The New Gresham Encyclopedia. Estremoz to Felspar / Volume 4, Part 3

Rivers and Lakes.—The main European watershed runs in a winding direction from south-west to north-east, at its north-eastern extremity being of very slight elevation.From the Alps descend some of the largest of the European rivers, the Rhine, the Rhône, and the Po, while the Danube, a still greater stream, rises in the Black Forest north of the Alps.The Volga, which enters the Caspian Sea, an inland sheet without outlet, is the longest of European rivers, having a direct length of nearly 1700 miles, including windings 2400 miles.Into the Mediterranean flow the Ebro, the Rhône, and the Po; into the Black Sea, the Danube, Dnieper, Dniester, and Don (through the Sea of Azov); into the Atlantic, the Guadalquivir, the Guadiana, the Tagus, and Loire: into the English Channel, the Seine; into the North Sea, the Rhine, Elbe; into the Baltic, the Oder, the Vistula, and the Duna; into the Arctic Ocean, the Dvina.The lakes of Europe may be divided into two groups, the southern and the northern.The former run along both sides of the Alps, and among them, on the north side, are the lakes of Geneva, Neuchâtel, Thun, Lucerne, Zürich, and Constance; on the south side, Lago Maggiore, and the lakes of Como, Lugano, Iseo, and Garda.The northern lakes extend across Sweden from west to east, and on the east side of the Baltic a number of lakes, stretching in the same direction across Finland on the borders of Russia, mark the continuation of the line of depression.It is in Russia that the largest European lakes are found—Lakes Ladoga and Onega.

Geology.—The geological features of Europe are exceedingly varied. The older formations prevail in the northern part as compared with the southern half and the middle region. North of the latitude of Edinburgh and Moscow there is very little of the surface of more recent origin than the strata of the Upper Jura belonging to the Mesozoic period, and there are vast tracts occupied either by eruptive rocks or one or other of the older sedimentary formations.Denmark belongs to the Cretaceous period, as does also a large part of Russia between the Volga and the basin of the Dnieper.Middle and Eastern Germany, with Poland and the valley of the Dnieper, present on the surface Eocene formations of the Tertiary period.The remainder of Europe is remarkable for the great diversity of its superficial structure, rocks and deposits belonging to all periods being found within it, and having for the most part no great superficial extent.Europe possesses abundant stores of those minerals which are of most importance to man, such as coal and iron, Britain being particularly favoured in this respect.Coal and iron are also obtained in France, Belgium, and Germany.Gold is found to an unimportant extent, and silver is widely spread in small quantities.The richest silver ores are in Norway, Spain, the Erzgebirge, and the Harz Mountains.Spain is also rich in quicksilver.Copper ores are abundant in the Ural Mountains, Thuringia, Cornwall, and Spain.Tin ores are found in Cornwall, the Erzgebirge, and Brittany.

Climate.—Several circumstances concur to give Europe a climate peculiarly genial, such as its position almost wholly within the temperate zone, and the great extent of its maritime boundaries. Much benefit is also derived from the fact that its shores are exposed to the warm marine currents and warm winds from the south-west, which prevent the formation of ice on most of its northern shores. The eastern portion has a less favourable climate than the western. The extremes of temperature are greater, the summer being hotter and the winter colder, while the lines of equal mean temperature decline south as we go east. The same advantages of mild and genial temperature which western has over eastern Europe, the continent collectively has over the rest of the Old World. The diminution of mean temperature, as well as the intensity of the opposite seasons, increases as we go east. Peking, in lat. 40° N., has as severe a winter as Petrograd in lat. 60° N.

Vegetable Productions.—With respect to the vegetable kingdom, Europe may be divided into four zones.The first, or most northern, is that of fir and birch.The birch reaches almost to North Cape; the fir ceases a degree farther south.The cultivation of grain extends farther north than might be supposed.Barley ripens even under the seventieth parallel of north latitude; wheat ceases at 64° in Norway, 62° in Sweden.Within this zone, the southern limit of which extends from lat.64° in Norway to lat.62° in Russia, agriculture has little importance, its inhabitants being chiefly occupied with the care of reindeer or cattle, and in fishing.The next zone, which may be called that of the oak and beech, and cereal produce, extends from the limit above mentioned to the forty-eighth parallel.The Alps, though beyond the limit, by reason of their elevation belong to this zone, in the moister parts of which cattle husbandry has been brought to perfection.Next we find the zone of the chestnut and vine, occupying the space between the forty-eighth parallel and the mountain chains of Southern Europe.Here the oak still flourishes, but the pine species become rarer.Rye, which characterizes the preceding zone on the continent, gives way to wheat, and in the southern portion of it to maize also.The fourth zone, comprehending the southern peninsulas, is that of the olive and evergreen woods.The orange flourishes in the southern portion of it, and rice and even cotton are cultivated in some places in Italy and Spain.

Animals.—As regards animals, the reindeer and polar-bears are peculiar to the north.In the forests of Poland and Lithuania the urus, a species of wild ox, is still occasionally met with.Bears and wolves still inhabit the forests and mountains; but, in general, cultivation and population have expelled wild animals.The domesticated animals are nearly the same throughout.The ass and mule lose their size and beauty north of the Pyrenees and Alps.The Mediterranean Sea has many species of fish, but no great fishery; the northern seas, on the other hand, are annually filled with countless shoals of a few species, chiefly the herring, mackerel, cod, and salmon.

Inhabitants.—Europe is occupied by several different peoples or races, in many parts now greatly intermingled. The Celts once possessed the west of Europe from the Alps to the British Islands. But the Celtic nationalities were broken by the wave of Roman conquest, and the succeeding invasions of the Germanic tribes completed their political ruin. At the present day the Celtic language is spoken only in the Scottish Highlands (Gaelic), in some parts of Ireland (Irish), in Wales (Cymric), and in Brittany (Armorican). Next to the Celtic comes the Teutonic race, comprehending the Germanic and Scandinavian branches. The former includes the Germans, the Dutch, and the English. The Scandinavians are divided into Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians. To the east, in general, of the Teutonic race, though sometimes mixed with it, come the Slavonians, that is, the Russians, the Poles, the Czechs or Bohemians, the Serbians, Croatians, &c. In the south and south-east of Europe are the Greek and Latin peoples, the latter comprising the Italians, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. All the above peoples are regarded as belonging to the Indo-European or Aryan stock.To the Mongolian stock belong the Turks, Finns, Lapps, and Magyars or Hungarians, all immigrants into Europe in comparatively recent times.The Basques at the western extremity of the Pyrenees are a people whose affinities have not yet been determined.The total population of Europe is about 400 millions; nine-tenths speak the languages of the Indo-European family, the Teutonic group, the Slavonic, and the Latin.The prevailing religion is the Christian, embracing the Roman Catholic Church, which is the most numerous, the various sects of Protestants (Lutheran, Calvinistic, Anglican, Baptists, Methodists, &c.), and the Greek Church.A part of the inhabitants profess the Jewish, a part the Mohammedan religion.

Political Divisions.—In 1921 Europe consisted of the following independent states, kingdoms, or republics: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czecho-Slovakia, Denmark, Esthonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Great Britain and Ireland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands (Holland), Norway, Poland, Portugal, Roumania, Russia, Serbia (Yugo-Slavia), Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine.Of these the following were kingdoms: Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, Netherlands (Holland), Norway, Serbia (Yugo-Slavia), Spain, and Sweden.Turkey (whose possessions in Europe were limited to Constantinople) was an empire, Luxemburg was a grand-duchy, Liechtenstein and Monaco principalities, whilst all the other European states were republics.

History.—Europe was probably first peopled from Asia, but at what date we know not. The first authentic history begins in Greece at about 776 B.C. Greek civilization was at its most flourishing period about 430 B.C. After Greece came Rome, which by the early part of the Christian era had conquered Spain, Greece, Gaul, Helvetia, Germany between the Danube and the Alps, Illyria, and Dacia. Improved laws and superior arts of life spread with the Roman Empire throughout Europe, and the unity of government was also extremely favourable to the extension of Christianity. With the decline of the Roman Empire a great change in the political constitution of Europe was produced by the universal migration of the northern nations. The Ostrogoths and Lombards settled in Italy, the Franks in France, the Visigoths in Spain, and the Anglo-Saxons in South Britain, reducing the inhabitants to subjection, or becoming incorporated with them. Under Charlemagne (771-814) a great Germanic empire was established, so extensive that the kingdoms of France, Germany, Italy, Burgundy, Lorraine, and Navarre were afterwards formed out of it. About this time the northern and eastern nations of Europe began to exert an influence in the affairs of Europe. The Slavs, or Slavonians, founded kingdoms in Bohemia, Poland, Russia, and the north of Germany; the Magyars appeared in Hungary; and the Normans agitated all Europe, founding kingdoms and principalities in England, France, Sicily, and the East. The Crusades and the growth of the Ottoman power are amongst the principal events which influenced Europe from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. The conquest of Constantinople by the Turks (1453), by driving the learned Greeks from this city, gave a new impulse to letters in Western Europe, which was carried onwards by the invention of printing and the Reformation. The discovery of America was followed by the temporary preponderance of Spain in Europe, and next of France. Subsequently Prussia and Russia gradually increased in territory and strength. The French revolution (1789) and the Napoleonic wars had a profound effect on Europe, the dissolution of the old German Empire being one of the results. The most important events in European history from the revolution of 1789 to 1914, the beginning of the European War, were: the establishment of the independence of Greece; the disappearance of Poland as a separate state; the unification of Italy under Victor Emmanuel; the Franco-German War, resulting in the consolidation of Germany into an empire under the leadership of Prussia: and the partial dismemberment of the Turkish Empire. The European War, 1914-8 (q. v.) , revolutionized the continent and altered the map of Europe. The chief results were the disintegration of the Dual Monarchy and of Russia, the abolition of the German Empire, and the deposition of hereditary rulers in the smaller German states, which instituted republican Governments. The following new states were formed from the constituent parts of Russia and Austria-Hungary: Albania, Armenia, Azerbijan, Czecho-Slovakia, Esthonia, Finland, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Yugo-Slavia, and Ukraine. Poland, dissolved in the eighteenth century, was again reconstituted. France regained Alsace and Lorraine, Turkey lost almost all her possessions in Europe, whilst Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Italy, and Roumania were greatly enlarged, acquiring new territoriesAll these alterations of boundaries and additions of territories were based on ethnological grounds, the new states being inhabited by peoples belonging to the same ethnical group and speaking the same language.See articles on the various countries.—Bibliography: E. A. Freeman, General Sketch of European History; A. Hassall (editor), Periods of European History; European History Chronologically Arranged; A. S. Rappoport, History of European Nations; O. Browning, General History of the World; H. S. Williams, The Historian's History of the World

European War, 1914-8. The European War, which began in Aug. , 1914, and involved the greater part of the globe before the last shot was fired in Nov. , 1918, had its ostensible origin in the assassination of the Austrian heir-apparent, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife, at Serajevo, capital of Bosnia, once part of the ancient kingdom of Serbia. This crime was committed by a Bosnian student, but Austria-Hungary held Serbia responsible, and, inspired by Germany, sent an ultimatum on 23rd July, amounting to a demand that Serbia should surrender her independence. Two days later, notwithstanding that Serbia conceded every demand, with two reservations which she offered to submit to the Hague Tribunal, Austria-Hungary declared war on her. Germany, who had seen in the Serajevo tragedy a pretext for making her long-premeditated bid for world dominion, "knew very well what she was about in backing up Austria-Hungary in this matter", as the German Ambassador in Vienna frankly told the British representative at the time; and when Russia, as the traditional protector of the Slavs, mobilized her southern armies to save Serbian independence if necessary, she threatened instant mobilization on her own part unless Russia stopped these military measures within twelve hours. It was technically impossible for Russia to do anything of the kind, but her protest to this effect was unavailing. Germany declared war on Russia on 3rd Aug. , and as this inevitably involved war at the same time with Russia's ally France, she sent a note on the following day to Belgium demanding safe passage for German troops through Belgian territory, though Prussia as well as Great Britain, France, Russia, and Austria had guaranteed the neutrality and independence of Belgium by the treaty of 1839, repeatedly confirming this on subsequent occasions. When the British Ambassador in Berlin protested against the threatened violation of treaty rights, the German Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, repudiated the treaty as a mere "scrap of paper".

On 3rd Aug. , when Germany formally declared war on France—though her troops had already invaded French territory at various points—Belgium refused Germany's demands, and called on Great Britain and France for assistance. It was this call, and Germany's refusal on the following day to accede to the British demands that Belgian neutrality should be respected—declaring war on Belgium instead and violating her territory early that morning—which decided Great Britain to range herself wholly on the Franco-Russian side. The German Ambassador in London had already been warned (on 31st July) that we should be drawn into the struggle if Germany persisted in her threatened attack on France.Two days previously Germany had made the 'infamous bid' to Great Britain that if she would remain neutral no territory would be taken from France herself, though no undertaking could be given with regard to the French colonies.British mobilization orders were issued on 4th Aug., and at 11 p.m.on that date Great Britain declared war on Germany.

Fortunately the British navy was ready for any emergency, with the Grand Fleet—the command of which was given to Admiral Sir John Jellicoe—still assembled in full strength at Portland, after the manœuvres, the order for its dispersal having been countermanded on 27th July.Lord Kitchener, home on leave from Egypt, had also been stopped by a telegram from Mr. Asquith, then Prime Minister, as he was stepping on the Channel boat at Dover on his return journey (3rd Aug.), and two days later was appointed Secretary of State for War.Meantime the Austrians had already bombarded Belgrade (29th July); Italy had declined (1st Aug.)to be drawn into the conflict with her Austro-German partners of the Triple Alliance on the grounds that their war was an aggressive one; and German troops, as already mentioned, had invaded France at several points on 2nd Aug., before formally declaring war on that country.

Western Front, 1914

The struggle on the Western front began in earnest on the following day, when war was declared on France and the Germans captured Trieux, near Briey, and Lunéville was bombarded by German aeroplanes.The German system of mobilization had been quicker than the French and Russian, but the opening moves filled the Allied commanders with too-confident hopes.Although slower to mobilize than the Germans, a Russian army under Rennenkampf succeeded in invading East Prussia in force; the Belgians made a magnificent stand for their frontier fortresses when the Germans, denied the right of way which they had demanded, endeavoured to force the great highway of Western Europe which passes through Liége; and the French, besides checking the enemy at Dinant, had already recovered part of the lost provinces of Alsace-Lorraine.

On 16th Aug.the First British Expeditionary Force, under General Sir John French, completed its landing at Boulogne, and four days later had arrived and concentrated on the line Avesnes-Le Cateau, on the left or exposed flank of the French Fifth Army under General de Lanzerac.It consisted of 50,000 infantry with its artillery, and five brigades of cavalry—some 70,000 troops altogether, a mere drop in the ocean compared with the millions of men who were marching to battle for the great military powers, but destined to play a part in the forthcoming struggle out of all proportion to its size.

The position at this juncture was, briefly, as follows: the Germans having at length captured the last forts of Liége, with its gallant commander General Leman, were overrunning Belgium.Brussels had just been evacuated (20th Aug.), and the main Belgian army, menaced by greatly superior forces of the enemy, and disappointed in its hope of effective support from the Franco-British troops, was retiring to seek the protection of the forts of Antwerp.Having occupied Brussels on the 20th, the German Higher Command appointed Baron von der Goltz as Governor.A reign of terror in Belgium had already been inaugurated as part of Germany's deliberate policy of 'frightfulness', including the ruthless execution of civilians on unsubstantiated charges of shooting at the invaders.

