America's War for Humanity Part 66

Killed. Wounded. Missing.

Russia 1,200,000 2,500,000 2,000,000 Germany 900,000 1,900,000 150,000 France 850,000 1,500,000 325,000 Austro-Hungary 475,000 1,000,000 900,000 Great Britain 160,000 450,000 70,000 Turkey 75,000 200,000 75,000 Serbia 60,000 125,000 75,000 Italy 50,000 100,000 30,000 Belgium 30,000 70,000 50,000 Bulgaria 5,000 25,000 5,000 _________ _________ _________ __________ Total 3,805,000 7,870,000 3,680,000

THE STRUGGLE ON THE SOMME

The second phase of the great Anglo-French offensive on the western front began to develop late in July, and attacks were continuous throughout the month of August and up to September 15. At every point in the Somme region the giant British and French guns poured sh.e.l.l into the German works, destroying barbed wire entanglements and wrecking trenches, while Allied gains were reported almost daily, as the Germans were slowly but surely ousted from their original positions along a wide front.

An engagement typical of the prolonged fighting on the Somme occurred near Armentieres, where the Australians on a two-mile front made the greatest trench raid ever undertaken in any war, inflicting heavy damage upon the enemy by bombing and hand-to-hand fighting. The German position at Longueval pa.s.sed into British control on July 28, after what was called the most terrific fighting of the war, in Delville Wood.

Between August 6 and September 10 the British under Gen. Sir Douglas Haig and the French under Gen. Foch fought off many determined German counter-attacks in the Somme sector, and continued their advance, the French gaining Maurepas and the British moving closer to Guillemont and Ginchy, driving the Germans back along eleven miles of front and capturing Thiepval Ridge and other important positions near Pozieres.

On September 9 German official reports admitted considerable losses on the western line, both in the section south of the Somme and to the northeast of Verdun. Fierce attacks by the Germans at Verdun had been renewed during August, but the French, under the able command of Gen.

Nivelle, more than held their own, recapturing a considerable portion of the terrain occupied by the enemy, including Fleury and the important Thiaumont Work.

ITALIANS CAPTURE GORITZ.

The greatest blow which the Italian army had struck against Austria since the beginning of the war was completed on August 9, when Italian troops captured the fortified city of Goritz, for which they had been struggling for months. The number of prisoners taken by the Italians was 21,750, and in the next few days nearly 20,000 more fell into their hands, with great stores of war munitions and many guns.

The taking of Goritz, one of the strongest fortresses in Europe, compelled the retirement of the Austrians at other points along the Isonzo River, and opened the road for the Italians, under Gen. Cadorna, to strike at the coveted city of Trieste, twenty-two miles to the southeast. With the capture of the "keystone" at Goritz, the Italian commander confidently expected the resistance of the Austrians to weaken and looked forward to the early occupation of the coveted provinces of the Trentino.

ITALY AT WAR WITH GERMANY

On August 27, Italy declared war on Germany, giving as a reason the fact that Germany had sent both land and sea forces to the aid of Austria.

The declaration became inevitable when Italy sent troops to Saloniki to cooperate in the campaign of the Entente Allies on the Macedonian front.

For more than a year Italy's position with regard to Germany had been an anomalous one, for although she withdrew from the Triple Alliance on May 25, 1915, and declared war against Austria, she remained officially at peace with Germany until August 27, 1916.

RUMANIA ENTERS THE WAR

After many months of hesitation, Rumania finally decided to enter the war on the side of the Allies and declared war on Austria, August 27.

The next day Germany declared war on Rumania, and the issue was squarely joined in the Balkans, which then became the scene of a mighty struggle for the possession of Germany's road to Constantinople and the East.

Tremendous activity at once began on the Balkan front, with Rumania's endeavor to aid Russia in cutting off Bulgaria and Turkey from the Central Powers. In the event of the success of this move, it was expected that the Allies would start a gigantic drive toward Constantinople.

The most important gain for either side in the Balkans up to the middle of September was the capture by the Bulgarians and Germans, on September 7, of the great fortress of Turtukai, fifty miles to the southeast of Bucharest, the Rumanian capital, and chief defense of the capital on that side. Russian troops were rushed to the aid of the Rumanians, and the loss of Turtukai was offset by Rumanian successes across the Hungarian border, where they captured a number of towns, driving the Austrian defenders before them as their invasion of Hungary progressed.

RUSSIAN ARMIES ACTIVE

By September 10, Russian troops were ma.s.sed in great force in southeastern Rumania, and engaged the Bulgarians on the whole seventy-mile front from the Danube to the Black Sea, fighting fiercely to wrest the offensive from the enemy invading Rumania. In Transylvania the Rumanians were advancing rapidly, having captured the important town of Orsova, on the Danube, which gave them a grip on the Austrian second line of defense behind the mountains dividing Transylvania from Hungary.

