Story of the World War For Young People By William L. Nida A Concise and Simple Story of the First Three Years of the War HALE BOOK CO Oak Park, 111. STORY OF THE WORLD WAR For Young People BY - WILLIAM Lv NIDA Superintendent of Schools, River Forest, Illinois. Author of 'Dawn of American History," "City, State and Nation," Etc. POSTPAID 30fr EACH HALE BOOK CO. OAK PARK. ILLINOIS COPYRIGHT, 1917 BY WILLIAM L. NIDA Published August, 1917 SEP 1/ iSt/ ©CU47S468 1^-^ f , FOREWORD A complete and impartial history of the World War cannot be written for some years, but the main facts, including the causes of the terrible struggle, are known today. Inasmuch as our soldiers are risk- ing their lives on European battlefields, our boys and girls are eager to know what it is all about. They want to read about the war in language that they can understand. Teachers are bewildered with the great mass of material not yet put in small enough compass for pupil and teacher to use in the school room. The author of this book asked his upper grade teachers to teach the facts of this war even if the history of other wars had to be eliminated to do it, and met with this reply: ''How can we teach what we ourselves do not know? Give us a book to guide us." Realizing that few teachers have either the time or the historical training needed to sift and organize the mass of information in print about the war today, the author has prepared this volume as a foundation upon which to build a study of the con- flict that is occupying our deepest interests. We are no longer an isolated nation. We must teach our children the main facts and tendencies of world events. The study of the War can be made the basis of a wider study of present world history so that we may all understand the part we are play- ing in international affairs. So at the risk of some revision upon the raising of the censorship, the author has ventured to write this account for the boys and girls about the momentous affairs of today. William L. Nida. CONTENTS Chapter Page 1 — The Rise of the German Empire 5 2 — The Kaiser and His World Dream 14 3— The Story of the Balkan Comitries 20 4 — Europe Takes Fire 25 5 — How Europe Had Prepared for this War 31 6— The Campaign of 1914 39 7— The Work of England's Fleet 48 8— New Methods of Warfare 53 9— The War in the Air 57 10— The Campaign of 1915 67 11 — Attempt to Take the Dardanelles 74 12— The Campaign of 1916 81 13 — Roumania Conquered — 1916 89 14— The Czar Loses His Throne 93 15 — Submarine Warfare 97 16— The United States Enters the War 100 17 — ^Why We Are at War with Germany 109 18 — America's Aid to Her Allies 112 Pershing Leads Our Men to France. The Food Supply. The Liberty Loan. 19— Campaign of 1917 115 Battles of Arras and Messines. British Take Bagdad. Russia Drives on Lemberg. Appendix — President Wilson's War Message 122 CHAPTER I THE RISE OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE In August, 1914, a terrible world calamity took place. All the great nations of Europe were declared to be at arms. On July 22nd of that year the world was at peace, but from this time one event followed another with lightning speed and within twelve days all Europe was ablaze. The Central Powers of Germany and Austria were at war with the Allies, Russia, France, Great Britain, Serbia and Belgium. Some time later Turkey and Bulgaria joined the Germans, while Japan, Italy and Roumania entered the war on the side of the Allies. Now after nearly three years of horrible strife our own United States has entered the conflict on the side of the Allies and very recently Greece has declared war with Ger- many. In order to understand what this awful world war is about we must know something of the history of Germany during the last fifty years, for it is largely the ambition of the German Kaiser and his war lords to rule Europe that has brought on this ter- rible conflict. And we must also know a brief story of the Balkan country, that great peninsula lying between the Black Sea and the Adriatic Sea, for it is this country of the Balkans that the German war lords are determined to possess and rule as their first step toward world dominion. Let us go back a few years and find how Germany came to be the great united Empire she is today. 6 STOEY OF THE WORLD WAR When the wars of Napoleon closed there were in Ger- many thirty-nine different states and four independ- PRUssiA AND ent cities, each with its own ruler. Of AUSTRIA these thirty-nine different govern- ments there were two leading ones. They were the Kingdom of Prussia and the Empire of Austria. Austria was then the strongest fighting power and for that reason was able to force its wishes upon all the other German states. Prussia was only a little kingdom and, though it had been considered one of the five great powers of Europe, it had been greatly weakened by long wars and had lost many thousands of its men. But from this little Kingdom of Prussia came the power that built up the united Empire of Germany. This was done through the wonderful mind and leadership of one man, Otto von Bismarck. In 1862 King William I. of Prussia made Bis- marck his adviser. For the next thirty years BISMARCK AS Bismarck was the greatest figure in CHANCELLOR Europe. He came from an obscure fam- ily of the country landed aristocracy. He believed that it was the Prussian kings and not the Prussian people that had made his own kingdom great, so he favored giving the king more power and was firmly opposed to allowing the people any voice in their government. Wlien William I. granted a constitu- tion to Prussia, Bismarck was enraged. He said he hated democracy and the rule of the common people. He was an aristocrat to his finger tips. Bismarck seemed to be the one German that under- stood the cause of his country's weakness. He also had been an exceedingly keen observer of all German affairs and he had come to feel it was a mistake to have so many small states in Germany. Many years THE RISE OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE 7 before he had said that there was not room in Ger- many for both Prussia and Austria and that one or the other must bend. He kept saying there were too many little states and he would have them all united in one nation with Prussia as its head. He argued that the only way to bring about this union was by war, for he believed that the great questions of the day are settled by blood and iron. When Bismarck came into power as adviser to the King of Prussia, the first thing he advised was to smash Austria. To do this he needed a strong new military tool. So Bismarck and King William proceeded to get this tool ready. They built up a great army by demanding military service of every man. Every able-bodied young Prussian was called to serve for at least two years in the army. Some of the people of Prussia objected to this forced mili- tary service, but the King, encouraged by Bismarck, had his own way about it. In good time Bismarck thought Prussia was strong enough to master Austria so they looked for some WAR ON excuse to begin the trouble. The people DENMARK of the two Danish provinces of Schleswig and Holstein were trying to throw off the rule of Denmark. This was Bismarck's chance to test his new army with little risk and also his opportunity to pick a quarrel with Austria. Sixty thousand Prus- sians and Austrians seized the territory in dispute. They easily defeated Denmark and forced her to give up the two provinces. But then Austria and Prussia could not agree about who should have them. Aus- tria wished to make them into a separate state and this was also the wish of the people of the conquered provinces, but Bismarck was determined to add them to Prussia so as to extend her coast line 8 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR and secure some excellent harbors, especially the one at Kiel. He said there were too many small states in Germany already. This dispute soon led to war between Austria and Prussia as Bismarck had foreseen. Bismarck had great faith that his new army could fight. The next thing was to prove it to the Aus- trians. The Prussians had adopted as their field rifle the breech-loading weapon known as the needle gun. It had a long range, considerably beyond that of the old-fashioned, smooth-bore musket. When a zealous young Austrian officer reported this to his superiors the only answer was, "The battalions of Austria will sweep away these piff-paff soldiers like dust." In 1866 the opportunity came to "sweep away'* the Prussians. Prussia forced the war upon Austria, PRUSSIA AND AUSTRIA and Italy helped Prussia. The AT WAR, 1866 marvelous new military sys- tem of the Prussians worked like a clock, and Prus- sia struck her enemy with such speed as to amaze Europe. The great general of this war was Von Moltke. In the years before the war he had planned all the campaigns, and he now saw them come out just as he had planned them. Von Moltke sent three armies into Austro-Hun- gary by different routes. They met the Austrians at Sadowa. King William, Bismarck, and Von Moltke took up their position on a hill from which they could view the battle. The struggle was long and doubtful. It began in the early morning. For hours the armies fought with terrific fury. Up until two o 'clock it seemed to be an Austrian victory. But then the Prussian Crown Prince arrived with his army and turned the tide. At half past three the THE RISE OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE 9 Austrian army was beaten and had begun the retreat. They had lost about 40,000 men, while the Prussians had lost but 10,000. Austria acknowledged her defeat, and Bismarck, who feared France might join Austria, gladly gave her easy terms. The war lasted only about six weeks. Now that the war was over and Austria subdued, what was Bismarck's next step? Prussia was anxious to punish Austria by taking the Bohemian frontier from her. When Bismarck learned this, it is said he burst into a torrent of weeping. He declared it would wreck all his plans and make Aus- tria a lasting enemy of Prussia. He thought Prus- sia would some day need Austria's help. The King finally listened to Bismarck and the only penalty exacted from Austria was that she should leave the other German states alone and let Prussia manage them as best she could. Thus Austria was forced out of German affairs and Prussia became the lead- ing state in Germany. Prussia now got all the north German states, twenty-two in all, to form a North German Confeder- ation. The King of Prussia was made President of the Federation. Bismarck wrote up the constitu- tion and was careful to see that Prussia had enough power to control all important matters. Still Germany was not yet a unit. There were several independent south German states that were FRANCO-PRUSSIAN influenced by Austria on the east WAR, 1870 and by France on the west. France was then supposed to be the strongest mili- tary power in Europe, but Prussia had no fear of France, single-handed. Bismarck made the south German states believe that the French were going to take some of their territory and thus gained their 10 STOEY OF THE WORLD WAB consent to join hands with the German Confedera- tion in a war. Bismarck said that the way to complete the union of the German states was to engage them all in a war against some other nation. Accordingly, he trumped up a quarrel with France as to who should sit on the throne of Spain. When Bismarck published in the press the story of this trouble with France, he told it in a way that was most insulting to France. He said he "intended it to be a red rag for the French bull. ' ' His plan was to anger France so she would declare war. Then Ger- many might pose before the world as merely fighting in self-defense. France declared war in 1870 and the south German states joined the North German Confederation as Bismarck had planned. The French army was poorly prepared compared with the splendidly drilled Prussian soldiers. One French army was shut up in the strong fortress of Metz and besieged. The other French army surren- dered at Sedan, and the French emperor was taken prisoner. Within six weeks the French empire had fallen and a republic was proclaimed in that country. In eight weeks the Germans were at the gates of Paris. Immense stores had been collected at Paris, and the citizens were armed to defend their capital city. The French astonished the world with their splendid defense. It is interesting to know that aircraft figured in this siege when Gambetta and other lead- ers escaped from Paris by balloon and organized new armies outside. But they had no time to drill the new recruits, and they failed to break through the great circle of iron that surrounded the city. After THE EISE OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE 11 a remarkable siege of four months, Paris was starved out and obliged to surrender to the Germans. France was absolutely crushed. Germany took from her the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine and compelled the French people to pay to the Germans an immense war indemnity of a billion dollars. The work of making Germany a united nation was now practically done. While the German army was GERMANY still in Paris a communication was sent UNITED to King William of Prussia by the King of Bavaria, asking King William to become Emperor of Germany. We now know that the letter was written by Bismarck. In 1871 in the great hall of the palace of Versailles, which was then occupied by the German army, William was crowned and given the title of German Emperor. But in realizing his ambition, Bismarck had made some mistakes. Although his ideal of uniting the German states into one great power was a good one, he had done an irreparable wrong to France. He had provoked the war with France and then forced the French to pay the cost. An indemnity of a bil- lion dollars was a terrible burden in those days, but the French people worked, industriously and paid it off in a few years. The thing the French nation never forgave Ger- many was the taking of its territory. Germany has been for forty years trying to Germanize the two provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. She forbade them to use their native language of French in their schools and churches. It was as if they had taken the New England states from us and tried to con- vert all the people into Germans. Now we know that any people clings to its mother tongue with a death grip, and no amount of force will compel them 12 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR to give it up gracefully. France promised herself that some day she would recover these provinces from Germany and, looking forward to another war, sought an ally in Eussia. Bismarck's work now seemed to be done. He had accomplished what seemed at the outset to be an BISMARCK'S impossibility. He had made from the RULE thirty-nine small German states a nation greater even than Russia or Austro-Hungary. He was looked upon as the greatest German states- man since the days of Charlemagne. But the day has now come when we heartily condemn him for his criminal action in robbing a neighboring country and causing a bitterness which had to be redeemed in the blood of this generation. Bismarck was the real ruler of Germany for more than thirty years, though he was merely called the Chancellor. He has been given the name of the "Iron Chancellor" because of his grim determina- tion to make his country great no matter what the cost. What was right was not the consideration in his mind. His only question was: "Is Germany strong enough to- do this thing?" His gospel was: "Might makes right," which is the gospel of a sav- age, and this is the creed of German war lords today. They are trampling upon weaker nations with astounding cruelty. Bismarck, knowing that France was longing for revenge, made a triple alliance with Russia and Austria against France. But this did not last for both Russia and Austria had been ambitious to get control of Constantinople and the straits leading from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. Russia wished it for a warm waterway for her commerce and Germany and Austria both desired to possess THE RISE OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE 13 the Balkan states of Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Eoumania, Bosnia and Herzegovina. After a time war occurred between Russia and Turkey. Russia was about to take Constantinople THE DUAL AND wheu Germany and Austria inter- TRiPLE ALLIANCES veued and robbed Russia of lier victory over Turkey. A part of Turkey, which had been conquered by the Russians, was given to Aus- tria. The Czar said: ''Bismark has forgotten his promise of 1870. ' ' The provinces which fell to Aus- trian control were Bosnia and Herzegovina, both of which were peopled with Slavs or natives of Russia and should have gone to Serbia or Russia or some other Slav country. Then Russia was ready to break with Germany and to make an alliance with France. Italy at this time was angered at France for seizing Tunis, as Italy wanted that part of Africa for a colony, so Italy joined the alliance of German and Austria. Thus we have the Dual Alliance of France and Rus- sia and the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austro- Hungary and Italy. This was the line-up of friends and enemies when this great world war broke out. Bismarck was still Chancellor when the present Kaiser William II. came to the throne of the German Empire in 1888. William II. was young, able and full of ambition to rule. He believes his right to rule comes from heaven and not from the people and as he did his own thinking he soon quarreled with Bismarck and dismissed him. CHAPTER II THE KAISER'S DREAM OF WORLD EMPIRE Since 1890 the Kaiser lias been the deciding voice in all German affairs. During these last twenty-five years Germany has developed her industries and her commerce in a remarkable manner. In both these respects she has become the rival of England and the United States. In fact, she has been rapidly out- stripping them in trade and industry. In this time Germany has acquired a number of colonies in Africa, China and the Eastern seas. But though her colonies have cost her a great deal, she has not known how to develop them with the success of England. The Kaiser has also in this time built up a large navy". He is ambitious to have the German Empire as powerful on the seas as she has been on the land for the last fifty years, so that nothing shall be done on sea or on land without her consent. Thus Germany is a great country, rich and power- ful, with an industrious and splendidly educated GERMANY people. But her citizens are not free. NOT FREE "The German nation," said Prince von Bulow, who was for many years Chancellor of Ger- many, "has been denied the right to rule itself." Germany has a constitution and a parliament but they do not give self-rule to the people. Vast power is bestowed upon the emperor. The Kaiser has even the right to declare war or make peace. This is a dangerous power to put in the hands of one THE KAISER'S DREAM OE WORLD EMPIRE 15 man. In our country only Congress, wliicli directly represents the people, can declare war. Kaiser Wil- liam is responsible to no one. He has said : "There is only one master of the nation. That is I. I will abide no other, ' ' and again, ' ' I look upon the people and the nation as a responsibility conferred upon me by God. Those who try to interfere with my task I shall crush." As a sample of his spirit he is quoted as saying to a regiment of his soldiers: "I would rather see my forty-five million Prussians dead on the field of battle than to see one foot of the soil taken in 1870 from the French restored to them." At another time in addressing a body of recruits the Kaiser is reported to have said : '^Now that you have donned my uniform it must be your pleasure and duty to follow my wishes, realizing that I rule Germany by the direct will of God. You must willingly obey my commands even though I require you to shoot down your own fathers and brothers in response to my dictates." And so submissive have become the mil- lions of German soldiers after years of this training that today they would probably fire upon their own people if ordered to do so by their officers. This kind of obedience makes good soldiers, but unthink- ing citizens. When Bismarck drew up the constitution of the Empire he fashioned the government so that Prussia PRUSSIAN should have the balance of power and the NOBILITY Kaiser might rule. ''Prussia," said Prince von Bulow, "is to this day a state of soldiers and officials." The Kaiser appoints nobles, and nobles only, to his high offices. Only a noble can be chancellor or minister. The Kaiser chooses only nobles as officers of his army and navy. He makes 16 STORY OF THE WOELD WAR the Prussian nobility the ruling caste. Through Prussia these officials and war lords rule the Empire. The noble class is in turn ruled by the Kaiser, but they are content. This is what we mean when we speak of German militarism. We mean a govern- ment by the Kaiser and his soldier class. In America and other democratic countries we hold that one man is as good as another, and that all shall have an equal voice in the government. We would not tolerate being ruled by a class of soldiers and aristocrats. Now if you will look at the map you will observe that Germany has very little sea coast except that on GERMANY the Baltic Sea. This lack of good ports HEMMED IN hinders her world trade. The Empire is too much hemmed in to suit its rulers. A great and powerful nation must have room to grow. Ger- many is a manufacturing country and in order to trade freely with other nations needs more con- venient harbors. England controls the sea. All the strategic sea routes of the world except the newly completed Panama Canal, belong to England. She has Gib- raltar, the Suez Canal, Singapore and innumerable islands the world over that have naval bases on them. These give England a great advantage in trade and commerce, and these are the very things Germany wishes to develop. Since Germany has not been very successful in establishing colonies, and as England has always kept her navy far in advance of that of the Germans, there was nothing else for Germany to do but to look forward to a better sea coast outlet for her trade and to become a great land empire. The Kaiser was determined to extend his frontiers and he kept the THE KAISER'S DREAM OF WORLD EMPIRE 17 largest army of the world ready for the first oppor- tunity to strike for more territory. In fact, the war lords were more than willing to make an opportunity on the slightest excuse. They have looked with eager eyes on the coal and iron lands of Belgium and northern France and WOELD coveted the fine harbors of these coun- GEBMANY tries. They long to get control of the wheat and oil lands of Eoumania and they want a chance to overflow into the garden spot of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys which are only waiting for irrigation to make them some of the most fruitful regions of the world. Above all, they have desired the Dardanelles with its strategic position domi- nating the whole of the Black Sea country. In short, the German dream has long been to build up a great empire extending from the Baltic Sea to the Persian Gulf. It was to be held together by a line of railroad which descends from Hamburg through Berlin to Vienna and thence to Constanti- nople. From here it passes through Asia Minor, where it forks, one branch going down to the Persian Gulf through Bagdad and' the other to Suez and Mecca. Germany secured secret permission from Turkey to build the Bagdad railway. This railway is not yet complete, but it is designed to bring Ger- man armies to the frontier of Egypt and eventually to India, where they may threaten the British Empire by land. Germany's railroad to the Persian Gulf would be shorter than England's sea route and would give the Germans the advantage in trade with the East. But in order to carry out this dream it was necessary for Germany to gain possession of Turkey and the Balkans. Austria is an ally of Germany and 18 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR is dominated by her. Together they exerted every effort to get the Turks and Bulgars to join them in the war. In fact, we now feel sure that Germany had secret treaties binding these countries to aid her. The object in coveting the Balkans was to get control not only of the land, but of the railroad to Con- stantinople. Germany also planned to conquer Bel- gium and extend her rule as far south as Calais or Brest in France so that she might have a port on the English Channel or the Atlantic. Eiga on the Baltic was an Eastern port that she desired. In short, there seemed to be no limit to the ambition and conceit of this German dream. Per- haps it is only natural for them to feel that their nation and training are superior to all others on earth, but their ambition to encircle the earth and Germanize other countries by