The Northern and Southern Slavs

The conference at Rome, April 10, 1918, to settle outstanding questions between the Italians and the Slavs of the Adriatic, has once more drawn attention to those Slavonic peoples in Europe who are under non-Slavonic rule. At the beginning of the war there were three great Slavonic groups in Europe: First, the Russians with the Little Russians, speaking languages not more different than the dialect of Yorkshire is from the dialect of Devonshire; second, a central group, including the Poles, the Czechs or Bohemians, the Moravians, and Slovaks, this group thus being separated under the four crowns of Russia, Germany, Austria, and Hungary; the third, the southern group, included the Sclavonians, the Croatians, the Dalmatians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians, the Slavs, generally called Slovenes, in the western portion of Austria, down to Goritzia, and also the two independent kingdoms of Montenegro and Serbia.

Like the central group, this southern group of Slavs was divided under four crowns, Hungary, Austria, Montenegro, and Serbia; but, in spite of the fact that half belong to the Western and half to the Eastern Church, they are all essentially the same people, though with considerable infusion of non-Slavonic blood, there being a good deal of Turkish blood in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The languages, however, are practically identical, formed largely of pure Slavonic materials, and, curiously, much more closely connected with the eastern Slav group—Russia and Little Russia—than with the central group, Polish and Bohemian. A Russian of Moscow will find it much easier to understand a Slovene from Goritzia than a Pole from Warsaw. The Ruthenians, in Southern Galicia and Bukowina, are identical in race and speech with the Little Russians of Ukrainia.

Of the central group, the Poles have generally inclined to Austria, which has always supported the Polish landlords of Galicia against the Ruthenian peasantry; while the Czechs have been not so much anti-Austrian as anti-German. Indeed, the Hapsburg rulers have again and again played these Slavs off against their German subjects. It was the Southern Slav question, as affecting Serbia and Austria, that gave the pretext for the present war. At this moment, the central Slav question—the future destiny of the Poles—is a bone of contention between Austria and Germany. It is the custom to call these Southern Slavs "Jugoslavs," from the Slav word Yugo, "south," but as this is a concession to German transliteration, many prefer to write the word "Yugoslav," which represents its pronunciation. The South Slav question was created by the incursions of three Asiatic peoples—Huns, Magyars, Turks—who broke up the originally continuous Slav territory that ran from the White Sea to the confines of Greece and the Adriatic.

Drunkenness Reduced in Great Britain

The result of the control of the liquor traffic in Great Britain is shown by the following figures of convictions for drunkenness in the years named, the upper line of figures referring to males, the lower line to females:

Greater London—Population, (1911,)
7,486,964
1913.	1914.	1915.	1916.	1917.
48,535	49,077	35,866	19,478	10,931
16,953	18,577	15,970	9,975	5,736
————	————	————	————	————
65,488	67,654	51,836	29,453	16,667

Boroughs, (36,) England and Wales—
Population, (1911,) 8,406,372
41,380	38,577	27,041	17,233	9,870
11,399	11,258	9,959	6,097	3,679
————	————	————	————	————
52,779	49,835	37,000	23,330	13,549
————	————	————	————	————
89,915	87,654	62,907	36,711	20,801
28,352	29,835	25,929	16,072	9,415
————-	————-	————	————	————
118,267	117,489	88,836	52,783	30,216

In England and Wales the deaths due to or connected with alcoholism (excluding cirrhosis of the liver) fell from 1,112 (males) and 719 (females) in 1913 to 358 (males) and 222 (females) in 1917; deaths due to cirrhosis of the liver, from 2,215 (males) and 1,665 (females) to 1,475 (males) and 808 (females); cases of attempted suicide, from 1,458 (males) and 968 (females) to 483 (males) and 452 (females); deaths from suffocation of infants under one year declined from 1,226 to 704.

Germany's Population Declining

A careful study of the vital statistics of Germany and Great Britain reveals the fact that the population of Germany is declining, while that of Great Britain is increasing. The German Empire, which in June, 1919, at the previous rate of increase should have had 72,000,000 people, will have no more than 64,500,000. Germany as a whole will have 5 per cent. less population than when the war began. Of those who have been killed the greater number were men in the prime of life and energy, whom Germany could least spare. By deaths in the battle zone the empire has lost at least 3,000,000 men.

The birth rate has sunk to such a figure that by next year the number of births will have fallen short of what they would have been had there been no war by 3,333,000. In the same period the annual number of deaths among the German civilian population, owing to the stress and anxiety of the war, and sickness, which has been aggravated by hardships and food troubles, has increased by 1,000,000 over the normal.

