Title: New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915
Author: Various
Language: English
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THE EUROPEAN WAR, VOL 2, NO. 2, MAY, 1915***


The New York Times

CURRENT HISTORY

A Monthly Magazine

THE EUROPEAN WAR, VOLUME II

April, 1915-September, 1915

With Index

Number II, May, 1915



[Illustration: (logo) THE N.Y. TIMES]



New York
The New York Times Company

1915



CONTENTS

NUMBER II. MAY, 1915.

                                                                  Page

GENERAL SIR JOHN FRENCH'S OWN STORY (With Map)                     205
  The Costly Victory of Neuve Chapelle

ROBERTS OF KANDAHAR (Poem)                                         210
  By Sidney Low

THE SURRENDER OF PRZEMYSL (With Maps)                              211
  How Galicia's Strong Fortress Yielded to the Russian Siege

THE JESTERS (Poem)                                                 217
  By Marion Couthouy Smith

LORD KITCHENER ADVERTISES FOR RECRUITS                             218

BATTLE OF THE DARDANELLES (With Map)                               219
  The Disaster that Befell the Allies' Fleet

OFFICIAL STORY OF TWO SEA FIGHTS (With Maps)                       223

BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND MORNING (Poem)                                231
  By Sir Owen Seaman

THE GREATEST OF CAMPAIGNS (With Map)                               232
  The French Official Account Concluded

SONNET ON THE BELGIAN EXPATRIATION                                 250
  By Thomas Hardy

WAR CORRESPONDENCE (With Map)                                      251

THE SPIRIT OF MANKIND                                              258
  By Woodrow Wilson

"WHAT THE GERMANS SAY ABOUT THEIR OWN METHODS OF WARFARE"          259
  (With Facsimile Letters)
  By Professor Bedier of the College de France

THE RECRUIT (Poem)                                                 274
  By Hortense Flexner

AMERICAN REPLY TO BRITAIN'S BLOCKADE ORDER                         275
  By William J. Bryan

GERMANY'S CONDITIONS OF PEACE                                      279
  By Dr. Bernhard Dernburg

THE ALLIES' CONDITIONS OF PEACE                                    282
  By Sir Edward Grey

SOUTH AFRICA'S ROMANTIC BLUE PAPER (With Map)                      284

THE BELLS OF BERLIN (Poem)                                         289
  From _Punch_ of London

WARFARE AND BRITISH LABOR                                          290
  By Earl Kitchener

SAVIORS OF EUROPE                                                  292
  By Rene Bazin

BRITAIN'S PERIL OF STRIKES AND DRINK                               293
  By Lloyd George

ITALY'S EVOLUTION AS REFLECTED BY HER PRESS                        301

SOME RUSES DE GUERRE (Poem)                                        304
  By A.M. Wakeman

THE EUROPEAN WAR AS SEEN BY CARTOONISTS                            305

FACSIMILE OF A BELGIAN BREAD-CHECK                                 329

TO A GERMAN APOLOGIST (Poem)                                       329
  By Beatrice Barry

AMERICA'S NEUTRALITY                                               330
  By Count Albert Apponyi

NEUTRAL SPIRIT OF THE SWISS                                        335
  An Interview with President Motta

TO KING AND PEOPLE (Poem)                                          336
  By Walter Sichel

A SWISS VIEW OF GERMANY                                            337
  By Maurice Millioud

THE LAND OF MAETERLINCK                                            344
  By Alfred Sutro

AMERICA AND PROHIBITION RUSSIA                                     345
  By Isabel F. Hapgood

THE MOTHER'S SONG (Poem)                                           350
  By Cecilia Reynolds Robertson

PAN-AMERICAN RELATIONS AS AFFECTED BY THE WAR                      351
  By Huntington Wilson

AN EASTER MESSAGE (Poem)                                           357
  By Beatrice Barry

AN INTERVIEW ON THE WAR WITH HENRY JAMES                           358
  By Preston Lockwood

A TALK WITH BELGIUM'S GOVERNOR                                     363
  By Edward Lyall Fox

A CHARGE IN THE DARK (Poem)                                        365
  By O.C.A. Child

A NEW POLAND                                                       366
  By Gustave Hervé

"WITH THE HONORS OF WAR"                                           368
  By Wythe Williams

GENERAL FOCH, THE MAN OF YPRES                                     373

THE UNREMEMBERED DEAD (Poem)                                       377
  By Ella A. Fanning

CANADA AND BRITAIN'S WAR UNION                                     378
  By Edward W. Thomson

ENGLAND (Poem)                                                     384
  By John E. Dolson

AMERICAN AID OF FRANCE                                             385
  By Eugène Brieux

A FAREWELL (Poem)                                                  387
  By Edna Mead

STORIES OF FRENCH COURAGE                                          388
  By Edwin L. Shuman

A TROOPER'S SOLILOQUY (Poem)                                       392
  By O.C.A. Child

AMERICAN UNFRIENDLINESS                                            393
  By Maximilian Harden

ENDOWED WITH A NOBLE FIRE OF BLOOD                                 395
  By A. Kouprine

CHRONOLOGY OF THE WAR                                              396

THE DAY (Poem)                                                     408
  By Henry Chappell

[Illustration: COMMANDER THIERICHENS

Commander of the German commerce-raider Prinz Eitel Friedrich, which
sank the American sailing ship William P. Frye.]

[Illustration: THE GRAND DUCHESS OF LUXEMBURG

Whose little State was first occupied by the German forces.

(Photo from George Grantham Bain.)]



The New York Times

CURRENT HISTORY

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE

THE EUROPEAN WAR

MAY, 1915



General Sir John French's Own Story

The Costly Victory of Neuve Chapelle


_LONDON, April 14.--Field Marshal Sir John French, commander of the
British expeditionary forces on the Continent, reports the British
losses in the three days' fighting at Neuve Chapelle last month, as
follows: Killed, 190 officers, 2,337 men; wounded, 359 officers, 8,174
other ranks; missing, 23 officers, 1,728 men; total casualties, 12,811.
The report continues:_

The enemy left several thousand dead on the field, and we have positive
information that upward of 12,000 wounded were removed by trains. Thirty
officers and 1,657 of other ranks were captured.

_The British commander's dispatch concerning the battle is long, and
says, among other things:_

Considerable delay occurred after the capture of Neuve Chapelle, and the
infantry was greatly disorganized. I am of the opinion that this delay
would not have occurred had the clearly expressed order of the general
officer commanding the First Army been more carefully observed.

_Field Marshal Sir John French's report, which covers the battles of
Neuve Chapelle and St. Eloi under date of April 5, was published in the
official Gazette today. The Commander in Chief writes:_

The event of chief interest and importance which has taken place is the
victory achieved over the enemy in the battle of Neuve Chapelle, which
was fought on March 10, 11, and 12.

The main attack was delivered by the troops of the First Army under
command of General Sir Douglas Haig, supported by a large force of heavy
artillery, a division of cavalry, and some infantry of the General
Reserve. Secondary and holding attacks and demonstrations were made
along the front of the Second Army, under direction of its commander,
Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien.

While the success attained was due to the magnificent bearing and
indomitable courage displayed by the troops of the Fourth and Indian
Corps, I consider that the able and skillful dispositions which were
made by the general officer commanding the First Army contributed
largely to the defeat of the enemy and to the capture of his position.
The energy and vigor with which General Sir Douglas Haig handled his
command show him to be a leader of great ability and power.

Another action of considerable importance was brought about by a
surprise attack made by the Germans on March 14 against the
Twenty-seventh Division holding the trenches east of St. Eloi. A large
force of artillery was concentrated in this area under the cover of a
mist and a heavy volume of fire was suddenly brought to bear on the
trenches.

At 5 o'clock in the afternoon this artillery attack was accompanied by
two mine explosions, and in the confusion caused by these and by the
suddenness of the attack the position of St. Eloi was captured and held
for some hours by the enemy.

Well-directed and vigorous counter-attacks, in which the troops of the
Fifth Army Corps showed great bravery and determination, restored the
situation by the evening of the 15th.

_The dispatch describes further operations, saying:_

On Feb. 6 a brilliant action by the troops of the First Corps materially
improved our position in the area south of La Bassée Canal. During the
previous night parties of the Irish Guards and the Third Battalion of
the Coldstream Guards had succeeded in gaining ground from which a
converging fire could be directed on the flanks and rear of certain
brick stacks occupied by the Germans, which had been for some time a
source of considerable annoyance. At 2 P.M. the affair commenced with a
severe bombardment of the brick stacks and the enemy's trenches.

A brisk attack by the Third Battalion of the Coldstream Guards and Irish
Guards from our trenches west of the brick stacks followed and was
supported by the fire from the flanking position which had been seized
the previous night by the same regiments.

The attack succeeded, the brick stacks were occupied without difficulty,
and a line was established north and south through a point about forty
yards east of the brick stacks.

The casualties suffered by the Fifth Corps throughout the period under
review, and particularly during the month of February, have been
heavier than those on other parts of the line. I regret this, but do not
think, taking all circumstances into consideration, that they were
unduly numerous. The position then occupied by the Fifth Corps had
always been a very vulnerable part of our line. The ground was marshy,
and trenches were most difficult to construct and maintain. The
Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth Divisions of the Fifth Corps had no
previous experience in European warfare, and a number of the units
composing the corps had only recently returned from service in tropical
climates. In consequence, the hardships of a rigorous Winter campaign
fell with greater weight upon these divisions than upon any other in the
command.

Chiefly owing to these causes the Fifth Corps, up to the beginning of
March, was constantly engaged in counter-attacks to retake trenches and
ground which had been lost. In their difficult and arduous task,
however, the troops displayed the utmost gallantry and devotion, and it
is most creditable to the skill and energy of their leaders that I am
able to report how well they have surmounted all their difficulties and
that the ground first taken over by them is still intact and held with
little greater loss than is incurred by the troops in all other parts of
the line.

_Describing an attack on the German trenches near St. Eloi on Feb. 28 by
Princess Patricia's Regiment, of the Canadian contingent, under command
of Lieut. C.E. Crabbe, the Commander in Chief says:_

The services performed by this distinguished corps have continued to be
very valuable since I had occasion to refer to them in my last dispatch.
They have been most ably organized and trained and were commanded by
Lieut. Colonel F.D. Farquhar, D.S.O., who I deeply regret to say was
killed while superintending some trench work on March 20. His loss will
be deeply felt.

_Emphasizing the co-operation of the British and French forces and the
new rôle in warfare assumed by the cavalry, the Commander in Chief
writes:_

During the month of February I arranged with General Foch to render the
Ninth French Corps, holding the trenches to my left, some much-needed
rest by sending the three divisions of the British Cavalry Corps to hold
a portion of the French trenches, each division for a period of ten days
alternately.

[Illustration: Map showing the field of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle and
its position in the Allied line.]

It was very gratifying to me to note once again in this campaign the
eager readiness which the cavalry displayed to undertake a rôle which
does not properly belong to them in order to support and assist their
French comrades. In carrying out this work the leader, officers, and men
displayed the same skill and energy which I have had reason to comment
upon in former dispatches.

_Referring to Neuve Chapelle and the considerations leading up to this,
the Field Marshal says:_

About the end of February many vital considerations induced me to
believe that a vigorous offensive movement by the troops under my
command should be planned and carried out at the earliest possible
moment. Among the more important reasons which convinced me of this
necessity were the general aspect of the allied situation throughout
Europe, and particularly the marked success of the Russian Army in
repelling the violent onslaughts of Marshal von Hindenburg; the apparent
weakening of the enemy on my front, and the necessity for assisting our
Russian allies to the utmost by holding as many hostile troops as
possible in the western theatre; the efforts to this end which were
being made by the French forces at Arras and in Champagne, and--perhaps
the most weighty consideration of all--the need of fostering the
offensive spirit in the troops under my command after the trying and
possibly enervating experiences which they had gone through of a severe
Winter in the trenches.

In a former dispatch I commented upon the difficulties and drawbacks
which the Winter weather in this climate imposes upon a vigorous
offensive. Early in March these difficulties became greatly lessened by
the drying up of the country and by spells of brighter weather.

I do not propose in this dispatch to enter at length into the
considerations which actuated me in deciding upon the plan, time, and
place of my attack. As mentioned above, the main attack was carried out
by units of the First Army, supported by troops of the Second Army and
the general reserve. The object of the main attack was to be the capture
of the village of Neuve Chapelle and the enemy's position at that point,
and the establishment of our line as far forward as possible to the east
of that place.

The object, nature, and scope of the attack and the instructions for the
conduct of the operations were communicated by me to Sir Douglas Haig
in a secret memorandum, dated Feb. 19.

_After describing the main topographical features of the battlefield and
showing how the Germans had established a strong post with numerous
machine guns among the big houses, behind walls and in orchards which
flanked the approaches to the village, Sir John proceeds:_

The battle opened at 7:30 o'clock the morning of the 10th of March by a
powerful bombardment of the enemy's position in Neuve Chapelle. The
artillery bombardment had been well prepared and was most effective,
except on the extreme northern portion of the front of attack.

At 8:05 o'clock the Twenty-third and Twenty-fifth Brigades of the Eighth
Division assaulted the German trenches on the northwest of the village.
At the same hour the Garhwal Brigade of the Meerut (British India)
Division, which occupied a position to the south of Neuve Chapelle,
assaulted the German trenches in its front. The Garhwal Brigade and the
Twenty-fifth Brigade carried the enemy's lines of intrenchment, where
the wire entanglements had been almost entirely swept away by our
shrapnel fire.

The Twenty-third Brigade, however, on the northeast, was held up by wire
entanglements which were not sufficiently cut. At 8:05 o'clock the
artillery was turned on Neuve Chapelle, and at 8:35 o'clock the advance
of the infantry was continued. The Twenty-fifth and the Garhwal Brigades
pushed on eastward and northeastward, respectively, and succeeded in
getting a foothold in the village. The Twenty-third Brigade was still
held up in front of the enemy's wire entanglements, and could not
progress. Heavy losses were suffered, especially in the Middlesex
Regiment and the Scottish Rifles.

The progress, however, of the Twenty-fifth Brigade into Neuve Chapelle
immediately to the south of the Twenty-third Brigade had the effect of
turning the southern flank of the enemy's defenses in front of the
Twenty-third Brigade. This fact, combined with powerful artillery
support, enabled the Twenty-third Brigade to get forward between 10 and
11 A.M., and by 11 o'clock the whole of the village of Neuve Chapelle
and the roads leading northward and southwestward from the eastern end
of that village were in our hands.

During this time our artillery completely cut off the village and
surrounding country from any German reinforcements which could be thrown
into the fight to restore the situation, by means of a curtain of
shrapnel fire. Prisoners subsequently reported that all attempts at
reinforcing the front line were checked. Steps were at once taken to
consolidate the positions won.

Considerable delay occurred after the capture of the Neuve Chapelle
position. The infantry was greatly disorganized by the violent nature of
the attack and by its passage through the enemy's trenches and the
buildings of the village. It was necessary to get the units to some
extent together before pushing on. The telephonic communication being
cut by the enemy's fire rendered communication between the front and the
rear most difficult. The fact of the left of the Twenty-third Brigade
having been held up had kept back the Eighth Division and had involved a
portion of the Twenty-fifth Brigade in fighting to the north, out of its
proper direction of advance. All this required adjustment. An orchard
held by the enemy north of Neuve Chapelle also threatened the flank of
an advance toward the Aubers Bridge.

I am of the opinion that this delay would not have occurred had the
clearly expressed order of the general officer commanding the First Army
been carefully observed.

The difficulties above enumerated might have been overcome earlier in
the day if the general officer commanding the Fourth Corps had been able
to bring his reserve brigades more speedily into action. As it was, a
further advance did not commence before 3:30 o'clock. The Twenty-first
Brigade was able to form up in the open on the left without a shot being
fired at it, thus showing that, at the time, the enemy's resistance had
been paralyzed.

The brigade pushed forward in the direction of Moulin-du-Pietre. At
first it made good progress, but was subsequently held up by machine gun
fire from houses and from a defended work in the line of the German
intrenchments opposite the right of the Twenty-second Brigade.

Further to the south the Twenty-fourth Brigade, which had been directed
on Pietre, was similarly held up by machine guns in houses and trenches.
At the road junction, 600 yards to the northwest of Pietre, the
Twenty-fifth Brigade, on the right of the Twenty-fourth, was also held
up by machine guns from a bridge held by the Germans over the River Les
Layes, which is situated to the northwest of the Bois du Biez.

While two brigades of the Meerut Division were establishing themselves
on a new line the Dehra Dun Brigade, supported by the Jullunder Brigade
of the Lahore Division, moved to the attack of the Bois du Biez, but
were held up on the line of the River Les Layes by a German post at the
bridge, which enfiladed them and brought them to a standstill.

The defended bridge over the Les Layes and its neighborhood immediately
assumed considerable importance. While the artillery fire was brought to
bear, as far as circumstances would permit, on this point, General Sir
Douglas Haig directed the First Corps to dispatch one or more battalions
of the First Brigade in support of the troops attacking the bridge.
Three battalions were thus sent to Richebourg St. Vaast.

Darkness coming on and the enemy having brought up reinforcements, no
further progress could be made, and the Indian Corps and the Fourth
Corps proceeded to consolidate the position they had gained.

While the operations, which I have thus briefly reported, were going on,
the First Corps, in accordance with orders, delivered an attack in the
morning from Givenchy simultaneously with that against Neuve Chapelle,
but as the enemy's wire was insufficiently cut very little progress
could be made, and the troops at this point did little more than hold
fast to the Germans in front of them.

On the following day, March 11, the attack was renewed by the Fourth and
Indian Corps, but it was soon seen that further advance would be
impossible until the artillery had dealt effectively with the various
houses and defended localities which had held the troops up along the
entire front.

Efforts were made to direct the artillery fire accordingly, but, owing
to the weather conditions, which did not permit of aerial observations,
and the fact that nearly all the telephone communications between the
artillery observers and their batteries had been cut, it was impossible
to do so with sufficient accuracy. When our troops, who were pressing
forward, occupied a house there, it was not possible to stop our
artillery fire, and the infantry had to be withdrawn.

As most of the objects for which the operations had been undertaken had
been attained, and as there were reasons why I considered it inadvisable
to continue the attack at that time, I directed General Sir Douglas Haig
on the night of the 12th to hold and consolidate the ground which had
been gained by the Fourth and Indian Corps, and suspend further
offensive operations for the present.

The losses during these three days' fighting were, I regret to say, very
severe, numbering 190 officers and 2,337 of other ranks killed, 359
officers and 8,174 of other ranks wounded, and 23 officers and 1,720 of
other ranks missing. But the results attained were, in my opinion, wide
and far-reaching.

_Referring to the severity of the casualties in action, the Commander in
Chief writes:_

I can well understand how deeply these casualties are felt by the nation
at large, but each daily report shows clearly that they are endured on
at least an equal scale by all the combatants engaged throughout Europe,
friends and foe alike.

In war as it is today, between civilized nations armed to the teeth with
the present deadly rifle and machine gun, heavy casualties are
absolutely unavoidable. For the slightest undue exposure the heaviest
toll is exacted. The power of defense conferred by modern weapons is the
main cause for the long duration of the battles of the present day, and
it is this fact which mainly accounts for such loss and waste of life.
Both one and the other can, however, be shortened and lessened if
attacks can be supported by a most efficient and powerful force of
artillery available; but an almost unlimited supply of ammunition is
necessary, and a most liberal discretionary power as to its use must be
given to artillery commanders. I am confident that this is the only
means by which great results can be obtained with a minimum of loss.



ROBERTS OF KANDAHAR.

SIDNEY LOW, in The London Times.


    Through the long years of peril and of strife,
    He faced Death oft, and Death forbore to slay,
    Reserving for its sacrificial Day,
    The garnered treasure of his full-crowned life;
    So saved him till the furrowed soil was rife,
    With the rich tillage of our noblest dead;
    Then reaped the offering of his honored head,
    In that red field of harvest, where he died,
    With the embattled legions at his side.



The Surrender of Przemysl

How Galicia's Strong Fortress Yielded to the Russian Siege


     The Austrian fortress of Przemysl fell on March 22, 1915,
     after an investment and siege which lasted, with one short
     interruption, for nearly four months. This important event was
     celebrated by a Te Deum of thanksgiving in the presence of the
     Czar and the General Staff. The importance to the Russians of
     the capitulation of Przemysl is suggested by the fact that
     about 120,000 prisoners were reported taken when the Austrians
     yielded. Until this was effected the Russians could not
     venture upon a serious invasion of Hungary, and the investing
     troops who were then freed were more numerous than the
     defenders.

[By the Correspondent of The London Times.]

PETROGRAD, March 22.

The Minister of War has informed me that he has just received a telegram
from the Grand Duke Nicholas announcing the fall of Przemysl.

The fall of Przemysl marks the most important event of the Russian
campaign this year. It finally and irrevocably consolidates the position
of the Russians in Galicia. The Austro-German armies are deprived of the
incentive hitherto held out to them of relieving the isolated remnant of
their former dominion. The besieging army will be freed for other
purposes. From information previously published the garrison aggregated
about 25,000 men, hence the investing forces, which must always be at
least four times as great as the garrison, represent not less than
100,000 men. From all the information lately received from both Russian
and neutral sources, the position of the Austro-German armies in the
Carpathians has become distinctly critical. The reinforcements for the
gallant troops of General Brusiloff, General Radko Dmitrieff, and other
commanders are bound to exercise an enormous influence on the future
course of the campaign in the Carpathians.

All honor and credit are given by the Russians to the garrison of
Przemysl and General Kusmanek. Russian officers ever had the highest
opinion of the personality of the commandant. I heard from those who
fought under General Radko Dmitrieff in the early stages of the Galician
campaign that when our troops, after sweeping away the resistance at
Lwow and Jaroslau, loudly knocked at the doors of the fortress of
Przemysl, they met with a stern rebuff. In reply to the summons of the
Russians to surrender the keys the commandant wrote a curt and dignified
note remarking that he considered it beyond his own dignity or the
dignity of the Russian General to discuss the surrender of the fortress
before it had exhausted all its powers of resistance. During the second
invasion of Poland by the Austro-German armies the enemy's lines swept
up to and just beyond Przemysl, interrupting the investment of the
fortress. The wave of the Austrian invasion began to subside at the end
of the first week in November. Only then could we begin the siege of the
mighty fortress, which proved successful after the lapse of four months.

The first Russian attempt to storm Przemysl without previous
bombardment, which followed immediately upon the commandant's refusal to
surrender, resulted in very great loss of life to no purpose. Thereafter
it was decided to abstain from further attempts to take the fortress
until our siege guns could be placed and a preliminary bombardment could
sufficiently facilitate the task of the besiegers. Meanwhile, although
the fortress and town were duly invested, our lines were somewhat remote
from the outlying forts, and the peasants of adjacent villages were, it
is said, able to pass freely to and from the town of Przemysl--a fact
which would enable the inhabitants to obtain supplies. From all
accounts neither the garrison nor the inhabitants were reduced to very
great straits for food. The announcement made at the time of the first
investment of the fortress that provisions and supplies would easily
last till May was, however, obviously exaggerated.

I understand that heavy siege guns were ready to be conveyed to Przemysl
at the end of January, but that the Russian military authorities decided
to postpone their departure in view of the determined attempts made by
the Austro-German forces to pierce the Russian lines in the Carpathians
in order to relieve the fortress, which, if successful, might have
endangered the safety of the siege material. Owing to this fact the
bombardment of Przemysl began only about a fortnight ago, when the
Austro-German offensive had so far weakened as to satisfy the Russian
authorities that there was no further danger from this quarter.

The concluding stages of the siege have been related in the dispatches
from the Field Headquarters during the past week. The capture of the
dominating heights in the eastern sector followed close upon the first
bombardment. The final desperate sortie led by General Kusmanek at the
head of the Twenty-third Division of the Honved precipitated the end.
The remnants of the garrison were unable to man the works extending to a
thirty-mile periphery.

The loss of the western approaches left General Kusmanek no alternative
but to surrender. He had exhausted his ammunition and used up his
effectives. His messages for help were either intercepted or unanswered.
The assailants broke down the last resistance. The most important
strategical point in the whole of Galicia is now in Russian hands.


TE DEUM AT HEADQUARTERS.

PETROGRAD, March 22.

_The following official communiqué was issued from the Main Headquarters
this morning:_

The fortress of Przemysl has surrendered to our troops.

At the Headquarters of the Commander in Chief a Te Deum of thanksgiving
was celebrated in the presence of the Czar, the Grand Duke Nicholas,
Commander in Chief, and all the staff.

_The following communiqué from the Great Headquarters is issued here
today:_

Northern Front.--From the Niemen to the Vistula and on the left bank of
the latter river there has been no important change. Our troops
advancing from Tauroggen captured, after a struggle, Laugszargen, (near
the frontier of East Prussia,) where they took prisoners and seized an
ammunition depot and engineers' stores.

The Carpathians.--There has been furious fighting on the roads to
Bartfeld (in Hungary) in the valleys of the Ondawa and Laborcz.

Near the Lupkow Pass and on the left bank of the Upper San our troops
have advanced successfully, forcing the way with rifle fire and with the
bayonet. In the course of the day we took 2,500 prisoners, including
fifty officers and four machine guns.

In the direction of Munkacz the Germans, in close formation, attacked
our positions at Rossokhatch, Oravtchik, and Kosziowa, but were
everywhere driven back by our fire and by our counter-attacks with
severe losses. In Galicia there has been a snowstorm.

Przemysl.--On the night of the 21st there was a fierce artillery fire
round Przemysl. Portions of the garrison who once more tried to effect a
sortie toward the northeast toward Oikowic were driven back within the
circle of forts with heavy losses.

_Note.--This portion of the communiqué was evidently drafted before the
fall of Przemysl took place, and the communiqué proceeds:_

In recognition of the joyous event of the fall of Przemysl the Czar has
conferred upon the Grand Duke Nicholas the Second Class of the Order of
St. George and the Third Class of the same order on General Ivanoff, the
commander of the besieging army.

[Illustration: Map of the Siege of Przemysl. The small triangles
indicate outlying fortified hills with their height in feet.]


COLLECTING THE ARMS.

_By Hamilton Fyfe, Correspondent of The London Daily Mail._

PETROGRAD, March 23.

Advance detachments of Russian troops entered Przemysl last night. The
business of collecting the arms is proceeding. I believe the officers
will be allowed to keep their swords.

Great surprise has been caused here by a statement that the number of
troops captured exceeds three army corps. Possibly on account of the
snowstorm no further telegram has been received from the Grand Duke
Nicholas, and no details of the fall of the garrison have yet been
officially announced. I have, however, received the definite assurance
of a very high authority that the force which has surrendered includes
nine Generals, over 2,000 officers, and 130,000 men. In spite of the
authority of my informant, I am still inclined to await confirmation of
these figures.

The leading military organ, the Russki Invalid, says that the garrison
was known to number 60,000 men and that it had been swelled to some
extent by the additional forces drafted in before the investment began.
The Retch estimates the total at 80,000, and a semi-official
announcement also places the strength of the garrison at that figure,
excluding artillery and also the men belonging to the auxiliary and
technical services.

There is an equal difference of opinion regarding the number of guns
taken. The estimates vary from 1,000 to 2,000. What is known for certain
is that the fortress contained 600 big guns of the newest type and a
number of small, older pieces.

The characteristic spirit in which Russia is waging war is shown by the
service of thanksgiving to God which was held immediately the news of
the fall of the fortress reached the Grand Duke's headquarters. The Czar
was there to join with the staff in offering humble gratitude to the
Almighty for the great victory accorded to the Russian arms.

The first crowds which gathered here yesterday to rejoice over the great
news moved with one consent to the Kazan Cathedral, where they sang the
national hymn and crossed themselves reverently before the holy,
wonder-working picture of Kazan, the Mother of God. In spite of the
heaviest snowstorm of the Winter, which made the streets impassable and
stopped the tramway cars, the Nevski Prospekt rang all the afternoon and
evening with the sound of voices raised in patriotic song.

Przemysl is admitted to be the first spectacular success of the war on
the side of the Allies. It is not surprising that the nation is proud
and delighted, yet so generous is the Russian mind that there mingle
with its triumph admiration and sympathy for the garrison which was
compelled to surrender after a long, brave resistance. Popular
imagination has been thrilled by the story of the last desperate sortie,
which will take a high place in the history of modern war.

When toward the end of the week the hope of relief, which had so long
buoyed up the defenders, was with heavy, resolved hearts abandoned,
General Kousmanek resolved to try to save at all events some portion of
his best troops by sending them to fight a way out. From the ranks,
thinned terribly by casualties and also by typhus and other diseases
caused through hunger and the unhealthy state of the town, he selected
20,000 men and served out to them five days' reduced rations, which were
all he had left. He also supplied them with new boots in order to give
them as good a chance as possible to join their comrades in the
Carpathians, whose summits could be seen from Przemysl in the shining,
warm Spring sunshine.

It was a hopeless enterprise, pitifully futile. It is true that the
Austrian armies sent to relieve the city were only a few days' march
distant, but even if the 20,000 had cut a way through the investing
force they would have found another Russian army between them and their
fellow-countrymen. General Kousmanek, before they started, addressed
them. In a rousing speech he said:

     Soldiers, for nearly half a year, in spite of cold and hunger,
     you have defended the fortress intrusted to you. The eyes of
     the world are fixed on you. Millions at home are waiting with
     painful eagerness to hear the news of your success. The honor
     of the army and our fatherland requires us to make a
     superhuman effort. Around us lies the iron ring of the enemy.
     Burst a way through it and join your comrades who have been
     fighting so bravely for you and are now so near.

     I have given you the last of our supplies of food. I charge
     you to go forward and sweep the foe aside. After our many
     gallant and glorious fights we must not fall into the hands of
     the Russians like sheep; we must and will break through.

In case this appeal to the men's fighting spirit were ineffective
threats were also used to the troops, who were warned by their officers
that any who returned to the fortress would be treated as cowards and
traitors. After the General's speech the men were told to rest for a few
hours. At 4 in the morning they paraded and at 5 the battle began. For
nine hours the Austrians hurled themselves against the iron ring, until
early in the afternoon, when, broken and battered, the remains of the
twenty thousand began to straggle back to the town. Exhausted and
disheartened, the garrison was incapable of further effort.

In order to prevent useless slaughter General Kousmanek sent officers
with a flag of truce to inquire about the terms of surrender. These were
arranged very quickly.

In spite of the local value of the victory, and the vastness of the
captures of material as well as of men, it must not be thought, as many
are inclined to think here, that the Novoe Vremya exaggerates
dangerously when it compares the effect likely to be produced with that
of the fall of Metz and Port Arthur.

It certainly brings the end of the Austrians' participation in the war
more clearly in sight. But the Austrians will fight for some time yet.
What it actually does is to free a large Russian force for the
operations against Cracow or to assist in the invasion of Hungary.

What is the strength of this force it would be imprudent to divulge, but
I can say that it certainly amounts to not less than an "army,"
(anything from 80,000 to 200,000 men.) Those who are anxious to arrive
at a closer figure can calculate by the fact that the Russians had a
forty-mile front around Przemysl which was strong enough to repulse
attacks at all points. Another very useful consequence is that all the
Galician railway system is now in Russian hands. It makes the transport
of troops much easier.

One further reflection was suggested to me last night by a very
distinguished and influential Russian soldier, holding office under the
Government. "The method which prevailed at Przemysl was as follows:
Instead of rushing against the place and losing heavily, we waited and
husbanded our forces until the garrison was unable to hold out any
longer. That is the method adopted by the Allies. It must in the course
of time force Germany to surrender also.

"Up to now we have held our own against her furious sorties. Soon we
shall begin to draw more closely our investing lines. Only one end was
possible to Przemysl. The fate of Germany is equally sure."

Now all eyes are fixed on the Dardanelles. The phrase on every lip is:
"When the fall of Constantinople follows, then Prussia must begin to see
that the case is hopeless." But we must not deceive ourselves, for even
when her allies are defeated Prussia will still be hard to beat.
Przemysl must not cause us to slacken our effort in any direction or in
the slightest degree.


WHAT THE RUSSIANS FOUND

Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.

_LONDON, April 3.--The London Times under date Przemysl, March 30,
publishes a dispatch from Stanley Washburn, its special correspondent
with the Russian armies, who, by courtesy of the Russian high command,
is the first foreigner to visit the great Galician fortress since its
fall. He says:_

Przemysl is a story of an impregnable fortress two or three times
over-garrisoned with patient, haggard soldiers starving in trenches, and
sleek, faultlessly dressed officers living off the fat of the land in
fashionable hotels and restaurants.

The siege started with a total population within the lines of investment
of approximately 200,000. Experts estimate that the fortress could have
been held with 50,000 or 60,000 men against any forces the Russians
could bring against it. It is probable that such supplies as there were
were uneconomically expended, with the result that when the push came
the situation was at once acute, and the suffering of all classes save
the officers became general. First the cavalry and transport horses were
consumed. Then everything available. Cats were sold at 8 shillings, and
fair-sized dogs at a sovereign.

While the garrison became thin and half starved, the mode of life of the
officers in the town remained unchanged. The Café Sieber was constantly
well filled with dilettante officers who gossipped and played cards and
billiards and led the life to which they were accustomed in Vienna.
Apparently very few shared any of the hardships of their men or made any
effort to relieve their condition. At the Hotel Royal until the last,
the officers had their three meals a day, with fresh meat, cigars,
cigarettes, wines, and every luxury, while, as a witness has informed
me, their own orderlies and servants begged for a slice of bread.

There can be no question that ultimate surrender was due to the fact
that the garrison was on the verge of starvation, while the officers'
diet was merely threatened with curtailment. Witnesses state that
private soldiers were seen actually to fall in the streets from lack of
nourishment. The officers are reported to have retained their private
thoroughbred riding horses until the day before the surrender, when
2,000 of them were killed to prevent them from falling into the hands of
the Russians. A Russian officer of high rank informed me that when he
entered the town hundreds of these bodies of beautiful thoroughbred
horses were to be seen with half-crazed Austrian and Hungarian soldiers
tearing into the bodies with their faces and hands smeared with red
blood as they devoured the raw flesh.

[Illustration: Map showing the scene of action between Przemysl and
Cracow and the Carpathian Passes.]

The Russians were utterly amazed at the casual reception which they
received. The Austrian officers showed not the slightest sign of being
disconcerted or humiliated at the collapse of their fortress.

The first Russian effort was at once to relieve the condition of the
garrison and civilians. Owing to the destruction of the bridge this was
delayed, but soon with remarkable efficiency distribution depots were
opened everywhere and the most pressing needs were somewhat relieved.

The entire conduct of the siege on the part of the garrison seems wholly
without explanation. The Austrians had throughout plenty of ammunition,
and they certainly grossly outnumbered the Russians; yet they made but
one recent effort to break out, which occurred three days before the
surrender.

Civilians inform me that they gladly welcome the Russians and that the
first troops who entered were greeted with cheers, while the garrison
was frankly pleased that the siege was over and their troubles at an
end.

As an example of overofficering it may be stated that General Kusmanek
had seventy-five officers on his staff, while General Artamonov, the
acting Russian Governor, had but four on his immediate staff.

The removal of the prisoners is proceeding with great efficiency. They
are going out at the rate of about 10,000 a day. The docility of the
captives is indicated by the fact that the Russian guards attached to
the prisoners' columns number about one for every hundred prisoners.
They are all strung out for miles between the fortress and Lemberg. The
prisoners are so eager to get out and to see the last of the war that
they follow the instructions of their captors like children.

All the civilians as well as prisoners I have talked with are unanimous
in their praise of the Russian officers and soldiers, who have shown
nothing but kindness and delicacy of feeling since their entrance into
the fortress. This consideration strikes me as being utterly wasted on
the captured officers, who treat the situation superciliously and are
quite complacent in their relations with the Russians.



THE JESTERS.

By MARION COUTHOUY SMITH.


    Ev'n he, the master of the songs of life,
      May speak at times with less than certain sound--
      "He jests at scars who never felt a wound."
    So runs his word! Yet on the verge of strife,
    They jest not who have never known the knife;
      They tremble who in the waiting ranks are found,
      While those scarred deep on many a battle-ground
    Sing to the throbbing of the drum and fife.
    They laugh who know the open, fearless breast,
      The thrust, the steel-point, and the spreading stain;
    Whose flesh is hardened to the searing test,
      Whose souls are tempered to a high disdain.
    Theirs is the lifted brow, the gallant jest,
      The long last breath, that holds a victor-strain.



Lord Kitchener Advertises for Recruits


[Illustration: _This map shows the comparative distances from London of
Ostend and of some English towns. London is in the exact center of the
map._

If the German Army were in Manchester.

If the German Army were in Manchester, every fit man in the country
would enlist without a moment's delay.

Do you realise that the German Army is now at Ostend, only 125 miles
away--or 40 miles nearer to London than is Manchester?

How much nearer must the Germans come before _you_ do something to stop
them?

The German Army must be beaten in Belgium. The time to do it is _now_.

Will you help? Yes? Then enlist _TODAY_.

_God Save the King._

(Facsimile of an advertisement that appeared in The London Times, March
17, 1915.)]



Battle of the Dardanelles

The Disaster That Befell the Allies' Fleet


AS THE TURKS SAW IT.

_BERLIN, March 22, (via London, 11:33 A.M.)--The correspondent at
Constantinople of the Wolff Bureau telegraphed today a description of
the fighting at the Dardanelles on Thursday, March 18, in which the
French battleship Bouvet and two British battleships were sent to the
bottom. An abridgment of the correspondent's story follows:_

The efforts of the Allies to force the Strait of the Dardanelles reached
their climax in an artillery duel on Thursday, March 18, which lasted
seven hours. The entire atmosphere around the Turkish forts was darkened
by clouds of smoke from exploding shells and quantities of earth thrown
into the air by the projectiles of the French and British warships. The
earth trembled for miles around.

The Allies entered the strait at 11:30 in the morning, and shelled the
town of Chank Kale. Four French and five British warships took part in
the beginning. This engagement reached its climax at 1:30, when the fire
of the Allies was concentrated upon Fort Hamidieh and the adjacent
fortified positions.

The attack of modern marine artillery upon strong land forts presented
an interesting as well as a terrifying spectacle. At times the forts
were completely enveloped in smoke. At 2 o'clock the Allies changed
their tactics and concentrated their fire upon individual batteries, but
it was evident that they found difficulty in getting the range. Many of
the shells fell short, casting up pillars of water, or went over the
forts to explode in the town.

At 3:15, when the bombardment was at its hottest, the French battleship
Bouvet was seen to be sinking at the stern. A moment later her bows
swung clear of the water, and she was seen going down. Cheers from the
Turkish garrisons and forts greeted this sight. Torpedo boats and other
craft of the Allies hurried to the rescue, but they were successful in
saving only a few men. Besides having been struck by a mine, the Bouvet
was severely damaged above the water line by shell fire. One projectile
struck her forward deck. A mast also was shot away and hung overboard.
It could be seen that the Bouvet when she sank was endeavoring to gain
the mouth of the strait. This, however, was difficult, owing,
apparently, to the fact that her machinery had been damaged.

Shortly after the sinking of the Bouvet a British ship was struck on the
deck squarely amidship and compelled to withdraw from the fight. Then
another British vessel was badly damaged, and at 3:45 was seen to retire
under a terrific fire from the Turkish battery. This vessel ran in
toward the shore. For a full hour the Allies tried to protect her with
their guns, but it was apparent that she was destined for destruction.
Eight effective hits showed the hopelessness of the situation for this
vessel. She then withdrew toward the mouth of the Dardanelles, which she
reached in a few minutes under a hail of shells. The forts continued
firing until the Allies were out of range.

This was the first day when the warships attacking the Dardanelles kept
within range of the Turkish guns for any considerable length of time.
The result for them was terrible, owing to the excellent marksmanship
from the Turkish batteries. The Allies fired on this day 2,000 shells
without silencing one shore battery. The result has inspired the Turks
with confidence, and they are looking forward to further engagements
with calm assurance.


ELIMINATION OF MINES.

_The London Times naval correspondent writes, in its issue of March 20:_

The further attack upon the inner forts at the Dardanelles, which was
resumed by the allied squadrons on Thursday, has resulted,
unfortunately, but not altogether unexpectedly, in some loss of ships
and gallant lives.

The clear and candid dispatch in which the operations are described
attributes the loss of the ships to floating mines, which were probably
released to drift down with the current in such large numbers that the
usual method of evading these machines was unavailable. This danger, it
is said, will require special treatment. Presumably the area having been
swept clear of anchored mines, it was not considered necessary to take
other precautions than such as were concerned with the movement of the
battleships themselves.

The satisfactory feature of the operations is that the ships maintained
their superiority over the forts, and succeeded in silencing them after
a few hours' bombardment. The sinking of the battleships occurred later
in the afternoon, and it would seem at a time when a portion of the
naval force was making a further advance to cover the mine-sweeping
operations. There is nothing in the dispatch which indicates anything
but the eventual success of the work, nor that the defenses have proved
more formidable than was anticipated. The danger from floating mines may
have been somewhat underestimated, but it is one that can be met and is
most unlikely to form a decisive factor.

Manifestly the Turks, with their German advisers, have done their utmost
to repair, by means of howitzers and field guns, the destruction of the
fixed defenses; but it is not likely that any temporary expedients will
prove more than troublesome to the passage of the fleet. The
determination of the Allies to make a satisfactory ending of the
operations is shown by the immediate dispatch of reinforcing ships, and
by the fact that ample naval and military forces are available on the
spot.

Every one will regret that illness has obliged Vice Admiral Carden to
relinquish the chief command, but this is now in the very capable hands
of Vice Admiral Robeck.


BRITISH OFFICIAL REPORT.

[From The London Times, March 20, 1915.]

_After ten days of mine-sweeping inside the Dardanelles the British and
French fleets made a general attack on the fortresses at the Narrows on
Thursday. After about three hours' bombardment all the forts ceased
firing._

_Three battleships were lost in these operations by striking mines--the
French Bouvet, and the Irresistible and the Ocean. The British crews
were practically all saved, but nearly the whole of the men on the
Bouvet perished._

_The Secretary of the Admiralty issued the following statement last
night:_

Mine-sweeping having been in progress during the last ten days inside
the strait, a general attack was delivered by the British and French
fleets yesterday morning upon the fortresses at the Narrows of the
Dardanelles.

At 10:45 A.M. Queen Elizabeth, Inflexible, Agamemnon, and Lord Nelson
bombarded Forts J, L, T, U, and V; while Triumph and Prince George fired
at Batteries F, E, and H. A heavy fire was opened on the ships from
howitzers and field guns.

At 12:22 the French squadron, consisting of the Suffren, Gaulois,
Charlemagne, and Bouvet, advanced up the Dardanelles to engage the forts
at closer range. Forts J, U, F, and E replied strongly. Their fire was
silenced by the ten battleships inside the strait, all the ships being
hit several times during this part of the action.

By 1:25 P.M. all forts had ceased firing.

Vengeance, Irresistible, Albion, Ocean, Swiftsure, and Majestic then
advanced to relieve the six old battleships inside the strait.

As the French squadron, which had engaged the forts in the most
brilliant fashion was passing out, Bouvet was blown up by a drifting
mine and sank in thirty-six fathoms north Erenkeui Village in less than
three minutes.

At 2:36 P.M., the relief battleships renewed the attack on the forts,
which again opened fire. The attack on the forts was maintained while
the operations of the mine-sweepers continued. At 4:09 Irresistible
quitted the line, listing heavily; and at 5:50 she sank, having probably
struck a drifting mine. At 6:05, Ocean, also having struck a mine, both
vessels sank in deep water, practically the whole of the crews having
been removed safely under a hot fire.

[Illustration: QUEEN MARY

Wife of George V., King of Great Britain and Ireland.

_(Photo from Underwood & Underwood.)_]

[Illustration: THE RIGHT HON. DAVID LLOYD GEORGE

The radical Chancellor of the British Exchequer, upon whom has devolved
the task of financing the great war.

_(Photo by A. & R. Annan & Sons.)_]

The Gaulois was damaged by gun fire.

Inflexible had her forward control position hit by a heavy shell, and
requires repair.

The bombardment of the forts and the mine-sweeping operations terminated
when darkness fell. The damage to the forts effected by the prolonged
direct fire of the very powerful forces employed cannot yet be
estimated, and a further report will follow.

The losses of ships were caused by mines drifting with the current which
were encountered in areas hitherto swept clear, and this danger will
require special treatment.

The British casualties in personnel are not heavy, considering the scale
of the operations; but practically the whole of the crew of the Bouvet
were lost with the ship, an internal explosion having apparently
supervened on the explosion of the mine.

The Queen and Implacable, which were dispatched from England to replace
ships' casualties in anticipation of this operation, are due to arrive
immediately, thus bringing the British fleet up to its original
strength.

The operations are continuing, ample naval and military forces being
available on the spot.

On the 16th inst., Vice Admiral Carden, who has been incapacitated by
illness, was succeeded in the chief command by Rear Admiral John Michael
de Robeck, with acting rank of Vice Admiral.


THE SCENE IN THE STRAIT.

_The London Times publishes this story of an eyewitness:_

TENEDOS, (Aegina,) March 18.

This is not so much an account of the five hours' heavy engagement
between the Turkish forts and the allied ships which has been fought
actually within the Dardanelles today as an impression of the
bombardment as seen at a distance of fifteen miles or so from the top of
a high, steep hill called Mount St. Elias, at the northern end of
Tenedos.

Over the ridge of Kum Kale you plainly see, like a great blue lake, the
first reach of the Dardanelles up to the narrow neck between Chanak and
Kilid Bahr. It was up and down in this stretch of water that the largest
vessels of the allied fleet steamed today for over four hours, hurling,
with sheets of orange flame from their heavy guns, a constant succession
of shells on the forts that guard the Narrows at Chanak, while the
Turkish batteries, with a frequency that lessened as the day went on,
flashed back at them in reply, with the difference that, while the
effects of the Allies' shells were continually manifest in the columns
of smoke and dust that were signs of the damage they had wrought, a
great number of the enemy's shots fell in the sea hundreds of yards from
the bombarding ships, sending torrents of water towering harmlessly into
the air.

Not that the successes of the day have been won without cost. I saw
several ships, French and British, struck by shells that raised volumes
of white smoke, and one of the French squadron is toiling slowly home at
this moment down by the head and with a list to port, while, so far as
one could make out with a glass, several boatloads of men were being
taken off her.

The ships left their stations between the Turkish and Asiatic coasts and
Tenedos early this morning and by 11 they were steaming in line up the
Dardanelles.

It was 11:45 when the first notable hit was made by an English ship. I
could see eight vessels, apparently all battleships, lying in line from
the entrance up the strait. The ship furthest up appeared to be the
Queen Elizabeth, and I think it was she that fired the shot which
exploded the powder magazine at Chanak. A great balloon of white smoke
sprang up in the midst of the magazine which leaped out from a fierce,
red flame, and reached a great height. When the flame had disappeared
the dense smoke continued to grow till it must have been a column
hundreds of feet high.

[Illustration: [map of the Dardanelles]]

In the five minutes that followed this shot three more shells from the
Queen Elizabeth fell practically on the same spot, and two minutes later
yet another by the side of the smoking ruins.

There were now eight battleships, all pre-dreadnoughts, left at Tenedos,
and at noon six of them started off in line a-head toward the strait.
The English ships already within were passing further up and went out of
sight.

The bombarding ships were steaming constantly up and down, turning at
each end of the stretch, which is about a couple of miles long.

A long thin veil of black smoke was drifting slowly westward from the
fighting. At about 1:30 Erenkeui Village, standing high on the Asiatic
side, received a couple of shells. At 1:45 a division of eight
destroyers in line steamed into the entrance of the strait, and a little
later the last two battleships from Tenedos joined, the Dublin
patrolling outside. An hour later the most striking effect was produced
by a shell falling on a fort at Kilid Bahr, which evidently exploded
another magazine. A huge mass of heavy jet-black smoke gradually rose
till it towered high above the cliffs on the European and Asiatic sides.
It ballooned slowly out like a gigantic genie rising from a fisherman's
bottle.

By now the action was slackening, and at 3:45 five ships were slowly
steaming homeward from the entrance. At 4:30 there were still eight
vessels in the strait, but the forts had practically ceased to fire. The
action was over for the day.

The result had been the apparent silencing of several Turkish batteries,
and those terrific explosions at the forts at Chanak and Kilid Bahr, the
ultimate effect of which remains to be seen when the attack is renewed
tonight. For Chanak is burning.



Official Story of Two Sea Fights

[From The London Times, March 3, 1915.]


_Admiralty, March 3, 1915._

_The following dispatch has been received from Vice Admiral Sir David
Beatty, K.C.B., M.V.O., D.S.O., commanding the First Battle Cruiser
Squadron, reporting the action in the North Sea on Sunday, the 24th of
January, 1915:_

H.M.S. Princess Royal,
Feb. 2, 1915.

Sir: I have the honor to report that at daybreak on Jan. 24, 1915, the
following vessels were patrolling in company:

The battle cruisers Lion, Capt. Alfred E.M. Chatfield, C.V.O., flying my
flag; Princess Royal, Capt. Osmond de B. Brock, Aide de Camp; Tiger,
Capt. Henry B. Pelly, M.V.O.; New Zealand, Capt. Lionel Halsey, C.M.G.,
Aide de Camp, flying the flag of Rear Admiral Sir Archibald Moore,
K.C.B., C.V.O., and Indomitable, Capt. Francis W. Kennedy.

The light cruisers Southampton, flying the broad pennant of Commodore
William E. Goodenough, M.V.O.; Nottingham, Capt. Charles B. Miller;
Birmingham, Capt. Arthur A.M. Duff, and Lowestoft, Capt. Theobald W.B.
Kennedy, were disposed on my port beam.

Commodore (T) Reginald Y. Tyrwhitt, C.B., in Arethusa, Aurora, Capt.
Wilmot S. Nicholson; Undaunted, Capt. Francis G. St. John, M.V.O.;
Arethusa and the destroyer flotillas were ahead.

At 7:25 A.M. the flash of guns was observed south-southeast. Shortly
afterward a report reached me from Aurora that she was engaged with
enemy's ships. I immediately altered course to south-southeast,
increased to 22 knots, and ordered the light cruisers and flotillas to
chase south-southeast to get in touch and report movements of enemy.

This order was acted upon with great promptitude, indeed my wishes had
already been forestalled by the respective senior officers, and reports
almost immediately followed from Southampton, Arethusa, and Aurora as to
the position and composition of the enemy, which consisted of three
battle cruisers and Blücher, six light cruisers, and a number of
destroyers, steering northwest. The enemy had altered course to
southeast. From now onward the light cruisers maintained touch with the
enemy, and kept me fully informed as to their movements.

The battle cruisers worked up to full speed, steering to the southward.
The wind at the time was northeast, light, with extreme visibility. At
7:30 A.M. the enemy were sighted on the port bow steaming fast, steering
approximately southeast, distant 14 miles.

Owing to the prompt reports received we had attained our position on the
quarter of the enemy, and so altered course to southeast parallel to
them, and settled down to a long stern chase, gradually increasing our
speed until we reached 28.5 knots. Great credit is due to the engineer
staffs of New Zealand and Indomitable--these ships greatly exceeded
their normal speed.

At 8:52 A.M., as we had closed to within 20,000 yards of the rear ship,
the battle cruisers manoeuvred to keep on a line of bearing so that guns
would bear, and Lion fired a single shot, which fell short. The enemy at
this time were in single line ahead, with light cruisers ahead and a
large number of destroyers on their starboard beam.

Single shots were fired at intervals to test the range, and at 9:09 A.M.
Lion made her first hit on the Blücher, No. 4 in the line. The Tiger
opened fire at 9:20 A.M. on the rear ship, the Lion shifted to No. 3 in
the line, at 18,000 yards, this ship being hit by several salvos. The
enemy returned our fire at 9:14 A.M. Princess Royal, on coming into
range, opened fire on Blücher, the range of the leading ship being
17,500 yards, at 9:35 A.M. New Zealand was within range of Blücher,
which had dropped somewhat astern, and opened fire on her. Princess
Royal shifted to the third ship in the line, inflicting considerable
damage on her.

Our flotilla cruisers and destroyers had gradually dropped from a
position broad on our beam to our port quarter, so as not to foul our
range with their smoke; but the enemy's destroyers threatening attack,
the Meteor and M Division passed ahead of us, Capt. the Hon. H. Meade,
D.S.O., handling this division with conspicuous ability.

About 9:45 A.M. the situation was as follows: Blücher, the fourth in
their line, already showed signs of having suffered severely from gun
fire; their leading ship and No. 3 were also on fire, Lion was engaging
No. 1, Princess Royal No. 3, New Zealand No. 4, while the Tiger, which
was second in our line, fired first at their No. 1, and when interfered
with by smoke, at their No. 4.

The enemy's destroyers emitted vast columns of smoke to screen their
battle cruisers, and under cover of this the latter now appeared to have
altered course to the northward to increase their distance, and
certainly the rear ships hauled out on the port quarter of their leader,
thereby increasing their distance from our line. The battle cruisers,
therefore, were ordered to form a line of bearing north-northwest, and
proceed at their utmost speed.

Their destroyers then showed evident signs of an attempt to attack. Lion
and Tiger opened fire on them, and caused them to retire and resume
their original course.

The light cruisers maintained an excellent position on the port quarter
of the enemy's line, enabling them to observe and keep touch, or attack
any vessel that might fall out of the line.

At 10:48 A.M. the Blücher, which had dropped considerably astern of
enemy's line, hauled out to port, steering north with a heavy list, on
fire, and apparently in a defeated condition. I consequently ordered
Indomitable to attack enemy breaking northward.

At 10:54 A.M. submarines were reported on the starboard bow, and I
personally observed the wash of a periscope two points on our starboard
bow. I immediately turned to port.

At 11:03 A.M. an injury to the Lion being reported as incapable of
immediate repair, I directed Lion to shape course northwest. At 11:20
A.M. I called the Attack alongside, shifting my flag to her at about
11:35 A.M. I proceeded at utmost speed to rejoin the squadron, and met
them at noon retiring north-northwest.

I boarded and hoisted my flag on Princess Royal at about 12:20 P.M.,
when Capt. Brock acquainted me of what had occurred since the Lion fell
out of the line, namely, that Blücher had been sunk and that the enemy
battle cruisers had continued their course to the eastward in a
considerably damaged condition. He also informed me that a Zeppelin and
a seaplane had endeavored to drop bombs on the vessels which went to the
rescue of the survivors of Blücher.

The good seamanship of Lieut. Commander Cyril Callaghan, H.M.S. Attack,
in placing his vessel alongside the Lion and subsequently the Princess
Royal, enabled the transfer of flag to be made in the shortest possible
time.

At 2 P.M. I closed Lion and received a report that the starboard engine
was giving trouble owing to priming, and at 3:38 P.M. I ordered
Indomitable to take her in tow, which was accomplished by 5 P.M.

The greatest credit is due to the Captains of Indomitable and Lion for
the seaman-like manner in which the Lion was taken in tow under
difficult circumstances.

The excellent steaming of the ships engaged in the operation was a
conspicuous feature.

I attach an appendix giving the names of various officers and men who
specially distinguished themselves.

Where all did well it is difficult to single out officers and men for
special mention, and as Lion and Tiger were the only ships hit by the
enemy, the majority of these I mention belong to those ships.

I have the honor to be, Sir,

Your obedient servant,

(Signed) DAVID BEATTY,
Vice Admiral.


OFFICERS.

Commander Charles A. Fountaine, H.M.S. Lion.

Lieut. Commander Evan C. Bunbury, H.M.S. Lion.

Lieut. Frederick T. Peters, H.M.S. Meteor.

Lieut. Charles M.R. Schwerdt, H.M.S. Lion.

Engineer Commander Donald P. Green, H.M.S. Lion.

Engineer Commander James L. Sands, H.M.S. Southampton.

Engineer Commander Thomas H. Turner, H.M.S. New Zealand.

Engineer Lieut. Commander George Preece, H.M.S. Lion.

Engineer Lieut. Albert Knothe, H.M.S. Indomitable.

Surgeon Probationer James A. Stirling, R.N.V.R., H.M.S. Meteor.

Mr. Joseph H. Burton, Gunner (T), H.M.S. Lion.

Chief Carpenter Frederick E. Dailey, H.M.S. Lion.


PETTY OFFICERS AND MEN.

Py. Or. J.W. Kemmett, O.N. 186,788, Lion.

A.B.H. Davis, O.N. 184,526, Tiger.

A.B.H.F. Griffin, O.N.J. 14,160, Princess Royal.

A.B.P.S. Livingstone, O.N. 234,328, Lion.

A.B.H. Robison, O.N. 209,112, Tiger.

A.B.G.H. le Seilleur, O.N. 156,802, Lion.

Boy, 1st CL., F.G.H. Bamford, O.N.J. 26,598, Tiger.

Boy, 1st CL., J.F. Rogers, O.N.J. 28,329, Tiger.

Ch. Ee. R. Artr., 1st CL., E.R. Hughes, O.N. 268,999, Indomitable.

Ch. Ee. R. Artr., 2d CL, W.B. Dand, O.N. 270,648, New Zealand.

Ch. Ee. A. Artr. W. Gillespie, O.N. 270,080, Meteor.

Mechn. A.J. Cannon, O.N. 175,440, Lion.

Mechn. E.C. Ephgrave, O.N. 288,231, Lion.

Ch. Stkr. P. Callaghan, O.N. 278,953, Lion.

Ch. Stkr. A.W. Ferris, O.N. 175,824, Lion.

Ch. Stkr. J.E. James, O.N. 174,232, New Zealand.

Ch. Stkr. W.E. James, O.N. 294,406, Indomitable.

Ch. Stkr. J. Keating, R.F.R., O.N. 165,732, Meteor.

Stkr. Py. Or. M. Flood, R.F.R., O.N. 153,418, Meteor.

Stkr. Py. Or. T.W. Hardy, O.N. 292,542, Indomitable.

Stkr. Py. Or. A.J. Sims, O.N. 276,502, New Zealand.

Stkr. Py. Or. S. Westaway, R.F.R., O.N. 300,938, Meteor.

Actg. Ldg. Skr. J. Blackburn, O.N.K. 4,844, Tiger.

Stkr., 1st Cl., A.H. Bennet, O.N.K. 10,700, Tiger.

Stkr., 2d Cl., H. Turner, O.N.K. 22,720, Tiger.

Ldg. Carpenter's Crew, E.O. Bradley, O.N. 346,621, Lion.

Ldg. Carpenter's Crew, E. Currie, O.N. 344,851, Lion.

Sick Berth Attendant C.S. Hutchinson, O.N.M. 3,882, Tiger.

Ch. Writer S.G. White, O.N. 340,597, Tiger.

Third Writer H.C. Green, O.N.M. 8,266, Tiger.

Officers' Steward, 3d Cl., F.W. Kearley, O.N.L. 2,716, Tiger.


HONORS AWARDED.

Lord Chamberlain's Office,
St. James's Palace,
March 3, 1915.

The King has been graciously pleased to give orders for the following
appointment to the Most Honorable Order of the Bath, in recognition of
the services of the undermentioned officer mentioned in the foregoing
dispatch:

To be an Additional Member of the Military Division of the Third Class
or Companion.

Capt. Osmond de Beauvoir Brock, A.D.C., Royal Navy.

Admiralty, S.W.,
March 3, 1915.

The King has been graciously pleased to give orders for the following
appointment to the Distinguished Service Order, and for the award of the
Distinguished Service Cross, to the undermentioned officers in
recognition of their services mentioned in the foregoing dispatch:

To be Companion of the Distinguished Service Order.

Lieut. Frederic Thornton Peters, Royal Navy.

To receive the Distinguished Service Cross.

Surg. Probationer James Alexander Stirling, R.N.V.R.

Gunner (T) Joseph H. Burton.

Chief Carpenter Frederick E. Dailey.

The following promotion has been made:

Commander Charles Andrew Fountaine to be a Captain in his Majesty's
fleet, to date March 3, 1915.

The following awards have also been made:

To receive the Distinguished Service Medal.

P.O. J.W. Kemmett, O.N. 186,788.
A.B. H. Davis, O.N. 184,526.
A.B. H.F. Griffin, O.N.J. 14,160.
A.B. P.S. Livingstone, O.N. 234,328.
A.B. H. Robison, O.N. 209,112.
A.B. G.H. le Seilleur, O.N. 156,802.
Boy, 1st Cl., F.G.H. Bamford, O.N.J. 26,598.
Boy, 1st Cl., J.F. Rogers, O.N.J. 28,329.
Ch. E.R. Art., 1st Cl., E.R. Hughes, O.N. 268,999.
Ch. E.R. Art., 2d Cl., W.B. Dand, O.N. 270,648.
Ch. E.R. Art., W. Gillespie, O.N. 270,080.
Mechn. A.J. Cannon, O.N. 175,440.
Mechn. E.C. Ephgrave, O.N. 288,231.
Ch. Stkr. P. Callaghan, O.N. 278,953.
Ch. Stkr. A.W. Ferris, O.N. 175,824.
Ch. Stkr. J.E. James, O.N. 174,232.
Ch. Stkr. W.E. James, O.N. 294,406.
Ch. Stkr. J. Keating, R.F.R., O.N. 165,732.
Stkr. P.O. M. Flood, R.F.R., O.N. 153,418.
Stkr. P.O. T.W. Hardy, O.N. 292,542.
Stkr. P.O. A.J. Sims, O.N. 276,502.
Stkr. P.O. S. Westaway, R.F.R., O.N. 300,938.
Actg. Ldg. Stkr. J. Blackburn, O.N.K. 4,844.
Stkr., 1st Cl., A.H. Bennet, O.N.K. 10,700.
Stkr., 2d Cl., H. Turner, O.N.K. 22,720.
Ldg. Carpenter's Crew, E.O. Bradley, O.N. 346,621.
Ldg. Carpenter's Crew, E. Currie, O.N. 344,851.
Sick Berth Attendant C.S. Hutchinson, O.N.M. 3,882.
Ch. Writer S.G. White, O.N. 340,597.
Third Writer H.C. Green, O.N.M. 8,266.
Officers' Steward, 3d Cl., F.W. Kearley, O.N.L. 2,716.


BATTLE OF THE FALKLANDS

_Admiralty, March 3, 1915._

_The following dispatch has been received from Vice Admiral Sir F.C.
Doveton-Sturdee, K.C.B., C.V.O., C.M.G., reporting the action off the
Falkland Islands on Tuesday, the 8th of December, 1914:_

INVINCIBLE, at Sea,
Dec. 19, 1914.

Sir: I have the honor to forward a report on the action which took place
on Dec. 8, 1914, against a German squadron off the Falkland Islands.

I have the honor to be, Sir,

Your obedient servant,

F.C.D. STURDEE,
Vice Admiral, Commander in Chief.
The Secretary, Admiralty.

(A)--PRELIMINARY MOVEMENTS.

The squadron, consisting of H.M. ships Invincible, flying my flag, Flag
Capt. Percy T.M. Beamish; Inflexible, Capt. Richard F. Phillimore;
Carnarvon, flying the flag of Rear Admiral Archibald P. Soddart, Flag
Capt. Harry L.d'E. Skipwith; Cornwall, Capt. Walter M. Ellerton; Kent,
Capt. John D. Allen; Glasgow, Capt. John Loce; Bristol, Capt. Basil H.
Fanshawe, and Macedonia, Capt. Bertram S. Evans, arrived at Port
Stanley, Falkland Islands, at 10:30 A.M. on Monday, Dec. 7, 1914.
Coaling was commenced at once, in order that the ships should be ready
to resume the search for the enemy's squadron the next evening, Dec. 8.

At 8 A.M. on Tuesday, Dec. 8, a signal was received from the signal
station on shore:

"A four-funnel and two-funnel man-of-war in sight from Sapper Hill,
steering northward."

[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS FROM THE OFFICIAL
REPORT OF ADMIRAL STURDEE.

The numbers given on the plan show the corresponding positions of
vessels at various times. All ships bearing the same number were
simultaneously in the positions charted.]

At this time the positions of the various ships of the squadron were as
follows:

Macedonia: At anchor as lookout ship.

Kent (guard ship): At anchor in Port William.

Invincible and Inflexible: In Port William.

Carnarvon: In Port William.

Cornwall: In Port William.

Glasgow: In Port Stanley.

Bristol: In Port Stanley.

The Kent was at once ordered to weigh, and a general signal was made to
raise steam for full speed.

At 8:20 A.M. the signal station reported another column of smoke in
sight to the southward, and at 8:45 A.M. the Kent passed down the harbor
and took up a station at the entrance.

The Canopus, Capt. Heathcoat S. Grant, reported at 8:47 A.M. that the
first two ships were eight miles off, and that the smoke reported at
8:20 A.M. appeared to be the smoke of two ships about twenty miles off.

At 8:50 A.M. the signal station reported a further column of smoke in
sight to the southward.

The Macedonia was ordered to weigh anchor on the inner side of the other
ships, and await orders.

At 9:20 A.M. the two leading ships of the enemy, (Gneisenau and
Nürnberg,) with guns trained on the wireless station, came within range
of the Canopus, which opened fire at them across the low land at a range
of 11,000 yards. The enemy at once hoisted their colors and turned away.
At this time the masts and smoke of the enemy were visible from the
upper bridge of the Invincible at a range of approximately 17,000 yards
across the low land to the south of Port William.