The French armies, under the supreme command of General Joffre, who, like Lord Kitchener, had been an engineer student when the Franco-Prussian War broke out, and had been Chief of the General Staff since 1911, were now disposed for the double purpose of meeting the threatened German onslaught and preparing the counter-offensive on which French doctrines of strategy had been based.Starting from the Swiss frontier there were nine divisions forming the Alsace force, the main offensive group, consisting of the French First and Second Armies, being extended along the Lorraine frontier, and the Third Army about Verdun.The Fourth Army formed the mass of manœuvre held in reserve behind the centre, while the Fifth, whose left wing was now extended by the British Expeditionary Force, faced the Ardennes as far as the Belgian frontier.

Germany was not seriously alarmed by the spectacular advance of the French into their lost provinces.It suited the strategy of her War Staff to keep the French mass of manœuvre as far as possible from the point at which it would soon be sorely needed; and their feint attacks in the direction of Longwy, Lunéville, and Belfort were designed to strengthen the belief that their real offensive would come in the frontal assault which the French dispositions had assumed.Germany, however, had always intended to strike through Belgium when the time came to deliver the knock-out blow to France before Russia had time to mobilize her millions.

The German advance was proceeding according to the plan which had been worked out in detail as far back as 1904 by the soldier-scholar of the Garde-Ulanen, Count von Schlieffen, who died two years before his great scheme was put into execution.Based on the assumption that Germany and Austria-Hungary would have to fight France, Russia, Great Britain, and Belgium without the aid of Italy, it provided for an immediate attack by the right wing of the German army of such weight and ferocity as to destroy the French left by a single blow, and then roll up the main French armies one after the other.The South and Russian fronts were meantime to be lightly held, everything being staked on the sudden, overwhelming blow in the north through Belgium.One of the bitter controversies in Germany, after the war, raged round the responsibility for the failure of this plan, the execution of which devolved on General von Moltke, nephew of the great strategist of the Franco-Prussian War.The Kaiser believed that the name of Moltke would strike terror into the hearts of Germany's enemies, but the second Moltke lacked the genius of his predecessor, and the course of events proved that he was not equal to the task of carrying out so prodigious a plan.

It was doubly necessary to strike at once with an immediate maximum of strength now that Britain had already ranged herself alongside the Allies.This maximum of strength was attained long before France had completed her mobilization, and enabled Germany to launch her unexpected blow with crushing effect.She had reckoned, however, without the stubborn defence of the Belgians in the opening moves of the game, a defence which clogged the wheels of her mighty war machine at the critical moment; and was wholly unprepared for Britain's great achievement in transporting her 'insignificant' but indomitable army, without a hitch, complete in every detail, and establishing it in its place in the line of battle, hundreds of miles from its base, in less than three weeks from the declaration of war.Clearly there was no time to be lost in solving the military problem on the Western front before the Russians could throw their full weight into the scales.

The secret of Germany's sudden attempt to overwhelm the Allied left by an outflanking movement was well kept.The position in Belgium was obviously grave; but Joffre still clung to the belief that if the Germans attacked the Allied left in force, they would leave their own position in front of the French Fifth Army so exposed as to give him an opening for a successful counter-stroke with de Lanzerac's troops in co-operation with the British.Up to the 22nd General French's preparations were all in the direction of offensive action on these lines; his two corps had taken up their positions through Binche and Mons and along the canal to Condé.

The German tide which now swept through the plains of Belgium entirely upset the Allied calculations.General French woke on 22nd Aug.to find the troops of the French Fifth Army on his right in unmistakeable retreat.The full force of the German blow, delivered by von Buelow's Second Army, had been felt by de Lanzerac's troops on the Sambre at daybreak, and had pressed them back from the river.The British position held by the 1st Corps (1st and 2nd Divisions) under General Sir Douglas Haig, the 2nd Corps (3rd and 5th Divisions) under General Sir H.Smith-Dorrien, and the Cavalry Division under General Allenby, became isolated by the retreat of de Lanzerac—"the most complete example", as Lord French long afterwards described him, "of the Staff College pedant whose 'superior education' had given him little idea of how to conduct war".De Lanzerac asked General French if he would attack the flank of the German columns which were pressing him back from the Sambre, but the British Commander, who had received definite instructions from Lord Kitchener that his command was to be an entirely independent one, "and that you will in no case come in any sense under the orders of any Allied general", replied that with his own position so seriously threatened by the retreat of de Lanzerac's troops such an operation was impracticable, but he agreed to retain his present position for the next twenty-four hours.

The British army fulfilled this pledge, and the barrier thus held and maintained during the subsequent retreat, though shattered in parts, saved the French left from being outflanked by the invading right wing of the Germans under von Kluck. The whole situation became extremely critical on the following day (23rd Aug.) . Namur, the forts of which had been regarded as impregnable, fell before the crushing attack of the heavy Austrian howitzers brought up by the advancing Germans; the French thrust into Alsace-Lorraine had just been countered by the German Fifth Army under the Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, which compelled the French to retreat from all but a corner of Alsace; and the main German attack, launched at the other end of the line, forced the French back both from the Sambre and the Meuse. The French Fifth Army, the position of which was considerably weakened by the fall of Namur, was attacked both by von Buelow's army in front, and by a Saxon army under von Hausen on its right. It was forced back until von Hausen found a gap on its right flank, through which he proceeded to pour his Saxons with the object of rolling up the French Third and Fourth Armies under Ruffey and Langle de Cary. These retreated in turn, to recover alignment with de Lanzerac's Fifth Army, which had retreated from the British right. The British army was thus left 'in the air', outflanked not only on the right, where von Buelow was now advancing on it from Charleroi, but also on the left, where von Kluck's right wing was sweeping down in full force from the north-west.

The onslaught on the British front began shortly after noon with a bombardment of some 600 guns along the whole line of 25 miles; followed by a great frontal attack in mass formation.The British troops, all experts at musketry, used their rifles with such deadly effect that the frontal attack crumpled up.The line held; but with the German tide surging round on either flank the position became increasingly critical.Under the threatened turning movement General Smith-Dorrien withdrew from the Mons salient, and before nightfall took up a fresh line some 3 miles south of the canal.The advanced troops of the 1st Corps had not been seriously engaged, and held their ground.It was not until late that night that the desperate situation on his right was fully revealed to General French; and when news also arrived from Joffre that the British army would probably be attacked the next day by at least three German corps and two cavalry divisions, it became clear that a general and immediate retirement was inevitable.What actually happened was that the enemy attacked with no fewer than four corps, and at least two cavalry divisions.

The Retreat from Mons

The great retreat began shortly after dawn on the 24th with a feint attack by the 1st Division, under cover of which the 2nd Corps moved back 5 miles, and then stood in turn to protect the retirement of the 1st Corps. Further withdrawals were effected that day by alternate corps, covered by heavy rear-guard actions, until the 1st Corps had reached the line between Maubeuge and Bavai, with the 2nd Corps extending the line from Bavai to Bry. Von Kluck's army, though kept in check by the retreating troops, followed closely on their heels and round their left flank, their design apparently being to turn the British left and press them back on Maubeuge, the fortress close on their right rear, which, well fortified and provisioned as it was, offered, as General French afterwards pointed out (in 1914), a terrible temptation to an army seeking shelter against overwhelming odds.Bazaine's example at Metz in 1870, and a shrewd suspicion that the German move was deliberately planned with that end in view, proved sufficient reasons for avoiding the trap.A further retreat was accordingly ordered to the line Le Cateau-Cambrai, some miles farther back.

Tournai, which was held by a French Territorial brigade, fell that day.There was nothing apparently to prevent the German host at this juncture from continuing its course to the coast and seizing the Channel ports as far as the Seine.That, doubtless, would have been included in the programme had the Germans anticipated a campaign of any considerable duration.The Kaiser, however, had promised his troops that they should be home again "before the leaves fall"; and to bring this about it was necessary to settle with the Allied army once and for all.Where von Moltke failed, according to Ludendorff and other critics after the war, was in not striking farther to the north or north-west, and in not throwing still more weight into the scale from his left wing.

On the 25th the French were still retreating all along the line save at Maubeuge, the garrison of which held out until 7th Sept., and at Longwy, north of Verdun, which fell on 28th Aug.The British army, battle-worn and suffering severely from the heat, but resisting all the German efforts to turn its western flank, marched stubbornly back, gallantly assisted by Allenby's cavalry.The French were a day's march ahead of them when the British reached the Le Cateau position.General French decided, therefore, that, sorely as the troops needed rest, there was nothing for it but to resume the retreat at daybreak, and issued orders to that effect.The hardest fighting on the 25th had fallen to the 1st Corps at Landrecies, where Haig's weary troops were violently attacked at nightfall, before they could snatch any rest, by fresh enemy troops sent forward in pursuit in motors and lorries.The German infantry paid dearly for their temerity in advancing through the narrow streets of the town in close order, two or three British machine-guns mowing them down in hundreds.The attack was a disastrous failure.

The 2nd Corps did not reach Le Cateau until ten or eleven o'clock that night, thoroughly exhausted after a hard day's fighting and marching. Smith-Dorrien had lost heavily in the operations, and was so convinced that his troops were unfit to resume the march at daybreak that he elected to stand and abide by the result. The magnificent fight put up by his troops on the following day, assisted by Allenby and Sordet's cavalry, and two divisions of French Territorial troops under d'Amade, which had been detailed to guard the British left flank, saved the situation, and averted, in the considered opinion expressed by General French five years later, "a stupendous repetition of Sedan". The actual result was a total loss of some 14,000 officers and men, about 80 guns, and numbers of machine-guns, as well as quantities of ammunition and material. According to General French, these losses heavily handicapped the British army in the subsequent stages of the retreat, and were felt throughout the first battle of the Marne and the early operations on the Aisne.In his dispatch of Sept., 1914, the British Commander-in-Chief had written of this battle in eulogistic terms. It was not till some time later, he explains, that he came to know the full details of the battle and to appreciate it in all its details.For General Smith-Dorrien it is urged that his stand at Le Cateau broke the full force of the German pursuit, and checked its course in time.

On the 27th the shattered 2nd Corps, having broken off the action, continued the retreat with the 1st Corps.On the 28th Gough, with the 3rd Cavalry Brigade at St.Quentin, and Chetwode, with the 5th at Cérizy, turned on the leading German cavalry at both these places and threw them back on their main bodies in confusion.For the first time since the retreat began the worn-out British infantry, having reached the line of the Oise between Noyon and La Fère, were able to rest and sleep in peace.

On the 29th the British troops reached the line Compiègne-Soissons, the Germans on the same day occupying La Fère and Amiens, as well as Rethel and other towns along the French front.Bapaume held out until the rolling-stock had been removed from Amiens, but the flood-tide of invasion now seemed to be carrying everything before it.Uhlans threatened to cut Sir John French's communications with his base at Boulogne and Dieppe.The base was accordingly transferred to St.Nazaire, at the mouth of the Loire.Timely help came to the retiring British troops on the 29th by a brilliant counter-stroke near Guise on the part of the French Fifth Army on their right; but neither the British nor the French troops on de Lanzerac's right were in a position to make a stand in support of that reaction.The Aisne was forced by the invaders on the 28-29th, and Rheims, Châlons, and Laon abandoned to them within the ensuing forty-eight hours.Falling back doggedly from the Aisne and the Oise, the British troops withdrew on 2nd Sept.to Chantilly-Nanteuil, the German advance having been checked on the previous day by the 4th (Guards) Brigade in a stiff rear-guard action at Villers-Cotterets.

The great retreat was coming to an end.Victory and Paris seemed within the enemy's grasp.He had—as he thought—so shattered the British army that it was now entirely negligible as a fighting force.He was ignorant of the real strength of the force that was gathering on the British left north of Paris—the new French Sixth Army under General Maunoury.It seemed both to von Kluck and the German Higher Command that they had only the shaken French Fifth Army seriously to reckon with on the Allied left, and, as von Kluck was considered more than strong enough for the task, von Moltke took the Garde Reserve Corps and 11th Army Corps from his right wing to East Prussia, where the Russians were now carrying the war well into the Fatherland.

The help rendered by the Russians at this critical phase of the war was invaluable, and played no small part in the approaching struggle on the Marne.In his fears for the safety of Paris, Joffre was naturally anxious to profit by this relief, and discussed with Sir John French the possibility of taking the offensive at the earliest possible moment.There appears to have been some misunderstanding as to Sir John's plans at this point.The British Commander-in-Chief declares that he had every intention of remaining in the line and filling the gap between the French Fifth and Sixth Armies, but the French Higher Command was apparently under the impression that he was determined not to fight any more until his troops had been given a week to reorganize and refit.Lord Kitchener himself hurried to Paris to clear the matter up, but "full accord", according to President Poincaré, long afterwards, "was not re-established without trouble".As soon, however, as the offensive was ordered, continued the same authority, the British Commander-in-Chief gave his assistance without reserve."His army fought with magnificent courage, and Great Britain played a brilliant part in the common victory."

In the meantime the retreat continued, the British, on 2nd Sept., reaching the line of the Marne towards Lagny and Meaux, with the French Fifth Army, now under the command of Franchet d'Esperey, on their right, retiring on Château-Thierry, and Maunoury's new Sixth Army, on their left, retiring towards Paris.It was at this point that von Kluck made the fatal mistake of dismissing the British army as practically crushed and out of action.Diverting the advance of the German First Army, he left Paris on his right in order to deal what he hoped would be a decisive blow at the French Fifth Army south of the Marne.By 5th Sept.the British army had fallen back to the Forest of Crécy to bring it in line with the French Fifth Army.

Not only was the British army at length receiving sorely needed reinforcements, but the French army was every moment increasing in strength and numbers as it fell back on its reserves. Besides the French Sixth Army on the British left, another new French army had sprung into being behind the marshes of St. Gond—the Ninth, under Foch, who filled the gap between Franchet d'Esperey's Fifth and Langle de Cary's Fourth Army—behind Vitry. Eastward the line was continued by the French Third Army, now commanded by Sarrail in place of Ruffey; and Castlenau's Second Army, now fighting the battle of the Grand Couronné de Nancy which stemmed the German invasion at this point, and prevented the threatened envelopment on the Allies' right, where the Kaiser himself had gone to inspire the troops of Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria.

First Battles of Marne and Aisne

Secure on the right, Joffre was at last able to deliver the great counter-stroke on the left which the Germans had invited by their tremendous bid for swift and decisive victory.The retreat came to an end on 5th Sept., when Joffre gave Sir John French his final plans for the coming offensive, and von Kluck, ignorant of the recuperative powers of the British, as well as of the strength of the French Sixth Army on their left, marched across their front in pursuit of d'Esperey's Fifth.That night the Germans crossed the Marne, and the Grand and Petit Morin—two streams which branch off roughly parallel to one another south of the Marne—while some of their patrols reached the Seine, there catching a fleeting glimpse of the capital where they confidently hoped the French would soon be brought to terms.

When at last the retreat came to an end, the British army had been reinforced by the 4th Division, which, with the 19th Infantry Brigade—and subsequently the 6th Division—became the Third Army Corps under General Pulteney, who arrived in France to take command of it on 30th Aug.Deficiencies in armament and material had also been partially made good, but, most important of all, Sir John French bore witness, "the promise of an immediate advance against the enemy had sent a thrill of exultation and enthusiasm throughout the whole force".

The first battle of the Marne had scarcely opened on 6th Sept., 1914, when von Kluck, realizing that Maunoury's force on his extreme right was becoming dangerous, sent two army corps northwards to deal with it.Maunoury had already crossed the Marne and fought the first battle of the Ourcq on the 5th.The dispatch of the two German corps to keep him in check made a way now for the British troops, when, according to plan, they turned on the invaders with the object of assailing their flank with the French Sixth Army on their left; while the French Fifth Army, and the French armies to its right, made a simultaneous frontal attack.

