Sept. 18-Rumanians in the Suchitza Valley capture part of Teuton fortified positions near Varnitza. CAMPAIGN IN WESTERN EUROPE Aug. 20-French break German lines north of Verdun on an eleven-mile front, gaining Avocourt Wood, Dead Man Hill, Talou Ridge, and the Corbeaux and Cumières Woods; British repulse German counterattack north of Epehy. Aug. 21-French capture the Côte de l'Oie, Regneville, and Samogneux; Canadians carry German positions on a mile front at Lens. Aug. 22-British capture important strategic positions for a mile along the YpresMenin road, and penetrate German trenches further north. Aug. 23-Canadians take important positions south of Lens. Aug. 24-French capture Hill 304 on the Verdun front and advance one and one-quarter miles beyond it; British forced from the ground won on the Ypres-Menin road. Aug. 25-French capture three fortified works near Béthincourt; British forced to give up ground captured near St. Quentin. Aug. 26-French gain on a two and a half mile front east of the Meuse; British advance half a mile east of Hargicourt. Aug. 30-British repulse German attacks on the Verdun front, and penetrate German positions in Champagne east of the Teton. Sept. 1-3-French repulse German attacks between Cerny and Hurtebise. Sept. 4-Canadians advance 250 yards on 600yard front at Lens. Sept. 6-French repulse violent attacks in the region of Cerny. Sept. 7-British forced to relinquish positions gained north of Frezenburg. Sept. 8-French launch new offensive on the right bank of the Meuse, occupying important positions on a front of about one and a half miles; Germans repulsed in Lorraine, east of Rheims, and north of Courcy. Sept. 11-British on the Somme carry a German trench near Villeret and advance their line nearly a quarter of a mile. Sept. 12-French in Champagne drive across two lines of German trenches, between St. Hilaire and St. Souplet, and enter the third line. Sept. 14-Germans enter French trenches on a 500-yard front north of Caurières Wood. Sept. 15-French retrieve losses north of Caurières Wood, but lose height near Chaume; British advance in Belgium east of Westhoek. Sept. 18-Germans on the Champagne front, after a violent bombardment south of the Miette River, reach the French lines toward the Neufchatel Road; British improve their positions east of St. Julien and raid trenches in Inverness Copse. On Aug. 22 Zeppelins raided Yorkshire, killing one man, and Gotha airplanes raided Dover, Margate, and Ramsgate, killing eleven persons and injuring thirteen. Eight German machines were brought down. Another raid was made on the east coast on Sept. 2, and on Sept. 3 bombs were dropped on the naval station at Chatham, killing 108 persons and wounding 92. The first moonlight raid over the London district occurred Sept. 4. Eleven persons were killed and sixtytwo hurt. The British bombarded Zeebrugge, Bruges, and many points back of the German lines in Belgium and Northern France. The Germans attacked Calais and Dunkirk. French aviators raided Stuttgart, Colmar, and bases near Metz. British naval seaplanes dropped bombs on German destroyers along the Belgian coast, hitting one destroyer and sinking at least one trawler. Italians raided Pola. The Germans attacked Vandelaincourt Hospital on Aug. 22, killing ten wounded men, one woman nurse, and nineteen men nurses. Another attack on the same hospital was made on Sept. 6, when nineteen persons were killed and twenty-six injured. British-American hospitals on the French coast were attacked. One bomb fell on a Harvard hospital, killing four Americans and wounding ten others, and another fell on a St. Louis unit, killing one man. NAVAL MANOEUVRES Italian floats mounted with huge, new guns, bombarded Trieste, while British monitors shelled the rear slopes of the Hermada. Italian and British monitors shelled Pola. Four German mine sweepers were destroyed by British light craft off the coast of Jutland. A German submarine bombarded Scarborough on Sept. 5, killing three persons and injuring five. German submarines appeared in the Gulf of Riga, and shelled several places on the coast. spiracy to accomplish a coup d'état by arresting the Provisional Government was unearthed and many arrests were made in Moscow. Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovitch and Grand Duke Paul were arrested, together with Mlle. Margaret Hitrova and Mme. Liubov Hitrova. The Minister of Justice resigned after being upbraided by Kerensky for his failure to unearth the plot. Several adherents of the old imperial régime, including Mlle. Virubova, were exiled and taken across the Swedish frontier. General Soukhomlinoff, the former Minister of War, was placed on trial on a charge of treason and his wife on a charge of being an accomplice. A Cabinet crisis arose as a result of the opposition of the Constitutional Democratic Ministers to the food program of M. Pieschehonoff and the land policy of M. Tchernoff, as well as to the attitude of the majority toward the Ukraine. Premier Kerensky deposed General Korniloff and arrested his envoy, Vladimir Lvoff, following Korniloff's demand that all civil and military powers be turned over to him as Commander in Chief of the army. Korniloff responded to the order of dismissal by moving an army against Petrograd, where Kerensky proclaimed a state of siege.. General Denikine, commander on the southwestern front, and the whole of his headquarters staff and General Erdelli were