A few minutes later the two cruisers altered course to port, as though
to close the Kent at the entrance to the harbor, but about this time it
seems that the Invincible and Inflexible were seen over the land, as the
enemy at once altered course and increased speed to join their
consorts.

The Glasgow weighed and proceeded at 9:40 A.M. with orders to join the
Kent and observe the enemy's movements.

At 9:45 A.M. the squadron--less the Bristol--weighed, and proceeded out
of harbor in the following order: Carnarvon, Inflexible, Invincible, and
Cornwall. On passing Cape Pembroke Light the five ships of the enemy
appeared clearly in sight to the southeast, hull down. The visibility
was at its maximum, the sea was calm, with a bright sun, a clear sky,
and a light breeze from the northwest.

At 10:20 A.M. the signal for a general chase was made. The battle
cruisers quickly passed ahead of the Carnarvon and overtook the Kent.
The Glasgow was ordered to keep two miles from the Invincible, and the
Inflexible was stationed on the starboard quarter of the flagship. Speed
was eased to twenty knots at 11:15 A.M., to enable the other cruisers to
get into station.

At this time the enemy's funnels and bridges showed just above the
horizon.

Information was received from the Bristol at 11:27 A.M. that three enemy
ships had appeared off Port Pleasant, probably colliers or transports.
The Bristol was therefore directed to take the Macedonia under orders
and destroy transports.

The enemy were still maintaining their distance, and I decided, at 12:20
P.M., to attack with the two battle cruisers and the Glasgow.

At 12:47 P.M. the signal to "Open fire and engage the enemy" was made.

The Inflexible opened fire at 12:55 P.M. from her fore turret at the
right-hand ship of the enemy, a light cruiser; a few minutes later the
Invincible opened fire at the same ship.

The deliberate fire from a range of 16,500 to 15,000 yards at the
right-hand light cruiser, which was dropping astern, became too
threatening, and when a shell fell close alongside her at 1:20 P.M. she
(the Leipzig) turned away, with the Nürnberg and Dresden, to the
southwest.

These light cruisers were at once followed by the Kent, Glasgow, and
Cornwall, in accordance with my instructions.

The action finally developed into three separate encounters, besides the
subsidiary one dealing with the threatened landing.

(B.)--ACTION WITH THE ARMORED CRUISERS.

The fire of the battle cruisers was directed on the Scharnhorst and
Gneisenau. The effect of this was quickly seen when, at 1:25 P.M., with
the Scharnhorst leading, they turned about seven points to port in
succession into line ahead and opened fire at 1:30 P.M. Shortly
afterward speed was eased to twenty-four knots and the battle cruisers
were ordered to turn together, bringing them into line ahead, with the
Invincible leading.

The range was about 13,500 yards at the final turn, and increased until
at 2 P.M. it had reached 16,450 yards.

The enemy then (2:10 P.M.) turned away about ten points to starboard,
and a second chase ensued until at 2:45 P.M. the battle cruisers again
opened fire; this caused the enemy, at 2:53 P.M., to turn into line
ahead to port and open fire at 2:55 P.M.

The Scharnhorst caught fire forward, but not seriously, and her fire
slackened perceptibly; the Gneisenau was badly hit by the Inflexible.

At 3:30 P.M. the Scharnhorst led around about ten points to starboard;
just previously her fire had slackened perceptibly, and one shell had
shot away her third funnel; some guns were not firing, and it would
appear that the turn was dictated by a desire to bring her starboard
guns into action. The effect of the fire on the Scharnhorst became more
and more apparent in consequence of smoke from fires, and also escaping
steam. At times a shell would cause a large hole to appear in her side,
through which could be seen a dull red glow of flame. At 4:04 P.M. the
Scharnhorst, whose flag remained flying to the last, suddenly listed
heavily to port, and within a minute it became clear that she was a
doomed ship, for the list increased very rapidly until she lay on her
beam ends, and at 4:17 P.M. she disappeared.

The Gneisenau passed on the far side of her late flagship, and continued
a determined but ineffectual effort to fight the two battle cruisers.

At 5:08 P.M. the forward funnel was knocked over and remained resting
against the second funnel. She was evidently in serious straits, and her
fire slackened very much.

At 5:15 P.M. one of the Gneisenau's shells struck the Invincible; this
was her last effective effort.

At 5:30 P.M. she turned toward the flagship with a heavy list to
starboard, and appeared stopped, with steam pouring from her escape
pipes and smoke from shell and fires rising everywhere. About this time
I ordered the signal "Cease fire!" but before it was hoisted the
Gneisenau opened fire again, and continued to fire from time to time
with a single gun.

At 5:40 P.M. the three ships closed in on the Gneisenau, and at this
time the flag flying at her fore truck was apparently hauled down, but
the flag at the peak continued flying.

At 5:50 P.M. "Cease fire!" was made.

At 6 P.M. the Gneisenau heeled over very suddenly, showing the men
gathered on her decks and then walking on her side as she lay for a
minute on her beam ends before sinking.

The prisoners of war from the Gneisenau report that by the time the
ammunition was expended some 600 men had been killed and wounded. The
surviving officers and men were all ordered on deck and told to provide
themselves with hammocks and any articles that could support them in the
water.

When the ship capsized and sank there were probably some 200 unwounded
survivors in the water, but, owing to the shock of the cold water, many
were drowned within sight of the boats and ship.

Every effort was made to save life as quickly as possible, both by boats
and from the ships; lifebuoys were thrown and ropes lowered, but only a
portion could be rescued. The Invincible alone rescued 108 men,
fourteen of whom were found to be dead after being brought on board.
These men were buried at sea the following day with full military
honors.

(C)--ACTION WITH THE LIGHT CRUISERS.

At about 1 P.M., when the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau turned to port to
engage the Invincible and Inflexible, the enemy's light cruisers turned
to starboard to escape; the Dresden was leading and the Nürnberg and
Leipzig followed on each quarter.

In accordance with my instructions, the Glasgow, Kent, and Cornwall at
once went in chase of these ships; the Carnarvon, whose speed was
insufficient to overtake them, closed the battle cruisers.

The Glasgow drew well ahead of the Cornwall and Kent, and at 3 P.M.
shots were exchanged with the Leipzig at 12,000 yards. The Glasgow's
object was to endeavor to outrange the Leipzig with her 6-inch guns and
thus cause her to alter course and give the Cornwall and Kent a chance
of coming into action.

At 4:17 P.M. the Cornwall opened fire, also on the Leipzig.

At 7:17 P.M. the Leipzig was on fire fore and aft, and the Cornwall and
Glasgow ceased fire.

The Leipzig turned over on her port side and disappeared at 9 P.M. Seven
officers and eleven men were saved.

At 3:36 P.M. the Cornwall ordered the Kent to engage the Nürnberg, the
nearest cruiser to her.

Owing to the excellent and strenuous efforts of the engine room
department, the Kent was able to get within range of the Nürnberg at 5
P.M. At 6:35 P.M. the Nürnberg was on fire forward and ceased firing.
The Kent also ceased firing and closed to 3,300 yards; as the colors
were still observed to be flying on the Nürnberg, the Kent opened fire
again. Fire was finally stopped five minutes later on the colors being
hauled down, and every preparation was made to save life. The Nürnberg
sank at 7:27 P.M., and, as she sank, a group of men were waving a German
ensign attached to a staff. Twelve men were rescued, but only seven
survived.

The Kent had four killed and twelve wounded, mostly caused by one shell.

During the time the three cruisers were engaged with the Nürnberg and
Leipzig, the Dresden, which was beyond her consorts, effected her escape
owing to her superior speed. The Glasgow was the only cruiser with
sufficient speed to have had any chance of success. However, she was
fully employed in engaging the Leipzig for over an hour before either
the Cornwall or Kent could come up and get within range. During this
time the Dresden was able to increase her distance and get out of sight.

The weather changed after 4 P.M., and the visibility was much reduced;
further, the sky was overcast and cloudy, thus assisting the Dresden to
get away unobserved.

(D)--ACTION WITH THE ENEMY'S TRANSPORTS.

A report was received at 11:27 A.M. from H.M.S. Bristol that three ships
of the enemy, probably transports or colliers, had appeared off Port
Pleasant. The Bristol was ordered to take the Macedonia under his orders
and destroy the transports.

H.M.S. Macedonia reports that only two ships, steamships Baden and Santa
Isabel, were present; both ships were sunk after the removal of the
crews.

I have pleasure in reporting that the officers and men under my orders
carried out their duties with admirable efficiency and coolness, and
great credit is due to the engineer officers of all the ships, several
of which exceeded their normal full speed.

The names of the following are specially mentioned:

OFFICERS.

Commander Richard Herbert Denny Townsend, H.M.S. Invincible.

Commander Arthur Edward Frederick Bedford, H.M.S. Kent.

Lieut. Commander Wilfred Arthur Thompson, H.M.S. Glasgow.

Lieut. Commander Hubert Edward Danreuther, First and Gunnery Lieutenant,
H.M.S. Invincible.

Engineer Commander George Edward Andrew, H.M.S. Kent.

Engineer Commander Edward John Weeks, H.M.S. Invincible.

Paymaster Cyril Sheldon Johnson, H.M.S. Invincible.

Carpenter Thomas Andrew Walls, H.M.S. Invincible.

Carpenter William Henry Venning, H.M.S. Kent.

Carpenter George Henry Egford, H.M.S. Cornwall.

PETTY OFFICERS AND MEN.

Ch. P.O. D. Leighton, O.N. 124,288, Kent.

P.O., 2d Cl., M.J. Walton, (R.F.R., A. 1,756,) O.N. 118,358, Kent.

Ldg. Smn. F.S. Martin, O.N. 233,301, Invincible, Gnr's. Mate, Gunlayer,
1st Cl.

Sigmn. F. Glover, O.N. 225,731, Cornwall.

Ch. E.R. Art., 2d Cl., J.G. Hill, O.N. 269,646, Cornwall.

Actg. Ch. E.R. Art., 2d Cl., R. Snowdon, O.N. 270,654, Inflexible.

E.R. Art., 1st Cl., G.H.F. McCarten, O.N. 270,023, Invincible.

Stkr. P.O. G.S. Brewer, O.N. 150,950, Kent.

Stkr. P.O. W.A. Townsend, O.N. 301,650, Cornwall.

Stkr., 1st Cl., J. Smith, O.N. SS 111,915, Cornwall.

Shpwrt., 1st Cl., A.N.E. England, O.N. 341,971, Glasgow.

Shpwrt., 2d Cl., A.C.H. Dymott, O.N.M. 8,047, Kent.

Portsmouth R.F.R.B. 3,307 Sergt. Charles Mayes, H.M.S. Kent.

F.C.D. STURDEE.



BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND MORNING.

By SIR OWEN SEAMAN.

[From King Albert's Book.]


    You that have faith to look with fearless eyes
      Beyond the tragedy of a world at strife,
    And trust that out of night and death shall rise
        The dawn of ampler life;

    Rejoice, whatever anguish rend your heart,
      That God has given you, for a priceless dower,
    To live in these great times and have your part
        In Freedom's crowning hour.

    That you may tell your sons who see the light
      High in the heavens, their heritage to take--
    "I saw the powers of darkness put to flight!
        I saw the morning break!"



The Greatest of Campaigns

The French Official Account Concluded


     The second and succeeding installments--the first installment
     appeared in CURRENT HISTORY for April--of the official French
     historical review of the operations in the western theatre of
     war from the beginning until the end of January, 1915--the
     first six months--are described in the subjoined
     correspondence of The Associated Press.

_LONDON, March 18, (Correspondence of The Associated Press.)--The
Associated Press has received the second installment of the historical
review emanating from French official sources of the operations in the
Western theatre of war, from its beginning up to the end of January. It
should be understood that the narrative is made purely from the French
standpoint. The additional installment of the document dealing with the
victory of the Marne, Sept. 6th to 15th, is as follows:_

If one examines on the map the respective positions of the German and
French armies on Sept. 6 as previously described, it will be seen that
by his inflection toward Meaux and Coulommiers General von Kluck was
exposing his right to the offensive action of our left. This is the
starting point of the victory of the Marne.

On the evening of Sept. 5 our left army had reached the front
Penchard-Saint-Souflet-Ver. On the 6th and 7th it continued its
attacks vigorously with the Ourcq as objective. On the evening of
the 7th it was some kilometers from the Ourcq, on the front
Chambry-Marcilly-Lisieux-Acy-en-Multien. On the 8th, the Germans, who
had in great haste reinforced their right by bringing their Second
and Fourth Army Corps back to the north, obtained some successes by
attacks of extreme violence. They occupied Betz, Thury-en-Valois, and
Nanteuil-le-Haudouin. But in spite of this pressure our troops held
their ground well. In a brilliant action they took three standards, and,
being reinforced, prepared a new attack for the 10th. At the moment that
this attack was about to begin the enemy was already in retreat toward
the north. The attack became a pursuit, and on the 12th we established
ourselves on the Aisne.


LEFT OF KLUCK'S ARMY THREATENED.

Why did the German forces which were confronting us and on the evening
before attacking so furiously retreat on the morning of the 10th?
Because in bringing back on the 6th several army corps from the south to
the north to face our left the enemy had exposed his left to the attacks
of the British Army, which had immediately faced around toward the
north, and to those of our armies which were prolonging the English
lines to the right. This is what the French command had sought to bring
about. This is what happened on Sept. 8 and allowed the development and
rehabilitation which it was to effect.

On the 6th the British Army had set out from the line Rozcy-Lagny and
had that evening reached the southward bank of the Grand Morin. On the
7th and 8th it continued its march, and on the 9th had debouched to the
north of the Marne below Chateau-Thiery, taking in flank the German
forces which on that day were opposing, on the Ourcq, our left army.
Then it was that these forces began to retreat, while the British Army,
going in pursuit and capturing seven guns and many prisoners, reached
the Aisne between Soissons and Longueval.

The rôle of the French Army, which was operating to the right of the
British Army, was threefold. It had to support the British attacking on
its left. It had on its right to support our centre, which from Sept. 7
had been subjected to a German attack of great violence. Finally, its
mission was to throw back the three active army corps and the reserve
corps which faced it.

On the 7th it made a leap forward, and on the following days reached and
crossed the Marne, seizing, after desperate fighting, guns, howitzers,
mitrailleuses, and 1,300,000 cartridges. On the 12th it established
itself on the north edge of the Montagne-de-Reime in contact with our
centre, which for its part had just forced the enemy to retreat in
haste.


THE ACTION OF FERE-CHAMPENOISE.

Our centre consisted of a new army created on Aug. 29 and of one of
those which at the beginning of the campaign had been engaged in Belgian
Luxemburg. The first had retreated on Aug. 29 to Sept. 5 from the Aisne
to the north of the Marne and occupied the general front Sézanne-Mailly.

The second, more to the east, had drawn back to the south of the line
Humbauville-Chateau-Beauchamp-Bignicourt-Blesmes-Maurupt-le-Montoy.

The enemy, in view of his right being arrested and the defeat of his
enveloping movement, made a desperate effort from the 7th to the 10th to
pierce our centre to the west and to the east of Fére-Champenoise. On
the 8th he succeeded in forcing back the right of our new army, which
retired as far as Gouragançon. On the 9th, at 6 o'clock in the morning,
there was a further retreat to the south of that village, while on the
left the other army corps also had to go back to the line
Allemant-Connantre.

Despite this retreat the General commanding the army ordered a general
offensive for the same day. With the Morocco Division, whose behavior
was heroic, he met a furious assault of the Germans on his left toward
the marshes of Saint Gond. Then with the division which had just
victoriously overcome the attacks of the enemy to the north of Sézanne,
and with the whole of his left army corps, he made a flanking attack in
the evening of the 9th upon the German forces, and notably the guard,
which had thrown back his right army corps. The enemy, taken by
surprise by this bold manoeuvre, did not resist, and beat a hasty
retreat.

On the 11th we crossed the Marne between Tours-sur-Marne and Sarry,
driving the Germans in front of us in disorder. On the 12th we were in
contact with the enemy to the north of the Camp de Chalons. Our other
army of the centre, acting on the right of the one just referred to, had
been intrusted with the mission during the 7th, 8th, and 9th of
disengaging its neighbor, and it was only on the 10th that, being
reinforced by an army corps from the east, it was able to make its
action effectively felt. On the 11th the Germans retired. But,
perceiving their danger, they fought desperately, with enormous
expenditure of projectiles, behind strong intrenchments. On the 12th the
result had none the less been attained, and our two centre armies were
solidly established on the ground gained.


THE OPERATIONS OF THE RIGHT.

To the right of these two armies were three others. They had orders to
cover themselves to the north and to debouch toward the west on the
flank of the enemy, which was operating to the west of the Argonne. But
a wide interval in which the Germans were in force separated them from
our centre. The attack took place, nevertheless, with very brilliant
success for our artillery, which destroyed eleven batteries of the
Sixteenth German Army Corps.

On the 10th inst. the Eighth and Fifteenth German Army Corps
counter-attacked, but were repulsed. On the 11th our progress continued
with new successes, and on the 12th we were able to face round toward
the north in expectation of the near and inevitable retreat of the
enemy, which, in fact, took place from the 13th.

The withdrawal of the mass of the German force involved also that of the
left. From the 12th onward the forces of the enemy operating between
Nancy and the Vosges retreated in a hurry before our two armies of the
East, which immediately occupied the positions that the enemy had
evacuated. The offensive of our right had thus prepared and
consolidated in the most useful way the result secured by our left and
our centre.

[Illustration: Map showing the successive stages of the Battle of the
Marne.]

Such was this seven days' battle, in which more than two millions of men
were engaged. Each army gained ground step by step, opening the road to
its neighbor, supported at once by it, taking in flank the adversary
which the day before it had attacked in front, the efforts of one
articulating closely with those of the other, a perfect unity of
intention and method animating the supreme command.

To give this victory all its meaning it is necessary to add that it was
gained by troops which for two weeks had been retreating, and which,
when the order for the offensive was given, were found to be as ardent
as on the first day. It has also to be said that these troops had to
meet the whole German army, and that from the time they marched forward
they never again fell back. Under their pressure the German retreat at
certain times had the appearance of a rout.

In spite of the fatigue of our men, in spite of the power of the German
heavy artillery, we took colors, guns, mitrailleuses, shells, more than
a million cartridges, and thousands of prisoners. A German corps lost
almost the whole of its artillery, which, from information brought by
our airmen, was destroyed by our guns.


"THE RUSH TO THE SEA."

_LONDON, March 18.--The third installment of the historical review of
the war, emanating from French official sources and purely from the
French viewpoint, has been received by The Associated Press. The French
narrative contains a long chapter on the siege war from the Oise to the
Vosges, which lasted from Sept. 13 to Nov. 30. Most of the incidents in
this prolonged and severe warfare have been recorded in the daily
bulletins. The operations were of secondary importance, and were
conducted on both sides with the same idea of wearing down the troops
and the artillery of the opposing forces with the view of influencing
the decisive result in the great theatre of war in the north. The next
chapter deals with "the rush to the sea," Sept. 13 to Oct. 23, and is as
follows:_

GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE ACTION.

As early as Sept. 11 the Commander in Chief had directed our left army
to have as important forces as possible on the right bank of the Oise.
On Sept. 17 he made that instruction more precise by ordering "a mass to
be constituted on the left wing of our disposition, capable of coping
with the outflanking movement of the enemy." Everything led us to expect
that flanking movement, for the Germans are lacking in invention.
Indeed, their effort at that time tended to a renewal of their manoeuvre
of August. In the parallel race the opponents were bound in the end to
be stopped only by the sea; that is what happened about Oct. 20.

The Germans had an advantage over us, which is obvious from a glance at
the map--the concentric form of their front, which shortened the length
of their transports. In spite of this initial inferiority we arrived in
time. From the middle of September to the last week in October fighting
went on continually to the north of the Oise, but all the time we were
fighting we were slipping northward. On the German side this movement
brought into line more than eighteen new army corps, (twelve active army
corps, six reserve corps, four cavalry corps.) On our side it ended in
the constitution of three fresh armies on our left and in the transport
into the same district of the British Army and the Belgian Army from
Antwerp.

For the conception and realization of this fresh and extended
disposition the French command, in the first place, had to reduce to a
minimum the needs for effectives of our armies to the east of the Oise,
and afterwards to utilize to the utmost our means of transport. It
succeeded in this, and when, at the end of October, the battle of
Flanders opened, when the Germans, having completed the concentration of
their forces, attempted with fierce energy to turn or to pierce our
left, they flung themselves upon a resistance which inflicted upon them
a complete defeat.


DEPLOYMENT OF A FIRST ARMY.

The movement began on our side only with the resources of the army which
had held the left of our front during the battle of the Marne,
reinforced on Sept. 15 by one army corps.

This reinforcement, not being sufficient to hold the enemy's offensive,
(district of Vaudelincourt-Mouchy-Uaugy,) a fresh army was transported
more to the left, with the task "of acting against the German right wing
in order to disengage its neighbor, ... while preserving a flanking
direction in its march in relation to the fresh units that the enemy
might be able to put into line."

To cover the detrainments of this fresh army in the district
Clermont-Beauvais-Boix a cavalry corps and four territorial divisions
were ordered to establish themselves on both banks of the Somme. In the
wooded hills, however, which extend between the Oise and Lassigny the
enemy displayed increasing activity. Nevertheless, the order still
further to broaden the movement toward the left was maintained, while
the territorial divisions were to move toward Bethune and Aubigny. The
march to the sea went on.

From the 21st to the 26th all our forces were engaged in the district
Lassigny-Roye-Peronne, with alternations of reverse and success. It was
the first act of the great struggle which was to spread as it went on.
On the 26th the whole of the Sixth German Army was deployed against us.
We retained all our positions, but we could do no more; consequently
there was still the risk that the enemy, by means of a fresh afflux of
forces, might succeed in turning us.

Once more reinforcements, two army corps, were directed no longer on
Beauvais, but toward Amiens. The front was then again to extend. A fresh
army was constituted more to the north.


DEPLOYMENT OF THE SECOND ARMY.

From Sept. 30 onward we could not but observe that the enemy, already
strongly posted on the plateau of Thiepval, was continually slipping
his forces from south to north, and everywhere confronting us with
remarkable energy.

Accordingly, on Oct. 1 two cavalry corps were directed to make a leap
forward and, operating on both banks of the Scarpe, to put themselves in
touch with the garrison of Dunkirk, which, on its side, had pushed
forward as far as Douai. But on Oct. 2 and 3 the bulk of our fresh army
was very strongly attacked in the district of Arras and Lens.
Confronting it were two corps of cavalry, the guards, four active army
corps, and two reserve corps. A fresh French army corps was immediately
transported and detrained in the Lille district.

But once more the attacks became more pressing, and on Oct. 4 it was a
question whether, in view of the enemy's activity both west of the Oise
and south of the Somme, and also further to the north, a retreat would
not have to be made. General Joffre resolutely put this hypothesis aside
and ordered the offensive to be resumed with the reinforcements that had
arrived. It was, however, clear that, despite the efforts of all, our
front, extended to the sea as it was by a mere ribbon of troops, did not
possess the solidity to enable it to resist with complete safety a
German attack, the violence of which could well be foreseen.

In the Arras district the position was fairly good. But between the Oise
and Arras we were holding our own only with difficulty. Finally, to the
north, on the Lille-Estaires-Merville-Hazebrouck-Cassel front, our
cavalry and our territorials had their work cut out against eight
divisions of German cavalry, with very strong infantry supports. It was
at this moment that the transport of the British Army to the northern
theatre of operations began.

[Illustration: VICE ADMIRAL H.R.H. THE DUKE OF THE ABRUZZI

Cousin of the King of Italy, Commander of the dreadnought squadron of
the Italian Navy.

_(Photo (c) by Pach Bros., N.Y.)_]

[Illustration: H.M. FERDINAND I.

Tsar of the Bulgars.

_(Photo from P.S. Rogers.)_]


THE TRANSPORT OF THE BRITISH ARMY.

Field Marshal French had, as early as the end of September, expressed
the wish to see his army resume its initial place on the left of the
allied armies. He explained this wish on the ground of the greater
facility of which his communications would have the advantage in this
new position, and also of the impending arrival of two divisions of
infantry from home and of two infantry divisions and a cavalry division
from India, which would be able to deploy more easily on that terrain.
In spite of the difficulties which such a removal involved, owing to the
intensive use of the railways by our own units, General Joffre decided
at the beginning of October to meet the Field Marshal's wishes and to
have the British Army removed from the Aisne.

It was clearly specified that on the northern terrain the British Army
should co-operate to the same end as ourselves, the stopping of the
German right. In other terms, the British Army was to prolong the front
of the general disposition without a break, attacking as soon as
possible, and at the same time seeking touch with the Belgian Army.

But the detraining took longer than had been expected, and it was not
possible to attack the Germans during the time when they had only
cavalry in the Lille district and further to the north.


THE ARRIVAL OF THE BELGIAN ARMY.

There remained the Belgian Army. On leaving Antwerp on Oct. 9 the
Belgian Army, which was covered by 8,000 British bluejackets and 6,000
French bluejackets, at first intended to retire as far as to the north
of Calais, but afterwards determined to make a stand in Belgian
territory. Unfortunately, the condition of the Belgian troops, exhausted
by a struggle of more than three months, did not allow any immediate
hopes to be based upon them. This situation weighed on our plans and
delayed their execution.

On the 16th we made progress to the east of Ypres. On the 18th our
cavalry even reached Roulers and Cortemark. But it was now evident that,
in view of the continual reinforcing of the German right, our left was
not capable of maintaining the advantages obtained during the previous
few days. To attain our end and make our front inviolable a fresh effort
was necessary. That effort was immediately made by the dispatch to the
north of the Lys of considerable French forces, which formed the French
Army of Belgium.


THE FRENCH ARMY OF BELGIUM.

The French Army of Belgium consisted, to begin with, of two territorial
divisions, four divisions of cavalry, and a naval brigade. Directly
after its constitution it was strengthened by elements from other points
on the front whose arrival extended from Oct. 27 to Nov. 11. These
reinforcements were equivalent altogether in value to five army corps, a
division of cavalry, a territorial division, and sixteen regiments of
cavalry, plus sixty pieces of heavy artillery.

Thus was completed the strategic manoeuvre defined by the instructions
of the General in Chief on Sept. 11 and developed during the five
following weeks with the ampleness we have just seen. The movements of
troops carried out during this period were methodically combined with
the pursuit of operations, both defensive and offensive, from the Oise
to the North Sea.

On Oct. 22 our left, bounded six weeks earlier by the Noyon district,
rested on Nieuport, thanks to the successive deployment of five fresh
armies--three French armies, the British Army, and the Belgian Army.

Thus the co-ordination decided upon by the General in Chief attained its
end. The barrier was established. It remained to maintain it against the
enemy's offensive. That was the object and the result of the battle of
Flanders, Oct. 22 to Nov. 15.


OPERATIONS IN FLANDERS.

_The fourth installment of the French review takes up the operations in
Flanders, as follows:_

The German attack in Flanders was conducted strategically and tactically
with remarkable energy. The complete and indisputable defeat in which it
resulted is therefore significant.

The forces of which the enemy disposed for this operation between the
sea and the Lys comprised:

(1) The entire Fourth Army commanded by the Duke of Württemberg,
consisting of one naval division, one division of Ersatz Reserve, (men
who had received no training before the war,) which was liberated by the
fall of Antwerp; the Twenty-second, Twenty-third, Twenty-sixth and
Twenty-seventh Reserve Corps, and the Forty-eighth Division belonging to
the Twenty-fourth Reserve Corps.

(2) A portion of another army under General von Fabeck, consisting of
the Fifteenth Corps, two Bavarian corps and three (unspecified)
divisions.

(3) Part of the Sixth Army under the command of the Crown Prince of
Bavaria. This army, more than a third of which took part in the battle
of Flanders, comprised the Nineteenth Army Corps, portions of the
Thirteenth Corps and the Eighteenth Reserve Corps, the Seventh and
Fourteenth Corps, the First Bavarian Reserve Corps, the Guards, and the
Fourth Army Corps.

(4) Four highly mobile cavalry corps prepared and supported the action
of the troops enumerated above. Everything possible had been done to
fortify the "morale" of the troops. At the beginning of October the
Crown Prince of Bavaria in a proclamation had exhorted his soldiers "to
make the decisive effort against the French left wing," and "to settle
thus the fate of the great battle which has lasted for weeks."

[Illustration: Map showing the swaying battle line from Belfort to the
North Sea and the intrenched line on April 15, 1915.]

On Oct. 28, Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria declared in an army order that
his troops "had just been fighting under very difficult conditions,"
and he added: "It is our business now not to let the struggle with our
most detested enemy drag on longer.... The decisive blow is still to be
struck." On Oct. 30, General von Deimling, commanding the Fifteenth Army
Corps (belonging to General von Fabeck's command,) issued an order
declaring that "the thrust against Ypres will be of decisive
importance." It should be noted also that the Emperor proceeded in
person to Thielt and Courtrai to exalt by his presence the ardor of his
troops. Finally, at the close of October, the entire German press
incessantly proclaimed the importance of the "Battle of Calais." It is
superfluous to add that events in Poland explain in a large measure the
passionate resolve of the German General Staff to obtain a decision in
the Western theatre of operations at all costs. This decision would be
obtained if our left were pierced or driven in. To reach Calais, that
is, to break our left; to carry Ypres, that is, to cut it in half;
through both points to menace the communications and supplies of the
British expeditionary corps, perhaps even to threaten Britain in her
island--such was the German plan in the Battle of Flanders. It was a
plan that could not be executed.


CHECK OF GERMAN ATTACK.

The enemy, who had at his disposal a considerable quantity of heavy
artillery, directed his efforts at first upon the coast and the country
to the north of Dixmude. His objective was manifestly the capture of
Dunkirk, then of Calais and Boulogne, and this objective he pursued
until Nov. 1.

On Oct. 23 the Belgians along the railway line from Nieuport to Dixmude
were strengthened by a French division. Dixmude was occupied by our
marines (fusiliers marins). During the subsequent day our forces along
the railway developed a significant resistance against an enemy superior
in number and backed by heavy artillery. On the 29th the inundations
effected between the canal and the railway line spread along our front.
On the 30th we recaptured Ramscapelle, the only point on the railway
which Belgians had lost. On the 1st and 2d of November the enemy
bombarded Furnes, but began to show signs of weariness. On the 2d he
evacuated the ground between the Yser and the railway, abandoning
cannon, dead and wounded. On the 3d our troops were able to re-enter the
Dixmude district. The success achieved by the enemy at Dixmude at this
juncture was without fruit. They succeeded in taking the town. They
could not debouch from it. The coastal attack had thus proved a total
failure. Since then it has never been renewed. The Battle of Calais, so
noisily announced by the German press, amounted to a decided reverse for
the Germans.


GERMAN DEFEAT AT YPRES.

The enemy had now begun an attack more important than its predecessor,
in view of the numbers engaged in it. This attack was intended as a
renewal to the south of the effort which had just been shattered in the
north. Instead of turning our flank on the coast, it was now sought to
drive in the right of our northern army under the shock of powerful
masses. This was the Battle of Ypres.

In order to understand this long, desperate, and furious battle, we must
hark back a few days in point of time. At the moment when our cavalry
reached Roulers and Cortemark (Oct. 28) our territorial divisions from
Dunkirk, under General Biden, had occupied and organized a defensive
position at Ypres. It was a point d'appui, enabling us to prepare and
maintain our connections with the Belgian Army. From Oct. 23 two British
and French army corps were in occupation of this position, which was to
be the base of their forward march in the direction of Roulers-Menin.
The delays already explained and the strength of the forces brought up
by the enemy soon brought to a standstill our progress along the line
Poelcapelle, Paschendaele, Zandvorde, and Gheluvelt. But in spite of the
stoppage here, Ypres was solidly covered, and the connections of all the
allied forces were established. Against the line thus formed the German
attack was hurled from Oct. 25 to Nov. 13, to the north, the east, and
the south of Ypres. From Oct. 26 on the attacks were renewed daily with
extraordinary violence, obliging us to employ our reinforcements at the
most threatened points as soon as they came up. Thus, on Oct. 31, we
were obliged to send supports to the British cavalry, then to the two
British corps between which the cavalry formed the connecting link, and
finally to intercalate between these two corps a force equivalent to two
army corps. Between Oct. 30 and Nov. 6 Ypres was several times in
danger. The British lost Zandvorde, Gheluvelt, Messines, and Wytschaete.
The front of the Allies, thus contracted, was all the more difficult to
defend; but defended it was without a recoil.


REINFORCEMENTS ARRIVE.

The arrival of three French divisions in our line enabled us to resume
from the 4th to the 8th a vigorous offensive. On the 10th and 11th this
offensive, brought up against fresh and sharper German attacks, was
checked. Before it could be renewed the arrival of fresh reinforcements
had to be awaited, which were dispatched to the north on Nov. 12. By the
14th our troops had again begun to progress, barring the road to Ypres
against the German attacks, and inflicting on the enemy, who advanced in
massed formation, losses which were especially terrible in consequence
of the fact that the French and British artillery had crowded nearly 300
guns on to these few kilometers of front.

Thus the main mass of the Germans sustained the same defeat as the
detachments operating further to the north along the coast. The support
which, according to the idea of the German General Staff, the attack on
Ypres was to render to the coastal attack, was as futile as that attack
itself had been.

During the second half of November the enemy, exhausted and having lost
in the Battle of Ypres alone more than 150,000 men, did not attempt to
renew his effort, but confined himself to an intermittent cannonade.
We, on the contrary, achieved appreciable progress to the north and
south of Ypres, and insured definitely by a powerful defensive
organization of the position the inviolability of our front.

[The compiler of the report here adds a footnote saying that the bodies
of more than 40,000 Germans were found on the battlefield during these
three weeks of battle. The report next proceeds to summarize the
character and results of the operations since the Battle of
Flanders--that is, during the period Nov. 30-Feb. 1.]

Since the former date the French supreme command had not thought it
advisable to embark upon important offensive operations. It has confined
itself to local attacks, the main object of which was to hold in front
of us as large a number of German corps as possible, and thus to hinder
the withdrawal of the troops which to our knowledge the German General
Staff was anxious to dispatch to Russia.


FEW SENT TO THE EAST.

As a matter of fact, the numbers transported to the eastern front have
been very moderate. Of the fifty-two army corps which faced us on the
western front, Germany has only been able to take four and one-half
corps for the eastern front. On the other hand, climatic conditions--the
rain, mud, and mist--were such as to diminish the effectiveness of
offensive operations and to add to the costliness of any undertaken,
which was another reason for postponing them. Still another reason lies
in the fact that from now on the allied forces can count upon a steadily
expanding growth, equally in point of numbers and units as of material,
while the German forces have attained the maximum of their power, and
can only diminish now both in numbers and in value. These conditions
explain the character of the siege warfare which the operations have
assumed during the period under review.

[Illustration: Map illustrating the Battle of Flanders, the Battle of
Ypres, and the terrain of the frustrated German efforts to reach Dunkirk
and Calais.]

Meanwhile, it is by no means the case that the siege warfare has had the
same results for the Germans as for us. From Nov. 15 to Feb. 1, our
opponents, in spite of very numerous attacks, did not succeed in taking
anything from us, except a few hundred metres of ground to the north of
Soissons. We, on the contrary, have obtained numerous and appreciable
results.

[The French writer here proceeds to strike a balance of gains and losses
between the allied and the German forces in France during the Winter
campaign. The result he sums up as follows:]

1. A general progress of our troops; very marked at certain points.

2. A general falling back of the enemy, except to the northeast of
Soissons.

To complete the balance it must be added that:

1. The German offensive in Poland was checked a month ago.

2. The Russian offensive continues in Galicia and the Carpathians.

3. A large part of the Turkish Caucasian army has been annihilated.

4. Germany has exhausted her resources of officers, (there are now on an
average twelve officers to a regiment,) and henceforth will only be able
to develop her resources in men to the detriment of the existing units.

5. The allied armies, on the contrary, possess the power of reinforcing
themselves in a very considerable degree.

It may, therefore, be declared that in order to obtain complete success
it is sufficient for France and her allies to know how to wait and to
prepare victory with indefatigable patience.

The German offensive is broken.

The German defensive will be broken in its turn.

[It is evident from the report that the numbered German army corps are
Prussian corps unless otherwise specified.]


THE FRENCH ARMY AS IT IS.

_LONDON, March 18, (Correspondence of The Associated Press.)--All of
Part II., of the historical review of the war, emanating from French
official sources, and purely from the French viewpoint, has been
received by The Associated Press. Part II, deals with the conditions in
the French Army, furnishing a most interesting chapter on this subject
under the title, "The French Army as it Is."_

_The compiler of the report, beginning this part of his review on Feb.
1, says that the condition of the French Army is excellent and
appreciably superior to what it was at the beginning of the war from the
three points of view of numbers, quality, and equipment. Continuing, he
says:_

In the higher command important changes have been made. It has, in fact,
been rejuvenated by the promotion of young commanders of proved quality
to high rank. All the old Generals, who at the beginning of August were
at the head of large commands, have been gradually eliminated, some as
the result of the physical strain of war and others by appointment to
territorial commands. This rejuvenation of the higher ranks of the army
has been carried out in a far-reaching manner, and it may be said that
it has embraced all the grades of the military hierarchy from commanders
of brigades to commanders of armies. The result has been to lower the
average age of general officers by ten years. Today more than
three-fourths of the officers commanding armies and army corps are less
than 60 years of age. Some are considerably younger. A number of the
army corps commanders are from 46 to 54 years of age, and the brigade
commanders are usually under 50. There are, in fact, at the front
extremely few general officers over 60, and these are men who are in
full possession of their physical and intellectual powers.


MANY COLONELS PROMOTED.

This rejuvenation of the high command was facilitated by a number of
circumstances, notable among which were the strengthening of the higher
regimental ranks carried out during the three years preceding the war,
as a result of which at the outset of the campaign each infantry
regiment had two Lieutenant Colonels, and each cavalry and artillery
regiment a Colonel and Lieutenant Colonel, and also the system of
promotion for the duration of the war. Many officers who began the war
as Colonels now command brigades. Some are even at the head of divisions
or army corps. Ability proved on the field of battle is now immediately
recognized and utilized, and in this way it has been possible to provide
in the most favorable manner for the vacancies created by the changes in
command which were considered necessary in the first weeks of the war.

The higher grades of the French Army are inspired by a remarkable unity
in the matter of military theory, and by a solidarity of spirit which
has found striking expression in the course of the numerous moves of
army corps from one part of the theatre of operations to another, which
have been carried out since the beginning of the war.

The cavalry after six months of war still possesses an excess of
officers. There are on an average thirty-six officers to a regiment
instead of the thirty-one considered to be the necessary minimum. The
artillery, which has suffered relatively little, has also an excess of
officers, and is further able to count upon a large number of Captains
and other officers, who before the war were employed in the arsenals or
in technical research. Finally the reserve artillery officers have
nearly all proved to be excellent battery commanders.

The losses in the junior commissioned ranks have naturally been highest
in the infantry. There is, however, nothing like a want of officers in
this arm. Many Captains and Lieutenants who have been wounded by
machine-gun fire (such wounds are usually slight and quickly healed,)
have been able to return speedily to the front. The reserve officers
have in general done remarkably well, and in many cases have shown quite
exceptional aptitude for the rank of company commanders. The
non-commissioned officers promoted to sub-Lieutenancies make excellent
section leaders, and even show themselves very clever and energetic
company commanders in the field.

It must be remembered also that thanks to the intellectual and physical
development of the generation now serving with the colors; and thanks,
above all, to the warlike qualities of the race, and the democratic
spirit of our army, we have been able to draw upon the lower grades and
even upon the rank and file for officers. Many men who began the war on
Aug. 2 as privates, now wear the officers' epaulettes. The elasticity of
our regulations regarding promotion in war time, the absence of the
spirit of caste, and the friendly welcome extended by all officers to
those of their military inferiors who have shown under fire their
fitness to command, have enabled us to meet all requirements.

The state of our infantry on Jan. 15 was very satisfactory and much
superior to that of the German infantry. On an average each of our
regiments has forty-eight officers, including eighteen regular officers,
fifteen reserve officers, and fifteen non-commissioned officers. In each
regiment six of the twelve companies are commanded by Captains who are
regular officers, three by Captains of the reserve and three by
Lieutenants. Each company has at least three officers. The state of the
army as regards the commissioned ranks from the highest to the lowest is
declared to be exceptionally brilliant. The army is led by young,
well-trained, and daring chiefs, and the lower commissioned ranks have
acquired the art of war by experience.


2,500,000 FRENCH AT FRONT.

Including all ranks, France now has more than 2,500,000 men at the
front, and every unit is, or was on Jan. 15, at war strength. The
infantry companies are at least 200 strong. In many regiments the
companies have a strength of 250 or more.

In other arms, which have suffered less than the infantry, the units are
all up to, or above, regulation strength.

This fact constitutes one of the most important advantages of the French
Army over the Germans. While Germany has created a great number of new
units, army corps or divisions, which absorbed at a blow all of her
available resources in officers and men, the French supreme command has
avoided the formation of new units, except in limited number, and has
only admitted exceptions to this rule when it was able to count with
certainty on being able to provide amply for both the present and future
requirements of the new units, as regards all ranks, without encroaching
upon the reserves needed for the existing units.

At the same time, thanks to the depots in the interior of the country,
the effectives at the front have been maintained at full strength. The
sources of supply for this purpose were the remainder of the eleven
classes of the reserves, the younger classes of the territorial army,
and the new class of 1914. A large number of the men wounded in the
earlier engagements of the war have been able to return to the front.
They have been incorporated in the new drafts, providing these with a
useful stiffening of war-tried men.

With regard to the supplies of men upon which the army can draw to
repair the wastage at the front, we learn that there are practically
half as many men in the depots as at the front, in other words about
1,250,000. Further supplies of men are provided by the class of 1915 and
the revision of the various categories of men of military age previously
exempted on grounds of health or for other reasons from the duty of
bearing arms. As a result of this measure nearly half a million men have
been claimed for the army, almost all of whom, after rigorous physical
tests, have been declared fit for military service.


DRILLED BY CONVALESCENTS.

In the depots in which the new soldiers are being trained the services
of many officers and non-commissioned officers discharged as
convalescents after being wounded are utilized in order to give a
practical turn to the instruction. There are still many voluntary
enlistments, and with all these resources of men the army can count upon
reinforcements soon to be available which will considerably augment its
offensive power.

The quality of the troops has improved perceptibly since the beginning
of the war. The men have become hardened and used to war, and their
health--largely owing to the excellence of the commissariat--is
extremely satisfactory. In spite of the severity of the Winter hardly
any cases of disease of the respiratory organs have occurred, and the
sanitary returns of the army show an appreciable improvement on those of
the preceding Winter.

With regard to the reserves, experience has verified the dictum of the
Serbian and Bulgarian Generals in the war of 1913, namely, that "two
months in the field are necessary in order to get at the full value of
reserves." Our infantry is now accustomed to the rapid and thorough
"organization" of the defensive. In August it neither liked nor had the
habit of using the spade. Today those who see our trenches are
astounded. They are veritable improvised fortresses, proof against the
77-millimeter gun and often against artillery of higher calibre. During
the last five months not a single encounter can be cited in which our
infantry did not have the advantage over the German infantry. All the
enemy's attacks have been repulsed, except to the north of Soissons,
where their success was due to the flooded state of the Aisne and the
carrying away of our bridges. Our attacks, on the other hand, have
yielded important results, and have been carried out with plenty of
spirit, although without the imprudence which cost us such heavy losses
in August.

The cavalry has made remarkable progress. Throughout October this branch
was called on to eke out the inadequate numbers of the infantry, and
showed itself perfectly adapted to the necessities of fighting on foot.
Several regiments of cavalry have been used as infantry, and, armed with
rifles, have rendered the most valuable services.

The artillery has displayed a superiority in the use of its admirable
material, which is recognized by the Germans themselves.


_LONDON, March 27, (Correspondence of The Associated Press.)--Further
installments of the French official review of the condition of the
French Army after six months of war have been obtained by The Associated
Press. The sixth installment deals with material, artillery, transport,
and supplies, and the seventh takes up the situation of the German Army
and makes an analysis of the German forces in the field and available
for service._

_The first chapter of the seventh installment, headed "The German
Effort," opens with a statement as to the German forces at the beginning
of the campaign. The writer says:_

The military effort of Germany at the outset of the campaign exceeded
all anticipations. Her design was to crush the French Army in a few
weeks under a tremendous mass of troops. Nothing was neglected to bring
that mass together.

The number of German army corps in time of peace is twenty-five. When
war began the German General Staff put in the field on the two theatres
of operations: 1, as fighting troops, (active, reserve, Ersatz or
Landwehr,) sixty-one army corps; 2, as troops to guard communications
and territory, formations of the Landsturm.

In October six and a half new army corps made their appearance, plus a
division of sailors--in all seven corps. From the end of November to the
end of December there was only an insignificant increase, consisting of
the division of sailors. In January, 1915, the number of fighting
formations put into line by the German Army was therefore sixty-nine
army corps, divided as follows:

Active corps, twenty-five and a half; reserve corps, twenty-one and a
half; Ersatz brigades, six and a half; reserve corps of new formation,
seven and a half, and corps of Landwehr, eight and a half.


GERMANY'S GREAT INITIAL EFFORT.

The immense effort thus made by Germany explains itself very well, if,
having regard to the position of Germany at the opening of the war, one
considers that of the Allies. Germany desired to take advantage of the
circumstances which enabled her to make a simultaneous mobilization of
all her forces--a mobilization which the three allied armies could not
carry out so rapidly. Germany wished with the mass of troops to crush
first of all the adversary who appeared to her the most dangerous. This
effort, broken for the first time on the Marne, attained its maximum at
the moment of the battle of Flanders, in which more than fifty army
corps out of sixty-nine were pitted against the French, British, and
Belgian Armies.

Here also the method followed by Germany is easily comprehensible. At
the end of October the Russian danger was beginning to become pressing,
and it was necessary to win a decisive victory in the western theatre of
the war. It was imperative to give international opinion the impression
that Germany remained in that quarter mistress of operations. Finally,
it behooved her by this victory to gain the freedom to transport a large
number of army corps to Poland. We have seen that the battle of
Flanders, instead of being a success for Germany, was a marked defeat.
This defeat was fraught with results, and it dominates the present
position of the German Army. The plans above described of the German
mobilization, which had their justification in view of a prompt victory,
were calculated to become extremely perilous from the moment that that
victory failed to be gained.


INITIATIVE LOST BY GERMANY.

From that moment, in fact, Germany lost the initiative and the direction
of the war. And, furthermore, she was condemned to suffer the
counter-effects of the enormous and precipitate effort which she had
made in vain. From the point of view of her effectiveness and her
regimental cadres, (basic organization,) she had undergone a wastage
which her adversaries, on the other hand, had been able to save
themselves. She had, in the words of the proverb, put all her eggs in
one basket, and in spite of her large population she could no longer,
owing to the immediate and sterile abuse which she had made of her
resources, pretend to regain the superiority of numbers.

She was reduced to facing as best she could on both war fronts the
unceasingly increasing forces of the Allies. She had attained the
maximum of tension and had secured a minimum of results. She had thus
landed herself in a difficulty which will henceforward go on increasing
and which is made clear when the wastage which her army has suffered is
closely studied.


WASTAGE OF GERMAN EFFECTIVES.

_Chapter II. of this section of the review bears the headline "Wastage
of German Effectives."_

The wastage of effectives is easy to establish, it says. We have for the
purpose two sources--the official lists of losses published by the
German General Staff and the notebooks, letters, and archives of
soldiers and officers killed and taken prisoners. These different
documents show that by the middle of January the German losses on the
two fronts were 1,800,000 men.

These figures are certainly less than the reality, because, for one
thing, the sick are not comprised, and, for another, the losses in the
last battle in Poland are not included. Let us accept them, however; let
us accept also that out of these 1,800,000 men 500,000--this is the
normal proportion--have been able to rejoin after being cured. Thus the
final loss for five months of the campaign has been 1,300,000 men, or
260,000 men per month. These figures agree exactly with what can be
ascertained when the variations of effectives in certain regiments are
examined.

It is certain that the majority of the German regiments have had to be
completely renewed. What, then, is the situation created by these
enormous losses?

_This question is answered by a statement headed "German troops
available for 1915."_

The total of German formations known at the beginning of January, says
the review, represented in round numbers 4,000,000 men. According to the
official reports on German recruiting, the entire resources of Germany
in men amount to 9,000,000. But from these 9,000,000 have to be deducted
men employed on railways, in the police, and in certain administrations
and industries--altogether 500,000 men. The total resources available
for the war were therefore 8,500,000. Out of these about one-half, say
4,000,000, are now at the front. The definitive losses represent at
least 1,300,000 men. The available resources amounted, then, at the
beginning of January, to 3,200,000 men.


GERMANY'S RESERVES UNTRAINED.

Of what are these resources composed? Chiefly of men who were untrained
in time of peace, the trained reservists having almost all left the
depots for the front. It has, moreover, to be noted that out of these
3,200,000 men there are, according to the statistics, 800,000 who are
more than 39 years of age, and therefore of only mediocre military
value. Thus there remain 2,400,000. Finally, the category of the
untrained in peace comprises, according to the estimates of German
military authorities themselves, one-quarter of inefficients.

The really valuable resources capable of campaigning are therefore just
2,000,000. These men, comprising the 1915, 1916, and 1917 classes,
called out in anticipation, constitute--and this point cannot be too
strongly insisted upon--the total of available resources for the
operations during the twelve months of 1915. As to what the military
value of these troops will be, considering the haste with which they
have been trained, the formidable losses sustained in the battle of
Flanders by the newly formed corps show very clearly. Their military
value will be limited.


GERMAN LOSSES 260,000 A MONTH.

When it is remembered that, according to the German documents
themselves, the definite loss each month is 260,000 men, it is manifest
that the available resources for the year 1915 will not suffice to fill
the gaps of a war of ten months.

It is then superabundantly established that in the matter of effectives
Germany has reached the maximum of possible effort. If with the men at
present available she creates, as it is certain that she is preparing to
do at this moment, fresh formations, she will be preventing herself, if
the war lasts another ten months, as is admissible, from being able to
complete afresh her old formations. If she creates no new formations,
she will have in 1915 exactly what is necessary and no more to complete
the existing units afresh.

Bearing in mind the ways of the German General Staff, one may suppose
that, disregarding the eventual impossibility of recompleting, it is
still addressing itself to creating new formations. The weakness to
which Germany will expose herself in the matter of effectives has just
been set forth, and it is easy to show that this weakness will be still
further aggravated by the wastage in the regimental orders.


PRAISES FRENCH "SEVENTY-FIVES."

_In the sixth installment, beginning with the field gun, the famous
"seventy-fives," the compiler of the report, after rehearsing the
splendid qualities of this weapon--its power, its rapidity of action,
and its precision--points out that it possesses a degree of strength and
endurance which makes it an implement of war of the first order._

It may be stated without hesitation [says the review] that our
"seventy-five" guns are in as perfect condition today as they were on
the first day of the war, although the use made of them has exceeded all
calculations. The consumption of projectiles was, in fact, so enormous
as to cause for a moment an ammunition crisis, which, however, was
completely overcome several weeks ago.

The methodical and complete exploitation of all the resources of the
country, organized since the beginning of the war, has enabled us to
accumulate a considerable stock of fresh munitions, and an increasing
rate of production is henceforth assured. We are thus sure of being able
to provide without particular effort for all the needs of the campaign,
present and future, however long the war may last, and it is this
certainty which has enabled us to supply projectiles to several of the
allied armies, among others, to the Serbian and Belgian armies. From
the statements of German prisoners we have learned that the
effectiveness of our new projectiles is superior to that of the old
ones.


FRENCH HEAVY GUNS SUPERIOR.

Our heavy artillery was in process of reorganization when the war broke
out, with the result that we were indisputably in a position of
inferiority in respect of this arm during the first battles. But today
the rôles have been changed and our adversaries themselves acknowledge
the superiority of our heavy artillery.

The change has been brought about in various ways, partly by the intense
activity of the cannon foundries in new production, partly by the
employment at the front of the enormous reserves of artillery preserved
in the fortresses. The very large number of heavy guns at the front
represents only a part of the total number available for use. There is
an abundant stock of projectiles for the heavy artillery, which, as in
the case of the field gun ammunition, is daily growing in importance.
The same is true of the reserves of powder and other explosives and of
all materials needed for the manufacture of shells.

With regard to small arms, hand grenades, bombs, and all the devices for
lifetaking which the trench warfare at short distance has brought into
use, the position of the French troops is in every way favorable.

_There follows a passage on the development of the machine gun in this
kind of warfare._

Owing to the extended use of this weapon, the number supplied to the
various units has been appreciably increased, says the review. Not only
is each unit in possession of its full regulation complement of machine
guns, but the number of these guns attached to each unit has been
increased since Feb. 1 by one-third.

_The report next passes to the transport service, which, it says, has
worked with remarkable precision since the beginning of the war. This
section of the review closes by referring to food supplies for the army,
which are described as abundant._


_LONDON, March 27, (Correspondence of The Associated Press.)--The eighth
installment of the French official review of the war, previous chapters
of which have been published, takes up the German losses of officers,
the wastage of guns and projectiles, and "the moral wastage of the
German Army."_

_The chapter on losses of officers begins with the statement that the
condition of the cadres, or basic organizations, in the German Army is
bad. The proportion of officers, and notably of officers by profession,
has been enormously reduced, it says; and a report made in December
showed that in a total of 124 companies, active or reserve, there were
only 49 officers of the active army. The active regiments have at the
present time, according to the review, an average of 12 professional
officers; the reserve regiments, 9 to 10; the reserve regiments of new
formation, 6 to 7; and it is to be remembered that these officers have
to be drawn upon afresh for the creation of new units._

"If Germany creates new army corps, and if the war lasts ten months," it
continues, "she will reduce almost to nothing the number of professional
officers in each regiment, a number which already is very insufficient."


FRENCH CONDITIONS IN CONTRAST.

_The French report points out that on the other hand, all the French
regiments have been constantly kept at a minimum figure of eighteen
professional officers per regiment. At the same time it admits that the
commanders of German corps, commanders of active battalions, and the
officers attached to the commanders of army corps are officers by
profession._

_The French report then addresses itself to the wastage of material.
Discussing the wastage of guns, it says:_

It is easy to ascertain the German losses in artillery. On Dec. 28 the
Sixty-sixth Regiment of Artillery entrained at Courtrai for Germany
twenty-two guns, of which eighteen were used up. This figure is
extremely high for a single regiment.

The same facts have been ascertained as regards heavy artillery. On
Dec. 21 and 22 seventy-seven guns of heavy artillery, which were no
longer serviceable, were sent to Cologne. These movements, which are not
isolated facts, show how ill the German artillery has resisted the
ordeal of the campaign.

Other proofs, moreover, are decisive. For some weeks we have noted the
very peculiar aspect of the marking on the bands of a great number of
shells of the 77 gun. When these markings are compared with those of
shells fired three months ago it is plain beyond all question that the
tubes are worn and that many of them require to be replaced. This loss
in guns is aggravated by the necessity which has arisen of drawing upon
the original army corps for the guns assigned to the recently formed
corps or those in course of formation. Several regiments of field
artillery have, in fact, had to give up two batteries.


WEARING OUT OF MATERIAL.

These two phenomena--wearing out of material and drafts upon
batteries--will inevitably result either in the reduction of batteries
from six to four guns, a reduction of the number of batteries in the
army corps, or the partial substitution for 77 guns of 9-centimeter
cannon of the old pattern, the presence of which has been many times
perceived at the front.

Furthermore, the German artillery lacks and has lacked for a very long
time munitions. It has been obliged to reduce its consumption of shells
in a notable degree. No doubt is possible in this respect. The
statements of prisoners since the battle of the Marne, and still more
since the battle of the Yser, make it clear that the number of shots
allowed to the batteries for each action is strictly limited. We have
found on officers killed or taken prisoner the actual orders prescribing
positively a strict economy of munitions.

For the last three months, too, we notice that the quality of the
projectiles is mediocre. Many of them do not burst. On Jan. 7, in the
course of a bombardment of Laventie, scarcely any of the German shells
burst. The proportion of non-bursts was estimated at two-fifths by the
British on Dec. 14, two-thirds by ourselves in the same month. On Jan. 3
at Bourg-et-Comin, and at other places since then, shrapnel fell the
explosion of which scarcely broke the envelope and the bullets were
projected without any force. About the same time our Fourteenth Army
Corps was fired at with shrapnel loaded with fragments of glass, and on
several points of our front shell casings of very bad quality have been
found, denoting hasty manufacture and the use of materials taken at
hazard.

From numerous indications it appears that the Germans are beginning to
run short of their 1898 pattern rifle. A certain number of the last
reinforcements (January) are armed with carbines or rifles of a poor
sort without bayonets. Others have not even rifles. Prisoners taken at
Woevre had old-pattern weapons.

The upshot of these observations is that Germany, despite her large
stores at the beginning, and the great resources of her industrial
production, presents manifest signs of wear, and that the official
optimism which she displays does not correspond with the reality of the
facts.


MORAL WASTAGE.

_Under the caption "Moral Wastage of the German Army," the review
continues:_

The material losses of the German Army have corresponded with a moral
wastage which it is interesting and possible to follow, both from the
interrogation of prisoners and the pocketbooks and letters seized upon
them or on the killed.

At the beginning of the war the entire German Army, as was natural, was
animated by an unshakable faith in the military superiority of the
empire. It lived on the recollections of 1870, and on those of the long
years of peace, during which all the powers which had to do with Germany
displayed toward her a spirit of conciliation and patience which might
pass for weakness.

The first prisoners we took in August showed themselves wholly
indifferent to the reverses of the German Army. They were sincerely and
profoundly convinced that, if the German Army retired, it was in virtue
of a preconceived plan, and that our successes would lead to nothing.
The events at the end of August were calculated to strengthen this
contention in the minds of the German soldiers.

The strategic retreat of the French Army, the facility with which the
German armies were able to advance from Aug. 25 to Sept. 5, gave our
adversaries a feeling of absolute and final superiority, which
manifested itself at that time by all the statements gleaned and all the
documents seized.

At the moment of the battle of the Marne the first impression was one of
failure of comprehension and of stupor. A great number of German
soldiers, notably those who fell into our hands during the first days of
that battle, believed fully, as at the end of August, that the retreat
they were ordered to make was only a means of luring us into a trap.
German military opinion was suddenly converted when the soldiers saw
that this retreat continued, and that it was being carried out in
disorder, under conditions which left no doubt as to its cause and its
extent.

This time it was really a defeat, and a defeat aggravated by the absence
of regular supplies and by the physical and moral depression which was
the result. The severity of the losses sustained, the overpowering
effects of the French artillery, began from this moment to be noted in
the German pocketbooks with veritable terror. Hope revived, however, at
the end of some weeks, and there is to be found in the letters of
soldiers and officers the announcement of "a great movement" which is
being prepared, and which is to lead the German armies anew as far as
Paris.


LOSSES IN "BATTLE OF CALAIS."

This is the great "battle of Calais," which, contrary to the
anticipations of the enemy, was in reality fought to the east of the
Yser. The losses of the Germans, which during those ten days exceeded
150,000 men, and may perhaps have reached 200,000, produced a terrifying
impression on the troops. From that moment prisoners no longer declared
themselves sure of success. For a certain time they had been consoled
by the announcement of the capture of Warsaw. This pretended success
having proved to be fictitious, incredulity became general.

During the last two months the most intelligent of the prisoners have
all admitted that no one could any longer say on which side victory
would rest. If we think of the absolute confidence with which the German
people had been sustained, this avowal is of great importance.

Letters seized on a dead officer speak of the imminence of a military
and economic hemming-in of Germany. They discuss the possibility of
Germany finding herself after the war with "empty hands and pockets
turned inside out." There is no longer any question of imposing the
conqueror's law upon adversaries at his mercy, but of fighting with the
energy of despair to secure an honorable peace. An officer of the
General Staff who was made prisoner on Jan. 18 said: "Perhaps this
struggle of despair has already begun."

_There follows a chapter bearing the title, "The System of Lies," in
which the review describes the methods by which it is alleged the German
Government "made a sustained effort to create in the army an artificial
state of mind based entirely upon lies and a scientific system of
fables."_



SONNET ON THE BELGIAN EXPATRIATION.

By THOMAS HARDY.

[From King Albert's Book.]


    I dreamt that people from the Land of Chimes
      Arrived one Autumn morning with their bells,
      To hoist them on the towers and citadels
    Of my own country, that the musical rhymes

    Rung by them into space at measured times
      Amid the market's daily stir and stress,
      And the night's empty starlit silentness,
    Might solace souls of this and kindred climes.

    Then I awoke; and, lo, before me stood
    The visioned ones, but pale and full of fear;
    From Bruges they came, and Antwerp, and Ostend,

    No carillons in their train. Vicissitude
    Had left these tinkling to the invaders' ear,
    And ravaged street, and smoldering gable-end.



War Correspondence

A Month of German Submarine War

By Vice Admiral Kirchhoff of the German Navy


     Under the heading, "A Month of U-Boat War," Vice Admiral
     Kirchhoff of the German Navy discusses the German submarine
     warfare against merchant shipping in its first month. The
     article, appearing in the Hamburger Framdenblatt of March 19,
     1915, is reproduced:

On March 18 a month had passed since the beginning of our sharp
procedure against our worst foe. We can in every way be satisfied with
the results achieved in the meantime! In spite of all "steps" taken
before and thereafter, the English have everywhere had important losses
to show at sea--some 200 ships lost since the beginning of the war,
according to the latest statements of the Allies--so that even they
themselves no longer dare to talk about the "German bluff."

On the new and greater "war zone" established by us, our submarines have
known how to work bravely, and have been able, for instance, to operate
successfully on a single morning on the east coast, in the Channel, and
in the Irish Sea. We have heard of many losses of our opponents, and on
the other hand of the subjugation of only two of our brave U-boats.
Ceaselessly they are active on the coasts of Albion; shipping is
paralyzed at some points; steamship companies--including also many
neutral ones--have suspended their sailings; in short, our threat of a
more acute condition of war "with all means at hand" has been fully
fulfilled.

The "peaceful shipping," too, has taken notice of it and adjusted itself
according to our instructions. The official objections of neutrals have
died away without effect; throughout the world we have already been
given right; the shipping circles of the neutral States are in great
part holding entirely back. The empty threats that floated over to us
from across the Channel, that the captured crews of German submarines
will be treated differently than other prisoners--yes, as plain pirates
and sea robbers--those are nothing but an insignificant ebullition of
British "moral insanity." They are a part of the hypocritical cant
without which, somehow, Great Britain cannot get along. If Great Britain
should act in accordance with it, however, then we shall know what we,
for our part, have to do!

German and probably English mines, too, have helped our submarines in
clearing up among the English mercantile and war fleet. Many merchant
ships warned long in advance have been compelled to believe in the
warning, and with them frequently a great part of their crews--"without
any warning whatever," as our opponents like to say.

All measures of defense, yes, even more significant, all measures of
deception and boastful "ruses de guerre," and even all attempts to hush
up the news of German accomplishments and whenever possible to suppress
it completely--all these efforts have been futile. Our results surpass
the expectations that had been cherished. Who knows how many
accomplishments other than those which have been published may also have
been achieved? Foreign newspapers report a large number of steamships
overdue. From overseas likewise we receive favorable reports about the
sinking of enemy ships. But the best is the news that our submarines
have succeeded in sinking two English auxiliary cruisers and perhaps
also one or two larger English transport ships with several thousand men
on board.

The last announcement has filled us all with greatest satisfaction.
This, our latest method of warfare, is "truly humane"; it leads more
speedily to the goal than anything else, so that the number of victims
will in the end be smaller after all. It brings peace to all of us
sooner than the empty paper protests and crying to Heaven about violence
and international law, law of the sea, and laws of humanity could do.
In the innocent exalted island kingdom many a fellow is already
striking; why should not even the recruit strike, who is also beginning
to get a glimmer of the truth that there are no props in the ocean
waves?

The more opponents come before the bows of our ships and are sunk, the
better! Down with them to the bottom of the sea; that alone will help!
Let us hope that we shall soon receive more such cheerful news.



Three Weeks of the War in Champagne

By a British Observer


_The following article, issued by the British Press Bureau, London,
March 18, 1915, is from a British observer with the French forces in the
field who has the permission of General Joffre to send communications
home from time to time, giving descriptions of the work, &c., of the
French Army which will be of interest to the British reader._

I propose to give some account of the operations which have been in
progress for the last three weeks in Champagne. Every day since Feb. 15
the official communiqués find something to say about a district which
lies midway between Rheims and Verdun. The three places which are always
mentioned, which form the points of reference, are Perthes-lez-Hurlus,
Le Mesnil-lez-Hurlus, and Beauséjour Farm. The distance between the
first and the last is three and one-half miles; the front on which the
fighting has taken place is about five miles; and the French have been
attacking at one point or another in this front every day for the last
three weeks. It is, therefore, an operation of a different kind to those
which we have seen during the Winter months. Those were local efforts,
lasting a day or two, designed to keep the enemy busy and prevent him
from withdrawing troops elsewhere; this is a sustained effort, made with
the object of keeping a constant pressure on his first line of defense,
of affecting his use of the railway from Bazancourt to Challerange, a
few miles to the north, and of wearing down his reserves of men and
ammunition. It may be said that Feb. 15 marks the opening of the 1915
campaign, and that this first phase will find an important place when
the history of the war comes to be written.