While by next year the German Empire will be 7,500,000 lower in population than it would have been had the war not taken place, the vitality of the peoples of Austria and Hungary has suffered even more. The peoples of Austria will be 11 per cent. poorer in numbers next year than if the war had not taken place. They will be 8 per cent. lower in numbers than they were in 1914. Hungary will be still worse off. It will have a population 9 per cent. lower than before the war, and 13 per cent. lower than it would have been if there had been no war.

Meanwhile, despite the losses suffered in the war zone, the British population has been growing. By the middle of 1919 this population will be only 3 per cent. lower than it would have been without war. Great Britain in 1919 will have a larger population than in 1914.

Cairo to Jerusalem by Rail

It was officially announced May 11 that the swing bridge over the Suez Canal at Kantara was completed, and that on May 15, 1918, there was direct railway service from Cairo to Jerusalem. When the war broke out there were no railways between the Suez Canal and the Jaffa-Jerusalem railway, a distance of some 200 miles, mainly desert.

At that time a line ran along the western bank of the canal from Suez to Port Said. It was linked up with the main lines of the Egyptian State railways by a single track from Ismailia to Zagazig. A few miles to the north of that track another line from Zagazig stopped some eighteen miles short of the canal at El Salhia. At the beginning of the war, to facilitate the transport of troops and supplies to the canal and beyond, the track from Zagazig to Ismailia was doubled, and a new line was pushed out from the dead end at El Salhia to the canal opposite Kantara, a village on the eastern, or Sinai, side of the canal. Later, when the British troops entered the Sinai Peninsula, a railway was begun from Kantara eastward, and as the British troops advanced so did the railway. It followed the northern track across Sinai, and had been taken within a few miles of Gaza when that town was captured last November. Meantime the Turks had built a branch from the Jaffa-Jerusalem line to a point only five miles north of Gaza, and by February General Allenby had joined the two systems, so that there was direct railway connection between Kantara and Jerusalem.

Kindling the Holy Fire

The annual ceremony of the Kindling of the Holy Fire took place May 4 in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. In Turkish days it was the custom to provide a guard of not less than 600 soldiers in order to keep the peace between the Greeks and Armenians, as disorders almost invariably occurred. On this occasion there was no guard of any kind other than the ordinary police, and the ceremony took place without any sign of disturbance.

The ceremony of the Holy Fire—at which, it is held, flame comes by a miracle from heaven to kindle the lamps of the Holy Sepulchre—apparently began in the ninth century, and was formerly attended by leading representatives of all the churches. These have long ago withdrawn from it, and it is now attended by members of the Greek and Armenian Churches, mostly ignorant pilgrims of Eastern Christendom. Many enlightened members of the Greek Church discouraged the ceremony, as the vast crowds of frenzied people attending it had to be kept in some sort of order by Turkish soldiers. At the appointed time a bright flame of burning wood appears through a hole in the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre; the rush to obtain this new fire is overwhelming, and it is handed on from taper to taper until thousands of lights appear. A mounted horseman takes a lighted torch to convey the sacred fire to the lamp of the Greek Church in the convent at Bethlehem. In 1834 hundreds of lives were lost in the violent pressure of the unruly crowd.

Building the Cape to Cairo Railway

Notwithstanding the war, 200 miles of the Cape to Cairo Railway in Africa were laid in the last four years, and a total of 450 miles in the last eight years from the Rhodesian frontier to the navigable waterway of the Congo. The latest section of the Katanga Railway reached Bukama, on the Congo River, May 22.

The railway starts from Cape Town and crosses Bechuanaland and Rhodesia; it reached the Congo frontier in 1909. The first section (158 miles) reached the copper mines of the Star of the Congo in November, 1910, where Elizabethville, a populous town, inhabited by 1,400 white men, has since developed. The railway was pushed in 1913 as far as Kambové, another important mining district, (99 miles.) In spite of the difficulties caused by the war, a third section was open to traffic north of Kambové, reaching Djilongo (68 miles) in July, 1915. It was through this road that the two English monitors, under the direction of Commander G. B. Spicer Simson, reached the waters of Lake Tanganyika, which they cleared of enemy craft. Understanding the advantages which the line would afford, the Belgian Colonial Government opened new credits for the completion of the railway as far as Bukama, (125 miles.) The building started from Djilongo and Bukama at the same time, and, in spite of the difficulties of the ground and the scarcity of labor in the region traversed, has now been successfully completed. More than 30,000 tons of copper are annually transported from the Congo copper mines.

