By the middle of October the blundering Roumanians were all killed, captured, or scattered, and the German and Austrian army under Von Falkenhayn invaded Roumania. At the same time another German and Bulgarian

army, under Von Mackensen, poured into Roumania from the south. The Roumanians rallied and offered desperate resistance to the invaders, but they were overwhelmed and in a few weeks more than half of the kingdom was occupied by the enemy, the capital, Bucharest, falling on December 6th. The advance of a considerable Russian army finally checked the invaders at the River Sereth. Immense supplies of foodstuffs and oil fell into the hands of the Germans, and

the net result of the entry of Roumania into the war was a decided advantage for the Central Powers.

THE WAR IN ASIA

Three separate campaigns have been waged in Asia. One has been in Arabia and on the Egyptian frontier, where Turks and Germans made vigorous attempts to seize the Suez Canal and to incite an insurrection against British rule in Egypt. There the British were successful in defeating their foes. In addition, practically the whole of Arabia, including the Holy Cities of El Medina and Mecca, revolted against Turkey and established its inde

pendence. The British forces then moved on, and early in the present year began the occupation of Palestine, with every prospect of soon expelling the Turks from all that country.

THE DESOLATION OF ARMENIA

Russia undertook at the beginning of the war a campaign through the Caucasus into Armenia and Asia Minor. It was marked with blundering and came to naught. In return, the Turks invaded the Transcaucasian provinces of Russia, and then began, under German direction, the extermination of the Armenian nation. The German atrocities in Belgium were emulated by the Turks and their Kurd levies, on a gigantic scale. Certainly several hundred thousand and probably nearly or quite a million non-combatant Armenians, men, women and children, were put to death with every refinement of cruelty-rape, mutilation, flaying, burning, drowning and starvation.

At last the Russian Grand Duke Nicholas, the conqueror of Galicia, was put in command in the Caucasus, and in February, 1916, he swept into the Turkish Empire in Asia, capturing Erzeroum, Bitlis, Trebizond and Erzingan. He was too late to save Armenia, but he was able to co-operate efficiently with a British army which was moving up Mesopotamia.

THE BAGDAD CAMPAIGNS

Twice the British essayed to reach Bagdad from the Persian Gulf. The first attempt was made in the fall of 1915, and the expedition was successful in penetrating to within less than twenty miles of the ancient city. It was animated with more valor than discretion, however, being too small and not sufficiently supported along its

lines of communication and supply at the rear. The result was that it had to fall back to Kut-el-Amara, where it was besieged for several months and at last was compelled by starvation to surrender, on April 28, 1916. The valor of the troops so impressed the Turks that they treated the prisoners with all possible consideration and courtesy, thus presenting a grateful contrast to the conduct of Germans toward those who were so luckless as to fall into their hands.

The second British expedition up the Tigris and Euphrates valley was better planned and was more successful; having also the advantage of the co-operation of the Russians at the north. It captured Kut-el-Amara on February 26, 1917, and on March 11th occupied Bagdad, eighty miles further on. A junction was then effected with the Russian forces moving down from Erzeroum. These operations, in conjunction with the British occupation of Southern Palestine, threatened to confine the Turkish sway in Asia to Asia Minor west of the Anti-Taurus Mountains.

CHAPTER XI

COLONIAL CONQUESTS

Origin and Extent of Germany's Colonial Empire

- Her Ambition to Rival

Great Britain - Dreams of a German South Africa-Loss of Sea Power Fatal to Her Outlying Possessions Japan's Seizure of Kiao Chao- Australia and the German Islands - Other Groups in the Pacific Togoland and the Kamerun Territory - The Boer-British Conquest of German South Africa "the Most Unkindest Cut of All" — German East Africa the Last to Fall.

That was

THE GERMAN Colonial Empire vanished. one of the first definite results of the war, and one of the most significant. The development of a world-wide colonial empire, rivaling that of Great Britain, had long been the dream and the ambition of the Kaiser and his lieutenants. The colonial policy had been devised and founded by Bismarck himself, just thirty years before this war undid it all, and it had been consistently and earnestly promoted by all his successors. At the outbreak of the war the German Colonial Empire existed in Africa, in Asia, in the Indies, and in Polynesia. It had a total land area nearly five times as great as that of Germany itself, and a population one-fifth as great. Most of the German colonies were in Africa, and it was the dream of Germany to dominate that continent, north, central and south. Togoland and the Kamerun territory were among her earliest possessions, and she planned to extend the latter so as to include most if not all of the Congo State. It was thus a part of her scheme in attacking Belgium at the beginning of this war to acquire, through the conquest of that little kingdom, the Congo State which belonged to it. The following were

the various German possessions as enumerated in "The Statesman's Year Book," all of them being Crown Colonies, under the absolute rule of imperial governors:

1 Exclusive of the Bay with an area of about 200 square miles, and the neutral zone with an area of about 2,500 square miles, and population of 1,200,000.

AFRICAN AMBITIONS

In North Africa she began intriguing for control of Morocco years ago, coveting its strategical position, com