers must as constantly be engaged in
+military research and in specialized forms of training associated with
+the use of newly developed arms and appliances. In other words, we must
+maintain not merely the special-service schools which are required to
+perfect the training of officers in the special arms of the service, but
+we must constantly experiment with new devices and reduce to practical
+use the discoveries of science and the new applications of mechanical
+and scientific arts, both for offensive and defensive purposes. It
+would be out of place here to enumerate or describe in any detail the
+service of science in this war, but when the history of the struggle
+comes to be written it will be found that the masters of the chemical
+and physical sciences have thrown their talents and their ingenuity into
+the service, that their researches have been at the very basis of
+military progress, and that the victory rests as much upon a nation's
+supremacy in the researches and adaptations of science as it does upon
+the number and valor of its soldiers. Indeed, this is but one of the
+many evidences of the fact that modern war engages all of the resources
+of nations and that that nation will emerge victorious which has most
+completely used and coordinated all the intellectual, moral, and
+physical forces of its people.
+
+[Sidenote: Fundamentals of military discipline do not change.]
+
+[Sidenote: Professional soldiers still needed.]
+
+It would be a national loss for me to fail to record in this place a
+just estimate of the value to the Nation of these training camps for
+officers. They disclosed an unsuspected source of military strength.
+Nobody will suppose that, with the growing intricacy of military science
+and the industrial arts related to it, a country can dispense with
+trained professional soldiers. The fundamentals of military discipline
+remain substantially unchanged and, in order that we may assemble
+rapidly and effectively adequate military forces, there must always be
+in the country a body of men to whom the life of a soldier is a career
+and who have acquired from their youth those qualities which have, from
+the beginning, distinguished the graduates of the Military Academy at
+West Point: the disciplined honor, the unfaltering courage, the
+comprehension of sacrifice, and that knowing obedience which proceeds
+from constant demonstrations of the fact that effective cooperation in
+war requires instant compliance with the command of authority, the sort
+of obedience which knows that a battle field is no place for a
+parliament. Added to these mental and moral qualities, the body of
+professional soldiers must devote themselves unremittingly to the
+development of the arts of war, and when the emergency arises must be
+familiar with the uses of science and the applications of industry in
+military enterprise. But these training camps have taught us that, given
+this relatively small body of professional soldiers, the Nation has at
+hand an apparently inexhaustible body of splendid material which can be
+rapidly made to supplement the professional soldier.
+
+[Sidenote: Athletes from the colleges.]
+
+[Sidenote: Adaptability of American youth.]
+
+[Sidenote: Atmosphere of industrial and commercial democracy.]
+
+[Sidenote: Many officers assigned to training of troops from their
+homes.]
+
+When the first camp was opened, the colleges, military schools, and high
+schools of the country poured out a stream of young men whose minds had
+been trained in the classroom and whose bodies had been made supple and
+virile on the athletic field. They came with intelligence, energy, and
+enthusiasm and, under a course of intensive training, rapidly took on
+the added discipline and capacities necessary to equip them for the
+duties of officers. They have taken their places in the training camps
+and are daily demonstrating the value of their education and the
+adaptability of the spirit of American youth. A more salutary result
+would be impossible to imagine. The trained professional soldiers of the
+Army received this great body of youthful enthusiasm and capacity with
+hospitality and quickly impressed upon it a soldierly character. The
+young men brought to their training habits which they had formed for
+success as civilians, but which their patriotic enthusiasm rendered
+easily available in new lines of endeavor for the service of the
+country. They brought, too, another element of great value. They were
+assembled from all parts of the country; they were accustomed to the
+democracy of the college and high school; they recognized themselves as
+new and temporary adventurers in a military life; and they, therefore,
+reflected into our military preparation the fresh and invigorating
+atmosphere of our industrial and commercial democracy. This has
+undoubtedly contributed to the establishment of a happy spirit which
+prevails throughout the Army and has made it easy for the young men
+chosen under the selective service act to fall in with the training and
+mode of life which the military training camp requires. An effort was
+made by the department as far as possible to assign these young officers
+to the training of troops assembled from their own homes. By this means,
+a preexisting sympathy was used, and admiration and respect between
+officer and man was transferred from the home to the camp.
+
+[Sidenote: The three divisions of the Army.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enlistments may be for the period of the war.]
+
+[Sidenote: Men anxious to get to France soon.]
+
+[Sidenote: Traditions of military organizations preserved.]
+
+The three divisions of the Army, namely, the Regular Army, the National
+Guard, and the National Army, were very different organizations as we
+contemplated them at the time of the passage of the act for the
+temporary increase of the Military Establishment. The Regular Army was a
+veteran establishment of professional soldiers; the National Guard a
+volunteer organization of local origin maintained primarily for the
+preservation of domestic order in the several States, with an emergency
+duty toward the national defense; the National Army an unknown quantity,
+made up of men to be selected arbitrarily by tests and rules as yet to
+be formulated, unorganized, untrained, existing only in theory and,
+therefore, problematical as to its spirit and the length of time
+necessary to fit it for use. Congress, however, most wisely provided as
+far as possible for an elimination of these differences. Enlistments in
+the Regular Army and National Guard were authorized to be made for the
+period of the war rather than for fixed terms; the maximum and minimum
+ages of enlistment in the Regular Army and National Guard were
+assimilated; the rights and privileges of members of the three forces
+were made largely identical. Indeed, the act created but one army,
+selected by three processes. The wisdom of Congress in this course
+became instantly apparent. Spirited young men throughout the country
+began at once to enlist in the Regular Army and National Guard who might
+have been deterred from such enlistment had their obligation been for a
+fixed period rather than for the duration of the war. Many men asked
+themselves but one question: "By which avenue of service will I earliest
+get to France?" The men in the National Army soon caught this spirit
+and, while the department is endeavoring to preserve as far as possible
+in the National Guard and the National Army those intimacies which
+belong to men who come from the same city or town, and to preserve the
+honorable traditions of military organizations which have histories of
+service to the country in other wars, the fact still remains that the
+army is rapidly becoming the army of the United States, with the sense
+of origin from a particular State, or association with a particular
+neighborhood, more and more submerged by the rising sense of national
+service and national identity.
+
+[Sidenote: Sites selected for cantonments.]
+
+[Sidenote: Sixteen divisional cantonments.]
+
+[Sidenote: Emergency construction division established.]
+
+I have described above the process of the execution of the selective
+service law. The preparation of places for the training of the recruits
+thus brought into the service was a task of unparalleled magnitude. On
+the 7th of May, 1917, the commanding generals of the several departments
+were directed to select sites for the construction of cantonments for
+the training of the mobilized National Guard and the National Army. The
+original intention was the construction of 32 cantonments. The
+appropriations made by Congress for this purpose were soon seen to be
+insufficient, and further study of the problem seemed to show that it
+would be unwise so seriously to engage the resources of the country,
+particularly in view of the fact that the National Guard was ready to be
+mobilized, that its training by reason of service on the Mexican border
+was substantial, and that its early use abroad in conjunction with the
+Regular Army would render permanent camps less important. The number
+was, therefore, cut to 16 divisional cantonments, and the National Guard
+was mobilized in camps for the most part under canvas, with only certain
+divisional storehouses and quarters for special uses constructed of
+wood. Because of the open weather during the winter months, the National
+Guard camps were located in the southern States. The National Army
+cantonments were located within the lines of the military division. A
+special division of the Quartermaster General's Department was
+established, known as the emergency construction division, and to it was
+given the task of erecting the cantonment buildings and such buildings
+as should be necessary for the National Guard.
+
+On May 17, 1917, Col. I. W. Littell, of the Regular Army, was detailed
+to assemble and direct an organization to be known as the cantonment
+division of the Quartermaster Corps, whose duties were to consist of
+providing quarters and camps for the training and housing of the New
+National Army, which was to be selected by conscription as provided in
+the act of Congress dated May 18, 1917.
+
+Able assistance was rendered by the following members of the committee
+on emergency construction and contracts, a subcommittee of the
+Munitions Board of the Council of National Defense:
+
+Major W. A. Starrett, chairman; Major William Kelly; C. M. Lundoff; M.
+C. Tuttle; F. L. Olmsted; J. B. Talmadge, secretary.
+
+[Sidenote: Specialists in purchasing and constructing secured.]
+
+Inquiries were immediately made and all available means used by
+telegraph, correspondence, and consultation to get in touch with the
+ablest constructors, engineers, draftsmen, purchasing agents, and other
+specialists of broad experience in their respective vocations from which
+an efficient and experienced organization could be selected.
+
+All of those selected who became attached to the organization in an
+official capacity gave up responsible and remunerative positions to give
+the Government the benefit of their services. They all being over the
+draft-age limit and representative technical men of repute and standing
+in their community, a splendid precedent of patriotism was established.
+
+The assembling of an organization and the planning and execution of the
+work was undertaken with a view of accomplishing all that human
+ingenuity, engineering, and constructing skill could devise in the brief
+time available.
+
+[Sidenote: The plans formulated.]
+
+[Sidenote: Magnitude of the task.]
+
+Plans were formulated by engineers, architects, and town planners who
+had given much thought to the particular problems involved. Camp sites
+comprising from 2,000 to 11,000 acres each were selected by a board of
+Army officers under the direction of the department commanders. Names of
+responsible contracting firms were secured and every effort made to
+perfect an organization competent to carry out the work of completing
+the camps at the earliest possible moment. The magnitude of assembling
+an organization for carrying on the work and securing the labor and
+materials therefor can in some measure be realized by reference to the
+following table, showing quantities of the principal materials
+estimated to be used in the construction of the National Army
+cantonments.
+
+[Sidenote: Approximate quantities of materials.]
+
+The approximate quantities of principal materials used in the
+construction of the various National Army camps are shown in the
+following tables. This does not include National Guard, embarkation, or
+training camps.
+
+                                         Quantity.
+        Lumber (feet b. m.)             450,000,000
+        Roofing paper (square feet)      76,000,000
+        Doors                               140,000
+        Window sash                         700,000
+        Wall board (square feet)         29,500,000
+        Shower heads                         40,000
+        Water-closet bowls                   54,000
+        Tank heaters and tanks               11,000
+        Heating boilers                       1,800
+        Radiation (square feet)           4,200,000
+        Cannon stoves                        20,000
+        Room heaters                         20,000
+        Kitchen stoves and ranges            10,000
+        Wood pipe for water supply (feet) 1,000,000
+        Cast-iron supply pipe (feet)        470,000
+        Wire, all kinds and sizes (miles)     5,500
+        Wood tanks (aggregate capacity)   8,300,000
+        Hose carts                              600
+        Fire engines                             90
+        Fire extinguishers                    4,700
+        Fire hose (feet)                    392,500
+        Fire hydrants                         3,600
+        Hand-pump tanks                      12,700
+        Fire pails                          163,000
+        Cots                                721,000
+
+Sixteen National Army camps were constructed in various parts of the
+United States at points selected by the War Department. The camps were
+carefully laid out by experienced town planners and engineers to give
+best results considering all viewpoints.
+
+[Sidenote: Extent of a typical National Army cantonment.]
+
+[Sidenote: Roads constructed and improvements installed.]
+
+A typical cantonment city will house 40,000 men. Each barrack building
+will house 150 men and provide 500 cubic feet of air space per man. Such
+a cantonment complete contains between 1,000 and 1,200 buildings and
+covers about 2,000 acres. In addition, each cantonment has a rifle
+range, drill, parade, and maneuver grounds of about 2,000 acres. In many
+cases all or a large part of the entire site had to be cleared of woods
+and stumps. The various military units were located on principal or
+primary roads--a regiment being treated as a primary unit. About 25
+miles of roads were constructed at each cantonment, and sewers, water
+supply, lighting facilities, and other improvements installed.
+
+[Sidenote: The special buildings required.]
+
+An infantry regiment requires 22 barrack buildings, 6 for officers'
+quarters, 2 storehouses, 1 infirmary building, 28 lavatories, with hot
+and cold shower baths, or a total of 59 buildings. In addition to the
+buildings necessary for the regimental units, each cantonment has
+buildings for divisional headquarters, quartermaster depots, laundry
+receiving and distributing stations, base hospitals having 1,000 beds,
+post exchanges, and other buildings for general use.
+
+[Sidenote: Remount stations.]
+
+At several of the cantonments remount stations have been provided, some
+of them having a capacity to maintain 12,000 horses.
+
+[Sidenote: Other necessary camps.]
+
+In addition to the National Army camps, plans were made for the
+construction of 16 National Guard, two embarkation and one quartermaster
+training camp, but the construction of these items did not involve so
+large an expenditure as the National Army camps, as provision was made
+for fewer units and only tentage quarters for the men in the National
+Guard camps was provided. Modern storehouses, kitchens, mess shelters,
+lavatories, shower baths, base hospitals, and remount depots were
+built, and water, sewerage, heating, and light systems installed at an
+expenditure of about $1,900,000 for each camp.
+
+[Sidenote: The demand for construction and supplies.]
+
+[Sidenote: Savings effected by standardization.]
+
+With the advent of the United States into the war, there has appeared
+not only one of the world's greatest builders, but the world's greatest
+customer for supplies and human necessaries. We have not only to equip,
+house, and supply our own army, but meet the demands arising from the
+drainage of the resources of the entente allies. Small shopping and
+bargaining are out of the question. Enormous savings were, however,
+effected, due to the fact that materials were purchased in large
+quantities and consequently at a much reduced price. Standardization of
+sizes saved from $5 to $6 per thousand feet b. m. on lumber, and a
+further saving of from $3 to $11 over prevailing prices was effected by
+the lumber subcommittee of the Council of National Defense. The Raw
+Materials Committee effected similar savings in prepared roofing, nails,
+and other construction materials. The lead subcommittee procured 500
+tons of lead for caulking pipe at 3 cents less than market price. When
+it is considered that this construction work is, next to the Panama
+Canal, the largest ever undertaken by the United States, the country is
+to be congratulated on having available the men and materials to
+accomplish the feat of providing for the maintenance of the newly
+organized army in so short a period.
+
+[Sidenote: Extensive construction work for National Army.]
+
+I have described at length the work of building necessary for the
+National Army camps, but at the same time extensive building was
+necessary at the 16 sites selected for the mobilization and training of
+the National Guard. While the National Guard troops were themselves
+quartered under canvas, many wooden buildings and storehouses had to be
+constructed for their use and, of course, the important problems of
+water supply, sewage, and hospital accommodations required substantially
+as much provision upon these subjects as upon those selected for the
+National Army.
+
+[Sidenote: Labor assembled from great distances.]
+
+[Sidenote: The assistance rendered by Mr. Gompers.]
+
+At the very outset of this hurried and vast program, it became apparent
+that labor would have to be assembled from great distances, and in
+wholly unaccustomed numbers, that the laboring men would be required to
+separate themselves from home and family and to live under unusual and
+less comfortable circumstances than was their habit. It was also clear
+that no interruption or stoppage of the work could be permitted. I
+therefore took up with Mr. Samuel Gompers, President of the American
+Federation of Labor, the question of a general agreement which would
+cover all trades to be employed in assuring continuity of work, provide
+just conditions of pay, recognize the inequalities which exist
+throughout the country, and yet avoid controversy as between the
+contractor and his employees, which, wherever the justice of the dispute
+might lie, could have only a prejudicial effect upon the interests of
+the Government, by delaying the progress necessary to be made. Mr.
+Gompers and those associated with him in the building trades promptly
+and loyally entered into a consideration of the whole subject, with the
+result that the following agreement was made:
+
+[Sidenote: Commission for labor adjustment.]
+
+                                     "WASHINGTON, D. C., June 19, 1917.
+
+"For the adjustment and control of wages, hours, and conditions of labor
+in the construction of cantonments, there shall be created an adjustment
+commission of three persons, appointed by the Secretary of War; one to
+represent the Army, one the public, and one labor; the last to be
+nominated by Samuel Gompers, member of the Advisory Commission of the
+Council of National Defense, and President of the American Federation of
+Labor.
+
+[Sidenote: Consideration given to scales in locality.]
+
+"As basic standards with reference to each cantonment, such commission
+shall use the main scales of wages, hours, and conditions in force on
+June 1, 1917, in the locality where such cantonment is situated.
+Consideration shall be given to special circumstances, if any arising
+after said date which may require particular advances in wages or
+changes in other standards. Adjustments of wages, hours, or conditions
+made by such board are to be treated as binding by all parties."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Labor difficulties easily adjusted.]
+
+[Sidenote: Early completion of cantonments.]
+
+The contractors throughout the country were notified of the existence of
+this agreement and of the determination of the Government to carry it
+out faithfully. The scope of the agreement was subsequently enlarged so
+as to include other emergency construction done by the War Department,
+and a board of adjustment was appointed which, at the beginning,
+consisted of General E. A. Garlington, formerly General Inspector of the
+Army, Mr. Walter Lippmann, and Mr. John R. Alpine, to whom all
+complaints were referred, and by whom all investigations and
+determinations in enforcement of the agreement were made. The personnel
+of this board was subsequently changed, and its activities associated
+with a similar board appointed by the concurrent action of the Secretary
+of the Navy and Mr. Gompers, but I need here refer only to the fact
+that, by the device of this agreement, and through the instrumentality
+of this board, labor difficulties and disputes were easily adjusted, and
+the program of building has gone rapidly forward, with here and there
+incidental delays due sometimes to delay in material, sometimes to
+difficulties of the site, and doubtless to other incidental failures of
+coordination, but in the main, the work has been thoroughly successful.
+When its magnitude is appreciated, the draft it made upon the labor
+market of the country, the speed with which it was accomplished, and the
+necessity of assembling not only materials but men from practically all
+over the country, it seems not too much to say that the work is out of
+all proportion larger than any similar work ever undertaken in the
+country, and that its completion substantially on time, is an evidence
+of efficiency both on the part of those officers of the Government
+charged with responsibility for the task and the contractors and men of
+the trades and crafts employed to carry on the work.
+
+[Sidenote: Camps for training military engineers.]
+
+This great division of the War Department in times of peace devotes the
+major part of its energy to works of internal improvements and to the
+supervision of, improvement, and maintenance of navigable waters; but in
+time of war it immediately becomes a fundamental part of the Military
+Establishment. It was, therefore, called upon not only to render
+assistance of an engineering kind in the establishment of training
+camps, but had to establish camps for the rapid training in military
+engineering of large additions to its own personnel, and to undertake
+the rapid mobilization and training of additional engineer troops, of
+which at the beginning of the war there were but two regiments.
+
+[Sidenote: Importance of railroad transportation in war.]
+
+[Sidenote: Regiments of engineers sent to France.]
+
+One of the earliest opportunities for actual assistance to the countries
+associated with us in this war was presented to this department. In the
+war against Germany transportation, and particularly railroad
+transportation, is of the utmost importance. It was easily foreseen that
+our own army in France would require large railroad facilities both in
+the operation of permanent railroads for the handling of our equipment
+and supplies and in the construction and operation of temporary roads
+behind our Army. In the meantime regiments of engineer troops, if
+speedily organized and dispatched to Europe, could both render valuable
+assistance to the British and French Armies and acquire the training and
+experience which would make them valuable at a later stage to us.
+Accordingly nine such regiments were organized and have for some months
+been rendering active and important service along the actual battle
+front. In addition to these, a tenth regiment, composed of men skilled
+in forestry and lumbering, was organized and sent abroad, and is now
+operating in a foreign forest cutting out lumber supplies for the use of
+our associates and ourselves.
+
+[Sidenote: Arrangements to operate our own railways in France.]
+
+[Sidenote: Creation of entire transportation system.]
+
+Concurrently with the formation of these special engineer troops the
+department undertook the collection of material for the establishment
+and operation of our own lines of supply abroad. The railways of France
+have been maintained in a state of high efficiency by the French people,
+and they are performing the tremendous transportation task imposed upon
+them by the French and English military operations with complete
+success; but in order not to impose a burden which they were not
+designed to meet, by asking them to expand to the accommodation of our
+services, it has been found necessary for us ourselves to undertake the
+accumulation of railroad material for our own use in the theater of war.
+This work is on a large and comprehensive scale. Any detailed
+description of it would be inappropriate at this time, but it involves
+the creation of entire transportation systems and the actual
+construction and operation of railroads with the elaborate terminal
+facilities needed for the rapid unloading and dispatch of supplies,
+equipment, and troops.
+
+[Sidenote: The Quartermaster General's problem.]
+
+[Sidenote: Vast equipment needed.]
+
+[Sidenote: Intensive production of food and clothing.]
+
+[Sidenote: Associated nations must be supplied.]
+
+[Sidenote: Emergency appropriation.]
+
+[Sidenote: Great extent of purchases.]
+
+The problem facing the Quartermaster General has been serious. For the
+small Regular Army of the United States a well-defined and adequate
+supply system had been created. It was large enough and flexible enough
+to permit us to make gradual accumulations of reserve as Congress from
+time to time provided the necessary money; but when the mobilization of
+the National Guard on the Mexican frontier took place, such reserves as
+we had were rapidly consumed, and the maintenance of the military
+establishment on the border required an increase which quite equaled the
+entire capacity of those industries ordinarily devoting themselves to
+the production of military supplies. When the present enlarged military
+establishment was authorized it involved an enlarged Regular Army, an
+enlarged National Guard and the new National Army, thus bringing upon us
+the problem of immediate supply with adequate reserves for an Army of
+2,000,000 men; and these men were not to be stationed about in Army
+posts, but mobilized into great camps under conditions which necessarily
+increased the wear and tear upon clothing and equipment, and
+correspondingly increased the reserves needed to keep up the supply. In
+addition to this these troops were assembled for overseas use, and it
+therefore became necessary to accumulate in France vast stores of
+clothing and equipment in order to have the Army free from dependence,
+by too narrow a margin, upon ocean transportation with its inevitable
+delays. As a consequence the supply needs of the department were vastly
+greater than the capacity of the industrial organization and facilities
+normally devoted to their production, and the problem presented was to
+divert workshops and factories from their peace-time output into the
+intensive production of clothing and equipment for the Army. Due
+consideration had to be given to the maintenance of the industrial
+balance of the country. Industries already devoted to the manufacture of
+supplies for the nations associated with us in the war had to be
+conserved to that useful purpose. Perhaps some aid to the imagination
+can be gotten from the fact that 2,000,000 men constitute about
+one-fiftieth of the entire population of the United States. Supply
+departments were, therefore, called upon to provide clothing, equipment,
+and maintenance for about one-fiftieth of our entire people, and this in
+articles of uniform and of standardized kinds. The great appropriations
+made by Congress tell the story from the financial point of view. In
+1917 the normal appropriation for the Quartermaster Department was
+$186,305,000. The emergency appropriation for this department for the
+year 1918 was $3,000,000,000; a sum greater than the normal annual
+appropriation for the entire expenses of the Federal Government on all
+accounts. Another illustration can be drawn from the mere numbers of
+some familiar articles. Thus of shoes more than 20,000,000 pairs have
+already been purchased and are in process of delivery; of blankets,
+17,000,000; of flannel shirting, more than 33,000,000 yards; of melton
+cloth, more than 50,000,000 yards; of various kinds of duck for shelter
+tents and other necessary uses, more than 125,000,000 yards; and other
+staple and useful articles of Army equipment have been needed in
+proportion.
+
+[Sidenote: Resources, industry and transportation mobilized.]
+
+To all of this it has been necessary to add supplies not usual in our
+Army which, in many cases, had to be devised to meet needs growing out
+of the nature of the present warfare. It was necessary, therefore, to
+mobilize the resources and industry, first to produce with the greatest
+rapidity the initial equipment, and to follow that with a steady stream
+of production for replacement and reserve; second, to organize adequate
+transportation and storage for these great accumulations, and their
+distribution throughout the country, and then to establish ports of
+embarkation for men and supplies, assemble there in orderly fashion for
+prompt ship-loading the tonnage for overseas; and to set up in France
+facilities necessary to receive and distribute these efficiently.
+
+[Sidenote: Civilian agencies cooperate with government.]
+
+The Quartermaster General's Department was called upon to set up rapidly
+a business greater than that carried on by the most thoroughly organized
+and efficiently managed industrial organization in the country. It had
+to consider the supply of raw materials, the diversion of industry, and
+speed of production, and with its problem pressing for instant solution
+it had to expand the slender peace-time organization of the
+Quartermaster Department by the rapid addition of personnel and by the
+employment and coordination of great civilian agencies which could be
+helpful.
+
+[Sidenote: The Council of National Defense is aided by men of great
+ability.]
+
+The Council of National Defense, through the supply committees organized
+by it, afforded the immediate contact necessary with the world of
+commerce and industry, while men of various branches of business and
+production engineers brought their services freely to the assistance of
+the Department. The dollar-a-year man has been a powerful aid, and when
+this struggle is over, and the country undertakes to take stock of the
+assets which it found ready to be used in the mobilization of its
+powers, a large place will justly be given to these men who, without the
+distinction of title or rank, and with no thought of compensation,
+brought experience, knowledge, and trained ability to Washington in
+order that they might serve with patriotic fervor in an inconspicuous
+and self-sacrificing, but indispensably helpful way.
+
+[Sidenote: Sound beginnings made.]
+
+The problems of supply are not yet solved; but they are in the course of
+solution. Sound beginnings have been made, and as the military effort of
+the country grows the arrangements perfected and organizations created
+will expand to meet it.
+
+[Sidenote: The American Railway Association's special committee.]
+
+In this general connection it seems appropriate to refer to the
+effective cooperation between the department and the transportation
+agencies of the country. For a number of years the Quartermaster
+General's Department has maintained close relations with the executives
+of the great railway systems of the country. In February, 1917, a
+special committee of the American Railway Association was appointed to
+deal with questions of national defense, and the cooperation between
+this committee and the department has been most cordial and effective,
+and but for some such arrangement the great transportation problem would
+have been insoluble. I am happy, therefore, to join the Quartermaster
+General in pointing out the extraordinary service rendered by the
+transportation agencies of the country, and I concur also in his
+statement that "of those who are now serving the Nation in this time of
+stress, there are none who are doing so more whole-heartedly,
+unselfishly, and efficiently than the railroad officials who are engaged
+in this patriotic work."
+
+[Sidenote: Codes established for the garment industry.]
+
+One other aspect of the work of the Quartermaster General's Office has
+engaged my particular attention, and seems to me to have been fruitful
+of most excellent results. The garment working trades of the United
+States are largely composed of women and children, and of men of foreign
+extraction. More than any other industry in the United States it has
+been menaced by the sweatshop system. The States have enacted codes and
+established inspection agencies to enforce sanitary conditions for
+these workers, and to relieve the evils which seem everywhere to spring
+up about them. To some extent the factory system operated under rigid
+inspection has replaced home work, and has improved conditions; but
+garment making is an industry midway in its course of being removed from
+the home to the factory, and under pressure of intensive production,
+home work in congested tenements has been difficult to eradicate.
+
+[Sidenote: Dangers in home work system.]
+
+The vice of this system is not merely the invasion of the home of the
+worker, and the consequent enfeeblement of the family and family life.
+Work done under such circumstances escapes the inspector, and the
+crowded workers in the tenement are helpless in their struggle for
+subsistence under conditions which are unrelieved by an assertion of the
+Government's interest in the condition under which these workers live.
+Moreover, wide distribution of garments made under such conditions tends
+to spread disease, and adds another menace from the public point of
+view.
+
+[Sidenote: Standards inserted in contracts.]
+
+The department determined, therefore, to establish minimum standards as
+to wages, inspection, hours, and sanitation. These standards were
+inserted in the contracts made for garment production, and a board was
+appointed to enforce an observance of these standards. The effect of
+this has been that it is now possible to say that no uniform worn by an
+American soldier is the product of sweatshop toil, and that so far as
+the Government is concerned in its purchases of garments it is a model
+employer.
+
+[Sidenote: The worker feels a national interest.]
+
+This action has not delayed the accumulation of necessary supplies, and
+it has added to our national self-respect. It has distributed national
+interest between the soldier who wears and the worker who makes the
+garment, regarding them each as assets, each as elements in our
+aggregated national strength.
+
+[Sidenote: The Ordnance Department.]
+
+On the 1st day of July, 1916, there was a total of 96 officers in the
+Ordnance Department. The commissioned strength of this department
+increased substantially 2,700 per cent, and is still expanding. The
+appropriations for ordnance in 1917 were $89,697,000; for 1918, in view
+of the war emergency, the appropriations for that department aggregate
+$3,209,000,000.
+
+[Sidenote: Most difficult problems of the war.]
+
+This division of the War Department has had, in some respects, the most
+difficult of the problems presented by the transition from peace to war.
+Like the Department of the Quartermaster General, the Ordnance
+Department has had to deal with various increases of supply, increases
+far exceeding the organization and available capacity of the country for
+production. The products needed take longer to produce; for the most
+part they involved intricate machinery, and highly refined processes of
+manufacture. In addition to this the industrial agencies of the country
+have been devoting a large part of their capacity to foreign production
+which, in the new set of circumstances, it is unwise to interrupt.
+
+[Sidenote: Organization of the Council of National Defense.]
+
+[Sidenote: An advisory body.]
+
+[Sidenote: Advisory function should not be impaired.]
+
+[Sidenote: The council supplements the Cabinet.]
+
+Legislation enacted on August 29, 1916, as a part of the National
+Defense Act provided for the creation of a Council of National Defense.
+Shortly thereafter the council was organized, its advisory commission
+appointed, a director chosen, and its activities planned. It
+appropriately directed its first attention to the industrial situation
+of the country and, by the creation of committees representative of the
+principal industries, brought together a great store of information both
+as to our capacity for manufacture and as to the re-adaptations possible
+in an emergency for rapid production of supplies of military value.
+Under the law of its creation, the Council of National Defense is not an
+executive body, its principal function being to supervise and direct
+investigations and make recommendations to the President and the heads
+of the executive departments with regard to a large variety of subjects.
+The advisory commission is thus advisory to a body which is itself
+advisory, and the subordinate bodies authorized to be created are
+collectors of data upon which advice can be formulated. There was no
+intention on the part of Congress to subdivide the executive function,
+but rather to strengthen it by equipping it with carefully matured
+recommendations based upon adequate surveys of conditions. The extent of
+the council's powers has been sometimes misunderstood, with the result
+that it has been deemed an inapt instrument, and from time to time
+suggestions have been made looking to the donation to it of power to
+execute its conclusions. Whatever determination Congress may hereafter
+reach with regard to the bestowal of additional executive power and the
+creation of agencies for its exercise, the advisory function of the
+Council of National Defense ought not to be impaired, nor ought its
+usefulness to be left unrecognized. In the first place, the council
+brings together the heads of the departments ordinarily concerned in the
+industrial and commercial problems which affect the national defense and
+undoubtedly prevents duplications of work and overlappings of
+jurisdiction. It also makes available for the special problems of
+individual departments the results attained in other departments which
+have been called upon to examine the same problem from other points of
+view. In the second place, the council supplements the activities of the
+Cabinet under the direction of the President by bringing together in a
+committee, as it were, members of the Cabinet for the consideration of
+problems which, when maturely studied, can be presented for the
+President's judgment.
+
+[Sidenote: The council directs the aroused spirit of the nation.]
+
+[Sidenote: The General Munitions Board.]
+
+[Sidenote: Field of priorities in transportation and supplies.]
+
+With the declaration of a state of war, however, the usefulness of the
+Council of National Defense became instantly more obvious. The
+peace-time activities and interests of our people throughout the country
+surged toward Washington in an effort to assimilate themselves into the
+new scheme of things which, it was recognized, would call for widespread
+changes of occupation and interest. The Council of National Defense was
+the only national agency at all equipped to receive and direct this
+aroused spirit seeking appropriate modes of action, and it was admirably
+adapted to the task because among the members of the council were those
+Cabinet officers whose normal activities brought them into constant
+contact with all the varied peace-time activities of the people and who
+were, therefore, best qualified to judge the most useful opportunities
+in the new state of things for men and interests of which they
+respectively knew the normal relations. For the more specialized
+problems of the national defense, notably those dealing with the
+production of war materials, the council authorized the organization of
+subordinate bodies of experts, and the General Munitions Board grew
+naturally out of the necessities of the War and Navy Departments, which
+required not only the maximum production of existing munition-making
+industries in the country, but the creation of new capacity for
+production and its correlation with similar needs on the part of the
+foreign governments. The work done by the General Munitions Board was
+highly effective, but it was soon seen that its problem carried over
+into the field of transportation, that it was bound up with the question
+of priorities, and that it was itself divisible into the great and
+separate fields of raw material supply and the production of finished
+goods. With the growth of its necessary interests and the constant
+discovery of new relations it became necessary so to reorganize the
+General Munitions Board as both to enlarge its view and more definitely
+recognize its widespread relations.
+
+[Sidenote: The War Industries Board.]
+
+[Sidenote: Knowledge of war needs of the United States and Allies.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Council of National Defense a natural center.]
+
+Upon the advice of the Council of National Defense, the General
+Munitions Board was replaced by the War Industries Board, which consists
+of a chairman, a representative of the Army, a representative of the
+Navy, a representative of labor and the three members of the Allied
+Purchasing Commission through whom, under arrangements made with foreign
+Governments by the Secretary of the Treasury, the purchasing of allied
+goods in the United States is effected. This purchasing commission
+consists of three chairmen--one of priorities, one of raw materials, and
+one of finished products. By the presence of Army and Navy
+representatives, the needs of our own Government are brought to the
+common council table of the War Industries Board. The board is thus
+enabled to know all the war needs of our Government and the nations
+associated with us in war, to measure their effect upon the industry of
+the country, to assign relative priorities in the order of
+serviceableness to the common cause, and to forecast both the supply of
+raw material and our capacity for completing its manufacture in such a
+way as to coordinate our entire industrial capacity, both with a view to
+its maximum efficiency and to its permanent effect upon the industrial
+condition of the country. Under legislation enacted by Congress, the
+President has committed certain definite problems to special agencies.
+The food administration, the fuel administration, and the shipping
+problem being each in the hands of experts specially selected under
+appropriate enactments. In large part, these activities are separable
+from the general questions considered by the Council of National Defense
+and the War Industries Board, but there are necessary relations between
+them which it has been found quite simple to arrange by conference and
+consultation, and the Council of National Defense, with the Secretary of
+the Treasury added as an important councilor, has seemed the natural
+center around which to group these agencies so far as any common
+activity among them is desirable.
+
+[Sidenote: The War Department indebted to the council.]
+
+[Sidenote: Unremunerated service of able citizens.]
+
+[Sidenote: Business confidence in the Government.]
+
+In the meantime the Advisory Commission of the Council of National
+Defense and the council itself have continued to perform the original
+advisory functions committed to them by the National Defense Act. The
+War Department is glad to acknowledge its debt to the council and the
+commission. I refrain from specific enumeration of the services which
+the department has received through these agencies only because their
+number is infinite and their value obvious. The various supply
+committees created by the Supply Commission, the scientific resources
+placed at the disposal of the department, the organization of the
+medical profession, the cooperation of the transportation interests of
+the country, the splendid harmony which has been established in the
+field of labor, are all fruits of the actions of these bodies and
+notably of the Advisory Commission. It has been especially in connection
+with the activities of the council and the commission that we have been
+helped by the unremunerated service of citizens who bore no official
+relation to the Government but had expert knowledge of and experience
+with the industries of the country which it was necessary rapidly to
+summon into new uses. Through their influence, the trade rivalries and
+commercial competitions, stimulating and helpful in times of peace,
+have been subordinated to the paramount purpose of national service and
+the common good. They have not only created helpful relations for the
+present emergency but have established a new confidence in the
+Government on the part of business and perhaps have led to clearer
+judgments on the part of the Government in its dealings with the great
+organizations, both of labor and of capital, which form the industrial
+and commercial fabric of our society. The large temporary gain thus
+manifest is supplemented by permanent good; and in the reorganizations
+which take place when the war is over there will doubtless be a more
+conscious national purpose in business and a more conscious helpfulness
+toward business on the part of the Government.
+
+[Sidenote: General Pershing goes to France.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Navy transports troops without any loss.]
+
+[Sidenote: Terminal facilities organized.]
+
+[Sidenote: Cooperation of the Shipping Board.]
+
+[Sidenote: Reserve equipment and food.]
+
+As a result of the exchanges of views which took place between the
+military missions to the United States and our own Government, it was
+determined to begin at once the dispatch of an expeditionary force of
+the American Army to France. This has been done. General John J.
+Pershing was selected as commander in chief and with his staff departed
+for France, to be followed shortly by the full division, consisting
+entirely of Regular Army troops. Immediately thereafter there was formed
+the so-called Rainbow Division, made up of National Guard units of many
+States scattered widely throughout the country. The purpose of its
+organization was to distribute the honor of early participation in the
+war over a wide area and thus to satisfy in some part the eagerness of
+these State forces to be permitted to serve in Europe. The Marines, with
+their fine traditions and honorable history, were likewise recognized,
+and regiments of Marines were added to the first forces dispatched. It
+would, of course, be unwise to attempt any enumeration of the forces at
+this time overseas, but the Army and the country would not have me do
+less than express their admiration and appreciation of the splendid
+cooperation of the Navy, by means of which these expeditionary forces
+have been safely transported and have been enabled to traverse without
+loss the so-called danger zone infested by the stealthy and destructive
+submarine navy of the enemy. The organization and dispatch of the
+expeditionary force required the preparation of an elaborate transport
+system, involving not only the procurement of ships and their refitting
+for service as troop and cargo transports, but also extensive
+organizations of terminal facilities both in this country and France;
+and in order to surround the expeditionary force with every safeguard, a
+large surplus of supplies of every kind were immediately placed at their
+disposal in France. This placed an added burden upon the supply
+divisions of the department and explains in part some of the shortages,
+notably those of clothing, which have temporarily embarrassed
+mobilization of troops at home, embarrassments now happily passed. In
+the organization of this transport the constant and helpful cooperation
+of the Shipping Board, the railroads, and those in control of
+warehousing, wharfing, lighterage, and other terminal facilities has
+been invaluable. Our activities in this regard have resulted in the
+transporting of an army to France fully equipped, with adequate reserves
+of equipment and subsistence, and with those large quantities of
+transportation appliances, motor vehicles, railroad construction
+supplies, and animals, all of which are necessary for the maintenance
+and effective operations of the force.
+
+[Sidenote: Technical troops cooperate with British and French.]
+
+The act authorizing the temporary increase of the military establishment
+empowered the department to create special organizations of technical
+troops. Under this provision railroad and stevedore regiments have been
+formed and special organizations of repair men and mechanics, some of
+which have proceeded to France and rendered service back of the British
+and French line in anticipation of and training for their later service
+with the American Army. No complete descriptions of these activities can
+be permitted at this time, but the purpose of the department has been to
+provide from the first for the maintenance of our own military
+operations without adding to the burdens already borne by the British
+and French, and to render, incidentally, such assistance to the British
+and French Armies as could be rendered by technical troops in training
+in the theater of operations. By this means the United States has
+already rendered service of great value to the common cause, these
+technical troops having actually carried on operations for which they
+are designed in effective cooperation with the British and French Armies
+behind hotly contested battle fronts.
+
+[Sidenote: The Red Cross organizes base hospital units.]
+
+[Sidenote: Doctors and nurses aid British and French armies.]
+
+[Sidenote: The medical profession rallies around the service.]
+
+[Sidenote: Convalescent and reconstruction hospitals.]
+
+[Sidenote: Physical fitness necessary for military service.]
+
+Working in close association with the medical committee of the Council
+of National Defense and the Red Cross and in constant and helpful
+contact with the medical activities of the British, French, and other
+belligerents, the Surgeon General has built up the personnel of his
+department and taken over from the Red Cross completely organized
+base-hospital units and ambulance units, supplemented them by fresh
+organizations, procured great quantities of medical supplies and
+prepared on a generous scale to meet any demands of our Army in action.
+Incidentally and in the course of this preparation, great numbers of
+base hospital organizations, ambulance units, and additional doctors and
+nurses have been placed at the disposal of the British and French
+armies, and are now in the field of actual war, ministering to the
+needs of our Allies. Indeed, the honor of first participation by
+Americans in this war belongs to the Medical Department. In addition to
+all this preparation and activity, the Surgeon General's department has
+been charged with the responsibility for the study of defense against
+gas attack and the preparation of such gas masks and other appliances as
+can be devised to minimize its effects. The medical profession of the
+country has rallied around this service. The special laboratories of the
+great medical institutions have devoted themselves to the study of
+problems of military medicine. New, effective, and expeditious surgical
+and medical procedures have been devised and the latest defensive and
+curative discoveries of medical science have been made available for the
+protection and restoration of our soldiers. Far-reaching activities have
+been conducted by the Medical Department here in America, involving the
+supervision of plans for great base hospitals in the camps and
+cantonments, the planning of convalescent and reconstruction hospitals
+for invalided soldiers and anticipatory organization wherever possible
+to supply relief to distress and sickness as it may arise. Moreover, the
+task of the Medical Department in connection with the new Army has been
+exacting. Rigid examinations have been conducted, in the first instance
+by the physicians connected with the exemption boards, but later at the
+camps, in order to eliminate from the ranks men whose physical condition
+did not justify their retention in the military service. Many of the
+rejections by the Medical Department have caused grief to high-spirited
+young men not conscious of physical weakness or defect, and perhaps
+having no weakness or defect which embarrassed their usefulness in
+civilian occupation; but both the strength of the Army and justice to
+the men involved require that the test of fitness for military service
+should be the sole guide, and the judgments of the most expert
+physicians have been relied upon to give us an army composed of men of
+the highest possible physical efficiency.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The capture of Jerusalem by the British under Allenby on December 8th,
+1917, sent a thrill throughout the civilized world. The deliverance of
+the Holy City from the Turks marked another great epoch in its history,
+which includes possession by Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans,
+Arabs, and Turks. The entrance of the British troops into Jerusalem is
+described in the following narrative.
+
+
+
+
+THE CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM
+
+GENERAL E. H. H. ALLENBY
+
+
+[Sidenote: General Allenby's instructions.]
+
+When I took over the command of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force at the
+end of June, 1917, I had received instructions to report on the
+conditions in which offensive operations against the Turkish Army on the
+Palestine front might be undertaken in the autumn or winter of 1917.
+
+After visiting the front and consulting with the Commander of the
+Eastern Force, I submitted my appreciation and proposals in a telegram
+dispatched in the second week of July.
+
+[Sidenote: Situation on the Palestine front.]
+
+The main features of the situation on the Palestine front were then as
+follows:
+
+The Turkish Army in Southern Palestine held a strong position extending
+from the sea at Gaza, roughly along the main Gaza-Beersheba Road to
+Beersheba. Gaza had been made into a strong modern fortress, heavily
+entrenched and wired, offering every facility for protracted defence.
+The remainder of the enemy's line consisted of a series of strong
+localities, viz.: the Sihan group of works, the Atawineh group, the Baha
+group, the Abu Hareira-Arab el Teeaha trench system, and, finally, the
+works covering Beersheba. These groups of works were generally from
+1,500 to 2,000 yards apart, except that the distance from the Hareira
+group to Beersheba was about 4 1/2 miles.
+
+[Sidenote: Turks have good communications.]
+
+The enemy's force was on a wide front, the distance from Gaza to
+Beersheba being about 30 miles; but his lateral communications were
+good, and any threatened point of the line could be very quickly
+reinforced.
+
+My force was extended on a front of 22 miles, from the sea, opposite
+Gaza, to Gamli.
+
+[Sidenote: Lack of water on the British front.]
+
+Owing to lack of water I was unable, without preparations which would
+require some considerable time, to approach within striking distance of
+the enemy, except in the small sector near the sea coast opposite Gaza.
+
+My proposals received the approval of the War Cabinet, and preparations
+were undertaken to enable the plan I had formed to be put into
+execution.
+
+[Sidenote: To strike on Turk's left flank.]
+
+I had decided to strike the main blow against the left flank of the main
+Turkish position, Hareira and Sheria. The capture of Beersheba was a
+necessary preliminary to this operation, in order to secure the water
+supplies at that place and to give room for the deployment of the
+attacking force on the high ground to the north and north-west of
+Beersheba, from which direction I intended to attack the Hareira-Sheria
+line.
+
+[Sidenote: Necessary to take Beersheba.]
+
+This front of attack was chosen for the following reasons. The enemy's
+works in this sector were less formidable than elsewhere, and they were
+easier of approach than other parts of the enemy's defences. When
+Beersheba was in our hands we should have an open flank against which to
+operate, and I could make full use of our superiority in mounted troops,
+and a success here offered prospects of pursuing our advantage and
+forcing the enemy to abandon the rest of his fortified positions, which
+no other line of attack would afford.
+
+[Sidenote: Attacked Gaza to deceive enemy.]
+
+[Sidenote: Assurance of naval cooperation at Gaza.]
+
+It was important, in order to keep the enemy in doubt up to the last
+moment as to the real point of attack, that an attack should also be
+made on the enemy's right at Gaza in conjunction with the main
+operations. One of my Commanders was therefore ordered to prepare a
+scheme for operations against Gaza on as large a scale as the force at
+his disposal would permit. I also asked the Senior Naval Officer of
+Egypt, Rear-Admiral T. Jackson, C.B., M.V.O., to afford me naval
+cooperation by bombarding the Gaza defences and the enemy's railway
+stations and depôts north of Gaza. Rear-Admiral Jackson afforded me
+cordial assistance, and during the period of preparation Naval Officers
+worked in the closest cooperation with my staff at General Headquarters
+and the staff of the G.O.C. troops operating in that region.
+
+[Sidenote: Difficulties regarding water and transport.]
+
+The difficulties to be overcome in the operations against Beersheba and
+the Sheria-Hareira line were considerable, and careful preparations and
+training were necessary. The chief difficulties were those of water and
+transport, and arrangements had to be made to ensure that the troops
+could be kept supplied with water while operating at considerable
+distances from their original water base for a period which might amount
+to a week or more; for, though it was known that an ample supply of
+water existed at Beersheba, it was uncertain how quickly it could be
+developed or to what extent the enemy would have damaged the wells
+before we succeeded in occupying the town. Except at Beersheba, no large
+supply of water would be found till Sheria and Hareira had been
+captured.
+
+[Sidenote: No good roads south of Gaza-Beersheba line.]
+
+[Sidenote: Railway lines to be laid.]
+
+The transport problem was no less difficult; there were no good roads
+south of the line Gaza-Beersheba, and no reliance could therefore be
+placed on the use of motor transport. Owing to the steep banks of many
+of the wadis which intersected the area of operations, the routes
+passable by wheeled transport were limited, and the going was heavy and
+difficult in many places. Practically the whole of the transport
+available in the force, including 30,000 pack camels, had to be allotted
+to one portion of the eastern force to enable it to be kept supplied
+with food, water, and ammunition at a distance of 15 to 20 miles in
+advance of railhead. Arrangements were also made for railhead to be
+pushed forward as rapidly as possible towards Karm, and for a line to be
+laid from Gamli toward Beersheba for the transport of ammunition.
+
+A railway line was also laid from Deir el Belah to the Wadi Ghuzze,
+close behind the sector held by another portion of the eastern force.
+
+[Sidenote: Rushing up artillery and supplies.]
+
+Considerable strain was thrown on the military railway from Kantara to
+the front during the period of preparation. In addition to the normal
+requirements of the force, a number of siege and heavy batteries,
+besides other artillery and units, had to be moved to the front, and
+large depôts of supplies, ammunition, and other stores accumulated at
+the various railheads. Preparations had also to be made and the
+necessary material accumulated to push forward the lines from Deir el
+Belah and Shellal.
+
+[Sidenote: The enemy determined to maintain Gaza to Beersheba line.]
+
+During the period from July to October, 1917, the enemy's force on the
+Palestine front had been increased. It was evident, from the arrival of
+these reinforcements and the construction of railway extensions from El
+Tine, on the Ramleh-Beersheba railway, to Deir Sineid and Belt Hanun,
+north of Gaza, and from Deir Sineid to Huj, and from reports of the
+transport of large supplies of ammunition and other stores to the
+Palestine front, that the enemy was determined to make every effort to
+maintain his position on the Gaza-Beersheba line. He had considerably
+strengthened his defences on this line; and the strong localities
+mentioned had, by the end of October, been joined up to form a
+practically continuous line from the sea to a point south of Sheria,
+except for a gap between Ali Muntar and the Sihan Group. The defensive
+works round Beersheba remained a detached system, but had been improved
+and extended.
+
+[Sidenote: Date of attack on Beersheba.]
+
+The date of the attack on Beersheba, which was to commence the
+operations, was fixed as October 31, 1917. Work had been begun on the
+railway from Shellal towards Karm, and on the line from Gamli to El
+Buggar. The development of water at Ecani, Khalasa, and Asluj proceeded
+satisfactorily. These last two places were to be the starting point for
+the mounted force detailed to make a wide flanking movement and attack
+Beersheba from the east and north-east.
+
+[Sidenote: The Turks make a strong reconnaissance.]
+
+On the morning of October 27 the Turks made a strong reconnaissance
+towards Karm from the direction of Kauwukah, two regiments of cavalry
+and two or three thousand infantry, with guns, being employed. They
+attacked a line of outposts near El Girheir, held by some Yeomanry,
+covering railway construction. One small post was rushed and cut up, but
+not before inflicting heavy loss on the enemy; another post, though
+surrounded, held out all day, and also caused the enemy heavy loss. The
+gallant resistance made by the Yeomanry enabled the 53rd (Welsh)
+Division to come up in time, and on their advance the Turks withdrew.
+
+[Sidenote: Bombardment of Gaza defenses.]
+
+The bombardment of the Gaza defences commenced on October 27, and on
+October 30 warships of the Royal Navy, assisted by a French battleship,
+began cooperating in this bombardment.
+
+On the evening of October 30 the portion of the eastern force, which was
+to make the attack on Beersheba, was concentrated in positions of
+readiness for the night march to its positions of deployment.
+
+[Sidenote: Imperial Camel Corps, Infantry and Cavalry.]
+
+The night march to the positions of deployment was successfully carried
+out, all units reaching their appointed positions up to time. The plan
+was to attack the hostile works between the Khalasa road and the Wadi
+Saba with two divisions, masking the works north of the Wadi Saba with
+the Imperial Camel Corps and some infantry, while a portion of the 53rd
+(Welsh) Division further north covered the left of the corps. The right
+of the attack was covered by a cavalry regiment. Further east, mounted
+troops took up a line opposite the southern defences of Beersheba.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy's advanced works taken.]
+
+As a preliminary to the main attack, in order to enable field guns to be
+brought within effective range for wire-cutting, the enemy's advanced
+works at 1,070 were to be taken. This was successfully accomplished at
+8.45 a.m., after a short preliminary bombardment, by London troops, with
+small loss, 90 prisoners being taken. The cutting of the wire on the
+main line then proceeded satisfactorily, though pauses had to be made to
+allow the dust to clear; and the final assault was ordered for 12.15
+p.m. It was successful all along the front attacked, and by about 1 p.m.
+the whole of the works between the Khalasa road and the Wadi Saba were
+in our hands.
+
+Some delay occurred in ascertaining whether the enemy still occupied the
+works north of the road; it was decided, as they were still held by
+small parties, to attack them from the south. After a preliminary
+bombardment the works were occupied with little opposition by about 7.30
+p.m.
+
+[Sidenote: British casualties light.]
+
+The casualties were light, considering the strength of the works
+attacked; a large proportion occurred during the advance towards the
+positions previous to the assault, the hostile guns being very accurate
+and very difficult to locate.
+
+[Sidenote: The road toward Beersheba.]
+
+Meanwhile, the mounted troops, after a night march, for part of the
+force of 25 and for the remainder of 35 miles, arrived early in the
+morning of the 31st about Khasim Zanna, in the hills some five miles
+east of Beersheba. From the hills the advance into Beersheba from the
+east and north-east lies over an open and almost flat plain, commanded
+by the rising ground north of the town and flanked by an underfeature in
+the Wadi Saba called Tel el Saba.
+
+A force was sent north to secure Bir es Sakaty, on the Hebron road, and
+protect the right flank, this force met with some opposition and was
+engaged with hostile cavalry at Bir es Sakaty and to the north during
+the day. Tel el Saba was found strongly held by the enemy, and was not
+captured till late in the afternoon.
+
+[Sidenote: Rapid advance of Australian Light Horse.]
+
+Meanwhile, attempts to advance in small parties across the plain towards
+the town made slow progress. In the evening, however, a mounted attack
+by Australian Light Horse, who rode straight at the town from the east,
+proved completely successful. They galloped over two deep trenches held
+by the enemy just outside the town, and entered the town at about 7 p.
+m., capturing numerous prisoners.
+
+The Turks at Beersheba were undoubtedly taken completely by surprise, a
+surprise from which the dash of London troops and Yeomanry, finely
+supported by their artillery, never gave them time to recover. The
+charge of the Australian Light Horse completed their defeat.
+
+[Sidenote: Prisoners and guns taken.]
+
+A very strong position was thus taken with slight loss, and the Turkish
+detachment at Beersheba almost completely put out of action. About 2,000
+prisoners and 13 guns were taken, and some 500 Turkish corpses were
+buried on the battlefield. This success laid open the left flank of the
+main Turkish position for a decisive blow.
+
+[Sidenote: Complete success of Beersheba operations.]
+
+[Sidenote: The attack on Gaza.]
+
+The actual date of the attack at Gaza had been left open till the result
+of the attack at Beersheba was known, as it was intended that the former
+attack, which was designed to draw hostile reserves towards the Gaza
+sector, should take place twenty-four to forty-eight hours previous to
+the attack on the Sheria position. After the complete success of the
+Beersheba operations, and as the early reports indicated that an ample
+supply of water would be available at that place, it was hoped that it
+would be possible to attack Sheria by November 3 or 4. The attack on
+Gaza was accordingly ordered to take place on the morning of November 2.
+Later reports showed that the water situation was less favorable than
+had been hoped, but it was decided not to postpone the attack.
+
+[Sidenote: The works on Umbrella Hill principal objectives.]
+
+The objective of this attack were the hostile works from Umbrella Hill
+(2,000 yards south-west of the town) to Sheikh Hasan, on the sea (about
+2,500 yards north-west of the town). The front of the attack was about
+6,000 yards, and Sheikh Hasan, the furthest objective, was over 3,000
+yards from our front line. The ground over which the attack took place
+consisted of sand dunes, rising in places up to 150 feet in height. This
+sand is very deep and heavy going. The enemy's defences consisted of
+several lines of strongly built trenches and redoubts.
+
+As Umbrella Hill flanked the advance against the Turkish works further
+west, it was decided to capture it by a preliminary operation, to take
+place four hours previous to the main attack. It was accordingly
+attacked, and captured at 11 p. m. on November 1 by a portion of the
+52nd (Lowland) Division. This attack drew a heavy bombardment of
+Umbrella Hill itself and our front lines, which lasted for two hours,
+but ceased in time to allow the main attack, which was timed for 3 a.
+m., to form up without interference.
+
+It had been decided to make the attack before daylight owing to the
+distance to be covered between our front trenches and the enemy's
+position.
+
+[Sidenote: Success of the attack on Umbrella Hill.]
+
+[Sidenote: Capture of the south-western defenses.]
+
+The attack was successful in reaching all objectives, except for a
+section of trench on the left and some of the final objectives in the
+centre. Four hundred and fifty prisoners were taken and many Turks
+killed. The enemy also suffered heavily from the preliminary
+bombardment, and subsequent reports from prisoners stated that one of
+the divisions holding the Gaza sector was withdrawn after losing 33 per
+cent of its effectives, one of the divisions in general reserve being
+drawn into the Gaza sector to replace it. The attack thus succeeded in
+its primary object, which was to prevent any units being drawn from the
+Gaza defences to meet the threat to the Turkish left flank, and to draw
+into Gaza as large a proportion as possible of the available Turkish
+reserves. Further, the capture of Sheikh Hasan and the south-western
+defences constituted a very distinct threat to the whole of the Gaza
+position, which could be developed on any sign of a withdrawal on the
+part of the enemy.
+
+Our losses, though considerable, were not in any way disproportionate to
+the results obtained.
+
+[Sidenote: Water and transport difficulties.]
+
+Meanwhile on our right flank the water and transport difficulties were
+found to be greater than anticipated, and the preparations for the
+second phase of the attack were somewhat delayed in consequence.
+
+On the early morning of November 1 the 53rd (Welsh) Division, with the
+Imperial Camel Corps on its right, had moved out into the hills north of
+Beersheba, with the object of securing the flank of the attack on
+Sheria. Mounted troops were also sent north along the Hebron Road to
+secure Dhaheriyeh if possible, as it was hoped that a good supply of
+water would be found in this area, and that a motor road which the Turks
+were reported to have constructed from Dhaheriyeh to Sheria could be
+secured for our use.
+
+The 53rd (Welsh) Division, after a long march, took up a position from
+Towal Abu Jerwal (six miles north of Beersheba) to Muweileh (four miles
+north-east of Abu Irgeig). Irish troops occupied Abu Irgeig the same
+day.
+
+[Sidenote: Advance on Kohleh and Khuweilfeh.]
+
+On November 3 we advanced north on Ain Kohleh and Tel Khuweilfeh, near
+which place the mounted troops had engaged considerable enemy forces on
+the previous day. This advance was strongly opposed, but was pushed on
+through difficult hill country to within a short distance of Ain Kohleh
+and Khuweilfeh. At these places the enemy was found holding a strong
+position with considerable and increasing forces. He was obviously
+determined not only to bar any further progress in this direction, but,
+if possible, to drive our flankguard back on Beersheba. During the 4th
+and 5th he made several determined attacks on the mounted troops. These
+attacks were repulsed.
+
+[Sidenote: Hostile cavalry between Khuweilfeh and Hebron Road.]
+
+By the evening of November 5 the 19th Turkish Division, the remains of
+the 27th and certain units of the 16th Division had been identified in
+the fighting round Tel el Khuweilfeh, and it was also fairly clear that
+the greater part of the hostile cavalry, supported apparently by some
+infantry ("depôt" troops) from Hebron, were engaged between Khuweilfeh
+and the Hebron Road.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy tries to draw forces north of Beersheba.]
+
+The action of the enemy in thus employing the whole of his available
+reserves in an immediate counter-stroke so far to the east was
+apparently a bold effort to induce me to make essential alterations in
+my offensive plan, thereby gaining time and disorganizing my
+arrangements. The country north of Beersheba was exceedingly rough and
+hilly, and very little water was to be found there. Had the enemy
+succeeded in drawing considerable forces against him in that area the
+result might easily have been an indecisive fight (for the terrain was
+very suitable to his methods of defence) and my own main striking force
+would probably have been made too weak effectively to break the enemy's
+centre in the neighborhood of Sheria Hareira. This might have resulted
+in our gaining Beersheba, but failing to do more--in which case
+Beersheba would only have been an incubus of a most inconvenient kind.
+However, the enemy's action was not allowed to make any essential
+modification to the original plan, which it had been decided to carry
+out at dawn on November 6.
+
+[Sidenote: Effort to reach Sheria.]
+
+By the evening of November 5, all preparations had been made to attack
+in the Kauwukah and Rushdi systems and to make every effort to reach
+Sheria before nightfall.
+
+The mounted troops were to be prepared in the event of a success by the
+main force to collect, as they were somewhat widely scattered owing to
+water difficulties, and push north in pursuit of the enemy. Tel el
+Khuweilfeh was to be attacked at dawn on the 6th, and the troops were to
+endeavor to reach line Tel el Khuweilfeh-Rijm el Dhib.
+
+[Sidenote: The plan of attack.]
+
+At dawn on the 6th the attacking force had taken up positions of
+readiness to the S.E. of the Kauwukah system of trenches. The attack was
+to be commenced by an assault on the group of works forming the extreme
+left of the enemy's defensive system, followed by an advance due west up
+the railway, capturing the line of detached works which lay east of the
+railway. During this attack London and Irish troops were to advance
+towards the Kauwukah system, bringing forward their guns to within
+wire-cutting range. They were to assault the southeastern face of the
+Kauwukah system as soon as the bombardment had proved effective, and
+thence take the remainder of the system in enfilade.
+
+[Sidenote: All objectives of the attack captured.]
+
+The attack progressed rapidly, the Yeomanry storming the works on the
+enemy's extreme left with great dash; and soon after noon the London and
+Irish troops commenced their attack. It was completely successful in
+capturing all its objectives, and the whole of the Rushdi system in
+addition. Sheria Station was also captured before dark. The Yeomanry
+reached the line of the Wadi Sheria to Wadi Union; and the troops on the
+left were close to Hareira Redoubt, which was still occupied by the
+enemy. This attack was a fine performance, the troops advancing 8 or 9
+miles during the day and capturing a series of very strong works
+covering a front of about 7 miles, the greater part of which had been
+had and strengthened by the enemy for over six months. Some 600
+prisoners were taken and some guns and machine-guns captured. Our
+casualties were comparatively slight. The greatest opposition was
+encountered by the Yeomanry in the early morning, the works covering the
+left of the enemy's line being strong and stubbornly defended.
+
+[Sidenote: Mounted troops are ordered to take up the pursuit.]
+
+During the afternoon, as soon as it was seen that the attack had
+succeeded, mounted troops were ordered to take up the pursuit and to
+occupy Huj and Jemmamah.
+
+The 53rd (Welsh) Division had again had very severe fighting on the 6th.
+Their attack at dawn on Tel el Khuweilfeh was successful, and, though
+they were driven off a hill by a counterattack, they retook it and
+captured another hill, which much improved their position. The Turkish
+losses in this area were very heavy indeed, and the stubborn fighting
+of the 53rd (Welsh) Division, Imperial Camel Corps, and part of the
+mounted troops during November 2 to 6 drew in and exhausted the Turkish
+reserves and paved the way for the success of the attack on Sheria. The
+53rd (Welsh) Division took several hundred prisoners and some guns
+during this fighting.
+
+[Sidenote: Bombardment of Gaza continues.]
+
+The bombardment of Gaza had meanwhile continued, and another attack was
+ordered to take place on the night of the 6th-7th.
+
+The objectives were, on the right, Outpost Hill and Middlesex Hill (to
+be attacked at 11.30 p. m. on the 6th), and on the left the line Belah
+Trench-Turtle Hill (to be attacked at dawn on the 7th).
+
+[Sidenote: Airmen observe enemy movements.]
+
+During the 6th a certain amount of movement on the roads north of Gaza
+was observed by our airmen and fired on by our heavy artillery, but
+nothing indicating a general retirement from Gaza.
+
+The attack on Outpost Hill and Middlesex Hill met with little
+opposition, and as soon, after they had been taken, as patrols could be
+pushed forward, the enemy was found to be gone. East Anglian troops on
+the left also found at dawn that the enemy had retired during the night,
+and early in the morning the main force occupied the northern and
+eastern defences of Gaza. Rearguards were still occupying Beit Hanun and
+the Atawineh and Tank systems, from whence Turkish artillery continued
+to fire on Gaza and Ali Muntar till dusk.
+
+[Sidenote: The Turks evacuate Gaza.]
+
+[Sidenote: Turkish rearguard makes counterattacks.]
+
+As soon as it was seen that the Turks had evacuated Gaza a part of the
+force pushed along the coast to the mouth of the Wadi Hesi, so as to
+turn the Wadi Hesi line and prevent the enemy making any stand there.
+Cavalry had already pushed on round the north of Gaza, and became
+engaged with an enemy rearguard at Beit Hanun, which maintained its
+position till nightfall. The force advancing along the coast reached the
+Wadi Hesi by evening, and succeeded in establishing itself on the north
+bank in the face of considerable opposition, a Turkish rearguard making
+several determined counterattacks.
+
+On our extreme right the situation remained practically unchanged during
+the 7th; the enemy made no further attempt to counterattack, but
+maintained his positions opposite our right flank guard.
+
+[Sidenote: London troops take Tel el Sheria.]
+
+In the centre the Hareira Tepe Redoubt was captured at dawn; some
+prisoners and guns were taken. The London troops, after a severe
+engagement at Tel el Sheria, which they captured by a bayonet charge at
+4 a. m. on the 7th subsequently repulsing several counterattacks, pushed
+forward their line about a mile to the north of Tel el Sheria; the
+mounted troops on the right moved towards Jemmamah and Huj, but met with
+considerable opposition from hostile rearguards.
+
+[Sidenote: Charge of the Worcester and Warwick Yeomanry.]
+
+[Sidenote: Reports of the Royal Flying Corps.]
+
+During the 8th the advance was continued, and interest was chiefly
+centred in an attempt to cut off, if possible, the Turkish rearguard
+which had held the Tank and Atawineh systems. The enemy had, however,
+retreated during the night 7th-8th, and though considerable captures of
+prisoners, guns, ammunition, and other stores were made during the day,
+chiefly in the vicinity of Huj, no large formed body of the enemy was
+cut off. The Turkish rearguards fought stubbornly and offered
+considerable opposition. Near Huj a fine charge by some squadrons of the
+Worcester and Warwick Yeomanry captured 12 guns, and broke the
+resistance of a hostile rearguard. It soon became obvious from the
+reports of the Royal Flying Corps, who throughout the 7th and 8th
+attacked the retreating columns with bombs and machine-gun fire, and
+from other evidence, that the enemy was retiring in considerable
+disorganization, and could offer no very serious resistance if pressed
+with determination.
+
+Instructions were accordingly issued on the morning of the 9th to the
+mounted troops, directing them on the line El Tine-Beit Duras, with
+orders to press the enemy relentlessly. They were to be supported by a
+portion of the force, which was ordered to push forward to Julis and
+Mejdel.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy pursued toward Hebron by the Yeomanry.]
+
+The enemy opposite our right flank guard had commenced to retreat
+towards Hebron on the morning of the 8th. He was pursued for a short
+distance by the Yeomanry, and some prisoners and camels were captured,
+but the Yeomanry were then recalled to rejoin the main body of the
+mounted troops for the more important task of the pursuit of the enemy's
+main body.
+
+[Sidenote: The problem of water and forage.]
+
+By the 9th, therefore, operations had reached the stage of a direct
+pursuit by as many troops as could be supplied so far in front of
+railhead. The problem, in fact, became one of supply rather than
+man[oe]uvre. The question of water and forage was a very difficult one.
+Even where water was found in sufficient quantities, it was usually in
+wells and not on the surface, and consequently if the machinery for
+working the wells was damaged, or a sufficient supply of troughs was not
+available, the process of watering a large quantity of animals was slow
+and difficult.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy organizes a counterattack.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy's losses heavy.]
+
+On the evening of November 9 there were indications that the enemy was
+organizing a counterattack towards Arak el Menshiye by all available
+units of the force which had retired towards Hebron, with the object of
+taking pressure off the main force, which was retiring along the coastal
+plain. It was obvious that the Hebron force, which was believed to be
+short of transport and ammunition, to have lost heavily and to be in a
+generally disorganized state, could make no effective diversion, and
+that this threat could practically be disregarded. Other information
+showed the seriousness of the enemy's losses and the disorganization of
+his forces.
+
+[Sidenote: Imperial Camel Corps ordered to Tel de Nejile.]
+
+Orders were accordingly issued to press the pursuit and to reach the
+Junction Station as early as possible, thus cutting off the Jerusalem
+Army, while the Imperial Camel Corps was ordered to move to the
+neighborhood of Tel de Nejile, where it would be on the flank of any
+counter-stroke from the hills.
+
+[Sidenote: The Turkish Army makes a stand.]
+
+Operations on the 10th and 11th showed a stiffening of the enemy's
+resistance on the general line of the Wadi Sukereir, with centre about
+El Kustineh; the Hebron group, after an ineffective demonstration in the
+direction of Arak el Menshiye on the 10th, retired north-east and
+prolonged the enemy's line towards Beit Jibrin. Royal Flying Corps
+reports indicated the total hostile forces opposed to us on this line at
+about 15,000; and this increased resistance, coupled with the capture of
+prisoners from almost every unit of the Turkish force, tended to show
+that we were no longer opposed to rearguards, but that all the remainder
+of the Turkish Army which could be induced to fight was making a last
+effort to arrest our pursuit south of the important Junction Station.
+
+[Sidenote: Troops suffer from thirst.]
+
+In these circumstances our progress on the 10th and 11th was slow; the
+troops suffered considerably from thirst (a hot, exhausting wind blew
+during these two days), and our supply difficulties were great; but by
+the evening of the 11th favorable positions had been reached for a
+combined attack.
+
+[Sidenote: Forces far from their railhead.]
+
+[Sidenote: Water supply slow to obtain.]
+
+The 12th was spent in preparations for the attack, which was ordered to
+be begun early on the morning of the 13th, on the enemy's position
+covering Junction Station. Our forces were now operating at a distance
+of some 35 miles in advance of their railhead, and the bringing up and
+distribution of supplies and ammunition formed a difficult problem. The
+routes north of the Wadi Hesi were found to be hard and good going,
+though there were some difficult Wadi crossings, but the main road
+through Gaza and as far as Beit Hanun was sandy and difficult. The
+supply of water in the area of operations, though good and plentiful in
+most of the villages, lies mainly in wells 100 feet or more below the
+surface, and in these circumstances a rapid supply and distribution was
+almost impossible. Great credit is due to all concerned that these
+difficulties were overcome and that it was found possible not only to
+supply the troops already in the line, but to bring up two heavy
+batteries to support the attack.
+
+[Sidenote: The enemy's position from El Kubeibeh to Beit Jibrin.]
+
+The situation on the morning of November 13 was that the enemy had
+strung out his force (amounting probably to no more than 20,000 rifles
+in all) on a front of 20 miles, from El Kubeibeh on the north to about
+Beit Jibrin to the south. The right half of his line ran roughly
+parallel to and only about 5 miles in front of the Ramleh-Junction
+Station railway, his main line of supply from the north, and his right
+flank was already almost turned. This position had been dictated to him
+by the rapidity of our movement along the coast, and the determination
+with which his rearguards on this flank had been pressed.
+
+The advanced guard of the 52nd (Lowland) Division had forced its way
+almost to Burkah on the 11th, on which day also some mounted troops
+pushed across the Nahr Sukereir at Jisr Esdud, where they held a
+bridge-head. During the 12th the Yeomanry pushed north up the left bank
+of the Nahr Suhereir, and eventually seized Tel-el-Murreh on the right
+bank near the mouth.
+
+[Sidenote: One part of enemy retires north, the other east.]
+
+The enemy's army had now been broken into two separate parts, which
+retired north and east respectively, and were reported to consist of
+small scattered groups rather than formed bodies of any size.
+
+In fifteen days our force had advanced sixty miles on its right and
+about forty on its left. It had driven a Turkish Army of nine Infantry
+Divisions and one Cavalry Division out of a position in which it had
+been entrenched for six months, and had pursued it, giving battle
+whenever it attempted to stand, and inflicting on it losses amounting
+probably to nearly two-thirds of the enemy's original effectives. Over
+9,000 prisoners, about eighty guns, more than 100 machine guns, and very
+large quantities of ammunition and other stores had been captured.
+
+[Sidenote: Capture of Junction Station.]
+
+After the capture of Junction Station on the morning of the 14th, our
+troops secured a position covering the station, while the Australian
+mounted troops reached Kezaze that same evening.
+
+[Sidenote: Turks fight New Zealand Mounted Rifles.]
+
+The mounted troops pressed on towards Ramleh and Ludd. On the right
+Naaneh was attacked and captured in the morning, while on the left the
+New Zealand Mounted Rifles had a smart engagement at Ayun Kara (six
+miles south of Jaffa). Here the Turks made a determined counter-attack
+and got to within fifteen yards of our line. A bayonet attack drove them
+back with heavy loss.
+
+Flanking the advance along the railway to Ramleh and covering the main
+road from Ramleh to Jerusalem, a ridge stands up prominently out of the
+low foot hills surrounding it. This is the site of the ancient Gezer,
+near which the village of Abu Shusheh now stands. A hostile rearguard
+had established itself on this feature. It was captured on the morning
+of the 15th in a brilliant attack by mounted troops, who galloped up the
+ridge from the south. A gun and 360 prisoners were taken in this affair.
+
+[Sidenote: Mounted troops reach Ramleh and Ludd. Jaffa taken.]
+
+By the evening of the 15th the mounted troops had occupied Ramleh and
+Ludd, and had pushed patrols to within a short distance of Jaffa. At
+Ludd 300 prisoners were taken, and five destroyed aeroplanes and a
+quantity of abandoned war material were found at Ramleh and Ludd.
+
+Jaffa was occupied without opposition on the evening of the 16th.
+
+The situation was now as follows:
+
+[Sidenote: Airmen report enemy likely to leave Jerusalem.]
+
+The enemy's army, cut in two by our capture of Junction Station, had
+retired partly east into the mountains towards Jerusalem and partly
+north along the plain. The nearest line on which these two portions
+could re-unite was the line Tul Keram-Nablus. Reports from the Royal
+Flying Corps indicated that it was the probable intention of the enemy
+to evacuate Jerusalem and withdraw to reorganize on this line.
+
+On our side the mounted troops had been marching and fighting
+continuously since October 31, and had advanced a distance of
+seventy-five miles, measured in a straight line from Asluj to Jaffa. The
+troops, after their heavy fighting at Gaza, had advanced in nine days a
+distance of about forty miles, with two severe engagements and continual
+advanced guard fighting. The 52nd (Lowland) Division had covered
+sixty-nine miles in this period.
+
+[Sidenote: Railway is being extended.]
+
+The railway was being pushed forward as rapidly as possible, and every
+opportunity was taken of landing stores at points along the coast. The
+landing of stores was dependent on a continuance of favorable weather,
+and might at any moment be stopped for several days together.
+
+[Sidenote: One good road from Nablus to Jerusalem.]
+
+A pause was therefore necessary to await the progress of railway
+construction, but before our position in the plain could be considered
+secure it was essential to obtain a hold of the one good road which
+traverses the Judæan range from north to south, from Nablus to
+Jerusalem.
+
+[Sidenote: Road damaged in several places.]
+
+[Sidenote: Water supply scanty.]
+
+On our intended line of advance only one good road, the main
+Jaffa-Jerusalem road, traversed the hills from east to west. For nearly
+four miles, between Bab el Wad (two and one-half miles east of Latron)
+and Saris, this road passes through a narrow defile, and it had been
+damaged by the Turks in several places. The other roads were mere tracks
+on the side of the hill or up the stony beds of wadis, and were
+impracticable for wheeled transport without improvement. Throughout
+these hills the water supply was scanty without development.
+
+On November 17 the Yeomanry had commenced to move from Ramleh through
+the hills direct on Bireh by Annabeh, Berfilya and Beit ur el Tahta
+(Lower Bethoron). By the evening of November 18 one portion of the
+Yeomanry had reached the last-named place, while another portion had
+occupied Shilta. The route had been found impossible for wheels beyond
+Annabeh.
+
+[Sidenote: Infantry begins its advance.]
+
+[Sidenote: Attempt to avoid fighting near Jerusalem.]
+
+On the 19th the Infantry commenced its advance. One portion was to
+advance up the main road as far as Kuryet el Enab, with its right flank
+protected by Australian mounted troops. From that place, in order to
+avoid any fighting in the close vicinity of the Holy City, it was to
+strike north towards Bireh by a track leading through Biddu. The
+remainder of the infantry was to advance through Berfilya to Beit Likia
+and Beit Dukka and thence support the movement of the other portion.
+
+[Sidenote: Saris defended by rearguards.]
+
+After capturing Latron and Amnas on the morning of the 19th, the
+remainder of the day was spent in clearing the defile up to Saris, which
+was defended by hostile rearguards.
+
+On the 20th Kuryet el Enab was captured with the bayonet in the face of
+organized opposition, while Beit Dukka was also captured. On the same
+day the Yeomanry got to within four miles of the Nablus-Jerusalem road,
+but were stopped by strong opposition about Beitunia.
+
+[Sidenote: Difficult advance of infantry and Yeomanry.]
+
+On the 21st a body of infantry moved north-east by a track from Kuryet
+el Enab through Biddu and Kolundia towards Bireh. The track was found
+impassable for wheels, and was under hostile shell-fire. Progress was
+slow, but by evening the ridge on which stands Neby Samwil was secured.
+A further body of troops was left at Kuryet el Enab to cover the flank
+and demonstrate along the main Jerusalem road. It drove hostile parties
+from Kostul, two and one-half miles east of Kuryet el Enab, and secured
+this ridge.
+
+By the afternoon of the 21st advanced parties of Yeomanry were within
+two miles of the road and an attack was being delivered on Beitunia by
+other mounted troops.
+
+[Sidenote: Period of organization and preparation necessary.]
+
+The positions reached on the evening of the 21st practically marked the
+limit of progress in this first attempt to gain the Nablus-Jerusalem
+road. The Yeomanry were heavily counter-attacked and fell back, after
+bitter fighting, on Beit ur el Foka (Upper Bethoron). During the 22nd
+the enemy made two counter-attacks on the Neby Samwil ridge, which were
+repulsed. Determined and gallant attacks were made on the 23rd and on
+the 24th on the strong positions to the west of the road held by the
+enemy, who had brought up reinforcements and numerous machine-guns, and
+could support his infantry by artillery fire from guns placed in
+positions along the main road. Our artillery, from lack of roads, could
+not be brought up to give adequate support to our infantry. Both attacks
+failed, and it was evident that a period of preparation and organization
+would be necessary before an attack could be delivered in sufficient
+strength to drive the enemy from his positions west of the road.
+
+Orders were accordingly issued to consolidate the positions gained and
+prepare for relief.
+
+[Sidenote: Position for final attack is won.]
+
+Though these troops had failed to reach their final objectives, they had
+achieved invaluable results. The narrow passes from the plain to the
+plateau of the Judæan range have seldom been forced, and have been fatal
+to many invading armies. Had the attempt not been made at once, or had
+it been pressed with less determination, the enemy would have had time
+to reorganize his defences in the passes lower down, and the conquest of
+the plateau would then have been slow, costly, and precarious. As it
+was, positions had been won from which the final attack could be
+prepared and delivered with good prospects of success.
+
+By December 4 all reliefs were complete, and a line was held from Kustul
+by the Neby Samwil ridge, Beit Izza, and Beit Dukka, to Beit ur el
+Tahta.
+
+[Sidenote: Severe local fighting.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy pierces outposts near Jaffa.]
+
+[Sidenote: Attacks costly to Turks.]
+
+During this period attacks by the enemy along the whole line led to
+severe local fighting. On November 25 our advanced posts north of the
+river Auja were driven back across the river. From the 27th to the 30th
+the enemy delivered a series of attacks directed especially against the
+high ground north and north-east of Jaffa, the left flank of our
+position in the hills from Beit ur el Foka to El Burj, and the Neby
+Samwil ridge. An attack on the night of the 29th succeeded in
+penetrating our outpost line north-east of Jaffa, but next morning the
+whole hostile detachment, numbering 150, was surrounded and captured by
+Australian Light Horse. On the 30th a similar fate befell a battalion
+which attacked near El Burj; a counter-attack by Australian Light Horse
+took 220 prisoners and practically destroyed the attacking battalion.
+There was particularly heavy fighting between El Burj and Beit ur el
+Foka, but the Yeomanry and Scottish troops successfully resisted all
+attacks and inflicted severe losses on the enemy. At Beit ur el Foka one
+company took 300 prisoners. All efforts by the enemy to drive us off the
+Neby Samwil ridge were completely repulsed. These attacks cost the Turks
+very dearly. We took 750 prisoners between November 27 and 30, and the
+enemy's losses in killed and wounded were undoubtedly heavy. His attacks
+in no way affected our positions nor impeded the progress of our
+preparations.
+
+[Sidenote: Improvement of roads and water supply.]
+
+Favored by a continuance of fine weather, preparations for a fresh
+advance against the Turkish positions west and south of Jerusalem
+proceeded rapidly. Existing roads and tracks were improved and new ones
+constructed to enable heavy and field artillery to be placed in position
+and ammunition and supplies brought up. The water supply was also
+developed.
+
+[Sidenote: Advances of British troops.]
+
+The date for the attack was fixed as December 8. Welsh troops, with a
+Cavalry regiment attached, had advanced from their positions north of
+Beersheba up the Hebron-Jerusalem road on the 4th. No opposition was
+met, and by the evening of the 6th the head of this column was ten miles
+north of Hebron. The Infantry were directed to reach the Bethlehem-Beit
+Jala area by the 7th, and the line Surbahir-Sherafat (about three miles
+south of Jerusalem) by dawn on the 8th, and no troops were to enter
+Jerusalem during this operation.
+
+It was recognized that the troops on the extreme right might be delayed
+on the 7th and fail to reach the positions assigned to them by dawn on
+the 8th. Arrangements were therefore made to protect the right flank
+west of Jerusalem, in case such delay occurred.
+
+[Sidenote: Three days of rain make roads almost impassable.]
+
+On the 7th the weather broke, and for three days rain was almost
+continuous. The hills were covered with mist at frequent intervals,
+rendering observation from the air and visual signalling impossible. A
+more serious effect of the rain was to jeopardize the supply
+arrangements by rendering the roads almost impassable--quite impassable,
+indeed, for mechanical transport and camels in many places.
+
+[Sidenote: Artillery support difficult.]
+
+The troops moved into positions of assembly by night, and, assaulting at
+dawn on the 8th, soon carried their first objectives. They then pressed
+steadily forward. The mere physical difficulty of climbing the steep and
+rocky hillsides and crossing the deep valleys would have sufficed to
+render progress slow, and the opposition encountered was considerable.
+Artillery support was soon difficult, owing to the length of the advance
+and the difficulty of moving guns forward. But by about noon London
+troops had already advanced over two miles, and were swinging north-east
+to gain the Nablus-Jerusalem road; while the Yeomanry had captured the
+Beit Iksa spur, and were preparing for a further advance.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy defences west of Jerusalem captured.]
+
+As the right column had been delayed and was still some distance south
+of Jerusalem, it was necessary for the London troops to throw back their
+right and form a defensive flank facing east towards Jerusalem, from the
+western outskirts of which considerable rifle and artillery fire was
+being experienced. This delayed the advance, and early in the afternoon
+it was decided to consolidate the line gained and resume the advance
+next day, when the right column would be in a position to exert its
+pressure. By nightfall our line ran from Neby Samwil to the east of Beit
+Iksa, through Lifta to a point about one and one-half miles west of
+Jerusalem, whence it was thrown back facing east. All the enemy's
+prepared defences west and north-west of Jerusalem had been captured,
+and our troops were within a short distance of the Nablus-Jerusalem
+road.
+
+[Sidenote: Operations isolate Jerusalem.]
+
+Next morning the advance was resumed. The Turks had withdrawn during the
+night, and the London troops and Yeomanry, driving back rearguards,
+occupied a line across the Nablus-Jerusalem road four miles north of
+Jerusalem, while Welsh troops occupied a position east of Jerusalem
+across the Jericho road. These operations isolated Jerusalem, and at
+about noon the enemy sent out a _parlementaire_ and surrendered the
+city.
+
+At noon on the 11th I made my official entry into Jerusalem.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were many encounters between American ships and German submarines
+in the months of 1917, following the Declaration of War. Official
+accounts of the most important of these encounters are given in the
+following pages.
+
+
+
+
+AMERICAN SHIPS AND GERMAN SUBMARINES
+
+FROM OFFICIAL REPORTS
+
+
+[Sidenote: The destroyer _Cassin_ sights a submarine.]
+
+On October 15, 1917, the U. S. destroyer _Cassin_ was patrolling off the
+south coast of Ireland; when about 20 miles south of Mine Head, at 1.30
+p. m., a submarine was sighted by the lookout aloft four or five miles
+away, about two points on the port bow. The submarine at this time was
+awash and was made out by officers of the watch and the quartermaster of
+the watch, but three minutes later submerged.
+
+The _Cassin_, which was making 15 knots, continued on its course until
+near the position where the submarine had disappeared. When last seen
+the submarine was heading in a south-easterly direction, and when the
+destroyer reached the point of disappearance the course was changed, as
+it was thought the vessel would make a decided change of course after
+submerging. At this time the commanding officer, the executive officer,
+engineer officer, officer of the watch, and the junior watch officer
+were all on the bridge searching for the submarine.
+
+[Sidenote: Torpedo sighted running at high speed.]
+
+[Sidenote: Torpedo strikes destroyer and depth charges also explode.]
+
+At about 1.57 p. m. the commanding officer sighted a torpedo apparently
+shortly after it had been fired, running near the surface and in a
+direction that was estimated would make a hit either in the engine or
+fire room. When first seen the torpedo was between three or four hundred
+yards from the ship, and the wake could be followed on the other side
+for about 400 yards. The torpedo was running at high speed, at least 35
+knots. The _Cassin_ was maneuvering to dodge the torpedo, double
+emergency full speed ahead having been signaled from the engine room and
+the rudder put hard left as soon as the torpedo was sighted. It looked
+for the moment as though the torpedo would pass astern. When about
+fifteen or twenty feet away the torpedo porpoised, completely leaving
+the water and shearing to the left. Before again taking the water the
+torpedo hit the ship well aft on the port side about frame 163 and above
+the water line. Almost immediately after the explosion of the torpedo
+the depth charges, located on the stern and ready for firing, exploded.
+There were two distinct explosions in quick succession after the torpedo
+hit.
+
+[Sidenote: Ingram's sacrifice saves his comrades.]
+
+But one life was lost. Osmond K. Ingram, gunner's mate first class, was
+cleaning the muzzle of No. 4 gun, target practice being just over when
+the attack occurred. With rare presence of mind, realizing that the
+torpedo was about to strike the part of the ship where the depth charges
+were stored and that the setting off of these explosives might sink the
+ship, Ingram, immediately seeing the danger, ran aft to strip these
+charges and throw them overboard. He was blown to pieces when the
+torpedo struck. Thus Ingram sacrificed his life in performing a duty
+which he believed would save his ship and the lives of the officers and
+men on board.
+
+Nine members of the crew received minor injuries.
+
+After the ship was hit, the crew was kept at general quarters.
+
+[Sidenote: Port engine still workable.]
+
+The executive officer and engineer officer inspected the parts of the
+ship that were damaged, and those adjacent to the damage. It was found
+that the engine and fire rooms and after magazine were intact and that
+the engines could be worked; but that the ship could not be steered,
+the rudder having been blown off and the stern blown to starboard. The
+ship continued to turn to starboard in a circle. In an effort to put the
+ship on a course by the use of the engines, something carried away which
+put the starboard engine out of commission. The port engine was kept
+going at slow speed. The ship, being absolutely unmanageable, sometimes
+turned in a circle and at times held an approximate course for several
+minutes.
+
+[Sidenote: Radio officers improvise temporary wireless.]
+
+Immediately after the ship was torpedoed the radio was out of
+commission. The radio officer and radio electrician chief managed to
+improvise a temporary auxiliary antenna. The generators were out of
+commission for a short time after the explosion, the ship being in
+darkness below.
+
+When this vessel was torpedoed, there was another United States
+destroyer, name unknown, within signal distance. She had acknowledged
+our call by searchlight before we were torpedoed. After being torpedoed,
+an attempt was made to signal her by searchlight, flag, and whistle, and
+the distress signal was hoisted. Apparently through a misunderstanding
+she steamed away and was lost sight of.
+
+[Sidenote: Another submarine fight.]
+
+At about 2.30 p. m., when we were in approximately the same position as
+when torpedoed, a submarine conning tower was sighted on port beam,
+distant about 1,500 yards, ship still circling under port engine. Opened
+fire with No. 2 gun, firing four rounds. Submarine submerged and was not
+seen again. Two shots came very close to submarine.
+
+[Sidenote: American and British vessels stand by.]
+
+At 3.50 p. m., U. S. S. _Porter_ stood by. At 4.25 p. m., wreckage which
+was hanging to stern dropped off. At dark stopped port engine and
+drifted. At about 9 p. m., H. M. S. _Jessamine_ and H. M. S. _Tamarisk_
+stood by. H. M. S. _Jessamine_ signalled she would stand by until
+morning and then take us in tow. At this time sea was very rough, wind
+about six or seven and increasing.
+
+[Sidenote: Attempts to tow the _Cassin_ fail.]
+
+H. M. S. _Tamarisk_ prepared to take us in tow and made one attempt
+after another to get a line to us. Finally, about 2.10 a. m., October
+16, the _Tamarisk_ lowered a boat in rough sea and sent grass line by
+means of which our eight-inch hawser was sent over to her. At about 2.30
+a. m. _Tamarisk_ started towing us to Queenstown, speed about four
+knots, this vessel towing well on starboard quarter of _Tamarisk_, due
+to condition of stern described above. At 3.25 hawser parted.
+
+[Sidenote: The _Tamarisk_ succeeds in getting out a line.]
+
+Between this time and 10.37 a. m., when a towing line was received from
+H. M. S. _Snowdrop_, various attempts were made by the _Tamarisk_ and
+two trawlers and a tug to tow the _Cassin_. An eleven-inch towing hawser
+from the _Tamarisk_ parted. All ships, except her, lost the _Cassin_
+during the night. The _Cassin_ was drifting rapidly on a lee shore, and
+had it not been for the _Tamarisk_ getting out a line in the early
+morning, the vessel would have undoubtedly grounded on Hook Point, as it
+is extremely doubtful if her anchors would have held.
+
+About thirty-five feet of the stern was blown off or completely
+ruptured. The after living compartments and after storerooms are
+completely wrecked or gone, and all stores and clothing from these parts
+of the ship are gone or ruined. About forty-five members of the crew,
+including the chief petty officers, lost practically everything but the
+clothes they had on.
+
+At the time of the explosion there were a number of men in the after
+compartments. How they managed to escape is beyond explanation.
+
+The officers and crew behaved splendidly. There was no excitement. The
+men went to their stations quietly and remained there all night, except
+when called away to handle lines.
+
+[Sidenote: Efficiency of officers and men.]
+
+The work of the executive officer, Lieutenant J. W. McClaran, and of the
+engineer officer, Lieutenant J. A. Saunders, is deserving of especial
+commendation. These two officers inspected magazines and spaces below
+decks and superintended shoring of bulkheads and restaying of masts.
+Lieutenant (Junior Grade) R. M. Parkinson did excellent work in getting
+an improvised radio set into commission. W. J. Murphy, chief electrician
+(radio), and F. R. Fisher, chief machinist's mate, are specifically
+mentioned in the commanding officer's report for their cool and
+efficient work.
+
+Twenty-two enlisted men are mentioned by name as conspicuous for their
+coolness and leadership.
+
+[Sidenote: Luck in favor of the submarine.]
+
+From the statement of all the officers it is evident that luck favored
+the submarine. The destroyer probably would have escaped being hit had
+not the torpedo broached twice and turned decidedly to the left both
+times--in other words, failed to function properly.
+
+[Sidenote: The results of the explosion.]
+
+The equivalent of 850 pounds of T. N. T. is estimated to have exploded
+in and upon the _Cassin's_ fantail; this includes the charges of the
+torpedo and of both depth mines. No. 4 gun, blown overboard, left the
+ship to port, although that was the side which the torpedo hit. The gun
+went over at a point well forward of her mount. The mass of the
+wreckage, however, went to starboard. Explosion of the depth charges,
+rather than that of the torpedo outward or in throwback, supposedly
+effected this. About five seconds elapsed between the torpedo's
+detonation and those of the mines. They probably went off close
+together, for accounts vary as to whether there were in all two or
+three explosions.
+
+[Sidenote: The bulkhead buckles.]
+
+Of the two after doors, that to port threatened to carry away soon after
+the seas began to pound in. The main mass of the wreckage which dropped
+off did so upward of an hour after the explosions. It was at this time
+that the bulkhead began to buckle and the port door and dogging weaken.
+It was shored with mattresses under the personal direction of the
+executive. Up to this time and until the seas began to crumple the
+bulkhead completely, there was only a few inches of water in the two P.
+O. compartments; and even when the _Cassin_ reached Queenstown, hardly
+more than three feet. None of the compartments directly under these
+three on the deck below--handling room, magazine, and oil tanks--were
+injured at all. The tanks were farthest aft, and were pumped out after
+docking.
+
+[Sidenote: Freaks of flying metal.]
+
+One piece of metal entered the wash room and before coming to rest
+completely circled it without touching a man who was standing in the
+center of the compartment. Another stray piece tore a six-inch hole in
+one of the stacks.
+
+The destroyer within signal distance at the time of the attack was the
+U. S. S. _Porter_. It is believed that she saw the explosion, at least
+of the two depth charges, and thinking that the _Cassin_ was attacking a
+submarine, started off scouting before a signal could be sent and after
+the radio was out of commission.
+
+[Sidenote: The _Alcedo's_ last voyage.]
+
+[Sidenote: Low visibility hides convoy.]
+
+At 4 p. m., November 4, 1917, the U. S. S. _Alcedo_ proceeded to sea
+from Quiberon Bay on escort duty to take convoy through the war zone.
+Following the northbound convoy for Brest, when north of Belle Ile
+formation was taken with the _Alcedo_ on the starboard flank. At 5.45 p.
+m. the _Alcedo_ took departure from Point Poulins Light. Darkness had
+fallen and owing to a haze visibility was poor, at times the convoy not
+being visible. About 11.30 visibility was such that the convoy was seen
+on the port bow of the _Alcedo_, the nearest ship, according to the
+commanding officer's estimate, being about 1,200 yards distant. Having
+written his night order, the commanding officer left the bridge and
+turned in.
+
+The following is his report of the torpedoing:
+
+[Sidenote: "Submarine, Captain."]
+
+[Sidenote: Attempts to avoid the torpedo.]
+
+At or about 1.45 a. m., November 5, while sleeping in emergency cabin,
+immediately under upper bridge, I was awakened by a commotion and
+immediately received a report from some man unknown, "Submarine,
+captain." I jumped out of bed and went to the upper bridge, and the
+officer of the deck, Lieutenant Paul, stated he had sounded "general
+quarters," had seen submarine on surface about 300 yards on port bow,
+and submarine had fired a torpedo, which was approaching. I took station
+on port wing of upper bridge and saw torpedo approaching about 200 feet
+distant. Lieutenant Paul had put the rudder full right before I arrived
+on bridge, hoping to avoid the torpedo. The ship answered slowly to her
+helm, however, and before any other action could be taken the torpedo I
+saw struck the ship's side immediately under the port forward chain
+plates, the detonation occurring instantly. I was thrown down and for a
+few seconds dazed by falling débris and water.
+
+[Sidenote: Submarine alarm sounded on siren.]
+
+Upon regaining my feet I sounded the submarine alarm on the siren, to
+call all hands if they had not heard the general alarm gong, and to
+direct the attention of the convoy and other escorting vessels. Called
+to the forward guns' crews to see if at stations, but by this time
+realized that gallant forecastle was practically awash. The foremast had
+fallen, carrying away radio aerial. I called out to abandon ship.
+
+I then left the upper bridge and went into the chart house to obtain
+ship's position from the chart, but, as there was no light, could not
+see. I then went out of the chart house and met the navigator,
+Lieutenant Leonard, and asked him if he had sent any radio, and he
+replied "No." I then directed him and accompanied him to the main deck
+and told him to take charge of cutting away forward dories and life
+rafts.
+
+I then proceeded along starboard gangway and found a man lying face down
+in gangway. I stooped and rolled him over and spoke to him, but received
+no reply and was unable to learn his identity, owing to the darkness. It
+is my opinion that this man was dead.
+
+[Sidenote: Dories and life rafts are cut away.]
+
+I then continued to the after end of ship, took station on aftergun
+platform. I then realized that the ship was filling rapidly and her
+bulwarks amidships were level with the water. I directed the after
+dories and life rafts to be cut away and thrown overboard and ordered
+the men in the immediate vicinity to jump over the side, intending to
+follow them.
+
+[Sidenote: The ship sinks--Captain reaches a whaleboat.]
+
+Before I could jump, however, the ship listed heavily to port, plunging
+by the head, and sunk, carrying me down with the suction. I experienced
+no difficulty, however, in getting clear, and when I came to the surface
+I swam a few yards to a life raft, to which were clinging three men. We
+climbed on board this raft and upon looking around observed Doyle, chief
+boatswain's mate, and one other man in the whaleboat. We paddled to the
+whaleboat and embarked from the life raft.
+
+[Sidenote: Rescuing men from the water.]
+
+The whaleboat was about half full of water, and we immediately started
+bailing and then to rescue men from wreckage, and quickly filled the
+whaleboat to more than its maximum capacity, so that no others could be
+taken aboard. We then picked up two overturned dories which were nested
+together, separated them and righted them, only to find that their
+sterns had been broken. We then located another nest of dories, which
+were separated and righted and found to be seaworthy. Transferred some
+men from the whaleboat into these dories and proceeded to pick up other
+men from wreckage. During this time cries were heard from two men in the
+water some distance away who were holding on to wreckage and calling for
+assistance. It is believed that these men were Ernest M. Harrison, mess
+attendant, and John Winne, jr., seaman. As soon as the dories were
+available we proceeded to where they were last seen, but could find no
+trace of them.
+
+[Sidenote: Submarine of _U-27_ type approaches.]
+
+About this time, which was probably an hour after the ship sank, a
+German submarine approached the scene of torpedoing and lay to near some
+of the dories and life rafts. She was in the light condition, and from
+my observation of her I am of the opinion that she was of the _U-27-31_
+type. This has been confirmed by having a number of men and officers
+check the silhouette book. The submarine was probably 100 yards distant
+from my whaleboat, and I heard no remarks from anyone on the submarine,
+although I observed three persons standing on top of conning tower.
+After laying on surface about half an hour the submarine steered off and
+submerged.
+
+[Sidenote: Boats leave scene of disaster.]
+
+I then proceeded with the whaleboat and two dories searching through the
+wreckage to make sure that no survivors were left in the water. No other
+people being seen, at 4.30 a. m. we started away from the scene of
+disaster.
+
+The _Alcedo_ was sunk, as near as I can estimate, 75 miles west true of
+north end of Belle Ile. The torpedo struck ship at 1.46 by the officer
+of the deck's watch, and the same watch stopped at 1.54 a. m., November
+5, this showing that the ship remained afloat eight minutes.
+
+[Sidenote: A French torpedo boat rescues the Captain's party.]
+
+The flare of Penmark Light was visible, and I headed for it and
+ascertained the course by Polaris to be approximately northeast. We
+rowed until 1.15, when Penmark Lighthouse was sighted. Continued rowing
+until 5.15 p. m. when Penmark Lighthouse was distant about 2 1/2 miles.
+We were then picked up by French torpedo boat _275_, and upon going on
+board I requested the commanding officer to radio immediately to Brest
+reporting the fact of torpedoing and that 3 officers and 40 men were
+proceeding to Brest. The French gave all assistance possible for the
+comfort of the survivors. We arrived at Brest about 11 p. m. Those
+requiring medical attention were sent to the hospital and the others
+were sent off to the _Panther_ to be quartered.
+
+[Sidenote: Crews of two other dories safe.]
+
+Upon arrival at Brest I was informed that two other dories containing
+Lieutenant H. R. Leonard, Lieutenant H. A. Peterson, Passed Assistant
+Surgeon Paul O. M. Andreae, and 25 men had landed at Pen March Point.
+This was my first intimation that these officers and men had been saved,
+as they had not been seen by any of my party at the scene of torpedoing.
+
+[Sidenote: The destroyer _Jacob Jones_ is torpedoed.]
+
+At 4.21 p. m. on December 6, 1917, in latitude 49·23 north, longitude
+6·13 west, clear weather, smooth sea, speed 13 knots zigzagging, the U.
+S. S. _Jacob Jones_ was struck on the starboard side by a torpedo from
+an enemy submarine. The ship was one of six of an escorting group which
+were returning independently from off Brest to Queenstown. All other
+ships of the group were out of sight ahead.
+
+[Sidenote: Attempts to avoid the torpedo.]
+
+I was in the chart house and heard some one call out "Torpedo!" I jumped
+at once to the bridge, and on the way up saw the torpedo about 800 yards
+from the ship approaching from about one point abaft the starboard beam
+headed for a point about midships, making a perfectly straight surface
+run (alternately broaching and submerging to apparently 4 or 5 feet), at
+an estimated speed of at least 40 knots. No periscope was sighted. When
+I reached the bridge I found that the officer of the deck had already
+put the rudder hard left and rung up emergency speed on the engine-room
+telegraph. The ship had already begun to swing to the left. I personally
+rang up emergency speed again and then turned to watch the torpedo. The
+executive officer, Lieutenant Norman Scott, left the chart house just
+ahead of me, saw the torpedo immediately on getting outside the door,
+and estimates that the torpedo when he sighted it was 1,000 yards away,
+approaching from one point, or slightly less, abaft the beam and making
+exceedingly high speed.
+
+[Sidenote: Lieutenant Kalk acts promptly.]
+
+After seeing the torpedo and realizing the straight run, line of
+approach, and high speed it was making, I was convinced that it was
+impossible to maneuver to avoid it. Lieutenant (Junior Grade) S. F. Kalk
+was officer of the deck at the time, and I consider that he took correct
+and especially prompt measures in maneuvering to avoid the torpedo.
+Lieutenant Kalk was a very able officer, calm and collected in
+emergency. He had been attached to the ship for about two months and had
+shown especial aptitude. His action in this emergency entirely justified
+my confidence in him. I deeply regret to state that he was lost as a
+result of the torpedoing of the ship, dying of exposure on one of the
+rafts.
+
+[Sidenote: Torpedo strikes fuel-oil tank below water line.]
+
+The torpedo broached and jumped clear of the water at a short distance
+from the ship, submerged about 50 or 60 feet from the ship, and struck
+approximately three feet below the water line in the fuel-oil tank
+between the auxiliary room and the after crew space. The ship settled
+aft immediately after being torpedoed to a point at which the deck just
+forward of the after deck house was awash, and then more gradually until
+the deck abreast the engine-room hatch was awash. A man on watch in the
+engine room, D. R. Carter, oiler, attempted to close the water-tight
+door between the auxiliary room and the engine room, but was unable to
+do so against the pressure of water from the auxiliary room.
+
+[Sidenote: Effects of the explosion.]
+
+The deck over the forward part of the after crew space and over the
+fuel-oil tank just forward of it was blown clear for a space
+athwartships of about 20 feet from starboard to port, and the auxiliary
+room wrecked. The starboard after torpedo tube was blown into the air.
+No fuel oil ignited and, apparently, no ammunition exploded. The depth
+charges in the chutes aft were set on ready and exploded after the stern
+sank. It was impossible to get to them to set them on safe as they were
+under water. Immediately the ship was torpedoed, Lieutenant J. K.
+Richards, the gunnery officer, rushed aft to attempt to set the charges
+on "safe," but was unable to get further aft than the after deck house.
+
+[Sidenote: Impossible to use radio.]
+
+As soon as the torpedo struck I attempted to send out an "S. O. S."
+message by radio, but the mainmast was carried away, antennae falling,
+and all electric power had failed. I then tried to have the gun-sight
+lighting batteries connected up in an effort to send out a low-power
+message with them, but it was at once evident that this would not be
+practicable before the ship sank. There was no other vessel in sight,
+and it was therefore impossible to get through a distress signal of any
+kind.
+
+[Sidenote: Confidential publications are weighted and thrown overboard.]
+
+Immediately after the ship was torpedoed every effort was made to get
+rafts and boats launched. Also the circular life belts from the bridge
+and several splinter mats from the outside of the bridge were cut adrift
+and afterwards proved very useful in holding men up until they could be
+got to the rafts. Weighted confidential publications were thrown over
+the side. There was no time to destroy other confidential matter, but it
+went down with the ship.
+
+[Sidenote: Men jump overboard.]
+
+The ship sank about 4.29 p. m. (about eight minutes after being
+torpedoed). As I saw her settling rapidly, I ran along the deck and
+ordered everybody I saw to jump overboard. At this time most of those
+not killed by the explosion had got clear of the ship and were on rafts
+or wreckage. Some, however, were swimming and a few appeared to be about
+a ship's length astern of the ship, at some distance from the rafts,
+probably having jumped overboard very soon after the ship was struck.
+
+[Sidenote: The ship sinks stern first. Depth charges explode.]
+
+Before the ship sank two shots were fired from No. 4 gun with the hope
+of attracting attention of some nearby ship. As the ship began sinking
+I jumped overboard. The ship sank stern first and twisted slowly through
+nearly 180 degrees as she swung upright. From this nearly vertical
+position, bow in the air to about the forward funnel, she went straight
+down. Before the ship reached the vertical position the depth charges
+exploded, and I believe them to have caused the death of a number of
+men. They also partially paralyzed, stunned, or dazed a number of
+others, including Lieutenant Kalk and myself and several men, some of
+whom are still disabled but recovering.
+
+[Sidenote: Rafts and boats float.]
+
+Immediate efforts were made to get all survivors on the rafts and then
+get rafts and boats together. Three rafts were launched before the ship
+sank and one floated off when she sank. The motor dory, hull undamaged
+but engine out of commission, also floated off, and the punt and wherry
+also floated clear. The punt was wrecked beyond usefulness, and the
+wherry was damaged and leaking badly, but was of considerable use in
+getting men to the rafts. The whaleboat was launched but capsized soon
+afterwards, having been damaged by the explosion of the depth charges.
+The motor sailor did not float clear, but went down with the ship.
+
+[Sidenote: Submarine appears and picks up one man.]
+
+About 15 or 20 minutes after the ship sank the submarine appeared on the
+surface about two or three miles to the westward of the rafts, and
+gradually approached until about 800 to 1,000 yards from the ship, where
+it stopped and was seen to pick up one unidentified man from the water.
+The submarine then submerged and was not seen again.
+
+[Sidenote: The captain's boat steers for the Scillys.]
+
+I was picked up by the motor dory and at once began to make arrangements
+to try to reach the Scillys in that boat in order to get assistance to
+those on the rafts. All the survivors then in sight were collected and I
+gave orders to Lieutenant Richards to keep them together. Lieutenant
+Scott, the navigating officer, had fixed the ship's position a few
+minutes before the explosion and both he and I knew accurately the
+course to be steered. I kept Lieutenant Scott to assist me and four men
+who were in good condition in the boat to man the oars, the engine being
+out of commission. With the exception of some emergency rations and half
+a bucket of water, all provisions, including medical kit, were taken
+from the dory and left on the rafts. There was no apparatus of any kind
+which could be used for night signaling.
+
+[Sidenote: Survivors are picked up.]
+
+After a very trying trip during which it was necessary to steer by stars
+and by the direction of the wind, the dory was picked up about 1 p. m.,
+December 7, by a small patrol vessel about 6 miles south of St. Marys.
+Commander Randal, R. N. R., Senior Naval Officer, Scilly Isles, informed
+me that the other survivors had been rescued.
+
+One small raft (which had been separated from the others from the
+first) was picked up by the S. S. _Catalina_ at 8 p. m., December 6.
+After a most trying experience through the night, the remaining
+survivors were picked up by H. M. S. _Camellia_, at 8.30 a. m., December
+7.
+
+[Sidenote: The number lost.]
+
+I deeply regret to state that out of a total of 7 officers and 103 men
+on board at the time of the torpedoing, 2 officers and 64 men died in
+the performance of duty.
+
+The behavior of officers and men under the exceptionally hard conditions
+is worthy of the highest praise.
+
+[Sidenote: Lieutenant Scott's valuable services.]
+
+Lieutenant Norman Scott, executive officer, accomplished a great deal
+toward getting boats and rafts in the water, turning off steam from the
+fireroom to the engine room, getting life belts and splinter mats from
+the bridge into the water, in person firing signal guns, encouraging and
+assisting the men, and in general doing everything possible in the short
+time available. He was of invaluable assistance during the trip in the
+dory.
+
+[Sidenote: Calmness and efficiency of other officers.]
+
+Lieutenant J. K. Richards was left in charge of all the rafts, and his
+coolness and cheerfulness under exceedingly hard conditions was highly
+commendable and undoubtedly served to put heart into the men to stand
+the strain.
+
+Lieutenant (Junior Grade) S. F. Kalk, during the early part of the
+evening, but already in a weakened condition, swam from one raft to
+another in the effort to equalize weight on the rafts. The men who were
+on the raft with him state, in their own words, that "He was game to the
+last."
+
+Lieutenant (Junior Grade) N. N. Gates was calm and efficient in the
+performance of duty.
+
+[Sidenote: Men recommended for commendation.]
+
+During the night, Charlesworth, C., boatswain's mate first class,
+removed parts of his own clothing (when all realized that their lives
+depended on keeping warm) to try to keep alive men more thinly clad than
+himself. This sacrifice shows his caliber and I recommend that he be
+commended for his action.
+
+At the risk of almost certain death, Burger, P. J., seaman second class,
+remained in the motor sailer and endeavored to get it clear for floating
+from the ship. While he did not succeed in accomplishing this work
+(which would undoubtedly have saved 20 or 30 lives) I desire to call
+attention to his sticking to duty until the very last, and recommend him
+as being most worthy of commendation. He was drawn under the water with
+the boat, but later came to the surface and was rescued.
+
+Kelly, L. J., chief electrician, and Chase, H. U., quartermaster third
+class, remained on board until the last, greatly endangering their lives
+thereby, to cut adrift splinter mats and life preservers. Kelly's
+stamina and spirit were especially valuable during the motor dory's
+trip.
+
+Gibson, H. L., chief boatswain's mate, and Meier, E., water tender, were
+of great assistance to the men on their rafts in advising and cheering
+them up under most adverse conditions.
+
+The foregoing report is made from my own observations and after
+questioning all surviving officers and men.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The American naval authorities early recognized that the swift
+destroyers were the most effective instruments for hunting down German
+submarines, and the most efficient guardians for the loaded troop and
+food ships crossing the Atlantic. Life on board one of these swift and
+powerful boats is described in the following narrative.[1]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[1] Transcriber's Note: This narrative will be found in Vol. III of this
+series.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+Page 18, double word "being" removed (without being able) Original
+read: (without being being able)
+
+Page 33, word "with" was originally italicised. These italics were
+removed. (_Nerissa_, with _Moorsom_ and _Morris_)
+
+Page 39, "squaddron" changed to "squadron" (his magnificent squadron)
+
+Page 59, "I" inserted into text (men than I could)
+
+Page 86, "Fregicourt" changed to "Frégicourt" (Rancourt, and Frégicourt)
+
+Page 143, "Candian" changed to "Canadian" (Canadian lines and had)
+
+Page 151, "Hobenzollerns" changed to "Hohenzollerns" (upon the
+Hohenzollerns)
+
+Page 158, "frome" changed to "from" (came from the sentries)
+
+Page 178, "Meopotamia" changed to "Mesopotamia" (empire--Mesopotamia,
+Syria)
+
+Page 238, "Wheras" changed to "Whereas" (_Whereas_, The Imperial German)
+
+Page 267, "dramtically" changed to "dramatically" (was dramatically
+tense)
+
+Page 294, "Consulor" changed to "Consular" (to American Consular)
+
+Page 346, "depots" changed to "depôts" to match rest of article (and
+depôts north of)
+
+Page 367, Sidenote: "defenses" changed to "defences" to match rest of
+text (Enemy defences west)
+
+Page 375, "foremost" changed to "foremast" (The foremast had fallen)
+
+Page 381, "other" changed to "others" (number of others)
+
+Many words were hyphenated or not depending on the article. Examples:
+battlefield, battle-field; bridgehead, bridge-head; varied forms of
+cooperate, co-operate, coöperate.
+
+At times manoevre was spelled with an oe-ligature. This is indicated in
+the text by enclosing the ligature in brackets [oe].
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of World's War Events, Vol. II, by Various
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of World's War Events, Vol. II, edited by Francis J. Reynolds and Allen L. Churchill.
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of World's War Events, Vol. II, 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: World's War Events, Vol. II
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Francis J. Reynolds
+        Allen L. Churchill
+
+Release Date: July 4, 2008 [EBook #25963]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORLD'S WAR EVENTS, VOL. II ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 508px;">
+<img src="images/vol2-frontis.jpg" width="508" height="302" alt="PRESIDENT WILSON READING HIS WAR MESSAGE TO CONGRESS, APRIL 2, 1917" title="PRESIDENT WILSON READING HIS WAR MESSAGE TO CONGRESS, APRIL 2, 1917" />
+<span class="caption">PRESIDENT WILSON READING HIS WAR MESSAGE TO CONGRESS, APRIL 2, 1917</span>
+</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h1>WORLD'S WAR<br />
+EVENTS</h1>
+
+<div class='center'>
+RECORDED BY STATESMEN &middot; COMMANDERS<br />
+HISTORIANS AND BY MEN WHO FOUGHT OR SAW<br />
+THE GREAT CAMPAIGNS<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<br /><span class="smcap">Compiled and Edited by</span></div>
+
+<h2>FRANCIS J. REYNOLDS</h2>
+
+<div class='center'><span class="smcap">Former Reference Librarian &middot; Library of Congress</span><br />
+
+<span class="smcap">and</span></div>
+
+<h2>ALLEN L. CHURCHILL</h2>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<span class="smcap">Associate Editor "The Story of the Great War"<br />
+Associate Editor "The New International<br />
+Encyclopedia"</span><br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h3>VOLUME II</h3>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 75px;">
+<img src="images/emblem.png" width="75" height="78" alt="Emblem" title="Emblem" />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+P. F. COLLIER &amp; SON COMPANY<br />
+<span class="smcap">NEW YORK</span><br /></div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p>
+<div class='center'>
+<small>Copyright 1919</small><br />
+
+<span class="smcap"><small>By P. F. Collier &amp; Son Company</small></span></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p>
+<h2>WORLD'S WAR<br />
+EVENTS</h2>
+
+<h3>VOLUME II</h3>
+
+<h3>
+BEGINNING WITH THE ATTACK AT VERDUN<br />
+EARLY IN 1916 THE STORY OF THE<br />
+WAR AND OF AMERICAN<br />
+AID IS CARRIED TO<br />
+THE CLOSE OF<br />
+1917<br /></h3>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
+<tr><td align='left' colspan='2'><small>ARTICLE</small></td><td align='left'><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Battle of Verdun</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Raoul Blanchard</i></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Battle of Jutland Bank</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Admiral Sir John Jellicoe's Official Despatch</i></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Taking the Col di Lana</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Lewis R. Freeman</i></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Battle of the Somme</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Sir Douglas Haig</i></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>V.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Russia's Refugees</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_114">114</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Gregory Mason</i></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Tragedy of Rumania</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Stanley Washburn</i></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Sixteen Months a War Prisoner</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_142">142</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Private "Jack" Evans</i></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Under German Rule in France and Belgium</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>J. P. Whitaker</i></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Anglo-Russian Campaign in Turkey</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>James B. MacDonald</i></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>X.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Kitchener</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_188">188</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Lady St. Helier</i></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Why America Broke with Germany</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_194">194</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>President Woodrow Wilson</i></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">How the War Came to America</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Official Account</i></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The War Message</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>President Woodrow Wilson</i></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">British Operations at Saloniki</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_244">244</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Official Report of General Milne</i></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">In Petrograd During the Seven Days</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_253">253</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Arno Dosch-Fleurot</i></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">America's First Shot</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_271">271</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>J.R. Keen</i></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">German Activities in the United States</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_278">278</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>House Committee on Foreign Affairs</i></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Preparing for War</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_298">298</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War</i></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Capture of Jerusalem</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_344">344</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>General E. H. H. Allenby</i></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">American Ships and German Submarines</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_369">369</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>From Official Reports</i></span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>THE BATTLE OF VERDUN</h2>
+
+<h3>RAOUL BLANCHARD</h3>
+
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Greatest
+drama of
+the war.</div>
+
+<p>The Battle of Verdun, which continued
+through from February 21, 1916, to the
+16th of December, ranks next to the Battle
+of the Marne as the greatest drama of the world
+war. Like the Marne, it represents the
+checkmate of a supreme effort on the part of
+the Germans to end the war swiftly by a
+thunderstroke. It surpasses the Battle of the
+Marne by the length of the struggle, the fury
+with which it was carried on, the huge scale
+of the operations. No complete analysis of it,
+however, has yet been published&mdash;only fragmentary
+accounts, dealing with the beginning
+or with mere episodes. Neither in France nor
+in Germany, up to the present moment, has the
+whole story of the battle been told, describing
+its vicissitudes, and following step by step
+the development of the stirring drama. That
+is the task I have set myself here.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German
+successes
+in France.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Preparations
+for a
+great offensive.</div>
+
+<p>The year 1915 was rich in successes for the
+Germans. In the West, thanks to an energetic
+defensive, they had held firm against the Allies'
+onslaughts in Artois and in Champagne. Their
+offensive in the East was most fruitful. Galicia
+had been almost completely recovered, the
+kingdom of Poland occupied, Courland, Lithuania,
+and Volhynia invaded. To the South
+they had crushed Serbia's opposition, saved
+Turkey, and won over Bulgaria. These triumphs,
+however, had not brought them peace,
+for the heart and soul of the Allies lay, after
+all, in the West&mdash;in England and France.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+The submarine campaign was counted on to
+keep England's hands tied; it remained, therefore,
+to attack and annihilate the French army.
+And so, in the autumn of 1915, preparations
+were begun on a huge scale for delivering a
+terrible blow in the West and dealing France
+the <i>coup de gr&acirc;ce</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The determination with which the Germans
+followed out this plan and the reckless way in
+which they drew on their resources leave no
+doubt as to the importance the operation held
+for them. They staked everything on putting
+their adversaries out of the running by breaking
+through their lines, marching on Paris, and
+shattering the confidence of the French people.
+This much they themselves admitted. The German
+press, at the beginning of the battle,
+treated it as a matter of secondary import,
+whose object was to open up free communications
+between Metz and the troops in the Argonne;
+but the proportions of the combat soon
+gave the lie to such modest estimates, and in
+the excitement of the first days official utterances
+betrayed how great were the expectations.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Troops
+urged to
+take Verdun.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Objects
+of the
+campaign.</div>
+
+<p>On March 4 the Crown Prince urged his
+already over-taxed troops to make one supreme
+effort to "capture Verdun, the heart of
+France"; and General von Deimling announced
+to the 15th Army Corps that this would be the
+last battle of the war. At Berlin, travelers from
+neutral countries leaving for Paris by way of
+Switzerland were told that the Germans would
+get there first. The Kaiser himself, replying
+toward the end of February to the good wishes
+of his faithful province of Brandenburg, congratulated
+himself publicly on seeing his warriors
+of the 3d Army Corps about to carry
+"the most important stronghold of our principal
+enemy." It is plain, then, that the object
+was to take Verdun, win a decisive victory, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
+start a tremendous onslaught which would
+bring the war to a triumphant close.</p>
+
+<p>We should next examine the reasons prompting
+the Germans to select Verdun as the vital
+point, the nature of the scene of operations,
+and the manner in which the preparation was
+made.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Strategic
+advantages
+to be
+gained.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Verdun
+railways
+dominated
+by
+Germans.</div>
+
+<p>Why did the Germans make their drive at
+Verdun, a powerful fortress defended by a complete
+system of detached outworks? Several
+reasons may be found for this. First of all,
+there were the strategic advantages of the
+operation. Ever since the Battle of the Marne
+and the German offensive against St. Mihiel,
+Verdun had formed a salient in the French
+front which was surrounded by the Germans on
+three sides,&mdash;northwest, east, and south,&mdash;and
+was consequently in greater peril than the rest
+of the French lines. Besides, Verdun was not
+far distant from Metz, the great German arsenal,
+the fountain-head for arms, food, and munitions.
+For the same reasons, the French defense
+of Verdun was made much harder because
+access to the city was commanded by the
+enemy. Of the two main railroads linking
+Verdun with France, the L&eacute;rouville line was
+cut off by the enemy at St. Mihiel; the second
+(leading through Ch&acirc;lons) was under ceaseless
+fire from the German artillery. There remained
+only a narrow-gauge road connecting Verdun
+and Bar-le-Duc. The fortress, then, was almost
+isolated.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Iron
+mines of
+Lorraine.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Extent
+of Lotharingia.</div>
+
+<p>For another reason, Verdun was too near,
+for the comfort of the Germans, to those immense
+deposits of iron ore in Lorraine which
+they have every intention of retaining after the
+war. The moral factor involved in the fall of
+Verdun was also immense. If the stronghold
+were captured, the French, who look on it as
+their chief bulwark in the East, would be greatly
+disheartened, whereas it would delight the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+souls of the Germans, who had been counting
+on its seizure since the beginning of the war.
+They have not forgotten that the ancient
+Lotharingia, created by a treaty signed eleven
+centuries ago at Verdun, extended as far as
+the Meuse. Finally, it is probable that the
+German General Staff intended to profit by a
+certain slackness on the part of the French,
+who, placing too much confidence in the
+strength of the position and the favorable
+nature of the surrounding countryside, had
+made little effort to augment their defensive
+value.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Serious
+obstacles
+to an
+offensive.</div>
+
+<p>This value, as a matter of fact, was great.
+The theatre of operations at Verdun offers
+far fewer inducements to an offensive than the
+plains of Artois, Picardy, or Champagne. The
+rolling ground, the vegetation, the distribution
+of the population, all present serious obstacles.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+plateaus
+of the
+Meuse.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Hills and
+ravines.</div>
+
+<p>The relief-map of the region about Verdun
+shows the sharply marked division of two
+plateaus situated on either side of the river
+Meuse. The plateau which rises on the left
+bank, toward the Argonne, falls away on the
+side toward the Meuse in a deeply indented
+line of high but gently sloping bluffs, which
+include the Butte de Montfaucon, Hill 304, and
+the heights of Esnes and Montz&eacute;ville. Fragments
+of this plateau, separated from the main
+mass by the action of watercourses, are scattered
+in long ridges over the space included
+between the line of bluffs and the Meuse: the
+two hills of Le Mont Homme (295 metres), the
+C&ocirc;te de l'Oie, and, farther to the South, the
+ridge of Bois Bourrus and Marre. To the east
+of the river, the country is still more rugged.
+The plateau on this bank rises abruptly, and
+terminates at the plain of the Wo&euml;vre in the
+cliffs of the C&ocirc;tes-de-Meuse, which tower 100
+metres over the plain. The brooks which flow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
+down to the Wo&euml;vre or to the Meuse have worn
+the cliffs and the plateau into a great number
+of hillocks called <i>c&ocirc;tes</i>: the C&ocirc;te du Talon, C&ocirc;te
+du Poivre, C&ocirc;te de Froideterre, and the rest.
+The ravines separating these <i>c&ocirc;tes</i> are deep
+and long: those of Vaux, Haudromont, and
+Fleury cut into the very heart of the plateau,
+leaving between them merely narrow ridges of
+land, easily to be defended.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Stretches
+of
+forest.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Villages
+well
+placed for
+defense.</div>
+
+<p>These natural defenses of the country are
+strengthened by the nature of the vegetation.
+On the rather sterile calcareous soil of the two
+plateaus the woods are thick and numerous.
+To the west, the approaches of Hill 304 are
+covered by the forest of Avocourt. On the east,
+long wooded stretches&mdash;the woods of Haumont,
+Caures, Wavrille, Herbebois, la Vauche,
+Haudromont, Hardaumont, la Caillette, and
+others&mdash;cover the narrow ridges of land and
+dominate the upper slopes of the ravines. The
+villages, often perched on the highest points
+of land, as their names ending in <i>mont</i> indicate,
+are easily transformed into small fortresses;
+such are Haumont, Beaumont, Louvemont,
+Douaumont. Others follow the watercourses,
+making it easier to defend them&mdash;Malancourt,
+B&eacute;thincourt and Cumi&egrave;res, to the west of the
+Meuse; Vaux to the east.</p>
+
+<p>These hills, then, as well as the ravines, the
+woods, and the favorably placed villages, all
+facilitated the defense of the countryside. On
+the other hand, the assailants had one great
+advantage: the French positions were cut in
+two by the valley of the Meuse, one kilometre
+wide and quite deep, which, owing to swampy
+bottom-lands, could not be crossed except by
+the bridges of Verdun. The French troops on
+the right bank had therefore to fight with a
+river at their backs, thus imperiling their retreat.
+A grave danger, this, in the face of an
+enemy determined to take full advantage of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
+the circumstance by attacking with undreamed-of
+violence.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Troops
+selected
+in
+October.</div>
+
+<p>The German preparation was, from the start,
+formidable and painstaking. It was probably
+under way by the end of October, 1915, for at
+that time the troops selected to deliver the first
+crushing attack were withdrawn from the front
+and sent into training. Four months were thus
+set aside for this purpose. To make the decisive
+attack, the Germans made selection from
+four of their crack army corps, the 18th active,
+the 7th reserve, the 15th active (the M&uuml;hlhausen
+corps), and the 3d active, composed of Brandenburgers.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Artillery
+and
+munitions
+made
+ready.</div>
+
+<p>These troops were sent to the interior to
+undergo special preparation. In addition to
+these 80,000 or 100,000 men, who were appointed
+to bear the brunt of the assault, the
+operation was to be supported by the Crown
+Prince's army on the right and by that of General
+von Strautz on the left&mdash;300,000 men more.
+Immense masses of artillery were gathered together
+to blast open the way; fourteen lines
+of railroad brought together from every direction
+the streams of arms and munitions. Heavy
+artillery was transported from the Russian and
+Serbian fronts. No light pieces were used in
+this operation&mdash;in the beginning, at any rate;
+only guns of large calibre, exceeding 200 millimetres,
+many of 370 and 420 millimetres.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Reliance
+on heavy
+artillery.</div>
+
+<p>The battle plans were based on the offensive
+power of the heavy artillery. The new formula
+was to run, "The artillery attacks, the infantry
+takes possession." In other words, a terrible
+bombardment was to play over every square
+yard of the terrain to be captured; when it
+was decided that the pulverization had been
+sufficient, a scouting-party of infantry would
+be sent out to look the situation over; behind
+them would come the pioneers, and then the
+first wave of the assault. In case the enemy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
+still resisted, the infantry would retire and
+leave the field once more to the artillery.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The point
+selected
+for attack.</div>
+
+<p>The point chosen for the attack was the
+plateau on the right bank of the Meuse. The
+Germans would thus avoid the obstacle of the
+cliffs of C&ocirc;tes de Meuse, and, by seizing the
+ridges and passing around the ravines, they
+could drive down on Douaumont, which dominates
+the entire region, and from there fall on
+Verdun and capture the bridges. At the same
+time, the German right wing would assault the
+French positions on the left bank of the Meuse;
+the left wing would complete the encircling
+movement, and the entire French army of Verdun,
+driven back to the river and attacked from
+the rear, would be captured or destroyed.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A ten
+months'
+battle.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The formidable
+German
+attack.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Periods
+of
+fixation.</div>
+
+<p>The Battle of Verdun lasted no less than ten
+months&mdash;from February 21 to December 16.
+First of all, came the formidable <i>German attack</i>,
+with its harvest of success during the
+first few days of the frontal drive, which was
+soon checked and forced to wear itself out in
+fruitless flank attacks, kept up until April 9.
+After this date the German programme became
+more modest: they merely wished to hold at
+Verdun sufficient French troops to forestall an
+offensive at some other point. This was the
+<i>period of German "fixation,"</i> lasting from
+April to the middle of July. It then became
+the object of the French to hold the German
+forces and prevent transfer to the Somme.
+<i>French "fixation,"</i> ended in the successes of
+October and December.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Lack of
+foresight
+on the
+part of
+French.</div>
+
+<p>The first German onslaught was the most
+intense and critical moment of the battle. The
+violent frontal attack on the plateau east of
+the Meuse, magnificently executed, at first
+carried all before it. The commanders at Verdun
+had shown a lack of foresight. There were
+too few trenches, too few cannon, too few
+troops. The soldiers had had too little experience<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
+in the field, and it was their task to face
+the most terrific attack ever known.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+battle
+begins.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">French
+left driven
+backwards.</div>
+
+<p>On the morning of February 21 the German
+artillery opened up a fire of infernal intensity.
+This artillery had been brought up in undreamed-of
+quantities. French aviators who
+flew over the enemy positions located so many
+batteries that they gave up marking them on
+their maps; the number was too great. The
+forest of Gr&eacute;milly, northeast of the point of
+attack, was just a great cloud shot through
+with lightning-flashes. A deluge of shells fell
+on the French positions, annihilating the first
+line, attacking the batteries and finding their
+mark as far back as the city of Verdun. At
+five o'clock in the afternoon the first waves of
+infantry assaulted and carried the advanced
+French positions in the woods of Haumont and
+Caures. On the 22d the French left was driven
+back about four kilometres.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Fall of
+Herbebois.</div>
+
+<p>The following day a terrible engagement took
+place along the entire line of attack, resulting
+toward evening in the retreat of both French
+wings; on the left Samognieux was taken by
+the Germans; on the right they occupied the
+strong position of Herbebois.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germans
+enter
+Douaumont.</div>
+
+<p>The situation developed rapidly on the 24th.
+The Germans enveloped the French centre,
+which formed a salient; at two in the afternoon
+they captured the important central position
+of Beaumont, and by nightfall had reached
+Louvemont and La Vauche forest, gathering in
+many prisoners. On the morning of the 25th
+the enemy stormed Bezonvaux, and entered the
+fort of Douaumont, already evacuated.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/vol2-map15-2.png" width="600" height="366" alt="FIRST ATTACK ON VERDUN" title="FIRST ATTACK ON VERDUN" />
+<span class="caption">FIRST ATTACK ON VERDUN</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germans
+advance
+eight kilometres.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">General de
+Castelnau
+and
+General
+P&eacute;tain.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Hand-to-hand
+fighting.</div>
+
+<p>In less than five days the assaulting troops
+sent forward over the plateau had penetrated
+the French positions to a depth of eight kilometres,
+and were masters of the most important
+elements of the defense of the fortress.
+Verdun and its bridges were only seven kilometres<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
+distant. The commander of the fortified
+region himself proposed to evacuate the
+whole right bank of the Meuse; the troops established
+in the Wo&euml;vre were already falling
+back toward the bluffs of C&ocirc;tes de Meuse. Most
+luckily, on this same day there arrived at Verdun
+some men of resource, together with substantial
+reinforcements. General de Castelnau,
+Chief of the General Staff, ordered the troops
+on the right bank to hold out at all costs. And
+on the evening of the 25th General P&eacute;tain took
+over the command of the entire sector. The
+Zouaves, on the left bank, were standing firm
+as rocks on the C&ocirc;tes du Poivre, which cuts
+off access from the valley to Verdun. During
+this time the Germans, pouring forward from
+Douaumont, had already reached the C&ocirc;te de
+Froideterre, and the French artillerymen, out-flanked,
+poured their fire into the gray masses
+as though with rifles. It was at this moment
+that the 39th division of the famous 20th French
+Army Corps of Nancy met the enemy in the
+open, and, after furious hand-to-hand fighting,
+broke the backbone of the attack.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+German
+frontal
+drive
+checked.</div>
+
+<p>That was the end of it. The German tidal
+wave could go no farther. There were fierce
+struggles for several days longer, but all in
+vain. Starting on the 26th, five French counter-attacks
+drove back the enemy to a point just
+north of the fort of Douaumont, and recaptured
+the village of the same name. For three days
+the German attacking forces tried unsuccessfully
+to force these positions; their losses were
+terrible, and already they had to call in a division
+of reinforcements. After two days of quiet
+the contest began again at Douaumont, which
+was attacked by an entire army corps; the 4th
+of March found the village again in German
+hands. The impetus of the great blow had been
+broken, however, after five days of success, the
+attack had fallen flat.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German
+flank
+attacks.</div>
+
+<p>Were the Germans then to renounce Verdun?
+After such vast preparations, after such great
+losses, after having roused such high hopes, this
+seemed impossible to the leaders of the German
+army. The frontal drive was to have been
+followed up by the attack of the wings, and it
+was now planned to carrying this out with the
+assistance of the Crown Prince's army, which
+was still intact. In this way the scheme so
+judiciously arranged would be accomplished in
+the appointed manner. Instead of adding the
+finishing touch to the victory, however, these
+wings now had the task of winning it completely&mdash;and
+the difference is no small one.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Genius of
+P&eacute;tain
+and
+Nivelle.</div>
+
+<p>These flank attacks were delivered for over
+a month (March 6-April 9) on both sides of
+the river simultaneously, with an intensity and
+power which recalled the first days of the battle.
+But the French were now on their guard. They
+had received great reinforcements of artillery,
+and the nimble "75's," thanks to their speed and
+accuracy, barred off the positions under attack
+by a terrible curtain of fire. Moreover, their
+infantry contrived to pass through the enemy's
+barrage-fire, wait calmly until the assaulting
+infantry were within 30 metres of them, and
+then let loose the rapid-fire guns. They were
+also commanded by energetic and brilliant
+chiefs: General P&eacute;tain, who offset the insufficient
+railroad communications with the rear
+by putting in motion a great stream of more
+than 40,000 motor trucks, all traveling on strict
+schedule time; and General Nivelle, who directed
+operations on the right bank of the river,
+before taking command of the Army of Verdun.
+The German successes of the first days were
+not duplicated.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">On the
+left of the
+Meuse.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Le Mort
+Homme.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Hill 304.</div>
+
+<p>These new attacks began on the left of the
+Meuse. The Germans tried to turn the first
+line of the French defense by working down
+along the river, and then capture the second<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
+line. On March 6 two divisions stormed the
+villages of Forges and Regn&eacute;ville, and attacked
+the woods of Corbeaux on the C&ocirc;te de l'Oie,
+which they captured on the 10th. After several
+days of preparation, they fell suddenly upon
+one of the important elements of the second
+line, the hill of Le Mort Homme, but failed to
+carry it (March 14-16). Repulsed on the right,
+they tried the left. On March 20 a body of
+picked troops just back from the Russian front&mdash;the
+11th Bavarian Division&mdash;stormed the
+French positions in the wood of Avocourt and
+moved on to Hill 304, where they obtained foothold
+for a short time before being driven back
+with losses of from 50 to 60 per cent of their
+effectives.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Crown
+Prince
+brings up
+reserves.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Village
+and fort
+of Vaux.</div>
+
+<p>At the same time the Germans were furiously
+assaulting the positions of the French
+right wing east of the Meuse. From the 8th
+to the 10th of March the Crown Prince brought
+forward again the troops which had survived
+the ordeal of the first days, and added to them
+the fresh forces of the 5th Reserve Corps. The
+action developed along the C&ocirc;te du Poivre, especially
+east of Douaumont, where it was directed
+against the village and fort of Vaux.
+The results were negative, except for a slight
+gain in the woods of Hardaumont. The 3d
+Corps had lost 22,000 men since the 21st of
+February&mdash;that is, almost its entire original
+strength. The 5th Corps was simply massacred
+on the slopes of Vaux, without <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'being being'">being</ins> able
+to reach the fort. New attempts against this
+position, on March 16 and 18, were no more
+fruitful. The battle of the right wing, then,
+was also lost.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Fighting
+on both
+sides the
+Meuse.</div>
+
+<p>The Germans hung on grimly. One last
+effort remained to be made. After a lull of six
+days (March 22-28) savage fighting started
+again on both sides of the river. On the right
+bank, from March 31 to April 2, the Germans<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
+got a foothold in the ravine of Vaux and along
+its slopes; but the French dislodged them the
+next day, inflicting great damage, and drove
+them back to Douaumont.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Avocourt
+retaken.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Le Mort
+Homme
+like a
+volcano.</div>
+
+<p>Their greatest effort was made on the left
+bank. Here the French took back the woods
+of Avocourt; from March 30 to the 8th of
+April, however, the Germans succeeded in
+breaking into their adversaries' first line, and
+on April 9, a sunny Sabbath-day, they delivered
+an attack against the entire second line, along
+a front of 11 kilometres, from Avocourt to the
+Meuse. There was terrific fighting, the heaviest
+that had taken place since February 26, and a
+worthy sequel to the original frontal attack.
+The artillery preparation was long and searching.
+The hill of Le Mort Homme, said an eye-witness,
+smoked like a volcano with innumerable
+craters. The assault was launched at
+noon, with five divisions, and in two hours it
+had been shattered. New attacks followed, but
+less orderly, less numerous, and more listless,
+until sundown. The checkmate was complete.
+"The 9th of April," said General P&eacute;tain to his
+troops, "is a day full of glory for your arms.
+The fierce assaults of the Crown Prince's
+soldiers have everywhere been thrown back. Infantry,
+artillery, sappers, and aviators of the
+Second Army have vied with one another in
+heroism. Courage, men: <i>on les aura</i>!"</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German
+plans
+ruined.</div>
+
+<p>And, indeed, this great attack of April 9,
+was the last general effort made by the German
+troops to carry out the programme of February&mdash;to
+capture Verdun and wipe out the French
+army which defended it. They had to give in.
+The French were on their guard now; they had
+artillery, munitions, and men. The defenders
+began to act as vigorously as the attackers;
+they took the offensive, recaptured the woods
+of La Caillette, and occupied the trenches before
+Le Mort Homme. The German plans were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+ruined. Some other scheme had to be thought
+out.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Verdun to
+be kept a
+battlefield.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A
+battle of
+attrition.</div>
+
+<p>Instead of employing only eight divisions of
+excellent troops, as originally planned, the
+Germans had little by little cast into the
+fiery furnace thirty divisions. This enormous
+sacrifice could not be allowed to count for
+nothing. The German High Command therefore
+decided to assign a less pretentious object
+to the abortive enterprise. The Crown Prince's
+offensive had fallen flat; but, at all events,
+it might succeed in preventing a French offensive.
+For this reason it was necessary that
+Verdun should remain a sore spot, a continually
+menaced sector, where the French
+would be obliged to send a steady stream of
+men, material, and munitions. It was hinted
+then in all the German papers that the struggle
+at Verdun was a battle of attrition,
+which would wear down the strength of the
+French by slow degrees. There was no talk
+now of thunderstrokes; it was all "the siege of
+Verdun." This time they expressed the true
+purpose of the German General Staff; the
+struggle which followed the fight of April 9,
+now took the character of a battle of fixation,
+in which the Germans tried to hold their adversaries'
+strongest units at Verdun and prevent
+their being transferred elsewhere. This
+state of affairs lasted from mid-April to well
+into July, when the progress of the Somme
+offensive showed the Germans that their efforts
+had been unavailing.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germans
+still
+formidable.</div>
+
+<p>It is true that during this new phase of the
+battle the offensive vigor of the Germans and
+their procedure in attacking were still formidable.</p>
+
+<p>Their artillery continued to perform prodigies.
+The medium-calibre pieces had now
+come into action, particularly the 150 mm.
+guns, with their amazing mobility of fire,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+which shelled the French first line, as well
+as their communications and batteries, with
+lightning speed. This storm of artillery continued
+night and day; it was the relentless,
+crushing continuity of the fire which exhausted
+the adversary and made the Battle of Verdun
+a hell on earth. There was one important
+difference, however: the infantry attacks now
+took place over restricted areas, which were
+rarely more than two kilometres in extent. The
+struggle was continual, but disconnected. Besides,
+it was rarely in progress on both sides
+of the river at once. Until the end of May the
+Germans did their worst on the left; then the
+French activities brought them back to the
+right side, and there they attacked with fury
+until mid-July.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A period
+of recuperation.</div>
+
+<p>The end of April was a period of recuperation
+for the Germans. They were still suffering
+from the confusion caused by their set-backs
+of March, and especially of April 9. Only two
+attempts at an offensive were made&mdash;one on
+the C&ocirc;te du Poivre (April 18) and one on the
+front south of Douaumont. Both were repulsed
+with great losses. The French, in turn,
+attacked on the 15th of April near Douaumont,
+on the 28th north of Le Mort Homme. It was
+not until May that the new German tactics
+were revealed: vigorous, but partial, attacks,
+directed now against one point, now against
+another.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Artillery
+directed
+against
+Hill 304.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Cumi&egrave;res
+and
+Le Mort
+Homme.</div>
+
+<p>On May 4 there began a terrible artillery
+preparation, directed against Hill 304. This
+was followed by attacks of infantry, which
+surged up the shell-blasted slopes, first to the
+northwest, then north, and finally northeast.
+The attack of the 7th was made by three divisions
+of fresh troops which had not previously
+been in action before Verdun. No gains were
+secured. Every foot of ground taken in the
+first rush was recaptured by French counter-attacks.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+During the night of the 18th a savage
+onslaught was made against the woods of Avocourt,
+without the least success. On the 20th
+and 21st, three divisions were hurled against
+Le Mort Homme, which they finally took; but
+they could go no farther. The 23d and 24th
+were terrible days. The Germans stormed the
+village of Cumi&egrave;res; their advance guard penetrated
+as far as Chattancourt. On the 26th,
+however, the French were again in possession
+of Cumi&egrave;res and the slopes of Le Mort Homme;
+and if the Germans, by means of violent
+counter-attacks, were able to get a fresh foothold
+in the ruins of Cumi&egrave;res, they made no attempt
+to progress farther. The battles of the
+left river-bank were now over; on this side of
+the Meuse there were to be only unimportant
+local engagements and the usual artillery fire.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Battles
+on right
+of Meuse.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mangin's
+division
+attacks.</div>
+
+<p>This shift of the German offensive activity
+from the left side of the Meuse to the right is
+explained by the activity shown at the same
+time in this sector by the French. The French
+command was not deceived by the German tactics;
+they intended to husband their strength
+for the future Somme offensive. For them Verdun
+was a sacrificial sector to which they sent,
+from now on, few men, scant munitions, and
+only artillery of the older type. Their object
+was only to hold firm, at all costs. However,
+the generals in charge of this thankless task,
+P&eacute;tain and Nivelle, decided that the best defensive
+plan consisted in attacking the enemy. To
+carry this out, they selected a soldier bronzed
+on the battlefields of Central Africa, the Soudan,
+and Morocco, General Mangin, who commanded
+the 5th Division and had already
+played a distinguished part in the struggle for
+Vaux, in March. On May 21 Mangin's division
+attacked on the right bank of the Meuse and
+occupied the quarries of Haudromont; on the
+22d it stormed the German lines for a length<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
+of two kilometres, and took the fort of Douaumont
+with the exception of one salient.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans replied to this with the greatest
+energy; for two days and nights the battle
+raged round the ruins of the fort. Finally, on
+the night of the 24th, two new Bavarian divisions
+succeeded in getting a footing in this position,
+to which the immediate approaches were
+held by the French. This vigorous effort
+alarmed the enemy, and from now on, until the
+middle of July, all their strength was focused
+on the right bank of the river.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The bloodiest
+chapter of
+the battle.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Intense
+barrage-fire.</div>
+
+<p>This contest of the right bank began on May
+31. It is, perhaps the bloodiest, the most
+terrible, chapter of all the operations before
+Verdun; for the Germans had determined to
+capture methodically, one by one, all the
+French positions, and get to the city. The first
+stake of this game was the possession of the
+fort of Vaux. Access to it was cut off from
+the French by a barrage-fire of unprecedented
+intensity; at the same time an assault was
+made against the trenches flanking the fort, and
+also against the defenses of the Fumin woods.
+On June 4 the enemy reached the superstructure
+of the fort and took possession, showering
+down hand-grenades and asphyxiating gas on
+the garrison, which was shut up in the casemates.
+After a heroic resistance the defenders
+succumbed to thirst and surrendered on June 7.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Thiaumont
+changes
+hands repeatedly.</div>
+
+<p>Now that Vaux was captured, the German
+activity was directed against the ruins of the
+small fort of Thiaumont, which blocks the way
+to the C&ocirc;te de Froideterre, and against the
+village of Fleury, dominating the mouth of a
+ravine leading to the Meuse. From June 8 to
+20, terrible fighting won for the Germans the
+possession of Thiaumont; on the 23d, six divisions,
+representing a total of at least 70,000
+men, were hurled against Fleury, which they
+held from the 23d to the 26th. The French,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
+undaunted, returned to the charge. On August
+30 they reoccupied Thiaumont, lost it at half-past
+three of the same day, recaptured it at
+half-past four, and were again driven out two
+days later. However, they remained close to
+the redoubt and the village.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Battles
+in July.</div>
+
+<p>The Germans then turned south, against the
+fortifications which dominated the ridges and
+ravines. There, on a hillock, stands the fort
+of Souville, at approximately the same elevation
+as Douaumont. On July 3, they captured the
+battery of Damloup, to the east; on the 12th,
+after insignificant fighting, they sent forward
+a huge mass of troops which got as far as the
+fort and battery of L'H&ocirc;pital. A counterattack
+drove them away again, but they dug
+themselves in about 800 metres away.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germans
+cannot
+win
+Verdun.</div>
+
+<p>After all, what had they accomplished? For
+twelve days they had been confronted with the
+uselessness of these bloody sacrifices. Verdun
+was out of reach; the offensive of the Somme
+was under way, and the French stood before
+the gates of P&eacute;ronne. Decidedly, the Battle of
+Verdun was lost. Neither the onslaught of the
+first period nor the battles of fixation had
+brought about the desired end. It now became
+impossible to squander on this field of death
+the munitions and troops which the German
+army needed desperately at P&eacute;ronne and Bapaume.
+The leaders of the German General
+Staff accepted the situation. Verdun held no
+further interest for them.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">French
+take the
+initiative.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">General
+Nivelle's
+blows.</div>
+
+<p>Verdun, however, continued to be of great
+interest to the French. In the first place, they
+could not endure seeing the enemy intrenched
+five kilometres away from the coveted city.
+Moreover, it was most important for them to
+prevent the Germans from weakening the Verdun
+front and transferring their men and guns
+to the Somme. The French troops, therefore,
+were to take the initiative out of the hands of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+the Germans and inaugurate, in their turn, a
+battle of fixation. This new situation presented
+two phases: in July and August the French
+were satisfied to worry the enemy with small
+forces and to oblige them to fight; in October
+and December General Nivelle, well supplied
+with troops and material, was able to strike
+two vigorous blows which took back from the
+Germans the larger part of all the territory
+they had won since February 21.</p>
+
+<p>From July 15 to September 15, furious fighting
+was in progress on the slopes of the plateau
+stretching from Thiaumont to Damloup. This
+time, however, it was the French who attacked
+savagely, who captured ground, and who took
+prisoners. So impetuous were they that their
+adversaries, who asked for nothing but quiet,
+were obliged to be constantly on their guard
+and deliver costly counter-attacks.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Contest
+again
+around
+Thiaumont.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">French
+colonials
+take
+Fleury.</div>
+
+<p>The contest raged most bitterly over the
+ruins of Thiaumont and Fleury. On the 15th
+of July the Zouaves broke into the southern
+part of the village, only to be driven out again.
+However, on the 19th and 20th the French
+freed Souville, and drew near to Fleury; from
+the 20th to the 26th they forged ahead step by
+step, taking 800 prisoners. A general attack,
+delivered on August 3, carried the fort of
+Thiaumont and the village of Fleury, with 1500
+prisoners. The Germans reacted violently; the
+4th of August they reoccupied Fleury, a part
+of which was taken back by the French that
+same evening. From the 5th to the 9th the
+struggle went on ceaselessly, night and day, in
+the ruins of the village. During this time the
+adversaries took and retook Thiaumont, which
+the Germans held after the 8th. But on the
+10th the Colonial regiment from Morocco
+reached Fleury, carefully prepared the assault,
+delivered it on the 17th, and captured the
+northern and southern portions of the village,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
+encircling the central part, which they occupied
+on the 18th. From this day Fleury remained
+in French hands. The German counter-assaults
+of the 18th, 19th, and 20th of August were
+fruitless; the Moroccan Colonials held their
+conquest firmly.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+French
+advance.</div>
+
+<p>On the 24th the French began to advance east
+of Fleury, in spite of incessant attacks which
+grew more intense on the 28th. Three hundred
+prisoners were taken between Fleury and
+Thiaumont on September 3, and 300 more
+fell into their hands in the woods of Vaux-Chap&icirc;tre.
+On the 9th they took 300 more before
+Fleury.</p>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">French
+programme
+carried
+out.</div>
+
+<p>It may be seen that the French troops had
+thoroughly carried out the programme assigned
+to them of attacking the enemy relentlessly,
+obliging him to counter-attack, and <i>holding</i>
+him at Verdun. But the High Command was
+to surpass itself. By means of sharp attacks,
+it proposed to carry the strong positions which
+the Germans had dearly bought, from February
+to July, at the price of five months of terrible
+effort. This new plan was destined to be accomplished
+on October 24 and December 15.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Four
+hundred
+millimeter
+guns.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Excellent
+troops.</div>
+
+<p>Verdun was no longer looked on by the
+French as a "sacrificial sector." To this attack
+of October 24, destined to establish once
+for all the superiority of the soldier of France,
+it was determined to consecrate all the time
+and all the energy that were found necessary.
+A force of artillery which General Nivelle himself
+declared to be of exceptional strength was
+brought into position&mdash;no old-fashioned ordnance
+this time, but magnificent new pieces,
+among them long-range guns of 400 millimetres
+calibre. The Germans had fifteen divisions on
+the Verdun front, but the French command
+judged it sufficient to make the attack with
+three divisions, which advanced along a front
+of seven kilometres. These, however, were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
+made up of excellent troops, withdrawn from
+service in the first lines and trained for several
+weeks, who knew every inch of the ground.
+General Mangin was their commander.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">French offensive
+in
+October.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germans
+evacuate
+Ft. Vaux.</div>
+
+<p>The French artillery opened fire on October
+21, by hammering away at the enemy's positions.
+A feint attack forced the Germans to
+reveal the location of their batteries, more
+than 130 of which were discovered and silenced.
+At 11.40 a.m., October 24, the assault started
+in the fog. The troops advanced on the run,
+preceded by a barrage-fire. On the left, the
+objective points were reached at 2.45 p.m.,
+and the village of Douaumont captured. The
+fort was stormed at 3 o'clock by the Moroccan
+Colonials, and the few Germans who held out
+there surrendered when night came on. On
+the right, the woods surrounding Vaux were
+rushed with lightning speed. The battery of
+Damloup was taken by assault. Vaux alone resisted.
+In order to reduce it, the artillery
+preparation was renewed from October 28 to
+November 2, and the Germans evacuated the
+fort without fighting on the morning of the 2d.
+As they retreated, the French occupied the
+villages of Vaux and Damloup, at the foot of
+the <i>c&ocirc;tes</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the attack on Douaumont and Vaux resulted
+in a real victory, attested to by the reoccupation
+of all the ground lost since the 25th
+of February, the capture of 15 cannon and more
+than 6000 prisoners. This, too, despite the
+orders found on German prisoners bidding
+them to "hold out at all cost" (25th Division),
+and to "make a desperate defense" (von
+Lochow). The French command, encouraged
+by this success, decided to do still better and
+to push on farther to the northeast.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Operations
+in
+December.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Roads
+and railways
+constructed.</div>
+
+<p>The operations of December 15 were more
+difficult. They were directed against a zone
+occupied by the enemy for more than nine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
+months, during which time he had constructed
+a great network of communication trenches,
+field-railways, dug-outs built into the hillsides,
+forts, and redoubts. Moreover, the French attacks
+had to start from unfavorable ground,
+where ceaseless fighting had been in progress
+since the end of February, where the soil,
+pounded by millions of projectiles, had been
+reduced to a sort of volcanic ash, transformed
+by the rain into a mass of sticky mud in which
+men had been swallowed up bodily. Two whole
+divisions were needed to construct twenty-five
+kilometres of roads and ten kilometres of railway,
+make dug-outs and trenches, and bring the
+artillery up into position. All was ready in
+five weeks; but the Germans, finding out what
+was in preparation, had provided formidable
+means of defense.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Battle of
+Verdun
+ends in
+victory
+for the
+French.</div>
+
+<p>The front to be attacked was held by five
+German divisions. Four others were held in
+reserve at the rear. On the French side, General
+Mangin had four divisions, three of which
+were composed of picked men, veterans of Verdun.
+The artillery preparation, made chiefly
+by pieces of 220, 274, and 370 mm., lasted for
+three full days. The assault was let loose on
+December 15, at 10 a.m.; on the left the French
+objectives were reached by noon; the whole
+spur of Hardaumont on the right was swiftly
+captured, and only a part of the German centre
+still resisted, east of Bezonvaux. This was reduced
+the next day. The C&ocirc;te du Poivre was
+taken entire; Vacherauville, Louvemont, Bezonvaux
+as well. The front was now three kilometres
+from the fort of Douaumont. Over
+11,000 prisoners were taken by the French, and
+115 cannon. For a whole day their reconnoitring
+parties were able to advance in front
+of the new lines, destroying batteries and bringing
+in prisoners, without encountering any
+serious resistance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The success was undeniable. As a reply to
+the German peace proposals of December 12,
+the Battle of Verdun ended as a real victory;
+and this magnificent operation, in which the
+French had shown such superiority in infantry
+and artillery, seemed to be a pledge of future
+triumphs.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German
+plans and
+their
+outcome.</div>
+
+<p>The conclusion is easily reached. In February
+and March Germany wished to end the
+war by crushing the French army at Verdun.
+She failed utterly. Then, from April to July,
+she wished to exhaust French military resources
+by a battle of fixation. Again she
+failed. The Somme offensive was the offspring
+of Verdun. Later on, from July to December,
+she was not able to elude the grasp of the
+French, and the last engagements, together
+with the vain struggles of the Germans for six
+months, showed to what extent General Nivelle's
+men had won the upper hand.</p>
+
+<p>The Battle of Verdun, beginning as a brilliant
+German offensive, ended as an offensive
+victory for the French. And so this terrible
+drama is an epitome of the whole great war:
+a brief term of success for the Germans at the
+start, due to a tremendous preparation which
+took careless adversaries by surprise&mdash;terrible
+and agonizing first moments, soon offset by
+energy, heroism, and the spirit of sacrifice; and
+finally, victory for the Soldiers of Right.</p>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br /><small>Copyright, Atlantic Monthly, June, 1917.</small></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>On May 31st, 1916, there was fought in the
+North Sea off Jutland, the most important
+naval battle of the Great War. While the
+battle was undecisive in some of the results
+attained, it was an English victory, in that the
+Germans suffered greater losses and were
+forced to flee. The narrative of this battle
+which follows is by the Admiral of the British
+Fleet.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND<br />
+BANK</h2>
+
+<h3>ADMIRAL SIR JOHN JELLICOE'S
+OFFICIAL DISPATCH</h3>
+
+
+<p>The German High Sea Fleet was brought
+to action on 31st May, 1916, to the westward
+of the Jutland Bank, off the coast of
+Denmark.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Grand
+Fleet
+sweeping
+the sea.</div>
+
+<p>The ships of the Grand Fleet, in pursuance
+of the general policy of periodical sweeps
+through the North Sea, had left its bases on
+the previous day, in accordance with instructions
+issued by me.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+British
+scouting
+force.</div>
+
+<p>In the early afternoon of Wednesday, 31st
+May, the 1st and 2nd Battle-cruiser Squadrons,
+1st, 2nd, and 3rd Light-cruiser Squadrons, and
+destroyers from the 1st, 9th, 10th, and 13th
+Flotillas, supported by the 5th Battle Squadron,
+were, in accordance with my directions,
+scouting to the southward of the Battle Fleet,
+which was accompanied by the 3rd Battle-cruiser
+Squadron, 1st and 2nd Cruiser Squadrons,
+4th Light-cruiser Squadron, 4th, 11th, and
+12th Flotillas.</p>
+
+<p>The junction of the Battle Fleet with the
+scouting force after the enemy had been sighted
+was delayed owing to the southerly course
+steered by our advanced force during the first
+hour after commencing their action with the
+enemy battle-cruisers. This was, of course, unavoidable,
+as had our battle-cruisers not followed
+the enemy to the southward the main
+fleets would never have been in contact.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Vice
+Admiral
+Beatty
+commands
+battle
+cruisers.</div>
+
+<p>The Battle-cruiser Fleet, gallantly led by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
+Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty, K.C.B.,
+M.V.O., D.S.O., and admirably supported
+by the ships of the Fifth Battle Squadron under
+Rear-Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas, M.V.O.,
+fought an action under, at times, disadvantageous
+conditions, especially in regard to light,
+in a manner that was in keeping with the best
+traditions of the service.</p>
+
+<p>The following extracts from the report of Sir
+David Beatty give the course of events before
+the Battle Fleet came upon the scene:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy
+ships
+sighted.</div>
+
+<p>"At 2.20 p.m. reports were received from
+<i>Galatea</i> (Commodore Edwyn S. Alexander-Sinclair,
+M.V.O., A.D.C.), indicating the presence
+of enemy vessels. The direction of advance
+was immediately altered to SSE., the
+course for Horn Reef, so as to place my force
+between the enemy and his base.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The German
+force.</div>
+
+<p>"At 2.35 p.m. a considerable amount of smoke
+was sighted to the eastward. This made it
+clear that the enemy was to the northward and
+eastward, and that it would be impossible for
+him to round the Horn Reef without being
+brought to action. Course was accordingly
+altered to the eastward and subsequently to
+north-eastward, the enemy being sighted at 3.31
+p.m. Their force consisted of five battle-cruisers.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Battle begins
+at
+long
+range.</div>
+
+<p>"After the first report of the enemy, the 1st
+and 3rd Light-cruiser Squadrons changed their
+direction, and, without waiting for orders,
+spread to the east, thereby forming a screen
+in advance of the Battle-cruiser Squadrons and
+5th Battle Squadron by the time we had hauled
+up to the course of approach. They engaged
+enemy light-cruisers at long range. In the
+meantime the 2nd Light-cruiser Squadron had
+come in at high speed, and was able to take
+station ahead of the battle-cruisers by the time
+we turned to ESE., the course on which we
+first engaged the enemy. In this respect the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
+work of the Light-cruiser Squadrons was excellent,
+and of great value.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Scout
+reports
+enemy
+force considerable.</div>
+
+<p>"From a report from <i>Galatea</i> at 2.25 p.m.
+it was evident that the enemy force was considerable,
+and not merely an isolated unit of
+light-cruisers, so at 2.45 p.m. I ordered <i>Engadine</i>
+to send up a seaplane and scout to NNE.
+This order was carried out very quickly, and
+by 3.8 p.m. a seaplane was well under way;
+her first reports of the enemy were received in
+<i>Engadine</i> about 3.30 p.m. Owing to clouds it
+was necessary to fly very low, and in order to
+identify four enemy light-cruisers the seaplane
+had to fly at a height of 900 feet within 3,000
+yards of them, the light-cruisers opening fire on
+her with every gun that would bear.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Line of
+battle
+formed.</div>
+
+<p>"At 3.30 p.m. I increased speed to 25 knots,
+and formed line of battle, the 2nd Battle-cruiser
+Squadron forming astern of the 1st Battle-cruiser
+Squadron, with destroyers of the 13th
+and 9th Flotillas taking station ahead. I turned
+to ESE., slightly converging on the enemy, who
+were now at a range of 23,000 yards, and
+formed the ships on a line of bearing to clear
+the smoke. The 5th Battle Squadron, who had
+conformed to our movements, were now bearing
+NNW., 10,000 yards. The visibility at this time
+was good, the sun behind us and the wind SE.
+Being between the enemy and his base, our
+situation was both tactically and strategically
+good.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Running
+fight to
+southward.</div>
+
+<p>"At 3.48 p.m. the action commenced at a
+range of 18,500 yards, both forces opening fire
+practically simultaneously. Course was altered
+to the southward, and subsequently the mean
+direction was SSE., the enemy steering a parallel
+course distant about 18,000 to 14,500 yards.</p>
+
+<p>"At 4.8 p.m. the 5th Battle Squadron came
+into action and opened fire at a range of 20,000
+yards. The enemy's fire now seemed to slacken.
+The destroyer <i>Landrail</i>, of 9th Flotilla, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
+was on our port beam, trying to take station
+ahead, sighted the periscope of a submarine on
+her port quarter. Though causing considerable
+inconvenience from smoke, the presence of <i>Lydiard</i>
+and <i>Landrail</i> undoubtedly preserved the
+battle-cruisers from closer submarine attack.
+<i>Nottingham</i> also reported a submarine on the
+starboard beam.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Destroyers
+in
+action.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy
+torpedo attack
+frustrated.</div>
+
+<p>"Eight destroyers of the 13th Flotilla, <i>Nestor</i>,
+<i>Nomad</i>, <i>Nicator</i>, <i>Narborough</i>, <i>Pelican</i>, <i>Petard</i>,
+<i>Obdurate</i>, <i>Nerissa</i>, <ins title="Transcriber's Note: This word italicized in original">with</ins> <i>Moorsom</i> and <i>Morris</i>,
+of 10th Flotilla, <i>Turbulent</i> and <i>Termagant</i>, of
+the 9th Flotilla, having been ordered to attack
+the enemy with torpedoes when opportunity
+offered, moved out at 4.15 p.m., simultaneously
+with a similar movement on the part of the
+enemy Destroyers. The attack was carried out
+in the most gallant manner, and with great
+determination. Before arriving at a favorable
+position to fire torpedoes, they intercepted an
+enemy force consisting of a light-cruiser and
+fifteen destroyers. A fierce engagement ensued
+at close quarters, with the result that the
+enemy were forced to retire on their battle-cruisers,
+having lost two destroyers sunk, and
+having their torpedo attack frustrated. Our
+destroyers sustained no loss in this engagement,
+but their attack on the enemy battle-cruisers
+was rendered less effective, owing to some of
+the destroyers having dropped astern during
+the fight. Their position was therefore unfavorable
+for torpedo attack.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Destroyers
+attack
+battleships.</div>
+
+<p>"<i>Nestor</i>, <i>Nomad</i>, and <i>Nicator</i> pressed home
+their attack on the battle-cruisers and fired two
+torpedoes at them, being subjected to a heavy
+fire from the enemy's secondary armament.
+<i>Nomad</i> was badly hit, and apparently remained
+stopped between the lines. Subsequently <i>Nestor</i>
+and <i>Nicator</i> altered course to the SE., and in
+a short time, the opposing battle-cruisers having
+turned 16 points, found themselves within<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+close range of a number of enemy battleships.
+Nothing daunted, though under a terrific fire,
+they stood on, and their position being favorable
+for torpedo attack fired a torpedo at
+the second ship of the enemy line at a range
+of 3,000 yards. Before they could fire their
+fourth torpedo, <i>Nestor</i> was badly hit and swung
+to starboard, <i>Nicator</i> altering course inside her
+to avoid collision, and thereby being prevented
+from firing the last torpedo. <i>Nicator</i> made
+good her escape. <i>Nestor</i> remained stopped, but
+was afloat when last seen. <i>Moorsom</i> also
+carried out an attack on the enemy's battle
+fleet.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Officers of
+destroyers
+commended
+for
+gallantry.</div>
+
+<p>"<i>Petard</i>, <i>Nerissa</i>, <i>Turbulent</i>, and <i>Termagant</i>
+also pressed home their attack on the enemy
+battle cruisers, firing torpedoes after the engagement
+with enemy destroyers. <i>Petard</i> reports
+that all her torpedoes must have crossed
+the enemy's line, while <i>Nerissa</i> states that one
+torpedo appeared to strike the rear ship. These
+destroyer attacks were indicative of the spirit
+pervading His Majesty's Navy, and were worthy
+of its highest traditions. I propose to bring to
+your notice a recommendation of Commander
+Bingham and other Officers for some recognition
+of their conspicuous gallantry.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Visibility
+reduced.</div>
+
+<p>"From 4.15 to 4.43 p.m. the conflict between
+the opposing battle-cruisers was of a very fierce
+and resolute character. The 5th Battle Squadron
+was engaging the enemy's rear ships, unfortunately
+at very long range. Our fire began
+to tell, the accuracy and rapidity of that of the
+enemy depreciating considerably. At 4.18 p.m.
+the third enemy ship was seen to be on fire.
+The visibility to the north-eastward had become
+considerably reduced, and the outline of the
+ships very indistinct.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Closing
+with the
+enemy's
+Battle
+Fleet.</div>
+
+<p>"At 4.38 p.m. <i>Southampton</i> reported the
+enemy's Battle Fleet ahead. The destroyers
+were recalled, and at 4.42 p.m. the enemy's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+Battle Fleet was sighted SE. Course was altered
+16 points in succession to starboard, and
+I proceeded on a northerly course to lead them
+towards the Battle Fleet. The enemy battle-cruisers
+altered course shortly afterwards, and
+the action continued. <i>Southampton</i>, with the
+2nd Light-cruiser Squadron, held on to the
+southward to observe. They closed to within
+13,000 yards of the enemy Battle Fleet, and
+came under a very heavy but ineffective fire.
+<i>Southampton's</i> reports were most valuable.
+The 5th Battle Squadron were now closing on
+an opposite course and engaging the enemy
+battle-cruisers with all guns. The position of
+the enemy Battle Fleet was communicated to
+them, and I ordered them to alter course 16
+points. Led by Rear-Admiral Evan-Thomas, in
+<i>Barham</i>, this squadron supported us brilliantly
+and effectively.</p>
+
+<p>"At 4.57 p.m. the 5th Battle Squadron turned
+up astern of me and came under the fire of the
+leading ships of the enemy Battle Fleet. <i>Fearless</i>,
+with the destroyers of 1st Flotilla, joined
+the battle-cruisers, and, when speed admitted,
+took station ahead. <i>Champion</i>, with 13th Flotilla,
+took station on the 5th Battle Squadron.
+At 5 p.m. the 1st and 3rd Light-cruiser Squadrons,
+which had been following me on the
+southerly course, took station on my starboard
+bow; the 2nd Light-cruiser Squadron took station
+on my port quarter.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Weather
+conditions
+unfavorable.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Following
+a northerly
+course.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">An enemy
+ship on
+fire.</div>
+
+<p>"The weather conditions now became unfavorable,
+our ships being silhouetted against
+a clear horizon to the westward, while the
+enemy were for the most part obscured by mist,
+only showing up clearly at intervals. These
+conditions prevailed until we had turned their
+van at about 6 p.m. Between 5 and 6 p.m. the
+action continued on a northerly course, the
+range being about 14,000 yards. During this
+time the enemy received very severe punishment,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+and one of their battle-cruisers quitted
+the line in a considerably damaged condition.
+This came under my personal observation, and
+was corroborated by <i>Princess Royal</i> and <i>Tiger</i>.
+Other enemy ships also showed signs of increasing
+injury. At 5.5 p.m. <i>Onslow</i> and
+<i>Moresby</i>, who had been detached to assist <i>Engadine</i>
+with the seaplane, rejoined the battle-cruiser
+squadrons and took station on the starboard
+(engaged) bow of <i>Lion</i>. At 5.10 p.m.
+<i>Moresby</i>, being 2 points before the beam of the
+leading enemy ship, fired a torpedo at a ship
+in their line. Eight minutes later she observed
+a hit with a torpedo on what was judged to be
+the sixth ship in the line. <i>Moresby</i> then passed
+between the lines to clear the range of smoke,
+and rejoined <i>Champion</i>. In corroboration of
+this, <i>Fearless</i> reports having seen an enemy
+heavy ship heavily on fire at about 5.10 p.m.,
+and shortly afterwards a huge cloud of smoke
+and steam.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Range of
+14,000
+yards.</div>
+
+<p>"At 5.35 p.m. our course was NNE., and the
+estimated position of the Battle Fleet was N.
