Horrors And Atrocities Of The Great War - free ebook by Logan Marshall

Read as playlist

Horrors And Atrocities Of The Great War

Logan Marshall

206 chapters

6 hour read

Read as playlist

Selected Chapters

206 chapters

HORRORS AND ATROCITIES OF THE GREAT WAR Including the Tragic Destruction of the Lusitania

HORRORS AND ATROCITIES OF THE GREAT WAR Including the Tragic Destruction of the Lusitania

A NEW KIND OF WARFARE —— COMPRISING —— The Desolation of Belgium, the Sacking of Louvain, the Shelling of Defenseless Cities, the Wanton Destruction of Cathedrals and Works of Art, the Horrors of Bomb Dropping —— VIVIDLY PORTRAYING —— The Grim Awfulness of this Greatest of All Wars Fought on Land and Sea, in the Air and Under the Waves, Leaving in Its Wake a Dreadful Trail of Famine and Pestilence By LOGAN MARSHALL Author of “The Sinking of the Titanic,” “Myths and Legends of All Nations,” etc.

1 minute read

Read Chapter

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

“ Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. ”— Jesus of Nazareth The sight of all Europe engaged in the most terrific conflict in the history of mankind is a heartrending spectacle. On the east, on the south and on the west the blood-lust leaders have flung their deluded millions upon unbending lines of steel, martyrs to the glorification of Mars. We see millions of men taken from their homes, their shops and their factories; we see them equ

7 minute read

Read Chapter

AN UNPRECEDENTED CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

AN UNPRECEDENTED CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

The horror of the deadly assault on the Lusitania does not lessen as the first shock of the disaster recedes into the past. The world is aghast. It had not taken the German threat at full value; it did not believe that any civilized nation would be so wanton in its lust and passion of war as to count a thousand non-combatant lives a mere unfortunate incidental of the carnage. Nothing that can be said in mitigation of the destruction of the Lusitania can alter the fact that an outrage unknown her

48 minute read

Read Chapter

THE LUSITANIA: BUILT FOR “SAFETY”

THE LUSITANIA: BUILT FOR “SAFETY”

The irony of the situation lies in the fact that from the ghastly experience of great marine disasters the Lusitania was evolved as a vessel that was “safe.” No such calamity as the attack of a torpedo was foreseen by the builders of the giant ship, and yet, even after the outbreak of the European war, and when upon the eve of her last voyage the warning came that an attempt would be made to torpedo the Lusitania, her owners confidently assured the world that the ship was safe because her great

1 minute read

Read Chapter

GERMANY’S ANNOUNCED INTENTION TO SINK THE VESSEL

GERMANY’S ANNOUNCED INTENTION TO SINK THE VESSEL

On Saturday May 1, 1915, the day on which the Cunard liner Lusitania, carrying 2,000 passengers and crew, sailed from New York for Liverpool, the following advertisement, over the name of the Imperial German Embassy, was published in the leading newspapers of the United States: NOTICE! TRAVELERS intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to th

2 minute read

Read Chapter

LINER’S SPEED INCREASED AS DANGER NEARED

LINER’S SPEED INCREASED AS DANGER NEARED

Her speed was also increased to twenty knots or more, according to the more observant passengers, and some declare that she worked a sort of zigzag course, plainly ready to shift her helm whenever danger should appear. Captain Turner, it is known, was watching closely for any evidence of submarines. One of the passengers, Dr. Daniel Moore, of Yankton, S. D., declared that before he went downstairs to luncheon shortly after one o’clock he and others with him noticed, through a pair of marine glas

1 minute read

Read Chapter

SUBMARINE’S PERISCOPE DIPS UNDER SURFACE

SUBMARINE’S PERISCOPE DIPS UNDER SURFACE

The torpedo came on, aimed apparently at the bow of the ship, but nicely calculated to hit her amidships. Before its wake was seen the periscope of the submarine had vanished beneath the surface. In far less time than it takes to tell, the torpedo had crashed into the Lusitania’s starboard side, just abaft the first funnel, and exploded with a dull boom in the forward stoke-hole. Captain Turner at once ordered the helm put over and the prow of the ship headed for land, in the hope that she might

58 minute read

Read Chapter

PASSENGERS OVERCOME BY POISONOUS FUMES

PASSENGERS OVERCOME BY POISONOUS FUMES

In any event, the passengers now realized their danger. The ship, torn almost apart, was filled with fumes and smoke, the decks were covered with débris that fell from the sky, and the great Lusitania began to list quickly to starboard. Before the passengers below decks could make their way above, the decks were beginning to slant ominously, and the air was filled with the cries of terrified men and women, some of them already injured by being hurled against the sides of the saloons. Many passen

1 minute read

Read Chapter

BOAT CAPSIZES WITH WOMEN AND CHILDREN

BOAT CAPSIZES WITH WOMEN AND CHILDREN

The first life-boat that struck the water capsized with some sixty women and children aboard her, and all of these must have been drowned almost instantly. Ten more boats were lowered, the desperate expedient of cutting away the ropes being resorted to to prevent them from being dragged along by the now halting steamer. The great ship was sinking by the bow, foot by foot, and in ten minutes after the first explosion she was already preparing to founder. Her stern rose high in the air, so that th

1 minute read

Read Chapter

HUNDREDS JUMP INTO THE SEA

HUNDREDS JUMP INTO THE SEA

When it was seen that most of the boats would be useless, hundreds of passengers donned life-belts and jumped into the sea. Others seized deck chairs, tubs, kegs, anything available, and hurled themselves into the water, clinging to these articles. The first-cabin passengers fared worst, for the second- and third-cabin travelers had long before finished their midday meal and were on deck when the torpedo struck. But the first-cabin people on the D deck and in the balcony, at luncheon, were at a

40 minute read

Read Chapter

LUSITANIA GOES TO HER DOOM

LUSITANIA GOES TO HER DOOM

After the life-boats had cut adrift it was plain that a few seconds would see the end of the great ship. With a great shiver she bent her bow down below the surface, and then her stern uprose, and with a horrible sough the liner that had been the pride of the Cunard Line, plunged down in sixty fathoms of water. In the last few seconds the hundreds of women and men, a great many of them carrying children in their arms, leaped overboard, but hundreds of others, delaying the jump too long, were car

1 minute read

Read Chapter

INTERVIEW WITH CAPTAIN TURNER

INTERVIEW WITH CAPTAIN TURNER

Despite the doubt as to whether two torpedoes exploded, or whether the first detonation caused the big liner’s boilers to let go, Captain Turner stated that there was no doubt that at least two torpedoes reached the ship. “I am not certain whether the two explosions—and there were two—resulted from torpedoes, or whether one was a boiler explosion. I am sure, however, that I saw the first torpedo strike the vessel on her starboard side. I also saw a second torpedo apparently headed straight for t

2 minute read

Read Chapter

ALFRED G. VANDERBILT GAVE LIFE FOR A WOMAN

ALFRED G. VANDERBILT GAVE LIFE FOR A WOMAN

Among the Lusitania’s heroes, one of the foremost was Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, one of America’s wealthiest men. With everything to live for, Mr. Vanderbilt sacrificed his one chance for escape from the doomed Lusitania, in order that a woman might live. Details of the chivalry he displayed in those last moments when he tore off a life-belt as he was about to leap into the sea, and strapped it around a young woman, were told by three of the survivors. Mr. Vanderbilt could not swim, and when he g

2 minute read

Read Chapter

CHARLES FROHMAN DIED WITHOUT FEAR

CHARLES FROHMAN DIED WITHOUT FEAR

“Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure in life,” were the last words of Charles Frohman before he went down with the Lusitania, according to Miss Rita Jolivet, an American actress, with whom he talked calmly just before the end came. Miss Jolivet, who was among the survivors taken to Queenstown, said she and Mr. Frohman were standing on deck as the Lusitania heeled over. They decided not to trust themselves to life-boats, although Mr. Frohman believed the ship was doomed. It was aft

2 minute read

Read Chapter

SAVING THE BABIES

SAVING THE BABIES

The presence of so many babies on board the Lusitania was due to the influx from Canada of the English-born wives of Canadians at the battle front, who were coming to England to live with their own or their husband’s parents during the war. No more pathetic loss has been recorded than that of F. G. Webster, a Toronto contractor, who was traveling second class with his wife, their six-year-old son Frederick and year-old twin sons William and Henry. They reached the deck with others who were in th

1 minute read

Read Chapter

TORONTO GIRL OF FOURTEEN PROVES HEROINE

TORONTO GIRL OF FOURTEEN PROVES HEROINE

Even the young girls and women on the Lusitania proved themselves heroines during the last few moments and met their fate calmly or rose to emergencies which called for great bravery and presence of mind. Fourteen-year-old Kathleen Kaye was returning from Toronto, where she had been visiting relatives. With a merry smile on her lips and with a steady patter of reassurance, she aided the stewards who were filling one of the life-boats. Soon after the girl took her own place in the boat one of the

43 minute read

Read Chapter

HEROISM OF CAPTAIN TURNER AND HIS CREW

HEROISM OF CAPTAIN TURNER AND HIS CREW

Ernest Cowper, a Toronto newspaper man, praised the work of the Lusitania’s crew in their efforts to get the passengers into the boats. Mr. Cowper told of having observed the ship watches keeping a strict lookout for submarines as soon as the ship began to near the coast. “The crew proceeded to get the passengers into boats in an orderly, prompt and efficient manner. Helen Smith, a child, begged me to save her. I placed her in a boat and saw her safely away. I got into one of the last boats to l

37 minute read

Read Chapter

WOMAN RESCUED WITH DEAD BABY AT HER BREAST

WOMAN RESCUED WITH DEAD BABY AT HER BREAST

R. J. Timmis, of Gainesville, Tex., a cotton buyer, who was saved after he had given his life-belt to a woman steerage passenger who carried a baby, told of the loss of his friend, R. T. Moodie, also of Gainesville. Moodie could not swim, but he took off his life-belt also and put it on a woman who had a six-months-old child in her arms. Timmis tried to help Moodie, and they both clung to some wreckage for a while, but presently Moodie could hold out no longer and sank. When Timmis was dragged i

42 minute read

Read Chapter

HEROIC WIRELESS OPERATORS

HEROIC WIRELESS OPERATORS

Oliver P. Brainard told of the bravery of the wireless operators who stuck to their work of summoning help even after it was evident that only a few minutes could elapse before the vessel must go down. He said: “The wireless operators were working the emergency outfit, the main installation having been put out of gear instantaneously after the torpedo exploded. They were still awaiting a reply and were sending out the S. O. S. call. “I looked out to sea and saw a man, undressed, floating quietly

2 minute read

Read Chapter

SAVED HIS WIFE AND HELPED IN RESCUE WORK

SAVED HIS WIFE AND HELPED IN RESCUE WORK

George A. Kessler, of New York, said: “A list to starboard had set in as we were climbing the stairs and it had so rapidly increased by the time we reached the deck, that we were falling against the taffrail. I managed to get my wife onto the first-class deck and there three boats were being got out. “I placed her in the third, kissed her good-by and saw the boat lowered safely. Then I turned to look for a life-belt for myself. The ship now started to go down. I fell into the water, some kind so

48 minute read

Read Chapter

“SAVED ALL THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN WE COULD”

“SAVED ALL THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN WE COULD”

W. G. E. Meyers, of Stratford, Ont., a lad of sixteen years, who was on his way to join the British navy as a cadet, told this story: “I went below to get a life-belt and met a woman who was frenzied with fear. I tried to calm her and helped her into a boat. Then I saw a boat which was nearly swamped. I got into it with other men and baled it out. Then a crowd of men clambered into it and nearly swamped it. “We had got only two hundred yards away when the Lusitania sank, bow first. Many persons

2 minute read

Read Chapter

COULD NOT LAUNCH BOATS

COULD NOT LAUNCH BOATS

“I stepped into a boat and a sailor in charge then attempted to cast her off, but it was found that the boat-falls had fouled the boat and she could not be released in the limited time available. I went overboard at once and attempted to get clear of the ship, which was coming over slowly. I was caught by one of the smokestacks and carried down a considerable distance before being released. “On coming to the surface I floated about for a considerable time, when I was picked up by a life-raft. Th

1 minute read

Read Chapter

SAYS SHIP SANK IN FIFTEEN MINUTES

SAYS SHIP SANK IN FIFTEEN MINUTES

Mr. Thomas, a Cardiff, Wales, coal magnate, who was rescued with his daughter, Lady Mackworth, said that not more than fifteen minutes elapsed between the first explosion and the sinking of the ship. Lady Mackworth had put on a life-preserver and went down with the Lusitania. When she arose to the surface, Mr. Thomas said, she was unconscious, and floated around in the tumbling sea for three and a half hours before she was picked up. “As soon as the explosions occurred,” said Mr. Thomas, “and th

1 minute read

Read Chapter

SCREAMS INTENSIFY HORROR

SCREAMS INTENSIFY HORROR

“In their haste and excitement the seamen overloaded one life-boat and the davit ropes broke while it was being lowered, the occupants being thrown into the water. The screams of these terrified women and men intensified the fright of those still on the ship. Altogether I counted ten life-boats launched.” A German submarine was seen for an hour before the liner was sunk, according to Dr. Daniel Moore, of Yankton, S. D., who said: “About 1 P.M. we noticed that the Lusitania was steering a zigzag