Both Joffre and French were under the impression that the German thrust was still in full career when their counter-stroke was delivered.Already, however, the tide had begun to turn.Von Kluck, realizing too late—what should have been obvious from the first—that his communications were being seriously threatened on the Ourcq, saw that retreat was inevitable unless he could crush the forces gathering so ominously against his right flank.The opening of the battle of the Marne thus became on von Kluck's part an effort to overwhelm Maunoury on his right, while he kept the British army and French Fifth Army at bay with strong rear-guards and cavalry.The surprise of the day to the Germans was probably the remarkable part played by the British, who, instead of being practically wiped out, as the enemy fondly believed, attacked with an energy and dash which carried everything before them, and, but for filling their allotted rôle of maintaining alignment with the French armies on each flank, would doubtless have advanced farther than they did.As it was, the progress made was considerable.The Germans were driven back to the Grand Morin, and the line of that stream made good on the following day.

Meantime the French Fifth Army on their right, materially helped by this success, had also recovered a good deal of ground, while Foch and Langle de Cary, farther east, held their own against the fierce assaults of the German centre.A last desperate effort was being made to hack a way through at this point, and Sarrail, on Langle de Cary's right, had to give way a little along the Meuse.That day the Germans reached the most southerly point of their advance, at Provins.The deciding phase of the battle, however, was developing with dramatic swiftness on von Kluck's right wing.Maunoury was hard pressed by the repeated onslaughts of the enemy, whose heavy reinforcements at this point held the issue in the balance for several days.General Gallieni, the Governor of Paris, hurried up fresh troops to Maunoury in motor-buses and taxis, and the French line held.

The British army helped matters considerably by driving the Germans across the Grand Morin at Coulommiers on the 7th, and on the following day from the Petit Morin, thus also helping d'Esperey with the French Fifth Army, on its right, to continue his advance farther east as far as Montmirail. On the 9th came the decisive blows which removed all doubts as to the issue of the battle. Von Kluck's retreat on his left flank exposed the right of von Buelow's Second Army, which was further jeopardized by a gap which appeared on its left, where it should have linked up with von Hausen's Third Army. This double opening gave Foch, facing von Buelow in the marshes of St. Gond, the opportunity which he sought of smashing the enemy's centre. He seized it by a series of lightning blows which drove the German centre back on the morning of the 10th in complete disorder, pursued by Foch's victorious infantry.

All the reinforcements sent to von Kluck were now of no avail against the French Sixth Army, which had been fighting against odds since 6th Sept., helped not a little by Pulteney's 3rd Corps on its right flank.Maunoury carried the Ourcq on the 9th, and Pulteney's corps was able to cross the Marne, after stiff fighting at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, at dawn on the following day, when the German retreat became general.The left of the British 2nd Corps had crossed the Marne at Nanteuil, where the bridges were found unbroken and the enemy gone, on the morning of the 9th, but was ordered not to advance too far north until the 1st and 2nd Corps were firmly established on the northern bank.The 1st crossed later in the day at Charly-sur-Marne and Saulchéry, clearing the ground of the enemy and making many captures; but the 3rd Corps had a harder task at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, and, as already mentioned, was not completely established on the other side until the following morning.The first battle of the Marne ended on the night of the 10th with the enemy in full retreat to the north and north-east and the Allies in hot pursuit.By the 12th he had been driven back from the Seine a distance of 65 miles, and the great German plan of a sudden crushing defeat of the Allies in the West had collapsed like a house of cards.

The hopes thus raised among the Allies of a speedy termination of the war in their favour were, on the other hand, equally illusory.Though the Germans lost heavily in officers and men, as well as in guns and other war material, their retreat was no disorderly flight.Many desperate rear-guard actions were fought all along the line, but the enemy retired steadily to prepared positions on the Aisne, where the eyes of all the commanders were to be opened to the possibilities of trench warfare under modern conditions.It needed many hard lessons before the truth was driven home.

When the first battle of the Aisne opened on 13th Sept., the British army already had its outposts on that river, the main body being in positions somewhat to the south, between Soissons and Bourg.Throwing bridges across during the night, the advance was continued on the opposite bank on the following day, though not without heavy British casualties, amounting to between 1500 and 2000, including 3 commanding officers.The 6th Division arrived from England at this stage, and joined its own 3rd Corps on the left.Further advance was stayed by the strength of the enemy's entrenched positions, in which he now determined to make his stand.Here he was backed by an overpowering superiority in artillery which, with fierce counter-attacks on the part of his infantry, gallantly repulsed though they were, caused such severe losses that the British Commander-in-Chief was forced to assume a defensive rôle, while Maunoury, de Castlenau, and Foch each made stupendous efforts to break the enemy's line and renew the war of movement and manœuvre on which their military principles had been based.All, however, ended in the same dreary deadlock of entrenchments.

Failing to shift the enemy from these impregnable positions, Joffre endeavoured to outflank the German right wing, already threatened by Maunoury's advance along the Oise.Two new French armies were formed from the reserves to extend the Allied left—the Seventh, entrusted to de Castlenau, whose Second Army was transferred to Dubail, and the Tenth, the command of which was given to Maud'huy.De Castlenau's Seventh Army, though it failed to turn the enemy's flank—the movement having been anticipated by him—succeeded in extending the pressure of Maunoury's left, which had swung round by the 20th until it ran north from Compiègne to west of Lassigny, and in building the first section of Joffre's great besieging wall which, gradually extending from the Alps to the sea, became the impenetrable barrier between the enemy and his main objectives.The Allies' line was continued by de Castlenau through Roye to Albert, and thence, by Maud'huy's Tenth Army, through Arras to Lens.

Von Moltke had now been superseded in the German Higher Command by Falkenhayn, who promptly countered Joffre's new strategy by similar extensions of the German front, thus beginning the outflanking race destined only to end in stalemate on the coast. While extending their right the Germans made a strenuous effort to regain the initiative by a blow with the army group nominally commanded by the German Crown Prince on Sarrail's flank on the Meuse. It was a blow aimed at Verdun and the whole of the Allied line, which it hoped to break through at this point and so take in the rear. Verdun, however, had been rendered impenetrable by miles of powerfully protected outer defences, and practically the only success which fell to the Crown Prince on this occasion was the capture of the Camp-des-Romains and St. Mihiel on the Meuse, thus creating the remarkable salient east of Verdun which was destined to remain until the Franco-American force flattened it out in the victorious advance of the Allies four years later. The German Crown Prince fared even worse a week later, when he attacked along the main road through the Argonne towards Verdun, only to be flung back. It was after this double failure that the Germans bombarded Rheims and shattered her noble cathedral.

The crucial phase of the struggle in the West had shifted towards the coast as the first battle of the Aisne died down on 28th Sept., and the campaigns began in Artois which led in due course to the fierce struggles for the Labyrinth, the Vimy Ridge, Lens, and Loos.The extension of the French left placed the British army in an anomalous position.Even before Joffre had begun to build his barrier in this direction the British Commander-in-Chief had felt strongly that his proper sphere of action was on the Belgian frontier on the left flank of the French armies, for the two-fold purpose of defending the Channel ports and being in position to concert combined action with the British navy.He suggested this move to the north to Joffre on 29th Sept., pointing out its strategical advantages and the possibility of doing so now that the position of his force on the right bank of the Aisne had been thoroughly well entrenched.Joffre agreed in principle to General French's proposal, but postponed the movement until 3rd Oct.

Retreat from Antwerp

By this time the critical situation of the Belgian army at Antwerp had become hopeless, and the danger of a German descent on the Channel ports suddenly became acute.Since their retreat towards Antwerp after their evacuation of Brussels on 20th Aug., the Belgians had kept the Germans at bay by vigorous counter-attacks, and threatened their communications by sundry sorties from the fortress.These sorties and counter-attacks, calling for reinforcements at a time when every soldier was needed on the main fighting fronts, infuriated the Germans and led to the reign of terror which included the deliberate destruction of Louvain and similar outrages at Malines, Termonde, and elsewhere.

Having made his position secure on the Aisne, and brought up his heavy guns, the enemy began his bombardment of the outer forts of Antwerp on 28th Sept.By the 3rd of Oct.the Belgians were endangered not only by the besieging army, but also by the ever-lengthening German line which, having now been extended from Lassigny to Lille—only 38 miles from the sea—threatened to isolate the Belgian forces from the Franco-British armies.They accordingly decided that plans must be made at once to withdraw from Antwerp in the direction of Ghent, both to protect the coast-line and gain touch with the Allies.The British troops hurriedly sent to reinforce the Belgians—a brigade of Royal Marines and part of the recently formed Naval Division—had no influence on the fate of the fortress, but helped in protecting the flight of the citizens and in the final retreat of the Belgian army.Some 1500 of the Royal Naval Division were forced across the Dutch frontier and interned, and about 800 were made prisoners.The remnants of the British force, and the bulk of the Belgian army, escaped westward, leaving the Germans on 9th Oct.in possession of the deserted city.A little more and the German commander (von Beseler) might have closed the gap beyond the Scheldt through which this retreat had been made.Luckily for the Allies, too, the German Higher Command failed, as Lord French long afterwards expressed it, to gather the richer harvest which had been put within its grasp by the capture of Antwerp.There was then apparently no insuperable obstacle to an immediate German advance on Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne, before the Allied troops could arrive from the main theatres to prevent it."As on the Marne, so at Antwerp, they were not prepared to seize the psychological moment and to play boldly for the great stake".

General French, who had been given no voice in the Antwerp dispositions, was now in the midst of the British move from the Aisne front to the north, where he was to be reinforced by the 7th Infantry and 3rd Cavalry Divisions, which had been landed on the Belgian coast to defend Zeebrugge and Ostend under Rawlinson's command, and the Indian contingent, which had just arrived at Orleans under Willcocks.

First Battle of Ypres

The two corps under de Castlenau and de Maud'huy were now under the supreme command of General Foch, who had orders to control all the French armies operating in the northern theatre, and was confident that it was still possible to outflank the Germans and bend them back behind the Scheldt. At the end of a fortnight the British army had been successfully transported to the north from the Aisne—after successfully holding the line of that river for twenty-five days against many desperate efforts of the enemy to break through—and had taken up its position on the left of Maud'huy's corps, the Allies' line being extended thence into Flanders by the French 8th Corps (under d'Urbal), which had been called up by Joffre to this end, as well as to help the sorely tried Belgians. Meantime the Germans, besides pressing Maud'huy hard in front of Arras, and forcing his Territorials out of Lille, had driven the retreating Belgian army out of Houthulst Forest to the line of the Yser north of Ypres, whence it took refuge behind the Yser and completed the Allied line to the coast. Rawlinson's 4th Corps, covering the retreat of the Belgian army, had hard fighting most of the way before it succeeded in joining the main British army, the German forces from Antwerp concentrating westwards in ever increasing numbers.By the 15th Capper's 7th Division was east of Ypres, while Byng's 3rd Cavalry Division, a day earlier, had connected up with Gough's 2nd Cavalry Division in front of Kemmel and assisted in the capture of that position, a gain which proved of the utmost importance in the subsequent struggle for Ypres.Allenby's Cavalry Corps had greatly distinguished itself during the two previous days, driving the enemy back all the way in a magnificent sweep to the north and north-east.

A brilliant series of advances by Pulteney's 3rd Corps on 12-15th Oct., leading to the capture of Bailleul and Meteren, and the line Sailly-Nieppe, confirmed French in the belief which he shared with Foch that the enemy had exhausted his strength, and that the time was ripe for a strong offensive eastwards.The advance had scarcely been started, however, before reports arrived of a powerful offensive on the part of the Germans towards Ypres and the Yser.The power and weight of the enemy's opposition on the British front increased each day.Armentières and the Bois Grenier were won by 15th Oct., but the failure of the 4th Corps in its advance on Menin was one of numerous indications that the Germans were being heavily reinforced.By the 21st all General French's worst forebodings were realized by the certainty established that the small German force which had been operating between Ostend and Menin on the 18th had been increased by no fewer than four corps.This discovery, in the British Commander-in-Chief's own words, "came like a veritable bolt from the blue".There was no longer any hope of continuing the offensive on the part of the comparatively weak British line, extended as it was on too long a front.It was a case of holding on now until relief arrived.

The threat was twofold.Not only were the Germans massing in tremendous strength in the north; they were also seriously threatening the British right.Maud'huy, round Arras, was fighting a battle which, like that which the British were waging round Ypres, was one of the landmarks of the war.He sent word on the 16th that the enemy was intent on driving in a wedge between Ypres and La Bassée—a threat which, had it matured, would have finally separated the Allies, and compelled the British either to surrender or be driven into the sea.Faced by this double threat, General French decided to risk the possible disaster on his right, and concentrate against the German tide in the north, which otherwise must gain the seaboard, with possibly fatal consequences to the whole British campaign.

Fortunately the First Army under Haig had already been ordered in the direction best calculated to meet the new situation, though there was no longer any hope of its original orders—to turn the enemy's flank and drive him back to Ghent—being carried out.In this first phase of the battle of Ypres, which lasted until the night of 26th Oct., the northern portion of the British line, notwithstanding the enemy's immense reinforcements, progressed slowly but surely, and took heavy toll in killed, wounded, and prisoners.A certain amount of ground was lost to the south, between Zonnebeke and La Bassée—the commanders of both the 2nd and 3rd Corps being anxious about their positions on more than one occasion—but at no point was any serious break made in the line.Maud'huy at the same time was gallantly keeping the enemy in check in the Arras region, though he could not drive him from Lens and the Vimy Ridge; while on the left the French and Belgians were withstanding repeated assaults on the swaying front between Dixmude and the sea.The line held, and was now more or less firmly established.

The second phase of the battle of Ypres consisted in the repeated attempts of the Germans to break through this line at all costs.It began on 27th Oct., and lasted through five of the most momentous days in the history of the British army.On this day the French 9th Corps, which had been sent by Joffre to the assistance of the sorely tried British troops, took over the trenches in the northern part of the British salient.Capper's 7th Division, exhausted by incessant fighting and fearful losses, was temporarily attached to Haig's 1st Corps in the centre, and took over the ground south of the Ypres-Menin road.Byng's 3rd Cavalry Division was at the same time placed under Allenby.The 4th Corps was thus temporarily broken up, Rawlinson being sent home to supervise the preparation of the 8th Division for France.

The British line was further reduced in numbers during the opening days of this new phase of the battle by the repeated but unavailing attempt of the enemy to advance, the Germans meantime mounting up reserves of reinforcements for a decisive blow until, by the 30th, they outnumbered the battle-worn British by two to one. Then came the onslaught in full, almost overpowering strength. "October 31st and November 1st", afterwards wrote the British Commander-in-Chief in his story of 1914, "will remain for ever memorable in the history of our country, for during those two days, no more than one thin and straggling line of tired-out British soldiers stood between the Empire and its practical ruin as an independent first-class Power." The storm centre of the British battle-line was the Wytschaete-Messines ridge, where Allenby's Cavalry Corps and Shaw's 9th Brigade of the 3rd Division withstood for forty-eight hours the supreme efforts of two and a half German army corps to dislodge them.The honours of those heroic days were shared by the French 9th Corps and the British 1st Corps (with the 7th Division attached) in their continued defence of the Ypres salient; and the British 2nd Corps, which held a long line on the right in difficult country, and, though forced to give up Neuve Chapelle on the 28th, withstood repeated attacks by superior numbers until the Indian Corps took over their positions.

