HISTORY OF THE
WORLD WAR

WHEN, in August, 1914, war burst suddenly upon a peaceful world like distant thunder in a cloudless summer sky, Canada, like the rest of the British Empire, was profoundly startled. She had been a peace-loving, non-military nation, satisfied to develop her great natural resources, and live in harmony with her neighbors; taking little interest in European affairs, Canadians, in fact, were a typical colonial people, with little knowledge even of the strength of the ties that linked them to the British Empire.

Upon declaration of war by Great Britain Canada immediately sprang to arms. The[2] love of country and empire which had been no obvious thing burst forth in a patriotic fervor as deep as it was spontaneous and genuine. The call to action was answered with an enthusiasm the like of which had rarely, if ever, been seen in any British colony.

The Canadian Government called for 20,000 volunteers—enough for a single division—as Canada’s contribution to the British army. In less than a month 40,000 men had volunteered, and the Minister of Militia was compelled to stop the further enrolment of recruits. From the gold fields of the Yukon, from the slopes of the Rockies on the west to the surf-beaten shores of the Atlantic on the east; from workshop and mine; from farm, office and forest, Canada’s sons trooped to the colors.

It will be the everlasting glory of the men of the first Canadian contingent, that they needed no spur, either of victory or defeat: they volunteered because they were quick to perceive that the existence of their Empire was threatened by the action of the most formidable nation-in-arms that the world had ever seen. They had been stirred by the deepest emotion of a race—the love of country.

[3]A site for a concentration camp was chosen at Valcartier, nestling among the blue Laurentian hills, sixteen miles from Quebec, and convenient to that point of embarkation. Within four days 6,000 men had arrived at Valcartier; in another week there were 25,000 men. From centers all over Canada troop trains, each carrying hundreds of embryo soldiers, sped towards Valcartier and deposited their burdens on the miles of sidings that had sprung up as though by magic.

The rapid evolution of that wild and wooded river valley into a model military camp was a great tribute to the engineering skill and energy of civilians who had never done the like before. One day an army of woodmen were seen felling trees; the next day the stumps were torn out and the hollows filled; on the third day long rows of tents in regular camp formation covered the ground, and on the[4] fourth day they were occupied by civilian soldiers concentrated upon learning the rudiments of the art and science of war.

Streets were laid out; miles of water pipes, sunk in machine-made ditches, were connected to hundreds of taps and shower baths; electric light was installed; three miles of rifle butts completed, and in two weeks the camp was practically finished—the finest camp that the first Canadians were destined to see. The building of Valcartier camp was characteristic of the driving power, vision and genius of the Minister of Militia, General Sir Sam Hughes.

Of the 33,000 men assembled at Valcartier, the great majority were civilians without any previous training in warfare. About 7,000 Canadians had taken part in the South African war, fifteen years before, and some of these, together with a few ex-regulars who had seen active service, were formed into the Princess Patricia’s Light Infantry. Otherwise, with the exception of the 3,000 regulars that formed the standing army of Canada, the men and most of the officers were amateurs.

[5]It was therefore a feat that the Canadian people could well afford to be proud of, that in the great crisis they were able, through their aggressive Minister of Militia, not only to gather up these forces so quickly but that they willingly and without delay converted their industries to the manufacture of all necessary army equipment. Factories all over the country immediately began turning out vast quantities of khaki cloth, uniforms, boots, ammunition, harness, wagons, and the thousand and one articles necessary for an army.

Before the end of September, 1914, the Canadian Expeditionary Force had been roughly hewn into shape, battalions had been regrouped and remodeled, officers transferred and re-transferred, intensive training carried on, and all the necessary equipment assembled. On October 8, 1914, thirty-three Atlantic liners, carrying the contingent of 33,000 men, comprising infantry, artillery, cavalry, engineers, signalers, medical corps, army service supply and ammunition columns, together with horses, guns, ammunition, wagons, motor[6] lorries and other essentials, sailed from Gaspé basin on the Quebec seaboard to the battlefield of Europe.

It was probably the largest convoy that had ever been gathered together. This modern armada in three long lines, each line one and one-half miles apart, led by cruisers and with battleships on the front, rear and either flank, presented a thrilling spectacle. The voyage proved uneventful, and on October 14th, the convoy steamed into Plymouth, receiving an extraordinary ovation by the sober English people, who seemed temporarily to have gone wild with enthusiasm. Back of that demonstration was the conviction that blood had proved thicker than water and that the apparently flimsy ties that bound the colonies to the empire were bonds that were unbreakable. The German conviction that the British colonies would fall away and the British Empire disintegrate upon the outbreak of a great war had proved fallacious. It was, moreover, a great demonstration of how the much-vaunted German navy had already been swept[7] from the seas and rendered impotent by the might of Britain’s fleet.

A few days later the Canadians had settled down on Salisbury Plain in southern England for the further course of training necessary before proceeding to France. There, for nearly four months in the cold and the wet, in the fog and mud, in crowded, dripping tents and under constantly dripping skies, they carried on and early gave evidence of their powers of endurance and unquenchable spirit.

Lord Roberts made his last public appearance before this division and addressing the men said in part: “Three months ago we found ourselves involved in this war—a war not of our own seeking, but one which those who have studied Germany’s literature and Germany’s aspirations, knew was a war which we should inevitably have to deal with sooner or later. The prompt resolve of Canada to give us such valuable assistance has touched us deeply....

“We are fighting a nation which looks upon the British Empire as a barrier to her development,[8] and has in consequence, long contemplated our overthrow and humiliation. To attain that end she has manufactured a magnificent fighting machine, and is straining every nerve to gain victory.... It is only by the most determined efforts that we can defeat her.”

And this superb German military organization, created by years of tireless effort, was that which Canadian civilians had volunteered to fight. Was it any wonder that some of the most able leaders doubted whether men and officers, no matter how brave and intelligent, could ever equal the inspired barbarians who, even at that very moment, were battling with the finest British and French regulars and pressing them steadily towards Paris?

In a short chapter of this kind attempting to deal with Canada’s part in the Great War it is obviously impossible to go into detail or give more than the briefest of historical pictures. Consequently much that is fascinating can be given but a passing glance: for greater[9] detail larger works must be consulted. Nevertheless it is well to try and view in perspective events as they occurred, in order to obtain some idea of their relative importance.

In February, 1915, the first Canadian division crossed the Channel to France, and began to obtain front-line experiences in a section of the line just north of Neuve Chapelle.

While the first division had been going through its course of training in England a second division had been raised in Canada and arrived in England shortly after the first left it.

During that period the conflict in Europe had passed through certain preliminary phases—most of them fortunate for the Allies. The unexpected holding up of the German armies by the Belgians had prevented the enemy from gaining the channel ports of Calais and Boulogne in the first rush. Later on the battle of the Marne had resulted in the rolling back of the German waves until they had subsided on a line roughly drawn through[10] Dixmude, Ypres, Armentières, La Bassée, Lens, and southward to the French border and the trench phase of warfare had begun.

The British held the section of front between Ypres and La Bassée, about thirty miles in length, the Germans, unfortunately, occupying all the higher grounds.

Shortly after the arrival of the Canadian division the British, concentrating the largest number of guns that had hitherto been gathered together on the French front, made an attack on the Germans at Neuve Chapelle. This attack, only partially successful in gains of terrain, served to teach both belligerents several lessons. It showed the British the need for huge quantities of high explosives with which to blast away wire and trenches and, that in an attack, rifle fire, no matter how accurate, was no match for an unlimited number of machine guns.

It showed the enemy what could be done with concentrated artillery fire—a lesson that he availed himself of with deadly effect a few weeks later.

[11]Though Canadian artillery took part in that bombardment the infantry was not engaged in the battle of Neuve Chapelle; it received its baptism of fire, however, under excellent conditions, and after a month’s experience in trench warfare was taken out of the line for rest.

The division was at that time under the command of a British general and the staff included several highly trained British staff officers. Nevertheless the commands were practically all in the hands of Canadians—lawyers, business men, real-estate agents, newspapermen and other amateur soldiers, who, in civilian life as militiamen, had spent more or less time in the study of the theory of warfare. This should always be kept in mind in view of subsequent events, as well as the fact that these amateur soldiers were faced by armies whose officers and men—professionals in the art and science of warfare—regarded themselves as invincible.

In mid-April the Canadians took over a sector some five thousand yards long in the[12] Ypres salient. On the left they joined up with French colonial troops, and on their right with the British. Thus there were Canadian and French colonial troops side by side.

Toward the end of April the Germans reverted to supreme barbarism and used poison gas. Undismayed, though suffering terrible losses, the heroic Canadians fought the second battle of Ypres and held the line in the face of the most terrific assaults.

When the news of the second battle of Ypres reached Canada her people were profoundly stirred. The blight of war had at last fallen heavily, destroyed her first-born, but sorrow was mixed with pride and exaltation that Canadian men had proved a match for the most scientifically trained troops in Europe. As fighters Canadians had at once leaped into front rank. British, Scotch and Irish blood, with British traditions, had proved greater forces than the scientific training and philosophic principles of the Huns. It was a glorious illustration of the axiom “right is greater than might,” which the German had in his[13] pride reversed to read “might is right.” It was prophetic of what the final issue of a contest based on such divergent principles was to be. So in those days Canadian men and women held their heads higher and carried on their war work with increased determination, stimulated by the knowledge that they were contending with an enemy more remorseless and implacable than those terrible creatures which used to come to them in their childish dreams. It was felt that, a nation which could scientifically and in cold blood resort to poison gases—contrary to all accepted agreements of civilized countries—to gain its object must be fought with all the determination, resources and skill which it was possible to employ.

Canada’s heart had been steeled. She was now in the war with her last dollar and her last man if need be. She had begun to realize that failure in Europe would simply transfer the struggle with the German fighting hordes to our Atlantic provinces and the eastern American states.

The famous Princess Patricia’s Canadian[14] Light Infantry was originally composed of soldiers who had actually seen service and were therefore veterans. Incidentally they were older men and most of them were married but the call of the Empire was insistent.

In the winter of 1914-15 the British line in Flanders was very thin and the P. P. C. L. I.’s being a trained regiment was sent over to France several weeks before the first Canadian division. It soon earned the name of a regiment of extraordinarily hard-fighting qualities and was all but wiped out before spring arrived. The immortal story of this gallant unit must be read in detail if one wishes to obtain any clear conception of their deeds of valor—of what it is possible for man to go through and live. However, it was but one regiment whose exploits were later equalled by other Canadian regiments and it would therefore be invidious to select any one for special praise. After operating as a separate regiment for nearly two years and having been recruited from the regular Canadian depots in England, it became in composition like other Canadian regiments and was finally incorporated in the third Canadian division.

[15]In the spring of 1915, a Canadian cavalry brigade was formed in France made up of Strathcona’s Horse, King Edward’s Horse, the Royal Canadian Dragoons and Canadian Mounted Rifles.

After the second battle of Ypres, the Canadians after resting and re-organization, were moved to a section of the line near La Bassée. Here they fought the battle of Festubert—a series of infantry attacks and artillery bombardments, which gained little ground.

Shortly afterwards they fought the battle of Givenchy, equally futile, as far as material results were concerned. Both of these battles had the double object of feeling out the strength of the German line and of obtaining the Aubers Ridge, should the attacks prove successful. In both battles the Canadians showed great aptitude for attack, and tenacity in their hold of captured trenches. They also learned the difficult lesson that if an objective is passed by the infantry the latter enter the[16] zone of their own artillery fire and suffer accordingly.

In September, 1915, the Second Canadian Division arrived in Flanders and took its place at the side of the First Canadian Division, then occupying the Ploegsteert section in front of the Messines-Wytschaete Ridge. The rest of the winter was spent more or less quietly by both divisions in the usual trench warfare, and battling with mud, water and weather.

It was here that the Canadians evolved the “trench raid,” a method of cutting off a section of enemy trench, killing or taking prisoners all the enemy inhabitants, destroying it and returning with little or no loss to the attacking party. This method was quickly copied from one end of the Franco-British line to the other; it proved a most valuable method of gaining information, and served to keep the troops, during the long cold winter months, stimulated and keen when otherwise life would have proved most dull and uninteresting.

The Third Canadian Division was formed in January and February, 1916. One infantry[17] brigade was composed of regiments which had been acting as Canadian corps troops, including the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, and the Royal Canadian Regiment. The second infantry brigade was made up of six Canadian mounted rifle regiments, which had comprised part of the cavalry brigade. These two brigades, of the Third Division, under the command of General Mercer of Toronto, almost immediately began front-line work.

During this period, the Germans, making desperate efforts extending over weeks of time, did their utmost to break through the French line at Verdun and exhaust the French reserves. To offset these objects, a fourth British army was assembled, which took over still more of the French line, while a series of British attacks, intended to pin down the German reserves all along the line, was inaugurated. One of these developed into a fight for the craters—a terrible struggle at St. Eloi, where, blasted from their muddy ditches, with rifles and machine guns choked with mud and water;[18] with communications lost and lack of artillery support, the men of the Second Canadian Division fought gamely from April 6th to April 20th, but were forced to yield the craters and part of their front-line system to the enemy.

Notwithstanding this the men of the Second Canadian Division at St. Eloi fought quite as nobly as had their brothers of the First Division just a year before, at the glorious battle of Ypres, a few miles farther north. But it was a bitter experience. The lesson of failure is as necessary in the education of a nation as that of success.

On June 2d and 3d, the Third Canadian Division, which then occupied part of the line in the Ypres salient, including Hooge and Sanctuary Wood, was smothered by an artillery bombardment unprecedented in length and intensity. Trenches melted into irregular heaps of splintered wood, broken sand bags and mangled bodies. Fighting gallantly the men of this division fell in large numbers, where they stood. The best infantry in the[19] world is powerless against avalanches of shells projected from greatly superior numbers of guns. The Canadian trenches were obliterated, not captured.

By this time Britain had thoroughly learned her lesson, and now countless shells and guns were pouring into France from Great Britain where thousands of factories, new and old, toiled night and day, under the inspiring energy of Mr. Lloyd George.

On June 13th, in a terrific counter-attack, the Canadians in turn blasted the Huns from the trenches taken from them a few days before. The First Canadian Division recaptured and consolidated all the ground and trench systems that had been lost. Thus ended the second year of Canadian military operations in the Ypres salient. Each of the three Canadian divisions had been tried by fire in that terrible region, from which, it was said, no man ever returned the same as he entered it. Beneath its torn and rifted surface, thousands of Canadians lie, mute testimony to the[20] fact that love of liberty is still one of the most powerful, yet most intangible, things that man is swayed by.

A very distinguished French general, speaking of the part that Canada was playing in the war, said, “Nothing in the history of the world has ever been known quite like it. My countrymen are fighting within fifty miles of Paris, to push back and chastise a vile and leprous race, which has violated the chastity of beautiful France, but the Australians at the Dardanelles and the Canadians at Ypres, fought with supreme and absolute devotion for what to many must have seemed simple abstractions, and that nation which will support for an abstraction the horror of this war of all wars will ever hold the highest place in the records of human valor.”

The Fourth Canadian Division reached the Ypres region in August, 1916, just as the other three Canadian divisions were leaving for the Somme battlefield farther south. For a while it occupied part of the line near Kemmel, but soon followed the other divisions to[21] the Somme, there to complete the Canadian corps.

It may be stated here that though a fifth Canadian division was formed and thoroughly trained in England, it never reached France. Canada until the passing of the Military Service Act on July 6, 1917, depended solely on voluntary enlistment. Up to that time Canada, with a population of less than 9,000,000 had recruited 525,000 men by voluntary methods. Of this number 356,986 had actually gone overseas. Voluntary methods at last, however, failed to supply drafts in sufficient numbers to keep up the strength of the depleted reserves in England, and in consequence conscription was decided upon. By this means, 56,000 men were drafted in Canada before the war ended. In the meantime, through heavy fighting the demand for drafts became so insistent that the Fifth Canadian Division in England had to be broken up to reinforce the exhausted fighting divisions in France.

It would be an incomplete summary of Canada’s[22] part in the war that did not mention some of the men who have been responsible for the success of Canadian arms. It is obviously impossible to mention all of those responsible; it is even harder to select a few. But looking backward one sees two figures that stand forth from all the rest—General Sir Sam Hughes in Canada, and General Sir Arthur Currie, commander of the Canadian corps.

To General Sir Sam Hughes must be given the credit of having foreseen war with Germany and making such preparations as were possible in a democracy like Canada. He it was of all others who galvanized Canada into action; he it was whose enthusiasm and driving power were so contagious that they affected not only his subordinates but the country at large.

Sir Sam Hughes will be remembered for the building of Valcartier camp and the dispatch of the first Canadian contingent. But he did things of just as great importance. It was he who sought and obtained for Canada [23]huge orders for munitions from Great Britain and thereby made it possible for Canada to weather the financial depression, pay her own war expenditures and emerge from the war in better financial shape than she was when the war broke out. It was easy to build up a business once established but the chief credit must go to the man who established it.

Sir Sam Hughes was also responsible for the selection of the officers who went overseas with the first Canadian contingent. Among those officers who subsequently became divisional commanders were General Sir Arthur Currie, General Sir Richard Turner, General Sir David Watson, Generals Lipsett, Mercer and Hughes.

Of those generals, Sir Arthur Currie through sheer ability ultimately became commander of the Canadian corps. This big, quiet man, whose consideration, prudence and brilliancy had won the absolute confidence of Canadian officers and men alike, welded the Canadian corps into a fighting force of incomparable effectiveness—a force which was set[24] the most difficult tasks and, as events proved, not in vain.

When Canada entered the war she had a permanent force of 8,000 men. When hostilities ceased on November 11, 1918, Canada had sent overseas 418,980 soldiers. In addition to this about 15,000 men had joined the British Royal Air Service, several hundred physicians and veterinarians, as well as 200 nurses, had been supplied to the British army, while many hundreds of university men had received commissions in the imperial army and navy.

In September, October and November, 1916, the Canadian corps of four divisions, which had been welded by General Byng and General Currie into an exceedingly efficient fighting machine, took its part in the battle of the Somme—a battle in which the British army assumed the heaviest share of the fighting and casualties, and shifted the greatest burden of the struggle from the shoulders of the French to their own. The British army had grown vastly in power and efficiency and[25] in growing had taken over more and more of the line from the French.

