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The New York Times Current History

A Monthly Magazine

Germany's War Zone and Neutral Flags

The German Decree and Interchange of Notes Answering American Protests to Germany and Britain

BERLIN, Feb. 4, (by wireless to Sayville, L.I.)—The German Admiralty today issued the following communication:

The waters around Great Britain and Ireland, including the whole English Channel, are declared a war zone on and after Feb. 18, 1915.

Every enemy merchant ship found in this war zone will be destroyed, even if it is impossible to avert dangers which threaten the crew and passengers.

Also neutral ships in the war zone are in danger, as in consequence of the misuse of neutral flags ordered by the British Government on Jan. 31, and in view of the hazards of naval warfare, it cannot always be avoided that attacks meant for enemy ships endanger neutral ships.

Shipping northward, around the Shetland Islands, in the eastern basin of the North Sea, and a strip of at least thirty nautical miles in breadth along the Dutch coast, is endangered in the same way.

Germany's Submarine War

LONDON, March 13.—The Admiralty announced tonight that the British collier Invergyle was torpedoed today off Cresswell, England, and sunk. All aboard were saved.

This brings the total British losses of merchantmen and fishing vessels, either sunk or captured during the war, up to 137. Of these ninety were merchant ships and forty-seven were fishing craft.

A further submarine casualty today was the torpedoing of the Swedish steamer Halma off Scarborough, and the loss of the lives of six of her crew.

The Admiralty announces that since March 10 seven British merchant steamers have been torpedoed by submarines. Two of them, it is stated, were sunk, and of two others it is said that "the sinking is not confirmed." Three were not sunk.

The two steamers officially reported sunk were the Invergyle and the Indian City, which was torpedoed off the Scilly Islands on March 12. The crew of the Indian City was reported rescued.

The two steamers whose reported sinking is not yet officially confirmed are the Florazan, which was torpedoed at the mouth of the Bristol Channel on March 11, all of her crew being landed at Milford Haven, with the exception of one fireman, and the Andalusian, which was attacked off the Scilly Islands on March 12. The crew of the Andalusian is reported to have been rescued.

The Adenwen was torpedoed in the English Channel on March 11, and has since been towed into Cherbourg. Her crew was landed at Brisham.

The steamer Headlands was torpedoed on March 12 off the Scilly Islands. It is reported that her crew was saved. The steamer Hartdale was torpedoed on March 13 off South Rock, in the Irish Channel. Twenty-one of her crew were picked up and two were lost.

Supplementary to the foregoing the Admiralty tonight issued a report giving the total number of British merchant and fishing vessels lost through hostile action from the outbreak of the war to March 10. The statement says that during that period eighty-eight merchant vessels were sunk or captured. Of these fifty-four were victims of hostile cruisers, twelve were destroyed by mines, and twenty-two by submarines. Their gross tonnage totaled 309,945.

In the same period the total arrivals and sailings of overseas steamers of all nationalities of more than 300 tons net were 4,745.

Forty-seven fishing vessels were sunk or captured during this time. Nineteen of these were blown up by mines and twenty-eight were captured by hostile craft. Twenty-four of those captured were caught on Aug. 26, when the Germans raided a fishing fleet.

Dotted portion indicates the limits of "War Zone" defined in the German order which became effective Feb. 18, 1915.

German People Not Blinded

By Karl Lamprecht

[Published in New York by the German Information Service, Feb. 3, 1915.]

Denying flatly that the German people were swept blindly and ignorantly into the war by the headlong ambitions of their rulers—the view advanced by Dr. Charles W. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard University, and Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia—Dr. Karl Lamprecht, Professor of History in the University of Leipsic and world-famous German historian, has addressed the open letter which appears below to the two distinguished American scholars. Dr. Lamprecht asserts that under the laws which govern the German Empire the people as citizens have a deciding will in affairs of state and that Germany is engaged in the present conflict because the sober judgment of the German people led them to resort to arms.

Reveille

By JOHN GALSWORTHY.

[From King Albert's Book.]

In my dream I saw a fertile plain, rich with the hues of Autumn. Tranquil it was and warm. Men and women, children, and the beasts worked and played and wandered there in peace. Under the blue sky and the white clouds low-hanging, great trees shaded the fields; and from all the land there arose a murmur as from bees clustering on the rose-colored blossoms of tall clover. And, in my dream, I roamed, looking into every face, the faces of prosperity, broad and well favored—of people living in a land of plenty, of people drinking of the joy of life, caring nothing for the morrow. But I could not see their eyes, that seemed ever cast down, gazing at the ground, watching the progress of their feet over the rich grass and the golden leaves already fallen from the trees. The longer I walked among them the more I wondered that never was I suffered to see the eyes of any, not even of the little children, not even of the beasts. It was as if ordinance had gone forth that their eyes should be banded with invisibility.

While I mused on this, the sky began to darken. A muttering of distant winds and waters came traveling. The children stopped their play, the beasts raised their heads; men and women halted and cried to each other: "The River—the River is rising! If it floods, we are lost! Our beasts will drown; we, even we, shall drown! The River!" And women stood like things of stone, listening; and men shook their fists at the black sky and at that traveling mutter of the winds and waters; and the beasts sniffed at the darkening air.

Then, clear, I heard a Voice call: "Brothers! The dike is breaking! The River comes! Link arms, brothers; with the dike of our bodies we will save our home! Sisters, behind us, link arms! Close in the crevices, children! The River!" And all that multitude, whom I had seen treading quietly the grass and fallen leaves with prosperous feet, came hurrying, their eyes no longer fixed on the rich plain, but lifted in trouble and defiance, staring at that rushing blackness. And the Voice called: "Hasten, brothers! The dike is broken. The River floods!"

And they answered: "Brother, we come!"

Thousands and thousands they pressed, shoulder to shoulder—men, women, and children, and the beasts lying down behind, till the living dike was formed. And that blackness came on, nearer, nearer, till, like the whites of glaring eyes, the wave crests glinted in the dark rushing flood. And the sound of the raging waters was as a roar from a million harsh mouths.

But the Voice called: "Hold, brothers! Hold!"

And from the living dike came answer: "Brother! We hold!"

Then the sky blackened to night. And the terrible dark water broke on that dike of life; and from all the thin living wall rose such cry of struggle as never was heard.

But above it ever the Voice called: "Hold! My brave ones, hold!"

And ever the answer came from those drowning mouths, of men and women, of little children and the very beasts: "Brother! We hold!" But the black flood rolled over and on. There, down in its dark tumult, beneath its cruel tumult, I saw men still with arms linked; women on their knees, clinging to earth; little children drifting—dead, all dead; and the beasts dead. And their eyes were still open facing that death. And above them the savage water roared. But clear and high I heard the Voice call: "Brothers! Hold! Death is not! We live!"

Can Germany Be Starved Out?

An Answer by Sixteen German Specialists2

[From The Annalist of New York, March 1, 1915.]

BERLIN, Feb. 1, 1915.

Probably the most interesting economic problem in the world at this moment is whether England can succeed in starving out Germany. While the world at large is chiefly interested in the vast political issues involved, the question interests the Germans not only from that standpoint, but also—and how keenly!—from the mere bread-and-butter standpoint. For if Germany cannot feed its own population during the long war that its foes are predicting with so much assurance, her defeat is only a question of time.

That the German Government is keenly aware of the dangers of the situation is evident from the rigorous measures that it has taken to conserve and economize the food supply. After having fixed maximum prices for cereals soon after the war began, the Government last week decided to requisition and monopolize all the wheat and rye in the country, and allow the bakers to sell only a limited quantity of bread (2.2 pounds per capita a week) to each family. It had previously taken measures to restrict the consumption of cereals for other purposes than breadmaking; the feeding of rye was prohibited and its use in producing alcohol was restricted by 40 per cent.; a percentage of potato flour was ordered added to rye flour, and of the latter to wheat flour in making bread. These are but a few of the economic measures adopted by the Government since the outbreak of the war.

The general opinion of the people in Germany is that the country cannot be starved out, and this opinion is asserted with a great deal of patriotic fervor, particularly by newspaper editors. The leading scientists of the country, moreover, have taken up the question in a thoroughgoing way and investigated it in all its bearings. A little book ("Die Deutsche Volksernährung und der Englische Aushungerungsplan") has just been issued, giving the conclusions of sixteen specialists in various fields, which will be briefly summarized here. Economists, statisticians, physiologists, agricultural chemists, food specialists, and geologists have all taken part in producing a composite view of the whole subject; it is not a book of special contributions by individual specialists, but is written in one cast and represents the compared and boiled-down conclusions of the sixteen scholars.

The authors by no means regard the problem of feeding Germany without foreign assistance as an easy and simple one; on the contrary, they say it is a serious one, and calls for the supreme effort of the authorities and of every individual German; and only by energetic, systematic, and continued efforts of Government and people can they prevent a shortage of food from negativing the success of German arms. Yet they feel bound to grapple the problem as one calling for solution by the German people alone, for very small imports of food products can be expected from the neutral countries of Europe, and none at all from the United States and other oversea countries, and the small quantities that do come in will hardly be more than enough to make good the drain upon Germany's own available stocks in helping to feed the people of Belgium and Poland.

The simplest statistical elements of the problem are the following: Germany, with a population of 68,000,000, was consuming food products, when the war broke out, equivalent to an aggregate of 90,420 billion calories, including 2,307,000 tons of albumen; whereas the amount now available, under unchanged methods of living and feeding, is equal to only 67,870 billion calories, with 1,543,000 tons of albumen. Thus, there will be an apparent deficit of 22,590 billion calories and 764,000 tons of albumen. On the other hand, the authors hold that the minimum physiological requirements are only 56,750 billion calories, containing 1,605,000 tons of albumen, which would give a large surplus of calories and a small deficit of albumen, but they make certain recommendations which, if carried into effect, would bring the available supply up to 81,250 billion calories and 2,023,000 tons of albumen.

Germany raises (average for 1912-13) about 4,500,000 tons of wheat and imports nearly 2,000,000 tons, (about 73,000,000 bushels.) On the other hand, it exports about 530,000 tons net of the 11,900,000 tons of rye produced. It imports nearly 3,000,000 tons of low-grade barley and about 1,000,000 of maize, both chiefly for feeding stock. Its net imports of grain and legumes are 6,270,000 tons. Of its fruit consumption, about 30 per cent. has been imported. While Germany has been producing nearly its entire meat supply at home, this has been accomplished only by the very extensive use of foreign feedstuffs. The authors of this work estimate that the imports of meats and animals, together with the product from domestic animals fed with foreign feedstuffs, amount to not less than 33 per cent. of the total consumption. They also hold that about 58 per cent. of the milk consumed in Germany represents imports and the product of cows fed with foreign feedstuffs. Nearly 40 per cent. of the egg consumption was hitherto imported. The consumption of fish has averaged 576,000 tons, of which not less than 62 per cent. was imported; and the home fisheries are now confined, besides the internal waters, almost wholly to the Baltic Sea—which means the loss of the catch of 142,000 tons hitherto taken from the North Sea. Even the German's favorite beverage, beer, contains 13 per cent. of imported ingredients.

The authors assume, as already intimated, that nearly all of these imports will be lost to Germany during the full duration of the war, and they take up, under this big limitation, the problem of showing how Germany can live upon its own resources and go on fighting till it wins. They undertake to show how savings can be made in the use of the supplies on hand, and also how production can be increased or changed so as to keep the country supplied with food products.

In the first place, they insist that the prohibition of the export of grain be made absolute; in other words, the small exception made in favor of Switzerland, which has usually obtained most of its grain from Germany, must be canceled. Savings in the present supplies of grain and feedstuffs must be made by a considerable reduction in the live stock, inasmuch as the grain, potatoes, turnips, and other stuffs fed to animals will support a great many more men if consumed directly by them. From the stock of cattle the poorer milkers must be eliminated and converted into beef, 10 per cent. of the milch cows to be thus disposed, of. Then swine, in particular, must be slaughtered down to 65 per cent. of the present number, they being great consumers of material suitable for human food. In Germany much skim milk and buttermilk is fed to swine; the authors demand that this partial waste of very valuable albumens be stopped. The potato crop—of which Germany produces above 50,000,000 tons a year, or much more than any other land—must be more extensively drawn upon than hitherto for feeding the people. To this end potato-drying establishments must be multiplied; these will turn out a rough product for feeding animals, and a better sort for table use. It may be added here that the Prussian Government last Autumn decided to give financial aid to agricultural organizations for erecting drying plants; also, that the Imperial Government has decreed that potatoes up to a maximum of 30 per cent. may be used by the bakers in making bread—a measure which will undoubtedly make the grain supply suffice till the 1915 crop is harvested. It is further recommended that more vegetables be preserved, whether directly in cold storage or by canning or pickling. Moreover, the industrial use of fats suitable for human food (as in making soaps, lubricating oils, &c.) must be stopped, and people must eat less meat, less butter, and more vegetables. Grain must not be converted into starch. People must burn coke rather than coal, for the coking process yields the valuable by-product of sulphate of ammonia, one of the most valuable of fertilizers, and greatly needed by German farmers now owing to the stoppage of imports of nitrate of soda from Chile.

In considering how the German people may keep up their production of food, the authors find that various factors will work against such a result. In the first place, there is a shortage of labor, nearly all the able-bodied young and middle-aged men in the farming districts being in the war. There is also a scarcity of horses, some 500,000 head having already been requisitioned for army use, and the imports of about 140,000 head (chiefly from Russia) have almost wholly ceased. The people must therefore resort more extensively to the use of motor plows, and the State Governments must give financial assistance to insure this wherever necessary; and such plows on hand must be kept more steadily in use through company ownership or rental. It may be remarked here, again, that the Prussian Government is also assisting agricultural organizations to buy motor plows. The supply of fertilizers has also been cut down by the war. Nitrate has just been mentioned. The authors recommend that the Government solve this problem by having many of the existing electrical plants turn partly to recovering nitrogen from the atmosphere. This, they say, could be done without reducing the present production of electricity for ordinary purposes, since only 19 per cent. of the effective capacity of the 2,000,000 horse power producible by the electrical plants of Germany is actually used. The supply of phosphoric fertilizers is also endangered through the stoppage of imports of phosphate rock (nearly 1,000,000 tons a year) as well as the material from which to make sulphuric acid; also, through the reduction in the production of the iron furnaces of the country, from the slag of which over 2,000,000 tons of so-called Thomas phosphate flour was produced, will involve a big reduction in the make of that valuable fertilizer. Thus, there is a lack of horses, of fertilizers, and of the guiding hand of man. This last, however, can be partly supplied by utilizing for farm work such of the prisoners of war as come from the farm. As Germany now holds considerably more than 600,000 prisoners, it can draw many farm laborers from among them. Prisoners are already used in large numbers in recovering moorland for agricultural purposes.

This latter remark suggests one of the recommendations of the authors for increasing agricultural production—the increased recovery of moorlands. They show that Germany has at least 52,000 square miles (more than 33,000,000 acres) of moors convertible into good arable land, which, with proper fertilizing, can be made at once richly productive; they yield particularly large crops of grain and potatoes. Moreover, the State Governments must undertake the division of large landed estates among small proprietors wherever possible—and this is more possible just now than ever, owing to the fact that many large owners have been killed in battle. The reason for such a division is that the small holder gets more out of the acre than the large proprietor.

As Germany makes a large surplus of sugar, the authors advise that the area planted in beets be reduced and the land thus liberated be planted in grain, potatoes, and turnips; as a matter of fact, it is reported that the Government is now considering the question of reducing the beetroot acreage by one-fourth. The authors also recommend that sugar be used to some extent in feeding stock, sweeting low-grade hay and roots with it to make them more palatable and nutritious. It is also regarded as profitable to leave 20 per cent. of sugar in the beets, so as to secure a more valuable feed product in the remnants. Still another agricultural change is to increase the crops of beans, peas, and lentils—vegetables which contain when dried as much nutrition as meat. Germany will need to increase its home production of these crops to replace the 300,000 tons of them hitherto imported.

Such are the principal points covered by these experts. Their conclusion is that, if their recommendations be carried out fully, and various economies be practiced—they could not be touched on in the limits of this article—Germany can manage to feed its people. But they insist, in their earnest, concluding words, that this can only be done by carrying out thoroughly all the methods of producing and saving food products advised by them. It is a serious problem, indeed, but one which, all Germany is convinced, can and will be solved.

Hoch Der Kaiser

BY GEORGE DAVIES

WHO SUMMONS:

WHO COMMANDS:

WHO ORDAINS:

The Submarine of 1578

[From The London Times, Jan. 16, 1915.]

The earliest description of a practical under-water boat is given by William Bourne in his book entitled "Inventions or Devices," published in 1578. Instructions for building such a boat are given in detail, and it has been conjectured that Cornelius van Drebbel, a Dutch physician, used this information for the construction of the vessel with which in the early part of the seventeenth century he carried out some experiments on the Thames. It is doubtful, however, whether van Drebbel's boat was ever entirely submerged, and the voyage with which he was credited, from Westminster to Greenwich, is supposed to have been made in an awash condition, with the head of the inventor above the surface. More than one writer at the time referred to van Drebbel's boat and endeavored to explain the apparatus by which his rowers were enabled to breathe under water.

Van Drebbel died in 1634, and no illustration of his boat has been discovered. Nineteen years later the vessel illustrated here was constructed at Rotterdam from the designs of a Frenchman named de Son. This is supposed to be the earliest illustration of any submarine, and the inscription under the drawing, which was printed at Amsterdam in the Calverstraat, (in the Three Crabs,) is in old Dutch, of which the following is a translation:

This boat was 72 feet in length, and her greatest height was 12 feet, while the greatest breadth was 8 feet, tapering off to points at the end. Capt. Murray Sueter in his book on submarines gives these and other particulars of the vessel. At either end the boat had a cabin, the air in which remained good for about three hours, and in the middle of the boat was a large paddlewheel rotated by clockwork mechanism, which, it was claimed, would run for eight hours when once wound up. The iron tips at the ends of the vessel were intended for ramming, and the inventor was confident he could sink the biggest English ship afloat by crushing in her hull under water. The boat was duly launched, but on trial of the machinery being made the paddlewheel, though it revolved in air, would not move in the water, the machinery being not powerful enough. This, says Capt. Sueter, was apparently the only reason for de Son's failure, for his principles were distinctly sound, and he was certainly the first inventor of the mechanically propelled semi-submarine boat. After her failure de Son exhibited her for a trifle to any casual passer-by.

The Torpedo.

By Katharine Drayton Mayrant Simons, Jr.

"God Punish England, Brother"

A New Hymn of Germany's Gospel of Hatred

[From Public Opinion, London, Feb. 5, 1915.]

The amazing outburst of hatred against England in Germany is responsible for a new form of greeting which has displaced the conventional formulas of salutation and farewell: "God punish England!" ("Gott strafe England!") is the form of address, to which the reply is: "May God punish her!" ("Gott mög'es strafen!")

"This extraordinary formula," says The Mail, "which is now being used all over Germany, is celebrated in a set of verses by Herr Hochstetter in a recent number of the well-known German weekly, Lustige Blätter. In its way this poem is as remarkable as Herr Ernst Lissauer's famous 'Hymn of Hate.'"

Among the prayers at Bruges Cathedral on the Kaiser's birthday was this German chant of hate, "God Punish England!"

"What German Lutheran pastors think of the gospel of hate that is at present being preached throughout the Fatherland may be judged from an article on the subject written for the Vossische Zeitung of Berlin, by Dr. Julius Schiller of Nürnberg, who describes himself as a royal Protestant pastor," says The Morning Post.

"Before the war, the pastor writes, it was considered immoral to hate; now, however, Germans know that they not only may, but they must hate. Herr Lissauer's 'Hymn of Hate' against England is, he declares, a faithful expression of the feelings cherished in the depths of the German soul.

"'All protests against this hate,' the pastor writes, 'fall on deaf ears; we strike down all hands that would avert it. We cannot do otherwise; we must hate the brood of liars. Our hate was provoked, and the German can hate more thoroughly than any one else. A feeling that this is the case is penetrating into England, but the fear of the German hate is as yet hidden. There is a grain of truth in Lord Curzon's statement that the phlegmatic temperament of his countrymen is incapable of hating as the Germans hate.

"'We Germans do, as a matter of fact, hate differently than the sons of Albion. We Germans hate honorably, for our hatred is based on right and justice. England, on the other hand, hates mendaciously, being impelled by envy, ill-will, and jealousy. It was high time that we tore the mask from England's face, that we finally saw England as she really is.

"'We hate with a clean conscience, although religion seems to condemn as unæsthetic everything that is included in the word hate.' The Pastor concludes by asserting that 'we, who are fighting for truth and right with clean hands and a clean conscience, must have Him on our side Who is stronger than the strongest battalions. Hence our courage and our confidence in a fortunate outcome of the world conflagration. The dawn will soon appear that announces that the "Day of Harvest" for Germany has broken.'"

"The avowal that the love of good Germans for Germany is inseparable from hatred of other countries shows how deeply the aggressiveness of German policy has sunk into the nation's mood," says The Times. "Only by constantly viewing their own country as in a natural state of challenge to all others can Germans have come to absorb the view that hatred is the normal manifestation of patriotism. It is a purely militarist conception.

"Hate is at bottom a slavish passion, and remote from that heroic spirit of the warrior with which the Germans represent themselves as facing a world in arms. The hater subjects his mind to the domination of what he hates; he loses his independence and volition and becomes the prey of the hated idea. At last he cannot free his mind from the obsession; and the deliberate cultivation of hate in the conscientious German manner is a kind of mental suicide."

The Great Hour.

By HERMANN SUDERMANN.

—Translated by Herman J. Mankiewicz.

H.M. GUSTAF V—King of Sweden—
(Photo from Underwood & Underwood)

H.M. HAAKON VII—King of Norway—
(Photo from Underwood & Underwood)

The Peace of the World

A Famous Englishman's Diagnosis of the War Disease and His Prescription for a Permanent Cure

By H.G. Wells

(COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY.)

(Copyrighted in Great Britain and Ireland.)

Small But Great-souled.

By EMMELINE PANKHURST.

[From King Albert's Book.]

The women of Great Britain will never forget what Belgium has done for all that women hold most dear.

In the days to come mothers will tell their children how a small but great-souled nation fought to the death against overwhelming odds and sacrificed all things to save the world from an intolerable tyranny.

The story of the Belgian people's defense of freedom will inspire countless generations yet unborn.

Zeppelin Raids on London

By the Naval Correspondent of The London Times

[From The London Times, Jan. 22, 1915.]

Some doubt has been thrown by correspondents upon the ability of the Zeppelins to reach London from Cuxhaven, the place from which the raiders of Tuesday night appear to have started. The distance which the airships traveled, including their manoeuvres over the land, must have been quite 650 miles. This is not nearly as far as similar airships have traveled in the past. One of the Zeppelins flew from Friedrichshafen, on Lake Constance, to Berlin, a continuous flight of about 1,000 miles, in thirty-one hours. Our naval officers will also recall the occasion of the visit of the First Cruiser Squadron to Copenhagen in September, 1912, when the German passenger airship Hansa was present. The Hansa made the run from Hamburg to Copenhagen, a distance of 198 miles, in seven hours, and Count Zeppelin was on board her. Supposing an airship left Cuxhaven at noon on some day when the conditions were favorable and traveled to London, she could not get back again by noon next day if she traveled at the half-power speed which the vessels on Tuesday appear to have used. But if she did the run at full speed—that is to say, at about fifty miles an hour—she could reach London by 9 o'clock the same evening, have an hour to manoeuvre over the capital, and return by 7 o'clock next morning. With a favorable wind for her return journey, she might make an even longer stay. Given suitable conditions, therefore, as on Tuesday, there appears to be no reason why, as far as speed and fuel endurance are concerned, these vessels should not reach London from Cuxhaven.

With regard also to the amount of ammunition a Zeppelin can carry, this depends, of course, on the lifting power of the airship and the way in which it is distributed. The later Zeppelins are said to be able to carry a load of about 15,000 pounds, which is available for the crew, fuel for the engines, ballast, provisions, and spare stores, a wireless installation, and armament or ammunition. With engines of 500 horse power, something like 360 pounds of fuel is used per hour to drive them at full speed. Thus for a journey of twenty hours the vessel would need at least 7200 pounds of fuel. The necessary crew would absorb 2000 pounds more, and probably another 1500 pounds would be taken up for ballast and stores. Allowing a weight of 250 pounds for the wireless equipment, there would remain about 4000 pounds for bombs, or something less than two tons of explosives, for use against a target 458 miles from the base. This amount of ammunition could be increased proportionately as the conditions were altered by using a nearer base, or by proceeding at a slower and therefore more economical speed, &c.

It is noteworthy that although the German airships were expected to act as scouts in the North Sea they do not appear to have accomplished anything in this direction. Possibly this has been due to the fear of attack by our men-of-war or aircraft if the movements were made in daytime, when alone they would be useful for this purpose. What happened during the Christmas Day affair, when, as the official report said, "a novel combat" ensued between the most modern cruisers on the one hand and the enemy's aircraft and submarines on the other, would not tend to lessen this apprehension. On the other hand, the greater stability of the atmosphere at night makes navigation after dark easier, and I believe that it has been usual in all countries for airships to make their trial trips at night.

Radius of Action of a Modern Zeppelin

The above outline map, which we reproduce from "The Naval Annual," shows in the dotted circle the comparative radius of action of a modern Zeppelin at half-power—about 36 knots speed—with other types of air machines, assuming her to be based on Cologne. It is estimated that aircraft of this type, with a displacement of about 22 tons, could run for 60 hours at half-speed, and cover a distance equivalent to about 2160 sea miles. This would represent the double voyage, out and home, from Cologne well to the north of the British Isles, to Petrograd, to Athens, or to Lisbon. The inner circle shows the radius of action of a Parseval airship at half-power—about 30 knots—based on Farnborough, and the small inner circle represents the radius of action of a hydro-aeroplane based on the Medway.]

It is customary also for the airships to carry, in addition to explosive and incendiary bombs, others which on being dropped throw out a light and thereby help to indicate to the vessel above the object which it is desired to aim at. Probably some of the bombs which were thrown in Norfolk were of this character. It is understood that all idea of carrying an armament on top of the Zeppelins has now been abandoned, and it is obvious that if searchlight equipment or guns of any sort were carried the useful weight for bombs would have to be reduced unless the range of action was diminished. It will have been noticed that the Zeppelins which came on Tuesday appear to have been anxious to get back before daylight, which looks as if they expected to be attacked if they were seen, as it is fairly certain they would have been.

Assuming the raid of Tuesday to have been in the nature of a trial trip, it is rather curious that it was not made before. Apparently the Zeppelins can only trust themselves to make a raid of this description in very favorable circumstances. Strong winds, heavy rain, or even a damp atmosphere are all hindrances to be considered. That there will be more raids is fairly certain, but there cannot be many nights when the Germans can hope to have a repetition of the conditions of weather and darkness which prevailed this week. It should be possible, more or less, to ascertain the nights in every month in which, given other suitable circumstances, raids are likely to be made. In view of the probability that the attacks made by British aviators on the Zeppelin bases at Düsseldorf and Friedrichshafen caused a delay in the German plans for making this week's attack, it would appear that the most effective antidote would be a repetition of such legitimate operations.

JULIUS CAESAR ON THE AISNE

[From The New Yorker Herold (Morgenblatt.)]

It has repeatedly been pointed out that 2000 years ago Julius Caesar fought on the battlegrounds of the Aisne, which are now the location of the fierce fighting between the Germans and the French. It is probably less known, however, that in this present war Caesar's "Commentarii de Bello Gallico" are used by French officers as a practical text book on strategy. The war correspondent of the Corriere della Serra reports this some what astonishing fact.

A few weeks ago he visited his friend, a commanding Colonel of a French regiment, in his trench, which was furnished with bare necessities only. In a corner on a small table lay the open volume of "Commentarii Caesaris," which the visitor took into his hand out of curiosity in order to see what passage the Colonel had just been reading. There he found the description of the fight against the Remer, who, at that time, lived in the neighborhood of the present city of Rheims. Principally with the aid of his Numidian troops, Caesar at that time had prevented the Remer from crossing the River Axona, today called the Aisne.

Caesar's camp was only a few kilometers from Berry-au-Bac, in the vicinity of Pontavert, the headquarters of the division to which the regiment of the Colonel belonged. This Colonel had received the order to cross the River Aisne with Moroccans and Spahis, and for this purpose he had studied the description of Caesar. To the astonished question of the reporter, what made him occupy his mind with the study of Caesar, the Frenchman replied:

"Caesar's battle descriptions form a book from which even in this present day war a great deal may be learned. Caesar is by no means as obsolete as you seem to think. I ask you to consider, for instance, that the trenches which have gained so much importance in this war date back to Julius Caesar."

H.M. CHRISTIAN X—King of Denmark—
(Photo from Paul Thompson)

PRESENT AND FUTURE QUEENS OF THE NETHERLANDS—
Queen Wilhelmina with Her Little Daughter Juliana, Princess of Orange

Sir John French's Own Story

Continuing the Famous Dispatches of the British Commander in Chief to Lord Kitchener

The following dispatch was received on Feb. 12, 1915, from the Field Marshal Commanding in Chief, the British Army in the Field.

To the Secretary of State for War, War Office, London, S.W.

General Headquarters,

Feb. 2, 1915.

My Lord: I have the honor to forward a further report on the operations of the army under my command.

1. In the period under review the salient feature was the presence of his Majesty the King in the field. His Majesty arrived at Headquarters on Nov. 30 and left on Dec. 5.

At a time when the strength and endurance of the troops had been tried to the utmost throughout the long and arduous battle of Ypres-Armentières the presence of his Majesty in their midst was of the greatest possible help and encouragement.

His Majesty visited all parts of the extensive area of operations and held numerous inspections of the troops behind the line of trenches.

On Nov. 16 Lieutenant his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, K.G., Grenadier Guards, joined my staff as aide de camp.

2. Since the date of my last report the operations of the army under my command have been subject almost entirely to the limitations of weather.

History teaches us that the course of campaigns in Europe, which have been actively prosecuted during the months of December and January, have been largely influenced by weather conditions. It should, however, be thoroughly understood throughout the country that the most recent development of armaments and the latest methods of conducting warfare have added greatly to the difficulties and drawbacks of a vigorous Winter campaign.

To cause anything more than a waste of ammunition long-range artillery fire requires constant and accurate observation; but this most necessary condition is rendered impossible of attainment in the midst of continual fog and mist.

Again, armies have now grown accustomed to rely largely on aircraft reconnoissance for accurate information of the enemy, but the effective performance of this service is materially influenced by wind and weather.

The deadly accuracy, range, and quick-firing capabilities of the modern rifle and machine gun require that a fire-swept zone be crossed in the shortest possible space of time by attacking troops. But if men are detained under the enemy's fire by the difficulty of emerging from a water-logged trench, and by the necessity of passing over ground knee-deep in holding mud and slush, such attacks become practically prohibitive owing to the losses they entail.

During the exigencies of the heavy fighting which ended in the last week of November the French and British forces had become somewhat mixed up, entailing a certain amount of difficulty in matters of supply and in securing unity of command.

By the end of November I was able to concentrate the army under my command in one area, and, by holding a shorter line, to establish effective reserves.

By the beginning of December there was a considerable falling off in the volume of artillery fire directed against our front by the enemy. Reconnoissance and reports showed that a certain amount of artillery had been withdrawn. We judged that the cavalry in our front, with the exception of one division of the Guard, had disappeared.

There did not, however, appear to have been any great diminution in the numbers of infantry holding the trenches.

3. Although both artillery and rifle fire were exchanged with the enemy every day, and sniping went on more or less continuously during the hours of daylight, the operations which call for special record or comment are comparatively few.

During the last week in November some successful minor night operations were carried out in the Fourth Corps.

On the night of Nov. 23-24 a small party of the Second Lincolnshire Regiment, under Lieut. E.H. Impey, cleared three of the enemy's advanced trenches opposite the Twenty-fifth Brigade, and withdrew without loss.

On the night of the 24th-25th Capt. J.R. Minshull Ford, Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and Lieut. E.L. Morris, Royal Engineers, with fifteen men of the Royal Engineers and Royal Welsh Fusiliers, successfully mined and blew up a group of farms immediately in front of the German trenches on the Touquet-Bridoux Road which had been used by German snipers.

On the night of Nov. 26-27 a small party of the Second Scots Guards, under Lieut. Sir E.H.W. Hulse, Bart., rushed the trenches opposite the Twentieth Brigade, and after pouring a heavy fire into them returned with useful information as to the strength of the Germans and the position of machine guns.

The trenches opposite the Twenty-fifth Brigade were rushed the same night by a patrol of the Second Rifle Brigade, under Lieut. E. Durham.

On Nov. 23 the One Hundred and Twelfth Regiment of the Fourteenth German Army Corps succeeded in capturing some 800 yards of the trenches held by the Indian Corps, but the general officer commanding the Meerut Division organized a powerful counter-attack, which lasted throughout the night. At daybreak on Nov. 24 the line was entirely re-established.

The operation was a costly one, involving many casualties, but the enemy suffered far more heavily.

We captured over 100 prisoners, including 3 officers, as well as 3 machine guns and two trench mortars.

On Dec. 7 the concentration of the Indian Corps was completed by the arrival of the Sirhind Brigade from Egypt.