+16 W., so we gradually hauled to the north-eastward,
+keeping the range of the enemy at 14,000
+yards. He was gradually hauling to the eastward,
+receiving severe punishment at the head
+of his line, and probably acting on information
+received from his light-cruisers which had
+sighted and were engaged with the Third
+Battle-cruiser Squadron. Possibly Zeppelins
+were present also.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">British
+Battle
+Fleet
+sighted.</div>
+
+<p>"At 5.50 p.m. British cruisers were sighted
+on the port bow, and at 5.56 p.m. the leading
+battleships of the Battle Fleet, bearing north
+5 miles. I thereupon altered course to east,
+and proceeded at utmost speed. This brought
+the range of the enemy down to 12,000 yards. I
+made a report to you that the enemy battle-cruisers
+bore south-east. At this time only
+three of the enemy battle-cruisers were visible,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
+closely followed by battleships of the <i>Koenig</i>
+class.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Torpedo
+attack on
+enemy
+Battle
+Fleet.</div>
+
+<p>"At about 6.5 p.m. <i>Onslow</i>, being on the engaged
+bow of <i>Lion</i>, sighted an enemy light-cruiser
+at a distance of 6,000 yards from us,
+apparently endeavoring to attack with torpedoes.
+<i>Onslow</i> at once closed and engaged her,
+firing 58 rounds at a range of from 4,000 to
+2,000 yards, scoring a number of hits. <i>Onslow</i>
+then closed the enemy battle-cruisers, and orders
+were given for all torpedoes to be fired.
+At this moment she was struck amidships by
+a heavy shell, with the result that only one torpedo
+was fired. Thinking that all his torpedoes
+had gone, the Commanding Officer proceeded to
+retire at slow speed. Being informed that he
+still had three torpedoes, he closed with the
+light-cruiser previously engaged and torpedoed
+her. The enemy's Battle Fleet was then sighted,
+and the remaining torpedoes were fired at them
+and must have crossed the enemy's track. Damage
+then caused <i>Onslow</i> to stop.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"At 7.15 p.m. <i>Defender</i>, whose speed had been
+reduced to 10 knots, while on the disengaged
+side of the battle-cruisers, by a shell which
+damaged her foremost boiler, closed <i>Onslow</i>
+and took her in tow. Shells were falling all
+round them during this operation, which, however,
+was successfully accomplished. During
+the heavy weather of the ensuing night the tow
+parted twice, but was re-secured. The two
+struggled on together until 1 p.m., 1st June,
+when <i>Onslow</i> was transferred to tugs."</p></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Course of
+the British
+Battle
+Fleet.</div>
+
+<p>On receipt of the information that the enemy
+had been sighted, the British Battle Fleet, with
+its accompanying cruiser and destroyer force,
+proceeded at full speed on a SE. by S. course
+to close the Battle-cruiser Fleet. During the
+two hours that elapsed before the arrival of
+the Battle Fleet on the scene the steaming
+qualities of the older battleships were severely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
+tested. Great credit is due to the engine-room
+departments for the manner in which they, as
+always, responded to the call, the whole Fleet
+maintaining a speed in excess of the trial speeds
+of some of the older vessels.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Third
+Battle-cruiser
+Squadron.</div>
+
+<p>The Third Battle-cruiser Squadron, commanded
+by Rear-Admiral the Hon. Horace
+L.A. Hood, C.B., M.V.O., D.S.O., which was
+in advance of the Battle Fleet, was ordered to
+reinforce Sir David Beatty. At 5.30 p.m. this
+squadron observed flashes of gunfire and heard
+the sound of guns to the south-westward. Rear-Admiral
+Hood sent the <i>Chester</i> to investigate,
+and this ship engaged three or four enemy
+light-cruisers at about 5.45 p.m. The engagement
+lasted for about twenty minutes, during
+which period Captain Lawson handled his vessel
+with great skill against heavy odds, and,
+although the ship suffered considerably in
+casualties, her fighting and steaming qualities
+were unimpaired, and at about 6.5 p.m. she rejoined
+the Third Battle-cruiser Squadron.</p>
+
+<p>The Third Battle-cruiser Squadron had turned
+to the north-westward, and at 6.10 p.m. sighted
+our battle-cruisers, the squadron taking station
+ahead of the <i>Lion</i> at 6.21 p.m. in accordance
+with the orders of the Vice-Admiral Commanding
+Battle-cruiser Fleet. He reports as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Hood's
+squadron
+takes
+station
+ahead.</div>
+
+<p>"I ordered them to take station ahead, which
+was carried out magnificently, Rear-Admiral
+Hood bringing his squadron into action ahead
+in a most inspiring manner, worthy of his great
+naval ancestors. At 6.25 p.m. I altered course
+to the ESE. in support of the Third Battle-cruiser
+Squadron, who were at this time only
+8,000 yards from the enemy's leading ship.
+They were pouring a hot fire into her and
+caused her to turn to the westward of south.
+At the same time I made a report to you of the
+bearing and distance of the enemy battle-fleet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Low
+visibility
+hinders
+both
+fleets.</div>
+
+<p>"By 6.50 p.m. the battle-cruisers were clear
+of our leading battle squadron then bearing
+about NNW. 3 miles, and I ordered the Third
+Battle-cruiser Squadron to prolong the line
+astern and reduced to 18 knots. The visibility
+at this time was very indifferent, not more than
+4 miles, and the enemy ships were temporarily
+lost sight of. It is interesting to note that
+after 6 p.m., although the visibility became reduced,
+it was undoubtedly more favorable to
+us than to the enemy. At intervals their ships
+showed up clearly, enabling us to punish them
+very severely and establish a definite superiority
+over them. From the report of other ships
+and my own observation it was clear that the
+enemy suffered considerable damage, battle-cruisers
+and battleships alike. The head of
+their line was crumpled up, leaving battleships
+as targets for the majority of our battle-cruisers.
+Before leaving us the Fifth Battle
+Squadron was also engaging battleships. The
+report of Rear-Admiral Evan-Thomas shows
+that excellent results were obtained, and it
+can be safely said that his magnificent <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'squaddron'">squadron</ins>
+wrought great execution.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Light
+cruisers
+attack
+heavy
+enemy
+ships.</div>
+
+<p>"From the report of Rear-Admiral T. D. W.
+Napier, M.V.O., the Third Light-cruiser Squadron,
+which had maintained its station on our
+starboard bow well ahead of the enemy, at 6.25
+p.m. attacked with the torpedo. <i>Falmouth</i> and
+<i>Yarmouth</i> both fired torpedoes at the leading
+enemy battle-cruiser, and it is believed that one
+torpedo hit, as a heavy underwater explosion
+was observed. The Third Light-cruiser Squadron
+then gallantly attacked the heavy ships
+with gunfire, with impunity to themselves,
+thereby demonstrating that the fighting efficiency
+of the enemy had been seriously impaired.
+Rear-Admiral Napier deserves great
+credit for his determined and effective attack.
+<i>Indomitable</i> reports that about this time one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+the <i>Derfflinger</i> class fell out of the enemy's
+line."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Ships
+hard
+to distinguish
+in the
+mist.</div>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, at 5.45 p.m., the report of guns
+had become audible to me, and at 5.55 p.m.
+flashes were visible from ahead round to the
+starboard beam, although in the mist no ships
+could be distinguished, and the position of the
+enemy's battle fleet could not be determined.
+The difference in estimated position by "reckoning"
+between <i>Iron Duke</i> and <i>Lion</i>, which was
+inevitable under the circumstances, added to
+the uncertainty of the general situation.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after 5.55 p.m. some of the cruisers
+ahead, under Rear-Admirals Herbert L. Heath,
+M.V.O., and Sir Robert Arbuthnot, Bt., M.V.O.,
+were seen to be in action, and reports received
+show that <i>Defence</i>, flagship, and <i>Warrior</i>, of
+the First Cruiser Squadron, engaged an enemy
+light-cruiser at this time. She was subsequently
+observed to sink.</p>
+
+<p>At 6 p.m. <i>Canterbury</i>, which ship was in company
+with the Third Battle-cruiser Squadron,
+had engaged enemy light-cruisers which were
+firing heavily on the torpedo-boat destroyer
+<i>Shark</i>, <i>Acasta</i>, and <i>Christopher</i>; as a result of
+this engagement the <i>Shark</i> was sunk.</p>
+
+<p>At 6 p.m. vessels, afterwards seen to be our
+battle-cruisers, were sighted by <i>Marlborough</i>
+bearing before the starboard beam of the battle
+fleet.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time the Vice-Admiral Commanding,
+Battle-cruiser Fleet, reported to me
+the position of the enemy battle-cruisers, and
+at 6.14 p.m. reported the position of the enemy
+battle fleet.</p>
+
+<p>At this period, when the battle fleet was meeting
+the battle-cruisers and the Fifth Battle
+Squadron, great care was necessary to ensure
+that our own ships were not mistaken for
+enemy vessels.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Battle Fleet in line of battle.</div>
+
+<p>I formed the battle fleet in line of battle on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
+receipt of Sir David Beatty's report, and
+during deployment the fleets became engaged.
+Sir David Beatty had meanwhile formed the
+battle-cruisers ahead of the battle-fleet.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Commanders of the divisions of the Battle Fleet.</div>
+
+<p>The divisions of the battle fleet were led by:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Commanders of the divisions">
+<tr><td align='left'>The Commander-in-Chief.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Vice-Admiral Sir Cecil Burney, K.C.B., K.C.M.G.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Jerram, K.C.B.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Vice-Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee, Bt., K.C.B., C.V.O., C.M.G.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Rear-Admiral Alexander L. Duff, C.B.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Rear-Admiral Arthur C. Leveson, C.B.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Rear-Admiral Ernest F. A. Gaunt, C.M.G.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>At 6.16 p.m. <i>Defence</i> and <i>Warrior</i> were observed
+passing down between the British and
+German Battle Fleets under a very heavy fire.
+<i>Defence</i> disappeared, and <i>Warrior</i> passed to
+rear disabled.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Arbuthnot's ships disabled.</div>
+
+<p>It is probable that Sir Robert Arbuthnot,
+during his engagement with the enemy's light-cruisers
+and in his desire to complete their
+destruction, was not aware of the approach of
+the enemy's heavy ships, owing to the mist,
+until he found himself in close proximity to the
+main fleet, and before he could withdraw his
+ships they were caught under a heavy fire and
+disabled. It is not known when <i>Black Prince</i>
+of the same squadron, was sunk, but a wireless
+signal was received from her between 8 and
+9 p.m.</p>
+
+<p>The First Battle Squadron became engaged
+during deployment, the Vice-Admiral opening
+fire at 6.17 p.m. on a battleship of the <i>Kaiser</i>
+class. The other Battle Squadrons, which had
+previously been firing at an enemy light cruiser,
+opened fire at 6.30 p.m. on battleships of
+the <i>Koenig</i> class.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Accident to the <i>Warspite</i>.</div>
+
+<p>At 6.6 p.m. the Rear-Admiral Commanding
+Fifth Battle Squadron, then in company with
+the battle-cruisers, had sighted the starboard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+wing-division of the battle-fleet on the port bow
+of <i>Barham</i>, and the first intention of Rear-Admiral
+Evan-Thomas was to form ahead of
+the remainder of the battle-fleet, but on realizing
+the direction of deployment he was compelled
+to form astern, a man&#339;uvre which was
+well executed by the squadron under a heavy
+fire from the enemy battle-fleet. An accident
+to <i>Warspite's</i> steering gear caused her helm to
+become jammed temporarily and took the ship
+in the direction of the enemy's line, during
+which time she was hit several times. Clever
+handling enabled Captain Edward M. Phillpotts
+to extricate his ship from a somewhat
+awkward situation.</p>
+
+<p>Owing principally to the mist, but partly to
+the smoke, it was possible to see only a few
+ships at a time in the enemy's battle line.
+Towards the van only some four or five ships
+were ever visible at once. More could be seen
+from the rear squadron, but never more than
+eight to twelve.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Action at shorter ranges.</div>
+
+<p>The action between the battle-fleets lasted
+intermittently from 6.17 p.m. to 8.20 p.m. at
+ranges between 9,000 and 12,000 yards, during
+which time the British Fleet made alterations
+of course from SE. by E. by W. in the endeavour
+to close. The enemy constantly turned
+away and opened the range under cover of destroyer
+attacks and smoke screens as the effect
+of the British fire was felt, and the alterations
+of course had the effect of bringing the British
+Fleet (which commenced the action in a position
+of advantage on the bow of the enemy) to
+a quarterly bearing from the enemy battle line,
+but at the same time placed us between the
+enemy and his bases.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Wreck of the <i>Invincible</i>.</div>
+
+<p>At 6.55 p.m. <i>Iron Duke</i> passed the wreck of
+<i>Invincible</i>, with Badger standing by.</p>
+
+<p>During the somewhat brief periods that the
+ships of the High Sea Fleet were visible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
+through the mist, the heavy and effective fire
+kept up by the battleships and battle-cruisers
+of the Grand Fleet caused me much satisfaction,
+and the enemy vessels were seen to be
+constantly hit, some being observed to haul out
+of the line and at least one to sink. The
+enemy's return fire at this period was not
+effective, and the damage caused to our ships
+was insignificant.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Course of the Battle Fleet.</div>
+
+<p>Regarding the battle-cruisers, Sir David
+Beatty reports:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"At 7.6 p.m. I received a signal from you that
+the course of the Fleet was south. Subsequently
+signals were received up to 8.46 p.m. showing
+that the course of the Battle Fleet was to
+the southwestward.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Visibility improves.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy destroyers make smoke screen.</div>
+
+<p>"Between 7 and 7.12 p.m. we hauled round
+gradually to SW. by S. to regain touch with the
+enemy, and at 7.14 p.m. again sighted them
+at a range of about 15,000 yards. The ships
+sighted at this time were two battle-cruisers
+and two battleships, apparently of the <i>Koenig</i>
+class. No doubt more continued the line to
+the northward, but that was all that could be
+seen. The visibility having improved considerably
+as the sun descended below the clouds, we
+re-engaged at 7.17 p.m. and increased speed to
+22 knots. At 7.32 p.m. my course was SW.,
+speed 18 knots, the leading enemy battleship
+bearing NW. by W. Again, after a very short
+time, the enemy showed signs of punishment,
+one ship being on fire, while another appeared
+to drop right astern. The destroyers at the
+head of the enemy's line emitted volumes of
+grey smoke, covering their capital ships
+as with a pall, under cover of which they
+turned away, and at 7.45 p.m. we lost sight of
+them.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy steams to westward.</div>
+
+<p>"At 7.58 p.m. I ordered the First and Third
+Light-cruiser Squadrons to sweep to the westward
+and locate the head of the enemy's line,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+and at 8.20 p.m. we altered course to west in
+support. We soon located two battle-cruisers
+and battleships, and were heavily engaged at a
+short range of about 10,000 yards. The leading
+ship was hit repeatedly by <i>Lion</i>, and turned
+away eight points, emitting very high flames
+and with a heavy list to port. <i>Princess Royal</i>
+set fire to a three-funnelled battleship. <i>New
+Zealand</i> and <i>Indomitable</i> report that the third
+ship, which they both engaged, hauled out of
+the line, heeling over and on fire. The mist
+which now came down enveloped them, and
+<i>Falmouth</i> reported they were last seen at 8.38
+p.m. steaming to the westward.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Shock felt.</div>
+
+<p>"At 8.40 p.m. all our battle-cruisers felt a
+heavy shock as if struck by a mine or torpedo,
+or possibly sunken wreckage. As however,
+examination of the bottoms reveals no sign of
+such an occurrence, it is assumed that it indicated
+the blowing up of a great vessel.</p>
+
+<p>"I continued on a south-westerly course with
+my light cruisers spread until 9.24 p.m. Nothing
+further being sighted, I assumed that the
+enemy were to the north-westward, and that we
+had established ourselves well between him and
+his base. <i>Minotaur</i> (Captain Arthur C. S. H.
+D'Aeth) was at this time bearing north 5
+miles, and I asked her the position of the leading
+battle squadron of the Battle Fleet. Her
+reply was that it was in sight, but was last
+seen bearing NNE. I kept you informed of
+my position, course, and speed, also of the bearing
+of the enemy.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Expectation of locating enemy at daybreak.</div>
+
+<p>"In view of the gathering darkness, and the
+fact that our strategical position was such as
+to make it appear certain that we should locate
+the enemy at daylight under most favorable
+circumstances, I did not consider it desirable
+or proper to close the enemy Battle Fleet during
+the dark hours. I therefore concluded
+that I should be carrying out your wishes by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
+turning to the course of the Fleet, reporting to
+you that I had done so."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German torpedo attacks ineffective.</div>
+
+<p>As was anticipated, the German Fleet appeared
+to rely very much on torpedo attacks,
+which were favored by the low visibility and
+by the fact that we had arrived in the position
+of a "following" or "chasing" fleet. A large
+number of torpedoes were apparently fired, but
+only one took effect (on <i>Marlborough</i>), and
+even in this case the ship was able to remain
+in the line and to continue the action. The
+enemy's efforts to keep out of effective gun
+range were aided by the weather conditions,
+which were ideal for the purpose. Two separate
+destroyer attacks were made by the
+enemy.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Marlborough</i> hit by a torpedo.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Hits on enemy ships.</div>
+
+<p>The First Battle Squadron, under Vice-Admiral
+Sir Cecil Burney, came into action at
+6.17 p.m. with the enemy's Third Battle Squadron,
+at a range of about 11,000 yards, and administered
+severe punishment, both to the battleships
+and to the battle-cruisers and light-cruisers,
+which were also engaged. The fire of
+<i>Marlborough</i> was particularly rapid and effective.
+This ship commenced at 6.17 p.m. by
+firing seven salvoes at a ship of the <i>Kaiser</i>
+class, then engaged a cruiser, and again a battleship,
+and at 6.54 she was hit by a torpedo
+and took up a considerable list to starboard,
+but we opened at 7.3 p.m. at a cruiser and at
+7.12 p.m. fired fourteen rapid salvoes at a ship
+of the <i>Koenig</i> class, hitting her frequently until
+she turned out of the line. The manner in
+which this effective fire was kept up in spite of
+the disadvantages due to the injury caused by
+the torpedo was most creditable to the ship
+and a very fine example to the squadron.</p>
+
+<p>The range decreased during the course of the
+action to 9,000 yards. The First Battle Squadron
+received more of the enemy's return fire
+than the remainder of the battle-fleet, with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
+exception of the Fifth Battle Squadron. <i>Colossus</i>
+was hit, but was not seriously damaged,
+and other ships were straddled with fair frequency.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Range-taking difficult.</div>
+
+<p>In the Fourth Battle Squadron&mdash;in which
+squadron my flagship <i>Iron Duke</i> was placed&mdash;Vice-Admiral
+Sir Doveton Sturdee leading one
+of the divisions&mdash;the enemy engaged was the
+squadron consisting of the <i>Koenig</i> and <i>Kaiser</i>
+class and some of the battle-cruisers, as well
+as disabled cruisers and light-cruisers. The
+mist rendered range-taking a difficult matter,
+but the fire of the squadron was effective. <i>Iron
+Duke</i>, having previously fired at a light-cruiser
+between the lines, opened fire at 6.30 p.m. on a
+battleship of the <i>Koenig</i> class at a range of 12,000
+yards. The latter was very quickly straddled,
+and hitting commenced at the second
+salvo and only ceased when the target ship
+turned away.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Firing at enemy battle cruisers.</div>
+
+<p>The fire of other ships of the squadron was
+principally directed at enemy battle-cruisers
+and cruisers as they appeared out of the mist.
+Hits were observed to take effect on several
+ships.</p>
+
+<p>The ships of the Second Battle Squadron,
+under Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Jerram, were
+in action with vessels of the <i>Kaiser</i> or <i>Koenig</i>
+classes between 6.30 and 7.20 p.m., and fired
+also at an enemy battle-cruiser which had
+dropped back apparently severely damaged.</p>
+
+<p>During the action between the battle fleets
+the Second Cruiser Squadron, ably commanded
+by Rear-Admiral Herbert L. Heath, M.V.O.,
+with the addition of <i>Duke of Edinburgh</i> of the
+First Cruiser Squadron, occupied a position at
+the van, and acted as a connecting link between
+the battle fleet and the battle-cruiser
+fleet. This squadron, although it carried out
+useful work, did not have an opportunity of
+coming into action.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The attached cruisers <i>Boadicea</i>, <i>Active</i>,
+<i>Blanche</i> and <i>Bellona</i> carried out their duties
+as repeating-ships with remarkable rapidity
+and accuracy under difficult conditions.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Light cruisers attack with torpedoes.</div>
+
+<p>The Fourth Light-cruiser Squadron, under
+Commodore Charles E. Le Mesurier, occupied
+a position in the van until ordered to attack
+enemy destroyers at 7.20 p.m., and again at
+8.18 p.m., when they supported the Eleventh
+Flotilla, which had moved out under Commodore
+James R. P. Hawksley, M.V.O., to attack.
+On each occasion the Fourth Light-cruiser
+Squadron was very well handled by Commodore
+Le Mesurier, his captains giving him excellent
+support, and their object was attained,
+although with some loss in the second attack,
+when the ships came under the heavy fire of the
+enemy battle fleet at between 6,500 and 8,000
+yards. The <i>Calliope</i> was hit several times, but
+did not sustain serious damage, although I regret
+to say she had several casualties. The
+light-cruisers attacked the enemy's battleships
+with torpedoes at this time, and an explosion
+on board a ship of the <i>Kaiser</i> class was seen
+at 8.40 p.m.</p>
+
+<p>During these destroyer attacks four enemy
+torpedo-boat destroyers were sunk by the gunfire
+of battleships, light-cruisers, and destroyers.</p>
+
+<p>After the arrival of the British Battle Fleet
+the enemy's tactics were of a nature generally
+to avoid further action, in which they were favored
+by the conditions of visibility.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy entirely out of sight.</div>
+
+<p>At 9 p.m. the enemy was entirely out of sight,
+and the threat of torpedo-boat-destroyer attacks
+during the rapidly approaching darkness
+made it necessary for me to dispose the fleet
+for the night, with a view to its safety from
+such attacks, whilst providing for a renewal
+of action at daylight. I accordingly man&#339;uvred
+to remain between the enemy and his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
+bases, placing our flotillas in a position in
+which they would afford protection to the fleet
+from destroyer attack, and at the same time be
+favorably situated for attacking the enemy's
+heavy ships.</p>
+
+<p>During the night the British heavy ships
+were not attacked, but the Fourth, Eleventh,
+and Twelfth Flotillas, under Commodore
+Hawksley and Captains Charles J. Wintour
+and Anselan J. B. Stirling, delivered a series
+of very gallant and successful attacks on the
+enemy, causing him heavy losses.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Severe losses in the Fourth Flotilla.</div>
+
+<p>It was during these attacks that severe losses
+in the Fourth Flotilla occurred, including that
+of <i>Tipperary</i>, with the gallant leader of the
+Flotilla, Captain Wintour. He had brought
+his flotilla to a high pitch of perfection, and although
+suffering severely from the fire of the
+enemy, a heavy toll of enemy vessels was taken,
+and many gallant actions were performed by
+the flotilla.</p>
+
+<p>Two torpedoes were seen to take effect on
+enemy vessels as the result of the attacks of
+the Fourth Flotilla, one being from <i>Spitfire</i>,
+and the other from either <i>Ardent</i>, <i>Ambuscade</i>,
+or <i>Garland</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">An enemy ship torpedoed.</div>
+
+<p>The attack carried out by the Twelfth Flotilla
+was admirably executed. The squadron
+attacked, which consisted of six large vessels,
+besides light-cruisers, and comprised vessels of
+the <i>Kaiser</i> class, was taken by surprise. A large
+number of torpedoes was fired, including some
+at the second and third ships in the line; those
+fired at the third ship took effect, and she was
+observed to blow up. A second attack, made
+twenty minutes later by <i>M&aelig;nad</i> on the five
+vessels still remaining, resulted in the fourth
+ship in the line being also hit.</p>
+
+<p>The destroyers were under a heavy fire from
+the light-cruisers on reaching the rear of the
+line, but the <i>Onslaught</i> was the only vessel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
+which received any material injuries. In the
+<i>Onslaught</i> Sub-Lieutenant Harry W. A. Kemmis,
+assisted by Midshipman Reginald G.
+Arnot, R.N.R., the only executive officers not
+disabled, brought the ship successfully out of
+action and reached her home port.</p>
+
+<p>During the attack carried out by the
+Eleventh Flotilla, <i>Castor</i> leading the flotilla,
+engaged and sank an enemy torpedo-boat-destroyer
+at point-blank range.</p>
+
+<p>Sir David Beatty reports:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Engaging enemy destroyers.</div>
+
+<p>"The Thirteenth Flotilla, under the command
+of Captain James U. Farie, in <i>Champion</i>,
+took station astern of the battle fleet for the
+night. At 0.30 a.m. on Thursday, 1st June, a
+large vessel crossed the rear of the flotilla at
+high speed. She passed close to <i>Petard</i> and
+<i>Turbulent</i>, switched on searchlights and
+opened a heavy fire, which disabled <i>Turbulent</i>.
+At 3.30 a.m. <i>Champion</i> was engaged for a few
+minutes with four enemy destroyers. <i>Moresby</i>
+reports four ships of <i>Deutschland</i> class sighted
+at 2.35 a.m., at whom she fired one torpedo.
+Two minutes later an explosion was felt by
+<i>Moresby</i> and <i>Obdurate</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Battleship
+of the <i>Kaiser</i> class alone.</div>
+
+<p>"<i>Fearless</i> and the 1st Flotilla were very usefully
+employed as a submarine screen during
+the earlier part of the 31st May. At 6.10 p.m.,
+when joining the Battle Fleet, <i>Fearless</i> was unable
+to follow the battle cruisers without fouling
+the battleships, and therefore took station
+at the rear of the line. She sighted during the
+night a battleship of the <i>Kaiser</i> class steaming
+fast and entirely alone. She was not able to
+engage her, but believes she was attacked by
+destroyers further astern. A heavy explosion
+was observed astern not long after."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Deeds of the destroyers.</div>
+
+<p>There were many gallant deeds performed
+by the destroyer flotillas; they surpassed the
+very highest expectations that I had formed of
+them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Apart from the proceedings of the flotillas,
+the Second Light-cruiser Squadron in the rear
+of the battle fleet was in close action for about
+15 minutes at 10.20 p.m. with a squadron comprising
+one enemy cruiser and four light-cruisers,
+during which period <i>Southampton</i>
+and <i>Dublin</i> suffered rather heavy casualties,
+although their steaming and fighting qualities
+were not impaired. The return fire of the
+squadron appeared to be very effective.</p>
+
+<p><i>Abdiel</i>, ably commanded by Commander Berwick
+Curtis, carried out her duties with the
+success which has always characterized her
+work.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Battle Fleet searches for enemy vessels.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Marlborough</i> sent to a base.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The enemy had returned into port.</div>
+
+<p>At daylight, 1st June, the battle fleet, being
+then to the southward and westward of the
+Horn Reef, turned to the northward in search
+of enemy vessels and for the purpose of collecting
+our own cruisers and torpedo-boat destroyers.
+At 2.30 a.m. Vice-Admiral Sir Cecil
+Burney transferred his flag from <i>Marlborough</i>
+to <i>Revenge</i>, as the former ship had some difficulty
+in keeping up the speed of the squadron.
+<i>Marlborough</i> was detached by my direction to
+a base, successfully driving off an enemy submarine
+attack en route. The visibility early
+on 1st June (three to four miles) was less
+than on 31st May, and the torpedo-boat destroyers,
+being out of visual touch, did not rejoin
+until 9 a.m. The British Fleet remained
+in the proximity of the battle-field and near
+the line of approach to German ports until 11
+a.m. on 1st June, in spite of the disadvantage
+of long distances from fleet bases and the danger
+incurred in waters adjacent to enemy
+coasts from submarines and torpedo craft.
+The enemy, however, made no sign, and I was
+reluctantly compelled to the conclusion that
+the High Sea Fleet had returned into port.
+Subsequent events proved this assumption to
+have been correct. Our position must have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+been known to the enemy, as at 4 a.m. the Fleet
+engaged a Zeppelin for about five minutes,
+during which time she had ample opportunity
+to note and subsequently report the position
+and course of the British Fleet.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Large amount of wreckage.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Warrior</i> evidently foundered.</div>
+
+<p>The waters from the latitude of the Horn
+Reef to the scene of the action were thoroughly
+searched, and some survivors from the destroyers
+<i>Ardent</i>, <i>Fortune</i>, and <i>Tipperary</i> were
+picked up, and the <i>Sparrowhawk</i>, which had
+been in collision and was no longer seaworthy,
+was sunk after her crew had been taken off.
+A large amount of wreckage was seen, but no
+enemy ships, and at 1.15 p.m., it being evident
+that the German Fleet had succeeded in returning
+to port, course was shaped for our
+bases, which were reached without further incident
+on Friday, 2nd June. A cruiser squadron
+was detached to search for <i>Warrior</i>, which vessel
+had been abandoned whilst in tow of
+<i>Engadine</i> on her way to the base owing to bad
+weather setting in and the vessel becoming unseaworthy,
+but no trace of her was discovered,
+and a further subsequent search by a light-cruiser
+squadron having failed to locate her,
+it is evident that she foundered.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Low visibility hinders accurate report of damage.</div>
+
+<p>The conditions of low visibility under which
+the day action took place and the approach of
+darkness enhance the difficulty of giving an
+accurate report of the damage inflicted or the
+names of the ships sunk by our forces, but
+after a most careful examination of the evidence
+of all officers, who testified to seeing
+enemy vessels actually sink, and personal interviews
+with a large number of these officers,
+I am of opinion that the list shown in the enclosure
+gives the minimum in regard to numbers,
+though it is possibly not entirely accurate
+as regards the particular class of vessel, especially
+those which were sunk during the night
+attacks. In addition to the vessels sunk, it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
+unquestionable that many other ships were
+very seriously damaged by gunfire and by torpedo
+attack.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">British ships lost in the battle.</div>
+
+<p>I deeply regret to report the loss of H.M.
+ships:</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="H. M. Ships lost">
+<tr><td align='left'>1. <i>Queen Mary</i>, Battle-cruiser, 27,000 tons.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2. <i>Indefatigable</i>, Battle-cruiser, 18,750 tons.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3. <i>Invincible</i>, Battle-cruiser, 17,250 tons.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4. <i>Defence</i>, Armored cruiser, 14,600 tons.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5. <i>Black Prince</i>, Armored cruiser, 13,550 tons.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6. <i>Warrior</i>, Armored cruiser, 13,550 tons.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>7. <i>Tipperary</i>, Destroyer, 1,430 tons.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>8. <i>Ardent</i>, Destroyer, 935 tons.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>9. <i>Fortune</i>, Destroyer, 935 tons.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>10. <i>Shark</i>, Destroyer, 935 tons.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>11. <i>Sparrowhawk</i>, Destroyer, 935 tons.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>12. <i>Nestor</i>, Destroyer, 1,000 tons.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>13. <i>Nomad</i>, Destroyer, 1,000 tons.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>14. <i>Turbulent</i>, Destroyer, 1,430 tons.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Total, 113,300 tons;</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Distinguished officers who went down.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Gallantry of officers and men.</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>and still more do I regret the resultant heavy
+loss of life. The death of such gallant and
+distinguished officers as Rear-Admiral Sir Robert
+Arbuthnot, Bart., Rear-Admiral the Hon.
+Horace Hood, Captain Charles F. Sowerby,
+Captain Cecil I. Prowse, Captain Arthur L.
+Cay, Captain Thomas P. Bonham, Captain
+Charles J. Wintour, and Captain Stanley V.
+Ellis, and those who perished with them, is a
+serious loss to the navy and to the country.
+They led officers and men who were equally
+gallant, and whose death is mourned by their
+comrades in the Grand Fleet. They fell doing
+their duty nobly, a death which they would
+have been the first to desire.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Fighting qualities of the enemy.</div>
+
+<p>The enemy fought with the gallantry that
+was expected of him. We particularly admired
+the conduct of those on board a disabled
+German light-cruiser which passed down the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
+British line shortly after deployment, under a
+heavy fire, which was returned by the only gun
+left in action.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Heroism of the wounded.</div>
+
+<p>The conduct of officers and men throughout
+the day and night actions was entirely beyond
+praise. No words of mine could do them justice.
+On all sides it is reported to me that the
+glorious traditions of the past were most
+worthily upheld&mdash;whether in heavy ships,
+cruisers, light-cruisers, or destroyers&mdash;the
+same admirable spirit prevailed. Officers and
+men were cool and determined, with a cheeriness
+that would have carried them through anything.
+The heroism of the wounded was the
+admiration of all.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot adequately express the pride with
+which the spirit of the Fleet filled me.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Work of the engine room department.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">No failures in material.</div>
+
+<p>Details of the work of the various ships during
+action have now been given. It must never
+be forgotten, however, that the prelude to action
+is the work of the engine-room department,
+and that during action the officers and men of
+that department perform their most important
+duties without the incentive which a knowledge
+of the course of the action gives to those on
+deck. The qualities of discipline and endurance
+are taxed to the utmost under these conditions,
+and they were, as always, most fully
+maintained throughout the operations under
+review. Several ships attained speeds that had
+never before been reached, thus showing very
+clearly their high state of steaming efficiency.
+Failures in material were conspicuous by their
+absence, and several instances are reported of
+magnificent work on the part of the engine-room
+departments of injured ships.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Valuable work of artisans.</div>
+
+<p>The artisan ratings also carried out much
+valuable work during and after the action;
+they could not have done better.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Success of the medical officers.</div>
+
+<p>The work of the medical officers of the Fleet,
+carried out very largely under the most difficult<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+conditions, was entirely admirable and invaluable.
+Lacking in many cases all the essentials
+for performing critical operations, and
+with their staff seriously depleted by casualties,
+they worked untiringly and with the greatest
+success. To them we owe a deep debt of
+gratitude.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Ships that sustained hardest fighting.</div>
+
+<p>It will be seen that the hardest fighting fell
+to the lot of the Battle-cruiser Fleet (the units
+of which were less heavily armored than their
+opponents), the Fifth Battle Squadron, the
+First Cruiser Squadron, Fourth Light-cruiser
+Squadron, and the Flotillas. This was inevitable
+under the conditions and the squadrons
+and Flotillas mentioned, as well as the individual
+vessels composing them, were handled
+with conspicuous ability, as were also the 1st,
+2nd, and 4th Squadrons of the Battle Fleet and
+the 2nd Cruiser Squadron.</p>
+
+<p>I desire to place on record my high appreciation
+of the manner in which all the vessels
+were handled. The conditions were such as
+to call for great skill and ability, quick judgment
+and decisions, and this was conspicuous
+throughout the day.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The campaigns carried on by Italy against
+Austria were, as had been noted in a former
+chapter, among the most difficult of the war.
+The Italian troops fighting with the greatest
+gallantry in a mountainous and, in places, an
+impassable country, continued to capture Austrian
+fortified places, along the entire Isonzo
+front. One of the most daring and most brilliant
+of their exploits is told in the following
+pages.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p>
+<h2>TAKING THE COL DI LANA</h2>
+
+<h3>LEWIS R. FREEMAN</h3>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">A hot
+wind from
+the Mediterranean.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Thaw
+and avalanches
+in the Alps.</div>
+
+<p>Once or twice in every winter a thick,
+sticky, hot wind from somewhere on the
+other side of the Mediterranean breathes
+upon the snow and ice-locked Alpine valleys
+the breath of a false springtime. The Swiss
+guides, if I remember correctly, call it by a
+name which is pronounced as we do the word
+<i>fun</i>; but the incidence of such a wind means
+to them anything but what that signifies in
+English. To them&mdash;to all in the Alps, indeed&mdash;a
+spell of <i>fun</i> weather means thaw, and thaw
+means avalanches; avalanches, too, at a time
+of the year when there is so much snow that the
+slides are under constant temptation to abandon
+their beaten tracks and gouge out new and
+unexpected channels for themselves. It is only
+the first-time visitor to the Alps who bridles
+under the Judas kiss of the wind called <i>fun</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A hot
+wind in
+January.</div>
+
+<p>It was on an early January day of one of
+these treacherous hot winds that I was motored
+up from the plain of Venezia to a certain sector
+of the Italian Alpine front, a sector almost
+as important strategically as it is beautiful
+scenically. What twelve hours previously had
+been a flint-hard, ice-paved road had dissolved
+to a river of soft slush, and one could sense
+rather than see the ominous premonitory
+twitchings in the lowering snow-banks as the
+lapping of the hot moist air relaxed the brake
+of the frost which had held them on the precipitous
+mountain sides. Every stretch where
+the road curved to the embrace of cliff or shelving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
+valley wall was a possible ambush, and we
+slipped by them with muffled engine and hushed
+voices.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Skirting
+a lake.</div>
+
+<p>Toward the middle of the short winter afternoon
+the gorge we had been following opened
+out into a narrow valley, and straight over
+across the little lake which the road skirted,
+reflected in the shimmering sheet of steaming
+water that the thaw was throwing out across
+the ice, was a vivid white triangle of towering
+mountain. A true granite Alp among the
+splintered Dolomites&mdash;a fortress among cathedrals&mdash;it
+was the outstanding, the dominating
+feature in a panorama which I knew from my
+map was made up of the mountain chain along
+which wriggled the interlocked lines of the
+Austro-Italian battle front.</p>
+
+<p>"Plainly a peak with a personality," I said
+to the officer at my side. "What is it called?"</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Col
+di Lana an
+important
+position.</div>
+
+<p>"It's the Col di Lana," was the reply; "the
+mountain Colonel 'Peppino' Garibaldi took in a
+first attempt and Gelasio Caetani, the Italo-American
+mining engineer, afterward blew up
+and captured completely. It is one of the most
+important positions on our whole front, for
+whichever side holds it not only effectually
+blocks the enemy's advance, but has also an invaluable
+sally-port from which to launch his
+own. We simply <i>had</i> to have it, and it was
+taken in what was probably the only way
+humanly possible. It's Colonel Garibaldi's
+headquarters, by the way, where we put up to-night
+and to-morrow; perhaps you can get him
+to tell you the story." ...</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The story
+of the Col
+di Lana.</div>
+
+<p>By the light of a little spirit lamp and to
+the accompaniment of a steady drip of eaves
+and the rumble of distant avalanches of falling
+snow, Colonel Garibaldi, that evening, told me
+"the story:"</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>L&eacute;gion Italienne</i> withdrawn</div>
+
+<p>"The fighting that fell to the lot of the <i>L&eacute;gion
+Italienne</i> in January, 1915, reduced its numbers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
+to such an extent that it had to be withdrawn
+to rest and reform. Before it was in condition
+to take the field again, our country had taken
+the great decision and we were disbanded to
+go home and fight for Italy. Here&mdash;principally
+because it was thought best to incorporate the
+men in the units to which they (by training or
+residence) really belonged&mdash;it was found impracticable
+to maintain the integrity of the
+fourteen battalions&mdash;about 14,000 men in all&mdash;we
+had formed in France, and, as a consequence,
+the <i>L&eacute;gion Italienne</i> ceased to exist except
+as a glorious memory. We five surviving
+Garibaldi were given commissions in a brigade
+of Alpini that is a 'lineal descendant' of the
+famous <i>Cacciatore</i> formed by my grandfather
+in 1859, and led by him against the Austrians
+in the war in which, with the aid of the French,
+we redeemed Lombardy for Italy.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Defensive and offensive advantages of the peak.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Bitter struggle for the Col di Lana.</div>
+
+<p>"In July I was given command of a battalion
+occupying a position at the foot of the Col di
+Lana. Perhaps you saw from the lake, as you
+came up, the commanding position of this
+mountain. If so, you will understand its supreme
+importance to us, whether for defensive
+or offensive purposes. Looking straight down
+the Cordevole Valley toward the plains of Italy,
+it not only furnished the Austrians an incomparable
+observation post, but also stood as an
+effectual barrier against any advance of our
+own toward the Livinallongo Valley and the important
+Pordoi Pass. We needed it imperatively
+for the safety of any line we established
+in this region; and just as imperatively would
+we need it when we were ready to push the
+Austrians back. Since it was just as important
+for the Austrians to maintain possession of
+this great natural fortress as it was for us to
+take it away from them, you will understand
+how it came about that the struggle for the Col
+di Lana was perhaps the bitterest that has yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>
+been waged for any one point on the Alpine
+front.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Alpini get a foothold.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Col. Garibaldi takes command.</div>
+
+<p>"Early in July, under cover of our guns to
+the south and east, the Alpini streamed down
+from the Cima di Falzarego and Sasso di Stria,
+which they had occupied shortly before, and
+secured what was at first but a precarious foothold
+on the stony lower eastern slope of the
+Col di Lana. Indeed, it was little more than a
+toe-hold at first; but the never-resting Alpini
+soon dug themselves in and became firmly established.
+It was to the command of this
+battalion of Alpini that I came on the 12th
+of July, after being given to understand that
+my work was to be the taking of the Col di
+Lana regardless of cost.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Scientific man-saving needed.</div>
+
+<p>"This was the first time that I&mdash;or any other
+Garibaldi, for that matter (my grandfather,
+with his 'Thousand,' took Sicily from fifty times
+that number of Bourbon soldiers) had ever had
+enough, or even the promise of enough, men to
+make that 'regardless of cost' formula much
+more than a hollow mockery. But it is not in
+a Garibaldi to sacrifice men for any object whatever
+if there is any possible way of avoiding it.
+The period of indiscriminate frontal attacks
+had passed even before I left France, and ways
+were already being devised&mdash;mostly mining and
+better artillery protection&mdash;to make assaults
+less costly. Scientific 'man-saving,' in which
+my country has since made so much progress,
+was then in its infancy on the Italian front.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Out-gunned by the Austrians.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">First time
+of gallery-barracks.</div>
+
+<p>"I found many difficulties in the way of putting
+into practice on the Col di Lana the man-saving
+theories I had seen in process of development
+in the Argonne. At that time the
+Austrians&mdash;who had appreciated the great importance
+of that mountain from the outset&mdash;had
+us heavily out-gunned while mining in the
+hard rock was too slow to make it worth while
+until some single position of crucial value hung<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
+in the balance. So&mdash;well, I simply did the best
+I could under the circumstances. The most I
+could do was to give my men as complete protection
+as possible while they were not fighting,
+and this end was accomplished by establishing
+them in galleries cut out of the solid rock. This
+was, I believe, the first time the 'gallery-barracks'&mdash;now
+quite the rule at all exposed points&mdash;were
+used on the Italian front.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Working
+under
+heavy fire.</div>
+
+<p>"There was no other way in the beginning
+but to drive the enemy off the Col di Lana
+trench by trench, and this was the task I set
+myself to toward the end of July. What made
+the task an almost prohibitive one was the fact
+that the Austrian guns from Corte and Cherz&mdash;which
+we were in no position to reduce to
+silence&mdash;were able to rake us unmercifully.
+Every move we made during the next nine
+months was carried out under their fire, and
+there is no use in denying that we suffered
+heavily. I used no more men than <ins title="Transcriber's Note: This word not present in original text">I</ins> could possibly
+help using, and the Higher Command was
+very generous in the matter of reserves, and
+even in increasing the strength of the force at
+my disposal as we gradually got more room to
+work in. By the end of October my original
+command of a battalion had been increased
+largely.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Austrians
+hold one
+side and
+summit.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Austrian position seems impregnable.</div>
+
+<p>"The Austrians made a brave and skilful
+defense, but the steady pressure we were bringing
+to bear on them gradually forced them back
+up the mountain. By the first week in November
+we were in possession of three sides of
+the mountain, while the Austrians held the
+fourth side and&mdash;but most important of all&mdash;the
+summit. The latter presented a sheer wall
+of rock, more than 200 metres high, to us from
+any direction we were able to approach it, and
+on the crest of this cliff&mdash;the only point exposed
+to our artillery fire&mdash;the enemy had a cunningly
+concealed machine-gun post served by fourteen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
+men. Back and behind, under shelter in a
+rock gallery, was a reserve of 200 men, who
+were expected to remain safely under cover
+during a bombardment and then sally forth to
+any infantry attack that might follow it. The
+handful in the machine-gun post, it was calculated,
+would be sufficient, and more than
+sufficient, to keep us from scaling the cliff before
+their reserves came up to support them;
+and so they would have been if there had been
+<i>only</i> an infantry attack to reckon with. It
+failed to allow sufficiently, however, for the
+weight of the artillery we were bringing up,
+and the skill of our gunners. The apparent
+impregnability of the position was really its
+undoing.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Machine-gun post key position.</div>
+
+<p>"This cunningly conceived plan of defense I
+had managed to get a pretty accurate idea of&mdash;no
+matter how&mdash;and I laid my own plans accordingly.
+All the guns I could get hold of I
+had emplaced in positions most favorable for
+concentrating on the real key to the summit&mdash;the
+exposed machine-gun post on the crown of
+the cliff&mdash;with the idea, if possible, of destroying
+men and guns completely, or, failing in
+that, at least to render it untenable for the reserves
+who would try to rally to its defense.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Alpino thoroughly dependable.</div>
+
+<p>"We had the position ranged to an inch, and
+so, fortunately, lost no time in 'feeling' for it.
+This, with the surprise incident to it, was perhaps
+the principal element in our success; for
+the plan&mdash;at least so far as <i>taking</i> the summit
+was concerned&mdash;worked out quite as perfectly
+in action as upon paper. That is the great
+satisfaction of working with the Alpino, by the
+way: he is so sure, so dependable, that the
+'human fallibility' element in a plan (always
+the most uncertain quantity) is practically
+eliminated.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Alpini
+scale the
+cliff.</div>
+
+<p>"It is almost certain that our sudden gust of
+concentrated gunfire snuffed out the lives of all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+the men in the machine-gun post before they
+had time to send word of our developing infantry
+attack to the reserves in the gallery below.
+At any rate, these latter made no attempt
+whatever to swarm up to the defense of
+the crest, even after our artillery fire ceased.
+The consequence was that the 120 Alpini I
+sent to scale the cliff reached the top with only
+three casualties, these probably caused by
+rolling rocks or flying rock fragments. The
+Austrians in their big 'funk-hole' were taken
+completely by surprise, and 130 of them fell
+prisoners to considerably less than that number
+of Italians. The rest of the 200 escaped
+or were killed in their flight.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Difficulties
+of
+holding
+the
+summit.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">An
+Austrian
+counter-attack.</div>
+
+<p>"So far it was so good; but, unfortunately,
+taking the summit and holding it were two
+entirely different matters. No sooner did the
+Austrians discover what had happened than
+they opened on the summit with all their available
+artillery. We have since ascertained that
+the fire of 120 guns was concentrated upon a
+space of 100 by 150 metres which offered the
+only approach to cover that the barren summit
+afforded. Fifty of my men, finding shelter in
+the lee of rocky ledges, remained right out on
+the summit; the others crept over the edge of
+the cliff and held on by their fingers and toes.
+Not a man of them sought safety by flight,
+though a retirement would have been quite
+justified, considering what a hell the Austrians'
+guns were making of the summit. The enemy
+counter-attacked at nightfall, but despite superior
+numbers and the almost complete exhaustion
+of that little band of Alpini heroes,
+they were able to retake only a half of the summit.
+Here, at a ten-metres-high ridge which
+roughly bisects the <i>cima</i>, the Alpini held the
+Austrians, and here, in turn, the latter held
+the reinforcements which I was finally able to
+send to the Alpini's aid. There, exposed to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
+fire of the guns of either side (and so comparatively
+safe from both), a line was established
+from which there seemed little probability
+that one combatant could drive the other,
+at least without a radical change from the
+methods so far employed.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Idea of
+blowing up
+positions.</div>
+
+<p>"The idea of blowing up positions that cannot
+be taken otherwise is by no means a new
+one. Probably it dates back almost as far as
+the invention of gunpowder itself. Doubtless,
+if we only knew of them, there have been attempts
+to mine the Great Wall of China. It
+was, therefore, only natural that, when the
+Austrians had us held up before a position
+it was vitally necessary we should have, we
+should begin to consider the possibility of mining
+it as the only alternative. The conception
+of the plan did not necessarily originate in the
+mind of any one individual, however many have
+laid claim to it. It was the inevitable thing if
+we were not going to abandon striving for our
+objective.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Engineering
+operation
+of
+great
+magnitude.</div>
+
+<p>"But while there was nothing new in the
+idea of the mine itself, in carrying out an engineering
+operation of such magnitude at so
+great an altitude and from a position constantly
+exposed to intense artillery fire there were presented
+many problems quite without precedent.
+It was these problems which gave us pause;
+but finally, despite the prospect of difficulties
+which we fully realized might at any time become
+prohibitive, it was decided to make the
+attempt to blow up that portion of the summit
+of the Col di Lana still held by the enemy.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Gelasio
+Caetani
+the
+engineer.</div>
+
+<p>"The choice of the engineer for the work was
+a singularly fortunate one. Gelasio Caetani&mdash;he
+is a son of the Duke of Sermoneta&mdash;had
+operated as a mining engineer in the American
+West for a number of years previous to the
+war, and the practical experience gained in
+California and Alaska was invaluable preparation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+for the great task now set for him. His
+ready resource and great personal courage were
+also incalculable assets.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Miners
+from
+North
+America.</div>
+
+<p>"Well, the tunnel was started about the
+middle of January, 1916. Some of my men&mdash;Italians
+who had hurried home to fight for
+their country when the war started&mdash;had had
+some previous experience with hand and machine
+drills in the mines of Colorado and British
+Columbia, but the most of our labor had to
+gain its experience as the work progressed.
+Considering this, as well as the difficulty of
+bringing up material (to say nothing of food
+and munitions), we made very good progress.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mining
+under
+constant
+fire.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Thirty-eight
+shells a
+minute.</div>
+
+<p>"The worst thing about it all was the fact
+that it had to be done under the incessant fire
+of the Austrian artillery. I provided for the
+men as best as I could by putting them in galleries,
+where they were at least able to get
+their rest. When the enemy finally found out
+what we were up to they celebrated their discovery
+by a steady bombardment which lasted
+for fourteen days without interruption. During
+a certain forty-two hours of that fortnight
+there was, by actual count, an average of
+thirty-eight shells a minute exploding on our
+little position.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Silencing
+an
+Austrian
+battery.</div>
+
+<p>"We were constantly confronted with new
+and perplexing problems&mdash;things which no one
+had ever been called upon to solve before&mdash;most
+of them in connection with transportation.
+How we contrived to surmount one of these I
+shall never forget. The Austrians had performed
+a brave and audacious feat in emplacing
+one of their batteries at a certain point, the
+fire from which threatened to make our position
+absolutely untenable. The location of this battery
+was so cunningly chosen that not one of
+our guns could reach it; and yet we <i>had</i> to
+silence it&mdash;and for good&mdash;if we were going to
+go on with our work. The only point from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
+which we could fire upon these destructive
+guns was so exposed that any artillery we
+might be able to mount there could only count
+on the shortest shrift under the fire of the hundred
+or more 'heavies' that the Austrians would
+be able to concentrate upon it. And yet (I
+figured), well employed, these few minutes
+might prove enough to do the work in.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A young
+giant endeavors
+to
+climb with
+a gun.</div>
+
+<p>"And then there arose another difficulty.
+The smallest gun that would stand a chance
+of doing the job cut out for it weighed 120
+kilos&mdash;about 265 pounds; this just for the gun
+alone, with all detachable parts removed. But
+the point where the gun was to be mounted was
+so exposed that there was no chance of rigging
+up a cable-way, while the incline was so steep
+and rough that it was out of the question to
+try to drag it up with ropes. Just as we were
+on the verge of giving up in despair, one of the
+Alpini&mdash;a man of Herculean frame who had
+made his living in peace-time by breaking
+chains on his chest and performing other feats
+of strength&mdash;came and suggested that he be
+allowed to carry the gun up on his shoulders.
+Grasping at a straw, I let him indulge in a few
+'practice man&#339;uvres'; but these only showed
+that, while the young Samson could shoulder
+and trot off with the gun without great effort,
+the task of lifting himself and his burden from
+foothold to foothold in the crumbling rock of
+the seventy-degree slope was too much for him.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Men pull
+man and
+gun to
+position.</div>
+
+<p>"But out of this failure there came a new
+idea. Why not let my strong man simply support
+the weight of the gun on his shoulder&mdash;acting
+as a sort of ambulant gun-carriage, so
+to speak&mdash;while a line of men pulled him along
+with a rope?</p>
+
+<p>We rigged up a harness to equalize the pull
+on the broad back, and, with the aid of sixteen
+ordinary men, the feat was accomplished
+without a hitch. I am sorry to say, however,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>
+that poor Samson was laid up for a spell with
+racked muscles.</p>
+
+<p>"The gun&mdash;with the necessary parts and
+munition&mdash;was taken up in the night, and at
+daybreak it was set up and ready for action.
+It fired just forty shots before the Austrian
+'heavies' blew it&mdash;and all but one or two of its
+brave crew&mdash;to pieces with a rain of high-explosive.
+But the troublesome Austrian battery
+was put so completely out of action that
+the enemy never thought it worth while to re-emplace
+it.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Italians
+mine and
+Austrians
+countermine.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The final
+explosion.</div>
+
+<p>"That is just a sample of the fantastic things
+we were doing all of the three months that we
+drove the tunnel under the summit of the Col
+di Lana. The last few weeks were further enlivened
+by the knowledge that the Austrians
+were countermining against us. Once they
+drove so near that we could feel the jar of
+their drills, but they exploded their mine just
+a few metres short of where it would have upset
+us for good and for all. All the time work
+went on until, on the 17th of April, the mine
+was finished, charged, and 'tamped.' That
+night, while every gun we could bring to bear
+rained shell upon the Austrian position, it
+was exploded. A crater 150 feet in diameter
+and sixty feet deep engulfed the ridge the
+enemy had occupied, and this our waiting
+Alpini rushed and firmly held. Austrian counterattacks
+were easily repulsed, and the Col di
+Lana was at last completely in Italian hands."</p>
+<div class='center'><br /><br /><small>Copyright, World's Work, June, 1917.</small></div>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>During the late spring and summer of 1916,
+there was waged in France that great series of
+battles participated in by both British and
+French armies known as the battles of the
+Somme. Next to the defense of Verdun, they
+formed the most important military operations
+on the western front during that year. These
+battles are described in the narrative which
+follows.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 413px;">
+<img src="images/vol2-map66-2.png" width="413" height="570" alt="WESTERN BATTLE FRONT, AUGUST, 1916" title="WESTERN BATTLE FRONT, AUGUST, 1916" />
+<span class="caption">WESTERN BATTLE FRONT, AUGUST, 1916</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME</h2>
+
+<h3>SIR DOUGLAS HAIG</h3>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">An
+offensive
+summer
+campaign
+planned.</div>
+
+<p>The principle of an offensive campaign
+during the Summer of 1916 had already
+been decided on by all the Allies. The
+various possible alternatives on the western
+front had been studied and discussed by General
+Joffre and myself, and we were in complete
+agreement as to the front to be attacked by the
+combined French and British armies. Preparations
+for our offensive had made considerable
+progress; but as the date on which the attack
+should begin was dependent on many doubtful
+factors, a final decision on that point was
+deferred until the general situation should become
+clearer.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">British
+armies and
+supplies
+increasing.</div>
+
+<p>Subject to the necessity of commencing operations
+before the Summer was too far advanced,
+and with due regard to the general
+situation, I desired to postpone my attack as
+long as possible. The British armies were
+growing in numbers and the supply of munitions
+was steadily increasing. Moreover, a
+very large proportion of the officers and men
+under my command were still far from being
+fully trained, and the longer the attack could
+be deferred the more efficient they would become.
+On the other hand, the Germans were
+continuing to press their attacks at Verdun,
+and both there and on the Italian front,
+where the Austrian offensive was gaining
+ground, it was evident that the strain might
+become too great to be borne unless timely
+action were taken to relieve it. Accordingly,
+while maintaining constant touch with General<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
+Joffre in regard to all these considerations,
+my preparations were pushed on, and I
+agreed, with the consent of his Majesty's
+Government, that my attack should be launched,
+whenever the general situation required it, with
+as great a force as I might then be able to make
+available.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Pressure
+on
+Italian
+front.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Heroic
+French
+defense at
+Verdun.</div>
+
+<p>By the end of May, 1916, the pressure of the
+enemy on the Italian front had assumed such
+serious proportions that the Russian campaign
+was opened early in June, and the brilliant
+successes gained by our allies against the
+Austrians at once caused a movement of German
+troops from the western to the eastern
+front. This, however, did not lessen the pressure
+on Verdun. The heroic defense of our
+French allies had already gained many weeks
+of inestimable value and had caused the
+enemy very heavy losses; but the strain continued
+to increase. In view, therefore, of the
+situation in the various theatres of war, it
+was eventually agreed between General Joffre
+and myself that the combined French and
+British offensive should not be postponed beyond
+the end of June.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Objects
+of new
+offensive.</div>
+
+<p>The object of that offensive was threefold:</p>
+
+<p>(i.) To relieve the pressure on Verdun.</p>
+
+<p>(ii.) To assist our allies in the other theatres
+of war by stopping any further transfer of
+German troops from the western front.</p>
+
+<p>(iii.) To wear down the strength of the
+forces opposed to us.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy
+attempts
+at interference.</div>
+
+<p>While my final preparations were in progress
+the enemy made two unsuccessful attempts to
+interfere with my arrangements. The first,
+directed on May 21, 1916, against our positions
+on the Vimy Ridge, south and southeast of
+Souchez, resulted in a small enemy gain of
+no strategic or tactical importance; and rather
+than weaken my offensive by involving additional
+troops in the task of recovering the lost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
+ground, I decided to consolidate a position in
+rear of our original line.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A position
+lost and
+retaken.</div>
+
+<p>The second enemy attack was delivered on
+June 2, 1916, on a front of over one and a half
+miles from Mount Sorrell to Hooge, and succeeded
+in penetrating to a maximum depth of
+700 yards. As the southern part of the lost
+position commanded our trenches, I judged
+it necessary to recover it, and by an attack
+launched on June 13, 1916, carefully prepared
+and well executed, this was successfully accomplished
+by the troops on the spot.</p>
+
+<p>Neither of these enemy attacks succeeded in
+delaying the preparations for the major operations
+which I had in view.</p>
+
+<p>These preparations were necessarily very
+elaborate and took considerable time.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Vast
+stores accumulated.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Shelter
+and communication
+facilities
+prepared.</div>
+
+<p>Vast stocks of ammunition and stores of all
+kinds had to be accumulated beforehand within
+a convenient distance of our front. To deal
+with these many miles of new railways&mdash;both
+standard and narrow gauge&mdash;and trench tramways
+were laid. All available roads were improved,
+many others were made, and long causeways
+were built over marshy valleys. Many
+additional dugouts had to be provided as
+shelter for the troops, for use as dressing
+stations for the wounded, and as magazines for
+storing ammunition, food, water, and engineering
+material. Scores of miles of deep communication
+trenches had to be dug, as well as
+trenches for telephone wires, assembly and assault
+trenches, and numerous gun emplacements
+and observation posts.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mining
+operations.</div>
+
+<p>Important mining operations were undertaken,
+and charges were laid at various points
+beneath the enemy's lines.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Water
+supply
+insured.</div>
+
+<p>Except in the river valleys, the existing supplies
+of water were hopelessly insufficient to
+meet the requirements of the numbers of men
+and horses to be concentrated in this area as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
+the preparations for our offensive proceeded.
+To meet this difficulty many wells and borings
+were sunk, and over one hundred pumping
+plants were installed. More than one hundred
+and twenty miles of water mains were laid,
+and everything was got ready to insure an adequate
+water supply as our troops advanced.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Spirit of
+the
+troops.</div>
+
+<p>Much of this preparatory work had to be
+done under very trying conditions, and was
+liable to constant interruption from the enemy's
+fire. The weather, on the whole, was
+bad, and the local accommodations totally insufficient
+for housing the troops employed, who
+consequently had to content themselves with
+such rough shelter as could be provided in the
+circumstances. All this labor, too, had to be
+carried out in addition to fighting and to the
+everyday work of maintaining existing defenses.
+It threw a very heavy strain on the
+troops, which was borne by them with a cheerfulness
+beyond all praise.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Formidable
+enemy
+position on
+the Somme
+and the
+Ancre.</div>
+
+<p>The enemy's position to be attacked was
+of a very formidable character, situated on a
+high, undulating tract of ground, which rises
+to more than 500 feet above sea level, and
+forms the watershed between the Somme on
+the one side and the rivers of Southwestern
+Belgium on the other. On the southern face
+of this watershed, the general trend of which
+is from east-southeast to west-northwest, the
+ground falls in a series of long irregular spurs
+and deep depressions to the valley of the
+Somme. Well down the forward slopes of
+this face the enemy's first system of defense,
+starting from the Somme near Curlu, ran at
+first northward for 3,000 yards, then westward
+for 7,000 yards to near Fricourt, where
+it turned nearly due north, forming a great
+salient angle in the enemy's lines.</p>
+
+<p>Some 10,000 yards north of Fricourt the
+trenches crossed the River Ancre, a tributary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+of the Somme, and, still running northward,
+passed over the summit of the watershed,
+about H&eacute;buterne and Gommecourt, and then
+down its northern spurs to Arras.</p>
+
+<p>On the 20,000-yard front between the Somme
+and the Ancre the enemy had a strong second
+system of defense, sited generally on or near
+the southern crest of the highest part of the
+watershed, at an average distance of from 3,000
+to 5,000 yards behind his first system of
+trenches.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German
+methods
+of making
+position
+impregnable.</div>
+
+<p>During nearly two years' preparation he had
+spared no pains to render these defenses impregnable.
+The first and second systems each
+consisted of several lines of deep trenches,
+well provided with bomb-proof shelters and
+with numerous communication trenches connecting
+them. The front of the trenches in
+each system was protected by wire entanglements,
+many of them in two belts forty yards
+broad, built of iron stakes interlaced with
+barbed wire, often almost as thick as a man's
+finger.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Veritable
+fortresses.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Machine-gun
+emplacements.</div>
+
+<p>The numerous woods and villages in and
+between these systems of defense had been
+turned into veritable fortresses. The deep
+cellars, usually to be found in the villages,
+and the numerous pits and quarries common
+to a chalk country were used to provide cover
+for machine guns and trench mortars. The
+existing cellars were supplemented by elaborate
+dugouts, sometimes in two stories, and
+these were connected up by passages as much
+as thirty feet below the surface of the ground.
+The salients in the enemy's lines, from which
+he could bring enfilade fire across his front,
+were made into self-contained forts, and often
+protected by mine fields, while strong redoubts
+and concrete machine-gun emplacements
+had been constructed in positions from which
+he could sweep his own trenches should these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+be taken. The ground lent itself to good artillery
+observation on the enemy's part, and
+he had skillfully arranged for cross-fire by
+his guns.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A composite
+system
+of great
+strength.</div>
+
+<p>These various systems of defense, with the
+fortified localities and other supporting points
+between them, were cunningly sited to afford
+each other mutual assistance and to admit of
+the utmost possible development of enfilade
+and flanking fire by machine guns and artillery.
+They formed, in short, not merely a series of
+successive lines, but one composite system of
+enormous depth and strength.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Many
+lines prepared
+in
+the rear.</div>
+
+<p>Behind this second system of trenches, in
+addition to woods, villages, and other strong
+points prepared for defense, the enemy had
+several other lines already completed; and we
+had learned from aeroplane reconnoisance that
+he was hard at work improving and strengthening
+these and digging fresh ones between
+them and still further back.</p>
+
+<p>In the area above described, between the
+Somme and the Ancre, our front-line trenches
+ran parallel and close to those of the enemy,
+but below them. We had good direct observation
+on his front system of trenches and on
+the various defenses sited on the slopes above
+us between his first and second systems; but
+the second system itself, in many places,
+could not be observed from the ground in
+our possession, while, except from the air,
+nothing could be seen of his more distant
+defenses.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The lines
+of the
+Allies.</div>
+
+<p>North of the Ancre, where the opposing
+trenches ran transversely across the main
+ridge, the enemy's defenses were equally elaborate
+and formidable. So far as command of
+ground was concerned we were here practically
+on level terms, but, partly as a result of this,
+our direct observation over the ground held
+by the enemy was not so good as it was further<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
+south. On portions of this front the opposing
+first-line trenches were more widely separated
+from each other, while in the valleys to the
+north were many hidden gun positions from
+which the enemy could develop flanking fire
+on our troops as they advanced across the
+open.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Period
+of active
+operations.</div>
+
+<p>The period of active operations dealt with
+in this dispatch divides itself roughly into three
+phases. The first phase opened with the attack
+of July 1, 1916, the success of which evidently
+came as a surprise to the enemy and caused
+considerable confusion and disorganization in
+his ranks.</p>
+
+<p>The advantages gained on that date and
+developed during the first half of July may
+be regarded as having been rounded off by
+the operations of July 14, 1916, and three
+following days, which gave us possession of the
+southern crest of the main plateau between
+Delville Wood and Bazentin-le-Petit.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+enemy's
+efforts
+to hold
+the ridge.</div>
+
+<p>We then entered upon a contest lasting for
+many weeks, during which the enemy, having
+found his strongest defenses unavailing, and
+now fully alive to his danger, put forth his
+utmost efforts to keep his hold of the main
+ridge. This stage of the battle constituted a
+prolonged and severe struggle for mastery
+between the contending armies, in which, although
+progress was slow and difficult, the
+confidence of our troops in their ability to
+win was never shaken. Their tenacity and
+determination proved more than equal to
+their task, and by the first week in September
+they had established a fighting superiority
+that has left its mark on the enemy, of which
+possession of the ridge was merely the visible
+proof.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+plateau
+gained.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Successes
+of the
+French
+south of
+the Somme</div>
+
+<p>The way was then opened for the third
+phase, in which our advance was pushed down
+the forward slopes of the ridge and further<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
+extended on both flanks until, from Morval to
+Thiepval, the whole plateau and a good deal
+of ground beyond were in our possession.
+Meanwhile our gallant allies, in addition to
+great successes south of the Somme, had
+pushed their advance, against equally determined
+opposition and under most difficult
+tactical conditions, up the long slopes on
+our immediate right, and were now preparing
+to drive the enemy from the summit of
+the narrow and difficult portion of the
+main ridge which lies between the Combles
+Valley and the River Tortille, a stream flowing
+from the north into the Somme just below
+P&eacute;ronne.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Careful
+artillery
+preparation.</div>
+
+<p>Defenses of the nature described could only
+be attacked with any prospect of success after
+careful artillery preparation. It was accordingly
+decided that our bombardment should
+begin on June 24, 1916 and a large force of
+artillery was brought into action for the
+purpose.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Gas discharges.</div>
+
+<p>Artillery bombardments were also carried
+out daily at different points on the rest of our
+front, and during the period from June 24 to
+July 1, 1916, gas was discharged with good
+effect at more than forty places along our line
+upon a frontage which in total amounted to
+over fifteen miles. Some seventy raids, too,
+were undertaken by our infantry between
+Gommecourt and our extreme left north of
+Ypres during the week preceding the attack,
+and these kept me well informed as to the
+enemy's dispositions, besides serving other useful
+purposes.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Attack by
+the Royal
+Flying
+Corps.</div>
+
+<p>On June 25, 1916, the Royal Flying Corps
+carried out a general attack on the enemy's
+observation balloons, destroying nine of them,
+and depriving the enemy for the time being of
+this form of observation.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">British
+and
+French co-operate
+in
+attack.</div>
+
+<p>On July 1, 1916, at 7.30 a. m., after a final<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
+hour of exceptionally violent bombardment,
+our infantry assault was launched. Simultaneously
+the French attacked on both sides
+of the Somme, co-operating closely with us.</p>
+
+<p>The British main front of attack extended
+from Maricourt on our right, round the salient
+at Fricourt, to the Ancre in front of St. Pierre
+Divion. To assist this main attack by holding
+the enemy's reserves and occupying his artillery,
+the enemy's trenches north of the Ancre,
+as far as Serre, inclusive, were to be assaulted
+simultaneously, while further north a subsidiary
+attack was to be made on both sides
+of the salient at Gommecourt.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rawlinson
+and
+Allenby.</div>
+
+<p>I had intrusted the attack on the front from
+Maricourt to Serre to the Fourth Army, under
+the command of General Sir Henry S. Rawlinson,
+Bart., K. C. B., K. C. V. O., with five
+army corps at his disposal. The subsidiary
+attack at Gommecourt was carried out by
+troops from the army commanded by General
+Sir E. H. H. Allenby, K. C. B.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mines exploded
+under
+enemy
+lines.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Advance
+over open
+ground.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Trenches
+taken near
+Fricourt.</div>
+
+<p>Just prior to the attack the mines which
+had been prepared under the enemy's lines
+were exploded, and smoke was discharged at
+many places along our front. Through this
+smoke our infantry advanced to the attack
+with the utmost steadiness in spite of the
+very heavy barrage of the enemy's guns. On
+our right our troops met with immediate success,
+and rapid progress was made. Before
+midday Montauban had been carried, and
+shortly afterward the Briqueterie, to the east,
+and the whole of the ridge to the west of the
+village were in our hands. Opposite Mametz
+part of our assembly trenches had been practically
+leveled by the enemy artillery, making
+it necessary for our infantry to advance
+to the attack across 400 yards of open ground.
+None the less they forced their way into Mametz,
+and reached their objective in the valley<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
+beyond, first throwing out a defensive flank
+toward Fricourt on their left. At the same
+time the enemy's trenches were entered north
+of Fricourt, so that the enemy's garrison in
+that village was pressed on three sides. Further
+north, though the village of La Boisselle
+and Ovillers for the time being resisted our
+attack, our troops drove deeply into the
+German lines on the flanks of these strongholds,
+and so paved the way for their capture
+later.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Fight
+for the
+Leipsic
+Salient.</div>
+
+<p>On the spur running south from Thiepval
+the work known as the Leipsic Salient was
+stormed, and severe fighting took place for
+the possession of the village and its defenses.
+Here and north of the valley of the Ancre,
+as far as Serre, on the left flank of our attack,
+our initial successes were not sustained.
+Striking progress was made at many points,
+and parties of troops penetrated the enemy's
+positions to the outer defenses of Grandcourt,
+and also to Pendant Copse and Serre; but the
+enemy's continued resistance at Thiepval and
+Beaumont Hamel made it impossible to forward
+reinforcements and ammunition, and in
+spite of their gallant efforts our troops were
+forced to withdraw during the night to their
+own lines.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+attack
+at Gommecourt.</div>
+
+<p>The subsidiary attack at Gommecourt also
+forced its way into the enemy's positions, but
+there met with such vigorous opposition that
+as soon as it was considered that the attack
+had fulfilled its object our troops were withdrawn.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Instructions
+to
+General
+Gough.</div>
+
+<p>In view of the general situation at the end
+of the first day's operations I decided that the
+best course was to press forward on a front
+extending from our junction with the French
+to a point half way between La Boisselle
+and Contalmaison, and to limit the offensive
+on our left for the present to a slow and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
+methodical advance. North of the Ancre such
+preparations were to be made as would hold
+the enemy to his positions and enable the
+attack to be resumed there later if desirable.
+In order that General Sir Henry Rawlinson
+might be left free to concentrate his attention
+on the portion of the front where the attack
+was to be pushed home, I also decided to place
+the operations against the front, La Boisselle to
+Serre, under the command of General Sir Hubert
+de la P. Gough, K. C. B., to whom I accordingly
+allotted the two northern corps of
+Sir Henry Rawlinson's army. My instructions
+to Sir Hubert Gough were that his army
+was to maintain a steady pressure on the front
+from La Boisselle to the Serre road and to act
+as a pivot on which our line could swing as
+our attacks on his right made progress toward
+the north.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Fricourt
+to Contalmaison.</div>
+
+<p>During the succeeding days the attack was
+continued on these lines. In spite of strong
+counter-attacks on the Briqueterie and Montauban,
+by midday on July 2 our troops had captured
+Fricourt, and in the afternoon and evening
+stormed Fricourt Wood and the farm to
+the north. During July 3 and 4 Bernajay and
+Caterpillar woods were also captured, and our
+troops pushed forward to the railway north
+of Mametz. On these days the reduction
+of La Boisselle was completed after hard fighting,
+while the outskirts of Contalmaison were
+reached on July 5. North of La Boisselle also
+the enemy's forces opposite us were kept constantly
+engaged, and our holding in the Leipsic
+Salient was gradually increased.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Result of
+five days'
+fighting.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Prisoners
+taken.</div>
+
+<p>To sum up the results of the fighting of
+these five days, on a front of over six miles,
+from the Briqueterie to La Boisselle, our troops
+had swept over the whole of the enemy's first
+and strongest system of defense, which he had
+done his utmost to render impregnable. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
+had driven him back over a distance of more
+than a mile, and had carried four elaborately
+fortified villages. The number of prisoners
+passed back at the close of July 5, 1916, had
+already reached the total of ninety-four officers
+and 5,724 other ranks.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Readjustments
+and
+reliefs.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Contalmaison
+and
+Mametz
+Wood.</div>
+
+<p>After the five days' heavy and continuous
+fighting just described it was essential to carry
+out certain readjustments and reliefs of the
+forces engaged. In normal conditions of enemy
+resistance the amount of progress that can
+be made at any time without a pause in the general
+advance is necessarily limited. Apart
+from the physical exhaustion of the attacking
+troops and the considerable distance separating
+the enemy's successive main systems of defense,
+special artillery preparation was required
+before a successful assault could be delivered.
+Meanwhile, however, local operations
+were continued in spite of much unfavorable
+weather. The attack on Contalmaison and
+Mametz Wood was undertaken on July 7, 1916,
+and after three days' obstinate fighting, in the
+course of which the enemy delivered several
+powerful counterattacks, the village and the
+whole of the wood, except its northern border,
+were finally secured. On July 7 also a footing
+was gained in the other defenses of Ovillers,
+while on July 9, 1916, on our extreme right,
+Maltz Horn Farm&mdash;an important point on the
+spur north of Hardecourt&mdash;was secured.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">British
+troops in
+Trones
+Wood.</div>
+
+<p>A thousand yards north of this farm our
+troops had succeeded at the second attempt
+in establishing themselves on July 8, 1916, in
+the southern end of Trones Wood. The enemy's
+positions in the northern and eastern parts
+of this wood were very strong, and no less than
+eight powerful German counterattacks were
+made here during the next five days. In the
+course of this struggle portions of the wood
+changed hands several times; but we were left<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
+eventually, on July 13, 1916, in possession of
+the southern part of it.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Assault
+on the
+German
+second
+system of
+defense.</div>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Mametz Wood had been entirely
+cleared of the enemy, and with Trones Wood
+also practically in our possession we were in
+a position to undertake an assault upon the
+enemy's second system of defense. Arrangements
+were accordingly made for an attack to
+be delivered at daybreak on the morning of
+July 14, 1916, against a front extending from
+Longueval to Bazentin-le-Petit Wood, both inclusive.
+Contalmaison Villa, on a spur 1,000
+yards west of Bazentin-le-Petit Wood, had already
+been captured to secure the left flank of
+the attack, and advantage had been taken of the
+progress made by our infantry to move our artillery
+forward into new positions. The preliminary
+bombardment had opened on July 11,
+1916. The opportunities offered by the ground
+for enfilading the enemy's lines were fully
+utilized, and did much to secure the success of
+our attack.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A night
+operation
+of magnitude.</div>
+
+<p>In the early hours of July 4, 1916, the attacking
+troops moved out over the open for a
+distance of from about 1,000 to 1,400 yards,
+and lined up in the darkness just below the
+crest and some 300 to 500 yards from the enemy's
+trenches. Their advance was covered
+by strong patrols, and their correct deployment
+had been insured by careful previous
+preparations. The whole movement was carried
+out unobserved and without touch being
+lost in any case. The decision to attempt a
+night operation of this magnitude with an
+army, the bulk of which had been raised since
+the beginning of the war, was perhaps the highest
+tribute that could be paid to the quality
+of our troops. It would not have been possible
+but for the most careful preparation and forethought,
+as well as thorough reconnoissance
+of the ground, which was, in many cases,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
+made personally by divisional, brigade, and
+battalion commanders and their staffs before
+framing their detailed orders for the
+advance.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The assault
+on
+July 14.</div>
+
+<p>The actual assault was delivered at 3.25 a.m.
+on July 14, 1916, when there was just sufficient
+light to be able to distinguish friend
+from foe at short ranges, and along the whole
+front attacked our troops, preceded by a very
+effective artillery barrage, swept over the enemy's
+first trenches and on into the defenses
+beyond.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Trones
+Wood
+cleared of
+the enemy.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Longueval
+occupied.</div>
+
+<p>On our right the enemy was driven from
+his last foothold in Trones Wood, and by
+8 a.m. we had cleared the whole of it, relieving
+a body of 170 men who had maintained
+themselves all night in the northern
+corner of the wood, although completely surrounded
+by the enemy. Our position in the
+wood was finally consolidated, and strong
+patrols were sent out from it in the direction
+of Guillemont and Longueval. The southern
+half of this latter village was already in
+the hands of the troops who had advanced
+west of Trones Wood. The northern half, with
+the exception of two strong points, was captured
+by 4 p.m. after a severe struggle.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+enemy
+counterattacks.</div>
+
+<p>In the centre of our attack Bazentin-le-Grand
+village and wood were also gained,
+and our troops pushing northward captured
+Bazentin-le-Petit village and the cemetery to
+the east. Here the enemy counterattacked
+twice about midday without success, and again
+in the afternoon, on the latter occasion momentarily
+reoccupying the northern half of the
+village as far as the church. Our troops immediately
+returned to the attack and drove
+him out again with heavy losses. To the left
+of the village Bazentin-le-Petit Wood was
+cleared, in spite of the considerable resistance
+of the enemy along its western edge, where we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
+successfully repulsed a counterattack. In the
+afternoon further ground was gained to the
+west of the wood, and posts were established
+immediately south of Pozi&egrave;res.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">General
+Rawlinson
+employs
+cavalry.</div>
+
+<p>The enemy's troops, who had been severely
+handled in these attacks and counterattacks,
+began to show signs of disorganization, and
+it was reported early in the afternoon that it
+was possible to advance to High Wood.
+General Rawlinson, who had held a force of
+cavalry in readiness for such an eventuality,
+decided to employ a part of it. As the fight
+progressed small bodies of this force had
+pushed forward gradually, keeping in close
+touch with the development of the action,
+and prepared to seize quickly any opportunity
+that might occur. A squadron now came up
+on the flanks of our infantry, who entered High
+Wood at about 8 p.m., and, after some hand-to-hand
+fighting, cleared the whole of the wood
+with the exception of the northern apex.
+Acting mounted in co-operation with the infantry,
+the cavalry came into action with good
+effect, killing several of the enemy and capturing
+some prisoners.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">British
+withdrawn
+from High
+Wood.</div>
+
+<p>On July 15, 1916, the battle still continued,
+though on a reduced scale. Arrow Head Copse,
+between the southern edge of Trones Wood and
+Guillemont, and Waterlot Farm on the Longueval-Guillemont
+road, were seized, and Delville
+Wood was captured and held against
+several hostile counterattacks. In Longueval
+fierce fighting continued until dusk for the
+possession of the two strong points and the
+orchards to the north of the village. The
+situation in this area made the position of our
+troops in High Wood somewhat precarious, and
+they now began to suffer numerous casualties
+from the enemy's heavy shelling. Accordingly
+orders were given for their withdrawal, and
+this was effected during the night of July 15-16,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
+1916, without interference by the enemy. All
+the wounded were brought in.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Progress
+toward
+Pozi&egrave;res.</div>
+
+<p>In spite of repeated enemy counterattacks
+further progress was made on the night of
+July 16, 1916, along the enemy's main second-line
+trenches northwest of Bazentin-le-Petit
+Wood to within 500 yards of the northeast
+corner of the village of Pozi&egrave;res, which our
+troops were already approaching from the
+south.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Ovillers
+captured.</div>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the operations further north had
+also made progress. Since the attack of July
+7, 1916, the enemy in and about Ovillers had
+been pressed relentlessly and gradually driven
+back by incessant bombing attacks and local
+assaults, in accordance with the general instructions
+I had given to General Sir Hubert
+Gough. On July 16, 1916, a large body of the
+garrison of Ovillers surrendered, and that night
+and during the following day, by a direct advance
+from the west across No Man's Land,
+our troops carried the remainder of the village
+and pushed out along the spur to the north and
+eastward toward Pozi&egrave;res.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A new line
+definitely
+established.</div>
+
+<p>The results of the operations of July 4, 1916,
+and subsequent days were of considerable
+importance. The enemy's second main system
+of defense had been captured on a front
+of over three miles. We had again forced
+him back more than a mile, and had gained
+possession of the southern crest of the main
+ridge on a front of 6,000 yards. Four more
+of his fortified villages and three woods had
+been wrested from him by determined fighting,
+and our advanced troops had penetrated
+as far as his third line of defense. In spite
+of a resolute resistance and many counterattacks,
+in which the enemy had suffered
+severely, our line was definitely established
+from Maltz Horn Farm, where we met the
+French left, northward along the eastern edge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
+of Trones Wood to Longueval, then westward
+past Bazentin-le-Grand to the northern corner
+of Bazentin-le-Petit and Bazentin-le-Petit
+Wood, and then westward again past the southern
+face of Pozi&egrave;res to the north of Ovillers.
+Posts were established at Arrow Head Copse
+and Waterlot Farm, while we had troops
+thrown forward in Delville Wood and toward
+High Wood, though their position was not yet
+secure.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Sir Henry
+Rawlinson
+commended.</div>
+
+<p>I cannot speak too highly of the skill, daring
+endurance, and determination by which
+these results had been achieved. Great credit
+is due to Sir Henry Rawlinson for the thoroughness
+and care with which this difficult
+undertaking was planned; while the advance
+and deployment made by night without confusion,
+and the complete success of the subsequent
+attack, constitute a striking tribute to
+the discipline and spirit of the troops engaged,
+as well as to the powers of leadership and
+organization of their commanders and staffs.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Guns and
+prisoners
+taken.</div>
+
+<p>During these operations and their development
+on the 15th a number of enemy guns
+were taken, making a total capture since July
+1, 1916, of eight heavy howitzers, four heavy
+guns, forty-two field and light guns and field
+howitzers, thirty trench mortars, and fifty-two
+machine guns. Very considerable losses
+had been inflicted on the enemy, and the
+prisoners captured amounted to over 2,000,
+bringing the total since July 1, 1916, to over
+10,000.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy
+able to
+bring up
+fresh
+troops.</div>
+
+<p>There was strong evidence that the enemy
+forces engaged on the battle front had been
+severely shaken by the repeated successes
+gained by ourselves and our allies; but the
+great strength and depth of his defenses had
+secured for him sufficient time to bring up fresh
+troops, and he had still many powerful fortifications,
+both trenches, villages, and woods, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
+which he could cling in our front and on our
+flanks.</p>
+
+<p>We had, indeed, secured a footing on the
+main ridge, but only on a front of 6,000 yards,
+and desirous though I was to follow up quickly
+the successes we had won, it was necessary
+first to widen this front.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Pozi&egrave;res
+and
+Thiepval
+still to be
+carried.</div>
+
+<p>West of Bazentin-le-Petit the villages of
+Pozi&egrave;res and Thiepval, together with the whole
+elaborate system of trenches around, between
+and on the main ridge behind them, had still
+to be carried. An advance further east would,
+however, eventually turn these defenses, and
+all that was for the present required on the left
+flank of our attack was a steady, methodical,
+step by step advance as already ordered.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Salient at
+Delville,
+Wood and
+Longueval.</div>
+
+<p>On our right flank the situation called for
+stronger measures. At Delville Wood and
+Longueval our lines formed a sharp salient,
+from which our front ran on the one side westward
+to Pozi&egrave;res, and on the other southward
+to Maltz Horn Farm. At Maltz Horn Farm
+our lines joined the French, and the allied front
+continued still southward to the village of Hem,
+on the Somme.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy's
+advantages.</div>
+
+<p>This pronounced salient invited counterattacks
+by the enemy. He possessed direct observation
+on it all around from Guillemont on
+the southeast to High Wood on the northwest.
+He could bring a concentric fire of artillery,
+to bear not only on the wood and village,
+but also on the confined space behind, through
+which ran the French communications as well
+as ours, where great numbers of guns, besides
+ammunition and impediments of all sorts, had
+necessarily to be crowded together. Having
+been in occupation of this ground for nearly
+two years, he knew every foot of it, and could
+not fail to appreciate the possibilities of causing
+us heavy loss there by indirect artillery
+fire; while it was evident that, if he could drive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+in the salient in our line and so gain direct
+observation on the ground behind, our position
+in that area would become very uncomfortable.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Confidence
+in the
+troops</div>
+
+<p>If there had not been good grounds for confidence
+that the enemy was not capable of
+driving from this position troops who had
+shown themselves able to wrest it from him,
+the situation would have been an anxious one.
+In any case it was clear that the first requirement
+at the moment was that our right flank,
+and the French troops in extension of it,
+should swing up into line with our centre. To
+effect this, however, strong enemy positions had
+to be captured both by ourselves and by our
+allies.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Plateau
+from Delville
+Wood
+to Morval</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">New
+enemy defenses.</div>
+
+<p>From Delville Wood the main plateau extends
+for 4,000 yards east-northeast to Les
+Boeufs and Morval, and for about the same
+distance southeastward to Leuze and Bouleau
+Woods, which stand above and about
+1,000 yards to the west of Combles. To bring
+my right up into line with the rest of my
+front it was necessary to capture Guillemont,
+Falfemont Farm, and Leuze Wood, and then
+Ginchy and Bouleau Woods. These localities
+were naturally very strong, and they had been
+elaborately fortified. The enemy's main second-line
+system of defense ran in front of them
+from Waterlot Farm, which was already in
+our hands, southeastward to Falfemont Farm,
+and thence southward to the Somme. The
+importance of holding us back in this area
+could not escape the enemy's notice, and he had
+dug and wired many new trenches, both in
+front of and behind his original lines. He had
+also brought up fresh troops, and there was no
+possibility of taking him by surprise.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rain
+and unfavorable
+ground.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Constant
+haze.</div>
+
+<p>The task before us was, therefore, a very
+difficult one and entailed a real trial of
+strength between the opposing forces. At this
+juncture its difficulties were increased by unfavorable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
+weather. The nature of the ground
+limited the possibility of direct observation of
+our artillery fire, and we were consequently
+much dependent on observation from the air.
+As in that element we had attained almost complete
+superiority, all that we required was a
+clear atmosphere; but with this we were not
+favored for several weeks. We had rather more
+rain than is usual in July and August, and even
+when no rain fell there was an almost constant
+haze and frequent low clouds.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">British
+and
+French
+must advance
+together.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Positions
+the
+French
+must
+capture.</div>
+
+<p>In swinging up my own right it was very
+important that the French line north of the
+Somme should be advanced at the same time
+in close combination with the movement of the
+British troops. The line of demarkation agreed
+on between the French commander and myself
+ran from Maltz Horn Farm due eastward to
+the Combles Valley and then northeastward up
+that valley to a point midway between Sailly-Saillisel
+and Morval. These two villages had
+been fixed upon as objectives, respectively, of
+the French left and of my right. In order to
+advance in co-operation with my right, and
+eventually to reach Sailly-Saillisel, our allies
+had still to fight their way up that portion of
+the main ridge which lies between the Combles
+Valley on the west and the River Tortille on the
+east. To do so they had to capture, in the first
+place, the strongly fortified villages of Maurepas,
+Le Forest, Rancourt, and <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Fregicort'">Fr&eacute;gicourt</ins>, besides
+many woods and strong systems of
+trenches. As the high ground on each side
+of the Combles Valley commands the slopes of
+the ridge on the opposite side, it was essential
+that the advance of the two armies should be
+simultaneous and made in the closest co-operation.
+This was fully recognized by both armies,
+and our plans were made accordingly.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A pause
+necessary.</div>
+
+<p>To carry out the necessary preparations to
+deal with the difficult situation outlined above<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+a short pause was necessary, to enable tired
+troops to be relieved and guns to be moved
+forward; while at the same time old communications
+had to be improved and new ones made.
+Intrenchments against probable counterattacks
+could not be neglected, and fresh dispositions
+of troops were required for the new attacks
+to be directed eastward.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Pressure
+on whole
+front.</div>
+
+<p>It was also necessary to continue such pressure
+on the rest of our front, not only on the
+Ancre, but further south, as would make it
+impossible for the enemy to devote himself
+entirely to resisting the advance between Delville
+Wood and the Somme. In addition, it was
+desirable further to secure our hold on the
+main ridge west of Delville Wood by gaining
+more ground to our front in that direction.
+Orders were therefore issued in accordance
+with the general considerations explained
+above, and, without relaxing pressure along
+the enemy's front from Delville Wood to the
+west, preparations for an attack on Guillemont
+were pushed on.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy
+counterattack
+on
+Delville
+Wood.</div>
+
+<p>During the afternoon of July 18, 1916, the
+enemy developed his expected counterattack
+against Delville Wood, after heavy preliminary
+shelling. By sheer weight of numbers, and at
+very heavy cost, he forced his way through the
+northern and northeastern portion of the wood
+and into the northern half of Longueval, which
+our troops had cleared only that morning. In
+the southeast corner of the wood he was held
+up by a gallant defense, and further south
+three attacks on our positions in Waterlot
+Farm failed.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Progress
+bought
+by hard
+fighting.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy
+in great
+strength.</div>
+
+<p>This enemy attack on Delville Wood marked
+the commencement of the long, closely contested
+struggle which was not finally decided
+in our favor till the fall of Guillemont on
+September 3, 1916, a decision which was confirmed
+by the capture of Ginchy six days later.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
+Considerable gains were indeed made during
+this period, but progress was slow, and bought
+only by hard fighting. A footing was established
+in High Wood on July 20, 1916, and our
+line linked up thence with Longueval. A subsequent
+advance by the Fourth Army on July 23,
+1916, on a wide front from Guillemont to
+Pozi&egrave;res found the enemy in great strength
+all along the line, with machine guns and forward
+troops in shell holes and newly constructed
+trenches well in front of his main
+defenses. Although ground was won, the
+strength of the resistance experienced showed
+that the hostile troops had recovered from their
+previous confusion sufficiently to necessitate
+long and careful preparation before further
+successes on any great scale could be secured.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Two
+powerful
+counterattacks.</div>
+
+<p>An assault delivered simultaneously on this
+date by General Gough's army against Pozi&egrave;res
+gained considerable results, and by the morning
+of July 25, 1916, the whole of that village was
+carried, including the cemetery, and important
+progress was made along the enemy's trenches
+to the northeast. That evening, after heavy artillery
+preparation, the enemy launched two
+more powerful counterattacks, the one directed
+against our new position in and around High
+Wood and the other delivered from the northwest
+of Delville Wood. Both attacks were
+completely broken up with very heavy losses to
+the enemy.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Delville
+Wood
+recovered.</div>
+
+<p>On July 27, 1916, the remainder of Delville
+Wood was recovered, and two days later the
+northern portion of Longueval and the orchards
+were cleared of the enemy, after severe fighting,
+in which our own and the enemy's artillery
+were very active.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Fighting
+at
+Guillemont.</div>
+
+<p>On July 30, 1916, the village of Guillemont
+and Falfemont Farm to the southeast were
+attacked, in conjunction with a French attack
+north of the Somme. A battalion entered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
+Guillemont, and part of it passed through to
+the far side; but as the battalions on either
+flank did not reach their objectives, it was
+obliged to fall back, after holding out for some
+hours on the western edge of the village. In
+a subsequent local attack on August 7, 1916,
+our troops again entered Guillemont, but were
+again compelled to fall back owing to the failure
+of a simultaneous effort against the enemy's
+trenches on the flanks of the village.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Dominating
+enemy
+positions.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Series
+of French
+and
+British
+attacks.</div>
+
+<p>The ground to the south of Guillemont was
+dominated by the enemy's positions in and
+about that village. It was therefore hoped
+that these positions might be captured first,
+before an advance to the south of them in the
+direction of Falfemont Farm was pushed further
+forward. It had now become evident,
+however, that Guillemont could not be captured
+as an isolated enterprise without very
+heavy loss, and, accordingly, arrangements
+were made with the French Army on our immediate
+right for a series of combined attacks,
+to be delivered in progressive stages,
+which should embrace Maurepas, Falfemont
+Farm, Guillemont, Leuze Wood, and Ginchy.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Attacks
+and
+counterattacks.</div>
+
+<p>An attempt on August 16, 1916, to carry out
+the first stage of the prearranged scheme met
+with only partial success, and two days
+later, after a preliminary bombardment lasting
+thirty-six hours, a larger combined attack was
+undertaken. In spite of a number of enemy
+counterattacks the most violent of which
+leveled at the point of junction of the British
+with the French, succeeded in forcing our allies
+and ourselves back from a part of the ground
+won&mdash;very valuable progress was made, and
+our troops established themselves in the outskirts
+of Guillemont village and occupied
+Guillemont Station. A violent counterattack
+on Guillemont Station was repulsed on August
+23, 1916, and next day further important progress<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+was made on a wide front north and east
+of Delville Wood.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Advance
+by bombing
+and
+sapping.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Progress
+near
+Thiepval.</div>
+
+<p>Apart from the operations already described,
+others of a minor character, yet involving
+much fierce and obstinate fighting, continued
+during this period on the fronts of both the
+British armies. Our lines were pushed forward
+wherever possible by means of local attacks and
+by bombing and sapping, and the enemy was
+driven out of various forward positions from
+which he might hamper our progress. By these
+means many gains were made which, though
+small in themselves, in the aggregate represented
+very considerable advances. In this way
+our line was brought to the crest of the ridge
+above Martinpuich, and Pozi&egrave;res Windmill and
+the high ground north of the village were
+secured, and with them observation over Martinpuich
+and Courcelette and the enemy's gun
+positions in their neighborhood and around
+Le Sars. At a later date our troops reached
+the defenses of Mouquet Farm, northwest of
+Pozi&egrave;res, and made progress in the enemy's
+trenches south of Thiepval. The enemy's counter-attacks
+were incessant and frequently of
+great violence, but they were made in vain and
+at heavy cost to him. The fierceness of the
+fighting can be gathered from the fact that one
+regiment of the German Guards Reserve Corps
+which had been in the Thiepval salient opposite
+Mouquet Farm is known to have lost 1,400 men
+in fifteen days.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A general
+attack.</div>
+
+<p>The first two days of September, 1916, on
+both army fronts were spent in preparation
+for a more general attack, which the gradual
+progress made during the preceding month
+had placed us in a position to undertake. Our
+assault was delivered at 12 noon on September
+3, 1916, on a front extending from our extreme
+right to the third enemy trenches on
+the right bank of the Ancre, north of Hamel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
+Our allies attacked simultaneously on our
+right.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Guillemont
+stormed.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Counterattacks
+on Guillemont.</div>
+
+<p>Guillemont was stormed and at once consolidated,
+and our troops pushed on unchecked
+to Ginchy and the line of the road running
+south to Wedge Wood. Ginchy was also seized,
+but here, in the afternoon, we were very
+strongly counterattacked. For three days the
+tide of attack and counterattack swayed
+backward and forward among the ruined
+houses of the village, till, in the end, for three
+days more the greater part of it remained in
+the enemy's possession. Three counterattacks
+made on the evening of September 3, 1916,
+against our troops in Guillemont all failed,
+with considerable loss to the enemy. We
+also gained ground north of Delville Wood
+and in High Wood, though here an enemy
+counterattack recovered part of the ground
+won.</p>
+
+<p>On the front of General Gough's army,
+though the enemy suffered heavy losses in personnel,
+our gain in ground was slight.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">British
+assault on
+Falfemont
+Farm.</div>
+
+<p>In order to keep touch with the French who
+were attacking on our right the assault on
+Falfemont Farm on September 3, 1916, was delivered
+three hours before the opening of the
+main assault. In the impetus of their first rush
+our troops reached the farm, but could not
+hold it. Nevertheless, they pushed on to the
+north of it, and on September 4, 1916, delivered
+a series of fresh assaults upon it from the west
+and north.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Leuze
+Wood
+cleared.</div>
+
+<p>Ultimately this strongly fortified position
+was occupied piece by piece, and by the morning
+of September 5, 1916, the whole of it was in
+our possession. Meanwhile further progress
+had been made to the northeast of the farm,
+where considerable initiative was shown by the
+local commanders. By the evening of the same
+day our troops were established strongly in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
+Leuze Wood, which on the following day was
+finally cleared of the enemy.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Advance
+on the
+right.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy's
+barrier
+broken.</div>
+
+<p>In spite of the fact that most of Ginchy and
+of High Wood remained in the enemy's hands,
+very noteworthy progress had been made in the
+course of these four days' operations, exceeding
+anything that had been achieved since July 14,
+1916. Our right was advanced on a front of
+nearly two miles to an average depth of nearly
+one mile, penetrating the enemy's original second
+line of defense on this front, and capturing
+strongly fortified positions at Falfemont
+Farm, Leuze Wood, Guillemont, and southeast
+of Delville Wood, where reached the western
+outskirts of Ginchy. More important than this
+gain in territory was the fact that the barrier
+which for seven weeks the enemy had maintained
+against our further advance had at last
+been broken. Over 1,000 prisoners were taken
+and many machine guns captured or destroyed
+in the course of the fighting.</p>
+
+<p>Preparations for a further attack upon
+Ginchy continued without intermission, and at
+4.45 p.m. on September 9, 1916, the attack was
+reopened on the whole of the Fourth Army
+front. At Ginchy and to the north of Leuze
+Wood it met with almost immediate success.
+On the right the enemy's line was seized over a
+front of more than 1,000 yards from the southwest
+corner of Bouleau Woods, in a northwesterly
+direction, to a point just south of the
+Guillemont-Morval tramway. Our troops again
+forced their way into Ginchy, and passing beyond
+it carried the line of enemy trenches to
+the east. Further progress was made east of
+Delville Wood and south and east of High
+Wood.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German
+prisoners
+taken.</div>
+
+<p>Over 500 prisoners were taken in the operations
+of September 9, 1916, and following
+days, making the total since July 1, 1916, over
+17,000.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">French
+progress.</div>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the French had made great progress
+on our right, bringing their line forward
+to Louage Wood (just south of Combles)&mdash;Le
+Forest-Clery-sur-Somme, all three inclusive.
+The weak salient in the allied line had therefore
+disappeared and we had gained the front
+required for further operations.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Ability
+of new
+armies.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Depth of
+enemy
+fortifications.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Failure of
+counterattacks.</div>
+
+<p>Still more importance, however, lay in the
+proof afforded by the results described of the
+ability of our new armies, not only to rush the
+enemy's strongest defenses, as had been accomplished
+on July 1 and 14, 1916, but also to wear
+down and break his power of resistance by a
+steady, relentless pressure, as they had done
+during the weeks of this fierce and protracted
+struggle. As has already been recounted, the
+preparations made for our assault on July 1,
+1916, had been long and elaborate; but though
+the enemy knew that an attack was coming, it
+would seem that he considered the troops already
+on the spot, secure in their apparently
+impregnable defenses, would suffice to deal
+with it. The success of that assault, combined
+with the vigor and determination with which
+our troops pressed their advantage, and followed
+by the successful night attack of July
+14, 1916, all served to awaken him to a fuller
+realization of his danger. The great depth
+of his system of fortification, to which reference
+has been made, gave him time to reorganize
+his defeated troops, and to hurry up
+numerous fresh divisions and more guns. Yet in
+spite of this, he was still pushed back, steadily
+and continuously. Trench after trench and
+strong point after strong point were wrested
+from him. The great majority of his frequent
+counterattacks failed completely, with heavy
+loss; while the few that achieved temporary
+local success purchased it dearly, and were soon
+thrown back from the ground they had for the
+moment regained.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The enemy had, it is true, delayed our advance
+considerably, but the effort had cost
+him dear; and the comparative collapse of
+his resistance during the last few days of the
+struggle justified the belief that in the long
+run decisive victory would lie with our troops,
+who had displayed such fine fighting qualities
+and such indomitable endurance and resolution.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mouquet
+Farm in
+hands of
+British.</div>
+
+<p>Practically the whole of the forward crest of
+the main ridge on a front of some 9,000 yards,
+from Delville Wood to the road above Mouquet
+Farm, was now in our hands, and with it the
+advantage of observation over the slopes beyond.
+East of Delville Wood, for a further
+3,000 yards to Leuze Wood, we were firmly
+established on the main ridge, while further
+east, across the Combles Valley, the French
+were advancing victoriously on our right. But
+though the centre of our line was well placed,
+on our flanks there was still difficult ground to
+be won.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">High
+ground
+from
+Ginchy to
+Morval.</div>
+
+<p>From Ginchy the crest of the high ground
+runs northward for 2,000 yards, and then eastward,
+in a long spur, for nearly 4,000 yards.
+Near the eastern extremity of this spur stands
+the village of Morval commanding a wide field
+of view and fire in every direction. At Leuze
+Wood my right was still 2,000 yards from its
+objective at this village, and between lay a
+broad and deep branch of the main Combles
+Valley, completely commanded by the Morval
+spur, and flanked, not only from its head northeast
+of Ginchy, but also from the high ground
+east of the Combles Valley, which looks directly
+into it.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+French
+near
+Combles.</div>
+
+<p>Up this high ground beyond the Combles
+Valley the French were working their way
+toward their objective at Sailly-Saillisel, situated
+due east of Morval, and standing at the
+same level. Between these two villages the
+ground falls away to the head of the Combles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
+Valley, which runs thence in a southwesterly
+direction. In the bottom of this valley lies
+the small town of Combles, then well fortified
+and strongly held, though dominated by my
+right at Leuze Wood and by the French left
+on the opposite heights. It had been agreed
+between the French and myself that an assault
+on Combles would not be necessary, as
+the place could be rendered untenable by
+pressing forward along the ridges above it on
+either side.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Difficulties
+in
+way of
+French
+advance.</div>
+
+<p>The capture of Morval from the south presented
+a very difficult problem, while the capture
+of Sailly-Saillisel, at that time some 3,000
+yards to the north of the French left, was in
+some respects even more difficult. The line of
+the French advance was narrowed almost to
+a defile by the extensive and strongly fortified
+Wood of St. Pierre Vaast on the one side, and
+on the other by the Combles Valley, which, with
+the branches running out from it and the slopes
+each side, is completely commanded, as has
+been pointed out, by the heights bounding the
+valley on the east and west.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Close cooperation
+necessary
+on right.</div>
+
+<p>On my right flank, therefore, the progress of
+the French and British forces was still interdependent,
+and the closest cooperation continued
+to be necessary in order to gain the
+further ground required to enable my centre to
+advance on a sufficiently wide front. To cope
+with such a situation unity of command is
+usually essential, but in this case the cordial
+good feeling between the allied armies, and the
+earnest desire of each to assist the other,
+proved equally effective, and removed all difficulties.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy
+defense
+on main
+ridge over
+Thiepval.</div>
+
+<p>On my left flank the front of General Gough's
+army bent back from the main ridge near
+Mouquet Farm down a spur descending southwestward,
+and then crossed a broad valley to
+the Wonderwork, a strong point situated in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
+the enemy's front-line system near the southern
+end of the spur on the higher slopes of which
+Thiepval stands. Opposite this part of our line
+we had still to carry the enemy's original defenses
+on the main ridge above Thiepval, and
+in the village itself, defenses which may fairly
+be described as being as nearly impregnable
+as nature, art, and the unstinted labor of nearly
+two years could make them.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">British
+advance on
+Thiepval
+defenses.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Positions
+might be
+rushed.</div>
+
+<p>Our advance on Thiepval and on the defenses
+above it had been carried out up to this date,
+in accordance with my instructions given on
+July 3, 1916, by a slow and methodical progression,
+in which great skill and much
+patience and endurance had been displayed
+with entirely satisfactory results. General
+Gough's army had, in fact, acted most successfully
+in the required manner as a pivot to the
+remainder of the attack. The Thiepval defenses
+were known to be exceptionally strong,
+and as immediate possession of them was not
+necessary to the development of my plans after
+July 1, 1916, there had been no need to incur
+the heavy casualties to be expected in an attempt
+to rush them. The time was now approaching,
+although it had not yet arrived,
+when their capture would become necessary;
+but from the positions we had now reached and
+those which we expected shortly to obtain, I
+had no doubt that they could be rushed when
+required without undue loss. An important
+part of the remaining positions required for
+my assault on them was now won by a highly
+successful enterprise carried out on the evening
+of September 14, 1916, by which the Wonderwork
+was stormed.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Plan of
+combined
+attack.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Main effort
+against
+Rancourt
+and Fr&eacute;gicourt.</div>
+
+<p>The general plan of the combined allied attack
+which was opened on September 15 was
+to pivot on the high ground south of the Ancre
+and north of the Albert-Bapaume road, while
+the Fourth Army devoted its whole effort to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
+the rearmost of the enemy's original systems
+of defense between Morval and Le Sars. Should
+our success in this direction warrant it I made
+arrangements to enable me to extend the left
+of the attack to embrace the villages of Martinpuich
+and Courcelette. As soon as our advance
+on this front had reached the Morval
+line, the time would have arrived to bring forward
+my left across the Thiepval Ridge. Meanwhile
+on my right our allies arranged to continue
+the line of advance in close co-operation
+with me from the Somme to the slopes above
+Combles, but directing their main effort northward
+against the villages of Rancourt and
+Fr&eacute;gicourt, so as to complete the isolation of
+Combles and open the way for their attack
+upon Sailly-Saillisel.</p>
+
+<p>A methodical bombardment was commenced
+at 6 a.m. on September 12, 1916, and was continued
+steadily and uninterruptedly till the
+moment of attack.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Bombardment
+and
+infantry
+assault.</div>
+
+<p>At 6.20 a.m. on September 15, 1916 the infantry
+assault commenced, and at the same
+moment the bombardment became intense.
+Our new heavily armored cars, known as
+"tanks," now brought into action for the first
+time, successfully co-operated with the infantry,
+and, coming as a surprise to the enemy rank
+and file, gave valuable help in breaking down
+their resistance.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Tanks
+enter
+Flers.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">High
+Wood
+carried.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Capture
+of the
+Quadrilateral.</div>
+
+<p>The advance met with immediate success on
+almost the whole of the front attacked. At
+8.40 a.m. "tanks" were seen to be entering
+Flers, followed by large numbers of troops.
+Fighting continued in Flers for some time,
+but by 10 a.m. our troops had reached the
+north side of the village, and by midday had
+occupied the enemy's trenches for some distance
+beyond. On our right our line was advanced
+to within assaulting distance of the
+strong line of defense running before Morval,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
+Les Boeufs, and Gueudecourt, and on our left
+High Wood was at last carried after many
+hours of very severe fighting, reflecting great
+credit on the attacking battalions. Our success
+made it possible to carry out during the
+afternoon that part of the plan which provided
+for the capture of Martinpuich and Courcelette,
+and by the end of the day both these
+villages were in our hands. On September 18,
+1916, the work of this day was completed by
+the capture of the Quadrilateral, an enemy
+stronghold which had hitherto blocked the
+progress of our right toward Morval. Further
+progress was also made between Flers and
+Martinpuich.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Results
+of four
+days'
+fighting.</div>
+
+<p>The result of the fighting of September 15,
+1916, and following days was a gain more considerable
+than any which had attended our
+arms in the course of a single operation since
+the commencement of the offensive. In the
+course of one day's fighting we had broken
+through two of the enemy's main defensive systems
+and had advanced on a front of over six
+miles to an average depth of a mile. In the
+course of this advance we had taken three large
+villages, each powerfully organized for prolonged
+resistance. Two of these villages had
+been carried by assault with short preparation
+in the course of a few hours' fighting. All this
+had been accomplished with a small number of
+casualties in comparison with the troops employed,
+and in spite of the fact that, as was
+afterward discovered, the attack did not come
+as a complete surprise to the enemy.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Prisoners
+taken.</div>
+
+<p>The total number of prisoners taken by us
+in these operations since their commencement
+on the evening of September 14, 1916, amounted
+at this date to over 4,000, including 127 officers.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">General
+attack
+launched.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Objectives
+taken.</div>
+
+<p>Preparations for our further advance were
+again hindered by bad weather, but at 12.35
+p.m. on September 25, 1916, after a bombardment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
+commenced early in the morning of the
+24th, a general attack by the Allies was
+launched on the whole front between the Somme
+and Martinpuich. The objectives on the British
+front included the villages of Morval, Les
+Boeufs, and Gueudecourt, and a belt of country
+about 1,000 yards deep curving round the
+north of Flers to a point midway between that
+village and Martinpuich. By nightfall the
+whole of these objectives were in our hands,
+with the exception of the village of Gueudecourt,
+before which our troops met with very
+serious resistance from a party of the enemy
+in a section of his fourth main system of defense.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">French
+take
+Rancourt.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Combles
+occupied.</div>
+
+<p>On our right our allies carried the village
+of Rancourt, and advanced their line to the
+outskirts of Fr&eacute;gicourt, capturing that village
+also during the night and early morning.
+Combles was therefore nearly surrounded by
+the allied forces, and in the early morning of
+September 26, 1916, the village was occupied
+simultaneously by the allied forces, the British
+to the north and the French to the south of the
+railway. The capture of Combles in this inexpensive
+fashion represented a not inconsiderable
+tactical success. Though lying in a hollow,
+the village was very strongly fortified, and
+possessed, in addition to the works which the
+enemy had constructed, exceptionally large
+cellars and galleries, at a great depth under
+ground, sufficient to give effectual shelter to
+troops and material under the heaviest bombardment.
+Great quantities of stores and ammunition
+of all sorts were found in these cellars
+when the village was taken.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Gueudecourt
+carried.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Few
+casualties.</div>
+
+<p>On the same day Gueudecourt was carried,
+after the protecting trench to the west had
+been captured in a somewhat interesting fashion.
+In the early morning a "tank" started
+down the portion of the trench held by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
+enemy from the northwest, firing its machine
+guns and followed by bombers. The enemy
+could not escape, as we held the trench at
+the southern end. At the same time an aeroplane
+flew down the length of the trench, also
+firing a machine gun at the enemy holding it.
+These then waved white handkerchiefs in token
+of surrender, and when this was reported by
+the aeroplane the infantry accepted the surrender
+of the garrison. By 8.30 a.m. the whole
+trench had been cleared, great numbers of the
+enemy had been killed, and 8 officers and 362
+of the ranks made prisoners. Our total casualties
+amounted to five.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Tactical
+value of
+the main
+ridge.</div>
+
+<p>The success of the Fourth Army had now
+brought our advance to the stage at which I
+judged it advisable that Thiepval should be
+taken, in order to bring our left flank into line
+and establish it on the main ridge above that
+village, the possession of which would be of
+considerable tactical value in future operations.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">New
+attack on
+Thiepval.</div>
+
+<p>Accordingly at 12.25 p.m. on September 26,
+1916, before the enemy had been given time to
+recover from the blow struck by the Fourth
+Army, a general attack was launched against
+Thiepval and the Thiepval Ridge. The objective
+consisted of the whole of the high
+ground still remaining in enemy hands extending
+over a front of some 3,000 yards north and
+east of Thiepval, and including, in addition to
+that fortress, the Zollern Redoubt, the Stuff
+Redoubt, and the Schwaben Redoubt, with the
+connecting lines of trenches.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Strong
+enemy resistance.</div>
+
+<p>The attack was a brilliant success. On the
+right our troops reached the system of enemy
+trenches which formed their objectives without
+great difficulty. In Thiepval and the
+strong works to the north of it the enemy's
+resistance was more desperate. Three waves
+of our attacking troops carried the outer defenses
+of Mouquet Farm, and, pushing on,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
+entered Zollern Redoubt, which they stormed
+and consolidated. In the strong point formed
+by the buildings of the farm itself, the enemy
+garrison, securely posted in deep cellars, held
+out until 6 p.m., when their last defenses were
+forced by a working party of a pioneer battalion
+acting on its own initiative.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Thiepval
+taken.</div>
+
+<p>On the left of the attack fierce fighting, in
+which "tanks" again gave valuable assistance
+to our troops, continued in Thiepval during
+that day and the following night, but by 8.30
+a.m. on September 27, 1916 the whole of the
+village of Thiepval was in our hands.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Prisoners.</div>
+
+<p>Some 2,300 prisoners were taken in the
+course of the fighting on the Thiepval Ridge
+on these and the subsequent days, bringing
+the total number of prisoners taken in the
+battle area in the operations of September 14-30,
+1916, to nearly 10,000. In the same period
+we had captured 27 guns, over 200 machine
+guns, and some 40 trench mortars.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Stuff and
+Schwaben
+Redoubts.</div>
+
+<p>On the same date the south and west sides
+of Stuff Redoubt were carried by our troops,
+together with the length of trench connecting
+that strong point with Schwaben Redoubt to
+the west and also the greater part of the
+enemy's defensive line eastward along the
+northern slopes of the ridge. Schwaben Redoubt
+was assaulted during the afternoon, and
+in spite of counterattacks, delivered by strong
+enemy reenforcements, we captured the whole
+of the southern face of the redoubt and pushed
+out patrols to the northern face and toward
+St. Pierre Divion.</p>
+
+<p>Our line was also advanced north of Courcelette,
+while on the Fourth Army front a further
+portion of the enemy's fourth-system of
+defense northwest of Gueudecourt was carried
+on a front of a mile. Between these two points
+the enemy fell back upon his defenses running
+in front of Eaucourt l'Abbaye and Le Sars,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
+and on the afternoon and evening of September
+27, 1916, our troops were able to make a
+very considerable advance in this area without
+encountering serious opposition until within
+a few hundred yards of this line. The ground
+thus occupied extended to a depth of from 500
+to 600 yards on a front of nearly two miles
+between the Bazentin-le-Petit, Lingy, Thilloy,
+and Albert-Bapaume roads.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Destremont
+Farm
+carried.</div>
+
+<p>Destremont Farm, southwest of Le Sars,
+was carried by a single company on September
+29, 1916, and on the afternoon of October 1,
+1916, a successful attack was launched against
+Eaucourt l'Abbaye and the enemy defenses to
+the east and west of it, comprising a total
+front of about 3,000 yards. Our artillery barrage
+was extremely accurate, and contributed
+greatly to the success of the attack. Bomb
+fighting continued among the buildings during
+the next two days, but by the evening of October
+3 the whole of Eaucourt l'Abbaye was
+in our hands.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Fourth
+Army
+attacks.</div>
+
+<p>At the end of September, 1916, I had handed
+over Morval to the French, in order to facilitate
+their attacks on Sailly-Saillisel, and on
+October 7, 1916, after a postponement rendered
+necessary by three days' continuous rain, our
+allies made a considerable advance in the direction
+of the latter village. On the same day
+the Fourth Army attacked along the whole
+front from Les Boeufs to Destremont Farm
+in support of the operations of our allies.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy's
+trenches
+east of
+Gueudecourt
+taken.</div>
+
+<p>The village of Le Sars was captured, together
+with the quarry to the northwest, while considerable
+progress was made at other points
+along the front attacked. In particular, to the
+east of Gueudecourt, the enemy's trenches were
+carried on a breadth of some 2,000 yards, and
+a footing gained on the crest of the long spur
+which screens the defenses of Le Transloy from
+the southwest. Nearly 1,000 prisoners were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+secured by the Fourth Army in the course of
+these operations.</p>
+
+<p>With the exception of his positions in the
+neighborhood of Sailly-Saillisel, and his scanty
+foothold on the northern crest of the high
+ground above Thiepval, the enemy had now
+been driven from the whole of the ridge lying
+between the Tortille and the Ancre.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germans
+make repeated
+counterattacks.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">British
+situation
+satisfactory.</div>
+
+<p>Possession of the northwestern portion of
+the ridge north of the latter village carried
+with it observation over the valley of the Ancre
+between Miraumont and Hamel and the spurs
+and valleys held by the enemy on the right bank
+of the river. The Germans, therefore, made
+desperate efforts to cling to their last remaining
+trenches in this area, and in the course of
+the three weeks following our advance made repeated
+counterattacks at heavy cost in the vain
+hope of recovering the ground they had lost.
+During this period our gains in the neighborhood
+of Stuff and Schwaben Redoubts were
+gradually increased and secured in readiness
+for future operations; and I was quite confident
+of the ability of our troops, not only
+to repulse the enemy's attacks, but to clear
+him entirely from his last positions on the ridge
+whenever it should suit my plans to do so.
+I was, therefore, well content with the situation
+on this flank.</p>
+
+<p>Along the centre of our line from Gueudecourt
+to the west of Le Sars similar considerations
+applied. As we were already well
+down the forward slopes of the ridge on his
+front, it was for the time being inadvisable
+to make any serious advance. Pending developments
+elsewhere all that was necessary
+or indeed desirable was to carry on local operations
+to improve our positions and to keep the
+enemy fully employed.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Strong
+enemy
+positions
+in eastern
+flank.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy
+resistance
+weakens.</div>
+
+<p>On our eastern flank, on the other hand, it
+was important to gain ground. Here the enemy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
+still possessed a strong system of trenches
+covering the villages of Le Transloy and Beaulencourt
+and the town of Bapaume; but, although
+he was digging with feverish haste, he
+had not yet been able to create any very formidable
+defenses behind this line. In this direction,
+in fact, we had at last reached a stage
+at which a successful attack might reasonably
+be expected to yield much greater results than
+anything we had yet attained. The resistance
+of the troops opposed to us had seriously weakened
+in the course of our recent operations, and
+there was no reason to suppose that the effort
+required would not be within our powers.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Necessity
+to gain
+spur and
+heights.</div>
+
+<p>The last completed system of defense, before
+Le Transloy, was flanked to the south by
+the enemy's positions at Sailly-Saillisel, and
+screened to the west by the spur lying between
+Le Transloy and Les Boeufs. A necessary
+preliminary, therefore, to an assault upon it
+was to secure the spur and the Sailly-Saillisel
+heights. Possession of the high ground at this
+latter village would at once give a far better
+command over the ground to the north and
+northwest, secure the flank of our operations
+toward Le Transloy, and deprive the enemy of
+observation over the allied communications in
+the Combles Valley. In view of the enemy's
+efforts to construct new systems of defense behind
+the Le Transloy spur, was extended and
+secured time in dealing with the situation.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rain and
+fog a
+hindrance.</div>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, at this juncture, very unfavorable
+weather set in and continued with
+scarcely a break during the remainder of October
+and the early part of November. Poor
+visibility seriously interfered with the work
+of our artillery, and constant rain turned the
+mass of hastily dug trenches for which we
+were fighting into channels of deep mud. The
+country roads, broken by countless shell craters,
+that cross the deep stretch of ground we had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
+lately won, rapidly became almost impassable,
+making the supply of food, stores, and ammunition
+a serious problem. These conditions
+multiplied the difficulties of attack to such an
+extent that it was found impossible to exploit
+the situation with the rapidity necessary to
+enable us to reap the full benefits of the advantages
+we had gained.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy
+has time
+to reorganize.</div>
+
+<p>None the less, my right flank continued to
+assist the operations of our allies against
+Saillisel, and attacks were made to this end,
+whenever a slight improvement in the weather
+made the co-operation of artillery and infantry
+at all possible. The delay in our advance, however,
+though unavoidable, had given the enemy
+time to reorganize and rally his troops. His
+resistance again became stubborn and he seized
+every favorable opportunity for counterattacks.
+Trenches changed hands with great frequency,
+the conditions of ground making it difficult to
+renew exhausted supplies of bombs and ammunition,
+or to consolidate the ground won,
+and so rendering it an easier matter to take
+a battered trench than to hold it.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">French
+take
+Sailly-Saillisel.</div>
+
+<p>On September 12 and 18, 1916, further gains
+were made to the east of the Les Boeufs-Gueudecourt
+line and east of Le Sars, and some
+hundreds of prisoners were taken. On these
+dates, despite all the difficulties of ground,
+the French first reached and then captured
+the villages of Sailly-Saillisel, but the moment
+for decisive action was rapidly passing away,
+while the weather showed no signs of improvement.
+By this time, too, the ground had already
+become so bad that nothing less than a
+prolonged period of drying weather, which at
+that season of the year was most unlikely to
+occur, would suit our purpose.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">New
+line established.</div>
+
+<p>In these circumstances, while continuing to
+do all that was possible to improve my position
+on my right flank, I determined to press<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
+on with preparations for the exploitation of
+the favorable local situation on my left flank.
+At midday on October 21, 1916, during a short
+spell of fine, cold weather, the line of Regina
+Trench and Stuff Trench, from the west
+Courcelette-Pys road westward to Schwaben Redoubt,
+was attacked with complete success.
+Assisted by an excellent artillery preparation
+and barrage, our infantry carried the whole
+of their objectives very quickly and with
+remarkably little loss, and our new line was
+firmly established in spite of the enemy's shell
+fire. Over one thousand prisoners were taken
+in the course of the day's fighting, a figure only
+slightly exceeded by our casualties.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Part of
+Regina
+trench
+carried.</div>
+
+<p>On October 23, 1916, and again on November
+5, 1916, while awaiting better weather for further
+operations on the Ancre, our attacks on
+the enemy's positions to the east of Les Boeufs
+and Gueudecourt were renewed, in conjunction
+with French operations against the Sailly-Saillisel
+heights and St. Pierre Vaast Wood.
+Considerable further progress was achieved.
+Our footing at the crest of Le Transloy Spur
+was extended and secured, and the much-contested
+tangle of trenches at our junction with
+the French left at last passed definitely into
+our possession. Many smaller gains were made
+in this neighborhood by local assaults during
+these days, in spite of the difficult conditions
+of the ground. In particular, on November 10,
+1916, after a day of improved weather, the portion
+of Regina Trench lying to the east of the
+Courcelette-Pys road was carried on a front of
+about one thousand yards.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy
+losses.</div>
+
+<p>Throughout these operations the enemy's
+counterattacks were very numerous and determined,
+succeeding indeed in the evening of October
+23, 1916, in regaining a portion of the
+ground east of Le Sars taken from him by our
+attack on that day. On all other occasions his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
+attacks were broken by our artillery or infantry
+and the losses incurred by him in these attempts,
+made frequently with considerable effectives,
+were undoubtedly very severe.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Preparations
+for
+attack on
+the Ancre.</div>
+
+<p>On November 9, 1916, the long-continued bad
+weather took a turn for the better, and thereafter
+remained dry and cold, with frosty nights
+and misty mornings, for some days. Final
+preparations were therefore pushed on for the
+attack on the Ancre, though, as the ground
+was still very bad in places, it was necessary
+to limit the operations to what it would be reasonably
+possible to consolidate and hold under
+the existing conditions.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Permanent
+line
+of enemy
+fortifications.</div>
+
+<p>The enemy's defenses in this area were already
+extremely formidable when they resisted
+our assault on July 1, 1916, and the succeeding
+period of four months had been spent in improving
+and adding to them in the light of the
+experience he had gained in the course of our
+attacks further south. The hamlet of St. Pierre
+Divion and the villages of Beaucourt-sur-Ancre
+and Beaumont Hamel, like the rest of the
+villages forming part of the enemy's original
+front in this district, were evidently intended
+by him to form a permanent line of fortifications,
+while he developed his offensive elsewhere.
+Realizing that his position in them had
+become a dangerous one, the enemy had multiplied
+the number of his guns covering this part
+of his line, and at the end of October introduced
+an additional division on his front between
+Grandcourt and H&eacute;buterne.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Barrage
+to cover
+infantry.</div>
+
+<p>At 5 o'clock on the morning of November 11,
+1916, the special bombardment preliminary to
+the attack was commenced. It continued with
+bursts of great intensity until 5.45 o'clock on
+the morning of November 13, 1916, when it
+developed into a very effective barrage covering
+the assaulting infantry.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">St. Pierre
+Divion
+taken.</div>
+
+<p>At that hour our troops advanced on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
+enemy's position through dense fog, and rapidly
+entered his first-line trenches on almost the
+whole front attacked, from east of Schwaben
+Redoubt to the north of Serre. South of the
+Ancre, where our assault was directed northward
+against the enemy's trenches on the northern
+slopes of the Thiepval Ridge, it met with a
+success altogether remarkable for rapidity of
+execution and lightness of cost. By 7.20 a.m.
+our objectives east of St. Pierre Divion had been
+captured, and the Germans in and about that
+hamlet were hemmed in between our troops
+and the river. Many of the enemy were driven
+into their dugouts and surrendered, and at 9
+a.m. the number of prisoners was actually
+greater than the attacking force. St. Pierre
+Divion soon fell, and in this area nearly 1,400
+prisoners were taken by a single division at
+the expense of less than 600 casualties. The
+rest of our forces operating south of the Ancre
+attained their objectives with equal completeness
+and success.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Objectives
+reached
+on right
+bank of
+Ancre.</div>
+
+<p>North of the river the struggle was more
+severe, but very satisfactory results were
+achieved. Though parties of the enemy held
+out for some hours during the day in strong
+points at various places along his first line
+and in Beaumont Hamel, the main attack
+pushed on. The troops attacking close to the
+right bank of the Ancre reached their second
+objectives to the west and northwest of Beaucourt
+during the morning, and held on there
+for the remainder of the day and night, though
+practically isolated from the rest of our attacking
+troops. Their tenacity was of the utmost
+value, and contributed very largely to the
+success of the operations. At nightfall our
+troops were established on the western outskirts
+of Beaucourt, in touch with our forces
+south of the river, and held a line along the
+station road from the Ancre toward Beaumont<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+Hamel, where we occupied the village. Further
+north the enemy's first-line system for a
+distance of about half a mile beyond Beaumont
+Hamel was also in our hands. Still further
+north&mdash;opposite Serre&mdash;the ground was so
+heavy that it became necessary to abandon the
+attack at an early stage, although, despite all
+difficulties, our troops had in places reached the
+enemy's trenches in the course of their assault.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Beaumont
+carried.</div>
+
+<p>Next morning, at an early hour, the attack
+was renewed between Beaucourt and the top
+of the spur just north of Beaumont Hamel. The
+whole of Beaumont was carried, and our line
+extended to the northwest along the Beaucourt
+road across the southern end of the Beaumont
+Hamel spur. The number of our prisoners
+steadily rose, and during this and the succeeding
+days our front was carried forward eastward
+and northward up the slopes of the Beaumont
+Hamel spur.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Allies
+command
+Ancre
+Valley.</div>
+
+<p>The results of this attack were very satisfactory,
+especially as before its completion bad
+weather had set in again. We had secured the
+command of the Ancre Valley on both banks
+of the river at the point where it entered the
+enemy's lines, and, without great cost to ourselves,
+losses had been inflicted on the enemy
+which he himself admitted to be considerable.
+Our final total of prisoners taken in these operations,
+and their development during the subsequent
+days, exceeded 7,200, including 149
+officers.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy
+kept on
+alert.</div>
+
+<p>Throughout the period dealt with in this
+dispatch the r&ocirc;le of the other armies holding
+our defensive line from the northern limits of
+the battle front to beyond Ypres was necessarily
+a secondary one, but their task was
+neither light nor unimportant. While required
+to give precedence in all respects to the needs
+of the Somme battle, they were responsible for
+the security of the line held by them and for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+keeping the enemy on their front constantly on
+the alert. Their r&ocirc;le was a very trying one,
+entailing heavy work on the troops and constant
+vigilance on the part of commanders and
+staffs. It was carried out to my entire satisfaction,
+and in an unfailing spirit of unselfish
+and broad-minded devotion to the general good,
+which is deserving of the highest commendation.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Great
+number
+of raids.</div>
+
+<p>Some idea of the thoroughness with which
+their duties were performed can be gathered
+from the fact that in the period of four and
+a half months from July 1, 1916, some 360 raids
+were carried out, in the course of which the
+enemy suffered many casualties and some hundreds
+of prisoners were taken by us. The largest
+of these operations was undertaken on July
+19, 1916, in the neighborhood of Armenti&egrave;res.
+Our troops penetrated deeply into the enemy's
+defenses, doing much damage to his works and
+inflicting severe losses upon him.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Main
+objects of
+offensive
+achieved.</div>
+
+<p>The three main objects with which we had
+commenced our offensive in July had already
+been achieved at the date when this account
+closes, in spite of the fact that the heavy
+Autumn rains had prevented full advantage
+from being taken of the favorable situation
+created by our advance, at a time when we had
+good grounds for hoping to achieve yet more
+important successes.</p>
+
+<p>Verdun had been relieved, the main German
+forces had been held on the western front, and
+the enemy's strength had been very considerably
+worn down.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Ample
+compensation
+for
+sacrifices.</div>
+
+<p>Any one of these three results is in itself
+sufficient to justify the Somme battle. The
+attainment of all three of them affords ample
+compensation for the splendid efforts of our
+troops and for the sacrifices made by ourselves
+and our allies. They have brought us a long
+step forward toward the final victory of the
+allied cause.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German
+failure at
+Verdun.</div>
+
+<p>The desperate struggle for the possession of
+Verdun had invested that place with a moral
+and political importance out of all proportion
+to its military value. Its fall would undoubtedly
+have been proclaimed as a great victory
+for our enemies, and would have shaken the
+faith of many in our ultimate success. The
+failure of the enemy to capture it, despite great
+efforts and very heavy losses, was a severe blow
+to his prestige, especially in view of the confidence
+he had openly expressed as to the results
+of the struggle.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Eastward
+movement
+of German
+troops
+checked.</div>
+
+<p>Information obtained both during the progress
+of the Somme battle and since the suspension
+of active operations has fully established
+the effect of our offensive in keeping the
+enemy's main forces tied to the western front.
+A movement of German troops eastward, which
+had commenced in June as a result of the Russian
+successes, continued for a short time only
+after the opening of the allied attack. Thereafter
+the enemy forces that moved east consisted,
+with one exception, of divisions that
+had been exhausted in the Somme battle, and
+these troops were already replaced on the western
+front by fresh divisions. In November the
+strength of the enemy in the western theatre
+of war was greater than in July, notwithstanding
+the abandonment of his offensive at Verdun.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Somme
+offensive
+relieved
+Verdun.</div>
+
+<p>It is possible that if Verdun had fallen
+large forces might still have been employed in
+an endeavor further to exploit that success.
+It is, however, far more probable, in view of developments
+in the eastern theatre, that a considerable
+transfer of troops in that direction
+would have followed. It is therefore justifiable
+to conclude that the Somme offensive not only
+relieved Verdun but held large forces which
+would otherwise have been employed against
+our allies in the east.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The third great object of the allied operations
+on the Somme was the wearing down of
+the enemy's powers of resistance. Any statement
+of the extent to which this has been attained
+must depend in some degree on estimates.</p>
+
+<p>There is, nevertheless, sufficient evidence to
+place it beyond doubt that the enemy's losses
+in men and material have been very considerably
+higher than those of the Allies, while
+morally the balance of advantage on our side
+is still greater.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy
+resistance
+feebler.</div>
+
+<p>During the period under review a steady
+deterioration took place in the morale of large
+numbers of the enemy's troops. Many of them,
+it is true, fought with the greatest determination,
+even in the latest encounters, but the
+resistance of still larger numbers became latterly
+decidedly feebler than it had been in the
+earlier stages of the battle. Aided by the great
+depth of his defenses and by the frequent reliefs
+which his resources in men enabled him
+to effect, discipline and training held the machine
+together sufficiently to enable the enemy
+to rally and reorganize his troops after each
+fresh defeat. As our advance progressed, four-fifths
+of the total number of divisions engaged
+on the western front were thrown one after
+another into the Somme battle, some of them
+twice, and some three times; and toward the
+end of the operations, when the weather unfortunately
+broke, there can be no doubt that
+his power of resistance had been very seriously
+diminished.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Prisoners
+and guns
+taken.</div>
+
+<p>The number of prisoners taken by us in the
+Somme battle between July 1 and November
+18, 1916, is just over 38,000, including over 800
+officers. During the same period we captured
+29 heavy guns, 96 field guns and field howitzers,
+136 trench mortars, and 514 machine
+guns.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The war fell with special severity upon the
+people of the poorer classes in Russia, many
+of whom, upon the advance of the German and
+Austrian armies, were compelled to flee from
+their homes in a practically destitute condition.
+A graphic description of the pitiable
+plight of these unfortunate people is given in
+the following pages.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p>
+<h2>RUSSIA'S REFUGEES</h2>
+
+<h3>GREGORY MASON</h3>
+
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">A Russian
+freight
+train with
+passengers.</div>
+
+<p>Near Moscow, on a siding of the railway
+that runs from Moscow to Warsaw
+through Smolensk, was a string of
+thirteen freight cars, the short, chunky Russian
+kind&mdash;barely half as long as the American&mdash;looking
+as flimsy, top-heavy, and unwieldy
+as houseboats on wheels. No locomotive was
+tied to the string, and from the windward side,
+where the cars were whitewashed by the biting
+blizzard that had already stopped all traffic
+with its drifted barricades, they had the
+desolate look of stranded empties. But the leeward
+door of each car was open a few inches,
+permitting the egress of odors that told any
+one who chanced to pass that the big rolling
+boxes were loaded with human freight, closely
+packed and long on the journey.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Old women
+at work.</div>
+
+<p>I pushed the door of one car back and looked
+in. At first in the semi-gloom nothing was
+visible, but gradually, against a crack in the
+opposite car wall that let through a streak
+of gray light with a ribbon of snow that rustled
+as it fell on the straw-covered floor, there grew
+the dull silhouette of two old women, who sat
+facing each other in the straw, laboriously
+pounding corn into flour in a big earthen bowl
+between them.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Emaciated
+children
+and dead
+babies.</div>
+
+<p>The young Pole who was with me climbed
+into the car and probed its recesses with a
+spear of light from a pocket flash-lamp. The
+old women stopped pounding to lift toward us
+wrinkled faces that expressed fear and hate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>
+when the tiny searchlight was turned on their
+dim, blinking eyes. Another pair of hags in
+a far corner, propped against a bale of hay and
+bound together like Siamese twins in a brown
+horse-blanket, moved their eyes feebly, but
+nothing more. They were paralyzed. A score
+of children that had been huddled here and
+there in the straw in twos and threes for
+warmth's sake came slowly to life and crowded
+around us, lifting a ring of wan, emaciated
+little faces. Three, too feeble to stand, sat up
+and stared at the strange light. The bodies of
+four small babies moved not at all&mdash;were, in
+fact, lifeless.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Refugees
+from
+Poland.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Herded
+like cattle
+by
+soldiers.</div>
+
+<p>These people were refugees from a rural part
+of Poland, made homeless by the Russian military
+decree which ordered the destruction of
+all buildings and the removal of all civilians
+from the rearward path of the Muscovite army
+as it fell back before the battering attacks
+of the Germans from Warsaw to Dwinsk. For
+ten days these four old women and twenty-seven
+children had been in that car, with no
+fire, few warm clothes, and only a little dried
+meat, corn flour, and water to sustain life in
+them. This the meager fare had failed to do
+in the case of the four youngest. Since they
+had been herded into that cold box like cattle
+by soldiers at the station to which they had
+driven or walked from their blazing homes,
+they had been moved eastward daily in the
+joggling car, which traveled slowly and by fits
+and starts, unvisited by any one, not knowing
+their destination, and now too low in mind
+and body to care.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Children
+forget
+their
+families.</div>
+
+<p>The two old creatures who were paralyzed
+when they had been dumped into the car were
+now apparently dying; several of the children
+swayed with weakness as they stood, clutching
+at the biscuits and sweet chocolate which we
+drew from our pockets. Five of them were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
+grandchildren of one of the paralytics, three
+designated one of the wrinkled flour-makers
+by the Polish equivalent of "granny," but none
+of the others knew where their parents were,
+and six of them had forgotten their own family
+names or had never known them.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Moscow
+and Petrograd
+overcrowded.</div>
+
+<p>The other twelve cars were like this one except
+that all of them had at least two or three&mdash;and
+usually six or seven&mdash;feeble, crackly-voiced
+old men with their complement of women and
+children, and one contained three young fellows
+of twenty who had probably smuggled themselves
+into the car and who cringed when my
+Polish interpreter lunged on them with his
+rapier of light and retreated into a corner
+where two cows stood with necks crossed in
+affection. These youths knew they had no
+business in that car, for even in the chaos of
+retreat the word had been passed among the
+civilian refugees: "Women, children, and old
+men first in the cars; young men can walk."
+But there have not been enough cars even for
+the weak, the very young, and the very aged,
+and thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, have
+found their graves along the slushy, muddy
+roads they were following toward Petrograd
+and Moscow from the occupied provinces of
+Poland and the Baltic. These people in the
+freight cars at least had had transportation
+and a crude kind of shelter. But of the two
+million refugees who are overcrowding Moscow
+and Petrograd, to the great detriment of the
+health average of the two Russian capitals,
+many thousands came there several hundred
+weary miles on foot. And others, less determined
+or weaker, are still straggling in or
+are lingering by the way, some of the latter
+dying and some finding shelter in small towns
+between the twin big cities and the front.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Millions
+of
+refugees.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">People of
+all ranks
+and
+stations.</div>
+
+<p>Some estimates place the number of Russian
+refugees at from ten to fifteen million; thirteen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>
+million is the estimate of the Tatiana Committee,
+one of the most influential relief organizations
+in Russia, named after the second
+daughter of the Czar, who is its honorary head.
+By race the refugees are principally Poles,
+Jews, Letts, and Lithuanians, but they come
+from all ranks and stations of life, rich and
+poor alike, now all poor, thrown from their
+homes with nothing but the clothes on their
+bodies by the grim chances of war.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Thousands
+must
+starve
+and
+freeze.</div>
+
+<p>In times of peace and prosperity the sudden
+impoverishment of such a large mass of people
+would tax the relief and charity of Russia to
+the limit; but now, when all food prices are
+from one hundred to three hundred per cent
+higher than before the war&mdash;when even the
+well-to-do have difficulty to get enough bread,
+sugar, and coal&mdash;it is inevitable that thousands
+of these homeless ones should starve and freeze
+to death. Thousands have already suffered
+this fate, but hundreds of thousands, perhaps
+a million or more, will die this way before
+spring unless relief comes quickly and bountifully
+from abroad, for Russia cannot cope with
+the emergency alone. Unless Russia's allies or
+neutrals begin at once to pour into Russia a
+stream of food to fill the stomachs of these
+hungry, homeless ones, this will be the bitterest
+winter in Russian history, a winter whose horrors
+will far transcend the terrible winter of
+1812, when Napoleon ravaged Poland and
+sacked Moscow.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Great
+Britain
+must
+bolster
+weaker
+allies.</div>
+
+<p>Great Britain, who is holding up some of
+her weaker allies in many ways, sweeping
+mines from the White Sea for Russia, and with
+France bolstering the remnant of the Belgian
+army in Flanders, is doing much to alleviate
+the suffering of Russia's refugees by unofficial
+action. The Great Britain to Poland Fund,
+organized and supported by such prominent
+Britons as Lady Byron, Viscount Bryce, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
+Duke of Newcastle, the Earl of Rosebery, and
+the Lord Mayor of London, at the instance of
+Princess Bariatinsky, who is better known as
+the famous Russian actress, Madame Yavorska,
+is feeding between 4,000 and 7,000 refugees
+daily at Petrograd, Moscow, Minsk, and at several
+small towns close to the front.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Petrograd
+"Feeding
+Point."</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Sheds for
+shelter.</div>
+
+<p>The Petrograd "Feeding Point" is a long,
+hastily built shed of unfinished lumber a
+stone's-throw from the Warsaw station. This
+site was well selected, for the long stone railway
+station, open at both ends like an aviation
+hangar, is the center of refugee population in
+the Czar's city. Not only were several hundred
+homeless men, women, and children sleeping
+on the cold stone floors of the draughty station,
+but other hundreds were lying about in odd
+corners here and there, in empty trucks and
+freight cars, lying within a few feet of where
+the crowded refugee train had left them, with
+no hope or ambition to make them move on.
+Still other hundreds, more fortunate than
+these, were sheltered in three sheds, similar to
+the "Refugees' Restaurant" in their unfinished
+board construction, which had been built by
+the Government. Each of these sheds, about
+thirty by sixty feet in dimensions, housed between
+two and three hundred persons. This
+crowding was made possible by the presence
+of platforms built one above another in triple
+or quadruple deck "nests" about the room,
+where people of both sexes and of all ages
+slept, cooked and ate such food as they could
+beg, and lay all day long with expressionless,
+bulging eyes, half stupefied in the stifling
+stench of the place.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Lines before
+the
+feeding
+stations.</div>
+
+<p>Twice a day a line formed before the door
+of the feeding station of such persons as were
+known to have no private food supply, and
+when the door opened they surged in, getting
+brass tickets at the threshold which each one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
+exchanged in the far end of the room for a large
+square piece of Russian <i>chorny khleb</i>&mdash;black
+bread&mdash;and a steaming bowl of good old English
+porridge served to them by the bustling
+ladies of the British Colony. Only enough
+were admitted at a time to fill the double row
+of board tables, yet every day from 1,000 to
+1,400 were fed.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+gayety of
+hungry
+youth.</div>
+
+<p>It was interesting to stand at the elbow of
+the buxom, indefatigably good-natured English
+lady who wielded the porridge spoon and watch
+the long, hungry file which melted away toward
+the tables when it reached the tall, bottomless
+urn that held the fragrant, steaming cereal.
+First came a dozen boys and girls who had
+lost their parents but not the irresistible
+gayety of hungry youth in the presence of
+food.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A one-time
+rich
+man.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Bitterness
+toward
+the Government.</div>
+
+<p>They took their bread and porridge without
+even a mumbled "<i>Spassiba</i>"&mdash;thanks&mdash;and
+shouldered each other for seats at the tables.
+Then came a blind old man led by his two
+grandsons. His thanks were pathetically profuse.
+Next another graybeard, carrying an
+ivory cane and wearing a handsome fur coat,
+the only indications of his recent high station
+in provincial society except the unmistakable
+reserve and dignity of gentility. After him was
+a handsome Lett, who had been a station agent
+in Courland till his station was dynamited in
+the Russian retreat. None of the children gave
+any thanks for the food; in fact, hardly any
+one did except the very old. The attitude of
+the others seemed to be that of people who were
+getting only a small part of their just due.
+Perhaps that was because they may not have
+realized that they were being fed by England,
+not by Russia, and toward Russia all of them
+were bitter even those who lived in the shelters
+the Government had built. This bitterness was
+indicated by the refusal of most of them to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>
+accept work proffered them by provincial or
+municipal officials.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">No wish
+to begin
+over.</div>
+
+<p>Their attitude is that, inasmuch as the
+Government has deliberately wiped out their
+homes and destroyed their means of livelihood,
+it is the Government's duty to support them
+in comfortable idleness. They seem to feel that
+it is adding insult to injury to ask them to
+begin over again in a new environment and
+work for their living. I asked a young Lettish
+railway man, living in one of the board barracks
+near the Warsaw station, why he had refused
+an offer of employment in the railway
+yards hard by.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I work for Russia?" he asked,
+bitterly. "Russia has taken from me my pretty
+home, my good job, and my wife and two children,
+who died on the road in that awful blizzard
+recently. Why should I work for Russia?"</p>
+
+<p>"But you will starve if you do not," I suggested.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Gloomy
+resignation.</div>
+
+<p>"<i>Nichevo!</i>"&mdash;it doesn't matter&mdash;he muttered,
+in gloomy resignation.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A great
+mistake.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Everything
+destroyed.</div>
+
+<p>The majority of the refugees feel the way
+this man does. I do not refer to the refugees
+who left their homes voluntarily through fear
+of the advancing Germans, but to that greater
+number who were forced to leave by the compulsion
+of their own Government, which deliberately
+destroyed their homes as a military
+measure. Every Russian, even the military
+officers who were responsible for this policy
+of destruction, now realize that the adoption
+of that policy was one of the greatest mistakes
+Russia has made during the war. For
+it has cost her the support of a large and
+important body of Letts, Poles, Jews, and
+Lithuanians. The theory was that to leave
+large masses of civilians behind the forward-pushing
+German lines would provide Germany
+with a large number of spies, as well as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+with sustenance for its armies. To some
+extent, too, it was believed that buildings left
+standing in the Russian retreat might serve
+as protection and cover for German artillery.
+So everything was destroyed&mdash;farm-houses,
+barns, churches, schools, orchards, even haystacks.
+Whenever the Russian lines retracted
+before the unbearable pounding of the terrible
+German guns, they left only a desert for
+the Kaiser's men to cross.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Loss too
+great to
+be compensated
+by gain.</div>
+
+<p>War is not a parlor game. A great deal of
+destruction is inevitable in the nature of war,
+and sometimes in wars of the past commanders
+have deliberately laid waste large sections of
+beautiful country to handicap the enemy, and
+the results have justified this destruction. A
+ten per cent social and economic loss is gladly
+borne by a nation at war for a ninety per cent
+military gain. Perhaps a commander is even
+justified in inflicting a forty-nine per cent social
+and economic loss on his country for a fifty-one
+per cent military gain. But the deliberate
+ravaging of Poland and the Baltic provinces
+was a ninety per cent social and economic loss
+for a ten per cent military gain&mdash;something
+that is never justifiable.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Relief
+should
+meet
+refugees.</div>
+
+<p>It is very difficult for a general to remember
+that there are other factors in war besides the
+military factors, and we must not be too severe
+in our criticism of the Russian General Staff
+because it saw only the ten per cent military
+gain and overlooked the ninety per cent political
+and economic loss. The order which made
+a desert of thousands of square miles of the
+best territory in Russia was countermanded,
+anyway, but not until the harm had been done.
+But now the only concern of Russia and of the
+friends of Russia should be to confine the damage
+to the irremediable minimum. To that end
+it is necessary to handle the great streams of
+refugees intelligently. The influx into Petrograd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
+and Moscow should be stopped. Relief
+organization should go out from these cities
+toward the front, stop the refugees where they
+meet them, and there make provision for them
+to spend the winter. To this purpose hundreds
+and thousands of sleeping barracks and soup
+kitchens like those in Petrograd must be built
+along the provincial highways. Thousands of
+these people will never again see the familiar
+environment where they have lived all their
+lives, even if Russia regains her lost provinces.
+But more of them will be able to return eventually,
+and there will be less suffering among
+them this winter, if they are stopped where
+they are and are not allowed to flow into the
+two Russian capitals, so terribly overcrowded
+already, and into the colder country north and
+east of Petrograd and Moscow.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Russia
+unable to
+handle
+situation.</div>
+
+<p>I understand that this policy has been
+adopted by the Tatiana Committee. But
+Russia alone cannot handle the situation; she
+must have generous aid from outside.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">America a
+synonym
+for
+service.</div>
+
+<p>A young American, Mr. Thomas Whittemore,
+who was in Sofia when Bulgaria went to war,
+left there declining an invitation of the Queen
+of Bulgaria to head a branch of the Red Cross,
+because his sympathies were with the Allies,
+and is now in Russia working out a programme
+for the relief of Russia's refugees under the
+auspices of the Tatiana Committee. He is out
+on the roads in an automobile constantly, meeting
+the incoming human flotsam and jetsam of
+war, and his recommendations will have the
+weight of authority. America has become a
+synonym for service in France, Belgium, and
+Servia, but thus far America has done next to
+nothing for Russia. Shall America, who responded
+so splendidly to the appeal of Belgium
+and Servia, ignore the needs of the stricken
+people of Poland and the Baltic provinces,
+whose sufferings are greater than the sufferings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
+of the Belgians, certainly as great as the sufferings
+of the Servians?</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">War's
+most
+moving
+sight.</div>
+
+<p>There are many pathetic things in war&mdash;soldiers
+wasted with disease, blasted in arm
+and leg with explosive shell, withered in eye
+and lung by the terrible gas; but none of these
+things is so moving as the sight of little children,
+homeless, parentless, and with clothing
+worn and torn by travel, sleeping in empty
+freight cars, cold railway stations, or on the
+very blizzard-swept sidewalks of Russian cities,
+and slowly dying because they have no food.</p>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br /><small>Copyright, Outlook, January 19, 1916.</small></div>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Rumania hesitated long before entering the
+war. The sympathies of her people were
+strongly with the Allies, for military and
+economic reasons connected with German
+domination of her resources made her actual
+military participation with the Allied Armies
+difficult and dangerous. The decision, however,
+was made in the late summer of 1916, and an
+attack was made by the Rumanian army
+against Austrian forces. This was followed by
+successes which continued until Bulgaria began
+hostilities against the Rumanian army.
+Shortly after, a German army under General
+Mackensen against Rumania was started which
+ended in the capture of Bucharest in December,
+1916.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE TRAGEDY OF RUMANIA</h2>
+
+<h3>STANLEY WASHBURN</h3>
+
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">What it
+meant for
+Rumania
+to fight.</div>
+
+<p>More than a year has now elapsed since
+Rumania entered the war. What is
+meant for this little country to abandon
+neutrality is not generally realized. Here in
+America we know that so long as the British
+fleet dominated the seas we were safe, and that
+we should have ample opportunity to prepare
+ourselves for the vicissitudes of war and to
+make the preparations that are now being undertaken
+and carried out by the administration
+of President Wilson. Canada and Australia
+likewise knew that they were in no danger of
+attack.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">War's
+terrible
+cost.</div>
+
+<p>But the case of Rumania was far different.
+She knew with a terrible certainty that the
+moment she entered the war she would be the
+target for attack on a frontier over twelve
+hundred kilometres long. The world criticized
+her for remaining neutral, and yet one wonders
+how many countries would have staked
+their national future as Rumania did when she
+entered the war. In a short fourteen months
+she has seen more than one half of her army
+destroyed, her fertile plains pass into the
+hands of her enemies, and her great oil industry
+almost wiped out. To-day her army, supported
+by Russians, is holding with difficulty
+hardly twenty per cent of what, before the war,
+was one of the most fertile and prosperous
+small kingdoms of Europe.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Why
+nations
+went to
+war.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">America's
+reasons.</div>
+
+<p>When America entered the war she assumed,
+in a large measure, the obligations to which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
+the Allies were already committed. It seems
+of paramount importance under these circumstances
+that the case and the cause of Rumania
+be more thoroughly understood in this
+country. Other countries entered the war
+through necessities of various sorts. America
+committed herself to the conflict for a cause
+which even the cynical German propaganda,
+hard as it has tried, has been unable to distort
+into a selfish or commercial one. We are preparing
+to share in every way the sacrifices,
+both in blood and wealth, which our allies have
+been making these past three years. And as
+our reward we ask for no selfish or commercial
+rights, nor do we seek to acquire extension of
+territory or acquisition of privilege in any part
+of the world. We have entered the war solely,
+because of wrongs committed in the past, and
+with the just determination that similar wrongs
+shall never again be perpetrated. No country
+and no people on this globe are more responsive
+to an obligation, and more determined to fulfill
+such an obligation when recognized, than
+are the American people.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+author in
+Rumania.</div>
+
+<p>For nearly two years prior to the entrance
+of Rumania into the war I had been attached
+to the Russian Imperial Staff in the field, as
+special correspondent of the London "Times."
+I went to Rumania in September, 1916, directly
+from the staff of the then Tsar, with a
+request from the highest authority in Russia
+to the highest command in Rumania that
+every opportunity for studying the situation
+be given me. These letters gave me instant
+access to the King and Queen of Rumania, to
+the Rumanian General Staff, and to other
+persons of importance in the Rumanian administration.
+I remained in that country
+until late in the autumn, motoring more than
+five thousand kilometres, and touching the
+Rumanian front at many places. My opinion,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
+then, of the Rumanian cause is based on
+first-hand evidence obtained at the time.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">An interview
+with
+the King.</div>
+
+<p>When I arrived in Rumania, in September,
+the army was still at the high tide of its advance
+in Transylvania and the world was lauding
+without stint the bravery and efficiency of
+Rumanian troops. Two days after my arrival
+I lunched with the King, and had the first of
+a series of interviews with him on the status
+of the case of Rumania. Inasmuch as without
+the consent of its sovereign the entrance of
+Rumania into the war would have been impossible,
+I should first present the King's view of
+her case as His Majesty, after several conversations,
+authorized me to present it.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+King of
+Rumania
+decides
+for war.</div>
+
+<p>The King himself, as all the world knows, is
+a Hohenzollern. His personal feelings must,
+therefore, in a measure, be affected by the fact
+that most of his relatives and friends are fighting
+on the German side. There is, however,
+not the slightest evidence to indicate that he
+has ever allowed the fact of his German blood
+to weigh against the true interests of Rumania.
+A conversation which illustrates the attitude
+of the King at this time is one which
+the Princess &mdash;&mdash;, one of the most clever and
+best-informed women in Rumania, related to
+me in Bucharest. The day before the declaration
+of war the most pro-German of the Rumanian
+ministers, who had the name of being
+the leader of the pro-German party in the
+capital, spent several hours putting forth
+every effort to prevent the declaration of war
+by the King. The minister, making no headway,
+finally said, "The Germans are sure to
+win. Your Majesty must realize that it is impossible
+to beat a Hohenzollern." The King replied,
+"I think it can be done, nevertheless."
+To this the defender of the German cause answered,
+"Can you show me a single case where
+a Hohenzollern has been beaten?" The King<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+replied, "I can. I am a Hohenzollern, and I
+have beaten my own blood instincts for the
+sake of Rumania."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Personality
+of
+the King
+of
+Rumania.</div>
+
+<p>One beautiful autumn afternoon, at the
+royal shooting-box outside of Bucharest, the
+King talked freely about his motives and the
+cause of his people. We had finished luncheon
+and he had dismissed his suite. He and the
+Crown Prince and myself were left in the unpretentious
+study. Here, over a map-strewn
+table, it was the custom of the King to study
+the problems of the campaign. A tired,
+harassed-looking man of about sixty, clad in
+the blue uniform of the Hussars of his Guard,
+he paced the floor, and with deep emotion emphasized
+the case of his country and the motives
+which had induced Rumania to enter
+the war.</p>
+
+<p>This earnest presentation of his opinion I
+placed in writing at that time, and the sentences
+quoted here were a part of the statement
+published in the London "Times." So far as I
+know, this is the only occasion on which the
+King outlined in a definite way his personal
+view of the Rumania case.</p>
+
+<p>His Majesty began by laying stress on the
+necessity for interpreting Rumania truthfully
+to the world, now that her enemies were doing
+their utmost to misrepresent her; the necessity
+for understanding the genius of the people
+and the sacrifices and dangers which the
+country faced. He urged that Rumania had
+not been moved by mere policy or expediency,
+but that her action was based on the highest
+principles of nationality and national
+ideals.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The nation
+moved by
+ties of
+race and
+blood.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Bulgar a
+menace.</div>
+
+<p>"In Rumania as in Russia," said the King,
+"the tie of race and blood underlies all other
+considerations, and the appeal of our purest
+Rumanian blood which lies beyond the Transylvanian
+Alps has ever been the strongest influence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
+in the public opinion of all Rumania,
+from the throne to the lowest peasant. Inasmuch
+as Hungary was the master that held
+millions of our blood in perpetual bondage,
+Hungary has been our traditional enemy. The
+Bulgar, with his efficient and unquestionably
+courageous army, on a frontier difficult to defend,
+has logically become our southern menace,
+and as a latent threat has been accepted secondarily
+as a potential enemy."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German
+friendship
+an asset.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rumania's
+long
+frontier.</div>
+
+<p>After stating that, although at the beginning
+of the war Rumanian sympathy had leaped instantly
+to France and England, the Rumanians
+had realized that, economically, the friendship
+of Germany was an asset in the development of
+Rumanian industries, the King added that,
+nevertheless, as the Great War progressed,
+there had developed in Rumania a moral issue
+in regard to the war. The frightfulness and
+lawlessness practiced by the Central Powers
+had a profound effect upon the Rumanian people,
+and the country began to feel the subtle
+force of enemy intrigue endeavoring to force
+her into war against her own real interests.
+Let us remember, when we would criticize Rumania
+for her early inactivity, that she was, in
+the words of her King, "a small power with a
+small army surrounded by giants"; that she
+had a western frontier 1,000 kilometres long&mdash;greater
+than the English and French fronts
+combined&mdash;and a Bulgarian frontier, almost
+undefended and near her capital, stretching for
+other hundreds of kilometres on the south.
+With Russia in retreat, Rumania would have
+been instantly annihilated if she had acted.
+She had to wait till she could be reasonably
+sure of protecting herself and of being supported
+by her allies. She waited not a moment
+longer.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Prisoners
+and noncombatants
+well-treated.</div>
+
+<p>After pointing out the great risks which Rumania
+had run, as a small country, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
+deterring effect of the fate of Serbia and Belgium,
+the King continued, "Notwithstanding
+the savagery with which the enemy is attacking
+us and the cruelty with which our defenseless
+women and children are being massacred,
+this government will endeavor to prevent bitterness
+from dominating its actions in the way
+of reprisals on prisoners or defenseless noncombatants;
+and to this end orders have been
+issued to our troops that, regardless of previous
+provocation, those who fall into our
+hands shall be treated with kindness; for it is
+not the common soldiers or the innocent people
+who must be held responsible for the policy
+adopted by the enemy governments."</p>
+
+<p>The interview ended with the King's assurance
+that Rumanians would not falter in their
+allegiance to England the just, to France, their
+brother in Latin blood, and to Russia, their
+immediate neighbor.</p>
+
+<p>"With confidence in the justice of our cause,
+with faith in our allies, and with the knowledge
+that our people are capable of every fortitude,
+heroism, sacrifice, which may be demanded
+of them, we look forward soberly and
+seriously to the problems that confront us, but
+with the certainty that our sacrifices will not
+be in vain, and that ultimate victory must and
+will be the inevitable outcome. In the achievement
+of this result the people of Rumania,
+from the throne to the lowliest peasant, are
+willing to pay the price."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rumanians
+realized
+their
+danger.</div>
+
+<p>When it is realized that these conversations
+took place in September and the first days of
+October, it must be clear, I think, that neither
+the King nor the Queen had ever felt that Rumania
+entered the war in absolute security,
+but that they always realized the danger of
+their situation and moved only because their
+faith in the Allies was such as to lead them to
+believe that they had at least a fair chance to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
+cooperate with them without the certainty of
+destruction.</p>
+
+<p>To emphasize further the fact that both realized
+this danger even before the war started,
+I would mention one occasion some weeks later,
+when the fear of the German invasion of Rumania
+was becoming a tangible one. During
+a conversation with the King and the Queen
+together, in regard to this menace, the Queen
+turned impulsively to the King and said, "This
+is exactly what we have feared. We, at least,
+never imagined that Rumania was going to
+have an easy victory, and we have always felt
+the danger of our coming into the war."</p>
+
+<p>The King looked very tired and nervous,
+having spent all that day with the General
+Staff weighing news from the front which was
+increasingly adverse. "Yes," he said, as he
+pulled his beard, "we were never misled as to
+what might happen."</p>
+
+<p>So much then for the psychology of the sovereigns
+of Rumania as I received it from their
+own lips.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Russian
+efforts
+to aid
+Rumania.</div>
+
+<p>Ever since the loss of Bucharest the world
+has been asking why Rumania entered the war.
+It seems to be the general opinion that her action
+at that time was unwarranted and that
+she had been betrayed. There has even been a
+widely circulated report that Germany, through
+the King, has intrigued to bring about this disaster.
+Again, I have heard that the Russian
+High Command had purposely sacrificed Rumania.
+At this time, when much of the evidence
+is still unattainable, it is impossible for
+me to make absolutely authoritative statements,
+but immediately after leaving Rumania I spent
+three hours with General Brussiloff discussing
+the situation. A few days later I had the privilege
+of meeting the former Tsar at Kieff (to
+whom the Queen had given me a letter), and
+I know from his own lips his feelings in regard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
+to Rumania. Subsequently, I was at the
+headquarters of the Russian High Command
+and there learned at first hand the extraordinary
+efforts that Alexieff was making to support
+Rumania. The British efforts to cooperate
+with Rumania and prevent disaster I knew
+thoroughly at that time.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Lack of
+vision and
+foresight.</div>
+
+<p>I never saw the slightest evidence that either
+Russia or her allies had any intention whatever
+of disregarding their duties or their responsibilities
+to this little country. That there was
+lack of vision and foresight on all sides is quite
+apparent. But that there was bad faith on the
+part of any of the contracting parties I do not
+believe. It is probably true that the reactionary
+government in Petrograd was glad to see
+the Rumanian disaster, but it must be realized
+that this was a military situation primarily,
+and that ninety per cent of it in the first three
+months was in the hands, not of the Petrograd
+politicians but of the military authorities at
+the front. Brussiloff and Alexieff are men incapable
+of intrigue or bad faith. The Emperor,
+with whom I talked at Kieff, and the Grand
+Duchess Maria Pavlowna nearly wept at the
+misfortune of Rumania, and I am certain that
+the former Tsar was in no way a party to any
+breach of faith with this little ally.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Military
+conditions
+prior to
+Rumania's
+venture.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Failure
+of Germans
+at
+Verdun.</div>
+
+<p>I have said that there was not bad faith
+toward Rumania on the part of the Allies when
+they induced her to enter the war, and that
+there was not lack of intelligence on the part
+of Rumania when she followed their advice.
+In order to understand the point of view of
+the Allies it is necessary to have clearly in
+mind the military conditions existing in the
+whole theatre of operations during the six
+months prior to Rumania's fatal venture. In
+February the Germans had assembled a large
+portion of their mobile reserves for their effort
+against Verdun. The constant wastage of German<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+human material continued almost without
+intermission into May, with spasmodic recurrences
+up to the present time. Hundreds of
+thousands of Germans were drawn from the
+visible supply of enemy manhood by these offensives.
+By early May the failure of the
+Verdun venture had probably become manifest
+to the German High Command, and there
+is evidence that they were commencing to conserve
+their troops for other purposes.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">General
+Brussiloff's
+offensive.</div>
+
+<p>On the 5th of June there began in Galicia
+and Volhynia the great offensive of General
+Brussiloff which lasted, almost without intermission,
+on one or another part of his front,
+until October. By the middle of June this drive
+of the Russians began to divert German troops
+for the defense of Kovel. In July started the
+British-French offensive in the West.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German
+troops
+diverted to
+Eastern
+front.</div>
+
+<p>With their reservoirs of men already greatly
+reduced by the Verdun attacks, the Germans,
+by the middle of July, were compelled to find
+supports to meet the continuous offensives on
+both the Eastern and Western fronts. I cannot
+estimate the number of troops required by
+them against the French and British, but I do
+know that between the 5th of June and the
+30th of August a total of thirty divisions of
+enemy troops were diverted from other fronts
+against Brussiloff alone. This heavy diversion
+was the only thing that prevented the Russians
+from taking Kovel in July and forcing
+the entire German line in the East. So continuous
+and pressing were the Russian attacks
+that more than two months elapsed before the
+enemy could bring this offensive to a final stop
+on the Kovel sector. Enemy formations arriving
+were ground up in detail as fast as they
+came, and by the middle of July it was clear to
+us, who were on the fighting line in Volhynia,
+that the Germans were having extraordinary
+difficulties in filling their losses from day to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
+day. In June their first supports came by
+army corps; in July they were coming by divisions;
+and early in August we checked the arrival
+of single regiments, while the Austrians
+were often so hard pressed that they sent
+isolated battalions to fill the holes in their
+lines.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Teuton
+losses.</div>
+
+<p>In the meantime the Russians had cleared
+the Bukovina of the enemy. It was believed
+that Rumania could put in the field twenty-two
+divisions of excellent troops. The enemy
+losses in prisoners alone, up to the first of September,
+from Brussiloff's offensive, were above
+four hundred thousand and over four hundred
+guns. It seemed then that these extra twenty-two
+divisions thrown in by Rumania could
+meet but little resistance.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Allied
+plan of
+operation.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Munitions
+to come
+daily from
+Russia.</div>
+
+<p>In order that the Rumanian attempt to cooperate
+might be safeguarded in the highest
+degree, a coordinated plan of operations on
+the part of the Allies was agreed upon with
+Rumania. The allied force in Saloniki under
+General Sarrail was to commence a heavy offensive
+intended to pin down the Bulgarian
+and Turkish forces to the southern line, thus
+protecting the Rumanian line of the Danube.
+Brussiloff's left flank in Galicia was to start
+a drive through the Bukovina toward the Hungarian
+plain, thus relieving the Rumanians
+from any pressure on the south. A Russian
+force of fifty thousand men in the Dobrudja
+was to protect the Rumanian left. This, in
+view of the apparent shortage of enemy reserves,
+seemed to protect the army of Rumania
+on both flanks in its advance into Transylvania.
+In addition Rumania was to receive certain
+shipments of munitions of war daily from
+Russia. It was the opinion of the military advisers
+in Rumania that under no circumstances
+could the Germans divert against her within
+three months more than sixteen divisions, while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>
+some of the experts advising her placed the
+number as low as ten.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Bulgar
+and
+Austrian
+attack.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rumanians
+on defensive.</div>
+
+<p>Now let us see what happened. For some
+reason, which I do not know, the offensive on
+the south was delayed, and when it did start it
+attained no important results nor did it detain
+sufficient enemy troops in that vicinity to relieve
+Rumania. On the contrary, heavy forces
+of Bulgars and Austrians immediately attacked
+the line of the Danube, taking the Rumanian
+stronghold of Turtekaia, with the bulk of the
+Rumanian heavy guns. In order to safeguard
+Bucharest, then threatened, the Rumanians
+were obliged to withdraw troops from their
+Transylvania advance, which up to this time
+had been highly successful. These withdrawals
+represented the difference between an offensive
+and a defensive, and the Transylvania campaign
+potentially failed when Bucharest was threatened
+from the south.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Defense
+in
+Dobrudja
+falls.</div>
+
+<p>The Russian expedition in the Dobrudja,
+which was supported by a Rumanian division
+and a mixed division of Serbs and Slavs,
+partially recruited from prisoners captured by
+the Russians, failed to work in harmony, and
+the protection of the Rumanian left became,
+after the capture of Turtekaia, a negligible factor
+which ultimately collapsed entirely. Thus
+we see in the beginning that through no bad
+faith the southern assets on which Rumania
+depended proved to be of little or no value to
+her.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The case
+with Brussiloff's
+army.</div>
+
+<p>There still remained the Russian agreement
+to cooperate in Galicia and the Bukovina. I
+can speak of this situation with authority because
+I had been on the southwestern front
+almost without intermission since June, and
+know that there was every intent on the part
+of Brussiloff to carry out to the limit of his
+capacity his end of the programme. The success
+of this, however, was impaired by a situation,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
+over which he had no control, which developed
+in Galicia in September. It must not
+be forgotten that all the Russian troops on the
+southwestern front had been fighting constantly
+for nearly three months. When I came
+through Galicia on my way to Rumania I found
+Brussiloff's four southern armies engaged in a
+tremendous action. Early in September they
+had made substantial advances in the direction
+of Lemberg, and were in sight of Halicz on the
+Dniester when they began to encounter terrific
+and sustained counter-attacks.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Efforts
+to co&ouml;perate
+with Rumania.</div>
+
+<p>That the force of this may be understood
+I would mention the case of the army attacking
+Halicz. When I first went to the southwestern
+front in June, there were facing this
+army three Austrian divisions, three Austrian
+cavalry divisions, and one German division. In
+September, at the very moment when Brussiloff
+was supposed to be heavily supporting Rumania,
+there were sent against this same army&mdash;on
+a slightly extended front&mdash;three Austrian
+divisions, two Austrian cavalry divisions, two
+Turkish divisions, and nine German divisions.
