The New Gresham Encyclopedia Part 11

Elsewhere victories had been won which appear minor only by comparison.

American divisions had been transferred to the left bank of the Meuse at Verdun, and, supported by French divisions, had carried Montfaucon and Varennes (10,000 prisoners); on the other side of the Argonne Gouraud was advancing, and by 1st Oct. was 9 miles from his starting-point below Moronvilliers, and had acc.u.mulated 13,000 prisoners and 300 guns.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map showing approximately the Allied line on 8th Aug., 1918, and on Armistice Day, 11th Nov., 1918]

The results of these attacks were at once apparent, as Foch had predicted, in the north. His plan of an attack by Plumer's Second British Army, and by the Belgian Army stiffened by French divisions, was as successful as he had hoped. Under the weight of the Franco-Belgian-British attack on 28th Sept.

the thinly held German front melted away. By nightfall the British held all the ridge between Wytschaete and the ca.n.a.l north of Hollebeke; the Belgians were in Houthulst Forest. By the end of September the blood-drenched ridge of Pa.s.schendaele, and all its tragic surroundings, had pa.s.sed into the Allies' hands, and the German grip on the coast had been finally unloosed.

This marked the beginning of the end. Since Foch attacked between the Aisne and the Marne on 15th July the Allies had taken a quarter of a million prisoners, 3669 guns, and 23,000 machine-guns. The rest of the campaign must either be a disaster of the first magnitude to the Germans, or, at best, a painful and ineffective retreat to the line of the Meuse.

What remained of the campaign was the work of clearing up; but this was not an easy task, because, though Ludendorff was aware that victory remained permanently with the Allies, he a.s.sured the German Government that delaying actions could be fought till the following spring. Against such an undesirable protraction of the war, Foch was preparing a final stroke in the neighbourhood of Metz with the aid of a Second American Army, which was being organized by General Pershing, who had relinquished the command of the First American Army to General Leggett. But the progress of the First American Army in the Argonne, where the fighting was conducted under circ.u.mstances of great difficulty, and where the transport was admittedly defective, was slow; and, lacking the place and the resources for another outflanking blow against the retreating Germans, the Allied armies could do no more than press their retreat.

In that retreat position after position was forced from their hands.

Cambrai fell on 9th Oct.; on 15th Oct. von Einem's army was far from the coast; on 17th Oct. Ostend had fallen; Horne's First Army had taken Douai, and Birdwood's Second Army had liberated Lille. King Albert re-entered Bruges on 25th Oct. Farther south the British Third and Fourth Armies were close to Le Cateau on 17th Oct.; and Mangin and the French had re-entered Laon--so long the German Great Head-quarters--on 13th Oct. The story of the rest of the campaign, though it involved much severe fighting in breaking the resistance of German rear-guards, is the record of the steady drive of all the British, French, and Belgian Armies which had produced the German collapse, while the right wing of Foch's greater pincers, comprising the only great new reinforcements he could bring to bear, namely, Gouraud with the Americans on the extreme right, worked its way up for a last decisive blow.

It was a slow operation; but by 4th Nov. Gouraud and Leggett had joined hands north of the Bourgogne Forest; and by 6th Nov. Gouraud entered Rethel and an American division reached Sedan. Thus, though behind schedule time, Foch's right wing approached its decisive position in the first week in November; and in the second week the left wing (British) had occupied Maubeuge. What would have been the consequence had Foch advanced his right wing farther and with effect is a matter for the military expert. That Ludendorff was in no doubt of its disastrous results to the German armies is shown by his request for an Armistice on 9th Nov.

