 
CURRENT HISTORY CHRONICLED[Period Ended May 19, 1918.] Summary of War ActivitiesFour weeks of comparative calm on the western front intervened after the furious fighting that had continued throughout the preceding month. The Germans made several desperate efforts to smash their way through the British lines to the channel ports, but they failed. The British and French lines stood firm as granite, and the enemy suffered frightful losses. The battle lines remained practically unchanged. From the English Channel to the Adriatic there was complete union of the British, French, American, and Italian forces under a single command; these forces, including reserves, were estimated at 6,000,000 men. No military event of importance occurred on the other fronts, though the British made some further advances in Palestine and Mesopotamia. In political matters the month brought events of more importance, chief of which was the renewal of an alliance between Germany and Austria; this was accomplished at a meeting of the Emperors. The acceleration of troop movements from the United States to France was a feature of the month, the estimate for the four weeks running as high as 150,000; it was semi-officially stated that in April, 1918, more than 500,000 American soldiers were in France, and that by Jan. 1, 1919, there would be 1,500,000 of our fighting men at the front, with 500,000 more at transportation, supply, and civil work; the speeding up of shipbuilding and other war work was significant. The Third Liberty Loan aggregated more than $4,000,000,000, with 17,000,000 subscribers, proving a brilliant success. The President by proclamation extended enemy alien restrictions to women also. A bill was passed enabling the President to consolidate and co-ordinate executive bureaus, thus giving him extraordinary executive powers. The sedition law was strengthened. A new commercial agreement was made with Norway. In Great Britain the chief event was the triumph of the Premier over a military group that tried to overthrow his Ministry. There was a recrudescence of the spirit of rebellion in Ireland. In France the conviction of the Bonnet Rouge editors on a charge of treason deepened confidence in the stability of the Government. The German penetration of Russia continued, and all the evidence indicated that the country was coming under Teutonic control, economically, industrially, and financially. The humiliating peace forced on Rumania was ratified, and the country passed practically under German and Austrian domination. The month's record of enemy U-boat losses strengthened faith that this menace was being eliminated and that new allied tonnage would exceed losses in increasing ratio from May 1, 1918. The chief naval event was the daring British raid on the German submarine bases at Zeebrugge and Ostend; the channel at the first named port was blocked, and the harbor entrance at Ostend, by means of a second raid, was partially blocked, resulting in a serious hampering of submarine operations. The Italians penetrated Pola Harbor, May 14, with a small torpedo boat and sank a 20,000-ton Austrian dreadnought. Sinn Fein Plot FrustratedDuring the night of May 18 the British authorities in Ireland suddenly arrested at their homes about 500 of the leading Sinn Feiners on the charge of having treasonable communication with the German enemy. Among those arrested were the Sinn Fein members of Parliament, also the conspicuous Irish agitators and irreconcilables, both men and women. A proclamation was issued by the Lord Lieutenant declaring that a conspiracy with Germany had been discovered, calling upon all loyal Irishmen to assist in suppressing it, and urging voluntary enlistments. It was believed that this prompt action had prevented a Foch's Army Comprises All Races of EarthIt seems certain that never in the world's history were so many different races, peoples, and tongues united under the command of a single man as are now gathered together in the army of Generalissimo Foch. If we divide the human races into White, Yellow, Red, and Black, all four are largely represented. Among the white races there are Frenchmen, Italians, Portuguese, English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Canadians, Australians, South Africans, (of both British and Dutch descent,) New Zealanders; in the American Army, probably every other European nation is represented, with additional contingents from those already named, so that every branch of the white race figures in the ethnological total. There are representatives of many Asiatic races, including not only the volunteers from the native States of India, but elements from the French colony in Cochin China, with Annam, Cambodia, Tonkin, Laos, and Kwang Chau Wan. England and France both contribute many African tribes, including Arabs from Algeria and Tunis, Senegalese, Saharans, and many of the South African races. The red races of North America are represented in the armies of both Canada and the United States, while the Maoris, Samoans, and other Polynesian races are likewise represented. And as, in the American Army, there are men of German, Austrian, and