The Story of the Great War, Volume 4 Champagne, Artois, Grodno; Fall of Nish; Caucasus; Mesopotamia; Development of Air Strategy; United States and the War

The day fixed for the opening of the Allies' long-projected offensive dawned on September 22, 1915. Gigantic preparations had been in the making. Large drafts of fresh British t...

It is well-nigh impossible to give a connected story of the innumerable and far-flung operations of the winter campaign. It resolves itself into a mere list of dates and a brief...

By the middle of October operations on the western front centralized almost entirely in the Champagne and Artois districts, where the Germans, fully appreciating the menace to t...

The war in the air developed into a reign of terror during the second half of the first year of the world catastrophe. While the armies on the land were locked in terrific confl...

In the preceding chapters we have followed, day by day, the military events of the Russian retreat and of the German advance after the fall of Warsaw and Ivangorod. With admirat...

While the French and British were strengthening their position in Saloniki in every possible way, the Italians were beginning a movement which was to have some influence in the...

With the withdrawal of the allied troops from Anzac Cove and Suvla Bay, the Turks were free to concentrate all their forces in the Gallipoli Peninsula in the south against the B...

At the time Warsaw fell, in the beginning of August, 1915, the eastern front north of the Niemen extended as follows: Starting on the western shore of the Gulf of Riga, at a poi...

Finally, by midnight of Sunday, all was ready. Just after that hour the allied troops on shore at Anzac and Suvla Bay could see the dark forms of the warships and the transports...

The difficulties which the Austro-German troops encountered in pursuing the withdrawing Russians were in many instances greatly increased by the very strong field fortifications...

The fall of 1915 and the early winter of 1915 were periods of feverish activity behind the lines in the Caucasus. A severe winter held up any active operations of consequence on...

On December 5, 1915, the Bulgarians gave the first indications of their preparations to break through the thin lines of the Allies. On that date the British were to have their f...

On November 7, 1915, the Bulgarians captured Alexinatz in the north. The Serbian army of the Timok, retiring from Zaitchar, barely succeeded in crossing the bridge over the rive...

The _Lusitania_ issue, after the dispatch to Germany of the third American note of July 21, 1915, was withdrawn from the publicity in which the exchange of diplomatic communicat...

Toward the close of 1915 the German General Staff decided on a vast onslaught on the French front that would so crush and cripple the fighting forces of France that they would c...

Kut-el-Amara, where General Townshend and his troops were so long besieged, stands on the left bank of the Tigris, almost at the water's level, with sloping sand hills rising to...

Meanwhile, Bulgaria having plunged into the fighting, the Teutonic allies in the north resumed their efforts to advance southward. But for some time they had all they could do t...

It was also during the month of August, 1915, that the political horizon in France was temporarily overcast by one of those peculiar "crises" which seem to happen chiefly in cou...

The _Lusitania_ negotiations were resumed, only to encounter a deadlock. The issue had been eased in one important particular--Germany's undertaking, drawn from her in the _Arab...

The fall of Ivangorod and Warsaw was the signal for advance for which the southern group under Von Mackensen had been waiting. General von Woyrsch's forces pressed on between Ga...

At a small village called Svrlig, six miles outside the city, the Serbians began a fight which presently assumed the character of some of the bloody battles they had fought earl...

This now brought up a very peculiar and delicate situation between the Allies and Greece. As a neutral, Greece was strongly disposed to take up the same attitude toward the bell...

While the diplomats were laboring with questions arising from the loss of the _Lusitania_, at a moment when tension between the United States and Germany was acute, came the sin...

We left the allied troops at the end of July, 1915, firmly established at two points on the Gallipoli Peninsula. But though they had won these secure bases by terrible losses an...

Ever since August 16, 1915, a persistent and almost continuous bombardment of the German lines had been carried out by the French and, to a less extent, by the British and Belgi...

With the fall of Olita, Bialystok, and Brest-Litovsk, which took place on August 25-26, 1915, and is described in more detail in another chapter, the northern group under Von Hi...

The first anniversary of the war on the western front fell on August 2, 1915. It was on Tuesday, July 28, of the previous year that Count Berchtold, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign...

Though Serbia had been the first to be attacked by the Central Powers when the world war began, the end of the first year's fighting was to find her still unconquered, though sh...

Naval events such as the world had never known were believed to be impending at the beginning of the war's second year. With the land forces of the belligerents in a fierce dead...

The second year of the war opened with a spirited combat between the German and French aeroplanes, on August 1, 1915, when six attacking German machines engaged fifteen French m...

At 5.50 a. m. on September 25, 1915, a dense, heavy cloud arose slowly from the earth--a whitish, yellowish, all-enveloping cloud that rolled slowly toward the German trenches--...

