WE

E have at last come through a most trying time with complete success. To tell you all about it I must go back to the very beginning. We left Mudros and went to Suvla Bay on Dec. 4, and on that date or thereabout the authorities at home decided that Suvla and Anzac were to be evacuated. The wisdom or otherwise of this step I am not in a position to judge, though I personally think they were right to do it. Ian Hamilton put down his probable casualties at 50 per cent. of his men. I have to tell of how it was done without one single casualty other than three killed, five wounded.

The first fortnight was spent in getting off at night, and gradually the horses, stores, motors, and guns. Day after day, night after night, was calm and still, but as the moon waxed and the nights got lighter it seemed impossible that the Turks on the hills five miles away could fail to see the ships that stole in after dark and stole out again full up in the early dawn. During the day things went on as usual. There were no infantry attacks, but continual artillery duels, in which the two covering battleships, ourselves and another, took a very big part. When the last Iweek came the number of men was reduced to the completely fit; all weaklings and men not in full health were out of it; all the slightly wounded had gone, and the trenches were held by all the very best available. Large quantities of empty boxes were piled up in conspicuous places, and the position looked as if it were going to be held for the whole Winter.

On Monday, the 13th, the final week began, and frequent consultations were held between the Generals and our Captain, who was senior naval officer, and the nights began to be very busy. The Turks became much more vigorous, and

shelled the beaches and main positions continuously all the day, but fortunately not at all at night. In addition they got up some heavy howitzers away behind the hills that caused us considerable anxiety. To help us knock them out the balloon ship came up, but the continual gentle moist south winds kept the clouds very low and she couldn't see.

Saturday passed quietly, and on Saturday evening at 6 o'clock we went to action stations, the ship cleared and fixed with a stern anchor broadside on to the Turkish position, every gun trained in readiness to support and prevent a Turkish attack in force on our weakened lines. By 7 o'clock the first big transport was in and the embarkation began. In absolute silence it continued all night. The moon was three-quarters full, the night clear, but the Turks never moved, and as the dawn broke and the last transport slunk away one ventured almost to breathe. All Sunday we continued at our stations. No church, Captain's inspection; but the day wore on, and still the Turks made no sign. They shelled the beach, of course, as usual, but they also shelled-cheering sight!-a low hill from which every gun and every man had been removed. It seemed almost too much to hope that they could still be in ignorance of what was going on under their noses, and yet the day wore through, the sun went down, and with it the wind, till the moon rose on a sea flat and oily and raised a slight mist which hung low on the water and in the nullahs and valleys running up into the hills. The transports came in and the last men began to leave.

It was arranged that the firing line of trenches should be evacuated at 1:30 P. M., the men leaving behind traps, and mines with trip wires, automatic bombthrowers, and candles and slow matches

primed to imitate a desultory rifle fire. One-thirty came; 2:30 and still no sign -where were their patrols? Surely they must know that the trenches that for so long had faced them were now empty. Eight-thirty, and the last companies were down to the beaches. Only the engineers remained to burn and destroy the stores left over which could not be removed. Just before 4 the first fire was started and rapidly spread a mass of leaping, roaring flames that cast a glow of red over the heavens and lit up the whole scene, and still the Turks never moved. It was as though they had been smitten with blindness, as Elisha smote the Syrians, and were not permitted to see.

Soon after 4 an enormous fire was lit near Suvla Point, and thousands of empty boxes burned furiously, and at the same time there was a big explosion away up near our front lines, but of what I couldn't make out. About 4:30 a large motor lighter that had been wrecked some weeks previously, and that had defied all attempts to refloat

it, was blown up with a terrific report, and, catching alight, added its quota to the glare that was lighting up everything.

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But it was not till dawn, rosy fingered," was heralding the day that the Turks opened fire. They shelled the empty beaches, dropped shrapnel on the vacated trenches, and even in their mystification put big, heavy, high explosive shells into the flaming piles. We then opened fire on everything that had been left behind-sunken lighters and shipsand the unique sight was seen of ourselves and the enemy shelling the same target simultaneously. Soon they turned their attention to us, but their shooting was very wild, and they never got within 100 yards of us. And as we left-the last ship to leave the spot where so many hopes were buried-they were still frantically shelling-nothing! Late last night as we lay a dozen miles away the glow of the fires was still visible. This morning, 24 hours after, a furious southerly gale has sprung up, and is driving huge seas before it into the little bay.