Compiegne and Its Forest

Compiegne, the northern support of the French battlefront during the early part of June, goes back to Roman days. Its name is a modernization of Compendium, which seems to have meant the "short cut" between Soissons and Beauvais. The castle, which was founded by Charles the Bald, was rebuilt by Charles V. and Louis XV. It is now practically a historical museum of pictures, sculpture, vases, beautiful French furniture. The Hôtel de Ville, the Town Hall, was built under Louis XII., and is now adorned by a recent statue of Jeanne d'Arc, whose cult has been so widely revived in the last few years in France. And the old churches of Saint James and Saint Antony go back to the France of Charles VIII. and Louis XII. The magnificent forest of Compiègne, with its century-old oaks and beeches, covers some 36,000 acres, or almost sixty square miles, and has nearly ninety miles of parkways under its shady boughs. Within it, near Champlieu, are old Roman ruins, and the huge, many-towered Château of Pierrefonds, which was a favorite hunting lodge of the Kings of France. Built in the fourteenth century, it was rebuilt by Viollet-le-Duc. It is curious that the modern use of airplanes in military scouting, in conjunction with our powerful artillery, has given these forests a significance in battle which takes us back not merely to the days of mediaeval warfare with its forest ambushes but to the earlier fighting of primitive tribes.

The Forest of Villers-Cotterets

The immense importance of forests in the present battle is only one among many returns to the machinery of mediaeval war, like the revival of helmets, bombs, mortars, the use of a trench knife, which is simply an adapted Roman broadsword. And, in exactly the same way, the pressure of races in the present war has brought the fighting back to the old, famous battle areas, on which the Latin races have fought against the barbarians any time these two thousand years. This is particularly true of the area of the fighting in the first half of June. Much of the history here goes back to old Roman times, much to the earliest Kings of France. Villers-Cotterets, in the old feudal territory of Valois, has developed from a sixth century hamlet, first named Villers-Saint-Georges. The great forest, which has been so strong a buttress for the French and American line, was then known as Col-de-Retz, and was a favorite hunting ground of the early Kings. The Château Malmaison, rebuilt by Francis I. in 1530, was really a magnificent hunting lodge; his son, Henry II., and Francis II. often sojourned there. Charles V. halted there during his campaign in Champagne. Charles IX. spent his honeymoon there with his young Queen Elizabeth. The castle was restored by the Duke of Orleans in 1750, at a cost of 2,000,000 francs, when the great walls of the park were built. He was the father of Philippe-Egalité and the grandfather of King Louis Philippe. Alexandre Dumas, who was born at Villers-Cotterets, described the castle as being "as big as the whole town." Later it became an orphanage, sheltering 800 children. In the forest is the "enchanted butte," 752 feet above sea level, which is dimly visible from Laon, forty-four miles away; here the fairies were traditionally believed to dance in the moonlight. Finally, in the last martial act of Napoleon's Hundred Days—on June 27, 1815, a week after Waterloo—Marshal Grouchy fought the Prussians under Pirch within sight of Villers-Cotterets.

Chateau-Thierry

Chateau-Thierry, which has added a splendid page to the martial history of the American Army, is another of the ancient strongholds whose strategic position has given it equal significance in the recent fighting. It was originally a Roman camp, Castrum Theodorici. The castle, built in 730 by Charles Martel, was given in 877 by Louis II., "the Stammerer," to Herbert, Count of Vermandois, from whose family it passed in the tenth century to the Counts of Troyes. At the end of the eleventh century the town, which had grown up under the shelter of the fortress, was surrounded by a wall, and the Burgesses of the town, in 1520, received permission from Francis I. to found a leather and cloth fair, which was long famous. Often a battleground, Château-Thierry was captured by the English in 1421. It was sacked by the Spanish in 1591. It was a centre of French resistance in the invasion of 1814, and Napoleon with 24,000 veterans decisively beat Blücher with 50,000 men under the historic walls of the ancient fortress. The fabulist La Fontaine was born here on July 8, 1621.

Infant Welfare in Germany

The British Local Government Board issued a report on infant welfare in Germany, May 17, 1918, from which the following facts are taken:

During the war there has been a heavy fall in the number of births in Germany. The first three years alone of the war reduced by over 2,000,000 the number of babies who would have been born had peace prevailed. Some 40 per cent. fewer babies were born in 1916 than in 1913. The infantile death rate has been kept well down, but is 50 per cent. higher than in Great Britain.

The birth rate, which had risen from 36.1 per 1,000 inhabitants in the decade 1841-1850 to 39.1 per 1,000 in the period 1871-1880, fell in the succeeding decades to 36.8, 36.1, and 31.9. The rate for the last year of the period 1901-1910 was under 30 per 1,000, and the continuance of the fall brought the rate as low as 28.3 in 1912.