_The Balkans, 1918_

Bulgaria, thoroughly war-weary, and dissatisfied with Germany's refusal to give her the whole of the Dobrudja when terms were made with Roumania, had surrendered to the Allies on 30th Sept. The last Balkan campaign had been swift and decisive. No major operations had taken place during the earlier months of 1918, but on 15th Sept. General Franchet d'Esperey, who had succeeded General Sarrail in supreme command of the Allied forces, launched an offensive which rapidly transformed the whole military situation. French and Serbian troops, on the left or Monastir front, with the eager Serbians as the spear-head of the attack, penetrated the Bulgarian positions with an impetuosity which in two days carried them 12 miles behind the enemy's lines on a 22-mile front, and drove a wedge between the First and Second Bulgarian Armies. Meanwhile the British and Greek divisions were engaged in a far more difficult task on the Doiran front, where they suffered heavy losses in storming impregnable positions between the Dopropolje Ridge and Vetrenik, but succeeded in preventing the Bulgarians opposing them from sending reinforcements to their hard-pressed troops along the Monastir front. This 'wing of sacrifice' pinned the Second Bulgarian Army to the Doiran front until it was too late to join its retreating First Army.

Realizing the plight in which it stood, it hurriedly evacuated its positions on the night of 21st Sept. and fled in confusion towards Sofia.

The pursuit of the Bulgarians was now taken up by all the Allied armies from Doiran to Monastir, the vengeful Serbians in particular harrying the retreating Second Army with a remorseless energy which drove it head-long through Northern Serbia in increasing disaster towards Belgrade, while the British and Greek forces under General Milne entered Bulgaria hard on the heels of the demoralized First Army. By 26th Sept. the Bulgarian politicians realized that the whole position was hopeless, and sent a _parlementaire_ under a white flag to the Allied head-quarters. Four days later they signed an armistice at Salonika, handing over complete control of the Bulgarian railways and communications, demobilizing the Bulgarian armies, and surrendering their arms and ammunition. On 4th Oct. King Ferdinand abdicated, and his eldest son reigned in his stead as King Boris III.

_Italian Campaign, 1918_

In less than a month--on 3rd Nov. to be exact--Austria-Hungary, after experiences in the field similar to those which had fallen to Bulgaria's lot, surrendered to the Italians. This turn of the tide in the Italian campaign in 1918, which amply atoned for the disaster of Caporetto in the preceding year, and crowned Italian arms with triumph, followed a final attempt of the Austro-Hungarian army, now under the direction of General von Arz, to crush the Italian front in conjunction with Ludendorff's great offensive in the West. General von Arz's main attack was delivered on 15th June on a 46-mile front along the Piave, and extended across the mountain positions between the Piave and the Brenta. The two British divisions west of Asiago played a great part in hurling the enemy back in this sector, the French divisions similarly distinguishing themselves on their right.

Elsewhere some progress was made at certain points, and the Piave was crossed in two places; but by the third day it was already obvious that the attack had failed. Then the weather broke; rainstorms swept down the hills and turned the Piave, which had been low when the enemy crossed, into full flood, sweeping away a number of his bridges. Hurried efforts were made to get the marooned troops back, and though General Diaz was unable to bring up enough divisions in time to complete their discomfiture, they lost heavily enough in the retreat, their casualties before the battle died down on the other side the river amounting to some 200,000. Biding his time for his own great counter-offensive until Foch could be a.s.sured about the situation in the West, where Italian troops distinguished themselves in the operations round Rheims, General Diaz gradually pushed the Austrians back, until by 7th July he had cleared the whole Piave delta. It was not until 24th Oct. that his final blow was delivered. Its success was immediate and overwhelming. Launched on the night of 23rd-24th Oct., the main attack consisted of an advance across the Piave with the Tenth Italian Army--placed under the command of Lord Cavan--now including three British divisions, together with the Eighth and Twelfth Italian Armies. Cavan's force formed the spear-head of the thrust, and ensured the success of the battle by seizing the Island of Grave di Papadopoli in the Piave mid-stream, held by the enemy as an advance post. This was captured in a daring surprise attack by night, without any artillery preparation, and paved the way for the pa.s.sage of the troops across the swollen river. At the same time the Fourth Italian Army, with a French division, advanced across the old battle-ground of Asiago and Monte Grappa, where, however, the Austrians counter-attacked, holding up the advance until the whole front collapsed with the triumphant progress of the main attack across the Piave. By 27th Oct. the breach had widened until it spread across the entire front of the three Italian armies, which thereupon swept the plains and mountain heights until all the enemy's positions between the Brenta and the Piave had been regained. The Austrian retreat became a rout. By the end of the month the Italians claimed 50,000 prisoners, had cut the railway between the plains and the mountains at Conegliano, and occupied Feltre.