+The army on the extreme Russian left, whose
+duty it was to participate in the offensive in
+the Bukovina, had made important advances
+toward Lemberg from the south, and just at the
+time that Rumania entered the war it also was
+subjected to tremendous enemy counter-attacks.
+For several weeks it held its position only with
+the greatest difficulty and by diverting to itself
+most of the available reserves. Something more
+than one army corps did endeavor to co&ouml;perate
+with Rumania, but the situation I have described
+in Galicia made it impossible for sufficient
+supports to reach the Bukovina offensive
+to enable it to fulfill its mission.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Reasons
+for delay
+in munitions.</div>
+
+<p>Thus we see that after the first month of the
+campaign the co&ouml;perative factors which alone
+had justified Rumania's entering into the war<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+had proved to be failures. The arrival of material
+from Russia was delayed because, after
+Turtekaia was taken, a new Russian corps was
+sent to the Dobrudja to stiffen up that front.
+The railroad communications were bad and immediately
+became congested by the movements
+of troops, thus interfering with the shipping of
+badly needed material. I have since heard the
+Russian reactionary government charged with
+purposely holding up these shipments; but I
+am inclined to believe that my explanation of
+the cause of the delays in the arrival of material
+is the correct one.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Allies
+underestimated
+German
+force.</div>
+
+<p>The greatest mistake on the part of the Allies
+was their estimate of the number of troops that
+the Germans could send to Rumania during
+the fall of 1916. As I have said, experts placed
+this number at from ten to sixteen divisions,
+but, to the best of my judgment, they sent, between
+the 1st of September and the 1st of January,
+not less than thirty. The German commitments
+to the Rumanian front came by express,
+and the Russian supports, because of the
+paucity of lines of communication, came by
+freight. The moment that it became evident
+what the Germans could do in the way of sending
+troops, Rumania was doomed.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Russians
+too late
+to save
+Bucharest.</div>
+
+<p>The move of Alexieff and the Russian High
+Command in the middle of October, which is
+one of tangible record and not of opinion,
+should absolutely eliminate the charges of bad
+faith on the part of Russia, for he immediately
+appropriated for the support of Rumania between
+eight and ten army corps, which were
+instantly placed in motion, regardless of the
+adverse condition their absence caused on his
+own front. It is quite true that these troops
+arrived too late to save Bucharest; but that
+they came as quickly as possible, I can assert
+without reservation, for I was on the various
+lines of communication for nearly a month and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+found them blocked with these corps, which represented
+the cream of the Russian army, to
+make good the moral obligations of Russia to
+Rumania. In November I had a talk with
+Brussiloff, who authorized me to quote him as
+follows on the Rumanian situation:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rumania
+feels bitterness
+of
+defeat.</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><div class='right'>
+H.Q.&mdash;S.W.F.&mdash;Nov. 7.
+</div>
+
+<p>Rumania is now feeling for the first time the
+pressure of war and the bitterness of defeat;
+but Rumania must realize that her defeats are
+but incidents in the greater campaign; for behind
+her stands great Russia, who will see to it
+that her brave little ally, who has come into
+the war for a just cause, does not ultimately
+suffer for daring to espouse this cause for which
+we are all fighting. I can speak with authority
+when I state that, from the Emperor down to
+the common soldier, there is a united sentiment
+in Russia that Rumania shall be protected,
+helped, and supported in every way possible.
+Rumanians must feel faith in Russia and the
+Russian people, and must also know that in the
+efforts we are making to save them sentiment
+is the dominant factor, and we are not doing it
+merely as a question of protecting our own selfish
+interest and our left flank.</p></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">No wanton
+breach
+of faith.</div>
+
+<p>It seems to me that the evidence I have submitted
+above clears the Allies, including Russia,
+of any wanton breach of faith toward
+Rumania, though the failure of their intention
+to relieve her certainly does not diminish their
+responsibility toward her in the future.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germans
+on defensive
+in the
+north.</div>
+
+<p>In the final analysis the determining factor
+in the ruin of Rumania was the failure of the
+Allies to foresee the number of troops the Germans
+could send against them. Their reasoning
+up to a certain point was accurate. In
+July, August, and for part of September it was,
+I believe, almost impossible for the Germans to
+send troops to Transylvania, which accounts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+for the rapidity of the Rumanian advance at
+the beginning of their operations. The fallacy
+in the Allied reasoning seems to me to have
+been that every one overlooked certain vital
+factors in the German situation. First, that
+she would ultimately support any threat
+against Hungary to the limit of her capacity,
+even if she had to evacuate Belgium to get
+troops for this purpose. For with Hungary out
+of the war it is a mate in five moves for the
+Central Empires. Second: the Allies failed to
+analyze correctly the troop situation on the
+eastern front, apparently failing to grasp one
+vital point. An army can defend itself in winter,
+with the heavy cold and snows of Russia
+sweeping the barren spaces, with perhaps sixty
+per cent of the number of troops required to
+hold those identical lines in summer. It should
+have been obvious that, when the cold weather
+set in in the north, the Germans would take
+advantage of this situation, and by going on
+the defensive in the north release the margin
+representing the difference in men required to
+hold their lines in summer and in winter. Possibly
+the same condition applies to the west,
+though I cannot speak with any authority on
+that subject. Apparently this obvious action
+of the Germans is exactly what happened.
+When their northern front had been combed,
+we find forces subtracted piecemeal from the
+north, reaching an aggregate of thirty divisions,
+or at least nearly fifteen divisions more
+than had been anticipated. The doom of Rumania
+was sealed.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Retreating
+armies
+must
+reach defenses.</div>
+
+<p>What happened in the Russian effort to support
+Rumania is exactly what has occurred in
+nearly all the drives that I have been in during
+this war. An army once started in retreat in
+the face of superior forces can hold only when
+supported <i>en bloc</i> or when it reaches a fortified
+line. The Germans with all their cleverness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+and efficiency were not able to stop the
+Russian offensive of 1916 until they had fallen
+back on the fortified lines of the Stokhod in
+front of Kovel. In the Galician drive against
+the Russians in 1915, the armies of the Tsar
+were not able to hold until they reached the
+San River, on which they fought a series of
+rear-guard actions.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Russian
+corps on
+Sereth
+line.</div>
+
+<p>So it was in Rumania. The Russian corps
+arriving on the installment plan were swept
+away by the momentum of the advancing
+enemy, who could not be halted until the fortified
+line of the Sereth was reached.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rumanians
+played the
+game.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Russia
+in chaos.</div>
+
+<p>Whether one blames the Allies for lack of
+vision or not, I think one must at least acquit
+Rumania of any responsibility for her own undoing.
+Her case as represented by the King
+seems a just and sufficient reason for her having
+entered the war. Her action during the
+war has been straightforward and direct, and
+I have never heard of any reason to believe
+that the King or the Rumanian High Command
+has ever looked back in the furrow since they
+made the decision to fight on the side of the
+Allies. They followed the advice given them
+as to their participation in the war. They have
+played the game to the limit of their resources
+and to-day stand in a position almost unparalleled
+in its pathos and acuteness. In front of
+them, as they struggle with courage and desperation
+for the small fragment of their kingdom
+that remains, are the formations of the
+Turks, Bulgars, Austrians, Hungarians, and
+Germans, with Mackensen striving to give them
+a death-blow. Behind them is Russia in chaos.
+German agitators and irresponsible revolutionists
+have striven in vain to destroy the morale
+of their army and shake their faith in their
+government and their sovereign. It is estimated
+that three million Rumanian refugees
+have taken shelter behind their lines. Their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+civil population, or that portion of it which
+remains, will this winter be destitute of almost
+every necessity of life.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Obligation
+of Allies
+to
+Rumania.</div>
+
+<p>This, then, is the case of Rumania, and if we
+and the other Allies have not a moral obligation
+to the King and Queen and the government
+of that little country, to support them in every
+way possible, then surely we have no obligation
+to any one.</p>
+
+<p>Sentiment, however, is not the only factor in
+the Rumanian case. There is also the problem
+of sound policy. In spite of all her distress
+and her discouragements Rumania has been
+able to save from the wreckage, and to reconstruct,
+an army which it is said can muster
+between three and four hundred thousand
+men.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rumanian
+army well
+drilled.</div>
+
+<p>These soldiers are well drilled by French officers,
+filled with enthusiasm and fighting daily,
+and are even now diverting enemy troops
+toward Rumania which would otherwise be
+available for fighting British, French, and
+American troops in the west.</p>
+
+<p>The Rumanians are the matrix of the Russian
+left flank, and if, through lack of support
+and the necessities of life, they go out of the
+war, the solidity of the Russian left is destroyed
+and the capture of Odessa probably
+foreordained.</p>
+
+<p>A few hundred million dollars would probably
+keep Rumania fighting for another year.
+It is a conservative estimate to state that it
+will take ten times that amount, and at least
+six months' delay, to place the equivalent
+number of trained American troops on any
+fighting front.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Every assistance
+should be
+given.</div>
+
+<p>It is, I think, obvious that from the point of
+view of sound military policy, as well as moral
+and ethical obligation, every American whose
+heart is in this war should be behind the President
+of the United States without reserve, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
+any effort he may make or recommend, in extending
+assistance to Rumania in this the hour
+of her greatest peril.</p>
+<div class='center'><br /><br /><small>Copyright, Atlantic Monthly, December, 1917.</small></div>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germany's
+treatment
+of prisoners
+of war.</div>
+
+<p>Prisoners taken by the Germans were overworked
+and disciplined with much insolence
+and cruelty. For infractions of their iron rules
+the Germans inflicted the severest penalties.
+The food supplied was insufficient and of very
+poor quality, so that men might actually have
+starved had it not been for boxes sent from
+home through the Red Cross. In the following
+chapter, a Canadian soldier, who finally escaped
+after three unsuccessful attempts, describes the
+life of prisoners and other workers in the
+Westphalian coal mines.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span></p>
+<h2>SIXTEEN MONTHS A WAR<br />
+PRISONER</h2>
+
+<h3>PRIVATE "JACK" EVANS</h3>
+
+
+<p>I was in Germany as prisoner of war from
+June, 1916, to September, 1917.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Captured
+at third
+battle
+of Ypres.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A giant
+shell
+blows up
+the
+dugout.</div>
+
+<p>My story starts with my capture at the
+third battle of Ypres. The Fourth Canadian
+Mounted Rifles were in the front line at Zillebeke.
+We had been terribly pounded by German
+artillery, in fact, almost annihilated.
+After a hideous night, morning, June 2, 1916,
+dawned beautiful and clear. At 5.30 I turned
+in for a little sleep with four other fellows who
+made up the machine-gun crew with me. Lance
+Corporal Wedgewood, in charge of the gun, remained
+awake to clean it. I had just got into
+a sound sleep when it seemed as if the whole
+crust of the earth were torn asunder in one
+mammoth explosion, and I found myself buried
+beneath sandbags and loose earth. I escaped
+death only by a miracle and managed to dig
+my way out. A giant shell had blown up our
+dugout. Two of the boys were killed.</p>
+
+<p>"We're in for it," said Wedgewood. "They'll
+keep this up for a while and they'll come over.
+We must get the gun out."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German
+barrage
+almost
+wipes
+out the
+Fourth.</div>
+
+<p>The gun had been buried by the explosion,
+but we managed to get it out and were cleaning
+it up again when another trench mortar
+shell came over. It destroyed all but 300
+rounds of ammunition. Then the bombardment
+started in earnest. Shells rained on us
+like hailstones. The German artillery started
+a barrage behind us that looked almost like a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+wall of flame; so we knew that there was no
+hope whatever of help reaching us.</p>
+
+<p>Our men dropped off one by one. The walls
+of our trench were battered to greasy sand
+heaps. The dead lay everywhere. Soon only
+Wedgewood, another chap, and myself were
+left.</p>
+
+<p>"They've cleaned us out now. The whole
+battalion's gone," he said.</p>
+
+<p>As far as we could see along the line there
+was nothing left, not even trenches&mdash;just
+churned-up earth and mutilated bodies. The
+gallant Fourth had stood its ground in the
+face of probably the worst hell that had yet
+visited the <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Candian'">Canadian</ins> lines and had been wiped
+out!</p>
+
+<p>It was not long before the other fellow was
+finished by a piece of shrapnel. I was
+wounded in the back with a splinter from a
+shell which broke overhead and then another
+got me in the knee. I bled freely, but luckily
+neither wound was serious. About 1.30 we
+saw a star shell go up over the German
+lines.</p>
+
+<p>"They're coming!" cried Wedgewood, and we
+jumped to the gun.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The two
+men remaining
+fire the
+machine
+gun.</div>
+
+<p>The Germans were about seventy-five yards
+off when we got the gun trained on them. We
+gave them our 300 rounds and did great damage;
+the oncoming troops wavered and the
+front line crumpled up, but the rest came on.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Captured
+by
+Germans.</div>
+
+<p>What followed does not remain very clearly
+in my mind. We tried to retreat. Every move
+was agony for me. We did not go far, however.
+Some of the Germans had got around
+us and we ran right into four of them. We
+doubled back and found ourselves completely
+surrounded. A ring of steel and fierce, pitiless
+eyes! I expected they would butcher us there
+and then. The worst we got, however, was a
+series of kicks as we were marching through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
+the lines in the German communication
+trenches.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+night in
+a stable
+at Menin.</div>
+
+<p>We were given quick treatment at a dressing
+station and escorted with other prisoners
+back to Menin by Uhlans. The wounded were
+made to get along as best they could. We
+passed through several small towns where the
+Belgian people tried to give us food. The
+Uhlans rode along and thrust them back with
+their lances in the most cold-blooded way.
+We reached Menin about 10 o'clock that night
+and were given black bread and coffee&mdash;or
+something that passed by that name. The
+night was spent in a horse stable with guards
+all around us with fixed bayonets. The next
+day we were lined up before a group of German
+officers, who asked us questions about the
+numbers and disposition of the British forces,
+and we lied extravagantly. They knew we
+were lying, and finally gave it up.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">In cattle
+trucks to
+D&uuml;lmen
+camp.</div>
+
+<p>During the next day and a half, traveling in
+cattle trucks, we had one meal, a bowl of
+soup. It was weak and nauseating. We took
+it gratefully, however, for we were nearly
+starved.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Food
+bad and
+insufficient.</div>
+
+<p>Finally we arrived at D&uuml;lmen camp, where
+I was kept two months. The food was bad,
+and very, very scanty. For breakfast we had
+black bread and coffee; for dinner, soup (I
+still shudder at the thought of turnip soup),
+and sometimes a bit of dog meat for supper,
+a gritty, tasteless porridge, which we called
+"sand storm." We used to sit around with
+our bowls of this concoction and extract a
+grim comfort from the hope that some day
+Kaiser Bill would be in captivity and we
+might be allowed to feed him on "sand storm."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+American
+Ambassador's
+visit.</div>
+
+<p>While I was at D&uuml;lmen we had quite a number
+of visitors. One day Mr. Gerard, the
+American Ambassador, appeared. He looked
+us over with great concern and asked us a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+number of questions. "Is there anything I
+can do for you?" he asked as he was leaving.</p>
+
+<p>"See if you can get them to give us more
+food," one of us begged.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall speak to the camp commander about
+it," promised Mr. Gerard.</p>
+
+<p>I do not doubt that he did so&mdash;but there
+was no change in the menu and no increase in
+the quantities served.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Arrival
+at the
+coal
+mine.</div>
+
+<p>After two months at D&uuml;lmen prison camp
+we got word that we were to be sent to work
+on a farm. We conjured up visions of open
+fields and fresh air and clean straw to sleep
+in and perhaps even real food to eat. They
+loaded fifty of us into one car and sent us
+off, and when we reached our farm we found
+it was a coal mine!</p>
+
+<p>As we tumbled off the train, stiff, weary, and
+disappointed, we were regarded curiously by
+a small group of people who worked in the
+mines. They were a heavy looking lot&mdash;oldish
+men with beards, and dull, stolid women. They
+regarded us with sullen hostility, but there
+was no fire in their antagonism. Some of the
+men spat and muttered "Schweinhunds!"
+That was all.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+prison
+camp.</div>
+
+<p>We were marched off to the "Black Hole."
+It was a large camp with large frame buildings,
+which had been erected especially for the
+purpose. There was one building for the
+French prisoners, one for the Russians, and
+one for the British and Canadian contingent.
+Barbed wire entanglements surrounded the
+camp and there were sentries with drawn bayonets
+everywhere.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Heavy
+work
+and
+slender
+rations.</div>
+
+<p>We were greeted with considerable interest
+by the other prisoners. There were about two
+hundred of our men there and all of them
+seemed in bad shape. They had been subjected
+to the heaviest kind of work on the slenderest
+rations and were pretty well worn out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A
+strike
+for safeguards.</div>
+
+<p>Some of us were selected for the mine and
+some were told off for coke making, which, as
+we soon learned, was sheer unadulterated hell.
+I was selected for the coke mine and put in
+three days at it&mdash;three days of smarting eyes
+and burning lungs, of aching and weary muscles.
+Then my chum, Billy Flanagan, was
+buried under an avalanche of falling coal and
+killed. There were no safeguards in the mine
+and the same accident might occur again at any
+time. So we struck.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Kept at
+"attention"
+thirty-six
+hours.</div>
+
+<p>The officers took it as a matter of course.
+We were lined up and ordered to stand rigidly
+at "attention." No food was served, not even a
+glass of water was allowed us. We stood there
+for thirty-six hours. Man after man fainted
+from sheer exhaustion. When one of us
+dropped he was dragged out of the ranks to a
+corner, where a bucket of water was thrown
+over him, and, as soon as consciousness returned,
+he was yanked to his feet and forced
+to return to the line. All this time sentries
+marched up and down and if one of us moved
+he got a jab with the butt end of the gun.
+Every half hour an officer would come along
+and bark out at us:</p>
+
+<p>"Are you for work ready now?"</p>
+
+<p>Finally, when some of our fellows were on
+the verge of insanity, we gave in in a body.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Awakened
+at 4 a. m.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Turnip
+soup the
+chief
+article
+of diet.</div>
+
+<p>After that things settled down into a steady
+and dull routine. We were routed out at 4
+o'clock in the morning. The sentries would
+come in and beat the butts of their rifles on the
+wooden floor and roar "Raus!" at the top of
+their voices. If any sleep-sodden prisoners
+lingered a second, they were roughly hauled out
+and kicked into active obedience. Then a cup
+of black coffee was served out to us and at 5
+o'clock we were marched to the mines. There
+was a dressing room at the mine where we
+stripped off our prisoners' garb and donned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
+working clothes. We stayed in the mines until
+3.30 in the afternoon and the "staggers"&mdash;our
+pet name for the foremen&mdash;saw to it that we
+had a busy time of it. Then we changed back
+into our prison clothes and marched to barracks,
+where a bowl of turnip soup was given
+us and a half pound of bread. We were supposed
+to save some of the bread to eat with our
+coffee in the morning. Our hunger was so
+great, however, that there was rarely any of the
+bread left in the morning. At 7 o'clock we
+received another bowl of turnip soup and were
+then supposed to go to bed.</p>
+
+<p>If it had not been for the parcels of food that
+we received from friends at home and from the
+Red Cross we would certainly have starved.
+We were able to eke out our prison fare by carefully
+husbanding the food that came from the
+outside.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Citizen
+miners
+also
+complain
+about
+food.</div>
+
+<p>The citizens working in the mines when I
+first arrived were mostly middle-aged. Many
+were quite venerable in appearance and of
+little actual use. They were willing enough to
+work and work hard; but they complained continually
+about the lack of food.</p>
+
+<p>That was the burden of their conversation,
+always, food&mdash;bread, butter, potatoes, schinken
+(ham)! They were living on meager rations
+and the situation grew steadily worse. The
+people that I worked with were in almost as bad
+a plight as we prisoners of war. In the course
+of a few months I could detect sad changes in
+them.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German
+miners
+also
+severely
+disciplined.</div>
+
+<p>The German miners were quite as much at
+the mercy of the officers as we were. Discipline
+was rigid and they were "strafed" for any infraction
+of rules; that is, they were subjected
+to cuts in pay. Lateness, laziness, or insubordination
+were punished by the deduction of
+so many marks from their weekly earnings, and
+all on the say-so of the "stagger" in charge of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
+the squad. At a certain hour each day an
+official would come around and hand each
+civilian a slip of paper. I asked one of my companions
+what it was all about.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">No bread
+tickets
+for those
+who do
+not work.</div>
+
+<p>"Bread tickets," he explained. "If they don't
+turn up for work, they don't get their bread
+tickets and have to go hungry."</p>
+
+<p>The same rule applied to the women who
+worked around the head of the mine, pushing
+carts and loading the coal. If they came to
+work, they received their bread tickets; if they
+failed to turn up, the little mouths at home
+would go unfed for a day.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German
+women
+at the
+mines.</div>
+
+<p>I often used to stop for a moment or so on
+my way to or from the pit head and watch these
+poor women at work. Some of them went barefoot,
+but the most of them wore wooden shoes.
+They appeared to be pretty much of one class,
+uneducated, dull, and just about as ruggedly
+built as their men. They seemed quite capable
+of handling the heavy work given them. There
+were exceptions, however. Here and there
+among the gray-clad groups I could pick out
+women of a slenderer mold. These were
+women of refinement and good education
+who had been compelled to turn to any class
+of work to feed their children. Their husbands
+and sons were at the front or already
+killed.</p>
+
+<p>The food restrictions caused bitterness
+among all the mine workers. There were angry
+discussions whenever a group of them got together.
+For several days this became very
+marked.</p>
+
+<p>"There's going to be trouble here," my friend,
+the English Tommy, told me. "These people
+say their families are starving. They will
+strike one of these days."</p>
+
+<p>The very next day, as we marched up to
+work in the dull gray of the early morning, we
+found noisy crowds of men and women around<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+the buildings at the mine. A ring of sentries
+had been placed all around.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Bread
+strike of
+the
+citizen
+miners.</div>
+
+<p>"Strike's on! There's a bread strike all
+through the mining country!" was the whispered
+news that ran down the line of prisoners.
+We were delighted, because it meant that
+we would have a holiday. The authorities did
+not dare let us go into the mines with the
+civilians out; they were afraid we might wreck
+it. So we were marched back to camp and
+stayed there until the strike was over.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+strikers
+win and
+new
+rules are
+formulated.</div>
+
+<p>The strike ended finally and the people came
+back to work, jubilant. The authorities had
+given in for two reasons, as far as we could
+judge. The first was the dire need of coal,
+which made any interruption of work at the
+mines a calamity. The second was the fact
+that food riots were occurring in many parts
+and it was deemed wise to placate the people.</p>
+
+<p>But the triumph of the workers was not complete.
+The very next day we noticed signs
+plastered up in conspicuous places with the
+familiar word "Verboten" in bold type at the
+top. One of our fellows who could read German
+edged up close enough to see one of the placards.</p>
+
+<p>"There won't be any more strikes," he informed
+us. "The authorities have made it
+illegal for more than four civilians to stand together
+at any time or talk together. Any infringement
+of the rule will be jail for them.
+That means no more meetings."</p>
+
+<p>There was much muttering in the mine that
+day, but it was done in groups of four or less.
+I learned afterward, when I became sufficiently
+familiar with the language and with the miners
+themselves to talk with them, that they bitterly
+resented this order.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Strike
+leaders
+disappear
+from the
+mine.</div>
+
+<p>I found that the active leaders in the strike
+shortly afterward disappeared from the mine.
+Those who could possibly be passed for military<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+service were drafted into the army. This
+was intended as an intimation to the rest that
+they must "be good" in future. The fear of
+being drafted for the army hung over them all
+like a thunder cloud. They knew what it meant
+and they feared it above everything.</p>
+
+<p>When I first arrived at the mine there were
+quite a few able-bodied men and boys around
+sixteen and seventeen years of age at work
+there. Gradually they were weeded out for
+the army. When I left none were there
+but the oldest men and those who could
+not possibly qualify for any branch of the
+service.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Talks
+with the
+German
+miner.</div>
+
+<p>In the latter stages of my experience at the
+mine I was able to talk more or less freely with
+my fellow workers. A few of the Germans had
+picked up a little English. There was one fellow
+who had a son in the United States and
+who knew about as much English as I knew
+German, and we were able to converse. If I
+did not know the "Deutsch" for what I wanted
+to say, he generally could understand it in
+English. He was continually making terrific
+indictments of the German Government, yet he
+hated England to such a degree that he would
+splutter and get purple in the face whenever
+he mentioned the word. However, he could
+find it in his heart to be decent to isolated
+specimens of Englishmen.</p>
+
+<p>I first got talking with Fritz one day when
+the papers had announced the repulse of a British
+attack on the western front.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Fritz's
+view of
+British
+attacks.</div>
+
+<p>"It's always the same. They are always
+attacking us," he cursed. "Of course, it's true
+that we repulse them. They are but English
+and they can't break the German army. But
+how are we to win the war if it is always the
+English who attack?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you still think Germany can win?" I
+asked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No!" He fairly spat at me. "We can't beat
+you now. But you can't beat us! This war
+will go on until your pig-headed Lloyd George
+gives in."</p>
+
+<p>"Or," I suggested gently, "until your pig-headed
+Junker Government gives in."</p>
+
+<p>"They never will!" he said, a little proudly,
+but sadly too. "Every man will be killed in the
+army&mdash;my two sons, all&mdash;and we will starve
+before it is all over!"</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Germans
+no longer
+hope for
+a big
+victory.</div>
+
+<p>The German citizens, in that section at least,
+had given up hope of being able to score the big
+victory that was in every mind when the war
+started. What the outcome would be did not
+seem to be clear to them. All they knew was
+that the work meant misery for them, and that,
+as far as they could see, this misery would continue
+on and on indefinitely. They had lost
+confidence in the newspapers. It was plain to
+be seen that the stereotyped rubber-stamped
+kind of official news that got into the papers did
+not satisfy them. Many's the time I heard bitter
+curses heaped upon the <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Hobenzollerns'">Hohenzollerns</ins> by lips
+that were flabby and colorless from starvation.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">News of
+unrestricted
+submarine
+warfare.</div>
+
+<p>There was much excitement among them
+when, early in 1917, the news spread that unrestricted
+submarine warfare was to be resumed.
+Old Fritz came over to me with a newspaper
+in his hand and his eyes fairly popping
+with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"This will end it!" he declared. "We are
+going to starve you out, you English."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll bring America in," I told him.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" he said, quite confidently. "The
+Yankees won't come in. They are making too
+much money as it is. They won't fight. See,
+here it is in the paper. It is stated clearly
+here that the United States will not fight. It
+doesn't dare to fight!"</p>
+
+<p>But when the news came that the United
+States had actually declared war they were a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+sad lot. I took the first opportunity to pump
+old Fritz about the views of his companions.</p>
+
+<p>"It's bad, bad," he said, shaking his head
+dolefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are afraid of the Americans, after
+all?" I said.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Why Fritz
+was sorry
+to have
+America
+in the war.</div>
+
+<p>Fritz laughed, with a short, contemptuous
+note. "No, it is not that," he said. "England
+will be starved out before the Americans can
+come in and then it will all be over. But&mdash;just
+between us, you and me&mdash;most of us here
+were intending to go to America, after the
+war, where we would be free from all this.
+But&mdash;now the United States won't let us in
+after the war!"</p>
+
+<p>I shall never forget the day that the papers
+announced the refusal of the English labor
+delegates to go to Stockholm. One excited
+miner struck me across the face with the open
+newspaper in his hand.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Hatred
+of the
+English.</div>
+
+<p>"Always, always the same!" he almost
+screamed. "The English block everything.
+They will not join and what good can come
+now of the conference? They will not be content
+and the war must go on!"</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Shortage
+in necessities
+of life.</div>
+
+<p>The food shortage reached a crisis about the
+time that I managed, after three futile attempts,
+to escape. Frequently, when the people
+took their bread tickets to the stores they
+found that supplies had been exhausted and
+that there was nothing to be obtained. Prices
+had gone sky-high. Bacon, for instance, $2.50
+and more a pound. A cake of soap cost 85
+cents. Cleanliness became a luxury. These
+prices are indicative of the whole range and
+it is not hard to see the struggle these poor
+mine people were having to keep alive at all.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Prisoners
+receive
+food from
+England.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germans
+wonder at
+food of
+starving
+England.</div>
+
+<p>At this time our parcels from England were
+coming along fairly regularly and we were better
+off for food than the Germans themselves.
+Owing to the long shift we were compelled to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
+do in the mines we fell into the habit of "hoarding"
+our food parcels and carrying a small
+lunch to the mines each day. These lunches
+had to be carefully secreted or the Germans
+would steal them. They could not understand
+how it was that starving England could send
+food abroad to us. The sight of these lunches
+helped to undermine their faith in the truth
+of the official information they read in the
+newspapers.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Wages
+spent for
+soap.</div>
+
+<p>Our lot at the mines was almost unendurable.
+We were supposed to receive four and a half
+marks (90 cents) a week for our labor, but
+there was continual "strafing" to reduce the
+amount. If we looked sideways at a "stagger,"
+we were likely to receive a welt with a pick
+handle and a strafe of several marks. Sometimes
+we only received a mark or two for a
+week's work. Most of this we spent for soap.
+It was impossible to work in the mine and not
+become indescribably dirty, and soap became
+an absolute necessity.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Uncomfortable
+quarters.</div>
+
+<p>We lived under conditions of great discomfort
+in the camp, 250 of us in 30 x 30 quarters.
+There were two stoves in the building in which
+coke was burned, but the place was terribly
+cold. The walls at all seasons were so damp
+that pictures tacked up on them mildewed in
+a short time. Our bunks contained straw
+which was never replenished and we all became
+infested with fleas. Some nights it was impossible
+to sleep on account of the activity of these
+pests. On account of the dampness and cold
+we always slept in our clothes.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Cruelty
+of discipline.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Seven plan
+to escape.</div>
+
+<p>Discipline was rigorous and cruel. We were
+knocked around and given terms of solitary
+confinement and made to stand at attention
+for hours at the least provocation. Many of
+the prisoners were killed&mdash;murdered by the
+cruelty. It became more than flesh and blood
+could stand. One day seven of us got together<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>
+and made a solemn compact to escape. We
+would keep at it, we decided, no matter what
+happened, until we got away. Six of us are
+now safely at home. The seventh, my chum,
+J. W. Nicholson, is still a prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>I made four attempts to escape before I
+finally succeeded. The first time a group of us
+made a tunnel out under the barricade, starting
+beneath the flooring of the barracks. We
+crawled out at night and had put fifteen miles
+between us and the camp before we were
+finally caught. I got seven days' "black" that
+time, solitary confinement in a narrow stone
+cell, without a ray of light, on black bread and
+water.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Two attempts
+to
+escape fail
+and are
+punished.</div>
+
+<p>The second attempt was again by means of
+a tunnel. A chum of mine, William Raesides,
+who had come over with the 8th C. M. R.'s,
+was my companion that time. We were caught
+by bloodhounds after twenty miles and they
+gave us ten days' "black."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The third
+attempt.</div>
+
+<p>The third attempt was made in company
+with my chum Nicholson, and we planned it
+out very carefully. Friends in England sent
+through suits of civilian clothes to us.</p>
+
+<p>The next day we dressed up for the attempt
+by putting on our "civies" first and then drawing
+our prisoner's uniform over them. When
+we got to the mine we took off the uniform
+and slipped the mining clothes on over the
+others. We worked all day. Coming up from
+work in the late afternoon, Nick and I held
+back until everyone else had gone. We went
+up alone in the hoist and tore off our mining
+clothes as we ascended, dropping each piece
+back into the pit as we discarded it.</p>
+
+<p>It was fairly dark when we got out of the
+hoist and the guards did not pay much attention
+to us. There was a small building at the
+mine head where we prisoners washed and
+dressed after work and a separate exit for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
+civilians. Nick and I took the civilian exit
+and walked out into the street without any
+interference.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Near the
+Dutch
+border.</div>
+
+<p>We could both speak enough German to pass,
+so we boldly struck out for the Dutch border,
+which was about 85 miles away, traveling only
+during the night. We had a map that a miner
+had sold to us for a cake of soap and we guided
+our course by that. We got to the border line
+without any trouble whatever, but were caught
+through overconfidence, due to a mistake in
+the map. Close to the line was a milepost indicating
+that a certain Dutch town was two
+miles west. The map indicated that this town
+was four miles within the Dutch border.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Captured
+and
+punished
+again.</div>
+
+<p>"We're over!" we shouted when we saw that
+welcome milepost. Throwing caution aside, we
+marched boldly forward, right into a couple of
+sentries with fixed bayonets!</p>
+
+<p>It was two weeks' "black" they meted out to
+us that time. The Kommandant's eyes snapped
+as he passed sentence. I knew he would have
+been much more strict on me as the three-time
+offender had it not been that the need for coal
+was so dire that labor, even the labor of a recalcitrant
+prisoner, was valuable.</p>
+
+<p>"No prisoner has yet escaped from this Kommando!"
+he shouted, "and none shall. Any
+further attempts will be punished with the
+utmost severity."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A new
+method of
+getaway
+planned.</div>
+
+<p>Nevertheless they took the precaution to
+break up my partnership with Nicholson, putting
+him on the night shift. I immediately
+went into partnership with Private W. M. Masters,
+of Toronto, and we planned to make our
+getaway by an entirely new method.</p>
+
+<p>The building at the mine where we changed
+clothes before and after work was equipped
+with a bathroom in one corner, with a window
+with one iron bar intersecting. Outside the
+window was a bush and beyond that open country.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
+A sentry was always posted outside the
+building, but he had three sides to watch and
+we knew that, if we could only move that bar,
+we could manage to elude the sentry. So we
+started to work on the bar.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Four
+months'
+steady
+work.</div>
+
+<p>I had found a bit of wire which I kept
+secreted about me and every night, after washing
+up, we would dig for a few minutes at the
+brickwork around the bar. It was slow, tedious
+and disappointing work. Gradually, however,
+we scooped the brick out around the bar and
+after nearly four months' application we had
+it so loosened that a tug would pull it out.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Night in a
+bog.</div>
+
+<p>The next day Masters and I were the last in
+the bathroom, and when the sentry's round
+had taken him to the other side of the building,
+we wrenched out the bar, raised the window
+and wriggled through head first, breaking our
+fall in the bush outside. We got through without
+attracting attention and ran across the
+country into a swamp, where we soon lost our
+way and wallowed around all night up to our
+knees in the bog, suffering severely from the
+cold and damp. Early in our flight the report
+of a gun from the camp warned us that our
+absence had been discovered. Our adventure
+in the swamp saved us from capture, for the
+roads were patrolled by cavalry that night.</p>
+
+<p>We found our way out of the swamp near
+morning, emerging on the western side. By
+the sale of more soap to miners we had acquired
+another map and a compass, so we had little
+difficulty in determining our whereabouts and
+settling our course for the border. For food we
+had each brought along ten biscuits, the result
+of several weeks' hoarding.</p>
+
+<p>That day we stayed on the edge of the
+swamp, never stirring for a moment from the
+shelter of a clump of bushes. One slept while
+the other watched. No one came near us and
+we heard no signs of our pursuers. Night came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
+on most mercifully dark and we struck out
+along the roads at a smart clip.</p>
+
+<p>We traveled all night, making probably
+twenty-five miles. It was necessary, we knew,
+to make the most of our strength in the earlier
+stages of the dash. As our food gave out we
+would be less capable of covering the ground.
+So we spurred ourselves on to renewed effort
+and ate the miles up in a sort of frenzy.</p>
+
+<p>This kept up for four days and nights. We
+kept going as hard as our waning strength
+would permit and we were cautious in the extreme.
+Even at that we had many narrow
+escapes.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Crossing
+the Lippe
+River.</div>
+
+<p>Our greatest difficulty was when we struck
+the Lippe River. Our first plan was to swim
+across, but we found that we had not the
+strength left for this feat. We lost a day as a
+result. The second night we found a scow tied
+up along the bank and got across that way.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rapid
+progress,
+though
+starving.</div>
+
+<p>By this time we were slowly starving on our
+feet, we were wet through continuously, and
+such sleep as we got was broken and fitful.
+Before we had been four days out we were reduced
+to gaunt, tattered, dirty scarecrows. We
+staggered as we walked and sometimes one of
+us would drop on the road through sheer weakness.
+Through it all we kept up our frenzy for
+speed and it was surprising how much ground
+we forced ourselves to cover in a night. And,
+no matter how much the pangs of hunger
+gnawed at us, we conserved our fast dwindling
+supply of biscuit. Less than two biscuits a day
+was our limit!</p>
+
+<p>Finally we reached a point that I recognized
+from my previous attempt to escape. It was
+about four miles from the border. We had two
+biscuits left between us. The next day we
+feasted royally and extravagantly on those two
+biscuits. No longer did we need to hoard our
+supplies, for the next night would tell the tale.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Safe past
+the
+German
+sentries.</div>
+
+<p>By the greatest good fortune night came on
+dark and cloudy. Not a star showed in the
+sky. We crawled cautiously and painfully toward
+the border. At every sound we stopped
+and flattened out. Twice we saw sentries close
+at hand, but both times we got by safely.
+Finally we reached what we judged must be
+the last line of sentries. We had crawled
+across a ploughed field and reached a road
+lined on both sides with trees where sentries
+were passing up and down.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the border!" we whispered.</p>
+
+<p>When the nearest sentry had reached the far
+end of his beat we doubled up like jack-knives
+and dashed across that road, plunging through
+the trees on the other side. Not a sound came
+<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'frome'">from</ins> the sentries. We struck across fields
+with delirious speed, we reeled along like
+drunken men, laughing and gasping and sometimes
+reaching out for a mutual handshake.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Across the
+border in
+Holland.</div>
+
+<p>Then we got a final scare. Marching up the
+road toward us was what looked like a white
+sheet. Our nerves were badly shattered, and
+that moving thing froze my blood, but it was a
+scare of brief duration. The sheet soon resolved
+itself into two girls in white dresses,
+walking up the road with a man. We scurried
+to the side of the road as soon as we made them
+out. Then I decided to test the matter of our
+whereabouts and stepped out to accost them.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you a match?" I asked in German.</p>
+
+<p>The man did not understand me!</p>
+
+<p>We were in Holland&mdash;<i>and free</i>!</p>
+<div class='center'><br /><br /><small>Copyright, Forum, May 1918.</small></div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Little was heard from the Belgians themselves
+of the hardships and suffering endured
+by them under the rule of the Germans. Occasionally,
+however, an eye-witness from the
+outside was able to present some aspects of
+the terrible picture. The narrative of such an
+eye-witness is given in the following pages.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span></p>
+<h2>UNDER GERMAN RULE IN<br />
+FRANCE AND BELGIUM</h2>
+
+<h3>J. P. WHITAKER</h3>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+German
+iron heel
+on Roubaix.</div>
+
+<p>Toward the end of March, 1915, a distinct
+change became noticeable in the
+policy of the German military authorities,
+and for the first time the people of Roubaix
+began to feel the iron heel. The allied Governments
+had formally declared their intention
+of blockading Germany and the German Army
+had been given a sharp lesson at Neuve
+Chapelle. Whether these two events had anything
+to do with the change, or whether it was
+merely a coincidence, I do not know; the fact
+remains that our German governors who had
+hitherto treated us with tolerable leniency
+chose about this time to initiate a r&eacute;gime of
+stringent regulation and repression.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Identification
+papers.</div>
+
+<p>The first sign of the new policy was the issue
+of posters calling on all men, women, and children
+over the age of 14 to go to the Town
+Hall and take out identification papers, while
+all men between 17 and 50 were required also
+to obtain a control card.</p>
+
+<p>Up to this time I had escaped any interference
+from the Germans, perhaps because I
+scarcely ventured into the streets for the first
+two months of the German occupation, and
+possibly also because, from a previous long
+residence in Roubaix, I spoke French fluently.
+Strangely enough, though I went to the Town
+Hall with the rest and supplied true particulars
+of my age and nationality, papers were
+issued to me as a matter of course, and never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>
+during the whole two years and more of my
+presence in their midst did the enemy molest
+me in any way.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Control
+cards for
+men of
+military
+age.</div>
+
+<p>The only incident which throws any light on
+this curious immunity occurred about the
+middle of 1915. Like all other men of military
+age, I was required to present myself once a
+month at a public hall, in order to have my
+control card, which was divided into squares
+for the months of the year, marked in the
+proper space with an official stamp "Kontrol,
+July," or "August," or whatever the month
+might be. We were summoned for this process
+by groups, first those from 17 to 25, then those
+from 25 to 35, and so on. Hundreds of young
+fellows would gather in a room, and one by
+one, as their names were called, would take
+their cards to be stamped by a noncommissioned
+officer sitting at a table on the far side
+of the room. On the occasion I have in mind,
+the noncommissioned officer said to me, "You
+are French, aren't you?" I answered, "No."
+"Are you Belgian?" "No," again. "You are
+Dutch, then?" A third time I replied
+"No."</p>
+
+<p>At this stage an officer who had been sauntering
+up and down the room smoking a cigarette
+came to the table, took up my card, and turning
+to the man behind the table, remarked,
+"It's all right. He's an American." I did not
+trouble to enlighten him. That is probably
+why I enjoyed comparative liberty.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+German
+policy of
+enslavement.</div>
+
+<p>Enslavement is part of the deliberate policy
+of the Germans in France. It began by the
+taking of hostages at the very outset of their
+possession of Roubaix. A number of the leading
+men in the civic and business life of the
+town were marked out and compelled to attend
+by turns at the Town Hall, to be shot on the
+spot at the least sign of revolt among the
+townspeople.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Treatment
+of girl
+mill operatives
+who
+refuse
+to work.</div>
+
+
+<p>Not a few of the mill owners were ordered
+to weave cloth for the invaders, and on their
+refusal were sent to Germany and held to
+ransom. Many of the mill operatives, quite
+young girls, were directed to sew sandbags for
+the German trenches. They, too, refused, but
+the Germans had their own ways of dealing
+with what they regarded as juvenile obstinacy.
+They dragged the girls to a disused cinema
+hall, and kept them there without food or
+water until their will was broken.</p>
+
+<p>Barbarity reached its climax in the so-called
+"deportations." They were just slave raids,
+brutal and undisguised.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The deportations
+or slave
+raids.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Taken
+to an
+unknown
+fate.</div>
+
+<p>The procedure was this: The town was
+divided into districts. At 3 o'clock in the
+morning a cordon of troops would be drawn
+round a district&mdash;the Prussian Guard and especially,
+I believe, the Sixty-ninth Regiment,
+played a great part in this diabolical crime&mdash;and
+officers and noncommissioned officers
+would knock at every door until the household
+was roused. A handbill, about octavo size, was
+handed in, and the officer passed on to the next
+house. The handbill contained printed orders
+that every member of the household must rise
+and dress immediately, pack up a couple of blankets,
+a change of linen, a pair of stout boots,
+a spoon and fork, and a few other small articles,
+and be ready for the second visit in half
+an hour. When the officer returned, the family
+were marshaled before him, and he picked out
+those whom he wanted with a curt "You will
+come," "And you," "And you." Without even
+time for leave-taking, the selected victims were
+paraded in the street and marched to a mill on
+the outskirts of the town. There they were
+imprisoned for three days, without any means
+of communication with friends or relatives,
+all herded together indiscriminately and given
+but the barest modicum of food. Then, like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
+so many cattle, they were sent away to an
+unknown fate.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Girls put
+to farm
+labor.</div>
+
+<p>Months afterward some of them came back,
+emaciated and utterly worn out, ragged and
+verminous, broken in all but spirit. I spoke
+with numbers of the men. They had been told
+by the Germans, they said, that they were going
+to work on the land. They found that only the
+women and girls were put to farm labor.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Men do
+construction
+work
+in Ardennes.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Very little
+food.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">No complaints
+permitted.</div>
+
+<p>The men were taken to the French Ardennes
+and compelled to mend roads, man sawmills
+and forges, build masonry, and toil at other
+manual tasks. Rough hutments formed their
+barracks. They were under constant guard
+both there and at their work, and they were
+marched under escort from the huts to work
+and from work to the huts. For food each
+man was given a two-pound loaf of German
+bread every five days, a little boiled rice,
+and a pint of coffee a day. At 8 o'clock in the
+morning, after a breakfast consisting of a
+slice of bread and a cup of coffee, they went
+to work. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon they returned
+for the night and took their second
+meal&mdash;dinner, tea, and supper all in one. Often
+they were buffeted and generally ill-used by
+their taskmasters. If they fell ill, cold water,
+internally or externally, was the invariable
+remedy. Once a commission came to see them
+at work, but they had been warned beforehand
+that any man who complained of his treatment
+would suffer for it. One of them was bold
+enough to protest to the visitors against a
+particularly flagrant case of ill-usage. That
+man disappeared a few days later.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Belgian
+frontier
+is closed.</div>
+
+<p>Long before this the food problem had become
+acute in Roubaix. Simultaneously with
+the establishment of the system of personal
+control over the inhabitants the Germans
+closed the frontier between France and Belgium
+and forbade us to approach within half<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>
+a mile of the border line. The immediate effect
+of this isolation was to reduce to an insignificant
+trickle the copious stream of foodstuffs
+which until then poured in from Belgium&mdash;not
+the starving Belgium of fiction, but the well
+supplied Belgium of fact.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Fabulous
+prices
+for meat.</div>
+
+<p>Butchers and bakers and provision dealers
+had to shut their shops, and the town became
+almost wholly dependent on supplies brought
+in by the American Relief Commission. Fresh
+meat was soon unobtainable, except by those
+few people who could afford to pay fabulous
+prices for joints smuggled across the frontier.
+Months ago meat cost 32 francs a kilogram
+(about 13 shillings a pound) and an egg cost
+1 franc 25 (a shilling). Obviously such things
+were beyond the reach of the bulk of the people,
+and had it not been for the efforts of the Relief
+Commission we should all have starved.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Foodstuffs
+supplied
+by the
+Relief
+Commission.</div>
+
+<p>The commission opened a food depot, a local
+committee issued tickets for the various articles,
+and rich and poor alike had to wait
+their turn at the depot to procure the allotted
+rations. The chief foodstuffs supplied were:
+Rice, flaked maize, bacon, lard, coffee, bread,
+condensed milk (occasionally), haricot beans,
+lentils, and a very small allowance of
+sugar. Potatoes could not be bought at any
+price.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Germans
+intercept
+mine food.</div>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, though I regret that I should
+have to record it, there is evidence that by
+some means or other the German Army contrived
+to intercept for itself a part of the
+food sent by the American Commission. One
+who had good reason to know told me that
+more than once trainloads which, according to
+a notification sent to him, had left Brussels
+for Roubaix failed to arrive. I know also that
+analysis of the bread showed that in some
+cases German rye flour, including 30 per cent
+of sawdust, had been substituted for the white<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
+American flour, producing an indigestible putty-like
+substance which brought illness and
+death to many. Indeed, the mortality from this
+cause was so heavy at one period that all the
+grave diggers in the town could not keep pace
+with it.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germans
+eager to
+buy food.</div>
+
+<p>One could easily understand how great must
+have been the temptation to the Germans to
+tap for themselves the food which friends
+abroad had sent for their victims. It is a
+significant fact that soldiers in Roubaix were
+eager to buy rice from those who had obtained
+it at the depot at four francs (3s 4d) the pound
+in order, as they said, "to send it home." I
+shall describe later how utterly different were
+the conditions in Belgium as I saw them.</p>
+
+<p>Meagre as were the food supplies for the
+civilians in Roubaix, those issued to the German
+soldiers toward the end of my stay were
+little better.</p>
+
+<p>At first the householders, on whom the soldiers
+were billeted, were required to feed them
+and to recover the cost from the municipal
+authorities.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Change of
+demeanor
+of soldiery.</div>
+
+<p>Of all the things I saw and heard in Roubaix
+and Lille none impressed me more than the
+wonderful change which came over the outlook
+and demeanor of the German soldiery between
+October, 1914, and October, 1915.</p>
+
+<p>I had many opportunities of mingling with
+them, more, in fact, than I cared to have, for
+now and again during this period two or three
+of them were actually billeted on the good
+folk with whom I lodged.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Already
+tired of
+war.</div>
+
+<p>I knew just sufficient of the German language
+to be able to chat with them, and they made
+no attempt to conceal from me their real feelings.
+I am merely repeating the statement
+made to me over and over again by many German
+soldiers when I say that the men in the
+ranks are thoroughly tired of the war, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
+they have abandoned all thought of conquest,
+and that they fight on only because they believe
+that their homes and families are at
+stake.</p>
+
+<p>On that Autumn morning when the first German
+troops came into Roubaix they came
+flushed with victory, full of confidence in their
+strength, marching with their eyes fixed on
+Paris and London. They sang aloud as they
+swung through our streets. They sing no
+more. Instead, as I saw with my own eyes,
+many of them show in their faces the abject
+misery which is in their hearts.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Expect
+end of war
+in November,
+1916.</div>
+
+<p>Last year scores of them told me, quite independently,
+that the war would come to an
+end on November 17, 1916. How that date came
+to be fixed by the prophets nobody knew, but
+the belief in the prophecy was universal among
+the soldiers.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Soldiers
+more
+courteous
+than
+officers.</div>
+
+<p>As a rule, the soldiers did not maltreat the
+civilians in Roubaix, except when they were
+acting under the orders of their officers; when,
+for example, they were tearing people from
+their homes to work as slaves. They had, however,
+the right of traveling without payment
+on the tramcars, and they frequently exercised
+this right to such an extent as to preclude the
+townsfolk from the use of the cars.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Officers
+requisition
+supplies.</div>
+
+<p>Apart from that annoyance, there was little
+ground for complaint of the general behavior
+of the soldiers. The conduct of the officers was
+very different. For a long time they made a
+habit of requisitioning from shopkeepers and
+others supplies of food for which they had no
+intention of paying. One day an officer drove
+up in a trap to a shop kept by an acquaintance
+of mine and "bought" sardines, chocolate, bread,
+and fancy cakes to the value of about 200
+francs (about $40). He produced a piece of
+paper and borrowed a pair of scissors with
+which to cut off a slip. On this slip he wrote<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
+a few words in German, and then, handing it
+to the shopkeeper, he went off with his purchases.
+The shopkeeper, on presenting the
+paper at the Kommandantur, was informed that
+the inscription ran, "For the loan of scissors,
+200 francs," and that the signature was unknown.
+Payment was therefore refused. This
+case, I believe, was by no means an isolated
+one.</p>
+
+<p>When an officer was billeted on a house, he
+would insist on turning the family out of the
+dining room and drawing room and sleeping
+in the best bedroom; sometimes he would eject
+people entirely from their home.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A docile
+private
+soldier.</div>
+
+<p>By contrast the docile private soldier was
+almost a welcome guest. I remember well one
+quite friendly fellow who was lodged for some
+time in the same house as myself and some
+English over military age in the suburb of
+Croix. He came to me in great glee one day
+with a letter from his wife in which she warned
+him to beware of "the English cutthroats." She
+went on to give him a long series of instructions
+for his safety. He was to barricade his
+bedroom door every night, to sleep always with
+his knife under his pillow, and never to take
+anything we offered him to eat or drink.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Few
+civilian
+offenses.</div>
+
+<p>Despite the temptations to crime and insubordination
+which naturally attend an idle
+manufacturing population of some 125,000
+people, there were very few civilian offenses
+against the law, German or French, among the
+inhabitants of Roubaix.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Time
+hangs
+heavily.</div>
+
+<p>Time hung heavily on our hands. Cut off
+from the outer world except by the occasional
+arrival of smuggled French and English newspapers,
+we spent our time reading and playing
+cards, and at the last I hoped I might never be
+reduced to this form of amusement again. In
+the two and a half years cut out of my life
+and completely wasted I played as many games<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
+of cards as will satisfy me for the rest of my
+existence.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The gendarmerie
+called
+"Green
+devils."</div>
+
+<p>But even if the inhabitants, in their enforced
+idleness, had any temptation to be insubordinate,
+they had a far greater inducement to
+keep the law in the bridled savagery of the
+German gendarmerie. These creatures, who
+from the color of their uniform and the brutality
+of their conduct were known as the
+"green devils," seemed to revel in sheer cruelty.
+They scour the towns on bicycles and the outlying
+districts on horseback, always accompanied
+by a dog as savage as his master, and
+at the slightest provocation or without even
+the slenderest pretext they fall upon civilians
+with brutish violence.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Women
+badly
+treated.</div>
+
+<p>It was not uncommon for one of these men
+to chase a woman on his bicycle, and when he
+had caught her, batter her head and body with
+the machine. Many times they would strike
+women with the flat of their sabres. One of
+them was seen to unleash his dog against an
+old woman, and laugh when the savage beast
+tore open the woman's flesh from thigh to knee.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="sidenote">Crossing
+Belgium.</div>
+
+<p>In January Mr. Whitaker crossed the line
+into Belgium with the aid of smuggler friends,
+traversed that country, chiefly on foot, and
+two months later escaped into Holland and so
+to England. In Belgium he was astonished to
+find what looked like prosperity when compared
+with conditions in the occupied provinces
+of France. After expressing gratitude to Belgian
+friends and a desire to tell only what is
+truth, he proceeds:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">No sign of
+privations.</div>
+
+<p>The first fact I have to declare is that nowhere
+in my wanderings did I see any sign of
+starvation. Nowhere did I notice such privation
+of food as I had known in Northern France.
+Near the French frontier, it is true, the meals
+I took in inns and private cottages were far<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
+from sumptuous, but as I drew nearer to the
+Dutch frontier the amount and variety of the
+food to be obtained changed in an ascending
+scale, until at Antwerp one could almost forget,
+so far as the table was concerned, that the
+world was at war.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The diet at
+Roubaix,
+France.</div>
+
+<p>Let me give a few comparisons. At Roubaix,
+in France, at the time when I left in the first
+week of this year, my daily diet was as follows:
+Breakfast&mdash;coffee, bread and butter (butter was
+a luxury beyond the reach of the working
+people, who had to be content with lard); midday
+meal&mdash;vegetable soup, bread, boiled rice,
+and at rare intervals an egg or a tiny piece of
+fresh meat; supper&mdash;boiled rice and bread.
+Just over the border, in Belgium, the food conditions
+were a little better. The ticket system
+prevailed, and the villagers were dependent on
+the depots of the American Relief Commission,
+supplemented by local produce.</p>
+
+<p>A little further, and one passed the line of
+demarkation between the &eacute;tape&mdash;the part of
+Belgium which is governed by General von
+Denk, formerly commanding the troops at
+Valenciennes&mdash;and the governement g&eacute;n&eacute;ral,
+under the command of General von Bissing.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The first
+fresh
+meat in
+weeks.</div>
+
+<p>Here a distinct change was noticeable. My
+first meal in this area included fillet of beef,
+the first fresh meat I had tasted for weeks.
+Tickets were still needed to buy bread and
+other things supplied by the Relief Commission,
+but other foodstuffs could be bought without
+restriction.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A dinner
+at
+Brussels.</div>
+
+<p>At Brussels the food supply seems to be
+nearly normal. My Sunday dinner there consisted
+of excellent soup, a generous helping of
+roast leg of mutton, potatoes, haricot beans,
+white bread, cheese, and jam, and wine or beer,
+as preferred; while for supper I had cold meat,
+fried potatoes, and bread.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Food conditions
+at
+Antwerp.</div>
+
+<p>At Antwerp, with two French friends who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
+accompanied me on my journey through Belgium,
+I walked into a middle-class caf&eacute; at midday.
+I ordered a steak with fried potatoes and
+my friends ordered pork chops. Without any
+question about tickets we were served. We
+added bread, cheese, and butter to complete
+the meal and washed it down with draft light
+beer. Later in the day we took supper in the
+same caf&eacute;&mdash;an egg omelette, fried potatoes,
+bread, cheese, and butter. And the cost of
+both meals together was less than the cost of
+the steak alone in Roubaix.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Appearance
+of
+Brussels.</div>
+
+<p>The policy of the Germans appears to be
+to interfere as little as possible with the everyday
+life of the country. The fruits of this
+policy are seen in a remarkable degree in Brussels.
+All day long the main streets of the city
+are full of bustle and all the outward manifestations
+of prosperity.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Business
+going on.</div>
+
+<p>Women in short, fashionable skirts, with
+high-topped fancy boots, stroll completely at
+their ease along the pavement, studying the
+smart things with which the drapers' shop windows
+are dressed. Jewelers' shops, provision
+stores, tobacconists, and the rest show every
+sign of "business as usual." I bought at quite
+a reasonable price a packet of Egyptian cigarettes,
+bearing the name of a well-known brand
+of English manufacture, and I recalled how,
+not many miles away in harassed France, I
+had seen rhubarb leaves hanging from upper
+windows to dry, so that the French smoker
+might use them instead of the tobacco which
+he could not buy. Even the sweetstuff shops
+had well-stocked windows.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Theaters
+and
+cinema
+palaces
+open.</div>
+
+<p>The theaters, music halls, cinema palaces,
+and caf&eacute;s of Brussels were open and crowded.
+On the second night of my visit I went with
+my two French companions to the Th&eacute;&acirc;tre
+Moli&egrave;re and heard a Belgian company in Paul
+Hervieu's play, "La Course du Flambeau." The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
+whole building was packed with Belgians,
+thoroughly enjoying the performance. So far
+as I could tell, the only reminder that we were
+in the fallen capital of an occupied country
+was the presence in the front row of the stalls
+of two German soldiers, whose business, so I
+learned, was to see that nothing disrespectful
+to Germany and her armies was allowed to
+creep into the play.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">An
+ordinary
+cinema
+performance.</div>
+
+<p>At another theater, according to the posters,
+"V&eacute;ronique" was produced, and a third bill
+announced "The Merry Widow." At the
+Th&eacute;&acirc;tre de la Monnaie, which has been taken
+over by the Germans, operas and plays are
+given for the benefit of the soldiers and German
+civilians. One afternoon I spent a couple
+of hours in a cinema hall. A continuous performance
+was provided, and people came and
+went as they chose, but throughout the program
+the place was well filled. The films
+shown had no relation to the war. They were
+of the ordinary dramatic or comic types, and
+I fancy they were of pre-war manufacture.
+Nothing of topical interest was exhibited.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Scenes in
+Antwerp
+like
+those in Brussels.</div>
+
+<p>All the scenes which I have described in
+Brussels were reproduced in Antwerp. There
+was a slightly closer supervision over the comings
+and goings of the inhabitants, but there
+was the same unreal atmosphere of contentment
+and real appearance of plenty. Though
+a good number of officers were in evidence, the
+military arm of Germany was not sufficiently
+displayed to produce any intimidation. Perhaps
+the most obvious mark, here and in the capital,
+that all was not normal was the complete absence
+of private motor cars and cabs from the
+streets.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Belgium
+still has
+cattle.</div>
+
+<p>In the country districts two things struck
+me as unfamiliar after my long months in
+France. About Roubaix not a single head of
+cattle was to be seen; in Belgium every farm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+had its cows. In Belgium the mounted gendarmerie&mdash;the
+"green devils" whose infamous
+conduct in the Roubaix district I have described&mdash;were
+unknown. Their place was filled by
+military police, who, by comparison with the
+gendarmes, were gentleness itself.</p>
+
+<p>I do not profess to know the state of affairs
+in parts of Belgium which I did not visit, but
+I do know that my narrative of the conditions
+of life that came under my personal inspection
+has come as a great surprise to many people
+who imagine the whole of Belgium is starving.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Belgium
+better fed
+than
+occupied
+France.</div>
+
+<p>We in hungry Roubaix looked out on Belgium
+as the land of promise. The Flemish
+workers who came into the town from time to
+time from Belgium were well fed and prosperous
+looking, a great contrast to the French of
+Roubaix and Lille. The Belgian children that
+I saw were healthy and of good appearance,
+quite unlike the wasted little ones of France,
+with hollow blue rings round their eyes.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germany
+desires a
+state in
+Belgium.</div>
+
+<p>The people of Roubaix, knowing these facts,
+are convinced that the Germans are endeavoring
+to lay the foundations of a vassal State in
+Belgium. Foiled in their attempts to capture
+Calais, the Germans believe that Zeebrugge and
+Ostend are capable of development as harbors
+for aggressive action against England. The
+French do not doubt that the enemy will make
+a desperate struggle before giving up Antwerp.</p>
+
+<p>The picture I have presented of Belgium as
+I saw it is, of course, vastly different from the
+outraged Belgium of the first stage of the war.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+people not
+to be
+seduced.</div>
+
+<p>Lest there should arise any misunderstanding,
+I complete the picture by stating my conviction,
+based on intimate talks with Belgian
+men and women, that the population as a whole
+are keeping a firm upper lip, and that attempts
+by the Germans to seduce them from their allegiance
+by blandishment and bribery will fail
+as surely as the efforts of frightfulness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Whitaker's account of his escape into
+Holland closes thus:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Nearing
+Holland.</div>
+
+<p>When we drew near to the wires, just before
+midnight, we lay on the ground and wriggled
+along until we were within fifty yards of Holland.
+There we lay for what seemed to be an
+interminable time. We saw patrols passing.
+An officer came along and inspected the sentries.
+Everything was oppressively quiet.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Through
+the electrified
+barbed
+wire.</div>
+
+<p>Each sentry moved to and fro over a distance
+of a couple of hundred yards. Opposite the
+place where we lay two of them met. Choosing
+his opportunity, one of my comrades, who had
+provided himself with rubber gloves some weeks
+before for this critical moment, rushed forward
+to the spot where the two sentries had just
+met. Scrambling through barbed wire and
+over an unelectrified wire, he grasped the electrified
+wires and wriggled between them. We
+came close on his heels. He held the deadly
+electrified wires apart with lengths of thick
+plate glass with which he had come provided
+while first my other companions and then I
+crawled through. Before the sentries returned
+we had run some hundreds of yards into No
+Man's Land between the electrified wires and
+the real Dutch frontier.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Arrival
+at Rotterdam.</div>
+
+<p>Only one danger remained. We had no certainty
+that the Dutch frontier guards would
+not hand us back to the Germans. We took
+no risks, though it meant wading through a
+stream waist deep. Our troubles were now
+practically over. By rapid stages we proceeded
+to Rotterdam.</p>
+
+<p>I was without money. My watch I had
+given to the Belgian villager in whose cottage
+I had found refuge. My clothes were shabby
+from frequent soakings and hard wear. I had
+shaved only once in Belgium, and a stubby
+growth of beard did not improve my general
+appearance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Sent on to
+London.</div>
+
+<p>At Rotterdam I reported myself to the British
+Consul. I was treated with the utmost
+kindness. My expenses during the next four
+or five days, while I waited for a boat, were paid
+and I was given my fare to Hull. There I was
+searched by two military police and questioned
+closely by an examining board. My papers were
+taken and I was told to go to London and apply
+for them at the Home Office. As I was
+again practically without means I was given
+permission to go to my home in Bradford before
+proceeding to London.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In cooperation with the British forces, a Russian
+army took part in movements against
+Bagdad and Turkish cities in Armenia and
+Persia. These military movements were
+marked by varying success on the part of the
+Russian and Turkish forces. Certain phases of
+this campaign are described in the following
+chapter.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE ANGLO-RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN<br />
+IN TURKEY</h2>
+
+<h3>JAMES B. MACDONALD</h3>
+
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mesopotamia
+important
+to Great Britain.</div>
+
+<p>It is perhaps not generally realized how
+important the future of Mesopotamia is
+to the British, or why they originally sent
+an expedition there which has since developed
+into a more ambitious campaign. Ever since
+the Napoleonic period British influence and
+interests have been supreme from Bagdad to
+the Persian Gulf, and this was the one quarter
+of the globe where they successfully held off the
+German trader with his political backing.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Great
+Britain's
+war with
+Persia.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">British
+steamer
+on the
+Tigris.</div>
+
+<p>It will be recalled that early in Queen
+Victoria's reign Great Britain engaged in a
+war with Persia, and landed troops at Bushire
+in assertion of their rights. Ever since they
+have policed the Persian Gulf, put down piracy,
+slave and gun-running, and lighted the places
+dangerous to navigation. These interests having
+been entrusted to the Government of India,
+news affecting them seldom finds its way into
+Western papers. Previous to the war a line of
+British steamers plied regularly up the River
+Tigris to Bagdad, the center of the caravan
+trade with Persia. The foreign trade of this
+town alone in 1912 amounted to $19,000,000,
+and it was nearly all in the hands of merchants
+in Great Britain or India. Germany exported
+$500,000 worth of goods there annually. Basra,
+farther down the river, exports annually about
+75,000 tons of dates, valued at $2,900,000. It
+also does a large export trade in wheat.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">An irrigation
+scheme.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Persian
+oil fields
+controlled
+by Great
+Britain.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Native
+tribes subsidized.</div>
+
+<p>A large irrigation scheme was partly completed
+before the war, near the ancient town
+of Babylon, under the direction of a famous
+Anglo-Indian engineer, Sir William Willcocks.
+When finished it was to cost $105,000,000, and
+was expected to reclaim some 2,800,000 acres of
+land of great productibility. It will, therefore,
+be seen that Britain had some considerable
+stake in the country. In addition to this, the
+British Government, shortly before the war, invested
+$10,000,000 in acquiring control of the
+Anglo-Persian oil fields, which is the principal
+source of supply for oil fuel for their navy.
+By this means they avoided the risk of great
+American corporations cornering the supply of
+oil fuel and holding up their navy. John Bull
+upon occasion shows some gleamings of shrewdness.
+This deal is on a par with their purchase
+of sufficient shares to control the Suez
+Canal. The Anglo-Persian oil fields are
+situated across the border in Persia, and the
+oil is led in pipes down the Karam River valley,
+a tributary of the combined Tigris and Euphrates
+rivers. The native tribes in the neighborhood
+were subsidized to protect the pipe-line,
+or, rather, to leave it alone.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Russia and
+Great
+Britain in
+Persia.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German
+railways
+must end
+at
+Bagdad.</div>
+
+<p>During recent years Persia has fallen into
+decay. Politically she is more sick than "the
+sick man of the East." The people have a religion
+of their own and worship the sun, although
+quite a number of Moslems have settled
+in their midst. Being cognizant of German
+designs to create a great Eastern empire in
+Mesopotamia and Persia, which would threaten
+India, Egypt, and the Russian East, Britain
+and Russia came together and formed a kind
+of Monroe Doctrine of their own. They said,
+in effect, northern Persia shall be Russia's
+sphere of influence, and southern Persia shall
+be Britain's sphere of influence. They both
+recognized that a great military power, like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
+Germany, permanently established at Bagdad,
+with aggressive tendencies, would imperil their
+Eastern dominions, and both were prepared to
+make it a <i>casus belli</i>&mdash;Britain, further, a few
+years ago informed Germany that the area
+from Bagdad to the head of the Gulf was her
+"Garden of Eden," and any attempt to carry
+German railways south of Bagdad would bring
+on war. The Emperor William apparently did
+not mind this opposition by Britain and Russia
+to his Oriental ambition, provided he could
+find a passage through the Balkans.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Persian
+gendarmes
+officered
+by Swedes.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Fairy-tales
+of
+Turkish
+conquest.</div>
+
+<p>At the time Britain and Russia came to an
+agreement regarding Persia they were not on
+so good a footing with each other as they are
+to-day. In order that neither should get an
+advantage over the other, it was decided that
+the Persian gendarmes&mdash;about 6,000 in number&mdash;should
+be officered by neutrals, and, unfortunately
+as it turned out for the Allies, they mutually
+chose Swedes. On the outbreak of war
+neither Britain nor Russia desired that Persia
+should be brought into it. The German ambassador
+in Persia, however, had other views,
+and suborned Swedish officers in command of
+the Persian gendarmes. Partly by this means,
+and partly by Turkish agents, a rebellion was
+brought about within the Russian sphere.
+Religion had nothing to do with the trouble
+in Persia. Turkish forces entered Persian
+Kurdistan and announced that they were on
+their way to conquer India and the Russian
+East, while their compatriots would overrun
+Egypt. These were the fairy-tales with which
+the Germans had originally enticed the
+Turks into the war. The Turks were willing
+to believe them, and apparently did believe
+them. The responsible Germans had no such
+illusions, but hoped to attain their ends
+by causing internal disturbances within India
+and Egypt. These German canards, put about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
+in war time, have been adopted by some writers
+in this country as the foundation from which
+to write contemporary history. It may interest
+them to know that India possesses the strongest
+natural frontiers in the world.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Strategy
+depends
+on
+geography.</div>
+
+<p>Strategy nowadays is very largely a matter
+of geography. Modern armies are circumscribed
+in their movements by the available
+means of transportation, whether these be by
+railroad, river, or roadway, and this means
+geography applied in giving direction to troop
+movements.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Geographies
+of
+the war
+area.</div>
+
+<p>Before entering into a review of the combined
+Anglo-Russian campaign a preliminary
+survey of the strategical geography of the war
+area will make the position more clear.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Constantinople
+once
+the world
+clearing-house.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Still the
+easiest
+route.</div>
+
+<p>In ancient times the only practical way by
+road and ferry from Europe to Asia or Africa
+was by way of the Balkan valleys and across
+the Bosphorus or Dardanelles. Hence arose
+the importance of the ferryhouse&mdash;Constantinople.
+That city in those days was the center
+of the known world and the clearing-house
+for the merchandise of Asia, Africa, and
+Europe. From Scutari, on the opposite shore,
+the overland route meandered across Asia
+Minor to Aleppo in Syria. Here the sign-post
+to India pointed down the Euphrates Valley,
+by way of Bagdad, while that to Egypt and
+Arabia followed the Levant or eastern shore
+of the Mediterranean. Between each fork lay
+the Syrian desert. A glance at the map shows
+the reason why in those days this was the only
+practical route, as to-day it is the easiest. The
+wall of the Ural Mountains, the Caspian Sea,
+the Caucasian Mountains, and the Black Sea
+shut out direct communication from Europe
+to Asia, or <i>vice versa</i>, except by the Constantinople
+ferry or a sea voyage.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Another
+practical
+route.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The road
+for invasion
+of
+Egypt or
+India.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Taurus
+range is
+the
+natural
+frontier
+of Egypt.</div>
+
+<p>In Asia Minor progress was further barred
+by the watershed of the Euphrates and Tigris<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
+rivers to the south, and the Caucasian Mountains
+to the east. A practical way was found
+at the lower elevations of the Taurus and
+Amanus mountains&mdash;two parallel spurs which
+strike the sea at the Gulf of Alexandretta. This
+narrow neck of the bottle, as it were, is of
+enormous military importance alike to the
+Turks and to the British. Through it must
+pass any army of invasion by land from Europe
+or Asia Minor to Egypt or India; and, conversely,
+through it must pass any invading
+army from Mesopotamia into Asia Minor. If
+the British should conquer Mesopotamia and
+should intend to hold it&mdash;as they undoubtedly
+would&mdash;they will have no strategical frontiers
+until they secure the watershed of the Tigris
+and Euphrates rivers and the Taurus passage.
+If they secure the latter, Syria, Palestine, and
+Arabia will fall to them like apples off a tree.
+It would then be no longer necessary to defend
+the Suez Canal. The natural frontier of
+Egypt is the Taurus mountain range. Asia
+Minor is the real Turkey; the other portions
+of the empire&mdash;M<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Meopotamia'">Mesopotamia</ins>, Syria, Palestine,
+Arabia, and Turkey in Europe&mdash;are only
+appendages. The eastern door into Asia
+Minor is Erzerum, and the southern door is
+the Taurus passage. Turkey can only part
+with these at the cost of her life. Russia has
+already captured Erzerum, and the British
+possess the Island of Cyprus, which commands
+the head of the Gulf of Alexandretta&mdash;twenty
+miles from the Taurus passage. That is,
+broadly, the situation.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Aleppo is
+the starting
+point
+of caravan
+routes.</div>
+
+<p>Near the crossing of the Taurus and Amanus
+mountains lies the city of Aleppo, the starting-point
+for the overland caravan routes to Bagdad
+and India, and also to Damascus, Mecca,
+and Egypt. Just as surely as pioneer travelers
+always chose the easiest route, so the railways
+of to-day follow in their footsteps. The physical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
+features of nature constrained both modern
+as well as ancient armies to travel the same
+way. Hence a railway map of the Balkans and
+of Asiatic Turkey is a first consideration in
+appreciating the strategical bearings of the
+Anglo-Russian campaign in Turkey-in-Asia, or
+the alleged rival Germanic-Turkish schemes
+for the invasion of Egypt, Persia, and India.
+Of no less importance is a knowledge of the
+available sea routes and inland rivers.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Bulgaria
+and
+Turkey
+depend on
+aid from
+Germany.</div>
+
+<p>The ability of Bulgaria and Turkey to carry
+on the war depends on aid from Germany in
+men, munitions, and money. These allies are
+the weakest members of the Central Group, and
+may be the first to give in if circumstances are
+adverse to their adventure.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The importance
+of the
+Balkan
+railway.</div>
+
+<p>Their sole communication with the Central
+Powers is by the Balkan railway from the
+Danube to Constantinople by way of Sofia. If
+this line is severed, then these nations are out
+of the game. The Allies have all winter been
+organizing the defenses of Salonica as a <i>pied-&agrave;-terre</i>
+for such an attack. Should Rumania
+join the Allies in the spring, then a further
+attack may be expected from the north, in
+which Russian troops would join. Turkey is
+now too preoccupied with her own troubles to
+be able to assist Bulgaria.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Asia
+Minor's
+only important
+line.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Railway
+planned
+from
+Aleppo to
+Bagdad.</div>
+
+<p>In Asia Minor the only railway of importance
+is the trunk line from Scutari, on the
+Bosphorus, to the Taurus Tunnel, in course of
+completion near Adana. One branch runs west
+to Smyrna, and another east to Angora. Beyond
+the Taurus Tunnel is another in course
+of completion through the Amanus Mountains.
+Every person and everything destined for the
+Bagdad front or for the invasion of Egypt has
+to be transported over these mountains. So
+also have rails for the completion of the Aleppo-to-Bagdad
+railway. These tunnels are expected
+to be finished this year&mdash;when it will be too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
+late. From Aleppo the Syrian railway runs
+south through Damascus to Medina and Mecca
+in Arabia. Branches reach the Levant seaports
+of Tripoli, Beirut, and Haifa. Another railway
+was started from Aleppo to Bagdad
+shortly before the war, and construction begun
+at both ends. We have no reliable information
+as to how far it has progressed, but the
+presumption is that there is a large gap between
+Ras-el-ain and Mosul and between the
+latter place and Samara.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The city
+of Aleppo
+key of
+railways
+as once of
+caravan
+routes.</div>
+
+<p>It is at once apparent how important the
+city of Aleppo is as the junction for the three
+main railways of Asiatic Turkey. Napoleon
+considered that it was the key to India, because
+it commanded the caravan routes. To-day it
+would be more correct to say that Aleppo is
+the key to the outer <i>approaches</i> to India and
+Egypt, the inner defenses of which are impregnable.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Reasons
+for a
+British
+army in
+Egypt.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Vantage
+points held
+by Great
+Britain.</div>
+
+<p>The British maintain a large army in Egypt
+not so much because it is required there as because
+it is a most convenient central camp
+within striking distance of all the battle-fronts
+in the East. This permits of throwing a large
+army secretly and unexpectedly where it can
+be most effective. Similar camps are available
+at Malta and Cyprus. Any attack on Egypt
+on a formidable scale would be a veritable trap
+for the invaders. It will be recalled that when
+Britain held up the Russian advance on Constantinople,
+in 1878, she entered into a treaty
+with Turkey guaranteeing the latter in the
+possession of Asia Minor (only) against all
+enemies. The consideration was the lease of
+the Island of Cyprus, which dominates the
+Taurus passage. In other words, Britain holds
+the cork with which she can close the Syrian
+tube and put the closure on any invasion of
+India or Egypt from this side. This treaty
+was abrogated some eighteen months ago, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>
+Turkey declared war on the British Empire.
+Britain, in consequence, annexed Egypt and
+Cyprus.</p>
+
+<p>At the outbreak of the war the Indian
+Government, apparently off their own bat, despatched
+a small force to the Persian oil fields
+to seize and hold the pipe-line, which had been
+tampered with and the supply cut off for a
+time.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Turks
+threaten
+Basra.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">British
+advance
+up the
+Tigris to
+Kut-el-Amara.</div>
+
+<p>It became necessary to hold in force three
+triangular points&mdash;Basra, Muhammereh, and
+Awaz. A strong Turkish force, with headquarters
+at Amara, was equidistant about 100
+miles from both Basra and Awaz, and could
+elect to strike the divided British forces either
+by coming down the Tigris River to Basra, or
+by going overland to Awaz. Reinforcements
+were sent from India, and Amara occupied.
+The oil fields seemed secure. Then the unexpected
+happened. A Turkish army came down
+the Shat-el-Hai&mdash;an ancient canal or waterway
+connecting the Tigris River at Kut-el-Amara
+with the Euphrates at Nasiriyeh (or
+Nasdi)&mdash;about 100 miles to the west of Basra&mdash;and
+threatened the latter place. (Shat-el-Hai
+means the river which flows by the village
+of Hai. Kut-el-Amara means the fort of Amara
+and is not to be confused with the town of
+Amara lower down the Tigris River.) This led
+to the British driving the Turks out of
+Nasiriyeh and also advancing up the Tigris
+River from Amara to occupy Kut-el-Amara,
+where a battle was fought. The Turks were
+strongly entrenched and expected to hold up
+the Anglo-Indian troops here, but a turning
+movement made them retire on Bagdad&mdash;about
+100 miles to the northwest. It was known that
+large Turkish reinforcements were on the way
+to Bagdad and an attempt was made to anticipate
+them.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">General
+Townshend's
+attempt
+to
+take
+Bagdad.</div>
+
+<p>General Townshend advanced on Bagdad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>
+with less than a division of mixed Anglo-Indian
+troops&mdash;some 16,000 to 20,000 strong. At
+Ctesiphon he found a Turkish army of four
+divisions, with two others in reserve, awaiting
+him. After a two days' indecisive battle,
+Townshend, recognizing he had insufficient
+forces, retired on his forward base at Kut-el-Amara.
+The Arabs in the neighborhood
+awaited the issue of the battle, ready to take
+sides, for the time being, with the winner.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Turks
+much
+stronger
+in
+numbers.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Secret of
+European
+success
+in Asia.</div>
+
+<p>It says much for the stamina of this composite
+division that, although opposed throughout
+by five or six times their number of Turks
+and Turkish irregulars, the latter were unable
+to overwhelm them. To the Western mind,
+unacquainted with the mentality and moral
+weakness of the Moslem under certain circumstances,
+this may appear a most foolhardy adventure.
+To the Anglo-Indian the most obvious
+thing to do when in a tight corner is to go for
+the enemy no matter what their numbers. All
+Europeans in India develop an extraordinary
+pride in race, and an inherent contempt for
+numbers. It is the secret of their success there.
+Most Moslems fight well when posted behind
+strong natural defenses. In open country,
+such as Mesopotamia, they do not show to so
+much advantage. Another trait is that when
+their line of retreat is threatened they are
+more timorous than European troops. This
+weakness will have important bearings on
+the future of the campaign on the Tigris
+Valley, because the communications of the
+Turks are threatened by the Russians far in
+their rear and in more than one place.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Kut-el-Amara
+of
+great
+strategical
+importance.</div>
+
+<p>Townshend's camp at Kut-el-Amara is well
+supplied with stores and munitions, and will
+soon be relieved. When his retreat was cut
+off at the bend of the Tigris River he could still
+have retired safely by following the Shat-el-Hai
+to Nasiriyeh. There was no thought, however,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
+of retreat, Kut-el-Amara is geographically
+of great strategical importance, and the
+British garrison there has served the useful
+purpose of detaining large forces of the enemy
+where it was desired they should remain while
+important Allied developments were taking
+place in their flank and rear. Most of these
+Turkish reinforcements were withdrawn from
+Armenia when the depth of winter appeared
+to make it impossible for the Russians to break
+through the lofty hills of Caucasia.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Turks
+deceived
+by rumor
+about
+Grand
+Duke
+Nicholas.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Grand
+Duke's
+strategy.</div>
+
+<p>The rumor, so diligently put about, that the
+Grand Duke Nicholas had been retired in disgrace,
+after so ably extricating the Russian
+armies in Poland, and that he had been sent to
+Caucasia, served its purpose. The Turks were
+deceived by it, and sent part of their forces
+from Armenia to oppose the Anglo-Indian advance
+on Bagdad and arrived in time to turn
+the scale after the battle of Ctesiphon. When
+the Grand Duke fell on the unwary Turks their
+defeat was complete. Flying from Erzerum,
+one army made for Trebizond, another for the
+Lake Van district, and the rest went due west
+towards Sivas. The Grand Duke's right wing,
+center, and left are following in the same directions.
+He has two flying wings further
+south&mdash;one in the Lake Urumia district and
+the other advancing along the main caravan
+route from Kermanshah to Bagdad, while the
+British are furthest south at Kut-el-Amara.
+It will be observed that the whole of the Allied
+armies from the Black Sea to Kut-el-Amara
+are in perfect echelon formation, and it would
+be a strange coincidence if this just happened&mdash;say,
+by accident. Like the Syrian and Arabian
+littoral, Mesopotamia is another tube confined
+within the Syrian desert on the one side
+and the mountains of Armenia and Persia on
+the ether. All egress is stopped by the Allies'
+echelon formation, except by Aleppo.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Possible
+to cut
+Turkish
+Empire
+in two.</div>
+
+<p>Petrograd advices at the time of writing
+(March 9th) state that the Grand Duke's
+main army is making for the Gulf of Alexandretta
+with intent to cut the Turkish Empire
+in two. This is not only possible, but
+highly probable, and the echelon formation of
+the Allies, together with the configuration of
+the country, lends itself to such an operation.
+The British army in Egypt and the British
+fleet could in such an eventuality co&ouml;perate to
+advantage.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Russians
+must take
+Trebizond.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Turks will
+endeavor
+to hold
+Armenian
+Taurus.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The road
+that
+Xenophon
+traveled.</div>
+
+<p>As a preliminary the Russians must clear
+their right wing by capturing Trebizond and
+utilizing it as a sea base. Asia Minor is a
+high tableland, in shape like the sole of a boot
+turned upside down, with the highlands of
+Armenia representing the heel. The Turks,
+having lost their only base and headquarters
+at Erzerum, have now to rush troops, guns,
+and stores from Constantinople to the railhead
+at Angora and endeavor to rally their
+defeated forces to the east of Sivas. In the
+meantime, the Russians will have overrun some
+250 miles of Turkish territory before they are
+held up even temporarily. The Turkish army
+in Syria will be rushed to Diarbekr to rally
+their defeated right wing and endeavor to
+hold the Armenian Taurus Mountains against
+the Grand Duke's left wing. If the Russians
+break through here, then all is lost to the
+Turks in the south. They, however, have a
+most difficult task before them, because the
+hills here reach their highest. There is a road
+of sorts, because we know that Xenophon in
+ancient times traveled it with his 10,000
+Greeks, and the Turks did the same recently,
+when they sent reinforcements to Bagdad.
+Both must have traveled light, and the Russians
+will have to do the same. This means
+that the Turks on the south will be better supplied
+with guns than their opponents, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
+will have to rely once more on their bayonets.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">British
+forces in
+the south
+ample.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Tigris and
+other
+available
+routes.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Plans
+of the
+British
+army.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Russian
+and
+British
+forces
+would join.</div>
+
+<p>In the extreme south the British have ample
+force now to carry out their part of the contract.
+We know that some 80,000 veteran
+Indian troops have arrived from France, as
+well as other large reinforcements from India.
+It is unlikely that these will all proceed up the
+Tigris River, because sufficient troops are already
+there who are restricted to a narrow
+front, owing to the salt marshes between the
+bend of the river and the Persian mountains.
+Two other routes are available, the Shat-el-Hai
+from Nasiriyeh to relieve the garrison at Kut-el-Amara
+from the south, and the Euphrates
+River, to attack Bagdad from the southwest,
+while the Russian flying wing at Kermanshah
+threatens it from the northeast. The Turkish
+report of heavy fighting at Nasiriyeh would
+indicate that one or both of these routes were
+being taken. Athens reports that Bagdad is
+about to fall. As it falls, a British flotilla will
+ascend the Euphrates and make direct for
+Aleppo. The British army from Kut-el-Amara
+and the Russians from Kermanshah will, after
+the fall of Bagdad&mdash;which is a foregone conclusion&mdash;ascend
+the Tigris River to Mosul,
+where they may be expected to get in touch
+with the other Russian flying wing from the
+Lake Urumia district. The combined force will
+then be in a position to force a junction with
+the Grand Duke's left wing, and then continue
+their advance on Aleppo.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Turkish
+army
+might retire
+to defend
+the
+Taurus
+passage.</div>
+
+<p>Should the main army of the Grand Duke,
+as reported, converge on the Gulf of Alexandretta
+with intent to destroy the Turkish
+southern army, then the latter would be in a
+very dangerous position, because their northern
+army being, as yet, without a base or organization,
+is not in a position to take the offensive
+to assist them. If, on the other hand, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
+Turkish army of the south declines battle at
+Aleppo and retires to defend the Taurus passage,
+after abandoning half their Empire to the
+Allies, the latter will, if they have not previously
+anticipated it, have a difficult problem
+to solve as to how they are going to get their
+large forces in the south over the Taurus range
+to assist the Grand Duke in the final struggle.
+The forcing of the Taurus passage will mean
+fighting on a narrow front and will take time.</p>
+
+<p>So far this campaign had been conducted
+as one of India's little wars, which come as
+regularly as intermittent fever.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Russians
+enter
+Armenia
+and later
+withdraw.</div>
+
+<p>When Turkey entered the war she reckoned
+that Russia was so busy on the German and
+Austrian frontiers as to be unable to meet
+an attack in her rear. Turkey thereupon concentrated
+her main armies at Erzerum and invaded
+Caucasia. The Russians beat them back
+and entered Armenia, where the inhabitants
+assisted them. The same cause which led to
+the retirement from Poland&mdash;shortage of ammunition&mdash;compelled
+the Russians also to withdraw
+from Armenia.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Britain's
+reverse at
+Gallipoli.</div>
+
+<p>Contemporary with these events, Britain met
+with a severe reverse on the Gallipoli peninsula,
+which likewise injured her prestige in the East.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">An Anglo-Russian
+campaign
+from
+Kurna to
+the Black
+Sea.</div>
+
+<p>It became a matter of first importance with
+both Britain and Russia that they should not
+only reinstate their prestige in the East in
+striking fashion, but that they should end once
+and for all time German intrigue and Turkish
+weakness in the East. These considerations
+were contributing factors in bringing about a
+joint war council and an Allied Grand Staff.
+The latter immediately took hold of the military
+situation in Asiatic Turkey, and the isolated
+operations of Britain and Russia in these parts
+now changed into a great Anglo-Russian campaign
+stretching from the junction of the Euphrates
+and Tigris rivers to the Black Sea.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The drama unfolding before us promises to
+be one of the most sensational in the great
+world war. The end of the Ottoman Empire
+appears in sight. Its heirs and successors may
+be the other great Moslem powers&mdash;Britain,
+Russia, France, and Italy. The last two have
+yet to be heard from on the western shores of
+Asia Minor.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+possible
+future.</div>
+
+<p>The future may see the British in possession
+of Turkey's first capital, Mosul; the French
+in possession of their second capital, Konia;
+the Russians in possession of their third and
+last capital, Constantinople, and the Italians
+occupying Smyrna. Each of these powers is a
+Mohammedan empire in itself; and the greatest
+Moslem country in the world is the British
+Empire.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Britain
+may be
+stronger
+than ever
+in the
+East.</div>
+
+<p>The Moslems in India not only approve of
+the idea of removing the Sheik-Ul-Islam, head
+of the Mohammedan creed, from Constantinople
+to Delhi or Cairo, under British protection,
+but the head of their church in India volunteered
+as a private soldier to fight in France,
+and is now with the Anglo-Indian army in
+Mesopotamia. It would seem as if Britain
+and Russia, at the end of this war, would find
+themselves stronger than ever in the East.</p>
+<div class='center'><br /><br /><small>Copyright, American Review of Reviews, April, 1916.</small></div>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Great Britain suffered one of her greatest
+losses during the war on June 7, 1916,
+when the cruiser <i>Hampshire</i>, on board of which
+was Earl Kitchener on his way to Russia, was
+sunk by a German mine or torpedo. Over 300
+lives were lost in this disaster. Earl Kitchener
+had been throughout the war the chief
+force in raising and training the British
+army, and to his ability and zeal was due
+largely the great feats of landing large numbers
+of British troops in France within a time
+which in the period of peace would have been
+considered impossible.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span></p>
+<h2>KITCHENER</h2>
+
+<h3>LADY ST. HELIER</h3>
+
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Lord
+Kitchener
+a mystery
+to the
+outside
+world.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Fond
+of old
+friends.</div>
+
+<p>To the outside world Lord Kitchener was
+something of a mystery; they knew little
+of him personally, he shunned publicity, he
+was not a seeker after popularity. Though he
+had few personal friends, he was endeared to
+that chosen few in a way unique and rare. He
+was shy and reserved about the deep things of
+life, but a charming companion in ordinary
+ways&mdash;very amusing and agreeable. He had a
+great sense of humor, and his rapid intuition
+gave him a wonderful insight into character,
+and he soon arrived at a just estimate of people,
+and of the motives of those with whom he came
+into contact. He did not make many new
+friends, and the people who knew him well,
+and with whom his holidays or hours of relaxation
+were passed, were confined to those
+he had known for many years. He always impressed
+one with a deep sense of decency in
+conversation and conduct; one felt in talking
+to him how impossible it would be to drift into
+the easy-going discussion of questions and
+problems of our modern life, and it seemed impossible
+to imagine his taking a silent acquiescence
+in the jokes and insinuations which are
+not considered now extraordinary or unpleasant.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Economy
+in expenditure
+in
+Egypt.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Kitchener's
+unsparing
+activity
+in South
+Africa.</div>
+
+<p>Lord Kitchener's strength lay in the fact that
+his views broadened as he went on in life. As
+long as he was confined to Egypt and had to
+carry out his task with the minimum of force
+and expenditure, he was careful even to penuriousness,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
+and his subordinates groaned under
+his exacting economy; but he was justified in
+his care by the wonderful development of the
+country devolving from his unsparing activity.
+When he went to South Africa with a great
+staff and unlimited funds, he took a new departure.
+He worked himself unceasingly, and
+exacted the same from those around him, but
+he recognized inevitable limitations and was
+most considerate.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Medical
+aid for
+Egyptian
+women
+organized.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Trained
+English
+nurses
+sent to
+Egypt.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Lives of
+babies
+saved.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Expected
+to return
+to Egypt.</div>
+
+<p>Ceaseless activity characterized his work in
+Egypt, when he went there after failing to be
+appointed Viceroy of India, which most of his
+friends anticipated, and which he would have
+accepted. Perhaps Egypt was a disappointment
+after the wider sphere India presented,
+but nothing ever prevented him from doing
+what came to him to do and giving his best
+to it. When he returned there, the question
+of infant mortality and the unhygienic condition
+of Egyptian women during child-bearing,
+from the neglect and ignorance of the most
+elementary measures, came under his observation,
+and he was deeply interested in devising
+means of providing medical treatment for
+them, and of training native women in midwifery
+and all that would conduce to improving
+the conditions under which they lived. He
+enlisted the sympathy and interest of the wives
+of officials, and of Englishwomen in Egypt, and
+carried out a scheme which in itself was a wonderful
+example of what his interest and driving
+power could accomplish. These women whose
+help he enlisted could tell endless stories of
+the task he set them to do and his tacit refusal
+to listen to any difficulties that arose in carrying
+it out. A number of trained English nurses
+were despatched to Egypt and sent to different
+localities, where they gave training to a large
+number of native women in midwifery and
+kindred subjects. The scheme was a great success,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>
+and the benefit it has been to thousands
+of native women is indescribable, as regards
+both their general treatment and the care of
+themselves and their children at birth. Little
+was known about the subject in England, and
+much less about all that was done to mitigate
+the evil; but it was a wonderful piece of administration,
+though perhaps not one that appealed
+specially to him; and when some one,
+knowing what had been achieved, congratulated
+him on his success and the boon it was to the
+women in Egypt, his characteristic reply was:
+"I am told I have saved the lives of ten thousand
+babies. I suppose that is something to
+have done." At that time, only a fortnight before
+the prospect of war seemed possible, he
+was talking with the keenest interest of his return
+to Egypt and of what he had still to do
+there.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The dinner
+at Lord
+French's.</div>
+
+<p>There are incidents in life which leave lasting
+impressions, and one of a large dinner at
+Lord French's about the same time, at which
+Lord K., Lord Haldane, and others were present,
+comes to my mind; probably no one there
+but those three men had an idea of the threatening
+cloud which broke in so short a time
+over England, and the important part two of
+them would take in it. Lord K., as the world
+knows, was on the point of returning to Egypt;
+in fact, he had started when he was recalled,
+almost on board the steamer at Dover.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The country
+expects Lord
+Kitchener
+to head
+the War
+Office.</div>
+
+<p>The two questions which moved the soul of
+the English people to its deepest depth were,
+undoubtedly, what part the country was going
+to take when it was realized that war was inevitable,
+and, after that, who was to preside
+at the War Office. There might have been
+hesitation on the one point; on the other there
+was none, and the silent, deep determination
+with which the people waited to be told that
+Lord Kitchener was to be Secretary of State<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
+for War can only be realized by those who
+went through those anxious days. There was
+never a doubt or hesitation in the mind of the
+country that Lord K. was the only person who
+could satisfy its requirements, and the acclamation
+with which the news flashed through the
+country when he was appointed Secretary of
+State for War was overwhelming, while those
+who were thrown into contact with him give a
+marvelous account of the cool, rapid, and
+soldier-like way in which he accepted the great
+position. He quickly installed himself at the
+War Office, even to sleeping there, so that he
+was ever at the call of his office, and lived there
+till Lady Wantage placed her house in Carlton
+Gardens, close by, at his disposal. Later on
+the King offered him St. James's Palace, and
+those neighbors who rose early enough saw
+him daily start off on his morning walk to his
+office, where he remained all day.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Lord
+Kitchener's
+arduous
+two years.</div>
+
+<p>The last two crowded years of Lord Kitchener's
+life, full of their anxieties and responsibilities,
+had not changed him; but though he
+had aged, and the constant strain had told on
+him, he had altered outwardly but little. The
+office life was irksome, and the want of exercise
+to a man of his active habits very trying,
+for he hardly ever left London except for an
+occasional week-end at Broome. His intended
+visit to Russia was not known, and, like so
+many of his visits to France and the army at
+the front, were only made public after his return.
+Those who saw him that last week and
+knew of his going, tell how he longed for the
+change and how eagerly he looked forward to
+his holiday.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+great task
+completed.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The farewell
+visit
+to the
+King and
+to the
+Grand
+Fleet.</div>
+
+<p>The last few months, with the controversies
+over conscription, had harassed him. He was
+not a keen believer in the conscript principle;
+he was more than justified in his preference
+for a voluntary army by the response he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>
+received on his appeal to the manhood of England.
+There was a wonderful completion of
+the task he had undertaken in those last few
+days. He had raised his millions, and the
+country had accepted the inevitable imposition
+of compulsion, and with it that chapter of his
+life was finished. He had met the House of
+Commons, and, uncertain as the result of that
+conference was, like all he did, it was one of
+his greatest successes. He had no indecision
+when it was proposed to him that he should
+meet the Commons, and, as was always the
+case, the result was never in doubt. What
+passed has never been divulged, but he left an
+impression on the two hundred members who
+were present which was perhaps one of the
+best tributes ever paid him. After his farewell
+to the King, his last visit to Broome and to
+Sir John Jellicoe and the Grand Fleet, he set
+sail for the shore he never reached, and the end
+had come. It was perhaps the most perfect end
+of such a life&mdash;a life full of high endeavor and
+completion. The service he had rendered his
+country by raising her armies and foreseeing
+the probable duration of the war could not
+have been performed by any other living man.
+If, as his critics say, he depended too much
+on his own individual endeavors, he was not to
+be blamed when we read day by day of the
+glorious deeds of the armies he had created.</p>
+
+<p>The country staggered under the blow of his
+death, and one can never forget the silent grief
+and dismay of that dreadful day with its horrible
+tragedy. The grief was universal and
+personal, and the tributes to his work and
+memory were spoken from the heart by the
+great leaders of both parties. No more touching
+and pathetic tribute was ever said than the
+speech made by Lord Derby in the House of
+Lords on the resolution in reference to his
+death. There is not one word to be altered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
+from beginning to end, but the concluding
+words must go to every heart and find an
+echo:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The whole
+machinery
+of the
+new
+armies in
+running
+order.</div>
+
+<p>Lord Kitchener said good-by to the nation at
+a moment when he left the whole of the machinery
+of the great armies that he had created
+in running order, and when it only required
+skilled engineers to keep going his work. It
+was really as if Providence in its wisdom had
+given him the rest he never would have given
+to himself.</p>
+
+<p>With the memory of a great naval battle
+fresh in our minds we must all realize how
+rich a harvest of death the sea has reaped.
+We in these islands from time immemorial had
+paid a heavy toll to the sea for our insular
+security, but, speaking as the friend of a
+friend, I can say that the sea never executed
+a heavier toll than when Lord Kitchener, coffined
+in a British man-of-war, passed to the
+Great Beyond.</p>
+<div class='center'><br /><br /><small>Copyright, Harper's Magazine, October, 1916.</small></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>How and why America joined with the
+Allies against Germany in April, 1917, is told
+in the three articles following. The summaries
+contained therein are official, and the war
+message of President Wilson condenses the reasons
+which impelled the United States, after
+long delay, to throw the force of its strength
+and resources against the German Empire.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span></p>
+<h2>WHY AMERICA BROKE WITH<br />
+GERMANY</h2>
+
+<h3>PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON</h3>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germany
+proclaims
+ruthless
+submarine
+warfare.</div>
+
+<p>The Imperial German Government on the
+31st day of January announced to this
+Government and to the Governments of
+the other neutral nations that on and after
+the 1st day of February, the present month, it
+would adopt a policy with regard to the use
+of submarines against all shipping seeking to
+pass through certain designated areas of the
+high seas, to which it is clearly my duty to
+call your attention.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+<i>Sussex</i>
+case.</div>
+
+<p>Let me remind the Congress that on the 18th
+of April last, in view of the sinking on the
+24th of March of the cross-channel steamship
+<i>Sussex</i> by a German submarine without summons
+or warning, and the consequent loss of
+lives of several citizens of the United States
+who were passengers aboard her, this Government
+addressed a note to the Imperial German
+Government, in which it made the following
+statement:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The note
+to the
+Imperial
+German
+Government.</div>
+
+<p>"If it is still the purpose of the Imperial
+German Government to prosecute relentless
+and indiscriminate warfare against vessels of
+commerce by the use of submarines without regard
+to what the Government of the United
+States must consider the sacred and indisputable
+rules of international law and the universally
+recognized dictates of humanity, the
+Government of the United States is at last
+forced to the conclusion that there is but one
+course it can pursue. Unless the Imperial Government<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>
+should now immediately declare and
+effect an abandonment of its present methods
+of submarine warfare against passenger and
+freight carrying vessels, the Government of the
+United States can have no choice but to sever
+diplomatic relations with the German Empire
+altogether."</p>
+
+<p>In reply to this declaration the Imperial
+German Government gave this Government the
+following assurance:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germany's
+assurances
+to the
+United
+States.</div>
+
+<p>"The German Government is prepared to
+do its utmost to confine the operations of war
+for the rest of its duration to the fighting
+forces of the belligerents, thereby also insuring
+the freedom of the seas, a principle upon which
+the German Government believes now, as before,
+to be in agreement with the Government
+of the United States.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Promises
+that
+merchant
+vessels
+shall not
+be sunk
+without
+warning.</div>
+
+<p>"The German Government, guided by this
+idea, notifies the Government of the United
+States that the German naval forces have received
+the following orders: In accordance
+with the general principles of visit and search
+and destruction of merchant vessels recognized
+by international law, such vessels, both within
+and without the area declared a naval war
+zone, shall not be sunk without warning and
+without saving human lives, unless these ships
+attempt to escape or offer resistance.</p>
+
+<p>"But," it added, "neutrals cannot expect that
+Germany, forced to fight for her existence,
+shall, for the sake of neutral interest, restrict
+the use of an effective weapon if her enemy is
+permitted to continue to apply at will methods
+of warfare violating the rules of international
+law. Such a demand would be incompatible
+with the character of neutrality, and the German
+Government is convinced that the Government
+of the United States does not think
+of making such a demand, knowing that the
+Government of the United States has repeatedly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>
+declared that it is determined to restore
+the principle of the freedom of the seas, from
+whatever quarter it has been violated."</p>
+
+<p>To this the Government of the United States
+replied on the 8th of May, accepting, of course,
+the assurance given, but adding:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The reply
+of the
+United
+States.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rights of
+American
+citizens
+do not
+depend on
+conduct of
+another
+government.</div>
+
+<p>"The Government of the United States feels
+it necessary to state that it takes it for granted
+that the Imperial German Government does
+not intend to imply that the maintenance of
+its newly announced policy is in any way contingent
+upon the course or result of diplomatic
+negotiations between the Government of the
+United States and any other belligerent Government,
+notwithstanding the fact that certain
+passages in the Imperial Government's note of
+the 4th inst. might appear to be susceptible of
+that construction. In order, however, to avoid
+any misunderstanding, the Government of the
+United States notifies the Imperial Government
+that it cannot for a moment entertain, much
+less discuss, a suggestion that respect by German
+naval authorities for the rights of citizens
+of the United States upon the high seas should
+in any way or in the slightest degree be made
+contingent upon the conduct of any other Government,
+affecting the rights of neutrals and
+noncombatants. Responsibility in such matters
+is single, not joint, absolute, not relative."</p>
+
+<p>To this note of the 8th of May the Imperial
+German Government made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>On the 31st of January, the Wednesday of
+the present week, the German Ambassador
+handed to the Secretary of State, along with
+a formal note, a memorandum which contained
+the following statement:</p>
+
+<p>"The Imperial Government therefore does not
+doubt that the Government of the United States
+will understand the situation thus forced upon
+Germany by the Entente Allies' brutal methods
+of war and by their determination to destroy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>
+the Central Powers, and that the Government
+of the United States will further realize that
+the now openly disclosed intention of the Entente
+Allies gives back to Germany the freedom
+of action which she reserved in her note addressed
+to the Government of the United States
+on May 4, 1916.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germany
+will sink
+all ships
+within
+zone proclaimed.</div>
+
+<p>"Under these circumstances, Germany will
+meet the illegal measures of her enemies by
+forcibly preventing, after February 1, 1917, in
+a zone around Great Britain, France, Italy,
+and in the Eastern Mediterranean, all navigation,
+that of neutrals included, from and to
+England and from and to France, &amp;c. All ships
+met within the zone will be sunk."</p>
+
+<p>I think that you will agree with me that,
+in view of this declaration, which suddenly
+and without prior intimation of any kind deliberately
+withdraws the solemn assurance
+given in the Imperial Government's note of the
+4th of May, 1916, this Government has no
+alternative consistent with the dignity and
+honor of the United States but to take the
+course which, in its note of the 18th of April,
+1916, it announced that it would take in the
+event that the German Government did not declare
+and effect an abandonment of the
+methods of submarine warfare which it was
+then employing and to which it now purposes
+again to resort.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Diplomatic
+relations
+with Germany
+are
+severed.</div>
+
+<p>I have therefore directed the Secretary of
+State to announce to his Excellency the German
+Ambassador that all diplomatic relations
+between the United States and the German
+Empire are severed and that the American
+Ambassador to Berlin will immediately be
+withdrawn; and, in accordance with this decision,
+to hand to his Excellency his passports.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Hard to
+believe
+Germany
+will carry
+out
+threats.</div>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding this unexpected action of
+the German Government, this sudden and deplorable
+renunciation of its assurances, given<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
+this Government at one of the most critical
+moments of tension in the relations of the
+two Governments, I refuse to believe that it
+is the intention of the German authorities to
+do in fact what they have warned us they will
+feel at liberty to do. I cannot bring myself
+to believe that they will indeed pay no regard
+to the ancient friendship between their people
+and our own or to the solemn obligations
+which have been exchanged between them, and
+destroy American ships and take the lives of
+American citizens in the willful prosecution
+of the ruthless naval program they have announced
+their intention to adopt. Only actual
+overt acts on their part can make me believe
+it even now.</p>
+
+<p>If this inveterate confidence on my part in
+the sobriety and prudent foresight of their
+purpose should unhappily prove unfounded; if
+American ships and American lives should in
+fact be sacrificed by their naval commanders
+in heedless contravention on the just and reasonable
+understandings of international law
+and the obvious dictates of humanity, I shall
+take the liberty of coming again before the
+Congress to ask that authority be given me to
+use any means that may be necessary for the
+protection of our seamen and our people in
+the prosecution of their peaceful and legitimate
+errands on the high seas. I can do nothing
+less. I take it for granted that all neutral Governments
+will take the same course.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">America
+does not
+desire war
+with
+Germany.</div>
+
+<p>We do not desire any hostile conflict with
+the Imperial German Government. We are
+the sincere friends of the German people, and
+earnestly desire to remain at peace with the
+Government which speaks for them. We shall
+not believe that they are hostile to us unless
+and until we are obliged to believe it; and we
+purpose nothing more than the reasonable defense
+of the undoubted rights of our people.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
+We wish to serve no selfish ends. We seek
+merely to stand true alike in thought and in
+action to the immemorial principles of our
+people, which I have sought to express in my
+address to the Senate only two weeks ago&mdash;seek
+merely to vindicate our rights to liberty
+and justice and an unmolested life. These are
+the bases of peace, not war. God grant that
+we may not be challenged to defend them by
+acts of willful injustice on the part of the Government
+of Germany!</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Reasons
+for addressing
+Congress.</div>
+
+<p>I have again asked the privilege of addressing
+you because we are moving through critical
+times during which it seems to me to be
+my duty to keep in close touch with the houses
+of Congress, so that neither counsel nor action
+shall run at cross-purposes between us.</p>
+
+<p>On the 3rd of February I officially informed
+you of the sudden and unexpected action of
+the Imperial German Government in declaring
+its intention to disregard the promises it
+had made to this Government in April last
+and undertake immediate submarine operations
+against all commerce, whether of belligerents
+or of neutrals, that should seek to
+approach Great Britain and Ireland, the Atlantic
+coasts of Europe, or the harbors of the
+Eastern Mediterranean and to conduct those
+operations without regard to the established
+restrictions of international practice, without
+regard to any considerations of humanity even
+which might interfere with their object.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+German
+ruthless
+policy in
+practice.</div>
+
+<p>That policy was forthwith put into practice.
+It has now been in active exhibition for nearly
+four weeks. Its practical results are not fully
+disclosed. The commerce of other neutral nations
+is suffering severely, but not, perhaps,
+very much more severely than it was already
+suffering before the 1st of February, when the
+new policy of the Imperial Government was
+put into operation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">American
+commerce
+suffers.</div>
+
+<p>We have asked the cooperation of the other
+neutral Governments to prevent these depredations,
+but I fear none of them has thought
+it wise to join us in any common course of
+action. Our own commerce has suffered, is
+suffering, rather in apprehension than in fact,
+rather because so many of our ships are
+timidly keeping to their home ports than because
+American ships have been sunk.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">American
+vessels
+sunk.</div>
+
+<p>Two American vessels have been sunk, the
+<i>Housatonic</i> and the <i>Lyman M. Law</i>. The case
+of the <i>Housatonic</i>, which was carrying foodstuffs
+consigned to a London firm, was essentially
+like the case of the <i>Frye</i>, in which,
+it will be recalled, the German Government
+admitted its liability for damages, and the
+lives of the crew, as in the case of the <i>Frye</i>,
+were safeguarded with reasonable care.</p>
+
+<p>The case of the <i>Law</i>, which was carrying
+lemon-box staves to Palermo, discloses a ruthlessness
+of method which deserves grave condemnation,
+but was accompanied by no circumstances
+which might not have been expected
+at any time in connection with the use
+of the submarine against merchantmen as the
+German Government has used it.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Congestion
+of
+shipping
+in American
+ports.</div>
+
+<p>In sum, therefore, the situation we find ourselves
+in with regard to the actual conduct
+of the German submarine warfare against commerce
+and its effects upon our own ships and
+people is substantially the same that it was
+when I addressed you on the 3rd of February,
+except for the tying up of our shipping in our
+own ports because of the unwillingness of our
+ship owners to risk their vessels at sea without
+insurance or adequate protection, and the
+very serious congestion of our commerce which
+has resulted&mdash;a congestion which is growing
+rapidly more and more serious every day.</p>
+
+<p>This, in itself, might presently accomplish,
+in effect, what the new German submarine orders<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>
+were meant to accomplish, so far as we
+are concerned. We can only say, therefore, that
+the overt act which I have ventured to hope
+the German commanders would in fact avoid
+has not occurred.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Indications
+that
+German
+ruthlessness
+will
+continue.</div>
+
+<p>But while this is happily true, it must be
+admitted that there have been certain additional
+indications and expressions of purpose
+on the part of the German press and the German
+authorities which have increased rather
+than lessened the impression that, if our ships
+and our people are spared, it will be because
+of fortunate circumstances or because the commanders
+of the German submarines which they
+may happen to encounter exercise an unexpected
+discretion and restraint, rather than because
+of the instructions under which those
+commanders are acting.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Situation
+full of
+danger.</div>
+
+<p>It would be foolish to deny that the situation
+is fraught with the gravest possibilities and
+dangers. No thoughtful man can fail to see
+that the necessity for definite action may come
+at any time if we are, in fact and not in word
+merely, to defend our elementary rights as a
+neutral nation. It would be most imprudent
+to be unprepared.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot in such circumstances be unmindful
+of the fact that the expiration of the term
+of the present Congress is immediately at hand
+by constitutional limitation and that it would
+in all likelihood require an unusual length of
+time to assemble and organize the Congress
+which is to succeed it.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+President
+asks for
+authority.</div>
+
+<p>I feel that I ought, in view of that fact, to
+obtain from you full and immediate assurance
+of the authority which I may need at
+any moment to exercise. No doubt I already
+possess that authority without special warrant
+of law, by the plain implication of my
+constitutional duties and powers; but I prefer
+in the present circumstances not to act upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>
+general implication. I wish to feel that the
+authority and the power of the Congress are
+behind me in whatever it may become necessary
+for me to do. We are jointly the servants
+of the people and must act together and
+in their spirit, so far as we can divine and
+interpret it.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Necessary
+to defend
+commerce
+and lives.</div>
+
+<p>No one doubts what it is our duty to do.
+We must defend our commerce and the lives
+of our people in the midst of the present trying
+circumstances with discretion but with
+clear and steadfast purpose. Only the method
+and the extent remain to be chosen, upon the
+occasion, if occasion should indeed arise.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Diplomatic
+means
+fail.</div>
+
+<p>Since it has unhappily proved impossible to
+safeguard our neutral rights by diplomatic
+means against the unwarranted infringements
+they are suffering at the hands of Germany,
+there may be no recourse but to armed neutrality,
+which we shall know how to maintain
+and for which there is abundant American
+precedent.</p>
+
+<p>It is devoutly to be hoped that it will not
+be necessary to put armed forces anywhere
+into action. The American people do not desire
+it, and our desire is not different from
+theirs. I am sure that they will understand
+the spirit in which I am now acting, the purpose
+I hold nearest my heart and would wish
+to exhibit in everything I do.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Wilson
+the friend
+of peace.</div>
+
+<p>I am anxious that the people of the nations
+at war also should understand and not mistrust
+us. I hope that I need give no further
+proofs and assurances than I have already
+given throughout nearly three years of anxious
+patience that I am the friend of peace and
+mean to preserve it for America so long as I
+am able. I am not now proposing or contemplating
+war or any steps that need lead to it.
+I merely request that you will accord me by
+your own vote and definite bestowal the means<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
+and the authority to safeguard in practice the
+right of a great people, who are at peace and
+who are desirous of exercising none but the
+rights of peace, to follow the pursuit of peace
+in quietness and good-will&mdash;rights recognized
+time out of mind by all the civilized nations of
+the world.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">America
+not seeking
+war.</div>
+
+<p>No course of my choosing or of theirs will
+lead to war. War can come only by the willful
+acts and aggressions of others.</p>
+
+<p>You will understand why I can make no
+definite proposals or forecasts of action now
+and must ask for your supporting authority
+in the most general terms. The form in which
+action may become necessary cannot yet be
+foreseen.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Merchant
+ships
+should be
+supplied
+with defensive
+arms.</div>
+
+<p>I believe that the people will be willing to
+trust me to act with restraint, with prudence,
+and in the true spirit of amity and good faith
+that they have themselves displayed throughout
+these trying months; and it is in that
+belief that I request that you will authorize
+me to supply our merchant ships with defensive
+arms should that become necessary, and
+with the means of using them, and to employ
+any other instrumentalities or methods that
+may be necessary and adequate to protect our
+ships and our people in their legitimate and
+peaceful pursuits on the seas. I request also
+that you will grant me at the same time, along
+with the powers I ask, a sufficient credit to
+enable me to provide adequate means of protection
+where they are lacking, including adequate
+insurance against the present war risks.</p>
+
+<p>I have spoken of our commerce and of the
+legitimate errands of our people on the seas,
+but you will not be misled as to my main
+thought&mdash;the thought that lies beneath these
+phrases and gives them dignity and weight.
+It is not of material interest merely that we
+are thinking. It is, rather, of fundamental<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
+human rights, chief of all the rights of life
+itself.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">To protect
+the lives
+of noncombatants.</div>
+
+<p>I am thinking not only of the right of Americans
+to go and come about their proper business
+by way of the sea, but also of something
+much deeper, much more fundamental than
+that. I am thinking of those rights of humanity
+without which there is no civilization. My
+theme is of those great principles of compassion
+and of protection which mankind has
+sought to throw about human lives, the lives
+of noncombatants, the lives of men who are
+peacefully at work keeping the industrial processes
+of the world quick and vital, the lives
+of women and children and of those who supply
+the labor which ministers to their sustenance.
+We are speaking of no selfish material rights,
+but of rights which our hearts support and
+whose foundation is that righteous passion for
+justice upon which all law, all structures alike
+of family, of State, and of mankind must rest,
+as upon the ultimate base of our existence and
+our liberty.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot imagine any man with American
+principles at his heart hesitating to defend
+these things.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p>
+<h2>HOW THE WAR CAME TO<br />
+AMERICA</h2>
+
+<h3>OFFICIAL ACCOUNT</h3>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Monroe
+Doctrine
+a warning
+to the
+old world.</div>
+
+<p>In the years when the Republic was still
+struggling for existence, in the face of
+threatened encroachments by hostile monarchies
+over the sea, in order to make the New
+World safe for democracy our forefathers established
+here the policy that soon came to be
+known as the Monroe Doctrine. Warning the
+Old World not to interfere in the political life
+of the New, our Government pledged itself in
+return to abstain from interference in the political
+conflicts of Europe; and history has vindicated
+the wisdom of this course. We were
+then too weak to influence the destinies of
+Europe, and it was vital to mankind that this
+first great experiment in government of and
+by the people should not be disturbed by foreign
+attack.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Our
+isolation
+fast becoming
+imaginary.</div>
+
+<p>Reenforced by the experience of our expanding
+national life, this doctrine has been ever
+since the dominating element in the growth
+of our foreign policy. Whether or not we
+could have maintained it in case of concerted
+attack from abroad, it has seemed of such importance
+to us that we were at all times ready
+to go to war in its defense. And though since
+it was first enunciated our strength has grown
+by leaps and bounds, although in that time the
+vast increase in our foreign trade and of travel
+abroad, modern transport, modern mails, the
+cables, and the wireless have brought us close
+to Europe and have made our isolation more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
+and more imaginary, there has been until the
+outbreak of the present conflict small desire
+on our part to abrogate, or even amend, the old
+familiar tradition which has for so long given
+us peace.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">American
+statement
+in the
+minutes of
+The
+Hague.</div>
+
+<p>In both conferences at The Hague, in 1899
+and 1907, we reaffirmed this policy. As our
+delegates signed the First Convention in regard
+to arbitration, they read into the minutes this
+statement:</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing contained in this convention shall
+be so construed as to require the United States
+of America to depart from its traditional policy
+of not intruding upon, interfering with, or entangling
+itself in the political questions or policy
+or internal administration of any foreign
+State; nor shall anything contained in the said
+convention be construed to imply a relinquishment
+by the United States of America of its
+traditional attitude toward purely American
+questions."</p>
+
+<p>On the eve of the war our position toward
+other nations might have been summarized under
+three heads:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Monroe
+Doctrine.</div>
+
+<p>I. The Monroe Doctrine.&mdash;We had pledged
+ourselves to defend the New World from European
+aggression, and we had by word and
+deed made it clear that we would not intervene
+in any European dispute.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Freedom
+of
+the Seas.</div>
+
+<p>II. The Freedom of the Seas.&mdash;In every
+naval conference our influence had been given
+in support of the principle that sea law to be
+just and worthy of general respect must be
+based on the consent of the governed.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Settlement
+of disputes
+by arbitration.</div>
+
+<p>III. Arbitration.&mdash;As we had secured peace
+at home by referring interstate disputes to a
+Federal tribunal, we urged a similar settlement
+of international controversies. Our ideal was
+a permanent world court. We had already
+signed arbitration treaties not only with great
+powers which might conceivably attack us, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>
+even more freely with weaker neighbors in
+order to show our good faith in recognizing the
+equality of all nations both great and small.
+We had made plain to the nations our purpose
+to forestall by every means in our power the
+recurrence of wars in the world.</p>
+
+<p>The outbreak of war in 1914 caught this
+nation by surprise. The peoples of Europe
+had had at least some warnings of the coming
+storm, but to us such a blind, savage onslaught
+on the ideals of civilization had appeared impossible.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The war
+incomprehensible.</div>
+
+<p>The war was incomprehensible. Either side
+was championed here by millions living among
+us who were of European birth. Their contradictory
+accusations threw our thought into
+disarray, and in the first chaotic days we could
+see no clear issue that affected our national
+policy. There was not direct assault on our
+rights. It seemed at first to most of us a
+purely European dispute, and our minds were
+not prepared to take sides in such a conflict.
+The President's proclamation of neutrality was
+received by us as natural and inevitable. It
+was quickly followed by his appeal to "the
+citizens of the Republic."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">American
+neutrality
+natural.</div>
+
+<p>"Every man who really loves America will
+act and speak in the true spirit of neutrality,"
+he said, "which is the spirit of impartiality and
+fairness and friendliness to all concerned.
+* * * It will be easy to excite passion and
+difficult to allay it." He expressed the fear
+that our nation might become divided in camps
+of hostile opinion. "Such divisions among us
+* * * might seriously stand in the way of the
+proper performance of our duty as the one
+great nation at peace, the one people holding
+itself ready to play a part of impartial mediation
+and speak counsels of peace and accommodation,
+not as a partisan, but as a
+friend."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The United
+States
+must be
+the
+mediator.</div>
+
+<p>This purpose&mdash;the preservation of a strict
+neutrality in order that later we might be of
+use in the great task of mediation&mdash;dominated
+all the President's early speeches.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Invasion
+of Belgium
+stirs
+American
+opinion.</div>
+
+<p>The spirit of neutrality was not easy to
+maintain. Public opinion was deeply stirred
+by the German invasion of Belgium and by reports
+of atrocities there. The Royal Belgian
+Commission, which came in September, 1914,
+to lay their country's cause for complaint before
+our National Government, was received
+with sympathy and respect. The President in
+his reply reserved our decision in the affair.
+It was the only course he could take without
+an abrupt departure from our most treasured
+traditions of non-interference in Old World
+disputes. But the sympathy of America went
+out to the Belgians in the heroic tragedy, and
+from every section of our land money contributions
+and supplies of food and clothing
+poured over to the Commission for Relief in
+Belgium, which was under the able management
+of our fellow-countrymen abroad.</p>
+
+<p>Still, the thought of taking an active part in
+this European war was very far from most of
+our minds. The nation shared with the President
+the belief that by maintaining a strict
+neutrality we could best serve Europe at the
+end as impartial mediators.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Complication
+on
+the seas
+imperils
+American
+neutrality.</div>
+
+<p>But in the very first days of the war our
+Government foresaw that complications on the
+seas might put us in grave risk of being drawn
+into the conflict. No neutral nation could foretell
+what violations of its vital interests at
+sea might be attempted by the belligerents.
+And so, on August 6, 1914, our Secretary of
+State dispatched an identical note to all the
+powers then at war, calling attention to the
+risk of serious trouble arising out of this uncertainty
+of neutrals as to their maritime
+rights, and proposing that the Declaration of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>
+London be accepted by all nations for the duration
+of the war.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German
+Government
+stirs
+opinion
+hostile to
+United
+States.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">American
+policy not
+inconsistent
+with
+American
+traditions.</div>
+
+<p>In the first year of the war the Government
+of Germany stirred up among its people a feeling
+of resentment against the United States on
+account of our insistence upon our right as a
+neutral nation to trade in munitions with the
+belligerent powers. Our legal right in the
+matter was not seriously questioned by Germany.
+She could not have done so consistently,
+for as recently as the Balkan wars of 1912 and
+1913 both Germany and Austria sold munitions
+to the belligerents. Their appeals to us in the
+present war were not to observe international
+law, but to revise it in their interest. And
+these appeals they tried to make on moral and
+humanitarian grounds. But upon "the moral
+issue" involved, the stand taken by the United
+States was consistent with its traditional
+policy and with obvious common sense.</p>
+
+<p>For, if, with all other neutrals, we refused
+to sell munitions to belligerents, we could
+never in time of a war of our own obtain munitions
+from neutrals, and the nation which had
+accumulated the largest reserves of war supplies
+in time of peace would be assured of
+victory.</p>
+
+<p>The militarist State that invested its money
+in arsenals would be at a fatal advantage over
+the free people who invested their wealth in
+schools. To write into international law that
+neutrals should not trade in munitions would
+be to hand over the world to the rule of the
+nation with the largest armament factories.
+Such a policy the United States of America
+could not accept.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Controversy
+about
+German
+submarine
+war zone.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The sinking
+of the
+<i>Lusitania</i>.</div>
+
+<p>But our principal controversy with the German
+Government, and the one which rendered
+the situation at once acute, rose out of their
+announcement of a sea zone where their submarines
+would operate in violation of all accepted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>
+principles of international law. Our
+indignation at such a threat was soon rendered
+passionate by the sinking of the <i>Lusitania</i>.
+This attack upon our rights was not only
+grossly illegal; it defied the fundamental concepts
+of humanity.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Murder of
+noncombatants
+not to be
+settled by
+litigation.</div>
+
+<p>Aggravating restraints on our trade were
+grievances which could be settled by litigation
+after the war, but the wanton murder of peaceable
+men and of innocent women and children,
+citizens of a nation with which Germany
+was at peace, was a crime against the civilized
+world which could never be settled in any
+court.</p>
+
+<p>Our Government, however, inspired still by a
+desire to preserve peace if possible, used every
+resource of diplomacy to force the German
+Government to abandon such attacks. This
+diplomatic correspondence, which has already
+been published, proves beyond doubt that our
+Government sought by every honorable means
+to preserve faith in that mutual sincerity between
+nations which is the only basis of sound
+diplomatic interchange.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Bad faith
+of the
+Imperial
+German
+Government.</div>
+
+<p>But evidence of the bad faith of the Imperial
+German Government soon piled up on every
+hand. Honest efforts on our part to establish
+a firm basis of good neighborliness with the
+German people were met by their Government
+with quibbles, misrepresentations, and counter-accusations
+against their enemies abroad.</p>
+
+<p>And meanwhile in this country official agents
+of the Central Powers&mdash;protected from criminal
+prosecution by diplomatic immunity&mdash;conspired
+against our internal peace and
+placed spies and agents provocateurs throughout
+the length and breadth of our land, and
+even in high positions of trust in departments
+of our Government.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German
+agents in
+Latin
+America,
+in Japan
+and the
+West
+Indies.</div>
+
+<p>While expressing a cordial friendship for the
+people of the United States, the Government of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
+Germany had its agents at work both in Latin
+America and Japan. They bought or subsidized
+papers and supported speakers there to
+rouse feelings of bitterness and distrust against
+us in those friendly nations, in order to embroil
+us in war. They were inciting to insurrection
+in Cuba, in Haiti, and in Santo Domingo;
+their hostile hand was stretched out to
+take the Danish Islands; and everywhere in
+South America they were abroad sowing the
+seeds of dissension, trying to stir up one nation
+against another and all against the United
+States.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Assaults
+on the
+Monroe
+Doctrine.</div>
+
+<p>In their sum these various operations
+amounted to direct assault upon the Monroe
+Doctrine. And even if we had given up our
+right to travel on the sea, even if we had surrendered
+to German threats and abandoned our
+legitimate trade in munitions, the German offensive
+in the New World, in our own land and
+among our neighbors, was becoming too serious
+to be ignored.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Recall of
+the Austro-Hungarian
+Ambassador.</div>
+
+<p>So long as it was possible, the Government of
+the United States tried to believe that such activities,
+the evidence of which was already in
+a large measure at hand, were the work of irresponsible
+and misguided individuals. It was
+only reluctantly, in the face of overwhelming
+proof, that the recall of the Austro-Hungarian
+Ambassador and of the German Military and
+Naval Attach&eacute;s was demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Proof of their criminal violations of our
+hospitality was presented to their Governments.
+But these Governments in reply offered no
+apologies nor did they issue reprimands. It
+became clear that such intrigue was their
+settled policy.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime the attacks of the German
+submarines upon the lives and property of
+American citizens had gone on; the protests of
+our Government were now sharp and ominous,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
+and this nation was rapidly being drawn into
+a state of war.</p>
+
+<p>The break would have come sooner if our
+Government had not been restrained by the
+vain hope that saner counsels might still prevail
+in Germany. For it was well known
+to us that the German people had to a very
+large extent been kept in ignorance of many
+of the secret crimes of their Government
+against us.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Tension
+relieved
+by <i>Sussex</i>
+agreement.</div>
+
+<p>And the presence of a faction of German
+public opinion less hostile to this country was
+shown when their Government acquiesced to
+some degree in our demands at the time of the
+<i>Sussex</i> outrage, and for nearly a year maintained
+at least a pretense of observing the
+pledge they had made to us. The tension was
+abated.</p>
+
+<p>While the war spirit was growing in some
+sections of our nation, there was still no widespread
+desire to take part in the conflict
+abroad; for the tradition of non-interference in
+Europe's political affairs was too deeply
+rooted in our national life to be easily overthrown.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, two other considerations strengthened
+our Government in its efforts to remain
+neutral in this war. The first was our traditional
+sense of responsibility toward all the
+republics of the New World. Throughout the
+crisis our Government was in constant communication
+with the countries of Central and
+South America.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Opinion
+in Central
+and South
+America.</div>
+
+<p>They, too, preferred the ways of peace. And
+there was a very obvious obligation upon us to
+safeguard their interests with our own.</p>
+
+<p>The second consideration, which had been so
+often developed in the President's speeches, was
+the hope that by keeping aloof from the bitter
+passions abroad, by preserving untroubled here
+the holy ideals of civilized intercourse between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>
+nations, we might be free at the end of this war
+to bind up the wounds of the conflict, to be the
+restorers and rebuilders of the wrecked structure
+of the world.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German
+compliance
+not
+in good
+faith.</div>
+
+<p>All these motives held us back, but it was
+not long until we were beset by further complications.
+We soon had reason to believe that
+the recent compliance of the German Government
+had not been made to us in good faith,
+and was only temporary, and by the end of
+1916 it was plain that our neutral status had
+again been made unsafe through the ever-increasing
+aggressiveness of the German autocracy.
+There was a general agreement here
+with the statement of our President on October
+26, 1916, that this conflict was the last great
+war involving the world in which we would
+remain neutral.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Peace
+move on
+behalf of
+the
+Central
+powers.</div>
+
+<p>It was in this frame of mind, fearing we
+might be drawn into the war if it did not soon
+come to an end, that the President began the
+preparation of his note, asking the belligerent
+powers to define their war aims. But before
+he had completed it the world was surprised
+by the peace move of the German Government&mdash;an
+identical note on behalf of the German
+Empire, Austro-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey,
+sent through neutral powers on December
+12, 1916, to the Governments of the Allies proposing
+negotiations for peace.</p>
+
+<p>While expressing the wish to end this war&mdash;"a
+catastrophe which thousands of years of
+common civilization was unable to prevent and
+which injures the most precious achievements
+of humanity"&mdash;the greater portion of the note
+was couched in terms that gave small hope of
+a lasting peace.</p>
+
+<p>Boasting of German conquests, "the glorious
+deeds of our armies," the note implanted in
+neutral minds the belief that it was the purpose
+of the Imperial German Government to insist<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
+upon such conditions as would leave all
+Central Europe under German dominance and
+so build up an empire which would menace the
+whole liberal world.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A veiled
+threat to
+neutral
+nations.</div>
+
+<p>Moreover, the German proposal was accompanied
+by a thinly veiled threat to all neutral
+nations; and from a thousand sources, official
+and unofficial, the word came to Washington
+that unless the neutrals use their influence
+to bring the war to an end on terms dictated
+from Berlin, Germany and her allies would
+consider themselves henceforth free from any
+obligations to respect the rights of neutrals.</p>
+
+<p>The Kaiser ordered the neutrals to exert
+pressure on the Entente to bring the war to an
+abrupt end, or to beware of the consequences.
+Clear warnings were brought to our Government
+that if the German peace move should
+not be successful, the submarines would be unleashed
+for a more intense and ruthless war
+upon all commerce.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The President's
+note
+to the belligerents.</div>
+
+<p>On the 18th of December the President dispatched
+his note to all the belligerent powers,
+asking them to define their war aims. There
+was still hope in our minds that the mutual
+suspicions between the warring powers might
+be decreased, and the menace of future German
+aggression and dominance be removed, by finding
+a guaranty of good faith in a league of
+nations.</p>
+
+<p>There was a chance that by the creation of
+such a league as part of the peace negotiations
+the war could now be brought to an end before
+our nation was involved. Two statements issued
+to the press by our Secretary of State,
+upon the day the note was dispatched, threw a
+clear light on the seriousness with which our
+Government viewed the crisis.</p>
+
+<p>From this point events moved rapidly. The
+powers of the Entente replied to the German
+peace note. Neutral nations took action on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>
+note of the President, and from both belligerents
+replies to this note were soon in our
+hands.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The German
+reply
+evasive.</div>
+
+<p>The German reply was evasive&mdash;in accord
+with their traditional preference for diplomacy
+behind closed doors. Refusing to state to the
+world their terms, Germany and her allies
+merely proposed a conference. They adjourned
+all discussion of any plan for a league of peace
+until after hostilities should end.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Our concern
+the lasting
+restoration
+of peace.</div>
+
+<p>The response of the Entente Powers was
+frank and in harmony with our principal purpose.
+Many questions raised in the statement
+of their aims were so purely European in
+character as to have small interest for us; but
+our great concern in Europe was the lasting
+restoration of peace, and it was clear that this
+was also the chief interest of the Entente
+nations.</p>
+
+<p>As to the wisdom of some of the measures
+they proposed toward this end, we might differ
+in opinion, but the trend of their proposals
+was the establishment of just frontiers based
+on the rights of all nations, the small as well
+as the great, to decide their own destinies.</p>
+
+<p>The aims of the belligerents were now becoming
+clear. From the outbreak of hostilities
+the German Government had claimed that it
+was fighting a war of defense. But the tone of
+its recent proposals had been that of a conqueror.
+It sought a peace based on victory.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Central
+Empires
+desire
+domination
+over
+other
+races.</div>
+
+<p>The Central Empires aspired to extend their
+domination over other races. They were willing
+to make liberal terms to any one of their
+enemies, in a separate peace which would free
+their hands to crush other opponents. But
+they were not willing to accept any peace which
+did not, all fronts considered, leave them victors
+and the dominating imperial power of
+Europe.</p>
+
+<p>The war aims of the Entente showed a determination<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>
+to thwart this ambition of the
+Imperial German Government. Against the
+German peace to further German growth and
+aggression the Entente Powers offered a plan
+for a European peace that should make the
+whole Continent secure.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The kind
+of peace
+America
+desires.</div>
+
+<p>At this juncture the President read his address
+to the Senate, on January 22, 1917, in
+which he outlined the kind of peace the United
+States of America could join in guaranteeing.
+His words were addressed not only to the
+Senate and this nation, but to people of all
+countries:</p>
+
+<p>"May I not add that I hope and believe that
+I am in effect speaking for liberals and friends
+of humanity in every nation and of every program
+of liberty? I would fain believe that I
+am speaking for the silent mass of mankind
+everywhere who have as yet had no place or
+opportunity to speak their real hearts out concerning
+the death and ruin they see to have
+come already upon the persons and the homes
+they hold most dear."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The peace
+of the
+people.</div>
+
+<p>The address was a rebuke to those who still
+cherished dreams of a world dominated by one
+nation. For the peace he outlined was not that
+of a victorious Emperor, it was not the peace
+of C&aelig;sar. It was in behalf of all the world,
+and it was a peace of the people:</p>
+
+<p>"No peace can last, or ought to last, which
+does not recognize and accept the principle that
+Governments derive all their just powers from
+the consent of the governed, and that no right
+anywhere exists to hand people about from
+sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Each
+people
+should
+determine
+its own
+polity.</div>
+
+<p>"I am proposing, as it were, that the nations
+should with one accord adopt the doctrine of
+President Monroe as the doctrine of the world;
+that no nation should seek to extend its policy
+over any other nation or people, but that every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>
+people should be left free to determine its own
+polity, its own way of development, unhindered,
+unthreatened, unafraid, the little along
+with the great and powerful.</p>
+
+<p>"I am proposing that all nations henceforth
+avoid entangling alliances which would draw
+them into competitions of power, catch them
+in a net of intrigue and selfish rivalry and disturb
+their own affairs with influences intruded
+from without. There is no entangling alliance
+in a concert of power. When all unite to act
+in the same sense and with the same purpose,
+all act in the common interest and are free to
+live their own lives under a common protection.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Seas
+must be
+free.</div>
+
+<p>"I am proposing government by the consent
+of the governed; that freedom of the seas which
+in international conference after conference
+representatives of the United States have urged
+with the eloquence of those who are convinced
+disciples of liberty, and that moderation of
+armaments which makes of armies and navies
+a power for order merely, not an instrument of
+aggression or of selfish violence.</p>
+
+<p>"And the paths of the sea must, alike in law
+and in fact, be free. The freedom of the seas
+is the sine qua non of peace, equality, and co-operation.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Question
+of limiting
+armaments.</div>
+
+<p>"It is a problem closely connected with the
+limitation of naval armament and the co-operation
+of the navies of the world in keeping the
+seas at once free and safe. And the question
+of limiting naval armaments opens the wider
+and perhaps more difficult question of the limitation
+of armies and of all programs of military
+preparation. * * * There can be no sense
+of safety and equality among the nations if
+great preponderating armaments are henceforth
+to continue here and there to be built up and
+maintained.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">How peace
+must be
+made
+secure.</div>
+
+<p>"Mere agreements may not make peace secure.
+It will be absolutely necessary that a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>
+force be created as a guarantor of the permanency
+of the settlement so much greater than
+the force of any nation now engaged or any
+alliance hitherto formed or projected that no
+nation, no probable combination of nations,
+could face or withstand it. If the peace presently
+to be made is to endure, it must be a
+peace made secure by the organized major force
+of mankind."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Entente
+peoples
+welcome
+President
+Wilson's
+views.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+German
+note to
+Mexico.</div>
+
+<p>If there were any doubt in our minds as to
+which of the great alliances was the more in
+sympathy with these ideals, it was removed by
+the popular response abroad to this address of
+the President. For, while exception was taken
+to some parts of it in Britain and France, it
+was plain that so far as the peoples of the
+Entente were concerned the President had been
+amply justified in stating that he spoke for
+all forward-looking, liberal-minded men and
+women. It was not so in Germany. The people
+there who could be reached, and whose
+hearts were stirred by this enunciation of the
+principles of a people's peace, were too few or
+too oppressed to make their voices heard in the
+councils of their nation. Already, on January
+16, 1917, unknown to the people of Germany,
+Herr Zimmermann, their Secretary of
+Foreign Affairs, had secretly dispatched a note
+to their Minister in Mexico, informing him of
+the German intention to repudiate the <i>Sussex</i>
+pledge and instructing him to offer to the Mexican
+Government New Mexico and Arizona if
+Mexico would join with Japan in attacking the
+United States.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Sinister
+German
+intrigues
+in the
+New
+World.</div>
+
+<p>In the new year of 1917, as through our acceptance
+of world responsibilities so plainly indicated
+in the President's utterances in regard
+to a league of nations we felt ourselves now
+drawing nearer to a full accord with the
+Powers of the Entente; and, as on the other
+hand, we found ourselves more and more outraged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>
+at the German Government's methods of
+conducting warfare and their brutal treatment
+of people in their conquered lands; as we more
+and more uncovered their hostile intrigues
+against the peace of the New World; and,
+above all, as the sinister and anti-democratic
+ideals of their ruling class became manifest in
+their manoeuvres for a peace of conquest&mdash;the
+Imperial German Government abruptly threw
+aside the mask.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The new
+submarine
+war zone
+proclaimed.</div>
+
+<p>On the last day of January, 1917, Count
+Bernstorff handed to Mr. Lansing a note, in
+which his Government announced its purpose
+to intensify and render more ruthless the
+operations of their submarines at sea, in a
+manner against which our Government had protested
+from the beginning. The German Chancellor
+also stated before the Imperial Diet that
+the reason this ruthless policy had not been
+earlier employed was simply because the Imperial
+Government had not then been ready to
+act. In brief, under the guise of friendship
+and the cloak of false promises, it had been
+preparing this attack.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Count
+Bernstorff
+receives
+his
+passports.</div>
+
+<p>This was the direct challenge. There was
+no possible answer except to hand their Ambassador
+his passports and so have done with
+a diplomatic correspondence which had been
+vitiated from the start by the often proved bad
+faith of the Imperial Government.</p>
+
+<p>On the same day, February 3, 1917, the President
+addressed both houses of our Congress
+and announced the complete severance of our
+relations with Germany. The reluctance with
+which he took this step was evident in every
+word. But diplomacy had failed, and it would
+have been the hollowest pretense to maintain
+relations. At the same time, however, he made
+it plain that he did not regard this act as tantamount
+to a declaration of war. Here for the
+first time the President made his sharp distinction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>
+between government and people in undemocratic
+lands:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">American
+attitude
+toward the
+German
+people.</div>
+
+<p>"We are the sincere friends of the German
+people," he said, "and earnestly desire to remain
+at peace with the Government which
+speaks for them. * * * God grant we may
+not be challenged by acts of willful injustice
+on the part of the Government of Germany."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Submarine
+order
+must be
+withdrawn.</div>
+
+<p>In this address of the President, and in its
+indorsement by the Senate, there was a solemn
+warning; for we still had hope that the German
+Government might hesitate to drive us to
+war. But it was soon evident that our warning
+had fallen on deaf ears. The tortuous ways
+and means of German official diplomacy were
+clearly shown in the negotiations opened by
+them through the Swiss Legation on the 10th
+of February. In no word of their proposals did
+the German Government meet the real issue between
+us. And our State Department replied
+that no minor negotiations could be entertained
+until the main issue had been met by the withdrawal
+of the submarine order.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">President
+Wilson
+advises
+armed
+neutrality.</div>
+
+<p>By the 1st of March it had become plain that
+the Imperial Government, unrestrained by the
+warning in the President's address to Congress
+on February 3, was determined to make good
+its threat. The President then again appeared
+before Congress to report the development of
+the crisis and to ask the approval of the representatives
+of the nation for the course of armed
+neutrality upon which, under his constitutional
+authority, he had now determined. More than
+500 of the 531 members of the two houses of
+Congress showed themselves ready and anxious
+to act; and the armed neutrality declaration
+would have been accepted if it had not been for
+the legal death of the Sixty-fourth Congress on
+March 4.</p>
+
+<p>No "overt" act, however, was ordered by our
+Government until Count Bernstorff had reached<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
+Berlin and Mr. Gerard was in Washington.
+For the German Ambassador on his departure
+had begged that no irrevocable decision should
+be taken until he had had the chance to make
+one final plea for peace to his sovereign. We
+do not know the nature of his report to the
+Kaiser; we know only that, even if he kept his
+pledge and urged an eleventh-hour revocation
+of the submarine order, he was unable to sway
+the policy of the Imperial Government.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Armed
+guards on
+American
+merchant
+ships.</div>
+
+<p>And so, having exhausted every resource of
+patience, our Government on the 12th of March
+finally issued orders to place armed guards on
+our merchant ships.</p>
+
+<p>With the definite break in diplomatic relations
+there vanished the last vestige of cordiality
+toward the Government of Germany. Our
+attitude was now to change. So long as we
+had maintained a strict neutrality in the war,
+for the reason that circumstances might arise
+in which Europe would have need of an impartial
+mediator, for us to have given official heed
+to the accusations of either party would have
+been to prejudge the case before all the evidence
+was in.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germany
+is forcing
+the United
+States
+into war.</div>
+
+<p>But now at last, with the breaking of friendly
+relations with the German Government, we
+were relieved of the oppressive duty of endeavoring
+to maintain a judicial detachment
+from the rights and wrongs involved in the
+war. We were no longer the outside observers
+striving to hold an even balance of judgment
+between disputants. One party by direct attack
+upon our rights and liberties was forcing
+us into the conflict. And, much as we had
+hoped to keep out of the fray, it was no little
+relief to be free at last from that reserve which
+is expected of a judge.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Perfidy of
+the German
+Government.</div>
+
+<p>Much evidence had been presented to us of
+things so abhorrent to our ideas of humanity
+that they had seemed incredible, things we had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>
+been loath to believe, and with heavy hearts
+we had sought to reserve our judgment. But
+with the breaking of relations with the Government
+of Germany that duty at last was ended.
+The perfidy of that Government in its dealings
+with this nation relieved us of the necessity of
+striving to give them the benefit of the doubt
+in regard to their crimes abroad. The Government
+which under cover of profuse professions
+of friendship had tried to embroil us in war
+with Mexico and Japan could not expect us to
+believe in its good faith in other matters. The
+men whose paid agents dynamited our factories
+here were capable of the infamies reported
+against them over the sea. Their Government's
+protestations, that their purpose was self-defense
+and the freeing of small nations, fell like
+a house of cards before the revelation of their
+"peace terms."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The German
+record.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Arrogant
+intolerance
+of the
+Prussians.</div>
+
+<p>And judging the German Government now
+in the light of our own experience through
+the long and patient years of our honest attempt
+to keep the peace, we could see the great
+autocracy and read her record through the war.
+And we found that record damnable. Beginning
+long before the war in Prussian opposition
+to every effort that was made by other
+nations and our own to do away with warfare,
+the story of the autocracy has been one of
+vast preparations for war combined with an
+attitude of arrogant intolerance toward all
+other points of view, all other systems of
+governments, all other hopes and dreams of
+men.</p>
+
+<p>With a fanatical faith in the destiny of German
+Kultur as the system that must rule the
+world, the Imperial Government's actions have
+through years of boasting, double dealing, and
+deceit tended toward aggression upon the
+rights of others. And, if there still be any
+doubt as to which nation began this war, there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>
+can be no uncertainty as to which one was
+most prepared, most exultant at the chance,
+and ready instantly to march upon other nations&mdash;even
+those who had given no offense.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Atrocities
+in Belgium
+and Servia.</div>
+
+<p>The wholesale depredations and hideous
+atrocities in Belgium and in Serbia were doubtless
+part and parcel with the Imperial Government's
+purpose to terrorize small nations into
+abject submission for generations to come.
+But in this the autocracy has been blind. For
+its record in those countries, and in Poland
+and in Northern France, has given not only
+to the Allies but to liberal peoples throughout
+the world the conviction that this menace to
+human liberties everywhere must be utterly
+shorn of its power for harm.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German
+defiance
+of law and
+humanity.</div>
+
+<p>For the evil it has effected has ranged far
+out of Europe&mdash;out upon the open seas, where
+its submarines, in defiance of law and the concepts
+of humanity, have blown up neutral vessels
+and covered the waves with the dead and
+the dying, men and women and children alike.
+Its agents have conspired against the peace of
+neutral nations everywhere, sowing the seeds
+of dissension, ceaselessly endeavoring by tortuous
+methods of deceit, of bribery, false promises,
+and intimidation to stir up brother nations
+one against the other, in order that the
+liberal world might not be able to unite, in
+order that the autocracy might emerge triumphant
+from the war.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The rulers
+of Germany
+must go.</div>
+
+<p>All this we know from our own experience
+with the Imperial Government. As they have
+dealt with Europe, so they have dealt with us
+and with all mankind. And so out of these
+years the conviction has grown that until the
+German Nation is divested of such rulers democracy
+cannot be safe.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German
+relation
+with the
+Russian
+autocracy.</div>
+
+<p>There remained but one element to confuse
+the issue. One other great autocracy, the Government
+of the Russian Czar, had long been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>
+hostile to free institutions; it had been a
+stronghold of tyrannies reaching far back into
+the past, and its presence among the Allies
+had seemed to be in disaccord with the
+great liberal principles they were upholding
+in this war. Russia had been a source of
+doubt. Repeatedly during the conflict liberal
+Europe had been startled by the news of
+secret accord between the Kaiser and the
+Czar.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The people
+of Russia
+overthrow
+the Czar's
+Government.</div>
+
+<p>But now at this crucial time for our nation,
+on the eve of our entrance into the war, the
+free men of all the world were thrilled and
+heartened by the news that the people of Russia
+had risen to throw off their Government
+and found a new democracy; and the torch of
+freedom in Russia lit up the last dark phases
+of the situation abroad. Here, indeed, was a
+fit partner for the League of Honor. The conviction
+was finally crystallized in American
+minds and hearts that this war across the sea
+was no mere conflict between dynasties, but a
+stupendous civil war of all the world; a new
+campaign in the age-old war, the prize of which
+is liberty. Here, at last, was a struggle in
+which all who love freedom have a stake. Further
+neutrality on our part would have been a
+crime against our ancestors, who had given
+their lives that we might be free.</p>
+
+<p>"The world must be made safe for democracy."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The President's
+message to
+Congress.</div>
+
+<p>On the 2d of April, 1917, the President read
+to the new Congress his message, in which he
+asked the Representatives of the nation to declare
+the existence of a state of war, and
+in the early hours of the 6th of April the
+House by an overwhelming vote accepted the
+joint resolution which had already passed the
+Senate.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Whereas</i>, The Imperial German Government
+has committed repeated acts of war<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>
+against the Government and the people of the
+United States of America: Therefore be it</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The declaration
+of
+the existence
+of a
+state of
+war.</div>
+
+<p>"<i>Resolved</i> by the Senate and House of Representatives
+of the United States of America
+in Congress assembled, That the state of war
+between the United States and the Imperial
+German Government which has thus been
+thrust upon the United States is hereby formally
+declared; and that the President be,
+and he is hereby, authorized and directed to
+employ the entire naval and military forces of
+the United States and the resources of the
+Government to carry on the war against the
+Imperial German Government, and to bring
+the conflict to a successful termination all the
+resources of the country are hereby pledged by
+the Congress of the United States."</p>
+
+<p>Neutrality was a thing of the past. The
+time had come when the President's proud
+prophecy was fulfilled:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">America
+guided by
+moral
+force.</div>
+
+<p>"There will come that day when the world
+will say, 'This America that we thought was
+full of a multitude of contrary counsels now
+speaks with the great volume of the heart's accord,
+and that great heart of America has behind
+it the supreme moral force of righteousness
+and hope and the liberty of mankind.'"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE WAR MESSAGE</h2>
+
+<h3>PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON</h3>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Why Congress
+was
+called in
+extraordinary
+session.</div>
+
+<p>I have called the Congress into extraordinary
+session because there are serious,
+very serious, choices of policy to be made,
+and made immediately, which it was neither
+right nor constitutionally permissible that I
+should assume the responsibility of making.</p>
+
+<p>On the 3d of February last I officially laid
+before you the extraordinary announcement of
+the Imperial German Government that on and
+after the first day of February it was its purpose
+to put aside all restraints of law or of humanity
+and use its submarines to sink every
+vessel that sought to approach either the ports
+of Great Britain and Ireland or the western
+coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled
+by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The question
+of
+submarine
+warfare.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A cruel
+and unmanly
+business.</div>
+
+<p>That had seemed to be the object of the
+German submarine warfare earlier in the war,
+but since April of last year the Imperial Government
+had somewhat restrained the commanders
+of its undersea craft, in conformity
+with its promise, then given to us, that passenger
+boats should not be sunk and that due
+warning would be given to all other vessels
+which its submarines might seek to destroy,
+when no resistance was offered or escape attempted,
+and care taken that their crews were
+given at least a fair chance to save their lives
+in their open boats. The precautions taken
+were meagre and haphazard enough, as was
+proved in distressing instance after instance in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>
+the progress of the cruel and unmanly business,
+but a certain degree of restraint was
+observed.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germany
+sweeps all
+restriction
+away.</div>
+
+<p>The new policy has swept every restriction
+aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their
+flag, their character, their cargo, their destination,
+their errand, have been ruthlessly sent
+to the bottom without warning and without
+thought of help or mercy for those on board,
+the vessels of friendly neutrals along with
+those of belligerents. Even hospital ships and
+ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and
+stricken people of Belgium, though the latter
+were provided with safe conduct through the
+proscribed areas by the German Government
+itself and were distinguished by unmistakable
+marks of identity, have been sunk with the same
+reckless lack of compassion or of principle.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">International
+law on
+the seas.</div>
+
+<p>I was for a little while unable to believe
+that such things would in fact be done by any
+Government that had hitherto subscribed to
+humane practices of civilized nations. International
+law had its origin in the attempt to
+set up some law which would be respected and
+observed upon the seas, where no nation had
+right of dominion and where lay the free highways
+of the world. By painful stage after
+stage has that law been built up, with meagre
+enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished
+that could be accomplished, but always
+with a clear view, at least, of what the heart
+and conscience of mankind demanded.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germany
+shows no
+scruples of
+humanity.</div>
+
+<p>This minimum of right the German Government
+has swept aside, under the plea of retaliation
+and necessity and because it had no
+weapons which it could use at sea except these,
+which it is impossible to employ, as it is employing
+them, without throwing to the wind
+all scruples of humanity or of respect for the
+understandings that were supposed to underlie
+the intercourse of the world.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Lives
+cannot be
+paid for.</div>
+
+<p>I am not now thinking of the loss of property
+involved, immense and serious as that is,
+but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction
+of the lives of noncombatants, men,
+women, and children, engaged in pursuits
+which have always, even in the darkest periods
+of modern history, been deemed innocent and
+legitimate. Property can be paid for; the
+lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot
+be. The present German submarine warfare
+against commerce is a warfare against mankind.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">American
+lives
+taken at
+at sea.</div>
+
+<p>It is a war against all nations. American
+ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in
+ways which it has stirred us very deeply to
+learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral
+and friendly nations have been sunk and
+overwhelmed in the waters in the same way.
+There has been no discrimination.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Our
+motive
+vindication
+of
+human
+right.</div>
+
+<p>The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation
+must decide for itself how it will meet it.
+The choice we make for ourselves must be made
+with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness
+of judgment befitting our character and
+our motives as a nation. We must put excited
+feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge
+or the victorious assertion of the physical
+might of the nation, but only the vindication of
+right, of human right, of which we are only a
+single champion.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Submarines
+are
+in effect
+outlaws.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Must be
+dealt with
+on sight.</div>
+
+<p>When I addressed the Congress on the 26th
+of February last I thought that it would suffice
+to assert our neutral rights with arms, our
+right to use the seas against unlawful interference,
+our right to keep our people safe
+against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality,
+it now appears, is impracticable. Because
+submarines are in effect outlaws, when
+used as the German submarines have been
+used against merchant shipping, it is impossible
+to defend ships against their attacks, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>
+the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen
+would defend themselves against privateers
+or cruisers, visible craft giving chase
+upon the open sea. It is common prudence in
+such circumstances, grim necessity indeed, to
+endeavor to destroy them before they have
+shown their own intention. They must be dealt
+with upon sight, if dealt with at all.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Armed
+neutrality
+ineffectual</div>
+
+<p>The German Government denies the right of
+neutrals to use arms at all within the areas of
+the sea which it has proscribed, even in the
+defense of rights which no modern publicist
+has ever before questioned their right to defend.
+The intimation is conveyed that the
+armed guards which we have placed on our
+merchant ships will be treated as beyond the
+pale of law and subject to be dealt with as
+pirates would be. Armed neutrality is ineffectual
+enough at best; in such circumstances
+and in the face of such pretensions it is worse
+than ineffectual; it is likely only to produce
+what it was meant to prevent; it is practically
+certain to draw us into the war without either
+the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents.
+There is one choice we cannot make, we are
+incapable of making; we will not choose the
+path of submission and suffer the most sacred
+rights of our nation and our people to be ignored
+or violated. The wrongs against which
+we now array ourselves are no common
+wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human
+life.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Course of
+Germany
+actually
+war on the
+United
+States.</div>
+
+<p>With a profound sense of the solemn and
+even tragical character of the step I am taking
+and of the grave responsibilities which it
+involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what
+I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that
+the Congress declare the recent course of the
+Imperial German Government to be in fact
+nothing less than war against the Government
+and people of the United States; that it formally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>
+accept the status of belligerent which
+has thus been thrust upon it; and that it take
+immediate steps not only to put the country
+in a more thorough state of defense, but also
+to exert all its power and employ all its resources
+to bring the Government of the German
+Empire to terms and end the war.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Necessary
+to co-operate
+with
+Ententes.</div>
+
+<p>What this will involve is clear. It will involve
+the utmost practicable co-operation in
+counsel and action with the Governments now
+at war with Germany, and, as incident to that,
+the extension to those Governments of the most
+liberal financial credits, in order that our resources
+may so far as possible be added to
+theirs.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Resources
+must be
+organized.</div>
+
+<p>It will involve the organization and mobilization
+of all the material resources of the
+country to supply the materials of war and
+serve the incidental needs of the nation in the
+most abundant and yet the most economical
+and efficient way possible.</p>
+
+<p>It will involve the immediate full equipment
+of the navy in all respects, but particularly in
+supplying it with the best means of dealing
+with the enemy's submarines.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A great
+army must
+be raised.</div>
+
+<p>It will involve the immediate addition to the
+armed forces of the United States, already
+provided for by law in case of war, of at least
+500,000 men, who should, in my opinion, be
+chosen upon the principle of universal liability
+to service, and also the authorization of subsequent
+additional increments of equal force so
+soon as they may be needed and can be handled
+in training.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Government
+will need
+adequate
+credits.</div>
+
+<p>It will involve also, of course, the granting
+of adequate credits to the Government, sustained,
+I hope, so far as they can equitably be
+sustained by the present generation, by well-conceived
+taxation.</p>
+
+<p>I say sustained so far as may be equitable
+by taxation, because it seems to me that it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>
+would be most unwise to base the credits, which
+will now be necessary, entirely on money borrowed.
+It is our duty, I most respectfully
+urge, to protect our people, so far as we may,
+against the very serious hardships and evils
+which would be likely to arise out of the inflation
+which would be produced by vast loans.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Nations
+must
+obtain
+supplies
+from us.</div>
+
+<p>In carrying out the measures by which these
+things are to be accomplished we should keep
+constantly in mind the wisdom of interfering
+as little as possible in our own preparation
+and in the equipment of our own military
+forces with the duty&mdash;for it will be a very practical
+duty&mdash;of supplying the nations already at
+war with Germany with the materials which
+they can obtain only from us or by our assistance.
+They are in the field, and we should
+help them in every way to be effective there.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Measure
+suggested
+to accomplish
+nation's
+ends.</div>
+
+<p>I shall take the liberty of suggesting,
+through the several executive departments of
+the Government, for the consideration of your
+committees, measures for the accomplishment
+of the several objects I have mentioned. I
+hope that it will be your pleasure to deal with
+them as having been framed after very careful
+thought by the branch of the Government upon
+whom the responsibility of conducting the war
+and safeguarding the nation will most directly
+fall.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Concert
+of purpose
+and action
+among
+free
+peoples.</div>
+
+<p>While we do these things, these deeply momentous
+things, let us be very clear, and make
+very clear to all the world, what our motives
+and our objects are. My own thought has not
+been driven from its habitual and normal
+course by the unhappy events of the last two
+months, and I do not believe that the thought
+of the nation has been altered or clouded by
+them. I have exactly the same things in
+mind now that I had in mind when I addressed
+the Senate on the 22d of January last; the
+same that I had in mind when I addressed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>
+Congress on the 3d of February and on the
+26th of February. Our object now, as then, is
+to vindicate the principles of peace and justice
+in the life of the world as against selfish and
+autocratic power, and to set up among the
+really free and self-governed peoples of the
+world such a concert of purpose and of action
+as will henceforth insure the observance of
+those principles.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Standards
+of conduct
+for
+nations.</div>
+
+<p>Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable
+where the peace of the world is involved and
+the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to
+that peace and freedom lies in the existence of
+autocratic Governments, backed by organized
+force which is controlled wholly by their will,
+not by the will of their people. We have seen
+the last of neutrality in such circumstances.
+We are at the beginning of an age in which it
+will be insisted that the same standards of
+conduct and of responsibility for wrong done
+shall be observed among nations and their
+Governments that are observed among the individual
+citizens of civilized States.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A war determined
+upon by
+rulers.</div>
+
+<p>We have no quarrel with the German people.
+We have no feeling toward them but one of
+sympathy and friendship. It was not upon
+their impulse that their Government acted in
+entering this war. It was not with their previous
+knowledge or approval. It was a war determined
+upon as wars used to be determined
+upon in the old, unhappy days, when peoples
+were nowhere consulted by their rulers and
+wars were provoked and waged in the interest
+of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious
+men who were accustomed to use their fellow-men
+as pawns and tools.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Such aggression
+impossible
+where
+people
+rule.</div>
+
+<p>Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor
+States with spies or set the course of intrigue
+to bring about some critical posture of
+affairs which will give them an opportunity to
+strike and make conquest. Such designs can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>
+be successfully worked out only under cover
+and where no one has the right to ask questions.
+Cunningly contrived plans of deception
+or aggression, carried, it may be, from
+generation to generation, can be worked out
+and kept from the light only within the privacy
+of courts or behind the carefully guarded
+confidences of a narrow and privileged class.
+They are happily impossible where public
+opinion commands and insists upon full information
+concerning all of the nation's
+affairs.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Only a
+partnership
+of
+democratic
+nations
+can maintain
+peace.</div>
+
+<p>A steadfast concert for peace can never be
+maintained except by a partnership of democratic
+nations. No autocratic Government
+could be trusted to keep faith within it or
+observe its covenants. It must be a league of
+honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue
+would eat its vitals away; the plottings of
+inner circles who could plan what they would
+and render account to no one would be a corruption
+seated at its very heart. Only free
+peoples can hold their purpose and their honor
+steady to a common end and prefer the interests
+of mankind to any narrow interest of
+their own.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">What is
+happening
+in
+Russia.</div>
+
+<p>Does not every American feel that assurance
+has been added to our hope for the future
+peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening
+things that have been happening within
+the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was
+known by those who knew her best to have been
+always in fact democratic at heart in all the
+vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate
+relationships of her people that spoke their
+natural instinct, their habitual attitude toward
+life. The autocracy that crowned the summit
+of her political structure, long as it had stood
+and terrible as was the reality of its power,
+was not in fact Russian in origin, character,
+or purpose; and now it has been shaken off<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>
+and the great, generous Russian people have
+been added, in all their naive majesty and
+might, to the forces that are fighting for
+freedom in the world, for justice, and for
+peace. Here is a fit partner for a League of
+Honor.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Prussia
+has filled
+America
+with spies.</div>
+
+<p>One of the things that have served to convince
+us that the Prussian autocracy was not
+and could never be our friend is that from the
+very outset of the present war it has filled our
+unsuspecting communities, and even our offices
+of government, with spies and set criminal intrigues
+everywhere afoot against our national
+unity of counsel, our peace within and without,
+our industries and our commerce. Indeed, it
+is now evident that its spies were here even
+before the war began; and it is unhappily not
+a matter of conjecture, but a fact proved in
+our courts of justice, that the intrigues which
+have more than once come perilously near to
+disturbing the peace and dislocating the industries
+of the country, have been carried on
+at the instigation, with the support, and even
+under the personal direction of official agents
+of the Imperial Government accredited to the
+Government of the United States.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+United
+States has
+been
+generous.</div>
+
+<p>Even in checking these things and trying to
+extirpate them we have sought to put the most
+generous interpretation possible upon them because
+we knew that their source lay, not in
+any hostile feeling or purpose of the German
+people toward us, (who were, no doubt, as ignorant
+of them as we ourselves were,) but only
+in the selfish designs of a Government that did
+what it pleased and told its people nothing.
+But they have played their part in serving to
+convince us at last that that Government entertains
+no real friendship for us, and means
+to act against our peace and security at its
+convenience. That it means to stir up enemies
+against us at our very doors the intercepted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
+note to the German Minister at Mexico City
+is eloquent evidence.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Why we accept the challenge.</div>
+
+<p>We are accepting this challenge of hostile
+purpose because we know that in such a Government,
+following such methods, we can never
+have a friend; and that in the presence of its
+organized power, always lying in wait to accomplish
+we know not what purpose, there can
+be no assured security for the democratic Governments
+of the world. We are now about to
+accept the gage of battle with this natural foe
+to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the
+whole force of the nation to check and nullify
+its pretensions and its power. We are glad,
+now that we see the facts with no veil of false
+pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate
+peace of the world and for the liberation
+of its peoples, the German peoples included;
+for the rights of nations, great and small, and
+the privilege of men everywhere to choose their
+way of life and of obedience.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">America has no selfish ends to serve.</div>
+
+<p>The world must be made safe for democracy.
+Its peace must be planted upon the tested
+foundations of political liberty. We have no
+selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest,
+no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves,
+no material compensation for the sacrifices
+we shall freely make. We are but one of
+the champions of the rights of mankind. We
+shall be satisfied when those rights have been
+made as secure as the faith and the freedom
+of nations can make them.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">America will observe principles of right.</div>
+
+<p>Just because we fight without rancor and
+without selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves
+but what we shall wish to share with all
+free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct
+our operations as belligerents without passion
+and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the
+principles of right and of fair play we profess
+to be fighting for.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germany only has actually made war on America.</div>
+
+<p>I have said nothing of the Governments allied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>
+with the Imperial Government of Germany because
+they have not made war upon us or challenged
+us to defend our right and our honor.
+The Austro-Hungarian Government has, indeed,
+avowed its unqualified indorsement and
+acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine
+warfare, adopted now without disguise by
+the Imperial German Government, and it has
+therefore not been possible for this Government
+to receive Count Tarnowski, the Ambassador
+recently accredited to this Government
+by the Imperial and Royal Government of Austria-Hungary;
+but that Government has not
+actually engaged in warfare against citizens
+of the United States on the seas, and I take
+the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing
+a discussion of our relations with the
+authorities at Vienna. We enter this war only
+where we are clearly forced into it because
+there are no other means of defending our
+rights.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">America fights the irresponsible Government
+of Germany.</div>
+
+<p>It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves
+as belligerents in a high spirit of right
+and fairness because we act without animus,
+not with enmity toward a people or with the
+desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon
+them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible
+Government which has thrown aside
+all considerations of humanity and of right and
+is running amuck.</p>
+
+<p>We are, let me say again, the sincere friends
+of the German people, and shall desire nothing
+so much as the early re-establishment of intimate
+relations of mutual advantage between us,
+however hard it may be for them for the time
+being to believe that this is spoken from our
+hearts. We have borne with their present Government
+through all these bitter months because
+of that friendship, exercising a patience
+and forbearance which would otherwise have
+been impossible.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Most Americans of German birth are
+loyal to the United States.</div>
+
+<p>We shall happily still have an opportunity to
+prove that friendship in our daily attitude and
+actions toward the millions of men and women
+of German birth and native sympathy who live
+among us and share our life, and we shall be
+proud to prove it toward all who are in fact
+loyal to their neighbors and to the Government
+in the hour of test. They are most of them as
+true and loyal Americans as if they had never
+known any other fealty or allegiance. They
+will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking
+and restraining the few who may be of a different
+mind and purpose. If there should be
+disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm
+hand of stern repression; but, if it lifts its head
+at all, it will lift it only here and there and
+without countenance except from a lawless and
+malignant few.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Trial and sacrifice ahead.</div>
+
+<p>It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen
+of the Congress, which I have performed
+in thus addressing you. There are, it may be,
+many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead
+of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great,
+peaceful people into war, into the most terrible
+and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself
+seeming to be in the balance.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">America will fight for democracy.</div>
+
+<p>But the right is more precious than peace,
+and we shall fight for the things which we have
+always carried nearest our hearts&mdash;for democracy,
+for the right of those who submit to authority
+to have a voice in their own Governments,
+for the rights and liberties of small
+nations, for a universal dominion of right by
+such a concert of free peoples as shall bring
+peace and safety to all nations and make the
+world itself at last free.</p>
+
+<p>To such a task we can dedicate our lives
+and our fortunes, everything that we are and
+everything that we have, with the pride of
+those who know that the day has come when
+America is privileged to spend her blood and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>
+her might for the principles that gave her birth
+and happiness and the peace which she has
+treasured.</p>
+
+<p>God helping her, she can do no other.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />DECLARATION OF WAR</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germany has made war on the United States.</div>
+
+<p><i><ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Wheras'">Whereas</ins></i>, The Imperial German Government
+has committed repeated acts of war against the
+Government and the people of the United
+States of America; therefore, be it</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">War is formally declared.</div>
+
+<p><i>Resolved</i>, by the Senate and House of Representatives
+of the United States of America in
+Congress assembled. That the state of war between
+the United States and the Imperial German
+Government, which has thus been thrust
+upon the United States, is hereby formally declared;
+and</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The President is given full authority.</div>
+
+<p>That the President be, and he is hereby, authorized
+and directed to employ the entire
+naval and military forces of the United States
+and the resources of the Government to carry
+on war against the Imperial German Government;
+and to bring the conflict to a successful
+termination all the resources of the country are
+hereby pledged by the Congress of the United
+States.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />PROCLAMATION TO THE AMERICAN
+PEOPLE</div>
+
+<div class='center'><small>BY PRESIDENT WILSON</small></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Congress has declared war.</div>
+
+<p><i>Whereas</i>, The Congress of the United States,
+in the exercise of the constitutional authority
+vested in them, have resolved by joint resolution
+of the Senate and House of Representatives,
+bearing date this day, "that a state of
+war between the United States and the Imperial
+German Government which has been thrust
+upon the United States is hereby formally declared";<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>Whereas</i>, It is provided by Section 4,067 of
+the Revised Statutes as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Proclamation regarding alien enemies.</div>
+
+<p>"Whenever there is declared a war between
+the United States and any foreign nation or
+Government or any invasion or predatory incursion
+is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened
+against the territory of the United States
+by any foreign nation or Government, and the
+President makes public proclamation of the
+event, all native citizens, denizens, or subjects
+of a hostile nation or Government being male
+of the age of 14 years and upward, who shall
+be within the United States and not actually
+naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended,
+restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies.
