with troops: Mesopotamia and Palestine, where they were fighting the Turk; Salonika, where they kept a force waiting to strike. The U-boats were getting in their work, too; Eng and was feeling the pinch. But at this most discouraging hour they did not forget that they had a new ally.

THE UNITED STATES ENTERS THE WAR

Let us go back to the submarine question. Our country had had many discussions with the German Imperial government on that subject; at last, in March, 1916, after the Sussex episode, when relations between us and Germany were at a breaking-point, Germany backed down from her position and pledged that she would sink no ships without warning. So for a while all went well.

Then suddenly, on January 31, 1917, urged by the clamor of the German people for retaliation against the English blockade, Germany went back on her pledges and announced that henceforth she would make unrestricted use of the submarine; the seas around Great Britain, France, and Italy would be closed to navigation; ships caught within these "barred zones" would be sunk. Germany would, however, allow one American passenger-ship to sail to and from Falmouth every week, provided it followed the course marked out by the German government and was painted with United States insignia as the Germans directed.

In other words, Germany was giving us orders about our ships and our commerce. Our course was plain before us. On February 3d we severed diplomatic relations with Germany; Count von Bernstorff was handed his passports; we armed our merchantmen against the submarine. Germany carried out her plan of "ruthless" submarine warfare and sank three of our ships. After this

overt act, on April 6, 1917, with the authorization of Congress, the President declared hat a s ate of war existed between the United States and Germany.

Germany laughed at us. We had no army, she said; and if we could gather and train one we would not be able to get it across the seas; and if we should get some soldiers to France they wouldn't fight, anyway. But Germany had to eat her own words. We sent an army of two million overseas, and Château-Thierry, Belleau Wood, and the Argonne have proved that our men could fight and did fight.

But in April, 1917, this country was woefully unprepared. However, it set itself quickly and valiantly to the task. We ourselves have witnessed this preparation; we have seen the men who hurried to enroll themselves in the Army or the Navy and the Marine Corps; we know about the draft bill which passed Congress in the spring of 1917 and called to the colors thousands of young men young men for the for the national army; we have watched the huge cantonments and camps springing up all over the country to train our new army; we are familiar with the factories turned to the manufacture of munitions, of artillery, of gas-masks, motor-trucks, airplanes, and tanks; of the Liberty Loans, the immense outburst of ship-buildingAmerican ships under the American flag and the campaign for food-conservation, so we could supply our Allies. In those days of 1917 we did not do much real fighting, but we were preparing for the great year of 1918 and its terrific battle.

On June 8th a small group of officers under General Pershing landed in France. But it was not till October that our soldiers fired their first shots. But our engineers were already abroad, building docks and railroads to land and transport our army that was to come;

and at home the government was organizing itself for the tremendous task of feeding and equipping this army three thousand miles from home.

Our Navy did its duty from our entrance into the war. Joining with the Allies, it helped patrol the seas in the war against the U-boats. The Atlantic and the Mediterranean saw our destroyers.

Though in 1917 we did not give much material aid to the Allies, beyond lending them large sums of money, still our coming into the war had a distinctly encouraging effect. They knew they had an ally of powerful resources, and that if these resources could only be marshaled they could turn the scales of war.

The story is told of the first American troops that went into the trenches. The shift took place, as usual, at night. It was dark, and the French who were coming out went stumbling along the road to the rear without noticing who was relieving them. Then suddenly a French officer, pulling himself up mechanically to salute, noticed the newcomers. He stood stock-still, staring, his hand still raised.

"The American relief," he whispered as if in a dream; and quickly down the line went the miraculous words: "The American relief has come!"

THE HINDENBURG LINE

In the meantime, while Russia was slowly crumbling to pieces as a country and a military power, and while the United States with haste was preparing for war, what was happening on the Western front? The last event of which we have spoken was the battle of the Somme, which drove the Germans back from the trenches which they had held for three years. In 1917 occurred another of those strategic retreats, so famous in the war-the retreat of the Germans to the Hindenburg line.