With Germany in similar plight; Turkey and Bulgaria already finished; and her own internal affairs rapidly going from bad to worse, Austria appealed to General Diaz for an armistice. When the end came on 3rd Nov. with the signing of the agreement which involved the demobilization of the Austrian army; the surrender of the Austrian fleet; the occupation by the Allies of the Trentino, the Istrian peninsula, and a portion of the Dalmatian coast and islands, the Italians had just captured both Trent and Trieste, a landing-force having arrived at Trieste for the occupation that very day.

The wholesale nature of the Austro-Hungarian surrenders during the closing phase of this decisive campaign may be gauged from the fact that by 3rd Nov. they had amounted to no fewer than 300,000 prisoners and 5000 guns.

_Germany accepts Defeat_

The complete collapse of the Great War, and with it all the Pan-Germanic dreams of world-power, came with dramatic swiftness. Ludendorff resigned, and though the Kaiser had entreated Hindenburg to make one last stand on the line of the Meuse, his appeal had been in vain. Hindenburg knew the hopelessness of the position, not only of the German army but also of the German home front. Ominous disturbances were breaking out in all parts of the Fatherland, including a mutiny at Kiel. Turkey (30th Oct.) as well as Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary had surrendered, and Germany was in no position to face the Allies alone. The Armistice terms, with all their crushing humiliations, had perforce to be accepted, and were signed on 11th Nov. They included, besides evacuation of territory, the surrender of the bulk of the German navy, 5000 additional guns, 30,000 machine-guns, 3000 trench-mortars, and 2000 aeroplanes. A zone of territory on the Rhine was to be occupied by the Allies, and the Treaties of Brest-Litovsk (signed by the Bolshevik Government with the Central Powers on 3rd March, 1918, in defiance of Russia's solemn engagement not to make separate peace with them) and Bucharest (forced on Roumania in March, 1917, at the close of von Mackensen's drive) were declared null and void.

Unable to face his subjects, William II abdicated on 9th, slipped across the frontier into Holland on 10th Nov., and on the 28th of that month signed the formal doc.u.ment of his abdication, the Crown Prince, who also sought refuge in Holland, following suit three days later. With the Kaiser fell all the rulers of the German states. On 10th Nov. the Imperial Chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, resigned in favour of Herr Friedrich Ebert, ex-shoemaker, who became 'First Imperial President of the German Republic', with a Government formed from both wings of the Socialist party.

_Last year of Naval War_

The war had been won at sea as well as on land, though the British navy had far fewer opportunities than the army of getting to grips with the enemy.

The hazards of naval warfare never ceased by day or night; and by the end of the war the range of the submarine had extended from the eastern end of the Mediterranean to the American coast. All the reckless efforts of the Germans to win the war by these means failed. With the adoption of new methods to cope with the danger--including the employment of 'Q' boats, or mystery ships--and the invaluable help of the American reinforcements, the monthly shipping losses in the closing year of the war grew progressively less, falling, indeed, from the total of 1,494,473 tons in the September quarter of 1917, to 915,513 tons in the corresponding quarter of 1918.

Meantime the new tonnage under construction to make good these losses was as rapidly increasing. The U-boat war, in short, had failed; and the Germans knew it had failed.