The culminating phase of the battle began on the 29th, when overwhelming masses of the enemy stormed the centre of the Ypres salient, held by Haig's 1st Corps and the 7th Division, and forced our troops back on Gheluvelt. The ground was recovered before nightfall, but fighting of the fiercest character continued all round and beyond the salient, the critical sector of the 31st extending from Gheluvelt to Messines, on the south, where the 1st Cavalry Division was heavily pressed, and the London Scottish received their costly baptism of fire. The Germans got into Messines that day, but were hurled out again, and the line in this sector was completely restored by nightfall. The climax of the crisis had been reached shortly after midday in the Gheluvelt area, when the 1st Corps, after doing more than could be expected of any men in their prolonged stand against the heaviest odds, was at last broken, part of the 1st Division falling back rapidly along the Ypres-Menin road, with the Germans at their heels."I felt", afterwards wrote General French, who was not more than a mile or so away at the time, "as if the last barrier between the Germans and the Channel seaboard was broken down", and he spent the worst half-hour his life had ever known.The situation was saved by Brigadier-General FitzClarence, V.C., commanding the 1st Guards Brigade of the 1st Division, who, on his own initiative, and in the nick of time, ordered the 2nd Worcesters to counter-attack.The Worcesters, who were in reserve to the 2nd Division, rushed up to fill the gap, and, saving the South Wales Borderers, drove the Germans out of Gheluvelt and re-established the line, which was completely restored before dark.FitzClarence was killed only a week or two later in the same part of the field.

The third phase of the battle of Ypres lasted from 1st Nov.to the 10th.Its most dangerous hours were at the very beginning, when both Messines and Wytschaete were lost, and only the timely arrival of the French 16th Corps, which partially restored the situation, and the devoted bravery of Allenby's Cavalry Corps, staved off this new threat of disaster.It is impossible here to follow all the confused operations in the remainder of this phase, in which fighting continued with varying intensity, and mingled success, all along the line from La Bassée to the sea.

The outstanding feature of the fourth and final phase, which extended from 11th Nov.to the 21st, was the succession of heavy assaults by the pick of the Prussian Guard, ordered by the Kaiser personally to carry the Ypres salient at all hazards.It failed, but not before the Germans had pierced the front along the Menin road in the first clash of arms on the morning of the 11th, a battalion of Royal Fusiliers being practically wiped out in gallantly disputing their passage.Haig met the situation "with the same grim determination, steadfast courage, and skilful forethought"—the words are those of Lord French—"which had characterized his handling of the operations throughout".The line was re-established, but only after fearful losses on both sides.The 1st (Guards) Brigade mustered at night only 4 officers and 300 men.

The French and Belgians were also attacked all along their line between Ypres and the sea—where British monitors swept the coast with shells for 6 miles inland—but the enemy was held off, save at Dixmude, which he captured and held.Between Dixmude, which had been stubbornly defended by Admiral Ronarc'h and his French marines, and Nieuport the sluices of the Yser had been opened by the Belgians, and the low-lying country across which the Germans were striving to force a way so flooded as to render all their efforts futile.

It was during this final effort of the Germans to reach the Channel ports in 1914 that Lord Roberts arrived at the front to visit the Indian Corps, who had withstood some heavy assaults on the old line of the Second Army, between Armentières and La Bassée.Lord Roberts had scarcely fulfilled his mission, inspiring the troops with his presence at a critical time, when he was taken suddenly ill on 13th Oct.and died on the following day.

North of Armentières the British 3rd Corps under Pulteney, which held the line thence towards Messines, had its share of fighting on the left bank of the Lys, and though its deeds in maintaining its positions were overshadowed by the epic struggles in the salient, its minor battles played their part in the victory of First Ypres.The great battle died down with the failure of the supreme effort of the Prussian Guard.Rains and floods and mud combined to call a halt in the struggle for the Channel ports, and the Western front was now established for the winter.There were occasionally attacks by the Germans at Ypres and Festubert, and more than one attempt on their part to cross the flooded Yser on rafts; but all to no purpose; and before the end of the year (20th Dec.)a five days' battle between the Indian troops and the Germans round Givenchy left matters much as they were before, the British positions, with the aid of British troops, being held.The French also broke the monotony of trench warfare with encouraging advances in Alsace, towards Noyon, in the Argonne, and elsewhere, but no vital changes took place in the general situation.

Eastern Front, 1914

Foiled in their grandiose plans in the West, the Germans were forced to rest content with their valuable territorial gains in France and Belgium, and remain on the defensive there while they turned to the more threatening situation on the Eastern front. As already noted, the Germans had under-estimated the rapidity of the Russian mobilization. They had not anticipated an offensive on that front until they could spare as many reserves as necessary from the West, and the forces left to guard their vulnerable frontier of East Prussia were as inadequate to stay the unexpected advance which the Grand Duke Nicholas, who was in supreme command of the Russian armies, ordered under Generals Rennenkampf and Samsonoff, as were the Belgians to prevent the march of the Germans across their territory. By 25th Aug. the Russian armies, whose advance had begun as early as the 7th, had pushed so far ahead that all East Prussia seemed in danger of falling into their hands.General von François, commanding the German troops, had been driven into Königsberg, the cradle of the Prussian monarchy; Gumbinnen, Justerberg, Allenstein, Soldau, had all been captured; and the hopes of a flight to Berlin before the Russian 'steam-roller'—too often raised in the early stages of the war—seemed not unlikely to be realized.

Germany's hour of danger, however, produced the man who was destined to play a ruling part in the remaining phases of the struggle—Paul von Hindenburg, a veteran of the Franco-Prussian War, then on the retired list.Hindenburg knew the topography of East Prussia by heart, and had commanded army corps in manœuvres along that frontier for many years.Appointed at this critical moment to supersede General von François, he collected 160,000 men from every available source, and by means of Germany's unequalled strategic railway system had concentrated them in a favourable position between Allenstein and Soldau for delivering the blow which would cut the communications of the southern army under Samsonoff, and smash it piecemeal in the treacherous marshes of the Masurian Lakes, the tracks through which, though well known to Hindenburg, were a veritable tangle to the Russians.

Tempted by their initial triumphs, the Russians had themselves courted disaster by placing themselves in precarious positions.Samsonoff's southern army had not only lost touch with the northern force under Rennenkampf, which had occupied Insterberg on the 23rd on its march on Königsberg, but had also failed to secure either Allenstein or Soldau.Hindenburg was quick to seize every advantage, and his lethal thrust on the 26th, when he retook Soldau and outflanked the Russian left, was followed by a similar enveloping movement on their right before they realized what had happened.Masses of German guns came up and completed the move.Too late the Russians fled along the only road left open to them—by way of Ortelsberg and Johannisberg, across a narrow slip of land between the marshes.Save for little more than one corps, which succeeded in escaping along this route before it was closed, practically the whole of Samsonoff's army was wiped out in this decisive battle of Tannenberg, as the victors named it.Samsonoff himself was killed by a shell on 31st Aug.Altogether the Russians lost in killed and wounded some 30,000; no fewer than 90,000 were taken prisoners.

Hindenburg, whose Chief of Staff was General von Ludendorff—already distinguished in the war as the leader in the assault on Liége—at once became a national hero throughout Germany. The Central Powers, however, had little further cause for rejoicing on the Eastern front in 1914, once Hindenburg had been enticed to the Niemen by the rapid retreat of Rennenkampf after the Tannenberg débâcleThe Grand Duke Nicholas had sent General Ruzsky from Galicia to retrieve the situation, and the new leader made as good use of the Niemen River—a formidable obstacle to cross with its width of some 200 yards—as Hindenburg had done of the Masurian Lakes.The operations, which ended in the failure of the Germans to cross the river, and their heavy defeat at Augustovo after a sanguinary nineteen days' battle beginning on 1st Oct., restored confidence to the Russian army.

General Ruzsky had already made his mark in the opening campaign in Galicia, where the Austro-Hungarian armies, after invading Russian Poland at the opening of the war, were driven back in a series of mighty battles which left the Russians in possession of Lemberg and all Eastern Galicia.Brussiloff was meantime sweeping on towards the Carpathian passes, while Ivanoff, commanding the Russians in Poland, forced back the invading armies under Dankl and the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand beyond the Vistula and Cracow.Przemysl alone held out in Galicia, and this was invested by the Russians towards the end of September, when the Germans, far to the north on the Niemen, were rapidly losing the advantage and prestige they had won at Tannenberg.Hence Germany's increasing need for help from the Western front.

In order to check the Russian advance on the key position of Cracow, Hindenburg was now called from the East Prussian front to take over the supreme command of the unified German and Austro-Hungarian armies in a crushing blow at the Russian centre in Poland. Hindenburg's advance on Warsaw was planned by his Chief of Staff, Ludendorff, to keep pace with a parallel advance of the Austro-German armies in the south, intended to raise the siege of Przemysl and turn the Russians out of Lemberg. The combined forces of the Central Powers amounted to some two million men, outnumbering the Russians by at least half a million, and outgunning them completely. It speaks volumes not only for the fighting spirit of the Russian armies at this period of the war, but also for the strategy inspired by the Grand Duke Nicholas, that in both the first and second battles of Warsaw the combined Austro-German armies were both outfought and outmanœuvred. "The Grand Duke Nicholas", to quote from Lord French's tribute to his leadership some years later, "proved that he possessed that highest of military gifts—the power of renunciation, of 'cutting down', of sacrificing the less essential for the more."

Foreseeing the danger of Hindenburg's march on Warsaw, the Grand Duke promptly recalled the first great Russian advance on Cracow, and the armies concerned were safely withdrawn behind the Vistula and the San before the enemy could cut the main line from Warsaw to Kiev.Ivanoff's army in Galicia conformed to the general movement.While thus suggesting the abandonment of Poland and a general retirement on Brest-Litovsk, the Grand Duke placed a field army in defence of Warsaw, assisted by Japanese heavy artillery, and prepared a great counter-offensive from the north-west, under cover of the guns of Novo Georgievsk.

Hindenburg's main blow was delivered at Josefov, higher up the Vistula, with the intention of taking Warsaw in the rear.Ruzsky had been brought down to take command at Josefov, and here repeated the disaster which he had recently inflicted on the Germans at Augustovo.This time he lured the enemy across the river before falling on him in difficult country, and cut him to pieces.Rennenkampf was equally successful with the counter-attack from Novo Georgievsk, striking so hard that the German left centre was forced back from the Vistula with heavy losses.With both flanks turned—for Ruzsky had followed up his victory by himself crossing the river at Novo Alexandriev, and driving the Germans back first to Radowa (15th Oct.)and then to Kielce (3rd Nov.)—Hindenburg had no alternative but to seek safety within the German frontier, and prepare another counter-stroke.The only success of the first advance on Warsaw was achieved by the Austrians under the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand and Generals Woyrsch and Dankl, who succeeded in temporarily relieving Przemysl and recovering Jaroslav.Hindenburg's retreat, however, compelled them to withdraw in conformity to that movement.Przemysl was again invested, the Austrians again fell back in Galicia, and the Russian advance on Cracow was renewed, the Grand Duke Nicholas having set his heart on reaching that convenient gateway both to Berlin and Vienna before the end of the year.

The second Russian advance on Cracow commenced with the second German advance on Warsaw, and both operations naturally reacted on each other.The Russians were at the very gates of Cracow by 5th Dec., but were then checked by an Austro-Hungarian counter-offensive which threatened both their flanks.The loss of the Dukla Pass (12th Dec.)forced a general retreat on this front, and was followed by the loss in turn of the Lupkow and Uszok Passes.By 20th Dec., however, the Russians, who had fallen back behind the River Nida, turned on their pursuers and drove them north again until they were once more in possession of the Carpathian passes.

The Germans were no more successful in their second advance on Warsaw than the Russians had been in their march on Cracow.Hindenburg's urgent call for reinforcements, which had helped to relieve the pressure on the Western front in those critical days round Ypres, enabled him to attack all along the line on 18th Nov.The main assault was delivered by von Mackensen on the line held by Ruzsky from Gombin, on the Vistula, to Uniejov, on the Warta.Ruzsky's retreat to the Bzura in face of Mackensen's terrific onrush was one of the brilliant episodes of the war.It continued, with an increasing bulge, until Mackensen, on 23rd Nov., burst right through this and split it in halves.The halves held, and began to close up, with two German army corps all but bottled up within.But for some blunder in timing, for which Rennenkampf was held responsible, their only way of escape would have been cut off.As it was, after three days of desperate fighting, the German corps fought their way out—but only in remnants.

The Russians themselves had suffered heavy losses and were running short of ammunition, and when Hindenburg retaliated by blow upon blow in every sector, the Grand Duke Nicholas shortened his front, evacuated Lodz, and defended Warsaw from behind the Rawka and the Bzura.Here he sustained repeated onslaughts for nearly three weeks, the fiercest fighting taking place between the 19th Dec.and Christmas Eve against Bolimov and Sochaczew.In the end the Germans failed to hack a way through to Warsaw, just as they had failed a few weeks previously in their efforts to break through to Ypres and the Channel ports on the Western front.They were still 35 miles from the Polish capital at the close of 1914.

Opening Campaign in Serbia

In the meantime the Austro-Hungarian armies, which had somewhat atoned for their earlier failures by their successes in the recent advance which had temporarily relieved Przemysl, were making little headway in their campaign against Serbia. That heroic little nation, though sadly depleted in her manhood by two years of Balkan warfare, was more than a match for her mightier neighbours in the opening stages of the European War. Austria's first punitive expedition, heralded by the bombardment of Belgrade on 29th July, was easily checked, the main invading forces being withdrawn to meet the new situation on the Russian front. Serbia and Montenegro thereupon invaded Bosnia, and an unproductive campaign of withdrawals and advances led, towards the end of October, when Turkey threw in her lot with the Central Powers, to an Austrian invasion of Serbia in earnest.At first the Austrians, an army corps strong, and advancing in three columns, carried all before them.Valjevo fell on 29th Nov., and Belgrade ten days later.In withdrawing, however, the Serbians, ably led by the Crown Prince, Marshal Putnik, and General Mishitch, were falling back towards their bases and new supplies of ammunition; and in the battle of Rudnik, or 'Battle of the Ridges', which followed, turned on their pursuers and practically destroyed them.The battle lasted three days, at the end of which the remnants of the Austrian army corps, with the victorious Serbians hard on their heels, were in full flight to the frontier, leaving behind them 15,000 prisoners and 19 guns.All told their casualties amounted to some 80,000 and the bulk of their guns before the survivors were back in their own country, across the Danube, the Drina, and the Save.

First Months of the War at Sea

At sea the first months of the war had seen the Germans very discreetly sheltering in Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, leaving it to submarines, mine-layers, raiders, and a few commerce-destroyers to do as much damage as possible and reduce the disparity between its own force and that of the Allied fleets.

The first naval action of any importance took place in the Bight of Heligoland, on 23rd Aug. , when a force of destroyers, led by Commander Tyrwhitt in the new light cruiser Arethusa, with another light cruiser, the Fearless, and a flotilla of submarines under Commodore Keyes, served as a lure to draw out the Germans.They drew first a German force of destroyers and two cruisers (Ariadne and Strasburg) from Heligoland. The Arethusa greatly distinguished herself in the general engagement which followed, but, though she played the main part in driving the Germans back, she was so badly cut up that she had to be taken in tow at the end of the action. This was not until the Germans, deceived into the belief that the British ships were unsupported, sent out their heavier cruisers, the Mainz, Köln, and Aurora, just in time for Beatty's battle-cruisers, which arrived at the critical moment, led by the Lion, to settle the issue by sinking the three enemy cruisers above mentioned, besides a number of their destroyers. No British units were lost. Apart from this engagement the war in home waters for the next few months resolved itself into such isolated incidents as the sinking of the three old sister cruisers Aboukir, Hogue, and Cressy by the German submarine commanded by Otto Weddigen (22nd Sept.) ; the destruction of four German destroyers by the British light cruiser Undaunted, supported by destroyers, on 17th Oct. ; and raids by fast German cruisers on Yarmouth (3rd Nov.) , on Scarborough, Whitby, and the Hartlepools (16th Dec.) , the first of which led to the loss of the German cruiser Yorck while crossing the minefield at Wilhelmshaven.

