Read Ebook: Raemaekers' Cartoon History of the War Volume 3 The Third Twelve Months of War by Allison James Murray Editor Raemaekers Louis Illustrator

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Ebook has 222 lines and 21142 words, and 5 pages

Editor: J. Murray Allison

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RAEMAEKERS' CARTOON HISTORY OF THE WAR

RAEMAEKERS' CARTOON HISTORY OF THE WAR

Compiled by J. Murray Allison

VOLUME THREE

The Third Twelve Months of War

New York The Century Co. 1919

VOLUME THREE

BERLIN, AUGUST 6, 1914

The first official charges on the subject were issued on November 9 at Havre by Baron Beyens, Belgian Foreign Minister, as follows:

"The German Government is rounding up in large numbers in the towns and villages of occupied Belgium, such as Alost, Ghent, Bruges, Courtrai, and Mons,--to name only the first to be victims of the measures,--all men fit to bear arms, rich and poor, irrespective of class, whether employed or unemployed, hunchbacks, cripples, and one-armed men alone are excepted. These men are torn in thousands from their families; fifteen thousand from Flanders alone are sent God knows where. Whole trainloads are seen going east and south."

CARDINAL MERCIER REPLIES

Cardinal Mercier, Primate of Belgium, in behalf of the Belgian bishops, issued a proclamation of protest on November 7, addressed to the neutral nations and appealing for their aid in opposing the proceeding. His protest is in these terms:

"The military authorities are daily deporting thousands of inoffensive citizens in order to set them to forced labor.

"As early as October 19 we sent a protest to the governor-general, a copy of which was also sent to the representatives of the Holy See in Brussels, Spain, the United States, and the Netherlands. The governor-general, in reply, refused to take any steps."

At Cartigny the Germans opened five vaults, each with a chapel above it, by tearing apart the stones. They did the same thing at Ronsoy, at Becquincourt, at Dompierre, at Bouvincourt, and at Herbecourt. At Nurly, Roisel, Bernes, they even broke into coffins. In the enclosed ground serving as a private cemetery for the Rohan family at Manancourt they buried a great number of their soldiers, and, an inconceivable thing, established a kitchen in the interior of the Rohan mausoleums and latrines among their family tombs. In the crypt, where indescribable disorder reigns, almost all the compartments are empty. A child's coffin, taken from one of them, was stripped of its lead. A heavy leaden casket, half drawn from another compartment, bears on its lid marks of a chisel. A block of marble, in which is seen a small excavation, has been thrown among the d?bris; it bears the inscription: "Here rests the heart of Mme. Amelie de Musnier de Folleville, Countess of Boissy, who died at Paris, July 16, 1830, at the age of thirty-two years and ten months."

The capture of two thousand prisoners by the Canadians is not surprising, as the whole ridge was honeycombed with dugouts, in which the Germans sheltered themselves.

Up to the present moment the great offensive had been held up just at the point below the Canadian lines, which fact caused Vimy Ridge to be styled the "hinge" of the enemy's retreat from the Somme, and the Canadians have been very impatient for the "hinge" to move.

The offensive began on June 4, and the total captures to August 12 were as follows:

Prisoners Officers 7,757 Men 350,845 Guns 405 Machine-guns 1,326 Bomb-throwers 338 Caissons 292

The kaiser has dismissed General von Falkenhayn, chief of the general staff, and has appointed Field-Marshal von Hindenburg chief of the general staff and General von Ludendorff first quartermaster-general.

We have captured part of Ginchy and the whole of Guillemont. Our front now runs some five hundred yards east of Guillemont from Ginchy to near Falfemont Farm.

On the east side of Mouquet Farm we have also gained ground.

We have captured several hundred prisoners.

Between our right and the Somme the French have made substantial progress and captured a considerable number of prisoners.

Fighting continues.

Our aircraft did most useful work in co?perating with the artillery and infantry.

The enemy's a?roplanes, which made desperate attempts to interfere, were successfully engaged in many a?rial fights and driven off with a loss of three machines destroyed and at least four others damaged, while we lost three.

