The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1915-08-04
The War-Twclyc Months Summing
Up.

to estimate in terms of achievement
and result the meaning of twelve
months of world war. In this period
not less than 1O,O00,OOO men have
been killed, wounded, or have gone
into foreign prisons; Il territory eX-
ceeding in area Ohio or Pennsylvania
has been, ravaged. Cities known
known through the centuries as the
treasure houses of art OF in the last
century become the centers of mod
ern industrial life have been destroy
ed. Written history has no record to
compare with the tale of recent
months Of suffering, slaughter, de-
struction, human misery. and human
grandeur. But what now is the re-
suit?
The simplest answer to make to
this question is to take the
premise that peace would come to-
morrow on the basis of things as they
are. Such settlement it Is instantly
apparent would mean that Germany
helped rather by her use of the re-
sources OF her two allies, than by any
capacity OF theirs, has won more Eu-
ropean territory than any state has
acquired by single war since the
Treaty of Westphalia. more COM
plete victory than any people since
the Napoleonic episode. Today her
armies occupy practically all of Bel
gium and 5000 square miles in France,
that region which before the war was
the center of French industry and
French mineral production. In the
East victorious forces have pushed
deep into Poland and approached
Warsaw. Riga, and Brest-Litowsk.
On the field of battle Germany has
won mighty and memorable triumphs
He defeats have been repulses, when
her foe was In his last ditch. They
have resulted in the interruption of
an advance, the recoil from the ex-
treme point of progress. But at the
close of year German armies are
fighting on French, Belgian, Russian
soil; only in tiny corner of Alsace
has the foe retained foothold in the
Fatherland. Allied offensives in the
west after terrible losses, have in
variably 'been beaten down within
sight of their starting places. Since
Won Kluck rc-crossed Aisne in Sep
tember, Germany has suffered no ma
terial loss despite the masses she has
sent to the east. The Spring Drive"
of the Allies has dwindled to a gallant
but only locally succ. ssful push Of
the French at the edge Of the Lorette
hills. '7
In the east the amazing victories of
Tannenberg, Lodz, the Mazurian
Lakes, and In the recent terrific cam
pulsed. routed Russian advances and
today Oate in July) Russian hosts
are clinging desperately to the per-
manent line of fortifcations about
Warsaw against which German mass
es are steadily driving with still un-
checked viGor. The greatest battles
OF modern warfare have been won be-
tween the Baltic and the Rumanian
boundary by generalship and military
efficiency in men as in commanders
that has only the Napolconic parallel.
AT the Dardanelles German.led
troops have for months held
back Allied fleets and army corps.
Around the Gallipoli peninsula the
troops that lost Lule Burgas and
kumanovo are making a fight unsur-
passed at Plevna, unrivalled in the
long history of Osmanli power in Eu-
ro,'e. More English and French
troops than perished in the long Cri-
mean campaign have found their
graves in the few weeks of fighting
graves In the few weeks of fighting
north OF the Dardanelles; and five
Allied battleships have been sunk in
the narrow Waterways.
Serbian efforts have declined to
mere passivity. Italy. bringing new
ana eager masses into the field agains;
the shaken regiments of Austria, di-
rectcd by German officers, has. as yet,
made but small progress in emerging
from the CONSTRUCTED field in which
the Austrian fortified mountains con-
hne her. To hold France, England.
ana Belgium at bay in the west, to
sweep Russia back over hundreds OF