SIGNING THE ARMISTICE AT BREST-LITOVSK, DEC. 16, 1917

Prince Leopold of Bavaria, commander of the Austro-German forces on the east front, is putting his signature to the Russo-Teutonic armistice. Sitting directly opposite him is Joffee, President of the Russian delegation.

(Photo International Film Service.)

REGION HELD BY AMERICAN TROOPS IN FRANCE: SMALL MAP IN THE CORNER SHOWS RELATION TO WHOLE BATTLE FRONT

Each presented special strategic advantages to the invader, the successful utilization of which would lead to a widely differing employment of tactics. Valstagna was like the neck of a bottle passing through which the enemy could reach Bassano and apparently be able to cut off the 4th Italian Army lying across the northern approaches of the Monte Grappa Range, between the Brenta and the Piave. A successful drive from the Monte Tomba salient would inevitably reach Pederobba and permit the enemy, if in sufficient force, to deploy along two highways, both running southwest to the Brenta Valley, one via Possagno, Crespano, and Borso to Romano, on the slopes of the mountains, and the other, via Asolo, to Bassano, on the plains themselves. A simultaneous breaking through the gates would not only jeopardize the 4th Army and cause a hurried retreat of the 1st, lying westward before Rovereto, but it would also imperil the 2d and the 3d Armies with their French and British auxiliaries on the Piave, and cause a general retreat to the Adige line, with the surrender of the famous cities of the Venitian plains, including the Pearl of the Adriatic itself.

It became necessary, therefore, before the enemy could reinforce himself, to close the two gates. The prospect for something else was also alluring, for, while the Italians enjoyed extensive mobility and supply, the Teutons, on account of the snows, did not.

TWO ITALIAN SUCCESSES

On Dec. 31, therefore, the French troops recaptured the northern summit of Monte Tomba, which the Austrians had held since November, inflicting numerous casualties on the enemy, including 1,400 prisoners. In the middle of January the French made a drive four miles east up the Piave in the direction of Quero, which had been held by the Austrians since Nov. 15. These two movements caused the Austrians, between Jan. 20 and 23, to yield the whole salient, moving their defense line north from Monte Monfenera to the shelter of the Calcina Torrent and Monte Spinoncia, in the northern hills of which the torrent rises and then flows southeast into

the Piave four miles away. Thus the eastern gate was closed.

Then, on Jan. 28, the Italians themselves closed the other, just in time to smash an Austrian drive directed down the Nos and Campo Mulo Valleys, and captured 1,500 prisoners, including 62 officers. The Italian surprise was at once pressed home throughout the entire region, extending from south of Gallio in the Val di Nos eastward across the Frenzela Torrent, via Bertigo, Monte Sisemol, the Col del Rosso, and the Monte di Val Bella, to the Brenta.

In this series of actions, it has been reported by the Italian General Headquarters Staff, the Austrians lost, all told, close to 10,000 men. For example, their 21st Rifle Division is known to have had 5,000 men, or about 70 per cent. of its complement, put out of action. Brigades of the 18th and 6th Divisions lost 50 per cent. But the most terrible loss was inflicted on the 160th Landsturm, which had only a few hundred left. When the offensive was well under way British and French batteries joined those of the Italians, which caused an Italian staff officer to remark: "At last we have realized unity of command right in the face of the enemy fire."

ENEMY ON THE DEFENSIVE

Other actions of the month have been a putting up of more bars across the two gates on the part of the Allies, and, on the part of the enemy, attempts to take them down. On Jan. 31 the enemy, after repeated unsuccessful attempts to regain lost ground in the area of Sasso Rosso, diverted his attack to Monte di Val Bella, whence the Italians had reached by a sudden thrust at dawn the head of the Melago Valley. This attack was also quickly dispersed by the Italian artillery fire. On Feb. 10 the enemy made similar thrusts east and west of the Frenzela Torrent, and at the Italian new positions on Monte di Val Bella and Col del Rosso; again the Italian artillery knew its business and did it. On succeeding days it has been the same story, with ever-increasing evidence that the enemy is growing short of munitions and is unable to reinforce himself.

As early as Jan. 21 General Borovich

was appointed to succeed the Archduke Eugene in command of the entire enemy front against Italy. Emperor Charles looked for quick returns. He got them of a sort. Heretofore Field Marshal Conrad von Hoetzendorf had commanded the mountain front and Borovich the Piave. Conrad still commands in the north, and the promotion of Borovich to supreme command is not considered a criticism of his work-merely a sop thrown to the Slav element of AustriaHungary, as Borovich is of Slavo-Croatian origin. It was the Archduke Eugene who planned the offensive of Austria into the Setti Comuni in May and June, 1916, which cost him between 80,000 and 100,000 men.

ACTIVITY OF AIRCRAFT Never before has there been such activity in the air as during the period under observation. Aside from the customary bombing of the open towns of England and the open, historic towns of Italy, and the usual duels over the western front, the operations have conspicuously fallen into two categories-the bombing of the great supply stations of the Germans in the Rhine area by English, French, and American airmen, and the enormously successful offensive carried out by the Allies against the Teuton aircraft on the Italian front. Here, in a period of eleven days, fifty-six enemy airplanes were brought down in combats in which the casualties to the Italian, French, and British aviators were nil. For the first time since July 27-28, 1917, German airplanes, on Jan. 30, visited Paris, killing twenty and injuring twenty. The first American airmen to lose their lives in Italy were three cadets, who fell while training on the fields near Foggia.

Much has been written about the inhumane method of the Germans in periodically bombing the open towns of England. It has been said to have for its aim the terrorizing of the people. It is much more: it has constantly kept employed for home defense hundreds of batteries of anti-aircraft guns and hundreds of airplanes which would have taken the offensive on the Continent. When the so-called campaign of reprisals began

at least as to Stuttgart and Karlsruhe, by the Cologne Gazette of Jan. 7.

BRITISH AIR RAIDS

On Jan. 24 extensive air raids were carried out by the British against Mannheim, the principal commercial city of the Rhine Valley; against the garrison and supply towns of Treves and Saarbrücken, in Rhenish Prussia; Thionville, in German Lorraine, and enemy bases in Belgium, either concentration camps or airdromes. Mannheim, which is about 115 miles north of Nancy, has been repeatedly visited. Below the town, at the mouth of the Neckar, is Germany's great inland submarine base. On Feb. 5, French airmen dropped several tons of bombs on Saarbrücken, and on the 10th the British paid a visit to the forts of Metz and dropped ten tons of bombs on the railway tracks at Courcelles.

These raids are directed against arsenals, supply depots, lines and junctions of communication, naval repair shops, and airdromes. They seriously interfere with the enemy's movements.

BATTLE WITH TURKISH CRUISERS

On Sunday morning, Jan. 20, the British naval forces in the Eastern Mediterranean engaged the German battle cruiser Goeben, (Turkish name Sultan Selim,)