BEHIND THE BATTLE LINES Railway locomotives sent to France Freight cars sent to France .. Locomotives of foreign origin operated by A. E. F. ARMS AND AMMUNITION Persons employed in about 8,000 ordnance plants in U. S. at signing of armistice Merchant ships armed Naval bases in European waters and the Azores Shipbuilding yards (merchant marine) increased from 61 to more than 200. Shipbuilding ways increased from 235 to more than 1,000.. 967 13.174 350 973 843 23,000,000 110,000 4,000,000 2,500,000 2,879,148,000 181,662 4,250,000 500,000 7,250,000 8,500,000 197 2,003 800 355 2,500 54 592 3,423,495 $24,620,000,000 8,841,657,000 3,694,000,000 14,000,000,000 834,253,000 4,000,000,000 -N. Y. Times, 4/6. NAVY WILL CONDUCT NATIONAL RIFLE COMPETITION THIS YEAR.-Location and Date Not Yet Decided, but Matches Will Be Held Sometime in August-Acting Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt announces that at the invitation of the War Department the United States Navy will conduct the national matches for the year 1919, and that these great competitions, wherein soldiers, sailors, marines, and civilians compete for national marksmanship honors, will be held on one of the large rifle ranges. The exact location and date have not yet been determined but the matches will be held sometime in August. Lieut. Col. William C. Harllee, United States Marine Corps, who has been active for many years in matters pertaining to marksmanship and who conceived the idea for the chain of navy rifle ranges which were put into commission during the war, has been named executive officer of the competitions. On the staff will be named officers from the army, navy, marine corps, and the National Rifle Association. The national matches have been staged at frequent intervals during the past decade, and are the means of determining the national rifle and pistol championships. At the matches are usually in attendance 50 or more teams representing the services national guard and civilian organizations, colleges, military schools, and many hundreds of individual marksmen. This year, owing to rifle practice, 100 teams are expected to compete. The policy of admitting civilian teams, one or more from each state, inaugurated in 1919 will prevail in the 1919 competitions. Particulars in regard to the admission of teams and other arrangements for the matches can be secured by addressing Executive Officer, National Matches, Room 1108, Woodward Building, Washington, D. C.-Official Bulletin, 3/22. GERMANS TOOK 4765 U. S. MEN; 4376 REPORTED FREE, 233 DEAD.-The Statistics Branch, General Staff, War Department, issues the following: Revision of prisoners records, which have been compiled from reports of prisoners from all sources, for the purpose of eliminating duplicate names. brings the total number of military prisoners taken to 4765. Of these 4376 have been reported released and 233 dead. The list of 156 names of prisoners whose status is still doubtful was forwarded on March 20 to the Central Records Office, A. E. F., for checking and investigation. The record of army, marine, and civilian prisoners taken by the central powers as of March 20, is as follows: The following table shows by rank the number of military prisoners taken and the number reported dead: A TIME-HONORED CUSTOM THREATENED.-According to the Portsmouth correspondent of the Times, there is some possibility of the time-honored custom of hoisting the Union flag at the peak and firing a gun on the occasion of a court-martial being abandoned. It seems that the practice has fallen into disuse during the war, owing to the majority of courtsmartial being held on shore instead of afloat-to allow of which the Naval Discipline Act was amended in March, 1915. Formerly, courts could only be convened on board ship, and it may be recalled that a special act of Parliament was needed in George III's reign to enable the trial of Admiral Keppel to be held on shore by reason of the infirm state of the admiral's health. The last time the practice of hoisting the Union flag and firing a gun was carried out was when Admiral Troubridge was tried by courtmartial at Portland in 1914. Merely because it is a pity that old customs should disappear we venture to protest against any decision being hastily taken in this matter. It would be interesting to know when the practice of hoisting a flag to denote the venue of the court-martial was instituted and whether it was ordered or, like many other naval customs, was observed without being specially sanctioned by law. The Manual of Naval Law is silent on the point, although it does show that a custom as the laying of his sword across the table when the prisoner is an officer and along the table with its hilt towards him if acquitted, and vice versa, has long ago been embodied in the regulations.-London Army and Navy Gazette, 3/1. PROPERTY OF OUR ARMY WILL BE SOLD TO FRANCE.