We must first know something of the nature of the country, which is
entirely different to that in which the British Army is fighting. It is
one vast plain, undulating, the hills at most 200 feet higher than the
valleys, gentle slopes everywhere. The soil is rather chalky, poor,
barely worth cultivating; after heavy rain the whole plain becomes a sea
of shallow mud; and it dries equally quickly. The only features are the
pine woods, which have been planted by hundreds. From the point of view
of profit, this would not appear to have been a success; either the soil
is too poor, or else it is unsuitable to the maritime pine; for the
trees are rarely more than 25 feet high. As each rise is topped, a new
stretch of plain, a new set of small woods appear, just like that which
has been left behind.

[Illustration: ELEUTHERIOS K. VENIZELOS

The great Greek statesman who recently resigned as Prime Minister.

_(Photo from Medom Photo Service.)_]

[Illustration: LORD HARDINGE OF PENSHURST

Who, as Viceroy, rules England's Indian Empire during the critical
period of the war.]

The villages are few and small, most of them are in ruins after the
fighting in September; and the troops live almost entirely in colonies
of little huts of wood or straw, about four feet high, dotted about in
the woods, in the valleys, wherever a little water and shelter is
obtainable. Lack of villages means lack of roads; this has been one of
the great difficulties to be faced; but, at the same time, the movement
of wagons across country is possible to a far greater extent than in
Flanders, although it is often necessary to use eight or ten horses to
get a gun or wagon to the point desired.

From the military point of view the country is eminently suitable for
troops, with its possibilities of concealment, of producing sudden
surprises with cavalry, and of manoeuvre generally. It is, in fact, the
training ground of the great military centre of Châlons; and French
troops have doubtless been exercised over this ground in every branch of
military operation, except that in which they are engaged at the present
moment.

What commander, training his men over this ground, could have imagined
that the area from Perthes-lez-Hurlus to Beauséjour Farm would become
two fortress lines, developed and improved for four months; or that he
would have to carry out an attack modeled on the same system as that
employed in the last great siege undertaken by French troops, that of
Sebastopol in 1855? Yet this is what is being done. Every day an attack
is made on a trench, on the edge of one of the little woods or to gain
ground in one of them; every day the ground gained has to be transformed
so as to give protection to its new occupants and means of access to
their supports; every night, and on many days, the enemy's
counter-attacks have to be repulsed.

Each attack has to be prepared by a violent and accurate artillery fire;
it may be said that a trench has to be morally captured by gun fire
before it can be actually seized by the infantry. Once in the new
trench, the men have to work with their intrenching tools, without
exposing themselves, and wait for a counter-attack, doing what damage
they can to the enemy with hand grenades and machine guns. Thus the
amount of rifle fire is very small; it is a war of explosives and
bayonets.

Looking at the battle at a distance of about 2,000 yards from the
enemy's line, the stillness of what one sees is in marked contrast to
the turmoil of shells passing overhead. The only movement is the cloud
of smoke and earth that marks the burst of a shell. Here and there long
white lines are visible, when a trench has brought the chalky subsoil up
to the top, but the number of trenches seen is very small compared to
the number that exist, for one cannot see into the valleys, and the top
of the ground is an unhealthy place to choose for seating a trench. The
woods are pointed out, with the names given them by the soldiers, but it
needs fieldglasses to see the few stumps that remain in those where the
artillery has done its work. And then a telephone message arrives,
saying that the enemy are threatening a counter-attack at a certain
point, and three minutes later there is a redoubled whistling of shells.
At first one cannot see the result of this fire--the guns are searching
the low ground where the enemy's reserves are preparing for the
movement, but a little later the ground in front of the threatened
trench becomes alive with shell bursts, for the searching has given
place to the building up of a wall of fire through which it is
impossible for the foe to pass without enormous loss.

The attached map may enable us to look more closely at what has been
achieved. The lowest dotted line, numbered 15, is the line of the French
trenches on Feb. 15. They were then close up to the front of the German
line with its network of barbed wire, its machine-gun emplacements,
often of concrete, and its underground chambers for sheltering men from
the shells. Each successive dotted line shows the line held by the
French on the evening of the date written in the dotted line. Thus the
total gain of ground, that between the most southerly and the most
northerly dotted lines, varies between 200 yards, where the lines are
close together northeast of Perthes, and 1,400 yards, half way between
Le Mesnil and Beauséjour Farm. But the whole of this space has been a
series of trenches and fortified woods, each of which has had to be
attacked separately.

[Illustration: Map of the French Operations in the Champagne

Some of the severest fighting on the western battle front took place in
this little section of about four miles of trenches, lying between
Rheimes and Verdun. For a whole month from Feb. 15, the attacks were
kept up by the French forces almost continuously, and the sketch gives
the graphic result of changes for three weeks of that time. Ostensibly
the purpose of the French was to pierce the German line and cut the
railway a few miles to the rear. Incidentally, the French aimed to keep
their opponents busy, and thus prevent any reinforcements being sent to
von Hindenburg in the east.

The total gain of ground--that between the most southerly and most
northerly dotted lines--varies from 200 yards northeast of Perthes to
1,400 yards, half way between Le Mesnil and Beauséjour Farm. But the
whole of this space has been a series of trenches and fortified woods,
each of which had to be attacked separately.

The letters (A to G) in the sketch indicate the points of the severest
fighting. A (the "little fort") was taken and lost three times before
the French finally held it. B saw some of the stiffest encounters, the
Germans attacking the hill nearly every day after the French captured
it, and even the Prussian Guard being put in. The woods at C, D, and E
were centres of terrific combats, in which trenching and mining were
continuous tasks. The redoubt at F was captured only after large losses
on both sides. At the extreme west is still another wood, (G.) which the
French attacked three times before they were successful in getting a
foothold there.]

Some of the points where the fighting has been heaviest are shown in
letters on the map. A is the "little fort," a redoubt on an open spur,
holding perhaps 500 men. This was first attacked in January; it was
partly taken, but the French in the end retained only the southern
corner, where they remained for something like a fortnight. On Feb. 16
it was again taken in part, and lost the same day. On the 17th the same
thing happened. On the 23d they once more got into the work; in the
evening they repulsed five separate counter-attacks; then a sixth
succeeded in turning them out. On the 27th they took all except a bit of
trench in the northern face, and two days later they made that good, as
well as a trench about fifty yards to the north of the work.

B is a small hill, marked 196. The capture of this, with its two lines
of trenches, was one of the most brilliant pieces of work done. Since
this date, the 26th, the enemy have continued to counter-attack nearly
every day. It was here that the Prussian Guard was put in; but they have
failed to get it back, and their losses have been very high. The
prisoners stated that one regiment had its Colonel and all the superior
officers killed or wounded. C is a wood, called the "Yellow Burnt Wood."
It is still in the hands of the Germans, a regular nest of machine guns,
which command the ground not only to the front but also down valleys to
the east and west. The French are just in the southwest corner.

At D there are two woods; the southern we will call No. 3, the northern
No. 4. On the 16th our allies got a trench just south of No. 3; they got
into the wood on the 18th, and fought backward and forward in the wood
that day and all the 19th and 20th; by the evening of the 20th they had
almost reached the northern edge. On the 21st a stronger counter-attack
than usual was repulsed, and in pursuing the retiring enemy they
secured the northern edge. On the 22d there was more fighting in No. 3,
but in the end the French managed to make their way into No. 4 as far as
a trench which runs along a crest midway through the wood. The next six
days saw continuous fighting in No. 4, sometimes near the northern end,
sometimes at the crest in the middle, and occasionally back near the
southern end. The French now hold the northern edge, and have pushed
troops into the "Square" wood just north of the line of the 25th.

At E again there are two small woods; these were both captured on the
26th, but the trenches in the northern one had been mined, and the
French had no sooner seized them than they were blown up. At F there was
another small redoubt; part of this was taken on the 19th from the east,
but the work was not finally captured till the 27th, when 240 corpses
were found in it. On the extreme west, at G, is a wood which has twice
been unsuccessfully attacked. On the first occasion troops got into the
wood, but a severe snowstorm prevented the artillery from continuing to
assist them, and they were driven out. The second was an attempt to
surprise the enemy at 2 A.M. on the 25th; this also failed. A third
attack was made on March 7 and was successful; the French line now runs
through the wood.

The above will serve to show the tenacity which is required for an
operation of this kind. Up to the present the French have made steady
and continuous progress, and their success may be best judged from the
fact that they have not been forced back on any day behind the line they
held in the morning, despite innumerable counter-attacks. And this is
not merely a question of ground, but one of increasing moral
superiority, for it is in the unsuccessful counter-attacks that losses
are heavy, and these and the sense of failure affect the morale of an
army sooner or later.

Will the French push through the line? Will a hole be made, or is the
enemy like a badger, who digs himself in rather faster than you can dig
him out? I cannot tell; it would indeed be an astonishing measure of
success for a first attempt, and the enemy may require a great deal more
hammering at many points before he has definitely had enough at any one
point. But these operations have brought the day closer, and turn our
thoughts to the time when we shall be able to move forward, and one
finds the cavalrymen wondering whether perhaps they, too, will get their
chance.



The Germans Concrete Trenches

By F.H. Gailor, American Rhodes Scholar of New College, Oxford

[From The London Daily Mail, March 24, 1915.]


At the kind invitation of General Longchamps, German Military Governor
of the Province of Namur, I spent two days with him going along the
country in and behind the firing line in Northern France from near
Rheims to the small village of Monthois, near Vouziers, on the Aisne.

About five miles out of Monthois we came to the artillery positions of
the Germans. We could see the flashes of the guns long before we reached
the hills where they were placed, but when we came up and dismounted the
position was most cleverly concealed by a higher hill in front and the
heavy woods which served as a screen for the artillery. I noticed many
holes where the French shells had burst, and the valley to the north
looked as if some one had been experimenting with a well digger. One
21-centimeter shell had cut a swath about 100 yards long out of the
woods on the hill where we dismounted. The trees were twisted from their
stumps as if a small cyclone had passed, and one could realize the
damage the shells could do merely by the displaced air.

We went on forward into the valley on foot and stopped about two hundred
yards in front and to the left of where the German guns were firing.
There, although of course we could not see the French position, we could
hear and see their shells as they exploded. They were firing short, one
of the officers told me, because they thought the Germans were on the
forward hill. He could see one of the French aeroplanes directing their
fire, but I could not make it out. We stayed there listening to the
shells and watching the few movements of German batteries that were
taking place. A party of officers hidden by the trees were taking
observations and telephoning the results of the German fire and, no
doubt, of the French fire in the German trenches. There was no
excitement; but for the noise the whole scene reminded me of some kind
of construction work, such as building a railroad.

After about an hour, when nothing had happened, one began to realize
that even such excitement may become monotonous and be taken as a matter
of course. One of the officers told me that the Germans had been there
since the beginning of October and that even the trenches were in the
same position as when they first came.

Certainly the trenches seem permanent enough for spending many Winters.
A number of them have now been built of concrete, especially in that
swampy part near the Aisne where they strike water about three feet
underground. The difficulty is in draining out the water when it rains.

Some of the trenches have two stories, and at the back of many of them
are subterranean rest houses built of concrete and connected with the
trenches by passages. The rooms are about seven feet high and ten feet
square, and above the ground all evidence of the work is concealed by
green boughs and shrubbery so that they may escape the attention of the
enemy's aeroplanes.

With the noise and the fatigue, the men say it is impossible to sleep
naturally, but they become so used to the firing and so weary that they
become oblivious of everything even when shells are falling within a
dozen yards of them. They stay in the trenches five days and then get
five days' rest. In talking to the men one feels the influence on them
of a curious sort of fatalism--they have been lucky so far and will come
through all right. One sees and feels everywhere the spirit of a great
game. The strain of football a thousand times magnified. The joy of
winning and boyish pleasure in getting ahead of the other fellows side
by side with the stronger passions of hatred and anger and the sight of
agony and death.

We talked to some of the little groups of men along the road who were
going back to their five days in the trenches. Of course all large units
are split up so as not to attract attention. They were all the same, all
sure of winning, and all bearded, muddy, and determined. I could not
help thinking of American football players at the end of the first half.
These men seemed all the same. I have no recollection of a single
individual. The "system" and its work has made a type not only of
clothes but of face. Their answers to the usual questions were all the
same, and one felt in talking to them that their opinions were
machine-made. Three points stood out--Germany is right and will win;
England is wrong and will knuckle under; we hate England because we are
alike in religion, custom, and opinion, and it is the war of kindred
races. Everywhere one met the arguments and stories of unfairness and
cruelty in fighting that have appeared in the English papers, but with
the names reversed. English soldiers had surrendered and then fired; had
shot from beneath a Red Cross flag or had killed prisoners. The stories
were simple and as hackneyed as most of those current in England.

The concrete rest houses were interesting. Most of them have furniture
made from trees "to amuse us and pass the time." Both officers and men
use the same type of house, though discipline forbids that the same
house be used by both officers and men. The light in these houses is bad
and the ventilation not all that it should be, but they are extremely
careful about sanitation, and everywhere one smells disinfectants and
sees evidence of scrupulous guarding against disease. Oil and candles
are scarce and the "pocket electric" that all the men and officers carry
does not last long enough for much reading. There are always telephone
connections, but in most cases visits are impossible save by way of the
underground passages and the trenches.

One officer described the life as entirely normal; another said, in
speaking of a Louis XV. couch which had been borrowed from a near-by
château and was the pride of a regiment, "Oh! we are cave-dwellers, but
we have some of the luxuries of at least the nineteenth century."

The Major Commandant at Rethel showed me a letter from a friend
demanding "some easy chairs and a piano for his trench house," and the
Major said, "I hear they have music up on the Yser, but the French are
too close to us here!"

All that I saw of the German Red Cross leads me to believe that it is
adequate and efficient. At Rethel we saw a Red Cross train of thirty-two
cars perfectly equipped. The cars are made specially with open
corridors, so that stretchers or rubber-wheeled trucks may be rolled
from one car to another. The berths are in two tiers, much like an
American sleeping car, and each car when full holds twenty-eight men.
There is an operating car fully equipped for the most delicate and
dangerous cases; in fact, when we saw the train at Rethel it had stopped
on its way to Germany for an operation on a man's brain.



The Spirits of Mankind

By Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States


     The conviction that great spiritual forces will assert
     themselves at the end of the European war to enlighten the
     judgment and steady the spirits of mankind was expressed by
     President Wilson in an address of welcome delivered at the
     Maryland annual conference of the Methodist Protestant Church
     at Washington on April 8, 1915. The text of his address
     appears below.

These are days of great perplexity, when a great cloud of trouble hangs
and broods over the greater part of the world. It seems as if great,
blind, material forces had been released which had for long been held in
leash and restraint. And yet underneath that you can see the strong
impulses of great ideals.

It would be impossible for men to go through what men are going through
on the battlefields of Europe and struggle through the present dark
night of their terrible struggle if it were not that they saw, or
thought that they saw, the broadening of light where the morning should
come up and believed that they were standing each on his side of the
contest for some eternal principle for right.

Then all about them, all about us, there sits the silent, waiting
tribunal which is going to utter the ultimate judgment upon this
struggle, the great tribunal of the opinion of the world; and I fancy I
see, I hope that I see, I pray that it may be that I do truly see, great
spiritual forces lying waiting for the outcome of this thing to assert
themselves, and are asserting themselves even now to enlighten our
judgment and steady our spirits.

No man is wise enough to pronounce judgment, but we can all hold our
spirits in readiness to accept the truth when it dawns on us and is
revealed to us in the outcome of this titanic struggle.

It is of infinite benefit that in assemblages like this and in every
sort of assemblage we should constantly go back to the sources of our
moral inspiration and question ourselves as to what principle it is that
we are acting on. Whither are we bound? What do we wish to see triumph?
And if we wish to see certain things triumph, why do we wish to see them
triumph? What is there in them that is for the lasting benefit of
mankind?

For we are not in this world to amuse ourselves with its affairs. We are
here to push the whole sluggish mass forward in some particular
direction, and unless you know the direction in which you want to go
your force is of no avail. Do you love righteousness? is what each one
of us ought to ask himself. And if you love righteousness are you ready
to translate righteousness into action and be ashamed and afraid before
no man?

It seems to me, therefore, that it is worth suggesting to you that you
are not sitting here merely to transact the business and express the
ideals of a great church as represented in the State of Maryland, but
you are here also as part of the assize of humanity, to remind
yourselves of the things that are permanent and eternal, which if we do
not translate into action we have failed in the fundamental things of
our lives.

You will see that it is only in such general terms that one can speak in
the midst of a confused world, because, as I have already said, no man
has the key to this confusion. No man can see the outcome, but every man
can keep his own spirit prepared to contribute to the net result when
the outcome displays itself.



"What the Germans Say About Their Own Methods of Warfare"

By Joseph Bedier, Professor in the College de France

[From an article in the Revue de Paris for January, 1915.]


I purpose to show that the German armies cannot altogether escape the
reproach of violating on occasion the law of nations. I shall establish
this by French methods, through the use of documents of sound value.

My texts are genuine, well vouched for, and I have taken pains to
subject them to a critical examination, as scrupulous and minute as
heretofore in times of peace I expended in weighing the authority of
some ancient chronicle, or in scrutinizing the authenticity of some
charter. Perhaps this care was born of professional habit, or due to a
natural craving for exactness, but in either case it is a voucher for
the work, which is meant for all comers--for the passer-by, for the
indifferent, and even for my country's foes. My wish is that the veriest
looker-on, idly turning these pages, may be confronted only with
documents whose authenticity will be self-evident, if he is willing to
see, and whose ignominious tale will reach his heart, if ye have a
heart.

I have, moreover, sought for documents not only incontestably genuine
but of unquestioned authority. Accusation is easy, while proof is
difficult. No belligerent has ever been troubled to find mountains of
testimony, true or false, against his enemy; but were this evidence
gathered by the most exalted magistrates, under the most solemn judicial
sanction, it must unfortunately long remain useless; until the accused
has full opportunity to controvert it, every one is free to treat it as
false or, at the best, as controvertible. For this reason I shall avoid
resting the case upon Belgian or French statements, though I know them
to be true. My purpose has been to bring forward such testimony that no
man living, be he even a German, should be privileged to cast a doubt
upon it. German crimes will be established by German documents.

These will be taken mainly from the "War Diaries," which Article 75 of
the German Army Regulations for Field Service enjoins upon soldiers to
keep during their marches, and which were seized by the French upon the
persons of their prisoners, as military papers, as authorized by Article
4 of The Hague Convention of 1907. The number of these is daily
increasing, and I trust that some day, for the edification of all, the
complete collection may be lodged in the Germanic section of manuscripts
in the National Library. Meantime, the Marquis de Dampierre,
paleographer and archivist, graduate of the Ecole des Chartes, is
preparing, and will shortly publish, a volume in which the greater part
of these notebooks will be minutely described, transcribed, and
clarified. Personally, I have only examined about forty of them, but
they will answer my purpose, by presenting relevant extracts, furnishing
the name, rank, and regiment of the author, with indications of time and
place. Classification is difficult, mainly because ten lines of a single
text not infrequently furnish evidence of a variety of offenses. I must
take them almost at random, grouping them under such analogies or
association of ideas or images as they may offer.


I.

The first notebook at hand is that of a soldier of the Prussian Guard,
the Gefreiter Paul Spielmann, (of Company I, First Brigade of the
Infantry Guard.) He tells the story of an unexpected night alarm on the
1st of September in a village near Blamont. The bugle sounds, and the
Guard, startled from sleep, begins the massacre, (Figs. 1 and 2:)

[Illustration: Figure 1.]

     The inhabitants fled through the village. It was horrible. The
     walls of houses are bespattered with blood and the faces of
     the dead are hideous to look upon. They were buried at once,
     some sixty of them. Among them many old women, old men, and
     one woman pregnant--the whole a dreadful sight. Three children
     huddled together--all dead. Altar and arches of the church
     shattered. Telephone communication with the enemy was found
     there. This morning, Sept. 2, all the survivors were driven
     out; I saw four little boys carrying on two poles a cradle
     with a child some five or six months old. The whole makes a
     fearful sight. Blow upon blow! Thunderbolt on thunderbolt!
     Everything given over to plunder. I saw a mother with her two
     little ones--one of them had a great wound in the head and an
     eye put out.

Deserved repression, remarks this soldier: "They had telephone
communication with the enemy." And yet, we may recall that by Article
30 of The Hague Convention of 1907, signed on behalf of H.M. the Emperor
of Germany, "no collective penalty, pecuniary or other, shall be
proclaimed against a population, by reason of individual acts for which
the population is not responsible _in solido_." What tribunal during
that dreadful night took the pains to establish this joint
participation?

[Illustration: Figure 2.]


II.

The unsigned notebook of a soldier of the Thirty-second Reserve Infantry
(Fourth Reserve Corps) has this entry:

     Creil, Sept. 3.--The iron bridge was blown up. For this we set
     the streets on fire, and shot the civilians.

Yet it must be obvious that only the regular troops of the French
Engineer Corps could have blown up the iron bridge at Creil; the
civilians had no hand in it. As an excuse for these massacres, when any
excuse is offered, the notebooks usually note that "civilians" or
"francs-tireurs" had fired on the troops. But the "scrap of paper" which
Germany subscribed--the Convention of 1907--provides in its first
article "the laws, the rights, and the duties are not applicable solely
to the army, but also to militia and bodies of volunteers" under certain
conditions, of which the main one is that they shall "openly bear arms;"
while Article 2 stipulates that "the population of an unoccupied
territory, which on the approach of the enemy spontaneously takes up
arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to organize
as provided in Article I, shall be considered as a belligerent, if they
bear arms openly and observe the laws and customs of war."

[Illustration: Figure 3.]

In the light of this text, the bearing of the barbarous recitals which
follow may be properly estimated:

     (a) Notebook of Private Hassemer, (Eighth Corps, Sept. 3,
     1914, at Sommepy, Marne.)--Dreadful butchery. Village burned
     to the ground; the French thrown into the burning houses,
     civilians and all burned together.

     (b) Notebook of Lieut. Kietzmann, (Second Company, First
     Battalion, Forty-ninth Infantry,) under date of Aug. 18, 1914,
     (Fig. 3.)--A short distance above Diest is the village of
     Schaffen. About fifty civilians were concealed in the church
     tower, and from there fired on our troops with a
     _mitrailleuse_. All the civilians were shot.

     [It may here be noted, for the sake of precision, that the
     First Report of the Belgian Commission of Inquiry, Antwerp,
     Aug. 28, Page 3, identifies some of the "civilians" killed at
     Schaffen on the 18th of August; among them, "the wife of
     François Luyckz, 45 years of age, with her daughter _aged 12,
     who were discovered in a sewer and shot_"; and "the daughter
     of Jean Ooyen, 9 years of age, who was shot"; and "André
     Willem, sacristain, who was bound to a tree and _burned
     alive_."]

     (c) Notebook of a Saxon officer, unnamed, (178th Regiment,
     Twelfth Army Corps, First Saxon Corps,) Aug. 26.--The
     exquisite village of Gué-d'Hossus (Ardennes) was given to the
     flames, although to my mind it was guiltless. I am told that a
     cyclist fell from his machine, and in his fall his gun was
     discharged; at once the firing was begun in his direction, and
     thereupon all the male inhabitants were simply thrown into the
     flames. It is to be hoped that like atrocities will not be
     repeated.

This Saxon officer had, nevertheless, already witnessed like
"atrocities." The preceding day, Aug. 25, at Villers-en-Fagne, (Belgian
Ardennes,) "where we found grenadiers of the guard, killed and wounded,"
he had seen "the curé and other inhabitants shot"; and three days
previous, Aug. 23, at the village of Bouvignes, north of Dinant, he had
witnessed what he thus describes:

     Through a breach made in the rear we get access into the
     residence of a well-to-do inhabitant and occupy the house.
     Passing through a number of apartments, we reach a door where
     we find the corpse of the owner. Further on in the interior
     our men have wrecked everything like vandals. Everything has
     been searched. Outside, throughout the country, the spectacle
     of the inhabitants who have been shot defies any description.
     They have been shot at such short range that they are almost
     decapitated. Every house has been ransacked to the furthest
     corners, and the inhabitants dragged from their hiding places.
     The men shot; the women and children locked into a convent,
     from which shots were fired. And, for this reason, the convent
     is about to be set fire to; it may, however be ransomed if it
     surrenders the guilty ones and pays a ransom of 15,000 francs.

We shall see as we proceed how these notebooks complement one another.

     (d) Notebook of the Private Philipp, (from Kamenz, Saxony,
     First Company, First Battalion, 178th Regiment.) On the day
     indicated above--Aug. 23--a private of the same regiment was
     the witness of a scene similar to that just described;
     perhaps, the same scene, but the point of view is
     different.--At 10 o'clock in the evening the First Battalion
     of the 178th came down into the burning village to the north
     of Dinant--a saddening spectacle--to make one shiver. At the
     entrance to the village lay the bodies of some fifty citizens,
     shot for having fired upon our troops from ambush. In the
     course of the night many others were shot down in like manner,
     so that we counted more than two hundred. Women and children,
     holding their lamps, were compelled to assist at this horrible
     spectacle. We then sat down midst the corpses to eat our rice,
     as we had eaten nothing since morning. (Fig. 4.)

[Illustration: Figure 4.]

Here is a military picture fully outlined, and worthy to compete in the
Academy of Fine Arts of Dresden. But one passage of the text is somewhat
obscure and might embarrass the artist--"Women and children, holding
their lamps, were compelled to assist at this horrible spectacle." What
spectacle?--the shooting, or the counting of the corpses? To get some
certainty on this historic point, the artist should question that noble
soldier--the Colonel of the 178th.

His work of that night, however, was in accord with the spirit of his
companions in arms, and of his chiefs. We may assure ourselves of this
by consulting the Sixth Report of the Belgian Commission of Inquiry
upon, the violation of the rules of the law of nations (Havre, Nov. 10,
1914) and the ignoble proclamations placarded by the Germans throughout
Belgium. I will content myself with three short extracts.

Extract from a proclamation of General von Bülow, placarded at Liège,
Aug. 22, 1914:

     The inhabitants of the city of Andenne, after having protested
     their peaceful intentions, were guilty of a treacherous
     surprise upon our troops. It was with my consent that the
     General in Chief set fire to the whole locality, and that
     about one hundred persons were shot.

(The Belgian report controverts the accusation against the inhabitants
of Andenne of having taken hostile measures against the German troops,
and adds: "As a matter of fact, more than two hundred persons were
shot"--almost everything was ravaged. For a distance of at least three
leagues the houses were destroyed by fire.)

Extract from a proclamation of Major Dieckmann, placarded at Grivegnée,
Sept. 8, 1914:

     Any one not responding instantly to the command "raise your
     arms" is subject to the penalty of death.

Extract from proclamation of Marshal Baron von der Goltz, placarded at
Brussels, Oct. 5, 1914:

     Hereafter the localities nearest the place where similar acts
     (destruction of railways or telegraphic lines) were
     done--whether or not they were _accomplices in the act_--will
     be punished without mercy. To this end hostages have been
     taken from all the localities adjacent to railways menaced by
     similar attacks, and upon the first attempt to destroy the
     railways, telegraphic or telephone lines, they will at once be
     shot.


III.

I copy from the first page of an unsigned notebook, (Fig. 5:)

     Langeviller, Aug. 22.--Village destroyed by the Eleventh
     Battalion of Pioneers. Three women hanged to trees; the first
     dead I have seen.

Who can these three women be?--criminals undoubtedly--guilty of having
fired upon German troops, unless, indeed, they may have been "in
communication by telephone" with the enemy; and the Eleventh Pioneers
unquestionably meted out to them just punishment. But, at all events,
they expiated their guilt, and the Eleventh Pioneers has passed on. The
crime these women committed is unknown to the troops which are to
follow. Among these new troops will there be found no chief, no
Christian, to order the ropes cut and allow these dangling bodies to
rest on the earth?

[Illustration: Figure 5.]

No, the regiment passes under the gibbets and their flags brush against
the hanging corpses; they pass on, Colonel and officers--gentlemen
all--Kulturträger. And they do this knowingly; these corpses must hang
there as an example, not for the other women of the village, for these
doubtless already understand, but as an example to the regiment and to
the other regiments that will follow, and who must be attuned to war,
who must be taught their stern duty to kill women when occasion offers.
The teaching will be effective, unquestionably. Shall we look for proof
of it? The young soldier, who tells us above that these corpses were the
first dead he had ever seen, adds a week later, on the tenth and last
page of his notebook, the following, (Fig. 6:)

     In this way we destroyed eight dwellings and their
     inhabitants. In one of the houses we bayoneted two men, with
     their wives and a young girl 18 years old. The young: one
     almost unmanned me, her look was so innocent! But we could not
     master the excited troop, for at such times they are no longer
     men--they are beasts.

[Illustration: Figure 6.]

Let me add a few texts which will attest that these assassinations of
women and children are customary tasks set to German soldiers:

(a) The writer in a notebook, unsigned, reports that at Orchies (Nord)
"a woman was shot for not having obeyed the command to halt!" whereupon
he adds, "the whole locality was set on fire." (Fig. 7.)

[Illustration: Figure 7.]

(b) The officer of the 178th Saxon Regiment, mentioned above, reports
that in the vicinity of Lisognes (Belgian Ardennes) "the Chasseur of
Marburg, having placed three women in line, killed them all with one
shot."

(c) A few lines more, taken from the notebook of the Reservist Schlauter
(Third Battery, Fourth Regiment, Field Artillery of the Guard,) (Fig.
8:)

     Aug. 25, (in Belgium.)--We shot 300 of the inhabitants of the
     town. Those that survived the salvo were requisitioned as
     grave diggers. You should have seen the women at that time!
     But it was impossible to do otherwise. In our march upon Wilot
     things went better; the inhabitants who wished to leave were
     allowed to do so. But whoever fired was shot. Upon our leaving
     Owele the rifles rang out, and with that, flames, women, and
     all the rest.

[Illustration: Figure 8.]


IV.

Frequently when a German troop want to carry a position, they place
before them civilians--men, women, and children--and find shelter behind
these ramparts of living flesh. As such a stratagem is essentially
playing upon the nobility of heart of the adversary, and saying to him
"you won't fire upon these unfortunates, I know it, and I hold you at my
mercy, unarmed, because you are not as craven as I am," as it implies a
homage to the enemy and the self-degradation of the one employing it, it
is almost inconceivable that soldiers should resort to it; it represents
a new invention in the long story of human vileness, which even the
dreadful Penitentiels of the Middle Ages had not discovered. In reading
the stories from French, Belgian, and English sources, attributing such
practices to the Germans, it has made me doubt, if not the truthfulness,
at least the detailed exactness of the stories. It seemed to me that the
tales must be of crimes by men who would be disavowed, individual
lapses, which do not dishonor the nation, because the nation on
ascertaining them would repudiate them. But how can we doubt that the
German Nation has, on the contrary, accepted these acts as exploits
worthy of herself, that in them she recognizes her own aptitudes, and
finds pleasure in the contemplation; how, I ask, can we doubt this in
reading the following narrative signed by a Bavarian officer, Lieut. A.
Eberlein, spread out in the columns of one of the best known periodicals
of Germany, the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, in its issue of Wednesday,
Oct. 7, 1914, Page 22, Lieut. Eberlein relates there the occupation of
Saint-Dié at the end of August. He entered the town at the head of a
column, and while waiting for reinforcements was compelled to barricade
himself in a house, (Fig. 9:)

[Illustration: Figure 9.]

     We arrested three civilians, and a bright idea struck me. We
     furnished them with chairs and made them seat themselves in
     the middle of the street. There were supplications on one
     part, and some blows with the stocks of our guns on the other.
     One, little by little, gets terribly hardened. Finally, there
     they were sitting in the street. How many anguished prayers
     they may have muttered, I cannot say, but during the whole
     time their hands were joined in nervous contraction. I am
     sorry for them, but the stratagem was of immediate effect. The
     enfilading directed from the houses diminished at once; we
     were able then to take possession of the house opposite, and
     thus became masters of the principal street. From that moment
     every one that showed his face in the street was shot. And the
     artillery meanwhile kept up vigorous work, so that at about 7
     o'clock in the evening, when the brigade advanced to rescue
     us, I could report "Saint-Dié has been emptied of all
     enemies."

     As I learned later, the ---- Regiment of Reserves, which came
     into Saint-Dié further north, had experiences entirely similar
     to our own. The four civilians whom they had placed on chairs
     in the middle of the street were killed by French bullets. I
     saw them myself stretched out in the street near the hospital.


V.

Article 28 of The Hague Convention of 1907, subscribed to by Germany,
uses this language: "The sacking of any town or locality, even when
taken by assault, is prohibited." And Article 47 runs: "[in occupied
territory] pillage is forbidden."

We shall see how the German armies interpret these articles.

Private Handschuhmacher (Eleventh Battalion of Chasseurs Reserves)
writes in his notebook:

     Aug. 8, 1914, Gouvy, (Belgium.)--There, the Belgians having
     fired on some German soldiers, we started at once pillaging
     the merchandise warehouse. Several cases--eggs, shirts, and
     everything that could be eaten was carried off. The safe was
     forced and the gold distributed among the men. As to the
     securities, they were torn up.

This happened as early as the fourth day of the war, and it helps us to
understand a technical article on the operations of the military
treasury (Der Zahlmeister im Felde) in the Berliner Tageblatt of the
26th of November, 1914, in which an economic phenomenon of rather
unusual import is recited as a simple incident: "Experience has
demonstrated that very much more money is forwarded by postal orders
from the theatre of operations to the interior of the country than vice
versa."

As, in accordance with the continual practice of the German armies,
pillaging is only a prelude to incendiarism, the sub-officer Hermann
Levith (160th Regiment of Infantry, Eighth Corps) writes:

     The enemy occupied the village of Bievre and the edge of the
     wood behind it. The Third Company advanced in first line. We
     carried the village, and then pillaged and burned almost all
     the houses.

And Private Schiller (133d Infantry, Nineteenth Corps) writes:

     Our first fight was at Haybes (Belgium) on the 24th of August.
     The Second Battalion entered the village, ransacked the
     houses, pillaged them, and burned those from which shots had
     been fired.

And Private Sebastian Reishaupt (Third Bavarian Infantry, First Bavarian
Corps) writes:

     The first village we burned was Parux, (Meurthe-et-Moselle.)
     After this the dance began, throughout the villages, one after
     the other; over the fields and pastures we went on our
     bicycles up to the ditches at the edge of the road, and there
     sat down to eat our cherries.

They emulate each other in their thefts; they steal anything that comes
to hand and keep records of the thefts--"Schnaps, Wein, Marmelade,
Zigarren," writes this private soldier; and the elegant officer of the
178th Saxon Regiment, who was at first indignant at the "vandalismus" of
his men, further on admits that he himself, on the 1st of September, at
Rethel, stole "from a house near the Hôtel Moderne a superb waterproof
and a photographic apparatus for Felix." All steal, without distinction
or grade, or of arms, or of cause, and even in the ambulances the
doctors steal. Take this example from the notebook of the soldier
Johannes Thode (Fourth Reserve Regiment of Ersatz):

     At Brussels, Oct. 5, 1914.--An automobile arrived at the
     hospital laden with war booty--one piano, two sewing machines,
     many albums, and all sorts of other things.

"Two sewing machines" as "war booty." From whom were these stolen?
Beyond a doubt from two humble Belgian women. And for whom were they
stolen?


VI.

I must admit that, out of the forty notebooks, or thereabout, that I
have handled, there are six or seven that do not relate any exactions,
either from hypocritical reticence or because there are some regiments
which do not make war in this vile fashion. And there are as many as
three notebooks whose writers, in relating these ignoble things, express
astonishment, indignation, and sorrow. I will not give the names of
these, because they deserve our regard, and I wish to spare them the
risk of being some day blamed or punished by their own.

[Illustration: Figure 10.]

The first, the Private X., who belongs to the Sixty-fifth Infantry,
Regiment of Landwehr, says of certain of his companions in arms, (Fig.
10:)

     They do not behave as soldiers, but rather as highwaymen,
     bandits, and brigands, and are a dishonor to our regiment and
     to our army.

Another, Lieut. Y., of the Seventy-seventh Infantry of Reserves, says:

     No discipline, ... the Pioneers are well nigh worthless; as to
     the artillery, it is a band of robbers.

The third, Private Z., of the Twelfth Infantry of Reserves, First Corps,
writes, (Fig. 11:)

[Illustration: Figure 11.]

     Unfortunately, I am forced to make note of a fact which should
     not have occurred, but there are to be found, even in our own
     army, creatures who are no longer men, but hogs, to whom
     nothing is sacred. One of these broke into a sacristy; it was
     locked, and where the Blessed Sacrament was kept. A
     Protestant, out of respect, had refused to sleep there. This
     man used it as a deposit for his excrements. How is it
     possible there should be such creatures? Last night one of the
     men of the Landwehr, more than thirty-five years of age,
     married, tried to rape the daughter of the inhabitant where
     he had taken up his quarters--a mere girl--and when the father
     intervened he pressed his bayonet against his breast.

Beyond these three, who are still worthy of the name of soldiers, the
other thirty are all alike, and the same soul (if we can talk of souls
among such as these) animates them low and frantic. I say they are all
about alike, but there are shades of difference. There are some who,
like subtle jurists, make distinctions, blaming here and approving
there--"Dort war ein Exempel am Platze." Others laugh and say "Krieg ist
Krieg," or sometimes they add in French, to emphasize their derision,
"Ja, Ja, c'est la guerre," and some among them, when their ugly business
is done, turn to their book of canticles and sing psalms, such as the
Saxon Lieut. Reislang, who relates how one day he left his drinking bout
to _assist at the "Gottesdienst"_, but having eaten too much and drunken
too much, had to quit the holy place in haste; and the Private Moritz
Grosse of the 177th Infantry, who, after depicting the sacking of
Saint-Vieth, (Aug. 22,) the sacking of Dinant, (Aug. 23,) writes this
phrase:

     Throwing of incendiary grenades into the houses, and in the
     evening a military chorus--"Now let all give thanks to God."
     (Fig. 12.)

They're all of a like tenor. Now, if we consider that I could exchange
the preceding texts with others quite similar, quite as cynical, and
taken at random, for instance--from the notebook of the Reservist
Lautenschlager of the First Battalion, Sixty-sixth Regiment of Infantry,
or the notebook of the Private Eduard Holl of the Eighth Corps, or the
notebook of the sub-officer Reinhold Koehn of the Second Battalion of
Pomeranian Pioneers, or that of the sub-officer Otto Brandt of the
Second Section of Reserve Ambulances, or of the Reservist Martin Müller
of the 100th Saxon Reserve, or of Lieut. Karl Zimmer of the Fifty-fifth
Infantry, or that of the Private Erich Pressler of the 100th Grenadiers,
First Saxon Corps, &c., and if we will note that, among the exactions
reported above, there are very few that are the work of isolated brutes,
(such as, unfortunately, may be found even in the most noble armies,)
but that, on the contrary, the crimes represented here are collective
actions in obedience to service orders, and such as rest upon and
dishonor not only the individual but the entire troop, the officers, and
the nation; and if we will further note that these thirty notebooks
taken at random--Bavarian, Saxon, Pomeranian, Brandeburger, or from the
provinces of Baden and the Rhine--must of necessity represent hundreds
and thousands of others quite similar, as we may judge from the
frightful monotony of their recitals; if we consider all this, we must,
I think, be forced to admit that these atrocities are nothing less than
the practical application of a methodically organized system.

[Illustration: Figure 12.]


VII.

H.M. the Emperor of Germany, by ratifying The Hague Convention of 1907,
covenanted (Article 24) that "it is forbidden (c) to kill or wound an
enemy who, having laid down his arms, or being without means of defense,
has surrendered unconditionally. (d) To declare that no quarter shall be
given."

Have the German armies respected these covenants? Throughout Belgian and
French reports depositions such as the following abound. This is taken
from a French Captain of the 288th Infantry:

     On the 22d, in the evening, I learned that in the woods, about
     one hundred and fifty meters north of the square formed by the
     intersection of the great Calonne trench with the road from
     Vaux-les-Palameis to Saint-Rémy, there were corpses of French
     soldiers shot by the Germans. I went to the spot and found the
     bodies of about thirty soldiers within a small space, most of
     them prone, but several still kneeling, and _all having a
     precisely similar wound_--a bullet through the ear. One only,
     seriously wounded in his lower parts, could still speak, and
     told me that the Germans before leaving had ordered them to
     lie down and that then had them shot through the head; that
     he, already wounded had secured indulgence by stating that he
     was the father of three small children. The skulls of these
     unfortunates were scattered; the guns, broken at the stock,
     were scattered here and there; and the blood had besprinkled
     the bushes to such an extent that in coming out of the woods
     my cape was spattered with it; it was a veritable shambles.

I quote this testimony, not to base any accusations upon it, but simply
to give precision to our indictment. I will not lay stress upon it as
evidence, for I wish to keep to the rule which I have laid down--to have
records of nothing but German sources of information.

I will quote here the text of an order of the day addressed by General
Stenger, in command of the Fifty-eighth German Brigade, on the 26th of
August, to the troops under his orders:

     From this day forward no further prisoners will be taken. All
     prisoners will be massacred. The wounded, whether in arms or
     not in arms, shall be massacred. Even the prisoners already
     gathered in convoys will be massacred. No living enemy must
     remain behind us.

     Signed--First Lieutenant in Command of the Company, Stoy;
     Colonel Commanding the Regiment, Neubauer; General in Command
     of the Brigade, Stenger.


About thirty soldiers of Stenger's Brigade (112th and 142d Regiments of
Baden Infantry) were questioned. I have read their depositions, taken
under oath and signed with their own names; all confirming the fact that
this order of the day was given to them on the 26th of August. In one
place by the Major Mosebach, in another by Lieut. Curtius, &c. Most of
these witnesses said that they were ignorant whether the order was
carried out, but three among them testified that it was carried out
under their own eyes in the Forest of Thiaville, where ten or twelve
wounded French, already made prisoners by a battalion, were done away
with; two others of the witnesses saw the order carried out along the
road of Thiaville, where several wounded, found in the ditches by the
company as it marched past, were killed.

[Illustration: Figure 13.]

Of course, I cannot here produce the original autograph of General
Stenger, nor am I here called upon to furnish the names of the German
prisoners who gave this testimony. But I shall have no trouble to
establish entirely similar crimes on the faith of German autographs.

For instance, we find in the notebook of Private Albert Delfosse (111th
Infantry of Reserves, Fourteenth Reserve Corps,) (Fig. 13:)

     In the woods (near Saint-Rémy, 4th or 5th of September)--Found
     a very fine cow and a calf killed; and again the corpses of
     Frenchmen horribly mutilated.

Must we understand that these bodies were mutilated by loyal weapons,
torn perhaps by shells? This may be, but it would be a charitable
interpretation, which is belied by this newspaper heading, (Figs. 14 and
15:)

     JAUERSCHES TAGEBLATT Amtlicher Anzeiger Für Stadt und Kreis
     Jauer Jauer, Sonntag, Den 18, Oktober, 1914. Nr. 245. 106,
     Jahrgang.

This is a heading of a newspaper picked up in a German trench. Jauer is
a city of Silesia, about fifty kilometers west of Breslau, where two
battalions of the 154th Regiment of Saxon Infantry are garrisoned. One
Sunday morning, Oct. 18, doubtless at the hour when the
inhabitants--women and children--were wending their way to church, there
was distributed throughout the quiet little town, and through the
hamlets and villages of the district, the issue of this local paper with
the following inscription: "A day of honor for our regiment, Sept. 24,
1914," as the title of an article of some two hundred lines, sent from
the front by a member of the regiment--the sub-officer Klemt of the
First Company, 154th Infantry Regiment.

[Illustration: GENERAL VON KUSMANEK

Whose stubborn defense of Przemysl made it one of the most notable
sieges of history.

_(Photo from Underwood & Underwood.)_]

[Illustration: CAPT.-LIEUT. OTTO WEDDIGEN

Whose submarine exploits have done more damage to England's navy than
all Germany's gunners.

_(Photo from The Photo News.)_]

[Illustration: Figure 14.]

[Illustration: Figure 15.]

The sub-officer Klemt relates how, on the 24th of September, his
regiment having left Hannonville in the morning, accompanied by Austrian
batteries, suddenly came up against a double fire of infantry and
artillery. Their losses were terrible, and yet the enemy was still
invisible. Finally, says this officer, it was found that the bullets
came from above, from trees which the French soldiers had climbed.
From this point let me quote verbatim, (Fig. 16:)

[Illustration: Figure 16.]

     They're brought down from the trees like squirrels, to get a
     hot reception with bayoneted stock; they'll need no more
     doctors' care. We are not fighting loyal enemies, but
     treacherous brigands. [Note--It is scarcely necessary to point
     out that it is no more "treacherous," but quite as lawful, to
     fire from the branches of a tree as from a window, or from a
     trench, and that, on the contrary, it is rather more
     venturesome and more courageous, as the sequel of this story
     will show.] We crossed the clearing at a bound. The foe is
     hidden here and there among the bushes, and now we are upon
     them. No quarter will be given. We fire standing, at will;
     very few fire kneeling; nobody dreams of shelter. We finally
     reach a slight depression in the ground, and there the red
     trousers are lying in masses, here and there--dead or wounded.
     We club or stab the wounded, for we know that these rascals,
     as soon as we are gone by, will fire from behind. We find one
     Frenchman lying at full length upon his face, but he is
     counterfeiting death. A kick from a robust fusilier gives him
     notice that we are there. Turning over he asks for quarter,
     but he gets the reply--"Oh! is that the way, blackguard, that
     your tools work?" and he is pinned to the ground. On one side
     of me I hear curious cracklings. They're the blows which a
     soldier of the 154th is vigorously showering upon the bald
     pate of a Frenchman with the stock of his gun; he very wisely
     chose for this work a French gun, for fear of breaking his
     own. Some men of particularly sensitive soul grant the French
     wounded the grace to finish them with a bullet, but others
     scatter here and there, wherever they can, their clubbings and
     stabbings. Our adversaries have fought bravely. They were
     élite troops that we had before us. They had allowed us to
     come within thirty, and even within ten, meters--too close.
     Their arms and knapsacks thrown down in heaps showed that they
     wanted to fly, but upon the appearance of our "gray phantoms"
     terror paralyzed them, and, on the narrow path in which they
     crowded, the German bullets brought them the order to halt!
     There they are at the very entrance of their leafy hiding
     places, lying down moaning and asking for quarter, but whether
     their wounds are light or grievous, the brave fusiliers saved
     their country the expensive care which would have to be given
     to such a number of enemies.

Now the recital continues very ornate, very literary, and the writer
relates how his Imperial Highness Prince Oscar of Prussia, being advised
of the exploits (perhaps, indeed, other exploits than these) of the
154th and of the Regiment of Grenadiers, which forms the Brigade with
the 154th, declared them both worthy of the name of "King's Brigade,"
and the recital closes with this phrase: "When night came on, with a
prayer of thankfulness on our lips we fell asleep to await the coming
day." Then adding, by way of postscript, a little phrase "Heimkehr vom
Kampf." He carries the notebook--prose and verse together--to his
Lieutenant, who countersigns it: "Certified as correct, De Niem,
Lieutenant Commanding the Company," and then he sends his paper to his
town of Jauer, where he is quite confident that he will find some
newspaper publisher to accept it, printers to set it up, and a whole
population to enjoy it. Now, let me ask any reader--whatever be his
country--if he can imagine it possible for such a tale to be spread
abroad in any paper in his language, in his native town, for the
edification of his wife and his children. In what other country than in
Germany is such a thing conceivable? Not in France, at all events. Now,
if my readers want another document to show how customary it is in the
German Army to mutilate the wounded, well, I will borrow one from the
notebook of Private Paul Glöde of the Ninth Battalion of Pioneers, Ninth
Corps, (Figs. 17 and 18:)

     Aug. 12, 1914, in Belgium.--One can get an idea of the fury of
     our soldiers in seeing the destroyed villages. Not one house
     left untouched. Everything eatable is requisitioned by the
     unofficered soldiers. Several heaps of men and women put to
     execution. Young pigs are running about looking for their
     mothers. Dogs chained, without food or drink. And the
     houses about them on fire. But the just anger of our soldiers
     is accompanied also by pure vandalism. In the villages,
     already emptied of their inhabitants, the houses are set on
     fire. I feel sorry for this population. If they have made use
     of disloyal weapons, after all, they are only defending their
     own country. The atrocities which these non-combatants are
     still committing are revenged after a savage fashion.
     _Mutilations of the wounded are the order of the day._

This was written as early as the 12th of August--the tenth day after the
invasion of innocent Belgium--and these wounded creatures that were
tortured had done nothing more than defend their land against
Germany--their native land--which Germany had sworn, not only to respect
but, if need be, to defend. And yet, in many countries pharisees reading
these lines will go forward tranquilly to their churches, or their
temples, or their banking houses, or their foreign offices, saying: "In
what do these things concern us?" "Ja, ja, this is war." Yes, it is war,
but war such as was never made by the soldiers of Marceau, such as never
will be made by the soldiers of Joffre, such as never has been made and
never will be made by France--"Mother of Arts, of Arms, and of Laws."
Yes, it is war, but war such as Attila would not have carried on if he
had subscribed to certain stipulations; for, in subscribing them, he
would have awakened to the notion, which _alone_ distinguishes the
civilized man from the barbarian, distinguishes a nation from a
horde--respect for the word once given. Yes, it is war, but war the
theory of which could only be made up by such pedant megalomaniacs as
the Julius von Hartmanns, the Bernhardis, and the Treitschkes; the
theory which accords to the elect people the right to uproot from the
laws and customs of war what centuries of humanity, of Christianity, and
chivalry have at great pains injected into it; the theory of systematic
and organized ferocity; today exposed to public reprobation, not only as
an odious thing, but no less silly and absurd. For have we not reached
the ridiculous when the incendiaries of Louvain, and Malines, and
Rheims, the assassins of women and children, and of the wounded, already
find it necessary to repudiate their actions, at least in words, and to
impose upon the servility of their ninety-three Kulturträger such
denials as this: "It is not true that we are making war in contempt of
the law of nations, nor that our soldiers are committing acts of
cruelty, or of insubordination, or indiscipline.... We will carry this
conflict through to the end as a civilized people, and we answer for
this upon our good name and upon our honor!" Why this humble and pitiful
repudiation? Perhaps because their theory of war rested upon the
postulate of their invincibility, and that, in the first shiver of their
defeat upon the Marne, it collapsed, and now their repudiation quickly
follows--in dread of the _lex talionis_.

[Illustration: Figure 17.]

[Illustration: Figure 18. [Continuation of Figure 17.]]

I will stop here. I leave the conclusion to the allied armies, already
in sight of victory.

     NOTE.--General Stenger's order of the day, mentioned on page
     [Transcriber's Note: blank in original], was communicated
     orally by various officers in various units of the brigade.
     Consequently, the form in which we have received it may
     possibly be incomplete or altered. In face of any doubt, the
     French Government has ordered an inquiry to be made into the
     prisoners' camps. Not one of the prisoners to whom our
     magistrates presented the order of the day in the
     above-mentioned form found a word to alter. They one and all
     declared that this was the order of the day which had been
     orally given in the ranks, repeated from man to man; many
     added the names of the officers who had communicated the order
     to them; some related in what a vile way it had been carried
     out under their eyes. All the evidence of these German
     soldiers was collected in a legal manner, under the sanction
     of an oath, and it is after reading their depositions that I
     wrote the order of the day.

     The text of all this evidence was transmitted to all the
     French Embassies and Legations in foreign countries on the
     24th of October, 1914. Every neutral wishing to clear his
     conscience is at liberty to obtain it from the representatives
     of the French Republic, who will certainly respond willingly.



THE RECRUIT.

By HORTENSE FLEXNER.


    He had a woodland look--half-startled, gay--
      As if his eyes, light-thirsty, had not learned
    To wake accustomed on earth's joyous day,
      A child, whose merriment and wonder burned
    In harmless flame, even his uniform
      Was but a lie to hide his wind-wild grace,
    Whose limbs were rounded youth, too supple, warm,
      To hold the measure of the street-made pace.
    Music and marching--colors in the sky--
      The crowded station, then the train--farewell!
    For all he had the glance, exultant, shy,
      That seemed to marvel, "More to see--to tell!"
    Yet with his breathing moved, hid by his coat,
    A numbered, metal disk, strapped round his throat!



American Reply to Britain's Blockade Order

By William J. Bryan, American Secretary of State


_With the publication on April 6, 1915, of its note in reply to the
British Government's Order in Council, proclaiming a virtual blockade
against commerce to and from Germany--printed in the April, 1915, number
of_ THE NEW YORK TIMES CURRENT HISTORY_--the American Government rested
its case. The text of the note to Great Britain follows:_

WASHINGTON, March 30, 1915.

The Secretary of State to the American Ambassador at London:

You are instructed to deliver the following to his Majesty's Government
in reply to your Nos. 1,795 and 1,798 of March 15: The Government of the
United States has given careful consideration to the subjects treated in
the British notes of March 13 and March 15, and to the British Order in
Council of the latter date.

These communications contain matters of grave importance to neutral
nations. They appear to menace their rights of trade and intercourse,
not only with belligerents but also with one another. They call for
frank comment in order that misunderstandings may be avoided. The
Government of the United States deems it its duty, therefore, speaking
in the sincerest spirit of friendship, to make its own view and position
with regard to them unmistakably clear.

The Order in Council of the 15th of March would constitute, were its
provisions to be actually carried into effect as they stand, a practical
assertion of unlimited belligerent rights over neutral commerce within
the whole European area and an almost unqualified denial of the
sovereign rights of the nations now at peace.

This Government takes it for granted that there can be no question what
those rights are. A nation's sovereignty over its own ships and
citizens under its own flag on the high seas in time of peace is, of
course, unlimited, and that sovereignty suffers no diminution in time of
war, except in so far as the practice and consent of civilized nations
has limited it by the recognition of certain now clearly determined
rights which it is conceded may be exercised by nations which are at
war.

A belligerent nation has been conceded the right of visit and search,
and the right of capture and condemnation, if upon examination a neutral
vessel is found to be engaged in unneutral service or to be carrying
contraband of war intended for the enemy's Government or armed forces.

It has been conceded the right to establish and maintain a blockade of
an enemy's ports and coasts and to capture and condemn any vessel taken
in trying to break the blockade. It is even conceded the right to detain
and take to its own ports for judicial examination all vessels which it
suspects for substantial reasons to be engaged in unneutral or
contraband service and to condemn them if the suspicion is sustained.
But such rights, long clearly defined both in doctrine and practice,
have hitherto been held to be the only permissible exceptions to the
principle of universal equality of sovereignty on the high seas as
between belligerents and nations not engaged in war.

It is confidently assumed that his Majesty's Government will not deny
that it is a rule sanctioned by general practice that, even though a
blockade should exist and the doctrine of contraband as to unblockaded
territory be rigidly enforced, innocent shipments may be freely
transported to and from the United States through neutral countries to
belligerent territory, without being subject to the penalties of
contraband traffic or breach of blockade, much less to detention,
requisition, or confiscation.

Moreover, the rules of the Declaration of Paris of 1856--among them that
free ships make free goods--will hardly at this day be disputed by the
signatories of that solemn agreement.

His Majesty's Government, like the Government of the United States, have
often and explicitly held that these rights represent the best usage of
warfare in the dealings of belligerents with neutrals at sea. In this
connection I desire to direct attention to the opinion of the Chief
Justice of the United States in the case of the Peterhof, which arose
out of the civil war, and to the fact that that opinion was unanimously
sustained in the award of the Arbitration Commission of 1871, to which
the case was presented at the request of Great Britain. From that time
to the Declaration of London of 1909, adopted with modifications by the
Order in Council of the 23d of October last, these rights have not been
seriously questioned by the British Government. And no claim on the part
of Great Britain of any justification for interfering with the clear
rights of the United States and its citizens as neutrals could be
admitted. To admit it would be to assume an attitude of unneutrality
toward the present enemies of Great Britain, which would be obviously
inconsistent with the solemn obligations of this Government in the
present circumstances. And for Great Britain to make such a claim would
be for her to abandon and set at nought the principles for which she has
consistently and earnestly contended in other times and circumstances.

The note of his Majesty's principal Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs, which accompanies the Order in Council, and which bears the
same date, notifies the Government of the United States of the
establishment of a blockade which is, if defined by the terms of the
Order in Council, to include all the coasts and ports of Germany and
every port of possible access to enemy territory. But the novel and
quite unprecedented feature of that blockade, if we are to assume it to
be properly so defined, is that it embraces many neutral ports and
coasts, bars access to them, and subjects all neutral ships seeking to
approach them to the same suspicion that would attach to them were they
bound for the ports of the enemies of Great Britain, and to unusual
risks and penalties.

It is manifest that such limitations, risks, and liabilities placed upon
the ships of a neutral power on the seas, beyond the right of visit and
search and the right to prevent the shipment of contraband already
referred to, are a distinct invasion of the sovereign rights of the
nation whose ships, trade, or commerce is interfered with.

The Government of the United States is, of course, not oblivious to the
great changes which have occurred in the conditions and means of naval
warfare since the rules hitherto governing legal blockade were
formulated. It might be ready to admit that the old form of "close"
blockade, with its cordon of ships in the immediate offing of the
blockaded ports, is no longer practicable in the face of an enemy
possessing the means and opportunity to make an effective defense by the
use of submarines, mines, and air craft; but it can hardly be maintained
that, whatever form of effective blockade may be made use of, it is
impossible to conform at least to the spirit and principles of the
established rules of war.

If the necessities of the case should seem to render it imperative that
the cordon of blockading vessels be extended across the approaches to
any neighboring neutral port or country, it would seem clear that it
would still be easily practicable to comply with the well-recognized and
reasonable prohibition of international law against the blockading of
neutral ports, by according free admission and exit to all lawful
traffic with neutral ports through the blockading cordon.

This traffic would, of course, include all outward-bound traffic from
the neutral country and all inward-bound traffic to the neutral country,
except contraband in transit to the enemy. Such procedure need not
conflict in any respect with the rights of the belligerent maintaining
the blockade, since the right would remain with the blockading vessels
to visit and search all ships either entering or leaving the neutral
territory which they were in fact, but not of right, investing.

The Government of the United States notes that in the Order in Council
his Majesty's Government give as their reason for entering upon a course
of action, which they are aware is without precedent in modern warfare,
the necessity they conceive themselves to have been placed under to
retaliate upon their enemies for measures of a similar nature, which the
latter have announced it their intention to adopt, and which they have
to some extent adopted, but the Government of the United States,
recalling the principles upon which his Majesty's Government have
hitherto been scrupulous to act, interprets this as merely a reason for
certain extraordinary activities on the part of his Majesty's naval
forces and not as an excuse for or prelude to any unlawful action.

If the course pursued by the present enemies of Great Britain should
prove to be in fact tainted by illegality and disregard of the
principles of war sanctioned by enlightened nations, it cannot be
supposed, and this Government does not for a moment suppose, that his
Majesty's Government would wish the same taint to attach to their own
actions or would cite such illegal acts as in any sense or degree a
justification for similar practices on their part in so far as they
affect neutral rights.

It is thus that the Government of the United States interprets the
language of the note of his Majesty's principal Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, which accompanies the copy of the Order in Council,
which was handed to the Ambassador of the United States by the
Government in London and by him transmitted to Washington.

This Government notes with gratification that "wide discretion is
afforded to the prize court in dealing with the trade of neutrals in
such a manner as may in the circumstances be deemed just, and that full
provision is made to facilitate claims by persons interested in any
goods placed in the custody of the Marshal of the prize court under the
order." That "the effect of the Order in Council is to confer certain
powers upon the executive officers of his Majesty's Government," and
that "the extent to which these powers will be actually exercised and
the degree of severity with which the measure of blockade authorized
will be put into operation are matters which will depend on the
administrative orders issued by the Government and the decisions of the
authorities especially charged with the duty of dealing with individual
ships and cargoes, according to the merits of each case."

This Government further notes with equal satisfaction the declaration of
the British Government that "the instructions to be issued by his
Majesty's Government to the fleet and to the customs officials and
executive committees concerned will impress upon them the duty of acting
with the utmost dispatch consistent with the object in view, and of
showing in every case such consideration for neutrals as may be
compatible with that object, which is succinctly stated, to establish a
blockade to prevent vessels from carrying goods for or coming from
Germany."

In view of these assurances formally given to this Government, it is
confidently expected that the extensive powers conferred by the Order in
Council on the executive officers of the Crown will be restricted by
orders issued by the Government, directing the exercise of their
discretionary powers in such a manner as to modify in practical
application those provisions of the Order in Council, which, if strictly
enforced, would violate neutral rights and interrupt legitimate trade.
Relying on the faithful performance of these voluntary assurances by his
Majesty's Government, the United States takes it for granted that the
approach of American merchantmen to neutral ports situated upon the long
line of coast affected by the Order in Council will not be interfered
with when it is known that they do not carry goods which are contraband
of war or goods destined to or proceeding from ports within the
belligerent territory affected.

The Government of the United States assumes with the greater confidence
that his Majesty's Government will thus adjust their practice to the
recognized rules of international law because it is manifest that the
British Government have adopted an extraordinary method of "stopping
cargoes destined for or coming from the enemy's territory," which, owing
to the existence of unusual conditions in modern warfare at sea, it will
be difficult to restrict to the limits which have been heretofore
required by the law of nations. Though the area of operations is
confined to "European waters, including the Mediterranean," so great an
area of the high seas is covered and the cordon of ships is so distant
from the territory affected that neutral vessels must necessarily pass
through the blockading force in order to reach important neutral ports
which Great Britain as a belligerent has not the legal right to blockade
and which, therefore, it is presumed she has no intention of claiming to
blockade.

The Scandinavian and Danish ports, for example, are open to American
trade. They are also free, so far as the actual enforcement of the Order
in Council is concerned, to carry on trade with German Baltic ports,
although it is an essential element of blockade that it bear with equal
severity upon all neutrals.

This Government, therefore, infers that the commanders of his Majesty's
ships of war, engaged in maintaining the so-called blockade, will be
instructed to avoid an enforcement of the proposed measures of
non-intercourse in such a way as to impose restrictions upon neutral
trade more burdensome than those which have been regarded as inevitable,
when the ports of a belligerent are actually blockaded by the ships of
its enemy.

The possibilities of serious interruption of American trade under the
Order in Council are so many, and the methods proposed are so unusual,
and seem liable to constitute so great an impediment and embarrassment
to neutral commerce, that the Government of the United States, if the
Order in Council is strictly enforced, apprehends many interferences
with its legitimate trade which will impose upon his Majesty's
Government heavy responsibilities for acts of the British authorities
clearly subversive of the rights of neutral nations on the high seas. It
is, therefore, expected that the Majesty's Government, having considered
these possibilities, will take the steps necessary to avoid them, and,
in the event that they should unhappily occur, will be prepared to make
full reparation for every act which, under the rules of international
law, constitutes a violation of neutral rights.

As stated in its communication of Oct. 22, 1914, "this Government will
insist that the rights and duties of the United States and its citizens
in the present war be defined by the existing rules of international law
and the treaties of the United States irrespective of the provisions of
the Declaration of London, and that this Government reserves to itself
the right to enter a protest or demand in each case, in which those
rights and duties so defined are violated or their free exercise
interfered with by the authorities of the British Government."

In conclusion you will reiterate to his Majesty's Government that this
statement of the view of the Government of the United States is made in
the most friendly spirit, and in accordance with the uniform candor
which has characterized the relations of the two Governments in the
past, and which has been in large measure the foundation of the peace
and amity existing between the two nationals without interruption for a
century.

BRYAN.



Germany's Conditions of Peace

The First Authoritative German Presentation of the Idea

By Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, Late German Colonial Secretary of State


_That Germany would be willing to make peace on the basis of a free
neutral sea, guaranteed by the powers, was indicated in a letter written
by Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, ex-Colonial Secretary of Germany, and read at
a pro-German mass meeting held in Portland, Me., on April 17, 1915.
After an explanatory note Dr. Dernburg divided into numbered clauses his
letter, as follows:_

(1) Whatever peace is concluded should be of a permanent nature; no
perfunctory patching up should be permitted. The horror of all the
civilized nations of the Old World slaughtering one another, every one
convinced of the perfect righteousness of their own cause--a recurrence,
if it could not be avoided absolutely, should be made most remote, so as
to take the weight from our minds that all this young blood of the best
manhood of Europe might be spilled in vain.

(2) For this purpose it must be borne in mind that the world has changed
considerably since the last big conflagration, and that all the
countries striving for humanity and civilization are now one big family,
with interests, spiritual as well as commercial, interlocking to a
degree that no disturbance of any part of the civilized globe can exist
without seriously affecting the rest. A disturbance in one quarter must
make quite innocent bystanders involuntary victims, to the serious
detriment of spiritual peace and commercial pursuits.