arrested. The Baltic fleet unanimously placed itself on the side of the Provisional Government. Kerensky became Commander in Chief of the army and General Alexeieff, Chief of General Staff. General Krymoff, commander of the troops sent by Korniloff to capture Petrograd, was arrested and committed suicide. Korniloff himself was taken into custody. The Bolshevikis gained control of the Petrograd Council of Deputies. This resulted in friction between the Constitutional Democrats and the Socialists in the Cabinet, followed by the withdrawal of all the Constitutional Democrats save one. A new Cabinet of five members was formed. A republic was proclaimed by the Provisional Government on Sept. 14. MISCELLANEOUS Louis J. Malvy, Minister of the Interior and Radical Socialist, quit the French Cabinet, and the head of the Secret Service, M. Leymarie, also gave up his post as a result of disclosures of alleged anti-patriotic activities on the part of Miguel Almereyda, editor of the Bonnet Rouge, and some of the directors of the paper. The Ribot Cabinet resigned, and Paul Painlevé, Minister of War, formed a new Ministry. Because of the failure of efforts to induce the Poles to fight for Germany and Austria, the Central Powers decided to abandon their project with regard to the Kingdom of Poland as outlined in the joint proclamation of Nov. 5, 1916. They were reported to have planned a new partition, Germany to annex such parts of Russian Poland as she needed to rectify her strategic frontier, this including about onetenth of the territory, and Austria to annex the remaining nine-tenths, uniting it with Galicia and proclaiming the whole the Kingdom of Poland, with a status similar to Hungary's, and with Emperor Charles as King. A decree published at Lublin and Warsaw on Sept. 12 transferred the supreme authority to a regency council of three members, appointed by the monarchs of the occupying powers. A From August 18 to September 18, 1917 By Walter Littlefield S last month's chronicle closed, the battle line from Flanders to the Adriatic seemed everywhere to be in movement. The British and French were again striking hard northeast of Ypres. The Canadians, already having cracked the carboniferous nut of Lens, appeared to be on the point of extracting the kernel. North of the Aisne and in Champagne the French were still checkmating the costly assault of the German Crown Prince. A bombardment at Verdun from the French side seemed to be puzzling military critics. The Italians were just launching their second great offensive of the year. On the eastern front all was confusion and uncertainty-in the south the Rumanians and Russians were still gallantly contesting Moldavia with the Austrians, but further north the Russian military mutiny and the Teutonic obvious lack of men and munitions to take full advantage of it left the military situation there dominated by the question: Where will the Germans strike in order to obtain a maximum gain-strategic, political, or industrial-with the minimum extension of line? In the course of the month three movements have developed and detached themselves from the foregoing mass until, by their intrinsic military importance, their sensational details, or their bearing upon the future, they have overshadowed all else. These are the great Italian offensive, which has changed the battle of the Isonzo into the battle of the Julian Alps; the occupation of Riga by the Germans, and the French expansion of their lines north of the town of Verdun, which, beginning as something of an enigma, like the great German assault on that place in 1916, is gradually assuming a strategic movement of definite progress and objective. Flanders Offensive Suspended But first let us dismiss as briefly as possible the events which have suffered obscuration by comparison on the western front. Between Aug. 18 and 22 the British and French had consolidated their gains in Flanders northeast of Ypres on a three-mile front beyond St. Julien and Fortuyn, and had made a perceptible gain on the Ypres-Roulers road. The English alone had done the same on the road to Menin. These movements seemed a necessary preparation to an attempted envelopment of the Westhoek Ridge, which lies between. Then, in the early days of September, occurred an event which caused the Allies in this region to suspend operations until they could discover its meaning. This was the German order to the civil populations of Thourout, Courtrai, and Roulers to take refuge in Ghent and Limbourg. Two explanations of this act have been advanced: First, that the Germans meditated a retreat to their fortified line, Scheldt-Ghent-Sas van Get; second, that they intended to flood the front of the Allies from Dixmude to Ypres by damming the Scheldt east of Ghent and turning its waters at that place up the Lys, which would also be dammed by the same obstruction, just as they had already flooded the country between Nieuport and Dixmude by means of the Yser and its canals. To meet either emergency would require an entirely different line of action. It will be remembered that in both the Nieuport-Dixmude affair of 1915 and the German retreat to the Hindenburg line last Spring the Allies were taken by surprise. Now, Germany's advertised evacuation by the civil population of an area of 550 square miles in West Flanders is full of interesting possibilities. At Lens, on the night of Aug. 21-22, both Germans and the Canadians exe |