sheer force, destroying weaker nations without mercy or excuse, does not meet with the sympathy of the rest of the world. This scheme of German leaders has long been urged. The war lords have written many books and distributed them among their people urging the extension of their territory. The citizens of Ger- many are trained to listen to the voice of the ruling class and they were beginning to feel that they had a perfect right to seize the best portions of Europe for themselves. In many respects we all admit the greatness of Germany and her people. German cities are better GERMAN governed than ours. There is less ErnciENCY graft and more efficiency in their methods than in ours. The Germans have reduced many things to a science besides war. They put experts in charge of all their work. They use scien- tific methods in manufacture and in business. Now THE KAISER'S DREAM OF WORLD EMPIRE 19 science leads to thoroughness and efficiency and so the Germans excel other peoples in many ways. But the Germans have come to worship science until they think of nothing else. The questions of right and wrong, peace, and love and sympathy for the weak and helpless — in a word. Christian behavior — is far more to be worshipped than science. "We stand for right, for brotherly love and a square deal, for a chance for every nation to live its life in its own way. Upon all these principles of right Ger- many has trampled with unheard of cruelty to carry out her ambition based upon ' ' Might makes right. ' ' Against this ambition the world fights, fourteen nations against four. CHAPTER III THE STORY OF THE BALKAN COUNTRIES In order to understand this war we must also know something of the history of the Balkan coun- tries which occupy the whole of the great peninsula between the Black Sea and the Adriatic Sea. In this peninsula are now the nations of Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Roumania, Serbia, Montenegro and the two provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which Austria has seized. The Turks captured Constantinople in 1453 and laid hold upon nearly all of the Balkan countries. This date is an important one in our history, for it was this that closed the trade route of Genoa to the East and finally brought about the discovery of America. The Turks not only seized the Balkans, but they threatened and terrified all western Europe. In time they were checked by European armies, but they placed a heavy yoke upon the Balkan states. The Turks had only contempt for the people whom they had conquered. They did not try to mould them into a nation, but were satisfied to make them their subjects and exploit them. The Christian peoples were oppressed by the Mohammedan Turks for sev- eral hundred years. Their property was taken and their lives also, whenever it suited their Turkish rulers. They bore their ills as best they might, long- ing for liberation and hating the Turks with a deathless hatred. In the next two hundred years Turkey steadily THE STORY OF THE BALKAN COUNTRIES 21 lost ground. Eussia and Austria first despoiled her THE SICK MAN of some of her valuable land. Then or THE EAST ]ier own subjects arose to throw off her galling yoke. The Balkan country has from this time been a knotty problem for all of Europe. It has been clear that the savage Turks were in the end to be driven from Europe and the burning question has been when this should happen who would get possession of her empire and particularly who would control Constantinople and the outlet from the Black Sea, otherwise known as the Dardanelles. This has been spoken of as the Eastern Question and Turkey has for years been known as the ''Sick Man of the East." Many nations of Europe have aspired to control the Dardanelles and to possess Constantinople. The Serbians first threw off the Turkish rule after a long, hard contest. The Turks were driven out of Serbia, and Belgrade became the capital. Next the Greeks arose against their oppressor and for six years bitterly fought the Turks alone. Then other nations came to the rescue, and Greece became a nation independent of Turkey in 1829. In 1853 Russia started to drive the Turks from Europe, but England and France, to their shame, THE CRIMEAN Came to the aid of Turkey. England W-^^ did this because she feared with Rus- sia in control of Constantinople, England's route to the east through the Suez Canal would be in peril. France had a grudge against Russia for defeating Napoleon years before, so she stooped with England to help the cruel Turks. This war was known as the Crimean War. It did not solve the Eastern question, for Turkey was left in possession of the Dardanelles and Russia was defeated. The Sultan 22 STOEY OF THE WOKLD WAR of Turkey promised better treatment of his Christian subjects if he were allowed to keep his territory. He did not keep his promise, however, but treated them even worse than before. In 1866 Roumania claimed and won her indepen- dence from Turkey. The Roumanians were descend ants of the Romans. The Bulgarians next rose against the Turks, but their masters butchered them by the thousands and destroyed sixty-five of their villages with indescribable cruelty. The atrocity of their crimes filled all Europe with horror. Glad- stone, the English statesman, denounced the ** unspeakable Turk" and demanded that England cease to support such barbarians. He urged that they be ''expelled bag and baggage" from Europe. Presently Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria, all Slav states — their people being related to the Rus- SLAVS WAR ON siaus — declared war on Turkey. TURKS, 1876 They were supported by Russia, who wished to aid her fellow Slavs. It was not long before the Russians were again marching on Con- stantinople. The Sultan begged for peace and the treaty of San Stefano was made between Russia and Turkey in 1878. It gave complete independence to Serbia, Montenegro and Roumania with larger boun- daries. Bulgaria was made a self-governing state with wide frontiers tributary only to the Sultan. Only a broken strip across the peninsula was left to Turkey and she was almost edged out of Europe. But to the shame and selfishness of the other powers, they again intervened and demanded a change in the treaty. They said the Eastern ques- tion could not be settled by one nation, for it affected them all, and they all demanded a voice in the settle- ment. England feared Russia was coming uncom- THE STOEY OF THE BALKAN COUNTEIES 23 fortably close to the Straits at Constantinople as she thought the Balkan states would become mere tools of Eussia. Austria also protested loudly, for she wished a part of the spoils of Turkey for herself, and Germany was glad to help her get her share. Russia objected to allowing those who had not fought, to decide the outcome of her victory. However, she could not face all these nations in arms, so she agreed to a meeting which was called the Congress of Berlin (1878). Bismarck was at the Congress of Berlin and sided with Austria, giving her claim to the provinces of THE CONGRESS Bosuia and Herzegovina which, being OF BERLIN peopled with Slavs, should have gone to Serbia. England took the island of Cyprus and Bulgaria's boundaries were reduced and the land given back to Turkey. The result was that though Turkey's territory was much reduced, it was not so much cut off as in the treaty of San Stefano. Turkey's population was, however, reduced from 17 millions to 6 millions and she would have been put off the peninsula by Russia except for the selfish jealousy concerning the Straits of the Dardanelles. And so more bloody wars must follow. Following up the Congress of Berlin, Austro- Hungary in 1908 made Bosnia and Herzegovina a real part of her Empire. Serbia was much embit- tered by this, as she thought these Slav provinces were hers by right and they would have given her an outlet to the Adriatic Sea for her trade. Now she was hemmed in on all sides and her war spirit again flamed up. For many, many years the Serbians had longed to unite Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina and Monte- negro, states which were all peopled by the Slav race. 2.4 STOEY OF THE WOELD WAE They dreamed of restoring the old Serbian Empire of the Middle Ages with an outlet on the Adriatic Sea. Serbia, alone, of all the states of Europe, except Switzerland, could not reach the sea to market her products. In 1912 there was a general war among the Balkan states. At first they defeated Turkey and were BALKAN about to take nearly all her land when they WAES fell to quarreling over who should have it and began fighting among themselves. Bulgaria finally got the worst of the bargain. Austria did not take part, but when peace was made she again prevented Serbia from getting an outlet to the Adriatic. Just at this time (1913) Austria secretly informed her ally, Italy, that she, Austria, was prepared to make war on Serbia. She asked Italy to join her according to their treaty of alliance. But Italy replied that Austria was about to make war on Serbia without any excuse. It would not be a war of defense on Austria's part. According to the terms of the alliance, Italy was to aid only in defen- sive warfare. So Italy refused to join Austria against Serbia in 1913. For some reason Austria gave up her plan, but we know from this that she was only waiting for the slightest excuse to attack Ser- bia. This brings us to the fateful year of 1914 with the Balkan question still unsettled. CHAPTER IV EUROPE TAKES FIRE The spark that set all Europe aflame was lighted June 28, 1914. On this day an assassin slew Arch- duke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne, together with his wife, as they were riding in their carriage in the streets of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. ^ The men who threw the bomb that caused the death of this royal couple were Austrian subjects and natives of Bosnia ; however, they were Slavs by race and Austria declared that there was a society of Serbians who had arranged this dreadful crime and that they were trying to destroy the Austrian Empire by killing the heir to the throne. We remember that some years before (1908) Austria had forcibly taken over Bosnia and annexed it to her Empire and this assassination of the Crown Prince was supposed to be a mad protest against the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. But Austria claimed that Serbia was responsible for the trouble, although it was committed by Austrian subjects on Austrian territory. All the world knew that the slaying of the heir to the Austrian throne was a crime that would lead to serious consequences and waited with bated breath for the outcome. Strange to say, Austria for a whole month said almost nothing about the atfair, but all the time she AUSTRIA'S was secretly planning to bring on war ULTIMATUM and doubtless was being advised by Germany, her ally. Suddenly, on July 23, 1914, she 26 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR sent an ultimatum to Serbia demanding a reply within forty-eight hours. She gave Serbia no time to investigate the matter and find out the truth about the secret organization or the reason for the crime. The tones of Austria's demand were haughty and insulting, and it was plain that she had made up her mind to fight. All the governments of Europe were at once informed what was going on. Austria's demands of Serbia were very humiliating, but England, Russia, and France, realizing that Austria had suffered a wrong, urged Serbia to comply if she could. They also asked Austria for more time to talk matters over. This she refused, and it was evident that she was bent on war. On July 25, Serbia answered and accepted all the eleven demands made by Austria except one. She refused to allow Austrian agents to have a hand in the investigation of the society in Serbia. Serbia said that she would report to the Austrian agents the progress of her own efforts to suppress this society. She said that if Austria was not satisfied with this, she would submit the whole matter to the Hague Peace Court or to any other tribunal which might be made up by the powers of Europe. This was surely a most reasonable reply to the haughty demands of Austro-Hungary. But the Austrian minister at Belgrade had hardly read the reply before he asked for his passports, broke off relations with Serbia, and left for Vienna. His conduct plainly showed that he had had his instructions to do this, no matter what the Serbians were willing to promise, unless it complied with all their demands to the letter. And so the world was set on fire. Immediately the wires buzzed with passing com- EUROPE TAKES FIRE 27 munications all over Europe. Statesmen and rulers ATTEMPTS were conferring in every capital and FOR PEACE event followed event very rapidly. England proposed to Germany that the points at issue between Austria and Serbia should be taken up at a conference among Italy, France, Germany, and Great Britain. Germany said ''No" and re- fused to interfere, though the world knew that she could have put a stop to the war at once if she had so desired. It was plain that she was supporting Austria and was determined to prevent a peaceful settlement of the trouble. As the Serbians are mainly Slavs, Eussia would not see these people imposed upon by a greater power like Austria. Eussia sought to talk matters over at Vienna in order to arrange a peaceful settle- ment, but the Austrian government refused to dis- cuss her ultimatum to Serbia. All things went to prove that Austria and Germany were determined to have war. Both Serbia and Austria mobilized their armies. War was declared by Austria on Serbia on July 28, and the fighting began at once. Eussia also pro- ceeded to mobilize five army corps, about 250,000 men, because she did not want to see Serbia over- whelmed. Germany mobilized her fleet on the same day. The day after Austria's declaration of war, Eussia made another attempt to persuade her to negotiate and settle the matter peaceably. Austria refused. The day following, the word reached Pet- rograd, the capital of Eussia, that the Germans were secretly mobilizing. Germany now demanded that Eussia cease mobil- izing within twenty-four hours, but Eussia thought it very plain that Germany and Austria were bent 28 STOEY OF THE WOELD WAR on war, since they had refused every reasonable offer to make peace, so she continued to collect her armies. France also began to mobilize her armies to aid her ally, Russia. England was now alarmed, as was every other nation in Europe. She undertook to keep the matter ENGLAND f rom spreading to the other nations. She ALARMED asked France and Germany if they would respect the neutrality of Belgium. France said she would. Germany made no reply. All the nations were bound by treaty to respect the rights of Belgium, but the Germans thought they were pow- erful enough to disregard their treaty and would not promise that they would not trample upon this country if it were to their best advantage to do so. When England insisted on a reply from Germany she said that Great Britain was foolish to put so much stress on the mere words of a treaty which was only a "scrap of paper." On the first day of August Germany declared war on Russia. On the third day of August German soldiers crossed the French boundary and Germany demanded of Belgium that German armies be per- mitted to cross her territory into France. Belgium refused, saying that she wished to remain neutral and it would not be fair to France or to Germany to allow armies from either country to pass through her land. At once Germany declared war on France and Belgium, and German troops crossed the Belgian frontier. Now England held her promise sacred that Bel- gium should be protected in case of war. She said she could never again hold up her head among the nations if she did not take part in Belgium's behalf. It was a question of her national honor and her word EUEOPE TAKES FIRE 29 before the world. She said that the world would never again have confidence in the word of England if she failed to protect her peaceful neighbor. So England declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914. The Kaiser seemed much surprised to think that England would fight to keep a treaty. His promise had meant nothing. In fact, it is evident that Ger- many had planned for years to violate the neutrality of Belgium. German railways everywhere led up to the Belgian borders, and it is plain that they were built to be used in case of war. They were all double-tracked with a view to an overwhelming attack on this poor little country. The textbooks of war written by war lords in Germany contain many statements to the effect that if that country were to go to war with France, they would march through Belgium regardless of their promises. The German army moved on Belgian territory and attacked the fortress of Liege on August 4, GERMAN 1914. The plan was to seize Liege as the PLANS gateway into Belgium and to rush the German armies across King Albert's countrj^ into France and get there before the French had time to prepare for them. The Kaiser's whole scheme was based upon this quick passage through Belgium. He expected to reach Paris before France and Eng- land could get their armies ready for defense. Germany thought she could sweep the forts of Bel- gium from her path and move along without delay, but there were some surprises in store for her. In fact, Germany expected to make the war a short conflict. She would strike France as she had in 1870, so suddenly as to crush her and then, count- ing upon Eussia to be very slow, would turn upon 30 STOEY OF THE WOELB WAE that country and make an end of her. She knew that the frontier between France and Germany was well fortified on the French side. As everything de- pended on speed, the troops must proceed through the neutral Duchy of Luxemburg and through Belgium. CHAPTER V HOW EUROPE HAD PREPARED FOR THIS WAR With all the attempts to keep peace, Europe has known for many years that war would again appear, and all the nations were more or less prepared, though none so well as Germany. We remember that when war broke out between France and Ger- many in 1870 the Germans threw an immense army to the border so quickly that they found the French utterly unready. Because of this ability to move so rapidly with a large force, the Germans reached Paris in six months and the war was soon over. But this time Germany was even better prepared. The German army was well supplied with draft RAiLHOAD animals, tractors and auto-trucks, ADVANTAGES which enabled them to move with speed. For many years Germany and Austria have been busy building strategic railways for use in war. Besides the many double-tracked roads to the Bel- gian frontier, Germany had seventeen lines of rail- way leading to the Russian borders, which would enable her to send to that front more than five hun- dred troop trains each day. So that in a few days after the declaration of war the German armies, if desired, might all be upon the borders of Russia. To Germany's seventeen lines, Russia had only five railroads to this frontier. Austria had eight lines running to the Russian border and could throw a million men on the Rus- 32 STOEY OF THE WOELD WAE sian frontier in a very few days, running 260 trains every twenty-four hours. To the Austrian frontier Eussia had only four lines. These roads were built not only to carry the armies to the enemy's terri- tory, but with them Germany and Austria could furnish their armies with food and supplies in great quantities. Then, too, Germany and Austria occupied the center of the fighting area and could move their armies back and forth at will from one frontier to another wherever there was most need of them. Thus, the Central Powers, being able to shift their soldiers from one battle front to another, made one German soldier equal to two of the Allied soldiers, unless the Allies could arrange to strike both sides of Germany at the same time. All the nations of Europe kept large standing armies, the cost of which loaded them down with STANDING AEMiES heavy taxes. All nations, too, AND FLEETS exccpt England, had required universal military training. It takes time to train a man to become a good soldier. So these nations required all their young men to spend a few years in army training during times of peace so that when war came, soldiers in large numbers would be ready. Universal military training is a great burden, but it was the only safeguard against Germany's speed in attack. England, surrounded as she is by water, was relying on her fleet. She had only a small standing army and her citizens had no army training. Upon her navy England had lavished millions to keep well ahead of all other nations, and she believed she could control the sea in any war that might HOW EUEOPE HAD PEEPAEED FOE THIS WAE 33 come. Germany had a fine navy, but it was no match for that of England. All frontiers of the continental nations were forti- fied with mammoth forts of steel and concrete built, as it was thought, strong enough to defy capture. Military men in each country worked at secret plans and weapons with which to surprise their enemies when the storm broke. Military spies were sent nosing about other nations to discover and report the strength and weakness of their neighbors. Secret treaties were made, and many other activities existed, of which civilized mankind ought to be ashamed. In nearly all these matters Germany took the lead, because her leaders for years have been war-mad, and at the same time thorough and scien- tific about whatever they attempted. She had built up great ammunition and gun factories, each with its war secrets. The weakest spot in the Austrian defense was that almost half of her population are Slavs. Many of them disliked the Austrians and were opposed to her government. They preferred Russia instead, the home of their people. We all believe now that Germany could have stopped this war if she had chosen to do so, but GERMANY we have many reasons for thinking that EEADY siie welcomed the occasion to extend her power. Why do we believe this 1 In the first place, the deepening of the great Kiel Canal leading from the Baltic Sea to the North Sea was completed just a month before the war opened. This enabled the German war fleet to pass directly back and forth between these waters without going through the winding and more or less dangerous route around 34 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR Denmark. The Canal gives Germany a great advan- tage both with regard to England and Russia. The Kaiser thought that England was on the verge of civil war at home and that she would not enter the war at this time. German war leaders also quoted some things that had been said in the French Senate which they thought indicated that France was poorly prepared for war. They real- ized, too, that Russia was getting stronger every day. Germany thought, should she wait another three years, that she would lose the advantage that she had in 1914 because of the great increase in the Russian armament and the growth of her strategic railways. So Germany decided it was now or never for her to take the first place among the nations of Europe. SPEED IN We knew that Germany was armed to MOBILIZING the teeth with all her men trained, but the system which she had worked out, of getting her men quickly into the ranks fairly took our breath away. When a soldier was ordered out, he reported at once to the storehouse, where his equip- ment was kept. He gave his name to a clerk and was given a bundle of clothing which contained two complete uniforms, two coats, two pairs of trousers, two pairs of leggings and two pairs of marching shoes, one hat, two suits of underclothes, four pairs of socks, a comfort kit, a blanket, robe and other necesary things. These articles of clothing were all the correct size, for they had been selected, tried on and put away for this soldier with his name on the tag and bundle many months before. The bundle also contained a brass tag bearing his official number, which he was to wear next to his body, suspended from his neck by a cord. HOW EUEOPE HAD PREPARED FOR THIS WAR 35 With this bundle of clothing he at once repaired to a dressing room, put on his uniform and made up his field roll with his other articles. Then he tied up his civilian clothing and handed it to the clerk to put away for him. Next the man went to the armory, which was either in the same building where his outfit was kept, or near by. Here he drew his rifle, belt, and ammunition. He was now ready to march with his company or regiment, or to go on board a troop train. The regiments in the cities were ready to march in from four to six hours. The country districts needed only from twelve to twenty- four hours to mobilize. Thus we see that Germany had a complete field outfit ready for every able-bodied man, with his name on it, and every man knew just where to go to get his outfit in the least possible time after the war call came. Within twenty-four hours after war