-Docks, railroads, warehouses, hospitals, and barracks built by the American Expeditionary Force, to the value of $165,000,000, will be sold to France for the best figures the American Liquidation Commission can obtain. None of these can readily or profitably be removed, and the only alternative is to sell at the best bargain. The Liquidation Commission is now negotiating for the disposal of various surplus properties belonging to the expeditionary force. Hundreds of thousands of uniforms have been dyed, so that they may now serve other armies, such as those of Belgium, Poland, and some of the Balkan States. The present plan is to dispose of these surplus supplies among the governments which need them.-N. Y. Times, 3/19. CURRENT NAVAL AND PROFESSIONAL PAPERS UNITED STATES WORLD'S WORK. April.-How Beatty Put to Sea, by Lieut. Francis T. Hunter, U. S. N. R. CENTURY. April.-The Larger American Navy, by Rear Admiral Charles J. Badger, U. S. N. China's Case at the Peace Conference, by Thomas F. Millard. SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. March 22.-U. S. Navy 7-inch Caterpillar Mount, by Commander H. Delano, U. S. N. March 29.-Radium and Radio-Activity, by Charles H. Viol. A 121-Mile Gun, by J. Bernard Walker. April 5.-Hunting Submarines with a Sound Detector, by Brewster S. Beach. U. S. S. New Mexico, by Henderson B. Gregory. April 12.- -The New American Merchant Marine (I), by Edward W. Hurley. The Marine Diesel Oil Engine, by John W. Anderson. Salvage Work in New York Harbor. Is the Dirigible Outstripping the Airplane? FLYING. April.-Who Will Be the First to Cross the Atlantic? by Henry Woodhouse. A Proposed Airplane Route Across the Atlantic, by Prof. Wm. H. Hobbs. FRANKLIN INSTITUTE. April.-The Visibility of Airplanes (illus.), by M. Luckeish. The Color of Water, by Wilder D. Bancroft. GREAT BRITAIN EDINBURGH REVIEW. January.-Ships and Empire, by David Hannay. NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER. March.-Could the Fleet Have Forced the Straits? by Major Gen. Sir Charles Callwell. QUARTERLY REVIEW. January.-The Freedom of the Seas, by J. Pawly Bate. ENGINEERING. March 21.- -The War Development of the Torpedo-Boat Destroyer (five pages of illustrations). Naval Engineers. March 28.-H. M. Seaplane Carrying Ship Argus (illus.) CONTINENTAL RIVISTA GENERALE DE MARINA. Spain. Movement of Floating Mines in the North Atlantic and Arctic, by the Prince of Monaco. DIPLOMATIC NOTES FROM MARCH 20 TO APRIL 20 PREPARED BY ALLAN WESTCOTT, Associate Professor, U. S. Naval Academy PEACE TREATY READY FOR GERMANY FOUR PREMIERS ACT ALONE.-On March 24 it was announced that the socalled "Council of Ten" of the Peace Conference had been discontinued except as a war council to consider immediate military questions, and that, in order to expedite work on the peace treaty, consultations would thereafter include only President Wilson and Premiers Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and Orlando. FRENCH DEMAND SAAR COAL FIELDS.-On March 28 Premier Clemenceau further complicated the frontier problem by presenting a demand that France should be restored to the boundaries fixed by the Treaty of Paris, of May 30, 1814, together with the Saar Basin. In the Rhine Province, on the left bank of the Rhine, Premier Clemenceau also requested that while the Germans should have political autonomy, they should not be permitted to establish fortifications, occupy the territory with armed forces, nor control the railways. After continued negotiations, it was announced by the middle of April that the Peace Treaty would dispose of the Saar question by giving the coal mines to France in fee simple, as a recompense for destroyed French mines, and by granting territorial control to France for 15 years, under supervision of an international commission of five members. At the end of 15 years the inhabitants would choose their allegiance by a plebiscite. An Associated Press despatch from Berlin, April 14, declared the Ebert Government would "resolutely reject any proposal to tear the Saar territory from Germany by means of a general plebiscite." GERMANY THREATENS PASSIVE RESISTANCE AND BOLSHEVISM.-Semiofficial announcement of the terms of the Peace Treaty in April stirred Germany to threats of refusal to sign and of a policy of passive resistance. On April 14 the Tageszeitung reported that the Berlin Cabinet, soon after the Hungarian Revolution, had considered an offer of alliance and an army of 500,000 men from Russia. But active resistance by Germany was regarded as out of the question. Anticipating Germany's refusal to sign the treaty, the Peace Conference requested Marshal Foch to consider the measures to be employed in such a contingency. Continued blockade, cutting off of food supplies, and further occupation of German territory were suggested. |