Consonants (part 2)

On 20th Oct. Mackensen attacked on the whole line in the Dobrudja, and five days later he was on the vital Cernavoda Bridge. Constanza, the Roumanian Black Sea port, had fallen, and so far from ever being in a position to take Turkey or Bulgaria in the flank, the Roumanians were now themselves on the verge of being outflanked on the Danube. Meanwhile, on the other arm of the nut-crackers, von Falkenhayn, despite trifling set-backs, was pressing on. The Törzburg Pass (21st Oct.), Predeal Pass (23rd Oct.), Vulkan Pass (25th Oct.), Roter Turm Pass (31st Oct.) were all scenes of Roumanian reverses, and by 15th Nov. the bulletins were bringing the daily news that the Roumanian retreat continued. On 23rd Nov. Falkenhayn was advancing on Bucharest; Mackensen had crossed the Danube at Islatz and Simnitza; and farther west Orsova and Turnu-Severin had fallen. All the German composite forces could now be deployed in Roumania, and the end followed swiftly. Mackensen and Falkenhayn were in touch on 26th Nov.; Campolung was captured 29th Nov.; Bucharest, Ploeshti, and Sinaia fell on 6th Dec.; and with them went the Roumanian oil-fields, the wells of which had, however, been very thoroughly damaged by Captain Norton Griffiths and a small British party in order to prevent their use by the Germans. (They were restored in some eight months.)

On 8th Dec. the Germans estimated their Roumanian captures as 70,000 men and 184 guns; and it is true that only a portion, though a considerable one, of the Roumanian armies was able to effect a retreat with the Russians to the line of the Sereth defences. Fighting went on till the end of the year, and was continued into 1917 until the Roumanians were forced to sign the Treaty of Bucharest—revoked by the Allies at the end of the war.

Roumania's fate, following the tragedy of Serbia and the Allies' withdrawal from Gallipoli, strengthened the Greek military party round King Constantine, which was now openly pro-German. Against these influences M. Venizelos proved powerless, though Greek volunteers were at the same time joining the Venizelos party, and ready to fight with the Allies. This division of opinion in Greece was illustrated in the middle of August (1916), when two divisions of the 4th Greek Army Corps surrendered to the Bulgarians, who had advanced to the Greek port of Kavalla, while the 3rd Division of the same corps joined the Allies at Salonika. The pro-Germans had carried all before them at the last Greek elections (Dec., 1915), when the Venizelists declined to poll; and the danger of finding themselves suddenly attacked in the rear discouraged an Allied offensive against the Bulgarians until the autumn of 1916, when the newly equipped Serbian army arrived from Corfu, ready and eager to fight its way home, joining the force under General Sarrail, which already included Russian, Italian, and Portuguese contingents, besides French and British. Following pro-German riots against the Allied embassies in Athens, too, a 'pacific blockade' of the Greek coast had been enforced, and a firm Note presented to the Greek Government demanding the demobilization of the Greek army and a new general election, to be freely conducted. When these demands had been accepted and a new Government formed—though the king's pro-German sympathies remained as marked as ever—General Sarrail resumed, in September, the offensive against the Bulgarians. The main advance was undertaken by the French and Serbian divisions, with a Russian contingent, in the direction of Monastir, General Milne's British column meantime pushing the Bulgarians back from the Struma line. Two months' fighting saw the Serbians, who had borne the brunt of the attack at this point, marching back into Monastir in triumph, having turned the Bulgar-German forces out of it on 18th-19th Nov. The British, at the same time, kept the enemy busy at the other end of the line, occupying a number of villages, and pushing the Bulgarians back beyond the railway between Seres and Demir-Hissar. With their heavy commitments elsewhere the Allies were for the time being unwilling to extend their military operations beyond Monastir.

Italian Campaign, 1916

Italy, who for political as well as military reasons had declined further assistance in the Balkans, had her share of hard fighting within her own frontiers in 1916. Before she could resume her advance on Gorizia and Trieste (held up in the early winter of 1915) the Austrians attacked in turn from the Trentino under General Conrad von Hoetzendorff, who, planning a drive on the Mackensen scale, aimed a blow at the tempting Venetian plains. The grand attack, supported by upwards of 2000 heavy guns on a 30-mile front between Val Sugana and Val Lagarina, and delivered on 14th May by some 350,000 first-class troops, smashed a way through in the centre. Though the flanks held firmly, and the Italians, roused to fury by the invasion, fought magnificently among the mountain heights, General Cadorna ordered the line to be withdrawn from its untenable positions until it was south of Asiago. Pressing their advantage with every means at their disposal, the Austrians announced in an Army Order on 1st June that only one mountain intervened between their troops and the Venetian plains. Cadorna, however, had now been reinforced, and two days later was able to reply that the Austrian offensive had been checked. For the rest of the month he was content, in this sector, to sustain the continued but unavailing assaults of the enemy, while he prepared his own great counter-attack on the Isonzo front, with Gorizia, the gateway to the plateau of the Carso which led to Trieste, as his immediate objective. This dramatic move, heralded by an intense bombardment on 6th Aug., was entrusted to the Duke of Aosta, whose Third Army, after three days' fighting of the fiercest description, carried the last heights defending the town and entered Gorizia in triumph. Following the retreating enemy across the Carso, the Italians, whose enthusiasm for the war had been greatly stimulated by this fine feat of arms—Italy's belated declaration of war on Germany followed upon the Gorizia victory—continued their advance across the northern end of that formidable plateau, winning a number of considerable battles, and capturing before the end of the year between 30,000 and 40,000 prisoners, but never succeeding in mastering the Carso as a whole.

Naval War in 1916—Battle of Jutland

The battle of Jutland, which took place on 31st May, 1916, overshadows all other naval operations in that year; nevertheless, there were several other events of importance which preceded it, or were in some way related to its occurrence afterwards. For example, in the earlier months of the year the German raider Moewe was at large, and inflicted considerable damage on British shipping before returning safely to a German port; the mercantile submarine Deutschland left Germany for the United States and returned in safety; and another German submarine, U 53, also crossed the Atlantic with more belligerent intent, and sank several merchant vessels off Rhode Island on 8th Oct. The new development of the submarine war, in which Germany declared her intention of sinking merchant ships at sight, began on 1st March, and one of its most important consequences was the dispatch of a United States Note by President Wilson to Germany (18th April) in respect of the sinking without warning of the Sussex and other unarmed vessels. Another outcome of the German submarine warfare was the sinking of British hospital ships in the Mediterranean. Furthermore, following the battle of Jutland, and related in some respects to its only partially decisive character, the Hampshire, with Lord Kitchener and his Staff on board, was sunk off the north of Scotland (5th June) by striking a mine that is said by the Germans to have been laid by one of their submarines; and on 19th Aug. the German High Seas Fleet was able to come out again, though it sought no action, but avoided one. Two British light cruisers, the Nottingham and Falmouth, were sunk in the search for its whereabouts.

The 'partially decisive', or 'indecisive', character of the battle of Jutland are relative terms, and their exact implication has been, and must continue to be for a long time, a matter of controversy. On the one hand, the aim of Admiral von Scheer, the Commander-in-Chief of the German High Seas Fleet—to catch a portion of the British Grand Fleet and attack it while isolated and unsupported—was frustrated, and in that respect the German admiral failed. On the other hand, Admiral Sir John Jellicoe's purpose of destroying the German Fleet, if and when he succeeded in engaging it, also failed, as may be understood from its subsequent emergence from its harbour in August, and the later development of the German submarine campaign, which could not have taken place had not the Germans possessed the framework of a fleet to support the under-water vessels. Sir John Jellicoe justifiably claimed that his action preserved intact the main forces of the British Grand Fleet, and left them as before in command of the outer seas, while demonstrating to the Germans that they could not again engage in a naval battle on a large scale with any hope of success. Admiral von Scheer was entitled to claim that he had engaged a superior British force, had inflicted on it more material damage than he had sustained, and had withdrawn the bulk of his forces to remain, as before, a menace, not to British safety, but to British unfettered control of the seas. The details, in outline, of the battle of Jutland are as follows.

On 30th May the Grand Fleet under Sir John Jellicoe left its three Scottish bases for a sweep of the North Sea, Sir David Beatty, with the battle-cruiser squadron, Lion, Queen Mary, Princess Royal, Tiger, Indefatigable, and New Zealand, and Sir Evan Thomas, with the four battleships of the Queen Elizabeth class, Barham, Malaya, Warspite, and Valiant, setting out from the most southerly of these bases, Rosyth. At 2 p.m. on 31st May Sir John Jellicoe, with the Battle Fleet in 6 divisions, was steaming line-ahead between Aberdeen and the north end of Jutland, in order to meet Sir David Beatty at an appointed rendezvous in the North Sea. Sir John Jellicoe's 6 divisions were, lined east to west, 1st Division (Jerram), King George V, Ajax, Centurion, Erin; 2nd Division (Leveson), Orion, Monarch, Conqueror, Thunderer; 3rd Division (Jellicoe), Iron Duke, Royal Oak, Superb, Canada; 4th Division (Sturdee), Benbow, Bellerophon, Temeraire, Vanguard; 5th Division (Gaunt) Colossus, Collingwood, Neptune, St. Vincent; 6th Division (Burney), Marlborough, Revenge, Hercules, Agincourt.

Both Jellicoe's and Beatty's forces had their attendant suites of destroyers, light cruisers, and other cruisers. The British Grand Fleet in all was constituted of 41 'capital ships', made up of 28 battleships, 9 battle-cruisers, and 4 armoured cruisers. It had also 103 'ancillary craft', made up of 25 light cruisers and 78 destroyers. The German fleet consisted of 20 battleships and 5 battle-cruisers, or 28 'capital ships'; there were also 11 light cruisers and 88 destroyers. In gun power and weight of projectile the Grand Fleet had a striking superiority over the German fleet, and Admiral Jellicoe had apparently a valuable superiority in speed. In his own account of the battle he observes that the speed of some of the German ships had been underestimated.

There was no clear expectation on the British side of meeting the Germans when the Grand Fleet set out for its sweep on a line drawn from Wick to the opposite coast of Norway, with Beatty's 6 battle-cruisers and Evan Thomas's 4 battleships as advance-guard; and when von Scheer set out for the north from Heligoland Bight at daybreak, with an advance-guard of 5 cruisers, supported, 50 miles behind, by 16 Dreadnoughts and 6 slow pre-Dreadnoughts, he had no intention of seeking a general action.

The meeting of the advance squadrons began when both were on a level with the northern end of Jutland. Admiral Hipper, who commanded the German cruisers, turned round from north to south to rejoin his main fleet; he was then east of Admiral Beatty. Beatty followed him, at some disadvantage from smoke and haze. Evan Thomas's battleships were too far behind at this stage to join in the engagement. Hipper fended off Beatty with destroyers as best he could in the hour before the German main fleet could come up, and in that hour Queen Mary and Indefatigable blew up, shells from the German ships, on which the system of fire control appeared to be more accurate than the British, reaching their magazines.

When the German main fleet was seen to be approaching in support, Beatty turned with his 4 remaining cruisers, and Evan Thomas's 4 battleships fell in behind. These 8 were stronger than the German advance 5, and swifter, so that Beatty did not execute a mere retreat but pressed on Hipper, making him turn east, and thereafter placing the British ships on the German line of retreat to Heligoland—'crossing the T', as the manœuvre is called.

Meanwhile Jellicoe's 6 battle divisions were coming on in an oblong of 6 lines of 4 ships each—the long sides of the oblong north and south, the short, east and west. Thus steaming, Jellicoe came into contact with Beatty and Evan Thomas engaged on the east side of the German line, whose head they had faced round and were themselves going south. Beatty and Thomas were thus between Jellicoe and the Germans, and it behoved the British Commander-in-Chief to see that his ships did not hurt one another with their fire. Jellicoe effected the necessary deployment, not in the manner that he had premeditated, but in that which circumstances forced him to employ. It was the less simple way, and the Grand Fleet was not in line till half-past six.

The Germans had no prudent course but to retreat, which they did in the haze and chemically-created smoke—both fleets going to the south-west, curving to west. The fleets were hammering each other as hard as they could; but when darkness came down the German fleet, badly damaged but not seriously diminished in numbers, was still fighting in retreat. Admiral Jellicoe, in his own account of the battle, remarks: "At 9 p.m. the enemy was entirely out of sight, and the threat of torpedo-boat destroyer attacks during the rapidly approaching darkness made it necessary for me to dispose the fleet for the night with a view to its safety from such attacks, whilst providing for a renewal of action at daylight".

The opportunity for renewal at daybreak did not come; nor was it likely to have come, since von Scheer's first preoccupation was naturally not to fight a superior force under conditions least favourable to himself. It is therefore proper to state that the British Commander-in-Chief thought it wiser to break off action with his main fleet lest it should suffer too greatly in the turmoil and confusion of a night attack. The arguments in favour of this decision are several; the chief of them being that Admiral Jellicoe kept the British fleet and naval power intact, and another being those which the British admiral himself advanced, namely that he was not completely aware of how his own fleet and that of the enemy lay to one another, and that "the result of night actions between heavy ships must always be a matter of chance". Admiral Jellicoe did not feel justified in gambling on such a chance. He did what he told the Admiralty he should do in such circumstances, as recorded in a dispatch written on 30th Oct., 1914, and published at the end of the official Battle of Jutland in justification of his action: "If the enemy battle fleet were to turn away from an advancing fleet", he wrote on that occasion "I should assume that the intention was to lead us over mines and submarines, and should decline to be so drawn". The italics are Lord Jellicoe's own.

1917 on the European Fronts

The Russian Campaign.—On the Eastern front fighting on the grand scale had died down by the beginning of 1917, the Germans having exhausted the momentum of their advance under Mackensen, and accomplished their main purpose of putting Roumania out of account as a serious adversary. Along the line of the Sereth, and in the Bukovina, deadlock was reached in the spring of 1917. By that time the creeping paralysis which was seizing the Russian armies was making itself felt in this, their most distant tendon. Throughout April, May, and June the daily record of occurrences on the Eastern front is blank except for one attack by the Germans on the Stokhod (3rd April).

For the explanation of their quiescence the record of political events has to be scanned. It was well known on the Continent, though it was kept hidden from the British public during the winter of 1916-7, that the integrity of the Russian armies was crumbling, that soldiers were fraternizing with the enemy, and that a general revolution was being prepared by those forces of socialism and anarchy which had been thrust under, but had never lacked exponents, since the abortive revolution of 1905. The mismanagement, the corruption, and the bitter hardships of the war had given them their opportunity, and these were the 'Dark Forces', more than the rogue Rasputin, the parasite of the Russian Court, which undermined the influence of the monarchy, and extinguished Tsar and Court, bureaucracy, aristocracy, and army in a common ruin. It was said in Europe during the winter of 1916-7 that the Allies would have to choose between the Russian monarchy and the Russian people; but neither the inertia of the Russian army nor the postponement of the re-opening of the Russian Duma acquainted the British public with the depth of the mischief that was working. The first inkling came on 12th March, 1917, when, following food riots in Petrograd, the Tsar ordered the suspension of the Duma. The Russian Revolution was the reply. Three Guard Regiments joined the people—the army had failed the monarchy. A Provisional Government was formed. Petrograd, Moscow, Kharkov, and Odessa joined it; and on 15th March the Tsar abdicated under compulsion. Several figures emerged from the crisis. M. Miliukoff, of the Constitutional Party, and Kerensky, a link with the Socialists, but the real forces at work did not at first show themselves.

On 24th March the army declared its loyalty to the Provisional Government, which two days before had been recognized by the Allies. For a time hopes were entertained that under this Provisional Government Russia would carry out her obligations to the Allies, and that her armies would fight; and every sort of device, including interchange of visits with representatives of British Labour and French Socialism, was employed to foster cordiality. The first sign of the essential futility of such hopes appeared on 4th May, when it was evident that the Russian Provisional Government was failing. A new coalition was formed, with Kerensky at its head, and loyalty to the Allies was urged and asserted. French and American missions visited Petrograd and Moscow, but no real consolidation was effected, though in the latter end of May and the beginning of June there was a remarkably deceptive appearance of it.

Under the spur of great efforts by M. Kerensky the army was stimulated into action once more, and a new offensive prepared. On such an offensive the Allies had placed high hopes, for the Russian armies in the spring of 1917 were better equipped and better provided with guns and ammunition than ever before. At first some of these hopes seemed destined to be realized. General Brussiloff, who had succeeded General Alexieff as Commander-in-Chief of the Russian armies, consented rather reluctantly, under the insistence of Kerensky—at that time engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the forces of the Bolshevik party led by Lenin and Trotsky—to organize an attack on the Austro-Hungarian front south of the Pripet. It was believed that the soldiers of these southern armies were less tainted by Bolshevism than those in the northern armies, and that a success here might rally the country to its older standards of patriotism. Brussiloff entrusted the offensive to General Gutor, who had in his favour the facts that the Austro-Hungarian armies were as war-weary as the Russian, and that the German Head-quarters Staff, who were well acquainted with the extent of Russian disaffection, and had indeed been instrumental in inspiring and organizing it, were sceptical about the possibility of such an attack. Furthermore, in the sectors from Brody to the Dniester and beyond, where Lechitsky had halted in 1916, the Russians had a considerable numerical superiority—54 divisions to 30 composite Austro-Hungarian, Turkish, and German divisions, and were well equipped, well posted, and well supplied.

General Gutor directed three armies. The Eleventh, under General Erdelli, was to act along an 11-mile front from a point north-west of Tarnopol, and to get astride the railway which leads from Tarnopol through Zloczow to Lemberg. The Seventh Army, under General Belkovitch, facing Brzezany, was to cross the Zlota Lipa River, where von Bothmer had made his stand, and was then to wheel north-eastward in the same direction as Erdelli's army, with which it was to get in touch. If this movement succeeded, the combined armies were to advance towards Bobrka and the railway from Halicz to Lemberg. The whole of this task was through difficult country. Far to the south General Korniloff, with the Eighth Army, was entrusted with the turning movement. He was to overrun the Halicz region and to obtain control of the railway thence to Lemberg. If this wide turning movement succeeded, and if Belkovitch also did well, the Austro-Hungarian armies would be outflanked and in danger of being rolled up, while pinned down in the north by Erdelli.

The venture was audacious, and the Russian commanders scarce dare trust their men. The Seventh Army's task in assaulting the Zlota Lipa line was such as would have tried the bravest and most loyal troops. The attack began on 1st July, and Belkovitch's men advanced bravely enough, protected by good artillery. In the first assault they took the river line and 2000 prisoners. But between the Zlota Lipa and its tributary Tseniow was a death-trap, and the Russians were caught in a murderous cross-fire. The day was not lost; but at this critical moment occurred an incident which was symptomatic of Russia's disorders, and was the death sentence of Russia's continuance as a combatant. A division which might have turned the scale refused to advance.

The ground won was with difficulty held, and in the days that followed, the Germans, awakened to an unexpected danger, steadily reinforced the weak point, while Russian battalions were refusing to stay in the front line. The situation reacted on Erdelli's troops farther north, where the Eleventh Army had done well at very little cost, and had captured 6000 prisoners by 3rd July. It became less difficult each day for the German directing staff to hold this attack in check, and it was stopped by 6th July. On the Dniester, Korniloff's army began to advance on this day—on which, according to plan, the enemy should have had all their attention concentrated on Erdelli and Belkovitch. Korniloff did very well. On 6th to 7th July he felt his way forward from Stanislau to Dolina, and on 8th July, joining battle with von Bothmer, broke down resistance at Jezupol with ease, and sent forward his best arm, his cavalry, to the River Lukwa, 8 miles behind von Bothmer's first-line defences. Realizing his danger, von Bothmer counter-attacked, but was again borne down, and Korniloff's van reached the Lukwa. In two days' fighting Korniloff had broken through on a 30-mile front, and his main body, in the wake of General Chermiroff's fighting division, poured into the plains of the Dniester. Theoretically a decisive victory had been won. It was in fact indecisive, because the leader's shock troops had been used up, and the situation was crumbling from within. His troops got intoxicated, mutinied, and he could use them no further.

But the rot now became dangerous to the point of mortality in the Eleventh Army of Erdelli. On 20th July, following a strong German counter-attack between Pienaki and Batkow, which was nearly the most northerly point of the advance, the 607th Mlynoff Regiment left the trenches voluntarily. They ran away, leaving the other regiments to bear the brunt of the attack. The breach widened as the Russians opened the gate. The German-Austrian attack, spreading to Zborow, found a Russian division ready to throw down its arms, and in a day the German-Austrian wedge was thrust in between the Eleventh and Seventh Russian Armies. The disaster was complete and irreparable. The command of the army group was hastily transferred from Gutor to Korniloff, but neither Korniloff's ruthless discipline nor Brussiloff's genius could alter the essentials of the situation, which were that the Russian armies would not fight, and were fleeing in panic.

All attempts to stop the flight were useless. On the night of 20th July the breach was 20 miles wide; on 21st July German guns were shelling Brussiloff's head-quarters at Tarnopol; on 23rd July the remnants of the Russian armies were retreating to the Sereth amid scenes of drunken brutality as disgraceful as any that the war has recorded, and only to be compared with those that were to become common in Russia and Siberia in the struggle to establish Bolshevism. Farther north the Russian front imitated the cowardice and treachery at Tarnopol. On 25th July whole Russian army corps deserted the Dvinsk front, on which depended the safety of Riga. On the same day Korniloff was compelled to begin the relinquishment of the ground he had won with the Eighth Army. Stanislau was abandoned; Kolomea followed on 27th July; Czernowitz went on 31st July; and the loss of the Bukovina followed that of Galicia.

For a time Korniloff seemed to have a chance of restoring coherence to some part of the Russian armies. He succeeded in wringing permission from Kerensky to enforce discipline. But the military-political understanding between these two, though it appeared to fail because of Kerensky's suspicions of Korniloff, whose arrest he ordered (on the 11th Sept.), was never a possibility. Russia was sick unto death. Her soldiers demanded peace; her peasants and townspeople asked for bread, and turned to Lenin and Trotsky, who promised both. During the summer there were many attacks by the Germans on the Riga front, which they used as a training-ground for their troops; and fighting of a similar character took place on the Russo-Roumanian front. But on 16th Oct. the Germans, capturing Oesel Island in the Dvina, took the first step to the subjugation of the northern armies, and continued to take numbers of willing prisoners on the Riga front during the rest of that month. The bulletins of the fighting are contradictory and obscure, but by 3rd Nov. Russians and Germans were fraternizing on the Riga front, and on 20th Nov. hostilities ceased. Lenin demanded (1st Dec.) the surrender of General Dukhonin, the then Commander-in-Chief, who was murdered two days later—the day after the negotiations between the Bolsheviks and the German peace delegation began at Brest-Litovsk.

British Front in the West, 1917

On the Western front it had been expected that the heavy hammering to which the Germans had been subjected during the battle of the Somme would be carried on in concert under the direction of Sir Douglas Haig and General Foch. But a change was made in the French High Command, General Joffre retiring, and his place being taken by General Nivelle, who had done so well at Verdun, while Foch was relegated to the task of preparing against a possible thrust of the Germans through Switzerland. Unity of command was not achieved, except in appearance. Nivelle's plan was to strike at the German centre; Haig was to aid him by simultaneous attack, though Haig's own prepossessions were in favour of freeing the Channel ports by a burst from the Ypres salient. In the result, neither plan succeeded. Nivelle failed because neither the French Government nor a section of the French soldiery would bear a repetition of the losses incurred in his thrust at the Chemin-des-Dames; Haig failed because he had neither the time nor the weather in which to drive his last blows home in the autumn of the year.

A contributory cause of the comparative failure of the Franco-British plan of campaign in 1917 was the want of perception of the intention of the Germans to withdraw from the positions in the Somme area which they had defended so stubbornly in 1916, and which the Allies were preparing to render untenable or to batter down. The want of perception was not complete, but both British and French plans were upset by the suddenness and extent of the withdrawal, which the Germans effected with much less loss than they should have been forced to sustain. The first symptom of the general withdrawal was discovered in March, when portions of St. Pierre Vaast Wood, near the junction of the French and British lines, were found to be evacuated. By 17th March the German voluntary retirement was in full swing, and their forces ruined everything as they retreated. By 17th March, also, the British front from Roye to Arras was moving forward, and on 2nd April the Fifth Army was within two miles of St. Quentin, while the Fourth Army on 5th and 6th April was at Ronssoy and Lempire. While the British armies were pushing towards the Cambrai-St. Quentin line the French were pushing on a 30-mile front from the north of the Upper Somme, towards the new German line from St. Quentin, behind Soissons, in front of the St. Gobain plateau, the Forest of Coucy, and the Chemin-des-Dames. Behind the new line Nivelle matured reconstructed plans for the great French attack towards Laon.

Of the new fortress line (the Hindenburg and Drocourt-Quéant line) which the Germans had constructed and continued to improve, the La Fère-Laon position and the Chemin-des-Dames were the southern bastion, and the Vimy Ridge the north-western pillar. Sir Douglas Haig's preconcerted plan had been to attack the Arras front, not in order to assault this line, but as preliminary to the Ypres salient thrust farther north. Nevertheless, the plan could be adapted and it was prosecuted. Preparations on a large scale, equivalent to building a counter-fortress front, had been made for the Arras operations, and the greatest precautions were taken to lend the attack all the support which mines and artillery could give. Two armies, the First (General Horne) and Third (General Allenby), were prepared for this action. Horne's army made its attack on the Vimy Ridge, with the Canadian Corps as shock troops, on 9th April, and the attack was extended on a 12-mile front from Hénin-sur-Cojeul, south-east of Arras, to Givenchy-en-Gohelle, north of Arras. The Canadians took the whole of Vimy Ridge, except its northern end, the conquest of which was completed next day. Five villages fell into British hands and 6000 prisoners. Subsequent days saw the extension of the victory, but though Vimy village, Givenchy-en-Gohelle, and other important points were taken, the fortified villages of Héninel and Wancourt held out by dint of machine-guns, and prevented the possibility of the Third Army's joining hands with the Fifth Army beyond the third line of the German defences until it was too late. The whole of the expected gains were therefore not realized, but the possession of the Vimy Ridge was invaluable, and became a most important factor in stemming Ludendorff's rush in 1918, when he attacked the Third Army after destroying the Fifth.

The British attacks did not end on 11th April, as they should have done, but were continued here, as well as at other portions of the British line to its junction with the French armies, in order to lend assistance to Nivelle while his attack in Champagne was in progress. It was a very costly procedure, and its scope may be inferred from the statement that on 23rd April a "second phase of the battle of Arras" began; another 12-mile front east of Arras was launched on 3rd May; and there were bloody encounters about Bullecourt or Fontaine-les-Croiselles on 7th and 12th, 15th and 16th, and 21st May. Some 20,000 German prisoners were captured in these preliminary spring operations, but the drainage in casualties to the British armies was heavy, and more damaging still was the loss of time by the postponement of Field-Marshal Haig's major plan farther north.