1 minute read

Read Chapter

ON HUNT FOR THE LIFE-BELTS

ON HUNT FOR THE LIFE-BELTS

“As I reached the deck above I had difficulty in walking owing to the tilt of the vessel. With most of the passengers I ran on to the promenade deck. There was no crushing. Although the deck was crowded, I looked over the side; but I could see no evidence of damage. I started to return to my cabin, but the list of the liner was so marked that I abandoned the idea and regained the deck. Looking over the starboard rail, I saw that the water was now only about twelve feet from the rail at one point

1 minute read

Read Chapter

INJURED BOY SHOWS PLUCK

INJURED BOY SHOWS PLUCK

“A number of those picked up were injured, including a little boy, whose left thigh was broken. I improvised splints for him and set his leg. He was a plucky little chap, and was soon asking, ‘Is there a funny paper aboard?’ “At the scene of the catastrophe the surface of the water had seemed dotted with bodies. Only a few life-boats seemed to be doing good. Cries of ‘Save us! Help!’ gradually grew weaker from all sides. Finally low wailings made the heart sick. I saw many men die. “There was no

1 minute read

Read Chapter

MANY CHILDREN DROWNED

MANY CHILDREN DROWNED

G. D. Lane, a youthful but cool-headed second-cabin passenger, who was returning to Wales from New York, was in a life-boat which was capsized by the davits as the Lusitania heeled over. “I was on the B deck,” he said, “when I saw the wake of a torpedo. I hardly realized what it meant when the big ship seemed to stagger and almost immediately listed to starboard. I rushed to get a life-belt, but stopped to help get children on the boat deck. The second cabin was a veritable nursery. “Many youngs

1 minute read

Read Chapter

WOMEN RUSHED FOR THE BOATS

WOMEN RUSHED FOR THE BOATS

According to another American survivor, W. H. Brooks, “there was a scene of great confusion as women and children rushed for the boats which were launched with the greatest difficulty and danger, owing to the tilting of the ship. “I heard the captain order that no more boats be launched, so I leaped into the sea. After I reached the water there was another explosion which sent up a shower of wreckage.” Dr. J. T. Houghton, of Troy, N. Y., said: “It was believed there was no reason to fear any dan

1 minute read

Read Chapter

PATERSON, N. J., GIRLS AMONG RESCUED

PATERSON, N. J., GIRLS AMONG RESCUED

The Misses Agnes and Evelyn Wilde, sisters, of Paterson, N. J., were at lunch when the torpedo struck the vessel. They rushed on deck. Miss Agnes Wilde said: “We clung to each other, determined not to be separated, even if we went to the bottom. We were thrown into a boat, together with thirty-six others, and after several hours were picked up by a fishing boat, which towed us for several hours, intending to take us to Kinsale. Before we arrived, however, a Government boat came along and took us

1 minute read

Read Chapter

THREATENED SEAMEN WITH REVOLVER

THREATENED SEAMEN WITH REVOLVER

Isaac Lehmann, of New York, a first-cabin passenger, who described himself as being engaged in the Department of Government Supplies, said that after having witnessed an accident to one of the boats through the snapping of the ropes while it was being lowered, he ran into his cabin and seizing a revolver and a life-belt, returned to the deck and mounted a collapsible boat and called to some of the crew to assist in launching it. One sailor, he said, replied that the captain’s orders were that no

1 minute read

Read Chapter

RESCUED UNCONSCIOUS FROM THE WATER

RESCUED UNCONSCIOUS FROM THE WATER

The experience of two New York girls, Miss Mary Barrett and Miss Kate MacDonald, rescued at the last minute, may be taken as typical of the experience of many others. Miss Barrett gives the following account of her experiences: “We had gone into the second saloon and were just finishing lunch. I heard a sound something like the smashing of big dishes and then there came a second and louder crash. Miss MacDonald and I started to go upstairs, but we were thrown back by the crowd when the ship stop

2 minute read

Read Chapter

LIFE-BOAT SMASHED

LIFE-BOAT SMASHED

Doctor Howard Fisher of New York, who is a brother of Walter L. Fisher, formerly Secretary of the Interior of the United States, was on his way to Belgium for Red Cross duty. His story follows: “It is not true that those on board were unconcerned over the possibility of being torpedoed. I took the big liner to save time and also because in case of a floating mine I felt she would have more chance of staying up. But like everybody else aboard, I felt sure in case of being torpedoed that we would

55 minute read

Read Chapter

REASSURED BY SHIP’S OFFICER

REASSURED BY SHIP’S OFFICER

“We then saw our first glimpse of an officer, who came along the deck and spoke to Lady Mackworth, Miss Conner and myself, who were standing in a group. He said: “‘Don’t worry, the ship will right itself.’ He had hardly moved on before the ship turned sideways and then seemed to plunge head foremost into the sea. “I came up after what seemed to be an interminable time under water and found myself surrounded by swimmers, dead bodies and wreckage. I got on an upturned yawl, where I found thirty ot

1 minute read

Read Chapter

PASSENGERS WERE AGHAST

PASSENGERS WERE AGHAST

“There was no panic where I was, but the people were aghast. It was realized that the boat had been struck, apparently on the side nearest the land. The passengers hastened to the boat deck above. The life-boats were hanging out, having been put into that position on the previous day. The Lusitania soon began to list badly with the result that the side on which I and several others were standing went up as the other side dropped. This seemed to cause difficulty in launching the boats, which seem

1 minute read

Read Chapter

OCCUPANTS OF LIFE-BOATS THROWN INTO SEA

OCCUPANTS OF LIFE-BOATS THROWN INTO SEA

“Our boat dropped into the water, and for a few minutes we were all right. Then the liner went over. We were not far from her. Whatever the cause may have been—perhaps the effect of suction—I don’t know, but we were thrown into the sea. Some of the occupants were wearing life-belts, but I was not. The only life-belts I knew about were in the cabins, and it had not appeared to me that there was time to risk going there. It must have been about 2.30 when I was thrown into the water. The watch I wa

1 minute read

Read Chapter

A HEART-BREAKING SCENE

A HEART-BREAKING SCENE

“The scene was now terrible. Particularly do I remember a young child with a life-belt around her calling, ‘Mamma!’ She was not saved. I had seen her on the liner, and her sister was on the collapsible boat, but I could not reach her. I saw a cold-storage box or cupboard. I swam towards it and clung to it. This supported me for a long time. At last I saw a boat coming towards me and shouted. I was heard and taken in. From this I was transferred to what I think was a trawler, which also picked up

2 minute read

Read Chapter

STORY OF ETONIAN’S CAPTAIN

STORY OF ETONIAN’S CAPTAIN

The Etonian is a freight-carrying steamship, owned by the Wilson-Furness-Leyland lines, and under charter to the Cunard Line. She sailed from Liverpool on May 6. Captain Wood’s story, as he told it without embellishment and in the most positive terms, was as follows: “We had left Liverpool without unusual incident, and it was two o’clock on the afternoon of Friday, May 7, that we received the S. O. S. call from the Lusitania. Her wireless operator sent this message: ‘We are ten miles south of Ki

1 minute read

Read Chapter

DODGED TWO SUBMARINES

DODGED TWO SUBMARINES

“I signaled to the engine room for every available inch of speed, and there was a prompt response. Then we saw the submarine come up astern of us with the periscope in line afterward. I now ordered full speed ahead, and we left the submarine slowly behind. The periscope remained in sight about twenty minutes. Our speed was perhaps two miles an hour better than the submarine could do. “No sooner had we lost sight of the submarine astern than I made out another on the starboard bow. This one was d

1 minute read

Read Chapter

NARRAGANSETT DRIVEN OFF

NARRAGANSETT DRIVEN OFF

That the British tank steamer Narragansett, one of the vessels that caught the distress signal of the Lusitania, was also driven off her rescue course by a torpedo from a submarine when she arrived within seven miles of the spot where the Lusitania went down, an hour and three-quarters after she caught the wireless call for help, was alleged by the officers of the tanker, which arrived at Bayonne, N. J., on the same day that the Etonian reached Boston. The story told by the officers of the Narra

1 minute read

Read Chapter

TORPEDO FIRED AT NARRAGANSETT

TORPEDO FIRED AT NARRAGANSETT

Second Officer John Letts, who was on the bridge, said he sighted the periscope of a submarine at 3.35 o’clock, and almost at the same instant he saw a torpedo shooting through the water. The torpedo, according to the second officer, was traveling at great speed. It shot past the Narragansett, missing the stem by hardly thirty feet, and disappeared. The periscope of the submarine went out of sight at the same time, but the captain of the Narragansett decided not to take any chance, changed the c

1 minute read

Read Chapter

“THE CRIME OF WHOLESALE MURDER”

“THE CRIME OF WHOLESALE MURDER”

“We find that the deceased met death from prolonged immersion and exhaustion in the sea eight miles south-southwest of Old Head of Kinsale, Friday, May 7, 1915, owing to the sinking of the Lusitania by torpedoes fired by a German submarine. “We find that this appalling crime was committed contrary to international law and the conventions of all civilized nations. “We also charge the officers of said submarine and the Emperor and Government of Germany, under whose orders they acted, with the crim

36 minute read

Read Chapter

CAPTAIN TURNER’S TESTIMONY

CAPTAIN TURNER’S TESTIMONY

Captain W. T. Turner, the Lusitania’s commander, was the chief witness at the inquest. The Coroner asked the captain whether he had received a message concerning the sinking of a ship off Kinsale by a submarine. Captain Turner replied that he had not. “Did you receive any special instructions as to the voyage?” “Yes, sir.” “Are you at liberty to tell us what they were?” “No, sir.” “Did you carry them out?” “Yes, to the best of my ability.” “You were aware threats had been made that the ship woul

41 minute read

Read Chapter

SAW THE TORPEDO

SAW THE TORPEDO

“The weather was clear,” Captain Turner answered. “We were going at a speed of eighteen knots. I was on the port side and heard Second Officer Hefford call out, ‘Here’s a torpedo.’ “I ran to the other side and saw clearly the wake of a torpedo. Smoke and steam came up between the last two funnels. There was a slight shock. Immediately after the first explosion there was another report, but that may possibly have been internal. “I at once gave the order to lower the boats down to the rails, and I

1 minute read

Read Chapter

DOUBLE LOOKOUTS ON LINER

DOUBLE LOOKOUTS ON LINER

“Was there a lookout kept for submarines, having regard to previous warnings?” “Yes; we had double lookouts.” “Were you going a zigzag course at the moment the torpedoing took place?” “No; it was bright weather, and land was clearly visible.” “Was it possible for a submarine to approach without being seen?” “Oh, yes, quite possible.” “Something has been said regarding the impossibility of launching the boats on the port side?” “Yes,” said Captain Turner, “owing to the listing of the ship.” “How

1 minute read

Read Chapter

NO WARNING GIVEN

NO WARNING GIVEN

“Was any warning given you before you were torpedoed?” “None whatever. It was suddenly done and finished.” “If there had been a patrol boat aboard; might it have been of assistance?” “It might, but it is one of those things one never knows.” With regard to the threats against his ship, Captain Turner said he saw nothing except what appeared in the New York papers the day before the Lusitania sailed. He never had heard the passengers talking about the threats, he said. “Was a warning given to the

37 minute read

Read Chapter

OTHER TESTIMONY

OTHER TESTIMONY

Cornelius Horrigan, a waiter aboard the Lusitania, testified that it was impossible to launch boats on the starboard side because of the steamer’s list. He went down with the ship, but came up and was rescued. Horrigan gave a partial identification of one of the bodies, which he thought to be that of Steward Cranston. The ship’s bugler, Vernon Livermore, gave evidence that the water-tight compartments were closed, but thought that the explosion must have opened them. No one was able to identify

30 minute read

Read Chapter

CORONER HORGAN’S STATEMENT

CORONER HORGAN’S STATEMENT

Coroner Horgan said that the first torpedo fired by the German submarine did serious damage to the Lusitania, but that, not satisfied with this, the Germans had discharged another torpedo. The second torpedo, he said, must have been more deadly, because it went right through the ship, hastening the work of destruction. He charged that the responsibility “lay on the German government and the whole people of Germany who collaborated in the terrible crime. “This is a case,” he said, “in which a pow

4 minute read

Read Chapter

THE EAST

THE EAST

New York Evening Post: “Germany ought not to be left in a moment’s doubt how the civilized world regards her latest display of ‘frightfulness.’ It is a deed for which a Hun would blush, a Turk be ashamed and a Barbary pirate apologize. To speak of technicalities and the rules of war, in the face of such wholesale murder on the high seas, is a waste of time. The law of nations and the law of God have been alike trampled upon. The German government must be given to understand that no plea of milit

