let free, and unaccustomed to self-government, could not be controlled, and the army became demoralized.

The element which had been loyal to the Romanoffs refused to fight for liberty, and the Germans, taking advantage of the situation, drove the Russian troops back over the frontiers and gained all that the Russians had once taken in conflict. And out of this grew one of the most picturesque incidents of the entire war. Russian women and girls, filled with ideals and with a deep sense of the responsibilities which rested upon the nation, formed a corps, and, dressed in full military costume, went to the front and attacked the German troops. No soldiers of any nation have shown more heroism, or more capability, for the women faced the bullets, and, while they were being mowed down by the German guns, they urged their men to face the enemy and fight-fight-fight.

BRITISH NAVY AN EFFECTIVE ASSET.

While there have been few of the picturesque battles on the seas, which the world has long regarded as a necessary adjunct to a successful war, the work of the British Navy has proved through the period of the conflict to be one of the most powerful and effective assets of the Allied forces. Through the operation of the British fleet, later augmented by an American war fleet, the German ships have been corked up in their home ports and chased from the seas.

The first naval battle of the war was an engagement between portions of the British squadron in the Pacific and a superior German force. The engagement occurred off the coast of Chili in November, 1915. Two British vessels were lost and a third badly damaged. However, a few months later, the German squadron, in command of Admiral von Spee, was met off the Falkland Islands by a second British squadron, and in the engagement four of the German vessels were sunk and a fifth damaged. This vessel was later sunk.

The most important naval engagement was the battle of

Jutland in May, 1916, when Admiral Beatty met a German fleet in the North Sea. The German boats made a dash from the Kiel canal and engaged the British off the coast of Denmark. Both England and Germany claimed victory, the former declaring that Germany lost eighteen ships, while the German Government claimed that the British lost fifteen vessels. Berlin admitted a loss of 60,720 tons and 3966 men, while England conceded a loss of more than 114,000 tons and 5613 men. But the English fleet which engaged the German fighting ships was but a small portion of the force on guard outside of Helgoland and the Kiel Canal, and the effect was to keep the German navy from venturing forth again.

These are the main events which had punctuated the action of the world's fighting machines at the close of August, 1917, when America was preparing to thwart the German U-boats in their destruction of the world's shipping, and had under actual call to arms more than 1,000,000 men, a minor part of which had been safely landed in France.

WORLD'S AWFUL MARITIME LOSS.

In the three months prior to August the German underseas boats had sunk 464 vessels, or an average of 426,000 tons of shipping a month, while America, working with her fleets in conjunction with the British Navy to foil the submarine in its endeavors, was also building more than 12,000 cargocarrying craft and submarine chasers with which to flood the traffic lanes of the sea.

Likewise, contracts had been awarded for 10,000 flying machines with which to drive the "eyes of the German army,' as the air machines are called, from the heavens. Finally, as the Allies in the closing days of August were driving the German hordes back under avalanches of shells, 629,000 of the youth of America, called to fight under the conscript act, were preparing to move to camps in a dozen different sections of the country to train themselves for invading foreign countries and

facing the brutal Teutons. Likewise, some 20,000 picked men were training to officer these civilian forces, and half a million men of the National Guards of the various States, formally mustered into the service of the country, were moving by orders of the Government to points whence they would find their way to the side of the loyal French soldiers and the sturdy English, Scotch, Canadian, Australian and virile Italian fighters.

The records of three years show that the American ambulance drivers; daring thousands of our countrymen who fought with the French and English because they believed the war was a just one, and without compulsion; scores of Red Cross nurses, and aviators who hunted the Teutons in the air, all Americans, have had their names written high in the roster of heroes. Americans have always been pioneers and history makers, and they are making history now.

With the approach of cold weather, and following months of intensive training under the direction of French and English soldiers, the American expeditionary forces began actual participation in the great world war as a unit. Previously their achievements were principally in connection with the French aviation corps and ambulance sections.

SINKING OF FIRST AMERICAN WAR BOAT.

The first untoward incident involving America's forces on land or sea was the sinking of the transport Antilles on October 27, 1917, by a German submarine, when 67 men-officers, seamen and soldiers were lost. The vessel was returning from a French port after having landed troops and supplies. This was the first loss sustained by the United States, and the event brought home the seriousness of the country's participation in the war as no previous event had done.

Almost immediately following this the world awoke one morning to learn that silently and unheralded the American soldiers had marched from their quarters in a French village to the "front" and in a slough of mud had entered the trenches,

and for the first time in history United States troops launched shells against the forces of Germany.

The initial shot was fired by artillerists at the break of day on October 24, and America was formally made an active agent in the horrors of warfare on "No Man's Land." Ten days later the brave Americans, occupying a position in the trenches for instruction, early on the morning of Saturday, November 3, received their baptism of fire, and in the cause of Democracy 3 soldiers were killed, 5 wounded and 12 captured by the Boche forces.

Cut off from the main line of the Allied forces, the Americans were stormed under the protection of a heavy barrage fire by a German raiding party and engaged in a desperate handto-hand encounter. The 20 Americans, with several French instructors, according to official report, were pitted against 210 picked Germans. A rain of shells from Boche guns was laid back of the American section so that there was no retreat. The lieutenant in command made a heroic attempt to reach the main fighting line, but was caught in the barrage fire and rendered unconscious from shell-shock.

Previously American scouts had captured a German prisoner-a mail runner; Lieutenant de Vere H. Harden, of the Signal Corps had been wounded by a bursting German shell, and a German gunner was reported killed by an American sharpshooter, as opening incidents of the skirmish.

And so at the beginning of November, 1917, with the whole United States giving support to the Government in subscribing upwards of five billions of dollars to the second Liberty Loan, and all forces working to conserve food, furnish men, ships, ammunition, clothing and supplies to her own troops and to her Allies, the world found America true to traditions, battling for the right and giving her best that liberty might endure and the burden of Prussianism be lifted from humanity.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

AMERICAN FORCES BECOME FACTOR.

UNITED STATES SOLDIERS INSPIRED ALLIED TROOPS-RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT COL LAPSES-ITALIAN ARMY FAILS-ALLIED WAR COUNCIL FORMED-FOCH COMMANDS ALLIED ARMIES-PERSHING OFFERS AMERICAN TROCPS-UNDER FIREU-BOAT BASES RAIDED BY BRITISH.

'HE influence exerted by the actual presence of the

THE

American troops on the western front was soon appar

ent. The spirits of the English, French and Canadian troops were raised and the presence of the Americans was heralded to the world as an evidence of complete unity on the part of the Allies that meant ultimate death to Kaiserism.

The advent of Uncle Sam's fighting men on the firing line had, however, one serious effect, viewed from the Allied standpoint. Germany realized that every day she delayed in making attack meant the strengthening of the Allied forces by the arrival of additional United States troops, and it was seen by the English and French leaders that the Kaiser would make an early drive to annihilate, if possible, the stubbornly resisting, though somewhat tired and weakened, lines opposing his brutal soldiery. Not for months, therefore, was it permitted the world to know anything about the numerical strength of the American troops sent into France.

Simultaneously with the action of American troops in entering the resisting line of Allied troops on the western front the Austro-German troops had swept into the Italian plains, capturing 100,000 prisoners and upward of 1,000 guns, taking several towns and compelling the retreat of the Second and Third Italian armies. The Italian forces were opposed by four times their number, but it was also said that the unity of the Italian forces was broken by the spreading of German propaganda.