+The President is authorized in any such
+event by his proclamation thereof, or other
+public acts, to direct the conduct to be observed
+on the part of the United States toward
+the aliens who become so liable; the manner
+and degree of the restraint to which they shall
+be subject and in what cases and upon what
+security their residence shall be permitted, and
+to provide for the removal of those who, not
+being permitted to reside within the United
+States, refuse or neglect to depart therefrom;
+and to establish any such regulations which
+are found necessary in the premises and for
+the public safety."</p>
+
+<p><i>Whereas</i>, By Sections 4,068, 4,069, and 4,070
+of the Revised Statutes, further provision is
+made relative to alien enemies;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">All officers of the United States are
+warned to be vigilant.</div>
+
+<p><i>Now, therefore</i>, I, Woodrow Wilson, President
+of the United States of America, do hereby
+proclaim, to all whom it may concern, that a
+state of war exists between the United States
+and the Imperial German Government, and I
+do specially direct all officers, civil or military,
+of the United States that they exercise vigilance
+and zeal in the discharge of the duties
+incident to such a state of war, and I do, moreover,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>
+earnestly appeal to all American citizens
+that they, in loyal devotion to their country,
+dedicated from its foundation to the principles
+of liberty and justice, uphold the laws of the
+land, and give undivided and willing support
+to those measures which may be adopted by the
+constitutional authorities in prosecuting the
+war to a successful issue and in obtaining a
+secure and just peace;</p>
+
+<p>And, acting under and by virtue of the authority
+vested in me by the Constitution of the
+United States and the said sections of the Revised
+Statutes,</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Conduct to be observed toward
+alien enemies.</div>
+
+<p>I do hereby further proclaim and direct that
+the conduct to be observed on the part of the
+United States toward all natives, citizens, denizens,
+or subjects of Germany, being male of the
+age of 14 years and upward, who shall be
+within the United States and not actually naturalized,
+who for the purpose of this proclamation
+and under such sections of the Revised
+Statutes are termed alien enemies, shall be as
+follows:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Alien enemies must preserve the peace.</div>
+
+<p>All alien enemies are enjoined to preserve
+the peace toward the United States and to refrain
+from crime against the public safety and
+from violating the laws of the United States
+and of the States and Territories thereof, and
+to refrain from actual hostility or giving information,
+aid, or comfort to the enemies of
+the United States and to comply strictly with
+the regulations which are hereby, or which may
+be from time to time promulgated by the President,
+and so long as they shall conduct themselves
+in accordance with law they shall be
+undisturbed in the peaceful pursuit of their
+lives and occupations, and be accorded the consideration
+due to all peaceful and law-abiding
+persons, except so far as restrictions may be
+necessary for their own protection and for the
+safety of the United States, and toward such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>
+alien enemies as conduct themselves in accordance
+with law all citizens of the United States
+are enjoined to preserve the peace and to treat
+them with all such friendliness as may be compatible
+with loyalty and allegiance to the
+United States.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Penalties added to those prescribed
+by law.</div>
+
+<p>And all alien enemies who fail to conduct
+themselves as so enjoined, in addition to all
+other penalties prescribed by law, shall be liable
+to restraint or to give security or to remove
+and depart from the United States, in the manner
+prescribed by Sections 4,069 and 4,070
+of the Revised Statutes and as prescribed in
+the regulations duly promulgated by the President.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The necessary regulations.</div>
+
+<p>And pursuant to the authority vested in me,
+I hereby declare and establish the following
+regulations, which I find necessary in the premises
+and for the public safety:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Cannot possess weapons.</div>
+
+<p>1. An alien enemy shall not have in his possession
+at any time or place any firearms,
+weapons, or implements of war, or component
+parts thereof, ammunition, Maxim or other silencer,
+arms, or explosives or material used in
+the manufacture of explosives;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">No signaling devices or cipher codes.</div>
+
+<p>2. An alien enemy shall not have in his possession
+at any time or place, or use or operate,
+any aircraft or wireless apparatus, or any form
+of signaling device or any form of cipher code
+or any paper, document, or book written or
+printed in cipher or in which there may be invisible
+writing;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Property may be seized.</div>
+
+<p>3. All property found in the possession of an
+alien enemy in violation of the foregoing regulations
+shall be subject to seizure by the United
+States;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Must not approach forts or munition works.</div>
+
+<p>4. An alien enemy shall not approach or be
+found within one-half of a mile of any Federal
+or State fort, camp, arsenal, aircraft station,
+Government or naval vessel, navy yard, factory,
+or workshop for the manufacture of munitions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>
+of war or of any products for the use of the
+army or navy;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Must not
+speak or
+write
+against
+the United States.</div>
+
+<p>5. An alien enemy shall not write, print, or
+publish any attack or threat against the Government
+or Congress of the United States, or
+either branch thereof, or against the measures
+or policy of the United States, or against the
+persons or property of any person in the military,
+naval, or civil service of the United States,
+or of the States or Territories, or of the District
+of Columbia, or of the municipal governments
+therein;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Must not
+commit
+any hostile
+act.</div>
+
+<p>6. An alien enemy shall not commit or abet
+any hostile acts against the United States
+or give information, aid, or comfort to its
+enemies;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Must not
+enter
+prohibited
+areas.</div>
+
+<p>7. An alien enemy shall not reside in or continue
+to reside in, to remain in, or enter any
+locality which the President may from time to
+time designate by an Executive order as a prohibitive
+area, in which residence by an alien
+enemy shall be found by him to constitute a
+danger to the public peace and safety of the
+United States, except by permit from the President
+and except under such limitations or restrictions
+as the President may prescribe;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">May be
+made to
+remove by
+executive
+order.</div>
+
+<p>8. An alien enemy whom the President shall
+have reasonable cause to believe to be aiding
+or about to aid the enemy or to be at large to
+the danger of the public peace or safety of the
+United States, or to have violated or to be
+about to violate any of these regulations, shall
+remove to any location designated by the President
+by Executive order, and shall not remove
+therefrom without permit, or shall depart from
+the United States if so required by the President;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Cannot
+leave
+country
+without
+permission.</div>
+
+<p>9. No alien enemy shall depart from the
+United States until he shall have received such
+permit as the President shall prescribe, or except
+under order of a court, Judge, or Justice,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>
+under Sections 4,069 and 4,070 of the Revised
+Statutes;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Entering
+United
+States
+regulated.</div>
+
+<p>10. No alien enemy shall land in or enter the
+United States except under such restrictions
+and at such places as the President may
+prescribe;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">May be
+obliged to
+register.</div>
+
+<p>11. If necessary to prevent violation of the
+regulations, all alien enemies will be obliged
+to register;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Alien
+enemies
+who
+violate
+rules to be
+arrested.</div>
+
+<p>12. An alien enemy whom there may be reasonable
+cause to believe to be aiding or about
+to aid the enemy, or who may be at large to
+the danger of the public peace or safety, or who
+violates or who attempts to violate or of whom
+there is reasonable grounds to believe that he
+is about to violate, any regulation to be promulgated
+by the President or any criminal law
+of the United States, or of the States or Territories
+thereof, will be subject to summary arrest
+by the United States Marshal, or his
+Deputy, or such other officers as the President
+shall designate, and to confinement in such
+penitentiary, prison, jail, military camp, or
+other place of detention as may be directed by
+the President.</p>
+
+<p>This proclamation and the regulations herein
+contained shall extend and apply to all land
+and water, continental or insular, in any way
+within the jurisdiction of the United States.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Saloniki was one of the mysteries of the
+war. News from that city was brief and unsatisfying
+in the main. Great things, however,
+were done there, and none greater than
+those accomplished by the British. Some of
+these accomplishments are told in the pages
+that follow.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span></p>
+<h2>BRITISH OPERATIONS AT<br />
+SALONIKI</h2>
+
+<h3>OFFICIAL REPORT OF GENERAL MILNE</h3>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Reinforcements
+needed
+north of
+Saloniki.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Italy to
+send
+300,000.</div>
+
+<p>Since the conference at Rome the situation
+in Macedonia has been radically changed.
+The weakness of General Sarrail's position
+lay in the fact that neither England nor
+France felt free to send from the critical
+western front the large reinforcements of men
+which the situation north of Saloniki called
+for. Italy had the men, but was unwilling to
+send them and to incur the heavy additional
+expense of maintaining them in Macedonia.
+The conference at Rome, in which Premier
+Lloyd George was the dominant figure, overcame
+that reluctance, probably promising Italy
+parts of the Turkish Empire that had been
+earlier assigned tentatively to Greece and
+guaranteeing the cost of the new expedition.
+The result has been immediate and of the highest
+importance. Rome dispatches indicate that
+Italy has sent, or is sending, a force of not less
+than 300,000 men; that these troops, to avoid
+the danger of submarines, are being dispatched,
+not to Saloniki, but to Avlona, which
+is within forty miles of the Italian coast; and,
+finally, these Italian forces have not only built
+an excellent highway through the Albanian
+mountains but have already joined forces with
+General Sarrail's right wing at Monastir. All
+these facts indicate early activity in the Macedonian
+sector.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">General
+G. F.
+Milne's
+report.</div>
+
+<p>This glimpse of present conditions will serve
+to introduce the following report of General
+G. F. Milne, commanding the British Saloniki<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>
+Army in Macedonia, on last Summer's operations
+in that sector. His report, submitted to
+the British War Office early in December, 1916,
+covered the army's operations from May 9,
+1916, to October 8, 1916. The official text of
+the report is here reproduced, with a few minor
+omissions:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Found army concentrated near Saloniki.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">British forces responsible for front on east and northeast.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Construction of defenses.</div>
+
+<p>"On May 9, 1916, the greater part of the army
+was concentrated within the fortified lines
+of Saloniki, extending from Stavros on the
+east to near the Galiko River on the west;
+a mixed force, consisting of a mounted brigade
+and a division, had been pushed forward
+to the north of Kukush in order to support
+the French Army which had advanced and was
+watching the right bank of the Struma River
+and the northern frontier of Greece. Further
+moves in this direction were contemplated,
+but, in order to keep the army concentrated,
+I entered into an agreement with General
+Sarrail by which the British forces should become
+responsible for that portion of the allied
+front which covered Saloniki from the east and
+northeast. By this arrangement a definite and
+independent area was allotted to the army
+under my command. On June 8, 1916, the
+troops commenced to occupy advanced positions
+along the right bank of the River Struma
+and its tributary, the River Butkova, from
+Lake Tachinos to Lozista village. By the end
+of July, on the demobilization of the Greek
+Army, this occupation had extended to the sea
+at Chai Aghizi. Along the whole front the
+construction of a line of resistance was begun;
+work on trenches, entanglements, bridgeheads,
+and supporting points was commenced; for administrative
+purposes the reconstruction of the
+Saloniki-Seres road was undertaken and the
+cutting of wagon tracks through the mountainous
+country was pushed forward.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">British
+take over
+line near
+Doiran.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Capture
+of Horseshoe
+Hill.</div>
+
+<p>"On July 20, 1916, in accordance with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>
+policy laid down in my instructions, and in
+order to release French troops for employment
+elsewhere, I began to take over the line south
+and west of Lake Doiran, and commenced
+preparations for a joint offensive on this front.
+This move was completed by August 2, 1916,
+and on the 10th of that month an offensive
+was commenced against the Bulgarian defenses
+south of the line Doiran-Hill 535. The
+French captured Hills 227 and La Tortue,
+while the British occupied in succession those
+features of the main 535 ridge now known as
+Kidney Hill and Horseshoe Hill, and, pushing
+forward, established a series of advanced posts
+on the line Doldzeli-Reselli. The capture of
+Horseshoe Hill was successfully carried out
+on the night of August 17-18, 1916, by the
+Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
+at the point of the bayonet in the face
+of stubborn opposition. The enemy's counterattacks
+were repulsed with heavy loss.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Bulgarian
+advance.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">British
+and
+French
+attack.</div>
+
+<p>"On August 17, 1916, the Bulgarians, who,
+at the end of May, had entered Greek territory
+by the Struma Valley and moved down as far
+as Demir Hissar, continued their advance into
+Greek Macedonia. Columns of all arms advanced
+from seven different points, between
+Sarisaban, on the Mesta, and Demir Hissar.
+The four eastern columns converged on the
+country about Drama and Kavala, while the
+remainder moved southward on to the line
+of the Struma from Demir Hissar toward
+Orfano. On August 19, 1916, a mounted brigade
+with one battery carried out a strong
+reconnoissance, and found the enemy in some
+force on the line Prosenik-Barakli Djuma; on
+the following day, after being reinforced by a
+battalion, this brigade again advanced in conjunction
+with the French detachment. These
+attacking troops, after encountering the enemy
+in force on the line Kalendra-Prosenik-Haznatar,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>
+withdrew after dark to the right bank
+of the Struma. The French detachment was
+subsequently placed under the orders of the
+General Officer Commanding British troops on
+this front, and received instructions to cooperate
+in the defense of the river line.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Bridges
+over
+Angista
+River
+destroyed.</div>
+
+<p>"On August 21, 1916, the railway bridge near
+Angista Station was demolished by a detachment
+from the Neohori garrison, and three
+days later two road bridges over the Angista
+River were destroyed. Both these operations
+were well carried out by yeomanry, engineers,
+and cyclists in the face of hostile opposition.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Bulgarians
+in
+Eastern
+Macedonia.</div>
+
+<p>"The Bulgarians continued their advance
+into Eastern Macedonia unopposed by the
+Greek garrison, and it was estimated that by
+the end of August the enemy's forces, extending
+from Demir Hissar southward in the Seres
+sector of the Struma front, comprised the complete
+Seventh Bulgarian Division, with two or
+three regiments of the Eleventh Macedonian
+Division, which had moved eastward from their
+positions on the Beles Mountain to act as a
+reserve to the Seventh Division, and at the
+same time to occupy the defenses from Vetrina-Pujovo
+northward. Opposite the Lower Struma
+was a brigade of the Second Division, with a
+brigade of the Tenth Division, in occupation of
+the coast and the zone of country between Orfano
+and the Drama-Kavala road. This brigade
+of the Tenth Division was supported by another
+brigade in the Drama Kavala area. As
+a result of this advance and of a similar move
+in the west General Sarrail decided to intrust
+to the British Army the task of maintaining
+the greater portion of the right and center
+of the allied line.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Northumberland
+Fusiliers
+capture
+Nevolien.</div>
+
+<p>"On September 10, 1916, detachments crossed
+the river above Lake Tachinos at five places
+between Bajraktar Mah and Dragos, while a
+sixth detachment crossed lower down at Neohori.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>
+The villages of Oraoman and Kato
+Gudeli were occupied, and Northumberland
+Fusiliers gallantly captured Nevolien, taking
+thirty prisoners and driving the enemy out of
+the village. The latter lost heavily during
+their retirement and in their subsequent counterattack.
+They also suffered severely from
+our artillery fire in attempting to follow our
+prearranged movements to regain the right
+bank of the river.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rise in
+the
+Struma
+River
+hinders
+operations.</div>
+
+<p>"On the 15th similar operations were undertaken,
+six small columns crossing the river
+between Lake Tachinos and Orljak bridge.
+The villages of Kato Gudeli, Dzami Mah,
+Agomah, and Komarjan were burned and
+twenty-seven prisoners were taken. The enemy's
+counterattacks completely broke down
+under the accurate fire of our guns on the
+right bank of the river. On the 23d a similar
+scheme was put into action, but a sudden rise
+of three feet in the Struma interfered with
+the bridging operations. Nevertheless, the
+enemy's trenches at Yenimah were captured,
+fourteen prisoners taken, and three other villages
+raided. Considerable help was given
+on each occasion by the French detachment
+under Colonel Bescoins, and much information
+was obtained which proved to be of considerable
+value during subsequent operations.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">British
+attack
+Matzikovo
+salient.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Heavy
+artillery
+fire from
+the
+enemy.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">British
+carry out
+bombing
+raids.</div>
+
+<p>"On the Doiran-River Vardar front there remained
+as before the whole of the Bulgarian
+Ninth Division, less one regiment; a brigade
+of the Second Division and at least two-thirds
+of the German 101st Division, which
+had intrenched the salient north of Matzikovo
+on the usual German system. To assist
+the general offensive by the Allies I ordered
+this salient to be attacked at the same time
+as the allied operations in the Florina area
+commenced. With this object in view the
+whole of the enemy's intrenched position was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>
+subjected to a heavy bombardment from Septem.
+11 to 13, 1916, the southwest corner of the
+salient known as the Piton des Mitrailleuses
+being specially selected for destruction. The
+enemy's position was occupied during the
+night 13th-14th, after a skillfully planned and
+gallant assault, in which the King's Liverpool
+Regiment and Lancashire Fusiliers specially
+distinguished themselves. Over 200 Germans
+were killed in the work, chiefly by bombing,
+and seventy-one prisoners were brought in.
+During the 14th the enemy concentrated from
+three directions a very heavy artillery fire,
+and delivered several counterattacks, which
+were for the most part broken up under the
+fire of our guns. Some of the enemy, however,
+succeeded in forcing an entrance into
+the work, and severe fighting followed. As
+hostile reinforcements were increasing in
+numbers, and as the rocky nature of the
+ground rendered rapid consolidation difficult,
+the troops were withdrawn in the evening to
+their original line, the object of the attack
+having been accomplished. This withdrawal
+was conducted with little loss, thanks to the
+very effective fire of the artillery. During
+the bombardment and subsequent counterattack
+the enemy's losses must have been
+considerable. On the same front on the night
+of the 20th-21st, after bombarding the hostile
+positions on the Cr&ecirc;te des Tentes, a strong
+detachment raided and bombed the trenches
+and dugouts, retiring quickly with little loss.
+A similar raid was carried out northeast of
+Doldzeli.</p>
+
+<p>"In addition to these operations and raids,
+constant combats took place between patrols,
+many prisoners being captured, and several
+bombing raids were carried out by the Royal
+Flying Corps.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Operations
+on a
+more extensive
+scale.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Bridging
+the
+Struma
+River.</div>
+
+<p>"In order further to assist the progress of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>
+our allies toward Monastir by maintaining
+such a continuous offensive as would insure
+no transference of Bulgarian troops from the
+Struma front to the west, I now issued instructions
+for operations on a more extensive
+scale than those already reported. In accordance
+with these the General Officer Commanding
+on that front commenced operations
+by seizing and holding certain villages on the
+left bank of the river with a view to enlarging
+the bridgehead opposite Orljak, whence he
+would be in a position to threaten a further
+movement either on Seres or on Demir Hissar.
+The high ground on the right bank of the river
+enabled full use to be made of our superiority
+in artillery, which contributed greatly to the
+success of these operations. The river itself
+formed a potential danger, owing to the
+rapidity with which its waters rise after heavy
+rain in the mountains, but on the night of
+September 29, 1916, sufficient bridges had been
+constructed by the Royal Engineers for the
+passage of all arms. During the night of
+September 29-30 the attacking infantry crossed
+below Orljak bridge and formed up on the
+left bank.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Scotch
+troops
+take
+several
+villages.</div>
+
+<p>"At dawn on the following morning the
+Gloucesters and the Cameron Highlanders advanced
+under cover of an artillery bombardment,
+and by 8 a.m. had seized the village of
+Karadjakoi Bala. Shortly after the occupation
+of the village the enemy opened a heavy and
+accurate artillery fire, but the remaining two
+battalions of the brigade, the Royal Scots
+and Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders,
+though suffering severely from enfilade fire,
+pushed on against Karadjakoi Zir. By 5.30
+p. m. that village also was occupied, in spite
+of the stubborn resistance of the enemy. Attempts
+to bring forward hostile reinforcements
+were frustrated during the day by our artillery,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>
+but during the night the Bulgarians
+launched several strong counterattacks, which
+were repulsed with heavy loss.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Capture of
+Yenikoi.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy
+counterattacks.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">British
+consolidate
+new
+line.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy
+casualties
+heavy.</div>
+
+<p>"During the following night determined
+counterattacks of the enemy were again repulsed,
+and by the evening of October 2, 1916,
+the position had been fully consolidated. Preparations
+were at once made to extend the
+position by the capture of Yenikoi, an important
+village on the main Seres road. This
+operation was successfully carried out by an
+infantry brigade, composed of the Royal Munster
+and Royal Dublin Fusiliers, on the morning
+of October 3, 1916, after bombardment by
+our artillery. By 7 a. m. the village was in
+our hands. During the day the enemy
+launched three heavy counterattacks. The first
+two were stopped by artillery fire, which caused
+severe loss. At 4 p. m. the village, the ground
+in the rear, and the bridges were subjected to
+an unexpectedly heavy bombardment from
+several heavy batteries which had hitherto not
+disclosed their positions. Following on the
+bombardment was the heaviest counterattack
+of the day, six or seven battalions advancing
+from the direction of Homondos, Kalendra, and
+Topalova with a view to enveloping our positions.
+This attack was carried forward with
+great determination, and some detachments
+succeeded in entering the northern portion of
+Yenikoi, where hard fighting continued all
+night, until fresh reinforcements succeeded in
+clearing out such enemy as survived. During
+the following day the consolidation of our new
+line was continued under artillery fire. On the
+5th, after a bombardment, the village of Nevolien
+was occupied, the Bulgarian garrison retiring
+on the approach of our infantry. By the
+following evening the front extended from
+Komarjan on the right via Yenikoi to Elisan
+on the left. On the 7th a strong reconnoissance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>
+by mounted troops located the enemy
+on the Demir Hissar-Seres railway, with advanced
+posts approximately on the line of
+the Belica stream and a strong garrison in
+Barakli Djuma. On October 8, 1916, our
+troops had reached the line Agomah-Homondos-Elisan-Ormanli,
+with the mounted troops on
+the line Kispeki-Kalendra. The enemy's casualties
+during these few days were heavy.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Assistance
+of the
+Royal
+Flying
+Corps.</div>
+
+<p>"I consider that the success of these operations
+was due to the skill and decision with
+which they were conducted by Lieutenant
+General C. J. Briggs, C. B., and to the excellent
+cooperation of all arms, which was greatly assisted
+by the exceptional facilities for observation
+of artillery fire. The Royal Flying
+Corps, in spite of the difficulties which they
+had to overcome and the great strain on their
+resources, rendered valuable assistance. Armored
+motor cars were used with effect. * * *</p>
+
+<p>"On the enforcement of martial law the management
+of the three lines of railway radiating
+from Saloniki had to be undertaken by
+the Allies; one line, the Junction-Saloniki-Constantinople,
+is now entirely administered
+by the British Army; this, together with the
+additional railway traffic involved by the arrival
+of the Serbian Army, as well as the
+Russian and Italian troops, has thrown a considerable
+strain on the railway directorate."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Russia, after three years of warfare against
+Austria and Germany, during which millions
+of her soldiers were killed and wounded,
+startled the world suddenly, in February, 1917,
+by casting out the Czar and establishing a
+provisional government, which purported to be
+a government by the people and not by the
+bureaucracy. The dramatic events of the first
+days of the revolution are described in the
+following chapter.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span></p>
+<h2>IN PETROGRAD DURING THE<br />
+SEVEN DAYS</h2>
+
+<h3>ARNO DOSCH-FLEUROT</h3>
+
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Cossacks
+trotting
+through
+the
+Nevsky in
+Petrograd.</div>
+
+<p>A crowd of ordinary citizens were passing
+in front of the Singer Building on the
+Nevsky in Petrograd at noon February
+25th, Russian time (March 10th), stopping occasionally
+to watch a company of Cossacks
+amiably roughing some students with a miscellaneous
+following who insisted on assembling
+across the street before the wide, sweeping
+colonnades of Kasan Cathedral. As the Cossacks
+trotted through, hands empty, rifles slung
+on shoulders, the crowds cheered, the Cossacks
+laughed.</p>
+
+<p>A few trolley cars had stopped, though not
+stalled, and groups of curious on-lookers had
+crowded in for a grandstand view. The only
+people who did not seem interested in the
+spectacle were hundreds of women with shawls
+over their heads who had been standing in line
+for many hours before the bread-shops along the
+Catherine Canal.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Some Cossacks
+and
+infantry
+in side
+streets.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">People
+charged
+by police.</div>
+
+<p>People were going about their affairs up and
+down the Nevsky without being stopped, and
+sleighs were passing constantly. Cossacks and
+a few companies of infantrymen were beginning
+to appear on the side streets in considerable
+numbers, but, as a demonstration over the
+lack of bread in the Russian capital had been
+going on at intervals for two days with very
+little violence, people were beginning to get
+used to it. I arrived from the direction of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>
+Moika Canal just as the cannon boomed midday
+and I felt sufficiently unhurried to correct
+my watch. Then I hailed a British general in
+uniform who had arrived, also unimpeded, from
+the opposite direction, and we had just stopped
+to comment on the unusual attitude of populace
+and Cossacks, when there was a sudden rush
+of people around the corner from the Catherine
+Canal and before we could even reach the
+doubtful protection of a doorway a company of
+mounted police charged around the corner and
+started up the Nevsky on the sidewalk. We
+were obviously harmless onlookers, fur-clad
+bourgeois, but the police plunged through at
+a hard trot, bare sabres flashing in the cold
+sunshine. The British general and I were
+knocked down together and escaped trampling
+only because the police were splendidly
+mounted, and a well-bred horse will not step on
+a man if he can help it.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Display of
+stupid
+physical
+force.</div>
+
+<p>This was a display of that well-known stupid
+physical force which used to be the basis of
+strength of the Russian Empire. Its ruthlessness,
+its carelessness of life, however innocent,
+terrorized, and, we used to think, won respect.
+We know better now, especially those of us who
+were eye-witnesses of the Russian revolution,
+and saw how the police provoked a quarrel
+they could not handle.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Crowds
+begin to
+be dangerously
+large.</div>
+
+<p>I watched the growth of the revolt with
+wonder. Knowing something of the dissatisfaction
+in the country, I marveled at the stupidity
+of the Government in permitting the police
+to handle its inception as they did. Any hundred
+New York or London policemen, or any
+hundred Petrograd policemen, could have prevented
+the demonstrations by the simple process
+of closing the streets. But they let people
+crowd in from the side streets to see what was
+going on even when the crowds were beginning
+to be dangerously large, and, having permitted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>
+them to come, charged among them at random
+as if expressly making them angry.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Ease with
+which
+Czar was
+overthrown.</div>
+
+<p>I look back now at the time before the Revolution.
+The life of Petrograd is much as it
+was to outward appearances except that the
+new republican soldiers are now policing the
+streets, occasional citizens are wearing brassarts
+showing they are deputies of some sort
+or members of law-and-order committees, and
+there is a certain joyous freedom in the walk
+of every one. Here, in one corner of this vast
+empire, a revolt lacking all signs of terrorism,
+growing out of nothing into a sudden burst of
+indignation, knocked over the most absolute of
+autocracies. Just to look, it is hard to believe
+it true. As a Socialist said to me to-day: "The
+empire was rotten ready. One kick of a
+soldier's boot, and the throne with all its panoplies
+disappeared, leaving nothing but dust."</p>
+
+<p>I asked President Rodzianko of the Duma
+the other day:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Revolution
+inevitable
+after
+Duma was
+dissolved.</div>
+
+<p>"From what date was the revolution inevitable?"</p>
+
+<p>I expected him to name one of the days immediately
+before the revolt, but he replied:</p>
+
+<p>"When the Duma was dissolved in December
+without being granted a responsible ministry."</p>
+
+<p>"How late might the Emperor have saved
+his throne?"</p>
+
+<p>"New Year's. If he had granted a responsible
+ministry then, it would not have been too
+late."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Government
+brought
+Cossacks
+to Petrograd.</div>
+
+<p>The Government was either blind or too arrogant
+to take precautions. It had fears of
+an uprising at the reconvening of the Duma
+and brought 13,000 Cossacks to Petrograd to
+put fear into the hearts of the people, but it
+permitted a shortage of flour which had been
+noticeable for several weeks to become really
+serious just at this moment. There were large
+districts of working people practically without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>
+bread from the time the Duma reconvened up
+to the moment of the revolution.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Situation
+needed a
+great
+ruler.</div>
+
+<p>In the palace at Tsarskoe-Selo the seriousness
+of the situation was not ignored, but the preventive
+measures were lamentable. The Emperor,
+also, went to the front. If he had been
+a big enough man to be an emperor he would
+certainly never have done so. That left the
+neurasthenic Empress and the crafty, small-minded
+Protopopoff to handle a problem that
+needed a real man as great as Emperor Peter
+or Alexander III.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+author on
+the point
+of leaving
+Russia.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The appearance
+of Cossacks.</div>
+
+<p>When the Duma reconvened without disorders
+it never occurred to me that the Government
+would be foolish enough to let the flour
+situation get worse. I was so used by this
+time to see the Duma keep a calm front in the
+face of imperial rebuffs that I thought Russia
+was going to continue to muddle on to the end
+of the war and, though I thought I was rather
+well-posted, I confess I was on the point of
+leaving Russia to return to the western front,
+where the spring campaign was about to begin
+with vigor. As late as the Wednesday before
+the revolution I was preparing to leave. That
+day I learned that several small strikes which
+had occurred in scattered factories could not
+be settled and that several other factories were
+forced to close because workmen, having no
+bread, refused to report. Still I remember I
+was not too preoccupied by these reports to
+discuss the possibility of a German offensive
+against Italy with our military attach&eacute;, Lieutenant
+Francis B. Riggs, as we strolled down
+the Nevsky in the middle of the afternoon. We
+had reached the Fontanka Canal when we
+passed three Cossacks riding abreast at a walk
+up the street. They were the first Cossacks to
+make a public appearance, and they brought
+to the mind of every Petrograd citizen the
+recollection of the barbarities of the revolution<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>
+of 1905. Their appearance was a challenge to
+the people of Petrograd. They seemed to say,
+"Yes, we are here." If any one had said to
+me that afternoon, "These Cossacks are going
+to start a revolution which will set Russia free
+within a week," I should have regarded him
+as a lunatic with an original twist.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Petrograd
+life
+normal.</div>
+
+<p>The life of Petrograd was still normal as late
+as Thursday morning February 23d, Russian
+style (March 8th). The bread lines were very
+long, but Russians are patient and would have
+submitted to standing four or five hours in the
+cold if in the end they had always been rewarded,
+but shops were being closed with long
+lines still before them, and the disappointed
+were turning away with bitter remarks.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+historic
+spot for
+protests.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Cossacks
+merely
+keep the
+crowd on
+sidewalks.</div>
+
+<p>The open ground before Kasan Cathedral is
+the historic spot for protests and, true to
+tradition, the first demonstration against the
+bread shortage began there Thursday morning
+toward noon. There were not more than a
+dozen men speaking to groups of passing citizens.
+Each gathered a constantly changing
+audience, like an orator in Union Square, New
+York. But the Nevsky is always a busy street
+and it does not take much to give the appearance
+of a crowd. Examining that crowd, I
+could see it had not more than a hundred or
+two intent listeners. A company of Cossacks
+appeared to disperse it, but they confined themselves
+to riding up and down the curbs keeping
+the people on the sidewalks. The wide street
+was, as usual, full of passing sleighs and automobiles.
+Even then, at the beginning, it must
+have occurred to the military commander, General
+Khabaloff, that the Cossacks were taking
+it easy, or perhaps the police acted on their own
+initiative; at any rate the scene did not become
+exciting until mounted police arrived, riding
+on the sidewalk and scattering the curious onlookers
+pell-mell. By one o'clock the Nevsky<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>
+was calm again, and the street cars, which had
+been blocked for an hour, started once more.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Duma discusses
+food
+situation.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The first
+snarl of
+the mob.</div>
+
+<p>That afternoon I went to the Duma, where
+the mismanagement of the food situation
+throughout Russia was being discussed. I had
+a glass of tea with a member of the liberal
+Cadet Party, and he seemed more concerned
+with the victualing of the country than with
+the particular situation in Petrograd. Toward
+evening I drove back along the Nevsky and my
+'ishvoshik was blocked for a few minutes while
+a wave of working people, in unusual numbers
+for that part of town, passed. They were being
+urged on by Cossacks, but they were mostly
+smiling, women were hanging to their husbands'
+arms, and they were decidedly unhurried.
+It was not a crowd that could be in any
+sense called a mob, and was perfectly orderly,
+but it did not go fast enough to suit the police
+and a dozen of them came trotting up. Their
+appearance wiped the smile away, and when
+they began really roughing I heard the first
+murmurings of the snarl which only an infuriated
+mob can produce. I wondered what
+the police were up to. They were obviously
+provoking trouble. I felt then we might be in
+for serious difficulties&mdash;and the attitude of the
+police gave me the fear.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Watching
+for the
+Cossacks
+to act.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A red
+flag.</div>
+
+<p>Friday morning only a few street cars were
+running, but the city was quiet enough until
+after ten in the morning. Then the agitators,
+their small following, and the onlookers, sure
+now of having a spectacle, began gathering in
+considerable numbers. I was still expecting
+the rough work to commence with the Cossacks,
+but after watching them from the colonnades
+of the cathedral for half an hour I walked out
+through the crowd and, shifted but slightly
+out of my route by the sway of the crowd as
+Cossacks trotted up and down the street,
+crossed the thick of it. Green student caps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>
+were conspicuous, and one of the students told
+me the universities had gone on strike in sympathy
+with the bread demonstration. As a
+company of Cossacks swung by, lances in rest,
+rifles slung on their shoulders, I scanned their
+faces without finding anything ferocious there.
+Some one waved a red flag, the first I had seen,
+before them, but they passed, unnoticing.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Crowd
+not yet
+dangerous.</div>
+
+<p>This time the crowd did not break up but
+began to bunch here and there as far as the
+Fontanka Canal. All afternoon the Cossacks
+kept them stirring, and occasionally the police
+gave them a real roughing. Each time the
+police appeared, I heard that menacing murmur,
+but by Friday evening, when the day's
+crowd disappeared, the increase in discontent
+and anger had not developed sufficiently in
+twenty-four hours to be really dangerous. I
+felt the Government still had plenty of time
+to remove the discontent, and an announcement
+pasted up conspicuously everywhere saying
+there would be no lack of bread seemed like an
+assurance that the Government would somehow
+overnight provide all bakers with sufficient
+flour. That was the one obvious thing
+to do.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A tour
+of the
+Wiborg
+factory
+district.</div>
+
+<p>During the afternoon I made a long tour
+through the Wiborg factory district, which
+was thickly policed by infantrymen. Occasional
+street cars were still running, but
+otherwise the district was ominously silent.
+The bread-lines were very long here, and on the
+corners were groups of workmen. Their silent
+gravity struck me as being something to
+reckon with. Still the lack of real trouble on
+the Nevsky as I came back in a measure reassured
+me.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Crowd
+friendly
+with
+Cossacks.</div>
+
+<p>Saturday morning the crowd on the Nevsky
+gathered at the early Petrograd hour of ten,
+but they seemed to be there to encourage the
+Cossacks. Wherever the Cossacks passed, individuals<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>
+called out to them cheerfully and,
+even though they crowded in so close to the
+trotting horsemen as to be occasionally knocked
+about, they took it good-humoredly and went
+on cheering. I went away for an hour or so
+and when I returned the fraternizing of the
+crowd and the Cossacks was increasingly evident.
+By this time all sorts of ordinary citizens,
+catching the sense of events, were joining
+in the general acclamation. I was just beginning
+to get a glimmering of the meaning of all
+this when I was bowled over by the mounted
+police in front of the Singer Building.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Crowd beginning
+to
+challenge
+police.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Soldiers
+fire but
+wound
+few.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Police
+inviting
+quarrel.</div>
+
+<p>The more timorous average citizens began
+to lose interest, but the workmen and students
+who were in the Nevsky now in considerable
+numbers, and arriving hourly, accepted the
+challenge of the police. They began throwing
+bottles, the police charged afresh, and by the
+early part of Saturday afternoon there was
+really a mob on the Nevsky. Liberally mixed
+through the whole, though, were the ordinary
+onlookers, many of them young girls. The
+Nevsky widens for a space before the Gastenidwor
+(the Russian adaptation of the oriental
+bazaar), and infantrymen were now detailed
+to hold the people back at the point of the
+bayonet. Meanwhile, all the side streets were
+wide open and the appearance of a large, angry
+mob was kept up by constant arrivals. The
+crowd becoming unwieldy, the soldiers fired
+into it several times, but they did not wound
+many, indicating that they were extracting
+many bullets before they fired. The shooting
+only augmented the crowd, as Russians do not
+frighten very easily, and though at a few points
+it was necessary to turn the corner, I found
+no difficulty in going back and forth all afternoon
+between Kasan Cathedral and the Nicola
+Station&mdash;the main stretch of the Nevsky.
+There was general roughing along this mile<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>
+and a half of street which could have been
+stopped at any time in fifteen minutes by closing
+the streets. Instead, the police charged
+with increasing violence without doing anything
+to prevent the people coming from other
+parts of town. The idea was now unescapable
+that the police were inviting the people to a
+quarrel.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rioting
+at the
+Nicola
+Station.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Evident
+Cossacks
+are with
+people.</div>
+
+<p>The Cossacks were sometimes riding pretty
+fast themselves, but never with the violence of
+the police, and the cheering was continuous.
+At any point I could tell by the quality of the
+howl that went up from the mob whether it
+was being stirred by Cossacks or police. At
+the Nicola Station the rioting was the roughest,
+the police freely using their sabres. The
+crowd, though unarmed, stood its ground and
+howled back, and when possible caught an
+isolated mounted policeman and disarmed
+him. In one case the mob had already disarmed
+and was unseating a policeman, and
+other sections of the mob were rushing up to
+have a turn at manhandling him, when a single
+Cossack, with nothing in his hands, forced his
+way through and rescued the policeman, amid
+the cheers of the same people who were harassing
+him. It was quite evident that the people
+and the Cossacks were on the same side, and
+only the unbelievable stupid old Russian Government
+could have ignored it.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Machine
+guns
+installed.</div>
+
+<p>At nightfall the crowd had had its fill of
+roughing, but Sunday was evidently to be the
+real day. There would have been, of course,
+nothing on the Nevsky, if properly policed, and
+I have been unable to understand how the old
+Government, unless overconfident of its autocratic
+power and disdainful of the people, could
+have let things go on. But though half the
+regiments in Petrograd were on the point of
+revolt and their sympathy with the people was
+evident even to a foreigner, Sunday was mismanaged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>
+like the days before. It was even
+worse. The powers that were had, as early
+as Friday, been so silly as to send armored
+motor cars screeching up and down the Nevsky.
+Now they began installing machine guns where
+they could play on the crowd. Up to this time
+I had been a neutral, if disgusted, spectator,
+but now I hoped the police and the whole imperial
+r&eacute;gime would pay bitterly for their insolence
+and stupidity. The few corpses I encountered
+during the day on the Nevsky could
+not even add to the feeling. They were the
+mere casualties of a movement that was beginning
+to attain large proportions.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Many
+soldiers
+firing
+blanks.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">At the
+French
+theatre.</div>
+
+<p>The late afternoon and evening of Sunday
+were bloody. The Nevsky was finally closed
+except for cross traffic, and at the corner of
+the Sadovia and the Nevsky by the national
+library there was a machine gun going steadily.
+But it was in the hands of soldiers and they
+were firing blanks. The soldiers everywhere
+seemed to be firing blanks, but there was carnage
+enough. The way the crowds persisted
+showed their capacity for revolution. The talk
+was for the first time seriously revolutionary,
+and the red flags remained flying by the hour.
+That evening the air was for the first time
+electric with danger, but the possibilities of
+the next morning were not sufficiently evident
+to prevent me from going to the French theatre.
+There were a sufficient number of other people,
+of the same mind, including many officers, to
+fill half the seats.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Imperial
+box
+saluted
+for the
+last time.</div>
+
+<p>As usual, between the acts, the officers stood
+up, facing the imperial box, which neither the
+Emperor nor any one else ever occupied. This
+act of empty homage, which always grated
+on my democratic nerves in a Russian theatre,
+was being performed by these officers&mdash;though
+they did not even seem to suspect it&mdash;for the
+last time.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Lively
+rifle fire
+Sunday
+night.</div>
+
+<p>On my way home at midnight I picked up
+from wayfarers rumors of soldiers attacking
+the police, soldiers fighting among themselves
+and rioting in barracks. But outwardly there
+was calm until three in the morning, when I
+heard in my room on the Moika Canal side of
+the Hotel de France some very lively rifle fire
+from the direction of the Catherine Canal.
+This sounded more like the real thing than anything
+so far, so I dressed and tried to get near
+enough to learn what was going on. But for
+the first time the streets were really closed.
+The firing kept up steadily until four. Farther
+on in the great barracks along the Neva
+beyond the Litenie it kept up until the revolting
+soldiers had command.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Revolt
+spreads
+like a
+prairie
+fire.</div>
+
+<p>I regret not having seen the revolt getting
+under way in that quarter. I regret missing
+the small incidents, the moments when the
+revolt hung in the balance, when it was the
+question of whether a certain company would
+join, for when I reached there it was still in
+its inception and the most interesting thing
+about it was to watch it spread like a prairie
+fire.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Duma
+dissolved.</div>
+
+<p>Still not realizing, like most people in Petrograd,
+that we were within a few hours of a
+sweeping revolt, I wasted some precious hours
+that morning trying to learn what could be
+done with the censor. But toward noon I
+heard the Duma had been dissolved, and, as
+there had not been since Sunday any street
+cars, 'ishvoshiks, or other means of conveyance,
+I started out afoot with Roger Lewis of the
+Associated Press to walk the three miles to the
+Duma.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A silence
+like that
+of
+Louvain.</div>
+
+<p>The hush of impending events hung over the
+entire city. I remember nothing like that
+silence since the day the Germans entered
+Louvain. On every street were the bread lines
+longer than ever. All along the Catherine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>
+Canal, the snow was pounded by many feet and
+spotted with blood. But there were no soldiers
+and few police. We hurried along the Nevsky,
+gathering rumors of the fight that was actually
+going on down by the arsenal on the Litenie.
+But many shops were open and there was a
+semblance of business. All was so quiet we
+could not make out the meaning of a company
+of infantry drawn up in a hollow square commanding
+the four points at the junction of the
+Litenie and Nevsky, ordinarily one of the busiest
+corners in the world.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Cavalry
+commands
+arrive.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+barricade
+on the
+Litenie.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Haphazard
+rifle-fire.</div>
+
+<p>But as soon as we turned down the Litenie
+we could hear shots farther down, and the
+pedestrians were mostly knotted in doorways.
+Scattered cavalry commands were arriving
+from the side streets, and the Litenie began
+looking a little too hot. So we chose a parallel
+street for several blocks until we were within
+three blocks of the Neva, where we had to cross
+the Litenie in front of a company drawn up
+across the street ready to fire toward the arsenal,
+where there was sporadic rifle fire. Here
+there were bigger knots of curious citizens projecting
+themselves farther and farther toward
+the middle of the street, hoping for a better
+view, until a nearer shot frightened them
+closer to the walls. The barricade on the
+Litenie by the arsenal, the one barricade the
+revolution produced, was just beginning to be
+built two hundred feet away as Lewis and I
+reached the shelter of the Fourshtatzkaya, on
+the same street as the American Embassy. By
+crossing the Litenie we had entered the zone of
+the revolutionists. We did not realize this,
+however, and were puzzled by the sight of a
+soldier carrying simply a bayonet, and another
+with a bare officer's sword. A fourteen-year-old
+boy stood in the middle of the street with
+a rifle in his hand, trifling with it. It exploded
+in his hand, and when he saw the ruin of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>
+breech block he unfixed the bayonet, threw
+down the gun, and ran around the corner. A
+student came up the street examining the mechanism
+of a revolver. There seemed to be rifle-fire
+in every direction, even in the same street,
+but haphazard.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">An officer
+recruiting
+for the
+revolution.</div>
+
+<p>If we had not been living in a troubled atmosphere
+these small indications would have
+impressed us deeply, but neither of us gathered
+immediately the significance of events. Before
+we reached the next corner we passed troops
+who evidently did not know yet whether or not
+they were still on the side of the Government.
+An automobile appeared full of soldiers, an
+officer standing on the seat. He waved toward
+him all the soldiers in sight and began haranguing
+them. There was no red flag in sight,
+and, until we caught his words, we thought he
+was urging them to remain loyal. He was
+really recruiting for the revolution.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Automobiles
+and motor
+trucks.</div>
+
+<p>As we kept on toward the Duma we encountered
+other automobiles, many of them,
+and motor trucks, literally bristling with guns
+and sabres. Half the men were civilians and
+the number of young boys with revolvers who
+looked me over made me feel it was a very
+easy time in which to be killed. I was wearing
+an English trench coat and a fur cap, so to
+prevent any mistake of identity I stopped and
+presented a full view to each passing motor.
+Still I knew my continued existence depended
+on the sanity of any one of thirty or forty very
+excited men and boys on each truck, and when
+I reached the protection of the enormous crowd
+that was storming the entrance to the Duma I
+felt more comfortable.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Duma
+waits, but
+finally
+takes
+command.</div>
+
+<p>The Duma had just been dismissed by imperial
+decree, an ironical circumstance in view
+of the thousands of soldiers and civilians
+massed before its doors under the red flag.
+Their leaders were within, asking the Duma to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>
+form a provisional government. The Duma
+was not yet convinced, and the mental confusion
+within was more bewildering than the
+revolution without. This was early in the
+afternoon, and the Duma held off for hours.
+Even when it was known that the Preobarzhenski
+regiment, which began its career with
+Peter the Great, had turned revolutionary, the
+Duma insisted on waiting. But at nine o'clock
+in the evening, when every police station, every
+court, was on fire and the revolutionists completely
+controlled the city, President Rodzianko
+decided that the Duma must take command.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Automobiles
+dart boldly
+everywhere.</div>
+
+<p>It is interesting to watch a revolution grow,
+and even at this time, early Monday afternoon,
+the revolutionists controlled only a corner of
+Petrograd. They were working up excitement,
+and, as often before in the war, the motor
+trucks played an important part. They thundered
+back and forth through doubtful streets,
+students, soldiers, and workmen standing tight
+and bristling with bayonets like porcupines.
+They carried conviction of force, and, as each
+foray met with less resistance, it was not long
+before they were dashing boldly everywhere.
+That accounts for the rapid control of the city.
+It could not have been done afoot.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The revolutionists
+take the
+arsenal.</div>
+
+<p>All day, from the time the arsenal fell into
+their hands, the revolutionists felt their
+strength growing, and from noon on no attack
+was led against them. At first the soldiers
+simply gave up their guns and mixed in the
+crowd, but they grew bolder, too, when they
+saw the workmen forming into regiments and
+marching up the Fourshtatzkaya, still fumbling
+with the triggers of their rifles to see how they
+met the enemy at the next corner. The coolness
+of these revolutionists, their willingness to
+die for their cause, won the respect of a small
+group of us who were standing before the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>
+American Embassy. The group was composed
+chiefly of Embassy attach&eacute;s who wanted to go
+over to the old Austrian Embassy, used by us as
+the headquarters for the relief of German and
+Austrian prisoners in Russia; but though it
+was only a five minutes' walk, the hottest
+corner in the revolution lay between.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Soldiers
+ground
+arms and
+become
+revolutionists.</div>
+
+<p>When we left the Embassy, Captain McCulley,
+the American Naval Attach&eacute;, said he
+knew a way to get out of the revolutionary
+quarter without passing a line of fire. So he
+edged us off toward the distant Nevsky along
+several blood-blotched streets in which there
+were occasional groups of soldiers who did not
+know which way to turn. Then, as the Bycenie,
+beyond, suddenly filled with revolutionists
+coming from some other quarter, we turned to
+cross the Litenie. Twenty minutes earlier
+Captain McCulley had passed there and the
+Government troops controlled for another
+quarter mile. Now we passed a machine-gun
+company commanding the street, which dared
+not fire because there was a line of soldiers between
+it and a vast crowd pouring through the
+street toward us. The crowd had already overwhelmed
+and made revolutionists out of hundreds
+of soldiers, and the situation for a moment
+was <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'dramtically'">dramatically</ins> tense.</p>
+
+<p>Down the bisecting Litenie another crowd
+was advancing, filling the wide street. Before
+it there was also a company of soldiers, and it
+did not know whether to face the Bycenie or
+the river. Three immense mobs were overwhelming
+it, though it knew of but two. Suddenly,
+just at the moment when we expected a
+shower of bullets, and flattened ourselves
+against a doorway, the company grounded arms
+and in three seconds was in the arms of the
+revolution.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Company
+after
+company
+joins.</div>
+
+<p>As we retreated to the Nevsky ahead of the
+victorious crowd we could see company after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>
+company turn, as if suddenly deciding not to
+shoot, and join.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Thunder
+of motor
+trucks.</div>
+
+<p>I walked rapidly back to the Morskaya and
+down to the cable office, which I found closed,
+not encountering on the whole two miles a
+single soldier or policeman until I reached
+St. Isaac's Cathedral, where a regiment of
+marines turned up the Morskaya toward the
+Nevsky, swinging along behind a band. Five
+minutes later I followed them up the Morskaya,
+but before I reached the Gorokawaya, half the
+distance, I could hear the thunder of the revolutionary
+motor trucks and the glad howls of
+the revolutionists. They had run the length of
+the Nevsky, and the city, except this little
+corner, was theirs. The shooting began at
+once, and for the next three hours on both the
+Morskaya and the Moika there was steady firing.
+This was still going on when, at nine in
+the evening, I passed around the edge of the
+fight, crossed Winter Palace Square, deserted
+except for a company of Cossacks dimly outlined
+against the Winter Palace across the
+square. By passing under the arch into the
+head of Morskaya again I was once more with
+the revolutionists.</p>
+
+<p>I have since asked Mr. Milukoff, now Minister
+of Foreign Affairs, at that moment a
+member of the Duma's Committee of Safety,
+how much of an organization there was behind
+the events of that day.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The organization
+a spontaneous
+growth.</div>
+
+<p>"There was some incipient organization certainly,"
+he replied, "though even now I could
+not be more definite. But for the most part it
+was spontaneous growth. The Duma was not
+revolutionary, and we held off until it became
+necessary for us to take hold. We were the
+only government left."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Duma is
+forced to
+adopt
+democratic
+programme.</div>
+
+<p>The rapid work was done by the Socialists,
+who quickly formed the Council of Workmen
+and Soldiers' Deputies and formulated the programme<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>
+which has come to be the Russian Declaration
+of Independence. They consented to
+support the Duma if it adopted their democratic
+programme. There was nothing else for
+the Duma to do, and the main issues of the
+new Government were worked out before Tuesday
+morning, within twenty-four hours of the
+beginning of the revolution. Since then I have
+been repeatedly impressed with the organizing
+ability of the men in control, and their ability
+to take matters rapidly in hand.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+crowd
+feels its
+power.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Not
+much terrorism.</div>
+
+<p>Monday night the city was in the hands of
+the mob. Anybody could have a gun. Public
+safety lay in the released spirits of the Russian
+workmen who saw the vision of liberty
+before them. Tuesday was the most dangerous
+day, as the crowd was beginning to feel its
+power, and the amount of shooting going on
+everywhere must have been out of all proportion
+to the sniping on the part of cornered
+police. But the searching of apartments for
+arms was carried on with some semblance of
+order, and usually there was a student in command.
+The individual stories of officers who
+refused to surrender and fought to the end in
+their apartments are endless, but these individual
+fights were lost in the victorious sweep
+of the day. Tuesday evening the real business
+of burning police stations and prisons and
+destroying records went on throughout the
+city, but the actual burnings, while picturesque,
+lacked the terrorism one might expect. Still I
+felt that the large number of irresponsible
+civilians carrying arms might do what they
+pleased.</p>
+
+<p>The same idea evidently occurred to the
+Committee of Safety, as it began at once disarming
+the irresponsible, and its work was so
+quick and effective that there were very few
+civilians not registered as responsible police
+who still had fire-arms on Wednesday morning.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Regiments
+sent to
+Petrograd
+join revolutionists.</div>
+
+<p>As late as Wednesday there was a possibility
+of troops being sent against Petrograd, but all
+the regiments for miles around joined the revolution
+before they entered the city. There was
+obviously no one who wanted to uphold the old
+monarchy, and it fell without even dramatic
+incident to mark its end. To us in Petrograd
+the abdication of the Emperor had just one
+significance. It brought the army over at a
+stroke. The country, long saturated with
+democratic principles, accepted the new Government
+as naturally as if it had been chosen
+by a national vote.</p>
+<div class='center'><br /><br /><small>Copyright, World's Work, July, 1917.</small></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The credit of the first shot fired on the
+American side in the Great War fell to the
+crew of the American ship, <i>Mongolia</i>. A narrative
+of this dramatic event is given in the
+chapter following.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span></p>
+<h2>AMERICA'S FIRST SHOT</h2>
+
+<h3>J. R. KEEN</h3>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Gunners
+of the
+<i>Mongolia</i>
+hit a submarine.</div>
+
+<p>April 19 has long been celebrated in Massachusetts
+because of the battle of Lexington,
+but henceforth the Bay State can
+keep with added pride a day which has acquired
+national interest in this war, for on
+that date the S. S. <i>Mongolia</i>, bound from New
+York to London, under command of Captain
+Emery Rice, while proceeding up the English
+Channel, fired on an attacking submarine at
+5.24 in the morning, smashing its periscope and
+causing the U-boat to disappear.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Officers
+from
+Massachusetts.</div>
+
+<p>The gun crew who made this clean hit at
+1,000 yards were under command of Lieutenant
+Bruce R. Ware, United States Navy, and the
+fact of special interest in Massachusetts is that
+both Rice and Ware were born in that State,
+the Captain receiving his training for the sea
+in the Massachusetts Nautical School and the
+Lieutenant being a graduate of Annapolis.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Dangerous
+voyages
+and
+cargoes.</div>
+
+<p>The <i>Mongolia</i>, a merchantman of 13,638 tons,
+had been carrying munitions to Great Britain
+since January, 1916, when she reached New
+York Harbor from San Francisco, coming by
+way of Cape Horn, and she had already made
+nine voyages to England. In those voyages her
+officers and men had faced many of the greatest
+perils of the war. Her cargoes had consisted
+of TNT, of ammunition, of powder, of fuses,
+and of shells. At one time while carrying this
+dangerous freight Captain Rice saw, as he
+stood on the bridge during a storm, a lightning
+bolt strike the ship forward just where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>
+a great quantity of powder was stored, and
+held his breath as he waited to see "whether he
+was going up or going down."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Warnings
+of
+U-boats.</div>
+
+<p>Captain Rice has since died, and among his
+papers now in my possession are many of the
+warnings of the presence of U-boats sent to his
+ship by the British Admiralty during 1916,
+when every vessel approaching the British
+coast was in danger from those assassins of the
+sea.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Mongolia</i>
+sails in
+spite of
+German
+edict.</div>
+
+<p>After February 1, 1917, when the Huns made
+their "war zone" declaration, the question with
+us at home whether the <i>Mongolia</i> would continue
+to sail in defiance of that edict of ruthless
+warfare became a matter of acute anxiety.
+The ship completed her eighth voyage on
+February 7, when she reached New York and
+found the whole country discussing the burning
+question, "Would the United States allow
+the Imperial German Government to dictate
+how and where our ships should go?" There
+was never but one answer in the mind of Captain
+Rice. At home he simply said, "I shall
+sail on schedule, armed or unarmed. Does any
+one suppose I would let those damned Prussians
+drive me off the ocean?"</p>
+
+<p>In the office of the International Mercantile
+Marine he expressed himself more politely, but
+with equal determination, to the President of
+the company, P. A. S. Franklin, to whom he
+said, "I am prepared, so are my officers, to sail
+with or without arms, but of course I would
+rather have arms."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Arms
+slow to
+get.</div>
+
+<p>But the arms were slow to get, and the
+<i>Mongolia</i>, loaded with her super-dangerous
+cargo, cleared from New York on February 20,
+the first one of our boats to reach England
+after the "war zone" declaration, I believe.
+Captain Rice arrived in London about the time
+when Captain Tucker of the S. S. <i>Orleans</i>
+reached Bordeaux, the latter being the first<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>
+American to reach France in safety after the
+same declaration.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Spies try
+to learn
+sailing
+dates.</div>
+
+<p>Early in February of 1917 we became aware
+that German spies were making a persistent
+attempt to get into our home to find out when
+the <i>Mongolia</i> was sailing, and if the ship was
+to be armed. The first spy came up the back
+stairs in the guise of an employe engaged in
+delivering household supplies. He accomplished
+nothing, and the incident was dismissed
+from our minds, but the second spy came up
+the front stairs and effected an entrance, and
+this event roused us to the dangers around
+Captain Rice even in his own country and
+showed the intense determination of the Germans
+to prevent, if they could, any more big
+cargoes of munitions reaching England on the
+<i>Mongolia</i>. Our second visitor was a man who
+had been an officer in the German Army years
+before. After leaving Germany he came to the
+United States and became a citizen.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A German-American
+turns
+German
+spy.</div>
+
+<p>In August, 1914, when the Huns invaded
+Belgium, he became all German again and returned
+to Europe to serve with the German
+Army on the French front, from which region
+he was ordered by the German Government
+back to the United States, where his command
+of English and knowledge of the country made
+him valuable to the propaganda and spy groups
+here. All this and much more I found out
+shortly after his visit, but the afternoon he
+called I (I was alone at the time) received him
+without suspicion, since he said he came to pay
+his respects to Captain Rice, whom he had
+known in China.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Deceiving
+the spy.</div>
+
+<p>It was not until his apparently casual questions
+about the time of the <i>Mongolia's</i> sailing
+and whether she was to be armed became annoying
+that "I woke up," and looking attentively
+at this over-curious visitor, I encountered a
+look of such cold hostility that with a shock<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>
+I realized I was dealing with a spy, one who
+was probably armed, and who appeared determined
+to get the information he sought. In
+a few seconds of swift thinking I decided the
+best thing to do was to make him believe that
+Captain Rice himself did not know whether
+his ship was going out again, and that no
+one could tell what course of action the ship
+owners would take. After forty minutes of
+probing for information he departed, convinced
+there was no information to be had
+from me.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">How signals
+could
+be sent by
+German
+agents.</div>
+
+<p>It was ascertained that his New York home
+was in an apartment house on the highest point
+of land in Manhattan. In this same house
+there lived another German, who received many
+young men, all Teutons, as visitors, some of
+whom spent much time with him on the roof.
+The possibility of their signaling out to sea
+from this elevation is too obvious to be dwelt
+on, and it is beyond doubt that some of the
+submarines' most effective work at this time
+and later was due to the activities of these
+German agents allowed at large by our too-trustful
+laws of citizenship. So exact and
+timely was much of the information these spies
+secured that the <i>Mongolia</i> on one of her voyages
+to England picked up a wireless message sent
+in the <i>Mongolia's</i> own secret code, saying that
+the <i>Montana</i> was sinking, giving her position,
+and asking the <i>Mongolia</i> to come to her rescue,
+but it had happened that when the <i>Mongolia</i>
+left New York Harbor at the beginning of this
+very voyage one of her officers had noticed the
+<i>Montana</i> lying in the harbor.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Mongolia</i>
+is armed
+with three
+6-inch
+guns.</div>
+
+<p>When the <i>Mongolia</i> returned on March 30,
+1917, from this unarmed voyage she was given
+three six-inch guns, two forward and one aft,
+and a gun crew from the U. S. S. <i>Texas</i>, under
+Lieutenant Bruce R. Ware, who had already
+made his mark in gunnery.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The <i>Mongolia</i> left New York on her tenth
+voyage April 7 with the following officers:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+officers on
+the
+voyage.</div>
+
+<p>Commander, Emery Rice; in command of
+armed guard, Lieutenant Bruce R. Ware; Chief
+officer, Thomas Blau; First Officer, W. E. Wollaston;
+Second Officer, Charles W. Krieg; Third
+Officer, Joseph C. Lutz; Fourth Officer, Carroll
+D. Riley; Cadets, Fred Earl Wilcox and Theodore
+Forsell; Doctor, Charles Rendell; Assistant
+Purser, J. T. Wylie; Chief Steward, W. T.
+Heath; Chief Engineer, James W. Condon;
+First Assistant Engineer, Clarence Irwin;
+Second Assistant Engineer, William Hodgkiss;
+Third Assistant Engineer, L. R. Tinto. Six
+junior engineers&mdash;William Hasenfus, E. Larkin,
+Perry McComb, Sidney Murray, J. R. Fletcher,
+Lawrence Paterson, Refrigerator Engineer, H.
+Johnson, Electrician, E. Powers; Dock Engineer,
+V. Hansen.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Entries
+from the
+ship's log.</div>
+
+<p>The log of the ship for that voyage contains
+these entries:</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Log entries">
+<tr><td align='left'>Sailed from New York April 7, 1917.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Arrived Falmouth, England, April 18, 1917.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Left Falmouth, England, April 18, 1917, p. m.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>On April 19, 5.24 a. m., fired on submarine.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Arrived Tilbury, London, April 21.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Left Tilbury, London, May 2.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Arrived New York, May 13.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The Captain's report to the London office
+of the International Mercantile Marine is dated
+April 21, 1917, and says:</p>
+
+<p>"I beg to report that the S. S. <i>Mongolia</i> under
+my command, while proceeding up Channel
+on April 19 at 5.24 a. m. encountered a submarine,
+presumably German, in Latitude 50&middot;30
+degrees North, Longitude 32 degrees West; 9
+miles South 37 degrees East true from the Overs
+Light vessel.</p>
+
+<p>"The weather at the time: calm to light airs,
+sea smooth, hazy with visibility about 3 miles;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>
+speed of the ship fifteen knots, course North
+74 degrees East true, to pass close to the Royal
+Sovereign Light vessel.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A periscope sighted.</div>
+
+<p>"The periscope was first sighted broad on the
+port bow, distant about one-half mile, by Chief
+Officer Blau in charge of the bridge watch at
+the time. His shout of 'submarine on the port
+bow' brought Lieutenant Ware and myself
+quickly out of the chart room on to the bridge,
+where we immediately saw the swirling wake
+left by the submarine as it submerged.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Lieutenant Ware gives the range.</div>
+
+<p>"The armed guard under Lieutenant Ware,
+United States Navy, were standing by all guns
+at the time, which were fully loaded, and while
+Lieutenant Ware gave the range to the guns
+I ordered the helm put hard-a-starboard with
+the object of lessening the broadside angle of
+the ship to an approaching torpedo.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The shot goes home.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Efficiency of the gunners.</div>
+
+<p>"Lieutenant Ware's order of 'train on the
+starboard quarter and report when you bear
+on a submarine's periscope' was answered almost
+immediately by the after gun's crew, who
+were then ordered to commence firing. One
+shot was fired from the after gun which struck
+in the centre of the swirl created by the submarine,
+causing a quantity of light blue smoke
+to hang over the spot where the submarine disappeared
+for some time. This was the only
+shot fired, and the submarine was not seen
+again, and after zigzagging until the weather
+became very thick the ship was again put on
+her course. Passed through the Gateway off
+Folkestone at 10.45 a. m. and anchored at 11.01
+a. m., as I considered the weather too thick to
+proceed. I feel that the <i>Mongolia's</i> safe arrival
+at London is due to a large extent to the
+zeal and ability in the execution of his duties
+displayed by Lieutenant B. R. Ware, United
+States Navy, who has been untiring in his efforts
+to bring the men under his command to
+a high state of efficiency, and who has kept a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>
+continuous watch for the past five days. His
+co-operation with the ship's officers has been
+of the closest, and his men and guns were always
+ready. Also to Mr. Blau, the chief officer,
+a large measure of credit is due, for had he not
+seen the periscope at the exact moment of its
+appearance it is possible that all our precautions
+would have been useless.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Signed. <span class="smcap">Emery Rice</span>,<br />
+"Commander S. S. <i>Mongolia</i>."<br />
+<br /></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Mongolia's</i>
+officers
+marked
+men.</div>
+
+<p>The fame of the first engagement made the
+<i>Mongolia's</i> officers marked men. When Captain
+Rice returned home he reported that Consul
+General Skinner in London had told him
+that the Germans had set a price of 50,000
+marks on his head, and letters expressing
+hatred and revenge reached us in New York
+from points as far away as Kansas City. On
+the other hand, the pride felt in the great ship's
+exploit brought scores of letters from officers
+and men who applied for service on her.</p>
+<div class='center'><br /><br /><small>Copyright, New York Times, April 27, 1919.</small></div>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>German agents were industrious throughout
+the United States, long before the American
+Government broke with Germany. Her activities
+were carried on in the form of propaganda
+and by more violent deeds. A complete
+account of these activities as revealed in a
+congressional investigation follows.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span></p>
+<h2>GERMAN ACTIVITIES IN THE<br />
+UNITED STATES</h2>
+
+<h3>FROM REPORT OF HOUSE COMMITTEE
+ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS</h3>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">Momentous
+results
+must
+follow.</div>
+
+<p>It is with the deepest sense of responsibility
+of the momentous results which will follow
+the passage of this resolution that your
+committee reports it to the House, with the
+recommendation that it be passed.</p>
+
+<p>The conduct of the Imperial German Government
+toward this Government, its citizens,
+and its interests has been so discourteous, unjust,
+cruel, barbarous, and so lacking in honesty
+and fair dealing that it has constituted a violation
+of the course of conduct which should
+obtain between friendly nations.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to this, the German Government
+is actually making war upon the people and
+the commerce of this country, and leaves no
+course open to this Government but to accept
+its gage of battle, declare that a state of war
+exists, and wage that war vigorously.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The announcement
+of
+the submarine
+war zone.</div>
+
+<p>On the 31st day of January, 1917, notice was
+given by the Imperial German Government to
+this Government that after the following day&mdash;"Germany
+will meet the illegal measures of
+her enemies by forcibly preventing, in a zone
+around Great Britain, France, Italy, and in the
+Eastern Mediterranean, all navigation, that of
+neutrals included, from and to England and
+from and to France, &amp;c. All ships met within
+that zone will be sunk."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">American
+ships
+sunk.</div>
+
+<p>Since that day seven American ships flying
+the American flag have been sunk and between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>
+twenty-five and thirty American lives have been
+lost as a result of the prosecution of the submarine
+warfare in accordance with the above
+declaration. This is war. War waged by the
+Imperial German Government upon this country
+and its people.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Review of Germany's hostile acts.</div>
+
+<p>A brief review of some of the hostile and
+illegal acts of the German Government toward
+this Government and its officers and its people
+is herewith given.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German note of February, 1915.</div>
+
+<p>In the memorial of the Imperial German
+Government accompanying its proclamation of
+February 4, 1915, in regard to submarine warfare,
+that Government declared: "The German
+Navy has received instructions to abstain from
+all violence against neutral vessels recognizable
+as such." In the note of the German Government
+dated February 16, 1915, in reply to the
+American note of February 10, it was declared
+that "It is very far indeed from the intention
+of the German Government * * * ever to
+destroy neutral lives and neutral property.
+* * * The commanders of German submarines
+have been instructed, as was already
+stated in the note of the 4th instant, to abstain
+from violence to American merchant ships when
+they are recognizable as such."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">American lives lost on many torpedoed ships.</div>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, the German Government proceeded
+to carry out its plans of submarine warfare
+and torpedoed the British passenger
+steamer <i>Falaba</i> on March 27, 1915, when one
+American life was lost, attacked the American
+steamer <i>Cushing</i> April 28 by airship, and made
+submarine attacks upon the American tank
+steamer <i>Gulflight</i> May 1, the British passenger
+steamer <i>Lusitania</i> May 7, when 114 American
+lives were lost, and the American steamer
+<i>Nebraskan</i> on May 25, in all of which over 125
+citizens of the United States lost their lives,
+not to mention hundreds of noncombatants
+who were lost and hundreds of Americans<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>
+and noncombatants whose lives were put in
+jeopardy.</p>
+
+<p>The British mule boat <i>Armenian</i> was torpedoed
+on June 28, as a result of which twenty
+Americans are reported missing.</p>
+
+<p>On July 8, 1915, in a note to Ambassador
+Gerard, arguing in defense of its method of
+warfare and particularly of its submarine commander
+in the <i>Lusitania</i> case, it is stated:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German defense of German submarine
+warfare.</div>
+
+<p>"The Imperial Government therefore repeats
+the assurances that American ships will not
+be hindered in the prosecution of legitimate
+shipping and the lives of American citizens
+on neutral vessels shall not be placed in
+jeopardy.</p>
+
+<p>"In order to exclude any unforeseen dangers
+to American passenger steamers * * * the
+German submarines will be instructed to permit
+the free and safe passage of such passenger
+steamers when made recognizable by special
+markings and notified a reasonable time in
+advance."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">American ships attacked later.</div>
+
+<p>Subsequently the following vessels carrying
+American citizens were attacked by submarines:
+British liner <i>Orduna</i>, July 9; Russian
+steamer <i>Leo</i>, July 9; American steamer <i>Leelanaw</i>,
+July 25; British passenger liner <i>Arabic</i>,
+August 19; British mule ship <i>Nicosian</i>, August
+19; British steamer <i>Hesperian</i>, September 4.
+In these attacks twenty-three Americans lost
+their lives, not to mention the large number
+whose lives were placed in jeopardy.</p>
+
+<p>Following these events, conspicuous by their
+wantonness and violation of every rule of humanity
+and maritime warfare, the German
+Ambassador, by instructions from his Government,
+on September 1 gave the following assurances
+to the Government of the United
+States:</p>
+
+<p>"Liners will not be sunk by our submarines
+without warning and without safety of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>
+lives of noncombatants, provided that the liners
+do not try to escape or offer resistance."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germany gives assurance of regard for lives of noncombatants.</div>
+
+<p>On September 9, in a reply as to the submarine
+attack on the <i>Orduna</i>, the German Government
+renewed these assurances in the following
+language:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The <i>Orduna</i> case.</div>
+
+<p>"The first attack on the <i>Orduna</i> by a torpedo
+was not in accordance with the existing instructions,
+which provide that large passenger
+steamers are to be torpedoed only after
+previous warning and after the rescuing of
+passengers and crew. The failure to observe
+the instructions was based on an error which
+is at any rate comprehensible and the repetition
+of which appears to be out of the question,
+in view of the more explicit instructions
+issued in the meantime. Moreover, the commanders
+of the submarines have been reminded
+that it is their duty to exercise greater care
+and to observe carefully the orders issued."</p>
+
+<p>The German Government could not more
+clearly have stated that liners or large passenger
+steamers would not be torpedoed except
+upon previous warning and after the passengers
+and crew had been put in places of safety.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Statement about the <i>William P. Frye</i>.</div>
+
+<p>On November 29 the German Government
+states, in connection with the case of the
+American vessel <i>William P. Frye</i>:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germany promises to protect passengers.</div>
+
+<p>"The German naval forces will sink only such
+American vessels as are loaded with absolute
+contraband, when the preconditions provided
+by the Declaration of London are present. In
+this the German Government quite shares the
+view of the American Government that all
+possible care must be taken for the security of
+the crew and passengers of a vessel to be sunk.
+Consequently the persons found on board of a
+vessel may not be ordered into her lifeboats
+except when the general conditions&mdash;that is
+to say, the weather, the condition of the sea,
+and the neighborhood of the coasts&mdash;afford absolute<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>
+certainty that the boats will reach the
+nearest port."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">An American Consul drowned.</div>
+
+<p>Following this accumulative series of assurances,
+however, there seems to have been no
+abatement in the rigor of submarine warfare,
+for attacks were made in the Mediterranean
+upon the American steamer <i>Communipaw</i> on
+December 3, the American steamer <i>Petrolite</i>
+December 5, the Japanese liner <i>Yasaka Maru</i>
+December 21, and the passenger liner <i>Persia</i>
+December 30. In the sinking of the <i>Persia</i> out
+of a total of some 500 passengers and crew
+only 165 were saved. Among those lost was
+an American Consul traveling to his post.</p>
+
+<p>On January 7, eight days after the sinking
+of the <i>Persia</i>, the German Government notified
+the Government of the United States through
+its Ambassador in Washington as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Submarines in Mediterranean ordered
+to respect international law.</div>
+
+<p>"1. German submarines in the Mediterranean
+had, from the beginning, orders to conduct
+cruiser warfare against enemy merchant vessels
+only in accordance with the general principles
+of international law, and in particular
+measures of reprisal, as applied in the war
+zone around the British Isles, were to be excluded.</p>
+
+<p>"2. German submarines are therefore permitted
+to destroy enemy merchant vessels in
+the Mediterranean, <i>i. e.</i>, passenger as well as
+freight ships as far as they do not try to escape
+or offer resistance&mdash;only after passengers
+and crews have been accorded safety."</p>
+
+<p>Clearly the assurances of the German Government
+that neutral and enemy merchant vessels,
+passenger as well as freight ships, should
+not be destroyed except upon the passengers
+and crew being accorded safety stood as the
+official position of the Imperial German Government.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germany
+offers indemnity
+for Americans
+lost
+on
+<i>Lusitania</i>.</div>
+
+<p>On February 16, 1916, the German Ambassador
+communicated to the Department of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>
+State an expression of regret for the loss of
+American lives on the <i>Lusitania</i>, and proposed
+to pay a suitable indemnity. In the course of
+this note he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Germany has * * * limited her submarine
+warfare because of her long-standing
+friendship with the United States and because
+by the sinking of the <i>Lusitania</i>, which
+caused the death of citizens of the United
+States, the German retaliation affected neutrals,
+which was not the intention, as retaliation
+should be confined to enemy subjects."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">French
+unarmed
+<i>Patria</i>
+attacked.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+<i>Sussex</i>
+torpedoed
+without
+warning.</div>
+
+<p>On March 1, 1916, the unarmed French passenger
+steamer <i>Patria</i>, carrying a number of
+American citizens, was attacked without warning.
+On March 9 the Norwegian bark <i>Silius</i>,
+riding at anchor in Havre Roads, was torpedoed
+by an unseen submarine and one of the
+seven Americans on board was injured. On
+March 16 the Dutch passenger steamer <i>Tubantia</i>
+was sunk in the North Sea by a torpedo.
+On March 16 the British steamer <i>Berwindale</i>
+was torpedoed without warning off Bantry
+Island with four Americans on board. On
+March 24 the British unarmed steamer <i>Englishman</i>
+was, after a chase, torpedoed and sunk by
+the submarine <i>U-19</i>, as a result of which one
+American on board perished. On March 24 the
+unarmed French cross-Channel steamer <i>Sussex</i>
+was torpedoed without warning, several of the
+twenty-four American passengers being injured.
+On March 27 the unarmed British liner
+<i>Manchester Engineer</i> was sunk by an explosion
+without prior warning, with Americans on
+board, and on March 28 the British steamer
+<i>Eagle Point</i>, carrying a Hotchkiss gun, which
+she did not use, was chased, overtaken, and
+sunk by a torpedo after the persons on board
+had taken to the boats.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">America
+will hold
+Germany
+responsible.</div>
+
+<p>The American note of February 10, 1915,
+stated that should German vessels of war<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span>
+"destroy on the high seas an American vessel
+or the lives of American citizens it would be
+difficult for the Government of the United
+States to view the act in any other light than
+an indefensible violation of neutral rights
+which it would be very hard, indeed, to reconcile
+with the friendly relations so happily subsisting
+between the two Governments," and that
+if such a deplorable situation should arise,
+"the Government of the United States would be
+constrained to hold the Imperial Government
+to a strict accountability for such acts of their
+naval authorities."</p>
+
+<p>In the American note of May 13, 1915, the
+Government stated:</p>
+
+<p>"The imperial Government will not expect
+the Government of the United States to omit
+any word or act necessary to the performance
+of its sacred duty of maintaining the rights
+of the United States and its citizens and in
+safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment."</p>
+
+<p>In the note of July 21, 1915, the United
+States Government said that&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Repetition by the commanders of German
+naval vessels of acts in contravention of
+those rights must be regarded by the Government
+of the United States, when they affect
+American citizens, as deliberately unfriendly."</p>
+
+<p>In a communication of April 18, 1916, the
+American Government said:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+United
+States insists
+on
+regard for
+international
+law.</div>
+
+<p>"If it is still the purpose of the Imperial
+Government to prosecute relentless and indiscriminate
+warfare against vessels of commerce
+by the use of submarines without regard
+to what the Government of the United
+States must consider the sacred and indisputable
+rules of international law and the
+universally recognized dictates of humanity,
+the Government of the United States is at
+last forced to the conclusion that there is but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>
+one course it can pursue. Unless the Imperial
+Government should not immediately declare
+and effect an abandonment of its present
+methods of submarine warfare against passenger
+and freight carrying vessels the Government
+of the United States can have no
+choice but to sever diplomatic relations with
+the German Empire altogether."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germany
+gives definite
+assurances.</div>
+
+<p>The German Government replied to this
+communication on May 4, 1916, giving definite
+assurances that new orders had been issued to
+the German naval forces "in accordance with
+the general principles of visit and search and
+the destruction of merchant vessels recognized
+by international law." And this agreement
+was substantially complied with for many
+months, but finally, on January 31, 1917, notice
+was given that after the following day&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The notice
+of January
+31,
+1917.</div>
+
+<p>"Germany will meet the illegal measures of
+her enemies by forcibly preventing in a zone
+around Great Britain, France, Italy, and in
+the Eastern Mediterranean all navigation, that
+of neutrals included, from and to England and
+from and to France, &amp;c. All ships met within
+that zone will be sunk."</p>
+
+<p>In view of this Government's warning of
+April 18, 1916, and the Imperial German Government's
+pledge of May 4 of the same year, the
+Government of the United States, on February
+3, 1917, stated to the Imperial German Government
+that&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The course
+of the
+United
+States.</div>
+
+<p>"In view of this declaration, which withdraws
+suddenly and without prior intimation
+the solemn assurance given in the Imperial
+Government's note of May 4, 1916, this Government
+has no alternative consistent with the
+dignity and honor of the United States but
+to take the course which it explicitly announced
+in its note of April 18, 1916, it would
+take in the event that the Imperial Government
+did not declare and effect an abandonment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>
+of the methods of submarine warfare then
+employed and to which the Imperial Government
+now purposes again to resort.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Diplomatic
+relations
+with
+Germany
+severed.</div>
+
+<p>"The President has, therefore, directed me to
+announce to your Excellency that all diplomatic
+relation between the United States and
+the German Empire are severed, and that the
+American Ambassador at Berlin will be immediately
+withdrawn, and, in accordance with
+such announcement, to deliver to your Excellency
+your passports."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">American
+ships
+torpedoed.</div>
+
+<p>On February 3 one American ship was sunk,
+and since that date six American ships flying
+the American flag have been torpedoed, with
+a loss of about thirteen American citizens. In
+addition, fifty or more foreign vessels of both
+belligerent and neutral nationality with Americans
+on board have been torpedoed, in most
+cases without warning, with a consequent loss
+of several American citizens.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">German
+officials
+violate
+laws of
+United
+States.</div>
+
+<p>Since the beginning of the war German officials
+in the United States have engaged in
+many improper activities in violation of the
+laws of the United States and of their obligations
+as officials in a neutral country. Count
+von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador, Captain
+von Papen, Military Attach&eacute; of the embassy,
+Captain Boy-Ed, Naval Attach&eacute;, as well
+as various Consular officers and other officials,
+were involved in these activities, which were
+very widespread.</p>
+
+<p>The following instances are chosen at random
+from the cases which have come to the
+knowledge of the Government:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+German
+Embassy
+furnishes
+funds to
+be used
+illegally.</div>
+
+<p>I. By direct instruction received from the
+Foreign Office in Berlin the German Embassy
+in this country furnished funds and issued
+orders to the Indian Independence Committee
+of the Indian Nationalist Party in the United
+States. These instructions were usually conveyed
+to the committee by the military information<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>
+bureau in New York (von Igel), or
+by the German Consulates in New York and
+San Francisco.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Indian
+revolutionary
+propaganda.</div>
+
+<p>Dr. Chakrabarty, recently arrested in New
+York City, received, all in all, according to
+his own admission, some $60,000 from von Igel.
+He claims that the greater portion of this
+money was used for defraying the expenses of
+the Indian revolutionary propaganda in this
+country and, as he says, for educational purposes.
+While this is in itself true, it is not
+all that was done by the revolutionists. They
+have sent representatives to the Far East to
+stir up trouble in India, and they have attempted
+to ship arms and ammunition to
+India. These expeditions have failed. The
+German Embassy also employed Ernest T.
+Euphrat to carry instructions and information
+between Berlin and Washington under an
+American passport.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Germans
+on parole
+escaped.</div>
+
+<p>II. Officers of interned German warships
+have violated their word of honor and escaped.
+In one instance the German Consul at Richmond
+furnished the money to purchase a boat
+to enable six warrant officers of the steamer
+Kronprinz Wilhelm to escape after breaking
+their parole.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Fraudulent
+passports
+secured.</div>
+
+<p>III. Under the supervision of Captain von
+Papen and Wolf von Igel, Hans von Wedell
+and, subsequently, Carl Ruroede maintained a
+regular office for the procurement of fraudulent
+passports for German reservists. These
+operations were directed and financed in part
+by Captain von Papen and Wolf von Igel. Indictments
+were returned, Carl Ruroede sentenced
+to the penitentiary, and a number of
+German officers fined. Von Wedell escaped
+and has apparently been drowned at sea. Von
+Wedell's operations were also known to high
+officials in Germany. When von Wedell became
+suspicious that forgeries committed by him on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>
+a passport application had become known, he
+conferred with Captain von Papen and obtained
+money from him wherewith to make his
+escape.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">American
+passport
+covers unneutral
+activities.</div>
+
+<p>IV. James J. F. Archibald, under cover of
+an American passport and in the pay of the
+German Government through Ambassador
+Bernstorff, carried dispatches for Ambassador
+Dumba and otherwise engaged in unneutral
+activities.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Spies
+sent to
+England.</div>
+
+<p>V. Albert O. Sander, Charles Wunnenberg,
+and others, German agents in this country,
+were engaged, among other activities, in sending
+spies to England, equipped with American
+passports, for the purpose of securing military
+information. Several such men have been sent.
+Sander and Wunnenberg have pleaded guilty
+to indictments brought against them in New
+York City, as has George Voux Bacon, one of
+the men sent abroad by them.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">American
+passports
+counterfeited.</div>
+
+<p>VI. American passports have been counterfeited
+and counterfeits found on German
+agents. Baron von Cupenberg, a German agent,
+when arrested abroad, bore a counterfeit of
+an American passport issued to Gustav C.
+Roeder; Irving Guy Ries received an American
+passport, went to Germany, where the police retained
+his passports for twenty-four hours.
+Later a German spy named Carl Paul Julius
+Hensel was arrested in London with a counterfeit
+of the Ries passport in his possession.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Coaling
+German
+warships.</div>
+
+<p>VII. Prominent officials of the Hamburg-American
+Line, who, under the direction of
+Captain Boy-Ed, endeavored to provide German
+warships at sea with coal and other supplies
+in violation of the statutes of the United
+States, have been tried and convicted and sentenced
+to the penitentiary. Some twelve or
+more vessels were involved in this plan.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Indictments
+returned.</div>
+
+<p>VIII. Under the direction of Captain Boy-Ed
+and the German Consulate at San Francisco,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>
+and in violation of our law, the steamships
+<i>Sacramento</i> and <i>Mazatlan</i> carried supplies
+from San Francisco to German war vessels.
+The <i>Olsen</i> and <i>Mahoney</i>, which were engaged
+in a similar enterprise, were detained.
+The money for these ventures was furnished
+by Captain Boy-Ed. Indictments have been returned
+in connection with these matters against
+a large number of persons.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The case
+of Werner
+Horn.</div>
+
+<p>IX. Werner Horn, a Lieutenant in the German
+reserve, was furnished funds by Captain
+Franz von Papen and sent, with dynamite,
+under orders to blow up the International
+Bridge at Vanceboro, Maine. He was partially
+successful. He is now under indictment for
+the unlawful transportation of dynamite on
+passenger trains and is in jail awaiting trial
+following the dismissal of his appeal by the
+Supreme Court.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Plot to
+blow up
+factory.</div>
+
+<p>X. Captain von Papen furnished funds to
+Albert Kaltschmidt of Detroit, who is involved
+in a plot to blow up a factory at Walkerville,
+Canada, and the armory at Windsor,
+Canada.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Bombs
+on ships.</div>
+
+<p>XI. Robert Fay, Walter Scholtz, and Paul
+Doeche have been convicted and sentenced to
+the penitentiary and three others are under
+indictment for conspiracy to prepare bombs
+and attach them to allied ships leaving New
+York Harbor. Fay, who was the principal in
+this scheme, was a German soldier. He testified
+that he received finances from a German
+secret agent in Brussels, and told Von Papen
+of his plans, who advised him that his device
+was not practicable, but that he should go
+ahead with it, and if he could make it work he
+would consider it.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Incendiary
+bombs on
+allied vessels.</div>
+
+<p>XII. Under the direction of Captain von
+Papen and Wolf von Igel, Dr. Walter T.
+Scheele, Captain von Kleist, Captain Wolpert
+of the Atlas Steamship Company, and Captain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>
+Rode of the Hamburg-American Line manufactured
+incendiary bombs and placed them on
+board allied vessels. The shells in which the
+chemicals were placed were made on board the
+steamship <i>Friedrich der Grosse</i>. Scheele was
+furnished $1,000 by von Igel wherewith to become
+a fugitive from justice.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rintelen's
+plots.</div>
+
+<p>XIII. Captain Franz Rintelen, a reserve officer
+in the German Navy, came to this country
+secretly for the purpose of preventing the exportation
+of munitions of war to the Allies and
+of getting to Germany needed supplies. He
+organized and financed Labor's National Peace
+Council in an effort to bring about an embargo
+on the shipment of munitions of war, tried to
+bring about strikes, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Conspiracy
+to wreck
+vessels
+and blow
+up railroad
+tunnels.</div>
+
+<p>XIV. Consul General Bopp, at San Francisco,
+Vice Consul General von Schaick, Baron
+George Wilhelm von Brincken (an employe of
+the consulate), Charles C. Crowley, and Mrs.
+Margaret W. Cornell (secret agents of the German
+Consulate at San Francisco) have been
+convicted of conspiracy to send agents into
+Canada to blow up railroad tunnels and
+bridges, and to wreck vessels sailing from
+Pacific Coast ports with war material for Russia
+and Japan.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Spies sent
+to Canada.</div>
+
+<p>XV. Paul Koenig, head of the secret service
+work of the Hamburg-American Line, by direction
+of his superior officers, largely augmented
+his organization and under the direction
+of von Papen, Boy-Ed, and Albert carried
+on secret work for the German Government.
+He secured and sent spies to Canada to gather
+information concerning the Welland Canal, the
+movements of Canadian troops to England,
+bribed an employe of a bank for information
+concerning shipments to the Allies, sent spies
+to Europe on American passports to secure
+military information, and was involved with
+Captain von Papen in plans to place bombs on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>
+ships of the Allies leaving New York Harbor,
+&amp;c. Von Papen, Boy-Ed, and Albert had frequent
+conferences with Koenig in his office, at
+theirs, and at outside places. Koenig and certain
+of his associates are under indictment.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Attempt
+on
+Welland
+Canal.</div>
+
+<p>XVI. Captain von Papen, Captain Hans
+Tauscher, Wolf von Igel, and a number of German
+reservists organized an expedition to go
+into Canada, destroy the Welland Canal, and
+endeavor to terrorize Canadians in order to
+delay the sending of troops from Canada to
+Europe. Indictments have been returned
+against these persons. Wolf von Igel furnished
+Fritzen, one of the conspirators in this case,
+money on which to flee from New York City,
+Fritzen is now in jail in New York City.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Revolt in
+India
+plotted.</div>
+
+<p>XVII. With money furnished by official German
+representatives in this country, a cargo
+of arms and ammunition was purchased and
+shipped on board the schooner <i>Annie Larsen</i>.
+Through the activities of German official representatives
+in this country and other Germans
+a number of Indians were procured to form
+an expedition to go on the steamship <i>Maverick</i>,
+meet the <i>Annie Larsen</i>, take over her cargo,
+and endeavor to bring about a revolution in
+India. This plan involved the sending of a
+German officer to drill Indian recruits and the
+entire plan was managed and directed by Captain
+von Papen, Captain Hans Tauscher, and
+other official German representatives in this
+country.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">False
+affidavit
+about the
+<i>Lusitania</i>.</div>
+
+<p>XVIII. Gustav Stahl, a German reservist,
+made an affidavit which he admitted was false,
+regarding the armament of the <i>Lusitania</i>,
+which affidavit was forwarded to the State Department
+by Ambassador von Bernstorff. He
+plead guilty to an indictment charging perjury,
+and was sentenced to the penitentiary.
+Koenig, herein mentioned, was active in securing
+this affidavit.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Interference
+with
+manufacturers.</div>
+
+<p>XIX. The German Embassy organized, directed,
+and financed the Hans Libau Employment
+Agency, through which extended efforts
+were made to induce employes of manufacturers
+engaged in supplying various kinds of
+material to the Allies to give up their positions
+in an effort to interfere with the output of
+such manufacturers. Von Papen indorsed this
+organization as a military measure, and it was
+hoped through its propaganda to cripple munition
+factories.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Newspapers
+financed.</div>
+
+<p>XX. The German Government has assisted
+financially a number of newspapers in this
+country in return for pro-German propaganda.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mexican
+difficulties
+increased.</div>
+
+<p>XXI. Many facts have been secured indicating
+that Germans have aided and encouraged
+financially and otherwise the activities of one
+or the other faction in Mexico, the purpose
+being to keep the United States occupied along
+its borders and to prevent the exportation of
+munitions of war to the Allies; see, in this
+connection, the activities of Rintelen, Stallforth,
+Kopf, the German Consul at Chihuahua;
+Krum-Hellen, Felix Somerfeld (Villa's representative
+at New York), Carl Heynen, Gustav
+Steinberg, and many others.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Relief
+ships
+plainly
+marked.</div>
+
+<p>When the Commission for Relief in Belgium
+began its work in October, 1914, it received
+from the German authorities, through the various
+Governments concerned, definite written
+assurances that ships engaged in carrying cargoes
+for the relief of the civil population of
+Belgium and Northern France should be immune
+from attack. In order that there may be
+no room for attacks upon these ships through
+misunderstanding, each ship is given a safe conduct
+by the German diplomatic representative
+in the country from which it sails, and, in addition,
+bears conspicuously upon its sides markings
+which have been agreed upon with the German
+authorities; furthermore, similar markings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span>
+are painted upon the decks of the ships in order
+that they may be readily recognized by airplanes.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the rupture of relations with Germany
+the commission was definitely assured by the
+German Government that its ships would be
+immune from attack by following certain prescribed
+courses and conforming to the arrangements
+previously made.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Unwarranted
+attacks.</div>
+
+<p>Despite these solemn assurances there have
+been several unwarranted attacks upon ships
+under charter to the commission.</p>
+
+<p>On March 7 or 8 the Norwegian ship <i>Storstad</i>,
+carrying 10,000 tons of corn from Buenos
+Aires to Rotterdam for the commission was
+sunk in broad daylight by a German submarine
+despite the conspicuous markings of the commission
+which the submarine could not help
+observing. The <i>Storstad</i> was repeatedly shelled
+without warning and finally torpedoed.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Men
+killed on
+torpedoed
+relief
+ships.</div>
+
+<p>On March 19 the steamships <i>Tunisie</i> and
+<i>Haelen</i>, under charter to the commission, proceeding
+to the United States under safe conducts
+and guarantees from the German Minister
+at The Hague and bearing conspicuous
+marking of the commission, were attacked
+without warning by a German submarine outside
+the danger zone (56 degrees 15 minutes
+north, 5 degrees 32 minutes east). The ships
+were not sunk, but on the <i>Haelen</i> seven men
+were killed, including the first and third officers;
+a port boat was sunk; a hole was made
+in the port bunker above the water line; and
+the ships sustained sundry damages to decks
+and engines.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Consular
+officers
+suffer indignities.</div>
+
+<p>Various Consular officers have suffered indignities
+and humiliation at the hands of German
+frontier authorities. The following are
+illustrations:</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pike, Consul at St. Gall, Switzerland,
+on proceeding to his post with a passport duly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span>
+indorsed by German officials in New York and
+Copenhagen, was on November 26, 1916, subjected
+to great indignities at Warnem&uuml;nde on
+the German frontier. Mr. Pike refused to
+submit to search of his person, the removal of
+his clothing, or the seizure of his official reports
+and papers of a private and confidential
+nature. He was therefore obliged to return
+to Copenhagen.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Murphy, the Consul General at Sofia,
+and his wife, provided with passports from the
+German legations at The Hague and Copenhagen,
+were on two occasions stripped and
+searched and subjected to great humiliation at
+the same frontier station. No consideration
+was given them because of their official
+position.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Outrageous
+behavior
+of German
+officials.</div>
+
+<p>Such has been the behavior on the part of
+German officials notwithstanding that Consular
+officials hold positions of dignity and responsibility
+under their Government and that during
+the present war Germany has been placed
+under deep obligation to American <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Consulor'">Consular</ins>
+officers by their efforts in the protection of
+German interests.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Neutrals
+on the
+<i>Yarrowdale</i>
+held
+as prisoners.</div>
+
+<p>On January 19, Mr. Gerard telegraphed that
+the evening papers contained a report that
+the English steamer <i>Yarrowdale</i> had been
+brought to Swinem&uuml;nde as prize with 469 prisoners
+on board taken from ships captured by
+German auxiliary cruisers; that among these
+prisoners were 103 neutrals.</p>
+
+<p>After repeated inquiries Mr. Gerard learned
+that there were among the <i>Yarrowdale</i> prisoners
+seventy-two men claiming American
+citizenship.</p>
+
+<p>On February 4 Mr. Gerard was informed by
+Count Montgelas of the Foreign Office that the
+Americans taken on the <i>Yarrowdale</i> would be
+released immediately on the ground that they
+could not have known at the time of sailing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>
+that it was Germany's intention to treat armed
+merchantmen as ships of war.</p>
+
+<p>Despite this assurance, the prisoners were
+not released, but some time prior to February
+17 the German Minister for Foreign Affairs
+told the Spanish Ambassador that the American
+prisoners from the <i>Yarrowdale</i> would be
+liberated "in a very short time."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A formal
+demand
+for release
+of <i>Yarrowdale</i>
+prisoners.</div>
+
+<p>Upon receipt of this information a formal
+demand was made through the Spanish Ambassador
+at Berlin for the immediate release
+of these men. The message sent the Spanish
+Ambassador was as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">American
+prisoners
+must be
+released.</div>
+
+<p>"If <i>Yarrowdale</i> prisoners have not been released,
+please make formal demand in the name
+of the United States for their immediate release.
+If they are not promptly released and
+allowed to cross the frontier without further
+delay, please state to the Foreign Minister that
+this policy of the Imperial Government, if continued,
+apparently without the slightest justification,
+will oblige the Government of the
+United States to consider what measures it
+may be necessary to take in order to obtain
+satisfaction for the continued detention of
+these innocent American citizens."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Yarrowdale</i>
+men
+reach
+Switzerland.</div>
+
+<p>On February 25 the American Ambassador
+at Madrid was informed by the Spanish
+Foreign Office that the <i>Yarrowdale</i> prisoners
+had been released on the 16th inst. The foregoing
+statement appears to have been based
+on erroneous information. The men finally
+reached Zurich, Switzerland, on the afternoon
+of March 11.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Treatment
+cruel and
+heartless.</div>
+
+<p>Official reports now in the possession of the
+Department of State indicate that these American
+sailors were from the moment of their
+arrival in Germany, on January 3, subjected to
+the most cruel and heartless treatment. Although
+the weather was very cold, they were
+given no suitable clothes, and many of them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>
+stood about for hours barefoot in the snow.
+The food supplied them was utterly inadequate.
+After one cup of coffee in the morning
+almost the only article of food given them
+was boiled frosted cabbage, with mush once a
+week and beans once a week. One member of
+the crew states that, without provocation, he
+was severely kicked in the abdomen by a German
+officer. He appears still to be suffering
+severely from this assault. Another sailor is
+still suffering from a wound caused by shrapnel
+fired by the Germans at an open boat in which
+he and his companions had taken refuge after
+the sinking of the <i>Georgic</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Drowning
+preferred
+to German
+prison.</div>
+
+<p>All of the men stated that their treatment
+had been so inhuman that should a submarine
+be sighted in the course of their voyage home
+they would prefer to be drowned rather than
+have any further experience in German prison
+camps.</p>
+
+<p>It is significant that the inhuman treatment
+accorded these American sailors occurred a
+month before the break in relations and while
+Germany was on every occasion professing the
+most cordial friendship for the United States.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mr. Gerard
+is deprived
+of means
+of communication.</div>
+
+<p>After the suspension of diplomatic relations
+the German authorities cut off the telephone
+at the embassy at Berlin and suppressed Mr.
+Gerard's communication by telegraph and post.
+Mr. Gerard was not even permitted to send to
+American Consular officers in Germany the
+instructions he had received for them from the
+Department of State. Neither was he allowed
+to receive his mail. Just before he left Berlin
+the telephonic communication at the embassy
+was restored and some telegrams and letters
+were delivered. No apologies were offered,
+however.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+German
+note to
+Mexico.</div>
+
+<p>The Government of the United States is in
+possession of instructions addressed by the
+German Minister for Foreign Affairs to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>
+German Minister to Mexico concerning a proposed
+alliance of Germany, Japan, and Mexico
+to make war on the United States. The text
+of this document is as follows:</p>
+
+<div class='right'>
+"<span class="smcap">Berlin</span>, January 19, 1917.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>"On the 1st of February we intend to begin
+submarine warfare unrestricted. In spite of
+this it is our intention to endeavor to keep
+neutral the United States of America.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Basis of
+alliance
+proposed
+to Mexico.</div>
+
+<p>"If this attempt is not successful, we propose
+an alliance on the following basis with Mexico:
+That we shall make war together and together
+make peace. We shall give general financial
+support, and it is understood that Mexico is to
+reconquer the lost territory in New Mexico,
+Texas, and Arizona. The details are left to you
+for settlement.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Japan
+to be
+included.</div>
+
+<p>"You are instructed to inform the President
+of Mexico of the above in the greatest confidence
+as soon as it is certain there will be an
+outbreak of war with the United States, and
+suggest that the President of Mexico on his
+own initiative should communicate with Japan
+suggesting adherence at once to this plan; at
+the same time offer to mediate between Germany
+and Japan.</p>
+
+<p>"Please call to the attention of the President
+of Mexico that the employment of ruthless submarine
+warfare now promises to compel England
+to make peace in a few months.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+"(Signed) <span class="smcap">Zimmermann</span>."<br />
+</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The United States was, to a large extent,
+unprepared for war on the outbreak of hostilities
+with Germany. But when the step finally
+was taken, all the industrial, economic, and
+military resources, of the country, were mobilized.
+An account of how this was accomplished
+and the results of these efforts are described
+in the pages following.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PREPARING FOR WAR</h2>
+
+<h3>NEWTON D. BAKER</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>SECRETARY OF WAR</div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">State
+of war
+formally
+declared.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Neutrality
+had delayed
+military
+preparations.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Great
+armies
+necessary.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Organization
+of
+finance,
+agriculture
+and
+industry.</div>
+
+<p>On the 6th day of April Congress declared
+"That the state of war between the
+United States and the Imperial German
+Government which had been thrust upon the
+United States is hereby formally declared." By
+this declaration and the proclamation of the
+President pursuant thereto, the United States
+entered the great conflict which had raged in
+Europe from August, 1914, as a belligerent
+power, and began immediately to prepare to
+defend the rights of the Nation, which for
+months had been endangered and denied by
+high-handed and inhuman acts of the German
+Government both on land and sea. The peaceful
+ambitions of our people had long postponed
+our entrance into the conflict; and adherence
+to a strict neutrality through long
+months of delicate situations delayed the beginning
+of active military preparation. At
+once, however, upon a declaration of a state
+of war, Congress began the consideration of
+the measures necessary for the enlargement
+of the military forces and the coordination of
+the industrial strength of the Nation. It was
+understood at the outset that war under modern
+conditions involved not only larger armies
+than the United States had ever assembled, but
+also more far-reaching modifications of our
+ordinary industrial processes and wider departures
+from the peace-time activities of the
+people. The task of the United States was not
+only immediately to increase its naval and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span>
+military forces, not only to order the agricultural
+and industrial life of the Nation to support
+these enlarged military establishments,
+but also to bear an increasing financial, industrial,
+and agricultural burden for the support
+of those nations which, since 1914, have
+been in arms against the Imperial German
+Government and have borne not only the full
+force of the attack of its great military machine,
+but also the continuing drain upon
+their economic resources and their capacity for
+production which so titanic and long-continued
+a struggle necessarily entail.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The whole
+people
+wish to
+help.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Benevolent
+and
+philanthropic
+societies.</div>
+
+<p>The first response from the country to the
+act of Congress in declaring a state of war
+came in the form of offers of services from
+the people, and for weeks there poured into
+the War Department an almost bewildering
+stream of letters and visitors offering service
+of every kind. Without distinction of age, sex,
+or occupation, without distinction of geographical
+location or sectional difference, the people
+arose with but one thought in their mind, that
+of tendering themselves, their talents, and
+their substance for the best use the country
+could make of them in the emergency. Organizations
+and associations sprang up over
+night in thousands of places, inspired by the
+hope that collective offers and aggregations of
+strength and facilities might be more readily
+assimilated by the Government; and benevolent
+and philanthropic societies began to form for
+the purpose of taking up as far as might be
+the vicarious griefs which follow in the train
+of military operations. There was at the
+outset some inevitable crossing of purposes
+and duplication of effort, and perhaps there
+may have been some disappointment that a
+more instantaneous use could not be made of
+all this wealth of willingness and patriotic
+spirit; but it was a superb and inspiring spectacle.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>
+Out of the body of a nation devoted to
+productive and peaceful pursuits, and evidencing
+its collective spirit only upon occasions for
+the settlement of domestic and institutional
+questions, there arose the figure of a national
+spirit which had lain dormant until summoned
+by a national emergency; but which,
+when it emerged, was seen to embody loyalty
+to our institutions, unity of purpose, and willingness
+to sacrifice on the part of our entire
+people as their underlying and dominant character.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Great
+national
+strength
+in a free
+people.</div>
+
+<p>Those who believed that the obvious and
+daily exhibition of power which takes place in
+an autocracy is necessary for national strength,
+discovered that a finer, and freer, and greater
+national strength subsists in a free people, and
+that the silent processes of democracy, with
+their normal accent on the freedom of individuals,
+nevertheless afford springs of collective
+action and inspiration for self-sacrifice as
+wide and effective as they are spontaneous. The
+several Government departments, the Council
+of National Defense, and other agencies of a
+more or less formal character subdivided the
+work of organization. Congress rapidly perfected
+its legislative program, and in a few
+weeks very definite direction began to appear
+in the work of preparation.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Act to
+increase
+Military
+Establishment.</div>
+
+<p>The act of May 18, 1917, entitled "An act to
+authorize the President to increase temporarily
+the Military Establishment of the United
+States," looked to three sources for the Army
+which it created:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Regular
+Army to
+be increased.</div>
+
+<p>1. The regular Army, of which the actual
+strength on June 30, 1917, was 250,157 men
+and officers. The provisions of the act, however,
+contemplated an increase of the Regular
+Army to 18,033 officers and 470,185 enlisted
+men, the increase being effected by the immediate
+call of the increments provided in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span>
+National Defense Act of 1916, and the raising
+of all branches of the service to war strength.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">National
+Guard to
+be reorganized.</div>
+
+<p>2. The National Guard, reorganized under
+the National Defense Act, and containing on
+the 30th of June, 1917, approximately 3,803
+officers and 107,320 enlisted men. The National
+Guard, however, by recruiting of its
+numbers and the raising of all arms to war
+strength, contemplated a total of 13,377 officers
+and 456,800 enlisted men.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">National
+Army to be
+raised by
+Selective
+Draft.</div>
+
+<p>3. In addition to this, the act provided for
+a National Army, raised by the process of selective
+conscription or draft, of which the President
+was empowered to summon two units of
+500,000 men each at such time as he should
+determine wise.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">National
+Guard
+training
+camps.</div>
+
+<p>On the 3d day of July, 1917, the President by
+proclamation called into the Federal service
+and drafted the National Guard of the several
+States and the District of Columbia. And 16
+divisional camps were established for their
+mobilization and training, as follows:</p>
+
+<p>Charlotte, N. C.; Spartanburg, S. C.; Augusta,
+Ga.; Anniston, Ala.; Greenville, S. C.;
+Macon, Ga.; Waco, Tex.; Houston, Tex.; Deming,
+N. Mex.; Fort Sill, Okla.; Forth Worth,
+Tex.; Montgomery, Ala.; Hattiesburg, Miss.;
+Alexandria, La.; Buena Vista, Cal.; Palo Alto,
+Cal.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Voluntary
+enlistment
+in the
+Regular
+Army and
+National
+Guard.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A spirit
+of cooperation.</div>
+
+<p>The principle of voluntary enlistment to fill
+up the ranks of the Regular Army and the
+National Guard, and to raise them to war
+strength was preserved in the act of May 18,
+1917, the maximum age for enlistment in both
+services being fixed at 40 years. Even before
+the passage of the act, however, very great
+recruiting activity was shown throughout the
+country, the total number of enlistments in
+the Regular Army for the fiscal year 1917 being
+160,084. The record of National Guard enlistments
+has not yet been completely compiled,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>
+but the act authorizing a temporary increase
+in the military establishment provided that
+any deficiency remaining in either the Regular
+Army or the National Guard should be
+made up by selective conscription. The introduction
+of this new method of enlistment so
+far affected the whole question of selection for
+military service that any deductions, either
+favorable or unfavorable, from the number of
+voluntary enlistments, would be unwarranted.
+It is entirely just to say that the States generally
+showed a most sympathetic spirit of
+cooperation with the National Government,
+and the National Guard responded with zeal
+and enthusiasm to the President's call.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">No exact
+precedent
+to follow.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">England
+finally
+resorted
+to draft.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Organized
+industry
+back of
+armies.</div>
+
+<p>In the preparation of the act providing for
+the temporary increase in the Military Establishment,
+very earnest consideration was given
+by the committees of the two Houses of Congress
+and by the Department to the principles
+which would be followed in creating a military
+establishment under modern conditions
+adequate for the tremendous emergency facing
+the Nation. Our own history and experience
+with the volunteer system afforded little precedent
+because of the new conditions, and the
+experience of European nations was neither
+uniform nor wholly adequate. Our adversary,
+the German Empire, had for many years followed
+the practice of universal compulsory
+military training and service, so that it was
+a nation of trained soldiers. In France the
+same situation had existed. In England, on
+the other hand, the volunteer system had continued,
+and the British army was relatively a
+small body. The urgency, however, of the
+British need at the outbreak of the war, and
+the unbroken traditions of England, were
+against even the delay necessary to consider
+the principle upon which action might best be
+taken, so that England's first effort was reduced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>
+to that volunteer system, and her subsequent
+resort to the draft was made after a
+long experience in raising vast numbers of men
+by volunteer enlistment as a result of campaigns
+of agitation and patriotic appeal. The
+war in Europe, however, had lasted long enough
+to make quite clear the character of the contest.
+It was obviously no such war as had
+ever before occurred, both in the vast numbers
+of men necessary to be engaged in strictly
+military occupations and in the elaborate and
+far-reaching organization of industrial and
+civil society of the Nation back of the Army.</p>
+
+<p>Our military legislation was drafted after
+very earnest consideration, to accomplish the
+following objects:</p>
+
+<p>1. To provide in successive bodies adequate
+numbers of men to be trained and used as combatant
+forces.</p>
+
+<p>2. To select for these armies men of suitable
+age and strength.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Universal
+obligation
+to service.</div>
+
+<p>3. To distribute the burden of the military
+defense of the Nation in the most equitable and
+democratic manner, and to that end to recognize
+the universality of the obligation of service.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Necessary
+men to be
+kept in
+industry.</div>
+
+<p>4. To reserve to the public authorities power
+so to control the selection of soldiers as to prevent
+the absorption of men indispensable to
+agriculture and industry, and to prevent the
+loss of national strength involved by the acceptance
+into military service of men whose
+greatest usefulness is in scientific pursuits or
+in production.</p>
+
+<p>5. To select, so far as may be, those men for
+military service whose families and domestic
+obligations could best bear their separation
+from home and dependents, and thus to cause
+the least possible distress among the families
+of the Nation which are dependent upon the
+daily earnings of husbands and fathers for
+their support.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>These considerations, shortly stated, amount
+to a policy which, recognizing the life of the
+nation as a whole, and assuming both the obligation
+and the willingness of the citizen to
+give the maximum of service, institutes a national
+process for the expression of our military,
+industrial, and financial strength, all at
+their highest, and with the least waste, loss,
+and distress.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Regular
+Army and
+National
+Guard
+increased.</div>
+
+<p>The act of Congress authorizing the President
+to increase temporarily the Military Establishment
+of the United States, approved
+May 18, 1917, provided for the raising and
+maintaining by selective draft of increments
+(in addition to the Regular Army and National
+Guard) of 500,000 men each, together
+with recruit training units for the maintenance
+of such increments at the maximum
+strength, and the raising, organizing, and
+maintaining of additional auxiliary forces, and
+also for raising and maintaining at their maximum
+strength, by selective draft when necessary,
+the Regular Army and the National
+Guard drafted into the service of the United
+States.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Male
+citizens
+between
+21 and 30
+years
+liable to
+military
+service.</div>
+
+<p>It also provided that such draft "shall be
+based upon liability to military service of all
+male citizens, or male persons not alien
+enemies, who have declared their intention
+to become citizens, between the ages of 21 and
+30 years, both inclusive"; that the several
+States, Territories, and the District of Columbia
+should furnish their proportionate
+shares or quotas of the citizen soldiery determined
+in proportion to the population thereof,
+with certain credits allowed for volunteer enlistments
+in branches of the service then organized
+and existing.</p>
+
+<p>The Nation was confronted with the task
+of constructing, without delay, an organization
+by which the selection might be made for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>
+entire country by means of a uniform and regulated
+system.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Provost
+Marshal
+General
+begins
+registration.</div>
+
+<p>A suggestion of administration, incomplete
+because of entirely different conditions, arose
+from the precedent of the Civil War draft;
+and on May 22, 1917, the Judge Advocate General
+was detailed as "Provost Marshal General"
+and charged with the execution, under the
+Secretary of War, of so much of the act of
+May 18 "as relates to the registration and the
+selective draft." Plans had already been formulated
+for the operation of the selective draft,
+and with the formal designation of the Provost
+Marshal General the work of organization
+began.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">State
+organization
+utilized.</div>
+
+<p>It was obvious that to build up a new Federal
+organization would require a greater
+period of time than was afforded by the military
+necessity. The existing governmental organizations
+of the several States presented an
+available substitute, and the statute authorized
+their use. This expedient was unprecedented,
+but its practice has abundantly justified
+its adoption.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">State
+registration
+boards.</div>
+
+<p>The immediate need was for a comprehensive
+registration of every male of draft age. To
+effect this registration each State was divided
+into districts containing a population of approximately
+30,000, in each of which a registration
+board was appointed by the governor.
+Usually this board consisted of the sheriff, the
+county health officer, and the county clerk; and
+where the county's population, exclusive of
+cities of more than 30,000 inhabitants, exceeded
+that number, additional registration boards
+were appointed. Cities of over 30,000 were
+treated as separate units. The election district
+was established as the actual unit for registration
+in order that the normal election machinery
+might be utilized, and a registrar for
+every 800 of population in each voting or election<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span>
+precinct was appointed by the registration
+board. In cities approximating 30,000 of
+population, the registration board was made
+up of city officials, and where the population
+exceeded the unit number additional registration
+boards of three members were appointed,
+one a licensed physician.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+scheme
+of organization.</div>
+
+<p>Governors and mayors were given considerable
+latitude in making geographical divisions
+of the States and cities for the purpose of
+defining registration jurisdictions; the only
+limitation being that approximately 30,000 inhabitants
+should be included within the confines
+of a district. The general scheme was
+that the board of three should exercise supervision
+over the precinct registrars, the governors
+supervising the work of the registration
+boards, while the mayors of cities containing
+30,000 or more inhabitants acted as intermediaries
+between governors and registration
+boards. Each State was constituted a separate
+unit and each governor was charged with the
+execution of the law in his State.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Ten
+million
+young men
+register.</div>
+
+<p>By proclamation of the President, dated
+May 18, 1917, Tuesday, June 5, 1917, was designated
+as registration day throughout the
+United States, with the exception of Alaska,
+Hawaii, and Porto Rico; and, due to the fact
+that registration organization of the States
+had been so quickly and thoroughly completed,
+about 10,000,000 male citizens of the designated
+ages were registered on the day set, and
+the first step in the operation of the selective
+service law was accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>Registration consisted in entering on a card
+essential facts necessary to a complete identification
+of the registrant and a preliminary
+survey of his domestic and economic circumstances.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Citizens
+carry out
+registration.</div>
+
+<p>It is noteworthy that this registration
+throughout the entire country was carried out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span>
+in the main by the voluntary and energetic
+efforts of citizens, and the Government was
+thereby saved a very great expense through the
+efficient organization which had been constructed
+and furnished with all necessary materials
+during the short period of sixteen
+days.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Examination,
+selection,
+and mobilization.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Representative
+citizens
+of each
+community
+employed.</div>
+
+<p>With registration completed there followed
+the operation of examination, selection, and
+mobilization. The unit jurisdiction of approximately
+30,000 of population was maintained as
+far as possible, and for each district or division
+a local board of three members was appointed
+by the President upon the recommendation of
+the governor. The board members were residents
+of the districts they served, and the personnel
+comprised representative and responsible
+citizens of the community, including
+usually a licensed physician. In many cases
+registration boards were reappointed local
+boards. Such boards exercised original jurisdiction
+in all cases except claims for discharge
+on account of engagement in industry
+or agriculture.</p>
+
+<p>In every Federal judicial district one or
+more district boards were organized, consisting
+usually of five but in some cases of a larger
+number of members, comprising leading citizens
+of the community and appointed by the
+President upon the recommendation of the
+governor. District boards exercised appellate
+jurisdiction over local boards and original
+jurisdiction in industrial and agricultural
+claims.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The order
+of liability
+of registrants.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Numbered
+cards.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The drawing in
+Washington on
+July 20,
+1917.</div>
+
+<p>The initial step in the process of examination
+and selection was to establish the order of
+liability of each of the 10,000,000 registrants
+to be called for service. The cards within the
+jurisdiction of each local board, taken as a
+unit, had been serially numbered when completed
+and filed; and duplicates of the cards so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span>
+numbered were deposited with the governor and
+with the district boards. The average number
+of registrants within the jurisdiction of a
+local board was about 2,500, the highest being
+10,319. In order to establish the order of
+liability of each registrant in relation to the
+other registrants within the jurisdiction of
+the same local board, a drawing was held July
+20, 1917, in the Public Hearing Room of the
+Senate Office Building in Washington, as a
+result of which every registrant was given an
+order number and his liability to be called for
+examination and selection determined by the
+order number.</p>
+
+<p>The official lists of the numbers drawn by
+lot were furnished to every local board and
+from these lists the boards made up the availability
+order list of all registrants within their
+respective jurisdictions.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Physical
+examination
+and
+elimination.</div>
+
+<p>The determination of the order of availability
+left only the process of physical examination
+and elimination. The War Department, through
+the Provost Marshal General's Office, had
+already determined and given notice of the
+number of men to be furnished by each State,
+and at the date of the drawing practically
+every State had ascertained and notified its
+local boards of the number required to complete
+their respective quotas for the first draft.
+The calculations of the War Department and
+of the States for the quotas were based upon
+section 2 of the act of May 18.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately upon the completion of the
+order of call lists, the local boards began to
+summon for physical examination, beginning
+with the man who was No. 1 on the list, and
+continuing in numerical sequence, a sufficient
+number of registrants to fill their quotas. The
+average number summoned for the first examination
+was about twice the number required&mdash;i. e.,
+if a board's quota was 105, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>
+first 210 registrants of that jurisdiction were
+called for physical examination.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Certain
+officials
+and classes
+exempted.</div>
+
+<p>The Selective Service Law required certain
+persons to be exempted from military service,
+including Federal and State legislative, executive,
+and judicial officers, ministers of religion,
+students of divinity, persons in the military or
+naval service of the United States, and certain
+aliens. The law further authorized the discharge
+from draft, under such regulations as
+the President might prescribe, of county and
+municipal officers, customhouse clerks and
+other persons employed by the United States
+in certain classes of work, pilots and mariners,
+and, within prescribed limitations, registrants
+in a status with respect to persons dependent
+upon them for support, and persons found
+physically or morally unfit. Exemption from
+combatant service only was authorized in the
+case of persons found to be members of any
+well-recognized religious sect or organization
+whose existing creed or principles forbid its
+members to participate in war in any form,
+and whose religious convictions are against
+war or participation therein.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rules
+governing
+discharges.</div>
+
+<p>On June 30, 1917, the President promulgated
+rules and regulations as authorized by
+the law prescribing the reasons for and manner
+of granting discharges, and the procedure
+of local and district boards.</p>
+
+<p>The selective service system required the
+4,557 local boards to conduct the physical examination
+of registrants within their jurisdictions,
+and to determine and dispose of claims
+of exemption and discharge in the first instance,
+excepting industrial and agricultural
+claims.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The power
+of the
+district
+boards.</div>
+
+<p>The 156 district boards which were established
+as above stated, proved to be the fulcrum
+of balance between the local boards and
+the registrants. In practically every instance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>
+their members have been chosen from among
+the most able and conspicuous representatives
+of the legal and medical professions, and
+from the fields of industry, commerce, and
+labor.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Appeal
+agents
+appointed.</div>
+
+<p>By regulation the case of every person discharged
+from the operation of the selective
+service law by a local board on the ground of
+dependency was automatically taken to the
+district board for review, the appeal being
+noted by Government appeal agents appointed
+by the Provost Marshal General.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Dependency
+cases the
+most
+difficult.</div>
+
+<p>Registrants whose claims were disallowed by
+local boards appealed in large numbers to district
+boards. Thus was obtained a high degree
+of uniformity of decisions in dependency cases,
+which were by far the most difficult of determination
+and disposition, as well as the most
+numerous, of the classes of cases throughout
+the first draft.</p>
+
+<p>Cases involving claims for discharge on
+agricultural and industrial grounds, of which
+district boards have original jurisdiction, are
+appealable to the President, and to date approximately
+20,000 of these have been received
+and indexed, of which about 80 per cent are
+claims for discharge based on agricultural
+grounds and 20 per cent on industrial grounds.
+Of cases already disposed of on appeal from
+the district boards less than 7 per cent have
+been reversed. The pending of an appeal to
+the President does not operate as a stay of
+induction into military service except where
+the district board has expressly so directed,
+and the number of such stays is negligible.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The total
+cost of
+the draft.</div>
+
+<p>The total cost of the draft can not be estimated
+accurately at this time, but, based upon
+the data at hand, the total registration and
+selection of the first 687,000 men has amounted
+to an approximate expenditure of $5,600,000,
+or about $8.11 unit cost.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Universal
+willingness
+to
+serve.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">High
+quality
+of men
+obtained.</div>
+
+<p>The unprecedented character of this undertaking
+is a matter of common knowledge. Congress,
+in the consideration of the act which
+authorized it, entertained grave doubts as to
+whether a plan could be devised which would
+apply so new a principle of selection for national
+service without much misunderstanding
+and unhappiness. But the results have been of a
+most inspiring kind and have demonstrated the
+universal willingness of our people to serve in
+the defense of our liberties and to commit the
+selection of the Nation's defenders to the Nation
+itself. The men selected have reported to
+the camps and are in course of training. They
+constitute as fine a body of raw material as
+were ever trained in military science. They
+are already acquiring the smartness and soldierly
+bearing characteristic of American
+troops, and those who once thought that the
+volunteer spirit was necessary to insure contentment
+and zeal in soldiers now freely admit
+that the men selected under this act have these
+qualities in high degree and that it proceeds
+out of a patriotic willingness on the part of
+the men to bear their part of the national
+burden and to do their duty at the Nation's
+call.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Ability of
+Provost
+Marshal
+General.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">This
+mode of
+selection
+made
+necessary
+by conditions
+of
+modern
+war.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The democratic
+fairness
+of the
+plan.</div>
+
+<p>The success of this great undertaking is, of
+course, primarily due to the painstaking forethought
+and the statesmanlike breadth of view
+with which the Provost Marshal General and
+his associates organized the machinery for its
+execution. But other elements have contributed
+to its success, and first among these was
+the determination to rely upon the cooperation
+of the governors of States and State agencies
+in the assembling of the registration and exemption
+boards. By reason of this association
+of State and local agencies with the National
+Government the law came as no outside mandate
+enforced by soldiers, but as a working of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span>
+the home institutions in the hands of neighbors
+and acquaintances pursuing a clear process
+of selection, and resulting in a gift by the
+States to the Nation of a body of men to be
+trained. The press of the country cooperated
+in a most helpful way, drawing the obvious distinctions
+between this mode of selection and
+those punitive drafts which have sometimes
+been resorted to after the failure of volunteering,
+and pointing out the young men of
+the country that the changed conditions of warfare
+made necessary a mode of selection which
+would preserve the industrial life of the Nation
+as a foundation for successful military
+operations. Indeed, the country seemed generally
+to have caught enough of the lessons of
+the European war to have realized the necessity
+of this procedure, and from the very beginning
+criticism was silenced and doubt answered by
+the obvious wisdom of the law. Moreover, the
+unquestioned fairness of the arrangements, the
+absence of all power of substitution, the fact
+that the processes of the law were worked out
+publicly, all cooperated to surround the draft
+with assurances of fairness and equality, so
+that throughout the whole country the attitude
+of the people toward the law was one of approval
+and confidence, and I feel very sure that
+those who at the beginning had any doubts
+would now with one accord agree that the selective
+service act provides not only a necessary
+mode of selecting the great armies needed
+under modern conditions, but that it provides
+a better and more democratic and a fairer
+method of distributing the burden of national
+defense than any other system as yet suggested.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Fundamental
+questions
+settled.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Unity of
+spirit of
+American
+people.</div>
+
+<p>This does not mean, of course, that the law is
+perfect either in its language or in its execution,
+nor does it mean that improvements may
+not be made as our experience grows and as
+the need for more intense national efforts increases;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span>
+but such amendments as may hereafter
+be required will proceed with the fundamental
+questions settled and we have now only
+to consider changes which may be required to a
+better ordering of our military strength and a
+more efficient maintenance of our industrial
+and agricultural life during the stress of war.
+The passage and execution of this law may be
+regarded as a milestone in our progress toward
+self-consciousness and national strength. Its
+acceptance shows the unity of spirit of our
+people, and its operation shows that a democracy
+has in its institutions the concentrated
+energy necessary to great national
+activities however much they may be scattered
+and dispersed, in the interest of the preservation
+of individual liberty, in time of peace.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Officer's
+Reserve
+Corps.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Physicians
+commissioned
+in the
+Medical
+Department.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Men from
+the Plattsburg
+training
+camps.</div>
+
+<p>The problem presented involved not merely
+the selection of forces to be trained into armies
+but officers to do the training. By the provisions
+of the national defense act of June 3,
+1916, Officers' Reserve Corps had been authorized.
+Rules and regulations for their organization
+were promulgated in July, 1916,
+and amended in March, 1917. Immediately
+upon the passage of the act, the building up of
+lists of reserve officers in the various sections
+of the Military Establishment was undertaken,
+with the result that at the end of the fiscal year
+some of the branches of the service had substantial
+lists of men available for duty in the
+event of call. The largest number of commissions
+were issued in the technical services, for
+which professional nonmilitary training was
+the principal requisite. The largest reserve
+corps was that in the Medical Department, in
+which more than 12,000 physicians were commissioned.
+The expansion of these technical
+services proceeded easily upon the basis of the
+reserve corps beginning, but the number of applicants
+for commissions in the strictly military<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span>
+or combatant branches of the service was
+relatively small. They consisted of men who
+had had military experience either in the Regular
+Army or the National Guard, and men
+who were graduates of schools and colleges
+affording military training, and of the training
+camps which for several years had been
+maintained at Plattsburg and throughout the
+country. Their number, however, was wholly
+inadequate, and their experience, while it had
+afforded the elements of military discipline,
+had not been such as was plainly required to
+train men for participation in the European
+war with its changed methods and conditions.
+The virtue of the law authorizing the Officers'
+Reserve Corps, however, became instantly apparent
+upon the declaration of war, as it enabled
+the department to establish officers' training
+camps for the rapid production of officers.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A series of
+officers
+training
+camps.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Officers
+commissioned.</div>
+
+<p>Accepting the Plattsburg experiment as the
+basis and using funds appropriated by Congress
+for an enlargement of the Plattsburg
+system of training, the department established
+a series of training camps, sixteen in number,
+which were opened on the 15th of May, 1917.
+The camps were scattered throughout the
+United States so as to afford the opportunity
+of entrance and training with the least inconvenience
+and expense of travel to prepare
+throughout the entire country. Officers previously
+commissioned in the reserve corps were
+required to attend the camps, and, in addition,
+approximately 30,000 selected candidates were
+accepted from among the much greater number
+who applied for admission. These camps were
+organized and conducted under the supervision
+of department commanders; applicants were
+required to state their qualifications and a
+rough apportionment was attempted among
+the candidates to the several States. At the
+conclusion of the camp, 27,341 officers were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span>
+commissioned and directed to report at the
+places selected for the training of the new
+army. By this process, we supplied not only
+the officers needed for the National Army but
+filled the roster of the Regular Army, to which
+substantial additions were necessary by reason
+of the addition of the full number of increments
+provided by the National Defense Act of
+1916.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The second
+series of
+officers'
+training
+camps.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Officers
+needed
+also for
+staff
+duties.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Constant
+experimentation
+necessary.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Victory
+rests on
+science as
+much as on
+soldiers.</div>
+
+<p>The results of the first series of camps were
+most satisfactory and, anticipating the calling
+of further increments of the National Army, a
+second series of camps was authorized, to begin
+August 27, 1917, under rules for the selection
+of candidates and their apportionment
+throughout the country which were much more
+searching and embodied those improvements
+which are always possible in the light of experience.
+Approximately 20,000 candidates are
+now attending this second series of camps, and
+those found qualified will shortly be commissioned
+and absorbed into the Army for the performance
+of the expanding volume of duties
+which the progress of preparation daily brings
+about. It is to be remembered that the need
+for officers exists not only in connection with
+the actual training of troops in camp and the
+leadership of troops in the field, but a vast number
+of officers must constantly be employed in
+staff duties, and great numbers must as constantly
+be engaged in military research and in
+specialized forms of training associated with
+the use of newly developed arms and appliances.
+In other words, we must maintain not
+merely the special-service schools which are
+required to perfect the training of officers in
+the special arms of the service, but we must
+constantly experiment with new devices and
+reduce to practical use the discoveries of
+science and the new applications of mechanical
+and scientific arts, both for offensive and defensive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>
+purposes. It would be out of place
+here to enumerate or describe in any detail the
+service of science in this war, but when the
+history of the struggle comes to be written it
+will be found that the masters of the chemical
+and physical sciences have thrown their talents
+and their ingenuity into the service, that their
+researches have been at the very basis of military
+progress, and that the victory rests as
+much upon a nation's supremacy in the researches
+and adaptations of science as it does
+upon the number and valor of its soldiers.
+Indeed, this is but one of the many evidences
+of the fact that modern war engages all of the
+resources of nations and that that nation will
+emerge victorious which has most completely
+used and coordinated all the intellectual, moral,
+and physical forces of its people.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Fundamentals
+of
+military
+discipline
+do not
+change.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Professional
+soldiers
+still
+needed.</div>
+
+<p>It would be a national loss for me to
+fail to record in this place a just estimate
+of the value to the Nation of these training
+camps for officers. They disclosed an unsuspected
+source of military strength. Nobody
+will suppose that, with the growing
+intricacy of military science and the industrial
+arts related to it, a country can dispense
+with trained professional soldiers. The fundamentals
+of military discipline remain substantially
+unchanged and, in order that we may
+assemble rapidly and effectively adequate military
+forces, there must always be in the country
+a body of men to whom the life of a soldier
+is a career and who have acquired from their
+youth those qualities which have, from the
+beginning, distinguished the graduates of the
+Military Academy at West Point: the disciplined
+honor, the unfaltering courage, the
+comprehension of sacrifice, and that knowing
+obedience which proceeds from constant demonstrations
+of the fact that effective cooperation
+in war requires instant compliance with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>
+the command of authority, the sort of obedience
+which knows that a battle field is no place for
+a parliament. Added to these mental and
+moral qualities, the body of professional soldiers
+must devote themselves unremittingly to
+the development of the arts of war, and when
+the emergency arises must be familiar with the
+uses of science and the applications of industry
+in military enterprise. But these training
+camps have taught us that, given this relatively
+small body of professional soldiers, the Nation
+has at hand an apparently inexhaustible
+body of splendid material which can be rapidly
+made to supplement the professional
+soldier.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Athletes
+from the
+colleges.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Adaptability
+of
+American
+youth.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Atmosphere
+of
+industrial
+and commercial
+democracy.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Many
+officers assigned
+to
+training
+of troops
+from their
+homes.</div>
+
+<p>When the first camp was opened, the colleges,
+military schools, and high schools of the country
+poured out a stream of young men whose
+minds had been trained in the classroom and
+whose bodies had been made supple and virile
+on the athletic field. They came with intelligence,
+energy, and enthusiasm and, under a
+course of intensive training, rapidly took on
+the added discipline and capacities necessary
+to equip them for the duties of officers. They
+have taken their places in the training camps
+and are daily demonstrating the value of their
+education and the adaptability of the spirit of
+American youth. A more salutary result
+would be impossible to imagine. The trained
+professional soldiers of the Army received this
+great body of youthful enthusiasm and capacity
+with hospitality and quickly impressed upon
+it a soldierly character. The young men
+brought to their training habits which they
+had formed for success as civilians, but which
+their patriotic enthusiasm rendered easily
+available in new lines of endeavor for the service
+of the country. They brought, too, another
+element of great value. They were assembled
+from all parts of the country; they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span>
+were accustomed to the democracy of the college
+and high school; they recognized themselves
+as new and temporary adventurers in a
+military life; and they, therefore, reflected
+into our military preparation the fresh and
+invigorating atmosphere of our industrial and
+commercial democracy. This has undoubtedly
+contributed to the establishment of a happy
+spirit which prevails throughout the Army and
+has made it easy for the young men chosen
+under the selective service act to fall in with
+the training and mode of life which the military
+training camp requires. An effort was
+made by the department as far as possible to
+assign these young officers to the training of
+troops assembled from their own homes. By
+this means, a preexisting sympathy was used,
+and admiration and respect between officer
+and man was transferred from the home to the
+camp.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The three
+divisions
+of the
+Army.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enlistments
+may
+be for the
+period of
+the war.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Men
+anxious to
+get to
+France
+soon.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Traditions
+of military
+organizations
+preserved.</div>
+
+<p>The three divisions of the Army, namely, the
+Regular Army, the National Guard, and the
+National Army, were very different organizations
+as we contemplated them at the time of
+the passage of the act for the temporary increase
+of the Military Establishment. The Regular
+Army was a veteran establishment of
+professional soldiers; the National Guard a
+volunteer organization of local origin maintained
+primarily for the preservation of domestic
+order in the several States, with an emergency
+duty toward the national defense; the
+National Army an unknown quantity, made up
+of men to be selected arbitrarily by tests and
+rules as yet to be formulated, unorganized, untrained,
+existing only in theory and, therefore,
+problematical as to its spirit and the length of
+time necessary to fit it for use. Congress,
+however, most wisely provided as far as possible
+for an elimination of these differences.
+Enlistments in the Regular Army and National<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span>
+Guard were authorized to be made for the
+period of the war rather than for fixed terms;
+the maximum and minimum ages of enlistment
+in the Regular Army and National Guard were
+assimilated; the rights and privileges of members
+of the three forces were made largely identical.
+Indeed, the act created but one army,
+selected by three processes. The wisdom of
+Congress in this course became instantly apparent.
+Spirited young men throughout the
+country began at once to enlist in the Regular
+Army and National Guard who might have been
+deterred from such enlistment had their obligation
+been for a fixed period rather than for the
+duration of the war. Many men asked themselves
+but one question: "By which avenue of
+service will I earliest get to France?" The
+men in the National Army soon caught this
+spirit and, while the department is endeavoring
+to preserve as far as possible in the National
+Guard and the National Army those intimacies
+which belong to men who come from the same
+city or town, and to preserve the honorable
+traditions of military organizations which have
+histories of service to the country in other
+wars, the fact still remains that the army is
+rapidly becoming the army of the United
+States, with the sense of origin from a particular
+State, or association with a particular
+neighborhood, more and more submerged by the
+rising sense of national service and national
+identity.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Sites
+selected
+for cantonments.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Sixteen
+divisional
+cantonments.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Emergency
+construction
+division
+established.</div>
+
+<p>I have described above the process of the execution
+of the selective service law. The preparation
+of places for the training of the recruits
+thus brought into the service was a task
+of unparalleled magnitude. On the 7th of May,
+1917, the commanding generals of the several
+departments were directed to select sites for the
+construction of cantonments for the training of
+the mobilized National Guard and the National<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span>
+Army. The original intention was the construction
+of 32 cantonments. The appropriations
+made by Congress for this purpose
+were soon seen to be insufficient, and further
+study of the problem seemed to show that it
+would be unwise so seriously to engage the resources
+of the country, particularly in view of
+the fact that the National Guard was ready to
+be mobilized, that its training by reason of
+service on the Mexican border was substantial,
+and that its early use abroad in conjunction
+with the Regular Army would render permanent
+camps less important. The number was,
+therefore, cut to 16 divisional cantonments, and
+the National Guard was mobilized in camps for
+the most part under canvas, with only certain
+divisional storehouses and quarters for special
+uses constructed of wood. Because of the open
+weather during the winter months, the National
+Guard camps were located in the southern
+States. The National Army cantonments
+were located within the lines of the military
+division. A special division of the Quartermaster
+General's Department was established,
+known as the emergency construction division,
+and to it was given the task of erecting
+the cantonment buildings and such buildings
+as should be necessary for the National
+Guard.</p>
+
+<p>On May 17, 1917, Col. I. W. Littell, of the
+Regular Army, was detailed to assemble and
+direct an organization to be known as the
+cantonment division of the Quartermaster
+Corps, whose duties were to consist of providing
+quarters and camps for the training and
+housing of the New National Army, which
+was to be selected by conscription as provided
+in the act of Congress dated May 18, 1917.</p>
+
+<p>Able assistance was rendered by the following
+members of the committee on emergency
+construction and contracts, a subcommittee of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>
+the Munitions Board of the Council of National
+Defense:</p>
+
+<p>Major W. A. Starrett, chairman; Major
+William Kelly; C. M. Lundoff; M. C. Tuttle;
+F. L. Olmsted; J. B. Talmadge, secretary.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Specialists
+in purchasing
+and constructing
+secured.</div>
+
+<p>Inquiries were immediately made and all
+available means used by telegraph, correspondence,
+and consultation to get in touch with
+the ablest constructors, engineers, draftsmen,
+purchasing agents, and other specialists of
+broad experience in their respective vocations
+from which an efficient and experienced organization
+could be selected.</p>
+
+<p>All of those selected who became attached to
+the organization in an official capacity gave up
+responsible and remunerative positions to give
+the Government the benefit of their services.
+They all being over the draft-age limit and representative
+technical men of repute and standing
+in their community, a splendid precedent
+of patriotism was established.</p>
+
+<p>The assembling of an organization and the
+planning and execution of the work was undertaken
+with a view of accomplishing all that
+human ingenuity, engineering, and constructing
+skill could devise in the brief time available.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+plans formulated.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Magnitude
+of the
+task.</div>
+
+<p>Plans were formulated by engineers, architects,
+and town planners who had given much
+thought to the particular problems involved.
+Camp sites comprising from 2,000 to 11,000
+acres each were selected by a board of Army
+officers under the direction of the department
+commanders. Names of responsible contracting
+firms were secured and every effort made
+to perfect an organization competent to carry
+out the work of completing the camps at the
+earliest possible moment. The magnitude of
+assembling an organization for carrying on the
+work and securing the labor and materials
+therefor can in some measure be realized by
+reference to the following table, showing quantities<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span>
+of the principal materials estimated to be
+used in the construction of the National Army
+cantonments.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Approximate
+quantities
+of materials.</div>
+
+<p>The approximate quantities of principal materials
+used in the construction of the various
+National Army camps are shown in the following
+tables. This does not include National
+Guard, embarkation, or training camps.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Principal materials used in construction of Army camps">
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>Quantity.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lumber (feet b. m.)</td><td align='right'>450,000,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Roofing paper (square feet)</td><td align='right'>76,000,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Doors</td><td align='right'>140,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Window sash</td><td align='right'>700,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Wall board (square feet)</td><td align='right'>29,500,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Shower heads</td><td align='right'>40,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Water-closet bowls</td><td align='right'>54,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Tank heaters and tanks</td><td align='right'>11,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Heating boilers</td><td align='right'>1,800</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Radiation (square feet)</td><td align='right'>4,200,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cannon stoves</td><td align='right'>20,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Room heaters</td><td align='right'>20,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Kitchen stoves and ranges</td><td align='right'>10,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Wood pipe for water supply (feet)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>1,000,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cast-iron supply pipe (feet)</td><td align='right'>470,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Wire, all kinds and sizes (miles)</td><td align='right'>5,500</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Wood tanks (aggregate capacity)</td><td align='right'>8,300,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Hose carts</td><td align='right'>600</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Fire engines</td><td align='right'>90</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Fire extinguishers</td><td align='right'>4,700</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Fire hose (feet)</td><td align='right'>392,500</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Fire hydrants</td><td align='right'>3,600</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Hand-pump tanks</td><td align='right'>12,700</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Fire pails</td><td align='right'>163,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cots</td><td align='right'>721,000</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>Sixteen National Army camps were constructed
+in various parts of the United States
+at points selected by the War Department.
+The camps were carefully laid out by experienced
+town planners and engineers to give best
+results considering all viewpoints.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Extent of
+a typical
+National Army cantonment.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Roads constructed
+and
+improvements installed.</div>
+
+<p>A typical cantonment city will house 40,000
+men. Each barrack building will house 150 men
+and provide 500 cubic feet of air space per man.
+Such a cantonment complete contains between
+1,000 and 1,200 buildings and covers about 2,000
+acres. In addition, each cantonment has a
+rifle range, drill, parade, and maneuver grounds
+of about 2,000 acres. In many cases all or a
+large part of the entire site had to be cleared of
+woods and stumps. The various military units
+were located on principal or primary roads&mdash;a
+regiment being treated as a primary unit.
+About 25 miles of roads were constructed at
+each cantonment, and sewers, water supply,
+lighting facilities, and other improvements
+installed.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+special
+buildings
+required.</div>
+
+<p>An infantry regiment requires 22 barrack
+buildings, 6 for officers' quarters, 2 storehouses,
+1 infirmary building, 28 lavatories, with hot
+and cold shower baths, or a total of 59 buildings.
+In addition to the buildings necessary
+for the regimental units, each cantonment has
+buildings for divisional headquarters, quartermaster
+depots, laundry receiving and distributing
+stations, base hospitals having 1,000
+beds, post exchanges, and other buildings for
+general use.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Remount
+stations.</div>
+
+<p>At several of the cantonments remount stations
+have been provided, some of them having
+a capacity to maintain 12,000 horses.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Other
+necessary
+camps.</div>
+
+<p>In addition to the National Army camps,
+plans were made for the construction of 16
+National Guard, two embarkation and one
+quartermaster training camp, but the construction
+of these items did not involve so large an
+expenditure as the National Army camps, as
+provision was made for fewer units and only
+tentage quarters for the men in the National
+Guard camps was provided. Modern storehouses,
+kitchens, mess shelters, lavatories,
+shower baths, base hospitals, and remount depots<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span>
+were built, and water, sewerage, heating,
+and light systems installed at an expenditure
+of about $1,900,000 for each camp.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+demand
+for construction
+and
+supplies.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Savings
+effected
+by standardization.</div>
+
+<p>With the advent of the United States into
+the war, there has appeared not only one of
+the world's greatest builders, but the world's
+greatest customer for supplies and human
+necessaries. We have not only to equip, house,
+and supply our own army, but meet the demands
+arising from the drainage of the resources
+of the entente allies. Small shopping
+and bargaining are out of the question.
+Enormous savings were, however, effected, due
+to the fact that materials were purchased in
+large quantities and consequently at a much
+reduced price. Standardization of sizes saved
+from $5 to $6 per thousand feet b. m. on lumber,
+and a further saving of from $3 to $11 over
+prevailing prices was effected by the lumber
+subcommittee of the Council of National Defense.
+The Raw Materials Committee effected
+similar savings in prepared roofing, nails, and
+other construction materials. The lead subcommittee
+procured 500 tons of lead for caulking
+pipe at 3 cents less than market price.
+When it is considered that this construction
+work is, next to the Panama Canal, the largest
+ever undertaken by the United States, the country
+is to be congratulated on having available
+the men and materials to accomplish the feat
+of providing for the maintenance of the newly
+organized army in so short a period.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Extensive
+construction
+work for
+National
+Army.</div>
+
+<p>I have described at length the work of building
+necessary for the National Army camps,
+but at the same time extensive building was
+necessary at the 16 sites selected for the mobilization
+and training of the National Guard.
+While the National Guard troops were themselves
+quartered under canvas, many wooden
+buildings and storehouses had to be constructed
+for their use and, of course, the important<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span>
+problems of water supply, sewage, and
+hospital accommodations required substantially
+as much provision upon these subjects
+as upon those selected for the National
+Army.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Labor assembled
+from great
+distances.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The assistance
+rendered
+by Mr.
+Gompers.</div>
+
+<p>At the very outset of this hurried and vast
+program, it became apparent that labor would
+have to be assembled from great distances, and
+in wholly unaccustomed numbers, that the
+laboring men would be required to separate
+themselves from home and family and to live
+under unusual and less comfortable circumstances
+than was their habit. It was also clear
+that no interruption or stoppage of the work
+could be permitted. I therefore took up with
+Mr. Samuel Gompers, President of the American
+Federation of Labor, the question of a
+general agreement which would cover all trades
+to be employed in assuring continuity of work,
+provide just conditions of pay, recognize the inequalities
+which exist throughout the country,
+and yet avoid controversy as between the contractor
+and his employees, which, wherever the
+justice of the dispute might lie, could have
+only a prejudicial effect upon the interests of
+the Government, by delaying the progress
+necessary to be made. Mr. Gompers and those
+associated with him in the building trades
+promptly and loyally entered into a consideration
+of the whole subject, with the result that
+the following agreement was made:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Commission
+for
+labor
+adjustment.</div>
+
+<div class='right'>
+"<span class="smcap">Washington, D. C.</span>, June 19, 1917.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>"For the adjustment and control of wages,
+hours, and conditions of labor in the construction
+of cantonments, there shall be created an
+adjustment commission of three persons, appointed
+by the Secretary of War; one to represent
+the Army, one the public, and one labor;
+the last to be nominated by Samuel Gompers,
+member of the Advisory Commission of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span>
+Council of National Defense, and President of
+the American Federation of Labor.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Consideration
+given to
+scales in
+locality.</div>
+
+<p>"As basic standards with reference to each
+cantonment, such commission shall use the
+main scales of wages, hours, and conditions in
+force on June 1, 1917, in the locality where
+such cantonment is situated. Consideration
+shall be given to special circumstances, if any
+arising after said date which may require
+particular advances in wages or changes in
+other standards. Adjustments of wages, hours,
+or conditions made by such board are to be
+treated as binding by all parties."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="sidenote">Labor difficulties
+easily
+adjusted.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Early completion
+of cantonments.</div>
+
+<p>The contractors throughout the country were
+notified of the existence of this agreement and
+of the determination of the Government to
+carry it out faithfully. The scope of the agreement
+was subsequently enlarged so as to include
+other emergency construction done by the
+War Department, and a board of adjustment
+was appointed which, at the beginning, consisted
+of General E. A. Garlington, formerly
+General Inspector of the Army, Mr. Walter
+Lippmann, and Mr. John R. Alpine, to whom all
+complaints were referred, and by whom all investigations
+and determinations in enforcement
+of the agreement were made. The personnel of
+this board was subsequently changed, and its
+activities associated with a similar board appointed
+by the concurrent action of the Secretary
+of the Navy and Mr. Gompers, but I need
+here refer only to the fact that, by the device
+of this agreement, and through the instrumentality
+of this board, labor difficulties and
+disputes were easily adjusted, and the program
+of building has gone rapidly forward, with
+here and there incidental delays due sometimes
+to delay in material, sometimes to difficulties
+of the site, and doubtless to other
+incidental failures of coordination, but in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span>
+main, the work has been thoroughly successful.
+When its magnitude is appreciated, the draft it
+made upon the labor market of the country, the
+speed with which it was accomplished, and
+the necessity of assembling not only materials
+but men from practically all over the country,
+it seems not too much to say that the work is
+out of all proportion larger than any similar
+work ever undertaken in the country, and that
+its completion substantially on time, is an
+evidence of efficiency both on the part of those
+officers of the Government charged with responsibility
+for the task and the contractors
+and men of the trades and crafts employed to
+carry on the work.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Camps for
+training
+military
+engineers.</div>
+
+<p>This great division of the War Department
+in times of peace devotes the major part of its
+energy to works of internal improvements and
+to the supervision of, improvement, and maintenance
+of navigable waters; but in time of
+war it immediately becomes a fundamental
+part of the Military Establishment. It was,
+therefore, called upon not only to render assistance
+of an engineering kind in the establishment
+of training camps, but had to establish
+camps for the rapid training in military
+engineering of large additions to its own personnel,
+and to undertake the rapid mobilization
+and training of additional engineer troops,
+of which at the beginning of the war there were
+but two regiments.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Importance
+of railroad
+transportation
+in war.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Regiments
+of engineers
+sent to
+France.</div>
+
+<p>One of the earliest opportunities for actual
+assistance to the countries associated with us
+in this war was presented to this department.
+In the war against Germany transportation,
+and particularly railroad transportation, is of
+the utmost importance. It was easily foreseen
+that our own army in France would require
+large railroad facilities both in the operation
+of permanent railroads for the handling of our
+equipment and supplies and in the construction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span>
+and operation of temporary roads behind
+our Army. In the meantime regiments of engineer
+troops, if speedily organized and dispatched
+to Europe, could both render valuable
+assistance to the British and French Armies
+and acquire the training and experience which
+would make them valuable at a later stage to
+us. Accordingly nine such regiments were organized
+and have for some months been rendering
+active and important service along the
+actual battle front. In addition to these, a
+tenth regiment, composed of men skilled in
+forestry and lumbering, was organized and
+sent abroad, and is now operating in a foreign
+forest cutting out lumber supplies for the use
+of our associates and ourselves.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Arrangements
+to
+operate
+our own
+railways
+in France.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Creation
+of entire
+transportation
+system.</div>
+
+<p>Concurrently with the formation of these
+special engineer troops the department undertook
+the collection of material for the establishment
+and operation of our own lines of
+supply abroad. The railways of France have
+been maintained in a state of high efficiency
+by the French people, and they are performing
+the tremendous transportation task imposed
+upon them by the French and English military
+operations with complete success; but in
+order not to impose a burden which they were
+not designed to meet, by asking them to expand
+to the accommodation of our services, it
+has been found necessary for us ourselves to
+undertake the accumulation of railroad material
+for our own use in the theater of
+war. This work is on a large and comprehensive
+scale. Any detailed description of it
+would be inappropriate at this time, but it involves
+the creation of entire transportation
+systems and the actual construction and operation
+of railroads with the elaborate terminal
+facilities needed for the rapid unloading and
+dispatch of supplies, equipment, and troops.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Quartermaster
+General's
+problem.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Vast
+equipment
+needed.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Intensive
+production
+of food and
+clothing.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Associated
+nations
+must be
+supplied.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Emergency
+appropriation.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Great
+extent of
+purchases.</div>
+
+<p>The problem facing the Quartermaster General<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span>
+has been serious. For the small Regular
+Army of the United States a well-defined and
+adequate supply system had been created. It
+was large enough and flexible enough to permit
+us to make gradual accumulations of reserve
+as Congress from time to time provided
+the necessary money; but when the mobilization
+of the National Guard on the Mexican
+frontier took place, such reserves as we had
+were rapidly consumed, and the maintenance
+of the military establishment on the border
+required an increase which quite equaled the
+entire capacity of those industries ordinarily
+devoting themselves to the production of military
+supplies. When the present enlarged military
+establishment was authorized it involved
+an enlarged Regular Army, an enlarged National
+Guard and the new National Army,
+thus bringing upon us the problem of immediate
+supply with adequate reserves for an
+Army of 2,000,000 men; and these men were
+not to be stationed about in Army posts, but
+mobilized into great camps under conditions
+which necessarily increased the wear and tear
+upon clothing and equipment, and correspondingly
+increased the reserves needed to keep
+up the supply. In addition to this these troops
+were assembled for overseas use, and it therefore
+became necessary to accumulate in France
+vast stores of clothing and equipment in order
+to have the Army free from dependence, by too
+narrow a margin, upon ocean transportation
+with its inevitable delays. As a consequence the
+supply needs of the department were vastly
+greater than the capacity of the industrial organization
+and facilities normally devoted to
+their production, and the problem presented was
+to divert workshops and factories from their
+peace-time output into the intensive production
+of clothing and equipment for the Army.
+Due consideration had to be given to the maintenance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span>
+of the industrial balance of the country.
+Industries already devoted to the manufacture
+of supplies for the nations associated
+with us in the war had to be conserved to that
+useful purpose. Perhaps some aid to the imagination
+can be gotten from the fact that
+2,000,000 men constitute about one-fiftieth of
+the entire population of the United States.
+Supply departments were, therefore, called
+upon to provide clothing, equipment, and maintenance
+for about one-fiftieth of our entire
+people, and this in articles of uniform and of
+standardized kinds. The great appropriations
+made by Congress tell the story from the
+financial point of view. In 1917 the normal
+appropriation for the Quartermaster Department
+was $186,305,000. The emergency appropriation
+for this department for the year
+1918 was $3,000,000,000; a sum greater than
+the normal annual appropriation for the entire
+expenses of the Federal Government on all accounts.
+Another illustration can be drawn
+from the mere numbers of some familiar
+articles. Thus of shoes more than 20,000,000
+pairs have already been purchased and are
+in process of delivery; of blankets, 17,000,000;
+of flannel shirting, more than 33,000,000 yards;
+of melton cloth, more than 50,000,000 yards;
+of various kinds of duck for shelter tents and
+other necessary uses, more than 125,000,000
+yards; and other staple and useful articles of
+Army equipment have been needed in proportion.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Resources,
+industry and transportation
+mobilized.</div>
+
+<p>To all of this it has been necessary to add
+supplies not usual in our Army which, in
+many cases, had to be devised to meet needs
+growing out of the nature of the present warfare.
+It was necessary, therefore, to mobilize
+the resources and industry, first to produce
+with the greatest rapidity the initial equipment,
+and to follow that with a steady stream<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span>
+of production for replacement and reserve;
+second, to organize adequate transportation
+and storage for these great accumulations, and
+their distribution throughout the country, and
+then to establish ports of embarkation for men
+and supplies, assemble there in orderly fashion
+for prompt ship-loading the tonnage for overseas;
+and to set up in France facilities necessary
+to receive and distribute these efficiently.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Civilian
+agencies
+cooperate
+with government.</div>
+
+<p>The Quartermaster General's Department
+was called upon to set up rapidly a business
+greater than that carried on by the most thoroughly
+organized and efficiently managed industrial
+organization in the country. It had
+to consider the supply of raw materials, the
+diversion of industry, and speed of production,
+and with its problem pressing for instant solution
+it had to expand the slender peace-time
+organization of the Quartermaster Department
+by the rapid addition of personnel and by the
+employment and coordination of great civilian
+agencies which could be helpful.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Council of
+National
+Defense
+is aided
+by men
+of great
+ability.</div>
+
+<p>The Council of National Defense, through
+the supply committees organized by it, afforded
+the immediate contact necessary with the
+world of commerce and industry, while men of
+various branches of business and production
+engineers brought their services freely to the
+assistance of the Department. The dollar-a-year
+man has been a powerful aid, and when
+this struggle is over, and the country undertakes
+to take stock of the assets which it found
+ready to be used in the mobilization of its
+powers, a large place will justly be given to
+these men who, without the distinction of title
+or rank, and with no thought of compensation,
+brought experience, knowledge, and trained
+ability to Washington in order that they might
+serve with patriotic fervor in an inconspicuous
+and self-sacrificing, but indispensably helpful
+way.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Sound beginnings
+made.</div>
+
+<p>The problems of supply are not yet solved;
+but they are in the course of solution. Sound
+beginnings have been made, and as the military
+effort of the country grows the arrangements
+perfected and organizations created will expand
+to meet it.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+American
+Railway
+Association's
+special
+committee.</div>
+
+<p>In this general connection it seems appropriate
+to refer to the effective cooperation between
+the department and the transportation
+agencies of the country. For a number of
+years the Quartermaster General's Department
+has maintained close relations with the executives
+of the great railway systems of the
+country. In February, 1917, a special committee
+of the American Railway Association
+was appointed to deal with questions of national
+defense, and the cooperation between
+this committee and the department has been
+most cordial and effective, and but for some
+such arrangement the great transportation
+problem would have been insoluble. I am
+happy, therefore, to join the Quartermaster
+General in pointing out the extraordinary service
+rendered by the transportation agencies
+of the country, and I concur also in his statement
+that "of those who are now serving the
+Nation in this time of stress, there are none
+who are doing so more whole-heartedly, unselfishly,
+and efficiently than the railroad
+officials who are engaged in this patriotic
+work."</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Codes established
+for the
+garment
+industry.</div>
+
+<p>One other aspect of the work of the Quartermaster
+General's Office has engaged my particular
+attention, and seems to me to have been
+fruitful of most excellent results. The garment
+working trades of the United States are
+largely composed of women and children, and
+of men of foreign extraction. More than any
+other industry in the United States it has been
+menaced by the sweatshop system. The States
+have enacted codes and established inspection<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span>
+agencies to enforce sanitary conditions for
+these workers, and to relieve the evils which
+seem everywhere to spring up about them. To
+some extent the factory system operated under
+rigid inspection has replaced home work, and
+has improved conditions; but garment making
+is an industry midway in its course of being
+removed from the home to the factory, and
+under pressure of intensive production, home
+work in congested tenements has been difficult
+to eradicate.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Dangers
+in home
+work
+system.</div>
+
+<p>The vice of this system is not merely the
+invasion of the home of the worker, and the
+consequent enfeeblement of the family and
+family life. Work done under such circumstances
+escapes the inspector, and the crowded
+workers in the tenement are helpless in their
+struggle for subsistence under conditions
+which are unrelieved by an assertion of the
+Government's interest in the condition under
+which these workers live. Moreover, wide distribution
+of garments made under such conditions
+tends to spread disease, and adds another
+menace from the public point of view.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Standards
+inserted in
+contracts.</div>
+
+<p>The department determined, therefore, to establish
+minimum standards as to wages, inspection,
+hours, and sanitation. These standards
+were inserted in the contracts made for
+garment production, and a board was appointed
+to enforce an observance of these standards.
+The effect of this has been that it is now
+possible to say that no uniform worn by an
+American soldier is the product of sweatshop
+toil, and that so far as the Government is concerned
+in its purchases of garments it is a
+model employer.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+worker
+feels a
+national
+interest.</div>
+
+<p>This action has not delayed the accumulation
+of necessary supplies, and it has added to
+our national self-respect. It has distributed
+national interest between the soldier who
+wears and the worker who makes the garment,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span>
+regarding them each as assets, each as elements
+in our aggregated national strength.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Ordnance
+Department.</div>
+
+<p>On the 1st day of July, 1916, there was a
+total of 96 officers in the Ordnance Department.
+The commissioned strength of this department
+increased substantially 2,700 per
+cent, and is still expanding. The appropriations
+for ordnance in 1917 were $89,697,000;
+for 1918, in view of the war emergency, the appropriations
+for that department aggregate
+$3,209,000,000.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Most
+difficult
+problems
+of the
+war.</div>
+
+<p>This division of the War Department has
+had, in some respects, the most difficult of the
+problems presented by the transition from
+peace to war. Like the Department of the
+Quartermaster General, the Ordnance Department
+has had to deal with various increases
+of supply, increases far exceeding the organization
+and available capacity of the country
+for production. The products needed take
+longer to produce; for the most part they involved
+intricate machinery, and highly refined
+processes of manufacture. In addition to this
+the industrial agencies of the country have
+been devoting a large part of their capacity to
+foreign production which, in the new set of
+circumstances, it is unwise to interrupt.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Organization
+of
+the
+Council of
+National
+Defense.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">An
+advisory
+body.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Advisory
+function
+should
+not be
+impaired.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The council
+supplements
+the
+Cabinet.</div>
+
+<p>Legislation enacted on August 29, 1916, as
+a part of the National Defense Act provided
+for the creation of a Council of National
+Defense. Shortly thereafter the council was
+organized, its advisory commission appointed,
+a director chosen, and its activities planned.
+It appropriately directed its first attention to
+the industrial situation of the country and, by
+the creation of committees representative of
+the principal industries, brought together a
+great store of information both as to our
+capacity for manufacture and as to the re-adaptations
+possible in an emergency for rapid
+production of supplies of military value.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span>
+Under the law of its creation, the Council of
+National Defense is not an executive body, its
+principal function being to supervise and direct
+investigations and make recommendations to
+the President and the heads of the executive
+departments with regard to a large variety of
+subjects. The advisory commission is thus
+advisory to a body which is itself advisory,
+and the subordinate bodies authorized to be
+created are collectors of data upon which advice
+can be formulated. There was no intention
+on the part of Congress to subdivide the
+executive function, but rather to strengthen it
+by equipping it with carefully matured recommendations
+based upon adequate surveys of
+conditions. The extent of the council's powers
+has been sometimes misunderstood, with the
+result that it has been deemed an inapt instrument,
+and from time to time suggestions
+have been made looking to the donation to it
+of power to execute its conclusions. Whatever
+determination Congress may hereafter reach
+with regard to the bestowal of additional executive
+power and the creation of agencies for
+its exercise, the advisory function of the Council
+of National Defense ought not to be impaired,
+nor ought its usefulness to be left unrecognized.
+In the first place, the council
+brings together the heads of the departments
+ordinarily concerned in the industrial and commercial
+problems which affect the national defense
+and undoubtedly prevents duplications of
+work and overlappings of jurisdiction. It also
+makes available for the special problems of individual
+departments the results attained in
+other departments which have been called upon
+to examine the same problem from other points
+of view. In the second place, the council supplements
+the activities of the Cabinet under
+the direction of the President by bringing together
+in a committee, as it were, members of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span>
+the Cabinet for the consideration of problems
+which, when maturely studied, can be presented
+for the President's judgment.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+council
+directs the
+aroused
+spirit
+of the
+nation.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+General
+Munitions
+Board.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Field of
+priorities
+in transportation
+and
+supplies.</div>
+
+<p>With the declaration of a state of war, however,
+the usefulness of the Council of National
+Defense became instantly more obvious. The
+peace-time activities and interests of our
+people throughout the country surged toward
+Washington in an effort to assimilate themselves
+into the new scheme of things which,
+it was recognized, would call for widespread
+changes of occupation and interest. The Council
+of National Defense was the only national
+agency at all equipped to receive and direct
+this aroused spirit seeking appropriate modes
+of action, and it was admirably adapted to the
+task because among the members of the council
+were those Cabinet officers whose normal
+activities brought them into constant contact
+with all the varied peace-time activities of the
+people and who were, therefore, best qualified
+to judge the most useful opportunities in the
+new state of things for men and interests of
+which they respectively knew the normal relations.
+For the more specialized problems of
+the national defense, notably those dealing
+with the production of war materials, the council
+authorized the organization of subordinate
+bodies of experts, and the General Munitions
+Board grew naturally out of the necessities of
+the War and Navy Departments, which required
+not only the maximum production of
+existing munition-making industries in the
+country, but the creation of new capacity for
+production and its correlation with similar
+needs on the part of the foreign governments.
+The work done by the General Munitions Board
+was highly effective, but it was soon seen that
+its problem carried over into the field of transportation,
+that it was bound up with the question
+of priorities, and that it was itself divisible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span>
+into the great and separate fields of raw material
+supply and the production of finished
+goods. With the growth of its necessary interests
+and the constant discovery of new relations
+it became necessary so to reorganize
+the General Munitions Board as both to enlarge
+its view and more definitely recognize its
+widespread relations.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The War
+Industries
+Board.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Knowledge
+of war
+needs
+of the
+United
+States and
+Allies.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Council of
+National
+Defense a
+natural center.</div>
+
+<p>Upon the advice of the Council of National
+Defense, the General Munitions Board was replaced
+by the War Industries Board, which
+consists of a chairman, a representative of the
+Army, a representative of the Navy, a representative
+of labor and the three members of
+the Allied Purchasing Commission through
+whom, under arrangements made with foreign
+Governments by the Secretary of the Treasury,
+the purchasing of allied goods in the
+United States is effected. This purchasing
+commission consists of three chairmen&mdash;one of
+priorities, one of raw materials, and one of
+finished products. By the presence of Army
+and Navy representatives, the needs of our
+own Government are brought to the common
+council table of the War Industries Board.
+The board is thus enabled to know all the war
+needs of our Government and the nations associated
+with us in war, to measure their effect
+upon the industry of the country, to assign
+relative priorities in the order of serviceableness
+to the common cause, and to forecast both
+the supply of raw material and our capacity
+for completing its manufacture in such a way
+as to coordinate our entire industrial capacity,
+both with a view to its maximum efficiency and
+to its permanent effect upon the industrial condition
+of the country. Under legislation enacted
+by Congress, the President has committed
+certain definite problems to special agencies.
+The food administration, the fuel administration,
+and the shipping problem being each in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span>
+the hands of experts specially selected under
+appropriate enactments. In large part, these
+activities are separable from the general questions
+considered by the Council of National
+Defense and the War Industries Board, but
+there are necessary relations between them
+which it has been found quite simple to arrange
+by conference and consultation, and the Council
+of National Defense, with the Secretary of
+the Treasury added as an important councilor,
+has seemed the natural center around which
+to group these agencies so far as any common
+activity among them is desirable.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The War
+Department
+indebted
+to
+the
+council.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Unremunerated
+service
+of able
+citizens.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Business
+confidence
+in the
+Government.</div>
+
+<p>In the meantime the Advisory Commission of
+the Council of National Defense and the council
+itself have continued to perform the original
+advisory functions committed to them by the
+National Defense Act. The War Department
+is glad to acknowledge its debt to the council
+and the commission. I refrain from specific
+enumeration of the services which the department
+has received through these agencies only
+because their number is infinite and their
+value obvious. The various supply committees
+created by the Supply Commission, the scientific
+resources placed at the disposal of the
+department, the organization of the medical
+profession, the cooperation of the transportation
+interests of the country, the splendid harmony
+which has been established in the field
+of labor, are all fruits of the actions of these
+bodies and notably of the Advisory Commission.
+It has been especially in connection with
+the activities of the council and the commission
+that we have been helped by the unremunerated
+service of citizens who bore no official
+relation to the Government but had expert
+knowledge of and experience with the industries
+of the country which it was necessary
+rapidly to summon into new uses. Through
+their influence, the trade rivalries and commercial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span>
+competitions, stimulating and helpful
+in times of peace, have been subordinated to
+the paramount purpose of national service and
+the common good. They have not only created
+helpful relations for the present emergency but
+have established a new confidence in the Government
+on the part of business and perhaps
+have led to clearer judgments on the part of
+the Government in its dealings with the great
+organizations, both of labor and of capital,
+which form the industrial and commercial
+fabric of our society. The large temporary gain
+thus manifest is supplemented by permanent
+good; and in the reorganizations which take
+place when the war is over there will doubtless
+be a more conscious national purpose in
+business and a more conscious helpfulness toward
+business on the part of the Government.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">General
+Pershing
+goes to
+France.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Navy
+transports
+troops
+without
+any loss.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Terminal
+facilities
+organized.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Cooperation
+of
+the
+Shipping
+Board.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Reserve
+equipment
+and food.</div>
+
+<p>As a result of the exchanges of views which
+took place between the military missions to
+the United States and our own Government, it
+was determined to begin at once the dispatch
+of an expeditionary force of the American
+Army to France. This has been done. General
+John J. Pershing was selected as commander
+in chief and with his staff departed for France,
+to be followed shortly by the full division, consisting
+entirely of Regular Army troops. Immediately
+thereafter there was formed the so-called
+Rainbow Division, made up of National
+Guard units of many States scattered widely
+throughout the country. The purpose of its
+organization was to distribute the honor of
+early participation in the war over a wide area
+and thus to satisfy in some part the eagerness
+of these State forces to be permitted to serve
+in Europe. The Marines, with their fine traditions
+and honorable history, were likewise recognized,
+and regiments of Marines were added
+to the first forces dispatched. It would, of
+course, be unwise to attempt any enumeration<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span>
+of the forces at this time overseas, but the
+Army and the country would not have me do
+less than express their admiration and appreciation
+of the splendid cooperation of the
+Navy, by means of which these expeditionary
+forces have been safely transported and have
+been enabled to traverse without loss the so-called
+danger zone infested by the stealthy and
+destructive submarine navy of the enemy. The
+organization and dispatch of the expeditionary
+force required the preparation of an elaborate
+transport system, involving not only the procurement
+of ships and their refitting for service
+as troop and cargo transports, but also extensive
+organizations of terminal facilities both in
+this country and France; and in order to surround
+the expeditionary force with every safeguard,
+a large surplus of supplies of every kind
+were immediately placed at their disposal in
+France. This placed an added burden upon the
+supply divisions of the department and explains
+in part some of the shortages, notably
+those of clothing, which have temporarily embarrassed
+mobilization of troops at home, embarrassments
+now happily passed. In the organization
+of this transport the constant and
+helpful cooperation of the Shipping Board, the
+railroads, and those in control of warehousing,
+wharfing, lighterage, and other terminal facilities
+has been invaluable. Our activities in this
+regard have resulted in the transporting of an
+army to France fully equipped, with adequate
+reserves of equipment and subsistence, and
+with those large quantities of transportation
+appliances, motor vehicles, railroad construction
+supplies, and animals, all of which are
+necessary for the maintenance and effective
+operations of the force.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Technical
+troops cooperate
+with
+British
+and
+French.</div>
+
+<p>The act authorizing the temporary increase
+of the military establishment empowered the
+department to create special organizations of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span>
+technical troops. Under this provision railroad
+and stevedore regiments have been formed
+and special organizations of repair men and
+mechanics, some of which have proceeded to
+France and rendered service back of the British
+and French line in anticipation of and
+training for their later service with the American
+Army. No complete descriptions of these
+activities can be permitted at this time, but
+the purpose of the department has been to
+provide from the first for the maintenance of
+our own military operations without adding
+to the burdens already borne by the British
+and French, and to render, incidentally, such
+assistance to the British and French Armies as
+could be rendered by technical troops in training
+in the theater of operations. By this means
+the United States has already rendered service
+of great value to the common cause, these
+technical troops having actually carried on
+operations for which they are designed in effective
+cooperation with the British and French
+Armies behind hotly contested battle fronts.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Red Cross
+organizes
+base
+hospital
+units.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Doctors
+and nurses
+aid British
+and
+French
+armies.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+medical
+profession
+rallies
+around the
+service.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Convalescent
+and reconstruction
+hospitals.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Physical
+fitness
+necessary
+for
+military
+service.</div>
+
+<p>Working in close association with the medical
+committee of the Council of National Defense
+and the Red Cross and in constant and
+helpful contact with the medical activities of
+the British, French, and other belligerents, the
+Surgeon General has built up the personnel of
+his department and taken over from the Red
+Cross completely organized base-hospital units
+and ambulance units, supplemented them by
+fresh organizations, procured great quantities
+of medical supplies and prepared on a generous
+scale to meet any demands of our Army in
+action. Incidentally and in the course of this
+preparation, great numbers of base hospital
+organizations, ambulance units, and additional
+doctors and nurses have been placed at the disposal
+of the British and French armies, and
+are now in the field of actual war, ministering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span>
+to the needs of our Allies. Indeed, the honor
+of first participation by Americans in this war
+belongs to the Medical Department. In addition
+to all this preparation and activity, the
+Surgeon General's department has been charged
+with the responsibility for the study of defense
+against gas attack and the preparation of such
+gas masks and other appliances as can be devised
+to minimize its effects. The medical profession
+of the country has rallied around this
+service. The special laboratories of the great
+medical institutions have devoted themselves
+to the study of problems of military medicine.