The scattered units of the German navy in other seas were gradually bottled up or destroyed. The Dreadnought Goeben, and the light cruiser Breslau, which were in the Mediterranean on the outbreak of hostilities, succeeded in evading the British fleet and reached the Dardanelles, where they played no small part in persuading the pro-German Turks, a few months later, openly to side with the Central Powers. Other German warships caught by the war in more distant waters included the light cruiser Emden, on the China station. The Emden disappeared for six weeks and then turned up in the Bay of Bengal, bombarding Madras on 22nd Sept. , and capturing some twenty British steamers in the same month. On 28th Oct. she sank a Russian cruiser in Penang Roads, as well as a French destroyer, but twelve days later (9th Nov.) ended her eventful cruise off Cocos (Keeling) Islands, where she called to destroy the cable and wireless station. The telegraphists on the island sent out a warning message which reached the Sydney, a British cruiser of the Australian squadron then escorting Australian and New Zealand troops to the war. Within three hours the Sydney arrived on the scene, and having the range of the Emden with 6-inch guns to 4.1-inch guns, forced the German cruiser ashore. After losing 7 officers and 104 men the Emden, burning and half-sunk, surrendered.

More dangerous than the Emden was the German cruiser squadron under Admiral Graf von Spee, which concentrated in the South Pacific from Kiao-Chau and elsewhere. The squadron consisted of the twin cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, each of 11,400 tons, 22 knots speed, and an armament which included eight 8.2-inch guns; and three smaller cruisers, Dresden, Nürnberg, and Leipzig, each of 3500 tons, and carrying ten 4.1-inch guns. On 1st Nov. von Spee fell in with the weak British squadron under Admiral Cradock, who had been sent in August to protect the South Pacific trade, and was expecting reinforcements to cope with the German concentration. Cradock's squadron consisted of old ships like the cruisers Good Hope and Monmouth; the light cruiser Glasgow, and the armed liner Otranto; the pre-Dreadnought battleship Canopus, which had been left behind for repairs, being some twelve hours away. Outsteamed and outranged—though the Good Hope (14,000 tons) had two 9·2-inch guns on board—with the setting sun silhouetting their surfaces against the sky, they were no match for the Germans, who made the most of the added advantage which their inshore position gave them, obscuring their outlines when, as the light began to fail, they drew nearer to Cradock's ships and opened fire. The Good Hope's two 9.2-inch guns could not find their target in the fading light, and were soon put out of action by von Spee's flagship, the Scharnhorst, whose eight 8.2-inch guns, like those of the Gneisenau, which meantime was engaged in a similar duel with the Monmouth, now had the British at their mercy. The 6-inch guns of Cradock's ships, almost awash in the rolling seas, were useless. At 7.50 p. m. the Good Hope blew up, but not before Cradock had ordered the Glasgow to get away with all speed and warn the Canopus. The useless Otranto had been ordered away before the battle opened. The Monmouth, after being silenced and set on fire by the 8.2-inch guns of the Gneisenau, was finally sunk by the Nürnberg. No survivors were picked up by the Germans, either from the Good Hope or the MonmouthWith Cradock perished in this naval disaster off Coronel some 1500 officers and men.

Meanwhile the Glasgow, making full use of her 25-knot speed, had warned the slow old Canopus, and together they made their way back to the Falkland Islands to await developments. Four days later Lord Fisher, who had just succeeded Prince Louis of Battenberg as First Lord of the Admiralty (20th Oct.) , dispatched Admiral Sturdee with a squadron bent on avenging Cradock, and protecting the valuable base and coaling-station of the Falklands. Sturdee's squadron included the two first battle-cruisers built—the Invincible and Inflexible, each of 17,250 tonnage, with a speed of 27 knots, and eight 12-inch guns, besides sixteen 4-inch guns and five torpedo tubes.There were also four lighter cruisers—Carnarvon, Kent, Cornwall, and Bristol; and to these were added the Canopus when Sturdee reached the Falklands on 7th December. The Glasgow had already been picked up in the South Atlantic. The superiority both in number and weight of guns was now overwhelmingly on the side of the British.

Von Spee, who claimed to have suffered little loss in his victory off Coronel, had returned in the meanwhile to Valparaiso to refit, leaving again for the Falklands on 15th Nov. His programme apparently was to do as much damage as possible to the British base and coaling-station at Port Stanley; account for the Canopus and Glasgow, which he expected to find defending the port; and thence make for South Africa in support of the rebellion there. Only some twenty-four hours before he approached Port Stanley Admiral Sturdee had arrived, and the news sent by the signallers on the island at 8 a. m. , that the unsuspecting enemy was approaching, found the crews grimy from coaling, but alert and ready. Von Spee sent the Gneisenau and Nürnberg ahead to shell the wireless station, but a salvo of 12-inch shells from the Canopus in the harbour at 9.20 a. m. caused them to change their course. It was not, however, until 9.45 a. m. , when the Invincible and Inflexible put out to sea with the Glasgow and Kent, that the presence of the battle-cruisers was revealed to them. It was then too late to escape. The German ships were no match for the British battle-cruisers either in speed or gun-power. With the conditions of Coronel thus reversed, Von Spee, abandoning the attempt to run as hopeless, decided to die fighting, and met his death as gallantly as Cradock had done some five short weeks before. Both the Scharnhorst and her sister the Gneisenau, battered by the two British battle-cruisers, who were later joined by the Carnarvon, until they were mere helpless hulks, fought to the last before they capsized, the first at 4.15 p. m. , the second just after six. Boats were ordered out to save survivors, and some 200 Germans were picked up from these and other ships that were sunk. The Leipzig, pursued by the Glasgow and Cornwall, kept up a running fight for three hours, and then, hammered to pieces, hauled her flag, but afterwards sank. The Nürnberg, after a longer chase, suffered a similar fate at the hands of the Kent, sinking an hour after surrendering. Only the Dresden escaped, seeking refuge at Juan Fernandez, but three months later she was called to account there by the Kent and Glasgow (14th March, 1915), when, after a five minutes' action, she was blown up by her commander.

With no enemy fleet at sea the task of the British navy was reduced to guarding British commerce from submarines and raiders, keeping watch and ward in the North Sea, and conveying troops to and from the widely scattered theatres of war.Every month added to Britain's commitments in various parts of the globe.All hope of an early peace had vanished by the end of 1914.

Mobilizing the Empire

Happily for the British Empire, Lord Kitchener had from the first anticipated a long-drawn struggle. His call for volunteers "for three years, or the duration of the war", showed how clearly he realized the gravity of the situation. One of his first demands had been for another half-million men to go on with, and history has recorded how nobly the young manhood of the nation responded to his call.All the Dominions and Overseas possessions rallied to the Motherland with equal enthusiasm.We have shown how Indian troops—fighting for the first time on European soil—had already stepped into the breach on the Western front.The Canadians, nearest at hand, were the first of the Dominions to follow suit, but Australia and New Zealand, before their campaigns in Egypt and Gallipoli—and subsequently in France and Flanders—had already occupied Samoa, the Bismarck Archipelago, and other German islands in the Pacific.

South Africa, 1914

South Africa, on the outbreak of hostilities, had offered to carry the war into the German territory of South-West Africa, but General Botha had first to crush a revolt of Colonel Maritz's force; and this was succeeded by a more formidable rising in the Orange River Colony under De Wet, and in the Transvaal under Beyers.The response to Botha's call to arms proved the striking loyalty of the rest of the Union, and with the force thus mustered the South African Prime Minister completely defeated the rebels before the end of November.De Wet was captured, and Beyers was drowned in attempting to escape.The colonial campaign which followed will be dealt with subsequently.

1915 on the European Fronts

The Russian Campaign.—The heaviest burden of the war on the main fronts was now borne by Russia.Having failed to force a decision in the West, Germany looked to the Eastern front for compensating triumphs, confident that she could maintain her defensive positions against the Franco-British armies until such time as, with Austria-Hungary's help, she had brought Russia to her knees.It was also necessary to overawe Roumania and any other hesitating Balkan state that might be disposed to throw in its lot with Russia and her allies.Russia herself was provoking this reversal of German strategy by her renewed advances both on the Carpathian and East Prussian fronts.Hindenburg made two attacks on Warsaw early in the year (February and March), one by way of the Narew and the other by that of the Niemen, but both failed, thanks chiefly to the indomitable spirit of the Russian infantrymen, ill-equipped though they were.It was not until Mackensen's great 'drive' began on the southern flank in Galicia that Germany's new strategy revealed itself.Russia had then reached the culminating point in her military career.Besides holding up the German offensive in Poland, she had made herself mistress of all East Galicia, Przemysl having fallen to General Selivanoff on 22nd March after an investment of five months, thus releasing 100,000 men to reinforce the armies under Ivanoff, Dmitrieff, and Brussiloff—then battling for the passes which led through the Carpathians into the Plain of Hungary.Przemysl alone yielded 126,000 Austrian prisoners, including the commander, General von Kusmanek, and 1000 guns.Between that period and the middle of April, when the Russians claimed possession of all the Carpathian heights along a front of 70 miles from south of the Dukla Pass to north of the Uszok Pass, another 70,000 Austrian prisoners were taken.

It was a dazzling, but an illusory triumph.The Russians had been deliberately led by the Austrians—under instructions from the German Higher Command—into their hazardous Carpathian adventure as part of the secret preparations for Mackensen's mighty blow elsewhere.Von Falkenhayn, then Chief of Staff, afterwards gave the credit for the plan to the German General Head-quarters.Germany, with all her factories turning out munitions of war far in excess of anything that the Allies could then muster, had been accumulating guns and ammunition for this purpose for months past, together with poison-gas and liquid fire, and a total force of some 2,000,000 well-armed men.Russia, on the other hand, though she might oppose this force with fully as many men, was coming to the end of her resources, and her troops were ill-equipped to meet the massed guns of the artillery brought against them when the German phalanx, after minor thrusts to left and right to cloak the real designs of the German Higher Command, began its overpowering advance on 1st May against the Dunajec lines, where Dmitrieff's Russian army believed itself securely entrenched.Mackensen's guns, opening up a way for the strongest army yet mustered under one general, blew the Dunajec lines to fragments.The Russian infantry clung to their positions to the last moment, but their rifles, often empty, were useless against high-explosive shells, or the waves of poison-gas which preceded the advance of Mackensen's shock troops.

On 5th May, with its front wholly turned, Dmitrieff's shattered army withdrew as best it could from the Dunajec lines to the San River. All Russia's gains in Galicia were destined to be sacrificed in similar fashion. Brussiloff's advance through the Carpathians was at once arrested; by 14th May, when Everts' army on the Nida had also fallen back, all the passes had been evacuated, though not without appalling losses. In the Bukovina, however, the Russian army under General Lechitsky maintained a stubborn resistance south of the Dniester until 27th June, when it fell back to the Gnila Lipa.It was high time to retreat.Przemysl had again fallen into Austro-German hands (2nd June) as the first outstanding result of Mackensen's advance; Lemberg followed suit on 22nd June; and Halicz, abandoned by Brussiloff, fell on the day on which Lechitsky's army retreated from the Dniester to the Gnila Lipa.The end of June saw these positions abandoned and a further retreat in progress towards the line of the Lublin-Cholm railway.

Not cheaply were these spectacular triumphs won by the advancing armies of Mackensen and the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand.Their troops had been twice thrown back on the Dniester before that river had been finally won—a passage which cost them, all told, some 150,000 men; and in the successive retreats which followed, the Russian infantrymen turned repeatedly on their pursuers to prove that they were still capable of enforcing a price for every yard of ceded territory.

Mackensen's 'drive' was only part of the German Higher Command's plan for destroying the Russian armies in 1915.While the Austro-German phalanx was thus thrusting its way towards the Lublin-Cholm railway line, a simultaneous movement was in progress in the north, which had for its first objectives the great fortresses of the Polish salient, and Warsaw itself.Here Hindenburg, who was still in supreme command of the Austro-German forces on the Eastern front, had no longer General Ruzsky opposing him, Ruzsky having handed over the Russian northern command to Alexieff owing to ill-health.No matter how bravely the Russian infantrymen fought, or how ably they were led, they could not stand up against the hurricane of shot and shell which now blasted a path for the fully-equipped armies of von Below, von Eichhorn, von Gallwitz, von Scholtz, Leopold of Bavaria, and von Woyrsch.Prasnysz was won by von Gallwitz after a fierce battle in the middle of July, the Russians retiring to the shelter of the Narew fortresses guarding Warsaw from the north-east.Mackensen's advance to the south was resumed the next day, and the Grand Duke Nicholas, foreseeing the peril of this double threat, realized that his only hope lay in flattening the Warsaw salient and thus shortening his line.This sealed the fate of Warsaw, which was entered by Prince Leopold of Bavaria on 4th Aug.Ivangorod fell on the following day; Kovno on the 17th; Novo Georgievsk on the 19th.These losses, though deplorable, were not vital while the Russian armies still retained power to retaliate and recoup.Hindenburg strained every nerve to crush them once and for all.Ossowiec fell on 22nd Aug., the Russians resuming their retreat from the Niemen and Bobhr.Brest-Litovsk had already been threatened by the converging movement of Mackensen and Prince Leopold of Bavaria.Seeing no hope of saving it in the face of the continued pressure, the Grand Duke Nicholas evacuated this most easterly of the Polish quadrilateral of forts on the 25th, having previously stripped it, as in the case of the other evacuated fortresses, of all war material.

Hindenburg strove to complete the discomfiture of the main Russian armies by a fresh advance on his extreme left, where von Below was ordered to push through Courland towards Riga, with Petrograd as the ultimate goal in the following year.On this front the Russians had already been forced to relinquish Memel, just across the German frontier, as well as Libau.German naval forces had shared in the operations on the Riga coast-line, and when von Below, after carrying Mitau, some 30 miles from Riga itself, met with prolonged resistance, they made an ill-fated attempt to capture the port from the sea.This was on 18th Aug., when the Russian fleet appeared on the scene while the German naval contingents were attempting to land in flat-bottomed barges at Pernau.The landing forces were annihilated, and the German ships beaten off with a loss of two cruisers and eight torpedo-boats.The Russians only lost an old gunboat in this one-sided action.

The naval operations, however, had little effect on the main issue.Russian fortresses continued for another month to fall like ninepins before the Austro-German armies.Grodno was evacuated at the beginning of September, and though General Everts escaped from Brest-Litovsk with his supplies and guns, he could not hold up Mackensen's irresistible march on Pinsk, even in the Pripet marshes, which were dry at that season of the year.Pinsk was occupied on 16th Sept.Nowhere was the pressure relaxed.In the south, where the flood-tide of the Teutonic advance had never set so strongly, the attack on the Volhynian fortresses had been vigorously opposed by Ivanoff; but Boehm-Ermolli entered Lutsk on 1st Sept., and the Austrians recaptured Brody on the same day.

