The snow came in time to prevent the enemy from deploying beyond the passes already captured and taking new heights guarding others. British and French forces, under Generals Plumer and Fayolle, respectively, had meanwhile left their prepared ground on the Adige and, in conjunction with the Italians, achieved important local results on the Piave. The Austrian salient at Zenson, on the right bank, was wiped out.

At the conclusion of the Austro-German offensive two gates still threatened the Plains of Venetia. In the west there was that formed by the angle of the Brenta and the Frenzela Torrent, just above Valstagna on the road to Bassano; in the east there was the Monte Tomba salient extending to the enemy bridgehead on the Piave. One was the complement to the other, and each presented special strategic advantages to the invader. It was imperative before Austro-German reinforcements could arrive that the gates should be shut. On Dec. 31, therefore, the French troops launched a vigorous attack and recaptured the northern summit of Monte Tomba, inflicting numerous casualties on the enemy and taking a considerable number of prisoners. This was followed in the middle of January by the French making a drive four miles east up the Piave in the direction of Quero. These two movements caused the Austrians, between Jan. 20 and 23, to yield the whole salient, moving their defense north from Monte Monfenera to the shelter of the Calcina Torrent and Monte Spinoncia, in the northern hills of which the torrent rises. In this way the eastern gate was closed.

Then, on Jan. 28, the Italians themselves closed the western gate, just in time to smash an Austrian drive directed down the Nos and Campo Mulo Valleys. 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 to the Brenta. In this series of actions the Austrians suffered heavy losses. On Jan. 31 the Teuton forces, after repeated unsuccessful attempts to regain lost ground in the area of Sasso

Rosso, shifted their attacks to Monte di Val Bella, which the Italians had reached by a sudden thrust. The enemy was quickly repelled by artillery fire. In the latter part of February incessant artillery dueling took place from the Val Giudicaria to the Adriatic, and there was also some infantry activity in the Val Lagarina. Except for these and similar minor operations, the campaign was at a standstill, but there was evidence of

preparations for a new offensive on a large scale by the enemy.

The story of the new invasion of Russia by the Germans, which was begun on Feb. 18, hardly comes under the heading of military operations, since Russia no longer had any effective fighting force to offer resistance and since the invasion itself was rather for political purposes in connection with the deadlock which eventuated between the Central Powers and the Soviet Government. Following the decision of the Bolsheviki, who now controlled Russia's destinies, to end the war, an armistice was arranged and peace negotiations initiated. These negotiations ended in a sharp clash between the two sides, and when the armistice expired, on Feb. 18, the Germans immediately began to advance all along the line from the Baltic coast to Volhynia, in the south. The first objective in the north was the occupation of Esthonia and Livonia. Simultaneously, Lutsk, in Volhynia, was captured without fighting. The invasion, however, temporarily halted when the Soviets voted to accept the Germans terms of peace; it had become necessary, besides, for the Teuton war chiefs to withdraw additional bodies of troops in preparation for the impending offensive on the western front. In some parts of Russia, notably the Ukraine, German troops acted as participants in a civil war between the contending bourgeois and proletarian classes rather than as fighters for one nation against another. The Germans, wherever they played such a rôle, employed their forces on the side of the bourgeois elements, seeking to destroy the Bolsheviki, in whose propaganda they saw the menace of a revolutionary movement which might spread into their own country.

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The story of the peace negotiations and the events connected therewith is told later in the sections dealing with political and diplomatic developments.

The British campaign in Palestine not very long after its resumption in October achieved a success into the historical background of which entered the greatest events of the religions out of which the faith and morals of Western civilization have been developed. This was the capture of Jerusalem, the Holy City, which had for centuries remained in the pos session of the Turks. Important as the result was from a military standpoint in assuring the safety of British rule in Egypt and of the Suez Canal, the occupation of Jerusalem was an event of the deepest moral and sentimental significance. It stirred the imagination and sent a thrill of satisfaction throughout the greater part of the civilized world, and even the Pope, though committed to an attitude of strict neutrality, expressed the belief that the Holy City would be in good hands under British control.