Hungarian descent, and, in all probability, contingents also of Bulgarian and Turkish blood, it may be said that Foch commands an army representing the whole human race, united in defense of the ideals of the Allies. The presence, among Foch's strategic reserves, of 250,000 Italian soldiers is peculiarly interesting, as no Italian force at all comparable to this in numbers seems ever to have operated on French soil, though French armies have again and again fought in Italy. During the early wars of Napoleon this was the case, and again in 1859, when the battles of Magenta and Solferino gave names to two new shades of red. In 1870 also there were French troops in Rome; their withdrawal, in the Summer of that year, opened the way for the final union of Italy. Meeting of the German and Austrian EmperorsThe German and Austrian Emperors held a consultation at German Great Headquarters on May 12 to discuss future relations between the two empires. Emperor Karl was accompanied by Foreign Minister Burian, Field Marshal von Arz, Chief of the General Staff, and Prince Hohenlohe, Austrian Ambassador at Berlin. Germany was represented by Imperial Chancellor von Hertling, Field Marshal von Hindenburg, General Ludendorff, Foreign Secretary von Kuehlmann, and Count von Wedel, Ambassador at Vienna. According to an official statement issued in Berlin, all the fundamental political, economic, and military questions affecting present and future relations were thoroughly discussed, and "there was complete accord on all these questions, tending to deepen the existing alliance." In many quarters the impression prevailed that the result of the meeting was to define and recognize formally the subservient relations of Austria-Hungary toward the German Empire. The State Department at Washington made public a report based upon indications given by the Berlin newspapers that the agreement made at the meeting concerned three points:
A solution of the Polish question was also arrived at, according to a newspaper statement published in Berlin, on the lines of complete union between Austria-Hungary and Poland. Another message said that the German and Austrian Emperors One of the most interesting subsequent revelations was that King Ludwig of Bavaria and King Frederick August of Saxony were also present at the meeting at German Great Headquarters. Some of the reports represented these two monarchs as having been present uninvited. The Prince Sixtus LetterArthur J. Balfour, British Secretary of Foreign Affairs, replying to inquiries in the House of Commons, May 16, stated that Emperor Karl's peace letter to Prince Sixtus, which had been received while Mr. Balfour was in America, was a private letter written by Emperor Charles to a relative (Prince Sixtus of Bourbon) and conveyed by him to President PoincarÉ and the French Premier under seal of the strictest secrecy, but with no permission to communicate it to any one except the Sovereign and Premier of this country, [Great Britain.] The letter was communicated to the French and English Premiers under these pledges. He stated that he had no secrets from President Wilson, and added: "Every thought I have on the war or on the diplomacy connected with the war is as open to President Wilson as to any other human being." He declared that he regarded the Sixtus letter as not a peace effort, but a manoeuvre to divide the Allies. He declared that they were not fighting for "a bigger Alsace-Lorraine than in 1870," and added:
Lord Robert Cecil, Minister of Blockade, in the same debate, after indorsing the preceding statement of Mr. Balfour, added this reference to Russia:
Lord Robert denied that Great Britain had any quarrel with the Bolsheviki over their domestic policy, saying:
Attacks on Hospital ShipsThe British Admiralty issued an official announcement on May 1, stating that it was considered proved conclusively that the British hospital ship Guildford Castle was attacked by a German submarine in the Bristol Channel, March 10, and narrowly escaped destruction. At the time the Guildford Castle was carrying 438 wounded soldiers and flying a Red Cross flag of the largest size with distinguishing marks distinctly illuminated. The attack occurred at 5:35 P. M., in clear weather. Two torpedoes were fired. In evidence of attacks on hospital ships the British Admiralty quotes the following extracts from the German official message, sent through the German wireless stations on April 24, 1918:
Two More Latin-American Republics Aligned Against GermanyOn April 22, 1918, the National Assembly of Guatemala declared that that republic occupied the same position toward the European belligerents as did the United States. Guatemala had broken off diplomatic relations with Germany in April, 1917. On May 7 Nicaragua declared war against Germany and her allies. The declaration was in the form of a recommendation of President Chamorro, which the Nicaraguan Congress adopted with only four dissenting votes. A further declaration was adopted of solidarity with the United States and the other American republics at war with France's Second Treason Trial.Duval, who was director of the suppressed Germanophile newspaper, Bonnet Rouge, was condemned to death May 15 by court-martial for treason, and six other defendants were sentenced to imprisonment: Marion, assistant manager, for ten years; Landau, a reporter, eight years; Goldsky, a reporter, eight years; Joucla, a reporter, five years; Vercasson, two years and $1,000 fine; Leymarie, former director of the Ministry of the Interior, two years' imprisonment and $200 fine. The Bonnet Rouge was an evening paper of decided pacifist tendency, which lost no occasion of belittling the military and political leaders and policy, not only of France, but also of England. The attention of the Government was drawn to it early in 1917, and its editor, Almeyreda, and its manager, Duval, were under lock and key by August, 1917. The police investigations showed that the Bonnet Rouge was to a great extent dependent for its capital upon men whose ardor in the allied cause had not been notable, and revealed the astonishing fact that M. Malvy, as Minister of the Interior, had thought fit to subsidize the paper to the extent of $1,200 a month and to encourage it in other ways. It also became known to the public that Almeyreda before the war had been in the closest contact with M. Caillaux and that he had received from that politician, at the moment when Mme. Caillaux was being tried for the murder of M. Calmette, the editor of the Figaro, the sum of $8,000. Duval, whose journeys to Switzerland had aroused the misgivings of the Government, was detained at the French frontier station, searched, and found to be in possession of a check for $32,800 drawn to the order of a Mannheim banking firm, the business relations of which will appear in subsequent trials. This check was photographed and was handed back to Duval by some one of the French military or civil secret service officials. Almeyreda had hardly reached prison when he fell seriously ill and was removed to the infirmary prison at Fresnes. There he died. The official doctors first of all declared that he had been strangled, and then gave it as their opinion that he had committed suicide. Louis J. Malvy, who was at the time Under Secretary of the Interior, and was Minister of the Interior under Ribot, will be tried by a parliamentary court on the charge of having been in personal relations with Duval and of having delivered to the Germans the scheme of the abruptly ended French offensive in the Champagne in April, 1917. The City of Amiens.Amiens, the old capital city of Picardy, goes far back into the military history of Europe. Probably deriving its name from the Belgic tribe of Ambiani, it was the centre of Julius Caesar's campaigns against those warlike tribes. Several Roman Emperors had military headquarters there, and it early gained importance as a bishopric. Evrard de Fouilloy, the forty-fifth Bishop, began the great Gothic cathedral of Amiens, one of the finest in the world, in the year 1220, the plans being made by RenÉ de Luzarches, while the work was completed by Thomas de Cormont and his son Renault in the year 1288, though the two great towers were not finished until a century later. Because it is intersected by eleven canals Louis XI. called Amiens "the little Venice." Only second to the great cathedral in fame is the HÔtel de Ville, built between 1660 and 1760, in which, on May 25, 1802, was signed the famous treaty of Amiens, Napoleon's brother, Joseph Bonaparte, being plenipotentiary for France. The parties to the Peace of Amiens were France, England, Holland, and Spain. To Holland were restored the Cape of Good Hope, Guiana, and other colonies; France received Martinique and Guadeloupe; Spain received Minorca; Malta went to the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, while Egypt was restored to Turkey. England was secured in the control of India, and received Ceylon, (which had been first Portuguese and later Dutch,) and the island of Trinidad. But many of these dispositions were greatly modified thirteen years later, at the close of the Napoleonic wars. In Amiens there is a famous Napoleonic Museum, which has many fine paintings by Puvis de Chavannes, including "War," "Peace," "Work," and "Rest." When, on Nov. 28, 1876, Amiens was captured by the army of the Prussians all religious monuments, including the cathedral, were scrupulously guarded against any possible damage, and the rights of private property were respected. Another of the titles of Amiens to fame is the fact that Peter the Hermit, leader of the First Crusade, was born there in 1050. The Rumanian NationOf the Emperor Hadrian's colony of Roman veterans at the mouth of the Danube there remain many architectural monuments, including parts of two fine bridges across the great river, a largely Latin in substance, and the name Romania. The Roman colony spread through the Carpathians along the Roman road into Transylvania. It was in part submerged by Hun and Magyar waves of invasion, and the western part of the Rumanian people, west of the Carpathians, is still under Magyar rule, while a small number of Rumanians inhabit the Austrian crownland of Bukowina, once Rumanian