World's War Events, Vol. Ii

Part 1

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WORLD'S WAR EVENTS

RECORDED BY STATESMEN · COMMANDERS HISTORIANS AND BY MEN WHO FOUGHT OR SAW THE GREAT CAMPAIGNS

COMPILED AND EDITED BY FRANCIS J. REYNOLDS FORMER REFERENCE LIBRARIAN · LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

AND

ALLEN L. CHURCHILL ASSOCIATE EDITOR "THE STORY OF THE GREAT WAR" ASSOCIATE EDITOR "THE NEW INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA"

VOLUME II

P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY NEW YORK

Copyright 1919 BY P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY

WORLD'S WAR EVENTS

VOLUME II

BEGINNING WITH THE ATTACK AT VERDUN EARLY IN 1916 THE STORY OF THE WAR AND OF AMERICAN AID IS CARRIED TO THE CLOSE OF 1917

CONTENTS

ARTICLE PAGE

I. THE BATTLE OF VERDUN 7 Raoul Blanchard

II. THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND BANK 30 Admiral Sir John Jellicoe's Official Despatch

III. TAKING THE COL DI LANA 55 Lewis R. Freeman

IV. THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME 67 Sir Douglas Haig

V. RUSSIA'S REFUGEES 114 Gregory Mason

VI. THE TRAGEDY OF RUMANIA 124 Stanley Washburn

VII. SIXTEEN MONTHS A WAR PRISONER 142 Private "Jack" Evans

VIII. UNDER GERMAN RULE IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM 159 J. P. Whitaker

IX. THE ANGLO-RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN IN TURKEY 174 James B. MacDonald

X. KITCHENER 188 Lady St. Helier

XI. WHY AMERICA BROKE WITH GERMANY 194 President Woodrow Wilson

XII. HOW THE WAR CAME TO AMERICA 205 Official Account

XIII. THE WAR MESSAGE 226 President Woodrow Wilson

XIV. BRITISH OPERATIONS AT SALONIKI 244 Official Report of General Milne

Part 2

XV. IN PETROGRAD DURING THE SEVEN DAYS 253 Arno Dosch-Fleurot

XVI. AMERICA'S FIRST SHOT 271 J.R. Keen

XVII. GERMAN ACTIVITIES IN THE UNITED STATES 278 House Committee on Foreign Affairs

XVIII. PREPARING FOR WAR 298 Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War

XIX. THE CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM 344 General E. H. H. Allenby

XX. AMERICAN SHIPS AND GERMAN SUBMARINES 369 From Official Reports

THE BATTLE OF VERDUN

RAOUL BLANCHARD

Copyright, Atlantic Monthly, June, 1917.

The Battle of Verdun, which continued through from February 21, 1916, to the 16th of December, ranks next to the Battle of the Marne as the greatest drama of the world war. Like the Marne, it represents the checkmate of a supreme effort on the part of the Germans to end the war swiftly by a thunderstroke. It surpasses the Battle of the Marne by the length of the struggle, the fury with which it was carried on, the huge scale of the operations. No complete analysis of it, however, has yet been published--only fragmentary accounts, dealing with the beginning or with mere episodes. Neither in France nor in Germany, up to the present moment, has the whole story of the battle been told, describing its vicissitudes, and following step by step the development of the stirring drama. That is the task I have set myself here.

The year 1915 was rich in successes for the Germans. In the West, thanks to an energetic defensive, they had held firm against the Allies' onslaughts in Artois and in Champagne. Their offensive in the East was most fruitful. Galicia had been almost completely recovered, the kingdom of Poland occupied, Courland, Lithuania, and Volhynia invaded. To the South they had crushed Serbia's opposition, saved Turkey, and won over Bulgaria. These triumphs, however, had not brought them peace, for the heart and soul of the Allies lay, after all, in the West--in England and France. The submarine campaign was counted on to keep England's hands tied; it remained, therefore, to attack and annihilate the French army. And so, in the autumn of 1915, preparations were begun on a huge scale for delivering a terrible blow in the West and dealing France the coup de grâce.