loomed up, Germany had two million men on the way to her frontiers. As soon as the mobilization began, soldiers were on the streets marching to war. There were regiments of infantry, troops of cavalry, batteries of artillery and long lines of for- age, ammunition and hospital wagons. These sol- diers of Germany were greeted with loud cheers from every quarter. Both the soldiers and the bystanders joined in singing: ''Die Wacht am Rhine," ''Deutschland uber Alles," "Hoch der Kaiser" and one might hear the cry ''Nach Paris" and *'Nach Petersburg." This mobilization of the German army was a won- derful feat. At the end of six days, we are told, there were three million men along the French and Belgian borders and a smaller number along the Russian frontier. In short, the men were gathered 36 STOEY OF THE WOELD WAE and moved to tlie front in an orderly manner, and with such remarkable precision as denoted long and careful preparation for just this emergency. All the railroad trains of the German Empire were used to move the army. There were no passenger trains running during this week of mobilization. It was this marvelous speed upon which the Kaiser was counting to get his forces to Paris before the French could mobilize their army for defense. Germany also had some new and murderous weapons upon which she was counting to aid in her SECRET charge. For some time after the war of BIG GUNS 1870 it was thought that artillery fire in itself was enough to reduce a fort and that infantry attacks were no longer necessary. But armored concrete forts were later introduced. This changed the tactics which were for so long believed to be effective. It was argued that although the guns of a fort might be silenced by the attacking artillery, it was hardly likely that the armor of the forts could be destroyed, and it was probable that in most instances the silenced guns could be repaired and replaced by the time the attacking force could move their guns close enough to shorten the range. The attacking force was necessarily put at a great disadvantage. Germany, wishing to reduce the forts quickly, set about making bigger guns with longer range, so that her troops could stand off many miles and destroy forts without the guns of the fort being able to reach hers in reply. Her big mortars fire shells 161/4 inches in diameter. They were made in the Krupp gun factory and the world knew nothing about them. This gun is so heavy that it requires a concrete foundation which it takes several days HOW EUEOPE HAD PREPARED FOR THIS WAR 37 to prepare. The shells weigh nearly a ton and can hit a fort 22 miles away. A few shots from this powerful gun will destroy any fort made of steel and concrete. Other nations did not know of this weapon. Another great gun, a field howitzer of the Ger- mans, fires shells 11 inches in diameter. It has as part of its equipment two tractors for moving it with an advancing army. One of the tractors pulls the gun itself, which weighs about twenty-five tons. It is mounted for movement on a special carriage. The other tractor pulls the gun carriage, which weighs slightly less than the gun. The ammunition is carried separately and as each shell weighs in the neighborhood of 800 pounds, it creates a big prob- lem of transport in itself. The wheels of this outfit are of the tread-rail type. They move well over soft ground and the whole can be moved over good roads with remarkable speed. The range of the gun is about six miles. The shells burst with a deadly effect, the flying fragments scattering over a radius of fifty feet. The poisonous gases which are gen- erated reach to a distance of thirty to forty feet more. The effect of one of these shells therefore covers an area about 150 feet across. The gases are not as deadly in the open as in the passages of the fort. The German war lords knew that their guns could easily outrange those of the forts which they were planning to reduce. There were in the forts many 6-inch and 9-inch guns which could not shoot nearly as far as the bigger German guns. The Germans thought all they would have to do was to batter the enemy's forts into a shapeless mass with their big guns, which were easily directed by airplanes 38 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR flying over the heads of the defenders, and then, by an overwhelming infantry assault, capture the tangled pile of masonry and steel. The French also had one surprise for the world. They brought out a secret gun known as the THE FRENCH ' ' sevcnty-fivc. ' ' It fires a three- "SEVENTY-nvES" [nch shell and is in important respects the finest gun of its size in the war. The French army was well equipped with this excellent weapon, but neither they nor the English had a sufficient variety of big guns. The German army was well supplied with cannon of all sizes, and during the first years of the war this gave them a big advantage in artillery warfare. It was not until 1916 that the Allies were able to match the enemy gun for gun, CHAPTER VI , THE CAMPAIGN OF 1914— BELGIUM CONQUERED Liege was the fortified Belgian city guarding the passage to the Meuse Eiver. The Germans attacked it on August 4, 1914, two days after war was declared. They had three army corps, or about 120,000 men. It was defended by the gallant Gen- eral Leman with 40,000 Belgians. Liege was pro- tected by six major and six minor forts. The Bel- gians had two regiments occupying positions assist- ing the forts. They defended Liege with magnifi- cent courage. For three days the German army tried to storm the forts, but in vain. They attacked in solid ranks but the Belgian machine guns mowed them down like grain. The world was staggered by the terrible slaughter. The Germans then attacked the regiments in the field and gradually drove them back by massed attacks until the Germans were enabled to approach the city. On August 6tli they silenced one of the forts and entered Liege on August 7th, but several of the forts still held until Sunday, August 9th, when they were completely surrounded. For six days more General Leman maintained his defense until the last fort under his command had been reduced to a heap of ruins and he, himself, was suffocated by gas from the exploding shells and taken prisoner. The Germans had at last brought up their big mortars and with a few shots smashed 40 STOEY OF THE WORLD WAB every fort. They were so impressed with. Leman's great courage that they allowed him to retain his sword. In the meantime France was counting on the forts of Belgium to hold the Germans back until her DELAY armies were ready for the field. The SAVES PARIS brave little Belgian army had held out long enough to delay the German hosts until Eng- land could land her first body of troops in France. This delay of the German hosts also gave France a chance to marshall her armies. On August 18, 1914, the British had landed 120,000 men in France and they were soon on their way to Belgium to meet the Germans. After the fall of Liege, German troops swept through northern Belgium. They put forth their cavalry as a screen for the main armies and pushed them rapidly across northeastern Belgium. Although they met stubborn resistance at many places, they were so strong in numbers and so well- trained that, with their matchless guns, they over- came all opposition. They occupied Louvain and then marched unopposed into Brussels, the capital of Belgium. The Belgian army retired to Antwerp. The Allies were counting on the forts of Namur to check the Germans again as they had been delayed at Liege. But Namur fell with surprising haste, for Germany now kept her big guns near the front of her marching hosts and they so out- distanced all guns in the forts that there was little use to oppose them. The walls of the great for- tresses were soon pounded to pieces. When Namur fell, on August 22, Belgium was virtually conquered except for a strip of the west coast and the city of Antwerp. A few weeks later THE CAMPAIGN OF 1914— BELGIUM CONQUEEED 41 the forts of Antwerp were also destroyed by the huge guns of the enemy. On the day following the fall of Namur the French were beaten at Charleroi and the British were compelled to retire with them. The mammoth German army now made an attempt to encircle the Anglo-French army and destroy it. The long line of Germans was swinging with Verdun as a pivot. General von Kluck commanded the west wing of the German line. But the flanking or cir- cling scheme of Von Kluck failed, because each time the English saved themselves by a retreat. At length the Germans entered the city of Lille, in France, for the British and French were outnum- bered and had again fallen back. These were dark days for the French. The Germans were watching closely for a chance to outflank or encircle them or else to crash through BRITISH COURAGE and destroy them. No army can SAVES THE LINE stand wlieu the line is broken. Soon the Germans thought they saw their chance. They hurled 200,000 men against the British end of the battle line and for six days the fate of the Allies hung in the balance. If the enemy should succeed in breaking through the line, the Allied armies would be destroyed. The crisis was reached on August 26th, when the British met the full force of the German assault. Two British corps met five German corps with supreme courage and worsted them. This gave the English an opportunity to retreat again in good order to St. Quentin. The failure of the French to send the aid the British had asked for almost resulted in a disaster that would have brought France to her knees. If the British had not checked the Germans here, there would have been no saving Paris. 42 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR The Germans kept on trying to outflank the Anglo-French army, that is, to push around its wing, roll it back, and gradually destroy it. They next struck the French and English at St. Quentin and again the Germans were checked and the Allies fell back. The enemy was now within sixty miles of Paris and the second line of French defenses about that city had been taken. By September the left wing of the Anglo-French army had fallen back under the guns of the Paris forts. The Germans had thus far failed to encircle the Allies or to break through their lines. Now the Allies decided that they must make a stand with the Paris forts on one end of their 180-mile battle front and the Verdun fortress on the other. General Joffre, the leader of the French, thought that his supreme moment had arrived. He had yielded all of northern France to the enemy, but now he was ready to resist with all his might. The Germans decided that before they tried to take Paris they would make another attempt to BATTLE OF break through the Allied line and then THE MARNE take the Anglo-French army one sec- tion at a time. They attacked the Allied forces at their center on the Marne Eiver to divide it into two sections. They wished to roll back one section on Paris and the other on Verdun. It was General von Kluck who had pursued the British to the south but had failed to get around their left or west flank. Now he was compelled to draw in and cross in front of Paris to help break the center. As he moved in front of the city, Joffre struck at his flank with the British army aiding a force of his own. Joffre had gathered together all the automobiles and trucks of Paris and, using THE CAMPAIGN OF 1914— BELGIUM CONQUERED 43 the splendid wagon roads of France, had moved a large army with surprising rapidity. This attack on the flank surprised Von Kluck and he narrowly escaped capture. By hard fighting and yielding ground Von Kluck saved his army, and by Sep- tember 10th he was retreating toward the Aisne River with all possible speed. The rest of the Ger- man army had to join him in the retreat. They con- tinued to run until they reached the second line of the French defenses north of the Aisne. Here the Germans halted and entrenched themselves and the Allies failed to dislodge them. By September 18th, the Allied attacks ceased and the final stage of the first great German campaign was over. Neither the Germans nor the Allies have given out their losses in the Battle of the Marne, but there were two million men fighting with all the modern arms, and we may be sure the loss of life would be beyond our comprehension. The Germans had con- quered nearly all of Belgium and a large part of northern France, but they had failed in their two great objects, which were to smash the Anglo-French army and to capture Paris. They had in their con- trol, however, the factories and the coal and iron mines of Belgium and France, and this supply of coal and iron has helped Germany tremendously. Without them France has been greatly crippled, for all the coal for her industries and munitions plants has had to be shipped from England and protected from submarines in the shipment. Coal has already sold in Paris for sixty dollars a ton. After their defeat at the Marne the Germans tried to redeem themselves by breaking through the line BREAKING THE LINE on the Yser in Belgium in AT YSER AND YPRES Qctobcr, 1914. Their object 44 STOEY OF THE WOELD WAE was to capture the French port of Calais. The Yser Eiver rises in France and flows north and west through the southwest corner of Belgium. Along the Yser were stationed the remnant of the brave little army of the Belgians. The Germans succeeded in crossing the Yser and entered the city of Nieu- port, but they suffered heavy losses. The brave Belgians cut their dikes and flooded the hosts of the enemy out. British warships came to the aid of the Belgians and bombarded some of the German positions. At the close of the month the Germans were forced back across the Yser, where they have been held ever since. The Germans again tried to break through the line at Ypres in Belgium. The British held the Allied line here with about 150,000 men. The Germans attacked the British with forces at least three times the number of the defenders. The British were driven back slowly until the enemy's guns began to reach Ypres. The city began to crumble under the German shells, but the British line held. It was re-enforced to some extent by the French and the fighting went on. At last the Emperor appeared on the scene and sent in his crack Prussian guards to give the final crushing blow to what he had called 'Hhe contemptible little army of England." But his troops were so badly beaten that he was com- pelled to abandon his effort to reach Calais. The German losses were said to have been about 150,000 men in this first battle of Ypres. While the Germans were sweeping victoriously through Belgium and France the Russians under- THE EASTERN took to give somo help by striking at FRONT Prussia. This they thought would force Germany to shift some of her troops from THE CAMPAIGN OP 1914— BELGIUM CONQUERED 45 the front before Paris, and in this way Russians might help to save that city. So the Russians invaded Prussia and were met by General von Hin- denburg in the Battle of Tannenberg. This was one of the important battles of the early part of the war. The Russians sutfered a great defeat. They lost 80,000 men in killed and wounded and prisoners, we are told, and were forced to retreat to their forti- fied line on the Russian border. But they did suc- ceed in their plan of forcing the Germans to transfer many of their troops from the French front just before the Battle of the Marne and undoubtedly helped in this way to win the Battle of the Marne and to save Paris. The great fortress of Lodz was the *' Verdun" of the Russian line, about 50 miles west of Warsaw. THE FALL That fortrcss had been built some ten OF LODZ years before, with money which Russia had borrowed from France. There were twenty-six forts in a semi-circle facing Prussia. In the course of the Russian retreat before the German army they were driven back toward the fortress of Lodz by the Germans who were attacking on both flanks. This battle began with all the signs of a great Ger- man victory. In fact, Berlin had already begun to celebrate the destruction of the Czar's army. Suddenly great masses of Russian troops hurried from "Warsaw and swept ^own upon the Germans and caught them in the rear. This turned the tables so completely that the Russians surrounded the German army. But with great bravery the forces of Hindenberg cut their way through and freed themselves from the trap. Re-enforcements came to their aid from the western front, and although they suffered great losses, they finally escaped, except 46 STOEY OF THE WOELD WAR one army corps of 40,000 men, which the Russians captured. After receiving more troops from the west front the Germans attacked Lodz in earnest. They approached within 13 miles, where they planted one of their huge mortars on concrete. They knew exactly how much ammunition was stored in each Eussian fort, for their spies had been everywhere. They picked out the one containing the most explo- sives and trained the gun on it. They fired four shots, each of which went astray, digging great holes in the earth where it landed. The fifth struck the center of the fortifications, causing a tremendous explosion of all the ammunition in the firing pits. This threw huge chunks of concrete out into the field as if they were paper, and overturned the great guns of the fort. One hit was enough. The Rus- sians gave up Lodz to their enemy and fell back farther into Russian Poland. Perhaps the most brilliant story of the year of 1914 tells how Serbia fought the Austrian forces SERBIAN and drove them from her territory. The FRONT warfare between Austria and Serbia had been bitterly waged for two months, but at the begin- ning of October the Austrians got the advantage. With a re-enforced army and some German aid they crossed the Drina River and moved forward toward Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, from two directions. Belgrade was caught on the flank and rear, and the garrison was forced to evacuate and retreat. The Austrians were about ready to take the railroad leading from Belgrade to Constanti- nople, and the Serbians were in despair. Then occurred one of the most stirring and dra- matic events of the entire war, and one that will be THE CAMPAIGN OF 1914— BELGIUM CONQUERED 47 told for all time to come. On December 9, 1914, when the broken forces of the Serbians were giving way before the enemy, there rode upon the field of battle the erect and aged figure of King Peter of Serbia. This white-haired monarch rallied his dis- couraged troops, and himself led them against the enemy. They pushed forward against the Austrians BO suddenly that they astonished them, routed, and drove them back from Belgrade. Then they chased them farther back across the Drina, and even across the Danube, and freed the soil of Serbia, for the time being, from her foes. Serbia remained free of the enemy until October, 1915, when Von Mackensen made his drive. CHAPTER VII ENGLAND AND HER FLEET Not long after the war broke out the colonies of the British Empire began to show most surprising loyalty to their mother country and prepared to enlist their sons in the fight for humanity. To the field of battle Canada sent her most splendid young men. They crossed the sea by hundreds of thou- sands to enter the trenches in Belgium. The young men of Canada wanted to go because they believed the issue was a question of right against wrong, and they were eager to get to the front and offer their services and even their lives. Up to August, 1917, we are told, Canada sent 450,000 soldiers to the trenches of France. Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are all self-governing joarts of the great British Empire. They were in no way forced to come to the aid of England, but with high purpose they all sent money and supplies and thousands of their sons to aid the mother country. Germany could not understand this loyalty. She thought England's empire, espe- cially South Africa, which was largely Dutch, would refuse to aid England. But again the German war lords were surprised. They could not see that such conduct as tearing up a treaty and calling a sacred promise *'a mere scrap of paper '^ and the tramp- ling upon the rights of Belgium and Serbia was regarded by fair-minded men, the world over, as an outrage. ENGLAND AND HER FLEET 49 With her great fleet England soon cleared the seas of German shipping. She put an end to German ENGLAND'S trade with other countries and forced NAVY SERVICE the Kaiser's battle fleet to remain in home waters under the protection of mines and German forts. England soon had all German ports of the North Sea blockaded. A few daring German commerce raiders went forth to sea through the British blockade, and German submarines inflicted considerable damage upon the ships of the Allies and neutral merchant ships, but Germany could not break the English blockade which threatened in time to starve her out. In August, 1914, a British squadron sent three light German cruisers and two or three destroyers to the bottom of the North Sea. A month later a German submarine sank three British cruisers in the same waters, with the loss of 1,000 English sea- men. The next naval battle was off the coast of Chile in November, 1914, when three German cruisers sank two British cruisers and damaged two others. In December, 1914, a British squadron, commanded by Admiral Sturdee, evened up the score. "With a stronger fleet he came upon five German warships near the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. After a five hours ' battle he sent to the bottom three German warships and the other two fled. Sturdee followed them and sank one more ship on the same day. The other fast cruiser escaped, but was later overtaken and destroyed. The greatest naval battle of history was fought in the North Sea, May 31, 1916, between the main fleets BATTLE OP of the British and German navies. We JUTLAND do not know the full details as to the ships engaged or the losses, but there were about 50 STOEY OF THE WORLD WAE eighty heavy ships besides many smaller craft in the fight. Twenty-five ships were said to have been sunk and nearly 10,000 sailors were killed. Night put an end to the fighting and the German fleet sailed for home. Both sides claimed the victory^ but the battle was not decisive. The British loss in men and ships was probably the greater, but they could afford heavy losses and still hold control of the sea. The German losses were so heavy that up to July, 1917, they had not sought another encounter with the British navy. Australia had sent out a navy of several cruisers, one of which was named the '' Sydney." This gave THE SYDNEY Valuable assistance to the Allies by AND EMDEN running down and destroying the noted German raider, the "Emden." The *'Emden" was a small cruiser of the Kaiser's navy that had been the terror of the Pacific and Indian oceans since the beginning of the war. She had sunk more than twenty vessels which, with their cargoes, were valued at more than twenty millions of dollars. Late in October, 1914, she appeared at Penang in the Straits of Malacca and performed a most daring feat. As a disguise she had rigged up a fourth smokestack and, flying the Japanese flag, she steamed into the harbor past the British forts and torpedoed and sank a Eussian cruiser and a French destroyer and escaped untouched. Scores of British and Japanese ships were scour- ing the seas for the ''Emden." On November 9, 1914, the '^ Sydney" sighted her off Cocos Island in the Indian Ocean. The "Sydney" was the faster ship and soon overtook her enemy. The Germans fought bravely, but the *'Emden" was beached and burned. Of the 308 men aboard only thirty escaped ENGLAND AND HEE FLEET 51 death. These, including Captain von Muller, were taken prisoners to Melbourne. Out of respect to their courage the English accorded them the honors of war and the captain and his officers were allowed to keep their swords. While the German cruisers did vast damage to British shipping the first year, still the commerce of the Allies was carried on without great inter- ruption under the protection of England's powerful fleet. On the other hand, the sea-going trade of the Central Powers of Germany, Austria and Turkey was virtually shut off, and their colonies were fast being taken. Now at the close of the year 1914, when the war was six months old, Germany was still facing three great nations whose military power was unshaken and whose armies were growing in numbers. Thus the wonderful preparedness of Germany had failed to bring her a speedy victory. France was saved at the Battle of the Marne. Before going on with the story of the fighting we wish to tell you some of the problems that the nations had to meet in this war. CHAPTER VIII NEW METHODS OF WAEFAEE Marshall Joffre of France is reported to have said that **all former experience in war may as well be thrown upon the scrap-heap" because the men of today must use new methods entirely. The war was not many days old before it was apparent to all that it would be fouglit in a far different manner from any former conflict. Once we thought an army of 100,000 men was a great host, but today millions of men are in the ranks. Guns, food, and ammunition for these great num- bers must be carried at great speed for long dis- tances by train and by motor trucks. All types of motor cars have been extensively used. They not only carry men and supplies, but officers use them for hurried trips and they are used by soldiers on patrol duty. Motor ambulances carry wounded men quickly and comfortably from the front to the field hospitals or to the base hospitals in the rear. The Eed Cross people find them invaluable for moving physicians, nurses, and medical supplies. But the most wonderful use of cars is that of the armored automobiles called the British *' tanks," which bear machine guns. They have a top and sides of armor plate and have wheels of the ''caterpillar" type, so they can move over very rough ground through fields and among the trenches of the enemy. All the while their machine guns are firing 800 bul- lets a minute. No wonder the Germans have feared NEW METHODS OF WARFAEE 53 this frightful monster that plows into their midst, breaking through fortifications and sowing destruc- tion in its path. Portable wireless outfits are much used. They are carried on motorcycles, motor cars, and air- planes and set up in 90 seconds. They are used for sending messages over distances under thirty-five miles. For longer distances there are heavier outfits. We have learned that the old type fortifications of steel and concrete have been found to be worth very little. They must be built so long in advance that their location is soon known to the enemy and experiei^ce has proved that the more solid and com- pact the material used, the greater the havoc wrought by the high explosive shells. Loose earth has been found to give the best shelter for troops. ''Digging in" is the new term. In one hour a man can dig a pit 3 feet square and 2 feet deep. TRENCH By banking the dirt in front of his pit he WARFARE can make a good cover from which to direct his fire. The object of "digging in" is to obtain shelter from the direct fire of the enemy, such as the projectiles of rifles, machine guns and shrapnel that spreads out flat when striking. How- itzers which throw a high curve shrapnel down at 45 degrees make deeper trenches necessary for pro- tection. In four hours an overhead shelter of earth can be erected. But this is rarely attempted under fire. To give you some idea of a modern battle, we shall see in our mind's eye a half mile of open trenches lying between the opposing trenches of the two armies. Between is "no man's land." Sup- pose the Germans decide to push forward. A regi- 54 STOKY OF THE WOBLD WAR ment jumps out of its trenches and charges. All the artillery and infantry of the Allies within range is at once concentrated upon them. The soldiers keep up their dash until perhaps half of them have fallen. Then the order comes to dig. They fall flat on their faces, unbuckle their shovels and dig for dear life. •, ..