The entrance of Rumania into the war had increased the Austro-Hungarian front by about 380 miles, which military men regarded as altogether too long for the Teutonic armies to hold with any hope of success.

The Russians were also on September 10 winning ground in their campaign against Lemberg, the capital of Galicia. They had advanced until they were within artillery range of Halicz, an important railway junction sixty miles south of Lemberg. They had cut the railway line between Lemberg and Halicz, and the latter town was in flames.

ALLIED PROGRESS ON THE WESTERN FRONT

British and French successes on the Western front continued during the month of September, and the gains were encouraging to the Allies. On September 15 the British took Flers, Martinpuich, the important position known as the High Wood, Courcelette, and almost all of the Bouleaux Wood, and also stormed the German positions from Combles north to the Pozieres-Bapaume road, arriving within four miles of Bapaume and capturing 2,300 prisoners. A prominent feature of the attack was the use by the British of armored automobile trucks of unusual size and power, so constructed that they were able to cross trenches and sh.e.l.l-holes.

These "tanks," as they were called, proved a genuine surprise to the enemy. They were said to be developed from American tractors of the "caterpillar" variety, which lay their own tracks as they proceed.

A two-mile trench system, believed to be impregnable, was stormed by the Allied forces near Thiepval September 17, while south of the Somme the French took the German trenches along a front of three miles. Next day more ground was taken in the advance toward Bapaume and German prisoners continued to fall into the Allies' hands. The number of Teuton captives taken during the Somme fighting from July 1 to September 22 was placed at 55,800 men and officers.

The month of September was remarkable for the great number of aerial combats on the western front and the efficiency developed in this mode of fighting. Many airplanes were shot down on both sides, but the Allies seemed to be gaining the mastery of the air. On a single day, September 24, over a hundred air combats were reported, during which fifty-seven airplanes were destroyed. On the same day two French airmen, in flights of 500 miles, dropped bombs on the Krupp works at Essen in Germany.

In a forward sweep near the end of the month the British took a number of German positions northeast of Combles, while the French advanced south of that point, so that the two armies almost surrounding it were scarcely a mile apart. A day later British and French troops entered Comibles from opposite sides and drove the Germans out. Continuing the drive from Thiepval, which had also been occupied, the British consolidated their positions and straightened their line a short distance from Bapaume, their objective point at this time. More than 5,000 German prisoners were taken September 26 and 27.

More Allied gains in the Somme sector were reported in the first week of October. German counter-attacks were frequent, but lacked the vigor and success of former efforts on this front. In a joint attack on October the village of Le Sars was taken and the Allies found themselves within two miles of Bapaume. General Foch with his French infantry took a number of German positions near Ablaincourt, south of the Somme, October 14, and held his gains against repeated German attacks. The fighting was extremely desperate and of a hand-to-hand character. Gas and liquid fire were used by the Germans, but the new Allied lines were firmly held.

Liquid fire was also used against the British at Thiepval, but without success.

The Allied attacks on the Somme from October 9 to October 13 were reckoned in Berlin dispatches as amongst the greatest actions of the entire Somme battle, the enemy believing that the Allies themselves then attempted to reach a decision by breaking through the German lines on the largest possible scale. The losses on both sides during this period were admittedly very heavy.

On October 18 the town of Sailly-Saillisel fell to the French after hard fighting and commanding ridges on either side of it were also captured.

Fresh progress brought the French troops to the outskirts of Peronne next day, and on the 21st the British advanced their lines along a front of three miles, capturing the Stuff and Regina redoubts and trenches and taking more than 1,000 prisoners, besides bringing down seventeen enemy airplanes.

Captain Boelke, Germany's greatest airman, was killed October 28 in a collision with another airplane during a battle on the western front. He was 25 years of age, had been wounded several times during the war, and is credited with having brought down forty Allied airplanes.

The October losses of the British in the Somme campaign were announced by the War Office to be 107,033, bringing the British total from the beginning of the campaign to 414,202 men and officers, killed, wounded and missing.

In the first days of November the princ.i.p.al activity was in the vicinity of Sailly. The Germans effected a successful counter-attack on November 6, recapturing some of the ground won by the Allies, with 400 prisoners, 300 of them French. Next day, however, a greater number of German prisoners was taken by the French in an advance along a two-and-a-half-mile front south of the Somme, and on the 9th the French strengthened their positions near Sailly, clearing out German trenches and taking more prisoners.

On November 13 the British took a five-mile front in the German line near the River Ancre, capturing two towns and 3,000 prisoners, the Germans being taken by surprise in the early morning mist. Continuing their advantage the following day, the British took Beaucourt-sur-Anere with more than 5,000 prisoners. On the 15th German troops took the offensive on both sides of the Somme and succeeded in forcing their way back into some of the trenches and advance positions held by the French, but the British continued their advance north of the Ancre. Next day the French recovered the lost ground and their airmen engaged in fifty-four air battles with German machines along the Somme front. On the 18th British and French airplanes again bombarded Ostend, dropping 180 bombs, and once more raided Zeebrugge. In an ensuing battle six German planes were brought down.