The battle of the Somme was long and involved. The Franco-British forces were everywhere victorious and by hard and continuous fighting forced the Hun back to the famous Hindenburg line. It was in this battle that the tanks, evolved by the British, were used for the first time, and played a most important part in breaking down wire entanglements and rounding up the machine-gun nests. The part played in this battle by the Canadian corps was conspicuous, and it especially distinguished itself by the capture of Courcelette. Although the battles which the Canadian corps took part in subsequently were almost invariably both successful and important, they can be merely mentioned here. The Canadian corps, now known everywhere to consist of shock troops second to none on the western front, was frequently used as the spearhead with which to pierce particularly tough parts of the enemy defenses.

On April 9th to 13th, 1917, the Canadian[26] corps, with some British support, captured Vimy Ridge, a point which had hitherto proved invulnerable. When a year later, the Germans, north and south, swept the British line to one side in gigantic thrusts they were unable to disturb this key point, Vimy Ridge, which served as an anchor to the sagging line. The Canadian corps was engaged at Arleux and Fresnoy in April and May and was effective in the operations around Lens in June. Again on August 15th, it was engaged at Hill 70 and fought with conspicuous success in that toughest, most difficult, and most heart-breaking of all battles—Passchendaele.

In 1918, the Canadian Cavalry Brigade won distinction in the German offensive of March and April. On August 12, 1918, the Canadian corps was engaged in the brilliantly successful battle of Amiens, which completely upset the German offensive plan. On August 26th to 28th the Canadians captured Monchy-le-Preux, and, in one of the hammer blows which Foch rained on the German front, were given the most difficult piece of the whole line to pierce—the Queant-Drocourt line. This section of the famous Hindenburg line was considered by the enemy to be absolutely impregnable, but was captured by the Canadians on September 3d and 4th. With this line outflanked a vast German retreat began, which ended on November 11th with the signing of the armistice.

[27]To the Canadians fell the honors of breaking through the first Hindenburg line by the capture of Cambrai, on October 1st to 9th. They also took Douai on October 19th, and Dena on October 20th. On October 26th to November 2d they had the signal honor of capturing Valenciennes thereby being the first troops to break through the fourth and last Hindenburg line.

It surely was a curious coincidence that Mons, from which the original British army—the best trained, it is said, that has taken the field since the time of Caesar—began its retreat in 1914, should have been the town which Canadian civilians were destined to recapture. The war began for the professional British[28] army—the Contemptibles—when it began its retreat from Mons in 1914; the war ended for the British army at the very same town four years and three months later, when on the day the armistice was signed the men from Canada re-entered it. Was it coincidence, or was it fate?

During the war Canadian troops had sustained 211,000 casualties, 152,000 had been wounded and more than 50,000 had made the supreme sacrifice. Put into different language this means that the number of Canadians killed was just a little greater than the total number of infantrymen in their corps of four divisions.

The extent of the work involved in the care of the wounded and sick of the Canadians overseas may be gathered from the fact that Canada equipped and sent across the Atlantic, 7 general hospitals, 10 stationary hospitals, 16 field ambulances, 3 sanitary sections, 4 casualty clearing stations and advanced and base depots of medical stores: The personnel of these medical units consisted of 1,612 officers, 1,994 nursing sisters and 12,382 of other ranks, or a total of about 16,000. This will give some conception of the importance of the task involved in the caring for the sick and wounded of about 90,000 fighting troops, some 60,000 auxiliary troops behind the lines and the reserve depots in England.

[29]

[30]The work of the Canadian Red Cross Society included the building and equipping of auxiliary hospitals to those of the Canadian Army Medical Corps; providing of extra and emergency stores of all kinds, recreation huts, ambulances and lorries, drugs, serums and surgical equipment calculated to make hospitals more efficient; the looking after the comfort of patients in hospitals providing recreation and entertainment to the wounded, and dispatching regularly to every Canadian prisoner parcels of food, as well as clothes, books and other necessaries: The Canadian Red Cross expended on goods for prisoners in 1917 nearly $600,000.

In all the Canadian Red Cross distributed since the beginning of the war to November 23, 1918, $7,631,100.

[31]The approximate total of voluntary contributions from Canada for war purposes was over $90,000,000.

The following figures, quoted from tables issued by the Department of Public Information at Ottawa, show the exports in certain Canadian commodities, having a direct bearing on the war for the last three fiscal years before the war (1912-13-14), and for the last fiscal year (1918); and illustrates the increase, during this period, in the value of these articles exported:

VALUES

As practically all of the increase of food and other materials went to Great Britain, France and Italy, the extent of Canada’s effort in upholding the allied cause is clearly evident and was by no means a small one.

The trade of Canada for 1914 was one billion dollars; for the fiscal year of 1917-18 it was two and one-half billion dollars.

[32]Approximately 60,000,000 shells were made in Canada during the war. Shortly after the outbreak of hostilities a shell committee was formed in Canada to really act as an agent for the British war office in placing contracts. The first shells were shipped in December, 1914, and by the end of May, 1915, approximately 400 establishments were manufacturing shells in Canada. By November, 1915, orders had been placed by the Imperial Government to the value of $300,000,000, and an Imperial Munitions Board, replacing the shell committee, was formed, directly responsible to the Imperial Ministry of Munitions.

During the war period Canada purchased from her bank savings $1,669,381,000 of Canadian war loans.

Estimates of expenditures for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1919, demonstrated the thoroughness with which Canada went to war. They follow:

FIRST to feel the effects of German terrorism through poison gas were the gallant Canadian troops on the afternoon of April 22, 1915, at Ypres, Belgium. Gas had been used by the Germans previously to this, but they were mere experimental clouds directed against Belgian troops.

Before the battle, the English and Canadians held a line from Broodseinde to half a mile north of St. Julien on the crest of the Grafenstafel Ridge. The French prolonged the line to Steenstraate on the Yperlee Canal. The Germans originally planned the attack for Tuesday, April 20th, but with satanic ingenuity the offensive was postponed until between 4 and 5 o’clock on the afternoon of Thursday, the 22d. During the morning the wind blew steadily from the north and the scientists attached to the German Field Headquarters predicted that the strong wind would continue at least twelve hours longer.

[35]The Canadian division held a line extending about five miles from the Ypres-Roulers Railway to the Ypres-Poelcapelle road. The division consisted of three infantry brigades, in addition to the artillery brigades. Upon this unsuspecting body of men the poison fumes were projected by means of pipes and force pumps. The immediate consequences were that the asphyxiating gas of great intensity rendered immediately helpless thousands of men. The same gas attack that was projected upon the Canadians also fell with murderous effect upon the French. The consequences were that the French division on the left of the Canadians gave way and the Third brigade of the Canadian division, so far as the left was concerned, was “up in the air,” to use the phrase of its commanding officer.

It became necessary for Brigadier-General Turner, commanding the Third brigade, to throw back his left flank southward to protect[36] his rear. This caused great confusion, and the enemy, advancing rapidly, took a number of guns and many prisoners, penetrating to the village of St. Julien, two miles in the rear of the original French trenches. The Canadians fought heroically, although greatly outnumbered and pounded by artillery that inflicted tremendous losses. The Germans, as they came through the gas clouds, were protected by masks moistened with a solution containing bi-carbonate of soda.

The tactics of General Turner offset the numerical superiority of the enemy, and prevented a disastrous rout. General Currie, commanding the Second brigade of Canadians, repeated this successful maneuver when he flung his left flank southward and, presenting two fronts to the enemy, held his line of trenches from Thursday at 5 o’clock until Sunday afternoon. The reason the trenches were held no longer than Sunday afternoon was that they had been obliterated by heavy artillery fire. The Germans finally succeeded in capturing a line, the forward point of which[37] was the village of St. Julien. Reinforcements under General Alderson had come up by this time and the enemy’s advance was suddenly checked. Enemy attacks upon the line running from Ypres to Passchendaele completely broke down under the withering fire of the reinforced and re-formed artillery and infantry brigades. The record officer of the Canadians makes this comment of the detailed fighting:

The story of the second battle of Ypres is the story of how the Canadian division, enormously outnumbered—for they had in front of them at least four divisions, supported by immensely heavy artillery, with a gap still existing, though reduced, in their lines, and with dispositions made hurriedly under the stimulus of critical danger, fought through the day and through the night, and then through another day and night; fought under their officers until, as happened to so many, those perished gloriously, and then fought from the impulsion of sheer valor because they came from fighting stock.

[38]The enemy, of course, was aware—whether fully or not may perhaps be doubted—of the advantage his breach in the line had given him, and immediately began to push a formidable series of attacks upon the whole of the newly-formed Canadian salient. The attack was everywhere fierce, but developed with particular intensity at this moment upon the apex of the newly-formed line, running in the direction of St. Julien.

It has already been stated that some British guns were taken in a wood comparatively early in the evening of the 22d. In the course of that night, and under the heaviest machine-gun fire, this wood was assaulted by the Canadian Scottish, Sixteenth battalion of the Third brigade, and the Tenth battalion of the Second brigade which was intercepted for this purpose on its way to a reserve trench. The battalions were respectively commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Leckie and Lieutenant-Colonel Boyle, and after a most fierce struggle in the light of a misty moon they took the position at the point of the bayonet. At midnight the Second[39] battalion, under Colonel Watson, and the Toronto regiment, Queen’s Own, Third battalion under Lieutenant-Colonel Rennie, both of the First brigade, brought up much-needed reinforcement, and though not actually engaged in the assault, were in reserve.

All through the following days and nights these battalions shared the fortunes and misfortunes of the Third brigade. An officer who took part in the attack describes how the men about him fell under the fire of the machine guns, which, in his phrase, played upon them, “like a watering pot.” He added quite simply “I wrote my own life off.” But the line never wavered. When one man fell another took his place, and with a final shout the survivors of the two battalions flung themselves into the wood.

The German garrison was completely demoralized, and the impetuous advance of the Canadians did not cease until they reached the far side of the wood and intrenched themselves there in the position so dearly gained. They had, however, the disappointment of finding[40] that the guns had been blown up by the enemy, and later on in the same night a most formidable concentration of artillery fire, sweeping the wood as a tropical storm sweeps the leaves from a forest, made it impossible for them to hold the position for which they had sacrificed so much.

The fighting continued without intermission all through the night, and, to those who observed the indications that the attack was being pushed with ever-growing strength, it hardly seemed possible that the Canadians, fighting in positions so difficult to defend and so little the subject of deliberate choice, could maintain their resistance for any long period. At 6 A. M. on Friday it became apparent that the left was becoming more and more involved, and a powerful German attempt to outflank it developed rapidly. The consequences, if it had been broken or outflanked, need not be insisted upon. They were not merely local.

[41]

It was there decided, formidable as the attempt undoubtedly was, to try and give relief by a counter-attack upon the first line of German trenches, now far, far advanced from those originally occupied by the French. This was carried out by the Ontario First and Fourth battalions of the First brigade, under Brigadier-General[42] Mercer, acting in combination with a British brigade.

It is safe to say that the youngest private in the rank, as he set his teeth for the advance, knew the task in front of him, and the youngest subaltern knew all that rested upon its success. It did not seem that any human being could live in the shower of shot and shell which began to play upon the advancing troops. They suffered terrible casualties. For a short time every other man seemed to fall, but the attack was pressed ever closer and closer.

The Fourth Canadian battalion at one moment came under a particularly withering fire. For a moment—not more—it wavered. Its most gallant commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Burchill, carrying, after an old fashion, a light cane, coolly and cheerfully rallied his men and, at the very moment when his example had infected them, fell dead at the head of his battalion. With a hoarse cry of anger they sprang forward (for, indeed they loved him), as if to avenge his death. The astonishing attack which followed—pushed home in the face of direct frontal fire made in broad daylight by battalions whose names should live forever in the memories of soldiers—was carried to the front line of the German trenches. After a hand-to-hand struggle the last German who resisted was bayoneted, and the trench was won.

[43]The measure of this success may be taken when it is pointed out that this trench represented in the German advance the apex in the breach which the enemy had made in the original line of the Allies, and that it was two and a half miles south of that line. This charge, made by men who looked death indifferently in the face (for no man who took part in it could think that he was likely to live) saved, and that was much, the Canadian left. But it did more. Up to the point where the assailants conquered, or died, it secured and maintained during the most critical moment of all the integrity of the allied line. For the trench was not only taken, it was held thereafter against[44] all comers, and in the teeth of every conceivable projectile, until the night of Sunday, the 25th, when all that remained of the war-broken but victorious battalion was relieved by fresh troops.

MANY examples might be cited to show that the Central empires were dead to the humanities. There were apparently no limits to the brutality of the German war-makers. Among the outstanding deeds of the Teutons that sickened the world was the killing of Miss Edith Cavell, an English nurse working in Belgian hospitals.

A shudder of horror circled the world when announcement was formally made that this splendid woman was sentenced to death and murdered by a German firing squad at two o’clock on the morning of October 12, 1915.

The killing of this gentle-natured, brave woman typified to the world Germany’s essentially brutal militarism. It placed the German military command in a niche of dishonor unique in all history.

[46]The specific charge against Miss Cavell was that she had helped English and French soldiers and Belgian young male civilians to cross the border into Holland. The direct evidence against her was in the form of letters intercepted by the Germans in which some of these soldiers and civilians writing from England thanked her for the aid she had given to them.

Upon the farcical trial that resulted in the predetermined sentence of death, Miss Cavell courageously and freely admitted her assistance in the specified cases of escape. When she was asked why she did it, she declared her fear that if she had not done so the men would have been shot by the Germans. Her testimony was given in a clear conversational tone that betrayed no nervousness and her entire bearing was such as to win the sympathy of everyone except her stony-hearted judges.

The German officers in command at Brussels made it impossible for Miss Cavell to see counsel before the trial, and a number of able lawyers who were solicited to undertake her defense declined to do so because of their fear of the Germans.

[47]Sentence was imposed upon her at five o’clock on the afternoon of October 11th. In accordance with its terms, she was taken from her cell and placed against a blank wall at two o’clock the following morning—the darkness of the hour vying with the blackness of the deed. Mr. Gahan, the English clergyman connected with the prison, was permitted to see her a short time before her murder. He gave her Holy Communion at ten o’clock on the night of October 11th. To him she declared she was happy in her contemplation of death; that she had no regret for what she had done; and that she was glad to die for her country.

Brand Whitlock, American Minister to Belgium, and Hugh Gibson, Secretary of the Legation, did all that was humanly possible to avert the crime, but without avail. They were told that, “the Emperor himself could not intervene.”

Defending the murder, Dr. Alfred Zimmermann, German Under-Secretary for Foreign[48] Affairs, callously disposed of the matter thus:

“I see from the English and American press that the shooting of an Englishwoman and the condemnation of several other women in Brussels for treason has caused a sensation, and capital against us is being made out of the fact. It is undoubtedly a terrible thing that the woman has been executed; but consider what would happen to a state, particularly in war, if it left crimes aimed at the safety of its armies to go unpunished because committed by women. No criminal code in the world—least of all the laws of war—makes such a distinction; and the feminine sex has but one preference, according to legal usages, namely, that women in a delicate condition may not be executed. Otherwise man and woman are equal before the law, and only the degree of guilt makes a difference in the sentence for the crime and its consequences.”

In reply to Dr. Zimmermann, statesmen throughout the civilized world declared that it was not merely a political mistake, not merely a national blunder, to kill Miss Cavell, but[49] that it was a crime unjustified by the facts. These statements were entirely outside of the humanitarian aspect of the case; outside of the promptings of manhood to show clemency toward a woman whose actions had been inspired by the loftiest sympathies and emotions.

Monuments to Edith Cavell were reared in widely scattered communities. A mountain was named in her honor. Her murder multiplied enlistments and fed the fires of patriotism throughout the Allied countries. In the end, Germany lost heavily. The Teutons aimed to strike terror into the hearts of men and women. They only succeeded in arousing a righteous anger that ultimately destroyed the Imperial government.

Another instance equally flagrant of the utter callousness of the men who at that time ruled Germany, was the murder of Captain Fryatt, a gallant British seaman, who had dared to attack the pirates of the under-seas.

Captain Charles Fryatt was the master of the steamship Brussels, a merchant vessel owned by the Great Eastern Railway. It was[50] captured by the Germans on June 23, 1916. Captain Fryatt was taken to Zeebrugge. A court-martial went through the motions of a trial at Bruges on July 27th. The charge against Captain Fryatt was that of attempting to ram the German submarine U-33.

Mute testimony against Captain Fryatt was a gold watch found upon his person. This carried an inscription testifying that the watch had been presented by the mayor and people of Harwich in recognition of the Captain’s bravery in attempting to ram a submarine, and his successful escape when the U-boat called upon him to surrender.

The prisoners who were captured with Captain were sent to the prison camp at Ruhlaben, but Captain Fryatt was condemned to death as a “franc-tireur.” The news of the murder was sent to the world through a German communiqué dated July 28th. It stated:

This brutal action by Germany coming after the murder of Edith Cavell created intense indignation throughout the world. It ranked with the poison gas at Ypres, the Lusitania, the Belgian atrocities, the killing of Edith Cavell and the unrestricted submarine sinkings, as a factor in arousing the democratic peoples of the world to a fighting pitch.

The world will not soon forget these martyrs to a splendid cause; and it will be many a long year before the stain on the German peoples who tolerated these crimes can be wiped out.

Germany sowed its seeds of destruction in the wind that bore the fumes of poison gas,[52] and in the ruthless brutality that decreed the sinking of the Lusitania and the murders of Edith Cavell and Captain Fryatt.

It reaped the whirlwind in the world-wide wrath that brought America into the war, and that visited disgrace and defeat upon the German Empire.

THE idea of warfare in the air has been a dream of romancers from a period long before Jules Verne. Indeed, balloons were used for observation purposes in the eighteenth century by the French armies. The crude balloon of that period, in a more developed form, was used in the Franco-Prussian War, and during the siege of Paris by its assistance communication was kept up between Paris and the outside world. Realizing its possibilities inventors had been trying to develop a balloon which could be propelled against the wind and so guided that explosives could be dropped upon a hostile army. Partially successful dirigible balloons have been occasionally exhibited for a number of years.

The idea of such a balloon took a strong hold upon the imagination of the German army[54] staff long before the Great War, and Count Ferdinand Zeppelin gave the best years of his life to its development. From the beginning he met with great difficulties. His first ships proved mechanical failures, and after these difficulties were overcome he met with a series of accidents which almost put an end to his efforts. By popular subscription, and by government support, he was able to continue, and when the war began Germany had thirty-five dirigible balloons of the Zeppelin and other types, many of them as much as 490 feet long.