Under the leadership of General Sir Edmund Allenby, the British took Beersheba on Oct. 31, Gaza on Nov. 7, Jaffa on Nov. 19, and, finally, on Dec. 10, Jerusalem itself. By the night of Dec. 8 the British troops had made such progress against the enemy's intrenched positions that it was obvious that the Turks would soon have to retire to the north and east of the city despite the fact that reinforcements were moving along the Jericho road. Early next morning (Dec. 9) the people of Jerusalem, believing that the hour of their liberation was at hand, began to offer up prayers for the success of the British arms. A little later the Mayor, accompanied by the Chief of Police and an escort with a flag of truce, left the city walls to make a formal offer of surrender. The party was met by British outposts and conducted to the commanding officer's headquarters, where the surrender of the city was arranged by noon.

While these arrangements were being made there was a short and sharp struggle on the outskirts of the city. The Turks fought more stubbornly than at any previous period of the campaign.

British troops were sent to the north of Jerusalem, and as they debouched from the defile they were heavily attacked by the Turks lining the ridge, while a strong machine-gun fire was poured into them from the Mount of Olives. The British carried the ridge with fixed bayonets, and by noon the Turks were pushed back so far that the British now occupied ground four miles north of the city walls. Other British troops, operating from the south and east, drove the Turks back along the Jericho road.

The Turks were forced to withdraw by General Allenby's strategy and the fighting qualities of the troops under his command. No British gun was sighted to within a considerable distance of the walls of Jerusalem, although the Turkish artillery fired from a position close to the city and from the Mount of Olives. General Allenby placed the sanctity of the Holy Sites before every other consideration, and approached the city only when the pressure of his troops forced the Turks to fall back and abandon their positions.

The surrender of Jerusalem was almost simultaneous with the end of the day's fighting at noon on Dec. 9. The actual ceremony of surrendering the city was very brief. General Allenby gave the Mayor instructions for the maintenance of order and had guards placed over the public buildings outside the city, but not a single soldier passed within the walls that day. The following day, (Dec. 10,) while the Turks were being driven further orthward and eastward, General Allenby made his official entry. The ceremony was unostentatious, but impressive. The British General was accompanied by the commanders of the French and Italian detachments. The troops taking part in the procession were selected from English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Australian, and New Zealand units, and also from the French and Italian detachments. All, including the Commander in Chief, were on foot. The people of Jerusalem gave the victors a thrilling ovation. On the steps at the base of the Tower of David a proclamation was read in four languages, establishing military law and

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complete freedom in all matters commercial and religious. After the ecclesiastic and other notables of the city had been presented to him, General Allenby left Jerusalem and immediately resumed the task of pushing further ahead with his

army.

The Turks offered a vigorous resistance to the British advance, which progressed less rapidly than was expected. During the nine or ten weeks which followed the capture of Jerusalem the British were only a few miles beyond the city, but on Feb. 21 they occupied Jericho, and a couple of days later forced the Turks to retire across the River Jordan.

In Mesopotamia the British expedition, whose commander, Sir Stanley Maude, died and was succeeded by General Sir W. R. Marshall, was mainly concerned with the establishment of law and order in the invaded territory and making it possible to become once more a habitable and fertile province. The army, however, continued to advance slowly along the Euphrates, and at the end of February it held positions in the neighborhood of Hit, which was evacuated by the Turks.

For many months a remnant of Germans, aided by natives, had kept up a spasmodic guerrilla warfare in German East Africa, although the conquest of the colony had long been virtually complete. It, therefore, did not signify very much when it was officially announced in London on Dec. 3 that this, the last oversea possession of Germany, had at last been "completely cleared of the enemy."

The hundredth aerial attack upon London took place on the night of Feb. 18, but the Germans were driven off and there were no casualties. During the period under review there were altogether eight attacks against London, resulting in 111 persons being killed and 314 injured. Several German machines were captured or destroyed. Paris was less frequently visited; but on Jan. 30 the German air raiders were responsible for the death of 45 persons and injuries to 207.