This, however, was at last begun on 7th June by the assault on the Messines-Wytschaete Ridge, which, under the name of the 'Battle of Messines' denotes one of the most completely successful actions fought in that year. It was undertaken by the Second Army (General Plumer), and the preparation for it, including the mining of the ridge, had been as near perfection as possible. The attack was launched; the mines which blew the German front line to pieces were exploded on the morning of 7th June at ten minutes past three. Nine miles of front were stormed and 6400 prisoners taken. In the next week the number of prisoners was considerably augmented; German counter-attacks were beaten off; and the captured position enlarged and firmly consolidated.

From this time forward the operations of the British armies may be envisaged as an attempt to enlarge the great bulge of the Ypres salient by fighting their way up to and along the ridges which enclosed it, so as to force the Germans to relinquish their hold on the coast near Nieuport, Zeebrugge, and Ostend. One very awkward spoke was put in the British wheel by an attack (10th July) on the extreme coastal sector of Lombaertzyde and the mouth of the Yser, by which any combined sea and land attack that might have been projected by the British was discounted. Most of the positions were recovered, but the amphibious plan had perforce to be postponed.

The putting into effect of Sir Douglas Haig's major plan, after the preliminary step of the capture of the Messines Ridge had been taken, did not operate till 31st July, when the 'Third Battle of Ypres' began, with a combined British and French attack on a 15-mile front beyond Boesinghe, on the Yser-Ypres Canal, to Zillebeke. The attack was conducted by the First French Army (General Anthoine); the bulk of the fighting fell on the Fifth British Army (General Gough). Twelve villages were taken and 5000 prisoners. There was, and could be, no break-through. The Germans rallied to a counter-attack, and were able to do so because their defences, their concrete pill-boxes, and their machine-gun effectiveness could, and did, hold up attacks before they progressed too far.

The rest of the British campaign in 1917 till it was arrested by the torrential rains of a wet October, and by the mud of the impossible declivities, may be summed up as a series of desperate forward thrusts which exacted each its toll of prisoners, ground, and positions, but none of which succeeded in its object of inflicting a lethal injury on the German resistance. In the end these attacks had to cease while the last fragment of coveted ridge, the Passchendaele spur, was still not won, because on that ridge, as elsewhere, though blood had been poured out like water, and losses endured with unflinching fortitude, flesh and blood could do no more. The chief actions were as follows:

15th Aug.—British attack on wide front from north-west of Lens to Bois Hugo, north-east of Loos. Enemy's position penetrated to 1 mile depth.

16th Aug.—Franco-British attack on 9-mile front north of Ypres-Menin road. British carry Langemarck.

15th to 21st Sept.—Second phase of third battle of Ypres. 3000 Germans captured.

4th Oct.—British advance on 8-mile front, anticipating German attack east of Ypres. 3000 German prisoners.

9th Oct.—Third phase of third battle of Ypres. One mile advance on Passchendaele Ridge. 2000 prisoners.

6th Nov.—British attack on Ypres Ridges. Canadians capture Passchendaele.

These attacks were interspersed with costly minor encounters, and by the repulse or endurance of counter-attacks. The battle may be said to have closed by stress of weather in mid-November.

It was followed on 20th Nov. by a British attack of an altogether different kind, in an unexpected quarter—at Cambrai. Here the Third Army, under General Byng, made an attack on a 10-mile front between St. Quentin and the River Scarpe—tanks being employed for the first time in large numbers to lead the advance without a preliminary bombardment. It was a complete surprise, and all but a complete success. The 'Hindenburg Line' was broken, numerous villages and 8000 prisoners were taken. If the cavalry had been up, as they ought to have been, a first-class disaster might have been inflicted on the Germans, and their railway communications at this point broken. But the cavalry were late; the next few days were spent in consolidation by peculiarly hard fighting; and on 30th Nov. the Germans counter-attacked and subjected the British defences of the newly-created salient at Bourlon Wood and Moeuvres to almost as severe a surprise as they had sustained ten days before. The British lost a number of prisoners, and had eventually to evacuate most of their hard-won positions.

French Front in the West, 1917

The history of the French armies in 1917 is largely the history of Nivelle's frustrated attempt to pierce the German centre between Soissons and Rheims in April; the pause necessitated by the fact that it was felt impossible to press the French armies too hard or too soon after the disappointment of the attenuated success at the Chemin-des-Dames, where the chief sacrifices of the attack took place; and the efforts on a more moderate scale by General Pétain, who succeeded Nivelle, to win tactical victories at a moderate cost on the terrain acquired in the April adventure. The second battle of the Aisne, as Nivelle's offensive was called, was planned over a length of 50 miles from La Fère, on the Oise, round the edges of the Forest of Gobain and Coucy, to Laffaux, thence below the line of the Chemin-des-Dames ridge and behind the Aisne to the crossing of the river at Berry-au-Bac, and Brimont, near Nogent-l'Abbesse, to the Moronvilliers heights on the other side of Rheims.

The attack on the larger part of this line began on 16th April; that on the Moronvilliers sector on 17th April. The attack on the 16th was extremely costly; it succeeded in only part of its objectives, but it captured 11,000 prisoners. The next day, one of pouring rain, improved on the positions won, especially at the western end of the Chemin-des-Dames, and on the 18th and 19th Nivelle so far enlarged his successes as almost to give them the appearance of a great victory. But the French bolt had been shot, and, to put it plainly, Nivelle was not encouraged to go on. By the 28th he had taken 28,000 prisoners, 175 guns, and some of the strongest points on the heights of the Aisne; but everywhere the positions had been only half-won, and the temper of the French army as a whole had suffered too severe a test. Nivelle was succeeded by Pétain and his plan was abandoned. The rest of the year was occupied by General Pétain in very skilled attempts, named limited offensives, to repel the Germans from disputing some of the positions won and to enlarge the French gains at other points. The chief engagements were as follows:

5th May.—The French, co-operating with the British on a 20-mile front north of the Aisne, take Craonne and 6000 prisoners.

20th Aug.—French carry enemy defences north of Verdun on 11-mile front; 6000 prisoners. By 28th Aug. the French were back at their original Verdun positions.

23rd Oct.—French advance on the Aisne north-east of Soissons on e-mile front; 8000 prisoners. By 25th Oct. further 3000 prisoners and 160 guns were taken.

The Balkans, 1917

In the Balkans the military situation during 1917 remained much as the end of 1916 had left it, the Germans, as already mentioned, completing their conquest of Roumania, and the Allies remaining comparatively inactive in the field while they cleared up the extremely unsatisfactory situation in Greece. The chief operations consisted of a Franco-Serbian attack north of Monastir, and attacks by General Milne on the British front in the Struma valley; but though the situation remained in the field virtually unchanged, the political situation was vitally affected in 1917 by the deposition of King Constantine in favour of his second son, Alexander—the king being induced to abdicate on 12th June—and the formation of a new Government under M. Venizelos. From 30th June, Greece, having formally severed diplomatic relations with Germany, was at length added to the list of countries fighting on the Allies' side.

Italian Campaign, 1917

Italy, who, meantime, had proclaimed Albania an independent state under Italian protection, and occupied Yanina in June, 1917, had committed herself wholly to the Allies' cause in 1916 by declaring war on Germany on 28th Aug. It was in Aug., 1917 that Ludendorff began his preparations for the terrific blow which was to lead to the Italian disaster at Caporetto in October. During the earlier months of the year the initiative had remained with the Italians, and Cadorna had used it in a series of offensives which, while carrying him farther across the Carso towards Trieste, and winning seemingly impregnable positions in the Trentino, together with upwards of 30,000 prisoners and 140 guns, were indecisive, and left his exhausted troops—reduced by some 150,000 casualties—ripe for the blow which Ludendorff had prepared for them. The Russian Revolution and the collapse of Roumania freed Austria-Hungary at the same time from any anxieties on her Galicia front, so that she could concentrate all her energies and the bulk of her armies against the Italians. When the enemy's great counter-stroke was delivered on 24th Oct., the control of the campaign was taken over by the German High Command. Ludendorff had been training picked troops in special tactics—to be developed at their full strength on the Western front in the following year—and von Below was transferred from the French front to take command. Following an intense bombardment, the Austro-German troops were launched against the Second Italian Army between Zaga and Auzza, in deep formations so closely packed that the way could not be lost amid the prevailing snow and rain. Taken by surprise, and seriously demoralized in parts by Bolshevist propaganda and enemy intrigue, the Second Italian Army, which had hitherto distinguished itself by its splendid courage, found the whole of its left wing giving way before the impact, thus opening a gap for the enemy 20 miles wide over the Julian and Carnic Passes. Having shattered both the first and second Italian lines at Caporetto and Vodil Vrh, the Germans and Austrians surged forward from the Tolmino bridge-head until the retreating Italians, becoming entangled with their own reserves, broke in disorder. Although the right wing of the Second Army held, and many heroic efforts were made by isolated units, General Cadorna decided that it was impossible to save the situation from irretrievable disaster except by a general retreat to the Piave line. This was ordered on 26th Oct., when the broken fragments of the Second Army, as well as the Italian Third Army, began the great retreat which will be remembered as one of the finest achievements in Italian military history. The territorial gains of over two years' fighting had already been lost, and the conquering invaders reached within 15 miles of Venice, but they never succeeded in making the disaster irremediable. General Cadorna's scathing Order of the Day denouncing the units of the Second Army which had let the enemy through, and the new sense of national unity inspired by the military crisis, did their work. By 8th Nov. the bulk of the Italian armies, now in orderly retreat, were across the Piave, and two days later were ready to turn on their pursuers. The danger was not yet over; the enemy succeeded in carrying several further heights dominating the Venetian plain between the Piave and the Brenta; but by 21st Nov., when a last German attack was made on the Monfenara Ridge, and defeated, the invaders were for the time being held. They claimed some 250,000 prisoners and 1800 guns of every calibre, besides immense quantities of munitions. They had also succeeded in diverting French and British divisions from the Western front, the Allies sending what assistance they could to stave off the defeat of Italy. The French and British troops arrived in time for the winter struggle, which began on 4th Dec., by which time General von Below had returned to France—being succeeded in command of the Austro-German operations by General Krobatin—and General Cadorna had been transferred to the Allied War Council, his place as Italian Commander-in-Chief being taken by General Diaz. Two British divisions, under Cavan, took up their positions in the Italian line at Montella; the French divisions at Monte Tomba; and they served to relieve the pressure while the enemy was making his last efforts to break through before the long-delayed snows put an end to the struggle for the year.

Naval War in 1917

At sea, where the British Grand Fleet was now commanded by Sir David Beatty in place of Sir John Jellicoe, who had succeeded Sir Henry Jackson as First Sea Lord in the previous November, the year 1917 passed without a single outstanding engagement. Since Jutland, the German High Seas Fleet had run no risk above water of again seriously challenging Britain's sovereignty of the sea, though her submarine campaign was pursued with ever-increasing vindictiveness. Risking rupture with the United States and other neutrals whose shipping and subjects were thus exposed to wanton attack, she inaugurated 'unrestricted' U-boat war on 1st Feb. "Give us two months of this", said the German Foreign Secretary to the American Ambassador in Berlin, "and we shall end the war and make peace." The argument was that the Allies' losses in tonnage, already more than they could bear, would increase to such an extent that they would be starved into submission. The United States, with President Wilson as spokesman, replied by severing diplomatic relations with Germany, but it was not until 5th April that she formally declared war against her. Cuba followed suit on 5th April; Panama three days later; Brazil on 2nd June. Germany could afford the risk of offending the smaller American republics, but her defiance of the United States was a fatal blunder. She relied on her submarines to prevent the transport of American troops across the Atlantic—at least until they were too late to affect the issue. The first American contingents crossed unharmed and arrived in France on 26th June. It was not until the following year, however, that the new American army was ready to throw its weight into the scales on the Western front. The naval resources of the United States were at once placed at the Allies' disposal, the American destroyer squadron in particular being of great service in helping in the protection of trade off the Irish coast. Proof of the closeness of co-operation between the British and United States navies was afforded in June, 1917, when Vice-Admiral Sims, commanding the United States Naval Forces in European Waters, was given the command of the Irish station during the absence of Vice-Admiral Bayley on sick leave. No foreign naval officer had ever previously held the command of British ships, as well as his own, off the British coast.

Apart from the relentless submarine campaign, which every week exacted heavy toll yet never brought the Allies within measurable distance of the starvation-point to which the Germans had been so sure of reducing them, the enemy's operations at sea were restricted to destroyer and torpedo-boat raids in the Channel from Zeebrugge. Some of these did a certain amount of damage to patrol boats, and bombarded Ramsgate, Broadstairs, and Margate (27th Feb. and 26th April) with little effect save the death of women and children. One memorable incident in these minor operations in 1917 was the raid on Dover on the night of 20th-21st April, when 6 German destroyers, after firing a number of rounds inland, were caught on their way back by the British destroyers Broke (Commander R. G. E. Evans) and Swift (Commander A. M. Peck)—the advance ships of the British destroyer guard in the Straits of Dover. The Swift, which was leading, dashed between two of the retreating destroyers and, turning, sent one of them to the bottom with a torpedo. The Broke rammed the third vessel, and while the two ships were locked, an old-fashioned hand-to-hand fight took place on the Broke's forecastle, in which the German crew were beaten back. Two minutes later the Broke wrenched herself free and the German destroyer sank. Ten German officers and 108 men were rescued at the close of this dashing affair.

1918 on the European Fronts

First Phase of Ludendorff's Offensive.—The Bolshevist betrayal of the Allies at Brest-Litovsk, the treaty of which took Russia irrevocably out of the conflict, and released Germany's Eastern forces for a concentrated assault in the West, gave the Central Powers their greatest opportunity of winning the war since their first hopes were shattered on the Marne in 1914. The crushing defeat of Italy at Caporetto afforded them further grounds for confidence. America, it was true, had thrown in her lot on the side of the Allies, but Germany counted on striking her decisive blow before the American troops could arrive in sufficient numbers to matter; and she had not yet lost faith in her submarines. All through the winter of 1917-8 Ludendorff, the German Commander-in-Chief, was secretly training his troops in the new tactics which were to bring open warfare into full play again, equipping them with Teutonic completeness, and massing guns and ammunition proportionate to the task in view.

The Allies on the Western front were meantime forced to remain on the defensive until such time as the American reinforcements should arrive in sufficient numbers to enable them to regain the initiative. Since April, 1917, the British army had borne the chief burden of the war in the West, and "the bloody struggles to conquer the Flanders ridges"—the words are those of Sir Douglas Haig himself—as well as the prolonged fight at Cambrai, "had left the army at low ebb in regard both to training and numbers". In view of the expected German offensive, it became imperative to fill up the ranks as rapidly as possible, and place the line in a sound state of defence. Late in Jan., 1918, Sir Douglas Haig took over a new stretch of French line, extending the front of the Fifth Army to cover the village of Barisis, 7 miles south of the Oise. The additional line, taken over somewhat against Haig's judgment, and giving the Fifth Army, which stretched on the left as far as Gouzeaucourt, no less than 42 miles to guard, extended the British front, all told, to 125 miles. The whole of this had to be greatly strengthened and supported by prepared positions to which the troops could retreat when the expected German drive took place, for it was regarded as inevitable that some dent must result in the Allies' line where the colossal blow was dealt. This constructional work called for every man who could be spared for the task, and seriously interfered with the necessary training of the troops in new tactics of defence.

The months preceding the 'hammer blow' were marked by intense raiding activity on both sides, chiefly undertaken to procure information, but sometimes to secure useful positions for subsequent events. The most important of these included the sanguinary struggles for Bullecourt in the early days of January, in which the Australians greatly distinguished themselves, and Germans attacks at Dixmude (6th March), and in the region of Houthulst Forest and the Menin road (8th March), for positions destined to play their part in the new attempt to reach the Channel ports. By the middle of February, when 28 additional German divisions had arrived from the Russian front, and 6 from Italy, and great supply dumps were springing up in all directions behind the German lines—but particularly opposite the British Third Army at Cambrai and the British Fifth Army to the south of it—Sir Douglas Haig had no doubt as to what was to come. The only questions were "Where?" and "When?"

All strategical considerations pointed to an attack on the Fifth Army south of Arras, with the object of separating the British and French armies and seizing the centre of communications at Amiens. Neither the British nor the French Head-quarters Staff, therefore, was taken unawares when the great offensive began on 21st March. Both had worked out plans to meet it. More than half Sir Douglas Haig's infantry and the whole of his cavalry were allocated to this sector's defence, and General Pétain had arranged to send a French army corps to their assistance in case of need. The final dispositions of the Germans were carried out with the utmost secrecy: sunken roads, bivouacs, and every device of camouflage being employed to conceal their last stages of concentration. Even so, Sir Douglas Haig learnt from his Intelligence Department on 19th March that the enemy was putting the finishing touches to his impending attack, and that it would be launched by the 21st, if not before.

It was heralded, in fact, at 5 a.m. on the 21st by an intense bombardment in a thick mist which made it impossible for the British batteries to render effective aid to the battered first-line trenches. The onslaught was organized in two parts, the northern advance being directed against Byng's Third Army from the Sensée River to the Cambrai road, and the southern attack from the Flesquières salient opposite Cambrai to St. Quentin. No fewer than 40 German divisions—nearly half a million men—specially trained for the new offensive, were launched against this southern half, and of these more than half were directed against the 16,500 yards of front held by Gough's Fifth Army nearest St. Quentin. All told, the German drive consisted of 64 divisions on the opening day of the offensive. To meet it the British had but 19 infantry divisions in line and 10 in reserve, with cavalry. From first to last the Germans employed in this attack some 78 divisions—exceeding in numbers the total fighting strength of the whole of the British armies in France. By the 9th of April, when the Germans, foiled in the opening move of their supreme offensive, had shifted the spear-head of their assault to Flanders, the total number of British divisions employed both in cavalry and infantry did not exceed 46.

Some part of the line was bound to give before the terrific impact of the infantry attack which followed the bombardment on 21st March. The plans made for repairing the breach in co-operation with the French broke down for a time because the British Fifth Army, attacked by a far greater force than had been anticipated—23 German divisions having been massed as secretly as possible in order to bring them into position at the critical hour—had been forced back sooner than was expected. There was no time either for the British reserves or the French reinforcements to repair the breach before the assaulting divisions under von Hutier, who had established his reputation for this form of operation on the Eastern front, were through it and extending it in all directions.

There were, in point of fact, two serious breaches along the 42-mile front held by the Fifth Army. One, the less dangerous of the two, was south of the Oise, where the line was held more lightly than elsewhere, owing to the marshes, which had been relied on to make any considerable attack at this point unlikely. As ill luck would have it, a long spell of dry weather had made the ground easily passable, and the Germans, well aware of the position, swept across it in overwhelming force, like a tidal wave. Heroic stands were made for the forward redoubts and battle positions, but the whole of the ground south of the St. Crozat Canal was so submerged in the flood that by nightfall there was nothing for it but to withdraw the divisions of the 3rd Corps, which had been defending it, to the line of the Somme Canal. Nevertheless, though the Germans made their greatest progress on the 21st at this point, it was not their most dangerous thrust, being nearest to French reinforcements.

The chief danger-point was farther north, on the Fifth Army's left, below the Flesquières salient. By noon, with the fog still so thick that it was impossible to see 50 yards ahead, the Germans had advanced as far as Ronssoy, inside the second zone of the British defensive positions, together with Hargicourt and Villeret to the south. This opened a gate to the third line 3 miles wide, and before the day was over the enemy had pushed towards this as far as Templeux-le-Gerard. But for the stubborn defence of Epéhy, to the north, and Le Verguier, to the south, the breach would have been perilously widened on the following day, but at both these points the German advance was temporarily checked. It could not be stayed long. Supplied with an overpowering weight of men to crush through anywhere, von Hutier was ready to pay the price exacted for every success by British artillery-fire at short range, and British machine-gun posts held to the last: and when St. Emilie and Hervilly finally fell on the 21st, Epéhy and Le Verguier could only hold out long enough for the general line of defence to be withdrawn from them. The retreat thence, hard-pressed as it was, left the Fifth Army's centre with a sagging flank to the south, of which the on-coming Germans did not fail to take full advantage. Thenceforward the tide swept on for days in ever-increasing volume, all the reinforcements that Sir Douglas Haig or Pétain could send serving only to stop gaps here and there. Ham, Bapaume, and Péronne had fallen by the 24th, and about two-thirds of the territory wrested from the Germans in 1916 regained by them. Germany was announcing to all the world that the 'Kaiser's Battle', as the emperor himself had caused it to be named, had already been won. To drive the news home, the enemy, on 23rd March, began bombarding Paris with long-range guns capable of firing 70 miles. Nesle and Noyon were the next to go, and by 26th March—save at Albert, which held out until the following day—the Allies were back beyond the line from which they started in 1916.

Elsewhere the enemy's progress along the 60-mile battle front had been slow and costly. He had least success in the north against the British Third Army, partly because the positions held were stronger, partly because his heaviest and most persistent blows had been reserved for the Fifth Army. Some isolated gaps were made on this front, but nothing beyond repair, and the ground lost was not vital. It is impossible in the space at our command to follow all the complications of attack and counter-attack in the fateful days which followed, until, by 26th March, the Germans were within a dozen miles or so of Amiens, with the British Fifth Army still retiring before them in a state of disintegration. At this critical juncture, when the reserves had all been thrown in, General Gough adopted a suggestion made by General Grant, Chief Engineer of the Fifth Army, that a last line of defence—a forlorn hope to save Amiens—should be formed from stragglers, army school personnel, tunnelling companies, Canadian and American engineers, anyone, in short, who could be roped in. The command of this heterogeneous force, after being organized by General Grant and posted according to General Gough's instructions, was handed over to General Sandeman Carey. 'Carey's force', as it came to be called, aided by the 1st Cavalry Division, which was rushed across the Somme from the north at the same time, earned a special tribute from Mr. Lloyd George in the House of Commons for the magnificent fight which it put up in this last line of defence.

The German effort was becoming spent, though by broadening out the salient the enemy continued to press back the French as well as the British. The French Third Army, sent to the assistance of the British Fifth Army, played a lion's part in preventing him from extending his gains too dangerously in the south. On the 28th he concentrated his main energy against the stubborn British Third Army, which, conforming to the retreating line of the Fifth Army on its right, had fallen back to new battle positions, but in good order. Fresh shock-divisions were brought up to break this northern pivot of the British defence, and, after the usual full-dress bombardment, were launched as before in continual waves of assault. This time, however, there was no fog to handicap the British gunners, who were given the opportunity of a lifetime when they opened fire from hidden positions on serried ranks of German infantrymen, marching shoulder to shoulder at point-blank range. Six times the advance was renewed, and as many times mowed down, and when a final attempt was made, after a second bombardment in the afternoon, it met with similar failure. The Germans had shot their bolt. Their appalling losses on the 28th told on all their subsequent efforts in this first and greatest of Ludendorff's offensives in 1918.

It was on the 28th that General Gough relinquished the command of the British Fifth Army, General Rawlinson (Fourth Army) succeeding to the task of extricating its shattered divisions. Two days earlier the long-needed decision had been made by which the command of the Allied armies passed into the hands of General Foch as Generalissimo, who thenceforward, until the end of the war, held supreme control. Though several anxious days were to pass before the Allies could breathe freely again in the Amiens area, the position hourly improved as reinforcements, French and British, arrived on the scene. Counter-attacks recovered some of the ground on 30th March, and when the Germans resumed their advance towards Amiens on a more limited scale on 4th and 5th April, their losses were out of all proportion to their gains.

Second Phase of Ludendorff's Offensive

It is probable that the operations of 4th and 5th April were designed chiefly to pin the British armies to the southern area, while Ludendorff, finding his road barred to Amiens, prepared to strike a fresh blow in the north in a decisive bid for the Channel ports. Though well aware of a possible thrust in this direction, Sir Douglas Haig had been compelled to draw heavily on his Flanders front for reinforcements during the exhausting battle for Amiens, in which as many as 46 out of his total 58 divisions had been engaged. By the end of the first week in April the bulk of the British troops holding the Flanders line had passed through the furnace of the southern battlefield and were sadly in need of rest and reinforcement. Had the ground been in its usual condition of slush and mire at this season of the year they could have been relied upon to hold up any advance, but a dry spring had prepared the path for a German advance, and as soon as this was seen to be imminent it was reluctantly decided voluntarily to evacuate the Passchendaele salient, won at such frightful cost in the closing months of the previous year. Steps were also taken to relieve the Portuguese troops who, though not seriously engaged, had been too long in the trenches south of the salient. Before either of these plans could mature the Germans upset both by launching their great attack at 4 a.m. on 9th April.

As in the opening move against the Fifth Army on 21st March, the assault—launched by the army of General von Quast in the direction of Festubert-Armentières against the northern portion of the front held by the British First Army (General Horne)—was favoured by an impenetrable early-morning fog. Through it came five columns of troops like the prongs of a fork, with an army corps as the central point to thrust into the weak spot where the Portuguese were sandwiched in between the British 40th and 55th Divisions. Bursting through the Portuguese sector, the attack spread swiftly to north and south—especially to the north, where the 40th Division, feeling the thrust which pierced the Portuguese line, was forced back on its right flank to the line of the Lys, 3½ miles in its rear. The rest of the 40th, with reinforcements from the 34th Division, formed a new line between Fort Rompre and Bois Grenier, covering Erquinghem and Armentières from the south, and held it the rest of the day. Had the southern pivot also given way when the Portuguese sector was broken the consequences would have been fatal to any hope of checking the German onrush. But the 55th Division never budged after its left flank, borne back by the first assault, succeeded in forming a defensive flank between Festubert and Le Touret, and the importance of its stout defence through the battle, as Sir Douglas Haig bore witness in his dispatches, could not be overestimated. This line was strengthened later in the day by the 21st Division, which, together with the 50th Division—both just relieved from the Somme fighting—had been hurried up as soon as the attack developed.

Next day the battle spread to the north, blazing up along the right of the British Second Army (General Plumer), the army of General Sixt von Armin attacking in another early-morning mist between Armentières and Hollebeke. The two German armies now acted in concert, and together pushed their advantage until the Lys was crossed in the south and the Messines Ridge carried in the north, with Laventie, Ploegsteert, and a dozen other historic landmarks in between. Outflanked on both sides, Armentières had perforce to be evacuated. Messines was recaptured by the South Africans, but had to be abandoned when the enemy's advance in the south pushed almost as far as Neuve Eglise. On the 11th, when the enemy continued to extend his gains with seemingly endless reinforcements, and had crossed the Lawe, a tributary of the Lys, Sir Douglas Haig issued his famous Order of the Day to his troops, which, while it reflected the gravity of the situation, inspired them to fight it out:

"Every position must be held to the last man.... With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind depend alike upon the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment."

