“ Men who, stationed upon Prince Heinrich Hill, could look below upon the doomed town, athwart the narrowing peninsula, with the sea, studded with grey warships, surrounding, had before them a wonderful spectacle as the morning sun, rising from the Pacific, slowly dispersed the darkness. The thunder of the great guns broke suddenly upon that stillness which only dawn knows, and their discharges flashed redly on the darkling slopes. ”

“ The only possible course for an army was over the sand-dunes, which lay a mile to the north, looking like the imitation mountains you see in the scenic-railways at every amusement resort in the United States. ”

“ Husky, steel-muscled lumbermen; brawny, calloused-handed fishermen; loose-jointed, easy-swinging trappers; athletes from the city foot-ball and hockey teams; and gawky, long-armed farmers joined the First Newfoundland Regiment at the outbreak of war. A rigid medical examination sorted out the best of them, and ten months of bayonet fighting, physical drill, and twenty-mile route marches over Scottish hills had molded these into trim, erect, bronzed soldiers. They were garrisoning Edinburgh Castle when word came of the landing of the Australians and New-Zealanders at Gallipoli. ”

“ The worst contingencies that occurred to me, as a Belgian, were the violation of a part of our territory and the duty that might fall upon our soldiers of barring the way to the belligerents. In view of the vast area over which a war between France and Germany would be fought, dared we hope that Belgium would be safe from any attack by the German army, from any attempt to use her strategic routes for offensive purposes? ”

“ Germans try to cross the Yser.
Just before we reached the pier heavy cannonading began inland. We climbed the sand dunes and there we came suddenly upon a perfect panoramic view of the battle all the way from the dunes across the inundated fields to Dixmude in the distance. The whole line of battle for ten miles was in the midst of a German attack, covered by a terrific artillery fire. Over the white, red-tiled cottages of the fishermen, almost lost among the lesser sand dunes, we could make out the Belgian line by the fire of their rifle and machine guns. ”

“ The blindness of the Austrian Cabinet with regard to Russian intervention has been proved by the correspondence, since published, of the French and British representatives at Vienna. The Viennese populace was beside itself with joy at the announcement of an expedition against Serbia, which, it felt sure, would be a mere military parade. Not for a single night were Count Berchtold's slumbers disturbed by the vision of the Russian peril. He is, indeed, at all times a buoyant soul, who can happily mingle the distractions of a life of pleasure with the heavy responsibilities of power. ”

“ At 5 o'clock the bombardment began, slowly at first and then growing in volume until the whole air quivered with the rush of the larger shells and the earth shook with the concussion of guns. In a few minutes the whole distant landscape disappeared in smoke and dust, which hung for a while in the still air and then drifted slowly across the line of battle. ”

“ Our artillery opened huge gaps in their lines; our machine-guns piled them dead in the ranks where they stood. Our own casualties were very slight, but of the waves of Turks that surged over the crest all that day only a mere shattered remnant ever straggled back to their own lines.
The armies in a state of siege.
That was the last big attack the Turks made. From that time on it was virtually two armies in a state of siege. Every night at dark we stood to arms for an hour. Every man fixed his bayonet and prepared to repulse any attack of the enemy. ”

“ None of the forts have been taken; the town of Liège is always in our power. Standards and a number of prisoners are the trophies of these combats. In the name of the Nation I salute you, officers and soldiers of the 3rd Army Division and the 15th mixed brigade.
"You have done your duty, done honour to our arms, shown the enemy what it costs to attack unjustly a peaceable people, but one who wields in its just cause an invincible weapon. The Fatherland has the right to be proud of you. ”

“ That the attack was deliberate and long contemplated and intended ruthlessly to destroy human life, as well as property, can no longer be open to doubt. And when a foe employs such tactics it is idle and purely speculative to say that the action of the Captain of a merchant ship, in doing or not doing something or in taking one course and not another, was a contributing cause of disaster or that had the Captain not done what he did or had he done something else, then that the ship and her passengers would have evaded their assassins. ”

“ Chased ashore at Marsala by the Neapolitan war-ships, and narrowly escaping capture, he led his followers—one thousand red-shirted volunteers armed with obsolete muskets—into the Sicilian mountains, where he played such a game that within two months he compelled the surrender of a well-equipped army of nearly thirty thousand regulars. The history of warfare can show but few exploits so daring and so dramatic. ”

“ While her leaders fulfilled this noble duty to mankind, France was offering the world an impressive sight—the sight of a nation looking calmly and without fear at a growing peril that she had done nothing to conjure up, and, regarding her word as her bond, determined in cold blood to follow the destiny of her ally on the field of battle. ”