+New, effective, and expeditious surgical and
+medical procedures have been devised and the
+latest defensive and curative discoveries of
+medical science have been made available for
+the protection and restoration of our soldiers.
+Far-reaching activities have been conducted by
+the Medical Department here in America, involving
+the supervision of plans for great base
+hospitals in the camps and cantonments, the
+planning of convalescent and reconstruction
+hospitals for invalided soldiers and anticipatory
+organization wherever possible to supply
+relief to distress and sickness as it may arise.
+Moreover, the task of the Medical Department
+in connection with the new Army has been exacting.
+Rigid examinations have been conducted,
+in the first instance by the physicians
+connected with the exemption boards, but later
+at the camps, in order to eliminate from the
+ranks men whose physical condition did not
+justify their retention in the military service.
+Many of the rejections by the Medical Department
+have caused grief to high-spirited young
+men not conscious of physical weakness or defect,
+and perhaps having no weakness or defect
+which embarrassed their usefulness in
+civilian occupation; but both the strength of
+the Army and justice to the men involved require<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span>
+that the test of fitness for military service
+should be the sole guide, and the judgments of
+the most expert physicians have been relied
+upon to give us an army composed of men of the
+highest possible physical efficiency.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The capture of Jerusalem by the British
+under Allenby on December 8th, 1917, sent a
+thrill throughout the civilized world. The
+deliverance of the Holy City from the Turks
+marked another great epoch in its history,
+which includes possession by Assyrians, Babylonians,
+Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and Turks.
+The entrance of the British troops into
+Jerusalem is described in the following narrative.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM</h2>
+
+<h3>GENERAL E. H. H. ALLENBY</h3>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">General
+Allenby's
+instructions.</div>
+
+<p>When I took over the command of the
+Egyptian Expeditionary Force at the
+end of June, 1917, I had received instructions
+to report on the conditions in which
+offensive operations against the Turkish Army
+on the Palestine front might be undertaken in
+the autumn or winter of 1917.</p>
+
+<p>After visiting the front and consulting with
+the Commander of the Eastern Force, I submitted
+my appreciation and proposals in a
+telegram dispatched in the second week of
+July.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Situation
+on the
+Palestine
+front.</div>
+
+<p>The main features of the situation on the
+Palestine front were then as follows:</p>
+
+<p>The Turkish Army in Southern Palestine
+held a strong position extending from the sea
+at Gaza, roughly along the main Gaza-Beersheba
+Road to Beersheba. Gaza had been made
+into a strong modern fortress, heavily entrenched
+and wired, offering every facility for
+protracted defence. The remainder of the enemy's
+line consisted of a series of strong localities,
+viz.: the Sihan group of works, the
+Atawineh group, the Baha group, the Abu
+Hareira-Arab el Teeaha trench system, and,
+finally, the works covering Beersheba. These
+groups of works were generally from 1,500 to
+2,000 yards apart, except that the distance from
+the Hareira group to Beersheba was about 4 1/2
+miles.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Turks
+have good
+communications.</div>
+
+<p>The enemy's force was on a wide front, the
+distance from Gaza to Beersheba being about
+30 miles; but his lateral communications were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span>
+good, and any threatened point of the line could
+be very quickly reinforced.</p>
+
+<p>My force was extended on a front of 22 miles,
+from the sea, opposite Gaza, to Gamli.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Lack of
+water on
+the
+British
+front.</div>
+
+<p>Owing to lack of water I was unable, without
+preparations which would require some considerable
+time, to approach within striking distance
+of the enemy, except in the small sector
+near the sea coast opposite Gaza.</p>
+
+<p>My proposals received the approval of the
+War Cabinet, and preparations were undertaken
+to enable the plan I had formed to be put
+into execution.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">To strike
+on Turk's
+left flank.</div>
+
+<p>I had decided to strike the main blow against
+the left flank of the main Turkish position,
+Hareira and Sheria. The capture of Beersheba
+was a necessary preliminary to this operation,
+in order to secure the water supplies at that
+place and to give room for the deployment of
+the attacking force on the high ground to the
+north and north-west of Beersheba, from which
+direction I intended to attack the Hareira-Sheria
+line.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Necessary
+to take
+Beersheba.</div>
+
+<p>This front of attack was chosen for the following
+reasons. The enemy's works in this
+sector were less formidable than elsewhere, and
+they were easier of approach than other parts
+of the enemy's defences. When Beersheba was
+in our hands we should have an open flank
+against which to operate, and I could make full
+use of our superiority in mounted troops, and a
+success here offered prospects of pursuing our
+advantage and forcing the enemy to abandon
+the rest of his fortified positions, which no
+other line of attack would afford.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Attacked
+Gaza to
+deceive
+enemy.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Assurance
+of naval
+cooperation at
+Gaza.</div>
+
+<p>It was important, in order to keep the enemy
+in doubt up to the last moment as to the real
+point of attack, that an attack should also be
+made on the enemy's right at Gaza in conjunction
+with the main operations. One of my Commanders
+was therefore ordered to prepare a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span>
+scheme for operations against Gaza on as large
+a scale as the force at his disposal would permit.
+I also asked the Senior Naval Officer of
+Egypt, Rear-Admiral T. Jackson, C.B., M.V.O.,
+to afford me naval cooperation by bombarding
+the Gaza defences and the enemy's railway stations
+and <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'depots'">dep&ocirc;ts</ins> north of Gaza. Rear-Admiral
+Jackson afforded me cordial assistance, and
+during the period of preparation Naval Officers
+worked in the closest cooperation with my staff
+at General Headquarters and the staff of the
+G.O.C. troops operating in that region.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Difficulties
+regarding
+water and
+transport.</div>
+
+<p>The difficulties to be overcome in the operations
+against Beersheba and the Sheria-Hareira
+line were considerable, and careful preparations
+and training were necessary. The chief
+difficulties were those of water and transport,
+and arrangements had to be made to ensure
+that the troops could be kept supplied with
+water while operating at considerable distances
+from their original water base for a period
+which might amount to a week or more; for,
+though it was known that an ample supply of
+water existed at Beersheba, it was uncertain
+how quickly it could be developed or to what
+extent the enemy would have damaged the wells
+before we succeeded in occupying the town.
+Except at Beersheba, no large supply of water
+would be found till Sheria and Hareira had
+been captured.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">No good
+roads
+south of
+Gaza-Beersheba
+line.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Railway
+lines to
+be laid.</div>
+
+<p>The transport problem was no less difficult;
+there were no good roads south of the line
+Gaza-Beersheba, and no reliance could therefore
+be placed on the use of motor transport. Owing
+to the steep banks of many of the wadis which
+intersected the area of operations, the routes
+passable by wheeled transport were limited,
+and the going was heavy and difficult in many
+places. Practically the whole of the transport
+available in the force, including 30,000 pack
+camels, had to be allotted to one portion of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span>
+eastern force to enable it to be kept supplied
+with food, water, and ammunition at a distance
+of 15 to 20 miles in advance of railhead. Arrangements
+were also made for railhead to be
+pushed forward as rapidly as possible towards
+Karm, and for a line to be laid from
+Gamli toward Beersheba for the transport of
+ammunition.</p>
+
+<p>A railway line was also laid from Deir el
+Belah to the Wadi Ghuzze, close behind the sector
+held by another portion of the eastern force.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rushing
+up artillery
+and
+supplies.</div>
+
+<p>Considerable strain was thrown on the military
+railway from Kantara to the front during
+the period of preparation. In addition to the
+normal requirements of the force, a number of
+siege and heavy batteries, besides other artillery
+and units, had to be moved to the front,
+and large dep&ocirc;ts of supplies, ammunition, and
+other stores accumulated at the various railheads.
+Preparations had also to be made and
+the necessary material accumulated to push
+forward the lines from Deir el Belah and
+Shellal.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+enemy determined
+to maintain
+Gaza
+to
+Beersheba
+line.</div>
+
+<p>During the period from July to October,
+1917, the enemy's force on the Palestine front
+had been increased. It was evident, from the
+arrival of these reinforcements and the construction
+of railway extensions from El Tine,
+on the Ramleh-Beersheba railway, to Deir
+Sineid and Belt Hanun, north of Gaza, and
+from Deir Sineid to Huj, and from reports of
+the transport of large supplies of ammunition
+and other stores to the Palestine front, that
+the enemy was determined to make every effort
+to maintain his position on the Gaza-Beersheba
+line. He had considerably strengthened his defences
+on this line; and the strong localities
+mentioned had, by the end of October, been
+joined up to form a practically continuous
+line from the sea to a point south of Sheria,
+except for a gap between Ali Muntar and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span>
+Sihan Group. The defensive works round
+Beersheba remained a detached system, but had
+been improved and extended.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Date of
+attack on
+Beersheba.</div>
+
+<p>The date of the attack on Beersheba, which
+was to commence the operations, was fixed as
+October 31, 1917. Work had been begun on the
+railway from Shellal towards Karm, and on
+the line from Gamli to El Buggar. The development
+of water at Ecani, Khalasa, and Asluj
+proceeded satisfactorily. These last two places
+were to be the starting point for the mounted
+force detailed to make a wide flanking movement
+and attack Beersheba from the east and
+north-east.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Turks
+make a
+strong
+reconnaissance.</div>
+
+<p>On the morning of October 27 the Turks
+made a strong reconnaissance towards Karm
+from the direction of Kauwukah, two regiments
+of cavalry and two or three thousand
+infantry, with guns, being employed. They attacked
+a line of outposts near El Girheir, held
+by some Yeomanry, covering railway construction.
+One small post was rushed and cut up,
+but not before inflicting heavy loss on the enemy;
+another post, though surrounded, held out
+all day, and also caused the enemy heavy loss.
+The gallant resistance made by the Yeomanry
+enabled the 53rd (Welsh) Division to come up
+in time, and on their advance the Turks withdrew.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Bombardment
+of
+Gaza
+defenses.</div>
+
+<p>The bombardment of the Gaza defences commenced
+on October 27, and on October 30 warships
+of the Royal Navy, assisted by a French
+battleship, began cooperating in this bombardment.</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of October 30 the portion of
+the eastern force, which was to make the attack
+on Beersheba, was concentrated in positions of
+readiness for the night march to its positions
+of deployment.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Imperial
+Camel
+Corps,
+Infantry
+and
+Cavalry.</div>
+
+<p>The night march to the positions of deployment
+was successfully carried out, all units<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span>
+reaching their appointed positions up to time.
+The plan was to attack the hostile works
+between the Khalasa road and the Wadi Saba
+with two divisions, masking the works north
+of the Wadi Saba with the Imperial Camel
+Corps and some infantry, while a portion of the
+53rd (Welsh) Division further north covered
+the left of the corps. The right of the attack
+was covered by a cavalry regiment. Further
+east, mounted troops took up a line opposite
+the southern defences of Beersheba.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy's
+advanced
+works
+taken.</div>
+
+<p>As a preliminary to the main attack, in order
+to enable field guns to be brought within effective
+range for wire-cutting, the enemy's advanced
+works at 1,070 were to be taken. This
+was successfully accomplished at 8.45 a.m.,
+after a short preliminary bombardment, by
+London troops, with small loss, 90 prisoners
+being taken. The cutting of the wire on the
+main line then proceeded satisfactorily, though
+pauses had to be made to allow the dust to
+clear; and the final assault was ordered for
+12.15 p.m. It was successful all along the
+front attacked, and by about 1 p.m. the whole
+of the works between the Khalasa road and the
+Wadi Saba were in our hands.</p>
+
+<p>Some delay occurred in ascertaining whether
+the enemy still occupied the works north of the
+road; it was decided, as they were still held
+by small parties, to attack them from the
+south. After a preliminary bombardment the
+works were occupied with little opposition by
+about 7.30 p.m.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">British
+casualties
+light.</div>
+
+<p>The casualties were light, considering the
+strength of the works attacked; a large proportion
+occurred during the advance towards
+the positions previous to the assault, the hostile
+guns being very accurate and very difficult to
+locate.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The road
+toward
+Beersheba.</div>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the mounted troops, after a night
+march, for part of the force of 25 and for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span>
+remainder of 35 miles, arrived early in the
+morning of the 31st about Khasim Zanna, in
+the hills some five miles east of Beersheba.
+From the hills the advance into Beersheba from
+the east and north-east lies over an open and
+almost flat plain, commanded by the rising
+ground north of the town and flanked by an
+underfeature in the Wadi Saba called Tel el
+Saba.</p>
+
+<p>A force was sent north to secure Bir es
+Sakaty, on the Hebron road, and protect the
+right flank, this force met with some opposition
+and was engaged with hostile cavalry at Bir
+es Sakaty and to the north during the day.
+Tel el Saba was found strongly held by the
+enemy, and was not captured till late in the
+afternoon.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rapid
+advance
+of Australian
+Light
+Horse.</div>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, attempts to advance in small
+parties across the plain towards the town made
+slow progress. In the evening, however, a
+mounted attack by Australian Light Horse,
+who rode straight at the town from the east,
+proved completely successful. They galloped
+over two deep trenches held by the enemy just
+outside the town, and entered the town at
+about 7 p. m., capturing numerous prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>The Turks at Beersheba were undoubtedly
+taken completely by surprise, a surprise from
+which the dash of London troops and Yeomanry,
+finely supported by their artillery,
+never gave them time to recover. The charge
+of the Australian Light Horse completed their
+defeat.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Prisoners
+and guns
+taken.</div>
+
+<p>A very strong position was thus taken with
+slight loss, and the Turkish detachment at
+Beersheba almost completely put out of action.
+About 2,000 prisoners and 13 guns were taken,
+and some 500 Turkish corpses were buried on
+the battlefield. This success laid open the left
+flank of the main Turkish position for a decisive
+blow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Complete
+success of
+Beersheba
+operations.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The attack
+on
+Gaza.</div>
+
+<p>The actual date of the attack at Gaza had
+been left open till the result of the attack at
+Beersheba was known, as it was intended that
+the former attack, which was designed to draw
+hostile reserves towards the Gaza sector, should
+take place twenty-four to forty-eight hours previous
+to the attack on the Sheria position.
+After the complete success of the Beersheba
+operations, and as the early reports indicated
+that an ample supply of water would be available
+at that place, it was hoped that it would
+be possible to attack Sheria by November 3 or
+4. The attack on Gaza was accordingly ordered
+to take place on the morning of November 2.
+Later reports showed that the water situation
+was less favorable than had been hoped,
+but it was decided not to postpone the
+attack.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+works on
+Umbrella
+Hill
+principal
+objectives.</div>
+
+<p>The objective of this attack were the hostile
+works from Umbrella Hill (2,000 yards south-west
+of the town) to Sheikh Hasan, on the sea
+(about 2,500 yards north-west of the town).
+The front of the attack was about 6,000 yards,
+and Sheikh Hasan, the furthest objective, was
+over 3,000 yards from our front line. The
+ground over which the attack took place consisted
+of sand dunes, rising in places up to 150
+feet in height. This sand is very deep and
+heavy going. The enemy's defences consisted of
+several lines of strongly built trenches and redoubts.</p>
+
+<p>As Umbrella Hill flanked the advance against
+the Turkish works further west, it was decided
+to capture it by a preliminary operation, to
+take place four hours previous to the main attack.
+It was accordingly attacked, and captured
+at 11 p. m. on November 1 by a portion
+of the 52nd (Lowland) Division. This attack
+drew a heavy bombardment of Umbrella Hill
+itself and our front lines, which lasted for two
+hours, but ceased in time to allow the main<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span>
+attack, which was timed for 3 a. m., to form
+up without interference.</p>
+
+<p>It had been decided to make the attack before
+daylight owing to the distance to be covered
+between our front trenches and the enemy's
+position.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Success of
+the attack
+on Umbrella
+Hill.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Capture
+of the
+south-western
+defenses.</div>
+
+<p>The attack was successful in reaching all
+objectives, except for a section of trench on the
+left and some of the final objectives in the
+centre. Four hundred and fifty prisoners were
+taken and many Turks killed. The enemy also
+suffered heavily from the preliminary bombardment,
+and subsequent reports from prisoners
+stated that one of the divisions holding the
+Gaza sector was withdrawn after losing 33 per
+cent of its effectives, one of the divisions in
+general reserve being drawn into the Gaza
+sector to replace it. The attack thus succeeded
+in its primary object, which was to prevent any
+units being drawn from the Gaza defences to
+meet the threat to the Turkish left flank, and
+to draw into Gaza as large a proportion as
+possible of the available Turkish reserves. Further,
+the capture of Sheikh Hasan and the
+south-western defences constituted a very distinct
+threat to the whole of the Gaza position,
+which could be developed on any sign of a withdrawal
+on the part of the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Our losses, though considerable, were not in
+any way disproportionate to the results obtained.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Water
+and transport
+difficulties.</div>
+
+<p>Meanwhile on our right flank the water and
+transport difficulties were found to be greater
+than anticipated, and the preparations for the
+second phase of the attack were somewhat delayed
+in consequence.</p>
+
+<p>On the early morning of November 1 the 53rd
+(Welsh) Division, with the Imperial Camel
+Corps on its right, had moved out into the hills
+north of Beersheba, with the object of securing
+the flank of the attack on Sheria. Mounted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span>
+troops were also sent north along the Hebron
+Road to secure Dhaheriyeh if possible, as it
+was hoped that a good supply of water would
+be found in this area, and that a motor road
+which the Turks were reported to have constructed
+from Dhaheriyeh to Sheria could be
+secured for our use.</p>
+
+<p>The 53rd (Welsh) Division, after a long
+march, took up a position from Towal Abu
+Jerwal (six miles north of Beersheba) to
+Muweileh (four miles north-east of Abu Irgeig).
+Irish troops occupied Abu Irgeig the same day.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Advance
+on Kohleh
+and
+Khuweilfeh.</div>
+
+<p>On November 3 we advanced north on Ain
+Kohleh and Tel Khuweilfeh, near which place
+the mounted troops had engaged considerable
+enemy forces on the previous day. This advance
+was strongly opposed, but was pushed
+on through difficult hill country to within a
+short distance of Ain Kohleh and Khuweilfeh.
+At these places the enemy was found holding a
+strong position with considerable and increasing
+forces. He was obviously determined not
+only to bar any further progress in this direction,
+but, if possible, to drive our flankguard
+back on Beersheba. During the 4th and 5th
+he made several determined attacks on the
+mounted troops. These attacks were repulsed.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Hostile
+cavalry
+between
+Khuweilfeh
+and
+Hebron
+Road.</div>
+
+<p>By the evening of November 5 the 19th Turkish
+Division, the remains of the 27th and certain
+units of the 16th Division had been identified
+in the fighting round Tel el Khuweilfeh,
+and it was also fairly clear that the greater
+part of the hostile cavalry, supported apparently
+by some infantry ("dep&ocirc;t" troops) from
+Hebron, were engaged between Khuweilfeh and
+the Hebron Road.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy
+tries to
+draw
+forces
+north of
+Beersheba.</div>
+
+<p>The action of the enemy in thus employing
+the whole of his available reserves in an immediate
+counter-stroke so far to the east was apparently
+a bold effort to induce me to make
+essential alterations in my offensive plan, thereby<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span>
+gaining time and disorganizing my arrangements.
+The country north of Beersheba was
+exceedingly rough and hilly, and very little
+water was to be found there. Had the enemy
+succeeded in drawing considerable forces
+against him in that area the result might
+easily have been an indecisive fight (for the
+terrain was very suitable to his methods of
+defence) and my own main striking force would
+probably have been made too weak effectively
+to break the enemy's centre in the neighborhood
+of Sheria Hareira. This might have resulted
+in our gaining Beersheba, but failing to
+do more&mdash;in which case Beersheba would only
+have been an incubus of a most inconvenient
+kind. However, the enemy's action was not
+allowed to make any essential modification to
+the original plan, which it had been decided
+to carry out at dawn on November 6.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Effort
+to reach
+Sheria.</div>
+
+<p>By the evening of November 5, all preparations
+had been made to attack in the Kauwukah
+and Rushdi systems and to make every effort to
+reach Sheria before nightfall.</p>
+
+<p>The mounted troops were to be prepared in
+the event of a success by the main force to
+collect, as they were somewhat widely scattered
+owing to water difficulties, and push north in
+pursuit of the enemy. Tel el Khuweilfeh was
+to be attacked at dawn on the 6th, and the
+troops were to endeavor to reach line Tel el
+Khuweilfeh-Rijm el Dhib.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+plan of
+attack.</div>
+
+<p>At dawn on the 6th the attacking force had
+taken up positions of readiness to the S.E. of
+the Kauwukah system of trenches. The attack
+was to be commenced by an assault on the
+group of works forming the extreme left of the
+enemy's defensive system, followed by an advance
+due west up the railway, capturing the
+line of detached works which lay east of the
+railway. During this attack London and Irish
+troops were to advance towards the Kauwukah<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span>
+system, bringing forward their guns to within
+wire-cutting range. They were to assault the
+southeastern face of the Kauwukah system as
+soon as the bombardment had proved effective,
+and thence take the remainder of the system in
+enfilade.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">All objectives
+of the
+attack
+captured.</div>
+
+<p>The attack progressed rapidly, the Yeomanry
+storming the works on the enemy's extreme
+left with great dash; and soon after noon the
+London and Irish troops commenced their
+attack. It was completely successful in capturing
+all its objectives, and the whole of the
+Rushdi system in addition. Sheria Station was
+also captured before dark. The Yeomanry
+reached the line of the Wadi Sheria to Wadi
+Union; and the troops on the left were close
+to Hareira Redoubt, which was still occupied
+by the enemy. This attack was a fine performance,
+the troops advancing 8 or 9 miles during
+the day and capturing a series of very strong
+works covering a front of about 7 miles, the
+greater part of which had been had and
+strengthened by the enemy for over six months.
+Some 600 prisoners were taken and some guns
+and machine-guns captured. Our casualties
+were comparatively slight. The greatest opposition
+was encountered by the Yeomanry in the
+early morning, the works covering the left of
+the enemy's line being strong and stubbornly
+defended.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mounted
+troops are
+ordered to
+take
+up the
+pursuit.</div>
+
+<p>During the afternoon, as soon as it was seen
+that the attack had succeeded, mounted troops
+were ordered to take up the pursuit and to
+occupy Huj and Jemmamah.</p>
+
+<p>The 53rd (Welsh) Division had again had
+very severe fighting on the 6th. Their attack
+at dawn on Tel el Khuweilfeh was successful,
+and, though they were driven off a hill by a
+counterattack, they retook it and captured another
+hill, which much improved their position.
+The Turkish losses in this area were very heavy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span>
+indeed, and the stubborn fighting of the 53rd
+(Welsh) Division, Imperial Camel Corps, and
+part of the mounted troops during November 2
+to 6 drew in and exhausted the Turkish reserves
+and paved the way for the success of the attack
+on Sheria. The 53rd (Welsh) Division took
+several hundred prisoners and some guns during
+this fighting.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Bombardment of
+Gaza
+continues.</div>
+
+<p>The bombardment of Gaza had meanwhile
+continued, and another attack was ordered to
+take place on the night of the 6th-7th.</p>
+
+<p>The objectives were, on the right, Outpost
+Hill and Middlesex Hill (to be attacked at
+11.30 p. m. on the 6th), and on the left the line
+Belah Trench-Turtle Hill (to be attacked at
+dawn on the 7th).</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Airmen
+observe
+enemy
+movements.</div>
+
+<p>During the 6th a certain amount of movement
+on the roads north of Gaza was observed
+by our airmen and fired on by our heavy artillery,
+but nothing indicating a general retirement
+from Gaza.</p>
+
+<p>The attack on Outpost Hill and Middlesex
+Hill met with little opposition, and as soon,
+after they had been taken, as patrols could be
+pushed forward, the enemy was found to be
+gone. East Anglian troops on the left also
+found at dawn that the enemy had retired
+during the night, and early in the morning the
+main force occupied the northern and eastern
+defences of Gaza. Rearguards were still occupying
+Beit Hanun and the Atawineh and
+Tank systems, from whence Turkish artillery
+continued to fire on Gaza and Ali Muntar till
+dusk.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The Turks
+evacuate
+Gaza.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Turkish
+rearguard
+makes
+counterattacks.</div>
+
+<p>As soon as it was seen that the Turks had
+evacuated Gaza a part of the force pushed along
+the coast to the mouth of the Wadi Hesi,
+so as to turn the Wadi Hesi line and prevent
+the enemy making any stand there. Cavalry
+had already pushed on round the north of
+Gaza, and became engaged with an enemy rearguard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span>
+at Beit Hanun, which maintained its
+position till nightfall. The force advancing
+along the coast reached the Wadi Hesi by
+evening, and succeeded in establishing itself
+on the north bank in the face of considerable
+opposition, a Turkish rearguard making several
+determined counterattacks.</p>
+
+<p>On our extreme right the situation remained
+practically unchanged during the 7th; the enemy
+made no further attempt to counterattack,
+but maintained his positions opposite our right
+flank guard.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">London
+troops take
+Tel el
+Sheria.</div>
+
+<p>In the centre the Hareira Tepe Redoubt was
+captured at dawn; some prisoners and guns
+were taken. The London troops, after a severe
+engagement at Tel el Sheria, which they captured
+by a bayonet charge at 4 a. m. on the 7th
+subsequently repulsing several counterattacks,
+pushed forward their line about a mile to the
+north of Tel el Sheria; the mounted troops on
+the right moved towards Jemmamah and Huj,
+but met with considerable opposition from
+hostile rearguards.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Charge
+of the
+Worcester
+and
+Warwick
+Yeomanry.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Reports
+of the
+Royal
+Flying
+Corps.</div>
+
+<p>During the 8th the advance was continued,
+and interest was chiefly centred in an attempt
+to cut off, if possible, the Turkish rearguard
+which had held the Tank and Atawineh systems.
+The enemy had, however, retreated during
+the night 7th-8th, and though considerable
+captures of prisoners, guns, ammunition, and
+other stores were made during the day, chiefly
+in the vicinity of Huj, no large formed body
+of the enemy was cut off. The Turkish rearguards
+fought stubbornly and offered considerable
+opposition. Near Huj a fine charge by
+some squadrons of the Worcester and Warwick
+Yeomanry captured 12 guns, and broke the
+resistance of a hostile rearguard. It soon became
+obvious from the reports of the Royal
+Flying Corps, who throughout the 7th and 8th
+attacked the retreating columns with bombs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span>
+and machine-gun fire, and from other evidence,
+that the enemy was retiring in considerable disorganization,
+and could offer no very serious
+resistance if pressed with determination.</p>
+
+<p>Instructions were accordingly issued on the
+morning of the 9th to the mounted troops,
+directing them on the line El Tine-Beit Duras,
+with orders to press the enemy relentlessly.
+They were to be supported by a portion of the
+force, which was ordered to push forward to
+Julis and Mejdel.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy
+pursued
+toward
+Hebron
+by the
+Yeomanry.</div>
+
+<p>The enemy opposite our right flank guard had
+commenced to retreat towards Hebron on the
+morning of the 8th. He was pursued for a
+short distance by the Yeomanry, and some
+prisoners and camels were captured, but the
+Yeomanry were then recalled to rejoin the main
+body of the mounted troops for the more important
+task of the pursuit of the enemy's main
+body.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+problem of
+water and
+forage.</div>
+
+<p>By the 9th, therefore, operations had reached
+the stage of a direct pursuit by as many troops
+as could be supplied so far in front of railhead.
+The problem, in fact, became one of supply
+rather than man&#339;uvre. The question of water
+and forage was a very difficult one. Even
+where water was found in sufficient quantities,
+it was usually in wells and not on the surface,
+and consequently if the machinery for working
+the wells was damaged, or a sufficient
+supply of troughs was not available, the process
+of watering a large quantity of animals was
+slow and difficult.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy
+organizes
+a counterattack.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy's
+losses
+heavy.</div>
+
+<p>On the evening of November 9 there were indications
+that the enemy was organizing a counterattack
+towards Arak el Menshiye by all
+available units of the force which had retired
+towards Hebron, with the object of taking pressure
+off the main force, which was retiring
+along the coastal plain. It was obvious that
+the Hebron force, which was believed to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span>
+short of transport and ammunition, to have
+lost heavily and to be in a generally disorganized
+state, could make no effective diversion,
+and that this threat could practically be disregarded.
+Other information showed the seriousness
+of the enemy's losses and the disorganization
+of his forces.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Imperial
+Camel
+Corps
+ordered to Tel de
+Nejile.</div>
+
+<p>Orders were accordingly issued to press the
+pursuit and to reach the Junction Station as
+early as possible, thus cutting off the Jerusalem
+Army, while the Imperial Camel Corps
+was ordered to move to the neighborhood of
+Tel de Nejile, where it would be on the flank
+of any counter-stroke from the hills.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+Turkish
+Army
+makes a
+stand.</div>
+
+<p>Operations on the 10th and 11th showed a
+stiffening of the enemy's resistance on the general
+line of the Wadi Sukereir, with centre
+about El Kustineh; the Hebron group, after an
+ineffective demonstration in the direction of
+Arak el Menshiye on the 10th, retired north-east
+and prolonged the enemy's line towards
+Beit Jibrin. Royal Flying Corps reports indicated
+the total hostile forces opposed to us
+on this line at about 15,000; and this increased
+resistance, coupled with the capture of prisoners
+from almost every unit of the Turkish
+force, tended to show that we were no longer
+opposed to rearguards, but that all the remainder
+of the Turkish Army which could be
+induced to fight was making a last effort to arrest
+our pursuit south of the important Junction
+Station.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Troops
+suffer
+from
+thirst.</div>
+
+<p>In these circumstances our progress on the
+10th and 11th was slow; the troops suffered
+considerably from thirst (a hot, exhausting
+wind blew during these two days), and our
+supply difficulties were great; but by the
+evening of the 11th favorable positions had
+been reached for a combined attack.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Forces far
+from their
+railhead.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Water
+supply
+slow to
+obtain.</div>
+
+<p>The 12th was spent in preparations for the
+attack, which was ordered to be begun early<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span>
+on the morning of the 13th, on the enemy's
+position covering Junction Station. Our forces
+were now operating at a distance of some 35
+miles in advance of their railhead, and the
+bringing up and distribution of supplies and
+ammunition formed a difficult problem. The
+routes north of the Wadi Hesi were found to
+be hard and good going, though there were
+some difficult Wadi crossings, but the main
+road through Gaza and as far as Beit Hanun
+was sandy and difficult. The supply of water
+in the area of operations, though good and
+plentiful in most of the villages, lies mainly in
+wells 100 feet or more below the surface, and
+in these circumstances a rapid supply and distribution
+was almost impossible. Great credit
+is due to all concerned that these difficulties
+were overcome and that it was found possible
+not only to supply the troops already in the
+line, but to bring up two heavy batteries to
+support the attack.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+enemy's
+position
+from El
+Kubeibeh
+to Beit
+Jibrin.</div>
+
+<p>The situation on the morning of November
+13 was that the enemy had strung out his force
+(amounting probably to no more than 20,000
+rifles in all) on a front of 20 miles, from El
+Kubeibeh on the north to about Beit Jibrin to
+the south. The right half of his line ran
+roughly parallel to and only about 5 miles in
+front of the Ramleh-Junction Station railway,
+his main line of supply from the north, and his
+right flank was already almost turned. This
+position had been dictated to him by the
+rapidity of our movement along the coast, and
+the determination with which his rearguards
+on this flank had been pressed.</p>
+
+<p>The advanced guard of the 52nd (Lowland)
+Division had forced its way almost to Burkah
+on the 11th, on which day also some mounted
+troops pushed across the Nahr Sukereir at Jisr
+Esdud, where they held a bridge-head. During
+the 12th the Yeomanry pushed north up the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span>
+left bank of the Nahr Suhereir, and eventually
+seized Tel-el-Murreh on the right bank near the
+mouth.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">One part
+of enemy
+retires
+north, the
+other east.</div>
+
+<p>The enemy's army had now been broken into
+two separate parts, which retired north and
+east respectively, and were reported to consist
+of small scattered groups rather than formed
+bodies of any size.</p>
+
+<p>In fifteen days our force had advanced sixty
+miles on its right and about forty on its left.
+It had driven a Turkish Army of nine Infantry
+Divisions and one Cavalry Division out of a position
+in which it had been entrenched for six
+months, and had pursued it, giving battle
+whenever it attempted to stand, and inflicting
+on it losses amounting probably to nearly two-thirds
+of the enemy's original effectives. Over
+9,000 prisoners, about eighty guns, more than
+100 machine guns, and very large quantities of
+ammunition and other stores had been captured.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Capture of
+Junction
+Station.</div>
+
+<p>After the capture of Junction Station on the
+morning of the 14th, our troops secured a position
+covering the station, while the Australian
+mounted troops reached Kezaze that same
+evening.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Turks
+fight New
+Zealand
+Mounted
+Rifles.</div>
+
+<p>The mounted troops pressed on towards
+Ramleh and Ludd. On the right Naaneh was
+attacked and captured in the morning, while
+on the left the New Zealand Mounted Rifles
+had a smart engagement at Ayun Kara (six
+miles south of Jaffa). Here the Turks made a
+determined counter-attack and got to within
+fifteen yards of our line. A bayonet attack
+drove them back with heavy loss.</p>
+
+<p>Flanking the advance along the railway to
+Ramleh and covering the main road from Ramleh
+to Jerusalem, a ridge stands up prominently
+out of the low foot hills surrounding it. This
+is the site of the ancient Gezer, near which the
+village of Abu Shusheh now stands. A hostile<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span>
+rearguard had established itself on this feature.
+It was captured on the morning of the 15th in
+a brilliant attack by mounted troops, who galloped
+up the ridge from the south. A gun and
+360 prisoners were taken in this affair.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Mounted
+troops
+reach
+Ramleh
+and Ludd.
+Jaffa
+taken.</div>
+
+<p>By the evening of the 15th the mounted
+troops had occupied Ramleh and Ludd, and
+had pushed patrols to within a short distance
+of Jaffa. At Ludd 300 prisoners were taken,
+and five destroyed aeroplanes and a quantity
+of abandoned war material were found at Ramleh
+and Ludd.</p>
+
+<p>Jaffa was occupied without opposition on
+the evening of the 16th.</p>
+
+<p>The situation was now as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Airmen
+report
+enemy
+likely to
+leave
+Jerusalem.</div>
+
+<p>The enemy's army, cut in two by our capture
+of Junction Station, had retired partly
+east into the mountains towards Jerusalem and
+partly north along the plain. The nearest line
+on which these two portions could re-unite was
+the line Tul Keram-Nablus. Reports from the
+Royal Flying Corps indicated that it was the
+probable intention of the enemy to evacuate
+Jerusalem and withdraw to reorganize on this
+line.</p>
+
+<p>On our side the mounted troops had been
+marching and fighting continuously since October
+31, and had advanced a distance of seventy-five
+miles, measured in a straight line from
+Asluj to Jaffa. The troops, after their heavy
+fighting at Gaza, had advanced in nine days a
+distance of about forty miles, with two severe
+engagements and continual advanced
+guard fighting. The 52nd (Lowland) Division
+had covered sixty-nine miles in this
+period.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Railway
+is being
+extended.</div>
+
+<p>The railway was being pushed forward as
+rapidly as possible, and every opportunity was
+taken of landing stores at points along the
+coast. The landing of stores was dependent on
+a continuance of favorable weather, and might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span>
+at any moment be stopped for several days
+together.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">One good
+road from
+Nablus to
+Jerusalem.</div>
+
+<p>A pause was therefore necessary to await
+the progress of railway construction, but before
+our position in the plain could be considered
+secure it was essential to obtain a hold
+of the one good road which traverses the Jud&aelig;an
+range from north to south, from Nablus
+to Jerusalem.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Road
+damaged
+in
+several
+places.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Water
+supply
+scanty.</div>
+
+<p>On our intended line of advance only one
+good road, the main Jaffa-Jerusalem road,
+traversed the hills from east to west. For
+nearly four miles, between Bab el Wad (two
+and one-half miles east of Latron) and Saris,
+this road passes through a narrow defile, and
+it had been damaged by the Turks in several
+places. The other roads were mere tracks on
+the side of the hill or up the stony beds of
+wadis, and were impracticable for wheeled
+transport without improvement. Throughout
+these hills the water supply was scanty without
+development.</p>
+
+<p>On November 17 the Yeomanry had commenced
+to move from Ramleh through the
+hills direct on Bireh by Annabeh, Berfilya and
+Beit ur el Tahta (Lower Bethoron). By the
+evening of November 18 one portion of the
+Yeomanry had reached the last-named place,
+while another portion had occupied Shilta.
+The route had been found impossible for wheels
+beyond Annabeh.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Infantry
+begins its
+advance.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Attempt
+to avoid
+fighting
+near
+Jerusalem.</div>
+
+<p>On the 19th the Infantry commenced its advance.
+One portion was to advance up the
+main road as far as Kuryet el Enab, with its
+right flank protected by Australian mounted
+troops. From that place, in order to avoid any
+fighting in the close vicinity of the Holy City,
+it was to strike north towards Bireh by
+a track leading through Biddu. The remainder
+of the infantry was to advance through
+Berfilya to Beit Likia and Beit Dukka and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span>
+thence support the movement of the other
+portion.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Saris
+defended
+by rearguards.</div>
+
+<p>After capturing Latron and Amnas on the
+morning of the 19th, the remainder of the day
+was spent in clearing the defile up to Saris,
+which was defended by hostile rearguards.</p>
+
+<p>On the 20th Kuryet el Enab was captured
+with the bayonet in the face of organized opposition,
+while Beit Dukka was also captured.
+On the same day the Yeomanry got to within
+four miles of the Nablus-Jerusalem road, but
+were stopped by strong opposition about Beitunia.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Difficult
+advance of
+infantry
+and
+Yeomanry.</div>
+
+<p>On the 21st a body of infantry moved north-east
+by a track from Kuryet el Enab through
+Biddu and Kolundia towards Bireh. The track
+was found impassable for wheels, and was
+under hostile shell-fire. Progress was slow,
+but by evening the ridge on which stands Neby
+Samwil was secured. A further body of troops
+was left at Kuryet el Enab to cover the flank
+and demonstrate along the main Jerusalem
+road. It drove hostile parties from Kostul, two
+and one-half miles east of Kuryet el Enab, and
+secured this ridge.</p>
+
+<p>By the afternoon of the 21st advanced parties
+of Yeomanry were within two miles of the road
+and an attack was being delivered on Beitunia
+by other mounted troops.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Period
+of organization
+and
+preparation
+necessary.</div>
+
+<p>The positions reached on the evening of the
+21st practically marked the limit of progress
+in this first attempt to gain the Nablus-Jerusalem
+road. The Yeomanry were heavily counter-attacked
+and fell back, after bitter fighting,
+on Beit ur el Foka (Upper Bethoron). During
+the 22nd the enemy made two counter-attacks
+on the Neby Samwil ridge, which were repulsed.
+Determined and gallant attacks were made on
+the 23rd and on the 24th on the strong positions
+to the west of the road held by the enemy,
+who had brought up reinforcements and numerous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span>
+machine-guns, and could support his
+infantry by artillery fire from guns placed in
+positions along the main road. Our artillery,
+from lack of roads, could not be brought up to
+give adequate support to our infantry. Both
+attacks failed, and it was evident that a period
+of preparation and organization would be
+necessary before an attack could be delivered
+in sufficient strength to drive the enemy from
+his positions west of the road.</p>
+
+<p>Orders were accordingly issued to consolidate
+the positions gained and prepare for relief.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Position
+for final
+attack
+is won.</div>
+
+<p>Though these troops had failed to reach their
+final objectives, they had achieved invaluable
+results. The narrow passes from the plain to
+the plateau of the Jud&aelig;an range have seldom
+been forced, and have been fatal to many invading
+armies. Had the attempt not been made at
+once, or had it been pressed with less determination,
+the enemy would have had time to
+reorganize his defences in the passes lower
+down, and the conquest of the plateau would
+then have been slow, costly, and precarious.
+As it was, positions had been won from which
+the final attack could be prepared and delivered
+with good prospects of success.</p>
+
+<p>By December 4 all reliefs were complete, and
+a line was held from Kustul by the Neby Samwil
+ridge, Beit Izza, and Beit Dukka, to Beit
+ur el Tahta.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Severe
+local
+fighting.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy
+pierces
+outposts
+near Jaffa.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Attacks
+costly to
+Turks.</div>
+
+<p>During this period attacks by the enemy
+along the whole line led to severe local fighting.
+On November 25 our advanced posts north of
+the river Auja were driven back across the
+river. From the 27th to the 30th the enemy
+delivered a series of attacks directed especially
+against the high ground north and north-east
+of Jaffa, the left flank of our position in the
+hills from Beit ur el Foka to El Burj, and the
+Neby Samwil ridge. An attack on the night
+of the 29th succeeded in penetrating our outpost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span>
+line north-east of Jaffa, but next morning
+the whole hostile detachment, numbering 150,
+was surrounded and captured by Australian
+Light Horse. On the 30th a similar fate befell
+a battalion which attacked near El Burj; a
+counter-attack by Australian Light Horse took
+220 prisoners and practically destroyed the attacking
+battalion. There was particularly
+heavy fighting between El Burj and Beit ur el
+Foka, but the Yeomanry and Scottish troops
+successfully resisted all attacks and inflicted
+severe losses on the enemy. At Beit ur el Foka
+one company took 300 prisoners. All efforts
+by the enemy to drive us off the Neby Samwil
+ridge were completely repulsed. These attacks
+cost the Turks very dearly. We took 750 prisoners
+between November 27 and 30, and the
+enemy's losses in killed and wounded were undoubtedly
+heavy. His attacks in no way
+affected our positions nor impeded the progress
+of our preparations.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Improvement
+of
+roads and
+water
+supply.</div>
+
+<p>Favored by a continuance of fine weather,
+preparations for a fresh advance against the
+Turkish positions west and south of Jerusalem
+proceeded rapidly. Existing roads and tracks
+were improved and new ones constructed to
+enable heavy and field artillery to be placed
+in position and ammunition and supplies
+brought up. The water supply was also developed.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Advances
+of British
+troops.</div>
+
+<p>The date for the attack was fixed as December
+8. Welsh troops, with a Cavalry regiment
+attached, had advanced from their positions
+north of Beersheba up the Hebron-Jerusalem
+road on the 4th. No opposition was met, and
+by the evening of the 6th the head of this column
+was ten miles north of Hebron. The Infantry
+were directed to reach the Bethlehem-Beit
+Jala area by the 7th, and the line Surbahir-Sherafat
+(about three miles south of
+Jerusalem) by dawn on the 8th, and no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span>
+troops were to enter Jerusalem during this
+operation.</p>
+
+<p>It was recognized that the troops on the extreme
+right might be delayed on the 7th and
+fail to reach the positions assigned to them
+by dawn on the 8th. Arrangements were
+therefore made to protect the right flank west
+of Jerusalem, in case such delay occurred.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Three
+days of
+rain make
+roads almost
+impassable.</div>
+
+<p>On the 7th the weather broke, and for three
+days rain was almost continuous. The hills
+were covered with mist at frequent intervals,
+rendering observation from the air and visual
+signalling impossible. A more serious effect
+of the rain was to jeopardize the supply arrangements
+by rendering the roads almost impassable&mdash;quite
+impassable, indeed, for mechanical
+transport and camels in many places.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Artillery
+support
+difficult.</div>
+
+<p>The troops moved into positions of assembly
+by night, and, assaulting at dawn on the 8th,
+soon carried their first objectives. They then
+pressed steadily forward. The mere physical
+difficulty of climbing the steep and rocky hillsides
+and crossing the deep valleys would have
+sufficed to render progress slow, and the opposition
+encountered was considerable. Artillery
+support was soon difficult, owing to the length
+of the advance and the difficulty of moving guns
+forward. But by about noon London troops
+had already advanced over two miles, and were
+swinging north-east to gain the Nablus-Jerusalem
+road; while the Yeomanry had captured
+the Beit Iksa spur, and were preparing for
+a further advance.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Enemy
+<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'defenses'">defences</ins>
+west of
+Jerusalem
+captured.</div>
+
+<p>As the right column had been delayed and
+was still some distance south of Jerusalem, it
+was necessary for the London troops to throw
+back their right and form a defensive flank
+facing east towards Jerusalem, from the western
+outskirts of which considerable rifle and
+artillery fire was being experienced. This delayed
+the advance, and early in the afternoon it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span>
+was decided to consolidate the line gained and
+resume the advance next day, when the right
+column would be in a position to exert its
+pressure. By nightfall our line ran from Neby
+Samwil to the east of Beit Iksa, through Lifta
+to a point about one and one-half miles west of
+Jerusalem, whence it was thrown back facing
+east. All the enemy's prepared defences west
+and north-west of Jerusalem had been captured,
+and our troops were within a short distance
+of the Nablus-Jerusalem road.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Operations
+isolate
+Jerusalem.</div>
+
+<p>Next morning the advance was resumed. The
+Turks had withdrawn during the night, and the
+London troops and Yeomanry, driving back
+rearguards, occupied a line across the Nablus-Jerusalem
+road four miles north of Jerusalem,
+while Welsh troops occupied a position east of
+Jerusalem across the Jericho road. These
+operations isolated Jerusalem, and at about
+noon the enemy sent out a <i>parlementaire</i> and
+surrendered the city.</p>
+
+<p>At noon on the 11th I made my official entry
+into Jerusalem.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>There were many encounters between American
+ships and German submarines in the
+months of 1917, following the Declaration of
+War. Official accounts of the most important
+of these encounters are given in the following
+pages.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span></p>
+<h2>AMERICAN SHIPS AND GERMAN<br />
+SUBMARINES</h2>
+
+<h3>FROM OFFICIAL REPORTS</h3>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+destroyer
+<i>Cassin</i>
+sights a
+submarine.</div>
+
+<p>On October 15, 1917, the U. S. destroyer
+<i>Cassin</i> was patrolling off the south
+coast of Ireland; when about 20 miles
+south of Mine Head, at 1.30 p. m., a submarine
+was sighted by the lookout aloft four or five
+miles away, about two points on the port bow.
+The submarine at this time was awash and was
+made out by officers of the watch and the
+quartermaster of the watch, but three minutes
+later submerged.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Cassin</i>, which was making 15 knots, continued
+on its course until near the position
+where the submarine had disappeared. When
+last seen the submarine was heading in a south-easterly
+direction, and when the destroyer
+reached the point of disappearance the course
+was changed, as it was thought the vessel would
+make a decided change of course after submerging.
+At this time the commanding officer, the
+executive officer, engineer officer, officer of the
+watch, and the junior watch officer were all on
+the bridge searching for the submarine.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Torpedo
+sighted
+running
+at high
+speed.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Torpedo
+strikes
+destroyer
+and depth
+charges
+also
+explode.</div>
+
+<p>At about 1.57 p. m. the commanding officer
+sighted a torpedo apparently shortly after it
+had been fired, running near the surface and
+in a direction that was estimated would make
+a hit either in the engine or fire room. When
+first seen the torpedo was between three or
+four hundred yards from the ship, and the
+wake could be followed on the other side for
+about 400 yards. The torpedo was running at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span>
+high speed, at least 35 knots. The <i>Cassin</i> was
+maneuvering to dodge the torpedo, double
+emergency full speed ahead having been signaled
+from the engine room and the rudder put
+hard left as soon as the torpedo was sighted.
+It looked for the moment as though the torpedo
+would pass astern. When about fifteen or
+twenty feet away the torpedo porpoised, completely
+leaving the water and shearing to the
+left. Before again taking the water the torpedo
+hit the ship well aft on the port side about
+frame 163 and above the water line. Almost
+immediately after the explosion of the torpedo
+the depth charges, located on the stern
+and ready for firing, exploded. There were
+two distinct explosions in quick succession
+after the torpedo hit.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Ingram's
+sacrifice
+saves his
+comrades.</div>
+
+<p>But one life was lost. Osmond K. Ingram,
+gunner's mate first class, was cleaning the
+muzzle of No. 4 gun, target practice being just
+over when the attack occurred. With rare presence
+of mind, realizing that the torpedo was
+about to strike the part of the ship where the
+depth charges were stored and that the setting
+off of these explosives might sink the ship,
+Ingram, immediately seeing the danger, ran
+aft to strip these charges and throw them overboard.
+He was blown to pieces when the
+torpedo struck. Thus Ingram sacrificed his
+life in performing a duty which he believed
+would save his ship and the lives of the officers
+and men on board.</p>
+
+<p>Nine members of the crew received minor injuries.</p>
+
+<p>After the ship was hit, the crew was kept at
+general quarters.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Port
+engine
+still workable.</div>
+
+<p>The executive officer and engineer officer inspected
+the parts of the ship that were damaged,
+and those adjacent to the damage. It was
+found that the engine and fire rooms and after
+magazine were intact and that the engines<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span>
+could be worked; but that the ship could not
+be steered, the rudder having been blown off
+and the stern blown to starboard. The ship
+continued to turn to starboard in a circle. In
+an effort to put the ship on a course by the
+use of the engines, something carried away
+which put the starboard engine out of commission.
+The port engine was kept going at
+slow speed. The ship, being absolutely unmanageable,
+sometimes turned in a circle and
+at times held an approximate course for several
+minutes.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Radio
+officers
+improvise
+temporary
+wireless.</div>
+
+<p>Immediately after the ship was torpedoed the
+radio was out of commission. The radio officer
+and radio electrician chief managed to improvise
+a temporary auxiliary antenna. The
+generators were out of commission for a short
+time after the explosion, the ship being in
+darkness below.</p>
+
+<p>When this vessel was torpedoed, there was
+another United States destroyer, name unknown,
+within signal distance. She had acknowledged
+our call by searchlight before we
+were torpedoed. After being torpedoed, an
+attempt was made to signal her by searchlight,
+flag, and whistle, and the distress signal was
+hoisted. Apparently through a misunderstanding
+she steamed away and was lost sight of.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Another
+submarine
+fight.</div>
+
+<p>At about 2.30 p. m., when we were in approximately
+the same position as when torpedoed, a
+submarine conning tower was sighted on port
+beam, distant about 1,500 yards, ship still
+circling under port engine. Opened fire with
+No. 2 gun, firing four rounds. Submarine submerged
+and was not seen again. Two shots
+came very close to submarine.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">American
+and
+British
+vessels
+stand by.</div>
+
+<p>At 3.50 p. m., U. S. S. <i>Porter</i> stood by. At
+4.25 p. m., wreckage which was hanging to stern
+dropped off. At dark stopped port engine and
+drifted. At about 9 p. m., H. M. S. <i>Jessamine</i>
+and H. M. S. <i>Tamarisk</i> stood by. H. M. S.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span>
+<i>Jessamine</i> signalled she would stand by until
+morning and then take us in tow. At this time
+sea was very rough, wind about six or seven
+and increasing.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Attempts
+to tow the
+<i>Cassin</i>
+fail.</div>
+
+<p>H. M. S. <i>Tamarisk</i> prepared to take us in
+tow and made one attempt after another to get
+a line to us. Finally, about 2.10 a. m., October
+16, the <i>Tamarisk</i> lowered a boat in rough sea
+and sent grass line by means of which our eight-inch
+hawser was sent over to her. At about
+2.30 a. m. <i>Tamarisk</i> started towing us to
+Queenstown, speed about four knots, this vessel
+towing well on starboard quarter of <i>Tamarisk</i>,
+due to condition of stern described above. At
+3.25 hawser parted.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+<i>Tamarisk</i>
+succeeds
+in getting
+out a line.</div>
+
+<p>Between this time and 10.37 a. m., when a
+towing line was received from H. M. S. <i>Snowdrop</i>,
+various attempts were made by the <i>Tamarisk</i>
+and two trawlers and a tug to tow the
+<i>Cassin</i>. An eleven-inch towing hawser from
+the <i>Tamarisk</i> parted. All ships, except her,
+lost the <i>Cassin</i> during the night. The <i>Cassin</i>
+was drifting rapidly on a lee shore, and had it
+not been for the <i>Tamarisk</i> getting out a line in
+the early morning, the vessel would have undoubtedly
+grounded on Hook Point, as it is
+extremely doubtful if her anchors would have
+held.</p>
+
+<p>About thirty-five feet of the stern was blown
+off or completely ruptured. The after living
+compartments and after storerooms are completely
+wrecked or gone, and all stores and
+clothing from these parts of the ship are gone
+or ruined. About forty-five members of the
+crew, including the chief petty officers, lost
+practically everything but the clothes they
+had on.</p>
+
+<p>At the time of the explosion there were
+a number of men in the after compartments.
+How they managed to escape is beyond explanation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The officers and crew behaved splendidly.
+There was no excitement. The men went to
+their stations quietly and remained there all
+night, except when called away to handle
+lines.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Efficiency
+of
+officers
+and men.</div>
+
+<p>The work of the executive officer, Lieutenant
+J. W. McClaran, and of the engineer officer,
+Lieutenant J. A. Saunders, is deserving of
+especial commendation. These two officers inspected
+magazines and spaces below decks and
+superintended shoring of bulkheads and restaying
+of masts. Lieutenant (Junior Grade) R.
+M. Parkinson did excellent work in getting an
+improvised radio set into commission. W. J.
+Murphy, chief electrician (radio), and F. R.
+Fisher, chief machinist's mate, are specifically
+mentioned in the commanding officer's report
+for their cool and efficient work.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-two enlisted men are mentioned by
+name as conspicuous for their coolness and
+leadership.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Luck in
+favor of
+the submarine.</div>
+
+<p>From the statement of all the officers it is
+evident that luck favored the submarine. The
+destroyer probably would have escaped being
+hit had not the torpedo broached twice and
+turned decidedly to the left both times&mdash;in
+other words, failed to function properly.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The results
+of
+the explosion.</div>
+
+<p>The equivalent of 850 pounds of T. N. T. is
+estimated to have exploded in and upon the
+<i>Cassin's</i> fantail; this includes the charges of
+the torpedo and of both depth mines. No. 4
+gun, blown overboard, left the ship to port,
+although that was the side which the torpedo
+hit. The gun went over at a point well forward
+of her mount. The mass of the wreckage, however,
+went to starboard. Explosion of the
+depth charges, rather than that of the torpedo
+outward or in throwback, supposedly effected
+this. About five seconds elapsed between the
+torpedo's detonation and those of the mines.
+They probably went off close together, for accounts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span>
+vary as to whether there were in all two
+or three explosions.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+bulkhead
+buckles.</div>
+
+<p>Of the two after doors, that to port threatened
+to carry away soon after the seas began
+to pound in. The main mass of the wreckage
+which dropped off did so upward of an hour
+after the explosions. It was at this time that
+the bulkhead began to buckle and the port
+door and dogging weaken. It was shored with
+mattresses under the personal direction of the
+executive. Up to this time and until the seas
+began to crumple the bulkhead completely,
+there was only a few inches of water in the
+two P. O. compartments; and even when the
+<i>Cassin</i> reached Queenstown, hardly more than
+three feet. None of the compartments directly
+under these three on the deck below&mdash;handling
+room, magazine, and oil tanks&mdash;were injured
+at all. The tanks were farthest aft, and were
+pumped out after docking.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Freaks
+of flying
+metal.</div>
+
+<p>One piece of metal entered the wash room
+and before coming to rest completely circled it
+without touching a man who was standing in
+the center of the compartment. Another stray
+piece tore a six-inch hole in one of the stacks.</p>
+
+<p>The destroyer within signal distance at the
+time of the attack was the U. S. S. <i>Porter</i>. It
+is believed that she saw the explosion, at least
+of the two depth charges, and thinking that the
+<i>Cassin</i> was attacking a submarine, started off
+scouting before a signal could be sent and
+after the radio was out of commission.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+<i>Alcedo's</i>
+last
+voyage.</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Low
+visibility
+hides
+convoy.</div>
+
+<p>At 4 p. m., November 4, 1917, the U. S. S.
+<i>Alcedo</i> proceeded to sea from Quiberon Bay
+on escort duty to take convoy through the war
+zone. Following the northbound convoy for
+Brest, when north of Belle Ile formation was
+taken with the <i>Alcedo</i> on the starboard flank.
+At 5.45 p. m. the <i>Alcedo</i> took departure from
+Point Poulins Light. Darkness had fallen and
+owing to a haze visibility was poor, at times<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span>
+the convoy not being visible. About 11.30
+visibility was such that the convoy was seen
+on the port bow of the <i>Alcedo</i>, the nearest ship,
+according to the commanding officer's estimate,
+being about 1,200 yards distant. Having
+written his night order, the commanding officer
+left the bridge and turned in.</p>
+
+<p>The following is his report of the torpedoing:</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">"Submarine,
+Captain."</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Attempts
+to avoid
+the
+torpedo.</div>
+
+<p>At or about 1.45 a. m., November 5, while
+sleeping in emergency cabin, immediately under
+upper bridge, I was awakened by a commotion
+and immediately received a report from
+some man unknown, "Submarine, captain." I
+jumped out of bed and went to the upper
+bridge, and the officer of the deck, Lieutenant
+Paul, stated he had sounded "general quarters,"
+had seen submarine on surface about 300 yards
+on port bow, and submarine had fired a torpedo,
+which was approaching. I took station
+on port wing of upper bridge and saw torpedo
+approaching about 200 feet distant. Lieutenant
+Paul had put the rudder full right before I
+arrived on bridge, hoping to avoid the torpedo.
+The ship answered slowly to her helm, however,
+and before any other action could be taken
+the torpedo I saw struck the ship's side immediately
+under the port forward chain plates,
+the detonation occurring instantly. I was
+thrown down and for a few seconds dazed by
+falling d&eacute;bris and water.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Submarine
+alarm
+sounded
+on siren.</div>
+
+<p>Upon regaining my feet I sounded the submarine
+alarm on the siren, to call all hands if
+they had not heard the general alarm gong,
+and to direct the attention of the convoy and
+other escorting vessels. Called to the forward
+guns' crews to see if at stations, but by this
+time realized that gallant forecastle was practically
+awash. The <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'foremost'">foremast</ins> had fallen, carrying
+away radio aerial. I called out to abandon
+ship.</p>
+
+<p>I then left the upper bridge and went into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span>
+the chart house to obtain ship's position from
+the chart, but, as there was no light, could not
+see. I then went out of the chart house and
+met the navigator, Lieutenant Leonard, and
+asked him if he had sent any radio, and he replied
+"No." I then directed him and accompanied
+him to the main deck and told him to
+take charge of cutting away forward dories and
+life rafts.</p>
+
+<p>I then proceeded along starboard gangway
+and found a man lying face down in gangway.
+I stooped and rolled him over and spoke to him,
+but received no reply and was unable to learn
+his identity, owing to the darkness. It is my
+opinion that this man was dead.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Dories and
+life rafts
+are cut
+away.</div>
+
+<p>I then continued to the after end of ship,
+took station on aftergun platform. I then
+realized that the ship was filling rapidly and
+her bulwarks amidships were level with the
+water. I directed the after dories and life
+rafts to be cut away and thrown overboard and
+ordered the men in the immediate vicinity to
+jump over the side, intending to follow them.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The ship
+sinks&mdash;Captain
+reaches a
+whaleboat.</div>
+
+<p>Before I could jump, however, the ship listed
+heavily to port, plunging by the head, and sunk,
+carrying me down with the suction. I experienced
+no difficulty, however, in getting clear,
+and when I came to the surface I swam a few
+yards to a life raft, to which were clinging
+three men. We climbed on board this raft and
+upon looking around observed Doyle, chief
+boatswain's mate, and one other man in the
+whaleboat. We paddled to the whaleboat and
+embarked from the life raft.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rescuing
+men from
+the water.</div>
+
+<p>The whaleboat was about half full of water,
+and we immediately started bailing and then
+to rescue men from wreckage, and quickly filled
+the whaleboat to more than its maximum
+capacity, so that no others could be taken
+aboard. We then picked up two overturned
+dories which were nested together, separated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span>
+them and righted them, only to find that their
+sterns had been broken. We then located another
+nest of dories, which were separated and
+righted and found to be seaworthy. Transferred
+some men from the whaleboat into these
+dories and proceeded to pick up other men
+from wreckage. During this time cries were
+heard from two men in the water some distance
+away who were holding on to wreckage and
+calling for assistance. It is believed that these
+men were Ernest M. Harrison, mess attendant,
+and John Winne, jr., seaman. As soon as the
+dories were available we proceeded to where
+they were last seen, but could find no trace of
+them.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Submarine
+of <i>U-27</i>
+type approaches.</div>
+
+<p>About this time, which was probably an hour
+after the ship sank, a German submarine approached
+the scene of torpedoing and lay to
+near some of the dories and life rafts. She
+was in the light condition, and from my observation
+of her I am of the opinion that she
+was of the <i>U-27-31</i> type. This has been confirmed
+by having a number of men and officers
+check the silhouette book. The submarine was
+probably 100 yards distant from my whaleboat,
+and I heard no remarks from anyone on
+the submarine, although I observed three persons
+standing on top of conning tower. After
+laying on surface about half an hour the submarine
+steered off and submerged.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Boats
+leave
+scene of
+disaster.</div>
+
+<p>I then proceeded with the whaleboat and
+two dories searching through the wreckage to
+make sure that no survivors were left in the
+water. No other people being seen, at 4.30 a. m.
+we started away from the scene of disaster.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Alcedo</i> was sunk, as near as I can estimate,
+75 miles west true of north end of Belle
+Ile. The torpedo struck ship at 1.46 by the
+officer of the deck's watch, and the same watch
+stopped at 1.54 a. m., November 5, this showing
+that the ship remained afloat eight minutes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A French
+torpedo
+boat
+rescues
+the
+Captain's
+party.</div>
+
+<p>The flare of Penmark Light was visible, and
+I headed for it and ascertained the course by
+Polaris to be approximately northeast. We
+rowed until 1.15, when Penmark Lighthouse
+was sighted. Continued rowing until 5.15
+p. m. when Penmark Lighthouse was distant
+about 2&frac12; miles. We were then picked up by
+French torpedo boat <i>275</i>, and upon going on
+board I requested the commanding officer to
+radio immediately to Brest reporting the fact
+of torpedoing and that 3 officers and 40 men
+were proceeding to Brest. The French gave
+all assistance possible for the comfort of the
+survivors. We arrived at Brest about 11 p. m.
+Those requiring medical attention were sent to
+the hospital and the others were sent off to the
+<i>Panther</i> to be quartered.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Crews of
+two other
+dories
+safe.</div>
+
+<p>Upon arrival at Brest I was informed that
+two other dories containing Lieutenant H. R.
+Leonard, Lieutenant H. A. Peterson, Passed
+Assistant Surgeon Paul O. M. Andreae, and 25
+men had landed at Pen March Point. This
+was my first intimation that these officers
+and men had been saved, as they had not
+been seen by any of my party at the scene of
+torpedoing.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+destroyer
+<i>Jacob
+Jones</i> is
+torpedoed.</div>
+
+<p>At 4.21 p. m. on December 6, 1917, in latitude
+49&middot;23 north, longitude 6&middot;13 west, clear weather,
+smooth sea, speed 13 knots zigzagging, the
+U. S. S. <i>Jacob Jones</i> was struck on the starboard
+side by a torpedo from an enemy submarine.
+The ship was one of six of an escorting
+group which were returning independently
+from off Brest to Queenstown. All other ships
+of the group were out of sight ahead.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Attempts
+to avoid
+the
+torpedo.</div>
+
+<p>I was in the chart house and heard some one
+call out "Torpedo!" I jumped at once to the
+bridge, and on the way up saw the torpedo
+about 800 yards from the ship approaching
+from about one point abaft the starboard beam
+headed for a point about midships, making a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span>
+perfectly straight surface run (alternately
+broaching and submerging to apparently 4 or
+5 feet), at an estimated speed of at least 40
+knots. No periscope was sighted. When I
+reached the bridge I found that the officer of
+the deck had already put the rudder hard left
+and rung up emergency speed on the engine-room
+telegraph. The ship had already begun
+to swing to the left. I personally rang up
+emergency speed again and then turned to
+watch the torpedo. The executive officer, Lieutenant
+Norman Scott, left the chart house just
+ahead of me, saw the torpedo immediately on
+getting outside the door, and estimates that
+the torpedo when he sighted it was 1,000 yards
+away, approaching from one point, or slightly
+less, abaft the beam and making exceedingly
+high speed.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Lieutenant
+Kalk acts
+promptly.</div>
+
+<p>After seeing the torpedo and realizing the
+straight run, line of approach, and high speed
+it was making, I was convinced that it was
+impossible to maneuver to avoid it. Lieutenant
+(Junior Grade) S. F. Kalk was officer of
+the deck at the time, and I consider that he
+took correct and especially prompt measures in
+maneuvering to avoid the torpedo. Lieutenant
+Kalk was a very able officer, calm and collected
+in emergency. He had been attached to the
+ship for about two months and had shown especial
+aptitude. His action in this emergency
+entirely justified my confidence in him. I
+deeply regret to state that he was lost as a
+result of the torpedoing of the ship, dying of
+exposure on one of the rafts.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Torpedo
+strikes
+fuel-oil
+tank below
+water line.</div>
+
+<p>The torpedo broached and jumped clear of
+the water at a short distance from the ship,
+submerged about 50 or 60 feet from the ship,
+and struck approximately three feet below the
+water line in the fuel-oil tank between the
+auxiliary room and the after crew space. The
+ship settled aft immediately after being torpedoed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span>
+to a point at which the deck just forward
+of the after deck house was awash, and
+then more gradually until the deck abreast the
+engine-room hatch was awash. A man on
+watch in the engine room, D. R. Carter, oiler,
+attempted to close the water-tight door between
+the auxiliary room and the engine room, but
+was unable to do so against the pressure of
+water from the auxiliary room.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Effects
+of the
+explosion.</div>
+
+<p>The deck over the forward part of the after
+crew space and over the fuel-oil tank just forward
+of it was blown clear for a space athwartships
+of about 20 feet from starboard to port,
+and the auxiliary room wrecked. The starboard
+after torpedo tube was blown into the
+air. No fuel oil ignited and, apparently, no
+ammunition exploded. The depth charges in
+the chutes aft were set on ready and exploded
+after the stern sank. It was impossible to get
+to them to set them on safe as they were under
+water. Immediately the ship was torpedoed,
+Lieutenant J. K. Richards, the gunnery officer,
+rushed aft to attempt to set the charges on
+"safe," but was unable to get further aft than
+the after deck house.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Impossible
+to use
+radio.</div>
+
+<p>As soon as the torpedo struck I attempted
+to send out an "S. O. S." message by radio, but
+the mainmast was carried away, antennae falling,
+and all electric power had failed. I then
+tried to have the gun-sight lighting batteries
+connected up in an effort to send out a low-power
+message with them, but it was at once
+evident that this would not be practicable before
+the ship sank. There was no other vessel
+in sight, and it was therefore impossible to get
+through a distress signal of any kind.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Confidential
+publications are
+weighted
+and
+thrown
+overboard.</div>
+
+<p>Immediately after the ship was torpedoed
+every effort was made to get rafts and boats
+launched. Also the circular life belts from
+the bridge and several splinter mats from the
+outside of the bridge were cut adrift and afterwards<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span>
+proved very useful in holding men up
+until they could be got to the rafts. Weighted
+confidential publications were thrown over the
+side. There was no time to destroy other confidential
+matter, but it went down with the
+ship.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Men jump
+overboard.</div>
+
+<p>The ship sank about 4.29 p. m. (about eight
+minutes after being torpedoed). As I saw her
+settling rapidly, I ran along the deck and ordered
+everybody I saw to jump overboard. At
+this time most of those not killed by the explosion
+had got clear of the ship and were on
+rafts or wreckage. Some, however, were swimming
+and a few appeared to be about a ship's
+length astern of the ship, at some distance from
+the rafts, probably having jumped overboard
+very soon after the ship was struck.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The ship
+sinks
+stern
+first.
+Depth
+charges
+explode.</div>
+
+<p>Before the ship sank two shots were fired
+from No. 4 gun with the hope of attracting attention
+of some nearby ship. As the ship began
+sinking I jumped overboard. The ship
+sank stern first and twisted slowly through
+nearly 180 degrees as she swung upright. From
+this nearly vertical position, bow in the air
+to about the forward funnel, she went straight
+down. Before the ship reached the vertical
+position the depth charges exploded, and I believe
+them to have caused the death of a number
+of men. They also partially paralyzed,
+stunned, or dazed a number of <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'other'">others</ins>, including
+Lieutenant Kalk and myself and several men,
+some of whom are still disabled but recovering.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Rafts and
+boats
+float.</div>
+
+<p>Immediate efforts were made to get all survivors
+on the rafts and then get rafts and boats
+together. Three rafts were launched before the
+ship sank and one floated off when she sank.
+The motor dory, hull undamaged but engine
+out of commission, also floated off, and the
+punt and wherry also floated clear. The punt
+was wrecked beyond usefulness, and the wherry
+was damaged and leaking badly, but was of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span>
+considerable use in getting men to the rafts.
+The whaleboat was launched but capsized soon
+afterwards, having been damaged by the explosion
+of the depth charges. The motor sailor
+did not float clear, but went down with the
+ship.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Submarine
+appears
+and picks
+up one
+man.</div>
+
+<p>About 15 or 20 minutes after the ship sank
+the submarine appeared on the surface about
+two or three miles to the westward of the rafts,
+and gradually approached until about 800 to
+1,000 yards from the ship, where it stopped and
+was seen to pick up one unidentified man from
+the water. The submarine then submerged and
+was not seen again.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+captain's
+boat steers
+for the
+Scillys.</div>
+
+<p>I was picked up by the motor dory and at
+once began to make arrangements to try to
+reach the Scillys in that boat in order to get
+assistance to those on the rafts. All the survivors
+then in sight were collected and I gave
+orders to Lieutenant Richards to keep them
+together. Lieutenant Scott, the navigating officer,
+had fixed the ship's position a few minutes
+before the explosion and both he and I knew
+accurately the course to be steered. I kept
+Lieutenant Scott to assist me and four men who
+were in good condition in the boat to man the
+oars, the engine being out of commission. With
+the exception of some emergency rations and
+half a bucket of water, all provisions, including
+medical kit, were taken from the dory and left
+on the rafts. There was no apparatus of any
+kind which could be used for night signaling.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Survivors
+are
+picked up.</div>
+
+<p>After a very trying trip during which it was
+necessary to steer by stars and by the direction
+of the wind, the dory was picked up about 1
+p. m., December 7, by a small patrol vessel
+about 6 miles south of St. Marys. Commander
+Randal, R. N. R., Senior Naval Officer, Scilly
+Isles, informed me that the other survivors had
+been rescued.</p>
+
+<p>One small raft (which had been separated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span>
+from the others from the first) was picked up
+by the S. S. <i>Catalina</i> at 8 p. m., December 6.
+After a most trying experience through the
+night, the remaining survivors were picked up
+by H. M. S. <i>Camellia</i>, at 8.30 a. m., December 7.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">The
+number
+lost.</div>
+
+<p>I deeply regret to state that out of a total
+of 7 officers and 103 men on board at the time
+of the torpedoing, 2 officers and 64 men died
+in the performance of duty.</p>
+
+<p>The behavior of officers and men under the
+exceptionally hard conditions is worthy of the
+highest praise.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Lieutenant
+Scott's
+valuable
+services.</div>
+
+<p>Lieutenant Norman Scott, executive officer,
+accomplished a great deal toward getting boats
+and rafts in the water, turning off steam from
+the fireroom to the engine room, getting life
+belts and splinter mats from the bridge into
+the water, in person firing signal guns, encouraging
+and assisting the men, and in general
+doing everything possible in the short time
+available. He was of invaluable assistance during
+the trip in the dory.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Calmness
+and
+efficiency
+of other
+officers.</div>
+
+<p>Lieutenant J. K. Richards was left in charge
+of all the rafts, and his coolness and cheerfulness
+under exceedingly hard conditions was
+highly commendable and undoubtedly served to
+put heart into the men to stand the strain.</p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant (Junior Grade) S. F. Kalk, during
+the early part of the evening, but already
+in a weakened condition, swam from one raft
+to another in the effort to equalize weight on
+the rafts. The men who were on the raft with
+him state, in their own words, that "He was
+game to the last."</p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant (Junior Grade) N. N. Gates was
+calm and efficient in the performance of duty.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">Men
+recommended
+for
+commendation.</div>
+
+<p>During the night, Charlesworth, C., boatswain's
+mate first class, removed parts of his
+own clothing (when all realized that their lives
+depended on keeping warm) to try to keep alive
+men more thinly clad than himself. This sacrifice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span>
+shows his caliber and I recommend that
+he be commended for his action.</p>
+
+<p>At the risk of almost certain death, Burger,
+P. J., seaman second class, remained in the
+motor sailer and endeavored to get it clear for
+floating from the ship. While he did not
+succeed in accomplishing this work (which
+would undoubtedly have saved 20 or 30 lives)
+I desire to call attention to his sticking to duty
+until the very last, and recommend him as
+being most worthy of commendation. He was
+drawn under the water with the boat, but later
+came to the surface and was rescued.</p>
+
+<p>Kelly, L. J., chief electrician, and Chase, H.
+U., quartermaster third class, remained on
+board until the last, greatly endangering their
+lives thereby, to cut adrift splinter mats and
+life preservers. Kelly's stamina and spirit
+were especially valuable during the motor
+dory's trip.</p>
+
+<p>Gibson, H. L., chief boatswain's mate, and
+Meier, E., water tender, were of great assistance
+to the men on their rafts in advising
+and cheering them up under most adverse
+conditions.</p>
+
+<p>The foregoing report is made from my own
+observations and after questioning all surviving
+officers and men.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The American naval authorities early recognized
+that the swift destroyers were the most
+effective instruments for hunting down German
+submarines, and the most efficient guardians
+for the loaded troop and food ships crossing the
+Atlantic. Life on board one of these swift and
+powerful boats is described in the following
+narrative.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Transcriber's Note: This narrative will be found in Vol. III
+of this series.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3>
+<p>Obvious punctuation errors repaired.</p>
+
+
+<p>Many words were hyphenated or not depending on the article. Examples: battlefield, battle-field;
+bridgehead, bridge-head; varied forms of cooperate, co-operate, coöperate.</p>
+<p>The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of World's War Events, Vol. II, by Various
+
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+</body>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of World's War Events, Vol. II, 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: World's War Events, Vol. II
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Francis J. Reynolds
+        Allen L. Churchill
+
+Release Date: July 4, 2008 [EBook #25963]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORLD'S WAR EVENTS, VOL. II ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: PRESIDENT WILSON READING HIS WAR MESSAGE TO CONGRESS,
+APRIL 2, 1917]
+
+
+
+
+WORLD'S WAR EVENTS
+
+RECORDED BY STATESMEN . COMMANDERS HISTORIANS AND BY MEN WHO FOUGHT OR
+SAW THE GREAT CAMPAIGNS
+
+
+        COMPILED AND EDITED BY
+        FRANCIS J. REYNOLDS
+        FORMER REFERENCE LIBRARIAN . LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
+
+AND
+
+        ALLEN L. CHURCHILL
+        ASSOCIATE EDITOR "THE STORY OF THE GREAT WAR"
+        ASSOCIATE EDITOR "THE NEW INTERNATIONAL
+        ENCYCLOPEDIA"
+
+
+
+VOLUME II
+
+[Illustration]
+
+        P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY
+        NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+Copyright 1919 BY P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+WORLD'S WAR EVENTS
+
+VOLUME II
+
+        BEGINNING WITH THE ATTACK AT VERDUN
+        EARLY IN 1916 THE STORY OF THE
+        WAR AND OF AMERICAN
+        AID IS CARRIED TO
+        THE CLOSE OF
+        1917
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    ARTICLE                                                          PAGE
+
+      I. THE BATTLE OF VERDUN                                          7
+            _Raoul Blanchard_
+
+     II. THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND BANK                                   30
+            _Admiral Sir John Jellicoe's Official Despatch_
+
+    III. TAKING THE COL DI LANA                                       55
+            _Lewis R. Freeman_
+
+     IV. THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME                                      67
+            _Sir Douglas Haig_
+
+      V. RUSSIA'S REFUGEES                                           114
+            _Gregory Mason_
+
+     VI. THE TRAGEDY OF RUMANIA                                      124
+            _Stanley Washburn_
+
+    VII. SIXTEEN MONTHS A WAR PRISONER                               142
+            _Private "Jack" Evans_
+
+   VIII. UNDER GERMAN RULE IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM                     159
+            _J. P. Whitaker_
+
+     IX. THE ANGLO-RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN IN TURKEY                        174
+            _James B. MacDonald_
+
+      X. KITCHENER                                                   188
+            _Lady St. Helier_
+
+     XI. WHY AMERICA BROKE WITH GERMANY                              194
+            _President Woodrow Wilson_
+
+    XII. HOW THE WAR CAME TO AMERICA                                 205
+            _Official Account_
+
+   XIII. THE WAR MESSAGE                                             226
+            _President Woodrow Wilson_
+
+    XIV. BRITISH OPERATIONS AT SALONIKI                              244
+            _Official Report of General Milne_
+
+     XV. IN PETROGRAD DURING THE SEVEN DAYS                          253
+            _Arno Dosch-Fleurot_
+
+    XVI. AMERICA'S FIRST SHOT                                        271
+            _J.R. Keen_
+
+   XVII. GERMAN ACTIVITIES IN THE UNITED STATES                      278
+            _House Committee on Foreign Affairs_
+
+  XVIII. PREPARING FOR WAR                                           298
+            _Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War_
+
+    XIX. THE CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM                                    344
+            _General E. H. H. Allenby_
+
+     XX. AMERICAN SHIPS AND GERMAN SUBMARINES                        369
+            _From Official Reports_
+
+
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF VERDUN
+
+RAOUL BLANCHARD
+
+Copyright, Atlantic Monthly, June, 1917.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Greatest drama of the war.]
+
+The Battle of Verdun, which continued through from February 21, 1916, to
+the 16th of December, ranks next to the Battle of the Marne as the
+greatest drama of the world war. Like the Marne, it represents the
+checkmate of a supreme effort on the part of the Germans to end the war
+swiftly by a thunderstroke. It surpasses the Battle of the Marne by the
+length of the struggle, the fury with which it was carried on, the huge
+scale of the operations. No complete analysis of it, however, has yet
+been published--only fragmentary accounts, dealing with the beginning or
+with mere episodes. Neither in France nor in Germany, up to the present
+moment, has the whole story of the battle been told, describing its
+vicissitudes, and following step by step the development of the stirring
+drama. That is the task I have set myself here.
+
+[Sidenote: German successes in France.]
+
+[Sidenote: Preparations for a great offensive.]
+
+The year 1915 was rich in successes for the Germans. In the West, thanks
+to an energetic defensive, they had held firm against the Allies'
+onslaughts in Artois and in Champagne. Their offensive in the East was
+most fruitful. Galicia had been almost completely recovered, the kingdom
+of Poland occupied, Courland, Lithuania, and Volhynia invaded. To the
+South they had crushed Serbia's opposition, saved Turkey, and won over
+Bulgaria. These triumphs, however, had not brought them peace, for the
+heart and soul of the Allies lay, after all, in the West--in England and
+France. The submarine campaign was counted on to keep England's hands
+tied; it remained, therefore, to attack and annihilate the French army.
+And so, in the autumn of 1915, preparations were begun on a huge scale
+for delivering a terrible blow in the West and dealing France the _coup
+de grace_.
+
+The determination with which the Germans followed out this plan and the
+reckless way in which they drew on their resources leave no doubt as to
+the importance the operation held for them. They staked everything on
+putting their adversaries out of the running by breaking through their
+lines, marching on Paris, and shattering the confidence of the French
+people. This much they themselves admitted. The German press, at the
+beginning of the battle, treated it as a matter of secondary import,
+whose object was to open up free communications between Metz and the
+troops in the Argonne; but the proportions of the combat soon gave the
+lie to such modest estimates, and in the excitement of the first days
+official utterances betrayed how great were the expectations.
+
+[Sidenote: Troops urged to take Verdun.]
+
+[Sidenote: Objects of the campaign.]
+
+On March 4 the Crown Prince urged his already over-taxed troops to make
+one supreme effort to "capture Verdun, the heart of France"; and General
+von Deimling announced to the 15th Army Corps that this would be the
+last battle of the war. At Berlin, travelers from neutral countries
+leaving for Paris by way of Switzerland were told that the Germans would
+get there first. The Kaiser himself, replying toward the end of February
+to the good wishes of his faithful province of Brandenburg,
+congratulated himself publicly on seeing his warriors of the 3d Army
+Corps about to carry "the most important stronghold of our principal
+enemy." It is plain, then, that the object was to take Verdun, win a
+decisive victory, and start a tremendous onslaught which would bring
+the war to a triumphant close.
+
+We should next examine the reasons prompting the Germans to select
+Verdun as the vital point, the nature of the scene of operations, and
+the manner in which the preparation was made.
+
+[Sidenote: Strategic advantages to be gained.]
+
+[Sidenote: Verdun railways dominated by Germans.]
+
+Why did the Germans make their drive at Verdun, a powerful fortress
+defended by a complete system of detached outworks? Several reasons may
+be found for this. First of all, there were the strategic advantages of
+the operation. Ever since the Battle of the Marne and the German
+offensive against St. Mihiel, Verdun had formed a salient in the French
+front which was surrounded by the Germans on three sides,--northwest,
+east, and south,--and was consequently in greater peril than the rest of
+the French lines. Besides, Verdun was not far distant from Metz, the
+great German arsenal, the fountain-head for arms, food, and munitions.
+For the same reasons, the French defense of Verdun was made much harder
+because access to the city was commanded by the enemy. Of the two main
+railroads linking Verdun with France, the Lerouville line was cut off by
+the enemy at St. Mihiel; the second (leading through Chalons) was under
+ceaseless fire from the German artillery. There remained only a
+narrow-gauge road connecting Verdun and Bar-le-Duc. The fortress, then,
+was almost isolated.
+
+[Sidenote: Iron mines of Lorraine.]
+
+[Sidenote: Extent of Lotharingia.]
+
+For another reason, Verdun was too near, for the comfort of the Germans,
+to those immense deposits of iron ore in Lorraine which they have every
+intention of retaining after the war. The moral factor involved in the
+fall of Verdun was also immense. If the stronghold were captured, the
+French, who look on it as their chief bulwark in the East, would be
+greatly disheartened, whereas it would delight the souls of the
+Germans, who had been counting on its seizure since the beginning of the
+war. They have not forgotten that the ancient Lotharingia, created by a
+treaty signed eleven centuries ago at Verdun, extended as far as the
+Meuse. Finally, it is probable that the German General Staff intended to
+profit by a certain slackness on the part of the French, who, placing
+too much confidence in the strength of the position and the favorable
+nature of the surrounding countryside, had made little effort to augment
+their defensive value.
+
+[Sidenote: Serious obstacles to an offensive.]
+
+This value, as a matter of fact, was great. The theatre of operations at
+Verdun offers far fewer inducements to an offensive than the plains of
+Artois, Picardy, or Champagne. The rolling ground, the vegetation, the
+distribution of the population, all present serious obstacles.
+
+[Sidenote: The plateaus of the Meuse.]
+
+[Sidenote: Hills and ravines.]
+
+The relief-map of the region about Verdun shows the sharply marked
+division of two plateaus situated on either side of the river Meuse. The
+plateau which rises on the left bank, toward the Argonne, falls away on
+the side toward the Meuse in a deeply indented line of high but gently
+sloping bluffs, which include the Butte de Montfaucon, Hill 304, and the
+heights of Esnes and Montzeville. Fragments of this plateau, separated
+from the main mass by the action of watercourses, are scattered in long
+ridges over the space included between the line of bluffs and the Meuse:
+the two hills of Le Mont Homme (295 metres), the Cote de l'Oie, and,
+farther to the South, the ridge of Bois Bourrus and Marre. To the east
+of the river, the country is still more rugged. The plateau on this bank
+rises abruptly, and terminates at the plain of the Woevre in the cliffs
+of the Cotes-de-Meuse, which tower 100 metres over the plain. The brooks
+which flow down to the Woevre or to the Meuse have worn the cliffs and
+the plateau into a great number of hillocks called _cotes_: the Cote du
+Talon, Cote du Poivre, Cote de Froideterre, and the rest. The ravines
+separating these _cotes_ are deep and long: those of Vaux, Haudromont,
+and Fleury cut into the very heart of the plateau, leaving between them
+merely narrow ridges of land, easily to be defended.
+
+[Sidenote: Stretches of forest.]
+
+[Sidenote: Villages well placed for defense.]
+
+These natural defenses of the country are strengthened by the nature of
+the vegetation. On the rather sterile calcareous soil of the two
+plateaus the woods are thick and numerous. To the west, the approaches
+of Hill 304 are covered by the forest of Avocourt. On the east, long
+wooded stretches--the woods of Haumont, Caures, Wavrille, Herbebois, la
+Vauche, Haudromont, Hardaumont, la Caillette, and others--cover the
+narrow ridges of land and dominate the upper slopes of the ravines. The
+villages, often perched on the highest points of land, as their names
+ending in _mont_ indicate, are easily transformed into small fortresses;
+such are Haumont, Beaumont, Louvemont, Douaumont. Others follow the
+watercourses, making it easier to defend them--Malancourt, Bethincourt
+and Cumieres, to the west of the Meuse; Vaux to the east.
+
+These hills, then, as well as the ravines, the woods, and the favorably
+placed villages, all facilitated the defense of the countryside. On the
+other hand, the assailants had one great advantage: the French positions
+were cut in two by the valley of the Meuse, one kilometre wide and quite
+deep, which, owing to swampy bottom-lands, could not be crossed except
+by the bridges of Verdun. The French troops on the right bank had
+therefore to fight with a river at their backs, thus imperiling their
+retreat. A grave danger, this, in the face of an enemy determined to
+take full advantage of the circumstance by attacking with undreamed-of
+violence.
+
+[Sidenote: Troops selected in October.]
+
+The German preparation was, from the start, formidable and painstaking.
+It was probably under way by the end of October, 1915, for at that time
+the troops selected to deliver the first crushing attack were withdrawn
+from the front and sent into training. Four months were thus set aside
+for this purpose. To make the decisive attack, the Germans made
+selection from four of their crack army corps, the 18th active, the 7th
+reserve, the 15th active (the Muehlhausen corps), and the 3d active,
+composed of Brandenburgers.
+
+[Sidenote: Artillery and munitions made ready.]
+
+These troops were sent to the interior to undergo special preparation.
+In addition to these 80,000 or 100,000 men, who were appointed to bear
+the brunt of the assault, the operation was to be supported by the Crown
+Prince's army on the right and by that of General von Strautz on the
+left--300,000 men more. Immense masses of artillery were gathered
+together to blast open the way; fourteen lines of railroad brought
+together from every direction the streams of arms and munitions. Heavy
+artillery was transported from the Russian and Serbian fronts. No light
+pieces were used in this operation--in the beginning, at any rate; only
+guns of large calibre, exceeding 200 millimetres, many of 370 and 420
+millimetres.
+
+[Sidenote: Reliance on heavy artillery.]
+
+The battle plans were based on the offensive power of the heavy
+artillery. The new formula was to run, "The artillery attacks, the
+infantry takes possession." In other words, a terrible bombardment was
+to play over every square yard of the terrain to be captured; when it
+was decided that the pulverization had been sufficient, a scouting-party
+of infantry would be sent out to look the situation over; behind them
+would come the pioneers, and then the first wave of the assault. In case
+the enemy still resisted, the infantry would retire and leave the field
+once more to the artillery.
+
+[Sidenote: The point selected for attack.]
+
+The point chosen for the attack was the plateau on the right bank of the
+Meuse. The Germans would thus avoid the obstacle of the cliffs of Cotes
+de Meuse, and, by seizing the ridges and passing around the ravines,
+they could drive down on Douaumont, which dominates the entire region,
+and from there fall on Verdun and capture the bridges. At the same time,
+the German right wing would assault the French positions on the left
+bank of the Meuse; the left wing would complete the encircling movement,
+and the entire French army of Verdun, driven back to the river and
+attacked from the rear, would be captured or destroyed.
+
+[Sidenote: A ten months' battle.]
+
+[Sidenote: The formidable German attack.]
+
+[Sidenote: Periods of fixation.]
+
+The Battle of Verdun lasted no less than ten months--from February 21 to
+December 16. First of all, came the formidable _German attack_, with its
+harvest of success during the first few days of the frontal drive, which
+was soon checked and forced to wear itself out in fruitless flank
+attacks, kept up until April 9. After this date the German programme
+became more modest: they merely wished to hold at Verdun sufficient
+French troops to forestall an offensive at some other point. This was
+the _period of German "fixation,"_ lasting from April to the middle of
+July. It then became the object of the French to hold the German forces
+and prevent transfer to the Somme. _French "fixation,"_ ended in the
+successes of October and December.
+
+[Sidenote: Lack of foresight on the part of French.]
+
+The first German onslaught was the most intense and critical moment of
+the battle. The violent frontal attack on the plateau east of the Meuse,
+magnificently executed, at first carried all before it. The commanders
+at Verdun had shown a lack of foresight. There were too few trenches,
+too few cannon, too few troops. The soldiers had had too little
+experience in the field, and it was their task to face the most
+terrific attack ever known.
+
+[Sidenote: The battle begins.]
+
+[Sidenote: French left driven backwards.]
+
+On the morning of February 21 the German artillery opened up a fire of
+infernal intensity. This artillery had been brought up in undreamed-of
+quantities. French aviators who flew over the enemy positions located so
+many batteries that they gave up marking them on their maps; the number
+was too great. The forest of Gremilly, northeast of the point of attack,
+was just a great cloud shot through with lightning-flashes. A deluge of
+shells fell on the French positions, annihilating the first line,
+attacking the batteries and finding their mark as far back as the city
+of Verdun. At five o'clock in the afternoon the first waves of infantry
+assaulted and carried the advanced French positions in the woods of
+Haumont and Caures. On the 22d the French left was driven back about
+four kilometres.
+
+[Sidenote: Fall of Herbebois.]
+
+The following day a terrible engagement took place along the entire line
+of attack, resulting toward evening in the retreat of both French wings;
+on the left Samognieux was taken by the Germans; on the right they
+occupied the strong position of Herbebois.
+
+[Sidenote: Germans enter Douaumont.]
+
+The situation developed rapidly on the 24th. The Germans enveloped the
+French centre, which formed a salient; at two in the afternoon they
+captured the important central position of Beaumont, and by nightfall
+had reached Louvemont and La Vauche forest, gathering in many prisoners.
+On the morning of the 25th the enemy stormed Bezonvaux, and entered the
+fort of Douaumont, already evacuated.
+
+[Illustration: FIRST ATTACK ON VERDUN]
+
+[Sidenote: Germans advance eight kilometres.]
+
+[Sidenote: General de Castelnau and General Petain.]
+
+[Sidenote: Hand-to-hand fighting.]
+
+In less than five days the assaulting troops sent forward over the
+plateau had penetrated the French positions to a depth of eight
+kilometres, and were masters of the most important elements of the
+defense of the fortress. Verdun and its bridges were only seven
+kilometres distant. The commander of the fortified region himself
+proposed to evacuate the whole right bank of the Meuse; the troops
+established in the Woevre were already falling back toward the bluffs of
+Cotes de Meuse. Most luckily, on this same day there arrived at Verdun
+some men of resource, together with substantial reinforcements. General
+de Castelnau, Chief of the General Staff, ordered the troops on the
+right bank to hold out at all costs. And on the evening of the 25th
+General Petain took over the command of the entire sector. The Zouaves,
+on the left bank, were standing firm as rocks on the Cotes du Poivre,
+which cuts off access from the valley to Verdun. During this time the
+Germans, pouring forward from Douaumont, had already reached the Cote de
+Froideterre, and the French artillerymen, out-flanked, poured their fire
+into the gray masses as though with rifles. It was at this moment that
+the 39th division of the famous 20th French Army Corps of Nancy met the
+enemy in the open, and, after furious hand-to-hand fighting, broke the
+backbone of the attack.
+
+[Sidenote: The German frontal drive checked.]
+
+That was the end of it. The German tidal wave could go no farther. There
+were fierce struggles for several days longer, but all in vain. Starting
+on the 26th, five French counter-attacks drove back the enemy to a point
+just north of the fort of Douaumont, and recaptured the village of the
+same name. For three days the German attacking forces tried
+unsuccessfully to force these positions; their losses were terrible, and
+already they had to call in a division of reinforcements. After two days
+of quiet the contest began again at Douaumont, which was attacked by an
+entire army corps; the 4th of March found the village again in German
+hands. The impetus of the great blow had been broken, however, after
+five days of success, the attack had fallen flat.
+
+[Sidenote: German flank attacks.]
+
+Were the Germans then to renounce Verdun? After such vast preparations,
+after such great losses, after having roused such high hopes, this
+seemed impossible to the leaders of the German army. The frontal drive
+was to have been followed up by the attack of the wings, and it was now
+planned to carrying this out with the assistance of the Crown Prince's
+army, which was still intact. In this way the scheme so judiciously
+arranged would be accomplished in the appointed manner. Instead of
+adding the finishing touch to the victory, however, these wings now had
+the task of winning it completely--and the difference is no small one.
+
+[Sidenote: Genius of Petain and Nivelle.]
+
+These flank attacks were delivered for over a month (March 6-April 9) on
+both sides of the river simultaneously, with an intensity and power
+which recalled the first days of the battle. But the French were now on
+their guard. They had received great reinforcements of artillery, and
+the nimble "75's," thanks to their speed and accuracy, barred off the
+positions under attack by a terrible curtain of fire. Moreover, their
+infantry contrived to pass through the enemy's barrage-fire, wait calmly
+until the assaulting infantry were within 30 metres of them, and then
+let loose the rapid-fire guns. They were also commanded by energetic and
+brilliant chiefs: General Petain, who offset the insufficient railroad
+communications with the rear by putting in motion a great stream of more
+than 40,000 motor trucks, all traveling on strict schedule time; and
+General Nivelle, who directed operations on the right bank of the river,
+before taking command of the Army of Verdun. The German successes of the
+first days were not duplicated.
+
+[Sidenote: On the left of the Meuse.]
+
+[Sidenote: Le Mort Homme.]
+
+[Sidenote: Hill 304.]
+
+These new attacks began on the left of the Meuse. The Germans tried to
+turn the first line of the French defense by working down along the
+river, and then capture the second line. On March 6 two divisions
+stormed the villages of Forges and Regneville, and attacked the woods of
+Corbeaux on the Cote de l'Oie, which they captured on the 10th. After
+several days of preparation, they fell suddenly upon one of the
+important elements of the second line, the hill of Le Mort Homme, but
+failed to carry it (March 14-16). Repulsed on the right, they tried the
+left. On March 20 a body of picked troops just back from the Russian
+front--the 11th Bavarian Division--stormed the French positions in the
+wood of Avocourt and moved on to Hill 304, where they obtained foothold
+for a short time before being driven back with losses of from 50 to 60
+per cent of their effectives.
+
+[Sidenote: Crown Prince brings up reserves.]
+
+[Sidenote: Village and fort of Vaux.]
+
+At the same time the Germans were furiously assaulting the positions of
+the French right wing east of the Meuse. From the 8th to the 10th of
+March the Crown Prince brought forward again the troops which had
+survived the ordeal of the first days, and added to them the fresh
+forces of the 5th Reserve Corps. The action developed along the Cote du
+Poivre, especially east of Douaumont, where it was directed against the
+village and fort of Vaux. The results were negative, except for a slight
+gain in the woods of Hardaumont. The 3d Corps had lost 22,000 men since
+the 21st of February--that is, almost its entire original strength. The
+5th Corps was simply massacred on the slopes of Vaux, without being able
+to reach the fort. New attempts against this position, on March 16 and
+18, were no more fruitful. The battle of the right wing, then, was also
+lost.
+
+[Sidenote: Fighting on both sides the Meuse.]
+
+The Germans hung on grimly. One last effort remained to be made. After a
+lull of six days (March 22-28) savage fighting started again on both
+sides of the river. On the right bank, from March 31 to April 2, the
+Germans got a foothold in the ravine of Vaux and along its slopes; but
+the French dislodged them the next day, inflicting great damage, and
+drove them back to Douaumont.
+
+[Sidenote: Avocourt retaken.]
+
+[Sidenote: Le Mort Homme like a volcano.]
+
+Their greatest effort was made on the left bank. Here the French took
+back the woods of Avocourt; from March 30 to the 8th of April, however,
+the Germans succeeded in breaking into their adversaries' first line,
+and on April 9, a sunny Sabbath-day, they delivered an attack against
+the entire second line, along a front of 11 kilometres, from Avocourt to
+the Meuse. There was terrific fighting, the heaviest that had taken
+place since February 26, and a worthy sequel to the original frontal
+attack. The artillery preparation was long and searching. The hill of Le
+Mort Homme, said an eye-witness, smoked like a volcano with innumerable
+craters. The assault was launched at noon, with five divisions, and in
+two hours it had been shattered. New attacks followed, but less orderly,
+less numerous, and more listless, until sundown. The checkmate was
+complete. "The 9th of April," said General Petain to his troops, "is a
+day full of glory for your arms. The fierce assaults of the Crown
+Prince's soldiers have everywhere been thrown back. Infantry, artillery,
+sappers, and aviators of the Second Army have vied with one another in
+heroism. Courage, men: _on les aura_!"
+
+[Sidenote: German plans ruined.]
+
+And, indeed, this great attack of April 9, was the last general effort
+made by the German troops to carry out the programme of February--to
+capture Verdun and wipe out the French army which defended it. They had
+to give in. The French were on their guard now; they had artillery,
+munitions, and men. The defenders began to act as vigorously as the
+attackers; they took the offensive, recaptured the woods of La
+Caillette, and occupied the trenches before Le Mort Homme. The German
+plans were ruined. Some other scheme had to be thought out.
+
+[Sidenote: Verdun to be kept a battlefield.]
+
+[Sidenote: A battle of attrition.]
+
+Instead of employing only eight divisions of excellent troops, as
+originally planned, the Germans had little by little cast into the fiery
+furnace thirty divisions. This enormous sacrifice could not be allowed
+to count for nothing. The German High Command therefore decided to
+assign a less pretentious object to the abortive enterprise. The Crown
+Prince's offensive had fallen flat; but, at all events, it might succeed
+in preventing a French offensive. For this reason it was necessary that
+Verdun should remain a sore spot, a continually menaced sector, where
+the French would be obliged to send a steady stream of men, material,
+and munitions. It was hinted then in all the German papers that the
+struggle at Verdun was a battle of attrition, which would wear down the
+strength of the French by slow degrees. There was no talk now of
+thunderstrokes; it was all "the siege of Verdun." This time they
+expressed the true purpose of the German General Staff; the struggle
+which followed the fight of April 9, now took the character of a battle
+of fixation, in which the Germans tried to hold their adversaries'
+strongest units at Verdun and prevent their being transferred elsewhere.
+This state of affairs lasted from mid-April to well into July, when the
+progress of the Somme offensive showed the Germans that their efforts
+had been unavailing.
+
+[Sidenote: Germans still formidable.]
+
+It is true that during this new phase of the battle the offensive vigor
+of the Germans and their procedure in attacking were still formidable.
+
+Their artillery continued to perform prodigies. The medium-calibre
+pieces had now come into action, particularly the 150 mm. guns, with
+their amazing mobility of fire, which shelled the French first line, as
+well as their communications and batteries, with lightning speed. This
+storm of artillery continued night and day; it was the relentless,
+crushing continuity of the fire which exhausted the adversary and made
+the Battle of Verdun a hell on earth. There was one important
+difference, however: the infantry attacks now took place over restricted
+areas, which were rarely more than two kilometres in extent. The
+struggle was continual, but disconnected. Besides, it was rarely in
+progress on both sides of the river at once. Until the end of May the
+Germans did their worst on the left; then the French activities brought
+them back to the right side, and there they attacked with fury until
+mid-July.
+
+[Sidenote: A period of recuperation.]
+
+The end of April was a period of recuperation for the Germans. They were
+still suffering from the confusion caused by their set-backs of March,
+and especially of April 9. Only two attempts at an offensive were
+made--one on the Cote du Poivre (April 18) and one on the front south of
+Douaumont. Both were repulsed with great losses. The French, in turn,
+attacked on the 15th of April near Douaumont, on the 28th north of Le
+Mort Homme. It was not until May that the new German tactics were
+revealed: vigorous, but partial, attacks, directed now against one
+point, now against another.
+
+[Sidenote: Artillery directed against Hill 304.]
+
+[Sidenote: Cumieres and Le Mort Homme.]
+
+On May 4 there began a terrible artillery preparation, directed against
+Hill 304. This was followed by attacks of infantry, which surged up the
+shell-blasted slopes, first to the northwest, then north, and finally
+northeast. The attack of the 7th was made by three divisions of fresh
+troops which had not previously been in action before Verdun. No gains
+were secured. Every foot of ground taken in the first rush was
+recaptured by French counter-attacks. During the night of the 18th a
+savage onslaught was made against the woods of Avocourt, without the
+least success. On the 20th and 21st, three divisions were hurled against
+Le Mort Homme, which they finally took; but they could go no farther.
+The 23d and 24th were terrible days. The Germans stormed the village of
+Cumieres; their advance guard penetrated as far as Chattancourt. On the
+26th, however, the French were again in possession of Cumieres and the
+slopes of Le Mort Homme; and if the Germans, by means of violent
+counter-attacks, were able to get a fresh foothold in the ruins of
+Cumieres, they made no attempt to progress farther. The battles of the
+left river-bank were now over; on this side of the Meuse there were to
+be only unimportant local engagements and the usual artillery fire.
+
+[Sidenote: Battles on right of Meuse.]
+
+[Sidenote: Mangin's division attacks.]
+
+This shift of the German offensive activity from the left side of the
+Meuse to the right is explained by the activity shown at the same time
+in this sector by the French. The French command was not deceived by the
+German tactics; they intended to husband their strength for the future
+Somme offensive. For them Verdun was a sacrificial sector to which they
+sent, from now on, few men, scant munitions, and only artillery of the
+older type. Their object was only to hold firm, at all costs. However,
+the generals in charge of this thankless task, Petain and Nivelle,
+decided that the best defensive plan consisted in attacking the enemy.
+To carry this out, they selected a soldier bronzed on the battlefields
+of Central Africa, the Soudan, and Morocco, General Mangin, who
+commanded the 5th Division and had already played a distinguished part
+in the struggle for Vaux, in March. On May 21 Mangin's division attacked
+on the right bank of the Meuse and occupied the quarries of Haudromont;
+on the 22d it stormed the German lines for a length of two kilometres,
+and took the fort of Douaumont with the exception of one salient.
+
+The Germans replied to this with the greatest energy; for two days and
+nights the battle raged round the ruins of the fort. Finally, on the
+night of the 24th, two new Bavarian divisions succeeded in getting a
+footing in this position, to which the immediate approaches were held by
+the French. This vigorous effort alarmed the enemy, and from now on,
+until the middle of July, all their strength was focused on the right
+bank of the river.
+
+[Sidenote: The bloodiest chapter of the battle.]
+
+[Sidenote: Intense barrage-fire.]
+
+This contest of the right bank began on May 31. It is, perhaps the
+bloodiest, the most terrible, chapter of all the operations before
+Verdun; for the Germans had determined to capture methodically, one by
+one, all the French positions, and get to the city. The first stake of
+this game was the possession of the fort of Vaux. Access to it was cut
+off from the French by a barrage-fire of unprecedented intensity; at the
+same time an assault was made against the trenches flanking the fort,
+and also against the defenses of the Fumin woods. On June 4 the enemy
+reached the superstructure of the fort and took possession, showering
+down hand-grenades and asphyxiating gas on the garrison, which was shut
+up in the casemates. After a heroic resistance the defenders succumbed
+to thirst and surrendered on June 7.
+
+[Sidenote: Thiaumont changes hands repeatedly.]
+
+Now that Vaux was captured, the German activity was directed against the
+ruins of the small fort of Thiaumont, which blocks the way to the Cote
+de Froideterre, and against the village of Fleury, dominating the mouth
+of a ravine leading to the Meuse. From June 8 to 20, terrible fighting
+won for the Germans the possession of Thiaumont; on the 23d, six
+divisions, representing a total of at least 70,000 men, were hurled
+against Fleury, which they held from the 23d to the 26th. The French,
+undaunted, returned to the charge. On August 30 they reoccupied
+Thiaumont, lost it at half-past three of the same day, recaptured it at
+half-past four, and were again driven out two days later. However, they
+remained close to the redoubt and the village.
+
+[Sidenote: Battles in July.]
+
+The Germans then turned south, against the fortifications which
+dominated the ridges and ravines. There, on a hillock, stands the fort
+of Souville, at approximately the same elevation as Douaumont. On July
+3, they captured the battery of Damloup, to the east; on the 12th, after
+insignificant fighting, they sent forward a huge mass of troops which
+got as far as the fort and battery of L'Hopital. A counterattack drove
+them away again, but they dug themselves in about 800 metres away.
+
+[Sidenote: Germans cannot win Verdun.]
+
+After all, what had they accomplished? For twelve days they had been
+confronted with the uselessness of these bloody sacrifices. Verdun was
+out of reach; the offensive of the Somme was under way, and the French
+stood before the gates of Peronne. Decidedly, the Battle of Verdun was
+lost. Neither the onslaught of the first period nor the battles of
+fixation had brought about the desired end. It now became impossible to
+squander on this field of death the munitions and troops which the
+German army needed desperately at Peronne and Bapaume. The leaders of
+the German General Staff accepted the situation. Verdun held no further
+interest for them.
+
+[Sidenote: French take the initiative.]
+
+[Sidenote: General Nivelle's blows.]
+
+Verdun, however, continued to be of great interest to the French. In the
+first place, they could not endure seeing the enemy intrenched five
+kilometres away from the coveted city. Moreover, it was most important
+for them to prevent the Germans from weakening the Verdun front and
+transferring their men and guns to the Somme. The French troops,
+therefore, were to take the initiative out of the hands of the Germans
+and inaugurate, in their turn, a battle of fixation. This new situation
+presented two phases: in July and August the French were satisfied to
+worry the enemy with small forces and to oblige them to fight; in
+October and December General Nivelle, well supplied with troops and
+material, was able to strike two vigorous blows which took back from the
+Germans the larger part of all the territory they had won since February
+21.
+
+From July 15 to September 15, furious fighting was in progress on the
+slopes of the plateau stretching from Thiaumont to Damloup. This time,
+however, it was the French who attacked savagely, who captured ground,
+and who took prisoners. So impetuous were they that their adversaries,
+who asked for nothing but quiet, were obliged to be constantly on their
+guard and deliver costly counter-attacks.
+
+[Sidenote: Contest again around Thiaumont.]
+
+[Sidenote: French colonials take Fleury.]
+
+The contest raged most bitterly over the ruins of Thiaumont and Fleury.
+On the 15th of July the Zouaves broke into the southern part of the
+village, only to be driven out again. However, on the 19th and 20th the
+French freed Souville, and drew near to Fleury; from the 20th to the
+26th they forged ahead step by step, taking 800 prisoners. A general
+attack, delivered on August 3, carried the fort of Thiaumont and the
+village of Fleury, with 1500 prisoners. The Germans reacted violently;
+the 4th of August they reoccupied Fleury, a part of which was taken back
+by the French that same evening. From the 5th to the 9th the struggle
+went on ceaselessly, night and day, in the ruins of the village. During
+this time the adversaries took and retook Thiaumont, which the Germans
+held after the 8th. But on the 10th the Colonial regiment from Morocco
+reached Fleury, carefully prepared the assault, delivered it on the
+17th, and captured the northern and southern portions of the village,
+encircling the central part, which they occupied on the 18th. From this
+day Fleury remained in French hands. The German counter-assaults of the
+18th, 19th, and 20th of August were fruitless; the Moroccan Colonials
+held their conquest firmly.
+
+[Sidenote: The French advance.]
+
+On the 24th the French began to advance east of Fleury, in spite of
+incessant attacks which grew more intense on the 28th. Three hundred
+prisoners were taken between Fleury and Thiaumont on September 3, and
+300 more fell into their hands in the woods of Vaux-Chapitre. On the 9th
+they took 300 more before Fleury.
+
+
+[Sidenote: French programme carried out.]
+
+It may be seen that the French troops had thoroughly carried out the
+programme assigned to them of attacking the enemy relentlessly, obliging
+him to counter-attack, and _holding_ him at Verdun. But the High Command
+was to surpass itself. By means of sharp attacks, it proposed to carry
+the strong positions which the Germans had dearly bought, from February
+to July, at the price of five months of terrible effort. This new plan
+was destined to be accomplished on October 24 and December 15.
+
+[Sidenote: Four hundred millimeter guns.]
+
+[Sidenote: Excellent troops.]
+
+Verdun was no longer looked on by the French as a "sacrificial sector."
+To this attack of October 24, destined to establish once for all the
+superiority of the soldier of France, it was determined to consecrate
+all the time and all the energy that were found necessary. A force of
+artillery which General Nivelle himself declared to be of exceptional
+strength was brought into position--no old-fashioned ordnance this time,
+but magnificent new pieces, among them long-range guns of 400
+millimetres calibre. The Germans had fifteen divisions on the Verdun
+front, but the French command judged it sufficient to make the attack
+with three divisions, which advanced along a front of seven kilometres.
+These, however, were made up of excellent troops, withdrawn from
+service in the first lines and trained for several weeks, who knew every
+inch of the ground. General Mangin was their commander.
+
+[Sidenote: French offensive in October.]
+
+[Sidenote: Germans evacuate Ft. Vaux.]
+
+The French artillery opened fire on October 21, by hammering away at the
+enemy's positions. A feint attack forced the Germans to reveal the
+location of their batteries, more than 130 of which were discovered and
+silenced. At 11.40 a.m., October 24, the assault started in the fog. The
+troops advanced on the run, preceded by a barrage-fire. On the left, the
+objective points were reached at 2.45 p.m., and the village of Douaumont
+captured. The fort was stormed at 3 o'clock by the Moroccan Colonials,
+and the few Germans who held out there surrendered when night came on.
+On the right, the woods surrounding Vaux were rushed with lightning
+speed. The battery of Damloup was taken by assault. Vaux alone resisted.
+In order to reduce it, the artillery preparation was renewed from
+October 28 to November 2, and the Germans evacuated the fort without
+fighting on the morning of the 2d. As they retreated, the French
+occupied the villages of Vaux and Damloup, at the foot of the _cotes_.
+
+Thus the attack on Douaumont and Vaux resulted in a real victory,
+attested to by the reoccupation of all the ground lost since the 25th of
+February, the capture of 15 cannon and more than 6000 prisoners. This,
+too, despite the orders found on German prisoners bidding them to "hold
+out at all cost" (25th Division), and to "make a desperate defense" (von
+Lochow). The French command, encouraged by this success, decided to do
+still better and to push on farther to the northeast.
+
+[Sidenote: Operations in December.]
+
+[Sidenote: Roads and railways constructed.]
+
+The operations of December 15 were more difficult. They were directed
+against a zone occupied by the enemy for more than nine months, during
+which time he had constructed a great network of communication trenches,
+field-railways, dug-outs built into the hillsides, forts, and redoubts.
+Moreover, the French attacks had to start from unfavorable ground, where
+ceaseless fighting had been in progress since the end of February, where
+the soil, pounded by millions of projectiles, had been reduced to a sort
+of volcanic ash, transformed by the rain into a mass of sticky mud in
+which men had been swallowed up bodily. Two whole divisions were needed
+to construct twenty-five kilometres of roads and ten kilometres of
+railway, make dug-outs and trenches, and bring the artillery up into
+position. All was ready in five weeks; but the Germans, finding out what
+was in preparation, had provided formidable means of defense.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Verdun ends in victory for the French.]
+
+The front to be attacked was held by five German divisions. Four others
+were held in reserve at the rear. On the French side, General Mangin had
+four divisions, three of which were composed of picked men, veterans of
+Verdun. The artillery preparation, made chiefly by pieces of 220, 274,
+and 370 mm., lasted for three full days. The assault was let loose on
+December 15, at 10 a.m.; on the left the French objectives were reached
+by noon; the whole spur of Hardaumont on the right was swiftly captured,
+and only a part of the German centre still resisted, east of Bezonvaux.
+This was reduced the next day. The Cote du Poivre was taken entire;
+Vacherauville, Louvemont, Bezonvaux as well. The front was now three
+kilometres from the fort of Douaumont. Over 11,000 prisoners were taken
+by the French, and 115 cannon. For a whole day their reconnoitring
+parties were able to advance in front of the new lines, destroying
+batteries and bringing in prisoners, without encountering any serious
+resistance.
+
+The success was undeniable. As a reply to the German peace proposals of
+December 12, the Battle of Verdun ended as a real victory; and this
+magnificent operation, in which the French had shown such superiority in
+infantry and artillery, seemed to be a pledge of future triumphs.
+
+[Sidenote: German plans and their outcome.]
+
+The conclusion is easily reached. In February and March Germany wished
+to end the war by crushing the French army at Verdun. She failed
+utterly. Then, from April to July, she wished to exhaust French military
+resources by a battle of fixation. Again she failed. The Somme offensive
+was the offspring of Verdun. Later on, from July to December, she was
+not able to elude the grasp of the French, and the last engagements,
+together with the vain struggles of the Germans for six months, showed
+to what extent General Nivelle's men had won the upper hand.
+
+The Battle of Verdun, beginning as a brilliant German offensive, ended
+as an offensive victory for the French. And so this terrible drama is an
+epitome of the whole great war: a brief term of success for the Germans
+at the start, due to a tremendous preparation which took careless
+adversaries by surprise--terrible and agonizing first moments, soon
+offset by energy, heroism, and the spirit of sacrifice; and finally,
+victory for the Soldiers of Right.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On May 31st, 1916, there was fought in the North Sea off Jutland, the
+most important naval battle of the Great War. While the battle was
+undecisive in some of the results attained, it was an English victory,
+in that the Germans suffered greater losses and were forced to flee. The
+narrative of this battle which follows is by the Admiral of the British
+Fleet.
+
+
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND BANK
+
+ADMIRAL SIR JOHN JELLICOE'S OFFICIAL DISPATCH
+
+
+The German High Sea Fleet was brought to action on 31st May, 1916, to
+the westward of the Jutland Bank, off the coast of Denmark.
+
+[Sidenote: The Grand Fleet sweeping the sea.]
+
+The ships of the Grand Fleet, in pursuance of the general policy of
+periodical sweeps through the North Sea, had left its bases on the
+previous day, in accordance with instructions issued by me.
+
+[Sidenote: The British scouting force.]
+
+In the early afternoon of Wednesday, 31st May, the 1st and 2nd
+Battle-cruiser Squadrons, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Light-cruiser Squadrons, and
+destroyers from the 1st, 9th, 10th, and 13th Flotillas, supported by the
+5th Battle Squadron, were, in accordance with my directions, scouting to
+the southward of the Battle Fleet, which was accompanied by the 3rd
+Battle-cruiser Squadron, 1st and 2nd Cruiser Squadrons, 4th
+Light-cruiser Squadron, 4th, 11th, and 12th Flotillas.
+
+The junction of the Battle Fleet with the scouting force after the enemy
+had been sighted was delayed owing to the southerly course steered by
+our advanced force during the first hour after commencing their action
+with the enemy battle-cruisers. This was, of course, unavoidable, as had
+our battle-cruisers not followed the enemy to the southward the main
+fleets would never have been in contact.
+
+[Sidenote: Vice Admiral Beatty commands battle cruisers.]
+
+The Battle-cruiser Fleet, gallantly led by Vice-Admiral Sir David
+Beatty, K.C.B., M.V.O., D.S.O., and admirably supported by the ships of
+the Fifth Battle Squadron under Rear-Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas, M.V.O.,
+fought an action under, at times, disadvantageous conditions, especially
+in regard to light, in a manner that was in keeping with the best
+traditions of the service.
+
+The following extracts from the report of Sir David Beatty give the
+course of events before the Battle Fleet came upon the scene:
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy ships sighted.]
+
+"At 2.20 p.m. reports were received from _Galatea_ (Commodore Edwyn S.
+Alexander-Sinclair, M.V.O., A.D.C.), indicating the presence of enemy
+vessels. The direction of advance was immediately altered to SSE., the
+course for Horn Reef, so as to place my force between the enemy and his
+base.
+
+[Sidenote: The German force.]
+
+"At 2.35 p.m. a considerable amount of smoke was sighted to the
+eastward. This made it clear that the enemy was to the northward and
+eastward, and that it would be impossible for him to round the Horn Reef
+without being brought to action. Course was accordingly altered to the
+eastward and subsequently to north-eastward, the enemy being sighted at
+3.31 p.m. Their force consisted of five battle-cruisers.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle begins at long range.]
+
+"After the first report of the enemy, the 1st and 3rd Light-cruiser
+Squadrons changed their direction, and, without waiting for orders,
+spread to the east, thereby forming a screen in advance of the
+Battle-cruiser Squadrons and 5th Battle Squadron by the time we had
+hauled up to the course of approach. They engaged enemy light-cruisers
+at long range. In the meantime the 2nd Light-cruiser Squadron had come
+in at high speed, and was able to take station ahead of the
+battle-cruisers by the time we turned to ESE., the course on which we
+first engaged the enemy. In this respect the work of the Light-cruiser
+Squadrons was excellent, and of great value.
+
+[Sidenote: Scout reports enemy force considerable.]
+
+"From a report from _Galatea_ at 2.25 p.m. it was evident that the enemy
+force was considerable, and not merely an isolated unit of
+light-cruisers, so at 2.45 p.m. I ordered _Engadine_ to send up a
+seaplane and scout to NNE. This order was carried out very quickly, and
+by 3.8 p.m. a seaplane was well under way; her first reports of the
+enemy were received in _Engadine_ about 3.30 p.m. Owing to clouds it was
+necessary to fly very low, and in order to identify four enemy
+light-cruisers the seaplane had to fly at a height of 900 feet within
+3,000 yards of them, the light-cruisers opening fire on her with every
+gun that would bear.
+
+[Sidenote: Line of battle formed.]
+
+"At 3.30 p.m. I increased speed to 25 knots, and formed line of battle,
+the 2nd Battle-cruiser Squadron forming astern of the 1st Battle-cruiser
+Squadron, with destroyers of the 13th and 9th Flotillas taking station
+ahead. I turned to ESE., slightly converging on the enemy, who were now
+at a range of 23,000 yards, and formed the ships on a line of bearing to
+clear the smoke. The 5th Battle Squadron, who had conformed to our
+movements, were now bearing NNW., 10,000 yards. The visibility at this
+time was good, the sun behind us and the wind SE. Being between the
+enemy and his base, our situation was both tactically and strategically
+good.
+
+[Sidenote: Running fight to southward.]
+
+"At 3.48 p.m. the action commenced at a range of 18,500 yards, both
+forces opening fire practically simultaneously. Course was altered to
+the southward, and subsequently the mean direction was SSE., the enemy
+steering a parallel course distant about 18,000 to 14,500 yards.
+
+"At 4.8 p.m. the 5th Battle Squadron came into action and opened fire at
+a range of 20,000 yards. The enemy's fire now seemed to slacken. The
+destroyer _Landrail_, of 9th Flotilla, who was on our port beam, trying
+to take station ahead, sighted the periscope of a submarine on her port
+quarter. Though causing considerable inconvenience from smoke, the
+presence of _Lydiard_ and _Landrail_ undoubtedly preserved the
+battle-cruisers from closer submarine attack. _Nottingham_ also reported
+a submarine on the starboard beam.
+
+[Sidenote: Destroyers in action.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy torpedo attack frustrated.]
+
+"Eight destroyers of the 13th Flotilla, _Nestor_, _Nomad_, _Nicator_,
+_Narborough_, _Pelican_, _Petard_, _Obdurate_, _Nerissa_, with _Moorsom_
+and _Morris_, of 10th Flotilla, _Turbulent_ and _Termagant_, of the 9th
+Flotilla, having been ordered to attack the enemy with torpedoes when
+opportunity offered, moved out at 4.15 p.m., simultaneously with a
+similar movement on the part of the enemy Destroyers. The attack was
+carried out in the most gallant manner, and with great determination.
+Before arriving at a favorable position to fire torpedoes, they
+intercepted an enemy force consisting of a light-cruiser and fifteen
+destroyers. A fierce engagement ensued at close quarters, with the
+result that the enemy were forced to retire on their battle-cruisers,
+having lost two destroyers sunk, and having their torpedo attack
+frustrated. Our destroyers sustained no loss in this engagement, but
+their attack on the enemy battle-cruisers was rendered less effective,
+owing to some of the destroyers having dropped astern during the fight.
+Their position was therefore unfavorable for torpedo attack.
+
+[Sidenote: Destroyers attack battleships.]
+
+"_Nestor_, _Nomad_, and _Nicator_ pressed home their attack on the
+battle-cruisers and fired two torpedoes at them, being subjected to a
+heavy fire from the enemy's secondary armament. _Nomad_ was badly hit,
+and apparently remained stopped between the lines. Subsequently _Nestor_
+and _Nicator_ altered course to the SE., and in a short time, the
+opposing battle-cruisers having turned 16 points, found themselves
+within close range of a number of enemy battleships. Nothing daunted,
+though under a terrific fire, they stood on, and their position being
+favorable for torpedo attack fired a torpedo at the second ship of the
+enemy line at a range of 3,000 yards. Before they could fire their
+fourth torpedo, _Nestor_ was badly hit and swung to starboard, _Nicator_
+altering course inside her to avoid collision, and thereby being
+prevented from firing the last torpedo. _Nicator_ made good her escape.
+_Nestor_ remained stopped, but was afloat when last seen. _Moorsom_ also
+carried out an attack on the enemy's battle fleet.
+
+[Sidenote: Officers of destroyers commended for gallantry.]
+
+"_Petard_, _Nerissa_, _Turbulent_, and _Termagant_ also pressed home
+their attack on the enemy battle cruisers, firing torpedoes after the
+engagement with enemy destroyers. _Petard_ reports that all her
+torpedoes must have crossed the enemy's line, while _Nerissa_ states
+that one torpedo appeared to strike the rear ship. These destroyer
+attacks were indicative of the spirit pervading His Majesty's Navy, and
+were worthy of its highest traditions. I propose to bring to your notice
+a recommendation of Commander Bingham and other Officers for some
+recognition of their conspicuous gallantry.
+
+[Sidenote: Visibility reduced.]
+
+"From 4.15 to 4.43 p.m. the conflict between the opposing
+battle-cruisers was of a very fierce and resolute character. The 5th
+Battle Squadron was engaging the enemy's rear ships, unfortunately at
+very long range. Our fire began to tell, the accuracy and rapidity of
+that of the enemy depreciating considerably. At 4.18 p.m. the third
+enemy ship was seen to be on fire. The visibility to the north-eastward
+had become considerably reduced, and the outline of the ships very
+indistinct.
+
+[Sidenote: Closing with the enemy's Battle Fleet.]
+
+"At 4.38 p.m. _Southampton_ reported the enemy's Battle Fleet ahead. The
+destroyers were recalled, and at 4.42 p.m. the enemy's Battle Fleet was
+sighted SE. Course was altered 16 points in succession to starboard, and
+I proceeded on a northerly course to lead them towards the Battle Fleet.
+The enemy battle-cruisers altered course shortly afterwards, and the
+action continued. _Southampton_, with the 2nd Light-cruiser Squadron,
+held on to the southward to observe. They closed to within 13,000 yards
+of the enemy Battle Fleet, and came under a very heavy but ineffective
+fire. _Southampton's_ reports were most valuable. The 5th Battle
+Squadron were now closing on an opposite course and engaging the enemy
+battle-cruisers with all guns. The position of the enemy Battle Fleet
+was communicated to them, and I ordered them to alter course 16 points.
+Led by Rear-Admiral Evan-Thomas, in _Barham_, this squadron supported us
+brilliantly and effectively.
+
+"At 4.57 p.m. the 5th Battle Squadron turned up astern of me and came
+under the fire of the leading ships of the enemy Battle Fleet.
+_Fearless_, with the destroyers of 1st Flotilla, joined the
+battle-cruisers, and, when speed admitted, took station ahead.
+_Champion_, with 13th Flotilla, took station on the 5th Battle Squadron.
+At 5 p.m. the 1st and 3rd Light-cruiser Squadrons, which had been
+following me on the southerly course, took station on my starboard bow;
+the 2nd Light-cruiser Squadron took station on my port quarter.
+
+[Sidenote: Weather conditions unfavorable.]
+
+[Sidenote: Following a northerly course.]
+
+[Sidenote: An enemy ship on fire.]
+
+"The weather conditions now became unfavorable, our ships being
+silhouetted against a clear horizon to the westward, while the enemy
+were for the most part obscured by mist, only showing up clearly at
+intervals. These conditions prevailed until we had turned their van at
+about 6 p.m. Between 5 and 6 p.m. the action continued on a northerly
+course, the range being about 14,000 yards. During this time the enemy
+received very severe punishment, and one of their battle-cruisers
+quitted the line in a considerably damaged condition. This came under my
+personal observation, and was corroborated by _Princess Royal_ and
+_Tiger_. Other enemy ships also showed signs of increasing injury. At
+5.5 p.m. _Onslow_ and _Moresby_, who had been detached to assist
+_Engadine_ with the seaplane, rejoined the battle-cruiser squadrons and
+took station on the starboard (engaged) bow of _Lion_. At 5.10 p.m.
+_Moresby_, being 2 points before the beam of the leading enemy ship,
+fired a torpedo at a ship in their line. Eight minutes later she
+observed a hit with a torpedo on what was judged to be the sixth ship in
+the line. _Moresby_ then passed between the lines to clear the range of
+smoke, and rejoined _Champion_. In corroboration of this, _Fearless_
+reports having seen an enemy heavy ship heavily on fire at about 5.10
+p.m., and shortly afterwards a huge cloud of smoke and steam.
+
+[Sidenote: Range of 14,000 yards.]
+
+"At 5.35 p.m. our course was NNE., and the estimated position of the
+Battle Fleet was N. 16 W., so we gradually hauled to the north-eastward,
+keeping the range of the enemy at 14,000 yards. He was gradually hauling
+to the eastward, receiving severe punishment at the head of his line,
+and probably acting on information received from his light-cruisers
+which had sighted and were engaged with the Third Battle-cruiser
+Squadron. Possibly Zeppelins were present also.
+
+[Sidenote: British Battle Fleet sighted.]
+
+"At 5.50 p.m. British cruisers were sighted on the port bow, and at 5.56
+p.m. the leading battleships of the Battle Fleet, bearing north 5 miles.
+I thereupon altered course to east, and proceeded at utmost speed. This
+brought the range of the enemy down to 12,000 yards. I made a report to
+you that the enemy battle-cruisers bore south-east. At this time only
+three of the enemy battle-cruisers were visible, closely followed by
+battleships of the _Koenig_ class.
+
+[Sidenote: Torpedo attack on enemy Battle Fleet.]
+
+"At about 6.5 p.m. _Onslow_, being on the engaged bow of _Lion_, sighted
+an enemy light-cruiser at a distance of 6,000 yards from us, apparently
+endeavoring to attack with torpedoes. _Onslow_ at once closed and
+engaged her, firing 58 rounds at a range of from 4,000 to 2,000 yards,
+scoring a number of hits. _Onslow_ then closed the enemy
+battle-cruisers, and orders were given for all torpedoes to be fired. At
+this moment she was struck amidships by a heavy shell, with the result
+that only one torpedo was fired. Thinking that all his torpedoes had
+gone, the Commanding Officer proceeded to retire at slow speed. Being
+informed that he still had three torpedoes, he closed with the
+light-cruiser previously engaged and torpedoed her. The enemy's Battle
+Fleet was then sighted, and the remaining torpedoes were fired at them
+and must have crossed the enemy's track. Damage then caused _Onslow_ to
+stop.
+
+        "At 7.15 p.m. _Defender_, whose speed had been
+        reduced to 10 knots, while on the disengaged
+        side of the battle-cruisers, by a shell which
+        damaged her foremost boiler, closed _Onslow_
+        and took her in tow. Shells were falling all
+        round them during this operation, which,
+        however, was successfully accomplished. During
+        the heavy weather of the ensuing night the tow
+        parted twice, but was re-secured. The two
+        struggled on together until 1 p.m., 1st June,
+        when _Onslow_ was transferred to tugs."
+
+[Sidenote: Course of the British Battle Fleet.]
+
+On receipt of the information that the enemy had been sighted, the
+British Battle Fleet, with its accompanying cruiser and destroyer force,
+proceeded at full speed on a SE. by S. course to close the
+Battle-cruiser Fleet. During the two hours that elapsed before the
+arrival of the Battle Fleet on the scene the steaming qualities of the
+older battleships were severely tested. Great credit is due to the
+engine-room departments for the manner in which they, as always,
+responded to the call, the whole Fleet maintaining a speed in excess of
+the trial speeds of some of the older vessels.
+
+[Sidenote: The Third Battle-cruiser Squadron.]
+
+The Third Battle-cruiser Squadron, commanded by Rear-Admiral the Hon.
+Horace L.A. Hood, C.B., M.V.O., D.S.O., which was in advance of the
+Battle Fleet, was ordered to reinforce Sir David Beatty. At 5.30 p.m.
+this squadron observed flashes of gunfire and heard the sound of guns to
+the south-westward. Rear-Admiral Hood sent the _Chester_ to investigate,
+and this ship engaged three or four enemy light-cruisers at about 5.45
+p.m. The engagement lasted for about twenty minutes, during which period
+Captain Lawson handled his vessel with great skill against heavy odds,
+and, although the ship suffered considerably in casualties, her fighting
+and steaming qualities were unimpaired, and at about 6.5 p.m. she
+rejoined the Third Battle-cruiser Squadron.
+
+The Third Battle-cruiser Squadron had turned to the north-westward, and
+at 6.10 p.m. sighted our battle-cruisers, the squadron taking station
+ahead of the _Lion_ at 6.21 p.m. in accordance with the orders of the
+Vice-Admiral Commanding Battle-cruiser Fleet. He reports as follows:
+
+[Sidenote: Hood's squadron takes station ahead.]
+
+"I ordered them to take station ahead, which was carried out
+magnificently, Rear-Admiral Hood bringing his squadron into action ahead
+in a most inspiring manner, worthy of his great naval ancestors. At 6.25
+p.m. I altered course to the ESE. in support of the Third Battle-cruiser
+Squadron, who were at this time only 8,000 yards from the enemy's
+leading ship. They were pouring a hot fire into her and caused her to
+turn to the westward of south. At the same time I made a report to you
+of the bearing and distance of the enemy battle-fleet.
+
+[Sidenote: Low visibility hinders both fleets.]
+
+"By 6.50 p.m. the battle-cruisers were clear of our leading battle
+squadron then bearing about NNW. 3 miles, and I ordered the Third
+Battle-cruiser Squadron to prolong the line astern and reduced to 18
+knots. The visibility at this time was very indifferent, not more than 4
+miles, and the enemy ships were temporarily lost sight of. It is
+interesting to note that after 6 p.m., although the visibility became
+reduced, it was undoubtedly more favorable to us than to the enemy. At
+intervals their ships showed up clearly, enabling us to punish them very
+severely and establish a definite superiority over them. From the report
+of other ships and my own observation it was clear that the enemy
+suffered considerable damage, battle-cruisers and battleships alike. The
+head of their line was crumpled up, leaving battleships as targets for
+the majority of our battle-cruisers. Before leaving us the Fifth Battle
+Squadron was also engaging battleships. The report of Rear-Admiral
+Evan-Thomas shows that excellent results were obtained, and it can be
+safely said that his magnificent squadron wrought great execution.
+
+[Sidenote: Light cruisers attack heavy enemy ships.]
+
+"From the report of Rear-Admiral T. D. W. Napier, M.V.O., the Third
+Light-cruiser Squadron, which had maintained its station on our
+starboard bow well ahead of the enemy, at 6.25 p.m. attacked with the
+torpedo. _Falmouth_ and _Yarmouth_ both fired torpedoes at the leading
+enemy battle-cruiser, and it is believed that one torpedo hit, as a
+heavy underwater explosion was observed. The Third Light-cruiser
+Squadron then gallantly attacked the heavy ships with gunfire, with
+impunity to themselves, thereby demonstrating that the fighting
+efficiency of the enemy had been seriously impaired. Rear-Admiral Napier
+deserves great credit for his determined and effective attack.
+_Indomitable_ reports that about this time one of the _Derfflinger_
+class fell out of the enemy's line."
+
+[Sidenote: Ships hard to distinguish in the mist.]
+
+Meanwhile, at 5.45 p.m., the report of guns had become audible to me,
+and at 5.55 p.m. flashes were visible from ahead round to the starboard
+beam, although in the mist no ships could be distinguished, and the
+position of the enemy's battle fleet could not be determined. The
+difference in estimated position by "reckoning" between _Iron Duke_ and
+_Lion_, which was inevitable under the circumstances, added to the
+uncertainty of the general situation.
+
+Shortly after 5.55 p.m. some of the cruisers ahead, under Rear-Admirals
+Herbert L. Heath, M.V.O., and Sir Robert Arbuthnot, Bt., M.V.O., were
+seen to be in action, and reports received show that _Defence_,
+flagship, and _Warrior_, of the First Cruiser Squadron, engaged an enemy
+light-cruiser at this time. She was subsequently observed to sink.
+
+At 6 p.m. _Canterbury_, which ship was in company with the Third
+Battle-cruiser Squadron, had engaged enemy light-cruisers which were
+firing heavily on the torpedo-boat destroyer _Shark_, _Acasta_, and
+_Christopher_; as a result of this engagement the _Shark_ was sunk.
+
+At 6 p.m. vessels, afterwards seen to be our battle-cruisers, were
+sighted by _Marlborough_ bearing before the starboard beam of the battle
+fleet.
+
+At the same time the Vice-Admiral Commanding, Battle-cruiser Fleet,
+reported to me the position of the enemy battle-cruisers, and at 6.14
+p.m. reported the position of the enemy battle fleet.
+
+At this period, when the battle fleet was meeting the battle-cruisers
+and the Fifth Battle Squadron, great care was necessary to ensure that
+our own ships were not mistaken for enemy vessels.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle Fleet in line of battle.]
+
+I formed the battle fleet in line of battle on receipt of Sir David
+Beatty's report, and during deployment the fleets became engaged. Sir
+David Beatty had meanwhile formed the battle-cruisers ahead of the
+battle-fleet.
+
+[Sidenote: Commanders of the divisions of the Battle Fleet.] The
+divisions of the battle fleet were led by:
+
+    The Commander-in-Chief.
+    Vice-Admiral Sir Cecil Burney, K.C.B., K.C.M.G.
+    Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Jerram, K.C.B.
+    Vice-Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee, Bt., K.C.B., C.V.O., C.M.G.
+    Rear-Admiral Alexander L. Duff, C.B.
+    Rear-Admiral Arthur C. Leveson, C.B.
+    Rear-Admiral Ernest F. A. Gaunt, C.M.G.
+
+At 6.16 p.m. _Defence_ and _Warrior_ were observed passing down between
+the British and German Battle Fleets under a very heavy fire. _Defence_
+disappeared, and _Warrior_ passed to rear disabled.
+
+[Sidenote: Arbuthnot's ships disabled.]
+
+It is probable that Sir Robert Arbuthnot, during his engagement with the
+enemy's light-cruisers and in his desire to complete their destruction,
+was not aware of the approach of the enemy's heavy ships, owing to the
+mist, until he found himself in close proximity to the main fleet, and
+before he could withdraw his ships they were caught under a heavy fire
+and disabled. It is not known when _Black Prince_ of the same squadron,
+was sunk, but a wireless signal was received from her between 8 and 9
+p.m.
+
+The First Battle Squadron became engaged during deployment, the
+Vice-Admiral opening fire at 6.17 p.m. on a battleship of the _Kaiser_
+class. The other Battle Squadrons, which had previously been firing at
+an enemy light cruiser, opened fire at 6.30 p.m. on battleships of the
+_Koenig_ class.
+
+[Sidenote: Accident to the _Warspite_.]
+
+At 6.6 p.m. the Rear-Admiral Commanding Fifth Battle Squadron, then in
+company with the battle-cruisers, had sighted the starboard
+wing-division of the battle-fleet on the port bow of _Barham_, and the
+first intention of Rear-Admiral Evan-Thomas was to form ahead of the
+remainder of the battle-fleet, but on realizing the direction of
+deployment he was compelled to form astern, a man[oe]uvre which was well
+executed by the squadron under a heavy fire from the enemy battle-fleet.
+An accident to _Warspite's_ steering gear caused her helm to become
+jammed temporarily and took the ship in the direction of the enemy's
+line, during which time she was hit several times. Clever handling
+enabled Captain Edward M. Phillpotts to extricate his ship from a
+somewhat awkward situation.
+
+Owing principally to the mist, but partly to the smoke, it was possible
+to see only a few ships at a time in the enemy's battle line. Towards
+the van only some four or five ships were ever visible at once. More
+could be seen from the rear squadron, but never more than eight to
+twelve.
+
+[Sidenote: Action at shorter ranges.]
+
+The action between the battle-fleets lasted intermittently from 6.17
+p.m. to 8.20 p.m. at ranges between 9,000 and 12,000 yards, during which
+time the British Fleet made alterations of course from SE. by E. by W.
+in the endeavour to close. The enemy constantly turned away and opened
+the range under cover of destroyer attacks and smoke screens as the
+effect of the British fire was felt, and the alterations of course had
+the effect of bringing the British Fleet (which commenced the action in
+a position of advantage on the bow of the enemy) to a quarterly bearing
+from the enemy battle line, but at the same time placed us between the
+enemy and his bases.
+
+[Sidenote: Wreck of the _Invincible_.]
+
+At 6.55 p.m. _Iron Duke_ passed the wreck of _Invincible_, with Badger
+standing by.
+
+During the somewhat brief periods that the ships of the High Sea Fleet
+were visible through the mist, the heavy and effective fire kept up by
+the battleships and battle-cruisers of the Grand Fleet caused me much
+satisfaction, and the enemy vessels were seen to be constantly hit, some
+being observed to haul out of the line and at least one to sink. The
+enemy's return fire at this period was not effective, and the damage
+caused to our ships was insignificant.
+
+[Sidenote: Course of the Battle Fleet.]
+
+Regarding the battle-cruisers, Sir David Beatty reports:--
+
+"At 7.6 p.m. I received a signal from you that the course of the Fleet
+was south. Subsequently signals were received up to 8.46 p.m. showing
+that the course of the Battle Fleet was to the southwestward.
+
+[Sidenote: Visibility improves.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy destroyers make smoke screen.]
+
+"Between 7 and 7.12 p.m. we hauled round gradually to SW. by S. to
+regain touch with the enemy, and at 7.14 p.m. again sighted them at a
+range of about 15,000 yards. The ships sighted at this time were two
+battle-cruisers and two battleships, apparently of the _Koenig_ class.
+No doubt more continued the line to the northward, but that was all that
+could be seen. The visibility having improved considerably as the sun
+descended below the clouds, we re-engaged at 7.17 p.m. and increased
+speed to 22 knots. At 7.32 p.m. my course was SW., speed 18 knots, the
+leading enemy battleship bearing NW. by W. Again, after a very short
+time, the enemy showed signs of punishment, one ship being on fire,
+while another appeared to drop right astern. The destroyers at the head
+of the enemy's line emitted volumes of grey smoke, covering their
+capital ships as with a pall, under cover of which they turned away, and
+at 7.45 p.m. we lost sight of them.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy steams to westward.]
+
+"At 7.58 p.m. I ordered the First and Third Light-cruiser Squadrons to
+sweep to the westward and locate the head of the enemy's line, and at
+8.20 p.m. we altered course to west in support. We soon located two
+battle-cruisers and battleships, and were heavily engaged at a short
+range of about 10,000 yards. The leading ship was hit repeatedly by
+_Lion_, and turned away eight points, emitting very high flames and with
+a heavy list to port. _Princess Royal_ set fire to a three-funnelled
+battleship. _New Zealand_ and _Indomitable_ report that the third ship,
+which they both engaged, hauled out of the line, heeling over and on
+fire. The mist which now came down enveloped them, and _Falmouth_
+reported they were last seen at 8.38 p.m. steaming to the westward.
+
+[Sidenote: Shock felt.]
+
+"At 8.40 p.m. all our battle-cruisers felt a heavy shock as if struck by
+a mine or torpedo, or possibly sunken wreckage. As however, examination
+of the bottoms reveals no sign of such an occurrence, it is assumed that
+it indicated the blowing up of a great vessel.
+
+"I continued on a south-westerly course with my light cruisers spread
+until 9.24 p.m. Nothing further being sighted, I assumed that the enemy
+were to the north-westward, and that we had established ourselves well
+between him and his base. _Minotaur_ (Captain Arthur C. S. H. D'Aeth)
+was at this time bearing north 5 miles, and I asked her the position of
+the leading battle squadron of the Battle Fleet. Her reply was that it
+was in sight, but was last seen bearing NNE. I kept you informed of my
+position, course, and speed, also of the bearing of the enemy.
+
+[Sidenote: Expectation of locating enemy at daybreak.]
+
+"In view of the gathering darkness, and the fact that our strategical
+position was such as to make it appear certain that we should locate the
+enemy at daylight under most favorable circumstances, I did not consider
+it desirable or proper to close the enemy Battle Fleet during the dark
+hours. I therefore concluded that I should be carrying out your wishes
+by turning to the course of the Fleet, reporting to you that I had done
+so."
+
+[Sidenote: German torpedo attacks ineffective.]
+
+As was anticipated, the German Fleet appeared to rely very much on
+torpedo attacks, which were favored by the low visibility and by the
+fact that we had arrived in the position of a "following" or "chasing"
+fleet. A large number of torpedoes were apparently fired, but only one
+took effect (on _Marlborough_), and even in this case the ship was able
+to remain in the line and to continue the action. The enemy's efforts to
+keep out of effective gun range were aided by the weather conditions,
+which were ideal for the purpose. Two separate destroyer attacks were
+made by the enemy.
+
+[Sidenote: _Marlborough_ hit by a torpedo.]
+
+[Sidenote: Hits on enemy ships.]
+
+The First Battle Squadron, under Vice-Admiral Sir Cecil Burney, came
+into action at 6.17 p.m. with the enemy's Third Battle Squadron, at a
+range of about 11,000 yards, and administered severe punishment, both to
+the battleships and to the battle-cruisers and light-cruisers, which
+were also engaged. The fire of _Marlborough_ was particularly rapid and
+effective. This ship commenced at 6.17 p.m. by firing seven salvoes at a
+ship of the _Kaiser_ class, then engaged a cruiser, and again a
+battleship, and at 6.54 she was hit by a torpedo and took up a
+considerable list to starboard, but we opened at 7.3 p.m. at a cruiser
+and at 7.12 p.m. fired fourteen rapid salvoes at a ship of the _Koenig_
+class, hitting her frequently until she turned out of the line. The
+manner in which this effective fire was kept up in spite of the
+disadvantages due to the injury caused by the torpedo was most
+creditable to the ship and a very fine example to the squadron.
+
+The range decreased during the course of the action to 9,000 yards. The
+First Battle Squadron received more of the enemy's return fire than the
+remainder of the battle-fleet, with the exception of the Fifth Battle
+Squadron. _Colossus_ was hit, but was not seriously damaged, and other
+ships were straddled with fair frequency.
+
+[Sidenote: Range-taking difficult.]
+
+In the Fourth Battle Squadron--in which squadron my flagship _Iron Duke_
+was placed--Vice-Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee leading one of the
+divisions--the enemy engaged was the squadron consisting of the _Koenig_
+and _Kaiser_ class and some of the battle-cruisers, as well as disabled
+cruisers and light-cruisers. The mist rendered range-taking a difficult
+matter, but the fire of the squadron was effective. _Iron Duke_, having
+previously fired at a light-cruiser between the lines, opened fire at
+6.30 p.m. on a battleship of the _Koenig_ class at a range of 12,000
+yards. The latter was very quickly straddled, and hitting commenced at
+the second salvo and only ceased when the target ship turned away.
+
+[Sidenote: Firing at enemy battle cruisers.] The fire of other ships of
+the squadron was principally directed at enemy battle-cruisers and
+cruisers as they appeared out of the mist. Hits were observed to take
+effect on several ships.
+
+The ships of the Second Battle Squadron, under Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas
+Jerram, were in action with vessels of the _Kaiser_ or _Koenig_ classes
+between 6.30 and 7.20 p.m., and fired also at an enemy battle-cruiser
+which had dropped back apparently severely damaged.
+
+During the action between the battle fleets the Second Cruiser Squadron,
+ably commanded by Rear-Admiral Herbert L. Heath, M.V.O., with the
+addition of _Duke of Edinburgh_ of the First Cruiser Squadron, occupied
+a position at the van, and acted as a connecting link between the battle
+fleet and the battle-cruiser fleet. This squadron, although it carried
+out useful work, did not have an opportunity of coming into action.
+
+The attached cruisers _Boadicea_, _Active_, _Blanche_ and _Bellona_
+carried out their duties as repeating-ships with remarkable rapidity and
+accuracy under difficult conditions.
+
+[Sidenote: Light cruisers attack with torpedoes.]
+
+The Fourth Light-cruiser Squadron, under Commodore Charles E. Le
+Mesurier, occupied a position in the van until ordered to attack enemy
+destroyers at 7.20 p.m., and again at 8.18 p.m., when they supported the
+Eleventh Flotilla, which had moved out under Commodore James R. P.
+Hawksley, M.V.O., to attack. On each occasion the Fourth Light-cruiser
+Squadron was very well handled by Commodore Le Mesurier, his captains
+giving him excellent support, and their object was attained, although
+with some loss in the second attack, when the ships came under the heavy
+fire of the enemy battle fleet at between 6,500 and 8,000 yards. The
+_Calliope_ was hit several times, but did not sustain serious damage,
+although I regret to say she had several casualties. The light-cruisers
+attacked the enemy's battleships with torpedoes at this time, and an
+explosion on board a ship of the _Kaiser_ class was seen at 8.40 p.m.
+
+During these destroyer attacks four enemy torpedo-boat destroyers were
+sunk by the gunfire of battleships, light-cruisers, and destroyers.
+
+After the arrival of the British Battle Fleet the enemy's tactics were
+of a nature generally to avoid further action, in which they were
+favored by the conditions of visibility.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy entirely out of sight.]
+
+At 9 p.m. the enemy was entirely out of sight, and the threat of
+torpedo-boat-destroyer attacks during the rapidly approaching darkness
+made it necessary for me to dispose the fleet for the night, with a view
+to its safety from such attacks, whilst providing for a renewal of
+action at daylight. I accordingly man[oe]uvred to remain between the
+enemy and his bases, placing our flotillas in a position in which they
+would afford protection to the fleet from destroyer attack, and at the
+same time be favorably situated for attacking the enemy's heavy ships.
+
+During the night the British heavy ships were not attacked, but the
+Fourth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Flotillas, under Commodore Hawksley and
+Captains Charles J. Wintour and Anselan J. B. Stirling, delivered a
+series of very gallant and successful attacks on the enemy, causing him
+heavy losses.
+
+[Sidenote: Severe losses in the Fourth Flotilla.]
+
+It was during these attacks that severe losses in the Fourth Flotilla
+occurred, including that of _Tipperary_, with the gallant leader of the
+Flotilla, Captain Wintour. He had brought his flotilla to a high pitch
+of perfection, and although suffering severely from the fire of the
+enemy, a heavy toll of enemy vessels was taken, and many gallant actions
+were performed by the flotilla.
+
+Two torpedoes were seen to take effect on enemy vessels as the result of
+the attacks of the Fourth Flotilla, one being from _Spitfire_, and the
+other from either _Ardent_, _Ambuscade_, or _Garland_.
+
+[Sidenote: An enemy ship torpedoed.]
+
+The attack carried out by the Twelfth Flotilla was admirably executed.
+The squadron attacked, which consisted of six large vessels, besides
+light-cruisers, and comprised vessels of the _Kaiser_ class, was taken
+by surprise. A large number of torpedoes was fired, including some at
+the second and third ships in the line; those fired at the third ship
+took effect, and she was observed to blow up. A second attack, made
+twenty minutes later by _Maenad_ on the five vessels still remaining,
+resulted in the fourth ship in the line being also hit.
+
+The destroyers were under a heavy fire from the light-cruisers on
+reaching the rear of the line, but the _Onslaught_ was the only vessel
+which received any material injuries. In the _Onslaught_ Sub-Lieutenant
+Harry W. A. Kemmis, assisted by Midshipman Reginald G. Arnot, R.N.R.,
+the only executive officers not disabled, brought the ship successfully
+out of action and reached her home port.
+
+During the attack carried out by the Eleventh Flotilla, _Castor_ leading
+the flotilla, engaged and sank an enemy torpedo-boat-destroyer at
+point-blank range.
+
+Sir David Beatty reports:--
+
+[Sidenote: Engaging enemy destroyers.]
+
+"The Thirteenth Flotilla, under the command of Captain James U. Farie,
+in _Champion_, took station astern of the battle fleet for the night. At
+0.30 a.m. on Thursday, 1st June, a large vessel crossed the rear of the
+flotilla at high speed. She passed close to _Petard_ and _Turbulent_,
+switched on searchlights and opened a heavy fire, which disabled
+_Turbulent_. At 3.30 a.m. _Champion_ was engaged for a few minutes with
+four enemy destroyers. _Moresby_ reports four ships of _Deutschland_
+class sighted at 2.35 a.m., at whom she fired one torpedo. Two minutes
+later an explosion was felt by _Moresby_ and _Obdurate_.
+
+[Sidenote: Battleship of the _Kaiser_ class alone.]
+
+"_Fearless_ and the 1st Flotilla were very usefully employed as a
+submarine screen during the earlier part of the 31st May. At 6.10 p.m.,
+when joining the Battle Fleet, _Fearless_ was unable to follow the
+battle cruisers without fouling the battleships, and therefore took
+station at the rear of the line. She sighted during the night a
+battleship of the _Kaiser_ class steaming fast and entirely alone. She
+was not able to engage her, but believes she was attacked by destroyers
+further astern. A heavy explosion was observed astern not long after."
+
+[Sidenote: Deeds of the destroyers.]
+
+There were many gallant deeds performed by the destroyer flotillas; they
+surpassed the very highest expectations that I had formed of them.
+
+Apart from the proceedings of the flotillas, the Second Light-cruiser
+Squadron in the rear of the battle fleet was in close action for about
+15 minutes at 10.20 p.m. with a squadron comprising one enemy cruiser
+and four light-cruisers, during which period _Southampton_ and _Dublin_
+suffered rather heavy casualties, although their steaming and fighting
+qualities were not impaired. The return fire of the squadron appeared to
+be very effective.
+
+_Abdiel_, ably commanded by Commander Berwick Curtis, carried out her
+duties with the success which has always characterized her work.
+
+[Sidenote: The Battle Fleet searches for enemy vessels.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Marlborough_ sent to a base.]
+
+[Sidenote: The enemy had returned into port.]
+
+At daylight, 1st June, the battle fleet, being then to the southward and
+westward of the Horn Reef, turned to the northward in search of enemy
+vessels and for the purpose of collecting our own cruisers and
+torpedo-boat destroyers. At 2.30 a.m. Vice-Admiral Sir Cecil Burney
+transferred his flag from _Marlborough_ to _Revenge_, as the former ship
+had some difficulty in keeping up the speed of the squadron.
+_Marlborough_ was detached by my direction to a base, successfully
+driving off an enemy submarine attack en route. The visibility early on
+1st June (three to four miles) was less than on 31st May, and the
+torpedo-boat destroyers, being out of visual touch, did not rejoin until
+9 a.m. The British Fleet remained in the proximity of the battle-field
+and near the line of approach to German ports until 11 a.m. on 1st June,
+in spite of the disadvantage of long distances from fleet bases and the
+danger incurred in waters adjacent to enemy coasts from submarines and
+torpedo craft. The enemy, however, made no sign, and I was reluctantly
+compelled to the conclusion that the High Sea Fleet had returned into
+port. Subsequent events proved this assumption to have been correct. Our
+position must have been known to the enemy, as at 4 a.m. the Fleet
+engaged a Zeppelin for about five minutes, during which time she had
+ample opportunity to note and subsequently report the position and
+course of the British Fleet.
+
+[Sidenote: Large amount of wreckage.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Warrior_ evidently foundered.]
+
+The waters from the latitude of the Horn Reef to the scene of the action
+were thoroughly searched, and some survivors from the destroyers
+_Ardent_, _Fortune_, and _Tipperary_ were picked up, and the
+_Sparrowhawk_, which had been in collision and was no longer seaworthy,
+was sunk after her crew had been taken off. A large amount of wreckage
+was seen, but no enemy ships, and at 1.15 p.m., it being evident that
+the German Fleet had succeeded in returning to port, course was shaped
+for our bases, which were reached without further incident on Friday,
+2nd June. A cruiser squadron was detached to search for _Warrior_, which
+vessel had been abandoned whilst in tow of _Engadine_ on her way to the
+base owing to bad weather setting in and the vessel becoming
+unseaworthy, but no trace of her was discovered, and a further
+subsequent search by a light-cruiser squadron having failed to locate
+her, it is evident that she foundered.
+
+[Sidenote: Low visibility hinders accurate report of damage.]
+
+The conditions of low visibility under which the day action took place
+and the approach of darkness enhance the difficulty of giving an
+accurate report of the damage inflicted or the names of the ships sunk
+by our forces, but after a most careful examination of the evidence of
+all officers, who testified to seeing enemy vessels actually sink, and
+personal interviews with a large number of these officers, I am of
+opinion that the list shown in the enclosure gives the minimum in regard
+to numbers, though it is possibly not entirely accurate as regards the
+particular class of vessel, especially those which were sunk during the
+night attacks. In addition to the vessels sunk, it is unquestionable
+that many other ships were very seriously damaged by gunfire and by
+torpedo attack.
+
+[Sidenote: British ships lost in the battle.]
+
+I deeply regret to report the loss of H.M. ships:
+
+    1. _Queen Mary_, Battle-cruiser, 27,000 tons.
+    2. _Indefatigable_, Battle-cruiser, 18,750 tons.
+    3. _Invincible_, Battle-cruiser, 17,250 tons.
+    4. _Defence_, Armored cruiser, 14,600 tons.
+    5. _Black Prince_, Armored cruiser, 13,550 tons.
+    6. _Warrior_, Armored cruiser, 13,550 tons.
+    7. _Tipperary_, Destroyer, 1,430 tons.
+    8. _Ardent_, Destroyer, 935 tons.
+    9. _Fortune_, Destroyer, 935 tons.
+    10. _Shark_, Destroyer, 935 tons.
+    11. _Sparrowhawk_, Destroyer, 935 tons.
+    12. _Nestor_, Destroyer, 1,000 tons.
+    13. _Nomad_, Destroyer, 1,000 tons.
+    14. _Turbulent_, Destroyer, 1,430 tons.
+    Total, 113,300 tons;
+
+[Sidenote: Distinguished officers who went down.]
+
+[Sidenote: Gallantry of officers and men.]
+
+and still more do I regret the resultant heavy loss of life. The death
+of such gallant and distinguished officers as Rear-Admiral Sir Robert
+Arbuthnot, Bart., Rear-Admiral the Hon. Horace Hood, Captain Charles F.
+Sowerby, Captain Cecil I. Prowse, Captain Arthur L. Cay, Captain Thomas
+P. Bonham, Captain Charles J. Wintour, and Captain Stanley V. Ellis, and
+those who perished with them, is a serious loss to the navy and to the
+country. They led officers and men who were equally gallant, and whose
+death is mourned by their comrades in the Grand Fleet. They fell doing
+their duty nobly, a death which they would have been the first to
+desire.
+
+[Sidenote: Fighting qualities of the enemy.]
+
+The enemy fought with the gallantry that was expected of him. We
+particularly admired the conduct of those on board a disabled German
+light-cruiser which passed down the British line shortly after
+deployment, under a heavy fire, which was returned by the only gun left
+in action.
+
+[Sidenote: Heroism of the wounded.]
+
+The conduct of officers and men throughout the day and night actions was
+entirely beyond praise. No words of mine could do them justice. On all
+sides it is reported to me that the glorious traditions of the past were
+most worthily upheld--whether in heavy ships, cruisers, light-cruisers,
+or destroyers--the same admirable spirit prevailed. Officers and men
+were cool and determined, with a cheeriness that would have carried them
+through anything. The heroism of the wounded was the admiration of all.
+
+I cannot adequately express the pride with which the spirit of the Fleet
+filled me.
+
+[Sidenote: Work of the engine room department.]
+
+[Sidenote: No failures in material.]
+
+Details of the work of the various ships during action have now been
+given. It must never be forgotten, however, that the prelude to action
+is the work of the engine-room department, and that during action the
+officers and men of that department perform their most important duties
+without the incentive which a knowledge of the course of the action
+gives to those on deck. The qualities of discipline and endurance are
+taxed to the utmost under these conditions, and they were, as always,
+most fully maintained throughout the operations under review. Several
+ships attained speeds that had never before been reached, thus showing
+very clearly their high state of steaming efficiency. Failures in
+material were conspicuous by their absence, and several instances are
+reported of magnificent work on the part of the engine-room departments
+of injured ships.
+
+[Sidenote: Valuable work of artisans.]
+
+The artisan ratings also carried out much valuable work during and after
+the action; they could not have done better.
+
+[Sidenote: Success of the medical officers.]
+
+The work of the medical officers of the Fleet, carried out very largely
+under the most difficult conditions, was entirely admirable and
+invaluable. Lacking in many cases all the essentials for performing
+critical operations, and with their staff seriously depleted by
+casualties, they worked untiringly and with the greatest success. To
+them we owe a deep debt of gratitude.
+
+[Sidenote: Ships that sustained hardest fighting.]
+
+It will be seen that the hardest fighting fell to the lot of the
+Battle-cruiser Fleet (the units of which were less heavily armored than
+their opponents), the Fifth Battle Squadron, the First Cruiser Squadron,
+Fourth Light-cruiser Squadron, and the Flotillas. This was inevitable
+under the conditions and the squadrons and Flotillas mentioned, as well
+as the individual vessels composing them, were handled with conspicuous
+ability, as were also the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Squadrons of the Battle
+Fleet and the 2nd Cruiser Squadron.
+
+I desire to place on record my high appreciation of the manner in which
+all the vessels were handled. The conditions were such as to call for
+great skill and ability, quick judgment and decisions, and this was
+conspicuous throughout the day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The campaigns carried on by Italy against Austria were, as had been
+noted in a former chapter, among the most difficult of the war. The
+Italian troops fighting with the greatest gallantry in a mountainous
+and, in places, an impassable country, continued to capture Austrian
+fortified places, along the entire Isonzo front. One of the most daring
+and most brilliant of their exploits is told in the following pages.
+
+
+
+
+TAKING THE COL DI LANA
+
+LEWIS R. FREEMAN
+
+Copyright, World's Work, June, 1917.
+
+
+[Sidenote: A hot wind from the Mediterranean.]
+
+[Sidenote: Thaw and avalanches in the Alps.]
+
+Once or twice in every winter a thick, sticky, hot wind from somewhere
+on the other side of the Mediterranean breathes upon the snow and
+ice-locked Alpine valleys the breath of a false springtime. The Swiss
+guides, if I remember correctly, call it by a name which is pronounced
+as we do the word _fun_; but the incidence of such a wind means to them
+anything but what that signifies in English. To them--to all in the
+Alps, indeed--a spell of _fun_ weather means thaw, and thaw means
+avalanches; avalanches, too, at a time of the year when there is so much
+snow that the slides are under constant temptation to abandon their
+beaten tracks and gouge out new and unexpected channels for themselves.
+It is only the first-time visitor to the Alps who bridles under the
+Judas kiss of the wind called _fun_.
+
+[Sidenote: A hot wind in January.]
+
+It was on an early January day of one of these treacherous hot winds
+that I was motored up from the plain of Venezia to a certain sector of
+the Italian Alpine front, a sector almost as important strategically as
+it is beautiful scenically. What twelve hours previously had been a
+flint-hard, ice-paved road had dissolved to a river of soft slush, and
+one could sense rather than see the ominous premonitory twitchings in
+the lowering snow-banks as the lapping of the hot moist air relaxed the
+brake of the frost which had held them on the precipitous mountain
+sides. Every stretch where the road curved to the embrace of cliff or
+shelving valley wall was a possible ambush, and we slipped by them with
+muffled engine and hushed voices.
+
+[Sidenote: Skirting a lake.]
+
+Toward the middle of the short winter afternoon the gorge we had been
+following opened out into a narrow valley, and straight over across the
+little lake which the road skirted, reflected in the shimmering sheet of
+steaming water that the thaw was throwing out across the ice, was a
+vivid white triangle of towering mountain. A true granite Alp among the
+splintered Dolomites--a fortress among cathedrals--it was the
+outstanding, the dominating feature in a panorama which I knew from my
+map was made up of the mountain chain along which wriggled the
+interlocked lines of the Austro-Italian battle front.
+
+"Plainly a peak with a personality," I said to the officer at my side.
+"What is it called?"
+
+[Sidenote: The Col di Lana an important position.]
+
+"It's the Col di Lana," was the reply; "the mountain Colonel 'Peppino'
+Garibaldi took in a first attempt and Gelasio Caetani, the
+Italo-American mining engineer, afterward blew up and captured
+completely. It is one of the most important positions on our whole
+front, for whichever side holds it not only effectually blocks the
+enemy's advance, but has also an invaluable sally-port from which to
+launch his own. We simply _had_ to have it, and it was taken in what was
+probably the only way humanly possible. It's Colonel Garibaldi's
+headquarters, by the way, where we put up to-night and to-morrow;
+perhaps you can get him to tell you the story." . . .
+
+[Sidenote: The story of the Col di Lana.]
+
+By the light of a little spirit lamp and to the accompaniment of a
+steady drip of eaves and the rumble of distant avalanches of falling
+snow, Colonel Garibaldi, that evening, told me "the story:"
+
+[Sidenote: _Legion Italienne_ withdrawn]
+
+"The fighting that fell to the lot of the _Legion Italienne_ in January,
+1915, reduced its numbers to such an extent that it had to be withdrawn
+to rest and reform. Before it was in condition to take the field again,
+our country had taken the great decision and we were disbanded to go
+home and fight for Italy. Here--principally because it was thought best
+to incorporate the men in the units to which they (by training or
+residence) really belonged--it was found impracticable to maintain the
+integrity of the fourteen battalions--about 14,000 men in all--we had
+formed in France, and, as a consequence, the _Legion Italienne_ ceased
+to exist except as a glorious memory. We five surviving Garibaldi were
+given commissions in a brigade of Alpini that is a 'lineal descendant'
+of the famous _Cacciatore_ formed by my grandfather in 1859, and led by
+him against the Austrians in the war in which, with the aid of the
+French, we redeemed Lombardy for Italy.
+
+[Sidenote: Defensive and offensive advantages of the peak.]
+
+[Sidenote: Bitter struggle for the Col di Lana.]
+
+"In July I was given command of a battalion occupying a position at the
+foot of the Col di Lana. Perhaps you saw from the lake, as you came up,
+the commanding position of this mountain. If so, you will understand its
+supreme importance to us, whether for defensive or offensive purposes.
+Looking straight down the Cordevole Valley toward the plains of Italy,
+it not only furnished the Austrians an incomparable observation post,
+but also stood as an effectual barrier against any advance of our own
+toward the Livinallongo Valley and the important Pordoi Pass. We needed
+it imperatively for the safety of any line we established in this
+region; and just as imperatively would we need it when we were ready to
+push the Austrians back. Since it was just as important for the
+Austrians to maintain possession of this great natural fortress as it
+was for us to take it away from them, you will understand how it came
+about that the struggle for the Col di Lana was perhaps the bitterest
+that has yet been waged for any one point on the Alpine front.
+
+[Sidenote: The Alpini get a foothold.]
+
+[Sidenote: Col. Garibaldi takes command.]
+
+"Early in July, under cover of our guns to the south and east, the
+Alpini streamed down from the Cima di Falzarego and Sasso di Stria,
+which they had occupied shortly before, and secured what was at first
+but a precarious foothold on the stony lower eastern slope of the Col di
+Lana. Indeed, it was little more than a toe-hold at first; but the
+never-resting Alpini soon dug themselves in and became firmly
+established. It was to the command of this battalion of Alpini that I
+came on the 12th of July, after being given to understand that my work
+was to be the taking of the Col di Lana regardless of cost.
+
+[Sidenote: Scientific man-saving needed.]
+
+"This was the first time that I--or any other Garibaldi, for that matter
+(my grandfather, with his 'Thousand,' took Sicily from fifty times that
+number of Bourbon soldiers) had ever had enough, or even the promise of
+enough, men to make that 'regardless of cost' formula much more than a
+hollow mockery. But it is not in a Garibaldi to sacrifice men for any
+object whatever if there is any possible way of avoiding it. The period
+of indiscriminate frontal attacks had passed even before I left France,
+and ways were already being devised--mostly mining and better artillery
+protection--to make assaults less costly. Scientific 'man-saving,' in
+which my country has since made so much progress, was then in its
+infancy on the Italian front.
