CLIMAX OF THE WAR.

Prolonged Battle of Verdun the Most Terrible in History— Enormous Losses on Both Sides—Submarine Activity Imperils Relations of America and Germany.

Beginning with the first infantry attack by the Germans on Monday, February 21, after twenty-four hours of continuous bombardment, the battles incident to the siege of Verdun were fought at brief intervals during the next two months, down to the middle of April, and marked the climax of the War. The losses on both sides were enormous and extraordinary, and taken as a whole the struggle on the semicircular front north and east of the great French stronghold fully justified its description as "the most terrible battle in the world's history."

When spring of 1916 arrived, the struggle seemed to be a pretty even draw, but the end was not in sight. Both sides showed the greatest confidence in the outcome. In France the confidence of the nation found expression in the voice of M. Alexandre Ribot, the veteran minister of finance, who, having Verdun before his eyes, told the Chamber of Deputies: "We have reached the decisive hour. We can say without exaggeration, without illusion, and without vain optimism, that we now see the end of this horrible war."

But while the French were certain that victory would ultimately be theirs, the German papers and people were just as fully persuaded that this finest of the fortresses of France would finally fall before the determined assaults of the Kaiser's army, which no fort had, as yet, stopped.

Both sides recognized that this was the supreme moment of the War. The Germans had gained by April 15 from three to five miles along a front of about 15 miles, but had taken only two of the ring of minor forts around Verdun. The French claimed that the configuration of the ground occupied by the contending forces at that time made their line impregnable. Although Verdun was said by the German military experts to be only an incident in the German offensive which was planned to secure the final "decision," they realized the importance of Verdun to their whole line on the Western front, and knew its value too well not to make the most desperate and exhaustive efforts for its conquest.

A TERRIFIC ARTILLERY DUEL.

For many weeks the battle for Verdun was signalized by the most terrific artillery fire in history. No words can tell of the ear-stunning roar of the guns, or depict the horror of the tons of steel daily crashing and splintering amid massed bodies of men, while the softly-falling snows of late winter covered, but could not conceal, the ensanguined landscape. Modern warfare was seen at Verdun in all its panoply of terror. Amid fire and fury, the rich and fertile countryside was transformed into a vast scene of ruin and desolation, while heroism and self-sacrifice abounded on both sides, men were maddened by the frenzy of the fight and the ghastly horrors of night and day, and Death stalked gloatingly and glutted, but never surfeited, over the bloody field.

The German attacks followed one another so fast and so furiously that the weeks of fighting became one prolonged battle, and a description of one attack will almost serve for all. Thus, a wounded French officer said of the seven days of continuous fighting which opened the German offensive against Verdun: "The first symptom of the battle favorable to the French was the inability of the Germans to silence the French artillery. The attack opened with strong reconnoitering parties advancing, wherein was noted an unusually large proportion of officers. For the first time the German officers were seen to be leading their men into battle, instead of driving them, as had been the rule—and this was said to be at the behest of the watching Kaiser. Then came the infantry in great numbers. During the next two days the fighting waxed fiercer and fiercer.

"At first fourteen German divisions were engaged, then sixteen, and finally seventeen divisions (340,000 men). The French command at this point carried out a maneuver which will be recorded as a masterpiece in military history.

"If the Germans had been only fifteen yards away, the French could have been submerged by the attack, providing the attacking forces were prepared to make any sacrifice, but the distance being 1,500 yards there was little chance for the Germans against the opposing artillery. The French troops were accordingly swung back to positions from which they could see the Germans approaching over exposed ground. The effect was that the immediate front of the attack, which was originally twenty-five miles in extent, was reduced to nine miles, but even this soon proved too wide. The German losses were so great that the attack could not be kept up at all points; and at the end of the seventh day the offensive dwindled to fragmentary attacks,—but only to be renewed with added vigor after a brief period of rest for the infantry on both sides, while the artillery kept up its daily and nightly duel without ceasing, until the entire terrain became an earthly inferno, thickly scattered over with the dead and the dying."