The vital blow at this stage was being delivered in the north, where von Below, bent on reaching Riga for his winter quarters, was marching on the Dvina lines with the immediate object of crossing that river and turning the whole Russian front as far as Dvinsk.The extreme left flank of the Germans fought desperately for the Dvina crossing at Friedrichstadt, but failed to make it good, and the danger-point shifted towards Vilna, the ten days' battle for which was decided at Meiszagowla on 12th Sept.Though two Russian divisions of the Imperial Guard were brought up to defend this key position, they were powerless to hold it against the great weight of German artillery.With its capture on 12th Sept., Vilna's fall became merely a matter of days.Before the Vilna armies could make good their escape, Hindenburg endeavoured to crown his triumph by outflanking them on both sides, von Eichhorn's cavalry sweeping round from Vilkomir in the north, and von Scholtz pressing forward, though less rapidly, on the southern side of the salient.

In this supreme crisis on the Eastern front, Ruzsky, recovered from his illness, returned to his command of the northern battlefields, and signalized his reappearance—not for the first time—by changing the whole complexion of affairs.Reinforcements enabled him in the first place methodically to evacuate the Vilna salient under their protection.Hindenburg endeavoured to counter this by rushing up cavalry reinforcements, with 140 guns, to support his outflanking thrust in the north, which, reaching Vidzy on the 16th and Vileika on the following day—this being well to the rear of the Vilna armies—threatened irremediable disaster to the retreating Russians.They were saved by the series of flank-guard battles securing their one avenue of retreat, and Ruzsky's counter-offensive from Dvinsk—a stroke so effective that the long German cavalry arm was in itself now in danger of being cut off.Vidzy was recaptured on the 20th; Smorgon, south of Novo Grodek, on the 21st; and Vileika before the end of the month.

On 15th Sept.Lord Kitchener had publicly declared that the Germans had "shot their bolt" on the Eastern front; and, so far as the immediate destruction of the Russian army as a force in being was concerned, this was true, though it was hard to believe while the wide sweep of the German advance was in full force.Ivanoff's reaction was equally marked in the south, where Brussiloff and Lechitsky took von Bothmer and Pflanzer-Baltin by surprise.Before the end of September the Austro-Germans had not only been pushed back to the Strypa, but had also lost both Dubno and Lutsk (23rd).

Germany's great summer offensive was over, but Hindenburg tried hard to secure good winter quarters in the north by a renewed advance on Dvinsk and Riga.A frontal attack was launched on Dvinsk on 3rd Oct.and was a costly failure.Ruzsky had defended Dvinsk with a semicircle of far-flung trenches on the Verdun model, against which the German shock-troops and guns could make practically no progress.After three weeks of vain endeavour Hindenburg shifted the attack to Riga, with no better success and heavy additional casualties.Thrust and counter-thrust succeeded one another with little change in the general situation until the end of November, when, after temporarily securing a crossing at Dahlend Island, south-east of Riga, in the River Dvina, Hindenburg was forced to abandon the attempt as futile.With the help of their fleet the Russians won their way back to Kemmern; and in their counter-offensive from Dvinsk in the same month recaptured Illutsk.All hope was then abandoned by the Germans of taking either Riga or Dvinsk that year.The German effort in the south, below the Pripet marshes, also slackened.Ivanoff not only maintained the ground he had won, but scored several notable victories in the Strypa sector; but both here and along the Styr, where Lechitsky was opposing Bothmer, there was both give and take and nothing decisive—apart from the fact that Roumania was saved by this evidence of Russia's recuperative powers from choosing the wrong side.

In order further to influence the dubious attitude of Roumania, a fresh Russian offensive in the Bukovina was begun in the last days of the year, with Czernowitz as the objective; but as this rightly belongs to 1916 it will be dealt with in our summary of the operations for that year. Though Russia had not succumbed as a military power under the staggering blows she had received in 1915, she had lost 2,000,000 of her best fighting men, and the moral of her army was never so high again. Falkenhayn has hinted in his Memoirs that the Germans knew that the blind faith of the Russians in their rulers was already shaken before they started Mackensen's 'drive'. It could not be expected to endure in face of the criminal neglect and corruption which every day added to their hardships and losses at the front. The Russian court at that period has been described as a mixture of folly and intrigue, with 'dark forces' at work under pro-German influence, led by the impostor Rasputin. The Grand Duke Nicholas, who was above the treacherous influences now undermining all departments of the Russian system, had been transferred to the command in the Caucasus in the most critical hours of the Austro-Germanic advance, the supreme command of the Russian armies being taken over by the Tsar himself (5th Sept.) , with Alexieff as Chief of Staff. The Tsar's motives were above suspicion; but he lacked the efficiency and generalship of the Grand Duke, and stood for a system which, under the searching test of war, was proving itself unworthy of the continued sacrifices of his subjects. The sacrifices were repeated in 1916, but the seeds were already sown of the red harvest which was to lead to Russia's downfall and the end of the Romanoffs.

The Balkans, 1915

The progress of German arms in 1915 had decided Bulgaria to throw in her lot with the Central Powers.Her price—fixed by secret treaty with Germany in July of that year—was the whole of Macedonia possessed by Serbia, and other valuable slices of territory.It was not until 12th Oct.that formal war was declared by Bulgaria against Serbia, five days after the fresh invasion of Serbia had begun under Mackensen's leadership, with two Austro-German armies, one under General Koevess, advancing west of Belgrade in a wide flanking movement along the old roads over the Save and the Drina, and the other, under General von Gallwitz, advancing east of Belgrade against the main Serbian forces.Against this new Mackensen 'drive', with fully-equipped forces larger than the whole Serbian army, organized with all the Teutonic thoroughness which marked the same leader's Galician triumph, the Serbians had no chance, though they fought, as ever, with stoic resistance, and exacted a price for every inch of ceded territory.While they were thus stubbornly retreating, Bulgaria threw in two of her armies on the Eastern front, thus threatening, with the advancing Austro-German forces, to enclose them in a wide loop.The tragedy of it was that Serbia's allies were powerless to save her; and that Greece, who by the terms of her treaty with Serbia should have gone to her assistance as soon as Bulgaria attacked her, declined through King Constantine to do so, notwithstanding the insistent advice of his Prime Minister, M.Venizelos.Convinced, like King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, that Germany was winning the war, King Constantine maintained to the end an attitude which, though he chose to call it neutral, was never friendly towards the Allies.Russia had her hands too full to go to Serbia's aid, and though a Franco-British attempt was made as the net closed round the encircled Serbians, it was too late to save the situation.

The story of the Serbian disaster of 1915, when the fall of Monastir on 2nd Dec.robbed the Serbians of their last stronghold, is that of a desperate flight across the frontier and over the mountains of Albania and Montenegro to the Adriatic.Thanks to the Serbians' heroic efforts, the Austro-German armies had not been able to close the net tight, and though the Bulgarians followed hard on their heels, they could not quite complete their victory.All told, however, the Serbians lost some 50,000 men, killed, wounded, captured, or starved, in the retreat, together with their guns and equipment.Their aged monarch shared the retreat and succeeded in reaching Brindisi.

Meanwhile the Franco-British force, which, as already related, arrived too late to prevent this final act of the Serbian tragedy, had established a strong base at Salonika, notwithstanding Greek protests on the grounds of neutrality.It was not until 14th Oct.that the combined force, under the leadership of General Sarrail—the British column being commanded by General Mahon—began to move up the Vardar valley, the British advancing on the right towards Lake Doiran, and the French towards Strumnitza.Both forces were soon in touch with the Bulgarians, and fought a number of minor engagements in their forlorn hope of effecting a junction with the hard-pressed Serbians.Besides being too late, however, the Franco-British forces were not strong enough to effect their purpose, and when the remnants of the Serbian army had been forced across the frontier towards the Adriatic, they were themselves attacked by powerful Bulgarian columns.The object of his expedition having been eliminated, General Sarrail prepared for retreat to his base.The Bulgarians did their best to harry his retirement.They launched a determined attack, which he repulsed with heavy loss; and then endeavoured to isolate the two columns by an assault on the British force at Lake Doiran.Though some 1300 casualties were sustained in defeating this attack, the British, acting as flank-guard to the French, enabled the retreat to be made jointly.By 13th Dec.the Allied troops, having administered a severe check to the pursuing Bulgarians two days previously, were across the Greek frontier in good order, and in due course had entrenched themselves about Salonika.

With the fall of Serbia came the collapse of Montenegro, in circumstances considerably less heroic than those which marked the Serbian retreat.The key position of Mont Lovtchen was abandoned to the Austrians with little if any show of resistance, and Cettinje, the capital, similarly entered by the invaders.King Nicholas of Montenegro sought refuge in Paris; Prince Mirko of Montenegro in Vienna.

The Serbian soldiers who survived the great retreat, numbering some 100,000 in all, were met on the Adriatic coast by units of the Italian fleet and transferred to Corfu—to recoup and refit for the later campaigns which were to lead to the recovery of their country.

Italy, 1915

Italy, whose warships were thus instrumental in salving the Serbian army, had thrown in her lot with the Allies by declaring war against Austria-Hungary on 23rd May, 1915. Austria had refused to offer adequate 'compensation' for her disturbance of the Balkans; and, moreover, the time had obviously arrived to complete Italian unity. A few weeks previously Italy had signed the Treaty of London, under which the Allies agreed to satisfy most of her territorial ambitions when the time came to share the spoils of victory an agreement which led to some of the most difficult problems in the final peace settlement.To Italy's honour be it added that she joined forces with the Allies when their prospects were none too bright, when they were able to report little or no progress either on the Western front or in Gallipoli, and Austro-German arms, on the other hand, were beginning to carry all before them in Mackensen's great drive in Galicia.

Italy was in no position to throw her whole weight into the struggle in 1915.Though her war strength was reckoned at a million men, her army was ill-equipped with guns, especially with modern heavy artillery and machine-guns, and her industrial resources were wholly inadequate to make good the deficiency.The mountainous frontier which she had to defend, too, gave every advantage to the Austrians.She succeeded in seizing three of the passes, the Stelvio, Tonale, and Guidriari, on the east side of the Trentino, and in blocking others on the west side, as the opening moves of her campaign, the object being to secure her flank in the subsequent offensive operations which aimed at Trieste by an advance across the Isonzo.Though these operations succeeded in pinning to the Italian front considerable forces of Austro-Hungarian troops which might have been thrown into the Russian furnace, the Italian effort fell far short of its objectives.General Cadorna, the Italian Commander-in-Chief, won a number of small successes in deploying his Third Army on the right bank of the Isonzo during June and July, securing the bridge-heads at Caporetto—the scene of Italian disaster two years later—Plava, Gradisca, and Monfalcone, thus holding the western bank of the river from Tolmino down to the sea.But the Italians were now faced with powerful defences, buttressed by the Carso Plateau in the south, which could only be carried at that time at prohibitive cost.All attempts to capture these strongholds broke down, and though a footing was gained on the Carso, and slight gains were constantly reported from the Trentino, the operations along the Italian front settled down before the year was out to the give-and-take fighting which characterized the siege operations in the West.

Western Front in 1915

On the Western front neither France nor Great Britain was ready in 1915 to undertake any advance comparable with the great offensives of the Central Powers in the East.Russia in her agony complained that France was not doing enough, but all the Allies' efforts this year were crippled by their inability to supply the wholly unprecedented demands for munitions of war.Great Britain was still struggling months behind to catch up a foe who had been preparing for years.Mr. Lloyd George subsequently related how, in the month of May, 1915, when the Germans were turning out 250,000 shells a day, most of them high-explosives, Great Britain was producing a mere 2500 a day in high-explosives, and 13,000 in shrapnel.The French, accustomed to supplying the demands of armies on a Continental scale, had naturally done considerably better than this, but even their most strenuous efforts were inadequate to cope with the enormous output of the German arsenals.Mr. Lloyd George retired from the Chancellorship of the Exchequer in order to assume control of the newly created Ministry of Munitions, which in due course more than made good all these defects.That, however, was not in 1915.Up to the end of that year, according to Lord French, "the scanty supply of munitions of war paralysed all our power of initiative, and at critical times menaced our defence with irretrievable disaster".

At the end of the first long winter of dreary trench warfare the British Commander-in-Chief deemed it necessary to undertake an offensive in order to prevent the moral of his army from deteriorating. Hence the battle of Neuve Chapelle, which, begun on 10th March, was fought with a small reserve of ammunition accumulated for the purpose, and had to be broken off after three days' struggle through lack of further supplies. The troops chosen for the main assault were Rawlinson's Fourth Army Corps, with the Indian Corps on the right. Following the preliminary bombardment, they quickly overran Neuve Chapelle itself and made 1000 yards progress on a 3-mile front. But to left and right the attacks were held up, and two further days' fighting failed to add to the gains—purchased at the excessive cost of 562 officers and 12,239 men. The total German losses, including 1680 officers and men as prisoners, were estimated as rather higher than this, but the net result, though ranking as a British victory, was admittedly disappointing.

Earlier in the year Lord French had endeavoured to convince Joffre that the proper rôle for the British army to fulfil was an advance on the extreme north in co-operation with the British navy. Joffre was unsympathetic, though he held out hopes of co-operating in such an advance with the French army at a later date. His plan for the 1915 campaign was to break through the German line from the south at Rheims, and from the west at Arras. To do this he must mass as many French corps as possible behind these points, meanwhile keeping the enemy busy elsewhere in order to prevent him from reinforcing the threatened positions.This general strategic idea, as Lord French has pointed out, was the foundation of all the Allied efforts in the West throughout 1915.It led to numerous local successes along many parts of the line, but no real advance was made towards the main objectives.These were not defined until the combined offensive was launched in September.

The Germans themselves, though content to leave to the Allies most of the attacking in the West in 1915, maintained a sufficiently active offensive-defensive.While the French in Alsace were making a fresh advance on Mulhouse at the beginning of the year, they counter-attacked at Soissons, after bombarding the cathedral on 9th Jan.It was only after a week's desperate fighting and heavy French losses—including a bridge-head on the Aisne—that they were checked.In Champagne the French managed to capture Perthes (8th Jan.), and strove valiantly but vainly to wipe out the St.Mihiel salient.The most ambitious effort of the opening months of the year was the British offensive at Neuve Chapelle, which, as already pointed out, failed largely through lack of ammunition.In his report on that battle the British Commander-in-Chief referred to the pressing need of "an almost unlimited supply of ammunition"; and the lack of it was the real explanation of the Allied failure in 1915.

Germany knew well enough how matters stood in this respect, and added ruthlessly to the handicap which their own superior supplies gave them by suddenly attacking with chlorine gas—the first use of poison-gas in the war.This was on 22nd April, following a grim struggle south-east of Ypres for Hill 60, the flattened remains of which, after five days' incessant fighting, remained in British possession.Having been careful beforehand to accuse the French of using poison-gas near Verdun on the 14th—a charge without justification—the Germans launched it in dense volumes from pipes previously laid down for the purpose north-east of Ypres.The attack was preceded by a heavy bombardment, the gas-clouds following at 5 p.m.on the 22nd.The Allied line was held at this point by French Colonial and Territorial troops, with the Canadian Division on their right.All unprotected as they were against this diabolical form of warfare, the French troops, gasping for breath, broke and fled.Many fell asphyxiated.With a gap in the Allied line 5 miles wide, the Canadians suddenly found their flank left in the air.Less affected by the gas than the French, they were chiefly instrumental in saving the situation by a valiant resistance until reinforcements could be sent to fill the gap.

