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? SEROND YEAR OF CONFLICT. iS: END OF TWENTY-FOUR MONTHS 1 OF WORLD COMBAT. ?a' ??? ! Chronicles of Past Twelvemonth ' Show Bloody Fighting With No Decisive Results. The second year of the world wai 1 closes with the "Battle of Europe,' : a concerted effort of the allies on ] < three fronts to crush the central pow- ? ere, which has developed into a titan < m ic struggle before which superlatives, 1 already exhausted, are completely beggared. j J uvanno and Oreat Britain in thejl A' ? wuvv west, Russia in the east, Italy in the 1 H[ south are hurling wave after wave of ] armed men on. the Teutonic lines, to- < gether with an avalanche of shells 1 and bombs such as the world has not < ^, known dp to the present time. For 1 the first time the Teutons are, tern ^ gg porarily at least, on the defensive on ] the thousands of miles of the exist- ' pfc- ing battle fronts. 1 The change in the situation which 1 p* the year has brought is striking, al- ]llpy; though the results so far have been 1 |p more potential and spectacular than ? . radical. A year ago the Germans, gfe continuing their great drive against s the -Russians, hurled the Slavs back 3 |||;; along the entire Eastern front, cap- : tured Warsaw, the great fortresses { of Kovno, Novogeorgievsk and Brest- < Litovsk and established lines far in- 1 side Russian territory which they ] ^ maintained virtually unbroken until 1 g within the last three months. They i f/'\ seized all Poland, a great slice of Rus- ( isia to the south of that country ana expelled the invaders from Galicia : and Bukowina. Field Marshals von Hindenburg and von Mackensen were the heroes of these great successes. Three Big Battles. On the western" front the changes in position during the year were com paratively small but the twelve months were marked by three events of interest: The battles of Champagne and Verdun and the opening of the great Franco-British offensive on the Somme took place in this ; period. The battle of Champaigne opened! on September 25, after a week's ter. rific bombardment of the German lines by the French, British and Belgians. In a week of the bloodiest , fighting that had been known up to j that time the allies announced that they had taken 20 miles of trenches, I six towns and 23,090 prisoners. Butj , there they halted. They could hot j break through the mighty German wall and the grim deadlock which ( -marked the western front for so ( many months was resumed. The battle of Champagne marked the removal of Sir John French, the British 1 commander-in-chief, from the begin- , ping of the war up to that time. In * December, 1915, it was announced j that he had resigned to take a home I j command and Sir Douglas Haig was 4 appointed his successor. j 3n sheer human interest the battle j ?TM>AKO KITT enmoccorl ftll vi VC1UUU piUUUUIJ out i>u>wwvv> | other individual events of the war. t '$" On February 23 the German crown { E . prince began his assault of the his- t Wf- *?ric French fortress, known through- 1 jpfefc' out qaany centuries as the gateway < to France. For five months the de- ^ ||p tenders withstood a storm at the fury ] p of which the world stood aghast. ^ Foot liy foot, almost inch by inch, ^ the Germans forged forward, with a ^ reckless disregard of their lives, a , tenacity and cool courage which was only equalled by the heroic determination of the French. On June 3 an unofficial estimate of the German i losses at Verdun placed the total at the appalling figure of 450,000. The pv assailants fought their way to withIn about three and a half miles of the fortress, but for several weeks . have reported no further progress O;' &n<l the force of their attacks apfv^Y pears to have lessened. The Allies' Counters hake. I|^r" The Franco-British offensive on ||Y . the Somme opened on July 1, 1916. jli was preceaea Dy a Domoardmeni v of unparalleled duration and intensir ( ty,? featured by the appearance of i new and gigantic British howitzers, j Under this awful hurricane of big gun fire the German first line defenses crumbled. When the British and French troops advanced they reported that they found trenches in which there was not a single survivor, only the dead guarding the silent rifles and machine guns. German first lines were carried over an . extent of 25 miles and the second positions pierced at certain points, . but up to the present the fighting has been indecisive insofar as the forc... . . . ing of the Germans to withdraw their main lines is concerned. The fighting has been of the bitterest possible description and the reports of press correspondents at ' the front teem with accounts of the most *u.' amazing heroism and devotion on both sides. Instances have been recorded of the sole survivor of a company, wounded and without hope, who manned a machine gun and fought to the last amid the bodies of V ErSr~:'*; ' .c/.V U'.. * r his comrades; of isolated