THE DEADLY MINE IN CAURES WOOD.

Frightful in result, too, was the tragic stratagem played on the Germans in Caures Wood, near the village of Beaumont. The whole wood had been mined by the French, and was connected electrically with a station in the village. When the Germans had advanced, fully a division strong, to attack the wood, the French regiment holding it ran, as if seized with panic, back toward the village. The Germans pursued them with shouts of victory. Soon the last Frenchman had emerged from the trees, but the French commander waited until the Germans were all in the mined area. They were just beginning to debouch on the other side when he pressed the button. There was a tremendous roar, drowning for a moment even the boom of the cannon. The wood was covered with a cloud of smoke, and even on the French trenches in Beaumont "there rained a ghastly dew." When the French re-entered the wood, unopposed, they found not a single German unwounded, and hardly a score alive.

GERMAN LOSSES AT VERDUN.

The German successes during the weeks of fighting in the vicinity of Verdun, consisting of a series of advances along the front, without any decisive result so far as the strength of the defense of the main fortress was concerned, were gained at the cost of enormous losses in killed and wounded. These losses were estimated on April 7 to have reached the huge total of 200,000—one of the greatest battle losses in the whole range of warfare. During the period from February 21, when the battle of Verdun began, to April 1, it was said that two German army corps had been withdrawn from the front, having lost in the first attacks at least one-third of their force. They subsequently reappeared and again suffered like losses, the German reinforcements being practically used up as fast as they were put in line.

Declarations gathered from prisoners and the observations of the French staff led the latter to estimate that at least one-third of the total number of men engaged were the minimum losses of the German infantry during the first forty days of the battle, or 150,000 men of the first fighting line alone.

Concerning the German losses before Verdun, Col. Feyler, a Swiss military expert, wrote on April 10 as follows: "It is certain that the first great attacks in February and March caused the German assailants very exceptional losses. The 18th army corps lost 17,000 men and the 3d corps lost 22,000. These are figures which in the history of wars will form a magnificent eulogy on the heroism of these troops. It will become a classic example, like that of the Prussian Guard at St. Privat, France, August 18, 1870. It is probable that before Verdun, as at St. Privat, the leaders underestimated the defenders' strength, especially in cannon and machine guns.

"There are other examples. In the unfruitful attack on Fort Vaux, the 7th reserve regiment was literally mowed down by machine guns, while the 60th regiment lost 60 per cent of its effectives. In the attack on the Malancourt and Avocourt woods, March 20, three regiments of the 11th Bavarian division, whose record in this war seems to have been particularly praiseworthy, lost about 50 per cent of their men."

LOSSES OF THE FRENCH.

While the greater bulk of the total losses in killed and wounded before Verdun was sustained by the Germans, however, it must not be imagined for an instant that the French defenders of the fortress escaped lightly. On the contrary, their losses were likewise enormous, being estimated by the German general staff at a total of not less than 110,000 from February 20 to April 1. A considerable number of French troops, officers and men, were also captured by the Germans during the numerous attacks in February, March and April upon the French trenches and other positions before Verdun.

A MILLION MEN ENGAGED.

Some idea of the tremendous forces engaged on both sides in what will probably be called in history "the Siege of Verdun," may be gained from the brief summary made on April 1 by an observer present with the army of the Crown Prince of Germany on the north front of the Verdun battlefield, from which point of vantage he telegraphed as follows:

"Probably not far from a million men are battling on both sides around Verdun. Never in the history of the world have such enormous masses of military been engaged in battle at one point.

"On the forty-mile semicircular firing-line around the French fortress, from the River Meuse above St. Mihiel to Avocourt, the Germans probably have several thousand guns, at least 2,500, in action or reserve. Were each gun fired only once an hour, there would be a shot every second.

"As probably half the guns are of middle and heavy caliber, the average weight per shell is certain to be more than twenty-five pounds. It follows that even in desultory firing about 160,000 pounds of iron, or from four to five carloads, are raining on the French positions every hour. And this is magnified many times when the fire is increased to the intensity which the artillerymen call 'drumming' the positions of the enemy.

