The Childrens' Story of the War, Volume 1 (of 10) From the Beginning of the War to the Landing of the British Army in France

I could fill a whole book with the stories which have been told of the dreadful cruelty shown by the Germans to the Belgians as the days went by and they discovered that they co...

Do you remember the week-end between Friday, 31st July, and Monday, 3rd August? It was the most anxious and exciting time that living Britons have ever known. On every tongue th...

On the next page you will see a map of Belgium. I want you to examine it carefully. You will notice that Belgium's real line of defence on the south and east is the river Meuse....

The scene shifts to Vienna,[21] the capital of Austria, the largest city of Austria-Hungary and the heart and centre of the Austrian Empire. It is one of the most attractive cit...

What was the British Empire doing while the Germans were overrunning Belgium? At home, the War Office[217] was working night and day to equip and dispatch an army for service in...

In the autumn of 1878 Prince William paid a visit to his royal grandmother at Balmoral. As he passed through London he met Princess Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, who happened...

Now we must hark back and pick up the threads of the story which we dropped at the end of Chapter IX. Look at the map of the French frontier which you will find on the next page...

Cavalry are soldiers mounted on horses. One of the finest of our cavalry regiments is the 12th Lancers. In peace time the troopers of this regiment wear blue tunics with red fro...

About forty years ago a German boy, accompanied by his tutor and other attendants, was spending a holiday at a seaside resort in the south of England. One morning this boy went...

One Sunday afternoon, in the month of December 1908, the beautiful city of Messina[1] was all life and light and gaiety. The sky was blue and cloudless, and out in the Strait th...

On the morning of 18th August, when the fate of Brussels was hanging in the balance, our newspapers contained a brief paragraph which was read by Britons all over the world with...

The noblest street in all Berlin is called the Unter den Linden, which simply means "under the lime trees." In this fine, tree-shaded avenue stands a splendid monument to Freder...

Before we proceed, we must clearly understand some terms which are used in war. In reading newspapers we frequently meet with the term army corps. A modern army is made up of a...

The great instrument of the Kaiser's ambition is his army. Every male who is a German subject can be called upon to serve as a soldier from his seventeenth to his forty-fifth ye...

Now we must return to Belgium, and follow the progress of the German forces in that country. There were two armies in Belgium--the one under General von Buelow,[253] and the oth...

Meanwhile our Grand Fleet was watching and waiting for the German Navy to come out and fight. Our sailors seized many German merchant vessels on the seas, and those that were in...

When Napoleon was safely imprisoned on St. Helena the Powers met to make peace, and to rearrange the map of Europe. A large part of the left bank of the Rhine which Napoleon had...

Perhaps you wonder, as the Belgians did, what the French and the British were doing while the Germans were battering down the forts of Liége. You will probably ask why they did...

was that young prince whom we saw clasped in his father's arms at the great moment when the German Empire was proclaimed at Versailles. His mother was Princess Victoria, the eld...

This unexpected blow seemed to the enslaved peoples of Europe a sign that their hour of deliverance had struck. Everywhere they began to take fresh courage, and ere long there w...

Before Paris fell, Bismarck's hour of triumph had arrived. The headquarters of the German armies around Paris was at Versailles,[136] where King William held his court in the pa...

Every visitor to London knows Trafalgar Square, with its huge column guarded by four bronze lions. On the top of the column is a statue to the "little, one-armed, one-eyed hero...

The finest of all the squares of Paris is the Place de la Concorde.[82] Let us stand in the middle of this square and look around. To the west we see a long avenue of chestnut t...

Now we must return to Belgium, and see what was happening there. The heroic manner in which Fort Loncin had held out had delayed the Germans for a whole week. Until the last of...

Before I tell you the story of the great struggle between France and Germany in 1870-71, I must ask you to look for a little time at Belgium. You know that it lies between Holla...

The new Prussian army was trained by a great soldier named von Moltke,[72] whose nephew was chief of the German staff[73] when the war in which we are now engaged broke out. Whe...

Before I describe the German invasion of Belgium, I must explain certain military terms which will crop up again and again in the following pages. Unless you understand these te...

"Sons of Shannon, Tamar, Trent, Men of the Lothians, men of Kent, Essex, Wessex, shore and shire, Mates of the net, the mine, the fire, Lads of desk and wheel and loom, Noble an...

One Thursday morning, attired in his scarf of office, M. Max drove out in a motor car, along with several other city officers, to meet the German general, and to arrange terms o...

You already know that the Germans thought it a matter of life and death to get into France and strike a decisive blow as speedily as possible. For this reason they meant to make...

empire after they had fought side by side in the war against France. As Lord Rosebery tells us, "blood shed in common is the cement of nations." Now that miners of the Yukon, tr...