The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1916-08-10
SERoND YEAROF CONFLICT.
END OF TWENTY-FOUR MONTHS
OF WORLD COMBAT.
Chronicles of Past TWelvemonth
Show Bloody Fighting With No
Decisive Results.

q concerted effort Of the allies on
three fronts to crush the central pow
ers. which has developed into titan
ic struggle before which superlatlVes'
already exhausted, are completely
beggared.
France and Great Britain in the
west. Russia in the east, Italy in the
south are hurting wave after wave OF
armed men on the Teutonic lines, to-
gether with an avalanche of shells
and bombs such as the world has not
known UP to the present time. For
the first time the Teutons are, tenn
porarily at least, on the defensive on
the thousands of miles of the exist
ing battle fronts.
The change in the situation which
the year has brought is striking al,
i though the results so far have been
more potential and spectacular than
radical. A year ago the Germans
continuing their great drive against
the Russians, hurled the Slavs back
along the entire Eastern front, cap
tured Warsaw, the great fortresses
of Kovno, Novogeorgievsk and Brest-
i Iitoysk and established lines far in
side Russian territory which they
maintained virtually unbroken until
within the last three months. They
seized all Poland, a great slice OF Rus
sia to the south of that country and
expelled the invaders from Galicia
and Bukowina. Field Marshals Won
Hindenburg and Won Mackensen were
the heroes of these great successes.
Three Big Battles.
SIS On the western front the changes
i In position during the year were com
paratively small but the twelve
months were marked by three events
of interest: The battles of Cham"
pagne and Verdun and the opening
OF the great Franco-British offensive
ION the Somme took place in this
period.
The battle of Champagne opened
on September 25, after weeks ter
rifle bombardment of the German
lines by the French, British and Bel
agians. In a week of the bloodiest
fighting that had been known up to
that time the allies announced that
they had taken 20 miles of trenches,
six towns and $4,000 prisoners. But
there they halted. They could not
break through the mighty German
wall and the grim deadlock which
marked the western front for so
many months was resumed. The bat
I tie Of Champagne marked the remov-
al of, Sir John French, the British
commander-in-chief, from the begin
ming of the war up to that time. In
December, 1915, it was announced
{ that he had resigned to take home
& command and Sir Douglas Haig was
appointed his successor.
In sheer human interest the battle
aof Verdun probably surpassed all
other individual events of the war.
On February % the German crown
prince began his assault of the his
toric French fortress, known through
out many centuries as the gateway
to France. For five months the de-
tenders withstood a storm at the fury
of which the world stood aghast.
Foot by foot, almost inch by inch,
the Germans forged forward, with a
reckless disregard of their lives, q
tenacity and cool courage which was
only equalled by the heroic determi-
nation of the French. On June ali
unofficial estimate of the German
losses at Verdun placed the total at
the appalling figure of 100000. The
assailants fought their way to with
in about three and half miles of
the fortress, but for several weeks
have reported no further progress
and the force of their attacks ap-
pears to have lessened.
The Allies Countershake.
The Franco-British offensive on
the Somme opened on July 1, 1916.
It was preceded by bombardment
of unparalleled duration and intensi-
ty, featured by the appearance of
new and gigantic British howitzers.
Under this awful hurricane of big
gun fire the German first line de-
fenses crumbled. When the British
and French troops advanced they re-
ported that they found trenches in
which there was not a single sur
vivor, only the dead guarding the 81
lent rifles and machine guns. Ger
man first lines were carried over an
extent of 25 miles and the second
positions pierced at certain points,
but I'D to the present the fighting has