4 minute read

Read Chapter

THE WEST

THE WEST

Chicago Herald: “International law contemplates the capture of merchant vessels. It contemplates their destruction under certain conditions. But it does not contemplate, provide for or justify destruction of the crews and passengers of such ships without giving them a chance for safety.” Minneapolis Journal: “Germany intends to become the outlaw of nations. Perhaps we are yet to witness savagery carried to its ultimate perfection.” Minneapolis Tribune: “The sinking of the Lusitania is outside th

40 minute read

Read Chapter

THE SOUTH

THE SOUTH

Washington Post: “No warrant whatever, in law or morals, can be found for the willful destruction of an unarmed vessel, neutral or enemy, carrying passengers, without giving them an opportunity to leave the vessel. Germany stands indicted on this charge, and if it is proved the world will not exonerate that nation for the awful destruction of innocent life.” Baltimore American: “Americans must and will resent the invasion of their rights, and in this there can be no division of American sentimen

45 minute read

Read Chapter

SENTIMENT OF THE CANADIAN PRESS

SENTIMENT OF THE CANADIAN PRESS

Even sterner was the tone of the editorial opinion of the Canadian press. In many cases the actual intervention of the United States in the war was advocated. The following excerpts are characteristic of the opinion of the newspapers of Canada: Toronto Daily News: “This fresh display of Teutonic Kultur raises anew the question as to how long the Washington government is going to be scorned and trampled upon by the most unscrupulous and barbarous race of modern times. What effect will this delibe

1 minute read

Read Chapter

VIEWS OF PROMINENT CANADIANS

VIEWS OF PROMINENT CANADIANS

That the torpedoing of the Lusitania was not an act of war in the technical sense committed by Germany as against the United States, was the view expressed by Mr. McGregor Young, professor of international law in Toronto University, who said in an interview: “Certain acts are acts of war in the technical sense—acts, that is to say, which touch the state qua state. But the torpedoing of the Lusitania does not come within that category, so far as the United States is concerned. It is not an act su

3 minute read

Read Chapter

THE NOTE TO GERMANY

THE NOTE TO GERMANY

The full text of President Wilson’s note, dated May 13, and communicated over the name of Secretary of State Bryan, is as follows: “The Secretary of State to the American Ambassador at Berlin : “Please call on the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and after reading to him this communication, leave with him a copy: “In view of the recent acts of the German authorities in violation of American rights on the high seas, which culminated in the torpedoing and sinking of the British steamship Lusitania on

7 minute read

Read Chapter

SUBMARINE WARFARE ON COMMERCE CONDEMNED

SUBMARINE WARFARE ON COMMERCE CONDEMNED

“The government of the United States, therefore, desires to call the attention of the imperial German government with the utmost earnestness to the fact that the objection to their present method of attack against the trade of their enemies lies in the practical impossibility of employing submarines in the destruction of commerce without disregarding those rules of fairness, reason, justice and humanity, which all modern opinion regards as imperative. It is practically impossible for the officer

1 minute read

Read Chapter

PUBLISHED WARNING DECLARED NO EXCUSE FOR ATTACK

PUBLISHED WARNING DECLARED NO EXCUSE FOR ATTACK

“There was recently published in the newspapers of the United States, I regret to inform the imperial German government, a formal warning, purporting to come from the imperial German embassy at Washington, addressed to the people of the United States, and stating in effect that any citizen of the United States who exercised his right of free travel upon the seas would do so at his peril if his journey should take him within the zone of waters within which the imperial German navy was using subma

1 minute read

Read Chapter

PROMPT, JUST ACTION BY GERMANY EXPECTED

PROMPT, JUST ACTION BY GERMANY EXPECTED

“The government and people of the United States look to the imperial German government for just, prompt and enlightened action in this vital matter with the greater confidence because the United States and Germany are bound together not only by special ties of friendship, but also by the explicit stipulations of the treaty of 1828 between the United States and the Kingdom of Prussia. “Expressions of regret and offers of reparation in case of the destruction of neutral ships sunk by mistake, whil

47 minute read

Read Chapter

THE WHOLE NATION BEHIND THE PRESIDENT

THE WHOLE NATION BEHIND THE PRESIDENT

With anxiety, even if with confidence, the American people waited the publication of this note. Then they read, and the whole country resounded with enthusiastic support. More than at almost any previous period in the history of the United States, more certainly than at the outbreak of any previous foreign war, the nation stood solidly behind the President. According to the New York Tribune he “acted with calm statesmanlike directness, deserved well of his own nation and earned the respect of th

1 minute read

Read Chapter

SOUTH AND WEST RESOUNDED WITH APPROVAL

SOUTH AND WEST RESOUNDED WITH APPROVAL

No less enthusiastic was the approval of the press in the South and West. “The citizenry of this country is with Wilson,” stoutly declared the Baltimore Sun, and the Louisville Post maintained: “There are no neutrals in America now. We are all earnest supporters of the President, who by patience and fortitude has established his right to lead a free people.” The note, according to the Atlanta Journal, was “the voice of the American people proclaiming in terms unmistakable their conscience and th

2 minute read

Read Chapter

BLAMES BRITAIN FOR MISUSE OF FLAGS

BLAMES BRITAIN FOR MISUSE OF FLAGS

“If neutral ships in recent months have suffered through the German submarine warfare, owing to mistakes in identification, it is a question only of quite isolated and exceptional cases, which can be attributed to the British government’s abuse of flags, together with the suspicious or culpable behavior of the masters of the ships. “The German government, in all cases in which it has been shown by its investigations that a neutral ship, not itself at fault, was damaged by German submarines or av

27 minute read

Read Chapter

INVESTIGATING CASES OF CUSHING AND GULFLIGHT

INVESTIGATING CASES OF CUSHING AND GULFLIGHT

“The cases of the Cushing and the Gulflight will be treated on the same principles. An investigation of both cases is in progress, the result of which will presently be communicated to the embassy. The investigation can, if necessary, be supplemented by an international call on the international commission of inquiry as provided by Article III of The Hague agreement of October 18, 1907. “When sinking the British steamer Falaba, the commander of the German submarine had the intention of allowing

1 minute read

Read Chapter

DECLARES SHIP CARRIED MOUNTED CANNON

DECLARES SHIP CARRIED MOUNTED CANNON

“It is further known to the Imperial government from trustworthy reports from its agents and neutral passengers, that for a considerable time practically all the more valuable British merchantmen have been equipped with cannon and ammunition and other weapons and manned with persons who have been specially trained in serving guns. The Lusitania, too, according to information received here, had cannon aboard, which were mounted and concealed below decks. “The Imperial government, further, has the

1 minute read

Read Chapter

SAYS IT ACTED IN JUSTIFIED SELF-DEFENSE

SAYS IT ACTED IN JUSTIFIED SELF-DEFENSE

“The German government believes that it was acting in justified self-defense in seeking with all the means of warfare at its disposition to protect the lives of its soldiers by destroying ammunition intended for the enemy. “The British shipping company must have been aware of the danger to which the passengers aboard the Lusitania were exposed under these conditions. The company, in embarking them notwithstanding this, attempted deliberately to use the lives of American citizens as protection fo

53 minute read

Read Chapter

FINAL DECISION ON DEMANDS DEFERRED

FINAL DECISION ON DEMANDS DEFERRED

“The Imperial government, while withholding its final decision on the demands advanced in connection with the sinking of the Lusitania until receipt of an answer from the American government, feels impelled in conclusion to recall here and now that it took cognizance with satisfaction of the mediatory proposals submitted by the United States government to Berlin and London as a basis for a modus vivendi for conducting the maritime warfare between Germany and Great Britain. “The Imperial governme

34 minute read

Read Chapter

AMERICAN OPINION OF GERMAN EXCUSES

AMERICAN OPINION OF GERMAN EXCUSES

The effect of the German note on American opinion was to create a sense of angry disappointment. The newspapers were a unit in calling it evasive. It “does not meet the issue,” declared the New York World, while the New York Times viewed it as being “not responsive to our demand. It tends rather to becloud understanding.” The Albany Knickerbocker Press denounced it as “an answer which purposely does not answer. Germany evidently is playing for time.” This thought was reiterated by the Pittsburgh

4 minute read

Read Chapter

EVASIVE AND INSINCERE

EVASIVE AND INSINCERE

The Philadelphia Public Ledger also criticized it for ignoring altogether “the protest in the name of humanity against submarine warfare upon non-combatants,” and the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune laid bare the “absolute ignoring of the vital principles set forth in the Wilson letter,” adding that “there is a half contemptuous, albeit entirely courteous, suggestion of ‘Well, they are still dead; now, what do you propose to do about it? ’” No Use. The German claim that the Lusitania was in effect

43 minute read

Read Chapter

ATTACKS ON AMERICAN VESSELS MUST CEASE

ATTACKS ON AMERICAN VESSELS MUST CEASE

Many newspapers joined in calling for more drastic action on the part of the United States government. “We have but one thing in mind,” announced the New York Tribune, “that these crimes shall cease. Any answer, therefore, which fails to guarantee their stoppage as a condition precedent to diplomatic rectification cannot be expected to satisfy the just expectation of the United States.” The Washington Herald followed this by saying: “The patience of the American people in the face of contemptuou

38 minute read

Read Chapter

SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT

SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT

On the other hand there was a strong element that counseled coolness and restraint. “This is not a time,” declared the Albany Knickerbocker Press, “to suggest to President Wilson what ought to be done. It is not a time to become impatient. It is a time for restraint. Nothing can be gained now by playing upon the strings of excitable public opinion in America. The President must find his way out and every true American must support him loyally.” Echoing this sentiment, the Springfield Republican

3 minute read

Read Chapter

BREAKING POINT OF CIVILIZATION

BREAKING POINT OF CIVILIZATION

There was war; and the whole machinery of civilization stopped. Modern civilization is the most complex machine imaginable; its infinite cogged wheels turn endlessly upon each other; and perfectly it accomplishes its multifarious purposes; but smash one wheel and it all falls apart into muddle and ruin. The declaration of war was like thrusting a mailed fist into the intricate works of a clock. There was an end of the perfected machine of civilization. Everything stopped. That was a queer world

3 minute read

Read Chapter

BARBARISM AND WOMEN

BARBARISM AND WOMEN

War; and it takes eighty-four hours to make a twelve-hour journey from the Alps to Paris; the cable is dead; the telegraph is dumb; letters go only when smuggled over the frontiers by couriers; you look about you and find you are in a mediæval and mysterious world. You stand amid the melancholy ruins of canceled cycles. The mailed fist of war has smashed your world to pieces. You do not know it. The man you thought of as a brother looks at you with eyes of passionate hatred; you have eaten bread

4 minute read

Read Chapter

AFTER BARBARISM WHAT?

AFTER BARBARISM WHAT?

One morning at dawn—it was at Ambérieu—I saw the long trains go by carrying the German wounded and the German prisoners, who had been taken in the battles of the Vosges. There were 2,400 taken on toward the south. There were French nurses with the wounded. I saw water and fruit and chocolate given to the prisoners. This was early in the war. The sheer lapse into barbarism had not yet come. Soon the German newspapers announced: “Great concern is expressed in press and public utterances lest priso

3 minute read

Read Chapter

ABYSS OF WANT AND WOE

ABYSS OF WANT AND WOE

Many cities and towns have been completely destroyed; others, reduced or shattered, struggle in vain to feed their poor and broken populations. Stones and ashes mark the places where small communities lived their peaceful lives before the invasion. The Belgian people live now in the abyss of want and woe. All this I knew in England, but knew it from the reports of others. I did not, could not, know what the destitution, the desolation of Belgium was, what were the imperative needs of this people

1 minute read

Read Chapter

NO WORK, AND HEAVY WAR TAXES

NO WORK, AND HEAVY WAR TAXES

There is no work. The factories are closed because they have not raw material, coal, or petrol, because they have no markets. And yet war taxes are falling with hideous pressure upon a people whose hands are empty, whose workshops are closed, whose fields are idle, whose cattle have been taken, or compulsorily purchased without value received. In Belgium itself the misery of the populace is greater than the misery of the Belgian fugitives in other countries, such as Holland, where there have com

2 minute read

Read Chapter

PATIENCE OF BELGIANS

PATIENCE OF BELGIANS

The saddest, most heartrending thing I have ever seen has been the patience of every Belgian, whatever his state, I have met. Among the thousands of refugees I have seen in Holland, in the long stream that crossed the frontier at Maastricht and besieged the doors of the Belgian Consul while I was there, no man, no woman railed or declaimed against the horror of their situation. The pathos of lonely, staring, apathetic endurance is tragic beyond words. So grateful, so simply grateful, are they, e

1 minute read

Read Chapter

CRYING NEED OF FOOD

CRYING NEED OF FOOD

There is enough food wasted in the average American household in one day to keep a Belgian for a fortnight in health and strength. They want in Belgium 30,000 tons of food a month. That is their normal requirement. The American Relief Committee is asking for 8,000 tons a month, one-quarter of the normal requirements, one-half of a soldier’s rations for each Belgian. The American Committee needs $5,000,000 a month until next harvest. It is a huge sum, but it must be forthcoming. Of all the great