^ .. I^w j Now another regiment pushes forward to their right and their left and the artillery of the Allies is turned upon their new charge. What is left of the first regiment is hereby relieved of the hail of bul- lets and every minute they are improving their shelter. At dark come others with picks and shovels and barbed wire. They deepen and connect the trenches and with posts and rolls of barbed wire put up entanglements in front. Others, with wood cut the proper length, roof over the trenches and cover them with enough dirt to stop shrapnel and shell fragments from entering. Still others bring sacks of wet dirt mixed with cement, and steel loopholes, which are fitted between the bags of dirt. Then the landscape gardeners sod it over and arrange bushes to make all invisible. By daylight the next morning it will take the sharpest eyes to locate the new trenches. Even airplanes find it difficult to get exact ranges. To prevent the enemy from getting correct range the trenches are usually built in a zigzag line. The enemy will not risk his high explosive thousand- dollar shells on a wild chance of getting a fair hit at these trenches. It was the Russians who taught the world how to construct permanent trenches to house their men PERMANENT underground. In the early months of TRENCHES of the War barracks were found on the NEW METHODS OF WAEFAEE 55 Russian front large enough to shelter from two to four hundred men underground. They were packed in rather tight, it is true, but they were protected from all but the heaviest shells of the enemy. On the roof was some 10 to 20 feet of earth, with the sod replaced in order to hide their location from the spying hawks of airplanes. The barracks were built in pairs, with a connecting tunnel. They used heavy logs or overhead timbering and sawed lumber for tbe sides. Sand bags were placed around the open- irgs or port holes. The Germans were quick to adopt the under- ground camp idea. And we soon found them on the western front among the abandoned mines, chalk cavern, and quarries. In one cave the Germans sheltered 3,000 men. They had a blower fan venti- lating system and electric lights in this cave. In some places telephones were installed. Barbed wire is of great use in modern fortifica- tions. A barbed wire entanglement may consist of from three to twenty parallel rows of posts with the wire woven **ev^y which way" among them. To these wires are sometimes tied a lot of empty tin cans which serve to sound an alarm if anyone should try to cut through the maze at night. No invention of man before has proven such a perfect defense as this tangle of humble barbed wire. The large guns used at the siege of Liege, Ant- werp, and Lodz, were one of the surprises of the NEW early months of the war. These siege WEAPONS guns were built by the Krupps. They use shells of tremendous destructive power at long range. The 42 centimeter (16.5-inch) mortar prob- ably has put an end forever to the building of forts of the old plan of steel and concrete, for they are 56 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR now SO easily destroyed that they are not worth the money spent on them. The trenches hastily dug by the troops are far more effective in defense than the costly forts against these monster long range guns. More hideous than anything else are the gas shells that explode and suffocate the soldiers in the trenches. The Germans first used these deadly gases. They waited until the wind was blowing toward the enemy and then let loose great volumes of gases which are a little heavier than air. The wind carried them to the trenches and caves of the enemy and the Allied forces were overwhelmed. As soon as possible the British and French furnished their soldiers with masks to protect them from the deadly effect of the poisonous gases and adopted gas bombs in their own defense. Machines are also used to shoot liquid fire and boiling oil at the enemy. Hand grenades are thrown very effectively in trench fighting by all the armies. Men of science are using all their knowledge and skill to make still more murderous machines — any- thing that will more speedily kill and cripple the enemy. It was said before the war opened that men would never go to war again, for all these new devices would destroy an army in one engagement, but we have learned to combat even these diabolical contrivances, the only difference being that men are killed by the hundred thousand instead of by the thousand, as in previous wars. The two most important aids to modern warfare we have not yet discussed. They are the aircraft and the submarine. We shall treat of aircraft in the next chapter, CHAPTER IX WAR IN THE AIR Ever since we have learned to fly it has been known that aircraft would play an important part in war. Aside from its use to drop bombs and explosives on the enemy's works, the airplane has been used as a superscout. And, more than this, it has become one of the fighting units. It not only combats other aircraft, but attacks troops on the ground with its deadly machine guns. The element of surprise, which in all wars of the past has been a great factor in the winning of battles, has now been largely eliminated because of the airscouts. Today it is impossible to make an unexpected flanking movement unless the army attempting it can keep down all enemy flyers. It was news gleaned by the airscouts that saved the British army from annihilation in the early part of the war. Many times the troops on both sides have been saved by timely warnings from the sky. With the long range of modern artillery and the introduction of the indirect method of firing, big THE EYES OF guus are virtually blind without THE ABTiLLERY the direction of the aerial ob- server. The armies have used a kite balloon for observation. These are huge sausage-shaped bags floating high in the air at a height from 1,000 to 5,000 feet. They are easily shot down by the enemy's infantry and are likely to be bombed by the enemy's airmen so that the main artillery must depend for 58 STOEY OF THE ,WORLD WAK their direction upon tlie other types of aircraft. There are two other types of flyers used in war, the airplane and the airship, or Zeppelin. The fight- ing biplane or monoplane, in which the pilot ascends alone, bears only its own load and nothing more. Its motor is jDowerful and the body shaped to offer the least possible resistance to the air. With its engine roaring and a gale of wind blowing in the wake of its propeller, this machine will leap across the ground, spring into the air and climb at an amazing pace — a mile in seven minutes. It must be able to fly above an enemy plane so as to drive down upon him and thus fire a fatal shot. Its speed has brought it the nickname of '' bullet" or * ' chaser. ' ' A biplane with a IGO-horsepower engine has attained a speed of 130 miles an hour. Such a machine can loop the loop and perform other mar- velous feats. It requires great skill in handling, for in rising or descending it may swerve suddenly or overturn. It avoids gun fire by the sheer speed by which it moves. This ** chaser" type of biplane has proved to be a valuable scout. The German Fokker is the most famous machine of this class. The airplane cannot hover over one spot, neither can she fly at night except at some risk. If a motor fails and the scout has to descend he may crash into tree-tops or against roofs. Should a more careful and detailed observation be needed than could be given by these high speed WATCHING scouts, there is a slower flying biplane THE ENEMY or mouoplaue which will carry one or more passengers as well as a pilot. The scout takes with him an officer skilled in observation well equipped with glasses and maps. The officer devotes himself entirely to the land below while the pilot WAR IN THE AIR 59 steers. The larger and slower planes are protected by an escort of ''chasers." The pilot, when in flight, is too busy a man to make maps. As he ascends, the first ten minutes or so are occupied in getting his height. He must see that all instruments are working properly and listen to his engine. Then his eyes must make a ceaseless round of the instruments— the aneroid, airspeed indicator, revolution indicator, oil gauge, petrol gauge, compass and watch. Only occasionally can he look over the side to see if he is'in his course. But with a man in the car, or two if possible— for two pairs of eyes are better than one— a machine flying for several hours over the enemy's lines can make a full and accurate survey. Some of these biplanes measure 180 feet from tip to tip. They run great risks in the survey for they are easily taken by the faster machines and they offer a much better target for the enemy's guns. For some time after the war opened Germany had the advantage in the number of airplanes and scouts, AIR but in 1917 the Allies obtained control of PATROLS the air along a front of several hundred miles. The Allied armies now employ huge flotillas of airplanes operating up and down the lines. One patrol flies at a height of 6,000 feet, or a little more than a mile, while the higher patrols are from 20,000 feet to 23,000 feet up. It is the duty of the higher patrol to prevent German machines from coming over the line at great height and sweeping down on the Allied patrol flying ten thousand feet below. The purpose of the two patrols is to prevent any German airmen from crossing the line to obtain photographs and other valuable information con- cerning the defensive works and artillery and the 60 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR movement of troops. If an army is able to control the air they may keep their plans a secret from the enemy. They may move up troops, or bnild rail- roads or extend their trenches or build new gun emplacements without giving the enemy an inkling of where the next attack is to be launched. Then there is the airship or Zeppelin, sometimes called the dirigible, which is large, slow and un- THE wieldy and offers a mark like a haystack ZEPPELIN to the gun-fire from the land. However, the Zeppelin has some points in her favor. She can remain in the air many days. She may hover over a certain spot with her engine stopped and her car motionless, which gives opportunity for detailed observation, or the Zeppelin may hover at the rear of her own lines and with her powerful wireless plant remain aloft from dawn until dusk. Thus her observers can watch constantly the enemy's battle front and signal any change they may notice in the position of the troops. The airship can also fly safely at night. For destructive raids the Germans at first used only the Zeppelin. She could carry two and one-half tons of shells to a height of two miles. Now the anti-aircraft guns are so accu- rate and the enemy airplanes so much faster that the slow-flying Zeppelins seldom pass over enemy coun- try except at night. Much excitement was shown when German Zeppe- lins attacked London and Paris early in the war. Great precautions were taken to darken these cities at night. Gigantic searchlights and anti-aircraft guns were pointed toward the London sky. One Zeppelin raided London in May, 1915, killing only 6 persons. Another in August killed 10 citizens. A third in September destroyed 37 lives. But if this WAE IX THE AIR 61 was the best tlie enemy could do it was not such a serious matter and the alarm quieted. However, a stronger air raid in October resulted in 169 casual- ties. The Allies now organized counter raids which flew over German cities. There was a powerful flock of 32 battle planes much stronger and larger than ordinary airplanes which dropped bombs on German munition factories. Other flocks of Allied planes made attacks on German cities. One of the most interesting single events of the first year's war was an encounter between an Eng- lish monoplane and a German Zeppelin. It ended in the destruction of the Zeppelin and won the Victoria cross for the gallant aviator, Warneford. He was killed, however, ten days later in another air battle. On the whole the Zeppelins have disappointed the Germans in the war. The Allies have not used them extensively. The artillery has attempted to check aircraft but has been unable to drive off the airplanes. The ANTi-AmcRAFT flying scouts have, in a remarkable GUNS degree, been able to escape gun fire, showing that they represent a more powerful weapon than the gnins that combat them. Machines are wrecked and the pilots killed, but the valuable service which they render justifies the loss. The anti-aircraft guns find their range in several ways. Some times the gunner fires a shell which bursts in a cloud of smoke and by the relative posi- tion of this smoke to the airplane he finds his range. Instead of a shell that bursts in smoke the Germans send up in their test shell a parachute which is set free when the shell bursts. It remains for a while a conspicuous mark and gives the gunner time to make any corrections in the timing of his fuse. 62 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR He then fires many shells of shrapnel. These are filled with a large number of round bullets about the size of marbles which fly out when the shell bursts and spread over a great space. The moment of bursting is controlled by the gunner by means of a time fuse. After gauging the height of the machine and the speed at which it is flying, he fixes the fuse to explode the shell as near the airplane as possible. Some of the shrapnel shells weigh as much as 20 pounds, while some are from only 1 to 3 pounds in weight. A high speed scout traveling 130 miles an hour covers in each second a distance of 180 feet. A projectile fired from the ground at a craft a mile high takes several seconds to reach that height. To aim directly at the plane then is useless. The gunner must point his weapon some distance in advance of the airplane. If the craft moves in a zigzag line it is most difficult to hit. Nevertheless, the Germans are very skillful with their anti-aircraft guns. They often bring down machines from a height of 10,000 to 12,000 feet. The expert gunners throw a ring of shrapnel around the enemy's machines and a pilot has to zigzag like a ship being chased by a submarine to avoid disaster. Yet the Germans may fire as many as 100 to 200 rounds at one machine and still not do enough damage to prevent the pilot from reaching home. It is surprising to know how many times a craft may be hit without being seriously damaged. The airmen often return with their machines riddled with holes that were fired by the enemy 's guns ; yet they may be, themselves, uninjured. However, airplanes of both sides have been brought down by the score by the anti-aircraft fire, the most of them in flames and WAR IN THE AIR 63 their pilots burned to death before reaching the ground. When the airplanes are sent out to bomb the works of the enemy, fifty or more machines will BOMBS FROM sometimes start out in the dead of night THE AIR over the hostile lines and penetrate from one to several hundred miles into the enemy's territory. They bomb railroad bridges, munition plants and military works. The staff commander takes the lead by firing a signal pistol which drops signal lights to the machines which follow so they will know whether to turn to the right or the left and when to throw their bombs. The pilots have their course set before starting and can tell by the same system that is used aboard a boat in which direction they are going and how far they have gone. They know the distance from point to point and how many minutes it should take them to cover that dis- tance. The Germans do not fancy flying at night so much as the Allies, but concentrate to a great extent on their day work. Both the Germans and the Allies have some won- derful pilots. Among the foremost German pilots TAMOUS were Captain Boelke and Captain Immel- FLYERS mann. Both are now dead. In the course of hundreds of fights they brought down a large number of British and French machines. Boelke was noted for his dive at an opponent from a great height sometimes as high as 15,000 to 20,000 feet. All the time his machine made a speed around 150 miles an hour while he was firing at his opponents with a machine gun, throwing 800 shots a minute. At other times he would come up behind an opponent and shoot into the tail of his machine in an attempt to disable the rudder. If he missed on the first dive 64 STORY OF THE WOELD WAR he seldom came up again. He was remarkable for his quick and sudden turns. Immelmann's favorite maneuver was to allow the Allied pilot to come up back of him on the ' ' tail ' ' of his machine, as they say, and when about to be taken Immelmann would shoot his plane almost straight up in the air and then suddenly dive down again almost to the point where he was before, with the result that he was "sitting on the tail" of the opposing pilot and sending him to his doom before he had recovered from his surprise. In this manner he gained what the pilots call "a bead" on his enemy and gave him a shower of lead at close range. The Germans idolized those two brave airmen. They killed something like 80 Allied pilots. During the first years of the war the Germans had superior machines. But an airplane in these days gets out of date in a very short time. The nation that keeps to the lead in their improvement has the advantage in every conflict. Captain Ball, the favorite British pilot, has to his credit over fifty victims. His machine was called the "Red Devil" because its nose was painted red. It made as high as 145 miles an hour. He often wandered off by himself and sought out the enemy in the latter 's lines. Sometimes he swooped down within a short distance of the ground and attacked the infantry in camp far back of the fighting lines. He sought out and attacked German pilots lurking in the cloud banks. Alone he fought as many as ten machines and had hundreds of miraculous escapes. The British pilots all say that "Ball leads a charmed life." He was forced to earth as many as three times in a single day, and every time he went up again as soon as he could get another machine ready. WAE IN THE AIE 65 The Germans have set a price on his head, but as yet, he is still at large. One American scout, Luf- berry, of the Lafayette squadron of American flyers, has brought down a large number of machines of the enemy. So important is the airman in connection with modern artillery that it is said if one army had DIRECTING ARTILLERY airplanes and the other had FIRE FROM THE SKY nouc, the War would be over in six months. The planes signal by means of wire- less messages sent to the battery commander. The airman flies over the position about a mile up and directs the shooting of the artillery from this point. He keeps signalling how far short or how much to the right or the left the shells are falling in the enemy's lines. When he has given the correct range he proceeds to the next position and repeats his service. All the time his machine is being subjected to an intense bombardment from the anti-aircraft guns which are firing shrapnel shells by the hundred. Fragments of shells are all about him, beneath and above and on all sides. For three hours at a time the airman must sometimes endure this bombard- ment and there is no telling when the tail of his machine or some vital part may be blown away and the machine become wrapped in flames. The work is so nerve racking that it is no wonder that after a pilot is through the ordeal he is shaking so that he cannot screw a nut or a bolt. One British pilot says: *'It is a most interesting sight to watch a battle from the air. One can see A FLYER'S the flashes of the guns on both sides EYE VIEW extending right and left for miles. He can see the shells explode and estimate the accuracy 66 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR of the shots. Hundreds of thousands of men are pegging away at each other from their trenches." The whole conflict is plain to the airman, while down below in a good many cases the gunners cannot see what they are firing at. With the long range guns it is more and more evident that the side that wins must be supreme in the air. Taking photographs of the positions of the enemy and making maps of their battle plans is an impor- tant work of the airmen. Five or more aviators are sent up to make photographs behind the enemy's lines. One of the machines carries the camera and the others, which are very speedy, fly about it, above and below, for protection. The fast little machines that accompany the photographer are called "vipers" or "maggots." They may be attacked by twenty German machines from a height of 20,000 feet. Then a free-for-all fight ensues. All this is dangerous and exciting enough for any American boy that may dream of going in for air service. The United States planned to put into service many thousand airplanes. Great battles in the air are likely to occur before the war is over. CHAPTER X THE CAMPAIGN OF 1915 WEST FRONT In the beginning of January, 1915, the six hun- dred-mile battle line in Belgium and France extended from the coast of the English Channel to the border of Switzerland. It was so formidably entrenched and fortified that it could not be broken except at a terrific cost of life and shells. Still the Allies confi- dently planned to undertake a general offensive movement in the spring months of 1915. The Bel- gians then held about 18 miles, the British 31 miles and the French army, about two and a half million strong, defended the remaining 543 miles. During the winter months there was considerable nibbling at the German lines, but very little was BATTLE OP accomplished. On March 10, 1915, NEUVE CHAPELLE the British with 500,000 men be- gan their first offensive. In the early morning they poured a terrific bombardment into the German trenches west of Neuve Chapelle to prepare the way for an infantry attack. Before noon the village was a smoldering heap of ruins and was completely in the hands of the English. North of the village the artillery fire had not been so effective in demolishing the German defenses and the British were caught in barbed wire entanglements and cruelly shot down by^the German machine guns. In spite of the severe losses the first attack of the Allies succeeded. But on the two following days 68 STOEY OF THE WORLD WAR tlie English failed to push their advantage with energy and the Germans were allowed time to recover from the surprise. Moreover, on the second and third days of the fighting the British artillery was poorly aimed on account of cloudy weather. Because of the lack of a telephonic communication the orders were poorly obeyed. So the British failed to gain the commanding ridge east of Neuve Cha- pelle. Their commander, Sir John French, had advanced his line a mile or so on a three-mile front, but he had lost 13,000 men. Thus after three days of British offensive things were brought to a stand- still. Lord Kitchener told the House of Lords that the supply of munitions was causing him serious anxiety. Sir John French's dispatches describing the Battle of Neuve Chapelle also referred to the pressing need of an unlimited supply of ammunition. Thus the first great move of the British was rewarded with poor success because of the lack of artillery support after the initial bombardment. The Allies were just then beginning to realize what piles of shells would be needed in a modern trench battle. The Battle of Champagne in September, 1915, was the second attempt on the part of the Allies to break A FRENCH through the German line in France. The DRIVE battle was fought by the French. They showed that it was possible to drive the enemy from a fortified trench position. They took 23,000 pris- oners and over 100 guns in five days' fighting. But the victory was too costly to continue. Thousands of brave Frenchmen laid down their lives for each small gain. Thus the attempt to break the line was halted. The year 1915 saw almost no change on the west front in France and Belgium. England and THE CAMPAIGN OF 1915— EASTERN FRONT 69 France were not yet as well equipped nor such skill- ful trench fighters as their enemy. Still Germany could not advance toward Paris or Calais. EASTERN FRONT (1915) Early in the year 1915, the Eussians again invaded Prussia and were met by Von Hindenberg. The Kussian army had gradually advanced until it faced a region of lake and bog known as the Mazurian Lakes. At one point it had gone upon the ice among frozen swamps into very dangerous ground. There were only small forces of the Kaiser's men facing the Czar's army, and the Germans kept falling back slowly. Behind them as a screen Von Hindenburg quickly gathered a large force from the front in Poland with his splendid strategic railways. Suddenly he struck the Russians on both flanks and caught them in this intricate lake district. The Russians did not yet know how strong their enemy was, so they fought to free themselves while they should have been retreating. The result was a great disaster. They lost 100,000 prisoners and 50,000 more in killed and wounded. They were driven out of east Prussia and fled in disorder toward Grodno. It is said that Von Hindenberg had made a special study of the Mazurian lake region years before this, so that he would be prepared to win just such a battle as he had now won. While the Russians lost a great army it was their sacrifice that saved Paris a second time. The Ger- GERMAN mans had to hurry troops from the west PLANS FAIL front and thus they put off a second attempt on Paris. All this while France and Eng- land were busy collecting and drilling armies and piling up munitions so that when Germany again struck the west front it was too late to break through. 