On Dec. 9 the enemy attempted to commence a strong attack against the Third Corps, particularly in front of the trenches held by the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and the Middlesex Regiment.

They were driven back with heavy loss, and did not renew the attempt. Our casualties were very slight.

During the early days of December certain indications along the whole front of the allied line induced the French commanders and myself to believe that the enemy had withdrawn considerable forces from the western theatre.

Arrangements were made with the commander of the Eighth French Army for an attack to be commenced on the morning of Dec. 14.

Operations began at 7 A.M. by a combined heavy artillery bombardment by the two French and the Second British Corps.

The British objectives were the Petit Bois and the Maedelsteed Spur, lying respectively to the west and the southwest of the village of Wytschaete.

At 7:45 A.M. the Royal Scots, with great dash, rushed forward and attacked the former, while the Gordon Highlanders attacked the latter place.

The Royal Scots, commanded by Major F.J. Duncan, D.S.O., in face of a terrible machine gun and rifle fire, carried the German trench on the west edge of the Petit Bois, capturing two machine guns and fifty-three prisoners, including one officer.

The Gordon Highlanders, with great gallantry, advanced up the Maedelsteed Spur, forcing the enemy to evacuate their front trench. They were, however, losing heavily, and found themselves unable to get any further. At nightfall they were obliged to fall back to their original position.

Capt. C. Boddam-Whetham and Lieut. W.F.R. Dobie showed splendid dash, and with a few men entered the enemy's leading trenches; but they were all either killed or captured.

Lieut. G.R.V. Hume-Gare and Lieut. W.H. Paterson also distinguished themselves by their gallant leading.

Although not successful, the operation was most creditable to the fighting spirit of the Gordon Highlanders, most ably commanded by Major A.W.F. Baird, D.S.O.

As the Thirty-second French Division on the left had been unable to make any progress, the further advance of our infantry into the Wytschaete Wood was not practicable.

Possession of the western edge of the Petit Bois was, however, retained.

The ground was devoid of cover and so water-logged that a rapid advance was impossible, the men sinking deep in the mud at every step they took.

The artillery throughout the day was very skillfully handled by the C.A.R.A.'s of the Fourth and Fifth Divisions—Major Gen. F.D.V. Wing, C.B.; Brig. Gen. G.F. Milne, C.B., D.S.O., and Brig. Gen. J.E.W. Headlam, C.B., D.S.O.

The casualties during the day were about 17 officers and 407 other ranks. The losses of the enemy were very considerable, large numbers of dead being found in the Petit Bois and also in the communicating trenches in front of the Gordon Highlanders, in one of which a hundred were counted by a night patrol.

On this day the artillery of the Fourth Division, Third Corps, was used in support of the attack, under orders of the General Officer Commanding Second Corps.

The remainder of the Third Corps made demonstrations against the enemy with a view to preventing him from detaching troops to the area of operations of the Second Corps.

From Dec. 15 to 17 the offensive operations which were commenced on the 14th were continued, but were confined chiefly to artillery bombardment.

The infantry advance against Wytschaete Wood was not practicable until the French on our left could make some progress to afford protection to that flank.

On the 17th it was agreed that the plan of attack as arranged should be modified; but I was requested to continue demonstrations along my line in order to assist and support certain French operations which were being conducted elsewhere.

4. In his desire to act with energy up to his instructions to demonstrate and occupy the enemy, the General Officer Commanding the Indian Corps decided to take the advantage of what appeared to him a favorable opportunity to launch attacks against the advanced trenches in his front on Dec. 18 and 19.

The attack of the Meerut Division on the left was made on the morning of the 19th with energy and determination, and was at first attended with considerable success, the enemy's advanced trenches being captured. Later on, however, a counter-attack drove them back to their original position with considerable loss.

The attack of the Lahore Division commenced at 4:30 A.M. It was carried out by two companies each of the First Highland Light Infantry and the First Battalion, Fourth Gurkha Rifles of the Sirhind Brigade, under Lieut. Col. R.W.H. Ronaldson. This attack was completely successful, two lines of the enemy's trenches being captured with little loss.

Before daylight the captured trenches were filled with as many men as they could hold. The front was very restricted, communication to the rear impossible.

At daybreak it was found that the position was practically untenable. Both flanks were in the air, and a supporting attack, which was late in starting, and, therefore, conducted during daylight, failed, although attempted with the greatest gallantry and resolution.

Lieut. Col. Ronaldson held on till dusk, when the whole of the captured trenches had to be evacuated, and the detachment fell back to its original line.

By the night of Dec. 19 nearly all the ground gained during the day had been lost.

From daylight on Dec. 20 the enemy commenced a heavy fire from artillery and trench mortars on the whole front of the Indian Corps. This was followed by infantry attacks, which were in especial force against Givenchy, and between that place and La Quinque Rue.

At about 10 A.M. the enemy succeeded in driving back the Sirhind Brigade and capturing a considerable part of Givenchy, but the Fifty-seventh Rifles and Ninth Bhopals, north of the canal, and the Connaught Rangers, south of it, stood firm.

The Fifteenth Sikhs of the Divisional Reserve were already supporting the Sirhind Brigade. On the news of the retirement of the latter being received, the Forty-seventh Sikhs were also sent up to reinforce Gen. Brunker. The First Manchester Regiment, Fourth Suffolk Regiment, and two battalions of French territorials under Gen. Carnegy were ordered to launch a vigorous counter-attack to retake by a flank attack the trenches lost by the Sirhind Brigade.

Orders were sent to Gen. Carnegy to divert his attack on Givenchy village, and to re-establish the situation there.

A battalion of the Fifty-eighth French Division was sent to Annequin in support.

About 5 P.M. a gallant attack by the First Manchester Regiment and one company of the Fourth Suffolk Regiment had captured Givenchy, and had cleared the enemy out of the two lines of trenches to the northeast. To the east of the village the Ninth Bhopal Infantry and Fifty-seventh Rifles had maintained their positions, but the enemy were still in possession of our trenches to the north of the village.

Gen. Macbean, with the Secunderabad Cavalry Brigade, Second Battalion, Eighth Gurkha Rifles, and the Forty-seventh Sikhs, was sent up to support Gen. Brunker, who, at 2 P.M., directed Gen. Macbean to move to a position of readiness in the second line trenches from Maris northward, and to counter-attack vigorously if opportunity offered.

Some considerable delay appears to have occurred, and it was not until 1 A.M. on the 21st that the Forty-seventh Sikhs and the Seventh Dragoon Guards, under the command of Lieut. Col. H.A. Lempriere, D.S.O., of the latter regiment, were launched in counter-attack.

They reached the enemy's trenches, but were driven out by enfilade fire, their gallant commander being killed.

The main attack by the remainder of Gen. Macbean's force, with the remnants of Lieut. Col. Lempriere's detachment, (which had again been rallied,) was finally rushed in at about 4:30 A.M., and also failed.

In the northern section of the defensive line the retirement of the Second Battalion, Second Gurkha Rifles, at about 10 A.M. on the 20th, had left the flank of the First Seaforth Highlanders, on the extreme right of the Meerut Division line, much exposed. This battalion was left shortly afterward completely in the air by the retirement of the Sirhind Brigade.

The Fifty-eighth Rifles, therefore, were ordered to support the left of the Seaforth Highlanders, to fill the gap created by the retirement of the Gurkhas.

During the whole of the afternoon strenuous efforts were made by the Seaforth Highlanders to clear the trenches to their right and left. The First Battalion, Ninth Gurkha Rifles, reinforced the Second Gurkhas near the orchard where the Germans were in occupation of the trenches abandoned by the latter regiment. The Garhwal Brigade was being very heavily attacked, and their trenches and loopholes were much damaged; but the brigade continued to hold its front and attack, connecting with the Sixth Jats on the left of the Dehra Dun Brigade.

No advance in force was made by the enemy, but the troops were pinned to their ground by heavy artillery fire, the Seaforth Highlanders especially suffering heavily.

Shortly before nightfall the Second Royal Highlanders, on the right of the Seaforth Highlanders, had succeeded in establishing touch with the Sirhind Brigade; and the continuous line (though dented near the orchard) existed throughout the Meerut Division.

Early in the afternoon of Dec. 20 orders were sent to the First Corps, which was then in general army reserve, to send an infantry brigade to support the Indian Corps.

The First Brigade was ordered to Bethune, and reached that place at midnight on Dec. 20-21. Later in the day Sir Douglas Haig was ordered to move the whole of the First Division in support of the Indian Corps.

The Third Brigade reached Bethune between 8 A.M. and 9 A.M. on the 21st, and on the same date the Second Brigade arrived at Lacon at 1 P.M.

The First Brigade was directed on Givenchy, via Pont Fixe, and the Third Brigade, through Gorre, on the trenches evacuated by the Sirhind Brigade. The Second Brigade was directed to support, the Dehra Dun Brigade being placed at the disposal of the General Officer Commanding Meerut Division.

At 1 P.M. the General Officer Commanding First Division directed the First Brigade in attack from the west of Givenchy in a northeasterly direction, and the Third Brigade from Festubert in an east-northeasterly direction, the object being to pass the position originally held by us and to capture the German trenches 400 yards to the east of it.

By 5 P.M. the First Brigade had obtained a hold in Givenchy, and the ground south as far as the canal; and the Third Brigade had progressed to a point half a mile west of Festubert.

By nightfall the First South Wales Borderers and the Second Welsh Regiment of the Third Brigade had made a lodgment in the original trenches to the northeast of Festubert, the First Gloucestershire Regiment continuing the line southward along the track east of Festubert.

The First Brigade had established itself on the east side of Givenchy.

By 3 P.M. the Third Brigade was concentrated at Le Touret, and was ordered to retake the trenches which had been lost by the Dehr Dun Brigade.

By 10 P.M. the support trenches west of the orchard had been carried, but the original fire trenches had been so completely destroyed that they could not be occupied.

This operation was performed by the First Loyal North Lancashire Regiment and the First Northamptonshire Regiment, supported by the Second King's Royal Rifle Corps, in reserve.

Throughout this day the units of the Indian Corps rendered all the assistance and support they could in view of their exhausted condition.

At 1 P.M. on the 22d Sir Douglas Haig took over command from Sir James Willcocks. The situation in the front line was then approximately as follows:

South of the La Bassée Canal the Connaught Rangers of the Ferozepore Brigade had not been attacked. North of the canal a short length of our original line was still held by the Ninth Bhopals and the Fifty-seventh Rifles of the same brigade. Connecting with the latter was the First Brigade, holding the village of Givenchy and its eastern and northern approaches. On the left of the First Brigade was the Third Brigade. Tenth had been lost between the left of the former and the right of the latter. The Third Brigade held a line along, and in places advanced to, the east of the Festubert Road. Its left was in communication with the right of the Meerut Division line, where troops of the Second Brigade had just relieved the First Seaforth Highlanders. To the north, units of the Second Brigade held an indented line west of the orchard, connecting with half of the Second Royal Highlanders, half of the Forty-first Dogras, and the First Battalion Ninth Gurkha Rifles. From this point to the north the Ninth Jats and the whole of the Garhwal Brigade occupied the original line which they had held from the commencement of the operations.

The relief of most units of the southern sector was effected on the night of Dec. 22. The Meerut Division remained under the orders of the First Corps, and was not completely withdrawn until Dec. 27.

In the evening the position at Givenchy was practically re-established, and the Third Brigade had reoccupied the old line of trenches.

During the 23d the enemy's activities ceased, and the whole position was restored to very much its original condition.

In my last dispatch I had occasion to mention the prompt and ready help I received from the Lahore Division, under the command of Major Gen. H.B.B. Watkis, C.B., which was thrown into action immediately on arrival, when the British forces were very hard pressed during the battle of Ypres-Armentières.

The Indian troops have fought with the utmost steadfastness and gallantry whenever they have been called upon.

Weather conditions were abnormally bad, the snow and floods precluding any active operations during the first three weeks of January.

5. At 7:30 A.M. on Jan. 25 the enemy began to shell Bethune, and at 8 A.M. a strong hostile infantry attack developed south of the canal, preceded by a heavy bombardment of artillery, minenwerfers, and, possibly, the explosion of mines, though the latter is doubtful.

The British line south of the canal formed a pronounced salient from the canal on the left, thence running forward toward the railway triangle and back to the main La Bassée-Bethune Road, where it joined the French. This line was occupied by half a battalion of the Scots Guards, and half a battalion of the Coldstream Guards, of the First Infantry Brigade. The trenches in the salient were blown in almost at once, and the enemy's attack penetrated this line. Our troops retired to a partially prepared second line, running approximately due north and south from the canal to the road, some 500 yards west of the railway triangle. This second line had been strengthened by the construction of a keep half way between the canal and the road. Here the other two half battalions of the above-mentioned regiments were in support.

These supports held up the enemy, who, however, managed to establish himself in the brick stacks and some communication trenches between the keep, the road, and the canal—and even beyond the west of the keep on either side of it.

The London Scottish had in the meantime been sent up in support, and a counter-attack was organized with the First Royal Highlanders, part of the First Cameron Highlanders, and the Second King's Royal Rifle Corps, the latter regiment having been sent forward from the Divisional Reserve.

The counter-attack was delayed in order to synchronize with a counter-attack north of the canal which was arranged for 1 P.M.

At 1 P.M. these troops moved forward, their flanks making good progress near the road and the canal, but their centre being held up. The Second Royal Sussex Regiment was then sent forward, late in the afternoon, to reinforce. The result was that the Germans were driven back far enough to enable a somewhat broken line to be taken up, running from the culvert on the railway, almost due south to the keep, and thence southeast to the main road.

The French left near the road had also been attacked and driven back a little, but not to so great an extent as the British right. Consequently the French left was in advance of the British right, and exposed to a possible flank attack from the north.

The Germans did not, however, persevere further in their attack.

The above-mentioned line was strengthened during the night, and the First Guards Brigade, which had suffered severely, was withdrawn into reserve and replaced by the Second Infantry Brigade.

While this was taking place another and equally severe attack was delivered north of the canal against the village of Givenchy.

At 8:15 A.M., after a heavy artillery bombardment with high explosive shells, the enemy's infantry advanced under the effective fire of our artillery, which, however, was hampered by the constant interruption of telephonic communication between the observers and batteries. Nevertheless, our artillery fire, combined with that of the infantry in the fire trenches, had the effect of driving the enemy from its original direction of advance, with the result that his troops crowded together on the northeast corner of the village and broke through into the centre of the village as far as the keep, which had been previously put in a state of defense.

The places underlined in the above map indicate the points around La Bassée and southward to Arras, where part of the British Expeditionary Force was heavily engaged.

The Germans had lost heavily, and a well-timed local counter-attack, delivered by the reserves of the Second Welsh Regiment and First South Wales Borderers, and by a company of the First Royal Highlanders, (lent by the First Brigade as a working party—this company was at work on the keep at the time,) was completely successful, with the result that after about an hour's street fighting all who had broken into the village were either captured or killed, and the original line around the village was re-established by noon.

South of the village, however, and close to the canal, the right of the Second Royal Munster Fusiliers fell back in conformity with the troops south of the canal, but after dark that regiment moved forward and occupied the old line.

During the course of the attack on Givenchy the enemy made five assaults on the salient at the northeast of the village about French Farm, but was repulsed every time with heavy loss.

6. On the morning of Jan. 29 attacks were made on the right of the First Corps, south of the canal in the neighborhood of La Bassée.

The enemy, (part of the Fourteenth German Corps,) after a severe shelling, made a violent attack with scaling ladders on the keep, also to the north and south of it. In the keep and on the north side the Sussex Regiment held the enemy off, inflicting on him serious losses. On the south side the hostile infantry succeeded in reaching the Northamptonshire Regiment's trenches, but were immediately counter-attacked and all killed. Our artillery co-operated well with the infantry in repelling the attack.

In this action our casualties were inconsiderable, but the enemy lost severely, more than 200 of his killed alone being left in front of our position.

7. On Feb. 1 a fine piece of work was carried out by the Fourth Brigade in the neighborhood of Cuinchy.

Some of the Second Coldstream Guards were driven from their trenches at 2:30 A.M., but made a stand some twenty yards east of them in a position which they held till morning.

A counter-attack, launched at 3:15 A.M., by one company of the Irish Guards and half a company of the Second Coldstream Guards, proved unsuccessful, owing to heavy rifle fire from the east and south.

At 10:05 A.M., acting under orders of the First Division, a heavy bombardment was opened on the lost ground for ten minutes; and this was followed immediately by an assault by about fifty men of the Second Coldstream Guards with bayonets, led by Capt. A. Leigh Bennett, followed by thirty men of the Irish Guards, led by Second Lieut. F.F. Graham, also with bayonets. These were followed by a party of Royal Engineers with sand bags and wire.

All the ground which had been lost was brilliantly retaken, the Second Coldstream Guards also taking another German trench and capturing two machine guns.

Thirty-two prisoners fell into our hands.

The General Officer Commanding First Division describes the preparation by the artillery as "splendid, the high explosive shells dropping in the exact spot with absolute precision."

In forwarding his report on this engagement, the General Officer Commanding First Army writes as follows:

8. During the period under report the Royal Flying Corps has again performed splendid service.

Although the weather was almost uniformly bad and the machines suffered from constant exposure, there have been only thirteen days on which no actual reconnoissance has been effected. Approximately, 100,000 miles have been flown.

In addition to the daily and constant work of reconnoissance and co-operation with the artillery, a number of aerial combats have been fought, raids carried out, detrainments harassed, parks and petrol depots bombed, &c.

Various successful bomb-dropping raids have been carried out, usually against the enemy's aircraft material. The principle of attacking hostile aircraft whenever and wherever seen (unless highly important information is being delivered) has been adhered to, and has resulted in the moral fact that enemy machines invariably beat immediate retreat when chased.

Five German aeroplanes are known to have been brought to the ground, and it would appear probable that others, though they have managed to reach their own lines, have done so in a considerably damaged condition.

9. In my dispatch of Nov. 20, 1914, I referred to the reinforcements of territorial troops which I had received, and I mentioned several units which had already been employed in the fighting line.

In the positions which I held for some years before the outbreak of this war I was brought into close contact with the territorial force, and I found every reason to hope and believe that, when the hour of trial arrived, they would justify every hope and trust which was placed in them.

The Lords Lieutenant of Counties and the associations which worked under them bestowed a vast amount of labor and energy on the organization of the territorial force; and I trust it may be some recompense to them to know that I, and the principal commanders serving under me, consider that the territorial force has far more than justified the most sanguine hopes that any of us ventured to entertain of their value and use in the field. Commanders of cavalry divisions are unstinted in their praise of the manner in which the yeomanry regiments attached to their brigades have done their duty, both in and out of action. The service of divisional cavalry is now almost entirely performed by yeomanry, and divisional commanders report that they are very efficient.

Army corps commanders are loud in their praise of the territorial battalions, which form part of nearly all the brigades at the front in the first line, and more than one of them have told me that these battalions are fast approaching—if they have not already reached—the standard of efficiency of regular infantry.

I wish to add a word about the Officers' Training Corps. The presence of the Artists' Rifles (Twenty-eighth Battalion, the London regiment) with the army in France enabled me also to test the value of this organization.

Having had some experience in peace of the working of the Officers' Training Corps, I determined to turn the Artists' Rifles (which formed part of the Officers' Training Corps in peace time) to its legitimate use. I therefore established the battalion as a training corps for officers in the field.

The cadets passed through a course, which includes some thoroughly practical training, as all cadets do a tour of forty-eight hours in the trenches, and afterward write a report on what they see and notice. They also visit an observation post of a battery or group of batteries, and spend some hours there.

A commandant has been appointed, and he arranges and supervises the work, sets schemes for practice, administers the school, delivers lectures, and reports on the candidates.

The cadets are instructed in all branches of military training suitable for platoon commanders.

Machine-gun tactics, a knowledge of which is so necessary for all junior officers, is a special feature of the course of instruction.

When first started, the school was able to turn out officers at the rate of seventy-five a month. This has since been increased to 100.

Reports received from divisional and army corps commanders on officers who have been trained at the school are most satisfactory.

10. Since the date of my last report I have been able to make a close personal inspection of all the units in the command. I was most favorably impressed by all I saw.

The troops composing the army in France have been subjected to as severe a trial as it is possible to impose upon any body of men. The desperate fighting described in my last dispatch had hardly been brought to a conclusion when they were called upon to face the rigors and hardships of a Winter campaign. Frost and snow have alternated with periods of continuous rain.

The men have been called upon to stand for many hours together almost up to their waists in bitterly cold water, only separated by one or two hundred yards from a most vigilant enemy.

Although every measure which science and medical knowledge could suggest to mitigate these hardships was employed, the sufferings of the men have been very great.

In spite of all this they presented, at the inspections to which I have referred, a most soldierlike, splendid, though somewhat war-worn, appearance. Their spirit remains high and confident; their general health is excellent, and their condition most satisfactory.

I regard it as most unfortunate that circumstances have prevented any account of many splendid instances of courage and endurance, in the face of almost unparalleled hardship and fatigue in war, coming regularly to the knowledge of the public.

Reinforcements have arrived from England with remarkable promptitude and rapidity. They have been speedily drafted into the ranks, and most of the units I inspected were nearly complete when I saw them. In appearance and quality the drafts sent out have exceeded my most sanguine expectations, and I consider the army in France is much indebted to the Adjutant General's Department at the War Office for the efficient manner in which its requirements have been met in this most essential respect.

With regard to these inspections I may mention in particular the fine appearance presented by the Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth Divisions, composed principally of battalions which had come from India. Included in the former division was the Princess Patricia's Royal Canadian Regiment. They are a magnificent set of men, and have since done excellent work in the trenches.

It was some three weeks after the events recorded in Paragraph 4 that I made my inspection of the Indian Corps, under Sir James Willcocks. The appearance they presented was most satisfactory and fully confirmed my opinion that the Indian troops only required rest and a little acclimatizing to bring out all their fine inherent fighting qualities.

I saw the whole of the Indian Cavalry Corps, under Lieut. Gen. Rimington, on a mounted parade soon after their arrival. They are a magnificent body of cavalry and will, I feel sure, give the best possible account of themselves when called upon.

In the meantime, at their own particular request, they have taken their turn in the trenches and performed most useful and valuable service.

11. The Right Rev. Bishop Taylor Smith, C.V.O., D.D., Chaplain General to the Forces, arrived at my headquarters on Jan. 6, on a tour of inspection throughout the command.

The Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster has also visited most of the Irish regiments at the front and the principal centres on the line of communications.

In a quiet and unostentatious manner the Chaplains of all denominations have worked with devotion and energy in their respective spheres.

The number with the forces in the field at the commencement of the war was comparatively small, but toward the end of last year the Rev. J.M. Simms, D.D., K.H.C., principal Chaplain, assisted by his secretary, the Rev. W. Drury, reorganized the branch and placed the spiritual welfare of the soldier on a more satisfactory footing. It is hoped that the further increase of personnel may be found possible.

I cannot speak too highly of the devoted manner in which all the Chaplains, whether with the troops in the trenches or in attendance on the sick and wounded in casualty clearing stations and hospitals on the line of communications, have worked throughout the campaign.

Since the commencement of hostilities the work of the Royal Army Medical Corps has been carried out with untiring zeal, skill, and devotion. Whether at the front under conditions such as obtained during the fighting on the Aisne, when casualties were heavy and accommodation for their reception had to be improvised, or on the line of communications, where an average of some 11,000 patients have been daily under treatment, the organization of the medical service has always been equal to the demands made upon it.

The careful system of sanitation introduced into the army has, with the assistance of other measures, kept the troops free from any epidemic, in support of which it is to be noticed that since the commencement of the war some 500 cases only of enteric have occurred.

The organization for the first time in war of motor ambulance convoys is due to the initiative and organizing powers of Surgeon General T.J. O'Donnell, D.S.O., ably assisted by Major P. Evans, Royal Army Medical Corps.

Two of these convoys, composed entirely of Red Cross Society personnel, have done excellent work under the superintendence of regular medical officers.

Twelve hospital trains ply between the front and the various bases. I have visited several of the trains when halted in stations, and have found them conducted with great comfort and efficiency.

During the more recent phase of the campaign the creation of rest depots at the front has materially reduced the wastage of men to the line of communications.

Since the latter part of October, 1914, the whole of the medical arrangements have been in the hands of Surgeon General Sir A.T. Sloggett, C.M.G., K.H.S., under whom Surgeon General T.P. Woodhouse and Surgeon General T.J. O'Donnell have been responsible for the organization on the line of communications and at the front respectively.

12. The exceptional and peculiar conditions brought about by the weather have caused large demands to be made upon the resources and skill of the Royal Engineers.

Every kind of expedient has had to be thought out and adopted to keep the lines of trenches and defense work effective.

The Royal Engineers have shown themselves as capable of overcoming the ravages caused by violent rain and floods as they have been throughout in neutralizing the effect of the enemy's artillery.

In this connection I wish particularly to mention the excellent services performed by my Chief Engineer, Brig. Gen. G.H. Fowke, who has been indefatigable in supervising all such work. His ingenuity and skill have been most valuable in the local construction of the various expedients which experience has shown to be necessary in prolonged trench warfare.

13. I have no reason to modify in any material degree my views of the general military situation, as expressed in my dispatch of Nov. 20, 1914.

14. I have once more gratefully to acknowledge the valuable help and support I have received throughout this period from Gen. Foch, Gen. D'Urbal, and Gen. Maud'huy of the French Army. I have the honor to be, your Lordship's most obedient servant,

J.D.P. FRENCH, Field Marshal, Commanding in Chief, the British Army in the Field.

The Cathedral of Rheims

BY EMILE VERHAEREN

(From Les Blés Mouvants)

Done into English verse by Joyce Kilmer.

Music of War

By Rudyard Kipling

The most useful thing that a civilian can do in these busy days is to speak as little as possible, and if he feels moved to write, to confine his efforts to his check book. [Laughter.] But this is an exception to that very sound rule. We do not know the present strength of the new armies. Even if we did it would not be necessary to make it public. But we may assume that there are several battalions in Great Britain which were not in existence at the end of last July, and some of them are in London. Nor is it any part of our national policy to explain how far these battalions are prepared for the work which is ahead of them. They were born quite rightly in silence. But that is no reason why they should continue to walk in silence for the rest of their lives. [Cheers.] Unfortunately up to the present most of them have been obliged to walk in silence or to no better accompaniment than whistles and concertinas and other meritorious but inadequate instruments of music with which they have provided themselves. In the beginning this did not matter so much. More urgent needs had to be met; but now that the new armies are what they are, we who cannot assist them by joining their ranks owe it to them to provide them with more worthy music for their help, their gratification, and their honor. [Cheers.]

I am not a musician, so if I speak as a barbarian I must ask you and several gentlemen on the platform here to forgive me. From the lowest point of view a few drums and fifes in the battalion mean at least five extra miles in a route march, quite apart from the fact that they can swing a battalion back to quarters happy and composed in its mind, no matter how wet or tired its body may be. Even when there is no route marching, the mere come and go, the roll and flourishing of drums and fifes around the barracks is as warming and cheering as the sight of a fire in a room. A band, not necessarily a full band, but a band of a dozen brasses and wood-winds, is immensely valuable in the district where men are billeted. It revives memories, it quickens association, it opens and unites the hearts of men more surely than any other appeal can, and in this respect it aids recruiting perhaps more than any other agency. I wonder whether I should say this—the tune that it employs and the words that go with that tune are sometimes very remote from heroism or devotion, but the magic and the compelling power is in them, and it makes men's souls realize certain truths that their minds might doubt.

Further, no one, not even the Adjutant, can say for certain where the soul of the battalion lives, but the expression of that soul is most often found in the band. [Cheers.] It stands to reason that 1,200 men whose lives are pledged to each other must have some common means of expression, some common means of conveying their moods and their thoughts to themselves and their world. The band feels the moods and interprets the thoughts. A wise and sympathetic bandmaster—and the masters that I have met have been that—can lift a battalion out of depression, cheer it in sickness, and steady and recall it to itself in times of almost unendurable stress. [Cheers.] You may remember a beautiful poem by Sir Henry Newbolt, in which he describes how a squadron of weary big dragoons were led to renewed effort by the strains of a penny whistle and a child's drum taken from a toyshop in a wrecked French town. I remember in India, in a cholera camp, where the men were suffering very badly, the band of the Tenth Lincolns started a regimental sing-song and went on with that queer, defiant tune, "The Lincolnshire Poacher." It was their regimental march that the men had heard a thousand times. There was nothing in it—nothing except all England, all the East Coast, all the fun and daring and horse play of young men bucketing about big pastures in the moonlight. But as it was given, very softly at that bad time in that terrible camp of death, it was the one thing in the world that could have restored, as it did restore, shaken men back to their pride, humor, and self-control. [Cheers.] This may be an extreme instance, but it is not an exceptional one. Any man who has had anything to do with the service will tell you that the battalion is better for music at every turn, happier, more easily handled, with greater zest in its daily routine, if that routine is sweetened with melody and rhythm—melody for the mind and rhythm for the body.

Our new armies have been badly served in this essential. Of all the admirable qualities which they have shown none is more wonderful than the spirit which has carried them through the laborious and distasteful groundwork of their calling without one note of music, except that which the same indomitable spirit provided out of their own heads. We have all seen them marching through the country, through the streets of London, in absolute silence and the crowds through which they passed as silent as themselves for the lack of the one medium that could convey and glorify the thoughts that are in us all today.

We are a tongue-tied brood at the best. The bands can declare on our behalf without shame and without shyness something of what we all feel and help us to reach a hand toward the men who have risen up to save us. In the beginning the more urgent requirements of the new armies overrode all other considerations. Now we can get to work on some other essentials. The War Office has authorized the formation of bands for some of the London battalions, and we may hope presently to see the permission extended throughout Great Britain. We must not, however, cherish unbridled musical ambitions, because a full band means more than forty pieces, and on that establishment we should even now require a rather large number of men; but I think it might be possible to provide drums and fifes for every battalion, full bands at the depots, and a proportion of battalion bands on half, or even one-third, establishments.

But this is not a matter to be settled by laymen; it must be discussed seriously between bandmasters and musicians—present, past, and dug up. [Laughter.] They may be trusted to give their services with enthusiasm. We have had many proofs in the last six months that people only want to know what the new army needs, and it will be gladly and cheerfully given. The army needs music, its own music, for, more than in any other calling, soldiers do not live by bread alone. From time immemorial the man who offers his life for his land has been compassed at every turn of his service with elaborate ceremonial and observance, of which music is no small part, all carefully designed to support and uphold him. It is not seemly and it is not expedient that any portion of that ritual should be slurred or omitted now. [Cheers.]

America and a New World State

How the United States May Take the Lead in the Formation of a World Confederation for the Prevention of Future Wars

By Norman Angell

Sir Christopher Cradock.

By JOHN E. DOLSON.

Battle of the Suez Canal

A First-Hand Account of the Unsuccessful Turkish Invasion

[From The London Times, Feb. 19, 1915.]

ISMAILIA, Feb. 10.

Though skirmishing had taken place between the enemy's reconnoitring parties and our outposts during the latter part of January, the main attack was not developed until Feb. 2, when the enemy began to move toward the Ismailia Ferry. They met a reconnoitring party of Indian troops of all arms, and a desultory engagement ensued, to which a violent sand storm put a sudden end about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. The main attacking force pushed forward toward its destination after nightfall. From twenty-five to thirty galvanized iron pontoon boats, seven and a half meters in length, which had been dragged in carts across the desert, were hauled by hand toward the water, with one or two rafts made of kerosene tins in a wooden frame. All was ready for the attack.

The first warning of the enemy's approach was given by a sentry of a mountain battery, who heard, to him, an unknown tongue across the water. The noise soon increased. It would seem that Mudjah Ideen ("Holy Warriors")—said to be mostly old Tripoli fighters—accompanied the pontoon section and regulars of the Seventy-fifth Regiment, for loud exhortations often in Arabic of "Brothers die for the faith; we can die but once," betrayed the enthusiastic irregular.

The Egyptians waited till the Turks were pushing their boats into the water; then the Maxims attached to the battery suddenly spoke and the guns opened with case at point-blank range at the men and boats crowded under the steep bank opposite them.

Immediately, a violent fire broke out on both sides of the canal, the enemy replying to the rifles and machine gun fire and the battery on our bank. Around the guns it was impossible to stand up, but the gunners stuck to the work, inflicting terrible punishment.

A little torpedo boat with a crew of thirteen patrolling the canal dashed up and landed a party of four officers and men to the south of Tussum, who climbed up the eastern bank and found themselves in a Turkish trench, and escaped by a miracle with the news. Promptly the midget dashed in between the fires and enfiladed the eastern bank amid a hail of bullets, and destroyed several pontoon boats lying unlaunched on the bank. It continued to harass the enemy, though two officers and two men were wounded.

As the dark, cloudy night lightened toward dawn fresh forces came into action. The Turks, who occupied the outer, or day, line of the Tussum post, advanced, covered by artillery, against the Indian troops holding the inner, or night, position, while an Arab regiment advanced against the Indian troops at the Serapeum post.