Fighting is in progress this morning near Mouquet Farm, south of Thiepval, and on the banks of the Ancre; also on our right about Falfemont Farm. We have gained ground.

Last night we carried out a successful raid on the enemy's trenches north of Monchy, capturing prisoners.

At 6:20 A.M. on September 15, 1916, the infantry assault commenced, and at the same moment the bombardment became intense. Our new heavily armored cars, known as "tanks," now brought into action for the first time, successfully co?perated with the infantry, and, coming as a surprise to the enemy rank and file, gave valuable help in breaking down their resistance.

The advance met with immediate success on almost the whole of the front attacked. At 8:40 A.M. "tanks" were seen to be entering Flers, followed by large numbers of troops. Fighting continued in Flers for some time, but by 10 A.M. our troops had reached the north side of the village, and by midday had occupied the enemy's trenches for some distance beyond.

Twelve German airships took part in a raid on London and various Eastern and East Midland counties on Saturday night and early on Sunday morning, but on their return journey the raiders numbered only 10.

The other two had been left behind in Essex. One was brought down in flames not far from London, and its crew were all killed; the second came to earth near the coast, and its crew of twenty-two surrendered.

Both the lost airships are big vessels of a new pattern.

The Hellenic Government entirely disavows the action of Colonel Hazzopoulos, commander at Kavala.

The Greek Government demands from Germany that these troops shall be brought to the Swiss frontier, that they may be conducted to a Mediterranean port, and there be embarked on ships to be sent by the Greek Government, so as to bring them back to Greece.

The Greek Government guarantees that they will not be stopped, or made to serve any enemy of Germany.

The whole world, including neutrals of the highest purposes and humanitarians with the best motives, must know that there can be no outside interference at this stage. Britain asked no intervention when she was not prepared to fight. She will tolerate none now that she is prepared until Prussian military despotism is broken beyond repair.

We are all tired of bloodshed, we all want peace. England is the power responsible for the continuation of the hopeless effort to crush us. In the twentieth century of the Christian era mankind might have been expected to have arrived at some maturity of thought and behavior. No one can witness, as you during the last fortnight have witnessed, the spectacle presented by this appalling sacrifice, this inconceivable suffering preposterously out of proportion to any result obtained, without wondering whether reason has fled from the earth.

In letting loose these things and in introducing them into war, Germany has been the great anarchist who has let loose on the world a greater and a more terrible anarchy than any individual anarchist ever dreamed of.

Unless there is some means of restraining these things, future war will, by the developments of science, be made even more terrible and horrible than this war, because Germany has thrown down all the barriers that civilisation had previously built up so as to keep the horrors of war within bounds.

Under the title "The Devil's Chariot" the "D?sseldorfer Generalanzeiger's" correspondent on the Western front describes the British "tanks" and their effect on the astonished German soldiers. As the German trench posts came out of their holes in the foggy dawn of September 16 and raised heads again after the heavy iron-blows of the night and looked toward the English, their blood froze in their veins as two mysterious monsters came creeping over the crater fields.

The monster approached slowly, hobbling, moving from side to side, rocking and pitching, but it came nearer. Nothing obstructed it; a supernatural force seemed to drive it onwards. Some one in the trenches cried "the devil comes," and that word ran down the line like lightning. Suddenly tongues of fire licked out of the armored shine of the iron caterpillar, shells whistled over our heads, and a terrible concert of machine-gun orchestra filled the air. The mysterious creature had surrendered its secret, and sense returned with it, and toughness and defiance, as the English waves of infantry surged up behind the devil's chariot.

On the Verdun front, after an intense artillery preparation, the projected attack on the right bank of the Meuse was launched at twenty minutes before twelve this morning.

The enemy line, attacked on a front of seven kilometers , was broken through everywhere to a depth which at the middle attained a distance of three kilometers .

The village and fort of Douaumont are in our hands.

Prisoners are pouring in. Up to the present thirty-five hundred, including about one hundred officers, have been counted. The quantity of material captured cannot yet be estimated.

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