detacn ments who stood off their foes for days until succor reached them or death; of captured surgeons who bound up the wounds of their cap tors; of heroic rescues of wounded comrades under fire and of countless similar deeds that thrilled the watching world. The first move in the great allied offensive was not made by the Franco-British, however, but by the Russians. On June 4 the troops of Emperor Nicholas opened a tremendous . issault on the Austro-German lines on a 300 mile front extending from the Pripet marshes to Roumania. The Teuton lines held firm in the i aorth, but to the south Gen. Brussi! [off swept with irresistible force through the Austrian defenses, tearing a great gap about 100 miles in extent. Through this the Russians poured, capturing Czernowitz, the capital of Bukowina, and overrunaing the crown land. The Austrian losses are declared to have been enoraaous, a month after the offensive I began the Russians making an official announcement that over 200,l )00 prisoners had been taken and at [east an equal number killed or svounded. I Battle for Lemberg. ( As the offensive developed the Russians "won new successes further < aorth and at the close of the war rear are engaged in a mighty struggle for Lemberg, the capital of Galijia. The fighting has also extended to the extreme north, in the RigaDvinsk region, but here the Germans bave held their own and no decisive result has as yet been gained by either side. ill aiiuuim iiitxitre ui tiie wai mc rear was marked by other and important Russian successes. Following the disasters on the eastern front in the closing months of 1915 the Grrand Duke Nicholas was removed is commander-in-chief of the Russian armies and sent to take charge 3f the operations against the Turks in the Caucasus. After months ot . preparation he began a great drivb icross Armenia in January, 1916, vhich resulted in the capture of Erzerum and the port of Trebizond and ixpelled the Turks from the greater part of Armenia. After a comparative lull of some months the grand luke resumed his advance simultan- 1 souslv with a serious uprising against the Turks by the Arabs in Arabia. The Arabs took the sacred city ot Mecca, Jiddah and Taif and besieged Medina, the city where Mohammed was buried and one of the holiest spots of the Mohammedan world. In the meantime the Russians took Mamakhatun and Baiburt, but these pperations have not yet reached a lefinite conclusion. In connection with the Turkish campaign the year saw a serious re- 1 rerse for the Franco-British arms 1 md a less important but highly dramatic, disaster for the British. The iisastrous attempt of the French and 1 British to force the Dardanelles and seize Constantinople was definitely ibandoned in November, 1915, and ' :he allied troops withdrawn from the ' jallipoli peninsula. About 150,000 roops had been used in this venture, 1 supported by a mighty fleet. Six bat;leships, five British and one French, 1 were sent to the bottom as well as some minor craft and the casualties 1 were unofficially reported to be alnost equal to the original number of 1 :he' expeditionary force. This was :he result of six months of some of :he most sanguinary fighting of the war. The Capture of Townshend. The second disaster of the British was the surrender of 10,000 troops under Gen. Townshand to the Turks it Kut-el-Amara on the Tigris. This expedition had made a sensational lash more than 300 miles up the river in an attempt to seize Bagdad. It was within ten miles of the city when it was decisively defeated by n- m 1 - - - J ?A CH0 llirKS <111U lUlCCU tu tail uavn. 100 miles. Here it was surrounded and forced to surrender after a relief force had made several vain efforts at rescue. Two new nations entered the ranks of the belligerents during the year. On October 13, 1915, Bulgaria threw in her lot with the central powers and on March 9, 1916, Germany declared war on Portugal after the republic had seized all German ships interned in her ports. The entrance of Bulgaria into the arena was signalized by a combined assault on Servia by Austria, Germany and Bulgaria, which resulted in the complete overwhelming of the hopelessly outnumbered Servians and the subjugation of their country. The remnants of the Servian army were driven across the frontier into the wilderness' of Albania whence 11 3 1 XT T~> _* X? 1, uiey were rescueu uy uie dhusu, French and Italians. They were shipped to Corfu, where they were reorganized and reequipped and later, to the number of about 100,000, joined the Franco-British forces at Saloniki. The survivors of the Gallipoli campaign were also gathered at the Grecian seaport as well as a large British army from Egypt. This combined force is estimated at 600,t 000 men and is presumably being i held for an attempt to wrest Servia t from the Bulgarians. a The Italian Seesaw. ^ The principal success won by Austrian arms during the year was a c g great offensive undertaken against . J Italy in May. The Austrian forces swept the Italian invaders back over a wide stretch of country in the southern Tyrol, reconquered about ^ 270 square miles of Austrian territory and carried the battle into Italy. The Italians rallied, however, and at the close of the 12 months had re c gained a large portion of ground and were vigorously pressing a counteroffensive in accordance with the plans of the entente for concerted action. 