of "Siegfried" and "Wotan" lines, with their various support systems of trench defenses. The "Siegfried line" represented that portion of the "Hindenburg line" which lay between Quéant and St. Quentin. Lille, toward which progress had now been made, was the chief of a little group of three cities in which, prior to the war, centered France's great textile industries. It formerly had a population of 218,000. Its two sister-cities, Roubaix and Tourcoing, were together the homes of about an equal number of persons. Tourcoing and Roubaix stand on rising ground from four

A MINE CRATER ON THE WESTERN FRONT

When opposing forces were firmly entrenched in a deadlock, often the only way out was a mine, which was dug stealthily as far beneath the surface of the earth as possible, a tunnel running out under the enemy trench, and then a tremendous charge would be exploded. The result to the enemy was like the bursting of a pent-up volcano directly beneath their feet, without the slightest warning, with death and destruction in its train

to six miles northwest of Lille, the only high land left in front of the British. To their right, however, Lille was protected by a ridge which stood between it and Armentières, the town where the right wing of the attacking British army rested.

The victory at Messines was the Allied answer to Hindenburg's assurance to the German people that the British offensive on the West Front had been brought to a standstill. The German retreat had failed to do what it was intended to do: it had failed to postpone the Allied offensive of 1917.

Hardly had the Germans established themselves in their straightened line than the British attacked them vigorously. The two offensives were successful as a local operation, in which ground was gained and large numbers of prisoners captured, but disappointing in the larger strategical sense. Hindenburg had temporarily stopt the movement, but his report gave an unwarranted impression that the Allied offensive of 1917 had exhausted itself. The Allies had farreaching plans. Their operations displayed an energy which must have been disheartening to Germany, and British armies were becoming more formidable every month. They had learned to break German lines, however strong, at a minimum cost to themselves. It was the repetition of this process which Germany dreaded, for the morale of no army could be maintained indefinitely under such punishment.

General Pershing's arrival in England coincided with this British success. It was a coincidence ominous in its suggestiveness to Berlin. Allied superiority on the West Front in numbers and munitions already had made it possible apparently to crush almost any portion of the German line chosen for attack. That superiority would now increase in spite of Germany's efforts to counterbalance it. In fact, Allied preponderance was becoming more and more decisive as Germany's reserves in men were being used up. The war was to be decided on the Western Front because that front was the most accessible to the Americans and the British. The Allies could put more men in the field in France than Germany could ever hope to send there and keep there. The Allied stock of munitions was also much ampler. In view of these relative advantages and disadvantages, the war had now become largely a test of German endurance. Could Germany's soldiers stand up for two years longer under blows like these?

In this battle the Second British Army was fortunate in its leader. Sir Herbert Plumer, now sixty years of age, had in a high degree the traditional virtues of the British soldier, and especially had county line-regiments which had always been the backbone of the army. He had fought with his regiment in the Sudan in 1884; he had served in the Matabele rebellion; in the South-African War he had con

tributed to the relief of Mafeking, had taken Pietersburg, hunted DeWet in Cape Colony, and at the second battle of Ypres he had turned the tide. During months of camparative inaction he had been a warden of the Flanders marshes. For a year and more Plumer had been making ready for the offensive in which he was now playing the chief part. In a single day's fighting he had advanced two and a half miles on a front of nearly ten; he had wiped out the German salient and carried also its chord; he had stormed positions on heights which the enemy regarded as impregnable; his losses were extraordinarily small, and he had taken 7,200 prisoners, 67 guns, 94 trench-mortars, and 294 machine-guns. The battle of Messines belonged in history with Nivelle's victories at Verdun in the winter of 1916.

Not satisfied with the capture of the ridge, Haig's men continued here and there to dig further into the territory held by the Germans. Thrusts were made south and east of Messines, in both of which appreciable gains were made, especially in the neighborhood of La Poterie farm. Nearly two miles of trenches were stormed and occupied on June 12 and, in addition, the small village of Gaspard, directly east of Messines, was captured. East and south of Messines fresh advances by Haig's forces and the capture of important first-line positions were reported. The new advances in the neighborhood of Gaspard, which lies directly east of Messines, between the River Lys and St. Yves and east of the Ploegseert Wood, formed a direct menace from both north and south to the important town of Warneton and the road leading toward Comines.

Near Lens on June 20 the Canadians, in an assault on a position held by the Germans which was barring the way to the coal city, had routed out the defenders, captured trenches and incorporated them in the British lines. The Germans endeavored to regain the lost terrain, but were beaten off. In the last week of June bad weather brought the operations of Haig's army almost to a standstill except for bombardments in which the Germans reciprocated, certain patrol reconnaissances, and aerial operations. A slow but sure encirclement of Lens was going on. Important vantage points west and southwest of the town had been captured weeks before. A fresh blow at the German lines was the occupation of the village of La Coulotte, situated a mile to the south. With British forces virtually enveloping the town, except in the east, the Germans had now to cease mining coal in the immediate region of Lens.

By July 28 negotiations were in progress for the consolidation of American and British munition interests, which would add to the resources of the Allies and effect material economies in purchasing. Dr. Addison, the British Minister of Munitions, said that 1,500,000 tons of material for his department were shipped monthly from the United States and Canada. Of this amount the total loss from the submarines since the ruthless warfare began had reached only 5.9 per cent. Up to March, 1917, the production of explosives

in England had quadrupled in a year; the increase over March, 1915, was 28 to 1. More than 2,000 miles of railway-track had been laid down back of the fighting-front, mostly with track pulled up in England, Canada, and Australia. Nearly a thousand new locomotives were at work. The annual production of steel had been raised from 7,000,000 to 10,000,000 tons, and would eventually reach 12,000,000 tons. In six months a million and a half steel helmets had been distributed. Such a statement made it possible to understand the extent to which the Allies this year were becoming masters of the offensive in the west. By July 1 there was hardly a mile of front from the Belgian coast to St. Quentin where the British guns were not hurling high explosives into the German trenches and where British soldiers were not prepared to advance. fighting front had grown from twenty miles to a hundred, and there were three hundred thousand veterans engaged, compared with a mere hundred a year before.

The

Artillery-fire on the Belgian coast in the second week of July culminated in an attack by the Germans against British positions on the Nieuport front. The German gain extended over a front of 1,400 yards to a depth of 600. Big guns completely leveled British defenses in the dunes sector and destroyed bridges and so cut them off from relief. This success was regarded in London as an incident, all the more unexpected because of the unbroken progress made by the British Army for two years. There was complete confidence, however, that the setback was temporary, but it was regarded as further evidence that the Germans would fight to the last man for the retention of the Belgian coast and the protection of their submarine-bases there. This success was

especially valuable to the Germans at the moment as a set-off to defeats in Galicia and as a possible aid in solving their internal troubles. The Germans put their utmost artillerypower into the attack, reinforcing batteries of heavy navyguns which they had long had in this district. The bombardment was of unexpected violence. The reverberation of the guns was heard plainly on heights around London. Most of the King's Royal Rifles and Northamptonshires fell in this fighting between Lombaertzdye and the sea. They