70 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR Germany's first plan to dispose of France and then turn against Kussia had failed at the Marne and at the Yser and the western line had become a dead- lock. Meantime the Kaiser had left Austria to pro- tect her eastern frontier. The Austrian army was to hold back the hosts of the Czar, but in four weeks the troops of Austria had been routed and were fleeing from Lemberg. Germany had not disposed of France in the first six weeks while Eussia was well along in the work of disposing of Austria. The Eussian soldiers proved to be valiant fighters and they were commanded by brilliant generals. RUSSIANS Grand Duke Nicholas was directing TAKE GALiciA the Russian armies. By September, 1914, Lemberg was reached and occupied and thou- sands of Austrians were taken prisoners. The Eus- sians did not stop at Lemberg but moved on west- ward seventy miles farther to the Eiver San, where they again routed the Austrians and surrounded the fortress of Przemysl. This fortress was at last taken with 20,000 prisoners and 1,000 guns. By the end of September the Eussian advance troops were within range of Cracow. Here they held their posi- tion for several weeks while they spread out along the Carpathian Mountains and penetrated through the passes into Hungary, where they raided the plains of that country. The Eussians had now con- quered the entire province of Galicia in Austria. It began to look as if the Czar's heroes would capture ,Cracow and enter Germany from the south. The Germans were alarmed and sent troops from the west front to aid the Austrians. The Austrians and Germans then drove the Eussians back to the Eiver San. Here a great battle was fought, lasting four days, in which the Eussians were finally victor- THE CAMPAIGN OF 1915— EASTERN FRONT 71 ious. By November, 1914, the Kussians had again reached the outskirts of Cracow. Germany saw she must do something now to save Austria before she herself conquered France. Austria had become too weak to hold her territory. Her troops had to have their courage stiffened by the aid of German soldiers. The Germans now reversed their plan and decided to hold the west front, but not to undertake to break THE GERMANS it, while they sent most of their men CHANGE PLANS to the cast front to save Austria and crush Russia. All the soldiers that could be spared from the west front were sent against the Czar's troops. Thus the Austrians and Germans together with an army of two million men and 1,500 heavy guns attacked the Russians. General von Mackensen came from Germany to lead them. The Russians had fought a magnificent campaign and had been at every point victorious over Austria, but now their ammunition failed them when it was most needed. It has been found in this war that no army can win a battle without its artillery, for rifles will not hold their own against cannon. In May, 1915, Von Mackensen struck the Russian front in West Galicia with such a massing of artillery as had not been seen before. He shattered the Rus- sian line and took 30,000 prisoners. The Russians resisted stubbornly in battle after battle, but they were outnumbered and, being without shells, they gradually had to give ground. They yielded Przemysl and retired to Lemberg. Presently they lost Lemberg and a week later Von Mackensen began his drive into Russian territory. The German armies under Von Hindenberg on the 72 STOEY OF THE WORLD WAB north and Von Mackensen on the south on a nine FALL OF hundred mile front were now fighting for WARSAW Warsaw. In August, 1915, Warsaw fell to the Germans and the province of Eussian Poland was lost and a great retreat began. The Eussian line, 300 miles long, was swept back across Eussian Poland toward Moscow. An area 230 miles wide, three times as large as the state of New York, was made desolate. The homes and buildings were burned and tens of thousands of people starved. All along the roads was the proof of the terrible suffering. Broken vehicles, old cloth- ing, baby carriages and small human bones, the larger ones having been gathered by the Germans for fertilizer. Grand Duke Nicholas without ammunition per- formed a wonderful feat in saving his army. It was the Eussian army that the Germans desired to capture rather than any j^articular province or fort. They came near taking a great army when they captured Warsaw, but Nicholas by hard fighting saved both his army and artillery and moved east- ward. The German advance at last was stopped, and they were not able to go farther. They had won territory but they had failed in capturing the Eussian armies. Grand Duke Nicholas was relieved of his command of the Eussian forces at this time because he was thought to be too cautious. Germany had failed to crush Eussia as she had failed to crush France. And yet, while Germany had not captured the Eussian army, she had taken the province of Poland from Eussia and had taken some of the most powerful fortresses in the world. In spite of the escape of the main forces of the army, it was said Germany had taken over a THE CAMPAIGN OF 191^-ITALIAN FRONT 73 million prisoners, and the Kaiser believed that Rus- sia was out of the fighting. Large bodies of German troops were then sent under Von Mackensen to overwhelm Serbia and open up railroad lines to the Turks at Constantinople. After remaining neutral nearly ten months Italy declared war on Austria in May, 1915. Italian ITALY ENTERS statesmen said that Austria was aim- THE WAR (1915) j^g ^q extend her possessions to the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea. Italy was ambi- tious to control that shore. Then, too, there are a number of provinces of Austria whose populations are mainly Italians and Italy thought these people should be allowed to live under their own flag. More- over, Italy charged Austria with provoking the war with the intention of seizing Serbia, and this was a menace to the peace and the balance of power in the Balkans in which Italy was interested. Since Austria was unwilling to accept the Italian demands as to adjustment of territory, war was declared and 1,000,000 Italian soldiers went to the front. Italy had a hard problem to protect her frontier. Austria held the mountains and the sources of several rivers which flowed down into Italian territory. It was these mountain strongholds that the Italians would be forced to take to make any progress against their enemy. Italy's progress into Austrian territory was slow and costly. Her aim was to capture the Austrian port of Trieste and thus secure for herself the commanding positions on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea. CHAPTER XI THE DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN In February, 1915, the Allies decided to attack the Dardanelles. This strait leading to Constantinople had been captured in 1807, but since that time the old fortifications had been replaced by the most modern defensive works. Expert German advisers had directed the emplacement of strong batteries to command the approach by land and sea. There were 14-inch Krupp guns placed so they could be trained on the fleet of an enemy. The British knew that to attempt to capture the Dardanelles was a hazardous undertaking, but should they succeed, the reward would be great. If the Allies could get through the straits with a fleet Constantinople would fall and Turkey would be eliminated from the conflict, because her country would be cut in two. If Constantinople were taken the Turkish attacks on Persia and Egypt would be stopped, and if the straits were opened Russia would find a free outlet for her great stores of wheat and a chance to receive the ammunition which she needed very sorely and which could be furnished her as fast as the factories of the Allies and neutral nations could turn it out. Then the moral effect of the capture of Constanti- nople would be tremendous. It would put new life and hope into the soldiers of France, Russia and Great Britain and would encourage Italy to join the winning side. It would also, perhaps, bring the other THE DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN 75 Balkan nations into the war on the side of the Allies. Greece and Roumania were wavering and needed a decisive victory to show them where to stand. Bulgaria, it was known, was inclined to join the Central Powers but should the Allies capture Con- stantinople, she might change her mind. So, with all this at stake, the British sent a power- ful fleet to attack the forts of the Dardanelles. There BRITISH FLEET Were thirteen British battle ATTACKS THE STRAITS gi^ipg, including the super- dreadnaught "Queen Elizabeth" with her eight 15-inch guns. There were many others of the most wonderful warships afloat. In all there were nearly seventy 12-inch guns and a greater number slightly smaller. The first task of the Anglo-French fleet was to reduce the outer forts of the strait. The entrance to the Dardanelles was about two and three-eighths miles wide and was defended by certain forts on the tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula. In February, 1915, the fleet began a heavy bombardment of the forts. The batteries on shore were enormously outnum- bered and outranged by the guns of the battleships. The ''Queen Elizabeth" stood safe out of range of the land guns and rained 15-inch shells on the Turk- ish gunners. The other ships, at a comparatively safe distance but with shorter range, also poured their shells on the fort. Toward evening of Febru- ary 25 certain of the Allied fleet sailed in close to the fort and by evening the last Turkish gun had been put out of action. The next day landing parties were sent ashore to blow up the remains of the Turkish forts. But the landing force was surprised by Turkish troops and compelled to beat a hasty retreat. However, the big 76 STORY OF THE WOELD WAR guns of the four forts had been put out of action and it was clear that the fleet had no more to fear from either shore of the entrance to the strait. The bombardment had also swept the first few miles of the channel clear of mines so that battleships now ventured into the lower end of the channel to bom- bard the forts situated fourteen miles from the entrance. This point, known as the Narrows, is about three- quarters of a mile wide. Here were planted the THE FLEET strongest Turkish forts and here would TAILS i)Q i]iQ decisive battle. After a vigorous cannonade some of the forts stopped firing and the commanders of the fleet thought they had been silenced so they prepared to move in closer to the Narrows. Suddenly the forts, which were supposed to have been conquered, blazed forth again. Float- ing mines were sent down the channel carried by the swift current. Three large shells and a mine struck the French ship '^Bouvet.'* Within three minutes, almost before the sound of the explosion had died away, the battleship sank with all her crew on board. Another mine hit the "'Irresistible," a British ship, but its crew was picked up by destroyers under fire. The next victim was the ** Ocean" which was sud- denly sunk by a mine. The Turkish guns set the "Inflexible" on fire, opened a great gap in the armor plate of another ship, and inflicted severe punishment on several others. At twilight the great fleet steamed out of the strait, followed by parting shots from the forts. The attempt was a failure. More than 2,000 men and three great battleships had been sacrificed in vain. But instead of admitting their defeat and giving THE DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN 77 up the Dardanelles campaign entirely, the British A LAND decided to land troops on the Gallipoli ATTACK Peninsula, hoping a land attack would suc- ceed where the navy had failed. The land campaign was undertaken at the end of April by an Anglo- French force of 120,000 men under General Hamil- ton. It was a strangely mixed company consisting of Australian divisions. New Zealand divisions, Indian troops and British naval divisions. As Marshal Joffre was unwilling to spare any men from the regular battle line in France, the French had only a small detachment. The Turkish army was com- manded by the skillful German General, Von San- ders, and it held a very strong position. On a beautiful Sunday morning at daybreak April 25, 1915, the British troops landed at six different points on the Gallipoli Peninsula while the French troops landed at still another point. One party of Australians and New Zealanders gallantly charged up the beach under heavy fire, ousted the Turkish riflemen from their trenches, and then scrambled up the cliffs that rose abruptly forty feet from the water's edge. There they withstood the fierce Turk- ish counter attack, made good their position, and proceeded to **dig in." One of the landing parties was caught in wire entanglements and mowed down by concealed machine guns. The French troops landed and took 500 prisoners. By May the entire force had been landed. There were several encounters, some of which were won by the Allies and some by the Turks, but on June 4, 1915, there came a conflict which marked the failure of the Allies ' compaign on the tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula. Three bloody battles were fought, ammunition was wasted in terrific bombard- 78 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR ment, and somewhere between forty and seventy thousand men were slain ; yet the principal Turkish position remained unconquered. Three more great battleships of the fleet were lost from torpedoes and the fleet withdrew leaving the army without its support. Two British submarines covered themselves with glory by raiding the Sea of Marmora. They pene- trated the Narrows and entered the harbor of Con- stantinople. One of them sank two Turkish gunboats and a transport and the other did even better. It sank three Turkish transports, three store-ships and a gunboat and returned through the Narrows to the British fleet. But a deadlock had come upon the Peninsula. With great cost a few hundred yards were gained A BRITISH by the Allies, and on one charge they DEFEAT actually reached the heights of the neck where they could look down upon the Dardanelles, but they were compelled to fall back for lack of sup- port. The Turks were valiant fighters. They swept down the slopes in the face of murderous artillery fire and dislodged the British from the foothold which they had gained. The Allied troops were also cut down by disease. At last General Hamilton was recalled to England and Lord Kitchener was sent to investigate the sit- uation. Then, to the great disappointment of the Allies, the British troops were withdrawn in Decem- ber, 1915. This was the greatest disappointment of the year. The British had lost 114,000 men, 26,000 of whom were dead, and they had failed to take the Dardanelles. THE DAEDANELLES CAMPAIGN 79 Now that the Kussians were defeated and out of the fighting for good, as the Kaiser believed, Ger- SERBIA many turned her attention to her CONQUERED (1915) ambitious plan to gain control of the Balkans. This, we repeat, was the great German ambition that more than any other was responsible for this war. To control the Balkan country and to establish a great federation of German states in middle Europe extending from the Baltic through to Constantinople and beyond was her principal reason for fighting. Late in September, 1915, rumors were abroad that a large army was massing in Austria for a great drive on Serbia. Turkey had been fighting on the side of Germany for many months, but as yet there was no contact between the two countries. Germany was most anxious to capture the railroad running through Serbia to Constantinople, so as to furnish the Turks with ammunition which they badly needed. Germany also wished to obtain food supplies from Turkey and from the East. In October the Central Powers, with Von Macken- sen in command, hurled 400,000 men against the VON MACKENSEN'S Serbian frontier. They forced ^KiVE a passage across the Drina and the Danube. The Serbians fought bravely, as they had before, but while they had been equal to the Austrians, they were not equal to the combined powers of Austria and Germany. They would not have fared so badly even then, perhaps, if it had not been that they were treacherously struck on the flank by Bulgaria, who now entered the war as an ally of the Germans. It was not long until the Bulgars had driven the Serbians far enough back so that the Bulgar army could join that of the Germans. Nish 80 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR was captured and the Bulgars swept west and reached Monastir in November. The English and French had landed at Saloniki and had attempted to move up the Vardar valley to assist Serbia, but they were too late to save her, for the conquest of Serbia was now complete. A large part of the Serbian army had escaped in one of the most terrible Tetreats in history, across jthe snowy mountains of Albania. Thousands of women, children and old men met starvation. In this manner Germany put Serbia out of the fighting and had gained control of the railroad lead- A GREAT ing to Constantinople. Turkey GERMAN VICTORY and the Central Powers were now in direct communication, and the railroad from the Danube to Bagdad was well in the hands of the Ger- mans. This German victory was another severe blow to the Allies and ended completely the hope of England to capture the Dardanelles. It remains to be seen when peace is made whether or not this campaign will give the control of the Balkan coun^ tries to Germany and Austria. The year 1915 was rich in successes for the Kaiser in Europe, but Germany had but little left of its once extensive colonial empire. England had taken New Guinea, the Samoan Islands and the Bismarck Islands. Japan had seized Kiao Chau, the Caroline, Marshall and Solomon Islands. Germany had left only German East Africa and the Kameruns, which were being invaded by British and French forces. CHAPTER XII CAMPAIGN OF 1916 WEST FRONT In 1916, when the Germans had found after their first year of fighting that they could not break THE SECOND through the western front and BATTLE OF YPRES take Calais by straight old-fash- ioned fighting, they determined to use new means. They began the second battle of Ypres in April by releasing great billows of poisonous gases, which were carried by the breeze into the trenches occupied by the French-Colonial troops west of the Canadian position. The French soldiers, unable to withstand the deadly gas, retreated in disorder, leaving a gap through which the Germans poured. But the daunt- less Canadian troops extended their line to close up the gap and stopped the German advance. With remarkable courage they held the position for three days and three nights until reinforcements arrived. They were greatly outnumbered and met with great loss, but fought with such determination and courage that the story of their valor will live in Canadian his- tory forever. This was the first use of poisonous gas known to warfare, and it took the Allies entirely by surprise. When the great clouds were seen bearing down upon them, some one laughingly said: ''What are they trying to do now, smoke us out!" But the question was answered when they saw their comrades falling about them and caught whiffs of the suffocating 82 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR fumes. Its action was most deadly, killing its vic- tims in five or six minutes. One quick-witted Canadian officer saved many of his men by shouting to them to wet their handkerchiefs from their can- teens and put them over their faces. In February, 1916, began a ten months' conflict known as the Battle of Verdun, which will take its BATTLE OP place in history as one of the greatest VERDUN (1916) battles of the world war. It was a supreme eifort of Germany to crush France by a thunderbolt and end the war. It employed more soldiers and cost a larger number of dead and wounded and endured longer than any engagement on a single point in this or any other war. The German Crown Prince was in command of the wing of the German army and it is thought he wanted to win a great battle in order to please his people and seal his chance of following his father on the throne. Verdun has been noted in history as a great fortified center. To capture it would greatly encourage the people of the Central Powers and be a master blow to the Allies. The Germans wanted to say to the world : *' We can conquer the most strongly fortified position of the enemy and wipe out the army which defends it." When the attack was made at Verdun the French were at first surprised, but they hung on most firmly, retreating slowly and making the effort cost the Germans as much as possible. The Germans had cut off all the French railroads but one leading to the fortress. But General Petain put in motion 40,000 motor trucks, all traveling on schedule time, to supply the French army with food and shells. At first it was the plan to let the Germans have Verdun if they were willing to sacrifice enough men to its THE CAMPAIGN OF 1916— WEST FRONT 83 capture, but on second thought the French saw that the moral influence of such a victory would redound too much to the honor of the Germans, so they refused to let the enemy have their great fortress. So terrible was the fighting that certain positions were taken and lost several times in one day. In the latter part of June the Germans had