The Zeppelin balloon, called the Zeppelin from the name of its inventor, was practically a vast ship, capable of carrying a load of about fifteen thousand pounds. It would carry a crew of twenty men or more, fuel for the engines, provisions, a wireless installation, and armament with ammunition. For a journey of twenty hours such a vessel would need at least seven thousand pounds of fuel. It would probably be able to carry about two tons of explosives. These Zeppelins could travel great distances. Before the war one of them[55] flew from Lake Constance to Berlin, a continuous flight of about one thousand miles, in thirty-one hours.

These great aerial warships were given a thorough trial by the Germans. They disliked to admit that they had made a costly mistake in adding them to their armament. It soon turned out, however, that the Zeppelins were practically useless in battle. Whatever they could do, either for scouting purposes or in dropping explosives behind the enemy’s lines, could be better done by the airplane. The French and the English, who before the war had decided that the airplane was the more important weapon, were right. But the Germans did not give up their costly toy so easily, and they determined to use it in the bombardment of cities and districts situated far away from the German line, in dropping bombs, not upon fortifications, or armed camps where they might meet with resistance, but upon peaceful non-belligerents in the streets of great unfortified cities.

It was their policy of frightfulness once[56] again. And once again they had made a mistake. The varied expeditions of the Zeppelin airships sent from Germany to bombard Paris, or to cross the Channel and, after dropping bombs on seaside resorts to wander over the city of London in the hope of spreading destruction there, did little real damage and their net effects, from a military point of view, were practically nil.

The first Zeppelin raid upon England took place on January 19, 1915. The Zeppelins passed over the cities of Yarmouth, Cromer, Sherringham and King’s Lynn. On this expedition there were two Zeppelins. They reached the coast of Norfolk about 8:30 in the evening and then steered northwest across the country toward King’s Lynn, dropping bombs as they went. In these towns there were no military stations and the damage suffered was very slight. Nine persons were killed, all civilians. This raid was followed by many others, which at first usually wasted their ammunition, dropping their bombs on small country towns or in empty fields.

[57]On the 31st of May an expedition reached London and killed six persons in the east end. The result of this raid was to stir the English to intense indignation. Mobs gathered in the London streets, and persons suspected of being Germans, or with German sympathies, were attacked. Other raids followed, none of them doing serious military damage, but usually killing or wounding innocent non-combatants. The stupid policy of secrecy which they maintained during the first year of the war unfortunately permitted great exaggeration of the real damages which they had suffered.

During the first year, according to Mr. Balfour, in eighteen Zeppelin raids there were only seventy-one civilian adults and eighteen children killed, one hundred and eighty-nine civilian adults and thirty-one children wounded. No soldier or sailor was killed and only seven wounded.

In France similar attacks had been made on Paris and Calais. On the 20th of March two Zeppelins dropped bombs on Paris, but Paris, unlike London, was a fortified city, and the sky[58] soldiers were driven off by the anti-aircraft guns. The French also devised an efficient method of defense. On the appearance of an airship great searchlights flashed into the air and the enemy was made at once a target, not only for the guns of all the forts, but also for airplane attack. In order to attack successfully a Zeppelin it was necessary that an airplane should attain a position above the enemy. For an airplane to rise to such a height time was required, as the airplane rises slowly. The French, therefore, devised a scheme by which two or more airplanes were kept constantly circling at a very great height above the city. Relays were formed which relieved each other at regular intervals. When an airship approached it would therefore be compelled in the first place to pass through the fire of the guns on the great forts, and then would find in the air above airplanes in waiting. The Germans, therefore, practically gave up attacks upon Paris. They were dangerous.

London, practically unarmed, seemed to[59] them an easy mark. But the British Lion was now awake. The English had been taken by surprise. They attempted at first, in an unorganized way, to protect their city, and, though occasionally successful in destroying an airship through the gallantry of some individual hero, they soon found that their defense must be organized, and Admiral Sir Percy Scott was entrusted with the task. Regulations were introduced whose object was to darken London. Lights were extinguished on the streets and screened on the waterfront. Illumination for advertising purposes was forbidden; windows were covered, so that London became at night a mass of gloom. The Zeppelins, compelled to fly at a very great height, because of anti-aircraft guns, were blinded. As in Paris airplanes were constantly kept on the alert and searchlights and anti-airship guns placed at every convenient point.

The suggestion was made that the English should undertake reprisals, but the suggestion was strongly opposed on the ground that the[60] British should not be a “party to a line of conduct condemned by every right-thinking man of every civilized nation.”

The effect of the English improved defenses was soon obvious, when the German expeditions began to lose airship after airship. Under the new régime, when such an attack was signaled, the whole city immediately received warning and the sky was swept by dozens of searchlights. Safe retreats were ready for those who cared to use them, but ordinarily the whole population rushed out to watch the spectacle. Airplanes would dash at the incoming foe; the searchlights would be switched off and the guns be silent to avoid hindering the aviators. Then would come the attack and Zeppelin after Zeppelin would be seen falling, a great mass of flames, while their companions would hurry back across the Channel. Even there they would not be safe, for many an airship was brought down on English fields, or on the waters of the sea.

The Germans, however, did not confine their policy of frightfulness in the air to the[61] performances of their Zeppelins. Before the Zeppelins had crossed the Channel their airplanes had visited England. On Christmas Day, 1914, an airplane attacked Dover, doing, however, no damage. Other airplanes also visited the British Isles from time to time, dropping bombs, and as the Germans began to lose faith in the efficacy of their Zeppelin fleets they began more and more to substitute airplanes for their airships.

On some of these expeditions much more damage was done than had ever been done by the Zeppelins. The airplane expedition grew serious in the year 1917; between May 23d and June 16th of that year there were five such aerial attacks. The airplanes could not only move with greater speed but with better direction. An attack on May 25th resulted in the killing of seventy-six persons and the injuring of one hundred and seventy-four, the principal victims being women and children. This was at the town of Folkestone on the southeast coast. In this attack there were about sixteen airplanes, and the time of the attack was not[62] more than three minutes. Scarcely any part of Folkestone escaped injury. The attack was methodically organized. Four separate squadrons passed over the city, following each other at short intervals. It was impossible to tell when the attack would end, and people in shelters or cellars were kept waiting for hours without being able to feel certain that the danger had passed.

It is probable that one of the motives of these raids was to keep at home fleets of English airplanes which might be more useful on the front. Indeed, many Englishmen, alarmed by the damage, urged such a policy, but the good sense of the English leaders prevented such a mistake from being made. Pitiful as must have been the suffering in individual cases, the whole of the damage caused by the German frightfulness was but a trifle as compared with the usefulness of the English air-fleets when directly sent against the German armies. Nevertheless, every squadron of German airplanes sent to England was attacked[63] by British aviators, and in those attacks the Germans suffered many losses.

The worst raid of all those made was one on June 13th, which was directed upon the city of London. On that occasion ninety-seven persons were killed and four hundred and thirty-seven wounded. These airplane operations differed from the Zeppelin expeditions in being carried on in the daytime, and this raid took place while the schools were in session and large numbers of people were in the street. Only one of the attacking airplanes was brought down. The raiding machines were of a new type, about three times the size of the ordinary machine, and there were twenty-two such machines in the squadron. The battle in the air was a striking spectacle and in spite of the danger was watched by millions of the population. The raiders were easily seen and their flight seemed like a flight of swallows as they dived and swerved through the air.

The raids on England were not the only[64] raids conducted by the Germans during the war. Paris suffered, but as soon as the warning sounded, the sky over the city was alive with defense airplanes. An attack on the French capital took place on the 27th of July and began about midnight. The German airmen, however, never got further than a suburban section of the city, and their bombardment caused but little damage. In one of the suburbs, however, a German flyer dropped four bombs on a Red Cross Hospital, killing two doctors, a chemist and a male nurse, and injuring a number of patients. The raider was flying low and the distinguishing marks of the hospital were plainly apparent.

Almost every day during the bitter fighting of 1918, reports came in that Allied hospitals had been bombed by German raiders. Attacks on hospitals were, of course, strictly forbidden by the Hague Convention, and they caused bitter indignation. Such attacks were of a piece with those upon hospital ships which were made from time to time. From the very beginning of the war the Germans could not[65] understand the psychology of the people of the Allied countries. They were not fighting slaves, ready to cower under the lash, but with free people, ready to fight for liberty and roused to fury by lawlessness.

THE Russian Revolution was not a sudden movement of the people. Long before the war it had raised its head. The Duma itself came into existence as one of its fruits; but when the war began all parties joined in patriotic support of the Russian armies and laid aside for the time their cherished grievances. The war was immensely popular. Slavonic nationalism turned against Austria-Hungary and Germany who were bent upon crushing the Slavonic sister state, Serbia. The Liberal elements saw in Germany the stronghold of reaction and of militarism, and trusted that its downfall would be followed by that of Russian autocracy. But so glaring was the incapacity of the old régime, that a union was formed during the war by all the Liberal parties. This group united on the[67] single aim of pushing on the war, and silently preparing for the moment when the catastrophe to Czarism was to come.

This was long before the revolution. But a conviction of the necessity of immediate change gradually came to all. The Czar himself brought matters to an issue. His vacillation, his appointment of ministers who were not only reactionary, but were suspected of being German tools, were too much for even honest supporters of the Imperial régime. Some of these reactionaries, it is true, were easily driven from power. In 1915 Sukhomlinov and Maklakov were overthrown by the influence of the army and the Duma. But in 1916 the parasites came to life again. M. Boris Stuermer became Prime Minister, and appointed as Minister of the Interior the notorious Protopopov. On November 14, 1916, Miliukov, the leader of the Constitutional Democrats, or Cadet Party, attacked the Premier in one of the fiercest speeches ever made in the Russian Duma. Stuermer was compelled to resign, but his successor, M.[68] Trepov, though an honest man with high ambitions, was forced to retain Protopopov at the Interior. For a moment there was calm. But it was the calm before the storm.

The Russian Revolution, now recognized as the most bloody revolution in history, began with the assassination of a single man. This man was Gregory Novikh, known throughout the world under the name of Rasputin. A Siberian peasant by birth, immoral, filthy in person, untrained in mind, he had early received the nickname of Rasputin, which means “ne’er-do-well,” on account of his habits. A drunkard, and a libertine always, he posed as a sort of saint and miracle worker, let his hair grow long, and tramped about the world barefoot.

Rasputin had left his district of Tobolsk and at Moscow had started a new cult, where mystical séances were mingled with debauchery. Through Madame Verubova he had been introduced to the Empress herself. He became the friend of Count Witte, of Stuermer, and Protopopov was his tool.[69] Rumor credited him with exercising an extraordinary influence upon the Czarina, and through her upon the Czar. This influence was thought to be responsible for many of the Czar’s unpopular policies. In times of great public agitation the wildest rumors are easily taken for truth and the absurd legends which were easily associated with his name were greedily accepted by people of every rank. The influence of Rasputin over the Imperial family was denied again and again. It has been said from authoritative sources that the Czar did not know him by sight, and that the Czarina knew him only as a superstitious and neurotic woman might know some fortune teller or other charlatan. Nevertheless the credulous public believed him to be the evil spirit of the Imperial circle, and every false move, every unpopular act, was ascribed to his baneful influence. But such a career could not last long, and the end became a tragedy.

Several times Rasputin had been attacked, but had escaped. At last, on the 29th of December, 1916, Prince Yusapov, a young man[70] of wealth and position, invited him to dine with him at his own home. The Prince came for him in his own car. Entering the dining-room, they found there the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovitch. M. Purishkevitch, a member of the Duma, had acted as chauffeur, and he followed him in. The three told him that he was to die and he was handed a pistol that he might kill himself; instead of doing so, he shot at the Grand Duke, but missed, and then was shot in turn by his captors. The noise attracted the attention of the police who inquired what had happened. “I have just killed a dog,” was the reply.

His body was taken in an automobile to the Neva River, a hole cut in the ice, and weighted with stones, it was dropped into the waters. On the next day his executioners notified the police of what they had done, and the news was announced at the Imperial Theatre, whose audience went wild with enthusiasm, and sang the National Hymn. No legal action was ever taken against Rasputin’s executioners. His body was recovered and given honorable[71] burial. The Czarina, according to report, following the coffin to the grave. And so disappeared from the Imperial Court one evil force.

But his tool, Alexander Protopopov, still survived. Protopopov was an extraordinary man. In 1916 he had visited England and France and made a splendid impression. His speeches, full of fire and patriotism, were regarded as the best made by any deputation that had come from Russia. But on his return to Petrograd he fell completely into the hands of the Court party. He became associated with Rasputin, and his wild talk and restless conduct suggested to many that his mind had become affected.

After the death of Rasputin, the meeting of the Duma, which should have taken place on January 25, 1917, was postponed for a month. The censorship was drawn tighter, the members of the secret police were greatly increased, and a deliberate endeavor, under the direction of Protopopov was made to encourage an abortive revolution, so that its overthrow might[72] establish the reactionaries in power. But the attempt failed.

During January and February the people were calm. No one wanted revolution then. On February 9th, the labor members of the War Industry Committee were arrested. This was regarded as plainly provocative, and M. Miliukov wrote appeals to the people for patience. These were suppressed, but no disturbance ensued. A British Commission, then on a visit to Russia, reported that there was no danger of revolution. But the people were hungry. Speakers in the Duma discussed the food problem. It became harder and harder to procure bread, and little that was practical seemed to be done to improve the situation, though in some parts of the country there were large surplus stocks. On March 8th crowds gathered around the bakery shops, and looted several of them. The next day the crowds in the streets increased. Groups of Cossacks rode here and there, fraternizing with the people. They, too, were hungry. In the afternoon two workmen were arrested for disorder[73] by the police. A band of Cossacks freed them. Street speakers began to appear here and there, and crowds gathered to listen to their fiery denunciations of the government.

On March 11th, General Khabalov, military Governor of the city, issued a proclamation announcing that the police had orders to disperse all crowds, and that any workman who did not return to work on Monday morning would be sent to the trenches. The main streets of the city were cleared and guarded by the police and soldiery. The crowds were enormous, and disorderly, and more than two hundred of the rioters were killed. Yet it seemed as if the government had the situation in a firm grasp, though an ominous incident was that the Pavlovsk regiment on being ordered to fire upon the mob, mutinied and had to be ordered to their quarters.

Meantime Rodzianko, the President of the Duma, had telegraphed to the Czar:

The Prime Minister, Prince Golitzin, acting under power which he had received from the Czar, prorogued the Duma. But the Duma refused to be prorogued. Its President, Rodzianko, holding in his hand the order for dissolution, announced that the Duma was now the sole constitutional authority of Russia.

During the night following, the soldiers at the Capital, and the Socialists, decided upon their course. The soldiers determined that they would not fire upon their civilian brothers. The Socialists planned an alternative scheme of government.

On March the 12th, the city was taken possession of by a mob. The Preo Crajenski Guards refused to fire upon the crowd. The Volynsky regiment, sent to coerce them, joined in the mutiny. Followed by the mob, the two[75] regiments seized the Arsenal. A force of 25,000 soldiers was in the revolt. At 11 A. M., the Courts of Law were set on fire and the fortress of SS. Peter and Paul was seized. The police, fighting desperately, were hunted from their quarters, their papers destroyed and the prisoners, political and criminal, released from the jails.

During the day the Duma kept in constant session, awaiting the Emperor, who did not come. Telegram after telegram was sent him, each more urgent. There is reason to believe[76] that these telegrams never reached the Czar. When information finally did come to him it was too late. Meantime the Duma appointed an executive committee. Their names were Rodzianko, Nekrasov, Konovalov, Dmitrikov, Lvov, Rjenski, Karaulov, Miliukov, Schledlovski, Shulgin, Tcheidze and Kerensky. The workmen and soldiers also formed a committee, which undertook to influence the troops now pouring into Petrograd. But the center of the revolution was still the Duma, and crowds gathered to listen to its speeches. In the evening Protopopov surrendered to the Russian guards, but General Khabalov still occupied the Admiralty building with such forces as were faithful.

On March 13th it became evident that the army in the field was accepting the authority of the provisional government. The Duma committee was composed mainly of men of moderate political views. They moved slowly, fearing on the one hand the Reactionaries who still preserved their loyalty to the Czar, and on the other hand the Council of Labor, with[77] its extreme views, and its influence with the troops. The siege of the Admiralty building was ended by the surrender of General Khabalov. The police, however, were still keeping up a desultory resistance, but the mob were hunting them like wild beasts. On Wednesday, the 14th of March, the revolution was over.

The Executive Committee of the Duma and the Council of the Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates, now universally known as the Soviet, were working in harmony. Every hour proclamations were issued, some of them foolish, some of them, it is thought, inspired by German agents, and some of them wise and patriotic. One of the most unfortunate of these proclamations was one to the army directing that “the orders of the War Committee must be obeyed, saving only on those occasions when they shall contravene the orders and regulations of the labor deputies and military delegates.” This same proclamation abolished saluting for private soldiers off duty. It was the beginning of the destruction of the Russian[78] military power. The proclamation of the Duma committee itself was admirable:

Meantime the Emperor, “the Little Father,” at first thoroughly incredulous of the gravity of the situation, had at last become alarmed. He appointed General Ivanov Commander-in-Chief of the army, and ordered him to proceed to Petrograd at the head of a division of loyal troops. General Ivanov set out, but his train was held up at Tsarskoe-Selo, and he returned to Pskov. The Czar himself then started for the city, but he, too, was held up at the little station of Bologoi, where workmen had pulled up the track, and he returned to Pskov.

He sent for Ruzsky and declared that he was ready to yield to the Duma and grant a responsible ministry. Ruzsky advised him to get in[80] touch with Rodzianko, and as a result of a telephone communication with Rodzianko and with several of his trusted generals, it became clear that there was no other course than abdication. Guchkov and Shulgin, messengers from the Duma, arrived on the evening of March 15th, and found the Emperor alone, except for his aide-de-camp, Count Fredericks.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

“You must abdicate,” Guchkov told him, “in favor of your son, with the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovitch as Regent.”

The Emperor sat for a long time silent. “I cannot be separated from my boy,” he said. “I will hand the throne to my brother.” Taking a sheet of paper he wrote as follows:

So ended the reign of Nicholas the Second, Czar of all the Russias. The news of the Czar’s abdication spread over the world with great rapidity, and was received by the Allies with mixed feelings. The Czar had been scrupulously loyal to the alliance. He was a[82] man of high personal character, and his sympathies on the whole, liberal; but he was a weak man in a position in which even a strong man might have failed. He was easily influenced, especially by his wife. Warned again and again of the danger before him, he constantly promised improvement, only to fail in keeping his promises. He deeply loved his wife, and yielded continually to her unwise advice.