The gap was evidently wider than the Germans either anticipated or realized; otherwise the disaster might have been irretrievable.As it was, the situation remained precarious until the 27th, when a counter-attack in conjunction with the French recovered some of the ground, and a large portion of the sorely tried Canadian Division was relieved by the Lahore Indian Division.Altogether seven British divisions were involved in this hard-fought battle, the net result of which was to bring the Germans 2 miles nearer to Ypres on a 5-mile front, and to give the Allies a worse line to hold.Eight batteries of French field-guns were lost and four British guns of position.These last were recaptured by the Canadians, but the enemy had already destroyed them.In all the Allied casualties amounted to nearly 25,000.The Germans estimated theirs at 16,000.In his report on the gas-attack Sir John French declared that protest against this form of warfare would probably be useless, and Lord Kitchener intimated in the House of Lords on 18th May that retaliation might be inevitable.Respirators more or less effective were supplied to the troops, and the use of poison-gas, followed by liquid-fire—another German innovation—became permanent additions to the horrors of modern warfare.

Before the new battle round Ypres died down—it lasted, indeed, until the end of May—the storm centre shifted to the southern end of the British line, where it joined hands with the French left. Here General French began the battle of Festubert, undertaken to relieve the intense pressure on the troops at Ypres, but also serving as part of Joffre's general plan of attack in the direction of Lens and Lille. British and French alike were launched against the German lines on 9th May, the British taking the offensive between Rougebanc and Givenchy, and the French between Neuville St. Vaast and Notre Dame de Lorette. The renewed struggle for Ypres, however, had drawn heavily on the scanty British reserves of ammunition, and the preliminary bombardment of forty minutes proved wholly inadequate to crush the resistance offered by the enemy's numerous fortified posts when the First Army advanced to the attack. This disastrous engagement, in which the greatest bravery was displayed against overwhelming odds, cost over 12,000 casualties. It achieved nothing in the field, but the lessons which it taught led to the formation of the Coalition Government, with Mr. Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions. The second stage of the battle of Festubert, which began at midnight on 15th May, was more successful, the enemy's front-line trenches being captured on a front of 3000 yards; but the losses incurred in winning and holding the positions were disproportionately high.

The French effort began more auspiciously as a result of the longer and more intense bombardment which preceded their attack on the 9th, but the series of minor successes which they won round Souchez, after weeks of incessant fighting, made little real impression on the defences of Lens.The truth was that Germany had so expanded her war-material factories that, with the aid of the Austrians, she could turn out sufficient shells and guns for her main offensive on the Eastern front, and at the same time overweight the Allies in the West.

Throughout the summer the line, though never quiescent, and often breaking out in furious bombardments, minor attacks and counter-attacks, and raids on both sides, remained little altered. The hardest fighting of all was round the war-scarred salient of Ypres, still held, as in the first gas-attack, by the Second Army, to which some of 'Kitchener's Men' were now attached. It fell to this advance-guard of the New Army to bear the brunt of the first attack on the British with liquid-fire, the Germans, who had already used this new device of the flammenwerfer against the French, employing it in another desperate assault on the British lines round Hooge. The New Army units fought with almost incredible gallantry, but were blinded by the unexpected, burning sheets of flame, and while they were still blind the enemy charged and took the first-line trenches on a front of some 500 yards. The losses were avenged on 9th Aug. , when the 6th Division recovered all the captured positions, and 400 yards of German trench into the bargain.

With the arrival of the reinforcing British divisions of the New Army, General French was able to take over some 17 miles of additional front, the British line thus extending over about 50 miles, with the Belgians on the left holding the remaining 18 miles to the sea.This still left the French army 500 miles to hold, from the British right to the Alps.

The summer of 1915 passed away without any great offensive on either side.The Germans, now at the flood-tide of their sweeping advance against Russia, were content to continue their vigorous offensive-defensive in the West.Besides the fighting already referred to, there was incessant warfare in the Argonne Forest, where the German Crown Prince was noisily active throughout the summer, threatening Verdun, but making no serious advance.The French continued the deadly trench-to-trench warfare in the Souchez area and the 'Labyrinth' region nearer Arras, and steadily tightened their hold on the reconquered corner of Alsace, consolidating their positions on the Hartmannsweilerkopf, which had been the scene of continuous fighting in the renewed advance towards Mulhouse.For the most part, however, the French, like the British, were now storing up reserves of ammunition and completing their dispositions for the joint offensive planned for the autumn, when the main objects of Joffre's general strategic idea for 1915 were for the first time clearly defined, though unattained.

A great Allied offensive in the West had become increasingly necessary in view of the prestige gained by the Central Powers, not only by their tremendous advance into Russia, but also by the Allies' disastrous campaign in Gallipoli, where the failure of the Suvla Bay landing—subsequently dealt with in our account of the operations against Turkey—had just given the enemy additional cause for rejoicing.Joffre's plan of attack, designed "to drive the Germans out of France", was not ripe for execution until towards the end of September.Even then, though General French had for months been gradually accumulating troops and ammunition for the blow—the British army now numbering nearly a million men—full strength in both respects was still only half developed.

There were two main assaults in the combined offensive, launched on 25th Sept., 1915, the chief of which was in the French centre in Champagne, where de Castlenau, Joffre's right-hand man, attacked with Langle de Cary's Fourth Army on a 16-mile front between Auberive and Massiges, the object being to force the Germans back on the Aisne, and, if possible, cut off the army of the German Crown Prince in the Argonne.Second in importance was the Franco-British advance on the same day in Artois, General French's object being to push through between Lens and La Bassée on the north, while Generals Foch and d'Urbal, on his right, stormed the Vimy heights and attacked Lens from the south.Secondary operations were carried out at various other points in order to distract the enemy's attention, feint attacks being made by Sir Herbert Plumer with the 5th Corps—part of the Second Army—east of Ypres, where Bellewarde was temporarily taken; as well as by those units of the First Army occupying the line north of the Béthune-La Bassée Canal.Similar demonstrations were made at Bois Grenier, and along the slopes of the Aubers Ridge, where British and Indian troops alike fought heroically for ground which, though captured in the first onrush, could not be held under the powerful fire concentrated against them.

Battle of Loos

The main British attack was delivered by the First Army under Sir Douglas Haig along a front extending from La Bassée Canal in the north to the mining village of Grenay on the south, and is conveniently named the battle of Loos.The task of the 4th Corps (Rawlinson), with the 47th (London Territorial) Division on the right, the 15th (New Army) Division in the centre, and the 1st Division on the left, was to carry, as its first objective, Loos and the heights between Lens and Hulluch.The 1st Corps (Hubert Gough), with the 7th Division on its right, the 9th (New Army) Division in the centre, and the 2nd Division (Horne) on the left extended to the canal, was to link up with the Fourth Army at Hulluch, taking in its stride the Hohenzollern Redoubt and the formidable German fortresses in the Quarries and Fosse 8.Had this general plan succeeded, and the Tenth French Army on the British right advanced in line with it, a great gap would have been made in the German positions in Artois, which, with a similar success from the mightier French blow in Champagne, would at least have brought relief to the hard-pressed Russians in the East, if it did not achieve all that Joffre had hoped for it.As it was, the Allied victory, both in Artois and Champagne, fell far short of its aims, and, save for insubstantial advances, was fruitful chiefly in bloody experience.

An intense bombardment for four days preceded the main British advance, and was followed by a gas-attack—used by the British on this occasion for the first time.^[1] Many parts of the German defences along the 7-mile front, however, were far from obliterated when the infantry advanced to the attack, especially on the left, where the 2nd Division was held up by impassable wire defences. The 9th Division had a similar experience on its left wing, where the undemolished defences of the Hohenzollern Redoubt became a veritable shambles. On its right, however, the leading Scottish battalions scored a fine success in reaching Fosse 8. On their right the 7th Division did equally well, capturing the Quarries and reaching Cité St. Elie, north of Hulluch, though subsequently forced to rest on the Quarries. In the meantime the 4th Corps, like the 1st, had been repulsed on the left and victorious on the right. Held up on the left by unbroken wire and undamaged German defences, the 1st Division could make no appreciable advance on the Lens-Hulluch road, thus exposing the left flank of the next division in line—the 15th (Scottish). The Scotsmen on their part had made a magnificent advance, first sharing with the Londoners of the 47th Division the honour of capturing Loos, and then rushing on impetuously to Hill 70, and beyond as far as Cité St. Auguste, on the outskirts of Lens. Had reserves been available at once to consolidate the gains thus won, Lens itself might have been taken, and a door flung open leading to Lille. But as it was impossible to say at which part of the long British line they would be needed, Sir John French had retained his reserves far in the rear. When at last they were forthcoming—the new 21st and 24th Divisions, hitherto untried—they were put into the battle-line after nightfall, tired and hungry after a heavy 8-mile march.

It was impossible to hold all the ground won during the day.Without reinforcements, and no sufficient artillery support, the 15th Division had already been forced to relinquish its hold on Cité St.Auguste, and fell back to the western slopes of Hill 70 on the Lens-Hulluch road.Misdirected and drenched with rain, the two tired reinforcing divisions could do little to help amid the confusion of the battlefield.Their supporting attacks at various points broke against the still intact German wire or simultaneous counter-attacks by the enemy.One brigade alone (the 72nd) lost 78 officers and 2000 men out of the 3600 with which it started.Altogether the losses of these two divisions amounted to 8000.Along the southern section they succeeded in maintaining contact with the 47th Division, and in the north helped the Scots of the 9th Division to maintain their hold on Fosse 8; but the Quarries, close by, were lost, and along most of this northern front the day's gains were gradually whittled away.

Another heavy handicap was the fact that the French Tenth Army, on the right of Rawlinson's Corps, had to postpone its advance until one o'clock in the afternoon—the British attack had been launched at 6.30 a.m.—and then was forced to direct the corps operating on its left in a south-easterly direction.This involved a considerable gap on the British right, when Rawlinson's men made their victorious advance.The Londoners of the 47th Division, however, not only held on to Loos, but formed a strong defensive flank which averted what might have been a complete disaster.Apart from the captured positions, 57 German officers and 3000 other prisoners had been taken during the day on the British front, together with 26 field-guns and 40 machine-guns.

On the following day the Germans counter-attacked in force and recovered Fosse 8, but on the 27th the Guards Division, under the Earl of Cavan, was sent forward and almost restored the earlier gains, including Chalk Pit Wood and the slopes of Hill 70. It cost the Guards 3000 casualties to make good the restored British line. They continued to hold it until the end of the month, when they were relieved. The 15th (Scottish) Division had also been withdrawn, after suffering no fewer than 6000 casualties.All told, the British losses in the battle of Loos amounted to 50,000 men and 2000 officers, including three divisional commanders—Major-General Sir Thompson Capper (7th Division), Major-General G.H.Thesiger (9th Division), and Major-General F.D.V.Wing (12th Division)—each of whom was killed.A series of costly counter-attacks on the enemy's part failed to make much impression on the new British line, and mounted up the German casualties until they were estimated at many more than those of the British.The battle died down; the gains were consolidated; but the murderous struggle at close quarters for the Hohenzollern Redoubt and its adjoining entrenchments continued for weeks and months, an outstanding feature of which was the attempt of the 46th (North Midland Territorial) Division to carry the redoubt by storm on 13th Oct.The Midlanders' task was handicapped, like so many British operations at this period, by inadequate artillery preparation, and though they fought like veterans they could only win the western side of the stronghold at a cost of 4000 casualties.

The advance of the 10th French Army on the right of the British was held up in front of Souchez on the opening day of the combined offensive, but made better progress on 26th Sept., when d'Urbal's troops made themselves masters not only of long-contested Souchez, but also of Thelus, La Folie Farm, and most of the Givenchy Wood.But the Vimy heights, notwithstanding that some progress was made along their slopes, still barred the road to Lens from the south.On the 28th the French 9th Corps, at the British Commander-in-Chief's request, took over the defence of Loos, and the British line was rearranged.

The main French effort in 1915, as already pointed out, was in Champagne, where a solid week's bombardment paved the way for the great advance on 25th Sept.Inspired by Joffre's stirring Order of the Day, "Remember the Marne: Conquer or Die!", the French troops carried all before them on the greater part of the front.General Marchand's Colonial Division broke clean through 2 miles of the main German defences, Marchand himself falling severely wounded at the head of his men.The greatest advance was made on Marchand's right, from Navarin Farm to the Butte de Tahure, where an advance of 2½ miles was made before the day closed.But the troops in the centre were robbed of decisive victory by a double check on the wings.On the right the two German strongholds at the Butte de Mesnil and the Main de Massiges—comparable with the Hohenzollern Redoubt in their strength—held out stubbornly until, after days and nights of ceaseless combat, both fell into the attackers' hands.On the extreme left the assailants could make practically no headway.

Thenceforward the French advance made little progress towards the main objectives, though a breach was made in the enemy's second line in a fresh attack on the 29th; and a third advance (6th Oct.)won the village and Butte de Tahure.On 20th Oct.the Germans recovered the Butte de Tahure, and in other counter-attacks prevented the French from developing their first initial advance into the greater victory which Joffre had hoped for it.The battle had yielded an impressive list of captures—the total number of German prisoners being over 23,000 before the end of September, and the captured guns 80—but the Allies' long line had not materially altered before the autumn offensive gave place to another winter of tedious siege warfare.

The year closed with the appointment of Joffre as Commander-in-Chief of all the French forces, General de Castlenau taking over the immediate command of the French troops in France; and the resignation of Sir John French—now created a Viscount of the United Kingdom, and appointed to the Home Command—after more than sixteen months of severe and incessant strain at the front.Lord French was succeeded by General Sir Douglas Haig, who had been singled out for promotion by his brilliant achievements since the British army first landed in France.

The Naval War in 1915

Throughout 1915 the operations at sea contained no movements so striking as some of those which marked the opening months of the war. The careers of all the scattered German cruisers were over, the last of them, the Königsberg, being finally destroyed in the Rufigi River, German East Africa, by the shallow-draught monitors Severn and Mersey, sent out for the purpose from Great Britain. The German High Seas Fleet remained in harbour, waiting for Lord Jellicoe to be tempted or goaded into some imprudent disposition of his forces. Hence the sudden raids on the British East Coast, begun in the closing months of 1914. They repeated them once too often, on 24th Jan. , 1915, when the raiders, consisting of 4 battle-cruisers, 6 light cruisers, and a force of destroyers, were encountered off the Dogger Bank by the British battle-cruiser squadron under Admiral Beatty, consisting of the Lion, Tiger, and Princess Royal, as well as the New Zealand and Indomitable, and the light cruisers Southampton, Nottingham, Birmingham, and Lowestoft, together with the Arethusa, Aurora, and Undaunted. Outmatched by the 13.5-inch guns of Beatty's 'Cat' Squadron of battle-cruisers, the Germans made for home. In the hot chase which followed, the Blücher, last in line of the German battle-cruisers, was hit repeatedly, fell behind, and was eventually sunk by a torpedo from the destroyer Meteor. Her survivors were picked up by the Arethusa. Beatty's flagship, the Lion, which was leading the pursuit, was partly disabled by a chance shot and had to be towed home, Beatty himself following the chase at some distance in a destroyer. Before he could pick up his place in the pursuit he met his three battle-cruisers returning, these having broken off the action owing to the increasing risk of straying into an enemy mine-field or of falling foul of the mines which the retreating Germans were strewing in their path. Two other German battle-cruisers had been set on fire by the British shells, the Seydlitz and the Derfflinger, but, with the rest of the German ships, they made good their escape.Taught by this experience, the Germans made no further naval raids on the East Coast.

In the following month (4th Feb.) Vice-Admiral von Pohl, Chief of the German Admiralty Staff, proclaimed a submarine blockade of the whole of the British Isles, declaring all the waters round Great Britain and Ireland a military area in which Allied merchant-ships were to be destroyed and neutral ships would incur danger of running the same risk. If the Germans thought they could scare British shipping away by these means, they were soon undeceived. They took heavy toll of peaceful shipping from the first, and shocked the rest of the world by the lengths to which they were prepared to go in developing this ruthless policy, but all their efforts failed to paralyse British trade as they anticipated. The crowning tragedy of this submarine campaign was the sinking of the Cunard liner Lusitania off the south coast of Ireland on 7th May, 1915, with its loss of upwards of 1000 non-combatants, including over 100 Americans. It was one of the German crimes against humanity in general and Americans in particular which brought the United States into the war on the side of the Allies in 1917.