2 minute read

Read Chapter

BELGIAN PEOPLE WARDS OF THE WORLD

BELGIAN PEOPLE WARDS OF THE WORLD

Their sufferings are majestic in simple heroism and uncomplaining endurance. So majestic in proportion ought the relief to be. The Belgian people are wards of the world. In the circumstances the Belgian people are special wards of the one great country that is secure in its peace and that by its natural instincts of human sympathy and love of freedom is best suited to do the work that should be done for Belgium. If every millionaire would give a thousand, if every man with $100 a month would giv

2 minute read

Read Chapter

A HARROWING RECITAL

A HARROWING RECITAL

Taking up conditions at Liège at the outset of the war, the report gives a harrowing recital of occurrences at various points in the devastated territory. At Herve on August 4, 1914, the report says, “the murder of an innocent fugitive civilian was a prelude to the burning and pillage of the town and of other villages in the neighborhood; to the indiscriminate shooting of civilians of both sexes and to the organized military execution of batches of selected males. Thus some fifty men escaping fr

1 minute read

Read Chapter

TELLS OF MASSACRES

TELLS OF MASSACRES

“Entries in a German diary show that on August 10 the German soldiers gave themselves up to debauchery in the streets of Liège, and on the night of the 20th a massacre took place in the streets. . . . Though the cause of the massacre is in dispute, the results are known with certainty. The Rue des Pitteurs and houses in the Place de l’Université and the Quai des Pêcheurs were systematically fired with benzine; and many inhabitants were burned alive in their houses, their efforts to escape being

1 minute read

Read Chapter

“KILLED IN MASSES”

“KILLED IN MASSES”

Similar details are recited at much length in reference to the districts of Namur, Charleroi and the town of Dinant. At the latter point, the report says, “Unarmed civilians were killed in masses. We have no reason to believe that the civilian population of Dinant gave any provocation or that any other defense can be put forward to justify the treatment inflicted upon its citizens.” The commission stated that it had received a great mass of evidence on “scenes of chronic outrage” in the territor

1 minute read

Read Chapter

THE TALE OF LOUVAIN

THE TALE OF LOUVAIN

“The massacre of civilians at Louvain was not confined to its citizens. Large crowds of people were brought into Louvain from the surrounding districts, not only from Aerschot and Gelrod, but also from other places. For example, a witness describes how many women and children were taken in carts to Louvain, and there placed in a stable. Of the hundreds of people thus taken from the various villages and brought to Louvain as prisoners, some were massacred there, others were forced to march along

1 minute read

Read Chapter

TREATMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN

TREATMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN

A special chapter is given to the treatment of women and children. The latter, it is said, frequently received milder treatment than the men. But many instances are given of “calculated cruelty, often going the length of murder, towards the women and children.” A witness gives a story, very circumstantial in its details, of how women were publicly attacked in the market place of the city, five young German officers assisting. The report goes on: “In the evidence before us there are cases tending

3 minute read

Read Chapter

CALLS KILLING DELIBERATE

CALLS KILLING DELIBERATE

“In the present war, however—and this is the gravest charge against the German army—the evidence shows that the killing of non-combatants was carried out to an extent for which no previous war between nations claiming to be civilized (for such cases as the atrocities perpetrated by the Turks on the Bulgarian Christians in 1876, and on the Armenian Christians in 1895 and 1896, do not belong to that category) furnishes any precedent. That this killing was done as part of a deliberate plan is clear

2 minute read

Read Chapter

“SPIRIT OF WAR DEIFIED”

“SPIRIT OF WAR DEIFIED”

“In the minds of Prussian officers war seems to have become a sort of sacred mission, one of the highest functions of the omnipotent state, which is itself as much an army as a state. Ordinary morality and the ordinary sentiment of pity vanish in its presence, superseded by a new standard which justifies to the soldier every means that can conduce to success, however shocking to a natural sense of justice and humanity, however revolting to his own feelings. The spirit of war is deified. Obedienc

1 minute read

Read Chapter

THE COMMISSION’S CONCLUSIONS

THE COMMISSION’S CONCLUSIONS

The conclusions of the commission, as to the various detailed recitals, are as follows: “We may now sum up and endeavor to explain the character and significance of the wrongful acts done by the German army in Belgium. “It is proved, first, that there were in many parts of Belgium deliberate and systematically organized massacres of the civil population accompanied by many isolated murders and other outrages. “Second—That in the conduct of the war generally innocent civilians, both men and women

4 minute read

Read Chapter

HIS ARREST

HIS ARREST

“At 1.30 P.M. the Germans entered Louvain. They did not do anything to the people in the beginning. On the following Saturday, Aug. 22, I started to return to Aerschot, as I had no money. (All my money was still in Brussels.) The whole distance from Louvain to Aerschot I saw nothing but German armies, always Germans. They did not say a word to me until I suddenly found myself alone with three of the “Todeshusaren” (Death’s-head Hussars), the vanguard of their regiment. They arrested me at the po

1 minute read

Read Chapter

A TOWN IN RUINS

A TOWN IN RUINS

“The aspect of the town was terrible. Not more than half the houses were standing. In the first three streets which the Germans traversed there was not a single house left. There was not a house in the town but had been pillaged. All doors had been burst open. There was nothing, nothing left. The stench in the streets was insupportable. “I then went home, or, rather, I should say, I went to the house where my father had always been boarding. You know, perhaps, that my mother died twelve years ag

1 minute read

Read Chapter

BURYING THE DEAD

BURYING THE DEAD

“On Wednesday, Aug. 26, we were all once more locked up in the church. It was then half-past four in the afternoon. We could not get out, even for our necessities. On Thursday, about nine o’clock, each of us was given a piece of bread and a glass of water. This was to last the whole day. At ten o’clock a lieutenant came in, accompanied by fifteen soldiers. He placed all the men who were left in a square, selected seventy of us and ordered us out to bury the corpses of Germans and Belgians around

39 minute read

Read Chapter

THE LEVELED GUNS

THE LEVELED GUNS

“They just got ready to shoot us. There were then ten of us. The guns had already been leveled at us, when suddenly a German soldier ran out shouting that we had not fired on them. A few minutes before we had heard rifle-firing and the Germans said it was the Aerschot people who were shooting, though all these had been locked up in the church and we were the only inhabitants then in the streets, cleaning them, under surveillance of Germans. It was this German who saved our lives. “Picture to you

1 minute read

Read Chapter

MARCHING AMONG GERMAN CAMPS

MARCHING AMONG GERMAN CAMPS

“I now took the road to Tirlemont, marching all the time among German camps. Once I was arrested. Again they wanted to shoot me, insisting that I was a student of the University of Louvain. The Germans pretend it was the students who caused the population in Louvain to shoot at them. However, my youth saved me, and I was set at liberty....

18 minute read

Read Chapter

NO MONEY AND NO WORK

NO MONEY AND NO WORK

“All my money, the twenty francs which you presented me and my salary for five weeks, as well as my little savings, are lying in Brussels, and I cannot get at them. . . I cannot work, because there is no work to be got. I cannot cross over to England, as, to do this, it is necessary that there should be a whole family. In these horrible circumstances, I respectfully take the liberty of addressing you, and I hope you will aid me as best you can. I swear to you that I shall pay you back all that y

1 minute read

Read Chapter

NOTHING SACRED

NOTHING SACRED

“Unfortunately, I am forced to make note of a fact which should not have occurred, but there are to be found, even in our own army, creatures who are no longer men, but hogs, to whom nothing is sacred. One of these broke into a sacristy; it was locked, and there the Blessed Sacrament was kept. A Protestant, out of respect, had refused to sleep there. This man used it as a deposit for his excrements. How is it possible there should be such creatures? Last night one of the men of the landwehr, mor

41 minute read

Read Chapter

HIDEOUS FACES OF THE DEAD

HIDEOUS FACES OF THE DEAD

“The inhabitants fled through the village. It was horrible. The walls of houses are bespattered with blood and the faces of the dead are hideous to look upon. They were buried at once, some sixty of them. Among them many old women, old men, and one woman pregnant—the whole a dreadful sight. Three children huddled together—all dead. Altar and arches of the church shattered. Telephone communication with the enemy was found there. This morning, Sept. 2, all the survivors were driven out; I saw four

1 minute read

Read Chapter

WOMEN FORCED TO DIG GRAVES

WOMEN FORCED TO DIG GRAVES

“Aug. 25 (in Belgium).—We shot 300 of the inhabitants of the town. Those that survived the salvo were requisitioned as grave-diggers. You should have seen the women at that time! But it was impossible to do otherwise. In our march upon Wilot things went better; the inhabitants who wished to leave were allowed to do so. But whoever fired was shot. Upon our leaving Owele the rifles rang out, and with that, flames, women and all the rest.”...

22 minute read

Read Chapter

GETTING HARDENED

GETTING HARDENED

“We arrested three civilians, and a bright idea struck me. We furnished them with chairs and made them seat themselves in the middle of the street. There were supplications on one part, and some blows with the stocks of our guns on the other. One, little by little, gets terribly hardened. Finally, there they were sitting in the street. How many anguished prayers they may have muttered, I cannot say, but during the whole time their hands were joined in nervous contraction. I am sorry for them, bu

1 minute read

Read Chapter

WHOLESALE PILLAGE

WHOLESALE PILLAGE

“Aug. 8, 1914. Gouvy (Belgium).—There, the Belgians having fired on some German soldiers, we started at once pillaging the merchandise warehouse. Several cases—eggs, shirts, and everything that could be eaten was carried off. The safe was forced and the gold distributed among the men. As to the securities, they were torn up.” “The enemy occupied the village of Bièvre and the edge of the wood behind it. The third company advanced in first line. We carried the village, and then pillaged and burned

1 minute read

Read Chapter

MUTILATIONS OF THE DEAD

MUTILATIONS OF THE DEAD

“On the 22d, in the evening, I learned that in the woods, about one hundred and fifty meters north of the square formed by the intersection of the great Calonne trench with the road from Vaux-les-Palameis to Saint-Rémy, there were corpses of French soldiers shot by the Germans. I went to the spot and found the bodies of about thirty soldiers within a small space, most of them prone, but several still kneeling, and all having a precisely similar wound —a bullet through the ear. One only, seriousl

1 minute read

Read Chapter

THE FRENCH REPORT

THE FRENCH REPORT

Having been instructed to investigate atrocities said to have been committed by the Germans in portions of French territory which had been occupied by them, a commission composed of four representatives of the French Government repaired to these districts in order to make a thorough investigation. The commission was composed of M. Georges Payelle, First President of the Cour des Comptes; Armand Mollard, Minister Plenipotentiary; Georges Maringer, Counselor of State, and Edmond Paillot, Counselor

10 minute read

Read Chapter

ART TREASURES OF HISTORIC CITY

ART TREASURES OF HISTORIC CITY

There was hardly a building within the ramparts but breathed the air of some romance of the Middle Ages or marked a stepping-stone in its stirring history. Once before war robbed it of its commercial prestige, only to permit it to rise, phœnix-like, as the center of learning during the sixteenth century. At the opening of the present war it still boasted of the largest university in Belgium, in which thousands of antique volumes and prints were stored. Its museums and its churches housed scores

2 minute read

Read Chapter

REDUCED TO A HEAP OF ASHES

REDUCED TO A HEAP OF ASHES

The notification of the sacking of Louvain was contained in the notice issued by the British Press Bureau on Friday, August 28, 1914, which read as follows: “On Tuesday evening a German corps, after receiving a check, withdrew in disorder into the town of Louvain. A German guard at the entrance to the town mistook the nature of this incursion and fired on their routed fellow-countrymen, mistaking them for Belgians. In spite of all denials from the authorities the Germans, in order to cover their

1 minute read

Read Chapter

PITILESS DESTRUCTION AS TOLD BY TOWN TREASURER

PITILESS DESTRUCTION AS TOLD BY TOWN TREASURER

The town treasurer of Louvain, who managed to escape from the sacked city, gave in the London Times the following account of the destruction: “At last, on Tuesday night, there took place the unspeakable crime, the shame of which can be understood only by those who followed and watched the different phases of the German occupation of Louvain. “It is a significant fact that the German wounded and sick, including their Red Cross nurses, were all removed from the hospitals. The Germans meanwhile pro

2 minute read

Read Chapter

A MODERN POMPEII

A MODERN POMPEII

Fair Louvain is now a place of desolation and ashes. Its treasures have been madly sacrificed to the god of war. A graphic description of the ruin has been written by Professor E. Gilson, of the University of Louvain, in the form of a letter to the Belgian Minister of Justice. It says in part: “At the ‘Seven Corners’ Louvain reveals itself to my eyes like a luminous panorama in the glade of a forest. The center of the city is a smoking heap of ruins. Houses are caved in, nothing remains but smok

1 minute read

Read Chapter

BURNING OF CITY SYSTEMATIC

BURNING OF CITY SYSTEMATIC

“A villager told me that the soldiers had two ways of setting fire to the houses: One was to break the windows of the first floor, to throw petroleum on the floor, and throw in torches of burning straw, while others were engaged in shooting at the upper-story windows to prevent the inhabitants from throwing missiles on those setting fire to their homes.”...