The Empress Alexandra Feodorovna is but another instance of a devoted queen who dethroned her consort. She believed in Divine Right and looked with suspicion upon popular leaders. Her one object in life was to hand on the Russian crown to her son, with no atom of its power diminished. She surrounded herself and her husband with scoundrels and charlatans.

On the whole, the feeling among the Allies was one of relief. There was a general distrust of the influences which had been surrounding the Czar. The patriotism of the Grand Duke Michael was well known, and a government conducted by him was sure to be [83]a great improvement. But it was not to be. Before the news of the abdication reached Petrograd a new ministry had been formed by the Duma. Miliukov announced their names and explained their credentials. The Prime Minister was Prince George Lvov. Miliukov was Minister of Foreign Affairs, Guchkov Minister of War and Marine, Kerensky, a new name in the government, Minister of Justice. The ministry included representatives of every party of the left and centre.

Miliukov declared that their credentials came from the Russian revolution: “We shall not fight for the sake of power. To be in power is not a reward or pleasure but a sacrifice. As soon as we are told that the sacrifice is no longer needed, we shall give up our places with gratitude for the opportunity which has been accorded us.”

He concluded by informing his hearers that the despot who had brought Russia to the brink of ruin would either abdicate of his free will, or be deposed. He added that the Grand Duke Michael would be appointed Regent.

[84]This announcement at once produced an explosion. A ministry of moderates and a continuance of the Imperial government under a regency stirred the delegates of the workmen and soldiers to revolt. For a time it seemed as if the new government would disappear in the horrors of mob rule. But Kerensky saved the situation. Making his way into the meeting of the Soviet he burst into an impassioned speech.

“Comrades!” he cried, “I have been appointed Minister of Justice. No one is a more ardent Republican than I, but we must bide our time. Nothing can come to its full growth at once. We shall have our Republic but we must first win the war. The need of the moment is organization and discipline and that need will not wait.”

His eloquence carried the day. The Soviet passed a resolution supporting the provisional government with only fifteen dissenting votes. But it had been made clear that the people did not approve of the regency, and on the night of the 15th of March, Prince Lvov, Kerensky and[85] other leaders of the Duma sought out the Grand Duke Michael and informed him of the situation. The Grand Duke yielded to the people, and on Friday, March the 16th, issued a declaration which ended the power of the Romanovs in Russia:

With this declaration the sacred monarchy had disappeared. In one week the people had come to their own and Russia was free. But what the form of new government was to replace the old régime was still the question. There were two rival theories as to the principles to be followed, one that of the Moderates, the other of the Extremists. The Moderates,[86] who controlled the provisional government, were practical men. They realized that Russia was at war and that efficient administration was the great need.

The Extremists of the Soviet were a different type of men. They were profoundly ignorant of all practical questions of government; their creed was socialism. The Socialistic party in Russia may be divided into three different groups. The first, the Social Revolutionary party, came into prominence in Russia about 1900. It was composed of followers of the Russian Lavrov who believed in the socialist state, but a state which should not be a tyrant overriding the individual. Liberty was his watchword and he made his appeal not only to the workmen in the shops but with a special force to the peasant. He did not preach class war in the ordinary sense, and believed in the value of national life. To this party belonged Kerensky, more and more becoming the leader of the revolutionary movement.

The second group of the Socialist party were the Bolsheviki. This group were followers of[87] the German Karl Marx. The revolution which they sought was essentially a class revolution. To the Bolsheviki the fate of their country mattered not at all. They were eager for peace on any terms. The only war in which they were interested was a class war; they recognized no political boundaries. The leader of this group was Vladimir Iljetch Uljanov, who, under his pen name of Lenine, was already widely known and who had now obtained the opportunity which he had long desired.

The third group were the Mensheviki. The Mensheviki believed in the importance of the working classes, but they did not ignore other classes. They were willing to use existing forms of government to carry out the reforms they desired. They saw that the Allied cause was their own cause, the cause of the workman as well as the intellectual.

The Soviet contained representatives of these three groups. It did not represent Russia, but it was in Petrograd and could exert its influence directly upon the government.

[88]The attitude of the provisional government toward the Imperial family was at first not unkindly. The Czar and the Czarina were escorted to the Alexandrovsky Palace in Tsarskoe-Selo. The Czar for a time lived quietly as plain Nicholas Romanov. The Czarina and her children were very ill with measles, the case of the little Prince being complicated by the breaking out of an old wound in his foot. The Grand Duchess Tatiana was in a serious condition and oxygen had been administered. As his family improved in health the Czar amused himself by strolls in the palace yard, and even by shoveling snow. Later on Nicholas was transferred to Tobolsk, Siberia, and then, in May, 1918, to Yekaterinberg. His wife and his daughter Marie accompanied him to the latter place, while Alexis and his other three daughters remained in Tobolsk. On July 20th a Russian government dispatch announced his assassination. It read as follows:

The wife and the son of Nicholas Romanov had been sent to a place of security. In a detailed account of the execution, published in Berlin, it appeared that the Czar had been awakened at five o’clock in the morning, and informed that he was to be executed in two hours. He spent some time with a priest in his bedroom and wrote several letters. According to this account, when the patrol came to take him out for execution he was found in a state of collapse. His last words, uttered just before the executioners fired, are reported to have been “Spare my wife and my innocent and unhappy children. May my blood preserve Russia from ruin.”

The Russian press, including the Socialist[90] papers, condemned the execution as a cruel and unnecessary act. The charges of conspiracy were utterly unproven, and were merely an excuse. The Central Executive Committee, however, accepted the decision of the Ural Regional Soviet as being regular, and a decree by the Bolshevist Government declared all the property of the former Emperor, his wife, his mother and all the members of the Imperial house, forfeit to the Soviet Republic.

Meantime the provisional government, which had taken power on the 16th of March, seemed as if it might succeed. Miliukov, whose announcement of the Regency had made him unpopular, declared for a Republic. The great army commanders for the most part accepted the revolution. The Grand Duke Nicholas was removed from his command and the other Grand Dukes were ordered not to leave Petrograd. Alexeiev became commander-in-chief; Ruzsky had the northern group of armies, Brusilov the southern; Kornilov was in command of Petrograd, and the central group was put under the command of Lechitsky.[91] Reports came that discipline was improving everywhere on the front.

The plans of the government, too, met with general approval. Their policy was announced by Prince Lvov. “The new government considers it its duty to make known to the world that the object of free Russia is not to dominate other nations and forcibly to take away their territory. The object of independent Russia is a permanent peace and the right of all nations to determine their own destiny.”

Kerensky, in inspiring speeches, encouraged the country to war, and declared against a separate peace. The new government announced that Poland was to receive complete independence, with a right to determine its own form of government, and its relation, if any, to Russia. In Finland the Governor, Sein, was removed. A Liberal was appointed Governor and the Finnish Diet was convened. A manifesto was issued on March 21st, completely restoring the Finnish constitution. To the Armenians Kerensky expressed himself as[92] in favor of an autonomous government for them, under Russia’s protection, and on March 25th, absolute equality of the Jews was proclaimed by the new government. A number of Jews were made officers in the army, and two Jewish advocates were appointed members of the Russian Senate and of the Supreme Court. On April 4th full religious liberty was proclaimed, and on the same date the Prime Minister promised a delegation of women that women would be given the right to vote.

These acts caused a general subsidence of unrest, and public good feeling was increased by the return of the political exiles and prisoners from Siberia. A full hundred thousand of such prisoners were released, and their progress across Siberia to Russia was one grand triumphal march.

The most celebrated of these political prisoners were two women, Catherine Breshkovskaya and Marie Spiridonova. Catherine Breshkovskaya was known as the grandmother of the revolution. Forty-four years of her life were spent in exile. When she reached[93] Petrograd she was met at the railroad depot by a military band, and carried in procession through the streets. Equally popular was Marie Spiridonova, who, though still young, had suffered martyrdom. She had been tortured with cruelty that is unprintable. Her face had been disfigured for life. The agents who had inflicted the torture were assassinated by the revolutionists.

It was a great day for Russia, and the outlook seemed full of promise.

THE hopes entertained for the new Republic of Russia were doomed to disappointment. For a short time, under the leadership of Lvov, the Russians marched along the path of true democracy. But the pace became too rapid.

The government prospered in Petrograd, and the economic organization of the country proceeded with great speed. An eight-hour day was introduced in the capital and in many other cities throughout the republic. The fever of organization spread even to the peasants. They formed a Council of Peasants’ Deputies, modeled after the Council of Workmen and Soldiers. On the 13th of April, 1917, came the first meeting of the All-Russia Congress of Soviets, and with it a revival of the differences of opinion which ultimately were to destroy the government. The great majority were for war, but the minority, led by Lenine and the Bolsheviki element, demanded an immediate peace. They declared that the enemies of the Revolution were not the Central Powers, but the capitalists in all countries, and not least the Provisional Government of Russia.

[95]Some clew to the meaning of the Bolsheviki movement in Russia is to be found in the life of Lenine, its leading spirit. It has been charged that he was the tool of the German Government. He undoubtedly received facilities from the German Government to return to Russia from Switzerland immediately after the Revolution in March. His whole career, however, suggests that he was not a tool, but a fanatic.

He was born in Simbirsk, in Central Russia, in the year 1870. Lenine was only one of the several aliases that he had found it necessary to adopt at various times. He was of good family, and received his education at the Petrograd[96] University. From the very beginning he took an active interest in the political and social problems of the day. In 1887 his brother, A. Uljanov, was arrested, and after a secret trial condemned to death and hanged as a participant in a plot to wreck the imperial train carrying Alexander III. Lenine was also arrested, but was released on account of a lack of evidence. At this time the Russian Socialistic movement was still in its infancy.

Lenine spent his Sundays in a circle of uneducated workmen, explaining to them the elements of socialistic economics. Along with this propaganda work he studied deeply the economic phases of Russian life, being especially interested in its working and peasant classes. He wrote several books on the subject, which are still accepted as valuable representatives of Russian economic literature. Because of his socialistic activities, Lenine was compelled to leave Russia on several occasions, when he lived in Switzerland, France and Austria. From these countries he directed the work of one of the groups of the Social Democratic[97] party, and became an important leader.

In the General Russian Socialistic Convention, held in 1903, this group made a definite stand for its program and policies. This was the time when the word “Bolsheviki” was coined, meaning the “majority,” who had voted in accord with Lenine’s proposals. Lenine believed in the seizure of political power by means of violent revolution and in establishing a proletarian government. After the Revolution of 1905, the Lenine faction dwindled and it seemed as if Bolshevism was destined to die out. But in 1911, with the awakening of a new spirit in the political and social life of Russia, a new impetus was given to the activities of the Bolsheviki. The first Socialist daily paper, Pravda, (“the Truth,”) was one of their efforts. In 1913 the Bolsheviki sent six representatives to the Duma.

At the outbreak of the war Lenine was in Cracow. Like other revolutionary leaders he was compelled to live in exile. He went to Switzerland where he remained until the news of the successful revolution caused his return[98] to Russia. On his arrival in Petrograd he gathered together his followers and began the agitation in favor of the Bolshevist program and of peace.

The first sign of the conflict between the Provisional Government and the Soviet arose in connection with the joint note sent to the Allies by the Provisional Government on May 1st. This note was signed by Foreign Secretary Miliukov. It declared, among other things, that the Provisional Government would “maintain a strict regard for its engagements with the Allies of Russia.”

The document aroused strong disapproval among many members of the Council of the Soviet, and serious anti-government demonstrations occurred in Petrograd on May 3rd and 4th. These demonstrations were directed distinctly against Miliukov. Detachments of soldiers and workmen gathered in front of the headquarters of the Provisional Government, carrying banners, with inscriptions “Down with Miliukov! Down with the Provisional Government!” Miliukov appealed to the[99] crowd for confidence, and his words were greeted with hearty cheering.

The Soviet Council ultimately voted confidence in the Government by a narrow margin of 35 in a total of 2500. But the agitation against the Government persisted, and on May 16th Miliukov resigned. General Kornilov, Commander of the Petrograd Garrison, and Guchkov, Minister of War, finding their control of the army weakened by the interference of the Soviet Council, also resigned.

The situation became critical. As a result of this agitation a new coalition government was formed. Prince Lvov remained Prime Minister. Terestchenko became Foreign Minister. Most significant of all, Kerensky became the Minister of War. The new Government issued a new declaration of policy, promising a firm support of the war with Germany, and an effort to call together at the earliest possible date a Constituent Assembly to deal with questions of land and of finance. This manifesto was received coldly by the Soviets and their press.

[100]It was at this time that Allies sent special missions to Russia to aid the Russian Government in forwarding the fight against the common enemy. The American mission to Russia was headed by Elihu Root, former Secretary of State.

It was most cordially received, and housed in the former Winter Palace of the Czar. On June 15th the American Ambassador, David R. Francis, presented the Root mission to the Council of Ministers in the Marinsky Palace, and Mr. Root made an eloquent address, declaring the sympathy of the American Republic with the new Russian Democracy. He declared that the liberty of both nations was in danger. “The armed forces of military autocracy are at the gates of Russia and the Allies. The triumph of German arms will mean the death of liberty in Russia. No enemy is at the gates of America, but America has come to realize that the triumph of German arms means the death of Liberty in the world.”

At Moscow Mr. Root addressed representatives of the Zemstvo and the local Council of[101] the Workmen and Soldiers. He was warmly applauded, and on motion of the Mayor a telegram was sent to President Wilson, thanking him for sending the Root Commission to Russia. The Root Mission returned to the United States early in August, and reported to Washington August 12th. At a public reception given by the citizens of New York, Senator Root expressed supreme confidence in the stability of the Revolution.

On July 1st, inspired by Kerensky, and under the personal leadership of General Kornilov, the Russian army began an offensive in Galicia. It first met with complete success, capturing Halicz, and sweeping forward close to Dolina in the Carpathian foothills. Then under a very slight hostile German pressure, the Russian armies, immediately to the north and south of Kornilov’s army, broke and ran. This action was directly traced to orders subversive of discipline, emanating from the Petrograd Soviet. Kornilov’s army was compelled to retire, and by July 21st was in full retreat from Galicia.

[102]The Russian mutiny spread. Regiments refused to fight or to obey their officers.

One of the most picturesque episodes of this phase of the war was the formation of a woman’s regiment, known as the “Command of Death,” which was reviewed at Petrograd June 21st, by Minister of War, Kerensky. In front of the barracks assigned to this regiment a visitor found posted at the gate a little blue-eyed sentry in a soldier’s khaki blouse, short breeches, green forage cap, ordinary woman’s black stockings and neat shoes. The sentry was Mareya Skridlov, daughter of Admiral Skridlov, former commander of the Baltic fleet and Minister of Marines. In the courtyard three hundred girls were drilling, mostly between 18 and 25 years old, of good physique and many of them pretty. They wore their hair short or had their heads entirely shaved. They were drilling under the instruction of a male sergeant of the Volynsky regiment, and marched to an exaggerated goose step.

The girl commander, Lieutenant Buitchkarev,[103] explained that most of the recruits were from the higher educational academies, with a few peasants, factory girls and servants. Some married women were accepted, but none who had children. The Battalion of Death distinguished itself on the field, setting an example of courage to the mutinous regiments during the retreat of Brusilov.

With the army thus demoralized the Russian Revolution encountered a perilous period toward the end of July, 1917, and civil war or anarchy seemed almost at hand, when out of the depths of the national spirit there arose a new revolution to save the situation and to maintain order. The country was everywhere the scene of riotous disturbances. Anarchists, radicals, and monarchists seemed to be working hand-in-hand to precipitate a reign of terror, when once more Kerensky saved the situation. On July 20th, it was announced that the Premier, Prince Lvov, had resigned, and that Alexander Kerensky had been appointed Premier, but would also retain his portfolio as Minister of War.

[104]A new government was quickly formed. Kerensky was made practical Dictator, and his government received the complete endorsement of a joint Congress of the Soviets and the Council of peasant delegates. Kerensky acted with the utmost vigor. Orders were given to fire on deserters and warrants issued for the arrest of revolutionary agitators whoever they might be. Rear-Admiral Verdervski, commander of the Baltic fleet, was seized for communicating a secret government telegram to sailors’ committees. Agitators from the Soviet were arrested, charged with inciting the Peterhof troops against the Federal government. On July 22d, the following resolution was passed by the joint Congress:

The re-organization of the Councils of the All-Russia, and Workmen’s and Peasants’ Organizations on the 23rd, issued a ringing address to the army denouncing its mutinous spirit and warning it of the inevitable result. The Provisional Government also issued a proclamation on July 22nd, charging that the disorders were precipitated to bring about a counter-revolution by the enemies of the country. But the army was demoralized. It disregarded discipline and refused to recognize military rule. A general retreat followed. The Germans and Austrians steadily advanced through Galicia and crossed the frontier before the Russian armies could be forced to make a stand.

The death penalty for treason or mutiny was restored in the army on July 25th, when Kerensky threatened to resign unless this was done. On that same date the government authorized the Minister of the Interior to suspend the publication of periodicals that incite[106] to insubordination or disobedience to orders given by the military authorities. By July 28th the situation had become more hopeful. On that day General Ruzsky, formerly commander-in-chief of the northern armies of Russia, and General Gurko, ex-commander on the Russian southwestern front, were summoned to Petrograd. Each had retired on account of the interference of the Council of Workmen and Soldiers’ delegates. Their return to the service was a hopeful sign. The Soviet also passed by an overwhelming majority a resolution censuring Lenine, and demanding that he should be publicly tried. Charges had been made that Lenine and his associates were working under German direction and financed by Germans. On August 2nd, Kornilov became Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army. A disagreement in the Cabinet led to its re-organization. In the new Cabinet appeared again representatives of the Constitutional Democratic party. Conditions began to show improvement from this time forth.

An extraordinary National Council met at[107] Moscow August 26th, 1917. This conference consisted of 2,500 delegates representing the Duma, the Soviets, the Zemstvos, and indeed all organized Russia. Kerensky opened the conference in a speech of great length in which he reviewed the general situation, declaring that the destructive period of the Revolution had passed and that the time had come to consolidate its conquests.