0 c On the sea the year witnessed an . event of surpassing interest. The 1 g German grajid fleet, steaming out from its mine fields and impregnable g harbors of Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, engaged the British fleet in the mightiest naval battle of history. g The battle was fought off the coast of Jutland on May 31. Its results are so obscured by the conflicting r g claims of the combatants that they will probably not be definitely known 0 until the war is over, if then. The y Q Germans assert that the British lossg es were far heavier than theirs and ? on that ground claim the victory. The British, denying greater losses, point to the fact that they still control the seas as the basis of their r right to the title of victors. London j also claims that since the battle 200 1 "V British ships, which had been tied up in Baltic ports since the beginning of the war, have been able to make their way to English ports unmolested by German warships. The German omciai account or tne fight says that the British losses were 117,150 tons as against 60;720 tons ?j sunk by the British. The British ad? i miralty makes no attempt to estimate the loss in tonnage, but unotflcial British estimates place the Ger? man loss at 109,220 tons against 112,350 for the British. Officially the Germans have admitted the loss of only one capital ship, the Lutzow, 26,600 tons,'a battlecruiser surpassing in tonnage and armament many g battleships. The British claim to have sunk in addition two dread\ noughts and probably a third. The . principal losses admitted by them for their side are the three battlecruisers, the Invincible, the Indefatigable and the Queen Mary. ' Great Kitchener Lost. l One other event on the sea aroused ^ intense interest. On June 5 Field $ Marshal Earl Kitchener, Great Bri- x tain's famous minister of war, was c drowned with his staff off the Ork- t neys when the cruiser Hampshire g went down. It was ay first though a the cruiser had been the victim of a submarine but this theory was gen- \ erally discarded when it was learn- s ed that the warship had struck a t mine and gone down in the midst ot a a terrific storm. c The second year of the war was a t memorable one as far as the United e States was concerned. It marked the apparent final passing of the crisis j between this country and Germany r over the submarine warfare which \ threatened more than once a rupture t of relations and even war. The sink- c ing by a submarine without warning r of the White Star liner Arabic, with the loss of two American lives, created a profound impression in the United States. Germany sent a note to Washington in September plead- 1 ing self-defense and offering to refer the question of compensation to The Hague but this was regarded c with disappointment by the Wash- I ington government and the situation 1 became very tense. In October Ger- i many disavowed and regretted the t sinking of the Arabic. Five months later the French i steamship Sussex was torpedoed with- i out warning while carrying more < than 300 passengers, including a t number of Americans, across the t English channel. About 50 persons i were killed and this incident brought 1 the submarine situation to an acute < Germany at first disclaimed ? responsibility for the attack on the Sussex but the evidence accumulated ( by the United States appeared so 1 overwhelming that President Wilson 1 on April 18 dispatched to Germany a 1 note which was virtually an ultima- 1 turn, and on the following day per- i sonally appeared before congress and < laid the entire problem before that < body. On May 10 Germany admitted < the submarine attack on the Sussex s and promised that no more liners or f merchantmen would be sunk without < warning and without ample oppor- 1 tunity for the escape of crews and 1 passengers. These promises were considered satisfactory by the presi- < dent and the war cloud lifted. Since t that time a large number of ships 1 have been sunk by German and Aus- i trian submarines but the rules of international law have been generally observed. The Going of Pumba. , Another cause of friction between i the United States and the central powers was also removed during the i year. Since the outbreak of the war certain propogandists had been busy : nstigating strikes in munition facories which had contracts with the illies and in endeavoring in other rays to interfere with this trade. For lis activity in this respect the recall if Dr. Constantin Dumba, Austrian