"To the German guns must be added the tremendous amount of artillery used by the French in their defense, estimated to be almost as large now as that of the Germans. The conclusion is that more than 6,000 cannon, varying from 3-inch field guns to 42-centimeter (16-inch) siege mortars, are engaged in hurling thousands of high explosive shells hourly in the never-ceasing, thunderous artillery duels of the mighty battle of Verdun."

FROM A GERMAN OFFICER'S VIEWPOINT.

The stories told by those who, on the German side, lay in trenches under shell-fire before Verdun for days at a time and week after week, freezing, thirsting, in mud and water, between the dead and the dying, thrilled the hearer with their pathos and devotion. These were the men who, like the waves of the sea, beat almost incessantly against the obstinate fortifications of Verdun, and there learned a new respect for the French enemy. Such a story was written from the front in April by a German officer named Ross—a man of Scottish descent—who, before the war, was editor of a newspaper in Munich. In the Berlin Vossische Zeitung he said:

"It is a worthy, embittered foe against whom this last decisive struggle is aimed. France is fighting for her existence. She is no weaker than we are in men, guns, or munitions. Only one thing decides between us—will and nerves. Every doubting, belittling word is a creeping poison which kills joyful, strong hope and does more damage than a thousand foes. Only if we are convinced to our marrow that we shall win, shall we conquer.

"In this colossal combat, where numbers and mechanical weapons are so utterly alike, moral superiority is everything. We have more than once had the experience that the effective result of a battle has depended upon who considered himself the victor and acted accordingly. Often the merest remnant of will and nerves was the factor that influenced the decision.

"War, which only smoldered here and there during the endless trench fighting, like damp wood, burns here with such all-consuming fire that divisions have to be called up after days and hours in the trenches, and are ground to pieces and burned up into so many cinders and ashes.

"Such intensity of battle as is here before Verdun is unheard of. No picture, no comparison, can give the remotest conception of the concentration of guns and shells with which the two antagonists are raging against each other. I have seen troops who had held out in the fire for days and weeks, to whom in exposed positions food could hardly be brought, on whose bodies the clothes were not dry, who, yet reeking with dirt and dampness, had the nerve for new storming operations."

BATTLE OF CAILLETTE WOOD.

Among the fiercer struggles before Verdun, the battle of Caillette Wood, east of the fortress city, will have a place in history as one of the most bloody and thrilling.

The position of the wood, to the right of Douaumont, was important as part of the French line. It was carried by the Germans on Sunday morning, April 2, after a bombardment of twelve hours, which seemed to break even the record of Verdun for intensity. The French curtain of fire had checked their further advance, according to a special correspondent of the Chicago Herald, and a savage countercharge in the afternoon had gained for the defenders a corpse-strewn welter of splintered trees and shell-shattered ground that had been the southern corner of the wood. Further charges had broken against a massive barricade, the value of which as a defense paid good interest on the expenditure of German lives which its construction demanded. A wonderful work had been accomplished that Sunday morning in the livid, London-like fog and twilight produced by the lowering clouds and battle smoke.

FORMED A HUMAN CHAIN UNDER FIRE.

While the German assaulting columns in the van fought the French hand to hand, picked corps of workers behind them formed an amazing human chain from the woods to the east over the shoulder of the center of the Douaumont slope to the crossroads of a network of communicating trenches 600 yards in the rear.

Four deep was this human chain, and along its line nearly 3,000 men passed an unending stream of wooden billets, sandbags, chevaux-de-frise, steel shelters, and light mitrailleuses—in a word, all the material for defensive fortifications passed from hand to hand, like buckets at a country fire.

Despite the hurricane of French artillery fire, the German commander had adopted the only possible means of rapid transport over the shell-torn ground covered with debris, over which neither horse nor cart could go. Every moment counted. Unless barriers rose swiftly, the French counter-attacks, already massing, would sweep the assailants back into the wood.