soil. The Turks, following in the track of the Huns and Magyars, once more swept over Rumania and on toward Vienna and Russia, completely submerging the Balkan Peninsula, with the exception of the Black Mountain, Montenegro, held by Serbs. In the nineteenth century the Balkan nations began to extricate themselves: Greece, with the aid of France, England, and Russia; Serbia, with the aid of Russia; and the two principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, which were later to become Rumania. In the wars of Catherine the Great and Suvoroff, which Byron has embodied in his comedy epic, making Don Juan take part in the siege of Ismail, Russia took from Turkey the Province of Bessarabia, named from an old Rumanian princely house and largely populated by Rumanians. The western half of Bessarabia was taken back from Russia and restored to Turkey after the Crimean War, immediately after which, in 1861, the two principalities were united in the single principality of Rumania, under Colonel Cuza, a Rumanian, as Hospodar, or Lord, Turkish suzerainty being acknowledged. In this way the strip of Bessarabia which had been Russian for half a century became not Turkish, but Rumanian. When Russia declared war against Turkey in 1877 she announced to Rumania that she sought the restoration of her strip of Bessarabian land; and, knowing this, Rumania became Russia's ally in the war against Turkey, with Prince Carol as commander of her forces, he being of the Roman Catholic branch of the Hohenzollerns. In 1881 he took the title of King, to which his nephew Ferdinand succeeded in 1914. The Hetman of the UkraineWriting in 1818, Byron described Mazeppa as "the Ukraine Hetman, calm and bold," and it is to the period of Mazeppa and even earlier that this title and office goes back. The word Hetman is of uncertain origin, but is probably derived from the Bohemian Heitman, a modification of Hauptmann or Headman. When the Ukraine, the "borderland," was under Polish suzerainty, in the period from 1592 to 1654, the epoch of "Fire and Sword," "Pan Michael," and "The Deluge," the Hetman After the acceptance of Russian suzerainty by the Ukraine under the great Hetman, Khmelnitski, in 1654, the title and authority of the Hetman were at first continued, but his power and privileges were gradually curtailed and finally abolished. It is not certain whether the word Ataman is a modification of Hetman or a Tartar title; at any rate, we find the title, "Ataman of all the Cossacks," coming into use as an appanage of the Czarevitch, or heir apparent of Russia, somewhat as the title of Prince of Wales is an appanage of the heir apparent of England. The Czarevitch was represented by Hetmans by delegation, for each division of the Cossacks, these divisions being military colonies westward as far as the Caspian, like that described by Tolstoy in his novel, "The Cossacks." Writing in 1799, W. Tooke, in his "View of the Russian Empire," described the insignia of the Hetman as being the truncheon, the national standard, the horsetail, kettledrums and signet, a group of emblems strongly suggesting Tartar influence; the dress of the Cossacks was, likewise, borrowed from that of the Caucasus Mohammedan tribes, and in this Caucasian dress the new Hetman of the Ukraine, Skoropadski, took office at Kiev. His name indicates that he is not a Ruthenian, (Little Russian,) but a Pole. It has been a consistent element of Austrian policy to favor the Poles at the expense of the Ruthenians, with the result that many Poles are strongly pro-Austrian, and hold high office under the Austrian crown. Precedents for a Separate Ulster.When the Dominion of Canada was formed by the British North America act of 1867, it included only four provinces, Upper and Lower Canada, (Ontario and Quebec,) Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Provision was made in the act for the voluntary admission of Prince Edward's Island, the Northwest Territories and Newfoundland into the Dominion. While the Northwest Territories took advantage of this provision, and are now organized as the Provinces of Manitoba, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Yukon and the Northwest Territories, Newfoundland, with Labrador, the latter 120,000 square miles in area, preferred to remain outside the Dominion of Canada, and has a wholly distinct Constitution and administration, as independent of Canada as is that, for example, of British Guiana. Compulsion was never suggested to bring Newfoundland and Labrador within the Dominion of Canada, though Labrador is geographically a part of the Canadian mainland. In Australia likewise the union of the colonies was entirely voluntary. Five of these, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, and Tasmania, by legislative enactments, approved by the direct vote of the electors, declared their desire for a federal union, and the Imperial Parliament gave effect to this by the act of July 9, 1900. This act provided for the inclusion of Western Australia in the Australian Commonwealth, if that colony so desired; and Western Australia shortly expressed and carried out that desire. The