The great highway on which thoughts and things travel are the high seas.
I can with full authority disclaim any ambition by my country as to
world dominion. She is much too modest, on the one hand, and too
experienced, on the other hand, not to know that such a state will never
be tolerated by the rest. Events have shown that world dominion can
only be practiced by dominion of the high seas. The aim of Germany is to
have the seas, as well as the narrows, kept permanently open for the
free use of all nations in times of war as well as in times of peace.
The sea is nobody's property and must be free to everybody. The seas are
the lungs from which humanity draws a fresh breath of enterprise, and
they must not be stopped up.

I, personally, would go so far as to neutralize all the seas and narrows
permanently by a common and effective agreement guaranteed by all the
powers, so that any infringement on that score would meet with the most
severe punishment that can be meted out to any transgressor.

(3) A free sea is useless except combined with the freedom of cable and
mail communications with all countries, whether belligerent or not. I
should like to see all the cables jointly owned by the interested
nations and a world mail system over sea established by common consent.
But, more than this, an open sea demands an open policy. This means
that, while every nation must have the right, for commercial and fiscal
purposes, to impose whatever duties it thinks fit, these duties must be
equal for all exports and imports for whatever destination and from
whatever source. It would be tantamount to world empire, in fact, if a
country owning a large part of the globe could make discriminating
duties between the motherland and dominions or colonies as against other
nations.

This has been of late the British practice. German colonies have always
been open to every comer, including the motherland, on equal terms. Such
equality of treatment should be the established practice for all the
future. The only alternative to an open sea and free intercourse policy
would be a Chinese wall around each country. If there is no free
intercourse every country must become self-sufficient. Germany has
proved that it can be done. But this policy would mean very high customs
barriers, discrimination, unbounded egotism, and a world bristling in
arms. While the free sea policy stands for the true aims of
international relations, namely, in exchange of goods, which must
benefit either party, to be mutually satisfactory, it will engender
friendly feeling among all the peoples, advance civilization, and
thereby have a sure tendency toward disarmament.

(4) Germany has been taxed with disregarding treaty obligations, tearing
up a scrap of paper--a solemn engagement of international character
regarding Belgium. I have the less reason to enter into this matter
since--if it was a breach of international law at all--it has been
followed up by all other belligerents by destroying other parts of that
code so essential to the welfare of the community of nations. Two German
men-of-war have been destroyed in neutral waters. The protests that the
Government of this country had to make against Great Britain's treatment
of international sea law and the rights of the neutrals are too numerous
to be recounted. Chinese neutrality has been violated in the grossest
way.

In disregard of all conventions, China is now being subjected to demands
incompatible with the rights of self-respecting nations. Egypt and
Cyprus have been annexed by Great Britain, disregarding all treaties.
Germany's diplomatic representatives have been driven from China,
Morocco, and Egypt--all countries sovereign at the time. The Declaration
of London, which had been set up by the Government of the United States
as the governing document, had to be dropped as such. There is
practically no part of international law that could stand the test.
Justice toward neutrals compels that international law should be
re-established in a codified form, with sufficient guarantees so as to
save, as far as possible, all the neutrals from possible implication in
a war in which they do not take part.

(5) Germany does not strive for territorial aggrandizement in Europe;
she does not believe in conquering and subjugating unwilling
nations--this on account of a spirit of justice and her knowledge of
history. No such attempts have ever been permanently successful.

Belgium commands the main outlet of Western German trade, is the natural
foreland of the empire, and has been conquered with untold sacrifice of
blood and treasure. It offers to German trade the only outlet to an open
sea and it has been politically established, maintained, and defended by
England in order to keep these natural advantages from Germany.

The love for small peoples that England heralds now will never stand
investigation, as shown by the destruction of the small Boer republics.
So Belgium cannot be given up. However, these considerations could be
disregarded if all the other German demands, especially a guaranteed
free sea, were fully complied with and the natural commercial
relationship of Belgium to Germany was considered in a just and workable
form. In this case Germany will not fail when the times come to help in
rebuilding the country; in fact, she is doing so now.

(6) Germany is a country smaller in size than California, but populated
thirty-five times as thickly as that State. She loves and fosters family
life, and sees her future in the raising of large families of healthy
children under the home roof and under the national flag. German parents
have no desire to expatriate every year a considerable number of their
children. This implies that her industrial development, which would
alone give occupation to the yearly increase of pretty nearly a million
people, should go on unhampered.

The activity of her people should have an outlet in the development of
such foreign parts as need or wish for development. Great Britain has
shown very little foresight in constantly opposing such efforts,
playing Morocco into the hands of France, a nation that remained
stationary for forty-four years, with little more than half of the
population of Germany, and with a system equally undermining religion
and morality in keeping families small for the sake of worldly comforts.

England, furthermore, constantly obstructed the German endeavor to
reclaim for the benefit of all of the world the granary in Mesopotamia.
A permanent peace will mean that this German activity must get a wide
scope without infringement upon the rights of others. Germany should be
encouraged to continue her activities in Africa and Asia Minor, which
can only result in permanent benefit to all the world. Americans have a
saying "that it will never do good to sit on a safety valve."

There is nothing in the program of my country which would not be
beneficial to the rest of the world, especially the United States. That
this is so the events of the last months have conclusively shown, and a
better appreciation of what Germany really stands for has recently
taken place. So, if I plead the cause of my country, I am not pleading
as a German alone, but as a citizen of a country who wishes to be a
useful and true member of the universality of nations, contributing by
humanitarian aims and by the enhancement of personal freedom to the
happiness of even the lowliest members of the great world community.

I am proud to say that I cannot only give this assurance, but produce
facts, and I beg to refer to the modern system of social reforms which
Germany inaugurated and carries through at an expense which is every
year larger by half than the expense of the military system.

The brunt of this war has not been borne by the men who fight, but by
the women who suffer, and it will be one of the proudest and most
coveted achievements that Germany will gain in rewarding in a dignified
and permanently beneficial way the enormous sacrifices of womanhood, to
alleviate to the extent of the possible the hardships and sorrows that
this war has brought upon them.

[Illustration]



The Allies' Conditions of Peace

By Sir Edward Grey


     Sir Edward Grey, presiding at a lecture on the war by Mr.
     Buchan, delivered March 22, 1915, reviewed the origin and
     causes of the conflict. Germany, he said, refused every
     suggestion made to her for settling the dispute by means of a
     conference. On her must rest for all time the appalling
     responsibility for having plunged Europe into this war. One
     essential condition of peace must be the restoration to
     Belgium of her independence and reparation to her for the
     cruel wrong done to her. England claims for herself and her
     allies claim for themselves, and together will secure for
     Europe, the right of independent sovereignty for the different
     nations, the right to pursue a national existence in the light
     of general liberty.

The occasion of our meeting this afternoon is to hear a lecture from my
friend Mr. Buchan on the strategy of the war, and he is sure to make it
informing and interesting. His friends know him as a man of fine public
spirit and patriotism, in whom a crisis such as this in his country's
history arouses the noblest feelings. I am sorry that an engagement
makes it necessary for me to return soon to the Foreign Office, and
therefore it will be a great disappointment to me not to hear the whole
of the lecture. I take the opportunity to make my apology now, and also
to make one or two remarks on the origin and issues of the war. While we
are engaged in considering the particular methods by which the war may
be prosecuted to a successful conclusion do not let us lose sight even
for a moment of the character and origin of this war and of the main
issues for which we are fighting. Hundreds of millions of money have
been spent, hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost, and millions
have been maimed and wounded in Europe during the last few months. And
all this might have been avoided by the simple method of a conference or
a joint discussion between the powers concerned which might have been
held in London, at The Hague, or wherever and in whatever form Germany
would have consented to have it. It would have been far easier to have
settled by conference the dispute between Austria-Hungary and Serbia,
which Germany made the occasion for this war, than it was to get
successfully through the Balkan crisis of two years ago. Germany knew
from her experience of the conference in London which settled the Balkan
crisis that she could count upon our good will for peace in any
conference of the powers. We had sought no diplomatic triumph in the
Balkan Conference; we did not give ourselves to any intrigue; we pursued
impartially and honorably the end of peace, and we were ready last July
to do the same again.

In recent years we have given Germany every assurance that no aggression
upon her would receive any support from us. We withheld from her one
thing--we would not give an unconditional promise to stand aside,
however aggressive Germany herself might be to her neighbors. Last July,
before the outbreak of the war, France was ready to accept a conference;
Italy was ready to accept a conference; Russia was ready to accept a
conference; and we know now that after the British proposal for a
conference was made, the Emperor of Russia himself proposed to the
German Emperor that the dispute should be referred to The Hague. Germany
refused every suggestion made to her for settling the dispute in this
way. On her rests now, and must rest for all time, the appalling
responsibility for having plunged Europe into this war and for having
involved herself and the greater part of the Continent in the
consequences of it.

We know now that the German Government had prepared for war as only
people who plan can prepare. This is the fourth time within living
memory that Prussia had made war in Europe. In the Schleswig-Holstein
war, in the war against Austria in 1866, in the war against France in
1870, as we now know from all the documents that have been revealed, it
was Prussia who planned and prepared these wars. The same thing has
occurred again, and we are determined that it shall be the last time
that war shall be made in this way.

We had assured Belgium that never would we violate her neutrality so
long as it was respected by others. I had given this pledge to Belgium
long before the war. On the eve of the war we asked France and Germany
to give the same pledge. France at once did so. Germany declined to give
it. When, after that, Germany invaded Belgium we were bound to oppose
Germany with all our strength, and if we had not done so at the first
moment, is there any one who now believes that when Germany attacked the
Belgians, when she shot down combatants and non-combatants in a way that
violated all the rules of war of recent times and the laws of humanity
of all time--is there any one who thinks it possible now that we could
have sat still and looked on without eternal disgrace?

Now what is the issue for which we are fighting? In due time the terms
of peace will be put forward by our Allies in concert with us--in
accordance with the alliance that exists between us--and published to
the world. One essential condition must be the restoration to Belgium of
her independence, national life, and free possession of her territory,
and reparation to her as far as reparation is possible for the cruel
wrong done to her. That is part of the great issue for which we, with
our allies, are contending, and the great part of the issue is this--We
wish the nations of Europe to be free to live their independent lives,
working out their own form of government for themselves, and their own
national developments, whether they be great nations or small States, in
full liberty. This is our ideal. The German ideal--we have had it poured
out by German professors and publicists since the war began--is that of
the Germans as a superior people, to whom all things are lawful in the
securing of their own power, against whom resistance of any sort is
unlawful--a people establishing a domination over the nations of the
Continent, imposing a peace which is not to be liberty for every nation,
but subservience to Germany. I would rather perish or leave the
Continent altogether than live on it under such conditions.

After this war we and the other nations of Europe must be free to live,
not menaced continually by talk of "supreme war lords," and "shining
armor," and the sword continually "rattled in the scabbard," and heaven
continually invoked as the accomplice of Germany, and not having our
policy dictated and our national destinies and activities controlled by
the military caste of Prussia. We claim for ourselves and our allies
claim for themselves, and together we will secure for Europe, the right
of independent sovereignty for the different nations, the right to
pursue a national existence, not in the shadow of Prussian hegemony and
supremacy, but in the light of equal liberty.

All honor for ever be given from us whom age and circumstances have kept
at home to those who have voluntarily come forward to risk their lives,
and give their lives on the field of battle on land and on sea. They
have their reward in enduring fame and honor. And all honor be from us
to the brave armies and navies of our Allies, who have exhibited such
splendid courage and noble patriotism. The admiration they have aroused,
and their comradeship in arms, will be an ennobling and enduring memory
between us, cementing friendships and perpetuating national good will.
For all of us who are serving the State at home or in whatever capacity,
whether officials, or employers, or wage earners, doing our utmost to
carry on the national life in this time of stress, there is the
knowledge that there can be no nobler opportunity than that of serving
one's country when its existence is at stake, and when the cause is just
and right; and never was there a time in our national history when the
crisis was so great and so imperative, or the cause more just and right.



South Africa's Romantic Blue Paper

Recording the Vision of "Oom Niklaas," the Boer Seer of Lichtenburg

[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, April 18, 1915.]


The South African "Blue Paper" is out. It is unique. However widely and
however eagerly the official documents of the other countries involved
in the present war may have been read, they could not be called romantic
in any sense of the word.

The "Blue Paper" issued by the Union of South Africa presents a distinct
contrast. In the third paragraph of the very first page of this weighty
document, which deals with the recent rebellion, is the following
unusual sentence:

     It is not surprising, then, that in the ferment aroused by the
     gigantic struggle in Europe, which seemed to be shaking the
     world to its foundations, young men began to see visions and
     old men to dream dreams of what the outcome might be for South
     Africa.

And this is followed by a still stranger passage:

     The times were not without their signs. There was a seer in
     Lichtenburg who had visions of strange import. Years ago and
     long before any one in this country had dreamed of war he
     beheld a great fight of bulls, six or seven of them, engaged
     in bloody combat; a gray bull had emerged victorious from the
     contest.

     The bulls signified the great nations of Europe, and the gray
     bull was Germany. Thousands had discussed this strange vision
     and had remembered its prophetic character when, later, war
     actually broke out. The vision seemed ominous. Germany was
     predestined to triumph.

The seer is Niklaas van Rensburg, and he runs through this Government
report like a scarlet thread through gray homespun. It is around his
influence that the uprising of Sept. 15 is built. It is under his roof
that all manner of lurid conspiracies are hatched. Not only do his words
carry with the crowds that gather before his house to hear his prophecy,
but his warnings shape the actions of some of the Transvaal Generals.
The Government report will not go so far as to brand "Oom Niklaas" as a
hoax. Says the preface:

     It is desired to point out that the narrative of events has
     been compiled in as objective a manner as possible, and that
     it contains no statement which is not borne out by evidence in
     possession of the Government.

Evidently, to denounce visions of gray bulls as hocus-pocus would be to
describe a puzzling situation much too subjectively, since the
Government has apparently no evidence that these are not genuine
prophecy. The best the Government can do is to call them "extraordinary
and apparently quite authentic."

But the extraordinary part of it is that an illiterate old soothsayer
should be considered important enough to be included in an official
report.

His most famous and most influential prophecy, the one that will go down
in the history of South Africa, was that which concerned General de la
Rey and the fatal number 15.

The prophecy which came back to the minds of van Rensburg's followers
when war broke out was one concerning General de la Rey, the intrepid
soldier who had commanded the Lichtenburg burghers in the Boer war and
since become President of the Western Transvaal Farmers' Association.
Van Rensburg had always admired General de la Rey. He had frequently
hinted to his circle that great things were in store for him. One of his
visions had been well known to General de la Rey and his friends for
some years. The report says:

     The seer had beheld the number 15 on a dark cloud from which
     blood issued, and then General de la Rey returning home
     without his hat. Immediately afterward came a carriage covered
     with flowers.


[Illustration: H.M. CONSTANTINE I.

King of Greece.

_(Photo from P.S. Rogers.)_]

[Illustration: JOHN REDMOND

The great Irish leader, who says that Ireland has now taken her proper
place in the British Empire.

_(Photo from P.S. Rogers.)_]

This was several years ago. But the people did not forget the prophecy,
and when war broke out in Europe the Western Transvaal--in the
Lichtenburg-Wolmaransstad area, where van Rensburg's influence was
strongest--was immediately aflame. The Government does not seek to
minimize the importance of this influence:

     When the war at last broke out, the effect in Lichtenburg was
     instantaneous. The prophecies of van Rensburg were eagerly
     recalled, and it was remembered that he had foretold a day on
     which the independence of the Transvaal would be restored.

     Certain individuals could be seen daily cleaning their rifles
     and cartridges in order to be ready for the day. Within a week
     of the declaration of war between England and Germany the
     district was further profoundly stirred by the news (now
     become generally known) that a great meeting of local burghers
     was to be held at Treurfontein on the 15th of August, and that
     certain local officers were commandeering their burghers to
     come to this meeting armed and fully equipped for active
     service.

The outbreak of the war in Europe suddenly brought the Lichtenburger's
prophecy down to earth and crystallized the dream. The commandants were
evidently as convinced that independence was at hand as the crowd.

     Careful inquiries by other local officers brought to light the
     following facts:

     Veld Kornet, I.E. Claassen, and Commandant F.G.A. Wolmarans of
     Ward Onder Hartsrivier had been commandeering their own
     burghers as well as their political friends since the first
     week of August to come to the meeting which was to be held at
     Treurfontein on the 15th. The instructions given to these men
     were that they were to come with rifle, horse, saddle and
     bridle, and as much ammunitions and provisions as they could
     manage to bring.

     The meeting was to be addressed by General de la Rey, and it
     was generally believed that the assembled burghers would march
     on Potchefstroom immediately after the meeting.

None doubted the truth of the seer's prophecy now. The Western Transvaal
took it for its guide with implicit confidence.

     The strange vision of the number 15, which had long been
     common knowledge, was now discussed with intense interest. The
     15, it was said, signified the 15th of August, the day of the
     meeting. That would be the day which had been so long
     expected--the day of liberation.

     Van Rensburg was now the oracle. His prophecies with regard to
     the great war had been signally fulfilled. Germany was at
     grips with England, and her triumph was looked upon as
     inevitable.

     The day had arrived to strike a blow for their lost
     independence. Van Rensburg assured his following that the
     Union Government was "finished." Not a shot would be fired.
     The revolution would be complete and bloodless.

     Between the 10th and the 15th the plotters in Lichtenburg were
     actively preparing for the day. There is evidence that German
     secret agents were working in concert with them. When doubters
     asked how they could be so certain that the 15 signified a day
     of the month--and of the month of August in particular--they
     were scornfully if illogically told that "in God's time a
     month sooner or later made no difference."

Of course, General de la Rey was the storm centre. He had been mentioned
in the same vision with the number 15 and it was taken for granted that
he would play the chief rôle in the Treurfontein meeting. De la Rey was
the unquestioned ruler of the Western Transvaal. The report states:

     He possessed an unrivaled influence and was looked up to as
     the uncrowned king of the West. His attitude at the meeting
     would sway the mass of his adherents and decide the question
     of peace or war.

Accordingly, General Louis Botha, Premier of the South African Union,
summoned General de la Rey to Pretoria some days before the meeting, and
persuaded him to use his best efforts to allay excitement.

On the 15th the meeting was held. The situation was a tense one. Not one
of the burghers present doubted the outcome. Yet General de la Rey
exhorted them to remain cool and calm. He urged them to await the turn
of events in Europe. After his address a "strange and unusual silence"
was observed, says the "Blue Paper."

     A resolution was passed unanimously expressing complete
     confidence in the Government to act in the best interests of
     South Africa in the present world crisis. The burghers
     appeared to have taken their leader's advice to heart, as they
     dispersed quietly to their homes.

All danger of a rebellious movement had apparently been averted.

The only difficulty was that the prophecy of "Oom Niklaas" was still
standing. The fact that the uprising had failed did not seem in the
least to invalidate the vision. If the mysterious number did not mean
Aug. 15, then perhaps it did mean Sept. 15.

Accordingly, preparations were laid for a rebellion for the latter date.
The plot was engineered by Lieut. Colonel Solomon G. Maritz and General
Christian Frederick Beyers. Maritz is a brilliant though unlettered
Colonel who won distinction in the Boer war, while Beyers was the
Commandant General of the South African Union forces. Beyers is dead
now; Maritz and some of the prominent men associated in the conspiracy
are in prison awaiting trial.

Beyers and Maritz did not trust entirely to the prophecy of the seer of
Lichtenburg. Maritz had already obtained a guarantee from the
authorities in German West Africa, with whom he had been in
communication for some time, that in the event of Germany's victory the
Free State and the Transvaal would be given their freedom. He had
organized the back-veldt Boers into readiness to go over into German
West Africa at a moment's notice. In the Free State, General de Wet was
ready to aid the rebellion, and the Western Transvaal, already excited,
could easily be swung into line.

The regiments of the west were to concentrate at Potchefstroom early in
September for their annual training. At that time the members of the
Government, among them General de la Rey, who is a member of the
Legislative Assembly, would be in Cape Town for the session of the
Parliament.

Everything made the 15th of September look like an auspicious date for
the conspirators and those who believed in van Rensburg. But General de
la Rey still remained the storm centre. He was the factor which upset
all plans. He was the most difficult obstacle. A large personality, his
influence could never be discounted. If he could be induced to join the
conspiracy the cause was as good as won. Should he oppose the movement
it was lost, for neither Beyers nor Major Kemp, a leader in his district
in West Transvaal, could hope to do anything against General de la Rey
in the west.

General de la Rey believed in the Lichtenburg prophet. A strong man, of
extraordinary force and intelligence, the whole course of his plans
might be altered by a new vision from van Rensburg. Beyers knew this,
says the report, and saw the way by which he should win the General to
the conspiracy.

     There is evidence to prove that General Beyers set himself
     systematically to work in General de la Rey's mind in order to
     induce him to join the conspiracy.

     General de la Rey was known to hold strong religious views,
     which colored his whole outlook. The seer, van Rensburg, who
     was always full of religious talk, had in this way acquired a
     considerable amount of influence over General de la Rey.

     There is the best of evidence (General Beyers's own statement)
     for the belief that he himself did not scruple to work on
     General de la Rey's mind through his religious feelings.

Just how Beyers accomplished this has not yet been revealed, but there
was material enough to his hand. The news from Europe was disquieting.
The German drive to Paris seemed irresistible. It looked as if in a week
or two Germany would have the Allies at her mercy.

The prophet saw visions in which 40,000 German soldiers were marching up
and down the streets of London. He predicted significantly that the new
South African State would have at its head "a man who feared God." The
Government of Premier Botha and General Smuts, the Minister of Finance
and Defense, was "finished." He had seen the English leaving the
Transvaal and moving down toward Natal. When they had gone far away, a
vulture flew from among them and returned to the Boers and settled down
among them. That was Botha. As for Smuts, he would flee desperately to
England and would never be seen in South Africa again. Through it all
ran the strange number 15.

This was excellent material for the conspirators. But the problem was to
get General de la Rey away from the Parliament session at Cape Town and
into the Potchefstroom camp at the psychological moment. Beyers sent a
series of urgent telegrams to Cape Town hinting at important business.
He emphasized the need for General de la Rey's immediate presence in
Potchefstroom. He had evidently not yet broached the conspiracy to the
General, but hoped only to get him to the camp at the critical moment
when his presence would prove the deciding factor.

[Illustration: [map of South Africa]]

Everything in Potchefstroom was in readiness. The Active Citizen Force
concentrated here--about 1,600 men--was to start the uprising. The
movement was to be promptly seconded throughout the Western Transvaal.
The "Vierkleur" was to be hoisted, and a march made on Pretoria, men and
horses being commandeered on the way. This was to take place on Tuesday,
the 15th. There was an attempt to line up the prophet to add to the
theatric effect, says the report.

     On the night of the 14th the "Prophet" himself was specially
     sent for by motor car to be personally present on the 15th to
     witness the consummation of his prophecy. The conspirators
     hoped to profit by the impression he would undoubtedly make on
     those who still hesitated.

     Unfortunately for them, however, the seer refused to leave his
     home, saying that "it was not yet clear to him that that was
     his path."

The signal for the revolt was to be the arrival of General Beyers and
General de la Rey in the Potchefstroom camp. The latter was returning
from Cape Town via Kimberley, and was due to arrive in Potchefstroom on
the 15th. But for some reason he chose to come back through the Free
State, and by the 15th was only at Johannesburg.

This upset plans. Beyers had to act quickly. He had his chauffeur
overhaul his motor car, equip it with new tubes and covers, in readiness
for "a long journey." In a short time the car was on its way to bring
General de la Rey from Johannesburg to Pretoria, where Beyers would meet
him.

There was no time to be lost. It was too late to stage the rebellion for
the 15th, but Beyers arranged for it to be at 4 o'clock on the morning
of Wednesday, the 16th.

General de la Rey arrived in Pretoria. General Beyers met him and asked
him to go immediately with him to Potchefstroom.

The car came within sight of Johannesburg. A police cordon had been
thrown around the town for the purpose of capturing three desperadoes,
known as the "Foster gang," who were trying to escape in a motor car.
The police were instructed to stop all motors and to examine in
particular any car containing three men.

Beyers's car held three men. It was racing at high speed. It was, of
course, challenged by the police and ordered to stop. But Beyers knew
nothing of the "Foster gang" and the reason for the police cordon. Keyed
up to the highest pitch of nervous tension, his immediate conclusion was
that his plot had been discovered and that the police were after him. He
believed he was trapped.

Meanwhile, Major Kemp at Potchefstroom grew more and more anxious as the
hours slipped by. Midnight came, and no news of the two Generals. About
3 o'clock in the morning, says the report, an officer sharing the tent
of a Lieutenant Colonel by the name of Kock, who was Kemp's confidant,
was awakened by the entrance of a man. It proved to be Major Kemp. He
leaned over Kock's bed and whispered something in his ear.

Kock, in a profoundly startled voice, exclaimed, "Oh, God!"

Kemp left immediately, and Kock then whispered to his friend: "General
de la Rey is dood geskiet," (General de la Rey has been shot dead.)

The effect of this news on South Africa can be imagined. The whole
country was aflame. This was what the number 15 meant. The General had
indeed "returned home without his hat, followed by a carriage full of
flowers."

Report ran through every town that General de la Rey had been
deliberately assassinated by the Government. As a matter of fact, the
report states that the shooting was purely accidental, done by the
police under the belief that this motor car which would not halt at
their command contained the "Foster gang." Beyers exhibited the
motor-car everywhere, arousing sentiment to the highest pitch.

The rest was easy. The rank and file, at least, now believed firmly in
the prophet. He had always said that General Botha would offer no
resistance, that the revolution would be bloodless, and thousands went
over to the cause led by Maritz and Beyers in this belief. But it was
not until Oct. 12 that martial law was proclaimed in South Africa. The
rebellion had begun.



THE BELLS OF BERLIN

[From Punch of London.]


     _(Which are said to be rung by order occasionally to announce
     some supposed German victory.)_

    The Bells of Berlin, how they hearten the Hun
      _(Oh, dingle dong dangle ding dongle ding dee;)_
    No matter what devil's own work has been done
    They chime a loud chant of approval, each one,
    Till the people feel sure of their place in the sun
      _(Oh, dangle ding dongle dong dingle ding dee.)_

    If Hindenburg hustles an enemy squad
      _(Oh, dingle dong dangle ding dongle ding dee,)_
    The bells all announce that the alien sod
    Is damp with the death of some thousand men odd,
    Till the populace smiles with a gratified nod
      _(Oh, dangle ding dongle dong dingle ding dee.)_

    If Tirpitz behaves like a brute on the brine
      _(Oh, dingle dong dangle ding dongle ding dee,)_
    The bells with a clash and a clamor combine
    To hint that the Hated One's on the decline,
    And the city gulps down the good tidings like wine,
      _(Oh, dangle ding dongle dong dingle ding dee.)_

    The Bells of Berlin, are they cracked through and through
      _(Oh, dingle dong dangle ding dongle ding dee,)_
    Or deaf to the discord like Germany, too?
    For whether their changes be many or few,
    The worst of them is that they never ring true,
      _(Oh, dangle ding dongle dong dingle ding dee.)_



Warfare and British Labor

By Earl Kitchener, England's Secretary of State for War


     In his speech delivered in the House of Lords on March 15,
     1915, Earl Kitchener calls upon the whole nation to work, not
     only in supplying the manhood of the country to serve in the
     ranks, but in supplying the necessary arms, ammunition, and
     equipment for successful operations in various parts of the
     world.

For many weeks only trench fighting has been possible owing to the
climatic conditions and waterlogged state of the ground. During this
period of apparent inaction, it must not be forgotten that our troops
have had to exercise the utmost individual vigilance and resource, and,
owing to the proximity of the enemy's lines, a great strain has been
imposed upon them. Prolonged warfare of this sort might be expected to
affect the morale of an army, but the traditional qualities of patience,
good temper, and determination have maintained our men, though highly
tried, in a condition ready to act with all the initiative and courage
required when the moment for an advance arrived. The recently published
accounts of the fighting in France have enabled us to appreciate how
successfully our troops have taken the offensive. The German troops,
notwithstanding their carefully prepared and strongly intrenched
positions, have been driven back for a considerable distance and the
villages of Neuve Chapelle and L'Epinette have been captured and held by
our army, with heavy losses to the enemy.

In these operations our Indian troops took a prominent part and
displayed fine fighting qualities. I will in this connection read a
telegram I have received from Sir John French:

     Please transmit following message to Viceroy India: I am glad
     to be able to inform your Excellency that the Indian troops
     under General Sir James Willcocks fought with great gallantry
     and marked success in the capture of Neuve Chapelle and
     subsequent fighting which took place on the 10th, 11th, 12th
     and 13th of this month. The fighting was very severe and the
     losses heavy, but nothing daunted them. Their tenacity,
     courage and endurance were admirable and worthy of the best
     traditions of the soldiers of India.

I should like also to mention that the Canadian Division showed their
mettle and have received the warm commendation of Sir John French for
the high spirit and bravery with which they have performed their part.
Our casualties during the three days' fighting, though probably severe,
are not nearly so heavy as those suffered by the enemy, from whom a
large number of prisoners have been taken.

Since I last spoke in this House substantial reinforcements have been
sent to France. They include the Canadian Division, the North Midland
Division, and the Second London Division, besides other units. These are
the first complete divisions of the Territorial Force to go to France,
where I am sure they will do credit to themselves and sustain the high
reputation which the Territorials have already won for themselves there.
The health of the troops has been remarkably good, and their freedom
from enteric fever and from the usual diseases incidental to field
operations is a striking testimony to the value of inoculation and to
the advice and skill of the Royal Army Medical Corps and its auxiliary
organizations.

The French army, except for a slight withdrawal at Soissons, owing to
their reinforcements being cut off by the swollen state of the Aisne
River, have made further important progress at various points on the
long line they hold, especially in Champagne. Association with both our
allies in the western theatre has only deepened our admiration of their
resolute tenacity and fighting qualities.

In the Eastern theatre the violent German attacks on Warsaw have failed
in their purpose, and a considerable concentration of German troops to
attack the Russian positions in East Prussia, after causing a
retirement, are now either well held or are being driven back. In the
Caucasus fresh defeats have been inflicted by the Russians on the Turks,
and the latter have also been repulsed by our forces in Egypt when they
attempted to attack the Suez Canal. The operations now proceeding
against the Dardanelles show the great power of the allied fleets, and,
although at the present stage I can say no more than what is given in
the public press on the subject, your Lordships may rest assured that
the matter is well in hand.

The work of supplying and equipping new armies depends largely on our
ability to obtain the war material required. Our demands on the
industries concerned with the manufacture of munitions of war in this
country have naturally been very great, and have necessitated that they
and other ancillary trades should work at the highest possible pressure.
The armament firms have promptly responded to our appeal, and have
undertaken orders of vast magnitude. The great majority also of the
employees have loyally risen to the occasion, and have worked, and are
working, overtime and on night shifts in all the various workshops and
factories in the country.

Notwithstanding these efforts to meet our requirements, we have
unfortunately found that the output is not only not equal to our
necessities, but does not fulfill our expectations, for a very large
number of our orders have not been completed by the dates on which they
were promised. The progress in equipping our new armies, and also in
supplying the necessary war material for our forces in the field, has
been seriously hampered by the failure to obtain sufficient labor, and
by delays in the production of the necessary plant, largely due to the
enormous demands not only of ourselves, but of our allies.

While the workmen generally, as I have said, have worked loyally and
well, there have, I regret to say, been instances where absence,
irregular timekeeping, and slack work have led to a marked diminution
in the output of our factories. In some cases the temptations of drink
account for this failure to work up to the high standard expected. It
has been brought to my notice on more than one occasion that the
restrictions of trade unions have undoubtedly added to our difficulties,
not so much in obtaining sufficient labor, as in making the best use of
that labor. I am confident, however, that the seriousness of the
position as regards our supplies has only to be mentioned, and all
concerned will agree to waive for the period of the war any of those
restrictions which prevent in the very slightest degree our utilizing
all the labor available to the fullest extent that is possible.

I cannot too earnestly point out that, unless the whole nation works
with us and for us, not only in supplying the manhood of the country to
serve in our ranks, but also in supplying the necessary arms,
ammunition, and equipment, successful operations in the various parts of
the world in which we are engaged will be very seriously hampered and
delayed. I have heard rumors that the workmen in some factories have an
idea that the war is going so well that there is no necessity for them
to work their hardest. I can only say that the supply of war material at
the present moment and for the next two or three months is causing me
very serious anxiety, and I wish all those engaged in the manufacture
and supply of these stores to realize that it is absolutely essential
not only that the arrears in the deliveries of our munitions of war
should be wiped off, but that the output of every round of ammunition is
of the utmost importance, and has a large influence on our operations in
the field.

The bill which my noble friend is about to place before the House as an
amendment to the Defense of the Realm act is calculated to rectify this
state of things as far as it is possible, and, in my opinion, it is
imperatively necessary. In such a large manufacturing country as our own
the enormous output of what we require to place our troops in the field
thoroughly equipped and found with ammunition is undoubtedly possible,
but this output can only be obtained by a careful and deliberate
organization for developing the resources of the country so as to enable
each competent workman to utilize in the most useful manner possible all
his ability and energy in the common object which we all have in view,
which is the successful prosecution and victorious termination of this
war. [Cheers.] I feel sure that there is no business or manufacturing
firm in this country that will object for one moment to any delay or
loss caused in the product of their particular industry when they feel
that they and their men are taking part with us in maintaining the
soldiers in the field with those necessaries without which they cannot
fight.

As I have said, the regular armament firms have taken on enormous
contracts vastly in excess of their ordinary engagements in normal times
of peace. We have also spread orders both in the form of direct
contracts and subcontracts over a large number of subsidiary firms not
accustomed in peace time to this class of manufacture. It will, I am
sure, be readily understood that, when new plant is available for the
production of war material, those firms that are not now so engaged
should release from their own work the labor necessary to keep the
machinery fully occupied on the production for which it is being laid
down, as well as to supply sufficient labor to keep working at full
power the whole of the machinery which we now have.

I hope that this result will be attained under the provisions of the
bill now about to be placed before you. Labor may very rightly ask that
their patriotic work should not be used to inflate the profits of the
directors and shareholders of the various great industrial and armament
firms, and we are therefore arranging a system under which the important
armament firms will come under Government control, and we hope that
workmen who work regularly by keeping good time shall reap some of the
benefits which the war automatically confers on these great companies.

I feel strongly that the men working long hours in the shops by day and
by night, week in and week out, are doing their duty for their King and
country in a like manner with those who have joined the army for active
service in the field. [Cheers.] They are thus taking their part in the
war and displaying the patriotism that has been so manifestly shown by
the nation in all ranks, and I am glad to be able to state that his
Majesty has approved that where service in this great work of supplying
the munitions of war has been thoroughly, loyally and continuously
rendered, the award of a medal will be granted on the successful
termination of the war. [Cheers.]



SAVIORS OF EUROPE

By Rene Bazin

[From King Albert's Book.]


I believe that King Albert and Belgium, in sacrificing themselves as
they have done for right, have saved Europe.

I believe that in order to act with such decision it was essential to
have a King, that is to say, a leader responsible to history, of an old
and proved stock.

I believe that for such action a Christian nation was essential, a
nation capable of understanding, of accepting, and of enduring the
ordeal.

I believe that the first duty of the Allies will be to restore the
Kingdom of Belgium, and that the example shown by the King and his
people will be exalted in all civilized countries as long as the world
reads history.



Britain's Peril of Strikes and Drink

By David Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer.


     The gravity of labor disputes in the present time of national
     danger was dealt with by Mr. Lloyd George in a speech to his
     constituents at Bangor on Feb. 28, 1915, special reference
     being made to the Clyde strike. He declared that compulsory
     arbitration in war time was imperative, as it was "intolerable
     that the lives of Britons should be imperiled for a matter of
     a farthing an hour." This was essentially an engineers' war,
     for equipment was even more needed than men. Mr. Lloyd George
     went on to comment on the adverse effect of drinking upon
     production, and added: "We have great powers to deal with
     drink, and we shall use them."

I have promised for some time to address a meeting at Bangor. I have
been unable to do so because Ministers of the Crown have been working
time and overtime, and I am sorry to say that we are not even able to
make the best of the day of rest, the urgency is so great, the pressure
is so severe. I had something to say today, otherwise I should not have
been here, and I had something to say that required stating at once.
This is the only day I had to spare. It is no fault of mine. It is
because we are entirely absorbed in the terrible task which has been
cast upon our shoulders. I happened to have met on Friday morning,
before I decided to come down here, one of the most eminent Scottish
divines, a great and old friend of mine, Dr. Whyte of Edinburgh. We were
discussing what I have got to say today. I remarked to him, "I have only
one day on which to say it, and as that is Sunday afternoon I am very
much afraid my constituents won't listen to me." He replied, "If they
won't have you, come to Scotland, and we will give you the best Sunday
afternoon meeting you ever had." But I thought I would try Wales first.
[Cheers.] He told me that in the Shorter Catechism you are allowed to do
works of charity and necessity, and those who tell me that this is not
work of necessity do not know the need, the dire need, of their country
at this hour. At this moment there are Welshmen in the trenches of
France facing cannon and death; the hammering of forges today is
ringing down the church bells from one end of Europe to the other. When
I know these things are going on now on Sunday as well as the week days
I am not the hypocrite to say, "I will save my own soul by not talking
about them on Sundays." [Cheers.]

Do we understand the necessity? Do we realize it? Belgium, once
comfortably well-to-do, is now waste and weeping, and her children are
living on the bread of charity sent them by neighbors far and near. And
France--the German Army, like a wild beast, has fastened its claws deep
into her soil, and every effort to drag them out rends and tears the
living flesh of that beautiful land. The beast of prey has not leaped to
our shores--not a hair of Britain's head has been touched by him. Why?
Because of the vigilant watchdog that patrols the deep for us; and that
is my complaint against the British Navy. It does not enable us to
realize that Britain at the present moment is waging the most serious
war it has ever been engaged in. We do not understand it. A few weeks
ago I visited France. We had a conference of the Ministers of Finance of
Russia, France, Great Britain, and Belgium. Paris is a changed city. Her
gayety, her vivacity, is gone. You can see in the faces of every man
there, and of every woman, that they know their country is in the grip
of grim tragedy. They are resolved to overcome it, confident that they
will overcome it, but only through a long agony.

No visitor to our shores would realize that we are engaged in exactly
the same conflict, and that on the stricken fields of the Continent and
along the broads and the narrows of the seas that encircle our islands
is now being determined, not merely the fate of the British Empire, but
the destiny of the human race for generations to come. [Cheers.] We are
conducting a war as if there was no war. I have never been doubtful
about the result of the war, [cheers,] and I will give you my reasons by
and by. Nor have I been doubtful, I am sorry to say, about the length of
the war and its seriousness. In all wars nations are apt to minimize
their dangers and the duration. Men, after all, see the power of their
own country; they cannot visualize the power of the enemy. I have been
accounted as a pessimist among my friends in thinking the war would not
be over before Christmas. I have always been convinced that the result
is inevitably a triumph for this country. I have also been convinced
that that result will not be secured without a prolonged struggle. I
will tell you why. I shall do so not in order to indulge in vain and
idle surmises as to the duration of the war, but in order to bring home
to my countrymen what they are confronted with, so as to insure that
they will leave nothing which is at their command undone in order, not
merely to secure a triumph, but to secure it at the speediest possible
moment. It is in their power to do so. It is also in their power, by
neglect, by sloth, by heedlessness, to prolong their country's agony,
and maybe to endanger at least the completeness of its triumphs. This is
what I have come to talk to you about this afternoon, for it is a work
of urgent necessity in the cause of human freedom, and I make no apology
for discussing on a Sunday the best means of insuring human liberty.
[Cheers.]

I will give you first of all my reasons for coming to the conclusion
that after this struggle victory must wait on our banners if we properly
utilize our resources and opportunities. The natural resources of the
allied countries are overwhelmingly greater than those of their enemies.
In the man capable of bearing arms, in the financial and economic
resources of these countries, in their accessibility to the markets of
the world through the command of the sea for the purpose of obtaining
material and munitions--all these are preponderatingly in favor of the
allied countries. But there is a greater reason than all these. Beyond
all is the moral strength of our cause, and that counts in a struggle
which involves sacrifices, suffering, and privation for all those
engaged in it. A nation cannot endure to the end that has on its soul
the crimes of Belgium. [Loud cheers.] The allied powers have at their
disposal more than twice the number of men which their enemies can
command. You may ask me why are not those overwhelming forces put into
the field at once and this terrible war brought to a triumphant
conclusion at the earliest possible moment. In the answer to that
question lies the cause of the war. The reason why Germany declared war
is in the answer to that question.

In the old days when a nation's liberty was menaced by an aggressor a
man took from the chimney corner his bow and arrow or his spear, or a
sword which had been left to him by an ancestry of warriors, went to the
gathering ground of his tribe, and the nation was fully equipped for
war. That is not the case now. Now you fight with complicated, highly
finished weapons, apart altogether from the huge artillery. Every rifle
which a man handles is a complicated and ingenious piece of mechanism,
and it takes time. The German arsenals were full of the machinery of
horror and destruction. The Russian arsenals were not, and that is the
reason for the war. Had Russia projected war, she also would have filled
her arsenals, but she desired above everything peace. ["Hear, hear!"] I
am not sure that Russia has ever been responsible for a war of
aggression against any of her European neighbors. Certainly this is not
one of them. She wanted peace, she needed peace, she meant peace, and
she would have had peace had she been left alone. She was at the
beginning of a great industrial development, and she wanted peace in
order to bring it to its full fructification. She had repeatedly stood
insolences at the hands of Germany up to the point of humiliation, all
for peace, and anything for peace.

Whatever any one may say about her internal Government, Russia was
essentially a peaceable nation. The men at the head of her affairs were
imbued with the spirit of peace. The head of her army, the Grand Duke
Nicholas, [cheers,] is about the best friend of peace in Europe. Never
was a nation so bent on preserving peace as Russia was. It is true
Germany six or seven years ago had threatened to march her legions
across the Vistula and trample down Russia in the mud, and Russia,
fearing a repetition of the same threat, was putting herself in a
position of defense. But she was not preparing for any aggression, and
Germany said, "This won't do. We don't like people who can defend
themselves. We are fully prepared. Russia is not. This is the time to
plant our dagger of tempered steel in her heart before her breastplates
are forged." That is why we are at war. [Cheers.] Germany hurried her
preparations, made ready for war. She made a quarrel with the same cool
calculation as she had made a new gun. She hurled her warriors across
the frontier. Why? Because she wanted to attack somebody, a country that
could not defend herself. It was the purest piece of brigandage in
history. [Cheers.] All the same there remains the fact that Russia was
taken at a disadvantage, and is, therefore, unable to utilize beyond a
fraction the enormous resources which she possesses to protect her soil
against the invader. France was not expecting war, and she, therefore,
was taken unawares.

What about Britain? We never contemplated any war of aggression against
any of our neighbors, and therefore we never raised an army adequate to
such sinister purposes. During the last thirty years the two great
political parties in the State have been responsible for the policy of
this country at home and abroad. For about the same period we have each
been governing this country. For about fifteen years neither one party
nor the other ever proposed to raise an army in this country that would
enable us to confront on land a great Continental power. What does that
mean? We never meant to invade any Continental country. [Cheers.] That
is the proof of it. If we had we would have started our great armies
years ago. We had a great navy, purely for protection, purely for the
defense of our shores, and we had an army which was just enough to deal
with any small raid that happened to get through the meshes of our navy,
and perhaps to police the empire. That was all, no more. But now we have
to assist neighbors becoming the victims of a power with millions of
warriors at its command, and we have to improvise a great army, and
gallantly have our men flocked to the standard. [Cheers.] We have raised
the largest voluntary army that has been enrolled in any country or any
century--the largest voluntary army, and it is going to be larger.
[Cheers.]

I saw a very fine sample of that army this morning at Llandudno. I
attended a service there, and I think it was about the most thrilling
religious service I have ever been privileged to attend. There were men
there of every class, every position, every calling, every condition of
life. The peasant had left his plow, the workman had left his lathe and
his loom, the clerk had left his desk, the trader and the business man
had left their counting houses, the shepherd had left his sunlit hills,
and the miner the darkness of the earth, the rich proprietor had left
his palace, and the man earning his daily bread had quitted his humble
cottage. There were men there of diverse and varied faiths who
worshipped at different shrines--men who were in array against each
other months ago in bitter conflict, and I saw them march with one step
under one flag to fight for the same cause, and I saw them worship the
same God. What has brought them together? The love of their native land,
resentment for a cruel wrong inflicted upon the weak and defenseless.
More than that, what brought them together was that instinct which comes
to humanity at critical times when the moment has arrived to cross
rivers of blood in order to rescue humanity from the grip of some
strangling despotism. [Cheers.] They have done nobly. That is what has
brought them together, but we want more, [cheers,] and I have no doubt
we will get more.

If this country had produced an army which was equal in proportion to
its population to the number of men under arms in France and in Germany
at the present moment there would be three millions and a half in this
country and 1,200,000 in the Colonies. [Cheers.] That is what I mean
when I say our resources are quite adequate to the task. It is not our
fight merely--it is the fight of humanity. [Cheers.] The allied
countries between them could raise armies of over twenty millions of
men. Our enemies can put in the field barely half that number.

Much as I should like to talk about the need for more men, that is not
the point of my special appeal today. We stand more in need of equipment
than we do of men. This is an engineers' war, [cheers,] and it will be
won or lost owing to the efforts or shortcomings of engineers. I have
something to say about that, for it involves sacrifices for all of us.
Unless we are able to equip our armies our predominance in men will
avail us nothing. We need men, but we need arms more than men, and delay
in producing them is full of peril for this country. You may say that I
am saying things that ought to be kept from the enemy. I am not a
believer in giving any information which is useful to him. You may
depend on it he knows, but I do not believe in withholding from our own
public information which they ought to possess, because unless you tell
them you cannot invite their co-operation. The nation that cannot bear
the truth is not fit for war, and may our young men be volunteers, while
the unflinching pride of those they have left behind them in their deed
of sacrifice ought to satisfy the most apprehensive that we are not a
timid race, who cannot face unpleasant facts! The last thing in the
world John Bull wants is to be mollycoddled. The people must be told
exactly what the position is, and then we can ask them to help. We must
appeal for the co-operation of employers, workmen, and the general
public; the three must act and endure together, or we delay and maybe
imperil victory. We ought to requisition the aid of every man who can
handle metal. It means that the needs of the community in many respects
will suffer acutely vexatious, and perhaps injurious, delay; but I feel
sure that the public are prepared to put up with all this discomfort,
loss, and privation if thereby their country marches triumphantly out of
this great struggle. [Cheers.] We have every reason for confidence; we
have none for complacency. Hope is the mainspring of efficiency;
complacency is its rust.

We laugh at things in Germany that ought to terrify us. We say, "Look at
the way they are making their bread--out of potatoes, ha, ha!" Aye, that
potato-bread spirit is something which is more to dread than to mock at.
I fear that more than I do even von Hindenburg's strategy, efficient as
it may be. That is the spirit in which a country should meet a great
emergency, and instead of mocking at it we ought to emulate it. I
believe we are just as imbued with the spirit as Germany is, but we want
it evoked. [Cheers.] The average Briton is too shy to be a hero until he
is asked. The British temper is one of never wasting heroism on needless
display, but there is plenty of it for the need. There is nothing
Britishers would not give up for the honor of their country or for the
cause of freedom. Indulgences, comforts, even the necessities of life
they would willingly surrender. Why, there are two millions of them at
this hour who have willingly tendered their lives for their country.
What more could they do? If the absorption of all our engineering
resources is demanded, no British citizen will grudge his share of
inconvenience.

But what about those more immediately concerned in that kind of work?
Here I am approaching something which is very difficult to talk
about--I mean the employers and workmen. I must speak out quite plainly;
nothing else is of the slightest use. For one reason or another we are
not getting all the assistance we have the right to expect from our
workers. Disputes, industrial disputes, are inevitable; and when you
have a good deal of stress and strain, men's nerves are not at their
best. I think I can say I always preserve my temper in these days--I
hope my wife won't give me away--[laughter]--and I have no doubt that
the spirit of unrest creeps into the relations between employer and
workmen. Some differences of opinion are quite inevitable, but we cannot
afford them now; and, above all, we cannot resort to the usual method of
settling them.

I suppose I have settled more labor disputes than any man in this hall,
and, although those who only know me slightly may be surprised to hear
me say it, the thing that you need most is patience. If I were to give a
motto to a man who is going to a conference between employers and
workmen I would say: "Take your time; don't hurry. It will come around
with patience and tact and temper." But you know we cannot afford those
leisurely methods now. Time is victory, [cheers,] and while employers
and workmen on the Clyde have been spending time in disputing over a
fraction, and when a week-end, ten days, and a fortnight of work which
is absolutely necessary for the defense of the country has been set
aside, I say here solemnly that it is intolerable that the life of
Britain should be imperiled for the matter of a farthing an hour.

Who is to blame? That is not the question, but--How it is to be stopped?
Employers will say, "Are we always to give way?" Workmen say, "Employers
are making their fortunes out of an emergency of the country; why are
not we to have a share of the plunder?" ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.]
There is one gentleman here who holds that view. [Laughter.] I hope he
is not an engineer. [Renewed laughter.] "We work harder than ever," say
the workmen. All I can say is, if they do they are entitled to their
share. But that is not the point--who is right? Who is wrong? They are
both right and they are both wrong. The whole point is that these
questions ought to be settled without throwing away the chances of
humanity in its greatest struggle. [Cheers.] There is a good deal to be
said for and there is a vast amount to be said against compulsory
arbitration, but during the war the Government ought to have power to
settle all these differences, and the work should go on. The workman
ought to get more. Very well, let the Government find it out and give it
to him. If he ought not, then he ought not to throw up his tools. The
country cannot afford it. It is disaster, and I do not believe the
moment this comes home to workmen and employers they will refuse to
comply with the urgent demand of the Government. There must be no delay.

There is another aspect of the question which it is difficult and
dangerous to tackle. There are all sorts of regulations for restricting
output. I will say nothing about the merits of this question. There are
reasons why they have been built up. The conditions of employment and
payment are mostly to blame for those restrictions. The workmen had to
fight for them for their own protection, but in a period of war there is
a suspension of ordinary law. Output is everything in this war.

This war is not going to be fought mainly on the battlefields of Belgium
and Poland. It is going to be fought in the workshops of France and
Great Britain; and it must be fought there under war conditions. There
must be plenty of safeguards and the workman must get his equivalent,
but I do hope he will help us to get as much out of those workshops as
he can, for the life of the nation depends on it. Our enemies realize
that, and employers and workmen in Germany are straining their utmost.
France, fortunately, also realizes it, and in that land of free
institutions, with a Socialist Prime Minister, a Socialist Secretary of
State for War, and a Socialist Minister of Marine, the employers and
workmen are subordinating everything to the protection of their
beautiful land.

I have something more to say about this, and it is unpleasant. I would
wish that it were not I, but somebody else that should say it. Most of
our workmen are putting every ounce of strength into this urgent work
for their country, loyally and patriotically. But that is not true of
all. There are some, I am sorry to say, who shirk their duty in this
great emergency. I hear of workmen in armaments works who refuse to work
a full week's work for the nation's need. What is the reason? They are a
minority. The vast majority belong to a class we can depend upon. The
others are a minority. But, you must remember, a small minority of
workmen can throw a whole works out of gear. What is the reason?
Sometimes it is one thing, sometimes it is another, but let us be
perfectly candid. It is mostly the lure of the drink. They refuse to
work full time, and when they return their strength and efficiency are
impaired by the way in which they have spent their leisure. Drink is
doing us more damage in the war than all the German submarines put
together.

What has Russia done? [Cheers.] Russia, knowing her deficiency, knowing
how unprepared she was, said, "I must pull myself together. I am not
going to be trampled upon, unready as I am. I will use all my
resources." What is the first thing she does? She stops the drink.
[Cheers.] I was talking to M. Bark, the Russian Minister of Finance, a
singularly able man, and I asked, "What has been the result?" He said,
"The productivity of labor, the amount of work which is put out by the
workmen, has gone up between 30 and 50 per cent." [Cheers.] I said, "How
do they stand it without their liquor?" and he replied, "Stand it? I
have lost revenue over it up to £65,000,000 a year, and we certainly
cannot afford it, but if I proposed to put it back there would be a
revolution in Russia." That is what the Minister of Finance told me. He
told me that it is entirely attributable to the act of the Czar himself.
It was a bold and courageous step--one of the most heroic things in the
war. [Cheers.] One afternoon we had to postpone our conference in Paris,
and the French Minister of Finance said, "I have got to go to the
Chamber of Deputies, because I am proposing a bill to abolish absinthe."
[Cheers.] Absinthe plays the same part in France that whisky plays in
this country. It is really the worst form of drink used; not only among
workmen, but among other classes as well. Its ravages are terrible, and
they abolished it by a majority of something like 10 to 1 that
afternoon. [Cheers.]

That is how those great countries are facing their responsibilities. We
do not propose anything so drastic as that--we are essentially moderate
men. [Laughter.] But we are armed with full powers for the defense of
the realm. We are approaching it, I do not mind telling you, for the
moment, not from the point of view of people who have been considering
this as a social problem--we are approaching it purely from the point of
view of these works. We have got great powers to deal with drink, and we
mean to use them. [Cheers.] We shall use them in a spirit of moderation,
we shall use them discreetly, we shall use them wisely, but we shall use
them fearlessly, [cheers,] and I have no doubt that, as the country's
needs demand it, the country will support our action and will allow no
indulgence of that kind to interfere with its prospects in this terrible
war which has been thrust upon us.

There are three things I want you to bear in mind. The first is--and I
want to get this into the minds of every one--that we are at war; the
second, that it is the greatest war that has ever been fought by this or
any other country, and the other, that the destinies of your country and
the future of the human race for generations to come depend upon the
outcome of this war. What does it mean were Germany to win? It means
world power for the worst elements in Germany, not for Germany. The
Germans are an intelligent race; they are undoubtedly a cultivated race;
they are a race of men who have been responsible for great ideas in this
world. But this would mean the dominance of the worst elements among
them. If you think I am exaggerating just you read for the moment
extracts from the articles in the newspapers which are in the ascendency
now in Germany about the settlement which they expect after this war. I
am sorry to say I am stating nothing but the bare, brutal truth. I do
not say that the Kaiser will sit on the throne of England if he should
win. I do not say that he will impose his laws and his language on this
country as did William the Conqueror. I do not say that you will hear
the tramp, the noisy tramp of the goose step in the cities of the
Empire. [Laughter.] I do not say that Death's Head Hussars will be
patrolling our highways. I do not say that a visitor, let us say, to
Aberdaron, will have to ask a Pomeranian policeman the best way to
Hell's Mouth. [Loud laughter.] That is not what I mean. What I mean is
that if Germany were triumphant in this war it would practically be the
dictator of the international policy of the world. Its spirit would be
in the ascendant. Its doctrines would be in the ascendant; by the sheer
power of its will it would bend the minds of men in its own fashion.
Germanism in its later and worst form would be the inspiriting thought
and philosophy of the hour.

Do you remember what happened to France after 1870? The German armies
left France, but all the same for years after that, and while France was
building up her army, she stood in cowering terror of this monster. Even
after her great army was built France was oppressed with a constant
anxiety as to what might happen. Germany dismissed her Ministers. Had it
not been for the intervention of Queen Victoria in 1874 the French Army
would never have been allowed to be reconstructed, and France would
simply have been the humble slave of Germany to this hour. What a
condition for a country! And now France is fighting not so much to
recover her lost provinces, she is fighting to recover her self-respect
and her national independence; she is fighting to shake off this
nightmare that has been on her soul for over a generation, [cheers,] a
France with Germany constantly meddling, bullying, and interfering. And
that is what would happen if Russia were trampled upon, France broken,
Britain disarmed. We should be left without any means to defend
ourselves. We might have a navy that would enable us, perhaps, to resent
insult from Nicaragua, [laughter,] we might have just enough troops,
perhaps, to confront the Mad Mullah--I mean the African specimen. [Loud
laughter.]

Where would the chivalrous country be to step in to protect us as we
protected France in 1874? America? If countries like Russia and France,
with their huge armies, and the most powerful navy in the world could
not face this terrible military machine, if it breaks that combination,
how can America step in? It would be more than America can do to defend
her own interests on her own continent if Germany is triumphant. They
are more unready than we were. Ah! but what manner of Germany would we
be subordinate to? There has been a struggle going on in Germany for
over thirty years between its best and its worst elements. It is like
that great struggle which is depicted, I think, in one of Wagner's great
operas between the good and the evil spirit for the possession of the
man's soul. That great struggle has been going on in Germany for thirty
or forty years. At each successive general election the better elements
seemed to be getting the upper hand, and I do not mind saying I was one
of those who believed they were going to win. I thought they were going
to snatch the soul of Germany--it is worth saving, it is a great,
powerful soul--I thought they were going to save it. So a dead military
caste said, "We will have none of this," and they plunged Europe into
seas of blood. Hope was again shattered. Those worst elements will
emerge triumphant out of this war if Germany wins.

What does that mean? We shall be vassals, not to the best Germany, not
to the Germany of sweet songs and inspiring, noble thoughts--not to the
Germany of science consecrated to the service of man, not to the Germany
of a virile philosophy that helped to break the shackles of
superstition in Europe--not to that Germany, but to a Germany that
talked through the raucous voice of Krupp's artillery, a Germany that
has harnessed science to the chariot of destruction and of death, the
Germany of a philosophy of force, violence, and brutality, a Germany
that would quench every spark of freedom either in its own land or in
any other country in rivers of blood. I make no apology on a day
consecrated to the greatest sacrifice for coming here to preach a holy
war against that. [Great cheering.]

Concluding this speech in Welsh, Mr. Lloyd George said: "War is a time
of sacrifice and of service. Some can render one service, some another,
some here and some there. Some can render great assistance, others but
little. There is not one who cannot help in some measure, whether it be
only by enduring cheerfully his share of the discomfort. In the old
Welsh legend there is a story of a man who was given a series of what
appeared to be impossible tasks to perform ere he could reach the
desires of his heart. Among other things he had to do was to recover
every grain of seed that had been sown in a large field and bring it all
in without one missing by sunset. He came to an anthill and won all the
hearts and enlisted the sympathies of the industrious little people.
They spread over the field, and before sundown the seed was all in
except one, and as the sun was setting over the western skies a lame ant
hobbled along with that grain also. Some of us have youth and vigor and
suppleness of limb; some of us are crippled with years or infirmities,
and we are at best but little ants. But we can all limp along with some
share of our country's burden, and thus help her in this terrible hour
to win the desire of her heart." [Loud cheers.]

Mr. Lloyd George and his party returned after the meeting to Llandudno,
where today he will inspect the First Brigade of the Welsh Army Corps.


BRITAIN'S MUNITIONS COMMITTEE

_LONDON, April 14.--The Times says this morning:_

An important step has at last been taken by the Government toward the
solution of the supreme problem of the moment--the organization of the
national output of munitions of war. A strong committee has been
appointed, with full power to deal with the question. It is to be
representative of not merely one department but of the Treasury,
Admiralty, War Office, and Board of Trade; in short, of the whole
Government, with all its resources and authority.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer is to be Chairman, and the first meeting
will be held today.

The work before the committee is nothing less than the organization of
the whole resources of the nation for the production of materials of
war. Hitherto, in spite of many warnings and some half-hearted attempts
at organization, there has been no central, co-ordinated authority.

It is an open secret that it was during Lloyd George's visit to France
at the beginning of the year that he first appreciated the scientific
organization of labor which our Allies had already achieved. Not content
with utilizing and extending the existing armament plant, the French
have long since diverted several temporarily irrelevant industries to
the main business of waging war.

_With reference to the drink problem The Times says:_

While the Government is apparently considering the expropriation of all
the licensed houses in the kingdom, this far-reaching proposal has not
at present gone beyond the stage of inquiry and consultation, and it is
tolerably certain that it will go no farther unless it is assured of no
serious opposition in the country.

The Parliamentary Opposition, the leaders of which have been consulted
in a general way, are believed to stand by the principle which they
followed since the war began, namely: They are not prepared to quarrel
with any measure which the Government regards as necessary for the
active prosecution of the war so long as no injustice is done to
established interests.



Italy's Evolution as Reflected in Her Press


     Italy has reached her present position through the development
     of a policy the steps of which have been brightly illuminated
     by the press of the Peninsula. The most important of these
     steps may be designated as follows:

     First, the declaration of the Government to the German
     Ambassador at Rome on Aug. 1, 1914, that it did not regard the
     conflict begun by Austria-Hungary and Germany as a defensive
     war and hence not binding on it as a member of the Triple
     Alliance, and its subsequent declarations of "neutrality," of
     "armed neutrality," and of "a neutrality which is likely to be
     broken if the interests of the country demanded it."

     Second, Premier Salandra's speech of Dec. 3 for "armed, alert
     neutrality," and the declaration in Parliament on Dec. 5 by
     Signor Giolitti showing that the declaration of Aug. 1 was
     merely a repetition of one conveyed to Austria in the Summer
     of 1913, when Austria had suggested that she aid Bulgaria in
     subduing Serbia.

     Third, the arrival in Rome in December of the former German
     Imperial Chancellor, Prince von Bülow, as Extraordinary
     Ambassador to the Quirinal, for the purpose of keeping Italy
     neutral, and, when this seemed doubtful, to negotiate between
     Italy and Austria what territorial compensation the latter
     would render the former in order to perpetuate the neutrality
     of the Peninsula.

     Aside from the influence of these official acts, which invited
     press comments, the Italian papers have paid keen attention to
     the conduct of the war, concerning which the Government could
     not, on account of its neutrality, offer an opinion. Among
     such incidents of conduct have been the British declaration of
     a protectorate over Egypt and the bombardment of the
     Dardanelles by the Franco-British fleet.

     In order to weigh the full significance of the comments of the
     Italian papers on these subjects a word may be said concerning
     the status of the journals themselves:

     The most conspicuous is the Idea Nazionale, a paper of Rome
     practically dedicated to intervention. Then comes the
     conservative and solid Corriere della Sera of Milan, whose
     Rome correspondent, Signor Torre, has peculiar facilities for
     learning the intentions of the Ministry. Both the Tribuna and
     the Giornale d'Italia are considered Government organs, but,
     while the former rarely comments with authority except on
     accomplished facts, the latter, although often voicing the
     unofficial and personal opinions of Premier Salandra, who is
     known to be privately in favor of intervention, also voices
     the sentiment of former Premier Giolitti, who is known to be
     for continued neutrality. The Stampa of Turin is a Giolitti
     organ.

     The Osservatore Romano is the well-known Vatican organ, which
     naturally supports Austria, a Catholic country, where such
     support does not conflict too pointedly with the sentiments of
     Catholics in neutral countries. Other clerical papers with
     strong pro-German opinions and with German industrial backing
     are the Corriere d'Italia and the Popolo Romano. The
     Messaggero of Rome and the Secolo of Milan, influenced by
     important British and French interests, are for intervention
     at all costs. The Avanti is the Socialist organ.


CAUSES OF ITALY'S NEUTRALITY.

_From the Corriere della Sera, Aug. 2, 1914:_

Italy's decision to remain neutral is based on three causes:

1. The terms of the Triple Alliance call for Italy's participation in
war only if Germany or Austria-Hungary is attacked by another power. The
present war is not a defensive war, but one brought on by
Austria-Hungary and Germany.

2. The spirit of the alliance demands that no warlike action be taken
involving the three countries without full mutual discussion and
agreement. Italy was not even consulted by Austria-Hungary and the
course of events was brought to her knowledge only by news agency
reports.

3. When Italy went to war with Turkey, Austria prevented her from acting
with a free hand in the Adriatic and the Aegean, thereby prolonging the
war at an enormous cost in men and money to Italy. Italy would be
justified in acting in precisely the same manner now toward
Austria-Hungary.

_From Secolo, Sept. 3, 1914:_

During the last few days we have assisted at a deplorable example of our
Latin impressionability. The first German victories have made Italians
waver, and Germany is taking advantage of the popular nervousness, and
is working on public opinion in countless ways. Italy is invaded by
Germans, who assert that Germany will issue victorious, and that her
commercial and industrial activity will not be arrested. We are
inundated with German letters, telegrams, newspapers, and private
communications from German commercial houses, all asserting that Germany
will win, and that Italy should keep neutral, to be on the winning side.

We are not of that opinion. We cannot lose sight of England. Germany
knows that England represents her great final danger, hence the
bitterness with which she speaks of England in all the above
communications. England is not playing a game of bluff. She is not
impotent by land, as Germany says, and may give Germany a mortal blow by
sea. The war may possibly end in a titanic duel between England and
Germany. In this case England will go through with the struggle calmly
and grimly, smiling at difficulties and disregarding losses.

_From the Corriere d'Italia, Sept. 17, 1914:_

We do not know what Italy will do tomorrow, but we are of opinion that,
in face of all eventualities, it is the elementary duty of patriotism
not to trouble the calm expectancy of public opinion and not to mar the
task of the Government, already difficult enough.

_From the Messaggero, Sept. 18, 1914:_

The Italian Nation is beginning to ask itself whether it ought to remain
until the conclusion of peace in an attitude of resignation. It is
necessary for us with clear vision to take our place in the fighting
line. While the destinies of a new Europe are being decided on the
battlefields of Champagne, Belgium, Galicia, and Hungary the Government
is assuming a grave responsibility before the country in deciding to be
disinterested in the struggle. The keen popular awakening which is
manifested in demonstrations, meetings, and public discussions shows
that growing preoccupation and varied uneasiness will not cease so long
as the fate of the country is not decided at the right time by men who
by temperament are best fitted to be interpreters of the soul and the
interests of the nation.