The warships on the canal and lake joined in the fray. The enemy brought some six batteries of field guns into action from the slopes west of Kataib-el-Kheil. Shells admirably fused made fine practice at all the visible targets, but failed to find the battery above mentioned, which, with some help from a detachment of infantry, beat down the fire of the riflemen on the opposite bank and inflicted heavy losses on the hostile supports advancing toward the canal. A chance salvo wounded four men of the battery, but it ran more risk from a party of about twenty of the enemy who had crossed the canal in the dark and sniped the gunners from the rear till they were finally rounded up by the Indian cavalry and compelled to surrender.

Supported by land naval artillery the Indian troops took the offensive. The Serapeum garrison, which had stopped the enemy three-quarters of a mile from the position, cleared its front, and the Tussum garrison by a brilliant counter-attack drove the enemy back. Two battalions of Anatolians of the Twenty-eighth Regiment were thrown vainly into the fight. Our artillery gave them no chance, and by 3:30 in the afternoon a third of the enemy, with the exception of a force that lay hid in bushy hollows on the east bank between the two posts, were in full retreat, leaving many dead, a large proportion of whom had been killed by shrapnel.

Meanwhile the warships on the lake had been in action. A salvo from a battleship woke up Ismailia early, and crowds of soldiers and some civilians climbed every available sandhill to see what was doing till the Turkish guns sent shells sufficiently near to convince them that it was safer to watch from cover. A husband and wife took a carriage and drove along the lake front, much peppered by shells, till near the old French hospital, when they realized the danger and suddenly whisked around and drove back full gallop to Ismailia.

But the enemy's fire did more than startle. At about 11 in the morning two six-inch shells hit the Hardinge near the southern entrance of the lake. The first damaged the funnel and the second burst inboard. Pilot Carew, a gallant old merchant seaman, refused to go below when the firing opened and lost a leg. Nine others were wounded. One or two merchantmen were hit, but no lives were lost. A British gunboat was struck.

Then came a dramatic duel between the Turkish big gun or guns and a warship. The Turks fired just over and then just short of 9,000 yards. The warship sent in a salvo of more six-inch shells than had been fired that day.

During the morning the enemy moved toward Ismailia Ferry. The infantry used the ground well, digging shelter pits as they advanced, and were covered by a well-served battery. An officer, apparently a German, exposed himself with the greatest daring, and watchers were interested to see a yellow "pie dog," which also escaped, running about the advancing line. Our artillery shot admirably and kept the enemy from coming within 1,000 yards of the Indian outposts. In the afternoon the demonstration—for it was no more—ceased but for a few shells fired as "a nightcap." During the dark night that followed some of the enemy approached the outpost line of the ferry position with a dog, but nothing happened, and day found them gone.

At the same time as the fighting ceased at the ferry it died down at El Kantara. There the Turks, after a plucky night attack, came to grief on our wire entanglements. Another attempt to advance from the southeast was forced back by an advance of the Indian troops. The attack, during which it was necessary to advance on a narrow front over ground often marshy with recent inundations against our strong position, never had a chance. Indeed, the enemy was only engaged with our outpost line.

Late in the afternoon of the 3d there was sniping from the east bank between Tussum and Serapeum and a man was killed in the tops of a British battleship. Next morning the sniping was renewed, and the Indian troops, moving out to search the ground, found several hundred of the enemy in the hollow previously mentioned. During the fighting some of the enemy, either by accident or design, held up their hands, while others fired on the Punjabis, who were advancing to take the surrender, and killed a British officer. A sharp fight with the cold steel followed, and a British officer killed a Turkish officer with a sword thrust in single combat. The body of a German officer with a white flag was afterward found here, but there is no proof that the white flag was used. Finally all the enemy were killed, captured, or put to flight.

With this the fighting ended, and the subsequent operations were confined to "rounding up" prisoners and to the capture of a considerable amount of military material left behind. The Turks who departed with their guns and baggage during the night of the 3d still seemed to be moving eastward.

So ended the battle of the Suez Canal. Our losses have been amazingly small, totaling about 111 killed and wounded.

Showing the Turkish points of concentration in Palestine and the principal routes leading thence to the Suez Canal. The intervening desert Peninsula of Sinai constitutes a formidable obstacle to an invading force. Inset is a map of the Ottoman Empire showing in the northeast the Caucasus, where the Turks were routed by the Russians, who later advanced on Erzerum and Tabriz. The British expedition in the Persian Gulf region occupied Basra and was on Feb. 1, 1915, at Kurna, the point of confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates.

Our opponents have probably lost nearly 3,000 men. The Indian troops bore the brunt of the fighting and were well supported by the British and French warships and by the Egyptian troops. The Turks fought bravely and their artillery shot well if unluckily, but the intentions of the higher command are still a puzzle to British officers.

Did Djemal Pasha intend to try to break through our position under cover of demonstrations along a front over ninety miles in length with a total force, perhaps, of 25,000 men, or was he attempting a reconnoissance in force? If the former is the case, he must have had a low idea of British leadership or an amazing belief in the readiness and ability of sympathizers in Egypt to support the Turk. Certainly he was misinformed as to our positions, and on the 4th we buried on the eastern bank the bodies of two men, apparently Syrians or Egyptians, who were found with their hands tied and their eyes bandaged. Probably they were guides who had been summarily killed, having unwittingly led the enemy astray. If, on the other hand, Djemal Pasha was attempting a reconnoissance, it was a costly business and gave General Wilson a very handsome victory.

Till the last week of January there had been some doubt as to the road by which the Ottoman Commander in Chief in Syria intended to advance on the canal. Before the end of the month it was quite clear that what was then believed to be the Turkish advanced guard, having marched with admirable rapidity from Beersheba via El Auja, Djebel Libni, and Djifjaffa, was concentrating in the valleys just east of Kataib-el-Kheil, a group of hills lying about ten miles east of the canal, where it enters Lake Timsah. A smaller column detached from this force was sighted in the hills east of Ismailia Ferry. Smaller bodies had appeared in the neighborhood of El Kantara and between Suez and the Bitter Lakes.

The attacks on our advanced posts at El Kantara on the night of Jan. 26 and 27, and at Kubri, near Suez, on the following night, were beaten off. Hostile guns fired occasional shells, while our warships returned the compliment at any hostile column that seemed to offer a good target, and our aeroplanes dropped bombs when they had the chance; but in general the enemy kept a long distance off and was tantalizing. Our launches and boats, which were constantly patrolling the canal, could see him methodically intrenching just out of range of the naval guns.

By the night of Feb. 1 the enemy had prepared his plan of attack. To judge both from his movements during the next two days and the documents found on prisoners and slain, it was proposed to attack El Kantara while making a demonstration at El Ferdan, further south, and prevent reinforcements at the first-named post. The demonstration at Ismailia Ferry by the right wing of the Kataib-el-Kheil force which had been partly refused till then in order to prevent a counter-attack from the ferry, was designed to occupy the attention of the Ismailia garrison, while the main attack was delivered between the Tussum post, eight miles south of Ismailia, and the Serapeum post, some three miles further south. Eshref Bey's highly irregular force in the meantime was to demonstrate near Suez.

The selection of the Tussum and Serapeum section as the principal objective was dictated both by the consideration that success here would bring the Turks a few miles from Ismailia, and by the information received from patrols that the west bank of the canal between the posts, both of which may be described as bridgeheads, were unoccupied by our troops. The west bank between the posts is steep and marked by a long, narrow belt of trees. The east bank also falls steeply to the canal, but behind it are numerous hollows, full of brushwood, which give good cover. Here the enemy's advanced parties established themselves and intrenched before the main attack was delivered.

A Full-Fledged Socialist State

While Germany's Trade and Credit Are Holding Their Breath

By J. Laurence Laughlin

[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, March 9, 1915.]

In a great financial emergency conditions are immediately registered in the monetary and credit mechanism. Although the German Government and the Reichsbank had obviously been preparing for war long before, as soon as mobilization was ordered there was a currency panic. The private banks stopped payment in gold. Crowds then besieged the Reichsbank in order to get its notes converted into gold. Then the Banking act was suspended, so that the Reichsbank and private banks were freed from the obligation to give out gold for notes. At once all notes went to a discount in the shops as compared with gold. Thereupon, in summary fashion, the Military Governor of Berlin declared the notes to be a full legal tender and announced that any shop refusing to take them at par would be punished by confiscation of goods.

In Germany, as is well known, the main currency is supplied by the Reichsbank, covered by at least 33-1/3 per cent. in gold or silver, and the remaining two-thirds by commercial paper. Immediately after the outbreak of war there was a prodigious increase of loans at the Reichsbank, in consequence of which borrowers received notes or deposit accounts. Usually transactions are carried through by use of notes, and not by checks, as with us. On July 23, 1914, the notes stood at $472,500,000; deposits at $236,000,000; discounted bills and advances at $200,000,000. On Aug. 31 notes had increased to $1,058,500,000; deposits to $610,000,000; discounts and advances to $1,113,500,000, (by October this amount was lowered to about $750,000,000.) On the latter date the specie reserve stood at $409,500,000, or more than the legal one-third. Loans had been increased 556 per cent.; notes 223 per cent., and deposits 258 per cent. In short, $586,000,000 of notes had been issued beyond the amount required in normal times, (July 23.) Clearly this additional amount was not required by an increased exchange of goods, but by those persons whose resources were tied up and who needed a means of payment. The same was true of the large increase of deposits which resulted from the larger loans. A liberal policy of discounting was followed by which loans were given on the basis of securities or stocks of goods on hand. That is, non-negotiable assets were converted into a means of payment either in the form of notes or deposit credits.

At this juncture there was created a currency something after the fashion of the Aldrich-Vreeland emergency notes in this country. War credit banks were established by law to issue notes (Darlehnskassenscheine) in denominations of 10, 15, 20, and 50 marks as loans on stocks in trade and securities of all kinds, and were charged 6-1/2 per cent. interest. The goods on which these notes could be issued were not removed, but stamped with a Government seal. While not a legal tender, the notes were receivable at all imperial agencies. On securities classed at the Reichsbank as Class I. loans could be made up to 60 per cent. of their value as of July 31; as Class II., 40 per cent.; on the other German securities bearing a fixed rate of return, 50 per cent.; on other German securities bearing a varying rate of return, 40 per cent.; on Russian securities, a lower percentage. These institutions, therefore, took up some of the burden that would otherwise have fallen on the loan item of the Reichsbank. Hence the Reichsbank account does not show the whole situation.

To this point the methods followed were much the same as in London. Then came unusual happenings. In London for a few days the banks had wavered as to maintaining gold payments, but only temporarily. In Berlin drastic measures were undertaken to accumulate gold in the Reichsbank. Vienna reports it to be well known that Germany had been for eighteen months before straining every nerve to obtain gold. Whatever sums of gold were included in the so-called "war chest" in Spandau (said to be $30,000,000) were also deposited with the Reichsbank. Gold was even smuggled across the borders of Holland on the persons of spies. Urgent demands were made upon the people to turn in gold from patriotic motives. In this way over $400,000,000 of gold was gathered by July, 1914; and by the end of the year, after five months of war, it had risen to $523,000,000. Was Germany to maintain gold payments as well as Great Britain?

Evidently not. Gold was not given for notes on presentation. For purposes of exchanging goods the notes were in excess. Inconvertible, they must go to a discount with gold or with the money of outside countries using gold. But in order to get imports from other nations, like Holland, Scandinavia, and Denmark, Germany must either send goods, or gold, or securities. German industries, except those making war supplies, were not producing over 25 per cent. of capacity, and many were closed. The Siemens-Schuckert Works, even before the Landsturm was called out, lost 40 per cent. of their men on mobilization. The Humboldt Steel Works, near Cologne, employing 4,000 men, were closed early in August, as were nearly all the great iron works in the district between Düsseldorf and Duisburg. Probably 50 to 75 per cent. of the workers were called to the colors. The skilled artisans were in the army or in munition factories; the railways were in the hands of the military; and the merchant marine was shut up in home or foreign ports. There were said to be 1,500 idle ships in Hamburg alone. Few goods could be exported. Gold was refused for export, of course. A serious liquidation in foreign securities had been going on long before the war. Some foreign securities must have still remained. However that may be, a claim to funds in Germany (i.e., a bill drawn on Germany) was not redeemable in gold, and it fell in price. In normal times a bill could not fall below the shipping point in gold, (par with us for 4 marks is 95-1/4 cents in gold;) but, since gold could not be sent, exchange on Germany could fall to any figure, set only by a declining demand. Already bills on Germany have been quoted in New York at 82, showing a depreciation of German money in the international field of about 13 per cent. Likewise, as early as the first week of September, the Reichsbank notes were reported at a discount of 20 per cent., and as practically non-negotiable in a neighboring country like Holland.

The inevitable consequence of a depreciated currency must be a rise of prices, usually greater than the actual percentage of depreciation. To meet this situation there came a device possible in no other commercial country. The Government fixed prices at which goods could be sold. This mediaeval device could be enforced only in a land where such State interference had been habitual, and, of course, could give to the notes the fictitious purchasing power only inside the country. After the Christian Science fashion, one had only to believe the notes were of value to make them so; but in the cold world outside German jurisdiction their value would be gauged by the chances of getting gold for them. Here, then, we find Germany in all the mazes of our ancient "greenbackism," but still in possession of a large stock of gold. As soon as the war ends she may be able to return to gold payments at an early date—very much as did France after the ordeal of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871.

In the present war conditions, however, largely cut off from other countries, (except some small trade with Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, and the like,) all ordinary relations which would influence German credit and industry must be counted out. There is no comparison of her prices and money with those of other countries in a free market, or with even a limited transportation of exports and imports. All commercial measurements are suspended for the time. Trade and credit are holding their breath. How long can they do it? Germany may have food enough; but how long can the stoppage of industry go on?

Moreover, attention must be called to one momentous thing. We are seeing today, under military law, the greatest experiment in socialism ever witnessed. All wealth, income, industry, capital, and labor are in the direct control and use of a military State. Food, everything, may be taken and distributed in common. I think never before in history have we had such a gigantic, full-fledged illustration of socialism in actual operation.

In the meanwhile, even though food may be provided, the reduction of industry in general has cut incomes right and left. That is, fewer goods are produced and exchanged. But goods are the basis of all credit. The less the goods exchanged, the less the credit operations. Nevertheless, the extraordinary issues of banknotes, the increase of deposits, as a result of quintupling the loans, means that former commitments in goods and securities cannot be liquidated. That is, the enormous increase of bank liabilities, to a considerable and unknown percentage, is not supported by liquid assets. These assets are "canned." Will they keep sweet? There is no new business, no foreign trade, sufficient to take up old obligations and renew those which are unpayable. Lessened incomes mean lessened consumption and lessened demand for goods. Hence the credit system is based on an uncertain and insecure foundation, dependent wholly upon contingencies far in the future which may, or may not, take the non-liquid assets out of cold storage and give them their original value.

Moreover, apart from definite destruction of wealth and capital in the war—which must be enormous, as represented by the national loans—the losses from not doing business in all main industries during the whole period of the war (except in making war supplies) must be very great. As it affects the income and expenditure of the working classes, it may be roughly measured by the great numbers of unemployed. If they are used on public works, their income is made up from taxes on the wealth of others. Luxuries will disappear, and not be produced or imported. Incomes expressed in goods, or material satisfactions, have been diminished—which is of no serious consequence, if they cover the minimum of actual subsistence. The prolongation of the war will, then, depend on the ability to provide the supplies for war.

The need for a medium of exchange is oversupplied. The lack is in the goods to be exchanged. The enormous extension of German note issues does not, and can not, diminish. In this country the expansion of credit and money immediately after the war (manifested by the issue of Clearing House certificates and emergency banknotes) has been cleared away by liquidation. In Germany the "canned" assets behind the depreciated currency cannot be liquidated until the end of the war. And their worth at that time will depend much on the future course of the war and the terms of peace. If German territory should be overrun and the tangible forms of capital in factories and fixed capital be destroyed, much of the liquidation might be indefinitely prolonged. Whatever of foreign trade is permanently lost would also increase the difficulties.

In a great financial emergency nearly every country has, at one time or another, been tempted to confuse the monetary with the fiscal functions of the Treasury. To borrow by the issue of money seems to have a seductive charm hard to resist. Lloyd George established a new precedent for Great Britain by issuing nearly $200,000,000 of Government currency notes, but this was done to provide notes for the public instead of coin (£1 and 10s.) and made unnecessary any emergency issues by the Bank of England, and a large gold fund has been accumulated behind them so that they are convertible. In Germany it does not seem likely that the Treasury notes will be largely used (having increased from $16,500,000 to about $200,000,000) as a means of borrowing, since the new loans are being issued in terms of longer maturities.

J. LAURENCE LAUGHLIN.

Letters From Wives

[By Cable to The New York Tribune.]

London, March 8.—Edward Page Gaston, an American business man long resident in London, has just returned from Belgium, and brought with him many sad and touching relics of the battlefields in that distressful country, chiefly from the neighborhood of Mons. These pathetic memorials include letters from wives, sweethearts, and friends at home and letters written by soldiers now dead and never posted.

Turning these letters over, one comes across such an expression as this: "I congratulate you on your promotion. It seems too good to be true. Good-bye and God bless you, dear. God keep you in health and bring you safely back."

Alas! the soldier who got that letter came back no way at all to his sweetheart or his friends.

"If you don't come back, what shall I do?" is the cry that comes from another woman's heart, and he did not come back.

Mr. Gaston is going to put himself into communication with the War Office with regard to the fate of the relics, and as far as possible, they will be sent to the rightful owners.

"War Children."

[Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]

Paris, Feb. 24.—Professor Pinard of the Academy of Medicine contributes an article to the Matin showing that "war children" are stronger and healthier than their predecessors, and that France is rapidly repairing her battle losses.

An analysis of the Paris statistics for the last six months reveals a diminution of the death rate among mothers and children and a decrease in the number of children born dead.

Dr. Pinard further asserts that an extensive comparison of living children with those born earlier shows that the average weight of "war babies" is considerably higher than it used to be. This he considers due to the giving of natural instead of artificial nourishment by the mothers in consequence of the more serious attitude they take to their duty to the State.

This, says the professor, is one more instance of the spirit of regeneration animating France.

No Premature Peace For Russia

Proceedings at Opening of the Duma, Petrograd, Feb. 9, 1915

[From The London Times.]

PETROGRAD, Feb. 9.

The main impression left upon all who attended today's proceedings in the Duma may be summed up in a few words. The war has not shaken the determination of the Russian people to carry through the struggle to a victorious end.

Practically the whole House had assembled—the few vacant seats were due to death, chiefly on the field of battle—and the patriotic spirit permeating the proceedings was just as deeply emphasized as it was six months ago. The debates were several times interrupted by the singing of the National anthem, thunders of applause greeted the speeches of the President, the Premier, and the Foreign Minister, and the ovation to the British and French Ambassadors was, if anything, warmer and more enthusiastic than on the previous occasion.

I noticed that members applauded with special emphasis the words in which the President expressed his firm conviction that all efforts to disunite the Allies would prove fruitless.

In the course of his address the President eloquently and eulogistically referred to the rôle of Russia's allies in the present war. Speaking of England, he said:

These remarks were constantly interrupted by outbursts of tremendous applause and by an ovation in honor of Sir George Buchanan, who bowed his acknowledgments.

Alluding to temperance reform, the orator fervently exclaimed:

A scene of indescribable enthusiasm ensued, the House rising and singing the national hymn.

The President's peroration was in part as follows:

The Premier, in the opening sentences of the speech which followed, said: "Our heroic army, the flower and the pride of Russia, strong as never before in its might, notwithstanding all its losses, grows and strengthens." He did not fail to remind his hearers that the war is yet far from ended, but he added that the Government, from the first, had soberly looked the danger in the face and frankly warned the country of the forthcoming sacrifices for the common cause and also for the strengthening of the mutual gravitation of the Slavonic races. He briefly referred to the Turkish defeat in the Caucasus as opening before the Russians a bright historical future on the shores of the Black Sea.

The Premier alluded to the tremendous change wrought in the national life by the abolition of the liquor traffic, which he designated a second serfdom vanishing at the behest of the Czar. After a few years of sober, persistent labor, we would no longer recognize Russia. The war had further raised the question of the creation in the world's markets of favorable conditions to the export of our agricultural products, and a general revision of conditions calculated hereafter to guarantee to Russia a healthy development on the principle of entire independence of Germany in all branches of the national life. In this direction the Government had already drafted and was preparing a series of elaborate measures. He concluded with the expression of his conviction that, if all fulfilled their duty in the spirit of profound devotion to the Emperor and of deep faith in the triumph of the country, the near future would open before us perhaps the best pages in Russian history.

The speeches of a peasant Deputy and a Polish representative were particularly impressive and well received. The Socialist leader's demand for peace called forth a smart rejoinder from a member of his own party.

To The Victors Belong The Spoils!

By MADELEINE LUCETTE RYLEY.

[From King Albert's Book.]

To the illustrious ruler and his gallant little nation, whose heroism and bravery are surely unparalleled in the whole of our world's history, I bow my head in respectful homage.

Lessons of the War to March Ninth

By Charles W. Eliot

President Emeritus of Harvard University.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 9, 1915.

To the Editor of The New York Times:

The observant world has now had ample opportunity to establish certain conclusions about the new kind of war and its availability as means of adjusting satisfactorily international relations; and it seems desirable in the interest of durable peace in Europe that those conclusions should be accurately stated and kept in public view.

In the first place, the destructiveness of war waged on the scale and with the intensity which conscript armies, the new means of transportation and communication, the new artillery, the aeroplanes, the high explosives, and the continuity of the fighting on battle fronts of unexampled length, by night as well as by day, and in stormy and wintry as well as moderate weather, make possible, has proved to be beyond all power of computation, and could not have been imagined in advance. Never before has there been any approach to the vast killing and crippling of men, the destruction of all sorts of man's structures—buildings, bridges, viaducts, vessels, and docks—and the physical ruin of countless women and children. On the seas vessels and cargoes are sunk, instead of being carried into port as formerly.

Through the ravaging of immense areas of crop-producing lands, the driving away of the people that lived on them, and the dislocation of commerce, the food supplies for millions of non-combatants are so reduced that the rising generation in several countries is impaired on a scale never approached in any previous war.

In any country which becomes the seat of war an immense destruction of fixed capital is wrought; and at the same time the quick capital of all the combatants, accumulated during generations, is thrown into the furnace of war and consumed unproductively.

In consequence of the enormous size of the national armies and the withdrawal of the able-bodied men from productive industries, the industries and commerce of the whole world are seriously interrupted, whence widespread, incalculable losses to mankind.

These few months of war have emphasized the interdependence of nations the world over with a stress never before equaled. Neutral nations far removed from Europe have felt keenly the effects of the war on the industries and trades by which they live. Men see in this instance that whatever reduces the buying and consuming capacity of one nation will probably reduce also the producing and selling capacity of other nations; and that the gains of commerce and trade are normally mutual, and not one-sided.

All the contending nations have issued huge loans which will impose heavy burdens on future generations; and the yield of the first loans has already been spent or pledged. The first loan issued by the British Government was nearly twice the national debt of the United States; and it is supposed that its proceeds will be all spent before next Summer. Germany has already spent $1,600,000,000 since the war broke out—all unproductively and most of it for destruction. She will soon have to issue her second great loan. In short, the waste and ruin have been without precedent, the destruction of wealth has been enormous, and the resulting dislocations of finance, industries, and commerce will long afflict the coming generations in all the belligerent nations.

All the belligerent nations have already demonstrated that neither urban life, nor the factory system, nor yet corroding luxury has caused in them any physical or moral deterioration which interferes with their fighting capacity. The soldiers of these civilized peoples are just as ready for hand-to-hand encounters with cold steel as any barbarians or savages have ever been. The primitive combative instincts remain in full force and can be brought into play by all the belligerents with facility. The progress of the war should have removed any delusions on this subject which Germany, Austria-Hungary, or any one of the Allies may have entertained. The Belgians, a well-to-do town people, and the Serbians, a poor rural population, best illustrate this continuity of the martial qualities; for the Belgians faced overwhelming odds, and the Serbians have twice driven back large Austrian forces, although they have a transport by oxen only, an elementary commissariat, no medical or surgical supplies to speak of, and scanty munitions of war. On the other hand, the principal combatants have proved that with money enough they can all use effectively the new methods of war administration and the new implements for destruction. These facts suggest that the war might be much prolonged without yielding any results more decisive than those it has already yielded; indeed, that its most probable outcome is a stalemate—unless new combatants enter the field.

Fear of Russian invasion seemed at first to prompt Germany to war; but now Germany has amply demonstrated that she has no reason to look with any keen apprehension on possible Russian aggression upon her territory, and that her military organization is adequate for defense against any attack from any quarter. The military experience of the last seven months proves that the defense, by the temporary intrenchment method, has a great advantage over the attack; so that in future wars the aggressor will always be liable to find himself at a serious disadvantage, even if his victim is imperfectly prepared.

These same pregnant months have also proved that armies can be assembled and put into the field in effective condition in a much shorter time than has heretofore been supposed to be possible; provided there be plenty of money to meet the cost of equipment, transportation, and supplies. Hence, the advantages of maintaining huge active armies, ready for instant attack or defense, will hereafter be less considerable than they have been supposed to be—if the declaration of war by surprise, as in August last, can hereafter be prevented. These considerations, taken in connection with the probable inefficacy against modern artillery of elaborate fortifications, suggest the possibility of a reduction throughout Europe of the peace-footing armies. It is conceivable that the Swiss militia system should satisfy the future needs of most of the European States.

Another important result of the colossal war has been achieved in these seven months. It has been demonstrated that no single nation in any part of the world can dominate the other nations, or, indeed, any other nation, unless the other principal powers consent to that domination; and, in the present state of the world, it is quite clear that no such domination will be consented to. As soon as this proposition is accepted by all the combatants, this war, and perhaps all war between civilized nations, will cease. It is obvious that in the interest of mankind the war ought not to cease until Germany is convinced that her ambition for empire in Europe and the world cannot be gratified. Deutschland über alles can survive as a shout of patriotic enthusiasm; but as a maxim of international policy it is dead already, and should be buried out of the sight and memory of men.

It has, moreover, become plain that the progress in civilization of the white race is to depend not on the supreme power of any one nation, forcing its peculiar civilization on other nations, but on the peaceful development of many different nationalities, each making contributions of its own to the progress of the whole, and each developing a social, industrial, and governmental order of its own, suited to its territory, traditions, resources, and natural capacities.

The chronic irritations in Europe which contributed to the outbreak of the war and the war itself have emphasized the value and the toughness of natural national units, both large and small, and the inexpediency of artificially dividing such units, or of forcing natural units into unnatural associations. These principles are now firmly established in the public opinion of Europe and America. No matter how much longer the present war may last, no settlement will afford any prospect of lasting peace in Europe which does not take just account of these principles. Already the war has demonstrated that just consideration of national feelings, racial kinship, and common commercial interests would lead to three fresh groupings in Europe—one of the Scandinavian countries, one of the three sections into which Poland has been divided, and one of the Balkan States which have a strong sense of Slavic kinship. In the case of Scandinavia and the Balkan States the bond might be nothing more than a common tariff with common ports and harbor regulations; but Poland needs to be reconstructed as a separate kingdom. Thoroughly to remove political sores which have been running for more than forty years, the people of Schleswig-Holstein and Alsace-Lorraine should also be allowed to determine by free vote their national allegiance. Whether the war ends in victory for the Allies, or in a draw or deadlock with neither party victorious and neither humiliated, these new national adjustments will be necessary to permanent peace in Europe. All the wars in Europe since 1864 unite in demonstrating that necessity.

Again, the war has already demonstrated that colonies or colonial possessions in remote parts of the world are not a source of strength to a European nation when at war, unless that nation is strong on the seas. Affiliated Commonwealths may be a support to the mother country, but colonies held by force in exclusive possession are not. Great Britain learned much in 1775 about the management of colonies, and again she learned in India that the policy of exploitation, long pursued by the East India Company, had become undesirable from every point of view. As the strongest naval power in the world, Great Britain has given an admiral example of the right use of power in making the seas and harbors of the world free to the mercantile marine of all the nations with which she competes. Her free-trade policy helped her to wise action on the subject of commercial extension. Nevertheless, the other commercial nations, watching the tremendous power in war which Great Britain possesses through her wide, though not complete, control of the oceans, will rejoice when British control, though limited and wisely used, is replaced by an unlimited international control. This is one of the most valuable lessons of the great war.

Another conviction is strongly impressed upon the commercial nations of the world by the developments of seven months of extensive fighting by land and sea, namely, the importance of making free to all nations the Kiel Canal and the passage from the Black Sea to the Aegean. So long as one nation holds the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, and another nation holds the short route from the Baltic to the North Sea, there will be dangerous restrictions on the commerce of the world—dangerous in the sense of provoking to war, or of causing sores which develop into malignant disease. Those two channels should be used for the common benefit of mankind, just as the Panama Canal or the Suez Canal is intended to be. Free seas, free inter-ocean canals and straits, the "open door," and free competition in international trade are needed securities for peace.

These lessons of the war are as plain now as they will be after six months or six years more fighting. Can the belligerent nations—and particularly Germany—take them to heart now, or must more millions of men be slaughtered and more billions of human savings be consumed before these teachings of seven fearful months be accepted?

For a great attainable object such dreadful losses and sufferings as continuation of the war entails might perhaps be borne; but the last seven months have proved that the objects with which Austria-Hungary and Germany went to war are unattainable in the present state of Europe. Austria-Hungary, even with the active aid of Germany and Turkey, cannot prevail in Serbia against the active or passive resistance of Serbia, Russia, Rumania, Greece, Italy, France, and Great Britain. Germany cannot crush France supported by Great Britain and Russia, or keep Belgium, except as a subject and hostile province, and in defiance of the public opinion of the civilized world. In seven months Great Britain and France have made up for their lack of preparedness and have brought the military operations of Germany in France to a standstill. On the other hand, Great Britain and France must already realize that they cannot drive the German armies out of France and Belgium without a sacrifice of blood and treasure from which the stoutest hearts may well shrink.

Has not the war already demonstrated that jealous and hostile coalitions armed to the teeth will surely bring on Europe not peace and advancing civilization, but savage war and an arrest of civilization? Has it not already proved that Europe needs one comprehensive union or federation competent to procure and keep for Europe peace through justice? There is no alternative except more war.

CHARLES W. ELIOT.

Belgium's King And Queen

By PAUL HERVIEU

Translation by Florence Simmonds.

[From King Albert's Book.]

Once upon a time there lived a King and a Queen....

Indeed, it would be the most touching and edifying fairy-tale imaginable, this true story of H.M. Albert I. and H.M. Queen Elizabeth.

It would tell of their quiet and noble devotion to their daily tasks, of the purity of their happy family life....

Suddenly, the devil would intervene, with his threats and his offers....

Then we should hear of the sovereigns and the people of Belgium agreeing at once in their sense of honor and heroism.

Then the dastardly invasion, and the innumerable host of infernal spirits breathing out sulphur, belching torrents of iron, and raining fire; city dwellings transformed into the shattered columns of cemeteries; innocent creatures tortured and victimized; and the King and Queen with their kingdom reduced to a sandhill on the shore, and the remnant of their valiant army around them.

And at last, at last! That turn of the tide which all humanity worthy of the name desires so ardently, and which even the baser sort now sees to be surely approaching.

At this point in the story, at this page of the legendary tale, how the children would clap their hands, with all that love of justice innate in children, and how the faces of worthy parents would beam with the approval of satisfied consciences!

And in the future, those who contemplate the royal arms with the pious admiration due to them, will see a blooming rose side by side with the lion of Belgium, typifying the immortal share of H.M. Queen Elizabeth in the glory of H.M. Albert I.

The European War As Seen By Cartoonists

The Chances of Peace and the Problem of Poland

By J. Ellis Barker

[From The Nineteenth Century and After, Leonard Scott Publishing Company.]

A century ago, at the Congress of Vienna, the question of Poland proved extremely difficult to solve. It produced dangerous friction among the assembled powers, and threatened to lead to the break-up of the congress. The position became so threatening that, on the 3d of January, 1815, Austria, Great Britain, and France felt compelled to conclude a secret separate alliance directed against Prussia and Russia, the allies of Austria and Great Britain in the war against Napoleon. Precautionary troop movements began, and war among the allies might have broken out had not, shortly afterward, Napoleon quitted Elba and landed in France. Fear of the great Corsican reunited the powers.