18 minute read

Read Chapter

INDIGNANT PROTEST AGAINST MODERN HUNS

INDIGNANT PROTEST AGAINST MODERN HUNS

Indignant protest against the outrageous sacrifice of Louvain arose from every quarter of the civilized world. The London Tablet, commenting on the desolation of Belgium and the sacrifice of her temples, said: “The irreparable crime of Louvain and the ruthless damage done to the Cathedral of Malines while Cardinal Mercier was absent in Rome have left Belgium’s cup of bitterness still unfilled. We do not understand the reason of these remorseless attacks upon venerable places of worship, and part

3 minute read

Read Chapter

THE “ROYAL CITY”

THE “ROYAL CITY”

Rheims has been a city of importance since the time of the Romans. The cathedral, wherein for nearly 1,000 years the kings of France were crowned, has been fittingly described as “the most perfect example in grandeur and grace of Gothic style in existence.” Hincmar, a mighty archbishop of the ninth century, once declared that Rheims was “by the appointment of Heaven a royal city.” The words are at once historical and prophetic. Here Clovis was baptized by St. Remigius, and here in the cathedral

57 minute read

Read Chapter

CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME

CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME

No one really knows who designed and built the cathedral. The first stones were laid in 1211, and the building, with the exception of the superb west façade, was completed in the thirteenth century. The façade, which dates from the fourteenth century, was adorned with three exquisite recessed portals containing, in a more or less good state of preservation, over five hundred statues. Of the entire structure, we read in “Cathedrals of the Isle de France”: “Nothing can exceed the majesty of its de

27 minute read

Read Chapter

ART TREASURES

ART TREASURES

The interior, which was cruciform, was 455 feet long and 99 feet wide; the distance from the middle isle to the highest point in the roof was 125 feet. Here in niches in the walls was another multitude of statues, and in the nave and transepts were preserved valuable tapestry, representing biblical scenes and scenes from the history of medieval France. Here also hung a treasure of paintings, including canvases by Tintoretto, Nicolas Poussin, and others, and some fine old tapestries. In the treas

1 minute read

Read Chapter

CATHEDRAL A TARGET

CATHEDRAL A TARGET

The Cathedral of Notre Dame is now no more than an empty shell of charred and blackened walls. The fire started between four and five o’clock Sunday afternoon, September 20, 1914, after shells had been crashing into the town all day. Over five hundred fell between early morning and sunset. The cathedral had been turned into a hospital for the German wounded, to secure for the building the protection of the Red Cross flag. When the first shell struck the roof everyone believed it was a stray shot

1 minute read

Read Chapter

ANGER OF CROWD STILLED BY PRIESTS

ANGER OF CROWD STILLED BY PRIESTS

There a grim scene was only prevented by the courage of the priests of the cathedral. A crowd of about two hundred citizens had come out to watch the terrible spectacle. As these Germans, in their uniforms, appeared at the transept door howls of uncontrollable passion went up from the crowd. “Kill them!” they shouted. Soldiers in the crowd leveled their rifles, when Abbé Andrieux sprang forward between the wounded men and the muzzles that threatened them. “Don’t fire,” he shouted, “you would mak

1 minute read

Read Chapter

“SUPREME SACRIFICE AGAINST THE SPIRIT OF MAN”

“SUPREME SACRIFICE AGAINST THE SPIRIT OF MAN”

“Will not every artist, every writer, every lover of the beautiful, unite with us in a protestation of horror against the infamous destruction of Rheims Cathedral?” wrote Emile Hovelaque, French Inspector General of Public Instruction, in a letter to the London Times. “It was the cradle of our kings, the high altar of our race, a sanctuary and shrine dear from every memory, sacred in every thought, loved as our remotest past, an ever-speaking witness to the permanence through change of the ideal

1 minute read

Read Chapter

BEAUTY IRREPARABLY GONE

BEAUTY IRREPARABLY GONE

The artistic beauty of the cathedral of Rheims can never be restored, in the opinion of Whitney Warren, the New York architect, who made a thorough inspection of the structure. Mr. Warren, who is a corresponding member of the Institut de France, was given the privilege of visiting the cathedral. His investigation had no official character, but the result of his observations was communicated to Myron T. Herrick, American Ambassador to Belgium. “That anything remains of the edifice,” said Mr. Warr

3 minute read

Read Chapter

A REMARKABLE PERFORMANCE

A REMARKABLE PERFORMANCE

“The Canadians have wrested the trenches over the bodies of the dead and earned the right to stand side by side with the superb troops who, in the first battle of Ypres, broke and drove before them the flower of the Prussian Guards. Looked at from any point the performance would be remarkable. It is amazing to soldiers when the genesis and composition of the Canadian division are considered. It contained no doubt a sprinkling of South African veterans, but it consisted in the main of men who wer

1 minute read

Read Chapter

QUIET PRECEDING STORM

QUIET PRECEDING STORM

“The day was a peaceful one, warm and sunny, and except that the previous day had witnessed a further bombardment of the stricken town of Ypres, everything seemed quiet in front of the Canadian line. At five o’clock in the afternoon a plan carefully prepared was put into execution against our French allies on the left. Asphyxiating gas of great intensity was projected into their trenches, probably by means of force pumps and pipes laid out under the parapets. The fumes, aided by a favorable wind

1 minute read

Read Chapter

SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES

SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES

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

1 minute read

Read Chapter

LINE NEVER WAVERED

LINE NEVER WAVERED

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

2 minute read

Read Chapter

OFFICER FELL AT HEAD OF TROOPS

OFFICER FELL AT HEAD OF TROOPS

“It did not seem that any human being could live in the shower of shot and shell which began to play upon the advancing troops. They suffered terrible casualties. For a short time every man seemed to fall, but the attack was pressed even closer and closer. The fourth Canadian battalion at one moment came under a particularly withering fire. For a moment, not more, it wavered. Its most gallant commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Birchall, carrying, after an old fashion, a light cane, coolly an

1 minute read

Read Chapter

FORTUNES OF THIRD BRIGADE

FORTUNES OF THIRD BRIGADE

“It is necessary now to return to the fortunes of the third brigade, commanded by Brigadier-General Turner, which, as we have seen, at five o’clock on Thursday was holding the Canadian left and after the first attack assumed the defense of the new Canadian salient, at the same time sparing all the men it could to form an extemporized line between the wood and St. Julien. This brigade also was, at the first moment of the German offensive, made the object of an attack by the discharge of poisonous

1 minute read

Read Chapter

IN DIRE PERIL

IN DIRE PERIL

“In the course of the same night the third brigade, which had already displayed a resource, a gallantry, and a tenacity, for which no eulogy could be excessive, was exposed (and with it the whole allied cause) to a peril still more formidable. “It has been explained, and indeed the fundamental situation made the peril clear, that several German divisions were attempting to crush, or drive back this devoted brigade, and in any event to use their enormous numerical superiority to sweep around and

2 minute read

Read Chapter

OVERWHELMING NUMBERS

OVERWHELMING NUMBERS

“But the artillery fire of the enemy continually grew in intensity, and it became more and more evident that the Canadian salient could no longer be maintained against the overwhelming superiority of numbers by which it was assailed. Slowly, stubbornly, and contesting every yard, the defenders gave ground until the salient gradually receded from the apex near the point where it had originally aligned with the French, and fell back upon St. John. “Soon it became evident that even St. Julien, expo

1 minute read

Read Chapter

SECOND BRIGADE PUT TO TEST

SECOND BRIGADE PUT TO TEST

“The second brigade, it must be remembered, had retained the whole line of trenches, roughly five hundred yards, which it was holding at five o’clock on Thursday afternoon, supported by the incomparable exertions of the third brigade, and by the highly hazardous deployment in which necessity had involved that brigade. The second brigade had maintained its lines. It now devolved upon General Curry, commanding this brigade, to reproduce the tactical maneuvers by which earlier in the fight the thir

1 minute read

Read Chapter

CAPTURE OF ST. JULIEN

CAPTURE OF ST. JULIEN

“The individual fortunes of those two brigades have brought us to the events of Sunday afternoon, but it is necessary, to make the story complete, to recur for a moment to the events of the morning. “After a very formidable attack the enemy succeeded in capturing the village of St. Julien, which has so often been referred to in describing the fortunes of the Canadian left. This success opened up a new and formidable line of advance, but by this time further reinforcements had arrived. Here again

1 minute read

Read Chapter

A HERO LEADING HEROES

A HERO LEADING HEROES

“‘The men are tired,’ this indomitable soldier replied, ‘but they are ready and glad to go again to the trenches.’ And so once more, a hero leading heroes, the general marched back the men of the second brigade, reduced to a quarter of its original strength, to the apex of the line as it existed at that moment. “This position he held all day Monday. On Tuesday he was still occupying reserve trenches, and on Wednesday was relieved and retired to billets in the rear. “Such, in the most general out

2 minute read

Read Chapter

THE PRIZE OF PARIS

THE PRIZE OF PARIS

This, then, was the Germans’ chance; it was for this that they had fought their way westward and southward through incessant battlefields from Mons and Charleroi to St. Quentin and Amiens and down to Creil and Compiègne, flinging away human life as though it were but rubbish for death-pits. The prize of Paris, Paris the great and beautiful, seemed to be within their grasp. It was their intention to smash their way into it by this western entry and then to skin it alive. Holding this city at rans

1 minute read

Read Chapter

HEROIC EFFORTS OF FRENCH SOLDIERS

HEROIC EFFORTS OF FRENCH SOLDIERS

I saw regiment after regiment entraining. Men from the Southern Provinces, speaking the patois of the South; men from the Eastern Departments whom I had seen a month before, at the beginning of the war, at Châlons and Epernay and Nancy, and men from the southwest and center of France, in garrisons along the Loire. They were all in splendid spirits and utterly undaunted by the rapidity of the German advance. “It is nothing, my little one,” said a dirty, unshaved gentleman with the laughing eyes o

2 minute read

Read Chapter

GERMANS BALKED OF THEIR PRIZE

GERMANS BALKED OF THEIR PRIZE

It was still possible that the Germans might be smashed on their left wing, hurled back to the west between Paris and the sea, and cut off from their line of communications. It was undoubtedly this impending peril which scared the enemy’s headquarters staff and upset all its calculations. They had not anticipated the rapidity of the supporting movement of the allied armies, and at the very gates of Paris they saw themselves balked of their prize, the greatest prize of the war, by the necessity o

1 minute read

Read Chapter

SIXTY MILES OF FUGITIVES

SIXTY MILES OF FUGITIVES

Along the road from Tours to Paris there were sixty unbroken miles of people—on my honor, I do not exaggerate, but write the absolute truth. They were all people who had despaired of breaking through the dense masses of their fellow-citizens camped around the railway stations, and had decided to take the roads as the only way of escape. The vehicles were taxicabs, for which the rich paid fabulous prices; motor cars which had escaped military requisition, farmers’ carts laden with several familie

2 minute read

Read Chapter

TERROR IN EYES

TERROR IN EYES

Each human being in the vast torrent of life will have an unforgettable story of adventure to tell if life remains. As a novelist I should have been glad to get their narratives along this road for a great story of suffering and strange adventure, but there was no time for that and no excuse. When I met many of them they were almost beyond the power of words. The hot sun of this September had beaten down upon them—scorching them as in the glow of molten metal. Their tongues clave to their mouths

2 minute read

Read Chapter

PARIS THE BEAUTIFUL

PARIS THE BEAUTIFUL

Then I passed long lines of beautiful little villas on the Seine side, utterly abandoned among their trees and flowers. A solitary fisherman held his line above the water as though all the world were at peace, and in a field close to the fortifications which I expected to see bursting with shells, an old peasant bent above the furrows and planted cabbages. Then, at last, I walked through the streets of Paris and found them strangely quiet and tranquil. The people I met looked perfectly calm. The

2 minute read

Read Chapter

GERMANS HAVE LEARNED MUCH

GERMANS HAVE LEARNED MUCH

“The history of the great war,” to quote from a French paper, “will show, among other things, how the Germans profited by the lessons of recent conflicts. The South African, the Russo-Japanese, and the Balkan wars were studied minutely by them, and their particular preparations, their tactics, and their artifices result from the knowledge thus acquired. They learned much, especially, as regards the formation of trenches. “After 1870 we confined ourselves to three regulation types of trenches: fo

1 minute read

Read Chapter

STANDARDIZED MODEL

STANDARDIZED MODEL

It is on these sound principles that all the German fighting-lines are organized, on a more or less standardized model. The fighting-lines consist generally of one, two, or three lines of shelter-trenches lying parallel, measuring twenty or twenty-five inches in width, and varying in length according to the number they hold; the trenches are joined together by zigzag approaches and by a line of reinforced trenches (armed with machine guns), which are almost completely proof against rifle, machin

2 minute read

Read Chapter

FRENCH STUDY OF GERMAN METHODS

FRENCH STUDY OF GERMAN METHODS

The whole system, that of the rest-rooms more especially, is designed to give the men the maximum of comfort and security. Doors and wooden shutters wrenched from deserted houses are used for covers, or else turf-covered branches. Ever since the outbreak of the war, the French troops in Lorraine, after severe experiences, realized rapidly the advantages of the German trenches, and began to study those they had taken gloriously. Officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of the Engineers were s

1 minute read

Read Chapter

“COMFORTS OF HOME”

“COMFORTS OF HOME”

Commodious, indeed, are some of the present trench barracks, if we may believe the letters from the front. One French soldier writes: “In really up-to-date entrenchments you may find kitchens, dining-rooms, bedrooms, and even stables. One regiment has first class cow-sheds. One day a whimsical ‘piou-piou,’ finding a cow wandering about in the danger zone, had the bright idea of finding shelter for it in the trenches. The example was quickly followed, and at this moment the —th Infantry possess a

49 minute read

Read Chapter

BRITISH REFUGES IN NORTHERN FRANCE

BRITISH REFUGES IN NORTHERN FRANCE

Describing trenches occupied by the British in their protracted “siege-warfare” in Northern France along and to the north of the Aisne Valley, a British officer wrote: “In the firing-line the men sleep and obtain shelter in the dugouts they have hollowed or ‘undercut’ in the side of the trenches. These refuges are slightly raised above the bottom of the trench, so as to remain dry in wet weather. The floor of the trench is also sloped for purposes of draining. Some trenches are provided with hea

46 minute read

Read Chapter

“PICNICKING” IN THE OPEN AIR

“PICNICKING” IN THE OPEN AIR

A cavalry subaltern gave the following account of life in the trenches: “Picnicking in the open air, day and night (you never see a roof now), is the only real method of existence. There are loads of straw to bed down on, and everyone sleeps like a log, in turn, even with shrapnel bursting within fifty yards.”...