Austrian airplanes attacked Padua on Dec. 28, 30, and 31, killing and injuring many people and damaging the cathedral and other public buildings. Treviso also suffered greatly from aerial

attacks; and several other towns in Northern Italy, including Venice, received visits from Austrian machines.

By way of reprisal, British airmen bombarded Mannheim, Karlsruhe, and other German towns, but the Allies continued to concentrate their aerial activities against the Teuton armies and military depots behind their lines.

The most important naval operation of the period was the engagement at the entrance to the Dardanelles on Jan. 20 between the British forces and the two Turkish warships, the Sultan Yawuz Selim and the Midullu, formerly the German ships Goeben and Breslau. The Midullu was sunk and the Sultan Yawuz Selim was beached, but subsequently was refloated and taken back to safety. In the engagement the British lost two monitors and also a submarine which attempted a week later to enter the Dardanelles and complete the destruction of the Sultan Yawuz Selim. On Feb. 15 a raiding flotilla of German destroyers sank eight British boats which were hunting submarines in the Strait of Dover.

The adventurous cruise of another German raider was concluded on Feb. 24 when the auxiliary cruiser Wolf returned to Kiel. It had been at large for fifteen months in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans and had sunk eleven merchant vessels.

The veil of secrecy which had so far made it difficult for the public to estimate the losses of allied and neutral shipping caused by German submarines and mines was at last drawn aside by the British Government when Sir Eric Geddes, First Lord of the Admiralty, disclosed the decrease in available shipping at the end of the year 1917. Speaking in the House of Commons on March 20, 1918, the First Lord stated that from the commencement of the war until Dec. 31, 1917, the world's tonnage, exclusive of that owned by the Central Powers, had fallen by a net figure of approximately 2,500,000 gross tons. This was out of 33,000,000 estimated allied and neutral oceangoing tonnage. For the twelve months of unrestricted submarine warfare from Feb. 1, 1917, to Jan. 31,

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1918, the actual figures of vessels sunk and so badly damaged as to necessitate abandonment amounted roughly to 6,000,000 tons. Sir Eric Geddes emphasized the importance of making still greater efforts to provide new ships, and, as we shall see presently, it was in the United States particularly that the major part of the task of making good the shortage was undertaken.

For the first time since the United States had become a belligerent the Government was subjected to severe criticism and accused of failure to prosecute the war efficiently and vigorously. The central figure in the attack on the War Department was Senator Chamberlain of Oregon, Chairman of the Military Affairs Committee of the Senate. Although the measures he proposed were not adopted, considerable reorganization in all branches of the department were effected.

One of these changes, however, preceded the storm of criticism roused by Senator Chamberlain. This was the creation on Dec. 15 of a "Military War Council within the War Department," consisting of the Secretary of War, the Assistant Secretary of War, the Chief of Staff, the Quartermaster General, the Chief of Artillery, the Chief of Ordnance, and the Judge Advocate General, who, as Provost Marshal General, was responsible for the administration of the selective draft law. The purpose of the council was defined as the supervision and co-ordination of all matters of supply of the field armies and the military relations between those armies and the War Department. The council was not intended to take over any of the specialized duties of the General Staff or of the War College. Reorganization and changes in personnel followed soon afterward in the Quartermaster and Ordnance Departments.

A couple of weeks later the Military Affairs Committee of the Senate began a searching investigation of the work of the War Department; and on Jan. 10 the Secretary of War appeared as a witness and in his testimony summarized the achievements of the department. He said that a large army was in the field and

in training, so large that further increments could be adequately equipped and trained as rapidly as those already in training could be transported, and that generally the outlook was excellent. Between April and the end of December the strength of the army had increased from 9,324 officers and 202,510 men to 110,835 officers and 1,428,650 men.