_From the Corriere della Sera, Oct. 4, 1914:_

Many who now invoke a war of liberation complained at the beginning of
August that Italy had not helped her allies. The declaration of
neutrality then seemed the greatest act of wisdom performed by Italy for
many years. Now, however, we must think of the future. Let us remember
that the powers will only support our wishes when they have need of us.
Gratitude and sympathy are mere phrases when the map of Europe is being
redrawn. If Italy desire to safeguard her interests in the Adriatic she
cannot postpone her decision till the last moment. Italy is isolated;
the Triple Alliance treaty cannot defend her even if it be still in
force. Italy and Austria, as Count Nigra and Prince Bülow said, must be
allies or enemies. Can they remain allies after what has happened?


ITALY'S ARMED, ALERT NEUTRALITY.

_From the Idea Nazionale, Dec. 3, 1914:_

The day on which Italy will undertake to realize those aspirations she
will find full and unconditional support. Great Britain is favorable to
Italy gaining supremacy in the Adriatic, which is so necessary to her
existence. If Great Britain needs Italy's support in Africa it will be
only a matter of one or two army corps, and such an expedition, while
having a great moral and political importance, would not diminish
Italian military power in Europe.

_From the Avanti, Dec. 4, 1914:_

Premier Salandra's speech was Jesuitical. It contents the Jingoes by
certain dubious phrases, while discontenting the Clerical and
Conservative neutrals.

_From the Corriere d'Italia, Dec. 4, 1914:_

This much-applauded word, "aspirations," was not (in Signor Salandra's
speech) meant to refer to any particular belligerent, and the Cabinet
consequently has no program.

_From the Stampa, Dec. 5, 1914:_

Austria, before the war, disclaimed any intention of occupying Serbia,
and her declaration cannot be disregarded by Italy, whose relations with
Austria have been always conditional on the maintenance of the Balkan
status quo, which Austria now threatens to alter. The Italian Government
cannot ignore this condition, especially as during the Libyan war
Austria menaced Italy, unless she desisted from bombarding the Albanian
coast. Thus the Serbian situation may constitute a new factor.

_From the Corriere della Sera, Jan. 31, 1915:_

Italy's true policy is to come to a friendly agreement with the Slavs,
which will guarantee their mutual interests. Italy wants a national
settlement in the Balkan Peninsula, independent of the great powers. In
no circumstances can Italy bind her lot to Austria-Hungary's policy.


BRITISH PROTECTORATE OVER EGYPT.

_From the Idea Nazionale, Dec. 19, 1914:_

The British Government's act merely sanctions a situation already
existing in fact since 1882. In our governing circle it is not thought
that the change of régime in Egypt will occasion, at least for the time
being, any great modifications in public law in relation to the
international statutes regulating the position of foreigners in Egypt.

_From the Tribuna, Dec. 20, 1914:_

The Mediterranean agreement, in which Italy, too, has taken part,
implicitly recognized the actual status England had acquired in Egypt.
Now the war has demonstrated the judicial incongruity of a Turkish
province in which and for which the English had to carry out warlike
operations against Turkey. The protectorate already existed in
substance, and Great Britain might now even have proclaimed annexation.

_From the Giornale d'Italia, Dec. 19, 1914:_

Great Britain had for some months been preparing this event, which
legally regulates a situation which has existed in fact. The present
situation has been brought about without any disturbance, like
everything that England does, in silence, neatly and without disturbing
any one. Nobody can be astonished at Great Britain's declaration of a
protectorate over Egypt.


THE DARDANELLES.

_From the Giornale d'Italia, March 7, 1915:_

It will be extremely difficult for Italy longer to remain neutral. The
attack by the allied fleet on the Dardanelles has brought up three great
problems affecting Italian interests. The first of these problems is the
new rule to allow Russia access to the Mediterranean through the
Dardanelles; the second concerns the equilibrium of the Balkans, and the
third the partition of Asiatic Turkey, which affects the equilibrium of
the Eastern Mediterranean. It is impossible for Italy to keep out of the
solution of such problems unless she be satisfied to see not only the
powers of the Triple Entente settle these affairs according to their
interests, but also the small but audacious and resolute nation, Greece.

_From the Messaggero, March 17, 1915:_

The cession of the Trentino would be valueless if it implied the
abandonment of Italian aspirations in Venetia Giulia, (land west of the
Julian Alps,) in the Adriatic, and in Asia Minor, and submission to
German policy. We cannot obtain by neutrality the territory we want,
nor, if we renew the Triple Alliance, can we make an agreement with
Great Britain for our security in the Mediterranean.


VON BUELOW'S WORK AND PLEA FOR INTERVENTION.

_From the Corriere della Sera, Feb. 8, 1915:_

Happily our aspirations in the Adriatic, our interests in the Central
Mediterranean and in Northern Africa coincide admirably with the policy
which it is easiest for us to pursue. Unless we profit with the utmost
prudence, with the greatest circumspection, by the present rare
opportunity which history offers us to set the finishing touches to our
unification, to render our land and sea frontiers immeasurably more
secure than they are, to harmonize our foreign with our domestic policy,
we shall experience after the close of the war the darkest and most
difficult days of our existence. The crisis through which we are passing
is the gravest we have yet encountered. Let us make it a crisis of
growth, not a symptom of irreparable senile decay.

_From the Stampa, March 15, 1915:_

There is surely no possibility of an Austro-Italian war without German
intervention. If Italy attacks Austria, Germany will attack Italy; nor
will Austria make concessions, for Austria, like Turkey, never changes
her system, even when wrong.

_From the Giornale d'Italia, March 19, 1915:_

Italy either can obtain peacefully immediate and certain satisfaction of
her sacred aspirations, together with the protection of her great and
complex interests, or she can have recourse to the supreme test of arms.
It is absurd to think that Italy, after seven months of preparation,
when she is in an especially advantageous diplomatic and military
position, will be satisfied with the Biblical mess of pottage or
less--mere promises.

However negotiations go the great national interests must be protected
at any costs. This is the firm will of the country and the duty of the
Government. For fifty years Italy has made great sacrifices to be an
element of peace in Europe. The equilibrium and peace of the Continent
were broken through the fault of others against Italy's desire and
without consulting her. Others have the responsibility for the present
terrible crisis, but Italy would be unworthy if she did not issue with
honor and advantage from the conflict. Greece, Rumania, and Bulgaria are
awaiting Italy's move and will follow suit. Thus Italian influence is
great at this moment, which must be seized, as it is in her power to
contribute to the formation of a new international combination.



SOME RUSES DE GUERRE.

By A.M. WAKEMAN.


(Respectfully submitted to the British Government.)

    Great Churchill's plan to fool the foe is simple and unique--
    You only take a neutral flag and hoist it at your peak.
    Thereby a ship with funnels four looks just like one with two,
    Because the pattern has been changed on her Red, White, and Blue.

    Now, cannot you improve on this, and so protect your towns,
    As well as all your gallant ships at anchor in the Downs?
    Old London, with the Stars and Stripes, might well pass for New York;
    And Baltimore for Maryland instead of County Cork.

    To mouth of Thames (N-O-R-E) just add four letters more,
    Then hoist the Danish ensign, and, behold, 'tis Elsinore!
    And Paris will be Washington if, on the Eiffel Tower,
    They raise the flag of U.S.A., (a well-known neutral power.)

    Your sailors might wear Leghorn hats, and out upon the blue,
    They'd look like sons of Italy, (at present neutral, too;)
    And, if upon your King the Hun would try to work some ill,
    With pickelhaube on his head he'd pass for Uncle Bill.



THE EUROPEAN WAR AS SEEN BY CARTOONISTS


[German Cartoon]

The Fatal Moment In America

[Illustration: _--From Simplicissimus, Munich._

"Citizens of America, protect your existence and your honor by the force
of arms!"

"Sorry, but just now we happen to be sold out!"]


[English Cartoon]

Top Dog

[Illustration: _--From The Bystander, London._]


[German Cartoon]

England's "Splendid Isolation"

[Illustration: _--From Simplicissimus, Munich._]


[English Cartoon]

The Sultan "Over the Water"

[Illustration: _--From Punch, London._

MEHMED V. (to Constantinople): "I don't want to leave you, but I think I
ought to go."]


[German Cartoon]

Churchill's Flag Swindle

[Illustration: _--From Simplicissimus, Munich._

"Really I don't care to go out any more in these disgraceful rags!"

"Cheer up, Mrs. Britannia, just steal something better!"]


[German Cartoon]

May God Punish England!

[Illustration: [Reproduction of a cover design of a widely advertised
issue of "Simplicissimus," the German comic weekly published in Munich.
The legend at the top reads, "May God Punish England!"]]


[Italian Cartoon]

Speeches of the Kaiser in 1915

[Illustration: _--From L'Asino, Rome._

JANUARY: "I alone will defeat the world."

MARCH: "Naturally, with God's help."

JUNE: "All goes badly--the fault is not mine."

DECEMBER: "The fault is his."]


[English Cartoon]

Our Embarrassing Cousin

[Illustration: _--From The Bystander, London._

JONATHAN: "In spite 'f my noo-trality, John, d'ye notice how
'ffectionate I am?--how I sympathise with yer?"

JOHN BULL: "M--m'yes, that's all right, but I should like it better just
now if you'd leave my hands a bit freer to fight those rascals as they
deserve!"]


[German Cartoon]

John Bull at the Costumer's

[Illustration: _--From Simplicissimus, Munich._

"What costume shall I choose so that none will recognize me?"

"Why don't you go as a gentleman?"]


[English Cartoon]

William o' the Wisp

[Illustration: _--From Punch, London._]


[German Cartoon]

American Neutrality

[Illustration: _--From Meggendorfer-Blaetter, Munich._]


[English Cartoon]

What the War Office Has to Put Up With

[Illustration: _--From Punch, London._

Demonstration of a device for catching bombs from airships.]


[German Cartoon]

Va Banque!

[Illustration: _--From Lustige Blaetter, Berlin._

The Monte Carlo habitue's last play.]


[Italian Cartoon]

The Final Earthquake--In Germany

[Illustration: _--From L'Asino, Rome._

By the grace of God and the will of the nation.

[The falling columns are marked "feudalism" and "militarism."]]


[German Cartoon]

From the English Eating-House

[Illustration: _--From Lustige Blaetter, Berlin._

England utilizes the refuse of her domestic establishment as cannon
fodder.]


[English Cartoon]

The Bread-Winner

[Illustration: _--From Punch, London._]


[Italian Cartoon]

Italy's Neutrality

[Illustration: _--From L'Asino, Rome._

Every day the dance becomes more difficult.

(The dancer is the German Ambassador, von Buelow.)]


[English Cartoon]

Busy Packing

[Illustration: _--From The Bystander, London._

SULTAN MEHMED: "'Am I there'?!! I should rather think I am!! We're being
'moved,' you know. And the hammering outside is something too awful!!"

His ISLAMIC MAJESTY HADJI GUILLIOUN: "Kismet, my boy, Kismet! Besides, I
feel sure you'll be awfully pleased with Asia Minor--so quiet!--we
Mussulmans always feel so at home there, too!"

(The English preface their telephone conversations with "Are you there?"
instead of "Hello!")]


[German Cartoon]

In the Cause of Culture

[Illustration: _--From Simplicissimus, Munich._

"Papa has gone away to Europe to protect the nice Englishmen from the
savages. If you are very good, perhaps he will bring you back a nice
German beefsteak."]


[English Cartoon]

Queen Elizabeth in the Dardanelles

[Illustration: _--From Punch, London._

(The reference is to the huge British dreadnought that bears the name of
England's famous queen.)]


[French Cartoon]

The "Sick Man" At Home

[Illustration: _--From Le Rire, Paris._

The camel with two humps.

(The original title was "_Le Chameau à deux Boches_." In French slang a
German is a _bosche_.)]


[German Cartoon]

"The Cripple-Entente"

[Illustration: _--From Lustige Blaetter, Berlin._

As it must finally be.]


[French Cartoon]

Beware of the John-Bull-Dog!

[Illustration: _--From Le Rire, Paris._

"Go lie down, contemptible little England!"

"What I get my teeth into I hang onto!"]


[German Cartoon]

The Great Question

[Illustration: _--From Lustige Blaetter, Berlin._

"If I remain neutral, will you remain neutral?"

"If you were neutral, would he be neutral?"

"If he is neutral then we will remain neutral."

"If we remain neutral, will they remain neutral?"

"And you also, neutral?"

"Shall you remain neutral?"]



Facsimile of a Belgian Bread-Check


[Illustration: The card is in French and Flemish. The face reads: "No.
6,715. Gratis. City of Brussels, Department of Public Supplies.
Committee No. 1. Street ----. Card issued to the family ----, living at
----, for the daily delivery of ---- portions. To be presented at
----Street. N.B.--Victuals will be delivered only to the father or
mother of a family." The reverse side bears stamps showing the dates on
which rations were issued to the holder. The original is somewhat larger
than this reproduction.]



TO A GERMAN APOLOGIST

By BEATRICE BARRY.


    You may seek and find if you will, perchance,
    Excuses for your attack on France,
    And perhaps 'twill not be so hard to show
    Why England finds you her deadly foe;
    There are reasons old and reasons new
    For feelings hard 'twixt the Russ and you,
    But talk as you may till the Judgment Day,
    You cannot ever explain away--
    Belgium.

    You have used both speech and the printed word
    To have your side of the story heard,
    We have listened long, we have listened well
    To everything that you had to tell,
    We would fain be fair, but it seems as though
    You _can't_ explain what we wish to know,
    And when lesser points have been cleared away,
    You are sure to fail us when we say--
    "Belgium!"

    You may rant and talk about British gold,
    And opinions that are bought and sold,
    But facts, no matter how hard to face,
    Are facts, and the horrors taking place
    In that little land, pledged to honor's creed,
    Make your cause a luckless one to plead.
    There are two sides? True. But when both are heard,
    Our sad hearts echo a single word--
    "Belgium!"

    We are not misled by the savage tales
    An invading army never fails
    To have told of it. There are false and true,
    And we want to render you your due.
    But our hearts go out to that ravished land
    Where a few grim heroes make their stand,
    And our ears hear faintly, from overseas,
    The wailing cry of those refugees--
    _"Belgium--Belgium--Belgium!"_



America's Neutrality

By Count Albert Apponyi

[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, March 28, 1915.]


     The letter which follows was sent by Count Albert Apponyi to
     Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, and was written in the latter part
     of last month in Budapest. Count Apponyi, who is one of the
     most distinguished of contemporary European statesmen, was
     President of the Hungarian Parliament from 1872 to 1904. He
     was formerly Minister of Public Instruction, Privy Councillor,
     Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, and
     Member of the Interparliamentary Union.

I have been greatly interested in your account of American neutrality
in the present European crisis. I must confess that I had seen it in a
somewhat different light before and that some of the facts under our
notice still appear to me as hardly concordant with the magnificent
attitude of impartiality, nay, not even with the international duties of
neutrality, which intellectual and official America professes to keep.

We cannot explain to ourselves that a neutral power should suffer the
selling of arms and ammunition by its citizens to one of the belligerent
parties, when no such selling to the other party is practically
feasible; we cannot understand why America should meekly submit to the
dictates of England, declaring all foodstuffs and manufacturing
materials contraband of war, with not even a show of right and with the
clear and openly proclaimed intention of starving Germany and
Austria-Hungary; why, on the other hand, America should use an almost
threatening language against Germany, and against Germany alone, when
the latter country announces reprisals against the English trade, which,
under given circumstances, can be considered only as acts of legitimate
self-defense against an enemy who chooses to wage war not on our
soldiers only, but on our women and children, too.

With all the respect we feel for the United States, we cannot find this
attitude of their Government either fair or dignified. I offer these
remarks in no spirit of uncalled-for criticism, but because I see how
much the moral authority of the United States and their splendid
situation as the providential peace makers of some future--alas! still
far off--day has been impaired by the aforementioned proceedings. We
cannot help considering them as so many acts of ill-disguised hostility
against ourselves and of compliance with our foes. How can you expect,
then, to have your good offices accepted with confidence by both
belligerent parties when the times are ripe for them? It seems like the
throwing away of a magnificent opportunity, and I think that those who,
like yourself, cherish for your country the noble ambition of being some
day the restorer of peace, should exert themselves to prevent practices
which, if continued, would disable her to play any such part.

In your letter you strike the keynote of what I cannot help considering
the partiality of Americans for the Entente powers. It is the idea that
"in the western area of conflict, at least, there is an armed clash
between the representatives of dynastic institutions and bureaucratic
rule on the one hand with those of representative government and liberal
institutions on the other." I can understand that it impresses some
people that way, but I beg to enter a protest against this
interpretation of the conflict.

Liberal or less liberal institutions have nothing to do with it in the
west; the progress of democracy in Germany will not be stopped by her
victory, it will rather be promoted by it, because the masses are
conscious of bearing the burden of war and of being the main force of
its vigorous prosecution, and they are enlightened and strong enough to
insist on a proper reward. Rights cannot be denied to those who
fulfilled duties involving self-sacrifice of the sublimest kind with
unflinching devotion. No practical interest of democracy then is
involved in the conflict of the western powers.

As to their representing liberal institutions in a higher or lower
degree, I am perfectly willing to admit England's superior claims in
that respect, but I am not at all inclined to recognize such superiority
in modern France, republic though she calls herself. The omnipresence
and omnipotence of an obtruding bureaucratic officialism is just what it
has been under the old monarchy; religious oppression has only changed
sides, but it still flourishes as before. In former times the Roman
Catholic religion was considered as a State religion and in her name
were dissent and Freemasonry oppressed; today atheism is the official
creed, and on its behalf are Catholic believers oppressed.

Separation of Church and State, honestly planned and loyally fulfilled
in America has been perverted in modern France into a network of
vexations and unfair measures against the Church and her faithful
servants; the same term is used and this misleads you to cover widely
different meanings. In a word, it is a perfect mistake to consider
modern France as the "sweet land of liberty" which America is. A German
citizen, with less show of political rights, enjoys more personal
freedom than is granted to a French one, if he happens to differ from
the ruling mentality.

So stand things in the western area of conflict. But how about the east?
You are kind enough to admit in your letter that "from this (the
aforementioned) standpoint of course the appearance of Russia among the
allies is an anomaly and must be explained on other grounds." Anomaly is
a rather tame word to characterize the meaning of this appearance of
Russia. I should hardly designate it by this term.

She does not "appear among the allies." She is the leading power among
them; it is her war, as Mr. Tsvolski, the Russian Ambassador to Paris,
very properly remarked: "C'est ma guerre." She planned it, she gave
Austria-Hungary no chance to live on peaceful terms with her neighbors,
she forced it upon us, she drew France into it by offering her a bait
which that poor country could not resist, she created the situation
which England considered as her best opportunity for crushing Germany. I
must repeat it over and over again: it is in its origin a Russian war,
with a clearly outlined Russian program of conquest.

Here, then, you have a real clash between two principles; not shades of
principles as these may subsist between Germany and her western foes,
but principles in all their essential features; not between different
tints of gray, but between black and white, between affirmation and
negation; affirmation of the principle of human dignity, liberty,
safety, and negation of the same; western evolution and eastern
reaction.

I wonder why those prominent Americans who are so deeply impressed by
the comparatively slight shades of liberalism differentiating Germany
from England and France are not struck by the absolute contrast existing
between Muscovitism and western civilized rule as represented by
Austria-Hungary and Germany; that they overlook the outstanding fact
that while in the western area the conflict has nothing whatever to do
with the principles embodied in the home policy of the belligerents, in
the east, on the other hand, these principles will in truth be affected
by the results of war, since a Russian victory, followed by a Russian
conquest, would mean the retrogression of western institutions and the
corresponding expansion of eastern ones over a large area and large
numbers of men.

It is the consciousness of fighting in this war which has been forced
upon us, against the direst calamity threatening our kind and on behalf
of the most precious conquests of progress and civilization, which
enhances our moral force so as to make it unconquerable. The hope which
I expressed in my first letter, that Serbia's doom would soon be
fulfilled, has been prostrated by the mistakes of an over-confident
Commander in Chief; but that means postponement only and does not alter
the prospects of war in their essentials.

Good progress is achieved in the campaign against Russia; a chapter of
it may be brought to a happy close before long. The spirit of the
country shows no symptom of weakening; it is really wonderful what a
firm resolve pervades our whole people, though every man between twenty
and forty-two stands in the field, and though the losses are frightful.
Economically we hold out easily; the expenses of war are defrayed by
inner loans, which give unexpected results; every bit of arable land is
tilled as in time of peace, the old, the women and the half-grown youths
doing the work of their absent supporters, neighbors assisting each
other in a spirit of brotherhood truly admirable. In cases of urgent
need we have the prisoners of war, whose number increased to nearly
300,000 (in Austria-Hungary alone) and to whom it is a real boon to find
employment in the sort of work they are accustomed to.

The manufacturing interest, of course, suffers severe losses; but the
number of the unemployed is rather less than usual, since a greater part
of the "hands" is absorbed by the army. In a word, though the sufferings
of war are keenly felt, they are less severe than had been expected, and
there is not the smallest indication of a break-down. The area of
Germany, Austria, and Hungary taken as a whole is self-supporting with
regard to foodstuffs. The English scheme of starving us is quite as
silly as it is abominable. England can, of course, inflict severe losses
on our manufacturers by closing the seas against their imports and
exports; but this is not a matter of life and death, such as the first
reprisals of Germany, if successful, may prove to England.

Generally speaking, it seems likely that England will be caught in the
net of her own intrigue. She did not scruple to enlist the services of
Japan against her white enemies, but this act of treachery will be
revenged upon herself. The latest proceedings of Japan against China can
have one meaning only--the wholesale expulsion of the white man from
Eastern Asia. The Japs do not care one straw who wins in Europe; they
seized upon their own opportunity for their own purposes. England only
gets her deserts; but how do Americans feel about it? Can America be
absolved from a certain amount of responsibility for what may soon prove
imminent danger to herself? Has not her partiality for England given
encouragement to methods of warfare unprecedented in the history of
civilized nations and fruitful of evil consequences to neutral nations?

To us, in our continental position, all this means much less than it
means to you. It does not endanger our prospects. We feel comparatively
stronger every day. Our losses, though enormous, are only one-half of
those of the Entente armies, according to the Geneva Red Cross Bureau's
calculation. The astounding number of unwounded prisoners of war which
Russia loses at every encounter, and even in spaces of time between two
encounters, shows that the moral force of her army is slowly giving way,
while the vigor of our troops is constantly increasing. After six months
of severe fighting our military position is certainly stronger than the
position of the Entente powers, though the latter represent a population
of 250,000,000, (English colonies and Japan not included,) against the
140,000,000 of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey. Who can doubt on
which side superior moral power fights? Who can doubt, therefore, what
the ultimate result promises to be?

If it takes more time to bring matters to a decision--and a decision
must be obtained at any price, if there is to follow a period of
permanent peace--part, at least, of the responsibility for the horrors
of the protracted war, for the slaughter of many hundred thousands more
of human beings, rests on America. But for the American transports of
guns and ammunition, the power of Russia would give way in a shorter
time, considering her enormous losses in that respect and her inability
to supplement them from her own workshops.

It is very edifying that American pacifists are exerting themselves
against the current of militarism which appears to spread in their
country; but wouldn't it be better still, more to the purpose and
certainly practically more urgent, to insist upon a truly neutral
attitude of the great republic, to protest against her feeding the war
by providing one belligerent side with its implements? Do American
pacifists really fail to see that their country by such proceedings
disables herself from being the peacemaker of the future? Do they think
it immaterial from the standpoint of her moral power, as well as of her
material interests, how central Europe, a mass of 120,000,000, think of
her, feel about her?

I hope my readers will not find fault with me for using such plain
language. My well-known enthusiastic regard for the great American
commonwealth makes it unnecessary that I should protest against the
charge of meaning disrespect or anything else whatever but a sincere
desire to state with absolute sincerity how we feel about these matters,
in what light they appear to us. I think America must know this, because
it is part of the general situation she has to reckon with when shaping
her policies. I fervently hope these policies will remain in concordance
with the great principles on which the commonwealth is built and with
the teaching embodied in that farewell address which is read once a year
in Congress and in which the greatest American emphatically warns his
countrymen from becoming entangled in the conflicts of European nations.

A few words more about the future of Europe may be said on this
occasion. I have read with the keenest interest your own and Mr.
Carnegie's statements concerning a future organization of Europe on the
pattern of the United States. My personal views concerning this
magnificent idea have been expressed in anticipation in my America
lectures of the year 1911. Allow me to quote my own words:

     Analogies are often misleading, the most obvious ones
     especially so. Nothing seems more obvious than to draw
     conclusions from the existing union of American States to a
     possible union of European nations; but no fancied analogy is
     to be applied with greater caution than this one. The American
     Union's origin was the common struggle of several English
     colonies, now States, for their emancipation; unity of purpose
     was the main principle of their growth, union its natural
     result.

     Europe, on the other hand, is, in her origin and in her
     present state, a compound of conflicting interests and
     struggling potentialities. Mutual antagonism remained the
     principle of growth embodied in the several national lives.
     The juridical formula of this system is the principle of
     national sovereignty in its most uncompromising interpretation
     and most limitless conception. As such it is the natural
     result of a historical growth mainly filled with antagonism;
     in the consciousness of (European) nations it lives as
     synonymous with national honor, as something above doubt and
     discussion.

Let me add to this the following remarks:

1. Any sort of union among the nations of Europe appears impossible if
it is meant to include Russia. Russia represents eastern mentality,
which implies an unadmissible spirit of aggression and of conquest. It
seems to be a law of nature on the old Continent that eastern nations
should wish to expand to the west as long as they are powerful. Not to
mention the great migration of nations which gave birth to mediaeval
organizations, you may follow this law in the history of the Tartars, of
the Turks, and of Russia herself. The spirit of aggressiveness vanishes
only when decay sets in, which is still far from being the case of
Russia, or when a nation is gradually converted to Occidental mentality,
which, I hope, will some day be her happy lot. But till then, and that
may mean a century or two, any sort of union including Russia would mean
a herd of sheep including a wolf.

2. What I hope then, for the present, as the most desirable result of
the war, is a thorough understanding between the nations of the Western
European Continent, construction of a powerful political block,
corresponding to the area of western mentality, in close connection with
America; such a block would discourage aggression from the east; it
would urge Russia on the path of reform and home improvement. England
would be welcome to join it, on condition of renouncing those
pretensions to monopolizing the seas which are as constant a menace to
peace as Russian aggressiveness is. So we should have, if not "the
United States of Europe," which at present lies beyond the boundary
lines of possibilities, a strong peace union of the homogeneous western
nations. Alas! this result can be reached only by destroying the present
unnatural connections, which mean the continuance of war till a crushing
decision is obtained.

3. The American colonies of England did not think of union as of a peace
scheme; they had been compelled into it by war, by the necessity of
self-defense. It is only such an overpowering motive which has force
enough to blot out petty rivalries and minor antagonisms. If union
between States belonging to the same race and not divided either by
history or by serious conflicting interests could be effected only under
the pressure of a common peril, we must infer "a minori ad majus" that
such a powerful incentive will be more necessary still to persuade into
union nations of different races, each cherishing memories of mutual
collisions and actually aware of not unimportant clashing interests.

The menace of aggression from the east has been brought home to us by
the present war; gradually it will be understood even by those
Occidentals who at present unhappily lend their support to that
aggression. On this perception of the higher common interests of
self-defense do I build the possibilities of a western coalition. But a
time may come when Russia will be compelled to join it and to complete
thereby the union of the whole of Europe; it may come sooner than the
conversion of Russia to western ideas could be effected by natural
evolution; it may come through the yellow peril, the menace of which has
been brought nearer to us by the accursed policy of England.

Let Japan organize the dormant forces of China, as it seems bent upon
doing, and the same law of eastern aggressiveness which is at the bottom
of the present war will push the yellow mass toward Europe. Russia, as
comparatively western, will have to bear their first onset; for this she
will require Occidental assistance, and in the turmoil of that direful
conflict--or, let us hope, in order to avoid it--she will readily give
up all designs against her western neighbors, and she may become really
western by the necessities which impel her to lean on the west.

But this may or may not happen. What I see before me as a tangible
possibility is the great western block. It is the only principle of
reconstruction after war that contains a guarantee of a permanent peace;
it is the one, therefore, which the pacifists of all nations should
strive for, once they get rid of the passing mentality of conflict that
now obscures the judgment of the best among us.

[Illustration]



Neutral Spirit of the Swiss

An Interview With President Motta of the Swiss Confederation

[From The London Times, Jan. 30, 1915.]


BERNE, Jan. 20.

The President of the Swiss Confederation is the symbol of a democracy so
perfect that the man in the street is not quite sure who the President
is. He knows that he is one of a council of seven, and that he is
elected for one year, and that is all. In the Federal Palace, the Berne
Westminster and Downing Street, the anonymity is almost as complete.
Officers pass and repass in the corridors--one of the signs, like the
waiting military motor cars at the door, of mobilization--but this does
not change the spirit, simple and civilian, of the interior.

M. Motta, Chief of State for this year, is a man of early middle life.
He is the best type of Swiss, a lawyer by profession, whose limpid
French seems to express culture as well as candor. Nor could one doubt
for a moment the sincerity of his speech. Speaking on the Swiss position
in the war, M. Motta was anxious to remove the impression that it was
colored, dominated by the existence of the German-speaking cantons, more
numerous than the French. "Of course," he said, "we have our private
sympathies, which incline us one way or the other, and there is the
language tie--though here we are greatly attached to our Bernese
patois--but I would have you believe the Swiss are essentially just and
impartial, they look at the war objectively.

"We have good-will toward all the nations. Need I say that we respect
and esteem England? Have you not found that you are well received? There
is no antagonistic feeling against any one. Our neutrality is imposed
upon us by our position, a neutrality that is threefold in its effects,
for it is political, financial, and economic. Italy, France, Germany,
Austria, are our neighbors; we send them goods, and we receive supplies
from them in return."

We then talked of the army, of that wonderful little army which, at this
moment, is watching the snowy passes of the Alps. Two years ago it is
said to have impressed the Kaiser on manoeuvres; perhaps for that reason
he has refrained to pass that way. Outside, in the slippery streets,
over which the red-capped children passed with shouts of glee, I had
seen something of the preparations; the men, steel-like and stolid,
marching by, the officers, stiff and martial-looking, saluting right and
left under the quaint arcades of this charming city. Colored photographs
of corps commanders adorned the windows and seemed to find a ready sale.
These things pointed in the same direction. Switzerland, posted on her
crests, was watching the issue of the terrific struggle in the plains.

"We must defend our neutrality," the President said, "our 600 years of
freedom. There is not a single man in the country who thinks
differently. I am an Italian-Swiss, one of the least numerous of our
nationalities, but there is only one voice here as elsewhere--only one
voice from Ticino to Geneva. That we shall defend our neutrality is
proved by the great expenditure on our army; otherwise, it would be the
height of folly."

The President spoke of army expenditure, of the simple army system, of
the reorganization which had been carried out some years before.
Switzerland was spending £20,000 a day, a large sum for a small country.
Since the day when the general mobilization had been decreed--some
classes have now been liberated--Switzerland had spent £4,500,000. It
was a lot of money.

The army, of course, was a militia; some few officers were professional
soldiers, others were drawn from a civil career and were doctors,
lawyers, engineers, and merchants. In 1907 the country had consented to
lengthen the periods of training in what are quaintly called the
"recruits' schools" and "rehearsal schools." In the former category the
men do sixty-five days' training a year, in the latter forty-five.

"I assure you," continued M. Motta, "whatever sympathy the German-Swiss
may feel toward Germany, the French-Swiss toward France, or the Italian
toward Italy, it is nothing like as warm and as intimate as that which
each Swiss feels toward his fellow-Swiss."

This was the national note which dominated everything. At first there
was a little difficulty in the councils of the nation. Some showed a
tendency to lose their balance, but that phase had passed, and each day,
I gathered, purely Swiss interests were coming uppermost.

"And the press, M. le President?"

M. Motta admitted that some writers had been excessive in their
language and had been lacking in good taste; but, on the whole, he
thought the newspapers had impartially printed news from both sides, and
he cited a list of leading organs--Switzerland is amazingly full of
papers--which had been conspicuous for their moderation.

And then there was the question of contraband. Orders were very precise
on the subject; the Cabinet had limitless power since the opening of the
war; if there was any smuggling it was infinitesimal, and, as to
foodstuffs, Switzerland regretted she could not import more for her own
needs. The Government had established a monopoly and forbidden
re-exportation, but supplies were not up to the normal. The route by the
Rhine was closed.

Finally came the phrase, concluding the conversation: "Whoever violates
our neutrality will force us to become the allies of his enemy." There
could be nothing more categorical.



TO KING AND PEOPLE.

By WALTER SICHEL.

[From King Albert's Book.]


     _All the great things have been done by the little
     peoples._--DISRAELI.

    Sire, King of men, disdainer of the mean,
      Belgium's inspirer, well thou stand'st for all
    She bodes to generations yet unseen,
      Freedom and fealty--Kingship's coronal.

    Nation of miracles, how swift you start
      To super-stature of heroic deeds
    So brave, so silent beats your bleeding heart
      That ours, e'en in the flush of welcome, bleeds.

    No sound of wailing. Look, above, afar,
      Throbs in the darkness with triumphant ray
    A little yet an all-commanding star,
      The morning star that heralds forth the day.



A Swiss View of Germany

By Maurice Millioud


     M. Maurice Millioud, an eminent member of the Faculty of the
     University of Lausanne, Switzerland, has written an article of
     marked breadth and penetration in which he presents a quite
     novel view of the forces which, in combination, have brought
     Germany to its actual position. These forces are political,
     social, and economic; beneath and through them works the
     subtle impulsion of a national conception of right and might
     which the author sums up as the "ideology of caste." Want of
     space forbids the publication of the entire article. We give
     its most significant parts with such summary of those portions
     which it was necessary to omit as, we trust, will enable our
     readers to follow the general argument.

Humanitarians the most deeply buried in dreams yield with stupefaction
to the evidence of fact. European war was possible, since here it is,
and even a world war, for all continents are represented in the mêlée.
Millions of men on the one side or the other are ranged along battle
fronts of from 500 to 1,000 kilometers. We are witnessing a displacement
of human masses to which there is nothing comparable except the
formidable convulsions of geologic ages.

The world then was in formation. Will a new Europe, a new society, a new
humanity, take form from the prodigious shock by which our imagination
is confounded?

We can at least seek to understand what we cannot hinder.

This war was not a matter of blind fate, but had been foreseen for a
long time. What are the forces that have set the nations in movement? I
do not seek to establish responsibility. Whosoever it may be, those who
have let loose the conflict have behind them peoples of one mind. That,
perhaps, is the most surprising feature in an epoch when economic,
social, and moral interests are so interwoven from one end of the earth
to the other that the conqueror himself must suffer cruelly from the
ruin of the conquered.

The Governments have determined the day and the hour. They could not
have done it in opposition to the manifest will of the nations. Public
sentiment has seconded them. What is it then which rouses man from his
repose, impels him to desert his gains, his home, the security of a
regular life, and sends him in eager search for bloody adventures?

This problem involves different solutions because it embraces a number
of cases. Between the Russians, the French, the English, the Germans
there is a similarity of will, but not, it seems, an analogy of
sentiment. I shall undertake to analyze the case of Germany. It has
peculiar interest on account of its importance, of its definiteness, of
the comparisons to which it leads, and the reflections which it
suggests. Numerous facts easy to verify and in part recent permit us to
throw some light upon it and offer us a guarantee against hazardous
conjectures.

_Defining a caste as "a group of men bound to each other by solidarity
of functions in society," such as the Brahmins of India and the feudal
nobility, Prof. Millioud says that he will use the terms as equivalent
or nearly equivalent to a "directing class." Quoting the article from
Vorwaerts which led to the suspension of that Socialist organ and which
"admits by implication that responsibility for the war falls on
Germany," he proceeds to examine the origins of the influence of the war
party and the interests it served._

Here we must have recourse to history. In Germany the dominant class is
composed in part of an aristocracy by birth and of bourgeois
capitalists, more or less of them ennobled. The interior policy of
Germany since 1871 and even since 1866 is explained by the relations,
sometimes kindly, sometimes hostile, of these two categories of persons,
by the opposition or the conjunction of these two influences, and not
by a struggle of the dominant class against the socialistic mass. That
struggle, which is in France and is becoming in England a fact of
essential gravity, has been in Germany only a phenomenon of secondary
importance. It has determined neither the profound evolution of the
national life nor the chief decisions of the Government.

In Germany, as is known, the abolition of the ancien régime did not take
place brusquely as in France. After the revolution and the French
occupation, the noble caste recovered all its privileges. It has lost
them little by little, but not yet entirely. Even the liquidation of the
property of the feudal régime was not completed until toward 1850.
Napoleon made some sad cuts in the little sovereignties, but from 1813
to 1815 the princely families did their utmost to recover their
independence. The greater part were mediatized, but their tenacity
offered a serious obstacle up to 1871 to the establishment of German
unity.

That unity was accomplished in despite of them, by sword and fire, as
Bismarck said, that is to say, by the wars of 1866 and 1870. Care was
taken, however, not to abase them more than was strictly necessary, for
it was intended to maintain the hierarchy. What was wanted was a
monarchical unity, made from above down, and not a democratic unity
brought about by popular impulsion.

On the other hand, the smaller nobles formed, after 1820, a vast
association for the defense of their rights, the Adelskette. Moreover,
they could not be sacrificed, in the first place, because they had
rendered invaluable services in the wars of independence, they had
arisen as one man, and they had ruined themselves in sacrifices for the
national cause, they had organized the people and led it to victory,
finally because they served to restrain the high nobility whose
domination was feared. They sustained the throne against the princes,
the higher nobility against the democracy, the lesser nobility against
the higher, the two forming an intermediary class between the monarch
and the nation. That was the social conception which prevailed with
those who were working to realize the unity of Germany, so that the
nobility, lesser or higher, in default of its privileges retained its
functions.

Treitschke, in his last lessons, about 1890, called it "a political
class." For the bourgeois, he said, wealth, instruction, letters, arts.
Their part is fine enough. The nobility is apt at governing. That is its
special distinction. For a long time, in fact, the nobility has filled
alone or almost alone the great administrative, governmental, and
military posts.

Bismarck was the finished type, the representative par excellence of
this class of men. He had their intellectual and moral qualities carried
to the highest degree of superiority. But he underwent evolution after
1871, and his caste with him, under the pressure of general
circumstances.

Bismarck was a Junker, a Prussian rustic, monarchist, particularist,
agrarian and militarist. Each of his qualities is an attribute of a
mentality of caste, a very curious one, not lacking in grandeur, but
very narrow and not always adequate to the conduct of affairs.

Monarchist means anti-Parliamentarian. The fine scorn of rhetoric and
even of public discussion, a conviction that democracy will not lead to
anything beyond a display of mediocrity, that is one of the salient
features of his mind. Patriotism conceived as an attachment to personal
relations, as the service of one man, the subject, to another man, the
King, and not the service of an anonymous person, the functionary, to an
abstraction, the State, the republic, this was formerly designated by
the word faithful, (féal,) which has disappeared from our vocabulary
because it is without meaning in our present moral state.

The Junker is particularist, at least he was. The political and
administrative centralization which the Jacobins achieved in France
inspires him with horror. For him it is disorder. He sees in it nothing
but a dust heap of individuals crushed beneath a formula. Even today,
when the German accuses France of anarchy, that is what he means. He
figures to himself the nation as a vast hierarchy of liberties, an
autonomy of States within the empire, of provinces within the State, of
communes within the province, of proprietors within the commune.
Equality is equality of rank, of worth, of wealth, of force, but
impersonal equality before the law is for him an unnatural thing, an
invention of the professors which at heart he despises.

He is agrarian and militarist, that is to say, conservative and enamored
of force. In 1830 four-fifths of the population lived by agriculture and
the landlord governed his peasants patriarchally. He kept the
conservatist spirit of a rustic, a very lively sense of authority and
the military instinct. He had scant liking for distant enterprises or
adventures. He was at once religious, warlike, and realist, knowing how
to nurse his ambitions and to confine his view to what was within reach.

Bismarck for a long time was the decided opponent of naval armaments and
colonial policy, in short, of imperialism. Even his projects for social
reform--insurance against sickness, against old age--which have been
accepted as concessions to modern ideas, were due entirely to his
monarchical and patriarchal conception of the State. He copied the
ancient decrees of Colbert as to naval personnel. He would have gone as
far as assurance against non-employment. In the dominion of the King, he
said, no one should die of hunger.

The Junker made a force of Prussia; he made Prussia itself. It was due
to him that she passed after 1815 from the form of a Polizeistaat to the
form of Kulturstaat, the latter only an expansion of the former. In
place of a watchful, regulating, and vexatious State she became an
organized State, the instructor of youth, the protector of religion, the
source of inspiration for agricultural reforms, and all great commercial
and industrial enterprises. This State was not an emanation from the
national will, but the creator of a nation, the living and moving
self-incarnation of the Hegelian "idea," that is to say, the Divine
thought.

Of all the German aristocracy the noble of Pomerania or Brandenburg, the
Prussian Junker, represented this social type most definitely. In the
south the liberal tendencies--to be exact, the memories of the French
Revolution--persisted far into the nineteenth century. But it is well
known that German unity was accomplished by military force and against
liberalism.

After 1871, and even after Sadowa, the problem of interior policy which
presented itself was that of the "Prussianization" of Germany. At one
time it seemed that Bismarck was on the point of succeeding in it. What
was that national liberal party upon which he depended for so long? It
was the old liberal party, with advanced tendencies tainted with
democratic liberalism and even with cosmopolitanism, keeping up its
relations with the intellectuals, the university men, who made so much
noise with pen and voice about 1848 and later. They dreamed of the unity
of Germany in the democratic liberty and moral hegemony of their nation,
having become in Europe the sobered heir of the French Revolution.

Under the influence of Bismarck they sacrificed to their dream of unity,
to their national dream, their liberal dream, and they secured for the
Chancellor the support of the upper bourgeoisie.

It was indeed the Prussianization of Germany, but in that spirit and in
that system contemporary German militarism would never have fructified.
It was contrary to the characteristic tendencies of a monarchical State
supported by a conservative caste, which was also particularist,
military, and agricultural. A State of this kind tends to become a
closed State.

What then happened? An event of capital importance which everybody
knows, but of which we only now begin to see the consequences. It was
the radical transformation of Germany from an agricultural to an
industrial nation. In its origin this phenomenon dates from before the
nineteenth century. By 1848 it had become perceptible. Since 1866, and
especially since 1871, it has dominated the entire social evolution of
the empire. Here, in fact, is the revolution. It partakes of the
character of a tragedy, it has overturned the conditions of life
throughout the entire German territory.

At the close of the War of Independence, four out of five Germans lived
on the land, two out of three were engaged in agriculture. By 1895 the
agricultural population was only 35.7 per cent. That, supported by
industry and commerce, kept continually increasing. In 1895 it was 50.6
per cent.

This progress of industry and trade indicates the rise of a new class of
the population, that of the capitalists. It seemed at first that their
arrival would result in a dispossession of the nobility. For example,
under the ancien régime the bourgeois could not acquire the property of
the nobles. Toward 1880, for Eastern Prussia only, 7,086 estates of
11,065 belonged to non-nobles. They could have been acquired only with
money. Capital was supplanting birth. Today even, in Prussia, five
members of the Ministry, a little more than one-third, are bourgeois not
enjoying the particle von.

The new dominant class encroached upon the ancient in two ways, by
depriving it of its clientele and by acquiring a considerable weight in
the State. "The weight of a social class" is the totality of its means
of action, which it possesses on account of its numbers, its personal
influence, its wealth, and the importance of the interests which it
represents. The clientele of the agrarian nobility was essentially the
peasants, who have continually diminished in number, the attraction of
industrial and commercial employments having caused a great migration to
the interior, to the factories, and the cities.

For many years this phenomenon has been disclosed by statistics and
pointed out by economists and sociologists, but no remedy has been
found. Today, although emigration abroad has much moderated, Germany has
not labor for its tillage. It is obliged to import farm hands and even
cereals. It no longer produces foodstuffs sufficient for its own
support.

Moreover, the peasant who remains upon the soil is freed
from the landlord, and agricultural production has become
specialized--industrialized. There is the case, for instance, of that
peasant woman who declared that she had not the time to wash her linen
and who sent it to the steam laundry at Karlsruhe. Here is not merely an
economic transformation, but a moral evolution. The agriculturist who no
longer produces in order to consume but in order to sell, and who must
live from the product of his sales, tries to produce as much as
possible. He hires foreign labor to get from it all that he can. The
impersonal relations of employer and employed replace the patriarchal
traditions. Thus the land owner finds himself caught in the mechanism of
the capitalistic system.

As to the "weight" of the new class, it increased prodigiously during
the years following the war of 1870, thanks to the millions which the
empire could invest in its industries and which allowed it to endow its
commerce and its merchant marine, to complete the network of its roads,
canals, and railways.

The law of concentration of capital was verified on this occasion in a
striking manner. In the famous years 1871 to 1874, which the Germans
call the Gründejahre, the foundation years, gigantic industrial and
commercial enterprises took a spring which seemed irresistible. A
Director of the Deutsche Bank, of the Dresdener Bank, the President of a
company for transatlantic commerce, such as the Hamburg-American Line,
or of the committee of great electric establishments, enjoyed an
influence in the councils of the State far greater than that of a Baron,
a Count, or a little mediatized Prince.

What was the aristocracy of birth going to do about it? Struggle
desperately? It took that tack at first. Bismarck ranged himself in its
support for some time. He was himself an agrarian. But he was not long
in installing paper mills on his estates at Varzin. It is said that the
Emperor himself possesses porcelain factories. A part of the nobility
for a long time tried to adapt itself to the new method of production.
It took to it awkwardly and often ended in ruin.

Freytag has described this phenomenon at its beginnings in a romance
which is a chef d'oeuvre. A part of the nobility yielded, fell into the
hands of the financiers, the money lenders, the managers of agricultural
enterprises, sold their lands, and took refuge in the great civil,
administrative and military posts. The remainder resisted as well as
they could. There was antagonism between their interests and those of
the capitalists, between the religious and particularist tendencies on
one hand and free thought and cosmopolitanism on the other. The
agrarians demanded tariff duties on agricultural products to raise the
price of their foodstuffs. The industrials wanted a low cost of living
in order to avoid the rise of wages and to compete with better advantage
for foreign markets.

Bismarck was the target for vehement opposition when he inclined toward
the party of the traders and the industrials in his colonial and tariff
policy. This evolution came about 1879. For a while the great Chancellor
was looked upon almost as a traitor.

Nevertheless, his view was just. Balancing the forces on the one hand by
those on the other, ceding protective duties first to one side and then
to the other, offsetting the advantages which he offered to one side by
the prerogatives which he accorded to the other, he finally succeeded in
reconciling them.

From this reconciliation of the two dominant classes has resulted the
extraordinary power of Germany. The bourgeois parties have from time to
time grumbled over the military appropriations, but they have always
voted them. And militarism, which is the support of the aristocracy, has
been placed at the service of capitalistic ambition. By the prestige of
force, awakening hopes here and inspiring fears there, more than once by
the help of manoeuvres of intimidation, it has become an instrument of
economic conquest.

Other combinations, other reciprocal interlacings, have taken place
which have given an exceptional and unique character to contemporary
Germany. It is a case of social psychology of extreme interest. To
describe it would require long detail. The combination of the
aristocratic and military tendency with the industrial and plutocratic
tendency, the tendency of the police spirit, the regularizing spirit of
the Kulturstaat with the individual initiative of the capitalist
_entrepreneur_, methodical habits of administration with the love of
risk characteristic of the speculator, all this constitutes imperialism,
German imperialism, distinct from every other, because to a definite
object, economic conquest, it adds another, less precise, in which the
moral satisfaction dear to aristocracy, the pleasure of dominating, the
love of displaying force, the tendency to prove one's own superiority to
one's self, play a large part.

Economic conquest has become a necessity for Germany. Transformed into
an industrial State, it no longer produces its own food. Since 1885 its
imports have exceeded its exports by 1,353,000,000 marks. Whence did
Germany derive these 1,300,000,000 marks which were needed, good year
and bad, to meet its balance of trade? It owes them to its maritime
commerce and the revenue of its capital invested abroad. Its maritime
commerce then must augment and must triumph over all competition. At
every cost it must open for itself outlets for its industrial products
in order to buy foodstuffs which it does not produce sufficiently. If
not, famine.

Let us see now how the complicated play of all these social forces and
the effect of this economic situation have been embodied in formulas,
what has been its intellectual expression.

This is no idle question, for men have always claimed to be guided by
ideas, and generally they are, but they rarely know where their ideas
come from or in what they consist. Without intellectual expression
imperialism would not have extended to all the classes of society. The
passion of economic conquest did not prevail throughout the whole of
Germany. The bourgeois in the Liberal provinces, the corps of officers,
the corps of teachers, the clergy were refractory to it. This direct
form of imperialism does not seduce them. Not everybody can see his
country and the universe through the eyes of an oligarch of high
finance. A doctrine works with power when it appeals to instincts, when
it awakens collective emotions, diverse enough in themselves, and joins
them to each other with an appearance of logical deduction. It is not
indispensable, but it is useful that it should borrow the language of
the day. In the mediaeval epoch this language was religious. Beginning
with the seventeenth century it was metaphysical. In our own time it is
a scientific language set off by Greek words.

If the German philosophies of the second half of the nineteenth century
are considered, there are not many of them that pass beyond the limit of
the school. They are honest, scholarly productions elaborated by men who
have read much, of whom some, like Wundt, are eminent specialists, but
who have not conquered either their subjects or their readers. One feels
that they are not of their century.

It is not from them, it is not from Eucken, the pleasant popularizer, it
is not from Windelbund or Ostwald that the cultivated public sought the
direction for its thought. To satisfy the need of general ideas which
was everywhere felt, associations were formed, churches with or without
God, of which a very important one was the "Monistenbund," in which
Haeckel exploited his materialism transformed into a sort of biological
pantheism.

But it was outside of the associations and outside of the school that
the flame of creative genius burned brightly. The man of the last
generation was Nietzsche. That his thought has been perverted by his
interpreters there is no doubt. They have taken this eagle who gazed
unblinded at the sun and exhibited him to the young people in all sorts
of philosophic rôles for the benefit of the industrial and military
coalition. Nietzsche depicted in lines of fire the resurrection of
heroism, his vision of the superman was that of an ardent soul, steeled
by sufferings, meditating a tragic conception of life with serenity,
and in his solitary individualism surmounting the infirmity of man and
his own by the insistent will to eternal ascension.

He was made the apostle of brute force, a sort of Messiah of the
"struggle for life." Moreover, he was soon put one side and Gobineau was
revived. He also, who if he did not have genius had wit, would have been
surprised and hardly flattered perhaps by the rôle which they made him
play. The dolichocephalic (long-skulled) blonde whom he celebrated was
not exactly the one whom we are now judging by his works, but at least
he proclaimed the superiority of the German race.

His doctrine was the centre around which were gathered a complete
ensemble of dogmas and of very diverse theories, whose connected thread
it is not easy to discover when it is searched for logically, but
appears quite distinctly when not reason, but reasons, are demanded. The
reasons are found in the need of justifying in theory the economic and
military imperialism, born as we have seen from conditions of fact and
from very practical motives.

I do not pretend that it was calculated, nor that the optimates made
express requisition of the naturalists, economists, and historians and
sociologists and moralists to provide an imperialistic philosophy for
the use of adult and normal dolichocephalous blondes. But there
certainly was a coincidence. It may have been due to the influence of
what is called a _milieu ambiant_, that of the commercial and military
party. The authors of the doctrine lived in a special atmosphere. Their
intellect was there formed--or deformed--their work consisted in
gathering facts, inventing reasonings, elaborating formulas, so as to
subject natural science, history and morality to the service of that
keen will for hegemony which was in Germany the common characteristic
and was the connecting link between the ancient and the new directing
class.

To convince one that this is so, it is enough to arrange the works of
the pan-Germanists in a series passing from the simplest to the most
complicated. The dates are of no importance. We might put at one of the
extremes the works of the Prussian General, von Bernhardi, and at the
other the gigantic lucubration of a famous pan-German zealot, a
neophite, a convert, almost a deserter, Mr. Houston Stewart Chamberlain.

_Prof. Millioud examines at some length and acutely the tendencies and
teachings of von Bernhardi, now familiar to American readers, sums up
the work of the philosophers of minor rank and turns to Mr.
Chamberlain._

With Mr. Chamberlain the thesis of vital competition, the morality of
force, the judgment of history against little nations, the civilizing
mission imposed upon greater Germany by its very greatness, by its
economic, scientific and artistic superiority, everything tends to the
glorification of the German, to his duty to govern the whole world which
he feels so imperatively and which he accepts with such a noble
simplicity. His work is not easily summarized, not only because it
counts 1,379 pages and two appendices, but because all is in everything,
and everything in the universe is also in Mr. Chamberlain's book. And
the German has made everything. Not indeed the world; that he has only
remade and is about to remake. But he has a way of remaking so creative
that one might say that without him the Creator Himself would be a bit
embarrassed. He has gathered to himself alone the heritage of Greece and
Rome as far as it was worth anything. From the year 1200 to the year
1800 he founded, ripened, and saved a new civilization several times
over. The mother of our sciences and our arts, Italy, is Germanic; the
great architecture of the Middle Ages is Germanic; the true
interpretation of Christianity, the true conception of art, the true
social economy, the love of nature, the sense of individuality, the
exploration of the world and of the soul, the great reawakenings of
conscience, all the great flashes of thought are Germanic; everything is
Germanic, except you and me, perhaps; so much the worse for me and so
much the worse for you. After this book, the success of which has been
prodigious, it would truly seem that there is nothing more to say.
Germanic thought has appropriated the universe to itself. It only
remained for the German sword to complete the work. It is drawn!

I have tried to describe the modifications, or rather the successive
additions, by which the elementary themes disclosing economic,
political, and military appetites in the directing class have been
disguised as theories of biology, history, political economy, sociology,
and morality. It would take another study or another article to show how
science was perverted to such ends. The severity of methods, rigor in
the determination of facts, precision in reasoning, prudence in
generalization, serene impartiality and objectivity in verification, in
a word the scientific spirit, cannot be bent to so many pleasant
compromises without sacrificing a great part of its dignity and its
title to respect.

This has been a singular and melancholy event for those of us who have
been raised in respect for German science and in admiration for its
methods, as well as for its discoveries. Certainly, from Liebig to
Roentgen and to Behring, from Kant to Wundt, Germany has counted many
distinguished pioneers. In the matter of fecund originality, however,
and creative inspiration, Italy and France have always equaled, if not
surpassed, her. She has had no Marconi, no Pasteur or Poincaré, no
Carrel.

What we have received from her so long that it has become almost a
matter of instinct is less dazzling flashes than an equal and constant
light. And the savants, the university men who bring to us
anthropological romances, history stuffed with legends and personal
prejudices, sociology constructed in contempt of the facts!

In these later days we have seen all these joining under the guidance of
their most illustrious members to address the civilized nations in an
appeal in which by virtue of their quality as savants they undertook to
pronounce upon facts which they don't understand, to deny those which
they cannot help understanding, and solemnly to declare that it is not
true that Germany has violated the neutrality of the territory of
Belgium. For proof of this, nothing but their word of honor. Do they
take us for those young gentlemen who said to Monge, "Professor, give us
your word of honor that this theorem is true and we will excuse you from
the demonstration of it"?

Fully to explain the rôle of the intellectual savants and university men
in the formation of the ideology of caste which prevails among the
Germans it would be necessary to recite the history of instruction in
Germany, not such as Davis and Paulson have written it, but such as it
actually is under the influence of institutions and programmes--I mean
the moral history of instruction.

The great Frederick was wont to cry, "I commence by taking; afterward I
shall always have pedants enough to establish my rights." Pedants or
not, the members of the teaching corps of every grade in Germany are a
wheel of the State, their mission is to form not men, but Germans, to
inculcate the national idea. Their views have penetrated even to the
common people.

Germany receives a double education--that of the school and that of the
barracks. The spirit of these two institutions is the same, and their
influence, which has been exercised since 1848 in opposition to
humanitarian and internationalist ideas, has encountered no serious
obstacles, for it went readily with certain old instincts which it was
not difficult to reawaken and which general circumstances favored.

"Latrocinia nullam habent infamiam," said Caesar, speaking of the
Germans. Pillage brings no shame. This desire of gain, this positive and
realistic tendency is one of the motives which the brusque and
prodigious economic expansion of Germany has promoted in the most
efficient manner.

This total assimilation of a people of 70,000,000 of souls by an
aristocratic, almost a feudal, directing class, a combination of
plutocrats and militarists, is in reality a most curious phenomenon,
more than curious, in a sense grandiose, and in any case full of
suggestions and menaces.

Surrender of body and soul, confidence almost religious, enthusiastic
faith, the directing class has conquered everything within in order to
conquer everything without. Now it stakes everything upon the cast of
the dice. I have not undertaken to decide whether it is just or not. The
event will determine whether it is genius or madness.



THE LAND OF MAETERLINCK

By Alfred Sutro

[From King Albert's Book.]


I have translated many books of Maeterlinck's; I have wandered with him
among the canals of Bruges and the fragrant gardens of Ghent; I have
seen the places where he dreamed of Pelléas and Mélisande, and the hives
of the bees he loved. Through him I learned to know Belgium, today all
the world knows. Her cities are laid waste now and her people scattered,
but her people will return and rebuild the cities, and the enemy will be
dust. The day will come when the war will be far distant, a thing of the
past, remote, forgotten, but never, while men endure or heroism counts,
will it be forgotten what the Belgians did for Liberty's sake and for
the sake of Albert, their King.



America and Prohibition Russia

Two Mustard Seeds of Reform Carried From This Land to the Steppes

By Isabel F. Hapgood


When Russia recently abolished the sale of liquor, first in the shops
run as a Government monopoly, and, after a brief experience of the
beneficent results, in the restaurants and clubs as well, an astonished
and admiring world recognized the measure as one of the greatest events
in the moral history of a nation. It takes rank with the reforms of
Peter the Great. It almost casts into the shade the emancipation of the
serfs.

There has always existed in Russia a strong party which severely
disapproved of Peter precisely because he forced "Western" ideas upon
them. Their idea has always been that Russia would have developed a far
higher degree of genuine culture and far more precious spiritual
qualities had she been left to the promptings of her own genius and its
"healthy, natural" development. And there are, indubitably, persons
scattered through the vast Russian Empire who entertain parallel
opinions with regard to the total prohibition of liquor just effected,
and with regard to the projected change in the calendar now assumed to
be imminent. I trust that I shall not increase their numbers to
dangerous proportions if I call attention to the fact that these reforms
have also, like Peter the Great's ideas, been imported from the
West--from the Far West, the United States. I am sure my
fellow-countrymen will be gratified to learn the truth, and I cheerfully
accept the risk, and assume that Russia will, in all probability, remain
ignorant of my interference!

It is true that we do not have actual, effective prohibition anywhere
here in America, and that we do not seem to be within measurable
distance of such an achievement; that Russia has distanced us again in
this, just as she distanced us by emancipating her serfs, without a
war, before we emancipated our slaves, with the aid of a war. But we
have supplied the scriptural mustard seed in the case of prohibition in
Russia, and have either furnished the seed for the change in the
calendar, or, at any rate, have provided elements that have hastened its
growth to a very remarkable degree.

Mustard seed No. 1 was carried over from the United States in the Autumn
of 1887 and sown on the good ground of the late Count Tolstoy, and other
noble men, whence--as results show--it spread abroad with a swiftness
suggestive rather of the proverbial weed than of the fair flower its
blossoming has shown it to be.

In the Autumn of 1886 Dr. Peter Semyonovitch Alexyeeff of Moscow,
accompanied by his wife, sailed for Canada and the United States for the
purpose of inspecting the hospitals, prisons, and elementary schools;
and they came for the Winter because some parts of Canada during that
season possess a climate similar to that of Central Russia, while in
other parts the climates are identical. In fact, Canada is the only
country in the world where the climatic conditions are at all analogous.
The construction of new hospitals, the adaptation of already existing
buildings for hospital use, the internal arrangement, and the perfection
of their internal machinery had long been matters of deep interest to
Dr. Alexyeeff.

Germany and France, with climates so different from that of Russia,
could not furnish him with the information available in North America,
where, in his opinion, the habits and conditions of existence--such
important factors in matters connected with hospitals and invalids--also
differ less from those of Russia than do the general surroundings in the
countries of the Continent. After visiting the principal cities of
Canada and the United States from Quebec to Vancouver, and from Boston
to Washington, (some of them more than once,) Dr. Alexyeeff arrived at
the conclusion that the hospitals of the United States were better built
and much better administered than those of London, Paris, Berlin, and
Vienna.

Naturally, no one could spend nine months in investigating hospitals and
prisons in this country without coming in contact with the liquor
problem. Moreover, Dr. Alexyeeff was a wideawake man, who took an
interest not only in all matters connected with his profession, but in
very many outside of it. He was, also, a man of very lofty character.
His wife once wrote me concerning him somewhat as follows: "He walks,
habitually, on such moral heights, in such a rarefied spiritual
atmosphere, that I, the daughter of an English clergyman, reared
accordingly, and myself (as you know) deeply in sympathy with it, find
difficulty in following him." Obviously, he was precisely the man to
appreciate the temperance movement, and to carry it to its logical
conclusion. In the preface to a volume, "About America," which he
published in Moscow in 1888, he writes:

     Neither the wonders of wild nature in the Rocky Mountains nor
     the menacing might and grandeur of Niagara produce such an
     impression on a Russian as the success of the fight with
     drunkenness--the temperance movement--and the successful
     development, in all classes of society, of morality and the
     strict application of practical morals.

He did not confine himself to this brief, general statement. He wrote in
praise of temperance, of prohibition, for learned Russian societies.
Then he wrote a book entitled "Concerning Drunkenness." The Censor's
permit to publish is dated March 29, (April 10,) 1887. It was published
by the management of the magazine, Russkaya Mysl, (Russian Thought,)
which may indicate that it had first appeared in that monthly as a
series of articles, though I have not been able to verify the fact. The
book may have been published promptly, or at least the article from the
medical magazine may have been published in the cheap form (costing two
or three cents) used by the semi-commercial, semi-philanthropic firm
"Posrednik," which may be rendered "Middleman" or "Mediator," designed
for the dissemination of good and useful reading among the masses.

At any rate, "Concerning Drunkenness" appeared at the price of one ruble
(about fifty cents) in 1891, prefaced by a dissertation by Count
Tolstoy, "Why Do People Stupefy Themselves?" specially written for this
occasion, as Dr. Alexyeeff told me. (It has been translated under the
title of "Alcohol and Tobacco," London, and published without any
indication that Dr. Alexyeeff inspired it.)

In 1896 a second edition, revised and enlarged, was published, also in
Moscow; and to this the author added a list of helpful publications and
a summary bibliography, which included books issued in various foreign
countries, ranging in number from 705 for Great Britain and Colonies,
142 for the United States, 247 for Germany, 124 for ten other countries
combined, (up to 1885 in all these cases,) to ten for Russia. Of these
ten, four are in Latin, four in German, one is in Swedish and one in
Russian--the latter, evidently, an article republished from The Medical
News. On the whole, a list practically non-existent, so far as Russia
was concerned!

Dr. Alexyeeff had discovered a field of endeavor as virgin as the
unplowed steppe. Only scientists desperately hard up for an unusual
topic for a strictly academic discussion and recklessly willing to risk
incurring universal unpopularity would have dreamed of unearthing those
volumes. He promptly aroused Count Tolstoy's interest in the subject of
temperance, which in this case signified prohibition, since the Count in
his preface to Dr. Alexyeeff's book (dated July 10-22, 1890,) treated
liquor on the same basis as tobacco, which he had totally abjured at
least two years previously. With Tolstoy, to become convinced that a
reform was desirable was, as all the world knows, to become an ardent
propagandist of that reform. Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Alexyeeff,
seconded by those of Tolstoy, temperance began to attract attention in
Russia, temperance societies were formed, and have been steadily
increasing ever since in numbers and activity.

Eventually Mr. Tchelisheff arrived on the scene with his splendid vital
force and practical solutions of the financial and other problems (or
suggestions for them) that arise from prohibition, (especially when a
Government monopoly and revenue are concerned,) which he most
strenuously advocated when Mayor of Samara, as representative in the
Duma--everywhere, in fact, where he could obtain a hearing, willing or
unwilling, up to the Emperor Nicholas himself. And the Emperor showed
that he was equal to the magnificent opportunity, and joined hands with
the former peasant in aiding his country.

In an interview published by THE TIMES a while ago Mr. Tchelisheff
mentions that his attention was first drawn to the subject of the evils
of drunkenness by a book which he saw a muzhik reading. Judging from the
point at which he inserts that mention into his outline sketch of his
career (previous to the great famine which he--erroneously--assigns to
the "end of the '80s," but which came in 1891) his interest was aroused
precisely at the time when Dr. Alexyeeff's first utterances may be
assumed to have seen the light of print. At any rate, it is an admitted
fact that Dr. Alexyeeff carried to Russia and to Tolstoy from the United
States the idea and inspiration which has borne such wonderful fruit in
the abolition of the liquor traffic "forever," as the Imperial ukase
runs.