The outstanding operation at sea in the closing year of the war was the raid on Zeebrugge and Ostend on St. George's Day under Vice-Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, the object being to block the outlet of the German submarines and destroyers from their depot at Bruges. Since all the neighbouring coast was strongly fortified, the attack was fraught with the gravest danger, and had to take the Germans as far as possible by surprise. The chief ship of the expeditionary force was the old cruiser _Vindictive_ (Captain Carpenter), which, with the ferry-boats _Iris II_ and _Daffodil_, were told off to act as shield to the three blocking-ships intended for Zeebrugge--_Thetis_, _Intrepid_, and _Iphigenia_. Two old submarines were also taken, charged with explosives, and ordered to ram themselves below the viaduct connecting Zeebrugge Harbour with the Mole, and then blow themselves up. One of them carried out her orders to the letter; the other's rope parted while she was being towed into position, and she was too late to help. The simultaneous attempt to land, shortly after midnight, followed a bombardment from a squadron of monitors, and was supported by a flotilla of destroyers and a fleet of motor-boats. The _Vindictive_ ran alongside the Mole within five minutes of being discovered by the German garrison, and was kept in position by the _Daffodil_ and _Iris_ while landing-parties jumped ash.o.r.e to do what damage they could and the blocking-ships were being rammed at the entrance. This successfully accomplished--both the _Intrepid_ and _Iphigenia_ being blown up in the fairway--the battered _Vindictive_, taking her landing-parties aboard, backed out and returned with her supports to Dover. The first attack on Ostend, which took place the same day, was a comparative failure owing to the undetected removal of a buoy, the two blocking-ships sent for the purpose being sunk outside the harbour. Three weeks later the commander of the _Brilliant_ (Commander G.o.dsal), who was in charge of that operation, tried again, this time successfully--the old _Vindictive_, patched up as a blocking-ship, being sunk 200 yards up the channel of Ostend--but Commander G.o.dsal was killed by a sh.e.l.l just after completing his task.

The German navy made one more appearance on the high seas--when, under the terms of the Armistice, 6 battle-cruisers, 10 battleships, 8 light cruisers, 50 destroyers, and all her submarines were surrendered, the bulk of them to the Grand Fleet at Rosyth under Sir David Beatty on 21st Nov. On the following day the captive ships were sent to Scapa Flow, where, exactly seven months later, their German crews, while the British battle-fleet was absent on gunnery practice, scuttled practically every vessel. A week later--on 28th June, 1919--Germany signed the Peace Treaty at Versailles, involving unconditional acceptance of all the Allies' terms.

_Turkey and the War_

In Aug., 1914, the German war-ships _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ escaped the British squadron stationed to intercept them near Messina, the escape arising partly through delay in correcting orders, and partly through the fact that the German commander had no scruple about violating neutrality in the course he sailed through the Straits of Messina. The ships reached the Dardanelles on 11th Aug., and were sold to Turkey. This was a symptom of Turkish relations with Germany rather than a determining cause of Turkey's entrance into the war as an ally of the Central Powers; but many efforts were made to change Turkey's att.i.tude before the British, Russian, and French Amba.s.sadors left Constantinople (1st and 2nd Nov.) and Great Britain declared war on her (5th Nov.). The first act of war undertaken by Turkey was the dispatch to the Caucasus front of three army corps, with a plan of campaign designed by General Liman von Sanders, and commanded by Enver Pasha. They were decisively beaten by the Russian forces at Sarikamish in December. Had the Russians possessed abundance of transport, or had the roads been less difficult, this victory might have been pressed. But Russia wanted all her resources elsewhere, and it was not till 1916, two years later, that she made any serious attempt to carry the war into Turkish territory. Then, under the direction of the Grand Duke Nicholas, and General Yudenitch, who was some years later to come into prominence as the leader of an unsuccessful attempt to reach Petrograd and overthrow the Bolsheviks (1920), a Russian expedition drove back the Turkish forces on Erzerum and captured it (16th Feb., 1915). On 16th April, after another pause to gather transport, the Russians found their way to Trebizond on the Black Sea, and during the next few months spread over the Asiatic Peninsula to Bitlis, Musk, Van, Mosul, Erzingan, and Diarbekr, fighting generally with local success, but with no concerted plan of campaign. The effort expired in the autumn, and was not revived.

_Gallipoli Campaign_

Before, however, the Russians undertook their own expedition, they were urgent in pressing on France and Great Britain the desirability of opening up the Dardanelles so as to bring the Allies into touch with each other through the Black Sea ports. In response to this invitation, the naval possibilities of which were insufficiently considered by the advisers of the British Admiralty, and the prospects of which had been roundly condemned by all who had previously considered the problem, Admiral Carden began a bombardment of the Dardanelles forts with old battleships, British and French, on 19th Feb., 1915. The bombardment was renewed on 25th Feb.