Cover was disdained. The workers stood at full height, and the chain stretched openly across the hillocks, a fair target for the French gunners. The latter missed no chance. Again and again great holes were torn in the line by the bursting melinite, but as coolly as at maneuvers the iron-disciplined soldiers of Germany sprang forward from shelters to take the places of the fallen, and the work went on apace.

USE THE DEAD AS A SHELTER.

Gradually another line doubled the chain of the workers, as the upheaved corpses formed a continuous embankment, each additional dead man giving greater protection to his comrades, until the barrier began to form shape along the diameter of the wood. There others were digging and burying logs deep in the earth, installing shelters and mitrailleuses or feverishly building fortifications.

At last the work was ended at fearful cost; but as the vanguard sullenly withdrew behind it, from the whole length burst a havoc of flame upon the advancing Frenchmen. Vainly the latter dashed forward. They couldn't pass, and as the evening fell the barrier still held, covering the German working parties, burrowed like moles in the mass of trenches and boyeaux.

FRENCH PLAN TO BLAST BARRICADE.

So sound was the barricade, padded with sandbags and earth-works, that the artillery fire fell practically unavailing, and the French general realized that the barrier must be breached by explosives, as in Napoleon's battles.

It was 8 o'clock and already pitch dark in that blighted atmosphere when a special blasting corps, as devoted as the German chain workers, crept forward toward the German position. The rest of the French waited, sheltered in the ravine east of Douaumont, until an explosion should signal the assault.

In Indian file, to give the least possible sign of their presence to the hostile sentinels, the French blasters advanced in a long line, at first with comparative rapidity, only stiffening into the grotesque rigidity of simulated death when the searchlights played upon them, and resuming progress when the beam shifted. Then as they approached the barrier they moved slowly and more slowly. When they arrived within forty yards the movement of the crawling men became imperceptible.

The blasting corps lay at full length, like hundreds of other motionless forms about them, but all were working busily. With a short trowel, the file leader scuffled the earth from under his body, taking care not to raise his arms, and gradually making a shallow trench deep enough to hide him. The others followed his example until the whole line had sunk beneath the surface.

Then the leader began scooping his way forward, while his followers deepened the furrow already made. Thus literally inch by inch the files stole forward, sheltered in a narrow ditch from the gusts of German machine-gun fire that constantly swept the terrain. Here and there the sentinels' eyes caught a suspicious movement or an incautiously raised head sank down pierced by a bullet, but the stealthy, molelike advance continued. Hours passed. It was nearly dawn when the remnant of the blasting corps reached the barricade at last and hurriedly put their explosives in position. Back they wriggled breathlessly. An over-hasty movement meant death, yet they must hurry lest the imminent explosions overwhelm them.

Suddenly there was a roar that dwarfed the cannonade and all along the barrier fountains of fire rose skyward, hurling a rain of fragments upon what was left of the blasting party.

THREE OUT OF FOUR DIE.

The barricade was breached, but 75 per cent of the devoted corps had given their lives to do it.

As the survivors lay exhausted the attackers charged over them, cheering. In the melee that followed there was no room to shoot or wield the rifle. Some of the French fought with unfixed bayonets, like the stabbing swords of the Roman legions. Others had knives or clubs. All were battle-frenzied, as only Frenchmen can be.

The Germans broke, and as the first rays of dawn streaked the sky only a small section of the wood was still in their hands. There a similar barrier stopped progress, and it was evident that the night's work must be repeated; but the hearts of the French soldiers were leaping with victory as they dug furiously to consolidate the ground they had gained, strewn with German bodies, thick as leaves. Over 6,000 Germans were counted in a section a quarter of a mile square, and the conquerors saw why their cannonade had been so ineffective. The Germans had piled a second barrier of corpses close behind the first, so that the soft human flesh would act as a buffer to neutralize the force of the shells.

FRENCH DEFENSE TRULY HEROIC.