The appeal, with its promise also of speedy reinforcements from the French army—"moving rapidly and in great force to our support"—heartened the battle-worn divisions when they sorely needed its encouragement. The pressure was still too great to prevent the Germans from taking Neuve Eglise on the 14th—after a struggle lasting two and a half days, from house to house—or Merris a day earlier, which brought them within 4 miles of Hazebrouck, where the 1st Australian Division, just detrained, kept them at bay; or Bailleul on the 15th. At midnight on the 15th the British line fell back to the defences between Meteren and Dranoutre, a move involving the simultaneous withdrawal from the Passchendaele Ridge.

These were the darkest hours of the last great battle for Ypres. There were already signs that the German advance, having again failed to break a way through by sheer weight and numbers, was slowing down, and the promised French reinforcements were close at hand. These took over the sector from Meteren to Wytschaete, where, on the 25th, before they had consolidated their positions, they were made to bear the brunt of a fresh German blow, delivered with 9 fresh divisions, from Bailleul to the Ypres-Comines Canal. The French fought desperately to save Kemmel Hill, commanding Ypres some six miles away; but in five hours the Germans had captured both the village and the crest of the hill. With the Ypres salient now dominated both from Kemmel and Messines it became necessary still further to shorten the line round Ypres. This was accordingly redrawn on the night of 26th-27th April through Pilkem, Wieltje, Zillebeke Lake, and Voormezeele.

One more effort was made by the Germans to push right through before the end of the month—on the 29th, when, in a fresh attack in force on the Franco-British front, they succeeded in reaching as far as Locre, behind Kemmel. But the French, who were in no mood to repeat their experience at Kemmel, flung the enemy back with sanguinary losses. The heaviest casualties of the Germans that day, however, were against the British 21st, 49th, and 25th Divisions, whose artillery—like the gunners of the Third Army on 28th March—had the range of them as they advanced in mass formation, and blew them to pieces. Only one of the waves of German infantry succeeded in reaching the British positions, where bomb and bayonet completed its destruction. This marked the last serious attempt on Germany's part to seize the Channel ports.

Though Ludendorff had failed to reach his objectives either on the Amiens or Flanders front he still had a sufficient superiority of force to retain the initiative. With every incentive to compel a decision before the new American army, which was now arriving at the rate of something like 150,000 a month, could enter the field in full strength, Ludendorff had either to throw up the sponge or strike again at the earliest moment in one final effort to beat the Allies to their knees. Meantime the obvious policy on the Franco-British part was to maintain an active defence until their own and American reinforcements made a counter-offensive possible. In the minor operations which marked this period of waiting, the Australians added Villers-Bretonneux to their battle honours. Villers-Bretonneux, which lies on the edge of the ridge facing Amiens—only 8 miles away—had been rushed and captured by the Germans in a surprise attack in thick fog on 23rd April. Before daybreak the next morning the Australians had surrounded the German garrison, and the end of a fierce house-to-house conflict left the place in British hands again, together with nearly 1000 prisoners.

Third Phase of Ludendorff's Offensive

Though every day added to the danger of delay, it was not until the end of May that the German army, its plans disorganized by its unexpectedly heavy commitments in the Amiens and Flanders battles, was launched on the third and final phase of Ludendorff's great offensive with a sudden attack on the Aisne front in the direction of Paris. It was along this front that the 9th British Corps (General Sir A. Hamilton-Gordon), consisting of the 8th, 21st, 25th, and 50th Divisions, and subsequently reinforced by the 19th Division, had been sent to the French armies under General Pétain for much-needed rest after sharing to the full the honours and sacrifices of the earlier battles. By their side were crack French divisions which had also earned the rest which it was felt they could count upon along the main stretch of the Chemin-des-Dames. holding as it did some of the strongest natural defences along the whole battle front. The French had taken months in the previous year, and spent countless lives, to recapture these positions.

The very unlikelihood of choosing such a formidable sector decided Ludendorff to select it for his dramatic attack on 27th May, moving up his specially trained divisions of shock troops at the last moment—with all possible secrecy, accompanied by other surprises in the vast number of guns and aeroplanes brought into action, as well as the largest fleet of German tanks which the enemy had ever employed. Only on the very eve of the new advance did the French learn of the impending blow—too late to avert disaster. Outnumbered by 6 to 1 the Allies, British and French alike, were borne back by the onrush of picked troops as soon as the preliminary bombardment ceased. Helped as usual by a thick early-morning mist the armies of von Böhn, von Hutier, and von Below—all nominally under the German Crown Prince—had carried the whole of the Chemin-des-Dames ridge by nightfall, and were fighting on the Aisne. Within two days they were not only across the Aisne on an 18-mile front, but had swept on to the Vesle, and were even across that river west of Fismes—a depth of 12 miles from their starting-point.

Reserving his stoutest resistance for the flanks, Foch strove hard to save Soissons, but it fell again into the enemy's hands on the 29th, by which date Rheims, on the Allies' right, was also pressed so hard that its outlying positions were carried on the 30th, and only the devoted bravery of Berthelot's Fifth Army—with Gouraud guarding the Champagne front on its right—saved the battered city. The British and French divisions which had meantime been driven back from the Chemin-des-Dames to the Aisne, and from the Aisne to the Vesle—the Allies often fighting side by side in hopeless rear-guard actions against immensely superior numbers—were now holding a line between the Vesle and the Ardre while the Germans continued to plunge deeper and deeper into the big salient which they had formed towards the Marne. The shattered divisions of the British 9th Corps now formed part of Berthelot's Fifth French Army guarding Rheims, and subsequently played a large part in repelling the enemy's attack on the north-east side of that city. In the words of General Berthelot himself: "They have enabled us to establish a barrier against which the hostile waves have beaten themselves in vain. This none of the French who witnessed it will ever forget."

By 31st May the German advance in the centre had spread as far as the Marne at Château-Thierry, extending thence along a 10-mile front to Dormans. It was at Château-Thierry on this day that the Americans began to play their part in the battle, linking up with a French colonial division on the south bank of the river and preventing the enemy from crossing. New French units were also coming into line, blocking the Germans' path south of Soissons on the road to Villers-Cotterets, as well as at Château-Thierry. Foiled in both these directions, Ludendorff turned to the Ailette front in order to get more elbow-room, and flattened out the French front between Soissons and Noyon. Again unable to make much further headway against the fierce French counter-attacks, he carried the battle still farther to his right, attacking between Noyon and Montdidier on 9th June in the hope of linking up the new Marne salient with the one already formed at Amiens, and so advancing on one immense front. The new 'drive' was again entrusted to von Hutier, whose 25 divisions, employing the same shock tactics as before, swept forward at first to a depth of some 5 miles in the centre; but, held on the wings, were fiercely counter-attacked on the 11th on their exposed right flank and robbed of most of their gains.

On the following day the German War Minister declared that "Foch's so-called Army of Reserve exists no more"; the truth being that Foch, with time and an ever-flowing stream of reinforcements on his side, was gradually becoming master of the situation, and could afford to wait until Ludendorff gave him the opportunity he wanted. Ludendorff, on the other hand, with the pick of his troops 'pocketed' in the great Marne salient, was forced to make another forward move or withdraw them. He made one more attempt on Rheims, three divisions being ordered on 18th June to take it at all costs; but the whole attack was an expensive failure. For the rest of the month, when the weather broke, and during the first half of July, Ludendorff left most of the fighting to the Allies while he prepared for one last herculean effort to burst through their line. On 28th June Foch felt his way towards his counter-stroke by a preliminary advance between Villers-Cotterets and the Aisne, when he won back over a mile of useful territory and took over 1000 prisoners. On 4th July further minor victories were recorded along both the French and British fronts, the British success being at Hamel, where American units celebrated Independence Day by helping the Australians to recover that fiercely-contested stronghold, with 1500 prisoners.

On 15th July Ludendorff launched his final effort on a 50-mile front on each side of Rheims. This time the Allies were warned of its direction in time. On the left, where immediate success was vital to the whole plan, the attack was flung into disorder at the very beginning by a deluge of shells from Gouraud's guns before even the German bombardment started; and when, this over, the attacking divisions of von Einem and von Mudra advanced, they found that Gouraud's army, save for volunteer garrisons in concrete forts, had returned undamaged to its main battle positions, to reach which they had to face a concentrated fire that tore their ranks to pieces. Some 50,000 German troops were admitted to have fallen that day before Gouraud's army. With the failure of the advance in Champagne the German attack on the right, where Italian as well as British and American troops were now fighting side by side with the French, was unavailing, though the line south-west of Rheims was pressed back some 3 or 4 miles, and eight divisions under von Böhn succeeded by 17th July in crossing the Marne at a number of points between Fossoy and Dormans.

Foch's Counter-stroke

They were only allowed to remain south of the Marne long enough for Foch to convert these river crossings into a death-trap. For Foch had now decided that the moment had come when the Germans, exhausted by their advance, were least in a condition to resist a counter-stroke aimed at their flank. The flank which Foch selected for attack was that on the western side of the salient created, from its most northerly point on the Aisne near Soissons, to its southern extremity, Château-Thierry on the Marne, where the symptoms of the exhaustion of the German momentum had been furnished by the ability of American and other contingents to resist further advance. In the earlier half of July a ceaseless stream of men and guns had flowed up from the French side to take cover in the forest of Villers-Cotterets on their flank, in preparation for the blow to come; and by 18th July two French armies were assembled along the 27-mile flank, that of General Mangin aligned between the Aisne and the Ourcq, which bisected the salient, and that of General Degoutte from the Ourcq to the Marne. Mangin's army contained some of the finest French shock divisions as well as two famous British ones, the 34th and the 15th, and a number of keen American troops. Degoutte's army had the more awkward task, judged by the country over which it had to travel, but Foch's plan here, as elsewhere, was to put his best fighting material where it would pierce farthest, and hold the enemy elsewhere. By the same token the army of General Berthelot, with two other supporting British divisions, was entrusted with the task on the other side of the salient, from Rheims to Épernay, not of thrusting at the Germans but of holding them hard.

Mangin's army was ordered to strike with all its force. It was equipped with new and speedier 'whippet' tanks, and its immediate onset was masked by the accident of a July thunderstorm on the eve of the fighting. On the morning of 18th July it went forward with nothing but a barrage, but with the effect of a thunderbolt, and its average advance on that day was 5 miles, with Fontenoy and the plateau of Pernay on the Aisne firmly secured. Degoutte's army went forward for 2 miles over difficult country. A blow of immense significance had been struck along the whole length of the salient's vulnerable side. Next day Mangin's movement continued; he tightened his hold on the Aisne and swung his right wing farther along the Ourcq so as to bring the whole line of the one good north-and-south road in the salient under the fire of his guns, and thus to hamper the German movements terribly. That alone would have forced the enemy to begin a retreat from the Marne, while it might yet be possible. Meanwhile Degoutte was advancing also, and was forcing the Germans away from the neighbourhood of Château-Thierry. The German commander, von Böhn, was not slow to recognize the implications of the situation into which Foch had forced him, and gave orders to recross the Marne. He was in time, but his retreating troops were roughly handled at the crossings, and despite all his attempts to hold up the attack on his western flank by counter-attack, the pressure of Mangin and Degoutte, added to that of de Mitry's army, which was now following him back over the Marne, became every hour more dangerous. By 20th July not only was the Marne itself in process of being abandoned by von Böhn but Château-Thierry had fallen. Degoutte's army was 3 miles north of it. De Mitry's divisions had secured ample crossings for future movement and Berthelot's mixed forces of French, British, and Italians had begun a disconcerting attack on the eastern side of the salient. In three days the Germans lost 20,000 prisoners, and, what was more significant, 450 guns. The first riposte of the French Generalissimo had been delivered. It was to be followed in unending succession by others.

The German Commander-in-Chief had to gain time. It was no easy thing to withdraw his 600,000 men crowded between the Aisne and the Marne, but he was obliged to support them lest the salient should collapse too suddenly. He aimed a counter-stroke at Gouraud's army east of Rheims, but the blow spent itself in the air, and Foch replied by setting in motion the army of General Debeney, where it stood opposite to that of General von Hutier, between Montdidier and Noyon. But he had not yet gathered the full fruits of the strength of his positional assault between the Aisne and the Marne, and did not in the least allow pressure here to relax. Mangin seized Oulchy-le-Château on the Ourcq (25th July); and on 26th July Gouraud, on the other side of Rheims, recovered the ground he had ceded under the German pressure. By Sunday (28th July) the Allied attack in the Aisne-Marne salient had swept convergingly on to the line of the Ourcq, and with that achievement the most important episode in the opening of Foch's campaign was consummated. Soissons fell to Mangin on 1st and 2nd Aug., a signal that the work was done, and Foch was now free to prosecute his larger plan of delivering successive blows at points where they would disperse and use up the German reinforcements most effectively.

The Allies' Victorious Offensive, 1918

Marshal Foch, after consultation with the British Commander-in-Chief, had desired the commanders of all armies, British and French, to prepare plans of action and to be ready to put them into operation at short notice. He now more particularly addressed inquiry to Sir Douglas Haig as to his willingness to undertake a continuous offensive towards the German centre. Sir Douglas Haig assented to Marshal Foch's representations as to the superior advantages to be gained from an attack there, and, while continuing a show of preparation in the Ypres area, where Ludendorff, on an estimate of the psychology of the British commander, would expect the counter-attack to come, and was already taking steps to reduce its effectiveness by masked withdrawals, transferred forces steadily to Rawlinson's Fourth Army on the Somme. This army, and the First French Army under Debeney on the right, both directed by Haig, were set in motion on 8th Aug. on a 16-mile front from Morlancourt to Moreuil. The thrust was successful beyond expectation. The British Fourth Army, on the right wing, went through the German divisions of von Marwitz (Second Army) like paper, regaining the old outer-line defences of Amiens; and Debeney's men crushing the resistance of von Hutier's Eighteenth German Army, and reaching Fresnoy and Plessier, where they linked up with General Humbert's Third French Army on the road to Roye. The captures of the day amounted to 17,000 prisoners and 500 guns, an unmistakeable symptom that the German power of resistance was shaking.

On 9th Aug. Rawlinson pushed on still farther; on 10th Aug. General Humbert prolonged Debeney's still attacking line and took Montdidier, and a number of villages. These three armies continued to eat into the enemy's positions and to pin a number of German divisions down till 20th Aug., while Mangin's army at Soissons moved en échelon to take up contact with Humbert's right. Meanwhile Ludendorff, fully aware now that the initiative had passed out of his hands, and that the best course that lay open before him was a 'strategic retirement', began to effect one stage of it in the Ypres and Lys district under the direction of General Sixt von Armin, whose withdrawal was followed vigilantly by the British forces; and another stage in the German salient on the Ancre, where General von Below's Seventeenth Army was stationed. Von Below withdrew on the Bapaume line from Serre, Beaumont-Hamel, and Bucquoy to the shelter of the sector of the Hindenburg line behind it (13th, 14th, and 15th Aug.).

But whereas in 1917 Ludendorff had disconcerted both British and French Commanders-in-Chief by a sudden withdrawal on the Bapaume-Péronne line of the Somme, he was not now allowed to withdraw without injury. Haig's battle of Bapaume (21st Aug. and following days) was designed in two stages, the first of which brought up Byng's Third Army to a position in which it was aligned with Rawlinson's Fourth Army, and the second of which saw the Third and Fourth Army attack von Below in combination. The combined pressure of these two armies was continuously successful, though the Germans fell back stubbornly in many places. By 30th Aug. Bapaume was once again in British hands, and the line of attack was threatening the strongholds of the Hindenburg line, while its extension ran through Heudecourt and Fremiecourt to Cléry. Péronne fell to the Australian Corps by a most gallant feat of arms on 1st Sept. A more strategically significant victory was gained on the same day when the capture of Bullecourt, followed by that of Riencourt and Cagnicourt, opened up the first crevice in the ramifications of the Hindenburg defences known as the Drocourt-Quéant switch line. The battle of Bapaume drove thirty-five German divisions from the old Somme battlefield, and captured 34,000 men and 27 guns.

The crevice in the Drocourt-Quéant defences was still further widened on 1st Sept., when six British divisions of Horne's First Army, including two Canadian, attacked behind tanks a 5-mile front occupied by eleven German divisions and captured Dury Ridge and Quéant, together with 16,000 men and 200 guns. So far, therefore, from Ludendorff's strategic retreat being conducted 'according to plan', it cost the Germans, between 21st Aug. and 9th Sept., some 53,000 men and 470 guns; the French had been able to occupy Ham and Chauny, while the British were going forward; and General Sixt von Armin was forced cautiously to retire from the Ypres salient.

During these operations by the British armies Foch had never relaxed pressure with the three armies of Debeney, Humbert, and Mangin, while still threatening an advance beyond the Vesle in the deflating Aisne salient, west of Rheims, and preparing new blows elsewhere. At the beginning of September the position of the French armies of the centre, won by continuous fighting, was as follows: Debeney had crossed the Somme, taken Ham, and was threatening St. Quentin; Humbert was close to Tergnier and was pointing towards La Fère: Mangin was back in Coucy-le-Château and held the railway thence to Soissons; Degoutte was spreading from Soissons along the Aisne. These threats left General Ludendorff no choice but to shorten his line where he could do so with least risk. He decided on the Vesle front, where General de Mitry, with French and Americans, had been engaging his Seventh and Ninth Armies, and began to retire thence on 4th and 5th Sept. on a 19-mile front. The Americans occupied the Aisne thereupon from Condé to Viel-Arcy, and on 7th Sept. General Mangin crowned his long campaign at the Chemin-des-Dames by taking the ruined Fort de Condé. A week later Allemant and Laffaux Mill fell, and once again the French troops came in sight of Laon. Humbert and Debeney, both pushing forward, embarrassed Ludendorff in his intention of moving divisions to meet a new British movement known thereafter as the battle of Epéhy.

This battle was the preliminary movement in that great attack on the Hindenburg line which, more than any other single action, was the decisive 'blow at the heart' of the German defensive plan. The British advance, viewed as one movement, was made towards Cambrai, which was the northern bastion of the German defensive lines, as La Fère and Laon were the twin southern pillars. On 2nd Sept. the Third Army began a local attack on a 5-mile front which captured Havrincourt and Trescault, while on the extreme right of the Fourth Army the 9th Army Corps and the Australian Corps began a movement which by 17th Sept. placed them in Maissemy, where the Fifth Army in March had been pierced. These preliminary positions having been secured, the Third and Fourth Armies set in motion their important combined attack (18th Sept.) on a 17-mile front from Gouzeaucourt, through Havrincourt to Holnon Wood, where Debeney's First Army lent assistance. The hardest fighting was at Epéhy, which gives its name to the battle, on the left centre, but by nightfall the German defences had been pierced on a 3-mile front, 12,000 prisoners had been taken, and the British forces brought within striking distance of the main Hindenburg lines.

During the weeks in September while the plans for the battle of Epéhy were ripening, Foch had struck hard at another point in the German line, which had appeared invulnerable while the Germans were strong, but was now a menace to Ludendorff's own plans for retirement because it absorbed divisions which he badly needed elsewhere, namely the long-standing salient of St. Mihiel. It was held by seven German and two Austro-Hungarian divisions in September, and Ludendorff had been withdrawing its heavy artillery; but before his plans for withdrawal could be consummated, Foch sent in General Pershing with his young American divisions, aided by two French divisions, at the salient's apex. The Americans attacked on the two faces of the salient, west and south, the strongest thrust being made by two corps of seven divisions apiece on the southern face. The attack began on 12th Sept., and in thirty hours the salient had disappeared; while in spite of the haste with which the Germans had left it—the firmest resistance was offered by the two Austro-Hungarian divisions on the western face—10,000 prisoners and 450 guns were left behind. This victory, as symptomatic as others of German disorder, freed the Verdun-Commercy railway, and completed the attenuation of Ludendorff's reserves. The 207 German divisions which Ludendorff had commanded at the period of the greatest German strength had fallen to 185, and only 21 reserve divisions remained.

The second stage of Foch's plan now had been reached. The German armies had again been brought back to the line which they had chosen in 1914, after their first rush had recoiled. It was less threatening by the loss of the St. Mihiel salient, but it had been enormously strengthened by four years of engineering. North of the defence line was the railway which, running through Brussels, Mons, Maubeuge, Mézières, Sedan, and Metz, was the chief artery of German communications, and Foch's plan was to cut this artery on either side of the great curve which the German line made when, after coming north to south from the coast, it turned west to east at La Fère. The right half of the thrust was to be made by Gouraud's army at Rheims and the Americans on the Argonne, where they were being steadily accumulated. The more deadly attack was to be made by the First, Third, and Fourth British, and the First French Armies, which should break through Cambrai and St. Quentin towards Maubeuge.

Complementary operations were designed for the armies of Humbert and Mangin at the nose of the curve, and it was expected that, under this comprehensive pressure, Ludendorff would be compelled to withdraw divisions from the coastal sector, where an attack by the British Second Army (Plumer) and the Belgian Army might then be successful against a weakened front. A portion of Degoutte's army was sent northward in readiness for such a blow, and to the Fifth British Army (now commanded by Birdwood) was assigned a task at Lille and Lens similar to that of Humbert and Mangin at St. Gobain.

There was a pause of nearly a week, in which the Germans awaited, and the Allies prepared the new move; and then, on 27th Sept., Haig's armies struck what Foch declared to be the blow from which there was no recovery. The battle of Epéhy had given the requisite positions for the attack on that section of the Hindenburg defences which the Germans named the Siegfried line. The plan was to send forward the First (Horne) and Third (Byng) British Armies to clear the way on a line from Sauchy-Lestrée to Gouzeaucourt, seizing the crossings of the Canal du Nord, and so preparing the way for an attack by the Fourth Army. The dangerous movement was accomplished (27th Sept.): the crossings seized, the canal held, and Cambrai threatened. On 29th Sept. the Fourth Army took up the combat, and in a tremendous action along a front of 20 miles, supported by attacks from the other British armies and the First French Army, got across the vital defences of the St. Quentin Canal in the Siegfried zone. The next day the fighting spread furiously along the front of all four armies: the breach was widened; a portion of the Scheldt Canal taken; and by 3rd Oct. the Fourth Army had pierced the Siegfried line vitally. By 9th Oct. the German defences were no longer defences, and in this decisive encounter they had lost 36,000 prisoners and 380 guns.

Elsewhere victories had been won which appear minor only by comparison. American divisions had been transferred to the left bank of the Meuse at Verdun, and, supported by French divisions, had carried Montfaucon and Varennes (10,000 prisoners); on the other side of the Argonne Gouraud was advancing, and by 1st Oct. was 9 miles from his starting-point below Moronvilliers, and had accumulated 13,000 prisoners and 300 guns.

The results of these attacks were at once apparent, as Foch had predicted, in the north. His plan of an attack by Plumer's Second British Army, and by the Belgian Army stiffened by French divisions, was as successful as he had hoped. Under the weight of the Franco-Belgian-British attack on 28th Sept. the thinly held German front melted away. By nightfall the British held all the ridge between Wytschaete and the canal north of Hollebeke; the Belgians were in Houthulst Forest. By the end of September the blood-drenched ridge of Passchendaele, and all its tragic surroundings, had passed into the Allies' hands, and the German grip on the coast had been finally unloosed. This marked the beginning of the end. Since Foch attacked between the Aisne and the Marne on 15th July the Allies had taken a quarter of a million prisoners, 3669 guns, and 23,000 machine-guns. The rest of the campaign must either be a disaster of the first magnitude to the Germans, or, at best, a painful and ineffective retreat to the line of the Meuse.

What remained of the campaign was the work of clearing up; but this was not an easy task, because, though Ludendorff was aware that victory remained permanently with the Allies, he assured the German Government that delaying actions could be fought till the following spring. Against such an undesirable protraction of the war, Foch was preparing a final stroke in the neighbourhood of Metz with the aid of a Second American Army, which was being organized by General Pershing, who had relinquished the command of the First American Army to General Leggett. But the progress of the First American Army in the Argonne, where the fighting was conducted under circumstances of great difficulty, and where the transport was admittedly defective, was slow; and, lacking the place and the resources for another outflanking blow against the retreating Germans, the Allied armies could do no more than press their retreat.

In that retreat position after position was forced from their hands. Cambrai fell on 9th Oct.; on 15th Oct. von Einem's army was far from the coast; on 17th Oct. Ostend had fallen; Horne's First Army had taken Douai, and Birdwood's Second Army had liberated Lille. King Albert re-entered Bruges on 25th Oct. Farther south the British Third and Fourth Armies were close to Le Cateau on 17th Oct.; and Mangin and the French had re-entered Laon—so long the German Great Head-quarters—on 13th Oct. The story of the rest of the campaign, though it involved much severe fighting in breaking the resistance of German rear-guards, is the record of the steady drive of all the British, French, and Belgian Armies which had produced the German collapse, while the right wing of Foch's greater pincers, comprising the only great new reinforcements he could bring to bear, namely, Gouraud with the Americans on the extreme right, worked its way up for a last decisive blow.

It was a slow operation; but by 4th Nov. Gouraud and Leggett had joined hands north of the Bourgogne Forest; and by 6th Nov. Gouraud entered Rethel and an American division reached Sedan. Thus, though behind schedule time, Foch's right wing approached its decisive position in the first week in November; and in the second week the left wing (British) had occupied Maubeuge. What would have been the consequence had Foch advanced his right wing farther and with effect is a matter for the military expert. That Ludendorff was in no doubt of its disastrous results to the German armies is shown by his request for an Armistice on 9th Nov.

The Balkans, 1918

Bulgaria, thoroughly war-weary, and dissatisfied with Germany's refusal to give her the whole of the Dobrudja when terms were made with Roumania, had surrendered to the Allies on 30th Sept. The last Balkan campaign had been swift and decisive. No major operations had taken place during the earlier months of 1918, but on 15th Sept. General Franchet d'Esperey, who had succeeded General Sarrail in supreme command of the Allied forces, launched an offensive which rapidly transformed the whole military situation. French and Serbian troops, on the left or Monastir front, with the eager Serbians as the spear-head of the attack, penetrated the Bulgarian positions with an impetuosity which in two days carried them 12 miles behind the enemy's lines on a 22-mile front, and drove a wedge between the First and Second Bulgarian Armies. Meanwhile the British and Greek divisions were engaged in a far more difficult task on the Doiran front, where they suffered heavy losses in storming impregnable positions between the Dopropolje Ridge and Vetrenik, but succeeded in preventing the Bulgarians opposing them from sending reinforcements to their hard-pressed troops along the Monastir front. This 'wing of sacrifice' pinned the Second Bulgarian Army to the Doiran front until it was too late to join its retreating First Army. Realizing the plight in which it stood, it hurriedly evacuated its positions on the night of 21st Sept. and fled in confusion towards Sofia. The pursuit of the Bulgarians was now taken up by all the Allied armies from Doiran to Monastir, the vengeful Serbians in particular harrying the retreating Second Army with a remorseless energy which drove it head-long through Northern Serbia in increasing disaster towards Belgrade, while the British and Greek forces under General Milne entered Bulgaria hard on the heels of the demoralized First Army. By 26th Sept. the Bulgarian politicians realized that the whole position was hopeless, and sent a parlementaire under a white flag to the Allied head-quarters. Four days later they signed an armistice at Salonika, handing over complete control of the Bulgarian railways and communications, demobilizing the Bulgarian armies, and surrendering their arms and ammunition. On 4th Oct. King Ferdinand abdicated, and his eldest son reigned in his stead as King Boris III.

