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This photograph was taken by an aviator 1500 feet high and directly over the camp. It shows with remarkable clearness the French army aeroplanes drawn up before their hangars, and behind these the soldiers' tents and several groups of motor trucks. On the upper and under side of each wing of the French biplanes is painted a red, white and blue circle for identification during flight. German machines show a black cross

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comes increasingly important as the months drag on. Parliament has just been asked to provide $2,550,000,000 more, making a total of $14,160,000,000 appropriated during the past two years. These credits have been granted without opposition and almost without debate and the government has not been required even to specify the various uses for which the money was to be applied. Never before in the history of the world has any government had such enormous sums placed at its disposal without restriction.

It must not be hastily assumed that these billions spent are altogether wasted. In the first place a billion and a quarter of England's expenditure consists of money advanced to her allies and her oversea dominions. These are loans which presumably will be repaid with interest unless the Allies are ruined.

Then, too, the appropriations of Parliament include all of the running expenses of the government, now higher than usual because the government has taken on more functions. The ordinary expenditure of the British Government before the war was about one billion dollars. Of this some $380,000,000 a year went for army and navy and of course were "wasted" in the same sense as the larger sums now spent for the purpose. But altho soldiering in peace or war must be classed among the unproductive occupations and the money expended for explosives is speedily con

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government who formerly had to "support themselves." Most of them are being supported more expensively than ever before and in so far as this means better food, clothing and sanitary care it is not to be regretted. Altho they are from an economic standpoint to be considered as idle, yet this also is not an unprecedented strain upon the community. In 1908, according to Kier Hardie, labor member of Parliament, there were 2,250,000 men out of work in England and Scotland, three-fourths of them skilled artizans. Now there are more people working and they are working harder than ever before. Unemployment is wiped out and wages in some industries more than doubled. The cost of living has risen but not so much as the wage rate. The poorer classes are spending money more lavishly than formerly. Imitation jewelry is in great demand and all sorts of cheap amusements are extensively patronized. The consumption of alcoholic liquor in the United Kingdom has risen to the unprecedented hight of $900,000,000 a year, a hundred million more than it was before the war, notwithstanding the fact that a large proportion of the men are in the army where they get only their ration of rum. So far it is chiefly the wealthy and well-to-do who have begun the practise of economy and this under compulsion, since the burden of increased taxation has in many cases cut their income in two.

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TWENTY-FOUR TO FOUR

A TRIAL BALANCE OF THE GREAT WAR AFTER THREE YEARS

August, 1917

F the three years of the Great War, that of 1916-17 has been most eventful. During the first year the important campaigns included the German conquest of the greater part of Belgium and of a corner of France, the Battle of the Marne, the Russian advance in Galicia and East Prussia and the beginning of the Russian retreat thru Poland. The German colonies were all annexed, with the exception of German East Africa, and futile attempts were made at Gallipoli and in Mesopotamia to break the military strength of Turkey. During the second year a deadlock in the west, and disastrous for the Allies elsewhere, Russia was expelled from Poland, Courland and the greater part of Galicia, and Serbia and Montenegro fell before the advancing armies of the Central Powers. Italy, France and Great Britain could accomplish nothing but resistance, and the only favorable omen for the Allied cause was the German failure before Verdun. The third year was marked by four events of outstanding importance: the Russian revolution, the intervention of America, the abandonment by Germany of a large part of her conquests in France, and the renewal of ruthless submarine warfare on a most menacing scale. Three of these events were favorable to the cause of the Entente Allies, but the fourth was hailed by Germany as a prelude to an early victory. The story of the third year of the Great War has been divided into individual campaigns, preceded by a general summary of the war considered as a test of endurance and of the "staying power" of the two belligerent

groups.

D

THE TEST OF ENDURANCE

URING the third year of the Great War it became clear to every belligerent that victory would incline to that side which could afford to suffer longest the strain which war imposed upon the armies and the civilian population. The possibility of a decisive victory in the field was not excluded, but the methods of trench warfare and the facilities afforded by the aeroplane for detecting the maneuvers of the other side made such victories impossible except against an enemy whose numbers, supplies or military spirit had been seriously diminished before the battle. On the other hand, it was no less evident that economic exhaustion would not of itself end the war unless supported by vigorous military action. The Central Powers, cut off from trade with the

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chant fleet now building. With the other Allies the greatest danger is not insufficiency of food, but the difficulty of securing adequate railroad transportation. The loss of merchant tonnage is unknown, as the British Government, which is the greatest sufferer from the German submarine activity, publishes only statistics of the number of vessels sunk and does not mention particular ships. Various estimates place the total destruction at from 500,000 to upward of 1,000,000 tons a month. Probably six or seven hundred thousand is about correct.