Perhaps the most important address before the Council was that made by General Kornilov, Commander-in-Chief of the army. General Kornilov was received with prolonged cheers, which in the light of his subsequent action were especially significant. General Kornilov described with much detail the disorganization and insubordination in the army, and continued:

“We are implacably fighting anarchy in the army. Undoubtedly it will finally be repressed, but the danger of fresh debacles is weighing constantly on the country. The situation on the front is bad. We have lost the whole of Galicia, the whole of Bukowina, and[108] all the fruits of our recent victories. If Russia wishes to be saved the army must be regenerated at any cost.” General Kornilov then outlined the most important of the reform measures which he recommended, and concluded: “I believe that the genius and the reason of the Russian people will save the country. I believe in a brilliant future for our army. I believe its ancient glory will be restored.”

General Kaledines, leader of the Don Cossacks, mounted the tribune and read a resolution passed by the Cossacks demanding the continuation of the war until complete victory was attained. He defied the extreme Radicals. “Who saved you from the Bolsheviki on the 14th of July?” he asked contemptuously. “We Cossacks have been free men. We are not made drunk by our new-found liberties and are unblinded by party or program. We tell you plainly and categorically, ‘Remove yourselves from the place which you have neither the ability nor the courage to fill, and[109] let better men than yourselves step in, or take the consequences of your folly.’”

The conference took no definite action, being invested with no authority, but it served to bring out clearly the line of cleavage between the Radical or Socialistic element represented by Kerensky and the Conservatives represented by the Generals of the army.

Immediately on the heels of the Moscow conference an important German advance was made in the direction of Riga, the most important Russian Baltic port. In spite of a vigorous defense the Germans captured the city.

The loss of Riga intensified the political excitement in Russia, and produced a profound crisis. A wave of unrest spread throughout the country. The Grand Duke Michael, and the Grand Duke Paul with their families, were arrested on a charge of conspiracy. The Provisional Government was charged with responsibility of the collapse of the army.

It was on September 9th, that the storm[110] broke, and General Kornilov, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian armies, raised the flag of revolt against the Provisional Government. The details of the revolt are as follows:

At one o’clock Saturday afternoon, Deputy Lvov, of the Duma, called upon Premier Kerensky, and declared that he had come as the representative of General Kornilov to demand the surrender of all power into Kornilov’s hands. M. Lvov said that this demand did not emanate from Kornilov only but was supported by an organization of Duma members, Moscow industrial interests, and other conservatives. This group, said M. Lvov, did not object to Kerensky personally, but demanded that he transfer the Portfolio of War to M. Savinkov, assistant Minister of War, who all along had supported Kornilov.

“If you agree,” M. Lvov added, “we invite you to come to headquarters and meet General Kornilov, giving you a solemn guarantee that you will not be arrested.”

Premier Kerensky replied that he could not believe Kornilov to be guilty of such an act of[111] treason, and that he would communicate with him directly. In an exchange of telegrams Kornilov confirmed fully to the Premier his demands. Kerensky promptly placed Lvov under arrest, denounced Kornilov as a traitor and deposed him from his position as Commander-in-Chief, General Klembovsky being appointed in his place. General Kornilov responded to the order of dismissal by moving an army against the Capital.

Martial law was declared in Moscow and in Petrograd. Kerensky assumed the functions of Commander-in-Chief and took military measures to defend Petrograd and resist the rebels. On the 12th it was clear that the Kornilov revolt had failed to receive the expected support. Kornilov advanced toward Petrograd, and occupied Jotchina, thirty miles southwest of the Capital, but there was no bloodshed. On the night of the 13th, General Alexeiev demanded Kornilov’s unconditional surrender, and the revolt collapsed. Kornilov was arrested and the Provisional Government reconstituted on stronger lines.

[112]After the so-called Kornilov revolt, the Russian Revolution assumed a form which might almost be called stable. A democratic congress met at Moscow, September 27th, and adopted a resolution providing for a preliminary parliament to consist of 231 members, of whom 110 were to represent the Zemstvos and the towns. The congress refused its sanction to a coalition cabinet in which the Constitutional Democrats should participate, but Kerensky practically defied the congress, and named a coalition cabinet, in which several portfolios were held by members of the Constitutional Democratic Party. The new government issued a statement declaring that it had three principal aims: to raise the fighting power of the army and navy; to bring order to the country by fighting anarchy; to call the Constituent Assembly as soon as possible. The Constituent Assembly was called to assemble in December. It was to consist of 732 delegates to be elected by popular vote.

Meantime agitation against the Coalition Government continued. On November 1st,[113] the Premier issued a statement through the Associated Press, to all the newspapers of the Entente, which conveyed the information that he almost despaired of restoring civil law in the distracted country. He said that he felt that help was needed urgently and that Russia asked it as her right. “Russia has fought consistently since the beginning,” he said. “She saved France and England from disaster early in the war. She is worn out by the strain and claims as her right that the Allies now shoulder the burden.”

On November 7th, an armed insurrection against the Coalition Government and Premier Kerensky was precipitated by the Bolsheviki faction. The revolt was headed by Leon Trotzky, President of the Central Executive Committee of the Petrograd Council, with Nicholas Lenine, the Bolsheviki leader. The Revolutionists seized the offices of the telephone and telegraph companies and occupied the state bank and the Marie Palace where the preliminary Parliament had been sitting. The garrison at Petrograd espoused the cause[114] of the Bolsheviki and complete control was seized with comparatively little fighting. The Government troops were quickly overpowered, except at the Winter Palace, whose chief guardians were the Woman’s Battalion, and the Military Cadets. The Woman’s Battalion fought bravely, and suffered terribly, and with the Military Cadets who also remained true, held the Palace for several hours. The Bolsheviki brought up armored cars and the cruiser Aurora, and turned the guns of the Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul upon the Palace before its defenders would surrender.

That evening the Revolutionary Committee issued a characteristic proclamation, denouncing the government of Kerensky as opposed to the government and the people, and calling upon the soldiers in the army to arrest their officers if they did not at once join the Revolution. They announced the following program:

At a meeting of the Council Trotzky declared that the Government no longer existed, and introduced Lenine as an old comrade whom he welcomed back. Lenine was received with prolonged cheers, and said: “Now we have a Revolution. The peasants and workmen control the Government. This is only a preliminary step toward a similar revolution everywhere.”

Proclamation after proclamation came from the new Government. In one of them it was stated “M. Kerensky has taken flight, and all military bodies have been empowered to take all possible measures to arrest Kerensky and bring him back to Petrograd. All complicity with Kerensky will be dealt with as high treason.”

A Bolsheviki Cabinet was named. The Premier was Nicholas Lenine; the Foreign Minister, Leon Trotzky. The other Cabinet[116] members were all Bolsheviki, including Bibenko, a Kronstadt sailor, of the Committee on War and Marine, and Shliapnikov, a laborer, who was Minister of Labor. Lenine’s personality has already been described. Trotzky, the chief aid of Lenine’s rebellion, had been living in New York City three months before the Czar was overthrown, but he had previously been expelled from Germany, France, Switzerland and Spain. His real name was Leber Braunstein, and he was born in the Russian Government of Kherson, near the Black Sea.

When the insurrection occurred, Kerensky succeeded in escaping from Petrograd, and persuaded about two thousand Cossacks, several hundred Military Cadets, and a contingent of Artillery, to fight under his banner. He advanced toward Petrograd, but his forces were greatly outnumbered by the Bolsheviki. At Tsarskoe-Selo a battle took place, the Kerensky troops met defeat, and its leader saved himself by flight.

At Moscow the entire city passed into the[117] control of the Bolsheviki but not without severe fighting in which more than three thousand people were slain. On the collapse of the Kerensky government conditions throughout Russia became chaotic. Ukraine declared its independence, and Finland also severed its connection with Russia. General Kaledines declared against the Bolsheviki, and organized an army to save the country. Siberia, Bessarabia, Lithuania, the Caucasus and other districts declared their complete independence of the Central Government.

The Bolsheviki, in control at Petrograd, opened negotiations with the Central Powers for an armistice along the entire front from the Baltic to Asia Minor, and on December 17th, such an armistice went into effect. Meanwhile they began negotiations for a treaty of peace. General Dukholin, the Commander-in-Chief on November 20th, was ordered by Lenine to propose the armistice. To this request he made no reply, and on November 21st, he was deposed and Ensign Krylenko was appointed the new Commander-in-Chief.[118] General Dukholin was subsequently murdered, by being thrown from a train after the Bolsheviki seized the general headquarters.

Trotzky sent a note to the representatives of neutral powers in Petrograd, informing them of his proposal for an armistice, and stating, “The consummation of an immediate peace is demanded in all countries, both belligerent and neutral. The Russian Government counts on the firm support of workmen in all countries in this struggle for peace.” Lenine, however, declared that Russia did not contemplate a separate peace with Germany, and that the Russian Government, before agreeing to an armistice, would communicate with the Allies and make a certain proposal to the imperialistic governments of France and England, rejection of which would place them in open opposition to the wishes of their own people.

A period of turmoil followed. In the meantime elections for the Constituent Assembly were held. The result in Petrograd was announced as 272,000 votes for the Bolsheviki, 211,000 for the Constitutional Democrats, and[119] 116,000 for the Social Revolutionaries, showing that the Bolsheviki failed to attain a majority. Notwithstanding the prevailing chaos, the Lenine-Trotzky Government persisted in negotiations for an armistice, and it was arranged that the first conference be held at the German headquarters at Brest-Litovsk.

The Russian delegates were Kaminev, whose real name was Rosenfelt, a well known Bolshevist leader; Sokolnikov, a sailor; Bithenko, a soldier, and Mstislasky, who had formerly been librarian to the General Staff, but who was now a strong Socialist. Representatives were present of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria.

After many interchanges of opinion a suspension of hostilities for ten days was authorized, to be utilized in bringing to a conclusion negotiations for an armistice. On December 7th it was announced from Petrograd that for the first time since the war not a shot was fired on the Russian front. Foreign Secretary Trotzky, on the 6th of December, notified the allied embassies in Petrograd of these[120] negotiations and added that the armistice would be signed only on condition that the troops should not be transferred from one front to another. He announced that negotiations had been suspended to accord the Allied Governments opportunity to define their attitude toward the peace negotiation; that is, their willingness or refusal to participate in negotiations for an armistice and peace. In case of refusal they must declare clearly and definitely before all mankind the aims for which the peoples of Europe had been called to shed their blood during the fourth year of the war.

No official replies were made to this note. On December 7th, Generals Kaledines and Kornilov raised the standard of revolt, but reports indicated that the Bolsheviki were extending their control over all Russia. A meeting of the Constituent Assembly took place on December 11th. Less than 50 of the 600 delegates attended. Meanwhile the negotiations for an armistice continued. On December 16th an agreement was reached and an armistice signed, to continue from December 17th to January 14th, 1918.

[122]Within the first month in which the Bolsheviki conducted the government numerous edicts of a revolutionary character were issued. Class titles, distinctions and privileges were abolished; the corporate property of nobles, merchants and burgesses was to be handed over to the state, as was all church property, lands, money and precious stones; and religious instruction was to cease in the schools. Strikes were in progress everywhere, and disorder was rampant.

Kornilov, Terestchenko and other associates of Kerensky, were imprisoned in the Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul; the Cadet Party was outlawed by decree and the houses of its leaders raided. On January 8, 1918, it was announced that the Bolsheviki had determined that all loans and Treasury bonds held by foreign subjects, abroad or in Russia, were repudiated.

During this period the Bolsheviki’s Foreign Secretary astonished the world by making public[123] the secret treaties between Russia and Foreign Governments in the early years of the war. These treaties dealt with the proposed annexation by Russia of the Dardanelles, Constantinople and certain areas in Asia Minor; with the French claim on Alsace-Lorraine and the left bank of the Rhine; with offers to Greece, for the purpose of inducing her to assist Serbia; with plans to alter her Western boundaries, with the British and Russian control of Persia; and with Italy’s desire to annex certain Austrian territories. These treaties had been seized upon the Bolsheviki assumption of power, and were now repudiated by the new Government.

During the period of the armistice Lenine began his move for a separate peace, in spite of the formal protests of the Allied representatives at Petrograd.

The first sitting took place on Saturday, December 22, 1917. Among the delegates were Dr. Richard von Kühlmann, Foreign Minister, and General Hoffman, of Germany; Count Czernin, Foreign Minister of Austria-Hungary;[124] Minister Kopov, of Bulgaria; Nesimy Bey, former Foreign Minister of Turkey, and a large delegation from Russia, composed of Bolshevist leaders. Dr. von Kühlmann was chosen as the presiding officer and made the opening speech. The Russian peace demands and the German counter-proposals were then read, and considered.

The German proposals proved unacceptable to Russia, and a second session of the peace conference was held at Brest-Litovsk on January 10, 1918. Trotzky himself attended this meeting as one of the representatives from Russia, and there was also a representative from Ukraine, which had declared its independence, and was allowed to join the conference. General Hoffman protested strongly against the Russian endeavor to make appeals of a revolutionary character to the German troops.

The armistice having expired, it was agreed it should be continued to February 12th. After a long and acrimonious debate the Conference broke up in a clash over the evacuation[125] of the Russian provinces. On January 24th it was announced that the Russian delegates to the peace conference had unanimously decided to reject the German terms. They stated that when they asked Germany’s final terms General Hoffman of the German delegation had replied by opening a map and pointing out a line from the shores of the Gulf of Finland to the east of the Moon Sound Islands, to Valk, to the west of Minsk, to Brest-Litovsk, thus eliminating Courland and all the Baltic provinces.

[126]Asked the terms of the Central Powers in regard to the territory south of Brest-Litovsk General Hoffman replied that was a question which they would discuss only with Ukraine. M. Kaminev asked: “Supposing we do not agree to such condition, what are you going to do?”

General Hoffman’s answer was, “Within a week we would occupy Reval.”

On January 27th, Trotzky made his report to the Soviets at Petrograd. After a thorough explanation of the peace debates, he declared that the Government of the Soviets could not sign such a peace. It was then decided to demobilize the Russian army and withdraw from the war.

Final sessions of the peace congress were resumed at Brest-Litovsk, January 29th; a peace treaty was made between the Central Powers and the Ukraine, and the Bolsheviki yielded to the German demands without signing a treaty. Meanwhile the Russian Constituent Assembly which met at Petrograd on January 19th, was[127] dissolved on January 20th, by the Bolsheviki Council.

Disorders continued throughout all Russia and counter-revolutionary movements were started at many places. On February 18th, the day when the armistice agreement between Russia and the Central Powers expired, German forces began a new invasion of Russia. The next day the Bolshevist Government issued a statement, announcing that Russia would be compelled to sign a peace. The German advance went on rapidly, and many important Russian cities were occupied. On February 24th, the Bolshevist Government announced that peace terms had been accepted, and a treaty was signed at Brest-Litovsk on March 3rd.

On March 14th the All-Russia Council of Soviets voted to ratify the treaty, after an all-night sitting. Lenine pronounced himself in favor of accepting the German terms; Trotzky stood for war, but did not attend the meetings of the Council. Lenine defended the step by[128] pointing out that the country was completely unable to offer resistance, and that peace was indispensable for the completion of the social war in Russia.

The new treaty dispossessed Russia of territories amounting to nearly one-quarter of the area of European Russia, and inhabited by one-third of Russia’s total population. Trotzky resigned on account of his opposition to the treaty and was succeeded by M. Tchitcherin.[129] He became Chairman of the Petrograd Labor Commune. The treaty between Russia and the Central Powers was formally denounced by the Premiers and Foreign Ministers of Great Britain, France, and Italy, and was not recognized by the Allied nations.

A final revocation of its provisions by both sides did not put an end to the military operations of the Central Powers in Russia, nor did the Russians cease to make feeble and sporadic attempts at resistance. Germany was forced to keep large bodies of troops along the Russian front, but formally Russia’s part in the war had come to an end.

DURING the first two years of the war many Americans, especially those in the West, observed the great events which were happening with great interest, no doubt, but with a feeling of detachment. The war was a long way off. The Atlantic Ocean separated Europe from America, and it seemed almost absurd to think that the Great War could ever affect us.

In the year 1916, however, two events happened which seemed to bring the war to our door. The first was the arrival at Baltimore, on July 9th, of the Deutschland, a German submarine of great size, built entirely for commercial purposes, and the second was the appearance, on the 7th of October, of a German war submarine in the harbor at Newport, Rhode Island, and its exploit on the following day when it sunk a number of British and neutral vessels just outside the three-mile line on the Atlantic coast.

[131]The performances of these two vessels were equally suggestive, but the popular feeling with regard to what they had done was very divergent. The voyage of the Deutschland roused the widest admiration but the action of the U-53 stirred up the deepest indignation. Yet the voyages of each showed with equal clearness that, however much America might consider herself separated from the Great War, the new scientific invention, the submarine, had annihilated space, and America, too, was now but a neighbor of the nations at war.

The voyage of the Deutschland was a romance in itself. It was commanded by Captain Paul Koenig, a German officer of the old school. He had been captain of the Schleswig of the North German Lloyd, and of other big liners. When the power of the British fleet drove German commerce from the seas, he had found himself without a job, and, as he[132] phrased it, “was drifting about the country like a derelict.” One day, in September, 1915, he was asked to meet Herr Alfred Lohmann, an agent of the North German Lloyd Line, and surprised by an offer to navigate a submarine cargo ship from Germany to America. Captain Koenig, who seems to have been in every way an admirable personage, at once consented. He has told us the story of his trip in his interesting book called “The Voyage of the Deutschland.”

The Deutschland itself was three hundred feet long, thirty feet wide, and carried one thousand tons of cargo and a crew of twenty-nine men. It cost a half a million dollars, but paid for itself in the first trip. According to Captain Koenig the voyage on the whole seems to have been most enjoyable. He understood his boat well and had watched its construction. Before setting out on his voyage he carefully trained his crew, and experimented with the Deutschland until he was thoroughly familiar with all its peculiarities. The cargo was composed of dye stuffs, and the ship was well supplied[133] with provisions and comforts. In his description of the trip he lays most emphasis upon the discomfort resulting from heavy weather and from storms. He was able to avoid all danger from hostile ships by the very simple process of diving. No English ship approached him closely as he was always able to see them from a distance, usually observing their course by means of their smoke.