17 minute read

Read Chapter

RAVAGES OF ARTILLERY FIRE

RAVAGES OF ARTILLERY FIRE

One English officer described the ravages of modern artillery fire, not only upon all men, animals and buildings within its zone, but upon the very face of nature itself: “In the trenches crouch lines of men, in brown or gray or blue, coated with mud, unshaven, hollow-eyed with the continual strain.” “The fighting is now taking place over ground where both sides have for weeks past been excavating in all directions,” said another letter from the front, “until it has become a perfect labyrinth. A

1 minute read

Read Chapter

THE COMMON ENEMY, THE WEATHER

THE COMMON ENEMY, THE WEATHER

But it is not the guns or cannon of the enemy that affect the spirits of the soldiers. It is the weather. A week of alternate rain and snow, when the ill-drained dugouts are half-filled with a freezing viscid mud; when, day after day, the feet are numbed by the frost until all sensation in them is deadened; when the coarse, scanty ration is refused by the tortured stomach—then it is that the spirits of the stoutest falter. Let the enemy attack as he will, and he must fail. It is only in fighting

2 minute read

Read Chapter

WHY COOKS WEAR IRON CROSSES

WHY COOKS WEAR IRON CROSSES

“There isn’t anything heroic about cooks,” wrote Herbert Corey in the New York Globe, “and when things go wrong one either apprehends a cook as chasing a waiter with a bread-knife or giving way to tears.” Yet the German army contains many a cook whose expansive apron is decorated with the Iron Cross. “And the Iron Cross,” Mr. Corey reminds us, “is conferred for one thing only—for 100 per cent courage.” “‘They’ve earned it,’ said the man who had seen them. ‘They are the bravest men in the Kaiser’

1 minute read

Read Chapter

“PUTTING ONE OVER” ON THE RUSSIANS

“PUTTING ONE OVER” ON THE RUSSIANS

Granville Fortescue, who visited the Russian trenches in Poland, related in the Illustrated London News a story of how the Germans, to use a slang phrase, “put one over” on the too-confiding Russians. “This happened,” he wrote, “at a portion of the line where the positions ran so close that the men could communicate by shouting. It was around Christmas, and the Germans invited the Russians to come over for a hot cup of new coffee just received from home. The Russians replied to this invitation,

2 minute read

Read Chapter

A SURPRISE PREPARED

A SURPRISE PREPARED

“For weeks past the German airmen had grown strangely shy. On this Wednesday morning none were aloft to spy out the strange doings which as dawn broke might have been descried on the desolate roads behind the British lines. “From ten o’clock of the preceding evening endless files of men marched silently down the roads leading towards the German positions through Laventie and Richebourg St. Vaast, poor shattered villages of the dead where months of incessant bombardment have driven away the last

1 minute read

Read Chapter

“HELL BROKE LOOSE”

“HELL BROKE LOOSE”

“Then hell broke loose. With a mighty, hideous, screeching burst of noise, hundreds of guns spoke. The men in the front trenches were deafened by the sharp reports of the field-guns spitting out their shells at close range to cut through the Germans’ barbed wire entanglements. In some cases the trajectory of these vicious missiles was so flat that they passed only a few feet above the British trenches. “The din was continuous. An officer who had the curious idea of putting his ear to the ground

49 minute read

Read Chapter

A HORRIBLE THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES

A HORRIBLE THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES

“Words will never convey any adequate idea of the horror of those five and thirty minutes. When the hands of officers’ watches pointed to five minutes past eight, whistles resounded along the British lines. At the same moment the shells began to burst farther ahead, for, by previous arrangement, the gunners, lengthening their fuses, were ‘lifting’ on to the village of Neuve Chapelle so as to leave the road open for our infantry to rush in and finish what the guns had begun. “The shells were now

44 minute read

Read Chapter

TRENCHES FILLED WITH DEAD

TRENCHES FILLED WITH DEAD

“It was from the center of our attacking line that the assault was pressed home soonest. The guns had done their work well. The trenches were blown to irrecognizable pits dotted with dead. The barbed wire had been cut like so much twine. Starting from the Rue Tilleloy the Lincolns and the Berkshires were off the mark first, with orders to swerve to right and left respectively as soon as they had captured the first line of trenches, in order to let the Royal Irish Rifles and the Rifle Brigade thr

59 minute read

Read Chapter

HOARSE SHOUTS AND THE GROANS OF THE WOUNDED

HOARSE SHOUTS AND THE GROANS OF THE WOUNDED

“Things had moved so fast that by the time the troops were ready to advance against the village the artillery had not finished its work. So, while the Lincolns and the Berks assembled the prisoners who were trooping out of the trenches in all directions, the infantry on whom devolved the honor of capturing the village, waited. One saw them standing out in the open, laughing and cracking jokes amid the terrific din made by the huge howitzer shells screeching overhead and bursting in the village,

1 minute read

Read Chapter

INDESCRIBABLE MASS OF RUINS

INDESCRIBABLE MASS OF RUINS

“The village was a sight that the men say they will never forget. It looked as if an earthquake had struck it. The published photographs do not give any idea of the indescribable mass of ruins to which our guns reduced it. The chaos is so utter that the very line of the streets is all but obliterated. “It was indeed a scene of desolation into which the Rifle Brigade—the first regiment to enter the village, I believe—raced headlong. Of the church only the bare shell remained, the interior lost to

52 minute read

Read Chapter

“SMEARED WITH DUST AND BLOOD”

“SMEARED WITH DUST AND BLOOD”

“The din and confusion were indescribable. Through the thick pall of shell smoke Germans were seen on all sides, some emerging hall dazed from cellars and dugouts, their hands above their heads, others dodging round the shattered houses, others firing from the windows, from behind carts, even from behind the overturned tombstones. Machine guns were firing from the houses on the outskirts, rapping out their nerve-racking note above the noise of the rifles. “Just outside the village there was a sc

3 minute read

Read Chapter

ON THE FIRING LINE

ON THE FIRING LINE

Another correspondent who, accompanied by a son of the Belgian War Minister, M. de Broqueville, made a tour of the battleground in the Dixmude district wrote: “No pen could do justice to the grandeur and horror of the scene. As far as the eye could reach nothing could be seen but burning villages and bursting shells. “Arriving at the firing line, a terrible scene presented itself. The shell fire from the German batteries was so terrific that Belgian soldiers and French marines were continually b

1 minute read

Read Chapter

AMONG MANGLED HORSES AND MEN

AMONG MANGLED HORSES AND MEN

“Our progress along the road was suddenly stopped by one of the most horrible sights I have ever seen. A heavy howitzer shell had fallen and burst right in the midst of a Belgian battery which was making its way to the front, causing terrible destruction. The mangled horses and men among the debris presented a shocking spectacle. “Eventually, we got into Dixmude itself, and every time a shell came crashing among the roofs we thought our end had come. The Hôtel de Ville (town hall) was a sad sigh

45 minute read

Read Chapter

GERMAN LOSSES FRIGHTFUL

GERMAN LOSSES FRIGHTFUL

“The German losses are frightful” wrote another correspondent. “Three meadows near Ostend are heaped with dead. The wounded are now installed in private houses in Bruges, where large wooden sheds are being rushed up to receive additional injured. Thirty-seven farm wagons containing wounded, dying, and dead passed in one hour near Middelkerke.”...

14 minute read

Read Chapter

DIXMUDE A PLACE OF DEATH AND HORROR

DIXMUDE A PLACE OF DEATH AND HORROR

From Fumes, Belgium, members of the staff of the English hospital traveled to Dixmude to search for wounded men on the firing line. Philip Gibbs, of the London Daily Chronicle, who traveled with them in reporting his experiences, said: “I was in one of the ambulances, and Mr. Gleeson sat behind me in the narrow space between the stretchers. Over his shoulder he talked in a quiet voice of the job that lay before us. I was glad of that quiet voice, so placid in its courage. We went forward at what

3 minute read

Read Chapter

“WAR IS TERRIBLE”

“WAR IS TERRIBLE”

The following letter, which Refers to the fighting along the Aisne, was found on a German officer of the Seventh Reserve Corp: “Cerny, South of Laon, Sept. 14, 1914. “My dear Parents: Our corps has the task of holding the heights south of Cerny in all circumstances until the fourteenth corps on our left flank can grip the enemy’s flank. On our right are other corps. We are fighting with the English Guards, Highlanders, and Zouaves. The losses on both sides have been enormous. For the most part t

2 minute read

Read Chapter

THE COMMON ENEMY, DEATH

THE COMMON ENEMY, DEATH

How foe helps foe when the last grim hour comes is revealed in the letter which a French cavalry officer sent to his fiancée in Paris: “There are two other men lying near me, and I do not think there is much hope for them either. One is an officer of a Scottish regiment and the other a private in the Uhlans. They were struck down after me, and when I came to myself, I found them bending over me, rendering first aid. “The Britisher was pouring water down my throat from his flask, while the German

1 minute read

Read Chapter

“SAME PAIR OF BLUE EYES”

“SAME PAIR OF BLUE EYES”

Sergeant Gabriel David, of the French infantry, who saw seven months of continuous service in the trenches of the Argonne Forest, described the odd effect of peeping over the top of a trench for weeks into the same pair of German blue eyes. “I don’t know who this man was or what he might have been,” he said, “but wherever I go I can yet see those sad-looking eyes. He and I gazed at each other for three weeks in one stretch; his watch seemed to always be the same as mine. We came to respect each

34 minute read

Read Chapter

FIGHTING WITHOUT HATE

FIGHTING WITHOUT HATE

There is yet to appear an authentic letter from a private or officer on either side that contains a tithe of the virulence and bitterness shown in the statements and writings of many non-combatants. “One wonders,” runs a letter of a British officer, “when one sees a German face to face, is this really one of those devils who wrought such devastation—for devastation they have surely wrought. You can hardly believe it, for he seems much the same as other soldiers. I can assure you that out here th

2 minute read

Read Chapter

MRS. KAUFFMAN’S DESCRIPTION

MRS. KAUFFMAN’S DESCRIPTION

“It’s a very curious thing to watch a bombardment from your house. Where the War Was Brought Home to England. “Everybody knew the Kaiser would do it. But there was a little doubt about the date, and then somehow the spy-hunting sport took up general attention. When the Kaiser did send his card it was quite as much of a surprise as most Christmas cards—from a friend forgotten. “Eighteen people were killed in the morning between eight and eight-thirty o’clock in the streets and houses of Scarborou

1 minute read

Read Chapter

CANNONADING AT WHITBY

CANNONADING AT WHITBY

“The other two rushed like fast trains north again, close to our cliffs, and in another half hour we heard all too plainly the cannonading which had almost escaped our ears from Scarborough. We thought it was Robin Hood’s Bay, as far north of us as Scarborough is south, but afterward we learned that the boats omitted this pretty red-roofed town and concentrated their remaining energy on Whitby, fifteen miles north; the wind blowing toward us brought us the vibrating boom. “We drove to Scarboroug

1 minute read

Read Chapter

FREAKISH EFFECTS OF SHELLS

FREAKISH EFFECTS OF SHELLS

“We left the main business street and picked our way toward the foreshore and the South Cliff, the more fashionable part of the town as well as the school section. Here there was a great deal of havoc, and we had to climb over some of the debris. Roofs were half torn off and balancing in mid-air; shells had shot through chimneys and some chimneys tottered, while several had merely round holes through the brick work; mortar, brick and glass lay about the streets; here a third-story room was bare