This line had been carefully selected and laid out by the Germans. Its naturally strong positions were enhanced by all kinds of defenses: barbed wire, underground tunnels, huge dugouts. When they retired to this line the Germans had laid the country waste behind them, destroyed vegetation, houses, villages, bridges, roads, and railways, so that the advance of the Allies would be as difficult as possible even before they reached the enemy's line. To break or even push back the Hindenburg line, according to the Germans, would take an infinite number of men and enormous resources. The line was impregnable. Safe in its defenses, the Germans could wait until they could mass their reinforcements from the Russian front and strike the deathblow at the Allies.

Some of the assaults of the Allies against the Hindenburg line are wellknown history: the famous battle of Vimy Ridge, when the Canadians threw themselves with vigor into the battle and swept over the ridge; Paschendaele Ridge, the objective of the British drive in Flanders; the French drive along the Aisne and the Chemin des Dames, where it has been said their chances of making a final smash into the German lines were cut short by interference from Paris and political discussions; and the battle of Cambrai, under General Byng, where the British with their tanks dashed ahead of their own plans and objectives, and later, not having sufficient support, were forced to retire.

All these attacks were partially successful, but the Hindenburg line, intact, still crossed France.

THE ITALIAN DISASTER

Some of the most interesting events of the war, as we have already pointed out, were the retreats: the retreat of the

These are some of the boys who smashed through the Hindenburg line. This picture was taken before the men went to France. It was by hard training like this that they became such good fighters.

English from Mons, the great Russian retreat, the retreat of the Germans to the Hindenburg line. But perhaps the most terrible and the most tragic retreat of all was that of the Italians in the fall of 1917. Through this retreat they lost all the ground they had gained during two years of hard fighting against tremendous odds.

What caused this retreat? There are many explanations. The Italian War Office first described it as "cowardice." According to General Cadorna, "The violence of the enemy's attack and inadequate resistance broke our left wing." Inadequate resistance might mean a variety of things. But the collapse of the Italian Second Army is usually laid to the influx of socialist and pacifist ideas among some of the units. It was a clever ruse on the part of the Central Powers. Opposite the Second Italian. Army they placed Austrian socialists, who fraternized with the Italians, already weary of the war, and expounded the idea that if both sides should lay down their arms there would be no more war. These Austrian troops were later replaced by German shock troops, who, when they attacked the already demoralized Italians, were able to march through the line and threaten the rear of the whole Italian army on the Isonzo front. We must also remember that the strength of the Germans and Austrians had been greatly increased by the Russian collapse and as a result they outnumbered the Italians. This was a contributory cause to the Italian defeat.

As it was, a gap was opened up in the Italian lines and through this gap poured the enemy. But in this prime purpose they failed, for, though they made many prisoners and captured quantities of guns, they did not outflank the main Italian army. This army, forced to retreat to save itself, retired hurriedly, but in an orderly fashion and with gallant rear guard

won.

action, from the ground which they had Abandoning ammunition and supplies, they fell back from the Carso, giving up Gorizia, and recrossed the Isonzo. In Italy, they did not make their stand until, leaving behind them. the city of Udine, they finally reached the river Tagliamento. But even this position they were obliged to abandon, and retire still farther, to the river Piave, where, twenty miles from Venice, at last, with the help of British and French reinforcements rushed to their aid, they recovered themselves miraculously and under General Diaz held the enemy. It was here in the marshlands at the mouth of the Piave that the Italian engineers cut the dikes and let the waters of the Piave drown out part of the advancing foe.

A LESSON FROM DEFEAT

The pictures of the Italian retreat were indeed pitiful as well as heroic: the roads crowded with footsore, discouraged soldiers and hordes of homeless refugees, women and children, fleeing before the invader; motor-cars, guns, carts, and caissons; above them Austrian airplanes hovering; the rush for the bridges at the rivers; the holding of the bridges till the army had passed; the burning of the bridges; the noble work of the armed motor-cars and the Italian rear guard which stayed the enemy advance; and, during a good part of the time, the rain pouring down upon the retreating multitudes, civilians and soldiers.

According to Frank Simonds, the Italian disaster was a great lesson. It showed what unity of command can do against divided action. The French and English were busy on the Western front; the reinforcement arrived too late to stop the sacrifice of the masterly Italian campaign of the past two years, and the sacrifice of miles of Italian territory.