Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights Part 31

Trentino is famous for its mountain pa.s.ses, over which the Italians have been compelled to drag their heavy artillery and implements of war. The Alpini, the mountaineer soldiers of Italy, are among the most picturesque in the world. They have scaled the almost perpendicular faces of the Alps, climbing from crag to crag with their bodies roped together, dragging machine guns in pieces strapped to their shoulders.

Tolmino, Trieste, Istria, Dalmatia, Avlona, the prime harbor of Albania (seized by Italy in the fall of 1916). These are little spots in the territory logically Italian, which Italy covets.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OUTLINE MAP OF THE AUSTRIA-HUNGARY EMPIRE.

Drawn and engraved especially to show the Provinces comprising the Empire, and their locations as they were at the beginning of the war.

This is a country of many nationalities and languages.]

DIVIDED INTO SIXTEEN DEPARTMENTS.

Italy, since its consolidation into one kingdom in 1870, has been divided into sixteen departments comprising sixty-nine provinces. The country has a total area of 110,623 square miles, and a population of a little more than 35,000,000. The Roman Catholic Church is irrevocably linked to the history of Italy and Rome, its capital, marked the farthest advance of civilization in the ancient days. It possesses four distinct zones, ranging from the almost arctic cold of the mountain belts to an almost tropical heat in the southern lowlands. It is one of the picturesque countries of the world, a center of art, industry and travel.

Servia, which is separated from Austria-Hungary by the Danube, is of precisely the same character as the other rich, mountainous region. The country was subjugated by the Turks, who retained possession of it until 1717. Austria then wrested control from the Turks, and held it until 1791, when Turkey again dominated it. In 1805 the Servians revolted, and secured temporary independence, only to again come under the Ottoman rule. Again it secured freedom in 1815, and by the Treaty of Paris, independent existence was secured for it. Turkey became only a nominal authority. It became a kingdom in 1882, after having become absolutely independent with the Berlin Treaty.

The people are Slavonic, and kin to the Croats of ancient history. They are described as having come from Poland and Galicia, moving down the Danube, into what is the present kingdom. In the fourteenth century the Servian empire comprised the whole Balkan peninsula, from Greece to Poland, and from the Black Sea to the Adriatic. But Servia warred with Turkey, and her troops were defeated in the great battle at Kossovo, and the Ottoman power became supreme. The country has an area of about 34,000 square miles and a population of 4,600,000.

LITTLE BOSNIA'S FUTURE.

Bosnia, where was a.s.sa.s.sinated the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, of Austria, was a Turkish province, west of Servia, and under the treaty of Berlin was to be administered for an undefined period by the Austrian government. The little section contains about 16,000 square miles and has a population of about 1,750,000, largely of Slavonic origin. They are partly Mohammedans, partly Roman Catholics and Greek Catholics. In the middle ages Bosnia belonged to the Eastern Empire. Later it became a separate kingdom, dependent upon Hungary, only to be conquered by the Turks. It is the mountainous, rugged country of the Julian and Dinaric Alps, but has many fertile valleys, and is well watered by the river Save, and its numerous tributaries.

Greece, the modern kingdom, is one of the countries that for centuries were politically included within the limits of the Turkish Empire. In its present form it represents but a portion of that country, famous in history, as the Greece of the Ancients--that cla.s.sic land which holds the most conspicuous place in the pages of ancient history--but still it is inclusive of the greatest names belonging to the glorious past. It is the country of Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes and Argos. It is separated from Turkey by a winding boundary, extending from the Gulf of Arta on the west to the Gulf of Salonica on the east.

The earliest settlers were the Pelasgi, who were in course of time replaced by the h.e.l.lenes. They, in turn, were succeeded by the Phoenicians, who swayed the country. Athens, Sparta, Thebes and Corinth came into existence and became the centers of political government, of the most progressive advancement in civilization. Civil discords brought on first the Peloponnesian War, about 434 B.C., and made them prey to the Macedonians. Successively invaded by Goths, Vandals and Normans the country came into the possession of the Turks in 1481, though for two centuries the power of the Turk was questioned by the Venetians. Revolt was had from the Ottoman yoke in 1821, and independence was secured by the interference of foreign powers after the defeat of the Turk at the Navarino, in 1827. Through the succeeding years it has been a protected monarchy.

ONE OF THE BALKAN GROUP.

Roumania, the largest of the Balkan group, lying between Russia on the north, and Bulgaria on the south, is the home of the Gacians, descendants of the warlike tribes who for years held their own against Greek and Roman. After the fall of Rome the province became a melting pot, through which the hordes of invaders, pa.s.sing from Russia to Asia, were in a sense made one people. The Goths, the Huns, the Lombards, the Bulgars and the Magyars traversed the region, leaving many settlers. It became divided into two provinces, Moldavia and Wallachia, known as the Danubian provinces.

Both provinces were conquered by the Turks in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and under Peter the Great the Russians attempted the conquest of the provinces. In 1859 the two provinces were united under a prince whose independence both Turkey and Russia recognized, and in 1881 the country declared itself a kingdom. The province of Wallachia derives its name from the people who early settled there, the Wallachs.

The Roumanians claim descent from Vlachi, a colony of Romans, who settled in Thrace, and, in the twelfth century, emigrated to the Danube.

The name Roumania is derived from the word Roman, the country having originally been "the Land of the Roumani." Roumania has a population of about 7,600,000 and comprises 64,000 square miles.