+
+[Sidenote: Out-gunned by the Austrians.]
+
+[Sidenote: First time of gallery-barracks.]
+
+"I found many difficulties in the way of putting into practice on the
+Col di Lana the man-saving theories I had seen in process of development
+in the Argonne. At that time the Austrians--who had appreciated the
+great importance of that mountain from the outset--had us heavily
+out-gunned while mining in the hard rock was too slow to make it worth
+while until some single position of crucial value hung in the balance.
+So--well, I simply did the best I could under the circumstances. The
+most I could do was to give my men as complete protection as possible
+while they were not fighting, and this end was accomplished by
+establishing them in galleries cut out of the solid rock. This was, I
+believe, the first time the 'gallery-barracks'--now quite the rule at
+all exposed points--were used on the Italian front.
+
+[Sidenote: Working under heavy fire.]
+
+"There was no other way in the beginning but to drive the enemy off the
+Col di Lana trench by trench, and this was the task I set myself to
+toward the end of July. What made the task an almost prohibitive one was
+the fact that the Austrian guns from Corte and Cherz--which we were in
+no position to reduce to silence--were able to rake us unmercifully.
+Every move we made during the next nine months was carried out under
+their fire, and there is no use in denying that we suffered heavily. I
+used no more men than I could possibly help using, and the Higher
+Command was very generous in the matter of reserves, and even in
+increasing the strength of the force at my disposal as we gradually got
+more room to work in. By the end of October my original command of a
+battalion had been increased largely.
+
+[Sidenote: Austrians hold one side and summit.]
+
+[Sidenote: Austrian position seems impregnable.]
+
+"The Austrians made a brave and skilful defense, but the steady pressure
+we were bringing to bear on them gradually forced them back up the
+mountain. By the first week in November we were in possession of three
+sides of the mountain, while the Austrians held the fourth side and--but
+most important of all--the summit. The latter presented a sheer wall of
+rock, more than 200 metres high, to us from any direction we were able
+to approach it, and on the crest of this cliff--the only point exposed
+to our artillery fire--the enemy had a cunningly concealed machine-gun
+post served by fourteen men. Back and behind, under shelter in a rock
+gallery, was a reserve of 200 men, who were expected to remain safely
+under cover during a bombardment and then sally forth to any infantry
+attack that might follow it. The handful in the machine-gun post, it was
+calculated, would be sufficient, and more than sufficient, to keep us
+from scaling the cliff before their reserves came up to support them;
+and so they would have been if there had been _only_ an infantry attack
+to reckon with. It failed to allow sufficiently, however, for the weight
+of the artillery we were bringing up, and the skill of our gunners. The
+apparent impregnability of the position was really its undoing.
+
+[Sidenote: Machine-gun post key position.]
+
+"This cunningly conceived plan of defense I had managed to get a pretty
+accurate idea of--no matter how--and I laid my own plans accordingly.
+All the guns I could get hold of I had emplaced in positions most
+favorable for concentrating on the real key to the summit--the exposed
+machine-gun post on the crown of the cliff--with the idea, if possible,
+of destroying men and guns completely, or, failing in that, at least to
+render it untenable for the reserves who would try to rally to its
+defense.
+
+[Sidenote: The Alpino thoroughly dependable.]
+
+"We had the position ranged to an inch, and so, fortunately, lost no
+time in 'feeling' for it. This, with the surprise incident to it, was
+perhaps the principal element in our success; for the plan--at least so
+far as _taking_ the summit was concerned--worked out quite as perfectly
+in action as upon paper. That is the great satisfaction of working with
+the Alpino, by the way: he is so sure, so dependable, that the 'human
+fallibility' element in a plan (always the most uncertain quantity) is
+practically eliminated.
+
+[Sidenote: Alpini scale the cliff.]
+
+"It is almost certain that our sudden gust of concentrated gunfire
+snuffed out the lives of all the men in the machine-gun post before
+they had time to send word of our developing infantry attack to the
+reserves in the gallery below. At any rate, these latter made no attempt
+whatever to swarm up to the defense of the crest, even after our
+artillery fire ceased. The consequence was that the 120 Alpini I sent to
+scale the cliff reached the top with only three casualties, these
+probably caused by rolling rocks or flying rock fragments. The Austrians
+in their big 'funk-hole' were taken completely by surprise, and 130 of
+them fell prisoners to considerably less than that number of Italians.
+The rest of the 200 escaped or were killed in their flight.
+
+[Sidenote: Difficulties of holding the summit.]
+
+[Sidenote: An Austrian counter-attack.]
+
+"So far it was so good; but, unfortunately, taking the summit and
+holding it were two entirely different matters. No sooner did the
+Austrians discover what had happened than they opened on the summit with
+all their available artillery. We have since ascertained that the fire
+of 120 guns was concentrated upon a space of 100 by 150 metres which
+offered the only approach to cover that the barren summit afforded.
+Fifty of my men, finding shelter in the lee of rocky ledges, remained
+right out on the summit; the others crept over the edge of the cliff and
+held on by their fingers and toes. Not a man of them sought safety by
+flight, though a retirement would have been quite justified, considering
+what a hell the Austrians' guns were making of the summit. The enemy
+counter-attacked at nightfall, but despite superior numbers and the
+almost complete exhaustion of that little band of Alpini heroes, they
+were able to retake only a half of the summit. Here, at a
+ten-metres-high ridge which roughly bisects the _cima_, the Alpini held
+the Austrians, and here, in turn, the latter held the reinforcements
+which I was finally able to send to the Alpini's aid. There, exposed to
+the fire of the guns of either side (and so comparatively safe from
+both), a line was established from which there seemed little probability
+that one combatant could drive the other, at least without a radical
+change from the methods so far employed.
+
+[Sidenote: Idea of blowing up positions.]
+
+"The idea of blowing up positions that cannot be taken otherwise is by
+no means a new one. Probably it dates back almost as far as the
+invention of gunpowder itself. Doubtless, if we only knew of them, there
+have been attempts to mine the Great Wall of China. It was, therefore,
+only natural that, when the Austrians had us held up before a position
+it was vitally necessary we should have, we should begin to consider the
+possibility of mining it as the only alternative. The conception of the
+plan did not necessarily originate in the mind of any one individual,
+however many have laid claim to it. It was the inevitable thing if we
+were not going to abandon striving for our objective.
+
+[Sidenote: Engineering operation of great magnitude.]
+
+"But while there was nothing new in the idea of the mine itself, in
+carrying out an engineering operation of such magnitude at so great an
+altitude and from a position constantly exposed to intense artillery
+fire there were presented many problems quite without precedent. It was
+these problems which gave us pause; but finally, despite the prospect of
+difficulties which we fully realized might at any time become
+prohibitive, it was decided to make the attempt to blow up that portion
+of the summit of the Col di Lana still held by the enemy.
+
+[Sidenote: Gelasio Caetani the engineer.]
+
+"The choice of the engineer for the work was a singularly fortunate one.
+Gelasio Caetani--he is a son of the Duke of Sermoneta--had operated as a
+mining engineer in the American West for a number of years previous to
+the war, and the practical experience gained in California and Alaska
+was invaluable preparation for the great task now set for him. His
+ready resource and great personal courage were also incalculable assets.
+
+[Sidenote: Miners from North America.]
+
+"Well, the tunnel was started about the middle of January, 1916. Some of
+my men--Italians who had hurried home to fight for their country when
+the war started--had had some previous experience with hand and machine
+drills in the mines of Colorado and British Columbia, but the most of
+our labor had to gain its experience as the work progressed. Considering
+this, as well as the difficulty of bringing up material (to say nothing
+of food and munitions), we made very good progress.
+
+[Sidenote: Mining under constant fire.]
+
+[Sidenote: Thirty-eight shells a minute.]
+
+"The worst thing about it all was the fact that it had to be done under
+the incessant fire of the Austrian artillery. I provided for the men as
+best as I could by putting them in galleries, where they were at least
+able to get their rest. When the enemy finally found out what we were up
+to they celebrated their discovery by a steady bombardment which lasted
+for fourteen days without interruption. During a certain forty-two hours
+of that fortnight there was, by actual count, an average of thirty-eight
+shells a minute exploding on our little position.
+
+[Sidenote: Silencing an Austrian battery.]
+
+"We were constantly confronted with new and perplexing problems--things
+which no one had ever been called upon to solve before--most of them in
+connection with transportation. How we contrived to surmount one of
+these I shall never forget. The Austrians had performed a brave and
+audacious feat in emplacing one of their batteries at a certain point,
+the fire from which threatened to make our position absolutely
+untenable. The location of this battery was so cunningly chosen that not
+one of our guns could reach it; and yet we _had_ to silence it--and for
+good--if we were going to go on with our work. The only point from
+which we could fire upon these destructive guns was so exposed that any
+artillery we might be able to mount there could only count on the
+shortest shrift under the fire of the hundred or more 'heavies' that the
+Austrians would be able to concentrate upon it. And yet (I figured),
+well employed, these few minutes might prove enough to do the work in.
+
+[Sidenote: A young giant endeavors to climb with a gun.]
+
+"And then there arose another difficulty. The smallest gun that would
+stand a chance of doing the job cut out for it weighed 120 kilos--about
+265 pounds; this just for the gun alone, with all detachable parts
+removed. But the point where the gun was to be mounted was so exposed
+that there was no chance of rigging up a cable-way, while the incline
+was so steep and rough that it was out of the question to try to drag it
+up with ropes. Just as we were on the verge of giving up in despair, one
+of the Alpini--a man of Herculean frame who had made his living in
+peace-time by breaking chains on his chest and performing other feats of
+strength--came and suggested that he be allowed to carry the gun up on
+his shoulders. Grasping at a straw, I let him indulge in a few 'practice
+man[oe]uvres'; but these only showed that, while the young Samson could
+shoulder and trot off with the gun without great effort, the task of
+lifting himself and his burden from foothold to foothold in the
+crumbling rock of the seventy-degree slope was too much for him.
+
+[Sidenote: Men pull man and gun to position.]
+
+"But out of this failure there came a new idea. Why not let my strong
+man simply support the weight of the gun on his shoulder--acting as a
+sort of ambulant gun-carriage, so to speak--while a line of men pulled
+him along with a rope?
+
+We rigged up a harness to equalize the pull on the broad back, and, with
+the aid of sixteen ordinary men, the feat was accomplished without a
+hitch. I am sorry to say, however, that poor Samson was laid up for a
+spell with racked muscles.
+
+"The gun--with the necessary parts and munition--was taken up in the
+night, and at daybreak it was set up and ready for action. It fired just
+forty shots before the Austrian 'heavies' blew it--and all but one or
+two of its brave crew--to pieces with a rain of high-explosive. But the
+troublesome Austrian battery was put so completely out of action that
+the enemy never thought it worth while to re-emplace it.
+
+[Sidenote: Italians mine and Austrians countermine.]
+
+[Sidenote: The final explosion.]
+
+"That is just a sample of the fantastic things we were doing all of the
+three months that we drove the tunnel under the summit of the Col di
+Lana. The last few weeks were further enlivened by the knowledge that
+the Austrians were countermining against us. Once they drove so near
+that we could feel the jar of their drills, but they exploded their mine
+just a few metres short of where it would have upset us for good and for
+all. All the time work went on until, on the 17th of April, the mine was
+finished, charged, and 'tamped.' That night, while every gun we could
+bring to bear rained shell upon the Austrian position, it was exploded.
+A crater 150 feet in diameter and sixty feet deep engulfed the ridge the
+enemy had occupied, and this our waiting Alpini rushed and firmly held.
+Austrian counterattacks were easily repulsed, and the Col di Lana was at
+last completely in Italian hands."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the late spring and summer of 1916, there was waged in France
+that great series of battles participated in by both British and French
+armies known as the battles of the Somme. Next to the defense of Verdun,
+they formed the most important military operations on the western front
+during that year. These battles are described in the narrative which
+follows.
+
+[Illustration: WESTERN BATTLE FRONT, AUGUST, 1916]
+
+
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME
+
+SIR DOUGLAS HAIG
+
+
+[Sidenote: An offensive summer campaign planned.]
+
+The principle of an offensive campaign during the Summer of 1916 had
+already been decided on by all the Allies. The various possible
+alternatives on the western front had been studied and discussed by
+General Joffre and myself, and we were in complete agreement as to the
+front to be attacked by the combined French and British armies.
+Preparations for our offensive had made considerable progress; but as
+the date on which the attack should begin was dependent on many doubtful
+factors, a final decision on that point was deferred until the general
+situation should become clearer.
+
+[Sidenote: British armies and supplies increasing.]
+
+Subject to the necessity of commencing operations before the Summer was
+too far advanced, and with due regard to the general situation, I
+desired to postpone my attack as long as possible. The British armies
+were growing in numbers and the supply of munitions was steadily
+increasing. Moreover, a very large proportion of the officers and men
+under my command were still far from being fully trained, and the longer
+the attack could be deferred the more efficient they would become. On
+the other hand, the Germans were continuing to press their attacks at
+Verdun, and both there and on the Italian front, where the Austrian
+offensive was gaining ground, it was evident that the strain might
+become too great to be borne unless timely action were taken to relieve
+it. Accordingly, while maintaining constant touch with General Joffre
+in regard to all these considerations, my preparations were pushed on,
+and I agreed, with the consent of his Majesty's Government, that my
+attack should be launched, whenever the general situation required it,
+with as great a force as I might then be able to make available.
+
+[Sidenote: Pressure on Italian front.]
+
+[Sidenote: Heroic French defense at Verdun.]
+
+By the end of May, 1916, the pressure of the enemy on the Italian front
+had assumed such serious proportions that the Russian campaign was
+opened early in June, and the brilliant successes gained by our allies
+against the Austrians at once caused a movement of German troops from
+the western to the eastern front. This, however, did not lessen the
+pressure on Verdun. The heroic defense of our French allies had already
+gained many weeks of inestimable value and had caused the enemy very
+heavy losses; but the strain continued to increase. In view, therefore,
+of the situation in the various theatres of war, it was eventually
+agreed between General Joffre and myself that the combined French and
+British offensive should not be postponed beyond the end of June.
+
+[Sidenote: Objects of new offensive.]
+
+The object of that offensive was threefold:
+
+(i.) To relieve the pressure on Verdun.
+
+(ii.) To assist our allies in the other theatres of war by stopping any
+further transfer of German troops from the western front.
+
+(iii.) To wear down the strength of the forces opposed to us.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy attempts at interference.]
+
+While my final preparations were in progress the enemy made two
+unsuccessful attempts to interfere with my arrangements. The first,
+directed on May 21, 1916, against our positions on the Vimy Ridge, south
+and southeast of Souchez, resulted in a small enemy gain of no strategic
+or tactical importance; and rather than weaken my offensive by involving
+additional troops in the task of recovering the lost ground, I decided
+to consolidate a position in rear of our original line.
+
+[Sidenote: A position lost and retaken.]
+
+The second enemy attack was delivered on June 2, 1916, on a front of
+over one and a half miles from Mount Sorrell to Hooge, and succeeded in
+penetrating to a maximum depth of 700 yards. As the southern part of the
+lost position commanded our trenches, I judged it necessary to recover
+it, and by an attack launched on June 13, 1916, carefully prepared and
+well executed, this was successfully accomplished by the troops on the
+spot.
+
+Neither of these enemy attacks succeeded in delaying the preparations
+for the major operations which I had in view.
+
+These preparations were necessarily very elaborate and took considerable
+time.
+
+[Sidenote: Vast stores accumulated.]
+
+[Sidenote: Shelter and communication facilities prepared.]
+
+Vast stocks of ammunition and stores of all kinds had to be accumulated
+beforehand within a convenient distance of our front. To deal with these
+many miles of new railways--both standard and narrow gauge--and trench
+tramways were laid. All available roads were improved, many others were
+made, and long causeways were built over marshy valleys. Many additional
+dugouts had to be provided as shelter for the troops, for use as
+dressing stations for the wounded, and as magazines for storing
+ammunition, food, water, and engineering material. Scores of miles of
+deep communication trenches had to be dug, as well as trenches for
+telephone wires, assembly and assault trenches, and numerous gun
+emplacements and observation posts.
+
+[Sidenote: Mining operations.]
+
+Important mining operations were undertaken, and charges were laid at
+various points beneath the enemy's lines.
+
+[Sidenote: Water supply insured.]
+
+Except in the river valleys, the existing supplies of water were
+hopelessly insufficient to meet the requirements of the numbers of men
+and horses to be concentrated in this area as the preparations for our
+offensive proceeded. To meet this difficulty many wells and borings were
+sunk, and over one hundred pumping plants were installed. More than one
+hundred and twenty miles of water mains were laid, and everything was
+got ready to insure an adequate water supply as our troops advanced.
+
+[Sidenote: Spirit of the troops.]
+
+Much of this preparatory work had to be done under very trying
+conditions, and was liable to constant interruption from the enemy's
+fire. The weather, on the whole, was bad, and the local accommodations
+totally insufficient for housing the troops employed, who consequently
+had to content themselves with such rough shelter as could be provided
+in the circumstances. All this labor, too, had to be carried out in
+addition to fighting and to the everyday work of maintaining existing
+defenses. It threw a very heavy strain on the troops, which was borne by
+them with a cheerfulness beyond all praise.
+
+[Sidenote: Formidable enemy position on the Somme and the Ancre.]
+
+The enemy's position to be attacked was of a very formidable character,
+situated on a high, undulating tract of ground, which rises to more than
+500 feet above sea level, and forms the watershed between the Somme on
+the one side and the rivers of Southwestern Belgium on the other. On the
+southern face of this watershed, the general trend of which is from
+east-southeast to west-northwest, the ground falls in a series of long
+irregular spurs and deep depressions to the valley of the Somme. Well
+down the forward slopes of this face the enemy's first system of
+defense, starting from the Somme near Curlu, ran at first northward for
+3,000 yards, then westward for 7,000 yards to near Fricourt, where it
+turned nearly due north, forming a great salient angle in the enemy's
+lines.
+
+Some 10,000 yards north of Fricourt the trenches crossed the River
+Ancre, a tributary of the Somme, and, still running northward, passed
+over the summit of the watershed, about Hebuterne and Gommecourt, and
+then down its northern spurs to Arras.
+
+On the 20,000-yard front between the Somme and the Ancre the enemy had a
+strong second system of defense, sited generally on or near the southern
+crest of the highest part of the watershed, at an average distance of
+from 3,000 to 5,000 yards behind his first system of trenches.
+
+[Sidenote: German methods of making position impregnable.]
+
+During nearly two years' preparation he had spared no pains to render
+these defenses impregnable. The first and second systems each consisted
+of several lines of deep trenches, well provided with bomb-proof
+shelters and with numerous communication trenches connecting them. The
+front of the trenches in each system was protected by wire
+entanglements, many of them in two belts forty yards broad, built of
+iron stakes interlaced with barbed wire, often almost as thick as a
+man's finger.
+
+[Sidenote: Veritable fortresses.]
+
+[Sidenote: Machine-gun emplacements.]
+
+The numerous woods and villages in and between these systems of defense
+had been turned into veritable fortresses. The deep cellars, usually to
+be found in the villages, and the numerous pits and quarries common to a
+chalk country were used to provide cover for machine guns and trench
+mortars. The existing cellars were supplemented by elaborate dugouts,
+sometimes in two stories, and these were connected up by passages as
+much as thirty feet below the surface of the ground. The salients in the
+enemy's lines, from which he could bring enfilade fire across his front,
+were made into self-contained forts, and often protected by mine fields,
+while strong redoubts and concrete machine-gun emplacements had been
+constructed in positions from which he could sweep his own trenches
+should these be taken. The ground lent itself to good artillery
+observation on the enemy's part, and he had skillfully arranged for
+cross-fire by his guns.
+
+[Sidenote: A composite system of great strength.]
+
+These various systems of defense, with the fortified localities and
+other supporting points between them, were cunningly sited to afford
+each other mutual assistance and to admit of the utmost possible
+development of enfilade and flanking fire by machine guns and artillery.
+They formed, in short, not merely a series of successive lines, but one
+composite system of enormous depth and strength.
+
+[Sidenote: Many lines prepared in the rear.]
+
+Behind this second system of trenches, in addition to woods, villages,
+and other strong points prepared for defense, the enemy had several
+other lines already completed; and we had learned from aeroplane
+reconnoisance that he was hard at work improving and strengthening these
+and digging fresh ones between them and still further back.
+
+In the area above described, between the Somme and the Ancre, our
+front-line trenches ran parallel and close to those of the enemy, but
+below them. We had good direct observation on his front system of
+trenches and on the various defenses sited on the slopes above us
+between his first and second systems; but the second system itself, in
+many places, could not be observed from the ground in our possession,
+while, except from the air, nothing could be seen of his more distant
+defenses.
+
+[Sidenote: The lines of the Allies.]
+
+North of the Ancre, where the opposing trenches ran transversely across
+the main ridge, the enemy's defenses were equally elaborate and
+formidable. So far as command of ground was concerned we were here
+practically on level terms, but, partly as a result of this, our direct
+observation over the ground held by the enemy was not so good as it was
+further south. On portions of this front the opposing first-line
+trenches were more widely separated from each other, while in the
+valleys to the north were many hidden gun positions from which the enemy
+could develop flanking fire on our troops as they advanced across the
+open.
+
+[Sidenote: Period of active operations.]
+
+The period of active operations dealt with in this dispatch divides
+itself roughly into three phases. The first phase opened with the attack
+of July 1, 1916, the success of which evidently came as a surprise to
+the enemy and caused considerable confusion and disorganization in his
+ranks.
+
+The advantages gained on that date and developed during the first half
+of July may be regarded as having been rounded off by the operations of
+July 14, 1916, and three following days, which gave us possession of the
+southern crest of the main plateau between Delville Wood and
+Bazentin-le-Petit.
+
+[Sidenote: The enemy's efforts to hold the ridge.]
+
+We then entered upon a contest lasting for many weeks, during which the
+enemy, having found his strongest defenses unavailing, and now fully
+alive to his danger, put forth his utmost efforts to keep his hold of
+the main ridge. This stage of the battle constituted a prolonged and
+severe struggle for mastery between the contending armies, in which,
+although progress was slow and difficult, the confidence of our troops
+in their ability to win was never shaken. Their tenacity and
+determination proved more than equal to their task, and by the first
+week in September they had established a fighting superiority that has
+left its mark on the enemy, of which possession of the ridge was merely
+the visible proof.
+
+[Sidenote: The plateau gained.]
+
+[Sidenote: Successes of the French south of the Somme]
+
+The way was then opened for the third phase, in which our advance was
+pushed down the forward slopes of the ridge and further extended on
+both flanks until, from Morval to Thiepval, the whole plateau and a good
+deal of ground beyond were in our possession. Meanwhile our gallant
+allies, in addition to great successes south of the Somme, had pushed
+their advance, against equally determined opposition and under most
+difficult tactical conditions, up the long slopes on our immediate
+right, and were now preparing to drive the enemy from the summit of the
+narrow and difficult portion of the main ridge which lies between the
+Combles Valley and the River Tortille, a stream flowing from the north
+into the Somme just below Peronne.
+
+[Sidenote: Careful artillery preparation.]
+
+Defenses of the nature described could only be attacked with any
+prospect of success after careful artillery preparation. It was
+accordingly decided that our bombardment should begin on June 24, 1916
+and a large force of artillery was brought into action for the purpose.
+
+[Sidenote: Gas discharges.]
+
+Artillery bombardments were also carried out daily at different points
+on the rest of our front, and during the period from June 24 to July 1,
+1916, gas was discharged with good effect at more than forty places
+along our line upon a frontage which in total amounted to over fifteen
+miles. Some seventy raids, too, were undertaken by our infantry between
+Gommecourt and our extreme left north of Ypres during the week preceding
+the attack, and these kept me well informed as to the enemy's
+dispositions, besides serving other useful purposes.
+
+[Sidenote: Attack by the Royal Flying Corps.]
+
+On June 25, 1916, the Royal Flying Corps carried out a general attack on
+the enemy's observation balloons, destroying nine of them, and depriving
+the enemy for the time being of this form of observation.
+
+[Sidenote: British and French co-operate in attack.]
+
+On July 1, 1916, at 7.30 a. m., after a final hour of exceptionally
+violent bombardment, our infantry assault was launched. Simultaneously
+the French attacked on both sides of the Somme, co-operating closely
+with us.
+
+The British main front of attack extended from Maricourt on our right,
+round the salient at Fricourt, to the Ancre in front of St. Pierre
+Divion. To assist this main attack by holding the enemy's reserves and
+occupying his artillery, the enemy's trenches north of the Ancre, as far
+as Serre, inclusive, were to be assaulted simultaneously, while further
+north a subsidiary attack was to be made on both sides of the salient at
+Gommecourt.
+
+[Sidenote: Rawlinson and Allenby.]
+
+I had intrusted the attack on the front from Maricourt to Serre to the
+Fourth Army, under the command of General Sir Henry S. Rawlinson, Bart.,
+K. C. B., K. C. V. O., with five army corps at his disposal. The
+subsidiary attack at Gommecourt was carried out by troops from the army
+commanded by General Sir E. H. H. Allenby, K. C. B.
+
+[Sidenote: Mines exploded under enemy lines.]
+
+[Sidenote: Advance over open ground.]
+
+[Sidenote: Trenches taken near Fricourt.]
+
+Just prior to the attack the mines which had been prepared under the
+enemy's lines were exploded, and smoke was discharged at many places
+along our front. Through this smoke our infantry advanced to the attack
+with the utmost steadiness in spite of the very heavy barrage of the
+enemy's guns. On our right our troops met with immediate success, and
+rapid progress was made. Before midday Montauban had been carried, and
+shortly afterward the Briqueterie, to the east, and the whole of the
+ridge to the west of the village were in our hands. Opposite Mametz part
+of our assembly trenches had been practically leveled by the enemy
+artillery, making it necessary for our infantry to advance to the attack
+across 400 yards of open ground. None the less they forced their way
+into Mametz, and reached their objective in the valley beyond, first
+throwing out a defensive flank toward Fricourt on their left. At the
+same time the enemy's trenches were entered north of Fricourt, so that
+the enemy's garrison in that village was pressed on three sides. Further
+north, though the village of La Boisselle and Ovillers for the time
+being resisted our attack, our troops drove deeply into the German lines
+on the flanks of these strongholds, and so paved the way for their
+capture later.
+
+[Sidenote: Fight for the Leipsic Salient.]
+
+On the spur running south from Thiepval the work known as the Leipsic
+Salient was stormed, and severe fighting took place for the possession
+of the village and its defenses. Here and north of the valley of the
+Ancre, as far as Serre, on the left flank of our attack, our initial
+successes were not sustained. Striking progress was made at many points,
+and parties of troops penetrated the enemy's positions to the outer
+defenses of Grandcourt, and also to Pendant Copse and Serre; but the
+enemy's continued resistance at Thiepval and Beaumont Hamel made it
+impossible to forward reinforcements and ammunition, and in spite of
+their gallant efforts our troops were forced to withdraw during the
+night to their own lines.
+
+[Sidenote: The attack at Gommecourt.]
+
+The subsidiary attack at Gommecourt also forced its way into the enemy's
+positions, but there met with such vigorous opposition that as soon as
+it was considered that the attack had fulfilled its object our troops
+were withdrawn.
+
+[Sidenote: Instructions to General Gough.]
+
+In view of the general situation at the end of the first day's
+operations I decided that the best course was to press forward on a
+front extending from our junction with the French to a point half way
+between La Boisselle and Contalmaison, and to limit the offensive on our
+left for the present to a slow and methodical advance. North of the
+Ancre such preparations were to be made as would hold the enemy to his
+positions and enable the attack to be resumed there later if desirable.
+In order that General Sir Henry Rawlinson might be left free to
+concentrate his attention on the portion of the front where the attack
+was to be pushed home, I also decided to place the operations against
+the front, La Boisselle to Serre, under the command of General Sir
+Hubert de la P. Gough, K. C. B., to whom I accordingly allotted the two
+northern corps of Sir Henry Rawlinson's army. My instructions to Sir
+Hubert Gough were that his army was to maintain a steady pressure on the
+front from La Boisselle to the Serre road and to act as a pivot on which
+our line could swing as our attacks on his right made progress toward
+the north.
+
+[Sidenote: Fricourt to Contalmaison.]
+
+During the succeeding days the attack was continued on these lines. In
+spite of strong counter-attacks on the Briqueterie and Montauban, by
+midday on July 2 our troops had captured Fricourt, and in the afternoon
+and evening stormed Fricourt Wood and the farm to the north. During July
+3 and 4 Bernajay and Caterpillar woods were also captured, and our
+troops pushed forward to the railway north of Mametz. On these days the
+reduction of La Boisselle was completed after hard fighting, while the
+outskirts of Contalmaison were reached on July 5. North of La Boisselle
+also the enemy's forces opposite us were kept constantly engaged, and
+our holding in the Leipsic Salient was gradually increased.
+
+[Sidenote: Result of five days' fighting.]
+
+[Sidenote: Prisoners taken.]
+
+To sum up the results of the fighting of these five days, on a front of
+over six miles, from the Briqueterie to La Boisselle, our troops had
+swept over the whole of the enemy's first and strongest system of
+defense, which he had done his utmost to render impregnable. They had
+driven him back over a distance of more than a mile, and had carried
+four elaborately fortified villages. The number of prisoners passed back
+at the close of July 5, 1916, had already reached the total of
+ninety-four officers and 5,724 other ranks.
+
+[Sidenote: Readjustments and reliefs.]
+
+[Sidenote: Contalmaison and Mametz Wood.]
+
+After the five days' heavy and continuous fighting just described it was
+essential to carry out certain readjustments and reliefs of the forces
+engaged. In normal conditions of enemy resistance the amount of progress
+that can be made at any time without a pause in the general advance is
+necessarily limited. Apart from the physical exhaustion of the attacking
+troops and the considerable distance separating the enemy's successive
+main systems of defense, special artillery preparation was required
+before a successful assault could be delivered. Meanwhile, however,
+local operations were continued in spite of much unfavorable weather.
+The attack on Contalmaison and Mametz Wood was undertaken on July 7,
+1916, and after three days' obstinate fighting, in the course of which
+the enemy delivered several powerful counterattacks, the village and the
+whole of the wood, except its northern border, were finally secured. On
+July 7 also a footing was gained in the other defenses of Ovillers,
+while on July 9, 1916, on our extreme right, Maltz Horn Farm--an
+important point on the spur north of Hardecourt--was secured.
+
+[Sidenote: British troops in Trones Wood.]
+
+A thousand yards north of this farm our troops had succeeded at the
+second attempt in establishing themselves on July 8, 1916, in the
+southern end of Trones Wood. The enemy's positions in the northern and
+eastern parts of this wood were very strong, and no less than eight
+powerful German counterattacks were made here during the next five days.
+In the course of this struggle portions of the wood changed hands
+several times; but we were left eventually, on July 13, 1916, in
+possession of the southern part of it.
+
+[Sidenote: Assault on the German second system of defense.]
+
+Meanwhile Mametz Wood had been entirely cleared of the enemy, and with
+Trones Wood also practically in our possession we were in a position to
+undertake an assault upon the enemy's second system of defense.
+Arrangements were accordingly made for an attack to be delivered at
+daybreak on the morning of July 14, 1916, against a front extending from
+Longueval to Bazentin-le-Petit Wood, both inclusive. Contalmaison Villa,
+on a spur 1,000 yards west of Bazentin-le-Petit Wood, had already been
+captured to secure the left flank of the attack, and advantage had been
+taken of the progress made by our infantry to move our artillery forward
+into new positions. The preliminary bombardment had opened on July 11,
+1916. The opportunities offered by the ground for enfilading the enemy's
+lines were fully utilized, and did much to secure the success of our
+attack.
+
+[Sidenote: A night operation of magnitude.]
+
+In the early hours of July 4, 1916, the attacking troops moved out over
+the open for a distance of from about 1,000 to 1,400 yards, and lined up
+in the darkness just below the crest and some 300 to 500 yards from the
+enemy's trenches. Their advance was covered by strong patrols, and their
+correct deployment had been insured by careful previous preparations.
+The whole movement was carried out unobserved and without touch being
+lost in any case. The decision to attempt a night operation of this
+magnitude with an army, the bulk of which had been raised since the
+beginning of the war, was perhaps the highest tribute that could be paid
+to the quality of our troops. It would not have been possible but for
+the most careful preparation and forethought, as well as thorough
+reconnoissance of the ground, which was, in many cases, made personally
+by divisional, brigade, and battalion commanders and their staffs before
+framing their detailed orders for the advance.
+
+[Sidenote: The assault on July 14.]
+
+The actual assault was delivered at 3.25 a.m. on July 14, 1916, when
+there was just sufficient light to be able to distinguish friend from
+foe at short ranges, and along the whole front attacked our troops,
+preceded by a very effective artillery barrage, swept over the enemy's
+first trenches and on into the defenses beyond.
+
+[Sidenote: Trones Wood cleared of the enemy.]
+
+[Sidenote: Longueval occupied.]
+
+On our right the enemy was driven from his last foothold in Trones Wood,
+and by 8 a.m. we had cleared the whole of it, relieving a body of 170
+men who had maintained themselves all night in the northern corner of
+the wood, although completely surrounded by the enemy. Our position in
+the wood was finally consolidated, and strong patrols were sent out from
+it in the direction of Guillemont and Longueval. The southern half of
+this latter village was already in the hands of the troops who had
+advanced west of Trones Wood. The northern half, with the exception of
+two strong points, was captured by 4 p.m. after a severe struggle.
+
+[Sidenote: The enemy counterattacks.]
+
+In the centre of our attack Bazentin-le-Grand village and wood were also
+gained, and our troops pushing northward captured Bazentin-le-Petit
+village and the cemetery to the east. Here the enemy counterattacked
+twice about midday without success, and again in the afternoon, on the
+latter occasion momentarily reoccupying the northern half of the village
+as far as the church. Our troops immediately returned to the attack and
+drove him out again with heavy losses. To the left of the village
+Bazentin-le-Petit Wood was cleared, in spite of the considerable
+resistance of the enemy along its western edge, where we successfully
+repulsed a counterattack. In the afternoon further ground was gained to
+the west of the wood, and posts were established immediately south of
+Pozieres.
+
+[Sidenote: General Rawlinson employs cavalry.]
+
+The enemy's troops, who had been severely handled in these attacks and
+counterattacks, began to show signs of disorganization, and it was
+reported early in the afternoon that it was possible to advance to High
+Wood. General Rawlinson, who had held a force of cavalry in readiness
+for such an eventuality, decided to employ a part of it. As the fight
+progressed small bodies of this force had pushed forward gradually,
+keeping in close touch with the development of the action, and prepared
+to seize quickly any opportunity that might occur. A squadron now came
+up on the flanks of our infantry, who entered High Wood at about 8 p.m.,
+and, after some hand-to-hand fighting, cleared the whole of the wood
+with the exception of the northern apex. Acting mounted in co-operation
+with the infantry, the cavalry came into action with good effect,
+killing several of the enemy and capturing some prisoners.
+
+[Sidenote: British withdrawn from High Wood.]
+
+On July 15, 1916, the battle still continued, though on a reduced scale.
+Arrow Head Copse, between the southern edge of Trones Wood and
+Guillemont, and Waterlot Farm on the Longueval-Guillemont road, were
+seized, and Delville Wood was captured and held against several hostile
+counterattacks. In Longueval fierce fighting continued until dusk for
+the possession of the two strong points and the orchards to the north of
+the village. The situation in this area made the position of our troops
+in High Wood somewhat precarious, and they now began to suffer numerous
+casualties from the enemy's heavy shelling. Accordingly orders were
+given for their withdrawal, and this was effected during the night of
+July 15-16, 1916, without interference by the enemy. All the wounded
+were brought in.
+
+[Sidenote: Progress toward Pozieres.]
+
+In spite of repeated enemy counterattacks further progress was made on
+the night of July 16, 1916, along the enemy's main second-line trenches
+northwest of Bazentin-le-Petit Wood to within 500 yards of the northeast
+corner of the village of Pozieres, which our troops were already
+approaching from the south.
+
+[Sidenote: Ovillers captured.]
+
+Meanwhile the operations further north had also made progress. Since the
+attack of July 7, 1916, the enemy in and about Ovillers had been pressed
+relentlessly and gradually driven back by incessant bombing attacks and
+local assaults, in accordance with the general instructions I had given
+to General Sir Hubert Gough. On July 16, 1916, a large body of the
+garrison of Ovillers surrendered, and that night and during the
+following day, by a direct advance from the west across No Man's Land,
+our troops carried the remainder of the village and pushed out along the
+spur to the north and eastward toward Pozieres.
+
+[Sidenote: A new line definitely established.]
+
+The results of the operations of July 4, 1916, and subsequent days were
+of considerable importance. The enemy's second main system of defense
+had been captured on a front of over three miles. We had again forced
+him back more than a mile, and had gained possession of the southern
+crest of the main ridge on a front of 6,000 yards. Four more of his
+fortified villages and three woods had been wrested from him by
+determined fighting, and our advanced troops had penetrated as far as
+his third line of defense. In spite of a resolute resistance and many
+counterattacks, in which the enemy had suffered severely, our line was
+definitely established from Maltz Horn Farm, where we met the French
+left, northward along the eastern edge of Trones Wood to Longueval,
+then westward past Bazentin-le-Grand to the northern corner of
+Bazentin-le-Petit and Bazentin-le-Petit Wood, and then westward again
+past the southern face of Pozieres to the north of Ovillers. Posts were
+established at Arrow Head Copse and Waterlot Farm, while we had troops
+thrown forward in Delville Wood and toward High Wood, though their
+position was not yet secure.
+
+[Sidenote: Sir Henry Rawlinson commended.]
+
+I cannot speak too highly of the skill, daring endurance, and
+determination by which these results had been achieved. Great credit is
+due to Sir Henry Rawlinson for the thoroughness and care with which this
+difficult undertaking was planned; while the advance and deployment made
+by night without confusion, and the complete success of the subsequent
+attack, constitute a striking tribute to the discipline and spirit of
+the troops engaged, as well as to the powers of leadership and
+organization of their commanders and staffs.
+
+[Sidenote: Guns and prisoners taken.]
+
+During these operations and their development on the 15th a number of
+enemy guns were taken, making a total capture since July 1, 1916, of
+eight heavy howitzers, four heavy guns, forty-two field and light guns
+and field howitzers, thirty trench mortars, and fifty-two machine guns.
+Very considerable losses had been inflicted on the enemy, and the
+prisoners captured amounted to over 2,000, bringing the total since July
+1, 1916, to over 10,000.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy able to bring up fresh troops.]
+
+There was strong evidence that the enemy forces engaged on the battle
+front had been severely shaken by the repeated successes gained by
+ourselves and our allies; but the great strength and depth of his
+defenses had secured for him sufficient time to bring up fresh troops,
+and he had still many powerful fortifications, both trenches, villages,
+and woods, to which he could cling in our front and on our flanks.
+
+We had, indeed, secured a footing on the main ridge, but only on a front
+of 6,000 yards, and desirous though I was to follow up quickly the
+successes we had won, it was necessary first to widen this front.
+
+[Sidenote: Pozieres and Thiepval still to be carried.]
+
+West of Bazentin-le-Petit the villages of Pozieres and Thiepval,
+together with the whole elaborate system of trenches around, between and
+on the main ridge behind them, had still to be carried. An advance
+further east would, however, eventually turn these defenses, and all
+that was for the present required on the left flank of our attack was a
+steady, methodical, step by step advance as already ordered.
+
+[Sidenote: Salient at Delville, Wood and Longueval.]
+
+On our right flank the situation called for stronger measures. At
+Delville Wood and Longueval our lines formed a sharp salient, from which
+our front ran on the one side westward to Pozieres, and on the other
+southward to Maltz Horn Farm. At Maltz Horn Farm our lines joined the
+French, and the allied front continued still southward to the village of
+Hem, on the Somme.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy's advantages.]
+
+This pronounced salient invited counterattacks by the enemy. He
+possessed direct observation on it all around from Guillemont on the
+southeast to High Wood on the northwest. He could bring a concentric
+fire of artillery, to bear not only on the wood and village, but also on
+the confined space behind, through which ran the French communications
+as well as ours, where great numbers of guns, besides ammunition and
+impediments of all sorts, had necessarily to be crowded together. Having
+been in occupation of this ground for nearly two years, he knew every
+foot of it, and could not fail to appreciate the possibilities of
+causing us heavy loss there by indirect artillery fire; while it was
+evident that, if he could drive in the salient in our line and so gain
+direct observation on the ground behind, our position in that area would
+become very uncomfortable.
+
+[Sidenote: Confidence in the troops]
+
+If there had not been good grounds for confidence that the enemy was not
+capable of driving from this position troops who had shown themselves
+able to wrest it from him, the situation would have been an anxious one.
+In any case it was clear that the first requirement at the moment was
+that our right flank, and the French troops in extension of it, should
+swing up into line with our centre. To effect this, however, strong
+enemy positions had to be captured both by ourselves and by our allies.
+
+[Sidenote: Plateau from Delville Wood to Morval]
+
+[Sidenote: New enemy defenses.]
+
+From Delville Wood the main plateau extends for 4,000 yards
+east-northeast to Les Boeufs and Morval, and for about the same distance
+southeastward to Leuze and Bouleau Woods, which stand above and about
+1,000 yards to the west of Combles. To bring my right up into line with
+the rest of my front it was necessary to capture Guillemont, Falfemont
+Farm, and Leuze Wood, and then Ginchy and Bouleau Woods. These
+localities were naturally very strong, and they had been elaborately
+fortified. The enemy's main second-line system of defense ran in front
+of them from Waterlot Farm, which was already in our hands,
+southeastward to Falfemont Farm, and thence southward to the Somme. The
+importance of holding us back in this area could not escape the enemy's
+notice, and he had dug and wired many new trenches, both in front of and
+behind his original lines. He had also brought up fresh troops, and
+there was no possibility of taking him by surprise.
+
+[Sidenote: Rain and unfavorable ground.]
+
+[Sidenote: Constant haze.]
+
+The task before us was, therefore, a very difficult one and entailed a
+real trial of strength between the opposing forces. At this juncture its
+difficulties were increased by unfavorable weather. The nature of the
+ground limited the possibility of direct observation of our artillery
+fire, and we were consequently much dependent on observation from the
+air. As in that element we had attained almost complete superiority, all
+that we required was a clear atmosphere; but with this we were not
+favored for several weeks. We had rather more rain than is usual in July
+and August, and even when no rain fell there was an almost constant haze
+and frequent low clouds.
+
+[Sidenote: British and French must advance together.]
+
+[Sidenote: Positions the French must capture.]
+
+In swinging up my own right it was very important that the French line
+north of the Somme should be advanced at the same time in close
+combination with the movement of the British troops. The line of
+demarkation agreed on between the French commander and myself ran from
+Maltz Horn Farm due eastward to the Combles Valley and then
+northeastward up that valley to a point midway between Sailly-Saillisel
+and Morval. These two villages had been fixed upon as objectives,
+respectively, of the French left and of my right. In order to advance in
+co-operation with my right, and eventually to reach Sailly-Saillisel,
+our allies had still to fight their way up that portion of the main
+ridge which lies between the Combles Valley on the west and the River
+Tortille on the east. To do so they had to capture, in the first place,
+the strongly fortified villages of Maurepas, Le Forest, Rancourt, and
+Fregicourt, besides many woods and strong systems of trenches. As the
+high ground on each side of the Combles Valley commands the slopes of
+the ridge on the opposite side, it was essential that the advance of the
+two armies should be simultaneous and made in the closest co-operation.
+This was fully recognized by both armies, and our plans were made
+accordingly.
+
+[Sidenote: A pause necessary.]
+
+To carry out the necessary preparations to deal with the difficult
+situation outlined above a short pause was necessary, to enable tired
+troops to be relieved and guns to be moved forward; while at the same
+time old communications had to be improved and new ones made.
+Intrenchments against probable counterattacks could not be neglected,
+and fresh dispositions of troops were required for the new attacks to be
+directed eastward.
+
+[Sidenote: Pressure on whole front.]
+
+It was also necessary to continue such pressure on the rest of our
+front, not only on the Ancre, but further south, as would make it
+impossible for the enemy to devote himself entirely to resisting the
+advance between Delville Wood and the Somme. In addition, it was
+desirable further to secure our hold on the main ridge west of Delville
+Wood by gaining more ground to our front in that direction. Orders were
+therefore issued in accordance with the general considerations explained
+above, and, without relaxing pressure along the enemy's front from
+Delville Wood to the west, preparations for an attack on Guillemont were
+pushed on.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy counterattack on Delville Wood.]
+
+During the afternoon of July 18, 1916, the enemy developed his expected
+counterattack against Delville Wood, after heavy preliminary shelling.
+By sheer weight of numbers, and at very heavy cost, he forced his way
+through the northern and northeastern portion of the wood and into the
+northern half of Longueval, which our troops had cleared only that
+morning. In the southeast corner of the wood he was held up by a gallant
+defense, and further south three attacks on our positions in Waterlot
+Farm failed.
+
+[Sidenote: Progress bought by hard fighting.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy in great strength.]
+
+This enemy attack on Delville Wood marked the commencement of the long,
+closely contested struggle which was not finally decided in our favor
+till the fall of Guillemont on September 3, 1916, a decision which was
+confirmed by the capture of Ginchy six days later. Considerable gains
+were indeed made during this period, but progress was slow, and bought
+only by hard fighting. A footing was established in High Wood on July
+20, 1916, and our line linked up thence with Longueval. A subsequent
+advance by the Fourth Army on July 23, 1916, on a wide front from
+Guillemont to Pozieres found the enemy in great strength all along the
+line, with machine guns and forward troops in shell holes and newly
+constructed trenches well in front of his main defenses. Although ground
+was won, the strength of the resistance experienced showed that the
+hostile troops had recovered from their previous confusion sufficiently
+to necessitate long and careful preparation before further successes on
+any great scale could be secured.
+
+[Sidenote: Two powerful counterattacks.]
+
+An assault delivered simultaneously on this date by General Gough's army
+against Pozieres gained considerable results, and by the morning of July
+25, 1916, the whole of that village was carried, including the cemetery,
+and important progress was made along the enemy's trenches to the
+northeast. That evening, after heavy artillery preparation, the enemy
+launched two more powerful counterattacks, the one directed against our
+new position in and around High Wood and the other delivered from the
+northwest of Delville Wood. Both attacks were completely broken up with
+very heavy losses to the enemy.
+
+[Sidenote: Delville Wood recovered.]
+
+On July 27, 1916, the remainder of Delville Wood was recovered, and two
+days later the northern portion of Longueval and the orchards were
+cleared of the enemy, after severe fighting, in which our own and the
+enemy's artillery were very active.
+
+[Sidenote: Fighting at Guillemont.]
+
+On July 30, 1916, the village of Guillemont and Falfemont Farm to the
+southeast were attacked, in conjunction with a French attack north of
+the Somme. A battalion entered Guillemont, and part of it passed
+through to the far side; but as the battalions on either flank did not
+reach their objectives, it was obliged to fall back, after holding out
+for some hours on the western edge of the village. In a subsequent local
+attack on August 7, 1916, our troops again entered Guillemont, but were
+again compelled to fall back owing to the failure of a simultaneous
+effort against the enemy's trenches on the flanks of the village.
+
+[Sidenote: Dominating enemy positions.]
+
+[Sidenote: Series of French and British attacks.]
+
+The ground to the south of Guillemont was dominated by the enemy's
+positions in and about that village. It was therefore hoped that these
+positions might be captured first, before an advance to the south of
+them in the direction of Falfemont Farm was pushed further forward. It
+had now become evident, however, that Guillemont could not be captured
+as an isolated enterprise without very heavy loss, and, accordingly,
+arrangements were made with the French Army on our immediate right for a
+series of combined attacks, to be delivered in progressive stages, which
+should embrace Maurepas, Falfemont Farm, Guillemont, Leuze Wood, and
+Ginchy.
+
+[Sidenote: Attacks and counterattacks.]
+
+An attempt on August 16, 1916, to carry out the first stage of the
+prearranged scheme met with only partial success, and two days later,
+after a preliminary bombardment lasting thirty-six hours, a larger
+combined attack was undertaken. In spite of a number of enemy
+counterattacks the most violent of which leveled at the point of
+junction of the British with the French, succeeded in forcing our allies
+and ourselves back from a part of the ground won--very valuable progress
+was made, and our troops established themselves in the outskirts of
+Guillemont village and occupied Guillemont Station. A violent
+counterattack on Guillemont Station was repulsed on August 23, 1916, and
+next day further important progress was made on a wide front north and
+east of Delville Wood.
+
+[Sidenote: Advance by bombing and sapping.]
+
+[Sidenote: Progress near Thiepval.]
+
+Apart from the operations already described, others of a minor
+character, yet involving much fierce and obstinate fighting, continued
+during this period on the fronts of both the British armies. Our lines
+were pushed forward wherever possible by means of local attacks and by
+bombing and sapping, and the enemy was driven out of various forward
+positions from which he might hamper our progress. By these means many
+gains were made which, though small in themselves, in the aggregate
+represented very considerable advances. In this way our line was brought
+to the crest of the ridge above Martinpuich, and Pozieres Windmill and
+the high ground north of the village were secured, and with them
+observation over Martinpuich and Courcelette and the enemy's gun
+positions in their neighborhood and around Le Sars. At a later date our
+troops reached the defenses of Mouquet Farm, northwest of Pozieres, and
+made progress in the enemy's trenches south of Thiepval. The enemy's
+counter-attacks were incessant and frequently of great violence, but
+they were made in vain and at heavy cost to him. The fierceness of the
+fighting can be gathered from the fact that one regiment of the German
+Guards Reserve Corps which had been in the Thiepval salient opposite
+Mouquet Farm is known to have lost 1,400 men in fifteen days.
+
+[Sidenote: A general attack.]
+
+The first two days of September, 1916, on both army fronts were spent in
+preparation for a more general attack, which the gradual progress made
+during the preceding month had placed us in a position to undertake. Our
+assault was delivered at 12 noon on September 3, 1916, on a front
+extending from our extreme right to the third enemy trenches on the
+right bank of the Ancre, north of Hamel. Our allies attacked
+simultaneously on our right.
+
+[Sidenote: Guillemont stormed.]
+
+[Sidenote: Counterattacks on Guillemont.]
+
+Guillemont was stormed and at once consolidated, and our troops pushed
+on unchecked to Ginchy and the line of the road running south to Wedge
+Wood. Ginchy was also seized, but here, in the afternoon, we were very
+strongly counterattacked. For three days the tide of attack and
+counterattack swayed backward and forward among the ruined houses of the
+village, till, in the end, for three days more the greater part of it
+remained in the enemy's possession. Three counterattacks made on the
+evening of September 3, 1916, against our troops in Guillemont all
+failed, with considerable loss to the enemy. We also gained ground north
+of Delville Wood and in High Wood, though here an enemy counterattack
+recovered part of the ground won.
+
+On the front of General Gough's army, though the enemy suffered heavy
+losses in personnel, our gain in ground was slight.
+
+[Sidenote: British assault on Falfemont Farm.]
+
+In order to keep touch with the French who were attacking on our right
+the assault on Falfemont Farm on September 3, 1916, was delivered three
+hours before the opening of the main assault. In the impetus of their
+first rush our troops reached the farm, but could not hold it.
+Nevertheless, they pushed on to the north of it, and on September 4,
+1916, delivered a series of fresh assaults upon it from the west and
+north.
+
+[Sidenote: Leuze Wood cleared.]
+
+Ultimately this strongly fortified position was occupied piece by piece,
+and by the morning of September 5, 1916, the whole of it was in our
+possession. Meanwhile further progress had been made to the northeast of
+the farm, where considerable initiative was shown by the local
+commanders. By the evening of the same day our troops were established
+strongly in Leuze Wood, which on the following day was finally cleared
+of the enemy.
+
+[Sidenote: Advance on the right.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy's barrier broken.]
+
+In spite of the fact that most of Ginchy and of High Wood remained in
+the enemy's hands, very noteworthy progress had been made in the course
+of these four days' operations, exceeding anything that had been
+achieved since July 14, 1916. Our right was advanced on a front of
+nearly two miles to an average depth of nearly one mile, penetrating the
+enemy's original second line of defense on this front, and capturing
+strongly fortified positions at Falfemont Farm, Leuze Wood, Guillemont,
+and southeast of Delville Wood, where reached the western outskirts of
+Ginchy. More important than this gain in territory was the fact that the
+barrier which for seven weeks the enemy had maintained against our
+further advance had at last been broken. Over 1,000 prisoners were taken
+and many machine guns captured or destroyed in the course of the
+fighting.
+
+Preparations for a further attack upon Ginchy continued without
+intermission, and at 4.45 p.m. on September 9, 1916, the attack was
+reopened on the whole of the Fourth Army front. At Ginchy and to the
+north of Leuze Wood it met with almost immediate success. On the right
+the enemy's line was seized over a front of more than 1,000 yards from
+the southwest corner of Bouleau Woods, in a northwesterly direction, to
+a point just south of the Guillemont-Morval tramway. Our troops again
+forced their way into Ginchy, and passing beyond it carried the line of
+enemy trenches to the east. Further progress was made east of Delville
+Wood and south and east of High Wood.
+
+[Sidenote: German prisoners taken.]
+
+Over 500 prisoners were taken in the operations of September 9, 1916,
+and following days, making the total since July 1, 1916, over 17,000.
+
+[Sidenote: French progress.]
+
+Meanwhile the French had made great progress on our right, bringing
+their line forward to Louage Wood (just south of Combles)--Le
+Forest-Clery-sur-Somme, all three inclusive. The weak salient in the
+allied line had therefore disappeared and we had gained the front
+required for further operations.
+
+[Sidenote: Ability of new armies.]
+
+[Sidenote: Depth of enemy fortifications.]
+
+[Sidenote: Failure of counterattacks.]
+
+Still more importance, however, lay in the proof afforded by the results
+described of the ability of our new armies, not only to rush the enemy's
+strongest defenses, as had been accomplished on July 1 and 14, 1916, but
+also to wear down and break his power of resistance by a steady,
+relentless pressure, as they had done during the weeks of this fierce
+and protracted struggle. As has already been recounted, the preparations
+made for our assault on July 1, 1916, had been long and elaborate; but
+though the enemy knew that an attack was coming, it would seem that he
+considered the troops already on the spot, secure in their apparently
+impregnable defenses, would suffice to deal with it. The success of that
+assault, combined with the vigor and determination with which our troops
+pressed their advantage, and followed by the successful night attack of
+July 14, 1916, all served to awaken him to a fuller realization of his
+danger. The great depth of his system of fortification, to which
+reference has been made, gave him time to reorganize his defeated
+troops, and to hurry up numerous fresh divisions and more guns. Yet in
+spite of this, he was still pushed back, steadily and continuously.
+Trench after trench and strong point after strong point were wrested
+from him. The great majority of his frequent counterattacks failed
+completely, with heavy loss; while the few that achieved temporary local
+success purchased it dearly, and were soon thrown back from the ground
+they had for the moment regained.
+
+The enemy had, it is true, delayed our advance considerably, but the
+effort had cost him dear; and the comparative collapse of his resistance
+during the last few days of the struggle justified the belief that in
+the long run decisive victory would lie with our troops, who had
+displayed such fine fighting qualities and such indomitable endurance
+and resolution.
+
+[Sidenote: Mouquet Farm in hands of British.]
+
+Practically the whole of the forward crest of the main ridge on a front
+of some 9,000 yards, from Delville Wood to the road above Mouquet Farm,
+was now in our hands, and with it the advantage of observation over the
+slopes beyond. East of Delville Wood, for a further 3,000 yards to Leuze
+Wood, we were firmly established on the main ridge, while further east,
+across the Combles Valley, the French were advancing victoriously on our
+right. But though the centre of our line was well placed, on our flanks
+there was still difficult ground to be won.
+
+[Sidenote: High ground from Ginchy to Morval.]
+
+From Ginchy the crest of the high ground runs northward for 2,000 yards,
+and then eastward, in a long spur, for nearly 4,000 yards. Near the
+eastern extremity of this spur stands the village of Morval commanding a
+wide field of view and fire in every direction. At Leuze Wood my right
+was still 2,000 yards from its objective at this village, and between
+lay a broad and deep branch of the main Combles Valley, completely
+commanded by the Morval spur, and flanked, not only from its head
+northeast of Ginchy, but also from the high ground east of the Combles
+Valley, which looks directly into it.
+
+[Sidenote: The French near Combles.]
+
+Up this high ground beyond the Combles Valley the French were working
+their way toward their objective at Sailly-Saillisel, situated due east
+of Morval, and standing at the same level. Between these two villages
+the ground falls away to the head of the Combles Valley, which runs
+thence in a southwesterly direction. In the bottom of this valley lies
+the small town of Combles, then well fortified and strongly held, though
+dominated by my right at Leuze Wood and by the French left on the
+opposite heights. It had been agreed between the French and myself that
+an assault on Combles would not be necessary, as the place could be
+rendered untenable by pressing forward along the ridges above it on
+either side.
+
+[Sidenote: Difficulties in way of French advance.]
+
+The capture of Morval from the south presented a very difficult problem,
+while the capture of Sailly-Saillisel, at that time some 3,000 yards to
+the north of the French left, was in some respects even more difficult.
+The line of the French advance was narrowed almost to a defile by the
+extensive and strongly fortified Wood of St. Pierre Vaast on the one
+side, and on the other by the Combles Valley, which, with the branches
+running out from it and the slopes each side, is completely commanded,
+as has been pointed out, by the heights bounding the valley on the east
+and west.
+
+[Sidenote: Close cooperation necessary on right.]
+
+On my right flank, therefore, the progress of the French and British
+forces was still interdependent, and the closest cooperation continued
+to be necessary in order to gain the further ground required to enable
+my centre to advance on a sufficiently wide front. To cope with such a
+situation unity of command is usually essential, but in this case the
+cordial good feeling between the allied armies, and the earnest desire
+of each to assist the other, proved equally effective, and removed all
+difficulties.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy defense on main ridge over Thiepval.]
+
+On my left flank the front of General Gough's army bent back from the
+main ridge near Mouquet Farm down a spur descending southwestward, and
+then crossed a broad valley to the Wonderwork, a strong point situated
+in the enemy's front-line system near the southern end of the spur on
+the higher slopes of which Thiepval stands. Opposite this part of our
+line we had still to carry the enemy's original defenses on the main
+ridge above Thiepval, and in the village itself, defenses which may
+fairly be described as being as nearly impregnable as nature, art, and
+the unstinted labor of nearly two years could make them.
+
+[Sidenote: British advance on Thiepval defenses.]
+
+[Sidenote: Positions might be rushed.]
+
+Our advance on Thiepval and on the defenses above it had been carried
+out up to this date, in accordance with my instructions given on July 3,
+1916, by a slow and methodical progression, in which great skill and
+much patience and endurance had been displayed with entirely
+satisfactory results. General Gough's army had, in fact, acted most
+successfully in the required manner as a pivot to the remainder of the
+attack. The Thiepval defenses were known to be exceptionally strong, and
+as immediate possession of them was not necessary to the development of
+my plans after July 1, 1916, there had been no need to incur the heavy
+casualties to be expected in an attempt to rush them. The time was now
+approaching, although it had not yet arrived, when their capture would
+become necessary; but from the positions we had now reached and those
+which we expected shortly to obtain, I had no doubt that they could be
+rushed when required without undue loss. An important part of the
+remaining positions required for my assault on them was now won by a
+highly successful enterprise carried out on the evening of September 14,
+1916, by which the Wonderwork was stormed.
+
+[Sidenote: Plan of combined attack.]
+
+[Sidenote: Main effort against Rancourt and Fregicourt.]
+
+The general plan of the combined allied attack which was opened on
+September 15 was to pivot on the high ground south of the Ancre and
+north of the Albert-Bapaume road, while the Fourth Army devoted its
+whole effort to the rearmost of the enemy's original systems of defense
+between Morval and Le Sars. Should our success in this direction warrant
+it I made arrangements to enable me to extend the left of the attack to
+embrace the villages of Martinpuich and Courcelette. As soon as our
+advance on this front had reached the Morval line, the time would have
+arrived to bring forward my left across the Thiepval Ridge. Meanwhile on
+my right our allies arranged to continue the line of advance in close
+co-operation with me from the Somme to the slopes above Combles, but
+directing their main effort northward against the villages of Rancourt
+and Fregicourt, so as to complete the isolation of Combles and open the
+way for their attack upon Sailly-Saillisel.
+
+A methodical bombardment was commenced at 6 a.m. on September 12, 1916,
+and was continued steadily and uninterruptedly till the moment of
+attack.
+
+[Sidenote: Bombardment and infantry assault.]
+
+At 6.20 a.m. on September 15, 1916 the infantry assault commenced, and
+at the same moment the bombardment became intense. Our new heavily
+armored cars, known as "tanks," now brought into action for the first
+time, successfully co-operated with the infantry, and, coming as a
+surprise to the enemy rank and file, gave valuable help in breaking down
+their resistance.
+
+[Sidenote: Tanks enter Flers.]
+
+[Sidenote: High Wood carried.]
+
+[Sidenote: Capture of the Quadrilateral.]
+
+The advance met with immediate success on almost the whole of the front
+attacked. At 8.40 a.m. "tanks" were seen to be entering Flers, followed
+by large numbers of troops. Fighting continued in Flers for some time,
+but by 10 a.m. our troops had reached the north side of the village, and
+by midday had occupied the enemy's trenches for some distance beyond. On
+our right our line was advanced to within assaulting distance of the
+strong line of defense running before Morval, Les Boeufs, and
+Gueudecourt, and on our left High Wood was at last carried after many
+hours of very severe fighting, reflecting great credit on the attacking
+battalions. Our success made it possible to carry out during the
+afternoon that part of the plan which provided for the capture of
+Martinpuich and Courcelette, and by the end of the day both these
+villages were in our hands. On September 18, 1916, the work of this day
+was completed by the capture of the Quadrilateral, an enemy stronghold
+which had hitherto blocked the progress of our right toward Morval.
+Further progress was also made between Flers and Martinpuich.
+
+[Sidenote: Results of four days' fighting.]
+
+The result of the fighting of September 15, 1916, and following days was
+a gain more considerable than any which had attended our arms in the
+course of a single operation since the commencement of the offensive. In
+the course of one day's fighting we had broken through two of the
+enemy's main defensive systems and had advanced on a front of over six
+miles to an average depth of a mile. In the course of this advance we
+had taken three large villages, each powerfully organized for prolonged
+resistance. Two of these villages had been carried by assault with short
+preparation in the course of a few hours' fighting. All this had been
+accomplished with a small number of casualties in comparison with the
+troops employed, and in spite of the fact that, as was afterward
+discovered, the attack did not come as a complete surprise to the enemy.
+
+[Sidenote: Prisoners taken.]
+
+The total number of prisoners taken by us in these operations since
+their commencement on the evening of September 14, 1916, amounted at
+this date to over 4,000, including 127 officers.
+
+[Sidenote: General attack launched.]
+
+[Sidenote: Objectives taken.]
+
+Preparations for our further advance were again hindered by bad weather,
+but at 12.35 p.m. on September 25, 1916, after a bombardment commenced
+early in the morning of the 24th, a general attack by the Allies was
+launched on the whole front between the Somme and Martinpuich. The
+objectives on the British front included the villages of Morval, Les
+Boeufs, and Gueudecourt, and a belt of country about 1,000 yards deep
+curving round the north of Flers to a point midway between that village
+and Martinpuich. By nightfall the whole of these objectives were in our
+hands, with the exception of the village of Gueudecourt, before which
+our troops met with very serious resistance from a party of the enemy in
+a section of his fourth main system of defense.
+
+[Sidenote: French take Rancourt.]
+
+[Sidenote: Combles occupied.]
+
+On our right our allies carried the village of Rancourt, and advanced
+their line to the outskirts of Fregicourt, capturing that village also
+during the night and early morning. Combles was therefore nearly
+surrounded by the allied forces, and in the early morning of September
+26, 1916, the village was occupied simultaneously by the allied forces,
+the British to the north and the French to the south of the railway. The
+capture of Combles in this inexpensive fashion represented a not
+inconsiderable tactical success. Though lying in a hollow, the village
+was very strongly fortified, and possessed, in addition to the works
+which the enemy had constructed, exceptionally large cellars and
+galleries, at a great depth under ground, sufficient to give effectual
+shelter to troops and material under the heaviest bombardment. Great
+quantities of stores and ammunition of all sorts were found in these
+cellars when the village was taken.
+
+[Sidenote: Gueudecourt carried.]
+
+[Sidenote: Few casualties.]
+
+On the same day Gueudecourt was carried, after the protecting trench to
+the west had been captured in a somewhat interesting fashion. In the
+early morning a "tank" started down the portion of the trench held by
+the enemy from the northwest, firing its machine guns and followed by
+bombers. The enemy could not escape, as we held the trench at the
+southern end. At the same time an aeroplane flew down the length of the
+trench, also firing a machine gun at the enemy holding it. These then
+waved white handkerchiefs in token of surrender, and when this was
+reported by the aeroplane the infantry accepted the surrender of the
+garrison. By 8.30 a.m. the whole trench had been cleared, great numbers
+of the enemy had been killed, and 8 officers and 362 of the ranks made
+prisoners. Our total casualties amounted to five.
+
+[Sidenote: Tactical value of the main ridge.]
+
+The success of the Fourth Army had now brought our advance to the stage
+at which I judged it advisable that Thiepval should be taken, in order
+to bring our left flank into line and establish it on the main ridge
+above that village, the possession of which would be of considerable
+tactical value in future operations.
+
+[Sidenote: New attack on Thiepval.]
+
+Accordingly at 12.25 p.m. on September 26, 1916, before the enemy had
+been given time to recover from the blow struck by the Fourth Army, a
+general attack was launched against Thiepval and the Thiepval Ridge. The
+objective consisted of the whole of the high ground still remaining in
+enemy hands extending over a front of some 3,000 yards north and east of
+Thiepval, and including, in addition to that fortress, the Zollern
+Redoubt, the Stuff Redoubt, and the Schwaben Redoubt, with the
+connecting lines of trenches.
+
+[Sidenote: Strong enemy resistance.]
+
+The attack was a brilliant success. On the right our troops reached the
+system of enemy trenches which formed their objectives without great
+difficulty. In Thiepval and the strong works to the north of it the
+enemy's resistance was more desperate. Three waves of our attacking
+troops carried the outer defenses of Mouquet Farm, and, pushing on,
+entered Zollern Redoubt, which they stormed and consolidated. In the
+strong point formed by the buildings of the farm itself, the enemy
+garrison, securely posted in deep cellars, held out until 6 p.m., when
+their last defenses were forced by a working party of a pioneer
+battalion acting on its own initiative.
+
+[Sidenote: Thiepval taken.]
+
+On the left of the attack fierce fighting, in which "tanks" again gave
+valuable assistance to our troops, continued in Thiepval during that day
+and the following night, but by 8.30 a.m. on September 27, 1916 the
+whole of the village of Thiepval was in our hands.
+
+[Sidenote: Prisoners.]
+
+Some 2,300 prisoners were taken in the course of the fighting on the
+Thiepval Ridge on these and the subsequent days, bringing the total
+number of prisoners taken in the battle area in the operations of
+September 14-30, 1916, to nearly 10,000. In the same period we had
+captured 27 guns, over 200 machine guns, and some 40 trench mortars.
+
+[Sidenote: Stuff and Schwaben Redoubts.]
+
+On the same date the south and west sides of Stuff Redoubt were carried
+by our troops, together with the length of trench connecting that strong
+point with Schwaben Redoubt to the west and also the greater part of the
+enemy's defensive line eastward along the northern slopes of the ridge.
+Schwaben Redoubt was assaulted during the afternoon, and in spite of
+counterattacks, delivered by strong enemy reenforcements, we captured
+the whole of the southern face of the redoubt and pushed out patrols to
+the northern face and toward St. Pierre Divion.
+
+Our line was also advanced north of Courcelette, while on the Fourth
+Army front a further portion of the enemy's fourth-system of defense
+northwest of Gueudecourt was carried on a front of a mile. Between these
+two points the enemy fell back upon his defenses running in front of
+Eaucourt l'Abbaye and Le Sars, and on the afternoon and evening of
+September 27, 1916, our troops were able to make a very considerable
+advance in this area without encountering serious opposition until
+within a few hundred yards of this line. The ground thus occupied
+extended to a depth of from 500 to 600 yards on a front of nearly two
+miles between the Bazentin-le-Petit, Lingy, Thilloy, and Albert-Bapaume
+roads.
+
+[Sidenote: Destremont Farm carried.]
+
+Destremont Farm, southwest of Le Sars, was carried by a single company
+on September 29, 1916, and on the afternoon of October 1, 1916, a
+successful attack was launched against Eaucourt l'Abbaye and the enemy
+defenses to the east and west of it, comprising a total front of about
+3,000 yards. Our artillery barrage was extremely accurate, and
+contributed greatly to the success of the attack. Bomb fighting
+continued among the buildings during the next two days, but by the
+evening of October 3 the whole of Eaucourt l'Abbaye was in our hands.
+
+[Sidenote: Fourth Army attacks.]
+
+At the end of September, 1916, I had handed over Morval to the French,
+in order to facilitate their attacks on Sailly-Saillisel, and on October
+7, 1916, after a postponement rendered necessary by three days'
+continuous rain, our allies made a considerable advance in the direction
+of the latter village. On the same day the Fourth Army attacked along
+the whole front from Les Boeufs to Destremont Farm in support of the
+operations of our allies.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy's trenches east of Gueudecourt taken.]
+
+The village of Le Sars was captured, together with the quarry to the
+northwest, while considerable progress was made at other points along
+the front attacked. In particular, to the east of Gueudecourt, the
+enemy's trenches were carried on a breadth of some 2,000 yards, and a
+footing gained on the crest of the long spur which screens the defenses
+of Le Transloy from the southwest. Nearly 1,000 prisoners were secured
+by the Fourth Army in the course of these operations.
+
+With the exception of his positions in the neighborhood of
+Sailly-Saillisel, and his scanty foothold on the northern crest of the
+high ground above Thiepval, the enemy had now been driven from the whole
+of the ridge lying between the Tortille and the Ancre.
+
+[Sidenote: Germans make repeated counterattacks.]
+
+[Sidenote: British situation satisfactory.]
+
+Possession of the northwestern portion of the ridge north of the latter
+village carried with it observation over the valley of the Ancre between
+Miraumont and Hamel and the spurs and valleys held by the enemy on the
+right bank of the river. The Germans, therefore, made desperate efforts
+to cling to their last remaining trenches in this area, and in the
+course of the three weeks following our advance made repeated
+counterattacks at heavy cost in the vain hope of recovering the ground
+they had lost. During this period our gains in the neighborhood of Stuff
+and Schwaben Redoubts were gradually increased and secured in readiness
+for future operations; and I was quite confident of the ability of our
+troops, not only to repulse the enemy's attacks, but to clear him
+entirely from his last positions on the ridge whenever it should suit my
+plans to do so. I was, therefore, well content with the situation on
+this flank.
+
+Along the centre of our line from Gueudecourt to the west of Le Sars
+similar considerations applied. As we were already well down the forward
+slopes of the ridge on his front, it was for the time being inadvisable
+to make any serious advance. Pending developments elsewhere all that was
+necessary or indeed desirable was to carry on local operations to
+improve our positions and to keep the enemy fully employed.
+
+[Sidenote: Strong enemy positions in eastern flank.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy resistance weakens.]
+
+On our eastern flank, on the other hand, it was important to gain
+ground. Here the enemy still possessed a strong system of trenches
+covering the villages of Le Transloy and Beaulencourt and the town of
+Bapaume; but, although he was digging with feverish haste, he had not
+yet been able to create any very formidable defenses behind this line.
+In this direction, in fact, we had at last reached a stage at which a
+successful attack might reasonably be expected to yield much greater
+results than anything we had yet attained. The resistance of the troops
+opposed to us had seriously weakened in the course of our recent
+operations, and there was no reason to suppose that the effort required
+would not be within our powers.
+
+[Sidenote: Necessity to gain spur and heights.]
+
+The last completed system of defense, before Le Transloy, was flanked to
+the south by the enemy's positions at Sailly-Saillisel, and screened to
+the west by the spur lying between Le Transloy and Les Boeufs. A
+necessary preliminary, therefore, to an assault upon it was to secure
+the spur and the Sailly-Saillisel heights. Possession of the high ground
+at this latter village would at once give a far better command over the
+ground to the north and northwest, secure the flank of our operations
+toward Le Transloy, and deprive the enemy of observation over the allied
+communications in the Combles Valley. In view of the enemy's efforts to
+construct new systems of defense behind the Le Transloy spur, was
+extended and secured time in dealing with the situation.
+
+[Sidenote: Rain and fog a hindrance.]
+
+Unfortunately, at this juncture, very unfavorable weather set in and
+continued with scarcely a break during the remainder of October and the
+early part of November. Poor visibility seriously interfered with the
+work of our artillery, and constant rain turned the mass of hastily dug
+trenches for which we were fighting into channels of deep mud. The
+country roads, broken by countless shell craters, that cross the deep
+stretch of ground we had lately won, rapidly became almost impassable,
+making the supply of food, stores, and ammunition a serious problem.
+These conditions multiplied the difficulties of attack to such an extent
+that it was found impossible to exploit the situation with the rapidity
+necessary to enable us to reap the full benefits of the advantages we
+had gained.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy has time to reorganize.]
+
+None the less, my right flank continued to assist the operations of our
+allies against Saillisel, and attacks were made to this end, whenever a
+slight improvement in the weather made the co-operation of artillery and
+infantry at all possible. The delay in our advance, however, though
+unavoidable, had given the enemy time to reorganize and rally his
+troops. His resistance again became stubborn and he seized every
+favorable opportunity for counterattacks. Trenches changed hands with
+great frequency, the conditions of ground making it difficult to renew
+exhausted supplies of bombs and ammunition, or to consolidate the ground
+won, and so rendering it an easier matter to take a battered trench than
+to hold it.
+
+[Sidenote: French take Sailly-Saillisel.]
+
+On September 12 and 18, 1916, further gains were made to the east of the
+Les Boeufs-Gueudecourt line and east of Le Sars, and some hundreds of
+prisoners were taken. On these dates, despite all the difficulties of
+ground, the French first reached and then captured the villages of
+Sailly-Saillisel, but the moment for decisive action was rapidly passing
+away, while the weather showed no signs of improvement. By this time,
+too, the ground had already become so bad that nothing less than a
+prolonged period of drying weather, which at that season of the year was
+most unlikely to occur, would suit our purpose.
+
+[Sidenote: New line established.]
+
+In these circumstances, while continuing to do all that was possible to
+improve my position on my right flank, I determined to press on with
+preparations for the exploitation of the favorable local situation on my
+left flank. At midday on October 21, 1916, during a short spell of fine,
+cold weather, the line of Regina Trench and Stuff Trench, from the west
+Courcelette-Pys road westward to Schwaben Redoubt, was attacked with
+complete success. Assisted by an excellent artillery preparation and
+barrage, our infantry carried the whole of their objectives very quickly
+and with remarkably little loss, and our new line was firmly established
+in spite of the enemy's shell fire. Over one thousand prisoners were
+taken in the course of the day's fighting, a figure only slightly
+exceeded by our casualties.
+
+[Sidenote: Part of Regina trench carried.]
+
+On October 23, 1916, and again on November 5, 1916, while awaiting
+better weather for further operations on the Ancre, our attacks on the
+enemy's positions to the east of Les Boeufs and Gueudecourt were
+renewed, in conjunction with French operations against the
+Sailly-Saillisel heights and St. Pierre Vaast Wood. Considerable further
+progress was achieved. Our footing at the crest of Le Transloy Spur was
+extended and secured, and the much-contested tangle of trenches at our
+junction with the French left at last passed definitely into our
+possession. Many smaller gains were made in this neighborhood by local
+assaults during these days, in spite of the difficult conditions of the
+ground. In particular, on November 10, 1916, after a day of improved
+weather, the portion of Regina Trench lying to the east of the
+Courcelette-Pys road was carried on a front of about one thousand yards.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy losses.]
+
+Throughout these operations the enemy's counterattacks were very
+numerous and determined, succeeding indeed in the evening of October 23,
+1916, in regaining a portion of the ground east of Le Sars taken from
+him by our attack on that day. On all other occasions his attacks were
+broken by our artillery or infantry and the losses incurred by him in
+these attempts, made frequently with considerable effectives, were
+undoubtedly very severe.
+
+[Sidenote: Preparations for attack on the Ancre.]
+
+On November 9, 1916, the long-continued bad weather took a turn for the
+better, and thereafter remained dry and cold, with frosty nights and
+misty mornings, for some days. Final preparations were therefore pushed
+on for the attack on the Ancre, though, as the ground was still very bad
+in places, it was necessary to limit the operations to what it would be
+reasonably possible to consolidate and hold under the existing
+conditions.
+
+[Sidenote: Permanent line of enemy fortifications.]
+
+The enemy's defenses in this area were already extremely formidable when
+they resisted our assault on July 1, 1916, and the succeeding period of
+four months had been spent in improving and adding to them in the light
+of the experience he had gained in the course of our attacks further
+south. The hamlet of St. Pierre Divion and the villages of
+Beaucourt-sur-Ancre and Beaumont Hamel, like the rest of the villages
+forming part of the enemy's original front in this district, were
+evidently intended by him to form a permanent line of fortifications,
+while he developed his offensive elsewhere. Realizing that his position
+in them had become a dangerous one, the enemy had multiplied the number
+of his guns covering this part of his line, and at the end of October
+introduced an additional division on his front between Grandcourt and
+Hebuterne.
+
+[Sidenote: Barrage to cover infantry.]
+
+At 5 o'clock on the morning of November 11, 1916, the special
+bombardment preliminary to the attack was commenced. It continued with
+bursts of great intensity until 5.45 o'clock on the morning of November
+13, 1916, when it developed into a very effective barrage covering the
+assaulting infantry.
+
+[Sidenote: St. Pierre Divion taken.]
+
+At that hour our troops advanced on the enemy's position through dense
+fog, and rapidly entered his first-line trenches on almost the whole
+front attacked, from east of Schwaben Redoubt to the north of Serre.
+South of the Ancre, where our assault was directed northward against the
+enemy's trenches on the northern slopes of the Thiepval Ridge, it met
+with a success altogether remarkable for rapidity of execution and
+lightness of cost. By 7.20 a.m. our objectives east of St. Pierre Divion
+had been captured, and the Germans in and about that hamlet were hemmed
+in between our troops and the river. Many of the enemy were driven into
+their dugouts and surrendered, and at 9 a.m. the number of prisoners was
+actually greater than the attacking force. St. Pierre Divion soon fell,
+and in this area nearly 1,400 prisoners were taken by a single division
+at the expense of less than 600 casualties. The rest of our forces
+operating south of the Ancre attained their objectives with equal
+completeness and success.
+
+[Sidenote: Objectives reached on right bank of Ancre.]
+
+North of the river the struggle was more severe, but very satisfactory
+results were achieved. Though parties of the enemy held out for some
+hours during the day in strong points at various places along his first
+line and in Beaumont Hamel, the main attack pushed on. The troops
+attacking close to the right bank of the Ancre reached their second
+objectives to the west and northwest of Beaucourt during the morning,
+and held on there for the remainder of the day and night, though
+practically isolated from the rest of our attacking troops. Their
+tenacity was of the utmost value, and contributed very largely to the
+success of the operations. At nightfall our troops were established on
+the western outskirts of Beaucourt, in touch with our forces south of
+the river, and held a line along the station road from the Ancre toward
+Beaumont Hamel, where we occupied the village. Further north the
+enemy's first-line system for a distance of about half a mile beyond
+Beaumont Hamel was also in our hands. Still further north--opposite
+Serre--the ground was so heavy that it became necessary to abandon the
+attack at an early stage, although, despite all difficulties, our troops
+had in places reached the enemy's trenches in the course of their
+assault.
+
+[Sidenote: Beaumont carried.]
+
+Next morning, at an early hour, the attack was renewed between Beaucourt
+and the top of the spur just north of Beaumont Hamel. The whole of
+Beaumont was carried, and our line extended to the northwest along the
+Beaucourt road across the southern end of the Beaumont Hamel spur. The
+number of our prisoners steadily rose, and during this and the
+succeeding days our front was carried forward eastward and northward up
+the slopes of the Beaumont Hamel spur.
+
+[Sidenote: Allies command Ancre Valley.]
+
+The results of this attack were very satisfactory, especially as before
+its completion bad weather had set in again. We had secured the command
+of the Ancre Valley on both banks of the river at the point where it
+entered the enemy's lines, and, without great cost to ourselves, losses
+had been inflicted on the enemy which he himself admitted to be
+considerable. Our final total of prisoners taken in these operations,
+and their development during the subsequent days, exceeded 7,200,
+including 149 officers.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy kept on alert.]
+
+Throughout the period dealt with in this dispatch the role of the other
+armies holding our defensive line from the northern limits of the battle
+front to beyond Ypres was necessarily a secondary one, but their task
+was neither light nor unimportant. While required to give precedence in
+all respects to the needs of the Somme battle, they were responsible for
+the security of the line held by them and for keeping the enemy on
+their front constantly on the alert. Their role was a very trying one,
+entailing heavy work on the troops and constant vigilance on the part of
+commanders and staffs. It was carried out to my entire satisfaction, and
+in an unfailing spirit of unselfish and broad-minded devotion to the
+general good, which is deserving of the highest commendation.
+
+[Sidenote: Great number of raids.]
+
+Some idea of the thoroughness with which their duties were performed can
+be gathered from the fact that in the period of four and a half months
+from July 1, 1916, some 360 raids were carried out, in the course of
+which the enemy suffered many casualties and some hundreds of prisoners
+were taken by us. The largest of these operations was undertaken on July
+19, 1916, in the neighborhood of Armentieres. Our troops penetrated
+deeply into the enemy's defenses, doing much damage to his works and
+inflicting severe losses upon him.
+
+[Sidenote: Main objects of offensive achieved.]
+
+The three main objects with which we had commenced our offensive in July
+had already been achieved at the date when this account closes, in spite
+of the fact that the heavy Autumn rains had prevented full advantage
+from being taken of the favorable situation created by our advance, at a
+time when we had good grounds for hoping to achieve yet more important
+successes.
+
+Verdun had been relieved, the main German forces had been held on the
+western front, and the enemy's strength had been very considerably worn
+down.
+
+[Sidenote: Ample compensation for sacrifices.]
+
+Any one of these three results is in itself sufficient to justify the
+Somme battle. The attainment of all three of them affords ample
+compensation for the splendid efforts of our troops and for the
+sacrifices made by ourselves and our allies. They have brought us a long
+step forward toward the final victory of the allied cause.
+
+[Sidenote: German failure at Verdun.]
+
+The desperate struggle for the possession of Verdun had invested that
+place with a moral and political importance out of all proportion to its
+military value. Its fall would undoubtedly have been proclaimed as a
+great victory for our enemies, and would have shaken the faith of many
+in our ultimate success. The failure of the enemy to capture it, despite
+great efforts and very heavy losses, was a severe blow to his prestige,
+especially in view of the confidence he had openly expressed as to the
+results of the struggle.
+
+[Sidenote: Eastward movement of German troops checked.]
+
+Information obtained both during the progress of the Somme battle and
+since the suspension of active operations has fully established the
+effect of our offensive in keeping the enemy's main forces tied to the
+western front. A movement of German troops eastward, which had commenced
+in June as a result of the Russian successes, continued for a short time
+only after the opening of the allied attack. Thereafter the enemy forces
+that moved east consisted, with one exception, of divisions that had
+been exhausted in the Somme battle, and these troops were already
+replaced on the western front by fresh divisions. In November the
+strength of the enemy in the western theatre of war was greater than in
+July, notwithstanding the abandonment of his offensive at Verdun.
+
+[Sidenote: Somme offensive relieved Verdun.]
+
+It is possible that if Verdun had fallen large forces might still have
+been employed in an endeavor further to exploit that success. It is,
+however, far more probable, in view of developments in the eastern
+theatre, that a considerable transfer of troops in that direction would
+have followed. It is therefore justifiable to conclude that the Somme
+offensive not only relieved Verdun but held large forces which would
+otherwise have been employed against our allies in the east.
+
+The third great object of the allied operations on the Somme was the
+wearing down of the enemy's powers of resistance. Any statement of the
+extent to which this has been attained must depend in some degree on
+estimates.
+
+There is, nevertheless, sufficient evidence to place it beyond doubt
+that the enemy's losses in men and material have been very considerably
+higher than those of the Allies, while morally the balance of advantage
+on our side is still greater.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy resistance feebler.]
+
+During the period under review a steady deterioration took place in the
+morale of large numbers of the enemy's troops. Many of them, it is true,
+fought with the greatest determination, even in the latest encounters,
+but the resistance of still larger numbers became latterly decidedly
+feebler than it had been in the earlier stages of the battle. Aided by
+the great depth of his defenses and by the frequent reliefs which his
+resources in men enabled him to effect, discipline and training held the
+machine together sufficiently to enable the enemy to rally and
+reorganize his troops after each fresh defeat. As our advance
+progressed, four-fifths of the total number of divisions engaged on the
+western front were thrown one after another into the Somme battle, some
+of them twice, and some three times; and toward the end of the
+operations, when the weather unfortunately broke, there can be no doubt
+that his power of resistance had been very seriously diminished.
+
+[Sidenote: Prisoners and guns taken.]
+
+The number of prisoners taken by us in the Somme battle between July 1
+and November 18, 1916, is just over 38,000, including over 800 officers.
+During the same period we captured 29 heavy guns, 96 field guns and
+field howitzers, 136 trench mortars, and 514 machine guns.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The war fell with special severity upon the people of the poorer classes
+in Russia, many of whom, upon the advance of the German and Austrian
+armies, were compelled to flee from their homes in a practically
+destitute condition. A graphic description of the pitiable plight of
+these unfortunate people is given in the following pages.
+
+
+
+
+RUSSIA'S REFUGEES
+
+GREGORY MASON
+
+Copyright, Outlook, January 19, 1916.
+
+
+[Sidenote: A Russian freight train with passengers.]
+
+Near Moscow, on a siding of the railway that runs from Moscow to Warsaw
+through Smolensk, was a string of thirteen freight cars, the short,
+chunky Russian kind--barely half as long as the American--looking as
+flimsy, top-heavy, and unwieldy as houseboats on wheels. No locomotive
+was tied to the string, and from the windward side, where the cars were
+whitewashed by the biting blizzard that had already stopped all traffic
+with its drifted barricades, they had the desolate look of stranded
+empties. But the leeward door of each car was open a few inches,
+permitting the egress of odors that told any one who chanced to pass
+that the big rolling boxes were loaded with human freight, closely
+packed and long on the journey.
+
+[Sidenote: Old women at work.]
+
+I pushed the door of one car back and looked in. At first in the
+semi-gloom nothing was visible, but gradually, against a crack in the
+opposite car wall that let through a streak of gray light with a ribbon
+of snow that rustled as it fell on the straw-covered floor, there grew
+the dull silhouette of two old women, who sat facing each other in the
+straw, laboriously pounding corn into flour in a big earthen bowl
+between them.
+
+[Sidenote: Emaciated children and dead babies.]
+
+The young Pole who was with me climbed into the car and probed its
+recesses with a spear of light from a pocket flash-lamp. The old women
+stopped pounding to lift toward us wrinkled faces that expressed fear
+and hate when the tiny searchlight was turned on their dim, blinking
+eyes. Another pair of hags in a far corner, propped against a bale of
+hay and bound together like Siamese twins in a brown horse-blanket,
+moved their eyes feebly, but nothing more. They were paralyzed. A score
+of children that had been huddled here and there in the straw in twos
+and threes for warmth's sake came slowly to life and crowded around us,
+lifting a ring of wan, emaciated little faces. Three, too feeble to
+stand, sat up and stared at the strange light. The bodies of four small
+babies moved not at all--were, in fact, lifeless.
+
+[Sidenote: Refugees from Poland.]
+
+[Sidenote: Herded like cattle by soldiers.]
+
+These people were refugees from a rural part of Poland, made homeless by
+the Russian military decree which ordered the destruction of all
+buildings and the removal of all civilians from the rearward path of the
+Muscovite army as it fell back before the battering attacks of the
+Germans from Warsaw to Dwinsk. For ten days these four old women and
+twenty-seven children had been in that car, with no fire, few warm
+clothes, and only a little dried meat, corn flour, and water to sustain
+life in them. This the meager fare had failed to do in the case of the
+four youngest. Since they had been herded into that cold box like cattle
+by soldiers at the station to which they had driven or walked from their
+blazing homes, they had been moved eastward daily in the joggling car,
+which traveled slowly and by fits and starts, unvisited by any one, not
+knowing their destination, and now too low in mind and body to care.
+
+[Sidenote: Children forget their families.]
+
+The two old creatures who were paralyzed when they had been dumped into
+the car were now apparently dying; several of the children swayed with
+weakness as they stood, clutching at the biscuits and sweet chocolate
+which we drew from our pockets. Five of them were grandchildren of one
+of the paralytics, three designated one of the wrinkled flour-makers by
+the Polish equivalent of "granny," but none of the others knew where
+their parents were, and six of them had forgotten their own family names
+or had never known them.
+
+[Sidenote: Moscow and Petrograd overcrowded.]
+
+The other twelve cars were like this one except that all of them had at
+least two or three--and usually six or seven--feeble, crackly-voiced old
+men with their complement of women and children, and one contained three
+young fellows of twenty who had probably smuggled themselves into the
+car and who cringed when my Polish interpreter lunged on them with his
+rapier of light and retreated into a corner where two cows stood with
+necks crossed in affection. These youths knew they had no business in
+that car, for even in the chaos of retreat the word had been passed
+among the civilian refugees: "Women, children, and old men first in the
+cars; young men can walk." But there have not been enough cars even for
+the weak, the very young, and the very aged, and thousands, perhaps tens
+of thousands, have found their graves along the slushy, muddy roads they
+were following toward Petrograd and Moscow from the occupied provinces
+of Poland and the Baltic. These people in the freight cars at least had
+had transportation and a crude kind of shelter. But of the two million
+refugees who are overcrowding Moscow and Petrograd, to the great
+detriment of the health average of the two Russian capitals, many
+thousands came there several hundred weary miles on foot. And others,
+less determined or weaker, are still straggling in or are lingering by
+the way, some of the latter dying and some finding shelter in small
+towns between the twin big cities and the front.
+
+[Sidenote: Millions of refugees.]
+
+[Sidenote: People of all ranks and stations.]
+
+Some estimates place the number of Russian refugees at from ten to
+fifteen million; thirteen million is the estimate of the Tatiana
+Committee, one of the most influential relief organizations in Russia,
+named after the second daughter of the Czar, who is its honorary head.
+By race the refugees are principally Poles, Jews, Letts, and
+Lithuanians, but they come from all ranks and stations of life, rich and
+poor alike, now all poor, thrown from their homes with nothing but the
+clothes on their bodies by the grim chances of war.
+
+[Sidenote: Thousands must starve and freeze.]
+
+In times of peace and prosperity the sudden impoverishment of such a
+large mass of people would tax the relief and charity of Russia to the
+limit; but now, when all food prices are from one hundred to three
+hundred per cent higher than before the war--when even the well-to-do
+have difficulty to get enough bread, sugar, and coal--it is inevitable
+that thousands of these homeless ones should starve and freeze to death.
+Thousands have already suffered this fate, but hundreds of thousands,
+perhaps a million or more, will die this way before spring unless relief
+comes quickly and bountifully from abroad, for Russia cannot cope with
+the emergency alone. Unless Russia's allies or neutrals begin at once to
+pour into Russia a stream of food to fill the stomachs of these hungry,
+homeless ones, this will be the bitterest winter in Russian history, a
+winter whose horrors will far transcend the terrible winter of 1812,
+when Napoleon ravaged Poland and sacked Moscow.
+
+[Sidenote: Great Britain must bolster weaker allies.]
+
+Great Britain, who is holding up some of her weaker allies in many ways,
+sweeping mines from the White Sea for Russia, and with France bolstering
+the remnant of the Belgian army in Flanders, is doing much to alleviate
+the suffering of Russia's refugees by unofficial action. The Great
+Britain to Poland Fund, organized and supported by such prominent
+Britons as Lady Byron, Viscount Bryce, the Duke of Newcastle, the Earl
+of Rosebery, and the Lord Mayor of London, at the instance of Princess
+Bariatinsky, who is better known as the famous Russian actress, Madame
+Yavorska, is feeding between 4,000 and 7,000 refugees daily at
+Petrograd, Moscow, Minsk, and at several small towns close to the front.
+
+[Sidenote: The Petrograd "Feeding Point."]
+
+[Sidenote: Sheds for shelter.]
+
+The Petrograd "Feeding Point" is a long, hastily built shed of
+unfinished lumber a stone's-throw from the Warsaw station. This site was
+well selected, for the long stone railway station, open at both ends
+like an aviation hangar, is the center of refugee population in the
+Czar's city. Not only were several hundred homeless men, women, and
+children sleeping on the cold stone floors of the draughty station, but
+other hundreds were lying about in odd corners here and there, in empty
+trucks and freight cars, lying within a few feet of where the crowded
+refugee train had left them, with no hope or ambition to make them move
+on. Still other hundreds, more fortunate than these, were sheltered in
+three sheds, similar to the "Refugees' Restaurant" in their unfinished
+board construction, which had been built by the Government. Each of
+these sheds, about thirty by sixty feet in dimensions, housed between
+two and three hundred persons. This crowding was made possible by the
+presence of platforms built one above another in triple or quadruple
+deck "nests" about the room, where people of both sexes and of all ages
+slept, cooked and ate such food as they could beg, and lay all day long
+with expressionless, bulging eyes, half stupefied in the stifling stench
+of the place.
+
+[Sidenote: Lines before the feeding stations.]
+
+Twice a day a line formed before the door of the feeding station of such
+persons as were known to have no private food supply, and when the door
+opened they surged in, getting brass tickets at the threshold which each
+one exchanged in the far end of the room for a large square piece of
+Russian _chorny khleb_--black bread--and a steaming bowl of good old
+English porridge served to them by the bustling ladies of the British
+Colony. Only enough were admitted at a time to fill the double row of
+board tables, yet every day from 1,000 to 1,400 were fed.
+
+[Sidenote: The gayety of hungry youth.]
+
+It was interesting to stand at the elbow of the buxom, indefatigably
+good-natured English lady who wielded the porridge spoon and watch the
+long, hungry file which melted away toward the tables when it reached
+the tall, bottomless urn that held the fragrant, steaming cereal. First
+came a dozen boys and girls who had lost their parents but not the
+irresistible gayety of hungry youth in the presence of food.
+
+[Sidenote: A one-time rich man.]
+
+[Sidenote: Bitterness toward the Government.]
+
+They took their bread and porridge without even a mumbled
+"_Spassiba_"--thanks--and shouldered each other for seats at the tables.
+Then came a blind old man led by his two grandsons. His thanks were
+pathetically profuse. Next another graybeard, carrying an ivory cane and
+wearing a handsome fur coat, the only indications of his recent high
+station in provincial society except the unmistakable reserve and
+dignity of gentility. After him was a handsome Lett, who had been a
+station agent in Courland till his station was dynamited in the Russian
+retreat. None of the children gave any thanks for the food; in fact,
+hardly any one did except the very old. The attitude of the others
+seemed to be that of people who were getting only a small part of their
+just due. Perhaps that was because they may not have realized that they
+were being fed by England, not by Russia, and toward Russia all of them
+were bitter even those who lived in the shelters the Government had
+built. This bitterness was indicated by the refusal of most of them to
+accept work proffered them by provincial or municipal officials.
+
+[Sidenote: No wish to begin over.]
+
+Their attitude is that, inasmuch as the Government has deliberately
+wiped out their homes and destroyed their means of livelihood, it is the
+Government's duty to support them in comfortable idleness. They seem to
+feel that it is adding insult to injury to ask them to begin over again
+in a new environment and work for their living. I asked a young Lettish
+railway man, living in one of the board barracks near the Warsaw
+station, why he had refused an offer of employment in the railway yards
+hard by.
+
+"Why should I work for Russia?" he asked, bitterly. "Russia has taken
+from me my pretty home, my good job, and my wife and two children, who
+died on the road in that awful blizzard recently. Why should I work for
+Russia?"
+
+"But you will starve if you do not," I suggested.
+
+[Sidenote: Gloomy resignation.]
+
+"_Nichevo!_"--it doesn't matter--he muttered, in gloomy resignation.
+
+[Sidenote: A great mistake.]
+
+[Sidenote: Everything destroyed.]
+
+The majority of the refugees feel the way this man does. I do not refer
+to the refugees who left their homes voluntarily through fear of the
+advancing Germans, but to that greater number who were forced to leave
+by the compulsion of their own Government, which deliberately destroyed
+their homes as a military measure. Every Russian, even the military
+officers who were responsible for this policy of destruction, now
+realize that the adoption of that policy was one of the greatest
+mistakes Russia has made during the war. For it has cost her the support
+of a large and important body of Letts, Poles, Jews, and Lithuanians.
+The theory was that to leave large masses of civilians behind the
+forward-pushing German lines would provide Germany with a large number
+of spies, as well as with sustenance for its armies. To some extent,
+too, it was believed that buildings left standing in the Russian retreat
+might serve as protection and cover for German artillery. So everything
+was destroyed--farm-houses, barns, churches, schools, orchards, even
+haystacks. Whenever the Russian lines retracted before the unbearable
+pounding of the terrible German guns, they left only a desert for the
+Kaiser's men to cross.
+
+[Sidenote: Loss too great to be compensated by gain.]
+
+War is not a parlor game. A great deal of destruction is inevitable in
+the nature of war, and sometimes in wars of the past commanders have
+deliberately laid waste large sections of beautiful country to handicap
+the enemy, and the results have justified this destruction. A ten per
+cent social and economic loss is gladly borne by a nation at war for a
+ninety per cent military gain. Perhaps a commander is even justified in
+inflicting a forty-nine per cent social and economic loss on his country
+for a fifty-one per cent military gain. But the deliberate ravaging of
+Poland and the Baltic provinces was a ninety per cent social and
+economic loss for a ten per cent military gain--something that is never
+justifiable.
+
+[Sidenote: Relief should meet refugees.]
+
+It is very difficult for a general to remember that there are other
+factors in war besides the military factors, and we must not be too
+severe in our criticism of the Russian General Staff because it saw only
+the ten per cent military gain and overlooked the ninety per cent
+political and economic loss. The order which made a desert of thousands
+of square miles of the best territory in Russia was countermanded,
+anyway, but not until the harm had been done. But now the only concern
+of Russia and of the friends of Russia should be to confine the damage
+to the irremediable minimum. To that end it is necessary to handle the
+great streams of refugees intelligently. The influx into Petrograd and
+Moscow should be stopped. Relief organization should go out from these
+cities toward the front, stop the refugees where they meet them, and
+there make provision for them to spend the winter. To this purpose
+hundreds and thousands of sleeping barracks and soup kitchens like those
+in Petrograd must be built along the provincial highways. Thousands of
+these people will never again see the familiar environment where they
+have lived all their lives, even if Russia regains her lost provinces.
+But more of them will be able to return eventually, and there will be
+less suffering among them this winter, if they are stopped where they
+are and are not allowed to flow into the two Russian capitals, so
+terribly overcrowded already, and into the colder country north and east
+of Petrograd and Moscow.
+
+[Sidenote: Russia unable to handle situation.]
+
+I understand that this policy has been adopted by the Tatiana Committee.
+But Russia alone cannot handle the situation; she must have generous aid
+from outside.
+
+[Sidenote: America a synonym for service.]
+
+A young American, Mr. Thomas Whittemore, who was in Sofia when Bulgaria
+went to war, left there declining an invitation of the Queen of Bulgaria
+to head a branch of the Red Cross, because his sympathies were with the
+Allies, and is now in Russia working out a programme for the relief of
+Russia's refugees under the auspices of the Tatiana Committee. He is out
+on the roads in an automobile constantly, meeting the incoming human
+flotsam and jetsam of war, and his recommendations will have the weight
+of authority. America has become a synonym for service in France,
+Belgium, and Servia, but thus far America has done next to nothing for
+Russia. Shall America, who responded so splendidly to the appeal of
+Belgium and Servia, ignore the needs of the stricken people of Poland
+and the Baltic provinces, whose sufferings are greater than the
+sufferings of the Belgians, certainly as great as the sufferings of the
+Servians?
+
+[Sidenote: War's most moving sight.]
+
+There are many pathetic things in war--soldiers wasted with disease,
+blasted in arm and leg with explosive shell, withered in eye and lung by
+the terrible gas; but none of these things is so moving as the sight of
+little children, homeless, parentless, and with clothing worn and torn
+by travel, sleeping in empty freight cars, cold railway stations, or on
+the very blizzard-swept sidewalks of Russian cities, and slowly dying
+because they have no food.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rumania hesitated long before entering the war. The sympathies of her
+people were strongly with the Allies, for military and economic reasons
+connected with German domination of her resources made her actual
+military participation with the Allied Armies difficult and dangerous.
+The decision, however, was made in the late summer of 1916, and an
+attack was made by the Rumanian army against Austrian forces. This was
+followed by successes which continued until Bulgaria began hostilities
+against the Rumanian army. Shortly after, a German army under General
+Mackensen against Rumania was started which ended in the capture of
+Bucharest in December, 1916.
+
+
+
+
+THE TRAGEDY OF RUMANIA
+
+STANLEY WASHBURN
+
+Copyright, Atlantic Monthly, December, 1917.
+
+
+[Sidenote: What it meant for Rumania to fight.]
+
+More than a year has now elapsed since Rumania entered the war. What is
+meant for this little country to abandon neutrality is not generally
+realized. Here in America we know that so long as the British fleet
+dominated the seas we were safe, and that we should have ample
+opportunity to prepare ourselves for the vicissitudes of war and to make
+the preparations that are now being undertaken and carried out by the
+administration of President Wilson. Canada and Australia likewise knew
+that they were in no danger of attack.
+
+[Sidenote: War's terrible cost.]
+
+But the case of Rumania was far different. She knew with a terrible
+certainty that the moment she entered the war she would be the target
+for attack on a frontier over twelve hundred kilometres long. The world
+criticized her for remaining neutral, and yet one wonders how many
+countries would have staked their national future as Rumania did when
+she entered the war. In a short fourteen months she has seen more than
+one half of her army destroyed, her fertile plains pass into the hands
+of her enemies, and her great oil industry almost wiped out. To-day her
+army, supported by Russians, is holding with difficulty hardly twenty
+per cent of what, before the war, was one of the most fertile and
+prosperous small kingdoms of Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: Why nations went to war.]
+
+[Sidenote: America's reasons.]
+
+When America entered the war she assumed, in a large measure, the
+obligations to which the Allies were already committed. It seems of
+paramount importance under these circumstances that the case and the
+cause of Rumania be more thoroughly understood in this country. Other
+countries entered the war through necessities of various sorts. America
+committed herself to the conflict for a cause which even the cynical
+German propaganda, hard as it has tried, has been unable to distort into
+a selfish or commercial one. We are preparing to share in every way the
+sacrifices, both in blood and wealth, which our allies have been making
+these past three years. And as our reward we ask for no selfish or
+commercial rights, nor do we seek to acquire extension of territory or
+acquisition of privilege in any part of the world. We have entered the
+war solely, because of wrongs committed in the past, and with the just
+determination that similar wrongs shall never again be perpetrated. No
+country and no people on this globe are more responsive to an
+obligation, and more determined to fulfill such an obligation when
+recognized, than are the American people.
+
+[Sidenote: The author in Rumania.]
+
+For nearly two years prior to the entrance of Rumania into the war I had
+been attached to the Russian Imperial Staff in the field, as special
+correspondent of the London "Times." I went to Rumania in September,
+1916, directly from the staff of the then Tsar, with a request from the
+highest authority in Russia to the highest command in Rumania that every
+opportunity for studying the situation be given me. These letters gave
+me instant access to the King and Queen of Rumania, to the Rumanian
+General Staff, and to other persons of importance in the Rumanian
+administration. I remained in that country until late in the autumn,
+motoring more than five thousand kilometres, and touching the Rumanian
+front at many places. My opinion, then, of the Rumanian cause is based
+on first-hand evidence obtained at the time.
+
+[Sidenote: An interview with the King.]
+
+When I arrived in Rumania, in September, the army was still at the high
+tide of its advance in Transylvania and the world was lauding without
+stint the bravery and efficiency of Rumanian troops. Two days after my
+arrival I lunched with the King, and had the first of a series of
+interviews with him on the status of the case of Rumania. Inasmuch as
+without the consent of its sovereign the entrance of Rumania into the
+war would have been impossible, I should first present the King's view
+of her case as His Majesty, after several conversations, authorized me
+to present it.
+
+[Sidenote: The King of Rumania decides for war.]
+
+The King himself, as all the world knows, is a Hohenzollern. His
+personal feelings must, therefore, in a measure, be affected by the fact
+that most of his relatives and friends are fighting on the German side.
+There is, however, not the slightest evidence to indicate that he has
+ever allowed the fact of his German blood to weigh against the true
+interests of Rumania. A conversation which illustrates the attitude of
+the King at this time is one which the Princess ----, one of the most
+clever and best-informed women in Rumania, related to me in Bucharest.
+The day before the declaration of war the most pro-German of the
+Rumanian ministers, who had the name of being the leader of the
+pro-German party in the capital, spent several hours putting forth every
+effort to prevent the declaration of war by the King. The minister,
+making no headway, finally said, "The Germans are sure to win. Your
+Majesty must realize that it is impossible to beat a Hohenzollern." The
+King replied, "I think it can be done, nevertheless." To this the
+defender of the German cause answered, "Can you show me a single case
+where a Hohenzollern has been beaten?" The King replied, "I can. I am a
+Hohenzollern, and I have beaten my own blood instincts for the sake of
+Rumania."
+
+[Sidenote: Personality of the King of Rumania.]
+
+One beautiful autumn afternoon, at the royal shooting-box outside of
+Bucharest, the King talked freely about his motives and the cause of his
+people. We had finished luncheon and he had dismissed his suite. He and
+the Crown Prince and myself were left in the unpretentious study. Here,
+over a map-strewn table, it was the custom of the King to study the
+problems of the campaign. A tired, harassed-looking man of about sixty,
+clad in the blue uniform of the Hussars of his Guard, he paced the
+floor, and with deep emotion emphasized the case of his country and the
+motives which had induced Rumania to enter the war.
+
+This earnest presentation of his opinion I placed in writing at that
+time, and the sentences quoted here were a part of the statement
+published in the London "Times." So far as I know, this is the only
+occasion on which the King outlined in a definite way his personal view
+of the Rumania case.
+
+His Majesty began by laying stress on the necessity for interpreting
+Rumania truthfully to the world, now that her enemies were doing their
+utmost to misrepresent her; the necessity for understanding the genius
+of the people and the sacrifices and dangers which the country faced. He
+urged that Rumania had not been moved by mere policy or expediency, but
+that her action was based on the highest principles of nationality and
+national ideals.
+
+[Sidenote: The nation moved by ties of race and blood.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Bulgar a menace.]
+
+"In Rumania as in Russia," said the King, "the tie of race and blood
+underlies all other considerations, and the appeal of our purest
+Rumanian blood which lies beyond the Transylvanian Alps has ever been
+the strongest influence in the public opinion of all Rumania, from the
+throne to the lowest peasant. Inasmuch as Hungary was the master that
+held millions of our blood in perpetual bondage, Hungary has been our
+traditional enemy. The Bulgar, with his efficient and unquestionably
+courageous army, on a frontier difficult to defend, has logically become
+our southern menace, and as a latent threat has been accepted
+secondarily as a potential enemy."
+
+[Sidenote: German friendship an asset.]
+
+[Sidenote: Rumania's long frontier.]
+
+After stating that, although at the beginning of the war Rumanian
+sympathy had leaped instantly to France and England, the Rumanians had
+realized that, economically, the friendship of Germany was an asset in
+the development of Rumanian industries, the King added that,
+nevertheless, as the Great War progressed, there had developed in
+Rumania a moral issue in regard to the war. The frightfulness and
+lawlessness practiced by the Central Powers had a profound effect upon
+the Rumanian people, and the country began to feel the subtle force of
+enemy intrigue endeavoring to force her into war against her own real
+interests. Let us remember, when we would criticize Rumania for her
+early inactivity, that she was, in the words of her King, "a small power
+with a small army surrounded by giants"; that she had a western frontier
+1,000 kilometres long--greater than the English and French fronts
+combined--and a Bulgarian frontier, almost undefended and near her
+capital, stretching for other hundreds of kilometres on the south. With
+Russia in retreat, Rumania would have been instantly annihilated if she
+had acted. She had to wait till she could be reasonably sure of
+protecting herself and of being supported by her allies. She waited not
+a moment longer.
+
+[Sidenote: Prisoners and noncombatants well-treated.]
+
+After pointing out the great risks which Rumania had run, as a small
+country, and the deterring effect of the fate of Serbia and Belgium,
+the King continued, "Notwithstanding the savagery with which the enemy
+is attacking us and the cruelty with which our defenseless women and
+children are being massacred, this government will endeavor to prevent
+bitterness from dominating its actions in the way of reprisals on
+prisoners or defenseless noncombatants; and to this end orders have been
+issued to our troops that, regardless of previous provocation, those who
+fall into our hands shall be treated with kindness; for it is not the
+common soldiers or the innocent people who must be held responsible for
+the policy adopted by the enemy governments."
+
+The interview ended with the King's assurance that Rumanians would not
+falter in their allegiance to England the just, to France, their brother
+in Latin blood, and to Russia, their immediate neighbor.
+
+"With confidence in the justice of our cause, with faith in our allies,
+and with the knowledge that our people are capable of every fortitude,
+heroism, sacrifice, which may be demanded of them, we look forward
+soberly and seriously to the problems that confront us, but with the
+certainty that our sacrifices will not be in vain, and that ultimate
+victory must and will be the inevitable outcome. In the achievement of
+this result the people of Rumania, from the throne to the lowliest
+peasant, are willing to pay the price."
+
+[Sidenote: Rumanians realized their danger.]
+
+When it is realized that these conversations took place in September and
+the first days of October, it must be clear, I think, that neither the
+King nor the Queen had ever felt that Rumania entered the war in
+absolute security, but that they always realized the danger of their
+situation and moved only because their faith in the Allies was such as
+to lead them to believe that they had at least a fair chance to
+cooperate with them without the certainty of destruction.
+
+To emphasize further the fact that both realized this danger even before
+the war started, I would mention one occasion some weeks later, when the
+fear of the German invasion of Rumania was becoming a tangible one.
+During a conversation with the King and the Queen together, in regard to
+this menace, the Queen turned impulsively to the King and said, "This is
+exactly what we have feared. We, at least, never imagined that Rumania
+was going to have an easy victory, and we have always felt the danger of
+our coming into the war."
+
+The King looked very tired and nervous, having spent all that day with
+the General Staff weighing news from the front which was increasingly
+adverse. "Yes," he said, as he pulled his beard, "we were never misled
+as to what might happen."
+
+So much then for the psychology of the sovereigns of Rumania as I
+received it from their own lips.
+
+[Sidenote: Russian efforts to aid Rumania.]
+
+Ever since the loss of Bucharest the world has been asking why Rumania
+entered the war. It seems to be the general opinion that her action at
+that time was unwarranted and that she had been betrayed. There has even
+been a widely circulated report that Germany, through the King, has
+intrigued to bring about this disaster. Again, I have heard that the
+Russian High Command had purposely sacrificed Rumania. At this time,
+when much of the evidence is still unattainable, it is impossible for me
+to make absolutely authoritative statements, but immediately after
+leaving Rumania I spent three hours with General Brussiloff discussing
+the situation. A few days later I had the privilege of meeting the
+former Tsar at Kieff (to whom the Queen had given me a letter), and I
+know from his own lips his feelings in regard to Rumania. Subsequently,
+I was at the headquarters of the Russian High Command and there learned
+at first hand the extraordinary efforts that Alexieff was making to
+support Rumania. The British efforts to cooperate with Rumania and
+prevent disaster I knew thoroughly at that time.
+
+[Sidenote: Lack of vision and foresight.]
+
+I never saw the slightest evidence that either Russia or her allies had
+any intention whatever of disregarding their duties or their
+responsibilities to this little country. That there was lack of vision
+and foresight on all sides is quite apparent. But that there was bad
+faith on the part of any of the contracting parties I do not believe. It
+is probably true that the reactionary government in Petrograd was glad
+to see the Rumanian disaster, but it must be realized that this was a
+military situation primarily, and that ninety per cent of it in the
+first three months was in the hands, not of the Petrograd politicians
+but of the military authorities at the front. Brussiloff and Alexieff
+are men incapable of intrigue or bad faith. The Emperor, with whom I
+talked at Kieff, and the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlowna nearly wept at the
+misfortune of Rumania, and I am certain that the former Tsar was in no
+way a party to any breach of faith with this little ally.
+
+[Sidenote: Military conditions prior to Rumania's venture.]
+
+[Sidenote: Failure of Germans at Verdun.]
+
+I have said that there was not bad faith toward Rumania on the part of
+the Allies when they induced her to enter the war, and that there was
+not lack of intelligence on the part of Rumania when she followed their
+advice. In order to understand the point of view of the Allies it is
+necessary to have clearly in mind the military conditions existing in
+the whole theatre of operations during the six months prior to Rumania's
+fatal venture. In February the Germans had assembled a large portion of
+their mobile reserves for their effort against Verdun. The constant
+wastage of German human material continued almost without intermission
+into May, with spasmodic recurrences up to the present time. Hundreds of
+thousands of Germans were drawn from the visible supply of enemy manhood
+by these offensives. By early May the failure of the Verdun venture had
+probably become manifest to the German High Command, and there is
+evidence that they were commencing to conserve their troops for other
+purposes.
+
+[Sidenote: General Brussiloff's offensive.]
+
+On the 5th of June there began in Galicia and Volhynia the great
+offensive of General Brussiloff which lasted, almost without
+intermission, on one or another part of his front, until October. By the
+middle of June this drive of the Russians began to divert German troops
+for the defense of Kovel. In July started the British-French offensive
+in the West.
+
+[Sidenote: German troops diverted to Eastern front.]
+
+With their reservoirs of men already greatly reduced by the Verdun
+attacks, the Germans, by the middle of July, were compelled to find
+supports to meet the continuous offensives on both the Eastern and
+Western fronts. I cannot estimate the number of troops required by them
+against the French and British, but I do know that between the 5th of
+June and the 30th of August a total of thirty divisions of enemy troops
+were diverted from other fronts against Brussiloff alone. This heavy
+diversion was the only thing that prevented the Russians from taking
+Kovel in July and forcing the entire German line in the East. So
+continuous and pressing were the Russian attacks that more than two
+months elapsed before the enemy could bring this offensive to a final
+stop on the Kovel sector. Enemy formations arriving were ground up in
+detail as fast as they came, and by the middle of July it was clear to
+us, who were on the fighting line in Volhynia, that the Germans were
+having extraordinary difficulties in filling their losses from day to
+day. In June their first supports came by army corps; in July they were
+coming by divisions; and early in August we checked the arrival of
+single regiments, while the Austrians were often so hard pressed that
+they sent isolated battalions to fill the holes in their lines.
+
+[Sidenote: Teuton losses.]
+
+In the meantime the Russians had cleared the Bukovina of the enemy. It
+was believed that Rumania could put in the field twenty-two divisions of
+excellent troops. The enemy losses in prisoners alone, up to the first
+of September, from Brussiloff's offensive, were above four hundred
+thousand and over four hundred guns. It seemed then that these extra
+twenty-two divisions thrown in by Rumania could meet but little
+resistance.
+
+[Sidenote: The Allied plan of operation.]
+
+[Sidenote: Munitions to come daily from Russia.]
+
+In order that the Rumanian attempt to cooperate might be safeguarded in
+the highest degree, a coordinated plan of operations on the part of the
+Allies was agreed upon with Rumania. The allied force in Saloniki under
+General Sarrail was to commence a heavy offensive intended to pin down
+the Bulgarian and Turkish forces to the southern line, thus protecting
+the Rumanian line of the Danube. Brussiloff's left flank in Galicia was
+to start a drive through the Bukovina toward the Hungarian plain, thus
+relieving the Rumanians from any pressure on the south. A Russian force
+of fifty thousand men in the Dobrudja was to protect the Rumanian left.
+This, in view of the apparent shortage of enemy reserves, seemed to
+protect the army of Rumania on both flanks in its advance into
+Transylvania. In addition Rumania was to receive certain shipments of
+munitions of war daily from Russia. It was the opinion of the military
+advisers in Rumania that under no circumstances could the Germans divert
+against her within three months more than sixteen divisions, while some
+of the experts advising her placed the number as low as ten.
+
+[Sidenote: Bulgar and Austrian attack.]
+
+[Sidenote: Rumanians on defensive.]
+
+Now let us see what happened. For some reason, which I do not know, the
+offensive on the south was delayed, and when it did start it attained no
+important results nor did it detain sufficient enemy troops in that
+vicinity to relieve Rumania. On the contrary, heavy forces of Bulgars
+and Austrians immediately attacked the line of the Danube, taking the
+Rumanian stronghold of Turtekaia, with the bulk of the Rumanian heavy
+guns. In order to safeguard Bucharest, then threatened, the Rumanians
+were obliged to withdraw troops from their Transylvania advance, which
+up to this time had been highly successful. These withdrawals
+represented the difference between an offensive and a defensive, and the
+Transylvania campaign potentially failed when Bucharest was threatened
+from the south.
+
+[Sidenote: Defense in Dobrudja falls.]
+
+The Russian expedition in the Dobrudja, which was supported by a
+Rumanian division and a mixed division of Serbs and Slavs, partially
+recruited from prisoners captured by the Russians, failed to work in
+harmony, and the protection of the Rumanian left became, after the
+capture of Turtekaia, a negligible factor which ultimately collapsed
+entirely. Thus we see in the beginning that through no bad faith the
+southern assets on which Rumania depended proved to be of little or no
+value to her.
+
+[Sidenote: The case with Brussiloff's army.]
+
+There still remained the Russian agreement to cooperate in Galicia and
+the Bukovina. I can speak of this situation with authority because I had
+been on the southwestern front almost without intermission since June,
+and know that there was every intent on the part of Brussiloff to carry
+out to the limit of his capacity his end of the programme. The success
+of this, however, was impaired by a situation, over which he had no
+control, which developed in Galicia in September. It must not be
+forgotten that all the Russian troops on the southwestern front had been
+fighting constantly for nearly three months. When I came through Galicia
+on my way to Rumania I found Brussiloff's four southern armies engaged
+in a tremendous action. Early in September they had made substantial
+advances in the direction of Lemberg, and were in sight of Halicz on the
+Dniester when they began to encounter terrific and sustained
+counter-attacks.
+
+[Sidenote: Efforts to cooperate with Rumania.]
+
+That the force of this may be understood I would mention the case of the
+army attacking Halicz. When I first went to the southwestern front in
+June, there were facing this army three Austrian divisions, three
+Austrian cavalry divisions, and one German division. In September, at
+the very moment when Brussiloff was supposed to be heavily supporting
+Rumania, there were sent against this same army--on a slightly extended
+front--three Austrian divisions, two Austrian cavalry divisions, two
+Turkish divisions, and nine German divisions. The army on the extreme
+Russian left, whose duty it was to participate in the offensive in the
+Bukovina, had made important advances toward Lemberg from the south, and
+just at the time that Rumania entered the war it also was subjected to
+tremendous enemy counter-attacks. For several weeks it held its position
+only with the greatest difficulty and by diverting to itself most of the
+available reserves. Something more than one army corps did endeavor to
+cooperate with Rumania, but the situation I have described in Galicia
+made it impossible for sufficient supports to reach the Bukovina
+offensive to enable it to fulfill its mission.
+
+[Sidenote: Reasons for delay in munitions.]
+
+Thus we see that after the first month of the campaign the cooperative
+factors which alone had justified Rumania's entering into the war had
+proved to be failures. The arrival of material from Russia was delayed
+because, after Turtekaia was taken, a new Russian corps was sent to the
+Dobrudja to stiffen up that front. The railroad communications were bad
+and immediately became congested by the movements of troops, thus
+interfering with the shipping of badly needed material. I have since
+heard the Russian reactionary government charged with purposely holding
+up these shipments; but I am inclined to believe that my explanation of
+the cause of the delays in the arrival of material is the correct one.
+
+[Sidenote: Allies underestimated German force.]
+
+The greatest mistake on the part of the Allies was their estimate of the
+number of troops that the Germans could send to Rumania during the fall
+of 1916. As I have said, experts placed this number at from ten to
+sixteen divisions, but, to the best of my judgment, they sent, between
+the 1st of September and the 1st of January, not less than thirty. The
+German commitments to the Rumanian front came by express, and the
+Russian supports, because of the paucity of lines of communication, came
+by freight. The moment that it became evident what the Germans could do
+in the way of sending troops, Rumania was doomed.
+
+[Sidenote: Russians too late to save Bucharest.]
+
+The move of Alexieff and the Russian High Command in the middle of
+October, which is one of tangible record and not of opinion, should
+absolutely eliminate the charges of bad faith on the part of Russia, for
+he immediately appropriated for the support of Rumania between eight and
+ten army corps, which were instantly placed in motion, regardless of the
+adverse condition their absence caused on his own front. It is quite
+true that these troops arrived too late to save Bucharest; but that they
+came as quickly as possible, I can assert without reservation, for I was
+on the various lines of communication for nearly a month and found them
+blocked with these corps, which represented the cream of the Russian
+army, to make good the moral obligations of Russia to Rumania. In
+November I had a talk with Brussiloff, who authorized me to quote him as
+follows on the Rumanian situation:
+
+[Sidenote: Rumania feels bitterness of defeat.]
+
+
+                                 H.Q.--S.W.F.--Nov. 7.
+
+        Rumania is now feeling for the first time the
+        pressure of war and the bitterness of defeat;
+        but Rumania must realize that her defeats are
+        but incidents in the greater campaign; for
+        behind her stands great Russia, who will see to
+        it that her brave little ally, who has come
+        into the war for a just cause, does not
+        ultimately suffer for daring to espouse this
+        cause for which we are all fighting. I can
+        speak with authority when I state that, from
+        the Emperor down to the common soldier, there
+        is a united sentiment in Russia that Rumania
+        shall be protected, helped, and supported in
+        every way possible. Rumanians must feel faith
+        in Russia and the Russian people, and must also
+        know that in the efforts we are making to save
+        them sentiment is the dominant factor, and we
+        are not doing it merely as a question of
+        protecting our own selfish interest and our
+        left flank.
+
+[Sidenote: No wanton breach of faith.]
+
+It seems to me that the evidence I have submitted above clears the
+Allies, including Russia, of any wanton breach of faith toward Rumania,
+though the failure of their intention to relieve her certainly does not
+diminish their responsibility toward her in the future.
+
+[Sidenote: Germans on defensive in the north.]
+
+In the final analysis the determining factor in the ruin of Rumania was
+the failure of the Allies to foresee the number of troops the Germans
+could send against them. Their reasoning up to a certain point was
+accurate. In July, August, and for part of September it was, I believe,
+almost impossible for the Germans to send troops to Transylvania, which
+accounts for the rapidity of the Rumanian advance at the beginning of
+their operations. The fallacy in the Allied reasoning seems to me to
+have been that every one overlooked certain vital factors in the German
+situation. First, that she would ultimately support any threat against
+Hungary to the limit of her capacity, even if she had to evacuate
+Belgium to get troops for this purpose. For with Hungary out of the war
+it is a mate in five moves for the Central Empires. Second: the Allies
+failed to analyze correctly the troop situation on the eastern front,
+apparently failing to grasp one vital point. An army can defend itself
+in winter, with the heavy cold and snows of Russia sweeping the barren
+spaces, with perhaps sixty per cent of the number of troops required to
+hold those identical lines in summer. It should have been obvious that,
+when the cold weather set in in the north, the Germans would take
+advantage of this situation, and by going on the defensive in the north
+release the margin representing the difference in men required to hold
+their lines in summer and in winter. Possibly the same condition applies
+to the west, though I cannot speak with any authority on that subject.
+Apparently this obvious action of the Germans is exactly what happened.
+When their northern front had been combed, we find forces subtracted
+piecemeal from the north, reaching an aggregate of thirty divisions, or
+at least nearly fifteen divisions more than had been anticipated. The
+doom of Rumania was sealed.
+
+[Sidenote: Retreating armies must reach defenses.]
+
+What happened in the Russian effort to support Rumania is exactly what
+has occurred in nearly all the drives that I have been in during this
+war. An army once started in retreat in the face of superior forces can
+hold only when supported _en bloc_ or when it reaches a fortified line.
+The Germans with all their cleverness and efficiency were not able to
+stop the Russian offensive of 1916 until they had fallen back on the
+fortified lines of the Stokhod in front of Kovel. In the Galician drive
+against the Russians in 1915, the armies of the Tsar were not able to
+hold until they reached the San River, on which they fought a series of
+rear-guard actions.
+
+[Sidenote: Russian corps on Sereth line.]
+
+So it was in Rumania. The Russian corps arriving on the installment plan
+were swept away by the momentum of the advancing enemy, who could not be
+halted until the fortified line of the Sereth was reached.
+
+[Sidenote: Rumanians played the game.]
+
+[Sidenote: Russia in chaos.]
+
+Whether one blames the Allies for lack of vision or not, I think one
+must at least acquit Rumania of any responsibility for her own undoing.
+Her case as represented by the King seems a just and sufficient reason
+for her having entered the war. Her action during the war has been
+straightforward and direct, and I have never heard of any reason to
+believe that the King or the Rumanian High Command has ever looked back
+in the furrow since they made the decision to fight on the side of the
+Allies. They followed the advice given them as to their participation in
+the war. They have played the game to the limit of their resources and
+to-day stand in a position almost unparalleled in its pathos and
+acuteness. In front of them, as they struggle with courage and
+desperation for the small fragment of their kingdom that remains, are
+the formations of the Turks, Bulgars, Austrians, Hungarians, and
+Germans, with Mackensen striving to give them a death-blow. Behind them
+is Russia in chaos. German agitators and irresponsible revolutionists
+have striven in vain to destroy the morale of their army and shake their
+faith in their government and their sovereign. It is estimated that
+three million Rumanian refugees have taken shelter behind their lines.
+Their civil population, or that portion of it which remains, will this
+winter be destitute of almost every necessity of life.
+
+[Sidenote: Obligation of Allies to Rumania.]
+
+This, then, is the case of Rumania, and if we and the other Allies have
+not a moral obligation to the King and Queen and the government of that
+little country, to support them in every way possible, then surely we
+have no obligation to any one.
+
+Sentiment, however, is not the only factor in the Rumanian case. There
+is also the problem of sound policy. In spite of all her distress and
+her discouragements Rumania has been able to save from the wreckage, and
+to reconstruct, an army which it is said can muster between three and
+four hundred thousand men.
+
+[Sidenote: Rumanian army well drilled.]
+
+These soldiers are well drilled by French officers, filled with
+enthusiasm and fighting daily, and are even now diverting enemy troops
+toward Rumania which would otherwise be available for fighting British,
+French, and American troops in the west.
+
+The Rumanians are the matrix of the Russian left flank, and if, through
+lack of support and the necessities of life, they go out of the war, the
+solidity of the Russian left is destroyed and the capture of Odessa
+probably foreordained.
+
+A few hundred million dollars would probably keep Rumania fighting for
+another year. It is a conservative estimate to state that it will take
+ten times that amount, and at least six months' delay, to place the
+equivalent number of trained American troops on any fighting front.
+
+[Sidenote: Every assistance should be given.]
+
+It is, I think, obvious that from the point of view of sound military
+policy, as well as moral and ethical obligation, every American whose
+heart is in this war should be behind the President of the United States
+without reserve, in any effort he may make or recommend, in extending
+assistance to Rumania in this the hour of her greatest peril.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Germany's treatment of prisoners of war.]
+
+Prisoners taken by the Germans were overworked and disciplined with much
+insolence and cruelty. For infractions of their iron rules the Germans
+inflicted the severest penalties. The food supplied was insufficient and
+of very poor quality, so that men might actually have starved had it not
+been for boxes sent from home through the Red Cross. In the following
+chapter, a Canadian soldier, who finally escaped after three
+unsuccessful attempts, describes the life of prisoners and other workers
+in the Westphalian coal mines.
+
+
+
+
+SIXTEEN MONTHS A WAR PRISONER
+
+PRIVATE "JACK" EVANS
+
+Copyright, Forum, May 1918.
+
+
+I was in Germany as prisoner of war from June, 1916, to September, 1917.
+
+[Sidenote: Captured at third battle of Ypres.]
+
+[Sidenote: A giant shell blows up the dugout.]
+
+My story starts with my capture at the third battle of Ypres. The Fourth
+Canadian Mounted Rifles were in the front line at Zillebeke. We had been
+terribly pounded by German artillery, in fact, almost annihilated. After
+a hideous night, morning, June 2, 1916, dawned beautiful and clear. At
+5.30 I turned in for a little sleep with four other fellows who made up
+the machine-gun crew with me. Lance Corporal Wedgewood, in charge of the
+gun, remained awake to clean it. I had just got into a sound sleep when
+it seemed as if the whole crust of the earth were torn asunder in one
+mammoth explosion, and I found myself buried beneath sandbags and loose
+earth. I escaped death only by a miracle and managed to dig my way out.
+A giant shell had blown up our dugout. Two of the boys were killed.
+
+"We're in for it," said Wedgewood. "They'll keep this up for a while and
+they'll come over. We must get the gun out."
+
+[Sidenote: German barrage almost wipes out the Fourth.]
+
+The gun had been buried by the explosion, but we managed to get it out
+and were cleaning it up again when another trench mortar shell came
+over. It destroyed all but 300 rounds of ammunition. Then the
+bombardment started in earnest. Shells rained on us like hailstones. The
+German artillery started a barrage behind us that looked almost like a
+wall of flame; so we knew that there was no hope whatever of help
+reaching us.
+
+Our men dropped off one by one. The walls of our trench were battered to
+greasy sand heaps. The dead lay everywhere. Soon only Wedgewood, another
+chap, and myself were left.
+
+"They've cleaned us out now. The whole battalion's gone," he said.
+
+As far as we could see along the line there was nothing left, not even
+trenches--just churned-up earth and mutilated bodies. The gallant Fourth
+had stood its ground in the face of probably the worst hell that had yet
+visited the Canadian lines and had been wiped out!
+
+It was not long before the other fellow was finished by a piece of
+shrapnel. I was wounded in the back with a splinter from a shell which
+broke overhead and then another got me in the knee. I bled freely, but
+luckily neither wound was serious. About 1.30 we saw a star shell go up
+over the German lines.
+
+"They're coming!" cried Wedgewood, and we jumped to the gun.
+
+[Sidenote: The two men remaining fire the machine gun.]
+
+The Germans were about seventy-five yards off when we got the gun
+trained on them. We gave them our 300 rounds and did great damage; the
+oncoming troops wavered and the front line crumpled up, but the rest
+came on.
+
+[Sidenote: Captured by Germans.]
+
+What followed does not remain very clearly in my mind. We tried to
+retreat. Every move was agony for me. We did not go far, however. Some
+of the Germans had got around us and we ran right into four of them. We
+doubled back and found ourselves completely surrounded. A ring of steel
+and fierce, pitiless eyes! I expected they would butcher us there and
+then. The worst we got, however, was a series of kicks as we were
+marching through the lines in the German communication trenches.
+
+[Sidenote: The night in a stable at Menin.]
+
+We were given quick treatment at a dressing station and escorted with
+other prisoners back to Menin by Uhlans. The wounded were made to get
+along as best they could. We passed through several small towns where
+the Belgian people tried to give us food. The Uhlans rode along and
+thrust them back with their lances in the most cold-blooded way. We
+reached Menin about 10 o'clock that night and were given black bread and
+coffee--or something that passed by that name. The night was spent in a
+horse stable with guards all around us with fixed bayonets. The next day
+we were lined up before a group of German officers, who asked us
+questions about the numbers and disposition of the British forces, and
+we lied extravagantly. They knew we were lying, and finally gave it up.
+
+[Sidenote: In cattle trucks to Duelmen camp.]
+
+During the next day and a half, traveling in cattle trucks, we had one
+meal, a bowl of soup. It was weak and nauseating. We took it gratefully,
+however, for we were nearly starved.
+
+[Sidenote: Food bad and insufficient.]
+
+Finally we arrived at Duelmen camp, where I was kept two months. The food
+was bad, and very, very scanty. For breakfast we had black bread and
+coffee; for dinner, soup (I still shudder at the thought of turnip
+soup), and sometimes a bit of dog meat for supper, a gritty, tasteless
+porridge, which we called "sand storm." We used to sit around with our
+bowls of this concoction and extract a grim comfort from the hope that
+some day Kaiser Bill would be in captivity and we might be allowed to
+feed him on "sand storm."
+
+[Sidenote: The American Ambassador's visit.]
+
+While I was at Duelmen we had quite a number of visitors. One day Mr.
+Gerard, the American Ambassador, appeared. He looked us over with great
+concern and asked us a number of questions. "Is there anything I can do
+for you?" he asked as he was leaving.
+
+"See if you can get them to give us more food," one of us begged.
+
+"I shall speak to the camp commander about it," promised Mr. Gerard.
+
+I do not doubt that he did so--but there was no change in the menu and
+no increase in the quantities served.
+
+[Sidenote: Arrival at the coal mine.]
+
+After two months at Duelmen prison camp we got word that we were to be
+sent to work on a farm. We conjured up visions of open fields and fresh
+air and clean straw to sleep in and perhaps even real food to eat. They
+loaded fifty of us into one car and sent us off, and when we reached our
+farm we found it was a coal mine!
+
+As we tumbled off the train, stiff, weary, and disappointed, we were
+regarded curiously by a small group of people who worked in the mines.
+They were a heavy looking lot--oldish men with beards, and dull, stolid
+women. They regarded us with sullen hostility, but there was no fire in
+their antagonism. Some of the men spat and muttered "Schweinhunds!" That
+was all.
+
+[Sidenote: The prison camp.]
+
+We were marched off to the "Black Hole." It was a large camp with large
+frame buildings, which had been erected especially for the purpose.
+There was one building for the French prisoners, one for the Russians,
+and one for the British and Canadian contingent. Barbed wire
+entanglements surrounded the camp and there were sentries with drawn
+bayonets everywhere.
+
+[Sidenote: Heavy work and slender rations.]
+
+We were greeted with considerable interest by the other prisoners. There
+were about two hundred of our men there and all of them seemed in bad
+shape. They had been subjected to the heaviest kind of work on the
+slenderest rations and were pretty well worn out.
+
+[Sidenote: A strike for safeguards.]
+
+Some of us were selected for the mine and some were told off for coke
+making, which, as we soon learned, was sheer unadulterated hell. I was
+selected for the coke mine and put in three days at it--three days of
+smarting eyes and burning lungs, of aching and weary muscles. Then my
+chum, Billy Flanagan, was buried under an avalanche of falling coal and
+killed. There were no safeguards in the mine and the same accident might
+occur again at any time. So we struck.
+
+[Sidenote: Kept at "attention" thirty-six hours.]
+
+The officers took it as a matter of course. We were lined up and ordered
+to stand rigidly at "attention." No food was served, not even a glass of
+water was allowed us. We stood there for thirty-six hours. Man after man
+fainted from sheer exhaustion. When one of us dropped he was dragged out
+of the ranks to a corner, where a bucket of water was thrown over him,
+and, as soon as consciousness returned, he was yanked to his feet and
+forced to return to the line. All this time sentries marched up and down
+and if one of us moved he got a jab with the butt end of the gun. Every
+half hour an officer would come along and bark out at us:
+
+"Are you for work ready now?"
+
+Finally, when some of our fellows were on the verge of insanity, we gave
+in in a body.
+
+[Sidenote: Awakened at 4 a. m.]
+
+[Sidenote: Turnip soup the chief article of diet.]
+
+After that things settled down into a steady and dull routine. We were
+routed out at 4 o'clock in the morning. The sentries would come in and
+beat the butts of their rifles on the wooden floor and roar "Raus!" at
+the top of their voices. If any sleep-sodden prisoners lingered a
+second, they were roughly hauled out and kicked into active obedience.
+Then a cup of black coffee was served out to us and at 5 o'clock we were
+marched to the mines. There was a dressing room at the mine where we
+stripped off our prisoners' garb and donned working clothes. We stayed
+in the mines until 3.30 in the afternoon and the "staggers"--our pet
+name for the foremen--saw to it that we had a busy time of it. Then we
+changed back into our prison clothes and marched to barracks, where a
+bowl of turnip soup was given us and a half pound of bread. We were
+supposed to save some of the bread to eat with our coffee in the
+morning. Our hunger was so great, however, that there was rarely any of
+the bread left in the morning. At 7 o'clock we received another bowl of
+turnip soup and were then supposed to go to bed.
+
+If it had not been for the parcels of food that we received from friends
+at home and from the Red Cross we would certainly have starved. We were
+able to eke out our prison fare by carefully husbanding the food that
+came from the outside.
+
+[Sidenote: Citizen miners also complain about food.]
+
+The citizens working in the mines when I first arrived were mostly
+middle-aged. Many were quite venerable in appearance and of little
+actual use. They were willing enough to work and work hard; but they
+complained continually about the lack of food.
+
+That was the burden of their conversation, always, food--bread, butter,
+potatoes, schinken (ham)! They were living on meager rations and the
+situation grew steadily worse. The people that I worked with were in
+almost as bad a plight as we prisoners of war. In the course of a few
+months I could detect sad changes in them.
+
+[Sidenote: German miners also severely disciplined.]
+
+The German miners were quite as much at the mercy of the officers as we
+were. Discipline was rigid and they were "strafed" for any infraction of
+rules; that is, they were subjected to cuts in pay. Lateness, laziness,
+or insubordination were punished by the deduction of so many marks from
+their weekly earnings, and all on the say-so of the "stagger" in charge
+of the squad. At a certain hour each day an official would come around
+and hand each civilian a slip of paper. I asked one of my companions
+what it was all about.
+
+[Sidenote: No bread tickets for those who do not work.]
+
+"Bread tickets," he explained. "If they don't turn up for work, they
+don't get their bread tickets and have to go hungry."
+
+The same rule applied to the women who worked around the head of the
+mine, pushing carts and loading the coal. If they came to work, they
+received their bread tickets; if they failed to turn up, the little
+mouths at home would go unfed for a day.
+
+[Sidenote: German women at the mines.]
+
+I often used to stop for a moment or so on my way to or from the pit
+head and watch these poor women at work. Some of them went barefoot, but
+the most of them wore wooden shoes. They appeared to be pretty much of
+one class, uneducated, dull, and just about as ruggedly built as their
+men. They seemed quite capable of handling the heavy work given them.
+There were exceptions, however. Here and there among the gray-clad
+groups I could pick out women of a slenderer mold. These were women of
+refinement and good education who had been compelled to turn to any
+class of work to feed their children. Their husbands and sons were at
+the front or already killed.
+
+The food restrictions caused bitterness among all the mine workers.
+There were angry discussions whenever a group of them got together. For
+several days this became very marked.
+
+"There's going to be trouble here," my friend, the English Tommy, told
+me. "These people say their families are starving. They will strike one
+of these days."
+
+The very next day, as we marched up to work in the dull gray of the
+early morning, we found noisy crowds of men and women around the
+buildings at the mine. A ring of sentries had been placed all around.
+
+[Sidenote: Bread strike of the citizen miners.]
+
+"Strike's on! There's a bread strike all through the mining country!"
+was the whispered news that ran down the line of prisoners. We were
+delighted, because it meant that we would have a holiday. The
+authorities did not dare let us go into the mines with the civilians
+out; they were afraid we might wreck it. So we were marched back to camp
+and stayed there until the strike was over.
+
+[Sidenote: The strikers win and new rules are formulated.]
+
+The strike ended finally and the people came back to work, jubilant. The
+authorities had given in for two reasons, as far as we could judge. The
+first was the dire need of coal, which made any interruption of work at
+the mines a calamity. The second was the fact that food riots were
+occurring in many parts and it was deemed wise to placate the people.
+
+But the triumph of the workers was not complete. The very next day we
+noticed signs plastered up in conspicuous places with the familiar word
+"Verboten" in bold type at the top. One of our fellows who could read
+German edged up close enough to see one of the placards.
+
+"There won't be any more strikes," he informed us. "The authorities have
+made it illegal for more than four civilians to stand together at any
+time or talk together. Any infringement of the rule will be jail for
+them. That means no more meetings."
+
+There was much muttering in the mine that day, but it was done in groups
+of four or less. I learned afterward, when I became sufficiently
+familiar with the language and with the miners themselves to talk with
+them, that they bitterly resented this order.
+
+[Sidenote: Strike leaders disappear from the mine.]
+
+I found that the active leaders in the strike shortly afterward
+disappeared from the mine. Those who could possibly be passed for
+military service were drafted into the army. This was intended as an
+intimation to the rest that they must "be good" in future. The fear of
+being drafted for the army hung over them all like a thunder cloud. They
+knew what it meant and they feared it above everything.
+
+When I first arrived at the mine there were quite a few able-bodied men
+and boys around sixteen and seventeen years of age at work there.
+Gradually they were weeded out for the army. When I left none were there
+but the oldest men and those who could not possibly qualify for any
+branch of the service.
+
+[Sidenote: Talks with the German miner.]
+
+In the latter stages of my experience at the mine I was able to talk
+more or less freely with my fellow workers. A few of the Germans had
+picked up a little English. There was one fellow who had a son in the
+United States and who knew about as much English as I knew German, and
+we were able to converse. If I did not know the "Deutsch" for what I
+wanted to say, he generally could understand it in English. He was
+continually making terrific indictments of the German Government, yet he
+hated England to such a degree that he would splutter and get purple in
+the face whenever he mentioned the word. However, he could find it in
+his heart to be decent to isolated specimens of Englishmen.
+
+I first got talking with Fritz one day when the papers had announced the
+repulse of a British attack on the western front.
+
+[Sidenote: Fritz's view of British attacks.]
+
+"It's always the same. They are always attacking us," he cursed. "Of
+course, it's true that we repulse them. They are but English and they
+can't break the German army. But how are we to win the war if it is
+always the English who attack?"
+
+"Do you still think Germany can win?" I asked.
+
+"No!" He fairly spat at me. "We can't beat you now. But you can't beat
+us! This war will go on until your pig-headed Lloyd George gives in."
+
+"Or," I suggested gently, "until your pig-headed Junker Government gives
+in."
+
+"They never will!" he said, a little proudly, but sadly too. "Every man
+will be killed in the army--my two sons, all--and we will starve before
+it is all over!"
+
+[Sidenote: The Germans no longer hope for a big victory.]
+
+The German citizens, in that section at least, had given up hope of
+being able to score the big victory that was in every mind when the war
+started. What the outcome would be did not seem to be clear to them. All
+they knew was that the work meant misery for them, and that, as far as
+they could see, this misery would continue on and on indefinitely. They
+had lost confidence in the newspapers. It was plain to be seen that the
+stereotyped rubber-stamped kind of official news that got into the
+papers did not satisfy them. Many's the time I heard bitter curses
+heaped upon the Hobenzollerns by lips that were flabby and colorless
+from starvation.
+
+[Sidenote: News of unrestricted submarine warfare.]
+
+There was much excitement among them when, early in 1917, the news
+spread that unrestricted submarine warfare was to be resumed. Old Fritz
+came over to me with a newspaper in his hand and his eyes fairly popping
+with excitement.
+
+"This will end it!" he declared. "We are going to starve you out, you
+English."
+
+"You'll bring America in," I told him.
+
+"No, no!" he said, quite confidently. "The Yankees won't come in. They
+are making too much money as it is. They won't fight. See, here it is in
+the paper. It is stated clearly here that the United States will not
+fight. It doesn't dare to fight!"
+
+But when the news came that the United States had actually declared war
+they were a sad lot. I took the first opportunity to pump old Fritz
+about the views of his companions.
+
+"It's bad, bad," he said, shaking his head dolefully.
+
+"Then you are afraid of the Americans, after all?" I said.
+
+[Sidenote: Why Fritz was sorry to have America in the war.]
+
+Fritz laughed, with a short, contemptuous note. "No, it is not that," he
+said. "England will be starved out before the Americans can come in and
+then it will all be over. But--just between us, you and me--most of us
+here were intending to go to America, after the war, where we would be
+free from all this. But--now the United States won't let us in after the
+war!"
+
+I shall never forget the day that the papers announced the refusal of
+the English labor delegates to go to Stockholm. One excited miner struck
+me across the face with the open newspaper in his hand.
+
+[Sidenote: Hatred of the English.]
+
+"Always, always the same!" he almost screamed. "The English block
+everything. They will not join and what good can come now of the
+conference? They will not be content and the war must go on!"
+
+[Sidenote: Shortage in necessities of life.]
+
+The food shortage reached a crisis about the time that I managed, after
+three futile attempts, to escape. Frequently, when the people took their
+bread tickets to the stores they found that supplies had been exhausted
+and that there was nothing to be obtained. Prices had gone sky-high.
+Bacon, for instance, $2.50 and more a pound. A cake of soap cost 85
+cents. Cleanliness became a luxury. These prices are indicative of the
+whole range and it is not hard to see the struggle these poor mine
+people were having to keep alive at all.
+
+[Sidenote: Prisoners receive food from England.]
+
+[Sidenote: Germans wonder at food of starving England.]
+
+At this time our parcels from England were coming along fairly regularly
+and we were better off for food than the Germans themselves. Owing to
+the long shift we were compelled to do in the mines we fell into the
+habit of "hoarding" our food parcels and carrying a small lunch to the
+mines each day. These lunches had to be carefully secreted or the
+Germans would steal them. They could not understand how it was that
+starving England could send food abroad to us. The sight of these
+lunches helped to undermine their faith in the truth of the official
+information they read in the newspapers.
+
+[Sidenote: Wages spent for soap.]
+
+Our lot at the mines was almost unendurable. We were supposed to receive
+four and a half marks (90 cents) a week for our labor, but there was
+continual "strafing" to reduce the amount. If we looked sideways at a
+"stagger," we were likely to receive a welt with a pick handle and a
+strafe of several marks. Sometimes we only received a mark or two for a
+week's work. Most of this we spent for soap. It was impossible to work
+in the mine and not become indescribably dirty, and soap became an
+absolute necessity.
+
+[Sidenote: Uncomfortable quarters.]
+
+We lived under conditions of great discomfort in the camp, 250 of us in
+30 x 30 quarters. There were two stoves in the building in which coke
+was burned, but the place was terribly cold. The walls at all seasons
+were so damp that pictures tacked up on them mildewed in a short time.
+Our bunks contained straw which was never replenished and we all became
+infested with fleas. Some nights it was impossible to sleep on account
+of the activity of these pests. On account of the dampness and cold we
+always slept in our clothes.
+
+[Sidenote: Cruelty of discipline.]
+
+[Sidenote: Seven plan to escape.]
+
+Discipline was rigorous and cruel. We were knocked around and given
+terms of solitary confinement and made to stand at attention for hours
+at the least provocation. Many of the prisoners were killed--murdered by
+the cruelty. It became more than flesh and blood could stand. One day
+seven of us got together and made a solemn compact to escape. We would
+keep at it, we decided, no matter what happened, until we got away. Six
+of us are now safely at home. The seventh, my chum, J. W. Nicholson, is
+still a prisoner.
+
+I made four attempts to escape before I finally succeeded. The first
+time a group of us made a tunnel out under the barricade, starting
+beneath the flooring of the barracks. We crawled out at night and had
+put fifteen miles between us and the camp before we were finally caught.
+I got seven days' "black" that time, solitary confinement in a narrow
+stone cell, without a ray of light, on black bread and water.
+
+[Sidenote: Two attempts to escape fail and are punished.]
+
+The second attempt was again by means of a tunnel. A chum of mine,
+William Raesides, who had come over with the 8th C. M. R.'s, was my
+companion that time. We were caught by bloodhounds after twenty miles
+and they gave us ten days' "black."
+
+[Sidenote: The third attempt.]
+
+The third attempt was made in company with my chum Nicholson, and we
+planned it out very carefully. Friends in England sent through suits of
+civilian clothes to us.
+
+The next day we dressed up for the attempt by putting on our "civies"
+first and then drawing our prisoner's uniform over them. When we got to
+the mine we took off the uniform and slipped the mining clothes on over
+the others. We worked all day. Coming up from work in the late
+afternoon, Nick and I held back until everyone else had gone. We went up
+alone in the hoist and tore off our mining clothes as we ascended,
+dropping each piece back into the pit as we discarded it.
+
+It was fairly dark when we got out of the hoist and the guards did not
+pay much attention to us. There was a small building at the mine head
+where we prisoners washed and dressed after work and a separate exit for
+the civilians. Nick and I took the civilian exit and walked out into
+the street without any interference.
+
+[Sidenote: Near the Dutch border.]
+
+We could both speak enough German to pass, so we boldly struck out for
+the Dutch border, which was about 85 miles away, traveling only during
+the night. We had a map that a miner had sold to us for a cake of soap
+and we guided our course by that. We got to the border line without any
+trouble whatever, but were caught through overconfidence, due to a
+mistake in the map. Close to the line was a milepost indicating that a
+certain Dutch town was two miles west. The map indicated that this town
+was four miles within the Dutch border.
+
+[Sidenote: Captured and punished again.]
+
+"We're over!" we shouted when we saw that welcome milepost. Throwing
+caution aside, we marched boldly forward, right into a couple of
+sentries with fixed bayonets!
+
+It was two weeks' "black" they meted out to us that time. The
+Kommandant's eyes snapped as he passed sentence. I knew he would have
+been much more strict on me as the three-time offender had it not been
+that the need for coal was so dire that labor, even the labor of a
+recalcitrant prisoner, was valuable.
+
+"No prisoner has yet escaped from this Kommando!" he shouted, "and none
+shall. Any further attempts will be punished with the utmost severity."
+
+[Sidenote: A new method of getaway planned.]
+
+Nevertheless they took the precaution to break up my partnership with
+Nicholson, putting him on the night shift. I immediately went into
+partnership with Private W. M. Masters, of Toronto, and we planned to
+make our getaway by an entirely new method.
+
+The building at the mine where we changed clothes before and after work
+was equipped with a bathroom in one corner, with a window with one iron
+bar intersecting. Outside the window was a bush and beyond that open
+country. A sentry was always posted outside the building, but he had
+three sides to watch and we knew that, if we could only move that bar,
+we could manage to elude the sentry. So we started to work on the bar.
+
+[Sidenote: Four months' steady work.]
+
+I had found a bit of wire which I kept secreted about me and every
+night, after washing up, we would dig for a few minutes at the brickwork
+around the bar. It was slow, tedious and disappointing work. Gradually,
+however, we scooped the brick out around the bar and after nearly four
+months' application we had it so loosened that a tug would pull it out.
+
+[Sidenote: Night in a bog.]
+
+The next day Masters and I were the last in the bathroom, and when the
+sentry's round had taken him to the other side of the building, we
+wrenched out the bar, raised the window and wriggled through head first,
+breaking our fall in the bush outside. We got through without attracting
+attention and ran across the country into a swamp, where we soon lost
+our way and wallowed around all night up to our knees in the bog,
+suffering severely from the cold and damp. Early in our flight the
+report of a gun from the camp warned us that our absence had been
+discovered. Our adventure in the swamp saved us from capture, for the
+roads were patrolled by cavalry that night.
+
+We found our way out of the swamp near morning, emerging on the western
+side. By the sale of more soap to miners we had acquired another map and
+a compass, so we had little difficulty in determining our whereabouts
+and settling our course for the border. For food we had each brought
+along ten biscuits, the result of several weeks' hoarding.
+
+That day we stayed on the edge of the swamp, never stirring for a moment
+from the shelter of a clump of bushes. One slept while the other
+watched. No one came near us and we heard no signs of our pursuers.
+Night came on most mercifully dark and we struck out along the roads at
+a smart clip.
+
+We traveled all night, making probably twenty-five miles. It was
+necessary, we knew, to make the most of our strength in the earlier
+stages of the dash. As our food gave out we would be less capable of
+covering the ground. So we spurred ourselves on to renewed effort and
+ate the miles up in a sort of frenzy.
+
+This kept up for four days and nights. We kept going as hard as our
+waning strength would permit and we were cautious in the extreme. Even
+at that we had many narrow escapes.
+
+[Sidenote: Crossing the Lippe River.]
+
+Our greatest difficulty was when we struck the Lippe River. Our first
+plan was to swim across, but we found that we had not the strength left
+for this feat. We lost a day as a result. The second night we found a
+scow tied up along the bank and got across that way.
+
+[Sidenote: Rapid progress, though starving.]
+
+By this time we were slowly starving on our feet, we were wet through
+continuously, and such sleep as we got was broken and fitful. Before we
+had been four days out we were reduced to gaunt, tattered, dirty
+scarecrows. We staggered as we walked and sometimes one of us would drop
+on the road through sheer weakness. Through it all we kept up our frenzy
+for speed and it was surprising how much ground we forced ourselves to
+cover in a night. And, no matter how much the pangs of hunger gnawed at
+us, we conserved our fast dwindling supply of biscuit. Less than two
+biscuits a day was our limit!
+
+Finally we reached a point that I recognized from my previous attempt to
+escape. It was about four miles from the border. We had two biscuits
+left between us. The next day we feasted royally and extravagantly on
+those two biscuits. No longer did we need to hoard our supplies, for the
+next night would tell the tale.
+
+[Sidenote: Safe past the German sentries.]
+
+By the greatest good fortune night came on dark and cloudy. Not a star
+showed in the sky. We crawled cautiously and painfully toward the
+border. At every sound we stopped and flattened out. Twice we saw
+sentries close at hand, but both times we got by safely. Finally we
+reached what we judged must be the last line of sentries. We had crawled
+across a ploughed field and reached a road lined on both sides with
+trees where sentries were passing up and down.
+
+"It's the border!" we whispered.
+
+When the nearest sentry had reached the far end of his beat we doubled
+up like jack-knives and dashed across that road, plunging through the
+trees on the other side. Not a sound came from the sentries. We struck
+across fields with delirious speed, we reeled along like drunken men,
+laughing and gasping and sometimes reaching out for a mutual handshake.
+
+[Sidenote: Across the border in Holland.]
+
+Then we got a final scare. Marching up the road toward us was what
+looked like a white sheet. Our nerves were badly shattered, and that
+moving thing froze my blood, but it was a scare of brief duration. The
+sheet soon resolved itself into two girls in white dresses, walking up
+the road with a man. We scurried to the side of the road as soon as we
+made them out. Then I decided to test the matter of our whereabouts and
+stepped out to accost them.
+
+"Have you a match?" I asked in German.
+
+The man did not understand me!
+
+We were in Holland--_and free_!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Little was heard from the Belgians themselves of the hardships and
+suffering endured by them under the rule of the Germans. Occasionally,
+however, an eye-witness from the outside was able to present some
+aspects of the terrible picture. The narrative of such an eye-witness is
+given in the following pages.
+
+
+
+
+UNDER GERMAN RULE IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM
+
+J. P. WHITAKER
+
+
+[Sidenote: The German iron heel on Roubaix.]
+
+Toward the end of March, 1915, a distinct change became noticeable in
+the policy of the German military authorities, and for the first time
+the people of Roubaix began to feel the iron heel. The allied
+Governments had formally declared their intention of blockading Germany
+and the German Army had been given a sharp lesson at Neuve Chapelle.
+Whether these two events had anything to do with the change, or whether
+it was merely a coincidence, I do not know; the fact remains that our
+German governors who had hitherto treated us with tolerable leniency
+chose about this time to initiate a regime of stringent regulation and
+repression.
+
+[Sidenote: Identification papers.]
+
+The first sign of the new policy was the issue of posters calling on all
+men, women, and children over the age of 14 to go to the Town Hall and
+take out identification papers, while all men between 17 and 50 were
+required also to obtain a control card.
+
+Up to this time I had escaped any interference from the Germans, perhaps
+because I scarcely ventured into the streets for the first two months of
+the German occupation, and possibly also because, from a previous long
+residence in Roubaix, I spoke French fluently. Strangely enough, though
+I went to the Town Hall with the rest and supplied true particulars of
+my age and nationality, papers were issued to me as a matter of course,
+and never during the whole two years and more of my presence in their
+midst did the enemy molest me in any way.
+
+[Sidenote: Control cards for men of military age.]
+
+The only incident which throws any light on this curious immunity
+occurred about the middle of 1915. Like all other men of military age, I
+was required to present myself once a month at a public hall, in order
+to have my control card, which was divided into squares for the months
+of the year, marked in the proper space with an official stamp "Kontrol,
+July," or "August," or whatever the month might be. We were summoned for
+this process by groups, first those from 17 to 25, then those from 25 to
+35, and so on. Hundreds of young fellows would gather in a room, and one
+by one, as their names were called, would take their cards to be stamped
+by a noncommissioned officer sitting at a table on the far side of the
+room. On the occasion I have in mind, the noncommissioned officer said
+to me, "You are French, aren't you?" I answered, "No." "Are you
+Belgian?" "No," again. "You are Dutch, then?" A third time I replied
+"No."
+
+At this stage an officer who had been sauntering up and down the room
+smoking a cigarette came to the table, took up my card, and turning to
+the man behind the table, remarked, "It's all right. He's an American."
+I did not trouble to enlighten him. That is probably why I enjoyed
+comparative liberty.
+
+[Sidenote: The German policy of enslavement.]
+
+Enslavement is part of the deliberate policy of the Germans in France.
+It began by the taking of hostages at the very outset of their
+possession of Roubaix. A number of the leading men in the civic and
+business life of the town were marked out and compelled to attend by
+turns at the Town Hall, to be shot on the spot at the least sign of
+revolt among the townspeople.
+
+[Sidenote: Treatment of girl mill operatives who refuse to work.]
+
+
+Not a few of the mill owners were ordered to weave cloth for the
+invaders, and on their refusal were sent to Germany and held to ransom.
+Many of the mill operatives, quite young girls, were directed to sew
+sandbags for the German trenches. They, too, refused, but the Germans
+had their own ways of dealing with what they regarded as juvenile
+obstinacy. They dragged the girls to a disused cinema hall, and kept
+them there without food or water until their will was broken.
+
+Barbarity reached its climax in the so-called "deportations." They were
+just slave raids, brutal and undisguised.
+
+[Sidenote: The deportations or slave raids.]
+
+[Sidenote: Taken to an unknown fate.]
+
+The procedure was this: The town was divided into districts. At 3
+o'clock in the morning a cordon of troops would be drawn round a
+district--the Prussian Guard and especially, I believe, the Sixty-ninth
+Regiment, played a great part in this diabolical crime--and officers and
+noncommissioned officers would knock at every door until the household
+was roused. A handbill, about octavo size, was handed in, and the
+officer passed on to the next house. The handbill contained printed
+orders that every member of the household must rise and dress
+immediately, pack up a couple of blankets, a change of linen, a pair of
+stout boots, a spoon and fork, and a few other small articles, and be
+ready for the second visit in half an hour. When the officer returned,
+the family were marshaled before him, and he picked out those whom he
+wanted with a curt "You will come," "And you," "And you." Without even
+time for leave-taking, the selected victims were paraded in the street
+and marched to a mill on the outskirts of the town. There they were
+imprisoned for three days, without any means of communication with
+friends or relatives, all herded together indiscriminately and given but
+the barest modicum of food. Then, like so many cattle, they were sent
+away to an unknown fate.
+
+[Sidenote: Girls put to farm labor.]
+
+Months afterward some of them came back, emaciated and utterly worn out,
+ragged and verminous, broken in all but spirit. I spoke with numbers of
+the men. They had been told by the Germans, they said, that they were
+going to work on the land. They found that only the women and girls were
+put to farm labor.
+
+[Sidenote: Men do construction work in Ardennes.]
+
+[Sidenote: Very little food.]
+
+[Sidenote: No complaints permitted.]
+
+The men were taken to the French Ardennes and compelled to mend roads,
+man sawmills and forges, build masonry, and toil at other manual tasks.
+Rough hutments formed their barracks. They were under constant guard
+both there and at their work, and they were marched under escort from
+the huts to work and from work to the huts. For food each man was given
+a two-pound loaf of German bread every five days, a little boiled rice,
+and a pint of coffee a day. At 8 o'clock in the morning, after a
+breakfast consisting of a slice of bread and a cup of coffee, they went
+to work. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon they returned for the night and
+took their second meal--dinner, tea, and supper all in one. Often they
+were buffeted and generally ill-used by their taskmasters. If they fell
+ill, cold water, internally or externally, was the invariable remedy.
+Once a commission came to see them at work, but they had been warned
+beforehand that any man who complained of his treatment would suffer for
+it. One of them was bold enough to protest to the visitors against a
+particularly flagrant case of ill-usage. That man disappeared a few days
+later.
+
+[Sidenote: The Belgian frontier is closed.]
+
+Long before this the food problem had become acute in Roubaix.
+Simultaneously with the establishment of the system of personal control
+over the inhabitants the Germans closed the frontier between France and
+Belgium and forbade us to approach within half a mile of the border
+line. The immediate effect of this isolation was to reduce to an
+insignificant trickle the copious stream of foodstuffs which until then
+poured in from Belgium--not the starving Belgium of fiction, but the
+well supplied Belgium of fact.
+
+[Sidenote: Fabulous prices for meat.]
+
+Butchers and bakers and provision dealers had to shut their shops, and
+the town became almost wholly dependent on supplies brought in by the
+American Relief Commission. Fresh meat was soon unobtainable, except by
+those few people who could afford to pay fabulous prices for joints
+smuggled across the frontier. Months ago meat cost 32 francs a kilogram
+(about 13 shillings a pound) and an egg cost 1 franc 25 (a shilling).
+Obviously such things were beyond the reach of the bulk of the people,
+and had it not been for the efforts of the Relief Commission we should
+all have starved.
+
+[Sidenote: Foodstuffs supplied by the Relief Commission.]
+
+The commission opened a food depot, a local committee issued tickets for
+the various articles, and rich and poor alike had to wait their turn at
+the depot to procure the allotted rations. The chief foodstuffs supplied
+were: Rice, flaked maize, bacon, lard, coffee, bread, condensed milk
+(occasionally), haricot beans, lentils, and a very small allowance of
+sugar. Potatoes could not be bought at any price.
+
+[Sidenote: The Germans intercept mine food.]
+
+Unfortunately, though I regret that I should have to record it, there is
+evidence that by some means or other the German Army contrived to
+intercept for itself a part of the food sent by the American Commission.
+One who had good reason to know told me that more than once trainloads
+which, according to a notification sent to him, had left Brussels for
+Roubaix failed to arrive. I know also that analysis of the bread showed
+that in some cases German rye flour, including 30 per cent of sawdust,
+had been substituted for the white American flour, producing an
+indigestible putty-like substance which brought illness and death to
+many. Indeed, the mortality from this cause was so heavy at one period
+that all the grave diggers in the town could not keep pace with it.
+
+[Sidenote: Germans eager to buy food.]
+
+One could easily understand how great must have been the temptation to
+the Germans to tap for themselves the food which friends abroad had sent
+for their victims. It is a significant fact that soldiers in Roubaix
+were eager to buy rice from those who had obtained it at the depot at
+four francs (3s 4d) the pound in order, as they said, "to send it home."
+I shall describe later how utterly different were the conditions in
+Belgium as I saw them.
+
+Meagre as were the food supplies for the civilians in Roubaix, those
+issued to the German soldiers toward the end of my stay were little
+better.
+
+At first the householders, on whom the soldiers were billeted, were
+required to feed them and to recover the cost from the municipal
+authorities.
+
+[Sidenote: Change of demeanor of soldiery.]
+
+Of all the things I saw and heard in Roubaix and Lille none impressed me
+more than the wonderful change which came over the outlook and demeanor
+of the German soldiery between October, 1914, and October, 1915.
+
+I had many opportunities of mingling with them, more, in fact, than I
+cared to have, for now and again during this period two or three of them
+were actually billeted on the good folk with whom I lodged.
+
+[Sidenote: Already tired of war.]
+
+I knew just sufficient of the German language to be able to chat with
+them, and they made no attempt to conceal from me their real feelings. I
+am merely repeating the statement made to me over and over again by many
+German soldiers when I say that the men in the ranks are thoroughly
+tired of the war, that they have abandoned all thought of conquest, and
+that they fight on only because they believe that their homes and
+families are at stake.
+
+On that Autumn morning when the first German troops came into Roubaix
+they came flushed with victory, full of confidence in their strength,
+marching with their eyes fixed on Paris and London. They sang aloud as
+they swung through our streets. They sing no more. Instead, as I saw
+with my own eyes, many of them show in their faces the abject misery
+which is in their hearts.
+
+[Sidenote: Expect end of war in November, 1916.]
+
+Last year scores of them told me, quite independently, that the war
+would come to an end on November 17, 1916. How that date came to be
+fixed by the prophets nobody knew, but the belief in the prophecy was
+universal among the soldiers.
+
+[Sidenote: Soldiers more courteous than officers.]
+
+As a rule, the soldiers did not maltreat the civilians in Roubaix,
+except when they were acting under the orders of their officers; when,
+for example, they were tearing people from their homes to work as
+slaves. They had, however, the right of traveling without payment on the
+tramcars, and they frequently exercised this right to such an extent as
+to preclude the townsfolk from the use of the cars.
+
+[Sidenote: Officers requisition supplies.]
+
+Apart from that annoyance, there was little ground for complaint of the
+general behavior of the soldiers. The conduct of the officers was very
+different. For a long time they made a habit of requisitioning from
+shopkeepers and others supplies of food for which they had no intention
+of paying. One day an officer drove up in a trap to a shop kept by an
+acquaintance of mine and "bought" sardines, chocolate, bread, and fancy
+cakes to the value of about 200 francs (about $40). He produced a piece
+of paper and borrowed a pair of scissors with which to cut off a slip.
+On this slip he wrote a few words in German, and then, handing it to
+the shopkeeper, he went off with his purchases. The shopkeeper, on
+presenting the paper at the Kommandantur, was informed that the
+inscription ran, "For the loan of scissors, 200 francs," and that the
+signature was unknown. Payment was therefore refused. This case, I
+believe, was by no means an isolated one.
+
+When an officer was billeted on a house, he would insist on turning the
+family out of the dining room and drawing room and sleeping in the best
+bedroom; sometimes he would eject people entirely from their home.
+
+[Sidenote: A docile private soldier.]
+
+By contrast the docile private soldier was almost a welcome guest. I
+remember well one quite friendly fellow who was lodged for some time in
+the same house as myself and some English over military age in the
+suburb of Croix. He came to me in great glee one day with a letter from
+his wife in which she warned him to beware of "the English cutthroats."
+She went on to give him a long series of instructions for his safety. He
+was to barricade his bedroom door every night, to sleep always with his
+knife under his pillow, and never to take anything we offered him to eat
+or drink.
