World's War Events, Vol. I

Allen L. (Allen Leon) Churchill, Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds

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• Publié par: enyui
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 31
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of World's War Events, Vol. I, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: World's War Events, Vol. I Author: Various Editor: Francis J. Reynolds Allen L. Churchill Release Date: July 4, 2008 [EBook #25962] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORLD'S WAR EVENTS, VOL. I *** Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's Note: Larger images of the two maps included in this text may be seen by clicking on the visible image in the text. [1] THE CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME AT RHEIMS [2] WORLD'S WAR EVENTS RECORDED BY STATESMEN · COMMANDERS HISTORIANS AND BY MEN WHO FOUGHT OR SAW THE GREAT CAMPAIGNS COMPILED AND EDITED BY FRANCIS J. REYNOLDS FORMER REFERENCE LIBRARIAN · LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AND ALLEN L. CHURCHILL ASSOCIATE EDITOR "THE STORY OF THE GREAT WAR" ASSOCIATE EDITOR "THE NEW INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA" VOLUME I P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY NEW YORK Copyright 1919 BY P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY [3] WORLD'S WAR EVENTS VOLUME I BEGINNING WITH THE CAUSES OF THE WAR AND THE INVASION OF BELGIUM IN 1914 AND CARRYING THE HISTORY OF THE WAR TO THE CLOSE OF 1915 [4] CONTENTS ARTICLE PAGE [5] I.WHAT CAUSED THE WAR 7 41 62 73 83 96 108 125 142 176 198 221 Baron Beyens II.THE DEFENSE OF LIÈGE Charles Bronne III.THE GREAT RETREAT Sir John French IV.THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE Sir John French V.HOW THE FRENCH FOUGHT French Official Account VI.THE RACE FOR THE CHANNEL French Official Account VII.THE LAST DITCH IN BELGIUM Arno Dosch VIII.WHY TURKEY ENTERED THE WAR Roland G. Usher IX.THE FALKLAND SEA FIGHT A. N. Hilditch V.CRUISE OF THE EMDEN Captain Mücke VI.CAPTURE OF TSING-TAO A. N. Hilditch VII.GALLIPOLI A. John Gallishaw VIII.GAS: SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES 240 248 277 [6] Colonel E. D. Swinton VIV.THE CANADIANS AT YPRES By the Canadian Record Officer VV.SINKING OF THE LUSITANIA Judicial Decision by Judge J. M. Mayer VVI.MOUNTAIN WARFARE 313 322 348 366 375 Howard C. Felton VVII.THE GREAT CHAMPAGNE OFFENSIVE OF 1915 Official Account of the French Headquarters Staff VVIII.THE TRAGEDY OF EDITH CAVELL Brand Whitlock VIX.GALLIPOLI ABANDONED General Sir Charles C. Monro VX.THE DEATH-SHIP IN THE SKY Perriton Maxwell WHAT CAUSED THE WAR BARON BEYENS I The Archduke Francis Ferdinand will go down to posterity without having yielded up his Political secret. Great political designs have been ascribed to him, mainly on the strength of his designs of Francis friendship with William II. What do we really know about him? He was strong-willed and obstinate, very Clerical, very Austrian, disliking the Hungarians to such an extent that he kept Ferdinand. their statesmen at arm's-length, and having no love for Italy. He has been credited with sympathies towards the Slav elements of the Empire; it has been asserted that he dreamt of setting up, in place of the dual monarchy, a "triune State," in which the third factor would have been made up for the most part of Slav provinces carved out of the Kingdom of St. Stephen. Immediately after he had been murdered, the Vossische Zeitung refuted this theory with arguments which seemed to me thoroughly sound. The Archduke, said the Berlin newspaper, was too keen-witted not to see that he would thus be creating two rivals for Austria instead of one, and that the Serb populations would come within the orbit of Belgrade rather than of Vienna. Serbia would become the Piedmont of the Balkans; she would draw to herself the Slavs of the Danube valley by a process of crystallization similar to that which brought about Italian unity. From year to year the Archduke had acquired more and more weight in the governance of Army and the Empire, in proportion as his uncle's will grew weaker beneath the burden of advancing age. Navy Thus he had succeeded in his efforts to provide Austria-Hungary with a new navy, the reorganized. counterpart, on a more modest scale, of the German fleet, and to reorganize the effective army, here again taking Germany for his model. Among certain cliques, he was accused of not keeping enough in the background, of showing little tact or consideration in the manner of thrusting aside the phantom Emperor, who was gently gliding into the winter of the years at Schönbrunn amid the veneration of his subjects of every race. Another charge was that he appointed too many of his creatures to important civil and military posts. We may well believe that this prince, observing the gradual decay of the monarchy, tried to Antagonism restore its vigour, and that his first thought was to hold with a firm grasp, even before assuming of Russia the Imperial crown, the cluster of nationalities, mutually hostile and always discontented, that go and Austria. to make up the Dual Empire. So far as foreign relations are concerned, we may assume that he was bent on winning her a place in the first rank of Powers; that he wished, above all, to see her predominant all along the Danube and in the Balkans; that he even aimed at giving her the road to Salonika and the Levant, though it were at the price of a collision with Russia. This antagonism between the two neighbour Empires must have often been among the topics of his conversations with William II. The Archduke needed military glory, prestige won on the battle-field, in order to seat his consort firmly on the throne and make his children heirs to the Cæsars. He had been suspected, both in Austria and abroad, of not wishing to observe the family compact which he had signed at the time of his marriage with Countess Sophie Chotek. It was thought that he perhaps reserved the right to declare it null and void, in view of the constraint that had been put upon him. The successive honours that had drawn the Duchess of Hohenberg from the obscurity in which the morganatic wife of a German prince is usually wrapped, and had brought her near to the steps of the throne, showed clearly that her rise would not stop half-way. The Archduke, like William II himself, was reputed to be an exemplary father and husband. He was one of those princes who adore their own children, but, under the spur of political ambition, are very prone to send the children of others to the shambles. A fine theme for Socialist and Republican preachers to enlarge upon! Domestic life of the Archduke. [7] [8] [9] I often met the heir to the Imperial crown, especially at Vienna in 1910, where I had the honour of accompanying my Sovereign, and two years later at Munich, the Prince Regent's funeral. On each occasion this Hapsburg, with his heavy features, his scowling expression, and his rather corpulent