abandon their guns and endeavor to cross the mountainous country between Karind and the Upper Diala. In this impasse their leadership saved them. Strong rearguards or screens were placed by the Turkish Commander against the weaker Russian forces in the Pia Tak Pass, and against the British on the ridge of the Jebel Hamrin range. While these rearguards held off attack, the main body by way of Khanikin was making for the crossing of the Diala and the road to Mosul.

Thus Maude in the torrid heat of the desert was attacking at Kizil Robat and Deli Abbas, while seventy miles

away Baratov's Cossacks were struggling amid the snows of the Pia Tak Pass. By the end of the month the 13th Corps had eluded their vise: Maude had carried Deli Abbas, and Baratov his pass, but this was because the screens were being withdrawn as the main army crossed the Diala. Baratov reached Khanikin and, April 2, an advance sotnia of Cossacks joined hands with the British force at Kizil

Robat. Persia was now cleared of the Turk and there was no enemy east of the Diala. Nevertheless, the 13th Army Corps had been extricated from grave peril. If the Russian force had had half of the vitality it had had eighteen months previously the enemy could not have got away as he did. In purport the advance on Bagdad was a two-fold operation; in reality the heavy end had fallen upon the

British forces. A Turkish counterattack delivered by the 13th Corps developed about the 7th of April, and fierce fighting which began in a mirage lasted until the 13th, when the Turks were driven back into the Jebel Hamrin range once more.

HE LAST TURKISH POSITIONS ARE TAKEN

THAT THE END OF THE SUMMER.

The column on the west bank of the Tigris had made good progress, and reinforced by the Diala troops who left the Russians to hold this sector, were ready by the 17th for the final attack on Samarra. After six days of uninterrupted fighting the railhead was captured. Khalil made a last effort. The 18th Corps intrenched 15 miles north of Samarra; and the 13th Corps on its left flank emerged from its hill fastnesses, striking against the two forces of the British on the Tigris which had now joined. It was driven back but again emerged-to meet the same fate. The 18th Corps fell back on Tekrit; in every direction Bagdad was cleared of the enemy for a radius of 50 miles, while the enemy corps was driven back on divergent lines.

General Maude could afford to take a rest in the terrible summer heatthe season was the hottest known for years, the temperature often rising above 120° Fahrenheit. It was unfortunate, in view of the hot season, that a campaign was planned on the Euphrates in July. The Turks were comfortably established at Ramadiya and the Arabs downstream, encouraged by their proximity, made hostile demonstrations against the British at Feluja. The operation failed for the troops could make no headway in a blinding duststorm and intense heat and the enter

prise was abandoned. Two months later, in September, a successful attack had as its objectives not only Ramadiya but the capture of the whole enemy force-and attained them.

GE

ENERAL MAUDE FALLS A VICTIM TO
HIS COURTESY.

The Turks had designs for the recapture of Bagdad, and two German divisions reached Aleppo early in November. Just then came news of Sir Edmund Allenby's victories in Southern Palestine (November 7, 1917) and General von Falkenhayn, then acting as the Turkish military adviser in Asia, drafted the divisions to that front. On the 19th of the month the Mesopotamian Army lost its great commander, General Maude, who fell a victim to the cholera-his courtesy forbidding him to refuse a draught of cold milk offered by a native.

So perished a great soldier and a great organizer. Bagdad was won by gallantry and endurance, but equally by organized transport, commissariat and medical departments. With a gift for detail and a tireless energy, Maude had also the rarer faculty of vision which could see the whole situation in true perspective. He was succeeded by Lieutenant-General Sir William Marshall, who had already rendered valuable service in the campaign against Bagdad. The Palestine victories had changed the plans of the Turkish Staff, and henceforth the chief task of the British commander-in-chief was continue to strengthen his position. The danger of a Turco-German offensive was now slight, although unable to withstand the summer heat in the Diala triangle, Baratov's Cossacks had withdrawn to the Persian hills.

to

STERN, silent, immutable, amid the

shifting tide of human concerns, the Julian Alps have looked upon strange scenes. Long centuries ago, barbarian hordes of Goth and Hun and great imperial armies battled in their gateways. Yet, in all the flow of years, perhaps no stranger spectacle of man's ingenuity and endeavor can be conceived than that which was staged over and around those wardens of the Isonzo region in 1917, leaving them with new scars which they must carry for the rest of time.

THE

HE ALLIED NATIONS PROMISE TO SEND
AID TO ITALY.

In January, during the mid-winter lull in fighting operations, a conference of distinguished military and political representatives from the four leading Allied nations met for three days at Rome. There Italy was promised assistance by the French and British. As a consequence, France sent guns, to be manned by Italian gunners, and England sent batteries of six-inch howitzers, with 2,000 men.

Until May the Italian High Command had to wait until the late spring floods subsided. There were evidences that their opponents were preparing for a new offensive; therefore, General Cadorna laid plans for an attack to anticipate it. The main attack was to fall on the middle Isonzo. A supplemen

tary movement in the Carso had for its aim to gain new territory on that forbidding plateau in the direction of Hermada.

THE

HE ITALIAN ATTACK IS DELIVERED ON
THE ISONZO.

The Italian artillery bombarded the whole Isonzo front, from May 12 until the morning of May 14, in preparation for an infantry attack from Plava and Gorizia upon Kuk, Monte Santo, and the hills along the edge of the Bainsizza Plateau. After the first day, General Capello, commander of the Second Army, placed the artillery command of the 2nd Corps in the hands of Major-General Badoglio, whose plans for taking Sabotino had been so successful. Under his direction, the Italian guns seemed to be "driving nails along given lines" of the Austrian positions, "and the hammerstrokes were delivered with unfailing skill."

On the night of May 15 a diversion was created about eight miles south of Tolmino, where Bersaglieri and Alpini forced a passage across the Isonzo and improvised a bridgehead on the east bank. They held it under fearful odds until the eighteenth, when, deeply chagrined at having to abandon the attack, they were withdrawn, as the purpose of the action had been accomplished. In the first stage of the offensive, sections of Kuk, Vodice, and Santo