Italian Campaign, 1918

In less than a month—on 3rd Nov. to be exact—Austria-Hungary, after experiences in the field similar to those which had fallen to Bulgaria's lot, surrendered to the Italians. This turn of the tide in the Italian campaign in 1918, which amply atoned for the disaster of Caporetto in the preceding year, and crowned Italian arms with triumph, followed a final attempt of the Austro-Hungarian army, now under the direction of General von Arz, to crush the Italian front in conjunction with Ludendorff's great offensive in the West. General von Arz's main attack was delivered on 15th June on a 46-mile front along the Piave, and extended across the mountain positions between the Piave and the Brenta. The two British divisions west of Asiago played a great part in hurling the enemy back in this sector, the French divisions similarly distinguishing themselves on their right. Elsewhere some progress was made at certain points, and the Piave was crossed in two places; but by the third day it was already obvious that the attack had failed. Then the weather broke; rainstorms swept down the hills and turned the Piave, which had been low when the enemy crossed, into full flood, sweeping away a number of his bridges. Hurried efforts were made to get the marooned troops back, and though General Diaz was unable to bring up enough divisions in time to complete their discomfiture, they lost heavily enough in the retreat, their casualties before the battle died down on the other side the river amounting to some 200,000. Biding his time for his own great counter-offensive until Foch could be assured about the situation in the West, where Italian troops distinguished themselves in the operations round Rheims, General Diaz gradually pushed the Austrians back, until by 7th July he had cleared the whole Piave delta. It was not until 24th Oct. that his final blow was delivered. Its success was immediate and overwhelming. Launched on the night of 23rd-24th Oct., the main attack consisted of an advance across the Piave with the Tenth Italian Army—placed under the command of Lord Cavan—now including three British divisions, together with the Eighth and Twelfth Italian Armies. Cavan's force formed the spear-head of the thrust, and ensured the success of the battle by seizing the Island of Grave di Papadopoli in the Piave mid-stream, held by the enemy as an advance post. This was captured in a daring surprise attack by night, without any artillery preparation, and paved the way for the passage of the troops across the swollen river. At the same time the Fourth Italian Army, with a French division, advanced across the old battle-ground of Asiago and Monte Grappa, where, however, the Austrians counter-attacked, holding up the advance until the whole front collapsed with the triumphant progress of the main attack across the Piave. By 27th Oct. the breach had widened until it spread across the entire front of the three Italian armies, which thereupon swept the plains and mountain heights until all the enemy's positions between the Brenta and the Piave had been regained. The Austrian retreat became a rout. By the end of the month the Italians claimed 50,000 prisoners, had cut the railway between the plains and the mountains at Conegliano, and occupied Feltre. With Germany in similar plight; Turkey and Bulgaria already finished; and her own internal affairs rapidly going from bad to worse, Austria appealed to General Diaz for an armistice. When the end came on 3rd Nov. with the signing of the agreement which involved the demobilization of the Austrian army; the surrender of the Austrian fleet; the occupation by the Allies of the Trentino, the Istrian peninsula, and a portion of the Dalmatian coast and islands, the Italians had just captured both Trent and Trieste, a landing-force having arrived at Trieste for the occupation that very day. The wholesale nature of the Austro-Hungarian surrenders during the closing phase of this decisive campaign may be gauged from the fact that by 3rd Nov. they had amounted to no fewer than 300,000 prisoners and 5000 guns.

Germany accepts Defeat

The complete collapse of the Great War, and with it all the Pan-Germanic dreams of world-power, came with dramatic swiftness. Ludendorff resigned, and though the Kaiser had entreated Hindenburg to make one last stand on the line of the Meuse, his appeal had been in vain. Hindenburg knew the hopelessness of the position, not only of the German army but also of the German home front. Ominous disturbances were breaking out in all parts of the Fatherland, including a mutiny at Kiel. Turkey (30th Oct.) as well as Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary had surrendered, and Germany was in no position to face the Allies alone. The Armistice terms, with all their crushing humiliations, had perforce to be accepted, and were signed on 11th Nov. They included, besides evacuation of territory, the surrender of the bulk of the German navy, 5000 additional guns, 30,000 machine-guns, 3000 trench-mortars, and 2000 aeroplanes. A zone of territory on the Rhine was to be occupied by the Allies, and the Treaties of Brest-Litovsk (signed by the Bolshevik Government with the Central Powers on 3rd March, 1918, in defiance of Russia's solemn engagement not to make separate peace with them) and Bucharest (forced on Roumania in March, 1917, at the close of von Mackensen's drive) were declared null and void.

Unable to face his subjects, William II abdicated on 9th, slipped across the frontier into Holland on 10th Nov., and on the 28th of that month signed the formal document of his abdication, the Crown Prince, who also sought refuge in Holland, following suit three days later. With the Kaiser fell all the rulers of the German states. On 10th Nov. the Imperial Chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, resigned in favour of Herr Friedrich Ebert, ex-shoemaker, who became 'First Imperial President of the German Republic', with a Government formed from both wings of the Socialist party.

Last year of Naval War

The war had been won at sea as well as on land, though the British navy had far fewer opportunities than the army of getting to grips with the enemy. The hazards of naval warfare never ceased by day or night; and by the end of the war the range of the submarine had extended from the eastern end of the Mediterranean to the American coast. All the reckless efforts of the Germans to win the war by these means failed. With the adoption of new methods to cope with the danger—including the employment of 'Q' boats, or mystery ships—and the invaluable help of the American reinforcements, the monthly shipping losses in the closing year of the war grew progressively less, falling, indeed, from the total of 1,494,473 tons in the September quarter of 1917, to 915,513 tons in the corresponding quarter of 1918. Meantime the new tonnage under construction to make good these losses was as rapidly increasing. The U-boat war, in short, had failed; and the Germans knew it had failed.

The outstanding operation at sea in the closing year of the war was the raid on Zeebrugge and Ostend on St. George's Day under Vice-Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, the object being to block the outlet of the German submarines and destroyers from their depot at Bruges. Since all the neighbouring coast was strongly fortified, the attack was fraught with the gravest danger, and had to take the Germans as far as possible by surprise. The chief ship of the expeditionary force was the old cruiser Vindictive (Captain Carpenter), which, with the ferry-boats Iris II and Daffodil, were told off to act as shield to the three blocking-ships intended for Zeebrugge—Thetis, Intrepid, and Iphigenia. Two old submarines were also taken, charged with explosives, and ordered to ram themselves below the viaduct connecting Zeebrugge Harbour with the Mole, and then blow themselves up. One of them carried out her orders to the letter; the other's rope parted while she was being towed into position, and she was too late to help. The simultaneous attempt to land, shortly after midnight, followed a bombardment from a squadron of monitors, and was supported by a flotilla of destroyers and a fleet of motor-boats. The Vindictive ran alongside the Mole within five minutes of being discovered by the German garrison, and was kept in position by the Daffodil and Iris while landing-parties jumped ashore to do what damage they could and the blocking-ships were being rammed at the entrance. This successfully accomplished—both the Intrepid and Iphigenia being blown up in the fairway—the battered Vindictive, taking her landing-parties aboard, backed out and returned with her supports to Dover. The first attack on Ostend, which took place the same day, was a comparative failure owing to the undetected removal of a buoy, the two blocking-ships sent for the purpose being sunk outside the harbour. Three weeks later the commander of the Brilliant (Commander Godsal), who was in charge of that operation, tried again, this time successfully—the old Vindictive, patched up as a blocking-ship, being sunk 200 yards up the channel of Ostend—but Commander Godsal was killed by a shell just after completing his task.

The German navy made one more appearance on the high seas—when, under the terms of the Armistice, 6 battle-cruisers, 10 battleships, 8 light cruisers, 50 destroyers, and all her submarines were surrendered, the bulk of them to the Grand Fleet at Rosyth under Sir David Beatty on 21st Nov. On the following day the captive ships were sent to Scapa Flow, where, exactly seven months later, their German crews, while the British battle-fleet was absent on gunnery practice, scuttled practically every vessel. A week later—on 28th June, 1919—Germany signed the Peace Treaty at Versailles, involving unconditional acceptance of all the Allies' terms.

Turkey and the War

In Aug., 1914, the German war-ships Goeben and Breslau escaped the British squadron stationed to intercept them near Messina, the escape arising partly through delay in correcting orders, and partly through the fact that the German commander had no scruple about violating neutrality in the course he sailed through the Straits of Messina. The ships reached the Dardanelles on 11th Aug., and were sold to Turkey. This was a symptom of Turkish relations with Germany rather than a determining cause of Turkey's entrance into the war as an ally of the Central Powers; but many efforts were made to change Turkey's attitude before the British, Russian, and French Ambassadors left Constantinople (1st and 2nd Nov.) and Great Britain declared war on her (5th Nov.). The first act of war undertaken by Turkey was the dispatch to the Caucasus front of three army corps, with a plan of campaign designed by General Liman von Sanders, and commanded by Enver Pasha. They were decisively beaten by the Russian forces at Sarikamish in December. Had the Russians possessed abundance of transport, or had the roads been less difficult, this victory might have been pressed. But Russia wanted all her resources elsewhere, and it was not till 1916, two years later, that she made any serious attempt to carry the war into Turkish territory. Then, under the direction of the Grand Duke Nicholas, and General Yudenitch, who was some years later to come into prominence as the leader of an unsuccessful attempt to reach Petrograd and overthrow the Bolsheviks (1920), a Russian expedition drove back the Turkish forces on Erzerum and captured it (16th Feb., 1915). On 16th April, after another pause to gather transport, the Russians found their way to Trebizond on the Black Sea, and during the next few months spread over the Asiatic Peninsula to Bitlis, Musk, Van, Mosul, Erzingan, and Diarbekr, fighting generally with local success, but with no concerted plan of campaign. The effort expired in the autumn, and was not revived.

Gallipoli Campaign

Before, however, the Russians undertook their own expedition, they were urgent in pressing on France and Great Britain the desirability of opening up the Dardanelles so as to bring the Allies into touch with each other through the Black Sea ports. In response to this invitation, the naval possibilities of which were insufficiently considered by the advisers of the British Admiralty, and the prospects of which had been roundly condemned by all who had previously considered the problem, Admiral Carden began a bombardment of the Dardanelles forts with old battleships, British and French, on 19th Feb., 1915. The bombardment was renewed on 25th Feb. and 6th March. Admiral Carden resigned on 16th March owing to ill-health, and was succeeded by Admiral de Robeck, who favoured the idea of breaking into the Sea of Marmora by rushing the straits. Four big ships, one the Queen Elizabeth, engaged the guardian forts, Chanak and Kalid Bahr, at long range (18th March); other ships closed in, and a French squadron penetrated as far as Kephez Point. But the hidden batteries, the mines, and various other devices frustrated the attempt, which was a practical failure by the afternoon. Two good ships, Irresistible and Inflexible, were put out of action, and two others, Bouvet and Ocean, sunk. After this Admiral de Robeck accepted the professional view that a fleet operation should be combined with one on land. Lord Kitchener, who had been as little disposed towards the Dardanelles adventure as Lord Fisher, reluctantly consented, and General Sir Ian Hamilton was appointed to command the British expedition, while General d'Amade was in charge of the less numerous French Colonial Corps.

Sir Ian Hamilton's force eventually comprised the 29th Division, the Australian and New Zealand (Anzac) Corps, the East Lancashire Territorial Division, and part of the Royal Naval Division. There was an unfortunate delay in getting the expedition off from its Egyptian base, and the Turks had ample time to prepare for its landing (25th April), which they did not believe to be a possible feat. The landing was effected, nevertheless, with incomparable gallantry, at five beaches on the nose of the Gallipoli Peninsula, and at Gaba Tepe (by the Anzac Corps) farther north. Some 8000 men were got ashore in twelve hours, and an advance was made on the following day (26th April). On 28th April the French Corps, which had made a feint attack on the other side of the Narrows, was brought across to assist in a general advance on the dominating height of Achi Baba. The resulting engagement, the battle of Krithia, revealed the fact that the Turkish field fortifications, the Turkish artillery, and the Turkish numbers had all been too well organized under von Sanders to admit of being rushed. Evidence accumulated that Achi Baba, which was the key to the Dardanelles forts, could only be taken at ruinous cost by a frontal attack, though an attack in force on 6th May went nearer to success than any other, and appeared to fail only through a culminating misfortune of misdirected artillery. Fighting continued in May and June, both here and at Gaba Tepe, where General Birdwood commanded the Anzac Corps. Engagements in which local advances were made took place on 29th May (Anzac Corps), 4th and 21st June (French Corps), 28th June (29th Division), and though the climate and the insufficient protection inflicted appalling losses on the hard-tried British and French troops, it was on the Gallipoli Peninsula that the flower of the Turkish army also was lost. Of the naval forces the Queen Elizabeth was summarily ordered home just before a new Turco-German submarine campaign set in; three more old battleships were torpedoed; but the English submarines retaliated by torpedoing a Turkish battleship, gunboats, and transports in the Straits.

General Gouraud relieved General d'Amade in the middle of May, but was badly wounded by a shell (30th June), and returned to France. General Sir Ian Hamilton, who had unceasingly asked for more guns and more men, received some part of the aid he asked in order to put a new plan into operation. The plan was to land a force at Sari Bair, on the neck of the Peninsula, where it could co-operate with the Anzac Corps in forcing a way to the commanding heights there, and ultimately might take the Turks in the flank. One force was to land at Anzac Cove; two other of the three new divisions sent out to Sir Ian Hamilton were to be landed 4 miles north, at Suvla Bay. The forces at Anzac were landed on 4th-6th Aug., bringing up the numbers of Sir W. Birdwood's command to 36,000. Sir F. Stopford was in command of the force to land at Suvla Bay (6th and 7th Aug.), with Generals Hammersley and Mahon as divisional generals.

The fresh attack on the night of 6th Aug. was not completely successful, and the Anzac columns under General Godley were still short of the ridges at Koja and Chunuk on the night of 7th Aug. The Turks were then alive to the threat, and made continuous counter-attacks, so that by 10th Aug. all the efforts of the combined force of Anzacs, Gurkhas, and English regiments had failed to maintain more than a slippery hold on the ridges. The chief cause of the failure was that the contributory aid of the attack at Suvla Bay farther north had not been forthcoming, owing to various reasons. Lack of water had exhausted the unseasoned divisions landed in Suvla Bay; misunderstandings among the generals were other reasons; and when the Commander-in-Chief, on hearing of their failure, came up from Zimbros, he met a situation which it was too late to redeem. General Stopford was succeeded by General de Lisle (15th Aug.). Lord Kitchener declined to send further troops from home, and though Sir Ian Hamilton, bringing the veteran 29th Division up to Suvla, with reinforcements of yeomanry, made another attempt on 21st Aug., it was unavailing. After 24th Aug. the British campaign assumed a defensive character, and in spite of Sir Ian Hamilton's representations the War Office declined to waste further men and material on it. On 15th Oct. Sir Ian Hamilton was recalled, and Sir Charles Munro, who reported that the expedition should be abandoned, was supported by Lord Kitchener after personal inspection of the surroundings. The evacuation was carried out with remarkable success on 18th Dec. and 8th Jan. (1916). The cost of the expedition in men was 31,389 killed, 78,749 wounded, and 9708 missing.

Mesopotamian Campaign

The Mesopotamian campaign ran contemporaneously in part with the Dardanelles operations, and in part with the campaign between Erzerum and the Caucasus in Armenia, in which Russia co-operated. A small British force, sent out to the Persian Gulf in 1914, occupied Basra (22nd Nov.) and pushed outposts forward to the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates. General Sir John Nixon took command (Jan., 1915), and in April (11th to 14th), following a Turkish attack, the British force, now a division strong, advanced to Shaiba, and on 31st May took Kurna. Amara, on the Tigris, capitulated to General Townshend (3rd June), who was empowered to push forward an advance column, while another column, under General Gorringe, beat the Turks at Nasiriyeh (24th July). At this time the Russians were on the headwaters of the Euphrates.

Fired by these successes, General Nixon ordered Townshend to seize Kut if possible. It was so dangerous an enterprise that probably the Turks did not believe that it would be attempted. But Townshend traversed the difficult country in six weeks, arriving within striking distance of the Turkish forces under Nur-ed-Din Bey on 15th Sept., and, in a very capably devised and executed engagement on 27th and 28th Sept., drove them before him. Townshend, against his own better judgment, was then sent forward to attempt the impossible feat of pushing on to the Turkish base of Bagdad. He arrived in front of their advanced position, Ctesiphon, on 22nd Nov., and attacked it with his four brigades, one of which was a reinforcement, and his rather scanty cavalry and artillery. The first line of the defences was carried, but Nur-ed-Din, who had retired on his supports, counter-attacked, and in spite of Townshend's resistance compelled him to retreat (25th Nov.) by way of Azizieh, fighting heavy rear-guard actions all the way to Kut (3rd Dec.). Townshend's force suffered severely and lost part of its river transport. By 5th Dec. it was invested in Kut, and after two unsuccessful attempts to carry the town by force (8th and 23rd Dec.), the Turks sat down to starve it out. Townshend's mixed force of British and Indians, ill-fed and assailed by beri-beri and scurvy, endured the siege for 145 days, till 29th April, 1916, when it surrendered to Khalil Pasha. The prisoners were at first well treated, but most of them were compelled to march through Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Anatolia to prisoners' camps, and many died from their hardships.

An attempt to relieve Kut failed. It was made by Generals Aylmer and Younghusband, whose relief expedition set out on 3rd Jan., 1916. An engagement was fought on 8th Jan., and a pitched battle at the Shatt-el-Hai on 8th March. This failed, when on the brink of success, through want of luck or enterprise at the critical moment. Several changes were made in the Mesopotamia leadership after the impossibility of relieving Kut had become apparent, and in Aug., 1916, General Stanley Maude took over the command. The attention drawn to the blunders, and the scandals of medical assistance and transport, enabled General Maude to begin his task by rectifying them, and he built light railways from Basra. He made his first move forward on 12th Dec., 1916, and the history of the Mesopotamian campaign then entered on a brighter epoch, a result due to Maude's deliberate, bold, and prudent generalship. Contact began on 5th Jan.; the right bank below Kut was cleared by 15th-16th Jan.; and by 23rd Feb. Kut itself was so far encircled that the Turks had no option but to abandon it with guns and prisoners. Maude resumed his advance on 5th March, and by 11th March had manœuvred the Turks out of Bagdad as he had forced them out of Kut. The integrity of the Mesopotamian Turkish force had been destroyed, and its portions distributed at points believed to be out of Maude's reach. One of these was at Ramadie, but a dashing night-march captured the Turkish commander and 3400 prisoners (28th Sept., 1917). Other successes were gained at Tekrit and the Jebel Hamrin hills before Sir Stanley Maude died of cholera (18th Nov.). He was succeeded by General Marshall, who, in 1918, occupied Hit on the Euphrates, and ended the Mesopotamian campaign with a crushing victory at Mosul just before the Armistice.

Palestine Campaign

Turkey assumed the offensive against Egypt, of which the Sultans were nominally suzerains, by an attempt to force the Suez Canal in Feb., 1915. A force under Djemal Pasha made a dash across the 150 miles of the Sinai Peninsula from Palestine, and was in a position to attack Ismailia and the Bitter Lakes on 2nd Feb. The ample Imperial troops on the spot enabled General Marshall to beat off the attack with ease, but the raiders were not pursued. An attempt on a more concerted scale was made in 1916, though at this time the Turkish garrisons in the Hejaz were having difficulties with the Arabs. A base was established at El Arish, and on 3rd Aug. a well-equipped force of 18,000 advanced to attack Major-General Lawrence's outposts at Romani, in the north of the Sinai Peninsula. The attack was beaten off, and General Sir A. Murray's main body of Australians, New Zealanders, Yeomanry, Territorials, and the 52nd Division coming up, counter-attacked and drove the Turks back 18 miles, inflicting a loss of 4000 prisoners and 4 guns. Between the 6th and 12th Aug. General Murray improved on his victory, and advanced steadily to Mazar (16th Sept.) and El Arish, evacuated by the Turks (20th Dec.). On 22nd Dec. an attack was made by one of the desert columns on Magdhaba, and the whole Turkish force of 3000 destroyed or captured.

On 9th Jan., 1917, the columns under Generals Dobell and Chetwode reached Rafa, the Mediterranean port on the southern borders of Palestine. A pipe line conveying water and a railway followed close on General Murray's advance, and by the middle of March, 1917, these had reached Rafa, enabling an advance to be begun in Palestine, with Gaza as the immediate objective. The first battle of Gaza began on 26th March. It was a failure. Chetwode's mounted forces, including the Australians, moved in a wide detour round Gaza, which was entered while Dobell's infantry attacked the main Turkish positions. But the infantry thrust was not strong enough to penetrate the opposition offered to it, and after two days' fighting the attack was called off. Water was short, and General Murray suspended further attack till 19th April, when, as frequently happened, the Turks, having been reinforced and established in good positions, fought well and beat off the assailants.

Sir A. Murray and General Dobell left the Palestine operations, and General Sir E. Allenby was sent out to organize a subsequent advance when the opportunity was propitious. He was reinforced; the communications were improved through the summer; and on 31st Oct. he surprised the Turks by making a diversion towards Beersheba while demonstrating towards Gaza. Beersheba was rushed by the Australians, and Allenby's right secured. He then sent the 52nd Division to a point between Gaza and the sea while occupying Ali Muntar, and from these two vantage points shelled the Turks out (7th Nov.). It was the decision of the Allied War Council at Versailles in the autumn of 1917 that Allenby, strongly reinforced, should put the Turks out of the war by one decisive blow, since they were already in straits by reason of losses in their numerous campaigns, including those against the Arabs of the Hejaz, which had been organized by the Emir Feisul and Colonel T. E. Lawrence. Accordingly, the Turks were pursued through Ascalon and Ashdod to Jaffa (16th Nov.). Allenby's main columns pressed on more slowly between Beersheba and Hebron (7th Dec.), but entered Jerusalem on 9th Dec., after disposing of an ineffective Turkish stand on the day before. The operations were practically suspended after the Jordan had been crossed at the end of March, 1918, when it became necessary to recall some of the best British divisions to France to meet the last German onslaught in France and Flanders.

When this had been disposed of, Allenby, who had been supplied with Indian divisions, and who, in Sept., 1918, was much superior in forces and artillery to the Turks, resumed his attack (19th Sept.). Facing him were the Turkish Seventh and Eighth Armies in front of Shechem, and the Turkish Fourth Army east of Jordan. A heavy artillery preparation ushered in a frontal infantry attack which tore a gap in the Turkish right and right centre, and through it the cavalry swept north across the Plain of Sharon to reach and seize the passes at Megiddo. Another infantry attack pinned the Eighth Army on the Jordan. The Turks began to retreat too late, for the Imperial cavalry, pouring through the Megiddo passes, crossed the plain of Esdraelon and barred every avenue of retreat on the western side of Jordan. They only missed the capture of General Liman von Sanders at Nazareth by a few hours.

The Turkish armies were in effect destroyed, for on the eastern side of Jordan the Arab cavalry of the Emir Feisul had turned the line of retreat there, and had cut the Hejaz railway running to Damascus. In less than a week the Turkish Seventh and Eighth Armies were wiped out, and 10,000 of the Fourth Army surrendered at Rabboth Amman (29th Sept.). Haifa and Acre on the coast fell as fast as the Imperial cavalry could reach them. Damascus was entered by the Australians on 1st Oct. Beirut fell a few days later, and by the end of October General Allenby had reached Aleppo. The Turkish Cabinet immediately entered into negotiations, Enver Pasha and Talaat Pasha having been replaced. An armistice was signed on 30th Oct. at Mudros, and Turkey was out of the war. It may be added that Talaat Pasha, who was responsible for the massacres of the Armenians, was killed in Berlin by an Armenian student in 1921.

The War in Germany's Colonies

Within a few weeks of the outbreak of hostilities the war had been carried to all the scattered possessions of Germany in Africa, the Pacific, and the Far East. Among the first to fall were German Samoa (occupied by the New Zealand troops on 29th Aug.); the islands of the Bismarck Archipelago and German New Guinea (occupied by the Australians on 11th-13th Sept.); and the more northerly islands of the Pacific, surrendered at the beginning of October to a Japanese squadron. These last were at once handed over by Japan to Australia. Japan, faithful to her alliance with Great Britain, had declared war against Germany on 23rd Aug., and attacked the formidable German post of Kiao-Chau, 'the key to Northern China', which had been seized by Germany on the flimsiest pretext in 1898. Japan invested Kiao-Chau—garrisoned by 6000 well-armed men, with powerful defences—with a force of 23,000 troops under General Kamio, supported by a small British contingent of South Wales Borderers and Sikhs under General Bernardiston. After a six weeks' siege, and a preliminary bombardment preparatory to launching a final assault, the garrison capitulated (7th Nov.).

The remainder of Germany's colonies were in Africa, where the campaigns resulting in their conquest varied from a few weeks to the whole length of the war. The shortest was in Togoland, which surrendered unconditionally to a Franco-British force under Colonel Bryant on 27th Aug., 1914, after a brisk little campaign lasting just three weeks. The Cameroons, larger than the Fatherland, took much longer to subdue, and the operations were of a more arduous nature. A false start was made from Nigeria with insufficient forces, which met with disaster towards the end of August. A more adequate expedition was then organized under General C. M. Dobell, in co-operation with French forces under General Aymerich. Duala, the capital, was occupied on 27th Sept., but it was only after desultory fighting for a year and a half that the Germans, realizing the hopelessness of further resistance, left the colony to its fate by retreating into the neighbouring Spanish territory of Rio Muni.

The campaign in German South-West Africa was held up at first by the revolt in South Africa, which had to be crushed before General Botha was free to give his undivided attention to the task which he had offered to undertake in proof of the Union's loyalty. A preliminary move had been made in September by the occupation of the coastal harbours, Luderitz Bay and Swakopmund, from which the Germans retired to concentrate in Windhoek, their capital inland. A 'regrettable incident' occurred on 26th Sept., 1914, when a British patrol was attacked at Sandfontein and a small relief force compelled to surrender. This was followed by news of the revolt of Maritz, who had been partly responsible for the reverse at Sandfontein; and the small civil war which followed in South Africa, though nipped in the bud by the sterling loyalty of most South Africans, served to postpone the conquest of German South-West Africa until the following year.

