The Hampshire was convoyed by two destroyers, which, when the gale increased, the captain unfortunately ordered back to port. Between 7:30 and 7:45 P.M., as she was proceeding along the west coast of the Orkneys, the vessel struck a mine and began at once to settle by the bows, keeling over to starboard before she finally went down about fifteen minutes later. The seas were too rough to admit of any of the boats getting away; in the effort to launch them one was broken and its occupants thrown into the water. It was evident that the Hampshire was doomed, and accordingly the captain ordered the men to their posts for abandoning the ship. In all some three or four rafts got safely away with some fifty to seventy men on each. Yet such was the force of the seas as it beat upon them that many were thus battered to death, others relinquished their hold and just slipped into the depths, or died of cold or exposure, and yet more were thrown senseless on the cruel rocks that guarded the coast. Though it was daylight until about II o'clock only II men and one warrant officer of all the company were saved. Nothing more was heard of Lord Kitchener and his colleagues, though wild rumors that he was in a German prison camp arose.

The Admiralty published the following statement on June 15:

"From the report of the twelve survivors of the Hampshire the following conclusions were reached. As the men were going to their stations before abandoning the ship, Lord Kitchener, accompanied by a naval officer, appeared. The latter said: 'Make way for Lord Kitchener.' Both ascended to the quarterdeck. Subsequently, four military officers were seen there, walking aft on the port side. The Captain called Lord Kitchener to the fore bridge near where the Captain's boat was hoisted. The Captain also called Lord Kitchener to enter the boat. It is unknown if Lord Kitchener entered it or what happened to any boat."

To perish without seeing the results one has wrought for is hard. Kitchener died upon the eve of the great Allied offensive, for which he had labored so intensely to build up a vast British force. Yet in a sense his task was done, just as was that of the heroes of Jutland who lay beneath the same treacherous waters of the North Sea. In the early dark days of the war he had been the one man to whom Britain turned. And his loss was only yet another call to the Empire to strengthen those that stood, and establish the weak-hearted to "carry on" the work which he had begun.

"I HAVE lived through unforgetable hours, and I understand now, how much there is of beauty and nobility in France to fight for," wrote a lad of twenty from the trenches. Joan of Arc in the forests and meadows around Domremy dreamed through unforgetable hours and came, a girl of seventeen, to that same full knowledge. Roland, in the gloomy depths of the Pyrenees, sacrificed a life which had flowered freely in knightly service and died, murmuring, "Terre de France mult estes dulz pays!" 'Unless we accept the young soldier's and the peasant girl's and the paladin's point of view and strive to see with their vision, we cannot really understand the spirit which inspired the heroic resistance of Frenchmen in this great

war.

FRAN

RANCE ON THE DAY OF MOBILIZATION,
AUGUST 1, 1914.

It is August 1, 1914, and the general order of mobilization has been posted in the streets of Paris, in the cities of the provinces, at the seaside, throughout the country. See the cabmen, concièrges, boulevardiers, fishermen, peasants, diplomats, merchants reading it. How quietly, seriously, and yet gladly each turns away, intent upon making the most of the short hours

before he entrains at the nearest station and reports at his headquarters. And

the women: is there a tear, a sigh, a groan? Not for now, nor for this cause; there may be, hereafter, when none shall see and none be weakened in fulfilling the task. Quite naturally, and with a smile, Madame Lbaby as Sergeant L, early on lifts up the Sunday morning, sets forth from the Gare des Invalides.

From midnight on Saturday, August 2-and for fifteen successive daysmobilization proceeded. A hundred, a thousand, a million, and more, came to their nearest station and took the waiting train, and reached their headquarters on scheduled time, where each man found a uniform, coat, boots and field-knapsack. confusion; not in any place even hesitaNowhere was there tion. All went according to plans made years before, and all went smoothly and with the utmost precision and quietness. There was no singing, no shouting, no hysteria. Where was the Frenchman that the or revenge-intoxicated? Berlin press represented as fear-pressed, Quiet, dismoral determination was the keynote ciplined conduct covering tremendous of every company and regiment, every station and barracks and square.

EN TO THE WAR, AND WOMEN TO

MEWORK.

The trains roll in, mile after mile of them, and the men are equipped and

counted, and then the train takes them again and bears them this time north and east to the fronts. "I am for the Ardennes, where I shall see some service." "And I for Nancy, I!" are the exchanges flung as the long silent monsters pull out from shed and siding, once more. The country-side was bare and deserted, for tools and implements were flung on wayside and field as the news came in. Soon-it may be in an hour-these groups of peasant women, gathered to watch the trains go off, will break up and the wives and mothers go silently and unquestioningly back to the fields. Through that hot afternoon they bend to the work, and through all the long silent days to come; their thoughts with the men who have gone, who with other weapons and in other fields are reaping the harvest of savagery. And the fisherman's boats are pulled up upon the shore and his nets lie idle. In the city one reads over the little cobbler's shop, "Absent from the first day of mobilization."

THE

HE HISTORIC MEETING OF THE CHAM-
BER OF DEPUTIES.

It is Paris again, and the fourth of August in the Chamber of Deputies. In complete silence the deputies are seating themselves, and one notices, yet hardly with surprise, a few handshakes between those who yesterday were enemies. The president rises and pronounces amidst the silence, hist oration upon Jaurés, killed by insensate folly the day after war was declared, and the words of the national liturgy, honored in century-old use, roll forth "la justice sociale, la fraternité humaine, la conscience humaine

with the response, "Du cercueil de cet homme sort une pensée d'union, de ses lèvres glacées, un cri d'espérance!" Silence falls again, until the President of the Council, M. Viviani, already deep-engrossed in multifarious cares, arrives. He who was yesterday a partisan is now the government of France. Amidst pregnant silence he reads the message from the President of the Republic and ends "Keep we high our hearts. Vive la France!" The causes of war are reviewed, France's case stated, and a

long series of laws relative to defense passed; and for a brief interval the deputies adjourn to pace the corridors while they wait the vote of the Senate. No long interval and Viviani is with them again, to announce that in agreement with the Chamber, the Senate has given its consent to the war measures and grants of moneys.

One more scene: it is St. Cyr on the last night of July, and in place of the historic fête du Triomphe that generally graces the occasion, word has gone forth for general mobilization. In the midst of a scene of intense fervor and enthusiasm, one of the young officers, Gaston Vorzard, springs to his feet and makes all the officers of his class swear that they will not go into battle except in white gloves and with their képi adorned with the casoar, the red and white plume. "Ce serment, bien français, est aussi élégant que téméraire," he cries. And, with acclamation, his comrades take the oath. They kept it and were some of the first French officers to die in battle at the head of their regiments. Days passed, and the recruiting offices were besieged by long queues of men, pleading to be taken. "I have seen weeping among those who may not go first," writes Clemenceau of those days, but it was the only sign of weeping that France gave.

TEARY WAITING FOR THE NEWS OF

WEAR

BATTLES.

Then the soldiers have gone, and to eager hours of preparation and days of quick discussion, succeeds a weary time of waiting, for the hand of the Government is upon the Press and little news filters through when every communiqué may be read by the enemy. "What use to speculate now," say the women, "do we not know where they have gone, have we not stated and restated our good reasons for hoping, but we cannot tell what victories they may have won." There is no depression, only a sense of emptiness and of tortured waiting.

In the early days of August, uncertain at first, but growing clearer, came news of the barbarity with which the German march through Belgium was attended. With violent recoil, the