reached a posi- tion northeast of Verdun within the inner circle of its fortifications, but they could go no further. The English then began an offensive at the Somme which brought German failure by forcing them to send troops to that battle front. In the autumn the French set out to regain their lost ground at Verdun. They made an attack in THE FRENCH October and advanced two miles over RECOVER ALL ^ f our-mile front and recaptured the fort and village of Douaumont. A few days later they took the fort at Vaux and re-occupied the vil- lage. In December they again advanced two miles on the seven-mile front and took 11,000 prisoners and many cannon and machine guns. And so the tide had turned and the Germans had failed at Verdun with a loss of 500,000 men. The German Crown Prince had failed to win his spurs at Verdun, although he hammered away at the fortress from February until July. The valor shown by the men on both sides was most marvelous. Thousands of French and Germans laid down their lives at every point of the conflict. The French under General Petain made the Germans pay dearly for every inch of ground gained and in the end regained the most of it in very short order and with little loss. The Germans said the ''French army was being bled to death" at Verdun, but their own losses probably exceeded those of the French. It 84 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR was a terrible defeat for Germany, second only to that of the Marne. At Neuve Chapelle, we remember, the English paid a tremendous price for a mile of gain which they BATTLE OF could not extend. The French THE soMME (1916) attack at Champagne in 1915 cap- tured 25,000 prisoners and made a gain of only two miles at most because they could not stand the losses. However, in July, 1916, the Allies were in a position to match gun for gun with the Germans. Up to this time the German troops had had every advantage due to their superb preparation, their mammoth artillery arid their supply of munitions. The Allies were now even better equipped than the enemy with instruments for trench warfare. At this battle of the Somme some new factors were disclosed. The British soon showed that they ALLIES SUPERIOR Outweighed the Germans in guns IN MEN AND GUNS and ammunition. It was said that in the bombq,rdment the British used 500,000 shells a day. Mountains of shells were fired to clear the way for the infantry. They drove a bulge into the German front 20 miles in breadth and 9 miles deep at the deepest point. They captured scores of vil- lages and fortified positions and conquered the ridge overlooking Baupaume. The German loss was esti- mated at about 700,000 men including 95,000 prison- ers, 135 heavy guns, 180 field-pieces and 1400 ma- chine guns. The Germans claimed that the Allies lost between 800,000 and 900,000 men. Now the win- ter rainy season set in and stopped the Allied opera- tions, but the British army had proven that they had mastered the new methods of warfare and they looked forward to spring. An incident of this year, and a most dramatic one, THE CAMPAIGN OF 1916— ITALIAN FRONT 85 was the coming of Russian soldiers to France. They were greeted everywhere with much enthusiasm and after a few weeks of drilling were sent to the front to fight. The men were sent by the Czar as a token of the firmness of his friendship for the Allies. ITALIAN AND TURKISH FRONTS One result of the failure of the Allies at the Dar- danelles was to release the Turkish army of some- THE BAGDAD thing like 200,000 men to be used CAMPAIGN (1916) elsewhere. The Turks at once planned a campaign against Egypt to take posses- sion of the Suez Canal and cut off England from her direct route to India and Australia. The difficulties of an attack against the Suez Canal were enormous. The attacking forces must drag their artillery and carry their pontoon bridges more than a hundred miles through the desert of the Sinai Peninsula. At the end of their long, hard journey the Turks would find the Canal guarded by warships and by a large force of Colonial and Egyptian troops. In January 1916 the Turkish commander with an army of thirty or forty thousand men crossed the SUEZ Sinai Peninsula. The main Turkish col- ATTACKED -Qmns reached the Canal in the nights of February 2 and 3. Dragging their pontoons, the Turks ran to the water's edge and began to build a bridge across the Canal. They were discovered by the British troops on the west side and the battle began in earnest. Under the murderous fire of the English guns the Turks attempted to cross the Canal in boats and rafts. One boatload actually reached the western banks and attacked the British from the rear. But with torpedo boats and gunboats the Brit- 86 STOEY OF THE WOELD WAE isli frustrated the attempt to bridge the Canal and in the middle of the afternoon the Turks fled leaving 500 men killed and 600 prisoners. The main Turkish force, however, made good its retreat. The British now began a campaign to reach Bag- dad. Going by water into the Persian Grulf they de- MARCH ON feated the Turks and captured Busrah. BAGDAD Tj^g British under General Townshend had only a small force, but he defeated the Turks and moved up the Tigris. He again defeated the Turks before Kut-el-Amara and occupied that city. With small forces the English had penetrated more than two hundred miles into Mesopotamia. Bagdad was only one hundred miles farther up the river, and General Townshend with his small army, was sent on to Bagdad. On November 22, General Townshend attacked and captured the Turkish defense position eighteen miles from this city. Then the tide turned. Townshend was overwhelmed by superior numbers and defeated with a loss of nearly 5,000 of his 20,000 men. He was driven back to Kut-el-Amara, where he was sur- rounded. A relief expedition was sent by the British, under General Aylmer, but it failed to reach Town- shend 's army until they were starved out and forced to surrender to the Turks. Germany had told the world that Russia was so badly exhausted that she would not be able to ' * come THE AUSTRIAN DRIVE back." Therefore, she switched ON ITALY (1916) niauy of her troops from the Eussian front to France while Austria sent her re- serves from the eastern front against Italy. The war between Austria and Italy was carried on chiefly among the valleys and mountains of the Tren- tino. Great bravery was shown by troops on both THE CAMPAIGN OF 1916— ITALIAN FRONT 87 sides but there were no decisive results. All the rivers here flow from Austria into Italy and Austria held the sources of the rivers among the mountains, positions that were very hard to take. Italy, on the other hand, held the flat valleys which were hard to defend. In the latter part of May, 1916, the Austrians, re- enforced by the troops from the Russian front made a general attack on the Italians. The Italians, taken by surprise, lost heavily. They were driven back along the front for about twenty miles until they came to their own frontier. Crown Prince Archduke Charles led the Austrians. It looked for a time as if he would succeed in carrying the war into Italian ter- ritory and cut off the Italian forces in the Isonzo dis- trict. But suddenly the Russians began a strong movement against Austria, forcing her to transfer her troops to defend that attack. Now the Italians changed commanders and Gen- eral Cadorna became Commander in Chief. By the ITALIANS first week in June, he had halted the RECOVER ALL Austrians and had begun to drive them back. The Italian armies gradually pushed them back until they were in the same position as be- fore the offensive began. In August the Italians set to work to push their line farther north. They cap- tured Goritz bridgehead and shortly after, the city, itself. Then they made an advance in the direction of Trieste by taking various positions on the Carso Plateau. This is where they stood at the end of the year 1916 and there was much rejoicing in Italy. Wlien Germany and Austria stripped the Russian front of their soldiers Russia saw her opportunity. BRUssiLOFF INVADES With a great army and a vast GALiciA (1916) store of ammunition and heavy 88 STOEY OF THE WOELD WAE artillery the Russian commander, Brussiloff, at- tacked along a front of 150 miles on the southern battle line in June. The Russian army numbered three to one against the Austrians who defended the line. Brussiloff broke through, making a wide gap, and the Austrian troops began a headlong retreat to save themselves. They lost 300,000 men and great booty of supplies, munitions and artillery. In a few weeks of fighting the Russians pushed their enemy back for forty miles and won back 15,000 square miles of territory, more than twice what the Germans held in France. The Germans in four months at Verdun had pushed the French back less than ten miles. Germany had to take back her statement that Russia had been put out of the war. CHAPTER XIII EOUMANIA CONQUERED, 1916 This Eussian success along with the German fail- ure at Verdun induced Roumania to throw in her lot with the Allies. So in August, 1916, she declared war against Austro-Hungary. Roumania said there were many Roumanians in Hungary, who were suffering from oppression and that the ambition of Austro- Hungary to extend her power was a menace to the liberty and ambition of Roumania. The way Austro- Hungary had treated Serbia showed that the war was one of conquest and territorial gain and Rou- mania herself was in danger of being drawn in and overwhelmed by the Central Powers. She said that the war had already shown that the Central Powers would tear up treaties if it suited their inter- ests to do so, and she was entering the war on the side of the Allies to hasten the end of the conflict. Immediately after this declaration Roumanian troops entered Transylvania, a part of Austria's ROUMANIAN ARMY empire, and met with some suc- IN AUSTRIA cess. But Roumaiiia had risked everything in this invasion of Austro-Hungary and left the Danube River unprotected and open to at- tack by the Bulgarians. We are told that Roumania refused at this time to listen to the advice of the Al- lies either as to the time when she should declare war or as to what campaign she would follow. At any rate she started out under an ill star. She was too late to be helped by Brussiloff's victory, which was 90. STORY OF THE WOELD WAE then practically over, and Germany and Austria were free to concentrate their attention against her. So, with short sightedness, this little country threw her main forces at once across the Carpathian passes into Austro-Hungary. Before the month ended Roumanian armies had occupied Kronstadt and other cities and had full con- VON MACKENSEN trol of the Vulcan Pass. The CQun- DRIVES NORTH try was rejoicing at her splendid success and so were the Allies, but a sudden change came about. The Germans had planned their cam- paign against Roumania with much care. They now came forward with great suddenness, General Von Mackensen with a Turk-Bulgar army pushed his way through Roumania 's back door between the Danube and the Black Sea and began a drive north. All the time the Roumanian army was winning easy victories in Transylvania, Von Mackensen was advancing rap- idly taking everything in his path. At last the Roumanians awoke to their danger in the rear and recalled some of their troops to send against Von Mackensen. Russian troops also came in and joined the Roumanians in the south, and for a time they held Von Mackensen. On Roumania 's western front a German general, Von Falkenhayn, then led an attack against the VON FALKENHAYN Roumanians and defeated them DRIVES EAST at Hermaustadt. The Germans continued to win along this front, but the Rouman- ians stubbornly held the mountain passes. In Octo- ber Von Mackensen pushed farther north and took Constanza and the Russo-Roumanian troops re- treated to the north. In November Von Falkenhayn took several mountain passes and entered Roumania from the west. The Russians made a desperate at- EOTJMANIA CONQUERED, 1916 91 tempt to help Eoumania by attacking the Germans farther north, but in the end Von Mackensen swept on and forced the crossing of the Danube southwest of Bucharest, the capital of Eoumania. Bucharest was now threatened from northwest, west and south. In December the Roumanians abandoned their cap- ital and the victorious Germans entered. The Russians screened the retreating Roumanians, but even with this aid they were outmaneuvered, out- numbered and outfought. They saw the hopelessness of trying to make another stand and preferred to save their armies from capture. So they retreated to the Russian frontier. This was the crowning victory of the German cam- paign. They had secured the oil wells and wheat GERMAN PEACE fields of Roumania and had opened PROPOSAL ijp several roads to Constantinople, one by water by way of the Danube and the Black Sea. An offer of general peace terms to the Allies was then made by the Central Powers. They offered their peace terms in the tone of a victorious con- queror. They said Germany had been forced into the war. In fact, the Kaiser says this on all occasions thinking perhaps the world, or at least the German people, will come to believe it. In the offer of peace the Central Powers offered to restore Belgium and evacuate the territory captured in northern France during the war. They wanted to establish an independent kingdom of Poland and Lithuania in Russia. But they wanted to keep Serbia though they promised to divide some of its territory with Bulgaria. They also demanded that Italy should give back the territory she had conquered. Germany further demanded that her colonies be restored to 92 STOET OF THE WOELD WAE her while Constantinople should be retained by Tur- key. The Allies ignored this offer of peace from Ger- many, for they believed that she was willing to stop fighting only because she had got all that she was fighting for. She was demanding full control of the Balkans and had fairly at her command the Middle Europe Empire of her dreams, which was to reach from the Baltic Sea to the Persian Gulf, and this was her real reason for wanting peace. During this year of the war the Allies failed to strike together and thus the Central Powers using ALLIED their strategic railways, shifted their re- FAiLUEE serves back and forth to great advantage. The Allies needed a few lessons in ''team work.'* The problem of providing mountains of shells on all fronts was a stupendous one and to provide them so all could strike at once was impossible. Supplies to Eussia could reach her only by the long Trans-Siberian railway or by way of Archangel on the White Sea. This port, however, is frozen over and useless a large part of the year. But now Eussia has a new harbor, Alexandrovsk, on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. This port, though farther north than Archangel, is free from ice the year round on ac- count of the warm Gulf stream. To this port Eussia has now completed a railway. With American rail- road engineers sent to help, Eussia has begun to solve her transportation problems. CHAPTER XIV THE CZAR LOSES HIS THEONE What is perhaps the most important event of modern times occurred on March 9, 1917. It was a revolution in Russia which resulted in the overthrow of the Czar. His downfall was accomplished with such dramatic suddenness that it dazed the world. The Czar had allowed the Russian government to fall into the hands of men who were in sympathy with Germany and traitors to the best interests of the nation. These pro-German officials did every- thing they could in the Russian campaign to aid Ger- many. They even attempted to make peace between Germany and Russia in 1916, but the Russian Duma, or Congress, would not consent. They succeeded, however. In paralyzing the army as far as fighting was concerned. Artillery was sent from France to the Roumanians in the fall of 1916, but through the influence of these German sympathizers it was lost in the Ural moun- tains. Ammunition sent for these guns by way of Archangel was held until it was destroyed by Ger- man agents at that port. The defeat of Roumania was due in great part to the lack of support from Russia. As long as German influence was so strong in Russia there was no hope for the Russian army. The Allies were greatly discouraged at the condition at the Russian capital of Petrograd. 94 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR At last the whole Russian nation, seeing the Czar dominated by the enemy, came to realize that it was THE CZAR time for the people to assert their rights, ABDICATES and sooner than could be believed, the powerful citadel of Czarism fell like a castle built upon the sands. Within five days the jDeople of the Empire awoke and seized the government. Eegiment by regiment the troops of Petrograd and Moscow, with their commanders, went over to the people. Even the Czar's bodyguard of Cossacks quickly de- serted him. The men who had held the nation in their hands were cast off, a few disloyal officials were hanged, and the Russian congress, or Duma, took charge of the situation. A document was written to which the Czar was to be forced to affix his signature and abdicate the throne of Russia. With this docu- ment they proceeded to a station where they might halt the train on which the Czar was riding to Petro- grad. The Czar, deserted by his army, was helpless. He signed away his throne for himself and his son. The family of Romanoff which had ruled Russia for three hundred years with a mailed fist and bloody saber was now dethroned. Perhaps no ruler in his- tory will be held responsible for so much oppression, bloodshed and tyranny as this Nicholas Romanoff, Czar of Russia. The pro-German element had gotten control of the government largely through the influence of the Czarina who was a German princess. She had strong- ly opposed the war and her will was strong with her royal husband. But now the portraits of the Czar and his family were burned by the people and the Romanoff insignia were torn from the walls of the government buildings. The winter palace of the THE CZAR LOSES HIS THRONE 95 Czar was taken over by the government and occupied by the Eussian Duma. The United States lost no time in recognizing the new Eussian republic. We soon sent some of our best statesmen and engineers to aid in building up the new state. The task before the new government of Eussia was enormous. It was a gigantic problem to change the whole governmental plan, and to do this while the country was at war was stupendous. The railroads of Eussia are miserably insufficient and there are no good roads. This makes the prob- lem of feeding the cities and the armies very difficult. The Eussian masses are uneducated and do not un- derstand very well what liberty and self-government mean. For a time they refused to be bound by ordi- nary laws after being ruled for so long by terror and an iron hand. For many months Eussia was unable to do much fighting. The new government exerted every effort to supply its army and equip the millions of soldiers that were still available. Meantime, Germany tried in every way to make peace with the nation, but the Eussian republic stood firm and ready to aid in the last blow to kings that rule without the consent of their people. The throwing off by Eussia of the autocratic Czar and his bands of military lords changed the whole DEMOCRACY VS. character of the war. It has now AUTOCRACY bccome without doubt a war of democracy against autocracy. That is, a war to es- tablish the rule of the people against the tyranny of kings. The Central Powers of Germany, Austria and Turkey are about the only nations left in the world who support the divine right of kings. Fight- ing for democracy are England, France, Belgium, 96 STOBY OF THE WORLD WAB Russia, Italy, Roumania, Japan, the United States and Greece, besides several smaller nations. It is now a war for freedom. We wish to see all nations free to live and develop safe from the iron hand of German militarism. There can be no peace with Germany without victory, because without this, Germany will still be in the hands of the ambitious Kaiser and his war lords. The world has learned that these men can not be trusted. We could soon have peace if the German people would remove the Kaiser and his military aristocrats and let their peo- ple rule the empire. We have nothing but admira- tion for the sturdy, industrious citizens of Germany. CHAPTER XV SUBMARINE WARFARE One of the new engines of death which has come largely into use in this war and which at last brought us into conflict with Germany, is the submarine. The Germans call it the "Unter See" or U-boat. It was invented in the United States, but Germany and other nations have developed it until it is a powerful weapon in sea warfare. The submarine is made of a thin shell of steel about half an inch thick so as not to be heavy. Thus it is easily sunk by a small gun shell. The U-boat is "propelled on the surface of the water by gasoline power, but when submerged it must move by elec- tricity. The U-boat can remain under water for sev- eral days if it is motionless, but if it uses up its elec- tric power to move about it must come to the surface in about six hours to recharge its batteries. This is the time when our motor boats and destroyers can get in their work. When the U-boat is just under the water it can see all about it on the surface for several miles by means of a periscope, which is a seeing tube extending from the boat above the water. The periscope is fitted with mirrors and lenses which enables the man under water to see any approaching ship. When the image of its victim crosses a certain hair line seen in the periscope, it is time for the gunner in the submarine to fire his torpedo. The modern automobile torpedo is a cigar-shaped 98 STOEY OF THE WOELD WAE object 22 feet long and 21 inches in diameter and THE weighs nearly a ton. When shot from the TORPEDO XJ-boat it steers itself and plows unseen through the water at a speed of forty miles an hour. It will travel six miles before it is spent. The tor- pedo has three parts ; the warhead, or front section, contains three or four hundred pounds of explosives. The central chamber, or air flask, contains com- pressed air to run the tiny turbine engine. Lastly, the tail end of the torpedo has a wonderful engine that turns the propeller blades. It develops 160 horsepower and starts the torpedo at the rate of nearly a mile a minute, but it gradually loses speed. It requires almost a thousand i^ieces of steel, brass and bronze to make the delicate automatic mechan- ism of the torpedo. A long time is required to make one, and each torpedo costs about $6,000. Therefore the U-boats save them for sure shots. It is fired from a tube about twenty feet long, well greased in- side so the weapon will slip out easily. It is sent forth, or fired, by compressed air. Immediately upon striking the water the torpedo comes to life. Its tur- bine engine and propellers start driving it at a swift pace straight towards the target. After dealing its blow the missile disappears in its own ruin. In case it misses the target the motor power gradually runs down and the torpedo becomes a dangerous floating mine. The Germans are now said to use a smoking device which will enable them to locate their expen- sive weapon by its own smoke in case it is a miss. In this way they can recover it and use it again. The course of the torpedo is plainly visible because of the white streak of air bubbles caused by the air exhaust of the torpedo engine. Many ships are now SUBMARINE WARFARE 99 being sunk by gunfire from the submarines without even the cost of a torpedo. The best known device to protect a ship from a torpedo is the torpedo net. This chain net is slung A SHIP'S about the ship at a sufficient distance to DEFENSE prevent the shock of the explosion from injuring the hull. The net is supposed to explode the torpedo. Then net-cutters were attached to the war- heads of the torpedoes, which cut a hole large enough for the torpedo to pass through unexploded. As the net offers a great hindrance to a ship while in motion, it is used only when the fleet is at rest. The fleet is best protected when in a harbor guarded by a mine field at the harbor's entrance, and by heavy chain netting to prevent the passage of tor- pedoes and submarines. Every day new devices are found to make the submarine more destructive and hundreds of men are working on means of defense and destruction against it. Wlien a battleship fleet takes to the open sea it is protected in two ways : First, it has a screen of des- troyer ships steaming in a wedge-shaped formation in front and others in a line on either side of the battleship column. It is the duty of this screen to meet the attack of the enemy and to sink or drive off his flotillas before they get within firing range of the main fleet. In the second place, each battleship has a torpedo defense battery of rapid-fire 5-inch and 6- inch guns which can pour a perfect stream of high explosive shells at any torpedo