While all the German attacks upon the French lines in front of Verdun were marked with the utmost valor and intensity of devotion, the continuous defense made by the French under General Petain was equally vigorous and often truly heroic. Volunteers frequently remained in the French trenches from which the rest of the French defenders had been compelled to retire, to telephone information about the advancing enemy to the French batteries, and some of the heaviest losses of the Germans occurred when they believed themselves successful in an attack.

The consequences of such devotion on the part of French volunteers were exemplified early in the morning of April 12, at a point called Caurettes Woods, along the northeastern slopes of the hill known as Le Mort Homme (Dead Man's Hill), where a French withdrawal had been carried out. Volunteers remained behind to signal information to the French batteries, and an eyewitness of the attack described what followed thus:

"The French seventy-fives immediately concentrated on the hostile trench line. The Germans suffered heavily, but persevered, and soon dense columns appeared amid the shell-torn brushwood on the southern fringe of the Corbeaux Wood, pouring down into the valley separating them from the former French position on the hillside.

"Thinking the French still held the latter, the Germans deployed with their latest trench-storming device in the form of liquid fire containers, with special groups of four installed, two men working the pump and two directing the fire jet.

"The grayness of the dawn was illuminated by sheets of green and red flame and black oily clouds rolled along the valley toward the river like smoke from a burning 'gusher.'

"Suddenly the air was filled with shrill whistling, as shells of the seventy-fives were hurled against the attackers. Thanks to the devoted sentinels dying at their posts in the sea of fire, the range was exact, and the exploding melinite shattered the charging columns.

"An appalling scene followed. The shells had burst or overthrown the fire containers and the Germans were seen, running wildly amid the flames which overwhelmed hundreds of wounded and disabled.

FRENCH TROOPS CHARGE.

"In this scene of confusion the French charged with bayonet, despite the furnace heat and fumes produced by the red-hot containers flying in all directions. The enemy offered little resistance. It was like a slaughter of frenzied animals.

"The French mitrailleuse corps pressed close on their comrades' heels, placing weapons at vantage points that had escaped the fire and showering a leaden hail upon the main body of Germans retreating up Corbeaux Hill.

"Hundreds fought in a terror-stricken mob to hide in a hole that might have sheltered a score. Those beneath were stifled. Those above threw themselves screaming into the air as the bullets pierced them or fell dead in a wild dash toward a safer refuge. Flushed with success, the French charged again right to the entrance of the wood, and the slaughter recommenced.

"Five of the heroic sentinels, wonderful to say, returned with the French wave that ebbed when victory was won for that day."

CONDITIONS AT VERDUN ON APRIL 20.

Several determined attacks were delivered by the Germans on the French lines at Verdun between April 15 and 20, enormous masses of men, sometimes as many as 100,000, being hurled against points in the northeast sector of the battle front. But the French defense held firm, although some trenches were lost and a considerable number of French prisoners were taken. Up to this time the total number of prisoners taken by the Germans at Verdun, from the beginning of the offensive, February 21, was claimed to be 711 officers and 38,155 men.

Such were the conditions before Verdun on April 20, when, with spring well under way on the Western battle fronts, there was daily expectation of a vigorous drive by the Allies against the German lines between Verdun and the sea. While both sides expressed confidence in the outcome of the war, no man could foretell with any degree of certainty what the final result of the great struggle would be.

ZEPPELIN RAIDS ON ENGLAND.

During the month of March and early in April a number of Zeppelin raids upon various parts of England did more or less damage, though none of an important military character. The east coast of Scotland also suffered from a Zeppelin visit in April.

Reports and figures issued by the British War Office showed that during the fifteen months from Christmas, 1914, to April 1, 1916, no fewer than thirty-four separate aerial raids occurred in Great Britain, including those of aeroplanes and Zeppelins. The total casualties suffered, mainly by civilians, men, women, and children, were 303 killed and 713 injured. This record of results is interesting when it is remembered what they must have cost the Germans in money and men, in view of the comparatively small amount of damage that seems to have been done. Germany, however, insisted that her air raids had done more substantial harm to England than the War Office would admit.

