Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-07-31

/ -. ssHt.' lVst neaNlly IN men and eduip-
hent' but finally escaped after fighting a
number Of rear-guard battles. Tho Frencb
armies, on their part, retreated with
greater elaboration and were never IN
great danger. az
by september 1 the French and British
were once more In line from the Vosges
w. ", the walls Of Paris, but all northern
,i 49, was now In German hands and
| a victorious German army was assaliinp
Nancy. II was no longer possible for
sne Allies to retreat without abandoning
paris' and the Germans, still on schedule
| tlme, were within sight OF the outer forts
OF the French capital.
BATTLE OF THE MARINE (sEPTEM-
BER 7-i0).
AT the opening OF this great battle the
french held line from Paris to Verdun
curving deeply to the south. On this line
Johre had been concentrating his forces
since the opening defeats. Now the Ger
mans were In turn threatened with en-
Velopment from Paris and from Verdun
and ABOUT Paris a new French army had
been collected, which energetically struck
east upon Won Klucks flank.
But the decisive point in the Battle of
the Marne was about La Fere Champe-
noise, and the first heavy blow was struck
here by General Foch. On September o
| the whole French line, after two weeks
I
defeated the Germans in a number of ter
rifle engagements and drove all the Ger
! man armies from Lorraine to Lagny back
| In complete defeat which amounted 10
a rout at certain points. At the mo-
ment when Berlin was waiting to hear Of
the fall of Paris all the German armies
| were In retreat. France was not to be
overwhelmed. In this battle more than
| 3OOO,OOO were engaged, the losses were
not less than 100000 and the battle front
was nearly 200 miles long.
ON THE AISNE (sEPTEMBER t3-
OCTOBER 9).
In the opening days of the second week
In September there was hope in Allied
capitals that the Germans might be
driven out of France, but 1t proved vain.
Between the Marne and the Aisne the
Germans rallied. The fall Of Maubeuge
freed a German army which came south
and reinforced Won Kluck. Allied advance
was stopped at this stream and In tho
next few days the Germans established
line from the Olse at Noyon to the Ar
gonne. All Allied efforts to drive them
failed.
The French then made desperate ef-
fort to turn the Germans out by attack
Ing their right flank and turning 1t, COM
ing in about st. Quentin. But this failed,
and in few more days the line had be-
gun to mount toward Belgium. each Cen
eral Staff meeting the others efforts with
new battalions Meantime the Germans
directed their attention toward making
their position in Belgium secure by be-
sieging Antwerp, which fell after 10
days siege on October 3.
Just before this surrender the British
had been taken out of their trenches
along the Aisne and sent north to fill the
gap between the French battle line and
| hn AMI
but the fall of this town ruined their
plans, and they we're again left to face
an overwhelming attack by new German
armies, supported only by the beaten
Belgian army, which had escaped from
| Antwerp and come south through Ostend
to the User River, north of Dunkirk.
BATTLES OF FLANDERS OCTOBER
q, NOVEMBER 15),
German effort to crush France had
failed. There remained the chance oi
: capturing the Channel ports-Calais, Bau-
logne and Dunkirk Strengthening the
western front and shortening it, prepar'
ing the way for submarine and Zeppelin
campaigns against England and com
pleting the conquest of Belgium.
Accordingly, vast new FORCES were sent
into the line between Lille and OstenC
and general German advance II
masses was begun against the thin lin,
OF British and Belgian troops on this
front. month of desperate fighting
followed The Belgians, heavily attacked
lust managed to cling to the User line
after opening the sluices and flooding
the region The British held Ypres de-
spite a 50 per cent. loss and against
three or four times their number. The
, struggle was over by November 10.
In sum, then. the first German often
sive was decisively beaten at the Marne
France was neither destroyed nor seri-
ously crippled. Her losses i'm captured
and killed and wounded combined. prob
ably equaled those of the Germans, who
as the attacking force. lost heavily. Not
less than a million men were put out in
this opening phase. But at the end the
Germans had won only few thousand
square miles of territory in France, they
had failed to take Paris or the Channel
ports and they could no longer afford to
neglect the Russian menace. From No
vember 10 to July 25 the western cam
paign from the German side has been de-
fensive save for local attacks. 1t has
become mere war of trenches.
II. RUSSIA AGAINST AUSTRIA.
Russian mobilization being slower than
German, Berlin had calculated that it
| would be at least six weeks before Ger
| many need fear any attack upon the east,
| since the Austrian armies might be eX-
/ pected to hold back the first advances OF
! the Russians. The Russian problem was
to dispose of Austria before Germany
| could get back from her great campaign
| In France. Thus all the efforts OF Rus
sian high command were at first directed
against Austria. But the opening sue
| eesses of Germany in France led to the
| appeal for Russian Intervention against
! Germany which modified both German
| and Russian plans and not impossibly
| contributed to the ultimate failure OF
| both.
| In examining the Russian operations,
| therefore, II Is necessary to think both OF
| the great movement against Austria and
| the subsidiary operations against Ger
I many, first offensive and later defensive,
when Germany began TO help her stricken
| ally,
In the opening days Of the war the Aus
trians sent their main forces 10 Galicia
| and attempted 10 invade Poland from
| Galicia with one force, while holding the
/ Galiclan front east OF LembeTg with
/ capped by the terrible defeat they suffered
almost at the outset OF the war al the
/ hands Of the Seryians along the Jedar
| and by the additional fact that some OF
| the best Austrian troops and most or
! their heavy artillery were borrowed by
| the Germans for their operations IN
France and Belgium
TANNENBERG (SEPTEMBER y,
4 While Russian and Austrian mobiliza-
\ lion was still incomplete the allied disas-
| ters In the west drove Paris and London
ss.f fuaNfn d aaF HTfIEEtn.