tion, cost the Turks not less than 50,000 men. Pursuing their advantage, the Russians pressed on Khorasan, on the way from Kars to Erzerum, and occupied Van, about 150 miles southeast of Erzerum, May 23rd; but the Turks remained in possession of Erzerum throughout the remainder of the year.

The Russo-Turkish operations in Northwestern Persia were closely connected with the campaign in Turkish Armenia. The repulse of the Turkish armies east of Erzerum in January was followed by the failure of a parallel Turkish campaign against Tabriz, the most important town of Northwestern Persia. Early in January the Turks had occupied Urza and Kotur, and after defeating a Russian army at Mjandoab had advanced east of Lake Urumiah and had captured Tabriz. The Russians, however, were

Russians and cut them off from Kars. The First Turkish army corps was simultaneously to advance from Trebizond against Ardahan (northwest of Kars). The Turkish armies, however, were so exhausted by their forced marches over snow-bound mountain roads, that the Russians were able to defeat them in detail. On Jan. 1, 1915, the Tenth was driven back. The retreat of the Tenth exposed the left flank of the Ninth Turkish corps at Sarikamish, and enabled the Russians to surround and capture the entire corps. On January 3rd the First Turkish corps, which had successfully reached Ardahan, was attacked in turn and driven back in headlong rout. The Eleventh, endeavoring to hold the attention of the Russians, fought stubbornly, but was forced finally to retreat to Erzerum, January 17th. The series of operations, so brilliant in conception and so disastrous in execu

Y. B.-24

BANDAR

SHEIKH

able at the end of January to bring troops from Kars and to recapture Tabriz. During the spring the Russians gradually reconquered the province of Azerbaijan (a province in Northwestern Persia, practically under Russian control). By the end of May the Russians announced that Urumiah, west of the lake of that name, had been retaken. In November a Russian army was sent against Teheran, the capital of Persia; and the Persian government, under a new "pro-Ally" premier (see PERSIA), fell under the complete domination of the Allied Powers. Hamadan (165 miles southwest of Teheran) and Kum (80 miles south of Teheran), where the mutinous gendarmerie and pro-German rebels had established themselves, were occupied by the Russians in December. From Hamadan the Russians were expected-according to the British press-to march southwest

ward into Mesopotamia, to relieve General Townshend's beleaguered force at Kut-el-Amara.

(22) The Russian Army at Bay: October-December.

The close of the year 1915 found the main Russian army at bay, along a front 700 miles long, from Riga to Bukovina, stubbornly resisting any further encroachments upon the territory of "Holy Russia." Since the cessation of the great Austro-German offensive in September, little of importance had occurred on the Russian front. The Teutonic armies, weakened in order to reënforce the Austro-Hungarian of fensive against Serbia (supra), were content to rest on the defensive, although von Buelow, on the Teutonic left wing, continued to threaten Riga, and intermittent attacks were delivered against the Russian line west of Dvinsk and at the point where the Kovel-Kiev railway crosses the Styr River. The Russian army-under the command of Czar Nicholas since September 8th -not only held its own in the marshy region before Riga and in the lake-country around Dvinsk, but assumed the offensive in the extreme south. In Galicia General Ivanov's army west of Tarnopol reported a series of successes against the Austro-Hungarians. Further south, in Bukovina, the Russians were striving to recapture Czernowitz. The purpose of the vigorous Russian offensive in Galicia and Bukovina was obvious: it might force the Austro-Hungarians to fall back from Volhynia, and it might bring Rumania into the war.

gained some of the ground lost in September and October, notably the position on the Hill (Butte) of Tahure, in Champagne. In Alsace, however, on the slopes of the Vosges Mountains, the methods of siege warfare were not always ap plicable, and picturesquely garbed mountaineers, gliding swiftly on skees, engaged in less laborious combats. The summit of Hartmannsweilerkopf, in Alsace, was captured by the French in October, according to French reports, recaptured by the Germans, and again won by the French, December 21st. Two other features of the campaign in the West deserve mention. The promotion of General Joffre to the supreme command of all the French armies (i.e., including those in the Near East as well as those in the West, but not the troops in the colonies), and the appointment of General de Castelnau as French chief of staff, were shortly followed (December 15th) by the removal of the British commander in chief, Sir John French, and the appointment of Sir Douglas Haig to command the British armies in France and Belgium (see HAIG, SIR DOUGLAS; FRENCH, SIR JOHN). On December 27th the British government announced that the Indian Army Corps, which had hitherto served in France, had left for "another field of action."