Because of the great and conflicting interests involved, the question of Poland may prove of similar importance and difficulty at the congress which will conclude the present war. Hence, it seems desirable to consider it carefully and in good time. It is true that the study of the Polish problem does not seem to be very urgent at the present moment. In view of the slow progress of the Allies in the east and west, it appears that the war will be long drawn out. Still, it is quite possible that it will come to an early and sudden end. Austria-Hungary is visibly tiring of the hopeless struggle into which she was plunged by Germany, and which hitherto has brought her nothing but loss, disgrace, and disaster. After all, the war is bound to end earlier or later in an Austro-German defeat, and if it should be fought to the bitter end Austria-Hungary will obviously suffer far more severely than will Germany. A protracted war, which would lead merely to the lasting impoverishment of Germany, would bring about the economic annihilation of impecunious Austria. Besides, while a complete defeat would cause to Germany only the loss of territories in the east, west, and north which are largely inhabited by disaffected Poles, Frenchmen, and Danes, and would not very greatly reduce the purely German population of Germany, it would probably result in the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy, which lacks a homogeneous population, and it might lead to Austria's disappearance as a great State. If complete disaster should overwhelm the empire of Francis Joseph, Hungary would undoubtedly make herself independent. The Dual Monarchy would become a heap of wreckage, and in the end the German parts of Austria would probably become a German province, Vienna a provincial Prussian town, the proud Hapsburgs subordinate German princelings. If, on the other hand, Austria-Hungary should make quickly a separate peace with her opponents, she would presumably lose only the Polish parts of Galicia to the new kingdom of Poland, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to Serbia; and she might receive most satisfactory compensation for these losses by the acquisition of the German parts of Silesia and by the adherence of the largely Roman Catholic South German States, which have far more in common with Austria than with Protestant Prussia. As a result of the war, Austria-Hungary might be greatly strengthened at Germany's cost, provided the monarchy makes peace without delay. In any case, only by an early peace can the bulk of the lands of the Hapsburgs be preserved for the ruling house, and can national bankruptcy be avoided. There is an excellent and most valuable precedent for such action on Austria's part. Bismarck laid down the essence of statesmanship in the maxim "Salus Publica Suprema Lex," and defined in his memoirs the binding power of treaties of alliance by the phrase "Ultra posse nemo obligatur." Referring particularly to the Austro-German alliance, he wrote that "no nation is obliged to sacrifice its existence on the altar of treaty fidelity." Before long the Dual Monarchy may take advantage of Bismarck's teaching. After all, it cannot be expected that she should go beyond her strength, and that she should ruin herself for the sake of Germany, especially as she cannot thereby save that country from inevitable defeat. Austria-Hungary should feel particularly strongly impelled to ask for peace without delay, as her recent and most disastrous defeat in Serbia has exasperated the people and threatens to lead to risings and revolts not only in the Slavonic parts of the monarchy but also in Hungary. Civil war may be said to be in sight.

The Dual Monarchy is threatened besides by the dubious and expectant attitude of Italy and Rumania. If Austria-Hungary should hesitate much longer to make peace, Italy and Rumania may find a sufficient pretext for war and may join the Entente powers. Italy naturally desires to acquire the valuable Italian portions of Austria-Hungary on her borders, and Rumania the very extensive Rumanian parts of the Dual Monarchy adjoining that kingdom. To both powers it would be disastrous if Austria-Hungary should make peace before they had staked out their claims by militarily occupying the territory which they covet. Both States may therefore be expected to abandon their neutrality and to invade Austria-Hungary without delay as soon as they hear that that country seriously contemplates entering upon peace negotiations; it follows that if Austria-Hungary wishes to withdraw from the stricken field she must open negotiations with the utmost secrecy and conclude them with the utmost speed. It is clear that if Italy and Rumania should be given the much desired opportunity of joining the Entente powers, the Dual Monarchy would lose not only Polish Galicia and Serbian Bosnia and Herzegovina but Rumanian Transylvania and the Banat, with about 5,000,000 inhabitants, and the largely Italian Trentino, Istria, and Dalmatia, with at least 1,000,000 people, as well. These vast losses would probably lead to the total dismemberment of the State, for the remaining subject nationalities would also demand their freedom. Self-preservation is the first law and the first duty of individuals and of States. It is therefore conceivable, and is indeed only logical, that Austria-Hungary will conclude overnight a separate peace. If she should take that wise and necessary step, isolated Germany would either have to give up the unequal struggle or fight on single-handed. In the latter case, her defeat would no doubt be rapid. It seems, therefore, quite possible that the end of the war may be as sudden as was its beginning. Hence, the consideration of the Polish question seems not only useful but urgent....

From the very beginning Prussia, Austria, and Russia treated Poland as a corpus vile, and cut it up like a cake, without any regard to the claims, the rights, and the protests of the Poles themselves. Although history only mentions three partitions, there were in reality seven. There were those of 1772, 1793, and 1795, already referred to; and these were followed by a redistribution of the Polish territories in 1807, 1809, and 1815. In none of these were the inhabitants consulted or even considered. The Congress of Vienna established the independence of Cracow, but Austria-Hungary, asserting that she considered herself "threatened" by the existence of that tiny State, seized it in 1846.

While Prussia, Austria, and Russia, considering that might was right, had divided Poland among themselves, regardless of the passionate protests of the inhabitants, England had remained a spectator, but not a passive one, of the tragedy. She viewed the action of the allies with strong disapproval, but although she gave frank expression to her sentiments, she did not actively interfere. After all, no English interests were involved in the partition. It was not her business to intervene. Besides, she could not successfully have opposed single-handed the joint action of the three powerful partner States, especially as France, under the weak Louis XV., held aloof. However, English statesmen refused to consider as valid the five partitions which took place before and during the Napoleonic era.

The Treaty of Chaumont of 1814 created the Concert of Europe. At the Congress of Vienna of 1815 the frontiers of Europe were fixed by general consent. As Prussia, Austria, and Russia refused to recreate an independent Poland, England's opposition would have broken up the concert, and might have led to further wars. Unable to prevent the injustice done to Poland by her opposition, and anxious to maintain the unity of the powers and the peace of the world, England consented at last to consider the partition of Poland as a fait accompli, and formally recognized it, especially as the Treaty of Vienna assured the Poles of just and fair treatment under representative institutions. Article I. of the Treaty of Vienna stated expressly:

By signing the Treaty of Vienna, England recognized not explicitly, but merely implicitly, the partition of Poland, and she did so unwillingly and under protest. Lord Castlereagh stated in a circular note addressed to Russia, Prussia, and Austria, that it had always been England's desire that an independent Poland, possessing a dynasty of its own, should be established, which, separating Austria, Russia, and Prussia, should act as a buffer State between them; that, failing its creation, the Poles should be reconciled to being dominated by foreigners, by just and liberal treatment which alone would make them satisfied. His note, which is most remarkable for its far-sightedness, wisdom, force, and restraint, was worded as follows:

This dispatch was sent on the 12th of January, 1815, exactly a century ago. The warnings were not heeded and the past century has been filled with sorrow for the Poles and with risings and revolutions, as Lord Castlereagh clearly foretold....

In Western Russia, in Eastern Prussia, and in Galicia there dwell about 20,000,000 Poles. If the war should end, as it is likely to end, in a Russian victory, a powerful kingdom of Poland will arise. According to the carefully worded manifesto of the Grand Duke the united Poles will receive full self-government under the protection of Russia. They will be enabled to develop their nationality, but it seems scarcely likely that they will receive entire and absolute independence. Their position will probably resemble that of Quebec in Canada, or of Bavaria in Germany, and if the Russians and Poles act wisely they will live as harmoniously together as do the French-speaking "habitants" of Quebec and the English-speaking men of the other provinces of Canada. Russia need not fear that Poland will make herself entirely independent, and only the most hot-headed and short-sighted Poles can wish for complete independence. Poland, having developed extremely important manufacturing industries, requires large free markets for their output. Her natural market is Russia, for Germany has industrial centres of her own. She can expect to have the free use of the precious Russian markets only as long as she forms part of that great State. At present, a spirit of the heartiest good-will prevails between Russians and Poles. The old quarrels and grievances have been forgotten in the common struggle. The moment is most auspicious for the resurrection of Poland.

While Prussia has been guilty of the partition of Poland, Russia is largely to blame for the repeated revolts and insurrection of her Polish citizens....

When the peace conditions come up for discussion at the congress which will bring the present war to an end—and that event may be nearer than most men think—the problem of Poland will be one of the greatest difficulty and importance. Austria-Hungary has comparatively little interest in retaining her Poles. The Austrian Poles dwell in Galicia outside the great rampart of the Carpathian Mountains, which form the natural frontier of the Dual Monarchy toward the northeast. The loss of Galicia, with its oilfields and mines, may be regrettable to Austria-Hungary, but it will not affect her very seriously. To Germany, on the other hand, the loss of the Polish districts will be a fearful blow. The supreme importance which Germany attaches to the Polish problem may be seen from this, that Bismarck thought it the only question which could lead to an open breach between Germany and Austria-Hungary. According to Crispi's Memoirs, Bismarck said to the Italian statesman on the 17th of September, 1877:

In the event of Germany's defeat a large slice of Poland, including the wealthiest parts of Silesia, with gigantic coal mines, iron works, &c., would be taken away from her, and if the Poles should recover their ancient province of West Prussia, with Dantsic, Prussia's hold upon East Prussia, with Königsberg, would be threatened. The loss of her Polish districts would obviously greatly reduce Germany's military strength and economic power. It may therefore be expected that Germany will move heaven and earth against the re-creation of the Kingdom of Poland, and that she will strenuously endeavor to create differences between Russia and her allies. The statesmen of Europe should therefore, in good time, firmly make up their minds as to the future of Poland.

J. ELLIS BARKER.

The Redemption Of Europe

By ALFRED NOYES.

[From King Albert's Book.]

... donee templa refereris

Germany Will End the War

Only When a Peace Treaty Shall Assure Her Power

By Maximilian Harden

The scorners of war, the blonde, black, and gray children who have been defiling his name with syrupy tongues of lofty humanity and with slanderous scoldings, all have become silent. Or else they snort soldiers' songs; annihilate in confused little essays the allied powers arrayed against us; entreat a civilized world (Kulturwelt) juggling for mere turkey heads, to please grant us permission to do heavy and cruel deeds, to wage fierce and headlong war! Already they seem prepared to answer absolutely and unqualifiedly in the affirmative Luther's question whether "men of war also can be considered in a state of grace."

They write and talk much about the great scourge of war. That is all quite true. But we should also bear in mind how much greater is the scourge which is fended off by war. The sum and substance of the matter is this: In looking upon the office of war one must not consider how it strangles, burns, destroys. For that is what the simple eyes of children do which do not further watch the surgeon when he chops off a hand or saws off a leg; which do not see or perceive that it is a matter of saving the entire body. So we must look upon the office of war and of the sword with the eyes of men, and understand why it strangles and why it wreaks cruel deeds. Then it will justify itself and prove of its own accord that it is an office divine in itself, and as necessary and useful to the world as is eating, drinking, or any other work. But that some there are who abuse the office of war, who strangle and destroy without need, out of sheer wantonness—that is not the fault of the office, but of the person. Is there any office, work, or thing so good that wicked and wanton persons will not abuse it?

The organ tone of such words as these at last rolls forth once more in their native land.

Therefore cease the pitiful attempts to excuse Germany's action. No longer wail to strangers, who do not care to hear you, telling them how dear to us were the smiles of peace we had smeared like rouge upon our lips, and how deeply we regret in our hearts that the treachery of conspirators dragged us, unwilling, into a forced war. Cease, you publicists, your wordy war against hostile brothers in the profession, whose superiority you cannot scold away, and who merely smile while they pick up, out of your laboriously stirred porridge slowly warmed over a flame of borrowed alcohol, the crumbs on which their "selfishness" is to choke! That national selfishness does not seem a duty to you, but a sin, is something you must conceal from foreign eyes.

Cease, also, you popular writers, the degraded scolding of enemies that does not emanate from passion but out of greedy hankering for the applause of the masses, and which continually nauseates us amid the piety of this hour! Because our statemen failed to discover and foil shrewd plans of deception is no reason why we may hoist the flag of most pious morality. Not as weak-willed blunderers have we undertaken the fearful risk of this war. We wanted it. Because we had to wish it and could wish it. May the Teuton devil throttle those whiners whose pleas for excuses make us ludicrous in these hours of lofty experience. We do not stand, and shall not place ourselves, before the court of Europe. Our power shall create new law in Europe. Germany strikes. If it conquers new realms for its genius, the priesthood of all the gods will sing songs of praise to the good war.

Only he who is specially trained for a race of troops may go along into the field. Only the man versed in statecraft should be allowed to participate in the talk about the results of war. Not he who has out yonder proved an unworthy diplomat, nor the dilettante loafer sprayed with the perfume of volatile emotions. Manhood liability to military service requires manhood suffrage? That question may rest for the time being; likewise the desire for equality of that right shall not be argued today. But common sense should warn against the assumption of an office without the slightest special preliminary training. Politics is an art that can be mastered not in the leisure hours of the brain, but only by the passionate, self-sacrificing devotion of a whole lifetime. Now seek around you.

We are at the beginning of a war the development and duration of which are incalculable, and in which up to date no foe has been brought to his knees. To guide the sword to its goal, Tom, Dick, and Harry, Poet Arrogance and Professor Crumb advertise their prowess in the newspaper Advice and Assistance. Brave folk, whose knowledge concerning this new realm of their endeavor emanates solely from that same newspaper! Because they have for three months been busily reading their morning, noon, and evening editions, they think they have a special call to speak. Without knowledge of things that have transpired before, without knowledge of the persons concerned, without a suspicion of the needs of the situation and its possibilities, they judge the peoples of the earth and divide the world. Stupid talk, with which irreverent officiousness seeks to while away and shorten the period of anxious waiting for customers; but to prepare quietly and wisely and mightily in advance for terms of peace, that is the duty of the statesman.

We are waging this war not in order to punish those who have sinned, nor in order to free enslaved peoples and thereafter to comfort ourselves with the unselfish and useless consciousness of our own righteousness. We wage it from the lofty point of view and with the conviction that Germany, as a result of her achievements and in proportion to them, is justified in asking, and must obtain, wider room on earth for development and for working out the possibilities that are in her. The powers from whom she forced her ascendency, in spite of themselves, still live, and some of them have recovered from the weakening she gave them. Spain and the Netherlands, Rome and Hapsburg, France and England, possessed and settled and ruled great stretches of the most fruitful soil. Now strikes the hour for Germany's rising power. The terms of a peace treaty that does not insure this would leave the great effort unrewarded. Even if it brought dozens of shining billions into the National Treasury, the fate of Europe would be dependent upon the United States of America.

We are waging war for ourselves alone; and still we are convinced that all who desire the good would soon be able to rejoice in the result. For with this war there must also end the politics that have frightened away all the upright from entering into intimate relations with the most powerful Continental empire. We need land, free roads into the ocean, and for the spirit and language and wares and trade of Germany we need the same values that are accorded such goods anywhere else.

Only four persons not residents of Essen knew about the new mortar which the firm of Friedrich Krupp manufactured at its own expense and which later, because its shell rapidly smashed the strongest fortifications of reinforced concrete, our military authorities promptly acquired. Must we be ashamed of this instrument of destruction and take from the lips of the "cultured world" the wry reproach that from "Faust" and the Ninth Symphony we have sunk our national pride to the 42-centimeter guns? No! Only firm will and determination to achieve, that is to say, German power, distinguishes the host of warriors now embattled on the five huge fields of blood from the race of the poets and thinkers. Their brains, too, yearn back, throbbing for the realm of the muses. Before the remains of the Netherland Gothic, before the wonders of Flemish painting, their eyes light up in pious adoration. From the lips of the troops that marched from three streets into the parade plaza in Brussels there burst, when the last man stood in the ranks—and burst spontaneously—a German song. Out of all the trenches joyous cheers of thanks rise for the fearless musicmaster who, amid the raging fire, through horns and trumpets, wrapped in earth-colored gray, leads his band in blowing marches and battle songs and songs of dancing into the ears of the Frenchmen, harkening with pleasure.

Not only for the territories that are to feed their children and grandchildren is this warrior host battling, but also for the conquering triumph of the German genius, for the forces of sentiment that rise from Goethe and Beethoven and Bismarck and Schiller and Kant and Kleist, working on throughout time and eternity.

And never was there a war more just; never one the result of which could bring such happiness as must this, even for the conquered. In order that that spirit might conquer we were obliged to forge the mightiest weapons for it. Over the meadows of the Scheldt is wafted the word of the King:

This strength was begotten by that spirit. The fashioning of such weapons was possible only because millions of industrious persons, with untiring and unremitting labors, transformed the poor Germany into the rich Germany, which was then able to prepare and conduct the war as a great industry. And what the spirit created once again serves the spirit. It shall not lay waste, nor banish us free men into slavery, but rather it shall call forth to the light of heaven a new, richer soul of life out of the ruins of a storm-tossed civilization. It shall, it must, it will conquer new provinces for the majesty of the noble German spirit (Deutschheit) that never will grow chill and numb, as the Roman did. Otherwise—and even though unnumbered billions flowed into the Rhine—the expense of this war would be shamefully wasted.

Our army did not set out to conquer Belgian territory.

In the war against four great powers, the west front of which alone stretched from the North Sea to the Alps, from Ghent almost to Geneva, it seemed impossible to achieve on Europe's soil a victory that would strengthen the roots of the conquering race. Gold cannot indemnify for the loss of the swarming young life which we were obliged to mourn even after ten weeks of war; and if, amid ten thousand of the fine fellows who died, there was even a single creative mind, then thousands of millions could not pay for its destruction.

And what stretch of land necessary for the German people, or useful in the real sense of the word, could France or even Russia vacate for us in Europe? To be "unassailable"—to exchange the soul of a Viking for that of a New Yorker, that of the quick pike for that of the lazy carp whose fat back grows moss covered in a dangerless pond—that must never become the wish of a German. And for the securing of more comfortable frontier protection only a madman would risk the life that is flourishing in power and wealth. Now we know what the war is for—not for French, Polish, Ruthenian, Esthonian, Lettish territories, nor for billions of money; not in order to dive headlong after the war into the pool of emotions and then allow the chilled body to rust in the twilight dusk of the Deliverer of Races.

No! To hoist the storm flag of the empire on the narrow channel that opens and locks the road into the ocean. I could imagine Germany's war lord, if, after Ostend, Calais, too, is captured, sending the armies and fleets back home from the east and front the west, and quietly saying to our enemies:

"You now have felt what Germany's strength and determination can do, and hereafter you will probably weigh the matter well before you venture to attack us. Of you Germany demands nothing further. Not even reimbursement for its expenses in this war—for those it is reimbursed by the wholesale terror which it evoked all around in the Autumn battles. Do you want anything of us? We shall never refuse a challenge to a quarrel. We shall remain in the Belgian netherland, to which we shall add the thin strip of coast up to the rear of Calais, (you Frenchmen have enough better harbors, anyway;) we terminate, of our own accord, this war which, now that we have safeguarded our honor, can bring us no other gains; we now return to the joy of fruitful work, and will grasp the sword again only if you attempt to crowd us out of that which we have won with our blood. Of a solemn peace conference, with haggling over terms, parchment, and seal, we have no need. The prisoners are to be freed. You can keep your fortresses if they do not seem to you to be worthless, if the rebuilding of them still seems worth while to you. Tomorrow is again a common day."

Do not lapse into dreams about United States of Europe, about mild-intentioned division of the Coburg heritage, (a bit of it to Holland, a bit to Luxemburg, perhaps even a bit to France. Any one with even the slightest nobility of feeling would reject the proffered dish of poison with a gesture of disgust,) nor be lulled into delusions of military and tax conventions that would deprive the country of its free right of determining its own destiny.

To the Belgians we are the Arch-imp and the Tenant of the Pool of Hell! We would remain so, even if every stone in Louvain and in Malines were replaced by its equivalent in gold. That rage can be overcome only after the race, praised by Schiller's fiery breath, sees its neighbors close at hand and draws advantage from intimate relations with them. Antwerp not pitted against, but working with, Hamburg and Bremen; Liège, side by side with Essen's, Berlin's, and Swabia's gun factories—Cockerill in combination with Krupp; iron, coal, woven stuff from old Germany and Belgium, introduced into the markets of the world by one and the same commercial spirit; our Kamerun and their Congo—such a warm blaze of advantage has burned away many a hatred. The wise man wins as his friend the deadly foe whose skull he cannot split, and he will rather rule and allow to feast on exceptional dainties this still cold and shy new friend than lose potential well-wishers of incalculable future good-will.

Only, never again a withered Reichsland! (imperial territory.) From Calais to Antwerp, Flanders, Limburg, Brabant, to behind the line of the Meuse forts, Prussian! (German Princes no longer haggle, German tribes no longer envy one another;) the Southern triangle with Alsace and Lorraine—and Luxemburg, too, if it desires—is to be an independent federated State, intrusted to a Catholic noble house. Then Germany would know for what it shed its blood.

We need land for our industries, a road into the ocean, an undivided colony, the assurance of a supply of raw materials and the most fertile well-spring of prosperity—a people industrious and efficient in its work.

Here they are: Ore and copper, glass and sugar, flax and wool. But here, too, there once lived Jan and Hubert van Eyck, Rubens, the reveler Ruysbroek, and Jordeans of the avid eyes. Here there always lived—to be sure,-in twilight—Germania's little soul, fluttering imagination.

And is there not here, too, that which—all too stormily and, as a rule, in all too harsh a tone of abuse—every German heart yearns for, a victory over England? On the seas such victory cannot be quickly won, indeed; can, indeed, never be won without great sacrifice. But with the German Empire, whose mortars loom threatening from one coast of the Channel, whose flag floats over the two greatest harbors of Europe and over the Congo basin—England would have to come into a friendly agreement as a power of equal strength, entitled to equal rights. If it is unwilling to do so? Lion, leap! On our young soil we await thee! The day of adventure wanes. But for the German who dares unafraid to desire things the harvest labor of heroic warriors has quickly filled the store-house.

Louvain's New Streets

[By The Associated Press.]

LONDON, March 9.—The decision of the municipal authorities of Louvain, Belgium, to give American names to certain streets of the city is set forth in a formal resolution of thanks which was adopted on Washington's Birthday by the Burgomaster and Aldermen of Louvain and sent to the American Commission for Relief in Belgium. The resolution concludes as follows:

"The cradle of a university of five centuries' standing, and today herself partly in ruins, the City of Louvain cannot fail to associate with the memory of Washington, one of the greatest Captains, the name of the learned professor whose admirable precepts and high political attainments, as also his firmness of character and dignity of life, all contributed to carry him successively to the Presidency of Princeton University, the Governorship of New Jersey, and finally the Presidency of the United States.

"In order to perpetuate to future generations remembrances of these sentiments and our ardent gratitude, the Burgomaster and Aldermen have decided this day that in the new parts of the city, as they rise out of the ruins, three streets or squares shall receive the illustrious names of President Wilson, Washington, and American Nation."

The State of Holland

An Answer to H.G. Wells by Hendrik Willem van Loon

To the Editor of The New York Times:

My attention has been drawn to an article by H.G. Wells, published by THE NEW YORK TIMES and by CURRENT HISTORY in its March number which proposed that Holland give Germany the coup de grace, suddenly attack Aix and Cologne, cut off Germany's line of supplies, and thereby help win the war for the cause of justice. I am not writing this answer in any official capacity, but I have reason to believe that I write what most of my fellow-countrymen feel upon the subject.

Holland is neutral. The country is just as neutral as Belgium would have been had she not been invaded; as neutral as Denmark and Switzerland and the other small countries which are suffering so severely through this war. If any power should attack Holland, Holland would no longer be neutral, but would inundate the central part of the provinces of North and South Holland, would occupy the very strong position around Amsterdam, and would fight to the end. But unless attacked directly Holland will take no part in this war.

Mr. Wells hints at the idea of the righteousness of the cause of the Allies. All races and all colors have been brought together to beat Germany. Now Holland ought to do the same. She is in a position to exercise great power with her fresh troops. In the name of humanity, which has been so grievously maltreated in Belgium, let her join. I think that the answer of the greater part of our people would be somewhat as follows:

No quarrel was ever made by a single person. It takes two to start a fight. England and Germany are fighting for the supremacy of commerce. In the course of this quarrel Belgium has been sacrificed. We are extremely sorry. We have opened our frontiers to all of our southern neighbors, They were welcome to flee to us with all their belongings. We shall take care of them so long as they wish to stay. Our position is not always easy. The Dutch and the Belgian characters are very different. We do not always understand each other. But in the main the Belgians know that we shall share our food with them until the last, that in every way we shall make them as comfortable as we can. We are not a very graceful people. We often lack a certain charm of manner. The little potentates who are the Mayors of our small frontier towns are not always very tactful. But these things are minor matters. Holland is the natural place of refuge for her southern neighbors, and as long as they suffer from the German domination they know that with us they are safe. But should we have gone with the Allies when the Belgians suffered through no fault of their own?

For France there is in Holland the greatest personal sympathy. But she is far away from Holland. The direct issue is between England and Germany. The Hollander likes England, fashions his life as much as possible after the English pattern, prefers to do business with English people. Yet is there any reason why Holland should make the possible sacrifice of her own existence for the benefit of England?

Will Mr. Wells kindly glance through his history and see what we as a nation have suffered at the hands of England?

During three centuries we fought with England about a principle laid down by Grotius of Delft. We claimed that the sea was an open highway, free to all navigators. England used her best legal talent to prove the contrary. In this struggle we exhausted ourselves and we finally lost. Incidentally we saw our richest colonies go into the possession of England. The very colony in which I am writing this letter was taken from us in time of peace. Of course all this is past history and no Hollander is going to accuse an Englishman of acts committed by his great-grandfather. But the people will remember all those things, however vaguely, and they will distrust the nation that has constantly done them harm. We gave England her best King, (if one is to believe Mr. Macaulay.) William III. in order to destroy the power of Louis XIV., and greatly for the benefit of England incidentally, did the greatest harm to the country of his origin. After 1715, totally exhausted, we were obliged to see how England got ahead of us.

Then there are some other small items. I take one at random. While the Duke of Wellington danced the polka in Brussels the Prince of Orange with a small Dutch army stopped Napoleon's progress at Quatre Bras, and by disobeying the orders of the British commander saved the army of the allies and made the victory of Waterloo possible. Our thanks for this self-sacrifice was the mild abuse of Mr. Thackeray and other gentlemen who have ever since laughed at the clumsy Dutch troops who in truth so valiantly assisted the British and Prussians. In this matter a little more generosity on the part of British historians would have made us feel more cordial toward our English neighbors. It was ever thus. To read the story of the Armada one would believe that the English destroyed this dangerous Spanish fleet. As a matter of fact, competent historians know that certainly one-half of the glory for that feat goes to the Dutch sailors, who prevented the Spaniards from getting their supplies, their pilots, and their auxiliary army. These are merely examples. They are all small things. But there are so many of them, they return with such persistent regularity, that we would feel very little inclination to risk our national existence for a nation which, according to our feeling, (rightly or wrongly, I am not debating that question,) has never treated us with fairness, and which we had to fight for over three centuries before it would accept those general principles of international law which first of all were laid down by Grotius in the beginning of the seventeenth century.

Remember, however, that this does not mean any hostility to England. Mr. Wells undoubtedly knows that our ships have invariably done noble work in rescuing the victims of submarine attacks. He will know that our Government (to the great anger of Germany) has construed the articles of several international treaties in the most liberal way and has immediately released all such British subjects as were thrown upon our coast through the accidents of war. He will also know, if he has read the papers, that our entire country has turned out to do homage to the bravery of those men. The danger to the sailor of a British man-of-war who lands in Holland is that he will be killed by a severe attack of nicotine poisoning caused by the cigars which the people, in their desire to show their feelings and unable to break the strict law of neutrality, shower upon the Englishman who is fished out of the North Sea by our trawlers or our steamers.

But away deep under this very strong personal sympathy for England, and with very sincere admiration for the British form of government, the people of Holland cannot easily overcome a feeling of vague distrust that the nation which in the past has so often abused them cannot entirely be counted upon to treat them justly this time. Incidentally, I may say that the bungling of Mr. Churchill in Antwerp, which we know much better than do the people of England, is another reason why we are a bit afraid of the island across the North Sea.

We are indeed in the position of a dog that has often been beaten innocently and that is now smiled upon and asked to be good and attack another person who has never done him any harm. The comparison may not be very flattering to us, but Mr. Wells will understand what I mean. We have had the Germans with us always. Personally, taking them by and large, we like them not. Their ways are not our ways. Our undisciplined race abhors their system. We have seen the misery which they caused in Belgium more closely than any one else. The endless letters and pamphlets with which the Germans have inundated our land to prove the justice of their cause have made no impression whatsoever. We have with our own eyes seen the victims of their very strict explanation of Section 58, Article I., of the German military penal code. We have seen the Belgians hanging by their own red handkerchiefs, and we have with our own hands fed the multitude that had been deprived of everything. On the other hand, Germany has up to date been most scrupulous in her behavior toward us. In the past she has never done us any harm. We may not like her, but she has in a very careful way avoided all friction and has treated us with great consideration.

In view of all this, in view of the very sober attitude of our people upon all matters of our daily life, in view of these historical reflections, which have a very decided influence, would it be quite fair without any provocation on the side of Germany to go forth and attack her in the back, now that she is in such very dangerous straits? I repeat that this may not be the exact sentiment of all of my countrymen, but I believe that very many of us feel things that way. Perhaps we disagree in minor details, but we agree about the main issue.

We love our country. For centuries we have fought to maintain our individual civilization against the large neighbors who surround us. We try to live up to our good reputation as a home for all those who suffer. The people who are made homeless by Germany come to us and we try to feed them on such grain as the British Government allows to pass through the Channel. We try to continue in our duty toward all our neighbors, even when they declare the entire North Sea (in which we also have a certain interest) as a place of battle and blow up our ships with their mines. We patiently destroy the mines which swim away from our neighbors' territorial waters and land upon our shores. In short, we perform a very difficult act of balancing as well as we can. But it seems to us that under difficult circumstances we are following the only correct road which can lead to the ultimate goal which we wish to reach—the lasting respect of all those who will judge us without prejudice and malice.

It is very kind of Mr. Wells to offer us territorial compensation, but we respectfully decline such a reward for the sort of attack which was popular in the days of the old Machiavelli.

HENDRIK WILLEM VAN LOON.

New York, Feb. 26, 1915.

Hungary After the War

By a Correspondent of The London Times

[From The London Times, Jan. 20, 1915.]

The allied powers are agreed that the European resettlement must be inspired by the principle of nationality. It will be but just if Hungary suffers severely from its application, for during the past forty years no European Government has sinned so deeply and persistently against that principle as has her Magyar Government. The old Hungary, whose name and history are surrounded by the glamour of romance, was not the modern "Magyarland." Its boasted constitutional liberties were, indeed, confined to the nobles, and the "Hungarian people" was composed, in the words of Verböczy's Tripartitum Code, of "prelates, barons, and other magnates, also all nobles, but not commoners." But the nobles of all Hungarian races rallied to the Hungarian banner, proud of the title of civis hungaricus. John Hunyádi, the national hero, was a Rumane; Zrinyi was a Croat, and many another paladin of Hungarian liberty was a non-Magyar. Latin was the common language of the educated. But with the substitution of Magyar for Latin during the nineteenth century, and with the growth of what is called the "Magyar State Idea," with its accompaniment of Magyar Chauvinism, all positive recognition of the rights and individuality of non-Magyar races gradually vanished.

The Magyar language itself is incapable of expressing the difference between "Hungarian" and "Magyar." The difference is approximately the same as between "British" and "English." The "Magyar State" set itself to Magyarize education and every feature of public life. Any protest was treated as "incitement against the Magyar State Idea" and was made punishable by two years' imprisonment. It was as though a narrow-minded English Administration should set itself to obliterate all traces of Scottish, Welsh, and Irish national feeling; or as though the Government of India should ignore the existence of all save one race and language in our great dependency.

In comparison with the Government of "Magyarland," the Government of Austria was a model of tolerance. In Austria, Poles and Ruthenes, Czechs, Germans, Italians, Serbo-Croatians, and Slovenes were entitled to the public use of their own languages and enjoyed various degrees of provincial self-government. The Austrian side of every Austro-Hungarian banknote bore an indication of its value in every language of the empire, whereas the Hungarian side was printed in Magyar alone. This was done in order to foster the belief that Hungary was entirely Magyar.

In reality, Hungary is as polyglot as Austria. Exact statistics are not obtainable, since the Magyar census returns have long been deliberately falsified for "Magyar State" reasons. Roughly speaking, it may, however, be said that, in Hungary proper, i.e., exclusive of Croatia-Slavonia, where the population is almost entirely Serbo-Croatian, there are perhaps 8,500,000 Magyars, including nearly 1,000,000 professing and a large number of baptized Jews. Against this total there are more than 2,000,000 Germans, including the numerous colonies on the Austrian border, the Swabians of the south, and the Saxons of Transylvania; more than 2,000,000 Slovaks, who inhabit chiefly the northwestern counties; between three and four million Rumanes, living between the Theiss and the Eastern Carpathians; some 500,000 Ruthenes, or Little Russians, who inhabit the northeastern counties; some 600,000 Serbs and Croats in the central southern counties; 100,000 Slovenes along the borders of Styria and Carinthia; and some 200,000 other non-Magyars, including about 90,000 gypsies, who speak a language of their own. Taking the population of Hungary proper at 18,000,000, the Magyars are thus in a minority, which becomes more marked when Croatia-Slavonia with its population of 2,600,000 southern Slavs is added.

Distribution of Nationalities in Hungary.