population of Ulster in 1911 was 1,581,696, (that of Belfast being 386,947;) the population of Newfoundland with Labrador in 1914 was 251,726; the population of Western Australia when it exercised the option of inclusion in the Commonwealth of Australia was 184,114; it has since nearly doubled. A similar case of separate treatment, this time within the United States, is that of West Virginia, which, in 1862, determined to remain within the Union when the rest of Virginia seceded. West Virginia became a State on Dec. 31, 1862, and was not re-integrated in the Old Dominion at the close of the civil war. Court-Martial in Italy.Four principal Directors of the Genoese Electrical Power Company, named KÖnigsheim, Ampt, Martelli, and Hess, early in April were sentenced to death by court-martial at Milan by being "shot in the spine," and a decoy girl American Trade Pact with Norway.The signing of a general commercial agreement between the United States and Norway--the first agreement of the kind to be entered into by America with one of the North European neutrals--was announced by the War Trade Board on May 3, 1918. It was signed by Vance McCormick, Chairman of the War Trade Board, and Dr. Fridtjof Nansen, the famous explorer, who was sent to the United States at the head of a special mission. Under the agreement Norway is assured of supplies to cover her estimated needs so far as they can be furnished without detriment to the war needs of the United States and its allies, and Norway, on her part, agrees to permit the exportation to America and its allies of all Norwegian products not needed for home consumption. It is provided that none of the supplies imported from the United States or its allies or forwarded with the aid of American bunker coal shall go directly or indirectly to the Central Powers or be used to replace commodities exported to those countries. This applies to anything produced by any auxiliaries to production obtained under the agreement. In consequence of the agreement the War Trade Board announced on May 9 that exports to Norway were about to be resumed. Another result of the improved relations between the two countries was the chartering by the United States Shipping Board of 400,000 tons of Norwegian sailing ships, to be put in non-hazardous trades, thereby releasing other ships for traffic in the danger zones. This was one of the most substantial increases which the American-controlled merchant fleet has received since its inception. British Shipping LossesIn the May issue of the Fortnightly Review of London appears the following analysis of the gains and losses of the British merchant navy since the outbreak of the war:
During the first three months of 1918 the net losses were 367,296 tons; 320,280 tons were built and 687,576 were lost, bringing the adverse balance on April 1, 1918, to 3,635,233 tons. Great Britain's War ExpensesThe British Government has issued a White Paper estimating the cost of the war for Great Britain in the year Hatred Between Italians and AustriansThe implacable hatred which has developed between Italians and Austrians is illustrated by the following Italian communiquÉ, issued in Rome on Feb. 11, in reply to the Austrian Supreme Command's denial that the Austro-Germans were first to bombard cities from airplanes. It points out that the Austro-Germans first bombarded Udine, Treviso, Padua, Verona, Venice, Ravenna, &c., massacring defenseless and innocent populations and ruining valuable art treasures, and adds:
The Origin of the IrishPerhaps some light may be shed on the internal divisions which make the solution of the Irish question so nearly impossible by a realization of the fact that the population of Ireland consists of an unassimilated congeries of races, every element of which except one represents foreign invasion and conquest. The earliest race, short, round-headed, dark, appears to be akin to the Ligurian race of the Mediterranean; this race hunted the huge Irish elks with flint arrows and axes, and may claim to be the real indigenous stock, still surviving in the west. The second race, tall, dark, long-headed, was akin to the Iberians (Basques) of Spain, who also invaded Western France, and who probably built the cromlechs and stone circles, since these are also found in Iberian Spain and Western France, as at Carnac in Brittany. The third race, tall, golden-haired, blue-eyed, came from the Baltic, bringing amber beads, and building chambered pyramids, such as are also found in Denmark. The fourth race to arrive included the Gaels, tall, round-headed, with red hair and gray eyes; they came from Central Europe, probably by way of France. Each new arrival was followed by wars of conquest, the Gaels finally making themselves predominant, but not exterminating the older races, examples of whom may still be found, with unchanged race characteristics. In 1169 Norman French and Welsh came, as mercenaries in the army of the King of Leinster. The Burkes are descended from the Normans, the Fitzgeralds from the Welsh. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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