imbassador, was requested by Presilent Wilson in September. The folowing December, for similar reaons, the president requested the reall of Capt. Boy-Ed and Capt. von 3apen, naval and military attaches espectively to tfte (ierman emoassy. number of convictions were obtained in the criminal courts in other ases and the propaganda ceased. Apart from events in the actual yar theatres the most striking event >f the year in connection with the onflict was an uprising in Ireland n April. The outbreak was organized by a society known as the Sinn ""em, committed to the principle of .n independent Ireland. Bloody ighting took place in Dublin in rhich hundreds of lives were lost ,nd the heart of the business secion destroyed, at a cost of many trillions of dollars.. The fighting was poradic elsewhere in the islands and >f minor importance. The revolt vas finally crushed and the ringlead.vs executed. It led, however, to an .gitation which resulted in the govirnment preparing a temporary home ule bill which it expects to pass hrough parliament this fall. Just before the outbreak of the ebellion Sir Roger Casement, fornerly in the British consular serrice, was arrested on the west coast >f Ireland where he had attempted o land a cargo of arms sent from Germany, j He was tried later for ligh treason and sentenced to death. The Terrible Cost. No definite figures can be given of he cost of the great war in blood tnd gold but the most reliable estinates present figures so vast that hey become'practically meaningless, n March, 1916, the United States general army staff estimated that the otal losses in men to all the belligerents since the war began were 13,)33,000. The exact figures for any eountry are unavailable. As to the money question figures Lre more reliable but still vague, rhey present sums which are so berond anything previously known to nternational finance, so impossible >f any human comparison, that they >ecome little more than a jumble of igures. In march Dr. Karl Helferich, secretary of the imperial treasiry of Germany, estimated that the var was costing all the combatants n rrr AAA AAA ^ ^1* ?. ? {>11 f A A AAA >?5 < d,vuu,vuu <x ween, ur 100 a year. William Michaelis, an)ther Germans financial expert, put he yearly cost at the vaster sum of >15,000,000,000 and other financial mthorities gave even higher figures. On July 17 Reginald McKenna, 3ritish chancellor of the exchequer, tated in the house of commons that he expenditures for Great Britain done were $30,0000,000 daily. He lid not say, however, how much of his incredible sum represented war expenses. Within the last few months there ias been some talk of peace in Gernany and considerable peace activity )y unofficial bodies in various counries, but there has been little inditation that the chancelleries of Euope are at present seriously considering a close of hostilities. BYRNES AND BYRNS. low Kindly Tennesseean Aided South Carolina Congressman. Representative James F. Byrnes, >f South* Carolina, is certain that tepresentative Joseph W. Byrns, of Tennessee is about the most accomnodating man in congress, if not in he entire country. You can see for yourself the simlarity of the names. When Byrnes vas nominated for congress in South Carolina, where the nomination on die Democratic ticket is equivalent ;o being elected, several hundred voters in the district assumed that Byrnes was henceforth a member ind began to write to him, making ill manner of requests. All this mail went to Joe Byrns, )f Tennessee. Byrns reads the papers, and soon figured out what was :he matter, but did not have the leart to shove off congressional dudes on a man not yet a congressnan. He simply looked after the correspondence himself. If a South Carolina man wrote for a horse book jr a document Byrns of Tennessee supplied it out of hi^ own quota. The South Carolina folk passed many sncomiums on the promptness with which their congressman caught on ;o his new official chores. Joe Byrns used up tons of good energy looking after the correspond3nce of the man with the name like his before he even knew the man by sight.?Detroit Free Press. Proved. The Sunday-school teacher was not satisfied with Ellen's unsupported assertion that she had been christened in orthodox manner. "How do you know you have?" she asked. "Because I've got the marks on ray arm," said Ellen.?Puck. f When Opportui it is only the man who has sa\eu wnu can einurace ner. u*m) The way to make more money is to have some to start. So Agp' save some of yours out of every Artjft pay. Put it in the Enterprise Bank so that it can be earning /Mf something for you. Open an account even if you have but $1.00. It may be the first step to fortune. Enterpris 5 Per Cent. Interest Paid on Savings 4-AAAAAAAAAAAAAi 4 4 Back from you ^ Repairs and supplies for get good and prompt serv J THE MUTUAL gf House Phone 55 C. A. ASENDOR T DENMARK ??^????? 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