+
+[Sidenote: Few civilian offenses.]
+
+Despite the temptations to crime and insubordination which naturally
+attend an idle manufacturing population of some 125,000 people, there
+were very few civilian offenses against the law, German or French, among
+the inhabitants of Roubaix.
+
+[Sidenote: Time hangs heavily.]
+
+Time hung heavily on our hands. Cut off from the outer world except by
+the occasional arrival of smuggled French and English newspapers, we
+spent our time reading and playing cards, and at the last I hoped I
+might never be reduced to this form of amusement again. In the two and a
+half years cut out of my life and completely wasted I played as many
+games of cards as will satisfy me for the rest of my existence.
+
+[Sidenote: The gendarmerie called "Green devils."]
+
+But even if the inhabitants, in their enforced idleness, had any
+temptation to be insubordinate, they had a far greater inducement to
+keep the law in the bridled savagery of the German gendarmerie. These
+creatures, who from the color of their uniform and the brutality of
+their conduct were known as the "green devils," seemed to revel in sheer
+cruelty. They scour the towns on bicycles and the outlying districts on
+horseback, always accompanied by a dog as savage as his master, and at
+the slightest provocation or without even the slenderest pretext they
+fall upon civilians with brutish violence.
+
+[Sidenote: Women badly treated.]
+
+It was not uncommon for one of these men to chase a woman on his
+bicycle, and when he had caught her, batter her head and body with the
+machine. Many times they would strike women with the flat of their
+sabres. One of them was seen to unleash his dog against an old woman,
+and laugh when the savage beast tore open the woman's flesh from thigh
+to knee.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Crossing Belgium.]
+
+In January Mr. Whitaker crossed the line into Belgium with the aid of
+smuggler friends, traversed that country, chiefly on foot, and two
+months later escaped into Holland and so to England. In Belgium he was
+astonished to find what looked like prosperity when compared with
+conditions in the occupied provinces of France. After expressing
+gratitude to Belgian friends and a desire to tell only what is truth, he
+proceeds:
+
+[Sidenote: No sign of privations.]
+
+The first fact I have to declare is that nowhere in my wanderings did I
+see any sign of starvation. Nowhere did I notice such privation of food
+as I had known in Northern France. Near the French frontier, it is true,
+the meals I took in inns and private cottages were far from sumptuous,
+but as I drew nearer to the Dutch frontier the amount and variety of the
+food to be obtained changed in an ascending scale, until at Antwerp one
+could almost forget, so far as the table was concerned, that the world
+was at war.
+
+[Sidenote: The diet at Roubaix, France.]
+
+Let me give a few comparisons. At Roubaix, in France, at the time when I
+left in the first week of this year, my daily diet was as follows:
+Breakfast--coffee, bread and butter (butter was a luxury beyond the
+reach of the working people, who had to be content with lard); midday
+meal--vegetable soup, bread, boiled rice, and at rare intervals an egg
+or a tiny piece of fresh meat; supper--boiled rice and bread. Just over
+the border, in Belgium, the food conditions were a little better. The
+ticket system prevailed, and the villagers were dependent on the depots
+of the American Relief Commission, supplemented by local produce.
+
+A little further, and one passed the line of demarkation between the
+etape--the part of Belgium which is governed by General von Denk,
+formerly commanding the troops at Valenciennes--and the governement
+general, under the command of General von Bissing.
+
+[Sidenote: The first fresh meat in weeks.]
+
+Here a distinct change was noticeable. My first meal in this area
+included fillet of beef, the first fresh meat I had tasted for weeks.
+Tickets were still needed to buy bread and other things supplied by the
+Relief Commission, but other foodstuffs could be bought without
+restriction.
+
+[Sidenote: A dinner at Brussels.]
+
+At Brussels the food supply seems to be nearly normal. My Sunday dinner
+there consisted of excellent soup, a generous helping of roast leg of
+mutton, potatoes, haricot beans, white bread, cheese, and jam, and wine
+or beer, as preferred; while for supper I had cold meat, fried potatoes,
+and bread.
+
+[Sidenote: Food conditions at Antwerp.]
+
+At Antwerp, with two French friends who accompanied me on my journey
+through Belgium, I walked into a middle-class cafe at midday. I ordered
+a steak with fried potatoes and my friends ordered pork chops. Without
+any question about tickets we were served. We added bread, cheese, and
+butter to complete the meal and washed it down with draft light beer.
+Later in the day we took supper in the same cafe--an egg omelette, fried
+potatoes, bread, cheese, and butter. And the cost of both meals together
+was less than the cost of the steak alone in Roubaix.
+
+[Sidenote: Appearance of Brussels.]
+
+The policy of the Germans appears to be to interfere as little as
+possible with the everyday life of the country. The fruits of this
+policy are seen in a remarkable degree in Brussels. All day long the
+main streets of the city are full of bustle and all the outward
+manifestations of prosperity.
+
+[Sidenote: Business going on.]
+
+Women in short, fashionable skirts, with high-topped fancy boots, stroll
+completely at their ease along the pavement, studying the smart things
+with which the drapers' shop windows are dressed. Jewelers' shops,
+provision stores, tobacconists, and the rest show every sign of
+"business as usual." I bought at quite a reasonable price a packet of
+Egyptian cigarettes, bearing the name of a well-known brand of English
+manufacture, and I recalled how, not many miles away in harassed France,
+I had seen rhubarb leaves hanging from upper windows to dry, so that the
+French smoker might use them instead of the tobacco which he could not
+buy. Even the sweetstuff shops had well-stocked windows.
+
+[Sidenote: Theaters and cinema palaces open.]
+
+The theaters, music halls, cinema palaces, and cafes of Brussels were
+open and crowded. On the second night of my visit I went with my two
+French companions to the Theatre Moliere and heard a Belgian company in
+Paul Hervieu's play, "La Course du Flambeau." The whole building was
+packed with Belgians, thoroughly enjoying the performance. So far as I
+could tell, the only reminder that we were in the fallen capital of an
+occupied country was the presence in the front row of the stalls of two
+German soldiers, whose business, so I learned, was to see that nothing
+disrespectful to Germany and her armies was allowed to creep into the
+play.
+
+[Sidenote: An ordinary cinema performance.]
+
+At another theater, according to the posters, "Veronique" was produced,
+and a third bill announced "The Merry Widow." At the Theatre de la
+Monnaie, which has been taken over by the Germans, operas and plays are
+given for the benefit of the soldiers and German civilians. One
+afternoon I spent a couple of hours in a cinema hall. A continuous
+performance was provided, and people came and went as they chose, but
+throughout the program the place was well filled. The films shown had no
+relation to the war. They were of the ordinary dramatic or comic types,
+and I fancy they were of pre-war manufacture. Nothing of topical
+interest was exhibited.
+
+[Sidenote: Scenes in Antwerp like those in Brussels.]
+
+All the scenes which I have described in Brussels were reproduced in
+Antwerp. There was a slightly closer supervision over the comings and
+goings of the inhabitants, but there was the same unreal atmosphere of
+contentment and real appearance of plenty. Though a good number of
+officers were in evidence, the military arm of Germany was not
+sufficiently displayed to produce any intimidation. Perhaps the most
+obvious mark, here and in the capital, that all was not normal was the
+complete absence of private motor cars and cabs from the streets.
+
+[Sidenote: Belgium still has cattle.]
+
+In the country districts two things struck me as unfamiliar after my
+long months in France. About Roubaix not a single head of cattle was to
+be seen; in Belgium every farm had its cows. In Belgium the mounted
+gendarmerie--the "green devils" whose infamous conduct in the Roubaix
+district I have described--were unknown. Their place was filled by
+military police, who, by comparison with the gendarmes, were gentleness
+itself.
+
+I do not profess to know the state of affairs in parts of Belgium which
+I did not visit, but I do know that my narrative of the conditions of
+life that came under my personal inspection has come as a great surprise
+to many people who imagine the whole of Belgium is starving.
+
+[Sidenote: Belgium better fed than occupied France.]
+
+We in hungry Roubaix looked out on Belgium as the land of promise. The
+Flemish workers who came into the town from time to time from Belgium
+were well fed and prosperous looking, a great contrast to the French of
+Roubaix and Lille. The Belgian children that I saw were healthy and of
+good appearance, quite unlike the wasted little ones of France, with
+hollow blue rings round their eyes.
+
+[Sidenote: Germany desires a state in Belgium.]
+
+The people of Roubaix, knowing these facts, are convinced that the
+Germans are endeavoring to lay the foundations of a vassal State in
+Belgium. Foiled in their attempts to capture Calais, the Germans believe
+that Zeebrugge and Ostend are capable of development as harbors for
+aggressive action against England. The French do not doubt that the
+enemy will make a desperate struggle before giving up Antwerp.
+
+The picture I have presented of Belgium as I saw it is, of course,
+vastly different from the outraged Belgium of the first stage of the
+war.
+
+[Sidenote: The people not to be seduced.]
+
+Lest there should arise any misunderstanding, I complete the picture by
+stating my conviction, based on intimate talks with Belgian men and
+women, that the population as a whole are keeping a firm upper lip, and
+that attempts by the Germans to seduce them from their allegiance by
+blandishment and bribery will fail as surely as the efforts of
+frightfulness.
+
+Mr. Whitaker's account of his escape into Holland closes thus:
+
+[Sidenote: Nearing Holland.]
+
+When we drew near to the wires, just before midnight, we lay on the
+ground and wriggled along until we were within fifty yards of Holland.
+There we lay for what seemed to be an interminable time. We saw patrols
+passing. An officer came along and inspected the sentries. Everything
+was oppressively quiet.
+
+[Sidenote: Through the electrified barbed wire.]
+
+Each sentry moved to and fro over a distance of a couple of hundred
+yards. Opposite the place where we lay two of them met. Choosing his
+opportunity, one of my comrades, who had provided himself with rubber
+gloves some weeks before for this critical moment, rushed forward to the
+spot where the two sentries had just met. Scrambling through barbed wire
+and over an unelectrified wire, he grasped the electrified wires and
+wriggled between them. We came close on his heels. He held the deadly
+electrified wires apart with lengths of thick plate glass with which he
+had come provided while first my other companions and then I crawled
+through. Before the sentries returned we had run some hundreds of yards
+into No Man's Land between the electrified wires and the real Dutch
+frontier.
+
+[Sidenote: Arrival at Rotterdam.]
+
+Only one danger remained. We had no certainty that the Dutch frontier
+guards would not hand us back to the Germans. We took no risks, though
+it meant wading through a stream waist deep. Our troubles were now
+practically over. By rapid stages we proceeded to Rotterdam.
+
+I was without money. My watch I had given to the Belgian villager in
+whose cottage I had found refuge. My clothes were shabby from frequent
+soakings and hard wear. I had shaved only once in Belgium, and a stubby
+growth of beard did not improve my general appearance.
+
+[Sidenote: Sent on to London.]
+
+At Rotterdam I reported myself to the British Consul. I was treated with
+the utmost kindness. My expenses during the next four or five days,
+while I waited for a boat, were paid and I was given my fare to Hull.
+There I was searched by two military police and questioned closely by an
+examining board. My papers were taken and I was told to go to London and
+apply for them at the Home Office. As I was again practically without
+means I was given permission to go to my home in Bradford before
+proceeding to London.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In cooperation with the British forces, a Russian army took part in
+movements against Bagdad and Turkish cities in Armenia and Persia. These
+military movements were marked by varying success on the part of the
+Russian and Turkish forces. Certain phases of this campaign are
+described in the following chapter.
+
+
+
+
+THE ANGLO-RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN IN TURKEY
+
+JAMES B. MACDONALD
+
+Copyright, American Review of Reviews, April, 1916.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Mesopotamia important to Great Britain.]
+
+It is perhaps not generally realized how important the future of
+Mesopotamia is to the British, or why they originally sent an expedition
+there which has since developed into a more ambitious campaign. Ever
+since the Napoleonic period British influence and interests have been
+supreme from Bagdad to the Persian Gulf, and this was the one quarter of
+the globe where they successfully held off the German trader with his
+political backing.
+
+[Sidenote: Great Britain's war with Persia.]
+
+[Sidenote: British steamer on the Tigris.]
+
+It will be recalled that early in Queen Victoria's reign Great Britain
+engaged in a war with Persia, and landed troops at Bushire in assertion
+of their rights. Ever since they have policed the Persian Gulf, put down
+piracy, slave and gun-running, and lighted the places dangerous to
+navigation. These interests having been entrusted to the Government of
+India, news affecting them seldom finds its way into Western papers.
+Previous to the war a line of British steamers plied regularly up the
+River Tigris to Bagdad, the center of the caravan trade with Persia. The
+foreign trade of this town alone in 1912 amounted to $19,000,000, and it
+was nearly all in the hands of merchants in Great Britain or India.
+Germany exported $500,000 worth of goods there annually. Basra, farther
+down the river, exports annually about 75,000 tons of dates, valued at
+$2,900,000. It also does a large export trade in wheat.
+
+[Sidenote: An irrigation scheme.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Persian oil fields controlled by Great Britain.]
+
+[Sidenote: Native tribes subsidized.]
+
+A large irrigation scheme was partly completed before the war, near the
+ancient town of Babylon, under the direction of a famous Anglo-Indian
+engineer, Sir William Willcocks. When finished it was to cost
+$105,000,000, and was expected to reclaim some 2,800,000 acres of land
+of great productibility. It will, therefore, be seen that Britain had
+some considerable stake in the country. In addition to this, the British
+Government, shortly before the war, invested $10,000,000 in acquiring
+control of the Anglo-Persian oil fields, which is the principal source
+of supply for oil fuel for their navy. By this means they avoided the
+risk of great American corporations cornering the supply of oil fuel and
+holding up their navy. John Bull upon occasion shows some gleamings of
+shrewdness. This deal is on a par with their purchase of sufficient
+shares to control the Suez Canal. The Anglo-Persian oil fields are
+situated across the border in Persia, and the oil is led in pipes down
+the Karam River valley, a tributary of the combined Tigris and Euphrates
+rivers. The native tribes in the neighborhood were subsidized to protect
+the pipe-line, or, rather, to leave it alone.
+
+[Sidenote: Russia and Great Britain in Persia.]
+
+[Sidenote: German railways must end at Bagdad.]
+
+During recent years Persia has fallen into decay. Politically she is
+more sick than "the sick man of the East." The people have a religion of
+their own and worship the sun, although quite a number of Moslems have
+settled in their midst. Being cognizant of German designs to create a
+great Eastern empire in Mesopotamia and Persia, which would threaten
+India, Egypt, and the Russian East, Britain and Russia came together and
+formed a kind of Monroe Doctrine of their own. They said, in effect,
+northern Persia shall be Russia's sphere of influence, and southern
+Persia shall be Britain's sphere of influence. They both recognized that
+a great military power, like Germany, permanently established at
+Bagdad, with aggressive tendencies, would imperil their Eastern
+dominions, and both were prepared to make it a _casus belli_--Britain,
+further, a few years ago informed Germany that the area from Bagdad to
+the head of the Gulf was her "Garden of Eden," and any attempt to carry
+German railways south of Bagdad would bring on war. The Emperor William
+apparently did not mind this opposition by Britain and Russia to his
+Oriental ambition, provided he could find a passage through the Balkans.
+
+[Sidenote: Persian gendarmes officered by Swedes.]
+
+[Sidenote: Fairy-tales of Turkish conquest.]
+
+At the time Britain and Russia came to an agreement regarding Persia
+they were not on so good a footing with each other as they are to-day.
+In order that neither should get an advantage over the other, it was
+decided that the Persian gendarmes--about 6,000 in number--should be
+officered by neutrals, and, unfortunately as it turned out for the
+Allies, they mutually chose Swedes. On the outbreak of war neither
+Britain nor Russia desired that Persia should be brought into it. The
+German ambassador in Persia, however, had other views, and suborned
+Swedish officers in command of the Persian gendarmes. Partly by this
+means, and partly by Turkish agents, a rebellion was brought about
+within the Russian sphere. Religion had nothing to do with the trouble
+in Persia. Turkish forces entered Persian Kurdistan and announced that
+they were on their way to conquer India and the Russian East, while
+their compatriots would overrun Egypt. These were the fairy-tales with
+which the Germans had originally enticed the Turks into the war. The
+Turks were willing to believe them, and apparently did believe them. The
+responsible Germans had no such illusions, but hoped to attain their
+ends by causing internal disturbances within India and Egypt. These
+German canards, put about in war time, have been adopted by some
+writers in this country as the foundation from which to write
+contemporary history. It may interest them to know that India possesses
+the strongest natural frontiers in the world.
+
+[Sidenote: Strategy depends on geography.]
+
+Strategy nowadays is very largely a matter of geography. Modern armies
+are circumscribed in their movements by the available means of
+transportation, whether these be by railroad, river, or roadway, and
+this means geography applied in giving direction to troop movements.
+
+[Sidenote: Geographies of the war area.]
+
+Before entering into a review of the combined Anglo-Russian campaign a
+preliminary survey of the strategical geography of the war area will
+make the position more clear.
+
+[Sidenote: Constantinople once the world clearing-house.]
+
+[Sidenote: Still the easiest route.]
+
+In ancient times the only practical way by road and ferry from Europe
+to Asia or Africa was by way of the Balkan valleys and across the
+Bosphorus or Dardanelles. Hence arose the importance of the
+ferryhouse--Constantinople. That city in those days was the center of
+the known world and the clearing-house for the merchandise of Asia,
+Africa, and Europe. From Scutari, on the opposite shore, the overland
+route meandered across Asia Minor to Aleppo in Syria. Here the sign-post
+to India pointed down the Euphrates Valley, by way of Bagdad, while that
+to Egypt and Arabia followed the Levant or eastern shore of the
+Mediterranean. Between each fork lay the Syrian desert. A glance at the
+map shows the reason why in those days this was the only practical
+route, as to-day it is the easiest. The wall of the Ural Mountains, the
+Caspian Sea, the Caucasian Mountains, and the Black Sea shut out direct
+communication from Europe to Asia, or _vice versa_, except by the
+Constantinople ferry or a sea voyage.
+
+[Sidenote: Another practical route.]
+
+[Sidenote: The road for invasion of Egypt or India.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Taurus range is the natural frontier of Egypt.]
+
+In Asia Minor progress was further barred by the watershed of the
+Euphrates and Tigris rivers to the south, and the Caucasian Mountains
+to the east. A practical way was found at the lower elevations of the
+Taurus and Amanus mountains--two parallel spurs which strike the sea at
+the Gulf of Alexandretta. This narrow neck of the bottle, as it were, is
+of enormous military importance alike to the Turks and to the British.
+Through it must pass any army of invasion by land from Europe or Asia
+Minor to Egypt or India; and, conversely, through it must pass any
+invading army from Mesopotamia into Asia Minor. If the British should
+conquer Mesopotamia and should intend to hold it--as they undoubtedly
+would--they will have no strategical frontiers until they secure the
+watershed of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and the Taurus passage. If
+they secure the latter, Syria, Palestine, and Arabia will fall to them
+like apples off a tree. It would then be no longer necessary to defend
+the Suez Canal. The natural frontier of Egypt is the Taurus mountain
+range. Asia Minor is the real Turkey; the other portions of the
+empire--Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Arabia, and Turkey in Europe--are
+only appendages. The eastern door into Asia Minor is Erzerum, and the
+southern door is the Taurus passage. Turkey can only part with these at
+the cost of her life. Russia has already captured Erzerum, and the
+British possess the Island of Cyprus, which commands the head of the
+Gulf of Alexandretta--twenty miles from the Taurus passage. That is,
+broadly, the situation.
+
+[Sidenote: Aleppo is the starting point of caravan routes.]
+
+Near the crossing of the Taurus and Amanus mountains lies the city of
+Aleppo, the starting-point for the overland caravan routes to Bagdad and
+India, and also to Damascus, Mecca, and Egypt. Just as surely as pioneer
+travelers always chose the easiest route, so the railways of to-day
+follow in their footsteps. The physical features of nature constrained
+both modern as well as ancient armies to travel the same way. Hence a
+railway map of the Balkans and of Asiatic Turkey is a first
+consideration in appreciating the strategical bearings of the
+Anglo-Russian campaign in Turkey-in-Asia, or the alleged rival
+Germanic-Turkish schemes for the invasion of Egypt, Persia, and India.
+Of no less importance is a knowledge of the available sea routes and
+inland rivers.
+
+[Sidenote: Bulgaria and Turkey depend on aid from Germany.]
+
+The ability of Bulgaria and Turkey to carry on the war depends on aid
+from Germany in men, munitions, and money. These allies are the weakest
+members of the Central Group, and may be the first to give in if
+circumstances are adverse to their adventure.
+
+[Sidenote: The importance of the Balkan railway.]
+
+Their sole communication with the Central Powers is by the Balkan
+railway from the Danube to Constantinople by way of Sofia. If this line
+is severed, then these nations are out of the game. The Allies have all
+winter been organizing the defenses of Salonica as a _pied-a-terre_ for
+such an attack. Should Rumania join the Allies in the spring, then a
+further attack may be expected from the north, in which Russian troops
+would join. Turkey is now too preoccupied with her own troubles to be
+able to assist Bulgaria.
+
+[Sidenote: Asia Minor's only important line.]
+
+[Sidenote: Railway planned from Aleppo to Bagdad.]
+
+In Asia Minor the only railway of importance is the trunk line from
+Scutari, on the Bosphorus, to the Taurus Tunnel, in course of completion
+near Adana. One branch runs west to Smyrna, and another east to Angora.
+Beyond the Taurus Tunnel is another in course of completion through the
+Amanus Mountains. Every person and everything destined for the Bagdad
+front or for the invasion of Egypt has to be transported over these
+mountains. So also have rails for the completion of the Aleppo-to-Bagdad
+railway. These tunnels are expected to be finished this year--when it
+will be too late. From Aleppo the Syrian railway runs south through
+Damascus to Medina and Mecca in Arabia. Branches reach the Levant
+seaports of Tripoli, Beirut, and Haifa. Another railway was started from
+Aleppo to Bagdad shortly before the war, and construction begun at both
+ends. We have no reliable information as to how far it has progressed,
+but the presumption is that there is a large gap between Ras-el-ain and
+Mosul and between the latter place and Samara.
+
+[Sidenote: The city of Aleppo key of railways as once of caravan
+routes.]
+
+It is at once apparent how important the city of Aleppo is as the
+junction for the three main railways of Asiatic Turkey. Napoleon
+considered that it was the key to India, because it commanded the
+caravan routes. To-day it would be more correct to say that Aleppo is
+the key to the outer _approaches_ to India and Egypt, the inner defenses
+of which are impregnable.
+
+[Sidenote: Reasons for a British army in Egypt.]
+
+[Sidenote: Vantage points held by Great Britain.]
+
+The British maintain a large army in Egypt not so much because it is
+required there as because it is a most convenient central camp within
+striking distance of all the battle-fronts in the East. This permits of
+throwing a large army secretly and unexpectedly where it can be most
+effective. Similar camps are available at Malta and Cyprus. Any attack
+on Egypt on a formidable scale would be a veritable trap for the
+invaders. It will be recalled that when Britain held up the Russian
+advance on Constantinople, in 1878, she entered into a treaty with
+Turkey guaranteeing the latter in the possession of Asia Minor (only)
+against all enemies. The consideration was the lease of the Island of
+Cyprus, which dominates the Taurus passage. In other words, Britain
+holds the cork with which she can close the Syrian tube and put the
+closure on any invasion of India or Egypt from this side. This treaty
+was abrogated some eighteen months ago, when Turkey declared war on the
+British Empire. Britain, in consequence, annexed Egypt and Cyprus.
+
+At the outbreak of the war the Indian Government, apparently off their
+own bat, despatched a small force to the Persian oil fields to seize and
+hold the pipe-line, which had been tampered with and the supply cut off
+for a time.
+
+[Sidenote: The Turks threaten Basra.]
+
+[Sidenote: British advance up the Tigris to Kut-el-Amara.]
+
+It became necessary to hold in force three triangular points--Basra,
+Muhammereh, and Awaz. A strong Turkish force, with headquarters at
+Amara, was equidistant about 100 miles from both Basra and Awaz, and
+could elect to strike the divided British forces either by coming down
+the Tigris River to Basra, or by going overland to Awaz. Reinforcements
+were sent from India, and Amara occupied. The oil fields seemed secure.
+Then the unexpected happened. A Turkish army came down the
+Shat-el-Hai--an ancient canal or waterway connecting the Tigris River at
+Kut-el-Amara with the Euphrates at Nasiriyeh (or Nasdi)--about 100 miles
+to the west of Basra--and threatened the latter place. (Shat-el-Hai
+means the river which flows by the village of Hai. Kut-el-Amara means
+the fort of Amara and is not to be confused with the town of Amara lower
+down the Tigris River.) This led to the British driving the Turks out of
+Nasiriyeh and also advancing up the Tigris River from Amara to occupy
+Kut-el-Amara, where a battle was fought. The Turks were strongly
+entrenched and expected to hold up the Anglo-Indian troops here, but a
+turning movement made them retire on Bagdad--about 100 miles to the
+northwest. It was known that large Turkish reinforcements were on the
+way to Bagdad and an attempt was made to anticipate them.
+
+[Sidenote: General Townshend's attempt to take Bagdad.]
+
+General Townshend advanced on Bagdad with less than a division of mixed
+Anglo-Indian troops--some 16,000 to 20,000 strong. At Ctesiphon he found
+a Turkish army of four divisions, with two others in reserve, awaiting
+him. After a two days' indecisive battle, Townshend, recognizing he had
+insufficient forces, retired on his forward base at Kut-el-Amara. The
+Arabs in the neighborhood awaited the issue of the battle, ready to take
+sides, for the time being, with the winner.
+
+[Sidenote: The Turks much stronger in numbers.]
+
+[Sidenote: Secret of European success in Asia.]
+
+It says much for the stamina of this composite division that, although
+opposed throughout by five or six times their number of Turks and
+Turkish irregulars, the latter were unable to overwhelm them. To the
+Western mind, unacquainted with the mentality and moral weakness of the
+Moslem under certain circumstances, this may appear a most foolhardy
+adventure. To the Anglo-Indian the most obvious thing to do when in a
+tight corner is to go for the enemy no matter what their numbers. All
+Europeans in India develop an extraordinary pride in race, and an
+inherent contempt for numbers. It is the secret of their success there.
+Most Moslems fight well when posted behind strong natural defenses. In
+open country, such as Mesopotamia, they do not show to so much
+advantage. Another trait is that when their line of retreat is
+threatened they are more timorous than European troops. This weakness
+will have important bearings on the future of the campaign on the Tigris
+Valley, because the communications of the Turks are threatened by the
+Russians far in their rear and in more than one place.
+
+[Sidenote: Kut-el-Amara of great strategical importance.]
+
+Townshend's camp at Kut-el-Amara is well supplied with stores and
+munitions, and will soon be relieved. When his retreat was cut off at
+the bend of the Tigris River he could still have retired safely by
+following the Shat-el-Hai to Nasiriyeh. There was no thought, however,
+of retreat, Kut-el-Amara is geographically of great strategical
+importance, and the British garrison there has served the useful purpose
+of detaining large forces of the enemy where it was desired they should
+remain while important Allied developments were taking place in their
+flank and rear. Most of these Turkish reinforcements were withdrawn from
+Armenia when the depth of winter appeared to make it impossible for the
+Russians to break through the lofty hills of Caucasia.
+
+[Sidenote: Turks deceived by rumor about Grand Duke Nicholas.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Grand Duke's strategy.]
+
+The rumor, so diligently put about, that the Grand Duke Nicholas had
+been retired in disgrace, after so ably extricating the Russian armies
+in Poland, and that he had been sent to Caucasia, served its purpose.
+The Turks were deceived by it, and sent part of their forces from
+Armenia to oppose the Anglo-Indian advance on Bagdad and arrived in time
+to turn the scale after the battle of Ctesiphon. When the Grand Duke
+fell on the unwary Turks their defeat was complete. Flying from Erzerum,
+one army made for Trebizond, another for the Lake Van district, and the
+rest went due west towards Sivas. The Grand Duke's right wing, center,
+and left are following in the same directions. He has two flying wings
+further south--one in the Lake Urumia district and the other advancing
+along the main caravan route from Kermanshah to Bagdad, while the
+British are furthest south at Kut-el-Amara. It will be observed that the
+whole of the Allied armies from the Black Sea to Kut-el-Amara are in
+perfect echelon formation, and it would be a strange coincidence if this
+just happened--say, by accident. Like the Syrian and Arabian littoral,
+Mesopotamia is another tube confined within the Syrian desert on the one
+side and the mountains of Armenia and Persia on the ether. All egress is
+stopped by the Allies' echelon formation, except by Aleppo.
+
+[Sidenote: Possible to cut Turkish Empire in two.]
+
+Petrograd advices at the time of writing (March 9th) state that the
+Grand Duke's main army is making for the Gulf of Alexandretta with
+intent to cut the Turkish Empire in two. This is not only possible, but
+highly probable, and the echelon formation of the Allies, together with
+the configuration of the country, lends itself to such an operation. The
+British army in Egypt and the British fleet could in such an eventuality
+cooperate to advantage.
+
+[Sidenote: Russians must take Trebizond.]
+
+[Sidenote: Turks will endeavor to hold Armenian Taurus.]
+
+[Sidenote: The road that Xenophon traveled.]
+
+As a preliminary the Russians must clear their right wing by capturing
+Trebizond and utilizing it as a sea base. Asia Minor is a high
+tableland, in shape like the sole of a boot turned upside down, with the
+highlands of Armenia representing the heel. The Turks, having lost their
+only base and headquarters at Erzerum, have now to rush troops, guns,
+and stores from Constantinople to the railhead at Angora and endeavor to
+rally their defeated forces to the east of Sivas. In the meantime, the
+Russians will have overrun some 250 miles of Turkish territory before
+they are held up even temporarily. The Turkish army in Syria will be
+rushed to Diarbekr to rally their defeated right wing and endeavor to
+hold the Armenian Taurus Mountains against the Grand Duke's left wing.
+If the Russians break through here, then all is lost to the Turks in the
+south. They, however, have a most difficult task before them, because
+the hills here reach their highest. There is a road of sorts, because we
+know that Xenophon in ancient times traveled it with his 10,000 Greeks,
+and the Turks did the same recently, when they sent reinforcements to
+Bagdad. Both must have traveled light, and the Russians will have to do
+the same. This means that the Turks on the south will be better supplied
+with guns than their opponents, who will have to rely once more on
+their bayonets.
+
+[Sidenote: British forces in the south ample.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Tigris and other available routes.]
+
+[Sidenote: Plans of the British army.]
+
+[Sidenote: Russian and British forces would join.]
+
+In the extreme south the British have ample force now to carry out their
+part of the contract. We know that some 80,000 veteran Indian troops
+have arrived from France, as well as other large reinforcements from
+India. It is unlikely that these will all proceed up the Tigris River,
+because sufficient troops are already there who are restricted to a
+narrow front, owing to the salt marshes between the bend of the river
+and the Persian mountains. Two other routes are available, the
+Shat-el-Hai from Nasiriyeh to relieve the garrison at Kut-el-Amara from
+the south, and the Euphrates River, to attack Bagdad from the southwest,
+while the Russian flying wing at Kermanshah threatens it from the
+northeast. The Turkish report of heavy fighting at Nasiriyeh would
+indicate that one or both of these routes were being taken. Athens
+reports that Bagdad is about to fall. As it falls, a British flotilla
+will ascend the Euphrates and make direct for Aleppo. The British army
+from Kut-el-Amara and the Russians from Kermanshah will, after the fall
+of Bagdad--which is a foregone conclusion--ascend the Tigris River to
+Mosul, where they may be expected to get in touch with the other Russian
+flying wing from the Lake Urumia district. The combined force will then
+be in a position to force a junction with the Grand Duke's left wing,
+and then continue their advance on Aleppo.
+
+[Sidenote: Turkish army might retire to defend the Taurus passage.]
+
+Should the main army of the Grand Duke, as reported, converge on the
+Gulf of Alexandretta with intent to destroy the Turkish southern army,
+then the latter would be in a very dangerous position, because their
+northern army being, as yet, without a base or organization, is not in a
+position to take the offensive to assist them. If, on the other hand,
+the Turkish army of the south declines battle at Aleppo and retires to
+defend the Taurus passage, after abandoning half their Empire to the
+Allies, the latter will, if they have not previously anticipated it,
+have a difficult problem to solve as to how they are going to get their
+large forces in the south over the Taurus range to assist the Grand Duke
+in the final struggle. The forcing of the Taurus passage will mean
+fighting on a narrow front and will take time.
+
+So far this campaign had been conducted as one of India's little wars,
+which come as regularly as intermittent fever.
+
+[Sidenote: The Russians enter Armenia and later withdraw.]
+
+When Turkey entered the war she reckoned that Russia was so busy on the
+German and Austrian frontiers as to be unable to meet an attack in her
+rear. Turkey thereupon concentrated her main armies at Erzerum and
+invaded Caucasia. The Russians beat them back and entered Armenia, where
+the inhabitants assisted them. The same cause which led to the
+retirement from Poland--shortage of ammunition--compelled the Russians
+also to withdraw from Armenia.
+
+[Sidenote: Britain's reverse at Gallipoli.]
+
+Contemporary with these events, Britain met with a severe reverse on the
+Gallipoli peninsula, which likewise injured her prestige in the East.
+
+[Sidenote: An Anglo-Russian campaign from Kurna to the Black Sea.]
+
+It became a matter of first importance with both Britain and Russia that
+they should not only reinstate their prestige in the East in striking
+fashion, but that they should end once and for all time German intrigue
+and Turkish weakness in the East. These considerations were contributing
+factors in bringing about a joint war council and an Allied Grand Staff.
+The latter immediately took hold of the military situation in Asiatic
+Turkey, and the isolated operations of Britain and Russia in these parts
+now changed into a great Anglo-Russian campaign stretching from the
+junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers to the Black Sea.
+
+The drama unfolding before us promises to be one of the most sensational
+in the great world war. The end of the Ottoman Empire appears in sight.
+Its heirs and successors may be the other great Moslem powers--Britain,
+Russia, France, and Italy. The last two have yet to be heard from on the
+western shores of Asia Minor.
+
+[Sidenote: The possible future.]
+
+The future may see the British in possession of Turkey's first capital,
+Mosul; the French in possession of their second capital, Konia; the
+Russians in possession of their third and last capital, Constantinople,
+and the Italians occupying Smyrna. Each of these powers is a Mohammedan
+empire in itself; and the greatest Moslem country in the world is the
+British Empire.
+
+[Sidenote: Britain may be stronger than ever in the East.]
+
+The Moslems in India not only approve of the idea of removing the
+Sheik-Ul-Islam, head of the Mohammedan creed, from Constantinople to
+Delhi or Cairo, under British protection, but the head of their church
+in India volunteered as a private soldier to fight in France, and is now
+with the Anglo-Indian army in Mesopotamia. It would seem as if Britain
+and Russia, at the end of this war, would find themselves stronger than
+ever in the East.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Great Britain suffered one of her greatest losses during the war on June
+7, 1916, when the cruiser _Hampshire_, on board of which was Earl
+Kitchener on his way to Russia, was sunk by a German mine or torpedo.
+Over 300 lives were lost in this disaster. Earl Kitchener had been
+throughout the war the chief force in raising and training the British
+army, and to his ability and zeal was due largely the great feats of
+landing large numbers of British troops in France within a time which in
+the period of peace would have been considered impossible.
+
+
+
+
+KITCHENER
+
+LADY ST. HELIER
+
+Copyright, Harper's Magazine, October, 1916.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Lord Kitchener a mystery to the outside world.]
+
+[Sidenote: Fond of old friends.]
+
+To the outside world Lord Kitchener was something of a mystery; they
+knew little of him personally, he shunned publicity, he was not a seeker
+after popularity. Though he had few personal friends, he was endeared to
+that chosen few in a way unique and rare. He was shy and reserved about
+the deep things of life, but a charming companion in ordinary ways--very
+amusing and agreeable. He had a great sense of humor, and his rapid
+intuition gave him a wonderful insight into character, and he soon
+arrived at a just estimate of people, and of the motives of those with
+whom he came into contact. He did not make many new friends, and the
+people who knew him well, and with whom his holidays or hours of
+relaxation were passed, were confined to those he had known for many
+years. He always impressed one with a deep sense of decency in
+conversation and conduct; one felt in talking to him how impossible it
+would be to drift into the easy-going discussion of questions and
+problems of our modern life, and it seemed impossible to imagine his
+taking a silent acquiescence in the jokes and insinuations which are not
+considered now extraordinary or unpleasant.
+
+[Sidenote: Economy in expenditure in Egypt.]
+
+[Sidenote: Kitchener's unsparing activity in South Africa.]
+
+Lord Kitchener's strength lay in the fact that his views broadened as he
+went on in life. As long as he was confined to Egypt and had to carry
+out his task with the minimum of force and expenditure, he was careful
+even to penuriousness, and his subordinates groaned under his exacting
+economy; but he was justified in his care by the wonderful development
+of the country devolving from his unsparing activity. When he went to
+South Africa with a great staff and unlimited funds, he took a new
+departure. He worked himself unceasingly, and exacted the same from
+those around him, but he recognized inevitable limitations and was most
+considerate.
+
+[Sidenote: Medical aid for Egyptian women organized.]
+
+[Sidenote: Trained English nurses sent to Egypt.]
+
+[Sidenote: Lives of babies saved.]
+
+[Sidenote: Expected to return to Egypt.]
+
+Ceaseless activity characterized his work in Egypt, when he went there
+after failing to be appointed Viceroy of India, which most of his
+friends anticipated, and which he would have accepted. Perhaps Egypt was
+a disappointment after the wider sphere India presented, but nothing
+ever prevented him from doing what came to him to do and giving his best
+to it. When he returned there, the question of infant mortality and the
+unhygienic condition of Egyptian women during child-bearing, from the
+neglect and ignorance of the most elementary measures, came under his
+observation, and he was deeply interested in devising means of providing
+medical treatment for them, and of training native women in midwifery
+and all that would conduce to improving the conditions under which they
+lived. He enlisted the sympathy and interest of the wives of officials,
+and of Englishwomen in Egypt, and carried out a scheme which in itself
+was a wonderful example of what his interest and driving power could
+accomplish. These women whose help he enlisted could tell endless
+stories of the task he set them to do and his tacit refusal to listen to
+any difficulties that arose in carrying it out. A number of trained
+English nurses were despatched to Egypt and sent to different
+localities, where they gave training to a large number of native women
+in midwifery and kindred subjects. The scheme was a great success, and
+the benefit it has been to thousands of native women is indescribable,
+as regards both their general treatment and the care of themselves and
+their children at birth. Little was known about the subject in England,
+and much less about all that was done to mitigate the evil; but it was a
+wonderful piece of administration, though perhaps not one that appealed
+specially to him; and when some one, knowing what had been achieved,
+congratulated him on his success and the boon it was to the women in
+Egypt, his characteristic reply was: "I am told I have saved the lives
+of ten thousand babies. I suppose that is something to have done." At
+that time, only a fortnight before the prospect of war seemed possible,
+he was talking with the keenest interest of his return to Egypt and of
+what he had still to do there.
+
+[Sidenote: The dinner at Lord French's.]
+
+There are incidents in life which leave lasting impressions, and one of
+a large dinner at Lord French's about the same time, at which Lord K.,
+Lord Haldane, and others were present, comes to my mind; probably no one
+there but those three men had an idea of the threatening cloud which
+broke in so short a time over England, and the important part two of
+them would take in it. Lord K., as the world knows, was on the point of
+returning to Egypt; in fact, he had started when he was recalled, almost
+on board the steamer at Dover.
+
+[Sidenote: The country expects Lord Kitchener to head the War Office.]
+
+The two questions which moved the soul of the English people to its
+deepest depth were, undoubtedly, what part the country was going to take
+when it was realized that war was inevitable, and, after that, who was
+to preside at the War Office. There might have been hesitation on the
+one point; on the other there was none, and the silent, deep
+determination with which the people waited to be told that Lord
+Kitchener was to be Secretary of State for War can only be realized by
+those who went through those anxious days. There was never a doubt or
+hesitation in the mind of the country that Lord K. was the only person
+who could satisfy its requirements, and the acclamation with which the
+news flashed through the country when he was appointed Secretary of
+State for War was overwhelming, while those who were thrown into contact
+with him give a marvelous account of the cool, rapid, and soldier-like
+way in which he accepted the great position. He quickly installed
+himself at the War Office, even to sleeping there, so that he was ever
+at the call of his office, and lived there till Lady Wantage placed her
+house in Carlton Gardens, close by, at his disposal. Later on the King
+offered him St. James's Palace, and those neighbors who rose early
+enough saw him daily start off on his morning walk to his office, where
+he remained all day.
+
+[Sidenote: Lord Kitchener's arduous two years.]
+
+The last two crowded years of Lord Kitchener's life, full of their
+anxieties and responsibilities, had not changed him; but though he had
+aged, and the constant strain had told on him, he had altered outwardly
+but little. The office life was irksome, and the want of exercise to a
+man of his active habits very trying, for he hardly ever left London
+except for an occasional week-end at Broome. His intended visit to
+Russia was not known, and, like so many of his visits to France and the
+army at the front, were only made public after his return. Those who saw
+him that last week and knew of his going, tell how he longed for the
+change and how eagerly he looked forward to his holiday.
+
+[Sidenote: The great task completed.]
+
+[Sidenote: The farewell visit to the King and to the Grand Fleet.]
+
+The last few months, with the controversies over conscription, had
+harassed him. He was not a keen believer in the conscript principle; he
+was more than justified in his preference for a voluntary army by the
+response he had received on his appeal to the manhood of England. There
+was a wonderful completion of the task he had undertaken in those last
+few days. He had raised his millions, and the country had accepted the
+inevitable imposition of compulsion, and with it that chapter of his
+life was finished. He had met the House of Commons, and, uncertain as
+the result of that conference was, like all he did, it was one of his
+greatest successes. He had no indecision when it was proposed to him
+that he should meet the Commons, and, as was always the case, the result
+was never in doubt. What passed has never been divulged, but he left an
+impression on the two hundred members who were present which was perhaps
+one of the best tributes ever paid him. After his farewell to the King,
+his last visit to Broome and to Sir John Jellicoe and the Grand Fleet,
+he set sail for the shore he never reached, and the end had come. It was
+perhaps the most perfect end of such a life--a life full of high
+endeavor and completion. The service he had rendered his country by
+raising her armies and foreseeing the probable duration of the war could
+not have been performed by any other living man. If, as his critics say,
+he depended too much on his own individual endeavors, he was not to be
+blamed when we read day by day of the glorious deeds of the armies he
+had created.
+
+The country staggered under the blow of his death, and one can never
+forget the silent grief and dismay of that dreadful day with its
+horrible tragedy. The grief was universal and personal, and the tributes
+to his work and memory were spoken from the heart by the great leaders
+of both parties. No more touching and pathetic tribute was ever said
+than the speech made by Lord Derby in the House of Lords on the
+resolution in reference to his death. There is not one word to be
+altered from beginning to end, but the concluding words must go to
+every heart and find an echo:
+
+[Sidenote: The whole machinery of the new armies in running order.]
+
+Lord Kitchener said good-by to the nation at a moment when he left the
+whole of the machinery of the great armies that he had created in
+running order, and when it only required skilled engineers to keep going
+his work. It was really as if Providence in its wisdom had given him the
+rest he never would have given to himself.
+
+With the memory of a great naval battle fresh in our minds we must all
+realize how rich a harvest of death the sea has reaped. We in these
+islands from time immemorial had paid a heavy toll to the sea for our
+insular security, but, speaking as the friend of a friend, I can say
+that the sea never executed a heavier toll than when Lord Kitchener,
+coffined in a British man-of-war, passed to the Great Beyond.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How and why America joined with the Allies against Germany in April,
+1917, is told in the three articles following. The summaries contained
+therein are official, and the war message of President Wilson condenses
+the reasons which impelled the United States, after long delay, to throw
+the force of its strength and resources against the German Empire.
+
+
+
+
+WHY AMERICA BROKE WITH GERMANY
+
+PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON
+
+
+[Sidenote: Germany proclaims ruthless submarine warfare.]
+
+The Imperial German Government on the 31st day of January announced to
+this Government and to the Governments of the other neutral nations that
+on and after the 1st day of February, the present month, it would adopt
+a policy with regard to the use of submarines against all shipping
+seeking to pass through certain designated areas of the high seas, to
+which it is clearly my duty to call your attention.
+
+[Sidenote: The _Sussex_ case.]
+
+Let me remind the Congress that on the 18th of April last, in view of
+the sinking on the 24th of March of the cross-channel steamship _Sussex_
+by a German submarine without summons or warning, and the consequent
+loss of lives of several citizens of the United States who were
+passengers aboard her, this Government addressed a note to the Imperial
+German Government, in which it made the following statement:
+
+[Sidenote: The note to the Imperial German Government.]
+
+"If it is still the purpose of the Imperial German Government to
+prosecute relentless and indiscriminate warfare against vessels of
+commerce by the use of submarines without regard to what the Government
+of the United States must consider the sacred and indisputable rules of
+international law and the universally recognized dictates of humanity,
+the Government of the United States is at last forced to the conclusion
+that there is but one course it can pursue. Unless the Imperial
+Government should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of
+its present methods of submarine warfare against passenger and freight
+carrying vessels, the Government of the United States can have no choice
+but to sever diplomatic relations with the German Empire altogether."
+
+In reply to this declaration the Imperial German Government gave this
+Government the following assurance:
+
+[Sidenote: Germany's assurances to the United States.]
+
+"The German Government is prepared to do its utmost to confine the
+operations of war for the rest of its duration to the fighting forces of
+the belligerents, thereby also insuring the freedom of the seas, a
+principle upon which the German Government believes now, as before, to
+be in agreement with the Government of the United States.
+
+[Sidenote: Promises that merchant vessels shall not be sunk without
+warning.]
+
+"The German Government, guided by this idea, notifies the Government of
+the United States that the German naval forces have received the
+following orders: In accordance with the general principles of visit and
+search and destruction of merchant vessels recognized by international
+law, such vessels, both within and without the area declared a naval war
+zone, shall not be sunk without warning and without saving human lives,
+unless these ships attempt to escape or offer resistance.
+
+"But," it added, "neutrals cannot expect that Germany, forced to fight
+for her existence, shall, for the sake of neutral interest, restrict the
+use of an effective weapon if her enemy is permitted to continue to
+apply at will methods of warfare violating the rules of international
+law. Such a demand would be incompatible with the character of
+neutrality, and the German Government is convinced that the Government
+of the United States does not think of making such a demand, knowing
+that the Government of the United States has repeatedly declared that
+it is determined to restore the principle of the freedom of the seas,
+from whatever quarter it has been violated."
+
+To this the Government of the United States replied on the 8th of May,
+accepting, of course, the assurance given, but adding:
+
+[Sidenote: The reply of the United States.]
+
+[Sidenote: Rights of American citizens do not depend on conduct of
+another government.]
+
+"The Government of the United States feels it necessary to state that it
+takes it for granted that the Imperial German Government does not intend
+to imply that the maintenance of its newly announced policy is in any
+way contingent upon the course or result of diplomatic negotiations
+between the Government of the United States and any other belligerent
+Government, notwithstanding the fact that certain passages in the
+Imperial Government's note of the 4th inst. might appear to be
+susceptible of that construction. In order, however, to avoid any
+misunderstanding, the Government of the United States notifies the
+Imperial Government that it cannot for a moment entertain, much less
+discuss, a suggestion that respect by German naval authorities for the
+rights of citizens of the United States upon the high seas should in any
+way or in the slightest degree be made contingent upon the conduct of
+any other Government, affecting the rights of neutrals and
+noncombatants. Responsibility in such matters is single, not joint,
+absolute, not relative."
+
+To this note of the 8th of May the Imperial German Government made no
+reply.
+
+On the 31st of January, the Wednesday of the present week, the German
+Ambassador handed to the Secretary of State, along with a formal note, a
+memorandum which contained the following statement:
+
+"The Imperial Government therefore does not doubt that the Government of
+the United States will understand the situation thus forced upon Germany
+by the Entente Allies' brutal methods of war and by their determination
+to destroy the Central Powers, and that the Government of the United
+States will further realize that the now openly disclosed intention of
+the Entente Allies gives back to Germany the freedom of action which she
+reserved in her note addressed to the Government of the United States on
+May 4, 1916.
+
+[Sidenote: Germany will sink all ships within zone proclaimed.]
+
+"Under these circumstances, Germany will meet the illegal measures of
+her enemies by forcibly preventing, after February 1, 1917, in a zone
+around Great Britain, France, Italy, and in the Eastern Mediterranean,
+all navigation, that of neutrals included, from and to England and from
+and to France, &c. All ships met within the zone will be sunk."
+
+I think that you will agree with me that, in view of this declaration,
+which suddenly and without prior intimation of any kind deliberately
+withdraws the solemn assurance given in the Imperial Government's note
+of the 4th of May, 1916, this Government has no alternative consistent
+with the dignity and honor of the United States but to take the course
+which, in its note of the 18th of April, 1916, it announced that it
+would take in the event that the German Government did not declare and
+effect an abandonment of the methods of submarine warfare which it was
+then employing and to which it now purposes again to resort.
+
+[Sidenote: Diplomatic relations with Germany are severed.]
+
+I have therefore directed the Secretary of State to announce to his
+Excellency the German Ambassador that all diplomatic relations between
+the United States and the German Empire are severed and that the
+American Ambassador to Berlin will immediately be withdrawn; and, in
+accordance with this decision, to hand to his Excellency his passports.
+
+[Sidenote: Hard to believe Germany will carry out threats.]
+
+Notwithstanding this unexpected action of the German Government, this
+sudden and deplorable renunciation of its assurances, given this
+Government at one of the most critical moments of tension in the
+relations of the two Governments, I refuse to believe that it is the
+intention of the German authorities to do in fact what they have warned
+us they will feel at liberty to do. I cannot bring myself to believe
+that they will indeed pay no regard to the ancient friendship between
+their people and our own or to the solemn obligations which have been
+exchanged between them, and destroy American ships and take the lives of
+American citizens in the willful prosecution of the ruthless naval
+program they have announced their intention to adopt. Only actual overt
+acts on their part can make me believe it even now.
+
+If this inveterate confidence on my part in the sobriety and prudent
+foresight of their purpose should unhappily prove unfounded; if American
+ships and American lives should in fact be sacrificed by their naval
+commanders in heedless contravention on the just and reasonable
+understandings of international law and the obvious dictates of
+humanity, I shall take the liberty of coming again before the Congress
+to ask that authority be given me to use any means that may be necessary
+for the protection of our seamen and our people in the prosecution of
+their peaceful and legitimate errands on the high seas. I can do nothing
+less. I take it for granted that all neutral Governments will take the
+same course.
+
+[Sidenote: America does not desire war with Germany.]
+
+We do not desire any hostile conflict with the Imperial German
+Government. We are the sincere friends of the German people, and
+earnestly desire to remain at peace with the Government which speaks for
+them. We shall not believe that they are hostile to us unless and until
+we are obliged to believe it; and we purpose nothing more than the
+reasonable defense of the undoubted rights of our people. We wish to
+serve no selfish ends. We seek merely to stand true alike in thought and
+in action to the immemorial principles of our people, which I have
+sought to express in my address to the Senate only two weeks ago--seek
+merely to vindicate our rights to liberty and justice and an unmolested
+life. These are the bases of peace, not war. God grant that we may not
+be challenged to defend them by acts of willful injustice on the part of
+the Government of Germany!
+
+[Sidenote: Reasons for addressing Congress.]
+
+I have again asked the privilege of addressing you because we are moving
+through critical times during which it seems to me to be my duty to keep
+in close touch with the houses of Congress, so that neither counsel nor
+action shall run at cross-purposes between us.
+
+On the 3rd of February I officially informed you of the sudden and
+unexpected action of the Imperial German Government in declaring its
+intention to disregard the promises it had made to this Government in
+April last and undertake immediate submarine operations against all
+commerce, whether of belligerents or of neutrals, that should seek to
+approach Great Britain and Ireland, the Atlantic coasts of Europe, or
+the harbors of the Eastern Mediterranean and to conduct those operations
+without regard to the established restrictions of international
+practice, without regard to any considerations of humanity even which
+might interfere with their object.
+
+[Sidenote: The German ruthless policy in practice.]
+
+That policy was forthwith put into practice. It has now been in active
+exhibition for nearly four weeks. Its practical results are not fully
+disclosed. The commerce of other neutral nations is suffering severely,
+but not, perhaps, very much more severely than it was already suffering
+before the 1st of February, when the new policy of the Imperial
+Government was put into operation.
+
+[Sidenote: American commerce suffers.]
+
+We have asked the cooperation of the other neutral Governments to
+prevent these depredations, but I fear none of them has thought it wise
+to join us in any common course of action. Our own commerce has
+suffered, is suffering, rather in apprehension than in fact, rather
+because so many of our ships are timidly keeping to their home ports
+than because American ships have been sunk.
+
+[Sidenote: American vessels sunk.]
+
+Two American vessels have been sunk, the _Housatonic_ and the _Lyman M.
+Law_. The case of the _Housatonic_, which was carrying foodstuffs
+consigned to a London firm, was essentially like the case of the _Frye_,
+in which, it will be recalled, the German Government admitted its
+liability for damages, and the lives of the crew, as in the case of the
+_Frye_, were safeguarded with reasonable care.
+
+The case of the _Law_, which was carrying lemon-box staves to Palermo,
+discloses a ruthlessness of method which deserves grave condemnation,
+but was accompanied by no circumstances which might not have been
+expected at any time in connection with the use of the submarine against
+merchantmen as the German Government has used it.
+
+[Sidenote: Congestion of shipping in American ports.]
+
+In sum, therefore, the situation we find ourselves in with regard to the
+actual conduct of the German submarine warfare against commerce and its
+effects upon our own ships and people is substantially the same that it
+was when I addressed you on the 3rd of February, except for the tying up
+of our shipping in our own ports because of the unwillingness of our
+ship owners to risk their vessels at sea without insurance or adequate
+protection, and the very serious congestion of our commerce which has
+resulted--a congestion which is growing rapidly more and more serious
+every day.
+
+This, in itself, might presently accomplish, in effect, what the new
+German submarine orders were meant to accomplish, so far as we are
+concerned. We can only say, therefore, that the overt act which I have
+ventured to hope the German commanders would in fact avoid has not
+occurred.
+
+[Sidenote: Indications that German ruthlessness will continue.]
+
+But while this is happily true, it must be admitted that there have been
+certain additional indications and expressions of purpose on the part of
+the German press and the German authorities which have increased rather
+than lessened the impression that, if our ships and our people are
+spared, it will be because of fortunate circumstances or because the
+commanders of the German submarines which they may happen to encounter
+exercise an unexpected discretion and restraint, rather than because of
+the instructions under which those commanders are acting.
+
+[Sidenote: Situation full of danger.]
+
+It would be foolish to deny that the situation is fraught with the
+gravest possibilities and dangers. No thoughtful man can fail to see
+that the necessity for definite action may come at any time if we are,
+in fact and not in word merely, to defend our elementary rights as a
+neutral nation. It would be most imprudent to be unprepared.
+
+I cannot in such circumstances be unmindful of the fact that the
+expiration of the term of the present Congress is immediately at hand by
+constitutional limitation and that it would in all likelihood require an
+unusual length of time to assemble and organize the Congress which is to
+succeed it.
+
+[Sidenote: The President asks for authority.]
+
+I feel that I ought, in view of that fact, to obtain from you full and
+immediate assurance of the authority which I may need at any moment to
+exercise. No doubt I already possess that authority without special
+warrant of law, by the plain implication of my constitutional duties and
+powers; but I prefer in the present circumstances not to act upon
+general implication. I wish to feel that the authority and the power of
+the Congress are behind me in whatever it may become necessary for me to
+do. We are jointly the servants of the people and must act together and
+in their spirit, so far as we can divine and interpret it.
+
+[Sidenote: Necessary to defend commerce and lives.]
+
+No one doubts what it is our duty to do. We must defend our commerce and
+the lives of our people in the midst of the present trying circumstances
+with discretion but with clear and steadfast purpose. Only the method
+and the extent remain to be chosen, upon the occasion, if occasion
+should indeed arise.
+
+[Sidenote: Diplomatic means fail.]
+
+Since it has unhappily proved impossible to safeguard our neutral rights
+by diplomatic means against the unwarranted infringements they are
+suffering at the hands of Germany, there may be no recourse but to armed
+neutrality, which we shall know how to maintain and for which there is
+abundant American precedent.
+
+It is devoutly to be hoped that it will not be necessary to put armed
+forces anywhere into action. The American people do not desire it, and
+our desire is not different from theirs. I am sure that they will
+understand the spirit in which I am now acting, the purpose I hold
+nearest my heart and would wish to exhibit in everything I do.
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Wilson the friend of peace.]
+
+I am anxious that the people of the nations at war also should
+understand and not mistrust us. I hope that I need give no further
+proofs and assurances than I have already given throughout nearly three
+years of anxious patience that I am the friend of peace and mean to
+preserve it for America so long as I am able. I am not now proposing or
+contemplating war or any steps that need lead to it. I merely request
+that you will accord me by your own vote and definite bestowal the
+means and the authority to safeguard in practice the right of a great
+people, who are at peace and who are desirous of exercising none but the
+rights of peace, to follow the pursuit of peace in quietness and
+good-will--rights recognized time out of mind by all the civilized
+nations of the world.
+
+[Sidenote: America not seeking war.]
+
+No course of my choosing or of theirs will lead to war. War can come
+only by the willful acts and aggressions of others.
+
+You will understand why I can make no definite proposals or forecasts of
+action now and must ask for your supporting authority in the most
+general terms. The form in which action may become necessary cannot yet
+be foreseen.
+
+[Sidenote: Merchant ships should be supplied with defensive arms.]
+
+I believe that the people will be willing to trust me to act with
+restraint, with prudence, and in the true spirit of amity and good faith
+that they have themselves displayed throughout these trying months; and
+it is in that belief that I request that you will authorize me to supply
+our merchant ships with defensive arms should that become necessary, and
+with the means of using them, and to employ any other instrumentalities
+or methods that may be necessary and adequate to protect our ships and
+our people in their legitimate and peaceful pursuits on the seas. I
+request also that you will grant me at the same time, along with the
+powers I ask, a sufficient credit to enable me to provide adequate means
+of protection where they are lacking, including adequate insurance
+against the present war risks.
+
+I have spoken of our commerce and of the legitimate errands of our
+people on the seas, but you will not be misled as to my main
+thought--the thought that lies beneath these phrases and gives them
+dignity and weight. It is not of material interest merely that we are
+thinking. It is, rather, of fundamental human rights, chief of all the
+rights of life itself.
+
+[Sidenote: To protect the lives of noncombatants.]
+
+I am thinking not only of the right of Americans to go and come about
+their proper business by way of the sea, but also of something much
+deeper, much more fundamental than that. I am thinking of those rights
+of humanity without which there is no civilization. My theme is of those
+great principles of compassion and of protection which mankind has
+sought to throw about human lives, the lives of noncombatants, the lives
+of men who are peacefully at work keeping the industrial processes of
+the world quick and vital, the lives of women and children and of those
+who supply the labor which ministers to their sustenance. We are
+speaking of no selfish material rights, but of rights which our hearts
+support and whose foundation is that righteous passion for justice upon
+which all law, all structures alike of family, of State, and of mankind
+must rest, as upon the ultimate base of our existence and our liberty.
+
+I cannot imagine any man with American principles at his heart
+hesitating to defend these things.
+
+
+
+
+HOW THE WAR CAME TO AMERICA
+
+OFFICIAL ACCOUNT
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Monroe Doctrine a warning to the old world.]
+
+In the years when the Republic was still struggling for existence, in
+the face of threatened encroachments by hostile monarchies over the sea,
+in order to make the New World safe for democracy our forefathers
+established here the policy that soon came to be known as the Monroe
+Doctrine. Warning the Old World not to interfere in the political life
+of the New, our Government pledged itself in return to abstain from
+interference in the political conflicts of Europe; and history has
+vindicated the wisdom of this course. We were then too weak to influence
+the destinies of Europe, and it was vital to mankind that this first
+great experiment in government of and by the people should not be
+disturbed by foreign attack.
+
+[Sidenote: Our isolation fast becoming imaginary.]
+
+Reenforced by the experience of our expanding national life, this
+doctrine has been ever since the dominating element in the growth of our
+foreign policy. Whether or not we could have maintained it in case of
+concerted attack from abroad, it has seemed of such importance to us
+that we were at all times ready to go to war in its defense. And though
+since it was first enunciated our strength has grown by leaps and
+bounds, although in that time the vast increase in our foreign trade and
+of travel abroad, modern transport, modern mails, the cables, and the
+wireless have brought us close to Europe and have made our isolation
+more and more imaginary, there has been until the outbreak of the
+present conflict small desire on our part to abrogate, or even amend,
+the old familiar tradition which has for so long given us peace.
+
+[Sidenote: American statement in the minutes of The Hague.]
+
+In both conferences at The Hague, in 1899 and 1907, we reaffirmed this
+policy. As our delegates signed the First Convention in regard to
+arbitration, they read into the minutes this statement:
+
+"Nothing contained in this convention shall be so construed as to
+require the United States of America to depart from its traditional
+policy of not intruding upon, interfering with, or entangling itself in
+the political questions or policy or internal administration of any
+foreign State; nor shall anything contained in the said convention be
+construed to imply a relinquishment by the United States of America of
+its traditional attitude toward purely American questions."
+
+On the eve of the war our position toward other nations might have been
+summarized under three heads:
+
+[Sidenote: The Monroe Doctrine.]
+
+I. The Monroe Doctrine.--We had pledged ourselves to defend the New
+World from European aggression, and we had by word and deed made it
+clear that we would not intervene in any European dispute.
+
+[Sidenote: The Freedom of the Seas.]
+
+II. The Freedom of the Seas.--In every naval conference our influence
+had been given in support of the principle that sea law to be just and
+worthy of general respect must be based on the consent of the governed.
+
+[Sidenote: Settlement of disputes by arbitration.]
+
+III. Arbitration.--As we had secured peace at home by referring
+interstate disputes to a Federal tribunal, we urged a similar settlement
+of international controversies. Our ideal was a permanent world court.
+We had already signed arbitration treaties not only with great powers
+which might conceivably attack us, but even more freely with weaker
+neighbors in order to show our good faith in recognizing the equality of
+all nations both great and small. We had made plain to the nations our
+purpose to forestall by every means in our power the recurrence of wars
+in the world.
+
+The outbreak of war in 1914 caught this nation by surprise. The peoples
+of Europe had had at least some warnings of the coming storm, but to us
+such a blind, savage onslaught on the ideals of civilization had
+appeared impossible.
+
+[Sidenote: The war incomprehensible.]
+
+The war was incomprehensible. Either side was championed here by
+millions living among us who were of European birth. Their contradictory
+accusations threw our thought into disarray, and in the first chaotic
+days we could see no clear issue that affected our national policy.
+There was not direct assault on our rights. It seemed at first to most
+of us a purely European dispute, and our minds were not prepared to take
+sides in such a conflict. The President's proclamation of neutrality was
+received by us as natural and inevitable. It was quickly followed by his
+appeal to "the citizens of the Republic."
+
+[Sidenote: American neutrality natural.]
+
+"Every man who really loves America will act and speak in the true
+spirit of neutrality," he said, "which is the spirit of impartiality and
+fairness and friendliness to all concerned. * * * It will be easy to
+excite passion and difficult to allay it." He expressed the fear that
+our nation might become divided in camps of hostile opinion. "Such
+divisions among us * * * might seriously stand in the way of the proper
+performance of our duty as the one great nation at peace, the one people
+holding itself ready to play a part of impartial mediation and speak
+counsels of peace and accommodation, not as a partisan, but as a
+friend."
+
+[Sidenote: The United States must be the mediator.]
+
+This purpose--the preservation of a strict neutrality in order that
+later we might be of use in the great task of mediation--dominated all
+the President's early speeches.
+
+[Sidenote: Invasion of Belgium stirs American opinion.]
+
+The spirit of neutrality was not easy to maintain. Public opinion was
+deeply stirred by the German invasion of Belgium and by reports of
+atrocities there. The Royal Belgian Commission, which came in September,
+1914, to lay their country's cause for complaint before our National
+Government, was received with sympathy and respect. The President in his
+reply reserved our decision in the affair. It was the only course he
+could take without an abrupt departure from our most treasured
+traditions of non-interference in Old World disputes. But the sympathy
+of America went out to the Belgians in the heroic tragedy, and from
+every section of our land money contributions and supplies of food and
+clothing poured over to the Commission for Relief in Belgium, which was
+under the able management of our fellow-countrymen abroad.
+
+Still, the thought of taking an active part in this European war was
+very far from most of our minds. The nation shared with the President
+the belief that by maintaining a strict neutrality we could best serve
+Europe at the end as impartial mediators.
+
+[Sidenote: Complication on the seas imperils American neutrality.]
+
+But in the very first days of the war our Government foresaw that
+complications on the seas might put us in grave risk of being drawn into
+the conflict. No neutral nation could foretell what violations of its
+vital interests at sea might be attempted by the belligerents. And so,
+on August 6, 1914, our Secretary of State dispatched an identical note
+to all the powers then at war, calling attention to the risk of serious
+trouble arising out of this uncertainty of neutrals as to their maritime
+rights, and proposing that the Declaration of London be accepted by all
+nations for the duration of the war.
+
+[Sidenote: German Government stirs opinion hostile to United States.]
+
+[Sidenote: American policy not inconsistent with American traditions.]
+
+In the first year of the war the Government of Germany stirred up among
+its people a feeling of resentment against the United States on account
+of our insistence upon our right as a neutral nation to trade in
+munitions with the belligerent powers. Our legal right in the matter was
+not seriously questioned by Germany. She could not have done so
+consistently, for as recently as the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913 both
+Germany and Austria sold munitions to the belligerents. Their appeals to
+us in the present war were not to observe international law, but to
+revise it in their interest. And these appeals they tried to make on
+moral and humanitarian grounds. But upon "the moral issue" involved, the
+stand taken by the United States was consistent with its traditional
+policy and with obvious common sense.
+
+For, if, with all other neutrals, we refused to sell munitions to
+belligerents, we could never in time of a war of our own obtain
+munitions from neutrals, and the nation which had accumulated the
+largest reserves of war supplies in time of peace would be assured of
+victory.
+
+The militarist State that invested its money in arsenals would be at a
+fatal advantage over the free people who invested their wealth in
+schools. To write into international law that neutrals should not trade
+in munitions would be to hand over the world to the rule of the nation
+with the largest armament factories. Such a policy the United States of
+America could not accept.
+
+[Sidenote: Controversy about German submarine war zone.]
+
+[Sidenote: The sinking of the _Lusitania_.]
+
+But our principal controversy with the German Government, and the one
+which rendered the situation at once acute, rose out of their
+announcement of a sea zone where their submarines would operate in
+violation of all accepted principles of international law. Our
+indignation at such a threat was soon rendered passionate by the sinking
+of the _Lusitania_. This attack upon our rights was not only grossly
+illegal; it defied the fundamental concepts of humanity.
+
+[Sidenote: Murder of noncombatants not to be settled by litigation.]
+
+Aggravating restraints on our trade were grievances which could be
+settled by litigation after the war, but the wanton murder of peaceable
+men and of innocent women and children, citizens of a nation with which
+Germany was at peace, was a crime against the civilized world which
+could never be settled in any court.
+
+Our Government, however, inspired still by a desire to preserve peace if
+possible, used every resource of diplomacy to force the German
+Government to abandon such attacks. This diplomatic correspondence,
+which has already been published, proves beyond doubt that our
+Government sought by every honorable means to preserve faith in that
+mutual sincerity between nations which is the only basis of sound
+diplomatic interchange.
+
+[Sidenote: Bad faith of the Imperial German Government.]
+
+But evidence of the bad faith of the Imperial German Government soon
+piled up on every hand. Honest efforts on our part to establish a firm
+basis of good neighborliness with the German people were met by their
+Government with quibbles, misrepresentations, and counter-accusations
+against their enemies abroad.
+
+And meanwhile in this country official agents of the Central
+Powers--protected from criminal prosecution by diplomatic
+immunity--conspired against our internal peace and placed spies and
+agents provocateurs throughout the length and breadth of our land, and
+even in high positions of trust in departments of our Government.
+
+[Sidenote: German agents in Latin America, in Japan and the West
+Indies.]
+
+While expressing a cordial friendship for the people of the United
+States, the Government of Germany had its agents at work both in Latin
+America and Japan. They bought or subsidized papers and supported
+speakers there to rouse feelings of bitterness and distrust against us
+in those friendly nations, in order to embroil us in war. They were
+inciting to insurrection in Cuba, in Haiti, and in Santo Domingo; their
+hostile hand was stretched out to take the Danish Islands; and
+everywhere in South America they were abroad sowing the seeds of
+dissension, trying to stir up one nation against another and all against
+the United States.
+
+[Sidenote: Assaults on the Monroe Doctrine.]
+
+In their sum these various operations amounted to direct assault upon
+the Monroe Doctrine. And even if we had given up our right to travel on
+the sea, even if we had surrendered to German threats and abandoned our
+legitimate trade in munitions, the German offensive in the New World, in
+our own land and among our neighbors, was becoming too serious to be
+ignored.
+
+[Sidenote: Recall of the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador.]
+
+So long as it was possible, the Government of the United States tried to
+believe that such activities, the evidence of which was already in a
+large measure at hand, were the work of irresponsible and misguided
+individuals. It was only reluctantly, in the face of overwhelming proof,
+that the recall of the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador and of the German
+Military and Naval Attaches was demanded.
+
+Proof of their criminal violations of our hospitality was presented to
+their Governments. But these Governments in reply offered no apologies
+nor did they issue reprimands. It became clear that such intrigue was
+their settled policy.
+
+In the meantime the attacks of the German submarines upon the lives and
+property of American citizens had gone on; the protests of our
+Government were now sharp and ominous, and this nation was rapidly
+being drawn into a state of war.
+
+The break would have come sooner if our Government had not been
+restrained by the vain hope that saner counsels might still prevail in
+Germany. For it was well known to us that the German people had to a
+very large extent been kept in ignorance of many of the secret crimes of
+their Government against us.
+
+[Sidenote: Tension relieved by _Sussex_ agreement.]
+
+And the presence of a faction of German public opinion less hostile to
+this country was shown when their Government acquiesced to some degree
+in our demands at the time of the _Sussex_ outrage, and for nearly a
+year maintained at least a pretense of observing the pledge they had
+made to us. The tension was abated.
+
+While the war spirit was growing in some sections of our nation, there
+was still no widespread desire to take part in the conflict abroad; for
+the tradition of non-interference in Europe's political affairs was too
+deeply rooted in our national life to be easily overthrown.
+
+Moreover, two other considerations strengthened our Government in its
+efforts to remain neutral in this war. The first was our traditional
+sense of responsibility toward all the republics of the New World.
+Throughout the crisis our Government was in constant communication with
+the countries of Central and South America.
+
+[Sidenote: Opinion in Central and South America.]
+
+They, too, preferred the ways of peace. And there was a very obvious
+obligation upon us to safeguard their interests with our own.
+
+The second consideration, which had been so often developed in the
+President's speeches, was the hope that by keeping aloof from the bitter
+passions abroad, by preserving untroubled here the holy ideals of
+civilized intercourse between nations, we might be free at the end of
+this war to bind up the wounds of the conflict, to be the restorers and
+rebuilders of the wrecked structure of the world.
+
+[Sidenote: German compliance not in good faith.]
+
+All these motives held us back, but it was not long until we were beset
+by further complications. We soon had reason to believe that the recent
+compliance of the German Government had not been made to us in good
+faith, and was only temporary, and by the end of 1916 it was plain that
+our neutral status had again been made unsafe through the
+ever-increasing aggressiveness of the German autocracy. There was a
+general agreement here with the statement of our President on October
+26, 1916, that this conflict was the last great war involving the world
+in which we would remain neutral.
+
+[Sidenote: Peace move on behalf of the Central powers.]
+
+It was in this frame of mind, fearing we might be drawn into the war if
+it did not soon come to an end, that the President began the preparation
+of his note, asking the belligerent powers to define their war aims. But
+before he had completed it the world was surprised by the peace move of
+the German Government--an identical note on behalf of the German Empire,
+Austro-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey, sent through neutral powers on
+December 12, 1916, to the Governments of the Allies proposing
+negotiations for peace.
+
+While expressing the wish to end this war--"a catastrophe which
+thousands of years of common civilization was unable to prevent and
+which injures the most precious achievements of humanity"--the greater
+portion of the note was couched in terms that gave small hope of a
+lasting peace.
+
+Boasting of German conquests, "the glorious deeds of our armies," the
+note implanted in neutral minds the belief that it was the purpose of
+the Imperial German Government to insist upon such conditions as would
+leave all Central Europe under German dominance and so build up an
+empire which would menace the whole liberal world.
+
+[Sidenote: A veiled threat to neutral nations.]
+
+Moreover, the German proposal was accompanied by a thinly veiled threat
+to all neutral nations; and from a thousand sources, official and
+unofficial, the word came to Washington that unless the neutrals use
+their influence to bring the war to an end on terms dictated from
+Berlin, Germany and her allies would consider themselves henceforth free
+from any obligations to respect the rights of neutrals.
+
+The Kaiser ordered the neutrals to exert pressure on the Entente to
+bring the war to an abrupt end, or to beware of the consequences. Clear
+warnings were brought to our Government that if the German peace move
+should not be successful, the submarines would be unleashed for a more
+intense and ruthless war upon all commerce.
+
+[Sidenote: The President's note to the belligerents.]
+
+On the 18th of December the President dispatched his note to all the
+belligerent powers, asking them to define their war aims. There was
+still hope in our minds that the mutual suspicions between the warring
+powers might be decreased, and the menace of future German aggression
+and dominance be removed, by finding a guaranty of good faith in a
+league of nations.
+
+There was a chance that by the creation of such a league as part of the
+peace negotiations the war could now be brought to an end before our
+nation was involved. Two statements issued to the press by our Secretary
+of State, upon the day the note was dispatched, threw a clear light on
+the seriousness with which our Government viewed the crisis.
+
+From this point events moved rapidly. The powers of the Entente replied
+to the German peace note. Neutral nations took action on the note of
+the President, and from both belligerents replies to this note were soon
+in our hands.
+
+[Sidenote: The German reply evasive.]
+
+The German reply was evasive--in accord with their traditional
+preference for diplomacy behind closed doors. Refusing to state to the
+world their terms, Germany and her allies merely proposed a conference.
+They adjourned all discussion of any plan for a league of peace until
+after hostilities should end.
+
+[Sidenote: Our concern the lasting restoration of peace.]
+
+The response of the Entente Powers was frank and in harmony with our
+principal purpose. Many questions raised in the statement of their aims
+were so purely European in character as to have small interest for us;
+but our great concern in Europe was the lasting restoration of peace,
+and it was clear that this was also the chief interest of the Entente
+nations.
+
+As to the wisdom of some of the measures they proposed toward this end,
+we might differ in opinion, but the trend of their proposals was the
+establishment of just frontiers based on the rights of all nations, the
+small as well as the great, to decide their own destinies.
+
+The aims of the belligerents were now becoming clear. From the outbreak
+of hostilities the German Government had claimed that it was fighting a
+war of defense. But the tone of its recent proposals had been that of a
+conqueror. It sought a peace based on victory.
+
+[Sidenote: Central Empires desire domination over other races.]
+
+The Central Empires aspired to extend their domination over other races.
+They were willing to make liberal terms to any one of their enemies, in
+a separate peace which would free their hands to crush other opponents.
+But they were not willing to accept any peace which did not, all fronts
+considered, leave them victors and the dominating imperial power of
+Europe.
+
+The war aims of the Entente showed a determination to thwart this
+ambition of the Imperial German Government. Against the German peace to
+further German growth and aggression the Entente Powers offered a plan
+for a European peace that should make the whole Continent secure.
+
+[Sidenote: The kind of peace America desires.]
+
+At this juncture the President read his address to the Senate, on
+January 22, 1917, in which he outlined the kind of peace the United
+States of America could join in guaranteeing. His words were addressed
+not only to the Senate and this nation, but to people of all countries:
+
+"May I not add that I hope and believe that I am in effect speaking for
+liberals and friends of humanity in every nation and of every program of
+liberty? I would fain believe that I am speaking for the silent mass of
+mankind everywhere who have as yet had no place or opportunity to speak
+their real hearts out concerning the death and ruin they see to have
+come already upon the persons and the homes they hold most dear."
+
+[Sidenote: The peace of the people.]
+
+The address was a rebuke to those who still cherished dreams of a world
+dominated by one nation. For the peace he outlined was not that of a
+victorious Emperor, it was not the peace of Caesar. It was in behalf of
+all the world, and it was a peace of the people:
+
+"No peace can last, or ought to last, which does not recognize and
+accept the principle that Governments derive all their just powers from
+the consent of the governed, and that no right anywhere exists to hand
+people about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property.
+
+[Sidenote: Each people should determine its own polity.]
+
+"I am proposing, as it were, that the nations should with one accord
+adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the world;
+that no nation should seek to extend its policy over any other nation or
+people, but that every people should be left free to determine its own
+polity, its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid,
+the little along with the great and powerful.
+
+"I am proposing that all nations henceforth avoid entangling alliances
+which would draw them into competitions of power, catch them in a net of
+intrigue and selfish rivalry and disturb their own affairs with
+influences intruded from without. There is no entangling alliance in a
+concert of power. When all unite to act in the same sense and with the
+same purpose, all act in the common interest and are free to live their
+own lives under a common protection.
+
+[Sidenote: Seas must be free.]
+
+"I am proposing government by the consent of the governed; that freedom
+of the seas which in international conference after conference
+representatives of the United States have urged with the eloquence of
+those who are convinced disciples of liberty, and that moderation of
+armaments which makes of armies and navies a power for order merely, not
+an instrument of aggression or of selfish violence.
+
+"And the paths of the sea must, alike in law and in fact, be free. The
+freedom of the seas is the sine qua non of peace, equality, and
+co-operation.
+
+[Sidenote: Question of limiting armaments.]
+
+"It is a problem closely connected with the limitation of naval armament
+and the co-operation of the navies of the world in keeping the seas at
+once free and safe. And the question of limiting naval armaments opens
+the wider and perhaps more difficult question of the limitation of
+armies and of all programs of military preparation. * * * There can be
+no sense of safety and equality among the nations if great
+preponderating armaments are henceforth to continue here and there to be
+built up and maintained.
+
+[Sidenote: How peace must be made secure.]
+
+"Mere agreements may not make peace secure. It will be absolutely
+necessary that a force be created as a guarantor of the permanency of
+the settlement so much greater than the force of any nation now engaged
+or any alliance hitherto formed or projected that no nation, no probable
+combination of nations, could face or withstand it. If the peace
+presently to be made is to endure, it must be a peace made secure by the
+organized major force of mankind."
+
+[Sidenote: Entente peoples welcome President Wilson's views.]
+
+[Sidenote: The German note to Mexico.]
+
+If there were any doubt in our minds as to which of the great alliances
+was the more in sympathy with these ideals, it was removed by the
+popular response abroad to this address of the President. For, while
+exception was taken to some parts of it in Britain and France, it was
+plain that so far as the peoples of the Entente were concerned the
+President had been amply justified in stating that he spoke for all
+forward-looking, liberal-minded men and women. It was not so in Germany.
+The people there who could be reached, and whose hearts were stirred by
+this enunciation of the principles of a people's peace, were too few or
+too oppressed to make their voices heard in the councils of their
+nation. Already, on January 16, 1917, unknown to the people of Germany,
+Herr Zimmermann, their Secretary of Foreign Affairs, had secretly
+dispatched a note to their Minister in Mexico, informing him of the
+German intention to repudiate the _Sussex_ pledge and instructing him to
+offer to the Mexican Government New Mexico and Arizona if Mexico would
+join with Japan in attacking the United States.
+
+[Sidenote: Sinister German intrigues in the New World.]
+
+In the new year of 1917, as through our acceptance of world
+responsibilities so plainly indicated in the President's utterances in
+regard to a league of nations we felt ourselves now drawing nearer to a
+full accord with the Powers of the Entente; and, as on the other hand,
+we found ourselves more and more outraged at the German Government's
+methods of conducting warfare and their brutal treatment of people in
+their conquered lands; as we more and more uncovered their hostile
+intrigues against the peace of the New World; and, above all, as the
+sinister and anti-democratic ideals of their ruling class became
+manifest in their manoeuvres for a peace of conquest--the Imperial
+German Government abruptly threw aside the mask.
+
+[Sidenote: The new submarine war zone proclaimed.]
+
+On the last day of January, 1917, Count Bernstorff handed to Mr. Lansing
+a note, in which his Government announced its purpose to intensify and
+render more ruthless the operations of their submarines at sea, in a
+manner against which our Government had protested from the beginning.
+The German Chancellor also stated before the Imperial Diet that the
+reason this ruthless policy had not been earlier employed was simply
+because the Imperial Government had not then been ready to act. In
+brief, under the guise of friendship and the cloak of false promises, it
+had been preparing this attack.
+
+[Sidenote: Count Bernstorff receives his passports.]
+
+This was the direct challenge. There was no possible answer except to
+hand their Ambassador his passports and so have done with a diplomatic
+correspondence which had been vitiated from the start by the often
+proved bad faith of the Imperial Government.
+
+On the same day, February 3, 1917, the President addressed both houses
+of our Congress and announced the complete severance of our relations
+with Germany. The reluctance with which he took this step was evident in
+every word. But diplomacy had failed, and it would have been the
+hollowest pretense to maintain relations. At the same time, however, he
+made it plain that he did not regard this act as tantamount to a
+declaration of war. Here for the first time the President made his sharp
+distinction between government and people in undemocratic lands:
+
+[Sidenote: American attitude toward the German people.]
+
+"We are the sincere friends of the German people," he said, "and
+earnestly desire to remain at peace with the Government which speaks for
+them. * * * God grant we may not be challenged by acts of willful
+injustice on the part of the Government of Germany."
+
+[Sidenote: Submarine order must be withdrawn.]
+
+In this address of the President, and in its indorsement by the Senate,
+there was a solemn warning; for we still had hope that the German
+Government might hesitate to drive us to war. But it was soon evident
+that our warning had fallen on deaf ears. The tortuous ways and means of
+German official diplomacy were clearly shown in the negotiations opened
+by them through the Swiss Legation on the 10th of February. In no word
+of their proposals did the German Government meet the real issue between
+us. And our State Department replied that no minor negotiations could be
+entertained until the main issue had been met by the withdrawal of the
+submarine order.
+
+[Sidenote: President Wilson advises armed neutrality.]
+
+By the 1st of March it had become plain that the Imperial Government,
+unrestrained by the warning in the President's address to Congress on
+February 3, was determined to make good its threat. The President then
+again appeared before Congress to report the development of the crisis
+and to ask the approval of the representatives of the nation for the
+course of armed neutrality upon which, under his constitutional
+authority, he had now determined. More than 500 of the 531 members of
+the two houses of Congress showed themselves ready and anxious to act;
+and the armed neutrality declaration would have been accepted if it had
+not been for the legal death of the Sixty-fourth Congress on March 4.
+
+No "overt" act, however, was ordered by our Government until Count
+Bernstorff had reached Berlin and Mr. Gerard was in Washington. For the
+German Ambassador on his departure had begged that no irrevocable
+decision should be taken until he had had the chance to make one final
+plea for peace to his sovereign. We do not know the nature of his report
+to the Kaiser; we know only that, even if he kept his pledge and urged
+an eleventh-hour revocation of the submarine order, he was unable to
+sway the policy of the Imperial Government.
+
+[Sidenote: Armed guards on American merchant ships.]
+
+And so, having exhausted every resource of patience, our Government on
+the 12th of March finally issued orders to place armed guards on our
+merchant ships.
+
+With the definite break in diplomatic relations there vanished the last
+vestige of cordiality toward the Government of Germany. Our attitude was
+now to change. So long as we had maintained a strict neutrality in the
+war, for the reason that circumstances might arise in which Europe would
+have need of an impartial mediator, for us to have given official heed
+to the accusations of either party would have been to prejudge the case
+before all the evidence was in.
+
+[Sidenote: Germany is forcing the United States into war.]
+
+But now at last, with the breaking of friendly relations with the German
+Government, we were relieved of the oppressive duty of endeavoring to
+maintain a judicial detachment from the rights and wrongs involved in
+the war. We were no longer the outside observers striving to hold an
+even balance of judgment between disputants. One party by direct attack
+upon our rights and liberties was forcing us into the conflict. And,
+much as we had hoped to keep out of the fray, it was no little relief to
+be free at last from that reserve which is expected of a judge.
+
+[Sidenote: Perfidy of the German Government.]
+
+Much evidence had been presented to us of things so abhorrent to our
+ideas of humanity that they had seemed incredible, things we had been
+loath to believe, and with heavy hearts we had sought to reserve our
+judgment. But with the breaking of relations with the Government of
+Germany that duty at last was ended. The perfidy of that Government in
+its dealings with this nation relieved us of the necessity of striving
+to give them the benefit of the doubt in regard to their crimes abroad.
+The Government which under cover of profuse professions of friendship
+had tried to embroil us in war with Mexico and Japan could not expect us
+to believe in its good faith in other matters. The men whose paid agents
+dynamited our factories here were capable of the infamies reported
+against them over the sea. Their Government's protestations, that their
+purpose was self-defense and the freeing of small nations, fell like a
+house of cards before the revelation of their "peace terms."
+
+[Sidenote: The German record.]
+
+[Sidenote: Arrogant intolerance of the Prussians.]
+
+And judging the German Government now in the light of our own experience
+through the long and patient years of our honest attempt to keep the
+peace, we could see the great autocracy and read her record through the
+war. And we found that record damnable. Beginning long before the war in
+Prussian opposition to every effort that was made by other nations and
+our own to do away with warfare, the story of the autocracy has been one
+of vast preparations for war combined with an attitude of arrogant
+intolerance toward all other points of view, all other systems of
+governments, all other hopes and dreams of men.
+
+With a fanatical faith in the destiny of German Kultur as the system
+that must rule the world, the Imperial Government's actions have through
+years of boasting, double dealing, and deceit tended toward aggression
+upon the rights of others. And, if there still be any doubt as to which
+nation began this war, there can be no uncertainty as to which one was
+most prepared, most exultant at the chance, and ready instantly to march
+upon other nations--even those who had given no offense.
+
+[Sidenote: Atrocities in Belgium and Servia.]
+
+The wholesale depredations and hideous atrocities in Belgium and in
+Serbia were doubtless part and parcel with the Imperial Government's
+purpose to terrorize small nations into abject submission for
+generations to come. But in this the autocracy has been blind. For its
+record in those countries, and in Poland and in Northern France, has
+given not only to the Allies but to liberal peoples throughout the world
+the conviction that this menace to human liberties everywhere must be
+utterly shorn of its power for harm.
+
+[Sidenote: German defiance of law and humanity.]
+
+For the evil it has effected has ranged far out of Europe--out upon the
+open seas, where its submarines, in defiance of law and the concepts of
+humanity, have blown up neutral vessels and covered the waves with the
+dead and the dying, men and women and children alike. Its agents have
+conspired against the peace of neutral nations everywhere, sowing the
+seeds of dissension, ceaselessly endeavoring by tortuous methods of
+deceit, of bribery, false promises, and intimidation to stir up brother
+nations one against the other, in order that the liberal world might not
+be able to unite, in order that the autocracy might emerge triumphant
+from the war.
+
+[Sidenote: The rulers of Germany must go.]
+
+All this we know from our own experience with the Imperial Government.
+As they have dealt with Europe, so they have dealt with us and with all
+mankind. And so out of these years the conviction has grown that until
+the German Nation is divested of such rulers democracy cannot be safe.
+
+[Sidenote: German relation with the Russian autocracy.]
+
+There remained but one element to confuse the issue. One other great
+autocracy, the Government of the Russian Czar, had long been hostile to
+free institutions; it had been a stronghold of tyrannies reaching far
+back into the past, and its presence among the Allies had seemed to be
+in disaccord with the great liberal principles they were upholding in
+this war. Russia had been a source of doubt. Repeatedly during the
+conflict liberal Europe had been startled by the news of secret accord
+between the Kaiser and the Czar.
+
+[Sidenote: The people of Russia overthrow the Czar's Government.]
+
+But now at this crucial time for our nation, on the eve of our entrance
+into the war, the free men of all the world were thrilled and heartened
+by the news that the people of Russia had risen to throw off their
+Government and found a new democracy; and the torch of freedom in Russia
+lit up the last dark phases of the situation abroad. Here, indeed, was a
+fit partner for the League of Honor. The conviction was finally
+crystallized in American minds and hearts that this war across the sea
+was no mere conflict between dynasties, but a stupendous civil war of
+all the world; a new campaign in the age-old war, the prize of which is
+liberty. Here, at last, was a struggle in which all who love freedom
+have a stake. Further neutrality on our part would have been a crime
+against our ancestors, who had given their lives that we might be free.
+
+"The world must be made safe for democracy."
+
+[Sidenote: The President's message to Congress.]
+
+On the 2d of April, 1917, the President read to the new Congress his
+message, in which he asked the Representatives of the nation to declare
+the existence of a state of war, and in the early hours of the 6th of
+April the House by an overwhelming vote accepted the joint resolution
+which had already passed the Senate.
+
+"_Whereas_, The Imperial German Government has committed repeated acts
+of war against the Government and the people of the United States of
+America: Therefore be it
+
+[Sidenote: The declaration of the existence of a state of war.]
+
+"_Resolved_ by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
+States of America in Congress assembled, That the state of war between
+the United States and the Imperial German Government which has thus been
+thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and that the
+President be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to employ the
+entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources
+of the Government to carry on the war against the Imperial German
+Government, and to bring the conflict to a successful termination all
+the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the
+United States."
+
+Neutrality was a thing of the past. The time had come when the
+President's proud prophecy was fulfilled:
+
+[Sidenote: America guided by moral force.]
+
+"There will come that day when the world will say, 'This America that we
+thought was full of a multitude of contrary counsels now speaks with the
+great volume of the heart's accord, and that great heart of America has
+behind it the supreme moral force of righteousness and hope and the
+liberty of mankind.'"
+
+
+
+
+THE WAR MESSAGE
+
+PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON
+
+
+[Sidenote: Why Congress was called in extraordinary session.]
+
+I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because there are
+serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made, and made
+immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible
+that I should assume the responsibility of making.
+
+On the 3d of February last I officially laid before you the
+extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government that on and
+after the first day of February it was its purpose to put aside all
+restraints of law or of humanity and use its submarines to sink every
+vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and
+Ireland or the western coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled
+by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean.
+
+[Sidenote: The question of submarine warfare.]
+
+[Sidenote: A cruel and unmanly business.]
+
+That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare earlier
+in the war, but since April of last year the Imperial Government had
+somewhat restrained the commanders of its undersea craft, in conformity
+with its promise, then given to us, that passenger boats should not be
+sunk and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which its
+submarines might seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered or
+escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a
+fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. The precautions
+taken were meagre and haphazard enough, as was proved in distressing
+instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly
+business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed.
+
+[Sidenote: Germany sweeps all restriction away.]
+
+The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind,
+whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination,
+their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning
+and without thought of help or mercy for those on board, the vessels of
+friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents. Even hospital ships
+and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of
+Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe conduct through the
+proscribed areas by the German Government itself and were distinguished
+by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reckless
+lack of compassion or of principle.
+
+[Sidenote: International law on the seas.]
+
+I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in
+fact be done by any Government that had hitherto subscribed to humane
+practices of civilized nations. International law had its origin in the
+attempt to set up some law which would be respected and observed upon
+the seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where lay the free
+highways of the world. By painful stage after stage has that law been
+built up, with meagre enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished
+that could be accomplished, but always with a clear view, at least, of
+what the heart and conscience of mankind demanded.
+
+[Sidenote: Germany shows no scruples of humanity.]
+
+This minimum of right the German Government has swept aside, under the
+plea of retaliation and necessity and because it had no weapons which it
+could use at sea except these, which it is impossible to employ, as it
+is employing them, without throwing to the wind all scruples of humanity
+or of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the
+intercourse of the world.
+
+[Sidenote: Lives cannot be paid for.]
+
+I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and
+serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of
+the lives of noncombatants, men, women, and children, engaged in
+pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern
+history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for;
+the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be. The present German
+submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.
+
+[Sidenote: American lives taken at at sea.]
+
+It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American
+lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of,
+but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been
+sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no
+discrimination.
+
+[Sidenote: Our motive vindication of human right.]
+
+The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how
+it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a
+moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our
+character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feeling away.
+Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the
+physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right, of
+human right, of which we are only a single champion.
+
+[Sidenote: Submarines are in effect outlaws.]
+
+[Sidenote: Must be dealt with on sight.]
+
+When I addressed the Congress on the 26th of February last I thought
+that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right
+to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our
+people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now
+appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws,
+when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant
+shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks, as
+the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves
+against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open
+sea. It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed,
+to endeavor to destroy them before they have shown their own intention.
+They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all.
+
+[Sidenote: Armed neutrality ineffectual]
+
+The German Government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all
+within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defense
+of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their
+right to defend. The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which
+we have placed on our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale
+of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed
+neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances and in
+the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual; it is likely
+only to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically certain
+to draw us into the war without either the rights or the effectiveness
+of belligerents. There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of
+making; we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most
+sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated.
+The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs;
+they cut to the very roots of human life.
+
+[Sidenote: Course of Germany actually war on the United States.]
+
+With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the
+step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves,
+but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I
+advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial
+German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the
+Government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the
+status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it; and that it
+take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough
+state of defense, but also to exert all its power and employ all its
+resources to bring the Government of the German Empire to terms and end
+the war.
+
+[Sidenote: Necessary to co-operate with Ententes.]
+
+What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable
+co-operation in counsel and action with the Governments now at war with
+Germany, and, as incident to that, the extension to those Governments of
+the most liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may so
+far as possible be added to theirs.
+
+[Sidenote: Resources must be organized.]
+
+It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material
+resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the
+incidental needs of the nation in the most abundant and yet the most
+economical and efficient way possible.
+
+It will involve the immediate full equipment of the navy in all
+respects, but particularly in supplying it with the best means of
+dealing with the enemy's submarines.
+
+[Sidenote: A great army must be raised.]
+
+It will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United
+States, already provided for by law in case of war, of at least 500,000
+men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of
+universal liability to service, and also the authorization of subsequent
+additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and
+can be handled in training.
+
+[Sidenote: The Government will need adequate credits.]
+
+It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the
+Government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be sustained
+by the present generation, by well-conceived taxation.
+
+I say sustained so far as may be equitable by taxation, because it seems
+to me that it would be most unwise to base the credits, which will now
+be necessary, entirely on money borrowed. It is our duty, I most
+respectfully urge, to protect our people, so far as we may, against the
+very serious hardships and evils which would be likely to arise out of
+the inflation which would be produced by vast loans.
+
+[Sidenote: Nations must obtain supplies from us.]
+
+In carrying out the measures by which these things are to be
+accomplished we should keep constantly in mind the wisdom of interfering
+as little as possible in our own preparation and in the equipment of our
+own military forces with the duty--for it will be a very practical
+duty--of supplying the nations already at war with Germany with the
+materials which they can obtain only from us or by our assistance. They
+are in the field, and we should help them in every way to be effective
+there.
+
+[Sidenote: Measure suggested to accomplish nation's ends.]
+
+I shall take the liberty of suggesting, through the several executive
+departments of the Government, for the consideration of your committees,
+measures for the accomplishment of the several objects I have mentioned.
+I hope that it will be your pleasure to deal with them as having been
+framed after very careful thought by the branch of the Government upon
+whom the responsibility of conducting the war and safeguarding the
+nation will most directly fall.
+
+[Sidenote: Concert of purpose and action among free peoples.]
+
+While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very
+clear, and make very clear to all the world, what our motives and our
+objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual and
+normal course by the unhappy events of the last two months, and I do not
+believe that the thought of the nation has been altered or clouded by
+them. I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind when
+I addressed the Senate on the 22d of January last; the same that I had
+in mind when I addressed the Congress on the 3d of February and on the
+26th of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the
+principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against
+selfish and autocratic power, and to set up among the really free and
+self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of
+action as will henceforth insure the observance of those principles.
+
+[Sidenote: Standards of conduct for nations.]
+
+Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the
+world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that
+peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic Governments,
+backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not
+by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such
+circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be
+insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for
+wrong done shall be observed among nations and their Governments that
+are observed among the individual citizens of civilized States.
+
+[Sidenote: A war determined upon by rulers.]
+
+We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling toward
+them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse
+that their Government acted in entering this war. It was not with their
+previous knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars
+used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days, when peoples were
+nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in
+the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were
+accustomed to use their fellow-men as pawns and tools.
+
+[Sidenote: Such aggression impossible where people rule.]
+
+Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor States with spies or
+set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of
+affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest.
+Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where
+no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of
+deception or aggression, carried, it may be, from generation to
+generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the
+privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded confidences of a
+narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public
+opinion commands and insists upon full information concerning all of the
+nation's affairs.
+
+[Sidenote: Only a partnership of democratic nations can maintain peace.]
+
+A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a
+partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic Government could be
+trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a
+league of honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals
+away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and
+render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart.
+Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a
+common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of
+their own.
+
+[Sidenote: What is happening in Russia.]
+
+Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope
+for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things
+that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was
+known by those who knew her best to have been always in fact democratic
+at heart in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate
+relationships of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their
+habitual attitude toward life. The autocracy that crowned the summit of
+her political structure, long as it had stood and terrible as was the
+reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, character, or
+purpose; and now it has been shaken off and the great, generous Russian
+people have been added, in all their naive majesty and might, to the
+forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for
+peace. Here is a fit partner for a League of Honor.
+
+[Sidenote: Prussia has filled America with spies.]
+
+One of the things that have served to convince us that the Prussian
+autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very
+outset of the present war it has filled our unsuspecting communities,
+and even our offices of government, with spies and set criminal
+intrigues everywhere afoot against our national unity of counsel, our
+peace within and without, our industries and our commerce. Indeed, it is
+now evident that its spies were here even before the war began; and it
+is unhappily not a matter of conjecture, but a fact proved in our courts
+of justice, that the intrigues which have more than once come perilously
+near to disturbing the peace and dislocating the industries of the
+country, have been carried on at the instigation, with the support, and
+even under the personal direction of official agents of the Imperial
+Government accredited to the Government of the United States.
+
+[Sidenote: The United States has been generous.]
+
+Even in checking these things and trying to extirpate them we have
+sought to put the most generous interpretation possible upon them
+because we knew that their source lay, not in any hostile feeling or
+purpose of the German people toward us, (who were, no doubt, as ignorant
+of them as we ourselves were,) but only in the selfish designs of a
+Government that did what it pleased and told its people nothing. But
+they have played their part in serving to convince us at last that that
+Government entertains no real friendship for us, and means to act
+against our peace and security at its convenience. That it means to stir
+up enemies against us at our very doors the intercepted note to the
+German Minister at Mexico City is eloquent evidence.
+
+[Sidenote: Why we accept the challenge.]
+
+We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know that
+in such a Government, following such methods, we can never have a
+friend; and that in the presence of its organized power, always lying in
+wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, there can be no assured
+security for the democratic Governments of the world. We are now about
+to accept the gage of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall,
+if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify
+its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts
+with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the
+ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the
+German peoples included; for the rights of nations, great and small, and
+the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of
+obedience.
+
+[Sidenote: America has no selfish ends to serve.]
+
+The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted
+upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish
+ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no
+indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices
+we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of
+mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as
+secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.
+
+[Sidenote: America will observe principles of right.]
+
+Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish object, seeking
+nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free
+peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as
+belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio
+the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.
+
+[Sidenote: Germany only has actually made war on America.]
+
+I have said nothing of the Governments allied with the Imperial
+Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or
+challenged us to defend our right and our honor. The Austro-Hungarian
+Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified indorsement and
+acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare, adopted now
+without disguise by the Imperial German Government, and it has therefore
+not been possible for this Government to receive Count Tarnowski, the
+Ambassador recently accredited to this Government by the Imperial and
+Royal Government of Austria-Hungary; but that Government has not
+actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the
+seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a
+discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter
+this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are no
+other means of defending our rights.
+
+[Sidenote: America fights the irresponsible Government of Germany.]
+
+It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in
+a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not
+with enmity toward a people or with the desire to bring any injury or
+disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible
+Government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of
+right and is running amuck.
+
+We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and
+shall desire nothing so much as the early re-establishment of intimate
+relations of mutual advantage between us, however hard it may be for
+them for the time being to believe that this is spoken from our hearts.
+We have borne with their present Government through all these bitter
+months because of that friendship, exercising a patience and forbearance
+which would otherwise have been impossible.
+
+[Sidenote: Most Americans of German birth are loyal to the United
+States.]
+
+We shall happily still have an opportunity to prove that friendship in
+our daily attitude and actions toward the millions of men and women of
+German birth and native sympathy who live among us and share our life,
+and we shall be proud to prove it toward all who are in fact loyal to
+their neighbors and to the Government in the hour of test. They are most
+of them as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other
+fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking
+and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If
+there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of
+stern repression; but, if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only
+here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and
+malignant few.
+
+[Sidenote: Trial and sacrifice ahead.]
+
+It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress,
+which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be,
+many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful
+thing to lead this great, peaceful people into war, into the most
+terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be
+in the balance.
+
+[Sidenote: America will fight for democracy.]
+
+But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the
+things which we have always carried nearest our hearts--for democracy,
+for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their
+own Governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a
+universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall
+bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last
+free.
+
+To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything
+that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who
+know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood
+and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and
+the peace which she has treasured.
+
+God helping her, she can do no other.
+
+
+DECLARATION OF WAR
+
+[Sidenote: Germany has made war on the United States.]
+
+_Whereas_, The Imperial German Government has committed repeated acts of
+war against the Government and the people of the United States of
+America; therefore, be it
+
+[Sidenote: War is formally declared.]
+
+_Resolved_, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
+States of America in Congress assembled. That the state of war between
+the United States and the Imperial German Government, which has thus
+been thrust upon the United States, is hereby formally declared; and
+
+[Sidenote: The President is given full authority.]
+
+That the President be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to
+employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the
+resources of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial German
+Government; and to bring the conflict to a successful termination all
+the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the
+United States.
+
+
+PROCLAMATION TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
+
+BY PRESIDENT WILSON
+
+[Sidenote: Congress has declared war.]
+
+_Whereas_, The Congress of the United States, in the exercise of the
+constitutional authority vested in them, have resolved by joint
+resolution of the Senate and House of Representatives, bearing date this
+day, "that a state of war between the United States and the Imperial
+German Government which has been thrust upon the United States is hereby
+formally declared";
+
+_Whereas_, It is provided by Section 4,067 of the Revised Statutes as
+follows:
+
+[Sidenote: Proclamation regarding alien enemies.]
+
+"Whenever there is declared a war between the United States and any
+foreign nation or Government or any invasion or predatory incursion is
+perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the
+United States by any foreign nation or Government, and the President
+makes public proclamation of the event, all native citizens, denizens,
+or subjects of a hostile nation or Government being male of the age of
+14 years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not
+actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained,
+secured, and removed as alien enemies. The President is authorized in
+any such event by his proclamation thereof, or other public acts, to
+direct the conduct to be observed on the part of the United States
+toward the aliens who become so liable; the manner and degree of the
+restraint to which they shall be subject and in what cases and upon what
+security their residence shall be permitted, and to provide for the
+removal of those who, not being permitted to reside within the United
+States, refuse or neglect to depart therefrom; and to establish any such
+regulations which are found necessary in the premises and for the public
+safety."
+
+_Whereas_, By Sections 4,068, 4,069, and 4,070 of the Revised Statutes,
+further provision is made relative to alien enemies;
+
+[Sidenote: All officers of the United States are warned to be vigilant.]
+
+_Now, therefore_, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of
+America, do hereby proclaim, to all whom it may concern, that a state of
+war exists between the United States and the Imperial German Government,
+and I do specially direct all officers, civil or military, of the United
+States that they exercise vigilance and zeal in the discharge of the
+duties incident to such a state of war, and I do, moreover, earnestly
+appeal to all American citizens that they, in loyal devotion to their
+country, dedicated from its foundation to the principles of liberty and
+justice, uphold the laws of the land, and give undivided and willing
+support to those measures which may be adopted by the constitutional
+authorities in prosecuting the war to a successful issue and in
+obtaining a secure and just peace;
+
+And, acting under and by virtue of the authority vested in me by the
+Constitution of the United States and the said sections of the Revised
+Statutes,
+
+[Sidenote: Conduct to be observed toward alien enemies.]
+
+I do hereby further proclaim and direct that the conduct to be observed
+on the part of the United States toward all natives, citizens, denizens,
+or subjects of Germany, being male of the age of 14 years and upward,
+who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, who
+for the purpose of this proclamation and under such sections of the
+Revised Statutes are termed alien enemies, shall be as follows:
+
+[Sidenote: Alien enemies must preserve the peace.]
+
+All alien enemies are enjoined to preserve the peace toward the United
+States and to refrain from crime against the public safety and from
+violating the laws of the United States and of the States and
+Territories thereof, and to refrain from actual hostility or giving
+information, aid, or comfort to the enemies of the United States and to
+comply strictly with the regulations which are hereby, or which may be
+from time to time promulgated by the President, and so long as they
+shall conduct themselves in accordance with law they shall be
+undisturbed in the peaceful pursuit of their lives and occupations, and
+be accorded the consideration due to all peaceful and law-abiding
+persons, except so far as restrictions may be necessary for their own
+protection and for the safety of the United States, and toward such
+alien enemies as conduct themselves in accordance with law all citizens
+of the United States are enjoined to preserve the peace and to treat
+them with all such friendliness as may be compatible with loyalty and
+allegiance to the United States.
+
+[Sidenote: Penalties added to those prescribed by law.]
+
+And all alien enemies who fail to conduct themselves as so enjoined, in
+addition to all other penalties prescribed by law, shall be liable to
+restraint or to give security or to remove and depart from the United
+States, in the manner prescribed by Sections 4,069 and 4,070 of the
+Revised Statutes and as prescribed in the regulations duly promulgated
+by the President.
+
+[Sidenote: The necessary regulations.]
+
+And pursuant to the authority vested in me, I hereby declare and
+establish the following regulations, which I find necessary in the
+premises and for the public safety:
+
+[Sidenote: Cannot possess weapons.]
+
+1. An alien enemy shall not have in his possession at any time or place
+any firearms, weapons, or implements of war, or component parts thereof,
+ammunition, Maxim or other silencer, arms, or explosives or material
+used in the manufacture of explosives;
+
+[Sidenote: No signaling devices or cipher codes.]
+
+2. An alien enemy shall not have in his possession at any time or place,
+or use or operate, any aircraft or wireless apparatus, or any form of
+signaling device or any form of cipher code or any paper, document, or
+book written or printed in cipher or in which there may be invisible
+writing;
+
+[Sidenote: Property may be seized.]
+
+3. All property found in the possession of an alien enemy in violation
+of the foregoing regulations shall be subject to seizure by the United
+States;
+
+[Sidenote: Must not approach forts or munition works.]
+
+4. An alien enemy shall not approach or be found within one-half of a
+mile of any Federal or State fort, camp, arsenal, aircraft station,
+Government or naval vessel, navy yard, factory, or workshop for the
+manufacture of munitions of war or of any products for the use of the
+army or navy;
+
+[Sidenote: Must not speak or write against the United States.]
+
+5. An alien enemy shall not write, print, or publish any attack or
+threat against the Government or Congress of the United States, or
+either branch thereof, or against the measures or policy of the United
+States, or against the persons or property of any person in the
+military, naval, or civil service of the United States, or of the States
+or Territories, or of the District of Columbia, or of the municipal
+governments therein;
+
+[Sidenote: Must not commit any hostile act.]
+
+6. An alien enemy shall not commit or abet any hostile acts against the
+United States or give information, aid, or comfort to its enemies;
+
+[Sidenote: Must not enter prohibited areas.]
+
+7. An alien enemy shall not reside in or continue to reside in, to
+remain in, or enter any locality which the President may from time to
+time designate by an Executive order as a prohibitive area, in which
+residence by an alien enemy shall be found by him to constitute a danger
+to the public peace and safety of the United States, except by permit
+from the President and except under such limitations or restrictions as
+the President may prescribe;
+
+[Sidenote: May be made to remove by executive order.]
+
+8. An alien enemy whom the President shall have reasonable cause to
+believe to be aiding or about to aid the enemy or to be at large to the
+danger of the public peace or safety of the United States, or to have
+violated or to be about to violate any of these regulations, shall
+remove to any location designated by the President by Executive order,
+and shall not remove therefrom without permit, or shall depart from the
+United States if so required by the President;
+
+[Sidenote: Cannot leave country without permission.]
+
+9. No alien enemy shall depart from the United States until he shall
+have received such permit as the President shall prescribe, or except
+under order of a court, Judge, or Justice, under Sections 4,069 and
+4,070 of the Revised Statutes;
+
+[Sidenote: Entering United States regulated.]
+
+10. No alien enemy shall land in or enter the United States except under
+such restrictions and at such places as the President may prescribe;
+
+[Sidenote: May be obliged to register.]
+
+11. If necessary to prevent violation of the regulations, all alien
+enemies will be obliged to register;
+
+[Sidenote: Alien enemies who violate rules to be arrested.]
+
+12. An alien enemy whom there may be reasonable cause to believe to be
+aiding or about to aid the enemy, or who may be at large to the danger
+of the public peace or safety, or who violates or who attempts to
+violate or of whom there is reasonable grounds to believe that he is
+about to violate, any regulation to be promulgated by the President or
+any criminal law of the United States, or of the States or Territories
+thereof, will be subject to summary arrest by the United States Marshal,
+or his Deputy, or such other officers as the President shall designate,
+and to confinement in such penitentiary, prison, jail, military camp, or
+other place of detention as may be directed by the President.
+
+This proclamation and the regulations herein contained shall extend and
+apply to all land and water, continental or insular, in any way within
+the jurisdiction of the United States.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Saloniki was one of the mysteries of the war. News from that city was
+brief and unsatisfying in the main. Great things, however, were done
+there, and none greater than those accomplished by the British. Some of
+these accomplishments are told in the pages that follow.
+
+
+
+
+BRITISH OPERATIONS AT SALONIKI
+
+OFFICIAL REPORT OF GENERAL MILNE
+
+
+[Sidenote: Reinforcements needed north of Saloniki.]
+
+[Sidenote: Italy to send 300,000.]
+
+Since the conference at Rome the situation in Macedonia has been
+radically changed. The weakness of General Sarrail's position lay in the
+fact that neither England nor France felt free to send from the critical
+western front the large reinforcements of men which the situation north
+of Saloniki called for. Italy had the men, but was unwilling to send
+them and to incur the heavy additional expense of maintaining them in
+Macedonia. The conference at Rome, in which Premier Lloyd George was the
+dominant figure, overcame that reluctance, probably promising Italy
+parts of the Turkish Empire that had been earlier assigned tentatively
+to Greece and guaranteeing the cost of the new expedition. The result
+has been immediate and of the highest importance. Rome dispatches
+indicate that Italy has sent, or is sending, a force of not less than
+300,000 men; that these troops, to avoid the danger of submarines, are
+being dispatched, not to Saloniki, but to Avlona, which is within forty
+miles of the Italian coast; and, finally, these Italian forces have not
+only built an excellent highway through the Albanian mountains but have
+already joined forces with General Sarrail's right wing at Monastir. All
+these facts indicate early activity in the Macedonian sector.
+
+[Sidenote: General G. F. Milne's report.]
+
+This glimpse of present conditions will serve to introduce the following
+report of General G. F. Milne, commanding the British Saloniki Army in
+Macedonia, on last Summer's operations in that sector. His report,
+submitted to the British War Office early in December, 1916, covered the
+army's operations from May 9, 1916, to October 8, 1916. The official
+text of the report is here reproduced, with a few minor omissions:
+
+[Sidenote: Found army concentrated near Saloniki.]
+
+[Sidenote: British forces responsible for front on east and northeast.]
+
+[Sidenote: Construction of defenses.]
+
+"On May 9, 1916, the greater part of the army was concentrated within
+the fortified lines of Saloniki, extending from Stavros on the east to
+near the Galiko River on the west; a mixed force, consisting of a
+mounted brigade and a division, had been pushed forward to the north of
+Kukush in order to support the French Army which had advanced and was
+watching the right bank of the Struma River and the northern frontier of
+Greece. Further moves in this direction were contemplated, but, in order
+to keep the army concentrated, I entered into an agreement with General
+Sarrail by which the British forces should become responsible for that
+portion of the allied front which covered Saloniki from the east and
+northeast. By this arrangement a definite and independent area was
+allotted to the army under my command. On June 8, 1916, the troops
+commenced to occupy advanced positions along the right bank of the River
+Struma and its tributary, the River Butkova, from Lake Tachinos to
+Lozista village. By the end of July, on the demobilization of the Greek
+Army, this occupation had extended to the sea at Chai Aghizi. Along the
+whole front the construction of a line of resistance was begun; work on
+trenches, entanglements, bridgeheads, and supporting points was
+commenced; for administrative purposes the reconstruction of the
+Saloniki-Seres road was undertaken and the cutting of wagon tracks
+through the mountainous country was pushed forward.
+
+[Sidenote: British take over line near Doiran.]
+
+[Sidenote: Capture of Horseshoe Hill.]
+
+"On July 20, 1916, in accordance with the policy laid down in my
+instructions, and in order to release French troops for employment
+elsewhere, I began to take over the line south and west of Lake Doiran,
+and commenced preparations for a joint offensive on this front. This
+move was completed by August 2, 1916, and on the 10th of that month an
+offensive was commenced against the Bulgarian defenses south of the line
+Doiran-Hill 535. The French captured Hills 227 and La Tortue, while the
+British occupied in succession those features of the main 535 ridge now
+known as Kidney Hill and Horseshoe Hill, and, pushing forward,
+established a series of advanced posts on the line Doldzeli-Reselli. The
+capture of Horseshoe Hill was successfully carried out on the night of
+August 17-18, 1916, by the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light
+Infantry at the point of the bayonet in the face of stubborn opposition.
+The enemy's counterattacks were repulsed with heavy loss.
+
+[Sidenote: The Bulgarian advance.]
+
+[Sidenote: British and French attack.]
+
+"On August 17, 1916, the Bulgarians, who, at the end of May, had entered
+Greek territory by the Struma Valley and moved down as far as Demir
+Hissar, continued their advance into Greek Macedonia. Columns of all
+arms advanced from seven different points, between Sarisaban, on the
+Mesta, and Demir Hissar. The four eastern columns converged on the
+country about Drama and Kavala, while the remainder moved southward on
+to the line of the Struma from Demir Hissar toward Orfano. On August 19,
+1916, a mounted brigade with one battery carried out a strong
+reconnoissance, and found the enemy in some force on the line
+Prosenik-Barakli Djuma; on the following day, after being reinforced by
+a battalion, this brigade again advanced in conjunction with the French
+detachment. These attacking troops, after encountering the enemy in
+force on the line Kalendra-Prosenik-Haznatar, withdrew after dark to
+the right bank of the Struma. The French detachment was subsequently
+placed under the orders of the General Officer Commanding British troops
+on this front, and received instructions to cooperate in the defense of
+the river line.
+
+[Sidenote: Bridges over Angista River destroyed.]
+
+"On August 21, 1916, the railway bridge near Angista Station was
+demolished by a detachment from the Neohori garrison, and three days
+later two road bridges over the Angista River were destroyed. Both these
+operations were well carried out by yeomanry, engineers, and cyclists in
+the face of hostile opposition.
+
+[Sidenote: Bulgarians in Eastern Macedonia.]
+
+"The Bulgarians continued their advance into Eastern Macedonia unopposed
+by the Greek garrison, and it was estimated that by the end of August
+the enemy's forces, extending from Demir Hissar southward in the Seres
+sector of the Struma front, comprised the complete Seventh Bulgarian
+Division, with two or three regiments of the Eleventh Macedonian
+Division, which had moved eastward from their positions on the Beles
+Mountain to act as a reserve to the Seventh Division, and at the same
+time to occupy the defenses from Vetrina-Pujovo northward. Opposite the
+Lower Struma was a brigade of the Second Division, with a brigade of the
+Tenth Division, in occupation of the coast and the zone of country
+between Orfano and the Drama-Kavala road. This brigade of the Tenth
+Division was supported by another brigade in the Drama Kavala area. As a
+result of this advance and of a similar move in the west General Sarrail
+decided to intrust to the British Army the task of maintaining the
+greater portion of the right and center of the allied line.
+
+[Sidenote: Northumberland Fusiliers capture Nevolien.]
+
+"On September 10, 1916, detachments crossed the river above Lake
+Tachinos at five places between Bajraktar Mah and Dragos, while a sixth
+detachment crossed lower down at Neohori. The villages of Oraoman and
+Kato Gudeli were occupied, and Northumberland Fusiliers gallantly
+captured Nevolien, taking thirty prisoners and driving the enemy out of
+the village. The latter lost heavily during their retirement and in
+their subsequent counterattack. They also suffered severely from our
+artillery fire in attempting to follow our prearranged movements to
+regain the right bank of the river.
+
+[Sidenote: Rise in the Struma River hinders operations.]
+
+"On the 15th similar operations were undertaken, six small columns
+crossing the river between Lake Tachinos and Orljak bridge. The villages
+of Kato Gudeli, Dzami Mah, Agomah, and Komarjan were burned and
+twenty-seven prisoners were taken. The enemy's counterattacks completely
+broke down under the accurate fire of our guns on the right bank of the
+river. On the 23d a similar scheme was put into action, but a sudden
+rise of three feet in the Struma interfered with the bridging
+operations. Nevertheless, the enemy's trenches at Yenimah were captured,
+fourteen prisoners taken, and three other villages raided. Considerable
+help was given on each occasion by the French detachment under Colonel
+Bescoins, and much information was obtained which proved to be of
+considerable value during subsequent operations.
+
+[Sidenote: British attack Matzikovo salient.]
+
+[Sidenote: Heavy artillery fire from the enemy.]
+
+[Sidenote: British carry out bombing raids.]
+
+"On the Doiran-River Vardar front there remained as before the whole of
+the Bulgarian Ninth Division, less one regiment; a brigade of the Second
+Division and at least two-thirds of the German 101st Division, which had
+intrenched the salient north of Matzikovo on the usual German system. To
+assist the general offensive by the Allies I ordered this salient to be
+attacked at the same time as the allied operations in the Florina area
+commenced. With this object in view the whole of the enemy's intrenched
+position was subjected to a heavy bombardment from Septem. 11 to 13,
+1916, the southwest corner of the salient known as the Piton des
+Mitrailleuses being specially selected for destruction. The enemy's
+position was occupied during the night 13th-14th, after a skillfully
+planned and gallant assault, in which the King's Liverpool Regiment and
+Lancashire Fusiliers specially distinguished themselves. Over 200
+Germans were killed in the work, chiefly by bombing, and seventy-one
+prisoners were brought in. During the 14th the enemy concentrated from
+three directions a very heavy artillery fire, and delivered several
+counterattacks, which were for the most part broken up under the fire of
+our guns. Some of the enemy, however, succeeded in forcing an entrance
+into the work, and severe fighting followed. As hostile reinforcements
+were increasing in numbers, and as the rocky nature of the ground
+rendered rapid consolidation difficult, the troops were withdrawn in the
+evening to their original line, the object of the attack having been
+accomplished. This withdrawal was conducted with little loss, thanks to
+the very effective fire of the artillery. During the bombardment and
+subsequent counterattack the enemy's losses must have been considerable.
+On the same front on the night of the 20th-21st, after bombarding the
+hostile positions on the Crete des Tentes, a strong detachment raided
+and bombed the trenches and dugouts, retiring quickly with little loss.
+A similar raid was carried out northeast of Doldzeli.
+
+"In addition to these operations and raids, constant combats took place
+between patrols, many prisoners being captured, and several bombing
+raids were carried out by the Royal Flying Corps.
+
+[Sidenote: Operations on a more extensive scale.]
+
+[Sidenote: Bridging the Struma River.]
+
+"In order further to assist the progress of our allies toward Monastir
+by maintaining such a continuous offensive as would insure no
+transference of Bulgarian troops from the Struma front to the west, I
+now issued instructions for operations on a more extensive scale than
+those already reported. In accordance with these the General Officer
+Commanding on that front commenced operations by seizing and holding
+certain villages on the left bank of the river with a view to enlarging
+the bridgehead opposite Orljak, whence he would be in a position to
+threaten a further movement either on Seres or on Demir Hissar. The high
+ground on the right bank of the river enabled full use to be made of our
+superiority in artillery, which contributed greatly to the success of
+these operations. The river itself formed a potential danger, owing to
+the rapidity with which its waters rise after heavy rain in the
+mountains, but on the night of September 29, 1916, sufficient bridges
+had been constructed by the Royal Engineers for the passage of all arms.
+During the night of September 29-30 the attacking infantry crossed below
+Orljak bridge and formed up on the left bank.
+
+[Sidenote: Scotch troops take several villages.]
+
+"At dawn on the following morning the Gloucesters and the Cameron
+Highlanders advanced under cover of an artillery bombardment, and by 8
+a.m. had seized the village of Karadjakoi Bala. Shortly after the
+occupation of the village the enemy opened a heavy and accurate
+artillery fire, but the remaining two battalions of the brigade, the
+Royal Scots and Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, though suffering
+severely from enfilade fire, pushed on against Karadjakoi Zir. By 5.30
+p. m. that village also was occupied, in spite of the stubborn
+resistance of the enemy. Attempts to bring forward hostile
+reinforcements were frustrated during the day by our artillery, but
+during the night the Bulgarians launched several strong counterattacks,
+which were repulsed with heavy loss.
+
+[Sidenote: Capture of Yenikoi.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy counterattacks.]
+
+[Sidenote: British consolidate new line.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy casualties heavy.]
+
+"During the following night determined counterattacks of the enemy were
+again repulsed, and by the evening of October 2, 1916, the position had
+been fully consolidated. Preparations were at once made to extend the
+position by the capture of Yenikoi, an important village on the main
+Seres road. This operation was successfully carried out by an infantry
+brigade, composed of the Royal Munster and Royal Dublin Fusiliers, on
+the morning of October 3, 1916, after bombardment by our artillery. By 7
+a. m. the village was in our hands. During the day the enemy launched
+three heavy counterattacks. The first two were stopped by artillery
+fire, which caused severe loss. At 4 p. m. the village, the ground in
+the rear, and the bridges were subjected to an unexpectedly heavy
+bombardment from several heavy batteries which had hitherto not
+disclosed their positions. Following on the bombardment was the heaviest
+counterattack of the day, six or seven battalions advancing from the
+direction of Homondos, Kalendra, and Topalova with a view to enveloping
+our positions. This attack was carried forward with great determination,
+and some detachments succeeded in entering the northern portion of
+Yenikoi, where hard fighting continued all night, until fresh
+reinforcements succeeded in clearing out such enemy as survived. During
+the following day the consolidation of our new line was continued under
+artillery fire. On the 5th, after a bombardment, the village of Nevolien
+was occupied, the Bulgarian garrison retiring on the approach of our
+infantry. By the following evening the front extended from Komarjan on
+the right via Yenikoi to Elisan on the left. On the 7th a strong
+reconnoissance by mounted troops located the enemy on the Demir
+Hissar-Seres railway, with advanced posts approximately on the line of
+the Belica stream and a strong garrison in Barakli Djuma. On October 8,
+1916, our troops had reached the line Agomah-Homondos-Elisan-Ormanli,
+with the mounted troops on the line Kispeki-Kalendra. The enemy's
+casualties during these few days were heavy.
+
+[Sidenote: Assistance of the Royal Flying Corps.]
+
+"I consider that the success of these operations was due to the skill
+and decision with which they were conducted by Lieutenant General C. J.
+Briggs, C. B., and to the excellent cooperation of all arms, which was
+greatly assisted by the exceptional facilities for observation of
+artillery fire. The Royal Flying Corps, in spite of the difficulties
+which they had to overcome and the great strain on their resources,
+rendered valuable assistance. Armored motor cars were used with effect.
+* * *
+
+"On the enforcement of martial law the management of the three lines of
+railway radiating from Saloniki had to be undertaken by the Allies; one
+line, the Junction-Saloniki-Constantinople, is now entirely administered
+by the British Army; this, together with the additional railway traffic
+involved by the arrival of the Serbian Army, as well as the Russian and
+Italian troops, has thrown a considerable strain on the railway
+directorate."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Russia, after three years of warfare against Austria and Germany, during
+which millions of her soldiers were killed and wounded, startled the
+world suddenly, in February, 1917, by casting out the Czar and
+establishing a provisional government, which purported to be a
+government by the people and not by the bureaucracy. The dramatic events
+of the first days of the revolution are described in the following
+chapter.
+
+
+
+
+IN PETROGRAD DURING THE SEVEN DAYS
+
+ARNO DOSCH-FLEUROT
+
+Copyright, World's Work, July, 1917.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Cossacks trotting through the Nevsky in Petrograd.]
+
+A crowd of ordinary citizens were passing in front of the Singer
+Building on the Nevsky in Petrograd at noon February 25th, Russian time
+(March 10th), stopping occasionally to watch a company of Cossacks
+amiably roughing some students with a miscellaneous following who
+insisted on assembling across the street before the wide, sweeping
+colonnades of Kasan Cathedral. As the Cossacks trotted through, hands
+empty, rifles slung on shoulders, the crowds cheered, the Cossacks
+laughed.
+
+A few trolley cars had stopped, though not stalled, and groups of
+curious on-lookers had crowded in for a grandstand view. The only people
+who did not seem interested in the spectacle were hundreds of women with
+shawls over their heads who had been standing in line for many hours
+before the bread-shops along the Catherine Canal.
+
+[Sidenote: Some Cossacks and infantry in side streets.]
+
+[Sidenote: People charged by police.]
+
+People were going about their affairs up and down the Nevsky without
+being stopped, and sleighs were passing constantly. Cossacks and a few
+companies of infantrymen were beginning to appear on the side streets in
+considerable numbers, but, as a demonstration over the lack of bread in
+the Russian capital had been going on at intervals for two days with
+very little violence, people were beginning to get used to it. I arrived
+from the direction of the Moika Canal just as the cannon boomed midday
+and I felt sufficiently unhurried to correct my watch. Then I hailed a
+British general in uniform who had arrived, also unimpeded, from the
+opposite direction, and we had just stopped to comment on the unusual
+attitude of populace and Cossacks, when there was a sudden rush of
+people around the corner from the Catherine Canal and before we could
+even reach the doubtful protection of a doorway a company of mounted
+police charged around the corner and started up the Nevsky on the
+sidewalk. We were obviously harmless onlookers, fur-clad bourgeois, but
+the police plunged through at a hard trot, bare sabres flashing in the
+cold sunshine. The British general and I were knocked down together and
+escaped trampling only because the police were splendidly mounted, and a
+well-bred horse will not step on a man if he can help it.
+
+[Sidenote: Display of stupid physical force.]
+
+This was a display of that well-known stupid physical force which used
+to be the basis of strength of the Russian Empire. Its ruthlessness, its
+carelessness of life, however innocent, terrorized, and, we used to
+think, won respect. We know better now, especially those of us who were
+eye-witnesses of the Russian revolution, and saw how the police provoked
+a quarrel they could not handle.
+
+[Sidenote: Crowds begin to be dangerously large.]
+
+I watched the growth of the revolt with wonder. Knowing something of the
+dissatisfaction in the country, I marveled at the stupidity of the
+Government in permitting the police to handle its inception as they did.
+Any hundred New York or London policemen, or any hundred Petrograd
+policemen, could have prevented the demonstrations by the simple process
+of closing the streets. But they let people crowd in from the side
+streets to see what was going on even when the crowds were beginning to
+be dangerously large, and, having permitted them to come, charged among
+them at random as if expressly making them angry.
+
+[Sidenote: Ease with which Czar was overthrown.]
+
+I look back now at the time before the Revolution. The life of Petrograd
+is much as it was to outward appearances except that the new republican
+soldiers are now policing the streets, occasional citizens are wearing
+brassarts showing they are deputies of some sort or members of
+law-and-order committees, and there is a certain joyous freedom in the
+walk of every one. Here, in one corner of this vast empire, a revolt
+lacking all signs of terrorism, growing out of nothing into a sudden
+burst of indignation, knocked over the most absolute of autocracies.
+Just to look, it is hard to believe it true. As a Socialist said to me
+to-day: "The empire was rotten ready. One kick of a soldier's boot, and
+the throne with all its panoplies disappeared, leaving nothing but
+dust."
+
+I asked President Rodzianko of the Duma the other day:
+
+[Sidenote: Revolution inevitable after Duma was dissolved.]
+
+"From what date was the revolution inevitable?"
+
+I expected him to name one of the days immediately before the revolt,
+but he replied:
+
+"When the Duma was dissolved in December without being granted a
+responsible ministry."
+
+"How late might the Emperor have saved his throne?"
+
+"New Year's. If he had granted a responsible ministry then, it would not
+have been too late."
+
+[Sidenote: The Government brought Cossacks to Petrograd.]
+
+The Government was either blind or too arrogant to take precautions. It
+had fears of an uprising at the reconvening of the Duma and brought
+13,000 Cossacks to Petrograd to put fear into the hearts of the people,
+but it permitted a shortage of flour which had been noticeable for
+several weeks to become really serious just at this moment. There were
+large districts of working people practically without bread from the
+time the Duma reconvened up to the moment of the revolution.
+
+[Sidenote: Situation needed a great ruler.]
+
+In the palace at Tsarskoe-Selo the seriousness of the situation was not
+ignored, but the preventive measures were lamentable. The Emperor, also,
+went to the front. If he had been a big enough man to be an emperor he
+would certainly never have done so. That left the neurasthenic Empress
+and the crafty, small-minded Protopopoff to handle a problem that needed
+a real man as great as Emperor Peter or Alexander III.
+
+[Sidenote: The author on the point of leaving Russia.]
+
+[Sidenote: The appearance of Cossacks.]
+
+When the Duma reconvened without disorders it never occurred to me that
+the Government would be foolish enough to let the flour situation get
+worse. I was so used by this time to see the Duma keep a calm front in
+the face of imperial rebuffs that I thought Russia was going to continue
+to muddle on to the end of the war and, though I thought I was rather
+well-posted, I confess I was on the point of leaving Russia to return to
+the western front, where the spring campaign was about to begin with
+vigor. As late as the Wednesday before the revolution I was preparing to
+leave. That day I learned that several small strikes which had occurred
+in scattered factories could not be settled and that several other
+factories were forced to close because workmen, having no bread, refused
+to report. Still I remember I was not too preoccupied by these reports
+to discuss the possibility of a German offensive against Italy with our
+military attache, Lieutenant Francis B. Riggs, as we strolled down the
+Nevsky in the middle of the afternoon. We had reached the Fontanka Canal
+when we passed three Cossacks riding abreast at a walk up the street.
+They were the first Cossacks to make a public appearance, and they
+brought to the mind of every Petrograd citizen the recollection of the
+barbarities of the revolution of 1905. Their appearance was a challenge
+to the people of Petrograd. They seemed to say, "Yes, we are here." If
+any one had said to me that afternoon, "These Cossacks are going to
+start a revolution which will set Russia free within a week," I should
+have regarded him as a lunatic with an original twist.
+
+[Sidenote: Petrograd life normal.]
+
+The life of Petrograd was still normal as late as Thursday morning
+February 23d, Russian style (March 8th). The bread lines were very long,
+but Russians are patient and would have submitted to standing four or
+five hours in the cold if in the end they had always been rewarded, but
+shops were being closed with long lines still before them, and the
+disappointed were turning away with bitter remarks.
+
+[Sidenote: The historic spot for protests.]
+
+[Sidenote: Cossacks merely keep the crowd on sidewalks.]
+
+The open ground before Kasan Cathedral is the historic spot for protests
+and, true to tradition, the first demonstration against the bread
+shortage began there Thursday morning toward noon. There were not more
+than a dozen men speaking to groups of passing citizens. Each gathered a
+constantly changing audience, like an orator in Union Square, New York.
+But the Nevsky is always a busy street and it does not take much to give
+the appearance of a crowd. Examining that crowd, I could see it had not
+more than a hundred or two intent listeners. A company of Cossacks
+appeared to disperse it, but they confined themselves to riding up and
+down the curbs keeping the people on the sidewalks. The wide street was,
+as usual, full of passing sleighs and automobiles. Even then, at the
+beginning, it must have occurred to the military commander, General
+Khabaloff, that the Cossacks were taking it easy, or perhaps the police
+acted on their own initiative; at any rate the scene did not become
+exciting until mounted police arrived, riding on the sidewalk and
+scattering the curious onlookers pell-mell. By one o'clock the Nevsky
+was calm again, and the street cars, which had been blocked for an hour,
+started once more.
+
+[Sidenote: Duma discusses food situation.]
+
+[Sidenote: The first snarl of the mob.]
+
+That afternoon I went to the Duma, where the mismanagement of the food
+situation throughout Russia was being discussed. I had a glass of tea
+with a member of the liberal Cadet Party, and he seemed more concerned
+with the victualing of the country than with the particular situation in
+Petrograd. Toward evening I drove back along the Nevsky and my
+'ishvoshik was blocked for a few minutes while a wave of working people,
+in unusual numbers for that part of town, passed. They were being urged
+on by Cossacks, but they were mostly smiling, women were hanging to
+their husbands' arms, and they were decidedly unhurried. It was not a
+crowd that could be in any sense called a mob, and was perfectly
+orderly, but it did not go fast enough to suit the police and a dozen of
+them came trotting up. Their appearance wiped the smile away, and when
+they began really roughing I heard the first murmurings of the snarl
+which only an infuriated mob can produce. I wondered what the police
+were up to. They were obviously provoking trouble. I felt then we might
+be in for serious difficulties--and the attitude of the police gave me
+the fear.
+
+[Sidenote: Watching for the Cossacks to act.]
+
+[Sidenote: A red flag.]
+
+Friday morning only a few street cars were running, but the city was
+quiet enough until after ten in the morning. Then the agitators, their
+small following, and the onlookers, sure now of having a spectacle,
+began gathering in considerable numbers. I was still expecting the rough
+work to commence with the Cossacks, but after watching them from the
+colonnades of the cathedral for half an hour I walked out through the
+crowd and, shifted but slightly out of my route by the sway of the crowd
+as Cossacks trotted up and down the street, crossed the thick of it.
+Green student caps were conspicuous, and one of the students told me
+the universities had gone on strike in sympathy with the bread
+demonstration. As a company of Cossacks swung by, lances in rest, rifles
+slung on their shoulders, I scanned their faces without finding anything
+ferocious there. Some one waved a red flag, the first I had seen, before
+them, but they passed, unnoticing.
+
+[Sidenote: Crowd not yet dangerous.]
+
+This time the crowd did not break up but began to bunch here and there
+as far as the Fontanka Canal. All afternoon the Cossacks kept them
+stirring, and occasionally the police gave them a real roughing. Each
+time the police appeared, I heard that menacing murmur, but by Friday
+evening, when the day's crowd disappeared, the increase in discontent
+and anger had not developed sufficiently in twenty-four hours to be
+really dangerous. I felt the Government still had plenty of time to
+remove the discontent, and an announcement pasted up conspicuously
+everywhere saying there would be no lack of bread seemed like an
+assurance that the Government would somehow overnight provide all bakers
+with sufficient flour. That was the one obvious thing to do.
+
+[Sidenote: A tour of the Wiborg factory district.]
+
+During the afternoon I made a long tour through the Wiborg factory
+district, which was thickly policed by infantrymen. Occasional street
+cars were still running, but otherwise the district was ominously
+silent. The bread-lines were very long here, and on the corners were
+groups of workmen. Their silent gravity struck me as being something to
+reckon with. Still the lack of real trouble on the Nevsky as I came back
+in a measure reassured me.
+
+[Sidenote: Crowd friendly with Cossacks.]
+
+Saturday morning the crowd on the Nevsky gathered at the early Petrograd
+hour of ten, but they seemed to be there to encourage the Cossacks.
+Wherever the Cossacks passed, individuals called out to them cheerfully
+and, even though they crowded in so close to the trotting horsemen as to
+be occasionally knocked about, they took it good-humoredly and went on
+cheering. I went away for an hour or so and when I returned the
+fraternizing of the crowd and the Cossacks was increasingly evident. By
+this time all sorts of ordinary citizens, catching the sense of events,
+were joining in the general acclamation. I was just beginning to get a
+glimmering of the meaning of all this when I was bowled over by the
+mounted police in front of the Singer Building.
+
+[Sidenote: Crowd beginning to challenge police.]
+
+[Sidenote: Soldiers fire but wound few.]
+
+[Sidenote: Police inviting quarrel.]
+
+The more timorous average citizens began to lose interest, but the
+workmen and students who were in the Nevsky now in considerable numbers,
+and arriving hourly, accepted the challenge of the police. They began
+throwing bottles, the police charged afresh, and by the early part of
+Saturday afternoon there was really a mob on the Nevsky. Liberally mixed
+through the whole, though, were the ordinary onlookers, many of them
+young girls. The Nevsky widens for a space before the Gastenidwor (the
+Russian adaptation of the oriental bazaar), and infantrymen were now
+detailed to hold the people back at the point of the bayonet. Meanwhile,
+all the side streets were wide open and the appearance of a large, angry
+mob was kept up by constant arrivals. The crowd becoming unwieldy, the
+soldiers fired into it several times, but they did not wound many,
+indicating that they were extracting many bullets before they fired. The
+shooting only augmented the crowd, as Russians do not frighten very
+easily, and though at a few points it was necessary to turn the corner,
+I found no difficulty in going back and forth all afternoon between
+Kasan Cathedral and the Nicola Station--the main stretch of the Nevsky.
+There was general roughing along this mile and a half of street which
+could have been stopped at any time in fifteen minutes by closing the
+streets. Instead, the police charged with increasing violence without
+doing anything to prevent the people coming from other parts of town.
+The idea was now unescapable that the police were inviting the people to
+a quarrel.
+
+[Sidenote: Rioting at the Nicola Station.]
+
+[Sidenote: Evident Cossacks are with people.]
+
+The Cossacks were sometimes riding pretty fast themselves, but never
+with the violence of the police, and the cheering was continuous. At any
+point I could tell by the quality of the howl that went up from the mob
+whether it was being stirred by Cossacks or police. At the Nicola
+Station the rioting was the roughest, the police freely using their
+sabres. The crowd, though unarmed, stood its ground and howled back, and
+when possible caught an isolated mounted policeman and disarmed him. In
+one case the mob had already disarmed and was unseating a policeman, and
+other sections of the mob were rushing up to have a turn at manhandling
+him, when a single Cossack, with nothing in his hands, forced his way
+through and rescued the policeman, amid the cheers of the same people
+who were harassing him. It was quite evident that the people and the
+Cossacks were on the same side, and only the unbelievable stupid old
+Russian Government could have ignored it.
+
+[Sidenote: Machine guns installed.]
+
+At nightfall the crowd had had its fill of roughing, but Sunday was
+evidently to be the real day. There would have been, of course, nothing
+on the Nevsky, if properly policed, and I have been unable to understand
+how the old Government, unless overconfident of its autocratic power and
+disdainful of the people, could have let things go on. But though half
+the regiments in Petrograd were on the point of revolt and their
+sympathy with the people was evident even to a foreigner, Sunday was
+mismanaged like the days before. It was even worse. The powers that
+were had, as early as Friday, been so silly as to send armored motor
+cars screeching up and down the Nevsky. Now they began installing
+machine guns where they could play on the crowd. Up to this time I had
+been a neutral, if disgusted, spectator, but now I hoped the police and
+the whole imperial regime would pay bitterly for their insolence and
+stupidity. The few corpses I encountered during the day on the Nevsky
+could not even add to the feeling. They were the mere casualties of a
+movement that was beginning to attain large proportions.
+
+[Sidenote: Many soldiers firing blanks.]
+
+[Sidenote: At the French theatre.]
+
+The late afternoon and evening of Sunday were bloody. The Nevsky was
+finally closed except for cross traffic, and at the corner of the
+Sadovia and the Nevsky by the national library there was a machine gun
+going steadily. But it was in the hands of soldiers and they were firing
+blanks. The soldiers everywhere seemed to be firing blanks, but there
+was carnage enough. The way the crowds persisted showed their capacity
+for revolution. The talk was for the first time seriously revolutionary,
+and the red flags remained flying by the hour. That evening the air was
+for the first time electric with danger, but the possibilities of the
+next morning were not sufficiently evident to prevent me from going to
+the French theatre. There were a sufficient number of other people, of
+the same mind, including many officers, to fill half the seats.
+
+[Sidenote: Imperial box saluted for the last time.]
+
+As usual, between the acts, the officers stood up, facing the imperial
+box, which neither the Emperor nor any one else ever occupied. This act
+of empty homage, which always grated on my democratic nerves in a
+Russian theatre, was being performed by these officers--though they did
+not even seem to suspect it--for the last time.
+
+[Sidenote: Lively rifle fire Sunday night.]
+
+On my way home at midnight I picked up from wayfarers rumors of soldiers
+attacking the police, soldiers fighting among themselves and rioting in
+barracks. But outwardly there was calm until three in the morning, when
+I heard in my room on the Moika Canal side of the Hotel de France some
+very lively rifle fire from the direction of the Catherine Canal. This
+sounded more like the real thing than anything so far, so I dressed and
+tried to get near enough to learn what was going on. But for the first
+time the streets were really closed. The firing kept up steadily until
+four. Farther on in the great barracks along the Neva beyond the Litenie
+it kept up until the revolting soldiers had command.
+
+[Sidenote: Revolt spreads like a prairie fire.]
+
+I regret not having seen the revolt getting under way in that quarter. I
+regret missing the small incidents, the moments when the revolt hung in
+the balance, when it was the question of whether a certain company would
+join, for when I reached there it was still in its inception and the
+most interesting thing about it was to watch it spread like a prairie
+fire.
+
+[Sidenote: The Duma dissolved.]
+
+Still not realizing, like most people in Petrograd, that we were within
+a few hours of a sweeping revolt, I wasted some precious hours that
+morning trying to learn what could be done with the censor. But toward
+noon I heard the Duma had been dissolved, and, as there had not been
+since Sunday any street cars, 'ishvoshiks, or other means of conveyance,
+I started out afoot with Roger Lewis of the Associated Press to walk the
+three miles to the Duma.
+
+[Sidenote: A silence like that of Louvain.]
+
+The hush of impending events hung over the entire city. I remember
+nothing like that silence since the day the Germans entered Louvain. On
+every street were the bread lines longer than ever. All along the
+Catherine Canal, the snow was pounded by many feet and spotted with
+blood. But there were no soldiers and few police. We hurried along the
+Nevsky, gathering rumors of the fight that was actually going on down by
+the arsenal on the Litenie. But many shops were open and there was a
+semblance of business. All was so quiet we could not make out the
+meaning of a company of infantry drawn up in a hollow square commanding
+the four points at the junction of the Litenie and Nevsky, ordinarily
+one of the busiest corners in the world.
+
+[Sidenote: Cavalry commands arrive.]
+
+[Sidenote: The barricade on the Litenie.]
+
+[Sidenote: Haphazard rifle-fire.]
+
+But as soon as we turned down the Litenie we could hear shots farther
+down, and the pedestrians were mostly knotted in doorways. Scattered
+cavalry commands were arriving from the side streets, and the Litenie
+began looking a little too hot. So we chose a parallel street for
+several blocks until we were within three blocks of the Neva, where we
+had to cross the Litenie in front of a company drawn up across the
+street ready to fire toward the arsenal, where there was sporadic rifle
+fire. Here there were bigger knots of curious citizens projecting
+themselves farther and farther toward the middle of the street, hoping
+for a better view, until a nearer shot frightened them closer to the
+walls. The barricade on the Litenie by the arsenal, the one barricade
+the revolution produced, was just beginning to be built two hundred feet
+away as Lewis and I reached the shelter of the Fourshtatzkaya, on the
+same street as the American Embassy. By crossing the Litenie we had
+entered the zone of the revolutionists. We did not realize this,
+however, and were puzzled by the sight of a soldier carrying simply a
+bayonet, and another with a bare officer's sword. A fourteen-year-old
+boy stood in the middle of the street with a rifle in his hand, trifling
+with it. It exploded in his hand, and when he saw the ruin of the
+breech block he unfixed the bayonet, threw down the gun, and ran around
+the corner. A student came up the street examining the mechanism of a
+revolver. There seemed to be rifle-fire in every direction, even in the
+same street, but haphazard.
+
+[Sidenote: An officer recruiting for the revolution.]
+
+If we had not been living in a troubled atmosphere these small
+indications would have impressed us deeply, but neither of us gathered
+immediately the significance of events. Before we reached the next
+corner we passed troops who evidently did not know yet whether or not
+they were still on the side of the Government. An automobile appeared
+full of soldiers, an officer standing on the seat. He waved toward him
+all the soldiers in sight and began haranguing them. There was no red
+flag in sight, and, until we caught his words, we thought he was urging
+them to remain loyal. He was really recruiting for the revolution.
+
+[Sidenote: Automobiles and motor trucks.]
+
+As we kept on toward the Duma we encountered other automobiles, many of
+them, and motor trucks, literally bristling with guns and sabres. Half
+the men were civilians and the number of young boys with revolvers who
+looked me over made me feel it was a very easy time in which to be
+killed. I was wearing an English trench coat and a fur cap, so to
+prevent any mistake of identity I stopped and presented a full view to
+each passing motor. Still I knew my continued existence depended on the
+sanity of any one of thirty or forty very excited men and boys on each
+truck, and when I reached the protection of the enormous crowd that was
+storming the entrance to the Duma I felt more comfortable.
+
+[Sidenote: The Duma waits, but finally takes command.]
+
+The Duma had just been dismissed by imperial decree, an ironical
+circumstance in view of the thousands of soldiers and civilians massed
+before its doors under the red flag. Their leaders were within, asking
+the Duma to form a provisional government. The Duma was not yet
+convinced, and the mental confusion within was more bewildering than the
+revolution without. This was early in the afternoon, and the Duma held
+off for hours. Even when it was known that the Preobarzhenski regiment,
+which began its career with Peter the Great, had turned revolutionary,
+the Duma insisted on waiting. But at nine o'clock in the evening, when
+every police station, every court, was on fire and the revolutionists
+completely controlled the city, President Rodzianko decided that the
+Duma must take command.
+
+[Sidenote: Automobiles dart boldly everywhere.]
+
+It is interesting to watch a revolution grow, and even at this time,
+early Monday afternoon, the revolutionists controlled only a corner of
+Petrograd. They were working up excitement, and, as often before in the
+war, the motor trucks played an important part. They thundered back and
+forth through doubtful streets, students, soldiers, and workmen standing
+tight and bristling with bayonets like porcupines. They carried
+conviction of force, and, as each foray met with less resistance, it was
+not long before they were dashing boldly everywhere. That accounts for
+the rapid control of the city. It could not have been done afoot.
+
+[Sidenote: The revolutionists take the arsenal.]
+
+All day, from the time the arsenal fell into their hands, the
+revolutionists felt their strength growing, and from noon on no attack
+was led against them. At first the soldiers simply gave up their guns
+and mixed in the crowd, but they grew bolder, too, when they saw the
+workmen forming into regiments and marching up the Fourshtatzkaya, still
+fumbling with the triggers of their rifles to see how they met the enemy
+at the next corner. The coolness of these revolutionists, their
+willingness to die for their cause, won the respect of a small group of
+us who were standing before the American Embassy. The group was
+composed chiefly of Embassy attaches who wanted to go over to the old
+Austrian Embassy, used by us as the headquarters for the relief of
+German and Austrian prisoners in Russia; but though it was only a five
+minutes' walk, the hottest corner in the revolution lay between.
+
+[Sidenote: Soldiers ground arms and become revolutionists.]
+
+When we left the Embassy, Captain McCulley, the American Naval Attache,
+said he knew a way to get out of the revolutionary quarter without
+passing a line of fire. So he edged us off toward the distant Nevsky
+along several blood-blotched streets in which there were occasional
+groups of soldiers who did not know which way to turn. Then, as the
+Bycenie, beyond, suddenly filled with revolutionists coming from some
+other quarter, we turned to cross the Litenie. Twenty minutes earlier
+Captain McCulley had passed there and the Government troops controlled
+for another quarter mile. Now we passed a machine-gun company commanding
+the street, which dared not fire because there was a line of soldiers
+between it and a vast crowd pouring through the street toward us. The
+crowd had already overwhelmed and made revolutionists out of hundreds of
+soldiers, and the situation for a moment was dramatically tense.
+
+Down the bisecting Litenie another crowd was advancing, filling the wide
+street. Before it there was also a company of soldiers, and it did not
+know whether to face the Bycenie or the river. Three immense mobs were
+overwhelming it, though it knew of but two. Suddenly, just at the moment
+when we expected a shower of bullets, and flattened ourselves against a
+doorway, the company grounded arms and in three seconds was in the arms
+of the revolution.
+
+[Sidenote: Company after company joins.]
+
+As we retreated to the Nevsky ahead of the victorious crowd we could see
+company after company turn, as if suddenly deciding not to shoot, and
+join.
+
+[Sidenote: Thunder of motor trucks.]
+
+I walked rapidly back to the Morskaya and down to the cable office,
+which I found closed, not encountering on the whole two miles a single
+soldier or policeman until I reached St. Isaac's Cathedral, where a
+regiment of marines turned up the Morskaya toward the Nevsky, swinging
+along behind a band. Five minutes later I followed them up the Morskaya,
+but before I reached the Gorokawaya, half the distance, I could hear the
+thunder of the revolutionary motor trucks and the glad howls of the
+revolutionists. They had run the length of the Nevsky, and the city,
+except this little corner, was theirs. The shooting began at once, and
+for the next three hours on both the Morskaya and the Moika there was
+steady firing. This was still going on when, at nine in the evening, I
+passed around the edge of the fight, crossed Winter Palace Square,
+deserted except for a company of Cossacks dimly outlined against the
+Winter Palace across the square. By passing under the arch into the head
+of Morskaya again I was once more with the revolutionists.
+
+I have since asked Mr. Milukoff, now Minister of Foreign Affairs, at
+that moment a member of the Duma's Committee of Safety, how much of an
+organization there was behind the events of that day.
+
+[Sidenote: The organization a spontaneous growth.]
+
+"There was some incipient organization certainly," he replied, "though
+even now I could not be more definite. But for the most part it was
+spontaneous growth. The Duma was not revolutionary, and we held off
+until it became necessary for us to take hold. We were the only
+government left."
+
+[Sidenote: Duma is forced to adopt democratic programme.]
+
+The rapid work was done by the Socialists, who quickly formed the
+Council of Workmen and Soldiers' Deputies and formulated the programme
+which has come to be the Russian Declaration of Independence. They
+consented to support the Duma if it adopted their democratic programme.
+There was nothing else for the Duma to do, and the main issues of the
+new Government were worked out before Tuesday morning, within
+twenty-four hours of the beginning of the revolution. Since then I have
+been repeatedly impressed with the organizing ability of the men in
+control, and their ability to take matters rapidly in hand.
+
+[Sidenote: The crowd feels its power.]
+
+[Sidenote: Not much terrorism.]
+
+Monday night the city was in the hands of the mob. Anybody could have a
+gun. Public safety lay in the released spirits of the Russian workmen
+who saw the vision of liberty before them. Tuesday was the most
+dangerous day, as the crowd was beginning to feel its power, and the
+amount of shooting going on everywhere must have been out of all
+proportion to the sniping on the part of cornered police. But the
+searching of apartments for arms was carried on with some semblance of
+order, and usually there was a student in command. The individual
+stories of officers who refused to surrender and fought to the end in
+their apartments are endless, but these individual fights were lost in
+the victorious sweep of the day. Tuesday evening the real business of
+burning police stations and prisons and destroying records went on
+throughout the city, but the actual burnings, while picturesque, lacked
+the terrorism one might expect. Still I felt that the large number of
+irresponsible civilians carrying arms might do what they pleased.
+
+The same idea evidently occurred to the Committee of Safety, as it began
+at once disarming the irresponsible, and its work was so quick and
+effective that there were very few civilians not registered as
+responsible police who still had fire-arms on Wednesday morning.
+
+[Sidenote: Regiments sent to Petrograd join revolutionists.]
+
+As late as Wednesday there was a possibility of troops being sent
+against Petrograd, but all the regiments for miles around joined the
+revolution before they entered the city. There was obviously no one who
+wanted to uphold the old monarchy, and it fell without even dramatic
+incident to mark its end. To us in Petrograd the abdication of the
+Emperor had just one significance. It brought the army over at a stroke.
+The country, long saturated with democratic principles, accepted the new
+Government as naturally as if it had been chosen by a national vote.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The credit of the first shot fired on the American side in the Great War
+fell to the crew of the American ship, _Mongolia_. A narrative of this
+dramatic event is given in the chapter following.
+
+
+
+
+AMERICA'S FIRST SHOT
+
+J. R. KEEN
+
+Copyright, New York Times, April 27, 1919.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Gunners of the _Mongolia_ hit a submarine.]
+
+April 19 has long been celebrated in Massachusetts because of the battle
+of Lexington, but henceforth the Bay State can keep with added pride a
+day which has acquired national interest in this war, for on that date
+the S. S. _Mongolia_, bound from New York to London, under command of
+Captain Emery Rice, while proceeding up the English Channel, fired on an
+attacking submarine at 5.24 in the morning, smashing its periscope and
+causing the U-boat to disappear.
+
+[Sidenote: Officers from Massachusetts.]
+
+The gun crew who made this clean hit at 1,000 yards were under command
+of Lieutenant Bruce R. Ware, United States Navy, and the fact of special
+interest in Massachusetts is that both Rice and Ware were born in that
+State, the Captain receiving his training for the sea in the
+Massachusetts Nautical School and the Lieutenant being a graduate of
+Annapolis.
+
+[Sidenote: Dangerous voyages and cargoes.]
+
+The _Mongolia_, a merchantman of 13,638 tons, had been carrying
+munitions to Great Britain since January, 1916, when she reached New
+York Harbor from San Francisco, coming by way of Cape Horn, and she had
+already made nine voyages to England. In those voyages her officers and
+men had faced many of the greatest perils of the war. Her cargoes had
+consisted of TNT, of ammunition, of powder, of fuses, and of shells. At
+one time while carrying this dangerous freight Captain Rice saw, as he
+stood on the bridge during a storm, a lightning bolt strike the ship
+forward just where a great quantity of powder was stored, and held his
+breath as he waited to see "whether he was going up or going down."
+
+[Sidenote: Warnings of U-boats.]
+
+Captain Rice has since died, and among his papers now in my possession
+are many of the warnings of the presence of U-boats sent to his ship by
+the British Admiralty during 1916, when every vessel approaching the
+British coast was in danger from those assassins of the sea.
+
+[Sidenote: _Mongolia_ sails in spite of German edict.]
+
+After February 1, 1917, when the Huns made their "war zone" declaration,
+the question with us at home whether the _Mongolia_ would continue to
+sail in defiance of that edict of ruthless warfare became a matter of
+acute anxiety. The ship completed her eighth voyage on February 7, when
+she reached New York and found the whole country discussing the burning
+question, "Would the United States allow the Imperial German Government
+to dictate how and where our ships should go?" There was never but one
+answer in the mind of Captain Rice. At home he simply said, "I shall
+sail on schedule, armed or unarmed. Does any one suppose I would let
+those damned Prussians drive me off the ocean?"
+
+In the office of the International Mercantile Marine he expressed
+himself more politely, but with equal determination, to the President of
+the company, P. A. S. Franklin, to whom he said, "I am prepared, so are
+my officers, to sail with or without arms, but of course I would rather
+have arms."
+
+[Sidenote: Arms slow to get.]
+
+But the arms were slow to get, and the _Mongolia_, loaded with her
+super-dangerous cargo, cleared from New York on February 20, the first
+one of our boats to reach England after the "war zone" declaration, I
+believe. Captain Rice arrived in London about the time when Captain
+Tucker of the S. S. _Orleans_ reached Bordeaux, the latter being the
+first American to reach France in safety after the same declaration.
+
+[Sidenote: Spies try to learn sailing dates.]
+
+Early in February of 1917 we became aware that German spies were making
+a persistent attempt to get into our home to find out when the
+_Mongolia_ was sailing, and if the ship was to be armed. The first spy
+came up the back stairs in the guise of an employe engaged in delivering
+household supplies. He accomplished nothing, and the incident was
+dismissed from our minds, but the second spy came up the front stairs
+and effected an entrance, and this event roused us to the dangers around
+Captain Rice even in his own country and showed the intense
+determination of the Germans to prevent, if they could, any more big
+cargoes of munitions reaching England on the _Mongolia_. Our second
+visitor was a man who had been an officer in the German Army years
+before. After leaving Germany he came to the United States and became a
+citizen.
+
+[Sidenote: A German-American turns German spy.]
+
+In August, 1914, when the Huns invaded Belgium, he became all German
+again and returned to Europe to serve with the German Army on the French
+front, from which region he was ordered by the German Government back to
+the United States, where his command of English and knowledge of the
+country made him valuable to the propaganda and spy groups here. All
+this and much more I found out shortly after his visit, but the
+afternoon he called I (I was alone at the time) received him without
+suspicion, since he said he came to pay his respects to Captain Rice,
+whom he had known in China.
+
+[Sidenote: Deceiving the spy.]
+
+It was not until his apparently casual questions about the time of the
+_Mongolia's_ sailing and whether she was to be armed became annoying
+that "I woke up," and looking attentively at this over-curious visitor,
+I encountered a look of such cold hostility that with a shock I
+realized I was dealing with a spy, one who was probably armed, and who
+appeared determined to get the information he sought. In a few seconds
+of swift thinking I decided the best thing to do was to make him believe
+that Captain Rice himself did not know whether his ship was going out
+again, and that no one could tell what course of action the ship owners
+would take. After forty minutes of probing for information he departed,
+convinced there was no information to be had from me.
+
+[Sidenote: How signals could be sent by German agents.]
+
+It was ascertained that his New York home was in an apartment house on
+the highest point of land in Manhattan. In this same house there lived
+another German, who received many young men, all Teutons, as visitors,
+some of whom spent much time with him on the roof. The possibility of
+their signaling out to sea from this elevation is too obvious to be
+dwelt on, and it is beyond doubt that some of the submarines' most
+effective work at this time and later was due to the activities of these
+German agents allowed at large by our too-trustful laws of citizenship.
+So exact and timely was much of the information these spies secured that
+the _Mongolia_ on one of her voyages to England picked up a wireless
+message sent in the _Mongolia's_ own secret code, saying that the
+_Montana_ was sinking, giving her position, and asking the _Mongolia_ to
+come to her rescue, but it had happened that when the _Mongolia_ left
+New York Harbor at the beginning of this very voyage one of her officers
+had noticed the _Montana_ lying in the harbor.
+
+[Sidenote: _Mongolia_ is armed with three 6-inch guns.]
+
+When the _Mongolia_ returned on March 30, 1917, from this unarmed voyage
+she was given three six-inch guns, two forward and one aft, and a gun
+crew from the U. S. S. _Texas_, under Lieutenant Bruce R. Ware, who had
+already made his mark in gunnery.
+
+The _Mongolia_ left New York on her tenth voyage April 7 with the
+following officers:
+
+[Sidenote: The officers on the voyage.]
+
+Commander, Emery Rice; in command of armed guard, Lieutenant Bruce R.
+Ware; Chief officer, Thomas Blau; First Officer, W. E. Wollaston; Second
+Officer, Charles W. Krieg; Third Officer, Joseph C. Lutz; Fourth
+Officer, Carroll D. Riley; Cadets, Fred Earl Wilcox and Theodore
+Forsell; Doctor, Charles Rendell; Assistant Purser, J. T. Wylie; Chief
+Steward, W. T. Heath; Chief Engineer, James W. Condon; First Assistant
+Engineer, Clarence Irwin; Second Assistant Engineer, William Hodgkiss;
+Third Assistant Engineer, L. R. Tinto. Six junior engineers--William
+Hasenfus, E. Larkin, Perry McComb, Sidney Murray, J. R. Fletcher,
+Lawrence Paterson, Refrigerator Engineer, H. Johnson, Electrician, E.
+Powers; Dock Engineer, V. Hansen.
+
+[Sidenote: Entries from the ship's log.]
+
+The log of the ship for that voyage contains these entries:
+
+
+    Sailed from New York April 7, 1917.
+    Arrived Falmouth, England, April 18, 1917.
+    Left Falmouth, England, April 18, 1917, p. m.
+    On April 19, 5.24 a. m., fired on submarine.
+    Arrived Tilbury, London, April 21.
+    Left Tilbury, London, May 2.
+    Arrived New York, May 13.
+
+The Captain's report to the London office of the International
+Mercantile Marine is dated April 21, 1917, and says:
+
+"I beg to report that the S. S. _Mongolia_ under my command, while
+proceeding up Channel on April 19 at 5.24 a. m. encountered a submarine,
+presumably German, in Latitude 50.30 degrees North, Longitude 32 degrees
+West; 9 miles South 37 degrees East true from the Overs Light vessel.
+
+"The weather at the time: calm to light airs, sea smooth, hazy with
+visibility about 3 miles; speed of the ship fifteen knots, course North
+74 degrees East true, to pass close to the Royal Sovereign Light vessel.
+
+[Sidenote: A periscope sighted.]
+
+"The periscope was first sighted broad on the port bow, distant about
+one-half mile, by Chief Officer Blau in charge of the bridge watch at
+the time. His shout of 'submarine on the port bow' brought Lieutenant
+Ware and myself quickly out of the chart room on to the bridge, where we
+immediately saw the swirling wake left by the submarine as it submerged.
+
+[Sidenote: Lieutenant Ware gives the range.]
+
+"The armed guard under Lieutenant Ware, United States Navy, were
+standing by all guns at the time, which were fully loaded, and while
+Lieutenant Ware gave the range to the guns I ordered the helm put
+hard-a-starboard with the object of lessening the broadside angle of the
+ship to an approaching torpedo.
+
+[Sidenote: The shot goes home.]
+
+[Sidenote: Efficiency of the gunners.]
+
+"Lieutenant Ware's order of 'train on the starboard quarter and report
+when you bear on a submarine's periscope' was answered almost
+immediately by the after gun's crew, who were then ordered to commence
+firing. One shot was fired from the after gun which struck in the centre
+of the swirl created by the submarine, causing a quantity of light blue
+smoke to hang over the spot where the submarine disappeared for some
+time. This was the only shot fired, and the submarine was not seen
+again, and after zigzagging until the weather became very thick the ship
+was again put on her course. Passed through the Gateway off Folkestone
+at 10.45 a. m. and anchored at 11.01 a. m., as I considered the weather
+too thick to proceed. I feel that the _Mongolia's_ safe arrival at
+London is due to a large extent to the zeal and ability in the execution
+of his duties displayed by Lieutenant B. R. Ware, United States Navy,
+who has been untiring in his efforts to bring the men under his command
+to a high state of efficiency, and who has kept a continuous watch for
+the past five days. His co-operation with the ship's officers has been
+of the closest, and his men and guns were always ready. Also to Mr.
+Blau, the chief officer, a large measure of credit is due, for had he
+not seen the periscope at the exact moment of its appearance it is
+possible that all our precautions would have been useless.
+
+                          Signed. EMERY RICE,
+                                      "Commander S. S. _Mongolia_."
+
+[Sidenote: _Mongolia's_ officers marked men.]
+
+The fame of the first engagement made the _Mongolia's_ officers marked
+men. When Captain Rice returned home he reported that Consul General
+Skinner in London had told him that the Germans had set a price of
+50,000 marks on his head, and letters expressing hatred and revenge
+reached us in New York from points as far away as Kansas City. On the
+other hand, the pride felt in the great ship's exploit brought scores of
+letters from officers and men who applied for service on her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+German agents were industrious throughout the United States, long before
+the American Government broke with Germany. Her activities were carried
+on in the form of propaganda and by more violent deeds. A complete
+account of these activities as revealed in a congressional investigation
+follows.
+
+
+
+
+GERMAN ACTIVITIES IN THE UNITED STATES
+
+FROM REPORT OF HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
+
+
+[Sidenote: Momentous results must follow.]
+
+It is with the deepest sense of responsibility of the momentous results
+which will follow the passage of this resolution that your committee
+reports it to the House, with the recommendation that it be passed.
+
+The conduct of the Imperial German Government toward this Government,
+its citizens, and its interests has been so discourteous, unjust, cruel,
+barbarous, and so lacking in honesty and fair dealing that it has
+constituted a violation of the course of conduct which should obtain
+between friendly nations.
+
+In addition to this, the German Government is actually making war upon
+the people and the commerce of this country, and leaves no course open
+to this Government but to accept its gage of battle, declare that a
+state of war exists, and wage that war vigorously.
+
+[Sidenote: The announcement of the submarine war zone.]
+
+On the 31st day of January, 1917, notice was given by the Imperial
+German Government to this Government that after the following
+day--"Germany will meet the illegal measures of her enemies by forcibly
+preventing, in a zone around Great Britain, France, Italy, and in the
+Eastern Mediterranean, all navigation, that of neutrals included, from
+and to England and from and to France, &c. All ships met within that
+zone will be sunk."
+
+[Sidenote: American ships sunk.]
+
+Since that day seven American ships flying the American flag have been
+sunk and between twenty-five and thirty American lives have been lost
+as a result of the prosecution of the submarine warfare in accordance
+with the above declaration. This is war. War waged by the Imperial
+German Government upon this country and its people.
+
+[Sidenote: Review of Germany's hostile acts.]
+
+A brief review of some of the hostile and illegal acts of the German
+Government toward this Government and its officers and its people is
+herewith given.
+
+[Sidenote: German note of February, 1915.]
+
+In the memorial of the Imperial German Government accompanying its
+proclamation of February 4, 1915, in regard to submarine warfare, that
+Government declared: "The German Navy has received instructions to
+abstain from all violence against neutral vessels recognizable as such."
+In the note of the German Government dated February 16, 1915, in reply
+to the American note of February 10, it was declared that "It is very
+far indeed from the intention of the German Government * * * ever to
+destroy neutral lives and neutral property. * * * The commanders of
+German submarines have been instructed, as was already stated in the
+note of the 4th instant, to abstain from violence to American merchant
+ships when they are recognizable as such."
+
+[Sidenote: American lives lost on many torpedoed ships.]