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THE

HE belligerent nations are enduring the financial drain on their resources even more successfully than the economic effect of the naval blockades. The great loans which are yearly floated are still as a rule oversubscribed within a few weeks of their issue, and the crushing burden of war taxation is still willingly borne by the taxpayers. The warring nations have not even resorted to the reckless printing of unredecmable paper money which in previous great wars has been the usual expedient of governments in financial distress. Of course the economic strain is not unfelt. Quite apart from the heavy taxes; the steady increase in prices, the growing scarcity of capital for industrial enterprizes and the rising rates of interest bring home the huge cost of the war to the public. Estimates differ as to the cost of the war, but it seems likely that the direct cost to the governments concerned for the whole three years must be placed at over $90,000,000,000, or an average of considerably more than $82,000,000 a day. This estimate makes no allowance for the United States, which has still to spend the greater part of its first year's war budget, or for the neutral nations which have had to expand their armaments to protect their neutrality. As time goes on, the cost of war tends to increase with the larger forces put into the field, the growing interest on national loans, and the enlargement of munitions factories. A day's war today costs the world two or three times what it did in the autumn of 1914. The Entente Allies, as might be expected from their greater numbers and vaster aggregate wealth, are spending two dollars to every dollar spent by the Central Powers. Great Britain alone is spending some $35,000,000 a day, but this figures includes loans to her allies.

Besides economic pressure and financial loss there is a third element in belligerent endurance, the loss in man

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The black portion of this map shows the territory now dominated by the Central Powers. The line-shading indicates territory held by the Allies; and the dotted countries are those which have severed diplomatic relations with Germany, but are not actually at war. The white parts of the

map indicate all that is left of neutrality ing among the Entente Allies is fully two-thirds greater than the losses of the Central Powers. Russia has lost the most heavily, both in casualties on the field and in number of prisoners taken; Germany and France come next in respect to casualties, the German losses probably somewhat the greater, but neither nas had so many prisoners captured by the enemy as Austria-Hungary, whose casualties have been comparatively light. France, with about two and a half million men on the western front, not reck

ITALY

FRANCE

RUMANIA

BULGARIA

power. This is not a mere question of population, for it is doubtful if the population of any of the larger belligercnt nations, with the possible exception of France, can show an absolute decrease during the last three years. But in this war the cost in lives falls almost wholly upon the physically fit young men, who alone can endure the hardships of incessant trench warfare. Moreover the battle lines are stretched over so many hundreds of miles that either side can compel a general retreat if it can so reduce the number of enemy effectives as to prevent the sending of reserves to strengthen any part of the line which may be selected for attack. The number of killed can only be gucssed at, but it seems to be somewhere near the five million mark. A much smaller number, perhaps only one and a half million, have been so seriously wounded as to be useless thereafter at or behind the front. The total number of wounded is about three times as great as the number killed, but the majority of those who survive recover sufficiently under the excellent care afforded by modern military hospitals to see service again in the trenches, and many others can be used to replace uninjured men in civil employment and so release them for the trenches. The death list from disease is notably small in the present war and can be considered important only in the Balkan and Turkish campaigns. The number of killed, wounded and miss

JAPAN

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY

TURKEY

RUSSIA

PORTUGAL

GERMANY

О

SERBIA

BRITISH EMPIRE

oning the French contingent at Salonica, seems to have reached her maximum military strength; but England still has many hundreds of thousands of men in training; Italy has employed only a part of her military effectives, and the United States and Russia are practically inexhaustible sources of man power, provided that these nations can solve the difficulties of transport and supply. Germany and her allies are still keeping large reserves behind the battle line to reinforce each new German offensive or ward off each new hostile

MONTE UNITED STATES

NEGRO

BELGIUM

FOR PURPOSES OF COMPARISON

In this chart showing the territory and population of the belligerents each
dot stands for five million people and the size of the circles indicates the
total territory now in possession of the countries named without consid-
ering the gains or losses in Europe during the war. The Central Powers
are shaded. The Allied Powers have about thirty times the territory and
more than six times the population as well as the advantage of being
able to draw supplies from the outside world

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ture Soyécourt.

September 26, 1916-Combles ard Thiepval taken by Allies. October 24, 1916-French regain lost ground before Verdun. November 13, 1916-British open offensive on the Ancre. March 17, 1917-Baupaume captured; beginning of general German retreat.

April 9, 1917-Canadians storm Vimy ridge near Arras.

The entrenched war frontier which extends from the Swiss boundary to the ocean has for nearly three years been the scene of the greatest, bloodiest and longest continuous military action in human history. Until the summer of 1916 neither

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