In 1913 there were 1,839,000 live births in Germany; in 1916 there were only 1,103,000—a decrease of 40 per cent. as compared with 1913. The corresponding figures for England and Wales (785,520 live births in 1916 against 881,890 in 1913) show a decrease of 10.9 per cent.

In 1913 the infant mortality rate for Germany was 151 per 1,000, as compared with 108 in England and Wales. The rates in 1914 for Prussia, Saxony, and Bavaria (comprising nearly 80 per cent. of the total population of Germany) were 164, 173, and 193 per 1,000 respectively. The abnormal increase in infant mortality during the first months of the war is shown by the fact that in Prussia in the third quarter of 1914 the rate rose from 128 to 143; in Saxony from 140 to 242; and in Bavaria from 170 to 239.

The principal measure adopted in Germany to promote infant welfare during the war has been the distribution of the imperial maternity grants. "Necessity" must first be proved, but instructions have been given that the term "necessity" is to be liberally interpreted. There was a general demand that some further provision should be made for soldiers' wives who could not meet the extra expenses connected with the birth of a child, and by a Federal Order, published on Dec. 3, 1914, provision was made for the payment (partly from imperial funds and partly from the funds of the sickness insurance societies) of the following allowances:

(a) A single payment of $6.25 toward the expenses of confinement.

(b) An allowance of 25 cents daily, including Sundays and holidays, for eight weeks, at least six of which must be after the confinement.

(c) A grant up to $2.50 for medical attendance during pregnancy if needed.

(d) An allowance for breast-feeding at the rate of 12½ cents a day, including Sundays and holidays, for 12 weeks after confinement.

These grants were afterward extended to women whose husbands were employed on patriotic auxiliary service and women who were themselves employed on such service. In addition to this special measure, steps were taken to encourage the formation of local societies for promoting infant welfare and the establishment by the societies of infant welfare centres. Steps were taken to protect illegitimate children by assisting unmarried mothers from municipal funds and to give expectant and nursing mothers additional rations of food.

As a result of intensive farming propaganda, the acreage of cereals and potatoes in England and Wales in 1917 was 8,302,000, an increase of 2,042,000 over 1916. It is estimated that the tillage in 1917 in Scotland increased 300,000 acres over 1916, and in Ireland the figures showed an increase of 1,500,000 acres, making a total of about 4,000,000 acres increase in the United Kingdom in the year. This was accomplished in the face of the fact that in England and Wales alone there were 200,000 fewer male laborers on the land in 1917 than before the war. It is estimated that the United Kingdom in 1918-19 will produce 80 per cent. of the total breadstuff requirements for the year, whereas in 1916-17 the production was but 20 per cent. of the needs.

The volunteers furnished by Ireland, divided between Ulster and the rest of the country, were as follows:

Year.	Ulster.	Rest of Ireland.	Total.
1914	26,283	17,851	44,134
1915	19,020	27,351	46,371
1916	7,305	11,752	19,057
1917	5,830	8,193	14,023
	———	———	———
	58,438	65,147	123,585

The Parliamentary Under Secretary to the British War Office, Mr. Macpherson, in a statement in Parliament, May 3, 1918, gave the following figures of Chaplains in the war, killed, died of wounds, or died of disease while on service in the war. The figures do not include colonial Chaplains or the Chaplains of the Indian Ecclesiastical Establishment:

Church of England	57
Roman Catholic	19
Presbyterian	4
Methodist	3
United Board	3
Total	86

The Government of Costa Rica declared war on Germany May 23, 1918, bringing the number of nations aligned against the Central Powers to a total of twenty-one. Of the other Central American States Panama, Nicaragua, and Guatemala had issued declarations of war. Honduras severed diplomatic relations, and San Salvador proclaimed neutrality, but explained that it was friendly to the United States. The Government of Peru seized 50,000 tons of interned German ships, and the Government of Chile is negotiating with the United States for the seizure, by appropriation or sale to this country, of 200,000 tons interned in its ports.

The Second American Red Cross drive was begun on May 20. The final subscriptions, as announced on May 28, were $148,833,367, an oversubscription of more than $48,000,000. The subscriptions in New York City exceeded $33,000,000; in the rest of New York State they were about $9,000,000. The oversubscription maintained a similar average in all parts of the country.