boat or submarine that breaks through the destroyer screen. However, the best defense of a ship in battle is its high speed and its power to turn quickly, whereby it can avoid torpedoes or ram the submarines. CHAPTER XVI THE UNITED STATES ENTERS THE WAR In order to understand tlie quarrel between Ger- many and the United States wliich has brought us to armed conflict we must go back to the beginning of the World War. We remember that in a few months after the Germans started hostilities, Eng- land's mammoth war fleet drove German commerce from the sea and bottled up the Kaiser's warships in the Kiel Canal. There they have remained to this day except for short raids into the North Sea. England's plan was to starve Germany out as the only way to conquer her, for she saw that the Cen- tral Powers could hardly be overcome on the land. By this blockade England cut off neutral ships from reaching the Central Powers, except those of Sweden, which might cross the Baltic. Germany defied the world to starve her. The German government took control of all food supplies in the Empire, calculated just how much was neces- sary for each person, and by doling them out spar- ingly to the peojole by means of food cards she has kept them from starvation. She tried to limit rich and poor alike to just enough to keep them going. For example, butter once a week, an egg once a month, and meat only occasionally obtained through the dealers. These conditions brought great hard- ship to many people. They suffered most from lack of fats. Now, there is an understanding among all nations THE UNITED STATES ENTERS THE WAR 101 as to what is fair and legal between nations in times ENGLAND STOPS of War. This is known as inter- NEUTRAL SHIPS national law. According to inter- national law a nation may blockade the ports of its enemies and cut off the commerce. We did this in the Civil War by blockading our southern ports and shutting off the trade of the Confederacy with the outside world. But a blockade of ports to be within law requires that warships which stop shipping shall be sta- tioned about the mouth of the harbor. England, instead of stationing her warships at the mouths of the German harbors, stationed them far out at sea for safety, thus creating a great zone through which she forbade the passage of all shipping to German sea-ports. Moreover, England made many new sea rules that would help her in crushing Ger- many. Since the German government had taken over all food supplies of the Empire, England said she would stop ships carrying food to those neutrals who were shipping to Germany. For a long time Germany got considerable trade from the neutral world. It came through such neu- SUPPLIES tral countries as Switzerland, PEGM NEUTRALS Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Holland. The British fleet kept cutting down the number of food ships to the neutral countries just named until she thought they were getting only enough to satisfy their own needs, and Germany felt the pangs of hunger more and more keenly. Now, England had no legal right to stop ships from one neutral country to another, especially when they carried only food and non-contraband articles. But England decided that since these neu- tral nations were supplying Germany from their 102 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR surplus she would stop the ships, right or not. When England stopped neutral ships she paid for their cargo. Germany, of course, protested. So did the United States. President Wilson demanded that England cease to violate the rules of international law and that she no longer stop our ships bound for neutral countries. England paid little attention to our pro- test and we did not insist as we might have done. We might have brought England to time if we had been determined to do so. But our merchants were selling to the Allies at great profit and they did not object very strongly to England's illegal acts. Moreover there was an overwhelming sentiment here in favor of the Allies. Even then the American people, except certain foreign born, felt that the Allies were fighting our battles and we hoped they would win without our help. This was also, per- haps, the feeling of our government. As we did not force England to obey international law to the letter, Grermany was enraged and said that she would make her own rules for her submarines. Germany's second and real quarrel with us was because we furnished guns and ammunitions to the MUNITIONS Allies. When Germany failed to get TEOM AMERICA the spccdy victory which she antici- pated, it soon appeared that artillery and munitions would play a greater part in the victory when it did come than ever before in warfare. Germany was well supplied with guns and munitions, for she had encouraged the Krupp munitions factories, which had grown to be the greatest in the world. But no Allied nation was prepared to furnish great moun- tains of munitions. Germany had sold munitions to other nations in time of war, but when the Allies THE UNITED STATES ENTERS THE WAR 103 turned to America for war supplies, which we were glad to furnish and in great quantities, Germany- protested. The United States declared we were violating no law. We said we would willingly supply Germany with ammunition, too, if she would come and get it. We pointed out the fact that Germany had always supplied munitions for other nations at war. But, of course, Germany was prevented from getting sup- plies from us by the English blockade, and when she saw great ship loads of shells going from America to England to be used against German armies, she was very bitter. She sent an army of spies to our country to blow up factories and to do anything they could to injure munition plants or ships that carried munitions. Many terrible and costly explo- sions occurred. This aroused America, but it did not stop the munition trade. At length Germany determined to use her sub- marines recklessly. She had been only moderately SUBMARINES successful in using them against the TURNED LOOSE Allied war fleet, so now she deter- mined to use them to sink all enemy merchant ships at sight, no matter what was on board. Interna- tional law required that before sinking an enemy merchant ship she must find out if she carried con- traband goods and, above all, she must save the crew and passengers. Now, it was impracticable for a submarine to hail a ship and board her. In the first place the merchant ships were often speedy and ran away. Or, if they did stop, what could the submarine do with all the passengers and the crew? So, on February 4, 1915, the Germans declared that they would consider the waters surrounding 104 STORY OF THE WOELD WAR Great Britain and Ireland, including the whole of the English Channel, to be comprised within the seat of war. They said they would sink, without regard to law, all enemy merchant ships seen in these waters without warning. They forewarned neutral powers not to continue to entrust their crews, passengers, or merchandise to Allied mer- chant vessels and urged them to steer clear of these waters. They said the German navy had been instructed to abstain from all violence against neu- tral vessels if they could be recognized as such, but they reminded them that it would not always be possible to prevent a neutral vessel from becoming the victim of an attack directed toward a vessel of the enemy. The Germans hoped by means of submarine war- fare to stop the flow of ammunition and food sup- THE LusiTANTA pHes to Great Britain and France. MASSACRE President Wilson promptly in- formed Germany that her U-boat campaign was unlawful and that she would be held to account for any harm done to American citizens. Ninety-one merchant ships, many of which were neutral, were sunk by the submarines or by mines, in three months after the ''war zone" decree. In two cases Ameri- can citizens, who were on board, lost their lives. The climax came, however, with the sinking of the Lusitania, an English liner, on May 7, 1915, without warning, with a loss of 1150 lives. Many of the passengers were women and children and over a hundred of them were American citizens. A wave of horror and indignation at this outrage swept over the United States and for a time imme- diate war threatened. But as we were utterly unprepared for war, and as our people ardently THE UNITED STATES ENTERS THE WAR 105 prayed to keep out of the conflict, we relied upon our President to bring Germany to her senses. Knowing our unreadiness for war, Germany was not very fearful of us. On the contrary there was wild rejoic- ing in the Fatherland over this horrible murder of our people because the Germans believed it would stop the munitions trade. President Wilson wrote a strong protest to Germany. While war feeling ran high our President kept cool. One government communication followed another for several months between Germany and the United States without satisfaction. Germany tried to justify her submarine policy by saying that British merchant ships were arming GERMANY TRIES themsclvcs and that they were TO EXPLAIN authorized to ram her submarines, and that the officers were even given rewards for doing it. Germany explained that if the commander of the submarine that sank the Lusitania had under- taken to save the crew and passengers it would have meant the certain destruction of the submarine, for the U-boat would have been rammed by the Lusi- tania or the speedy liner would have fled. She said her reason for sinking the Lusitania was because she was carrying munitions. President Wilson's protests did not bring about much change in the cruel methods of the submarine, but Germany seemed to have ceased to torpedo without warning and saving crews. However, Germany continued to sink scores of ships belonging to Norway, Sweden, Holland, Den- THE ARABIC mark and the United States. The SUNK crews were often set adrift in open boats far from land. At length in August the liner, Arabic, was torpedoed and sunk without warning. 106 STOEY OF THE WOKLD WAR Twenty passengers, including several Americans, were drowned. America was again ready to fight. Germany then promised that there would be no more cases of this kind, but she had never been willing to make the affair of the Lusitania right. By this time the English fleet of trawlers and swift motorboats, and nets had bagged most of the first fleet of German U-boats. The early submarines had very noisy engines and the British ships were fitted with hearing devices by which they could locate a moving submarine even when it was com- pletely submerged. When Germany saw her under- sea fleet captured and destroyed she made promises of better behavior. In the meantime she was build- ing another fleet of submarines. From the results of the year 1915 it appeared to be reasonably certain that the submarine cam- paign had failed. The British government, instead of relaxing her blockade, had drawn more tightly her restrictions. Although considerable injury had been inflicted upon the merchant ships of the Allies and of neutrals the flow of munitions to the Allies had not been seriously disturbed. For six months after the Arabic case, little hap- pened to ships to complain about. But while Ger- many was pretending to reason with the United States she was only seeking time to get another under-sea fleet ready. In March, 1916, the liner, Sussex, was torpedoed without warning with a loss of fifty passengers. GERMANY BREAKS The United States then informed PROMISES German}^ that our patience was at an end that we would break otf all relations with her and send her minister home unless she should immediately cease her method of submarine warfare THE UNITED STATES ENTERS THE WAR 107 against freight and passenger vessels. We de- manded that before firing she should warn a mer- chant ship to stop, and that she place passengers and crew in safety before sinking the vessel, accord- ing to international law. Germany again promised that merchant vessels should not be sunk without warning and without saving human lives. She was careful, however, to leave a loophole so that she might break her promise if she found it to her advantage. On January 31, 1917, having more submarines ready, Germany pointed out to us that England had MORE BROKEN failed to respect the freedom of the PROMISES seas and the rules of international law. Therefore, Germany again announced that she would sink all ships in certain limits around Eng- land and France and in the Mediterranean, which she would mark off as a war zone. She said she would sink them, whether enemy or neutral, warship or merchant ship. Germany informed the United States that we might send one ship a week to Eng- land provided we painted the vessel with stripes so it could be easily recognized. The ocean has always been a free public highway, free to all nations for trade. In these waters the Kaiser now told us he would sink all neutral ships. German promises were not only broken and our rights trampled on, as before, but she now attacked our merchant ships. America was wild with anger at the insult. President "Wilson at once broke off relations with Germany and sent her minister. Von Bernstorff, home. It was evident that war was coming in spite of all that we could do. We could not give up all our rights for the sake of peace, much as we longed to keep out of this wretched struggle. England was 108 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR stopping neutral ships, to be sure, but such injury might be paid for. Germany was sinking them, and above all, she was murdering our citizens. Then came the word that Germany had sent a note to Mexico asking that country to induce Japan GERMAN PLOTS to joiu her in a war on the United BEING WAR States, suggesting that they take from us Texas and California. This contemptible scheme to involve the nations on the western con- tinent was the climax. Our Monroe doctrine, which pledges the protection of all America by the United States, meant nothing to the Kaiser. When this plot with Mexico became known to the American people, they rose in their wrath and declared that the only reply we could make was to declare war at once. President Wilson called Congress together, and in a notable address, which will live in history, he stated our difficulties and related the insults heaped upon us by the Kaiser and his war nobles. On April 6, 1917, Congress declared that a state of war existed between the United States and Germany. The Kaiser thought we would not fight. He thought we could not get troops across the sea. He believed that all German-American citizens would be loyal to Germany in case of war, but in all these matters he was mistaken. The simple story of why we are at war has been given by Secretary Lane to the people of the United States, and from this address the paragraphs in the next chapter are taken. President Wilson's address, given in the appendix of this book, should be studied over and over again and parts of it memorized. CHAPTER XVII WHY WE ARE AT WAR WITH GERMANY ''Why are we fighting Germany? The brief answer is that ours is a war of self-defense. We did SECRETARY LANE'S not wish to fight Germany. She ADDRESS made the attack upon us ; not on our shores, but on our ships,, our lives, our rights and our future. For two years and more we held to a neutrality which made us apologists for things which outraged man's common sense of fair play and humanity. The invasion of Belgium, the killing of civilian Belgians, the attacks on defenseless towns, the laying of mines in neutral waters. **We said: 'This is war — uncivilized war. All rules have been thrown away, all nobility, Man has come down to the primitive brute. And while we cannot justify, we will not intervene. This is not our war.' "We talked as men would talk who cared only for peace and the advancement of their own material interests, until we discovered that we were thought to be mere money-makers, devoid of all character — until, indeed, we were told that we could not walk the highways of the world without permission of a Prussian soldier ; that our ships might not sail with- out wearing a striped uniform of humiliation upon a narrow path of national subservience. "We talked as men talk who hope for honest agreement, not for war, until we found that the treaty torn to pieces at Liege, was but the symbol 110 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR of a policy that made agreements worthless against a purpose that knew no word but success. *'We are fighting Germany because she sought to terrorize us and then to fool us. We could not believe that Germany would do what she said she would do upon the seas. We still hear the piteous cries of the children coming up out of the seas where the Lusitania went down. And Germany has never asked forgiveness of the world. We saw the Sussex sunk, crowded with the sons and daughters of neu- tral nations. We saw ship after ship sent to the bottom — ships of mercy bound out of America for the Belgian starving — ships carrying the Eed Cross, laden with the wounded of all nations — ships carry- ing food and clothing to friendly, harmless, terror- ized people — ships flying the Stars and Stripes — sent to the bottom hundreds of miles from shore, manned by American seamen, murdered against all law without warning. "We held our anger and outrage in check. But now we see that she was holding us off with fair promises until she could build her huge fleet of submarines. For when spring came, she blew her promises into the air, just as in the beginning she had torn up that ^ scrap of paper.' Then we clearly saw that there was but one law for Germany, her will to rule. *'We are fighting Germany because she violated our confidence. Paid German spies filled our cities. Officials of her government, received as the guests of the nation, lived with us to bribe and terrorize, defying our laws and the law of nations. We are fighting Germany because while we were yet her friend, the only power that held hands off, she sent the Zimmerman note, calling to her aid Mexico, WHY WE ARE AT WAR WITH GERMANY 111 our southern neighbor, and hoping to lure Japan, our western neighbor, into war against this nation of peace. ' ' The nation that would do these things proclaims that government has no conscience. This doctrine cannot live, or else democracy must die. There can be no living for us in a world where the state has no reverence for the things of the spirit, no respect for international law, no mercy for those that fall before its force. Let Germany be feudal if she will, but she must not spread her gospel that the state can do no wrong over the world. ''Let this old spirit of evil have its way and no man will live in America without paying toll to it. This spirit might demand Canada from a navyless England and then our dream of peace on the north would be at an end. We would live as France has lived for forty years, in haunting terror. ''America speaks for the world in fighting Ger- many. Mark on a map those countries which are Germany's allies and you will mark but four, run- ning from the Baltic through Austria and Bulgaria to Turkey. All the other nations, the whole globe round, are either in arms against her or unable to move. There is deep meaning in this. "We fight for an honest world in which nations keep their word; for a world in which nations do not live by swagger or by threat; for a world in which men think of the ways in which they can con- quer the common cruelties of nature instead of in- venting more horrible cruelties to inflict upon the spirit and body of man; for a world in which the ambition or the philosophy of a few (the war lords) shall not make miserable all mankind ; for a world in which the man is held more precious than the machine, the system, or the state." CHAPTER XVIII AMERICA'S AID TO HER ALLIES That our country is a unit in this war was shown by Congress when it passed the appropriation bill for the war unanimously in both houses. The bill called for seven billion dollars, which is the largest loan bill in the history of the world. Our nation started out to aid the Allies in different ways. First, to help put the submarines out of action and protect the shipping of the United States. The newer submarines have noiseless engines and are able to make long voyages. They can stay away from the home base for many days. They are very hard to capture. As they were sinking ships in large numbers England began to tremble for her food supplies, which must come largely from abroad. The United States sent a fleet of destroyers, under Admiral Sims, to European waters, where they soon began to show good results. To replace the hundreds of ships that have been sunk, our country has set apart millions of dollars to build merchant ships, both of wood and of steel, as rapidly as possible. General Goethals, the builder of the Panama Canal, has been given charge of the shipbuilding. Secondly, we are expected to feed the Allies to the end of the war. So many farmers in England FOOD AND and France had gone to the front to fight MONEY that the Allied nations were not raising AMERICA'S AID TO HER ALLIES 113 as much food as they did before the war. Food prices soared and we know that a hungry army cannot fight. Our people set out to raise bumper crops of all food products during the season of 1917. Thou- sands of new gardens were planted by city people to help in the food supply, and high school boys were sent to the farms in large numbers to enable the farmers to raise as great an acreage of wheat, corn and potatoes as possible. The Allies called upon us also for money. We are the richest nation in the world, and we promptly replied that we would loan them three billion dollars at a low rate of interest. In order to get ready money, the United States said they would ask their people to buy two billion dollars worth of bonds. This was called the Liberty Loan. With great patriotism our people not only subscribed for two billion dollars, but for three billions, a billion dollars more than they had been asked for. Now our Allies are enabled to buy food, steel, copper and a hundred other things which they need. The great generals and statesmen of the Allied countries which came to our shores for a friendly visit and to take counsel with the leaders of our government were all received with great honor and enthusiasm. Especially was this true of General Joffre, of France, the hero of the Marne. The United States has much sympathy for Eussia which is struggling to establish a republic. We sent some of our leading statesmen, among them Elihn Root, to give them advice as to how they should start a republic. And we sent engineers to help them to build railroads and aid them in carrying on the war, for a victory by the Kaiser would be a death blow to their new republic, and it might restore the Czar 114 STORY OF THE WOELD WAR to his throne. France and England, Italy and Eussia sent rep- resentatives to our country. Among other things u. s. SOLDIERS they desired that we should send IN rEANCE them at least a small army as quickly as possible to encourage their brave defenders in France. General Pershing was soon in Paris getting ready for our men. Food ships reached France safely and landed a big supply of food for our army. In spite of the U-boats a body of our troops were welcomed in France late in June. They celebrated the Fourth of July in Paris amid great enthusiasm. Congress, in order to get a large American army ready for 1918 ordered all our young men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one to register their names, and we found that they numbered nearly ten millions of fighting age. From these our first army was drafted. President Wilson also called out all the national guards for war service. During the war many neutral countries aided the Allies in trying to save the millions of starving people in the regions Germany had conquered. The United States sent Herbert C. Hoover to Belgium to see that the food supply sent by our country and the Allies reached the needy French and Belgians. When the United States took up arms Mr. Hoover was called home and made food administrator to look after the providing of food for us and our Allies. President Wilson issued an embargo to stop the shipping of food, munitions and steel to neutral nations to prevent these supplies from reaching Germany through such neutrals as Holland, Den- mark and Sweden. The world was short of food, especially wheat, and American housewives united behind Mr. Hoover to give their aid. CHAPTER XIX CAMPAIGN OF 1917 WEST FRONT Bad weather interrupted the British advance at the Somme early in the autumn of 1916, and had it BATTLE OF not been for this the Germans would AERAS likely have had to retreat before winter set in. But as it was, the German line held. The British officers were confident, however, of breaking the German line in the spring of 1917. Early in February, 1917, there began the great German retreat which in March broadened into the most considerable withdrawal of the Germans since the Battle of the Marne. They