(24) Conquest of the German Colonies.

While General Joffre's armies in the West, and Czar Nicholas's armies in the East, were unsuccessfully striving to expel the German invader from Belgium, from Northern France, and from Poland, the colonial forces of Great Britain

cember.

The Anglo-French forward movement of September-October failed to break the deadlock in the West. From October to the end of the year, the contending armies along the great battle line from Belgium to Alsace devoted themselves more assiduously than ever to the perfection of their intrenchments and fortifications. Trench warfare had become a new science. First, second, and third lines of trenches, connected by zigzag communication trenches or by tunnels, gave shelter to the infantry. Covered shelters, cages, and dugouts, constructed with amazing ingenuity, afforded protection both from shrapnel and from the elements. Attacks on the enemy's trenches must be preceded by a furious bombardment with high-explosive shells, which would blast out of existence the enemy's barbed wire entanglements and first-line trenches. The attacking troops, often wearing gas-proof hoods, and carrying bombs and bayonets, were mowed down by machine-guns and by the fire of field guns such as the French "soixante quinze" (75 mm.). The way for infantry charges, of a small nature, was most frequently prepared by the explosion of a mine underneath the enemy's trenches. Meanwhile the mightier howitzers, concealed several miles behind the first-line trenches, intermittently hurled their tremendously destructive shells against the enemy's position. (Consult article on MILITARY PROGRESS.) In this new art of trench warfare, equipment and ingenuity appeared to be more important than mere numbers. The Germans, who were generally admitted to be outnumbered, were not only able to hold their own, but actually re

the German colonies. A considerable part of the German colonial empire had been appropriated by the Allies in 1914: the leased-territory of Kiaochow had been conquered by Japan, Nov. 6, 1914; in the southern Pacific German New Guinea (Kaiser-Wilhelmsland), the Bismarck Archipelago, the German islands in the Samoan group, the Marshall and Solomon Islands, and the Caroline Islands were all occupied by British and British Australasian forces before the end of the year (see YEAR BOOK, 1914). In Africa, Togoland had been captured, August, 1914, by Anglo-French forces; the invasion of German Southwest Africa had been begun in September, 1914; Kamerun had been attacked from the coast, from Nigeria, and from French Congo; and unsuccessful expeditions had been sent against German East Africa. During the year 1915, the conquest of German Southwest Africa was carried to completion by General Botha (see GERMAN SOUTHWEST AFRICA; SOUTH AFRICA) in July, 1915; Kamerun, on the western coast of Africa, was almost conquered; and preparations for a serious invasion of German East Africa were made. By the close of the year, the unexpectedly stubborn defense of Kamerun had been virtually crushed, and most of the colony was in Anglo-French possession (see KAMERUN); German East Africa, however, had suffered little from Allied incursions. Attempted invasions by British troops from British East Africa, along the shores of Victoria Nyanza, had been checked. Mafia Island, however, was in British possession, the coast was under blockade, and the German cruiser Königsberg had been destroyed near the mouth of the Rufiji River. In December it was

announced that a force of 25,000 men had been raised by the Union of South Africa, thanks to the untiring energy of the Union minister of defence, Gen. Jan Christian Smuts, and Gen. Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien had been brought from France to conduct a formidable attack on German East Africa.