One of his liveliest adventures, however, occurred when attempting to submerge suddenly during a heavy sea on the appearance of a destroyer. The destroyer apparently never observed the Deutschland, but in the endeavor to dive quickly the submarine practically stood on its head, and dived down into the mud, where it found itself held fast. Captain Koenig however was equal to the emergency, and by balancing and trimming the tanks he finally restored the center of gravity and released his boat.

A considerable portion of his trip was passed upon the surface as he only submerged when there was suspicion of danger. According[134] to his story his men kept always in the highest spirits. They had plenty of music, and doubtless appreciated the extraordinary nature of their voyage.

An amusing incident during the trip was the attempt to camouflage his ship by a framework, made of canvas and so constructed as to give the outline of a steamer. One day a hostile steamer appeared in the distance and Captain Koenig proceeded to test his disguise. After great difficulties, especially in connection with the production of smoke, he finally had the whole construction fairly at work. The steamer, which had been peacefully going its way, on seeing the new ship suddenly changed her course and steered directly toward the Deutschland. It evidently took the Deutschland for some kind of a wreck and was hurrying to give it assistance. Captain Koenig at once pulled off his super-structure and revealed himself as a submarine, and the strange vessel veered about and hurried off as fast as it could.

On the arrival of the Deutschland in America[135] Captain Koenig and his crew found their difficulties over. All arrangements had been made by representatives of the North German Lloyd for their safety and comfort. As they ran up Chesapeake Bay they were greeted by the whistles of the neutral steamers that they passed. The moving-picture companies immortalized the crew and they were treated with the utmost hospitality.

The Allied governments protested that the Deutschland was really a war vessel and on the 12th of July a commission of three American naval officers was sent down from Washington to make an investigation. The investigation showed the Deutschland was absolutely unarmed and the American Government decided not to interfere.

The position of the Allies was that a submarine, even though without guns or torpedoes, was practically a vessel of war from its very nature, and for it to pretend to be a merchant vessel was as if some great German man-of-war should dismount its guns and pass them over to some tender and then undertake to visit[136] an American port. They argued that if the submarine would come out from harbor it might be easily fitted with detachable torpedo tubes, and become as dangerous as any U-boat. Even without arms it might easily sink an unarmed merchant vessel by ramming. But the United States was not convinced, and American citizens rather admired the genial captain.

His return was almost as uneventful as his voyage out. At the very beginning he had trouble in not being able to rise after an experimental dive. This misadventure was caused by a plug of mud which had stopped up the opening of the manometer. But the difficulty was overcome, and he was able to pass under water between the British ships which were on the lookout. His return home was a triumph. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered along the banks of the Weser, filled with the greatest enthusiasm. Poems were written in his honor and his appearance was everywhere greeted with enthusiastic applause. The Germans felt sure that through the Deutschland[137] and similar boats they had broken the British blockade.

Captain Koenig made a second voyage, landing at New London, Connecticut, on November 1st, where he took on a cargo of rubber, nickel and other valuable commodities. On November 16th, in attempting to get away to sea, he met with a collision with the tug T. A. Scott, Jr., and had to return to New London for repairs. He concluded his voyage, however, without difficulty. In spite of his success the Germans did not make any very great attempt to develop a fleet of submarine cargo boats. It was commonly reported that at least one sister vessel was either captured by the British or was lost at sea, and in the latter years of the war the gradual entrance of America into the conflict of course prevented any further developments of this form of trade.

The other German act which brought home to Americans the possibilities of the submarine, the visit of the U-53, was a very different sort of matter. U-53 was a German submarine of[138] the largest type. On October 7, 1916, it made a sudden appearance at Newport, and its captain, Lieutenant-Captain Hans Rose, was entertained as if he were a welcome guest. He sent a letter to the German Ambassador at Washington and received visitors in his beautiful boat. The U-53 was a war submarine, two hundred and thirteen feet long, with two deck guns and four torpedo tubes. It had been engaged in the war against Allied commerce in the Mediterranean. Captain Rose paid formal visits to Rear-Admiral Austin Knight, Commander of the United States Second Naval District, stationed at Newport, and Rear-Admiral Albert Gleaves, Commander of the American destroyer flotilla at that place, and then set out secretly to his destination.

On the next day the news came in that the U-53 had sunk five merchant vessels. These were the Strathdene, which was torpedoed; the West Point, a British freighter, also torpedoed; the Stephano, a passenger liner between New York and Halifax, which the submarine[139] attempted to sink by opening its sea valves but was finally torpedoed; the Blommersdijk, a Dutch freighter, and the Christian Knudsen, a Norwegian boat. The American steamer Kansan was also stopped, but allowed to proceed. When the submarine began its work wireless signals soon told what was happening, and Admiral Knight, with the Newport destroyer flotilla, hurried to the rescue. These destroyers picked up two hundred and sixteen men and acted with such promptness that not a single life was lost.

The action of the U-53 produced intense excitement in America. The newspapers were filled with editorial denunciation, and the people were roused to indignation. The American Government apparently took the ground that the Germans were acting according to law and according to their promise to America. They had given warning in each case and allowed the crews of the vessels which they sunk to take to their boats. This was believed to be a fulfilment of their pledge “not to sink merchant vessels without warning and without[140] saving human lives, unless the ship attempts to escape or offers resistance.”

The general feeling, however, of American public opinion, was that it was a brutal act. In the case of the Stephano there were ninety-four passengers. These, together with the crew, were placed adrift in boats at eight o’clock in the evening, in a rough sea sixty miles away from the nearest land. If the American destroyer fleet had not rushed to the rescue it is extremely likely that a great many of these boats would never have reached land. The German Government did not save these human lives. It was the American navy which did that. But, technicalities aside, the pride of the American people was wounded. They could not tolerate a situation in which American men-of-war should stand idly by and watch a submarine in a leisurely manner sink ships engaged in American trade whose passengers and crews contained many American citizens.

It was another one of those foolish things that Germans were constantly doing, which[141] gave them no appreciable military advantage, but stirred up against them the sentiment of the world. The Germans perhaps were anxious to show the power of the submarines, and to give America an object lesson in that power. They wished to make plain that they could destroy overseas trade, and that if the United States should endeavor to send troops across the water they would be able to sink those troops.

The Germans probably never seriously contemplated a blockade of the American coast. The U-53 returned to its base and the danger was ended. American commerce went peacefully on, and the net result of the German audacity was in the increase of bitterness in the popular feeling toward the German methods.

WHEN Germany threw down the gauge of battle to the civilized world, the German High Command calculated that the long, rigorous and thorough military training to which every male German had submitted, would make a military force invincible in the field. The High Command believed that a nation so trained would carve out victory after victory and would end the World War before any nation could train its men sufficiently to check the Teutonic rush.

To that theory was opposed the democratic conception that the free nations of earth could train their young men intensively for six months and send these vigorous free men into the field to win the final decision over the hosts of autocracy.

These antagonistic theories were tried out[143] to a finish in the World War and the theory of democracy, developed in the training camps of America, Canada, Australia, Britain, France and Italy, triumphed. Especially in the training camps of America was the German theory disproved. There within six months the best fighting troops on earth were developed and trained in the most modern of war-time practices. Everything that Germany could devise found its answer in American ingenuity, American endurance and American skill.

The entrance of America into the tremendous conflict on April 6, 1917, was followed immediately by the mobilization of the entire nation. Business and industry of every character were represented in the Council of National Defense which acted as a great central functioning organization for all industries and agencies connected with the prosecution of the war. Executives of rare talent commanding high salaries tendered their services freely to the government. These were the “dollar a year men” whose productive genius was to bear fruit in the clothing, arming, provisioning, munitioning[144] and transportation of four million men and the conquest of Germany by a veritable avalanche of war material.

Out of the ranks of business and science came Hurley, Schwab, Piez, Coonley to drive forward a record-breaking shipbuilding program, Stettinus to speed up the manufacture of munitions, John W. Ryan to coordinate and accelerate the manufacture of airplanes, Vance C. McCormick and Dr. Alonzo E. Taylor to solve the problems of the War Trade Board, Hoover to multiply food production, to conserve food supplies and to place the army and citizenry of America upon food rations while maintaining the morale of the Allies through scientific food distribution and a host of other patriotic civilians who put the resources of the nation behind the military and naval forces opposed to Germany. Every available loom was put at work to make cloth for the army and the navy, the leather market was drained of its supplies to shoe our forces with wear adapted to the drastic requirements of modern warfare.

[145]German capital invested in American plants was placed under the jurisdiction of A. Mitchell Palmer as Alien Property Custodian. German ships were seized and transformed into American transports. Physicians over military age set a glorious example of patriotic devotion by their enlistment in thousands. Lawyers and citizens generally in the same category as to age entered the office of the Judge Advocate General or the ranks of the Four Minute Men or the American Protective League which rendered great service to the country in exposing German propaganda and in placing would-be slackers in military service. Bankers led the mighty Liberty Loan and War Savings Stamp drives and unselfishly placed the resources of their institutions at the service of the government.

Women and children rallied to the flag with an intensity of purpose, sacrifice and effort that demonstrated how completely was the heart of America in the war. Work in shops, fields, hospitals, Red Cross work rooms and elsewhere was cheerfully and enthusiastically performed[146] and the sacrifices of food rationing, higher prices, lightless nights, gasolineless Sundays, diminished steam railway and trolley service were accepted with a multitude of minor inconveniences without a murmur. Congress had a free hand in making appropriations. The country approved without a minute’s hesitation bills for taxation that in other days would have brought ruin to the political party proposing them. Billions were voted to departments where hundreds of thousands had been the rule.

The true temper of the American people was carefully hidden from the German people by the German newspapers acting under instructions from the Imperial Government. Instead of the truth, false reports were printed in the newspapers of Berlin and elsewhere that the passage of the American conscription law had been followed by rioting and rebellion in many places and that fully fifty per cent of the American people was opposed to the declaration of war. The fact that the selective service act passed in May, 1917, was accepted by everybody in this country as a wholly equitable and satisfactory law did not permeate into Germany until the first American Expeditionary Force had actually landed in France.

[148]America’s fighting power was demonstrated conclusively to the Germanic intellect at Seicheprey, Bouresches Wood, Belleau Wood, Château-Thierry, and in the Forest of the Argonne. Especially was it demonstrated when it came to fighting in small units, or in individual fighting. The highly disciplined and highly trained German soldiers were absolutely unfitted to cope with Americans, Canadians and Australians when it came to matching individual against individual, or small group against small group.

This was shown in the wild reaches of the Forest of the Argonne. There the machine-gun nests of the Germans were isolated and demolished speedily. Small parties of Germans were stalked and run down by the relentless Americans. On the other hand, the Germans could make no headway against the American troops operating in the Forest.[149] The famous “Lost Battalion” of the 308th United States Infantry penetrated so far in advance of its supports that it was cut off for four days without food, water or supplies of munitions in the Argonne. The enemy had cut its line of communication and was enforced both in front and in the rear. Yet the lost battalion, comprising two companies armed with rifles and the French automatic rifle known as the Chauchat gun, called by the doughboys “Sho Sho,” held out against the best the overpowering forces of the Germans could send against them, and were ultimately rescued from their dangerous position.

The training of the Americans was also in modern efficiency that made America prominent in the world of industry. The reduction of the German salient at St. Mihiel was an object lesson to the Germans in American methods. General Pershing commanding that operation in person, assembled the newspaper correspondents the day before the drive. Maps were shown, giving the extent and locale of the attack. The correspondents were invited[150] to follow the American troops and a time schedule for the advance was given to the various corps commanders.

In that operation, 152 square miles of territory and 72 villages were captured outright. For the reduction of the German defenses and for the creeping barrage preceding the American advance, more than 1,500,000 shells were fired by the artillery. Approximately 100,000 detail maps and 40,000 photographs prepared largely from aerial observations, were issued for the guidance of the artillery and the infantry. These maps and photographs detailed all the natural and artificial defenses of the entire salient. More than 5,000 miles of telephone wire was laid by American engineers immediately preceding the attack, and as the Americans advanced on the morning of the battle, September 12, 1918, 6,000 telephone instruments were connected with this wire. Ten thousand men were engaged in operating the hastily constructed telephone system; 3,000 carrier pigeons supplemented this work.

During the battle American airplanes swept[151] the skies clear of enemy aircraft and signalled instructions to the artillery, besides attacking the moving infantry, artillery and supply trains of the enemy. So sure were the Americans of their success that moving-picture operators took more than 10,000 feet of moving-picture film showing the rout of the Germans. Four thousand eight hundred trucks carried food, men and munitions into the lines. Miles of American railroads, both of standard and narrow gauge, carrying American-made equipment, assisted in the transportation of men and supplies. Hospital facilities including 35 hospital trains, 16,000 beds in the advanced sector, and 55,000 other beds back of the fighting line, were prepared. Less than ten per cent of this hospital equipment was used.

As the direct consequence of this preparation, which far outstripped anything that any other nation had attempted in a similar offensive, the Americans with a remarkably small casualty list took 15,188 prisoners, 111 guns, many of them of large calibre, immense quantities of munitions and other supplies, and inflicted[152] heavy death losses upon the fleeing Germans.

Two selective service laws operated as manhood conscription. The first of these took men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one years inclusive. June 5, 1917, was fixed as registration day. The total number enrolled was 9,586,508. The first selective army drawn from this number was 625,000 men.

The second selective service legislation embraced all citizens between the ages of 18 and 45 inclusive, not included in the first draft. Over 13,000,000 men enrolled on September 12, 1918.

The grand total of registrants in both drafts was 23,456,021. Youths who had not completed their 19th year were set apart in a group to be called last and men between thirty-six and forty-five were also put in a deferred class. The government’s plan was to have approximately 5,000,000 men under arms before the summer of 1919. The German armistice on November 11th found 4,000,000 men actually[153] under arms and an assignment of 250,000 made to the training camps.

A most important factor in the training plans of the United States was that incorporated in the organization of the Students’ Army Training Corps, by which 359 American colleges and universities were taken over by the Government and 150,000 young men entered these institutions for the purpose of becoming trained soldiers. The following are the conditions under which the S. A. T. C. was organized:

The War Department undertook to furnish officers, uniforms, rifles, and equipment, and to assign the student to military duty, after a few months, either at an officers’ training camp or in some technical school, or in a regular army cantonment with troops as a private, according to the degree of aptitude shown on the college campus.

At the same time a circular letter to the Presidents of colleges arranged for a contract under which the Government became responsible[154] for the expense of the housing, subsistence, and instruction of the students. The preliminary arrangement contained this provision, among others:

A permanent contract was arranged later under these governing principles:

The story of the life of the American army behind the lines in France would fill a volume. The hospitality of the French people had something pathetic in it. They were expecting miracles of their new Allies. They were war sick. Nearly all of them had lost some father, or brother, or husband, and here came[156] these big, hearty, joyous soldiers, full of ardor and confident of victory. It put a new spirit into all France. Their reception when they first landed was a scene of such fervor and enthusiasm as had never been known before and probably will not be known again. Soon the American soldier, in his khaki, with his wide-brimmed soft hat, became a common sight.

The villagers put up bunting, calico signs, flags and had stocks of American canned goods to show in their shop windows. The children, when bold, played with the American soldiers, and the children that were more shy ventured to go up and touch an American soldier’s leg. Very old peasant ladies put on their Sunday black, and went out walking, and in some mysterious way talking with American soldiers. The village Mayors turned out and made speeches, utterly incomprehensible to the American soldiers.

The engineering, building and machinery works the Americans put up were astonishing. Gangs of workers went over in thousands;[157] many of these were college men. They dug and toiled as efficiently as any laborer. One American Major told with glee how a party of these young workers arrived straight from America at 3.30 P. M. and started digging at 5 A. M. next morning, “and they liked it, it tickled them to death.” Many of these draftees, in fact, were sick and tired of inaction in ports before their departure from America, and they welcomed work in France as if it were some great game.

Perhaps the biggest work of all the Americans performed was a certain aviation camp and school. In a few months it was completed, and it was the biggest of its kind in the world. The number of airplanes used merely for training was in itself remarkable. The flying men—or boys—who had, of course, already been broken-in in America, did an additional course in France, and when they left the aviation camp they were absolutely ready for air-fighting at the front. This was the finishing school. The aviators went through eight distinct courses in the school. They[158] were perfected in flying, in observation, in bombing, in machine-gun firing. On even a cloudy and windy day the air overhead buzzed with these young American flyers, all getting into the pink of condition to do their stunts at the front. They lived in the camp, and it required moving heaven and earth for one of them to get leave to go even to the nearest little quiet old town.

An impression of complete businesslike determination was what one got when visiting the Americans in France. A discipline even[159] stricter than that which applied in British and French troops was in force. In towns, officers, for instance, were not allowed out after 9 P. M. Some towns where subalterns discovered the wine of the country were instantly put “out of bounds.” No officer, on any pretext whatsoever, was allowed to go to Paris except on official business. From the camps they were not even allowed to go to the neighboring towns.

The postal censors who read the letters of the American Expeditionary Force were required[160] to know forty-seven languages! Of these languages, the two least used were Chinese and German.

The announcement of the organization of the first American Field Army was contained in the following dispatch from France, August 11, 1918:

“The first American field army has been organized. It is under the direct command of General John J. Pershing, Commander-in-Chief of the American forces. The corps commanders thus far announced are Major Generals Liggett, Bullard, Bundy, Read, and Wright.

“The creation of the first field army is the first step toward the co-ordination of all the American forces in France. This does not mean the immediate withdrawal from the British and French commands of all American units, and it is probable that divisions will be used on the French and British fronts for weeks yet. It is understood, however, that the policy of organizing other armies will be carried out steadily.”

[161]This announcement marked a milestone in the military effort of the United States. When the American troops first arrived in France, they were associated in small units with the French to get primary training with the armies then in the field.

Gradually regiments began to function under French division commanders. Then American divisions were formed and trained under French corps commanders. Next, American corps began to operate under French army commanders. Finally, the first American army was created, because enough divisions and corps had been graduated from the school of experience.

An American division numbers 30,000 men, and a corps consists of six divisions, two of which play the part of reserves. With auxiliary troops, air squadrons, tank sections, heavy artillery, and other branches, a corps numbers from 225,000 to 250,000 men.

The following were the general officers temporarily assigned to command the first five corps:

[162]First corps—Major General Hunter Liggett.

Second corps—Major General Robert L. Bullard.

Third corps—Major General William M. Wright.

Fourth corps—Major General George W. Read.

Fifth corps—Major General Omar Bundy.