1916 on the European Fronts

The Western Campaign.—During the year 1916 the unity of command which was postulated as an indispensable preliminary to the victory of the Allies so long before it became a fact was achieved neither as between Britain and France in the West and Russia in the East, nor even as between Britain and France along the Western front.The most that can be said of the co-ordination between the forces under the British and French Commanders-in-Chief is that liaison was established between them, and that as far as was possible each endeavoured to help the other by diverting to itself the energies of the German forces.The Western fighting embraced two main episodes: the powerful German attacks on Verdun, eventually unsuccessful; and the Allied offensive on the Somme, in which by far the greater share was borne by the British.

The year began with numerous German attacks widely separated in locality, and intended to mask the main offensive while keeping the French and British occupied.Hartmannsweilerkopf, in Alsace (2nd to 8th Jan.); Champagne (9th Jan.); Givenchy, Arras, Neuville, Loos (14th Jan.to 6th Feb.); Vimy Ridge, Frise, Soissons, Ypres-Comines area, and Tahure (9th to 20th Feb.)were among them.

On 21st Feb.the new battle of Verdun began.This enterprise, though officially accredited to the German Crown Prince, was the design of General von Falkenhayn.Verdun was one of the four fortresses, of which the other three were Belfort, Toul, and Épinal, on which French armies defending the capital and the country from an invasion from the east would base themselves.The town lies sunk in the Meuse valley, and the German invasion in 1914 flowed past it along the heights of the Meuse down to St.Mihiel.At the beginning of the war Verdun was protected by an outer line of forts, with batteries pushed out in a circuit of 30 miles.The forts were not, however, strong enough in 1914, nor the perimeter of defence extended enough, to withstand the new artillery that had reduced Liége and Namur, and a fierce struggle went on during 1915 along the Meuse heights on the east of Verdun and beyond the low hills on the western side of the town and river, with a view to pushing out the defences all round.As previously pointed out, much had been done in this direction by General Sarrail, but not enough to deter von Falkenhayn and the German General Staff from selecting Verdun as a point for an attack which, if successful, would disorganize seriously the continuity of the French defences.In 1916, as for two years more, the problem of either combatant was to break through a line of trenches which extended continuously from the sea to Switzerland; and failing a complete break-through, comparable to that which had crippled Russia in 1915, to effect a fracture or a deep dent which would compel the loser to reconstruct his system of communications.At the best such a thrust might disclose a fatal weakness in the assailed; at the next best it would disastrously hamper his future activities.

Verdun as a fortress had strong and modern defences. West of the Meuse, north of the town, are low hills the chief of which is the Charny Ridge with dominating strategic points beyond known as Hill 304, Hill 295, Hill 265.The French lines were pushed beyond these into the woods of Avocourt and Forges, but below the heights of Montfaucon, which were the Crown Prince's head-quarters.On the east of the Meuse the heights rise to a tableland severed by wooded ravines and overlooking the plain of the Woevre.The line of French trenches embraced all this tableland and a good deal of the plain beyond.Its outer line ran in a bold convex curve from Forges and Consenvoye on the Meuse to Fresnes on the Woevre, but it did not penetrate the woods of Forges or Spincourt, and it was below the gun positions on the hills of Ornes.Inside this outer circle was the inner line of Samogneux, Beaumont, Fosses Wood, and Bezonvaux.Inside that again the line of Bras, Douaumont Fort, Hardaumont Wood, Vaux Fort, and Eix.

The multiple defences were most elaborate between these two inner lines.A weak point was that though such defences would be very exacting of life and effort, yet the outer ones were not pushed out far enough to place the bridges of the Meuse out of reach of long-range gun-fire; and an overwhelming attack might have jammed a defending army on the east of the Meuse against the river.The French had provided against the possibility by the multiplication of transport, as well as of inner defences.The Germans hoped by the weight, volume, and suddenness of their attack to bring about the not impossible catastrophe.They massed an amount of artillery which, though surpassed afterwards in the war, was at that time the greatest assemblage that had ever been seen together, and accumulated a supply of ammunition exceeding the quantity which all previous experience prescribed.The heavier guns were placed at Ornes, Spincourt, and Forges.The woods below afforded cover for a concentration of men; and this concentration, amounting to fourteen divisions, with others in immediate reserve, was at first thrown at the 7-mile sector from Brabant-sur-Meuse to Herbebois, which was held by three French divisions under General Humbert.

The attack began on the morning of 21st Feb.with an artillery bombardment lasting four hours.The great weight of shell demolished the French first-line defences, so that the German troops had little to do but walk over them, while a remnant of the defenders fell back to their supporting positions.These were not sufficiently strong or well constructed to enable weak forces to hold them long against the force of three army corps (18th, 3rd, and 10th, with a Bavarian Division) which the Germans sent in after the guns had done their work.The effectiveness of the German artillery was due in part to its weight, and in part to the fact that French counter-battery work effected little, owing to the thick weather.

The trench systems in the Haumont and Caures Woods were carried, but the resistance of parts of the first line at Brabant, Herbebois, and elsewhere was even at this dangerous moment reducing the speed of the German advance, though the momentum was far from exhausted.It was not till next day that the first line was definitely abandoned by the French; and on 23rd Feb.the line Samogneux-Herbebois was temporarily held.Before the morning of 24th Feb.the French contracted their line still further by drawing in their outposts from the Woevre.It seemed a matter for surprise at the time that no flank attack was made by the Germans in the Woevre; it had been perhaps thought an unnecessary extension of their general scheme, though the weather, which was bitter and snowy, was unfavourable for operations in that sodden plain.

But the German second wave of attack was now rising in fury, and General Pétain, who had undertaken the command of operations on the French side, was still awaiting reinforcements.The character of von Falkenhayn's attack had become clear, and while to the French the need for holding on was imperative, the Germans had a need no less urgent for hastening operations and exploiting their preliminary success to a point at which General Pétain could not repair the breach.They had, in fact, two days in which to achieve their aim—24th and 25th Feb.On the 24th they flowed round the Beaumont Woods and came close to the Talou Ridge, the Poivre Ridge, and the rest of the French line where it ran past Haudremont and Douaumont to Vaux.On the 25th they attacked the Poivre Ridge without much success, but pressed the more important sector of their attack close to Douaumont.

Next day, 26th Feb., brought the fateful hour of the struggle.Pétain's reinforcements were at hand.The Germans made their supreme effort on a 2-mile front at Douaumont, and the picked 24th Brandenburger Regiment was the spear-head of an assault which at one moment burst its way into the Fort Douaumont trenches between the village and redoubt—a fine feat of arms which evoked this telegram from the Crown Prince's head-quarters: "Douaumont, the eastern pillar of the Verdun defences, is solidly in German hands".The adverb alone was misplaced.The position was not held solidly, for Pétain's reserves, thrown in at the exact moment, flung back the Germans and prevented the leak in the defences from being widened by any further inrush.

This counter-attack, made by men of Balfourier's 20th Corps, marked, indeed, the turn of the struggle, for though Douaumont, and Vaux after it, were subsequently to be lost, together with many other historic redoubts and shell-battered points of vantage on either side of the Meuse, and though many thousands of lives were to be swept away in attack and counter-attack on the barren hills about Verdun, yet henceforward the assaults were no different, except in weight, from others which in 1916 and 1917 were projected by the Germans or the Allies on the amplifying complexities of the armoured defence lines.Von Falkenhayn's subsequent comment on the operations, which marked the beginning of the creeping paralysis of his plan, was that violent French counter-attacks began, and the German forward movement on the heights was stayed.

Though the crisis was over there were many great moments of sleepless effort, of anxiety, and heroism in the months to come, for the last purposeful German assaults on the fortress were made on 15th June, and on 14th July the Germans were still occupying the French with assaults developing from the Thiaumont redoubts, which marked the farthest point southwards to which their long-sustained efforts had taken them.Following on these attacks was a considerable pause, during which the Germans were fully occupied elsewhere in dealing with the British attacks on the Somme.The last phase at Verdun in 1916 was that in which the French, inspired by the methods of General Nivelle, thrust the Germans out of all the positions so painfully won, and re-occupied by mid-December very much the same lines as those from which the great push of the last week in February had ejected them.The story of Verdun cannot here be told in detail; its principal events are dated as follows:

27th Feb.—Germans take Talou Ridge.

3rd March.—Germans enter Douaumont village.

7th March.—Germans, transferring their efforts to the west of the Meuse, capture Hills 360 and 265.

14th March.—Germans penetrate west of Verdun the line Béthincourt-Mort Homme.

20th March.—Germans enter Avocourt Wood.

29th March.—French recover Avocourt Redoubt.

1st April.—Germans, renewing their attacks east of Verdun, capture part of Vaux village.

10th April.—Germans make extended attack on both sides of the Meuse, failing at the Mort Homme, but gaining at Poivre Ridge.

5th May.—Germans, renewing westerly attacks, gain a footing on Hill 304.

20th May.—Germans in a great attack on Mort Homme capture summit of Hill 295.The attack next day enlarged the gains.

24th May.—Cumières and Fort Douaumont captured by Germans.

1st June.—Fresh German attack at Fort Vaux east of Verdun.

7th June.—Fort Vaux captured after six days' fighting.

17th June.—Attack renewed at Mort Homme.The attacks on both sides of the Meuse were prosecuted with increasing vigour till 28th, during which period the Germans took Hills 321 and 320, as well as Thiaumont Fort (23rd June) and Fleury (24th June).Fleury marked the point of their farthest advance towards the inner line of defences east of the Meuse at Forts Souville and Tavannes.The tide now paused, and on 30th June, a day before the British attack on the Somme, the French retook Thiaumont.The fighting went on in a restricted but incessant way through the rest of June and July, the French gradually improving their position.In August activity was renewed at Thiaumont and Fleury.

18th Aug.—French retake whole of Fleury.

9th Sept.—French retake trenches between Fleury and Douaumont.

24th Oct.—The French, after a long pause for readjustment, and now under the direction of General Nivelle, recapture village and fort of Douaumont, Haudremont quarries, and 4500 prisoners.They thus advanced to lines held in May.

3rd Nov.—Vaux recaptured.On 30th Nov.the German Crown Prince resigned the command of the Verdun front.

15th to 16th Dec.—General Nivelle (who succeeded General Joffre as French Commander-in-Chief on 12th Dec.)orders new attack at Verdun.Vacherauville, Poivre Ridge, Bezonvaux, Hardaumont recaptured with 11,000 prisoners.

In early 1916 the British army was still finding itself, and its new Commander-in-Chief, Sir Douglas Haig, regarded it as insufficiently trained and equipped for the great tasks which lay before it. As an instrument of war it was still not yet ready. It also remained, if not in a water-tight compartment in respect of the French armies at its side, yet with a separate command and in separate control. This may have been merely the necessary consequence of its state of training; but it is certain that in 1916 there was no one with authority to compel that unity of action and command which in 1918, but not till then, directed the Franco-British armies as one force. Fortunately, perhaps, the German High Command elected to attack the French at Verdun instead of throwing their whole weight on the British, though there were numerous smaller actions along the worn and dangerous Ypres front and elsewhere in the first half of the year.

On 14th Feb. the enemy captured some 600 yards of 'International Trench', south-east of Ypres, but they were regained on 17th March, when a bitter and protracted struggle also began for the mine craters at St. Eloi. These were lost and recovered more than once, with heavy casualties on both sides. The Canadians, who had their full share of these costly operations, were again sorely tried at the beginning of June, when the Germans penetrated their front trenches in a surprise attack on the 2nd of that month. Major-General Mercer was killed in this assault, and General Williams captured. Eleven days later the Canadians atoned for this set-back by completely re-establishing their broken line. Throughout the first half of 1916 the enemy, not only round Ypres, but also round Loos, at Ploegsteert, Givenchy, and elsewhere, persevered in similar local attempts to keep the British occupied and upset their plans, while he was concentrating his chief efforts towards beating down the French defences at Verdun. The attack on Verdun, as already related, ultimately broke down, and the period in which it was at its height was utilized by Sir Douglas Haig to bring his forces as near as possible to the point at which they could undertake with success an attack of the first magnitude against the entrenched German lines. The date of the attack was premature, and was hurried on in order to take some weight off the harassed French armies at Verdun. It began on 1st July; the chosen terrain was the River Somme, and the great offensive, in which the French joined, was over a 28-mile front from Gommecourt, north of the Somme, to Dompierre, south of that river.

First Battle of the Somme

The German position in the Somme area was situated on the high ground which is the watershed between the Scheldt and the Somme.The ground runs east-south-east, and its hills fall into long irregular spurs divided by wide valleys.On the forward slopes of the hills the German first-line defences ran from the Somme at Curlu to Fricourt; at Fricourt the defence line turned north, crossing the Ancre, thence passing over the summit of the watershed near Hébuterne and Gommecourt to Arras.Between the Somme and the Ancre a second line of defence had been constructed 2 miles behind the first, and on it had been lavished all the ingenuities of fortification which the German engineers afterwards developed in the so-called Hindenburg lines.South of the Somme, where the French were to co-operate with Sir Douglas Haig, the defences were not so elaborate; it was not here that the Germans, who were fully aware of the impending British attack, expected the blow to fall.They expected the greatest weight to be felt towards the Ancre.

The British preparatory bombardment, delivered by a force of artillery far greater than any British army had heretofore possessed, began on 24th June, and deluged the German positions with shells for a week.It was aided by the efforts of the Royal Flying Corps, which, at this time, had a decided superiority over that of the Germans.The British attack on 1st July began in broad daylight, and was delivered principally by Rawlinson's Fourth Army of five corps, with a subsidiary attack by the Third Army (Allenby) opposite Gommecourt, where one corps only was sent forward.The sectors attacked, beside that at Gommecourt, may be designated: Beaumont-Hamel; River Ancre, including Thiepval; La Boisselle and Contalmaison; Fricourt; River Somme at Montauban.The French attack, designed by Foch and delivered by the French Sixth Army (Fayolle), and Tenth Army (Micheler), was delivered along an 8-mile front, taking in a sector on either side of the Somme from Maricourt, through Frise and Dompierre, to Fay.

Severe as were the British preparatory and final bombardments, they did not succeed in demolishing the German systems of defences, and had left machine-gun nests intact. The efficacy of the machine-gun was one of the bitterest lessons to be learnt by the flower of the British armies of 1916, and the great losses of 1st July were largely due to the German handling of this weapon. Taking the British and French attack as a whole, it may be said to have failed towards the north and succeeded towards the south. The heaviest rebuff was inflicted on the corps of Allenby's Third Army which operated opposite Gommecourt. From Thiepval, across the Ancre, the Germans had massed their best fighting material and the greatest weight of their artillery. The 10th Corps (Morland), which included the famous 36th (Ulster) Division, Highlanders, and North Countrymen, did wonders, and actually penetrated the Thiepval Redoubt but could not hold on to its gains. Hunter-Weston's 8th Corps of picked troops, including the 29th Division from Gallipoli, found the task of assaulting Beaumont-Hamel too strong for them. Farther south there were successes which increased in value towards the Somme. The 13th Corps (Congreve) carried Montauban and Mametz; the 15th Corps (Horne) surrounded Fricourt; the 3rd Corps (Pulteney) forced its way at great cost into La Boisselle.