retreated for two reasons: First, in the Somme campaign the British had forced a wedge into the German lines in such fashion that the Ger- mans were threatened on the flank and the rear. In addition to this the British had driven squarely through the old system of the Kaiser's trench lines for many miles and the walls that the Germans had thrown up were not calculated to withstand another such attack as they had suffered at the Somme. So the Germans drew out of this half circle and fell back gradually to a line between Arras and A DESERT IN Soissons. There they build a new trench FRANCE line forty miles shorter than the other, known as the Hindenburg line. The retreat was a model of German efficiency. They left to the British only a few guns and about 1400 prisoners. They 116 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR laid waste the country over which they retreated, burning all buildings, cutting down orchards and ruining wells and made a desert some 20 miles in width. The French and British had to advance over this desert and cover it with new lines of communication. Much of their preparation for the spring offensive was made useless. Their great railroad depots and supply stations had been constructed directly behind the old front and now had to be moved forward to the new line, which was a laborious undertaking. The Germans believed that this maneuver would hinder a British attack for several months. North of Arras the Germans still held their old lines. Here the English trenches were still close ABRAS upon those of the enemy. The Ger- BATTLEFIELD niaus wcro protected near Arras by Vimy Ridge which is about 500 feet high. The Ger- man gun positions were behind this ridge. The French had worked for three months to take Vimy Ridge only to lose it again. If you should stand on the Ridge and look east you would see almost at your feet the city of Lens, with its vast suburbs built around the entrance to the coal mines, for Lens is the great coal center of France. If the British could gain possession of Vimy Ridge they would dominate Lens and clear out the Germans from the suburbs of Arras and deprive them of their good gun positions. This would force the Germans into a bad position in the broad plain of the valley. The Germans thought their lines upon Vimy could not be taken. Had they not made it a '' graveyard of the French" in 1915? Not less than 100,000 Frenchmen had been killed and wounded at this same mountain. CAMPAIGN OF 1917 llr The Battle of Arras opened with what was prob- ably the greatest battle in the air np to this time. The British had for some months been at a disad- vantage because the German airplanes were supe- rior. But now the British had brought out a new machine of their own in large numbers. With these numerous flyers the British prevented the Germans from coming up in the air and thus deprived the German gunners of all guidance in firing. The British attacked on a front of a dozen miles. The northern attack was made by the Canadians at OVER viMY Vimy Ridge. They pushed straight up RIDGE to the summit of the Ridge and in a few hours were over the top. They fought their way through all the old German defenses and crossed the old enemy line, but the Germans were building a new line back of these positions for just this emergency. In a few daj^s the Kaiser's army had lost 15,000 men and 100 guns, many of them of great size. This loss was doubled within a week. The Germans, finding themselves in a critical situ- ation, attempted to regain Vimy Ridge, but the Canadians held, and the British victory was thus far complete. The Germans now surrendered the last position on the hill and fell back near Lens. In one week the English had regained more territory than they had won in the six months of the Battle of the Somme. However, the Germans merely retreated to their new lines, though no new position could be as strong as that of the Vimy fort, which all had believed it was impossible to take. It was reported that the German courage in this struggle was below the standard of the past. Many German soldiers threw down their arms and surrendered. Early in the war 118 STOEY OF THE WOELD WAE German troops were far better equipped than their foes, but now this was reversed. The British were better equipped and in better fighting strength than the Germans. Germany and France had already sacrificed their finest troops but England had just reached its best. It had taken England more than two years to prepare for war, but she had achieved what the Germans believed she could never do. We must not fail to give Canada her full share of glory in this brilliant victory of Arras. In May, 1917, the British surprised the Germans by a drive on Messines Ridge opposite Ypres. The MESSINES British had burrowed under the German RIDGE works and buried six hundred tons of explosives. For six days the British bombarded the hill with fearful effect and had brought down nearly 50 enemy planes. Then, when all was ready for the infantry to advance, the mines were exploded which spread terror and panic among the German troops. One hill was blown off the map. The explosion was heard in London, over a hundred and forty miles away. The British took the German works and 6,000 prisoners. Again the British showed their superi- ority over the Germans in the air, in artillery and in all details of trench fighting. They used boiling oil to good effect and did much damage. A captured German soldier wrote home as follows: "Since April 29 I am in the trenches near Ypres, where an offensive is now taking place. The drumfire has shot everything to little bits ; there is almost nothing more of the trenches to see. "We have had terrible losses. Half of my com- pany are dead or wounded. It is a terrible life; it CAMPAIGN OF 1917 ^ 119 will soon be unbearable. He is best off wlio gets a bullet and need no longer knock about. * ' The Englisliman blows everything to bits he can see. He bombards everything. He has also blown our kitchen to pieces, so we don't get any warm food; only dry stuff." EASTERN FRONT After the British failure and surrender at Kut-el- Amara nothing was done in this region for many ON THE TURKISH months. At length the British re- rEONT, 1917 sumed their campaign in Mesopo- tamia, and in March, 1917, they captured Bagdad, which bids fair to wreck the Middle Europe plan of Germany. It is also the first step in freeing the Arabs from the yoke of the Turks. The Eussians, in the meantime, have pushed around the east end of the Black Sea to Trebizond. The plan is that the British shall drive north from Bagdad to Mosul and join the Russian army coming from the east, thus freeing Persia from the rule of the Turks. Another British army came up out of Egypt and reached the gates of Jerusalem. With Bagdad and Palestine in British hands the Turkish power in Syria is shaken. Mecca has passed into the hands of the Arabs and thus the Turk is deprived of his holy city. But as long as the Turks hold Constantinople and the Bulgar and Austrian armies guard the road from the Danube to that city, the larger part of the Ger- man plan of a Middle Europe empire is unbroken, in spite of the fall of Bagdad and Jerusalem. If Germany can hold the country to the Balkans in this war she will be ready in another war to complete her scheme and control the country to the Persian Gulf. 120 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR The Italians made progress toward Trieste in tlie spring of 1917, taking many positions of the enemy together with prisoners and guns, but the drive was at length halted. They held their gains, however, and were within a dozen miles of the harbor of Trieste, which they covet. The Russians, under Brussiloff, aroused by the patriot orator, Kerensky, surprised the world with FREE RUSSIA a stroug drive made in July, 1917, in STRIKES the direction of Lemberg. The Rus- sian soldiers fought better because they realized they were fighting for their own rights. They took several villages and towns and 36,000 prisoners, together with many guns. But what was far more important, they gave notice by this attack that the Russian troops were still in the fighting in spite of the efforts of Germany to coax them into a separate and disloyal peace. This victory had a wonderful effect on the new Russian republic. In June, 1917, the King of Greece was forced to abdicate on account of his sympathy with the Ger- man cause. His second son succeeded to the throne and Venizelos, the popular hero of the Greeks, was restored to a place at the head of the government. Greece then broke off relations with the Central Powers and began putting her army in fighting trim. This made the fourteenth nation to declare war on the Kaiser and the war lords of Germany. During the spring and summer of 1917 the Ger- man submarines were sinking ships several times as fast as the shipyards of the world could replace them. America and her Allies were wrestling with the problem of combating the submarine peril. Thousands of inventors and scientists, including Thomas A. Edison, wer^ working on inventions for CAMPAIGN OF 1917 121 this purpose. Germany was counting on her under- sea fleet to force peace on her own terms. The Allies were holding on, waiting for the United States to get her vast armies of men and her great supplies of munitions ready to give Germany the final blow. Both the west front in France and the Italian front were in a deadlock which could not be broken without terrible cost of life, and the nations all wanted to save these men to help rebuild and repair damages in their home countries when peace should come. How much Russia might do in the rest of the year was a question that could not be answered. The war had lasted for three years, the most momentous years of history, and all the nations THREE YEARS louged for peace. The German lead- er CONFLICT ej.g were ready for peace if they could keep the territory they had seized. The Allies, on the other hand, wanted peace, but they would not consent to lay down arms until the German people had trimmed the wings of the Kaiser and his war lords and adopted some measure of self rule. All the world fears the present power of the Kaiser and will not trust him so long as he has full power to do as he pleases, regardless of the wishes of his people. The Allies are now fighting to make the world safe for nations, great and small, against autocracy. They are not willing that the great struggle shall end until the world is free. PRESIDENT WILSON'S WAR MESSAGE I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because there are serious, very s-erious, choices of policy to be made, and made immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible that I should assume the responsibility of making. On the third of February last, I officially laid before you the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government that on and after the first day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of humanity and use its sub- marines to sink eveiy vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and Ireland or the western coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean. That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare earlier in the war; but since April of last year the Imperial Government had somewhat restrained the commanders of its under- sea craft in conformity with its promise then given to us that passenger boats should not be sunk, and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. The precautions taken were meager and haphazard enough, aa was proved in distressing instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed. The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought of help or mercy for those on board — the vessels of friendly neutrals, along with belligerents. Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe conduct through the proscribed areas by the German Government itself and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion or of principle. I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in fact be done by any government that had hitherto subscribed to the humane practices of civilized nations. International law had its origin in the attempt to set up some law which would be respected and observed upon the seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where lay the free highways of the world. By painful stage after stage has that law been built up, with meager enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished that could PEESIDENT WILSON'S WAE MESSAGE 123 be accomplished, but always with a clear view, at least, of what the heart and conscience of mankind demanded. This minimum of right the German Government has swept aside under the plea of retaliation and necessity, and because it had no weapons which it could use at sea except these which it is impossible to employ as it is employing them without throwing to the winds all scruples of humanity or of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the intercourse of the world. I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious' as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of non-combatants, men, women and chil- dren, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modem history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people canrot be. The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind. It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a modera- tion of counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our char- acter and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the Nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion. When I addressed the Congress on the twenty-sixth of Febru- ary last, I thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German sub- marines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against pri- vateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea. It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed, to endeavor to destroy them before they have shown their own intention. They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all. The German Government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defense of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their right to defend. The intimation is con- veyed that the armed guards which we have placed on our mer- chant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed neutrality is ineffec- 124 STOEY OF THE WORLD WAR tual enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of such prr 'v^'''ins it is worse than ineffectual; it is likely only to produce what It was meant to prevent; it is practically certain to draw u3 into the war without either the rights or the effectiveness of bel- ligerents. There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of mak- ing: we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our Nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life. With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical char- acter of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the Government and people of the United States ; that it formally accepts the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it; and that it take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defense, but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the Government of the German Empire to terms and end the war. What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable co-operation in counsel and action with the govern- ments now at war with Germany, and, as incident to that, the extension to thos-e governments of the most liberal financial credits in order that our resources may, so far as possible, be added to theirs. It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the incidental needs of the Nation in the most abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way possible. It will involve the immediate full equipment of the Navy in all respects, but particularly in supplying it with the best means of dealing with the enemy's submarines. It will involve the imme- diate addition to the armed forces of the United States already provided for by law in case of war at least five hundred thousand men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of miiversal liability to service, and also the authorization of subse- quent additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and can be handled in training. It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the Government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be sustained by the present generation, by well-conceived taxa- tion. I say sustained so far as may be equitable by taxation because it seems to me that it would be most unwise to base the credits which will now be necessary entirely on money borrowed. It is our duty, I most respectfully urge, to protect our people so far as we may, against the very serious hardships and evils which would be likely to arise out of the inflation which would be produced by vast loans. In carrying out the measures by which these things are 'to be accomplished we should keep constantly in mind the wisdom of PRESIDENT WILSON'S WAR MESSAGE 125 interfering as little as possible in our own preparation and in the equipment of our own military forces with the duty — for it will be a very practical duty — of supplying the nations already at war with Germany with the materials which they can obtain only from us or by our assistance. They are in the field and we should help them in every way to be effective there. I shall take the liberty of suggesting, through the several executive departments of the Government, for the consideration of your committees, measures for the accomplishment of the several objects I have mentioned. I hope that it will be your pleasure to deal with them as having been framed after very careful thought by the branc' of the Government upon which the responsibility of conducting the war and safeguarding the Nation will most directly fall. While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let U3 be very clear, and make very clear to all the world what our motives and our objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual and normal course by the unhappy events of the last two months, and I do not believe that the thought of the Nation has been altered or clouded by them. I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the twenty-second of January last; the same that I had in mind when I addressed the Congress on the third of February and en the twenty-sixth of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and auto- cratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-gov- erned peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth insure the observance of those principles. Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states. We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling toward them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their Government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the old, unliappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools. Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor states with spies or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make con- 126 STOEY OF THE WORLD WAR quest. Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it may be, from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or behind the care- fully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public opinion commands and insists upon full information concerning all the nation's affairs. A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own. Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always i& fact democratic at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate relationships of her people that spoke their natural imtinct, their habitual attitude toward life. The autocracy that crowTied the summit of her political structure, long as it has stood and terrible as was the reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, character or purpose; and now it has been shaken off and the great, generous Russian people have been added in all their native majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is a fit partner for a League of Honor. One of the things that has served to convince us that the Prus- sian autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very outset of the present war it has filled our unsuspecting com- munities and even our offices of Government with spies and set crim- inal intrigues everywhere afoot against our national unity of council, our. peace within and without, our industries and our commerce. Indeed, it is now evident that its spies were here even before the war began; and it unhappily is not a matter of conjecture, but a fact proved in our courts of justice, that the intrigues which have more than once come perilously near to disturbing the peace and dislocat- ing the industries of the country have been carried on at the instiga- tion, with the support, and even under the personal direction of official agents of the Imperial Government accredited to the Govern- ment of the United States. Even in checking these things and trying to extirpate them we have sought to put the most generous interpretation possible upon them because we knew that their source lay, not in any hostile feel- ing or purpose of the German people toward us (who were, no doubt as ignorant of them as we ourselves were), but only in the selfish PEESIDENT WILSON'S WAR MESSAGE 127 designs of a Government that did what it pleased and told its people nothing. But they have played their part in serving to con- vince us at last that that Government entertains no real friendship for US' and means to act against our peace and security at its con- venience. That it means to stir up enemies against us at our very doors, the intercepted note to the German Minister at Mexico City 13 eloquent evidence. We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know that in such a Government, following such methods, we can never have a friend; and that in the presence of its organized power, always lying in wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, there can be no assured security for the democratic governments of the world. We are now about to accept guage of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the Nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus- for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfisli ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material com- pensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them. Just because we fight without rancor, without selfish object, seek- ing nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belli- gerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for. I have said nothing of the governments allied with the Imperial Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or challenged us to defend our right and our honor. The Austro- Hungarian Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified indorse- ment and acceptance of the reckless and lawless- submarine warfare adopted now without disguise by the Imperial German Government, and it has therefore not been possible for this Government to receive Count Tamowski, the Ambassador recently accredited to this Govern- ment by the Imperial and Royal Government of Austria-Hungary; but that Government has not actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are no other means of defending our rights. It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, 128 STORY OF THE WORLD WAR not in enmity toward a people nor with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible Government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and is running amuck. We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as the early re-establishment of in- timate relations of mutual advantage between us — however hard it may be for them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken from our hearts. We have borne with their present Government through all these bitter months because of that friendship — exercising a patience and forbearance which would otherwise have been impos- sible. We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to prove that friendship in our daily attitude and actions toward the millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy who live amongst us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it toward all who are in fact loyal to their neighbors and to the Gov- ernment in the hour of test. They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or al- legiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and piu'pose. If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and malignant few. It is a distressing and oppressive duty. Gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts — for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, every- thing that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other. April 2, 1917. 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