Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights. Kelly Miller

arms. Then commenced the wonderful preparations for war on the part of the United States. Official Germany in conversation with Minister Gerard, before the rupture of diplomatic relations, laughed to scorn the thought that the United States could render any military aid worth considering to her allies. Germany in the fall of 1917 was not laughing.

      THE COLLAPSE OF RUSSIA.

      The collapse of Russia was the second great event of 1917. It was the result of a long train of causes. Let it suffice to say that treachery in high places backed by German propaganda, had undermined the government. March 15, 1917, the storm broke. The utter overthrow of autocratic rule in Russia was one of those explosive outbreaks, but few of which have occurred in history. In a single day the old order of government passed away never to return in Russia. It was a revolution as thoroughgoing as its prototype, the French revolution of 1789, and it soon developed equal scenes of horror. After some months of struggle, the government of Russia passed under the control of the Bolsheviki and anarchy followed, outdoing the scenes of the French commune. The immediate effect on the war was to retire Russia from the conflict, thus releasing a large army and its supplies for service elsewhere.

      THE ITALIAN REVERSE.

      Having achieved such signal successes in the east, Russia and Roumania being both disposed of, the German leaders planned a campaign designed to crush Italy. In the summer of 1917 the Italian front was along the Isonza River in Austrian territory. The test of Italian endurance was at hand. A great force of Austrians and Germans was assembled along the river. As was usual in all Teutonic drives, endeavors were made by propaganda work to break down the morale of the Italian troops. This effort consisted in spreading fearsome accounts of the crushing nature of the blow about to fall, the folly of further resistance, and the advantages to be gained by accepting the generous terms of peace their true friends—their former allies—were ready to grant. This effort had an effect, but Italy was not Russia.

      The drive began October 24th. It was a very pronounced Teutonic success, though the great object of the drive was not achieved. In three weeks' time the Italians were forced back from the Isonza to the Piava River line; nearly 200,000 soldiers had been captured, together with immense supplies of all kinds. But yet Italy was not crushed, the German forces were firmly held along the Piava. We should reflect that in the World War millions were engaged and the loss of one or even two hundred thousand men did not mean the end of the war.

      EVENTS OF 1918.

      The Allies could only hope to defend their position on the west front against the impending offensive on the part of Germany, for which preparations on a vast scale were being made, until reinforcements from the United States could reach them sufficient to enable them to take the offensive in their turn. Germany hastened its preparations through the winter months of 1917–18, for they knew they must win a decisive victory to crush the armies of France and England before the United States could give efficient assistance. It was a race between America and Germany, and America won. With the assistance of the British and French merchant marine and such shipping as could be procured at home the American forces were landed in France in the most astonishing numbers ever recorded. The fears of Germany, the hopes of the Allies were alike exceeded by the forces sent across the ocean. The first of July, 1918, there were one million American soldiers in France. They came just in time to avert disaster.

GERMAN OFFENSIVE IN 1918.

      The initiative was with Germany, and the German command selected the British army in position along the Scarpe River, north of Cambria, to the Oise River—a distance of sixty miles—as the object of the first drive. The assault began the morning of March 21, 1918. Along the entire front the artillery fire that opened the drive was on the scale never before approached in war. More than one million men, the choicest troops of Germany, were ready to assault the British lines and they came on, wave after wave, and Germany came perilously near success in her efforts to break through the British lines. The British were driven back beyond the lines of the battle of the Somme in 1916, important towns were captured, but their lines still held. The first phase of the great battle—known in history as the battle of Picardy—was a defeat to German hopes.

      WHEN THE AMERICANS CAME.

      From the opening of the great offense of March 21, 1918, to the signing of the armistice, November 11, 1918, there were few days when there were not battles raging at several places along the west front extending from near Metz in a prolonged sweep, west to Rheims, thence in an irregular curved line convex toward Paris curving to the North Sea near Dixmude approximately 250 miles in length. There were days and weeks when battles of great intensity raged at certain sections, then died away in that vicinity to break in fury elsewhere. Organized efforts on a large scale in certain directions were called drives. Until July the initiative was with Germany, that is to say the Allies were on the defensive. They were waiting for reinforcements from America. Germany was making desperate efforts to win a decisive victory and force peace on their terms before effective aid could arrive.

      TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILES OF BATTLE.

      At this point try to realize what these statements imply. We do not grasp their meaning. A battle front of two hundred and fifty miles! And along that line at least ten million men were facing each other with other millions in reserve. Trench lines were strung along most of the front. Not simply one line of trenches, but several, with connecting trenches, the opposing lines being at places only a few hundred yards apart. As the struggle continued, however, it became more and more a war in the open.

      This series of struggles are undoubtedly the greatest exertion of military power in the history of the world. Never before had such masses of munitions been used; never before had scientific knowledge been so drawn on in the service of war. Thousands of airplanes were patrolling the air, sometimes scouting, sometimes dropping bombs on hostile troops or on hostile stores, sometimes flying low, firing their machine guns into the faces of marching troops. Thousands upon thousands of great guns were sending enormous projectiles, which made great pits wherever they fell. Swarms of machine guns were pouring their bullets like water from a hose upon charging soldiers. It was an inferno such as Dante never dreamed of. The Fifteen Decisive Battles of history of which we have heard—all put together—were exceeded day after day in the summer of 1918 when Germany was making her last desperate effort. Thus for weeks the red tide of war ebbed and flowed, while civilization trembled in the balance.

      UNIFIED COMMAND.

      It was clearly seen by the Allied leaders that appointing a generalissimo to command all their forces was a necessity. This command was given to General Ferdinand Foch, who had won fame in the battle of the Marne and who was recognized as one of the greatest strategists of the day. Events soon demonstrated the wisdom of this step. No general ever commanded such armies as he. Napoleon, Von Moltke, Grant and Lee were great generals, but everything connected with this war was on a scale never before approached, and we can say that the qualities of leadership displayed by Marshal Foch were necessarily on a higher plane of action—and we can say this without in the least detracting from the just fame of other Allied commanders—as Pershing, Haig, Allenby, Diaz and others. When the war opened, Germany had much to say about her unconquerable army; her generals were supposed to be superior in a military way to any others. The war showed that other soldiers were just as brave, other generals just as able. The fetish of German military invincibility was early overthrown.

      AMERICAN ASSISTANCE.

      No American can read the story of the part America took in the war without experiencing a glow of patriotic feeling. Every Allied nation can say the same thing. We came late into the struggle, but no nation in history ever made such wonderful preparation for war as did our country in the eighteen months that elapsed from the declaration of war to the signing of the armistice. Our preparations in France, representing only a part of our total effort, were on such an enormous scale, that neutral nations—as Sweden and Spain—sent trusted officials to investigate if it were possibly true that America was making