When the campaign began in earnest in the spring of 1915, the whole south-eastern part of the German colony had already been cleared by Colonel van Deventer, whose desert march with three separate columns in these preliminary operations was one of the outstanding achievements of the campaign. In the great converging march which followed, led in the south by General Smuts, and in the north by General Botha, with columns consisting largely of mounted burghers from the Transvaal and Orange Free State, the Germans were outfought and outmanœuvred throughout. The advance began on 27th April, and by 5th May Botha, building a light railway with supplies behind him, entered Karibib without opposition, and Windhoek a week later, the Germans, 5000 strong but greatly outnumbered, withdrawing the bulk of their forces to the north. Twice they proposed an armistice, offering terms, but the only terms that Botha would agree to implied unconditional surrender. Having rested and refitted his men after this trying trek across country from Swakopmund, he proceeded to enforce these terms by a series of remarkable marching feats, with his own columns in the centre and those of Brits and Myburgh to left and right respectively, starting on 18th June. In less than a week Botha's force had covered 100 miles and captured Otyiwarango; on 1st July, after a brief rest, his infantry were in touch with the enemy's main force, entrenched from Otavi to Tsumeb, with Brits and Myburgh sweeping round on either side. On 8th July all resistance collapsed with the total surrender of the Germans under Colonel Franks, the military commandant. The whole campaign in South-West Africa did not cost us more than 140 lives, and total casualties amounting to 1200.

The conquest of German East Africa was a very different affair. It was opposed by a force which, at its maximum, could muster 25,000 well-drilled troops—2000 of them Europeans—with 60 guns and machine-guns, and sufficient supplies of ammunition; the whole commanded by von Lettow-Vorbeck, a leader of resource and inflexible determination. When, at the outbreak of war, the British cruisers Astræa and Pegasus bombarded Dar-es-Salaam and destroyed the wireless station, the Germans retaliated by crippling the Pegasus, then lying at Mombasa, with their fast cruiser Königsberg, which had fled to East Africa after escaping the fate of the rest of von Spee's squadron off the Falkland Islands. They also raided the Uganda railway, occupied Taveta on the British East African border, and threatened an advance on Mombasa along the coast. This was checked by the arrival of British reinforcements, naval and military, the naval units of which forced the Königsberg to seek the shelter of the Rufigi River, where, as already stated, she was afterwards destroyed.

A second expeditionary force under General Aitken was brought from India in the closing months of the year, and ordered to land at the northern German port of Tanga, with the object of cutting off the enemy troops operating on the British border. The magnitude of the task had been gravely under-estimated. Landing on 4th Nov. in difficult bush country—familiar enough to the defenders, but an impenetrable maze to the landing force—the attempt ended in disaster, costing some 800 casualties before the expedition re-embarked. Another blow was dealt by von Lettow-Vorbeck early in 1915 (19th Jan.) when he recaptured Jassin, gallantly held to the last by Indian troops under Colonel Ragbir Singh; but in the same month he lost one of his chief ports on Victoria Nyanza; in the following May other British forces captured Sphinxhaven after an action by armed steamers; and a blockade was declared of the German East African coast, where the Island of Mafia, off the mouth of the Rufigi River, was also seized. Several blockade-runners succeeded in getting through to von Lettow-Vorbeck with much-needed supplies of ammunition; and with Britain's hands full to overflowing with other campaigns, the main German forces in East Africa had perforce to be left until Botha had completed the conquest of South-West Africa, and the Union was free to lend a hand in expelling the Germans from the last and most valuable of their colonies.

When at length the new expeditionary force was nearly ready, the command was given to General Smith-Dorrien, but he was forced to relinquish it through ill-health shortly after landing in Africa. His place was filled by General Smuts, who arrived on the scene in Feb., 1916, and started his campaign in the following month by clearing the enemy from the British borderland and the Kilimanjaro district. Much valuable spade-work had been previously done in this direction by General Tighe as a preliminary to sweeping the enemy's main forces southwards, while the Belgians from the Belgian Congo cleared his north-western province of Ruanad, and British forces drove his garrisons from the shores of Victoria Nyanza. The first stage in the new campaign was closed when Smuts established his head-quarters at Moshi, where he reorganized his force in three divisions, one (British and Indian) under Hoskins, the other two (South African) under van Deventer and Brits. Van Deventer's force had the hardest task in clearing the Germans from Kondoa Irangi on his march to the central railway, von Lettow-Vorbeck making his one great defensive stand in this direction. Van Deventer, however, was too quick for him; beat off his counter-attack after the capture of Kondoa Irangi (19th April, 1916); and struck hard when he attempted to bar the progress of Smuts's other two columns, which, after clearing the Gare and Usambara mountains in May and June, had pushed into the Nguru hills from Kangata. By this time the Germans realized that they were outmatched both in strategy and numbers, and the bulk of them would probably have shortened the war but for von Lettow-Vorbeck, who was determined to hold out, if possible, until the fate of Germany's 'place in the sun' had been decided on the battlefields of Europe. More than once it seemed as though he could not escape the wide net which Smuts flung out to trap him, but he proved as elusive as De Wet in the South African War, usually escaping with his diminishing forces through tracks unknown to his pursuers.

All the railways and ports were lost during the remainder of 1916. Dar-es-Salaam, the capital, surrendering on 3rd Sept. Towards the end of that year the Belgians from the Congo under General Tombeur drove the enemy from Tabora, on the central railway; British troops under General Northey helped in the converging movement from Northern Rhodesia—which had been invaded by the Germans at the beginning of the war—by advancing as far as Iringa. In the extreme south some Portuguese had also joined in the movement by an advance across the Rovuma River, but were forced back by a German column, and punished by raiding parties in their own territory.

The campaign seemed practically over at the beginning of 1917, when General Smuts was summoned to Great Britain to share in an imperial conference, and General Hoskins was left to account for the remainder of the enemy, now hemmed in on nearly all sides in the south-eastern corner of the colony, with von Lettow-Vorbeck's head-quarters at Mahenge. Torrential rains came to the Germans' rescue, and little progress had been made before Hoskins, called away to another theatre of war, was succeeded by General van Deventer in May (1917). Guerrilla warfare continued throughout the year, in which both sides suffered heavily, but it was not until 1st Dec. that van Deventer could report that the former Germany colony was at length clear of the enemy. Forced out of Mahenge (occupied by the Belgians on 9th Oct.), the Germans retired in two main bodies towards the Portuguese frontier, one under Tafel, which was cut off and compelled to surrender on 26th Nov., and the other under von Lettow-Vorbeck, which contrived to escape across the border and continue the war in Mozambique for nearly another year. Allied columns pursued the remnants unceasingly, but could never get to real grips with them in the difficult bush country between the Rovuma and the Zambesi. Towards the end of September, 1918, von Lettow-Vorbeck dashed back, recrossed the Rovuma, and coolly marched across the south-western corner of German East Africa into Northern Rhodesia, where he was being finally rounded up when news arrived of the Armistice. It was not, however, until 12th Nov. that the German leader was able to comply with the Armistice terms of unconditional surrender on his part, tendering his submission to the British magistrate at Kasama. In recognition of their "gallant and prolonged resistance", von Lettow-Vorbeck and his officers were permitted by General van Deventer to retain their swords, while the European rank and file were allowed to carry their arms as far as Dar-es-Salaam.

Bibliography: Earl French, Despatches; Earl Haig, Despatches (edited by Lieutenant-Colonel J. H. Boraston); Sir Julian Corbett, The Official History of the War: Naval Operations; Viscount Jellicoe, The Grand Fleet, 1914-1916, and The Crisis of the Naval War; Filson Young, With the Battle Cruisers; F. A. Mumby and others, The Great World War (9 vols.); The Times History and Encyclopedia of the War (21 vols.); A. F. Pollard, A Short History of the Great War; Lord Edward Gleichen, Chronology of the War; Thomas G. Frothingham, A Guide to the Military History of the World War, 1914-1918; Sir James Willcocks, With the Indians in France; W. T. Massey, How Jerusalem was Won, and Allenby's Final Triumph; John Masefield, Gallipoli; Sir Ian Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary; Sir Charles Townshend, My Campaign in Mesopotamia; V. J. Seligman, The Salonica Side-Show; Angus Buchanan, Three Years of War in East Africa; Boyd Cable, Airmen o' War; J. F. C. Fuller, Tanks in the Great War; Germany's Violation of the Laws of War, 1914-1915 (translated from the French Official Records); Ypres, 1914 (published by order of German General Staff, translated by G. C. W.); Theobald Bethmann-Hollweg, Reflections on the World War (translated by G. Young); General Ludendorff, My War Memories, 1914-1918; Marshal von Hindenburg, Out of my Life (translated by F. A. Holt); Count Czernin, In the World War.

Eurotium. See Plectascineæ.

Eurydice (ū-rid´i-sē), in Greek mythology, the wife of Orpheus (q.v.).

Euse´bius, of Cæsarea, the father of ecclesiastical history, a Greek writer, born in Palestine about A.D. 265, died about 340. About 315 he was appointed Bishop of Cæsarea. When the Arian controversy broke out, Eusebius showed considerable sympathy with Arius. At the Council of Nicæa (A.D. 325), when Arian doctrines were condemned, he took a leading part. His ecclesiastical history (Historia Ecclesiastica) extends from the birth of Christ to 324. Amongst his other extant works is a life of Constantine the Great, which may be said to continue his ecclesiastical history to within a few years of the writer's own death.

Eusporangiate Ferns, those in which the sporangium is a massive organ arising from several cells, whereas in leptosporangiate ferns it is a more delicate structure derived from a single superficial cell. The bulk of living ferns are leptosporangiate, the eusporangiate class comprising only two living families, viz. the Marattiaceæ and Ophioglossaceæ, as well as many extinct types. The eusporangiate types include the more primitive ferns; all the other main groups of Pteridophytes, and the seed-plants are also eusporangiate.

Eustachian Tube, in anatomy, a canal leading from the pharynx to the tympanum of the ear.

Eustachio, Bartolomeo, Italian physician and anatomist, born soon after 1500, died about 1574. He devoted himself to medical science and in particular to anatomy, which he much enriched by his researches. Amongst his discoveries were the eustachian tube and the eustachian valve of the heart.

Eustatius, St., or St. Eustache Island, a Dutch island in the W. Indies, one of the Leeward Islands, 11 miles north-west of St. Christopher's, pyramidal in form; area, 8 sq. miles. Sugar, cotton, and maize are raised; but the principal production is tobacco. The climate is healthy, but earthquakes are frequent. Pop. 1431.

Euter´pe, (1) one of the Muses, considered as presiding over lyric poetry, the invention of the flute being ascribed to her. She is usually represented as a virgin crowned with flowers, having a flute in her hand. (2) In botany, a genus of palms, natives of South America, sometimes nearly 100 feet in height.

Euthanasia, literally, a painless or easy death, a term often used in connection with the theory or proposal that it should be lawful to administer drugs to bring about a painless death, in the case of persons suffering from painful and hopeless diseases.

Eutro´pius, Flavius, a Latin historian, who flourished about A.D. 360. His abridgment of the history of Rome (Breviarium Historiæ Romanæ) is written in a perspicuous style, and is often read, or rather spelled out word by word, by beginners in Latin. It is of little or no authority as a history.

Eutyches (ū'ti-kēz), a Greek heresiarch who lived in the fifth century after Christ. He was superior of a monastery near Constantinople, and his heresy consisted in maintaining that after the incarnation there was only a divine nature in Christ under the appearance of a human body. The doctrines of Eutyches were condemned by the Council of Chalcedon in 451, and he was expelled from his monastery. He died not long afterwards. His followers were often called Monophysites (Gr. monos, single, physis, nature) as well as Eutychians.

Euxanthine, a substance supposed to be derived from the bile or urine of the buffalo, camel, or elephant. It comes from India under the name of purree or Indian yellow, and is used as a pigment.

Eux´ine (Pontus Euxīnus), the ancient name for the Black Sea.

Evangel´ical, a term often used to qualify certain theological views, especially strict views on the question of the atonement, justification by faith, the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures, and allied doctrines. In England the so-called Low Church party is evangelical in its views. In a more general sense the word implies a peculiar fervency and earnestness in insisting on such doctrines as regeneration and redemption. The 'Evangelical Church' is the official title of the Established Church of Prussia, formed in 1817 by the union of Lutherans and Calvinists.

Evangelical Alliance, an association of members of different sections of the Christian Church, organized in London in 1845, to lend its influence in favour of evangelical doctrines, religious union and liberty, and against superstition and unbelief. The Alliance, incorporated in 1912, has branches throughout the world, the American branch being especially strong, and has held meetings at Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Geneva, New York, Copenhagen, Florence, and London. A week of united prayer is held in London in the early part of January each year. The organ of the Alliance, Evangelical Christendom, is published in London.

Evangelical Association, a body of American Christians, chiefly of German descent, established about the beginning of the last century. In form of government and mode of worship it generally agrees with the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Evangelical Union, the name of a religious sect, also familiarly known as the Morisonians, from the Rev. James Morison, its originator. It took rise in Scotland in 1840, and three years afterwards organized itself as a separate Christian denomination. The Morisonians maintain the universality of the atonement, combining with this the doctrine of eternal personal and unconditional election, and denying that anyone will be condemned for Adam's fall. In point of government the individual Churches are independent. The body has now only a few adherents, the majority having united in 1896 with the Congregationalists.

Evan´gelists, the writers of the history or doctrines, precepts, actions, life, and death of Christ; in particular, the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The ancient symbols of the four evangelists are: for Matthew, a man's face; for Mark, a lion; for Luke, an ox; and for John, a flying eagle.

Ev´ans, Sir Arthur John, born in 1851, son of Sir John Evans. He was educated at Harrow, Oxford, and Göttingen, is a distinguished archæologist, as well as an investigator into the history and affairs of Eastern Europe, and in particular has made important investigations and discoveries in Crete. He has travelled in Finland, Lapland, and the Balkan countries, and has written works connected with these travels and with his archæological researches. From 1884 to 1908 he was keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. He was knighted in 1911, and was president of the British Association 1916-7. Among his works are: Through Bosnia, and Scripta Minoa.

Evans, Sir George de Lacy, a British general, born at Moig, in Ireland, in 1787, died 9th Jan., 1870. After some years of service in India, he joined the army of Wellington in the Peninsula in 1812, where he served with distinction. In 1814 he was sent to America, and was present at the battles of Bladensburg and New Orleans, returning to Europe in time to take part in Waterloo. In 1830 and 1831 he was elected member for Rye, and in 1833 for Westminster. In 1835 he was appointed to the command of 10,000 troops raised in Britain on behalf of the Queen of Spain. Under the training of Evans this force became an excellent army, and several times defeated the Carlists. During the Crimean War he distinguished himself as commander of the second division of the English army, and received the thanks of the House and other honours.

Evans, Sir John, English archæologist, born in 1823, died in 1908, was an active member of a firm of paper-makers, but eventually retired from business and devoted himself chiefly to scientific pursuits, being distinguished as a geologist, numismatist, and antiquarian. From 1878 till 1896 he was treasurer of the Royal Society; in 1897 he was president at the Toronto meeting of the British Association. He was created a K.C.B. in 1892. His chief works are: The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments of Great Britain and Ireland; and The Ancient Bronze Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments of Great Britain and Ireland.

Ev´anston, a city of the United States, Illinois, 13 miles from Chicago. It is pleasantly situated on Lake Michigan. It is the seat of the North-Western University and other institutions. Pop. 37,215.

Ev´ansville, a town in the United States, in Indiana, pleasantly situated on a height above the Ohio. It contains some handsome buildings, including custom-house and post office. Coal and iron abound in the vicinity, and there are numerous factories, flour-mills, and iron-foundries, and a large shipping trade. Pop. 85,264.

Evaporation, the process of changing a liquid into vapour, which goes on at the surface of the liquid. When evaporation takes place into a closed space above the liquid, a state is reached in which the space is saturated with vapour, and no further change is apparent. Certain conditions influence the rate at which evaporation takes place in the open, such as the extent of the exposed surface, the dryness, pressure, and temperature of the air, and the presence or absence of wind. The farmer looks for a drying wind to dry his corn-sheaves before they are carted from the field. Evaporation is always accompanied by an absorption of heat by the vapour, namely the latent heat necessary for the change of state from liquid to vapour. This heat is abstracted from the liquid, which, as a consequence, falls in temperature, and neighbouring bodies may also be cooled. A bather emerging from the water experiences this cooling as the water evaporates from his skin. In hot countries, water is kept cool by being placed in porous earthenware jars: the evaporation which takes place at the outer surface prevents the water in the jar from becoming too warm. The continual evaporation from land and water surfaces is the cause of the presence of water in the atmosphere, whether in the form of invisible vapour or of cloud, mist, fog, rain, hail, or snow. The cooling caused by evaporation is applied in industry in the case of the ammonia compression machine, in working refrigerating plant for the preservation of food-stuffs, and in the manufacture of artificial ice. When evaporation takes place at the surface of a dry solid, the process is called sublimation, and it may be observed in the cases of iodine, camphor, and ice.

Ev´elyn, John, an English writer of the seventeenth century, born at Wotton, in Surrey, 31st Oct., 1620, died there, 27th Feb., 1706. After completing his course at Oxford, he studied law at the Middle Temple, visited various parts of the Continent, and in 1659 prepared the way for the Restoration. He published numerous works, amongst which are: Sculptura, or the History and Art of Chalcography; Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees; treatises on gardening and architecture. But by far his most important work is his memoirs, comprehending a diary and correspondence, which are interesting contributions to the history of the time. Evelyn's Diary was first published in 1818, and an edition by Austin Dobson appeared in 1906.—Cf. H. Maynard Smith, The Early Life of John Evelyn.

Evening-primrose, Œnothĕra, a genus of plants, nat. ord. Onagraceæ. Œ. biennis, an American species common in cottage gardens, is not infrequent as an escaped plant in England.

Ev´erest, Mount, the highest summit of the Himalayas and the loftiest mountain in the world, 29,002 feet. It was named after Sir George Everest (1790-1866), chief of the great Indian trigonometrical survey and Surveyor-General of India. In 1921 an expedition set out to climb the mountain.

Ev´erett, Alexander Hill, an American diplomatist, born at Boston in 1792, died at Canton in 1847. After studying at Harvard, in 1809 he accompanied John Quincy Adams to St. Petersburg (Petrograd) as Secretary of Legation. He afterwards filled successive diplomatic posts in the Netherlands, Spain, and elsewhere. He was the author, amongst other works, of Europe, or a General Survey of the Present Situation of the Principal Powers (1822); and a similar work on America.

Everett, Edward, an American statesman and author, brother of the preceding, born at Dorchester, Massachusetts, 11th April, 1794, died at Boston, 15th Jan., 1865. After travelling for some years in Germany and England, he returned to America in 1819 to occupy the chair of Greek literature at Harvard. He became editor of the North American Review, and entering the political world became successively member of Congress, Governor of Massachusetts, and Minister Plenipotentiary in England (1841-5). In 1845 he was appointed president of Harvard College; in 1852 Secretary of State; in 1853 a Senator. He wrote poems; a Defence of Christianity, and his speeches and orations have been published.

Evergreen, a plant that retains its verdure through all the seasons, as the fir, the holly, the laurel, the cedar, the cypress, the juniper, the holm-oak, and many others. Evergreens shed their old leaves in the spring or summer, after the new foliage has been formed, and consequently are verdant through all the winter season. They form a considerable part of the shrubs commonly cultivated in gardens, and are beautiful at all seasons of the year.

Everlasting-flowers, a name applied to certain plants which, when dried, suffer little change in their appearance. The plants to which this name is peculiarly applied belong to the genus Helichrysum, but it is also given to members of allied genera, such as Antennaria or Gnaphalium.

Everlasting-pea, a popular name for Lathyrus latifolius, cultivated in flower-gardens, and belonging to the same genus as the sweet-pea.

Eversion of the Eyelids (Ectropion), is a turning outward of the eyelids, and it may be congenital or acquired. The latter follows severe infection of the hair-follicles of the eyelashes.

Evesham (ēvz´am), a town in England, in the county and 15 miles S.E. of Worcester, beautifully situated on the Avon, and giving name to a parliamentary division of the county. It was the seat of a monastery as early as the eighth century. Simon de Montfort was defeated by the Royal troops at Evesham on 4th Aug., 1265. Pop. 8685.

Eviction, the dispossession of a person from the occupancy of lands or tenements. The term occurs most commonly in connection with the proceedings by which a landlord ejects his tenant for non-payment of rent or on determination of the tenancy. In the case of eviction of tenants in Ireland, generally for non-payment of rent, the tenants are frequently readmitted as care-takers, or under some other title. The Rent Restrictions Act, 1920, operative until 1923, severely curtails a landlord's common law rights to recover possession of certain premises at the time when, but for the Act, the tenancy would expire.

Evidence is that which makes evident, which enables the mind to see truth. It may be (a) intuitive, i.e. resting on the direct testimony of consciousness, of perception or memory, or on fundamental principles of the human intellect; or it may be (b) demonstrative, i.e. in a strict sense, proofs which establish with certainty as in mathematical science certain conclusions; or it may be (c) probable, under which class are ranked moral evidence, legal evidence, and generally every kind of evidence which, though it may be sufficient to satisfy the mind, is not an absolutely certain and incontrovertible demonstration.

In jurisprudence evidence is classified into that which is direct and positive and that which is presumptive and circumstantial. The former is that which is proved by some writing containing a positive statement of the facts and binding the party whom it affects; or that which is proved by some witness, who has, and avers himself to have, positive knowledge thereof by means of his senses. Whenever the fact is not so directly and positively established, but is deduced from other facts in evidence, it is presumptive and circumstantial only. The following are the leading rules regarding evidence in a court of law:

(1) The point in issue is to be proved by the party who asserts the affirmative. But where one person charges another with a culpable omission this rule will not apply, the person who makes the charge being bound to prove it. (2) The best evidence must be given of which the nature of the thing is capable. (3) Hearsay evidence of a fact is not admissible. The principal exceptions to this rule are—death-bed declarations, evidence in questions of pedigree, public right, custom boundaries, declarations against interest, declarations which accompany the facts or are part of the res gestæ, &c. (4) Insane persons and idiots are incompetent to be witnesses. But persons temporarily insane are in their lucid intervals received as witnesses. Children are admissible as witnesses as soon as they have a competent share of understanding and know and feel the nature of an oath and of the obligation to speak the truth.—Bibliography: Sir J. F. Stephen, Digest of the Law of Evidence; W. M. Best, Law of Evidence.

Evidences of Christianity. These may be divided broadly into two great classes, viz. external evidences, or the body of historical testimonies to the Christian revelation; and internal evidences, or arguments drawn from the nature of Christianity itself as exhibited in its teachings and effects, in favour of its divine origin. The first Christian apologies—those of Justin Martyr, Minucius Felix, and Tertullian, written in the second century—were mainly intended as justifications of the Christian religion against the charges of atheism and immorality commonly made at that time. Of a more philosophical kind, and dealing more comprehensively with the principles of religion and belief in general, are the works of Origen, Arnobius, and Augustine in the centuries immediately succeeding. During the Middle Ages, the scientific representation of Christianity is mostly the work of the schoolmen occupied in welding Aristotelian or Platonic philosophy with the fabric of Christian dogmatics, or writing attacks on the Jewish and Mohammedan faiths.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the influences of the Renaissance and the Reformation gave rise to a spirit of inquiry and criticism which developed English deism as represented by Herbert and Hobbes in the seventeenth century, and Collins and Bolingbroke in the eighteenth. The general position of English deism was the acceptance of the belief in the existence of God, and the profession of natural religion along with opposition to the mysteries and special claims of Christianity. It was in confutation of this position that the great English works on the evidences of Christianity of Butler, Berkeley, and Cudworth were written. In France the new spirit of inquiry was represented by Diderot, D'Holbach, and the encyclopedists in general, who assailed Christianity mainly on the ground that it was founded on imposture and superstition, and maintained by sacerdotal trickery and hypocrisy. No reply of any great value was produced in the French Church, although in the previous age Pascal in his Pensées had brought together some of the profoundest considerations yet offered in favour of revealed religion. The nineteenth century has been distinguished by the strongly rationalistic spirit of its criticism. The works of such writers as Strauss, Bauer, and Feuerbach, attempting to eliminate the supernatural and the mysterious in the origin of Christianity, have been answered by the works of Neander, Ebrard, and Ullmann on the other side. The historical method of investigation, represented alike by the Hegelian school and the Positivists and Agnostics in philosophy, and by the Evolutionists in science, is the basis of the chief attacks of the present time against the supernatural character of Christianity. The tendency of all the critics is to hold that while Christianity is the highest and most perfect development to which the religious spirit has yet attained, it differs simply in degree of development from any other religion. Notable amongst later apologists of Christianity have been Paley (Natural Theology), Chalmers (Natural Theology), Mansel, Liddon, and others.—Bibliography: J. R. Illingworth, Reason and Revelation; A. Garvie, Handbook of Christian Apologetics.

Evil, Origin of. The difficulty of the question lies mainly in this, that the existence of evil in the world seems inconsistent with the view that it was created and is maintained by an omnipotent and beneficent creator. The various theories on the subject have all sought to elude this difficulty either by the supposition of some principle of evil equally eternal with that of good, or by regarding evil as having only a relative existence, being a kind of good in an imperfect and immature stage. Perhaps the oldest theory upon this subject is that of Parseeism, or the religion of Zoroaster, according to which there were two original principles, one good (Ormuzd) and the other evil (Ahriman). This is the doctrine that is now very often spoken of as Manichæism, from the fact that it was adopted by Manes, who attempted to engraft it on the doctrines of Christianity. In contradistinction to this dualistic theory with reference to the origin of evil stand the Monistic theories of Brahmanism and Platonism. According to the Brahmanic doctrine of the emanation of all things from one original being (Brahma), this original being was regarded as the sole true existence, and the phenomenal world, with all the evils appearing in it, was held to be mere illusion. Similarly, Plato held that the good was the essence of all things, and that the evil and imperfect contained in them had no real existence. The theory enunciated by Leibnitz in his Theodicée resembles that of Plato. In that work he assigns to the evil existing in the world created by God, which he holds to be the best of all possible worlds, a merely relative existence. According to Plato, all that we call evil is only evil to us because we do not see it in relation to the rest of the universe, for in relation to the universe it is not evil but good, and accordingly cannot be evil in its own nature. Another view on the subject is that which neither assigns to the evil principle (as it does to God or the good principle) an original existence, nor denies the real existence of evil, but ascribes it to the exercise of man's free-will. Besides the theoretical problem of the origin of evil, there is the practical one of the elimination of evil which forms the subject of Ethics.—Bibliography: H. Rashdall, The Theory of Good and Evil; B. Bosanquet, The Value and Destiny of the Individual.

Evil Eye, a power which, according to an old and widespread superstition, resides in some people of doing injury to others by a mere look, or a look accompanied by certain words or charms. This belief, common amongst the ancients, is still prevalent among the more ignorant classes in Italy, Russia, Andalusia, the Highlands of Scotland, and other places. The Finns, Lapps, and Scandinavians, the Arabs and the Turks are all firm believers in the evil eye.

