THE FIGHTING U. S. A. MARINE BRIGADE IN BELLEAU WOOD.
Here the Germans were not only stopped in their march toward Paris, but "knocked out." The furious and fast fighting
The soldier applying the bayonet is an American Negro.
of the Marines proved their superiority. The Hun was badly beaten.

Drawn by Georges Scott for "L'Illustration," Paris.

Three colored Canadians imitating the Germans, whom they captured in this dug-out near the Canal du Nord, as they put up their hands and shouted "Kamerad"!

These prisoners of war are from America and other countries. It is stated in the history of the photographs that the two men shooting crap are American Negroes.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

CIVILIZATION AT ISSUE--THE GERMAN EMPIRE-CHARACTER OF WILLIAM II-THE GREAT CONSPIRACY-THE WAR BY YEARS-UNITED STATES IN THE WAR-Two HUNDRED FIFTY MILES OF BATTLE-THE DOWNFALL OF TURKEY-THE DEMOCRATIC CLOSE OF THE WAR.

TH

HE World War, terminated by the signing of the armistice November 11, 1918, was attended with more far-reaching changes than any war known to history, and is destined to so profoundly influence civilization that we see in it the beginning of a new age. Somewhat similar wars in the past were the campaigns of Alexander; the wars that overthrew the Roman Empire and the Napoleonic wars of a previous century; but this one war surpasses them all, measured by any scale that can be applied to military operations. It was truly a World War, thus in a class by itself. Beginning in Central Europe, twenty-eight nations-nearly all of the important nations of the world-with a total population of about 1,600,000,000-or eleven-twelfths of the human racebecame involved. It cost 10,000,000 human lives, 17,000,000 more suffered bodily injury; the money cost was about $200,000,000,000, but who can measure the cost in untold suffering caused by ruined homes and wrecked lives that attended it? Or who can measure the property loss, considering that the fairest provinces of Europe were swept with the bezom of destruction?

Rightly to judge the real significance of such a world struggle, we must consider conditions that made it possible; study the issue involved stripped of all misleading statements; review its course and weigh the nature of the profound changes-geographical, political and economic