+
+Nevertheless, the German Government proceeded to carry out its plans of
+submarine warfare and torpedoed the British passenger steamer _Falaba_
+on March 27, 1915, when one American life was lost, attacked the
+American steamer _Cushing_ April 28 by airship, and made submarine
+attacks upon the American tank steamer _Gulflight_ May 1, the British
+passenger steamer _Lusitania_ May 7, when 114 American lives were lost,
+and the American steamer _Nebraskan_ on May 25, in all of which over 125
+citizens of the United States lost their lives, not to mention hundreds
+of noncombatants who were lost and hundreds of Americans and
+noncombatants whose lives were put in jeopardy.
+
+The British mule boat _Armenian_ was torpedoed on June 28, as a result
+of which twenty Americans are reported missing.
+
+On July 8, 1915, in a note to Ambassador Gerard, arguing in defense of
+its method of warfare and particularly of its submarine commander in the
+_Lusitania_ case, it is stated:
+
+[Sidenote: German defense of German submarine warfare.]
+
+"The Imperial Government therefore repeats the assurances that American
+ships will not be hindered in the prosecution of legitimate shipping and
+the lives of American citizens on neutral vessels shall not be placed in
+jeopardy.
+
+"In order to exclude any unforeseen dangers to American passenger
+steamers * * * the German submarines will be instructed to permit the
+free and safe passage of such passenger steamers when made recognizable
+by special markings and notified a reasonable time in advance."
+
+[Sidenote: American ships attacked later.]
+
+Subsequently the following vessels carrying American citizens were
+attacked by submarines: British liner _Orduna_, July 9; Russian steamer
+_Leo_, July 9; American steamer _Leelanaw_, July 25; British passenger
+liner _Arabic_, August 19; British mule ship _Nicosian_, August 19;
+British steamer _Hesperian_, September 4. In these attacks twenty-three
+Americans lost their lives, not to mention the large number whose lives
+were placed in jeopardy.
+
+Following these events, conspicuous by their wantonness and violation of
+every rule of humanity and maritime warfare, the German Ambassador, by
+instructions from his Government, on September 1 gave the following
+assurances to the Government of the United States:
+
+"Liners will not be sunk by our submarines without warning and without
+safety of the lives of noncombatants, provided that the liners do not
+try to escape or offer resistance."
+
+[Sidenote: Germany gives assurance of regard for lives of
+noncombatants.]
+
+On September 9, in a reply as to the submarine attack on the _Orduna_,
+the German Government renewed these assurances in the following
+language:
+
+[Sidenote: The _Orduna_ case.]
+
+"The first attack on the _Orduna_ by a torpedo was not in accordance
+with the existing instructions, which provide that large passenger
+steamers are to be torpedoed only after previous warning and after the
+rescuing of passengers and crew. The failure to observe the instructions
+was based on an error which is at any rate comprehensible and the
+repetition of which appears to be out of the question, in view of the
+more explicit instructions issued in the meantime. Moreover, the
+commanders of the submarines have been reminded that it is their duty to
+exercise greater care and to observe carefully the orders issued."
+
+The German Government could not more clearly have stated that liners or
+large passenger steamers would not be torpedoed except upon previous
+warning and after the passengers and crew had been put in places of
+safety.
+
+[Sidenote: Statement about the _William P. Frye_.]
+
+On November 29 the German Government states, in connection with the case
+of the American vessel _William P. Frye_:
+
+[Sidenote: Germany promises to protect passengers.]
+
+"The German naval forces will sink only such American vessels as are
+loaded with absolute contraband, when the preconditions provided by the
+Declaration of London are present. In this the German Government quite
+shares the view of the American Government that all possible care must
+be taken for the security of the crew and passengers of a vessel to be
+sunk. Consequently the persons found on board of a vessel may not be
+ordered into her lifeboats except when the general conditions--that is
+to say, the weather, the condition of the sea, and the neighborhood of
+the coasts--afford absolute certainty that the boats will reach the
+nearest port."
+
+[Sidenote: An American Consul drowned.]
+
+Following this accumulative series of assurances, however, there seems
+to have been no abatement in the rigor of submarine warfare, for attacks
+were made in the Mediterranean upon the American steamer _Communipaw_ on
+December 3, the American steamer _Petrolite_ December 5, the Japanese
+liner _Yasaka Maru_ December 21, and the passenger liner _Persia_
+December 30. In the sinking of the _Persia_ out of a total of some 500
+passengers and crew only 165 were saved. Among those lost was an
+American Consul traveling to his post.
+
+On January 7, eight days after the sinking of the _Persia_, the German
+Government notified the Government of the United States through its
+Ambassador in Washington as follows:
+
+[Sidenote: Submarines in Mediterranean ordered to respect international
+law.]
+
+"1. German submarines in the Mediterranean had, from the beginning,
+orders to conduct cruiser warfare against enemy merchant vessels only in
+accordance with the general principles of international law, and in
+particular measures of reprisal, as applied in the war zone around the
+British Isles, were to be excluded.
+
+"2. German submarines are therefore permitted to destroy enemy merchant
+vessels in the Mediterranean, _i. e._, passenger as well as freight
+ships as far as they do not try to escape or offer resistance--only
+after passengers and crews have been accorded safety."
+
+Clearly the assurances of the German Government that neutral and enemy
+merchant vessels, passenger as well as freight ships, should not be
+destroyed except upon the passengers and crew being accorded safety
+stood as the official position of the Imperial German Government.
+
+[Sidenote: Germany offers indemnity for Americans lost on _Lusitania_.]
+
+On February 16, 1916, the German Ambassador communicated to the
+Department of State an expression of regret for the loss of American
+lives on the _Lusitania_, and proposed to pay a suitable indemnity. In
+the course of this note he said:
+
+"Germany has * * * limited her submarine warfare because of her
+long-standing friendship with the United States and because by the
+sinking of the _Lusitania_, which caused the death of citizens of the
+United States, the German retaliation affected neutrals, which was not
+the intention, as retaliation should be confined to enemy subjects."
+
+[Sidenote: French unarmed _Patria_ attacked.]
+
+[Sidenote: The _Sussex_ torpedoed without warning.]
+
+On March 1, 1916, the unarmed French passenger steamer _Patria_,
+carrying a number of American citizens, was attacked without warning. On
+March 9 the Norwegian bark _Silius_, riding at anchor in Havre Roads,
+was torpedoed by an unseen submarine and one of the seven Americans on
+board was injured. On March 16 the Dutch passenger steamer _Tubantia_
+was sunk in the North Sea by a torpedo. On March 16 the British steamer
+_Berwindale_ was torpedoed without warning off Bantry Island with four
+Americans on board. On March 24 the British unarmed steamer _Englishman_
+was, after a chase, torpedoed and sunk by the submarine _U-19_, as a
+result of which one American on board perished. On March 24 the unarmed
+French cross-Channel steamer _Sussex_ was torpedoed without warning,
+several of the twenty-four American passengers being injured. On March
+27 the unarmed British liner _Manchester Engineer_ was sunk by an
+explosion without prior warning, with Americans on board, and on March
+28 the British steamer _Eagle Point_, carrying a Hotchkiss gun, which
+she did not use, was chased, overtaken, and sunk by a torpedo after the
+persons on board had taken to the boats.
+
+[Sidenote: America will hold Germany responsible.]
+
+The American note of February 10, 1915, stated that should German
+vessels of war "destroy on the high seas an American vessel or the
+lives of American citizens it would be difficult for the Government of
+the United States to view the act in any other light than an
+indefensible violation of neutral rights which it would be very hard,
+indeed, to reconcile with the friendly relations so happily subsisting
+between the two Governments," and that if such a deplorable situation
+should arise, "the Government of the United States would be constrained
+to hold the Imperial Government to a strict accountability for such acts
+of their naval authorities."
+
+In the American note of May 13, 1915, the Government stated:
+
+"The imperial Government will not expect the Government of the United
+States to omit any word or act necessary to the performance of its
+sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the United States and its
+citizens and in safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment."
+
+In the note of July 21, 1915, the United States Government said that--
+
+"Repetition by the commanders of German naval vessels of acts in
+contravention of those rights must be regarded by the Government of the
+United States, when they affect American citizens, as deliberately
+unfriendly."
+
+In a communication of April 18, 1916, the American Government said:
+
+[Sidenote: The United States insists on regard for international law.]
+
+"If it is still the purpose of the Imperial Government to prosecute
+relentless and indiscriminate warfare against vessels of commerce by the
+use of submarines without regard to what the Government of the United
+States must consider the sacred and indisputable rules of international
+law and the universally recognized dictates of humanity, the Government
+of the United States is at last forced to the conclusion that there is
+but one course it can pursue. Unless the Imperial Government should not
+immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of
+submarine warfare against passenger and freight carrying vessels the
+Government of the United States can have no choice but to sever
+diplomatic relations with the German Empire altogether."
+
+[Sidenote: Germany gives definite assurances.]
+
+The German Government replied to this communication on May 4, 1916,
+giving definite assurances that new orders had been issued to the German
+naval forces "in accordance with the general principles of visit and
+search and the destruction of merchant vessels recognized by
+international law." And this agreement was substantially complied with
+for many months, but finally, on January 31, 1917, notice was given that
+after the following day--
+
+[Sidenote: The notice of January 31, 1917.]
+
+"Germany will meet the illegal measures of her enemies by forcibly
+preventing in a zone around Great Britain, France, Italy, and in the
+Eastern Mediterranean all navigation, that of neutrals included, from
+and to England and from and to France, &c. All ships met within that
+zone will be sunk."
+
+In view of this Government's warning of April 18, 1916, and the Imperial
+German Government's pledge of May 4 of the same year, the Government of
+the United States, on February 3, 1917, stated to the Imperial German
+Government that--
+
+[Sidenote: The course of the United States.]
+
+"In view of this declaration, which withdraws suddenly and without prior
+intimation the solemn assurance given in the Imperial Government's note
+of May 4, 1916, this Government has no alternative consistent with the
+dignity and honor of the United States but to take the course which it
+explicitly announced in its note of April 18, 1916, it would take in the
+event that the Imperial Government did not declare and effect an
+abandonment of the methods of submarine warfare then employed and to
+which the Imperial Government now purposes again to resort.
+
+[Sidenote: Diplomatic relations with Germany severed.]
+
+"The President has, therefore, directed me to announce to your
+Excellency that all diplomatic relation between the United States and
+the German Empire are severed, and that the American Ambassador at
+Berlin will be immediately withdrawn, and, in accordance with such
+announcement, to deliver to your Excellency your passports."
+
+[Sidenote: American ships torpedoed.]
+
+On February 3 one American ship was sunk, and since that date six
+American ships flying the American flag have been torpedoed, with a loss
+of about thirteen American citizens. In addition, fifty or more foreign
+vessels of both belligerent and neutral nationality with Americans on
+board have been torpedoed, in most cases without warning, with a
+consequent loss of several American citizens.
+
+[Sidenote: German officials violate laws of United States.]
+
+Since the beginning of the war German officials in the United States
+have engaged in many improper activities in violation of the laws of the
+United States and of their obligations as officials in a neutral
+country. Count von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador, Captain von Papen,
+Military Attache of the embassy, Captain Boy-Ed, Naval Attache, as well
+as various Consular officers and other officials, were involved in these
+activities, which were very widespread.
+
+The following instances are chosen at random from the cases which have
+come to the knowledge of the Government:
+
+[Sidenote: The German Embassy furnishes funds to be used illegally.]
+
+I. By direct instruction received from the Foreign Office in Berlin the
+German Embassy in this country furnished funds and issued orders to the
+Indian Independence Committee of the Indian Nationalist Party in the
+United States. These instructions were usually conveyed to the committee
+by the military information bureau in New York (von Igel), or by the
+German Consulates in New York and San Francisco.
+
+[Sidenote 1: Indian revolutionary propaganda.]
+
+Dr. Chakrabarty, recently arrested in New York City, received, all in
+all, according to his own admission, some $60,000 from von Igel. He
+claims that the greater portion of this money was used for defraying the
+expenses of the Indian revolutionary propaganda in this country and, as
+he says, for educational purposes. While this is in itself true, it is
+not all that was done by the revolutionists. They have sent
+representatives to the Far East to stir up trouble in India, and they
+have attempted to ship arms and ammunition to India. These expeditions
+have failed. The German Embassy also employed Ernest T. Euphrat to carry
+instructions and information between Berlin and Washington under an
+American passport.
+
+[Sidenote 2: Germans on parole escaped.]
+
+II. Officers of interned German warships have violated their word of
+honor and escaped. In one instance the German Consul at Richmond
+furnished the money to purchase a boat to enable six warrant officers of
+the steamer Kronprinz Wilhelm to escape after breaking their parole.
+
+[Sidenote 3: Fraudulent passports secured.]
+
+III. Under the supervision of Captain von Papen and Wolf von Igel, Hans
+von Wedell and, subsequently, Carl Ruroede maintained a regular office
+for the procurement of fraudulent passports for German reservists. These
+operations were directed and financed in part by Captain von Papen and
+Wolf von Igel. Indictments were returned, Carl Ruroede sentenced to the
+penitentiary, and a number of German officers fined. Von Wedell escaped
+and has apparently been drowned at sea. Von Wedell's operations were
+also known to high officials in Germany. When von Wedell became
+suspicious that forgeries committed by him on a passport application
+had become known, he conferred with Captain von Papen and obtained money
+from him wherewith to make his escape.
+
+[Sidenote: American passport covers unneutral activities.]
+
+IV. James J. F. Archibald, under cover of an American passport and in
+the pay of the German Government through Ambassador Bernstorff, carried
+dispatches for Ambassador Dumba and otherwise engaged in unneutral
+activities.
+
+[Sidenote: Spies sent to England.]
+
+V. Albert O. Sander, Charles Wunnenberg, and others, German agents in
+this country, were engaged, among other activities, in sending spies to
+England, equipped with American passports, for the purpose of securing
+military information. Several such men have been sent. Sander and
+Wunnenberg have pleaded guilty to indictments brought against them in
+New York City, as has George Voux Bacon, one of the men sent abroad by
+them.
+
+[Sidenote: American passports counterfeited.]
+
+VI. American passports have been counterfeited and counterfeits found on
+German agents. Baron von Cupenberg, a German agent, when arrested
+abroad, bore a counterfeit of an American passport issued to Gustav C.
+Roeder; Irving Guy Ries received an American passport, went to Germany,
+where the police retained his passports for twenty-four hours. Later a
+German spy named Carl Paul Julius Hensel was arrested in London with a
+counterfeit of the Ries passport in his possession.
+
+[Sidenote: Coaling German warships.]
+
+VII. Prominent officials of the Hamburg-American Line, who, under the
+direction of Captain Boy-Ed, endeavored to provide German warships at
+sea with coal and other supplies in violation of the statutes of the
+United States, have been tried and convicted and sentenced to the
+penitentiary. Some twelve or more vessels were involved in this plan.
+
+[Sidenote: Indictments returned.]
+
+VIII. Under the direction of Captain Boy-Ed and the German Consulate at
+San Francisco, and in violation of our law, the steamships _Sacramento_
+and _Mazatlan_ carried supplies from San Francisco to German war
+vessels. The _Olsen_ and _Mahoney_, which were engaged in a similar
+enterprise, were detained. The money for these ventures was furnished by
+Captain Boy-Ed. Indictments have been returned in connection with these
+matters against a large number of persons.
+
+[Sidenote: The case of Werner Horn.]
+
+IX. Werner Horn, a Lieutenant in the German reserve, was furnished funds
+by Captain Franz von Papen and sent, with dynamite, under orders to blow
+up the International Bridge at Vanceboro, Maine. He was partially
+successful. He is now under indictment for the unlawful transportation
+of dynamite on passenger trains and is in jail awaiting trial following
+the dismissal of his appeal by the Supreme Court.
+
+[Sidenote: Plot to blow up factory.]
+
+X. Captain von Papen furnished funds to Albert Kaltschmidt of Detroit,
+who is involved in a plot to blow up a factory at Walkerville, Canada,
+and the armory at Windsor, Canada.
+
+[Sidenote: Bombs on ships.]
+
+XI. Robert Fay, Walter Scholtz, and Paul Doeche have been convicted and
+sentenced to the penitentiary and three others are under indictment for
+conspiracy to prepare bombs and attach them to allied ships leaving New
+York Harbor. Fay, who was the principal in this scheme, was a German
+soldier. He testified that he received finances from a German secret
+agent in Brussels, and told Von Papen of his plans, who advised him that
+his device was not practicable, but that he should go ahead with it, and
+if he could make it work he would consider it.
+
+[Sidenote: Incendiary bombs on allied vessels.]
+
+XII. Under the direction of Captain von Papen and Wolf von Igel, Dr.
+Walter T. Scheele, Captain von Kleist, Captain Wolpert of the Atlas
+Steamship Company, and Captain Rode of the Hamburg-American Line
+manufactured incendiary bombs and placed them on board allied vessels.
+The shells in which the chemicals were placed were made on board the
+steamship _Friedrich der Grosse_. Scheele was furnished $1,000 by von
+Igel wherewith to become a fugitive from justice.
+
+[Sidenote: Rintelen's plots.]
+
+XIII. Captain Franz Rintelen, a reserve officer in the German Navy, came
+to this country secretly for the purpose of preventing the exportation
+of munitions of war to the Allies and of getting to Germany needed
+supplies. He organized and financed Labor's National Peace Council in an
+effort to bring about an embargo on the shipment of munitions of war,
+tried to bring about strikes, &c.
+
+[Sidenote: Conspiracy to wreck vessels and blow up railroad tunnels.]
+
+XIV. Consul General Bopp, at San Francisco, Vice Consul General von
+Schaick, Baron George Wilhelm von Brincken (an employe of the
+consulate), Charles C. Crowley, and Mrs. Margaret W. Cornell (secret
+agents of the German Consulate at San Francisco) have been convicted of
+conspiracy to send agents into Canada to blow up railroad tunnels and
+bridges, and to wreck vessels sailing from Pacific Coast ports with war
+material for Russia and Japan.
+
+[Sidenote: Spies sent to Canada.]
+
+XV. Paul Koenig, head of the secret service work of the Hamburg-American
+Line, by direction of his superior officers, largely augmented his
+organization and under the direction of von Papen, Boy-Ed, and Albert
+carried on secret work for the German Government. He secured and sent
+spies to Canada to gather information concerning the Welland Canal, the
+movements of Canadian troops to England, bribed an employe of a bank for
+information concerning shipments to the Allies, sent spies to Europe on
+American passports to secure military information, and was involved with
+Captain von Papen in plans to place bombs on ships of the Allies
+leaving New York Harbor, &c. Von Papen, Boy-Ed, and Albert had frequent
+conferences with Koenig in his office, at theirs, and at outside places.
+Koenig and certain of his associates are under indictment.
+
+[Sidenote: Attempt on Welland Canal.]
+
+XVI. Captain von Papen, Captain Hans Tauscher, Wolf von Igel, and a
+number of German reservists organized an expedition to go into Canada,
+destroy the Welland Canal, and endeavor to terrorize Canadians in order
+to delay the sending of troops from Canada to Europe. Indictments have
+been returned against these persons. Wolf von Igel furnished Fritzen,
+one of the conspirators in this case, money on which to flee from New
+York City, Fritzen is now in jail in New York City.
+
+[Sidenote: Revolt in India plotted.]
+
+XVII. With money furnished by official German representatives in this
+country, a cargo of arms and ammunition was purchased and shipped on
+board the schooner _Annie Larsen_. Through the activities of German
+official representatives in this country and other Germans a number of
+Indians were procured to form an expedition to go on the steamship
+_Maverick_, meet the _Annie Larsen_, take over her cargo, and endeavor
+to bring about a revolution in India. This plan involved the sending of
+a German officer to drill Indian recruits and the entire plan was
+managed and directed by Captain von Papen, Captain Hans Tauscher, and
+other official German representatives in this country.
+
+[Sidenote: False affidavit about the _Lusitania_.]
+
+XVIII. Gustav Stahl, a German reservist, made an affidavit which he
+admitted was false, regarding the armament of the _Lusitania_, which
+affidavit was forwarded to the State Department by Ambassador von
+Bernstorff. He plead guilty to an indictment charging perjury, and was
+sentenced to the penitentiary. Koenig, herein mentioned, was active in
+securing this affidavit.
+
+[Sidenote: Interference with manufacturers.]
+
+XIX. The German Embassy organized, directed, and financed the Hans Libau
+Employment Agency, through which extended efforts were made to induce
+employes of manufacturers engaged in supplying various kinds of material
+to the Allies to give up their positions in an effort to interfere with
+the output of such manufacturers. Von Papen indorsed this organization
+as a military measure, and it was hoped through its propaganda to
+cripple munition factories.
+
+[Sidenote: Newspapers financed.]
+
+XX. The German Government has assisted financially a number of
+newspapers in this country in return for pro-German propaganda.
+
+[Sidenote: Mexican difficulties increased.]
+
+XXI. Many facts have been secured indicating that Germans have aided and
+encouraged financially and otherwise the activities of one or the other
+faction in Mexico, the purpose being to keep the United States occupied
+along its borders and to prevent the exportation of munitions of war to
+the Allies; see, in this connection, the activities of Rintelen,
+Stallforth, Kopf, the German Consul at Chihuahua; Krum-Hellen, Felix
+Somerfeld (Villa's representative at New York), Carl Heynen, Gustav
+Steinberg, and many others.
+
+[Sidenote: Relief ships plainly marked.]
+
+When the Commission for Relief in Belgium began its work in October,
+1914, it received from the German authorities, through the various
+Governments concerned, definite written assurances that ships engaged in
+carrying cargoes for the relief of the civil population of Belgium and
+Northern France should be immune from attack. In order that there may be
+no room for attacks upon these ships through misunderstanding, each ship
+is given a safe conduct by the German diplomatic representative in the
+country from which it sails, and, in addition, bears conspicuously upon
+its sides markings which have been agreed upon with the German
+authorities; furthermore, similar markings are painted upon the decks
+of the ships in order that they may be readily recognized by airplanes.
+
+Upon the rupture of relations with Germany the commission was definitely
+assured by the German Government that its ships would be immune from
+attack by following certain prescribed courses and conforming to the
+arrangements previously made.
+
+[Sidenote: Unwarranted attacks.]
+
+Despite these solemn assurances there have been several unwarranted
+attacks upon ships under charter to the commission.
+
+On March 7 or 8 the Norwegian ship _Storstad_, carrying 10,000 tons of
+corn from Buenos Aires to Rotterdam for the commission was sunk in broad
+daylight by a German submarine despite the conspicuous markings of the
+commission which the submarine could not help observing. The _Storstad_
+was repeatedly shelled without warning and finally torpedoed.
+
+[Sidenote: Men killed on torpedoed relief ships.]
+
+On March 19 the steamships _Tunisie_ and _Haelen_, under charter to the
+commission, proceeding to the United States under safe conducts and
+guarantees from the German Minister at The Hague and bearing conspicuous
+marking of the commission, were attacked without warning by a German
+submarine outside the danger zone (56 degrees 15 minutes north, 5
+degrees 32 minutes east). The ships were not sunk, but on the _Haelen_
+seven men were killed, including the first and third officers; a port
+boat was sunk; a hole was made in the port bunker above the water line;
+and the ships sustained sundry damages to decks and engines.
+
+[Sidenote: Consular officers suffer indignities.]
+
+Various Consular officers have suffered indignities and humiliation at
+the hands of German frontier authorities. The following are
+illustrations:
+
+Mr. Pike, Consul at St. Gall, Switzerland, on proceeding to his post
+with a passport duly indorsed by German officials in New York and
+Copenhagen, was on November 26, 1916, subjected to great indignities at
+Warnemuende on the German frontier. Mr. Pike refused to submit to search
+of his person, the removal of his clothing, or the seizure of his
+official reports and papers of a private and confidential nature. He was
+therefore obliged to return to Copenhagen.
+
+Mr. Murphy, the Consul General at Sofia, and his wife, provided with
+passports from the German legations at The Hague and Copenhagen, were on
+two occasions stripped and searched and subjected to great humiliation
+at the same frontier station. No consideration was given them because of
+their official position.
+
+[Sidenote: Outrageous behavior of German officials.]
+
+Such has been the behavior on the part of German officials
+notwithstanding that Consular officials hold positions of dignity and
+responsibility under their Government and that during the present war
+Germany has been placed under deep obligation to American Consular
+officers by their efforts in the protection of German interests.
+
+[Sidenote: Neutrals on the _Yarrowdale_ held as prisoners.]
+
+On January 19, Mr. Gerard telegraphed that the evening papers contained
+a report that the English steamer _Yarrowdale_ had been brought to
+Swinemuende as prize with 469 prisoners on board taken from ships
+captured by German auxiliary cruisers; that among these prisoners were
+103 neutrals.
+
+After repeated inquiries Mr. Gerard learned that there were among the
+_Yarrowdale_ prisoners seventy-two men claiming American citizenship.
+
+On February 4 Mr. Gerard was informed by Count Montgelas of the Foreign
+Office that the Americans taken on the _Yarrowdale_ would be released
+immediately on the ground that they could not have known at the time of
+sailing that it was Germany's intention to treat armed merchantmen as
+ships of war.
+
+Despite this assurance, the prisoners were not released, but some time
+prior to February 17 the German Minister for Foreign Affairs told the
+Spanish Ambassador that the American prisoners from the _Yarrowdale_
+would be liberated "in a very short time."
+
+[Sidenote: A formal demand for release of _Yarrowdale_ prisoners.]
+
+Upon receipt of this information a formal demand was made through the
+Spanish Ambassador at Berlin for the immediate release of these men. The
+message sent the Spanish Ambassador was as follows:
+
+[Sidenote: American prisoners must be released.]
+
+"If _Yarrowdale_ prisoners have not been released, please make formal
+demand in the name of the United States for their immediate release. If
+they are not promptly released and allowed to cross the frontier without
+further delay, please state to the Foreign Minister that this policy of
+the Imperial Government, if continued, apparently without the slightest
+justification, will oblige the Government of the United States to
+consider what measures it may be necessary to take in order to obtain
+satisfaction for the continued detention of these innocent American
+citizens."
+
+[Sidenote: _Yarrowdale_ men reach Switzerland.]
+
+On February 25 the American Ambassador at Madrid was informed by the
+Spanish Foreign Office that the _Yarrowdale_ prisoners had been released
+on the 16th inst. The foregoing statement appears to have been based on
+erroneous information. The men finally reached Zurich, Switzerland, on
+the afternoon of March 11.
+
+[Sidenote: Treatment cruel and heartless.]
+
+Official reports now in the possession of the Department of State
+indicate that these American sailors were from the moment of their
+arrival in Germany, on January 3, subjected to the most cruel and
+heartless treatment. Although the weather was very cold, they were given
+no suitable clothes, and many of them stood about for hours barefoot in
+the snow. The food supplied them was utterly inadequate. After one cup
+of coffee in the morning almost the only article of food given them was
+boiled frosted cabbage, with mush once a week and beans once a week. One
+member of the crew states that, without provocation, he was severely
+kicked in the abdomen by a German officer. He appears still to be
+suffering severely from this assault. Another sailor is still suffering
+from a wound caused by shrapnel fired by the Germans at an open boat in
+which he and his companions had taken refuge after the sinking of the
+_Georgic_.
+
+[Sidenote: Drowning preferred to German prison.]
+
+All of the men stated that their treatment had been so inhuman that
+should a submarine be sighted in the course of their voyage home they
+would prefer to be drowned rather than have any further experience in
+German prison camps.
+
+It is significant that the inhuman treatment accorded these American
+sailors occurred a month before the break in relations and while Germany
+was on every occasion professing the most cordial friendship for the
+United States.
+
+[Sidenote: Mr. Gerard is deprived of means of communication.]
+
+After the suspension of diplomatic relations the German authorities cut
+off the telephone at the embassy at Berlin and suppressed Mr. Gerard's
+communication by telegraph and post. Mr. Gerard was not even permitted
+to send to American Consular officers in Germany the instructions he had
+received for them from the Department of State. Neither was he allowed
+to receive his mail. Just before he left Berlin the telephonic
+communication at the embassy was restored and some telegrams and letters
+were delivered. No apologies were offered, however.
+
+[Sidenote: The German note to Mexico.]
+
+The Government of the United States is in possession of instructions
+addressed by the German Minister for Foreign Affairs to the German
+Minister to Mexico concerning a proposed alliance of Germany, Japan, and
+Mexico to make war on the United States. The text of this document is as
+follows:
+
+                                            "BERLIN, January 19, 1917.
+
+"On the 1st of February we intend to begin submarine warfare
+unrestricted. In spite of this it is our intention to endeavor to keep
+neutral the United States of America.
+
+[Sidenote: Basis of alliance proposed to Mexico.]
+
+"If this attempt is not successful, we propose an alliance on the
+following basis with Mexico: That we shall make war together and
+together make peace. We shall give general financial support, and it is
+understood that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in New Mexico,
+Texas, and Arizona. The details are left to you for settlement.
+
+[Sidenote: Japan to be included.]
+
+"You are instructed to inform the President of Mexico of the above in
+the greatest confidence as soon as it is certain there will be an
+outbreak of war with the United States, and suggest that the President
+of Mexico on his own initiative should communicate with Japan suggesting
+adherence at once to this plan; at the same time offer to mediate
+between Germany and Japan.
+
+"Please call to the attention of the President of Mexico that the
+employment of ruthless submarine warfare now promises to compel England
+to make peace in a few months.
+
+                                                "(Signed) ZIMMERMANN."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The United States was, to a large extent, unprepared for war on the
+outbreak of hostilities with Germany. But when the step finally was
+taken, all the industrial, economic, and military resources, of the
+country, were mobilized. An account of how this was accomplished and the
+results of these efforts are described in the pages following.
+
+
+
+
+PREPARING FOR WAR
+
+NEWTON D. BAKER
+
+SECRETARY OF WAR
+
+
+[Sidenote: State of war formally declared.]
+
+[Sidenote: Neutrality had delayed military preparations.]
+
+[Sidenote: Great armies necessary.]
+
+[Sidenote: Organization of finance, agriculture and industry.]
+
+On the 6th day of April Congress declared "That the state of war between
+the United States and the Imperial German Government which had been
+thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared." By this
+declaration and the proclamation of the President pursuant thereto, the
+United States entered the great conflict which had raged in Europe from
+August, 1914, as a belligerent power, and began immediately to prepare
+to defend the rights of the Nation, which for months had been endangered
+and denied by high-handed and inhuman acts of the German Government both
+on land and sea. The peaceful ambitions of our people had long postponed
+our entrance into the conflict; and adherence to a strict neutrality
+through long months of delicate situations delayed the beginning of
+active military preparation. At once, however, upon a declaration of a
+state of war, Congress began the consideration of the measures necessary
+for the enlargement of the military forces and the coordination of the
+industrial strength of the Nation. It was understood at the outset that
+war under modern conditions involved not only larger armies than the
+United States had ever assembled, but also more far-reaching
+modifications of our ordinary industrial processes and wider departures
+from the peace-time activities of the people. The task of the United
+States was not only immediately to increase its naval and military
+forces, not only to order the agricultural and industrial life of the
+Nation to support these enlarged military establishments, but also to
+bear an increasing financial, industrial, and agricultural burden for
+the support of those nations which, since 1914, have been in arms
+against the Imperial German Government and have borne not only the full
+force of the attack of its great military machine, but also the
+continuing drain upon their economic resources and their capacity for
+production which so titanic and long-continued a struggle necessarily
+entail.
+
+[Sidenote: The whole people wish to help.]
+
+[Sidenote: Benevolent and philanthropic societies.]
+
+The first response from the country to the act of Congress in declaring
+a state of war came in the form of offers of services from the people,
+and for weeks there poured into the War Department an almost bewildering
+stream of letters and visitors offering service of every kind. Without
+distinction of age, sex, or occupation, without distinction of
+geographical location or sectional difference, the people arose with but
+one thought in their mind, that of tendering themselves, their talents,
+and their substance for the best use the country could make of them in
+the emergency. Organizations and associations sprang up over night in
+thousands of places, inspired by the hope that collective offers and
+aggregations of strength and facilities might be more readily
+assimilated by the Government; and benevolent and philanthropic
+societies began to form for the purpose of taking up as far as might be
+the vicarious griefs which follow in the train of military operations.
+There was at the outset some inevitable crossing of purposes and
+duplication of effort, and perhaps there may have been some
+disappointment that a more instantaneous use could not be made of all
+this wealth of willingness and patriotic spirit; but it was a superb and
+inspiring spectacle. Out of the body of a nation devoted to productive
+and peaceful pursuits, and evidencing its collective spirit only upon
+occasions for the settlement of domestic and institutional questions,
+there arose the figure of a national spirit which had lain dormant until
+summoned by a national emergency; but which, when it emerged, was seen
+to embody loyalty to our institutions, unity of purpose, and willingness
+to sacrifice on the part of our entire people as their underlying and
+dominant character.
+
+[Sidenote: Great national strength in a free people.]
+
+Those who believed that the obvious and daily exhibition of power which
+takes place in an autocracy is necessary for national strength,
+discovered that a finer, and freer, and greater national strength
+subsists in a free people, and that the silent processes of democracy,
+with their normal accent on the freedom of individuals, nevertheless
+afford springs of collective action and inspiration for self-sacrifice
+as wide and effective as they are spontaneous. The several Government
+departments, the Council of National Defense, and other agencies of a
+more or less formal character subdivided the work of organization.
+Congress rapidly perfected its legislative program, and in a few weeks
+very definite direction began to appear in the work of preparation.
+
+[Sidenote: Act to increase Military Establishment.]
+
+The act of May 18, 1917, entitled "An act to authorize the President to
+increase temporarily the Military Establishment of the United States,"
+looked to three sources for the Army which it created:
+
+[Sidenote: Regular Army to be increased.]
+
+1. The regular Army, of which the actual strength on June 30, 1917, was
+250,157 men and officers. The provisions of the act, however,
+contemplated an increase of the Regular Army to 18,033 officers and
+470,185 enlisted men, the increase being effected by the immediate call
+of the increments provided in the National Defense Act of 1916, and the
+raising of all branches of the service to war strength.
+
+[Sidenote: National Guard to be reorganized.]
+
+2. The National Guard, reorganized under the National Defense Act, and
+containing on the 30th of June, 1917, approximately 3,803 officers and
+107,320 enlisted men. The National Guard, however, by recruiting of its
+numbers and the raising of all arms to war strength, contemplated a
+total of 13,377 officers and 456,800 enlisted men.
+
+[Sidenote: National Army to be raised by Selective Draft.]
+
+3. In addition to this, the act provided for a National Army, raised by
+the process of selective conscription or draft, of which the President
+was empowered to summon two units of 500,000 men each at such time as he
+should determine wise.
+
+[Sidenote: National Guard training camps.]
+
+On the 3d day of July, 1917, the President by proclamation called into
+the Federal service and drafted the National Guard of the several States
+and the District of Columbia. And 16 divisional camps were established
+for their mobilization and training, as follows:
+
+Charlotte, N. C.; Spartanburg, S. C.; Augusta, Ga.; Anniston, Ala.;
+Greenville, S. C.; Macon, Ga.; Waco, Tex.; Houston, Tex.; Deming, N.
+Mex.; Fort Sill, Okla.; Forth Worth, Tex.; Montgomery, Ala.;
+Hattiesburg, Miss.; Alexandria, La.; Buena Vista, Cal.; Palo Alto, Cal.
+
+[Sidenote: Voluntary enlistment in the Regular Army and National Guard.]
+
+[Sidenote: A spirit of cooperation.]
+
+The principle of voluntary enlistment to fill up the ranks of the
+Regular Army and the National Guard, and to raise them to war strength
+was preserved in the act of May 18, 1917, the maximum age for enlistment
+in both services being fixed at 40 years. Even before the passage of the
+act, however, very great recruiting activity was shown throughout the
+country, the total number of enlistments in the Regular Army for the
+fiscal year 1917 being 160,084. The record of National Guard enlistments
+has not yet been completely compiled, but the act authorizing a
+temporary increase in the military establishment provided that any
+deficiency remaining in either the Regular Army or the National Guard
+should be made up by selective conscription. The introduction of this
+new method of enlistment so far affected the whole question of selection
+for military service that any deductions, either favorable or
+unfavorable, from the number of voluntary enlistments, would be
+unwarranted. It is entirely just to say that the States generally showed
+a most sympathetic spirit of cooperation with the National Government,
+and the National Guard responded with zeal and enthusiasm to the
+President's call.
+
+[Sidenote: No exact precedent to follow.]
+
+[Sidenote: England finally resorted to draft.]
+
+[Sidenote: Organized industry back of armies.]
+
+In the preparation of the act providing for the temporary increase in
+the Military Establishment, very earnest consideration was given by the
+committees of the two Houses of Congress and by the Department to the
+principles which would be followed in creating a military establishment
+under modern conditions adequate for the tremendous emergency facing the
+Nation. Our own history and experience with the volunteer system
+afforded little precedent because of the new conditions, and the
+experience of European nations was neither uniform nor wholly adequate.
+Our adversary, the German Empire, had for many years followed the
+practice of universal compulsory military training and service, so that
+it was a nation of trained soldiers. In France the same situation had
+existed. In England, on the other hand, the volunteer system had
+continued, and the British army was relatively a small body. The
+urgency, however, of the British need at the outbreak of the war, and
+the unbroken traditions of England, were against even the delay
+necessary to consider the principle upon which action might best be
+taken, so that England's first effort was reduced to that volunteer
+system, and her subsequent resort to the draft was made after a long
+experience in raising vast numbers of men by volunteer enlistment as a
+result of campaigns of agitation and patriotic appeal. The war in
+Europe, however, had lasted long enough to make quite clear the
+character of the contest. It was obviously no such war as had ever
+before occurred, both in the vast numbers of men necessary to be engaged
+in strictly military occupations and in the elaborate and far-reaching
+organization of industrial and civil society of the Nation back of the
+Army.
+
+Our military legislation was drafted after very earnest consideration,
+to accomplish the following objects:
+
+1. To provide in successive bodies adequate numbers of men to be trained
+and used as combatant forces.
+
+2. To select for these armies men of suitable age and strength.
+
+[Sidenote: Universal obligation to service.]
+
+3. To distribute the burden of the military defense of the Nation in the
+most equitable and democratic manner, and to that end to recognize the
+universality of the obligation of service.
+
+[Sidenote: Necessary men to be kept in industry.]
+
+4. To reserve to the public authorities power so to control the
+selection of soldiers as to prevent the absorption of men indispensable
+to agriculture and industry, and to prevent the loss of national
+strength involved by the acceptance into military service of men whose
+greatest usefulness is in scientific pursuits or in production.
+
+5. To select, so far as may be, those men for military service whose
+families and domestic obligations could best bear their separation from
+home and dependents, and thus to cause the least possible distress among
+the families of the Nation which are dependent upon the daily earnings
+of husbands and fathers for their support.
+
+These considerations, shortly stated, amount to a policy which,
+recognizing the life of the nation as a whole, and assuming both the
+obligation and the willingness of the citizen to give the maximum of
+service, institutes a national process for the expression of our
+military, industrial, and financial strength, all at their highest, and
+with the least waste, loss, and distress.
+
+[Sidenote: Regular Army and National Guard increased.]
+
+The act of Congress authorizing the President to increase temporarily
+the Military Establishment of the United States, approved May 18, 1917,
+provided for the raising and maintaining by selective draft of
+increments (in addition to the Regular Army and National Guard) of
+500,000 men each, together with recruit training units for the
+maintenance of such increments at the maximum strength, and the raising,
+organizing, and maintaining of additional auxiliary forces, and also for
+raising and maintaining at their maximum strength, by selective draft
+when necessary, the Regular Army and the National Guard drafted into the
+service of the United States.
+
+[Sidenote: Male citizens between 21 and 30 years liable to military
+service.]
+
+It also provided that such draft "shall be based upon liability to
+military service of all male citizens, or male persons not alien
+enemies, who have declared their intention to become citizens, between
+the ages of 21 and 30 years, both inclusive"; that the several States,
+Territories, and the District of Columbia should furnish their
+proportionate shares or quotas of the citizen soldiery determined in
+proportion to the population thereof, with certain credits allowed for
+volunteer enlistments in branches of the service then organized and
+existing.
+
+The Nation was confronted with the task of constructing, without delay,
+an organization by which the selection might be made for the entire
+country by means of a uniform and regulated system.
+
+[Sidenote: The Provost Marshal General begins registration.]
+
+A suggestion of administration, incomplete because of entirely different
+conditions, arose from the precedent of the Civil War draft; and on May
+22, 1917, the Judge Advocate General was detailed as "Provost Marshal
+General" and charged with the execution, under the Secretary of War, of
+so much of the act of May 18 "as relates to the registration and the
+selective draft." Plans had already been formulated for the operation of
+the selective draft, and with the formal designation of the Provost
+Marshal General the work of organization began.
+
+[Sidenote: State organization utilized.]
+
+It was obvious that to build up a new Federal organization would require
+a greater period of time than was afforded by the military necessity.
+The existing governmental organizations of the several States presented
+an available substitute, and the statute authorized their use. This
+expedient was unprecedented, but its practice has abundantly justified
+its adoption.
+
+[Sidenote: State registration boards.]
+
+The immediate need was for a comprehensive registration of every male of
+draft age. To effect this registration each State was divided into
+districts containing a population of approximately 30,000, in each of
+which a registration board was appointed by the governor. Usually this
+board consisted of the sheriff, the county health officer, and the
+county clerk; and where the county's population, exclusive of cities of
+more than 30,000 inhabitants, exceeded that number, additional
+registration boards were appointed. Cities of over 30,000 were treated
+as separate units. The election district was established as the actual
+unit for registration in order that the normal election machinery might
+be utilized, and a registrar for every 800 of population in each voting
+or election precinct was appointed by the registration board. In cities
+approximating 30,000 of population, the registration board was made up
+of city officials, and where the population exceeded the unit number
+additional registration boards of three members were appointed, one a
+licensed physician.
+
+[Sidenote: The scheme of organization.]
+
+Governors and mayors were given considerable latitude in making
+geographical divisions of the States and cities for the purpose of
+defining registration jurisdictions; the only limitation being that
+approximately 30,000 inhabitants should be included within the confines
+of a district. The general scheme was that the board of three should
+exercise supervision over the precinct registrars, the governors
+supervising the work of the registration boards, while the mayors of
+cities containing 30,000 or more inhabitants acted as intermediaries
+between governors and registration boards. Each State was constituted a
+separate unit and each governor was charged with the execution of the
+law in his State.
+
+[Sidenote: Ten million young men register.]
+
+By proclamation of the President, dated May 18, 1917, Tuesday, June 5,
+1917, was designated as registration day throughout the United States,
+with the exception of Alaska, Hawaii, and Porto Rico; and, due to the
+fact that registration organization of the States had been so quickly
+and thoroughly completed, about 10,000,000 male citizens of the
+designated ages were registered on the day set, and the first step in
+the operation of the selective service law was accomplished.
+
+Registration consisted in entering on a card essential facts necessary
+to a complete identification of the registrant and a preliminary survey
+of his domestic and economic circumstances.
+
+[Sidenote: Citizens carry out registration.]
+
+It is noteworthy that this registration throughout the entire country
+was carried out in the main by the voluntary and energetic efforts of
+citizens, and the Government was thereby saved a very great expense
+through the efficient organization which had been constructed and
+furnished with all necessary materials during the short period of
+sixteen days.
+
+[Sidenote: Examination, selection, and mobilization.]
+
+[Sidenote: Representative citizens of each community employed.]
+
+With registration completed there followed the operation of examination,
+selection, and mobilization. The unit jurisdiction of approximately
+30,000 of population was maintained as far as possible, and for each
+district or division a local board of three members was appointed by the
+President upon the recommendation of the governor. The board members
+were residents of the districts they served, and the personnel comprised
+representative and responsible citizens of the community, including
+usually a licensed physician. In many cases registration boards were
+reappointed local boards. Such boards exercised original jurisdiction in
+all cases except claims for discharge on account of engagement in
+industry or agriculture.
+
+In every Federal judicial district one or more district boards were
+organized, consisting usually of five but in some cases of a larger
+number of members, comprising leading citizens of the community and
+appointed by the President upon the recommendation of the governor.
+District boards exercised appellate jurisdiction over local boards and
+original jurisdiction in industrial and agricultural claims.
+
+[Sidenote: The order of liability of registrants.]
+
+[Sidenote: Numbered cards.]
+
+[Sidenote: The drawing in Washington on July 20, 1917.]
+
+The initial step in the process of examination and selection was to
+establish the order of liability of each of the 10,000,000 registrants
+to be called for service. The cards within the jurisdiction of each
+local board, taken as a unit, had been serially numbered when completed
+and filed; and duplicates of the cards so numbered were deposited with
+the governor and with the district boards. The average number of
+registrants within the jurisdiction of a local board was about 2,500,
+the highest being 10,319. In order to establish the order of liability
+of each registrant in relation to the other registrants within the
+jurisdiction of the same local board, a drawing was held July 20, 1917,
+in the Public Hearing Room of the Senate Office Building in Washington,
+as a result of which every registrant was given an order number and his
+liability to be called for examination and selection determined by the
+order number.
+
+The official lists of the numbers drawn by lot were furnished to every
+local board and from these lists the boards made up the availability
+order list of all registrants within their respective jurisdictions.
+
+[Sidenote: Physical examination and elimination.]
+
+The determination of the order of availability left only the process of
+physical examination and elimination. The War Department, through the
+Provost Marshal General's Office, had already determined and given
+notice of the number of men to be furnished by each State, and at the
+date of the drawing practically every State had ascertained and notified
+its local boards of the number required to complete their respective
+quotas for the first draft. The calculations of the War Department and
+of the States for the quotas were based upon section 2 of the act of May
+18.
+
+Immediately upon the completion of the order of call lists, the local
+boards began to summon for physical examination, beginning with the man
+who was No. 1 on the list, and continuing in numerical sequence, a
+sufficient number of registrants to fill their quotas. The average
+number summoned for the first examination was about twice the number
+required--i. e., if a board's quota was 105, the first 210 registrants
+of that jurisdiction were called for physical examination.
+
+[Sidenote: Certain officials and classes exempted.]
+
+The Selective Service Law required certain persons to be exempted from
+military service, including Federal and State legislative, executive,
+and judicial officers, ministers of religion, students of divinity,
+persons in the military or naval service of the United States, and
+certain aliens. The law further authorized the discharge from draft,
+under such regulations as the President might prescribe, of county and
+municipal officers, customhouse clerks and other persons employed by the
+United States in certain classes of work, pilots and mariners, and,
+within prescribed limitations, registrants in a status with respect to
+persons dependent upon them for support, and persons found physically or
+morally unfit. Exemption from combatant service only was authorized in
+the case of persons found to be members of any well-recognized religious
+sect or organization whose existing creed or principles forbid its
+members to participate in war in any form, and whose religious
+convictions are against war or participation therein.
+
+[Sidenote: Rules governing discharges.]
+
+On June 30, 1917, the President promulgated rules and regulations as
+authorized by the law prescribing the reasons for and manner of granting
+discharges, and the procedure of local and district boards.
+
+The selective service system required the 4,557 local boards to conduct
+the physical examination of registrants within their jurisdictions, and
+to determine and dispose of claims of exemption and discharge in the
+first instance, excepting industrial and agricultural claims.
+
+[Sidenote: The power of the district boards.]
+
+The 156 district boards which were established as above stated, proved
+to be the fulcrum of balance between the local boards and the
+registrants. In practically every instance their members have been
+chosen from among the most able and conspicuous representatives of the
+legal and medical professions, and from the fields of industry,
+commerce, and labor.
+
+[Sidenote: Appeal agents appointed.]
+
+By regulation the case of every person discharged from the operation of
+the selective service law by a local board on the ground of dependency
+was automatically taken to the district board for review, the appeal
+being noted by Government appeal agents appointed by the Provost Marshal
+General.
+
+[Sidenote: Dependency cases the most difficult.]
+
+Registrants whose claims were disallowed by local boards appealed in
+large numbers to district boards. Thus was obtained a high degree of
+uniformity of decisions in dependency cases, which were by far the most
+difficult of determination and disposition, as well as the most
+numerous, of the classes of cases throughout the first draft.
+
+Cases involving claims for discharge on agricultural and industrial
+grounds, of which district boards have original jurisdiction, are
+appealable to the President, and to date approximately 20,000 of these
+have been received and indexed, of which about 80 per cent are claims
+for discharge based on agricultural grounds and 20 per cent on
+industrial grounds. Of cases already disposed of on appeal from the
+district boards less than 7 per cent have been reversed. The pending of
+an appeal to the President does not operate as a stay of induction into
+military service except where the district board has expressly so
+directed, and the number of such stays is negligible.
+
+[Sidenote: The total cost of the draft.]
+
+The total cost of the draft can not be estimated accurately at this
+time, but, based upon the data at hand, the total registration and
+selection of the first 687,000 men has amounted to an approximate
+expenditure of $5,600,000, or about $8.11 unit cost.
+
+[Sidenote: Universal willingness to serve.]
+
+[Sidenote: High quality of men obtained.]
+
+The unprecedented character of this undertaking is a matter of common
+knowledge. Congress, in the consideration of the act which authorized
+it, entertained grave doubts as to whether a plan could be devised which
+would apply so new a principle of selection for national service without
+much misunderstanding and unhappiness. But the results have been of a
+most inspiring kind and have demonstrated the universal willingness of
+our people to serve in the defense of our liberties and to commit the
+selection of the Nation's defenders to the Nation itself. The men
+selected have reported to the camps and are in course of training. They
+constitute as fine a body of raw material as were ever trained in
+military science. They are already acquiring the smartness and soldierly
+bearing characteristic of American troops, and those who once thought
+that the volunteer spirit was necessary to insure contentment and zeal
+in soldiers now freely admit that the men selected under this act have
+these qualities in high degree and that it proceeds out of a patriotic
+willingness on the part of the men to bear their part of the national
+burden and to do their duty at the Nation's call.
+
+[Sidenote: Ability of Provost Marshal General.]
+
+[Sidenote: This mode of selection made necessary by conditions of modern
+war.]
+
+[Sidenote: The democratic fairness of the plan.]
+
+The success of this great undertaking is, of course, primarily due to
+the painstaking forethought and the statesmanlike breadth of view with
+which the Provost Marshal General and his associates organized the
+machinery for its execution. But other elements have contributed to its
+success, and first among these was the determination to rely upon the
+cooperation of the governors of States and State agencies in the
+assembling of the registration and exemption boards. By reason of this
+association of State and local agencies with the National Government the
+law came as no outside mandate enforced by soldiers, but as a working
+of the home institutions in the hands of neighbors and acquaintances
+pursuing a clear process of selection, and resulting in a gift by the
+States to the Nation of a body of men to be trained. The press of the
+country cooperated in a most helpful way, drawing the obvious
+distinctions between this mode of selection and those punitive drafts
+which have sometimes been resorted to after the failure of volunteering,
+and pointing out the young men of the country that the changed
+conditions of warfare made necessary a mode of selection which would
+preserve the industrial life of the Nation as a foundation for
+successful military operations. Indeed, the country seemed generally to
+have caught enough of the lessons of the European war to have realized
+the necessity of this procedure, and from the very beginning criticism
+was silenced and doubt answered by the obvious wisdom of the law.
+Moreover, the unquestioned fairness of the arrangements, the absence of
+all power of substitution, the fact that the processes of the law were
+worked out publicly, all cooperated to surround the draft with
+assurances of fairness and equality, so that throughout the whole
+country the attitude of the people toward the law was one of approval
+and confidence, and I feel very sure that those who at the beginning had
+any doubts would now with one accord agree that the selective service
+act provides not only a necessary mode of selecting the great armies
+needed under modern conditions, but that it provides a better and more
+democratic and a fairer method of distributing the burden of national
+defense than any other system as yet suggested.
+
+[Sidenote: Fundamental questions settled.]
+
+[Sidenote: Unity of spirit of American people.]
+
+This does not mean, of course, that the law is perfect either in its
+language or in its execution, nor does it mean that improvements may not
+be made as our experience grows and as the need for more intense
+national efforts increases; but such amendments as may hereafter be
+required will proceed with the fundamental questions settled and we have
+now only to consider changes which may be required to a better ordering
+of our military strength and a more efficient maintenance of our
+industrial and agricultural life during the stress of war. The passage
+and execution of this law may be regarded as a milestone in our progress
+toward self-consciousness and national strength. Its acceptance shows
+the unity of spirit of our people, and its operation shows that a
+democracy has in its institutions the concentrated energy necessary to
+great national activities however much they may be scattered and
+dispersed, in the interest of the preservation of individual liberty, in
+time of peace.
+
+[Sidenote: The Officer's Reserve Corps.]
+
+[Sidenote: Physicians commissioned in the Medical Department.]
+
+[Sidenote: Men from the Plattsburg training camps.]
+
+The problem presented involved not merely the selection of forces to be
+trained into armies but officers to do the training. By the provisions
+of the national defense act of June 3, 1916, Officers' Reserve Corps had
+been authorized. Rules and regulations for their organization were
+promulgated in July, 1916, and amended in March, 1917. Immediately upon
+the passage of the act, the building up of lists of reserve officers in
+the various sections of the Military Establishment was undertaken, with
+the result that at the end of the fiscal year some of the branches of
+the service had substantial lists of men available for duty in the event
+of call. The largest number of commissions were issued in the technical
+services, for which professional nonmilitary training was the principal
+requisite. The largest reserve corps was that in the Medical Department,
+in which more than 12,000 physicians were commissioned. The expansion of
+these technical services proceeded easily upon the basis of the reserve
+corps beginning, but the number of applicants for commissions in the
+strictly military or combatant branches of the service was relatively
+small. They consisted of men who had had military experience either in
+the Regular Army or the National Guard, and men who were graduates of
+schools and colleges affording military training, and of the training
+camps which for several years had been maintained at Plattsburg and
+throughout the country. Their number, however, was wholly inadequate,
+and their experience, while it had afforded the elements of military
+discipline, had not been such as was plainly required to train men for
+participation in the European war with its changed methods and
+conditions. The virtue of the law authorizing the Officers' Reserve
+Corps, however, became instantly apparent upon the declaration of war,
+as it enabled the department to establish officers' training camps for
+the rapid production of officers.
+
+[Sidenote: A series of officers training camps.]
+
+[Sidenote: Officers commissioned.]
+
+Accepting the Plattsburg experiment as the basis and using funds
+appropriated by Congress for an enlargement of the Plattsburg system of
+training, the department established a series of training camps, sixteen
+in number, which were opened on the 15th of May, 1917. The camps were
+scattered throughout the United States so as to afford the opportunity
+of entrance and training with the least inconvenience and expense of
+travel to prepare throughout the entire country. Officers previously
+commissioned in the reserve corps were required to attend the camps,
+and, in addition, approximately 30,000 selected candidates were accepted
+from among the much greater number who applied for admission. These
+camps were organized and conducted under the supervision of department
+commanders; applicants were required to state their qualifications and a
+rough apportionment was attempted among the candidates to the several
+States. At the conclusion of the camp, 27,341 officers were
+commissioned and directed to report at the places selected for the
+training of the new army. By this process, we supplied not only the
+officers needed for the National Army but filled the roster of the
+Regular Army, to which substantial additions were necessary by reason of
+the addition of the full number of increments provided by the National
+Defense Act of 1916.
+
+[Sidenote: The second series of officers' training camps.]
+
+[Sidenote: Officers needed also for staff duties.]
+
+[Sidenote: Constant experimentation necessary.]
+
+[Sidenote: Victory rests on science as much as on soldiers.]
+
+The results of the first series of camps were most satisfactory and,
+anticipating the calling of further increments of the National Army, a
+second series of camps was authorized, to begin August 27, 1917, under
+rules for the selection of candidates and their apportionment throughout
+the country which were much more searching and embodied those
+improvements which are always possible in the light of experience.
+Approximately 20,000 candidates are now attending this second series of
+camps, and those found qualified will shortly be commissioned and
+absorbed into the Army for the performance of the expanding volume of
+duties which the progress of preparation daily brings about. It is to be
+remembered that the need for officers exists not only in connection with
+the actual training of troops in camp and the leadership of troops in
+the field, but a vast number of officers must constantly be employed in
+staff duties, and great numbers must as constantly be engaged in
+military research and in specialized forms of training associated with
+the use of newly developed arms and appliances. In other words, we must
+maintain not merely the special-service schools which are required to
+perfect the training of officers in the special arms of the service, but
+we must constantly experiment with new devices and reduce to practical
+use the discoveries of science and the new applications of mechanical
+and scientific arts, both for offensive and defensive purposes. It
+would be out of place here to enumerate or describe in any detail the
+service of science in this war, but when the history of the struggle
+comes to be written it will be found that the masters of the chemical
+and physical sciences have thrown their talents and their ingenuity into
+the service, that their researches have been at the very basis of
+military progress, and that the victory rests as much upon a nation's
+supremacy in the researches and adaptations of science as it does upon
+the number and valor of its soldiers. Indeed, this is but one of the
+many evidences of the fact that modern war engages all of the resources
+of nations and that that nation will emerge victorious which has most
+completely used and coordinated all the intellectual, moral, and
+physical forces of its people.
+
+[Sidenote: Fundamentals of military discipline do not change.]
+
+[Sidenote: Professional soldiers still needed.]
+
+It would be a national loss for me to fail to record in this place a
+just estimate of the value to the Nation of these training camps for
+officers. They disclosed an unsuspected source of military strength.
+Nobody will suppose that, with the growing intricacy of military science
+and the industrial arts related to it, a country can dispense with
+trained professional soldiers. The fundamentals of military discipline
+remain substantially unchanged and, in order that we may assemble
+rapidly and effectively adequate military forces, there must always be
+in the country a body of men to whom the life of a soldier is a career
+and who have acquired from their youth those qualities which have, from
+the beginning, distinguished the graduates of the Military Academy at
+West Point: the disciplined honor, the unfaltering courage, the
+comprehension of sacrifice, and that knowing obedience which proceeds
+from constant demonstrations of the fact that effective cooperation in
+war requires instant compliance with the command of authority, the sort
+of obedience which knows that a battle field is no place for a
+parliament. Added to these mental and moral qualities, the body of
+professional soldiers must devote themselves unremittingly to the
+development of the arts of war, and when the emergency arises must be
+familiar with the uses of science and the applications of industry in
+military enterprise. But these training camps have taught us that, given
+this relatively small body of professional soldiers, the Nation has at
+hand an apparently inexhaustible body of splendid material which can be
+rapidly made to supplement the professional soldier.
+
+[Sidenote: Athletes from the colleges.]
+
+[Sidenote: Adaptability of American youth.]
+
+[Sidenote: Atmosphere of industrial and commercial democracy.]
+
+[Sidenote: Many officers assigned to training of troops from their
+homes.]
+
+When the first camp was opened, the colleges, military schools, and high
+schools of the country poured out a stream of young men whose minds had
+been trained in the classroom and whose bodies had been made supple and
+virile on the athletic field. They came with intelligence, energy, and
+enthusiasm and, under a course of intensive training, rapidly took on
+the added discipline and capacities necessary to equip them for the
+duties of officers. They have taken their places in the training camps
+and are daily demonstrating the value of their education and the
+adaptability of the spirit of American youth. A more salutary result
+would be impossible to imagine. The trained professional soldiers of the
+Army received this great body of youthful enthusiasm and capacity with
+hospitality and quickly impressed upon it a soldierly character. The
+young men brought to their training habits which they had formed for
+success as civilians, but which their patriotic enthusiasm rendered
+easily available in new lines of endeavor for the service of the
+country. They brought, too, another element of great value. They were
+assembled from all parts of the country; they were accustomed to the
+democracy of the college and high school; they recognized themselves as
+new and temporary adventurers in a military life; and they, therefore,
+reflected into our military preparation the fresh and invigorating
+atmosphere of our industrial and commercial democracy. This has
+undoubtedly contributed to the establishment of a happy spirit which
+prevails throughout the Army and has made it easy for the young men
+chosen under the selective service act to fall in with the training and
+mode of life which the military training camp requires. An effort was
+made by the department as far as possible to assign these young officers
+to the training of troops assembled from their own homes. By this means,
+a preexisting sympathy was used, and admiration and respect between
+officer and man was transferred from the home to the camp.
+
+[Sidenote: The three divisions of the Army.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enlistments may be for the period of the war.]
+
+[Sidenote: Men anxious to get to France soon.]
+
+[Sidenote: Traditions of military organizations preserved.]
+
+The three divisions of the Army, namely, the Regular Army, the National
+Guard, and the National Army, were very different organizations as we
+contemplated them at the time of the passage of the act for the
+temporary increase of the Military Establishment. The Regular Army was a
+veteran establishment of professional soldiers; the National Guard a
+volunteer organization of local origin maintained primarily for the
+preservation of domestic order in the several States, with an emergency
+duty toward the national defense; the National Army an unknown quantity,
+made up of men to be selected arbitrarily by tests and rules as yet to
+be formulated, unorganized, untrained, existing only in theory and,
+therefore, problematical as to its spirit and the length of time
+necessary to fit it for use. Congress, however, most wisely provided as
+far as possible for an elimination of these differences. Enlistments in
+the Regular Army and National Guard were authorized to be made for the
+period of the war rather than for fixed terms; the maximum and minimum
+ages of enlistment in the Regular Army and National Guard were
+assimilated; the rights and privileges of members of the three forces
+were made largely identical. Indeed, the act created but one army,
+selected by three processes. The wisdom of Congress in this course
+became instantly apparent. Spirited young men throughout the country
+began at once to enlist in the Regular Army and National Guard who might
+have been deterred from such enlistment had their obligation been for a
+fixed period rather than for the duration of the war. Many men asked
+themselves but one question: "By which avenue of service will I earliest
+get to France?" The men in the National Army soon caught this spirit
+and, while the department is endeavoring to preserve as far as possible
+in the National Guard and the National Army those intimacies which
+belong to men who come from the same city or town, and to preserve the
+honorable traditions of military organizations which have histories of
+service to the country in other wars, the fact still remains that the
+army is rapidly becoming the army of the United States, with the sense
+of origin from a particular State, or association with a particular
+neighborhood, more and more submerged by the rising sense of national
+service and national identity.
+
+[Sidenote: Sites selected for cantonments.]
+
+[Sidenote: Sixteen divisional cantonments.]
+
+[Sidenote: Emergency construction division established.]
+
+I have described above the process of the execution of the selective
+service law. The preparation of places for the training of the recruits
+thus brought into the service was a task of unparalleled magnitude. On
+the 7th of May, 1917, the commanding generals of the several departments
+were directed to select sites for the construction of cantonments for
+the training of the mobilized National Guard and the National Army. The
+original intention was the construction of 32 cantonments. The
+appropriations made by Congress for this purpose were soon seen to be
+insufficient, and further study of the problem seemed to show that it
+would be unwise so seriously to engage the resources of the country,
+particularly in view of the fact that the National Guard was ready to be
+mobilized, that its training by reason of service on the Mexican border
+was substantial, and that its early use abroad in conjunction with the
+Regular Army would render permanent camps less important. The number
+was, therefore, cut to 16 divisional cantonments, and the National Guard
+was mobilized in camps for the most part under canvas, with only certain
+divisional storehouses and quarters for special uses constructed of
+wood. Because of the open weather during the winter months, the National
+Guard camps were located in the southern States. The National Army
+cantonments were located within the lines of the military division. A
+special division of the Quartermaster General's Department was
+established, known as the emergency construction division, and to it was
+given the task of erecting the cantonment buildings and such buildings
+as should be necessary for the National Guard.
+
+On May 17, 1917, Col. I. W. Littell, of the Regular Army, was detailed
+to assemble and direct an organization to be known as the cantonment
+division of the Quartermaster Corps, whose duties were to consist of
+providing quarters and camps for the training and housing of the New
+National Army, which was to be selected by conscription as provided in
+the act of Congress dated May 18, 1917.
+
+Able assistance was rendered by the following members of the committee
+on emergency construction and contracts, a subcommittee of the
+Munitions Board of the Council of National Defense:
+
+Major W. A. Starrett, chairman; Major William Kelly; C. M. Lundoff; M.
+C. Tuttle; F. L. Olmsted; J. B. Talmadge, secretary.
+
+[Sidenote: Specialists in purchasing and constructing secured.]
+
+Inquiries were immediately made and all available means used by
+telegraph, correspondence, and consultation to get in touch with the
+ablest constructors, engineers, draftsmen, purchasing agents, and other
+specialists of broad experience in their respective vocations from which
+an efficient and experienced organization could be selected.
+
+All of those selected who became attached to the organization in an
+official capacity gave up responsible and remunerative positions to give
+the Government the benefit of their services. They all being over the
+draft-age limit and representative technical men of repute and standing
+in their community, a splendid precedent of patriotism was established.
+
+The assembling of an organization and the planning and execution of the
+work was undertaken with a view of accomplishing all that human
+ingenuity, engineering, and constructing skill could devise in the brief
+time available.
+
+[Sidenote: The plans formulated.]
+
+[Sidenote: Magnitude of the task.]
+
+Plans were formulated by engineers, architects, and town planners who
+had given much thought to the particular problems involved. Camp sites
+comprising from 2,000 to 11,000 acres each were selected by a board of
+Army officers under the direction of the department commanders. Names of
+responsible contracting firms were secured and every effort made to
+perfect an organization competent to carry out the work of completing
+the camps at the earliest possible moment. The magnitude of assembling
+an organization for carrying on the work and securing the labor and
+materials therefor can in some measure be realized by reference to the
+following table, showing quantities of the principal materials
+estimated to be used in the construction of the National Army
+cantonments.
+
+[Sidenote: Approximate quantities of materials.]
+
+The approximate quantities of principal materials used in the
+construction of the various National Army camps are shown in the
+following tables. This does not include National Guard, embarkation, or
+training camps.
+
+                                         Quantity.
+        Lumber (feet b. m.)             450,000,000
+        Roofing paper (square feet)      76,000,000
+        Doors                               140,000
+        Window sash                         700,000
+        Wall board (square feet)         29,500,000
+        Shower heads                         40,000
+        Water-closet bowls                   54,000
+        Tank heaters and tanks               11,000
+        Heating boilers                       1,800
+        Radiation (square feet)           4,200,000
+        Cannon stoves                        20,000
+        Room heaters                         20,000
+        Kitchen stoves and ranges            10,000
+        Wood pipe for water supply (feet) 1,000,000
+        Cast-iron supply pipe (feet)        470,000
+        Wire, all kinds and sizes (miles)     5,500
+        Wood tanks (aggregate capacity)   8,300,000
+        Hose carts                              600
+        Fire engines                             90
+        Fire extinguishers                    4,700
+        Fire hose (feet)                    392,500
+        Fire hydrants                         3,600
+        Hand-pump tanks                      12,700
+        Fire pails                          163,000
+        Cots                                721,000
+
+Sixteen National Army camps were constructed in various parts of the
+United States at points selected by the War Department. The camps were
+carefully laid out by experienced town planners and engineers to give
+best results considering all viewpoints.
+
+[Sidenote: Extent of a typical National Army cantonment.]
+
+[Sidenote: Roads constructed and improvements installed.]
+
+A typical cantonment city will house 40,000 men. Each barrack building
+will house 150 men and provide 500 cubic feet of air space per man. Such
+a cantonment complete contains between 1,000 and 1,200 buildings and
+covers about 2,000 acres. In addition, each cantonment has a rifle
+range, drill, parade, and maneuver grounds of about 2,000 acres. In many
+cases all or a large part of the entire site had to be cleared of woods
+and stumps. The various military units were located on principal or
+primary roads--a regiment being treated as a primary unit. About 25
+miles of roads were constructed at each cantonment, and sewers, water
+supply, lighting facilities, and other improvements installed.
+
+[Sidenote: The special buildings required.]
+
+An infantry regiment requires 22 barrack buildings, 6 for officers'
+quarters, 2 storehouses, 1 infirmary building, 28 lavatories, with hot
+and cold shower baths, or a total of 59 buildings. In addition to the
+buildings necessary for the regimental units, each cantonment has
+buildings for divisional headquarters, quartermaster depots, laundry
+receiving and distributing stations, base hospitals having 1,000 beds,
+post exchanges, and other buildings for general use.
+
+[Sidenote: Remount stations.]
+
+At several of the cantonments remount stations have been provided, some
+of them having a capacity to maintain 12,000 horses.
+
+[Sidenote: Other necessary camps.]
+
+In addition to the National Army camps, plans were made for the
+construction of 16 National Guard, two embarkation and one quartermaster
+training camp, but the construction of these items did not involve so
+large an expenditure as the National Army camps, as provision was made
+for fewer units and only tentage quarters for the men in the National
+Guard camps was provided. Modern storehouses, kitchens, mess shelters,
+lavatories, shower baths, base hospitals, and remount depots were
+built, and water, sewerage, heating, and light systems installed at an
+expenditure of about $1,900,000 for each camp.
+
+[Sidenote: The demand for construction and supplies.]
+
+[Sidenote: Savings effected by standardization.]
+
+With the advent of the United States into the war, there has appeared
+not only one of the world's greatest builders, but the world's greatest
+customer for supplies and human necessaries. We have not only to equip,
+house, and supply our own army, but meet the demands arising from the
+drainage of the resources of the entente allies. Small shopping and
+bargaining are out of the question. Enormous savings were, however,
+effected, due to the fact that materials were purchased in large
+quantities and consequently at a much reduced price. Standardization of
+sizes saved from $5 to $6 per thousand feet b. m. on lumber, and a
+further saving of from $3 to $11 over prevailing prices was effected by
+the lumber subcommittee of the Council of National Defense. The Raw
+Materials Committee effected similar savings in prepared roofing, nails,
+and other construction materials. The lead subcommittee procured 500
+tons of lead for caulking pipe at 3 cents less than market price. When
+it is considered that this construction work is, next to the Panama
+Canal, the largest ever undertaken by the United States, the country is
+to be congratulated on having available the men and materials to
+accomplish the feat of providing for the maintenance of the newly
+organized army in so short a period.
+
+[Sidenote: Extensive construction work for National Army.]
+
+I have described at length the work of building necessary for the
+National Army camps, but at the same time extensive building was
+necessary at the 16 sites selected for the mobilization and training of
+the National Guard. While the National Guard troops were themselves
+quartered under canvas, many wooden buildings and storehouses had to be
+constructed for their use and, of course, the important problems of
+water supply, sewage, and hospital accommodations required substantially
+as much provision upon these subjects as upon those selected for the
+National Army.
+
+[Sidenote: Labor assembled from great distances.]
+
+[Sidenote: The assistance rendered by Mr. Gompers.]
+
+At the very outset of this hurried and vast program, it became apparent
+that labor would have to be assembled from great distances, and in
+wholly unaccustomed numbers, that the laboring men would be required to
+separate themselves from home and family and to live under unusual and
+less comfortable circumstances than was their habit. It was also clear
+that no interruption or stoppage of the work could be permitted. I
+therefore took up with Mr. Samuel Gompers, President of the American
+Federation of Labor, the question of a general agreement which would
+cover all trades to be employed in assuring continuity of work, provide
+just conditions of pay, recognize the inequalities which exist
+throughout the country, and yet avoid controversy as between the
+contractor and his employees, which, wherever the justice of the dispute
+might lie, could have only a prejudicial effect upon the interests of
+the Government, by delaying the progress necessary to be made. Mr.
+Gompers and those associated with him in the building trades promptly
+and loyally entered into a consideration of the whole subject, with the
+result that the following agreement was made:
+
+[Sidenote: Commission for labor adjustment.]
+
+                                     "WASHINGTON, D. C., June 19, 1917.
+
+"For the adjustment and control of wages, hours, and conditions of labor
+in the construction of cantonments, there shall be created an adjustment
+commission of three persons, appointed by the Secretary of War; one to
+represent the Army, one the public, and one labor; the last to be
+nominated by Samuel Gompers, member of the Advisory Commission of the
+Council of National Defense, and President of the American Federation of
+Labor.
+
+[Sidenote: Consideration given to scales in locality.]
+
+"As basic standards with reference to each cantonment, such commission
+shall use the main scales of wages, hours, and conditions in force on
+June 1, 1917, in the locality where such cantonment is situated.
+Consideration shall be given to special circumstances, if any arising
+after said date which may require particular advances in wages or
+changes in other standards. Adjustments of wages, hours, or conditions
+made by such board are to be treated as binding by all parties."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Labor difficulties easily adjusted.]
+
+[Sidenote: Early completion of cantonments.]
+
+The contractors throughout the country were notified of the existence of
+this agreement and of the determination of the Government to carry it
+out faithfully. The scope of the agreement was subsequently enlarged so
+as to include other emergency construction done by the War Department,
+and a board of adjustment was appointed which, at the beginning,
+consisted of General E. A. Garlington, formerly General Inspector of the
+Army, Mr. Walter Lippmann, and Mr. John R. Alpine, to whom all
+complaints were referred, and by whom all investigations and
+determinations in enforcement of the agreement were made. The personnel
+of this board was subsequently changed, and its activities associated
+with a similar board appointed by the concurrent action of the Secretary
+of the Navy and Mr. Gompers, but I need here refer only to the fact
+that, by the device of this agreement, and through the instrumentality
+of this board, labor difficulties and disputes were easily adjusted, and
+the program of building has gone rapidly forward, with here and there
+incidental delays due sometimes to delay in material, sometimes to
+difficulties of the site, and doubtless to other incidental failures of
+coordination, but in the main, the work has been thoroughly successful.
+When its magnitude is appreciated, the draft it made upon the labor
+market of the country, the speed with which it was accomplished, and the
+necessity of assembling not only materials but men from practically all
+over the country, it seems not too much to say that the work is out of
+all proportion larger than any similar work ever undertaken in the
+country, and that its completion substantially on time, is an evidence
+of efficiency both on the part of those officers of the Government
+charged with responsibility for the task and the contractors and men of
+the trades and crafts employed to carry on the work.
+
+[Sidenote: Camps for training military engineers.]
+
+This great division of the War Department in times of peace devotes the
+major part of its energy to works of internal improvements and to the
+supervision of, improvement, and maintenance of navigable waters; but in
+time of war it immediately becomes a fundamental part of the Military
+Establishment. It was, therefore, called upon not only to render
+assistance of an engineering kind in the establishment of training
+camps, but had to establish camps for the rapid training in military
+engineering of large additions to its own personnel, and to undertake
+the rapid mobilization and training of additional engineer troops, of
+which at the beginning of the war there were but two regiments.
+
+[Sidenote: Importance of railroad transportation in war.]
+
+[Sidenote: Regiments of engineers sent to France.]
+
+One of the earliest opportunities for actual assistance to the countries
+associated with us in this war was presented to this department. In the
+war against Germany transportation, and particularly railroad
+transportation, is of the utmost importance. It was easily foreseen that
+our own army in France would require large railroad facilities both in
+the operation of permanent railroads for the handling of our equipment
+and supplies and in the construction and operation of temporary roads
+behind our Army. In the meantime regiments of engineer troops, if
+speedily organized and dispatched to Europe, could both render valuable
+assistance to the British and French Armies and acquire the training and
+experience which would make them valuable at a later stage to us.
+Accordingly nine such regiments were organized and have for some months
+been rendering active and important service along the actual battle
+front. In addition to these, a tenth regiment, composed of men skilled
+in forestry and lumbering, was organized and sent abroad, and is now
+operating in a foreign forest cutting out lumber supplies for the use of
+our associates and ourselves.
+
+[Sidenote: Arrangements to operate our own railways in France.]
+
+[Sidenote: Creation of entire transportation system.]
+
+Concurrently with the formation of these special engineer troops the
+department undertook the collection of material for the establishment
+and operation of our own lines of supply abroad. The railways of France
+have been maintained in a state of high efficiency by the French people,
+and they are performing the tremendous transportation task imposed upon
+them by the French and English military operations with complete
+success; but in order not to impose a burden which they were not
+designed to meet, by asking them to expand to the accommodation of our
+services, it has been found necessary for us ourselves to undertake the
+accumulation of railroad material for our own use in the theater of war.
+This work is on a large and comprehensive scale. Any detailed
+description of it would be inappropriate at this time, but it involves
+the creation of entire transportation systems and the actual
+construction and operation of railroads with the elaborate terminal
+facilities needed for the rapid unloading and dispatch of supplies,
+equipment, and troops.
+
+[Sidenote: The Quartermaster General's problem.]
+
+[Sidenote: Vast equipment needed.]
+
+[Sidenote: Intensive production of food and clothing.]
+
+[Sidenote: Associated nations must be supplied.]
+
+[Sidenote: Emergency appropriation.]
+
+[Sidenote: Great extent of purchases.]
+
+The problem facing the Quartermaster General has been serious. For the
+small Regular Army of the United States a well-defined and adequate
+supply system had been created. It was large enough and flexible enough
+to permit us to make gradual accumulations of reserve as Congress from
+time to time provided the necessary money; but when the mobilization of
+the National Guard on the Mexican frontier took place, such reserves as
+we had were rapidly consumed, and the maintenance of the military
+establishment on the border required an increase which quite equaled the
+entire capacity of those industries ordinarily devoting themselves to
+the production of military supplies. When the present enlarged military
+establishment was authorized it involved an enlarged Regular Army, an
+enlarged National Guard and the new National Army, thus bringing upon us
+the problem of immediate supply with adequate reserves for an Army of
+2,000,000 men; and these men were not to be stationed about in Army
+posts, but mobilized into great camps under conditions which necessarily
+increased the wear and tear upon clothing and equipment, and
+correspondingly increased the reserves needed to keep up the supply. In
+addition to this these troops were assembled for overseas use, and it
+therefore became necessary to accumulate in France vast stores of
+clothing and equipment in order to have the Army free from dependence,
+by too narrow a margin, upon ocean transportation with its inevitable
+delays. As a consequence the supply needs of the department were vastly
+greater than the capacity of the industrial organization and facilities
+normally devoted to their production, and the problem presented was to
+divert workshops and factories from their peace-time output into the
+intensive production of clothing and equipment for the Army. Due
+consideration had to be given to the maintenance of the industrial
+balance of the country. Industries already devoted to the manufacture of
+supplies for the nations associated with us in the war had to be
+conserved to that useful purpose. Perhaps some aid to the imagination
+can be gotten from the fact that 2,000,000 men constitute about
+one-fiftieth of the entire population of the United States. Supply
+departments were, therefore, called upon to provide clothing, equipment,
+and maintenance for about one-fiftieth of our entire people, and this in
+articles of uniform and of standardized kinds. The great appropriations
+made by Congress tell the story from the financial point of view. In
+1917 the normal appropriation for the Quartermaster Department was
+$186,305,000. The emergency appropriation for this department for the
+year 1918 was $3,000,000,000; a sum greater than the normal annual
+appropriation for the entire expenses of the Federal Government on all
+accounts. Another illustration can be drawn from the mere numbers of
+some familiar articles. Thus of shoes more than 20,000,000 pairs have
+already been purchased and are in process of delivery; of blankets,
+17,000,000; of flannel shirting, more than 33,000,000 yards; of melton
+cloth, more than 50,000,000 yards; of various kinds of duck for shelter
+tents and other necessary uses, more than 125,000,000 yards; and other
+staple and useful articles of Army equipment have been needed in
+proportion.
+
+[Sidenote: Resources, industry and transportation mobilized.]
+
+To all of this it has been necessary to add supplies not usual in our
+Army which, in many cases, had to be devised to meet needs growing out
+of the nature of the present warfare. It was necessary, therefore, to
+mobilize the resources and industry, first to produce with the greatest
+rapidity the initial equipment, and to follow that with a steady stream
+of production for replacement and reserve; second, to organize adequate
+transportation and storage for these great accumulations, and their
+distribution throughout the country, and then to establish ports of
+embarkation for men and supplies, assemble there in orderly fashion for
+prompt ship-loading the tonnage for overseas; and to set up in France
+facilities necessary to receive and distribute these efficiently.
+
+[Sidenote: Civilian agencies cooperate with government.]
+
+The Quartermaster General's Department was called upon to set up rapidly
+a business greater than that carried on by the most thoroughly organized
+and efficiently managed industrial organization in the country. It had
+to consider the supply of raw materials, the diversion of industry, and
+speed of production, and with its problem pressing for instant solution
+it had to expand the slender peace-time organization of the
+Quartermaster Department by the rapid addition of personnel and by the
+employment and coordination of great civilian agencies which could be
+helpful.
+
+[Sidenote: The Council of National Defense is aided by men of great
+ability.]
+
+The Council of National Defense, through the supply committees organized
+by it, afforded the immediate contact necessary with the world of
+commerce and industry, while men of various branches of business and
+production engineers brought their services freely to the assistance of
+the Department. The dollar-a-year man has been a powerful aid, and when
+this struggle is over, and the country undertakes to take stock of the
+assets which it found ready to be used in the mobilization of its
+powers, a large place will justly be given to these men who, without the
+distinction of title or rank, and with no thought of compensation,
+brought experience, knowledge, and trained ability to Washington in
+order that they might serve with patriotic fervor in an inconspicuous
+and self-sacrificing, but indispensably helpful way.
+
+[Sidenote: Sound beginnings made.]
+
+The problems of supply are not yet solved; but they are in the course of
+solution. Sound beginnings have been made, and as the military effort of
+the country grows the arrangements perfected and organizations created
+will expand to meet it.
+
+[Sidenote: The American Railway Association's special committee.]
+
+In this general connection it seems appropriate to refer to the
+effective cooperation between the department and the transportation
+agencies of the country. For a number of years the Quartermaster
+General's Department has maintained close relations with the executives
+of the great railway systems of the country. In February, 1917, a
+special committee of the American Railway Association was appointed to
+deal with questions of national defense, and the cooperation between
+this committee and the department has been most cordial and effective,
+and but for some such arrangement the great transportation problem would
+have been insoluble. I am happy, therefore, to join the Quartermaster
+General in pointing out the extraordinary service rendered by the
+transportation agencies of the country, and I concur also in his
+statement that "of those who are now serving the Nation in this time of
+stress, there are none who are doing so more whole-heartedly,
+unselfishly, and efficiently than the railroad officials who are engaged
+in this patriotic work."
+
+[Sidenote: Codes established for the garment industry.]
+
+One other aspect of the work of the Quartermaster General's Office has
+engaged my particular attention, and seems to me to have been fruitful
+of most excellent results. The garment working trades of the United
+States are largely composed of women and children, and of men of foreign
+extraction. More than any other industry in the United States it has
+been menaced by the sweatshop system. The States have enacted codes and
+established inspection agencies to enforce sanitary conditions for
+these workers, and to relieve the evils which seem everywhere to spring
+up about them. To some extent the factory system operated under rigid
+inspection has replaced home work, and has improved conditions; but
+garment making is an industry midway in its course of being removed from
+the home to the factory, and under pressure of intensive production,
+home work in congested tenements has been difficult to eradicate.
+
+[Sidenote: Dangers in home work system.]
+
+The vice of this system is not merely the invasion of the home of the
+worker, and the consequent enfeeblement of the family and family life.
+Work done under such circumstances escapes the inspector, and the
+crowded workers in the tenement are helpless in their struggle for
+subsistence under conditions which are unrelieved by an assertion of the
+Government's interest in the condition under which these workers live.
+Moreover, wide distribution of garments made under such conditions tends
+to spread disease, and adds another menace from the public point of
+view.
+
+[Sidenote: Standards inserted in contracts.]
+
+The department determined, therefore, to establish minimum standards as
+to wages, inspection, hours, and sanitation. These standards were
+inserted in the contracts made for garment production, and a board was
+appointed to enforce an observance of these standards. The effect of
+this has been that it is now possible to say that no uniform worn by an
+American soldier is the product of sweatshop toil, and that so far as
+the Government is concerned in its purchases of garments it is a model
+employer.
+
+[Sidenote: The worker feels a national interest.]
+
+This action has not delayed the accumulation of necessary supplies, and
+it has added to our national self-respect. It has distributed national
+interest between the soldier who wears and the worker who makes the
+garment, regarding them each as assets, each as elements in our
+aggregated national strength.
+
+[Sidenote: The Ordnance Department.]
+
+On the 1st day of July, 1916, there was a total of 96 officers in the
+Ordnance Department. The commissioned strength of this department
+increased substantially 2,700 per cent, and is still expanding. The
+appropriations for ordnance in 1917 were $89,697,000; for 1918, in view
+of the war emergency, the appropriations for that department aggregate
+$3,209,000,000.
+
+[Sidenote: Most difficult problems of the war.]
+
+This division of the War Department has had, in some respects, the most
+difficult of the problems presented by the transition from peace to war.
+Like the Department of the Quartermaster General, the Ordnance
+Department has had to deal with various increases of supply, increases
+far exceeding the organization and available capacity of the country for
+production. The products needed take longer to produce; for the most
+part they involved intricate machinery, and highly refined processes of
+manufacture. In addition to this the industrial agencies of the country
+have been devoting a large part of their capacity to foreign production
+which, in the new set of circumstances, it is unwise to interrupt.
+
+[Sidenote: Organization of the Council of National Defense.]
+
+[Sidenote: An advisory body.]
+
+[Sidenote: Advisory function should not be impaired.]
+
+[Sidenote: The council supplements the Cabinet.]
+
+Legislation enacted on August 29, 1916, as a part of the National
+Defense Act provided for the creation of a Council of National Defense.
+Shortly thereafter the council was organized, its advisory commission
+appointed, a director chosen, and its activities planned. It
+appropriately directed its first attention to the industrial situation
+of the country and, by the creation of committees representative of the
+principal industries, brought together a great store of information both
+as to our capacity for manufacture and as to the re-adaptations possible
+in an emergency for rapid production of supplies of military value.
+Under the law of its creation, the Council of National Defense is not an
+executive body, its principal function being to supervise and direct
+investigations and make recommendations to the President and the heads
+of the executive departments with regard to a large variety of subjects.
+The advisory commission is thus advisory to a body which is itself
+advisory, and the subordinate bodies authorized to be created are
+collectors of data upon which advice can be formulated. There was no
+intention on the part of Congress to subdivide the executive function,
+but rather to strengthen it by equipping it with carefully matured
+recommendations based upon adequate surveys of conditions. The extent of
+the council's powers has been sometimes misunderstood, with the result
+that it has been deemed an inapt instrument, and from time to time
+suggestions have been made looking to the donation to it of power to
+execute its conclusions. Whatever determination Congress may hereafter
+reach with regard to the bestowal of additional executive power and the
+creation of agencies for its exercise, the advisory function of the
+Council of National Defense ought not to be impaired, nor ought its
+usefulness to be left unrecognized. In the first place, the council
+brings together the heads of the departments ordinarily concerned in the
+industrial and commercial problems which affect the national defense and
+undoubtedly prevents duplications of work and overlappings of
+jurisdiction. It also makes available for the special problems of
+individual departments the results attained in other departments which
+have been called upon to examine the same problem from other points of
+view. In the second place, the council supplements the activities of the
+Cabinet under the direction of the President by bringing together in a
+committee, as it were, members of the Cabinet for the consideration of
+problems which, when maturely studied, can be presented for the
+President's judgment.
+
+[Sidenote: The council directs the aroused spirit of the nation.]
+
+[Sidenote: The General Munitions Board.]
+
+[Sidenote: Field of priorities in transportation and supplies.]
+
+With the declaration of a state of war, however, the usefulness of the
+Council of National Defense became instantly more obvious. The
+peace-time activities and interests of our people throughout the country
+surged toward Washington in an effort to assimilate themselves into the
+new scheme of things which, it was recognized, would call for widespread
+changes of occupation and interest. The Council of National Defense was
+the only national agency at all equipped to receive and direct this
+aroused spirit seeking appropriate modes of action, and it was admirably
+adapted to the task because among the members of the council were those
+Cabinet officers whose normal activities brought them into constant
+contact with all the varied peace-time activities of the people and who
+were, therefore, best qualified to judge the most useful opportunities
+in the new state of things for men and interests of which they
+respectively knew the normal relations. For the more specialized
+problems of the national defense, notably those dealing with the
+production of war materials, the council authorized the organization of
+subordinate bodies of experts, and the General Munitions Board grew
+naturally out of the necessities of the War and Navy Departments, which
+required not only the maximum production of existing munition-making
+industries in the country, but the creation of new capacity for
+production and its correlation with similar needs on the part of the
+foreign governments. The work done by the General Munitions Board was
+highly effective, but it was soon seen that its problem carried over
+into the field of transportation, that it was bound up with the question
+of priorities, and that it was itself divisible into the great and
+separate fields of raw material supply and the production of finished
+goods. With the growth of its necessary interests and the constant
+discovery of new relations it became necessary so to reorganize the
+General Munitions Board as both to enlarge its view and more definitely
+recognize its widespread relations.
+
+[Sidenote: The War Industries Board.]
+
+[Sidenote: Knowledge of war needs of the United States and Allies.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Council of National Defense a natural center.]
+
+Upon the advice of the Council of National Defense, the General
+Munitions Board was replaced by the War Industries Board, which consists
+of a chairman, a representative of the Army, a representative of the
+Navy, a representative of labor and the three members of the Allied
+Purchasing Commission through whom, under arrangements made with foreign
+Governments by the Secretary of the Treasury, the purchasing of allied
+goods in the United States is effected. This purchasing commission
+consists of three chairmen--one of priorities, one of raw materials, and
+one of finished products. By the presence of Army and Navy
+representatives, the needs of our own Government are brought to the
+common council table of the War Industries Board. The board is thus
+enabled to know all the war needs of our Government and the nations
+associated with us in war, to measure their effect upon the industry of
+the country, to assign relative priorities in the order of
+serviceableness to the common cause, and to forecast both the supply of
+raw material and our capacity for completing its manufacture in such a
+way as to coordinate our entire industrial capacity, both with a view to
+its maximum efficiency and to its permanent effect upon the industrial
+condition of the country. Under legislation enacted by Congress, the
+President has committed certain definite problems to special agencies.
+The food administration, the fuel administration, and the shipping
+problem being each in the hands of experts specially selected under
+appropriate enactments. In large part, these activities are separable
+from the general questions considered by the Council of National Defense
+and the War Industries Board, but there are necessary relations between
+them which it has been found quite simple to arrange by conference and
+consultation, and the Council of National Defense, with the Secretary of
+the Treasury added as an important councilor, has seemed the natural
+center around which to group these agencies so far as any common
+activity among them is desirable.
+
+[Sidenote: The War Department indebted to the council.]
+
+[Sidenote: Unremunerated service of able citizens.]
+
+[Sidenote: Business confidence in the Government.]
+
+In the meantime the Advisory Commission of the Council of National
+Defense and the council itself have continued to perform the original
+advisory functions committed to them by the National Defense Act. The
+War Department is glad to acknowledge its debt to the council and the
+commission. I refrain from specific enumeration of the services which
+the department has received through these agencies only because their
+number is infinite and their value obvious. The various supply
+committees created by the Supply Commission, the scientific resources
+placed at the disposal of the department, the organization of the
+medical profession, the cooperation of the transportation interests of
+the country, the splendid harmony which has been established in the
+field of labor, are all fruits of the actions of these bodies and
+notably of the Advisory Commission. It has been especially in connection
+with the activities of the council and the commission that we have been
+helped by the unremunerated service of citizens who bore no official
+relation to the Government but had expert knowledge of and experience
+with the industries of the country which it was necessary rapidly to
+summon into new uses. Through their influence, the trade rivalries and
+commercial competitions, stimulating and helpful in times of peace,
+have been subordinated to the paramount purpose of national service and
+the common good. They have not only created helpful relations for the
+present emergency but have established a new confidence in the
+Government on the part of business and perhaps have led to clearer
+judgments on the part of the Government in its dealings with the great
+organizations, both of labor and of capital, which form the industrial
+and commercial fabric of our society. The large temporary gain thus
+manifest is supplemented by permanent good; and in the reorganizations
+which take place when the war is over there will doubtless be a more
+conscious national purpose in business and a more conscious helpfulness
+toward business on the part of the Government.
+
+[Sidenote: General Pershing goes to France.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Navy transports troops without any loss.]
+
+[Sidenote: Terminal facilities organized.]
+
+[Sidenote: Cooperation of the Shipping Board.]
+
+[Sidenote: Reserve equipment and food.]
+
+As a result of the exchanges of views which took place between the
+military missions to the United States and our own Government, it was
+determined to begin at once the dispatch of an expeditionary force of
+the American Army to France. This has been done. General John J.
+Pershing was selected as commander in chief and with his staff departed
+for France, to be followed shortly by the full division, consisting
+entirely of Regular Army troops. Immediately thereafter there was formed
+the so-called Rainbow Division, made up of National Guard units of many
+States scattered widely throughout the country. The purpose of its
+organization was to distribute the honor of early participation in the
+war over a wide area and thus to satisfy in some part the eagerness of
+these State forces to be permitted to serve in Europe. The Marines, with
+their fine traditions and honorable history, were likewise recognized,
+and regiments of Marines were added to the first forces dispatched. It
+would, of course, be unwise to attempt any enumeration of the forces at
+this time overseas, but the Army and the country would not have me do
+less than express their admiration and appreciation of the splendid
+cooperation of the Navy, by means of which these expeditionary forces
+have been safely transported and have been enabled to traverse without
+loss the so-called danger zone infested by the stealthy and destructive
+submarine navy of the enemy. The organization and dispatch of the
+expeditionary force required the preparation of an elaborate transport
+system, involving not only the procurement of ships and their refitting
+for service as troop and cargo transports, but also extensive
+organizations of terminal facilities both in this country and France;
+and in order to surround the expeditionary force with every safeguard, a
+large surplus of supplies of every kind were immediately placed at their
+disposal in France. This placed an added burden upon the supply
+divisions of the department and explains in part some of the shortages,
+notably those of clothing, which have temporarily embarrassed
+mobilization of troops at home, embarrassments now happily passed. In
+the organization of this transport the constant and helpful cooperation
+of the Shipping Board, the railroads, and those in control of
+warehousing, wharfing, lighterage, and other terminal facilities has
+been invaluable. Our activities in this regard have resulted in the
+transporting of an army to France fully equipped, with adequate reserves
+of equipment and subsistence, and with those large quantities of
+transportation appliances, motor vehicles, railroad construction
+supplies, and animals, all of which are necessary for the maintenance
+and effective operations of the force.
+
+[Sidenote: Technical troops cooperate with British and French.]
+
+The act authorizing the temporary increase of the military establishment
+empowered the department to create special organizations of technical
+troops. Under this provision railroad and stevedore regiments have been
+formed and special organizations of repair men and mechanics, some of
+which have proceeded to France and rendered service back of the British
+and French line in anticipation of and training for their later service
+with the American Army. No complete descriptions of these activities can
+be permitted at this time, but the purpose of the department has been to
+provide from the first for the maintenance of our own military
+operations without adding to the burdens already borne by the British
+and French, and to render, incidentally, such assistance to the British
+and French Armies as could be rendered by technical troops in training
+in the theater of operations. By this means the United States has
+already rendered service of great value to the common cause, these
+technical troops having actually carried on operations for which they
+are designed in effective cooperation with the British and French Armies
+behind hotly contested battle fronts.
+
+[Sidenote: The Red Cross organizes base hospital units.]
+
+[Sidenote: Doctors and nurses aid British and French armies.]
+
+[Sidenote: The medical profession rallies around the service.]
+
+[Sidenote: Convalescent and reconstruction hospitals.]
+
+[Sidenote: Physical fitness necessary for military service.]
+
+Working in close association with the medical committee of the Council
+of National Defense and the Red Cross and in constant and helpful
+contact with the medical activities of the British, French, and other
+belligerents, the Surgeon General has built up the personnel of his
+department and taken over from the Red Cross completely organized
+base-hospital units and ambulance units, supplemented them by fresh
+organizations, procured great quantities of medical supplies and
+prepared on a generous scale to meet any demands of our Army in action.
+Incidentally and in the course of this preparation, great numbers of
+base hospital organizations, ambulance units, and additional doctors and
+nurses have been placed at the disposal of the British and French
+armies, and are now in the field of actual war, ministering to the
+needs of our Allies. Indeed, the honor of first participation by
+Americans in this war belongs to the Medical Department. In addition to
+all this preparation and activity, the Surgeon General's department has
+been charged with the responsibility for the study of defense against
+gas attack and the preparation of such gas masks and other appliances as
+can be devised to minimize its effects. The medical profession of the
+country has rallied around this service. The special laboratories of the
+great medical institutions have devoted themselves to the study of
+problems of military medicine. New, effective, and expeditious surgical
+and medical procedures have been devised and the latest defensive and
+curative discoveries of medical science have been made available for the
+protection and restoration of our soldiers. Far-reaching activities have
+been conducted by the Medical Department here in America, involving the
+supervision of plans for great base hospitals in the camps and
+cantonments, the planning of convalescent and reconstruction hospitals
+for invalided soldiers and anticipatory organization wherever possible
+to supply relief to distress and sickness as it may arise. Moreover, the
+task of the Medical Department in connection with the new Army has been
+exacting. Rigid examinations have been conducted, in the first instance
+by the physicians connected with the exemption boards, but later at the
+camps, in order to eliminate from the ranks men whose physical condition
+did not justify their retention in the military service. Many of the
+rejections by the Medical Department have caused grief to high-spirited
+young men not conscious of physical weakness or defect, and perhaps
+having no weakness or defect which embarrassed their usefulness in
+civilian occupation; but both the strength of the Army and justice to
+the men involved require that the test of fitness for military service
+should be the sole guide, and the judgments of the most expert
+physicians have been relied upon to give us an army composed of men of
+the highest possible physical efficiency.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The capture of Jerusalem by the British under Allenby on December 8th,
+1917, sent a thrill throughout the civilized world. The deliverance of
+the Holy City from the Turks marked another great epoch in its history,
+which includes possession by Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans,
+Arabs, and Turks. The entrance of the British troops into Jerusalem is
+described in the following narrative.
+
+
+
+
+THE CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM
+
+GENERAL E. H. H. ALLENBY
+
+
+[Sidenote: General Allenby's instructions.]
+
+When I took over the command of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force at the
+end of June, 1917, I had received instructions to report on the
+conditions in which offensive operations against the Turkish Army on the
+Palestine front might be undertaken in the autumn or winter of 1917.
+
+After visiting the front and consulting with the Commander of the
+Eastern Force, I submitted my appreciation and proposals in a telegram
+dispatched in the second week of July.
+
+[Sidenote: Situation on the Palestine front.]
+
+The main features of the situation on the Palestine front were then as
+follows:
+
+The Turkish Army in Southern Palestine held a strong position extending
+from the sea at Gaza, roughly along the main Gaza-Beersheba Road to
+Beersheba. Gaza had been made into a strong modern fortress, heavily
+entrenched and wired, offering every facility for protracted defence.
+The remainder of the enemy's line consisted of a series of strong
+localities, viz.: the Sihan group of works, the Atawineh group, the Baha
+group, the Abu Hareira-Arab el Teeaha trench system, and, finally, the
+works covering Beersheba. These groups of works were generally from
+1,500 to 2,000 yards apart, except that the distance from the Hareira
+group to Beersheba was about 4 1/2 miles.
+
+[Sidenote: Turks have good communications.]
+
+The enemy's force was on a wide front, the distance from Gaza to
+Beersheba being about 30 miles; but his lateral communications were
+good, and any threatened point of the line could be very quickly
+reinforced.
+
+My force was extended on a front of 22 miles, from the sea, opposite
+Gaza, to Gamli.
+
+[Sidenote: Lack of water on the British front.]
+
+Owing to lack of water I was unable, without preparations which would
+require some considerable time, to approach within striking distance of
+the enemy, except in the small sector near the sea coast opposite Gaza.
+
+My proposals received the approval of the War Cabinet, and preparations
+were undertaken to enable the plan I had formed to be put into
+execution.
+
+[Sidenote: To strike on Turk's left flank.]
+
+I had decided to strike the main blow against the left flank of the main
+Turkish position, Hareira and Sheria. The capture of Beersheba was a
+necessary preliminary to this operation, in order to secure the water
+supplies at that place and to give room for the deployment of the
+attacking force on the high ground to the north and north-west of
+Beersheba, from which direction I intended to attack the Hareira-Sheria
+line.
+
+[Sidenote: Necessary to take Beersheba.]
+
+This front of attack was chosen for the following reasons. The enemy's
+works in this sector were less formidable than elsewhere, and they were
+easier of approach than other parts of the enemy's defences. When
+Beersheba was in our hands we should have an open flank against which to
+operate, and I could make full use of our superiority in mounted troops,
+and a success here offered prospects of pursuing our advantage and
+forcing the enemy to abandon the rest of his fortified positions, which
+no other line of attack would afford.
+
+[Sidenote: Attacked Gaza to deceive enemy.]
+
+[Sidenote: Assurance of naval cooperation at Gaza.]
+
+It was important, in order to keep the enemy in doubt up to the last
+moment as to the real point of attack, that an attack should also be
+made on the enemy's right at Gaza in conjunction with the main
+operations. One of my Commanders was therefore ordered to prepare a
+scheme for operations against Gaza on as large a scale as the force at
+his disposal would permit. I also asked the Senior Naval Officer of
+Egypt, Rear-Admiral T. Jackson, C.B., M.V.O., to afford me naval
+cooperation by bombarding the Gaza defences and the enemy's railway
+stations and depots north of Gaza. Rear-Admiral Jackson afforded me
+cordial assistance, and during the period of preparation Naval Officers
+worked in the closest cooperation with my staff at General Headquarters
+and the staff of the G.O.C. troops operating in that region.
+
+[Sidenote: Difficulties regarding water and transport.]
+
+The difficulties to be overcome in the operations against Beersheba and
+the Sheria-Hareira line were considerable, and careful preparations and
+training were necessary. The chief difficulties were those of water and
+transport, and arrangements had to be made to ensure that the troops
+could be kept supplied with water while operating at considerable
+distances from their original water base for a period which might amount
+to a week or more; for, though it was known that an ample supply of
+water existed at Beersheba, it was uncertain how quickly it could be
+developed or to what extent the enemy would have damaged the wells
+before we succeeded in occupying the town. Except at Beersheba, no large
+supply of water would be found till Sheria and Hareira had been
+captured.
+
+[Sidenote: No good roads south of Gaza-Beersheba line.]
+
+[Sidenote: Railway lines to be laid.]
+
+The transport problem was no less difficult; there were no good roads
+south of the line Gaza-Beersheba, and no reliance could therefore be
+placed on the use of motor transport. Owing to the steep banks of many
+of the wadis which intersected the area of operations, the routes
+passable by wheeled transport were limited, and the going was heavy and
+difficult in many places. Practically the whole of the transport
+available in the force, including 30,000 pack camels, had to be allotted
+to one portion of the eastern force to enable it to be kept supplied
+with food, water, and ammunition at a distance of 15 to 20 miles in
+advance of railhead. Arrangements were also made for railhead to be
+pushed forward as rapidly as possible towards Karm, and for a line to be
+laid from Gamli toward Beersheba for the transport of ammunition.
+
+A railway line was also laid from Deir el Belah to the Wadi Ghuzze,
+close behind the sector held by another portion of the eastern force.
+
+[Sidenote: Rushing up artillery and supplies.]
+
+Considerable strain was thrown on the military railway from Kantara to
+the front during the period of preparation. In addition to the normal
+requirements of the force, a number of siege and heavy batteries,
+besides other artillery and units, had to be moved to the front, and
+large depots of supplies, ammunition, and other stores accumulated at
+the various railheads. Preparations had also to be made and the
+necessary material accumulated to push forward the lines from Deir el
+Belah and Shellal.
+
+[Sidenote: The enemy determined to maintain Gaza to Beersheba line.]
+
+During the period from July to October, 1917, the enemy's force on the
+Palestine front had been increased. It was evident, from the arrival of
+these reinforcements and the construction of railway extensions from El
+Tine, on the Ramleh-Beersheba railway, to Deir Sineid and Belt Hanun,
+north of Gaza, and from Deir Sineid to Huj, and from reports of the
+transport of large supplies of ammunition and other stores to the
+Palestine front, that the enemy was determined to make every effort to
+maintain his position on the Gaza-Beersheba line. He had considerably
+strengthened his defences on this line; and the strong localities
+mentioned had, by the end of October, been joined up to form a
+practically continuous line from the sea to a point south of Sheria,
+except for a gap between Ali Muntar and the Sihan Group. The defensive
+works round Beersheba remained a detached system, but had been improved
+and extended.
+
+[Sidenote: Date of attack on Beersheba.]
+
+The date of the attack on Beersheba, which was to commence the
+operations, was fixed as October 31, 1917. Work had been begun on the
+railway from Shellal towards Karm, and on the line from Gamli to El
+Buggar. The development of water at Ecani, Khalasa, and Asluj proceeded
+satisfactorily. These last two places were to be the starting point for
+the mounted force detailed to make a wide flanking movement and attack
+Beersheba from the east and north-east.
+
+[Sidenote: The Turks make a strong reconnaissance.]
+
+On the morning of October 27 the Turks made a strong reconnaissance
+towards Karm from the direction of Kauwukah, two regiments of cavalry
+and two or three thousand infantry, with guns, being employed. They
+attacked a line of outposts near El Girheir, held by some Yeomanry,
+covering railway construction. One small post was rushed and cut up, but
+not before inflicting heavy loss on the enemy; another post, though
+surrounded, held out all day, and also caused the enemy heavy loss. The
+gallant resistance made by the Yeomanry enabled the 53rd (Welsh)
+Division to come up in time, and on their advance the Turks withdrew.
+
+[Sidenote: Bombardment of Gaza defenses.]
+
+The bombardment of the Gaza defences commenced on October 27, and on
+October 30 warships of the Royal Navy, assisted by a French battleship,
+began cooperating in this bombardment.
+
+On the evening of October 30 the portion of the eastern force, which was
+to make the attack on Beersheba, was concentrated in positions of
+readiness for the night march to its positions of deployment.
+
+[Sidenote: Imperial Camel Corps, Infantry and Cavalry.]
+
+The night march to the positions of deployment was successfully carried
+out, all units reaching their appointed positions up to time. The plan
+was to attack the hostile works between the Khalasa road and the Wadi
+Saba with two divisions, masking the works north of the Wadi Saba with
+the Imperial Camel Corps and some infantry, while a portion of the 53rd
+(Welsh) Division further north covered the left of the corps. The right
+of the attack was covered by a cavalry regiment. Further east, mounted
+troops took up a line opposite the southern defences of Beersheba.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy's advanced works taken.]
+
+As a preliminary to the main attack, in order to enable field guns to be
+brought within effective range for wire-cutting, the enemy's advanced
+works at 1,070 were to be taken. This was successfully accomplished at
+8.45 a.m., after a short preliminary bombardment, by London troops, with
+small loss, 90 prisoners being taken. The cutting of the wire on the
+main line then proceeded satisfactorily, though pauses had to be made to
+allow the dust to clear; and the final assault was ordered for 12.15
+p.m. It was successful all along the front attacked, and by about 1 p.m.
+the whole of the works between the Khalasa road and the Wadi Saba were
+in our hands.
+
+Some delay occurred in ascertaining whether the enemy still occupied the
+works north of the road; it was decided, as they were still held by
+small parties, to attack them from the south. After a preliminary
+bombardment the works were occupied with little opposition by about 7.30
+p.m.
+
+[Sidenote: British casualties light.]
+
+The casualties were light, considering the strength of the works
+attacked; a large proportion occurred during the advance towards the
+positions previous to the assault, the hostile guns being very accurate
+and very difficult to locate.
+
+[Sidenote: The road toward Beersheba.]
+
+Meanwhile, the mounted troops, after a night march, for part of the
+force of 25 and for the remainder of 35 miles, arrived early in the
+morning of the 31st about Khasim Zanna, in the hills some five miles
+east of Beersheba. From the hills the advance into Beersheba from the
+east and north-east lies over an open and almost flat plain, commanded
+by the rising ground north of the town and flanked by an underfeature in
+the Wadi Saba called Tel el Saba.
+
+A force was sent north to secure Bir es Sakaty, on the Hebron road, and
+protect the right flank, this force met with some opposition and was
+engaged with hostile cavalry at Bir es Sakaty and to the north during
+the day. Tel el Saba was found strongly held by the enemy, and was not
+captured till late in the afternoon.
+
+[Sidenote: Rapid advance of Australian Light Horse.]
+
+Meanwhile, attempts to advance in small parties across the plain towards
+the town made slow progress. In the evening, however, a mounted attack
+by Australian Light Horse, who rode straight at the town from the east,
+proved completely successful. They galloped over two deep trenches held
+by the enemy just outside the town, and entered the town at about 7 p.
+m., capturing numerous prisoners.
+
+The Turks at Beersheba were undoubtedly taken completely by surprise, a
+surprise from which the dash of London troops and Yeomanry, finely
+supported by their artillery, never gave them time to recover. The
+charge of the Australian Light Horse completed their defeat.
+
+[Sidenote: Prisoners and guns taken.]
+
+A very strong position was thus taken with slight loss, and the Turkish
+detachment at Beersheba almost completely put out of action. About 2,000
+prisoners and 13 guns were taken, and some 500 Turkish corpses were
+buried on the battlefield. This success laid open the left flank of the
+main Turkish position for a decisive blow.
+
+[Sidenote: Complete success of Beersheba operations.]
+
+[Sidenote: The attack on Gaza.]
+
+The actual date of the attack at Gaza had been left open till the result
+of the attack at Beersheba was known, as it was intended that the former
+attack, which was designed to draw hostile reserves towards the Gaza
+sector, should take place twenty-four to forty-eight hours previous to
+the attack on the Sheria position. After the complete success of the
+Beersheba operations, and as the early reports indicated that an ample
+supply of water would be available at that place, it was hoped that it
+would be possible to attack Sheria by November 3 or 4. The attack on
+Gaza was accordingly ordered to take place on the morning of November 2.
+Later reports showed that the water situation was less favorable than
+had been hoped, but it was decided not to postpone the attack.
+
+[Sidenote: The works on Umbrella Hill principal objectives.]
+
+The objective of this attack were the hostile works from Umbrella Hill
+(2,000 yards south-west of the town) to Sheikh Hasan, on the sea (about
+2,500 yards north-west of the town). The front of the attack was about
+6,000 yards, and Sheikh Hasan, the furthest objective, was over 3,000
+yards from our front line. The ground over which the attack took place
+consisted of sand dunes, rising in places up to 150 feet in height. This
+sand is very deep and heavy going. The enemy's defences consisted of
+several lines of strongly built trenches and redoubts.
+
+As Umbrella Hill flanked the advance against the Turkish works further
+west, it was decided to capture it by a preliminary operation, to take
+place four hours previous to the main attack. It was accordingly
+attacked, and captured at 11 p. m. on November 1 by a portion of the
+52nd (Lowland) Division. This attack drew a heavy bombardment of
+Umbrella Hill itself and our front lines, which lasted for two hours,
+but ceased in time to allow the main attack, which was timed for 3 a.
+m., to form up without interference.
+
+It had been decided to make the attack before daylight owing to the
+distance to be covered between our front trenches and the enemy's
+position.
+
+[Sidenote: Success of the attack on Umbrella Hill.]
+
+[Sidenote: Capture of the south-western defenses.]
+
+The attack was successful in reaching all objectives, except for a
+section of trench on the left and some of the final objectives in the
+centre. Four hundred and fifty prisoners were taken and many Turks
+killed. The enemy also suffered heavily from the preliminary
+bombardment, and subsequent reports from prisoners stated that one of
+the divisions holding the Gaza sector was withdrawn after losing 33 per
+cent of its effectives, one of the divisions in general reserve being
+drawn into the Gaza sector to replace it. The attack thus succeeded in
+its primary object, which was to prevent any units being drawn from the
+Gaza defences to meet the threat to the Turkish left flank, and to draw
+into Gaza as large a proportion as possible of the available Turkish
+reserves. Further, the capture of Sheikh Hasan and the south-western
+defences constituted a very distinct threat to the whole of the Gaza
+position, which could be developed on any sign of a withdrawal on the
+part of the enemy.
+
+Our losses, though considerable, were not in any way disproportionate to
+the results obtained.
+
+[Sidenote: Water and transport difficulties.]
+
+Meanwhile on our right flank the water and transport difficulties were
+found to be greater than anticipated, and the preparations for the
+second phase of the attack were somewhat delayed in consequence.
+
+On the early morning of November 1 the 53rd (Welsh) Division, with the
+Imperial Camel Corps on its right, had moved out into the hills north of
+Beersheba, with the object of securing the flank of the attack on
+Sheria. Mounted troops were also sent north along the Hebron Road to
+secure Dhaheriyeh if possible, as it was hoped that a good supply of
+water would be found in this area, and that a motor road which the Turks
+were reported to have constructed from Dhaheriyeh to Sheria could be
+secured for our use.
+
+The 53rd (Welsh) Division, after a long march, took up a position from
+Towal Abu Jerwal (six miles north of Beersheba) to Muweileh (four miles
+north-east of Abu Irgeig). Irish troops occupied Abu Irgeig the same
+day.
+
+[Sidenote: Advance on Kohleh and Khuweilfeh.]
+
+On November 3 we advanced north on Ain Kohleh and Tel Khuweilfeh, near
+which place the mounted troops had engaged considerable enemy forces on
+the previous day. This advance was strongly opposed, but was pushed on
+through difficult hill country to within a short distance of Ain Kohleh
+and Khuweilfeh. At these places the enemy was found holding a strong
+position with considerable and increasing forces. He was obviously
+determined not only to bar any further progress in this direction, but,
+if possible, to drive our flankguard back on Beersheba. During the 4th
+and 5th he made several determined attacks on the mounted troops. These
+attacks were repulsed.
+
+[Sidenote: Hostile cavalry between Khuweilfeh and Hebron Road.]
+
+By the evening of November 5 the 19th Turkish Division, the remains of
+the 27th and certain units of the 16th Division had been identified in
+the fighting round Tel el Khuweilfeh, and it was also fairly clear that
+the greater part of the hostile cavalry, supported apparently by some
+infantry ("depot" troops) from Hebron, were engaged between Khuweilfeh
+and the Hebron Road.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy tries to draw forces north of Beersheba.]
+
+The action of the enemy in thus employing the whole of his available
+reserves in an immediate counter-stroke so far to the east was
+apparently a bold effort to induce me to make essential alterations in
+my offensive plan, thereby gaining time and disorganizing my
+arrangements. The country north of Beersheba was exceedingly rough and
+hilly, and very little water was to be found there. Had the enemy
+succeeded in drawing considerable forces against him in that area the
+result might easily have been an indecisive fight (for the terrain was
+very suitable to his methods of defence) and my own main striking force
+would probably have been made too weak effectively to break the enemy's
+centre in the neighborhood of Sheria Hareira. This might have resulted
+in our gaining Beersheba, but failing to do more--in which case
+Beersheba would only have been an incubus of a most inconvenient kind.
+However, the enemy's action was not allowed to make any essential
+modification to the original plan, which it had been decided to carry
+out at dawn on November 6.
+
+[Sidenote: Effort to reach Sheria.]
+
+By the evening of November 5, all preparations had been made to attack
+in the Kauwukah and Rushdi systems and to make every effort to reach
+Sheria before nightfall.
+
+The mounted troops were to be prepared in the event of a success by the
+main force to collect, as they were somewhat widely scattered owing to
+water difficulties, and push north in pursuit of the enemy. Tel el
+Khuweilfeh was to be attacked at dawn on the 6th, and the troops were to
+endeavor to reach line Tel el Khuweilfeh-Rijm el Dhib.
+
+[Sidenote: The plan of attack.]
+
+At dawn on the 6th the attacking force had taken up positions of
+readiness to the S.E. of the Kauwukah system of trenches. The attack was
+to be commenced by an assault on the group of works forming the extreme
+left of the enemy's defensive system, followed by an advance due west up
+the railway, capturing the line of detached works which lay east of the
+railway. During this attack London and Irish troops were to advance
+towards the Kauwukah system, bringing forward their guns to within
+wire-cutting range. They were to assault the southeastern face of the
+Kauwukah system as soon as the bombardment had proved effective, and
+thence take the remainder of the system in enfilade.
+
+[Sidenote: All objectives of the attack captured.]
+
+The attack progressed rapidly, the Yeomanry storming the works on the
+enemy's extreme left with great dash; and soon after noon the London and
+Irish troops commenced their attack. It was completely successful in
+capturing all its objectives, and the whole of the Rushdi system in
+addition. Sheria Station was also captured before dark. The Yeomanry
+reached the line of the Wadi Sheria to Wadi Union; and the troops on the
+left were close to Hareira Redoubt, which was still occupied by the
+enemy. This attack was a fine performance, the troops advancing 8 or 9
+miles during the day and capturing a series of very strong works
+covering a front of about 7 miles, the greater part of which had been
+had and strengthened by the enemy for over six months. Some 600
+prisoners were taken and some guns and machine-guns captured. Our
+casualties were comparatively slight. The greatest opposition was
+encountered by the Yeomanry in the early morning, the works covering the
+left of the enemy's line being strong and stubbornly defended.
+
+[Sidenote: Mounted troops are ordered to take up the pursuit.]
+
+During the afternoon, as soon as it was seen that the attack had
+succeeded, mounted troops were ordered to take up the pursuit and to
+occupy Huj and Jemmamah.
+
+The 53rd (Welsh) Division had again had very severe fighting on the 6th.
+Their attack at dawn on Tel el Khuweilfeh was successful, and, though
+they were driven off a hill by a counterattack, they retook it and
+captured another hill, which much improved their position. The Turkish
+losses in this area were very heavy indeed, and the stubborn fighting
+of the 53rd (Welsh) Division, Imperial Camel Corps, and part of the
+mounted troops during November 2 to 6 drew in and exhausted the Turkish
+reserves and paved the way for the success of the attack on Sheria. The
+53rd (Welsh) Division took several hundred prisoners and some guns
+during this fighting.
+
+[Sidenote: Bombardment of Gaza continues.]
+
+The bombardment of Gaza had meanwhile continued, and another attack was
+ordered to take place on the night of the 6th-7th.
+
+The objectives were, on the right, Outpost Hill and Middlesex Hill (to
+be attacked at 11.30 p. m. on the 6th), and on the left the line Belah
+Trench-Turtle Hill (to be attacked at dawn on the 7th).
+
+[Sidenote: Airmen observe enemy movements.]
+
+During the 6th a certain amount of movement on the roads north of Gaza
+was observed by our airmen and fired on by our heavy artillery, but
+nothing indicating a general retirement from Gaza.
+
+The attack on Outpost Hill and Middlesex Hill met with little
+opposition, and as soon, after they had been taken, as patrols could be
+pushed forward, the enemy was found to be gone. East Anglian troops on
+the left also found at dawn that the enemy had retired during the night,
+and early in the morning the main force occupied the northern and
+eastern defences of Gaza. Rearguards were still occupying Beit Hanun and
+the Atawineh and Tank systems, from whence Turkish artillery continued
+to fire on Gaza and Ali Muntar till dusk.
+
+[Sidenote: The Turks evacuate Gaza.]
+
+[Sidenote: Turkish rearguard makes counterattacks.]
+
+As soon as it was seen that the Turks had evacuated Gaza a part of the
+force pushed along the coast to the mouth of the Wadi Hesi, so as to
+turn the Wadi Hesi line and prevent the enemy making any stand there.
+Cavalry had already pushed on round the north of Gaza, and became
+engaged with an enemy rearguard at Beit Hanun, which maintained its
+position till nightfall. The force advancing along the coast reached the
+Wadi Hesi by evening, and succeeded in establishing itself on the north
+bank in the face of considerable opposition, a Turkish rearguard making
+several determined counterattacks.
+
+On our extreme right the situation remained practically unchanged during
+the 7th; the enemy made no further attempt to counterattack, but
+maintained his positions opposite our right flank guard.
+
+[Sidenote: London troops take Tel el Sheria.]
+
+In the centre the Hareira Tepe Redoubt was captured at dawn; some
+prisoners and guns were taken. The London troops, after a severe
+engagement at Tel el Sheria, which they captured by a bayonet charge at
+4 a. m. on the 7th subsequently repulsing several counterattacks, pushed
+forward their line about a mile to the north of Tel el Sheria; the
+mounted troops on the right moved towards Jemmamah and Huj, but met with
+considerable opposition from hostile rearguards.
+
+[Sidenote: Charge of the Worcester and Warwick Yeomanry.]
+
+[Sidenote: Reports of the Royal Flying Corps.]
+
+During the 8th the advance was continued, and interest was chiefly
+centred in an attempt to cut off, if possible, the Turkish rearguard
+which had held the Tank and Atawineh systems. The enemy had, however,
+retreated during the night 7th-8th, and though considerable captures of
+prisoners, guns, ammunition, and other stores were made during the day,
+chiefly in the vicinity of Huj, no large formed body of the enemy was
+cut off. The Turkish rearguards fought stubbornly and offered
+considerable opposition. Near Huj a fine charge by some squadrons of the
+Worcester and Warwick Yeomanry captured 12 guns, and broke the
+resistance of a hostile rearguard. It soon became obvious from the
+reports of the Royal Flying Corps, who throughout the 7th and 8th
+attacked the retreating columns with bombs and machine-gun fire, and
+from other evidence, that the enemy was retiring in considerable
+disorganization, and could offer no very serious resistance if pressed
+with determination.
+
+Instructions were accordingly issued on the morning of the 9th to the
+mounted troops, directing them on the line El Tine-Beit Duras, with
+orders to press the enemy relentlessly. They were to be supported by a
+portion of the force, which was ordered to push forward to Julis and
+Mejdel.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy pursued toward Hebron by the Yeomanry.]
+
+The enemy opposite our right flank guard had commenced to retreat
+towards Hebron on the morning of the 8th. He was pursued for a short
+distance by the Yeomanry, and some prisoners and camels were captured,
+but the Yeomanry were then recalled to rejoin the main body of the
+mounted troops for the more important task of the pursuit of the enemy's
+main body.
+
+[Sidenote: The problem of water and forage.]
+
+By the 9th, therefore, operations had reached the stage of a direct
+pursuit by as many troops as could be supplied so far in front of
+railhead. The problem, in fact, became one of supply rather than
+man[oe]uvre. The question of water and forage was a very difficult one.
+Even where water was found in sufficient quantities, it was usually in
+wells and not on the surface, and consequently if the machinery for
+working the wells was damaged, or a sufficient supply of troughs was not
+available, the process of watering a large quantity of animals was slow
+and difficult.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy organizes a counterattack.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy's losses heavy.]
+
+On the evening of November 9 there were indications that the enemy was
+organizing a counterattack towards Arak el Menshiye by all available
+units of the force which had retired towards Hebron, with the object of
+taking pressure off the main force, which was retiring along the coastal
+plain. It was obvious that the Hebron force, which was believed to be
+short of transport and ammunition, to have lost heavily and to be in a
+generally disorganized state, could make no effective diversion, and
+that this threat could practically be disregarded. Other information
+showed the seriousness of the enemy's losses and the disorganization of
+his forces.
+
+[Sidenote: Imperial Camel Corps ordered to Tel de Nejile.]
+
+Orders were accordingly issued to press the pursuit and to reach the
+Junction Station as early as possible, thus cutting off the Jerusalem
+Army, while the Imperial Camel Corps was ordered to move to the
+neighborhood of Tel de Nejile, where it would be on the flank of any
+counter-stroke from the hills.
+
+[Sidenote: The Turkish Army makes a stand.]
+
+Operations on the 10th and 11th showed a stiffening of the enemy's
+resistance on the general line of the Wadi Sukereir, with centre about
+El Kustineh; the Hebron group, after an ineffective demonstration in the
+direction of Arak el Menshiye on the 10th, retired north-east and
+prolonged the enemy's line towards Beit Jibrin. Royal Flying Corps
+reports indicated the total hostile forces opposed to us on this line at
+about 15,000; and this increased resistance, coupled with the capture of
+prisoners from almost every unit of the Turkish force, tended to show
+that we were no longer opposed to rearguards, but that all the remainder
+of the Turkish Army which could be induced to fight was making a last
+effort to arrest our pursuit south of the important Junction Station.
+
+[Sidenote: Troops suffer from thirst.]
+
+In these circumstances our progress on the 10th and 11th was slow; the
+troops suffered considerably from thirst (a hot, exhausting wind blew
+during these two days), and our supply difficulties were great; but by
+the evening of the 11th favorable positions had been reached for a
+combined attack.
+
+[Sidenote: Forces far from their railhead.]
+
+[Sidenote: Water supply slow to obtain.]
+
+The 12th was spent in preparations for the attack, which was ordered to
+be begun early on the morning of the 13th, on the enemy's position
+covering Junction Station. Our forces were now operating at a distance
+of some 35 miles in advance of their railhead, and the bringing up and
+distribution of supplies and ammunition formed a difficult problem. The
+routes north of the Wadi Hesi were found to be hard and good going,
+though there were some difficult Wadi crossings, but the main road
+through Gaza and as far as Beit Hanun was sandy and difficult. The
+supply of water in the area of operations, though good and plentiful in
+most of the villages, lies mainly in wells 100 feet or more below the
+surface, and in these circumstances a rapid supply and distribution was
+almost impossible. Great credit is due to all concerned that these
+difficulties were overcome and that it was found possible not only to
+supply the troops already in the line, but to bring up two heavy
+batteries to support the attack.
+
+[Sidenote: The enemy's position from El Kubeibeh to Beit Jibrin.]
+
+The situation on the morning of November 13 was that the enemy had
+strung out his force (amounting probably to no more than 20,000 rifles
+in all) on a front of 20 miles, from El Kubeibeh on the north to about
+Beit Jibrin to the south. The right half of his line ran roughly
+parallel to and only about 5 miles in front of the Ramleh-Junction
+Station railway, his main line of supply from the north, and his right
+flank was already almost turned. This position had been dictated to him
+by the rapidity of our movement along the coast, and the determination
+with which his rearguards on this flank had been pressed.
+
+The advanced guard of the 52nd (Lowland) Division had forced its way
+almost to Burkah on the 11th, on which day also some mounted troops
+pushed across the Nahr Sukereir at Jisr Esdud, where they held a
+bridge-head. During the 12th the Yeomanry pushed north up the left bank
+of the Nahr Suhereir, and eventually seized Tel-el-Murreh on the right
+bank near the mouth.
+
+[Sidenote: One part of enemy retires north, the other east.]
+
+The enemy's army had now been broken into two separate parts, which
+retired north and east respectively, and were reported to consist of
+small scattered groups rather than formed bodies of any size.
+
+In fifteen days our force had advanced sixty miles on its right and
+about forty on its left. It had driven a Turkish Army of nine Infantry
+Divisions and one Cavalry Division out of a position in which it had
+been entrenched for six months, and had pursued it, giving battle
+whenever it attempted to stand, and inflicting on it losses amounting
+probably to nearly two-thirds of the enemy's original effectives. Over
+9,000 prisoners, about eighty guns, more than 100 machine guns, and very
+large quantities of ammunition and other stores had been captured.
+
+[Sidenote: Capture of Junction Station.]
+
+After the capture of Junction Station on the morning of the 14th, our
+troops secured a position covering the station, while the Australian
+mounted troops reached Kezaze that same evening.
+
+[Sidenote: Turks fight New Zealand Mounted Rifles.]
+
+The mounted troops pressed on towards Ramleh and Ludd. On the right
+Naaneh was attacked and captured in the morning, while on the left the
+New Zealand Mounted Rifles had a smart engagement at Ayun Kara (six
+miles south of Jaffa). Here the Turks made a determined counter-attack
+and got to within fifteen yards of our line. A bayonet attack drove them
+back with heavy loss.
+
+Flanking the advance along the railway to Ramleh and covering the main
+road from Ramleh to Jerusalem, a ridge stands up prominently out of the
+low foot hills surrounding it. This is the site of the ancient Gezer,
+near which the village of Abu Shusheh now stands. A hostile rearguard
+had established itself on this feature. It was captured on the morning
+of the 15th in a brilliant attack by mounted troops, who galloped up the
+ridge from the south. A gun and 360 prisoners were taken in this affair.
+
+[Sidenote: Mounted troops reach Ramleh and Ludd. Jaffa taken.]
+
+By the evening of the 15th the mounted troops had occupied Ramleh and
+Ludd, and had pushed patrols to within a short distance of Jaffa. At
+Ludd 300 prisoners were taken, and five destroyed aeroplanes and a
+quantity of abandoned war material were found at Ramleh and Ludd.
+
+Jaffa was occupied without opposition on the evening of the 16th.
+
+The situation was now as follows:
+
+[Sidenote: Airmen report enemy likely to leave Jerusalem.]
+
+The enemy's army, cut in two by our capture of Junction Station, had
+retired partly east into the mountains towards Jerusalem and partly
+north along the plain. The nearest line on which these two portions
+could re-unite was the line Tul Keram-Nablus. Reports from the Royal
+Flying Corps indicated that it was the probable intention of the enemy
+to evacuate Jerusalem and withdraw to reorganize on this line.
+
+On our side the mounted troops had been marching and fighting
+continuously since October 31, and had advanced a distance of
+seventy-five miles, measured in a straight line from Asluj to Jaffa. The
+troops, after their heavy fighting at Gaza, had advanced in nine days a
+distance of about forty miles, with two severe engagements and continual
+advanced guard fighting. The 52nd (Lowland) Division had covered
+sixty-nine miles in this period.
+
+[Sidenote: Railway is being extended.]
+
+The railway was being pushed forward as rapidly as possible, and every
+opportunity was taken of landing stores at points along the coast. The
+landing of stores was dependent on a continuance of favorable weather,
+and might at any moment be stopped for several days together.
+
+[Sidenote: One good road from Nablus to Jerusalem.]
+
+A pause was therefore necessary to await the progress of railway
+construction, but before our position in the plain could be considered
+secure it was essential to obtain a hold of the one good road which
+traverses the Judaean range from north to south, from Nablus to
+Jerusalem.
+
+[Sidenote: Road damaged in several places.]
+
+[Sidenote: Water supply scanty.]
+
+On our intended line of advance only one good road, the main
+Jaffa-Jerusalem road, traversed the hills from east to west. For nearly
+four miles, between Bab el Wad (two and one-half miles east of Latron)
+and Saris, this road passes through a narrow defile, and it had been
+damaged by the Turks in several places. The other roads were mere tracks
+on the side of the hill or up the stony beds of wadis, and were
+impracticable for wheeled transport without improvement. Throughout
+these hills the water supply was scanty without development.
+
+On November 17 the Yeomanry had commenced to move from Ramleh through
+the hills direct on Bireh by Annabeh, Berfilya and Beit ur el Tahta
+(Lower Bethoron). By the evening of November 18 one portion of the
+Yeomanry had reached the last-named place, while another portion had
+occupied Shilta. The route had been found impossible for wheels beyond
+Annabeh.
+
+[Sidenote: Infantry begins its advance.]
+
+[Sidenote: Attempt to avoid fighting near Jerusalem.]
+
+On the 19th the Infantry commenced its advance. One portion was to
+advance up the main road as far as Kuryet el Enab, with its right flank
+protected by Australian mounted troops. From that place, in order to
+avoid any fighting in the close vicinity of the Holy City, it was to
+strike north towards Bireh by a track leading through Biddu. The
+remainder of the infantry was to advance through Berfilya to Beit Likia
+and Beit Dukka and thence support the movement of the other portion.
+
+[Sidenote: Saris defended by rearguards.]
+
+After capturing Latron and Amnas on the morning of the 19th, the
+remainder of the day was spent in clearing the defile up to Saris, which
+was defended by hostile rearguards.
+
+On the 20th Kuryet el Enab was captured with the bayonet in the face of
+organized opposition, while Beit Dukka was also captured. On the same
+day the Yeomanry got to within four miles of the Nablus-Jerusalem road,
+but were stopped by strong opposition about Beitunia.
+
+[Sidenote: Difficult advance of infantry and Yeomanry.]
+
+On the 21st a body of infantry moved north-east by a track from Kuryet
+el Enab through Biddu and Kolundia towards Bireh. The track was found
+impassable for wheels, and was under hostile shell-fire. Progress was
+slow, but by evening the ridge on which stands Neby Samwil was secured.
+A further body of troops was left at Kuryet el Enab to cover the flank
+and demonstrate along the main Jerusalem road. It drove hostile parties
+from Kostul, two and one-half miles east of Kuryet el Enab, and secured
+this ridge.
+
+By the afternoon of the 21st advanced parties of Yeomanry were within
+two miles of the road and an attack was being delivered on Beitunia by
+other mounted troops.
+
+[Sidenote: Period of organization and preparation necessary.]
+
+The positions reached on the evening of the 21st practically marked the
+limit of progress in this first attempt to gain the Nablus-Jerusalem
+road. The Yeomanry were heavily counter-attacked and fell back, after
+bitter fighting, on Beit ur el Foka (Upper Bethoron). During the 22nd
+the enemy made two counter-attacks on the Neby Samwil ridge, which were
+repulsed. Determined and gallant attacks were made on the 23rd and on
+the 24th on the strong positions to the west of the road held by the
+enemy, who had brought up reinforcements and numerous machine-guns, and
+could support his infantry by artillery fire from guns placed in
+positions along the main road. Our artillery, from lack of roads, could
+not be brought up to give adequate support to our infantry. Both attacks
+failed, and it was evident that a period of preparation and organization
+would be necessary before an attack could be delivered in sufficient
+strength to drive the enemy from his positions west of the road.
+
+Orders were accordingly issued to consolidate the positions gained and
+prepare for relief.
+
+[Sidenote: Position for final attack is won.]
+
+Though these troops had failed to reach their final objectives, they had
+achieved invaluable results. The narrow passes from the plain to the
+plateau of the Judaean range have seldom been forced, and have been fatal
+to many invading armies. Had the attempt not been made at once, or had
+it been pressed with less determination, the enemy would have had time
+to reorganize his defences in the passes lower down, and the conquest of
+the plateau would then have been slow, costly, and precarious. As it
+was, positions had been won from which the final attack could be
+prepared and delivered with good prospects of success.
+
+By December 4 all reliefs were complete, and a line was held from Kustul
+by the Neby Samwil ridge, Beit Izza, and Beit Dukka, to Beit ur el
+Tahta.
+
+[Sidenote: Severe local fighting.]
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy pierces outposts near Jaffa.]
+
+[Sidenote: Attacks costly to Turks.]
+
+During this period attacks by the enemy along the whole line led to
+severe local fighting. On November 25 our advanced posts north of the
+river Auja were driven back across the river. From the 27th to the 30th
+the enemy delivered a series of attacks directed especially against the
+high ground north and north-east of Jaffa, the left flank of our
+position in the hills from Beit ur el Foka to El Burj, and the Neby
+Samwil ridge. An attack on the night of the 29th succeeded in
+penetrating our outpost line north-east of Jaffa, but next morning the
+whole hostile detachment, numbering 150, was surrounded and captured by
+Australian Light Horse. On the 30th a similar fate befell a battalion
+which attacked near El Burj; a counter-attack by Australian Light Horse
+took 220 prisoners and practically destroyed the attacking battalion.
+There was particularly heavy fighting between El Burj and Beit ur el
+Foka, but the Yeomanry and Scottish troops successfully resisted all
+attacks and inflicted severe losses on the enemy. At Beit ur el Foka one
+company took 300 prisoners. All efforts by the enemy to drive us off the
+Neby Samwil ridge were completely repulsed. These attacks cost the Turks
+very dearly. We took 750 prisoners between November 27 and 30, and the
+enemy's losses in killed and wounded were undoubtedly heavy. His attacks
+in no way affected our positions nor impeded the progress of our
+preparations.
+
+[Sidenote: Improvement of roads and water supply.]
+
+Favored by a continuance of fine weather, preparations for a fresh
+advance against the Turkish positions west and south of Jerusalem
+proceeded rapidly. Existing roads and tracks were improved and new ones
+constructed to enable heavy and field artillery to be placed in position
+and ammunition and supplies brought up. The water supply was also
+developed.
+
+[Sidenote: Advances of British troops.]
+
+The date for the attack was fixed as December 8. Welsh troops, with a
+Cavalry regiment attached, had advanced from their positions north of
+Beersheba up the Hebron-Jerusalem road on the 4th. No opposition was
+met, and by the evening of the 6th the head of this column was ten miles
+north of Hebron. The Infantry were directed to reach the Bethlehem-Beit
+Jala area by the 7th, and the line Surbahir-Sherafat (about three miles
+south of Jerusalem) by dawn on the 8th, and no troops were to enter
+Jerusalem during this operation.
+
+It was recognized that the troops on the extreme right might be delayed
+on the 7th and fail to reach the positions assigned to them by dawn on
+the 8th. Arrangements were therefore made to protect the right flank
+west of Jerusalem, in case such delay occurred.
+
+[Sidenote: Three days of rain make roads almost impassable.]
+
+On the 7th the weather broke, and for three days rain was almost
+continuous. The hills were covered with mist at frequent intervals,
+rendering observation from the air and visual signalling impossible. A
+more serious effect of the rain was to jeopardize the supply
+arrangements by rendering the roads almost impassable--quite impassable,
+indeed, for mechanical transport and camels in many places.
+
+[Sidenote: Artillery support difficult.]
+
+The troops moved into positions of assembly by night, and, assaulting at
+dawn on the 8th, soon carried their first objectives. They then pressed
+steadily forward. The mere physical difficulty of climbing the steep and
+rocky hillsides and crossing the deep valleys would have sufficed to
+render progress slow, and the opposition encountered was considerable.
+Artillery support was soon difficult, owing to the length of the advance
+and the difficulty of moving guns forward. But by about noon London
+troops had already advanced over two miles, and were swinging north-east
+to gain the Nablus-Jerusalem road; while the Yeomanry had captured the
+Beit Iksa spur, and were preparing for a further advance.
+
+[Sidenote: Enemy defences west of Jerusalem captured.]
+
+As the right column had been delayed and was still some distance south
+of Jerusalem, it was necessary for the London troops to throw back their
+right and form a defensive flank facing east towards Jerusalem, from the
+western outskirts of which considerable rifle and artillery fire was
+being experienced. This delayed the advance, and early in the afternoon
+it was decided to consolidate the line gained and resume the advance
+next day, when the right column would be in a position to exert its
+pressure. By nightfall our line ran from Neby Samwil to the east of Beit
+Iksa, through Lifta to a point about one and one-half miles west of
+Jerusalem, whence it was thrown back facing east. All the enemy's
+prepared defences west and north-west of Jerusalem had been captured,
+and our troops were within a short distance of the Nablus-Jerusalem
+road.
+
+[Sidenote: Operations isolate Jerusalem.]
+
+Next morning the advance was resumed. The Turks had withdrawn during the
+night, and the London troops and Yeomanry, driving back rearguards,
+occupied a line across the Nablus-Jerusalem road four miles north of
+Jerusalem, while Welsh troops occupied a position east of Jerusalem
+across the Jericho road. These operations isolated Jerusalem, and at
+about noon the enemy sent out a _parlementaire_ and surrendered the
+city.
+
+At noon on the 11th I made my official entry into Jerusalem.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were many encounters between American ships and German submarines
+in the months of 1917, following the Declaration of War. Official
+accounts of the most important of these encounters are given in the
+following pages.
+
+
+
+
+AMERICAN SHIPS AND GERMAN SUBMARINES
+
+FROM OFFICIAL REPORTS
+
+
+[Sidenote: The destroyer _Cassin_ sights a submarine.]
+
+On October 15, 1917, the U. S. destroyer _Cassin_ was patrolling off the
+south coast of Ireland; when about 20 miles south of Mine Head, at 1.30
+p. m., a submarine was sighted by the lookout aloft four or five miles
+away, about two points on the port bow. The submarine at this time was
+awash and was made out by officers of the watch and the quartermaster of
+the watch, but three minutes later submerged.
+
+The _Cassin_, which was making 15 knots, continued on its course until
+near the position where the submarine had disappeared. When last seen
+the submarine was heading in a south-easterly direction, and when the
+destroyer reached the point of disappearance the course was changed, as
+it was thought the vessel would make a decided change of course after
+submerging. At this time the commanding officer, the executive officer,
+engineer officer, officer of the watch, and the junior watch officer
+were all on the bridge searching for the submarine.
+
+[Sidenote: Torpedo sighted running at high speed.]
+
+[Sidenote: Torpedo strikes destroyer and depth charges also explode.]
+
+At about 1.57 p. m. the commanding officer sighted a torpedo apparently
+shortly after it had been fired, running near the surface and in a
+direction that was estimated would make a hit either in the engine or
+fire room. When first seen the torpedo was between three or four hundred
+yards from the ship, and the wake could be followed on the other side
+for about 400 yards. The torpedo was running at high speed, at least 35
+knots. The _Cassin_ was maneuvering to dodge the torpedo, double
+emergency full speed ahead having been signaled from the engine room and
+the rudder put hard left as soon as the torpedo was sighted. It looked
+for the moment as though the torpedo would pass astern. When about
+fifteen or twenty feet away the torpedo porpoised, completely leaving
+the water and shearing to the left. Before again taking the water the
+torpedo hit the ship well aft on the port side about frame 163 and above
+the water line. Almost immediately after the explosion of the torpedo
+the depth charges, located on the stern and ready for firing, exploded.
+There were two distinct explosions in quick succession after the torpedo
+hit.
+
+[Sidenote: Ingram's sacrifice saves his comrades.]
+
+But one life was lost. Osmond K. Ingram, gunner's mate first class, was
+cleaning the muzzle of No. 4 gun, target practice being just over when
+the attack occurred. With rare presence of mind, realizing that the
+torpedo was about to strike the part of the ship where the depth charges
+were stored and that the setting off of these explosives might sink the
+ship, Ingram, immediately seeing the danger, ran aft to strip these
+charges and throw them overboard. He was blown to pieces when the
+torpedo struck. Thus Ingram sacrificed his life in performing a duty
+which he believed would save his ship and the lives of the officers and
+men on board.
+
+Nine members of the crew received minor injuries.
+
+After the ship was hit, the crew was kept at general quarters.
+
+[Sidenote: Port engine still workable.]
+
+The executive officer and engineer officer inspected the parts of the
+ship that were damaged, and those adjacent to the damage. It was found
+that the engine and fire rooms and after magazine were intact and that
+the engines could be worked; but that the ship could not be steered,
+the rudder having been blown off and the stern blown to starboard. The
+ship continued to turn to starboard in a circle. In an effort to put the
+ship on a course by the use of the engines, something carried away which
+put the starboard engine out of commission. The port engine was kept
+going at slow speed. The ship, being absolutely unmanageable, sometimes
+turned in a circle and at times held an approximate course for several
+minutes.
+
+[Sidenote: Radio officers improvise temporary wireless.]
+
+Immediately after the ship was torpedoed the radio was out of
+commission. The radio officer and radio electrician chief managed to
+improvise a temporary auxiliary antenna. The generators were out of
+commission for a short time after the explosion, the ship being in
+darkness below.
+
+When this vessel was torpedoed, there was another United States
+destroyer, name unknown, within signal distance. She had acknowledged
+our call by searchlight before we were torpedoed. After being torpedoed,
+an attempt was made to signal her by searchlight, flag, and whistle, and
+the distress signal was hoisted. Apparently through a misunderstanding
+she steamed away and was lost sight of.
+
+[Sidenote: Another submarine fight.]
+
+At about 2.30 p. m., when we were in approximately the same position as
+when torpedoed, a submarine conning tower was sighted on port beam,
+distant about 1,500 yards, ship still circling under port engine. Opened
+fire with No. 2 gun, firing four rounds. Submarine submerged and was not
+seen again. Two shots came very close to submarine.
+
+[Sidenote: American and British vessels stand by.]
+
+At 3.50 p. m., U. S. S. _Porter_ stood by. At 4.25 p. m., wreckage which
+was hanging to stern dropped off. At dark stopped port engine and
+drifted. At about 9 p. m., H. M. S. _Jessamine_ and H. M. S. _Tamarisk_
+stood by. H. M. S. _Jessamine_ signalled she would stand by until
+morning and then take us in tow. At this time sea was very rough, wind
+about six or seven and increasing.
+
+[Sidenote: Attempts to tow the _Cassin_ fail.]
+
+H. M. S. _Tamarisk_ prepared to take us in tow and made one attempt
+after another to get a line to us. Finally, about 2.10 a. m., October
+16, the _Tamarisk_ lowered a boat in rough sea and sent grass line by
+means of which our eight-inch hawser was sent over to her. At about 2.30
+a. m. _Tamarisk_ started towing us to Queenstown, speed about four
+knots, this vessel towing well on starboard quarter of _Tamarisk_, due
+to condition of stern described above. At 3.25 hawser parted.
+
+[Sidenote: The _Tamarisk_ succeeds in getting out a line.]
+
+Between this time and 10.37 a. m., when a towing line was received from
+H. M. S. _Snowdrop_, various attempts were made by the _Tamarisk_ and
+two trawlers and a tug to tow the _Cassin_. An eleven-inch towing hawser
+from the _Tamarisk_ parted. All ships, except her, lost the _Cassin_
+during the night. The _Cassin_ was drifting rapidly on a lee shore, and
+had it not been for the _Tamarisk_ getting out a line in the early
+morning, the vessel would have undoubtedly grounded on Hook Point, as it
+is extremely doubtful if her anchors would have held.
+
+About thirty-five feet of the stern was blown off or completely
+ruptured. The after living compartments and after storerooms are
+completely wrecked or gone, and all stores and clothing from these parts
+of the ship are gone or ruined. About forty-five members of the crew,
+including the chief petty officers, lost practically everything but the
+clothes they had on.
+
+At the time of the explosion there were a number of men in the after
+compartments. How they managed to escape is beyond explanation.
+
+The officers and crew behaved splendidly. There was no excitement. The
+men went to their stations quietly and remained there all night, except
+when called away to handle lines.
+
+[Sidenote: Efficiency of officers and men.]
+
+The work of the executive officer, Lieutenant J. W. McClaran, and of the
+engineer officer, Lieutenant J. A. Saunders, is deserving of especial
+commendation. These two officers inspected magazines and spaces below
+decks and superintended shoring of bulkheads and restaying of masts.
+Lieutenant (Junior Grade) R. M. Parkinson did excellent work in getting
+an improvised radio set into commission. W. J. Murphy, chief electrician
+(radio), and F. R. Fisher, chief machinist's mate, are specifically
+mentioned in the commanding officer's report for their cool and
+efficient work.
+
+Twenty-two enlisted men are mentioned by name as conspicuous for their
+coolness and leadership.
+
+[Sidenote: Luck in favor of the submarine.]
+
+From the statement of all the officers it is evident that luck favored
+the submarine. The destroyer probably would have escaped being hit had
+not the torpedo broached twice and turned decidedly to the left both
+times--in other words, failed to function properly.
+
+[Sidenote: The results of the explosion.]
+
+The equivalent of 850 pounds of T. N. T. is estimated to have exploded
+in and upon the _Cassin's_ fantail; this includes the charges of the
+torpedo and of both depth mines. No. 4 gun, blown overboard, left the
+ship to port, although that was the side which the torpedo hit. The gun
+went over at a point well forward of her mount. The mass of the
+wreckage, however, went to starboard. Explosion of the depth charges,
+rather than that of the torpedo outward or in throwback, supposedly
+effected this. About five seconds elapsed between the torpedo's
+detonation and those of the mines. They probably went off close
+together, for accounts vary as to whether there were in all two or
+three explosions.
+
+[Sidenote: The bulkhead buckles.]
+
+Of the two after doors, that to port threatened to carry away soon after
+the seas began to pound in. The main mass of the wreckage which dropped
+off did so upward of an hour after the explosions. It was at this time
+that the bulkhead began to buckle and the port door and dogging weaken.
+It was shored with mattresses under the personal direction of the
+executive. Up to this time and until the seas began to crumple the
+bulkhead completely, there was only a few inches of water in the two P.
+O. compartments; and even when the _Cassin_ reached Queenstown, hardly
+more than three feet. None of the compartments directly under these
+three on the deck below--handling room, magazine, and oil tanks--were
+injured at all. The tanks were farthest aft, and were pumped out after
+docking.
+
+[Sidenote: Freaks of flying metal.]
+
+One piece of metal entered the wash room and before coming to rest
+completely circled it without touching a man who was standing in the
+center of the compartment. Another stray piece tore a six-inch hole in
+one of the stacks.
+
+The destroyer within signal distance at the time of the attack was the
+U. S. S. _Porter_. It is believed that she saw the explosion, at least
+of the two depth charges, and thinking that the _Cassin_ was attacking a
+submarine, started off scouting before a signal could be sent and after
+the radio was out of commission.
+
+[Sidenote: The _Alcedo's_ last voyage.]
+
+[Sidenote: Low visibility hides convoy.]
+
+At 4 p. m., November 4, 1917, the U. S. S. _Alcedo_ proceeded to sea
+from Quiberon Bay on escort duty to take convoy through the war zone.
+Following the northbound convoy for Brest, when north of Belle Ile
+formation was taken with the _Alcedo_ on the starboard flank. At 5.45 p.
+m. the _Alcedo_ took departure from Point Poulins Light. Darkness had
+fallen and owing to a haze visibility was poor, at times the convoy not
+being visible. About 11.30 visibility was such that the convoy was seen
+on the port bow of the _Alcedo_, the nearest ship, according to the
+commanding officer's estimate, being about 1,200 yards distant. Having
+written his night order, the commanding officer left the bridge and
+turned in.
+
+The following is his report of the torpedoing:
+
+[Sidenote: "Submarine, Captain."]
+
+[Sidenote: Attempts to avoid the torpedo.]
+
+At or about 1.45 a. m., November 5, while sleeping in emergency cabin,
+immediately under upper bridge, I was awakened by a commotion and
+immediately received a report from some man unknown, "Submarine,
+captain." I jumped out of bed and went to the upper bridge, and the
+officer of the deck, Lieutenant Paul, stated he had sounded "general
+quarters," had seen submarine on surface about 300 yards on port bow,
+and submarine had fired a torpedo, which was approaching. I took station
+on port wing of upper bridge and saw torpedo approaching about 200 feet
+distant. Lieutenant Paul had put the rudder full right before I arrived
+on bridge, hoping to avoid the torpedo. The ship answered slowly to her
+helm, however, and before any other action could be taken the torpedo I
+saw struck the ship's side immediately under the port forward chain
+plates, the detonation occurring instantly. I was thrown down and for a
+few seconds dazed by falling debris and water.
+
+[Sidenote: Submarine alarm sounded on siren.]
+
+Upon regaining my feet I sounded the submarine alarm on the siren, to
+call all hands if they had not heard the general alarm gong, and to
+direct the attention of the convoy and other escorting vessels. Called
+to the forward guns' crews to see if at stations, but by this time
+realized that gallant forecastle was practically awash. The foremast had
+fallen, carrying away radio aerial. I called out to abandon ship.
+
+I then left the upper bridge and went into the chart house to obtain
+ship's position from the chart, but, as there was no light, could not
+see. I then went out of the chart house and met the navigator,
+Lieutenant Leonard, and asked him if he had sent any radio, and he
+replied "No." I then directed him and accompanied him to the main deck
+and told him to take charge of cutting away forward dories and life
+rafts.
+
+I then proceeded along starboard gangway and found a man lying face down
+in gangway. I stooped and rolled him over and spoke to him, but received
+no reply and was unable to learn his identity, owing to the darkness. It
+is my opinion that this man was dead.
+
+[Sidenote: Dories and life rafts are cut away.]
+
+I then continued to the after end of ship, took station on aftergun
+platform. I then realized that the ship was filling rapidly and her
+bulwarks amidships were level with the water. I directed the after
+dories and life rafts to be cut away and thrown overboard and ordered
+the men in the immediate vicinity to jump over the side, intending to
+follow them.
+
+[Sidenote: The ship sinks--Captain reaches a whaleboat.]
+
+Before I could jump, however, the ship listed heavily to port, plunging
+by the head, and sunk, carrying me down with the suction. I experienced
+no difficulty, however, in getting clear, and when I came to the surface
+I swam a few yards to a life raft, to which were clinging three men. We
+climbed on board this raft and upon looking around observed Doyle, chief
+boatswain's mate, and one other man in the whaleboat. We paddled to the
+whaleboat and embarked from the life raft.
+
+[Sidenote: Rescuing men from the water.]
+
+The whaleboat was about half full of water, and we immediately started
+bailing and then to rescue men from wreckage, and quickly filled the
+whaleboat to more than its maximum capacity, so that no others could be
+taken aboard. We then picked up two overturned dories which were nested
+together, separated them and righted them, only to find that their
+sterns had been broken. We then located another nest of dories, which
+were separated and righted and found to be seaworthy. Transferred some
+men from the whaleboat into these dories and proceeded to pick up other
+men from wreckage. During this time cries were heard from two men in the
+water some distance away who were holding on to wreckage and calling for
+assistance. It is believed that these men were Ernest M. Harrison, mess
+attendant, and John Winne, jr., seaman. As soon as the dories were
+available we proceeded to where they were last seen, but could find no
+trace of them.
+
+[Sidenote: Submarine of _U-27_ type approaches.]
+
+About this time, which was probably an hour after the ship sank, a
+German submarine approached the scene of torpedoing and lay to near some
+of the dories and life rafts. She was in the light condition, and from
+my observation of her I am of the opinion that she was of the _U-27-31_
+type. This has been confirmed by having a number of men and officers
+check the silhouette book. The submarine was probably 100 yards distant
+from my whaleboat, and I heard no remarks from anyone on the submarine,
+although I observed three persons standing on top of conning tower.
+After laying on surface about half an hour the submarine steered off and
+submerged.
+
+[Sidenote: Boats leave scene of disaster.]
+
+I then proceeded with the whaleboat and two dories searching through the
+wreckage to make sure that no survivors were left in the water. No other
+people being seen, at 4.30 a. m. we started away from the scene of
+disaster.
+
+The _Alcedo_ was sunk, as near as I can estimate, 75 miles west true of
+north end of Belle Ile. The torpedo struck ship at 1.46 by the officer
+of the deck's watch, and the same watch stopped at 1.54 a. m., November
+5, this showing that the ship remained afloat eight minutes.
+
+[Sidenote: A French torpedo boat rescues the Captain's party.]
+
+The flare of Penmark Light was visible, and I headed for it and
+ascertained the course by Polaris to be approximately northeast. We
+rowed until 1.15, when Penmark Lighthouse was sighted. Continued rowing
+until 5.15 p. m. when Penmark Lighthouse was distant about 2 1/2 miles.
+We were then picked up by French torpedo boat _275_, and upon going on
+board I requested the commanding officer to radio immediately to Brest
+reporting the fact of torpedoing and that 3 officers and 40 men were
+proceeding to Brest. The French gave all assistance possible for the
+comfort of the survivors. We arrived at Brest about 11 p. m. Those
+requiring medical attention were sent to the hospital and the others
+were sent off to the _Panther_ to be quartered.
+
+[Sidenote: Crews of two other dories safe.]
+
+Upon arrival at Brest I was informed that two other dories containing
+Lieutenant H. R. Leonard, Lieutenant H. A. Peterson, Passed Assistant
+Surgeon Paul O. M. Andreae, and 25 men had landed at Pen March Point.
+This was my first intimation that these officers and men had been saved,
+as they had not been seen by any of my party at the scene of torpedoing.
+
+[Sidenote: The destroyer _Jacob Jones_ is torpedoed.]
+
+At 4.21 p. m. on December 6, 1917, in latitude 49.23 north, longitude
+6.13 west, clear weather, smooth sea, speed 13 knots zigzagging, the U.
+S. S. _Jacob Jones_ was struck on the starboard side by a torpedo from
+an enemy submarine. The ship was one of six of an escorting group which
+were returning independently from off Brest to Queenstown. All other
+ships of the group were out of sight ahead.
+
+[Sidenote: Attempts to avoid the torpedo.]
+
+I was in the chart house and heard some one call out "Torpedo!" I jumped
+at once to the bridge, and on the way up saw the torpedo about 800 yards
+from the ship approaching from about one point abaft the starboard beam
+headed for a point about midships, making a perfectly straight surface
+run (alternately broaching and submerging to apparently 4 or 5 feet), at
+an estimated speed of at least 40 knots. No periscope was sighted. When
+I reached the bridge I found that the officer of the deck had already
+put the rudder hard left and rung up emergency speed on the engine-room
+telegraph. The ship had already begun to swing to the left. I personally
+rang up emergency speed again and then turned to watch the torpedo. The
+executive officer, Lieutenant Norman Scott, left the chart house just
+ahead of me, saw the torpedo immediately on getting outside the door,
+and estimates that the torpedo when he sighted it was 1,000 yards away,
+approaching from one point, or slightly less, abaft the beam and making
+exceedingly high speed.
+
+[Sidenote: Lieutenant Kalk acts promptly.]
+
+After seeing the torpedo and realizing the straight run, line of
+approach, and high speed it was making, I was convinced that it was
+impossible to maneuver to avoid it. Lieutenant (Junior Grade) S. F. Kalk
+was officer of the deck at the time, and I consider that he took correct
+and especially prompt measures in maneuvering to avoid the torpedo.
+Lieutenant Kalk was a very able officer, calm and collected in
+emergency. He had been attached to the ship for about two months and had
+shown especial aptitude. His action in this emergency entirely justified
+my confidence in him. I deeply regret to state that he was lost as a
+result of the torpedoing of the ship, dying of exposure on one of the
+rafts.
+
+[Sidenote: Torpedo strikes fuel-oil tank below water line.]
+
+The torpedo broached and jumped clear of the water at a short distance
+from the ship, submerged about 50 or 60 feet from the ship, and struck
+approximately three feet below the water line in the fuel-oil tank
+between the auxiliary room and the after crew space. The ship settled
+aft immediately after being torpedoed to a point at which the deck just
+forward of the after deck house was awash, and then more gradually until
+the deck abreast the engine-room hatch was awash. A man on watch in the
+engine room, D. R. Carter, oiler, attempted to close the water-tight
+door between the auxiliary room and the engine room, but was unable to
+do so against the pressure of water from the auxiliary room.
+
+[Sidenote: Effects of the explosion.]
+
+The deck over the forward part of the after crew space and over the
+fuel-oil tank just forward of it was blown clear for a space
+athwartships of about 20 feet from starboard to port, and the auxiliary
+room wrecked. The starboard after torpedo tube was blown into the air.
+No fuel oil ignited and, apparently, no ammunition exploded. The depth
+charges in the chutes aft were set on ready and exploded after the stern
+sank. It was impossible to get to them to set them on safe as they were
+under water. Immediately the ship was torpedoed, Lieutenant J. K.
+Richards, the gunnery officer, rushed aft to attempt to set the charges
+on "safe," but was unable to get further aft than the after deck house.
+
+[Sidenote: Impossible to use radio.]
+
+As soon as the torpedo struck I attempted to send out an "S. O. S."
+message by radio, but the mainmast was carried away, antennae falling,
+and all electric power had failed. I then tried to have the gun-sight
+lighting batteries connected up in an effort to send out a low-power
+message with them, but it was at once evident that this would not be
+practicable before the ship sank. There was no other vessel in sight,
+and it was therefore impossible to get through a distress signal of any
+kind.
+
+[Sidenote: Confidential publications are weighted and thrown overboard.]
+
+Immediately after the ship was torpedoed every effort was made to get
+rafts and boats launched. Also the circular life belts from the bridge
+and several splinter mats from the outside of the bridge were cut adrift
+and afterwards proved very useful in holding men up until they could be
+got to the rafts. Weighted confidential publications were thrown over
+the side. There was no time to destroy other confidential matter, but it
+went down with the ship.
+
+[Sidenote: Men jump overboard.]
+
+The ship sank about 4.29 p. m. (about eight minutes after being
+torpedoed). As I saw her settling rapidly, I ran along the deck and
+ordered everybody I saw to jump overboard. At this time most of those
+not killed by the explosion had got clear of the ship and were on rafts
+or wreckage. Some, however, were swimming and a few appeared to be about
+a ship's length astern of the ship, at some distance from the rafts,
+probably having jumped overboard very soon after the ship was struck.
+
+[Sidenote: The ship sinks stern first. Depth charges explode.]
+
+Before the ship sank two shots were fired from No. 4 gun with the hope
+of attracting attention of some nearby ship. As the ship began sinking
+I jumped overboard. The ship sank stern first and twisted slowly through
+nearly 180 degrees as she swung upright. From this nearly vertical
+position, bow in the air to about the forward funnel, she went straight
+down. Before the ship reached the vertical position the depth charges
+exploded, and I believe them to have caused the death of a number of
+men. They also partially paralyzed, stunned, or dazed a number of
+others, including Lieutenant Kalk and myself and several men, some of
+whom are still disabled but recovering.
+
+[Sidenote: Rafts and boats float.]
+
+Immediate efforts were made to get all survivors on the rafts and then
+get rafts and boats together. Three rafts were launched before the ship
+sank and one floated off when she sank. The motor dory, hull undamaged
+but engine out of commission, also floated off, and the punt and wherry
+also floated clear. The punt was wrecked beyond usefulness, and the
+wherry was damaged and leaking badly, but was of considerable use in
+getting men to the rafts. The whaleboat was launched but capsized soon
+afterwards, having been damaged by the explosion of the depth charges.
+The motor sailor did not float clear, but went down with the ship.
+
+[Sidenote: Submarine appears and picks up one man.]
+
+About 15 or 20 minutes after the ship sank the submarine appeared on the
+surface about two or three miles to the westward of the rafts, and
+gradually approached until about 800 to 1,000 yards from the ship, where
+it stopped and was seen to pick up one unidentified man from the water.
+The submarine then submerged and was not seen again.
+
+[Sidenote: The captain's boat steers for the Scillys.]
+
+I was picked up by the motor dory and at once began to make arrangements
+to try to reach the Scillys in that boat in order to get assistance to
+those on the rafts. All the survivors then in sight were collected and I
+gave orders to Lieutenant Richards to keep them together. Lieutenant
+Scott, the navigating officer, had fixed the ship's position a few
+minutes before the explosion and both he and I knew accurately the
+course to be steered. I kept Lieutenant Scott to assist me and four men
+who were in good condition in the boat to man the oars, the engine being
+out of commission. With the exception of some emergency rations and half
+a bucket of water, all provisions, including medical kit, were taken
+from the dory and left on the rafts. There was no apparatus of any kind
+which could be used for night signaling.
+
+[Sidenote: Survivors are picked up.]
+
+After a very trying trip during which it was necessary to steer by stars
+and by the direction of the wind, the dory was picked up about 1 p. m.,
+December 7, by a small patrol vessel about 6 miles south of St. Marys.
+Commander Randal, R. N. R., Senior Naval Officer, Scilly Isles, informed
+me that the other survivors had been rescued.
+
+One small raft (which had been separated from the others from the
+first) was picked up by the S. S. _Catalina_ at 8 p. m., December 6.
+After a most trying experience through the night, the remaining
+survivors were picked up by H. M. S. _Camellia_, at 8.30 a. m., December
+7.
+
+[Sidenote: The number lost.]
+
+I deeply regret to state that out of a total of 7 officers and 103 men
+on board at the time of the torpedoing, 2 officers and 64 men died in
+the performance of duty.
+
+The behavior of officers and men under the exceptionally hard conditions
+is worthy of the highest praise.
+
+[Sidenote: Lieutenant Scott's valuable services.]
+
+Lieutenant Norman Scott, executive officer, accomplished a great deal
+toward getting boats and rafts in the water, turning off steam from the
+fireroom to the engine room, getting life belts and splinter mats from
+the bridge into the water, in person firing signal guns, encouraging and
+assisting the men, and in general doing everything possible in the short
+time available. He was of invaluable assistance during the trip in the
+dory.
+
+[Sidenote: Calmness and efficiency of other officers.]
+
+Lieutenant J. K. Richards was left in charge of all the rafts, and his
+coolness and cheerfulness under exceedingly hard conditions was highly
+commendable and undoubtedly served to put heart into the men to stand
+the strain.
+
+Lieutenant (Junior Grade) S. F. Kalk, during the early part of the
+evening, but already in a weakened condition, swam from one raft to
+another in the effort to equalize weight on the rafts. The men who were
+on the raft with him state, in their own words, that "He was game to the
+last."
+
+Lieutenant (Junior Grade) N. N. Gates was calm and efficient in the
+performance of duty.
+
+[Sidenote: Men recommended for commendation.]
+
+During the night, Charlesworth, C., boatswain's mate first class,
+removed parts of his own clothing (when all realized that their lives
+depended on keeping warm) to try to keep alive men more thinly clad than
+himself. This sacrifice shows his caliber and I recommend that he be
+commended for his action.
+
+At the risk of almost certain death, Burger, P. J., seaman second class,
+remained in the motor sailer and endeavored to get it clear for floating
+from the ship. While he did not succeed in accomplishing this work
+(which would undoubtedly have saved 20 or 30 lives) I desire to call
+attention to his sticking to duty until the very last, and recommend him
+as being most worthy of commendation. He was drawn under the water with
+the boat, but later came to the surface and was rescued.
+
+Kelly, L. J., chief electrician, and Chase, H. U., quartermaster third
+class, remained on board until the last, greatly endangering their lives
+thereby, to cut adrift splinter mats and life preservers. Kelly's
+stamina and spirit were especially valuable during the motor dory's
+trip.
+
+Gibson, H. L., chief boatswain's mate, and Meier, E., water tender, were
+of great assistance to the men on their rafts in advising and cheering
+them up under most adverse conditions.
+
+The foregoing report is made from my own observations and after
+questioning all surviving officers and men.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The American naval authorities early recognized that the swift
+destroyers were the most effective instruments for hunting down German
+submarines, and the most efficient guardians for the loaded troop and
+food ships crossing the Atlantic. Life on board one of these swift and
+powerful boats is described in the following narrative.[1]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[1] Transcriber's Note: This narrative will be found in Vol. III of this
+series.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+Page 18, double word "being" removed (without being able) Original
+read: (without being being able)
+
+Page 33, word "with" was originally italicised. These italics were
+removed. (_Nerissa_, with _Moorsom_ and _Morris_)
+
+Page 39, "squaddron" changed to "squadron" (his magnificent squadron)
+
+Page 59, "I" inserted into text (men than I could)
+
+Page 86, "Fregicourt" changed to "Fregicourt" (Rancourt, and Fregicourt)
+
+Page 143, "Candian" changed to "Canadian" (Canadian lines and had)
+
+Page 151, "Hobenzollerns" changed to "Hohenzollerns" (upon the
+Hohenzollerns)
+
+Page 158, "frome" changed to "from" (came from the sentries)
+
+Page 178, "Meopotamia" changed to "Mesopotamia" (empire--Mesopotamia,
+Syria)
+
+Page 238, "Wheras" changed to "Whereas" (_Whereas_, The Imperial German)
+
+Page 267, "dramtically" changed to "dramatically" (was dramatically
+tense)
+
+Page 294, "Consulor" changed to "Consular" (to American Consular)
+
+Page 346, "depots" changed to "depots" to match rest of article (and
+depots north of)
+
+Page 367, Sidenote: "defenses" changed to "defences" to match rest of
+text (Enemy defences west)
+
+Page 375, "foremost" changed to "foremast" (The foremast had fallen)
+
+Page 381, "other" changed to "others" (number of others)
+
+Many words were hyphenated or not depending on the article. Examples:
+battlefield, battle-field; bridgehead, bridge-head; varied forms of
+cooperate, co-operate, cooperate.
+
+At times manoevre was spelled with an oe-ligature. This is indicated in
+the text by enclosing the ligature in brackets [oe].
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of World's War Events, Vol. II, by Various
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