RUSSIAN ACTIVITIES IN THE EAST.

With the approach of spring in 1916, new activities began on the Eastern front, and the Russians threatened a vigorous attack on the German lines in the north "after the thaw." By the middle of the summer the Russians expected, according to semi-official reports, to have twelve million men armed, drilled, and equipped for battle.

On April 1 the Berlin government declared that in the Russian offensive on the Eastern front, against Field Marshal von Hindenburg, which lasted from March 18 to March 30, the losses to the Russians were 140,000 out of the 500,000 men engaged. This campaign was carried on mostly in the frozen terrain of the Dvinsk marshes, and along the Dvina River, and the German losses were also heavy, although the Russian attacks were as a rule repulsed.

FALL OF TREBIZOND.

In Asia Minor, however, Russian successes of the winter were crowned in the early spring by the fall of the Baltic seaport of Trebizond, which was occupied on April 18. This city, the most important Turkish port on the Black Sea, was captured by the Russian army advancing from Erzerum. Aided by the Russian Black Sea fleet, the invaders pushed past the last series of natural obstacles along the Anatolian coast when, on Sunday, April 16, they occupied a strongly fortified Turkish position on the left bank of the Kara Dere River, twelve miles outside the fortified town. The official Russian report said:

"Our valiant troops, after a sanguinary battle on the Kara Dere River, pressed the Turks without respite, and surmounted incredible obstacles, everywhere breaking the fierce resistance of the enemy. The well-combined action of the fleet permitted the execution of most hazardous landing operations, and lent the support of its artillery to the troops operating in the coastal region.

"Credit for this fresh victory also is partly due the assistance given our Caucasian army by the troops operating in other directions in Asia Minor. By their desperate fighting and heroic exploits, they did everything in their power to facilitate the task of the detachments on the coast."

GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES.

The long-continued controversy between the United States and Germany over the methods and results of German submarine warfare came to a climax with the torpedoing of the British channel steamer Sussex, on March 24, 1916, in pursuance of the new German policy of attacking merchant vessels without warning. There was no pretense that the Sussex was an "armed merchantman," and no warning was given the passengers and crew, the former including a number of Americans on their way from Folkestone to the French port of Dieppe. The ship, though badly damaged, made port with assistance, but the loss of life from the explosion and drowning amounted to fifty, and several American passengers were injured. Germany disclaimed responsibility for the disaster, but the weight of evidence pointed to a German submarine as the cause, and in view of the repeated violations of German promises to the United States to give due warning to passenger vessels and insure safety to their occupants, President Wilson and his advisers, in April, seriously considered the advisability of breaking off diplomatic relations with the German Empire, by way of a protest in the name of humanity. On April 18 the President decided to lay the whole matter before Congress.

The record of German submarine attacks involving death or injury to American citizens up to this time included the sinking or damaging of the following vessels: British steamer Falaba, 160 lives lost, including one American; American steamer Gulflight, three Americans lost; British steamship Lusitania, 1,134 lives lost, including 115 Americans; American steamer Leelanaw, sunk; liner Arabic sunk, two Americans killed; liner Hesperian sunk mysteriously, three days after Germany had promised to sink no more liners; Italian liner Ancona sunk (by Austrian submarine), with loss of American lives; Japanese liner Yanaka Maru sunk in Mediterranean; British liner Persia sunk, United States Consul McNeely killed; steamer Sussex attacked, several Americans seriously injured; British steamers Manchester Engineer, Eagle Point and Berwyn Dale attacked, endangering American members of crews.

A FINAL NOTE TO GERMANY.