“ He was confronted by a new Austria and a new Russia.
What was worse, the Balkan nations, who had long been subject peoples, ill-organized, poverty stricken, had grown with the help of the Turk's enemies into sturdy, self-reliant, independent communities with good-sized armies and something approaching national wealth. The long years of subjection had left behind a consuming hatred of the Turk in their breasts; as Christians, they hated the Turk as the Infidel; and they promised themselves some day the control of Constantinople in the interest of Christianity. ”

“ Nobody in the front-line trenches or on the shell-swept area behind ever expected to leave the peninsula alive. Their one hope was to get off wounded. Every night men leaving the trenches to bring up rations from the beach shook hands with their comrades. From every ration party of twenty men we always counted on losing two. Those who were wounded were looked on as lucky. The best thing we could wish a man was a "cushy wound," one that would not prove fatal. ”

“ The Kaiser's ultimatum to Russia.
As a drowning man catches at a straw, those who in Berlin saw themselves, with horror, faced by an impending catastrophe, clutched at a final hope. The German general mobilization had not yet been ordered. Who knew whether, at the last moment, some happy inspiration from the British Cabinet, that most stalwart champion of peace, might cause the weapons to drop from the hands that were about to wield them? ”

“ The British replied in quick succession to the German fire. As the distance lessened, each ship engaged that opposite in the line. The Good Hope and the Monmouth had to bear the brunt of the broadsides of the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau. The Glasgow, in the rear, exchanged shots with the light cruisers, the Leipzig and the Dresden. The shooting was deadly. The third of the rapid salvos of the enemy armoured cruisers set the Good Hope and the Monmouth afire. ”

“ Serbia should become the lowly vassal of her redoubtable neighbour, living a life that was no life, cowed by the jealous eye of the Austrian Minister—really the Austrian Viceroy—at Belgrade. Had not Count Mensdorff declared to Sir Edward Grey that before the Balkan War Serbia was regarded as gravitating towards the Dual Monarchy's sphere of influence? A return to the past, to the tame deference of King Milan, was the least that Austria would exact.
German opinion is misled. ”

“ The more alert and cool-headed of the men battled with their fellows and shouted instructions to get the women folks and the kiddies back indoors and down into their cellars. The night-gowned and pajamaed throng could not be persuaded that safety lay not in sight of the Zeppelin but away from it. The hypnotism of horror lured them on to where twelve houses lay spread about in smoking chaos, a plateau of blazing and noisome havoc. Somewhere a gas-main burst with a roar and drove the crowd back with its choking fumes as no human hands could have done. ”

“ No one in Berlin or Constantinople has forgotten the existence of the Balkans. Servian enmity, Greek hatred for the Turk, are only too obvious; Bulgaria is believed to be entirely faithful to the German interests; Roumania has never been very trustworthy, and has at times been an ally of both the coalitions in Europe. The ability of the Turk, of course, to hold Constantinople and above all to take the offensive would depend upon the continued neutrality or alliance of the Balkan States. ”

“ As soon as the Turk topped the crest they were subjected to a demoralizing rain of shell from the navy and the artillery. Against the hazy blue of the sky-line we could see the dark mass clearly silhouetted. Every few seconds, when a shell landed in the middle of the approaching [229] columns, the sides of the column would bulge outward for an instant, then close in again. Meanwhile every man in our trenches stood on the firing-platform, head and shoulders above the parapet, with fixed bayonet and loaded rifle, waiting for the order to begin firing. ”

“ Some, too game to quit, would not report to the doctor, working on courageously until they dropped, although down in the bay beckoned the Red Cross of the hospital-ship, with its assurance of safety, rest, and cleanliness. By sickness and snipers' bullets we lost thirty men a day. Every day the sun poured down relentlessly, adding to the torment of parched throats and tongues. ”

“ Monday morning broke bright and clear and found the Canadians behind the firing line. This day, too, was to bring its anxieties. The attack was still pressed, and it became necessary to ask Brigadier General Curry whether he could once more call upon his shrunken brigade. "The men are tired," this indomitable soldier replied, "but they are ready and glad to go again to the trenches." And so once more, a hero leading heroes, the General marched back the men of the Second Brigade, reduced to a quarter of its original strength, to the very apex of the line as it existed at that moment. ”