When the Germans came in possession of Helsingfors there were seven British submarines in the Baltic with stores, workshops, and barges for floating mechanics, which had been moved into the harbor from different parts of the Baltic as the Germans advanced into Russia. The British naval contingent was in charge of Lieut. Commander Downie, and when it was apparent that the Germans would come in possession of the harbor the entire property was destroyed, including all the submarines, repair shops, and supplies, estimated in value at $15,000,000.

Andrew Bonar Law, Chancellor of the British Exchequer, in introducing a new vote of credit in Parliament June 18, announced that it was felt that the German offensive in France had wholly failed and that the Austrian offensive in Italy was the war's worst initial failure. He extolled America's aid in the war and the brilliant part taken already by American troops. He moved a vote of credit of $2,500,000,000, which was promptly given. The vote brought the total British war credits to $36,500,000,000. It will cover expenditures to Sept. 1, 1918. Bonar Law stated that the daily cost of the war to Great Britain was $34,240,000. The debt due Great Britain from her allies was stated to be $6,850,000,000, and from the Dominions $1,030,000,000.

It was announced June 16 that an American contingent had been assigned to the Vosges Mountains in Alsace in territory which belonged to Germany prior to the war. Private W. J. Gwyton of Evart, Mich., of this force was the first American killed on former German soil, having met his death by machine-gun fire on the day after the unit entered the line, (May 27, 1918.) He was awarded the Croix de Guerre.

Battles in France and Italy

Military Review From May 18 to June 18, 1918—Fighting on the Marne and Oise—The Austrian Offensive

The third month of the great German offensive may be considered the complement of the second; it has been an attempt to accomplish south of the great Picardy salient what north of it had been tried and had failed. In the second month the Lys salient had been developed, but the barrier ridges of Ypres and Arras still held. At the end of the third month the southern barriers—the Chemin-des-Dames and the watershed of the Oise-Aisne—had been carried by the enemy, but the terrain of occupation was so constricted, the enemy troops so distributed, that neither of his ambitious objectives had been brought nearer attainment. These objectives were the reaching of the sea by the Somme via Amiens, with its corollaries, the isolation of the allied armies north of that river and the occupation of the Channel ports; the decisive defeat of the French armies in the field, with whatever moral and political corollary that eventuality might produce; the occupation of Paris, and the demoralization of the French body politic. [See map on Page 19.]

But the German failure of the third month is far more significant, has a far greater bearing on the war, than the failure of the second. The enemy has not only failed to broaden the Picardy front so as to permit a further advance down the Somme, to inflict vital losses on the Allies, to force the French back on the defenses of Paris, but, in attempting to do these things he has transformed all his potential resources into active resources, and these give evidence of approaching exhaustion.

Only one conclusion is possible: Ludendorff with an initial preponderance of men and war material, with the tactical advantage of being able to manoeuvre from the centre outward, has been outgeneraled both in tactics and in strategy by Foch, so that the former's gains of terrain, while being of no advantage whatever—even a danger in certain sectors—have been purchased at an expenditure of men and material utterly incommensurate with their area and position.

FORCING THE AISNE

Ludendorff, on May 27, with a simultaneous diversion on the Lys salient and another at the southwest angle of the Picardy salient, northwest of Montdidier, began, with the most stupendous preparations ever concentrated, an attack on the southern barriers over a forty-mile front. He forced the Aisne the next day on an eighteen-mile front, and on May 31 he brought up at the Marne on a six-mile front, having made a penetration of thirty miles to the south. There he attempted to deploy both east and west, and was held.

Meanwhile his baseline had been extended twenty miles to the west—to near Noyon. He had occupied about 650 square miles of new territory and had reduced his nearest approach to Paris from sixty-two to forty-four miles.

Then, on June 9, with even a greater array of men and material, he attempted to invert the western bow-like side of the salient already formed by turning it outward. He made a fierce attack from a twenty-mile front between Montdidier and Noyon in the direction of Compiègne. With this objective attained, his Picardy front would have been sufficiently broadened to enable him to resume his journey down the Somme. Moreover, he would have been within striking distance of Paris. He gained seven miles, which was later reduced to less than six by French counterattacks. French counterattacks and a thrust of American marines on his flanks in the three succeeding days not only held him in a vise, but revealed his tremendous losses and the extraordinary means he had expended in preparations. By June 12 his failure, the ramifications of which actually demonstrated his defeat, was an established fact. Then, on the following Saturday, June 15, this failure was acknowledged by the sudden launching of an Austrian offensive in Italy. How this was an acknowledgment we shall see in the proper place.