1 minute read

Read Chapter

FLIGHT OF SCHOOL CHILDREN

FLIGHT OF SCHOOL CHILDREN

“A friend of mine hurried into Scarborough by motor to rescue her sister, who was a pupil at one of the boarding schools. But it appeared that when the windows of the school began to crash the teachers hurried from prayers, ordered the pupils to gather hats and coats and sweet chocolate that happened to be on hand as a substitute for breakfast and made them run for a mile and a half, with shells exploding about them, through the streets to the nearest out-of-Scarborough railway station. My frien

1 minute read

Read Chapter

UNITED STATES REFUSED TO RECOGNIZE WAR ZONE

UNITED STATES REFUSED TO RECOGNIZE WAR ZONE

“If the commanders of German vessels of war should act upon the presumption that the flag of the United States was not being used in good faith and should destroy on the high seas an American vessel, or the lives of American citizens, it would be difficult for the government of the United States to view the act in any other light than as an indefensible violation of neutral rights which it would be very hard indeed to reconcile with the friendly relations now happily subsisting between the two g

55 minute read

Read Chapter

A VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS

A VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS

“No one has ever pretended to assert a claim to control the navigation of the North Sea, and Germany has no more right to plant mines in the open sea between Great Britain and Belgium and France than she would have to do so in Delaware Bay, or than a property owner, who was annoyed by automobiles, would have to plant torpedoes in a turnpike. “The right to plant mines as a defense to a harbor, from which all vessels might lawfully be excluded, is one thing, but to destroy the use of the open sea

1 minute read

Read Chapter

AIMED AT NEUTRAL SHIPPING

AIMED AT NEUTRAL SHIPPING

“This excessively efficient method of warfare, however, is one that most concerns England and France. The interest of the United States lies in the fact that the threat is aimed emphatically at neutral shipping. Three British Cruisers Sunk by Submarines. The “Aboukir,” “Hogue” and “Cressy” sunk by torpedoes on September 22. The horrors of modern warfare are illustrated by the notice issued after this disaster by the British Admiralty, which reads in part, “No act of humanity, whether to friend o

1 minute read

Read Chapter

AN INHUMAN POLICY

AN INHUMAN POLICY

“It is understood that she has a perfect right to hold up and search neutral ships in her declared ‘war zone,’ and to make prizes of such as carry contraband. But it is the possession of this very right which forbids the inhuman policy she proclaims. She cannot plead ignorance of a vessel’s identity, or attack it unless it refuses to stop when signaled. The burden of proof is upon the submarine, and to torpedo a vessel on suspicion merely would be unredeemed piracy and murder. “This is distinctl

2 minute read

Read Chapter

THE ATTACK ON THE GULFLIGHT

THE ATTACK ON THE GULFLIGHT

It would require many hundreds of pages to recount the details of all of these crimes against non-combatant merchant ships, and to show the relentless severity with which neutral commerce has been attacked, but the organized military measures even against neutral ships are well illustrated by the case of the American ship Gulflight, as described by the second officer, Paul Bower: “When the Gulflight left Port Arthur, Texas, on April 10, bound for Rouen, France,” said Bower, “we were followed by

3 minute read

Read Chapter

THE THREE-MILE LIMIT

THE THREE-MILE LIMIT

During the Napoleonic wars, Great Britain was in constant trouble with the United States owing to the fashion in which British naval commanders exercised, and sometimes abused, the right of searching American ships for contraband of war. The British-American quarrels had the good effect that attempts were made to standardize and establish on a firm basis the laws of neutrality at sea. The naval portion of the Neutrality Conference of 1907 contains twenty-eight clauses, of which the first provide

41 minute read

Read Chapter

BELLIGERENTS’ RIGHTS

BELLIGERENTS’ RIGHTS

Within neutral waters belligerents may not take prizes, hold prize courts, nor establish warlike bases, nor may they obtain supplies therein. At the same time neutrality is not held to be compromised by the simple passage through neutral waters of belligerent ships and prizes. Belligerent vessels may also obtain the help of pilots. The neutral state must use all its endeavor to be impartial and must expel or warn off vessels guilty of breaches of neutrality. Except in special cases a belligerent

1 minute read

Read Chapter

NOTICE IN LEAVING NEUTRAL WATERS

NOTICE IN LEAVING NEUTRAL WATERS

The belligerent ship must give twenty-four hours’ notice before leaving, and must not visit the same port again until three months have elapsed. Should it break the neutrality laws the neutral state authorities may incapacitate it for immediate service and detain it, leaving on board just as many of the crew as are necessary to keep it clean and in order. The steps taken would generally be to remove the vitally necessary engine and gun fittings. Should two hostile ships enter a neutral port they

28 minute read

Read Chapter

EVASIONS OF NEUTRALITY

EVASIONS OF NEUTRALITY

It must be obvious from all this that the inviolability of neutrality will always depend very much upon the ability of the state concerned to keep it so. It is not difficult, either, to imagine various methods by which the neutrality, which is supposed to govern within the three-mile limit, may be evaded. It is only necessary to cite the case of a war vessel unable to overtake a fast merchant-man until the latter reaches neutral waters, but successful in sinking it by long-range gun-fire from a

1 minute read

Read Chapter

DESOLATION AND FAMINE THROUGHOUT LAND

DESOLATION AND FAMINE THROUGHOUT LAND

“If figures can give any idea of the immensity of this disaster,” pleaded the great musician, “then these may convey a slight impression of what has gone on in Poland: An area equal in size to the states of Pennsylvania and New York has been laid waste. The mere money losses, due to the destruction of property and the means of agriculture and industry, are $2,500,000,000. A whole nation of 18,000,000 people, including 2,000,000 Jews, are carrying the burden of the war in the east on their backs,

1 minute read

Read Chapter

RICH AND POOR ALIKE DESTITUTE

RICH AND POOR ALIKE DESTITUTE

The Polish Relief Committee, headed by Madame Sembrich, published this word from the great tenor, Jean de Reszké, whose home is in Paris: The Harvest-moon in Europe. “My poor brother was unable to get away from the war zone in time. He wrote this letter several weeks ago, and now I fear he may never survive the terrible hardships. He had plenty of money and a splendid estate, but all were swept away.” The letter referred to shows that there is no leveler like war. It runs: “My dear brother, whet

1 minute read

Read Chapter

PLIGHT OF RUSSIAN POLAND

PLIGHT OF RUSSIAN POLAND

Mr. Herbert Corey, writing from Berlin to the New York Globe, in the spring of 1915, declared that unless something was done the world would be horrified—if the world had not lost its capacity for horror—by the sufferings of the Poles. “Soon cholera will come to Poland. Famine is there now. Scarlet fever and typhoid and smallpox and enteric and typhus are old settlers.” The million now in utter want only live at all because “humanity has a wonderful capacity for adjustment to wretchedness. “Ther

1 minute read

Read Chapter

NO BREAD FOR WEEKS IN LODZ

NO BREAD FOR WEEKS IN LODZ

“For two weeks Lodz had no bread at all. For months it has had no meat at all—so far as the poorer classes are concerned. During those two weeks the mass of the population lived on potatoes. “Conditions were slightly worse in Czenstochow, the second city in Russian Poland. Here 90,000 people live. It has no street-lights. It has no attempt at street-paving. It has no sewers. It has no city water. It has no publicly maintained fire department, though a few of the merchants have a department of th

38 minute read

Read Chapter

THREE TIMES A BATTLE-FIELD

THREE TIMES A BATTLE-FIELD

If the war had not come, these people would have prospered after a fashion. Potatoes were plentiful, and they had few other wants. A woman earned thirty cents a day in the mills and a man three cents more. Children worked as soon as they were old enough. Sixty-five per cent are wholly illiterate. Then— “Russia struck at Germany. The German armies invaded Poland in retaliation. They swept almost to Warsaw—and an invading army sweeps fairly clean. There were some things left when they passed over.

44 minute read

Read Chapter

UNABLE TO HELP HERSELF

UNABLE TO HELP HERSELF

“Poland is quite unable to help herself. Most of the mills—probably all of the mills—are owned by Russian and German and French capitalists. The banks are all branches of foreign institutions. These concerns are all conducted by resident managers. Some of the managers have—on their own responsibility—given their work people two and a half and three cents a day each for food. Some have added a trifle for the children also. But this has practically come to an end. The managers have exhausted their

44 minute read

Read Chapter

NO SEED AND NO DRAFT ANIMALS

NO SEED AND NO DRAFT ANIMALS

“Conditions are slightly better in the agricultural sections. The farmers have no seed and no draft animals, it is true. But they have fairly good supplies of potatoes. Last year’s potato-crop was an enormous one. “There is a Jewish question in every city of Poland. Where there is a Jewish question in Russia there are riots. There will be more rioting in Poland unless Providence intervenes. Russia has always confined her Jews to the pale. Being forced to make their living by trading, their natur

2 minute read

Read Chapter

KINDS OF BOMBS

KINDS OF BOMBS

Various kinds of bombs are used for dropping from aeroplanes. A simple pattern shown in Fig. 1 consists of a thin spherical shell of steel, containing twelve pounds of tetranitranilin, which is an explosive more powerful than melinite. The stem of the bomb, by which it is handled, has an external screw-thread, and carries a pair of vanes. While in the position shown, the bomb is harmless, but as it drops, the vanes screw themselves up to the top of the stem till they press against the stop. This

1 minute read

Read Chapter

STEEL DARTS

STEEL DARTS

The Taube aeroplanes, when they flew over Paris, used sometimes to drop steel darts pointed at one end and flattened and feathered at the other, as shown in Fig. 2 . These were put up in boxes of a hundred, so that when the box was released from its hook, it turned over and released the darts....

16 minute read

Read Chapter

“ARROW BULLETS” AND AERIAL TORPEDOES

“ARROW BULLETS” AND AERIAL TORPEDOES

The “arrow bullet” shown in Fig. 3 is a French device; though weighing only three-quarters of an ounce, its peculiar shape enables it to acquire a high velocity, so that it will kill a man when dropped from a height of six hundred yards. An aerial torpedo carried by French aeroplanes for the destruction of Zeppelins is shown in Fig. 4 ; it contains a powerful charge of explosive and a fuse, to which the suspending-wire is connected. When dropped on a Zeppelin, the needle-pointed torpedo pierces

40 minute read

Read Chapter

MACHINE GUNS IN AIRCRAFT

MACHINE GUNS IN AIRCRAFT

Various attempts have been made to mount machine guns on aeroplanes, but the operator, in his narrow seat, has hardly space to point a machine gun in any direction except straight to his front. The American Curtis machine gun exhibited at Olympia is the most efficient form yet produced, but at present the airman seems to prefer an automatic rifle. Even in the early days of the war, Sir John French was able to report that British airmen had disposed of no less than five of the enemy’s aircraft wi

37 minute read

Read Chapter

ACCURACY IN DROPPING BOMBS

ACCURACY IN DROPPING BOMBS

The Zeppelins have elaborate bomb-dropping apparatus with which it should be theoretically possible to drop a bomb with great accuracy, but on the occasion when it was tried at Antwerp, the Germans met with no great success. The principle of the bomb-dropping device is as follows: A sort of camera, pointed vertically downwards, is used, and an observer notes the speed with which an object on the ground passes across the field, and the direction in which it appears to move. He then reads the heig

2 minute read

Read Chapter

ATTACK ON LINER DESCRIBED

ATTACK ON LINER DESCRIBED

The scenes on both the vessel and the little submarine may be pictured from a theoretical description given by Captain Lake as follows: “The great ship, knowing the lurking danger, is traveling at her best speed limit, changing the course from time to time in a zigzag manner. Waiting beneath the surface of the calm sea a big submarine, now said to be capable of discharging a torpedo at a distance of five miles, rolls idly in the underground swell. Her crew is sleeping or talking in the semi-feti

2 minute read

Read Chapter

OPERATION OF TORPEDOES

OPERATION OF TORPEDOES

“The course of the torpedo from the time it is released in the tube by the lever trip is interesting,” said Captain Lake. “These torpedoes are made at a cost of $5,000 each, much of which is spent in testing. With their high charge of explosive placed well forward and a little plunger on the nose, connecting with a percussion cap, their interior presents the same view as that of a large steamship. The officer is a little gyroscope, impelled by compressed air. This in turn may be set from the out

1 minute read

Read Chapter

NETS TO TRAP SUBMARINES

NETS TO TRAP SUBMARINES

The British naval authorities took measures to guard British shipping in the English Channel by stretching nets over as much of the water, particularly in the narrows, as possible. The nets are made of links of steel. These links are about six or eight inches in diameter and made of one-half inch steel. The nets are similar to those formerly used to guard battleships and large cruisers, but which have now been discarded because a torpedo will puncture the net and the second torpedo, which is fir

1 minute read

Read Chapter

HOW CRAFT SUBMERGE

HOW CRAFT SUBMERGE

A security weight, as it is called, of about five tons is carried. This can be released from the inside of the vessel at a moment’s notice, and the effect is like that of dropping a mass of ballast from an airship. When in diving trim, that is to say, when the boat is awash, an up-to-date submarine can disappear under water in fifteen seconds and re-emerge in twenty seconds. It can remain under water for a whole day and night, or even longer. A submarine when submerged is handled mechanically. T