The 5th of August, 1915, was a fateful day for the Russian armies. The fall of Warsaw, on that date, was confirmed by the occupation of Poland's ancient capital by German forces...

The advance toward Bagdad was begun in the middle of September, 1915, but owing to the constantly changing conditions in the bed of the Tigris, which hindered the progress of ve...

The leaders of the Turkish troops had been hard at work arousing the fanaticism of the Turkish soldiery against the British foe before the next day's battle began. It is due the...

With the fall of Pristina and Mitrovitza on November 23, 1915, ended the operations against Serbia, so far as Mackensen and his Germans were concerned. On November 28, 1915, Ger...

On the evening of October 13, 1915, one of the most noted of the Zeppelin raids over Great Britain occurred, with London as the objective. The airships flew very high to avoid s...

Throughout the months of January and February, 1916 while negotiations between Germany and the United States were in a critical stage, the submarine war on merchant shipping con...

By December, 1915, and January, 1916, the official reports of the war in the air contained a continued account of activity. Almost every day reconnoitering machines were sent ou...

The cruise of the _Moewe_ stands out as one of the heroic, almost Homeric achievements of the war. She left Bremerhaven on December 20, 1915, according to one of her officers wh...

The central group under Prince Leopold had hardly entered Warsaw proper when it continued its advance in an easterly direction toward Brest-Litovsk after having occupied Warsaw'...

The British campaign in Mesopotamia during the first year of the war had been generally successful. After the capture of Basra in November, 1914, the Delta country was cleared o...

The attention of the United States was abruptly diverted from Germany to Austria-Hungary. The _Ancona_, an Italian liner en route for New York, was steaming westward in the Medi...

Meanwhile, with more than half a year's fighting behind them, the Italian commanders had come to certain well-defined military conclusions. The plans of General Cadorna had invo...

A retrospect of the Austro-Italian struggle, taken from the vantage point afforded by nine months of fighting, revealed what was intended to be a campaign of invasion as develop...

Meanwhile, events of a most startling character were taking place close to the Italian frontier, every one of them big with consequence to Italy's vital interests. The conquest...

General Townshend having captured the village of Jeur on November 19, 1915, marched against Nuredin Pasha's main defenses which had been constructed near the ruins of Ctesiphon,...

On October 15, 1915, the United States Ambassador in London informed the British Foreign Office that Miss Edith Cavell, lately the head of a large training school for nurses in...

During the month of February, 1916, the war on the Italian front continued with bitterness but without decisive result. Early in the month the Austrians attacked the heights of...

On the first of August, 1915, the situation on the western front was as follows: The position of the Belgian troops has been described; the British held the line from the north...

The student or observer of the Great European War inevitably must be impressed with its impersonal character. Everywhere masses and organizations rule supreme, and men and mater...

As already stated, the first of Mackensen's huge shells began bursting over the Serbian defenses across the river on September 20, 1915. While the wheels of diplomacy continued...

able to retreat in good order. The importance of such a victory could not be overestimated. It meant the conquering of entire Mesopotamia as far as Bagdad, and the moral effect...

British airmen visited Ghent on June 8, 1915, where several ammunition depots were fired. The railway station was hit and a number of German troops in a train standing there kil...

By the end of November, 1915, winter had set in along the eastern front. Especially along the northern part of the eastern line this necessitated almost a complete stoppage of o...

As the autumn of 1915 drew to an end and winter approached, the fighting along the eastern front changed from attacks over more or less extensive spaces to trench warfare within...

England's insularity disappeared on the night of May 31, 1915. The isolation by sea which had kept her immune from attack since the days of the Normans failed to save London fro...

After the last days of that fateful July, 1914, had passed, bringing mobilization in Austria-Hungary, Serbia, and Russia, and the outbreak of war between the former two countrie...

A Great deal of the fighting after the fall of Brest-Litovsk, August 27, 1915, occurred in and near the extensive swamp lands surrounding the city of Pinsk and located on both s...

During this time the Bulgarians and Germans were establishing a semicivil government in Serbia. Many conflicting reports were circulated, some of them to the effect that there w...

Thus practically ended the Suvla Bay operation and its supporting movements. Much had been expected of it and, by the barest margin, in the opinion of many competent military me...

The Bulgarian Government suddenly threw aside all dissimulation and declared war on Serbia, on the pretext that the Serbians had crossed the frontier and attacked Bulgarian troo...

A royal decree was issued at Rome on February 11, 1916, prohibiting the importation into Italy or transit through Italy of all German and Austrian merchandise, as well as the ex...

Pro-German propaganda soon developed far beyond its original aim. Registering protests against the Administration preserving a neutrality according to its own interpretation of...