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HOW THE ALLIES ADVANCE IN FRANCE

The photograph above shows one of the important German positions taken by the Allies in 1917 on the western front. The lines of trenches have been retraced and lettered to bring out exactly the problem that their capture offered and the direction of the attack, to the summit of Cornillet, indicated. During the preliminary bombardment the French gunners fired over fifty thousand shells into this one spot. The attack, successful only after a month of hard fighting, was carried on under the direction of General Anthoine (whose photograph is published on this page). After the battle of Marne the Germans occupied an uninterrupted line of observations starting at Notre Dame-de-Lorette, extending to Vimy, Chemin des Dames, Moronvilliers, Montfaucon and Les Eparges, down to Hartmannswillerkopf. One of the strongest points on this line was Mont Cornillet, which was a dominating point to the plains of Châlons. Under the direct command of General Anthoine the costly battle of Moronvilliers began on April 17, 1917, and lasted till May 20 of the same year. The capture of Mont Cornillet, which changed hands a score of times, was the

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THE CAPTURE OF MONT

CORNILLET

key to the rest of the "massifs" which protected Moronvilliers. German genius in putting up a strong defensive observation post on the summit of the hill was discovered after a survey by a major of Fiftyfirst Infantry. There he found a shaft thirty meters deep cut in the center of the hill and a connecting tunnel dug thru from the eastern slope leading directly to the shaft. An elaborate series of barracks and commanding posts large enough to house three infantries safe from the most terrific bombardment had been built there, yet a single shot from the 400 French mortars demolished the whole structure and the German dead were found piled on top of each other for ten meters deep. A French engineer, sent in to explore the German tunnel-redoubt under Mont Cornillet after the Allies had captured it, took the photograph on the opposite page by the light of German flare. At least six hundred corpses, piled five or six deep, were lying in heaps in various parts of the long underground galleries; the French bombardment had choked the entrances and ventilation shafts in such a manner that almost the entire garrison were killed by suffocation

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This flashlight photograph of the tunnel under Mont Cornillet was taken by a Frenchman sent in to reconnoiter after its capture

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tlement at the end of the war will comprise a radical readjustment of affairs in that much-troubled corner of the continent. The ostensible pretext, tho not the actual cause, of the war was in that region, and there, too, must be felt its results.

The United States, altho so far removed from the scene of war and from interest in its issues, has been subjected to belligerent influences and considerations far more than in any preceding foreign war; more, even, than in that Napoleonic war of more than a century ago which led to our becoming involved in our second war with Great Britain. Our interest arose from a variety of causes the large number of our population of foreign origin and sympathies, the extensive purchase of supplies in this country by the belligerents, the widely different conceptions and interpretations of neutrality held by this country and by some of the belligerents, and above all, perhaps, the corresponding differences in regard for international law.

The United States has from the beginning insisted upon maintaining the same principles of neutrality which have consistently governed its course, and upon observance of the international rules of warfare which have hitherto been agreed to and respected by all nations. Some of the belligerents, on the contrary, have demanded a radical abandonment of some of our fundamental principles of neutrality, and have insisted upon arbitrarily changing the rules of warfare without our consent and to our great injury. The result is that the close of the year of war finds our relations with some European powers more seriously strained than they have ever been before without actual breakage.

MONEY COST OF THE FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR William Michaelis, of Berlin, an eminent German statistician, is quoted as estimating the present cost of the war to the chief belligerents as $42,250,000 a day, or at the rate of nearly $15,500,000,000 a year. Stupendous as these figures are, they are more probably under than over the truth. Mr. Asquith recently reported to Parliament that Great Britain alone was spending $15,000,000 a day. It has been credibly estimated that France and Russia are spending at least $12,000,000 a day each. Such figures, carried thru the list, would make the total cost something like twice the figures of Mr. Michaelis. The loans issued and subscribed by the chief belligerents down to the present date have been as follows:

Great Britain, two

loans

France, two loans. Russia, one loan....

$5,525,000,000 3,203,000,000 1,065,000,000

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The minor powers and neutrals have also made loans on account of the war. Belgium has borrowed $50,000,000 and Serbia $4,000,000 from Great Britain without interest until the end of the war. Rumania has borrowed $25,000,000 from the same source. Switzerland has raised $36,000,000 in three loans to improve her defenses against violation of her neutrality. The figures cited do not, of course, indicate the whole cost of the war, as other large expenses are met from increased taxation. It has recently been estimated by careful and competent authority that the first year of the war will have cost $25,000,000,000, or more than the sum of the public debts of all the nations concerned at the beginning of the war.

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The modern way of marching. Sending troops to the front is managed now without wearing out the men by tedious marches. Here's how the British do it on the western front

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Bayonets fixed, these English troops are lined up for inspection--and probably applause-just before leaving for the front

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An unusual photograph of actual fighting. This is one of the batteries of British heavy howitzers pounding away at the Hindenburg line

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The end of the second year of war found the boy-soldiers of the class of 1916 fighting in the French trenches

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