IN

N the days of peace that are flown the abandoned and desolate Jewish churchyard of Muravica may have been one of those bizarre spots that would certainly have stirred the imagination of an Edgar Allan Poe or of a Villiers de l'Isle Adam. No longer, however, is it merely an abandoned cemetery, full of weird shades and ghostly forms. It is more, much more. It is a symbol.

This cemetery represents the persecuted Jewish people of Russia. At the edge of the little village, on the bank of the peaceful Ikwa, on an abandoned hillside covered with an impenetrable thicket, they, the branded and persecuted ones,

are sleeping their last, eternal sleep; the last, and perhaps the first, quiet sleep they had ever found in the limitless empire of the White Czar.

The grotesque monuments - slender, circular red and white headstones-form a phantastic union with the thick foliage, and on quiet nights stand out like spirits, faintly reflecting the pale bluish light of the moon.

It was an abandoned cemetery, a damned spot. No true believer, no real Russian, dared to set foot upon the accursed soil of the Jewish churchyard. Then came the war, and the quiet churchyard became a battlefield. The still air

was shattered by the roar of cannon, while shells tore great holes among the heaps of yellow bones. Now the cemetery is criss-crossed with trenches. The monuments and headstones are now on the firing line.

The cemetery arose. It understood the meaning of this battle and took its place in the ranks of the warriors. The churchyard of the oppressed extended a fraternal hand to the living fighters for freedom and took them under its protection. The dead gave up their monuments to be transformed into shields against shrapnel and bullets. They sacrificed their names graven on the stones in order to guard the emancipators against the enemy's fire. They allowed their last resting places to serve as emplacements for mine throwers and machine guns which mowed down the enemy by the hundreds.

Now living men have established themselves amid the tombs, and a thin column of smoke curls up from among the remaining headstones-the smoke from the little stoves that warm the shelters of the Honveds, (the Hungarian Landwehr.)

But the dead did still more-their yellow bones stiffen the yielding sand of the graves. Often the foot strikes against a round object. It is a skull-an old, yellow skull, which rolls away with a grin.

The cemetery is fighting. It guards, defends, and attacks. On a dark November night as the enemy's shouts of

"Urri! Urri!" resounded before the barbed wire entanglements the quiet graveyard turned itself into a hell that spewed liquid fire. Exploding mines flew from the transformed graves, hidden machine guns spat death and destruction, shells burst in the thick underbrush among the stones, so that the dry branches cracked and groaned, rifle bullets whizzed against the Hebrew letters and ricochetted with loud whines, while the pale light of the hand searchlights covered the scene with an oppressive, ghostly reflection, and, high above the cemetery, shrapnel was bursting and hurling its deadly leaden spawn into the ranks of the enemy. The graveyard repulsed five attacks and remained the victor.

Since that time it has become silent and still again. It keeps quiet and waits. It is but seldom that a stray bullet whizzes into its thicket. The snow has covered everything with its white mantle. A deep stillness reigns in the cemetery, but it is not the stillness of death. Rather is it the conscious silence of resolute attention and of iron resistance. At night, when the glittering eye of the searchlight wanders over the churchyard, the few headstones that are left stand out in the shining rays like a resolute band of petrified soldiers, boldly defying every power in the world.

Yes, they are symbolic, those slender stones, with their round heads, whose shadows seem so fearfully like those of living men.

I am not dying for ideas that people in slippered ease call the "love for their country." I, too, am going to be a victim of the terrible madness that has seized all peoples. I have often dreamed of a new kingdom where all peoples would be united in brotherly affection, where differences of race and nationality would cease to exist. There would be one kingdom like that for which the Social Democrats were preparing the way in times of peace, but which, alas! the war has shown to be valueless. I hoped to

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become a party leader, the head of a great newspaper which would help to guide the various peoples to an ideal state. But now this terrible war has broken out, fostered by a few men who are sending their subjects, or, rather, their slaves, to the fields of battle to have them massacred like animals.

This war has degenerated terribly: hand grenades, mines, and, what is worse than all, asphyxiating shells, with chlorine and other gases-these are now the principal weapons in hand-to-hand combats. I should like to go to the men they have made our enemies and say: Brothers, let us fight together.

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The enemy is behind us." Since I have been in uniform I feel no hatred for those in front of me, but my hatred is increasing for those who have the power.

We Germans want to be at the head of the peoples. Are we a day further forward than we were 1,000 years ago? The most deadly arms, even the terrible chlorine attacks, were started by us. Possibly I shall not come back from the attacks of the next few days, but for those who do return it should be a sacred object to take vengeance on the few who have on their consciences the lives of hundreds of thousands of men.