Ev´olute. The evolute of a curve is the curve which is the envelope of all its normals or the locus of all its centres of curvature. The first curve is called the involute of the second. These names are given to the curves because the end of a stretched thread unwound from the evolute will describe the involute.

Evolution, a term introduced into biological writings in the early part of the eighteenth century to denote the mode of generation of living things. At first it was used in the same sense as we now apply the word development, more especially with reference to the process whereby the germ of an animal or plant becomes transformed into the adult organism; but it is now used in biology for the process by which more complex plants or animals have been derived from a series of less specialized ancestors by transformation. In accordance with the teaching of modern biology, all living creatures are the progeny of one original group of microscopic unicellular organisms, different branches of which during many millions of years have become diversely modified in structure and function to form the vast multitudes of diverse species of plants and animals with which we are acquainted.

The idea of a transformation of one type of being into another is extremely ancient, and its origin was in all probability genetically related to the primitive conceptions which have survived to the present day in totemism (q.v.) and such myths as the story of the were wolf. For once it was believed that a totem-animal, like a cow or a pig, could give birth to human beings, or that the Great Mother could at will assume a great variety of living forms, ranging from a mollusc or a grain of barley to a higher mammal, it was a comparatively simple step to arrange these potential 'ancestors' in a series, and provide mankind with a mythical genealogy. It is possible that such beliefs may have suggested to the Greek philosophers, such as Aristotle, speculations as to the process by which custom and change of habit might modify the structure of animals. But it was not until the end of the seventeenth century that the trend of philosophical speculation, associated with the growing understanding of natural processes, started lines of investigation which, after many failures, eventually brought forth Charles Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859, and established once for all the fact that different species of animals and plants have been produced by the differentiation of the progeny of the same ultimate ancestors. The history of these events was admirably summarized by Huxley in 1878 in an article Evolution in Biology, republished in Darwiniana (1893, p. 187); in this account due credit is given to the pioneers of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, such as Lamarck, and to Darwin's co-discoverer of the hypothesis of natural selection, Alfred Russell Wallace.

At the present time there is a general concensus of opinion among serious biologists, and, in fact, most educated men, as to the reality of evolution; but there is wide divergence of opinion as to the exact pedigrees of the various groups of plants and animals, and especially as to the mechanisms whereby the processes of transformation have been effected.

The evidence that establishes the proof of evolution is of manifold kinds. "The gradations of structure, from extreme simplicity to very great complexity, presented by living things, and of the relation of these graduated forms to one another. The existence of an analogy between the series of gradations presented by the species which compose any great group of animals or plants, and the species of embryonic conditions of the highest members of that group. Large groups of species of widely different habits present the same fundamental plan of structure; and parts of the same animal or plant, the functions of which are very different, likewise exhibit modifications of a common plan. Structures are found in a rudimentary or apparently useless condition in one species of a group which are fully developed and have definite functions in other species of the same group. These considerations, when studied in conjunction with the facts of the geological succession of the forms of life, of geographical distribution, and the effects of varying conditions upon living organisms, establish the truth of evolution" (Huxley).

The full meaning of these statements will be better understood if a concrete example is studied, and perhaps the case of man and his ancestry is most instructive for this purpose. The fact that man has a vertebral column, a brain and nervous system, a heart and blood-vessels, digestive and other systems of organs, built up in accordance with the arbitrary plan which is shared also by all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes, proclaims that man belongs to the vertebrate group of animals, and that all such vertebrata must originally have sprung from the same common ancestors. The possession of four limbs with five fingers or toes on each, and a host of identical arrangements of bones, muscles, nerves, &c., in these limbs, reveals the fact that all the four-limbed creatures or Tetrapoda represent one group which developed from some fish-like ancestor to become an amphibian. The discovery of fossilized remains of extinct animals reveals that the fishes are much older than the amphibians, and that a number of intermediate stages demonstrate the process of gradual transformation which converted one group of fishes into four-limbed, semi-terrestrial amphibians. Geological evidence also proves that the reptiles came definitely later than the amphibians, and that only one small group of very primitive amphibians shared in the progressive modifications of brain, limbs, and organs of circulation, &c., to become reptiles—creatures able to live wholly on the dry land, and capable of a wider range of activities than the Amphibia. From the primitive reptiles were derived not only the highly specialized forms that have survived to the present day as lizards, tortoises, snakes, &c., creatures that differ profoundly from their earliest reptilian ancestors, but also the ancestors of birds and the ancestors of mammals. One particular group of primitive reptiles is known, from fossilized remains found in South Africa, that reveals many of the distinctive peculiarities of mammals not shared by other reptiles; and it is now certain that these cynodonts—so called from their dog-like teeth—include the parents of the mammals. The fact that all the Mammalia are provided with glands which in the female supply milk for the nutrition of their young, that they have a hairy coat, that they have a highly developed brain more fully adapted for learning by experience than is the case in other vertebrates, that they have limbs capable of a much more varied and active range of skilled movements, and a host of identical transformations of viscera, muscles, nerves, and vessels prove the common ancestry of mammals from some very primitive cynodont reptile. Different mammals have been specialized in structure for amazingly varied modes of life, on land, under the ground, in trees, in the air, or in rivers or the sea. Of the terrestrial animals some have been modified for fleetness, like the horse and the antelope; others for strength, like the elephant; others again, like the lion and the tiger, to prey upon their weaker relatives. At the dawn of the age of mammals one particular group was able to survive without any of the profound alterations of the structure of the limbs which such creatures as the horse and the ox, the elephant and the whale, the tiger and the bat had to adopt to avoid extinction, and retained the primitive type of limbs with their fingers and toes which became the most useful and plastic instruments for performing skilled movements and acquiring experience and knowledge as soon as the brain was sufficiently advanced in structure and capability to put these instruments to their full use. The group of mammals which delayed the time of specialization until it was able to profit by its greater adaptability was the Prosimiæ, the ancestors of the apes and man. These small creatures for a long time lived a life of obscurity in trees without submitting to those extreme adaptations of structure which are found in most arboreal and flying mammals. But the cultivation of their powers of vision, and the acquisition of skill in the use of their primitive but plastic hands, guided by vision, eventually conferred upon some of these Prosimiæ vastly enhanced powers of skilled action and of learning by experience and of acquiring knowledge, which culminated in the attainment of the supreme power of discrimination distinctive of human intelligence.

The fact that man belongs to the same order (Primates) as the apes is proved not merely by the possession of a body which in most respects is identical in structure with such of them as the gorilla and the chimpanzee, of a similar process of development characterized by identical stages up to a certain stage, but also by the fact that the blood of man and the apes react towards one another as those of relatives, and in a way not shared by the blood-reactions of other mammals. The apes, also, are subject to certain human diseases from which other mammals are immune. Man shares with the anthropoid apes (gorillas, chimpanzees, orangs, and gibbons) so many peculiarities which differentiate all of them from the tailed monkeys that there can be no doubt that the human family was derived from a primitive anthropoid ape, possibly a species that lived in the foothills of the Himalayas in Miocene times, as is suggested by fossils recently discovered by Dr. Pilgrim, director of the Geological Survey of India.

The vestigial remains of the muscles, blood-vessels, &c., of the tail reveal the fact that man's Primate ancestry began with a tailed form. In fact, the human embryo actually possesses a tail for some weeks of its existence. If India reveals the fossilized remains of a variety of Miocene anthropoid apes closely akin to the ancestors of man, the gorilla, the chimpanzee, and the orang, the Egyptian Fayum has provided the evidence of the origin of the anthropoid apes in Oligocene times as very diminutive creatures distantly akin to the gibbons, but bearing very obvious indications in the form of their teeth of an affinity with the Prosimian sub-order Tarsioidea, a very interesting group of Eocene Primates found in a fossilized condition in North America and France, one of the members of which has survived in the peculiar Spectral Tarsier still found living in the forests of Borneo, Java, and the Philippines. The detailed study of the structure and development of Tarsius, and comparisons with other Primates and mammals of other orders, provide the information necessary to fill in the gaps left in the geological record, and enable us to sketch out the general scheme of man's ancestry, and to appreciate the nature of the factors which determined the evolution of such an intelligent mammal as man.

Within recent years the increasing knowledge of embryology and comparative anatomy, and the recovery of fossilized remains of vast numbers of hitherto unknown animals, has established the truth of evolution and the exact line of ancestry of many animals. Professor Osborn's work on the evolution of the horse, and Dr. C. W. Andrews's revelation of the ancestry of the elephant, are striking recent illustrations of the exactness of the demonstration palæontology can give of the past history of mammals. Dr. Robert Brown and Professor D. M. S. Watson have given conclusive proofs of the origin of mammals and birds from primitive reptiles, and the latter zoologist has pushed back the ancestry of these higher vertebrates still further, and shown how the reptiles were derived from primitive Amphibia, and the changes that occurred in vertebrate anatomy when certain fishes crawled out of the water and developed into four-footed Amphibia. All of these conclusions are matters of fact and not of theory, even if we are still in the dark as to the exact mechanism whereby the variations which the forces of evolution use in effecting transformations were themselves brought about. Within recent years there has been a revival of interest in the problem whether characters acquired by parents as the result of their individual experience can be transmitted to their offspring. For the last thirty years biologists have been influenced by the teaching of Weismann that nothing happening to the parents can affect the morphological capabilities of the germ plasm from which the next generation is derived; but recent research suggests that this negative doctrine is too rigid, and makes it probable that certain influences brought to bear upon the parents may be transmitted also to the offspring. If this is so, it opens one avenue of explanation of how structural modifications are effected and the possibility of evolution is created. But at the present moment the whole question is being actively investigated and discussed.

Just as every complex animal can be shown to be derived during development from a simple microscopic cell or egg, so the study of evolution reveals the fact that all animals were originally derived from microscopic unicellular animals known as protozoa, which are with difficulty distinguishable from unicellular plants, from which all the varied forms of complex vegetable life were derived. It is equally certain that these unicellular plants and animals are themselves only the specialized descendants of common ancestors—unspecialized unicellular organisms which are neither strictly vegetable nor animal. But we are quite in the dark as to the processes whereby these most primitive living organisms were evolved from inorganic matter, and how they acquired these peculiar properties of growth and differentiation and their powers of reproduction, commonly called vital, which are their distinctive characteristics. Bibliographical references to most of the matters mentioned in this article will be found in the Presidential Address to Section H of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Dundee meeting (see Report of British Association, 1912).

Ev´ora, a town in Portugal, capital of the province of Alemtejo, 75 miles east of Lisbon. It is an ancient place, poorly built, and its walls, citadel, and forts are all in a state of ruin. It has a Roman aqueduct still serviceable, a Gothic cathedral, and an ecclesiastical seminary. Pop. 17,900. The district of Evora has a pop. of 144,300.

Evremond, or Evremont. See St. Evremond.

Evreux (ev-reu), a town of N.W. France, capital of the department of Eure, in a fertile valley on the Iton. It is an ancient town with narrow streets and has many fine buildings, including an ancient Gothic cathedral. The town was frequently occupied by the English in the fifteenth century. Pop. 18,950.

Ewald (ā´va˙lt), Georg Heinrich August von, a German Orientalist and Biblical critic, born at Göttingen 16th Nov., 1803, died there 5th May, 1875. After studying at the university of his native town, in 1827 he became extraordinary, in 1831 ordinary professor of theology, and in 1835 professor of Oriental languages. In 1837 he lost his chair at Göttingen on account of his protest against the king's abrogation of the liberal constitution, became professor of theology at Tübingen, but in 1848 returned to his old chair at Göttingen. When Hanover was annexed by Prussia in 1866 he became a zealous defender of the rights of the ex-king. Among his chief works are the following: Complete Course of the Hebrew Language, The Poetical Books of the Old Testament, History of the People of Israel, Antiquities of the People of Israel. The History is considered his greatest work.

Ewald (ā´va˙lt), Johannes, Danish poet, born at Copenhagen in 1743, died in 1781. After studying theology at Copenhagen University he ran away and enlisted in the Prussian service, which he soon deserted for the Austrian. On his return to Copenhagen an elegy which he wrote on the death of Frederick V of Denmark was received with general admiration, and awoke in himself the consciousness of poetic talent. His reputation rapidly increased with the publication of his tragedies, The Death of Balder (English translation by George Borrow), Adam and Eve, and Rolf Krage; and his odes and songs, notable amongst which are: King Christian and Liden Gunver. Ewald, who had dissipated habits, died in utter poverty. His collected works were published in 1914.

Ewart, James Cossar, zoologist, was born at Penicuik, Midlothian, in 1851, studied medicine at Edinburgh University, graduated in 1874, and was soon after appointed demonstrator of anatomy in the university. From 1875 to 1878 he was Conservator of the museums of University College, London, in the latter year took his M.D. degree, and from 1878 to 1882 was professor of natural history in Aberdeen University, being then appointed to the natural history chair at Edinburgh. Since then (having been also connected with the Scottish Fishery Board for about ten years) he has devoted much attention to the question of fish-culture and preservation, and has visited North America, Denmark, and Norway for purposes of investigation. He has also carried out experiments in the hybridization of zebras and horses. His publications include: The Locomotor System of the Echinoderms (with G. J. Romanes, 1881); The Natural and Artificial Fertilization of Herring Ova (1884); On Whitebait (1886); On the Preservation of Fish (1887); The Electric Organ of the Skate (1888-9); The Cranial Nerves and Lateral Sense-organs of the Elasmobranchs (1889-91); The Development of the Limbs of the Horse (1894); The Penicuik Experiments (1899); Guide to Zebras, Hybrids, &c. (1900); Multiple Origin of Horses and Ponies (1904).

Exalbuminous Seeds, those which, when ripe, contain no endosperm, this having been entirely absorbed into itself by the developing embryo. Opposed to albuminous seeds. See Cotyledons.

Examiner of Plays, a British official and censor of plays, who acts for the Lord Chamberlain, under whose jurisdiction the theatres are placed. No play can be produced without the sanction of the examiner, to whom a copy of every new play intended for production must be sent seven clear days before the first performance. The examiner either grants or refuses his licence, and frequently insists upon an alteration of the text. The abolition of this censorship of plays is a subject which in recent years has given rise to much discussion in the theatre-loving world.

Exanthe´mata (eruption of the skin), a term applied to infectious diseases with skin eruptions, accompanied by general disturbances. The term includes scarlet fever, measles, German measles, smallpox, chicken-pox, and others.

Exarchate (egz-är´kāt), a name of a province or territory under an exarch, or viceroy. In the sixth century after Christ Justinian formed the middle part of Italy into a province of the Eastern Empire, and gave the government of it to an exarch. (See Ravenna.) Exarch was also the title of an ecclesiastical grade in the Greek Church, inferior to the patriarchs but superior to the metropolitans. Among the modern Greeks an exarch is a deputy of the patriarch, who travels about in the provinces and visits the bishops and churches.

Excam´bion, in Scots law, the name given to the contract by which one piece of land is exchanged for another.

Excavation, the process of removing soil or rock in engineering or exploration works, such as for docks, retaining-walls, railway cuttings, canals, foundations, &c. On a small scale, or in situations unsuitable for machinery, it is performed by hand, the soil being first loosened by the pick, and then shovelled into barrows. In rocky soils, drilling and explosives may be employed. In large works power shovels or 'steam-navvies' are employed, which are essentially cranes carrying a large shovel, or a system of steel buckets of the dredger type. These carry their own means of propulsion, and run on temporary rails laid down as the work proceeds. They work against the face of the excavation, and load directly into bogies or wagons.

Excavations. The forgotten history of the remote past has been reconstructed by those scientists who have explored the sites of ancient seats of civilization. Egyptian and Babylonio-Assyrian investigations date from the middle of the eighteenth century, but it was not until the middle of the nineteenth century, when modern scholars first penetrated the secrets of the lost languages (see Cuneiform Writing and Hieroglyphics) that the ancient civilizations were rendered more or less articulate. As the texts were being deciphered with increasing ease and accuracy, a basis was provided for archæology, and it became possible to frame chronological systems. During the latter years of the nineteenth and the early years of the present century, excavators, philologists, and ethnologists have provided a fairly continuous and detailed history of man from 3000 B.C. till classical times, thus bridging a gulf which used to be misty with doubtful legends and traditions. The most dramatic excavations were those begun by Heinrich Schliemann in 1871 at Hissarlik, the site of ancient Troy. On the hillock he dug through nine successive settlements. He afterwards excavated at Mycenæ and Tiryns in Greece and found evidence of a high pre-Hellenic culture. Following up the clues thus afforded, Sir Arthur Evans and others, excavating in Crete during the opening years of the present century, discovered abundant relics, including palaces and towns, of the earliest Ægean civilization now referred to as Minoan (see Crete). Of late years Central and Western Europe have yielded evidence of the 'drift' of Minoan culture to outlying parts. Excavations in Russian Turkestan and Chinese Turkestan have revealed traces of ancient culture centres dating back beyond 2000 B.C. In the Americas the excavators have thrown considerable light on the pre-Columbian civilizations of Peru, Central America (Maya), and Mexico, but the picture-writings have not been deciphered. See Babylonia; Crete; Egypt; Troy.

Ex´cellency, a title given to ambassadors and plenipotentiaries, governors of colonies, the President of the United States, of France, &c.

Excess Profits Duty, devised in 1915 to meet the extraordinary expenditure occasioned by the war, is a tax upon the profits of certain trades and businesses carried on in the United Kingdom, or owned or carried on abroad by persons resident in the United Kingdom, in so far as these profits, after deduction of a specified allowance, exceed a pre-war standard. The main exceptions are agriculture, offices and employments, and professions where personal qualifications predominate and only small capital is necessary. In some cases, e.g. estate agencies, where a portion of the profits arises from professional skill, only the portion otherwise arising falls into charge. The pre-war standard is an alternative one at the option of the taxpayer. Firstly, it may be a profits standard—the average of the profits of any two of the last three pre-war years, or if there have been only two pre-war years, then the average profits of those years, or the actual profits of the last year, or if there has been only one pre-war year, then the actual profits of that year. Where the average profits of the last three pre-war years are 25 per cent less than the average of the three years immediately preceding them, the taxpayer may take the average of any four of those six years. Secondly, it may be, and as a general rule where the business has not had one full pre-war year must be, a percentage standard, calculated at the appropriate rate on the capital in the business at the end of the last pre-war trade year, or where there has not been one pre-war year, then on the average amount of capital employed (a) during the year or accounting period in question, or (b) in respect of periods ending after 31st Dec., 1919, during the first accounting period. The percentage standard of sole traders, partnerships, and private companies may in respect of accounting periods ending after that date be increased by £500 per annum for each working proprietor, but not so as to exceed £750 per annum each. The general free allowance is £200, increased in 1920 to £500 for new or re-opened businesses of ex-service men. A further abatement is now granted where profits do not exceed £4000, with the result that liability cannot arise unless profits exceed £832.

The rate of duty, at first 50 per cent, was raised to 60 per cent in 1916, and to 80 per cent in 1917. Reduced to 40 per cent in 1919, it was again increased to 60 per cent by the Finance Act, 1920. It was abolished in 1921. Undoubtedly it was injurious to trade and an incentive to wasteful expenditure, but an effective substitute for supplying the unparalleled financial needs of the State resulting from the war apparently could not be devised.

'Munitions Levy' is the counterpart of Excess Profits Duty in its application to Government-controlled establishments for the production of munitions of war.

In the fiscal year 1919-20 the tax produced £290,045,000, while the estimate for the year 1920-1 was £220,000,000.

Exchange, a place in large commercial towns where merchants, agents, bankers, brokers, and others concerned in commercial affairs meet at certain times for the transaction of business. The institution of exchanges dates from the sixteenth century. They originated in the important trading cities of Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, from which last-named country they were introduced into England. The Royal Exchange of London was established by Sir Thomas Gresham in 1556. In some exchanges only a special class of business is transacted. Thus there are stock exchanges, corn exchanges, coal exchanges, cotton exchanges.

Exchange, in commerce, that species of transactions by which the debts of individuals residing at a distance are cancelled by order, draft, or bill of exchange, without the transmission of specie. Thus, a merchant in London who owes £100 worth of cotton goods in Glasgow gives a bill or order for that amount which can be negotiated through banking agencies or otherwise against similar debts owing by other parties in Glasgow who have payments to make in London. The creditor in Glasgow is thus paid by the debtor in Glasgow, and this contrivance obviates the expense and risk of transmitting money. The process of liquidating obligations between different nations is carried on in the same way by an exchange of foreign bills. When all the accounts of one country correspond in value with those of another, so that there is an even balance, the exchange between the countries will be at par, that is, the sum for which the bill is drawn in the one country will be the exact value of it in the other. Exchange is said to be at par when, for instance, a bill drawn in New York for the payment of £100 sterling in London can be purchased there for £100. If it can be purchased for less, exchange is under par and is against London. If the purchaser is obliged to give more, exchange is above par and in favour of London. Although the numerous circumstances which incessantly affect the state of debt and credit prevent the ordinary course of exchange from being almost ever precisely at par, its fluctuations are confined within narrow limits, and if direct exchange is unfavourable between two countries this can often be obviated by the interposition of bills drawn on other countries where an opposite state of matters prevails. See Bill of Exchange.—Bibliography: G. J. Goschen, Theory of Foreign Exchange; H. Withers, Money Changing.

Exchange, Deed of, in English law, an original common law conveyance for the mutual transfer of real estate. It takes place between two contracting parties only, although several individuals may be included in each party; and the parties must take an equal estate, as fee-simple for fee-simple, legal estate for legal estate, copyhold for copyhold of the same manor, and the like.

Excheq´uer (Fr. échiquier, chess-board), in Britain, the department which deals with the moneys received and paid on behalf of the public services of the country. The public revenues are paid into the Bank of England (or of Ireland) to account of the Exchequer, and these receipts as well as the necessary payments for the public service are under the supervision of an important official called the Comptroller and Auditor General, the payments being granted by him on receipt of the proper orders proceeding through the Treasury. The public accounts are also audited in his department. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, who must be a member of the House of Commons, is the head of the Treasury Department. When the Prime Minister is a member of the House of Commons, he sometimes holds the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Exchequer, Court of, an ancient English court of record, established by William the Conqueror, and intended principally for the care and collection of the royal revenues. It was one of the supreme courts of common law, and is said to derive its name from the chequered cloth, resembling a chess-board, on which the sums were marked and scored with counters. The judges of this court were the chief baron and five junior or puisné barons. This court was abolished by the Judicature Act of 1873, and its jurisdiction transferred to the High Court of Justice. In Canada there is a Court of Exchequer for the Dominion.

Exchequer and Audit Department, a department of the English Civil Service charged with the functions of auditing the accounts of all other departments.

Exchequer Bills, bills of credit issued by authority of Parliament as a means of raising money for temporary purposes. They are of various sums—£100 or any multiple—and bear interest at a rate fixed for every half-year according to the rate ruling in the money-market at the time. These bills pass from hand to hand as money, and form part of the public unfunded debt of Great Britain. Exchequer bonds are similar, but they run for a definite number of years (six at most) at a fixed rate of interest.

Excise´, an inland duty or impost laid on commodities produced and consumed within a country, and also on licences to manufacture and deal in certain commodities. Excise duties were introduced into England by the Long Parliament in 1643, being then laid on the makers and vendors of ale, beer, cider, and perry. Being found to be a convenient and productive source of revenue, they continued to gain ground, and in 1919 yielded £59,663,000. In Britain the excise includes duties on spirits and beer, licences on dogs, guns, carriages, servants, plate, railways, game, &c. In 1917 an excise duty was laid on entertainments, matches, and table waters. Spirits and beer yield over £44,000,000.

Exci´to-motor action, the action of nerves distributed to muscular organs, the stimulation of which leads to movement. Thus, irritation of a nerve supplying a muscle will lead to contraction of the muscle by excito-motor action, and irritation of certain nerves distributed to blood-vessels will lead to contraction of the vessel by acting on its muscular coat.

Exclusion, Bill of, a bill introduced into the British Parliament during the reign of Charles II for the purpose of excluding the Duke of York (afterwards James II), he being a Roman Catholic, from the throne.

Excommunication, the exclusion of a Christian from the communion and spiritual privileges of the Church. Excommunication was a recognized penalty among the Jews (John, ix, 22), and was practised early by the Christian Church. A distinction gradually arose between a lesser and a greater excommunication, the former being a suspension from Church privileges, the latter a formal expulsion excluding from all communion with the faithful. In the Middle Ages the Popes often excommunicated whole cities and kingdoms. In such a case all religious services ceased, and the grave inconveniences thus caused made excommunication a formidable weapon in the hands of the Pope, till with frequent abuse it lost its force. Besides excommunication an extreme degree of denunciation called anathema, and cutting the offender off from all the hopes and consolations of the Christian faith, is used in the Roman Catholic Church. Both Luther and Calvin were in favour of the right of excommunication by the ministers of the Church. In the Church of England both the less and the greater excommunications are recognized.—Cf. E. Taunton, The Law of the Church.

Excre´tion, in physiology, the separation and carrying off of waste matter from some organ of an animal body, a function performed by the lungs, kidneys, and the skin, besides the action of the intestinal canal.

Excubito´rium, in mediæval churches, a gallery where public watch was kept at night on the eve of some festival, and from which the great shrines could be seen.

Exe, a river of England, which rises in Exmoor, in the county of Somerset, and after a southerly course of about 50 miles falls into the English Channel at Exmouth.

Execution, in law, is a judicial writ grounded on a judgment of the court by which the writ is issued, and is granted for the purpose of carrying the judgment into effect, by having it executed. Execution is granted by a court only upon the judgments given by the same court, not upon those pronounced by another. See Elegit; Fieri facias.

Executioner, the official who carries into effect a sentence of death, or inflicts capital punishment in pursuance of a legal warrant. In England the duty of executing the extreme sentence of the law devolves upon the sheriff, and in Scotland on the civic magistracy, but in practice the duty is performed by another in presence of these functionaries. In the reign of James I Gregory Brandon was the executioner of London, and hence the name Gregory has often been employed to designate executioners. In France the executioner is styled Monsieur de Paris.

Exec'utive, that branch of the government of a country by which the laws are carried into effect or the enforcement of them superintended. The term is used in distinction from the legislative and the judicial departments, and includes the supreme magistrate, whether emperor, king, president, or governor, his cabinet or ministers, and a host of minor officials.

Exec´utor, in law, is one appointed by a man's last will to carry its provisions into execution after the testator's death. The testator may, by the English law, appoint any person of sound mind and discretion, though otherwise under some legal disabilities as to contracting and transacting business in general, such as a married woman, or a minor. The duties of executors and of administrators are, in general, the same, the difference of the two depending mostly on the mode of appointment, the executor being nominated by the testator, the administrator being appointed by the Judge of Probate. In Scotland an executor appointed by will is styled executor nominate, and by authority of the court executor dative.

Exequa´tur (Lat., 'Let him accomplish'), a written recognition of a consul or commercial agent issued by the Government to which he is accredited, and authorizing him to exercise his powers.