Mr. Tchelisheff is a noteworthy figure in history accordingly, but Dr.
Alexyeeff should not be forgotten. When I made his acquaintance at Count
Tolstoy's, in Moscow, he had just requested (and obtained) a detail of
service in Tchita, Trans-Baikal Province, Siberia, as physician to the
political exiles there, thinking the region would repay study from many
points of view, in his leisure hours. The preface to the first edition
of his book "Concerning Drunkenness" is dated "July, 1899, Tchita," and
from Tchita I received my copy from him. In that preface he states the
scope of his book in a way which confirms my conviction that Mr.
Tchelisheff was first stirred to interest, and in the end aroused to
action, by the United States, via Dr. Alexyeeff. He writes:

     The battle which in all ages has been waged against
     drunkenness has been confined hitherto almost exclusively to
     the realms of medicine and ethics; the social part of the
     question is only just beginning to be worked out, and has
     hardly as yet won the rights of citizenship, and down to our
     own day there have been no serious legal measures adopted for
     the battle with drunkenness.

Therefore, he omits the legal aspects of the matter in his book and
confines himself to an attempt at popularizing the information scattered
in divers individual books, "borrowing everything which can lead to the
ultimate goal--the extermination of the evil caused by the use of
spirituous drinks." He continues:

     Public opinion has nowhere as yet, even in the lands where
     considerable success has attended the war on drunkenness,
     ripened sufficiently a desire to give, even incompletely, a
     summary of the information about that battle, and make my
     fellow-countrymen acquainted with a matter still little known
     in Russia, so I am prompted to write what follows.

The second edition of this book, with the surprising list of Russian
treatises on drunkenness to which I have already alluded, is dated
"June, 1895, Riga," where he lived after his return from Siberia, as an
official of the Government medical service, until his death in August,
1913. During the stay in Tchita of the Alexyeeffs, the present Emperor
(then the heir,) passed through it, on his way home (from the trip to
India and Japan which came so near terminating fatally in the latter
country) after having officially opened work upon the construction of
the Trans-Siberian Railway, on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. A formal
reception and ceremonies were organized in Tchita; and I allude to the
matter because of a curious detail mentioned in a letter to me by Mrs.
Alexyeeff. Foreigners have very queer ideas, she said, as to the
position and treatment of the political exiles in Siberia; some of the
Tchita exiles served as heads of the committees for welcoming the heir,
and he shook hands with them and treated them exactly as he treated the
Governor General of the Province.

Whether it was his admiration for the American temperance movement which
influenced Dr. Alexyeeff's views on everything American, I cannot say.
But, assuredly, not many foreign visitors have pronounced upon our
country such a panegyric as is contained in the preface to his "Across
America." He writes:

     Conscientious fulfillment of every duty, industry, energy, and
     moral purity are the typical qualities of the genuine
     American. It is difficult to form any idea of the wide
     development of philanthropy, the significance of religion, and
     the practical application to life of ethical principles, the
     application of moral obligations in business, the upright,
     God-fearing life of the Americans, unless one has lived among
     them. They have neither prostitution, foundling hospitals, nor
     hospitals for venereal diseases. A European is not accustomed
     to see empty prisons and hospitals in densely settled
     localities--to come upon cities where there is nothing for the
     police, the Judges, and the doctors to do he finds startling.
     They have attained the height where priests, pastors,
     preachers, and teachers are rarely obliged to contend with
     indifference....

     After a trip to America it would be difficult to return an
     atheist--you are more likely to come back in a religious frame
     of mind.... Idleness and luxury are not among the
     distinguishing characteristics of the descendants of the
     Puritans.... In the light, transparent atmosphere of the
     States, simplicity, the cheerful, alert spirit infects the
     foreigner, makes him a more frank, trustful, optimistic
     warrior for the truth, and causes him to forget what it means
     to be downcast in spirit, or what spleen and hypochondria are.

Until he died, in Siberia, in Russia, everywhere, Dr. Alexyeeff worked
for temperance. He was enthusiastic about it when I saw him and his wife
in England, in 1907.

Mr. Tchelisheff having been aroused to interest, theoretically, by
America, via Dr. Alexyeeff, as is fairly proven, it was only natural
that he should proceed to make the personal observations on the
practical, social side of drunkenness which he mentions in his Times
interview. He noticed, during the great famine of 1891, that it was the
drunkards who had squandered their grain and pawned their possessions
to the keepers of the dramshops who robbed other men's granaries and
houses, burned, rioted, and murdered; while the men who did not drink
had plenty of food and grain to hold out. We are informed from Russia
that even during its still brief reign prohibition has resulted in
remarkable improvement in health, living conditions, and bank accounts.

Mr. Tchelisheff is, as I have said, a noteworthy figure in history. He
would be a remarkable figure in any land; but for those who are not
acquainted with Russia, the rise of a man born a peasant, educated
solely by his own efforts on stray newspapers and books which fell in
his way in his schoolless village, and absolutely lacking in money or
influence, ("svyazi"--connections, is the Russian version of "pull,") to
the position of multi-millionaire and co-worker with the Emperor, is
amazing almost beyond belief. In reality, it is as simple as the rise of
an American newsboy, of an Edison or a Carnegie to a position of power
in the United States. Fate, circumstances, as well as their own
personality are the factors in all these cases; and in every similar
case.

Moreover, there is in Russia no eternally impassable barrier of caste,
but there is a genuine democracy which is not easy to define, but is
very easily felt. For instance, the title of "Prince," (to which, unlike
that of "Count" or "Baron"--conferrable--one must be born, runs the
rule, with exceptions for such national heroes as Suvaroff,) counts for
nothing or approximately that, unless its owner possesses, in addition,
the wealth, character, learning or other characteristics which would
render him a man of mark without it.

There are other interesting instances of peasants who have risen high in
Russia, and Mr. Tchelisheff is their worthy successor. The founder of
the great silversmiths' firm of Ovtchinnikoff was a serf. His successors
have made it their rule, "out of gratitude to God," to maintain and
educate a certain number of poor boys, who, when their intellectual and
technical training is completed, are free to remain with the firm as
valued artists or to go forth independently. When the Emperor Alexander
II. celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of his accession to the
throne, all the Sovereigns of Europe sent him magnificent presents.
These are assembled in his library, at the Winter Palace, Petrograd; and
in the centre--accorded that place by the Russians with equal good
feeling, good taste, and justice--is a large group in solid silver,
representing a huge mass of rock upon whose pinnacles stand figures
representing the different parts of the empire--Little Russia, Siberia,
and so forth. The inscription reads: "To the Tzar-Liberator from the
Liberated Serf." It was made by the Ovtchinnikoffs and presented by
another ex-serf, who had become a millionaire railway magnate.

Mustard Seed No. 2 from America to Russia falls into a somewhat
different category. It more nearly resembles one of those grains of
antique wheat found in a tomb and sprouting vigorously when finally
planted in congenial, helpful soil. I trust that my comparison may not
be regarded as disrespectful. One could not, willingly, be disrespectful
to the calendar, any more than to the thermometer!

Russia, by adhering to the Julian Calendar and refusing to adopt the
Gregorian, has now fallen thirteen days behind the rest of the world. It
falls behind about a day for every century. There are several reasons
why Russia has not, up to now, remedied the serious inconvenience caused
by this conflict of dates. One is--the Gregorian Calendar is Roman
Catholic, and named after a Pope. It is, also, inaccurate. Worst of all,
the rectification might--almost infallibly would, under ordinary
circumstances--cause trouble at the outset, especially in one
incalculably important direction.

Russian scientists long ago worked out a new calendar far more accurate
than the Gregorian for thousands of years, and when the change is made
that calendar will be adopted. The fundamental difficulty lies in the
fact that all the people whose saints' days must inevitably be skipped
for the first year in the process of rectification will inevitably feel
that they are being robbed of their guardian angels, that they are
"orphans"--a mournful word greatly beloved of the Russian masses under
multiform circumstances, both material and spiritual--and orphaned in a
peculiarly distressing and irrevocable way. They might even feel when
their saints' days came around quite correctly the next year that some
spurious adventurer--Angel of Darkness--was being foisted upon them.

Fanatics and professional mischief-makers would certainly seize with
avidity upon such a godsend of a chance, unparalleled since the days of
Peter the Great's father, when the Patriarch Nikon had the errors of the
copyists in the Scriptures and church service books corrected. But the
present war has fused all parties, united all hearts in patriotism,
loyalty to, and confidence in their Emperor and created a fervid
inclination amounting to enthusiasm to accept even the most drastic
reforms he may make cheerfully, unquestionably, as for the good of the
fatherland.

On the matter of the calendar reform America has for many years past
been exerting a steadily increasing influence. During the past twenty
years the steady flow of immigrants from Russia and other countries
belonging to the Orthodox Catholic Church of the East, (Greco-Russian,)
has increased to a great volume, and it seems destined to attain still
greater proportions when the war is over. These people are obliged to
work and keep holiday by the Gregorian calendar and to worship by the
Julian. This entails hardships.

For example, a devout Russian who has been forced to remain idle on our
Christmas and New Year's Days must sacrifice his pay--sometimes risk or
lose his job--if he wishes to observe the feasts of his own church. A
reform of the calendar would be hailed with joy by innumerable such
immigrants, who have been over here long enough to consider calmly the
practical aspects of a temporary dislocation of saints' days. The
ecclesiastical authorities in this country have frequently protested,
in print, both here and in Russia, and I have been informed that the
Holy Synod has been appealed to, more than once, to induce it to cast
its influence into the balance with that of the scientists and the
governmental authorities, who have been discussing the matter for years
past, and hesitating over the probable consequences of action--a case of
peasant joining hands with the rulers of Russia, once more like Mr.
Tchelisheff and the Emperor Nicholas--or the people of the United States
and the President--to secure a needed reform!

And these same peasant-immigrants in America have, without the shadow of
a doubt, already written back to their relatives and friends in the old
country--and very frequently--about the difficulties of the antiquated
Julian calendar, and these, in turn, can disseminate common sense about
the change in a way which the Government, aided by the Holy Synod and
the explanations of home-staying parish priests, unaided, could never
effect. When the fitting time arrives, perhaps the Russian Government
will avail itself of just this argument, among others--the welfare of
friends in distant America. There has never been a propitious time in
Russia to make that calendar reform since the reign of Peter the Great
until now. And America may fairly be said to have brought from its dark
hiding place the mustard seed which has been trying so long to
germinate, and imparted to it a vivifying impulse.



THE MOTHER'S SONG.

By CECILIA REYNOLDS ROBERTSON.


    Hush, oh, my baby, your father's a soldier,
      He's off to the war, and we've nothing to eat.
    And the glory is neither for you nor for me,
      With the cockleburr crushing the wheat.

    Little boy baby, look well on your mother;
      Some day you may ask why she bore you at all;
    For the trenches are foul with the blood and the wallow,
      And the bayonet is sharp for your fall.

    Rest, rosy limbs, and blue eyes and gold lashes--
      Made in the mold of the Saviour, they say!
    Drink deep of my bosom, my starved, meagre bosom,
      That--keeps you alive for the fray.

    Sleep, oh, my man child, and smile in your sleeping,
      But the gun has been fashioned to lay in your hand,
    And your life blood flows smooth in your fair little body
      The better to water and plenish the land!



Pan-American Relations As Affected by the War

Consequences of the European Conflict on Future Commerce Between the
United States and Latin America

By Huntington Wilson,

_Formerly Assistant Secretary of State_.


I.

A study of the effects of the war upon our relations with the other
republics of this hemisphere involves political, commercial, financial
and strategic elements of far-reaching scope and much complexity. The
situation presents an opportunity. It offers a lesson even more vital
than the opportunity. The political considerations are most relevant to
the lesson; and the final text of the lesson will be the result of the
war. The economic opportunity is already upon us, definite and clear. It
will not wait. It must be grasped without delay and may therefore be
first discussed.

There is something repellent in counting our advantages under the shadow
of so great a tragedy but we must try to be as practical as those who
are fond of accusing us of materialism. Does any one think that the
steam-roller of admirably organized and Government-fostered German
competition would pause if we lay in the road; that if we received a
check, Anglo-Saxon cousinship and fair play would always mitigate
British competition; or that then not a single European merchant in
South America would ever again use scorn and detraction against our
goods, or encourage, through influence with the press, prejudice due to
"Yankee peril" nonsense? In short, is it likely that all our
competitors would suddenly love us just because we were in trouble? No,
things are not as they should be and meanwhile must be dealt with as
they are.

There used to be apparently very little hope of our shaking the tree and
gathering the golden fruit of foreign enterprise unless forced to it by
the collapse, through dire hard times, of the wonderful home market
which has made spoiled children of our manufacturers. Now comes this
war. It forces upon us a wonderful, a unique opportunity to gain and
hold our proper place in the finance, trade, and enterprise of Latin
America. The richness of the field is often exaggerated, but its
cultivation is certainly worth the effort of men of foresight.

What are we going to do about it? This is the question; for if American
business men do not do their part the ultimate effect of the war upon
our economic interests in this part of the world will be unimportant. We
must not be like the young gold miners who were looking exclusively for
large nuggets with handles. We must go at it seriously and
scientifically and solidly, not superficially, casually, and
opportunistically. We must begin with the earnest intention of
continuing our efforts for all time.

An enthusiastic commercial spasm will be worth nothing. There have got
to be real efforts, real hard work, the expenditure of money for future
and not merely immediate profits, a cheerful readiness to discard old
and cherished methods, a new adaptability, a new painstaking attention
to details. There has got to be serious study of foreign countries and
keen interest in our relations to them. Without all this, mailing
catalogues, (usually in English,) banquets and speeches and
organizations will take us nowhere.

American business men are bestirring themselves. They know that we need
ships to carry our goods advantageously, and banks for the favorable
financing of our trade. They should be able to compel our Government's
support where needful, as in a ship subsidy or a limited guarantee of
reasonable profit to American investment in ships. In connection with
our efforts at Caribbean commerce, as another instance, they should be
able to get a flexible sliding scale tariff provision passed by
Congress, so that, in dealing with the countries whose coffee or other
special products we buy, we could induce them to give us for our exports
reciprocal advantages over our competitors. Indeed, a kind of Caribbean
tariff union might well be feasible and desirable.

So long ago as last August the British Government sent all over the
world for samples and specifications of German goods which their
manufacturers might contrive to displace. We should take corresponding
action in regard to the goods of our competitors. Our manufacturers
should be reconciled to sending to find out what each market wants
instead of asking a population to take or leave what we make. Our
commercial campaign should include the effort to replace goods from one
belligerent country formerly handled by local merchants from another
belligerent country, such as British goods previously sold through the
German houses which so abound in these countries.

Good men from small countries without political significance in
world-politics already make their influence felt as employes of foreign
Governments and as merchants in foreign countries. The war may set free
many more men and send them about the world to work for their own
interests, for the country they most believe in, and perhaps ultimately
for an adopted country. International commerce must have its courtiers,
and the good will of all such men should also be reckoned with. They
spread friendship or prejudice against us. Many of them are importers
and will push our goods or some one else's according to the manner in
which we deal with them.

American manufacturers are doubtless weary of being told that they pack
badly, that they are niggardly about credits, that they do not send
enough or sufficiently qualified representatives, that they are careless
of details, and so on. Still, before mentioning some further particular
steps that should be taken, it is necessary to emphasize the fact that
these same old faults are, and until corrected must remain, the chief
detriments to our foreign trade.

In some of the republics there is a real disposition to deal with us; in
others there is a preference for Europe. Now, as to many goods, they
must deal with us or go without, although I am informed that a German
firm, for example, has got word to its clients in these countries that
it is prepared to fill orders via Copenhagen. If we think that our
competitors have gone entirely or permanently out of business we shall
be ridiculously and sadly disappointed. We shall be on trial, and if our
exporters make good they will find a conservative disposition to
continue to buy from us.

In the effort it is important to remember that there is much to live
down in criticism of methods of the past. One Latin-American gentleman,
an enthusiast for American commerce, exclaimed to me in despair: "Son
hombres capazes de poner una hacha Collins con vidrios para ventanas,"
which means: "they (the American exporters) are capable of packing a
Collins hatchet with window glass." Others told me how leading firms
always stamped their letters for domestic and not foreign postage. The
office boy simply would not learn geography. Nobody minded paying the
deficit, but through local red tape this seeming trifle sometimes caused
two or even three weeks' delay in the delivery of important letters.

Certain of our strongest firms have been calmly ignoring shipping
directions. What did they care if the packages had to cross the Andes on
mule back, and if mules could only carry packages of a certain size and
weight? What did they care if the duty remission for materials on some
Government contract, or the customs classification of a shipment,
depended on adherence to specific directions? I could multiply examples
of the most amazing casualness and careless disregard, of bad packing,
of ungenerous credit, which have enraged the importer.

A European merchant, many years established in a South American city,
and knowing the community, has been selling pianos in this way: The
manufacturer would quote him a price and deliver the piano, giving him
long credit at an ordinary rate of interest. The merchant would finally
sell the piano on the installment plan, receiving interest at a higher
rate on the deferred payments, the merchant trusting the buyer, the
manufacturer trusting the merchant, both thus making good profits, and
the purchaser being accommodated. This man found the American
manufacturer entirely unwilling to deal in this way.

European houses on the spot, whether independent or financed by large
home houses, give credits for as long, sometimes, as a year. They would
not continue to do so if they lost by doing it. Often this fits the
customs of the local domestic trade. In one country the local retailer
is expected to be paid within eighteen months. Naturally, our exporters'
demand for "cash down on receipt of documents," even when the customer
is well vouched for, does not appeal to him.

He prefers to get long credit from a European house, and pay interest
for it, rather than to borrow from his bank at high interest or sink his
own capital to pay for American goods, long before he gets them, their
price plus the profit of a commission house. Indeed, he is generally
dissatisfied with the methods of American export trade as now conducted,
which is almost exclusively through commission houses. These, it seems,
might become more efficient through organization and more aggressive and
scientific methods.

On the other hand, the export trade of certain of the big combinations
is beginning to be pushed with commendable zeal and efficiency. Trade at
large, to reach its greatest volume, must include the pushing of smaller
lines of goods. These smaller lines, in the aggregate, would reach
considerable sums, and it does not appear that there have hitherto
existed efficient agencies for their marketing. To hold Latin-American
trade we must equal our competitors in liberality of credits, in
representation on the spot, and in other facilities.

There is no doubt that more American merchants resident in the trade
centres would give valuable impetus to our commerce. Even our commission
houses operating on the spot are so few that in handling many lines
there is the greatest danger of their sacrificing the building up of a
steady trade to the opportunities of unduly heavy profits now and then,
and so damaging our general commercial interests. Then we must send many
commercial travelers.

Just here, however, it cannot be too strongly emphasized that Americans
sent to these countries to do business must above all be men of
agreeable manners. In these countries many quite unworthy people have
these: so a good man who lacks them is likely to be badly misjudged.
They should have sympathetic personality and sufficient education,
besides being men of sobriety and good character, and should be able to
speak the language of the country.

All this will be expensive, but non-competing firms might join in
sending men, or competing firms might, it is hoped, be guaranteed
against the terrors of the Sherman law in order to join in sending a
corps of representatives upon some basis of division of the field or
the profits. Combination is even more necessary abroad to put forth the
nation's strength in world competition than it is for efficiency at
home. These men would be students and salesmen, and perhaps future
merchants who would settle in these countries and emulate the patriotic
groups of resident foreigners who in so many places help to form an
atmosphere favorable to their countries' interests.

They would work to replace with our goods those now shut off by the war,
but also to introduce dozens of lines of American products which are now
comparatively hard to find in these markets. A number of strong firms
might join to establish commercial houses or selling agencies in trade
centres of certain groups of countries. Commission houses might do the
same if they carried samples and instructed their clients in packing,
credits, &c., but in each case there should be American houses on the
spot which would carry general lines and supply to the eye that visible
evidence of the goods themselves which is such a valuable form of
advertisement.

In the establishment of American houses in these countries, as in many
other respects, much may be learned from the Germans. They bring out
carefully selected young men. These, if efficient, have sure promotion.
The partners retire before old age to make room for those who work up.
The inefficient are dropped. It is a little like the principle of a good
foreign service.

I think the most minute study should be given, first, to the nearer
countries, say those north of the Equator, including the republics of
the Caribbean. Each country must be separately studied. Primarily, there
will be found a cry, sometimes desperate, for capital. Public works,
concessionary and otherwise, have stopped for lack of funds from Europe.
New developments in railroad building, mining, harbor works,
plantations, are arrested. Where European credits have been customarily
used to handle crops, there is distress, and no less so in cases in
which such credit has previously been given by ostensibly American
houses operating really with European capital.

American capital may come to the rescue by advances upon good security
through local banks. It can establish banks or buy controlling interests
in existing banks, many of which pay their stockholders 15 per cent. or
more. It can relieve the stagnation and make profitable investment by an
active campaign for public and private contracts and for sound and fair
concessions, not visionary or get-rich-too-quick schemes.

Supposably, the repairing of the destruction brought by the war will
make European capital scarce for some years, but an effort will
doubtless be made to retain for it its former preponderance in these
countries; and so it is important that, whatever the war's effects upon
our own money markets, use should be made of such an opportunity as does
not come more than once.

To be sure, the scarcity of money in the United States makes this
difficult, but the same worldwide money scarcity will secure an
especially high rate of interest in Latin America, where even in normal
times money can often be placed on excellent security in some of the
countries, and at a rate very high indeed compared to that prevailing
now in the United States. For safe investments with such a margin of
profit, it is to be hoped that money, even if dear at home, will be
forthcoming.

Undoubtedly the purchasing power of these republics has been hard hit by
the cutting off of credits and markets by the war, as their Governments
have been hard hit through the falling off of revenues from import
duties. Some of the Governments will require foreign loans. Capital, I
repeat--and I mean really American capital--is the urgent need. We are
not asked to make them a present of capital to buy our goods with, but
if we do not help finance them and buy their products they will have
nothing with which to buy our goods.

The situation invites us to give capital and credit to take the place of
the European supply which has failed. One need not fear that the returns
will be uninviting, for Europe would hardly have been supplying credit
and capital to Latin America as a mere matter of amiability. Thus our
capital must regenerate Latin-American prosperity, while our bankers,
merchants, and manufacturers are engaged in making solid, permanent
arrangements, not opportunistic ones, to take possession of a great
share in the present and still more in the growing future development
and commerce of these countries. Capital, then, and credit are the first
requisites.

The war has had the effect of making the Latin-American countries
realize for once the economic importance to them of the United States.
The products of some, like the tin of Bolivia and the nitrates of Chile,
have been going almost entirely to Europe. Several republics suffer the
more acutely in proportion to their previous failure to cultivate
financial and commercial relations with the United States.

They now feel this and are compelled to a mood receptive to our
advances. More, they are forced to seek new markets for their goods just
as they are forced to buy some of ours. In this way there should come
about new exports to the United States, and there should spring up there
the corresponding new industries and habits of consumption, to the
ultimate benefit of all the countries concerned.

Meanwhile, the United States is the only present economic hope of a
number of the republics. It is to be hoped that our capitalists and
business men will realize the responsibilities as well as the
opportunities of profit in the rôle they are asked to play, and that
their response to their new opportunities will be one of courage,
thoroughness and intelligence, and one also of quiet patriotism.


II.

POLITICAL POTENTIALITIES.

Turning from the opportunity to the lesson, from the commercial and
economic aspects of this question to those that are political in the
large sense, one's imagination is appalled at the potentialities of the
yet unknown results of so vast an upheaval. Yet we must envisage some of
these if we are to be prepared for their effect upon us. We must be
ready for the impact of the resultant forces of these great dynamics. We
must be ready everywhere, but nowhere more than in our relations with
Latin America, in the zone of the Caribbean, and wherever the Monroe
Doctrine as still interpreted gives us a varying degree of
responsibility.

The war's first effect upon our Latin-American relations is to compel
through commercial and financial rapprochement a larger measure of
material interdependence, more contact, and, we may hope, a substitution
of knowledge for the former reciprocity of ignorance. All this makes for
better social and intellectual relations, good understanding and
friendship, and so for political relations much more substantial in the
case of many of the republics than the rather flimsy Pan-Americanism
celebrated in eloquent speeches and futile international conferences.

There is little in Pan-Americanism of that kind. The "raza Latina" of
eloquence is not itself homogeneous; still less so is the population of
the whole hemisphere. And with Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and
Santiago we have, of course, far less propinquity than we have with the
capitals of Europe. But what we really can do is to build up, especially
with the nearer republics, real ties of common interest and good
neighborhood, and with the distant ones ties of commerce and esteem.

The war may tend to cure certain rather self-centred countries of
affecting the morbid view that the people of the United States are lying
awake nights contriving to devour them, when, in fact, it would be hard
to find in a crowded street in the United States one in a thousand of
the passersby who knew more than the name, at most, of one of those very
few countries referred to.

Europe's preoccupation with the war temporarily deprives such a country
and its few misguided prophets whose monomania is dread of that chimera,
the "Colossus of the North," of the pastime of nestling up to Europe in
the hope of annoying us. It postpones, too, the hope of the morbid ones
that we shall come to war with a powerful enemy. Now, perhaps, even
these will appreciate the remark of a diplomatist of a certain weak
country in contact with European powers, who once said: "If we only had
the United States for a neighbor! What I can't understand is that your
neighbors do not realize their good luck." Turning from these
exceptional phenomena, the very fact of the war leaves the United States
in a general position of greater political prestige.

Whatever the upshot of the European tragedy, its political and
psychological consequences are likely to be great. If it result in new
national divisions upon racial lines of more reality, who knows but that
the awakened spirits of nationality will germinate fresh military
ambitions? Or will the horrors of the war force political reforms and
the search for assurance in more democratic institutions against any
repetition of those horrors? And is popular government an assurance
against useless war while men remain warlike even when not military?

Except from the successful countries or from those where disaster has
brought such sobering change that men can return to work heartened with
new hope, when the war is over there is likely to be a heavy emigration
of disgusted people. Possibly even victory will be so dear that men will
emigrate from a country half prostrate in its triumph. Many will come as
the Puritans came, and as the bulk of our own excellent Germanic element
came, and will cast in their lot with a new nation. We shall get a good
share, but doubtless some will go to the republics of the far South, and
some to the highlands of the tropics and through the canal to the West
Coast. If so, this will tend gradually toward increased production and
purchasing power, as well as toward a leavening of social, political,
and economic conditions of life.

If the war were indecisive or left all the combatants more or less
prostrated, peaceful immigration might give a big impulse to the
gradual growing up of powerful States in the temperate zone of the
extreme South. The situation there, and the evolution of our own power,
make it perhaps even now fair to consider the question of regarding as
optional in any given case the assertion by us of the Monroe Doctrine
much below the equator, let us say, beyond which it may possibly be
doubtful whether we have nowadays much reason for special interest.

But, even so, our relations to South America and our obligations under
the Monroe Doctrine, in spite of the blessed fortifications of the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, leave us where it is tempting fate to be
without a navy of the first magnitude, and a big merchant marine. We
have seen what happened to Belgium and Luxemburg. We have seen how even
some of the most enlightened nations can still make force their god.
Nations learn slowly, and there are perhaps some new big ones coming on,
like China.

If the war is a fight to a finish, and the Allies triumph, we can
imagine Russia, with its teeming millions of people, occupied for a
while in the Near East; Japan consolidating her position in the Far
East, an increasingly powerful neighbor to us in the Philippines, the
Hawaiian Islands, and the Pacific Ocean; France still a great power; and
England as a world power of uncomfortably ubiquitous strength, able to
challenge the Monroe Doctrine at will.

Or, let us suppose that Germany should triumph and that German
emigration should swarm into the Caribbean countries, or into Brazil or
some other country where there is already a large German colony--elated,
triumphant Germans, not Germans disgusted by a disastrous war. Would
Germany be likely to heed the Monroe Doctrine, or would it be only
another "scrap of paper"?

In the present stage of civilization the safety of America should not be
left dependent upon the forbearance of any power that may emerge
dangerously strong from the war or that may otherwise arise. The
obligations and rights of our Latin-American relations, under the Monroe
Doctrine and otherwise, like our security and our efficiency as a force
for peace and good in the world, demand a big navy, a merchant marine,
and the self-discipline and safeguard of adequate military preparedness.
The need of these and of a diplomacy of intelligent self-interest,
continuity, and intense nationalism is the lesson brought home to us by
the European war in its effects upon our Latin-American relations as
well as upon our general position as a great power.



AN EASTER MESSAGE

By BEATRICE BARRY.


    Into what depths of misery thou art hurled,
    Belgium, thou second Saviour of the World!
      Thou who hast died
    For all of Europe, lo, we bathe thy feet
    So cruelly pierced, and find the service sweet,
      Thou crucified.

    But though we mourn thy agony and loss,
    And weep beneath the shadow of thy cross--
      We know the day
    That brings the resurrection and the life
    Shall dawn for thee when war and all its strife
      Hath passed away.

    Then, out of all her travail and her pain,
    Belgium, though crushed to earth, shall rise again;
      And on the sod
    Whence sprang a race so strong, so free from guile,
    Men shall behold, in just a little while,
      The smile of God.

    Land of the brave--soon, by God's grace, the free--
    Thy woe is transient; joy shall come to thee;
      It cannot fail.
    The darkest night gives way to rosy dawn,
    And thou, perchance, shalt see on Easter morn,
      The Holy Grail.



An Interview on the War With Henry James

By Preston Lockwood

[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, March 21, 1915.]


One of the compensations of the war, which we ought to take advantage
of, is the chance given the general public to approach on the personal
side some of the distinguished men who have not hitherto lived much in
the glare of the footlights. Henry James has probably done this as
little as any one; he has enjoyed for upward of forty years a reputation
not confined to his own country, has published a long succession of
novels, tales, and critical papers, and yet has apparently so delighted
in reticence as well as in expression that he has passed his seventieth
year without having responsibly "talked" for publication or figured for
it otherwise than pen in hand.

Shortly after the outbreak of the war Mr. James found himself, to his
professed great surprise, Chairman of the American Volunteer Motor
Ambulance Corps, now at work in France, and today, at the end of three
months of bringing himself to the point, has granted me, as a
representative of THE NEW YORK TIMES, an interview. What this departure
from the habit of a lifetime means to him he expressed at the outset:

"I can't put," Mr. James said, speaking with much consideration and
asking that his punctuation as well as his words should be noted, "my
devotion and sympathy for the cause of our corps more strongly than in
permitting it thus to overcome my dread of the assault of the
interviewer, whom I have deprecated, all these years, with all the force
of my preference for saying myself and without superfluous aid, without
interference in the guise of encouragement and cheer, anything I may
think worth my saying. Nothing is worth my saying that I cannot help
myself out with better, I hold, than even the most suggestive young
gentleman with a notebook can help me. It may be fatuous of me, but,
believing myself possessed of some means of expression, I feel as if I
were sadly giving it away when, with the use of it urgent, I don't
gratefully employ it, but appeal instead to the art of somebody else."

It was impossible to be that "somebody else," or, in other words, the
person privileged to talk with Mr. James, to sit in presence of his fine
courtesy and earnestness, without understanding the sacrifice he was
making, and making only because he had finally consented to believe that
it would help the noble work of relief which a group of young Americans,
mostly graduates of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, are carrying on along
their stretch of the fighting line in Northern France.

Mr. James frankly desired his remarks to bear only on the merits of the
American Volunteer Motor Ambulance Corps. It enjoys today the fullest
measure of his appreciation and attention; it appeals deeply to his
benevolent instincts, and he gives it sympathy and support as one who
has long believed, and believes more than ever, in spite of everything,
at this international crisis, in the possible development of "closer
communities and finer intimacies" between America and Great Britain,
between the country of his birth and the country, as he puts it, of his
"shameless frequentation."

There are many people who are eloquent about the war, who are
authorities on the part played in it by the motor ambulance and who take
an interest in the good relations of Great Britain and the United
States; but there is nobody who can tell us, as Mr. James can, about
style and the structure of sentences, and all that appertains to the
aspect and value of words. Now and then in what here follows he speaks
familiarly of these things for the first time in his life, not by any
means because he jumped at the chance, but because his native kindness,
whether consciously or unconsciously, seemed so ready to humor the
insisting inquirer.

"It is very difficult," he said, seeking to diminish the tension so
often felt by a journalist, even at the moment of a highly appreciated
occasion, "to break into graceful license after so long a life of
decorum; therefore you must excuse me if my egotism doesn't run very
free or my complacency find quite the right turns."

He had received me in the offices of the corps, businesslike rooms,
modern for London, low-ceiled and sparely furnished. It was not by any
means the sort of setting in which as a reader of Henry James I had
expected to run to earth the author of "The Golden Bowl," but the place
is, nevertheless, today, in the tension of war time, one of the few
approaches to a social resort outside his Chelsea home where he can be
counted on. Even that delightful Old World retreat, Lamb House, Rye, now
claims little of his time.

The interviewer spoke of the waterside Chelsea and Mr. James's long
knowledge of it, but, sitting not overmuch at his ease and laying a
friendly hand on the shoulder of his tormentor, he spoke, instead, of
motor ambulances, making the point, in the interest of clearness, that
the American Ambulance Corps of Neuilly, though an organization with
which Richard Norton's corps is in the fullest sympathy, does not come
within the scope of his remarks.

"I find myself Chairman of our Corps Committee for no great reason that
I can discover save my being the oldest American resident here
interested in its work; at the same time that if I render a scrap of
help by putting on record my joy even in the rather ineffectual
connection so far as 'doing' anything is concerned, I needn't say how
welcome you are to my testimony. What I mainly seem to grasp, I should
say, is that in regard to testifying at all unlimitedly by the aid of
the newspapers, I have to reckon with a certain awkwardness in our
position. Here comes up, you see, the question of our reconciling a
rather indispensable degree of reserve as to the detail of our activity
with the general American demand for publicity at any price. There are
ways in which the close presence of war challenges the whole claim for
publicity; and I need hardly say that this general claim has been
challenged, practically, by the present horrific complexity of things at
the front, as neither the Allies themselves nor watching neutrals have
ever seen it challenged before. The American public is, of course,
little used to not being able to hear, and hear as an absolute right,
about anything that the press may suggest that it ought to hear about;
so that nothing may be said ever to happen anywhere that it doesn't
count on having reported to it, hot and hot, as the phrase is, several
times a day. We were the first American ambulance corps in the field,
and we have a record of more than four months' continuous service with
one of the French armies, but the rigor of the objection to our taking
the world into our intimate confidence is not only shown by our still
unbroken inability to report in lively installments, but receives also a
sidelight from the fact that numerous like private corps maintained by
donations on this side of the sea are working at the front without the
least commemoration of their deeds--that is, without a word of
journalistic notice.

"I hope that by the time these possibly too futile remarks of mine come
to such light as may await them Mr. Norton's report of our general case
may have been published, and nothing would give the committee greater
pleasure than that some such controlled statement on our behalf, best
proceeding from the scene of action itself, should occasionally appear.
The ideal would, of course, be that exactly the right man, at exactly
the right moment, should report exactly the right facts, in exactly the
right manner, and when that happy consummation becomes possible we shall
doubtless revel in funds."

Mr. James had expressed himself with such deliberation and hesitation
that I was reminded of what I had heard of all the verbal alterations
made by him in novels and tales long since published; to the point, we
are perhaps incorrectly told of replacing a "she answered" by a "she
indefinitely responded."

I should, indeed, mention that on my venturing to put to Mr. James a
question or two about his theory of such changes he replied that no
theory could be stated, at any rate in the off-hand manner that I seemed
to invite, without childish injustice to the various considerations by
which a writer is moved. These determinant reasons differ with the
context and the relations of parts to parts and to the total sense in a
way of which no a priori account can be given.

"I dare say I strike you," he went on, "as rather bewilderedly weighing
my words; but I may perhaps explain my so doing very much as I the other
day heard a more interesting fact explained. A distinguished English
naval expert happened to say to me that the comparative non-production
of airships in this country indicated, in addition to other causes, a
possible limitation of the British genius in that direction, and then on
my asking him why that class of craft shouldn't be within the compass of
the greatest makers of sea-ships, replied, after brief reflection:
'Because the airship is essentially a bad ship, and we English can't
make a bad ship well enough.' Can you pardon," Mr. James asked, "my
making an application of this to the question of one's amenability or
plasticity to the interview? The airship of the interview is for me a
bad ship, and I can't make a bad ship well enough."

Catching Mr. James's words as they came was not very difficult; but
there was that in the manner of his speech that cannot be put on paper,
the delicate difference between the word recalled and the word allowed
to stand, the earnestness of the massive face and alert eye, tempered by
the genial "comment of the body," as R.L. Stevenson has it.

Henry James does not look his seventy years. He has a finely shaped
head, and a face, at once strong and serene, which the painter and the
sculptor may well have liked to interpret. Indeed, in fine appreciation
they have so wrought. Derwent Wood's admirable bust, purchased from last
year's Royal Academy, shown by the Chantrey Fund, will be permanently
placed in the Tate Gallery, and those who fortunately know Sargent's
fine portrait, to be exhibited in the Sargent Room at the San Francisco
Exhibition, will recall its having been slashed into last year by the
militant suffragettes, though now happily restored to such effect that
no trace of the outrage remains.

Mr. James has a mobile mouth, a straight nose, a forehead which has
thrust back the hair from the top of his commanding head, although it is
thick at the sides over the ears, and repeats in its soft gray the color
of his kindly eyes. Before taking in these physical facts one receives
an impression of benignity and amenity not often conveyed, even by the
most distinguished. And, taking advantage of this amiability, I asked if
certain words just used should be followed by a dash, and even boldly
added: "Are you not famous, Mr. James, for the use of dashes?"

"Dash my fame!" he impatiently replied. "And remember, please, that
dogmatizing about punctuation is exactly as foolish as dogmatizing about
any other form of communication with the reader. All such forms depend
on the kind of thing one is doing and the kind of effect one intends to
produce. Dashes, it seems almost platitudinous to say, have their
particular representative virtue, their quickening force, and, to put it
roughly, strike both the familiar and the emphatic note, when those are
the notes required, with a felicity beyond either the comma or the
semicolon; though indeed a fine sense for the semicolon, like any sort
of sense at all for the pluperfect tense and the subjunctive mood, on
which the whole perspective in a sentence may depend, seems anything but
common. Does nobody ever notice the calculated use by French writers of
a short series of suggestive points in the current of their prose? I
confess to a certain shame for my not employing frankly that shade of
indication, a finer shade still than the dash.... But what on earth are
we talking about?" And the Chairman of the Corps Committee pulled
himself up in deprecation of our frivolity, which I recognized by
acknowledging that we might indeed hear more about the work done and
doing at the front by Richard Norton and his energetic and devoted
co-workers. Then I plunged recklessly to draw my victim.

"May not a large part of the spirit which animates these young men be a
healthy love of adventure?" I asked.

The question seemed to open up such depths that Mr. James considered a
moment and began:

"I, of course, don't personally know many of our active associates, who
naturally waste very little time in London. But, since you ask me, I
prefer to think of them as moved, first and foremost, not by the idea of
the fun or the sport they may have, or of the good thing they may make
of the job for themselves, but by that of the altogether exceptional
chance opened to them of acting blessedly and savingly for others,
though indeed if we come to that there is no such sport in the world as
so acting when anything in the nature of risk or exposure is attached.
The horrors, the miseries, the monstrosities they are in presence of are
so great surely as not to leave much of any other attitude over when
intelligent sympathy has done its best.

"Personally I feel so strongly on everything that the war has brought
into question for the Anglo-Saxon peoples that humorous detachment or
any other thinness or tepidity of mind on the subject affects me as
vulgar impiety, not to say as rank blasphemy; our whole race tension
became for me a sublimely conscious thing from the moment Germany flung
at us all her explanation of her pounce upon Belgium for massacre and
ravage in the form of the most insolent, 'Because I choose to, damn you
all!' recorded in history.

"The pretension to smashing world rule by a single people, in virtue of
a monopoly of every title, every gift and every right, ought perhaps to
confound us more by its grotesqueness than to alarm us by its energy;
but never do cherished possessions, whether of the hand or of the
spirit, become so dear to us as when overshadowed by vociferous
aggression. How can one help seeing that such aggression, if hideously
successful in Europe, would, with as little loss of time as possible,
proceed to apply itself to the American side of the world, and how can
one, therefore, not feel that the Allies are fighting to the death for
the soul and the purpose and the future that are in _us_, for the
defense of every ideal that has most guided our growth and that most
assures our unity?

"Of course, since you ask me, my many years of exhibited attachment to
the conditions of French and of English life, with whatever fond play of
reflection and reaction may have been involved in it, make it inevitable
that these countries should peculiarly appeal to me at the hour of their
peril, their need and their heroism, and I am glad to declare that,
though I had supposed I knew what that attachment was, I find I have any
number of things more to learn about it. English life, wound up to the
heroic pitch, is at present most immediately before me, and I can
scarcely tell you what a privilege I feel it to share the inspiration
and see further revealed the character of this decent and dauntless
people.

"However, I am indeed as far as you may suppose from assuming that what
you speak to me of as the 'political' bias is the only ground on which
the work of our corps for the Allies should appeal to the American
public. Political, I confess, has become for me in all this a loose and
question-begging term, but if we must resign ourselves to it as
explaining some people's indifference, let us use a much better one for
inviting their confidence. It will do beautifully well if givers and
workers and helpers are moved by intelligent human pity, and they are
with us abundantly enough if they feel themselves simply roused by, and
respond to, the most awful exhibition of physical and moral anguish the
world has ever faced, and which it is the strange fate of our actual
generations to see unrolled before them. We welcome any lapse of logic
that may connect inward vagueness with outward zeal, if it be the zeal
of subscribers, presenters or drivers of cars, or both at once,
stretcher-bearers, lifters, healers, consolers, handy Anglo-French
interpreters, (these extremely precious,) smoothers of the way; in
short, after whatever fashion. We ask of nobody any waste of moral or of
theoretic energy, nor any conviction of any sort, but that the job is
inspiring and the honest, educated man a match for it.

"If I seem to cast doubt on any very driving intelligence of the great
issue as a source of sympathy with us, I think this is because I have
been struck, whenever I have returned to my native land, by the
indifference of Americans at large to the concerns and preoccupations of
Europe. This indifference has again and again seemed to me quite beyond
measure or description, though it may be in a degree suggested by the
absence throughout the many-paged American newspaper of the least
mention of a European circumstance unless some not-to-be-blinked war or
revolution, or earthquake or other cataclysm has happened to apply the
lash to curiosity. The most comprehensive journalistic formula that I
have found myself, under that observation, reading into the general case
is the principle that the first duty of the truly appealing sheet in a
given community is to teach every individual reached by it--every man,
woman and child--to count on appearing there, in their habit as they
live, if they will only wait for their turn.

"However," he continued, "my point is simply my plea for patience with
our enterprise even at the times when we can't send home sensational
figures. 'They also serve who only stand and wait,' and the essence of
our utility, as of that of any ambulance corps, is just to be there, on
any and every contingency, including the blessed contingency of a
temporary drop in the supply of the wounded turned out and taken
on--since such comparative intermissions occur. Ask our friends, I beg
you, to rid themselves of the image of our working on schedule time or
on guarantee of a maximum delivery; we are dependent on the humors of
battle, on incalculable rushes and lapses, on violent outbreaks of
energy which rage and pass and are expressly designed to bewilder. It is
not for the poor wounded to oblige us by making us showy, but for us to
let them count on our open arms and open lap as troubled children count
on those of their mother. It is now to be said, moreover, that our
opportunity of service threatens inordinately to grow; such things may
any day begin to occur at the front as will make what we have up to now
been able to do mere child's play, though some of our help has been
rendered when casualties were occurring at the rate, say, of 5,000 in
twenty minutes, which ought, on the whole, to satisfy us. In face of
such enormous facts of destruction--"

Here Mr. James broke off as if these facts were, in their horror, too
many and too much for him. But after another moment he explained his
pause.

"One finds it in the midst of all this as hard to apply one's words as
to endure one's thoughts. The war has used up words; they have weakened,
they have deteriorated like motor car tires; they have, like millions of
other things, been more overstrained and knocked about and voided of the
happy semblance during the last six months than in all the long ages
before, and we are now confronted with a depreciation of all our terms,
or, otherwise speaking, with a loss of expression through increase of
limpness, that may well make us wonder what ghosts will be left to
walk."

This sounded rather desperate, yet the incorrigible interviewer,
conscious of the wane of his only chance, ventured to glance at the
possibility of a word or two on the subject of Mr. James's present
literary intentions. But the kindly hand here again was raised, and the
mild voice became impatient.

"Pardon my not touching on any such irrelevance. All I want is to invite
the public, as unblushingly as possible, to take all the interest in us
it can; which may be helped by knowing that our bankers are Messrs.
Brown Brothers & Co., 59 Wall Street, New York City, and that checks
should be made payable to the American Volunteer Motor Ambulance Corps."



A Talk With Belgium's Governor

By Edward Lyall Fox

[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, April 11, 1915.]

Copyright, 1915, by the Wildman News Service.


"It would have been a very grave mistake not to have invaded Belgium.
It would have been an unforgivable military blunder. I justify the
invading of Belgium on absolute military grounds. What other grounds are
there worth while talking about when a nation is in a war for its
existence?"

It is the ruler of German Belgium speaking. The stern, serious-faced
Governor General von Bissing, whom they call "Iron Fist," the man who
crushes out sedition. Returning, I had just come up from the front
around Lille, and almost the only clothes I had were those on my back;
and the mud of the trenches still clung to my boots and puttees in
yellow cakes. They were not the most proper clothes in which to meet
King Albert's successor, but in field gray I had to go.

The Governor General received me in a dainty Louis Quinze room done in
rose and French gray, and filled incongruously with delicate chairs and
heavy brocaded curtains, a background which instantly you felt precisely
suited his Excellency. In the English newspapers, which, by the way, are
not barred from Berlin cafés, I had read of his Excellency as the "Iron
Fist," or the "Heavy Heel," and I rather expected to see a heavy,
domineering man. Instead, a slender, stealthy man in the uniform of a
General rose from behind a tapestry topped table, revealing, as he did,
a slight stoop in his back, perhaps a trifle foppish. He held out a
long-fingered hand.

General von Bissing spoke no English. Somehow I imagined him to be one
of those old German patriots who did not learn the language simply
because it was English. Through Lieut. Herrmann I asked the Governor
General what Germany was doing toward the reconstruction of Belgium. I
told him America, when I had left, was under the impression that
Belgium was a land utterly laid waste by the German armies. I frankly
told him that in America the common belief was that the German military
Government meant tyranny; what was Germany doing for Belgium?

"I think," replied Governor General von Bissing, "that we are doing
everything that can be done under the circumstances. Those farm lands
which you saw, coming up from Lille to Brussels, were planted by German
soldiers and in the Spring they will be harvested by our soldiers.
Belgium has not been devastated, and its condition has been grievously
misstated, as you have seen. You must remember that the armies have
passed back and forth across it--German, Belgian, English, and
French--but I think you have seen that only in the paths of these armies
has the countryside suffered. Where engagements were not fought or shots
fired, Belgium is as it was.

"There has been no systematic devastation for the purpose of
intimidating the people. You will learn this if you go all over Belgium.
As for the cities, we are doing the best we can to encourage business.
Of course, with things the way they are now, it is difficult. I can only
ask you to go down one of the principal business streets here, the Rue
de la Neuf, for instance, and price the articles that you find in the
shops and compare them with the Berlin prices. The merchants of Brussels
are not having to sacrifice their stock by cutting prices, and, equally
important, there are people buying. I can unhesitatingly say that things
are progressing favorably in Belgium."

The conversation turned upon Belgian and English relations before this
war. The Governor General mentioned documentary evidence found in the
archives in Brussels, proving an understanding between these countries
against Germany. He spoke briefly about the point that the subjects of
King Albert had been betrayed into the hands of English financiers and
then laconically said: "The people of Belgium are politically
undisciplined children.

"They are the victims of subtle propaganda that generally takes the form
of articles in French and neutral newspapers," and General von Bissing
looked me straight in the eyes, as though to emphasize that by neutral
he meant the newspapers of the United States. "I can understand the
French doing this," he said, "because they always use the Belgians and
do not care what happens to them. It is beyond my comprehension, though,
how the Government of any neutral country permits the publication of
newspaper articles that can have but one effect, and that is to
encourage revolt in a captured people. A country likes to call itself
humanitarian, and yet it persists in allowing the publication of
articles that only excite an ignorant, undisciplined people and lead
them to acts of violence that must be wiped out by force," and the
Governor General's mouth closed with a click.

"Do you know that the people of Brussels, whenever a strong wind carries
the booming of heavy guns miles in from the front, think that French and
English are going to recapture the city? Any day that we can hear the
guns faintly, we know that there is an undercurrent of nervous
expectancy running through the whole city. It goes down alleys and
avenues and fills the cafés. You can see Belgians standing together,
whispering. Twice they actually set the date when King Albert would
return.

"This excitement and unrest, and the feeling of the English coming in,
is fostered and encouraged by the articles in French and neutral
newspapers that are smuggled in. I do not anticipate any uprising among
the Belgians, although the thoughtless among them have encouraged it. An
uprising is not a topic of worry in our councils. It could do us no
harm. We would crush it out like that," and von Bissing snapped his thin
fingers, "but if only for the sake of these misled and betrayed people,
all seditious influences should cease."

I asked the Governor General the attitude of officials of the Belgian
Government who were being used by the Germans in directing affairs.

"My predecessor, General von der Goltz," he replied, "informed me that
the municipal officials in Brussels and most Belgian cities showed a
good co-operative spirit from the start. The higher officials were
divided, some refusing flatly to deal with the German administration. I
do not blame these men, especially the railway officials, for I can see
their viewpoint. In these days railway roads and troop trains were
inseparable, and if those Belgian railway officials had helped us, they
would have committed treason against their country. There was no need,
though, for the Post Office officials to hold out, and only lately they
have come around. Realizing, however, that without their department the
country would be in chaos, the officials of the Department of Justice
immediately co-operated with us. Today the Belgian Civil Courts try all
ordinary misdemeanors and felonies. Belgian penal law still exists and
is administered by Belgians. However, all other cases are tried by a
military tribunal, the Feld Gericht."

I asked General von Bissing if there was much need for this military
tribunal. I shall not forget his reply.

"We have a few serious cases," he said. "Occasionally there is a little
sedition but for the most part it is only needle pricks. They are quiet
now. They know why," and, slowly shaking his head, von Bissing, who is
known as the sternest disciplinarian in the entire German Army, smiled.

We talked about the situation in America.

"The truth will come out," said von Bissing slowly. "Your country is
renowned for fair play. You will be fair to Germany, I know. Your
American Relief Commission is doing excellent work. It is in the highest
degree necessary. At first the German Army had to use the food they
could get by foraging in Belgium, for the country does not begin to
produce the food it needs for its own consumption, and there were no
great reserves that our troops could use. But the German Army is not
using any of the Belgian food now."

[Illustration: H.M. MOHAMMED V.

Sultan of Turkey.

_(Photo from P.S. Rogers.)_]

[Illustration: H.M. VITTORIO EMANUELE III.

King of Italy.]

I asked the Governor General if the Germans had not been very glad that
America was sending over food.

"It is most important," he said, "that America regularly sends
provisions to Belgium. Your country should feel very proud of the good
it has done here. I welcome the American Relief Committee; we are
working in perfect harmony. Despite reports to the contrary, we never
have had any misunderstanding. Through the American press, please thank
your people for their kindness to Belgium.

"But," he continued impressively, referring back to the justification of
Germany's occupation and speaking with quiet force, "if we had not sent
our troops into Belgium, the English would have landed their entire
expeditionary army at Antwerp, and cut our line of communication. How do
I know that? Simply because England would have been guilty of the
grossest blunder if she had not done that, and the man who is in charge
of England's Army has never been known as a blunderer."



A CHARGE IN THE DARK

By O.C.A. CHILD.


    Out of the trenches lively, lads!
      Steady, steady there, number two!
    Step like your feet were tiger's pads--
      Crawl when crawling's the thing to do!

    Column left, through the sunken road!
      Keep in touch as you move by feel!
    Empty rifles--no need to load--
      Night work's close work, stick to steel!

    Wait for shadows and watch the clouds,
      When it's moonshine, down you go!
    Quiet, quiet, as men in shrouds,
      Cats a-prowl in the dark go slow.

    Curse you, there, did you have to fall?
      Damn your feet and your blind-bat eyes!
    Caught in the open, caught--that's all!
      Searchlights! slaughter--we meant surprise!

    Shrapnel fire a bit too low--
      Gets us though on the ricochet!
    Open order and in we go,
      Steel, cold steel, and we'll make 'em pay.

    God above, not there to win?
      Left, while my men go on to die!
    Take them in, Sergeant, take them in!
      Go on, fellows, good luck--good-bye!



A New Poland

By Gustave Hervé


     Gustave Hervé, author of the article translated below, which
     appears in a recent number of his paper, La Guerre
     Sociale--suppressed, it is reported, by the French
     authorities--has been described as "the man who fights all
     France." He is 44 years old, and has spent one-fourth of his
     life in prison, on account of Socialistic articles against the
     French flag and Government. He used to continue writing such
     articles from prison and thus get his sentences lengthened.

     Hervé has always opposed everything savoring of militarism and
     conquest. From his article on Poland it will be seen that,
     although he says nothing anti-French or antagonistic to the
     Allies in general, he desires a Russian triumph over Germany
     not for his own sake, but as a preliminary to a reconstruction
     of the Polish Nation out of the lands wrested from Poland by
     Russia, Germany, and Austria.

In spite of its vagueness, the Grand Duke Nicholas's proclamation
justifies the most sanguine hopes. This has been recognized not only by
all the Poles whom it has reached, those of Russian Poland, and the
three million Polish refugees who live in America, but moreover, all the
Allies have interpreted it as a genuine promise that Poland would be
territorially and politically reconstructed.

What would it be right to include in a reconstructed Poland, if the
great principle of nationality is to be respected?

First, such a Poland would naturally include all of the Russian Poland
of today--by that I mean all the districts where Poles are in a large
majority. This forms a preliminary nucleus of 12,000,000 inhabitants,
among whom are about 2,000,000 Jews. This great proportion of Jews is
accounted for by the fact that Poland is in the zone where Jews are
allowed to live in Russia.

Our new Poland would not comprise the ancient Lithuania--the districts
of Wilno, Kovno, and Grodno--although Lithuania formerly was part of
Poland and still has about one million Polish inhabitants who form the
aristocracy and bourgeoisie. Lithuania, which is really the region of
the Niemen, is peopled by Letts, who have their own language, resembling
neither Polish nor Russian, and they likewise hope to obtain some day a
measure of autonomy in the Russian Empire, with the right to use their
language in schools, churches, and civil proceedings. One thing is
certain: they would protest, and rightly, against actual incorporation
into the new Poland.

The 125,000 square kilometers and 12,000,000 inhabitants of Russian
Poland, lying around Warsaw, would constitute the nucleus of
reconstructed Poland.

Must we add to this the 79,000 square kilometers and 8,000,000
inhabitants of Galicia, which was Austria's share in the spoils of old
Poland? Certainly, so far as western Galicia around Cracow is concerned,
for this is a wholly Polish region, the Poles there numbering 2,500,000.

As for eastern Galicia, of which the principal city is Lemberg, (Lvov in
Polish,) the question is more delicate. Though Eastern Galicia has over
1,500,000 Poles and 600,000 Jews, most of the population is Ruthenian.
Now these Ruthenians, who are natives, subjugated in former times by the
conquering Poles, and who still own much of the big estates, are related
to the "Little Russians," the southerners of Russia, and speak a dialect
which is to Russian what Provençal is to French.

Besides, whereas the Poles are Catholics, the Ruthenians are Greek
Orthodox Christians like the Russians, but differ from the latter in
that they are connected with the Roman Church, and are thus schismatics
in the eyes of the Russian priests.

Should these Ruthenians be annexed to Russia along with the 1,500,000
Poles and 500,000 Jews, among whom they have lived for centuries, they
would scarcely look upon this as acceptable unless they were certain of
having under Russian rule at least equal political liberty and respect
for their dialect and religion as they have under Austrian rule.

Should they be incorporated with the rest of Polish Galicia into the new
Poland? It is hardly probable that they desire this, having enjoyed
under Austria a considerable measure of autonomy as regards their
language and schools. Would not the best solution be to make of Eastern
Galicia an autonomous province of the reconstructed Poland, guaranteeing
to it its local privileges?

That leaves for consideration the portion of Poland now forming part of
Prussia.

There can be no question as to what should be done with the districts of
Posen and Thorn. These are the parts of Poland stolen by Prussia, which
the Prussians, a century and a quarter after the theft, have not
succeeded in Germanizing.

North of the Posen district is Western Prussia, whose principal city is
Dantzic; that too is a Polish district, stolen in 1772. Since then
Dantzic has been Germanized and there are numerous German officials and
employes in the other towns of the region. All the rural districts and a
part of the towns, however, have remained Polish in spite of attempts to
Germanize them as brutal as those applied to Posnania. But, if united
Poland should include Western Prussia, as she has the right to do--there
being no rule against what is right--Eastern Prussia, including
Königsberg, will be cut off from the rest of Germany.

Now, Eastern Prussia, with the exception of the southern part about the
Masurian Lakes, which has remained Polish, has been German from early
mediaeval times. It is the home of the most reactionary junkers of all
Prussia, a cradle of Prussian royalty and of the Hohenzollerns. Despite
our hatred for these birds of prey, could we wish that the new Poland
should absorb these 2,000,000 genuine Germans?

If the region of Königsberg remains Prussian and the Masurian Lakes
region is added to Poland, why not leave to Germany the strip of land
along the coast, including Dantzic, in order that Eastern Prussia may
thus be joined to Germany at one end?

Another question: There is in Prussian Upper Silesia a district, that of
Oppeln, rich in iron ore, which was severed in the Middle Ages from
Poland, but which has remained mostly Polish and which adjoins Poland.
If the majority of Polish residents there demand it, would it not be
well to join it once more to Poland, which would become, by this
addition, contiguous to the Czechs of Bohemia?

To sum up:

Without laying hands on the German district of Königsberg, united
Poland, by absorbing all the territory at present held by Prussia, in
which the majority of the inhabitants are Poles, will take from the
latter 70,000 square kilometers and 5,700,000 inhabitants. With these,
the new Poland would have 24,000,000 inhabitants, including Eastern
Galicia.

If Russia gave to this Poland in lieu of actual independence the most
liberal autonomy and reconstructed a Polish kingdom under the suzerainty
of the Czar--a Poland with its Diet, language, schools and army--would
not the present war seem to us a genuine war of liberation and Nicholas
II. a sort of Czar-liberator?

And if resuscitated Poland, taught by misfortune, compassionate toward
the persecuted and proscribed because she herself has been persecuted
and proscribed, should try to cure herself of her anti-Semitism, which
has saddened her best friends in France, would not you say that she
indeed deserved to be resuscitated from among the dead?



"With the Honors of War"

By Wythe Williams

[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, April, 1915.]


It was just at the dawn of a March morning when I got off a train at
Gerbéviller, the little "Martyr City" that hides its desolation as it
hid its existence in the foothills of the Vosges.

There was a dense fog. At 6 A.M. fog usually covers the valleys of the
Meurthe and Moselle. From the station I could see only a building across
the road. A gendarme demanded my credentials. I handed him the
laisser-passer from the Quartier Général of the "First French Army,"
which controls all coming and going, all activity in that region. The
gendarme demanded to know the hour when I proposed to leave. I told him.
He said it would be necessary to have the permit "viséd for departure"
at the headquarters of the gendarmerie. He pointed to the hazy outlines
of another building just distinguishable through the fog.

This was proof that the town contained buildings--not just a building.
The place was not entirely destroyed, as I had supposed. I went down the
main street from the station, the fog enveloping me. I had letters to
the town officials, but it was too early in the morning to present them.
I would first get my own impressions of the wreck and the ruin. But I
could see nothing on either hand as I stumbled along in the mud. So I
commented to myself that this was not as bad as some places I had seen.
I thought of the substantial station and the buildings across the
road--untouched by war. I compared Gerbéviller with places where there
is not even a station--where not one simple house remains as the result
of "the day when the Germans came."

The road was winding and steep, dipping down to the swift little stream
that twists a turbulent passage through the town. The day was coming
fast but the fog remained white and impenetrable. After a few minutes I
began to see dark shapes on either side of the road. Tall, thin,
irregular shapes, some high, some low, but with outlines all softened,
toned down by the banks of white vapor.

I started across the road to investigate and fell into a pile of jagged
masonry on the sidewalk. Through the nearness of the fog I could see
tumbled piles of bricks. The shapes still remained--spectres that seemed
to move in the light wind from the valley. An odor that was not of the
freshness of the morning assailed me. I climbed across the walk. No wall
of buildings barred my path, but I mounted higher on the piles of brick
and stones. A heavy black shape was now at my left hand. I looked up and
in the shadow there was no fog. I could see a crumbled swaying side wall
of a house that was. The odor I noticed was that caused by fire.
Sticking from the wall I could see the charred wood joists that once
supported the floor of the second story. Higher, the lifting fog
permitted me to see the waving boughs of a tree that hung over the house
that was, outlined against a clear sky. At my feet, sticking out of the
pile of bricks and stones, was the twisted iron fragments that was once
the frame of a child's bed. I climbed out into the sunshine.

I was standing in the midst of a desolation and a silence that was
profound. There was nothing there that lived, except a few fire-blacked
trees that stuck up here and there in the shelter of broken walls. Now I
understood the meaning of the spectral shapes. They were nothing but the
broken walls of the other houses that were. They were all that remained
of nine-tenths of Gerbéviller.

I wandered along to where the street turned abruptly. There the ground
pitched more sharply to the little river. There stood an entire half of
a house unscathed by fire; it was one of those unexplainable freaks that
often occur in great catastrophes. Even the window glass was intact.
Smoke was coming from the chimney. I went to the opposite side and there
stood an old woman looking out toward the river, brooding over the ruin
stretching below her.

"You are lucky," I said. "You still have your home."

She threw out her hands and turned a toothless countenance toward me. I
judged her to be well over seventy. It wasn't her home, she explained.
Her home was "là-bas"--pointing vaguely in the distance. She had lived
there fifty years--now it was burned. Her son's house for which he had
saved thirty years to be able to call it his own, was also gone; but
then her son was dead, so what did it matter? Yes, he was shot on the
day the Germans came. He was ill, but they killed him. Oh, yes, she saw
him killed. When the Germans went away she came to this house and built
a fire in the stove. It was very cold.

And why were the houses burned? No; it was not the result of
bombardment. Gerbéviller was not bombarded until after the houses were
burned. They were burned by the Germans systematically. They went from
house to house with their torches and oil and pitch. They did not
explain why they burned the houses, but it was because they were angry.

The old woman paused a moment, and a faint flicker of a smile showed in
the wrinkles about her eyes. I asked her to continue her story.

"You said because they were angry," I prompted. The smile broadened. Oh,
yes, they were very angry, she explained. They did not even make the
excuse that the villagers fired upon them. They were just angry through
and through. And it was all because of those seventy-five French
chasseurs who held the bridge. Some one called to her from the house.
She hobbled to the door. "Anyone can tell you about the seventy-five
chasseurs," she said, disappearing within.

I went on down the road and stood upon the bridge over the swift little
river. It was a narrow little bridge only wide enough for one wagon to
pass. Two roads from the town converged there, the one over which I had
passed and another which formed a letter "V" at the juncture with the
bridge. Across the river only one road led away from the bridge and it
ran straight up a hill, when it turned suddenly into the broad national
highway to Lunéville about five miles away.

One house remained standing almost at the entrance to the bridge, at the
end nearest the town. Its roof was gone, and its walls bore the marks of
hundreds of bullets, but it was inhabited by a little old man of fifty,
who came out to talk with me. He was the village carpenter. His house
was burned, so he had taken refuge in the little house at the bridge.
During the time the Germans were there he had been a prisoner, but they
forgot him the morning the French army arrived. Everybody was in such a
hurry, he explained.

I asked him about the seventy-five chasseurs at the bridge. Ah, yes, we
were then standing on the site of their barricade. He would tell me
about it, for he had seen it all from his house half way up the hill.

The chasseurs were first posted across the river on the road to
Lunéville, and when the Germans approached, early in the morning, they
fell back to the bridge, which they had barricaded the night before. It
was the only way into Gerbéviller, so the chasseurs determined to fight.
They had torn up the street and thrown great earthworks across one end
of the bridge. Additional barricades were thrown up on the two
converging streets, part way up the hill, behind which they had
mitrailleuses which could sweep the road at the other end of the bridge.

About a half mile to the south a narrow footbridge crossed the river,
only wide enough for one man. It was a little rustic affair that ran
through the grounds of the Château de Gerbéviller that faced the river
only a few hundred yards below the main bridge. It was a very ancient
château, built in the twelfth century and restored in the seventeenth
century. It was a royal château of the Bourbons. In it once lived the
great François de Montmorency, Duc de Luxembourg and Marshal of France.
Now it belonged to the Marquise de Lamberty, a cousin of the King of
Spain.

