from which such a decisive battle may be developed. The ground occupied by the Allies has revealed several interesting things, uncovered several German secrets. More and more are the Germans abandoning their patent and marvelously perfected system of trenches for purposes of defense; more and more are they relying on the concrete redoubt, called the " pill box," which is easily observed by the French and British airmen, and almost as easily blown to pieces by accuracy of their artillery fire-the survivors are left to the "tanks." Again, it has been observed that three out of five of the German shells thrown fail to explode. An examination of them has revealed poor substitutes for metal caps and priming. Many of their high explosive shells detonate without great concussion, and in a cloud of black smoke, like the burning of common gunpowder. Individual initiative on the part of officers below the rank of Colonel is becoming very rare. Small detachments group for surrender, rarely for a last stand. All this eloquently betrays the waning morale of the enemy. Germans Control Gulf of Riga When the Germans occupied Riga in the first week of September it was obvious that this port could be of little use to them unless they also controlled the waters of the Gulf of Riga, on the eastern shores of which troops might be disembarked for a land investment of the Russian naval base of Reval. For, although it was quite out of the question to expect Germany, with her depleted man power, to deploy through the 300-odd miles necessary to reach Petrograd, yet the same object might be attained by the Gulf of Finland if only the protected ports of the southern shore could be eliminated. Landing parties, not necessarily permanent, would be required to attack these ports from the shore side, and work along the coast under the guns of warships. But where could these detachments find a base as long as the Russians controlled the Gulf of Riga? The Russian fleet, on account of the revolution, was believed to be at a low grade of resistance, yet weeks passed without a move being made by the German fleet to secure the gulf. The reason is now believed to be the mutiny at Wilhelmshaven, the first news of which was revealed by Admiral von Capelle, the German Minister of Marine, in the Reichstag on Oct. 9. From German naval refugees in Switzerland it has subsequently been learned that the mutiny was much more serious than officially reported-it embraced not only Wilhelmshaven but the Baltic base of Kiel. At both places storehouses were wrecked and supplies destroyed, and 12,000 men on board twenty-five ships were involved in an actual revolt against the Kaiser. The first outbreak began as far back as July 30; the second, principally at Kiel, was on Sept. 2—the very day on which the German advance guard rode through Riga. Two Islands Captured The mutiny, however, merely postponed what was both a strategic and a tactical necessity if the occupation of Riga was to be anything more than a political gesture. On Oct. 8 a strong German naval force was observed off the Danish Island of Bornholm, sailing eastby-north. Two days later German motor boats appeared in the Gulf of Riga, and were dispersed by the shore batteries. Evidently their observations were to the effect that an entrance to the gulf could not be forced through the defended waters between Oesel Island and Cape Domesnees-a mined channel twenty miles wide-for on Oct. 13 German detachments under the protection of the guns of warships were landed on the shore of the Gulf of Tagalah, a northern inlet of Oesel Island, and near the village of Serro on the southern shore of Dagö Island. By Oct. 15, Arensburg, the chief city of Oesel, was in the possession of the invaders, and the garrisons of both islands were fleeing to the mainland eastward. (The islands have together an area about equal to Rhode Island, and a population of 50,000.) On Oct. 18 the Russian Admiralty reported the loss of the battleship Slava, 13,516 tons, in defending the gulf. Thus, what Germany attempted to do in August and September, 1915, when she landed a force on Cape Domesnees, only to be destroyed a few days later, and then fought a naval battle off Oesel, in which the Russians claimed to have sunk five light cruisers and torpedo boats and to have seriously damaged the old battleships Wittelsbach and Kaiser Friedrich, she now accomplished. German Gains in Russia Complementary to these engagements the Germans have made gains beyond Riga, but with severe losses. On Sept. 21 they captured Jacobstadt, on the Dvina, together with positions on a twenty-sixmile front to a depth of six miles-still, however, on the western, or left, bank of the river. Jacobstadt, according to Berlin advices, furnished the victors with rich booty. Evidently as a preparation for the naval manoeuvres, German airmen soon after raided fortified positions on the Gulf of Riga, in an attempt to ascertain the location and strength of the Russian fleet. The German operations indicate Reval as the objective. Reval would, indeed, be a prize. It is the capital of Esthonia, and is on the Bay of Reval, an arm of the Gulf of Finland, 200 miles west-southwest of Petrograd. Just before the war, when the Czar's naval authorities discontinued their attempts to make Libau (occupied by the Germans on May 8, 1915) a naval base on account of the shifting ground of the harbor and the poor natural defenses, they had the alternative of choosing Reval or Riga. The latter was finally deemed too remote from the Baltic, and Reval was chosen, and was in a fair state of preparation when the war began. Northeast, at a distance of seventy miles, is Hanga, the most southwesterly point of Finland. A triple range of mines connects the two ports, thus forming the first line of sea defenses of both Helsingfors, the capital of Finland, and of Petrograd. British in Asiatic Turkey Owing to the lack of co-operation on the part of the Russians in Asia Minor and Persia, the position of Sir Edmund Allenby on the borders of Palestine and of Sir Stanley Maude in Mesopotamia had become delicate, to say the least. Meanwhile the Turks and their masters, taking advantage of the passivity of Russia, had amassed in the Aleppo region, which commands each front, respectively by the Damascus-Medina railway extension and by the Bagdad Railway and caravan trail extension, a large number of divisions, which had been formally promised actual German support in the way of troops. The work of training proceeding at Aleppo, however, was slow. There was dissatisfaction with the German high command, and the Pashas, Enver, Talaat, and Djemal, were in disagreement with each other and with the German authority present. Food was plentiful, but the rails taken from the French Syrian lines were found insufficient to complete the Bagdad Railway, and the rolling stock had gradually rotted or rusted away under the sun of the desert or the moisture of the oases. Three recent events have served at least to lessen the delicate position in which Maude and Allenby had been lying all Summer. The potential energy of these events, however, invites both exaggeration and disparagement-exaggeration on account of the geographical situation, disparagement because the control of Turkey in Asia forms, for both Wilhelmstrasse and Ballplatz, a most vital post-bellum asset. Capture of Ramadie On Sept. 30 a British official dispatch announced that the Anglo-Indian Army, under Sir Stanley Maude, operating in Mesopotamia, had captured the town of Ramadie on the Euphrates, and with it the entire army of Ahmed Bey. This achievement, preceded by a storming of Mushaid Ridge, in which Maude's superiority of artillery and of mobile cavalry manifested itself, had occurred on Sept. 29. On Oct. 5, the Russian Army Headquarters announced that the Caucasian army had taken by assault the village of Nereman, in the Kikatsh-Amadia sector. Ahmed Bey's division at Ramadie was destined no doubt to advance down the Euphrates and thereby seriously threaten Maude's left flank, if not cut his communications below Kut-el-Amara. They waited for reinforcements from Aleppo, and their waiting was fatal. Maude, with |