Ex´eter, a city, river-port, parliamentary county, and municipal borough of England, county town of Devon, on the left bank of the Exe, 10 miles north-west of its outlet in the English Channel. It is pleasantly situated on the summit and slopes of an acclivity rising from the river, and has handsome squares, terraces, and streets. The chief architectural feature is the cathedral (founded in 1112), a long, low building with fine west front, unique in having two towers forming its transepts, and only these two. The city has remains of the old castle and old walls, Guildhall, Albert Memorial College, training college, and St. Michael's Church. There are iron-foundries, works for agricultural implements and paper, and 'Honiton' lace is made. By a canal vessels of 300 tons can reach the city. The largest vessels remain at Exmouth. Exeter is a place of remote antiquity, having been a British settlement long prior to the invasion of the Romans, by whom it was called Isca Damnoniorum. It was taken by William the Conqueror in 1068. It long returned two members to Parliament, but lost one of them in 1885. Pop. 59,608.

Exeter College, Oxford, a college, originally called Stapledon Hall, founded in 1314 by Walter de Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter, who made a foundation for a rector and twelve fellows. In 1404 Edmund Stafford, Bishop of Exeter, added two fellowships and obtained leave to give the college its present name.

Exeter Hall, a large building on the north side of the Strand, London, opened in 1831, and capable of containing over 3000 persons. In it the 'May Meetings' of the several religious societies were held. It was sold in 1907 by the Young Men's Christian Association to a firm of caterers, who demolished it in 1908. The Strand Palace Hotel now stands on its site.

Exfoliation is the scaling off of dead tissues; thus there may be exfoliation of the skin, of bone, or of other parts from their living surroundings.

Exhibition, a fixed sum given for a term of years from the funds of a school, college, or university, generally upon the result of a competitive examination. An exhibition, no matter what its pecuniary value, is less of a distinction than a scholarship. At Cambridge an exhibitioner has no standing in his college different from that of the ordinary 'pensioner', while a scholar is on the Foundation of his college.

Exhibitions. The earliest recorded 'exhibition', in the modern acceptation of the word, is that in which, for one hundred and eighty days, Ahasuerus "shewed the riches of his glorious kingdom" at Shushan (Esther, i, 2-4). The first European exhibition was held at Venice in 1268; while the great fairs of Leipzig and Nijni-Novgorod partook of the same nature. But the real forerunner of the modern exhibition was that held in London by the Society of Arts in 1756, when carpets, china, and similar artistic objects were displayed. This was followed in 1761 by an exhibition of agricultural machinery. In 1797 France held a display of objets d'art at St. Cloud; there was another two years later at the Louvre; while a third in 1802 is memorable for the first issue of an official catalogue, and for the presence of Montgolfier the aeronaut, and Jacquard the inventor of the loom that bears his name, among exhibitors. Besides the exhibition of Irish industries, held at Dublin (1829), and the Birmingham exhibition of metal-work (1849), numerous displays were held in both Europe and America before the first International or 'Great' Exhibition of 1851. This memorable display was under the active patronage of Prince Albert, and for its accommodation the Crystal Palace was erected in Hyde Park. Its success gave the exhibition movement an impetus which produced examples at New York and Dublin (1853), both of which proved financial failures; at Munich and Melbourne (1854); Paris (1855); and at South Kensington, where was held the second International Exhibition (1862). Five years later, after Constantinople, Oporto, and Agra had, among other places, held displays, came the great Paris Exhibition, planned on a colossal scale; though the main building in the Champ de Mars was stigmatized as 'a gasometer' by Napoleon III. Vienna had a magnificent but financially disastrous exhibition in 1873, and in 1876 Philadelphia celebrated the centenary of the Independence of the United States by a display. In 1878 Paris held another exhibition, for which the Trocadero was built. A series held at South Kensington (1871-4) had only a moderate success, but great popularity was attained by the 'Fisheries', 'Health', 'Inventions', and Colonial Exhibitions held in the years 1883-6. Edinburgh was the scene of a forestry display in 1884, and at the same time New Orleans opened an exhibition which continued till the following year. The Paris Exhibition of 1889 was notable for the 'side-shows', which included the Eiffel Tower; while the financial result of that held in 1900, which covered 550 acres of ground and admitted thirty-nine million people, was far from satisfactory. Meanwhile Chicago had in 1893 celebrated the four hundredth anniversary of Columbus's discovery of America by a huge 'World's Fair'. The present century opened inauspiciously with the assassination of President McKinley at the Pan-American Exhibition at Buffalo (1901); Glasgow had a thoroughly successful exhibition the same year; St. Louis was the scene of another in 1904; while London organized the Franco-British Exhibition in 1908. This last owed much to the late Imre Kiralfy, who had directed many previous displays, and was the designer of the 'White City' at Shepherd's Bush, where in 1914 was held the Anglo-American Exposition. After the conclusion of the European War various plans for new exhibitions were put forward, such as the British Empire Exhibition, which is to be held in London in 1923, and which is intended to foster imperial interests.

Ex´ile, a punishment by which a person is compelled to leave the city, province, or the country where he has previously resided. It is a punishment for State criminals.

Exmoor´, a wild and hilly district of England, in the extreme south-west of Somersetshire, extending also into Devonshire, formerly a forest.

Ex´mouth, a town of England, in Devonshire, 10 miles S.S.E. of Exeter, at the mouth of the Exe. It is picturesquely situated, and is one of the best-known sea-bathing places on the Devonshire coast. The chief industries are lace-making and the fisheries. Pop. 13,614.

Exmouth, Edward Pellew, Viscount, a British naval officer, born at Dover in 1757, died 23rd Jan., 1833. He went to sea at the age of thirteen, served as midshipman in the Blonde frigate during the American War, and greatly distinguished himself at Lake Champlain. In 1782 he was made a post-captain for a brilliant action in the Pelican, and on the outbreak of the war in 1793 was appointed to the command of the frigate La Nymphe. From this time till the peace in 1802 he was employed on active service. In 1804, on the resumption of hostilities, he was sent to take the chief command on the East India station, in the Culloden, of seventy-four guns; and here he remained till 1809, when he had attained the rank of vice-admiral. His next appointment was the command of the fleet blockading the Scheldt. In 1814 he was made Baron Exmouth with a pension of £2000 per annum. In 1816 he was sent with a fleet to punish the Dey of Algiers for outrages committed, and to force him to give up his Christian captives and abolish Christian slavery. Along with some Dutch war vessels he bombarded the city for eight hours, and inflicted such damage that the Dey agreed to every demand. Three thousand Christian slaves were thus restored to liberty. Lord Exmouth was made a viscount and received honours from several of the European sovereigns, and the freedom of the City of London. In 1821 he retired into private life.

Exoascineæ, a family of parasitic ascomycetous Fungi, distinguished by the absence of any definite fruit-body, the asci being produced in a layer on the surface of the host. The best known are Exoascus Pruni, the cause of the mal-formed fruits called 'bladder-plums' or 'pocket-plums', and E. turgidus, which produces the abnormal tufts of branches on silver birch known as 'witches' brooms'.

Exobasidiineæ, a family of parasitic basidiomycetous Fungi, resembling the Exoascineæ in most respects, but producing basidia in place of asci, a remarkable instance of parallel evolution. The commonest British species is Exobasidium Vaccinii, which is frequent on cowberry (Vaccinium Vitis-Idæa) in Scotland. E. vexans is the cause of a serious disease of the tea-plant called 'blister-blight', which is very destructive to the Assam plantations.

Ex´odus (Gr. exodos, a going out), the name given in the Septuagint to the second book of the Pentateuch, because it describes the departure of the Israelites from Egypt. The contents of the book are partly historical, describing the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and partly legislative, describing the promulgation of the Sinaitic law. One of the difficulties connected with this book is that, according to Scriptural chronology, the residence of the Israelites in Egypt was only 215 years, and it seems incredible that in this time "the threescore and ten souls" who accompanied Jacob to Egypt could have become the two and a half millions who left with Moses.

Exogamy (Gr. exo, outside, and gamos, marriage), a term applied to the custom of allowing marriages only between members who do not belong to the same group. The study of exogamy is practically a branch of ethnology. The opposite of exogamy is endogamy, or prohibition of marriage outside the tribe. Exogamy, which among other causes may be ascribed to a desire of forming useful alliances with hostile tribes, is practised among Australian aborigines, Mongols, and American Indians, and the custom is widely distributed in various forms in all stages of civilization.—Bibliography: Sir J. G. Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy; E. A. Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage.

Exogenous Plants (eks-oj´e-nus), or Exogens, old names for Dicotyledons (q.v.).

Exogenous Structures, in botany, are those which arise from superficial tissues of the parent organ, as stem-branches and leaves. Opposed to endogenous structures.

Ex´orcism (Gr. exorkizein, to expel with an oath), the casting out of evil spirits by certain forms of words or ceremonies. An opinion prevailed in the ancient Church that certain persons, those particularly who were afflicted with certain diseases, especially madness and epilepsy, were possessed by evil spirits; this was called demoniac possession. Over such persons forms of conjuration were pronounced, and this act was called exorcism. There were even certain men who made this a regular profession, and were called exorcists. Exorcism still forms a part of the beliefs of some Churches. In the Roman Catholic Church exorcist is one of the inferior orders of the clergy.—Cf. Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough.

Exosto'sis, in medicine, an excrescence or growth from one of the bony structures of the body. It is generally found at the end of long bones near the joints, and in connection with the skull.

Exothermic Compounds are compounds which evolve heat during their formation; these are usually stable compounds, as they must be supplied with a corresponding amount of heat for their decomposition.

Exot´ic, belonging to foreign countries; a term used especially of plants. Exotic plants are such as belong to a soil and climate entirely different from the place where they are raised. They are nearly always greenhouse or hothouse plants.

Expansion, in physics, the increase of the dimensions of a body caused by a change of temperature. In general, bodies expand with rise of temperature, solids expanding least and gases most. This change in the dimensions of solids with temperature is expansion in length, area, and volume. These changes are referred to a unit called the coefficient of expansion, or expansion of unit length, area, or volume for 1° rise. For example, the coefficient of linear expansion of iron is .000011; that is, a yard, say, of iron rod becomes longer by this fraction of a yard for each degree centigrade that its temperature is raised. The coefficient of volume expansion of a solid is three times its linear coefficient. Crystals have different rates of expansion along the three crystalline axes. Fused silica or quartz expands so slightly that it may be plunged when red-hot into water without being cracked. Invar, a nickel-steel alloy, which also has an extremely small coefficient of expansion, is used in making clock pendulums, which are unaffected by change of temperature. The observed expansion of liquids is affected by the expansion of the vessel containing them, and the apparent expansion of a liquid is thus always less than its real expansion. The expansion of water with rise of temperature is irregular; water contracts from 0° to 4°C., and thereafter expands at an increasing rate until the boiling-point is reached. The expansion of mercury and other liquids is employed in thermometry. Gases when kept at constant pressure expand by about /273rd part of their volume at 0°C. for each degree rise.

Expectation, in the doctrine of chances, the value of any prospect of prize or property depending upon the happening of some uncertain event. A sum of money in expectation upon a certain event has a determinate value before that event happens. If the chances of receiving or not receiving a hundred pounds, when an event arrives, are equal, then, before the arrival of the event the expectation is worth half the money.—Expectation of life, the number of years which a man or woman of any age may be expected to live. To calculate this with any reasonable degree of probability, it is necessary to have particulars of a large number of individuals. The earliest observations were based upon the records of the registers of certain towns. Out of a number of people alive at one date the numbers still living at the end of successive years were found, and an estimate of the probable duration of life was made. With increased facilities for collecting statistics of a larger number of lives, this estimate has since been modified. It is necessarily influenced by the progress of civilization, improved methods of sanitation, increased knowledge of the best methods of treating diseases, and other causes, but the collected statistics are now so numerous that the actuaries of life assurance offices have been able to prepare tables of mortality from which the cost of life premiums and the price of annuities are calculated.

Expec´torants are drugs used to increase and liquefy the secretion in the lungs and air-passages. The most effective are ipecacuanha, squills, apomorphine, ammonium carbonate, and potassium iodide. Some of these are usually present in the many cough mixtures so widely used.

Exper´iment, an operation designed to discover some unknown truth, principle, or effect, or to establish it when discovered. It differs from observation in the fact that the phenomena observed are, to a greater or less extent, controlled by human agency. Experiment distinguishes the modern method of investigating nature, and to it we owe the rapid strides made in chemistry and physics.

Expert´ (Lat. experiri, to test), a person eminently skilled in any particular branch or profession; specifically, a scientific or professional witness who gives evidence on matters connected with his profession, as an analytical chemist or a person skilled in handwriting.

Exploits´, River of, a river which traverses nearly the whole of Newfoundland from S.W. to N.E., and falls into the Bay of Exploits. It is about 150 miles long, and is navigable for steamers for 12 miles.

Explo´sion, a sudden violent outburst accompanied by a loud noise, and giving rise to an impulsive wave which spreads outwards from the place of explosion. Generally applied to the very rapid combustion of explosive substances which, under the influence of heat or shock, are resolved with extreme rapidity into gaseous form. Substances are termed low explosives or high explosives according as they are set off by combustion or detonation.

Explosive Mechanism, in botany, (1) in flowers, an arrangement for the transference of pollen to an insect-visitor by a sudden movement of floral organs. (2) In fruits, an arrangement for the forcible expulsion of seeds from a fruit brought about in various ways (see Sling-fruits). The spores of Ferns, ascospores, and some conidia are also liberated explosively.

Explosives. An explosive is a substance or mixture of substances which, by the action of a blow or of heat, can be converted very easily and suddenly into a more stable substance or substances, usually gaseous, with the simultaneous liberation of a large amount of heat. Explosives are divided into classes according to the uses to which they are put, but the line of demarcation is not always very clear. The industrial and blasting powders may be either low or high explosives. A 'low' explosive explodes by the application of heat, and burns more or less uniformly and slowly, and projects neighbouring objects to a distance. A 'high' explosive explodes under a blow, and the whole of the substance is instantly transformed, and instantly exerts its maximum pressure, creating a violent disturbance in a limited area without necessarily projecting substances to any great distance. Service explosives, for naval and military purposes, are divided into propellants and high explosives. Sporting powders are specially modified propellant powders. Examples of these classes of explosives, with notes on their composition, are given below.

Low Explosives.—The best examples of the low explosive are gunpowder and similar mixtures. The constituents of the 'gunpowder' explosives are generally not explosive alone, but only when mixed. A 'gunpowder' mixture contains carbon or carbonaceous matter like wood-meal, hydrocarbons, starches, and sugars, &c., which burn owing to the presence of highly oxygenated substances like peroxides, chlorates and perchlorates, nitrates, permanganates, chromates and dichromates, all of which convey the necessary oxygen. In addition, there usually is present some very easily ignited substance like sulphur or sulphides, or phosphorus or phosphides, &c. As compared with other explosives, gunpowder or black-powder has certain advantages. It is cheap, easily ignited, insensitive to shock, and stable at moderately high temperature; it burns regularly, and its residue is non-corrosive. But it is weak in power, and produces much smoke. It is excellent for armour-piercing shell and for rings of time-fuses. Gunpowder made in different countries varies in composition, but for rifle, cannon, and sporting powders it, usually contains 74 to 75 parts of saltpetre, 9 to 14 parts of sulphur, 12 to 16 parts of charcoal. For blasting powders less saltpetre and more charcoal is used. Charcoal is made by the carbonization of wood. In England dogwood, alder, and willow woods are used; in Germany alder and willow are used; in France black alder and also white alder, poplar, aspen, birch, and hazel; in Switzerland hazel wood; in Spain oleander, yew, willow, hemp stems, and vine; in Italy hemp stems. The wood is generally carbonized in iron retorts. The product is allowed to cool out of contact with air, else it may inflame. Wood burnt for ordnance powders gives a yield of 20 to 30 per cent charcoal; that for small-arms gives a yield of 40 per cent. The charcoal contains from 68 to 85 per cent carbon, from 2.8 to 3.7 per cent hydrogen, from 12 to 27 per cent oxygen, and may have up to 5 per cent ash. The saltpetre is found naturally in Chile, India, and in other countries, and is refined by crystallization from water. It is a colourless, crystalline solid. Sulphur, a pale-yellow solid, melting-point 113° C., boiling-point 444·5° C., is found in nature, and is refined to a purity of 99·5 per cent and over. It has a low ignition temperature of 261° C., and makes the powder burn more readily. Under the pressure of the press and the incorporating mill it flows and cements the minute particles of charcoal and saltpetre together. The three ingredients are ground, mixed, sieved, incorporated or mixed in drums or mills, broken down, and then pressed, corned or granulated, and glazed. Cannon powders receive an addition of graphite to reduce the rate of burning. The powder is then dried in a stove, finished in a reel to get rid of the last traces of dust, and blended. In the United States powder for blasting contains sodium nitrate instead of potassium nitrate. The powder is cheaper and stronger, but is hygroscopic. Sprengsaltpetre is largely used in Stassfurt salt-mines, where a mild explosive is required, and consists of 75 parts by weight of sodium nitrate, 10 parts by weight of sulphur, and 15 parts by weight of brown coal. It is cheap, and does not produce poisonous fumes. Bobbinite is largely used in coal-mines. It is black powder with ammonium and copper sulphates, possibly also starch and paraffin wax. When gunpowder explodes, the product consists of 43 per cent gases, 56 per cent solids, and the rest water. The composition of other industrial and blasting powders is given in the sequel.

Propellant Explosives.—The chief propellants arc nitrocellulose, also called nitrocotton or guncotton, and nitroglycerine.

Nitrocellulose.—The chief sources of cellulose are wood and cotton. When cotton is plentiful, nitrocellulose is made as follows. Cotton-waste is hand-picked to get rid of string, wood, &c.; it is opened out by a teasing-machine, which tears off small portions at a time, and the cotton is then dried to about 0.5 per cent moisture content. The cotton is then nitrated with 'mixed acid'—a mixture of about 16 per cent nitric and 75 per cent sulphuric acid and about 8 per cent water—at 15° to 25° C. After the nitration, the acid is removed and the nitrocotton boiled up in water to stabilize it. Generally nitrocotton contains about 12 to 13 per cent of nitrogen. Wet nitrocotton is quite safe although it can be detonated, but dry nitrocotton is very dangerous. To-day, paper is usually made from wood-pulp, and when the cotton supplies of Germany were stopped during the European War, nitrocellulose had to be made from wood-pulp via a form of paper crêpe prepared by the Germans from the pulp. For propellant purposes the nitrocotton is 'gelatinized', either alone or mixed with nitroglycerine, and is then worked up into different forms, such as wire, rods, grains, or tape, when it becomes controllable at will, so that the firing is not dangerous.

Nitroglycerine.—Mixed acid, containing 41 per cent nitric acid and 57.5 per cent sulphuric acid, is brought to 22° C. by cooling coils of brine, and pure glycerine is injected into the acid at such a rate that no glycerine accumulates unchanged, and that the temperature is kept between 15° and 22° C. When all the glycerine has been added, the liquid is allowed to stand, and the nitroglycerine rises to the surface. It is run off to the wash-house, where it is washed free from acid and settled. The process is a dangerous one, and great care must be taken at every stage of the manufacture. The floors of the plant must be free from grit and dirt, no accumulation of liquid should be allowed anywhere, special clothing and rubber boots must be worn, no metallic implements may be used, and the plant should not be handed over for repairs except under the supervision of a responsible person. Nitroglycerine, when absorbed in a porous earth called 'Kieselguhr', is called dynamite. Kieselguhr, or simply guhr, absorbs twice its weight of nitroglycerine; cork charcoal absorbs nine times its weight. Dynamite cartridges are generally exploded by detonators.

Preparation of Cordite; Nitrocellulose Tape (N.C.T.); Ballistite; &c.—For cordite, the nitrocotton, freed from moisture, is mixed with nitroglycerine, and the paste or the cotton itself, if N.C.T. is to be made, is incorporated into a uniform dough with ether and alcohol. Some mineral jelly is added to render the explosive more stable. The dough is pressed through different sizes of dies according to the product desired. For rifle powder fine cords are used; for artillery, thicker cords or flat ribbons of varying thicknesses are required. The cords or tapes from the dies are cut into suitable lengths, the solvents driven off, and the products blended to obtain uniform ballistic quality. For ballistite the nitrocellulose is beaten up with nitroglycerine in water. The paste is freed from water, dried, and worked into horn-like sheets by means of rollers.

High Explosives; Picric Acid.—At the outbreak of the European War the chief high explosive of the Entente Powers was lyddite (in France, mélenite), also called trinitrophenol or picric acid. It is a bright-yellow solid, melting-point 122° C., sparingly soluble in water, and forms easily exploded metallic salts. It is now displaced by trinitrotoluene. Picric acid is made from phenol or carbolic acid. Phenol is obtained from coal-tar, or made synthetically from benzene. The phenol is sulphonated with strong sulphuric acid, and the phenol-sulphonic acid resulting is nitrated with strong nitric acid at about 100° C. Picric acid separates, and is washed free from mineral acid and dried. It may also be made from benzene without converting it into phenol thus: The benzene is chlorinated and gives chlorbenzene. This is nitrated into dinitrochlorbenzene, and is then treated with caustic soda to give dinitrophenol. This is then further nitrated into trinitrophenol or picric acid. Picric acid has a high melting-point, it must be used pure, is dissolved by water, it attacks metals forming dangerous compounds, and requires troublesome plant for its manufacture. Hence it has been displaced by more suitable substances, notably by trinitrotoluene.

Trinitrotoluene (T.N.T.).—This compound may now be made in a continuous plant. Mononitrotoluene is put in at one end of the plant and comes out as trinitrotoluene. Mixed nitric and sulphuric acid is put in at the end where the T.N.T. is obtained, and emerges, where mononitrotoluene is put in, as waste acid. T.N.T. in the past has also been made discontinuously thus: The toluene is nitrated by mixed acid into either mono- or dinitrotoluene, which is then trinitrated. The conversion into mononitrotoluene was used in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, and America; the conversion into dinitrotoluene was used in Italy. The T.N.T. emerges liquid, and is passed over a rotating drum internally cold water cooled. A knife strips the thin congealed skin of T.N.T. off. This T.N.T. is only grade 3, and for conversion into grade 1 it must be purified. Formerly this was done by means of an organic solvent, but this dangerous and expensive method has been displaced by treatment either with phenol or sodium sulphite, which gives a grade 1 product. T.N.T. is a very pale yellow solid, melting-point 80.2° C., and therefore, melted by hot water, almost insoluble in water, burns quickly in the air, is inert, and comparatively safe to handle. It has displaced picric acid owing to its superiority, physically and chemically, over that substance.

Tetryl or C.E. (Composition Exploding).—Tetryl, also called tetranitrodimethylaniline, or more correctly trinitrophenylmethylnitramine, is a powerful high explosive, and is thus obtained. One part of dimethylaniline is dissolved in 10 parts of strong sulphuric acid, and the solution allowed to flow into strong nitric acid. The temperature should be kept below 40° C., else decomposition may occur. After nitration the yellow tetryl separates out, and is filtered off and water-washed till free from acid. It is then dried in hot-air stoves. Tetryl is much more dangerous than T.N.T., and is also more poisonous to handle. No other nitro-bodies were made in England on the large scale during the European War, but on the Continent, owing to the scarcity of raw materials, dinitrobenzene, dinitrotoluene, and nitronaphthalenes, and even less important nitro-bodies, were made. Their manufacture is similar to that of those already described. Probably none of these nitro-bodies so pressed into use is as good as T.N.T.

Detonating Substances.—Though modern explosives are not easily exploded by a blow, they are sensitive to shock of given intensity, and lesser or different shocks will not suffice. The 'detonator' to produce the shock is set into the explosive. A complete shell carries two detonators. One, in the percussion cap, sets off the propellant charge which expels the projectile; the other, in the fuse in the nose of the shell, is ignited by the discharge of the gun, and detonates the high-explosive filling at a set interval after the discharge of the shell. Therefore, the shell can be exploded either in its flight when it is used as shrapnel shell, or on its arrival at its objective when it can be used for small-calibre artillery shell for field-guns, &c., or after its arrival when it is used for heavy howitzer and armour-piercing shell for destroying entrenched works, armoured forts, or ships. The manufacture of detonators is a very dangerous and delicate operation. Some substances (the copper acetylides) explode by a scratch, some (nitrogen iodide) by the touch of a feather or the tread of a fly, some explode even in solution when poured from one vessel into another (diazobenzeneperchlorates). Mercury fulminate is more often employed in the detonator, and is prepared from mercury, alcohol, and nitric acid. It is expensive, and most modern detonators consist of lead azide or salts of styphnic acid, with a layer of T.N.T. in a narrow aluminium cylinder.

The following is a list of the more important explosives, the different groups not being mutually exclusive:—

Coal-mine Explosives

American.

Aetna Coal-mine Powder A, B, C: nitroglycerine explosive.

Black Diamond: 2A, 3A, 6L.F are nitroglycerine explosives; 5, 7, 8, ammonium nitrate explosives.

Carbonite: nitroglycerine 26, barium nitrate 4, potassium nitrate 29, wood-meal or starch flour 40, calcium carbonate 0.25.

Du Pont Permissible: nitroglycerine, ammonium nitrate, common salt.

Eureka: nitroglycerine and hydrated salt.

Monobel: ammonium nitrate, nitroglycerine, wood-meal, alkali chloride.

Red H1-7: ammonium nitrate explosives.

Trogan Coal Powder: contains nitrostarch.

Austrian and Hungarian.

Chloratit: during war was used in coal-mines.

Dynammon: ammonium nitrate, potassium nitrate, red charcoal.

Pannomite: nitroglycerine, collodion cotton, ammonium nitrate, dextrin, glycerine, nitrotoluene, alkali chloride.

Titanite: Ammonium nitrate, trinitrotoluene, curcuma charcoal.

Belgian.

Alsilite: ammonium nitrate, trinitrotoluene, ferrosilicon-aluminium, salt.

Baellnite: ammonium-nitrate, trinitrotoluene.

Densite: alkaline nitrates, trinitrotoluene, dinitrotoluene, and ammonium chloride.

Favier Explosives: mixtures in varying proportions containing ammonium nitrate, nitronaphthalene, paraffin, and resin; higher nitrated naphthalenes, potassium nitrate, and tetryl may be present. Manufactured by the French Government as Explosifs N or Favier or Grisounites. Grisounites-couche for coal-mines have theoretical explosion temperatures of 1500° C., Grisounites-roche of 1900° C. Ammonite, Westfalite, Bellite, Roburite are explosives of this type; other ammonites, Bellite Nos. 2 and 4, Faversham powder, and negro powder have ammonium or sodium chloride added.

British.

Ammonite: Favier type; ammonium nitrate 75, dinitronaphthalene or other nitro-body, salt 20.

Bellite: ammonium nitrate and metadinitrobenzene; salt and starch may be added.

Bobbinite: the only gunpowder explosive allowed in England, not allowed in foreign mines; alkali nitrate, carbohydrates, wax may be added. Shatters coal less than high explosives.