Seven divisions and one separate regiment of American troops participated in the counter-offensive between Château-Thierry and Soissons and in resisting the German attack in the Champagne, it was officially stated on July 20. The 42nd, or “Rainbow” Division, composed of National Guard troops from twenty-six States and the District of Columbia, including the New York 69th Infantry, now designated as the 165th Infantry, took part in the fighting in the Champagne east of Rheims. The six other divisions were associated with the French in the counter-offensive between Château-Thierry and Soissons. These divisions were the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th of the[163] Regular Army, the 26th National Guard Division, composed of troops from the six New England States, and the 28th, composed of the Pennsylvania National Guard. Marines were included in this number. The separate regiment that fought in the Champagne was a negro unit attached to the new 93rd Division, composed entirely of negro troops. It was also announced that the 77th Division was “in the line near Lunéville” and was “operating as a division, complete under its own commander.”

The 42nd Division had the distinction, General March announced on August 3d, of defeating the 4th Division of the crack Prussian Guards, professional soldiers of the German standing army, who had never before failed. General March also disclosed the fact that another American division had been sent into that part of the Rheims salient where the Germans showed resistance. This was the 32nd Division. “The American divisions in the Rheims salient,” General March said, “have now been put in contiguously and are actually[164] getting together as an American force. Southeast of Fère-en-Tardenois our 1st Corps is operating, with General Liggett in actual command.”

The organization of twelve new divisions was announced by General March, Chief of Staff, in statements made on July 24th and July 31st. These divisions were numerically designated from 9 to 20, and organized at Camps Devens, Meade, Sheridan, Custer, Funston, Lewis, Logan, Kearny, Beauregard, Travis, Dodge, and Sevier. Each division had two infantry regiments of the regular army as nucleus, the other elements being made up of drafted men. The new divisions moved into the designated camps as the divisions already trained there moved out.

The composition of an American division is as follows:

Two brigades of infantry, each consisting of two regiments of infantry and one machine-gun battalion.

One brigade of artillery, consisting of three[165] regiments of field artillery, and one trench mortar battery.

One regiment of engineers.

One field signal battalion.

The following trains: Headquarters and military police, sanitary, supply, engineer, and ammunition.

The following division units: Headquarters troop and one machine-gun battalion.

A general order of the War Department providing for the consolidation of all branches of the army into one army to be known as the “United States Army” was promulgated by General March on August 7th. The text of the order read:

FOOD won the war. Without the American farmer the Entente Allies must have capitulated. Wheat, beef, corn, foods of every variety, hermetically sealed in tins, were thrown into the scales on the side of the Entente Allies in sufficient quantities to tip the balance toward the side of civilization and against autocracy. Late in the fall of 1918 when victory was assured to America and the Allies, there was received this message of appreciation from General Pershing to the farmers of America, through Carl Vrooman, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture:

This tribute to the men and women on the farms of America from the head of the American forces in France is fit recognition of the important part played by American food producers in the war. It was early recognized by all the belligerent powers that final victory was a question of national morale and national endurance. Morale could not be maintained without food. The bread lines in Petrograd gave birth to the revolution, and Russian famine was the mother of Russian terrorism. German men and women, starved of fats and[169] sweets, deteriorated so rapidly that the crime ratio both in towns and country districts mounted appallingly. Conditions in Austria-Hungary were even worse. Acute distress arising from threatening famine was very largely instrumental in driving Bulgaria out of the war.

On the other hand, Germany’s greatest reliance for a victorious decision lay in the U-boat blockade of Great Britain, France and Italy. Though some depredations came to these countries, the submarine blockade never fully materialized and with its failure Germany’s hopes faded and died.

The Entente Allies and the United States were fortunate in securing Herbert C. Hoover to administer food distribution throughout their lands and to stimulate food production by the farmers of the United States. After his signal success in the administration of the Belgian Relief Commission, Mr. Hoover became the unanimous choice of the Allies for the victualing of the militant and civilian populations after America’s entrance into the World[170] War. His work divided itself into three heads:

First, stimulation of food production.

Second, elimination of food wastage in the homes and public eating places of the country.

Third, education of food dealers and the public in the use of foods that were substitutes for wheat, rye, pork, beef and sugar.

After long and acrimonious debates in Congress, Mr. Hoover, as Federal Food Administrator, was clothed with extraordinary powers enabling him to fulfil the purposes for which he was appointed. The ability with which he and his associates performed their work was demonstrated in the complete débâcle of Bulgaria, Turkey, Austria-Hungary and Germany. These countries were starved out quite as truly as they were fought out. The concrete evidence of the Food Administration’s success is shown in the subjoined table which indicates the increase over normal in exporting of foodstuffs by the United States since it became the food reservoir for the world on account of the war.

[171]

TOTAL EXPORTS

Upon the same subject Mr. Hoover himself after the harvest of 1918 said:

But the work of the Food Administration did not come to an end with the close of the war. Insistent cries for food came from the members of the defeated Teutonic alliance, as well as from the suffering Allied and neutral nations. To meet those demands, Mr. Hoover sailed for Europe to organize the food relief of the needy nations. The State Department, explaining his mission, stated that as the first measure of assistance to Belgium it was necessary to increase immediately the volume of foodstuffs formerly supplied, so as to physically rehabilitate this under-nourished population. The relief commission during the four years of war sent to the 10,000,000 people in the occupied area over 600 cargoes of food, comprising 120,000,000 bushels of breadstuffs and over 3,000,000,000 pounds of other foodstuffs[176] besides 20,000,000 garments, the whole representing an expenditure of nearly $600,000,000. The support of the commission came from the Belgian, British, French and American governments, together with public charity. In addition to this some $350,000,000 worth of native produce was financed internally in Belgium by the relief organization.

The second portion of Mr. Hoover’s mission was to organize and determine the need of foodstuffs to the liberated populations in Southern Europe—the Czecho-Slovaks, the Jugo-Slavs, and Serbians, Roumanians and others.

To meet the conditions in Europe following the armistice of November 11, 1918, the employment service of the United States set to work laying far-reaching plans for meeting the problem of world food shortage.

Abnormal drought during the summer of 1918 seriously injured the Belgian, Italian and French harvests, and appeals to the United States for help were made.

And the appeals were not in vain. America[177] took from her granaries the cereals needed to stave off European famine. Germany was cared for as well as those nations who had been associated in arms with the United States. The demands after the war were greater than they had been during the conflict but the nation that had fed the allies of civilization in war time performed the task of feeding the world, friend and foe alike, when peace at length came upon the earth.

LONG before war was declared the United States Government had been engaged in preparation. It had realized that unrestricted submarine warfare was sure to lead to war, and though for a time it was preserving what it was pleased to call “an armed neutrality” the President doubtless was well aware what such an “armed neutrality” would lead to. Merchant ships were being armed for protection against the submarine, and crews from the Navy assigned to work the guns. The first collision was sure to mean an active state of war. The Naval Department, therefore, was working at full speed, getting the Navy ready for active service as soon as war should be declared.

Secretary Daniels made every effort to obtain the crews that were necessary to man the[179] new ships which were being fully commissioned with the greatest possible speed and called upon newspapers all through the country to do their utmost to stimulate enlistment.

On March 26th President Wilson issued an order increasing the enlisted strength of the United States Marine Corps to 17,400 men, the limit allowed under the law. On March 29th a hundred and three ensigns were graduated from the Naval Academy three months ahead of their time, and on April 6th, as soon as war was declared, the Navy was mobilized.

Within a few minutes after Secretary Daniels had signed the order for this purpose one hundred code messages were sent out from the office of Admiral W. S. Benson, Chief of Naval Operations, which placed the Navy on a war basis, and put into the control of the Navy Department the naval militia of all the states as well as the Naval Reserves and the Coast Guard Service. In the Naval Militia were about 584 officers, and 7,933 men. These were at once assembled and assigned to coast patrol service. All of the ships that were in[180] active commission in the Navy were already ready for duty. But there were reserve battleships and reserve destroyers, besides ships which had been out of commission which had to be manned as quickly as possible.

At the beginning of the war there were 361 vessels ready for service, including twelve first-line battleships, twenty-five second-line battleships, nine armored cruisers, twenty-four other cruisers, seven monitors, fifty destroyers, sixteen coast torpedo vessels, seventeen torpedo boats, forty-four submarines, eight tenders to torpedo boats, twenty-eight gunboats, four transports, four supply ships, one hospital ship, twenty-one fuel ships, fourteen converted yachts, forty-nine tugs, and twenty-eight minor vessels. There were about seventy thousand regularly enlisted men, besides eight thousand five hundred members of the naval militia. Many yachts together with their volunteer crews had been offered to the government by patriotic citizens.

For the complete mobilization of the Navy, as it then stood, 99,809 regularly enlisted men[181] and 45,870 reserves were necessary. About twenty-seven thousand of these were needed for coast defense, and twelve thousand at the various shore stations. Retired officers were called out, and assigned to duty which would permit officers on the active list to be employed in sea duty. The Navy therefore still lacked thirty-five thousand men to bring it up to its full authorized strength at the beginning, but after the declaration of war an active recruiting campaign brought volunteers by thousands. The service was a popular one and recruits were easily obtained.

One of the first phases of the mobilization was the organization of a large fleet of mosquito craft to patrol the Atlantic Coast, and keep on the watch for submarines. Many of these boats had been private yachts, and hundreds of young men volunteered from the colleges and schools of the country for this work. Many boat builders submitted proposals to construct small boats for this kind of patrol duty, and on March 31st a coast patrol fleet was organized by the Government under[182] the command of Captain Henry B. Wilson.

The Navy took possession immediately on the declaration of war of all wireless stations in the United States dismantling all that could not be useful to the Government. War zones were established along the whole coast-line of the United States, making a series of local barred zones extending from the larger harbors in American waters all along the line. These harbors were barred at night to entering vessels in order to guard against surprise by German submarines. Contracts were awarded for the construction of twenty-four destroyers even before war was declared, and many more were already under construction.

[183]The growth of the Navy in one year may give some idea of the efficiency of the Navy Department. In April, 1917, the regular Navy contained 4,366 officers and 64,680 men. In April, 1918, it contained 7,798 officers and 192,385 men. In the Marine Corps in 1917 there were 426 officers and 13,266 men. In one year this was increased to 1,389 officers and 38,629 men. In the organization of the Naval Reserves, naval volunteers and coast guards there were in 1917, 24,569 men; in 1918, 98,319 men, and 11,477 officers.

While personnel of the Navy was thus expanding the United States battle fleet had grown to more than twice the size of the fleet before the war. When war was declared there were under construction 123 new naval vessels. These were completed and contracts made for 949 new vessels. Among the ships completed are fifteen battleships, six battle cruisers, seven scout cruisers, twenty-seven destroyers, and[184] sixty-one submarines. About eight hundred craft were taken over and converted into transports, patrol service boats, submarine chasers, mine sweepers and mine layers.

The Government also seized 109 German ships which had been interned in American ports. The Germans had attempted to damage these ships so that they would be useless, but they were all repaired, and carried American troops and supplies in great quantities to France.

As the fleet grew the training of the necessary officers and crews was conducted on a grand scale. Naval camps were established at various points. The main ones were those at Philadelphia, (League Island); Newport, Rhode Island; Cape May, New Jersey; Charleston, South Carolina; Pensacola, Florida; Key West, Florida; Mare Island, California; Puget Sound, Washington; Hingham, Massachusetts; Norfolk, Virginia; New Orleans, San Diego, New York Navy Yard, Great Lakes, Illinois; Pelham, New York; Hampton Roads, Virginia; and Gulfport,[185] Mississippi. Schools in gunnery and engineering were established and thousands of gunners and engineers were trained, not only for the Navy but for the armed merchant vessels.

The training of gun crews by target practice was a feature of this work. Long before the war began systematic training of this kind had been done, but mainly in connection with the big guns, and great efficiency had been obtained by the steady practice. With the introduction of the submarine, it became necessary to pay special attention to the training of the crews of guns of smaller calibre, and it was not long before the officers of our Navy were congratulating themselves on the efficiency of their men. It is not easy to hit so small a mark as the periscope of a submarine, but it could be done and many times was done.

Twenty-eight days after the declaration of war a fleet of United States destroyers under the command of Admiral William S. Sims reported for service at a British port.

The American destroyer squadron arrived at Queenstown after a voyage without incident.[186] The water front was lined with an excited crowd carrying small American flags, which cheered the destroyers from the time they were first seen until they reached the dock. They cheered again when Admiral Sims went ashore to greet the British senior officer who had come to welcome the Americans. It was a most informal function. After the usual handshakes the British Commander congratulated the Americans on their safe voyage and then asked:

“When will you be ready for business?”

“We can start at once,” was the prompt reply of Admiral Sims.

This rather took the breath away from the British Commander and he said he had not expected the Americans to begin work so soon after their long voyage. Later after a short tour of the destroyers he admitted that the American tars looked prepared.

“Yes,” said the American Commander, “we made preparations on the way over. That is why we are ready.”

Everything on board the destroyers was in[187] excellent condition. The only thing lacking was heavier clothing. The American uniforms were too light for the cool weather which is common in the English waters. This condition, however, was quickly remedied, and the American ships at once put out to sea all in splendid condition and filled with the same enthusiasm that the Marines showed later at Château-Thierry.

“They are certainly a fine body of men, and what’s more, their craft looked just as fit,” declared the British Commander.

One of the American destroyers, even before the American fleet had arrived at Queenstown, had begun war duty. It had picked up and escorted through the danger zone one of the largest of the Atlantic liners. The passengers on board the liner sent the Commander of the destroyer the following message:

Moving pictures were taken by the official British Government photographer as the American flotilla came into the harbor, and sailors who received shore leave were plied with English hospitality. The streets of Queenstown were decorated with the Stars and Stripes. As soon as American residents in England learned that American warships were to cross the Atlantic they held a conference to provide recreation buildings, containing sleeping, eating, and recreation accommodations for the comfort of the American sailors. The destroyer flotilla was the first contribution of American military power to the Entente Alliance against Germany.

Admiral Sims is one of the most energetic and efficient of American Naval officers and to him as much as to any other man is due the efficiency of the American Navy. During the period just before the Spanish-American War Lieutenant Sims was Naval Attaché at[189] Paris, and rendered invaluable services in buying ships and supplies for the Navy. In 1900 he was assigned to duty on the Battleship Kentucky, then stationed in the Orient. In 1902 he was ordered to the Navy Department and placed in charge of the Office of Naval Practice, where he remained for seven years and devoted his attention to the improvement of the Navy in gunnery. During that time he made constant trips to England to consult with English experts in gunnery and ordnance, and became intimately acquainted with Sir Percy Scott, who had been knighted and made Rear-Admiral for the improvements he had introduced in connection with the gunnery of the British warships. In 1909 he was made Commander of the Battleship Minnesota, and in 1911 was a member of the college staff at the Naval War College. In 1913 he was made Commander of the torpedo flotilla of the Atlantic fleet and in 1916 assigned to command the Dreadnought Nevada. In 1916 he was President of the Naval War College. He was[190] made Rear-Admiral in 1916 and Vice-Admiral in 1917 and assigned to the command of all American war vessels abroad.

Immediately upon their arrival the American vessels began operation in the submarine zone. Admiral Beatty then addressed the following message to Admiral Henry T. Mayo of the United States Atlantic Fleet:

Admiral Mayo replied:

It may also be noted, as a fact which is not without significance, that the losses by submarine which had reached their highest mark in the last week in April began from that time steadily to diminish.

One of the main duties of the Navy was to convoy transports and supplies across the Atlantic. This was done with the assistance of[191] Allied vessels with remarkable success. For a long period it seemed as if the U-boats would not be able to penetrate through the Allied convoy, but during 1918 four transports were torpedoed. The first was the Tuscania which was sunk in February off the north coast of Ireland, with 1,912 officers and men of the Michigan and Wisconsin guardsmen, of whom 204 were lost. The Oronsa, which was torpedoed in April, contained 250 men and all were saved except three of the crew. The Moldavia came next with five hundred troops, of whom fifty-five were lost. On September 6th the troopship Persic with 2,800 American soldiers was torpedoed but American destroyers rescued all on board, and the Persic, which was prevented from sinking by its water-tight bulkheads, was afterwards beached.

Several American ships, including the troop transport Mount Vernon, were torpedoed on return trips and a number of the men of their crews were lost, and several naval vessels were lost, including the destroyer Jacob Jones, and the patrol vessel Alcedo. The Cassin was torpedoed,[192] but reached port under its own steam and later returned to service.

In September and October three more American transports were added to the list of American losses. On September 26th the United States steamer Tampa was torpedoed and sank with all on board, losing 118 men. On September 30th the Ticonderoga was also torpedoed, eleven Naval officers and 102 enlisted men being lost.

In addition to these submarine losses several ships and a number of men were lost through collision. The United States steamer Westgate was sunk in a collision with the steamer American on October 7th, with the loss of seven men. On October 9th the United States destroyer Shaw lost fifteen men in a collision, though she later succeeded in reaching port. On October 11th the American steamer Otranto was sunk in a collision with the British liner Cashmere. Of seven hundred American soldiers who were on board 365 were lost. At this time about three thousand anti-submarine craft were in operation day and night around[193] the British Isles, and about five thousand working in the open sea. This was what made it possible for the Allies to win the war.

Inasmuch as the illegal use of the submarine by Germany brought America into the war it was extremely appropriate that she should take an active part in the suppression of the submarine menace. The methods which were used in fighting the submarines differed much in different cases. The action of the government in arming merchantmen and in providing them with trained gun crews did much to lower the number of such ships sunk by the U-boats.

The submarine, which had formerly been able to stop the unarmed merchantman and sink him at leisure, after a few combats with an armed merchantman began to be very wary and to depend almost entirely upon his torpedoes. It was not always easy for the submarine to get in a position where her torpedo would be effective, and the merchantman was carefully directed, if attacked, to pursue a zig-zag irregular course, and at the same time[194] endeavor to hamper the submarine by shooting as near her periscope as possible.

Along the sea coasts and at certain points in the English Channel great nets were used effectively. Submarines, however, toward the end of the war were made sufficiently large to be able to force their way through these nets, and net-cutting devices were also used by them with considerable effect. The best way to destroy the submarines seemed to be in a direct attack by flotillas or destroyers.