and 6th March. Admiral Carden resigned on 16th March owing to ill-health, and was succeeded by Admiral de Robeck, who favoured the idea of breaking into the Sea of Marmora by rushing the straits. Four big ships, one the _Queen Elizabeth_, engaged the guardian forts, Chanak and Kalid Bahr, at long range (18th March); other ships closed in, and a French squadron penetrated as far as Kephez Point. But the hidden batteries, the mines, and various other devices frustrated the attempt, which was a practical failure by the afternoon. Two good ships, _Irresistible_ and _Inflexible_, were put out of action, and two others, _Bouvet_ and _Ocean_, sunk. After this Admiral de Robeck accepted the professional view that a fleet operation should be combined with one on land. Lord Kitchener, who had been as little disposed towards the Dardanelles adventure as Lord Fisher, reluctantly consented, and General Sir Ian Hamilton was appointed to command the British expedition, while General d'Amade was in charge of the less numerous French Colonial Corps.

Sir Ian Hamilton's force eventually comprised the 29th Division, the Australian and New Zealand (Anzac) Corps, the East Lancashire Territorial Division, and part of the Royal Naval Division. There was an unfortunate delay in getting the expedition off from its Egyptian base, and the Turks had ample time to prepare for its landing (25th April), which they did not believe to be a possible feat. The landing was effected, nevertheless, with incomparable gallantry, at five beaches on the nose of the Gallipoli Peninsula, and at Gaba Tepe (by the Anzac Corps) farther north. Some 8000 men were got ash.o.r.e in twelve hours, and an advance was made on the following day (26th April). On 28th April the French Corps, which had made a feint attack on the other side of the Narrows, was brought across to a.s.sist in a general advance on the dominating height of Achi Baba. The resulting engagement, the battle of Krithia, revealed the fact that the Turkish field fortifications, the Turkish artillery, and the Turkish numbers had all been too well organized under von Sanders to admit of being rushed. Evidence acc.u.mulated that Achi Baba, which was the key to the Dardanelles forts, could only be taken at ruinous cost by a frontal attack, though an attack in force on 6th May went nearer to success than any other, and appeared to fail only through a culminating misfortune of misdirected artillery. Fighting continued in May and June, both here and at Gaba Tepe, where General Birdwood commanded the Anzac Corps. Engagements in which local advances were made took place on 29th May (Anzac Corps), 4th and 21st June (French Corps), 28th June (29th Division), and though the climate and the insufficient protection inflicted appalling losses on the hard-tried British and French troops, it was on the Gallipoli Peninsula that the flower of the Turkish army also was lost. Of the naval forces the _Queen Elizabeth_ was summarily ordered home just before a new Turco-German submarine campaign set in; three more old battleships were torpedoed; but the English submarines retaliated by torpedoing a Turkish battleship, gunboats, and transports in the Straits.

General Gouraud relieved General d'Amade in the middle of May, but was badly wounded by a sh.e.l.l (30th June), and returned to France. General Sir Ian Hamilton, who had unceasingly asked for more guns and more men, received some part of the aid he asked in order to put a new plan into operation. The plan was to land a force at Sari Bair, on the neck of the Peninsula, where it could co-operate with the Anzac Corps in forcing a way to the commanding heights there, and ultimately might take the Turks in the flank. One force was to land at Anzac Cove; two other of the three new divisions sent out to Sir Ian Hamilton were to be landed 4 miles north, at Suvla Bay. The forces at Anzac were landed on 4th-6th Aug., bringing up the numbers of Sir W. Birdwood's command to 36,000. Sir F. Stopford was in command of the force to land at Suvla Bay (6th and 7th Aug.), with Generals Hammersley and Mahon as divisional generals.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Suvla and Anzac Line: map showing approximately by the shaded portion the area occupied after the linking up of the two armies in Aug., 1915]