I interrupted, for I wanted to hear about the chasseurs. I gave the
little old man a cigarette. He seized it eagerly--so eagerly that I also
handed him a cigar. He just sort of fondled that cigar for a moment and
then placed it in an inside pocket. It was a very cheap and very bad
French cigar, for I was in a part of the country that has never heard of
Havanas, but to the little old man it was something precious. "I will
keep it for Sunday," he said.

I then got him back to the seventy-five chasseurs. It was just eight
o'clock in the morning--a beautiful sunshiny morning--when the German
column appeared around the bend in the road which we could see across
the bridge, and which joined the highway from Lunéville. There were
twelve thousand in that first column. One hundred and fifty thousand
more came later. A band was playing "Deutschland über alles" and the men
were singing. The closely packed front ranks of infantry broke into the
goose step as they came in sight of the town. It was a wonderful sight;
the sun glistened on their helmets; they marched as though on parade
right down almost to the opposite end of the bridge.

Then came the command to halt. For a moment there was a complete
silence. The Germans, only a couple of hundred yards from the barricade,
seemed slowly to consider the situation. The Captain of the chasseurs,
from a shelter behind the very little house that is still standing--and
where his men up the two roads could see him--softly waved his hand.

Crack-crack-crack--crack-crack-crack-crack--crack-crack-crack! The
bullets from the mitrailleuses whistled across the bridge into the front
ranks of the "Deutchland über alles" singers, while the men behind the
bridge barricade began a deadly rifle fire.

Have you ever heard a mitrailleuse? It is just like a telegraph
instrument, with its insistant clickety click-click-click, only it is a
hundred times as loud. Indeed I have been told by French officers that
it has sometimes been used as a telegraph instrument, so accurately can
its operator reel out its hundred and sixty shots a minute.

On that morning at the Gerbéviller barricade, however, it went faster
than the telegraph. These men on the converging roads just shifted their
range slightly and poured bullets into the next ranks of infantry and so
on back along the line, until Germans were dropping by the dozen at the
sides of the little straight road. Then the column broke ranks wildly
and fled back into the shelter of the road from Lunéville.

A half hour later a detachment of cavalry suddenly rounded the corner
and charged straight for the barricade. The seventy-five were ready for
them. Some of them got half way across the bridge and then tumbled into
the river. Not one got back around the corner of the road to Lunéville.

There was another half hour of quiet, and then from the Lunéville road a
battery of artillery got into action. Their range was bad, so far as any
achievement against the seventy-five was concerned, so they turned their
attention to the château, which they could easily see from their
position across the river. The first shell struck the majestic tower of
the building and shattered it. The next smashed the roof, the third hit
the chapel--and so continued the bombardment until flames broke out to
complete the destruction.

Of course the Germans could not know that the château was empty, that
its owner was in Paris and both her sons fighting in the French Army.
But they had secured the military advantage of demolishing one of the
finest country houses in France, with its priceless tapestries, ancient
marbles and heirlooms of the Bourbons. A howl of German glee was heard
by the seventy-five chasseurs crouching behind their barricades. So
pleased were the invaders with their achievement, that next they bravely
swung out a battery into the road leading to the bridge, intending to
shell the barricades. The Captain of chasseurs again waved his hand.
Every man of the battery was killed before the guns were in position. It
took an entire company of infantry--half of them being killed in the
action--to haul those guns back into the Lunéville road, thus to clear
the way for another advance.

From then on until 1 o'clock in the afternoon there were three more
infantry attacks, all failing as lamentably as the first. The
seventy-five were holding off the 12,000. At the last attack they let
the Germans advance to the entrance of the bridge. They invited them
with taunts to "avancez." Then they poured in their deadly fire, and as
the Germans broke and fled they permitted themselves a cheer. Up to this
time not one chasseur was killed. Only four were wounded.

Shortly after 1 o'clock the German artillery wasted a few more shells on
the ruined château and the chasseurs could see a detachment crawling
along the river bank in the direction of the narrow footbridge that
crossed through the château park a half mile below. The Captain of the
chasseurs sent one man with a mitrailleuse to hold the bridge. He posted
himself in the shelter of a large tree at one end. In a few minutes
about fifty Germans appeared. They advanced cautiously on the bridge.
The chasseur let them get half way over before he raked them with his
fire. The water below ran red with blood.

The Germans retreated for help and made another attack an hour later
with the same result. By 4 o'clock, when the lone chasseur's ammunition
was exhausted, it is estimated that he had killed 175 Germans, who made
five desperate rushes to take the position, which would have enabled
them to make a flank attack on the seventy-four still holding the main
bridge. When his ammunition was gone--which occurred at the same time as
the ammunition at the main bridge was exhausted--this chasseur with the
others succeeded in effecting a retreat to a main body of cavalry. If he
still lives--this modern Horatius at the bridge--he remains an unnamed
hero in the ranks of the French Army, unhonored except in the hearts of
those few of his countrymen who know.

During the late hours of the afternoon aeroplanes flew over the
chasseurs' position, thus discovering to the Germans how really weak
were the defenses of the town, how few its defenders. Besides, the
ammunition was gone. But for eight hours--from 8 in the morning until 4
in the afternoon--the seventy-five had held the 12,000. General Joffre
has said in one of his reports that the defense of the bridge at
Gerbéviller had an important bearing on the battle of the Marne, which
was just beginning, for it gave Castelnau's Army of the East time to dig
its trenches a few miles back of Gerbéviller before the Germans got
through.

Had that body of 12,000 succeeded earlier the 150,000 Germans that
advanced the next day might have been able to fall on the French right
flank during the most critical and decisive battle of the war. The total
casualties of the chasseurs were three killed, three captured, and six
wounded.

The little old man and I had walked to the entrance of the château park
before he finished his story. It was still too early for breakfast. I
thanked him and told him to return to his work in the little house by
the bridge. I wanted to explore the château at leisure.

I entered the place--what was left of it. Most of the walls were
standing. Walls built in the twelfth century do not break easily, even
with modern artillery. But the modern roof and seventeenth century inner
walls were all demolished. Not a single article of furniture or
decoration remained. But the destruction showed some of the same
freaks--similar to that little house left untouched by fire on the
summit of the hill.

For instance, the Bourbon coat of arms above the grand staircase was
untouched, while the staircase itself was just splintered bits of
marble. On another fragment of a wall there still hung a magnificent
stag's antlers. Strewed about in the corners I saw fragments of vases
that had been priceless. Even the remnants were valuable. In the ruined
music room I found a piece of fresh, clean music, (an Alsatian waltz,)
lying on the mantelpiece. I went out to the front of the building, where
the great park sweeps down to the edge of the river. An old gardener in
one of the side paths saw me. We immediately established cordial
relations with a cigarette.

He told me how, after the chasseurs retreated beyond the town, the
Germans--reduced over a thousand of their original number by the
activities of the day--swept over the barricades of the bridge and into
the town. Yes, the old woman I had talked with was right about it. They
were very angry. They were ferociously angry at being held eight hours
at that bridge by a force so ridiculously small.

The first civilians they met they killed, and then they began to fire
the houses. One young man, half witted, came out of one of the houses
near the bridge. They hanged him in the garden behind the house. Then
they called his mother to see. A mob came piling into the château headed
by four officers. All the furniture and valuables that were not
destroyed they piled into a wagon and sent back to Lunéville. Of the
gardener who was telling me the story they demanded the keys of the wine
cellars. No; they did not injure him. They just held him by the arms
while several dozen of the soldiers spat in his face.

While the drunken crew were reeling about the place, one of them
accidentally stumbled upon the secret underground passage leading to the
famous grottoes. These grottoes and the underground connection from the
château were built in the fifteenth century. They are a half mile away,
situated only half above ground, the entrance looking out on a smooth
lawn that extends to the edge of the river. Several giant trees, the
trunks of which are covered with vines, semi-shelter the entrance, which
is also obscured by climbing ivy. The interior was one of the treasures
of France. The vaulted ceilings were done in wonderful mosaic. The walls
decorated with marbles and rare sea shells. In every nook were marble
pedestals and antique statuary, while the fountain in the centre,
supplied from an underground stream, was of porphyry inlaid with mosaic.

The Germans looked upon it with appreciative eyes and cultured minds.
But it did not please them. They were still very angry. Its destruction
was a necessity of war. It could not be destroyed by artillery because
it was half underground and screened by the giant trees. But it could be
destroyed by picks and axes. A squad of soldiers was detailed to the
job. They did it thoroughly. The gardener took me there to see. Not a
scrap of the mosaic remained. The fountain was smashed to bits. A
headless Venus and a smashed and battered Adonis were lying prone upon
the ground.

The visitors to the château and environs afterward joined their comrades
in firing the town. Night had come. Also across the bridge waited the
hundred and fifty thousand reinforcements come from Lunéville. The five
hundred of the two thousand inhabitants who remained were herded to the
upper end of the town near the station. That portion was not to be
destroyed because the German General would make his headquarters there.

The inhabitants were to be given a treat. They were to witness the
entrance of the hundred and fifty thousand--the power and might of
Germany was to be exhibited to them. So while the flames leaped high
from the burning city, reddening the sky for miles, while old men
prayed, while women wept, while little children whimpered, the sound of
martial music was heard down the street near the bridge. The infantry
packed in close formation, the red light from the fire shining on their
helmets, were doing the goose step up the main street to the
station--the great German army had entered the city of Gerbéviller with
the honors of war.



General Foch, the Man of Ypres

An Account of France's New Master of War

[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, April, 1915.]


"Find out the weak point of your enemy and deliver your blow there,"
said the Commander of the Twentieth French Army Corps at Nancy at a
staff banquet in 1913.

"But suppose, General," said an artillery officer, "that the enemy has
no weak point?"

"If the enemy has no weak point," returned the commander, with a gleam
of the eye and an aggressive tilt of the chin, "make one."

The commander was Foch--Ferdinand Foch--who has suddenly flashed before
the world as the greatest leader in the French Army after Joffre, and
who in that remark at Nancy gave the index to the basic quality of his
character as a General. General Foch is today in command of the northern
armies of France, besides being the chief Lieutenant and confidant of
Joffre. Joffre conceives; Foch, master tactician, executes. He finds the
weak point; if there is no weak point, he creates or seeks to create
one.

When King George of England was at the front in France recently he
conferred the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath--the highest military
distinction in the form of an order within the gift of the British
Crown--on two Frenchmen. Joffre was one. The other was Foch.

"Foch? Foch? Who is Foch?" asked the British public, perplexed, when the
newspapers printed the news of the granting of this signal honor.

"Foch is the General who was at the head of the French military mission
which followed our army manoeuvres three years ago," replied a few men
who happened to have been intimately acquainted with those manoeuvres.

"But what has that to do with the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath?"
asked John Bull. And the manoeuvre experts not being able to reply, the
English newspapers demanded from their correspondents in France an
answer to the query, "Who is Foch? Why the Grand Cross?"

And the main features of the answers to that query were these:

Foch is the "greatest strategist in Europe and the humblest," in the
words of Joffre.

Foch is the hero of the Marne, the man who perceived on Sept. 9 that
there must be a gap between the Prussian Guard and the Saxon Army, and
who gathered enough artillery to crush the guard in the St. Gond marshes
and forced both the Prussians and the Saxons, now separated, to retreat.

Foch is the man of Ypres, the commander who was in general control of
the successful fight made by the French and the British, aided by the
Belgians, to prevent the Germans from breaking through to Calais.

Foch, in short, is one of the military geniuses of the war, so record
observers at the front. He is a General who has something of the
Napoleonic in his composition; the dramatic in war is for him--secrecy
and suddenness, gigantic and daring movements; fiery, yet coldly
calculated attacks; vast strategic conceptions carried out by swift,
unfaltering tactics. Foch has a tendency to the impetuous, but he is
impetuous scientifically. He has, however, taken all in all, much more
of the dash and nervousness and warmth of the Southern Latin than has
Joffre--cool, cautious, taciturn Joffre. Yet both men are from the south
of France. They were born within a few miles of one another, within
three months of one another, Foch being born on Oct. 2, 1851, and Joffre
on Jan. 12, 1852.

Most writers who have dealt with Foch agree on this as one of his
paramount characteristics--the Napoleonic mode of military thought.
When Foch was director of the Ecole de Guerre, where he had much to do
with shaping the military views of many of the men who are now
commanding units of the French Armies, he was considered to be possessed
of almost an obsession on the subject of Napoleon. He studied Napoleon's
campaigns, and restudied them. He went back much further, however, in
his choice of a master, and gave intense application to the campaigns of
Caesar. Napoleon and Caesar--these were the minds from which the mind of
the Marne and Ypres has learned some of its lessons of success.

Here Foch invites comparison with another of the dominant figures of the
war--General French. For French is described by his biographer as "a
worshipper of Napoleon," regarding him as the world's greatest
strategist, and in following out and studying Napoleon's campaigns
French personally covered and studied much of the ground in Belgium over
which he has been fighting. French is a year younger than Foch. They are
old friends, as are French and Joffre, and Joffre and Foch.

The inclination of Foch to something of the Napoleonic is shown beyond
the realm of strategy and tactics. Foch is credited with knowing the
French soldier, his heart, his mind, his capabilities, and the method of
getting the most out of those capabilities, in a way reminiscent of the
winner of Jena. And Foch knows not only the privates, but the officers.
When he went to the front he visited each commander; the Colonels he
called by name; the corps commanders, without exception, had attended
his lectures at the Ecole de Guerre.

As for the men, Foch makes it his business to get into personal contact
with them, as Napoleon used to do. Foch does not hobnob with them, there
is no joking or familiarity, but he goes into the trenches and the
occupied villages and looks the men over informally, inspects food or
equipment, makes a useful comment or two, drops a phrase that is worth
repeating, and leaves behind him enthusiasm and respect. The Paris
Figaro says that he has the gift of setting souls afire, of arousing
that élan in the French fighter which made that fighter perform military
miracles when the "sun of Austerlitz" was high. It has been declared by
a French writer that Foch knows the human element in the French Army
better than any other man living.

With all his knowledge of men, his power of inspiring them, Foch is
quiet, retiring, non-communicative, with no taste for meeting people in
social intercourse. His life has been monotonous--work and work and
work. He has the reputation of being a driver; he used to be
particularly severe on shirkers in the war college, and such, no matter
what their influence, had no chance of getting a diploma leading to an
attractive staff position when Foch was Director. When he was in command
at Nancy and elsewhere he used to work his staffs hard, and they had to
share much of the monotony of work which has been chiefly Foch's life.
He did not go in for society, merely making the formal calls required by
the etiquette of garrison towns on the chief garrison hostesses, and
giving dinners two or three times a year to his staff.

Foch, indeed, with his quiet ways and his hard work and his studying of
Napoleon and Caesar, was characterized by some of the officers of the
army as a pedant, a theorist, and these held that Foch had small chance
of doing anything important in such a practical realm as that of real
war.

Because of his Directorship of the Ecole de Guerre he was known to many
officers, but as far as France at large was concerned his name was
scarcely known at all last August. Yet officers knew him in other lands
besides his own. His two great books, "Principles of War" and "Conduct
of War," have been translated into English, German, and Italian, and are
highly regarded by military men. He has been ranked by the
Militär-Wochenblatt, organ of the German General Staff, as one of the
few strategists of first class ability among the Allies.

Foch is a slim man, with a great deal of nervous energy in his actions,
being so quick and graceful in movement, indeed, that a recent English
observer declares he carries himself more like a man of 40 than one of
64. His gray blue eyes are particularly to be noticed, so keen are they.
His speech is quick, precise, logical.

So little has Foch been known to the French public that it has been
stated time and again that he is an Alsatian. He is not, but comes of a
Basque family which has lived for many generations in the territory
which is now the Department of the Hautes-Pyrénées, directly on the
border of Spain. Foch was born in the town of Tarbes in that department.
Joffre was born in the Department Pyrénées-Orientales, on the Spanish
border to the east. Foch's father, Napoleon Foch, was a Bonapartist and
Secretary of the Prefecture at Tarbes under Napoleon III. One of his two
brothers, a lawyer, is also called Napoleon. The other is a Jesuit
priest. Foch and these brothers attended the local college, and then
turned to their professions.

In 1870 Foch served as a subaltern against the Germans, as did Joffre.
After the war Foch began to win recognition as a man of brains, and at
26 he was given a commission as artillery Captain. Later he became
Professor of Tactics in the Ecole de Guerre, with the title of
Commandant, where he remained for five years, and then returned to
regimental work. It was when Foch reached the grade of Brigadier General
that he went back to the War College, this time as Director, one of the
most confidential positions in the War Department. From this post he
went to the command of the Thirteenth Division, thence to the command of
the Eighth Corps at Bourges, and thence to the command of the Twentieth
Corps at Nancy.

At the time that Foch was appointed Director of the Ecole de Guerre,
Clemenceau was Premier, and upon the latter fell the task of choosing an
officer for the important Directorship. There was keen competition for
the position, many influential Generals desiring the appointment, and in
consequence much wire-pulling went on. The story goes that Clemenceau,
a man of action, became impatient of the intrigues for the post, and
determined to make his own choice unhampered.

According to the story, Clemenceau, after a conference one day upon
routine business with Foch, asked the latter to dine. The Ecole de
Guerre was not mentioned during the meal, the men chatting upon general
topics. But as the coffee was being brought on, the Premier turned
suddenly to the General and said, brusquely:

"By the way, I've a good bit of news for you. You're nominated Director
of the Ecole de Guerre."

"Director of the Ecole de Guerre! But I'm not a candidate for the post."

"That is possible. But you're appointed all the same, and I know you
will do excellent work in the position."

Foch thanked the Premier, but he still had some doubts, and added:

"I fear you don't know all my family connections. I have a brother who
is a Jesuit."

"Jesuit be d-----!" the Premier is reported to have roared in reply.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Director! You are the Director of the Ecole
de Guerre. All the Jesuits in creation won't alter that--it is a fait
accompli."

Among the confidential bits of work worthy of note that Foch has done
for the War Department is the report he made upon the larger guns of the
French field artillery, which have done such execution in the present
war. For many weeks Foch went around the great Creusot gun works in the
blouse of a workman, testing, watching, experimenting, analyzing.

Foch was one of the high officers in France who was not in the least
surprised by the war and who had personally been holding himself in
readiness for it for years. He felt, and often said, that a great war
was inevitable; so much used he to dwell upon the certainty of war that
some persons regarded him as an alarmist when he kept declaring that
French officers should take every step within their power to get
themselves and the troops ready for active service at an instant's
notice. He also held that France as a nation should prepare to the
utmost of her power for the assured conflict.

In a recent issue of The London Times there was a description of Foch by
a Times correspondent who had been at Foch's headquarters in the north
of France. The correspondent's remarks are prefaced by the statement
that in a late dispatch General French mentions General Foch as one of
those whose help he has "once more gratefully to acknowledge." The
correspondent writes in part:

     What Ernest Lavisse has clone for civilian New France in his
     direction of the Ecole Normale General Foch has done in a
     large measure for the officers of New France by his teaching
     of strategy and tactics at the Ecole de Guerre. He left his
     mark upon the whole teaching of general tactics.

     I had the honor of being received recently by General Foch at
     his headquarters in the north of France--a house built for
     very different purposes many years ago, when Flemish civil
     architecture was in its flower. The quiet atmosphere of
     Flemish ease and burgomaster comfort has completely vanished.
     The building hums with activity, as does the whole town. A
     fleet of motor cars is ready for instant action. Officers and
     orderlies hurry constantly to and fro. There is an occasional
     British uniform, a naval airman's armored car, and above all
     the noise of this bustle, though lower in tone, the sound of
     guns in the distance from Ypres.

     The director of all this activity is General Foch. There in
     the north he is putting his theories of war to the test with
     as much success as he did at the outbreak of hostilities in
     Lorraine and later in the centre during the battle of the
     Marne. Although born with the brain of a mathematician,
     General Foch's ideas upon war are by no means purely
     scientific. He refuses, indeed, to regard war, and more
     especially modern war, as an exact science. The developments
     of science have, indeed, but increased the mental and moral
     effort required of each participant, and it is only in the
     passions aroused in each man by the conflict of conception of
     life that the combatant finds the strength of will to
     withstand the horrors of modern warfare.

     General Foch is a philosopher as well as a fighter. He is one
     of the rare philosophers who have proved the accuracy of their
     ideas in the fire of battle. A typical instance of this is
     given by "Miles" in a recent number of the Correspondant.
     During the battle of the Marne the Germans made repeated
     efforts to cut through the centre where General Foch commanded
     between Sézanne and Mailly. On three consecutive days General
     Foch was forced to retire. Every morning he resumed the
     offensive, with the result that his obstinacy won the day. He
     was able to profit by a false step by the enemy to take him in
     the flank and defeat him.

     General Foch's whole life and teaching were proved true in
     those days. He has resolved the art of war into three
     fundamental ideas--preparation, the formation of a mass, and
     the multiplication of this mass in its use. In order to derive
     the full benefit of the mass created it is necessary to have
     freedom of action, and that is only obtained by intellectual
     discipline. General Foch has written:

     "Discipline for a leader does not mean the execution of orders
     received in so far as they seem suitable, just reasonable, or
     even possible. It means that you have entirely grasped the
     ideas of the leader who has given the order and that you take
     every possible means of satisfying him. Discipline does not
     mean silence, abstention, only doing what appears to you
     possible without compromising yourself; it is not the practice
     of the art of avoiding responsibilities. On the contrary, it
     is action in the sense of orders received."

     Fifteen years ago at the Ecole de Guerre General Foch was fond
     of quoting Joseph de Maistre's remark, "A battle lost is a
     battle which one believes to have lost, for battles are not
     lost materially," and of adding, "Battles are therefore lost
     morally, and it is therefore morally that they are won." The
     aphorism can be extended by this one: "A battle won is a
     battle in which one will not admit one's self vanquished." As
     "Miles" remarks, "He did as he had said."

Ernest Dimnet in The London Saturday Review has this to say in part
about Foch and his two widely known books:

     During his two terms of service at the Ecole de Guerre he
     produced two considerable works, "Principes de la Guerre" and
     "De la Conduite de La Guerre," which give a high idea of their
     author's character and talent. There is nothing in them that
     ought to scare away the average reader. Their style has the
     geometrical lucidity which is the polytechnician's birthright,
     but in spite of the deliberate impersonality generally
     attached to that style of writing, there emanates from it a
     curious quality which gradually shows us the author as a
     living person.

     We have the impression of a vast mental capacity turned to the
     lifelong study of a fascinating subject and acquiring in it
     the dignity of attitude and the naturalness which mastery
     inevitably produces. War has been the constant meditation of
     this powerful brain. In "La Conduite de la Guerre" this
     meditation is the minute historical examination of the battles
     of the First Empire and 1870. "Nothing can replace the
     experience of war," writes the author, "except the history of
     war," and it is clear that he understands the word "history"
     as all those who go to the past for a lesson in greatness
     understand it.

     "Les Principes de la Guerre" is more immediately technical,
     yet it strikes one as being less a speculation than a
     visualizing of what modern war was sure to be. If the reader
     did not feel that he lacks the background which only the
     contemplation a million times repeated of concrete details can
     create, he would be tempted to marvel at the extraordinary
     simplicity of these views. But a good judge who was very near
     the General until a wound removed him for a while from the--to
     him--fascinating scene tells me that this simplicity and
     directness--which marked the action of Foch at the battle of
     the Marne as they formerly marked his teaching--are the
     perfection to which only a few can aspire.



THE UNREMEMBERED DEAD

By ELLA A. FANNING.


     "For those who die in war, and have none to pray for
     them."--Litany.

    We lay a wreath of laurel on the sward,
    Where rest our loved ones in a deep repose
    Unvexed by dreams of any earthly care,
    And, checking not our tears, we breathe a prayer,
    Grateful for even the comfort which is ours--
    That we may kneel and sob our sorrow there,
    And place the deathless leaf, the rarest flowers.

    Though Winter's cruel fingers brown the sod,
    It's dearer far than all the world beside!
    Forms live again--we gaze in love and pride
    On youthful faces prest close to our own.
    Eyes smile to ours; we hear each tender tone,
    Grief's smart is softened--less the sense of loss.
    This grave we have, at least; we're not alone!

    And they must know of our unchanging love--
    Our tender thought--our memory--our prayers!
    And in our constancy, ah! each one shares
    To whom death comes on distant battlefields,
    When life's last breath not even the solace yields--
    "There's one who'll mourn for me--whose tears will flow!"--
    Not even a grave is theirs, unnamed, unwept!
    God rest their souls--the dead we do not know!



Canada and Britain's War Union

By Edward W. Thomson, F.R.S.L., F.R.S.C.

[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, April, 1915.]


Canada's political relation to Great Britain, and, indeed, to all other
countries, has been essentially altered by Canada's quite voluntary
engagement in the war. Were feudal terms not largely inapplicable, one
might aver that the vassal has become the suzerain's ally, political
equality connoted.

But, indeed, Canadians were never vassals. They have ever been Britons,
whatever their individual origins, retaining the liberties of their
political birthright. While in a certain tutelage to their own monarchs'
immediate Ministries, they have continually, slowly, consciously,
expanded their freedom from such tutelage, substituting for it
self-government or rule by their own representatives, without forsaking
but rather enhancing their allegiance to the common Crown. This has long
been the symbol of their self-government, even as it is to old country
kinsmen the symbol of rule by themselves.

The alteration manifested by Canada's active, voluntary engagement in
the European war is the change from Canadians holding, as they formerly
did, that Great Britain was bound to defend Canada, while Canadians were
not bound to defend Great Britain outside Canada. The "dependency" has
not been now dragged in; it acted as an independency; it recognized its
participation with Great Britain in a common danger; it proceeded quite
voluntarily, quite independently, to recruit, organize, dispatch, and
maintain large forces for the common cause. Canada's course has become
that of a partner in respect of acceptance of risks and of contribution
to expenses.

This partner has no formally specified share in gains, or in authority,
or in future policy of the concern. Canada has no obvious, distinct,
admitted way or voice as to the conduct of war or making of peace. She
appears, with the other self-governing Dominions of the Crown, as an
ally having no vote in settlements, none of the prerogatives of an ally.
Hence some observers in Great Britain, in Canada, in other realms of the
Crown contend that the old, expressed relations between Great Britain,
Canada, and the other Dominions must inevitably be extensively changed
formally as well as actually in consequence of the war.

Some say imperial federation cannot but ensue. Others argue that formal
independence must arrive if such federation come not speedily. Others
contend for an Empire League of sister States. Nobody ventures to
mention what was often talked publicly by Canadians from thirty to fifty
years ago, and later by Goldwin Smith, viz., Canada's entrance to the
United States as a new tier of sovereign States. The idea of severance
from Great Britain has vanished. Discussion of the other alternatives is
not inactive, but it is forced. It engages the quidnuncs. They are
talkers who must say something for the delight of hearing themselves;
or they are writers who live under the exigency of needing to get
"something different" daily into print. They are mostly either
"Jingoes" or Centralizationists, as contra to Nationalists or
Decentralizationists, long-standing opponents.

Each set perceives their notions liable to be profoundly affected by
Canada's fighting in Europe. Each affects belief that their own
political designs cannot but be thereby served; each is afflicted with
qualms of doubt. They alike appreciate the factors that make for their
opponent's cause. Both know the strength of popular attachment to Great
Britain; both know the traditional and inbred loathing of the
industrious masses for the horrible bloodshed and insensate waste of
treasure in war. Both sets balance inwardly the chances that sentiments
seemingly irreconcilable and about equally respectable may, after the
war, urge Canadians either to draw politically closer to their
world-scattered kin, or to cut ligaments that might pull them again and
again, time without end, into the immemorial European shambles.

But is the Canadian public excitedly interested in the discussion? Not
at all. Spokesmen and penmen of the two contentious factions are
victimized by their own perfervid imaginations. The electorate, the
masses, are not so swayed. The Canadian people, essentially British no
matter what their origins, are mainly, like all English-speaking
democracies, of straight, primitive, uncomplicated emotions, and of
essentially conservative mind. They "plug" along. The hour and the day
hold their attention. It is given to the necessary private works of the
moment, as to the necessary public conduct of the time.

They did not, as a public, spin themselves any reasons or excuses for
their hearty approval of Canada's engagement in the war. Her or their
contributions of men and money to its fields of slaughter and waste
appeared and appear to them natural, proper, inevitable. They applauded
seriously the country's being "put in for it" by agreement of the two
sets of party politicians, and without any direct consultation of the
electorate in this, the most important departure Canada ever made,
because prompt action seemed the only way, and time was lacking for
debate about what seemed the next thing that had to be done. In fact,
the Canadian people, regarded collectively, felt and acted in this case
with as much ingenuousness as did those Tyrolese mountaineers, bred,
according to Heine, to know nothing of politics save that they had an
Emperor who wore a white coat and red breeches.

     When the patriots climbed up to them, and told them with
     oratory that they now had a Prince who wore a blue coat and
     white breeches, they grasped their rifles, and kissed wife and
     children, and went down the mountain and offered their lives
     in defense of the white coat and the dear old red breeches.

But did they forsake their relish of and devotion to their customary,
legendary Tyrolese liberties? No more will the Canadian masses, by
reason of their hearty participation in the war, incline to yield jot or
tittle of their usual, long-struggled-for, gradually acquired, valuable
and valued British self-governing rights. Can the Jingoes or
Centralizationists scare them backward? Or the Decentralizationists or
Separatists hurry them forward? Won't they just continue to "plug along"
as their forefathers did in the old country and in the new, gaining a
bit more freedom to do well or ill at their own collective choice--that
is, if the war result "as usual" in British security, according to
confident British expectation.

Such is the Canadian political situation. It has been essentially
similar any time within living memory. The people approve in politics
what they feel, instinctively, to be the profitable or the decent and
reasonable necessary next thing to do. Which signifies that those
controversialists are probably wrong who conceive that a result of the
war, if it be a win for the Allies, will cause any great formal change
in Canada's political relation to Great Britain.

The truly valuable change in such relations is already secured; it
cannot but become more notably established by future discussion; it is
and will be a change by reason of greatly increased influence on Great
Britain by Canada and the other Dominions. And it appears highly
probable that such inevitable change in influence or weight of the new
countries is sufficient for all sentiments concerned, and for all useful
purposes on behalf of which formal changes are advocated by doctrinaires
and idealists.

The British peoples have acquired by long practice in very various
politics a way of making existing arrangements "do" with some slight
patching. They are instinctively seized of the truth of Edmund Burke's
maxim, "Innovation is not improvement." They have "muddled along" into
precisely the institutions that suit any exigency, their sanest
political philosophers recognizing that the exigency must always be
most amenable to the most flexible system.

It is because the existing arrangements between London and the several
Dominion capitals don't suit logicians that they do suit experienced
statesmen pretty well. Because these institutions can be patched as
occasion may require, they are retained for patching on occasion.
Because the loose, go-as-you-please organization of the so-called
"empire" has revealed almost incredible unity of sentiment and purpose,
practiced statesmen regard it as a prodigious success. They are mighty
shy of affiliating with any of the well-meaning doctrinaires who have
been explaining any time within the last century that the system is
essentially incoherent and absurd and urgently needs profound change
with doctrinaire improvements.

Sir Robert Borden, for instance. Some days ago he most amiably gave me a
little private talk on these matters, of course on the tacit
understanding that he was not to be "interviewed" as for close reporting
of his informal sentences. He was, by the way, apparently in robust
health, as if, like Mr. Asquith, of a temperament to flourish under the
heaviest responsibilities ever laid on a Prime Minister in his own
country. No statesman could be of aspect and utterance less hurried, nor
more pleasant, lucid, cautious, disposed to give a friendly caller large
and accurate information briefly, while disclosing nothing at variance
with or unfindable in his published speeches. Of some of them he
repeated apposite slices; to others he referred for further
enlightenment as to his views on imperial federation. Really he was
neither secretive nor newly informative. The Premier of Canada at any
time is governed, much as I have endeavored to show how the electors
are, by that natural, instinctive course of the general loyal Canadian
mind, which constitutes "the situation" and controls Governmental
proceedings on behalf of the public.

Well meaning persons who allege Sir Robert to have either favored or
disfavored imperial federation have been inaccurate. Precisely what
imperial federation may be nobody knows, for the simple and sufficient
reason that nobody has ever sketched or elaborated a scheme in that
regard which appeared or appears desirable as a change from the
all-compelling situation. What has never been adopted as desirable
cannot be termed practicable in statesmen's language. To declare an
untried scheme impracticable might be an error of rashness.

The idea of federating the empire has long attracted Sir Robert, with
many other admirable Canadians and Britons, since it connotes or
involves the concept of British Union for all worthy and necessary
purposes, including maintenance of local autonomy or self-government,
surely a most praiseworthy design. Discussion of that idea is unlikely
to be harmful; it may be useful; something may come of it that may seem
desirable and practicable to substantially all interests and people
concerned. A consummation devoutly to be wished, but not to be rushed!
One point, frequently specified in Sir Robert's public speeches, was
stated as follows in a recent report, pamphleted for distribution by his
own side:

     It is impossible to believe that the existing status, so far
     as it concerns the control of foreign policy and
     extra-imperial relations, can remain as it is today. All are
     conscious of the complexity of the problem thus presented; and
     no one need despair of a satisfactory solution, and no one can
     doubt the profound influence which the tremendous events of
     the past few months and of those in the immediate future must
     exercise upon one of the most interesting and far-reaching
     questions ever presented for the consideration of statesmen.

There Sir Robert was recommending no particular solution. A little
earlier in the same speech he illustrated the deep sense of all
experienced British statesmen that there never is or can be in the
British system any final solution of any grave problem, the vital
essence of the system being flux and change to suit ever-changing
circumstance.

     In so far as this empire may be said to possess a
     Constitution, it is of modern growth and is still in the stage
     of development. One can hardly conceive that it will ever
     distinctly emerge from that state or attain a status in
     which constitutional development is no longer to be
     anticipated. Indeed, the genius of the British people and all
     our past history lead us to believe the contrary. The steps in
     advance have been usually gradual and always practical; and
     they have been taken on instinct rather than upon any
     carefully considered theory.

[Illustration: YUAN SHIH-KAI

President of the Chinese Republic.

_(Photo by Rio V. De Sieux.)_]

[Illustration: PRINCE VON BUELOW

German Ambassador to Italy.]

Which was admonition at once of the Centralizationists and their
opponents, the Nationalists.

Whatever alteration of existing British inter-arrangements may come
after the war will be done on instinct in view of circumstances that
cannot now be foreseen. Wherefore clamorers for this or that, their
favorite scheme, are now inopportunists. Hence they are neglected by the
public as unimpressive, futile wasters of breath or ink. Indeed Canada,
Great Britain, the whole race of mankind are now swept on the crest of a
huge wave of Fate. When it casts them ashore, recedes, leaves men to
consider what may best be done for the future, then will have come the
time to rearrange political fabrics, if need be. Then Sir Robert Borden
will probably continue in his often clearly specified opinion that
Canada, if remaining liable as now to be drawn into Great Britain's more
perilous wars--a liability which must ever urge Canada to strong
participation in order that the peril may be the sooner ended--ought to
have a share in controlling Great Britain's foreign policy. Which
sharing Mr. Asquith declared last year impracticable, in that sense
inadmissible.

Westminster must retain freedom to move, act, strike quickly. Her course
toward Germany had to be decided last August within a few hours.
Obviously her freedom, her power for promptitude would be hindered in
proportion to need for such consultation with and approval by councilors
of many distant countries as is presupposed by advocates of imperial
federation. Why establish control by cumbersome, superfluous machinery
when the war has made it clear as the sun at high noon that the
essential desideratum, British Union, exists now? All the notable
communities of the King's realms have demonstrated that they are in the
mind, the condition of a voluntary empire. What more can be desired
save by such as desire old country domination of all the concerned
countries, and who really long for a formal and subservient Empire?

Sir Richard Jebb, a deep student of the Empire problem, declared clearly
last November the meaning of that general voluntary British war union
which is a wonder of mankind, and in the course to teach a profound,
general political lesson. He wrote:

     That the war will in any event change the external relations
     is evident. But why, if we win, should it change the political
     relations between the parts, except to the extent of
     encouraging us to conserve and develop the existing system
     which has given so signal an example of effective imperial
     unity in time of need? Continually talking of imperial unity,
     we fail to recognize it when we have got it. There is never
     going to be a moment when one might say "Yesterday we were not
     united; today the Grand Act (of Imperial Federation
     understood) has been signed; henceforth we are united."

     The cult of the Grand Act is a snare and a delusion. Whatever
     may happen hereafter--even the Grand Act itself--posterity is
     likely to look back upon August, 1914, as the moment when the
     British Empire reached the zenith of its unity. Let us
     remember that the existing system is not stationary, though
     its principle (voluntary union) may be final. It has been
     developing steadily since 1902.

     The Australian fleet unit, the first of the Dominion navies,
     which enables each to exert upon foreign policy the full
     weight of its importance in the empire, was not begun until
     1910. The corollary, that any Dominion Minister appointed to
     reside in London should have free and constant access to the
     British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, was only
     conceded in January, 1912, and has not yet been taken
     advantage of, even by Australia.

     But the development is all true to principle. What principle?
     Voluntary co-operation, as opposed to central compulsion. In
     war, as in peace, each of the Britannic nations is free to do
     or not to do. But we have invoked naval and military
     co-ordination, with results which the Australian Navy has
     already exemplified (on the Emden, &c.)

     Has this system of the free Commonwealth, as distinguished
     from the German principle of a centralized empire organized
     primarily for war, broken down under the supreme test, as so
     many of our prophets predicted? On the contrary, it has alone
     saved South Africa to the empire, besides eliciting
     unrestricted military aid from each part. Why change it for
     something diametrically opposed to its spirit, substituting
     compulsion for liberty, provinces for nation-States?

Sir Richard Jebb's sentence, specifying the nature of the Australian
influence on foreign policy, seems apt reply to Sir Robert Borden's
oft-repeated specification that a share in control of foreign policy
should accrue to the Dominions by reason of their participation in or
liability to war. This liability really compels them to engage with all
their strength, lest they comfort an enemy by abstention, or by
confining their armaments to self-defense, which might and would be read
as disapproval of Britain's course, if the war were one of magnitude
endangering her. A system more powerfully requiring Great Britain to
take heed that her quarrel be just, lest she be not thrice armed by
approving children, can scarcely be imagined.

On this matter I have had the pleasure and benefit, during the last
twelve years, of talking with Sir Wilfrid Laurier often. In the quoted
Jebb view he agreed closely when I saw him a few days ago. He remarked,
with special regard to this article for THE NEW YORK TIMES, that his
point of insistence at the Imperial Conferences of 1902, 1907, 1911, and
on all proper occasions, has been that local autonomy--that is, complete
self-government for each of the Dominions--is not only consistent with
British unity but necessary thereto as promoting and conserving that
unity.

When Mr. Asquith's denial of the practicability of giving the Dominions
a direct share in control of Great Britain's foreign policy is
considered, the Jebb-Laurier view would appear one to which Sir Robert
Borden, cautious statesman, must be led by recognition that potent
influence on foreign policy cannot but come to Dominions energetically
providing at once for their own defense and for their power to aid Great
Britain all along the line.

As to imperial federation, Sir Wilfrid remarked that he has ever been
openly attracted by that aspiration toward permanent British union, on
which advocacy of the vague project has ever been bottomed. He is, as he
said to me, and as all his long series of political actions have
manifested, British in heart and way of political thinking, as indeed
substantially all his French-Canadian compatriots are. British
liberality, not to say liberalism, has attached them to the British
system as firmly as any community originating from the United Kingdom.
It was a French-Canadian statesman who asserted, some fifty years ago,
when many British-Canadians seemed tending toward union with the United
States, "The last shot fired in Canada for British connection will be
from a French-Canadian." That was before the civil war abolished
slavery.

But, even as the Britishism of Old Country liberals is strongly
tinctured by devotion to ideals which Americans are wont to regard as
theirs--ideals making for settled peace, industry, the uplift of the
"common people," fair room and reward for those abilities which
conspicuously serve the general welfare--so Sir Wilfrid and his
compatriots acknowledge their Britishism to be acutely conscious of
political kinship with the American people. The French-Canadian
yearning, like that of many Canadians of British origin, is rather for
English-speaking union--a union of at least thorough understanding and
common designs with the American people--than for the narrower exclusive
British union sought by Canadian imperial federationists.

Sir Wilfrid said, in effect, (I do not profess to report his very
words,) that federation of those British communities widely separated by
geography, but alike in race, language, laws, principles, has always
attracted him as a project of excellent intentions. It is at worst a
noble dream. That dream has become less impracticable than it was
formerly, he thinks, by reason of the essential diminution of the world,
diminution of distances and of time by latter-day inventions.

Against the idea of general representation in a central Parliament at
London, Sir Wilfrid pointed out that Edmund Burke objected "opposuit
natura"--nature forbade it. The wisest of political philosophers could
not foresee the telegraph, wireless, steam, airships. These have made a
useful central imperial Parliament at least conceivable. Could it be
more useful than the advisory council, or Imperial Conference which has
become quadrennial, and might possibly become annual? That is matter for
discussion. Sir Wilfrid said that such is the political genius of the
British race that he would be rash who alleged any design impracticable
toward which the race may tend so generally as to put it under
discussion for arrangement of details. Conservation of local
self-government, prime essential to agreement for union on common
purposes, might prove reconcilable with federated defense.

But there is, to Sir Wilfrid's way of thinking, one large objection
against now attempting imperial federation. Its agitators contemplate a
scheme immense, yet not sufficiently inclusive. They do not contemplate
English-speaking solidarity. They purpose leaving out the majority of
English-speakers--the American people. In this they do not follow Cecil
Rhodes, a chief propagandist of their main design. It is true that the
idea of getting Americans to participate in any formal union with all
the rest of their brethren by race and tongue seems now impractical. But
time works wonders. Mr. Gladstone foresaw the United States a people of
six hundred comfortable millions, living in union before the end of the
next century. The hegemony of the English-speaking nations seems likely
to be within attainment by that one of them which appears destined to
become far the most powerful of all in numbers, in wealth, and in
security of environment. Time may show to our successors in this world
some effective method of establishing agreements amounting to that
solidarity for English-speaking action which has been acclaimed as
existent for English-speaking thinking by a mind so eminently reasonable
as that of Lord Haldane.

It would be hasty, thinks Sir Wilfrid, and it might be injurious for the
British countries to move toward any sort of formal union ostensibly
tending to set them collectively apart from the United States. Give
great beneficent ideas time to develop. Britons can well afford to take
their time, since the war has shown existent among them an almost
perfect union of sentiment and purpose. And this, apparently, with the
blessed effect of enhancing general American good-will to Britons. From
so much good understanding more may ensue, Sir Wilfrid concluded.

Such Canadians as hold Edmund Burke to have been a spokesman of
consummate political wisdom are apt to regard the busy stir of
doctrinaires, who scream for closer political junction of the British
peoples, even as Burke regarded the hurry of some of the same kidney in
his time. Resolute to bind the thirteen colonies forever to England,
they proceeded to offend, outrage, and drive those colonies to
independence. Be it remembered that these colonies had contributed so
loyally, so liberally to England's armaments and wars that grateful
London Parliaments had insisted on voting back to them the subsidies
they had granted, holding the contributions too generous. To later
proposals of foolish henchmen of George III., proposals that the
colonies, since they had revealed themselves as strong and rich, should
be dragged into some formal political subordination by which, as by
latter-day Imperial Federation, they might be involuntarily mustered and
taxed for imperial purposes, Burke said:

     Our hold on the colonies is the close affection which grows
     from common names, from kindred blood, from similar
     privileges, and equal protection. These are the ties which,
     though light as air, are strong as links of iron. Let the
     colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated
     with your Government; they will cling and grapple to you, and
     no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their
     allegiance....

     As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority
     of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple
     consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and
     sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces
     toward you. The more they multiply, the more friends you will
     have. The more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect
     will be their obedience. Slavery they can have anywhere. It is
     a weed that grows on every soil. They may have it from Spain;
     they may have it from Prussia; but until you become lost to
     all feeling of your true interest and your natural dignity,
     freedom they can have from none but you.

     This is the commodity of price, of which you have the
     monopoly.... Do not entertain so weak an imagination as that
     your registers and your bonds, your affidavits and your
     sufferances, ... your letters of office and your instructions
     and your suspending clauses are the things that hold together
     the great contexture of this mysterious whole. These things do
     not make your Government. Dead instruments, passive tools as
     they are, it is the spirit of the English communion that gives
     all their life and efficacy to them. It is the spirit of the
     English Constitution which, infused through the mighty mass,
     pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of
     the empire, even to the minutest member.

And the doctrinaires of Centralization, vociferating their fad of
Imperial Federation, would have that Constitution, in the moment of its
supreme triumph for unity, cast away! Cast away for a new and written
one by which Great Britain and all her children alike would chain
themselves together! Well may practical statesmen view the doctrinaires
with some disdain, not unmindful of Burke's immortal scorn of such
formalists:

"A sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and
material, and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors
of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the
machine. To men truly initiated and rightly taught, those ruling and
master principles which, in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned,
have no substantial existence, are in truth everything and all in all.
Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great
empire and little minds go ill together."



ENGLAND.

By JOHN E. DOLSON.


    Birth land of statesmen, bards, heroes, and sages;
      Mother of nations--the homes of the free;
    Builder of work that will last through the ages,
      Hope for Humanity centres in thee.

    Now that thy bugles their clear calls are shrilling,
      Now that thy battle voice echoes worldwide,
    O'er the long reaches of sea rush the willing
      Sons of thy children to fight by thy side.

    Eager to aid thee with treasure and tissue,
      Other leal millions will come to thy call.
    Civilization is staked on the issue--
      Woe to Mankind if thy lion should fall!

    Fall he will never, till English force slacken
      In the great soul of thy dominant race,
    Now, as of old, do the Destinies beckon
      Thee to be highest in power and place.

    Conflicts now raging will pass into story,
      Nations may sink in defeat or disgrace;
    Long be thy future resplendent with glory,
      Long be thy triumphs the pride of our race!



American Aid of France

By Eugène Brieux

[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, April, 1915.]


     M. Eugène Brieux, the celebrated French poet and playwright,
     who is in this country as the official representative of the
     French Academy--the "Forty Immortals"--has written a
     remarkable tribute to American aid of France during the
     present war. The address, which is herewith presented, was
     read by M. Brieux at the residence of Mrs. John Henry Hammond
     of New York City recently before a gathering of two hundred
     men and women who have been interested in the work of the
     American Ambulance Hospital in Paris.

Miss Marie Van Vorst, who nursed the wounded at the American Ambulance
in Paris, will speak to you of it as an eyewitness. From her you will
receive direct news of your splendid work of humanity. While she was
caring for wounded French, English, and German I was attached to another
hospital at Chartres. It happens, therefore, that I have never seen the
American Military Hospital created by you, but I am not in ignorance
concerning it any more than any other Parisian, any more, indeed, than
the majority of the French people. I know that the American Ambulance is
the most remarkable hospital that the world has seen. I know that you,
since the beginning of the war, have brought the aid of medical science
to wounded men and that you have given not only money, but an
institution, all ready, complete and of the most modern type, and, even
more, that you have sent there your best surgeons and a small army of
orderlies and nurses.

I know that at first one could not find a place; that there was
available only a building in course of construction, intended to be the
Pasteur School at Neuilly. This building was far from completion; it
lacked doors and there were no stairs. I know that in three weeks your
generosity, your energy, and your quick intelligence has made of this
uncertain shell a modern military hospital, with white walls, electric
light, baths, rooms for administering anaesthetics, operating rooms,
sterilizing plants, apparatus for X-rays, and a dental clinic. I know
that automobiles, admirably adapted to the service, carried the wounded.
And yet I do not know all. I know only by instinct of the devotion of
your young girls, of your women, and of your young men, belonging often
to prominent families, who served as stretcher bearers and orderlies.

I am not ignorant of the fact that they count by the hundreds those who
have been cured at the American Ambulance at Neuilly, nor of the further
fact that the rate of mortality is extremely low, although they have
sent you those most gravely injured. I know that it is all free; that
there are no charges made for the expenses of administration; that for
the service rendered by your people there is no claim, and that every
cent of every dollar subscribed goes entirely and directly to the care
of the wounded. I know also that the expenses at the hospital are $4,000
a day, and that ever since the beginning your charity has met this
demand.

Such splendid effort has not been ignored or misunderstood. The
President of the French Republic has cabled to President Wilson his
appreciation and his gratitude; General Fevier, Inspector General of
Hospitals of the French Army, has publicly expressed his admiration; the
English physicians and public men have shared their sentiments.

As to the people of Paris, as to the French nation, they have been
touched to the depths of their being. And yet in France we have found
all this quite natural. I shall tell you why. We have so high a regard
for you that when you do anything well no one is surprised. I believe
that if a wounded soldier arriving at your hospital exclaimed, "This is
wonderful!" his comrade who had been ahead of him would answer in a tone
of admonition: "That surprises you? You do not know then that it is done
by the Americans, by the people from the United States?" In this refusal
to be astonished in the face of remarkable achievements, when they come
from you, there is a tribute, a praise of high quality which your
feelings and your patriotism will know how to appreciate.

I have said that all that comes from you which is good and great seems
natural to us, and I have given you a reason; but there is another. In
France we are accustomed to consider the Republic of the United States
as an affectionate, distant sister. When one receives a gift from a
stranger one is astonished and cries out his thanks, but when the gift
comes from a brother or from some one who, on similar occasions, has
never failed, the thanks are not so outspoken but more profound. One
says: "Ah, it is you, my brother. I suffer. I expected you. I knew that
you would come, for I should have gone to you had you needed me. I thank
you."

And, indeed, we are closely bound together, you and we. Without doubt,
common interest and an absence of possible competition helps to that
end, but there is something more which unites us--it is our kindred
sentiments. It is this kinship which has created our attraction for each
other and which has cemented it; it is our common ground of affections,
of hatreds, of hopes; our ideals rest upon the same high plane. To
mention but one point, one of you has said: "The United States and
France are the only two nations which have fought for an ideal." And it
is that which separates us, you and us, from a certain other nation, and
which has served to bring us two close together.

We love you and we are grateful for what you are doing for us. When the
day came for my departure from France to represent here the French
Academy I asked of Mr. Poincaré, who had visited the American Ambulance
at Neuilly, if duty did not forbid me to go. "No," he said to me. "Go to
the United States. Carry greetings to the great nation of America." And
he gave to me, for your President, the letter with which you are
familiar, where he expressed the admiration and the sympathy that he has
for you.

I have been traveling North and South in the Eastern part of the United
States. I have had many opportunities to admire your power and the
extent of your efforts. Today, in thinking of the American Ambulance
Hospital in Paris, I admire your persistence in labor. You have
established this hospital. That was good. But it costs a thousand
dollars a day, and yet you keep on with the work. That is doubly good.
Indeed, one can understand that you have not been willing, after having
created this model hospital, that some day through lack of support its
doors should close and the wounded you have taken in be turned over to
others; certainly those first subscribers undertook a sort of moral
obligation to themselves not to permit the work to fail. But, none the
less, it is admirable that it should be so. To give once is something,
but it is little if one compares the value of the first gift to those
which follow.

The first charity is easily understood. Suddenly war is at hand. Its
horrors can be imagined and every one feels that he can in some measure
lessen them, and he opens his purse. Then time passes, the war
continues, and one becomes accustomed to the thoughts that were at first
unbearable--it is so far away and so long. Others in this way were
checked after their first impulse.

But you, you have thought that, if it is good to establish a hospital,
that alone was not enough, and that each day would bring new wounded to
replace those who, cured, took up their guns again and returned to the
field of battle. And since at the American Ambulance the wounded are
cured quickly, the very excellence of your organization, the science of
your surgeons, and the greatness of your sacrifices all bring upon you
other and new sacrifices to be made.

But the word "sacrifice" is badly chosen. You do not make sacrifices,
for you are strong and you are good. When you decide upon some new
generous act you have only to appeal to your national pride, which will
never allow an American undertaking to fail. You have the knowledge of
the good that you are doing, and that, for you, is sufficient. You know
that, thanks to your generosity, suffering is relieved, and you know
that, thanks to the science of your surgeons, this relief is not merely
momentary, but that the wounded man who would have remained a cripple if
he had been less ably cared for, will be, thanks to you, completely
cured, and that, instead of dragging out a miserable existence, he will
be able to live a normal life and support a family which will bless
you. Such men will owe it all to the persistence of your generosity.

I return always to that point, and it is essential. To give once is a
common impulse, common to nearly all the world. It means freeing one's
self from the suffering which good souls feel when they see others
suffer. But to give again after having given is a proof of reflection,
of an understanding of the meaning of life; it is to work intelligently;
it is to insure the value of the first effort; it means the possession
of goodness which is lasting and far-seeing. That is a rare virtue. You
have it. And that is why I express a three-fold thanks, for the past,
for the present, and for the future--thanks that come from the bottom of
the heart of a Frenchman.



A FAREWELL.

By EDNA MEAD.


    Look, Love! I lay my wistful hands in thine
      A little while before you seek the dark,
    Untraversed ways of War and its Reward,
      I cannot bear to lift my gaze and mark
      The gloried light of hopeful, high emprise
    That, like a bird already poised for flight,
      Has waked within your eyes.
    For me no proud illusions point the road,
      No fancied flowers strew the paths of strife:
    War only wears a horrid, hydra face,
      Mocking at strength and courage, youth and life.
    If you were going forth to cross your sword
      In fair and open, man-to-man affray,
      One might be even reconciled and say,
    "This is not murder; only passion bent
      On pouring out its poison"--one could pray
    That the day's end might see the madness done
    And saner souls rise with the morrow's sun.
      But this incarnate hell that yawns before
    Your bright, brave soul keyed to the fighter's clench--
    This purgatory that men call the "trench"--
      This modern "Black Hole" of a modern war!
    Yea, Love! yet naught I say can save you, so
    I lay my heart in yours and let you go.



Stories of French Courage

By Edwin L. Shuman

[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, April, 1915.]


There has just appeared in Paris a book called "La Guerre Vue d'Une
Ambulance," which brings the war closer to the eye and heart than
anything else I have read. It is written by Abbé Felix Klein, Chaplain
of the American Ambulance Hospital at Neuilly, a suburb of Paris, and
has the added merit of describing the noble work which American money
and American Red Cross nurses are doing there for the French wounded.
The abbé, by the way, has twice visited the United States in recent
years, has many warm friends here, and has written several enthusiastic
books about the "Land of the Strenuous Life."

When the war broke out this large-hearted priest and busy author dropped
all his literary and other plans to minister to the wounded soldiers
brought to the war hospital established by Americans in the fine new
building of the Lycée Pasteur, which was to have received its first
medical students a few weeks later. There were 250 beds at first, and
later 500, with more than a hundred American automobiles carrying the
wounded to it, often direct from the front.

Through all these months Abbé Klein has labored day and night among
these sufferers, cheering some to recovery, easing the dying moments of
others with spiritual solace, and, hardest of all, breaking the news of
bereavement to parents.

From day to day, through those terrible weeks of fighting on the Aisne
and the Marne, with Paris itself in danger, the good abbé wrote brief
records of his hopes and fears regarding his wounded friends, and set
down in living words the more heroic or touching phases of their simple
stories. Let me translate a few of them for the reader.

Take, for instance, the case of Charles Marée, a blue-eyed, red-bearded
hero of thirty years, an only son who had taken the place of his invalid
father at the head of their factory, and who had responded to the first
call to arms. During his months of suffering his parents were held in
territory occupied by the enemy and could not be reached. The abbé goes
on to tell his story:

     Let us not be deceived by the calm smile on his face. For six
     weeks Charles Marée has been undergoing an almost continual
     martyrdom, his pelvis fractured, with all the consequences one
     divines, weakened by hemorrhage, his back broken, capable only
     of moving his head and arms.... He is one of our most fervent
     Christians: I bring him the communion twice a week, and he
     never complains of suffering. He is also one of our bravest
     soldiers; he has received the military medal, and when I asked
     him how it came about he told me the following in a firm tone
     and with his hand in mine, for we are great friends:

     "It was given to me the 8th of October. I had to fulfill a
     mission that was a little difficult. It was at Mazingarbe,
     between Béthune and Lens, and 9 o'clock in the evening. Two of
     the enemy's armored auto-machine guns had just been discovered
     approaching our lines. I was ordered to go and meet them with
     a Pugeot of twenty-five or thirty horse power--I was
     automobilist in the Thirtieth Dragoons.

     "I left by the little road from Vermelles on which the two
     hostile machines were reported to be approaching. After twenty
     minutes I stopped, put out my lights, and waited. A quarter of
     an hour of profound silence followed, and then I caught the
     sound of the first mitrailleuse. With one spin of the wheel I
     threw my machine across the middle of the road. That of the
     enemy struck us squarely in the centre. The moment the shock
     was past I rose from my seat with my revolver and killed the
     chauffeur and the mechanician.

     "But almost immediately the second machine gun arrived. The
     two men on it comprehended what had happened. While one of
     them stopped the machine, the other aimed at me under his seat
     and fired a revolver ball that pierced both thighs; then they
     turned their machine and retreated. My companion, happily, was
     not hurt, so he could take me to Vermelles, where the
     ambulance service was. The same evening they gave me the
     military medal, for which I had already been proposed three
     times."

After three months of suffering, borne without complaint, this man died
without having been able to get a word to his parents. The abbé had
become deeply attached to him, and the whole hospital corps felt the
loss of his courageous presence.

Some of the horror of war is in these pages, as where the author says:

     The doctors worked till 3 o'clock this morning. They had to
     amputate arms and legs affected with gangrene. The operating
     room was a sea of blood.

Some of the pathos of war is here, and even a little of its humor, but
most of all its courage. Both of the latter are mingled in the case of
an English soldier who was brought in wounded from the field of
Soissons.

     "I fought until such a day, when I was wounded."

     "And since then?"

     "Since then I have traveled."

An English infantry officer, a six-footer, brought to the hospital with
his head bandaged in red rather than white, showed the abbé his cap and
the bullet hole in it.

"A narrow escape," said the abbé in English, and then learned that the
escape was narrower than the wounded forehead indicated. Another bullet,
without touching the officer, had pierced the sole of his shoe under his
foot, and a third had perforated his coat between the body and the arm
without breaking the skin.

The author's attitude toward the Germans, always free from bitterness,
is sufficiently indicated in such a paragraph as this:

     This afternoon I gave absolution and extreme unction to an
     Irishman, who has not regained consciousness since he was
     brought here. He had in his portfolio a letter addressed to
     his mother. The nurse is going to add a word to say that he
     received the last sacraments. A Christian hope will soften the
     frightful news. Emperors of Austria and Germany, if you were
     present when the death is announced in that poor Irish home,
     and in thousands, hundreds of thousands of others, in England,
     in France, in Russia, in Servia, in Belgium, in your own
     countries, in all Europe, and even in Africa and Asia!... May
     God enlighten your consciences!

The French wounded in the hospital at Neuilly--during the period when
the German right wing was being beaten back from Paris--frequently
accused the German regulars of wanton cruelty, but testified to the
humanity of the reservists. The author relates several episodes
illustrating both points. Here are two:

     "The regulars are no good," said a brave peasant reservist.
     "They struck me with the butts of their rifles on my wound.
     They broke and threw away all that I had. The reserves arrive,
     and it is different; they take care of me. My comrade, wounded
     in the breast, was dying of thirst; he actually died of it a
     little while afterward. I dragged myself up to go and seek
     water for him; the young fellows aimed their guns at me. I was
     obliged to make a half-turn and lie down again."

Another, who also begins by praising the German field officers, saw
soldiers of the active army stripping perfectly nude one of our men who
had a perforated lung, and whom they had made prisoner after his wound:

     "When they saw that they would have to abandon him, they took
     away everything from him, even his shirt, and it was done in
     pure wickedness, since they carried nothing away."

One of the most amazing escapes is that of a soldier from Bordeaux, told
partly in his own racy idiom, and fully vouched for by the author. After
relating how he left the railway at Nanteuil and traversed a hamlet
pillaged by the Germans he continues:

     We form ourselves into a skirmish line. The shells come. The
     dirt flies: holes to bury an ox? One can see them coming:
     zzz--boom! There is time to get out of the way.

     Arrived at the edge of the woods, we separate as scouts. We
     are ordered to advance. But, mind you, they already have our
     range. The artillery makes things hum. My bugler, near me, is
     killed instantly; he has not said a word, poor boy! I am
     wounded in the leg. It is about two o'clock. As I cannot drag
     myself further, a comrade, before leaving, hides me under
     three sheaves of straw with my head under my knapsack. The
     shells have peppered it full of holes, that poor sack. Without
     it--ten yards away a comrade, who had his leg broken and a
     piece of shell in his arm, received seven or eight more
     wounds.

     I stayed there all day. In the evening the soldiers of the
     101st took me into the woods, where there were several French
     wounded and a German Captain, wounded the evening before. He
     was suffering too, poor wretch. About midnight the French
     soldiers came to seek those who were transportable. They left
     only my comrade, myself and the German Captain. There were
     other wounded further along, and we heard their cries. It was
     dreary.

These wounded men passed two whole days there without help. On the third
day the Germans arrived and the narrator gave himself up for lost. But
the German Captain, with whom the Frenchmen had divided their food and
drink, begged that they be cared for. Ultimately they were taken to the
German camp and their wounds attended to. But in a few minutes the camp
became the centre of a violent attack, and again it looked as if the
last day of the wounded prisoners had come.

Suddenly the Germans ran away and left everything. An hour later, when
the firing ceased, they returned, carried away the wounded of both
nationalities on stretchers, crowded about twenty-five of them into one
wagon (the narrator's broken leg was not stretched out, and he
suffered,) and all the way the wagon gave forth the odor of death. All
day they rode without a bite to eat. At 1 o'clock at night they reached
the village of Cuvergnon, where their wounds were well attended to. The
following day the Germans departed without saying a word, but the
villagers cared for the wounded, both friends and enemies, and in time
the American automobiles carried them to Neuilly.

     It is a paradise [added the wounded man.] Now we are saved.
     But what things I have seen! I have seen an officer with his
     brain hanging here, over his eye. And black corpses, and
     bloated horses! The saddest time is the night. One hears
     cries: "Help!" There are some who call their mothers. No one
     answers.

All these recitals of soldiers are stamped with the red badge of
courage. A priest serving as an Adjutant was superintending the digging
of trenches close to the firing line on the Aisne. He had to expose
himself for a space of three feet in going from one trench to another.
In that instant a Mauser bullet struck him under the left eye, traversed
the nostril, the top of the palate, the cheek bone and came out under
the right ear. He felt the bullet only where it came out, but soon he
fell, covered with blood and believed he was wounded to death. Then his
courage returned, and he crawled into the trench. Comrades carried him
to the ambulance at Ambleny, with bullets and "saucepans" raining about
them from every direction. In time he was transferred to the American
Hospital at Neuilly. "I'm only a little disfigured and condemned to
liquids," he told his friend the abbé. "In a few weeks I shall be cured
and will return to the front."

Abbé Klein tells the curious story of a Zouave and his faithful dog. In
one of the zigzag corridors connecting the trenches near Arras the man
was terribly wounded by a shell that killed all his companions and left
him three-quarters buried in the earth. With only the dead around him,
he "felt himself going to discouragement," to use the author's mild
phrase, when his dog, which had never left him since the beginning of
the war, arrived and began showing every sign of distress and affection.
The wounded man told the author:

     It is not true that he dug me out, but he roused my courage. I
     commenced to free my arms, my head, the rest of my body.
     Seeing this, he began scratching-with all his might around me,
     and then caressed me, licking my wounds. The lower part of my
     right leg was torn off, the left wounded in the calf, a piece
     of shell in the back, two fingers cut off, and the right arm
     burned. I dragged myself bleeding to the trench, where I
     waited an hour for the litter carriers. They brought me to the
     ambulance post at Roclincourt, where my foot was taken off,
     shoe and all; it hung only by a tendon. From there I was
     carried on a stretcher to Anzin, then in a carriage to another
     ambulance post, where they carved me some more.... My dog was
     present at the first operation. An hour after my departure he
     escaped and came to me at Anzin.

But when the Zouave was sent to Neuilly the two friends had to separate.
At the railway station he begged to take his dog along, and told his
story; but the field officer, touched though he was, could not take it
upon himself to send a dog on a military train. The distress of both man
and beast was so evident that more than one nurse had tears in her eyes
as the train pulled out.

They tried to pet the dog, dubbed him Tue-Boches, offered him dog
delicacies of all sorts, but in vain. He refused all food and remained
for two days "sad to death." Then some one went to the American
Hospital, told how the dog had saved the Zouave, and the upshot of it
was that the faithful animal, duly combed and passed through the
disinfecting room, was admitted to the hospital and recovered his master
and his appetite. But at last accounts his master was still very weak,
and "in the short visit which the dog is allowed to make each day, he
knows perfectly, after a tender and discreet good morning, how to hold
himself very wisely at the foot of the bed, his eyes fixed upon his
patient."

Thanks to modern science, the cases of tetanus are few in this war, but
there are many deaths from gangrene, because, with no truce for the
removal of the wounded, so many lie for days before receiving medical
aid. Abbé Klein tells of one Breton boy, as gentle a soul as his
sister--"my little Breton," he always calls him, affectionately--and
comments again and again upon the boy's patient courage amid sufferings
that could have but one end. The infection spread in spite of all that
science could do, and even amputation could not save him. At last he
ceased to live, "like a poor little bird," as his French attendant,
herself a mother with three boys in the army, said with tears.