It would have been possible for the Magyars, after the restoration of the Hungarian Constitution under the Dual Settlement of 1867, to have built up a strong and elastic Transleithan polity based on the recognition of race individualities and equality of political rights for all. The non-Magyars would have accepted Magyar leadership the more readily in that they had been dragooned and oppressed by Austria during the period of reaction after 1849 as ruthlessly as the Magyars themselves. Deák and Eötvös, who were the last prominent Magyar public men with a Hungarian, as distinguished from a narrowly Magyar, conception of the future of their country, pleaded indeed for fair treatment of the non-Magyars, and trusted to the attractive force of the strong Magyar nucleus to settle automatically the question of precedence in the State. But in 1875, when Koloman Tisza, the father of Count Stephen Tisza, took office, these wise counsels were finally and definitely rejected in favor of what Baron Bánffy afterward defined as "national Chauvinism." Magyarization became the watchword of the State and persecution its means of action. Koloman Tisza concluded with the monarch a tacit pact under which the Magyar Government was to be left free to deal as it pleased with the non-Magyars as long as it supplied without wincing the recruits and the money required for the joint army. The Magyar Parliament became almost exclusively representative of the Magyar minority of the people. Out of the 413 constituencies of Hungary proper more than 400 were compelled, by pressure, bribery, and gerrymandering, to return Magyar or Jewish Deputies. The press and the banks fell entirely into Jewish hands, and the Magyarized Jews became the most vociferous of the "national Chauvinists."

Nothing like it has been seen before or since—save the Turkish revolution of 1908, when the Young Turks, under Jewish influence, broke away from the relatively tolerant methods of the old régime and adopted the system of forcible "Turkification" that led to the Albanian insurrections of 1910-12, to the formation of the Balkan League, and to the overthrow of Turkey in Europe.

The bitter fruits of the policy of Magyarization are now ripening. The oppressed Rumanes look not toward Austria, as in the old days when their great Bishop Siaguna made them a stanch prop of the Hapsburg dynasty, but across the Carpathians to Bucharest; the Serbo-Croatians of Hungary, Croatia-Slavonia, and Dalmatia, whose economic and political development the Magyars have deliberately hampered, turn their eyes no longer, as in the days of Jellatchich, toward Vienna, but await wistfully the coming of the Serbian liberators; the Ruthenes of the northeast hear the tramp of the Russian armies; the Slovaks of the northwest watch with dull expectancy for the moment when, united with their Slovak kinsmen of Moravia and their cousins, the Czechs of Bohemia, they shall form part of an autonomous Slav province stretching from the Elbe to the Danube. For the Magyars, who have thrown to the winds the wisdom of the wisest men, fate may reserve the possession of the fertile and well-watered Central Hungarian plain. There they may thrive in modesty and rue at their leisure the folly of having sacrificed their chance of national greatness to the vain pursuit of the "Magyar State Idea" under the demoralizing influence of Austro-German imperialism.

The Watchers Of The Troad

By HARRY LYMAN KOOPMAN

The Union of Central Europe

An Argument in Favor of a Union of the States Now Allied With Germany

By Franz von Liszt

When new directions of development are first taken in history, it usually requires the lapse of several decades before we understand them in their true importance, and it takes much longer before proper terms describing them are adopted generally. In the interim, misconceptions of all kinds are the necessary consequence of clouded perception and confused terminology, especially when, for purposes of party politics, there figures in a greater or less degree a certain unwillingness to understand.

Such misunderstandings are not devoid of danger in times of peace; they may become pregnant with fate when, as in our day, the leading nations of the earth stand at the threshhold of a great change in their history. I am anxious, therefore, to defend against objections raised with more or less intentional misunderstanding the thoughts which I expressed in my recently published essay, "A Central European Union of States as the Next Goal of German Foreign Policy."

Let us for once put aside the word "Imperialism." Surely we are all agreed as one that it is an absolute essential of life for the German Empire to carry on world-politics, (Weltpolitik.) We have been engaged in that since the eighties of the nineteenth century. The first colonial possessions which the German Empire obtained were the fruits of a striving for world-politics that had not yet at that time come to full and clear consciousness.

But, conscious of our goal, we did not attempt the paths of world-politics until the end of the last century. At the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the German Empire, on Jan. 18, 1896, our Kaiser uttered the words: "The German Empire has become a world empire, (Aus dem deutschen Reich ist ein Weltreich geworden.)" And the German Empire's groping for its way in world-politics found its expression in the first naval proposal of Tirpitz in the year 1898.

At that time the Imperial Chancellor Prince Hohenlohe expressly designated the policy of the German Empire as "world politics." Thereby a goal was sketched for the development of the German Empire. We have not lost sight of it since then, keeping unconfused despite many an illusion and many a failure. And today we all live in the firm faith that the world war, which we are determined to bring to a victorious conclusion by the exertion of all our forces as a people, will bring us the safe guarantee for the attainment of our goal in world politics.

On that score, then, there is absolutely no difference of opinion. But there does appear to be considerable difference of opinion as to the conception of world politics. Under that name one may mean a policy directed toward world domination (Weltherrschaft.) For that kind of world politics the word "Imperialism," borrowed from the period of Roman world domination of the second century of the Christian era, fits precisely.

Imperialism aims, directly or indirectly, through peaceful or forceful annexation or economic exploitation, to make the whole inhabited earth subject to its sway. Imperialistic is the policy of Great Britain, which has subjected one-fifth of the inhabited area of the earth to its sway and knows no bounds to the expansion of English rule. Imperialistic, too, is the policy of Russia, which for centuries has been extending its huge tentacles toward the Atlantic and toward the Mediterranean, the Pacific, and the Indian Oceans, never sated.

Such world domination has never endured permanently; it can endure least of all in our days, in which an array of mighty armed powers stand prepared to guard their independence. World domination sooner or later leads inevitably to an alliance of the States whose independence is threatened; and thereby it leads to the overthrow of the disturber of the peace. That, as we all confidently hope, will be the fate of England as well as of Russia in the present war....

World politics, however, may mean something else; policies based upon world value, (Weltgeltung.) The policy based on world domination differs from that based on world value, in that the former denies the equal rights of other States, while the latter makes that its premise. The State that asserts its rights to world values demands for itself what it concedes to the others: its right to expand and develop its political and economic influence, and to have a voice in the discussion whenever the political or economical relations of the various States at any point in the inhabited globe approach a state of change....

In this sense has the German Empire heretofore engaged in world politics in contrast with Russia and England. That it cannot be carried on successfully without overseas colonies, a strong foreign fleet, naval bases, and telegraphic connections through cable or wireless telegraph apparatus, needs no further elucidation. For this sort of world politics also the name "Imperialism" may be used. But such use of the word is misleading; I shall therefore hereafter avoid it.

And herein I think I have uncovered the deeper reason for an early misunderstanding of great consequence. It seems as though in a certain—to be sure, not a very great or very influential—circle of our German fellow-citizens the opinion prevails that the German Empire should substitute its claims for world domination for those of England. Such a view cannot be too soon or too sharply rebuked.

The claim for world domination would set the German Empire for many years face to face with a long series of bloody wars, the issue of which cannot be in doubt a moment to any one familiar with history. The enforcement of this claim, moreover, would of itself be the surrender of the German spirit to the spirit of our present opponent in the war. The idea of world domination, imperialism in the true sense of the word, is not a product grown on German soil; it is imported from abroad. To maintain that view in all seriousness is treachery to the inmost spirit of the German soul.

Perhaps I am mistaken in taking it for granted that such thoughts are today haunting many minds. Perhaps it is merely a matter of misapplied use of a large sounding word. In that case, however, it is absolutely necessary to create clear thinking. I take it for granted that I am voicing the sentiments of the souls of the vast overwhelming majority of Germans when I say: "We shall wage the war, if need be, to the very end, against the English and Russian lust for world domination, and for Germany's world value (Weltgeltung.")

But forthwith there appears a further difference of opinion, to be taken not quite so seriously, which I shall endeavor to define as objectively as possible. The German conservative press seems to be of the opinion that the goal for the winning of which we are waging the great war, and concerning which we are all of one mind, will be definitely attained immediately upon the conclusion of the war.

I, on the other hand, am convinced that in order permanently to insure for ourselves the fruits of victory, even after a victorious conclusion of the war, we shall need long and well planned labors of peace....

In my essay I used the statement: "England's claim for the domination of the sea, and therein for the domination of the world, remains a great danger to the peace of the world." To this view I adhere firmly. Let us take it for granted that the most extravagant hopes of our most reckless dreamers are fulfilled, that England is crowded out of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and is involved in a long-lasting war with the native Indians. An impossibly large dose of political naïveté is needed in order to make us believe that England would take this loss quietly for all time.

We may differ on the question whether we should meet England's efforts for rehabilitation of her world dominion in warlike, or, as I take it, in peaceful ways; but it would be an unpardonable piece of stupidity for us to rock ourselves to sleep in the mad delusion that those efforts would not be exerted. Even were England forced to her knees, she would not immediately give up her claim for world domination. We must count upon that.

And, counting upon that, we must estimate our own forces very carefully; rather account them weaker than they really are, than the reverse. I did that in my essay, and that is why the conservative press was so wrought up over it. To be sure, it carefully avoided discussing my reasons.

I started from the conception of world power which is fairly well established in the present political literature. From a point of view taken also by conservative writers I demanded as a characteristic of world power, in addition to the size of territories and the number of population, above all, the economic independence that makes it possible for a State, in a case of need, to produce, without export or import, all foodstuffs, necessities, raw materials, and all the finished or half-finished products it needs for its consumers in normal times, as well as to insure the sale of its surplus.

It is patent that this economic independence is influenced by the geographical position of the fatherland and its colonies. Now, I defended the theory (and my opponents made no attempt to confute it) that even after a victorious war the German Empire would not have fully attained this economic independence; that, accordingly, after the conclusion of peace, we must exert every effort to insure this economic independence in one way or another.

As to the course which we must follow to attain this goal, there may be various opinions. I proposed the establishment of a union of Central European States. The conservative press characterized that as "utterly pretentious."...

If the course I have proposed is considered inadvisable, let another be proposed. But on what colonies, forsooth, do those gentlemen count, that could furnish us with cotton and ore, petroleum and tobacco, wood and silk, and whatever else we need, in the quantity and quality we need? What colonies that could offer us—do not forget that—markets for the sale of our exporting industries? Even after the war we shall be dependent upon exports to and imports from abroad.

And so there is no other way of safeguarding our economic independence against England and Russia than by an economic alliance with the States that are our allies in this war, or at least that do not make common cause with our enemies. Aside from the fact, which I shall not discuss here, that only such an alliance can insure a firm position for us on the Atlantic Ocean, which in the next decades is bound to be the area of competition for the world powers.

Politics are not a matter of emotion, but of calm, intelligent deliberation. Let us leave emotional politics to our enemies. It is the German method to envisage the goal steadily, and with it the roads that lead to that goal. Our goal is not world domination. Whoever tries to talk that belief into the mind of the German people may confuse some heads that are already not very clear; but he cannot succeed in substituting Napoleon I. for Bismarck as our master teacher.

Our goal can only be the establishing of our value in the world among world powers, with equal rights to the same opportunities. And in order to attain this goal we must, even after the conclusion of peace, exert all our forces. A people that thinks it can rest on its laurels after victory has been won runs the risk sooner or later of losing that for which its sons shed their blood on the field of battle. With the conclusion of peace there begins for us anew the unceasing peaceful competition and the maintenance and strengthening of the world value which we have won through the war. German imperialism is and will remain the work of peace.

Two Poor Little Belgian Fledglings

By PIERRE LOTI.

Translation by Florence Simmonds.

[From King Albert's Book.]

At evening, in one of our southern towns, a train full of Belgian refugees ran into the station, and the poor martyrs, exhausted and bewildered, got out slowly, one by one, on the unfamiliar platform, where French people were waiting to receive them. Carrying a few possessions caught up at random, they had got into the carriages without even asking whither they were bound, urged by their anxiety to flee, to flee desperately from horror and death, from unspeakable mutilation and Sadic outrage—from things that seemed no longer possible in the world, but which, it seems, were lying dormant in pietistic German brains, and had suddenly belched forth upon their land and ours, like a belated manifestation of original barbarism. They no longer possessed a village, nor a home, nor a family; they arrived like jetsam cast up by the waters, and the eyes of all were full of terrified anguish. Many children, little girls whose parents had disappeared in the stress of fire and battle; and aged women, now alone in the world, who had fled, hardly knowing why, no longer caring for life, but moved by some obscure instinct of self-preservation.

Two little creatures, lost in the pitiable throng, held each other tightly by the hand, two little boys obviously brothers, the elder, who may have been five years old, protecting the younger, of about three. No one claimed them, no one knew them. How had they been able to understand, finding themselves alone, that they, too, must get into this train to escape death? Their clothes were decent, and their little stockings were thick and warm; clearly they belonged to humble but careful parents; they were, doubtless, the sons of one of those sublime Belgian soldiers who had fallen heroically on the battlefield, and whose last thought had perhaps been one of supreme tenderness for them. They were not even crying, so overcome were they by fatigue and sleepiness; they could scarcely stand. They could not answer when they were questioned, but they seemed intent, above all, upon keeping a tight hold of each other. Finally the elder, clasping the little one's hand closely, as if fearing to lose him, seemed to awake to a sense of his duty as protector, and, half asleep already, found strength to say, in a suppliant tone, to the Red Cross lady bending over him: "Madame, are they going to put us to bed soon?" For the moment this was all they were capable of wishing, all that they hoped for from human pity—to be put to bed.

They were put to bed at once, together, of course, still holding each other tightly by the hand; and, nestling one against the other, they fell at the same moment into the tranquil unconsciousness of childish slumber.

Once, long ago, in the China Sea, during the war, two little frightened birds, smaller even than our wrens, arrived, I know not how, on board our ironclad, in our Admiral's cabin, and all day long, though no one attempted to disturb them, they fluttered from side to side, perching on cornices and plants.

At nightfall, when I had forgotten them, the Admiral sent for me. It was to show me, now without emotion, the two little visitors who had gone to roost in his room, perched upon a slender silken cord above his bed. They nestled closely together, two little balls of feathers, touching and almost merged one in the other, and slept without the slightest fear, sure of our pity. And those little Belgians sleeping side by side made me think of the two little birds lost in the China Sea. There was the same confidence and the same innocent slumber—but a greater tenderness was about to watch over them.

What the Germans Desire

Not Conquest, but a New Economical System of Europe

By Gustaf Sioesteen

BERLIN, Oct. 21.

Counting one's chickens before they are hatched is a pardonable failing with nations carrying on war with the feeling that their all is at stake. When sorrow is a guest of every household, when monetary losses cause depression, and the cry arises time after time, "What will be the outcome of all this?" then only the fairest illusions and the wildest flights of fancy can sustain the courage of the masses.

These illusions are not only egotistical but, curiously enough, altruistic, since mankind, even when bayoneting their fellow-creatures, want to persuade themselves and others that this is done merely for the benefit of their adversary. In accordance with this idea, in the opinion of all parties, the war will be brought to an end with an increase of power for their native country, as also a new Eden prevail throughout the whole civilized world.

The enemies of Germany, though they have hitherto suffered an almost unbroken series of reverses in the war, have already thoroughly thrashed out the subject as to what the world will look like when Germany is conquered. In German quarters the press has likewise painted the future, but the following lines are not intended to increase the row of fancy portraits, but merely to throw light on what is new in the demands conceived.

My representations are founded on special information, and I deem it best to make them now, when the most fantastic descriptions of the all-absorbing desire of conquest on the part of Germany have circulated in the press of the entire world.

Among other absurdities it has been declared that Germany intends to claim a fourth of France, making this dismembered country a vassal State, bound to the triumphal car of the conqueror by the very heaviest chains. It is incredible, but true, that such a statement has been made in the press by a Frenchman, formerly President of the Council.

In direct opposition to the fictitious demands of the Germans, I can advance a proposition which may sound paradoxical, viz., that the leading men in Germany, the Emperor and his advisers, after bringing the war to a victorious issue, will seriously seek expedients to avoid conquests, so far as this is compatible with the indispensable demands of order and stability for Europe.

First, as regards France. The entire world, as also the Germans, are moved to pity by her fate. Germany has never entertained any other wish than to be at peace with her western frontier. A considerable portion of France is now laid waste, and in a few weeks millions of soldiers will have been poured into still wider portions of this beautiful country. On what are the inhabitants of these French provinces to exist when the German and French armies have requisitioned everything eatable? Germany cannot feed the inhabitants of the French provinces occupied, nor can the Belgians do so, I imagine, for the provisions of Germany are simply sufficient for their own needs, England preventing any new supply on any large scale.

This is a totally new state of things in comparison with 1870, when Germany was still an agrarian country and had, moreover, a free supply on all her frontiers.

Can the French Government allow a considerable portion of their own population actually to starve, or be obliged to emigrate to other parts of France, there to live the life of nomads at the expense of England, while the deserted provinces are given over to desolation?

The idea prevails here that the French will compel their Government to enter on and conclude a separate treaty of peace when the fatal consequences of the war begin to assume this awful guise. England does not appear to have considered that this would be the result of her system of blockade.

The German conditions of peace as regards France will be governed by two principal factors with respect to their chief issues.

The first is the complete unanimity of the Emperor and the Chancellor that no population, not speaking German, will be incorporated in the German Empire, or obtain representation in the Diet. Germany already has sufficient trouble with the foreign element now present in the Diet. Consequently there can be no question of any considerable acquisition of territory from France, but the demands of Germany simply extend to the iron-ore fields of Lorraine, which are certainly of considerable value. For France these mining fields are of far less consideration than for Germany, whose immense iron trade is far more in need of the iron mines.

The second factor is that the Germans, owing to the strong public opinion, will never consent to Belgium regaining her liberty. The Chancellor of the Empire has, as long as it was possible, been opposed to the annexation of Belgium, having preferred, even during hostilities, to have re-established the Belgian Kingdom. It is significant that the military authorities have prohibited the German press from discussing the question of the future of Belgium. It is evident that there has prevailed a wish to leave the question open in order to insure a solution offering various possibilities. But subsequent to the discovery of the Anglo-Belgian plot, as previously stated, all idea of reinstating Belgium has been discarded.

The annexation of Belgium, however, makes it possible to grant France less stringent conditions. So long as Belgium—under some form of self-government—is under German sway there is no hope of revenge of France, and the conviction prevails here that after this war France will abstain from her dreams of aggrandizement and become pacific. Germany can then make reductions in the burdens laid on her people for military service by land.

To arrange the position of Belgium in relation to Germany will be a very interesting problem for German policy.

It is obvious that the annexation of Belgium cannot be defended from the point of view of the principle of nationality. The Belgians—half of them French, half of them Flemish—undoubtedly deem themselves but one nation. As a mitigating circumstance in favor of the annexation it is urged—above and beyond the intrigues carried on by Belgium with the English—that Belgium, in days of yore, for a long time formed a portion of the German Empire, and that the inhabitants of the little country, to a considerable degree, gain their livelihood by its being a land of transit for German products. Nationally, the annexation is not to be defended, but geographically, economically, and from a military point of view it is comprehensible.

At the east front of the central powers very different conditions prevail. Austria has no desire to make the conquest of any territory; indeed, just the contrary, would probably be willing to cede a portion of Galicia in favor of new States. Germany has not the slightest inclination to incorporate new portions of Slav or Lettish regions. Both Germans and Austrians wish to establish free buffer States between themselves and the great Russian Empire.

Not even the Baltic provinces, where Germans hold almost the same position as the Swedes in Finland, form an object for the German desire of conquest, but her wish is to make them, as also Finland, an independent State. Furthermore, the Kingdom of Poland and a Kingdom of Ukraine would be the outcome of decisive victories for the central powers.

What Germany would demand of these new States, whose very existence was the outcome of her success at arms, would simply be an economical organization in common with the German Empire, an enormous central European "Zollverein" ("Customs Union") with Germany at its heart. It is only such a union, in the opinion of leading German statesmen, which could hold the United States of North America at bay, and after this present war, moreover, the world would only have to take into account two first-class powers, viz., Germany and the United States of America.

A commencement of this new economical connection is being made by the negotiations entered on by representatives of Austria-Hungary and Germany concerning the proposed formation of a Customs Union. Since this union would include 120,000,000 individuals, it must be evident what an immense attraction it must exert on the surrounding smaller nations. Switzerland and Holland can scarcely escape this attraction, and the Scandinavian countries, it is said, would probably find it to their advantage, together with a liberated Finland, to form a Northern Customs Union, which later, on an independent basis, could enter in close union with the vast "Zollverein" of Central Europe.

This "Zollverein" would then include about 175,000,000 individuals. The adhesion of Italy to the vast union would not be inconceivable, and then the combination of the United States of Europe, founded on a voluntary commercial union, would be approaching its realization.

Such a commercial union, embracing various peoples, could only lead to moderation in foreign politics, and would be the best guarantee for the peace of the universe. A brisk interchange of commodities, a fruitful interchange of cultural ideas would result from such a union, connecting the polar seas with the Mediterranean, and the Netherlands with the Steppes of Southern Russia.

All States participating in this union would gain thereby. But one European country would be the loser, Great Britain, the land of promise for the middleman; that, according to German comprehension, at present gains a living by skimming the cream from the trade industry of other nations by facilitating the exchange of goods, and making profits by being the banking centre of the world.

The Germans declare that there is no reason for such a middleman's existence in our day. The banking system is now so developed in all civilized lands that, for example Sweden can remit direct to Australia or the Argentine for goods obtained thence, instead of making payment via London and there rate, by raising the exchange for sovereigns to an unnatural height, so that, as matter of fact, England levies a tax on all international interchange of commodities.

In opposition to this glorious vision of the days to come, which the Germans wish to realize by their victories in war, there is the alluring prospect of the Allies that by their victory they will deal a deathblow to German militarism. While the English, with their 200,000 troops, are good enough to promise no conquest of German territory—what says Russia to this?—at the close of the war, in the opinion of the Britons, there would still remain 65,000,000 Germans right in the centre of Europe, organized as a kingdom burdened with a war indemnity to a couple of tens of milliards in marks.

This nation, however, strengthened by 15,000,000 Germans in Austria, would be the greatest bearers of culture in the wide world—the nation with the best technical equipment of all others, glowing with ambition, with military training second to none, and gifted with an immense rate of increase as regards population. This nation would be forced to lay down her arms, lying as it does between the overbearing gigantic realm in the east and the warlike French to the west. The idea is incomprehensible. The universe would behold a competition in armaments such as it had never seen.

A victorious Germany, on the other hand, would become less and less military, since she would not need to arm herself to such an extent as now. She is already chiefly an industrial country. Her desire is to be wealthy, and wealth invariably smothers military instincts. Germany has set up far greater ideals as regards social developments than other countries, and all she asks is to be left in peace calmly to carry out these plans in the future. German militarism can only be conquered by the victory being on her side, since she has no thought of military supremacy, but simply of founding a new economical organization in Europe.

GUSTAF SIOESTEEN.

Address To King Albert Of Belgium

By EMIL VERHAEREN.

Translation by Florence Simmonds.

[From King Albert's Book.]

Sire: This request to pay my respectful homage to you has given me the first real pleasure I have been permitted to feel since the good days of Liège. At this moment you are the one King in the world whose subjects, without exception, unite in loving and admiring him with all the strength of their souls. This unique fate is yours, Sire. No leader of men on earth has had it in the same degree as you.

In spite of the immensity of the sorrow surrounding you, I think you have a right to rejoice, and the more so as your consort, her Majesty the Queen, shares this rare privilege with you.

Sire, your name will be great throughout the ages to come. You are in such perfect sympathy with your people that you will always be their symbol. Their courage, their tenacity, their stifled grief, their pride, their future greatness, their immortality all live in you. Our hearts are yours to their very depths. Being yourself, you are all of us. And this you will remain.

Later on, when you return to your recaptured and glorious Belgium, you will only have to say the word, Sire, and all disputes will lose their bitterness and all antagonisms fade away. After being our strength and defender, you will become our peacemaker and reconciler. With deepest respect,

EMIL VERHAEREN.

Foreshadowing a New Phase of War

Financing the Allies and Small Nations Preparing for War

By Lloyd George, British Chancellor of the Exchequer

PARLIAMENTARY REPORT.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, (Mr. Lloyd George,) who was called upon by the Speaker, said: I shall do my best to conform to the announcement of the Prime Minister that the statement I have to make about the financial conference in Paris shall be a brief one, but I am afraid my right honorable friend assumed that we are all endowed with the extraordinary gift of compression which he himself possesses. [Laughter.] The arrangements that were made between the three Ministers for recommendation to their respective Governments commit us to heavy engagements, and it is, therefore, important I should report them in detail to the House, and find some reason why we should undertake such liabilities.

This is the most expensive war which has ever been waged in material, in men, and in money. The conference in Paris was mostly concerned with money. For the year ending Dec. 31 next the aggregate expenditure of the Allies will not be far short of £2,000,000,000. The British Empire will be spending considerably more than either of our two great allies—probably up to £100,000,000 to £150,000,000 more than the highest figure to be spent by the other two great allies. We have created a new army; we have to maintain a huge navy. We are paying liberal separation allowances. We have to bring troops from the ends of the earth; we have to wage war not merely in Europe, but in Asia, in North, East, and South Africa. I must say just a few words as to the relative position of the three great countries which led us to make the arrangements on financial matters which we recommend to our respective Governments. Britain and France are two of the richest countries in the world. In fact, they are the great bankers of the world. We could pay for our huge expenditure on the war for five years, allowing a substantial sum for depreciation, out of the proceeds of our investments abroad. France could carry on the war for two or three years at least out of the proceeds of her investments abroad, and both countries would still have something to spare to advance to their allies. This is a most important consideration, for at the present moment the Allies are fighting the whole of the mobilized strength of Germany, with perhaps less than one-third of their own strength. The problem of the war to the Allies is to bring the remaining two-thirds of their resources and strength into the fighting line at the earliest possible moment. This is largely, though by no means entirely, a question of finance.

Russia is in a different position from either Britain or France. She is a prodigiously rich country in natural resources—about the richest country in the world in natural resources. Food, raw material—she produces practically every commodity. She has a great and growing population, a virile and industrious people. Her resources are overflowing and she has labor to develop them in abundance. By a stroke of the pen Russia has since the war began enormously increased her resources by suppressing the sale of all alcoholic liquors. [Cheers.] It can hardly be realized that by that means alone she has increased the productivity of her labor by something between 30 and 50 per cent., just as if she had added millions of laborers to the labor reserves of Russia without even increasing the expense of maintaining them, and whatever the devastation of the country may be Russia has more than anticipated its wastage by that great act of national heroism and sacrifice. [Cheers.] The great difficulty with Russia is that, although she has great natural resources, she has not yet been able to command the capital within her own dominions to develop those resources even during the times of peace. In time of war she has additional difficulties. She cannot sell her commodities for several reasons. One is that a good deal of what she depends upon for raising capital abroad will be absorbed by the exigencies of the war in her own country. Beyond that the yield of her minerals will not be quite as great, because the labor will be absorbed in her armies.

There is not the same access to her markets. She has difficulty in exporting her goods, and in addition to that her purchases abroad are enormously increased in consequence of the war. Russia, therefore, has special difficulty in the matter of financing outside purchases for the war. Those are some of the difficulties with which we were confronted.

France has also special difficulties. I am not sure that we quite realize the strain put upon that gallant country [cheers] up to the present moment. For the moment she bears far and away the greatest strain of the war in proportion to her resources. She has the largest proportion of her men under arms. The enemy are in occupation of parts of her richest territory. They are within fifty-five miles of her capital, exactly as if we had a huge German army at Oxford. It is only a few months since the bankers of Paris could hear the sound of the enemy's guns from their counting houses, and they can hear the same sound now, some of them, from their country houses. In those circumstances the money markets of a country are not at their very best. That has been one of the difficulties with which France has been confronted in raising vast sums of money to carry on the war and helping to finance the allied States.

There is a wonderful confidence, notwithstanding these facts, possessing the whole nation. [Cheers.] Nothing strikes the visitor to Paris more than that. There is a calm, a serene confidence, which is supposed to be incompatible with the temperament of the Celt by those who do do not know it. [Laughter.] There is a general assurance that the Germans have lost their tide, and that now the German armies have as remote a chance of crushing France as they have of overrunning the planet Mars. [Cheers.] That is the feeling which pervades every class of the community, and that is reflected in the money market there. The difficulties of France in that respect are passing away, and the arrangement that has now been made in France for the purpose of raising sums of money to promote their military purposes will, I have not the faintest doubt, be crowned with the completest success. [Cheers.]

But we have a number of small States which are compelled to look to the greater countries in alliance for financial support. There is Belgium, which until recently was a very rich country, devastated, desolate, and almost entirely in the hands of the enemy, with an army and a civil government to maintain, but with no revenue. We have to see that she does not suffer [cheers] until the period of restoration comes to her, and compensation. [Cheers.] Then there is Serbia, with the population of Ireland—a people of peasants maintaining an army of 500,000 and fighting her third great war within two years, and fighting that with great resource, great courage, and bravery. [Cheers.] But she had no reserve of wealth, and now no exports with which she can purchase munitions of war outside, and she has hardly any manufactures of her own. That is the position as far as the smaller States are concerned.

There are also other States preparing for war, and it is obviously our interest that they should be well equipped for that task. They can only borrow in the French and English markets.

But we had our own special difficulties, and I think I ought to mention those. Two-thirds of our food supplies are purchased abroad. The enormous quantities of raw materials for our manufactures and our industries are largely absorbed in war equipment, and our ships in war transport. We cannot pay as usual in exports, freights, and services; our savings for the moment are not what they would be in the case of peace. We cannot, therefore, pay for our imports in that way. We have to purchase abroad. We have to increase our purchases abroad for war purposes. In addition to that we have to create enormous credits to enable other countries to do the same thing. The balance is, therefore, heavily against us for the first time. There is no danger, but in a conference of the kind we had at Paris I could not overlook the fact that it was necessary for us to exercise great vigilance in regard to our gold.

These were the complex problems we had to discuss and adjust, and we had to determine how we could most effectually mobilize the financial resources of the Allies so as to be of the greatest help to the common cause. For the moment undoubtedly ours is still the best market in the world. An alliance in a great war to be effective needs that each country must bring all its resources, whatever they are, into the common stock. An alliance for war cannot be conducted on limited liability principles. If one country in the alliance has more trained and armed men ready with guns, rifles, and ammunition than another she must bring them all up against the common enemy, without regard to the fact that the others cannot for the moment make a similar contribution. But it is equally true that the same principle applies to the country with the larger navy or the country with the greater resources in capital and credit. They must be made available to the utmost for the purpose of the alliance, whether the other countries make a similar contribution or not. That is the principle upon which the conference determined to recommend to their respective Governments a mobilization of our financial resources for the war.

The first practical suggestion we had to consider was the suggestion that has been debated very considerably in the press—the suggestion of a joint loan. We discussed that very fully and we came to the conclusion that it was the very worst way of utilizing our resources. It would have frightened every Bourse and attracted none. It would have made the worst of every national credit and the best of none. Would the interest paid have been the interest upon which we could raise money, the rate at which France could have raised money, or the rate at which Russia could raise money? If we paid a high rate of interest we could never raise more money at low rates. If instead of raising £350,000,000 a few weeks ago for our own purposes we had floated a great joint loan of £1,000,000,000, the House can very well imagine what the result would have been. We decided after a good deal of discussion and reflection that each country should raise money for its own needs within its own markets in so far as their conditions allowed, but that if help were needed by any country for outside purchases then those who could best afford to render assistance for the time being should do so.

There was only one exception which we decided to recommend, and that was in the case of borrowings by small States. We decided that each of the great allied countries should contribute a portion of every loan made to the small States who were either in with us now or prepared to come in later on, that the responsibility should be divided between the three countries, and that at an opportune moment a joint loan should be floated to cover the advances either already made, or to be made, to these countries outside the three great allied countries. That was the only exception we made in respect of joint loans. Up to the present very considerable advances have been made by Russia, by France, and by ourselves to other countries. It is proposed that, if there is an opportune moment on the market, these should be consolidated at some time or other into one loan, that they should be placed upon the markets of Russia, France, and Great Britain, but that the liability shall be divided into three equal parts.

With regard to Russia, we have already advanced £32,000,000 for purchases here and elsewhere outside the Russian Empire. Russia has also shipped £8,000,000 of gold to this country, so that we have established credits in this country for Russia to the extent of £40,000,000 already. France has also made advances in respect of purchases in that country. Russia estimates that she will still require to establish considerable credits for purchases made outside her own country between now and the end of the year. I am not sure for the moment that it would be desirable for me to give the exact figure; I think it would be better not, because it would give an idea of the extent to which purchases are to be made outside by Russia. But for that purpose she must borrow. The amount of her borrowing depends upon what Russia can spare of her produce to sell in outside markets and also on the access to those markets.

If Russia is able within the course of the next few weeks or few months to export a considerable quantity of her grain, as I hope she will be, as in fact we have made arrangements that she should, [cheers,] then there will not be the same need to borrow for purchases either in this country or outside, because she can do her own financing to that extent.

The two Governments decided to raise the first £50,000,000 in equal sums on the French and British markets respectively. That will satisfy Russian requirements for a considerable time. As to further advances, the allied countries will consider when the time arrives how the money should be raised according to the position of the money markets at that time. I have said that we gave a guarantee to Russia that she need not hesitate a moment in giving her orders for any purchases which are necessary for the war on account of fear of experiencing any difficulty in the matter of raising money for payments. We confidently anticipate that by the time these first advances will have been exhausted the military position will have distinctly improved both in France and in Russia.

I may say that Treasury bills to the extent of £10,000,000 on the credit of Russia have been issued within the last few days. At 12 o'clock today the list closed, and the House will be very glad to hear that the amount was not merely subscribed but oversubscribed by the market, because this country is not quite as accustomed to Russian securities as France, and, therefore, it was an experiment. I think it is a very good omen for our relations, not merely during the war, but for our relations with Russia after the war, that the first great loan of that kind on Russian credit in the market has been such a complete success.