The fresh attack on the night of 6th Aug. was not completely successful, and the Anzac columns under General G.o.dley were still short of the ridges at Koja and Chunuk on the night of 7th Aug. The Turks were then alive to the threat, and made continuous counter-attacks, so that by 10th Aug. all the efforts of the combined force of Anzacs, Gurkhas, and English regiments had failed to maintain more than a slippery hold on the ridges. The chief cause of the failure was that the contributory aid of the attack at Suvla Bay farther north had not been forthcoming, owing to various reasons. Lack of water had exhausted the unseasoned divisions landed in Suvla Bay; misunderstandings among the generals were other reasons; and when the Commander-in-Chief, on hearing of their failure, came up from Zimbros, he met a situation which it was too late to redeem. General Stopford was succeeded by General de Lisle (15th Aug.). Lord Kitchener declined to send further troops from home, and though Sir Ian Hamilton, bringing the veteran 29th Division up to Suvla, with reinforcements of yeomanry, made another attempt on 21st Aug., it was unavailing. After 24th Aug. the British campaign a.s.sumed a defensive character, and in spite of Sir Ian Hamilton's representations the War Office declined to waste further men and material on it. On 15th Oct. Sir Ian Hamilton was recalled, and Sir Charles Munro, who reported that the expedition should be abandoned, was supported by Lord Kitchener after personal inspection of the surroundings. The evacuation was carried out with remarkable success on 18th Dec. and 8th Jan. (1916). The cost of the expedition in men was 31,389 killed, 78,749 wounded, and 9708 missing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map showing approximately the area in the Southern Zone evacuated in Jan., 1916]

_Mesopotamian Campaign_

The Mesopotamian campaign ran contemporaneously in part with the Dardanelles operations, and in part with the campaign between Erzerum and the Caucasus in Armenia, in which Russia co-operated. A small British force, sent out to the Persian Gulf in 1914, occupied Basra (22nd Nov.) and pushed outposts forward to the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates.

General Sir John Nixon took command (Jan., 1915), and in April (11th to 14th), following a Turkish attack, the British force, now a division strong, advanced to Shaiba, and on 31st May took Kurna. Amara, on the Tigris, capitulated to General Townshend (3rd June), who was empowered to push forward an advance column, while another column, under General Gorringe, beat the Turks at Nasiriyeh (24th July). At this time the Russians were on the headwaters of the Euphrates.

Fired by these successes, General Nixon ordered Townshend to seize Kut if possible. It was so dangerous an enterprise that probably the Turks did not believe that it would be attempted. But Townshend traversed the difficult country in six weeks, arriving within striking distance of the Turkish forces under Nur-ed-Din Bey on 15th Sept., and, in a very capably devised and executed engagement on 27th and 28th Sept., drove them before him.

Townshend, against his own better judgment, was then sent forward to attempt the impossible feat of pushing on to the Turkish base of Bagdad. He arrived in front of their advanced position, Ctesiphon, on 22nd Nov., and attacked it with his four brigades, one of which was a reinforcement, and his rather scanty cavalry and artillery. The first line of the defences was carried, but Nur-ed-Din, who had retired on his supports, counter-attacked, and in spite of Townshend's resistance compelled him to retreat (25th Nov.) by way of Azizieh, fighting heavy rear-guard actions all the way to Kut (3rd Dec.). Townshend's force suffered severely and lost part of its river transport. By 5th Dec. it was invested in Kut, and after two unsuccessful attempts to carry the town by force (8th and 23rd Dec.), the Turks sat down to starve it out. Townshend's mixed force of British and Indians, ill-fed and a.s.sailed by beri-beri and scurvy, endured the siege for 145 days, till 29th April, 1916, when it surrendered to Khalil Pasha. The prisoners were at first well treated, but most of them were compelled to march through Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Anatolia to prisoners' camps, and many died from their hardships.

An attempt to relieve Kut failed. It was made by Generals Aylmer and Younghusband, whose relief expedition set out on 3rd Jan., 1916. An engagement was fought on 8th Jan., and a pitched battle at the Shatt-el-Hai on 8th March. This failed, when on the brink of success, through want of luck or enterprise at the critical moment. Several changes were made in the Mesopotamia leadership after the impossibility of relieving Kut had become apparent, and in Aug., 1916, General Stanley Maude took over the command.