The determination with which the Germans followed out this plan and the reckless way in which they drew on their resources leave no doubt as to the importance the operation held for them. They staked everything on putting their adversaries out of the running by breaking through their lines, marching on Paris, and shattering the confidence of the French people. This much they themselves admitted. The German press, at the beginning of the battle, treated it as a matter of secondary import, whose object was to open up free communications between Metz and the troops in the Argonne; but the proportions of the combat soon gave the lie to such modest estimates, and in the excitement of the first days official utterances betrayed how great were the expectations.

On March 4 the Crown Prince urged his already over-taxed troops to make one supreme effort to "capture Verdun, the heart of France"; and General von Deimling announced to the 15th Army Corps that this would be the last battle of the war. At Berlin, travelers from neutral countries leaving for Paris by way of Switzerland were told that the Germans would get there first. The Kaiser himself, replying toward the end of February to the good wishes of his faithful province of Brandenburg, congratulated himself publicly on seeing his warriors of the 3d Army Corps about to carry "the most important stronghold of our principal enemy." It is plain, then, that the object was to take Verdun, win a decisive victory, and start a tremendous onslaught which would bring the war to a triumphant close.

We should next examine the reasons prompting the Germans to select Verdun as the vital point, the nature of the scene of operations, and the manner in which the preparation was made.

Why did the Germans make their drive at Verdun, a powerful fortress defended by a complete system of detached outworks? Several reasons may be found for this. First of all, there were the strategic advantages of the operation. Ever since the Battle of the Marne and the German offensive against St. Mihiel, Verdun had formed a salient in the French front which was surrounded by the Germans on three sides,--northwest, east, and south,--and was consequently in greater peril than the rest of the French lines. Besides, Verdun was not far distant from Metz, the great German arsenal, the fountain-head for arms, food, and munitions. For the same reasons, the French defense of Verdun was made much harder because access to the city was commanded by the enemy. Of the two main railroads linking Verdun with France, the Lérouville line was cut off by the enemy at St. Mihiel; the second (leading through Châlons) was under ceaseless fire from the German artillery. There remained only a narrow-gauge road connecting Verdun and Bar-le-Duc. The fortress, then, was almost isolated.

For another reason, Verdun was too near, for the comfort of the Germans, to those immense deposits of iron ore in Lorraine which they have every intention of retaining after the war. The moral factor involved in the fall of Verdun was also immense. If the stronghold were captured, the French, who look on it as their chief bulwark in the East, would be greatly disheartened, whereas it would delight the souls of the Germans, who had been counting on its seizure since the beginning of the war. They have not forgotten that the ancient Lotharingia, created by a treaty signed eleven centuries ago at Verdun, extended as far as the Meuse. Finally, it is probable that the German General Staff intended to profit by a certain slackness on the part of the French, who, placing too much confidence in the strength of the position and the favorable nature of the surrounding countryside, had made little effort to augment their defensive value.

This value, as a matter of fact, was great. The theatre of operations at Verdun offers far fewer inducements to an offensive than the plains of Artois, Picardy, or Champagne. The rolling ground, the vegetation, the distribution of the population, all present serious obstacles.

The relief-map of the region about Verdun shows the sharply marked division of two plateaus situated on either side of the river Meuse. The plateau which rises on the left bank, toward the Argonne, falls away on the side toward the Meuse in a deeply indented line of high but gently sloping bluffs, which include the Butte de Montfaucon, Hill 304, and the heights of Esnes and Montzéville. Fragments of this plateau, separated from the main mass by the action of watercourses, are scattered in long ridges over the space included between the line of bluffs and the Meuse: the two hills of Le Mont Homme (295 metres), the Côte de l'Oie, and, farther to the South, the ridge of Bois Bourrus and Marre. To the east of the river, the country is still more rugged. The plateau on this bank rises abruptly, and terminates at the plain of the Woëvre in the cliffs of the Côtes-de-Meuse, which tower 100 metres over the plain. The brooks which flow down to the Woëvre or to the Meuse have worn the cliffs and the plateau into a great number of hillocks called côtes: the Côte du Talon, Côte du Poivre, Côte de Froideterre, and the rest. The ravines separating these côtes are deep and long: those of Vaux, Haudromont, and Fleury cut into the very heart of the plateau, leaving between them merely narrow ridges of land, easily to be defended.

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