The Cordova daily times., 1916-08-03
REVIEW OF SECOND
 YEAR OF THE WAR

The second year of the world war closes with the Battle of Europe" a concerted effort of the allies on three fronts to crush the central powers, which has developed into titanic struggle before which superiatiyes, al ready exhausted, are completely beg gared
 France and Great Britain in the west, Russia in the east. Italy in the south are hurling 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 though the results so far have been more potential and spectacular than radical. A year ago the Germans, con- tinuing their great drive against the Russians. hurled the Slavs back along the entire eastern front, captured War saw, the great fortresses of Kovno, Novo Georgeivsk and Brest-Litovsk and established lines far inside Rus sian territory which they maintained virtually unbroken until within the last three months. They seized all Poland, great slice of Russia to the south of that country and expelled the invaders from Galicia and Buko- wina. Field Marshals von Hindenburg and von Mackensen were the heroes of these great successes.
 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 Cham pagne and Verdun and the opening of the great Franco British offensive on the Somme took place in this period.
 The battle of Champagne opened on September 25, after a weeks terrific bombardment of the German lines by the French. British and Belgians. In week of the bloodiest fighting that had been known up to that time the allies announced that they had taken twenty miles of trenches, six towns and 5000 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 re- sumed. The battle of Champagne marked the removal of Sir John French, the British commander in chief from the beginning of the war up to that time. In December, 1915. 1t was announced that he had resigned to take a home command and Sir Douglas Haig was appointed his sue cessor.
 In sheer human interest the battle of Verdun probably surpassed all other individual events of the war. On February 23 the German crown prince began his assault of the historic French fortress, known throughout many centuries as the gateway to France. For five months the defend CTS withstood a storm at the fury or which the world stood aghast. Foot by foot. almost inch by inch, the Ger mans forged forward, with a reckless disregard for their lives, tenacity and cool courage which was only eoualled by the heroic determination of the French On June 3 an unoffi- cial estimate of the German losses to FerQun pidCeu tho eot"A "e ~ appalling figure of 45O.0Oo. The as- sailants fought their way to within about three and half miles of the fortress, but for several weeks have reported no further progress, and the force of their attacks appears to have lessened.
 The Franco. British offensive on the somme opened on July l, 1916. It was preceded by a bombardment Of unparalleled duration and intensity, featured by the appearance Of new and gigantic British howitzers. Under this awful hurricane of big gun fire the German first line defenses crum' bled. When the British and French troops advanced they reported that