Macedonia, famous country of Greece in the time of Philip, father of Alexander the Great, embraced the entire region from the Scardian Mountains to Thessaly, and from the Epirus and Illyria to the river Nestos, taking in what is now part of Salonica. It was reduced by the Persians and subsequently Alexander the Great made it the nucleus of a vast and powerful empire along with Greece. Ultimately it pa.s.sed under Roman sway, until it was ceded, in 1913, to Greece.

AN OBJECT OF CONTENTION.

Alsace-Lorraine is worthy of note, as comprising one of the territories which for centuries have been the cause of conflict between Germany and France. It is pointed to as the physical evidence of the humiliation of France at the hands of the Germans, in 1870, and has for nearly one-half a century been a German imperial territory. The surrender of Alsace and part of Lorraine was made the princ.i.p.al condition of peace on the settlement of the war of 1870. Bismarck, it is said, might have been content with a language boundary, taking only that portion of the country in which lived those who spoke the German tongue.

For strategic purposes, however, Alsace and Lorraine, with the exception of one district, were taken. The strip of country was to be governed by the power of the German Emperor until the const.i.tution of the German Empire was established. Many of the inhabitants opposed the Prussian domination, and a vote was taken on who would declare themselves Germans and remain in the territory, or French and leave. More than 40,000 left the country and went into France.

The German language was made compulsory in the schools, the courts and the legislative body. The French never forgot their loss, and revenge for that loss has been a subject of consideration in their foreign policy ever since the war of 1871. Alsace and Lorraine contain about 5600 square miles, and together have a population of about two million.

About 85 per cent of the people speak German.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OUTLINE MAP OF TURKEY IN ASIA.

A country where civilization was first born and which is now undergoing a new birth of a new civilization. The location of the Garden of Eden was between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The drawing shows the country which is mentioned largely in Bible history.]

PICTURESQUE TURKEY.

Turkey, one of the picturesque and ancient countries which is aligned with the Germans, is a Mohammedan state of the Ottoman Empire in southeastern Europe and western Asia, whose holdings in Europe have been steadily decreasing, especially during recent years. The immediate possessions of Turkey, or those directly under the Sultan's rule at the time this country became involved in the great world war, extended from Montenegro, Bosnia, Servia and eastern Roumelia on the north, to the Agean Sea and Greece on the south, and from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, the Straits of Otranto and the Ionic Sea. In September, 1911, the Italian government sent a long list of claims made by Italy against Turkey for economic and commercial discrimination against Italian commerce, and the person of Italian citizens all over the world. A reply was demanded within twenty-four hours, and failing to receive a reply considered satisfactory, Italy immediately sent wars.h.i.+ps to Tripoli, bombarded and captured the city. This meant that Turkey has lost one of her most important seaports, consequently weakening her position.

The immediate possessions of Turkey in Europe, at this time, had an area of 65,350 square miles, with a population of 6,200,000. In Asia Turkey had possessions of 693,610 square miles, with a population of 16,900,000, while in Africa about 398,000 square miles belonged to the Turkish Empire, on which lived 1,000,000 persons. This gave Turkey an area of about 1,157,860 square miles, with a population of 24,100,000. A number of islands in the Agean Sea belong to Turkey, and Egypt is also nominally part of the kingdom of the Sultan.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A DASTARDLY CRIME WHICH AUTOCRACY CANNOT DENY.

Aerial photograph by a British pilot showing four huts of a British hospital in France, in which were helpless men who were blown to bits.

All plainly shown in the foreground.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A BRITISH TOMMY ON WAY TO TRENCHES.

This photograph shows a soldier crossing through a trench--which is camouflaged. The screen prevents his being seen.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN ATTACK BY AMERICANS.

Company H and Company K of the 336th Infantry, 82nd Division are advancing on enemy positions in France and driving them out while the 307th Engineers of the 82nd Division are clearing the way by blowing up wire entanglements.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL BULLARD.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL LIGGETT.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL d.i.c.kMAN.

American Army Commanders who out-generaled the Germans. They were well supported by the fearless and determined fighters, the U.S.A. troops.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A RELIGIOUS MEETING ON THE FIELD.

American, British, French, Belgian and Portuguese troops are represented in this gathering of defenders of Liberty listening to a sermon on the western front.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HOLY LAND AND THE WAR.

Christmas Day at Bethlehem. Latin procession to the Church of Nativity.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGHTING IN PALESTINE EAST OF THE JORDAN.

Infantry were in the act of occupying an important hill when they were met with a strong counter-attack. The timely arrival of machine guns and supports the situation.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIGNING OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE BY MID-EUROPEAN NATIONS.

Professor H.A. Miller, Director; Thos. Naroshevits.h.i.+us (Lithuaniana); Christos Va.s.silkaki (Unredeemed Greeks); Christo Dako (Albanians); Charles Tomazolli (Italian Irredentists); Nicholas Ceglinsky (Ukranian); Dr. Hinko Ninkovich (Jugoslavs); T.M. Helinski (Poles); Dr. T.G. Masaryk (Prime Minister of Cezhoslovakia); G. Pasdermadjian (Armenians); Capt.

Vasile Solca (Roumanians): Gregory Zsatkovich (Uhro-Rusins); Ittamar Ban-Avi (Zionists). Signed Independence Hall, Phila, Oct. 26.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL ALLENBY.

One of the notable events in the history of the war was the surrender of Jerusalem to the British Army under the command of General Allenby.]