2 minute read

Read Chapter

INCREASED RANGE

INCREASED RANGE

In 1885 the British brought out the twelve-pounder high-velocity field-gun, which remained for some years the best gun in Europe. Its power was afterwards increased by giving it a fifteen-pounder shell, and, as a fifteen-pounder, it did good work in South Africa. Then came another development, the quick-firing gun now being used in the war, with a steel shield to protect the detachment. The quick-firing gun is badly named; its high rate of fire is only incidental, and is rarely of use in the com

32 minute read

Read Chapter

MODERN GUNS

MODERN GUNS

The French gun as it was originally brought out has now been improved by the addition of a steel plate which closes the gap between the shields; and a steel shield is also provided to protect the officer standing on the upturned ammunition-wagon. The carriage does not move, and the men remain in their positions behind the shield while the gun recoils between them. The carriage is prevented from sharing the movement of recoil by the spade at the end of the trail, which digs into the ground so as

26 minute read

Read Chapter

RAPID FIRING

RAPID FIRING

The gun-recoil carriage, as the new invention was called, increases the rate of fire, since there is no delay in running up. The French were quick to develop this new feature, and set to work to make the rate of fire as high as possible. Up till then the ammunition fired from a field-gun had consisted of a shell, a bag of powder, and a friction-tube introduced through the vent to fire the charge. This was called a round of ammunition, and its complexity was increased by the fuse, which was carri

1 minute read

Read Chapter

HOW A BIG GUN IS AIMED

HOW A BIG GUN IS AIMED

The independent line of sight is another modern device for facilitating the service of a gun. With this the gear for giving the gun the elevation necessary to carry a shell to the required distance is kept entirely separate from that used for pointing the gun at the target. The gun-layer has merely to keep his sighting telescope on the target, while another man puts on the range-elevation ordered by the battery commander. The result of all these improvements is that the best quick-firing guns (a

1 minute read

Read Chapter

AWFUL DESTRUCTIVENESS OF MODERN GUNS

AWFUL DESTRUCTIVENESS OF MODERN GUNS

Of late years a shell which combines the action of the shrapnel and the high-explosive shell has been introduced. This is the “Universal” shell (see Fig. 3 ) invented by Major van Essen, of the Dutch Artillery. It is a shrapnel with a detachable head filled with high explosive. When burst during flight it acts like an ordinary shrapnel, and the bullets fly forward and sweep the ground in front of it; at the same time the head, with its explosive burster, flies forward and acts as a small but eff

1 minute read

Read Chapter

CANADIAN VICTIMS

CANADIAN VICTIMS

“There were about twenty of the worst cases in the ward, on mattresses, all more or less in a sitting position, strapped up against the walls. Their faces, arms, and hands were of a shiny, gray-black color. With their mouths open and leaden-glazed eyes, all were swaying slightly backward and forward trying to get breath. It was a most appalling sight. All these poor black faces struggling for life, the groaning and the noise of the efforts for breath was awful. “There was practically nothing to

1 minute read

Read Chapter

“TRENCH GAS” AT YPRES

“TRENCH GAS” AT YPRES

Asphyxiating gases seem to have been first used by the Germans in the fighting around Ypres in April, 1915. The strong northeast wind, which was blowing from the German lines across the French trenches, became charged with a sickening, suffocating odor which was recognized as proceeding from some form of poisonous gas. The smoke moved like a vivid green wall some four feet in height for several hundred yards, extending to within two hundred yards of the extreme left of the Allies’ lines. Gradual

46 minute read

Read Chapter

AWFUL FORM OF SCIENTIFIC TORTURE

AWFUL FORM OF SCIENTIFIC TORTURE

“The work of sending out the vapor was done from the advanced German trenches. Men garbed in a dress resembling the harness of a diver and armed with retorts or generators about three feet high and connected with ordinary hose-pipe turned the vapor loose toward the French lines. Some witnesses maintain that the Germans sprayed the earth before the trenches with a fluid which, being ignited, sent up the fumes. The German troops, who followed up this advantage with a direct attack, held inspirator

1 minute read

Read Chapter

REPORT OF MEDICAL EXPERT

REPORT OF MEDICAL EXPERT

Dr. John S. Haldane, an authority on the physiology of respiration, who was sent by the British government to France to observe the effect of the gases, examined several Canadians who had been incapacitated by the gases. “These men,” he said, “were lying struggling for breath, and blue in the face. On examining their blood with a spectroscope and by other means I ascertained that the blueness was not due to the presence of any abnormal pigment. There was nothing to account for the blueness and t

2 minute read

Read Chapter

KIND OF GAS EMPLOYED

KIND OF GAS EMPLOYED

Various have been the opinions of chemists as to the kind of gas employed. Sir James Dewar, President of the Royal Institution, was of the opinion that it was liquid chlorine. Dr. F. A. Mason, of the Royal College of Science, considered it to have been bromine. Dr. Crocker, of the South-Western Polytechnic, said it may have been either carbon monoxide or liquid peroxide. Dr. W. J. Pope, Professor of Chemistry, Cambridge, and Sir E. Rutherford, Professor of Physics, Manchester University, agreed

58 minute read

Read Chapter

ALLIES FORCED TO USE SIMILAR METHODS

ALLIES FORCED TO USE SIMILAR METHODS

Of the German attack on the allied front near Ypres, Secretary of War, Earl Kitchener, speaking in the House of Lords on May 18, said: “In this attack the enemy employed vast quantities of poisonous gases, and our soldiers and our French allies were utterly unprepared for this diabolical method of attack, which undoubtedly had been long and carefully prepared.” It was at this point that Earl Kitchener announced the determination of the Allies to resort to similar methods of warfare. “The Germans

2 minute read

Read Chapter

UNLIMITED DESTRUCTION THE END OF WAR

UNLIMITED DESTRUCTION THE END OF WAR

Put in plain language, these passages mean that there is no law of war which may not be broken at the dictates of interest. Unlimited destruction is the end, and only fear of reprisals need limit the means. The sentimental humanitarianism and flabby emotion which prevail elsewhere have no place in the bright lexicon of the German officer. “By steeping himself in military history,” the manual clearly states, “an officer will be able to guard himself against excessive humanitarian notions” and lea

55 minute read

Read Chapter

RULES OF CIVILIZED WARFARE CLEARLY STATED

RULES OF CIVILIZED WARFARE CLEARLY STATED

It must not be assumed, of course, that the German war manual is a defense of unlimited rapine. The rules of civilized warfare are usually stated clearly enough. But there are so many exceptions to the application of them that a zealous officer might well be pardoned if he regarded them as not binding whenever it was to his interest to ignore them. Thus, after a careful statement of the right of the inhabitants of an invaded country to organize for its defense, the advantages of “terrorism” are

53 minute read

Read Chapter

OTHER EXCELLENT RULES

OTHER EXCELLENT RULES

Several other excellent rules in the manual may be contrasted with German practice in the present war. “No damage, not even the smallest, must be done unless it is done for military reasons. “Contributions of war are sums of money which are levied by force from the people of an occupied country. They differ in character from requisitions in kind because they do not serve an immediate requirement of the army. Hence, requisitions in cash are only in the rarest cases justified by the necessities of

2 minute read

Read Chapter

PART PLAYED BY HORSE IN WAR

PART PLAYED BY HORSE IN WAR

The horse still plays an important part in war, as every army service corps officer who has had anything to do with them well knows. The men love their mettlesome beasts, and much trouble and worry is pardoned and lost sight of in the comradeship which arises between man and beast. The great part played by motors and motor-driven vehicles in the present war has tended to draw attention away from the work of horses at the front, yet motor cavalry has not been evolved. While recognizing that for m

51 minute read

Read Chapter

AMERICAN STOCK DEPLETED

AMERICAN STOCK DEPLETED

That the European war threatened to deplete the stock of horses even in the United States is emphasized by a careful computation which fixed at 185,023 the number of horses shipped to the warring nations from July 1, 1914, to March 31, 1915. The value of the animals, according to an inventory compiled from the manifests of ships transporting the horses is placed at $40,695,057. During that same period 26,976 mules, valued at $5,143,270, were sent abroad. Buyers representing the British, French a

2 minute read

Read Chapter

SCOURGES OF MODERN WARFARE

SCOURGES OF MODERN WARFARE

Of the diseases which assail an army in the field, a few stand out so prominently that all others may practically be neglected. These are cholera, typhus, typhoid fever, dysentery, and pneumonia; and they have this in common, that they are all caused by specific bacilli. Thus cholera is the child, so to speak, of the dreaded vibrio, and pneumonia that of the pneumococcus; while typhus, typhoid and dysentery have each their own special microbe. The modes of attack are, however, different, for the

40 minute read

Read Chapter

RAVAGES OF TYPHUS IN SERVIA

RAVAGES OF TYPHUS IN SERVIA

The dread aftermaths of war made their first visitations upon the Servian nation. One read with dismay that Belgium was later outdone by Poland, and Poland seemed almost fortunate beside Servia. The account sent by Captain E. N. Bennett, Commissioner in Servia for the British Red Cross Society, of the conditions prevailing in Servian hospitals and prisoners ’ camps filled the whole world with dread. “Fires are needed to clear Servia of typhus, just as fires were needed to stop the great plague i

1 minute read

Read Chapter

NO WORD OF COMPLAINT

NO WORD OF COMPLAINT

“No braver people exist than the Servians. They have never a word of complaint. In one ward I saw a fever patient, his magnificent voice booming songs to cheer his comrades. Some were in a delirium, calling for ‘mother.’ “One source of infection is the army black bread, which is the only ration of the troops. The patients in the hospital receive only a loaf each, which they put in their bed or under their pillow. Later the unused loaves are bought by pedlers and are resold, spreading disease amo

38 minute read

Read Chapter

AMERICA TO THE RESCUE

AMERICA TO THE RESCUE

“The best hospital in the Balkans is at Belgrade, under Dr. Edward W. Ryan, of the American contingent, where there are 2,900 patients. Dr. Ryan kept the hospital neutral during the Austrian occupation, and accomplished wonders diplomatically at that time. He is worshiped by the people. “Dr. Ryan says that the greatest task is to keep the hospital free from vermin. The typhus affects men the most severely. Women come next, and children for the most part recover. The symptoms begin like those of

1 minute read

Read Chapter

THE BANDAGING CAMP

THE BANDAGING CAMP

Similar arrangements are made for the cavalry. The so-called “bandaging camp” is for the purpose of gathering the wounded and examining and classifying them. It should be both protected and accessible, and if possible near a water supply. At the end of a battle it is the duty of the troops to search trenches, woods, houses, etc., for the wounded, protect them against plunderers and carry them to the bandaging camp, as also to bury the dead. Quicker and Easier Than Bandages: The “Tabloid” Adjusta

2 minute read

Read Chapter

THE SANITATION COMPANY

THE SANITATION COMPANY

In case of a big battle a sanitation company remains near the bandaging camp. Every army corps has three of these companies, which, together with the twelve field lazarets of the corps, form a sanitation battalion. As soon as it is apparent that the troops will remain in one locality for some length of time the smaller bandaging camps or stations are supplemented by a chief bandaging station some distance in the rear, and if possible, near a highway and near houses. At this spot there are arrang

57 minute read

Read Chapter

THE HOSPITAL BARGE

THE HOSPITAL BARGE

One very important development in the care for the wounded is the introduction of the hospital barge. The rivers and canals of France offer splendid opportunities for conveying wounded from point to point. This new method of transport was foreshadowed in an article in the London Times, in which the writer, in describing the hospital barges, said: “The north of France, as is well known, is exceedingly rich in waterways—rivers and canals. The four great rivers, the Oise, the Somme, the Sambre, and

5 minute read

Read Chapter

THE SPREAD OF DEMOCRACY

THE SPREAD OF DEMOCRACY

We are apt, in thinking of the consequences of the European war, to consider the readjustment of national boundaries as of prime importance. Such a thought betrays a wrong perspective, or a narrowness of vision, or both. Territorial definition is a small, material factor. The larger, spiritual considerations that affect all mankind are the momentous things. And probably of all the consequences that are evolved out of the horrors and atrocities of the great war, the spread of the democratic spiri

1 minute read

Read Chapter

DECLINE OF THE WAR SPIRIT

DECLINE OF THE WAR SPIRIT

It is significant that the most democratic nations are likewise the most peace-loving. With the spread of democracy must come the decline of the war spirit. The teaching that war is a biological necessity for the preservation of the heroic virtues in men has met its fate in this war, for we have found men, whole regiments of them, who had only been in warlike training a few months, showing just as cool courage and just as stubborn fighting powers as men who had been trained to war from their you

1 minute read

Read Chapter

THE DAWN OF UNIVERSAL PEACE

THE DAWN OF UNIVERSAL PEACE

Finally, as the spirit of democracy rises and the spirit of war declines, the vision of universal peace begins to crystallize. While to many it may seem that this must always remain a vision, the real seers of the world do not doubt that, when the awful conflict in Europe is ended, the warring nations, viewing their dead and their devastated countries, will welcome a plan which promises an end of such disasters. The practicability and feasibility of the idea of an international tribunal is shown

2 minute read

Read Chapter