Now we have to consider the position of this country with regard to the possibility of our gold flitting in the event of very great credits being established in this country. The position of the three great allied countries as to gold is exceptionally strong. Russia and France have accumulated great reserves which have been barely touched so far during the war. I do not think the French reserve has been touched at all, or has been used in the slightest degree, and I think as far as the Russian reserve is concerned it has only been reduced by the transfer of £8,000,000 of gold from Russia to this country. Our accumulation of gold is larger than it has ever been in the history of this country. It has increased enormously since the commencement of the war. It is not nearly as large as that of Russia, France, or Germany, but it must be borne in mind that there is this distinction in our favor; up to the present we have had no considerable paper currency, and this is the great free market for the gold of the world. The quantity imported every year of, what shall I call it, raw gold, comes to something like £50,000,000, and here I am excluding what comes here by exchanges. The collapse of the rebellion in South Africa assures us of a large and steady supply from that country, and, therefore, there is no real need for any apprehension.

But still it would not have been prudent for us to have overlooked certain possibilities. I have already pointed out some of them—the diminution of exports, the increase of our imports, the absorption of our transports for war purposes, large credits established for our own and other countries, and a diminution in our savings for investments abroad. There is just a possibility that this might have the effect of inducing the export of gold to other countries. We therefore have to husband our gold and take care lest it should take wings and swarm to any other hive. We therefore made arrangements at this conference whereby, if our stock of gold were to diminish beyond a certain point—that is a fairly high point—the Banks of France and Russia should come to our assistance.

We have also made arrangements whereby France should have access to our markets for Treasury bills issued in francs. We have also initiated arrangements which we hope will help to restore the exchanges in respect of bills held in this country against Russian merchants, who, owing to the present difficulties of exchange, cannot discharge their liabilities in this country. They are quite ready and eager to pay, they have the money to pay, but, owing to difficulties of exchange, they cannot pay bills owing in this country. We therefore propose to accept Russian Treasury bills against these bills of exchange due from Russian merchants, Russia collecting the debts in rubles in her own country and giving us the Treasury bills in exchange. We hope that will assist very materially in the working of the exchanges. It will be very helpful to business between the two countries, and incidentally it will be very helpful to Russia herself in raising money in her own country for the purpose of financing the war.

We also received an undertaking from the Russian Government in return for the advances which we were prepared to make, that Russia would facilitate the export of Russian produce of every kind that may be required by the allied countries. This, I believe, will be one of the most fruitful parts of the arrangements entered into. An arrangement has also been made about the purchases by the allied countries in the neutral countries. There was a good deal of confusion. We were all buying in practically the same countries; we were buying against each other; we were putting up prices; it ended not merely in confusion, but I am afraid in a good deal of extravagance, because we were increasing prices against each other. It was very necessary that there should be some working arrangement that would eliminate this element of competition and enable us to co-ordinate, as it were, these orders. There will be less delay, there will be much more efficiency, and we shall avoid a good deal of the extravagance which was inevitable owing to the competition between the three countries.

I have done my best to summarize very briefly the arrangements which have been entered into, and I would only like to say this in conclusion. After six months of negotiation by the cable and three days of conferring face to face we realized that better results were achieved by means of a few hours of businesslike discussion by men anxious to come to a workable arrangement than by reams of correspondence. Misconceptions and misunderstandings were cleared away in a second which otherwise might take weeks to ferment into mischief, and it was our conclusion that these conferences might with profit to the cause of the Allies be extended to other spheres of co-operation. [Cheers.]

Britain's Unsheathed Sword

By H.H. Asquith, England's Prime Minister

In Committee of Supply.

Mr. Asquith, who was loudly cheered on rising, moved the supplementary vote of credit of £37,000,000 to meet the expenditure on naval and military operations and other expenditure arising out of the war during the year 1914-1915. He said:

The first of the two votes which appear upon the paper, the one which has just been read out, provides only for the financial year now expiring, and is a supplementary vote of credit. The vote that follows is a vote of credit for the financial year 1915-1916. I think it will probably be convenient if in submitting the first vote to the committee I make a general statement covering the whole matter. I may remind the committee that on Aug. 6 last year the House voted £100,000,000 in the first vote of credit, and that on Nov. 15 the House passed a supplementary vote of credit for £225,000,000, thus sanctioning total votes of credit for the now expiring financial year of £325,000,000. It has been found that this amount will not suffice for the expenditure which will have been incurred up to March 31, and we are therefore asking for a further vote of £37,000,000 to carry on the public service to that date. If the committee assents to our proposals it will raise the total amount granted by votes of credit for the year 1914-1915 to £362,000,000. I need not say anything as to the purposes for which this vote is required. They are the same as upon the last occasion. But I ought to draw attention to one feature in which the supplementary vote, which comes first, differs from the vote to be subsequently proposed for the services of the year 1915-1916. At the outbreak of the war the ordinary supply on a peace basis had been voted by the House, and consequently the votes of credit for the now current financial year, like those on all previous occasions, were to be taken in order to provide the amounts necessary for naval and military operations in addition to the ordinary grants of Parliament. It consequently follows that the expenditure charged, or chargeable, to votes of credit for this financial year represent, broadly speaking, the difference between the expenditure of the country on a peace footing and that expenditure upon a war footing. The total on that basis, if this supplementary vote is assented to, will be £362,000,000.

For reasons the validity of which the committee has recognized on previous occasions, I do not think it desirable to give the precise details of the items which make up the total, but without entering into that I may roughly apportion the expenditure. For the army and the navy, according to best estimates which can at present be framed, out of the total given there will be required approximately £275,000,000. That is in addition, as I have already pointed out, to the sum voted before the war for the army and the navy, which amounted in the aggregate to a little over £80,000,000. That leaves unaccounted for a balance of £87,000,000, of which approximately £38,000,000 represents advances for war expenditure made, or being made, to the self-governing dominions, Crown colonies, and protectorates, as explained in the Treasury minute last November, under which his Majesty's Government have undertaken to raise the loans required by the dominions to meet the heavy expenditure entailed upon them on the credit of the imperial exchequer. In addition to that sum of £38,000,000 there has been an advance to Belgium of £10,000,000, and to Serbia of £800,000. Further advances to these allies are under consideration, the details of which it is not possible yet to make public. The balance of, roughly, £28,000,000 is required for miscellaneous services covered by the vote of credit which have not yet been separately specified.

I think the committee will be interested to know what the actual cost of the war will have been to this country as far as we can estimate on March 31, the close of the financial year. The war will then have lasted for 240 days and the votes of credit up to that time, assuming this vote is carried, will amount to £362,000,000. It may be said, speaking generally, that the average expenditure from votes of credit will have been, roughly, £1,500,000 per day throughout the time. That, of course, is the excess due to the war over the expenditure on a peace footing. That represents the immediate charge to the taxpayers of this country for this year. But, as the committee knows, a portion of the expenditure consists of advances for the purpose of assisting or securing the food supplies of this country and will be recoverable in whole, or to a very large extent, in the near future. A further portion represents advances to the dominions and to other States which will be ultimately repaid. If these items are excluded from the account the average expenditure per day of the war is slightly lower, but after making full allowance for all the items which are in the nature of recoverable loans, the daily expenditure does not work out at less than £1,200,000.

These figures are averages taken over the whole period from the outbreak of the war, but at the outbreak of the war, after the initial expenditure on mobilization had been incurred, the daily expenditure was considerably below the average, as many charges had not yet matured. The expenditure has risen steadily and is now well over the daily average that I have given. To that figure must be added, in order to give a complete account of the matter, something for war services other than naval or military. At the beginning of the year these charges are not likely to be very considerable, but it will probably be within the mark to say that from April I we shall be spending over £1,700,000 a day above the normal, in consequence of the war.

Perhaps now I may say something which is not strictly in order on this vote, but concerns the vote of credit for the ensuing year, which amounts, as appears on the paper, to £250,000,000. The committee will at once observe an obvious distinction between the votes of credit taken for the current financial year and that which we propose to take for the ensuing year. As I have already pointed out, at the outbreak of war the ordinary supply of the year had been granted by the House, and accordingly the votes of credit for 1914-1915 were for the amounts required beyond the ordinary grants of Parliament for the cost of military and naval operations. When we came to frame the estimates for the ensuing year, 1915-1916, the Treasury was confronted with the difficulty, which amounted to an impossibility, of presenting to Parliament estimates in the customary form for navy and army expenditure, apart from the cost of the war. All the material circumstances have been set out in the Treasury minute of Feb. 5, and in principle have been approved by the House. As the committee will remember, the total of the estimates which we have presented for the army and the navy amount to only £15,000 for the army and £17,000 for the navy, and the remainder of the cost of both these services will be provided for out of votes of credit, and the vote of credit now being proposed provides for general army and navy service in as far as specific provision is not made for them in the small estimates already presented. This vote of credit, therefore, has two features which I believe are quite unique, and without precedent. In the first place, it is the largest single vote on record in the annals of this House, and, secondly, as I have said, it provides for the ordinary as well as for the emergency expenditure of the army and the navy. The House may ask on what principle or basis has this sum of £250,000,000 been arrived at. Of course it is difficult, and indeed impossible, to give any exact estimate, but as regards the period, so far as we can forecast it, for which this vote is being taken, it has been thought advisable to take a sum sufficient, so far as we can judge, to provide for all the expenditure which will come in course of payment up to approximately the second week in July—that is to say, a little over three months, or something like 100 days of war expenditure.

As regards the daily rate of expenditure—I have dealt hitherto with the expenditure up to March 31—the War Office calculates that from the beginning of April, 1915, the total expenditure on army services will be at the rate of £1,500,000 per day, with a tendency to increase. The total expenditure on the navy at the commencement of April will, it is calculated, amount to about £400,000 per day. The aggregate expenditure on the army and the navy services at the beginning of 1915-1916 is therefore £1,900,000 per day, with a tendency to increase, and for the purpose of our estimate the figure we have taken is a level £2,000,000 a day. On a peace footing the daily expenditure upon the army and the navy on the basis of the estimates approved last year was about £220,000 per day. So that the difference between £2,000,000 and £220,000 represents what we estimate to be the increased expenditure due to the war during the 100 days for which we are now providing.

There are other items belonging to the same category as those to which I have already referred in dealing with the supplementary vote with regard to advances to our own dominions and other States for which provision has also had to be made, and the balance of the total of £250,000,000 for which we are now asking, beyond the actual estimated expenditure for the army and the navy, will be applied to those and kindred or emergency purposes. Before I pass from the purely monetary aspect of the matter, it may be interesting to the committee to be reminded of what has been our expenditure upon the great wars of the past. In the great war which lasted for over twenty years, from 1793 to 1815, the total cost as estimated by the best authorities was £831,000,000. The Crimean war may be put down, taking everything into account, at £70,000,000. The total cost of the war charges in South Africa from 1899 to March 31, 1903, was estimated in a return presented to Parliament at £211,000,000. In presenting these two votes of credit the Government are making a large pecuniary demand on the House, a demand which in itself and beyond comparison is larger than has ever been made in the House of Commons by any British Minister in the whole course of our history.

We make it with the full conviction that after seven months of war the country and the whole empire are every whit as determined as they were at the outset [cheers] if need be at the cost of all we can command both in men and in money to bring a righteous cause to a triumphant issue. [Cheers.] There is much to encourage and to stimulate us in what we see. Nothing has shaken and nothing can shake our faith in the unbroken spirit of Belgium, [cheers,] in the undefeated heroism of indomitable Serbia, in the tenacity and resource with which our two great allies, one in the west and the other in the east, hold their far-flung lines and will continue to hold them till the hour comes for an irresistible advance. [Cheers.] Our own dominions and our great dependency of India have sent us splendid contributions of men, a large number of whom already are at the front, and before very long, in one or another of the actual theatres of war, the whole of them will be in the fighting line. [Cheers.] We hear today with great gratification that the Princess Patricia's Canadian regiment has been doing, during these last few days, most gallant and efficient service. [Cheers.]

We have no reason to be otherwise than satisfied with the progress of recruiting here at home. [Cheers.] The territorial divisions now fully trained are capable—I say it advisedly—of confronting any troops in the world, [cheers,] and the new armies, which have lately been under the critical scrutiny of skilled observers, are fast realizing all our most sanguine hopes. A war carried on upon this gigantic scale and under conditions for which there is no example in history is not always or every day a picturesque or spectacular affair. Its operations are of necessity in appearance slow and dragging. Without entering into strategic details, I can assure the committee that with all the knowledge and experience which we have now gained, his Majesty's Government have never been more confident than they are today in the power as well as the will of the Allies to achieve ultimate and durable victory. [Cheers.] I will not enter in further detail to what I may call the general military situation, but I should like to call the attention of the committee for a few moments to one or two aspects of the war which of late have come prominently into view.

I will refer first to the operations which are now in progress in the Dardanelles. [Cheers.] It is a good rule in war to concentrate your forces on the main theatre and not to dissipate them in disconnected and sporadic adventures, however promising they may appear to be. That consideration, I need hardly say, has not been lost sight of in the councils of the Allies. There has been and there will be no denudation or impairment of the forces which are at work in Flanders, and both the French and ourselves will continue to give them the fullest, and we believe the most effective, support. Nor, what is equally important, has there for the purpose of these operations been any weakening of the grand fleet. [Cheers.] The enterprise which is now going on, and so far has gone on in a manner which reflects, as I think the House will agree, the highest credit on all concerned, was carefully considered and conceived with very distinct and definite objects—political, strategic, and economical. Some of these objects are so obvious as not to need statement and others are of such a character that it is perhaps better for the moment not to state them. [Laughter and cheers.] But I should like to advert for a moment, without any attempt to forecast the future, to two features in this matter. The first is, that it once more indicates and illustrates the close co-operation of the Allies—in this case the French and ourselves—in the new theatre and under somewhat dissimilar conditions to those which have hitherto prevailed, and to acknowledge what I am sure the House of Commons will be most ready to acknowledge, that the splendid contingent from the French Navy that our allies have supplied [cheers] is sharing to the full both the hazards and the glory of the enterprise. [Cheers.] The other point on which I think it is worth while to dwell for a moment is that this operation shows in a very significant way the copiousness and the variety of our naval resources. [Cheers.] In order to illustrate that remark, take the names of the ships which have actually been mentioned in the published dispatches. The Queen Elizabeth, [cheers,] the first ship to be commissioned of the newest type of what are called superdreadnoughts, with guns of power and range never hitherto known in naval warfare. [Cheers.] Side by side with her is the Agamemnon, the immediate predecessor of the dreadnought, and in association with them the Triumph, the Cornwallis, the Irresistible, the Vengeance, and the Albion—representing, I think I am right in saying, three or four different types of the older predreadnought battleship which have been so foolishly and so prematurely regarded in some quarters as obsolete or negligible—all bringing to bear the power of their formidable twelve-inch guns on the fortifications, with magnificent accuracy and with deadly effects. [Cheers.] When, as I have said, these proceedings are being conducted, so far as the navy is concerned, without subtraction of any sort or kind from the strength and effectiveness of the grand fleet, I think a word of congratulation is due to the Admiralty for the way in which it has utilized all its resources. [Cheers.]

I pass from that to another new factor in these military and naval operations—the so-called German "blockade" of our coasts. [Cheers.] I shall have to use some very plain language. [Cheers.] I may, perhaps, preface what I have to say by the observation that it does not come upon us as a surprise. [Cheers.] This war began on the part of Germany with the cynical repudiation [cheers] of a solemn treaty on the avowed grounds that when a nation's interests required it, right and good faith must give way to force. ["Hear, hear!"] The war has been carried on, therefore, with a systematic—not an impulsive or a casual—but a systematic violation of all the conventions and practices by which international agreements had sought to mitigate and to regularize the clash of arms. [Cheers.] She has now, I will not say reached a climax, for we do not know what may yet be to come, but she has taken a further step without any precedent in history by mobilizing and organizing not upon the surface but under the surface of the sea a campaign of piracy and pillage. [Prolonged cheers.]

Are we—can we—here I address myself to the neutral countries of the world—are we to or can we sit quiet as though we were still under the protection of the restraining rules and the humanizing usages of civilized warfare? [Cheers.] We think we cannot. [Cheers.] The enemy, borrowing what I may, perhaps, for this purpose call a neutral flag from the vocabulary of diplomacy, describe these newly adopted measures by a grotesque and puerile perversion of language as a "blockade." [Laughter.] What is a blockade? A blockade consists in sealing up the war ports of a belligerent against sea-borne traffic by encircling their coasts with an impenetrable ring of ships of war. [Cheers.]

Where are these ships of war? [Cheers.] Where is the German Navy? [Cheers.] What has become of those gigantic battleships and cruisers on which so many millions of money have been spent and in which such vast hopes and ambitions have been invested? I think, if my memory serves me, they have only twice during the course of these seven months been seen upon the open sea. Their object in both cases was the same—murder, [cheers,] civilian outrage, and wholesale destruction of property in undefended seaside towns, and on each occasion when they caught sight of the approach of a British force they showed a clean pair of heels, and they hurried back at the top of their speed to the safe seclusion of their mine fields and their closely guarded forts.

Lord R. CECIL—Not all. [Laughter.]

Mr. ASQUITH—No; some had misadventures on the way. ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] The plain truth is—the German fleet is not blockading, cannot blockade, and never will blockade our coasts.

I propose now to read to the committee the statement which has been prepared by his Majesty's Government and which will be public property tomorrow. It declares, I hope in sufficiently plain and unmistakable terms, the view which we take, not only of our rights, but of our duty. [Cheers.]

That, Sir, is our reply. [Cheers.] I may say, before I comment upon it, that the suggestion which I see is put forward from a German quarter that we have rejected some proposal or suggestion made to the two powers by the United States Government—I will not say anything more than that it is quite untrue. On the contrary, all we have said to the United States Government is that we are taking it into careful consideration in consultation with our allies.

Now the committee will have observed that in the statement which I have just read of the retaliatory measures we propose to adopt, the words "blockade" and "contraband" and other technical terms of international law do not occur. And advisedly so. In dealing with an opponent who has openly repudiated all the principles both of law and of humanity we are not going to allow our efforts to be strangled in a network of juridical niceties. [Cheers.] We do not intend to put into operation any measures which we do not think to be effective, [cheers,] and I need not say we shall carefully avoid any measure which would violate the rules either of humanity or of honesty. But, subject to those two conditions, I say not only to our enemy, but I say it on behalf of the Government, and I hope on behalf of the House of Commons, that under existing conditions there is no form of economic pressure to which we do not consider ourselves entitled to resort. [Loud cheers.] If, as a consequence, neutrals suffer inconvenience and loss of trade, we regret it, but we beg them to remember that this phase of the war was not initiated by us. [Cheers.] We do not propose either to assassinate their seamen or to destroy their goods. What we are doing we do solely in self-defense.

If, again, as is possible, hardship is caused to the civil and non-combatant population of the enemy by the cutting off of supplies, we are not doing more in this respect than was done in the days when Germany still acknowledged the authority of the law of nations sanctioned by the first and the greatest of her Chancellors, and as practiced by the expressed declaration of his successor. We are quite prepared to submit to the arbitrament of neutral opinion in this war in the circumstances in which we have been placed. We have been moderate and restrained, and we have abstained from things which we were provoked and tempted to do, and we have adopted the policy which recommends itself to reason, common sense, and to justice.

This new aspect of the war only serves to illustrate and to emphasize the truth that the gravity and the magnitude of the task which we have undertaken does not diminish, but increases, as the months roll by. The call for men to join our fighting forces, which is our primary need, has been and is being nobly responded to here at home and throughout the empire. That call, we say with all plainness and directness, was never more urgent or more imperious than today. For this is a war not only of men but of material. To take only one illustration, the expenditure upon ammunition on both sides has been on a scale and at a rate which is not only without all precedent but is far in excess of any expert forecast. At such a time patriotism has cast a heavy burden on the shoulders of all who are engaged in trades or manufactures which directly or indirectly minister to the equipment of our forces. It is a burden, let me add, which falls, or ought to fall, with even weight on both employers and employed. [Cheers.] Differences as to remuneration or as to profit, as to hours and conditions of labor, which in ordinary times might well justify a temporary cessation of work should no longer be allowed to do so. The first duty of all concerned is to go on producing with might and main what the safety of the State requires, [cheers,] and if this is done I can say with perfect confidence the Government on its part will insure a prompt and equitable settlement of disputed points, and in cases of proved necessity will give on behalf of the State such help as is in their power. [Cheers.] Sailors and soldiers, employers and workmen in the industrial world are all at this moment partners and co-operators in one great enterprise. The men in the shipyards and the engineering shops, the workers in the textile factories, the miner who sends the coal to the surface, the dockyard laborer who helps to load and unload the ships, and those who employ and organize and supervise their labors are one and all rendering to their country a service as vital and as indispensable as the gallant men who line the trenches in Flanders or in France or who are bombarding fortresses in the Dardanelles. [Cheers.]

I hear sometimes whispers, hardly more than whispers, of possible terms of peace. Peace is the greatest human good, but this is not the time to talk of peace. Those who talk of peace, however excellent their intentions, are in my judgment victims, I will not say of wanton, but of grievous self-delusion. Just now we are in the stress and tumult of a tempest which is shaking the foundations of the earth. The time to talk of peace is when the great tasks in which we and our allies embarked on the long and stormy voyage are within sight of accomplishment. Speaking at the Guildhall at the Lord Mayor's banquet last November I used this language, which has since been repeated almost in the same terms by the Prime Minister of France, and which I believe represents the settled sentiment and purpose of the country. I said:

What I said early in November, now, after four months, I repeat today. We have not relaxed nor shall we relax in the pursuit of every one and all of the aims which I have described. These are great purposes, and to achieve them we must draw upon all our resources, both material and spiritual. On the one side, the material side, the demands presented in these votes is for men, for money, for the fullest equipment of the purposes of war. On the other side, what I have called the spiritual side, the appeal is to those ancient inbred qualities of our race which have never failed us in times of stress—qualities of self-mastery, self-sacrifice, patience, tenacity, willingness to bear one another's burdens, a unity which springs from the dominating sense of a common duty, unfailing faith, inflexible resolve. [Loud cheers.]

Sweden's Scandinavian Leadership

By a Swedish Political Expert

[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, Feb. 4, 1915.]

In common with a majority of the other countries of Europe, Sweden has had a full measure of experience in the difficulties confronting neutral powers while a world struggle like the present European conflict is in progress, and has learned that, even if it may prove effective in averting blood-shed, neutrality does not by any means insure a nation against the other vicissitudes of war. Aside from operations of a purely military character, the groups of belligerent powers are carrying on a commercial warfare of constantly increasing intensity. It is characteristic, perhaps, that both parties to the struggle, as time goes on, appear to become more and more indifferent to the injury incidentally inflicted on neutral countries.

Geographically situated so that it might provide easy transit for shipments both to Russia and to the German Empire, Sweden, as a matter of course, has become the object of lively interest to both groups of warring nations in their dual concern of securing advantages to themselves and placing obstacles in the way of the enemy. From the very beginning, however, Sweden has maintained an attitude of strictest neutrality and of loyal impartiality toward both sides in the struggle. It is the object of this article to set forth as briefly as possible the manner in which the neutrality of Sweden has been made manifest.

Immediately after the war broke out in August last year the Swedish Government proclaimed its intention to remain neutral throughout the conflict. Simultaneous action was taken by the Government for the strengthening of the country's defenses, in the firm conviction that only if there was behind it the armed strength with which to enforce it would the neutrality of Sweden be respected. A move of the most profound significance—the first in our endeavors to create in Scandinavia a neutral "centre" and to gird ourselves with a greater strength to make our peaceful intentions effective—was made on Aug. 8 of last year, when the Foreign Ministers of Sweden and Norway appeared in the representative assemblies of both peoples and delivered identically worded explanatory communications in which was embodied a statement to the effect that the Swedish and Norwegian Governments had agreed to maintain their neutrality throughout the war at any cost, and that the two Governments had exchanged mutually binding and satisfactory assurances with a view to preventing any situation growing out of the state of war in Europe from precipitating either country into acts of hostility directed against the other.

In the meantime, neutral commerce and shipping during the months that followed were exposed to most serious infringements by the warring powers, such as the closing of ports by mines; limitations in the rights of neutral shipping to the use of the sea (mare libre) and of other established routes of maritime trade; arbitrary broadening in the definition of what shall constitute contraband of war, &c. As an instance it may be stated that England for a time treated magnetic iron ore as contraband of war and that Germany still persists in so regarding certain classes of manufactured wood. In both these instances Swedish exports have suffered severely. On initiative taken by the Swedish Government in the middle of last November the Governments of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway lodged identically worded protests with the envoys of certain of the powers engaged in the war against measures taken by them which threatened serious disturbance to neutral traffic.

SIR PERCY SCOTT—British Admiral,
Who Asserted Before the War Began That the Submarine
Had Sounded the Deathknell of the Dreadnought—(Photo from Rogers)

GENERAL LOUIS BOTHA—The Famous Boer Leader,
Premier of the Union of South Africa, Now Commanding the
British South African Forces—(Photo from Paul Thompson)

One further step—of the utmost importance through what it accomplished toward establishing firmly the position of the neutral States in the north—was the meeting between the Kings of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark at Malmö on Dec. 19 last. This meeting was especially designed to provide an opportunity for taking counsel together regarding means which may be resorted to for the purpose of limiting and counteracting the economical difficulties imposed on the three countries through the war. The meeting at Malmö served not only to give most powerful expression to the common determination of the northern kingdoms to remain neutral, but it became the means also of agreeing upon and adopting a modus vivendi for continued co-operation between the three countries during the war for the protection of interests they have in common.

In this manner Sweden has led in a movement to establish for the northern countries a potential policy of neutrality with the practical aim of limiting and reducing to a minimum the economical difficulties consequent upon the existing state of war.

From what already has been said it appears clearly, too, how completely without justification have been the accusations which have been voiced from time to time in the press of countries that enter into either of the belligerent groups—that Sweden, now in one respect and now in another, had shown partiality to the adversary. Thus, suspicion has been cast, with no justification whatever, on the circumstance that during the last month Sweden has imported large quantities of necessaries which would have been both valuable and helpful to the belligerents. And yet, this increase in the Swedish imports is very readily explained on the ground that it was necessary, partly, in order to make up for an existing shortage in supplies due to stopped traffic during the first months of the war, and, partly, to insure ability to fill Swedish demands for some time to come. A country which desires to remain neutral is not in a position to submit to dictation from any of the belligerent nations, but this very thing is frequently interpreted by one party to a struggle as involving an understanding with the other.

But Sweden's peaceful resolve and her fixed determination to maintain her life as a nation against all attempts at encroachment would count for little if behind her word there did not exist the strength to make it good and material resources to fall back on when the demand comes. That these exist in Sweden will be shown in the following with some data of Sweden's economics.

With a population of 5,700,000, distributed over an area of 448,000 square kilometers, (170,977 square miles,) as compared with 9,415,000 square kilometers (3,025,600 square miles) in the United States, Sweden, in comparison with European countries in general, is very sparsely inhabited. The possibilities for growth and development, however, are great owing to natural resources, which are both rich and varied. Of Sweden's area, 40,000 square kilometers (15,266 square miles) is cultivated land. The value of the annual production of grain is estimated at about 340,000,000 kroner, (about $91,900,000,) offset by an import of grain which exceeds the export by about 70,000,000 kroner, (about $18,900,000.) From this it appears that agriculture as yet retains its place as the principal industry of the country. With the bigger half of the country's area timber and the rivers well adapted to logging, Sweden quite naturally has become one of the foremost countries in the world in the export of lumber, wood pulp, and manufactured wood. Another natural product of Sweden, and one of the utmost importance, is iron ore, of which there was exported in 1913 to the value of about 69,000,000 kroner, (about $18,500,000,) chiefly from the large mineral fields in the northernmost part of the country. Besides this production of raw material, Sweden has important manufacturing industries which thrive as a result of the abundant supply of water power, an extensive network of railroads, and a shipping industry which is in a state of flourishing development.

The total output of our Swedish industries (mining not included) in 1912 was appraised at a net (manufacturing) value of 1,778,000,000 kroner, (about $481,600,000.) Of this total, 476,000,000 kroner (about $128,600,000) represents foodstuffs and luxuries, 353,000,000 kroner (about $95,400,000) wood products, &c.; 222,000,000 kroner ($60,000,000) textile products, and so on.

A few figures will illustrate Sweden's exchange of products with foreign countries. In 1912 the foreign trade of Sweden reached a total of 1,554,000,000 kroner, (about $420,000,000.) The imports aggregated 794,000,000 kroner (about $214,600,000) and the exports 760,000,000 kroner, (about $205,400,000,) thus showing a relatively advantageous trade balance. Of the imported values, 28 per cent. was foodstuffs and luxuries, 45 per cent. raw materials, and 26 per cent. articles manufactured either wholly or in part. Of the exports, 14 per cent. was foodstuffs and luxuries, 23 per cent. raw materials, and not less than 63 per cent. articles of manufacture, finished completely or in part.

The principal industrial products represented among these exports are enumerated here:

With regard to our exports, there have been especially large increases in those of pulp and machinery. The principal types of machinery which figure among the exports of Sweden are milk separators, oil motors, telephone apparatus, electric engines, and ball bearings. In these exports are plainly indicated the inventive genius of the Swedes and their aptitude for technical and industrial pursuits.

With reference to the Swedish railroads, this fact is deserving of mention: Sweden leads all Europe with 2.5 kilometers to each 1,000 inhabitants, (United States has 4.14 kilometers.) The mercantile marine of Sweden has experienced powerful growth in recent years. In 1912, with a net tonnage of 805,000, it held the sixth place among the merchant fleets of Europe, being ahead of, among other countries, Spain, Russia, and the Netherlands. Especially has the growth in Sweden's merchant marine been pronounced since 1904, when the first regular ocean lines with Swedish vessels were established. Today Swedish steamship lines are maintaining regular traffic with all parts of the world. Thus, among other things, Sweden has established freight lines, with steamers plying to both the east and west coasts of North America. Quite recently, despite the financial crisis brought on by the war, a company has been formed with the object of establishing passenger traffic with Swedish steamships of high speed between Gothenburg and either New York or Boston.

After scrutinizing these figures the reader ought not to be surprised at the assertion that Sweden is exceptionally well situated from an economical point of view, and, perhaps, is among the countries which have been least affected by the economical crisis consequent upon the war. The national debt of Sweden, which was created very largely with a view to financing the construction of the Government railroads and for other productive purposes, is at present only 720,000,000 kroner, (about $194,500,000.) This is only 126 kroner (a small fraction above $34) for each inhabitant, while the corresponding figure for France in 1913 was 591 kroner, (nearly $160;) the Netherlands, 282 kroner, ($70.62;) Great Britain, 280 kroner, ($70.57;) Germany, 276 kroner, ($70.40;) Italy, 270 kroner, ($70.30,) &c. Against the national debt of 720,000,000 kroner (about $194,500,000) Sweden has Crown assets at this time appraised at 1,761,000,000 kroner net, (nearly $476,000,000.)

Another evidence of the splendid financial condition of Sweden is afforded in the fact that, since the war broke out and countries which under normal conditions might be looked to for loans had closed their markets to foreign nations, the domestic market has been able to supply fully all, both public and private, demands for funds. Thus, when the Swedish Government, early last October, sought a loan of 30,000,000 kroner at home, this was fully subscribed in three days. Nor have municipalities or private banks encountered any difficulty in placing bonds for amounts of considerable size in the domestic market. The only loan for which the Swedish Government has contracted abroad during the crisis was for $5,000,000, and this was placed in New York for the purpose of facilitating payments for large purchases of American grain.

At least a few words with particular reference to the commercial intercourse between Sweden and the United States. According to statistics from the year 1912, the imports of Sweden from the United States were of the aggregate value of 60,000,000 kroner, (about $16,200,000,) while the exports aggregated 32,000,000 kroner, (about $8,600,000.) The principal imports were: Cotton, 17,000,000 kroner, (about $4,600,000;) oils, 12,000,000 kroner, (about $3,240,000;) copper, 6,200,000 kroner, (about $1,675,000;) machinery, 5,000,000 kroner, (about $1,350,000;) grain and flour, 2,300,000 kroner, (about $621,000;) bacon, 1,700,000 kroner, (about $460,000.) The principal articles of export in the same year were: Pulp, 12,400,000 kroner, (about $3,350,000;) manufactured iron and steel, 8,100,000 kroner, (about $2,200,000;) iron ore, 3,600,000 kroner, (about $973,000;) paper, 2,100,000 kroner, (about $568,000;) elastic gum refuse, 1,900,000 kroner, (about $514,000;) matches, 1,300,000 kroner, (about $350,000.)

Since the outbreak of hostilities in August last year there has been a tremendous increase in trade between Sweden and the United States. The tonnage employed in this trade has been multiplied many times in order adequately to care for the traffic. Sweden has sought to secure in the United States a multiplicity of necessaries which under normal conditions have been obtained from the belligerent countries. From the United States, too, there has come an increased demand for many Swedish products.

It is to be hoped that a large portion of this commerce, which has been the artificial outgrowth of unusual conditions, will continue, even after the present world crisis shall happily have become a thing of the past. Surely, it would be to the mutual advantage of both countries to develop and strengthen their direct trade relations.

