doing this, and it earned for the German naval men the contemptuous title of "baby-killers." A British battle-cruiser squadron was advised of the presence of the German ships, and pursued them. A running fight ensued, at great ranges, hits being made at distances of over ten miles. One of the German battle-cruisers, the Blücher, being slower than her companions, was overtaken and sunk with heavy loss of life. The others escaped and returned to their bases.

Such, in a general way, were the conditions on land and sea when the campaign of 1915 began.

CHAPTER VIII

TRENCH AND OTHER WARFARE IN THE YEAR 1915

A

S we have seen, when the German armies re

treated across the river Aisne after the Battle of the Marne, they took refuge in a system of trenches which had been prepared for them while they were making their great drive on Paris. The German general staff did not expect that their armies would ever use these trenches, since they looked for victory, not defeat, but being very careful, they made ready for any emergency.

Trenches were not a new thing in warfare. They had been used, especially in the sieges of cities, for hundreds of years. But it remained for the Germans to develop them to the point of greatest efficiency.

Their trenches along the Aisne, and later along the entire front from Switzerland to the North Sea, were not merely shallow ditches in which a man might stand to secure protection from rifle fire. On the contrary they were constructed with the greatest care, and upon the most scientific principles, and as time went on they came to be fortresses of the most impregnable character.

In the first place the trench was dug, not in a

straight line but in a series of zigzags, so that if it happened to be entered at any one point, the attacking forces could not shoot along the trench, but would be obliged to advance around continuous shoulders, behind which the defenders might take refuge. Also, where the nature of the ground permitted, the trenches were dug two and even three stories deep, in the form of great underground cellars, or dugouts, into which the troops holding them might retire in safety during a bombardment. Where the dugouts were not so deep, their roofs were made of steel and concrete, or heavy timbers covered with earth and bags of sand. In some cases they were lined with concrete, floored like the rooms of a house, lighted by electricity, and furnished with beds and other household articles taken from the houses and châteaux near by. When a bombardment started, the German troops retired to the safety of their dugouts and only the heaviest shells could reach them.

In front of the trenches was row after row of very heavy barbed wire, through which the enemy could not pass, while to the rear led deep communicating trenches, along which food, ammunition, and other supplies were brought up under cover of darkness. Later on in the development of trench warfare, small round concrete and steel forts, called "pill-boxes," were constructed by the Germans. These "pill-boxes" contained ma

chine guns, and were proof against anything except a direct hit by a shell of large caliber. Concealed as they were by underbrush, or earth, it was extremely difficult to locate them, or to hit them by cannon-fire at a range of several miles. The British lost many men in Flanders during the autumn of 1917, in attacking this form of defenses, but in spite of their losses the attacking troops would rush forward in open formation until some member of the party was able to throw a bomb through one of the ports or openings provided for the machine guns, thus killing every one inside.

It has been seen that when the war began the German Army was the only one which was adequately provided with heavy artillery. The Allies at once took steps to supply their deficiencies in this respect, but the construction of great guns of the howitzer type requires much time, and it was nearly two years before they were able to match their opponents gun for gun.

Trench warfare brought about radical changes in the types of shells used, even by the light fieldpieces. In the wars of the past shrapnel had been regarded as the most effective form of shell which could be used against an opposing army. A shrapnel shell is hollow, and inside it are placed hundreds, and in the case of the large sizes thousands, of small iron bullets. When the shell explodes these bullets spread out over a great area,

killing or wounding many men. But it was soon found that however deadly shrapnel fire might be against an advancing body of men, it was of very little use against troops sheltered in trenches. Lord Kitchener, head of the English War Department, was very severely criticized, early in the war, for not realizing this fact, and providing the army with high-explosive shells.

A high-explosive shell is, as its name implies, one containing a charge of some high-powered explosive, such as the famous T. N. T. (trinitrotuluol), which is far more deadly in its effects than dynamite. Such shells, rained upon a line of trenches, will soon reduce them to a mass of wreckage, even sweeping away the barbed-wire entanglements, and in the case of the great 18-inch shells which the British used in the latter part of the war, penetrating all but the deepest dugouts and blowing them to pieces.

Between the opposing lines of trenches lay a barren waste known as "No Man's Land,” into which it was certain death to venture by day. At night scouting-parties, called patrols, were sent out to raid the trenches of the enemy and bring back prisoners, from whom information as to the enemy's plans might be secured. By day, sharpshooters, or "snipers" as they came to be called, lay hidden behind trees, rocks, or in other places secure from observation, and picked off any mem