The attention drawn to the blunders, and the scandals of medical a.s.sistance and transport, enabled General Maude to begin his task by rectifying them, and he built light railways from Basra. He made his first move forward on 12th Dec., 1916, and the history of the Mesopotamian campaign then entered on a brighter epoch, a result due to Maude's deliberate, bold, and prudent generalship. Contact began on 5th Jan.; the right bank below Kut was cleared by 15th-16th Jan.; and by 23rd Feb. Kut itself was so far encircled that the Turks had no option but to abandon it with guns and prisoners.

Maude resumed his advance on 5th March, and by 11th March had manoeuvred the Turks out of Bagdad as he had forced them out of Kut. The integrity of the Mesopotamian Turkish force had been destroyed, and its portions distributed at points believed to be out of Maude's reach. One of these was at Ramadie, but a dashing night-march captured the Turkish commander and 3400 prisoners (28th Sept., 1917). Other successes were gained at Tekrit and the Jebel Hamrin hills before Sir Stanley Maude died of cholera (18th Nov.). He was succeeded by General Marshall, who, in 1918, occupied Hit on the Euphrates, and ended the Mesopotamian campaign with a crushing victory at Mosul just before the Armistice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map showing the converging lines of the main British advances in Mesopotamia and Palestine at the points reached on 31st Oct., 1918]

_Palestine Campaign_

Turkey a.s.sumed the offensive against Egypt, of which the Sultans were nominally suzerains, by an attempt to force the Suez Ca.n.a.l in Feb., 1915. A force under Djemal Pasha made a dash across the 150 miles of the Sinai Peninsula from Palestine, and was in a position to attack Ismailia and the Bitter Lakes on 2nd Feb. The ample Imperial troops on the spot enabled General Marshall to beat off the attack with ease, but the raiders were not pursued. An attempt on a more concerted scale was made in 1916, though at this time the Turkish garrisons in the Hejaz were having difficulties with the Arabs. A base was established at El Arish, and on 3rd Aug. a well-equipped force of 18,000 advanced to attack Major-General Lawrence's outposts at Romani, in the north of the Sinai Peninsula. The attack was beaten off, and General Sir A. Murray's main body of Australians, New Zealanders, Yeomanry, Territorials, and the 52nd Division coming up, counter-attacked and drove the Turks back 18 miles, inflicting a loss of 4000 prisoners and 4 guns. Between the 6th and 12th Aug. General Murray improved on his victory, and advanced steadily to Mazar (16th Sept.) and El Arish, evacuated by the Turks (20th Dec.). On 22nd Dec. an attack was made by one of the desert columns on Magdhaba, and the whole Turkish force of 3000 destroyed or captured.

On 9th Jan., 1917, the columns under Generals Dobell and Chetwode reached Rafa, the Mediterranean port on the southern borders of Palestine. A pipe line conveying water and a railway followed close on General Murray's advance, and by the middle of March, 1917, these had reached Rafa, enabling an advance to be begun in Palestine, with Gaza as the immediate objective.

The first battle of Gaza began on 26th March. It was a failure. Chetwode's mounted forces, including the Australians, moved in a wide detour round Gaza, which was entered while Dobell's infantry attacked the main Turkish positions. But the infantry thrust was not strong enough to penetrate the opposition offered to it, and after two days' fighting the attack was called off. Water was short, and General Murray suspended further attack till 19th April, when, as frequently happened, the Turks, having been reinforced and established in good positions, fought well and beat off the a.s.sailants.

Sir A. Murray and General Dobell left the Palestine operations, and General Sir E. Allenby was sent out to organize a subsequent advance when the opportunity was propitious. He was reinforced; the communications were improved through the summer; and on 31st Oct. he surprised the Turks by making a diversion towards Beersheba while demonstrating towards Gaza.

Beersheba was rushed by the Australians, and Allenby's right secured. He then sent the 52nd Division to a point between Gaza and the sea while occupying Ali Muntar, and from these two vantage points sh.e.l.led the Turks out (7th Nov.). It was the decision of the Allied War Council at Versailles in the autumn of 1917 that Allenby, strongly reinforced, should put the Turks out of the war by one decisive blow, since they were already in straits by reason of losses in their numerous campaigns, including those against the Arabs of the Hejaz, which had been organized by the Emir Feisul and Colonel T. E. Lawrence. Accordingly, the Turks were pursued through Ascalon and Ashdod to Jaffa (16th Nov.). Allenby's main columns pressed on more slowly between Beersheba and Hebron (7th Dec.), but entered Jerusalem on 9th Dec., after disposing of an ineffective Turkish stand on the day before. The operations were practically suspended after the Jordan had been crossed at the end of March, 1918, when it became necessary to recall some of the best British divisions to France to meet the last German onslaught in France and Flanders.