From England

By MAURICE HEWLETT.

[From King Albert's Book.]

War Correspondence—The Beloved Hindenburg

A Pen Portrait of the German Commander in Chief in the East

[By a Staff Correspondent of THE NEW YORK TIMES.]

GERMAN GREAT HEADQUARTERS, EAST, Feb. 10.—But for the "field gray" coat and the militant mustache, I should have taken him for a self-made American, a big business man or captain of industry, as he sat at his work desk, the telephone at his elbow, the electric push-buttons and reams of neat reports adding to the illusion. Quiet, unassuming, and democratic, he yet makes the same impression of virility and colossal energy that Colonel Roosevelt does, but with an iron restraint of discipline which the American never possessed, and an earnestness of face and eye that I had only seen matched in his Commander in Chief, the Kaiser. Here was a man whom the most neutral American could instantly admire and honor, regardless of the merits of the controversy. It was Hindenburg, the well beloved, the hope of Germany. He has already been "done" by journalists and Senator Beveridge, but 70,000,000 are pinning their faith to him, which makes him worth "doing" again—and again.

For a moment I nearly forgot that I was an American with "nerve," bent on making him say something, preferably indiscreet; it seemed almost a shame to bother this man whose brain was big with the fate of empire. But, although I hadn't been specially invited, but had just "dropped in" in informal American fashion, the Commander in Chief of all his Kaiser's forces in the east stopped making history long enough to favor me with a short but thought-provoking interview.

As to his past performances, the Field Marshal genially referred to the detailed official summary; as to the future, he protested.

"I am not a prophet. But this I can say. Tell our friends in America—and also those who do not love us—that I am looking forward with unshakable confidence to the final victory—and a well-earned vacation," he added whimsically. "I should like nothing better than to visit your Panama Exposition and meet your wonderful General Goethals, the master builder, for I imagine our jobs are spiritually much akin; that his slogan, too, has been 'durchhalten' ('hold out') until endurance and organization win out against heavy odds."

Then with sudden, paradoxical, terrific quiet earnest: "Great is the task that still confronts us, but greater my faith in my brave troops." One got indelibly the impression that he loved them all, suffered under their hardships and sorrowed for their losses.

"For you, this war is only a titanic drama; we Germans feel it with our hearts," he said thoughtfully.

The Field Marshal spoke warmly of the Austro-Hungarian troops, and cited the results of the close co-operation between his forces and the Austrian armies as striking proof of the proverb, "In union is strength." Like all other German Generals whom I had "done," he, too, had words of unqualified praise for the bravery of his enemies. "The Russians fight well; but neither mere physical bravery nor numbers, nor both together, win battles nowadays."

"How about the steam roller?"

"It hasn't improved the roads a bit, either going forward or backward," he said with a grim smile.

"Are you worrying over Grand Duke Nicholas's open secret?" I asked, citing the report via Petrograd and London of a new projected Russian offensive that was to take the form, not of a steam roller, but of a "tidal wave of cavalry."

"It will dash against a wall of loyal flesh and blood, barbed with steel—if it comes," he said simply.

My impression, growing increasingly stronger the more I have seen, that German military success had been to no small extent made possible by American inventive genius and high-speed American methods, received interesting partial confirmation from the Field Marshal, whose keen, restless mind, working over quite ordinary material, produced the new suggestive combination of ideas that, while "America might possibly be materially assisting Germany's enemies with arms, ammunition, and other war material, certain it was that America, in the last analysis, had helped Germany far more."

"But for America, my armies would possibly not be standing in Russia today—without the American railroading genius that developed and made possible for me this wonderful weapon, thanks largely to which we have been able with comparatively small numbers to stop and beat back the Russian millions again and again—steam engine versus steam roller. Were it for nothing else, America has proved one of our best friends, if not an ally.

"We are also awaiting with genuine interest the receipt of our first American guns," the Field Marshal added. How was Germany expecting to get guns from America? He was asked to explain the mystery.

"I read somewhere in the papers that a large shipment of heavy cannon had left America for Russia," he said with dry humor, "in transit for us—for if they're consigned to the Russians, we'll have them sooner or later, I hope;" adding, with his habitual tense earnestness, "the Americans are something more than shrewd, hard-headed business men. Have they ever vividly pictured to themselves a German soldier smashed by an American shell, or bored through the heart by an American bullet? The grim realism of the battlefield—that should make also the business man thoughtful."

"Shall you go west when you have cleaned up here in the east?" I suggested.

"I can't betray military secrets which I don't know myself, even to interest the newspaper readers," he said. He gave me the impression, however, that, east or west, he would be found fighting for the Fatherland so long as the Fatherland needed him.

"Now it means work again. You must excuse me," he concluded, courteously. "You want to go to the front. Where should you like to go?"

"To Warsaw," I suggested, modestly.

"I, too," he laughed, "but today—ausgeschlossen, ('nothing doing,' in Americanese.) Still—that may be yet."

"May I come along, your Excellency?"

"Certainly, then you can see for yourself what sort of 'barbarians' we Germans are."

"Dropping in on Hindenburg" yields some unimportant but interesting by-products. The railroad Napoleon, as all the world knows, lives and works in a palace, but this palace doesn't overawe one who has beaten professionally at the closed portals of Fifth Avenue. It would be considered a modest country residence in Westchester County or on Long Island. Light in color and four stories high, including garret, it looks very much like those memorials which soap kings and sundry millionaires put up to themselves in their lifetime—the American college dormitory, the modern kind that is built around three sides of a small court. The palace is as simple as the man.

The main entrance, a big iron gateway, is flanked by two guardhouses painted with white and black stripes, the Prussian "colors," and two unbluffable Landsturm men mount guard, who will tell you to go around to the back door.

The orderly who opens the front door is a Sergeant in field gray uniform. You mount a flight of marble steps, and saunter down a marble hall, half a block long. It is the reception hall. It is furnished with magnificent hand-carved, high-backed chairs without upholstery, lounging not being apparently encouraged here. They are Gothic structures backed up against the walls. There is no Brussels or Axminster carpet on the cold marble floor—not even Turkish rugs. Through this palace hall, up by the ceiling, runs a thick cable containing the all-important telephone wires. The offices open off the hall, the doors labeled with neatly printed signs telling who and what is within. If you should come walking down the street outside at 3 A.M. you would probably see the lights in Hindenburg's office still burning, as I did. At 3:30 they went out, indicating that a Field Marshal's job is not a sinecure.

Feeling of the German People

Complete Confidence in Victory and Resentment Toward England

[By a Staff Correspondent of THE NEW YORK TIMES.]

BERLIN, Feb. 12.—To the neutral American, intent only on finding out the truth, the most thought-provoking feature here (overlooked by foreign correspondents because of its very featureless obviousness) is the fact that Germany today is more confident of winning than at any time in the three months I have been here. This confidence must not be confused with cocksureness; it is rather the "looking forward with quiet confidence to ultimate victory," as General von Heeringen phrased it. Even more important is the corollary that, while the Germans have apparently never had any doubt that they would win out in the end, this "ultimate victory" does not seem so far off to them today as it did three months ago.

To one who has had an opportunity of personally sounding the undercurrents of German public opinion, this quiet optimism that has become noticeable only in the past few weeks (totally different in character from the enthusiasm that followed the declaration of war) has seemed particularly significant. Three months ago I was incessantly asked by Germans "how the situation looked to an American," and "how long I thought the war would last." When left to answer their own question, they almost invariably remarked: "It may last a long while yet." Today neutral opinion is no longer anxiously or even eagerly sought. The temporary need for this sort of moral support seems to have passed, and there are many indications that the well-informed layman expects 1915 to see the wind-up of the war, while I have talked with not a few professional men who have expressed the opinion that the war will be over by Summer—except against England.

This unanimous exception is significant because it indicates that to the German mind the war with Russia and France is, in prize-ring parlance, a twenty-round affair, which can and will be won on points, whereas with England it is a championship fight to a finish, to be settled only by a knockout. The idea is that Russia will be eliminated as a serious factor by late Spring at the latest, and then, Westward Ho! when France will not prolong the agony unduly, but will seize the first psychological moment that offers peace with honor, leaving Germany free to fight it out with the real enemy, England, though as to how, when, and where the end will come, there is less certainty and agreement. Some think that the knockout will be delivered in the shadow of the Pyramids; others, and probably the majority, believe that the winning blow must and will be delivered on English soil itself.

Time here is no factor, for the war against England is taking on increasingly an almost religious character; from the German point of view, it will soon be, not a war, but a crusade. I get one clue to this in the new phrase of leave-taking that has gained an astounding currency in the past few weeks. Instead of saying "Good-bye" or "Auf Wiedersehen," the German now says: "God punish England!" to which the equally fervent rejoinder is, "May He do so!" This new, polite formula for leave-taking originated among the officers and men in the field, but you hear it on all sides now, uttered with a sincerity and earnestness that is peculiarly impressive. The new style of saying "good-bye" has at least the merit of being no longer a perfunctory piece of rhetoric.

This optimism is no nation-wide attack of insanity, for the German, thorough even in forming his opinions, is the last person in the world to harbor delusions, and there is a perfect realization of the titanic task that still confronts Germany. Nor is this confidence in ultimate victory due to lack of information or to being kept in the dark by the "iron censorship," for the "iron censorship" is itself a myth. It is liberal, even judged by democratic standards, and surprisingly free from red tape. There is no embargo on the importation of foreign newspapers; even the anti-German journals of neutral countries have free entry and circulation, while at a number of well-known cosmopolitan cafés you can always read The London Times and The Daily Chronicle, only three days old, and for a small cash consideration the waiter will generally be able to produce from his pocket a Figaro, not much older. Not only English and French, but, even more, the Italian, Dutch, and Scandinavian papers are widely read and digested by Germans, while the German papers not only print prominently the French official communiqués, the Russian communiqués when available, and interesting chunks from the British "eyewitness" official reports, but most of their feature stories—the vivid, detailed war news—come from allied sources via correspondents in neutral countries. The German censor's task is here a relatively simple one, for German war correspondents never allow professional enthusiasm to run away with practical patriotism, and you note the—to an American—amusing and yet suggestive spectacle of war correspondents specializing in descriptions of sunsets and scenery.

The German was never much of a newspaper reader before the war, but now he can challenge the American commuter as an absorbent of the printed word. And not only has the German been suddenly educated into an avid newspaper reader, but he has developed a tendency to think for himself, to read between the lines, and interpret sentences. Thus, no German has any illusions about the military prowess of Austria; but her failure has caused no hard feelings. "The spirit is willing, but the leadership is weak," is the kindly verdict, with the hopeful assumption that the addition of a little German yeast will raise the standard of Austrian efficiency and improve the quality of leadership.

The Germans, being neither mad nor misinformed, why they face a world of foes with this new confidence becomes a question of importance to any one who wants to understand the real situation here. The answer is Hindenburg—not only the man himself, but all that he stands for, the personification of the German war spirit, the greatest moral asset of the empire today. He is idolized not only by the soldiers, but by the populace as well; not only by the Prussians, but by the Bavarians and even the Austrians. You cannot realize what a tremendous factor he has become until you discover personally the Carlylean hero worship of which he is the object.

Hindenburg woke up one morning to find himself famous; but his subsequent speedy apotheosis was probably not entirely spontaneous. In fact, there is reason to believe that he was carefully groomed for the rôle of a national hero at a critical time, the process being like the launching by American politicians of a Presidential or Gubernatorial boom at a time when a name to conjure with is badly needed. He is a striking answer to the Shakespearean question. His name alone is worth many army corps for its psychological effect on the people; it has a peculiarly heroic ring to the German ear, and part of the explanation of its magic lies probably in the fact that the last syllable, "burg," means fortress or castle. He inspires the most unbounded confidence in the German people; the Field Marshal looms larger than his Kaiser.

The cigarmakers were the first to recognize his claims to immortality and to confer it on him; but now almost every conceivable sort of merchandise except corsets is being trade marked Hindenburg. Babies, fishing boats, race horses, cafés, avenues and squares, a city of 60,000, a whole county, are being named after him, and minor poets are taking his name in vain daily, "Hindenburg Marches" are being composed in endless procession, a younger brother is about to publish his biography, and legends are already thickly clustering about his name. He laid the Russian bugaboo before it had a chance to make its début; there is not today the slightest nervousness about the possible coming of the Cossacks, and there will not be, so long as the Commander in Chief of all the armies in the east continues to find time to give sittings to portrait painters, pose for the moving-picture artists, autograph photographs, appear on balconies while school children sing patriotic airs, answer the Kaiser's telegrams of congratulation, acknowledge decorations, receive interminable delegations, personages, and journalists, and perform all the other time-consuming duties incident to having greatness thrust upon you; for things obviously cannot be in a very bad way when the master strategist can thus take "time out" from strategizing. But the influence of "our Hindenburg," as he is often affectionately called, is wider than the east; the magic of his name stiffens the deadline in the west, and the man in the street, whose faith is great, feels sure that when he has fought his last great battle in the east the turn of the French and English will come.

While the German in the street, thanks largely to Hindenburg, regards the military situation with optimism, he sees no grounds for pessimism in the present political situation. Italy and Bulgaria are regarded as "safe."

How the Germans regard the economic, industrial, and financial situation is rather hard to estimate, because their practical patriotism keeps them from making any public parade of their business troubles and worries, if they have any. The oft-repeated platitude that you would never suspect here that a war was going on if you didn't read the papers is quite just. Conditions—on the surface—are so normal that there is even a lively operatic fight on in Munich, where the personal friction between Musical Director Walters and the star conductor, Otto Hess, has caused a crisis in the affairs of the Royal Munich Opera, rivaling in interest the fighting at the front.

There are certainly fewer "calamity howlers" here than on Broadway during boom times, and you see no outward evidence of hard times, no acute poverty, no misery, no derelicts, for the war-time social organization seems as perfect as the military. In the last three months only one beggar has stopped me on the streets and tried to touch my heart and pocketbook—a record that seems remarkable to an American who has run the nocturnal gauntlet of peace-time panhandlers on the Strand or the Embankment.

Business is most certainly not going on as usual. You note many shops and stores with few or no customers in them. About the only people who are making any money are army contractors and the shopkeepers who sell things available for "Liebesgaben" ("love gifts") for the troops in the field. Those businesses hardest hit by the war are in a state of suspended animation, embalmed by the credit of the State.

But, again, the influence of Hindenburg is wider than the east—and the west; it permeates the business world and stiffens the economic backbone of the nation. It is no exaggeration to say that the whole German people, barring the inevitable though small percentage of weaklings, is trying with terrific earnestness to live up to the homely Hindenburgian motto, "Durchhalten!" ("Hold out,") or, in more idiomatic American, "See the thing through."

Bombardment of the Dardanelles

First Allied Attack Described by an Onlooker

[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, March 8, 1915.]

Athens, Saturday, March 6, (Dispatch to The London Daily Chronicle.)—The bombardment of the Dardanelles forts, according to the latest news, proceeds with success and cautious thoroughness. It is now anticipated that before another two weeks are over the allied fleet will be in the Sea of Marmora, and Constantinople will quickly fall to the victorious Allies.

Two features of the operations make extreme caution necessary for the attacking battleships. In the first place, the number of mines laid in the strait has been found to be enormous. They must all be picked up, and the work takes considerable time, seeing that it must be done thoroughly.

In the second place, the larger batteries, against whom the allied fleet is contending, are very skillfully hidden.

I have had an interesting talk with a gentleman who has just arrived from Tenedos, where, from the height of Mount Ilios, he witnessed the bombardment. He tells me:

"The sight was most magnificent. At first the fleet was ranged in a semi-circle some miles out to sea from the entrance to the strait. It afforded an inspiring spectacle as the ships came along and took up position, and the picture became most awe-inspiring when the guns began to boom.

"The bombardment at first was slow, shells from the various ships screaming through the air at the rate of about one every two minutes. Their practice was excellent, and with strong glasses I could see huge masses of earth and stonework thrown high up into the air. The din, even at the distance, was terrific, and when the largest ship, with the biggest guns in the world, joined in the martial chorus, the air was rent with ear-splitting noise.

"The Turkish batteries, however, were not to be drawn, and, seeing this, the British Admiral sent one British ship and one French ship close inshore toward the Sedd-el-Bahr forts.

"It was a pretty sight to see the two battleships swing rapidly away toward the northern cape, spitting fire and smoke as they rode. They obscured the pure atmosphere with clouds of smoke from their funnels and guns; yet through it all I could see they were getting home with the shots they fired.

"As they went in they sped right under the guns of the shore batteries, which could no longer resist the temptation to see what they could do. Puffs of white smoke dotted the landscape on the far shore, and dull booms echoed over the placid water. Around the ships fountains of water sprang up into the air. The enemy had been drawn, but his marksmanship was obviously very bad. I think I am right in saying that not a single shot directed against the ships came within a hundred yards of either."

The French Battlefront

Account of First Extended View of the Intrenchments Defending France

[By a Special Correspondent of THE NEW YORK TIMES.]

Paris, March 7.—I have just been permitted a sight of the French Army—the first accorded to any correspondent in so comprehensive a measure since the outbreak of the war. Under the escort of an officer of General Joffre's staff, I was allowed along a great section of the fighting line, into the trenches under fire, and also received scientific detailed information regarding this least known of European forces.

France has been so silent about her army and her Generals and so indifferent to the use of journalism in the war it is scarcely realized even in France that 450 of the 500 miles of fighting front are held by the French and only the remaining fifty by the British and Belgians. At the outbreak of the war no newspaper men were allowed with the army, and those who managed to get to the front, including myself, all returned to Paris under escort. Although we saw what a powerful machine it was and knew it was getting stronger every day, we were permitted to say very little about it—Germany, meanwhile, granting interviews, taking war correspondents to trenches and up in balloons in the campaign for neutral sympathy.

France, or, rather, General Joffre, for his is the first and last word on the subject of war correspondents, gradually decided to combat the German advertising.

Only he decided to go them one better, as I hope to show. There have been several trips, all tryouts. I was informed at the Foreign Office a month ago that when the representative of so important a paper as THE NEW YORK TIMES was to be taken to the front it would be for a more important trip than any up to that date—that I was to be saved up for such an occasion as I am now privileged to describe.

I propose to give as few names of places and Generals as possible, first, to meet the wishes of the personal censor, who is the same officer who escorted me throughout the trip, and, second, because I believe general facts relating to the morale of the French Army and their prospects in the Spring campaign will be of more interest than specific details concerning places where the lines have been established for the past six months.

From scores of letters received from America the first question which seems to arise in the minds of neutrals outside the war zone is, What are the prospects of the Germans taking Paris when the second great phase of the war is really under way? First, let me admit that a lurking fear that the Germans might penetrate the lines had caused me to make certain arrangements for the hasty exit of my family from Paris as soon as the Spring fighting began. I am now willing to cancel these arrangements, for I am convinced there is no danger to Paris.

The German Army, in my opinion, will never for a second time dictate terms of peace in Paris. I feel that I am in a position to make the statement, founded on an unusual knowledge of the facts, that should German ambition again fly that high they would need at least 3,000,000 men concentrated before the fortifications of Paris—these in addition to the enormous force to oppose the French and allied field armies.

The defenses of Paris since the city had its narrow escape before the battle of the Marne present one of the wonders of the world. Not only has Gallieni's army intrenched the surrounding country and barb-wired it until the idea of any forward advance seems preposterous, but every foot of ground is measured and the exact artillery ranges taken to every other foot of ground.

For instance, from every single trench which also contains an artillery observatory the exact distance is recorded to every other trench, to every house, hillock, tree, and shrub behind which the enemy might advance. In fact, the German organization which threatened to rule the world seems overtaken by French organization which became effective since the war began.

All through the trip it was this new spirit of organization that impressed me most. I have sent you many cables on the new spirit of the French, but never before dared to picture them in the rôle which to my mind they never before occupied—that of organizers. I started the trip to see the real French Army in the most open but unexpectant frame of mind. For weeks I had read only laconic official communiqués that told me nothing. I saw well-fed officers in beautiful limousines rolling about Paris with an air that the war was a million miles away. The best way now to explain my enthusiasm is to give the words of a famous English correspondent, also just returned from a similar trip, (he is Frederic Villiers, who began war corresponding with Archibald Forbes at the battle of Plevna, and this is his seventeenth war,) who said:

"In all my life this trip is the biggest show I have ever had."

The first point on the trip where the French intelligence proved superior to the German was that I was allowed to pay my own expenses. With the exception of motor cars and a hundred courtesies extended by the scores of French officers, I paid my own railroad fare, hotel and food bills.

"This army has nothing to hide," said one of the greatest Generals to me. "You see what you like, go where you desire, and if you cannot get there, ask."

This General was de Maud'Huy, the man who with a handful of territorials stopped the Prussian Guard before Arras shortly after the battle of the Marne and who since then has never lost a single trench. His name is now scarcely known, even in France, but I venture the prophecy that when the French Army marches down the Champs Elysées after the war is over, when the vanguard passes under the Arch de Triomph, de Maud'Huy—a nervous little firebrand—will be right up in the front rank with Joffre.

While our party did all the spectacular stunts the Germans have offered the correspondents in such profusion, such as visiting the trenches, where in our case a German shell burst thirty feet from us, splattering us with mud, also where snipers sent rifle balls hissing only a few feet away, almost our greatest treats were the scientific daily discourses given by our Captain concerning the entire history of the first campaign, explaining each event leading up to the present position of the two armies. He gave the exact location of every French and allied army corps on the entire front.

On the opposite side of the line he demonstrated the efficiency of the French secret service by detailing the position and name of every German regiment, also the date and the position it now holds. Thus, we were able to know during the journey that it was the crack Prussian Guard that was stopped by de Maud'Huy's Territorials and that the English section under General French was opposed by Saxons.

Our Captain by these lectures gave us an insight into the second great German blunder after the failure to occupy Paris, which was the failure immediately to swing a line across Northern France, thus cutting off Calais and Boulogne, where they could really have leveled a pistol at England's head. He explained that it was the superiority of the French cavalry that dictated that the line should instead run straight north through the edge of Belgium to the sea. His explanations went further than this, for he refuted many military arguments to the effect that cavalry became obsolete with the advent of aeroplanes.

Cavalry formerly was used to screen the infantry advance and also for shock purposes in the charges. Now that the lines are established, it is mostly used with the infantry in the trenches; but in the great race after the Marne to turn the western flanks it was the cavalry's ability to outstrip the infantry that kept the Germans from practically all of Northern France. In other words, the French chausseurs, more brilliant than the Uhlans, kept that northern line straight until the infantry corps had time to take up position.

My introduction to the real French Army was made at the point of junction with the English troops, so I was thus able to make some comparison between the types of the Allies. I did not see the Germans except as prisoners, although on this trip I was sometimes within a few yards of their lines. With all consideration for the statement that they are the greatest fighting machine the world has ever seen, all I can say is that the greatest fighting machine I have even seen is the French Army.

To me they seem invincible from the standpoints of power, intelligence, and humanity. This latter quality specially impressed me. I do not believe any army with such high ideals can easily be beaten, and I judge not only from Generals in command, but the men in the trenches. One morning I was going through the trenches near the most important point where the line was continually under fire.

Passing from the second line to a point less than a hundred yards from the German rifles I came face to face with a General of division. He was sauntering along for the morning's stroll he chose to take in the trenches with his men rather than on the safer roads at the rear. He smoked a cigarette and seemed careless of danger. He continually patted his soldiers on the back as he passed and called them "his little braves."

I could not help wondering whether the German General opposite was setting his men the same splendid example. I inquired the French General's name; he was General Fayolle, conceded by all the armies to be the greatest artillery expert in the world. Comradeship between officers and men always is well known in the French Army, but I never before realized how the officers were so willing to accept quite the same fate.

In Paris the popular appellation for a German is "boche." Not once at the front did I hear this word used by officers or men. They deplore it, just as they deplore many things that happen in Paris. Every officer I talked to declared the Germans were a brave, strong enemy; they waste no time calling them names.

"They are wonderful, but we will beat them," was the way one officer summed up the general feeling.

Another illustration of the French officer at the front: The City of Vermelles of 10,000 inhabitants was captured from the Germans after fifty-four days' fighting. It was taken literally from house to house, the French engineers sapping and mining the Germans out of every stronghold, destroying every single house, incidentally forever upsetting my own one-time idea that the French are a frivolous people. So determined were they to retake this town that they fought in the streets with artillery at a distance of twenty-one feet, probably the shortest range artillery duel in the history of the world.

The Germans before the final evacuation buried hundreds of their own dead. Every yard in the city was filled with little crosses—the ground was so trampled that the mounds of graves were crushed down level with the ground—and on the crosses are printed the names with the number of the German regiments. At the base of every cross there rests either a crucifix or a statue of the Virgin or a wreath of artificial flowers, all looted from the French graveyard.

With the German graves are French graves made afterward. I walked through this ruined city where, aside from the soldiery, the only sign of life I saw was a gaunt, prowling cat. With me past these hundreds of graves walked half a dozen French officers. They did not pause to read inscriptions; they did not comment on the loot and pillage of the graveyard; they scarcely looked even at the graves, but they kept constantly raising their hands to their caps in salute regardless of whether the cross numbered a French or a German life destroyed.

We were driving along back of the advance lines. On the road before us was a company of territorial infantry who had been eight days in the trenches and were now to have two days of repose at the rear. Plodding along the same road was a refugee mother and several little children in a donkey cart; behind the cart, attached by a rope, trundled a baby buggy with the youngest child inside. The buggy suddenly struck a rut in the road and overturned, spilling the baby into the mud. Terrible wails arose, and the soldiers stiffened to attention. Then, seeing the accident, the entire company broke ranks and rescued the infant. They wiped the dirt from its face and restored it to its mother in the cart.

So engrossing was the spectacle our motor halted, and our Captain from Great General Headquarters in his gorgeous blue uniform climbed from the car, discussing with the mother the safety of a baby buggy riding behind a donkey cart, at the same time congratulating the soldier who rescued the child.

Our trip throughout moved with that clockwork precision usually associated only with the Germans. The schedule throughout the week never varied from the arrangements made before we left Paris. When we arrived at certain towns we were handed slips of paper bearing our names and the hotel number of our room.

Amazing meals appeared at most amazing places, all the menus carefully thought out days before. Imagine fresh trout served you with other famous French delicacies in a little house in the battle zone, where only a few hundred yards of barbed wire and a few feet more of air separated you from the German trenches. During the German advance, also after the battle of the Marne, there were many towns in the districts where it was impossible to obtain tobacco, spirits, or food staples. This condition has entirely abated, and the commissariat is now so well supplied that soldiers have sufficient tobacco even in the trenches.

It was my privilege to take a brief ride at the front in an antebellum motor bus of glorious memory—there being nothing left in Paris but the subway. Buses are now used to carry fresh meat, although they have been used in transporting troops and also ammunition. We trundled quite merrily along a little country road in Northern France, the snow-white fields on either side in strange contrast to the scenery when last I rode in that bus. I am sure I rode in the same bus before the war in my daily trips to the Paris office of THE NEW YORK TIMES. Its sides are bullet riddled now, but the soldier conductor still jingles the bell to the motorman, although he carries a revolver where he used to wear the register for fares.

Trench life was one of the most interesting surprises of the trip. Every night since the war began I have heard pitying remarks about "the boys in the trenches," especially if the nights were cold. I was, therefore, prepared to find the men standing in water to the knees, shivering, wretched, sick, and unhappy. I found just the contrary—the trenches were clean, large, and sanitary, although, of course, mud is mud. I found the bottoms of the trenches in every instance corduroy-lined with modern drains, which allowed the feet to keep perfectly dry, and also the large dugouts where the men, except those doing sentry duty, sleep comfortably on dry straw. There are special dugouts for officers and artillery observers.

I also visited a large, perfectly equipped Red Cross First Aid camp, all built underground, extending from one line of trenches to another. All trenches, communication traverses, and observatory dugouts have received names which are printed on shingles affixed to the trenches on little upright posts. For instance, we entered one section of the trenches through Boyau d'Espagne, we traversed Avenue de Bois, Avenues Wagram and Friedland, and others commemorating Napoleonic victories. The dugouts of officers and observers were all called villas—Villa Chambéry, Villa Montmorency being examples. It all seemed like cozy camp life underground except that three times the morning of our visit it was necessary to flatten ourselves against the mud sidewalls while dead men on crossed rifles were carried out, every head in that particular bit of trench being bared as the sad procession disappeared.

Although the maps show the lines of fighting to be rather wavy, one must go to the front really to appreciate the irregular zigzag, snakelike line that it really is. The particular bit of trenches we visited cover a front of twelve miles, but so irregular is the line, so intricate and vast the system of intrenchments, that they measure 200 miles on that particular twelve-mile fighting front.

When one leaves the trenches at the rear of the communication boyaux, it is astonishing how little of the war can be seen. Ten feet after we left our trenches we could not see even the entrance. We stood in a beautiful open field having our pictures taken, and a few hundred yards away our motor waited behind some trees. Suddenly we heard a "zip zip" over our heads. German snipers were taking shots at us.

In addition to the enormous force of men constantly in the trenches along the entire line there is an equal size reserve line directly behind them in case of sudden attack. The artillery is posted considerably further to the rear along with revictualing stations, aeroplane hangars, and headquarters of the Generals, but through all this enormous mass of men which we passed daily going to and from our front observation posts never once did we get the impression of parade. Three were just troops, troops, troops everywhere, every hamlet, every village filled with them, every crossroads with their sentries. All of them, hardened by Winter and turns in the trenches, are in splendid condition, and as opposed to the Germans, at least to the German prisoners I have seen, each French soldier has a clear and definite knowledge of what the war is all about. The greatest event of his day is when the Paris newspapers arrive.

What impressed me greatly was that in all the officers' quarters were copies of the French "Yellow Book," the English "White Paper" and German documents attempting to prove their innocence in causing the conflict. It is not sufficient for French Generals or officers just to go to war; they must know why they go to war, down to the last papers in the case. In six months the French privates have acquired one habit from the British Tommies—that is drinking tea. Back of every section of trenches I found huge tea canteens, where thousands of cups are served daily to the soldiers who have decided for the first time in their life they really like such stuff. There one sees more soldiers at the same time than at any other place in the fighting zone; there they sit and discuss the future calmly and confidently, there being a distinct feeling that the war is likely to be over next Summer.

No one knows what the Spring tactics of General Joffre will be. Along the section of the front I visited the officers are all satisfied that the Commander in Chief's "nibbling tactics" have forced the Germans to retire on the average of two to three miles all along the line. The very name of that great man is spoken with reverence, almost with awe, by his "children at the front."

I, therefore, from the facilities given me, can only make one assertion in summing up my opinion of the French grand army of 1915, that it is strong, courageous, scientifically intelligent, and well trained as a champion pugilist after months of preparation for the greatest struggle of his career. The French Army waits eager and ready for the gong.

Dodging Shells

[From The London Morning Post, Feb. 1, 1915.]

The Echo de Paris has published today a letter that throws a considerable amount of light upon the psychology of the French soldier, and that shows how he behaves himself when subjected to very trying fire and compelled to act on his own initiative. It is written by the man to his wife, and is as follows:

I am acting as guard to a convoy, and am comfortably installed, with no work to do, in the house of an old woman who has lent me a candle and writing materials. I shan't be suffering from the cold in the way I have done on previous nights, as I have a roof over me and a fire. What luxury! It's been freezing for several nights, and you feel the frost when you are sleeping in the open. But that is nothing to the three days we passed in the village of ——. We were stationed in the mairie. In front of us in the clock tower an artillery Captain was taking observations. On the road between the church and the mairie a Sergeant and four artillerymen were sending orders to the battery behind us. Suddenly a shell struck. We saw the artillerymen on the ground and the Sergeant alone left standing.

The fire was so thick that no one could think of going out. But suddenly one of the men moved, so I got up to find out about it, taking care to put on my knapsack. When I was among them I found that one had been hit right in the heart; two others were dying, one with his head in a pulp and the other with his thigh broken and the calf of his leg torn to a jelly. I helped the Sergeant to mend the telephone wire that had been broken by the shell, and all the time we were having shells and bits of brick breaking around us.

Then I went back to the mairie, and asked for some one who would not be frightened to come with me. Two of us went off to the village for a stretcher. I found one at the old ambulance, and was just leaving it when I heard the scream of a shell, and took cover in the chimney—just in time. A big black brute smashed half the house in. My comrade and I hurried off after the wounded man. Our pals were watching us from the mairie, wondering if we should ever get back. Old Gérome, (that's me,) they said, will get back all right, and when back at the mairie I began to give the wounded man first aid. Another shell came along, and the place shook, window panes rained upon us, and dust blinded us, but at last it cleared.

Left alone with my wounded man I went on dressing him, and when the others got back I got them to help me take him to the schoolhouse near by. I got congratulated by my comrades and the senior Sergeant, but the Colonel and Lieutenant said nothing, though later I heard they were pleased with me, but suddenly the Colonel said: "We can't stop here. Go and see if there's room in the cellars of the castle for four officers and thirty men. If there is don't come back, as we will follow you."

We got there at last, two of us, but the owner took a long time opening. Meanwhile scraps of roofs and walls were raining on us, but with our knapsacks on our heads we were a bit protected. At last our knocks were answered, and we learned that there was room for four officers, but not for thirty men! The Colonel and the men had to be warned, so my comrade started running back and I followed about fifteen yards behind.