VI. NAVAL OPERATIONS

The supremacy of the British fleet remained throughout the year 1915 a silent but a potent factor, ensuring the transport of troops to and from the Dardanelles, across the British Channel, and from the colonies; it enabled the Allied Powers not only to continue their commerce with neutral nations, but also to make war on German trade; it constituted, in fact, the chief bulwark of British confidence. No serious attempt to question British naval supremacy was made by the German battle fleet. The most important naval engagement fought during the year was the battle of Dogger Bank, Jan. 24, 1915, in which a German battle-cruiser squadron raiding the coast of England was severely punished for its temerity. The German squadron was sighted by Admiral Beatty off Dogger Bank early in the morning of January 24th. Immediately the German battle cruisers turned back towards Heligoland with Admiral Beatty's ships in full pursuit. The three more powerful German battle cruisers (Moltke, Seydlitz, and Derfflinger), screened by the dense smoke of a destroyer flotilla, and assisted by the timely appearance of German submarines, made their escape, although with serious injuries. The antiquated Blücher, however, with only 8.2-inch guns to oppose to the British 13.5-inch guns, and considerably slower than the three German dreadnought cruisers, fell an easy victim and was first crippled by gunfire, then torpedoed and sunk. The battle was a conclusive demonstration of the value of big guns and high speed in modern naval warfare. The British battle cruisers engaged, including the Indomitable, the New Zealand, the Princess Royal, the Lion, and the Tiger, mounted 16 12-inch guns and 24 13.5inch guns against the 8 12-inch guns, 20 11-inch guns, and 12 8.2-inch guns of the Germans. To their superiority in big guns the British owed their success in sinking the Blücher and in damaging the other German cruisers, a success which might have been pressed to a more decisive conclusion, had not German submarines made their appearance and menaced the British pursuers. The battle of Dogger Bank so strongly confirmed the confidence of the British Admiralty that in February a powerful British and French fleet was sent to bombard the Dardanelles forts (supra, under Military Operations, The Dardanelles). At the Dardanelles, however, the Allied battleships were pitted, not against German cruisers of inferior gun-power, but against land forts, submarines, and floating mines. In the great effort to force the Narrows, March 18th, the British battleships Irresistible and Ocean, and the French battleship Bouvet were sunk; the British Inflexible and the French Gaulois were disabled; and several other ships were badly battered. Subsequently the British Goliath was torpedoed at the Dardanelles on May 12th; the Triumph on May 25th; and the Majestic on May 27th. Besides the battle of Dogger Bank and the Dardanelles action, the

only naval operations of any importance, involving capital ships, were (1) in the Adriatic, where the Austro-Hungarian navy was held in check by the French, with the assistance of the Italian fleet, after May 24th; (2) in the Baltic, where a German squadron, according to Russian reports, forced its way into the Gulf of Riga and was expelled with the loss of three small cruisers, seven torpedo boats, and the powerful battle cruiser Moltke; and (3) in the Black Sea, where, after the Turkish battle cruiser Sultan Selim had been injured by a mine, the Russian fleet asserted its superiority, but was held off from Constantinople by submarines and by the fortifications of the Bosphorus. In the absence of any really decisive naval operations, naval critics in Germany and in Great Britain commented much on the cumulative effect of Lsses and of new construction in increasing or decreasing the disparity between the rival fleets. The Germans tabulated the losses of the British and Allied navies, including the losses at the Dardanelles, as well as the British predreadnought Formidable (sunk by torpedo, January 1st), the Italian battleship Benedetto Brin (sunk by explosion, September 28th), the Italian cruiser Amalfi (sunk by torpedo, July 7th), the Garibaldi (sunk by torpedo, July 17th), the British cruiser Natal (sunk by explosion, December 30th), and other warships destroyed by mine, torpedo, or accident. The British, on the other hand, maintained that not only were comparable losses being inflicted upon the German fleet, but furthermore the British Admiralty was rushing the construction of new ships, with the result that British naval superiority had been increased since the war began. (For precise information regarding the navies of the belligerent Powers, consult articles on GERMANY, GREAT BRITAIN, etc.)

By all means the most significant aspect of the war on the water was the attempt of Great Britain to realize to the full, and the efforts of Germany to minimize, the economic advantages accruing from British naval superiority. A few German commerce destroyers still remained at large, in January, 1915, preying upon the merchant marine of the Allies. One of the German commerce destroyers, the auxiliary cruiser Prinz Eitel Friedrich, slipped into Newport News, Va., March 10th, after a destructive cruise of more than 30,000 miles. The German light cruiser Dresden was sunk by British ships on March 14th. The German converted cruiser Kronprinz Wilhelm, after sinking nine British, four French, and one Norwegian merchantmen, entered Newport News, April 11th, and was interned. The cruiser Königsberg, which had been driven to seek refuge in the Rufiji River on the coast of German East Africa, was attacked by two British river monitors, the Mersey and the Severn, and was destroyed, in July. The danger from German cruisers and auxiliary cruisers had meanwhile been overshadowed by a new menace to the commerce of the Allies-the submarine. On February 4th the inauguration of a novel form of submarine warfare was announced. The German government declared that it would consider "the waters surrounding Great Britain and Ireland, including the whole English Channel, to be comprised within the seat of war, and will prevent by all the military means at its disposal all navigation by the enemy in those waters. this end it will endeavor to destroy, after Feb

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