The Boy Allies in the Trenches | Page 4

the icy hand of King Winter, who had come to rule over the battlefield.
The French cabinet, which had fled from Paris to Bordeaux when the German army drew close to Paris, had returned to the former capital, and affairs of state were being conducted as before. With several millions of fighting men at the front, France still had an additional two million to hurl into the thick of the fray at the psychological moment.
Recruiting in England, slow at first, was now beginning to be more satisfactory. Lord Kitchener had in the neighborhood of a million and a half men being trained and prepared for the rigors of war. These, also, would be hurled into the thick of the fight when the time was ripe.
It was plainly evident, however, that the Allies were content to hold their present lines. There was little doubt that it was their plan to let the real fighting be held off till spring, when, by hurling an additional three million men into the field, they believed they could settle German militarism once and for all.
Rumors of other countries joining in the great war grew more rife daily. Portugal already had given assurances that she would throw her army to the support of Great Britain should she be asked to do so. A great diplomatic _coup_--a great victory for British statesmanship--had cleared the way for the entrance of Rumania and Greece into the war on the side of the Allies. This coup had been to gain from Bulgaria assurances that Bulgaria would not go to the support of Germany should Rumania and Greece take up arms.
The Italian populace, also, was clamoring for war. In Rome demonstrations against Germany had become frequent and violent. It appeared to be only a question of time until Italy also would hurl her millions of trained fighting men into the field in support of the Allies.
From Ostend the great battle line extended due south to Noyen, where it branched off to the southeast. South of Noyen French soil had been almost cleared of the Germans. Alsace had in turn been invaded by the French, who had penetrated to within twelve miles of Strasbourg. The French troops also had progressed to within eight miles of Metz, in Lorraine.
The forward move by the southern army of France had been sudden, and the Germans had been forced to give way under the desperation and courage of the French troops.
Once before, in the earlier days of the war, the French had reached Metz and Strasbourg, but had been hurled back by overwhelming numbers of the enemy and forced to retreat well into France. Then the German line in Alsace and Lorraine had been weakened to hurl denser masses of Germans upon the British and Belgians in the north.
The French had not been slow to take advantage of this weakening of the southern army of the Kaiser, and, immediately bringing great pressure to bear, had cleared French territory of the invader in the south.
But the French commander did not stop with this. Alsace and Lorraine, French soil until after the Franco-Prussian war, when it had been awarded to Prussia as the spoils of war, must be recaptured. The French pressed on and the Germans gave way before them.
Meantime, in the Soissons region the French also had been making progress; but the Kaiser, evidently becoming alarmed by the great pressure being exercised by the French in Alsace-Lorraine--in order to relieve the pressure--immediately made a show of strength near Soissons, seeking thereby to cause the French to withdraw troops from Alsace-Lorraine to re?nforce the army of the Soissons to stem the new German advance there.
Taken somewhat unawares by the suddenness of the German assault upon their lines near Soissons, the French were forced to give back. They braced immediately, however, and the succeeding day regained the ground lost in the first German assault.
Then the Germans made another show of strength at Verdun, southeast of Soissons. General Joffre immediately hurled a new force to the support of the French army at that point.
Meanwhile, as the result of the German assaults upon Soissons and Verdun, in an effort to lessen the pressure being brought to bear by the French in Alsace-Lorraine, there had been a lull in the fighting in the latter regions.
Word from the eastern theater of war brought the news that Russia had a new big army advancing upon the Germans in Poland from the east, threatening to outflank the army that had penetrated to within fifty miles of Warsaw, the capital and chief city of Poland. This, it was taken, would mean that Germany would either have to retreat within her own borders into East Prussia, or else that troops would have to be dispatched from the west to re?nforce those in the east.
In this event there was