We passed a gap in the houses, with no cover, nothing but gardens. A shell came along. I dropped, while the other man hid in a doorway. The bits of it sang about our ears. I then sang out: "As you are nearly there, go on, and I'll see if there is room in the farm near by." I reached the houses and waited to see that he got through, because if he'd fallen I should have had to go back to warn the rest. As he was going two shells burst in the courtyard of the mairie, and I thought of the Colonel and the rest, but at last my comrade; reached the place and went in, and I was free to try for the farm.

VICE ADMIRAL SIR DAVID BEATTY—Youngest of British Admirals,
Whose Fleet Sank the Bluecher, and Won the Battle of the Bight of Heligoland—
(From the painting by Philip Alexius Laszlo de Lombos)

COUNT VON REVENTLOW—The German Naval Critic
Who Has Intimated That the United States
Might Be a Divided Nation in Case of War

On my way I met a friend and asked him to join me. At the time I was thinking of you all, and it was not till later that I got frightened. There were five horses at the gate of the farm. I shifted them and showed my friend the entrance to the cellar. It was narrow, and he lost time through his knapsack, and these are the occasions when your life depends on seconds. I heard the scream that I know only too well, and guessed where the beast would lodge, and called out to him "That's for us." I shrank back with my knapsack over my head and tried to bury myself in the corner among the coal.

I had no time, though. The shell reached, smashed down part of the house, and burst in the basement a couple of yards from me. I heard no more, but stone, plaster, and bricks fell all around me on the coal heap. I was gasping, but found myself untouched. I got up and saw the poultry struggling and the horses struck down. I ran to the cellar, with the same luck as my friend.

My knapsack caught me. A shell screamed a second time again for us, and it struck, wallop, on the gable, while the ruins fell around my head. I pulled at my knapsack so vigorously that I fell into the cellar, and some of our men who were there called "Here's a poor brute done in." Not a bit of it. I was not touched then either.... At last the bombardment stopped, and we all got out. I noticed about forty hens. Some were pulped. Others had had their heads and legs cut off. In the muddle three horses lay dead. Their saddles were in ribbons. Equipment, revolvers, swords, all that had been left above the cellar had vanished, but there were bits of them to be seen on the roof. My rifle, which had been torn from my hands, was in fragments, and I was stupefied at not having been hit. I noticed, however, that my wrappings that were rolled around my knapsack had been pierced by a splinter of shell that had stuck an it. Later in the evening when I started cutting at my bread the knife stuck. I broke the bread open and found another bit of shell in it. I don't yet know why I was not made mincemeat of that day. There were fifty chances to one against me.

The two following days I stopped in the cellar, hearing nothing but their big shells, while the farm and the buildings near it were smashed in. Now it is all over. I am all right and bored to death mounting guard over wagons ten miles from the firing line, with a crowd of countrymen who have been commandeered with their wagons.

I ought to tell you that the two shells I saw fall on the mairie when my comrade was going there unfortunately killed one and wounded five. It was a bit of luck for me, as I always used to be hanging about the courtyard. That's the sad side of it, but we have an amusing time all the same. [The writer goes on to explain how he and his friends dressed up some men of straw in uniform and induced the Germans to shoot at them, and finally to charge them, while they fired at the Germans and brought several of them down. He continues.]

But that's nothing to what they'll get, and their villages will get, and their mairies, chateaux, and farms, and cellars, when we get there. I will respect old men, women, and children, but let their fighting men look out. I don't mind sacrificing my life to do my duty, and to defend those I love and who love me, but if I've got to lose my skin I want to lose it in Boche-land. I want the joy of getting into their dirty Prussia to avenge our beautiful land. Bandits! Let them and their choucroute factories look out! If you saw the countryside we are recovering—there's nothing left but ruins. Everything burned and smashed to bits. Cattle, more dead than alive, are bolting in all directions, and as for our poor women, when I see them I would destroy everything.

Our officers say: "We'll never be able to hold our men when we get into their country." But I say that I want to go there all the same, and yet when I say that I had a German prisoner to guard at the mairie. I gave him half my bread and knocked walnuts off the trees for him. All the time I saw five or more villages in flames around. Well, it all proves that a soldier should never say what he will do tomorrow. My job is to protect the flag, and the Boches can come on. Before they get it they'll have to get me.... Vive la France!

Somali Volunteers

[From The London Times, Nov. 10, 1914.]

We have received from a correspondent a copy of a petition signed by the principal Somali chiefs in Jubaland, praying that they may be allowed to fight for England. The terms of this interesting document are as follows:

To His Highness the Governor, Through the Hakim of Jubaland: Salaams, yea, many salaams, with God's mercy, blessing, and peace. After salaams,

We, the Somali of Jubaland, both Herti and Ogaden, comprising all the tribes and including the Maghavbul, but not including the Tulamuya Ogaden, who live in Biskaya and Tanaland and the Marehan, desire humbly to address you.

In former days the Somali have fought against the Government. Even lately the Marehan have fought against the Government. Now we have heard that the German Government have declared war on the English Government. Behold, our "fitna" against the English Government is finished. As the monsoon wind drives the sandhills of our coast into new forms, so does this news of German evildoing drive our hearts and spears into the service of the English Government. The Jubaland Somali are with the English Government. Daily in our mosques we pray for the success of the English armies. Day is as night and night is as day with us until we hear that the English are victorious. God knows the right. He will help the right. We have heard that Indian askaris have been sent to fight for us in Europe. Humbly we ask why should not the Somali fight for England also? We beg the Government to allow our warriors to show their loyalty. In former days the Somali tribes made fitna against each other. Even now it is so; it is our custom; yet, with the Government against the Germans, we are as one, ourselves, our warriors, our women, and our children. By God it is so. By God it is so. By God it is so.

A few days ago many troops of the military left this country to eat up the Germans who have invaded our country in Africa. May God prosper them. Yet, O Hakim, with all humbleness we desire to beg of the Government to allow our sons and warriors to take part in this great war against the German evildoers. They are ready. They are eager. Grant them the boon. God and Mohammed are with us all.

If Government wish to take away all the troops and police from Jubaland, it is good. We pledge ourselves to act as true Government askaris until they return.

We humbly beg that this our letter may be placed at the feet of our King and Emperor, who lives in England, in token of our loyalty and our prayers.

[Here follow the signatures of all the principal Somali chiefs and elders living in Jubaland.]

When King Peter Re-Entered Belgrade

[From The New York Evening Post, Feb. 15, 1915.]

PARIS, Jan. 29.

So King Peter himself became priest; and the great cathedral was filled with the sobbing of his people.

Everybody knows the story of the deliverance of Belgrade; how the little Serbian Army fell back for strategic reasons as the Austrians entered the city, but finally, after seventeen days of fighting without rest, (for the Serbian Army has had no reserves since the Turkish war,) knit its forces together, marched 100 miles in three days, and drove the Austrians headlong out of the capital.

King Peter rode at the head of his army. Shrapnel from the Austrian guns was still bursting over the city. But the people were too much overjoyed to mind. They lined the sidewalks and threw flowers as the troops passed. The soldiers marched in close formation; the sprays clung to them, and they became a moving flower garden. The scream of an occasional shell was drowned in the cheers.

They are emotional people, these Serbians. And something told them that, even with death and desolation all about them, they had reason to be elated. A few hours before, the Austrians had been established in Belgrade, confident that they were there to stay for months, if not for years. Now they were fleeing headlong over the River Save, their commissariat jammed at the bridge, their fighting men in a rout.

So King Peter rode through the streets of the capital with his army, and came to the cathedral. The great church was locked, because the priests had left the city on errands of mercy. But a soldier went through a window and undid the portals. The King and his officers and some of the soldiers and as many of the people as could get in crowded into the cathedral. And, lacking some one to say mass, the King became a priest—which is an ancient function of Kings—and, as he knelt, the officers and soldiers and people knelt. There was a vast silence for a moment; and then, in every part of the church, a sobbing.

This account is a free translation of a woman's letter, in Serbian, received in this city a few days ago by Miss Helen Losanich, who is here with Mme. Slavko Grouitch to interest Americans in helping her countrymen back to their devastated farms. Mme. Grouitch is an American by birth; but Miss Losanich is a Serbian, with the black hair and burning black eyes of the Slavs, and boasting twenty years perhaps. Her sister, Mme. Marincovich, is wife of the Serbian Minister of Commerce and Agriculture. It was Mme. Marincovich who had written the letter.

"I've just had this letter from my sister in Serbia," cried Miss Losanich, when a friend called, and she waved in one hand a dozen sheets closely written in a script that resembled Russian. "I've hardly had time to read it myself. But we will sit down and translate it into English, if you say.

"She says here that, when the Austrians had to leave Belgrade, they took 1,200 people as hostages—non-combatants, you know. When they came into the city first they gave assurances that all non-combatants would be safe; but for the last few days before they left, no non-combatant could walk on the street without being taken up as a hostage.

"Just imagine, it says here that they even took a little boy. He can fight when he is older, they say. You know, the Turks used to do that. They came and took our boys of nine and ten years, and trained them as soldiers in their janissaries; and when they had forgotten their own country they sent them back to fight against it. It is terrible, isn't it!

"The Austrians took the furniture from our people's houses and carried it across the River Save to the Semlin. They behaved frightfully, my sister says; brought all kinds of people with them, including women from the very lowest class; broke into the houses and stole the ladies' toilettes. One lady with many beautiful dresses found them all cut to ribbons when she got back to Belgrade.

"The Austrians brought lots of tea and crackers and conserves with them. Some soldiers had taken a lady's evening gown and pinned strawberries from strawberry-jam all over it, in appropriate places, and laid the gown out for the lady to see."

A merry smile illuminated Miss Losanich's face as she read this part of the letter.

"Our brother," she went on, "entered Belgrade with the army. He came back to Nish on leave about Christmas, the Serbian Christmas, which is about thirteen days later than yours. Nish is the temporary capital; and my sister is there. He told them all about Belgrade. He had been to his house; the whole house was upset, drawers forced, old letters opened and thrown on the floor, papers strewn about, King Peter's picture (autographed by the King) thrown on the floor, and King Ferdinand's picture stamped on.

"Brother went to a private sanitarium that our uncle has in Belgrade. The Austrians had seized this, and had begun making it over for a hospital. They wanted the Bulgarian Red Cross installed. They had brought quantities of biscuits and tea and conserves. But they had to leave in such a hurry they couldn't take the things with them. 'And now,' my sister says, 'we are eating them!'

"Across the street four of our cousins live—young men. They are all at the front now"—Miss Losanich laughed outright as she read this part—"their house was entered and all their clothes taken; dress suits, smoking jackets, linen, and all those things. It makes me laugh; it's naughty, I know. But they used to go out a good deal. I have seen them in those clothes so often. One of them wanted to marry me. He used to go out a great deal"—this with another merry peal of laughter.

"Mme. Grouitch's house was undisturbed; and ours. We used to know the Austrian attaché before the war. He was rather a nice fellow. Played tennis with us a good deal, and so on. He came into Belgrade with his army, and he came around to our house. The servants recognized him, because, you see, they knew him. The servants had stayed behind. He seemed to think he would like to make my sister's house his quarters, but after he had thought about it a while he went away.

"She says that she would like to go back to Belgrade, but the railroad has been destroyed—a big viaduct of stone at Ralya, about 17 kilometers from Belgrade; and they have to go from Ralya to Belgrade by carriage. There are so many wagons of the commissariat on the road—so many carriages have been seized by the Government—it is impossible for private citizens to get through.

"A gibbet was put up in the square after the Austrians came into the city and a man was hanged the first morning, in spite of the fact that the Austrians had promised safety to the non-combatants. Dr. Edward Ryan, the head of the American Red Cross in Belgrade, protested, and the gibbet was taken down. But my sister says that eighteen more people were hanged in the fortress down by the Save—she hears—where they wouldn't be seen.

"Mr. Bisserce, a Belgian, is director of the electric lighting plant in Belgrade. He is a nice man, and, being a Belgian, he does not like the Austrians. He wouldn't light the town until they made him, and he wouldn't give them a map of the system at all. He was bound in ropes and taken away as a hostage, and they haven't heard from him since.

"The most touching thing was the entrance of King Peter—" whereupon Miss Losanich told the story related above.

"Rubbish, straw, and dead horses were strewn through all the streets when the King and the army came in. The shooting was still going on. There was a jam of commissariat wagons at the bridge—you know there is a bridge across the Save. The Austrians couldn't get across fast enough, there was so much confusion—too many wanting to get over at one time. The Serbian artillery was shooting at them all the time. Presently the middle of the bridge went down. The men and the horses and the carriages and the wagons all went down together. They were pinned down by the masses of stone, but there were so many of them that they filled up the river and stuck up above the water. It was so bad that our people couldn't clear it up—so there is an awful odor all over the town.

"She says that the Austrians brought 17,000 wounded, thinking that they were going to stay for months—and perhaps for ever. They turned over quantities of them to Dr. Ryan at the American Red Cross Hospital.

"General Franck, the Austrian commander, made a remark—and he must have made it to Dr. Ryan, although my sister doesn't say so. General Franck said: 'If the Russians had fought the way the Serbians have, there wouldn't be an Austrian soldier left!'

"That's a good deal for the head of the Austrians to say, isn't it? We always expected victory; but even the most optimistic of us were surprised at what our peasant soldiers did.

"In the flight, the Austrians could not take care of their wounded, she says, and sent them back to Belgrade, many of them, as prisoners. Many must have died during the flight, too, for they got a jolting that wounded men can't stand.

"Our brother, who was a professor of chemistry, is a Sergeant now in charge of two German Krupp guns, which were captured from Turkey in the other war. He is at Banovo Brdo, a residence section outside Belgrade, on a hill. All the villas have been destroyed by the Austrian artillery fire.

"And," continued Miss Losanich, "she says that the toys sent by the Americans were received in Nish and distributed to the poor children for Christmas, and that the feeling of cordiality toward the Americans is growing fast."

The Dragon's Teeth

BY CAROLINE DUER

Copyright, 1914, by The New York Times Company.

The Greatest of Campaigns

The French Official Account

By The North Sea.

By W.L. COURTNEY.

[From King Albert's Book.]

When Marthe Chenal Sang the "Marseillaise"

By Wythe Williams

[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, Feb. 14, 1915.]

I went to the Opéra Comique the other day to hear Marthe Chenal sing the "Marseillaise." For several weeks previous I had heard a story going the rounds of what is left of Paris life to the effect that if one wanted a regular old-fashioned thrill he really should go to the Opéra Comique on a day when Mlle. Chenal closed the performance by singing the French national hymn. I was told there would be difficulty in securing a seat.

I was rather skeptical. I also considered that I had had sufficient thrills since the beginning of the war, both old fashioned and new. I believed also that I had already heard the "Marseillaise" sung under the best possible circumstances to produce thrills. One of the first nights after mobilization 10,000 Frenchmen filled the street beneath the windows of THE NEW YORK TIMES office, where I was at work. They sang the "Marseillaise" for two hours, with a solemn hatred of their national enemy sounding in every note. The solemnity changed to a wild passion as the night wore on. Finally, cuirassiers of the guard rode through the street to disperse the mob. It was a terrific scene.

So I was willing to admit that the "Marseillaise" is probably the most thrilling and most martial national song ever written, but I was just not keen on the subject of thrills.

Then one day a sedate friend went to the Opéra Comique and came away in a raving condition. It was a week before his ardor subsided. He declared that this rendition of a song was something that will be referred to in future years. "Why," he said, "when the war is over the French will talk about it in the way Americans still talk concerning Jenny Lind at Castle Garden, or De Wolf Hopper reciting 'Casey at the Bat.'"

This induced me to go. I was convinced that whether I got a thrill or not the singing of the "Marseillaise" by Chenal had become a distinct feature of Paris life during the war.

I never want to go again. To go again might deepen my impression—might better register the thrill. But then it might not be just the same. I would be keyed to such expectancy that I might be disappointed. Persons in the seats behind me might whisper. And just as Chenal got to the "Amour sacré de la patrie" some one might cough. I am confident that something of the sort would surely happen. I want always to remember that ten minutes while Chenal was on the stage just as I remember it now. So I will not go again.

The first part of the performance was Donizetti's "Daughter of the Regiment," beautifully sung by members of the regular company. But somehow the spectacle of a fat soprano nearing forty in the role of the twelve-year-old vivandière, although impressive, was not sublime. A third of the audience were soldiers. In the front row of the top balcony were a number of wounded. Their bandaged heads rested against the rail. Several of them yawned.

After the operetta came a "Ballet of the Nations." The "nations," of course, represented the Allies. We had the delectable vision of the Russian ballerina dancing with arms entwined about several maids of Japan. The Scotch lassies wore violent blue jackets. The Belgian girls carried large pitchers and rather wept and watered their way about the stage. There were no thrills.

After the intermission there was not even available standing space. The majority of the women were in black—the prevailing color in these days. The only touches of brightness and light were in the uniforms of the officers liberally sprinkled through the orchestra and boxes.

Then came "Le Chant du Depart," the famous song of the revolution. The scene was a little country village. The principals were the officer, the soldier, the wife, the mother, the daughter, and the drummer boy. There was a magnificent soldier chorus and the fanfare of drums and trumpets. The audience then became honestly enthusiastic. I concluded that the best Chenal could do with the "Marseillaise," which was next on the programme, would be an anti-climax.

The orchestra played the opening bars of the martial music. With the first notes the vast audience rose. I looked up at the row of wounded leaning heavily against the rail, their eyes fixed and staring on the curtain. I noticed the officers in the boxes, their eyes glistening. I heard a convulsive catch in the throats of persons about me. Then the curtain lifted.

I do not remember what was the stage setting. I do not believe I saw it. All I remember was Chenal standing at the top of a short flight of steps, in the centre near the back drop. I indistinctly remember that the rest of the stage was filled with the soldier chorus and that near the footlights on either side were clusters of little children.

"Up, sons of France, the call of glory"——

Chenal swept down to the footlights. The words of the song swept over the audience like a bugle call. The singer wore a white silk gown draped in perfect Grecian folds. She wore the large black Alsatian head dress, in one corner of which was pinned a small tri-colored cockade. She has often been called the most beautiful woman in Paris. The description was too limited. With the next lines she threw her arms apart, drawing out the folds of the gown into the tricolor of France—heavy folds of red silk draped over one arm and blue over the other. Her head was thrown back. Her tall, slender figure simply vibrated with the feeling of the words that poured forth from her lips. She was noble. She was glorious. She was sublime. With the "March on, March on" of the chorus, her voice arose high and fine over the full orchestra, and even above her voice could be sensed the surging emotions of the audience that seemed to sweep over the house in waves.

I looked up at the row of wounded. One man held his bandaged head between his hands and was crying. An officer in a box, wearing the gorgeous uniform of the headquarters staff, held a handkerchief over his eyes.

Through the second verse the audience alternately cheered and stamped their feet and wept. Then came the wonderful "Amour sacré de la patrie"—sacred love of home and country—verse. The crashing of the orchestra ceased, dying away almost to a whisper. Chenal drew the folds of the tricolor cloak about her. Then she bent her head and, drawing the flag to her lips, kissed it reverently. The first words came like a sob from her soul. From then until the end of the verse, when her voice again rang out over the renewed efforts of the orchestra, one seemed to live through all the glorious history of France. At the very end, when Chenal drew a short jeweled sword from the folds of her gown and stood, silent and superb, with the folds of the flag draped about her, while the curtain rang slowly down, she seemed to typify both Empire and Republic throughout all time. All the best of the past seemed concentrated there as that glorious woman, with head raised high, looked into the future.

And as I came out of the theatre with the silent audience I said to myself that a nation with a song and a patriotism such as I had just witnessed could not vanish from the earth—nor again be vanquished.

A War of Commerce to Follow

By Sir William Ramsay

I suppose that among my audience some are convinced free traders, while some believe that our commercial interests would be better served by a measure of protection. This is neither the time nor the place, nor have I the knowledge and ability for a discussion of this much-debated question. Nor will I reveal my own private views, except in so far as to say that I agree with the majority. But, as the question cannot be ignored, I should like to say that I hold firmly the conviction that all trade should be carried on for the mutual advantage of the parties engaged. The old fable of Æsop may be quoted, which relates to a quarrel between the different members of the body. Every one of us can be, and should be, helpful to every other, independent of nation, country, and creed. That is, I am sure, what lies on the conscience of each one of us, as an ultimate end to be struggled for, although perhaps by many considered unattainable.

For the same kind of reason, it appears to me that we all think that peace is a blessing, and war a curse. For under peace commerce and industry prosper; science and the arts flourish; friendships are made and adorn the amenities of life. Moreover, our religious traditions in all Christian countries, and in some non-Christian ones like China, influence us to believe that war is wrong, indefensible, and, in the present year of our Lord, an anachronism.

We imagined, perhaps not most, but many of us, that no important European nation thought differently. Your leading Liberal paper, The Manchester Guardian, on July 22, 1908, wrote, "Germany, though the most military of nations, is probably the least warlike"; and this doubtless represented the views of the majority of Englishmen. Some of us knew better. I have, or had, many German friends; we have lived for many years on a footing of mutual kindliness; but it was impossible to disregard the signs of the times. The reason of this war is at bottom, as we have now discovered, the existence of a wholly different ideal in the Germanic mind from that which lies at the base of the Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Dutch, or Scandinavian nations. Such a statement as this is sweeping; it can be illustrated by a trivial tale. In 1912 an international scientific congress met at Berlin; I was a member. Although the conventional language was German, in compliment to our hosts, it turned out that in the long run all discussions were conducted in French. After such a sitting, the members separated, the German committee remaining behind for business purposes. The question of language was raised, I think by a Dutchman, in the corridor. Of the representatives of the fourteen or fifteen nations present, all were agreed on this—that they were not going to be compelled to publish in German; some chose English; some French; Spanish was suggested as a simple and easily understood language; but there was no love lost between the "foreign" and the German representatives, and this not the least on personal, but purely on national grounds. Acknowledging to the full the existence of high-minded German gentlemen, it is a sad fact that the character of the individuals of the nation is not acceptable to individuals of other nations. Listen to a quotation from a letter I have received from a very distinguished Swiss: "Une chose me frappait aussi, dans les tendances allemandes, une incroyable inconscience. Accaparer le bien d'autrui leur paraissait si naturel qu'ils ne comprenaient même pas que l'on eût quelque desir de se défendre. Le monde entier était fait pour constituer le champ d'exploitation de l'Allemagne, et celui qui s'opposait á l'accomplissement de cette destinée était, pour tout allemand, l'objet d'une surprise." [Translation: "One thing has also struck me in German tendencies; that is an unbelievable want of conscience. To grab the belongings of others appeared to them so natural, that they did not understand that one had some wish to defend himself. The whole world was made for the field of German operations, and whoever placed himself in opposition to the accomplishment of this destiny was for every German the object of surprise."] The view is not new; the feeling of surprise at opposition was expressed wittily by a French poet in the words:

Well, gentlemen, this war has opened the eyes of some of us, and has confirmed the fears of others. Not one of us wanted to fight. Our hand was forced, so that we could not have abstained without national and personal dishonor.

Now, I do not think it is even yet realized that Germany's methods in trade have been, and are, as far as possible identical, with her methods in war. Let me rub this in. As long ago as 1903, at a meeting of the Society of Chemical Industry, under the Presidency of your fellow-citizen, Mr. Levinstein, I pointed out that under the German State there was a trade council, the object of which was to secure and keep trade for Germany. This council had practical control of duties, bounties, and freights; its members were representative of the different commercial interests of the empire; and they acted, as a rule, without control from the Reichstag. You can read what I said for yourselves, if you think it worth while, in The Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry for 1903.

Let me give you a simple case of the operations of that trade council. Ex uno disce omnes. A certain firm had a fairly profitable monopoly in a chemical product which it had maintained for many years. It was not a patented article, but one for which the firm had discovered a good process of manufacture. About six years ago this firm found that its Liverpool custom was being transferred to German makers. On inquiry, it transpired that the freight on this particular article from Hamburg to Liverpool had been lowered. The firm considered its position, and by introducing economies it found that it could still compete at a profit. A year later German manufacturers lowered the price substantially, so that the English firm could not sell without making a dead loss. It transpired that the lowering of price was due to a heavy export bounty being paid to the German manufacturers by the German State.

It is the bringing of the heavy machinery of State to bear on the minutiæ of commerce which makes it impossible to compete with such methods. One article after another is attacked, as opportunity offers; British manufacture is killed; and Germany acquires a monopoly. No trade is safe; its turn may not have come.

Much has been said about British manufacture of dyestuffs, and much nonsense has been written about the lack of young British chemists to help in their manufacture. There is no lack of able inventive young British chemists. Owing to the unfairness of German competition by methods just exemplified, a manufacturer, as a rule, does not care to risk capital in the payment of a number of chemists for making "fine chemicals." He finds "heavy chemicals" simpler. I do not wonder at his decision, though I lament it. There are also other reasons. The duty on methyl alcohol (for which no rebate is given) makes it impossible to introduce economically methyl groups into dyes; the restrictions incident on the use of duty-free alcohol do not commend themselves to manufacturers; these constitute other obstacles in the way of the British color maker. Lastly, our patent regulations are even yet not what they might be, although an attempt has recently been made to improve them. The British manufacturer is thus trebly handicapped.

Besides, the English competitor is at a disadvantage owing to what may be termed systematic and fraudulent attacks, for which no redress has been obtainable. Thus the manufacturers of Sheffield still complain, I suppose justly, that German articles for foreign consumption bear the words "Sheffield steel" stamped upon them. I myself have been approached by a German swindler with the proposition that I should assist his firm in infringing patents; he was surprised and pained to learn that I did not consider his proposal an honorable one.

Nor are methods like these confined to business or manufacture; they have greatly affected British shipping. Our shipping companies, in good faith, have associated themselves with others in "conferences," apparently for the mutual advantage of all, forgetting that behind the German companies lay the powerful mass of the German State. Tramp steamers, and with them cheap freights to the East, have been eliminated. The Royal Commission on Shipping Rings, which met some years ago, referring to the system obtaining in Germany, and fostered by the German Government, on charging through rates on goods from towns in the interior to the port of destination, observed in its report: "Such rates constitute a direct subsidy to the export trade of German manufacturers, and an indirect subsidy to those German lines by whom alone they are available. And as they are only rendered possible by the action of the German Government, it appears to us that the British lines can in no way be held responsible for the preferences which these rates afford to German goods." Now, our Government pays large mail subsidies to many of our shipping companies. Could these not be so utilized that it would become impossible for Germans to capture our trade by indirect state bounties?

These are a few examples (and your greater knowledge will enable you to supplement them with many others) of the methods which have been employed against us by Germans with the co-operation—nay, the active support—of their State.

Of late a new factor has appeared. The German Imperial Chancellor made his noteworthy (or notorious) remark about a "scrap of paper." And Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, speaking in the Reichstag, acknowledged openly that the German Nation had been guilty of a "wrong" to Belgium. This breach of faith has the approval of the whole German people. Do they realize what it means? Are they not aware that no treaty, political or otherwise, with the German people is worth the paper it is written on? That the country and its inhabitants have forfeited all claims to trust? That no one, in future, should make a bargain with a German, knowing that he is a dishonorable and dishonored man?... Germany has made many blunders—an almost inconceivable number of blunders; but this blundering crime is surely the culminating point of blunder. Did any nation ever before deliberately throw away its political, commercial, financial, and social credit to no purpose? To gain what? England as an adversary, and the contempt of the whole civilized world. Her treatment of the poor Belgian civilians has added to contempt, loathing and scorn.

Now, gentlemen, you see our problem. At, the end of this war we shall have Germans again as trade rivals; if there is a German State our German rivals will be backed by their State. They will, as they have done before, steal our inventions, use trickery and fraud to oust us from world markets, and we know now that we need not expect any bargain to be binding. I am not a commercial man; science is supposed to be above such trickery. Yet I read a few days ago, not as a single example, but only as the last I happen to remember, an article by a distinguished American professor, protesting with great moderation that an important scientific generalization which he published in 1902 had been annexed, without acknowledgment, by a versatile and adroit professor in the University of Berlin—an acquaintance of my own—in the year 1906; and it was not until 1910 that the latter was made to confess his guilt, with much subterfuge and blustering.

Commerce, indeed, is in Germany regarded as war; we now know it, and we must meet war by war. How is that war to be waged?

I can see only two methods. One is recommended by a writer in The Observer of the 10th inst., who acknowledges himself to have been a lifelong free trader. His remedy is a 25 per cent. duty on all German goods, and on German goods only, imported (or rather offered for import) into Great Britain and her colonies, and also that German passenger liners and freight boats should not be allowed to call at any one of the ports of the empire. His reasons are fully stated in his letter; it is signed "A City Merchant."

The other method is perhaps less apt to offend free trade susceptibilities; it is to impose on what remains of our opponents at the conclusion of this war free trade for a term of years. It remains to be seen whether we shall be powerful enough to insist on this measure, or to persuade our allies that it is one likely to fulfill the proposed end. It is, so far as I see, the only other alternative.

Those who are thoroughly convinced of the benefits of free trade should welcome this suggestion, unless, indeed, they think that such a blessing is not deserved by Germany. On the other hand, they may comfort themselves with the certain knowledge that no possible punishment inflicted on the Germans could possibly be more galling and repulsive to them. Doubtless, too, it would suit the books of our allies very well, who could impose on German goods any duty they thought fit, and deposit their surplus and inferior goods in Germany at a price which would defy competition. But these are questions which I must leave to those more conversant with the merits and demerits of free trade and protection than I am.

Whatever view you take, you cannot but acknowledge that the situation calls for early and anxious deliberation, and well-thought-out and firm action; and it must be action taken as a nation—through our Government—whatever the political complexion of the Government may be at the close of the war. It is for you, as members of the Employers' Parliamentary Association, to make up your minds what you wish to do; above all, to agree, and to take steps to force the Government in power to carry out your wishes.

Belgium.

By EDITH WHARTON.

[From King Albert's Book.]

La Belgique regrette rien.

Desired Peace Terms for Europe

Outlined by Proponents for the Allies and for Germany

The following forecast of the terms of peace which the Allies could enforce upon Germany and Austria is made for The New York Times Current History by a former Minister of France, one of the leading publicists of the French Republic:

The Allies will decline to treat with any member of the Hohenzollern or Hapsburg family or any delegates representing them and will insist on dealing with delegations representing the German and Austro-Hungarian people elected by their respective Parliaments or by direct vote of the people, if they so desire.

The Allies will facilitate in every possible way negotiations between Austria-Hungary and Italy with a view to the latter obtaining the southern part of the Tyrol, known as Trentino, and the Peninsula of Istria, known as Trieste.

The 200 miles "strait" channel (Dardanelles, Sea of Marmora, and Bosporus,) between Turkey in Europe and Turkey in Asia, is to be declared free to the ships of all nations, and under the direction of an international commission, which will also administer Turkey in Europe and form a permanent court of arbitration for all questions which may arise among Rumania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece. In settling the status of Albania respect will be paid to the wishes of the inhabitants.

Alsace and Lorraine, after rectifications of the French boundary line in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, are to be annexed to Belgium, whose permanent neutrality will be guaranteed by the powers. Schleswig-Holstein is to be returned to Denmark and the Kiel Canal made an international waterway, under either an international commission or a company which will operate it as the Suez Canal is operated.

Poland is to be declared an autonomous State under the protection of Russia, and its boundaries are to be restored as they were in 1715.

The Allies will also entertain a proposition for the restoration of the independence of Hungary and the geographical integrity of the country as it was in 1715.

The delegates representing the German people must pledge themselves that military conscription shall be abolished among them for a period of twenty-five years.

The status of all German colonies and protectorates is to be settled by a joint commission appointed by the Governments of England, Japan, and France.

The ownership of Italy and Greece to the Aegean Islands, now in their respective possessions, is to be confirmed by the powers and guarantees shall be given that the said islands shall not be fortified.

The ownership of England to the Island of Cyprus is to be confirmed by the powers and her protectorate over Egypt acknowledged.

The Mediterranean Sea is to be declared a "maritime area" to be policed by England, France, and Italy.

Here is the declaration of peace terms by the Central Committee for National Patriotic Organization of England:

Great Britain can never willingly make peace with Germany until the power of Prussian militarism is completely destroyed and there is no possibility of our children or our children's children being forced again to fight for the national existence. As far as we are concerned, this is a fight to a definite finish. We must either win all along the line or we must be completely defeated and our empire destroyed. Our allies fully share the same conviction. The thousands of lives already lost, and, alas! still to be lost, will have been tragically wasted if the German menace remains to terrorize Europe and to stunt the progress of civilization. In order to convince public opinion that the only peace worth having is a peace absolutely on our own terms, a Central Committee for National Patriotic Organization has been formed from the members of all the four political parties. The committee will, in addition, take steps to lay a clear statement of the British case before neutral countries. Both the tasks it has undertaken are of the first importance, and it should have the support of every patriot.

The British Volunteers.

By KATHERINE DRAYTON MAYRANT SIMONS, JR.

Chronology of the War

Showing Progress of Campaigns on All Fronts and Collateral Events from Jan. 31, 1915, up to and Including Feb. 28, 1915.

Continued from the last Number.

The Great Sea Fight.

By J. ROBERT FOSTER.