From the woods in the background the British charge on an angle of the German breastworks under cover of artillery and machinegun fire. This illustrates the early trench warfare before the development of the elaborate concrete-protected structures the Germans later devised. They can be seen wearing the famous spiked helmets which were later replaced by steel ones.

the expression of hatred not for the heir apparent of Austria but for the Hapsburg and their Germanic associates.

By a twist of the wheel of fate, the same Slavic peoples whose determination to rid themselves of the Teutonic yoke, started the war, also bore rather more than their share in the swift-moving events that decided and closed the war.

Russia, the dying giant among the great nations, championed the Slavic peoples at the beginning of the war. It entered the conflict in aid of little Serbia, but at the end Russia bowed to Germany in the infamous peace treaty at Brest-Litovsk. Thereafter during the last months of the war Russia was virtually an ally of its ancient enemy, Turkey, the "Sick Man of Europe," and the central German empires. With these allies the Bolshevik government of Russia attempted to head off the Czecho-Slovak regiments that had been captured by Russia during its drive into Austria and had been imprisoned in Siberia. After the peace consummated at Brest-Litovsk, these regiments determined to fight on the side of the Allies and endeavored to make their way to the western front.

No war problems were more difficult than those of the CzechoSlovaks. Few have been handled so masterfully. Surrounded by powerful enemies which for centuries have been bent on destroying every trace of Slavic culture, they had learned how to defend themselves against every trick or scheme of the brutal Germans.

The Czecho-Slovak plan in Russia was of great value to the Allies all over the world, and was put at their service by Professor Thomas G. Masaryk. He went to Russia when everything was adrift and got hold of Bohemian prisoners here and there and organized them into a compact little army of 50,000 to 60,000 men. Equipped and fed, he moved them to whatever point had most power to thoroughly disrupt the German plans. They did much to check the German army for months. They resolutely refused to take any part in Russian political affairs, and when it seemed no longer possible to work effectively in Russia, this remarkable little band started on a journey all round the world to get to the western front. They loyally gave up most of their arms under agreement with Lenine and Trotzky that they might peacefully proceed out of Russia via Vladivostok.

While they were carrying out their part of the agreement, and

well on the way, they were surprised by telegrams from Lenine and Trotzky to the Soviets in Siberia ordering them to take away their arms and intern them.

The story of what occurred then was told by two American engineers, Emerson and Hawkins, who, on the way to Ambassador Francis, and not being able to reach Vologda, joined a band of four or five thousand. The engineers were with them three months, while they were making it safe along the lines of the railroad for the rest of the Czecho-Slovaks to get out, and incidentally for Siberians to resume peaceful occupations. They were also supported by old railway organizations which had stuck bravely to them without wages and which every little while were "shot up" by the Bolsheviki.

Distress in Russia would have been much more intense had it not been for the loyalty of the railway men in sticking to their tasks. Some American engineers at Irkutsk, on a peaceful journey out of Russia, on descending from the cars were met with a demand to surrender, and shots from machine guns. Some, fortunately, had kept hand grenades, and with these and a few rifles went straight at the machine guns. Although outnumbered, the attackers took the guns and soon afterward took the town. The CzechoSlovaks, in the beginning almost unarmed, went against great odds and won for themselves the right to be considered a nation.

Seeing the treachery of Lenine and Trotzky, they went back toward the west and made things secure for their men left behind. They took town after town with the arms they first took away from the Bolsheviki and Germans; but in every town they immediately set up a government, with all the elements of normal life. They established police and sanitary systems, opened hospitals, and had roads repaired, leaving a handful of men in the midst of enemies to carry on the plans of their leaders. American engineers speaking of the cleanliness of the Czecho-Slovak army, said that they lived like Spartans.

The whole story is a remarkable evidence of the struggle of these little people for self-government.

The emergence of the Czecho-Slovak nation has been one of the most remarkable and noteworthy features of the war. Out of the confusion of the situation, with the possibility of the resurrection of oppressed peoples, something of the dignity of old Bohemia was

comprehended, and it was recognized that the Czechs were to be rescued from Austria and the Slovaks from Hungary, and united in one country with entire independence. This was undoubtedly due, in large measure, to the activities of Professor Masaryk, the president of the National Executive Council of the Czecho-Slovaks. His four-year exile in the United States had the establishment of the new nation as its fruit.

Professor Masaryk called attention to the fact that there is a peculiar discrepancy between the number of states in Europe and the number of nationalities-twenty-seven states to seventy nationalities. He explained, also, that almost all the states are mixed, from the point of nationality. From the west of Europe to the east, this is found to be true, and the farther east one goes the more mixed do the states become. Austria is the most mixed of all the states. There is no Austrian language, but there are nine languages, and six smaller nations or remnants of nations. In all of Germany there are eight nationalities besides the Germans, who have been independent, and who have their own literature. Turkey is an anomaly, a combination of various nations overthrown and kept down.

Since the eighteenth century there has been a continuing strong movement from each nation to have its own state. Because of the mixed peoples, there is much confusion. There are Roumanians in Austria, but there is a kingdom of Roumania. There are Southern Slavs, but there are also Serbia and Montenegro. It is natural that the Southern Slavs should want to be united as one state. So it is with Italy.

There was no justice in Poland being separated in three parts to serve the dynasties of Prussia, Russia and Austria. The CzechoSlovaks of Austria and Hungary claimed a union The national union consists in an endeavor to make the suppressed nations free, to unite them in their own states, and to readjust the states that exist; to force Austria and Prussia to give up the states that should be free.

In the future, said Doctor Masaryk, there are to be sharp ethnological boundaries. The Czecho-Slovaks will guarantee the minorities absolute equality, but they will keep the German part of their country, because there are many Bohemians in it, and they do not trust the Germans.

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CHAPTER IV

THE PLOTTER BEHIND THE SCENES

NE factor alone caused the great war. It was not the assassination at Sarajevo, not the Slavic ferment of anti-Teutonism in Austria and the Balkans. The only cause of the world's greatest war was the determination of the German High Command and the powerful circle surrounding it that "Der Tag" had arrived. The assassination at Sarajevo was only the peg for the pendant of war. Another peg would have been found inevitably had not the projection of that assassination presented itself as the excuse.

Germany's military machine was ready. A gray-green uniform that at a distance would fade into misty obscurity had been devised after exhaustive experiments by optical, dye and cloth experts co-operating with the military high command. These uniforms had been standardized and fitted for the millions of men enrolled in Germany's regular and reserve armies. Rifles, great pyramids of munitions, field kitchens, traveling post-offices, motor lorries, a network of military railways leading to the French and Belgian border, all these and more had been made ready. German soldiers had received instructions which enabled each man at a signal to go to an appointed place where he found everything in readiness for his long forced marches into the territory of Germany's neighbors.

More than all this, Germany's spy system, the most elaborate and unscrupulous in the history of mankind, had enabled the German High Command to construct in advance of the declaration of war concrete gun emplacements in Belgium and other invaded territory. The cellars of dwellings and shops rented or owned by German spies were camouflaged concrete foundations for the great guns of Austria and Germany. These emplacements were in exactly the right position for use against the fortresses of Germany's foes. Advertisements and shop-signs were used by spies as guides for the marching German armies of invasion.

In brief, Germany had planned for war. She was approxi