When this had been disposed of, Allenby, who had been supplied with Indian divisions, and who, in Sept., 1918, was much superior in forces and artillery to the Turks, resumed his attack (19th Sept.). Facing him were the Turkish Seventh and Eighth Armies in front of Shechem, and the Turkish Fourth Army east of Jordan. A heavy artillery preparation ushered in a frontal infantry attack which tore a gap in the Turkish right and right centre, and through it the cavalry swept north across the Plain of Sharon to reach and seize the pa.s.ses at Megiddo. Another infantry attack pinned the Eighth Army on the Jordan. The Turks began to retreat too late, for the Imperial cavalry, pouring through the Megiddo pa.s.ses, crossed the plain of Esdraelon and barred every avenue of retreat on the western side of Jordan.

They only missed the capture of General Liman von Sanders at Nazareth by a few hours.

The Turkish armies were in effect destroyed, for on the eastern side of Jordan the Arab cavalry of the Emir Feisul had turned the line of retreat there, and had cut the Hejaz railway running to Damascus. In less than a week the Turkish Seventh and Eighth Armies were wiped out, and 10,000 of the Fourth Army surrendered at Rabboth Amman (29th Sept.). Haifa and Acre on the coast fell as fast as the Imperial cavalry could reach them.

Damascus was entered by the Australians on 1st Oct. Beirut fell a few days later, and by the end of October General Allenby had reached Aleppo. The Turkish Cabinet immediately entered into negotiations, Enver Pasha and Talaat Pasha having been replaced. An armistice was signed on 30th Oct. at Mudros, and Turkey was out of the war. It may be added that Talaat Pasha, who was responsible for the ma.s.sacres of the Armenians, was killed in Berlin by an Armenian student in 1921.

_The War in Germany's Colonies_

Within a few weeks of the outbreak of hostilities the war had been carried to all the scattered possessions of Germany in Africa, the Pacific, and the Far East. Among the first to fall were German Samoa (occupied by the New Zealand troops on 29th Aug.); the islands of the Bismarck Archipelago and German New Guinea (occupied by the Australians on 11th-13th Sept.); and the more northerly islands of the Pacific, surrendered at the beginning of October to a j.a.panese squadron. These last were at once handed over by j.a.pan to Australia. j.a.pan, faithful to her alliance with Great Britain, had declared war against Germany on 23rd Aug., and attacked the formidable German post of Kiao-Chau, 'the key to Northern China', which had been seized by Germany on the flimsiest pretext in 1898. j.a.pan invested Kiao-Chau--garrisoned by 6000 well-armed men, with powerful defences--with a force of 23,000 troops under General Kamio, supported by a small British contingent of South Wales Borderers and Sikhs under General Bernardiston.

After a six weeks' siege, and a preliminary bombardment preparatory to launching a final a.s.sault, the garrison capitulated (7th Nov.).[4]

The remainder of Germany's colonies were in Africa, where the campaigns resulting in their conquest varied from a few weeks to the whole length of the war. The shortest was in Togoland, which surrendered unconditionally to a Franco-British force under Colonel Bryant on 27th Aug., 1914, after a brisk little campaign lasting just three weeks. The Cameroons, larger than the Fatherland, took much longer to subdue, and the operations were of a more arduous nature. A false start was made from Nigeria with insufficient forces, which met with disaster towards the end of August. A more adequate expedition was then organized under General C. M. Dobell, in co-operation with French forces under General Aymerich. Duala, the capital, was occupied on 27th Sept., but it was only after desultory fighting for a year and a half that the Germans, realizing the hopelessness of further resistance, left the colony to its fate by retreating into the neighbouring Spanish territory of Rio Muni.