On February 28 the great French liner La Provence was sunk in the Mediterranean with a loss estimated at 900 lives. It had a displacement of 19,200 tons, length 602 feet, beam 65 feet, and had been in the service of the French Government as a troop transport.
Under new orders to their submarine commanders, in spite of protests by the United States Government, Germany and Austria inaugurated on March 1 the policy of sinking without warning all Allied merchant vessels believed to carry any armament for defensive purposes, and the world waited with bated breath for fresh developments of the Teutonic campaign of frightfulness.
CHAPTER. XXVI
CLIMAX OF THE WAR.
Prolonged Battle of Verdun the Most Terrible in History— Enormous Losses on Both Sides—Submarine Activity Imperils Relations of America and Germany.
Beginning with the first infantry attack by the Germans on Monday, February 21, after twenty-four hours of continuous bombardment, the battles incident to the siege of Verdun were fought at brief intervals during the next two months, down to the middle of April, and marked the climax of the War. The losses on both sides were enormous and extraordinary, and taken as a whole the struggle on the semicircular front north and east of the great French stronghold fully justified its description as "the most terrible battle in the world's history."
When spring of 1916 arrived, the struggle seemed to be a pretty even draw, but the end was not in sight. Both sides showed the greatest confidence in the outcome. In France the confidence of the nation found expression in the voice of M. Alexandre Ribot, the veteran minister of finance, who, having Verdun before his eyes, told the Chamber of Deputies: "We have reached the decisive hour. We can say without exaggeration, without illusion, and without vain optimism, that we now see the end of this horrible war."
But while the French were certain that victory would ultimately be theirs, the German papers and people were just as fully persuaded that this finest of the fortresses of France would finally fall before the determined assaults of the Kaiser's army, which no fort had, as yet, stopped.
Both sides recognized that this was the supreme moment of the War. The Germans had gained by April 15 from three to five miles along a front of about 15 miles, but had taken only two of the ring of minor forts around Verdun. The French claimed that the configuration of the ground occupied by the contending forces at that time made their line impregnable. Although Verdun was said by the German military experts to be only an incident in the German offensive which was planned to secure the final "decision," they realized the importance of Verdun to their whole line on the Western front, and knew its value too well not to make the most desperate and exhaustive efforts for its conquest.