Saddest of all are the bereaved wives and mothers. The reader will find
many of them in the good Chaplain's book, and they will bring the war
closer than anything else. Sometimes they stand mute under the blow,
looking on the dead face without a sound, and then dropping unconscious
to the floor. Sometimes they cry wild things to heaven. The Chaplain's
work in either case is not easy, and some of his most touching pages
depict such scenes.

There was a boy of twenty years, who was slowly but surely dying of
gangrene. Let the abbé tell the end of the story:

     At 9 o'clock the parents arrive. Frightened at first by the
     change, they are reassured to see that he is suffering so
     little, and soon leave him, as they think, to rest. When they
     return at 10, suddenly called, their child is dead. Their
     grief is terrible. The father still masters himself, but the
     mother utters cries. They are led to the chapel, while some
     one comes to look for me. The poor woman, who was wandering
     about stamping and wringing her hands, rushes to me and cries,
     no, it is not possible that her son is dead, a child like
     that, so healthy, so beautiful, so lovable; she wishes me to
     reassure her, to say it is as she says. Before my silence and
     the tears that come to my eyes her groans redouble, and
     nothing can calm her: "But what will become of us? We had only
     him."

     Nothing quiets her. My words of Christian hope have no more
     effect than what the father tries to say to her. For a moment
     she listens to my account of the poor boy's words of faith, of
     the communion yesterday, of his prayer this morning. But soon
     she falls back into her distraction, and I suggest to the
     husband that he try to occupy her mind, to make a diversion of
     some kind; the more so, I add, as I must leave to attend a
     burial. She hears this word: "I don't want him to be taken
     from me. You are not going to bury him at once!" I explain
     softly that no one is thinking of such a thing; that on the
     contrary I am going to take her to those who will let her see
     her boy. We go then to the office, and I hurry away to
     commence the funeral of another.

     I learn on my return that they have seen their son, such as
     death has made him, and that on hearing the cries of the
     mother, three other women, already agitated by the visit to
     their own wounded and by the funeral preparations, have fallen
     in a faint.

One day last Fall President Poincaré, accompanied by M. Viviani and
General Gallieni, was received at the American Hospital by Mr. Herrick,
the American Ambassador, and by the members of the Hospital Committee.
Abbé Klein has words of praise not only for Mr. Herrick, but also for
his predecessor, Mr. Bacon, and for his successor, Mr. Sharp. His
admiration for the devoted American women who are serving as nurses in
the hospital is expressed frequently in his pages. He says the labors of
the American nurses and those of the French nurses complement each other
admirably. Of the founding and maintenance of the hospital at Neuilly,
he says:

     The resources are provided wholly by the charity of Americans.
     From the beginning of the war the administrative council of
     their Paris hospital took the initiative in the movement. The
     American colony in France, almost unaided, gave the
     half-million francs that was subscribed the first month. New
     York and other cities of the United States followed their
     lead, and, in spite of the financial crisis that grips there
     as elsewhere, one may be sure that the funds will not be
     wanting. America has its Red Cross, which, justly enough, aids
     the wounded of all nations; but, among the belligerents, it
     has chosen to distinguish the compatriots of Lafayette and
     Rochambeau; our field hospital is the witness of their
     faithful gratitude. France will not forget.

Later the abbé recorded in his diary that the 500 beds would soon be
filled, but added that the generous activity of the Americans would not
end there. They would establish branch hospitals. Large sums had been
placed at the disposal of the committee to found an "ambulance" in
Belgium and another in France as near the front as prudence permitted.
Toward the end of January he recorded the gift of $200,000 from Mrs.
Harry Payne Whitney, and its use by the committee to establish an
affiliated hospital at the College of Juilly, in the Department of
Seine-et-Marne. He added that still other branches were about to be
founded with American funds.

Abbé Klein writes out of a full and sincere heart, whether as a priest,
a patriot, or a man who loves his fellowmen; and, without seeking it, he
writes as a master of phrase. His new book probably will soon be
translated and published in the United States.



A TROOPER'S SOLILOQUY

By O.C.A. CHILD


    'Tis very peaceful by our place the now!
      Aye, Mary's home from school--the little toad--
    And Jeck is likely bringing in the cow,
      Away from pasture, down the hillside road.

    Now Nancy, I'll be bound, is brewing tea!
      She's humming at her work the way she will,
    And, happen so, she maybe thinks of me
      And wishes she'd another cup to fill.

    'Tis very queer to sit here on this nag
      And swing this bit o' blade within my hand--
    To keep my eye upon that German flag
      And wonder will they run or will they stand;

    To watch their Uhlans forming up below,
      And feel a queersome way that's like to fear;
    To hope to God that I won't make a show,
      And that my throat is not too dry to cheer;

    To close my eyes a breath and say "God bless
      And keep all safe at home, and aid us win,"
    Then straighten as the bugle sounds "Right, Dress...."
      Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! We're going in!



American Unfriendliness

By Maximilian Harden

[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, April, 1915.]


     Maximilian Harden, author of the article of which the
     following is a translation, is the widely known German
     journalist and publicist who has been termed "the German
     George Bernard Shaw." The article was published in the second
     February number of Die Zukunft.

_Japan and the United States are being wooed. Ever since the Western
powers' hope of speedy decisive blows on the part of Russia have
shriveled up, they would like to lure the Japanese Army, two to four
hundred thousand men, to the Continent. What was scoffed at as a whim of
Pinchon and Clemenceau now is unveiled as a yearning of those at the
head of the Governments._

_The sentimental wish to see Germany's collapse completed by the
activities of the allied European powers now ventures only shyly into
the light of day. The ultimate wearing down of the German Army assures
us of victory; but a speedy termination of the war under which the whole
hemisphere suffers would be preferable. The Trans-Siberian Railway could
bring the Japanese to Poland and East Prussia. The greatness of the
expenditures therefor cannot frighten him who knows what tremendous sums
each week of the war costs the Allies. Where it is a question of our
life, of the existence of all free lands, every consideration must
vanish. Public opinion desires an agreement with the Government of the
Mikado._

These sentences I found in the Temps. England will not apply the brakes.
Mr. Winston Churchill, to be sure, lauds the care-free fortune of his
fatherland, which even after Trafalgar, he says, did not command the
seas as freely as today; but in his inmost heart even this "savior of
Calais" does not cheat himself concerning the fact that it is a matter
of life and death. In order not to succumb in such a conflict, England
will sacrifice its prosperous comfort and the lordly pride of the white
man just as willingly as it would, if necessary, Gibraltar and Egypt,
(which might be within the reach of German armies in the Spring.)

Will Japan follow the luring cry? Any price will be paid for it. What is
Indo-China to the Frenchmen, whose immense colonial empire is exploited
by strangers, if thereby they can purchase the bliss of no longer being
"the victims of 1870"? And the yellow race that co-operated on Europe's
soil in the most momentous decision of all history would live in
splendor such as had never before been seen, and could keep China, the
confused, reeling republic, for at least a generation in its
guardianship.

The land of the Stars and Stripes is only being asked to give its
neutrality the color of good-will. It is, for the time being, unlikely
that the United States would stand beside our opponents with army and
navy, as has been urgently counseled by Mr. Roosevelt, (who received the
honorary doctor's title in Berlin and as a private citizen reviewed a
brigade drill at the Kaiser's side.) Nevertheless, experience warns us
to be prepared for every change of weather, from the distant West, as
well as the distant East, (and to guard ourselves alike against abuse
and against flattery.)

The sentiment of the Americans is unfriendly to us. In spite of Princes'
travels, Fritz monuments, exchanges of professors, Kiel Week, and cable
compliments? Yes, in spite of all that. We can't change it. And should
avoid impetuous wooing.

The missionaries of the Foreign Office brought along with them in trunks
and bundles across the sea the prettiest eagerness; but in many cases
they selected useless and in some cases even injurious methods.
Lectures, pamphlets, defensive writings--the number of the defenders
and the abundance of their implements and talk only nursed suspicion.
Whatever could be done for the explanation of the German conduct was
done by Germania's active children, who know the country and the people.

The American business man never likes to climb mountains of paper. He
has grown up in a different emotional zone, accustomed to a different
standard of values than the Middle European. To feel his way into
foreign points of view, finally to become, in ordinary daily relations,
a psychologist, that will be one of the chief duties of the German of
tomorrow. He may no longer demand that the stranger shall be like him;
no longer denounce essential differences of temperament as a sin. The
North American, among whose ancestors are Britons and Spaniards, Celts
and Dutchmen, South Frenchmen and Low Germans, does not easily
understand the Englishman, despite the common language; calls him surly,
stiff, cold; charges him with selfishness and presumption, and has
never, as a glance backward will show, shirked battle with him for great
issues. For the most part, to be sure, it remains the scolding of
relatives, who wish to tug at and tousel each other, not to murder each
other.

Only before the comrade of Japan did the brow of Jonathan wrinkle more
deeply. But every Briton swore that his kinsman would bar the yellow
man's way to Hawaii, California, and the Philippines, and put him in the
fields of Asia only as a terror to the Russians or a scarecrow to the
Germans. A doubt remained, nevertheless; and we missed the chance of a
strong insurance against Japanese encroachment. Stroked caressingly
yesterday and boxed ears today:

     Over there the dollar alone rules, and all diplomacy is a
     pestilential swamp; decency is an infrequent guest, with scorn
     grinning ever over its shoulder; the entrepreneur is a rogue,
     the official a purchasable puppet, the lady a
     cold-cream-covered lady-peacock.

The stubborn idealism, the cheerful ability of the American, his joy in
giving, his achievements in and for art, science, culture--all that was
scarcely noticed. Such a caricature could not be erased by compliments.

Before Mr. Roosevelt bared his set of stallion's teeth (Hengstgebiss) to
the Berliners, he had spoken cheerfully to Admirals Dewey and Beresford
concerning the possibilities of a war of the Star-Spangled Banner
against Germany. And gentler fellow-countrymen of the billboard man
said:

     You're amazing. Yourselves devilishly greedy for profits, yet
     you scoff at us because we go chasing after business. You
     fetch heaps of money across the sea, and then turn up your
     sublimely snuffing noses as if it stinks.

To reach an understanding would have been difficult even in times of
peace. The American is unwilling to be either stiff or subservient. He
does not wish to be accounted of less value as a merchant than the
officer or official; wishes to do what he likes and to call the
President an ox outright if he pleases. Leave him as he is; and do not
continually hurt the empire and its swarms of emigrant children by the
attempt to force strangers into the shell of your will and your opinion.

Is it not possible that the American is analyzing the origin of the war
in his own way? That he looks upon Belgium's fate with other eyes than
the German? That he groans over "the army as an end in itself" and over
"militarism"? That he does not understand us any quicker than the German
Michel understands him? And that he puffs furiously when, after a long
period of drought, the war, a European one, now spoils his trade?

Only for months at the worst, Sam; then it will spring up again in
splendor such as has never been seen before. No matter how the dice fall
for us, the chief winnings are going to you. The cost of the war
(expense without increment, devastation, loss of business) amounts to a
hundred thousand million marks or more for old Europa; she will be
loaded down with loans and taxes. Even to the gaze of the victor,
customers will sink away that were yesterday capable of buying and
paying. Extraordinary risks cannot be undertaken for many a year on our
soil. But everybody will drift over to you--Ministers of Finance,
artists, inventors, and those who scent profits. You will merely have to
free yourselves from dross (and from the trust thought that cannot be
stifled) and to weed out the tares of demagogy; then you will be the
effective lords of the world and will travel to Europe like a great
Nürnberg that teaches people subsequently to feel how once upon a time
it felt to operate in the Narrows.

The scope of your planning and of your accomplishment, the very rank
luxuriance of your life, will be marveled at as a fairy wonder. We,
victors and conquered and neutrals, will alike be confined by duty to
austere simplicity of living. Your complaint is unfounded; only gird
yourselves for a wee short time in patience. Whether the business deals
which you grab in the wartime smell good or bad, we shall not now
publicly investigate. If law and custom permit them, what do you care
for alien heartache? If the statutes of international law prohibit them,
the Governments must insure the effectiveness thereof. Scolding does
not help. Until the battle has been fought out to the finish, until the
book of its genesis has been exalted above every doubt, your opinion
weighs as heavy as a little chicken's feather to us. Let writer and
talker rave till they are exhausted--not a syllable yet in defense.

We do not feel hurt, (haven't spare time for it;) indeed, we are glad
that you gave ten millions each month for Belgium, that you intend to
help care for Poland, that you are opening the savings banks of your
children. But, seriously, we beg you not to howl if American ships are
damaged by the attack of German submarines. England wishes to shut off
our imports of foodstuffs and raw materials, and we wish to shut off
England's. You do not attempt to land on our coast; keep away also from
that of Britain. You were warned early. What is now to take place is
commanded by merciless necessity; must be.

And let no woeful cries, no threats, crowd into Germany's ears.



ENDOWED WITH A NOBLE FIRE OF BLOOD

By A. Kouprine

[From King Albert's Book.]


Not applause, not admiration, but the deep, eternal gratitude of the
whole civilized world is now due to the self-denying Belgian people and
their noble young sovereign. They first threw themselves before the
savage beast, foaming with pride, maddened with blood. They thought not
of their own safety, nor of the prosperity of their houses, nor of the
fate of the high culture of their country, nor of the vast numbers and
cruelty of the enemy. They have saved not only their fatherland, but all
Europe--the cradle of intellect, taste, science, creative art, and
beauty--they have saved from the fury of the barbarians trampling, in
their insolence, the best roses in the holy garden of God. Compared with
their modest heroism the deed of Leonidas and his Spartans, who fought
in the Pass of Thermopylae, falls into the shade. And the hearts of all
the noble and the good beat in accord with their great hearts....

No, never shall die or lose its power a people endowed with such a noble
fire of blood, with such feelings that inspire it to confront
bereavement, sorrow, sickness, wounds; to march as friends, hand in
hand, adored King and simple cottager, man and woman, poor and rich,
weak and strong, aristocrat and laborer. Salutation and humblest
reverence to them!



Chronology of the War

Showing Progress of Campaigns on All Fronts and Collateral Events from
Feb. 28, 1915, Up To and Including March 31, 1915

[Continued from the March Number]


CAMPAIGN IN EASTERN EUROPE

March 1--Two German army corps are defeated in struggle for Przasnysz;
Germans bombard Ossowetz.

March 2--Russians win Dukla Pass; 10,000 Germans taken prisoner at
Przasnysz; Russians reinforced on both flanks in Poland; Austrians meet
reverse near Stanislau; Austrians make progress in the Carpathians;
Russians shell Czernowitz.

March 3--Russians press forward from the Niemen and the Dniester;
Austro-German army driven back in Galicia; Germans demolish two Ossowetz
forts.

March 4--Russians are pressing four armies through the mountain passes
into Hungary; they have checked a new Bukowina drive on the part of the
Austrians.

March 5--Russians are taking the offensive from the Baltic Sea to the
Rumanian frontier; German armies in the north have been split into
isolated columns; Russians report the recapture of Stanislau and
Czernowitz; snow is retarding the invasion of Hungary.

March 6--Russian centre takes up attack; Russians are gaining in North
Poland; Austrians give ground in East Galicia.

March 7--Germans start another drive in region of Pilica River;
Austrians retreat in Bukowina.

March 8--Russians silence two batteries of German siege artillery at
Ossowetz; Austrians gain ground in the Carpathians and Galicia; it is
reported that German troops in Northern Poland and Galicia are
exhausted.

March 9--Germans are raising the siege of Ossowetz and are retreating in
Northern Poland; Russians claim that the Austrian offensive in Eastern
Galicia is a complete failure.

March 10--Germans attempt to break through Russian line in Northern
Poland; General Eichorn's army, retreating from the Niemen, is being
harried by Russian cavalry and has been pierced at one point; Austrians
have successes in the Carpathians and Western Galicia.

March 11--One million men are engaged in a series of battles in Northern
Poland, the front being eighty miles long.

March 12--In the Carpathians the Russians capture the villages of Lupkow
and Smolnik and the surrounding heights.

March 13--Russians check German offensive against Przasnysz; fighting in
progress along Orzyc River; Austrians repulse Russian attack near Cisna
in the Carpathians.

March 14--Russians check German advance in Mlawa region.

March 15--Russians capture the chief eastern defense of Przemysl, three
miles from the heart of the defense system, Austrian troops which held
the position leaving many guns in the snow; the siege ring is now drawn
tighter; battle is on in Bukowina; there is fighting among the ice
fields of the Carpathians.

March 16--Russians take vigorous offensive and drive back army that was
marching on Przasnysz; 100,000 men have been buried in a triangle a few
miles in area between Warsaw and Skierniewice; Germans are making use of
fireworks at night to locate Russian guns; Austrian Archduke Frederick
suggests to Emperor Francis Joseph the abandonment of the campaign
against Serbia, all troops to be diverted to the Carpathians.

March 17--Przemysl is in peril; Russians have recrossed the German
frontier in two places; there is fighting on a 600-mile front; it is
reported that the Austrian Army in East Galicia has been flanked; a
battle is being fought in the snow for the possession of Tarnowice.

March 18--Germans threaten severe reprisals on Russians for devastation
in East Prussia; German offensive in much of Poland is reported to be
broken.

March 19--Memel, German port on the Baltic, is occupied by the Russians;
Tilsit is menaced; Von Hindenburg starts a new offensive in Central
Poland; the Germans have lost heavily along the Pilica; Austrians claim
that they have halted the Russian advance in the Carpathians.

March 20--Russians win battle in streets of Memel; battle line extends
to Rumanian border; sortie by Przemysl garrison is driven back;
statistics published in Petrograd show that 95 towns and 4,500 villages
in Russian Poland have been devastated as result of German invasion;
damage estimated at $500,000,000.

March 21--Austrians renew operations against Serbia and are defeated in
artillery duel near Belgrade; Russians are advancing on Tilsit; another
Przemysl sortie is repelled.

March 22--After a siege which began on Sept. 2, the longest siege in
modern history, the great Galician fortress of Przemysl is surrendered
to the Russians, who capture 9 Austrian Generals, 300 officers, and
125,000 men, according to Russian statements; the strategic value of
Przemysl is considered great, as it guarded the way to Cracow and to
important Carpathian passes; Germans retake Memel; Russians are
preparing for vigorous offensive in the Carpathians; Austrians are
shelling the Montenegrin front.

March 23--Demonstrations are held in Russia over fall of Przemysl;
Germans say that the capture of the place cannot influence general
situation.

March 24--Battle is being fought in the Carpathians; Russians march on
Hungary and pursue strong column that had been seeking to relieve
Przemysl; Germans withdraw big guns from Ossowetz.

March 25--Russians carry Austrian position on crest of Beskid Mountains
in Lupkow Pass region and win victory in Bukowina; fighting in Southern
Poland is resumed.

March 26--It is reported that the Austro-German armies in the
Carpathians are withdrawing into Hungary; Germans retreat in the north.

March 27--Violent fighting in the Carpathians; Austrians make gains in
Bukowina.

March 28--Russians break into Hungary and carry on offensive operations
against Uszok and Lupkow Passes.

March 29--Austrians make gains at several points; Russians say that the
Memel dash was a mere raid.

March 30--Russians storm crests in the Carpathians; Austrians are in a
big drive across Bukowina; 160,000 Germans are reported as being rushed
to Austria.

March 31--Russians are making their way down the southern slopes of the
Carpathians into Hungary; German army corps reported trapped and cut to
pieces in Northern Poland; Pola is preparing for a siege.


CAMPAIGN IN WESTERN EUROPE.

March 2--Germans are pouring reinforcements into Belgium; British gain
ground near La Bassée.

March 4--Hard fighting in the Vosges; Germans spray burning oil and
chemicals upon French advancing in Malancourt woods.

March 5--Germans checked at Rheims; report of Sir John French says
situation is unchanged in Belgium; Germans are holding reserves in
Alsace.

March 9--Floods hamper campaign in Alsace; it is reported that Germans
are shelling factories in France which they cannot capture.

March 10--Germans declare that the French have failed in the Champagne
district and have lost 45,000 men.

March 11--After several days of severe fighting the British capture
Neuve Chapelle, the German loss being estimated by British at 18,000;
the British also have lost heavily, particularly in officers; British
believe they will now be able to threaten seriously the German position
at La Bassée; French War Office says operations in Champagne have aided
Russians by preventing Germans from reinforcing eastern armies.

March 12--British are pressing on toward Lille; they gain near
Armentières, occupy Epinette, and advance toward La Bassée; Germans are
intrenched in Aubers; the new drive is expected by Allies to prevent
Germans in the west from sending reinforcements to the east.

March 13--Sir John French reports further gains in Neuve Chapelle
region.

March 14--French occupy Vauquois, the key to a wide area of the Argonne;
they capture trenches and occupy Embermenil; Belgians gain on the Yser;
British repel German attack on Neuve Chapelle; it is announced that the
French recently won a victory at Reichackerkopf in Alsace.

March 15--French capture trenches north of Arras; Germans drive back
British south of Ypres; Germans meet reverse at Neuve Chapelle; it is
announced that the French recently won a victory at Combres; French and
British are preparing for a general offensive; the first installment is
given out from French official sources of a historical review of the
war, from the French viewpoint, covering the first six months.

March 16--Belgians cross the Yser; they drive Germans from trenches
south of Nieuport; British retake St. Eloi; barbed wire fence, ten feet
high, encompasses entire zone of German military operations in Alsace;
British still hold Neuve Chapelle after several spirited attempts to
retake it.

March 17--Westende bombarded; Belgians carry two positions in Yser
region.

March 18--Belgian Army continues to advance on the Yser; French continue
to hold the heights near Notre Dame de Lorette despite repeated shelling
of their position; Germans are fortifying towns in Alsace.

March 19--Belgians and Germans are fighting a battle in the underground
passages of a monastery in front of Ramscappelle; official British
report tells of new German repulse at St. Eloi.

March 21--Germans take a hill in the Vosges.

March 24--New battle begins along the Yser.

March 26--Belgians make progress on road from Dixmude to Ypres.

March 27--French capture summit of Hartmanns-Weilerkopf Mountain.

March 29--French are pressing the Germans hard at various points in
Champagne; as an offset, the Germans renew activity against Rheims with
lively bombardments; sapping and mining operations are stated to be the
only means of gaining ground in the Argonne.


TURKISH AND EGYPTIAN CAMPAIGN.

March 1--Turkish forces mass on Asiatic side of the Dardanelles under
Essad Pasha, defender of Janina; Russians have completed the expulsion
of Turks from Transcaucasus region and dominate the Black Sea.

March 3--Russians, after three days' battle, stop reinforcements for
Turks in the Caucasus.

March 5--Turks abandon for the time the campaign against Egypt and
recall troops.

March 7--British drive Turks back from the Persian Gulf, with
considerable losses on both sides; it is reported that the Germans
killed 300 Turks in a conflict between these allies after the Egyptian
retreat.

March 9--Germans report that British were routed recently in Southern
Mesopotamia.

March 12--General d'Amaade, commander of the French forces in Morocco,
has been put in command of a force which is to aid the allied fleets in
operations against Constantinople.

March 13--Turks are driven back in Armenia and Northwestern Persia.

March 16--Russians rout Turks in Armenia and threaten Turks in the
Caucasus.

March 18--Turkish soldiers kill several civilians in the Urumiah
district of Persia; Turks are massing large forces near Constantinople
and on Asiatic side of the Dardanelles.

March 19--Russians occupy Archawa.

March 20--Turks reported to be four days' march from Suez Canal.

March 23--Turkish force operating against town of Suez is routed.


CAMPAIGN IN FAR EAST.

March 12--It is reported from Peking that nine Germans, among them the
German Military Attaché at Peking, who is leading the party, escaped
from Tsing-tao when it fell, and have made their way 1,000 miles into
Manchuria, where they are trying to blow up tunnels along the
Trans-Siberian railway; Russian troops are pursuing them.


CAMPAIGN IN AFRICA.

March 21--Official announcement is made that General Botha, Commander in
Chief of the Army of the Union of South Africa, has captured 200
Germans and two field guns at Swakopmund, German Southwest Africa.


NAVAL RECORD--GENERAL.

March 1--Norwegian steamer reports ramming a submarine off English
coast.

March 2--Bulgaria protests to Austria, Russia, and Serbia against mines
in the Danube; diligent inquiry in England fails to produce any evidence
supporting report that British superdreadnought Audacious, wrecked by
mine or torpedo on Oct. 27, is about to be restored to the fighting
line.

March 3--Allied fleet silences three inner forts on the Asiatic side of
the Dardanelles; Berlin report says British cruiser Zephyr was damaged.

March 4--Attack on Dardanelles continues; French ships bombard Bulair
forts and destroy Kavak Bridge; Field Marshal von der Goltz has asked
for German artillery officers to aid in defending Dardanelles, but it is
reported that Germans cannot spare any; German submarine U-8 is sunk by
destroyers of the Dover flotilla; German submarine chases hospital ship
St. Andrew.

March 5--Allies report that six, possibly seven, German submarines have
been sunk since beginning of the war; two Captains of British merchant
ships claim prize for sinking German submarines; British Admiralty
informs shipping interests that a new mine field has been laid in the
North Sea; Germans report a French ammunition ship sunk at Ostend;
Japanese report that the schooner Aysha, manned by part of the crew of
the Emden, is still roving the Indian Ocean; there is despair in
Constantinople as Dardanelles bombardment continues; Russian Black Sea
fleet is steaming toward the Bosporus; allied fleet is bombarding
Smyrna.

March 6--British ships Queen Elizabeth and Prince George attack strong
Dardanelles forts, they blow up one and damage two; allied landing party
suffers loss; Asia Minor ports are being shelled; one-third of the
Dardanelles reported clear of Turkish mines; concentration of Turkish
fleet reported; Germans state that a submarine, reported by the Captain
of British merchantman Thordis to have been sunk by his vessel, escaped;
German Embassy at Washington expresses regret over torpedo attack on
British hospital ship Asturias in February, stating that the attack,
which did no harm, was due to mistake.

March 7--Queen Elizabeth and other ships continue bombardment of
Dardanelles forts.

March 8--Allied fleet forces its way further into Dardanelles, British
ships opening direct fire on main Turkish positions; more forts are
silenced; most of the Allies' ships are hit, but little damage is done;
effective fire at 21,000 yards against batteries on the Asiatic side;
seaplanes are being much used for locating concealed guns; it is
reported from Petrograd that when the allied fleets began the forcing of
the Dardanelles a Russian ship was invited to head the column, and did
so; ports on the Black Sea are destroyed by Russians; British Admiralty
announces that prisoners from U-8 will be segregated under special
restrictions, and they may be put on trial after the war because of
German submarine methods; British collier Bengrove sunk in Bristol
Channel by torpedo or mine.

March 9--German submarines sink three British merchantmen, thirty-seven
men going down with one ship; Military Governor of Smyrna says that
British have bombarded unfortified villages; another British
superdreadnought joins allied fleet at Dardanelles; French transports
are on way with troops; Turks lose coal supply by Russian bombardment of
Zunguldiak; report from Berlin that German submarine U-16 has sunk five
merchantmen; British Admiralty states that German submarines, from Jan.
21 to March 3, sank fifteen British steamships out of a total of 8,734
vessels above 300 tons arriving at or departing from British ports in
that period; more mines planted near Denmark.

March 10--German auxiliary cruiser Prince Eitel Friedrich anchors at
Newport News for repairs and supplies; she brings passengers and crews
of eleven merchant ships sunk by her in a cruise of 30,000 miles,
including crew of American sailing ship William P. Frye, bound from
Seattle to Queenstown with wheat, sunk on Jan. 28, despite protests of
the Frye's Captain; more Dardanelles forts are reduced; batteries on
Eren-Keui Heights silenced; British sink German submarine U-12; British
collier Beethoven sunk.

March 11--President Wilson states that there will be "a most searching
inquiry" into the sinking of the William P. Frye by the Prinz Eitel
Friedrich, "and whatever action is taken will be based on the result of
that inquiry"; Commander Thierichens of the Eitel defends sinking of the
Frye, claiming her cargo was contraband; British warships are ordered to
the entrance to the Capes of the Chesapeake to prevent escape of the
Eitel; Eitel goes into drydock for repairs; more Dardanelles forts are
damaged; mine sweeping is being conducted by the Allies at night; allied
fleet before Smyrna gives Turkish commander twenty-four hours to
surrender, otherwise bombardment will go on; it is reported from The
Hague that twelve German submarines are missing; Germans talk of
reprisals if British do not treat submarine crews as prisoners of war.

March 12--Dardanus batteries on the Dardanelles are silenced; Germans
are fortifying Constantinople; Allies' Consuls demand establishment of a
neutral zone at Smyrna; British auxiliary cruiser Bayano sunk off coast
of Scotland, probably by a submarine, with loss of 200; it is learned
that British bark Conway Castle was sunk on Feb. 27 off the Chilean
coast by the German cruiser Dresden; it is learned that French steamer
Guadeloupe has been sunk off Brazil by the German auxiliary cruiser
Kronprinz Wilhelm; it is reported from Berlin that Germans have sunk 111
merchant steamships, with tonnage of 400,000, since war began; British
cotton ship Indian Prince is reported sunk.

March 13--England has lost 90 merchant ships and 47 fishing vessels,
sunk or captured, since the war began; Vice Admiral Carden is stated to
have predicted the forcing of the Dardanelles by Easter; fog delays
Allies' operations in Dardanelles; five British warships wait for Eitel
off Virginia Capes.

March 14--Three British cruisers sink German cruiser Dresden near Juan
Fernandez Island; no damage to British ships; French steamer Auguste
Conseil sunk by German submarine; German submarine U-29 is reported to
have sunk five British merchantmen in the last few days; citizen of
Leipsic offers reward to crew of submarine that sinks a British
transport.

March 15--It is reported from Rio Janeiro that Kronprinz Wilhelm has
sunk thirteen ships since she began her attack on Allies' commerce.

March 16--Officers of the Dresden at Valparaiso say their ship was sunk
in neutral waters; British say she was sunk ten miles off shore; German
liner Macedonia, interned at Las Palmas, Canary Islands, slips out of
port; British cruiser Amethyst is reported to have made a dash to the
further end of the Dardanelles and back; a mine sweeper of the Allies is
blown up; Vice Admiral Carden, "incapacitated by illness," in words of
British Admiralty, is succeeded in chief command in the Dardanelles by
Vice Admiral De Robeck; Germany protests to England against promised
harsh treatment of submarine crews; British and French warships again
appear off coast of Belgium.

March 17--It is reported from Denmark that the German cruiser Karlsruhe
has been sunk; it is reported from Spain that the Macedonia has been
captured by a British cruiser; two British steamers are sunk and one is
damaged by German submarines; German steamer Sierra Cordoba, which
aided the Dresden, is detained by Peruvian authorities until end of the
war; British lose three mine sweepers and one sailing vessel in the
Dardanelles.

March 18--British battleships Irresistible and Ocean and French
battleship Bouvet are sunk by floating mines in the Dardanelles while
bombarding forts; 600 men lost with the Bouvet, but almost all of the
British escape; British battle-cruiser Inflexible and French battleship
Gaulois are badly damaged by shells from the forts; most of the forts
suffer severely from the fleet fire; French submarine is sunk in the
Dardanelles; there is a lull in bombardment of Dardanelles and of
Smyrna; German submarine sinks British steamer Glenartney in English
Channel; Copenhagen report says a German sea Captain states that the
Karlsruhe was sunk in December.

March 19--Negotiations are being carried on, with American Embassy at
Constantinople as intermediary, to try to avert shelling of Pera when
allied fleet forces the Dardanelles; British steamers Hyndford and
Bluejacket torpedoed in English Channel.

March 20--One French and two British battleships are on their way to
Dardanelles to take place of vessels sunk; new attack is planned by
Allies, with Russia co-operating; Turks say that the ships sunk on March
18 were torpedoed; Chilean seamen say Dresden was sunk in Chilean
waters; Smyrna garrison is reinforced; dummy war fleet, composed of
disguised merchantmen, is reported to be ready in England for use in
strategy against the Germans.

March 21--German submarine sinks British collier Cairntorr off Beachy
Head.

March 22--British steamer Concord is torpedoed by a German submarine,
but is stated not to have been sunk.

March 23--Dutch steamer is fired on by a German trawler; Turks send
reinforcements to Dardanelles forts.

March 24--German vessels shell Russian positions near Memel; allied
fleet resumes bombardment of Dardanelles forts; Allies land troops on
Gallipoli Peninsula to help in a general attack on the forts which is
planned on arrival of more British and French ships; many Europeans are
leaving Constantinople.

March 27--U.S. battleship Alabama is ordered to proceed to Norfolk at
once to guard American neutrality should Prinz Eitel Friedrich leave
port.

March 28--British African liner Falaba is torpedoed and sunk by German
submarine in St. George's Channel; she carried 160 passengers and crew
of 90, of which total 140 were saved; many were killed by the torpedo
explosion; British steamer Aguila is sunk by German submarine U-28 off
Pembrokeshire coast; she carried three passengers and crew of forty-two,
all passengers and twenty-three of crew being lost; Russian Black Sea
fleet attacks Bosporus forts; Dardanelles forts again bombarded; German
Government, in official statement, says that Dresden was sunk in neutral
Chilean waters.

March 29--Dutch steamer Amstel is blown up by a mine; Russians renew
Bosporus attack; allied fleet shells Dardanelles forts at long range;
reinforced Russian fleet is showing activity in the Baltic; German
Baltic fleet is out.

March 31--London reports that three fleets and three armies will combine
in attack on Dardanelles forts; the forts are again bombarded; British
steamers Flaminian and Crown of Castile are sunk by German submarines;
Prinz Eitel Friedrich coals under guard of American sailors and
soldiers; Germans shell Libau.


NAVAL RECORD--EMBARGO AND WAR ZONE.

March 1--Premier Asquith announces in the House of Commons the purpose
of England and France to cut Germany off from all trade with the rest of
the world; "the British and French Governments will, therefore, hold
themselves free to detain and take into port ships carrying goods of
presumed enemy destination, ownership, or origin"; officials in
Washington think this attitude of the Allies disregards American rights.

March 3--Germany alters relief ship rules; vessels may pass through the
English Channel unmolested, but because of mines Germany cannot grant
safe conduct for relief ships to and from England.

March 4--Secretary Bryan makes public the text of German reply to
American note suggesting modifications of war zone decree; Germany
expresses willingness to make modifications if England will allow
foodstuffs and raw materials to go to German civilians, and if England
will make other modifications in her sea policy; German reply is
forwarded to Ambassador Page to be submitted to the British Foreign
Office for information of English Government; American State Department
makes public part of a recent dispatch from Ambassador Gerard stating
that German Government refuses to accept responsibility for routes
followed by neutral steamers outside German waters; Henry van Dyke,
American Minister at The Hague, advises the State Department that
Germany is anxious to give every possible support to the work of
American Relief Commission for Belgium, and will facilitate the passage
of ships as much as possible.

March 5--Holland-America Line steamer Noorderdijk, bound for New York,
returns to Rotterdam badly disabled, it being reported that she was
torpedoed in English Channel.

March 6--Passenger service from Holland to England is to be extended.

March 8--Germany includes in the war zone the waters surrounding the
Orkney and Shetland Islands, but navigation on both sides of the Faroe
Islands is not endangered.

March 9--It is announced at Washington that identical notes of inquiry
have been sent to the British and French Governments asking for
particulars as to how embargo on shipments to and from Germany is to be
enforced.

March 18--Submarine blows up Swedish steamer Hanna, flying her own flag,
off east coast of England; six of crew lost.

March 15--Text made public of British Order in Council cutting off trade
to and from Germany; British Government, replying to American note,
refuses to permit foodstuffs to enter Germany for civilian population as
suggested; British Government also replies to American note of inquiry
as to particulars of embargo, Sir Edward Grey saying that object of
Allies is, "succinctly stated, to establish a blockade to prevent
vessels from carrying goods for or coming from Germany."

March 17--Secretary Bryan makes public full text of six recent notes
exchanged between the United States and the Allies and Germany regarding
the embargo and the war zone; Allies contend German war methods compel
the new means of reprisal.

March 18--Denmark, Norway and Sweden make an identical representation to
the Allies against the embargo decree on trade to and from Germany.

March 20--Holland protests to Allies against embargo.

March 21--German submarine U-28 seizes Dutch steamers Batavier V. and
Zaanstroom and their cargoes.

March 22--Holland asks explanation from Germany of seizure of Batavier
V. and Zaanstroom.

March 25--Submarine U-28 sinks Dutch steamer Medea.

March 26--Dutch press is aroused over the sinking of the Medea; Ministry
holds extraordinary council.

March 27--Germany tells Holland that investigation into seizure of the
Batavier V. and Zaanstroom has not been concluded.


AERIAL RECORD.

March 2--It is learned that in a recent air raid German aviators killed
two women and a child at La Panne, a bathing town on Belgian coast.

March 3--German aviator bombards Warsaw.

March 4--French bombard German powder magazine at Rottweil.

March 5--Zeppelin raid over Calais fails; Pegoud receives French
military medal for his services.

March 7--French official statement shows that French airmen during the
war have made 10,000 aerial reconnoissances, consuming 18,000 hours in
the air, and have traveled more than 1,116,000 miles; Zeppelin reported
captured by allied airmen near Bethune.

March 9--British seaplanes drop bombs on Ostend; Lieut. von Hidelen, who
dropped bombs on Paris in September, is at Toulon as a prisoner of war.

March 12--German airmen bombard Ossowetz.

March 14--Strassburg is threatened by a fire started by French airman's
bomb; allied aeroplanes said to have wrecked Zeppelin near Tirlemont.

March 17--German airman unsuccessfully aims five bombs at British
coasting steamer Blonde in the North Sea.

March 18--Bombs from Zeppelin kill seven in Calais.

March 20--German airmen drop bombs near Deal, but all fall into the sea;
one bomb narrowly misses American bark Manga Reva.

March 21--Two Zeppelins drop bombs on Paris, but damage is slight; eight
persons are injured; Zeppelin drops bombs on Calais, with slight damage,
and is driven off by guns.

March 22--Rotterdam reports that German aviators are aiming bombs
indiscriminately at ships in the North Sea, one Taube dropping five
bombs near a Belgian relief ship; airmen of Allies drop bombs on
Mulheim, injuring three German soldiers.

March 23--German aeroplane aims seven bombs at British steamer Pandion,
all missing; Paris Temps says that authorities plan hereafter to fight
Zeppelins by aeroplanes over Paris, something which had hitherto been
avoided because of danger to Parisians.

March 24--British airmen, in dash on Antwerp shipyards, destroy one
German submarine and damage another; German aviators aim bombs and
arrows at British freighter Teal, doing little damage.

March 26--French drop bombs on Metz, killing three soldiers; little
damage to property.

March 27--German aviators drop bombs on Calais and Dunkirk; little
damage.

March 28--German aviator drops bombs on Calais; little damage.

March 29--Germans state that during recent raid on Strassburg, bombs
dropped by allied aviators killed two children and wounded seven others
and one woman.

March 30--Copenhagen reports that two Zeppelins have been badly damaged
by a storm while manoeuvering for a raid on England; Turkish seaplane
drops bombs on British warship outside Dardanelles.

March 31--Thirty German soldiers are killed and sixty wounded near
Thourout, Belgium, by bombs dropped by airmen of Allies; fifteen German
aeroplanes drop 100 bombs at Ostrolenka, Russia; German aeroplane aims
bomb at Dutch trawler in North Sea, but misses her.


AUSTRIA.

March 1--Two Czech regiments revolt.

March 2--It is learned that the troops executed 200 civilians in
Stanislau.

March 17--Conviction is stated to prevail in Vienna that war with Italy
is inevitable in the near future; many Austrians are declared to be
indignant that Germany is trying to force the nation to cede territory
to Italy.

March 18--Russian prisoners and Galician refugees are working on
defensive fortifications in the Trentino, which are being prepared in
event of war with Italy; heavy guns are being mounted in the mountain
passes; fleet is again concentrated at Pola; Austria and Serbia agree to
exchange interned men under 18 or over 50, and also women.

March 22--Men up to 52 are now being trained for active service; men
formerly rejected as unfit are being called to the colors.

March 24--Five hundred thousand troops are massed in Southern Tyrol and
the Trentino; many villages near the Italian frontier have been
evacuated and many houses destroyed by dynamite, so as to afford better
range for the big guns.

March 26--Army contract frauds are discovered in Hungary; rich
manufacturers jailed.


BELGIUM.

March 2--Gen. von Bissing, German Governor General, says the tax
recently ordered imposed on Belgians who do not return to their homes
was suggested by Belgians themselves.

March 8--Belgian Press Bureau announces that King Albert now has an army
of 140,000 men, a larger force than that which began the war.

March 9--As a result of new royal decrees calling refugee youths to the
colors the number of recruits is increasing daily; a few days ago King
Albert presented a number of recruits to two veteran regiments in a
speech; Belgian officials are arrested by Germans on charge that they
induced Belgian customs officials to go through Holland to join Belgian
Army.

March 17--Government issues protest against the German allegation that
documents found in Brussels show that Belgium and England had a secret
understanding before the war of such a nature as to constitute a
violation of Belgium's neutrality; the Government declares that
conversations which took place between Belgian and British military
officers in 1906 and 1912 had reference only to the situation that would
be created if Belgium's neutrality had already been violated by a third
party; it is declared that the documents found by Germans, "provided no
part of them is either garbled or suppressed," will prove the innocent
nature of negotiations between Belgium and England.

March 18--Firm of Henri Leten is fined $5,000 for violating order of
German Governor General prohibiting payments to creditors in England.

March 20--One million pigs owned by Germans are billeted on the civilian
population of Belgium, the Belgians being required to feed and care for
the animals.

March 21--Germans are relaxing iron regulations to some extent in
attempt to get the normal life of Belgium moving again.

March 23--Seventeen Belgian men are shot in Ghent barracks after having
been found guilty by German court-martial of espionage in the interests
of the Allies.

March 28--Belgian Legation at Washington issues official response to
statement made by Herr von Jagow, the Imperial German Secretary of
State, that "Belgium was dragged into the war by England"; response says
that it was Germany, not England, that drew the nation into war.


BULGARIA.

March 6--Mobilization is now completed of three divisions of troops near
Tirnova.

March 12--Heavy artillery is being transported to Janthe, near the Greek
frontier.

March 20--Three Bulgarian soldiers are killed and several Greek soldiers
are wounded in a fight which followed an attempted movement by strong
Bulgarian force into the region of Demir-Hissar, formerly Turkish
territory, now Greek.

March 26--Opposition leaders are demanding an interview with the King
with a view of bringing about a change of policy favoring the
Anglo-Franco-Russian alliance; Field Marshal von der Goltz is in Sofia.

March 30--Bulgaria is holding up shipments of German artillery and large
quantities of ammunition destined for Constantinople.


CANADA.

March 5--Three transports arrive in England with 4,000 Canadian troops.

March 14--Second contingent is now in camp in England; it is expected
that these troops will soon go to the front.

March 26--Publication of first account by Official Canadian Recorder
with troops in the field of contingent's experiences; he states that
there have been but few casualties so far; the infantry was held in
reserve in the Neuve Chapelle fight, but the artillery was engaged.

March 27--There is made public in Ottawa the address delivered by
General Alderon, commanding the Canadian Division, just before the men
first entered the trenches; he warns against taking needless risks and
tells the men he expects them to win, when they meet the Germans with
the bayonet, because of their physique.


ENGLAND.

March 2--Order in Council promulgated providing for prize money for
crews of British ships which capture or destroy enemy vessels to be
distributed among officers and men at rate calculated at $25 for each
person aboard the enemy vessel at beginning of engagement; British spy
system has been so perfected that it is said in some respects to excel
the German; Embassy in Washington denies that women or children are
interned in civilian camps.

March 4--Government appeals to aviators of British nationality in United
States and Canada to join the Royal Flying Corps.

March 8--Shipowner offers $2,000 apiece to next four merchant ships
which sink German submarines.

March 9--House of Commons authorizes Government to take over control of
engineering trade of country in order to increase output of war
munitions.

March 14--John E. Redmond, leader of the Irish Nationalist Party,
declares in speech that Ireland is now firmly united in England's cause,
and that 250,000 Irishmen are fighting for Britain.

March 15--Kitchener discusses the war situation in House of Lords, he
expresses anxiety over supply of war materials and blames labor unions
and dram shops in part for the slow output; he praises the Canadian and
Indian troops and the French Army; passport rules for persons going to
France are made more stringent.

March 16--Heavy losses among officers cause anxiety; T.P. O'Connor says
Irish are with the Allies; stringent passport rules are extended to
persons going into Holland.

March 19--In six days 511 officers have been lost in killed, wounded,
and missing; newspapers hint at conscription.

March 20--Officers lost since beginning of the war, in killed, wounded,
and missing, now total 5,476, of which 1,783 have been killed.

March 23--It is reported that a second German spy was shot in the Tower
of London on March 5, that a third spy is under sentence, and that a
fourth man, a suspect, is under arrest.

March 24--Earl Percy is acting as Official Observer with the
expeditionary force; warships are ordered not to get supplies from
neutral nations in Western Hemisphere.

March 26--Field Marshal French says that "the protraction of the war
depends entirely upon the supply of men and munitions," and if this
supply is unsatisfactory the war will be prolonged; German newspapers
charge British atrocities at Neuve Chapelle; Colonial Premiers may meet
for consultation before terms of peace are arranged.

March 27--Storm of protest is aroused by suggestions of Dr. Lyttelton,
Headmaster of Eton, that concessions should be made to Germany.

March 28--Premier Asquith is attacked by the Unionist press for alleged
lack of vigor in direction of the war.

March 30--Three of the nine prison ships on which prisoners have been
kept are vacated, and it is planned to empty the others by the end of
April, prisoners being cared for on shore.

March 31--King George announces that he is ready to give up use of
liquor in the royal household as an example to the working classes, it
being stated that slowness of output of munitions of war is partly due
to drink; Lord Derby announces that Liverpool dock workers are to be
organized into a battalion, enlisted under military law, as a means of
preventing delays in making war supplies.


FRANCE.

March 1--Official note issued in Paris states that there are 2,080,000
Germans and Austrians on the Russian and Serbian front, and 1,800,000
Germans on the French and Belgian front.

March 5--War Minister introduces bill in Chamber of Deputies giving
authorization to call to the colors the recruits of 1915 and to start
training those of 1916.

March 6--French Press Bureau estimates the total German losses since the
beginning of the war, in killed, wounded, sick, and prisoners, at
3,000,000.

March 10--Foreign Office issues report on treatment of French civilian
prisoners by the Germans, charging many instances of cruelty.

March 11--Eight thousand German and Austrian houses have been
sequestered to date; bill introduced into Chamber of Deputies provides
for burning of soldiers' bodies as a precaution against possible
epidemic of disease; Mi-Carême festivities omitted because of the war.

March 12--Fine of $100,000, to be paid before March 20, is imposed on
inhabitants of Lille, in hands of the Germans, because of a
demonstration over a group of French prisoners of war brought into the
city.

March 14--Copenhagen report states that there has been a revolt in
Lille.

March 25--War Ministry denies General von Bernhardi's charge that France
and England had an arrangement for violation of the neutrality of
Belgium.

March 28--A cannon is mentioned in the orders of the day for gallantry
in action; General Joffre decorates thirty men for gallantry in action
in the Champagne district.

March 31--Intense indignation is expressed by the French press over
sinking of British passenger steamer Falaba by German submarine.


GERMANY.

March 5--Interned French civilians are sent to Switzerland for exchange
for German civilians held by the French.

March 6--Government asks the United States to care for German diplomatic
interests in Constantinople if Allies occupy the Turkish capital; two
British prisoners of war are punished for refusing to obey their own
officers.

March 7--Copenhagen reports that men up to 55 have been called out; it
is stated that there are now 781,000 war prisoners interned in Germany.

March 8--British charge that German dumdum bullets were found after a
recent battle in Egypt.

March 10--Reichstag is informed that the budget is $3,250,000,000--four
times greater than any estimates ever before presented; a further war
credit is asked of $2,500,000,000, to insure financing the war until the
late Autumn; Landsturm classes of 1869-1873 are summoned to the colors
in the Rhine provinces.

March 15--Prussian losses to date (excluding Bavarian, Württemberg,
Saxon, and naval losses) are 1,050,029 in killed, wounded, and missing.

March 16--German committee is planning to send Americans to the United
States as propagandists to lay German case before the American people;
20,000 high school boys have volunteered for service.

March 18--Copenhagen reports that Emperor William and General von
Falkenhayn, Chief of the German General Staff, arrived today at the
German Army Headquarters near Lille to participate in a council of war;
Chief President of the Province of East Prussia states that 80,000
houses have been entirely destroyed by the Russians and that 300,000
refugees have left the province; German War Department states that for
every German village burned by the Russians three Russian villages will
be burned by the Germans.

March 21--Archbishop of Cologne asks children for prayers and offerings,
and suggests that they do without new clothes at confirmation.

March 22--Lieut. Colonel Kaden urges teachers and parents to foster
hatred of England.

March 23--English women and children allowed to leave Belgium.

March 30--It is reported that Emperor William is holding an important
war council in Berlin with military chiefs.

March 31--Much enthusiasm over sinking of British passenger steamer
Falaba; official statistics of second war loan show that $2,265,000,000
was subscribed, of which $17,750,000 came from 452,113 persons in sums
of $50 or less; local option is permitted by German Federal Council.


GREECE.

March 3--Crown Council meets at the palace in Athens under Presidency of
the King; among the eminent statesmen present are five ex-Premiers;
deliberations deal with question whether Greece should take part in the
war; further conferences of the Council are planned, and Parliament has
been summoned to meet, after the deliberations are finished.

March 4--Crown Council meets again.

March 10--M. Ghounaris completes formation of a new Cabinet; Ministerial
statement declares that the observance of neutrality is imperative on
Greece if she is to protect her national interests.

March 14--M. Venizelos, former Premier, says that Greece will soon be
forced by course of events to abandon neutrality and join with Allies in
operations against Constantinople and Smyrna; by so doing, he says, the
Government can quadruple the area of Greece.

March 17--M. Venizelos is quoted by an Italian newspaper correspondent
as saying that the Allies have twice asked Greece since the outbreak of
the war to help Serbia, but attitude of Bulgaria prevented Greece from
doing so; Venizelos resigned, according to this correspondent, because
Crown Council overruled his plan to send 50,000 men to aid Allies.


HOLLAND.

March 2--Semi-official circles deny persistent reports that country is
to enter the war; American Minister van Dyke says that he sees no signs
of any change in the attitude of Holland.


ITALY.

March 2--Much Italian comment caused by introduction in Chamber of
Deputies of bills against espionage, contraband, and publication in
newspapers of news of military movements; Italy is hiring hulks of ships
for grain storage.

March 3--General Zupelli, Minister of War, speaks in Chamber of Deputies
in favor of a bill authorizing a recall to the colors of reserve
officers; Government asks Chamber for authorization to take control of
every industry connected with the defense of the country, including
wireless telegraphy and aviation.

March 8--Premier Salandra hints at war at inauguration of new military
harbor at Gaeta.

March 10--Garibaldians in the French Foreign Legion are allowed by
French Government to return to Italy in response to call of certain
categories of reservists by Italian Government.

March 11--Military preparations are being pushed with much vigor.

March 12--Soldiers near Austro-Italian frontier are drilling daily; new
cannon is being tested; fleet is in readiness under Duke of the Abruzzi;
Prince von Buelow is reported to have failed in his efforts to satisfy
Italian demands for Austrian territory as the price of continued
neutrality; it is said that Italy was asked to be satisfied with the
Trentino, while nothing was said as to Trieste.

March 14--Rome reports that Emperor Francis Joseph, despite urgent
solicitations of Emperor William, refuses to sanction any cession of
territory to Italy and insists that von Buelow's negotiations with the
Italian Government be stopped; Premier Salandra's personal organ, the
Giornale d'Italia, says Italy must obtain territorial expansion;
National League meets at Milan and demands, through intervention in the
war, the liberation of all Italians from Austrian rule.

March 15--Exchange of telegraphic money orders with Austria is
suspended; the traveling Post Offices on trains bound for the Austrian
frontier are also stopped; it is denied that Austria has refused to cede
any territory whatever, but that what she is willing to cede is far too
little from the Italian viewpoint.

March 16--Report from Rome states that an authoritative outline of the
territorial demands of Italy shows that she wishes a sweep of territory
to the north and east which would extend her boundary around northern
end of the Adriatic as far south as Fiume on the eastern coast; this
would include Austrian naval base at Pola and the provinces of Trent and
Trieste; von Buelow is said to have assured Italian Government that
concessions will be made.

March 18--Germans are leaving the Riviera.

March 20--Identification cards for use in active service are distributed
among soldiers.

March 21--King signs the decree promulgating a national defense law,
which will become operative tomorrow; the law gives the Government
various powers necessary for efficient war preparations; Parliament
adjourns until the middle of May, leaving military preparations in hands
of the Government.

March 22--Austrians and Germans are advised by their Consuls to leave
Italy as quickly as possible.

March 23--Crowds in streets of Venice clamor for war; Government orders
seizure of twenty-nine freight cars with material destined for Krupp gun
works in Germany.

March 26--All is ready for general mobilization; seven complete classes
are already under the colors; Austrian and German families are leaving.

March 27--Italian Consul at Buenos Aires calls a meeting of agents of
Italian steamship lines and warns them to be in readiness for possible
transportation of 60,000 reservists.

March 28--Report from Berne that Emperor William in person has persuaded
Emperor Francis Joseph to cede the territory to Italy which the latter
desires; it is also said that negotiations are being conducted with Rome
directly and solely by Berlin.


PERSIA.

March 18--India Office of British Government says that documents have
reached London showing that German Consular officers and business men
have been engaged in intrigues with the object of facilitating a Turkish
invasion of Persia.

March 20--Persian Government calls upon Russia to evacuate the Province
of Azerbijan, Northwest Persia.

March 25--Kurds and Turks are massacring Christians at Urumiah,
Northwestern Persia; situation of American Presbyterian Mission there is
described as desperate; Dr. Harry P. Packard, doctor of the American
missionary station, risks his life to unfurl American flag and save
Persian Christians at Geogtopa; 15,000 Christians are under protection
of American Mission and 2,000 under protection of French Mission at
Urumiah; it is learned that at Gulpashan, the last of 103 villages to be
taken after resistance, the Kurds shot the male citizens in groups of
five, while the younger women were taken as slaves; 20,000 Persian
Christians are dead or missing, while 12,000 are refugees in the
Caucasus; disease is raging among the refugees.

March 26--Turks force their way into the compound of the American
Mission at Urumiah, seize some Assyrian Christian refugees and kill
them; Turks beat and insult American missionaries; American and British
Consuls at Tabriz, near Urumiah, have joined in appeal to General
commanding Russian forces at Tabriz to go to relief of American Mission
at Urumiah, which is described as practically besieged by Turks and
Kurds; United States State Department is active and asks Ambassador
Morgenthau at Constantinople to urge the Turkish Government to send
protection; Persian War Relief Committee cables funds to American Consul
at Tabriz for relief at Urumiah.

March 27--Turkish Grand Vizier issues orders that Christians in
disturbed Persian regions be protected and uprisings be suppressed.

March 28--Turkish regulars are due to arrive at Urumiah to protect
Christians and suppress disorder; Turkish War Office says that "no acts
of violence had been committed at Urumiah"; Grand Vizier states that
reported atrocities are "grossly exaggerated."

March 30--Turkish Government gives renewed assurances to Ambassador
Morgenthau that protection will be given to Christians at Urumiah.


RUMANIA.

March 6--Parliament passes a law empowering Government to proclaim a
state of siege until the end of the war, if such a step is thought
necessary; military representatives of the Government are seeking to
place large orders for arms and ammunition with American firms.

March 12--Prime Minister Jonesco is quoted in a newspaper interview as
saying that he is sure the Allies will force the Dardanelles, the result
of which will be that Rumania will join the war.

March 15--Rumania's war preparations are causing uneasiness in
Austria-Hungary.

March 18--Government seizes a large quantity of shells in transit from
Germany for Turkish troops.


RUSSIA.

March 1--Paris Temps says that the Allies have reached an agreement by
which Russia will have free passage through the Dardanelles.

March 4--Village women capture and bind a detachment of German soldiers.

March 24--Congress of Representatives of the Nobility, in annual session
at Petrograd, passes resolutions stating that "the vital interests of
Russia require full possession of Constantinople, and both shores of the
Bosporus and the Dardanelles and the adjacent islands."


TURKEY.

March 9--American missionaries, arriving in New York from Jerusalem, say
that the fall of the Dardanelles will probably mean a massacre of Jews
and Gentiles in the Holy Land.

March 11--There is a panic in Constantinople and many foreigners are
leaving.

March 15--All Serbs and Montenegrins have been ordered to leave
Constantinople within twenty-four hours.

March 18--The rich are leaving Constantinople; Germans from the
provinces are concentrating there.

March 19--Appalling conditions prevail in Armenia, following massacres
by Turks and Kurds.


UNITED STATES.

March 1--Indictments are returned by the Federal Grand Jury in New York
against the Hamburg-American Steamship Company and against officials of
the line on the charge of conspiring against the United States by making
out false clearance papers and false manifests in connection with
voyages made by four steamships to supply German cruiser Karlsruhe and
auxiliary cruiser Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse with coal and provisions;
indictments are returned by the Federal Grand Jury in New York against
Richard P. Stegler, a German, Gustave Cook and Richard Madden on the
charge of conspiracy to defraud the Government in obtaining a passport.

March 2--Three indictments charging the illegal transportation of
dynamite in interstate commerce are returned by the Federal Grand Jury
in Boston against Warner Horn, a German, who tried to destroy the
international railway bridge at Vanceboro, Me., last month; extradition
proceedings by Canada, officials state, will probably have to be halted
until this indictment is disposed of.

March 7--Horn is made a Federal prisoner in Maine.

March 8--Carl Ruroede, who was arrested in January with four Germans to
whom he had issued spurious American passports, pleads guilty in the
Federal District Court to charge of conspiring to defraud the United
States Government, and is sentenced to three years' imprisonment; the
four Germans who bought passports are fined $200 each; the Department of
Justice is still investigating in belief there are other conspirators.

March 16--Stegler turns State's evidence and testifies against Cook and
Madden in the Federal District Court.

March 18--Cook and Madden are found guilty, the jury making a strong
recommendation for mercy; before the United States Commissioner at
Bangor, Me., Horn claims that his act was an act of war and contests
right of the courts to try him.

March 19--Stegler is sentenced to sixty days' imprisonment, and Cook and
Madden to ten months; United States Commissioner at Bangor decides that
Horn must stand trial in Boston.

March 24--Major General Hughes, Minister of Militia and Defense for
Canada, states in the Canadian Parliament that two dozen Americans with
the first Canadian contingent have fallen in battle, and that "hundreds
more are in the Canadian regiments fighting bravely."

March 25--Horn is taken to Boston from Portland, after two unsuccessful
attempts to obtain a writ of habeas corpus.

March 31--Leon C. Thrasher of Hardwick, Mass., an American by birth,
was among the passengers lost on the Falaba; American Embassy in London
and the State Department are investigating; the Thrasher family appeals
to Washington for information about his death; Raymond Swoboda,
American, a passenger on the French liner Touraine, which was imperiled
by fire at sea on March 6, has been arrested in Paris charged with
causing the fire.


RELIEF WORK.

March 1--Herbert C. Hoover, Chairman of the American Belgian Relief
Committee, issues statement in London that the Germans have scrupulously
kept their promise, given in December, not to make further requisitions
of foodstuffs in the occupied zone of Belgium for use by the German
Army; he says the Germans have never interfered with foodstuffs imported
by the commission and that all these foodstuffs have gone to the Belgian
civil population; Mr. Hoover further states that "every Belgian is today
on a ration from this commission"; every State in the Union contributes
to the fund for the Easter Argosy, the ship which it is planned the
children of the United States will send with a cargo to Belgium in the
name of Princess Marie José, the little daughter of the King and Queen
of the Belgians; plans are made for the sending of two ships with
cargoes supplied by the people of the State of New York.

March 2--American Red Cross sends large shipments of supplies to Serbia
and Germany; four American Red Cross nurses sail for Germany; Serbian
Agricultural Relief Committee asks for farming implements.

March 5--Mississippi, Ohio, and Nebraska form organizations to send
relief ships; American Red Cross is sending large consignments of
supplies to the American Relief Clearing House in Paris.

March 8--Report from London states that it has just become known in
Budapest that Countess Széchényi, formerly Miss Gladys Vanderbilt,
contracted smallpox while nursing in a Budapest military hospital and
has been dangerously ill for a fortnight; a hospital, exclusively for
the care of wounded soldiers whose cases require delicate surgical
operations, is ready for work at Compiègne under the direction of Dr.
Alexis Carrel of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.

March 9--In gratitude for American help, the municipal authorities of
Louvain inform the American Commission for Relief in Belgium that, when
Louvain is rebuilt, squares or streets will be named Washington, Wilson,
and American Nation.

March 11--American Red Cross announces plan to send two units for
service with the Belgian Army.

March 12--Philadelphians give $15,000 for establishment of a
Philadelphia ward in the American Ambulance Hospital in Paris; other
wards bear the names of New York, Providence, New Haven, and Buffalo.

March 14--Letter to the British Red Cross from Sir Thomas Lipton says
that typhus is threatening Serbia.

March 16--Mrs. John Hays Hammond, National Chairman of the War
Children's Christmas Fund, has received letters from Princess Mary of
England, and the Russian Ambassador to the United States, writing in
behalf of the Empress of Russia, expressing thanks for the Christmas
supplies sent from the United States.

March 17--Mme. Vandervelde, wife of the Belgian Minister of State, has
collected nearly $300,000 in the United States for Belgian relief, and
plans to sail for Europe in a few days.

March 20--Serbian Legation in London sends appeal to United States for
aid for Serbia from the Archbishop of Belgrade.

March 22--General Kamoroff, as special emissary of the Czar, visits the
American Hospital in Petrograd and thanks the Americans for their help
in caring for Russian wounded.

March 23--Contributions for the Easter Argosy reach $125,000; letter to
Belgian Relief Committee brings the thanks of King Albert for American
help; American Red Cross sends twenty-seven tons of supplies to Belgian
Red Cross.

March 24--General Joffre cables thanks to the Lafayette Fund, which is
sending comfort kits to the French soldiers in the trenches.

March 25--American Commission for Relief in Belgium announces that
arrangements have been completed for feeding 2,500,000 French in the
north of France, behind the German lines; for the past month the
commission has fed more than 500,000 French; it is planned that the
Easter Argosy will sail on May 1.

March 26--Financial report issued in London by the American Commission
for Relief in Belgium states that foodstuffs of a total value of
$20,000,000 have been delivered to Belgium since the commission began
work, and $19,000,000 worth of foodstuffs is in transit or stored for
future shipments; $8,500,000 has been provided by benevolent
contributions, and the remaining $30,500,000 through banking
arrangements set up by the commission; of the benevolent contributions
the United States has provided $4,700,000; United Kingdom, $1,200,000;
Canada, $900,000; Australasia, $900,000; clothing which has been
distributed is estimated to have been worth an additional $1,000,000; it
is announced that Queen Alexandra, as President of the English Red Cross
Society, has written an autograph note to Mrs. Whitelaw Reid in London
expressing gratitude for the aid given by the American Red Cross.

March 30--The cash collected by the Belgian Relief Fund, New York, now
totals $1,004,000, said to be the largest amount ever raised in the
United States for relief of distress in a foreign country.



THE DAY

By HENRY CHAPPELL.


     _[The author of this poem is Mr. Henry Chappell, a railway
     porter at Bath, England. Mr. Chappell is known to his comrades
     as the "Bath Railway Poet."]_

    You boasted the Day, and you toasted the Day,
      And now the Day has come.
    Blasphemer, braggart and coward all,
    Little you reck of the numbing ball,
    The blasting shell, or the "white arm's" fall,
      As they speed poor humans home.

    You spied for the Day, you lied for the Day,
      And woke the Day's red spleen,
    Monster, who asked God's aid Divine,
    Then strewed His seas with the ghastly mine;
    Not all the waters of all the Rhine
      Can wash thy foul hands clean.

    You dreamed for the Day, you schemed for the Day;
      Watch how the Day will go.
    Slayer of age and youth and prime
    (Defenseless slain for never a crime)
    Thou art steeped in blood as a hog in slime,
      False friend and cowardly foe.

    You have sown for the Day, you have grown for the Day;
      Yours is the Harvest red.
    Can you hear the groans and the awful cries?
    Can you see the heap of slain that lies,
    And sightless turned to the flame-split skies
      The glassy eyes of the dead?

    You have wronged for the Day, you have longed for the Day
      That lit the awful flame.
    'Tis nothing to you that hill and plain
    Yield sheaves of dead men amid the grain;
    That widows mourn for their loved ones slain,
      And mothers curse thy name.

    But after the Day there's a price to pay
      For the sleepers under the sod,
    And Him you have mocked for many a day--
    Listen, and hear what He has to say:
    _"Vengeance is mine, I will repay."_
      What can you say to God?

Reprinted from _The London Daily Express_ (Copyright).





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915" ***

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