The growth of the United States Navy was indicated in a report issued by a sub-committee of the House Naval Affairs Committee on Jan. 16. It showed that 424 war vessels were under construction by or for the Navy Department, in addition to submarine chasers; that this was the largest building program undertaken by any navy; and that the progress made in warship construction and in expanding naval shipbuilding facilities had been phenomenal. The subcommittee was impressed by the efficient and expeditious methods employed in the Ordnance, Construction, and Steam Engineering Bureaus of the Navy Department. Since the United States had entered the war the navy had taken over and converted to war use between 700 and 800 passenger and freight vessels, yachts, tugs, fishing boats, and other craft.

After much travail, signs began to appear that the building of merchant ships under the direction of the United States Shipping Board was entering upon the stage of tangible and measurable results. The initial difficulties of establishing many new yards were now nearly all solved, so that an increasing number of ships could be produced. Each month now began to show a larger tonnage record. In January only nine new ships, aggregating 79,541 tons, were completed and put into service; but in February the figures slowed seventeen ships, representing 120,700 tons. At the end of the month there were 130 shipyards in operation, with 700 ways and 500,000 men employed on the construction of 1,600 ships.

The railroads of the United States, representing the largest system in the world, were taken over by the Government on Dec. 26. This was a war measure which had been made inevitable by

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the inability of the railroads to meet the requirements of the nation's war program under existing conditions. The object of Governmental control was to unify the many competing lines in a single national system, make good the deficiencies in equipment, and generally secure the free flow of vital freight through the arteries of industry and trade. Mr. McAdoo, Secretary of the Treasury, was appointed Director General of Railroads, with very wide powers. He, in his turn, appointed an advisory board consisting mostly of railroad executives, to assist him in performing his functions. The rights of the holders of railroad bonds and stocks were safeguarded by a guarantee that their property should be maintained in good repair and with as complete equipment as possible and that the basis of compensation should be the average net income of the companies for the three years ended June 30, 1917, which was approximately $945,000,000 a year.

Congress decided that Government control should continue throughout the war and for twenty-one months afterward.

The assumption by the Government of control over the railroads had hardly taken place when the first serious case of industrial dislocation occurred. Freight congestion and shortage of transportation facilities led to shortage of coal; and to deal with the situation, Dr. H. A. Garfield, the Fuel Administrator, with the approval of the President, issued an order closing down all factories throughout the States east of the Mississippi River for five days, Jan. 18 to 22 inclusive, and on nine subsequent Mondays beginning Jan. 28. But in February conditions improved so rapidly that the order for the "heatless Mondays" was rescinded after the third week.

Food, though still at the abnormal prices created by unusual conditions, caused no anxiety. There was a gradual relaxation in the restricted use of meat, but "wheatless days" were still observed. The Food Administration believed that the outlook was good and that the needs both of the Allies and of

the people of the United States would be met.

One of the branches of the new war administration which developed to an amazing extent was the War Trade Board, which gradually brought under its supervision or control practically the whole of the export and import trade of the nation. The board had a variety of purposes, such as making the best use of ocean transportation facilities, but one of its most important aims was the destruction of enemy trade by enforcing the Trading with the Enemy act. On Dec. 4 the board issued its first blacklist of German-controlled banks and busiresses, chiefly in the Latin-American countries. This list was thereafter continually revised and added to. The board also worked out the details of economic agreements with neutral countries, as well as co-ordinating its work with that of similar Governmental bodies in the allied countries. The War Trade Board had now become the chief agency of wielding the nation's economic power in relation to other nations.

The working classes of America, while on the whole loyal to the Government on the general question of war policy, were restive in regard to many particular matters of wages, hours, and conditions generally. It was obvious that some method of adjusting relations between employers and employes should be devised. Accordingly, at the suggestion of W. B. Wilson, Secretary of Labor, a National Labor Conference Board, under the Chairmanship of ex-President Taft, was formed, and on Feb. 25 the board held its first meeting at Washington.

BRITISH AFFAIRS

Apart from the conduct of the war itelf, the questions uppermost in the minds of the British people were those of additional man power, the extension of political democracy, the new program of labor, and Irish Home Rule.

A new measure to increase the fighting forces of the United Kingdom provided for the recruiting of men employed in ammunition factories who had been previously exempt. It was estimated that about 450,000 men would be ob

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