Category: History - Modern (1750+)
When the last British soldier, with the mud of the Aisne trenches still clinging to his tunic, detrained in Artois,[1] within fifty miles of the white cliffs of Dover, seventy-seven days of anxious and fateful struggle had come to an end. Before we follow the progress of the t...
On Saturday, 31st October, came the crisis of the fierce and long-continued struggle. Day by day the enemy's attacks had been growing stronger and stronger. Across the lines the...
38. CHAPTER XXXVI.We must now return to the Western front and briefly follow the course of the fighting down to the end of the year. With the failure of the Kaiser's great and costly effort to br...
15. CHAPTER XIV.Before I proceed with the story of the critical day in the great struggle for Ypres, let me give you a few soldiers' stories of the fighting which took place during the month of...
14. CHAPTER XIII.In Chapter IV. I gave you a brief account of the little city of Ypres, now about to become the storm-centre of a cyclone of blood and death such as the world has never seen befo...
23. CHAPTER XXII.If you look at a map of the Indian Ocean, you will see, some 700 miles south of Sumatra and 1,200 miles south-west of Singapore, a group of about twenty atolls,[142] known as th...
1. CHAPTER I.When the last British soldier, with the mud of the Aisne trenches still clinging to his tunic, detrained in Artois,[1] within fifty miles of the white cliffs of Dover, seventy-s...
28. CHAPTER XXVI.During the Russian retreat to the Vistula it was necessary to destroy a bridge over which the Germans must pass. It had to be done at the moment of their crossing, and no body o...
21. CHAPTER XX.We now turn to German South-West Africa, which has an area of 322,450 square miles and a native population of about 80,000. The whites number nearly 15,000, of whom 12,000 are G...
19. CHAPTER XVIII."We roused out at 4 a.m., and spent the morning wandering about from wood to wood, being followed by aeroplanes--beastly things. Finally, we entered a village, and a spy in a wi...
7. CHAPTER VII.Let us look again at the sixty-mile stretch of country from Arras to the North Sea, the great danger zone during the month of October and for many months afterwards. An enemy ad...
32. CHAPTER XXX.At the beginning of the great struggle King George sent a message to the Sultan, in which he referred to the friendship which had existed between the United Kingdom and Turkey f...
4. CHAPTER IV.By far the most important place between the Aisne and the coast of Belgium is Lille, which is less than eight miles from Armentières. In Lille we find ourselves in a city of mor...
2. CHAPTER II.Before I proceed with my story, let me call your attention to certain theories of war with which the German General Staff began the campaign. By a theory of war I mean some plan...
17. CHAPTER XVI.In the old days a battle lasted a day or two at most; victory frequently came within a few hours, and couriers were speeding away with the news of victory or defeat before night...
29. CHAPTER XXVII.At the close of Chapter XXV. we left the Germans, who had been beaten north of the Pilitza, retreating rapidly towards the Warta, and those who had suffered defeat south of that...
36. CHAPTER XXXIV.The disastrous battle off Coronel took place on 1st November. Ten days later, in silence and secrecy, the _Invincible_ and the _Inflexible_, the first two battle cruisers built...
37. CHAPTER XXXV.In these days of fast warships, aeroplanes, and airships, we can no longer say that "Britannia needs no bulwarks, no towers along the steep." While it is probably true that no i...
9. CHAPTER IX.In this chapter I am going to give you a selection of stories which illustrate the fighting from the fall of Antwerp down to the 20th of October 1914. Our first story tells how...
26. Chapter XXXIV. of Volume II. you were told that at the end of September1914 the Russians, after their crushing defeats of the Austrians, had advanced through Galicia to within a hundred miles of Cracow. At that time it seemed to us in the West that...
18. CHAPTER XVII.The long struggle round Ypres was a series of combats in which everything depended on the courage and endurance of the rank and file and their regimental officers. Incidents abo...
13. chapter I will describe the great struggle which took place round Ypres.When the retreating Belgians were driven out of the Forest of Houthulst on 16th October, they retired to the eastern bank of the Yser. All that was now left to them of their nat...
24. CHAPTER XXIII.We must now hark back to Kiao-chau, and learn what was taking place in that "model of German culture." I have already told you how Germany played the chief part in ejecting the...
5. CHAPTER V.Two hundred and three years after Marlborough vainly tried to capture Arras, that little historic town became once more a prize for which rival forces strove fiercely. Marlborou...
34. CHAPTER XXXII.While Anglo-Indian troops were winning easy victories on the desert sands of Chaldea, Russians and Turks were locked in deadly combat amidst the rocky uplands of the broad isthm...
31. CHAPTER XXIX.Fresh troops were now brought up from Germany, and a determined effort was made to envelop the Russians by striking hard at their left while the rest of the line was strongly he...
22. CHAPTER XXI.When the war broke out there was a German squadron of ships of war in Eastern waters, its base being Tsing-tau. Admiral von Spee, who commanded it, did not attempt to go to the...
20. CHAPTER XIX.About the year 1880 the rulers of Germany began to think of founding a colonial empire. There were many reasons why it seemed to them advisable that they should extend their dom...
6. CHAPTER VI.When Rawlinson's troops reached Ghent, on 7th October 1914, they fell in with the first body of retreating Belgians, and also with a brigade of French Marine Fusiliers, 6,000 st...
11. CHAPTER XI.Every boy and girl has heard of the wonderful valour and daring of the Sikhs and Gurkhas. Many people in this country fully believed that they would prove invincible on European...
35. CHAPTER XXXIII.During some hundreds of pages I have told you nothing about the part which gallant little Serbia was playing in the great struggle. On page 76 of our second volume I briefly sum...
3. CHAPTER III.In Chapter XXXIII. of Volume II. you read something of the race for the sea. When I broke off the story the position of the Allies was as follows. Northwards from Compiègne to L...
8. CHAPTER VIII.The Third British Corps, commanded by General Pulteney, first came in contact with the German outposts at a village about a mile and a half west of Bailleul.[46] It was a day of...
30. CHAPTER XXVIII.We must now learn how von Mackensen made his swoop on the threatened city of Warsaw. When the Cossacks in Galicia were within an easy day's ride of Cracow, and North Poland was...
33. CHAPTER XXXI.On the morning of the 17th the British advanced to the village of Sahain,[177] only to discover that the Turks had abandoned it. Nine miles farther up the river, at a place call...
27. CHAPTER XXV.Meanwhile, what was happening at Warsaw? The coming of the enemy was heralded by airships and aeroplanes, which hovered over the city, dropping bombs on the railway stations, an...
10. CHAPTER X.The last ten days of October 1914 were days of furious but indecisive fighting all along the line from Arras to the sea. "The Germans rocked their attack from side to side, sear...
12. CHAPTER XII.We will now leave that melancholy region in which Britons of the Second Corps, like the ocean cliffs of their native land, have been thrusting back the furious surges of hostile...
25. CHAPTER XXIV.