Cambrite: a Nobel carbonite plus 8 per cent of a cooling agent.

Denaby Powder: ammonium nitrate, alkali nitrate, T.N.T., ammonium chloride.

Dynobel: nitroglycerine 15, collodion cotton 0.5, nitro-body 3, ammonium nitrate 46, wood-meal 5.5, salt 29.5, magnesium carbonate 0.5. Limit charge, 18 to 30 ounces. Swing of ballistic pendulum, 2.35 inches.

Monarkite: ammonium and sodium nitrate, nitroglycerine, nitrocotton, starch, mineral jelly, salt.

Monobel: ammonium nitrate, nitroglycerine, wood-meal, salt, alkali chloride, magnesium carbonate; nitro-body may be present.

Negro Powder: Grisounite type; ammonium nitrate 88, T.N.T. 10, graphite 2.

Rex Powder: nitroglycerine 12, salt 20, wood-meal 8, ammonium nitrate 60. Charge, 20 ounces. Swing of pendulum, 2.61 inches.

Rippite (Super): nitroglycerine, nitrocotton, potassium nitrate, borax, alkali chloride.

Roburite: ammonium nitrate 61, T.N.T. 16, salt 23.

Stomonal: nitroglycerine, ammonium nitrate, sodium nitrate, wood-meal, wheat-flour, salt, ammonium oxalate.

Thames Powder. Similar to above.

Danish.

Aerolite: ammonium nitrate 78.1 per cent, potassium nitrate 7.5 per cent, sulphur 8.75 per cent, tar 2.5 per cent, sago-meal 1.25 per cent, manganese dioxide 1.25 per cent, resin 0.6 per cent.

Poudre Blanche Cornil: ammonium nitrate, alkali nitrate, nitronaphthalene, lead chromate.

French.

Favier Explosives. See under Belgian explosives.

Grisounite. As above.

Grisoutine or Grisou Dynamite. It is a mixture of ammonium nitrate and blasting gelatine. It is the only explosive except Grisounite allowed in the more dangerous French mines.

Naphthalite (Grisou): potassium chlorate 80 per cent, aryl hydrocarbons, 12 per cent nitrocompounds not trinitro-bodies, paraffin, fatty oils, flour and other organic substances. May contain alkali chlorides and up to 4 per cent blasting gelatine.

German.

Albit (Wetter): a chlorate explosive replacing nitrates; scarce during the war.

Astralit (Wetter): ammonium nitrate explosive containing some blasting gelatine. Many varieties, which may also contain rape-oil and potato-meal. Has been used in trench howitzers.

Carbonit. Numerous compositions come under this name and are made in different countries. Consists chiefly of nitroglycerine and metallic nitrates. Arctic carbonite, a low-freezing mixture, contains 15.5 per cent nitroglycerine, 10.5 per cent nitrohydrocarbon, 42 per cent potassium nitrate, 31.7 per cent wood-meal, and 0.3 per cent calcium carbonate.

Chloratzit: potassium chlorate or perchlorate, aryl nitro-bodies, resins, and carbohydrates. For coal-mines add cooling agents.

Detonit: ammonium nitrate, charcoal, meal, 4 per cent blasting gelatine, neutral salts.

Donarit: ammonium nitrate 80 per cent, trinitrotoluene 12 per cent, rye-flour 4 per cent, nitroglycerine 4 per cent. The standard in Germany for sensitiveness of ammonium nitrate explosives.

Dorfit: ammonium nitrate, trinitrotoluene, flour, salt, alkali nitrate.

Dynamit: nitroglycerine 75 per cent, Kieselguhr 25 per cent.

Gehlingerit: ammonium nitrate, trinitrotoluene, flour.

Permonit: a perchlorate explosive.

Tremonit: contains gelatinized dinitroglycerine, pea-flour, and salt.

Some Blasting Explosives

Ammonal: ammonium nitrate 80 to 90 per cent, aluminium 4 to 18 per cent, charcoal 2 to 6 per cent. The more violent mixtures contain some trinitrotoluene in addition. Has been used in grenades and by Austrians in trench-howitzer bombs. Not suitable in underground workings owing to poisonous gases evolved.

Astralit: a mixture of ammonium nitrate and blasting gelatine. May contain wood-meal, trinitrotoluene, paraffin-oil. Has been used for projectiles.

Carbodynamite: nitroglycerine absorbed in cork charcoal instead of guhr.

Gelignite: nitroglycerine 56 to 63 per cent, nitrocotton 4 per cent, wood-meal 7 per cent, potassium nitrate 27 per cent, calcium carbonate 0.2 per cent.

Oxyliquit: liquid oxygen absorbed in a porous combustible material. Used in construction of Simplon Tunnel. Very cheap; safe after misfire because oxygen evaporates off.

Perdit: German mining, demolition, and rifle grenade explosive. Ammonium nitrate 76 per cent, potassium perchlorate 6 per cent, wood-meal 2 per cent, dinitrotoluene 16 per cent.

Rendarock: a brand of American dynamite.

Sprengel Explosives: one or both of the substances to be liquid, and mixing to occur shortly before firing. Nitric acid, alkali chloride, nitrogen peroxide on nitrobenzene, nitronaphthalene, carbon bisulphide, petrol, picric acid. Panclastite, Prométhée, Rack-a-Rock, are examples of this class.

Tonite: gun-cotton and barium nitrate.

Some High Explosives

Alumtol: ammonium nitrate, trinitrotoluene, aluminium powder. Used for trench mortars, bombs, &c.

Amatol: a mixture of ammonium nitrate and trinitrotoluene, used for shell-filling. Called by Germans Füllpulver. The Germans did not develop this explosive as much as the Entente Powers, who effected great economy of trinitrotoluene.

Blastine: ammonium perchlorate, sodium nitrate, dinitrotoluene, paraffin-wax. It evolves hydrochloric acid gas.

Blasting gelatine contains 93 per cent nitroglycerine and 7 per cent nitrocotton. It is the most powerful explosive in common use.

Crèsylite is a French explosive, and contains picric acid and nitrated cresol.

Fumyl is a smoke-producing explosive, and contains trinitrotoluene and ammonium chloride. It was used to open poison-gas shells.

Granatfülling (Shell Filling): a term used by the Germans.

Granatfülling C/84 is picric acid.

Granatfülling C/02 is trinitrotoluene.

Other substances were used by them for shell filling, such as trinitroanisole, dinitrobenzene, hexanitrodiphenylamine, and hexanitrophenylsulphide.

Lyddite: a term for picric acid formerly used in shells.

T.N.T. is trinitrotoluene or trotyl.

Toxol is a mixture of trinitrotoluene and trinitroxylene.

Triplastite is a plastic high explosive containing 70 per cent nitrotoluenes, 8 per cent nitrocotton, 29 per cent lead nitrate. Used for shell filling.

Some Miscellaneous Explosives

Anilite: Sprengel type. French liquid explosive used in aerial bombs.

Centralite: not an explosive but a stabilizer and regulator. It is dimethyldiphenylurea.

Collodion Cotton: low nitralion nitrocotton, soluble in a mixture of ether and alcohol. It dissolves in nitroglycerine and liquid nitro-body, preventing their exudation.

Gelatine Dynamite: a mixture of blasting gelatine with potassium nitrate and wood-meal. It may also contain calcium and magnesium carbonate and mineral jelly.

Gelignite is similar to Gelatine Dynamite, but contains less Blasting Gelatine.

Halakite: contains potassium chlorate, ammonium nitrate, trinitrotoluene or other nitro-body; may contain nitrocotton, sodium nitrate, and wood-meal.

Pyrocollodion: highly nitrated, soluble gun-cotton. Adopted by the United States.

White Gunpowder: a mixture of potassium chlorate, potassium ferrocyanide, and sugar. Very sensitve, and only used in the laboratory.

Propellants for Shot-guns

Amberite: insoluble nitrocotton 18.6 per cent, nitrates 28 per cent, soluble nitrocotton 46 per cent, vaseline 6 per cent.

Du Pont Smokeless Powder: nitroglycerine 10 per cent, ammonium nitrate 67.5 per cent, wood-pulp 8 per cent, salt 15 per cent (for coal-mines). Soluble nitrocotton 46 per cent, metallic nitrates 2.2 per cent (for shot-guns).

E.C. Powder: insoluble nitrocotton 44 per cent to 48 per cent (Empire Powder), soluble nitrocotton 30 per cent to 34 per cent, metallic nitrates 14 per cent to 9 per cent, vaseline 6 per cent to 7 per cent, camphor 4.6 per cent.

Ideal Powder: made by Nobels.

Neonite. Similar to the above compositions, but containing 73 per cent of insoluble nitrocotton, 9 per cent soluble nitrocotton. It is also made for rifled small-arms especially for rim-fire rifles.

New Explosives Company Smokeless Powder. Similar to above.

Rifleite: insoluble nitrocotton 1.7 per cent, soluble nitrocotton 82.5 per cent, nitro-body 4.8 per cent. The nitrocellulose is made from curcuma.

Ruby Powder: a cheap non-solvent powder, 46 per cent insoluble nitrocotton, 4 per cent soluble nitrocotton.

Smokeless Diamond and Stoumarkel Smokeless are similar to above.

Propellants for Rifled Fire-arms

Amide Powder: ammonium nitrate, potassium nitrate, charcoal. Has also been used in German artillery.

Ammonpulver: ammonium nitrate and charcoal. Has been used by Austrian artillery, and lately reintroduced by the Germans.

Ballistite: equal parts of nitroglycerine and soluble nitrocotton with some mineral jelly.

Cordite: the principal smokeless powder of the British Empire.

Indurite: gun-cotton and nitrobenzene. Abandoned by U.S. navy.

Neonite: a gelatinized powder. Contains nitrocellulose insoluble and soluble, metallic nitrates, and vaseline.

Noddite: a strip sporting-rifle powder containing nitroglycerine, nitrocellulose, mineral jelly.

Rottweil Smokeless Powder: a gelatined powder containing camphor and diphenylamine.

See also Grenade; Shell; Torpedo; Fireworks; Rockets.

Expo´nent. In algebra a denotes three a's multiplied together; an means that n of the letter a are to be multiplied. These numbers or letters placed immediately above and to the right of another number or letter are called exponents, and indicate the power to which the number or letter is raised. Exponents can be fractional or negative, in which case new interpretations can be found. On the assumption that am × an = am+n for all values of m and n, a1/n is interpreted as the nth root of a, a-n as the reciprocal of an.

Exponential Theorem. If ax = N, x is said to be the logarithm of N to the base a. There are two bases of logarithms in common use, the base 10 and the Napierian base e. The exponential theorem states that the value of ex is given by the infinite series 1 + x + x/(1.2) + x/(1.2.3) + ... + xn/(1.2.3..n) +, &c. Putting x equal to 1, e = 1 + 1 + 1/(1.2) + 1/(1.2.3) + 1/(1.2.3.4) +, &c. e can be expressed to any number of decimal places by working out the value of the terms on the right-hand side. It is an incommensurable number which to five decimal places is equal to 2.71828. See Logarithm.

Exports. See Foreign Trade.

Ex Post Facto, in law, a term designating something as done after and bearing upon something previously done; thus a law is said to be ex post facto, or retrospective, when it is enacted to punish an offence committed before the passing of the law.

Exposure, the situation of a building, &c., with respect to sun and wind; 'aspect' with regard to the quarter of the heavens. A house facing south-west or south-east will be found much healthier than one facing due north; and as it is also warmer, less fuel will be required for heating purposes.

Expressed Oils, in chemistry, are those which are obtainable from bodies only by pressing, to distinguish them from mineral and essential oils, which last are, for the most part, obtained by distillation.

Extension, (1) in physics and metaphysics, that property of a body in virtue of which it occupies a portion of space. (2) In logic, extension is the extent of the application of a general term, that is, the objects collectively which are included under it; thus, the word figure is more extensive than triangle, circle, or parallelogram; European more extensive than French, Frenchman, German, &c. Matter and mind are the most extensive terms of which any definite conception can be formed. Extension is contrasted with comprehension or intension.—Cf. Titchner, Text-Book of Psychology.

Extincteur (eks-tan-teur), an apparatus for the extinction of fire, consisting of a metallic case containing water and materials for generating carbonic acid. When required, the materials are brought into contact by pushing a rod which breaks a bottle containing acid, the gas mixes with the water, and the pressure generated is sufficient to project the water charged with the gas to a distance of 40 or 50 feet.

Ex´tract, a term to denote all that can be dissolved out of a substance by a specified menstruum, such as water, alcohol, ether, &c. In modern pharmacy the term is applied to two kinds of preparation from vegetables. One is got by digesting the plant in water or other solvent, and evaporating or distilling away the excess of solvent until the extracted matter is sufficiently inspissated. The other is got by bruising the plant in a mortar, separating the juice, warming it until the green colouring-matter separates, and filtering it off. The juice is next heated until the albumen coagulates, and again filtered. The juice is now evaporated to a syrup, the green colouring-matter added and well mixed, and the evaporation is thereafter continued until the required concentration is attained. Extracts must be capable of being redissolved, so as to form a solution like that from which they were derived. Extracts are used in cookery, medicine, and the manufacture of perfumery.—Extract of Meat (extractum carnis) is a soft, yellowish-brown solid, or very thick syrup, which is employed as a portable soup. It is now manufactured on the large scale by processes proposed by Liebig.

Extradi´tion (Lat. ex, out, and tradere, to hand over), the act by which a person accused of a crime is given up by the Government in whose territories he has taken refuge to the Government of which he is a subject. Conventions have been entered into by Britain with almost all civilized countries for the apprehension and extradition of persons charged with particular offences, especially those of the most heinous stamp, such as murder, robbery, embezzlement, arson, rape, and piracy. The Extradition Act of 1870 makes special provision that no criminal shall be surrendered for a political offence, and that the criminal shall not be tried for any but the crime for which he was demanded. Other British Extradition Acts are those of 1873, 1895, and 1906. See International Law.—Cf. Sir E. Clarke, The Law of Extradition.

Extravagan´za, in music or the drama, a species of composition designed to produce effect by its wild irregularity and incoherence; differing from a burlesque in being an original composition and not a mere travesty.

Extravasa´tion (Lat. extra, beyond, and vas, vessel), an escape of some fluid, as blood or urine, from the vessel containing it. Blood extravasation, in contusions and other accidents, is when blood-vessels are ruptured by the injury, and the blood finds its way into the neighbouring tissues. In some accidents to the urethra and bladder extravasation of urine is a very serious occurrence.

Extreme Unction has been, since an early period, one of the seven sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church. It is performed in cases of mortal disease by anointing in the form of a cross, the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands, feet, and reins (in the case of males). It is administered after confession and the eucharist, and is believed to remove the last stains of sin. It can only be administered by a bishop or priest, and is not applied in the case of young children or excommunicated persons.

Exu´ma, Great and Little, two of the Bahama Islands. The former is 30 miles long and 3 miles wide, and has a good harbour. Pop. 3465.

Eyalet (ī´a-let), a former administrative division of the Turkish Empire, subdivided into sanjaks or provinces, and kazas or districts. It was ruled by a pasha, and gave place to the vilayet on the reorganization of the empire in 1871.

Eyck (īk), Hubert and Jan van, brothers, famous painters of the old Flemish school, born at Maaseyck, Hubert in 1366, Jan probably about 1385. They lived first at Bruges, whence the younger brother is called John of Bruges, and afterwards at Ghent, to which they removed about 1420. Here they executed the celebrated Adoration of the Lamb for the Cathedral of Ghent; a painting which, in its different parts, contains above three hundred figures, and is a masterpiece. It was in two horizontal divisions, comprising ten panels, of which only the two central ones remain at Ghent, the others being at Berlin. Hubert did not live to see it completed. He died at Ghent (1426), as did also his sister Margaret, who was likewise a painter (1431). Jan finished the work in 1432, and returned to Bruges, where he remained till his death, which took place in 1441, and executed several excellent pieces. His reputation became very great even during his lifetime, by his share in the introduction of oil-painting; the original invention of which has been incorrectly ascribed to him by many. Jan van Eyck also introduced improvements in linear and aerial perspective, and in painting upon glass. Three portraits by Jan van Eyck, The Scholar, The Man with a Turban, and Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife, are in the National Gallery, London; the Madonna of the Chancellor Rollin is in the Louvre.—Cf. W. H. J. Weale, John and Hubert van Eyck.

Eye, the organ of vision, is an instrument presenting some analogy to a photographic camera. It is provided with a lens for focussing images upon a sensitive membrane called the retina. The walls of the globe of the eye are formed principally of two fibrous membranes: one white and opaque—the sclerotic (Gr. sklēros, hard)—which envelops two-thirds of the globe posteriorly; and the other transparent, and resembling a horny plate, whence its name, cornea (Lat. corneus, horny). The sclerotic is a tough fibrous coat, and is the part to which the phrase 'white of the eye' is applied. In the front of the globe the sclerotic is abruptly transformed into the transparent portion (the cornea), which is circular, and which forms a window through which one can see into the interior. A membrane, the conjunctiva, so named because it unites the eye to the lid, spreads over the anterior portion of the globe, and then folds back on itself and lines the internal surface of the eyelids. On the internal surface of the sclerotic is a vascular membrane called the choroid. This is essentially the blood-vessel coat of the eyeball. About the place where the sclerotic passes into the cornea the choroid becomes continuous with the iris, a round curtain, the structure seen through the cornea, differently coloured in different individuals. In its centre is a round hole, the pupil, which appears as if it were a black spot. The iris forms a diaphragm suspended in the space behind the cornea which is filled with clear fluid, the aqueous humour. The iris consists of a framework of connective tissue, and its posterior surface is lined by cells containing pigment which gives the colour to the eye. In its substance are bundles of involuntary muscular fibres, arranged in a ring round the margin of the pupil. In a bright light the circular fibres contract and the pupil is made smaller; but in the dark these fibres relax and allow the pupil to dilate more or less widely, thus allowing more luminous rays to enter the eye. Just behind the pupil is the crystalline lens, resembling a small, very strongly magnifying glass, convex on each side, though more so behind. Minute bands of muscle in the choroid can alter the convexity of the lens, and thus adapt its focus to the position of objects at different distances. The large space in the globe of the eye that intervenes between the retina lining its inner surface and the lens in front is occupied by a transparent jelly-like mass called the vitreous body. The internal surface of the choroid, or rather the pigmentary layer which covers it, is lined by the retina or nervous tunic upon which the images of the objects that we see are focussed. The retina is a very complex mechanism consisting of certain elements which are stimulated by light, and others that transmit the effects of such stimulation as a nervous current to the optic nerve which carries it to the brain. It is composed of cones and cylinders or rods, joined together like the stakes of a palisade, perpendicular to the plane of the membrane, and forming by their free extremities a mosaic, each microscopic division of which is about 0.0008 of a line in diameter according to Helmholtz, and represents a section of a rod. These rods and cones are believed to be the agents by whose aid the waves of light become transformed into the stimulus of a sensation. The ocular globe is put in motion in the orbit by six muscles, grouped two by two, which raise or lower the eye, turn it inward or outward, or on its antero-posterior axis. In these movements the centre of the globe is immovable, and the eye moves round its transverse and vertical diameters. These three orders of movements are independent of each other, and may be made singly or in combination, in such a manner as to direct the pupil towards all points of the circumference of the orbit. Each eye is furnished with two eyelids, moved by muscles, which shield it from too much light and keep it from being injured. They are fringed with short, fine hairs called eyelashes; and along the edge of the lids is a row of glands similar to the sebaceous glands of the skin. The eyebrows, ridges of thickened integument and muscle, situated on the upper circumference of the orbit and covered with short hairs, also regulate to some extent the admission of light by muscular contraction. In reptiles, some fishes (sharks, &c.), in birds, and in some mammals a third eyelid or nictitating membrane is present, and can be drawn over the surface of the eye so as to clear it of foreign matters, and also to modify the light. The lachrymal apparatus is composed of, firstly, the lachrymal gland, which lies in a depression of the orbital arch; secondly, the lachrymal canals, by which the tears are poured out upon the conjunctiva a little above the border of the upper lid; thirdly, the lachrymal ducts, which are destined to receive the tears after they have bathed the eye, and of which the orifices or lachrymal points are seen near the internal ends of the lids; fourthly, the lachrymal sac, in which the lachrymal ducts terminate, that empties the tears into the nasal canal. The tears, by running over the surface of the conjunctiva, render it supple and facilitate the movements of the globe and eyelids by lessening the friction. The influence of moral or physical causes increases their secretion, and when the lachrymal ducts do not suffice to carry them off they run over the lids.

Vision.—The retina renders the eye sensible of light, and we may therefore consider it as the essential organ of vision. The function of the other portions is to focus the luminous rays on the surface of the retina, a condition necessary for distinct vision and the clear perception of objects. The visual impressions are transmitted from the retina to the brain by means of the optic nerve. The two optic nerves converge from the eyes toward the centre of the base of the brain, where there is a partial interlacement of their fibres in such a manner that a portion of the right nerve goes to the left side of the brain, and a part of the left nerve to the right side; this is called the chiasma or commissure of the optic nerves. The principal advantage of having two eyes is in the estimation of distance and the perception of relief. In order to see a point as single by two eyes we must make its two images fall on corresponding points of the retinas; and this implies a greater or less convergence of the optic axes according as the object is nearer or more remote. To accommodate the eye to different distances the lens is capable of altering itself with great precision and rapidity. When we look at a near object, the anterior surface of the lens bulges forward, becoming more convex the nearer the object; the more distant the object the more the lens is flattened. When the transparency of the cornea, the crystalline lens, or any of the contents of the globe of the eye is destroyed, either partially or entirely, then will partial or total blindness follow, since no image can be formed upon the retina; but although all the media and the cornea be perfectly transparent, and retain their proper forms, which likewise is necessary to distinct vision, yet injury or inactivity of the optic nerve, or injury of the parts of the brain with which it is connected, may produce disturbance of vision or total blindness. Defective vision may also arise from the crystalline lens being so convex as to form an image before the rays reach the retina (a defect known as short sight or myopia), in which case distinct vision will be procured by interposing a concave lens between the eye and the object of such a curvature as shall cause the rays that pass through the crystalline lens to meet on the retina; or the lens may be too flat, a defect which is corrected by convex lenses. In old age, and in fact in most people after about forty-five years of age, the elasticity of the lens becomes reduced, and convex lenses become necessary to make it possible to focus near objects. This condition is known as presbyopia. In the lower organisms the organs of sight appear as mere pigment spots. In higher forms, simple lenses or refracting bodies occur. Insects, crustaceans, &c., have large masses of simple eyes or ocelli aggregated together to form compound eyes—the separate facets or lenses being optically distinct, and sometimes numbering many thousands. In the cephalopods well-developed eyes presenting a distant analogy in structure to those of the highest animals are found; and in all vertebrate animals the organ of vision corresponds generally to what has been described, though they vary much in structure and adaptation to the surroundings of the animal.—Cf. J. Herbert Parsons, Diseases of the Eye.

Eye (ā), a municipal borough, England, county Suffolk, 19 miles north of Ipswich. Up till 1885 it sent a member to Parliament, and it still gives its name to a parliamentary division of East Suffolk. Pop. 1781.

Eyebright (Euphrasia officinālis), a small plant belonging to the nat. ord. Scrophulariaceæ, which is common in Britain and most parts of Europe, in North Asia, &c. It is an annual, half-parasitic on grass-roots, from 3 to 8 inches high, often much branched. The whole plant has a bitter taste. Under the name of euphrasy it formerly enjoyed a great reputation in diseases of the eyes.

Eyemouth, a fishing-town of Berwickshire, Scotland, at the mouth of the Eye, an important place in the thirteenth century. Pop. 2477.

Eye-piece, in a telescope, microscope, or other optical instrument, the lens, or combination of lenses to which the eye is applied. As the use of a single lens limits the field of view, eye-pieces are generally formed from two lenses or lens systems, called the eye-lens and the field-lens, placed at a distance apart. The Ramsden or positive eye-piece consists of two lenses of equal focal length placed at a distance apart equal to two-thirds of the focal length of either lens. The object looked at requires to be a short distance in front of the field-lens. In the Huyghens or negative eye-piece the focal lengths of the field- and eye-lenses are in the ratio 3 to 1, and the distance between the lenses is twice the focal length of the eye-lens. As a result the image formed by, say, the objective of a telescope is in focus when between the two lenses.

Eylau (ī´lou), a small town, about 28 miles distant from Königsberg, in Prussia, famous for a bloody battle fought between Napoleon and the allied Russians and Prussians, on the 7th and 8th of Feb., 1807. Both sides claimed the victory. The loss of the Allies was about 20,000 men, while that of the French must have been considerably greater.

Eyre (ār), Edward John, Australian explorer and colonial governor, born in Yorkshire 1815, died in 1901. He went to Australia in 1833, in 1839 discovered Lake Torrens, and in 1840 explored its eastern shores and the adjacent Flinders Range. He then commenced his perilous journey along the shores of the Great Australian Bight, and reached King George's Sound, in Western Australia, a distance of 1200 miles, with a single native boy, having left Adelaide more than a year before. In 1845 he published Discoveries in Central Australia. After filling several governorships, he was appointed Governor of Jamaica in 1862. In 1865 he was confronted with a negro rebellion, which he crushed with some severity, and was recalled. On his return to England John Stuart Mill and other so-called humanitarians took measures to try him for murder, but failed. Tennyson and Carlyle were among his most strenuous defenders.

Eyre, Lake, a large salt-water lake of South Australia. Area about 4000 sq. miles, but it is subject to great fluctuations in size.

Eze´kiel (Heb. Yehezgēl, 'God shall strengthen'), the third of the great prophets, a priest, and the son of Buzi. He was carried away when young (about 599 B.C.) into the Babylonian captivity. His prophetic career extended over a period of twenty-two years, from the fifth to the twenty-seventh year of the captivity. The Book of Ezekiel contains predictions made before the fall of Jerusalem, 586 B.C. (chaps. i-xxiv); prophecies against some of the neighbouring tribes (chaps. xxv-xxxii); prophecies concerning the future of Israel (xxxiii-xxxix); and a series of visions relating to the circumstances of the people after the restoration.

Ezra, a celebrated Jewish scribe and priest. Under his guidance the second expedition of the Jews set out from Babylon to Palestine in the reign of Artaxerxes I, about 458 B.C. The important services rendered by Ezra to his countrymen on that occasion, and also in arranging, and in some measure, it is believed, settling the canon of Scripture, are specially acknowledged by the Jews, and he has even been regarded as the second founder of the nation. Josephus states that he died in Jerusalem; others assert that he returned to Babylon, and died there at the age of 120 years. The Book of Ezra contains an account of the favours bestowed upon the Jews by the Persian monarchs, the rebuilding of the temple, Ezra's mission to Jerusalem, and the various regulations and forms introduced by him. It is written partly in Hebrew and partly in Chaldee; this has led some to conclude that it is the work of different hands.