“ I managed to pass the gap and reach the ditch, which I crossed. What was my amazement when I perceived that the fort was blown up, and that the front was strewn with ruins, forming a quay reaching from the escarpment to the counter-escarpment. Some soldiers were running to and fro upon it. I took them for Belgian gendarmes and called to them. But I was being suffocated, giddiness seized upon me, and I fell to the ground. When I came to, I found myself in the midst of my comrades, who tried to come to my aid. Among them was a German major, who gave me a glass of water to drink. ”

“ Soldiers of the Belgian Army, do not forget that you are in the van of immense armies in this gigantic struggle, and that you await but the arrival of our brothers-in-arms in order to march to victory. The whole world has its eyes fixed upon you. ”

“ Every few minutes a shell burst close to us. Shrapnel-bullets and fragments of shell-casing forced us to huddle under the baggage for protection. A little to the left some Australians were severely punished. Shell after shell burst among them. A regiment of Sikh troops, mule-drivers, and transport-men were caught half-way up the beach. Above the din of falling shrapnel and the shriek of flying shells rose the piercing scream of wounded mules. The Newfoundlanders did not escape. ”

“ Germany was equally ready to have the Turk gratify his imperialist and religious ambitions. Pan-Islam would destroy the political control of England and France in northern Africa and in Egypt. It might even overturn the British Empire in India. This would be the greatest possible service any one could render Germany, and it might be one which Germany could accomplish in no other way. If the Triple Entente was the greatest foe of Pan-Islamism, Pan-Germanism should be its greatest friend. Where ambition and interest coincide, co-operation is simple. ”

“ German cruisers were suspected to be in the neighbourhood. Never before had the colony known such bustle and such excitement. They, the inhabitants of the remote Falklands, were to play a part in the struggle that was tugging at the roots of the world's civilization. The exhilaration of expectancy and of danger broke suddenly into their uneventful, though not easy, lives. But there was cause for keen anxiety. The colonists were, however, reassured for a time by a visit from three British warships, the cruisers Good Hope, Monmouth, and Glasgow, with the armed liner Otranto. ”

“ Such an impression, however, does an inadvertent injustice to the great majority of the crew, who acted with that matter-in-fact courage and fidelity to duty which are traditional with men of the sea. Such of these men, presumably fairly typical of all, as testified in this court, were impressive not only because of inherent bravery, but because of intelligence and clear-headedness, and they possessed that remarkable gift of simplicity so characteristic of truly fearless men who cannot quite understand why an ado is made of acts which seem to them merely the day's work. ”

“ But the sky was not completely overcast, and the sun was shining. Firing had not opened. The washing of the seas and the roaring of the wind deafened the ear to other sounds. The warship of to-day, when her great turbines are whirling round at their highest speed, moves without throb and almost without vibration through the waves. The two squadrons, drawing level, the Germans nearer to the coast, raced in the teeth of the gale, in two parallel lines, to the south.
British vessels. ”

“ During the morning of the 28th the Germans withdrew from Prince Heinrich Hill, leaving fifty of their number and four machine-guns in Japanese hands, and many dead upon the slopes. The Japanese casualties numbered 150. By noon the whole position was in the attackers' hands, and the beleaguered town, visible from the height, was now face to face with siege. German officers who knew all the points, weak and strong, of the defences, could not but realize their inability to withstand the siege guns which Japan would sooner or later bring to the attack. But the heavy artillery was yet far away. ”

“ The problem with which we were confronted was the withdrawal of an army of a considerable size from positions in no cases more than 300 yards from the enemy's trenches, and its embarkation on open beaches, every part of which was within effective range of Turkish guns, and from which in winds from the south or southwest, the withdrawal of troops was not possible.
I came to the conclusion that our chances of success were infinitely more probable if we made no departure of any kind from the normal life which we were following both on sea and on land. ”

“ If the Sick Man could get out of bed only with assistance, Germany was anxious to help him; and the Turk vastly preferred an alliance with a Power which was eager to make him well to one with Powers almost afraid to keep him alive. The Turks wished a capable government, a good army, a State deserving of independence, and were overjoyed to find Germany ready and desirous to foster this ambition. ”

“ Simultaneously an overwhelming British force was to land at Suvla Bay and Anzac to make a surprise attack on the Turks' right flank. Presently we were going upshore past the wrecked steamer River Clyde, the famous "Ship of Troy" from the side of which the Australians had [224] issued after the ship had been beached on the shore hitherto nameless, but now known as Anzac. Australian New Zealand Army Corps those five letters stand for; but to those of us who have been on Gallipoli they stand for a great deal more; they represent the achievement of the impossible. ”