By the end of the war the whole process of sinking or destroying submarines had been thoroughly organized. Practically every portion of the seas near Great Britain and France was carefully watched and the appearance of a submarine immediately reported. As the submarine would only travel at a certain well-understood speed during a given time, it was possible to calculate, after the locality of one was known, about how far from that point it would be found at any later period. Destroyers were therefore sent circling around the point where the submarine had been discovered,[195] enlarging their distance from the center every hour. In the course of time the submarine would be compelled to come up for air, and then, if luck were with the destroyer, it might find its foe before it was seen itself. Having discovered the submarine the destroyer immediately endeavored to ram, dropping depth bombs at the point where they supposed the enemy to be.

These bombs were so constructed that at a certain depth in the water they would explode, and the force of the explosion was so great that even if they did not strike the submarine they would be sure to damage it seriously, sometimes throwing the submarine to the surface partly out of water, and at other times driving her to come to the surface herself ready to surrender.

In many cases it was not necessary to use the depth bomb at all. The gunners on board the destroyers had become extraordinarily expert, and though a shot might destroy the periscope of a submarine without doing much damage, most submarines carrying extra periscopes to[196] use if necessary, yet it was soon found that it was possible by the use of plunging shells to do effective damage. Plunging shells are somewhat similar in their operation to bombs. Such a shell falling just short of a periscope and fused to burst both on contact and at a certain depth was extremely likely to do damage.

In the pursuit of the U-boat the airplane was also extremely effective. These were sent out to patrol large districts near the Allied coast, and also, in some cases, from ships themselves. It is possible in certain weather conditions for the observer on an airplane to detect a submarine even when it is submerged and the airplane can not only attack the submarine by dropping depth bombs, but it can signal at once the location of the enemy to the hurrying destroyers. Indeed, as the submarine warfare proceeded the main difficulty of the Allies was to locate the submarines. Many ingenious devices were used for this purpose, and many of the English vessels had listening attachments under water which were intended[197] to make it possible to hear a submarine as it moved. These, however, do not seem to have been very effective. The submarine itself seems at times to have been fitted out in a similar way and to have thus been able to hear the sound of an approaching ship.

Many thrilling reports of naval actions against German submarines were given out officially by the British admiralty from time to time. In most of these cases the submarine was both rammed and attacked by depth bombs. In nearly all of them the only proof of success was the oil and air bubbles which came to the surface.

One interesting encounter was that in which a British submarine sighted a German U-boat, while both were on the surface. The British submarine dived and later was able to pick up the enemy through the periscope and discharge a torpedo in such a way as to destroy the German vessel. When the British submarine arose it found a patch of oil in which Germans were swimming.

Ordinarily, however, a submarine was of little[198] service in a fight against another for the radius of sight from a periscope is so short that it is practically blind so far as another periscope is concerned. This blindness of the submarine was taken advantage of by the Allies in every possible way.

Merchant ships were camouflaged, that is painted in such a way that they could not be easily distinguished at a distance. In the great convoys ships were often hidden by great masses of smoke to prevent a submarine from finding an easy mark. At night all lights were put out or else so shaded as not to be seen by the enemy. The result of these methods was the gradual destruction of the U-boat menace.

In the summer of 1918, while occasionally some ship was lost, the production of new ships was much greater than those that were sunk. During the month of June it was announced that the completion of new tonnage by the Allies had outstripped the losses by thousands of tons. During this period the United[199] States had attained its full stride in building ships, airplanes and ordnance.

Archibald Hurd, the English naval expert, said: “When the war is over the nation will form some conception of the debt which we owe the American navy for the manner in which it has co-operated, not only in connection with the convoy system, but in fighting the submarines. If the naval position is improving today, as it is, it is due to the fact that the British and American fleets are working in closest accord, supported by an immense body of skilled workers on both sides of the Atlantic, who are turning out destroyers and other craft for dealing with the submarine, as well as mines and bombs. Some of the finest battleships of the United States navy are now associated with the British Grand fleet. They are not only splendid fighting ships but they are well officered and manned.”

On May 13, 1918, in appreciation of some remarks which had been made by Sir Eric Geddes, First Lord of the British Admiralty,[200] Josephus Daniels, the American Secretary of the Navy, addressed a letter to him in the following terms:

“Your reference to the splendid spirit of co-operation between the navies of our countries, and your warm praise of the officers and men of our navy, have been most grateful to me and to all Americans. The brightest spot in the tragedy of this war is this mutual appreciation of the men in the naval service. Our officers who have returned confirm the statements of Admiral Sims of the courtesies and kindness shown in every way by the admiralty and the officers of the British fleet. I had hoped to have the pleasure of visiting Great Britain and of personally expressing this feeling of mutual working together, but the task here of making ready more and more units for the fleet is a very serious one, and my duty chains me here. The order in all the navy is ‘Full speed ahead’ in the construction of destroyers and other craft, and the whole service is keyed up to press this program forward. Therefore I shall not have the pleasure, until[201] this program shall materialize, of a personal acquaintance and a conference which would be of such interest and value.”

Sir Eric Geddes replied: “I am exceedingly grateful for your letter. As you know we, all of us here, have great admiration for your officers and men, and for the splendid help they are giving in European waters. Further, we find Admiral Sims invaluable in council and in co-operation. I fully appreciate how onerous your office must be and much though I regret that you do not see your way to visiting this country in the near future, I hope we may some day have the pleasure of welcoming you here.”

Sir Eric afterward himself visited the United States and his visit was made the occasion of a general expression of the high regard which the United States felt for the splendid assistance which the great British navy had rendered in convoying its armies across the seas.

From August, 1914, to September, 1918, German submarines sank 7,157,088 deadweight tons of shipping in excess of the tonnage[202] turned out in that period by the allied and neutral nations. That total does not represent the depletion of the fleets at the command of the allied and neutral nations, however, as 3,795,000 deadweight tons of enemy ships were seized in the meantime. Actually, the allied and neutral nations on September 1, 1918, had only 3,362,088 less tons of shipping in operation than in August, 1914.

These details of the shipping situation were issued by the United States Shipping Board along with figures to show that, with American and allied yards under full headway, Europe’s danger of being starved by the German submarine was apparently at an end. The United States took the lead of all nations in shipbuilding.

In all, the allied and neutral nations lost 21,404,913 deadweight tons of shipping since the beginning of the war, showing that Germany maintained an average destruction of about 445,000 deadweight tons monthly. During the latter months, however, the sinkings fell considerably below the average, and[203] allied construction passed destruction for the first time in May, 1918.

The losses of the allied and neutral shipping in August, 1918, amounted to 327,676 gross tonnage, of which 176,401 was British and 151,275 allied and neutral, as compared with the adjusted figures for July of 323,772, and 182,524 and 141,248, respectively. British losses from all causes during August were 10,887 tons higher than in June, which was the lowest month since the introduction of unrestricted submarine warfare.

An official statement of the United States Shipping Board, issued September 21, 1918, set forth the following facts:

The climax to Germany’s piratical submarine adventure took place a few days after the armistice, when a mournful procession of shamefaced-looking U-boats sailed between lines of English cruisers to be handed over to the tender mercies of the Allied governments.

THE circumstances connected with the entrance of the Republic of China into the World War were as follows: On February 4, 1917, the American Minister, Dr. Reinsch, requested the Chinese Government to follow the United States in protesting against the German use of the submarine against neutral ships. On February 9th Pekin made such a protest to Germany, and declared its intention of severing diplomatic relations if the protest were ineffectual. The immediate answer of Germany was to torpedo the French ship Atlas in the Mediterranean on which were over seven hundred Chinese laborers. On March 10th the Chinese Parliament empowered the government to break with Germany. On the same afternoon a reply was received from the German[206] Government to the Chinese protest, of a very mild character. The reply produced a great deal of surprise in China.

A Chinese statesman made this comment on the German change of attitude: “The troops under Count Waldersee leaving Germany for the relief of Pekin were instructed by the War Lord to grant no quarter to the Chinese. On the other hand, the latter were to be so disciplined that they would never dare look a German in the face again. The whirligig of time brings its own revenge, and today, after the lapse of scarcely seventeen years, we hear the Vossische Zeitung commenting on the diplomatic rupture between China and Germany, lamenting that even so weak a state as the Far Eastern Republic dares look defiantly at the German nation.”

The breaking off of relations with Germany led to trouble between the President of the Republic and the Premier. The Premier desired to break off relations without consulting Parliament. The President insisted that Parliament should be consulted, which was actually[207] done. The next move was to declare war, but here the Chinese statesmen hesitated, and their hesitation arose through their feeling toward Japan.

They sympathized with the Allies, but to Chinese eyes Japan had stood for all that Germany, as depicted by its worst enemies, stood for. The Japanese Government was professing friendliness to China, but that profession the Chinese could not reconcile with Japan’s action in the Chino-Japanese War, and on many other occasions since that war. In Chinese hearts there was a strong feeling of distrust, fear and hatred for their Japanese neighbor. There were other reasons also why they hesitated to declare war. Indeed the devotion to peace, which is deep-rooted in the nation, would be a sufficient reason in itself.

Moreover, China, like other neutral nations, was a strong center for German propaganda. German consuls and diplomatic officers, who were scholars in Chinese literature and philosophy, and who also had sufficient funds to entertain Chinese officials as they liked to be[208] entertained, were actively endeavoring to influence Chinese statesmen.

The Chinese Government, however, was determined to declare war, and to secure support the Chinese Premier summoned a council of military governors to consider the question. The majority of the conference agreed with the Premier, but a vigorous opposition began to develop. On May 7th the President sent a formal request to Parliament to approve of a declaration of war. Parliament delayed and was threatened by a mob. The Premier was accused of having instigated the riot and support began to gather for Parliament, and an attack was made on the Premier as being willing to sell China.

Day by day the differences between the militants and democrats became more bitter. The question of war was almost lost in the differences of opinion as to the comparative powers of Parliament and the Executive. A demand was made that the Premier resign. He refused to resign and was dismissed from office by the President, who was supported in his action[209] by the Parliament. This was practically a success of the Parliamentary party, when suddenly several of the northern generals and governors declared their independence, and the movement gradually developed into a revolution in favor of the restoration of the Manchu Dynasty. This revolution was finally suppressed.

The Japanese declared themselves, not the enemies, but the protectors of China in terms that suggested the appearance of a Monroe Doctrine for Asia. They pledged themselves not to violate the political independence or territorial integrity of China, and declared strongly in favor of the principle of the open door and equal opportunity.

On August 14th China formally joined the Allies and declared war on Austria and Germany. She took no great part in the war, except to invade the German and Austrian settlements in Tientsin and Hankow, which were taken over by the Chinese authorities. The Chinese officials also seized the Deutsche Asiatische Bank which had been financing[210] agent in China for the German Government, and fourteen German vessels which had been interned in Chinese ports. Thousands of Chinese coolies were sent to Europe to work in the Allied interests behind the battle lines, and China has in all respects been faithful to her pledges.

The official war proclamation of China which was signed by President Feng-kuo-chang reviewed China’s efforts to induce Germany to modify her submarine policy. It declared that China had been forced to sever relations with Germany and with Austro-Hungary to protect the lives and property of Chinese citizens. It promised that China would respect the Hague Convention, regarding the humane conduct of the war, and asserted that China’s object was to hasten peace.

On July 22d Siam officially entered the war and all German and Austrian subjects were interned and German ships seized. The Prince of Songkla, brother of the reigning monarch, declared that natural necessity and[211] moral pressure forced Siam into the war on the side of the Entente. Neutrality had become increasingly difficult, and it had become apparent that freedom and justice in states which were not strong from a military standpoint were not to be secured through the policy of the Central Powers. Sympathy for Belgium and the popular aversion to Teutonic methods had left no doubt as to the duty of Siam. The motive of Siam had a curious fitness, though there was a certain quaintness in her expression of a desire to make, “the world safe for democracy.”

The native name of Siam is Muang-Thai, which means the Kingdom of the Free. Siam is about as large as France, and has a population of about eight millions. Its people, who are of many shades of yellowish-brown, have descended into this corner of Asia from the highlands north of Burma and east of Tibet. The tradition among these people was that the further south they descended the shorter they would grow, that when they reached the southern[212] plains they would be no larger than rabbits, and that when they came to the sea they would vanish altogether. As a fact the northern tribes are much taller than the southern.

The original population of the Siamese peninsula was a race of black dwarfs, remnants of whom still dwell in caves and nests of palm leaves, so shy that it is almost impossible to catch a glimpse of them. The literary and religious culture of Siam comes mainly from southern India. Buddhism is the dominant religion, but there are many Mohammedans also.

The accession of Siam to the ranks of the Allies did not make any great difference from a military point of view, but it was another evidence of the general world feeling with regard to the Germans and their encroachments in all parts of the world. Germany had tried its best to keep these nations from participation in the war, but not only had her propaganda failed but the feeling of these Oriental peoples was strongly anti-German. Much of this feeling, it is readily seen from their statements and their private letters, comes from a[213] personal resentment of the boorish attitude of the individual German. By the end of 1918 the Teuton influence in the Orient had completely disappeared.

NONE of the surprises of the World War brought such sudden and stunning dismay to the Entente Allies as the news of the Italian disaster beginning October 24, 1917, and terminating in mid-November. It is a story in which propaganda was an important factor. It taught the Allies the dangers lying in fraternization between opposing armies.

During the summer of 1917 the second Italian Army was confronted by Austrian regiments composed largely of war-weary Socialists. During that summer skillful German propagandists operating from Spain had sown the seeds of pacificism throughout Italy. This was made easy by the distress then existing particularly in the villages where food was scanty and complaints against the conduct of the war were numerous. The propaganda extended from the civilian population to the army, and its channel was directed mainly toward the Second Army encamped along the Isonzo River.

[215]As a consequence of the pacifists’ preachments both by words of mouth and document, the Second Army was ready for the friendly approaches that came from the front lines of the Austrians only a few hundred yards away. Daily communication was established and at night the opposing soldiers fraternized generally. The Russian doctrine that an end of the fighting would come if the soldiers agreed to do no more shooting, spread throughout the Italian trenches.

This was all part of a plan carefully mapped out by the German High Command. When the infection had spread, the fraternizing Austrian troops were withdrawn from the front trenches and German shock troops took their places.

On October 24th these troops attacked in force. The Italians in the front line, mistaking them for the friendly Austrians, waved a[216] greeting. German machine guns and rifles replied with a deadly fire, and the great flanking movement commenced. So well had the Germans played their game the Italians lost more than 250,000 prisoners and 2,300 guns in the first week. The attack began in the Julian Alps and continued along the Isonzo southwestward into the plain of Venice. The Italian positions at Tolmino and Plezzo were captured and the whole Italian force was compelled to retreat along a seventy-mile front from the Carnic Alps to the sea. The most[217] important point gained by the enemy in its early assault was the village of Caporetto on the Upper Isonzo where General Cadorna held a great series of dams which could have drained the Isonzo River dry within twelve hours.

The Italian retreat at places degenerated into a rout and it was not until the Italians, reinforced by French and British, reached the Piave River, that a stand was finally made. The defeat cost Cadorna his command, and he was succeeded by General Armando Diaz, whose brilliant strategy during the remainder of the war marked him as a national hero and one of the outstanding military geniuses of the war.

The order for a general retreat was issued on October 27th. Poison gas shells rained blindness and death upon the retreating Italians and upon the heroic rear-guards. The city of Udine and its environs were emptied of their inhabitants; and Goritzia, which had been wrested after a desperate effort from the Austrians, was retaken on October 28th.

That the entire Italian army escaped the[218] fate that had come to the Russians at the Masurian Lakes was due mainly to the Third Army commanded by the Duke of Aosta. During the long running fight, it faced about from time to time and drove the Germans back in bloody encounters.

By November 10th the Italian forces had come to the hastily prepared entrenchments on the west bank of the Piave River. The Austrians and the Germans dug in on the east bank of the stream from the village of Susegana in the Alpine foothills to the Adriatic Sea.

Here a long-drawn-out battle was fought, resulting in enormous losses to the Germans and Austrians. By this time reinforcements had come up from the French front and every attempt by the enemy to gain ground met a bloody check. The hardest fighting was on the Asiago Plateau. There, although the Italians were greatly outnumbered, the concentration of their artillery in the hills overlooking the great field completely dominated the situation.

[219]A factor that was of the utmost value in checking the Austrians was the system of lagoon defenses running from the lower Piave to the Gulf of Venice.

From November 13th, when the Austrians in crossing the lower Piave in their headlong rush to Venice were suddenly checked by the Italian lagoon defenses, the entire Gulf of Venice, with its endless canals and marshes, with islands disappearing and reappearing with the tide, was the scene of a continuous battle. A correspondent described the fighting as absolutely without precedent. The Teutons were desperately trying to turn the Italian right wing by working their way around the northern limits of the Venetian Gulf. The Italians inundated the region and sealed all the entrances into the gulf by mine fields. The gulf, therefore, was converted into an isolated sea. Over this inland waterway the conflict raged bitterly. The Italians had a “lagoon fleet” ranging from the swiftest of motor boats, armed with machine guns, small cannon, and torpedo tubes, to huge, cumbersome, flat-bottomed[220] British monitors, mounting the biggest guns.

The Italian vessels navigated secret channels dug in the bottom of the shallow lagoons. Only the Italian war pilots knew these courses. Even gondolas straying out of the channels were instantly and hopelessly stranded. Not only this, but as the muddy flats and marshy islands did not permit of artillery emplacements the Italians developed an immense fleet of floating batteries. The guns ranged from three-inch fieldpieces to great fifteen-inch monsters. Each was camouflaged to represent a tiny island, a garden patch, or a houseboat. Floating on the glasslike surface of the lagoons, the guns fired a few shots and then changed position, making it utterly impossible for the enemy to locate them. The entire auxiliary service of supplying this floating army was adapted to meet the lagoon warfare. Munition dumps were on boats, constantly moved about to prevent the enemy spotting them. Gondolas and motor boats replaced the automobile supply lorries customary in land[221] warfare. Instead of motor ambulances, motor boats carried off the dead and wounded. Hydro-airplanes replaced ordinary fighting aircraft.

Along the northern limit of the Venetian Gulf, where the Austrians, having filtered into the Piave Delta, sought to cross both the Sile and the Piave, the enemy each night hooked up pontoons. At daybreak every morning one end of a huge pontoon structure was anchored to the east bank of the Piave and the other flung out to the strong current, which soon stretched the makeshift bridge across.

The moment this happened, the enemy infantry madly dashed across. Simultaneously the Italian floating batteries opened a terrific fire. Practically every morning the Austrians tried the trick, and every morning they failed, with heavy losses, to effect a crossing. At last they gave up the attempt as hopeless, and the armies remained locked on the Piave for several months.