UPPER MAP: WHERE THE GERMAN OFFENSIVE BEGAN ON MAY 27, 1918
LOWER MAP: WHERE IT WAS STOPPED, MAY 31

SECOND MARNE BATTLE

Held at the Ypres and Arras barriers in the north it was inevitable that Ludendorff's next move would be in the south. The railways freed by the expansion of the Picardy salient in March, the unhampered concentrations made possible at Péronne, St. Quentin, La Fère, and Hirson, and the admirable surface of the Laon Plateau for purposes of manoeuvring large bodies of troops—all pointed to the line northwest of Rheims as the probable point of attack. Then, when it came on May 27, consternation reigned among military critics as they observed the apparent ease with which the Germans carried, first, the mighty Chemin des Dames, protected on the east by Craonne and its three plateaux and on the west by the Ailette and the Oise, and then the south bank of the Aisne, with its formidable prepared fortifications at Soissons. The German feints in the Lys salient and before Amiens in the preceding week were said to have distracted Foch, who had thus been outgeneraled. And when the Marne was reached between Dormans and Château-Thierry, it was remembered how the Third German Army under General von Hausen had swept across the river at that identical spot on Aug. 25, 1914.

In the first three days of the drive the Germans with the greatest auxiliary force of tanks, machine guns, and poison gas projectors they had ever mobilized employed twenty-five divisions, or 325,000 men. When they doubled their base line and had reached the Marne and were trying to deploy they were using forty divisions containing over 400,000 of their best troops. When the offensive quieted down in the first days of June it was estimated that they had lost fully 30 per cent. of the total in casualties. On the other hand, they claimed to have captured over 45,000 prisoners and taken 400 guns. They had come thirty miles and had occupied 650 square miles of territory. But they were held.

What is the explanation of this seeming paradox? Foch could by calling on a certain number of reserves easily have held the Chemin des Dames until—he had been flanked and enfiladed out, between Neufchatel and Rheims on the east and from the Oise where it enters the Aisne on the west. He might have held out longer on the southern bank of the Aisne, but the result would have been the same—losses equaling if not surpassing those of the enemy and the surrender of thousands of guns and large quantities of war material. Finally, he would have gained nothing and might even have been unable to hold the Marne.

It is obvious that he did none of these things. But what did he do? He left his front protected by only sufficient men and guns to produce the greatest possible losses among the enemy as he slowly advanced south and concentrated heavily on the enemy's flanks. It was he and not Ludendorff who decreed that the Germans should reach the Marne between Dormans and Château-Thierry, and nowhere else. But it was Pétain who executed the plans of Foch.

THE FIGHT IN DETAIL

The German attack under the personal command of the Crown Prince launched on the morning of May 27 was mainly directed against the British 8th, 50th, 25th, and 21st Divisions and the French 6th Army, which occupied the front from Vauxaillon eastward to the Brimont region—from north of Soissons to the north and a little west of Rheims. Certain sectors at once gave way under the strong pressure—particularly in the Chambrettes. There was no mistaking this for the main offensive, although in the Lys salient, between Ypres and Arras in the north, and on both sides of the Somme and the Ardre in the centre, there were simultaneous artillery preparations of great violence. Toward the end of the day the weight of the enemy's attacks carried his troops across both the River Aisne and the Chemin des Dames. The line, however, remained unbroken, as the Allies retreated across the Aisne between Vailly and Berry-au-Bac, which are eighteen miles apart, and then gave way across the Vesle near Fismes.

On the 28th Franco-British troops proved the assault in the north to be abortive by quickly re-establishing their lines east of Dickebusch Lake and capturing a few prisoners. On the main field of battle in the south the Franco-British right deployed to the east covering the Brouillet-Savigny-Thillois line protecting Rheims. On the west they did the same, but with more elasticity, while the centre continued to give. On the 29th the acute angle of the German penetration, with its vertex covering Fismes, suddenly sprung to the shape of a bow. The line still held covering the Cathedral City, but on the west the defenders of Soissons were killing their last Germans, and in the south Savigny on the Ardre had been reached. At Savigny the line of advance was diverted westward until it embraced Fère-en-Tardennois and Vezilly. And still the retreating but unbroken Allies were deploying east and west as its pressure increased, or were taken prisoner when retreat became impossible.

On the 30th the enemy attempted to broaden his front northwest of Rheims and failed, but he succeeded in obliterating the salient south of Noyon, from the Oise Canal to Soissons, and on the 31st by an advance from a twenty-five-mile curved front he reached the Marne between Château-Thierry and Dormans on a contracted six-mile front. Here he met on the south bank the prepared defenses, and has been kept on the north bank ever since.