SO

OME days before we and a small cruiser had received instructions to be in readiness to raid Uto, a base for Russian cruisers and torpedo boats in the Abo Archipelago. Which of us was finally to do the job had been kept secret by the Admiral until the morning of our arrival in the mouth of the Gulf of Finland. Consequently officers and men were at a high tension as we sighted the rocky coast in the gray of the morning. Who will be assigned the task-we or the little cruiser?

Soon, to our general surprise, up goes the signal for the latter. The little cruiser crowds on all steam and heads for the island, whose lighthouse is clearly outlined against the horizon. Then hostile destroyers are seen and the cruiser proceeds to give them chase.

Suddenly a signal is run up on our flagship, saying, "His Majesty's ship X. is to bombard Uto." Now our enthusiasm knows no bounds. Every man of us is aware that we are facing a worthy, warlike task, and that we are to go into action under the very eyes of our Admiral and of the crews of the other ships of the fleet. Our decks are cleared and we rush for the island at full speed. We run through a nest of mines, and then

we lay our course through the rocky, dangerous passage for the lighthouse.

In the meantime the little cruiser has driven the torpedo boats to the coast. At the same moment a Russian armored cruiser of the Bajan class is sighted behind the island. We can see her four stacks projecting above the cliffs. "An enemy armored cruiser in sight," is shouted through every speaking tube. Now there is no doubt that we shall come to grips with a floating fighting force, and that is our highest aim. For only then will the crew have a chance to show what it has learned during the long period of training.

At 7,000 yards' distance we turn in our course and at the same moment the first broadsides from our heavy and intermediate batteries are hurled at the armored cruiser and the torpedo boats. Unfortunately they do not even return our fire. The torpedo boats disappear behind the island and the cruiser increases her speed through the rocky channel until she is from eight to ten miles away. Only her smokestacks and masts remain visible for a little while, as her hull is hidden behind the projecting cliffs.

Suddenly, however, we are greeted by

a heavy fire from hitherto concealed land batteries. By the flash of their guns we recognize no fewer than three batteries, with what seems to be a masked battery of howitzers back of them. We must admit that the Russians shoot pretty well, as soon a number of well-placed shots begin to hail around our ship and to throw up the water in our immediate neighborhood, while a peculiar humming fills the air, only to be drowned out every now and then by the thunder of our own guns.

Our speed is increased and our course is changed, and all the while our cannon are not idle. Attack is always the best method of defense, and one after the other our heavy 28-centimeter shells find their way into the enemy batteries with deadly accuracy, and one by one their guns are put out of action in the midst of terrific explosions. The Russians defend themselves bravely, but their fire dies down slowly, and in a few minutes we know that the batteries have been silenced.

Our ship has been hit by only a single shell. It crashed against our forward stack, scattering explosives all about, but without doing any great damage or wounding anybody. For the ship

IT

the blow signifies merely an honorable scar from the flame of battle.

But as our gunners are turning their attention to the armored cruiser, which we would like to get in contact with, another enemy is sighted. A hostile submarine has crept up near us. We dodge its first torpedo by means of a quick turn. Then two of our torpedo boats, which have been at our side during the fight, make a dash for the dangerous opponent. But as the flagship has noticed another submarine, which evidently plans to attack us on our way out of the channel, we are signaled that it is time to leave these dangerous waters.

Our task is done. The armored cruiser is not to be reached and the batteries have been silenced, and so, keeping the enemy under fire to the last, his Majesty's ship X. steams in a zigzag course out of the difficult channel, and finally rejoins the rest of the fleet. A signal is hoisted to show us and our Captain how our energetic bombardment is appreciated.

All is gay as we enter our home port at last. The searchlights play upon the shore, the band plays "Proud Waves the Flag," the crew sings with it, and the full moon smiles in the sky.

T was already twilight as I came down from the heights of Vimy through the deep connecting trench, and after a short visit in the regimental underground shelter where we chatted about the fighting and the poor prospects of the hostile offensive, it was entirely dark.

How am I to get to N., whence a railroad leads to our temporary quarters? There is no help to be had from the near-by engineers' camp, as all the wagons are at the front line with material for the building of trenches and shelters.

A little wagon comes rolling along in

the dark and is halted. It has just brought two officers to that vicinity. In accordance with the hospitality and amiability which is taken as a matter of course in life at the front, we at once receive permission to travel to N. in the little vehicle.

In N. we hear that it will be three hours before the train leaves. Here everybody knows what this means, at home they probably don't. The little station is barely lighted at all. There are no conveniences, not even a warm room. Therefore all one can do is to sit down in some dark corner. But there is a damp, piercing cold, and our shoes