On Wednesday, April 19, President Wilson appeared before Congress, assembled in joint session for the purpose of hearing him, and announced that he had addressed a final note of warning to Germany, giving the Imperial German Government irrevocable notice that the United States would break off diplomatic relations if the illegal and inhuman submarine campaign was continued. The language used by the President, after recounting the course of events leading to his action, was as follows:

"I have deemed it my duty, therefore, to say to the Imperial German Government that if it is still its purpose to prosecute relentless and indiscriminate warfare against vessels of commerce by the use of submarines, the government of the United States is at least forced to the conclusion that there is but one course it can pursue; and that unless the Imperial German Government should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present method of warfare against passenger and freight-carrying vessels this government can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the government of the German Empire altogether."

THE GERMAN WAR CLOUD PASSES.

Germany replied to the President's note on May 4, denying the implication of intentional destruction of vessels regardless of their nature or nationality, and declaring that in future no merchant vessels should be sunk without warning or without saving human lives, "unless the ships attempt to escape or offer resistance."

On May 8, President Wilson dispatched a reply to Germany's note, accepting the German promises as to the future conduct of submarine warfare, but refusing to regard them as contingent on any action between the United States and any other country. Germany later admitted that a German submarine sank the Sussex, and promised that the commander would be punished and indemnities paid to the families of those who perished.

This was regarded at Washington as practically closing the submarine controversy, and the German war-cloud, which had assumed serious proportions, gradually passed away. ABORTIVE REVOLT IN IRELAND.

An attempt at rebellion by Irish extremists, accompanied by bloody riots in Dublin and other cities in the south and west of Ireland, followed the sinking on April 21 of a German vessel which, convoyed by a submarine, endeavored to land arms and ammunition on the Irish coast. Sir Roger Casement, an anti-British Irishman of considerable note, who had been resident in Germany for some months, was taken prisoner upon landing from the submarine.

For several days, beginning April 25, the rebels, who formed an inconsiderable part of the Irish people and were strongly condemned by the Nationalist leaders and party, held possession of streets and public buildings in Dublin. Incendiary fires did damage estimated at over $100,000,000, many peaceable citizens were killed, and the casualties among British troops and constabulary amounted to 521, including killed, before the uprising was quelled and the "Irish Republic" overthrown, with the unconditional surrender of its deluded leaders, on April 30. Next day the remnants of the Sinn Fein rebels in Ireland surrendered, making over 1,000 prisoners, who were transported to English prisons. Military law had been proclaimed throughout Ireland and nearly a score of the leaders of the revolt, who were accused of murder, were tried by court-martial and summarily executed. The revolt was alleged to have been encouraged in Germany and also by Irish extremists in the United States, by whom the rebel leaders executed in Ireland were regarded as "martyrs."

BRITISH SURRENDER AT KUT-EL AMARA.

After holding out against the Turks at Kut-el-Amara, in Mesopotamia, for 143 days, General Townshend, the British commander, was compelled, through exhaustion of his supplies, to surrender his force of 9,000 officers and men, on April 28. This force included about 2,000 English and 7,000 Indian troops, many being on the sick list. The Turks recognized the gallantry of the defense and refused to accept General Townshend's sword. Many of the sick and wounded were exchanged, and it was planned to imprison the rest of the British force on an island in the Sea of Marmora.

ATTACKS ON VERDUN CONTINUE.

German attacks on the French lines at Verdun continued with the utmost vigor up to June 10. From time to time they resulted in small successes, gained at immense cost in human life. From May 27 to May 30 the battle raged with especial severity, this period marking the greatest effort made by the Germans during the whole of the prolonged operations at Verdun. The French stood firm under an avalanche of shot and shell, and drove back wave after wave of a tremendous flood of Teutonic infantry. The infantry fighting in this struggle was described as the fiercest of the war.

The total German casualties up to June 1 were estimated at nearly 3,000,000; the French at 2,500,000, and the British at 600,000, over 25,000 of the latter being commissioned officers.

General Joseph S. Gallieni, former minister of war of France, died at Versailles on May 27, universally mourned by the French, who regarded him as the saviour of Paris in the critical days of August-September, 1914, when he was military governor of Paris and commander of the intrenched camp.