AMERICAN MARINES

In the enemy's attempts to broaden his front on the Marne salient, June 1 and 2, he managed to rectify the eastern side by reaching Sarcy and Olizy and by working along up the Marne a couple of miles east of Dormans. He also measurably consolidated his positions between the Oise Canal and Soissons, and south of the latter stretched the line into a segment with a five mile vertical as far south as, but not including, Château-Thierry on the Marne. This swing to the westward appears to have been a deliberate attempt to force Foch to meet shock with shock by throwing in his reserves, as the German advance had reached a point only forty miles from Paris.

OFFENSIVE OF JUNE 9, AIMED AT COMPIEGNE, AND BLOCKED BY THE FRENCH AFTER FIVE DAYS. LIGHT SHADED AREA WON BY GERMANS; DARK SHADED AREA AT BOTTOM WON BACK BY AMERICANS NEAR CHATEAU-THIERRY

This was unnecessary, however, for here, north of Château-Thierry, the enemy was to meet a new foe—the American marines. It is doubtful whether the extraordinary performance of this corps and its French supports between June 6 and June 12, when they bent back the lower part of the bow between La Feste-Milon and Château-Thierry—from Grandeles, Champillon, and Clerembant Wood to Bussiares and Bouresches—can be included in the second battle of the Marne or serves as a diversion to the later battle of the Oise, directed against Compiègne. At any rate, the ardor of the marines had the desired effect, for on the very day they began their work the inspired Berlin Vossische Zeitung said: "The German Supreme Command cannot well proceed now against the newly consolidated French front, which is richly provided with reserves, and bear the great losses which experience shows are entailed by such operations." Thus ended the second battle of the Marne, sometimes called the Aisne-Marne battle.

BATTLE OF THE OISE

The flanking lines between which the Germans were directed to the Marne made the battle of the Oise inevitable as far as the Marne salient was concerned. For the salient, there was only this alternative, if its front could not be broadened: it must be "dug in" or be abandoned. But, being necessary, if it could be waged beyond a certain point, it would also become ambitious. It would supplement the Picardy front by continuing its line down to the Marne. Reaching the Oise at Montmacq, it would flank the French salient north of the Oise. Utilizing the Oise and Ourcq Valleys, it would envelop the defensive forests of Aigue, Compiègne, and Villers-Cotterets. This would mean Compiègne. From Compiègne the investment of Paris was possible.

The battle, as far as the Germans are concerned, was probably their most disastrous effort of the war within the given time. Between thirty and thirty-four divisions were completely used up—a cost of over 400,000 effectives. Not only did their advance lack the element of surprise, but it entered a veritable trap. Their front was enfiladed with a destructive fire from impregnable flanks.

The battle was also a revelation; it demonstrated as nothing else the waning man power of the enemy—the desperate mobilization of 16-year-old boys, of old men, of convicts, even.

The artillery preparation, rich in gas shells, began at midnight on June 8-9. On the following morning at 4:30 the attack was launched over the twenty miles from Montdidier to Noyon. And, as usual, there was the northern diversion—the pounding of the British lines by gunfire from Villers-Bretonneux to Arras. Even on the first day of the assault, when the German centre advanced two and a half miles, the French made a spirited counterattack near Hautebraye, between the Aisne and the Oise. On the second day the enemy took at tremendous cost the villages of Mery, Belloy, and St. Maur and debouched from Thiescourt Wood. On the third day, with the aid of four fresh divisions, he managed to reach the Aronde, on the west; to descend a mile astride the Matz and to occupy its northern bank almost to the Oise, in the centre; and to envelop the forest of Ourscamps, on the east. Before the sun set the French, by a counterattack, had entirely won back the gains on the west, with over 1,000 prisoners captured. On the fourth and fifth days (June 13 and 14) the French heavily attacked on the flanks of the centre—at Courcelles and at Croix Ricard. Then came two final kicks from the foe; on June 16 he attempted to cross the Matz near its junction with the Oise and was driven back with heavy losses. The next day he drenched the south bank of the Marne with gas shells, but did not attempt to cross the stream.

All this time abortive diversions had been going on in the north, in the Lys salient, where on June 15 the British and Scottish troops took the initiative and captured two miles of enemy positions seven miles west of La Bassée and just north of Béthune.

THE AUSTRIAN OFFENSIVE

Just as the German defeat on the Marne and Oise was beginning to be realized abroad—its losses calculated, its meaning interpreted—the Austrians, on June 15, suddenly launched an offensive in the mountain region of Veneto and from the left bank of the Piave. So far the enemy has been firmly held in the mountains, but has crossed the river at two places without, however, being able to bring over any effective artillery—on the middle reaches he has gained the Plateau of Montello, defended by the intrenchments prepared there by the British under Plumer last December, and near the mouth he has succeeded in establishing one or two bridgeheads in the vicinity of Capo Sile.