Infantry fighting in the Dixmude sector between Belgian and German troops occurred on four consecutive days, from November 17 to 20, with hand-grenade battles but no definite result. There was a general lull in operations after this, caused by heavy weather and fogs.

FRENCH ARE FINAL VICTORS AT VERDUN.

In a dramatic blow at Verdun, after a period of comparative quiet at that point, the French on October 24 took the village and fort of Douaumont, also Thiaumont, the Haudromont quarries, La Caillette Wood, Damloup battery and trenches along a four-mile front to a depth of two miles. The ground retaken was the same that the Germans under the Crown Prince took by two months' hard fighting. This was the quickest and most effective blow struck in the Verdun campaign and reflected the highest credit on the French general commanding, General Petain, and his devoted troops, who thus turned the tide of victory at Verdun in favor of the French and stamped with failure the efforts of the Crown Prince, continued for nine months, to wrest Verdun from French control and open a road to Paris. It was a campaign in which failure meant defeat for the Germans, and its cost in men, money and munitions was enormous.

Four thousand German prisoners were taken on the 24th and the next day the French began encircling Fort Vaux, the only one of the outer ring of forts at Verdun which remained in German hands. All attempts on the part of the Crown Prince to regain the lost ground were fruitless. Four German attacks were beaten back on the 26th, and the following day the French advanced south and west of Vaux and tightened their grip on the fortress. During violent artillery duels, many German attacks on the gained ground were repulsed, and by November 1 the prisoners in French hands numbered 7,000.

On November 4 the French began the attempt to take the village of Vaux held by the Crown Prince, and gained a foothold in the village. Next day they captured the whole of Vaux village and also the village of Damloup. The fort at Vaux had been evacuated by the Germans a few days previously. Thus the long and b.l.o.o.d.y struggle for the possession of Verdun apparently ended, although artillery duels of varying intensity continued at intervals, and the laurels of the prolonged campaign rested with the French.

BRILLIANT WORK OF CANADIAN TROOPS.

Brilliant work on the part of the Canadian troops on the Somme front aided materially to gain the British successes recorded on October 21.

William Philips Simms, an eyewitness with the Canadian forces, gave a graphic account of the attack, which was typical of much of the fighting on the Somme. He said:

"Eight minutes of das.h.i.+ng across a sea of mud worse than the Slough of Despond, of methodically advanced barrage fire, of quick work in trench fight, sufficed for the Canadians to take Regina trench--one of the smoothest bits of trench-taking that has been witnessed in the Somme drive. I saw the Canadians, muddy to the eyebrows--but grinning--on the day after they had accomplished the feat.

"The a.s.sault was over in eight minutes. It was carried out in brilliant moonlight, and despite a terrific German counter barrage fire and a sea of mud. Every objective the Canadians sought was won.

"Though the Germans repeatedly counter-attacked, the Canadians not only kept every inch they had wrested from the enemy, but before dawn they had strongly reorganized their position and dug over 250 yards of connecting trenches."

ACTIVITIES OF THE RUSSIANS.

On the eastern front in the middle of September strong Russian attacks before Halicz were driving the Teutonic troops back toward Lemberg, and several thousand German and Turkish troops were captured. The Russian advance was checked, however, on September 18, after a total of 25, prisoners had been taken by the Russians near Halicz.

The Russian offensive was s.h.i.+fted September 21 from the Lemberg sector to the east of Kovel and a few days after a fresh offensive began along the entire eastern front, heavy fighting being reported west of Lutsk and in the Carpathians. Turkish troops at this time appeared on the Riga front, with German equipment and led by German and Austrian officers.

The great 300-mile battle continued unabated to the end of October, with fighting all along the line from the Pinsk marshes on the north to the Roumanian frontier on the south.

By a sudden drive through the Russian front north of the Pinsk marshes on November 10, the Germans succeeded in cutting the Russian first line, taking nearly 4,000 prisoners and twenty-seven machine guns. The Russian lines were believed to have been weakened by the transfer of troops to Roumanian positions in the south. Following this there was terrific fighting in the Narayuvka, where the Russian trenches were carried by the Germans after they had been practically destroyed by high explosives; but the ground lost, located near Slaventin, was gallantly regained by the Russian troops on November 15.

The Russian dreadnought Imperatritsa Maria was sunk by a mine near Sulina, at the mouth of the Danube, November 11. It was launched in and had a displacement of 22,500 tons. On November 18 Russian troops near Sarny, southeast of Pinsk, brought down a Zeppelin airs.h.i.+p, capturing the crew of sixteen and 600 pounds of bombs.