As a military proposition the offensive has lacked the so far inevitable successes of a prepared initiative; in the mountains the first attacks were almost instantly broken up by simultaneous counterattacks. Along the river, especially in the vicinity of the crossings, the battle is developing in scope and intensity.

Aside from the military paradox already noted, this offensive possesses several characteristics, some military, some political, which seem well worth while dwelling upon.

In the first place, the location of the active front east of the Lago di Garda, from the Asiago Plateau to the sea, offers a certain indication of the German military situation in France. Its abortive character may also indicate the political situation in Austria-Hungary. With the lines in the mountains held, the operations on the Piave present no formidable danger to Italy.

It was well known by the Italian General Staff that the Austro-German High Command intended to make the attempt to confirm the Italian disaster of Caporetto as soon as the melting of the snows permitted the transportation of men and supplies through the Alps. In the first place, the material and man power lost by the Italians in the retreat to the Piave, which included the actual elimination of the 2d Army, were replaced. In the second, it was absolutely necessary to rectify, even in the Winter, the northern mountain line east of the Lago di Garda. West of the lake up to the Tonale Pass, over the great glacier of the Adamello, it was practically invulnerable, save through the Giudicaria Valley.

From west to east there were three doors, as it were, which had only been partly shut—the Vallarsa south of Rovereto, the path of the Frenzela Torrent and the angle it forms with the Brenta just above Valstagna, and the approach down the Piave in the region of Monte Monfenera from the Calcina Torrent. There were also other minor openings—the passes of Monte Asolone, between the Brenta and the Piave, covering the path south along the Val San Lorenzo, the Nos and Campo Mulo Valleys between Asiago and the Brenta. All these were closed in December and January, with a total loss to the enemy of over 10,000 men and 100 guns, save the domination of the Vallarsa, that was taken from the Austrians by the capture of Monte Corno on May 15. Meanwhile, the British and French armies had been transferred, the former from Il Montello on the Piave to the Asiago Plateau, and the latter from the Monfenera region to that of Monte Grappa. Between 200,000 and 300,000 Italian troops had been sent to the aid of France.

Thus the Italian General Staff awaited the inevitable with confidence—a confidence fully seconded by people and press, for if the mass of the Italians had fought in ignorance before the catastrophe of Caporetto, since then they had learned the objects of the war—national as well as allied.

But the General Staff had also learned something else. This was most important. If Ludendorff in France should be successful—if he should succeed in isolating the allied armies north of the Somme, or force the French back upon the defenses of Paris, or both—then the Austrian Commander in Chief with his million men would be aided by German generalship and German divisions, and, together, they would strike down the Giudicaria to the west of the Lago di Garda, with all strength and disregarding all sacrifices in order to reach the metallurgic centre of Italy in Lombardia and Emilia, thereby forcing Italy out of the war and gaining access to the back door of France. If, however, Ludendorff should be blocked in France, the offensive must still be made at the propitious moment, but its plan of attack would be to the east of the Lago di Garda, from the Astico to the sea. It would be entirely an Austrian affair, and would naturally be limited by the political and military situation in the Dual Monarchy.

It is of significance, therefore, that the offensive has been launched to the east and not to the west of the Lago di Garda. Its locality reveals Ludendorff's conviction that he is at least blocked in France, if nothing else, whatever light its development may later throw upon the parlous internal conditions of the Hapsburg Empire.

This admitted, the Austrian plan of campaign becomes a simple problem—simple because there could be no other. At the beginning of the war Italy attempted to neutralize the Trentino and the Carnic region by sealing the passes and then made her attack across the Isonzo. But she could never be certain that the passes had been effectually sealed. A successful Austrian invasion through them would jeopardize her armies on the Isonzo, isolate them by cutting their lines of communication. That was the danger which threatened those armies when the Austrians made their drive upon the Asiago Plateau in May, 1916, which was ultimately outflanked and forced back. That was also the disaster when last October the Austro-German armies, having penetrated the Isonzo line from the north, forced it to retire westward, forced a withdrawal from the passes in the Carnic and the Dolomite Alps, and again reached the Asiago Plateau, this time free from the danger of being flanked.

LEADING GENERALS OF THE AMERICAN ARMY

Major Gen. H. A. Greene
(Press Illus. Service)

Major Gen. H. S. Hale

Major Gen. J. T. Dickman